see, the funny thing is that when someone calls you a misogynist, it's like someone calling you a racist, it's not something you can just flatly deny, even if you'd be telling the truth. (SG heads look at my last entry for the beginning of this thought thread; LJ heads will probably be able to see where I'm working from.)
the truth is that, regardless of how self-aware a person is, there is only one way to present your "true" self to others, and that's through what slips through your internal censors and migrates into the real world through your words and actions.
the thing is, a human being does a shitload of overt action and overt talking in their life, and it's easy to take a slice of that life and use that to make an extrapolation about the rest of the slices. i'm not too proud to admit that i do it myself, more often than i should, and i'll be the first person to second anyone who calls bullshit on me.
i'll also, however, be the first person to call bullshit on the person claiming some semblance of high ground.
i've thought and felt and said some hideous things in the past, and some of them have been about women, certainly. i've objectified people for various purposes, used them impersonally and cast them aside, and some of them were women, certainly. i've generally done stupid things and thought stupid things under erroneous assumptions, and some of those things involved women, certainly. does that make me a misogynist? not for me to decide.
does that make someone who doesn't know me qualified to call me a misogynist?
let me ask another question: does anyone who reads me actually believe that i think and feel things i think and feel and do without acknowledging the inherent fallibility or hideousness in it all?
furthermore, does anyone actually believe i take myself seriously enough to a point where i would assume my actions have any effect on others that demanded any treatment other than shrugging and saying either "hey, he might be right" or "hey, he's full of shit?"
i'm not some phenomenally-empowered macho boogeyman with the ability to control others' lives. i'm a twentysomething fuck-up who over-thinks everything and never thinks he's right about anything except music.
the truth is that, regardless of how self-aware a person is, there is only one way to present your "true" self to others, and that's through what slips through your internal censors and migrates into the real world through your words and actions.
the thing is, a human being does a shitload of overt action and overt talking in their life, and it's easy to take a slice of that life and use that to make an extrapolation about the rest of the slices. i'm not too proud to admit that i do it myself, more often than i should, and i'll be the first person to second anyone who calls bullshit on me.
i'll also, however, be the first person to call bullshit on the person claiming some semblance of high ground.
i've thought and felt and said some hideous things in the past, and some of them have been about women, certainly. i've objectified people for various purposes, used them impersonally and cast them aside, and some of them were women, certainly. i've generally done stupid things and thought stupid things under erroneous assumptions, and some of those things involved women, certainly. does that make me a misogynist? not for me to decide.
does that make someone who doesn't know me qualified to call me a misogynist?
let me ask another question: does anyone who reads me actually believe that i think and feel things i think and feel and do without acknowledging the inherent fallibility or hideousness in it all?
furthermore, does anyone actually believe i take myself seriously enough to a point where i would assume my actions have any effect on others that demanded any treatment other than shrugging and saying either "hey, he might be right" or "hey, he's full of shit?"
i'm not some phenomenally-empowered macho boogeyman with the ability to control others' lives. i'm a twentysomething fuck-up who over-thinks everything and never thinks he's right about anything except music.
Does that mean we dont do it, sometimes.
Does that mean we do it all the time, sometimes.
We are human and part of our nature (in repect to curiosity and what drives us to discover) is to constantly experiment with combinations of assumptions and manners of handling those assumptions to discover the most efficient way to meet our own agendas.
This is not wrong but merely survival, because of this opinion I am free to fogive people for being morons
And since I refuse to believe that I've lost my reading-people-ability, I'll have to say:
whoever called you a misogynist is full of shit.