Please welcome our new contributer, Professor Daddy

Guys, I've realized that for too long this little low (no)-budget corner of the internet has languished because it's missing something incredibly important: a Man's perspective. All the feminist rants, the snarky movie blogging, the energy drink-fueled ramblings--completely pointless because of how they spring from the tragically underdeveloped brain of a Lady. (An incredibly unladylike lady at that.) Luckily for all of us, a Man has offered to help masculinize this here blog. But he's not just doing me a favor, he's offering to give you, yes YOU, little lady, some manly life advice. I present to you: Professor Daddy with his new column, Professor Daddy Sez.

He sez so many smart things, you guys.

Professor Daddy is a white American dude (but he's WORKED to get where he is) with the unique qualifications of being both a professor and a father, which means he knows A Lot. "Don't be intimidated by my vast knowledge and expertise of life and also all other topics, gals. Let's not be too formal: you can call me Daddy. Professor Daddy." ISN'T HE A CHARMER? All he needs is your questions! Life dilemma? Etiquette conundrum? General lack of knowledge? JUST NO FASHION QUESTIONS, THIS IS A MAN'S ADVICE COLUMN, OKAY? Send 'em my way and I'll get Prof. Daddy on the case. But not, like, in a nagging way.

Nobody can tell you what you should do like Professor Daddy can tell you. And he will. Authoritatively.

Energy Drink Review: Xyience Xenergy Mango Guava

This is what it looks like.

Many moons ago, I reviewed some other Xyience Xenergy beverage and found it quite to my liking. I was at Kowalski's the other day and saw that unlike everything else in that store, the Xyience drinks were on sale for quite a good price and I bought a couple because I have my comprehensive exams/have to go to work this week and I have a caffeine problem. "Mango guava" sounded delicious, so I'm starting with that flavor. Important to note that Xyience is apparently the Official Energy Drink of the UFC, which is kind of funny since I always considered Xyience one of the less blatantly-soaked-in-testosterone energy brands.* This was an erroneous conclusion on my part. Clearly.

Flavor: Delicious! Mango and guava are definitely a marked difference over all the Red Bull clones out there (which, as I frequently mention, I do actually like). Not too sweet, though. Apparently this drink also has zero calories and is sugar free.

Effectiveness: Because 2093875897 people called today and at least 1/3 of them were irate, I have been very busy and my drink lasted longer than usual because of doing stuff. It was effective and delicious to the last drop. Because I drank it over about three hours, no crazy high, but definite alertness. But it has been a terrible day at God's Work and all y'all should just remember that a receptionist is just a receptionist who cannot force people to answer their extensions or listen to their voicemail or return your calls. Or you could just get pissed off at the one person who has to answer the phone every time. That's cool. /Passive-aggressive receptionist rant

This sexy punchy Xyience/MMA lady demonstrates how irate callers make me feel. Minus the sexy.

OVERALL: RECOMMENDED. Now go be nice to somebody who works at a front desk. They have probably been yelled at recently.

*Its former CEO has some exciting legal problems!

Energy Drink Review: Knockout Energy

Photo of this ridiculous can found here. Mine says "$1.00" on it, so clearly it's gone up in value recently.

Guys, remember when I wrote that master's thesis* about energy drinks and masculinity? It's because of products like this: Knockout Energy. Isaac and I were recently shopping at Cub Foods, where apparently they carry weird random off-brand energy drinks. This one was only $1! ("Plus tax to the Man," as the can says--apparently this energy drink is not just violent but also your douchey libertarian college roommate.) The can of course features a fist with those brass knuckles things, which may indicate how my gut is going to feel after drinking a 16-ounce can of this.

The website tells me that Knockout's motto is "Respect all, fear none" (but with less punctuation). You can even buy a t-shirt or a cute pink lady tank top featuring a brass be-knuckled fist! This is clearly my next wardrobe acquisition. Anyway, to the drink!

FLAVOR: It's generic citrus-y energy drink. Not a flavor I mind at all.

EFFECTIVENESS: Instead of waiting until my break mid-afternoon, I decided to open the drink shortly after arriving at my Blessed desk. So I was still pretty wakeful from, you know, waking up and riding my bike a couple of miles to work. It definitely is enhancing my energy levels, though, and I'm feeling a little giddy, but I have no one to talk to. I will have to make somebody G-chat with me or something because I am getting antsy. (In a good way, I'd say.) Good energy boost, but not so much that I think I won't be able to sleep tonight or anything. Though who am I kidding, I just realized the Korean drama I'm watching has ten more episodes than I thought it did, so I probably won't be going to bed before 5 or 6 a.m. all weekend anyway.

RECOMMENDED. Cheap but effective. Nothing fancy. Do remember to pay your taxes to the Man, please.

*I will never stop shilling that shit.

Two items of business

1. I made a preview/outtakes vid for the French Toasted Tuna Sandwich recipe of the I Love America Diet:



2. Via Shakesville's Quote of the Day by Herman Cain:

"The more toppings a man has on his pizza, I believe the more manly he is."
 
As a former Godfather's Pizza employee, I have to say that it wasn't very manly when we got trained to count how many pieces of pepperoni we could put on each pizza or when we had to weight how much cheese we used. Holding back our masculine expression by limiting how many toppings we could put on was BULLSHIT, H.C.  Bullshit.

UPDATE: Here's that awkward Pat Robertson old man exercising clip Will references in the video:

Pat Robertson Presses 2000 Lbs. - Watch the top videos of the week here

In which I just use a Gchat I had with Isaac to fill up a post with our tasteless, America-hating jokes

Isaac: It's never a bad idea to have cupcakes on hand.
I think they're trying that in Afghanistan to short circuit the insurgency.
me: how's that working out?
doesn't sound very manly
mcchrystal must've hated that shit
Isaac: It's just more of that faggy French crap, but apparently Obama is all about the baked goods.
me: gross
that shit softens you
like a flaccid you-know-what
Isaac: Srsly bro.
You know what doesn't?
Killing civilians.
Also, landing on aircraft carriers.
me: let's go run 0198734 miles before sunrise
and then insult our powerful boss in a music magazine
Isaac:Woah, that shit was off the record.
Where is your sense of journalistic ethics?
me:don't got 'em
not a real man
my word don't mean shit
Isaac: I usually beat my stories out of people, but apparently that's frowned upon.
me: limp wristers
Isaac: I KNOW.
This country was founded on robustly wristed men.
me: the founding fathers spent their time chopping down fucking cherry trees, writing constitutions, and doing wrist curls
Isaac: Also, 12 oz. curls.
me: 12 ounces of BEER?
Isaac: AMERICAN beer.
I think their brand was Old Milwaukee, actually.
me: even before the city existed, that's how badass they were
Isaac: "Yeah, we'll conquer that shit soon enough. Name it that."
me: I know, right?
Isaac: Such foresight.
Does that mean there's an "Old Baghdad" coming out soon?
me: oh, it exists
manufactured and available only in the green zone, though
Isaac: Fucking Green Zone.
That seems like it should be a limited edition patriotic version of Mountain Dew.
me:comes in red white and blue stripes
!
Isaac: I'm a little concerned about those hippie socialist extreme sports kids on their roster, though.
me: srsly
in my day, we played baseball, football, or lynching
none of these namby-pamby "board" sports
Isaac: Donald Rumsfeld was actually the captain of his high school lynching team.
me: obvs
Isaac: He was also part of the Blackface Revue show choir, I think.
me: it's a national tragedy that those competitions are dying out
I think "Glee" should cover this important issue
Isaac: I think Finn would look sharp as a Sambo character.
me: oh god
btws, today's chat is pretty awesome and I'm thinking about using selected passages as a blog post
Isaac: Use away.

