Like a girl...

[samvara]

I think a small part of my soul dies every time I read a fic where some manly man 'screams/cries/walks/talks/feels like a girl' and I'm wondering what we could be replacing it with. It always seems to be used to mean things like emotional, vulnerable, available, people oriented etc. with a strong dose of 'wrong.'

I'm eyeing off 'sap,' 'dope,' and 'wuss' with the possible inclusion of 'a bit sad.'

Interestingly the urban dictionary breaks down 'wuss' into terms that are overwhelmingly derogatory to either women or gay men. *sighs* I want a better world.

Comments

[ironed_orchid]

Cries or Wails like a baby.

Walks, Talks, Screams,Feels, Whines like a small child.

Still with the connotation of vulnerability, but with less sexism.

[flamebyrd]

Pathetic, perhaps?

My PE teacher in high school had a sticker on her office with a little comic of a boy and a big beefy man, and the following dialogue:
Man: You throw like a girl!
Boy: Gee, coach, I'm not that good!

[triciaqaf.livejournal.com]

Word.

Every time someone says "you (fill in the blanks here - scream, throw, whatever) like a girl", I say "hey cool - good for you!". Accompanied by a raised "don't fuck with me" eyebrow. Works every time.

:|

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

I just read yet ANOTHER fic like this today and was thinking the same thing. VASTLY irritating!!!

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

I'm mixing it up depending on the receptiveness of the audience - sometimes I say 'in the good way right?' other times I pause, lean, smile and say 'now why would that be such a problem for you?' and the rest of the time I say 'yeah, who want to be one of them' and I sneer as dramatically as possible - people usually get the idea.

Neither is as satisfying as imagining a world where I don't have to listen to subtly denigrating language all the time.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

I don't want this level of sensitivity to language, it's not bringing me joy. It makes me feel cranky, old and tired.

*clings to mellifluous and cinnamon*

[callistra.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it may be worth pointing out that it's lazy writing at it's height?
Unless there's a REASON in the PLOT for screaming like girls, in which case it's necessary.
But instances of that are so rare it's funny.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

It's lazy writing that is giving me a nervous tic.

[sarren.livejournal.com]

Me too.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

What about 'dag' or 'dork'?

[callistra.livejournal.com]

I think dag has racist connotations.
I don't know anything about dork.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Dag? Which race?

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

"Wimp" leaps to mind but I reject it. The awful wrongness of it all is doing my head in. You lost me at "manly man".

FWIW I often combine the phrase "I'm just a girl" with fluttering eyelashes and bared teeth, with a touch of psychotic axe-murderer thrown in (hatchet coquette?). Remarkably effective in a software development environment.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

Perhaps getting confused with dago and/or wog for Mediterranean?

[callistra.livejournal.com]

That's the bunny.
Dago became dag.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

That isn't the traditional etymolog, and while I'm deeply suspicious of folk etymology, it certainly used to be used in a term quite distinct from dago (which has all but vanished from Australian vernacular, while wog is now one of those terms that seems to be used a lot as a self-identifier by those from that group).

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

The etymology of dork is essentially as a politer version of dick.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

I though dags were things hanging off sheeps' butts?

[awils1.livejournal.com]

I know how you feel. I snapped at a classmate because he kept referring to the math we were doing as `gay', and I started---``can you please stop calling the hard math gay, as if being gay was a bad thing?''. Oddly enough, he stopped.

As alternatives: whiner? Whinging whiner? Emo?

It doesn't appear in the fic I read a lot --- but since my characters get beat up, we get ``stop acting like mother hen (http://awils1.dreamwidth.org/4886.html)'', as if that was a bad thing.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Ever since a visit to the Big Shot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtILmiAB89c) ride on top of the 300m high Stratosphere (http://www.stratospherehotel.com/thrills/big_shot.cfm) tower in Las Vegas, J & I have used "screamed like a Tony Roberts," after the colleague who screamed loudest.

We frequently had to pull him up at work for misogynistic comments, so it seemed only fair. He was otherwise a really nice guy..

[ironed_orchid]

Cried like a teenager!

[ascetic-hedony.livejournal.com]

Like a baby or a child?

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

My terrible, TERRIBLE brothers do it to tease me, we have a routine when I tease them about their weird obsession with cock.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

*grins* I like 'slept like baby' which I take to mean you screamed for hours...

[fred_mouse]

nah, not hours. a few minutes every time the rest of the household is asleep, so that they are awake again. Or 'until we reached the point where it would have been helpful that I was asleep'.

[mr_booboo]

OK, here it is, the unpopular opinion: I've had just about enough of the race fail/feminism fail/ everything fail.

Why must you die a little when you hear these things? It's gotten to the point where anything said can offend people. It's political correctness gone insane.

You cry like a little girl because more often than not, little girls cry at a drop of a hat. In fact, so do little boys. You scream like a little girl because little girls have those high pitch screams that little boys don't have. Maybe a lot of little girls didn't, but the majority would have.

Boys throw tantrums, little girls cry. Forever. Speaking from someone who has spent a lot of time with young children.

I use this term all the time. I also go around telling men folk that boys have cooties and I don't want to touch them. It's all in jest and if you suck all the joy in every single word, it'd be dreadfully dull.

Yes, a lot of words like wuss have negative conotations, but I highly doubt that most people would mean it to be anything more than a scaredy cat. A lot of people, including myself didn't know what it meant.

How dreadfully dull would it be if everything I read was written with politically correct words and terminology. I may as well be reading a text book.

[samvara]

I don't agree with you boo, I'm getting really tired of copping low grade anti-woman language all the time and I don't think 'toughen up' or 'at least life isn't boring' is a good enough answer for me.

[mr_booboo]

I guess we will have to disagree.

I will call people out if they take it too far, but if they don't realise what they are doing or mean something else, I let it go.

[samvara]

I can do that :p

I guess to me, if they don't know what they're doing, or mean something else, they need to know that it isn't OK.

[wolflullaby.livejournal.com]

'Hatchet coquette' sounds like an awesome term. Could totally be a business name, or possibly a band name.

[wolflullaby.livejournal.com]

I've gotten so used to a lot of the subtle sexist language amongst some of my friends that I have just turned off to it. It's not the right thing to do I know, but just easier. :/

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Heh, my equivalent is the lean and smile, my voice always drops a bit and people seem to take it very seriously.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

I wish it was something that could be walked away from.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

I think Hatchet Coquette would work as a gothic lolita fashion label and/or singer. And google tells me no-one else has thought of it so it's MINE! :-)

[copracat]

But that's the joy of aging: freedom to crank!

[samvara]

*works on her death glare*

Heh, it *is* a joy :)

[copracat]

:D