I've never thought much about feminism, but I thought of something today that made me look at it in a way I hadn't before.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way. Criticism probably follows, but not always. Most feminist critiques of popular culture that get posted on TL (usually critiques of video games, in our case) are generally dismissed by the community. I think the basic idea of a feminist critique is sort of a foreign concept to most people in TL's demographic.
Let me sharply change subjects. Blizzard ranks its SC2 leagues, from weakest to strongest, like so: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond (excluding Masters/GM). It is likely that the placement of Diamond at the top of the heap has its (ancient) roots in De Beers' marketing efforts in the 1930s and beyond (first, their accomplishment of making a diamond ring a critical part of an engagement; second, the feat of convincing nearly everyone that purchasing a synthetic diamond simply isn't the same as buying an organic, yet identical, piece of carbon). Blizzard's choice to make Diamond the "premier" league reflects society's attitudes towards diamonds and the precious metals listed. Without the mysticism surrounding diamonds, brought about by De Beers, it is unlikely that society would view something that can be flawlessly replicated to be worth more than the most precious of metals.
De Beers' propaganda has been a source of great evil in this world (conflict diamonds, plus the unnecessary and massive transfer of wealth to De Beers over the last century). Given that, it makes a weird sort of sense to wish that Blizzard did not have a part to play in reinforcing the valuation of diamonds over materials like gold or platinum in our society. Yet if I were to write an article to that effect (Change the name of Diamond league, Blizzard!) I would promptly be laughed off TL. The same sort of ridicule is often applied towards feminist articles which follow the line of reasoning of my diamonds example. The word "ridiculous" shows up a lot in threads about feminists taking issue to game elements that they view as products of a patriarchal society and/or work environment ("save the princess" storylines, for example).
I guess the point of this article is, jointly, a) that being able to take a feminist perspective on things can highlight social ills that are not immediately evident, and b) that feminist critiques are not automatically ridiculous or trivial because of the mere fact that game companies are not going out of their way to perpetuate patriarchy when they implement patriarchal elements in their games, like saving the damsel in distress.
Feminists are often right, but their cause has a major, major image problem because the term itself is far too broad and ill-defined. A breakdown into say, I don't what terms I'd use, but ones with more specificity could be prudent.
I agree with what they say regarding games sometimes, but equally I feel it is rather like fussing over a cigarette that you drop on the floor when your house is already burning to the ground around you.
Feminists also far too often give women a pass in perpetuating the gender roles that exist today, in my experience.
Their fringe groups tend to be very loud these days. It sucks that these "social justice" types are appropriating every other social movement as well. They bring race and LGBT under their umbrella of "kyriarchy" theory as an extension of patriarchy, and have a bad habit of bullying and shouting down dissenters even when they are allied to the broader goals of the movement if they think something like "it is possible for women to be sexist towards men." They think issues of privilege give them an excuse to treat people like shit because they are by default an oppressor for the way they were born. When the third wave feminists got mixed in with postmodernist philosophy and tried to apply it to daily life that's when shit started going wrong for them. (Some people ACTUALLY subscribe to the belief that "logic is a tool of the partriarchy")
Maybe I've just been spending too much time on reddit.com/r/tumblrinaction and have had run ins with the group Shitredditsays on reddit, but I've also meant these people in real life and they are not pleasant to be around. Also please don't take this as a criticism of feminism as a whole but the growing social justice warrior fringe.
Its a very strange situation. I think the problem feminism has to face is that while in an ideal society (and even that I'm not certain about) there wouldn't be gender roles, the fact is gender roles exist and people for better or for worse have accepted them (both men *and* women). So is there impetus to change that, even within feminine ranks? I'm not sure. Are there guys who wish that they could be the dames (masculine form of damsel?) in distress, and have a strong woman come in and save him? Do guys wish they were portrayed with a more feminine, caring side in games (haha even I did it, wow...okay just caring)? Conversely, do girls make a fuss out of being seen as princesses, or caregivers, or do they see it as a natural description of a woman's typical nature? If people constantly reinforce an image, eventually people come to see it as naturally true. So from that perspective is it wrong for companies to market games that way? I don't think its necessarily bad.
It would be bad to deny a woman the opportunity to be something more, and that's why there should be *some* games that do show that side. But if the vast majority of males and females want to see a particular story, then by market forces that's what they should receive. By what right does a minority have to demand their views on how women and men should behave be reflected in the entertainment media watched or played by the rest of society?
The feminist case has to be one of equal opportunity, not necessarily equal representation in all roles. But I guess the complex part is, even if you are logically only presenting a particular representation of a woman in a particular role, over time, the repetition of that representation implies that that is all women can be...even if its an illogical conclusion, it is what people draw. So that's why I think there should be some games that present alternative representations of women, not just to appeal to the minority who desire that as per standard market forces that give people what they want, but also to prevent the majority from wrongly believing (irrationally) that that is all they are capable of.
Edit: Also, while I post this, I am seeing an advertisement for a game with a woman who is nearly completely naked. At this point, I have to consider the effect of saturation of male desires in games, vs that of female desires. If the media images presented to allure males into playing their games is so extreme that it causes objective harm in terms of how women are treated in the world, then it should be changed, even if women are not involved at all in terms of marketing or believing what they are capable of. But there must be a causal link established between this portrayal, and the activity it generates.
I guess that's why this might be different from the debeers case. Because in that case we're dealing with something which is objectively bad; the exploitation (and deaths) of many African workers. Although we should also consider whether, perhaps, on balance the demand for diamonds has lifted enough people out of what would otherwise be abject poverty that its worth it?
100% agreed Nikoras. As a 'fellow traveller' of kinds with parts of the feminist movement, I actually went to some feminist meetings, tried to engage and got so much unwarranted abuse at times for the minute differences I had on certain issues.
Thought 'fuck that', and am back in my own little insular existence, free to chill out and think about issues without being called a 'rape apologist', 'perpetuer of patriarchy', along with those that made me out to not have a clue on the issues involved.
Tbh beyond that, I don't think some of the fringe/protest people ever want their goals to be realised. Their self-worth is imparted by being seen to be progressive, or influential in whatever protest group they are in. They lose that if their end goals are reached.
On April 09 2013 12:08 Wombat_NI wrote: Feminists are often right, but their cause has a major, major image problem because the term itself is far too broad and ill-defined. A breakdown into say, I don't what terms I'd use, but ones with more specificity could be prudent.
I agree with what they say regarding games sometimes, but equally I feel it is rather like fussing over a cigarette that you drop on the floor when your house is already burning to the ground around you.
Feminists also far too often give women a pass in perpetuating the gender roles that exist today, in my experience.
I'll address each bolded point real quick because it made me twitch:
a) It's not that it's ill-defined, it's that people misuse it b) This is a result of people misusing the term "feminism"
Detach the word from whatever bad experience you've had
Let me try to summarize feminism as succinctly as possible. At its core, Feminism is a stance promoting substantive equality with a particular focus on gender.
Substantive equality is the root of the ideology. That is to say, that equality is not a "treat everyone the same" affair, but rather, "recognize the differences and account for them" affair. The goal is to avoid a differential impact.
A simple example of this is workplace leave and discrimination on the basis of pregnancy. In Canada, at least, discrimination in the workforce on the grounds of pregnancy is a breach of equality rights.
Don't let some teenage kid who spouts "girl power" on her tumblr affect how you view a very real and very important lens you can use to view various issues.
Very nice analogy, never thought of it that way. Of course there's a question whether most people who label themselves feminists do think that way or is it just some intellectual ideal that rarely manifests outside of academic literature.
For the record if you ever decide to write an article criticizing Blizzard's choice of 'Diamond league', you'll have my support.
On April 09 2013 12:08 Wombat_NI wrote: Feminists are often right, but their cause has a major, major image problem because the term itself is far too broad and ill-defined. A breakdown into say, I don't what terms I'd use, but ones with more specificity could be prudent.
I agree with what they say regarding games sometimes, but equally I feel it is rather like fussing over a cigarette that you drop on the floor when your house is already burning to the ground around you.
Feminists also far too often give women a pass in perpetuating the gender roles that exist today, in my experience.
I'll address each bolded point real quick because it made me twitch:
a) It's not that it's ill-defined, it's that people misuse it b) This is a result of people misusing the term "feminism"
Detach the word from whatever bad experience you've had
Let me try to summarize feminism as succinctly as possible. At its core, Feminism is a stance promoting substantive equality with a particular focus on gender.
Substantive equality is the root of the ideology. That is to say, that equality is not a "treat everyone the same" affair, but rather, "recognize the differences and account for them" affair. The goal is to avoid a differential impact.
A simple example of this is workplace leave and discrimination on the basis of pregnancy. In Canada, at least, discrimination in the workforce on the grounds of pregnancy is a breach of equality rights.
Don't let some teenage kid who spouts "girl power" on her tumblr affect how you view a very real and very important lens you can use to view various issues.
I agree with you in general, but not all of feminism's negative baggage can be attributed merely to teenage girls and their misunderstanding. There are ideologies that fall under the "feminist" umbrella that put forth some very gender essentialist and in my mind harmful ideas; granted, many of these are hardly mainstream nor acknowledged by the reasonable majority of feminists, but they do exist, and not only because of youthful ignorance.
None of that changes the fact that feminism is indeed a useful lens with which to look at the world and attempt to better understand things.
It's not as simple as that. Feminism is one of the few subjects in my undergrad degree that I actually took an interest in, and vaguely knew my shit about I guess. I see it as like the term 'the left', which is an umbrella term that encompasses many, many subdivisions under some basic overarching principles. Feminists who wish to supplant patriarchy with some Amazonian society, will still be seen to share an overall platform as somebody who has much less radical views.
I just see the term as one of the biggest problems with the entire movement/ideology. There's a stubborn refusal to accept the near-poisonous nature of the term nowadays and, if not 'rebrand' then at least take into account that such misconceptions exist. Again, this is informed from personal experiences, isn't entirely reflective of the wider movement, but is so, so common with my dealings with those that self-define as feminists that I do genuinely believe it is reflective of a wider malaise.
I speak as somebody who actually is feminist by the definition you expanded upon, and whose main bone of contention is the media culture in which we live in and how that adversely impacts on women.
On April 09 2013 12:30 Nikoras wrote: Their fringe groups tend to be very loud these days. It sucks that these "social justice" types are appropriating every other social movement as well. They bring race and LGBT under their umbrella of "kyriarchy" theory as an extension of patriarchy, and have a bad habit of bullying and shouting down dissenters even when they are allied to the broader goals of the movement if they think something like "it is possible for women to be sexist towards men." They think issues of privilege give them an excuse to treat people like shit because they are by default an oppressor for the way they were born. When the third wave feminists got mixed in with postmodernist philosophy and tried to apply it to daily life that's when shit started going wrong for them. (Some people ACTUALLY subscribe to the belief that "logic is a tool of the partriarchy")
Maybe I've just been spending too much time on reddit.com/r/tumblrinaction and have had run ins with the group Shitredditsays on reddit, but I've also meant these people in real life and they are not pleasant to be around. Also please don't take this as a criticism of feminism as a whole but the growing social justice warrior fringe.
I heavily dislike how the "social justice warrior fringe"* has taken the rather neutral concept of "privilege" and attached such a negative connotation to it that it is now perceived as an attack. (Yes, privilege exists in varying forms. Yes, it is something everyone should be aware of. But in no way does someone's privileged status give you the excuse to be a nasty, vicious cyber-bully. That's just basic human manners.)
The positive side of all this is that I do think women, especially in circles associated with higher education, are aware of the very serious issues that feminism grapples with on a daily basis. Being loud and radical has that effect, and I do think that some noise (even radical noise) is better than no noise at all. There's a problem. We all know that now, even if we don't know how to correct it. The fact that it's even being discussed these days on video game forums of all things is a sign of progress. (Though admittedly TL is well-moderated, so perhaps it is a bad example.)
Popular feminism tends to be problematic where kids on tumblr go in hordes to blame everything in the world on men and patriarchy and dismiss any problems or disadvantages men might suffer due to feminism. You don't need to be an expert to realize how one sided family law is for example, and yet when men try to speak up about the bullshit of becoming a working mule to feed a family you should no longer legally be tied to, you get shut down by screaming hordes of feminists trying to destroy your shit.
There are many agreeable points in feminism, but the way it is practiced by many people, even high profile spokespersons make it detestable in many different ways.
Being loud and radical can also have the converse effect, namely to bore people into apathy, or cause others to feel threatened and mobilise in other ways.
For example, the 'Men's Right Activists' that seem to be springing up around the place. I've seen these guys written off as a joke, and in terms of agreeing/disagreeing with them, I'd be very much in the latter camp. To my mind though, they do reflect something, things just don't occur in a vacuum with no underlying cause.
On April 09 2013 12:50 ktimekiller wrote: Popular feminism tends to be problematic where kids on tumblr go in hordes to blame everything in the world on men and patriarchy and dismiss any problems or disadvantages men might suffer due to feminism. You don't need to be an expert to realize how one sided family law is for example, and yet when men try to speak up about the bullshit of becoming a working mule to feed a family you should no longer legally be tied to, you get shut down by screaming hordes of feminists trying to destroy your shit.
There are many agreeable points in feminism, but the way it is practiced by many people, even high profile spokespersons make it detestable in many different ways.
Feminists would often agree with you on that. They see the family unit and the demarcation of roles on a female/male basis as something that is undesirable, and the bias in family law is reflective of something that they desire to be changed.
@ Wombat: My dealings with feminists have been overwhelmingly positive outside of online activity. Even the more radical feminists I've met in real life have been pleasant people. Again, personal experience, as you say.
I do think online activity in particular should not be taken as an indication of what a group is "at large," as we all know what happens under the protection of anonymity. Once again, I think there's a positive side to the entire social network equation: It's being discussed! Sort of ...? If you want to call that a discussion ...
Okay, and here is the terrible thing about using sites like Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook in particular to "discuss" feminist and other issues: It's not really a discussion. People use these sites because they like to hear themselves talk. They like to feel like they're being heard, and it's amazingly easy to attach yourself to minority groups so that you no longer feel like you have no value in the world. I mean, who actually has worthwhile discussions on Tumblr of all places? It's about reblogging pretty pictures and the generic flavor of the week, not about debating or discussing, and its format makes it susceptible to mindless attacks, where you end up just bullying a person out of internet existence. It's disgusting behavior.
Anyways, sorry, I started off talking about feminism and devolved into a incoherent rant about social networking these days.
EDIT: And despite what I sound like, I am actually a feminist (and I do have a stake in many of the issues the discuss), just a frustrated one. -.-
I've always thought of feminism as more of a lens through which to view the world rather than an ideology. To be a feminist is to be aware of how women and femininity is treated and portrayed in society; it does not necessarily mean screaming about discrimination all the time. Granted this lens will often lead to action, which is why I've been attempting to remove the word, "bitch" from my vocabulary, as it really is misogynistic in all the same ways that the word, "faggot" is homophobic.
The whole "patriarchal society" viewpoint seems stupid to me in comparison to the other viewpoints one can apply to the minor issues feminists are obsessing over today. A good example would be the recent damsel in distress discussion. Keep in mind these arguments are just examples, and I haven't put in the effort that I would put in a real argument that I truly believed in.
Economic viewpoint: Those video games were primarily enjoyed by guys and produced for them. Girls didn't (and still don't) have as much of a place in the games market at that time as guys and so shouldn't be complaining that the product is not to their tastes since they aren't actually buying it. If girls want to influence this market, they should actually take part in the video game market by buying games, especially the ones they want to play, thus showing that girls are a large group of consumers and should be catered to in order for the video game companies to earn money and be successful.
Biological viewpoint: Guys naturally enjoy this type of plot. It isn't a "product of a patriarchal society." It is only natural and does not directly harm women. Removing this type of plot will accomplish nothing since the problem is not a product of our society and could actually be interpreted as hypocrisy. Feminists fight against what they feel is a patriarchal society forcing women to adopt values that are not their own, but since enjoying this type of plot is only natural for guys, by removing it women would in effect be forcing values on guys that guys do not share.
