EPTFeminism - Page 5
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26225 Posts
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Desmoden
Germany45 Posts
On April 09 2013 20:46 r.Evo wrote: Women quotas at workplaces are one of my favorite examples. There isn't much more in the same area that's more insulting to a womans ability than getting hired because of a quota. "You're worse than this or that male applicant but we're taking you because you're a woman." - what. the. hell. Sure it raises the amount of females in that area but at the price of encouraging gender-biased selection and at the expense of gender equality. Now you got me confused, I'm pretty sure if one man and one woman with the SAME qualifications apply, than the woman is hired. If the woman is worse the man is hired. | ||
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missefficiency
Germany105 Posts
What is wrong with "save the princess" storylines? Let me tell you - stereotyping the woman into weak, dreamy, illiterate someone, who just waits for her thing to happen, rather than to fight for it herself. Those storylines in the fairy tale / fantasy context first originated in the 19th century when "to be a princess who is saved by a decent man and get married to him" was all a woman could ever hope for. They were designed to keep the hope and the dream up to make the system of "your parents choose whom you are going to marry" work by instilling the idea of love into the heads of the women and thus raise the possibility of them loving their parent-chosen partner. Is this a form of controlling and belittleling women? Yes. Did they know any better or have a choice? No. A good example for a story writing against this concept would be Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane. This concept, even though not in the severity of "parental overpower", was kept alive until the fifties, although interrupted by two world wars which each put women in a not very princessy state. Working in factories to produce weapons while keeping your kids in line and / or from starving, they desperately wished for someone, anyone, to get them the hell outta there. And in the fifties, the men were back. So was Disney with it's movie Cinderella, where the exact story is repeated. These women can and want to identify. They are Cinderelly, saved from a life of injustice and hard work by their husbands. Until, in the Sixties, their daughters don't believe them anymore. They don't want to be Cinderella and marry the prince, they want to have the option of marrying the gardener or the gardeners daughter too. Or not marry at all. and while we're at it: they don't want to be expected to do anything of the above. So they start a rebellion, today commonly known as Second-wave feminism. They fought for being treated as an equal, which means no more than "to be able to do what I want without being questioned or disciplined for it", which is in its very basic form nothing more but a rebellion against mom and dad and their values. It's what we all do at some point, only that at the time, enough people were rebelling for the same reason to make a political agenda out of it. Fast forward to today and what we have is women calling themselves "feminists" while they are anything but. They are the kind of people who try to define themselves by setting themselves apart from others by forming extremist points of view - which, in terms of feminism, is propagating second-wave feminism in today's world, even though it doesn't concern them anymore. My favorite example these days is my facebook newsfeed, where my darling hipster feminists bitch about ads like this, which should have made my grandmother mad and which make me laugh because they are so blatantly stupid and openly sexist they are a joke. But please don't even consider talking about women being supressed and raped in India or Africa or wherever else, because that will make the "feminists" upset and they must go post a sad face on facebook and be pitied by...men. And of course fellow feminists. While despising Cinderella. But what they, in their few personally honest moments confide in you is: One day, they want to have a husband and children. And a job, and perhaps a few lesbian experiences. And when they get home from work, at times they want their husband to save them from the terrible outside world and cook them food, take the kids to bed and buy them flowers. But for now, they want to be anything but their mom. There is nothing wrong with "save the princess" in small doses. Those stories sell because, let's be honest, women want to be a princess sometimes. We just don't want to be saved from ourselves. | ||
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BabyToss!
Czech Republic588 Posts
On April 09 2013 21:47 missefficiency wrote:There is nothing wrong with "save the princess" in small doses. Those stories sell because, let's be honest, women want to be a princess sometimes. We just don't want to be saved from ourselves. Well, that never really interested me personally. I remember, when I was very young, I was always playing with guys, and we played knights & fought with each other with these small kids' swords. Of course, I was getting berated for it, because my mom & dad thought I wasn't "feminine" enough. I personally always admired people, who go after their dreams & work hard for them, rather than wait for them to happen; no matter if they are a man or a woman. I'm not sure if we understand each other, but my point is, that there should be choice for us. Not to be generalized, and even if a lot of women do like this stuff, like flowers, being princesses etc, not every woman is like that and they shouldn't be insulted or belittled because of that, instead, there should be more books, movies and games depicting women in this way, to equalize, and therefore put both ways up on par, which would lead to less stereotypes about women in general and less insults on both sides as well, as both ways would be seen as "normal". Although, yeah, you are right in one thing, when it comes to some feminists of today. They don't deal with real issues & complain about pointless things, such as already mentioned equal amount of nouns of feminine form, compared to masculine ones, in the Czech vocabulary or even complaining that hurricanes have only female names... geez. | ||
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Desmoden
Germany45 Posts
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BabyToss!
