I'm Not Dead Yet!

Just packing for the return to school. It'll probably be a week or so before I start posting again.

So, summary:
- FOX is still evil.
- I don't care what people do in private, even if it was a mistake. I am referring, of course, to John Edwards' affair. I wanted to link to a news story on it, but couldn't find anything that didn't present more opinion than I thought necessary, so screw it.
- Michael Phelps is awesome and pretty hot, but the Olympics are still a ridiculously huge waste of airtime. I have not watched any of it this year; I wish I could say that it was a principled stand because of China's human rights record, but in all honesty, I just found myself not caring about it.
- You just can't talk the empire-building spirit out of some countries. Of course, our attempted colonialism of Iraq probably did not set the best example.

To everyone who told me I was crazy for supporting Edwards and Clinton, and for having misgivings about Obama:

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

I'm only laughing because otherwise I might cry.

Hope and change, indeed...Well, he's got the "change" part down. I'm not sure where the hope fits in, though. Perhaps I have to 'hope' that he's just doing this to get elected?

Even though I'm pretty sure that that violates his entire premise of 'change.'

Whatever.

Neil Gaiman on Novels, 'Graphic Novels,' Movies and More

So for those of you who don't know, Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite modern writers evah. I've read just about everything he's ever written, and some of the comic books (also known as graphic novels, the difference between which he goes into). If you haven't read Neverwhere, which is darkly humorous and really original, or American Gods, which mixes up mythologies in a really wonderful way for anyone who's ever loved the stories of the old gods, or the Sandman graphic novels, which are beautiful and dark and full of magic and mystery, you are completely missing out and need to go read one or all of them now. He also co-wrote the screenplays for the movie version of his novel Stardust and the 2007 Beowulf movie, if you saw those.

Anyway, long story short, he was interviewed on Google. It's fun stuff, full of jokes and back-story, and you should go watch it.



Cross-posted at WTF is a Hoosier?

Eep!

From Yahoo! News and the AP, McCain denies claim that he roughed up Sandinista:

Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., told a Mississippi newspaper that he saw McCain, during a trip to Nicaragua led by former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., grab an Ortega associate by his shirt collar and lift him out of his chair.

The Republican presidential contender, who is known for his hot temper, was questioned about the alleged incident at a news conference Wednesday here. He noted that at the time, he had been asked to co-chair a Central American working group in the Senate with Democrat Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and had made several trips to the region in that role.

"I had many, many meetings with the Sandinistas," McCain said. "I must say, I did not admire the Sandinistas much. But there was never anything of that nature. It just didn't happen."

His comments did not square with Cochran's detailed recollection of the alleged incident.

I love the "known for his hot temper" bit...Call it like it is, AP. McCain's a vicious, angry old bastard who'll go off at anyone for anything, and even the adoring MSM can't quite manage to paint him as the sweet ol' grandpa type, even if they've managed to ignore his divorcing his wife and mother of his two children to marry a beer heiress (despite her being a trollopy cunt) and numerous incidents of his using 'salty language' to and about other senators. And this guy...is actually in the race, and for some reason people respect him, or at least pretend to out of fear.

I hope to all things holy that Obama doesn't turn out to be Mondale II.

Cross-posted at WTF is a Hoosier?

RIP, George Carlin

George Carlin died yesterday. He will be greatly missed. He was both brilliantly funny and sharply insightful, a combination that is all too rare and incredibly important, and his nonstop questioning of authority and willingness to push at the limits of perceived acceptable humor were...well, inspirational. He was going to receive the Mark Twain prize in November, and I really can't think of a comedian more deserving of it. His wry humor and dedication to free speech and language were very much in Twain's tradition.

I first encountered his humor several years ago, in the book aisle at Target. I used to hang out there while my mom was shopping; one day I picked up one of his books, Napalm and Silly Putty, and proceeded to giggle like a maniac for the next 15 or 20 minutes. After a few minutes my mom came to join me; she picked up another copy and laughed with me. People were giving us very strange looks and hesitating to enter the aisle; we probably looked like deranged maniacs, but we weren't. He was just that funny.

Here's one of my favorite clips, a monologue on the Ten Commandments. You may or may not have heard it, but take a few minutes to watch it and mourn his loss.



Cross-posted at WTF is a Hoosier?

Sweet Jesus, I Hate Spammers

So some jackass got hold of my school email address and used it to send spam to roughly a hundred people that I've never met or dealt with at all, most of them affiliated with universities. Still don't know who, how or why, though I have my suspicions.

