Nice guys finish last. That’s why you broke up with me. You just can’t handle someone being nice to you, and treating you how you deserve to be treated and blah blah blah whatever else their little fuckin’ speech is.
MOTHERFUCKER, NO.
I broke up with you because you haven’t had a job the entire fucking year we’ve been dating. You’re collecting unemployment. It’s like having a baby man child boyfriend, and I can’t afford you. I found out you have a gambling problem. I found out you’re addicted to heroin. It’s hard for me to hang out with you because you’re always at your mom’s house… because you live there. You got my best friend pregnant. You tried to have sex with my dog that one time. You’re not even that fuckin’ nice!
I can promise you that there is a laundry list of reasons why that girl either broke up with you or chose not to date you or doesn’t like you. Being nice is like in another book, it’s not even on the list, it’s not there. There is not a girl on the face of the earth that doesn’t like nice people.
THE KLUTZ: When a beautiful actress is in a movie, executives wrack their brains to find some kind of flaw in her that still allows her to be palatable. She can’t be overweight or not perfect-looking, because who would want to see that? A not 100-percent-perfect-looking-in-every-way female? You might as well film a dead squid decaying on a beach somewhere for two hours. So they make her a klutz. The 100-percent-perfect-looking female is perfect in every way, except that she constantly falls down. She bonks her head on things. She trips and falls and spills soup on her affable date. (Josh Lucas. Is that his name? I know it’s two first names. Josh George? Brad Mike? Fred Tom? Yes, it’s Fred Tom.) Our Klutz clangs into stop signs while riding a bike, and knocks over giant displays of expensive fine china. Despite being five foot nine and weighing 110 pounds, she is basically like a drunk buffalo who has never been a part of human society. But Fred Tom loves her anyway.
THE ETHEREAL WEIRDO: The smart and funny writer Nathan Rabin coined the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl to describe a version of this archetype after seeing Kirsten Dunst in the movie Elizabethtown. This girl can’t be pinned down and may or may not show up when you make concrete plans. She wears gauzy blouses and braids. She decides to dance in the rain and weeps uncontrollably if she sees a sign for a missing dog or cat. She spins a globe, places her finger on a random spot, and decides to move there. This ethereal weirdo abounds in movies, but nowhere else. If she were in real life, people would think she was a homeless woman and would cross the street to avoid her, but she is essential to the male fantasy that even if a guy is boring, he deserves a woman who will find him fascinating and pull him out of himself by forcing him to go skinny-dipping in a stranger’s pool.
A WOMAN WHO IS OBSESSED WITH HER CAREER AND IS NO FUN AT ALL: I, Mindy Kaling, basically have two full-time jobs. I regularly work sixteen hours a day. But like most other people I know who are similarly busy, I think I’m a pleasant, pretty normal person. I am slightly offended by the way busy working women my age are presented in film. I’m not, like, always barking orders into my hands-free phone device and telling people constantly, “I have no time for this!” I didn’t completely forget how to be nice and feminine because I have a career. Also, since when does having a job necessitate women having their hair pulled back in a severe, tight bun? Often this uptight woman has to “re-learn” how to seduce a man because her estrogen leaked out of her from leading so many board meetings, and she has to do all sorts of crazy, unnecessary crap, like eat a hot dog in a libidinous way or something. Having a challenging job in movies means the compassionate, warm, or sexy side of your brain has fallen out.
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Mindy Kaling on stock characters in romantic comedies, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
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Amazing and informative interview. Anita Sarkeesian is one of my favorite people in the whole world ever.
I participated in a Voire Dire (jury selection) competition for the UT law school today (I was a juror)! SO MUCH FUN. I was in an awful mood going into it and thought I was just wasting my time, but I actually had a great time. I had to role play as a small town teacher who used to attend anti-war rallies in New York and is distrustful of the government. The case was on gender discrimination coincidentally! I made friends with a 52 year old feminist and we talked for an hour afterwards about all sorts of things (including bonding over our hatred of Santorum and mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds).
So the quandary was this: Is pro-veteran affirmative action in the workplace inherently sexist?
What are your thoughts?
If you’re going to be a sexist pig, at least be open about it.
I’m attending a rally tomorrow in support of birth control, and on the Facebook page some guy posted:
“Pregnancy is not a disease; it’s a gift and a privilege of being a woman. So preventing pregnancy is not preventive health care. Also, female fertility is natural; birth control pills unnaturally and chemically suppress natural fertility and thus cause dysfunction. This dysfunction can lead to increased cancer risks, especially breast cancer.”
Seriously? I am so sick of this pampering, coddling, patronizing rhetoric that men use to cover up their true intent.
Oh, pregnancy is a gift and a privilege. Don’t you realize that if you take birth control you won’t get GIFTS? Stop being so fussy and accept it, you! And besides, we’re trying to protect you. Birth control causes CANCER, didn’t you know? Aren’t you glad us men are here to save you from CANCER?
This is even more infuriating than outright sexism. You don’t oppose birth control because it harms women. You oppose birth control because you put your own religious dogma above women’s rights and you’re afraid of the societal consequences of female sexual liberation (mainly the fact that if women don’t get pregnant they might not stay in the kitchen). Stop treating us like we’re incompetent children who are foolishly declining your oh so unselfish act of generosity.
If you ever have any doubt that racism and sexism are still alive and well
just read YouTube comments.
A sorority girl and fraternity guy from my school were photographed having public sex at a party.
The photograph has circulated and become a scandal. But only for the woman and her sorority, not for the man and his fraternity.
Can someone please explain this to me?
When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question:
“Is this person in between me and what I want to do?”
If the answer is no, ignore it and move on.
