In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Blogs for women are bad for women

Jill

But they’re really good for Susannah Breslin, who has gotten her bills paid by ForbesWoman, The Frisky, and The XX Factor (and also Esquire and Playboy, which I’m pretty sure are magazines for men). Also:

Susannah Breslin is an American writer best known for creating the blog The Reverse Cowgirl and for her on-camera reporting for the Playboy TV program Sexcetera. Her writing and television work tends to deal with sexual and pornography-related topics. She has also written for periodicals including ‘Playboy’ and appeared on Politically Incorrect as well as CNN and Fox News. Her published works include “You’re a Bad Man, Aren’t You?”, a book of short stories. Time.com has identified The Reverse Cowgirl as one of the 25 best blogs.

Keep rallying against gender-segregated media, girl.

In the post about how women’s media is the worst, she writes,

If blogs for women existed in the real world, rather than a virtual one, what would they look like? Giant pink bubbles in which women floated through life, peering through the see-through pink walls at the big, bad confusing world out there in which men exist, things are complex, and not everything has to do with whether or not you have a pair of ovaries.

…and that post appears on her blog, which is titled “Pink Slipped.”

She also asks what online gender segregation has done for anyone lately. Putting aside the fact that feminist blogs are not exactly gender segregated and that rallying around a political concept is a little different than being like NO BOYS ALLOWED and catering to a specific set of interests is what a whole lot of media does so I’m not clear on how The Hairpin is way more offensive than Esquire, [COMMA], gender-related media has made Susannah Breslin’s career. And it’s definitely allowed her to be the cool girl in the room who just gets along with guys better than with girls, you know? It’s not like she does it on purpose, it’s just that girls are so annoying and they also weirdly get so jealous of her, and really she’s just more interested in guy things like whiskey and sports (Susannah Breslin, are you pretending to be 23 and writing to advice columnists?). I mean I think the point of this column is, “Boys’ media is so cool, right guys? I am so glad we’re friends you guys. Don’t you hate girls’ media? I SO hate girls’ media. Girls’ media, eew, seriously, it’s basically why I don’t hang out with girls.”

39 thoughts on Blogs for women are bad for women

  1. She lost me when she claimed that when women write stuff, only other women can read it. I guess I have this silly vision that men read women’s blogs, too? I would have appreciated her view more if she had any empirical evidence, or if the premise was more than, “Girls are Dumb.”

  2. What a hypocritical traitor. She reminds me of the type of woman who takes enormous pride in the fact she gets along better with men than women because women are so _________ (fill in the blank), the type who puts the moves on your husband while you, little boring wifey, is in the kitchen cooking the dinner her ass will be shoveling in her face in short order.

  3. I’m hearing “I just don’t get on with other women, I like boys, girls are bitches. I’m like… cool, ‘cos I play video games and drink beer, look at me, I’m unique!”

    Ugh. That’s the patriarchy for ya, trains anyone AFAB to rip each other apart, for the amusement of the menz and so they don’t have to do it themselves.

  4. Ah, yes, didn’t we establish (possibly in the last Top Troll) that the so-called “moderation” process at Feministe is actually a special screening system that runs our usernames and e-mails through an algorithm that can detect (within a 99.9% confidence interval) our exact biological make-up, thereby allowing Jill to exclude any of the un-ovaried from posting here?

    (There might be some exceptions though, who are given honorary ovaries. Honorovaries! Human egg sacs for all!)

  5. Is it fair to say that Ms. Breslin has made her living being, more or less, a female chauvinist pig? The ‘Are You a Slutrepreneur’ post tipped me off…

  6. I used to be one of those assholes who would say shit like, “god, I hate other girls. They’re so _______. I just get along with guys so much better because ______.”

    I also hated feminism, because I thought it was just another one of those Dumb Girl Things. Then, yeah. I got it. It sounds more like Susannah Breslin is the one who’s Bad For Women(tm). She just really, really hates women. I feel sorry for her.