(To go on a tangent, I am aware that the dominance of males in video games is a self-reinforcing cycle. Guys buy most of the games, causing the games to be made for guys, which drives aware the girls and so on and so on.)
Another issue I take with the minor issues feminists tackle today is that determining whether or not these issues are actually issues and if they should be fixed is incredibly difficult. One first needs to determine whether the issue is biological or social. If it is biological, then it can't and shouldn't be fixed. If it is social, though, one needs to determine what harm it does (if any). One also needs to determine whether or not it justifies the passing of any laws. For example, outlawing "save the princess" plots would be utterly retarded. Finally, one needs to determine what measures should be instituted. Since the end goal with these measures is to actually change an entire society's values, incredible effort must be put into this step. We could spend months, maybe even years, and spend massive amounts of money and man-hours on just one of these minor problems feminists are tackling. The complexity of these issues is just mind-boggling.
On April 09 2013 12:56 babylon wrote: @ Wombat: My dealings with feminists have been overwhelmingly positive outside of online activity. Even the more radical feminists I've met in real life have been pleasant people. Again, personal experience, as you say.
I do think online activity in particular should not be taken as an indication of what a group is "at large," as we all know what happens under the protection of anonymity. Once again, I think there's a positive side to the entire social network equation: It's being discussed! Sort of ...? If you want to call that a discussion ...
Okay, and here is the terrible thing about using sites like Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook in particular to "discuss" feminist and other issues: It's not really a discussion. People use these sites because they like to hear themselves talk. They like to feel like they're being heard, and it's amazingly easy to attach yourself to minority groups so that you no longer feel like you have no value in the world. I mean, who actually has worthwhile discussions on Tumblr of all places? It's about reblogging pretty pictures and the generic flavor of the week, not about debating or discussing, and its format makes it susceptible to mindless attacks, where you end up just bullying a person out of internet existence. It's disgusting behavior.
Anyways, sorry, I started off talking about feminism and devolved into a incoherent rant about social networking these days.
Social networking is shit for discussion of anything of vague importance, at least in the West. That I agree on. Actually I get most of my interesting discussion/debates here on TL, if you come into threads with an open mind there's a lot of value.
I don't know what that says for much of the rest of our media culture that I genuinely do use TL for much of my news discussion mind
The feminists I know 'irl' are generally pretty pleasant people as well, I just completely disagree with their methodologies sometimes, while still maintaining a support for their underlying causes/desired endgoals.
Something is wrong with feminists in general however, every feminist I have met has acted like all men are rapists etc.
Women are not a minority, women are not repressed in the western world, there is very little reason for the hate mongering this fringe group seems to vocalise consistantly.
On April 09 2013 12:50 ktimekiller wrote: Popular feminism tends to be problematic where kids on tumblr go in hordes to blame everything in the world on men and patriarchy and dismiss any problems or disadvantages men might suffer due to feminism. You don't need to be an expert to realize how one sided family law is for example, and yet when men try to speak up about the bullshit of becoming a working mule to feed a family you should no longer legally be tied to, you get shut down by screaming hordes of feminists trying to destroy your shit.
There are many agreeable points in feminism, but the way it is practiced by many people, even high profile spokespersons make it detestable in many different ways.
Pretty much this, there might be reasonable, self-proclaimed feminists out there that I'd totally convene with (as I do agree with the general equality concept behind it), but the term itself is so attached to illogical idiocy in my mind that I just tend to shy away even from these people, which are quite clearly the minority of the movement.
On April 09 2013 13:03 zbedlam wrote: Nothing is wrong with feminism.
Something is wrong with feminists in general however, every feminist I have met has acted like all men are rapists etc.
Women are not a minority, women are not repressed in the western world, there is very little reason for the hate mongering this fringe group seems to vocalise consistantly.
They're not legally discriminated against for the most part, I still feel there is much to say about media culture and portrayals of women in that sense that is an important to discuss and debate.
On April 09 2013 12:50 ktimekiller wrote: Popular feminism tends to be problematic where kids on tumblr go in hordes to blame everything in the world on men and patriarchy and dismiss any problems or disadvantages men might suffer due to feminism. You don't need to be an expert to realize how one sided family law is for example, and yet when men try to speak up about the bullshit of becoming a working mule to feed a family you should no longer legally be tied to, you get shut down by screaming hordes of feminists trying to destroy your shit.
There are many agreeable points in feminism, but the way it is practiced by many people, even high profile spokespersons make it detestable in many different ways.
Pretty much this, there might be reasonable, self-proclaimed feminists out there that I'd totally convene with (as I do agree with the general equality concept behind it), but the term itself is so attached to illogical idiocy in my mind that I just tend to shy away from these people, which are quite clearly the minority of the movement.
Ditto. Few movements have been damaged as much by extremists as feminism. My subconscious and emotional perceptions of feminism have been utterly wrecked by the idiocy I see spouted by extremists. Even worse, confirmation bias starts to kick in as one's viewpoint begins to solidify, so whenever people touched by these extremists see feminists, they actively look for mistakes they're making and enlarge the significance of these mistakes. That's a massive issue for feminists everywhere.
My problem is that trying to abolish gender roles is to try to end a fact of nature; it is natural that men are generally dominant and that women are care takers (note I am speaking in general). Gender roles are not a societal construct.
Yet if I were to write an article to that effect (Change the name of Diamond league, Blizzard!) I would promptly be laughed off TL.
You're probably right in this regard, and your decision to not go into the details of your beliefs and opinions on the subject is most likely prudent.
But on the other hand, there are undoubtedly some on the forum including myself who will think that you have a very good point in this regard (certainly something that never occurred to me), so thanks for at least writing a short blurb about the matter.
I see parallels between that and the term 'socialist' taking on a quasi-pejorative meaning over in the States for example. I see people using the term 'progressive' to self-identify if they are left-leaning more and more, which appears to be an acknowledgement of this.
Would feminists benefit from doing something similar perhaps?
On April 09 2013 13:11 Xayvier wrote: My problem is that trying to abolish gender roles is to try to end a fact of nature; it is natural that men are generally dominant and that women are care takers (note I am speaking in general). Gender roles are not a societal construct.
Physically men are, I don't buy the rest of it as 'natural' and we live in a society where physical brawn is not as advantageous or important as it once was.
One of the other major issues is that the feminist cause is much of the times harmed directly by those they are trying to help, i.e. other women.
To give a crude example: Women are often portrayed as pieces of meat in popular media, i.e. objectification of women as sexual things. That is deplorable, and I think that's an issue, as it encourages people to treat women as if they are merely sexual objects.
But fuck, it's hard for the movement to gain traction on that ground when many women continue to choose to portray themselves in such a way that reinforces the idea that women are merely sexual objects.
With regards to this particular issue, women are fighting for, on the one hand, the idea that women should be sexually liberated but also against the idea that women should not be objectified. It is a tough line to walk, and I'm not sure it can be walked successfully.
Agreed babylon, this is the thing that actually gained me a lot of ire and backlash for saying. That and that women-centred media in the Cosmopolitans and Hello! magazines of this world, also feed into things like negative body image, but are written by and consumed by women primarily. I saw an interesting study on body image for example that had men's 'ideal size' for a woman be a good bit larger than what women believed that men found most attractive.
Gender relations are exactly that, a relationship in which both blocs have an input into how the other perceives them, interacts with them etc etc. You can't absolve women of what responsibility is theirs to bear for creating and perpetuating certain beliefs and archetypes.
On April 09 2013 12:37 HawaiianPig wrote: Let me try to summarize feminism as succinctly as possible. At its core, Feminism is a stance promoting substantive equality with a particular focus on gender.
This is what bugs me, in a probably-juvenile but undeniable way. Being a feminist (in the real world, not internet-land) essentially seems to mean that you're a socially-progressive, liberal-minded person who strives for acceptance and equality for all kinds of gender identities, sexual identities, and so forth. And that's great! That's really awesome, and I can one-hundred-percent get behind that. The problem is, I can't get away from the extremely-gendered name that implies that equality is an exclusively-female thing or at least largely inspired by women.
Here's another problem I can't quite get around: By becoming the all-encompassing socially-progressive -ism, I'm worried about other legitimate and necessary 'movements' will get swallowed up into feminism. Transgender issues, for example, seem to always be discussed as a feminist topic. Gay rights stuff is kind of the same way, but got large enough early on that it splintered into its own thing as well as far as I can tell. (As a disclaimer, I'm not heavily involved in lgbt stuff at all. If I was, I'm sure I'd see it independent of feminism all the time-- but the fact that as an outside I never do is not a good thing!) How are important social issues like that supposed to get any major traction if they're 'just a part of feminism'? Is it even an impediment? I don't know!
If feminism was a movement concerned exclusively with women's rights and women's place in society, I'd be all for it. I think that kind of stuff is great. I'd also be all for gay rights, transgender rights, men's rights, every kind of rights imaginable. Equality is pretty great, and-- again, maybe this is me being oversensitive and juvenile-- but associating it with one gender really puts me off of actively identifying myself as a feminist.
There is no problem with feminism, there is a problem with people who call themselves "feminists", and in reality feminism in everyone's mind becomes what they see feminism to be, which has become a lot of nitpicking and cis white male-hating. If you care about equality for everyone, why label yourself with a term clearly favouring a particular gender? We are far from gender equality for women, but at the same time it's nowhere near as one-sided as it once was. Modern feminists don't care about men's issues while expecting men to care about theirs.
Thus I call myself an egalitarian and in my opinion the term "feminism" has just been poisoned and is beyond saving.
On April 09 2013 12:50 ktimekiller wrote: Popular feminism tends to be problematic where kids on tumblr go in hordes to blame everything in the world on men and patriarchy and dismiss any problems or disadvantages men might suffer due to feminism. You don't need to be an expert to realize how one sided family law is for example, and yet when men try to speak up about the bullshit of becoming a working mule to feed a family you should no longer legally be tied to, you get shut down by screaming hordes of feminists trying to destroy your shit.
There are many agreeable points in feminism, but the way it is practiced by many people, even high profile spokespersons make it detestable in many different ways.
Your example of men suffering is actually men suffering because of patriarchy I feel. Patriarchy meaning men should be the ones battling it out in society earning the family's money, women staying with the kids and managing the home. Family law in a patriarchy is then being intended to work best for that setup, which makes it rigged if you want to live differently than what was the perceived ideal in the 1950s. The hordes of women you hear bitching are of course working for their "side".
On April 09 2013 13:23 Ruscour wrote: There is no problem with feminism, there is a problem with people who call themselves "feminists", and in reality feminism in everyone's mind becomes what they see feminism to be, which has become a lot of nitpicking and cis white male-hating. If you care about equality for everyone, why label yourself with a term clearly favouring a particular gender? We are far from gender equality for women, but at the same time it's nowhere near as one-sided as it once was. Modern feminists don't care about men's issues while expecting men to care about theirs.
Thus I call myself an egalitarian and in my opinion the term "feminism" has just been poisoned and is beyond saving.
Boom, 100%. Perception is important, and feminism is rightly or wrongly perceived differently, imo because of the focus on one half of the equation.
I don't see many other movements that define themselves in the same way. With the exception of Malcolm X and his ilk, black Americans and what they strived for were under the banners of 'civil rights', or their modern equivalents are generally 'anti-racist' or something like that. I do vervently believe that if the Civil Rights movement had been titled something akin to 'Afro-Americanism' (can't think of anything remotely pithy for this lol) it wouldn't have accomplished its aims as quickly
I understand that the arguments against say a re-brand to 'gender equality movement' or something like that, but I disagree with them for the most part.
This thread has really been informative about the legitimate side of feminism. I've met a few feminists before, and they have all been completely irrational people, so I tend to dismiss a lot of feminist groups the same way I dismiss PETA or Westboro baptist church. It's good to hear that the feminist movement is based on a few legitimate and very important ideals. I will be following this thread closely because I am eager to learn more on this topic.
On April 09 2013 13:13 babylon wrote: One of the other major issues is that the feminist cause is much of the times harmed directly by those they are trying to help, i.e. other women.
To give a crude example: Women are often portrayed as pieces of meat in popular media, i.e. objectification of women as sexual things. That is deplorable, and I think that's an issue, as it encourages people to treat women as if they are merely sexual objects.
But fuck, it's hard for the movement to gain traction on that ground when many women continue to choose to portray themselves in such a way that reinforces the idea that women are merely sexual objects.
With regards to this particular issue, women are fighting for, on the one hand, the idea that women should be sexually liberated but also against the idea that women should not be objectified. It is a tough line to walk, and I'm not sure it can be walked successfully.
Yeah. The goal is to manipulate the conscious and unconscious attitudes a society of billions possesses. Even if the sheer scale wasn't enough, the manipulation needs to be incredibly delicate as the end goal seems to require contradictory states of mind in some ways.
Like others in this thread, I feel feminism is badly tainted as a brand. In most people's minds it is strongly associated with extremist feminists, and just by saying the word you nearly always ruin the debate. When I want to talk about sexual politics I feel I can get a lot further in conversations by saying 'x seems kind of sexist because..." rather than using feminism theory as a whole.
Even the term itself is kind of confrontational, implying they want a female instead of male perspective, which rubs many up the wrong way. A better term would be 'genderism', looking at how people's genders (male and female), and the expectations which go with them, can sometimes cause problems. A lot of the best feminism writing I've read talks about this stuff, but by calling itself feminism alienates people who would otherwise agree.
Finally, while this is obviously anecdotal, everyone I've met who has called themselves a feminist, has been rude, sexist and unpleasant to talk to. I'm not sure why, but it definitely doesn't help.
On April 09 2013 13:18 Wombat_NI wrote: Agreed babylon, this is the thing that actually gained me a lot of ire and backlash for saying. That and that women-centred media in the Cosmopolitans and Hello! magazines of this world, also feed into things like negative body image, but are written by and consumed by women primarily. I saw an interesting study on body image for example that had men's 'ideal size' for a woman be a good bit larger than what women believed that men found most attractive.
Gender relations are exactly that, a relationship in which both blocs have an input into how the other perceives them, interacts with them etc etc. You can't absolve women of what responsibility is theirs to bear for creating and perpetuating certain beliefs and archetypes.
It is extremely difficult to resolve this sort of tension, though, and I'm not at all certain it can be done until feminists somehow distance themselves from the women who are making their cause difficult. It's just a sad truth that not all women are feminists (either out of ignorance or apathy, or on purpose), and how do you push for progress given the lack of unity? It is no longer about mainly blatant, outright discrimination (e.g. as it was in the civil rights movement, the LGBTQ movements, etc.) but it's about patriarchy, gender roles, etc. -- abstract concepts around which it's hard to form a forceful united movement that can help educate people and therefore push for efficient, real change.
On April 09 2013 13:03 zbedlam wrote: Nothing is wrong with feminism.
Something is wrong with feminists in general however, every feminist I have met has acted like all men are rapists etc.
Women are not a minority, women are not repressed in the western world, there is very little reason for the hate mongering this fringe group seems to vocalise consistantly.
They're not legally discriminated against for the most part, I still feel there is much to say about media culture and portrayals of women in that sense that is an important to discuss and debate.
Yup on the media portrayal stuff.
Legally, however, the law isn't necessarily free of systemic gender inequality either...
Sexual assault cases are often the worst on this. There are pervasive, popular, and harmful opinions that often negatively impact these cases.
The most common of course is that women are somehow responsible for their victimization or are "liars". Most people are no stranger to this problem. There's no shortage of pictures on tumblr and reddit of women holding up signs on the matter. It's easy to dismiss the matter as Yet Another Internet Social Justice Campaign.
But these opinions are widely held, sometimes unconsciously. Worse so, they have a real and harmful impact.
One of the more shocking examples of this happened in Canada a few years back -- where a judge of the Alberta Court of Appeal, Justice McClung, commented in a sexual assault case that "the complainant did not present herself to Ewanchuk or enter his trailer in a bonnet and crinolines”. He went on to talk about how, if she really didn't want to have sex, she would have physically resisted.
This is a comment by a member of the judiciary. Not some uneducated juror.
