I swear to you, swimming the waters of the feminist blogosphere is a strange experience. There are few others who can simultaneously make me laugh hysterically and be very angry at the same time. But somehow, feminists do it, and Feministing is the best at it.
The newest post to inflict hilarity and outrage is one where a feminist tells people to go f*ck themselves because they stare and make comments about her large breasts. This therefore means she’s a victim. Oh, and before we get started with the victimhood parade, like most posts from Feministing, this does contain some language. There. You’re warned.
I think I hear a little tiny violin playing somewhere in the background…
Hello, good friend/acquaintance/classmate/stranger. I’m just writing to let you know that I am in fact aware that my breasts are big. Thanks.
I mean, I’ve only been living with them for years. But thank you, person/classmate-who-I-may-or-may-not-know-particularly-well-and-don’t-necessarily-feel-comfortable-with for informing me. Your comment about my chest really spurred meaningful and insightful conversation and didn’t embarrass or dehumanize me in the slightest. I feel incredibly respected.
No but seriously. Don’t tell me to, “put them away,” or notify me that you could probably swipe a credit card through my cleavage. I don’t want to hear it. If my bra is visible and you would like to enlighten me of that fact, that’s fine, but making a “hilarious” comment about my breasts because you somehow feel that it’s appropriate or because you “only want to give me a compliment” ISN’T charming. What it tells me is that you’re more interested in discussing cup size than anything I may have been able to add to our conversation.
And another thing, wearing a low-cut shirt doesn’t give you the right to comment either. I’m sorry if I’m showing cleavage, that must be really difficult for you, but I’m sure you can move your eyes about six inches to the north . It is NOT my fault that you think yourself incapable of doing the simple task of looking at my face. And NO, wearing a low-cut shirt does not mean I’m “asking for it,” no matter how many people may have told you so. Please desist.
This may seem harsh, but I have HAD IT with STRANGERS and even CLOSE FRIENDS of both genders thinking it’s entirely normal to say, “Wait, oh my God, but you have really big tits,” in the middle of a conversation. And I’m fucking sick of letting such inconsiderate assholery get to me.
With the most sincere “go fuck yourself” I can muster,
Phoebe
So, here’s the thing. I know what it’s like to have these kinds of comments. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s creepy, and most of the time it’s inappropriate. But guess what? People do not always behave perfectly, and life is not going to fit into this perfect little model of what you want it to be. I have had all kinds of comments from men and women alike about my boobs, and I certainly do not carry around this baggage, thinking about how horrible it is and what a victim I am. (And yes, one of the commenters actually did call her a victim. I wanted to puke when I read that.) My freshman year of high school, when I first started — ahem — developing there were two boys who rode the bus with me who used to say stupid shit like that all the time. It got them nowhere and did nothing to me beyond getting me to roll my eyes and call them some name, probably the equivalent of today’s “assclown”. And then I went on about my day. I never felt like these guys were acting like terrible men trying to keep me, a woman, down. I thought, “Gee, what immature assholes.” And then I’d forget about it. Stressing about it and dwelling over it so much that you have to write a blog post about it is pathetic.
Because you know, letting someone define you by their insults says more about you than it does about them.
Now, I’m not defending the actions of anyone who would seriously say something as ridiculous as “Hey, I want to swipe a credit card through your cleavage! Yuk yuk!”. That’s sad and immature and pathetic. But I think it’s even more sad and immature and pathetic to act as if it’s this great social issue which makes you a victim, and of course, MUST BE STOPPED!!!!!!
