Here we have a little passage from the preface (p. xvii) of The Blind Watchmaker. It comes after a paragraph on revisions of Darwin’s The Origin of Species, and before one thanking reviewers, so not only is it insulting, but it just plain doesn’t fit.

The paragraph in question:

‘I am distressed to find that some women friends (fortunately not many) treat the use of the impersonal masculine pronoun as if it showed intention to exclude them. If there were any excluding to be done (happily there isn’t) I think I would sooner exclude men, but when I once tentatively tried referring to my abstract reader as ‘she’, a feminist denounced me for patronizing condescension: I ought to say ‘he-or-she’, and ‘his-or-her’. That is easy to do if you don’t care about language, but then if you don’t care about language you don’t deserve readers of either sex. I have returned to the normal conventions of English pronouns. I may refer to the reader as ‘he’, but I no more think of my readers as specifically male than a French speaker thinks of a table as female. As a matter of fact I believe I do, more often than not, think of my readers as female, but that is my personal affair and I’d hate to think that such considerations impinged on how I use my native language.’

Now for my translation:

‘I am a really nice guy, and most women treat me accordingly, as they jolly well should, but some nasty women get offended when I pretend that ‘he’ includes women. Of course, I totally did not mean to do this, so that means it didn’t and doesn’t happen, even though these women told me so, lalalala can’t hear you. Also I tried to please these mean women once, but ONE WOMAN OUT OF THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE WHO IS A FEMINIST AND FEMINISTS HAVE WEIRD EVIL IDEAS pointed out this wasn’t the only solution. It wasn’t as nice as my way, so I ignored her, because I care much more about conventions of language than I do about women or what they think. Here are some examples why: [examples follow]. By the way, here is a slightly creepy attempt to redeem myself again and show you why I am actually really nice to women, but again, I totally care more about language in my book than women.’

Wow, thanks Dawkins, you champion of women, you. That was so totally not condescending! NOT!

Really, he could have just written ‘I will use the English language convention of ‘he’ to mean ‘he or she’ for the sake of clarity’ and he would have come off a lot, lot better.

I feel a bit out of place.

See, in Canberra, everyone who is white has pale skin, because it is too damn cold to reveal any of your skin to the sun for about 80% of the year. (They call it ‘Canberra tan’.)

But in Timor… Timorese people have naturally lovely dark brown skin. Other white foreigners all end up tan, tan, tan, which I am actually trying very hard to avoid. This is because I inherited a predisposition to moles from my mum’s side of the family (maybe Dad’s too – who knows), and so I’m covered in freckles, sunspots, and moles: a whole lotta cancer just waiting to cook. 

Ironically I also inherited my dad’s olive-toned skin, which tans just beautifully. I rarely get sunburnt and when I do, I go brown the next day. Usually people who try really hard to avoid the sun have that lovely pink-and-white skin that actually looks nice when it’s pale. Me, I look sallow. My legs in particular aren’t improved by the 50 mozzie bites I have right now.

I could use fake tan, but (a) I don’t wanna go orange (b) sooo much effort (c) I really hate to perpetuate that idea that ‘tanned’ is the best way for white skin to be. Not even a little tiny bit tanned.

All of this worry – because I am concerned about looking good!

SUM.

East Timor is a largely Catholic, South East Asian country.

I will be working in their Government’s Office for Gender Equality.

Thus, I will likely have a lot of material for the subject: Gender.

QED

Although, the argument could be made that you could state the name and general religion of any country and you’d have a lot of material for a gender issues blog. Certainly there’s plenty in Australia. I suspect different things will stand out though. ;P

Oh noes! Girls want to play football and their club wants to let them! We’d better not let them, says the AFL. It’s for their own good.

Fave quotes:

‘”I can guarantee to you that the girls will certainly run onto the field and will take the field,” [the girls’ club president] said. “Whether we can actually leave them there, we are still taking advice on that.”’

Translation: Even if you physically defy this arbitrary, sexist rule, GIRLS, somebody bigger, stronger and probably male will have to exert physical dominance over you. For your own good. Because you are a GIRL and GIRLS do not belong in this space.