To top it off, the case was appealed to our Supreme Court and a female Justice (L'Heureux Dube) rebuked those comments, pointing out that requiring physical resistance means that women across the country would have to literally fight off their assailants.
Immediately after the decision was rendered, the Justice McClung wrote a letter to a national newspaper stating that: "The personal convictions of [Justice L'Heureux Dube], delivered again from her judicial chair, could provide a plausible explanation for the disparate (and growing) number of male suicides being reported in the province of Quebec."
Yep. In his mind, Justice L'Heureux Dube is responsible for a male suicide epidemic because of her feminism.
To add salt in the wound, L'Heureux Dube's husband had actually committed suicide many years ago.
It's a sensational example of course. It's not often that there is a public controversy between judges. But in any case, it's an example of how harmful stereotypes can pervade the system--even manifesting itself in written judgments.
It's obvious in this case. McClung's views are so ensrhined in him that they made it into his written decision, but what happens when these things aren't on the surface? It's not so obvious when a trier of fact unintentionally disregards a female witness because he feels she was asking for it.
And yet, more often than not you'll see plenty of people respond to these problems with, "Yeah but what about all those wrongful convictions of males!?" As if a) it happens as often (it doesn't) and b) two wrongs make a right.
Anyway, I'm kind of rambling here. I've used your post as an excuse to go off on how the justice system is by no means perfect... but I think I've touched on what really gets me going when it comes to these discussions online. That is, people often respond to valid feminist complaints with, not a rebuttal, but a deflection.
On April 09 2013 12:08 Wombat_NI wrote: Feminists are often right, but their cause has a major, major image problem because the term itself is far too broad and ill-defined. A breakdown into say, I don't what terms I'd use, but ones with more specificity could be prudent.
I agree with what they say regarding games sometimes, but equally I feel it is rather like fussing over a cigarette that you drop on the floor when your house is already burning to the ground around you.
Feminists also far too often give women a pass in perpetuating the gender roles that exist today, in my experience.
I'll address each bolded point real quick because it made me twitch:
a) It's not that it's ill-defined, it's that people misuse it b) This is a result of people misusing the term "feminism"
Detach the word from whatever bad experience you've had
Let me try to summarize feminism as succinctly as possible. At its core, Feminism is a stance promoting substantive equality with a particular focus on gender.
Substantive equality is the root of the ideology. That is to say, that equality is not a "treat everyone the same" affair, but rather, "recognize the differences and account for them" affair. The goal is to avoid a differential impact.
A simple example of this is workplace leave and discrimination on the basis of pregnancy. In Canada, at least, discrimination in the workforce on the grounds of pregnancy is a breach of equality rights.
Don't let some teenage kid who spouts "girl power" on her tumblr affect how you view a very real and very important lens you can use to view various issues.
I think it's especially problematic that when critiques are made, many people automatically receive them as if they're making a direct attack on an overt decision, which is generally not the case. Often feminist critiques are meant to recognize something much more subtle and unintentional, where no one is specifically "at fault" but the consequence may be dangerous.
On April 09 2013 12:37 HawaiianPig wrote: Let me try to summarize feminism as succinctly as possible. At its core, Feminism is a stance promoting substantive equality with a particular focus on gender.
This is what bugs me, in a probably-juvenile but undeniable way. Being a feminist (in the real world, not internet-land) essentially seems to mean that you're a socially-progressive, liberal-minded person who strives for acceptance and equality for all kinds of gender identities, sexual identities, and so forth. And that's great! That's really awesome, and I can one-hundred-percent get behind that. The problem is, I can't get away from the extremely-gendered name that implies that equality is an exclusively-female thing or at least largely inspired by women.
Here's another problem I can't quite get around: By becoming the all-encompassing socially-progressive -ism, I'm worried about other legitimate and necessary 'movements' will get swallowed up into feminism. Transgender issues, for example, seem to always be discussed as a feminist topic. Gay rights stuff is kind of the same way, but got large enough early on that it splintered into its own thing as well as far as I can tell. (As a disclaimer, I'm not heavily involved in lgbt stuff at all. If I was, I'm sure I'd see it independent of feminism all the time-- but the fact that as an outside I never do is not a good thing!) How are important social issues like that supposed to get any major traction if they're 'just a part of feminism'? Is it even an impediment? I don't know!
If feminism was a movement concerned exclusively with women's rights and women's place in society, I'd be all for it. I think that kind of stuff is great. I'd also be all for gay rights, transgender rights, men's rights, every kind of rights imaginable. Equality is pretty great, and-- again, maybe this is me being oversensitive and juvenile-- but associating it with one gender really puts me off of actively identifying myself as a feminist.
Yeah I agree with this to an extent. To me, I think of it as a subset of general "socially-progressive, liberal-minded person who strives for acceptance and equality for all kinds of gender identities, sexual identities, and so forth"
Or as someone else pointed out in this thread, the "egalitarian"
I think the real problem with it all ... is that people choose to identify with an ideology.
Instead I think a person should only *use* ideologies to view issues. I've never been able to describe myself with an -ism, and I think most who do tend to miss the point.
I tend to view that as a problem of societal norms, and the opinions of individuals can influence criminal proceedings.
The actual laws themselves have, in many places been redrafted to place less of an onus on women to physically resist. I think Germany was thinking of making some changes in this regard, in terms of redefining consent.
I draw a distinction between 'the laws' and the 'the judiciary that applies them' in this case, whereas some people may think that a silly distinction to make.
On April 09 2013 13:13 babylon wrote: With regards to this particular issue, women are fighting for, on the one hand, the idea that women should be sexually liberated but also against the idea that women should not be objectified. It is a tough line to walk, and I'm not sure it can be walked successfully.
These come from two different branches of feminism. Again, it's an extremely broad and possibly misnamed field. There's plenty of feminists who are okay with everyone being meat. Some don't want anyone seen that way.
On April 09 2013 13:13 babylon wrote: One of the other major issues is that the feminist cause is much of the times harmed directly by those they are trying to help, i.e. other women.
To give a crude example: Women are often portrayed as pieces of meat in popular media, i.e. objectification of women as sexual things. That is deplorable, and I think that's an issue, as it encourages people to treat women as if they are merely sexual objects.
But fuck, it's hard for the movement to gain traction on that ground when many women continue to choose to portray themselves in such a way that reinforces the idea that women are merely sexual objects.
With regards to this particular issue, women are fighting for, on the one hand, the idea that women should be sexually liberated but also against the idea that women should not be objectified. It is a tough line to walk, and I'm not sure it can be walked successfully.
I often feel like people make too big a deal about sex in the media as it is. Especially when you have a show like the walking dead which is rotting corpses ripping people limb from limb, but you can't show a fucking nipple? People have sex, sex is normal. I think if we didn't treat sex as such a crazy taboo subject we'd be less likely to reduce someone's sexuality to an object and be more likely to see it in a broader spectrum.
On April 09 2013 13:18 Wombat_NI wrote: Agreed babylon, this is the thing that actually gained me a lot of ire and backlash for saying. That and that women-centred media in the Cosmopolitans and Hello! magazines of this world, also feed into things like negative body image, but are written by and consumed by women primarily. I saw an interesting study on body image for example that had men's 'ideal size' for a woman be a good bit larger than what women believed that men found most attractive.
Gender relations are exactly that, a relationship in which both blocs have an input into how the other perceives them, interacts with them etc etc. You can't absolve women of what responsibility is theirs to bear for creating and perpetuating certain beliefs and archetypes.
It is extremely difficult to resolve this sort of tension, though, and I'm not at all certain it can be done until feminists somehow distance themselves from the women who are making their cause difficult. It's just a sad truth that not all women are feminists (either out of ignorance or apathy, or on purpose), and how do you push for progress given the lack of unity? It is no longer about mainly blatant, outright discrimination (e.g. as it was in the civil rights movement, the LGBTQ movements, etc.) but it's about patriarchy, gender roles, etc. -- abstract concepts around which it's hard to form a forceful united movement that can help educate people and therefore push for efficient, real change.
It's a brick wall I run into every time I try to discuss the pervasive effect of 'the media' precisely because it is so difficult to pinpoint at what point they actually exert influence, through what mechanisms etc. Doesn't mean it isn't there, but god it's a bitch to get other people on your side.
On April 09 2013 13:42 Wombat_NI wrote: I tend to view that as a problem of societal norms, and the opinions of individuals can influence criminal proceedings.
The actual laws themselves have, in many places been redrafted to place less of an onus on women to physically resist. I think Germany was thinking of making some changes in this regard, in terms of redefining consent.
I draw a distinction between 'the laws' and the 'the judiciary that applies them' in this case, whereas some people may think that a silly distinction to make.
This was after our 1992 amendments which put Canada at the forefront of progressive sexual assault legislation. It still is today. Regardless of the legislation, the interpretation by the judiciary can be problematic.
And it's not just the judiciary, but the bar as well.
I'm currently taking evidence... in fact I have a lot of notes to prepare for my exam next week! But for the most part, cross-examinations of sexual assault complainants is actually utterly horrible.
There are plenty of defence lawyers who pride themselves on "tearing down" and slamming sexual assault complainants to show bad character. As if it matters at all.
You may draw the distinction between the laws and the way the laws are applied... but I do very much think this is silly! Laws on paper mean nothing if they are not used correctly in practice.
On April 09 2013 13:23 Ruscour wrote: There is no problem with feminism, there is a problem with people who call themselves "feminists", and in reality feminism in everyone's mind becomes what they see feminism to be, which has become a lot of nitpicking and cis white male-hating. If you care about equality for everyone, why label yourself with a term clearly favouring a particular gender? We are far from gender equality for women, but at the same time it's nowhere near as one-sided as it once was. Modern feminists don't care about men's issues while expecting men to care about theirs.
Why should they care about men's issues? Did a civil rights activist in the 60s have to care about white people problems?
I'm not sure how that affects the, often valid, complaints they raise. However annoying it can be when its in your face and you already know it.
On April 09 2013 13:11 Xayvier wrote: My problem is that trying to abolish gender roles is to try to end a fact of nature; it is natural that men are generally dominant and that women are care takers (note I am speaking in general). Gender roles are not a societal construct.
Physically men are, I don't buy the rest of it as 'natural' and we live in a society where physical brawn is not as advantageous or important as it once was.
I could not agree more, and this is where I think gender issues in society rob women the most. No Darwinian selection society is A GOOD THING. You wouldn't want someone to come to your house, club you over the head, and take all your stuff just because he's bigger and stronger than you. We have police and a legal system to make sure everyone gets a fair shot.
That said, I think having a professional life is part of what it means to be human, like up there with listening to music and having preferences. It pisses me off to know end that women are just expected to drop that part of their life when they have kids. Sometimes marketing people still ask for a "head of the household" as if one person in a marriage is supposed to be subordinate to another. I wish we had some first world labor laws where men got time off as well as women to take care of newborns.
On April 09 2013 13:13 babylon wrote: One of the other major issues is that the feminist cause is much of the times harmed directly by those they are trying to help, i.e. other women.
To give a crude example: Women are often portrayed as pieces of meat in popular media, i.e. objectification of women as sexual things. That is deplorable, and I think that's an issue, as it encourages people to treat women as if they are merely sexual objects.
But fuck, it's hard for the movement to gain traction on that ground when many women continue to choose to portray themselves in such a way that reinforces the idea that women are merely sexual objects.
With regards to this particular issue, women are fighting for, on the one hand, the idea that women should be sexually liberated but also against the idea that women should not be objectified. It is a tough line to walk, and I'm not sure it can be walked successfully.
I often feel like people make too big a deal about sex in the media as it is. Especially when you have a show like the walking dead which is rotting corpses ripping people limb from limb, but you can't show a fucking nipple? People have sex, sex is normal. I think if we didn't treat sex as such a crazy taboo subject we'd be less likely to reduce someone's sexuality to an object and be more likely to see it in a broader spectrum.
I think you're missing the point entirely (or it is likely I did not explain myself well). It's not about the portrayal of sex. It's about portraying women like walking vaginas whose purpose is to receive dick (to be extremely crude). Their value as characters is often tied solely to their role as sexual, romantic partners. That is not good, and I think it does encourage many people to either see women in that light or to see themselves in that light (if they are women).
On April 09 2013 13:13 babylon wrote: With regards to this particular issue, women are fighting for, on the one hand, the idea that women should be sexually liberated but also against the idea that women should not be objectified. It is a tough line to walk, and I'm not sure it can be walked successfully.
These come from two different branches of feminism. Again, it's an extremely broad and possibly misnamed field. There's plenty of feminists who are okay with everyone being meat. Some don't want anyone seen that way.
And therein lies one of the greatest issues. Lumped under one great giant "feminism" label (which, yes, I have perpetuated in my post ). But that is both because people are too lazy to elaborate or too lazy (or hostile) to push for more elaboration or to listen when it is given, in most cases.
I would think Diamond is the upper rank of the ladder because it is the "hardest" naturally occurring material. (At least, it's on the top of the Mohs hardness scale.)
I dislike DeBeers, but I don't think they had that much input. As for the lower leagues, Bronze, Silver, and Gold are a commonly used distinction in competition, dating back to the original Olympics. Platinum, well, I don't know about that. But it is a fairly valuable rare earth.
Maybe they could rename the ladders to reflect metal values only, and go with Bronze, Copper, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Although in a few years, they may need to bump copper up. (Okay, probably a lot of years, it's rising sharply but not that sharply in value.)
On feminism, I have nothing to say. At all. I lack the proper chromosomes. People should be treated equally, that's it.
On April 09 2013 13:13 babylon wrote: One of the other major issues is that the feminist cause is much of the times harmed directly by those they are trying to help, i.e. other women.
To give a crude example: Women are often portrayed as pieces of meat in popular media, i.e. objectification of women as sexual things. That is deplorable, and I think that's an issue, as it encourages people to treat women as if they are merely sexual objects.
But fuck, it's hard for the movement to gain traction on that ground when many women continue to choose to portray themselves in such a way that reinforces the idea that women are merely sexual objects.
With regards to this particular issue, women are fighting for, on the one hand, the idea that women should be sexually liberated but also against the idea that women should not be objectified. It is a tough line to walk, and I'm not sure it can be walked successfully.
I often feel like people make too big a deal about sex in the media as it is. Especially when you have a show like the walking dead which is rotting corpses ripping people limb from limb, but you can't show a fucking nipple? People have sex, sex is normal. I think if we didn't treat sex as such a crazy taboo subject we'd be less likely to reduce someone's sexuality to an object and be more likely to see it in a broader spectrum.
I think you're missing the point entirely (or it is likely I did not explain myself well). It's not about the portrayal of sex. It's about portraying women like walking vaginas whose purpose is to receive dick (to be extremely crude). Their value as characters is often tied solely to their role as sexual, romantic partners. That is not good, and I think it does encourage many people to either see women in that light or to see themselves in that light (if they are women).
As a university aged male with many male friends, I can attest to how shockingly widespread that is. Even the most reasonable of guys have shocked me.
On April 09 2013 13:13 babylon wrote: One of the other major issues is that the feminist cause is much of the times harmed directly by those they are trying to help, i.e. other women.
To give a crude example: Women are often portrayed as pieces of meat in popular media, i.e. objectification of women as sexual things. That is deplorable, and I think that's an issue, as it encourages people to treat women as if they are merely sexual objects.
But fuck, it's hard for the movement to gain traction on that ground when many women continue to choose to portray themselves in such a way that reinforces the idea that women are merely sexual objects.
With regards to this particular issue, women are fighting for, on the one hand, the idea that women should be sexually liberated but also against the idea that women should not be objectified. It is a tough line to walk, and I'm not sure it can be walked successfully.
I often feel like people make too big a deal about sex in the media as it is. Especially when you have a show like the walking dead which is rotting corpses ripping people limb from limb, but you can't show a fucking nipple? People have sex, sex is normal. I think if we didn't treat sex as such a crazy taboo subject we'd be less likely to reduce someone's sexuality to an object and be more likely to see it in a broader spectrum.
