Mordant Belle

I am shamelessly ripping off from one of my textbooks, which is in turn ripping off (less shamelessly, per subcontracting) from Beth Bailey in From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America (1988)*.

I have heard many people recently dismissing the influence of society and popular culture, saying it doesn’t really affect us as individuals, or that it doesn’t have to (the old myth of the meritocracy and individuality: we choose to be influenced, HA). This small excerpt explains why this is not the case. Even if you choose not to follow the national culture, and limit its influence in your own life, it still affects you. This is why:

“The national culture defines conventions and lends meaning and coherence to individual experience.”

This is why national trends matter, why they affect and impact your life even if you defy them. This is why it is not enough to simply say, “I am not opressed/repressed” or “I am not sexist” and take no further action.

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Posit by Mellryn: Marriage sucks. Not necessarily for the guy, but almost definitely for the gal.

The Devil’s Advocate in Mellryn’s brain: But how do you know marriage sucks? You’ve never been married.

Mel: I’ve never been in a car wreck either, and I don’t need to be, in order to know that car wrecks suck. It is a simple conclusion based on my observations of car wrecks and hearsay about other car wrecks. In virtually every instance I’ve seen personally and heard others talk of, being married ruins the relationship.

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In honor of my new commitment to mature feminist dialog, I feel ccompelled to bring you this lovely insight from xckd.com:

In a burst of needed rebirthing, I have marked all my previous posts private and begun anew. What started out as a personal journal of feminism burbled into blinding silence, mostly because when I went back and looked at what I wrote that seemed so edgy, rebellious, and outrageously unheard of before now just seems like the shallow observations of a reasonably frustrated teenage girl. Which I was at the time, so I suppose that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

But I don’t think my previous postings reflect the true depth of awareness I’ve ascended to in the past few short months. Maybe I’ll bring them back one day…they were good, just…shallow. Young. And yeah, maybe I am young, though I’m vain enough to think I’m not that shallow, but there’s so much MORE to what other feminist bloggers are saying, so much more substance, that it inspired me to “take it to the next level”.

Sure, it’s irritating to seem to be forced to choose between being attractive and being taken seriously. Sure, it sucks when guys catcall and make boobs comments and evaluate my looks, even if I don’t know who the fuck they are. And yes, I still get pissed off when a girl says she’s “fat” because she can manage to pinch some skin between her fingers.

But honestly, that’s just the feminism springboard. I’m now diving headfirst into the pool.

I have declared my Women’s Studies major.

And I’m going to use as many horribly cliché metaphors as I possibly can. Bwa ha ha ha.