‘The AFL says it wants to encourage junior girls to play but it must consider the health and safety of all players involved in the game and the legal implications of having players who are not covered by public liability insurance.

It says it has made every effort to communicate the policy to all clubs.

Mr Reid says the new regulations suggest the sport is too dangerous for girls at that age.

“The two girls have shown consistently over the last four or five years locally that they can more than match it with boys their own age,” he said.’

I have a problem. Does anyone else have this problem? When I read news articles, it seems like people say the same things over and over about girls and women, and pretend like they are actually original arguments. (Like saying that Hillary Clinton is ‘too aggressive’ or ‘too ambitious’. Hello, she is a politician. Isn’t that, like, their MO?) In this case, of course, it’s that grand idea of ‘a woman has to be twice as as good as a man to go half as far’ (thanks Fannie Hurst). Of course, it’s very good that these two girls are so great that they’re better than the boys. But what about girls who are kind of average at footy, but would still like to play? Do they exist? One could speculate that there are probably less of these. If you’re not encouraged to play sport, and you were only average to begin with, what’s the point in nagging the boys to let them kick your arse?

I also love how the AFL focus on how good they’ve been: they ‘made every effort’ to tell everyone, and they really just have the girls’ best interests at heart. Mmm-hm.

They finish the article by talking of ‘compromise’. I’ve got an awesome compromise for ya: encourage girls to play and provide facilities for a girls-only or mixed team. Some Australian universities have women’s rugby teams. Why aren’t there more for our teenage girls?

]]> http://hendoaskswhy.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/girls-want-to-play-footy-club-wants-to-let-them-afl-doesn%e2%80%99t-surprise-surprise/feed/ 3 hendoaskswhy http://hendoaskswhy.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/on-the-disconnect-between-studying-gender-and-actually-advancing-relations-between-women-and-men-or-women-and-women/ http://hendoaskswhy.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/on-the-disconnect-between-studying-gender-and-actually-advancing-relations-between-women-and-men-or-women-and-women/#comments Sun, 01 Jun 2008 11:22:12 +0000 hendoaskswhy http://hendoaskswhy.wordpress.com/?p=3 ]]> Alert readers* will recall that a couple of months ago Twisty Faster of www.iblamethepatriarchy.com renamed her blog the Pro-Life Evangelical Gazette, in a spirit of retaliation against non-feminists who claim to be feminists. I had hopefully thought to myself that this kind of thing wasn’t happening in Australia, but something that happened recently has reminded me just how not-interested lots of young Australian women are in gender issues, even when they claim to be.

In mid-May, I had the excellent opportunity of being a guest lecturer for a subject in a degree I’m doing (not the subject I am studying this semester). I’d been asked to do the ‘gender’ lecture for the subject, so I was understandably stoked. Debating gender in a university environment is, like, one of my fave things EVAR. Also, now I’ve been reading feminist blogs for a few years, I’m well used to all the bingo-like arguments. Naturally, a few got trotted out on Wednesday, by a couple of particularly vocal class members.

Blow me down and strike a light, Blue, if the person (female) most ardently arguing the ‘but what-about-the-men-and-why-don’t-we-treat-everyone-equally’ bingo line didn’t also happen to be doing the gender specialisation that the course offers! Oh Dear, I thought in capital letters, when she mentioned it after the lecture. I almost blurted out ‘YOU’RE doing the gender specialisation? Whoa!’. Happily, I refrained (only to blurt it out now… oops.)

Anyway, I didn’t think of this quite so articulately at the time, but here’s what I wish I’d said (oh so crisply):

‘Couldn’t agree more. It *would* be wonderful to treat everyone equally. But unfortunately, before we get to that most excellent place, we are going to have to give some more consideration to women than men for a change. Because they are, you know, the most disadvantaged, generally, when it comes to power and gender relations.’

I’d claim to be a grumpy old woman, but I can’t, not yet: I’m 26 and probably a maximum of four years older than this other chick. She could even be a month or two OLDER than me.

*sigh* I’m just not a fun feminist. Or an apologetic one. Sorry.

* Dear Kaz Cooke, you always used the phrase ‘alert readers’ in your columns and I loved it. So if it’s ok with you, may I borrow it?