I think you're missing the point entirely (or it is likely I did not explain myself well). It's not about the portrayal of sex. It's about portraying women like walking vaginas whose purpose is to receive dick (to be extremely crude). Their value as characters is often tied solely to their role as sexual, romantic partners. That is not good, and I think it does encourage many people to either see women in that light or to see themselves in that light (if they are women).
As a university aged male with many male friends, I can attest to how shockingly widespread that is. Even the most reasonable of guys have shocked me.
HawaiianPig just wants a world where Elly can grow up and have the same opportunities as bull elephants.
On April 09 2013 13:13 babylon wrote: One of the other major issues is that the feminist cause is much of the times harmed directly by those they are trying to help, i.e. other women.
To give a crude example: Women are often portrayed as pieces of meat in popular media, i.e. objectification of women as sexual things. That is deplorable, and I think that's an issue, as it encourages people to treat women as if they are merely sexual objects.
But fuck, it's hard for the movement to gain traction on that ground when many women continue to choose to portray themselves in such a way that reinforces the idea that women are merely sexual objects.
With regards to this particular issue, women are fighting for, on the one hand, the idea that women should be sexually liberated but also against the idea that women should not be objectified. It is a tough line to walk, and I'm not sure it can be walked successfully.
I often feel like people make too big a deal about sex in the media as it is. Especially when you have a show like the walking dead which is rotting corpses ripping people limb from limb, but you can't show a fucking nipple? People have sex, sex is normal. I think if we didn't treat sex as such a crazy taboo subject we'd be less likely to reduce someone's sexuality to an object and be more likely to see it in a broader spectrum.
I think you're missing the point entirely (or it is likely I did not explain myself well). It's not about the portrayal of sex. It's about portraying women like walking vaginas whose purpose is to receive dick (to be extremely crude). Their value as characters is often tied solely to their role as sexual, romantic partners. That is not good, and I think it does encourage many people to either see women in that light or to see themselves in that light (if they are women).
As a university aged male with many male friends, I can attest to how shockingly widespread that is. Even the most reasonable of guys have shocked me.
HawaiianPig just wants a world where Elly can grow up and have the same opportunities as bull elephants.
On April 09 2013 14:00 babylon wrote: And therein lies one of the greatest issues. Lumped under one great giant "feminism" label (which, yes, I have perpetuated in my post ). But that is both because people are too lazy to elaborate or too lazy (or hostile) to push for more elaboration or to listen when it is given, in most cases.
I don't think it's just a matter of laziness, but it's hard to describe what connects the social movement and the philosophical sphere. They're definitely not always in sync.
On April 09 2013 12:37 HawaiianPig wrote: At its core, Feminism is a stance promoting substantive equality with a particular focus on gender.
Thank you for this post. This is the fundamental aspect of feminist ideology that too often is overlooked or drowned out.
If a sentence so vague is a fundamental aspect, then no wonder there is so much confusion. Surely there must be a more solid foundation that can be stated with conciseness. The more vague and couched the language, the more it sounds like euphemism is covering something that looks bad to state outright. "Stance promoting substantive equality" can have so many different interpretations. Then "with a particular focus on gender", tacked on innocuously at the end, seems disingenuous. The name of the thing itself: "feminine", with the suffix -ism, means literally the doctrine or theory of the feminine or female. This seems to indicate that gender is at the root at center of the doctrine, not merely a particular focus among the bigger umbrella of equality for all. Unless those well versed in it can tell us clearly what it is, why should we accept as true the conclusions it puts forth?
On April 09 2013 12:08 Wombat_NI wrote: Feminists are often right, but their cause has a major, major image problem because the term itself is far too broad and ill-defined. A breakdown into say, I don't what terms I'd use, but ones with more specificity could be prudent.
I agree with what they say regarding games sometimes, but equally I feel it is rather like fussing over a cigarette that you drop on the floor when your house is already burning to the ground around you.
Feminists also far too often give women a pass in perpetuating the gender roles that exist today, in my experience.
I'll address each bolded point real quick because it made me twitch:
a) It's not that it's ill-defined, it's that people misuse it b) This is a result of people misusing the term "feminism"
Detach the word from whatever bad experience you've had
Let me try to summarize feminism as succinctly as possible. At its core, Feminism is a stance promoting substantive equality with a particular focus on gender.
Substantive equality is the root of the ideology. That is to say, that equality is not a "treat everyone the same" affair, but rather, "recognize the differences and account for them" affair. The goal is to avoid a differential impact.
A simple example of this is workplace leave and discrimination on the basis of pregnancy. In Canada, at least, discrimination in the workforce on the grounds of pregnancy is a breach of equality rights.
Don't let some teenage kid who spouts "girl power" on her tumblr affect how you view a very real and very important lens you can use to view various issues.
I think it's especially problematic that when critiques are made, many people automatically receive them as if they're making a direct attack on an overt decision, which is generally not the case. Often feminist critiques are meant to recognize something much more subtle and unintentional, where no one is specifically "at fault" but the consequence may be dangerous.
Good point. I think more people would be comfortable with feminism if they understood it as a thoroughly rational process of observation, inquiry and discussion. The scope of the issues aren't even apparent until you start asking yourself some simple questions. As one progresses towards a more feminist point of view, one realizes the deeper, more subtly pervasive effects of our accepted modern society. One problem arises when people from different levels of understanding try to have a conversation. Consider a math PhD student discussing the finer points of her dissertation with colleagues: it is going to sound like crazy-talk to anyone who hasn't done a lot of studying. Likewise with feminist critiques as interpreted by folks who haven't even begun to consider the issues.
On April 09 2013 12:08 Wombat_NI wrote: Feminists are often right, but their cause has a major, major image problem because the term itself is far too broad and ill-defined. A breakdown into say, I don't what terms I'd use, but ones with more specificity could be prudent.
I agree with what they say regarding games sometimes, but equally I feel it is rather like fussing over a cigarette that you drop on the floor when your house is already burning to the ground around you.
Feminists also far too often give women a pass in perpetuating the gender roles that exist today, in my experience.
I'll address each bolded point real quick because it made me twitch:
a) It's not that it's ill-defined, it's that people misuse it b) This is a result of people misusing the term "feminism"
Detach the word from whatever bad experience you've had
Let me try to summarize feminism as succinctly as possible. At its core, Feminism is a stance promoting substantive equality with a particular focus on gender.
Substantive equality is the root of the ideology. That is to say, that equality is not a "treat everyone the same" affair, but rather, "recognize the differences and account for them" affair. The goal is to avoid a differential impact.
A simple example of this is workplace leave and discrimination on the basis of pregnancy. In Canada, at least, discrimination in the workforce on the grounds of pregnancy is a breach of equality rights.
Don't let some teenage kid who spouts "girl power" on her tumblr affect how you view a very real and very important lens you can use to view various issues.
I think it's especially problematic that when critiques are made, many people automatically receive them as if they're making a direct attack on an overt decision, which is generally not the case. Often feminist critiques are meant to recognize something much more subtle and unintentional, where no one is specifically "at fault" but the consequence may be dangerous.
Good point. I think more people would be comfortable with feminism if they understood it as a thoroughly rational process of observation, inquiry and discussion. The scope of the issues aren't even apparent until you start asking yourself some simple questions. As one progresses towards a more feminist point of view, one realizes the deeper, more subtly pervasive effects of our accepted modern society. One problem arises when people from different levels of understanding try to have a conversation. Consider a math PhD student discussing the finer points of her dissertation with colleagues: it is going to sound like crazy-talk to anyone who hasn't done a lot of studying. Likewise with feminist critiques as interpreted by folks who haven't even begun to consider the issues.
Dear God, I feel that way all the time. I cannot tell you how many times people automatically assumed that I was calling all men perverts, wanting to bring on the matriarchy, all men are rapists, men are evil, and consensual sex is rape. It feels like I am explaining evolution to creationists.
On April 09 2013 12:37 HawaiianPig wrote: At its core, Feminism is a stance promoting substantive equality with a particular focus on gender.
Thank you for this post. This is the fundamental aspect of feminist ideology that too often is overlooked or drowned out.
If a sentence so vague is a fundamental aspect, then no wonder there is so much confusion. Surely there must be a more solid foundation that can be stated with conciseness. The more vague and couched the language, the more it sounds like euphemism is covering something that looks bad to state outright. "Stance promoting substantive equality" can have so many different interpretations. Then "with a particular focus on gender", tacked on innocuously at the end, seems disingenuous. The name of the thing itself: "feminine", with the suffix -ism, means literally the doctrine or theory of the feminine or female. This seems to indicate that gender is at the root at center of the doctrine, not merely a particular focus among the bigger umbrella of equality for all. Unless those well versed in it can tell us clearly what it is, why should we accept as true the conclusions it puts forth?
Are you familiar with the concept of queer theory? Despite the fact that it is certainly relevant to "queer" issues (in that it can apply to performative gender identities), it actually has much wider applications in deconstructing mainstream ideological binaries and the politics contained within.
Just because a term may appear to have do with something, and may historically have been rooted in certain ideas, doesn't mean that that's it's limited to that meaning.
I find this video is quite interesting for a number of reasons.
1. It kind of illustrates, albeit in a humourous/not overly rigorous way the intersection of feminists transmitting their thoughts, and how they are received and 'decoded' if you will at the other end, especially by men.
2. The woman in this issue clearly makes herself out to be a feminist, but also a 'pop-culture critic', that is her field if you will. It's rather harsh to make out like she's focusing on issues that are 'trivial', if that is her chosen area to look at.
With what I was talking about earlier about feminism co-opting and appropriating other movements such as LGBT. It's this type of stuff that leaves a real bad taste in my mouth
Anyway, gay rights SHOULD be at least partially lumped in with feminism, as far as I'm concerned. Homophobia (against gay men, specifically) is pretty much misogyny taken to its logical conclusion. The misogynistic viewpoint is that women are inherently inferior to men, so any man who has no interest in sexually "dominating" women is seen as weak and also "womanly."
and the response under that
There's a phrase I've seen thrown around on here a bit, which isn't perfect but it's still pretty apt: Homophobia is the fear that you'll be treated the way you treat women.
A woman saying violence and hate crimes against gay men is really about her is multiple kinds of fucked up.
What is wrong with "save the princess" story-lines?
I've heard girls talking about their knight in shining armor, but I don't know if I've ever heard a dude talking about his female knight in shining armor. That is my big problem with modern feminism, is that it seems to be more of a kind of anti-feminism than anything else. Femininity is looked down upon and masculinity (in women/girls) is glorified as the ideal.
Take Game of Thrones for example: Sansa, who is a typical young woman, likes dresses and balls, wants a picture perfect storybook knight to come and save her, and basically can be described as a princess. Arya wants to be a warrior, kills people and kicks ass, doesn't like frilly shit, and basically can be described as a "tom-boy". Sansa is seen by most fans, and portrayed as, a stupid little airhead. Arya is portrayed, and seen by most fans as, a strong female character who is awesome. Arya is a very masculine female character, while Sansa is extremely feminine. The implication is that girls who stab things are cool and good, and girls who like frilly stuff and despise violence are stupid, naive, and more important: flawed.
THE FOLLOWING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS:
When a male character (Tyrion) basically comes within a finger breadth of raping Sansa, many fans called her a bitch for seeing him as ugly and being repulsed by him. If another male character who was ugly and repulsive (as Tyrion is described) almost raped Arya and she is disgusted, and responds by cutting his balls off, most fans would cheer and talk about how awesome she is. The reason they feel hatred for Sansa is because she would never respond with violence to a threat, but instead engages in what could be called "passive resistance". Her femininity damns her while Arya's masculinity makes her loved. If they suddenly reversed roles in the story, fans would lament the loss of a strong female character in Arya, and applaud the "wisdom" of Sansa. The "girlie" one is useless and offensive, while the "boyish" one is cool and inspiring.
END OF SPOILERS:
This isn't unique to A Song of Ice and Fire. In today's media, the girl who can kick ass is cool and awesome, and the girl who is what would be called "a normal girl" is stupid and boring. A "princess" should either be able to cross blades with the best knight, or she is useless. I can't tell you how many times I've heard female readers of fantasy/fiction complain about the lack of strong female role-models, but then they define those strong female role-models as either being sexually promiscuous, or physically tough, or both. Traditionally masculine traits are seen as "strong" and traditionally feminine traits are seen as "weak". The feminist betrays her own innate sexism when condemning the feminine girl in favor of the masculine one; they show that they have a deeper sexism than just vagina vs dick; in their view, it is the very essence of being male that is desirable, while the essence of being female is undesirable. Instead of asking for a strong queen, they ask for a knight with tits.
Now a lot of people will say that these traits aren't feminine at all, which is just redefining words to suit their purpose. Gentleness, sensitivity, passivity (not necessarily submissiveness), and empathy are traditionally considered feminine traits. Courage (physical), boldness, dominance, and even violence are traditionally considered masculine traits. While I, and most other modern men and women, generally agree that not all men are, or even should be, bold; and conversely that not all women are, or even should be, passive; the fact remains that more often than not, it is the male who will act boldly, and the woman who will act more passively. Arguing about whether these are entirely social constructs is, to me, just another form of sexism. It is the rejection of the innate strength in the traditional female position, and an over-glorification of the innate strength of the traditionally male position. Obviously certain cultural/social constructs will subtract, add, or even change, to some degree the way these traits are usually expressed by either sex; but the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of the evidence supports the conclusion that men are by nature more aggressive, and women are by nature less.
One must ask how so universal a standard of behavior could have come into societal being without there being at least some evolutionary/biological cause. This is not to say anything about what a woman or man should do or not do, or be or not be. Rather it is a simple examination of the behaviors and tendencies of the general populace. Among the sexes, across all nationalities and borders, there are specific attitudes, attributions, and trends of behavior which could not have conceivably come from merely societal constructs. I am reminded of the famous saying:
"Boys are snips, snails, and puppy dog tails." "Girls are sugar, spice, and everything nice."
I remember being a child, and thinking that the boys definitely had the best of that. Snails were delightfully gross, snips sounded cool, and puppy dog tails (and puppies in general) were awesome. I remember plenty of my girl classmates laughing and saying that sugar, spice, and everything nice (with the emphasis on nice), was obviously better. This is a case of confirmation bias (on both sides) and of societal (learned) gender roles. But it is also a case of hormonal differences. The truth just is that simple: boys and girls are, generally, different. Boys tend to be more active and more fascinated with moving, action toys. Girls tend to be more nurturing, and more interested in inter-personal relationships.
When it comes down to it, the plot device of "saving the princess" is not only natural; in my opinion, it is beneficial. It is a kind of indoctrination for the young (and older) male to act in a "chivalrous" way with females. You are put in the place of the noble hero, who fights to save the woman from danger. You battle with the villain, who would imprison the female and guide her choices for her. The male hero is almost universally portrayed, in such stories/plots, as being interested only in the well-being of the female, while the despicable villain is only interested in the physical and mental control of the woman. The fact being that females are, almost universally, physically weaker than males; combined with the natural tendency toward aggressiveness on the male side; leads this to being an important trait to put in young males. Protection rather than objectification, liberation rather than oppression. To deny the innate differences between males and females is to destroy an important social construct specifically designed to protect females from unwanted male aggression.
At the end of the day, most girls will still want their knight in shining armor, and most men will still want their princess, and specific exceptions don't change this. Fighting against the facts is just another form of sexism; a more dangerous and insidious form. It damns the essence of femininity rather than just the female herself. Instead of combating patriarchal oppression, it seeks to turn women into patriarchs.
When a male character (Tyrion) basically comes within a finger breadth of raping Sansa, many fans called her a bitch for seeing him as ugly and being repulsed by him.
This analysis is wrong. In the story the "bedding is a ritual after the wedding." Tyrion used everything in his power to strong arm everyone away, and then told Sansa they'd wait as long as they needed even if it was forever. They were both forced into that situation by Tywin, and Tyrion knew he would be further demonized by everyone around him if he didn't take her to bed (which he was I might add). Tyrion was sticking his neck out for her and she wouldn't even make small talk with him. She was colder to Tyrion than she was to Joff even.
People hate Sansa because she can't tell her friends from her enemies, because she betrayed her little sister and made her throw rocks at her pet until it left her, and because she got her father Ned Stark killed.
