A Half Dozen Pet Peeves
Nov. 16th, 2007 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
browngirlBecause it's raining and I'm in a bad mood: some things I'm tired of. Not an essay, a rant. Or rather a bunch of rantlets.
1) Depictions of fat people in the media, which are always belly shots of sloppily dressed people carrying large amounts of unhealthy food. *sigh* Whenever I eat in public (which I have to do at least once every business day) I wonder if people are looking at me and remembering those images.
2) Men threatening rape and other forms of sexual violence as a debate tactic when arguing with women. Of course I'm really kind of tired of men threatening sexual violence in general, but what sparked this particular entry was reading about a couple of discussions where women commenting on subjects such as computer programming and comic books were so threatened.
3) The idea that all sides of an issue are always morally equivalent; it just isn't so: for example, the people who just want to get married and the people who want to make it illegal for them to do so are not on the same moral plane; one group are trying to form families for themselves, the other are trying to dismantle other people's families.
4) Science and art are not enemies as so commonly portrayed, and more and more I see mostly artists driving that fight, see more and more scientists who also love and create art.
5) People decrying any attempt to acknowledge that US society isn't culturally monolithic as political correctness, with the implications of traitorousness. When will people see that diversity can be fertile and productive and cultural purity can be a horribly dangerous goal? Besides, whether or not we should be we minorities are here with our various cultures, and unless they intend to throw us out or forcibly bleach us (which I wonder about sometimes) they're just going to have to deal with the diversity we bring.
6) Proselytizing was going to go here, but everyone who knows me already knows how I feel about that. So I'll just say that every time I see someone defend proselytization as being a required practice for their religion I really want to tell them that in this modern age one should not require another person's nonconsensual participation in order to carry out one's religious observance.
1) Depictions of fat people in the media, which are always belly shots of sloppily dressed people carrying large amounts of unhealthy food. *sigh* Whenever I eat in public (which I have to do at least once every business day) I wonder if people are looking at me and remembering those images.
2) Men threatening rape and other forms of sexual violence as a debate tactic when arguing with women. Of course I'm really kind of tired of men threatening sexual violence in general, but what sparked this particular entry was reading about a couple of discussions where women commenting on subjects such as computer programming and comic books were so threatened.
3) The idea that all sides of an issue are always morally equivalent; it just isn't so: for example, the people who just want to get married and the people who want to make it illegal for them to do so are not on the same moral plane; one group are trying to form families for themselves, the other are trying to dismantle other people's families.
4) Science and art are not enemies as so commonly portrayed, and more and more I see mostly artists driving that fight, see more and more scientists who also love and create art.
5) People decrying any attempt to acknowledge that US society isn't culturally monolithic as political correctness, with the implications of traitorousness. When will people see that diversity can be fertile and productive and cultural purity can be a horribly dangerous goal? Besides, whether or not we should be we minorities are here with our various cultures, and unless they intend to throw us out or forcibly bleach us (which I wonder about sometimes) they're just going to have to deal with the diversity we bring.
6) Proselytizing was going to go here, but everyone who knows me already knows how I feel about that. So I'll just say that every time I see someone defend proselytization as being a required practice for their religion I really want to tell them that in this modern age one should not require another person's nonconsensual participation in order to carry out one's religious observance.
