Shoot the Wall (A.K.A. The Rant Thread)

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Not a clue. Even our beloved Sherlock is not that crazy & he has social skills issues.

[T.o.b.y]

OK, this has been bugging me off and on for a while now -- every time I come across a new example:

 

Why do [some] people seem to feel obligated to introduce blatant political commentary into unrelated matters?  They seem to assume that anyone who enjoys certain movies (or who likes to garden or who's a vegetarian or whatever) will automatically agree with them on EVERYthing.  Why do they risk alienating half of their potential audience?

 

Are you thinking of a particular person or statement here?

 

I think I know what you mean, for example vegetarians / vegans are often thought of as left-wing.

 

This kind of reminds me of a quote from a David Sedaris essay: "Listen, I'm with you on most of this, but before we continue, I need to know who you voted for in the last election". (Btw, I hereby reveal myself to be a big fan of Sedaris' writing. Does that make me automatically belong to a political group? I have no idea.)

[Carol the Dabbler]

I've come across this sort of thing several times, in a wide variety of media situations -- books, radio programs, DVD features -- as well as real life.  It's like there's supposed to be some sort of package deal, so you cannot be interested in a particular subject without also subscribing to an entire laundry list of other beliefs.  I can just imagine a person tuning in to a particular how-to program for the first time, getting hit with a disrespectful put-down of their political beliefs, and deciding maybe they should just forget about learning that particular skill.  Sorry not to be more specific, but I don't feel that specifics are the issue.  It's the overall attitude.

 

As for the Sedaris quote, I'd rather first get to know a person without knowing who they voted for, because knowing that tends to get in the way of actually knowing them.

 

[T.o.b.y]

I wonder what the "laundry list of beliefs" is supposed to be for Sherlock fans.

 

(As for the quote I mentioned, I believe it was supposed to be ironic...)

[Carol the Dabbler]

I wondered if maybe he was mimicking people of that sort.  *whew*  Glad I didn't actually blast your hero!

 

If there is a Sherlock "type" it's not apparent around here (other than "intelligent"?).  Mercifully, no one seems to be pushing any particular agenda, though people do seem to feel free to state their own opinions.  Nice!

 

[T.o.b.y]

You mean around here, the forum? Hmmm... yes, I believe your are right. It is nice.

 

As for "intelligent", well, I suppose you have to be at least a little bit so to enjoy Sherlock. The series is probably too confusing for people who find it hard to think, and it also celebrates intelligence too much.

 

Damn, I am getting off topic in a rant thread! But I don't have much to rant about today. I'm pretty happy at the moment, and rather in a "count my blessings and be thankful" mood.

[T.o.b.y]

Humph. Now I do have something to rant about. Men. Not all men, but a lot of them. Did you hear about that video showing a pretty woman walking the streets of New York and being sexually harassed like every five seconds or so?

 

Well, today I (again) got to experience the other side of that coin, namely the fact that some members of the male part of the human population seem to take it as a personal affront when a woman is not attractive. I am walking home from a long, exhausting late shift at work around midnight. And I encounter two young guys who immediately voice their low opinion of my appearance in pretty loud and offensive terms. This has happened before, in more or less subtle ways. It's like these men are so convinced that we girls were born solely to give them pleasure, that they feel their natural rights have been violated if a female under fifty dares to not be pretty. 

 

No, boys and men, I am not good-looking. I am sorry this is so hard for you to accept and I assure you that I don't do it on purpose to offend you. But it is not my or any other woman's purpose in this world to entertain or please you. I refuse to tart myself up for you or to spend a fortune on plastic surgery or not eat more than 400 calories a day. My face, body and hair will never get me a Miss Anything, but they work just fine for me, and if you don't like it, you'll have to look the other way. 

