Still Eating My Sandwich

The last thing this whole Daily Show/Jezebel fracas need is another linkfest, so I'm going to (sort of) abstain. I thought the Jezebel piece was basically reasonable. Everything that has gone on thereafter (with much of it being extremely well-written and reasoned, other parts less so) has seemed to me like such total insidery inside baseball as to be a little cringey. But I will say this" I read Olivia Munn's interview at Salon today. Uh huh. So, yea.

This is not a woman I had heard of prior to the aforementioned fracas (Munn suggests in the interview that various articles about the dust up are attaching her name in order to get page hits. I wonder, can that happen? Does everyone else know who she is?]. Now that I am acquainted with her, I have this to say: Feminism is for everyone. I think you, Olivia Munn, should benefit from its paradigm, its achievements, its humanistic hope for the world. Etc. I understand that you feel like the forces of feminism often work imperfectly (and even self-destructively) - a true fact - hence your statement that, "this [Jezebel] article was picked up and pushed out and these women sit behind this very thin veil that I can see right through, this idea that "we stand up for women." If you stand up for women, then don't bash me." Hmmm. I feel doubtful about the notion that because one is a feminist, one cannot critique other women or reflect on antifeminist forces that may be at work in their career trajectories, but maybe it really became a cabalistic sisterhood when I wasn't looking. Also, were you "bashed"? Hmm. So then, as I continued to read the interview, I thought, just who *is* this Olivia Munn and what has she been doing that is so insulated from feminist analysis?

A bit further down in the interview, re: people who had negative things to say about her Maxim cover shoot or her relationship with the new Captain Kirk: "And I really still believe that anybody who's sitting there judging my relationship does need to get the shit fucked out of them." Hmmm.

And then Lindsay Beyerstein [so, ok, this post is linky anyway] showed me the moving images I needed to see to complete my picture of Olivia Munn's contributions to the representation of women within dudely geek culture. Lindsay writes:

[T]he least Munn can do is stop acting all butthurt when feminists call her out. We geeks are not renowned for our social skills, but there's one thing we do know: You can't suck up to the cool people and dump on the other rejects and expect the rejects to like you. A corollary applies to women who ingratiate themselves to men while tearing down other women.

True. I mean, talk about manufactured outrage. Or, at the very least, total lack reflexive awareness. And, also, this "I'm easy to hate" and "expect them to like you" language is precisely the problem: this is, or was anyway, actually not a middle school catfight. Things - shows, public personae, career trajectories, workplace sexism - exist in real life. They are scrutable, legible, analyze-able, potentially educational. Introducing the language of petty jealousy is what turns it into a middleschool catfight.

All in all, in conclusion and since the beginning of time, the whole thing is wicked less soothing than packing and I am sorry I spent any time with it.