In which I substitute my own Facebook updates for an actual post

How could you resist a trailer like that?

Over the weekend I was awoke to find that Isaac was watching a film from the stellar Patrick Swayze Collection he bought for $5 at Wal-Mart when we were really supposed to be buying wedding soda in massive quantities but were drawn in by the cheap movies also. I was grateful it was not "Red Dawn" (because it is so boring and terrible). Instead, it was a glorious 1986 sports classic that actually stars a young Rob Lowe (not that he ever ages anyway) with Swayze as the older brother-type mentor on a competitive junior hockey team or something. I think the moral of the story is that real men know how to fight bearded dudes on the ice, even if you think you shouldn't have to throw punches to win at hockey or at life. Or something. Anyway, partway through I started posting ridiculous things about the movie that my friends seemed to enjoy so I'm copying and pasting that shit here:

The pinnacle of masculinity is perfectly portrayed in a 1980s Patrick Swayze/Rob Lowe hockey movie.

"Just hit it, pillowhands." Now Rob Lowe's brother is teaching him to fight so he can avenge Swayze's head injury!

In the barn. Barn training montage!

Okay, now his dad is making him fight him on the ice.

[Matty: Oh my god. Please keep going.]

Though is apparently a junior league of some kind, Rob Lowe's arch rival appears to be at least 29 years old with a full beard.

Coach's pep talk: "All right, one period left. One period away from winning it all or losing to these miserable hackers with their shit-eating grins and their Saturday night wrestling tactics."

Rob Lowe scores again to tie it up, even while missing a tooth!

Beardy goes to the penalty box and Rob Lowe takes the penalty shot. Also, the rival goalie with the skeleton mask just did the splits to intimidate Rob!

Rob's got to prove to the coach that he can stay on and get the beardo in the last 3 seconds. "Watch your stick," the coach says.

Rob: "Let's go, pretty boy." They are jousting with their hockey sticks!

Dad, brother, coach, and team are so proud of Rob Lowe for punching the other guy out after the game was over.

Now he's kissing the girl despite all his facial injuries. I miss the beginning when he was being hazed through tequila shots and forcible balls-shaving.

BTW, I am so downloading this amazing soundtrack.

Also, Keanu Reeves made a cameo as the goalie and may or may not have been sporting a Russian accent. This shit is '80s sports movie gold.

I'm just going to copy and paste this to my blog and pretend I wrote a post.

William Henry Harrison: He Didn't Die of Hypothermia, People

You can thank Louis Daguerre for the existence of this photographic rendering. Gotta respect that schnozz, though. Big-nosers, unite!

There are probably a few things you know about William Henry Harrison.* They might be:

1. He refused to wear a coat during his inauguration and died of pneumonia a month later.
2. He was known as ol' "Tippecanoe" from his army days.
3. He was heavily invested in log cabin and hard cider society.

Well, my friends, I have done copious amounts of reading of the WHH Wikipedia entry and skimming a couple of others, and I am here to set the record straight about at least these three things:

1. Both of these facts are true, but medical science tells us that the first cannot have actually CAUSED the second.
2. This one is true. The name comes from the Battle of Tippecanoe against some Indians that launched Harrison to national fame. However, Harrison's federal forces only technically won--they were tactically outmaneuvered.
3. WHH was actually a richie richface who was not born in nor ever lived anywhere near a log cabin and who was so uncool that he claimed his brief foray into the distillery business had been a "sin" and led him to swear off alcohol forever.

These explanations and more on our William Henry Harrison journey below!

Willie was born to an aristocratic planter family in Virginia in 1773. He was the youngest of seven children and part of a great political dynasty. His father, Benjamin Harrison V (besides running a plantation) served in the Continenal Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, and eventually became the Governor of Virginia.Wihenry was bounced around to various fancy schools, even studying medicine for awhile, but educational funds dried up when his father died in 1791. Of course, the youngest Harrison now had to prove he was his own man, so he joined the army. He was stationed in Cincinnati and fought in the "Battle for Ohio" AKA "expel the Indians from this sweet acreage we want to farm and shit." William Henry Harrison was basically really awesome at being disciplined in the army, so he got lots of promotions. He worked his way up to lieutenant and served as an aide-de-camp** and was even a signatory of the Northwest Indian War-ending Treaty of Greenville. Because of that treaty, my lucky little white grad student ass has an Ohio to live in and fund my education. Sorry, Native American tribes who lived here first!

When his mother died in 1793, William inherited some 3000 acres and a few slaves, all of which he sold off to one of his brothers because he was too busy soldiering for that nonsense. Two years later, he met Anna Symmes, the daughter of a disapproving judge, with whom he eloped and eventually had ten children. Though nine of the kids actually lived into adulthood, Anna spent the majority of her marriage to William sick in bed, you know, pregnant. Anna's father eventually came around and gave them some land in what is now North Bend, Ohio, where they had a bit of a farm. Soon Bill embarked upon his seemingly inevitable political career when he was appointed as the Secretary of the Northwest Territory, where he was basically the acting governor most of the time.

