Why bother about a chewing gum when the entire ground is covered in litter?

I saw a post at a blog the other day which made me sigh.

Under the header “Hot or not”, a fellow film blogger argued in bullet-point style about a few female stars whether they were “hot” or just “attractive”.

While I know now that it wasn’t the intention, it came off to me as quite sexist. However for some reason I couldn’t collect myself to write a proper reply. Instead I just threw away a couple of tweets.

“Feeling a bit disappointed seeing a film blog I like turning into a boy’s locker room at high school all of a sudden.”

And

“Also disappointed at my self for not speaking up about it. Don’t want to come out as an old, grumpy bitch. So I turn away, cowardly.”

I’m not particularly proud of my acting. There’s something passive-aggressive about it. I was just letting off steam without contributing constructively to the discussion. Lazy. That was what it was. Lazy. And also a bit egotistical.

I told myself that no one listens anyway if a 40-something old woman complains about guys talking about hot chicks as items. It would only confirm the image of the grumpy old feminist who just is bitter over not being a hottie herself. Criticism against the article would bite better if it came from young men.

So I didn’t say anything more on this. Then, by a coincident, I came across Ashley Judd’s article about the judging of women’s appearances in media and the whole thing started to grow on me. I couldn’t but see the hot-or-not post, as innocent as it might have been intended, as a part of the same system that Judd was talking about.

The discussion
I went back to the post and found that the discussion already was running. While I had been knitting my fists in my pockets, others had taken action. There were thoughtful comments from Ryan at The Matinee, Joanna at Man I Love Films, Ashley at Pussy goes Grrr and Corey at Just Atad, who wrote an entire post in reply.

All those wonderful people have already said what I’d like to say about this in a way more poignant way than could and I won’t repeat their arguments. Kai, who wrote the post, has explained his point of view, assuring he didn’t have any bad intentions, that he’s not a sexist and that it was just a piece of fun, nothing to take seriously. And I believe him.

Basically I could and maybe should just leave it and move on without adding my two cents. The pile is big enough as it is. Point has been taken, there’s nothing more to see here.

And yet: here I am, still processing what just happened. It’s as if I can’t get it out of my system quite yet.

I’m still thinking about why THIS little post got such a shit storm while so many other posts, FAR more sexist, pass without anyone taking notice. Maybe it was just coincidences, bad luck, bad timing with Ashley Judd’s post.

Like Walpurgis night
I got to think of the Walpurgis night celebrations on April30. In my city, following an old student tradition, this is the biggest party day of the year. In honour of the arrival of spring, people are eating and drinking everywhere and don’t think twice about leaving their garbage on the spot where they were sitting. The entire city is turned into a dump and most people take this as an excuse to litter, arguing that their trash doesn’t make any difference since the ground already is covered.

The hot-or-not post is comparatively innocent to so many other articles on the web. It’s as if someone spit out a piece of chewing gum on Walpurgis, while other people are dumping anything from pizza boxes and bottles to chairs, tables and even sofas. And here we are, obsessing over this chewing gum! It’s unfair!

And yet, at the same time: litter is litter. If we just give up completely about it, shrugging at everything from chewing gum to sofas, arguing that “there’s nothing we can do about it anyway”, where does that bring us? Isn’t it better that people engage and say something, than that we just let everything get a pass since the film industry is so sexist anyway?

Lesson learned
My approach to Walpurgis night has always been to pick up my own litter, regardless of how other people do it. But I’ve never ever called someone out for leaving litter, never picked up the litter of someone else. “To each one his own” has always been my mantra. As long as I haven’t contributed, I’ve been fine.

But maybe I should think this over again. It can’t just be the responsibility of young men to take fights like this. So what if I’m middle-aged and a woman? It shouldn’t prevent me from speaking up.

I learned a lesson from this too. And now it’s finally time for me to move on. Let’s drop the chewing gum. There are armchairs over there on the lawn.