So, quite frankly, I love this Chrissie Zullo illustration, and I love the character of Cindy from Fables…but why on earth does she need to be wearing only underwear and a hat, scarf, and gloves in this promo/cover image for the series? When will I start seeing dudes equally dressed to promote their mini-series? It will never happen. You know why? Cause it looks fucking ridiculous.
It’s so frustrating to see this stuff…because Chrissie Zullo does gorgeous work, Cindy’s a great character, and while Chris Roberson is not my favorite writer thus far, there’s literally NO sexism in his work (at least in what I’ve read)…so this is a book I want to like…should like…and should be the audience for…but then she’s in her underwear…? How I am supposed to support this? Not only support it with my dollars…but this is the kind of book that should be obvious review fodder for She Has No Head!…but if the covers (and more?) are going to be like this…it makes it really hard for my to throw any support behind it.
Ah comics…you give and then you take, you give and then you take. Would it kill you just to give one in a while?
Tags: comic covers, comics!
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OMG HOT BOOBS i mean yes i agree.
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I’m posting a blog next week involving this exact problem in comics. Comics and I have a love/hate relationship because of crap like this.
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@ross: behave! 😉
@optionalplayer: I look forward to checking that out! I have the same problem. It’s made this blog and my column on CSBG very hard sometimes.
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Why? Because her miniseries have been paying homage to James Bond, except she’s both Bond and the Bond girl.
You might complain about that role being sexist too, but at least it explains the thinking behind the cover.
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@hdefined: You’re right, I do find something inherently sexist in saying that because a Bond-like character (and I’d agree she is Bond-like) is a woman then she has to be both Bond and a “Bond girl”. She should be able to just be Bond. The same way Bond is just Bond.
Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she has to ALSO fill the “bond girl” role. In fact, if we’re really saying she’s Bond then shouldn’t there be some nice hunky male “Bond boy” to fill that role instead? I’m not advocating for that by the way, but if we’re going to put people into pre-defined stereotypical categories then that seems to make more sense.
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And as long as feminists like you waste so much time and energy on unimportant stuff like that, a lot of the real problems aren’t adressed.
How can you even be bothered by something like this?
It is a nice drawing of a beautiful woman. It’s pleasing to the eyes, what’s wrong with that?
A real empowered woman shouldn’t be bothered by things like that.
Heaven forbid we adress some of the real important issues regarding gender equality, like why can I count the female head of states in the world with one hand, without needing all fingers?
Concentrate on the relevant stuff, don’t be distracted by a picture aimed at a mostly male market.
We males like to look at pictures of scantily clad, beautiful women, wether painted, drawn or photografed, it will never change, it can never change, because it is a biological motivated urge.
So if you want something to sell to a male audience, sex sells.
It is like it is, stop fighting against windmills. -
@die-yng: Ah, starting a sentence with “feminists like you”…that’s always the sign of a great and surely to be intelligent comment. And we’re off!
Before we even get into this, let me clarify…as I stated, in the original post, it IS a beautiful drawing. And I can appreciate that it is beautiful. But it is also ridiculous because it holds that character to a double-standard that a male character would never be subjected to unless it was intended to be humorous…and there we have pretty much the definition of sexism. Which in case you haven’t looked it up recently, or ever, is: “prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.”
That off the table, let me first thank you for telling me to give up. It’s comments like that that only make me dig in my heels harder than ever. I can’t give up, because people like you think this crap doesn’t matter. It does.
Some of what you say is true – like the fact that comics are currently marketed mostly to males and that some men like to look at pictures of scantily clad women. But just because A & B are true, doesn’t mean they’re right or that they always will be true. If comics continues to market only to males it is eventually going to die out (as is evident more and more every day)…so I think that part of that equation is going to take care of itself…but I don’t mind helping it along when I can.
