First: Breaking Bad is a truly excellent show. If the rest of the season lives up to the precise and cutting writing, acting and emotion of the pilot, then I think I have a new favourite show to sit beside The Wire. Viewing it in the context of just having read The Scene Book by Sandra Scofield (truly excellent text, all writers get a copy now now now), I'm truly blown away by how much was done in so few scenes with so few words. Freakin' masterful.
Second: Rape is terrible, horrific, unconscionable. But if you allow yourself to take offense at every possible sideways reference to rape - to the point of accusing Neil Gaiman of perpetuating rape culture simply for saying "It means I'm nobody's bitch" - then you need to get out of the house and take a deep breath. Because it takes EFFORT to get riled up about a throwaway line like that. It takes CONCENTRATION. And it helps nobody.
I don't see how attacking a delightful, caring, intelligent and very much pro-feminist author like Gaiman for using a catchphrase strengthens the cause against the proliferation of rape culture. If anything, it just makes out the author of the post as whiny and hysterical, and that's exactly the opposite of what the fight against rape culture needs.
You want to fight against something you consider deplorable? Fight the people actually perpetrating it. Not the people making one-off oblique references. Especially not people who have, up to that point, been on your side.
I mean, I was physically assaulted in the past, by a large group of youths. As such, I spend my weekends training people in methods that may save them from assault. I don't sit and cry every time Warren Ellis makes a sideways reference to brutal testicular stampings (or similar). Because I know Warren doesn't want me to be assaulted. He doesn't want anyone to be assaulted. Because it's just words, and my time is better spent taking action.
Dear Melissa McEwan - Shakesville is a good blog. It does good things. But this is petty and pathetic, and you can pick more worthy targets.
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That woman has put feminism back about 20 years.
And a bitch is a female dog, for christsake. It's called being offended to make a fuss. Get over it. it's got nothing to do with rape or the degradation of women.
Grrr.
To be fair, I don't think "ze" is accusing Gaiman of perpetuating rape culture (although I didn't read the comments on the blog post). I think "ze" is objecting to two things; the comparison of rape with being subservient to a publisher, and the use of a word "ze" perceives as a misogynist slur. If I'm correct in that observation, I'd say the former is a mild stretch (as I wouldn't consider "being someone's bitch" to be exclusively synonymous with being raped) and the latter I also disagree with as I don't consider the word "bitch" to be inherently misogynistic even though it certainly can be used in a misogynistic way), though I can appreciate that the former could be quite uncomfortable to a rape survivor.
Also, the only reference to rape culture in that post was the category, the selection of which could well have been just as off-hand as Gaiman's use of the phrase being objected to. So I wouldn't get too worked up about it.
Now, you just made me disagree with you, and defend someone who uses liguistically fugly, invented, gender-neutral pronouns. (To be clear, it's really just the linguistic fugliness that bothers me.) I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY, BECAUSE I'M UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THIS.
One of many little hissy-fits on the site, sadly. There is so much work that needs to be done to dispel the real source of rape culture these days (like youth tribalism, or sex as commodity, or simply a gently spreading sociopathy), but attacking singers or authors or talk show hosts for using words like bitch or rape in the wrong context just cheapens the entire issue.
Dave, what are you doing up so late, huh? And yeah, those gender-neutral pronouns made me want to gouge my eyes out. I AM ALSO UNCOMFORTABLE.
The phrase "rape culture" sickens me. The idea that there is a culture with rape as a defined part of it, or even a focus, is just terrifying.
The Wire rocks hard. You aughta enjoy that man, it's a delight from a writers POV. So much, so well done.
Funny coincidence, I just finished reading Crooked Little Vein. Great book.
the problem with feminists is that they present their arguments with the volume turned up to 11
People get tired of hearing rants, even if they are well-argued valid rants