    …although one really obnoxious thing I keep seeing everywhere on feministg blogs is “such-and-such is a feminist issue!!1!” What? Are there legions of feminists out there who refuse to care about something awful if it isn’t directly related to the suffering of girls and women? This is confusing, and rubs me the wrong way for reasons I can’t seem to articulate very well at the moment.

  7. Soooooo much that could be said about her article. For starters, plenty of guys read feministing and other “blogs that focus on women”, so there goes the segregation argument.

    For the life of me I cannot understand the point she is trying to make by mentioning blogs about cooking and home decorating? Does she think these blogs are bad because they are things women enjoy? Does she think any website focusing on things women enjoys is morally reprehensible?

    Does she really see womens’ blogs as “female circle-jerks”? She must really be out of touch! Has she not SEEN some of the comment threads here!? SUSANNAH BRESLIN GO READ THROUGH THE ARGUMENTATIVE COMMENTS ON A POST ABOUT A SILLY HAT THEN TELL ME THIS IS A CIRCLE JERK, SO I CAN LAUGH IN YOUR FACE.

  8. Olivia Mun… did you create a secret identity and try to bash all-other-women-who-are-not-Olivia-Mun again?
    Oh? You are some other chick who is getting her career on explaining how all other women suck, because they are women, but you are so awesome, because… because what exactly?

    No, seriously… this stick was tired in the 90’s, now it’s like kicking the very, very dead horse to laugh at her, but damn…

  9. Yeah, Breslin sounds like she is spouting a lot of unoriginal crap–crap that has been said about the Internet forever. I.e.: People are closing themselves off from other views because they can just go straight to whatever specialized source of information they prefer. She’s just applying it to women who read “women’s media.”

    Also, maybe I’m just completely ignorant but I wasn’t aware that women who say they prefer to hangout with men were such annoying, obnoxious, attention-seeking people. Full-disclosure: I’m one of these women whose friend circle is mostly men. It’s not because I think gurls r dum or because I like whiskey, or want everyone to pay attention to meeeee but because I was like that from a young age. Once the pressure to be girlie came up, I didn’t like it, and neither did a few other girls I knew (and subsequently became friends with). However, there just seemed to be an abundance of nice boys to chill with, who preferred to draw dragons and run around than form an ultra-exclusive supermodels club (yes, supermodels club–it was all the rage in 5th grade).

    This continued all through college. My guy friends and I have had plenty of conversations about why each of us prefers friends in the opposite-sex. A common answer is that we were turned off early on from expected gender roles. Not saying that everyone who finds certain gender roles restricting with hang out with predominantly men or women, but that’s what we did.

  10. So, the propaganda technique that Susannah Breslin uses — would it be called “attacking a straw man” or “attacking a straw woman?”

    Really, what b.s.! She says women’s blogs “don’t ask you to think.” Yet I’m a 50-something male — which means my gender socialization occurred back when NBC was airing a prime-time series with plots like James T. Kirk hitting on curvy, hetero, green-skinned aliens — and today’s feminist blogs challenge me to reconsider my assumptions *every day*.

    At least she mentioned “Feministe” by name: That’s good for the blog traffic.

  12. Oh, her again. I’m not even surprised. So much of what she writes seems to boil down to ‘it’s not a party until I walk in’.

  13. Wow. That was one of the most sexist things I have read in a while. What it said to me throughout was ” I hate women. And all things I think are feminine. Or feminist. Or not feminist in the right way.”

    And what is this obsession with the “real world”? A blog (any blog) is not the real world; it’s a blog. We are not living here- it is a *part* of our lives. She simultaneously says that we are sheltering ourselves from the big bad world and that our problems, i.e., sexism, don’t actually exist in the world (at least in the way that we see them). And if people are here to feel good, so what? And guess what, there are men here! Does that make us ok now?