You say that things “are like they are”…and that is just patently false. Life, people, and society are nothing but change. Just crack open a history book. What was accepted in 1950 is not appropriate now, and I hope the same will be true in 2050 when people look back at 2010. The world changes in what it thinks is acceptable and what it doesn’t…and without people “fighting against windmills” as you say (which is not the phrase by the way, the phrase is “tilting at windmills”) those things would not have changed…in part because not everyone could see the “enemy” that those more progressive were already fighting.
But thank you for telling me what to care about. I do appreciate it when strangers that refer to me as “feminists like you” pretend they know me and what I’m about and think that it qualifies them to let me know what things I should and shouldn’t care about, and should or shouldn’t fight for.
I’m sure you can read the sarcasm there…right?
As for what I spend time and energy on…A) That is very much not up to you, and how dare you try to tell someone else what they should and should not care about and B) You have no idea, from reading my comics blog, which dude, is ABOUT COMICS, what I do ACTUALLY spend my time on or not. Please don’t pretend that just because I care about stuff like body image in young women, and sexist portrayals of women in media that I don’t ALSO care about how many women Supreme Court Justices or heads of state we have. They aren’t entirely unrelated issues and for you to pretend they are is just ignorant.
Lastly, you’ve used my FAVORITE ARGUMENT OF ALL TIME. Yay! The “it doesn’t matter so why don’t you shut up” argument. First of all, if it doesn’t matter then what are you doing here complaining about what I’m complaining about. Yeah…see how that works?
Secondly, it very much DOES matter. Is it as important as equal pay for equal work or reproductive rights? No, probably not. But so long as issues of inequality exist, the media helps influence what people think is acceptable. When comics put sexist T&A on the cover of EVERYTHING…even on the cover of stuff that might be otherwise be appealing to women and even geared toward them, then they’re helping to validate that inequality. They’re helping to create and encourage frat boy mentalities that continue and exacerbate hostility toward women in the workplace, etc. And that’s not even getting into the rash of ED’s many young girls face as they try to live up to unrealistic visuals forced on them by everything from Fashion magazines to comic books. Yes, it matters very much and I’m sorry you can’t see that.
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@die-yng
“And as long as feminists like you waste so much time and energy on unimportant stuff like that, a lot of the real problems aren’t adressed.
How can you even be bothered by something like this?”Remember the definition of irony?
“It is a nice drawing of a beautiful woman. It’s pleasing to the eyes, what’s wrong with that?”
It’s arguably same thing with molestation.“A real empowered woman shouldn’t be bothered by things like that.”
I’m a guy and I’m bothered by that. And “feminists” are not just women, fyi.“Heaven forbid we adress some of the real important issues regarding gender equality, like why can I count the female head of states in the world with one hand, without needing all fingers?”
That is a problem, for sure. One step at a time, sir.“Concentrate on the relevant stuff, don’t be distracted by a picture aimed at a mostly male market.”
Define “relevant.”“We males like to look at pictures of scantily clad, beautiful women, wether painted, drawn or photografed, it will never change, it can never change, because it is a biological motivated urge.”
And you said earlier,
“Heaven forbid we adress some of the real important issues regarding gender equality”
So therefore, we can abuse women to whatever our needs are because it’s biological? BS.“So if you want something to sell to a male audience, sex sells.
It is like it is, stop fighting against windmills.”
Was she even saying anything remotely close to that?As she said, this problem does matter very much and it’s sad that you missed the understanding.
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I’m not complaining about how you spent your time, I couldn’t care less.
I just think that you’re wasting time on unimportant stuff, but it’sup to you.
There should be things more important than a cover that you find in bad taste (mind, you have no problem with making your opinion the alpha and omega of everything, but maybe that is because you’ve got a blog, can you “read” the sarcasm?), concerning the equality of the sexes.
If you choose to waste your time on unneccesary and ridiculous matters like that, feel free to do so.
I don’t want to keep you from changing comics to the right (your) point of view.
Surely all problems will be solved if we don’t have covers like this one.
Then we’ll have more female creators working in comics and they’ll be treated better by their coworkers.
And it will stop female characters being treated as helpless damsels in distress and being marginalized.
Yeah, all will be better, if only we didn’t have covers like this.
