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[coraa]

Can I call a moratorium on the "Just Jealous!" argument?

It came up most recently in an observed discussion of whether it placed unfair pressure on women to make them state in advance at a con whether or not they were okay being asked for a grope. (For the record: oh hell yes, that's pressure, that's a nice word for it. But that's not what this is about.) And in the ensuing discussion one thing kept coming up: a couple of voices from the free groping end of things said over and over that we were just jealous that we hadn't been there to take part in the fun, were jealous that we weren't as free and happy and liberated, were Just Jealous that we weren't as awesome as them.

And it made me think of why I left a couple of long-hair-growing communities on LJ. I kept reading them long after I'd more or less given up growing my hair long (it just wasn't meant for it), because some of the hair care tips were interesting. But I found myself increasingly, savagely annoyed by how Just Jealous came up every thirty seconds. Your mom wants you to wash your hair? She's Just Jealous that she doesn't have long hair! Someone opines that they like short haircuts? They're Just Jealous that they haven't spent the time you did to grow it out and are trying to bring you down! The kicker was a poster who said that she liked to take her hair down in front of salons and shake it out to make everyone inside writhe with jealousy, as though all the hipsters getting their hair trimmed short were secretly seething with brutal envy. Except, you know, not.

I think it's a tendency that has its roots in being a geek in junior high, when there was really no good reason for a lot of bullying and tormenting, and for so many people the easy answer to a teary 'but why?' was that the bully was jealous -- especially, as is so often the case, if the target of bullying was bright and talented. But honestly I don't think my bullies actually were. I'd be shocked, actually, if they were at all jealous of me, socially awkward and kind of homely and painfully shy. The hell they were. They were mean, but they weren't jealous.

But it's such a tempting notion: you disagree with me because you secretly want to be me.

And it's such an offensive notion: everyone secretly wants to be me, and the only reason they disagree with me is that they want to be me so much they can't stand it.

But increasingly it's an argument that drives me mad. No, I don't disagree with you because I wish I could be you. I just disagree with you. That's okay; there's room for both of us in the world, even if we disagree, and we can still be civil. But we do disagree. We are different.

Is that so hard?

EDIT: -- and of course, when you actually are twelve and tormented, being told that They're Just Jealous is bitter comfort. My brain immediately reminds me of a book I read as a tadpole, about a girl who noted wryly that if she lost a leg and had to get a pirate's peg leg and her enemies called her Stumpy, her mother would try to soothe her by saying that they were just jealous of how well she hopped. I think of that when someone tries to convince me that I'm just jealous: yes, I'm so jealous of how well you hop.

EDIT: The first example -- the can-I-ask-to-grope-you buttons -- isn't a topic I think I want to post more about, because it makes me so mad I can't see straight for a variety of reasons, which can be mostly summed up as 'I don't think I want to streamline random men's access to my chest.' But the best link roundup I've found yet is here.

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[istgut.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that what they really are is envious. The sooner that people understand that distinction, the better a place the world will be :)