wildestranger | (no subject)

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Newly married Ashlee Simpson is changing her name to Ashlee Wentz in honor of her husband, Fall Out Boy Pete Wentz.

"I think that that's something that a woman should do when they're marrying a man," she tells PEOPLE. "It's a tradition that I think is a great tradition."

Seriously? A great tradition? You mean the tradition which declares that a woman who has been her father's property now becomes her husbands' property, that tradition? The one that says a woman's identity should depend on her husband?

I just lost what little respect I had for Ashlee Simpson. And the fact that Pete Wentz seems to think it's a great idea, something that gratifies him, makes me think a lot less of him as well.

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It's the claims about a 'great tradition' that bother me

Disagreeing with her opinions is perfectly valid, and I would also take issue with the quote about her saying that women "ought" to take their husbands' names on marriage. However, your OP and this comment go beyond that and into the sphere of passing judgement on her for her personal life choices, which I do find problematic.

It's the "disapproval" of her choices that troubles me. Who are you to approve or disapprove of a stranger's life choices? Who is anyone? The choices of any individual are far less an issue for feminism than the fact that women are constantly judged for their choices by the world at large, regardless of how those choices may affect anyone else. There's always someone to disapprove of how a woman dresses, who she sleeps with, her language, her choice of career, whether or not she marries, whether or not she has children, if she continues to work outside the home after having children and so on and so on. Women's lives would be a hell of a lot easier if everyone minded their own business a bit more and stopped passing judgement on them at every step.

And I refuse to have an Ashlee Simpson tag

Your journal, your choice, of course, but I hope you'll see the irony in the fact that you regularly talk about Ashlee, from an allegedly feminist perspective, but only ever as an adjunct to her husband.

I agree with you to a certain point, because yes, passing judgement on random strangers is not something I want to support, and particularly, passing judgement on random strange women is something I would like to think I'm opposed to. However. There are two things that make me do so in this instance. One is that I would like to mka e a difference between disapproving of an institutional practice and telling an individual person what they should do. I wouldn't say this to Ashlee Simpson if I ever met her - I wouldn't assume that she would be interested to hear my opinions on her choices, and I seriously don't think it's any of my business what she does as a private individual. What she does as a public figure, though, is something I can respond to, to the extent that I would respond to any public statements made by public figures. Additionally, and this is the key point, would I disapprove of someone for making racist statements, or homophobic statements? Would I, in such a situation, feel entitled to judge someone on the basis of their comments, and to associate the individual with the institutional practice? Because I find that yes, I would do this, and I don't think that because it's a woman making sexist statements I should be less judgemental,as it were. So this is why.

As for the tags, I don't think I do talk about Ashlee Simpson that much - off the top of my head I can think of three posts that I've made which mention her. I refuse to get an Ashlee Simpson tag precisely because my comments on her tend not to be positive, and I don't want to have a tag just for bitching about her. And to be honest, I really don't consider her as an adjunct to her husband. I've only paid attention to her because of her connection to Pete Wentz, so it's likely that my comments on her will reflect that, and inlcude him and tehrefore my tag for Pete Wentz.

I would respond to any public statements made by public figures

I think this is completely legitimate and, in the example you gave of someone making hateful comments, even necessary. If someone - anyone - makes public statements that you disagree with, it's absolutely your right to respond to them and offer criticism.

What I think crosses the line is passing judgement on their personal behaviour (assuming this behaviour isn't impacting on others - it would be quite all right to criticism someone for, say, beating people up or harassing others, of course). When someone makes a statement and you [generic you] express disagreement, that's discourse and there's nothing wrong with it. When someone makes a personal choice and you feel the need to voice your disapproval of it, I think that's being overly judgemental. Essentially, it's the difference between "I disagree with what Ashlee says here" and "I disapprove of her choice". The first is legitimate, the second not so much.

I've only paid attention to her because of her connection to Pete Wentz, so it's likely that my comments on her will reflect that

Going off at a bit of a tangent, this is part of what I find very off-putting about bandom. I'm not a part of it and don't have any real interest, but a lot of people on my flist are so I pick stuff up by association, and it bothers me that I almost never hear bandom folks talking about women other than as WAGs. In fact, your poll about hot bandom women a little while back jumped out at me because I'd not seen that discussion before. While I know that "interested in pretty boys" =/= "rabid vagina-hater" I find that a) the all-boys element puts me off because I really like women and b) I see posts on

metafandom and the like that talk about bandom being all gender-transgressive and stuff, which only mention men and go all "LOL, gender-transgressive phallocentricity, O RLY?"

There are definitely male-centric aspects to bandom (as there is in any fandom), but there are also people making a concerted effort to redress the imbalance. There is a community for

bandgirls, which includes both female members of bands in bandom, such as VickyT from Cobra Starship and Greta Salpeter from The Hush Sound, and various wives and girlfriends, some of whom are famous in their own right. I've got a slightly conflicted attitude towards the idea of talking about wives and girlfriends who aren't public performers themselves - mostly they seem utterly cool people and I love their characterisation in fanon, but I'm also uncomfortable about using private people in fiction (whereas boys in bands are clearly begging to have porn written about them *g*). I don't think this is a more sexist fandom then any other, and I'd even go so far as to say that there's a lot more squee over the women in bandom than I've seen in most other places.

That is interesting. Obviously my perspective as an outsider looking in is skewed by the demographics of my flist, which is unlikely to be a representative selection. I would say I've never seen much overt sexism, in terms of bashing women and the like, which is certainly an improvement on some fandoms. (SPN fandom, I'm looking at you now.) It's surprised me because a lot of my friends-who-are-into-bandom are vocally squeeful about women in fandoms we share, but I really hear them talking about bandom women. I don't know that many bandom folk, though, so this may not really mean anything.

Also, your comments are very thought-provoking, and I really appreciate the opportunity to clarify my own thinking about this, so thanks for that!

Thankee! It is nice to be able to have rational conversation about feminist issues, which rarely seems possible in LJ-land, unfortunately. :)

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