Sooooo it’s been a painfully long time since I’ve been able to bust out ye ol’ computadora for some good old fashioned ranting.  I have about 70 rants chilling on the backburner, festering into unhealthy nonproductive poop.  And nobody likes nonproductive poop.  So here we go!  Alkaseltzer for the soul.

So as I was watching this holiday season’s classic family movies (aka thePotter and theNarnia), I noticed the trailer for the upcoming 3d movie, Mars Needs Moms, featuring the “uncanny valley” of creepily unattractive human simulations.  (They are just too close to human…so close that they look really off and unsavory.)  Anyway, the movie seems silly enough, good voice actors, chuckleworthy jokes, but man—I really hope that the trailer just completely dumbed down the movie premise.  Seriously?  Mars needs moms?  On one hand, yes, let’s give a big round of applause to mothers everywhere, who are generally awesome and constantly juggle 10,000 things.  In particular let’s take our hats off to the belittled “housewife” role that many deride: from what I’ve learned in the past 2 weeks after putting on my Big Girl Pant(suit)s and living on my own, being an adult is HARD, what with all the cooking and hygiene and….it just never ends.  A person who can do all that AND raise kids?!  Dude I already killed my thriving parsley plant within a mere 5 days.  Keeping something alive for 18 years until it goes off to college?! Unfathomable. 

So sure, praising mothers is theoretically a nice aspect of the movie.  And I’m a sucker for alternate reality, my-life-would-suck-without-you-and-I-can-only-realize-this-through-supernatural-intervention-or-alien-abduction tv shows/movies.  But errr can we also discuss the 10 bajillion issues with this?!

1. Let’s not perpetuate the myth that women are the only people who can raise children.  This hurts both women and men.  Sadly it’s a self-reinforcing myth: if we keep pushing this, will we ever completely break away from the idea that “the woman’s place is in the home” and that the man’s place is outside of it?  If men can’t raise kids, then women will never be free to leave the house to seek other professional opportunities.  I believe that feminism is having the freedom to choose, and being a stay-at-home mom or a career woman (or both! this is no longer a true dichotomy) is a life choice individual to every woman.  Additionally, men should have the freedom to make the same life choice without becoming socially emasculated. 

2. Why are fathers completely left out of the child-rearing equation??  Interestingly, I was talking with my sister the other day about how there is no male word equivalent of the word “maternal.”  If you want to say that a man has characteristics that predispose him to be a great father (which is a grand compliment), calling him “paternal” wouldn’t necessarily feel accurate.  ”Paternal” seems almost negative—just think of the word “paternalistic.”  It evokes the idea of being controlling, not nurturing.  Erf, shouldn’t it be socially acceptable for “manly men” to also be nurturing caregivers by now?!  Instead, whenever a man is portrayed in the media as the primary caretaker of his own children, he is called “Mister Mom,” or the premise is labeled a novel “role reversal.”  (I swear I read a tv article 2 months ago that still used these terms).  But it’s not like we don’t already have a concept to describe “Mister Moms”—oh yeah, remember dads?  Why can’t we just call them dads?!  In order to have a well-rounded definition of masculinity, we need to have the bizarre concept of the “nurturing father” become socially mainstream.  (I think Phil on Modern Family is helping this cause). 

3. There’s a scene in the trailer when the son is on Mars searching for his mom, and he stops to ask some Martians if they have seen her.  In an attempt to describe his mother in simple terms that the Martians might understand, he says, “you know, my mom, she feeds me, vacuums the house?”  Ahhhh it’s nice to see that gender roles have really changed.  Mother=maid.  Good breakdown of what a mother is, buddy! 

In summation: both women and men are much more than this movie premise gives us credit for.  On its face, it seems that the movie is celebrating women, yay!  But it’s also stomping them into their place.  And in a way, it’s stomping men into their place as well: as non-fathers.  Ahh I think we all deserve better than this by now, eh?  

rant by Liz (wearing her Big Girl Rantpants while watching the Chronicles of Narnia)

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p.s. - I hope I wildly misinterpreted this entire movie and that it’s secretly awesome.

Kurt: There’s this new kid Sam in glee club. He and I are singing a duet together.

Dad: Is that a problem?

Kurt: Finn practically begged me not to.  He said it would ruin Sam’s reputation.

Dad: Does he play for your team?

Kurt: Undecided.

Dad: Oh. Maybe Finn has a point.

Kurt: You’re siding with him? After what he called me in our basement?

Dad: I was talking to Carol and you weren’t totally honest with me. She told me you had a crush on Finn and you weren’t afraid to show it? Is this true?

Kurt: So a gay guy can’t be friendly to a straight guy without it being predatory.

Dad: You gotta understand most guys don’t know how to deal with unwanted advances.

