I had to stop reading the S Jae-Jones blog because I wanted to plant my fist in that WOMAN's face. And like I said in another entry, I so do not need to get arrested for that crap. Because that's what it is, crap.
If someone wants to infantilize themselves, that's fine, but trying to do it to ALL women of a certain age is just. Well, frankly, I want to say, "Ms Jae-Jones, your shackles are showing."
Plus, it presumes that you're supposed to feel like an adult. I know people who are in their 40's and 50's who don't know what they want to do with their lives (my mom is still contemplating going back to school and what career to be part of and whether she wants to take a new tack and what's her identity. She's had two damn kids, worked in HR for 20+ years and been married twice).
What the fuck is adulthood supposed to feel like anyway? Is there a little timer that goes off and says, "Ding! You're done! Immediacy over!"
I have yet to hear a man comment that he doesn't feel like an adult or that he doesn't refer to himself as a man.
Women still get this problem to THIS DAY. A 22-year-old male is a "guy" or "dude" or "man". But NEVER a boy. Yet women still get called a girl when they're 28. I've heard people say, "This 28-year-old girl". Seriously? Almost thirty and you still don't get the respect of being labeled a full adult?
Women of color especially have to fight this. One big racefail that went down a couple of months ago was a white woman who kept referring to two African-American ladies at a panel as "girls" - EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE IN THEIR LATE 30'S.
Because that's one thing, especially in the South, that whites did to keep people of color (namely blacks, but also sometimes Latino folks) down. They would call them "boy" or "girl", despite age. So that an 80 year old grandfather of eight would still be boy. And it was derrogatory and oppressive.
And seeing her want to pigeonhole women into that (because OBVIOUSLY THEY ARE ALL WHITE WOMEN) and think that the girl/woman dichotomy doesn't have some traumatic associations for people really makes me want to dole out knuckle sandwiches.
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Date: 2009-11-17 01:32 pm (UTC)If someone wants to infantilize themselves, that's fine, but trying to do it to ALL women of a certain age is just. Well, frankly, I want to say, "Ms Jae-Jones, your shackles are showing."
Plus, it presumes that you're supposed to feel like an adult. I know people who are in their 40's and 50's who don't know what they want to do with their lives (my mom is still contemplating going back to school and what career to be part of and whether she wants to take a new tack and what's her identity. She's had two damn kids, worked in HR for 20+ years and been married twice).
What the fuck is adulthood supposed to feel like anyway? Is there a little timer that goes off and says, "Ding! You're done! Immediacy over!"
I have yet to hear a man comment that he doesn't feel like an adult or that he doesn't refer to himself as a man.
Women still get this problem to THIS DAY. A 22-year-old male is a "guy" or "dude" or "man". But NEVER a boy. Yet women still get called a girl when they're 28. I've heard people say, "This 28-year-old girl". Seriously? Almost thirty and you still don't get the respect of being labeled a full adult?
Women of color especially have to fight this. One big racefail that went down a couple of months ago was a white woman who kept referring to two African-American ladies at a panel as "girls" - EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE IN THEIR LATE 30'S.
Because that's one thing, especially in the South, that whites did to keep people of color (namely blacks, but also sometimes Latino folks) down. They would call them "boy" or "girl", despite age. So that an 80 year old grandfather of eight would still be boy. And it was derrogatory and oppressive.
And seeing her want to pigeonhole women into that (because OBVIOUSLY THEY ARE ALL WHITE WOMEN) and think that the girl/woman dichotomy doesn't have some traumatic associations for people really makes me want to dole out knuckle sandwiches.