Louise O'Neill on manned mission to Mars: "Why not go to Venus?" (MOD Warning post 1)

the_pen_turner

Widdershins wrote: »

I have no idea what that means.

it means they are both extremes of the same scale. just different ends.
but only one end is allowed to be talked about. the media only show one end of the scale

razorblunt

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/columnists/louise-oneill/louise-o39neill-what-whats-constitutes-being-a-cool-girl-465627.html

I genuinely have no idea what she’s talking about here. I’ve never referred to anyone as “cool”. Her assumptions are disgusting too, as Always it says more about her than whatever made up,scenario or people she’s talking about.

The editing is absolutely horrific too.

Will I Am Not

First word in the article is ‘men’. Stopped reading there.

She's just a bit of an asshole

McDermotX

Clicks link..

....wants me to login/register to see article

Nice.

Closes tab.

The J Stands for Jay

McDermotX wrote: »

Clicks link..

....wants me to login/register to see article

Nice.

Closes tab.

I think they've just killed the golden adclicks goose.

Here ya go: http://www.peoplesrepublicofcork.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6168487

The first paragraph was enough for me. I'd be a bit worried about meeting her as a single fella on a night out.

super_furry

Someone said something one twitter that you don't agree with?

To the outrage mobile!

Bunny Colvin

Let's just hope she doesn't have a login for here or else there will be a massacre

HandsomeBob

razorblunt wrote: »

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/columnists/louise-oneill/louise-o39neill-what-whats-constitutes-being-a-cool-girl-465627.html

I genuinely have no idea what she’s talking about here. I’ve never referred to anyone as “cool”. Her assumptions are disgusting too, as Always it says more about her than whatever made up,scenario or people she’s talking about.

The editing is absolutely horrific too.

Probably perceived herself to be disrespected when talking to a man who referred to another woman as sound.

Ulysses Gaze

The Fake Sheikh wrote: »

First word in the article is ‘men’. Stopped reading there.

Ralf and Florian

LOUISE O'NEILL: What whats constitutes being a 'cool girl'

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl.


Being the Cool Girl means she is a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are, above all, hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, **** on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.”

I remember the first time I read this passage from Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl. I didn’t entirely love the book, but I knew when I read these words that Flynn had defined something that I had long known to be true but had struggled to articulate. I knew the Cool Girl.

I was friends with her, I worked with her; occasionally, I had been that woman myself. She was, just like the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (coined by film critic Nathan Rabin to describe a character who “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures”), and the Ladettes of the 90s, a performance. A performance that was sometimes carried out in the name of feminism but often merely upheld tenants of the patriarchy itself.

If we could be the Cool Girl, then we wouldn’t be That Girl, the one who is high maintenance and demanding and nags. All we wanted was for a man to say “You’re not like all the other girls” and we would know that we were different. We were special (Note — if anyone tells you that you’re not like all the other girls, run as fast as you can. The misogyny in that statement is bleak.)

From a very young age, men and women receive certain messages about gender. As children, toys are gendered — not only by type but by colour, and while little girls are encouraged to play with ‘boys’ toys, there’s a hesitance to allow boys to play with ‘girls’ toys. This reluctance to allow boys to play with ovens or dolls (for fear they might become too nurturing?) manifests later on as a refusal to read middle-grade books written by a woman or featuring a female protagonist.

Gradually, both girls and boys internalise the belief that traditionally masculine interests are more important and more worthy of respect. In turn, when we tell young women that they are just as good as young men, that they can do anything their male peers can, is it any surprise that this might lead young women to believe that they need to emulate the behaviour of the men around them in order to succeed? We can drink as much as you, we can have casual sex like you can, we can eat as much junk food as you can.

Because we’re just as good as you. Aren’t we?

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these things, nor are they biologically gendered. I don’t care how much you have to drink or how many people you have sex with as long as you’re safe and it’s what you want to do, not what you feel you should do. My concern is that we are raising a generation of people who are unable to live their lives in a way that feels appropriate for them because they are afraid. Afraid to express any kind of emotion, because they have to be super chill, zero ****s given, emotionless, automatons all the time. I realised in recent years that I’m far more sensitive than I ever gave myself space to be because I saw vulnerability as a weakness. I didn’t want to be That Girl. I wanted to be one of the boys, because I secretly believed that the boys must be better.

I don’t think I’m alone in that. When I speak at co-ed schools, I notice the girls won’t ask as many questions during the session, waiting until the boys have left the room before approaching me to talk.

