Category: Ladybusiness

So there’s a discussion in the dog groups (which, of course, has bupkis to do with dogs) in which various parents overreact to boys showing interest in their daughters. Not a word, as far as I can tell, about protecting their young sons from the sexual advances of young women.

I just find the whole “girls are either virgins or sluts but boys are always studs” crap fascinating. Parents want to protect their daughters’ virtue, but boys are meant to fool around. It’s sort of a badge of honor, in fact (wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more). When girls do the same, they’re promiscuous, trampy whores. Just think of all the negative terms we have for sexually active women, vs. the sorts of terms we have for men. Sexually active men are admired and praised, while women are denigrated.

And there’s a subtext that’s kind of skeevy. The whole “protect your daughters so that you can hand them over to their next owner with virtue intact” crap that gets celebrated at father-daughter purity balls (no, I am not making this up) is frankly horrifying. It’s one thing to teach your children–all of them–to be responsible human beings, but quite another to fetishize girls’ hymens.[1]

Anyway, jokes about buying chastity belts for your daughters or threatening to shoot boys who fool around with them make me cranky.

IBTP

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[1] It’s not just a matter of quaint, harmless tradition, either. When you have fucknecks like Bill Napoli bloviating about how only virginal, Christian girls are worthy of compassion should they have the misfortune to be raped, hymen fetishization takes on a whole new dimension.

It makes it kind of difficult to object to John McCain calling his wife a cunt, when you turn around and call Sarah Palin a bitch. There are all too many real, legitimate, important things to criticize Palin for, but the fact that she’s a woman isn’t one of them.

In my blogwanderings around Teh Internets, I came across a link to Postcards from Yo Momma. For anyone who’s ever been exasperated by email from their relatives, I recommend it. It’s sweet and funny. For example, this one from a mom to her daughter who’s obviously away at college.

Additional comments/information:

I’m also sending you a credit card with a $1000.00 limit for emergencies. The PIN is **** (but avoid using in for cash advances, as they charge a usurious interest rate for those). I’ll bring your BCP (birth control pills, not Book of Common Prayer). In the meanwhile, don’t get pregnant. I’ll get to the FAFSA as soon as possible.

Looking forward to a vchat and especially to seeing you in person soon.

One of the things that struck me is the complete and utter non-sequiturs. My mom sends me email like that all the time–one big paragraph with twenty unrelated topics all smooshed together.

Reading through some of the emails at PfYM makes me kind of homesick.