I have a question for the collective wisdom of the feministing community about how to effectively make our case in the face of the classic "humorless feminist" shut down.
I have just (for the umpteenth futile time) left a comment at BoingBoingGadgets about the consistently offensive, misogynist tone of BoingBoing 's sister brother site. (I've contacted them through other channels in the past.)
...The sad truth is that you calling out Verizon for their sexist cell phone ads doesn't "cancel out" posts by John Brownlee celebrating a photoshopped hentai brandediGeForce 8800 GT card :
"...what could be a better showcase for a graphic card's polygon-pumping might than the cel-shaded depiction of a hydrocephalic Japanese pre-teen's cervix, her realistic mucous membrane providing an impressive testing ground for Nvidia's revolutionary fluidic physics processing?"Unless BoingBoing now has an active policy of driving women away from the site (because it is going well!), I hope you'll reign in Brownlee and colleagues, and recognize that B-grade snark grounded in misogyny isn't "cool" or "ironic": it is just plain bad writing.
Ghandi said "We must become the change we want to see in the world."
Good luck implementing your blogging advice. It would be great to see it applied to BoingBoing.
The answer I received, as usual, is "you just don't get it," with the strongly implied "You have no sense of humour."
I realize there is rough, and rougher, sexism all over the Internet. I think what's going on BoingBoingGadgets particlarly bothers me because the crew at BoingBoing like to pose as girl-positive, and seem to think they can throw out a feminist crums here and there to whitewash the crap they spew the rest of the time. The fact that they do this on an exceptionally high traffic website means they are mainstreaming misogyny from a very high profile soap box that reaches a very large, international. I would really like to see them own up to the responsibility that is part of that reach and that messaging power. I'd also like to see them live up to the best of what can be and sometimes BoingBoing: who they say they are.
How do you get past the "humorless irrelevant feminist" slam?
The truth is, it is a shoe that fits and I'm proud to wear: I /don't/ think misogyny or the objectification or humiliation of women is funny, or cool, or ironic. Nope. No humor in that one at all for me.
But in terms of effective tactics for public debate...where do you go next?
I can't be the only woman in this spot. (ha!) It's one of the oldest rhetorical tricks in the book.
If anyone has good advice in general on how to pre-empt or neutralize the "humorless (/uncool / unhip / etc) feminist" slam, I would love to hear how you handle it effectively.
Clearly, we all need to know. This one never seems to go out of style.
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So you're "humorless" because you don't find something deemed "funny" to be amusing?
There's a long way between "funny ha-ha" and "funny weird". If they don't have enough wisdom or taste to tell the difference, the writers and/or the editors really have to educate themselves.
As to where the debate should go from there, I'm not sure. There are plenty of "funny ha-ha" jokes about vulvas/vaginas out there (Wanda Sykes, I'm looking at you), but I don't know how to bring them in as a comparison.
The "humorless feminist" tactic isn't something that you can really get past which is why it's used so enthusiastically. Proof by Example fallacies are easy to point out and invalidate in actual debates, so people use them as a slam/shutdown to weasel out of the argument in the first place. The best I know to do is just ignore the slam altogether (not very helpful advice, I know)
As an aside, I did think the NVIDIA card post was pretty funny, although I didn't get why they bothered to make fun of something that didn't really exist.
Apparently a lot of people found it funny.
For me, it was as humorous and appropriate as The New Yorker cover of Obama as a Terrorist.
Feminists don't have a sense of humour? Feminists? Us?
What about the whiny right-wing media that called Tina Fey's portrayal of Sarah Palin "sexist" and "disrespectful?" Because, you know, SNL's satirical humour is ALWAYS careful to respect everyone. Like, the show isn't BASED around knocking everyone, male and female, left, right and center. And it's not like that show is so funny it's been around for decades or anything.
Ooh, look, feminists can be sarcastic too! Isn't that humour?
Basically, when people say we have no sense of humour, I shrug it off. I think Tina Fey and John Stewart and Matt Damon and other wonderfully witty actors/comedians are just brilliant. (Hey, two of those are guys! I guess I don't hate men, either.) Those who think I don't have a sense of humour are clearly idiots whose approval I don't seek. The same idiots who assume I must have hairy legs and say "But how can you be a feminist if you wear heels and mascara?" (Not that, of course, there would be anything wrong with me choosing not to wear those things or abstain from shaving.)
Amen, Nicole.