I don’t want to tell you what to do or what to fight, but aren’t there more valuable targets?
Last but not least, you wrote:”Some of what you say is true – like the fact that comics are currently marketed mostly to males and that some men like to look at pictures of scantily clad women.”
1. Thats not what I said at all. Comics aren’t just marketed mostly to males, they are read mostly by males and while there certainly are a lot of women reading DC, Marvel, Vertigo, Image etc.. I don’t see how their part of the readership could ever come near to the male numbers. The truth is, most women just aren’t interested in the average american comicbook. They might be into stuff like Fables sometimes, but how (and most importanty why) would you change female reader tastes so much that they all love to read superhero comics???
Or you’d have to change superhero comics so much, they wouldn’t be what they were before.
There are lots of psychological motivations for men to read superhero comics, basically it’s about a male fantasy (and I don’t even mean the scantily clad woman with that). It’s about power, fighting, laserbeams, explosions… and no matter how you try to twist it, there are simply more men interested in stuff like that, than women.
And I know that Vertigo comics are only marginally connected to superhero comics, but they are a part of DC and the bulk of the readership comes from the sh-fanbase as well. After all, the days of Sandman reaching readers of all kind in spades are long gone.
2. If you think that only some men like to look at pretty women, you’re kidding yourself. Show me a heterosexual men, who says he doesn’t and I show you somebody who’s lying. It’s the truth, I’m not proud about it, but it is the truth and like I said before, the urge to do so is motivated by biology, so it will probably never change or at least it would take thousands of years.I am myself an emancipated men, I don’t want woman to get equal rights, because for me they already have. I see no difference of ability or anything else between men and women, never have and never will.
Nine out of ten times I will side with the women when there are arguments about sexism and discrimination, and rightly so.
I do my share of household chores, I do my share of raising the kids (and I feel a lot of fathers fail in that department), I cook most of the time and we are both working.
Hell, my partner, she has a way better job than I do. She is way more powerful and enduring than I am, in hard times.I’m writing this, so that you can see that I’m not just a chauvinistic swine, I just think it makes no sense to shy away from reality as far as things like this cover or men’s liking of a beautiful female body are concerned.
Why lie about it? Because it is pc? No way.You have a problem with me starting my comment with “feminists like you” and it might be true, that this is not the best way to start a dialogue.
I’m sorry, but I’ve seen this- and participated in this- argument so many times, I am a bit tired of it.
I just wish people would concentrate on the really important issues and not let themselves be distracted by minor problems. I feel that a lot of valuable time and energy are wasted on this sh… stuff.
Obviously you don’t see it that way, even though I don’t know why, a woman who is obviously intelligent and literate would be distracted by such a superficial problem.
One more thing and then I’m through my rant (in answer to your ranting).
I see the problem with the unrealistic image forced upom women and it is true, it exist. But there are certainly differences between thin supermodels or actrizes like Keira Knightely or Gwyneth Paltrow and the women in adverts. Woman in ads are usually beautiful, but they have clearly feminine bodies and are not as thin as the above mentioned.
Of course not all women can be physically beautiful, but you can hardly blame marketing people for hiring good looking women. It would be stupid not to do so, after all show me a men in an ad who is not a hunk or a beau. We all strive for beauty and want to see beauty, that is not a woman’s plight alone.
And as far as women in comics are concerned, nobody is expecting people to actually look like men and women in comics, nobody could because they are Ubermenschen. Superhumans. Comics are just pictures and nothing in most of them is realistic at all.There is such a thing as being too emancipatory and too pc and sadly I fear you are going in that direction. You certainly seem to have a lot of anger and frustration in you.
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@die-yng: Dude. Your comment is so full of stereotypes, generalizations, and justifications I can barely understand any of it…or perhaps I’m just in denial that anyone could be so shortsighted.
And I’m still not sure why you’re here if “none of this matters”? If it doesn’t matter then sign off and go about reading all the comics that cater specifically to you already…to exactly what you already believe in. Nobody is going to stop you.
