#non-rant

I am disappointed in you guys ;)

Feel free to leave me a message or something. While waiting for my desktop to return from repairs, I don't mind answering silly questions. <3

Topiaries, this time. If you like to carve, go carve wood. Or stone, if you're looking for a challenge. Not poor plants who haven't done anything to you.* Who are already so damn pretty.

And while I'm at it, carpet grass. Did I tell you it's awful? It just guzzles up tonnes of water. Its insanely hard to maintain, what with all that weeding. And it ain't even pretty. 

This is where I sign off. But not before I call this a non-rant. Rants are supposed to be long, I hear.

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If you have a really big power, there is a certain logic to storing it in a tiny package. Invisible privilege is the easiest kind to protect, afterall. Mostly because it is hard to attack something you cannot even prove is there - at least not through the usual avenues.

Spit it out already? What am I talking about?! You see? Your impatience demonstrates the point I am making. You have to wait. We have to talk about it awhile before I can even begin to name it. 

Because this is a secret cataclysmic power borne on the alchemical manipulation, drawn up from the foundation of the alignment of multiple variables. I think the most critical premises are as follows: 1) Patriarchy, at this point in human history, has established maleness as the normative, default position. If we are talking about "Everyman" or "John Doe" or just some "anonymous person", the assumption is it's a him.  2) Add that to the fact that gender specific pronouns and naming conventions exist pretty much ubiquitously in every language on this planet, and POW! Now you've conjured up a massive power encapsulated invisibly inside a tiny pronoun. 

To better demonstrate my point, let me make it specific and uber-relevant. Let's narrow the field and talk exclusively about the sub-group of writers. A writer has lots of choices, for example, about how to handle point-of-view. A first person account might be selected to suggest a more personal tone or to give the narrator a different kind of credibility. Without a doubt, a first person point-of-view might be particularly appealing if the writer wants to convey the autobiographical roots of piece. We are all familiar with these choices, available to all writers, both male and female. Similarly, a writer is free to make choices about the gender of their characters.

However, given that the average human is equal to the average man, it's pretty hard to beg the assumption that the average writer is also a man. And being equipped with this default position gives him hidden freedoms not afforded to the female writer. 

For whenever the female writer picks up the first person point-of-view, there will be a large number of readers, I guarantee you, who will make the automatic assumption the work is based largely on autobiographical material. Furthermore, even if the author shifts her point-of-view to second person, but writes about female characters -- same deal. I've experienced this one myself more than once on a broad range of topics. 

What I am trying to say is, I think there is some extra anonymity, as well as credibility, built in for the male writer. It is so hard to see, even I had to settle for describing it in terms of its absence. But this privilege exists, I promise you. There is a challenge like a hidden landmine that any female writer will attest to, a constant threat, invisible and buried there, waiting to be set off and explode with the question, "Oh yeah?! How would you know!?"