Kurt: So you’re saying I shouldn’t sing with the Sam guy because it might upset a couple homophobes. I thought you said no one pushes the homos around.

Dad: No one does. I’m not saying that.  I’m saying that maybe it’s you who is pushing this kid Sam around, trying to take advantage of him because you’re interested in him.

—Glee

Take advantage! What? “Romance” isn’t taking advantage, and in heterosexual portrayals of romance, everything that’s been described in the episode would be seen as “romantic” (which is very problematic in itself, but I will address that in another rant (coming soon!)).

Interestingly, if you look back on Finn’s character (who was so scandalized by Kurt’s advances, even to the point of saying “no means no” in the cafeteria), he clearly does not actually believe that “no” indeed means “no.”  He blatantly chased after Rachel even after she repeatedly told him that she was with Jesse.  I mean, he even sang “I wish I had Jesse’s giiiiiirl!” in front of the whole class. Whaaaaat.  Don’t get me wrong, I support him using “no means no” in the Kurt context, I mean I’m all about no means no!!  I am the championer of no means no to the nth degree!  But don’t conveniently say something that “helps” you in one situation but that you don’t actually believe when the shoe is on the other foot.  So “no means no” right?  Then why the heck did you say, “I don’t give up that easy” after getting shot down by Rachel?  It’s a pretty ridiculous double standard.  But if his homophobia has actually made him feel that everyone’s opinions should be taken more seriously, should that be considered a win?  Is that the silver lining on the ugly homophobic cloud?  Can we actually use a lack of respect and empathy to fuel respect and empathy?

Maybe we can use homophobia for good!  I know that sounds ridiculous, but hear me out.  If certain men are made extremely uncomfortable by the thought of a gay man hitting on them, then maybe they can channel that creeped out feeling when they in turn hit on women!  (Same goes for women to men).  The bottom line is gauging the interest of the other person.  This is not an easy feat, by any means, but it is sometimes made wildly easy when the other party has said they are not interested.  At this point, if some men or women find it difficult to stop and also happen to be homophobic, they should just imagine their advances being the same as homosexual advances on a heterosexual person.  Because at the end of the day, the two are simply the same thing: an unreciprocated advance.  Homophobia is sad and…just pathetic, but maybe we can use it as a tool to enlighten some and ironically teach empathy for the receiving end of unwanted attention/harrassment.  I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say the venn diagram of homophobes and perpetrators of unwanted advances has a huge middle overlap.  It’s the perfect audience!

Returning to the Finn example, why didn’t “no mean no” to him in Rachel’s case?  And why were Kurt’s “unwanted advances” seen as being so predatory and threatening to him?  As Kurt’s dad responded, “You gotta understand most guys don’t know how to deal with unwanted advances.”  But then why are women expected to “deal” with unwanted advances so comparably well?  Traditional gender roles that designate men as “pursuers” and women as the “pursued” may be at the root of this homophobic double standard.  Society essentially tells us there is no such thing as an unwanted advance for a woman; as the perpetually “pursued”, women learn to measure their value through any type of male attention.  As a result, unwanted attention is often portrayed as merely “flattering” and self-affirming, instead of creepy and/or scary.  At best it’s “romantic,” at worst it’s “harmless.”

But let’s look at the unwanted advance double standard and its real world consequences, shall we?  I’m gonna say heterosexual acquaintance rape is a prominent example of what can happen to women if unwanted advances continue to an unacceptable point.  (And I don’t mean to sweep female-on-male rape under the rug, it’s just statistically less common).  On the other hand, I’m actually curious to know the statistics of rape of heterosexual men by homosexual men.  If I had to guess, I would say it’s pretty darn close to zero (and even if I’m wrong, I’m gonna say its a comparably less frequent occurrence than other types of male-on-male rape).  Ironically, the statistics of rape of homosexual men by heterosexual men is considerably higher, and is a well-documented anti-gay hate crime. 

So in conclusion: unwanted advances for women are often seen as harmless and flattering, but unwanted advances for heterosexual men by homosexual men are predatory.  But the stats show the opposite is true.  Erf. 

Society is annoying. 
 

rant by Liz (wearing her double-stitched, double-standard rantpants)

Most fairytales are adapted from stories that were never intended to be children’s stories.  Case in point:  Sleeping Beauty.  In the original version of the story the prince finds her asleep, has sex with her, and comes back sometime later to find that she has given birth to twins (while asleep).  Moral of the story: stranger rape is ok when Prince Charming is the rapist, and fairytales are NOT for kids…I don’t even want to tell you how Cinderella really ends…

rant by Luke (wearing his Grimm-iest rantpants) in response to the Modern Family’s jagermeister quote. 

“She’s been rejected by Brad Pitt, Vince Vaughn, John Mayer and, most recently, “Cougar Town” star Josh Hopkins.  And apparently most men and women don’t understand why.”

