People who are passionate about trying to stop shit-talking and gossip, who write moving treatises on the harm that shit-talking can cause, or catchy songs about how honest communication is so, so important, write zines that reference Mean Girls and the importance of stopping gossip, those who make anti-shit-talking their personal death hill, they have an agenda.
The agenda is that they are sketchy motherfuckers and want to keep people in the dark about that.
Pro-Shit-Talking 4Lyfe. Beware the anti-shit-talking brigade.
Pass it on.
i have definitely seen “girls communicating about dudes who make them feel uncomfortable/are abusive towards them” be considered “shit-talking” and “gossip” all the time
this is important; what katy said, and anti-gossip rhetoric is usually propped up by misogynist anti-girl sentiments about girltype behaviors and pettiness and cattiness and “i just am so much more comfortable with guys”
gossip as a survival skill
gossip as community security
gossip as an anti-rape culture tool
gossip as a means to honest communication
I have found that a lot of “mean girls” rhetoric is invoked (mostly by women) in order to excuse one’s own shitty behavior. See also “she’s jealous.”* People who don’t want to own up to the mistakes they are making, or a loved one is making, seem to be constantly running into mean girls. And let’s not forget that the books that gave rise to this totally misogynist crap were anecdotal and written by twits.
The gossip thing is similar, but I hear it more from dudes, for all of the reasons above. They don’t want women comparing notes, figuring out patterns of behavior, naming names, and raising consciousness. Gossip is an anti-patriarchal strategy, it is a way we tell stories about our lives, it is oral history.
*”I knew you’d be upset.”
This has been brought to you by cultural gender essentialism.
(via brujacore)
