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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Behold, the Power of Shoes

Women love shoes.

It's a stereotype as old as Sears Roebuck itself, often the subject of jokes that are funny for about five minutes until you realize that invoking stereotypes for the sake of humor and not doing anything more is shorthand for "I'm not actually funny, I'm just an asshole."  And recently, it's become a thorn in the sides of radfems seeking to abolish anything viewed as traditionally "feminine" (a rant for another day, I assure you, because fighting sexism with misogyny is like stabbing yourself and expecting your opponent to keel over dead).

Before I start on this, I want to go on record that I am not a shoe-woman.  I own exactly three pair: one pair of flip-flops (because Florida), one pair of plain black slip-ons, and a pair of black steel-toed men's work boots.  All three pair put together set me back less than $60, and I only replace them when they are quite literally falling apart.  No doubt there are many women out there who are much the same.  Like any stereotype out there, there are going to be people who buck the trend, real or perceived.

The reason I'm defending the women out there who do love shoes, however, is because I'm sick of being told there is only one right way to be a feminist, and I'm doubly sick of interests associated with women getting shat upon because nobody ever grew up past "girls have cooties!"  I'm tired of women and anything associated with women being Acceptable Targets.

First, shoes carry different meanings for men and women.  For men, they're an item of fashion and/or utility and little else.  You wear them because they fit a need, and don't really think much of it.

With regard to women, shoes are a symbol of independence.  Especially for older women who grew up in the 1950s, the era that the phrase "barefoot and pregnant" as the pinnacle of female virtue gained popularity.  Shoes mean she can leave the house whenever she damned well pleases.  Shoes mean agency and the ability to do things for herself without having to wait for her husband to get home.

As a fashion accessory, it's no wonder that women who love shoes are going to buy a lot of them, and are going to be choosy about their styles and colors.  Shoes are a symbol of individual rebellion.  Naturally they're going to reflect the woman who is wearing them.  The woman who is telling the world that she does what she wants and if you don't like it, you can kindly fuck off because she doesn't have to answer to you.

Women who love shoes view them the same way that men who love vehicles view their cars.  But while jokes about guys and cars are affectionate and good-natured, the jokes about women and shoes are derisive and full of contempt.  And it's more than just a hideous double standard of 'girly' interests being worthless.

Denigrating women for liking shoes is denigrating them for putting their agency and independence on display.  For expressing their individual desires and wants and going out to get them.  For reminding everyone that they are not to be kept locked up in the house all day.  It's denigrating women for not wanting to be controlled.

Think about that the next time you make or hear a hateful joke about women and shoes.  Would you effectively tell that woman you think she's stupid because she wants to leave the house and be her own person and you find that just hilarious?

If you would think twice, maybe that joke is better left unmade.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Privacy Is Dead, Get Used to It

Because I'm the type who calls shit when I smell it, regardless of whether it came from the anus of an elephant or a donkey.  Fake outrage is fake outrage is fake outrage, and it sounds silly no matter who's getting frothy about it.  In this case, it's privacy.  Or the illusion thereof.

Ever since some guy named Edward Snowden showed us what's been common knowledge to anyone paying attention for almost 20 years now, many on the left have gotten a lit stick of dynamite shoved up their collective asses about privacy.  The reason I call this fake outrage is because privacy as we know it has been hanged in the village square since approximately 1995, when the internet and cellphones started becoming affordable and accessible to people who aren't the Koch brothers.  It's especially dead now when cellphones and VOIP service have been pushing the landline into extinction since at least 2011.

See, when you make a call on a cell phone, your message is not confined to one very tiny physical space that you need some know-how to hack into (a practice called "phreaking").  With a cellphone, especially in the smartphone age, there are a shitload of apps out there that do all the work for you and allow you to listen in on live calls without the other person's knowledge.  And this is not just limited to intentional spying.  "Spying" of the accidental type (called "crosstalk") can also happen due to signal interference, especially in large cities.  Which is why if you're doing telephone banking on your cell, enter the numbers on the keypad if you can instead of speaking them.  And also why many banks and other services no longer have the IVR speak your entered information back to you.

And we haven't even gotten to the internet yet.  This is just your phone.

With the internet, you're even more exposed because you're already going through a couple of middlemen to communicate at all.  The first is your ISP, of course.  The second is the server supporting whatever website or e-mail you use.

See, the internet is little more than a shitload of computers all over the world talking to each other.  Every website you visit is another computer.  Your e-mail address is another computer (two, actually; one for incoming mail and one for outgoing).  A computer that someone else owns and has full access to.  Sending an e-mail is not like sending a letter; when you send a letter, there is exactly one copy of your message that gets physically delivered to the recipient.  When you send an e-mail, your message is copied to your e-mail provider's outgoing mail server, then sent to the incoming mail server for your recipient, which he or she then downloads the message from or views the server copy depending on the provider.

These servers (basically gigantic monstrosity computers) are maintained by a team of people who, by agreeing to the terms of service, you give permission to access anything on them, anytime.  This is why it's never ever recommended to send important shit like credit card information or passwords through e-mail; there are way too many people who could potentially get their hands on it.