  14. also- I’m sick of the idea (which she perpetuates) that “women’s issues” consist of fringe, silly topics that aren’t *really* important- at least not to anyone who matters in the “real world.” These issues (feminist issues such as the ones discussed on this blog)affect the *whole goddamned world*. Even men. /end rant

  15. What’s up with her “real world” argument? It’s not like there are no predominantly-female spaces in the real world. I knit and quilt with other women. I sit with women from my fencing club and deconstruct misogyny and rape culture. I talk about books and TV shows with my female coworkers. And my involvement with feminist blogging informs all of those, and has changed the way I see crafting, media, and business.

  16. Ali – You’re missing the point. It’s not about preferring certain hobbies, or who you* hang out with, it’s about using that to affirm superiority over other women, acting like all women (with the exception of you) are a stupid, bimbo hivemind that you’ve consciously opted out of, the insistence that “I’m just one of the guys!”.

    Every woman and girl is unique. Kittens, drag racing, Drag Race, babies, xBox, cis, trans, gay, straight, bi, kids, goldfish, long hair, buzz-cut, floofy dresses, scruffy jeans – none of these are ‘better’, do what makes YOU happy, as long as you don’t judge other women for doing the same. Using your fun things as a stick to beat people with like Breslin is? Not cool.

    *’You’ as in the general form, not you personally.

  18. I bristle whenever I see the phrase “such and such incredibly common thing is ‘bad for women’,” because I feel talked down to. Like I’m not supposed to know what’s good for me or something.

  19. Psst, Susannah: No matter how many other women you trash, the boys aren’t going to make you a full member of their club.

  20. Putting aside the fact that feminist blogs are not exactly gender segregated and that rallying around a political concept is a little different than being like NO BOYS ALLOWED

    This, sadly, needs a “usually.” :/

    Other than that…

    Just so I’m clear on this, there isn’t actually an objection to the notion of someone bonding better and preferring the stereotypical leisure activities of the opposite sex here, it’s the use of (ostensibly) doing so as leverage to denigrate other people, right?

  21. I am imagining a world where Susannah Breslin and Rich Santos are dating each other, and they are both miserable.

  22. Breslin has been cultivating this unpleasant persona for so long, it’s become who she actually is. And she lost me in her porn valley feature, where she witnessed a woman get beaten down psychologically in the worst way by a sleazy producer before a scene, and didn’t as much as ask or bother to find out if said woman was okay.

  24. Oh, come on you guys… it’s obvious… she’s bitter because nobody in the womensphere actually read her opinions on stuff and she is sure that’s because women suck, not that simply she didn’t interest people who happen to be women. 😉

  25. What’s up with that way over the top quote at the beginning? “Every woman blogger who is not too stupid or too full of herself to notice what is going on knows that what blogs for women do is morally indefensible. — Unknown” Morally indefensible? I mean, you don’t have to like blogs about issues affecting women, but that’s just absurd. The unknown attribution adds a nice touch of credibility too.

  26. …I’m not clear on how The Hairpin is way more offensive than Esquire, [COMMA], gender-related media has made Susannah Breslin’s career.

    Yes. Oxford, DO NOT TAKE AWAY MY SERIAL COMMA!

  27. I work with a woman who seems to really, really hate other woman. She frequently does the “I hate women, I only hang out with men, women are so annoying” thing. And yes, she actually does say she hates women. It’s extremely frustrating to hear a women basically say that they are the inferior sex.

  28. Shades of Camille Paglia.

    Eneya:
    Oh, come on you guys… it’s obvious… she’s bitter because nobody in the womensphere actually read her opinions on stuff and she is sure that’s because women suck, not that simply she didn’t interest people who happen to be women. 😉

  29. @ Stella. It’s a riff on the famous first line of the totally brilliant Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist and the Murderer. Because cribbing from a brilliant lady journalist is the best way to show that ladies suck, duh.

