whileyouweresleeping:

I’m late to the party. I’ve been quietly seething about this issue since it all started at the last CES. Much ink was poured into it, and I fully expect my voice to be lost in the cacophony. But hear me out for a second. I’m not condoning Gary Shapiro’s dismissive and sexist stance. It’s pathetic and all too common, but I know we can’t change him, so my battle lies elsewhere: I’ve been angry about our own weird, complicated, ambivalent attitudes towards it.

The excellent and talented Jessie said it well in her Lament of the Delicious Librarian post, which I’ve only just read and which prompted me to write this. Because I agree: Fuck. You.

Here’s the deal. Women’s lib means we have a choice that no one, not even the most self-righteous feminist, gets to deny us.

[…]

If your biggest fear is that men won’t take you seriously because other females are dressed in tight clothes, then you’ve got bigger issues.

If sexy girls make you uncomfortable, let us be clear: that’s your own bullshit.

[…]

She’s no victim. She’s probably a hard worker. She probably makes more money than you do. You don’t know anything about her. So fuck you, fuck you hard for slut-shaming her, for acting like she must be rescued from herself, or for making it about your own hang-ups.

— From SF.

This. 

Also, guess what, that bullshit? That bullshit demeans me as well. It demeans me as an individual. It demeans my intelligence and my ethics because some insecure, fight-baiting little fuck wants to blame this bullshit on anyone who walks around with a Y chromosome as though the ability to respect someone’s choice, appreciate their intelligence or the ability to admire them is impossible because scantily clad women are obviously kryptonite that causes a complete molecular failure for synapses to continue firing in my head, damaging me forever into some kind of sex-deprived arsehole.