Suffice to say I spend my life/career talking about comics, so I’m not a johnny come lately to this issue or to comics, but I don’t have the time or inclination to try to educate you and you don’t seem open to it anyway, so I politely suggest you move along and find another blog that’s more suited to talking about what you want to talk about and that more correctly fits into your world view. This is not the blog you’re looking for. Clearly.
For what it’s worth, people that have to spend paragraphs on the internet proving that they’re not “chauvinistic swine” (which I never called you…you came up with that all on your own) are usually trying too hard for a reason. Your second comment was for the most part more ignorant and offensive than your first, so if your goal was in part to prove to me what a great non-sexist dude you are. Internet FAIL.
I can’t help you out and you’re never going to see the point of anything I’m writing about and I’m DEFINITELY not going to come along to your way of thinking, so let’s just call it day okay?
For you childrens’ sake, I hope none of them are girls. They’ve likely got a some rough road ahead not just as people but specifically as girls/women and since their father is not aware of any issues of inequality between the sexes existing in the world it’s going to make that extra hard on them.
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@optionalplayer:
“It is a nice drawing of a beautiful woman. It’s pleasing to the eyes, what’s wrong with that?”
“It’s arguably same thing with molestation.”
That is the most stupid thing I read the whole week.
Why do some people always have to relate everything with sexual harrasment? It is not the same and will never be the same and for saying something as shallow and stupid like that you should get kicked in the face.
If I look at a picture in a comicbook, a magazine, watch a movie, I’m not hurting anyone, I’m not harrassing anyone!
In fact I feel harrassed by people who make stupid comparisons like yours.
Is thinking a martial arts fight is cool and awesome to watch, the same as beating the shit out of somebody?
Really, think before you write.
Making comparisons like this is like “crying wolf” all the time. It is like comparing every little disagreeableness with the holocaust and every minor perpetrator with the nazis. -
@die-yng: Threats of violence, like saying people should get kicked in the face is absolutely not tolerated here. See the comments policy at the top of the page if you have any questions about the guidelines of commenting here.
You get one warning, this is your warning. Next instance is an instant banning.
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@1979semifinalist:
You are proof to everything I wrote, people like you make me sad and angry at the same time.
There are statistics, there are scientifical reports backing everything I said.
If you would open your eyes and search for 30 minutes on the internet, I bet you could find enough of it. But you will never do so, because sadly you are so fixated on your distorted worldview, that you wouldn’t hear reason if it sounded an air-horn in front of you.
Dismissing everything I wrote is easy, but neither in your first or your second answer did you disvalue anything I wrote, you are just saying it is wrong, these are stereotypes, blablabla.
I felt the need to adress my view of emancipation because of the anger permeating every word you write. Lady, you are full of bile, if you don’t recognize it, sorry for you.My kids are fine, thank you. I will raise them to see everybody as a human being first, regardless of gender, race or creed, so that they might not grow up to be as broken as you obviously are.
While we are stooping to baser levels (as far as your answer is concerned), I just hope you never have children at all, neither girl nor boy, because I fear for any kid growing up with a mother as full of shit as you are.
I really pity you, but at least you’re so convinced that your pov is right, that you won’t feel any doubt, like us normal people do.Relax, I won’t be coming back here, I only came because of a link to your rantings in a forum.
This is only the second time I read your blog and both times the point of your entry was so ridiculous that of all the people reporting about comics only you felt the need to address it.
Stay here in your little blog world (read by a few hundred sycophants) and leave the rest of the community the hell alone.
Not that anyone would give a shit about your opinion anyway.
I tried to reason with you, but I’m a sucker for irrational idiots.
So bye, bye and continue your sad little existence. -
I wrote “should get kicked in the face” this is neither a threat nor did I want to imply it. This is the internet, I don’t even know where the little fool lives.
I just think he deserves to be kicked.
How ridiculous can you get? This is chickenshit! -
And…BANNED.
Also, dude…”scientifical”? Did you just type that with a straight face?