Czech Republic588 Posts
On April 09 2013 22:16 Desmoden wrote: I don't know how it is in the czech republic but in germany its expected of a woman to be "like a man". Getting the best career, giving our kids to others to raise when they aren't even a year old so we can make more money to pay others to raise our kids...If these aren't your goals and you want to be more like a "princess" (lol) you are looked down upon or at least thought of as strange. Society forces you into a role you may not want. Well, that'd be fine, if again, there was a choice. There's nothing wrong with woman wanting a career, and all that. So yup, they have to get somoene to handle the kids, I see nothing wrong with this approach, if this is what the woman wants.. But, to grab the exact opposite - it is completelly wrong, when these women, who want to dedicate themselves to kids and family only, are forced to work the same way guys do AND are expected to keep the kids and household in line as well. In my country, they do not support moms at home at all, I mean, the little mom at home gets from the state for the kids suport is laughable and in no way it allows the mom to stay at home with her kids and she has to get a job, leaving her with very limited time for kids, let alone anything else. Having kids & raising them properly into decent people is well-fulltime job and there should be appropriate support for moms at home, if they decide to just care for their family, without pursuing a career of their own. | ||
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Bagonad
Denmark173 Posts
On April 09 2013 22:09 BabyToss! wrote: Well, that never really interested me personally. I remember, when I was very young, I was always playing with guys, and we played knights & fought with each other with these small kids' swords. Of course, I was getting berated for it, because my mom & dad thought I wasn't "feminine" enough. I personally always admired people, who go after their dreams & work hard for them, rather than wait for them to happen; no matter if they are a man or a woman. I'm not sure if we understand each other, but my point is, that there should be choice for us. Not to be generalized, and even if a lot of women do like this stuff, like flowers, being princesses etc, not every woman is like that and they shouldn't be insulted or belittled because of that, instead, there should be more books, movies and games depicting women in this way, to equalize, and therefore put both ways up on par, which would lead to less stereotypes about women in general and less insults on both sides as well, as both ways would be seen as "normal". Although, yeah, you are right in one thing, when it comes to some feminists of today. They don't deal with real issues & complain about pointless things, such as already mentioned equal amount of nouns of feminine form, compared to masculine ones, in the Czech vocabulary or even complaining that hurricanes have only female names... geez. I mentioned it in my post earlier, but you're blaming the wrong target again, movies and games are not social tools, they're tools of capitalism, you have to change society before you change the products of society, it doesn't work the other way around. If there really is a very large amount of women, or even a majority of women who want something, then capitalism follows suit, and changes its products to suit what you want, if they can earn money. Feminists that complain about womens portrayal in video games, often ignore that many women are fine with the characters, and many even dress up as them, often even more skimpily dressed. Not trying to imply that you are associated with this of course, your post seems very level-headed. If you wish to bring social awareness that some women are being undermined in their choice to act differently than society has a tendency to portray it, spreading that knowledge with blogs, newspaper articles, or by mouth is a good way to go, but don't overdo it, or overestimate it, society has many problems that could be considred equally or more important in the western world. | ||
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BabyToss!