There are multiple stereotypical "womanly" characters in the same series that disprove that people hate Sansa for being "girly." Lady Stark is very motherly and shows a remarkable amount of strength and people like her for this. In the books Margery doesn't have her epic cleavage going for her and yet the readers still love her because of her subtle political manipulation of everyone around her, she seems to be 3 steps ahead of her enemies and still finds time to give off the image of a philanthropist noble princess type.
Legitimate problems that feminists can target do exist in the world. In China and India, women are troubled by social problems like the family having to pay for the marriage costs on the woman's side, or the surname aways passing from the male, which means with the one child rule in China, that you have to have a son to pass on the name. In islamic theocracies, and even supposedly secular nations with a heavy influence of islam, women are socially oppressed by being forced into marriages, and being considered unequal to their male counterparts, and juristically by not being allowed to hold many high position jobs etc.
Of course there are also problems in the western world, albeit very minor compared to the ones above, but the same can be said for every group of people, homosexuals, men, immigrants, natives. Feminists link the problem to the wrong source, and the wrong solution. Men fill up most of the top and the bottom of society, and this is not because society favours men, if it did, they would not make up the largest part of homeless and people working dangerous and unwanted jobs. What they should be blaming in this case, should be capitalism and democracy.
There's also the problem concerning post-modern third-wave feminists, that jump on the faminism craze because it suits their "Liberal openminded personality", and start militantly supporting something they have done no research about, and often don't even want to resolve, as they simply participate to enhance the feeling that they have an identity. The largest part of those calling themself feminists these days fall into this category, and completely ruin any legitimacy feminists have. An example of the feminists people will come to know the name by:
On April 09 2013 17:27 sc2superfan101 wrote: What is wrong with "save the princess" story-lines?
I've heard girls talking about their knight in shining armor, but I don't know if I've ever heard a dude talking about his female knight in shining armor. That is my big problem with modern feminism, is that it seems to be more of a kind of anti-feminism than anything else. Femininity is looked down upon and masculinity (in women/girls) is glorified as the ideal
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.
I personally think, that it is fine though, as long as there's a choice. In many games, women are objectified into mere romance & crap stuff. I personally don't like this stereotyping women, and again, I want to have a choice. The only good examples I can think of, where woman hero was not in this position was Mass Effect series & The Elder Scrolls series, but I guess it's because you can create the character the way you want to => therefore, good examples, as you have that choice. Here, you could make your character what you wanted, no prejudices.
Hell, when you look at the armor in fantasy genre. I don't want my female knight to wear a f*cking iron bra instead of proper armor. Why are women characters in some games depicted like that, while guys have proper, nice armor? Again, my issue is with lack of choice. Just because guys want to watch "dat pretty bum & boobs" it doesn't mean that everyone wants their female hero look that way.
I also don't like stereotyping someone based on their gender - being masculine and feminine, who defines that & who the hell gave them right to do it? Everyone should act the way they want and not be labelled because of it.
Regarding feminism: I don't like feminism on the grand scale. In my country, feminists are more worried about if we have equal number of nouns in feminine to those in masculine in the czech vocabulary, than being worried about real issues, such as this stereotyping "feminine" and "masculine", or about the very real opression of women in islamic countries.
PS: But, thanks to you, I'm gonna watch Game of Thrones, just to see Arya opposing ridiculous gender stereotypes. Thank you :D
On April 09 2013 18:07 Wombat_NI wrote: Incidentally what the fuck is Shit Reddit Says? I can't work it out for the life of me. Satirical or serious?
I think it started satirical and ended up serious when idiots couldn't tell.
Some of the shit they make fun of, I can kinda follow. For example, I don't think "OP is a faggot" is people trying to re-appropriate the term "faggot", it's just people trying to get away with saying it and copying 4chan, which is ultimately pretty pathetic and I fully agree that it's stupid. People say shit like "when I see faggot I think OP, nothing to do with gay people" but somehow I don't think gay people see it the same way. Imagine the shitstorm if it was "OP is a nigger". Same thing.
On the other end of the spectrum they tried to whinge about the joke "I'd call Margaret Thatcher a cunt, but she lacks the warmth and depth" and say it was "hating her for being a woman"
I've never heard anyone hate her for being a woman. People make jokes about menstruation and shit, but no-one with an IQ above their age actually dislikes her or thinks less of her for being a woman. On top of that, I rarely to never hear women called cunts. I hear it used in a friendly way between men, but I can't think of a time I've heard a guy tell a women she's a cunt.
People call David Cameron a cunt all the time. Are they hating on him for being a man? Obviously not, they're hating on him because they hate him. I don't understand SRS at all on that point.
What is wrong with "save the princess" story-lines?
I've heard girls talking about their knight in shining armor, but I don't know if I've ever heard a dude talking about his female knight in shining armor. That is my big problem with modern feminism, is that it seems to be more of a kind of anti-feminism than anything else. Femininity is looked down upon and masculinity (in women/girls) is glorified as the ideal.
Take Game of Thrones for example: Sansa, who is a typical young woman, likes dresses and balls, wants a picture perfect storybook knight to come and save her, and basically can be described as a princess. Arya wants to be a warrior, kills people and kicks ass, doesn't like frilly shit, and basically can be described as a "tom-boy". Sansa is seen by most fans, and portrayed as, a stupid little airhead. Arya is portrayed, and seen by most fans as, a strong female character who is awesome. Arya is a very masculine female character, while Sansa is extremely feminine. The implication is that girls who stab things are cool and good, and girls who like frilly stuff and despise violence are stupid, naive, and more important: flawed.
THE FOLLOWING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS:
When a male character (Tyrion) basically comes within a finger breadth of raping Sansa, many fans called her a bitch for seeing him as ugly and being repulsed by him. If another male character who was ugly and repulsive (as Tyrion is described) almost raped Arya and she is disgusted, and responds by cutting his balls off, most fans would cheer and talk about how awesome she is. The reason they feel hatred for Sansa is because she would never respond with violence to a threat, but instead engages in what could be called "passive resistance". Her femininity damns her while Arya's masculinity makes her loved. If they suddenly reversed roles in the story, fans would lament the loss of a strong female character in Arya, and applaud the "wisdom" of Sansa. The "girlie" one is useless and offensive, while the "boyish" one is cool and inspiring.
END OF SPOILERS:
This isn't unique to A Song of Ice and Fire. In today's media, the girl who can kick ass is cool and awesome, and the girl who is what would be called "a normal girl" is stupid and boring. A "princess" should either be able to cross blades with the best knight, or she is useless. I can't tell you how many times I've heard female readers of fantasy/fiction complain about the lack of strong female role-models, but then they define those strong female role-models as either being sexually promiscuous, or physically tough, or both. Traditionally masculine traits are seen as "strong" and traditionally feminine traits are seen as "weak". The feminist betrays her own innate sexism when condemning the feminine girl in favor of the masculine one; they show that they have a deeper sexism than just vagina vs dick; in their view, it is the very essence of being male that is desirable, while the essence of being female is undesirable. Instead of asking for a strong queen, they ask for a knight with tits.
Now a lot of people will say that these traits aren't feminine at all, which is just redefining words to suit their purpose. Gentleness, sensitivity, passivity (not necessarily submissiveness), and empathy are traditionally considered feminine traits. Courage (physical), boldness, dominance, and even violence are traditionally considered masculine traits. While I, and most other modern men and women, generally agree that not all men are, or even should be, bold; and conversely that not all women are, or even should be, passive; the fact remains that more often than not, it is the male who will act boldly, and the woman who will act more passively. Arguing about whether these are entirely social constructs is, to me, just another form of sexism. It is the rejection of the innate strength in the traditional female position, and an over-glorification of the innate strength of the traditionally male position. Obviously certain cultural/social constructs will subtract, add, or even change, to some degree the way these traits are usually expressed by either sex; but the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of the evidence supports the conclusion that men are by nature more aggressive, and women are by nature less.
One must ask how so universal a standard of behavior could have come into societal being without there being at least some evolutionary/biological cause. This is not to say anything about what a woman or man should do or not do, or be or not be. Rather it is a simple examination of the behaviors and tendencies of the general populace. Among the sexes, across all nationalities and borders, there are specific attitudes, attributions, and trends of behavior which could not have conceivably come from merely societal constructs. I am reminded of the famous saying:
"Boys are snips, snails, and puppy dog tails." "Girls are sugar, spice, and everything nice."
I remember being a child, and thinking that the boys definitely had the best of that. Snails were delightfully gross, snips sounded cool, and puppy dog tails (and puppies in general) were awesome. I remember plenty of my girl classmates laughing and saying that sugar, spice, and everything nice (with the emphasis on nice), was obviously better. This is a case of confirmation bias (on both sides) and of societal (learned) gender roles. But it is also a case of hormonal differences. The truth just is that simple: boys and girls are, generally, different. Boys tend to be more active and more fascinated with moving, action toys. Girls tend to be more nurturing, and more interested in inter-personal relationships.
When it comes down to it, the plot device of "saving the princess" is not only natural; in my opinion, it is beneficial. It is a kind of indoctrination for the young (and older) male to act in a "chivalrous" way with females. You are put in the place of the noble hero, who fights to save the woman from danger. You battle with the villain, who would imprison the female and guide her choices for her. The male hero is almost universally portrayed, in such stories/plots, as being interested only in the well-being of the female, while the despicable villain is only interested in the physical and mental control of the woman. The fact being that females are, almost universally, physically weaker than males; combined with the natural tendency toward aggressiveness on the male side; leads this to being an important trait to put in young males. Protection rather than objectification, liberation rather than oppression. To deny the innate differences between males and females is to destroy an important social construct specifically designed to protect females from unwanted male aggression.
At the end of the day, most girls will still want their knight in shining armor, and most men will still want their princess, and specific exceptions don't change this. Fighting against the facts is just another form of sexism; a more dangerous and insidious form. It damns the essence of femininity rather than just the female herself. Instead of combating patriarchal oppression, it seeks to turn women into patriarchs.
The princess and shining knight business is depressing. If you don't force people to stay together, relationships in general don't last decades. What happens going separate ways after six years? Did knight-in-shining-armor mean the man was the only one with good enough income to pay for the apartment and car etc.? So the woman has to go and search for another knight as that's what princesses do? Are there children involved? Does the man also have to leave the children as that's what knights have to do?
When a male character (Tyrion) basically comes within a finger breadth of raping Sansa, many fans called her a bitch for seeing him as ugly and being repulsed by him.
This analysis is wrong. In the story the "bedding is a ritual after the wedding."
I'm not going to get into an argument about aSoIaF. I don't really like the books, and I was just using it as an example. However, read it again.
ONCE AGAIN POSSIBLE SPOILERS: (I'm serious don't read unless you want to be spoiled!!!) + Show Spoiler +
Sansa is a 14-15 year old girl who is forced, under pain of torture/death to marry a disgusting little psychopath and he then brings her up to his room, and strips naked in front of her, and contemplates forcing himself upon her. When she doesn't respond with anything but understandable disgust (this man's family, whom he has not forsaken but in fact helps, has killed her father, her brother and mother, and according to her flawed knowledge, her sister too) he basically thinks of her as a cold fish and goes off to whine that nubile young girls don't love ugly guys. It's the most sexist fucking thing I've read in a long time, actually, and it's funny that legions of fan-boy fantasy lovers (of whom I am one so don't think this is a dig at geeks) get off on pitying themselves like Tyrion does in that scene. To them, it's a sin that the pretty girl wants a handsome, popular husband/boyfriend.
END OF SPOILERS!!!
Which brings me to my ultimate point. Sansa typifies the kind of girl that most fantasy readers traditionally cannot get: the pretty, rich, popular girl. GRRM is fucking genius (while being kind of pathetic) at playing on his reader's emotions. He creates a "rich bitch" and then let's his fans revel in how stupid and naive and dumb she is; and how she gets her comeuppance at every turn. My problem with it on the feminist level is that the stupid, naive, dumb "bitch" is, of course, the pretty, girlie girl who is feminine. While Arya, whose every action is treated as shining fucking gold by author and fans, is the tom-boy with ridiculously masculine traits.
Other characters aside, the point is that Sansa's femininity is treated as worthless, while Arya's masculinity is treated as the ideal for what a girl should be. Rather than just saying that Arya shouldn't have to be girlie, the author, and fans, feel it is necessary to say that Sansa is pathetic for being girlie. The funny thing is, Sansa is infinitely more a realistic 15 year old than Arya is a 9-11 year old. And the modern feminist movement completely embraces this so often: the girl who is traditionally feminine is air-headed and weak, and the girl who is masculine is awesome and strong. That's the point. Feminine girls are wrong and need to change. Masculine girls are right and should be free to be who they are. Why should one be accepted as who she is, and not the other? Because one fights against traditional gender roles? But what about choice? I thought the whole point of feminism was choice. Rather, it seems today that a girl's duty is to change herself and suffocate her natural femininity in order to satisfy the wants and needs of the minority who aren't as feminine. We should support everyone in being who they are (as long as it is not harmful to themselves or others) and if that includes a girl being girlie, than that should be fine too.
Think what you want of GRRM and his work (I personally am disgusted by it, not just because of the innate sexism, but for many other reasons) but the fact remains that in today's media and today's feminist movement: femininity is bad and masculinity is good. Whether you personally feel that it is portrayed this way with Sansa/Arya in aSoIaF or not, the facts are what they are.
Disclaimer: To anyone who likes aSoIaF, I'm not telling you not to like it. I'm not saying that he isn't a good writer. I'm not saying that you're a sexist if you like the books, or even if you hate Sansa. I'm just using her character as an example.
edit: I also will agree that there are good examples of strong feminine roles in the books, but as a whole, it is the masculine traits that are celebrated and the feminine traits that are denigrated, and that is just as wrong as the converse. Women and girls can be strong in many different ways: some will be strong by fighting, and others by passively resisting. I just happen to be disgusted in a lot of ways by the reaction a lot of people get to the one girl in the series who actually shows remarkable inner strength by passively resisting: Sansa.
Personally, I think she is the most realistic character in the whole series, and actually is an extremely interesting example of how a very feminine role would deal with hardships (arguably the most disturbing and harsh in the whole series). What bothers me most is that it seems a lot of times that author and fans don't recognize that some women can't fight with cunning or physical strength and have to rely on strength of will, which IMHO, Sansa's character has got in spades. Rather than celebrating the fact that a 14-15 year old girl has made it through so much mental/physical/sexual torture relatively unscathed without the help of any man or boy, they hate on her for what seems to be her way of dealing with it: which is very traditionally feminine.
On April 09 2013 20:24 sc2superfan101 wrote: Why should one be accepted as who she is, and not the other? Because one fights against traditional gender roles? But what about choice? I thought the whole point of feminism was choice. Rather, it seems today that a girl's duty is to change herself and suffocate her natural femininity in order to satisfy the wants and needs of the minority who aren't as feminine. We should support everyone in being who they are (as long as it is not harmful to themselves or others) and if that includes a girl being girlie, than that should be fine too.
On April 09 2013 20:24 sc2superfan101 wrote: Masculine girls are right and should be free to be who they are. Why should one be accepted as who she is, and not the other? Because one fights against traditional gender roles? But what about choice? I thought the whole point of feminism was choice.
Yup, the choice is, what should matter. But, the same could be said about the other side as well => why berate/belittle or insult a woman who doesn't want to be as some social construct gender roles tell her to be, just because she happens to be a woman?
In fact, nobody is 100% male and 100% female, when it comes to traits, the way they think and act, if you want to go trait-by trait definition on what is "masculine" and what is "feminine". That's why I find it ridiculous some people try to stereotypize both genders and I think it should be let go, let people be the f*cking way they want to be & not label stuff masculine or feminine. Nothing should be seen as better or worse, so if someone wants to be prissy girly, let them be, no matter if they are a woman or a man, but, if someone doesn't, they too have the right to make that choice and don't deserve to be looked down either.
On April 09 2013 17:27 sc2superfan101 wrote: What is wrong with "save the princess" story-lines?
