To The Blogger Who Thinks Saying "Fuck" Means I'm Dumb

27th May 2011

Post reblogged from Sara Benincasa Lives Here with 39 notes

To The Blogger Who Thinks Saying “Fuck” Means I’m Dumb

Well said.

Got a great response in the room from people laughing their asses off at a new media expo I was featured at the other night. Some of the folks in the room who didn’t laugh apparently were enraged. One seemingly smart, successful woman named Jen Fong apparently decided that my use of naughty language made me dumb, and said as much in a post called Why Not Feature The Smart Women? I wrote a response, which I hope she’ll approve as a comment when she gets a chance, and I thought I’d post it here.

Jennifer, I am one of the women you disparage in this post. I hope you’ll permit me this space to speak up for myself, as Marcus kindly did at The Sales Lion.

I’m a professional comedian who performs nationally at colleges and in comedy clubs. I also have an M.A. from Columbia University. I blog and created original video content for Comedy Central. I’ve done the same for Jezebel, The Frisky, Marie Claire, Nerve, and other sites. I speak at colleges and universities about managing mental illness and about positive body image for young people. My memoir, which is about managing panic attacks and depression, is forthcoming early next year from William Morrow/HarperCollins.

All of which is to say: you may not have liked what I had to say. I was not booked as a business speaker. I was booked as a comedian, and encouraged to be explicit, wild, outrageous, and funny. I did all those things.

When I was booked for this event, I expressed concern about the edginess of my material and asked if I ought to tone it down. I was encouraged to not do that. I was also given this video by way of guidance ahead of time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebu213cQNNk&feature=player_embedded

If my use of adult language and humor leads you to believe I’m somehow not smart or to conflate me with pageant contestants (maybe of whom, believe it or not, have brains in their head too), then I think you need to expand your definition of what intelligence is. Women like Margaret Cho and Sarah Silverman are brilliant, funny, and yes, outspoken.

I encourage you to consider the words of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who famously said, “Well-behaved women rarely make history.” And if you would like to continue this discussion via email, I’m at sara@sarabenincasa.com. I can promise you I will be respectful and you might just find I’m not so dumb, or so embarrassing to women, as you seem to think.

Source: sarabenincasa

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To The Blogger Who Thinks Saying “Fuck” Means I’m Dumb