"Perhaps the blogger feels empowered because she’s taken on the 'masculine' trait of building muscle?" →

“Does it seem outlandish that perhaps the blogger feels empowered because she’s taken on the “masculine” trait of building muscle? That interpretation of events probably doesn’t apply, but there needs to be some degree of critical analysis beyond bandwagon back-patting.”

Now, I am very much interested in conversations about valuing the traditionally masculine at the cost of the traditionally feminine.  I’m constantly trying to root out my own internalized misogyny and femme-phobia, because I recognize that disdaining things that are traditionally coded as “feminine” puts me on the same continuum of woman-hating as the preacher who says parents should beat the gay out of their sons or the social trends that lead trans women to be murdered at a disproportionate rate than pretty much everyone else.  So yes, let’s talk about femme-phobia and internalized misogyny and let’s talk about ways to defeat this, because internalized misogyny has a body count that continues to rise with each trans woman who is murdered and each gay kid who is bullied into committing suicide.

But what I completely reject is this idea that “building muscle” – aka developing physical strength – is inherently a masculine thing, and that I take pride in my physical strength because I have adopted masculine traits.  This idea is at the core of a deeply damaging idea about gender roles, which posits physical strength and muscle as the provenance of men and physical weakness the domain of women.  One of the biggest ongoing themes in my writing is that physical strength is not a masculine trait or a feminine trait – it is a human trait.

Okay, we all had a lot of fun with the Is This Feminist Tumblr last week, which makes sense, because it was fucking funny. And while I don’t want to take a good joke way too seriously, there was an important and genuine critique at the heart of it, right? And it was roughly what the author of Fit And Feminist gets at here: namely, that it’s somehow “feminist” to call out a woman who is into building muscle, because she’s serving as another tool of the patriarchy or something by chasing a masculine ideal — instead of challenging one’s own notion that equates strength with masculine.

Which is a real thing: Not just that specific notion (obviously), but the co-opting of the language of social justice to justify repression. That was a big part of what made Is This Feminist funny — because it demonstrated that you can use that language to attack women for doing anything, which is easier (and thus more satisfying, because you get the immediate prize of self-righteousness) than questioning or challenging the underlying systems. It’s common, and depressing, to slap a#PROBLEMATIC on the end of a shallow critique that’s rooted in the same bullshit that holds people back, and justify it with verbal acrobatics.

Because, really — the idea that a woman is a bad feminist because she’s into weightlifting? How stupid is that? How can you possibly make that argument with a straight face? Except that the language to do so already exists, and it’s really easy to find anything #PROBLEMATIC if you just run it through this Madlibs framework. It’s a unique way to attack anybody for anything, and to do so under the banner of empowerment.

Why It's Time For The NFL To Hire Some Lady Referees (And Maybe Announcers And Coaches, Too) →

“Challenges are about to get real emotional,” said one commenter on NBC’s ProFootballTalk.com; “But… but… but… there’s no crying in football!” another said, quoting a movie directed by a woman; “This just seems like a bad idea. Some player is going to say something that a guy would shrug off, but the female ref is going to take it to the league office as harassment,” still another predicted; “We all know most women base decisions on there[sic] emotions” seemed to be the summation of the viewpoints. It goes on like this for at least half of the 136 comments (as of Saturday night) on the post at PFT.

It’s a weird outrage, seemingly borne out of the same urge that Calvin had when he declared himself Dictator-For-Life of G.R.O.S.S. – like, can’t we have one thing that yucky girls aren’t allowed into? And most of the griping is a search for after-the-fact justification. Some of the comments on PFT hide behind a smokescreen of “what if a woman ref gets clobbered by a linebacker by mistake,” a concern that seems oddly placed, given that the current average age for a male NFL official is about 93. But mostly, it’s this declaration that women are too emotional, and will thus screw up the great game of football.

And that’s weird for a couple of reasons: First, we insist upon emotion when it comes to sports. At least half of the league, and the people who follow it, are still snickering at Jay Cutler for failing to make an appropriate frowny-face while sitting on the sideline after suffering a grade II MCL tear in the NFC Championship Game; meanwhile, when the U.S. Women’s soccer team lost a heartbreaking World Cup final to Japan in July, Hope Solo and Abby Wambach shed no tears, unlike Tim Tebow and LeBron James did after losing their respective championships.

