Lift Voice, Carry Water

[omorka]

I have four versions of this song - the original, and three covers. This is the only one in male voice. Oddly enough, it retains the "she might overhear" at the end, rather than gender-reversing it properly, which makes me wonder exactly how much more of a genderbender a song about a man dominating a woman by insisting she become masculinely stoic during their affair can actually get. (That genderbenditude is the only thing preventing the male-voice version from sliding headlong into misogyny . . . )

Comments

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

the only thing preventing the male-voice version from sliding headlong into misogyny . . .

You use that word a lot. A LOT. Are you sure all the things that you label misogyny are actually hatred of women?

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

What makes you think they're not?

Sexism is about misogyny; the very belief that women are inferior human beings (which is at the root of sexism) is misogyny. Does it make you uncomfortable for it to be properly identified as such?

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

You stay out of this. I was asking Jen.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

This happens to be my LJ, and she is welcome to post whatever she wishes in response to whatever and whoever she wants as long as she stays civil. I would appreciate your attempting to be civil, too. If you don't like her responding to a question addressed to someone else, just ignore it.

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

I apologize. I just now realized that she's speaking as a sexist herself, so I should probably welcome her personal insight as it regards her hatred of men.

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

Sexism is not just about misogyny. Sexism can be the hatred of men too. I seem to recall once at Bagels where you stopped just short of accusing all men of being rapists. So yes, I am uncomfortable with your improper identification of sexism as a belief that women are inferior. That's like saying racism only applies to the hatred of one race.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I recall the incident you describe, and also that part of it was you claiming, repeatedly and in the teeth of multiple women telling you otherwise, that rape/sexual assault is just not something that happens to many women. Which could, I suppose, be characterized as you stopping just short of accusing all women who say they have been sexually assaulted of being liars.

See how easy it is to twist people's words around?

BTW, you barely know me. Anyone who does know me would laugh their asses off at your assertion that I hate men. It's true that I have little patience with men who don't act as if women can have valid opinions, and what I have seen of you points in that direction. I suggest looking in the mirror before you start flinging around accusations of sexism on any woman's part.

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

Twist, twist, twist. What I've said is that I personally don't know that many women that have been raped. Knowing full well that some of the women I know may have been raped and my knowledge of that event is not something they shared with me. All I'm basing it on is what I know in my personal sphere of friends, coworkers and casual acquaintances. I make no claim of knowing specific statistics or any formal study of the matter. Purely anecdotal. In no way have I accused people who have been sexually assaulted as being liars. If you want to back up a statistic (1 in 4 comes to mind as one I may have heard)with a survey of every woman on your friends list or some other pool, you can go ahead. Really doesn't matter to me if the number comes out higher or lower or exactly 25%. I'm not trying to argue the statistic and will be content that whatever number you do arrive at will be the truth for that sample pool. I'll even agree that any number over 0% is too high. But if you turned around and were able to determine that the same statistic were true of the sample pool of my female friends, coworkers and acquaintances, I would be genuinely surprised.

Now, having attempted to defend myself, will you concede that sexism is a two-way street?

[omorka.livejournal.com]

I suppose some of them are probably actually fear of women, but gynephobia is harder to say, and they usually amount to the same thing in the end.

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

So hatred and fear are the same thing? Or, "usually" the same thing? I can see that going one direction... Someone hating something because they're scared of it. But I don't know if I'm comfortable labeling all fear as hatred.

And there are some cases where you've labeled films as misogynistic where I would disagree that there's an active intent of malice. In my mind hate is a fairly strong active verb. It takes effort to hate something. Or, it does for me at least. If anything, I think I may see more indifference than actual hatred. Your perspective on the matter is necessarily different than my own, which is why I ask.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Is there a necessary active intent of malice for you for misanthropy, too? For me, there isn't, and the words are pretty closely parallel. I would be more than comfortable labeling a film, book, or song that expressed, say, snide cynicism about the human race misanthropic, whether there were any active malice against humans or not, and I call it misogyny in the parallel situation when the group being reflected on is women as a class. (And I'm pretty sure most of the bloggers I read would as well, although that's probably not a representative sample).

At any rate, no, I don't think hate has to be active. It is, IMHO and IME, entirely possible to passively hate either individuals (although that's perhaps the more difficult of the two) or entire sets of people. I personally find it very hard to be indifferent towards someone I am aware of and don't hate. And certainly callous indifference is a form of brutality, even if it falls outside of the purview of hatred.

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm a little confused myself. The song has always been sung from the perspective of a woman who is in a terrible relationship with a controlling jerk of a man.

How exactly does having a man sing it make it MORE misogynistic? Wouldn't changing the gender at the end make it a song wherein a man is complaining about a horrible woman? Wouldn't that be the definition of misogyny?

I also object to your use of 'masculine' to describe stoicism. It's bad enough you bring up yet another example that depicts men as controlling jerks - do you have to add insult to injury by using sexist stereotypes on top of that?