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Forget die-yng, he’s an asshole.
The reason she’s not just Bond is because Bond is traditionally a womanizer. He doesn’t just enter the enemy base and blow it up, he also seduces anything with a vagina along the way. That’s . . . just his character, but it’s also like his “superpower,” because it’s rather unrealistic.
However, you know, that kind of role wouldn’t be well applied to a woman, because some beautiful women can realistically manage to seduce anyone. It wouldn’t be a very distinguishing characteristic.
This may be reading too much into it, but I get a different sense by her being both Bond and the Bond girl. As Bond, she’s cunning and clever and capable, but as Bond and the Bond girl, she possesses all aspects of sexuality, the seducer/seductress and the seducee, but as if these qualities cancel each other out. She can seduce anyone, and yet has no need to because she is the only one worth seducing, but is too smart to be seduced.
I’m not sure if that made sense, but do you get what I’m saying?
If not, then feel free to look at it as a girl in a bkikini.
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Hey, I just posted a response to your earlier comment, but it didn’t show up. Not sure if it went through.
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@hdefined: Sorry about that, you got stuck in spam. Probably because of a word that was in your post that started with “die” and ended with “yng”.
I see your point, and I get where you’re coming from. I guess I see Bond (especially the Daniel Craig version) as pretty sexy and able to seduce in his own right and on point/equal with any woman (like Cindy) in that regard. You’re right that you could view it as a superpower of sorts, but I always just looked at it more as a man who was really good at his job, the same way a woman in that position would be, regardless of actual level of attractiveness (though in this case both are attractive so I suppose it’s moot).
Like I said, I do get what you’re saying and how you’re getting there…but I think for me it’s just not quite somewhere I can get.
Regardless, appreciate the civil, rational, and intelligent exchange!
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That was interesting.
@hdefined & 1979 semifinalist
I feel stuck in the middle with both of you. I guess I agree with characters who use their sexual advances as power, while I also believe it’s ludicrous that it has to be derived to that.
On the other hand, it depends how it is portrayed. I think of it as a sex scene in a movie without showing the act of it.
Then there are other characters who use it so over-the-top that it’s just ridiculous. No matter how much I love Black Widow, I find that the artists usually render her as a sex tool more than anything rather it being a super-power.
I suppose it just depends on HOW it’s portrayed, rather than why it’s being portrayed in a particular way.
If that makes any sense.
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haha, wow. i only read a portion of that, life’s too short. really textbook/classic response to a privileged man blind to anything beyond his own station, leading to a false view that everybody is equal. technically and cosmically they are, yeah, but not when placed in society.
“My kids are fine, thank you. I will raise them to see everybody as a human being first, regardless of gender, race or creed” this is one of the main problems with America. classic erasure.
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and oh yeah, this is similar to a thread we had on i think my livejournal, Kelly, kind of a long while back. the “why are you wasting your time on this, there are more important problems” thing, like this is the ONLY thing you can do. you’re sitting there ONLY stewing about bikini girl comic covers, that’s ALL! i liked somebody else’s irony comment up-thread, like this troll guy is complaining about you not letting something like this inconsequential cover slide, you should worry about something else more important, yet this guy comes in here and has to complain about a blog post. couldn’t he just have let it go? surely he should be spending time with his kids instead of wasting time griping on a comics blog.
and this guy’s totally coming at it from a typical blind male POV, he’s just oblivious to how this could possibly be symptomatic of society at large since it’s just ONE cover, what’s the harm, blah blah blah! and just because something “automatic” like straight men’s attraction to women exists (which isn’t even the issue at all obviously), doesn’t mean somebody can’t express distaste over something that is produced to cater to those men. it doesn’t mean you’re fighting a losing battle against the impossible forces of biology, this stuff doesn’t just materialize, it’s informed by everything around it. and like, if nobody ever complained about shit they don’t like, yeah, we’d still be in the 1940s.