The other part of her post that I found interesting was how she apparently didn’t like people staring or even mentioning her breasts, even when she says herself she’s wearing low-cut shirts. Honey, if you wear low-cut tops with your boobs hanging out, people are gonna look. They just are. Either learn to deal with it or cover up more, because there will never, ever be a complete absence of people ogling a woman with large breasts. There are simply some people who will just look, and it’s our responsibility to find a way to handle the situation. Oh, and if there are so many people pointing out your boobs, it may not be a compliment. They might be trying to tell you something — as in, “Um, Phoebe? Your boobs are like, huge, and maybe you should put them away,” meaning, “Um, Phoebe? I’m about half a centimenter away from seeing some nipple action and I really don’t want to, so why don’t you cover up before you start stripping in the middle of my calc class, OK? Great.” I guess when you’re completely self-centered and narcissistic (and modern-day feminists are by definitely self-centered and narcissistic), it may never cross your mind that when someone mentions your body, it’s not automatically because they’re looking at you as a sex object.
The sad thing is, I’m inclined to believe that most of the people this Phoebe references probably made no more than passing comment like, “Wow, that top looks great on you, you fill it out nicely”, and she heard something completely diferent, thanks to her ingrained victimhood ideology. Plus, with feminists, everything is an overexaggeration, so who knows what the truth is?
What really matters anyway is not what people say or do. What’s sad is Phoebe herself, and that her reaction to something as stupid as this is so strong. People say and do rude things, but the only person who can make you feel like a victim is — GASP!! — you. Brush it off, let it go. For God’s sake, get a life and get over yourself. Stop taking everything so seriously, and maybe — just maybe — these kinds of stresses will go away.
Bob says: It’s as if she wants to wear shirts to show off her breasts but nobody is allowed to look and they’re a sexist pig if they do.
Unless of course they’re rich, attractive, and single. If she thinks you’re cute, it’s flirting. If not, it’s sexual harassment. Or so it seems…
I heard some statement the other day that one of the potential Obama appointees in the past had written on how women are “forced to be pregnant” was akin to SLAVERY.
Good grief.
This post is useless without pics. 😉
And I tried to voice that opinion on Miss Priss’ website, but she doesn’t allow comments from the unwashed masses. She’s definitely a Liberal.
Rob Farrington says: There’ll always be immature idiots. It isn’t that it’s a misogynistic or sexist plot against women; it’s just that there’ll always…well…be immature idiots.
There are billions of people on this planet and some of those that you meet will judge you on your physical erm…attributes, others on the colour of your skin, and others on where you were born and the way you pronounce certain words.
There are also people who will see beneath the surface and judge you solely on the kind of person that you are. Surely an essential life skill is to respect the opinions only of those people, and to not give a flying f*ck about the opinions of morons?
An attitude of perpetual victimhood just isn’t attractive, Pheobe – oops, sorry – I know that the purpose of your existence isn’t just to be attractive to men. Sorry, again!
sulla says: This column works on several levels: a slap to the whiny narcissists; a warning to the boors that while the victimites will scream lawsuit, the proper confident ladies will simply smile and knee-rack your Boys into the side pockets; and a caution to the girls that while they can’t help what nature gave them, they have total control over presentation and thus a bit of control over the reactions of others.
The only advantage to the whiny playing this particular victim card: one hell of an entertaining telethon. Just mute the sound and crank up a RATT album.
As the proud owner of a pair of big boobs I’ve got to say “Grow UP” to this lady. I mean come on…so somebody said something big deal. I get comments all the time. My response is “Duh” or “Yep, they’re real, God-given breasts. Now what were we talking about?” Such whining by women who want to be recognized for their minds but who want to dress in “appealing” clothes is as immature & pathetic as the comments. I have to say if you can’t take the heat stay the hell out of the kitchen. 😀
Shaniquequa says: I agree that you shouldn’t complain everytime a guy says a comment, but it’s disgusting at times. But the problem is most of society will justify the prick before they go on your side. There was only one time I got irratated by the comment of my breasts. I was wearing one of my white tees to school because most of my clothes were dirty and yes there was some cleavage showing. I can’t really help it though since I’m really tiny with a huge rack so yeah, there’s nothing I can truly do about it. So I was listening to my iPod mindind my own business when a woman demanded I hid my breasts away from her. I asked her if my cleavage was offending her and she said, “yes they are obsene and offensive.” So I just ignored her since she wasn’t worth an arguement. Then she goes, “and girls like you wonder why you get raped.”