I am still getting the Delivery-Failure messages. There were, oh, sixty or so yesterday? And another 20 or so today. It's rather tiresome, and if I find out who it was I may be forced to deal with this Pulp-Fiction style; i.e., with great vengeance and furious anger. I think this qualifies as iniquities of the selfish.

Never have I wished so much that I believed that people like that would pay for their actions in another life.

I Am Not Crazy

I'm tired of indulgent looks and whacked-out stares every time I mention gender equality. The former says, "Oh, look at her, going on about her crazy feminist things again. Smile and nod and maybe she'll shut up soon and realize just how good women really have it." The latter simply screams, "You're a crazy man-hating feminist. I'm going to go cover my balls now in case you try to cut them off because of your man-hating."

And since today is Blog for Fair Pay Day, and I'm a teenage girl looking for a summer job and trying to wait out one of the worst economies we've had in a long time in the Ivory Tower of educational institutions, I'm going to address one of my soapbox points. Because I'm not crazy, and I'm not a man-hater, but I damn well am a feminist.

See, about 45 years ago -- wow, that's a long time; my mom would've been, let me see, twelve years old -- Congress passed something called the Fair Pay Act. It basically says that people that do the same work should get paid the same. Specifically, it addressed gender inequality. Sounds like a good deal, right? You know, fair?

Well, it still hasn't happened. In 1970, seven years after the act was passed, women working full-time received an average of 63 cents for every dollar their male counterparts made.

In the 38 years since then, women have gotten a pay increase of 14 cents. That is to say, women working full-time now receive an average of 77 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make. To give you an idea of other advances made in those 38 years:

Since 1970, the life expectancies of women in developing countries have been increased by 15 to 20 years.

In 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court.

In 1990, a woman named Sue Hendrickson discovered the largest and most complete T. rex skeleton to date.

Starting around 1970, mortality rates of all cancers (except lung) began declining slightly. Since 1990, all cancer mortality rates have gone down even more steadily.

In 2006, Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House.

Women currently comprise 56 percent of college attendees. This number is expected to rise.

We have a woman running for president of the United States -- and she actually has a chance.

And yet we still aren't paid as much. We're just as competent. We do the same jobs as men, work the same hours, put forth the same effort. And still, we're shut out of upper-management positions and promotions; we still make about 75 percent as much as men.

So, guys, don't fucking tell me I'm being crazy. You know what? When you've experienced what it's like to grow up female in a society that treats you as intrinsically inferior to the men around you just because of your gender, when you've had to felt the effects of that sexism even with all your other advantages in life - being born white, middle-class, with an intelligent and inquisitive parent who actively participates in your education - and still known that you'd make less money than men around you, when you've faced condescending attititudes and conflicting media messages and objectification just because you have body parts guys think they're entitled to, and been expected to just accept it because you're so much better off than women in fucking Syria or the Sudan, then you can talk. Until then, just put up and shut up, because I'm not going to until equal pay for equal work is reality.

I don't hate men in general. But I'm really tired of the deniers out there, male AND female. Because these inequalities exist. Statistically, realistically, they exist. And until everyone acknowledges them and agrees that we all need to do something about them, the human race is screwed, because a good half of it is viewed by a sizeable portion of the whole as inferior to the other half. And that's not a healthy status quo.

I Can't Believe This Exists

So I was wandering through IMDb -- one of my favorite websites ever, in case you didn't know -- searching for Vampire Hunter D to see if it was worth seeing, and this came up in my search results.

I looked once.

I looked again, because it was too totally unreal.

My eyes were not tricking me.

There really is a movie called "Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter." And yes, it is a musical -- because what else would a movie about Jesus Christ killing vampires be? The tagline is as follows:

"The first testament says 'an eye for an eye.' - The second testament says 'love thy neighbour.' - The third testament ... Kicks Ass!!"

I don't know whether it's any good. I seriously doubt it is. But I absolutely have to see it, if only because the title makes me laugh just thinking about it.

So, question: What is the one movie that you knew for a fact was going to be bad, but had to see anyway? And the follow-up, why did you have to see it?

Cross-posted at WTF is a Hoosier?

What Do You Think? No, Really.