Over the years, Wee Willie built up his local reputation through a successful horse breedery (gross) and became popular for his outspoken support of lower land prices to spur more immigration into the Northwest Territory.*** In 1799, he became a delegate to the House of Representatives (contrary to popular belief, not actually housed in a log cabin) for the territory. Even without official voting rights, Harrison managed to push through the Harrison Land Act, which helped make land easier to purchase in small parcels and divided Ohio from the new Indiana Territory (which encompassed what is now Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota). President John Adams nominated Harrison to be the new territory's governor, so WHH moved his family to Vincennes (now in southwest Indiana) and built a plantation-type house called "Grouseland," which doesn't really sound like somewhere you'd want to visit (note: not a log cabin). Anyway, once Jefferson came to power, he gave Harrison the authority to negotiate Indian treaties. The future prez presided over thirteen different treaties that ceded over 60 million acres of native lands to the United States. For some reason, these transactions were fraught with tension. Especially the notorious Treaty of Fort Wayne, which basically involved the Miami tribe selling off land to the U.S. that didn't really belong to them to begin with and various briberies and getting-drunk-of the various native factions. That pissed some Indian persons off, for some reason. Oh, also, Harrison totally tried to open up the territory to slavery but infamous slave-raper Thomas Jefferson blocked his efforts, for some reason.

Fact: the uniform was added later to this 1800 portrait, after that whole "war hero" thing happened.

Anyway, that whole Fort Wayne thing kind of blew up in Harrison's face a little bit when Shawnee Indian Tecumseh and his prophet brother were like, "Um, no you cannot have all this land." So they rode over to Grouseland and basically threatened Harrison with war and tried to get the various tribal groups to give up their Europeanized ways and unite against the white settlers before it was too late. Which was, you know, actually a good idea. Anyway, tensions tensions tensions and eventually Tecumseh had his own war named after him and Harrison was all gung-ho about armying against Indians again and their forces clashed at the Battle of Tippecanoe. Though the U.S. forces won, Harrison found himself at odds with the Department of War, and the battle raised stakes with Britain, who were strategically allying themselves with many of the involved Indian tribes in an attempt to cut off U.S. territorial expansion. The Tippecanoe battle made Harrison a national hero of sorts and, of course, earned him his nickname. This fighting kind of blended into what became the War of 1812 against Britain, and Harrison spent his time fighting Indians in Indiana and led the construction and naming of Fort Meigs right here in my neck of the woods (I have somehow not yet visited this historical site. Note to self...). Anyway, Hairyson and Tecumseh faced off again at the Battle of the Thames, where Tecumseh was killed. Following these victories, the Department of War basically demoted him, and he resigned in a huff, though he played a key role in postwar treaties.

His soldiering days finally behind him, Harrison served in the House of Representatives for real this time for Ohio, which was now a state. Then he served in the state senate, then lost some other races, but in 1824 was elected to the U.S. Senate and was lovingly known as "Buckeye" to his Ohioan constituents during his term of office. He then served as the minister to Colombia, which he totally thought was a trashy country. But that's probably only because he was too uptight to try the cocaine (Amirite? Colombia? Cocaine? Comedy gold, people.). After his South American diplomatic stint, Hankison settled back into life on the North Bend farm, not really earning much money, except when people wanted to write books about his life and paid him for the rights. Did you know that there were twelve entire books written about this man even before he was elected president? People apparently love to read about dudes who kill and defraud Indians. For awhile, to earn cash, he opened a corn and whiskey distillery, but because getting drunk seemed like too much fun, Harrison closed it down and repented of his grave transgression.

WHH ran for president for the first time in 1836 as the northern Whig candidate. The party was trying to head off the seemingly inevitable election of Jackson protege and heavily-nicknamed Martin Van Buren by running several different candidates, attempting to divide up the electoral college votes and force the contest into the House of Representatives, where the Whigs hoped to gain a majority. Needless to say, this plan failed spectacularly (they didn't even take the House). Luckily for our friend Billy, Van Buren's term of office came to be typified by his reputation as "Van Ruin," having presided over the disastrous economic Panic of 1837. So, Harrison decided to run again in 1840, this time with the Whigs united behind him. He ran on his heroic military record and played up his tough guy frontier reputation. His campaign touted log cabins and hard cider, which as we have seen, was pretty much the opposite of reality. He basically pulled a G.W. Bush, posing as a Jacksonian "common man" type, despite being born into a political dynasty with that old silver spoon in his mouth (I'm surprised more rich babies don't have gag reflex issues because of that). Here's a classic campaign song:

Old Tip he wore a homespun coat, he had no ruffled shirt-wirt-wirt,
But Matt he has the golden plate, and he's a little squirt-wirt-wirt!

Apparently "wirt-wirt" was the tobacco-spitting cue. Gross. Anyway, Harrison beat Van Buren in an electoral college landslide. Probably because of the tobacco song.

The only accurate thing about this campaign poster is WHH hanging out with military dudes. But SRSLY, anxious masculinity much?

March 4, 1841 was the day of Harrison's infamous inauguration. It was rainy, cold, and windy, but to keep up his old "Tippecanoe" rugged manly man image, he refused to wear a coat or a hat. He spoke for over two hours and then walked around in a parade. He did not immediately fall ill, however. As soon as he got into office, the man spent the vast majority of his time fighting off eager office-seekers and trying to convince influential Whig Henry Clay that he was not actually the co-president. On March 26 (NOTICE: three weeks AFTER the inauguration), Harrison got sick with a cold, which eventually turned into pneumonia. Unable to rid himself of the parade of spoils seekers, the president did not take off the appropriate time to get well. He basically got no rest, and even though doctors treated him with opium (awesome!), he never did recover. On April 4, 1841, William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia, jaundice (yellow!), and  septicemia (some sort of vaguely-defined blood inflammatory something or rather). His presidential reign lasted only 31 days. He was buried in Ohio while the executive branch of the government was thrown into a bit of a constitutional crisis with the ascendancy of Vice President Tyler, Too. Besides holding the record for the shortest term in office, Harrison was the first president to be photographed (as seen up top). Also, he has his own curse. Way to be so sickly, William Henry Harrison. At least your political legacy was carried on by your illustrious grandson and 23rd U.S. President Benjamin Harrison!


*If you are reading my blog I'm assuming you're at least a part-time history nerd and thus at least know he is a former U.S. president.
**Assistant to some fancy brass.
***Can you imagine anyone today trying to ENHANCE immigration?

Manly Man Man Commercials During Football but WHAT ABOUT THE (GIRL) CHILDREN?!