Now I know I should have just let it slide but I couldn’t. I’ve known too many girls who have been raped including myself and I highly doubt it was for our breast size. So yeah sometimes you don’t need to be a victim and I would never say I am one but, there are limits that people can say to you regarding towards something you can’t control.
Shannon in AZ says: I’ve found the ‘pull’ is worse when trying to NOT look. I finally decided one time to just LOOK and had no difficulty afterwards with keeping my attention on what I was doing instead of getting distracted. We’re in the ‘not supposed to look’ and ‘want to look’ dichotomy so I just simply broke it.
All men will always be 12 year old boys. Liberals have been trying to immasculate men for generations now. Guys will always stare at cleavage, but keep the stupid comments to yourself.
Tara says: I have big boobs, and I don’t feel like a victim at all. If someone stares at me or makes a comment, I ignore it. Maybe Phoebe should just get over herself and get a life.
Few years back when daughter was in high school, couple of her friends were bitching about ‘guys looking at them’, etc. I pointed out “If you’re wearing really short, tight shorts, guys are gonna look. If you’re wearing a really short skirt, they’re gonna look. And if you’re wearing a top open down to there that barely covers your boobs, they’re especially gonna look. And you know it. So knock of bitching about it.”
There’s a fair number of girls who want it both ways; they want to flash what they’ve got AND gripe about being looked at. Someone making nasty comments, ignore to tell to go away, fine, but don’t gripe because a guy looks at your lovely shape when you’ve got it on display.
Mark says: She sounds like a real “BOOB” to me.
It’s generally been my experience that feminists have engaged their thinking about the proper role in society for women, at the expense of any and all reasoned thinking about the proper role in society for men; just thirty seconds of that, were they to indulge in it, would do enormous benefit to them. But they won’t ponder it for even that long.
Suppose all men woke up one morning and resolved to do whatever feminists want them to do, just as soon as the feminists all agreed on what exactly that is. I guess that would have something to do with the new-boyfriend stock character on Lifetime TV, who makes tons and tons of money but doesn’t have any opinions about anything except for how incredibly devoted he is to whoever-the-starlet-is.
In a world like that, what do we think of boobs, anyway? It seems we’d be regarding them purely clinically. A woman’s entire body, I guess, would have no sensual value to us at all…but we’d fall “madly in love with” one and only one woman. Over the course of an entire lifetime. If she’d have us. So we won’t have any attraction toward physical attributes whatsoever, but that one woman — oh, how beautiful she is! So we would have some.
The whole thing is such a dizzying mess of glaring contradictions. But hey, we’ve been oppressing you for five thousand years, we deserve to get a little dizzy.
Oh, one last thing, your bikini pic in the sidebar is awesome. But you already know that.
mj says: Yes, people behave badly. Sorry to further dehumanize her, but if men and women are making such comments with much regularity, she’s really not doing anything to discourage this, like covering up.
I’ve turned away on occasion, and I’ve noticed other guys doing so, too. It can actually be embarrassing to have do deal with people who dress inappropriately in some social situations. Awkward comments may indicate peoples’ poor efforts at relieving stress.
It’s more than likely that the people she is complaining about are people she encounters every day, who know her and thus know what buttons to push, and they’re probably saying things like that to rile her up. (Perhaps she should ask herself: “what did I do to make them hate me?” Heh. Seriously, I’ll bet she’s abraded more than one nerve among her coworkers or fellow students or whatever, and this is their way of getting back at her.) Because complete strangers generally don’t say things like this to women, not to their faces anyway. (And if you think I grew up in an extra-genteel bubble, I grew up in Miami, Florida in the Seventies, and it was male-ogling-female central, and still is.)