 

So there.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Some guys were never taught how to respect women. I work hard at teaching my son to not be the jerk-off guy.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Grrrhh!  I hear you, T.o.b.y.  And here are a couple of corollaries:

 

1. Some men are offended by the very existence of women who are taller than they are.  (See below for more on this. ^* )

 

2. Some men equate "beauty" with makeup (and/or tight clothing and/or a provocative manner).

 

 

 

^* Here's a conversation from the summer of last year:

 

I am 5-foot-8, a bit tall for a woman (90th percentile), and I've noticed a bizarre reaction from a few of the many men who are slightly shorter than me, around 5-foot-6. I'm guessing that they fear themselves to be "deficient," but find consolation in the fact that at least they're taller than most women. Then when I show up, their reaction seems to be, "How dare you!"  If they can take offense at my very existence, then it seems to me that Jim could take offense at the very existence of the only person who's ever seriously challenged his intellectual superiority.

 

5'10" here, and I know exactly what you mean.  I've also been told women "shouldn't" be taller than  some height the man picks because it's shorter than he is.

 

Good Lord, nobody's ever actually said anything like that to me -- that's incredibly rude!  The hostile  looks that I occasionally get are quite bad enough.  (And I once had a boss like that -- which made for a very interesting couple of years!)
 
Since a somewhat-tall woman and a somewhat-short man each differ from the norm in a way considered "inappropriate" for their gender, you'd think they might feel a common bond -- but I guess there are buttheads in any group.  Oddly enough, I've never gotten that hostile vibe from a really short man.

 

I was sitting down at the time, had gone to a mixer thing with a girlfriend, I was in my twenties, when some man came and struck up a conversation by telling me some woman who must have been 5'8" had the nerve to ask him to dance!  Then he said, "Women shouldn't be taller than 5'6', right, I mean, what was she thinking?"  He just dripped contempt.
 
So I stood up.  I had heels on.  (BTW, as a young woman I was darned hot!)
 
He left.
 
Buh-bye!

 

[sittything]

What I wouldn't give to be tall!   I feel like most beautiful women are portrayed as tall and willowy.  I'm 5'0", 5'1" on a good day if I round up.  Womp womp.

[Arcadia]

5'2". I feel your pain.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Jeez, you guys!  Don't you realize women are "supposed" to be short?  Do you realize what those cute little dress-up shoes you wear would look like in a size eleven?

 

Sure, there are tall supermodels and tall beauty queens.  But they account for maybe .000001% of the population (I just made that up, but pretty close, I suspect).  The rest of us have to deal with what you might call the real world.  Like having to buy blouses a size too big, just so the sleeves will be long enough.  Like having to buy men's hats and men's socks because women's "one size fits all" -- doesn't.  Like having to deal with certain men (as mentioned above).  It ain't all willowy grace, lemme tell you!

 

[SherlockedCAMPer]

I have a friend who is 4' 11".  My son passed her up this past February.  Her fun moment is the fact that she and her husband are the same waist size while he's 6' 1".  The doorbell rang right as he was getting out of the shower so he quickly threw on a pair of jeans to answer it.  Turns out the jeans he grabbed were hers so they were more like capris on him. 

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Jeez, you guys!  Don't you realize women are "supposed" to be short?  Do you realize what those cute little dress-up shoes you wear would look like in a size eleven?

 

Sure, there are tall supermodels and tall beauty queens.  But they account for maybe .000001% of the population (I just made that up, but pretty close, I suspect).  The rest of us have to deal with what you might call the real world.  Like having to buy blouses a size too big, just so the sleeves will be long enough.  Like having to buy men's hats and men's socks because women's "one size fits all" -- doesn't.  Like having to deal with certain men (as mentioned above).  It ain't all willowy grace, lemme tell you!

 

How about this?  My sister is 5' 3" tall.  Her shoe size is a US men's 9 or 9.5 EEEE.  She also wears a men's size large glove.  She has an average male bone structure in a small frame.  Her jeans tend to be petite or short.  Isn't that a fun combination?

 

Then there's me at 5' 5.5", US women's 9.5 shoe and a women's size large glove.  My jeans need to be a long length as I have a slightly long inseam.  Most regular length jeans are an inch or so too short.  But if I'm not wearing shoes, I should be rolling my jean cuffs so that I don't step on them because they become slightly too long.  I get to be a little closer to average (except for that inseam).

[Arcadia]

How dare we all be different!!! I'm insulted, I tell you. Hmph.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

How dare we all be different!!! I'm insulted, I tell you. Hmph.