There’s nothing shameful about LeBron or Tebow having a powerful emotional response to coming up short on something they’d dedicated their lives to achieving, but it betrays a basic hypocrisy: Not only do we demand that men in sports respond to things emotionally, but the available evidence suggests that there’s no reason to believe that women respond more emotionally on the field than men do. So what the hell, guys?

As promised, this week’s Down And Distance column is live at CultureMap. It’s about the NFL’s plan to hire some lady refs in the near future, the reaction to it, and why it’s past time for all major American sports to re-assess the roles they have available to women.

If you like it — share it, tweet it, “like” it, Digg it, the whole deal, please!

So, the NFL is planning to hire its first women as referees.

And holy cow, are dudes freaked out about it.

This week’s installment of my sports column, Down And Distance, over at CultureMap deals with this in depth. In the meantime, here are some of the comments that went up after I filed the column, and the sheer frightened rage they contain.

At first glance, I assumed this guy called the woman ref for the NCAA and UFL being quoted “honey” because he was trying to be condescending. Based on his sample dialogue, though, the only women he’s ever heard speak are in kindergarten, so he was probably just being friendly.

My very favorite of the ridiculous arguments — made several times in the response to the post at ProFootballTalk that these are culled from — is that a woman in a position of authority might make biased calls because she could secretly be having an affair with one of the players. Which is true and all, but if we’re talking secret scandals, it’s also totally possible that a male ref could be making bullshit calls because he’s protecting a dude he’s having an affair with! Did I just blow your mind?

Because the most popular and widely-watched sport in the country desperately needs to drum up some publicity by infuriating a tiny handful of the craziest parts of its fanbase, while the rest of the people who care about the game can say, Oh, okay, it’s catching up with the 21 century, cool. Also, a lot of current (dudely) NFL officials are really old, but they just don’t use them as umpires or line judges so they are safely away from the action. They could do that if some of the eventual women on the field are smaller, too!

Oh, pretty sure no one is touching, dude — and probably not looking, either.

Really, this comment kind of sums it up — the fear and loathing of women “taking away” something that “belongs” to men is the theme of all of these comments, regardless of if they pull the “women are too emotional” card, “women aren’t knowledgeable enough,” “women would get clobbered by a linebacker,” or whatever. It’s toxic thinking for a lot of reasons.

Stay tuned for the column on Monday, where I write about this thoughtfully and don’t just make fun of people. (Though I’m sure I did that, too.)

ETA: This week’s column is now live. Give it a read, will you?

What It’s Like To Watch People You Like Demean Women →

Over at Hay Ladies!, Andrea Grimes describes the experience of seeing some friendly acquaintances in a band rush to gendered attacks of a woman who writes about music for the Dallas Observer. The critic said that she wasn’t into the band’s live performances, and was quickly decried as a bitch/ugly/fat/whatever who just needs to get laid.

You know, I’ve received plenty of hostile, ad hominem comments in response to music reviews these past few years. I’ve been called stupid, and a douchebag, and an image-obsessed hipster (I totally am!), and had my ability to properly process the experience of watching some dudes playing four chords called into question, etc, etc. People get really offended when you have a different take from theirs on an experience that you’ve shared!

But I’ve never been called fat for having an opinion. Even when getting accused of Engaging In Rampant Hipsterism (fines up to $5,000 and 9 months in hipster jail!) for saying that I merely really enjoyed that Mumford & Sons concert that changed some other guy’s life, it’s still about what I wrote, and how stupid my opinions clearly are. It’s not about how if I weren’t too ugly to get laid, I’d probably not have written that mean review of the Pixies show.

But I get that this is a subtle distinction, which is why I am commenting on it, even though Andrea said her piece very well. They’re both ad hominem attacks that attempt to accuse the author — dude or lady — of being personally unworthy of reviewing music. But those ad hominem attacks toward me are about how I shouldn’t be writing about music because I’m stupid. The ones toward the critic at the Dallas Observer are about how she shouldn’t be writing about music because she’s a woman. (Note: “she’s a fat bitch needs to get laid” is the same as “she’s a woman,” for these purposes — no knowledge of her weight or sexual availability needed!)

And there’s already plenty of stigma against women who write about music. They already are operating in an extreme minority, they already have to prove an “of course that person knows everything there is to know about Joy Division”-ness that I’m able to convey just by wearing my plastic glasses and plaid shirt (which makes it harder for them to get work from male editors and taken seriously by dude bands), and they already get judged by their appearance when there’s an actual picture of them. So how about cutting a lady like Dembling a break and call her a hipster instead of a bitch?