(Reporting that Jennifer Aniston was voted the most eligible single woman in the world tv.yahoo.com)  

AHHHHHH, why are the articles about the most eligible bachelorettes always written from the perspective of “She says she’s doing alright, but we have to wonder because she keeps getting dumped, and she’s (GASP) still SINGLE” while the articles about the most eligible bachelors are always about their jet-setting lifestyles surrounded by hot models half their age who they just aren’t ready to commit to yet.

BLEH!

rant by Meghann (wearing her jet-setting rantpants and surrounded by hot models half her age)

Dear Women and Non-Harvard Men,

This rant is addressed “Attn: Harvard Men!”  So kindly turn around, navigate away from this page, or find some other way to mind your own damn business.  You wouldn’t get it anyway.  You’re not Harvard men.

So I was facebooking the other day when I looked over to the targeted ads and saw http://www.dateharvardsq.com/.  I reluctantly clicked on the link, fully expecting to be directed to a site full of gold-digging succubi who would only be interested in my prestigious social and professional affiliations, as well as my endless riches.  What I found instead was a site that was created by two other Harvard dudes!  Some of you might assume that they created this site because they are self-important Harvard douches who lack personality and could not figure out why women were not throwing their panties at them even though they dropped the H-bomb frequently in social settings (I don’t get that either.  What gives?  What else does a guy have to do?), but it turns out that it’s nothing like that.  Beri and Phillipp are both HBS alums, so they get “how difficult it can be for Harvard men to date while attempting to live the Harvard lifestyle.”  They even use a “proprietary algorithm” to match Harvard gents with “discerning” women.  It’s about time!  I have always felt that any women who didn’t understand that Harvard = husband could use a little bit more discerningmentfulness.  It is such a relief to not have to worry about that at http://www.dateharvardsq.com/. 

The site is designed as the first online dating community to empower women to control the entire process, so you can trust that all of the women on the site are powerful in addition to discerning… and that’s about as close you can ever expect to get to finding a woman who is worthy of your Harvard status.  This is guaranteed by the same affiliation that makes us awesome: Harvard.  As my bros Beri and Phillipp explain, “DateHarvard_SQ exists to empower women in the dating process.  One way we accomplish this goal is by verifying the quality of potential matches, in part, through their affiliation with Harvard University.”  When a woman is smart enough to realize that the Harvard admissions office is better equipped to choose her mate than she is, then you can rest assured that she is smarter than the rest of the women out there.

Now, I know that some of you might have some concerns and/or questions about the site’s objective: 1) Why is the site only for Harvard men and not Harvard women?  2) Why does the site only match the men with women outside of the Harvard community?  3) What’s so special about Harvard men? If you would take the time to read the site, you would know that Beri and Phillipp have already answered those questions.

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“Women: Connect with Harvard University educated doctors, lawyers, businessmen, academics and professionals with the first online dating community that empowers you to control the process.
 

Harvard Men: Make romance a priority with our simple, easy-to-use system and meet an outstanding variety of women who value intelligence, poise and ambition.”
 

dateharvardsq.com

Ew. Ewewewew. EW.

I am all for online dating.  Go forth and meet interesting people!  It’s a useful facilitator.  I get that some people might think it casts too wide a “net,” so that’s when sites like these really come in handy (oh thank goodness!).

But of course, the site is only for Harvard Men and (apparently non-Harvard) women.  Translation: Harvard Men are a rare and beautiful commodity that we need to nurture and value and endlessly compete for.  Harvard Women, meh who cares about you losers, no one wants a smart-ass woman anyway.  Too much lip. 

As the site proclaims, the pool of women here value “intelligence, poise, and ambition.”  That’s automatic just by virtue of signing up for the site, apparently.  But it’s not advertised to women as “hey, come take a look at these men who value intelligence, poise, and ambition!”  (Because that would just be bizarre and false, silly!  Who values that in women?!).  The men in this community don’t need to value these things, they just need to want women who value exactly what they perceive themselves to be.

I also love their interesting (and potentially sublimal-messagey) word choice.  So the dating community “empowers” women to control the process.  Yep, this whole experience seems really “empowering” right?  And why would this even be the “first community” that “empowers” you to control the process?  As far as I know, dating online consists of complete control over who you meet; you are never forced to meet someone you don’t like.  I just don’t get it. 

And for men, “make romance a priority with our simple, easy-to-use women” (ahem) I mean system!  System!

EW.
 
 

(Big thanks to Brian for pointing out how ridiculous this is.  As a proud Harvard Man, I’m sure you’ve already signed up for this right?  Oo and it’s free for men!) 

rant by Liz (wearing some indignant rantpants, grr). 