Every so often, I feel the need to plug this using every social networking and blogging device available to me. It's a web survey-thing of Harvard's called "Project Implicit." Basically, you take sorting tests over one of a variety of subjects and it measures your subconscious preference for one thing over another. The featured test right now is over presidential candidates and it's pretty interesting, but they're all thought-provoking. Go and take the tests and discuss the results. Do you agree with them? Do you think the test is flawed? What were YOUR results?

Cross-posted at WTF Is A Hoosier?

Sweet Jesus, I Hate Dick Cheney

And all he stands for.

More reports of female contractors being raped by male co-workers and servicemen. This one was published in The Nation and features a KBR worker. KBR is a subsidiary of Halliburton. The "dispute-resolution program" her case apparently falls under, which is making it nearly impossible for this woman to get the justice she deserves, was put in place under our charming Vice President.

Go read the story -- or as much as you can. I can't really add anything to it, except to say that if it does not sicken and infuriate you, you are not a human being.

Cure Breast Cancer -- So Horny Frat Boys Can Grope Them!

I probably should have written this long ago. I was just far too angry.

About a month ago, for about two weeks, I had to pass a fraternity on my way to class every day. Every day, I was left irritated on good days, furious on bad, because of the banner across the front of it. "Save Second Base," it proclaimed in large black letters, while below two hands groped a pair of disembodied breasts in a pink bikini top. It was meant to draw attention to a fundraiser that the fraternity was doing in partnership with a campus sorority, the same one that sold pink "Save Second Base" t-shirts in the spring -- pink with white, six-inch-high letters that at least ten people were wearing in every lecture I attended. The shirts bothered me then, and still do, but the banner was worse. It simply personifies all the things that bothered me about this campaign.

The first and biggest problem with this angle is that apparently the entire point of wiping out breast cancer is to give boys something to fondle. Simply put, it reinforces the notion that women's breasts exist for men's entertainment. It's bad enough that any woman with a bra bigger than a B-cup is apparently a free target for ogling. It's bad enough that that's considered acceptable behavior in some circles. But for women to reinforce that, especially women fundraising for a disease that is at best stressful, painful, and depressing and at worst deadly, makes me queasy.

The floating breasts on the banner bothered me, too. It's dehumanizing. Again, it serves to reinforce the idea that breasts exist for men's entertainment and pleasure, but it also effectively removes the woman from the picture, or identify her solely by, again, something that in their minuds exists for men's pleasure. As a human being, I find it personally offensive. It makes me want to refuse to show mine to anyone, ever again, just on the off chance that they're as big a jackass as the makers of that banner.

My great aunt fought and beat breast cancer. I've participated in Relay For Life. I care about fighting breast cancer, but not at the cost of giving up my right to be seen as a person. And it upsets me that others feel like it's necessary to give up those basic rights in order to find a cure, because it isn't. It really isn't. There are thousands, millions of talented, dedicated, caring people who want to find a cure for cancer and who don't need the titillation of squeezing a boob to be motivated to do that. I refuse to believe that that group doesn't include the majority of men, even adolescents. Give them some fucking credit and stop pretending it's about feeling someone up, because it isn't. It's about helping people that are in pain and can't do anything about it for themselves, not taking away their dignity and humanity too.

Things I Like, March 26 Edition

1. Ben Folds and Ben Folds Five. I don't care who thinks he's overrated, he's one of my geek heroes.

2. High-speed internet.

3. xkcd.

4. Gosford Park. I'd forgotten how much I fucking love this movie. The characterization is fantastic, the casting is unbelievable -with Helen Mirren, Derek Jacobi, Clive Owen, Maggie Smith, Stephen Fry, and Ryan Phillipe, among others- and the dry humor is brilliant. I really can't think of enough superlatives to describe it, so just go watch it right now.

5. The Goops' cover of "Build Me Up Buttercup." It's the one played in Mallrats. This is the movie tie-in music video, featuring Jay and Silent Bob (duh).




6. Sleep.

7. Cats.

8. The Garden State soundtrack. Even if the movie wasn't great, its awesome soundtrack would compensate.

9. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

10. Doctor Who and Torchwood.

But They're Just Helping Out!

Every bit of angry union brat in me is screaming.

I hate the contractors in Iraq. Hate. Blackwater and Halliburton and all of them...and it isn't just because I'm opposed to the war. Their incompetence and endangerment of lives fills me with a deep and righteous fury.

Wow

Hillary won Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas. At least, that's the way it's going, and most of the votes are in. The race just got way more interesting again.