I've heard girls talking about their knight in shining armor, but I don't know if I've ever heard a dude talking about his female knight in shining armor. That is my big problem with modern feminism, is that it seems to be more of a kind of anti-feminism than anything else. Femininity is looked down upon and masculinity (in women/girls) is glorified as the ideal
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.
The majority decides whether those storylines are appreciated more over others or not. Women buy books with those storylines and read them to their kids. If women would hate those values in general those storylines wouldn't sell as much as they do.
Regarding feminism: I don't like feminism on the grand scale. In my country, feminists are more worried about if we have equal number of nouns in feminine to those in masculine in the czech vocabulary, than being worried about real issues, such as this stereotyping "feminine" and "masculine", or about the very real opression of women in islamic countries.
Personally I believe feminism as a movement completely escalated and managed to get things "done" which made it worse for women under the disguise of political correctness.
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.
I had the opportunity of speaking at a mens right group meeting not too long ago. After initially being confused that those even exist I was even more confused about some of their stories. Custody of their kids for men? Forget it. Women are considered "emotionally more qualified". Favoring a man over a woman for a raise because the men brought better results? Woman sues for discrimination and gets away with it. Man being physically abused by a woman in his relationship? Good luck fighting for that in a courtroom.
I've seen feminists argue that offering my girlfriend to carry canned water up the stairs means insisting that she is the "weaker sex and can't do it herself" while at the same time arguing that women quotas exist to "fight gender discrimination". Here's the deal: A woman can say "yes" or "no" when being offered what others call gallantry. That makes her equal. Not a group of extremists telling her what she should and should not do for the greater good of feminism. I believe that women are equal - that's why they don't need to be favored. Neither at the workplace, nor in the military (it's even worse there) nor in the privacy of their homes.
Sometimes the efforts of "modern" feminism (I'm looking at modern people who apply second-wave-feminism values in todays world - that includes bitching at "save the princess" storylines, thereby disregarding their historical context - not actual third-wave-feminism) look to me like the efforts of PETA. Their basic idea might be alright but the way they try to accomplish it backfires all over the place.
I studied various courses related to gender and feminism at university. I'm honestly the person of all my acquaintances that is most progressive and informed on these issues. I've read articles and blogs on feminism for years and I would agree with most if not all of the the main points that I came across.
Yet when I started posting on a feminist website and it became obvious that I was a 1. white 2. male 3. 'STEM' 4. cis 5. heterosexual, who had occasional minute differences with some statements on feminist blogs, I was basically run out of that community and called a lot of names like MRA and PUA and so on. I've never encountered such outright hostility and disregard for civil discourse on any blog that I frequent.
On April 09 2013 18:07 Wombat_NI wrote: Incidentally what the fuck is Shit Reddit Says? I can't work it out for the life of me. Satirical or serious?
I think it started satirical and ended up serious when idiots couldn't tell.
Some of the shit they make fun of, I can kinda follow. For example, I don't think "OP is a faggot" is people trying to re-appropriate the term "faggot", it's just people trying to get away with saying it and copying 4chan, which is ultimately pretty pathetic and I fully agree that it's stupid. People say shit like "when I see faggot I think OP, nothing to do with gay people" but somehow I don't think gay people see it the same way. Imagine the shitstorm if it was "OP is a nigger". Same thing.
On the other end of the spectrum they tried to whinge about the joke "I'd call Margaret Thatcher a cunt, but she lacks the warmth and depth" and say it was "hating her for being a woman"
I've never heard anyone hate her for being a woman. People make jokes about menstruation and shit, but no-one with an IQ above their age actually dislikes her or thinks less of her for being a woman. On top of that, I rarely to never hear women called cunts. I hear it used in a friendly way between men, but I can't think of a time I've heard a guy tell a women she's a cunt.
People call David Cameron a cunt all the time. Are they hating on him for being a man? Obviously not, they're hating on him because they hate him. I don't understand SRS at all on that point.
I thought this was very annoying. I made an account on reddit for the express purpose of posting on SRS, since they are rather ban-happy. I literally attempted to only make posts that would fall in line with SRS ideology and I was still banned. I was originally banned on my regular reddit account for disagreeing once.
Nevertheless, I do think people are too blindly dismissive of a place like SRS. It has some flaws, but it has positive aspects to it.
On April 09 2013 20:46 r.Evo wrote: The majority decides whether those storylines are appreciated more over others or not. Women buy books with those storylines and read them to their kids. If women would hate those values in general those storylines wouldn't sell as much as they do.
Problem is, there is not that big of a choice there. I personally read ONLY one fantasy book, which depicts a young woman, wishing to become a Knight & her journey while she becomes a Squire & trains under various people. I'd read that to my son over "save the princess" any day, just to teach him, that there's a choice & to not start stereotyping women or even men. So, the issue is, that there are very few authors depicting THESE kind of women, both in books, movies and hell, even in games.
Again, the issue of choice is there, where one "version" is favoured & other is condemned or viewed as wrong. Neither choice should be viewed as bad/wrong, but there should be equal of signs of that; for that to happen.
On April 09 2013 20:46 r.Evo wrote: The majority decides whether those storylines are appreciated more over others or not. Women buy books with those storylines and read them to their kids. If women would hate those values in general those storylines wouldn't sell as much as they do.
Problem is, there is not that big of a choice there. I personally read ONLY one fantasy book, which depicts a young woman, wishing to become a Knight & her journey while she becomes a Squire & trains under various people. I'd read that to my son over "save the princess" any day, just to teach him, that there's a choice & to not start stereotyping women or even men. So, the issue is, that there are very few authors depicting THESE kind of women, both in books, movies and hell, even in games.
Again, the issue of choice is there, where one "version" is favoured & other is condemned or viewed as wrong. Neither choice should be viewed as bad/wrong, but there should be equal of signs of that; for that to happen.
If those fantasy books play in a universe where men and women live in medieval times and are equal, those storylines are fine. If they play in a parallel universe of ours and try to be historical accurate, they'd be bullshit.
200 or more year old "save the princess"-stories inherently can't be sexist or discriminating because they're historically accurate. In general stereotyping isn't as evil as you might belief. Our world is defined by binary oppositions, it is not wrong to like a woman because she is more feminine or because she's more masculine. Just like it's not wrong to love men or to love women. What is wrong however is to tell people that they should feel bad for preferring one over the other or that it's not normal to prefer one. Stereotyping != discriminating.
Without stereotypes we couldn't call women women, books books or children children.
That's usually a scary trap I believe people who like to say "it's all equal stereotypes are bad" tend to fall into.
On April 09 2013 12:50 ktimekiller wrote: Popular feminism tends to be problematic where kids on tumblr go in hordes to blame everything in the world on men and patriarchy and dismiss any problems or disadvantages men might suffer due to feminism. You don't need to be an expert to realize how one sided family law is for example, and yet when men try to speak up about the bullshit of becoming a working mule to feed a family you should no longer legally be tied to, you get shut down by screaming hordes of feminists trying to destroy your shit.
There are many agreeable points in feminism, but the way it is practiced by many people, even high profile spokespersons make it detestable in many different ways.
Pretty much this, there might be reasonable, self-proclaimed feminists out there that I'd totally convene with (as I do agree with the general equality concept behind it), but the term itself is so attached to illogical idiocy in my mind that I just tend to shy away from these people, which are quite clearly the minority of the movement.
Ditto. Few movements have been damaged as much by extremists as feminism. My subconscious and emotional perceptions of feminism have been utterly wrecked by the idiocy I see spouted by extremists. Even worse, confirmation bias starts to kick in as one's viewpoint begins to solidify, so whenever people touched by these extremists see feminists, they actively look for mistakes they're making and enlarge the significance of these mistakes. That's a massive issue for feminists everywhere.
On April 09 2013 21:08 r.Evo wrote: If those fantasy books play in a universe where men and women live in medieval times and are equal, those storylines are fine. If they play in a parallel universe of ours and try to be historical accurate, they'd be bullshit.
200 or more year old "save the princess"-stories inherently can't be sexist or discriminating because they're historically accurate. In general stereotyping isn't as evil as you might belief. Our world is defined by binary oppositions, it is not wrong to like a woman because she is more feminine or because she's more masculine. Just like it's not wrong to love men or to love women. What is wrong however is to tell people that they should feel bad for preferring one over the other or that it's not normal to prefer one. Stereotyping != discriminating.
Without stereotypes we couldn't call women women, books books or children children.
That's usually a scary trap I believe people who like to say "it's all equal stereotypes are bad" tend to fall into.
The thing is, most people who stereotype also deem those not conforming to that stereotype as wrong, bad and not normal. So, until that goes, then I personally will always see stereotypes as wrong.
Regarding the books - In parallel universe of ours, there could be completelly different rules, so, nah. In general, no fiction book, even if it has some historical part in it would be a bullshit. Sure, when a book is pure history work, whatever. But when it's a work of fiction, there is imo no problem depicting the other side of the possible, how a woman could decide to be and who to become.
So yeah, the biggest issue is, that there's lack of choice, mostly when it comes to women who want to see strong hero characters, in not so "feminine" (goodness, I hate that definition) way, they are simply at loss. Maybe that is partially why people are upset at characters like Sansa in Game of Thrones, because they are always there, while the other one is not, and therefore, the Salsa-type character is preferred, which of course people like me will not like, because we like having the choice & don't want these characters to depict who we are in general..
Oh I have visited, I just can't ascertain whether it's some kind of in-joke that I don't get (a la what 4chan must look like to anyone who hasn't lurked there), or serious, or even with elements of both.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The reason female names for tropical disasters can be seen as problematic is because there's a long history of attributing the wild, dangerous and uncontrollable to femininity or "female's nature." Go through all of mankind's literature and you'll see a pretty telling list of adjectives ascribed to each sex. Even when women are portrayed as powerful, it's because they're an irrational danger to men. Like a hurricane. That's where the sentiment comes from.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, I read it but unfortunatly thats not how feminism works or at least how most of us view feminism as a social agenda. If we want to debate how we can reflect upon our society, our culture and how things became the way they are, cool! lets do that but it has nothing to do with feminism as I see it.
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.
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.
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.
For the first point i guess we'll simply have to disagree then, but you must understand that you are a minority trying to change something, and pointing out that 51% of the population in western nations are women does not mean that 51% deems this important enough to dedicate resources towards.
For the second point, while i make a conclusion as a statement and not to portray anything certain, the burden of proof is not on my side. Your claim of female stereotypes in art is only one in a hundred of the claims modern feminists make towards female and male unequality, i have a lot of examples if you want those, but i'm sure you already know that feminism is not a hivemind, and that what you want from feminism isn't the same as everyone calling themself a feminist wants.
I actually support gender equality rights. Although I think the discussion gets blown out far out of proportion. I think western societies made good progress in the last decade and with every progress the whining gets louder, atleast it seems to be that way for me.
So the principal is all right. In reality feminism gets rightfully critisized pretty often because leading feminists somehow mix up equality and positive discrimination. An actual example could be the femen movement. They actually demand a matriachatic society. Yeah, of course darling...
To mix in some demagogy.In today's western society women live in houses which are mainly build by men, they drive in cars largely manufactored by men on roads largely manufactored by men and yet they cry what a hard time they have. In a german feuilleton (taz) I read an article some time ago from a feminist of arabian origin that women are more free in pakistan than they are in today's germany. It is idiocy like that which discredits the movement and make it very easy to hate on feminism
On April 09 2013 21:38 Wombat_NI wrote: Oh I have visited, I just can't ascertain whether it's some kind of in-joke that I don't get (a la what 4chan must look like to anyone who hasn't lurked there), or serious, or even with elements of both.
it's real and one of the major subreddits responsible for massive sponsorship email campaigns in esports.
On April 09 2013 11:45 motbob wrote: I've never thought much about feminism, but I thought of something today that made me look at it in a way I hadn't before.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way. Criticism probably follows, but not always. Most feminist critiques of popular culture that get posted on TL (usually critiques of video games, in our case) are generally dismissed by the community. I think the basic idea of a feminist critique is sort of a foreign concept to most people in TL's demographic.
Let me sharply change subjects. Blizzard ranks its SC2 leagues, from weakest to strongest, like so: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond (excluding Masters/GM). It is likely that the placement of Diamond at the top of the heap has its (ancient) roots in De Beers' marketing efforts in the 1930s and beyond (first, their accomplishment of making a diamond ring a critical part of an engagement; second, the feat of convincing nearly everyone that purchasing a synthetic diamond simply isn't the same as buying an organic, yet identical, piece of carbon). Blizzard's choice to make Diamond the "premier" league reflects society's attitudes towards diamonds and the precious metals listed. Without the mysticism surrounding diamonds, brought about by De Beers, it is unlikely that society would view something that can be flawlessly replicated to be worth more than the most precious of metals.
De Beers' propaganda has been a source of great evil in this world (conflict diamonds, plus the unnecessary and massive transfer of wealth to De Beers over the last century). Given that, it makes a weird sort of sense to wish that Blizzard did not have a part to play in reinforcing the valuation of diamonds over materials like gold or platinum in our society. Yet if I were to write an article to that effect (Change the name of Diamond league, Blizzard!) I would promptly be laughed off TL. The same sort of ridicule is often applied towards feminist articles which follow the line of reasoning of my diamonds example. The word "ridiculous" shows up a lot in threads about feminists taking issue to game elements that they view as products of a patriarchal society and/or work environment ("save the princess" storylines, for example).
I guess the point of this article is, jointly, a) that being able to take a feminist perspective on things can highlight social ills that are not immediately evident, and b) that feminist critiques are not automatically ridiculous or trivial because of the mere fact that game companies are not going out of their way to perpetuate patriarchy when they implement patriarchal elements in their games, like saving the damsel in distress.
I agree with you.
The problem I see in the whole discussion is that some terms are too poisoned to the point people can't really talk about it seriously. The well has been poisoned and it's really hard to re-estabilish it. That's why - as a philosophy teacher - I tend to discuss this with different themes. To discuss patriarchalism, I like to discuss the notion of hierarchy (because without this notion, it's impossible to even talk about patriarchalism). To touch the notion of objectification of woman, it's really good to talk about the essence of all kinds of objectification (we call it the 'objectity of an object').
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Check out girlwriteswhat on youtube. Although her "style" is a bit too polemic for my tastes, her points are usually well researched, and it's also refreshing to see feminism criticized from a women's perspective
Cheers for the link Quotidian, I saw one of her videos before and never subscribed and totally forgot the channel name.
@shostakovich, that was somewhat the crux of many of my points, albeit badly articulated here. Interesting way to address the issues you mentioned, seems a perfectly good way to discuss the same kind of topics under different terms that aren't so misunderstood
I am a male feminist(even though radical feminism doesnt believe it's possible or legitimate) and was raised in a somewhat feminist household. I'm thankful for it(specially my older sister)..teaches you how to use your brain matter. I'm sad to read ignorance about feminism and prejudice against feminists but I wouldn't expect any differently.
Lol at people generalising feminists because of the feminists they met(Yeah go ahead on generalising a historical group of militance and of philosophical, moral, critical and scientific importance that achieved A LOT because of some people you met). This shows exactly the kind of prejudice feminism fights against and probably explaining why the feminists acted "badly", special lols because the massive majority of feminists only act bad with people who are already saying some kind of shit or wanting special attention because they are male.
For the people interested in understanding feminism and the biggest prejudice of our world: the prejudice against most people ever born(women). The basic exercise that worked for me is to put yourself in a girl's place from the very beginning of her interaction with society and try to imagine what it must have felt like each and everyone of the times that you learn you shouldn't do something that your little brother is cheered at for doing. Another important thing to do so you aren't alienated inside of some rudimentary feminist mindset is to relate patriarchy to other social institutions like the capital, the church, the exploitation of our resources, the state, etc. My sister started understanding social roles and social privileges at age 6, I only started thinking about these kind of things at age 11 or 12, but in a very negative way, there are a lot to be learned from feminism people.
