Without much thought, I recently made a couple of brief feminist remarks on a post about a new postdoc position (the kind I don't get offered) on Dave Bacon's blog. I would have completely forgotten it, except that apparently certain anonymous cowards have been telling the blog owner to delete my comments, so in true blogger fashion I figure that now is the time to advertise the post more widely!
I told Dave that I was most happy for him to leave any comments up on his blog, no matter how many anonymous cowards told him which comments he should delete, and so on. That rather unique species, anonymous cowardus, appears to be under the misconception that this is still the last millenium. If they are in a position of authority in their local ass licking environment, they unconsciously assume they can apply the same authority more widely in the world at large, even across cultural and international borders. Bloggers are fascinated that such creatures exist, but feel little need to cater to their self serving whims.
Perhaps we should feel a little sorry for these particular well fed anonymous cowards. They probably don't know many women, and they may need some lessons in how to discriminate more intelligently. The internet can help! How about the excellent short guide, Derailing for Dummies.
14 years ago
In the 18'th century women was called 'hysterical' when they were frustrated enough. In the 20th century the have fibromyalgia, burn-out etc. It is usually women with high goals that suffer.
ReplyDeleteUsually it is very difficult to say no to an authority, also if he/she is anon. It needs guts. Cowards are of many kinds.
What boggles my mind is the profound level of self centredness required not to notice that women are subjected to such treatment constantly, and the accompanying apparent assumption that I have not considered the consequences of behaving out of line after over 40 years of doing so.
ReplyDeleteCan I give you 158765468290384765 thumbs up? It would require alot ALOT of thumbs being removed from their pieholes.
ReplyDelete"It is usually women with high goals that suffer."
Afuckingmen sister. How dare women do awesome work and emasculate men at the same time! Bad girl.
jc