Many young women tell me they don’t want to be feminists because they seem so ‘angry’, and I feel utterly disheartened. (Wait until you find out your male colleague is making more money that you for doing the exact same job, then we’ll talk about angry). But I can understand their caginess. While we no longer institutionalise women for Hysteria when they fail to conform to cultural attitudes around behaviour and decorum, it is still all too easy to dismiss women as ‘hormonal’, ‘shrill’, and ‘hysterical’, when they raise their voices and demand to be heard.

It is just another form of silencing, and one that must be challenged. Young woman — it is ok to be angry. It’s also ok to be vulnerable.

It’s ok for you to have needs and appropriate boundaries and to ask for them to be met.

It’s ok for you to say no, and it’s also ok for you to say yes. Keep shouting, and ignore anyone who tells you to shut up.We need your voices now more than ever.

colm_mcm

There's a reason you're not paid as much as a journalist luv..

neonsofa

The title, I've read it five times, is it a typo or am I just not understanding the structure of the sentence? I can't make it make sense in my mind.

Richard Hillman

She has mental health issues. She was bullied as a teen by girls who got all the attention from the boys. The girls were your typical girly-girls that put on a show for the boys. Louise, bless her, was more angry at the boys for falling for the act.

Every note and article she writes is a passive aggressive message she is sending to somebody she knows.

suicide_circus

I cannot think of a single instance of a man of my acquaintance describing someone as a "cool girl".

sydthebeat

suicide_circus wrote: »

I cannot think of a single instance of a man of my acquaintance describing someone as a "cool girl".

I was just about to post the very same.

I have never heard anyone in my company describe a female as a "cool girl".....

When you've nothing to write about, sure just make stuff up.

Ralf and Florian

neonsofa wrote: »

The title, I've read it five times, is it a typo or am I just not understanding the structure of the sentence? I can't make it make sense in my mind.

That's how it appears in the article. She needs a new editor.

professore

Ralf and Florian wrote: »

LOUISE O'NEILL: What whats constitutes being a 'cool girl'

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl.


Being the Cool Girl means she is a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are, above all, hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, **** on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.”

I remember the first time I read this passage from Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl. I didn’t entirely love the book, but I knew when I read these words that Flynn had defined something that I had long known to be true but had struggled to articulate. I knew the Cool Girl.

I was friends with her, I worked with her; occasionally, I had been that woman myself. She was, just like the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (coined by film critic Nathan Rabin to describe a character who “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures”), and the Ladettes of the 90s, a performance. A performance that was sometimes carried out in the name of feminism but often merely upheld tenants of the patriarchy itself.

If we could be the Cool Girl, then we wouldn’t be That Girl, the one who is high maintenance and demanding and nags. All we wanted was for a man to say “You’re not like all the other girls” and we would know that we were different. We were special (Note — if anyone tells you that you’re not like all the other girls, run as fast as you can. The misogyny in that statement is bleak.)

From a very young age, men and women receive certain messages about gender. As children, toys are gendered — not only by type but by colour, and while little girls are encouraged to play with ‘boys’ toys, there’s a hesitance to allow boys to play with ‘girls’ toys. This reluctance to allow boys to play with ovens or dolls (for fear they might become too nurturing?) manifests later on as a refusal to read middle-grade books written by a woman or featuring a female protagonist.

Gradually, both girls and boys internalise the belief that traditionally masculine interests are more important and more worthy of respect. In turn, when we tell young women that they are just as good as young men, that they can do anything their male peers can, is it any surprise that this might lead young women to believe that they need to emulate the behaviour of the men around them in order to succeed? We can drink as much as you, we can have casual sex like you can, we can eat as much junk food as you can.

Because we’re just as good as you. Aren’t we?

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these things, nor are they biologically gendered. I don’t care how much you have to drink or how many people you have sex with as long as you’re safe and it’s what you want to do, not what you feel you should do. My concern is that we are raising a generation of people who are unable to live their lives in a way that feels appropriate for them because they are afraid. Afraid to express any kind of emotion, because they have to be super chill, zero ****s given, emotionless, automatons all the time. I realised in recent years that I’m far more sensitive than I ever gave myself space to be because I saw vulnerability as a weakness. I didn’t want to be That Girl. I wanted to be one of the boys, because I secretly believed that the boys must be better.

I don’t think I’m alone in that. When I speak at co-ed schools, I notice the girls won’t ask as many questions during the session, waiting until the boys have left the room before approaching me to talk.

