GftNC - I don't think that the author was trying to assign some sort of essential caring nature to women. I saw her as arguing that the men around her were attacking Butcher's accomplishments by saying that she was being too "soft," where soft is the devalued side of the binary under patriarchy, and thus belonged to women and other varieties of deficient people (children, mama's boys, homosexuals, etc.). They hated her because her success undermined their paradigm of how to be a winner as a man.
And that patriarchal paradigm (as youknow) is still very much with us. It's why work associated with emotional labor (nursing, teaching, child care, human resources) is still coded as female and is still assigned less economic value.
But in Butcher's case at least, the recipe for how to be a successful musher did change to reflect the importance of caring in creating a good dogsled team, and male mushers had to look to other aspects of their sport if they wanted to use it as a way to assert their masculinity.
I feel like I should mention Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Writing here as well, since this is an excellent example of the sort of "negging" she was illustrating in that book... "Yes, she won, but she was too easy on her dogs and the dogs would have won by more if they were being mushed by a man."
1 week ago
This piece from High Country News nails a lot of the gender dynamics floating beneath the surface in the Lebrecht/Wang exchanges:
Not that Wang and Ididtarod champion Susan Butcher have similar ethoi - far from it - but rather that both get met with the same sort of dismissive criticism because they excel in ways that defy the expectations of how a woman of extraordinary skill and accomplishment should act within a conservative, patriarchal field of human endeavor.
As our part of the planet turns toward the sun this year, I remember the shy Laureli who didn’t get Susan Butcher’s autograph. Who heard people speak poorly of a woman who knew what she was doing and was doing it well. This spring, I think that if Susan Butcher could change the way thousands of dogs are treated leading up to and during a 1,000-mile race across Alaska, maybe we can spur change through our work and actions, too. Through care and our own feminine instincts, even if some people call us witches.
2 weeks ago
She doesn't need him. He needs her. He's a gossip and a hanger on, much like Jann Wenner.
I propose the portmanteau "gatecreeper" for this particular combination of self-importance and sexism. I do think he's being sexist in his assumptions about Wang's popularity and need for his legitimation.
Must hurt to both be this wrong and get sacked over it.
GftNC - I don't think that the author was trying to assign some sort of essential caring nature to women. I saw her as arguing that the men around her were attacking Butcher's accomplishments by saying that she was being too "soft," where soft is the devalued side of the binary under patriarchy, and thus belonged to women and other varieties of deficient people (children, mama's boys, homosexuals, etc.). They hated her because her success undermined their paradigm of how to be a winner as a man.
And that patriarchal paradigm (as youknow) is still very much with us. It's why work associated with emotional labor (nursing, teaching, child care, human resources) is still coded as female and is still assigned less economic value.
But in Butcher's case at least, the recipe for how to be a successful musher did change to reflect the importance of caring in creating a good dogsled team, and male mushers had to look to other aspects of their sport if they wanted to use it as a way to assert their masculinity.
I feel like I should mention Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Writing here as well, since this is an excellent example of the sort of "negging" she was illustrating in that book... "Yes, she won, but she was too easy on her dogs and the dogs would have won by more if they were being mushed by a man."
This piece from High Country News nails a lot of the gender dynamics floating beneath the surface in the Lebrecht/Wang exchanges:
https://www.hcn.org/issues/58-3/a-champion-iditarod-musher-proved-that-caring-and-trust-win-races/
Not that Wang and Ididtarod champion Susan Butcher have similar ethoi - far from it - but rather that both get met with the same sort of dismissive criticism because they excel in ways that defy the expectations of how a woman of extraordinary skill and accomplishment should act within a conservative, patriarchal field of human endeavor.
She doesn't need him. He needs her. He's a gossip and a hanger on, much like Jann Wenner.
I propose the portmanteau "gatecreeper" for this particular combination of self-importance and sexism. I do think he's being sexist in his assumptions about Wang's popularity and need for his legitimation.
Must hurt to both be this wrong and get sacked over it.
What a self-important little man.