Czech Republic588 Posts
On April 09 2013 22:33 Bagonad wrote: I mentioned it in my post earlier, but you're blaming the wrong target again, movies and games are not social tools, they're tools of capitalism, you have to change society before you change the products of society, it doesn't work the other way around. If there really is a very large amount of women, or even a majority of women who want something, then capitalism follows suit, and changes its products to suit what you want, if they can earn money. Well, the thing is, a lot of books, movies and games are written to appease the mainstream guys. And of course, guys like their women to be candy-eyes, pretty bums. Nothing wrong in that. Issue is, that when something is aimed for the mainstream female audience, you see princesses, rainbows and unicorns. No strong hero characters, portrayed as warriors, etc. The best solution would be to not do games for guys and girls, but simply do games, which can make everyone happy. But, that's of course the ideal, there will be always someone complaining. But, the bottom line is, make for example a game, where you play as macho guy, or even a princess, or a macho knight woman. Give everyone their bit. If someone wants a girly hero, go ahead. If someone wants a tomboy, hell, why not? There are very little games, movies or books, which even give these people their part; just because they happen to be minority. I don't think it's fair, and well, I will not support such developpers & writers myself, if I am not allowed to play a character I'd enjoy playing, for example. On April 09 2013 22:33 Bagonad wrote: Feminists that complain about womens portrayal in video games, often ignore that many women are fine with the characters, and many even dress up as them, often even more skimpily dressed. Not trying to imply that you are associated with this of course, your post seems very level-headed. If you wish to bring social awareness that some women are being undermined in their choice to act differently than society has a tendency to portray it, spreading that knowledge with blogs, newspaper articles, or by mouth is a good way to go, but don't overdo it, or overestimate it, society has many problems that could be considred equally or more important in the western world. Yes, well, feminists are sadly overboard with some things. They forget that little thing, choice, very often. While I personally would play a tomboy knight over some sexy butt princess anytime and anyday, I understand that there are women, who'd enjoy the latter. People often forget this little island of tolerance, and frankly, it's not just the feminists, it's people in general. I kind of rarely speak of this anymore, because well, as you pointed out, there are worse things in the society; like wars because of religions, wars because of oil, opression of islamic women, hunger in Africa, etc, even though sometimes, it bugs me, that I have very few games I can play as the character I'd be able to relate to, as this "minority" of women and it is me, who is sometimes seen as "wrong", "bad" and labelled even worse, just because I don't fall into the "traditional" stereotype of woman. | ||
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missefficiency
Germany105 Posts
I remember, when I was very young, I was always playing with guys, and we played knights & fought with each other with these small kids' swords. Of course, I was getting berated for it, because my mom & dad thought I wasn't "feminine" enough. I personally always admired people, who go after their dreams & work hard for them, rather than wait for them to happen; no matter if they are a man or a woman. I remember similar things, first and foremost the shocked expression on my mother's face when three year old me told her I wanted to be a firefighter. But my point is that, yes, while going after your dreams and work hard for them is essential, sometimes you just want someone to do something, no matter how insignificant, probably just grocery shopping , for you when you had a terrible day. That's where I see today's primary "save the princess" connection, in a small dose as a small courtesy, not as a general concept. I'm not sure if we understand each other, but my point is, that there should be choice for us. Not to be generalized, and even if a lot of women do like this stuff, like flowers, being princesses etc, not every woman is like that and they shouldn't be insulted or belittled because of that, instead, there should be more books, movies and games depicting women in this way, to equalize, and therefore put both ways up on par, which would lead to less stereotypes about women in general and less insults on both sides as well, as both ways would be seen as "normal". We do, but we phrase it differently. I am not entirely sure what you mean by choice, but I think you refer to the depiction of women as stereotypically feminine in books and TV shows etc. I honestly never gave this much thought since I also know a lot of books where this depiction is ironically criticised (my favorite example for that one is "Problems Problems" by Ingeborg Bachmann, I read it everytime I see myself behaving like the girl in her story to remind myself how ridiculous I am being right then) or where it is insignificant that the person is female or male because they lack a stereotypical description. But why we do have such a high amount of "stereotypical save the princess - stories" instead of "real working completely normal women - stories" is because the first section sells better. Books, movies and the like are entertainment. Most men want to see sex. Most women want to see a romantic story which has nothing to do with their daily life. They are made for amusement and leisure, and that's what they're bought and consumed for. And they apparently sell well. I entirely agree with you that there should be more alternatives for those who just don't want the other stuff, but then again, they just are a minority. Which sucks. If I hear the suggestion of watching a "romantic comedy" once again from any of my friends, I am going to replace that movie with a Korean splatter movie without subtitles. But: Even if there were more alternatives, they