Many young women tell me they don’t want to be feminists because they seem so ‘angry’, and I feel utterly disheartened. (Wait until you find out your male colleague is making more money that you for doing the exact same job, then we’ll talk about angry). But I can understand their caginess. While we no longer institutionalise women for Hysteria when they fail to conform to cultural attitudes around behaviour and decorum, it is still all too easy to dismiss women as ‘hormonal’, ‘shrill’, and ‘hysterical’, when they raise their voices and demand to be heard.

It is just another form of silencing, and one that must be challenged. Young woman — it is ok to be angry. It’s also ok to be vulnerable.

It’s ok for you to have needs and appropriate boundaries and to ask for them to be met.

It’s ok for you to say no, and it’s also ok for you to say yes. Keep shouting, and ignore anyone who tells you to shut up.We need your voices now more than ever.

This is an insight into the mind of a mentally ill person. Pretty much everything written here is wrong on every level and presented as fact. If this is how young women think there is no hope for the future.

neonsofa

Ralf and Florian wrote: »

That's how it appears in the article. She needs a new editor.

Yeah I knew it was the article itself, but I couldn't figure out if it was wrong or I was stupid.

Turnipman

"Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl."


Most men of my acquaintance would describe a girl as "hot" and a cucumber as "cool".

Perhaps Ms. O'Neill has an identity crisis and thinks that she's a cucumber.

TheAnalyst_

"Oh Susan, yeah I know her. She's a cool girl. Enjoys a few beers and anal sex"

Bunny Colvin

Bunny Colvin wrote: »

Let's just hope she doesn't have a login for here or else there will be a massacre

"Her sister" really She saw the other thread and got it closed as far as I remember as she had a ramble on twitter about it being "upset"

Ralf and Florian

Dakota Brave Carrot wrote: »

"Her sister" really She saw the other thread and got it closed as far as I remember as she had a ramble on twitter about it being "upset"

LON got an article out of it. She didn't actually read the thread in question BTW, I remember her saying that on Twitter.


http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/columnists/louise-oneill/louise-o39neill-when-did-trolling-become-so-readily-acceptable-and-why-do-we-continue-to-allow-it-to-happen-417908.html

Ralf and Florian

A conversation is a two way communication and I am interested in having that conversation with everyone, even people who vehemently oppose my beliefs. I am not interested in being screamed at.


I've never seen any evidence that she's willing to debate.

donegaLroad

It must be difficult trying to promote a book in this day and age. Everybody and their dog has written a book at this stage.

I was in the library last week and I saw autobiograhies by Irish people I had never even heard of, recent enough publications too.

suicide_circus

Ralf and Florian wrote: »

A conversation is a two way communication and I am interested in having that conversation with everyone, even people who vehemently oppose my beliefs. I am not interested in being screamed at.


I've never seen any evidence that she's willing to debate.

It's also interesting that she describes her gender politics as "beliefs" rather than "opinions". A subtle difference but a telling one.

Ralf and Florian

Ralf and Florian wrote: »

A conversation is a two way communication and I am interested in having that conversation with everyone, even people who vehemently oppose my beliefs. I am not interested in being screamed at.


I've never seen any evidence that she's willing to debate.

never seen someone "shout", just she blocks /hides anyone who doesn't follow her nonsense

Bambi985

After reading a thing or two about her background, there is something very sad and obvious in her pathology that plays out in every single article, tweet and Instagram post that she publishes. And no doubt her books too. It's like the driving force behind her writing career and her brand of "feminism" is this continuous "FCUK YOU!" and "I'LL SHOW YOU!" she feels the need to give to the things in her past that she has not reconciled with - her bullies, the men that rejected her, her eating disorder.

Eating disorders alone are born out of an incredibly complex, complicated pathology and will leave you with a lifetime legacy of inner conflicts and self-esteem issues that you'll fight to overcome even decades after the fact - they have the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses because they are incredibly hard to treat. I don't believe a "recovered" woman of 32 (who published her first book a few years after her anorexia relapse) is really rid of all of those neuroses that led her into such a state in the first place. It's like the writing is her therapy, which is fine - a lot of writers will tell you that - but in this case she is NOT a mentally healthy or stable woman, there are a LOT of complex emotional issues at play and her way of dealing with them all is "FCUK MEN!" this time, instead of "fcuk those bullies" or "fcuk my body" or whatever it was before.

If I was her friend I'd be advising her to move out of the family home to gain a bit of independence and to get back to therapy, this time with someone who doesn't have an agenda.