Oh, and McCain's the Republican candidate. Hands up, anyone who's shocked.

Update

Apparently Charlotte Allen really was just being "tongue in cheek." At least, that's her editor's take on the matter.

Dear Charlotte Allen:

Read this.

Please note the parts on insincerity, irony, and whimsical exaggeration.

Better use of this, minus statistics -- not typically considered insincere, ironic, or whimsical, despite possible flaws in their collection methodology -- might convince people you have an actual sense of humor.

Until then, stick to your usual column, without attempting to be funny. It may be bad, but at least we can tell when you're being serious. We think.

Sincerely,
Dark Matter

Cross-posted at WTF Is A Hoosier?

Shamelessly Nerdy Comic Book Plugs:

1. Red Son. What if Superman landed in Soviet Russia as a baby and was raised as a Communist? Red Son sets out to answer this question, and the result is a beautifully complex example of what comic books can be and why they deserve a lot more consideration and attention than they get. It would've been really easy to write this as an absolute dystopia, to revert to Cold War thought and portray Communism as pure evil. Thankfully, the authors choose not to. Rather, their alternate reality is carefully constructed and explores the consequences of a true Cold War superpower surprisingly thoughtfully. I heard rave reviews and was admittedly skeptical. Now I just wish there was more, which is impressive given that as a general rule I don't like Superman at all, for a number of reasons. This, however, portrays him in a way that makes much more sense.

2. Runaways. One of the newer Marvel franchises, it has (as per usual) cool superheroes and an interesting premise: In LA there is a group of 12 supervillains called The Pride, comprised of six couples. Each has a child that is unaware of their parents' secret identities; then, one night, the children witness their parents sacrificing an innocent girl in their basement, in-character. Horrified, the six run away, discovering in the process their own superpowers. From there, they decide to avenge the wrongs of their mothers and fathers. Their efforts are hampered, however, by a traitor in their midst, whose identity isn't revealed until the second volume. The Marvel Civil War crossover comic between the Runaways and the Young Avengers is awesome, too.

3. Marvel Civil War. Holy Jesus, there are a lot of these, but all that I've read are awesome. You don't have to really know a lot about comic books to get most of it, either, which is good for noobs like myself who rely on the recommendations of more experienced people for good comics.

4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 8. Joss Whedon = God. That is all.

5. Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Really more of a graphic novel series, but awesome graphics and beautiful, complex, deep, dark storylines full of mythology and drama. Love, love, love.

6. Freshmen. Recommended to me by my main source for all things comic book-y and awesome, this particular one was co-created by Seth Green. If Joss Whedon wasn't already God, Seth Green would be. This is hilarious, if only because the characters have some of the most creative powers ever: One can put people under the influence with his burps, as long as he is under some influence himself; another has squirrel-like agility and can glide through the air; a third can literally talk to plants -- and hear them talking. It's brilliant.

Cross-posted at WTF Is A Hoosier?

Hey All...

So William F. Buckley Jr. died about a week ago. I can't really say anything positive about him, except that I liked reading about Augustus Gloop every so often. Actually, that's a lie. Augustus Gloop was sort of a gross and scary poem and it definitely wasn't good pre-bed reading for small children unless you want to promote nightmares about small boys exploding, and even if you were older it was sort of disturbing. But some of the other stories in The Book of Virtues were okay, if you ignored all the boring ones and the really moralizing ones, which knocked out most of them. That's really the only positive thing I can say about him.

Apart from that, well, there is this singularly moronic post by a Washington Post columnist named Charlotte Allen, whose premise in this can be boiled down to one sentence: Women are physically and mentally weak. I really genuinely hope this is a joke, but with samples like this:

I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say, "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?

I really have to wonder.

In case you wondered, the "episodes" she refers to are maybe a dozen reports of women fainting at Obama rallies, which she attributes entirely to their response to his manliness and not to, you know, the stress of standing for hours at a crowded campaign rally. I'd be willing to bet that a few men passed out, too, but given that it's largely hearsay anyway, who really knows?

The worst part is that she goes on like that for two pages. Women suck, women are weaker, women are bad drivers, women are emotional, women are bad at math, if we're better at anything than men it's entirely because of evolution, intelligent motivated influential women are "outliers," and we should be happy just to sit at home and accept that we can have happy and fulfilling existences by focusing entirely on making a happy home for the men around us, even though we're "kind of dim."

