…to my fellow bloggers who continually, obsessively post about the state of misogyny in both American politics and political journalism.
spend one week–just one full week, that’s all i ask–actively looking for the number 5. focus on the number 5. look for the number 5 everywhere you go, everywhere you are, during everything you do.
here’s a prediction: if you do this diligently, you will quickly (probably within just the first few hours), observe that the number 5 is freaking everywhere. after a day or two, you’ll find events are grouped in fives, there’s always five people wherever you look, and strange things happen five times. by the end of the week, you’ll observe that many things happen in, or can be found, in multiples of five, and in fact, that five fives is incredibly common. you’ll see 25 blue cars on your way home from work. you’ll notice 25 blondes in the supermarket, or realize that there’s 25 kids in the pool and they appear to be grouped in fives as you observe them.
notably, however, if i had asked you to focus on the number 3 or 7 or 9 or 4,622, you’d draw the same damn conclusion. whatever it is you’re focusing on is freaking everywhere. this is the direct result of our facility to identify patterns and fixate on any random thing, event or idea, coupled with that incredible human facility to anthropomorphically and ubiquitously apply subjective meaning to literally anything we desire to correlate.
there are other ways to play this game: listen for a three-word phrase from your favorite (or least favorite) song. look for a specific shade of the color of your choice. look for people with a specific hair color. whatever.
the point? certain individuals involved in journalism and politics are indeed misogynists. but not all such people are inherently or even necessarily so. some people have speech patterns that are actually derived from habit and are otherwise innocuous. but if all you do is spend your time looking for examples of misogyny, you’ll find them. and if, frankly, you conduct this search so ineptly as to ignore societal speech patterns and mannerisms, you’ll find yourself believing even that many women are misogynists. but of course, being hyper-focused on the man-folk, you completely ignore the same phraseology and verbiage coming out of the mouths of women, even liberal/progressive women. and as a result, the assertion that these male, conservative pundits and politicians are inherently misogynistic simply by virtue of how you interpret what they say is a) puerile, b) self-defeating, and c) well beneath the level of intelligence you otherwise exemplify.
and if you’re really worried about confronting/combating misogyny, you might try doing something other than jumping up and down and throwing a temper-tantrum about it like a three-year-old….boy.
good day. that is all.
Profile: i write things. sometimes not too poorly, even. i photograph things. i don't capture them, but i render how the appeared to me, or perhaps how i might have seen them if i'd been looking in a different way. i don't believe in finalities, and new beginnings are old hat with me. i am not what i appear to be, or even what i think i am. i am, in a nutshell, a nut. eat me, or feed me to an elephant.
8 Comments, Comment or Ping
The Barefoot Bum
What a completely retarded post. Give that creationist his brain back.
Jun 14th, 2008
Comrade Kevin
I think we call that looking to be offended.
Jun 14th, 2008
commander other
you seriously read through this blog and consider me even temporarily a creationist?
no, you did so by virtue of scanning a singular post on a topic of importance to you–an issue on which we actually agree, just not the extent of its presumed pervasiveness–and make a sweeping generalization in my regards, about which you yourself would likely be quite offended had i made in your regards.
bravo on the willful exchange of critical thinking for baseless reactivity and false correlation.
Jun 14th, 2008
The Future Was Yesterday
“and if you’re really worried about confronting/combating misogyny, you might try doing something other than jumping up and down and throwing a temper-tantrum about it like a three-year-old….boy.”
Your insight will scare the hell out of the PC crowd, but this is sure one hell of a post!!
Jun 14th, 2008
The Barefoot Bum
No. I didn’t think you were a creationist. You’re merely arguing as retardedly as a creationist.
I most definitely would have been offended if you had made a similar comment on my blog; hardly surprising as my actual intent was to give offense.
This post is nothing but a series of fallacies, logical and argumentative: non sequitur, poisoning the well, ipse dixit, affirmation of the consequent, false dichotomy, and straw man. These fallacies are readily apparent to any reader who, unlike yourself, has *two* functioning brain cells without pregnancy.
You are simply too stupid to merit the time and attention required for actual analysis.
Jun 15th, 2008
The Future Was Yesterday
You’re asking an awful lot of a hand wringing poor me bunch that uses that word.:)
Assuming they followed your instructions - do you honestly expect them to believe the results?:) I HATE that word, and LOVE this post!!!!
Jun 15th, 2008
commander other
Ah, Barefoot Bum. The saga continues. My apologies for being away over the weekend and missing this amusing exchange.
The argument that “[I am] simply too stupid to merit the time and attention required for actual analysis” simply contradicts your previous paragraph. So, I am left to believe that you must enjoy self-contradiction. That’s an interesting talent to willfully and repeatedly express, but you have my honest admiration for volunteering to take up that banner.
The true irony here is that my wife, whom I occasionally refer to (with her permission, of course) as Mrs. Other but who normally goes by Ms. Herself, was the inspiration of this post. You see, as an outspoken member in our community for women’s rights and equality, she gets really annoyed by “feminists” who do little more than uselessly flail about in rhetorical reactivity while doing absolutely nothing to promote the concept of women as intellectually and functionally equal (at a minimum, mind you) to men. In her own words, “Such women do not serve our cause; in fact, they make it far more difficult for those of us who wish to engage in intelligent dialog and continue to make formative, positive changes to the state of inequality.”
Moreover, the more insightful ones in the crowd, male and female alike, already figured out, through the context of the post itself, that one could take the word “misogyny” in my post above and replace it with “duplicity”, “radicalism”, “liberalism”, “conservativism”, “moderatism”, “racism”, “stupidity”, “intelligence”, “feminism”, “religiousness”, “atheism”, or virtually any other abstract noun, and the post would be the same.
But you knew that, of course, because you’re obviously such a highly intelligent, superior being, knowing that abject literalism on such emotional topics is rarely beneficial.
I greatly appreciate your assistance, Barefoot Bum, in so eloquently underscoring the premise behind this post, which is that people will find fault with anything and grossly mis-generalize the efforts of others merely because they look to find fault and enjoy expressing gross mis-generalizations.
Bravo! You get a star!
Jun 16th, 2008
ClapSo
I freely admit to being a misogynist. After 18 years married to a woman, I have every reason to hate em.
This is however a GREAT post! The seeing of commies, space aliens, angels, or misogynists everywhere is the same effect taking place. Hey! Wait! THERE ARE 5 LETTER WORDS IN MY COMMENT!!!!
ROFL…
The scientifically impossible I do right away
The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer
Jun 27th, 2008
Reply to “a challenge…”