The J Stands for Jay

TheAnalyst_ wrote: »

"Oh Susan, yeah I know her. She's a cool girl. Enjoys a few beers and anal sex"

Is there a large liking for anal sex here? I thought it was just an American thing.

McGaggs

McGaggs wrote: »

Is there a large liking for anal sex here? I thought it was just an American thing.

No, we're all doing it now

backspin.

The Examiner is embarrassing itself letting this girl write such cringy rubbish. She is like a parody at this stage.

The J Stands for Jay

[Deleted User] wrote: »

No, we're all doing it now

I'll tell the wife so.

She mentioned in that article that she didn't like Gone Girl. I thought everyone enjoyed that book, did she ever state why? (A lot of you guys seem to know an awful lot about her)

razorblunt

McDermotX wrote: »

Clicks link..

....wants me to login/register to see article

Nice.

Closes tab.

Yeah, sorry I hadn’t realised it was behind a paywall.

razorblunt

Deleted User wrote: »

She mentioned in that article that she didn't like Gone Girl. I thought everyone enjoyed that book, did she ever state why? (A lot of you guys seem to know an awful lot about her)

It didn’t have 17 typos on a page and poorly structured sentences were non existent also.

Bunny Colvin

McGaggs wrote: »

Is there a large liking for anal sex here? I thought it was just an American thing.

I was thinking the same thing about hamburgers and hotdogs.

Omackeral

Bunny Colvin wrote: »

I was thinking the same thing about hamburgers and hotdogs.

Don't you mean culinary gangbang? My god she's an idiot.

cursai

How did the op know what was on her twitter page?

Wibbs

backspin. wrote: »

The Examiner is embarrassing itself letting this girl write such cringy rubbish.

Not really, as people are clearly interested in her enough to get clicks. Media outlets love her kind of controversy writer. All the red tops have them, but so do the sniffy broadsheets.

fullstop

professore wrote: »

This is an insight into the mind of a mentally ill person. Pretty much everything written here is wrong on every level and presented as fact. If this is how young women think there is no hope for the future.

And yet the examiner are giving her a platform to spew this ****e. Beggars belief.

neonsofa

Bunny Colvin wrote: »

I was thinking the same thing about hamburgers and hotdogs.

That was an excerpt from the book No? Not her own writing?

alchemist33

I wonder how much the "tenants of the patriarchy" pay in rent each month, and if the patriarchy have any apartments near the city centre.

Outlaw Pete

Here's what she was referring to (well, the film version of it at least) but what it has to do with us, I've no idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaoQNDIf6pY

RacoonQueen

neonsofa wrote: »

The title, I've read it five times, is it a typo or am I just not understanding the structure of the sentence? I can't make it make sense in my mind.

Yeah I can't get past the title myself. It's not a sentence and makes no sense.

Serious question, who is she? (I'm guessing a feminist but I'm guessing she is also famous somehow?) Genuinely never heard of her aside from seeing this thread pop up now and again...

Nermal

Can we stop calling people who we disagree with mentally ill?

markodaly

Nermal wrote: »

Can we stop calling people who we disagree with mentally ill?

Unless of course they are? LON is bat**** crazy. The stuff she wrote and published about her Grandfather was disgusting.

darkdubh

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Yeah I can't get past the title myself. It's not a sentence and makes no sense.

Serious question, who is she? (I'm guessing a feminist but I'm guessing she is also famous somehow?) Genuinely never heard of her aside from seeing this thread pop up now and again...

She writes "Young adult" fiction or YA.

TerrorFirmer

I have removed this quote actually because I mistook another authors piece for Louise O' Neills! My mistake. Though I still think my comment generally reflects what LON is about

Her whole 'bit' is to project her own massive, glaring insecurities and unresolved issues onto the entire female populace, treating them as if they're a hive mind connected by gender.

I cannot believe she gets paid for these wild, swinging rants.

HandsomeBob

Nermal wrote: »

Can we stop calling people who we disagree with mentally ill?

Most certainly not very nice.

I'd agree with what someone else said about her articles. They just come across as her response to someone she knows saying something that pissed her off, and then tries to paint it as the experience of other women.

neonsofa

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Her whole 'bit' is to project her own massive, glaring insecurities and unresolved issues onto the entire female populace, treating them as if they're a hive mind connected by gender.

I cannot believe she gets paid for these wild, swinging rants.

That quoted part of your post is her quoting another author though??