Females, ranting
January 19, 2010So Clay Shirky wrote this rant about women. Uh oh! Basically, he’s all mad and disappointed with us, because you guys! We’re not being obnoxious and aggressive like men are! We’re not demanding attention and lying about our abilities and getting in people’s faces enough!
I don’t want to make him sound like a total dick--I think his intentions were honorable enough--but he’s misguided and apparently completely in the dark about how much most of us hear this shit. Deanna Zandt brilliantly articulates the wrongheadedness of his argument, and you should read her post. Deanna designed the Let’s Panic site, and one of the best things about 2009 was getting to know her. Her response is a lot smarter and more inspiring and positive than anything I could conjure up, so you should read it in its entirety, but here’s a snippet:
Asking women to be more like men (which is different than what Shirky claims we're doing when we ask men to be "sensitive" and "listen" — that's just asking for a little humanity, there) falls on a spectrum of prescribing feminine behavior that is dangerous and unhealthy. We're putting the onus on women to fit themselves into a culture that doesn't value them enough to begin with.
Anna North over at Jezebel also had some great things to say, and while reading these two posts I just felt more and more stupid that I couldn’t manage anything smarter than ALICE SMASH. Ah, well. We’re lucky we have these other people to say it for us!
This "change-yourself-to-fit-in" advice has been given to pretty much every marginalized group over the years, and it sticks around because, for some individual people, it works. But those people still have to work within the existing power structure. The harpy/diva/bitch archetype isn't going to go away because a few women are allowed to sneak around it, and the culture of rewarding self-promotion above other qualities isn't going to become fair for everyone just because a few women manage to share the pie. Those who are marginalized by a system are often those best able to see its flaws, and teaching those people just to work around their marginalization is a great way to keep them quiet, and to keep anything from ever changing. Let's not fall for it.
Look at how shy and timid these women are! OH, WHY CAN’T THEY SPEAK THEIR MINDS?
I wanted to share a story with you, something that was stirred out of the dusty crevices of my mind when I read Clay’s post. When I was at Wellesley, I took this Shakespeare seminar that was taught by the college’s most popular English professor. In addition to a larger lecture-type class, we broke out into smaller discussion groups, which he led. Anyway, Wellesley, in case you don’t know, is a women’s college. What you also may not know is that students from MIT and Harvard can and do take classes there. And by “students” I mean “guys.” There were always one or two MIT guys in the English classes, and there was one in my discussion group. And oh, this guy was a blowhard. He completely dominated this group of maybe 10 or so women. He was the first to respond to every question; he started up gratuitous arguments and cast forth his opinions like they were inarguable and he basically annoyed the everliving shit out of all of us. And, I’ll admit, he was intimidating. He was aggressive and didn’t seem to care that his opinions sometimes made no sense, and anyone who challenged him was treated with a torrent of bullshit—as if the quantity of his words could make up for the absence of meaning.
A few weeks into the class, I met with the professor to discuss a paper I was working on. All he wanted to talk about, however, was why I couldn’t be more like the guy who was in the class. Why all of us couldn’t be more like that guy. He seemed to actually admire this asshole, and he regarded our failure to shout him down as our collective failing. As if he didn’t have some responsibility to manage the discussion or encourage a variety of opinions.
He seemed horrified, and pitying. “One man in the class, and you all shut up,” he said. A few times. So basically the only solution he could see was that we all emulate the asshole in the class. If we were all like him, we wouldn’t have a problem, and would have nothing to complain about. That was, oh, twenty years ago, and it is indeed wearying—and not surprising— that Mr. Shirky is still propagating the same nonsense.
In conclusion—here, let’s all help Haiti some more, shall we? I’d like to encourage you to donate to Partners in Health—which, incidentally, is run by fellow Wellesley Alum Ophelia Dahl. A WOMAN. How did she manage that? So curious.
Reader Comments (62)
He clearly doesn't know any women in show business.
His critiques of women do not in any way apply to me and my ilk. I said ILK!
STOP BEING SO SHY, SUZY. Get out of the shadows!
