This is hard to write. But I have to do it. I have to be honest with myself. All the relationship books apparently say that honesty is the cornerstone of every romantic relationship. (Note: I do not actually read any of these books.)
Jon Stewart, I watch your show every night. Well, every morning, rather, but let’s not get caught up in details. And every night I say to myself, now, why can’t all dudes be like Jon? Why can’t they be funny when appropriate, and passionate when appropriate, and otherwise just generally come off as decent men? I have met a few of these men over time, and they are always goddamned married or whatever, but they give me hope that I should not just close up shop and take comfort in a million cats.
Ahem.
Some people might say that since I don’t actually, you know, know Jon Stewart, my assumptions about him are, whatchamacallit, overreaching. But let me tell you something. I was once, for a few blessed minutes back in 2008, on an elliptical next to the man, and I just, I know I had to be right that his particular brand of dorkdom was something all men should adopt in future. I could tell. He exuded an aura. I swear!
But every once in awhile, the Daily Show goes and does something that I just can’t get behind. To wit, around the 2:08 mark:
Sigh.
For a long time I have overlooked what a sausagefest it is over on that show’s writing staff/correspondents because of my love of Jon, but my willful blindness is rather contingent on their not making shitty sexist remarks about women I don’t particularly like anyway but have to object to sexist critiques of because feminism can be a real bummer sometimes. Oh haha I know it’s just comedy, and why am I no fun whatsoever anyway, but “MILFy wolf huntress?” That’s the best you can do? I notice you didn’t come up with any race-based slurs for Michael Steele or Bobby Jindal.
But, you know, I really should not be surprised, given how many liberal dudes I have known and/or dated over time who, a propos of nothing, come up with amazingly sexist language and attitudes when we’re having a perfectly lovely nascent relationship.
Does anyone else have this problem? What’s the coping strategy? And don’t any of you answer “political lesbianism.”
Whether Sarah Palin thinks of herself as a MILF or not, using “MILF” to insult her comes across like MILF-hating rather than Shallow, Opportunistic Liar-hating.
@Penny: Take the piss out of every man you meet, I think. And I would agree, if they’re still around after you barrage them with thirty minutes of, say, you, then they’re around until you tell them to fuck off. Every good friendship is based on mercilessly insulting each other. Of course, mercilessly insulting each other, as individuals, not as genders or ethnicities. And of course, I am a bit of a bastard, so this advice isn’t true for those odd ‘nice’ and well mannered people. I still don’t understand them.
And I tried watching the Daily Show leading up to the election, but it really isn’t nearly as good as it was in 2004. I think all the good writers went on to other things, like, say, Colbert.
@SarahMC: A few years ago at Thanksgiving, my mom and aunt got into a vehement argument about which of them was more of a MILF. It was horrible.
“A certain kind of dudely
Every goodfriendship is based on mercilessly insulting each other.”Fixed that for ya.
@PhDork: Thanks, cause I needed to know that all my female friends are dudely.
I guess “based on” is a bit strong. We do insult each other a lot, but mostly during some sort of competition, like playing darts, or some silly argument which neither party cares about. There is a lot more to the friendships than insulting each other, but the key isn’t to come up with more and more cutting insults, the key is to come up with more and more humourous ones. There’s a huge difference.
I think it’s time we all hugged our plushies in this thread.
But aspex, let’s put it this way: the way your friendships are certainly doesn’t have to be the way they all have to be? I do see women emulating this behaviour, but I don’t think it’s because it’s the only way friendships can or must be.
Ditto on the zen thing. It works for me and my dude. Every once and a while, he will come out with some white male privilege crap, but we can usually talk and debate and I can school him. Other times, for other things, he schools me.
Mac, I’m really happy you’re here for the discourse. But I gotta say, telling Claire what she should have done in order to garner the respect of her dickish coworkers is exactly what’s wrong. She doesn’t need to do anything to gain their respect. They were in the wrong, not her; they need to get back into her good graces somehow, not the other way around.
@PSoul: I completely agree. I said I was a bit of a bastard about it, and that ‘nice’ and well-mannered people have different relationships. I don’t understand those.
