I've never liked a Nelly Furtado song till this summer...PROMISCUOUS GIRL IS THE SUMMER JAM OF '06!

Oh yeah, it sucks that she hates feminism now....

but promiscuous girl is the jam!

total bummer - she just helped to solidify the myth that feminists hate men....good one nelly. So she loves men, but obviously not women...

I belong to a few "isms" that do not have a universal good image.

I used to go around apologetically saying "no, we are not really like that, it is just a vocal minority and an effort by those against us to smear our image".

Both true, but one day I found myself at a convention, saw the nice people, the jerks and said to myself "I have to admit it, those people are here and they are here in numbers".

I haven't tried it out yet, but I wonder what would happen if when I was introduced to someone I just said something like

"Yah, there are ists who ____, I'm not one of them. I hope you will see something different as you get to know me"

Actually, to be fair to Ms. Furtado (who actually is quite talented and intelligent), it was Blender Magazine and not her that have helped to solidify the stereotype that feminists hate men. Her statement could have been taken out of context, and we have no idea what question was asked to elicit that response. Ms. Furtado didn't pen that article or publish it, but people at Blender Mag did. Sure she said it, but she didn't publish it.

eshew obfuscation - you have an excellent point.

I was soooo afraid that something like this would come out about her. Just the fact that her latest songs are just soooo not old Nelly...*shaking head*

Hrm. Hasn't "flower child" always been synonymous with "promiscuous" in the first place?

I'm not too suprised. Ah well... Gotta fit in with the teeny bopper image, ya know.

Wow, another reason for me to be annoyed by her...

I hate that feminism is associated with man bashing. I'm sure there are feminists who have the sentiment, but there are just as many (if not more) who love and respect men as much as they want to be loved and respected. Not to mention that the term "feminist" almost always conjurs up the image of a women. There are men feminists too. I just wish we could get rid of the stigma of the word...

Christy, good post.

I think the transgender and queer theory movements have effectively done in the whole idea of separatist feminism in most quarters.

There is a small constituency of women who are attached to the ideas of "the sisterhood," "girl power," and "solidarity" at the expense of yucky boys, but I never think of them as feminists and they never seem to play any substantial role in feminist activism or feminist organizations.

They are usually more wounded than wounders, in any case--nearly all of them, to a person, seem to identify as victims of male sexual violence--so I tend to think of this as one more way that women have been victimized by institutional sexism, rather than any kind of reverse institutional sexism.

It's sort of like that time I was in line at the pharmacy ahead of a young (and, I suspect, low-income) African-American woman with her baby, headed to the door leaving one of my bags behind, then turned around and grabbed it. "I wasn't going to steal it!," she protested, with her eyes downcast. "I know that!," I reassured her with a smile, but I could tell she didn't believe me. Was that "reverse racism" on her part? No. Life experience.

Ditto the stereotypical "man-hater." There are probably control freak man-hating women just like there are control freak woman-hating men, but I don't meet very many of the former and I meet a whole hell of a lot of the latter.

Cheers,

TH

("at the expense of yucky boys" --> "while dehumanizing yucky boys")

I wonder what Keith Jackson would think about this?

Nelly's actions are not uncommon, only because most girls who try to break into the music industry are not really writing/singing/performing from a creative place inside themselves, they are just responding to what the music execs want, and they just want to be popular. In other words, formula.

Often they'll start out sweet and folksy, and when that runs out of fashion they get vampish or hip-hop-ish. If the popular thing tomorrow suddenly became heavy metal, then Nelly would be dying her hair red and screaming into a microphone.

I went to the website and listened to the song. It was pretty good. But honestly, she sounded like she could be Lil Kim or Pink or any dozen other girl singers. She sounds like everybody else.

So if that is her goal, to sell records and that's it, then it gives you some insight into her character. Frankly, if she went through a feminist stage and it's over, I'm relieved. Because she was never really a feminist. It's just too bad she has to run her mouth about it. I think that the "I love men" comment speaks to a lot more than her feminist-ending phase. Some young women are petrified of being thought of as lesbian, or frigid, or prudish, or man-hating (not that any of those words go together). They are scared because there is open distain for those things. So she goes in the opposite direction. The message in the lyrics is,..I'm a big girl (no crybaby, no virgin) and I can "handle it." I can play this game with the big boys.

But frankly, I think Missy Elliot did it better than any of them. She was overweight and she still laid it down. She was bullied in a hip hop boys world, and she proved that she was smarter, badder, and more creative than any of them. Her message was, I don't need to be thin and (sterotypically) sexy to be in this business, and she proved it by writing and performing a hit video featuring nothing - nothing but herself in a black hefty bag. Her message was clear: Even in a garbage bag I can out-perform you. She wasn't afraid of the lesbian accusation either, and neither was Queen Latifa. As I recall, one of them made a song saying how she got the boy's girlfriend in bed last night.