For me the heart of Shirky's argument came from his anecdote about the former student who (gasp!) dared to reach out and bring her work to the attention of a reporter. That didn't sound to me like being an aggressive blowhard; she was just actively making sure her efforts were on the radar. Yet how many women do you know who, when asked by a reporter (or recruiter, or whatever) for the name of someone doing awesome work, would think to suggest themselves?
Pompous blowhards tend not to notice that plenty of respectful, considerate people accomplish important things too. (Pompous blowharding(?) can be very noisy and distracting.) They also tend to have a hard time understanding why someone might not want to join their circle of pompous blowhard buddies.
Leave them to their folly, I say.
Grr.
Thanks for the post, I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels this way!
This is a subject close to my heart so it is hard for me to resist saying my two cents. As a student I sat in on an inspirational speaker for women at a Professional Development Conference put on by my university. I am sad to say that this woman preached to us the same sort of propoganda that Shirkey touts in his weblog. How disappointing, for me as a student and as a woman. I remember struggling what to put on her evaluation form. She obviously had good intentions, but what I learned from her is that my highest goal in life should be to be more like a man. I am sure she would have put it differently, but that is what she said to a room full of mostly women passionately interested in working in a female-domintated field.
Anyway, I could go on, but I also want to say I appreciate being given some leads on some other, less mysoginistic, perspectives on the subject . . . and that you, Alice, as a person (who happens to be female) and as a writer . . . rock.
PS. I could barely get through Shirky's entire article... it was so long and drawn out. Why with all the laundry, cooking and cleaning I have to do - I just don't have the time to read all that nonsense! nyuck nyuck
Here is the comment i left for mr. shirky:
"Wait. Someone actually pays you to teach students?
You’re promoting moral hazard as a virtue. It’s because of this attitude of “i just don’t care” and wanton risk that we’ve had to deal with major financial crises stemming from LTCM (in the late 90s) and most recently the mortgage crisis. Gah.
Lots of (*cough*) men were in over their financial heads and couldn’t admit that they didn’t understand what they were dealing with. Result? almost global financial collapse both times (since i was in the industry long enough i can say with confidence that the vast majority of the executives in charge of this stuff were men– Zoe Cruz tried to sound the warning bell about the latest crisis and was fired for being too “risk averse.” BAH!)
Your argument sucks because you use the examples of careless risk takers and con artists to advocate for better self-promotion by women. Really? I would think you would be more skilled at getting your point across. (unless this is a big joke?)
(Your example of the female student touting her work to the journalist is completely different. She was confident in her work and wasn’t afraid to tell someone in a simple and professional manner. Now that is something I can get behind.)
Writing this was definitely a risk, and not your best at all."
More and more, as I get older and more curmudgeonly or something, I think that women are going to rule the world. Just because. The Shirkys feel like a last gasp of the old boys.
And - I love your hat tip to Dahl and PIH.
His point is clear and right, once you realize he's using hyperbolic language (pompous blowhard - come on, now, are you really going to take that seriously?). After all, men can be spirited and clever, too!
What he's saying is that self-deprecation and trying to kowtow to what negative things other people MIGHT POSSIBLY think about your actions results in a lose-lose situation:
"To put yourself forward as someone good enough to do interesting things is, by definition, to expose yourself to all kinds of negative judgments, and as far as I can tell, the fact that other people get to decide what they think of your behavior leaves only two strategies for not suffering from those judgments: not doing anything, or not caring about the reaction."
And, judging from the fact that almost all of you disagree with his strategy and almost all of you are ladies, I think his gender observations might be right, after all. (I'd like to point out, however, that his gender comments are DESCRIPTIVE, and that he's clearly making no normative claims.)
It really seems like everyone here is just jumping at the chance to be offended. That's what closes down fruitful discussion, people. I'd rather talk to a totally insensitive person who makes AND RECEIVES bold claims in stride than a sensitive person who can't see past their own sensitivities to really engage in a conversation.
Ok, ok, now I'm on a soapbox. Stepping down...
;)