User: discadence (posted by cadence) Date: 2008-04-11 22:14 Subject: I don't usually manage to be this confrontational Security: Public

I have a confession to make.

I got into an argument about feminism in the comments of an xkcd blog post.

The original post was pretty cool - Randall tallies top movies based on the gender of the two top billed characters, and then compares the numbers for M/M, M/F, F/M, and F/F leads. As I'm pretty sure everyone on my flist can figure, it was seriously skewed - "110 movies with a male lead and 5 with a female lead." So I was excited! Big webcomic author points out sexism! (xkcd is good about this.)

But then. But then I started reading the comments. God, the sexism and privilege. Not just people being dismissive! People actually saying things like "Women just don’t kick ass in the real world, so portraying otherwise on-screen fails to engage audiences." (That's a direct quote.)

And then (perhaps because I've been in a particularly verbal mood lately), instead of just fuming and despairing for the fate of humanity, I posted my own comment. An emphatic comment. And then another, just to respond to the quote above with "Y'wanna come over here and say that?" (^__^;)

This was yesterday morning. I've kept going back to the thread since, particularly today, culminating in some - I thought - pretty good comments about the nature of sexism. If you're interested but don't want to read the whole giant thread, you can probably start here. Warning for potential stupidity.

My blood pressure has no doubt been high for the whole time. But. At the end of the thread where it is now there are two people saying they appreciate my effort and eloquence in the face of horribly frustrating attitudes, and one person going "there's clearly a problem, but what's the solution?" And no one's posted anything stupid for hours.

It's possible they've all just gone to bed, or lost interest in the thread, or have better things to do on a Friday night, but right now I feel like I've won the internet.

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