all right i’m just degenerating here, heh. like i said, life’s too short. 😉
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@optionalplayer: Oh yeah. Interesting. That’s the word! 😉
I know what you mean. My argument always comes back to context. There is a context I believe for Emma Frost to dress all provocative and insane…it’s well established…and I like her anyway. Sometimes there’s an appropriate context for Black Widow to do the same, but they don’t observe the context and just do it for shits and giggles, so it loses its relevance to me. I have a hard time imagining the context in which this is an appropriate outfit for Cindy to be in…in the snow…but still have a hat, scarf, gloves, and her belt and gun…? It’s possible the story once it’s forthcoming could convince me, but unlikely. A) Even if the story has a workable context for that moment to happen (and there was little to no relevance in Zullo’s covers for the first series) it’s still not necessary to put in on the cover…and I feel the same story with a male character would obviously not be put on the cover in lieu of something else and B) Even if it is relevant story wise…that does not seem like it would be a very good story. It seems like it would be one of those incredibly coincidental stories where unbelievable things happen…a bunch of times…to get our heroine in this situation. Anyway, time will tell.
@ross: Agreed. The second post barely even makes sense and is just not worth reading…and then after that he devolves into basically name calling and suggesting people should be kicked in the face for their views.
I understand that I probably upset him with my comment about his children, and maybe I shouldn’t have gone there as I know people are very protective about any mention of their children, however mild and unthreatening, however, I was not trying to attack or insult them, just trying to point out how his close minded views were likely to hurt his potential daughters quite a bit. Regardless, if I could do it again I’d leave the children out of it. Nothing I said was going to penetrate at that point anyway.
However, in fairness (to America?) I’m pretty sure he’s not an American.
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i wasn’t sure if he was American or not either, i don’t like to assume and plenty of countries have these same problems, but i can only really speak for America since it’s the only country i’ve lived in, and we definitely have that problem. 😉
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Frankly, I can’t think of any context where Cindy would be in the big fur hat, wearing a scarf, wearing lined gloves (the fluffy wrist stuff screams that the gloves are likely lined), and wearing her underwear.
If you’ve got time to put the other stuff on, you’ve got time to put on some pants (and a jacket — just ask Diana).
And you can’t convince me that if she were out just in her underwear (even if it was there was a reasonable excuse for that to occur) that all she would find to ‘borrow’ then would be a fur hat, lined gloves, and a scarf. What, no duster or overcoat was available? No fur lined coat? Not even a shawl or a blanket she could wrap around herself? Just a hat, a scarf and some gloves?
Sorry, I’m not buying any context they’re trying to sell with that.
It reminds me a little of a story I read within the last three years (I think it was an issue of the Justice League) where a bunch of the JLAers headed into Russia for some threat (I think it was Russia at least). And there was Black Canary in her usual outfit (the jacket, her jumpsuit, and fishnets) engaged in combat in the snow. And I just thought it was absolutely ridiculous. Really? She didn’t have time to grab something to cover her legs? She used to wear a costume that actually covered her legs (no fishnets). She didn’t have anything handy? No one could take a moment to grab something for her (Wally)? No, she just had to show up along with the other JLA members wearing fishnets to fight in the snow. And never gave one single indication that she was cold. I guess THAT is her super secret super power. -
Well I posted my blog where it’s completely related to this, plus linked this particular blog in it.
What a world, what a world.
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Wow, weird tangent, even for some of your usual weirdos.
Chiming in with my own two copper pieces, I also agree it’s a lovely illustration… but an odd subject for the cover to a book that appeals to more intelligent readers of both genders. It’s not appealing to our curiousity about the story, it’s just titliation. Nothing wrong with that for a pinup book, but an issue of Fables? Seriously, this suggests nothing about the story, it’s just a pinup.Hutch’s comment reminds me of my own old thoughts and designs for superhero costumes – for men and women – that were weather- and event-specific. Thicker costumes with heavy boots and jackets in winter, a cape and different style for a formal public occasion (award, political, charity)… largely inspired by old Lee/Romita issues of Amazing Spider-Man where Spidey was freezing in New York winters.