Lately, though, we see little of that strength, - a kind of fearlessness and outlook which I would call feminism. Now, you have the Nellys of the world with no identity and absolutely NOTHING to say.

Promiscous Girl IS the jam. And in some ways, interestingly enough, a feminist anthem. It's basically saying you and me are no different, we both want to get laid for the sake of getting laid. Her old stuff was WHINY. I'm like a bird ill only fly away? give me promisucous girl over flower child whiny crap any day. She was probably reading mackinnon or dworkin or something which, while i agree with them in points, is manhating, there really arent too many ways the general populatino can read some of that stuff and NOT think so.

She's gone from making sucky music to suckier music, and dumped her shallow, image-minded politics in the process. Excuse me while I don't care at all.

I, as a male feminist, have yet to experience anything like the "male bashing" that feminists supposedly do. There are definitely a lot of women who are suspicious of me, who doubt my seriousness when it comes to feminism, but I take that in stride and try to learn something. There's a lot of generally resenting men, but it's pretty understandable, and is usually directed at men as a class, rather then specific men.

I think there are some serious flaws in the way a lot of feminists look at men, but they aren't so much hate as a lack of understanding. I also don't think those flaws are remotely close to a good reason to not support feminism, since almost any male-dominated ideology has far more problems in the way it adresses women's issues..

I don't mean to be dense, but anyone who gets into feminism by reading MacKinnon and Dworkin rather than socializing with living, breathing feminists probably had no real intention of identifying with the movement to begin with.

Not that I would say that Dworkin or MacKinnon were necessarily man-haters; I think they both said some things that badly needed to be said.

Cheers,

TH

I'm not surprised by the comment. She's changed and it shows on her latest album.

Yeah, I guess the old stuff was WHINY. And women are annoying and shrilly, and bitchy and nagging. And they are man-haters. And personally, I think they should either be wearing wet t-shirts and high heels or be at home pushing out babies. But either way they should just shut the fuck up. Did that sum it all up enough?

Just when are MEN called Whiny? Ever?

I think if we don't stop hating ourselves and being ashamed of our movement then we can never expect anyone else to respect us or identify with us, period. It's a mindset, and we're all brainwashed.

I guess it took a man to post on here to give some real perspective:

"....I also don't think those flaws are remotely close to a good reason to not support feminism, since almost any male-dominated ideology has far more problems in the way it addresses women's issues."

Ain't that the truth.

I just took your challenge MsJane and I googled "whiny music review".

The first hit is a review of the band "Neutral Milk Hotel", who are referred to as "whiny". The band is basically centered around Jeff Magnum (a man) who is the singer/songwriter of the band.

The next review I found was of Nick Lachey's new album.

Next up is a reference to R.E.M. being "whiny".

Next up is a review of the band "Snow Patrol", where they're called "whiny".

And to round off the first page of google hits is a review of the Beck "Sea Change" album, where he's referred to as "whiny".

According to google, it seems men are referred to as "whiny" more often than women when it comes to music reviews.

Just when are MEN called Whiny? Ever?

I just took your challenge MsJane and I googled "whiny music review".

It's smitty nonwhiteperson here again. MsJane's comment was about whininess on social and political issues. Your search of "whiny music reviews" was only about music reviews and the whiniest music has to be men's emo. Men aren't called whiny when it matters, that is, on social and political issues.

LOL. That's exactly right, nonwhiteperson. I was refering to the culture, not really the music industry in particular. And yes, even in music, what are the examples of whiny? Marlboro men like Lachey, R.E.M, and industrial rock. It does speak to my point. Lachey, in fact, was described as whiny when he was lamenting about his lost relationship with Jessica (i.e. he was acting like a woman).

But you have to give EO credit. She googled and found examples in music I didn't think I'd see. That made me laugh, because she was right on that point, and I was not.

But, as we know, googling does not bring the whole world into focus. I can google "crying" and find male as well as female examples of crying. But we all know that men aren't supposed to cry, or be weak, because it's seen as feminine.

That's kind of where "whining" sits too. It's weak, it's feminine, it's childish. The definition which came up for me was the example of a crying baby who hasn't had a nap.

And that is used much more frequently to describe women, not men. And if men are described as being whiny it is to attribute the supposedly weaker, feminine attribute to them. As in, "you play like a girl."

I know this is a potent weapon in politics as well, as the GOP often try to attribute feminine and weak descriptions of the opposing party. So I yahooed the words "whiny politicians" and got and entire page of Democrats. No Republicans. I got Hillary, Schumer, Dick Durbin, the whiny liberal media, whiny people against Rumsfield, HOWARD DEAN, Single moms, Pelosi, and anyone against the NRA. And folks...that was just the first page.

So that's what I'm saying. That word is dumped on us women, or our unfortunate male supporters. By the way, when you Yahoo just the word whiny, the alternate search words provided are: "Whiny Angelina Jolie, and Whiny Jennifer Aniston."

It's something I'd rather us get away from when referring to women.