Covered all over the interwebz are discussions of the particularly pathetic and desperately misogynist commercials shown during this year's Super Bowl. Via Jezebel, I quite enjoyed this flow chart to analyze the masculinizing effects of television commercials. As Amanda Marcotte from Pandagon, puts it, these commercials would have us believe that modern masculinity is barely surviving a vagified assault. Heehee. VAGIFIED. That Dodge Ram Charger (ladybrains have trouble keeping track of all those different types of cars!) commercial ("Man's last stand") was so sad, I didn't even want to punch anyone. 'Cause I mean, SRSLY? Dear sirs: No one can MAKE you eat fruit or not act like an asshole in front of your girlfriend's parents, but they are generally advisable actions. Also, why is Dove marketing man-soap? But I digress. But anyway: the problem with the Super Bowl's "I'm a MAN" commercials is not so much that they are insulting to women (though they are) or even that they are insulting to men (which they most definitely are also), it's that a huge (inter)national media event like the Super Bowl reaches its icky, capitalist-fueled gendered message tentacles into the homes of millions: millions of CHILDREN. Though I do a kind of disgusting amount of research on the gendering of boys and the devastating effects of hegemonic masculine ideals enforced by peers, parents, and fucking football commercials on young men, I want to talk about the lady children. Yes: GIRLS. Though I am now a dirty, hairy-legged feminist academic elitist man-hater who is able to view cultural productions like advertising and pick apart the gendered messages therein and sometimes make oversimplified jokes to my gentleman consort like, "Get it? 'Cause [insert consumer good here] is totally like a PENIS!" I was once a young girl. Ahhh, those were the days.* (The following discussion is incredibly heteronormative, so sorry lovely gay readers, I am not quite so familiar with how gendered media messages fuck with your relationships too--or not! Feel free to lay some knowledge on me in the comments.) Growing up in my pre-ex-Mormon days as a kind of proto-feminist girl, the messages I received from role models, peers, and the media made me kind of terrified of men. And I don't mean in a child molester kind of way, though getting leered at by teens and adults while still in elementary school and reading too many of my mother's Woman's Day and Better Homes and Gardens magazines certainly made me aware of my inherent vulnerability to assault or abuse because of my gender. No no, I mean in a "I really like boys and I want to get married one day and hopefully have a boyfriend as soon as I'm allowed to date when I'm 16 and whatnot, but from what I understand, male people are assholes who are stupid, lazy, mean, and just want to fuck me." Though this sentiment probably manifested more as a kind of nebulous, anxious discomfort and with less swearing in my head. See, I have older brothers, and though they are far more masculinely gendered than really seems necessary, they are, after all, PEOPLE with all the complexity that that entails and I experienced the good and the bad the way you do with regular, three-dimensional humans growing up with them. My dad is also happens to be an awesome guy who clearly has feelings, cares about people, is very smart and competent, and appears to be the best kind of partner to my mother. So when my (kind of proto-feminist herself) mom would say things like, "[Mormon] men have to have the Priesthood because it forces them to help people." I thought, "WTF? Like dudes are incapable of caring about people or something? That doesn't jive with the masculine-identified human beings I am acquainted with." Something really rang false when responding to some friends and me talking about a teenage boy we knew being creepy to a younger girl, she said, "All boys care about is sex. If they didn't, they wouldn't ever want to get married and have kids." As much as I cringe at thought of my own our anyone else's parents' sexuality, I (internally) called bullshit even then. I'm pretty sure my dad WANTED to marry my mom and WANTED to have kids for other reasons besides being able to get it on. Gross. And though in elementary school the occasional asshole boy in my class would try and tell me girls were bad at such-and-such task, it always sounded particularly stupid since I was inevitably smarter than whoever was saying it and probably most if not all of the other kids in my class too and I assumed it was mostly motivated by jealousy. Don't worry, my self-esteem took the culturally-sanctioned nosedive at puberty. So while the sexist messages that got blatantly expressed didn't seem to gibe with reality, they caused me a good bit of anxiety (shock, shock). I knew plenty of stupid dudes, immature dudes, creepy dudes, etc., but I figured that any place before college wasn't really the place to find the semi-gender-nonconforming man of my dreams. I think being friends with/having crushes on/being like by so many cool dudes who ended up eventually coming out as gay helped me keep hope alive for men who did not adhere to the arrogant, violent, insensitive dude stereotypes I had been taught were the inevitable elements of masculinity. And though I've never gone for the manly-man type and they're not likely to go for me either, it did take me a few relationships to figure out that just because someone doesn't overtly present as super-masculine doesn't mean they don't buy into certain stereotypes of acceptable male behavior. Casual misogyny in the guise of intellectual arrogance, "irony," or complete inability to comprehend the emotional life of others does not a feminist man make. And while I realize everybody has their flaws and it is difficult to just shrug off our life-long gender training, it becomes clear, at least in retrospect that shit I put up with from men was due to (at least) these three factors:

1. Insensitivity, cluelessness, or even cruelty become self-fulfilling prophecies for men who grow up in a society in which these attributes are if not exactly encouraged, then at least tolerated as unalterable parts of the male psyche. Being a terrible and immature partner is CUTE and ENDEARING, see? Just ask Judd Apatow!
2. Male privilege insulates young men and boys from being called on certain behaviors that are unhealthy and I would say unacceptable in interpersonal relationships. Because jackassery has been tacitly or overtly condoned by parents, teachers, previous partners, and probably mostly male peers, many men think that being a jerk is the appropriate masculine performance for heterosexual relationships. Heaven forbid you become "pussy-whipped" and learn empathy! But can I just point something out? Acting like an asshole doesn't make you more of a man, it makes you more of AN ASSHOLE.
3. Perhaps most troubling, us ladies grow up if not exactly believing in these stereotypes in full, at least having been beaten over the head with them so often as to be complacent when they may be enacted in our real-life relationships. I put up with unacceptable treatment from male partners who were supposedly pro-feminist or at the very least "progressive" because I expected such behavior to a certain extent, and figured that at least they were liberal dudes who didn't REALLY hate women and I couldn't really do better anyway.

Do you see how these things are fucked up? Not only do we (the culture at large AKA advertising executives I HATE YOU ALL) stunt men emotionally and then encourage them to act out like whiny babies who are supposedly victimized and emasculated by the lady-run world that is tragically not just like an episode of Sports Center on loop, but we tell women that this is what men are "just like," that we should accept this, roll our eyes, and clean the toilet our own goddamn selves. NOBODY WINS IN A PATRIARCHY. Duh. And since changing the definitions of masculinit(ies) is a slow and difficult process, the least we could do is find a way to reach out to those young girls and women who are watching the Super Bowl (They exist! Shocking!) and teach them to critically read the media. Most importantly they need to know that they deserve better than what society wants to offer them in the form of romantic relationships. Because as man-hating as these commercials are, women are the ones who inevitably have to clean up the messes (emotional, household, etc.) caused by dudes who have soaked up the cultural stereotypes that allow them to be lazy and reckless because, hey, they can't help it. CARS PENIS STEREO HOT CHICKS FOOTBALL PORN ELECTRONIC GADGETRY BACON SEXBOTS EXPLOSIONS FAST CARS HAMBURGERS CONTROLLING WOMEN'S BODIES BEER CHIPS BEER CHIPS BEER CHIPS. *At 26, I still think of myself and most of my female friends as "girls" as opposed to "women" most of the time, but I would be pissed if someone who had power over me and/or I didn't like called me one. I think that's part of the reason I've latched onto "ladies"--it is kind of silly but still sounds more mature than "girls" without having to claim the full adulthood that "women" entails. I THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS, PEOPLE.

