(no subject)

[aroraborealis]

Things I hate today, an incomplete list:

1. products that blame you for not being good/smart/creative/whatever enough if you don't like them
2. "man cave"
3. anti-feminists
4. pointless rules
5. ineffective systems
6. yellow mustard

I'm actually having a great day, but all those things can DIAF.

What's on your list?

Comments

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, what's your objection to "man cave"?

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

It's a wildly successful marketing tactic that supports relationships to gender, purchasing, space, and human relations that are destructive.

It emphasizes imagined difference between men and women and implies that men need some special place protected from women to be comfortable or to be themselves. It sets up and/or reinforces an adversarial gender dynamic in the home and in purchasing/marketing. It reinforces notions of men as more primitive/less refined than women. It encourages people to buy/rent homes that are larger than they need so they can create said "man cave" and then fill them with shit they don't need.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

Huh. I never thought of it that way.

K's man cave is a room that isn't really useful as anything other than an office, and we are geeks who need there to be an office (but the combination of wifi and laptop means I don't have to go up there, unless I send something to the printer). I have an analogous private space, my sewing room (I guess we could get into that gender stereotype, but it doesn't bother me). He can go up to his "cave" and listen to loud music and tool, and leave wires and computer parts everywhere without it bothering me.

The man cave isn't necessary, but it is nicer than our previous residence, where the office and the sewing room shared a room. We were always irritating each other! Oh wait, we still do that. ;)

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Let me be clear: I don't object to people having particular spaces for different uses, or to be alone in a shared residence. I object specifically to the "man cave" phenomenon, and the naming and marketing thereof.

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

That's why I asked. I don't watch commercial TV or read many magazines aimed at men so I wasn't familiar with it as a consumer meme.

My office/library/workroom was christened the man cave without my participation. Partially because it's filled with the looming Victorian furniture and study decor I bought when I was living alone, and partially because it's, well, a cave, dark and very quiet without much outside light. The other office is in the open air in the living room loft and therefore more treehouse-like. I couldn't work there; M. thrives in it. How that ties to our respective genders or our purchasing is pretty limited, but I never thought we were the demographic to which you were objecting.