Kortnee says: okay, I’m coming a bit late to this convo but I’ll throw in my $0.02. I have big boobs. I like having big boobs. I like people noticing my big boobs as an attractive feature of my body. I especially like that my husband likes my boobs. The one complaint that I’ve made about my big boobs is that steel boning is so much more expensive that the covered plastic but that’s what I have to have to wear the costumes I make.
I once had a very wise friend tell me that he likes looking at boobs, especially on the girls around him. Not in any kind of lustful way but in the way that they can almost be the ultimate accessory. If somebody’s wearing a great pair of earrings or a great necklace, you’d notice. It’d almost be rude not to. But, you also wouldn’t ogle it with lust or make a comment on “wow, that’s a great necklace, but wouldn’t that money be better spent feeding starving children in Africa?”
Making comments about somebody’s breasts is very rude, as is ogling them, and a sharp retort is always appropriate for such an encounter. However, taking offense to somebody saying “honey, they’re beautiful but you’re about to slip a nip” or “You’re lingerie is beautiful but I’m not sure it was meant for public view” is like somebody telling you your fly is open or your lapel pin is upside down. Yep, they noticed, and they’ve taken the time to tell you so you can further avoid any over exposure.
I don’t think Phoebe gets that and it’s a real shame. Instead of bitching about it on your blog, sharpen your mind and wits and learn something.
Arium says: What’s it to ya? Seriously.
Why do you feel the need to ridicule posts to Feministing Community? Does doing so make you feel better about yourself?
FC is a widely diverse group of people discussing issues that relate, more or less, to feminism. If you are looking for blogs with strong focus on feminist theory, there are better choices than this one. (You could try http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/ but your head would probably explode. A better choice might be http://pandagon.net/ where posts from some of your favorite sources, including Michelle Malkin and Ace of Spades, are sometimes discussed.)
Returning to the topic at hand, many people contributed comments to the discussion similar to your “Either learn to deal with it or cover up more” comment. The original poster reiterated that which I found to be clear in the OP: She usually does cover up completely; this makes little difference. Also your dismissal of the severity of the comments she receives was offensive.
The OP was basically venting about inappropriate remarks. She wasn’t looking to get a law passed. I realize that antiabortion-rights types sometimes find it difficult to understand that some people espouse views without intending that those views be codified into law.
(I came across your blog by Googling for anti-Planned Parenthood rants. It was just dumb luck that I found one that uses Feministing and FC, where I am a member, as material for ridiculing feminism.)
Shaniquequa says: Why do you feel the need to ridicule posts to Feministing Community? Does doing so make you feel better about yourself?
I totally agree with this statement. For Cassy to hate feminists so much, she sure does go to their site a lot. And one of the biggest feminists blogs at that.
WayneB says: “The original poster reiterated that which I found to be clear in the OP: She usually does cover up completely; this makes little difference.”
Bullhockey. If you can see cleavage, they’re not covered up.
Besides, Cassy’s point was not that this person is upset at comments, it’s that she felt the need to post about it on a large blog site, specifically in the first person framework. If it were a more clinical, analytical approach to speaking about how people could be more considerate of others, who may not appreciate their dubious attempts at humor, I think Cassy would probably have agreed with her. Instead, she ranted about herself in particular, and included her umbrage against certain comments which were probably aimed at getting her to present herself more modestly, so as not to be a disruption (e.g. “Put them away”). All in all, it was just a childish rant, both in tone and in the assumptions inherent in the language.
I don’t have any use for juvenile commentary such as “you could swipe a credit card through there,” any more than she does, but I realize that people are going to act like jackasses, and don’t let it bother me. If it is people who should know better, such as friends, she needs to tell them in person.
WTF. How did this women even post? Do they have computers in the Kitchen now? I’m so confused!
vadefugl says: Its not okey to ogle and comment women and girls with big breasts in public. Yes you can look, but no stare. Be carefully what you say to people if you see someone with large breasts, they are noe sluts but just normal girls and women who cannot hide they big boobs enough. They always stand out. Ive seen short nearly fat girls with enormous breasts in a black, thick sweater in public on the summer and I respect them and not stare.
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