I really, really, really hope that it's satire. It's just a bit too convincing. The only argument in favor of the satire explanation is that she hasn't resigned her job so that some apparently better-suited male can have it while she goes home to bake chocolate chip cookies and make floral arrangements.

Music Rant...Because Politics Isn't Enough

I don't really have any political rants today because, well, fuck it, I'm basically just exhausted with it. It looks like Obama's doing well. Maybe one of these days I'll go into my issues with him and with Hillary and why I'm probably going to vote for Hillary anyway (given the opportunity), but not today. Today is for relaxation and getting excited about the Ben Folds concert tonight, so I figure I'll spend some time ranting and raving about the bands I've been listening to recently.

So I don't think I search out really obscure bands; anytime someone hasn't heard of my music it's because it's old or French. I'm not really into a music 'scene,' or whatever the kids are calling it these days, but I do enjoy new stuff. I just count on a select few people to give it to me. One of those people is my maternal uncle, who has excellent taste, and he recently sent me a link to The Detroit Cobras' MySpace page. I'm glad I made an exception of my MySpace ban rule for them, because they're pretty much kickass. The Cobras are a relatively unknown indie garage rock band (out of Detroit, weirdly enough) and their energy and enthusiasm is downright contagious. Their songs are catchy; basically, the sound is pure Detroit, blues and soul and punk mixed together, although the closest thing to them is probably early White Stripes -- think the title album or maybe De Stijl. It's awesome. The band members are women, too, and the lead singer sounds almost like Janis Joplin, which is an incredible compliment.

Another (for once, comparitively obscure) musical obsession is an Irish band out of Dublin called The Frames. I heard about them somewhere online -- fuck if I remember where -- and I knew the movie Once starred their lead singer, Glen Hansard. So I figured I'd check out the movie, see if he was good, and go from there. As it happens, Once is a brilliant movie -- sweet and human and real in a way that is very rare anymore -- and has one of the single best soundtracks I've ever heard. So I downloaded some Frames and I was hooked. They're really pretty hard to describe; they don't exactly have a rough sound, but it has an unfinished quality that is oddly endearing. They opened for Bob Dylan in Australia, if that's any indication of style and quality. The weird thing is that they've been around sinced 1990, which makes me feel incredibly cheated -- I could've been listening to them for years already.

Also, due to the concert (tonight! I'm psyched), I've been listening to a lot of Ben Folds and Ben Folds Five. For snarky angry white-boy piano rock, he really can't be beat. He does sad songs and love songs well, too, so he's basically the total package. I've heard that he's even better live, which makes me feel all happy and squirmy inside.

And because all the other stuff is...too staid?...I've been listening to some techno-y electronica dance stuff, mostly just songs here and there that I've heard in movie soundtracks or elsewhere. Among these are "Thé à la Menthe," by Nikkfurie (if you saw Ocean's Twelve, it's the song that played during the laser dance scene, a.k.a. the best scene in the whole movie); "Strange Ways," by Moby (it was played during the credits of all three Bourne movies); "Harder, Faster, Stronger, Better," by Daft Punk (I have no excuse for this one, it just happened); and "Danse Macabre," by Saint-Saens (played during the opening and closing credits of Jonathan Creek, this is actually a very memorable classical piece with an spiralling violin section that blows my mind every time I hear it). I've also been listening to some jazz, blues, and pop stuff, if only because I listen to music nearly constantly and it just happens.

So go check all those things out.

Update

The more obvious the media makes it that it wants to have McCain's babies, the more I loathe him.

I already lost all respect for him when he said that he'd commit suicide if the Democrats took over Congress in 2006, then failed to follow through...promises, promises.

So I feel like I should point something out:

John McCain is not a maverick. Look at his voting record, for Chrissake. He toes the party line at almost every opportunity.

I should also point out that his voting record wasn't hard to find. Project Vote Smart is all over that shit. Google "voting record John McCain." It's the first result and it's a matter of public record. There's no excuse for this kind of deliberate misrepresentation of reality by something that exists ostensibly to inform the public, and frankly, it's insulting.

Shit

Shit, shit, shit. And did I mention shit?

Oh, McCain, let me count the times I loathe thee...because sometimes I really do.

Like now. Now would be one of those times.

Click for larger image (of course).