“What would possess a person your age to get a boob job?  You don’t even know what your body’s gonna look like. It’s an insult to nature and completely distracting. I can’t take my eyes off them, I’m actually talking to them right now.”

“I wanted people to notice me more. I don’t get what the big deal is.” 

“The big deal is that someone who has to pump her naughties full of gravy to feel good about herself clearly doesn’t have the self esteem to be my head cheerleader … Now take your juicy, vine-ripened chest fruit and get the hell out of my office.”

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So I had mixed feelings about this rant.  On the one hand, hell yes, “you don’t even know what your body’s gonna look like” is damn right!  Um, I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that things in my bodyzone have changed quite a bit from high school…so everyone should just riiiide out the rollercoaster into full fledged adultism before making big cosmetic body-altering decisions.

On the other hand, it did make me a bit sad to see Sue persecute Santana for her supposedly shameful decision when it should have actually been a tirade against society and what society teaches young women to value in themselves.  It’s quite easy to hate on/judge other women for their decisions, especially when you may be more “resilient” to certain pressures and can’t imagine ever making the same decision. 

On the third hand (I’ve got so many hands!), it’s not like Sue is supposed to be some pinnacle of morality, and she randomly persecutes other people for her own gain, so this is totally in character for her.  And even if her rant is overly critical, if it damages the street-cred of plastic surgery to young adults, hmm I consider that a win.  We are pretty much bombarded with images of people changing their appearances in the media: so much so that it’s become normalized and even glamorized.  It just seems natural that people would support so-called “imperfect” women changing their “imperfect” bodies, instead of stripping down the motivations to something negative (but honest): insecurity.  And that is in no way a judgment on the person with the insecurity, that’s all on the external pressures that made them feel that way in the first place.  Big boobs: it’s just one of the many wonderful things society greatly values.  Alongside philanthropy, and other things of great social worth. 

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I am on a quest to like all women.  Then if we have meaningful interactions that go awry and I am personally affronted, I will stop liking them.  But I’m trying to avoid random snap judgments entirely.  Sad that this is a “quest” and is not just natural, but society is pretty darn good at pushing us to turn on ourselves and call each other bad names for random reasons, as if we are all fighting for this tiny pool of resources or something.  Gotta fight it.   

But Katy Perry sometimes makes this difficult.  I guess she’s an empowering female figure? (I say that with a very questioning tone).  I mean, she is certainly a successful one.  And I do think she is talented!  Great voice, and all that jazz. 

But bah, the opening lyrics to Hot ‘n Cold (which is a rather catchy tune) just drive me crazy every time I hear it on the radio:

“You change your mind like a girl changes clothes”

I am a girl and I only change my clothes once a day!  And sometimes I never even change out of my pajamas (see this entire summer/fall).  Everybody (man or woman) loves a good pajamas-only week once in a while, it’s extremely luxurious.  And most women I know don’t carry around garment racks for costume changes throughout the day.  I’m kind of at a loss to think of situations where women change clothes and men don’t.  I for one think both genders like to keep hygienic and change after going to the gym, change out of stiff work clothes, etc.  I’m not saying changing clothes is a bad thing (it keeps us from being stinky!), but the way she phrases it makes it seem like girls are frivolous and vain or something.  Unless she really means that this guy hasn’t changed his mind in the entire summer that I haven’t left my house or worn real outdoor clothings…then I’m not so sure what she’s trying to say.  It would also be bizarre if she knew my pajama habits. 

“Yeah, you PMS like a bitch I would know”

Interesting.  The “bitch” in question in the lyric is not even a real specific woman she has in mind.  Just someone that Katy “would” know…so it seems like this applies to women in general.  Let’s think through this: Women physically menstruate, and so by definition there is a time every month before their cycle, which is pre-menstrual, and by having this time before their period, they are/become bitches.  Translation: all women (who menstruate) are bitches.  “Stop acting like a woman with a period, boyfriend!  Because they are just whiny and annoying.”  Uncool, Katy.  And by putting it that way, is Katy removing herself from the pool of women with periods (and women in general)?  It’s hard to be an empowered woman when you are actually kind of claiming that you aren’t a woman.  Or is she magically immune to any potential effects that a pre-menstrual period would have on the average human woman (which is sure to make them turn into raging “bitches”)?  How odd.  In some way, she is separating herself by pooping on the rest of us. 

Yeah this is some random ranting.  I just kinda cringe whenever I hear tons of ladies sing these lyrics at the top of their lungs (especially when one of those ladies is me, geebus this song has been stuck in my head all day).  I understand that this will probably warrant quite a few “lighten up, liz!”s, but I’m just pointing out something that annoys me, which is the purpose of this blog.  I still like the lady, just want her to be more aware of what she is saying.  Unless she is very aware…and then I won’t really like her anymore.  

rant by Liz (wearing some hot and then cold, yes and then no rantpants)