Fighting the tyranny of ‘niceness’: why we need difficult women

[laylalex 7,300]

This is an excellent, long, and yes, difficult piece. People are complex and our heroines (and heroes) aren't likely to be saints. The work of feminism is built on the women and men who came before us, and to dismiss it because it's now not completely palatable is to say, nah, we got that handled so we can fine tune now. We haven't gotten the big stuff handled! There is room in feminism for people like Helen Lewis and me, who shave our legs and wear bras and perform femininity as much as the bra-burners and the Instagram models and the riot grrrrls. What we have to focus on is continuing to cause trouble, whether we're wearing menswear or a poofball of a bridal gown.

 

Quote

Today’s feminist movement might be louder than previous generations, but is also more fractured, making it harder to achieve progress on any individual issue. “Cancel culture” ensures that any feminist icon’s reputation feels fragile and provisional. We barely anoint a new heroine before we tear her down again. “Sisterhood is powerful,” the activist Ti-Grace Atkinson once said. “It kills. Mostly sisters.” Feminism often feels mired in petty arguments, with younger women casually denigrating the achievements of their predecessors. “Cancel the second wave,” read one headline. When I talked at an event about the fights for equal pay and domestic-violence shelters, one twentysomething woman casually replied: “Yeah, but all that stuff is sorted.”

***

And there is another problem, unique to feminism. It is a movement run by women, for women. And what do we expect from women? Perfection. Selflessness. Care. Girls are instructed to be “ladylike” to keep them quiet and docile. Motherhood is championed as a journey of endless self-sacrifice. Random men tell us to “cheer up” in the street, because God forbid our own emotions should impinge on anyone else’s day. If we raise our voices, we are “shrill”. Our ambition is suspicious. Our anger is portrayed as unnatural, horrifying, disfiguring: who needs to listen to the “nag”, the “hysteric” or the “angry black woman”?

 

All this is extremely unhelpful if you want to go out and cause trouble – the kind of trouble that leads to legal and cultural change. We pick apart feminism to see its failings, as if to reassure ourselves that women aren’t getting above their station. We describe women who challenge authority or seek power as unladylike, talkative, insistent, self-obsessed. We accuse them of “putting themselves forward”. The critic Emily Nussbaum nailed the problem: “When you’re put on a pedestal, the whole world gets to upskirt you.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/15/feminism-feminists-tyranny-niceness-complexity

[Ban Hammer 13,491]

no, we don't need more difficult women.

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,378]

5 minutes ago, Ban Hammer said:

no, we don't need more difficult women.

Difficult wimmens are the reason so many men are marrying men nowadays

 

when i saw the headline a chill went down my spine. I would love to meet an too nice woman 

[yuna628 9,700]

1 hour ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

Difficult wimmens are the reason so many men are marrying men nowadays

 

when i saw the headline a chill went down my spine. I would love to meet an too nice woman 

We exist, but you will never escape our moments of crankiness at some men's certain tendencies. Sometimes we as a species will never understand the things you may do at times, and need communication to show you care, assistance in the home to show us our value, your protection and kindness, and willingness to actually listen. Do these things and you may find that more nice women are around. The best way to meet a difficult woman, is to be a difficult man.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

 

  The world really needs less difficult people. That applies to both sexes.

[Boiler 45,966]

I did not know there was a shortage, I could point them in the right direction of they need some.

[laylalex 7,300]

1 hour ago, Steeleballz said:

 

  The world really needs less difficult people. That applies to both sexes.

"Difficult" here doesn't mean impossible to get along with. It means being inconvenient, asking questions, not being satisfied with the status quo. I have been called "difficult" on many occasions when I have not conformed my behavior to others' expectations. It doesn't mean that they were right and I was wrong -- I was sticking up for myself, or sticking out, or refusing to go along with something I did not think was right or fair or reasonable. 

 

The opposite of difficult as it's meant here is "compliant." It's not always appropriate or moral to be compliant.

[Boiler 45,966]

I only glanced at the article but I am not sure she was using the term quite as you describe, but admittedly a subjective view.

[laylalex 7,300]

4 minutes ago, Boiler said:

I only glanced at the article but I am not sure she was using the term quite as you describe, but admittedly a subjective view.

It's a long article, and I will admit there are multiple uses of difficult in there. "Difficult" as I defined above, and also "difficult" in the sense of having an unruly past that doesn't conform to current standards of wokeness.

[Boiler 45,966]

Just now, laylalex said:

It's a long article, and I will admit there are multiple uses of difficult in there. "Difficult" as I defined above, and also "difficult" in the sense of having an unruly past that doesn't conform to current standards of wokeness.

It did occur to me that she would not meet current standards, could not be certain from what I saw. The games we play.

[laylalex 7,300]

1 minute ago, Boiler said:

It did occur to me that she would not meet current standards, could not be certain from what I saw. The games we play.

Coco Chanel has a complicated history. It's hard to get behind some of the decisions she made, but at the same time she was a pioneer who helped women's fashion become more practical while staying chic, as well as being a fierce and talented entrepreneur. We are all complicated, complex creatures, human, messy, weird and mutable. It's why I think cancel culture is bogus.

[Boiler 45,966]

1 minute ago, laylalex said:

Coco Chanel has a complicated history. It's hard to get behind some of the decisions she made, but at the same time she was a pioneer who helped women's fashion become more practical while staying chic, as well as being a fierce and talented entrepreneur. We are all complicated, complex creatures, human, messy, weird and mutable. It's why I think cancel culture is bogus.

It is funny to watch, after all if you keep on cancelling people because they do not have the same beliefs you have in the end you are left with just you.

[laylalex 7,300]

1 hour ago, Boiler said:

It is funny to watch, after all if you keep on cancelling people because they do not have the same beliefs you have in the end you are left with just you.

I struggle with this, because I think there are people who should be beyond the pale, who we should not consider as difficult or complicated. I have an ongoing conversation with myself (and others, I'm not quite that mental) about whether it is possible to divorce art from the artist, when the artist is a rapist or a murder or a pedophile or a fascist (to name but a few categories). How should a person who enjoys a work of art or a book or a movie or a song handle the discovery that the creator was a monster? My high school boyfriend, the one who really, really messed with my head, is an abuser and an author. His books are very good -- I have read them all. I remind myself of who it was who wrote these, and yet part of me can still appreciate them for what they are. I do not know if he carried on being a terrible person after we split up and I do not care to know. There is no point in pointing to him to "cancel" him -- I'd be just some other dumb girl who should have said something 20 years ago, and he'd still be writing and getting published.

 

Life is hard, people are messy, and none of us fit in boxes until we're dead. Even then, some of us will find our legacies leaching out in unexpected directions.

[Orangesapples 1,954]

6 hours ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

Difficult wimmens are the reason so many men are marrying men nowadays

 

 

And there I thought it's because said men are gay and gay marriage is legal. 

[Boiler 45,966]

1 minute ago, Orangesapples said:

And there I thought it's because said men are gay and gay marriage is legal. 

Well they seem quite happy about it. I do know a lesbian couple who have been a couple I think for some time, from what I can gather that is relatively unusual,  the stats are against them. The funny thing is that I have known them both individually for a long time and it was some time before I realised they were. But then I do not go looking for that, why would you.