PS: Something else to think about a woman's view of things is that in a country like mine with a lot of crime and general paranoia just from walking on the street every time a young woman(be her feminist or not) walks on the street she is afraid of being harassed or raped(the same way Im afraid of being kidnapped). Think about the useless paranoia that needs to be in woman's mind all the time she's walking by herself just so she's alert of the possibility of some rapist prowling nearby. It's taught to them by their mothers at young age that they shouldnt sit with her legs open, they shouldnt dress provoking people, etc, its a whole different mindset, ignoring this is just alienating yourself from the reality of more than half of the world.
I was raised in a somewhat feminist household. I'm thankful for it(specially my older sister)..teaches you how to use your brain matter. I'm sad to read ignorance about feminism and prejudice against feminists but I wouldn't expect any different.
Lol at people generalising feminists because of the feminists they met showing exactly the kind of prejudice feminism fights and probably explaining why the feminists acted "badly", special lols because the massive majority of feminists only act bad with people who are already saying some kind of shit or wanting special attention because they are male.
For the people interested in understanding feminism and the biggest prejudice of our world: the prejudice against most people ever born(women). The basic exercise that worked for me is to put yourself in a girl's place from the very beginning of her interaction with society and try to imagine what it must have felt like each and everyone of the times that you learn you shouldn't do something that your little brother is cheered at for doing. Another important thing to do so you aren't alienated inside of some rudimentary feminist mindset is to relate patriarchy to other social institutions like the capital, the church, the exploitation of our resources, the state, etc. My sister started understanding social roles and social privileges at age 6, I only started thinking about these kind of things at age 11 or 12, but in a very negative way, there are a lot to be learned from feminism people.
bad post, sorry.
You condemn generalisations and start to make them in the very next sentence, double standards. Your next paragraph is about gender roles, also swings both ways. Be a boy and play with dolls and watch what your environment has to say about that.
Your whole post is made up of generalisations and places women in the "poor victim" category in society. Parenting at its finest and the very opposite of equal rights and obligations.
I was raised in a somewhat feminist household. I'm thankful for it(specially my older sister)..teaches you how to use your brain matter. I'm sad to read ignorance about feminism and prejudice against feminists but I wouldn't expect any different.
Lol at people generalising feminists because of the feminists they met showing exactly the kind of prejudice feminism fights and probably explaining why the feminists acted "badly", special lols because the massive majority of feminists only act bad with people who are already saying some kind of shit or wanting special attention because they are male.
For the people interested in understanding feminism and the biggest prejudice of our world: the prejudice against most people ever born(women). The basic exercise that worked for me is to put yourself in a girl's place from the very beginning of her interaction with society and try to imagine what it must have felt like each and everyone of the times that you learn you shouldn't do something that your little brother is cheered at for doing. Another important thing to do so you aren't alienated inside of some rudimentary feminist mindset is to relate patriarchy to other social institutions like the capital, the church, the exploitation of our resources, the state, etc. My sister started understanding social roles and social privileges at age 6, I only started thinking about these kind of things at age 11 or 12, but in a very negative way, there are a lot to be learned from feminism people.
bad post, sorry.
You condemn generalisations and start to make them in the very next sentence, double standards. Your next paragraph is about gender roles, also swings both ways. Be a boy and play with dolls and watch what your environment has to say about that.
Your whole post is made up of generalisations and places women in the "poor victim" category in society. Parenting at its finest and the very opposite of equal rights and obligations.
But I'm not making a bad generalisations there, I only said majority because I didnt want to specify different feminist types. There is radical feminism+ Show Spoiler +
In radical feminism the mindset is more of complete isolation from males so it wouldnt fit most femininsts mindset of being open to what people has to say.
and thats the only reason I didnt say ALL feminists act nice, because if you are feminist you need to act nice(not in a sense of being nice to everyone all the time like a good girl, but in a sense of being open to what people have to say even as a means of understanding the patriarchy), thats not a generalisation from personal experience(necessarily a bad generalisation) because it is exactly what being feminist means, so it is a generalisation based around the ideology being discussed that in some ways means being open to other possibilities.
Some people here are generalising because of their "privileged male judgement" of having met some feminists. That's the kind of generalisations I'm fighting and feminists are fighting, I'm making generalisations that are based around the feminist ideology so it has a whole other meaning altogether, I never made a generalisation because I had met some people, I'm talking about what feminism means and how people who understand feminism and apply it to their daily lifes interact with each other in consonace with the ideology...I could use my personal experience to confirm what Im saying from a minor point of view but I cant use my personal experience to generalise a group of people.
Yeah, about gender roles, yes of course patriarchy shackles males in a role as well. What feminism explains is that men are in the dominant role and women are in the submissive role, it goes both ways and it should be seen as important for both male and female liberation, men aren't free to choose as well.
Equal rights and obligations are not the only things feminism cares about, it cares about the very framework of our social interactions in which we apply dominant-submissive structures based on gender, I really cant see any parenting, care to quote?
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Men are not innately more competitive than women. They are (still) educated to be so. I mean educated in a very broad sense, not just first or second socialization through family and school, but through your everyday life. You will (and have) probably see more ads/stories/newspaper or things like these about men being successfull or striving for success than women. Even though the share has changed favourably for women in the last decade (in terms of exposition). Moreover, as an example, if you read about politics, you primarily read about men competing against men. Yet again, it is changing, but the way women are exposed is hardly not reproducing a "patriarchal" society.
For the same matter, patriarchy is to be understood as a system that was produced by excluding women (not directly to the profit of men). This is why women had to wait decades before getting the right to vote. Or that is why women were not able to open a bank account without the autorization of their husband. That is also why, for example in India (non western society) women, when their husband died, were literally excluded from the society and treated as garbage (close enough) and sometime women decided die instead of living under the shame of a loss of their husband. They were not to live as individuals, but defined by the fact of being married, by the fact of having a husband, thus the patriarchal society In many way, the western society was designed in excluding the freedom of act and will of women. And in that sense, the system was patriarchal. For the same reason, men expected a lot from men, they would be educated to mathematics, latin and "highly intellectuel" stuffs, therefore providing them the best spot and reproducing the scheme. All while women were left literally "in the Kitchen". And this expression is still true vigourously used, especially on the internet. The labour market still has issue to incorporate women who decided to leave the market for a few years because, as a family, they wanted a child. And even though she is being compensated, it is hard for women to value the time they spent with the child on the market.
When you label a girl that's just want to freely use her body (whore/bitch w/e) as she wants, you are committing a patriarchal act as "it is not the normal way for a girl to be". The normal way being exclusive to one man. Being the propriety of the man, and therefore not being definied as a free individual. Insulting girls for their behavior (Slut Shaming anyone?) is patriarchal, sexist (therefore racist). It is also the same scheme when a girl plays video games and she is being labelled "an attention whore" or anything. She is being denied the one fact that a girl could want to play videogames, that she only does that to have the attention of geeks/nerds that are lacking the presence of women. While it may be true in some instances, it clearly reproduces a patriarchal (exclusion of women, remember!) scheme in videogames.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Men are not innately more competitive than women. They are (still) educated to be so. I mean educated in a very broad sense, not just first or second socialization through family and school, but through your everyday life. You will (and have) probably see more ads/stories/newspaper or things like these about men being successfull or striving for success than women. Even though the share has changed favourably for women in the last decade (in terms of exposition). Moreover, as an example, if you read about politics, you primarily read about men competing against men. Yet again, it is changing, but the way women are exposed is hardly not reproducing a "patriarchal" society.
For the same matter, patriarchy is to be understood as a system that was produced by excluding women (not directly to the profit of men). This is why women had to wait decades before getting the right to vote. Or that is why women were not able to open a bank account without the autorization of their husband. That is also why, for example in India (non western society) women, when their husband died, were literally excluded from the society and treated as garbage (close enough) and sometime women decided die instead of living under the shame of a loss of their husband. They were not to live as individuals, but defined by the fact of being married, by the fact of having a husband, thus the patriarchal society In many way, the western society was designed in excluding the freedom of act and will of women. And in that sense, the system was patriarchal. For the same reason, men expected a lot from men, they would be educated to mathematics, latin and "highly intellectuel" stuffs, therefore providing them the best spot and reproducing the scheme. All while women were left literally "in the Kitchen". And this expression is still true vigourously used, especially on the internet. The labour market still has issue to incorporate women who decided to leave the market for a few years because, as a family, they wanted a child. And even though she is being compensated, it is hard for women to value the time they spent with the child on the market.
When you label a girl that's just want to freely use her body (whore/bitch w/e) as she wants, you are committing a patriarchal act as "it is not the normal way for a girl to be". The normal way being exclusive to one man. Being the propriety of the man, and therefore not being definied as a free individual. Insulting girls for their behavior (Slut Shaming anyone?) is patriarchal, sexist (therefore racist). It is also the same scheme when a girl plays video games and she is being labelled "an attention whore" or anything. She is being denied the one fact that a girl could want to play videogames, that she only does that to have the attention of geeks/nerds that are lacking the presence of women. While it may be true in some instances, it clearly reproduces a patriarchal (exclusion of women, remember!) scheme in videogames.
I disagree with your post to such a degree that I find no need to go into it at any level of detail. I talked about competitiveness, which research and simple observation suggests is biologically ingrained in male homo-sapiens, just like it is in many other species and not a socially conditioned behavior. You talk about "slut shaming" ..wtf?
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Check out girlwriteswhat on youtube. Although her "style" is a bit too polemic for my tastes, her points are usually well researched, and it's also refreshing to see feminism criticized from a women's perspective
Of course it existed. Men were allowed to compete and women were/are being stuck with the households. The ideas of statuses of occupations are seriously flawed nowadays, I hope this changes soon. The work connected with the upbringing of children can be done by the father as well as soon as they are out of the womb, so this argument is invalid as well. Women can have an as competitive mindset as men.
On April 09 2013 12:08 Wombat_NI wrote: Feminists are often right, but their cause has a major, major image problem because the term itself is far too broad and ill-defined. A breakdown into say, I don't what terms I'd use, but ones with more specificity could be prudent.
I agree with what they say regarding games sometimes, but equally I feel it is rather like fussing over a cigarette that you drop on the floor when your house is already burning to the ground around you.
Feminists also far too often give women a pass in perpetuating the gender roles that exist today, in my experience.
The main issue is that feminism is super broad you are correct.
However, the biggest problem is that most people don't know what feminism is, including self proclaimed feminists. Many people will latch onto the idea of Patriarchy or Gender Equality and label themselves feminists without understanding the intricate history behind feminism as an academic practice and more than a "movement".
In my opinion far more dangerous than the above are people who take one or two feminism classes in university and claim to be feminists because they agreed with the topics they discussed. My reasoning is as follows: any sociological field of study is built on a history of knowledge and discoveries that came before the current iteration. As a result, in University you don't actually learn anything about contemporary sociology until you are at the end of your studies. Even then, I knew very little about contemporary stuff until I started my MA for example. Why is this a problem and how does it relate to feminism you may ask?
Well, the introductory feminism courses will emphasize teaching the origins and basic tenets of feminism and describe how these apply to the different schools of feminism in a very shallow way. So for example, radical feminism is the super hard men and patriarchy is evil and ruins society side of feminism that most people dislike and overlook as garbage. The whole "women are more equal than men" impression people get is a result of misinterpreting the feminism movement in the 60s as representative of feminism as a whole.
A few reasons for this, like media representations of the feminists of the time, but mostly because the protests for womens rights went to ridiculous lengths to get the point that women deserved more at the time across to politicians. People often forget the social context - large protests and elaborate movements were more common and were generally seen as more impactful in the past. So, burning bras made more sense in the 60s than they do now.
If your image of feminism even from an academic perspective is shallow and you identify with radical feminism without looking at alternatives to this severe form of feminism (which at times borders on women are more equal than men) then of course its going to paint feminism in a negative light.
More contemporary gender studies incorporates Queer theory, liberal feminism and men's studies. I for one like reading about critical sociology of any sort but people who aren't trained in it often distort it and this bothers me. For example take a look at this video:
Here we see an odd perversion of both sides of the coin. Men's Rights is an odd movement if you can call it that. It runs in direct opposition, conceptually if taken incorrectly, to women's rights. Then "feminists" who do not understand the underlying propositions of their "field" as it were protest "mens rights activists" who don't fully understand theirs either. I think both sides are dumb but my point here is that the woman who argues that the feminists protesters are in the right is an example of someone who doesn't fully understand but thinks they do.
In the end the women have a right to protests a men's right talk. Thats fine, but they cannot block fire exits. That is fact and is irrefutable. However, the woman doesn't discuss the merits of men's rights, no one does. There is no discussion, its simply "women activitsts" blocking "mens activitists" from reaching their destination. Men do not have special rights, and women don't have special rights and neither should have rights that differ from the other. Both groups want "equality" but they want different "equalities".
In the end, feminism is about understanding the experience of women in the world and how being a woman impacts their interactions with society around them. Men's studies look at the experience of men in the world, and how being a man impacts their interactions with society around them.
Sometimes you realise, yes, women are being excluded from thing Y or X. Not on purpose or specific decision necessarily but because of historical influences on current society. Like anything with a historical context, it takes time to influence change and see improvements. In the same way, men do have problems in the world by virtue of being men as well.
So for me, as long as someone understands the underlying history behind feminism or masculinism as it were, then they can talk all they want as long as it is a coherent argument. However, most of the time this isn't the case and you get a perversion. I don't roll my eyes at feminism when it is posted. But I do groan at people who argue for the sake of arguing.
The feminist critique has valid points regarding video games. However we need to also consider the history as well. Why do we always save the princess? Well because Nintendo's vastly successful franchises of Mario and Zelda created a formula. Hero is boy, boy saves girl, girl is princess. This narrative isn't new to society, it is ingrained in historical narratives. These narratives are ingrained because of past perspectives on the role of women in society. So is something like Mario sexist? No, but it does perpetuate a particular discourse of patriarchy by its very nature of drawing historically from the idea of princess saving and chivalry of the knight in shining armor.
But does this mean that games are sexist? Not necessarily. The game isn't saying anything in particular about women being inherently weak. People fail to realize that while it might borrow from a discourse you also have to examine the female in the game. In Mario its Peach. She is ALWAYS being kidnapped. She as a character is weak, and as a singular woman, is weak. This is the flipside.
In addition, we can criticise these games for always making men the dominant role. Stoic, silent, strong and self sufficient. But also ultimately responsible for the world as it were. If we look at this as a discourse of masculinity, it is clearly very very focused on the "ideal" man from a character stand point that not many men can actually live up to. This can cause problems of its own when "being a man" is defined by "being the hero".
I am starting to get off topic here though and writing a book. In the end nothing is black or white and critique is good. But balancing critique with understanding is key. To simply say for example that Bioshock infinite is sexist (which is common lately) is outright wrong. To explain how discourses are presented in Bioshock is A-OK.
However we need to realise that Bioshock is infinitely complex. No single main story character is a caricature. They all have motivations, they all have some level of complexity. Except for Fink, he is pretty flat as a character. But comstock, booker, elizabeth, Daisy, the Lutece's all of these characters are more than singular. There is juxtaposition within them all that goes beyond shallow discourses of manly men and timid women. So for me, personally I hate to see them belittled as singular shallow descriptors to fit a position taken by any particular person to further their ideological position. That is the kind of thing I roll my eyes at. Stripping something down to fit your position and ignoring the rest is horrible and disingenuous. So while feminism is great (I would call myself a feminist in a certain way) its perversion is all too common and its presentation too shallow by many many people. Especially on the internet.
(Sorry for the book, might expand on this in a blog later with regards to infinite and the whole "feminist" critique).
By some definitions, feminism means anti-discriminatory toward the female sex. + Show Spoiler +
So... yeah im anti discrimination against women. I'm a feminist. Who would admit their not? This doesn't make me feel any more a part of some secret cult than saying I'm an athiest.
Need to separate the word from a group of people or modern movement even more imo.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Men are not innately more competitive than women. They are (still) educated to be so. I mean educated in a very broad sense, not just first or second socialization through family and school, but through your everyday life. You will (and have) probably see more ads/stories/newspaper or things like these about men being successfull or striving for success than women. Even though the share has changed favourably for women in the last decade (in terms of exposition). Moreover, as an example, if you read about politics, you primarily read about men competing against men. Yet again, it is changing, but the way women are exposed is hardly not reproducing a "patriarchal" society.