[T.o.b.y]

Some guys were never taught how to respect women. I work hard at teaching my son to not be the jerk-off guy.

 

Well, if you can somehow make him understand that the appropriate response to a woman he meets outdoors after dark is not "F*** you for being too ugly to be molested, how dare you", then I think you've achieved a lot and done humankind a great service.

 

 

Grrrhh!  I hear you, T.o.b.y.  And here are a couple of corollaries:

 

1. Some men are offended by the very existence of women who are taller than they are.  (See below for more on this. ^* )

 

2. Some men equate "beauty" with makeup (and/or tight clothing and/or a provocative manner).

 

Actually, my impression is that some men equal beauty with "availability". On my more vain days, I like to tell myself that I get those negative reactions not because I'm dead ugly (which I really am not quite prepared to consider myself. "Not pretty", okay. "Ugly" no), but because I am very obviously not looking for a mate and not trying hard to please (at least not visually).

 

I've heard of the height problem a lot, but I've never actually seen it. The really tall women I know are all gorgeous and have zero trouble with men. I have heard tall girls complain, though, that they cannot find a partner who is taller than themselves, which I have always found a bit bizarre - I mean, why is that so important for a relationship?

 

How dare we all be different!!! I'm insulted, I tell you. Hmph.

 

Yes, how dare we. That's what the fashion industry seems to think. In blatant denial of reality, all clothes seem to be made for exactly one body type, which almost nobody except for professional models actually has.

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

5'2". I feel your pain.

 

Gee, I'm only 5'1! God, it really sucks.

[Janie]

What I wouldn't give to be tall!   I feel like most beautiful women are portrayed as tall and willowy.  I'm 5'0", 5'1" on a good day if I round up.  Womp womp.

 

5'2". I feel your pain.

 

I feel so tall now with my 5'3" (1,62 m)

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

 

How dare we all be different!!! I'm insulted, I tell you. Hmph.

 

Yes, how dare we. That's what the fashion industry seems to think. In blatant denial of reality, all clothes seem to be made for exactly one body type, which almost nobody except for professional models actually has.

 

And never forget nor forgive the tyranny of fake pockets!

[sittything]

So what I'm taking away is that finding clothes that fit well is a pain for pretty much everyone.  

 

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

Probably the only thing I have to rant about is this arsehole male in my language arts class. Actually, no -- I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm too annoyed. I'll just write out the conversation between us:

 

 

     MALE: [puts hand on my shoulder] Heeeeeyyyyy, cutie!

     ME: [moves away] Go away, you poopcouch.

     MALE: [angry] I'm gonna murder you, b----!

[SherlockedCAMPer]

That sounds like the perfect guy to bring home to my hubby. He & I joked that if we ever had a daughter, her date would be greeted at the door with a drawn sword per male in the household.

[Carol the Dabbler]

I've heard of the height problem a lot, but I've never actually seen it. The really tall women I know are all gorgeous and have zero trouble with men. I have heard tall girls complain, though, that they cannot find a partner who is taller than themselves, which I have always found a bit bizarre - I mean, why is that so important for a relationship?

While I will admit to appreciating the feeling that the man I'm with could protect me if needed, that doesn't require him to be taller than me, nor does being with a tall man automatically give me that feeling. If I had to order a man from a catalog based solely on his statistics, I might ask that he be on the tall side. But in real life, I've always found a man's behavioral attributes to be far more important than his physical ones.

 

In my experience, it's mostly men who think height is important -- as in, they need to be taller than "their" woman. Being nearly as tall as the average man, I've dated a lot of men who are my height or shorter, and very few of them seemed to be entirely OK with that -- like the time I happened to flop down on the beach blanket with my head further "north" than his, and he actually made me slide down. Maybe tall women want to date tall men partly to avoid that sort of nonsense.  (Though I suppose some women, especially younger ones, can be just as superficial as some men.)

 

[SherlockedCAMPer]

There is still a stereotype of sorts that men should be taller than women as that is generally the case.  1 of my maids of honor for my wedding was hoping I wouldn't require high heels as she is on the taller side.  Thankfully for her, I'm not much of a high heel person and just requested they get black shoes that they would be comfortable wearing (in mid January).