Pilgy, “hugged our plushies”? Are you trying to court weirdos’ attentions? I suspect you are. I kind of love it.
AspEx, your female friends’ “dudeliness” is not relevant, but the fact that they’re engaging in this behavior around you–a dude–is.
@PhDork: I realized my comment could come up in the search term “horrible MILF aunt”. Yikes!
@PhDork Now I’ll google hug plushies caterwaul so y’all can post it in your roundup.
BeSarcastic, as always, you are exactly right about why I didn’t like Mac’s intervention.
I do have a friendship – with a man – somewhat like that, aspex, but I would be lying if I said we hadn’t, on occasion, taken it a little too far. And in any event, the point is that the assumption that everyone can/should/must interact this way, and use sexist tropes in doing so – particularly with people who are co-workers – is the problem.
@PSoul: Yes, agreed. You should not feel forced to act in any way different from who you are. Granted, there is always a strong social coercion that happens all the time, especially with new friends or colleagues. If I find I can’t act as myself around people without causing arguments or awkwardness, I tend to stop being around those people.
And, PhDork, if I thought my friends felt coerced by me into acting as they do, I would either alter the way I act, or stop hanging out with them. The fact that we’re still friends implies otherwise.
I know the internet is a world of assumptions, but on that count, you’d be wrong. It’s quite likely I’ve mis-explained myself and my interactions with people, as I seem to be quite skilled at that.
aspex, yes, It’s my own little shortened version, it sounds funnier.
I’m realizing that, at 29, all of the male friendships I have left are with gay dudes.
I have no real male friendships besides my boyfriend.
I have my gay boyfriend Dave and my gay best friend from childhood, who my family calls my “longtime companion.” Teh gayz make me happy. But I’ve also got a fair number of male buddies both platonic and otherwise. Oh, and my three little brothers, who I am trying to mold into decent feminists. It is an ongoing struggle.
My male dogs count as male friendships, right? Otherwise I got nothing.
Becky, I am a bit jealous. I am an only child and never grew up around men/boys. I’m not particularly weird about guys, but I would have loved more male influence – aside from my dad, who is my number-one crush
Love that guy.
Until about 2 years ago, most of my close friends were guys. I always have had friends of both sexes, but when I think back, hanging out with dudes was even more common than having a girl-bestie for a lot of my life. Weird, right?
PhD — actually a lot of the cool, down girls I know had boy friends growing up. Even at all girls school a lot of the girls were like, I’ve never had female friends. I’ve always been pretty embarrassed about how fucking frilly and feminine I am. Wish I was jockier and stuff and could hang with the boys but I can’t.
I am the opposite of jock-y. Or rather, I am neither frilly nor jocky, and most of the guys I had/have as friends, and my very own dude, are in-between-y, too. Band geeks and artsy types and the generally nerdly. “Hanging with the boys” meant watching movies and hanging at a diner or at someone’s house talking, not shootin’ hoops or fixing cars or something.
There is one guy in the department who I think fears me because I’ve given him the “bish, plz” face so many times for his obnoxious comments about my “sexy” looks or whatever. I refuse to interact with him, and I’m not sure he entirely understands why, but hey, not interacting with him serves my purposes just fine. I’m not particularly educational. Hmm.
I think I scare people, which I agree makes it difficult to date, but at least the ones who are ballsy enough to date me are usually not complete wastes of time.
I’ve also found that non-native speakers of English rarely use terms like MILF. It’s odd because sometimes I think of their native countries as more sexist, but it is vocalized less and behaved upon more. Does that make sense?
Meh, nobody’s perfect.
To me, the MILF comment is far less egregious than the ‘wolf huntress’ part… considering that she shoots them from a freaking helicopter, so there will be more caribou for her to kill.
As others have already stated, Palin pretty much ran on the MILF platform, so I don’t think it’s offensive so much as self-descriptive in her case.
[...] I like the Daily Show, and watch it religiously too, but it hasn’t escaped my notice that the show can be less than sensitive to the wide world beyond Liberal Dudes and Liberal Dude [...]