  30. Stella:
    What’s up with that way over the top quote at the beginning? “Every woman blogger who is not too stupid or too full of herself to notice what is going on knows that what blogs for women do is morally indefensible. — Unknown” Morally indefensible? I mean, you don’t have to like blogs about issues affecting women, but that’s just absurd.

    That’s hilarious is what that is. I think I’m going to start using that about anything I don’t like. “Anyone who’s not too stupid or too full of themselves to notice what is going on knows that cooking cauliflower is morally indefensible.”

    See also, Oxford trying to kill the Oxford comma.

  31. Proud to blog from my perspective as a feminist as well as at a female authored collaboration blog (http://www.daughterslost.blogspot.com) (but we let men read too lol)….and, it’s purple, not pink. Because I’m cheap and do my own graphics and purple peonies is what I happened to have on hand without getting my external hard drive out lol.

    Silly women for blogging and leave men out. After all, we’re accepted everywhere we go, equal pay and opportunity in the workplace and all, just to name one instance *rolls eyes*

  34. I read this blog yesterday (mainly to make fun of the author, horrible I know) and what cracked me up more than anything were the comments. So many of the people commenting were like “Umm, you realize that you’re a woman writing a blog about female issues, right?” And she had no defense.

  35. Ali: Also, maybe I’m just completely ignorant but I wasn’t aware that women who say they prefer to hangout with men were such annoying, obnoxious, attention-seeking people.

    It’s not just a preference, it’s the preference combined with denigrating other women and saying things like, “I’m not like those other girls, I’m cool, REALLY!” And assuming that all those “other girls” do everything the same way and like the same things and those things are bad. Because they’re girly. You’re right, there’s nothing inherently wrong with preferring friends of a certain gender, it’s when a certain attitude goes with it that we criticize it.

    Azkyroth: Just so I’m clear on this, there isn’t actually an objection to the notion of someone bonding better and preferring the stereotypical leisure activities of the opposite sex here, it’s the use of (ostensibly) doing so as leverage to denigrate other people, right?

    Exactly.

  36. Has she ever visited a feminist blog?

    I guess “floating around in a pink bubble” reading Cosmo religiously, eating bon bons and watching stories are all accurate portrayals of women-folk. ‘Cause that sounds like feminists.

  37. One could certainly note the extent to which many blogs or sites ostensibly devoted to women frequently reinforce the notion that women are second-class citizens (as Rachel notes that Breslin herself does). Obviously, Breslin’s treatment did not do this.

    I haven’t noted this here or at feministing, but I’ve seen it a lot in blogs that discuss parenting–where, for example, breastfeeding proponents are attacked for being antifeminist (some of them are, of course), but the kinds of barriers to breastfeeding like women’s shame about their bodies, sexualization of breasts, overwork for women at home, scrutiny by workplaces about breaks for pumping while other activities are not scrutinized in the same manner, etc., are not discussed, but rather just seen as “the way things are.”

    Re: Breslin–I’m not super familiar with her but get the sense that she’s anxious about her future, which can send people in a conservative direction. As an individual, you can often get ahead by denouncing your dispossessed group.

  38. You know, there are things I find morally indefensible – like torture, war, taking away reproductive rights, apartheid, abusing children, violence, etc.
    Breslin’s contention that limiting, hypocritical, and non-reality based blogs for a subsection of society are morally indefensible – not so much.
    Blogs are virtual (non-real) by their very definition – normally blogs are written with a point of view in mind (limiting) and I know I’m guilty of hypocrisy occasionally.
    Breslin’s fantasy of what blogs could look like if they were real is kind of a fun mental exercise.
    On the whole – it promised to explain why feminist, woman-oriented blogs are morally indefensible – and it was an epic fail.

  39. Actually, I kind of think it is a fundamental problem to state that you actively prefer the company of one gender over another. You can’t indict a whole gender based on girls forming a supermodel club in elementary school.

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