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@ross: Yeah, I know what you mean…I just thought I should point it out…spare the US at least ONE asshole. Heavens know we have plenty already.
@Hutch: Agreed. I can’t think of a scenario either…not one that doesn’t smack too hard of TRYING to get her out into the cold in her underwear. I was just trying to show how ridiculous it was…like how hard you’d have to try to make that moment happen.
Didn’t you hear? Those Black Canary fishnets are WayneTech fishnets with a built in heating element into the fibers! 😉
@optionalplayer: Thanks for the link!
@Keith Bowden: Yeah, totally crazy tangent. And my first ever banning…so glad you guys were here to see that! What happened was that this post got linked to in a forum, Bleeding Cool I believe, so that always brings a lot of crazies out. The funny thing is, A) the guy that linked on BC LIKED the piece, so “oh the irony” AND it’s getting a not bad response over there and B) This article is totally not incendiary…? I mean, I can see people disagreeing…and I can even see people getting angry about that as that seems to be what the internet is all about. But for me? This was a totally calm almost sad little piece, not some angry rage-y let’s take it to the streets rant…so I’m not sure I understand that vitriolic reaction. But whatever!
I’m with you on the changing superhero costumes…I’d love to see more thought into those costumes just like you’re suggesting – a variation on the costume for cold weather missions, for hot weather missions, for public occasions, etc. Would be awesome.
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Pingback from NaNoWriMo: DAY THIRTY « on December 1, 2010 at 2:27 am
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Well, I`m American, but, you know, from Argentina. I agree with 99% of your posts, I enjoy them, I learn from them. Still, I find it difficult to understand some of your reactions to the banned guy, even if I understand -and you made it quite clear- that he was so far away from your way of thinking (may I say, perhaps, OUR way of thinking?) that it was impossible for you to ever find each other, not even for one second, somewhere. I understand that, because I live that everyday. Sometimes arguments are poisoned, and you go back to the argument before and it`s also poisoned, and you should travel through kilometers of poisoned arguments to find the first, refutable idea, so in the end is far better to just call the whole thing off. I think if we understand those things, we have also the needed tools to understand where a guy like that is coming from, and certainly don`t need to say stuff like “I feel sorry for your daughter…” I mean, I would go crazy if anyone said something like that to me, it`s really like the ultimate insult.
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@Natanial:
As I said above in my comment to ross – if I could go back I would certainly take out the mention of his children (though I did not say “I feel sorry for your daughter” – just…for the record). Even though I felt it powerfully at the moment (and believe it…I would say/think the same of my own father if he was going onto blogs and saying such stuff) But it was surely only going to upset him more and make it even more difficult to try to communicate…so I wish I could take it back. But I can’t. Live and learn, I’ll definitely not be going there again in the future.
That said, though I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, and in fact welcome open debate (it’s usually the best way to learn) this guy and I were never going to learn anything from one another and were in fact headed for a bad crash from his opening line:
“And as long as feminists like you waste so much time and energy on unimportant stuff like that, a lot of the real problems aren’t adressed.” (sic)
That is not the comment of someone that wants to talk about issues…that person is not open to debate. That person is open to exactly one thing – trying to take me down a peg and “learn me the error of my ways”…and I say this from years of experience now and MANY horrible hateful comments here and on She Has No Head.
Still, I wish I could take the children thing back – I didn’t mean it aggressively – but of course it would be taken that way and I should have realized it and held back.
However, in the end, he was banned not because he disagreed with me (or others) but because he was making threats and getting progressively more violent/aggressive. And the threats weren’t even made to me…so while I might have been able to give him a pass – out of guilt – thinking that he was retaliating at something I said and shouldn’t have – he was threatening others and that is just patently not acceptable here.
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Fair enough (is that the expression? I feel like Rocket Red some times).
oh, and by the way, it’s the second time you answer a comment of mine, and both times you got my name wrong! (Not that it acually bothers me, of course)
Thanks for the answer,
N.-
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@Nataniel: Apologies on getting your name wrong, I’ve corrected it above.
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