What a feminist looks like


God damn John Scalzi is good.

Yesterday: To The Dudebro Who Thinks He’s Insulting Me by Calling Me a Feminist

Just read it. I don’t want to spoil it with appetizers or remarks; just read it.

But I’ll give you a visual appetizer.

I’ve always wondered what that pleasant sweep of green at the top of his blog was, and vaguely assumed it was a nearby park. It’s his fucking front lawn. That plays a part, and gets its own meme, so read. Read read read.

Comments

  1. smhll says

    I enjoy his blog so much, but I think his outfit needs to be accessorized with gloves to be really totally comme il faut.

  2. says

    The choice of colour was out of his control, but should the opportunity arise again I’m fairly sure autumn colours will suit better. He also could have done with matching parasol and gloves, but carrying off the empire waist as well as he did is pretty awesome.

  3. iknklast says

    Thanks, Ophelia. I have had a really bad day, and your link gave me just what I needed – a smile. I haven’t been near a smile all day.

    And I disagree about Jewel tones. I think Emerald Green would be totally smashing with his coloring. Short skirt, hip boots. He’d look sassy.

  4. HappyNat says

    *slow clap*

    Sadly, I’m sure dudebro has learned nothing for this, but maybe such a thorough ‘pantsing will relate to a dudebro.

  5. chigau (違う) says

    But that is a really Manly™ doggie.
    (who’s a manly doggie, then? you are. yes you are)

  6. Parse says

    Once again, John Scalzi does literary judo, turning the shit thrown at him into fertilizer for awesomeness.
    (And once again, I demonstrate my mastery of the mixed metaphor.)

  7. left0ver1under says

    Some men, like Scalzi, deserve to be called feminists because they’ve figured out right from wrong. They’re the ones who enlighten others and don’t inadvertantly say something stupid. I can’t call myself a feminist – I would have to call myself a sexist pig who knows he’s wrong and is working on it. Others should try it and go from there, if they want to be considered feminist allies.

    Admitting ignorance and listening (instead of claiming knowledge and talking) will serve everyone better, including the subject, and will be appreciated by all. As JT Eberhard recently showed, it’s easy to think one has everything figured out when in fact one doesn’t have a clue.

  8. M can help you with that. says

    So he’s not just awesome, he’s also out standing in his field. (…because five acres is no longer a “lawn”.)

  9. hoary puccoon says

    All very nice. But would he consider putting in more planting beds? Roses and day lilies, maybe….

  10. Martha says

    The jewel tones pic really did make me laugh aloud. That was grade-A comedy.

    Um, iknklast (#7) I’m by no means a fashion expert, but isn’t emerald green a jewel tone?

  11. hoary puccoon says

    I think autumn tones would do better.

    But I’m not nearly as jealous of the five acre garden as of having the kind of friends who, coming for a visit, would just happen to have packed a regency ball gown in the ol’ duffle bag. Now, *that* spells swank to me!

  12. iknklast says

    Martha – sorry, you’re right. You can see I’m no fashion expert, either. In spite of being female, color subtleties escape me 😉 I have to ask my husband to sort colors properly for me.

  13. CaitieCat says

    Scalzi is definitely one of the good ones. There aren’t a lot of men I would call really good allies to feminists; JS, Jim Hines, a few of the bloggers here, the Shakesville contributors who are men, a few others around. Scalzi is definitely one who’s trying to get it, acknowledges his privilege when it’s relevant, uses the privilege for leverage to dismantle itself, and listens when he fucks up.

    I particularly like his contributions in terms of deconstructing the narrow, toxic version of masculinity that gives all of us so much trouble, and this post is exactly the kind of thing I mean. The “Gamma Rabbit” was another hilarious version of that, where in response to some MRA blather about alpha dogs and how he was really a beta male, he demurred, saying that he was in fact a gamma rabbit, which inevitably led to t-shirts.

  14. carlie says

    Want to know something else really cool? If you read through the comments, someone calls him out on the idea that a man wearing a dress is funny or notable in the first place, and he doesn’t get defensive. He responds to the person, says he’s gotten several of those comments and he’s really thinking about it and trying to process the information, and asks the person if they have suggestions on trans resources he can donate to. *swoon*

  15. Anthony K says

    Carlie, I’d just read through his comment thread before coming back here, and I thought that was awesome too.

  16. previously-chrisj says

    left0ver1under @11: Not exactly. Scalzi inadvertently says stupid stuff periodically, and sometimes accidentally lets his privilege show. The thing that makes him so awesome is that when someone calls him on it – when someone says “only a white guy could believe that”, or whatever – Scalzi’s first response is “let me work out where/how I messed that up”. He really wants to help, and is willing to assume that he’s wrong if someone in a less privileged position says he is.

    Which is what makes him so awesome, in a lot of ways – someone who’s never wrong is too hard an act to follow (and hey, they must be hiding something, right?), but someone who makes mistakes and admits it? Who publically discusses what the mistake was, why they made it, and why they were wrong? That’s a really good role model.

  17. says

    Saw the meme and the first thing I thought about was that is a really adorable dog… oh and there is a dude wearing a dress… but the words are obscuring the dog! This is the sort of thing you think when raised by feminists, and that he looks way better in that dress than my dad would.

  18. pvnrt says

    Scalzi retweeted someone who put the text over his face, saying “THIS is what someone who keeps putting text over a cute dog looks like,” but now I can’t find it in his feed…

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