While I write my thesis, other people write funny things on the internet

Exhibit A: Jill induces us all to embark on a worthwhile experiment involving observing our fellow human beings. Predictably, the results of which culminate in the conclusion that "exceedingly few non-aborted fetuses become saintly millionaire football players." True. (I Blame the Patriarchy) Exhibit B: Josh's choice of comics to mock falls in line with my ongoing thesissary investigation into militarism and masculinity. Some highlights from the other day include: "[General Halftrack] secretly harbors fantasies of someday becoming a 147-star general." Ha! Also, " Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go wash my mustache for the next nine hours." Ha squared! Oh, the funnies. (The Comics Curmudgeon) And here I sit on the seventh floor of the library, half hyped on a random plastic 22-ounce bottle of Rockstar Punched (orange mango & passion fruit flavor) from a flat Isaac found a the Big! Lots!, copying and pasting things from other blogs in lieu of actually blogging and copying and pasting paragraphs and pages from old papers of mine into a document that will one day be the second chapter of my thesis (chapter one does not exist yet, either, mind you), entitled "Selling Masculinity, One Camouflaged Can of Soda at a Time: War and Gender in American Culture." I might insert "Post-9/11" in there somewhere. I have been known to throw around the term "post-post-9/11" also which totes sounds like something that would be included in a spoof of a humanities paper, but I recently read it in a published scholarly book so somebody else pulled the same term out of their ass and are apparently employable, so I am clearly a genius and will totally get 100 pages written in the next couple weeks, successfully defend my thesis at the end of February, and graduate in May on schedule. Also, I will have shiny, lustrous hair while I do it. I don't know why. I've had a lot of this Rockstar.* Better get back to poaching my own academic work now. Huzzah! I promise one day to return to the webernets on a semi-regular basis and write some silly presidential posts. *"What is going on up here?" -Charlie, It's Always Sunny, gesturing to head.

Masculinity and its bullshittiness (future children edition)

I can has?

Hey kids! Did you know that I am writing a thesis about masculinity, energy drinks, and militarism? Because I am! I often don't write about my academic work on here because a) I'd be tempted to just copy and paste my class or thesis work into a post and/or b) I don't want to talk about it anymore after writing a fucking proposal in which I have to very clearly justify why I am doing such a project and/or c) I assume that I just talk about it a lot and all y'all know me in real life and are tired of hearing about it or will be soon and/or d) I would like my blog to not feel like homework. But anyway, I have a master's degree that I will hopefully be finishing up in the next six months with a submitted proposal and many PhD program applications in the works. I am an aspiring/partial cultural studies academic and it is awesome. I miss money because it is nice and I don't need food stamps when I have it or have to carry a frightening credit card balance or anything; however, the real job I had before was soul-sucking. Good pay and benefits, an awesome boss and coworkers, and working at my alma mater, a cause to believe in. However, data entry just isn't the career path I wanted to pursue. I am far too nerdy for that. Besides, I'm going to get married now, and he's going to graduate from the doctoral program soon and maybe get a job and maybe someday we'll have money (ha!), but at least we'll be able to combine incomes and that will be cheaper. I hope. This is all to say that maybe I don't address my particular beefs with masculinity enough on this here bloggity blog, even with it being my main focus of study. So here's a linky to a post at Sociological Images that shows girls playing with 'boy' toys. But we won't be seeing boys play with dolls or kitchen sets or anything! Heaven forbid! As if recognizing the fact that male persons will and do have home lives in which it should be required for them to participate equally in domestic tasks and child rearing would cause their little boy penises to fall off. And I just made you think of little boy penises, you perv! Anyway, Isaac and I plan to have three babies (no more, no less) as of now, which I know is a silly naive grad school fantasy that I'm totally going to pull off with no trouble with him staying home and us somehow still eating with my academic job and blahblahblah. But what I am confident of is that despite their skinny, neurotic, nerdy, possibly bearded tendencies, our kids are going to probably be inundated with anti-gender training. Please let us be the parents with the boy who likes to play house and the less-problematic but still slightly transgressive girl who wants to race cars. If my baby girls want to play princess I will try not to cry, because god knows I liked girly shit as a kid, but I will also warp them with prematurely critical feminist skills. Boy and girl kids. Fucked up they may be in social situations, but far less fucked up than the binary gender paradigm as it stands now. Love, Lauren "the future parent who is getting old (26) and serious enough to think about this shit way too much and maybe my biological clock has been ticking for several years and BEING A LADY IS COMPLICATED"

I contemplate why this comic would never happen

Is anyone else confused about this timeline? According to something actually reputable I read here on the internet, smallpox vaccinations were routine in the United States until 1972. Up until then, it was recommended for all children at the age of one. So technically a person born in the U.S. as late as 1970 or 1971 could have been subject to routine vaccination. That would be make said person nearly forty years old now. And while, obviously, it is possible for a forty year-old or younger person to be a grandparent if they had children young and so did those children even without having gotten pregnant while technically still in high school, I do not think this is usually the demographic Pluggers is meant to represent (they're supposed to be OLD). Also, which "war" would we be talking about in this case? The Persian Gulf War? I'm pretty sure that never happened. Let us consider a different timeline. When someone asks "Grampa" about the "war," I myself think of World War II. Both of my grandfathers served in the Navy during that conflict, and one of them also served in Korea. I know a bit about my maternal grandfather's war experiences in the Pacific mostly because my mother is both nosy and a gossip, which I love and is incredibly valuable in picking up family history tidbits. However, I NEVER would have asked my grandpa about the war or where he got a specific scar. Maybe that's because we don't talk about personal things in my family or maybe because I'm pretty sure I was never in the room while he was shaving because that would be weird and we don't do that and also my grandparents are all dead. But really, to be a WWII vet, this dog-man would have to be, at the youngest, about eighty years old. And if his family reproduced later in life, he could perhaps have a grandson about eight years old or so (I'm guessing from this illustration, I don't actually know how Plugger men-beasts age). But do eight year-olds know much about WWII? Maybe if they watch the History Channel a lot. I mean, I remember reading stuff about the Holocaust in about fourth grade or so, so I'm not really sure. But would a child of that age really have a good conception about what it means for a man-dog to go to war and possibly be injured, and transfer that association to his own family member, when it happened several decades before his birth?* But what is probably most likely in the generational timeline featured here would involve a grandfather who served in Vietnam, in which case, unless you are the grandchild of great American Hero John O'Neill who I know way too much about and who just can't stop talking about Vietnam, I don't see a kid knowing that much about it. See, even in my AP U.S. history class in high school, we covered the Vietnam War by reading a couple chapters and watching some TV specials about the sixties or something. Because, you know, it was all controversial and we lost our national manhood by losing there and blah blah blah. Not as many heroic movies made about it. So what I'm saying is, what child of this age would be all cognizant of all those issues listed in the WWII example and connect them to their own grandfather who probably doesn't really want to talk about "the war," if anyone ever mentions it at all? These are the various assumptions I'm bringing to the table here about why this scenario is unlikely in the first place. Also, Gramps' response doesn't really make sense. And it's not funny. Also, dogs can't get smallpox, though they can go to war. *I will concede that if a Plugger-child were to have an immediate family member CURRENTLY serving in one of our current overseas military clusterfucktastrophes, he or she would likely have a better grasp of these issues than the average child.

