NSFW: expletives
“This wasn’t an awards ceremony so much as a black-tie celebration of the straight white male gaze.”
An article by Margaret Lyons at Vulture.com has been making the rounds on the internet: “Why Seth MacFarlane’s Misogyny Matter.”
(MacFarlane is the creator of Family Guy, and hosted the Oscars this year.)
Lyons does a nice job of summing up experiences that are all too common for many of us but haven’t sunk in to our cultures at large:
“Yes, I can take a joke. I can take a bunch! A thousand, 10,000, maybe even more! But after 30 or so years, this stuff doesn’t feel like joking. It’s dehumanizing and humiliating, and as if every single one of those jokes is an ostensibly gentler way of saying, “I don’t think you belong here.” All those little instances add up, grain of sand by grain of sand until I’m stranded in a desert of every “tits or GTFO” joke I’ve ever tried to ignore.”
Lindy West at Jezebel.com also posted an article about MacFarlane, coining the term “sexism fatigue.” (I wouldn’t be surprised if another term for this already exists in the academic literature. And if it doesn’t, it should.)
Sexism Fatigue: When Seth MacFarlane Is a Complete Ass and You Don’t Even Notice
“Seth MacFarlane will go on the television and make a joke about George Clooney having sex with a 9-year-old girl who is sitting right there, and your first reaction will be, “Well. At least he didn’t literally say she should get raped. Pass the cheese.”
That’s bad. A famous man making sexist jokes on a primetime awards show watched by millions of people is so banal and status-quo in our culture, that to me—a woman professionally committed to detecting and calling bullshit on sexism—it just feels like a drop in the bucket.”
West also coins another phrase in her article:
“Fuck the bucket. If I’m not fatigued, I’m not caring enough. So fuck that stupid bucket.”
I hope there’s an equivalent term for this in the academic literature, too.
Feminist Philosophers 