This Week in Blogs: July 12 - July 18

Sorry for the tardiness of this post, I have had a rather busy weekend in Chicago and needed Sunday afternoon to catch up on things and relax. I spent some of that time reading over the numerous blog posts that I missed from some of my favorite blogs. Here are some blog posts from the past week that I found particularly interesting:

Blogger: How Abortion Rights Make Bad Boyfriends [Jezebel]
Sorority Life on Facebook and the Construction of Female Friendships [Deeply Problematic]
Why I Provide [RHRealityCheck]
Calling the Ketel WHACK, or: The Worst Title of Any Post Ever (It Is About Vodka) [Tiger Beatdown]
How do two affirmative action babies raise their own baby? [Bitch]
Food, Class, and Need [Womanist Musings]
"Is Abortion a Public Health Issue?" Sotomayor Hearings, Day Two [RHRealityCheck]
Feel the Homomentum [Shakesville]
Sotomayor: Strong, Rational, Intelligent Woman [Feministing Community]

What have you been reading and writing this week? I have some catching up to do on my blog posts from all the stuff that I have missed while preparing for my trip to Chicago this past weekend.

Facebook Quizzes That Are Offensive to Women

I don't know how many of you have seen this, but the other day I was perusing Facebook and saw that some of my friends took the quiz "How Well Do You Know Women?". I became intrigued by this, especially when I saw that some of my male friends had scored 100% but none of my female friends who had taken it had scored that high. I decided to take it, just to see what it was all about.

The quiz is 15 questions long. Here are just some examples of the questions the quiz has to offer:

In a desperate situation where only one of these can be carried in a handbag, she will choose the following...
a. small mirror
b. comb
c. lipstick/makeup
d. cash
e. perfume/deodorant

According to you, when does a woman feel like a woman...
a. when she gives birth
b. when she gets married
c. when she looks in the mirror
d. when she falls deeply in love
e. when she hits puberty

According to you, women are more worried about...
a. their weight
b. the way they look
c. if they can satisfy their partners
d. if they can pass of as an intelligent individual
e. the way they present themselves

According to you, the only think most women can't do without is...
a. good clothes
b. make up kit
c. gossip
d. constant attention
e. diamond and jewelry

The one trait women most envy in a man is...
a. the way they're built
b. their status in society
c. their deep intoxicating voices
d. their strength
e. their privates

Women are different. Women have different experiences and different values and priorities. Not only is the quiz insulting to assume that all women are the same, it portrays women as shallow human beings who are only concerned with their appearance and what other people think of her.

"According to you, the one think most women can't do without?" Personally, I can do without all of those things. Most of the questions have answers that show that women only care about pleasing other people and looking good. While this probably is the reality of many women, it is definitely not the reality for all women.

I can't decide which of these questions offends me the most. One option is, "According to you, women are more worried about.." Most of the answers have to do with appearances or pleasing men. Even though this is offensive in itself, one of the answers is "if they can pass off as an intelligent individual." Women apparently cannot be intelligent, at least not as intelligent as men. They can only give the appearance of being intelligent. Never mind the fact that there are more women enrolled in college than men.

The other option for most offensive to women is, "The one trait women most envy in a man is..." How presumptuous is it to assume that women envy any part of being a man? Women are just as capable as men and, personally, I am proud to be a woman. I wouldn't want to be a man, or any part of a man.

Other people may have questions that offend them more. And these two questions are definitely not the only ones that I find offensive, they are just two that I specifically picked out as particularly poignant to me.

All Facebook quizzes over-generalize. That's what they need to do in order to come up with the over-simplified answer. That's what makes it fun. But this quiz really struck me the wrong way because it's about human beings. Over-simplifying and over-generalizing a class of people that already has second class status just further objectifies them. What if there was a quiz that was "How well do you know African Americans"? That quiz would certainly be offensive and people would realize it. There would be more attention given to it. We still don't see all the ways that women are oppressed in this society. This quiz is an example of how we don't always see this.

If you want to express your feelings about this quiz and the message it sends about women, you can write a review of it here (you do have to have a Facebook account). Right now, I cannot find a way to contact Facebook directly about this quiz. Does anyone know how to do this?