Flippin' the bird to dudebros

Dear Dudebros of America: Yes, I know you don't read this blog, but if by some miraculous accident you happen upon it, here are a few things I need to get off my chest: 1. Setting up a milk-drinking contest table in your front yard does not make you cool. It makes you 14. 2. Yelling something to a lady wearing an ipod who is running by your douchey milk party is fruitless and also rude and also harassment. 3. When said running lady turns around because everyone is laughing and staring at her, she will raise her glorious middle finger at you. 4. I hope all y'all assholes choked on your gallons of milk and vomited them up all over your yard. I hope those puddles of milk started to ferment in the sun and that your yard smells all curdly for days and days. Love, Lauren P.S. I hate you. 9aurwcgqdi

I ask the Sexy Gay Jesus for forgiveness

No, not for forgetting his death/undeath day celebrations, though I'm sure he'd approve of me and the I-Man consuming massive amounts of Gilmore Girls instead since I drunkenly bought it on Amazon, justifying the purchase to myself through tax returns. No, I can't believe I have allowed myself to stop being obsessed with this man or this video since last finals season! That first link leads to a fan!site! with an almost embarrassingly unselfconscious interview. He wrote 70 songs for the album! He is a TV producer who likes anime! That explains both the money and connections behind the video, as well as the hair. Check out his imdb bio, it is like 73 times longer than his list of credits! Also, the video will have at least two sequels (squee!). I cannot wait. Chris Dane and his sparkly guitar and guitar sponsorship deal rock my socks and I sincerely want him to become a major superstar. There is nothing in the world more better than what this man has accomplished thus far in his musical career. So go watch the video again. Contemplate what the drawn-on mustache symbolizes as per his performance of masculinity as "Jade." Contemplate why anachronistic exploding battleship stock footage is thrown into this CGI-wonder. But do not try to contemplate the plot. It will only come to naught. Give in to the man-locks, and SHINE! Here's an embeddable version of the video, but it's way higher quality if you watch it at his website:

Live-Bloggin' Action and Manly Football Exploits

Last day of work, personal ramblings, and linkage

Fact: The Pretentious Ex-Boyfriend, the Perpetual Roommate, and I beat up an old printer of mine with a baseball bat that the PR had "borrowed" from the athletic department in front of the middle school across the street from our apartment one night. It was actually really hard to break pieces off of it, but we made up for it by playing "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta" on some tiny speakers. And then we properly disposed of the debris.

Hey kids,

So... this is my last day of work. At my grownup desk job where I occasionally do data entry but mostly just fuck around on the internet while being paid too much money. The last several months of blogging have been a godsend. Seriously. And maybe it has something to do with the fact that I went back on antidepressants right around the same time I got serious about the blog, but I'm just going to go ahead and give the interwebs some credit for keeping me from hating my job too much and letting it completely suck my soul away. But anyhow, I'm going "back to school," as they say. Which makes me feel kind of old. To be able to say that. But I am. Things are going to be a little crazy for the next month, so I highly doubt I'll be able to top July's 50 posts. Anyway, this weekend I'm going on a random trip to Chicago to visit A Certain Someone Who Has Requested to Never Be Mentioned on This Blog (CSWHRNBMTB) and the Perpetual Roommate. I'll be back late Monday probably, so don't cry if there are no posts. Then I will have a few days to get my shit together for the SCANDINAVIAN TOUR I'm taking with the Perpetual Roommate, after which I have to pack and move to Ohio. And start grad school. And pretend to know what I'm doing.

So here's some links to get you through the weekend. Don't miss me too much while I am off galivanting in my newly-unemployed state!

-Amanda posits the idea that if we're going to interpret the Bible and take Christian doctrine literally, it really looks like god is kind of an asshole. He's playing games, trying to keep the upper hand, making sure he's got control of the situation. Luckily The Sexy Gay Jesus is aware of his male privilege and doesn't abuse it. But then again, I'm not trying to date SGJesus, what with him being gay and all. And Jesus. God, who doesn't return your phone calls. (Pandagon)

-Rachel Sklar over at HuffPo's Eat the Press compiled a sweet set of clips showing how Jon Stewart and the Daily Show crew have been all over sleazy Ted Stevens and his craziness and corruption for ages. It's pretty great. Jon Stewart Knew Ted Stevens Was Up to No Good. (Huffington Post)

-Paul Campos has great take on the whole "OMG the kidz is too fat!" moral panic. Not only is it a manufactured "problem," but as always, the pharmaceutical industry is both the instigator and the benefactor. Check it out. The Real Drug War. (Lawyers, Guns and Money)

-Kieran Healy discusses how we deal with douchebags in public places. Like ones who cut in line and expect people's inclination to avoid conflict to outweigh their sense of fairness. I myself tend to go for the resentful passive-aggressive approach to assholes who stand in front of me at concerts when my friends and I were clearly here first, like, since before the opening band, and WHY IS YOUR BOYFRIEND SO GODDAMN TALL?! No I will not take a picture of you!* Anyway, it's interesting how angry those kinds of situations can get you; angrier than all of the great injustices in the world. Because it's immediate. It's blatant. And whatever it is, it's totally not worth them being a dick about it. Norm Enforcement Is Hard, But People Do It Anyway. (Crooked Timber)

-Over at Jezebel, SadieStein really gets to the heart of the "Pretty Girl" phenomenon. As in, some girls are "Pretty Girls," and some girls (who very well may be totally hot themselves) are "Smart Girls" and/or "Funny Girls." Some of us were a little awkward in junior high and spent our time trying to write the most morbid stories or wear the most random item of clothing taken from our parents' old '70s stash in the basement. But you know what, I had a lot of fun. And though I now recognize my inherent hotness, I'm glad I've got other shit going for me. I like to think about how I am an awesome internet blogger and about to be paid to be a graduate student and how the hottest/most popular girl in our seventh grade class married some guy from our hometown a couple of years ago, and they both work at her dad's restaurant chain. Not that I'm gloating. SMALL BUT RELATED TANGENT: I used to date someone who would constantly tell me how hot I was. That's nice, sure. But I definitely felt pressure to maintain it, you know? I'm pretty lazy, so I only took it so far, but if let yourself be valued for attractiveness like that, you start to invest yourself in it too much. And god knows I don't need to think about my appearance any more than I already do, which is too much. Anyway, I think Sadie's hit the nail on the head with her analysis: Pretty Is As Pretty Does: The Middle School Moment. (Jezebel)

My internet presence will be spotty for a bit, but I'll try and dig in when I get the chance. Happy August, everybody! And happy Lauren's Last Day of Work!