wouldn't change the fact that people want to see the stereotypical stuff. Production is a mirror of consumption, therefore, this is a phenomenon created by consumption which is a form of choice, therefore limiting choice for minorities like you and me. The real problem is not the missing choice, but the overwhelming amount of people choosing "save the princess". Equalizing the amount of books and movies produced in respect to their content, e.g. 50% princessy products versus 50% get real would thus in no way change the choice people make. It wouldn't solve the problem. Although, yeah, you are right in one thing, when it comes to some feminists of today. They don't deal with real issues & complain about pointless things, such as already mentioned equal amount of nouns of feminine form, compared to masculine ones, in the Czech vocabulary or even complaining that hurricanes have only female names... geez. Oh boy. The amount of feminine nouns is too damn high. A friend of mine commented about the university's announcement to the "Dear female students and male students" as an "Wow, not enough that I got people staring at my boobs already, they have to make a point and not only call us out first and setting us apart." It's the same thing with the Hurricanes in Germany, I even think they now have a rule that you have to switch between male and female names every other year...as though we had no other problems. | ||
Jibba
United States22883 Posts
I wish people on TL did more reading than posting. Basically any time someone jumps in with "My problem with ______", it means they didn't read any of the posts preceding theirs and just want to inject their opinion. And Sarkeesian's first short is a good example of people misinterpreting a critique, even though she explicitly makes mention that she doesn't think it's a calculated decision. People respond, "but those stories sell!" or "look how popular they are!" when her exact point (and the point of many other feminist critiques) was that there isn't a conscious decision to portray women poorly, but it's embedded in our culture and we often take it as second nature that women are passive prizes. It's not about blame, it's about acknowledgement. | ||
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Bagonad
Denmark173 Posts
On April 09 2013 22:47 BabyToss! wrote: Well, the thing is, a lot of books, movies and games are written to appease the mainstream guys. And of course, guys like their women to be candy-eyes, pretty bums. Nothing wrong in that. Issue is, that when something is aimed for the mainstream female audience, you see princesses, rainbows and unicorns. No strong hero characters, portrayed as warriors, etc. The best solution would be to not do games for guys and girls, but simply do games, which can make everyone happy. But, that's of course the ideal, there will be always someone complaining. But, the bottom line is, make for example a game, where you play as macho guy, or even a princess, or a macho knight woman. Give everyone their bit. If someone wants a girly hero, go ahead. If someone wants a tomboy, hell, why not? There are very little games, movies or books, which even give these people their part; just because they happen to be minority. I don't think it's fair, and well, I will not support such developpers & writers myself, if I am not allowed to play a character I'd enjoy playing, for example. Yes, well, feminists are sadly overboard with some things. They forget that little thing, choice, very often. While I personally would play a tomboy knight over some sexy butt princess anytime and anyday, I understand that there are women, who'd enjoy the latter. People often forget this little island of tolerance, and frankly, it's not just the feminists, it's people in general. I kind of rarely speak of this anymore, because well, as you pointed out, there are worse things in the society; like wars because of religions, wars because of oil, opression of islamic women, hunger in Africa, etc, even though sometimes, it bugs me, that I have very few games I can play as the character I'd be able to relate to, as this "minority" of women and it is me, who is sometimes seen as "wrong", "bad" and labelled even worse, just because I don't fall into the "traditional" stereotype of woman. But again, your beef is with capitalism, games where you have the choice between a feminine princess and a tomboy warrior will exist if it's financially viable, a company wants to make money, if it's gonna cost more money to delay the game to program it, than they believe they will make extra when selling the game because the tomboy character is available, they won't do it. Some companies have made a case of letting this freedom exist, like EA/Bioware which heavily promotes homosexual relationships, and strong women. Although done to the extreme in series like mass effect, where every character regardless of gender wanna get in your pants after 3 dialogue options. If you can prove to the board in a videogame company, that it will be financially profitable to add a tomboy character, or a girlish knight, then they'll do it. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
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DaCruise
Denmark2457 Posts
We always hear feminists complain about the fact that top positions within goverments, companies and such are dominated by men but what about the men also dominating pretty much every single negative social statistic in society. We NEVER hear them complain about that. The point of feminism is to make the society better for women no matter the consequences for the men, which ultimately will also lead to a worse society for everyone funny enough. I feel like the feminists are not focusing on the things that really matter. At least in my part of the world and because of that its hard to sympathize with them. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On April 09 2013 22:33 Bagonad wrote: I mentioned it in my post earlier, but you're blaming the wrong target again, movies and games are not social tools, they're tools of capitalism, you have to change society before you change the products of society, it doesn't work the other way around. If there really is a very large amount of women, or even a majority of women who want something, then capitalism follows suit, and changes its products to suit what you want, if they can earn money. The entire system is self-feeding, so changing the products and tools has a definite impact on the rest of society. And just because a majority of men or women want something doesn't mean the product is fair in its depiction. There's a heavy amount of socialization at play here, that overrides any logical underpinnings for most people. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On April 09 2013 23:25 DaCruise wrote: If the point of feminism was to bring equality between genders I wouldnt oppose it, however thats not the case as I see it. We always hear feminists complain about the fact that top positions within goverments, companies and such are dominated by men but what about the men also dominating pretty much every single negative social statistic in society. We NEVER hear them complain about that. The point of feminism is to make the society better for women no matter the consequences for the men, which ultimately will also lead to a worse society for everyone funny enough. I feel like the feminists are not focusing on the things that really matter. At least in my part of the world and because of that its hard to sympathize with them. Did you read what the point of feminism is? Because it seems like you didn't. Even though it was already described pretty well in this thread, by a person with a big shiny title. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On April 09 2013 23:29 Jibba wrote: Did you read what the point of feminism is? Because it seems like you didn't. Even though it was already described pretty well in this thread, by a person with a big shiny title. Yes I know it's Wikipedia.... That's a hell of a broad movement to be defined under one overarching term is it not? Especially if we're talking about socialisation and unconscious perceptions of meanings and roles, surely you can make some kind of argument that feminism as a term is subject to the same kind of distortions, even if it's not necessarily an intentional process? | ||
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Bagonad
Denmark173 Posts
On April 09 2013 23:07 Jibba wrote: This thread has become a perfect example of people who don't understand feminism talking about feminism based on their preconceptions. :/ I wish people on TL did more reading than posting. Basically any time someone jumps in with "My problem with ______", it means they didn't read any of the posts preceding theirs and just want to inject their opinion. And Sarkeesian's first short is a good example of people misinterpreting a critique, even though she explicitly makes mention that she doesn't think it's a calculated decision. People respond, "but those stories sell!" or "look how popular they are!" when her exact point (and the point of many other feminist critiques) was that there isn't a conscious decision to portray women poorly, but it's embedded in our culture and we often take it as second nature that women are passive prizes. It's not about blame, it's about acknowledgement. But such a thing as "Portraying women stereotypically in cultural art" is incredibly minor and arbitratry, you can't expect people to sympathize with you, even if you use express it as "portraying women poorly". You could make the same example of homosexuals in literature, or indians in literature, or white men in most cases when reading non-western literature. Modern feminists know that this isn't enough to warrant anything, so they start radically opposing men, making up reasons why men are evil, which simply ends in a hateful relationship between everyone. | ||
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QuanticHawk
United States32108 Posts
On April 09 2013 23:28 Jibba wrote: The entire system is self-feeding, so changing the products and tools has a definite impact on the rest of society. And just because a majority of men or women want something doesn't mean the product is fair in its depiction. There's a heavy amount of socialization at play here, that overrides any logical underpinnings for most people. the slant towards men in all media and the cycle is there but i've always been kinda stumped on how you'd go about changing it without doing something really silly like forcing companies to produce a certain amount of titles with female characters or having the government fund games/books/shows/whatever that wouldn't be published otherwise or something similar | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On April 09 2013 23:32 Wombat_NI wrote: Yes I know it's Wikipedia.... That's a hell of a broad movement to be defined under one overarching term is it not? Especially if we're talking about socialisation and unconscious perceptions of meanings and roles, surely you can make some kind of argument that feminism as a term is subject to the same kind of distortions, even if it's not necessarily an intentional process? Yes, and HP's covers them pretty well. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On April 09 2013 23:35 Bagonad wrote: You deeming it as unimportant doesn't make it unimportant to the people who think it's a problem. Art/TV/mediahas a very large part in shaping society. But such a thing as "Portraying women stereotypically in cultural art" is incredibly minor and arbitratry, you can't expect people to sympathize with you, even if you use express it as "portraying women poorly". You could make the same example of homosexuals in literature, or indians in literature, or white men in most cases when reading non-western literature. Most of those groups do have similar critiques, but the difference is that women make up 51% of the population and the portrayals are quite a bit more ubiquitous than any others. Modern feminists know that this isn't enough to warrant anything, so they start radically opposing men, making up reasons why men are evil, which simply ends in a hateful relationship between everyone. This is a very large leap and I'm almost certain you don't have much to support it. | ||
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