Back in February, I wrote a post about how frequently the “Odd News” stories at Yahoo are about the mistreatment of women, or stories about women that aren’t “odd” at all—or shouldn’t be. Today’s line-up is another perfect example.
A woman stabbing her boyfriend in the eye? Not “odd.” Horrifying.
The bodyguard of a female government official whose ministry is gender grabbing a woman on public transport? Not “odd.” Terrible.
A woman winning a settlement for being publicly humiliated for breastfeeding her son, which she is allowed to do according to NY law? Not “odd.” Just.
But throw in a vagina or a titty, and—poof!—instant oddity!
This is the constant trivializing of women’s lives, actions, experiences, issues that will one day make me lose it, well and truly. And on that day, I’ll do something that will no doubt make it into the “Odd News.”
22 Comments
July 5, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Be creative!
July 5, 2007 at 6:25 pm
BREAKING NEWS : Judge Gladys Kessler has released the temporary restraining order on the D.C. Madam’s phone records. Women rule!
July 5, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Correction….the proper term is “lifted” the temporary restraining order. I’m dancing a jig of boundless glee!
July 5, 2007 at 6:42 pm
Have you thought about the possible meaning of the word odd.
Like the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry says . . .
In children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), there is an ongoing pattern of uncooperative, defiant, and hostile behavior toward authority figures
July 5, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Forgot the question mark. or did I . . .
July 5, 2007 at 7:24 pm
You women are so fucking odd it makes be glad I’m not one.
July 5, 2007 at 7:25 pm
be = me
or be me.
or be in
as in human be-in
wev. i need bifocals to proofread this shit.
July 5, 2007 at 10:56 pm
You talk odd. Yesterdy here in Spain a guy comes into a bakery, ski mask in place, and sets out to do the Jesse James number. Nothing odd here, happens all the time. Then when he’s got the cash he starts kicking the shit out of the woman owner which again is not so odd. We have a lot of East Europeans here and they are nasty motherfuckers. They don’t get enough they beat the shit out of folks. Nice.
So the poor lady is on the floor with this clown puttin the boot into her ribs real solid like only that ain’t enough for him so he jumps on top of her and starts choking her! But by now she’s got the hump like real serious so she grabs his fucking mask and pulls it off and who’s there? HER FUCKING HUSBAND! He was trying to kill her. They were in the throes of being seperated and he decided to do her in and make it look like it was a robber. But when she got a look at him he stopped and she managed to get out of the shop and get a friend to call the fuzz and when they showed he was sitting in the shop waiting for them smoking a fag. So they hauled him off and locked him away but I don’t know what they will charge him with, trying to kill his wife or smoking in a bakery shop which is probably the more serious crime.
July 6, 2007 at 2:14 am
I thought Yahoo was run by people that had more intelligence than the garden variety dandelion…
Apparently not.
Your correct that the articles you pointed out are not odd. Odd is when you smell Cinnamon and your nowhere near the spice. Odd is a nice way to describe a neighbor down the street who in actuality is a sociopath and you don’t want to scare someone by telling them the truth about that freak.
But those writeup’s had a multitude of ways to describe them without using the fucking word ODD.
July 6, 2007 at 6:14 am
[...] Melissa: What’s Odd Got to Do With It? [...]
July 6, 2007 at 6:17 am
Odd also frequently equates to not American in their editorial view, too. Provincial and misogynist in one happy package!
July 6, 2007 at 7:16 am
This is like a time on cnn.com when four of the top headlines in a row were:
Women join military, risk lives to get thinner,
‘Runaway bride’ stands firm on wedding gifts,
Scarlett Johansson: ‘I’m not promiscious,’
Women flashy, show skin when fertile, study finds.
Ugh. Screenshot here.
July 6, 2007 at 7:38 am
Ugh. Screenshot here.
Good lord! That is a doozy.
July 6, 2007 at 8:18 am
Then let’s not forget about how domestic violence and rape charges against sports stars are always written up in the sports section (rather than the front page, crime section, etc). Sports players apparently stop being real people in the real world, so anything they do happens in the purview of the sports page. Pro-wrestler kills his wife and children? That’s over in SI.com, and only cross-listed at CNN. I find that a little creepy.
July 6, 2007 at 8:57 am
Melissa, you and I have laughed about Yahoo news headlines before. You know what I like to do for fun – take a quick gander at any given day’s line-up of headlines. It’s sometimes like checking out The Onion. Sure, they’ll start with the doozies – 12 US Soldiers Killed in Iraq, Kids Die in Fiery Crash, Bush Says Something Stupid, etc., but then, right along with those headlines – Britney Spears Carries Her Own Child, Christina Ricci Mulls Nude Scene, Pari Hilton Farts, etc. And guess which stories probably get more traffic? The “news” in this country is sad sad sad.
July 6, 2007 at 9:03 am
And guess which stories probably get more traffic?
Totally, lol. I just read in Newsweek that the largest celebrity gossip blog, Perez Hilton, gets 105 million page views a month. The largest political blog, Daily Kos, 14 million monthly.
Btw, we get about 11,000, ha.
July 8, 2007 at 1:18 pm
[...] “Odd News” here and [...]
July 10, 2007 at 7:57 am
These headlines don’t even suggest bizarre types of violence against women (ex. the psycho that put his wife and son in the freezer and then held a party)!
July 10, 2007 at 1:37 pm
[...] Funny! Nauseating! Melissa McEwan at Shakesville has been documenting the troubling number of “Oddly Enough” stories that have to do with the mistreatment of [...]
July 11, 2007 at 7:56 am
[...] miscategorized “Odd News” here and [...]
October 23, 2007 at 9:57 pm
[...] One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part [...]
November 2, 2007 at 5:20 pm
[...] in any way aside from the fact that there’s a women at their centers. Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part [...]