*False. I will. I will take a picture of you and your drunk friends, but I'll still be seething over your drunk, view-impairing ass while I do it.

I discuss the motherfucking issues, motherfuckers

Performing fellatio on this firearm will totally cancel out the need for VAWA, right?


It's time for another edition of "Lauren links and rambles about gender and whatnot." Your favorite! (!!) ! So I'm a-gonna get to it:

GENDER & VIOLENCE*

There are a couple of bright pink signs posted on a fence next to a busy thoroughfare in my neck of the woods that say something to the effect of: "LADIES- STOP BEING VICTIMS. GET A HANDGUN." And it lists a phone number, supposedly for some sort of arms supplier. Those signs piss me the fuck off. Something I should really make an effort to do before I move away is follow through with my plan to make another, bigger sign to cover one of the pink ones that says: "MEN- STOP BEING PERPETRATORS. END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN." Fucking fuck, people. Seriously. The signs came to mind as I read a few posts this week, emphasizing two big issues having to do with feminism, gender, and violence:

1. The idea that a gun, or any sort of self-defense method is a "good enough" solution--or any solution at all, really--to the real-life epidemic of violence against women.

2. Generalized ignorance about the role gender training plays in the perpetuation of violence done by men.

So, discussion with link-age:

1. HAVING A GUN IN HER COLD, DEAD HANDS DOESN'T CHANGE THAT WHOLE COLD AND DEAD PART: Or, why more guns are a terrible idea

A douchebag "feminist" columnist that I am too lazy to link to suggested, as many other well-meaning douchebags have in the past, that maybe feminists should be all pro-gun and shit so we can shoot men before they get a chance to rape us. Right. Okay, well let's just disregard the fact that most rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. I mean, I probably wouldn't carry my handgun to hang out with friends or friends of friends that I knew and trusted as much as anybody. This is not even to mention the issue of domestic violence: you have to get to a pretty serious breaking point as a victim to be able to shoot your abuser, and most abuse victims wouldn't be able to get away with obtaining a gun and being able to use it without the abuser finding out first and punishing them. And doesn't it seem like common sense, that the more guns there are out there, the more people will get hurt by them? I don't even want to imagine what a bunch of cranky shoppers in line at the grocery store might turn into if one or more of them revealed that they were carrying a gun. I mean, I've worked in a grocery store, and PEOPLE ARE ASSHOLES. FOR NO REASON. Easy access to deadly weapons would only exacerbate the problem. And as far as gender-based violence goes, Amanda said it well (as usual):

Instead of laying a challenge to the dominant worldview that accepts male violence, we try to grant women access to the same male violence by obvious phallic symbols. But having a violent phallus of your very own doesn’t do much, practically speaking, against the violence perpetrated by the be-phallused against the un-phallused.

Lining us all up like Civil War soldiers to shoot at each other doesn't really solve the problem. We need to stop focusing on what the victims are (or should or could be) doing, and start looking at who's victimizing them, why they're doing it, and why the hell we put up with it.

This leads me to....

2. I'M JUST SAYING THAT MAYBE IT MIGHT POSSIBLY BE A GOOD IDEA TO PERHAPS EXAMINE THE MESSAGES SENT TO MEN AND BOYS ABOUT VIOLENCE: Or, why expecting the worst often just gets you the worst

You know how increasingly, these news stories pop up about how "girls are becoming more violent" or whatever? I'm not saying that's not a problem, because violence = never cool. HOWEVER: how often do you see your local Fox affiliate investigate "boys continue to be encouraged to treat others cruelly in order to maintain some bullshit definition of masculinity"? Oh, more attention is being paid to bullying in general (and this is a boon to everyone), but what I think gets lost in the mainstream discussion is this examination of gender. It's the fucking Manly Olympics again that is fucking everyone over. Are men REALLY naturally more violent than women? Does testosterone ACTUALLY cause them to act irrationally, keep them from practicing self-control, and force them to harm others? Well, due to the fact that I know plenty of non-violent men, I'm going to have to go ahead and call shenanigans on that nonsense. It's just more evo-psych bullshit that uses biology to try and justify shitty social norms as "natural" and "determined by evolution." STFU. Seriously.

Ashley at Feministe really crystallized the argument:

Anyway, believers in testosterone zombies aside, anyone paying attention can tell you that men are more likely to be violent largely because their violence is condoned and even encouraged as a normal aspect of male identity. The fact that, as the headlines above show, perpetrators of violent crime are assumed to be male unless stated otherwise shows just how normalized male violence is...

...I’m often amazed at how invisible we make the identity of dominant groups in analyzing the behavior of their members, as opposed to the way we imagine that every member of a marginalized group is representative of the entire population of that group.

It's ridiculous how the patriarchy uses negative stereotypes about men (that they're violent, can't control their anger or lust, are incompetent at basic household tasks and/or with children, etc.) to absolve themselves of responsibility. Women have to do all the shitty household work because BOYS DON'T KNOW HOW. Women have to avoid being raped because PENISES ARE JUST TOO HARD TO CONTROL. If I were a man, I'd be pissed as hell that not only are these stereotypes accepted as truth by large swaths of society, but that all men are required to fulfill them. A certain amount of assholery is expected of men themselves in order for the proper masculinity quotas to be filled. This is not cool. It hurts people of all genders. Let's make a new masculinity, okay? In fact, let's make lots of masculinities and femininities and hold hands and sing the gender-neutral version of "Kumbayah." Because as cheesy as that sounds, it's sure as hell an improvement over the current state of affairs.


*I put the headline in pink so you would know that it's about "girl stuff."

Work: Do not want. Links: Will post instead.