Feminism

Every other day, on my way to class, I walk by a graduate student's office. This particular graduate student is a grumpy one, judging by the many grumpy clippings on the door; among these is one written by a political columnist about Ann Coulter. The journalist in question is not a right-wing nut job, so she has a headline that (perhaps a bit redundantly) refers to Ann Coulter as shrill. The article is lazy, I'll admit. Ann Coulter columns practically write themselves anymore; she is so widely acknowledged as Batshit Crazy that to comment on it is almost blasé. (That's not to say that much of that commentary isn't entertaining. It is. Especially Al Franken's.)

However, that's not what I set out to discuss. I started this post to discuss two of the comments the graduate student (female) has written in the margins of the clipping. One is "Expose the haters!!!" and the other is "Tell me one positive thing feminists have to say about men" (Underlines hers).

I've already addressed the first comment, in that I have stated that everyone except Sean Hannity and most other Fox News peions (and, to my enduring sorrow, Bill Maher) agrees that Ann is about as disgusting on both physical and intellectual levels as the rotting corpse of Josef Goebbels. At the very least, they agree that she's a loose cannon of vitriol and hate without a bit of intellectual honesty or integrity, or basic research skills, or fundamental acknowledgement of reality. In that respect, everyone sane is a hater, so I don't think I really need to address that crap.

I assume that the article is about Coulter being an anti-feminist; I haven't actually read it, firstly because I don't have time and secondly because I read liberal news blogs and and am thus completely familiar with all the arguments against Ann Coulter. But the graduate student is clearly in sympathy with Ann Coulter, and has the same misconceptions about feminists. This is inherently sad, because as a woman, she of all people should be aware of what feminists really are and believe.

Sure, there are man-hating feminists. I'd be lying if I said they didn't exist. But they are usually what they are because they have been fucked over even more than most women by a society that values men's labor over women's, men's words over women's, and constantly belittles women in public forums. We are reduced to sexual objects for men's entertainment; we're expected to be able to do more for less pay. How many working mothers do you know? How many earn less than their male counterparts at work, but are expected to perform at the same levels despite societal expectations that they raise children and manage a home as well? (I'll give you a hint: the average salary of women is 76.9 percent of the average men's salary. This could in part be due to the fact that more women work minimum wage jobs, but female executives have more trouble advancing in the workplace and are routinely paid less than their male counterparts. The numbers I have seen, in fact, mostly range from 60 to 80 percent.)

But because we're allowed to vote now and hold jobs that were traditionally considered 'male,' we're expected to suck it up. Those of us that don't are called "feminists." We simply hold the belief that women and men are equal. We have some anatomical differences, but we're just as human and just as capable. For the most part, feminists aren't interested in insulting men or 'trampling them down,' despite the dearly held beliefs of groups like the Men's Rights Movement. We just want society to stop winking and nudging whenever women are belittled or treated as less than equals, which happens all too often. We want the respect that we've fucking well earned by fighting society's blatant bullshit for the last two hundred years in this country.

Some of the most vocal feminists are men. And we don't have negative things to say about men. Or positive things. That's the point. We don't treat "Men" as one giant amalgous group with the same thoughts and feelings about everything. We want the same treatment from society in general, from sexist men and sexist women like Ann Coulter (who thinks that women shouldn't be allowed to vote). So yeah, I acknowledge that feminists don't feel the need to praise men nonstop. But that's because we don't need to. Society give tacit approval to anything they do. Whenever it doesn't, some asshole starts bitching and moaning and giving the reasonable ones a bad name. And yet when we point out that we're paid less or face workplace sexism or are encouraged to have unhealthy body types or are expected to work as baby making machines, as if we have no autonomy whatsoever and a fetus -- something without the ability to exist independently, without free will, without a brain or a heart or compassion or creativity or any of the many things that make us human -- has equal legal standing, we get a bad name and are treated like shrill, hysterical crazy people. I mean, that's pretty fucking insulting, don't you think?

So, in answer to the graduate student's question: I have plenty of positive things to say about men, particularly those I know personally. I respect a great many of them. My problem isn't with men as a group; it's with members of society -- again, male AND female -- that feel entitled to treat me as less than human, somehow less than them. They have a massive superiority complex which righteously pisses me off.

And yeah, most of them are men. But feminists aren't anti-men. If we were, our Latin name would be "Antimasculinism." It isn't. We're pro-women, pro-women's-rights, and pro-equality for men and women. We aren't asking for more pay; we're asking for equal pay for equal work. We're asking to not be treated as objects of sexual entertainment everywhere we go. We're asking to be considered capable of making decisions for ourselves.

That's all.