Even on social media sites that allow filters, such as Facebook and Livejournal, anything you post online is already in someone else's hands by virtue of how the internet works.  That post gets copied to another server.

But let's pretend you're one of those technophobes who has no computer or cellphone or tablet or whatever, and you're reading this because one of your friends printed it for you.  Your worry is those evil gub'mint cameras at busy intersections that are watching you, not unlike those two creepy statues at the entrance to Cirith Ungol.  Your outrage isn't fake because how dare The Man invade your privacy like that, right?  You're just walking down the street!

Well...yeah.  You're walking down the street, in public.  If you think you have an expectation of privacy at a busy intersection, your outrage is actually more fake than anyone worried about their phone calls or e-mails getting snooped on.  Because you are literally within view of hundreds of people, and there's a good chance half of those people are carrying a high-definition zoom camera with a constant internet connection in their hand.

That camera on the traffic light or street lamp?  The guy behind it doing the watching doesn't give a shit about you.  He's not going to notice you unless you're doing something that camera was meant to catch (speeding, running a red light, driving like a coked-up ostrich, etc.).

That's really the part that makes this outrage so baseless and sad.  Not only can private citizens snoop your calls and e-mails and surreptitiously snap your picture far more effectively than the federal government and with far more malicious intent (see: creepshots, Scientology), but nobody in the government cares about your day-to-day activities unless they are illegal.  Yes, I realize that people want their privacy and they don't like the long arm of the government getting all up in their Kool-Aid.  But let's be realistic here: you've likely been spied on by private companies working on federal contracts for the last 15-20 years.  What terrible injustices have happened in your life in that time that you can directly and verifiably attribute to government surveillance?

The problem is that people like feeling significant.  Being snooped on is flattering in a stupid, twisted way because it means they're important enough to pay attention to.  And they have a real problem with someone taking the wind out of their sails and being told that no, really, the Feds don't care how long you talked about the Game of Thrones finale with your friends last week.  Or where you went for lunch on Tuesday.  Sure, they can listen to your calls, watch you at an intersection, read your e-mails.  And they're going to be bored out of their collective skulls because you aren't doing anything that warrants a second glance.  Sure, it may be a violation of the 4th amendment, but 1) this isn't going away, and 2) it's petty and insignificant compared to shit like TSA digitally removing your clothes and groping you at the airport.  You don't have to like it, no.  But there's something to be said for picking your battles wisely rather than succumbing to knee-jerk reactionary bullshit.

Privacy as we've always known it is dead.  Whether you're buying coffee, banking, taking the bus, talking to your friends online or on the phone, texting your significant other, or even just walking down 5th Ave., you are likely being recorded in some fashion.  And if you hadn't even noticed it until Edward Snowden pointed it out, it's not likely to make any difference whatsoever in the rest of your time on the planet, either.

Why?  Because your life is not a Will Smith movie.  Except maybe for that part at the end of Men In Black II where we're the mold in some alien's locker room.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Nobody Dates a Jerk On Purpose: An Open Letter to the Self-Proclaimed Nice Guy(TM)

Dear Mr. Nice Guy,

I appreciate your feigned concern over the welfare of women whom you perceive to have ill-gotten taste in men because they 'only date assholes.'  There are just a few problems that I would like to point out that may help you realize why you're always the guy who finishes last, because let's not kid ourselves any longer.

Problem the First is that nobody looks for assholes to date.  No woman is deliberately looking to get treated like shit.  We just happen to end up dating assholes because many assholes have perfected the art of keeping their true nature a secret, and because women are conditioned from the time we develop cognitive reasoning to accept that our entire worth as people revolves around whether we make a decent mate.  In practical terms, this means that if a woman is single for too long, there's an implication that there's something wrong with her to make her undateable and therefore worthless.  Ergo, many women will seem to tolerate shitty behavior in their mates because they don't want to be viewed as unable to keep a man interested.  You can thank men and all the years of forcibly marrying your daughter off right after puberty for that one.

Problem the Second is that what you're seeing as assholishness, she's seeing as confidence, and to her that's attractive.  See, not everyone she dates is going to be a genuine asshole.  They just seem that way because none of those guys are you and you happen to have an artificially inflated opinion of yourself to compensate for your insecurities.  A guy who is rough around the edges but still confident enough to be upfront about his intentions instead of trying to weasel his way into her life is going to get more respect just for being honest.

Problem the Third is that if you are befriending or being kind to a woman with the end goal of having sex with her, that makes you just as much of an asshole.  You're just more subtle about it.  The reason it makes you an asshole is because just like the ones you think she's dating, you don't see her as a person, either.  She's a prize.  A reward for not being an overt douchebag.  You are still objectifying and dehumanizing her, but doing so under the guise of friendship and caring.  And frankly that just makes you creepy rather than nice.

See, nobody owes you sex or a relationship in return for pretending to be a decent human being.  As a famous image macro says, women are not machines that you put kindness coins into until sex falls out.  If you're being nice purely because you're expecting a reward, you're still an asshole, full stop.  Women have the right to refuse your advances no matter how nice you're being, because nobody is entitled to another person in any way whatsoever.

It's your duty to handle rejection like someone who isn't an asshole.

Regards,
The Patron of Sarcasm