I have kind of generally ignored Lily Allen except to know that she drinks a lot (a kindred spirit!), but I've kind of been hooked on this song since it came up on my Pandora* Metric station recently: Still behind on blog-readin' since my vacay, but here's some good 'uns I've seen: -Pandagon's fabulous proprietress produces regular columns and podcasts for the inimitable reproductive justice site, RH Reality Check. Her most recent column addresses the fact that pharmacists discriminating against women who are trying to obtain birth control get their BS arguments about "protecting our religious rights" listened to because nobody really cares that much when women get the short end of the stick. I mean, why should ladies get to have teh sex without getting teh babeez? Freedom's Just Another Word for Punishing Women. (Amanda Marcotte at RH Reality Check) -And speaking of teh babeez, once we force women to have them, we shouldn't ever let them out of the house or give them any help whatsoever in caring for them. Because, that's like, against America's Jesusiest values. Jesse at Pandagon highlights how radical anti-family man Barack Obama wants to help provide "early childhood education" and "after-school" programs that would allow mothers (and fathers, I guess, not that they have anything to do with it, and they're probably not around anyway because bitches be sluts who are constantly emasculating their men) more options and flexibility in their work schedules and might be "beneficial" to children or something. Whatevs. READ: The Childcare Boogeyman. (Jesse Taylor at Pandagon) -The amazing Babysitters' Club-loving Kim puts some words to an unspoken resentment of "cool" Stacey and her "New York" fashion. Claudia totally wins any style competition, duh. Choice quote:

I know when I open a Stacey-narrated book that Claudia will not receive the sycophantic attention she so rightly deserves.

I resent Stacey on Claudia's behalf.

This is not mentally healthy, I know.

If you were ever BSC-obsessed, and you have yet to check out the magic, do it NOW: #13: Goodbye, Stacey, Goodbye. (What Claudia Wore) -God I love William K. Wolfrum. He takes on assholes who write dating advice columns that consist of 97% stereotypes and 3% other bullshit. OMG:

"First of all, the most important thing is this - male online dating columnists share an extraordinary amount of traits with douchebags," said Dr. Sven Barrimore. "While this was assumed, we were truly unprepared by just what douchebags these guys really are."

New study shows that male Online Dating Columnists are "huge douchebags". (Wolfrum at Shakesville) *If you're into music at all and you spend any significant amount of time at a computer, Pandora is your best friend. I've found like 472 new artists through it that I really like whose CDs I've compulsively bought off of Amazon just recently.

Good reads for those of us who can (Read, that is. And if you can't, then why are you staring at my blog?)

I was trying to save up a longer list, but there were two fine posts I read in the last few days that I thought I should link to, and my computer (AKA work) hours are dwindling for today. I'm in the midst of formulating a post on some of my life's philosophies,* and you might see how the whole "actually doing my job sometimes" thing occasionally gets in the way of such projects. But anyway, both are related to gender issues that I find fascinating. FIRST: This is not unrelated to my post a while back about America's Next Top Model, and Tyra's bullshit "the fashion industry is so flawed in its beauty standards, but everybody should try harder to conform to them" "advice." Yeah, I just used scare quotes right after a sarcastic paraphrasing set of quotes. Deal with it, bitchez. Anyway, so I was reading Hugo Schywzer's "We love your look, but lose fifteen pounds" post about advising a student on values, conformity, and economic necessity in relation to the modeling industry. This student is barely making ends meet waitressing and doing some modeling on the side, but in order to transfer to a four-year school (to get her bachelor's in women's studies), and afford to get by, she's looking into trying to secure steadier modeling work. Apparently an agency is interested in signing her, but they think she needs to lose weight. There's pretty much a 764578698% chance that in real, non-fashion industry life, this young woman is totally thin and hot already. Anyway, as someone who is conscious of the patriarchal and consumerist values the modeling industry perpetuates, this girl is torn about what she should do. She desperately needs the money, and this is the kind of work where she can make a lot without too much of a time commitment and still continue to be a full-time student. She just has to cave to the pressure to lose fifteen pounds. Now, I will never be presented with such a dilemma, seeing as how I am already too short, fat, and old to be a model (though blonder and thinner than some people, of course!). But I can see why she'd do it. She wants to stick it to the patriarchy through her women's studies work, but she can't afford to do it unless she conforms to patriarchal pressures of unnatural thinness. I mostly just thought it was an interesting example of how principles sometimes come into conflict with the real world; where economic and other demands often take precedence over our ideals. You should check out Hugo's advice to her. She responds in the comments. SECOND: As a sometimes-honorary Wisconsinite, I really enjoyed Amanda Marcotte's delightful My god, Earl, they got football! They got football! about generally loathsome conservative talk radio host and apparent gender role police-person Laura Ingraham's comments on Brett Favre. Apparently he shed some tears at his retirement press conference. When she heard about it, she said, "All these years, and I didn’t know there was a woman quarterback in the NFL." Poor Laura Ingraham. She seems to be unaware that human males are not only capable of FEELING emotion, but sometimes it causes them to do this icky thing where WATER LEAKS OUT OF THEIR EYES. I know, I thought only chicks did it, too!** Because everybody knows that all things "feminine" (like feelings) are "weak" and therefore "bad." Amanda goes on to discuss one of my favorite topics: anxious masculinity. I am so fascinated by the concept of a gender identity that by its defining characteristics, must be constantly proven and re-proven, or it might just completely collapse (into WOMANHOOD, ew!).*** Despite being disappointed by formerly-supermanlymanmale Favre's girly display of emotion, Ingraham's also flattering her listeners into thinking that they must be so superior to dudes who CRY (on TV!):

But the listener is not given complete reason to despair, because the underlying message is a big ego boost. “My god, what a manly man he-man you are! You’re even manlier than Brett Favre, because he’s up there crying and you’re not. You know that beating Favre in the Manly Olympics is like getting the automatic gold.” Of course, you can’t hang your man gold on the shelf and call it a day. The Manly Olympics are perverse games, with every day starting brand new, and automatic revoking of your manhood credentials should you ever decide to sit one out. Or that’s what they hear. Everyone who plays in the Manly Olympics is to[o] scared to find out what happens if you decide to just quit and find better things to do with your time.

Unfortunately, my manhood credentials expired a long time ago. Maybe Brett Favre and I can go apply for new ones together. Because he's, like, hot, and we should totally hang out. (CALL ME, BRETT!) *Don't worry, I won't get all "earnest" on you; it's about using sarcasm to avoid emotional vulnerability. Duh, only an IDIOT would dread possible sincerity. **Were you aware that Hillary Clinton is ALSO a woman? Shocking. And shameful. Goddamn crybabies. ***This is, of course, the flipside of the "women must be pretty and skinny and not like men" patriarchy coin: "men must be strong and stoic and not like women." Mmm, maybe if I get bored at home I'll photoshop a "patriarchy coin."