For the same matter, patriarchy is to be understood as a system that was produced by excluding women (not directly to the profit of men). This is why women had to wait decades before getting the right to vote. Or that is why women were not able to open a bank account without the autorization of their husband. That is also why, for example in India (non western society) women, when their husband died, were literally excluded from the society and treated as garbage (close enough) and sometime women decided die instead of living under the shame of a loss of their husband. They were not to live as individuals, but defined by the fact of being married, by the fact of having a husband, thus the patriarchal society In many way, the western society was designed in excluding the freedom of act and will of women. And in that sense, the system was patriarchal. For the same reason, men expected a lot from men, they would be educated to mathematics, latin and "highly intellectuel" stuffs, therefore providing them the best spot and reproducing the scheme. All while women were left literally "in the Kitchen". And this expression is still true vigourously used, especially on the internet. The labour market still has issue to incorporate women who decided to leave the market for a few years because, as a family, they wanted a child. And even though she is being compensated, it is hard for women to value the time they spent with the child on the market.
When you label a girl that's just want to freely use her body (whore/bitch w/e) as she wants, you are committing a patriarchal act as "it is not the normal way for a girl to be". The normal way being exclusive to one man. Being the propriety of the man, and therefore not being definied as a free individual. Insulting girls for their behavior (Slut Shaming anyone?) is patriarchal, sexist (therefore racist). It is also the same scheme when a girl plays video games and she is being labelled "an attention whore" or anything. She is being denied the one fact that a girl could want to play videogames, that she only does that to have the attention of geeks/nerds that are lacking the presence of women. While it may be true in some instances, it clearly reproduces a patriarchal (exclusion of women, remember!) scheme in videogames.
I disagree with your post to such a degree that I find no need to go into it at any level of detail. I talked about competitiveness, which research and simple observation suggests is biologically ingrained in male homo-sapiens, just like it is in many other species and not a socially conditioned behavior. You talk about "slut shaming" ..wtf?
Could you provide a link to the research ? Simple observation is not a valid argument. I did observe only white fucking duck, does it mean there is only white fucking duck on earth, hardly think so.
Still, how do you make such concept of "competitivness" operationalizable when driving a study, especially when leading a biological study ? I would be delighted to read that.
Slut shaming was there to illustrate the fact that women are denied freedom of act and will: this is how the society works: a girl is not allowed to do whatever she wants of her body. When she does so (i.e: sleeping with many men/women etc...) she is being pointed at as a deviant and ensue slut-shaming: "You should be ashamed to sleep with many men/women, to be a slut". Which implicitly means, you should be ashamed to have the liberty to use the body to your will. Which leads to : your body belongs to one person, and that person is not you but your boyfriend/husband (traditionnal couple is a man and a woman whom belong to the man through marriage, both are supposedly exclusive to each others).
And this is a patriarchal act, anchored in a patriarcal system.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Men are not innately more competitive than women. They are (still) educated to be so. I mean educated in a very broad sense, not just first or second socialization through family and school, but through your everyday life. You will (and have) probably see more ads/stories/newspaper or things like these about men being successfull or striving for success than women. Even though the share has changed favourably for women in the last decade (in terms of exposition). Moreover, as an example, if you read about politics, you primarily read about men competing against men. Yet again, it is changing, but the way women are exposed is hardly not reproducing a "patriarchal" society.
For the same matter, patriarchy is to be understood as a system that was produced by excluding women (not directly to the profit of men). This is why women had to wait decades before getting the right to vote. Or that is why women were not able to open a bank account without the autorization of their husband. That is also why, for example in India (non western society) women, when their husband died, were literally excluded from the society and treated as garbage (close enough) and sometime women decided die instead of living under the shame of a loss of their husband. They were not to live as individuals, but defined by the fact of being married, by the fact of having a husband, thus the patriarchal society In many way, the western society was designed in excluding the freedom of act and will of women. And in that sense, the system was patriarchal. For the same reason, men expected a lot from men, they would be educated to mathematics, latin and "highly intellectuel" stuffs, therefore providing them the best spot and reproducing the scheme. All while women were left literally "in the Kitchen". And this expression is still true vigourously used, especially on the internet. The labour market still has issue to incorporate women who decided to leave the market for a few years because, as a family, they wanted a child. And even though she is being compensated, it is hard for women to value the time they spent with the child on the market.
When you label a girl that's just want to freely use her body (whore/bitch w/e) as she wants, you are committing a patriarchal act as "it is not the normal way for a girl to be". The normal way being exclusive to one man. Being the propriety of the man, and therefore not being definied as a free individual. Insulting girls for their behavior (Slut Shaming anyone?) is patriarchal, sexist (therefore racist). It is also the same scheme when a girl plays video games and she is being labelled "an attention whore" or anything. She is being denied the one fact that a girl could want to play videogames, that she only does that to have the attention of geeks/nerds that are lacking the presence of women. While it may be true in some instances, it clearly reproduces a patriarchal (exclusion of women, remember!) scheme in videogames.
I disagree with your post to such a degree that I find no need to go into it at any level of detail. I talked about competitiveness, which research and simple observation suggests is biologically ingrained in male homo-sapiens, just like it is in many other species and not a socially conditioned behavior. You talk about "slut shaming" ..wtf?
Could you provide a link to the research ? Simple observation is not a valid argument. I did observe only white fucking duck, does it mean there is only white fucking duck on earth, hardly think so.
Still, how do you make such concept of "competitivness" operationalizable when driving a study, especially when leading a biological study ? I would be delighted to read that.
Slut shaming was there to illustrate the fact that women are denied freedom of act and will: this is how the society works: a girl is not allowed to do whatever she wants of her body. When she does so (i.e: sleeping with many men/women etc...) she is being pointed at as a deviant and ensue slut-shaming: "You should be ashamed to sleep with many men/women, to be a slut". Which implicitly means, you should be ashamed to have the liberty to use the body to your will. Which leads to : your body belongs to one person, and that person is not you but your boyfriend/husband (traditionnal couple is a man and a woman whom belong to the man through marriage, both are supposedly exclusive to each others).
And this is a patriarchal act, anchored in a patriarcal system.
Why are you so angry? Women aren't barred from promiscuity, they are discourage and not limited. Man suffers from similar outlooks as well though in smaller degrees. The difference in treatment of promiscuity is present because promiscuity has different implications. A woman has an advantage in knowing who an offspring may belong to. A loyal female partner makes it less likely a man, traditionally the provider, is raising someone else's child. With contraception and DNA testing this is less of an issue, and social attitudes toward such things are changing as well, albeit at a slower rate. Nevertheless, marital laws are still far from fair. If you want to stop difference in treatment of the sexes, then you may wish to start with the equality in the legal system so there is one less talking point for the patriarchy.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
I just want to say I like your post and it is smart. But to be fair the point of feminism is technically to criticize things. I only say this because it has its lineage as a discipline and theoretical framework in critical sociology (within the modern sociological paradigm) which emerged in the late 50s and 60s as a reaction to things like the atomic bomb and WW2. That we should question everything because those in charge do not necessarily know best (which in itself borrows from Marxism).
At its core, feminism seeks to examine critically the structures and discourses that shape and influence the discourses surrounding women and femininity in society. As a result, it must look at the way "woman" is presented in society in some way. Now, to your credit this isn't necessarily to criticize patriarchy or men in general. But rather to examine and be critical of things that are taken for granted as assumptions about women. Academically it is supposed to draw attention to things that one would otherwise ignore and accept as "natural".
Though I guess if you are using the term "criticize" to mean "pejorative criticism" then I would completely agree with you.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Men are not innately more competitive than women. They are (still) educated to be so. I mean educated in a very broad sense, not just first or second socialization through family and school, but through your everyday life. You will (and have) probably see more ads/stories/newspaper or things like these about men being successfull or striving for success than women. Even though the share has changed favourably for women in the last decade (in terms of exposition). Moreover, as an example, if you read about politics, you primarily read about men competing against men. Yet again, it is changing, but the way women are exposed is hardly not reproducing a "patriarchal" society.
For the same matter, patriarchy is to be understood as a system that was produced by excluding women (not directly to the profit of men). This is why women had to wait decades before getting the right to vote. Or that is why women were not able to open a bank account without the autorization of their husband. That is also why, for example in India (non western society) women, when their husband died, were literally excluded from the society and treated as garbage (close enough) and sometime women decided die instead of living under the shame of a loss of their husband. They were not to live as individuals, but defined by the fact of being married, by the fact of having a husband, thus the patriarchal society In many way, the western society was designed in excluding the freedom of act and will of women. And in that sense, the system was patriarchal. For the same reason, men expected a lot from men, they would be educated to mathematics, latin and "highly intellectuel" stuffs, therefore providing them the best spot and reproducing the scheme. All while women were left literally "in the Kitchen". And this expression is still true vigourously used, especially on the internet. The labour market still has issue to incorporate women who decided to leave the market for a few years because, as a family, they wanted a child. And even though she is being compensated, it is hard for women to value the time they spent with the child on the market.
When you label a girl that's just want to freely use her body (whore/bitch w/e) as she wants, you are committing a patriarchal act as "it is not the normal way for a girl to be". The normal way being exclusive to one man. Being the propriety of the man, and therefore not being definied as a free individual. Insulting girls for their behavior (Slut Shaming anyone?) is patriarchal, sexist (therefore racist). It is also the same scheme when a girl plays video games and she is being labelled "an attention whore" or anything. She is being denied the one fact that a girl could want to play videogames, that she only does that to have the attention of geeks/nerds that are lacking the presence of women. While it may be true in some instances, it clearly reproduces a patriarchal (exclusion of women, remember!) scheme in videogames.
I disagree with your post to such a degree that I find no need to go into it at any level of detail. I talked about competitiveness, which research and simple observation suggests is biologically ingrained in male homo-sapiens, just like it is in many other species and not a socially conditioned behavior. You talk about "slut shaming" ..wtf?
Could you provide a link to the research ? Simple observation is not a valid argument. I did observe only white fucking duck, does it mean there is only white fucking duck on earth, hardly think so.
Still, how do you make such concept of "competitivness" operationalizable when driving a study, especially when leading a biological study ? I would be delighted to read that.
Slut shaming was there to illustrate the fact that women are denied freedom of act and will: this is how the society works: a girl is not allowed to do whatever she wants of her body. When she does so (i.e: sleeping with many men/women etc...) she is being pointed at as a deviant and ensue slut-shaming: "You should be ashamed to sleep with many men/women, to be a slut". Which implicitly means, you should be ashamed to have the liberty to use the body to your will. Which leads to : your body belongs to one person, and that person is not you but your boyfriend/husband (traditionnal couple is a man and a woman whom belong to the man through marriage, both are supposedly exclusive to each others).
And this is a patriarchal act, anchored in a patriarcal system.
Why are you so angry? Women aren't barred from promiscuity, they are discourage and not limited. Man suffers from similar outlooks as well though in smaller degrees. The difference in treatment of promiscuity is present because promiscuity has different implications. A woman has an advantage in knowing who an offspring may belong to. A loyal female partner makes it less likely a man, traditionally the provider, is raising someone else's child. With contraception and DNA testing this is less of an issue, and social attitudes toward such things are changing as well, albeit at a slower rate. Nevertheless, marital laws are still far from fair. If you want to stop difference in treatment of the sexes, then you may wish to start with the equality in the legal system so there is one less talking point for the patriarchy.
Excuse the aggressivity.
True, marital law remains somehow problematic. It is problematic because it still enclose couple in a monogamous scheme while behavior and social attitudes are changing, slowly for sure as you mention it. For exemple polyamory (it is on wikipedia).
The problem is not per se the marital law but what we associate to it: exclusivity, man to woman marriage, and historically it is filled with man's control over woman. Yet it is obvious people marry and probably share control over each others. But it is the symbol that remain which may cause harm. To this end, someone not married, a girl or a boy, is free to have relations with anyone. Yet social attitudes often punish this kind of behavior. It is more often toward girls. My point is, they socially "punish" such behaviour because they still see (a) the woman in a traditionnalist way, meaning marital subordination. (b) women are still denied property on their own body because of the social attitudes. Since the marital law is intricated in a patriarchal-like system and since it spills over social attitudes towards women, it is fair to say that pointing at girls having sex with who ever they want is a patriarchal act.
What makes me angry is people trying to emphasis social differences based on undocmented biological differences. This is no different from racism from the past centuries yet it seems acceptable because it's only women, eh. Nobody denies the difference between men and women but to build social exclusion/inclusion on these criteria is far from being legitimate.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Men are not innately more competitive than women. They are (still) educated to be so. I mean educated in a very broad sense, not just first or second socialization through family and school, but through your everyday life. You will (and have) probably see more ads/stories/newspaper or things like these about men being successfull or striving for success than women. Even though the share has changed favourably for women in the last decade (in terms of exposition). Moreover, as an example, if you read about politics, you primarily read about men competing against men. Yet again, it is changing, but the way women are exposed is hardly not reproducing a "patriarchal" society.
For the same matter, patriarchy is to be understood as a system that was produced by excluding women (not directly to the profit of men). This is why women had to wait decades before getting the right to vote. Or that is why women were not able to open a bank account without the autorization of their husband. That is also why, for example in India (non western society) women, when their husband died, were literally excluded from the society and treated as garbage (close enough) and sometime women decided die instead of living under the shame of a loss of their husband. They were not to live as individuals, but defined by the fact of being married, by the fact of having a husband, thus the patriarchal society In many way, the western society was designed in excluding the freedom of act and will of women. And in that sense, the system was patriarchal. For the same reason, men expected a lot from men, they would be educated to mathematics, latin and "highly intellectuel" stuffs, therefore providing them the best spot and reproducing the scheme. All while women were left literally "in the Kitchen". And this expression is still true vigourously used, especially on the internet. The labour market still has issue to incorporate women who decided to leave the market for a few years because, as a family, they wanted a child. And even though she is being compensated, it is hard for women to value the time they spent with the child on the market.
When you label a girl that's just want to freely use her body (whore/bitch w/e) as she wants, you are committing a patriarchal act as "it is not the normal way for a girl to be". The normal way being exclusive to one man. Being the propriety of the man, and therefore not being definied as a free individual. Insulting girls for their behavior (Slut Shaming anyone?) is patriarchal, sexist (therefore racist). It is also the same scheme when a girl plays video games and she is being labelled "an attention whore" or anything. She is being denied the one fact that a girl could want to play videogames, that she only does that to have the attention of geeks/nerds that are lacking the presence of women. While it may be true in some instances, it clearly reproduces a patriarchal (exclusion of women, remember!) scheme in videogames.
I disagree with your post to such a degree that I find no need to go into it at any level of detail. I talked about competitiveness, which research and simple observation suggests is biologically ingrained in male homo-sapiens, just like it is in many other species and not a socially conditioned behavior. You talk about "slut shaming" ..wtf?
Could you provide a link to the research ? Simple observation is not a valid argument. I did observe only white fucking duck, does it mean there is only white fucking duck on earth, hardly think so.
Still, how do you make such concept of "competitivness" operationalizable when driving a study, especially when leading a biological study ? I would be delighted to read that.
Slut shaming was there to illustrate the fact that women are denied freedom of act and will: this is how the society works: a girl is not allowed to do whatever she wants of her body. When she does so (i.e: sleeping with many men/women etc...) she is being pointed at as a deviant and ensue slut-shaming: "You should be ashamed to sleep with many men/women, to be a slut". Which implicitly means, you should be ashamed to have the liberty to use the body to your will. Which leads to : your body belongs to one person, and that person is not you but your boyfriend/husband (traditionnal couple is a man and a woman whom belong to the man through marriage, both are supposedly exclusive to each others).
And this is a patriarchal act, anchored in a patriarcal system.
Why are you so angry? Women aren't barred from promiscuity, they are discourage and not limited. Man suffers from similar outlooks as well though in smaller degrees. The difference in treatment of promiscuity is present because promiscuity has different implications. A woman has an advantage in knowing who an offspring may belong to. A loyal female partner makes it less likely a man, traditionally the provider, is raising someone else's child. With contraception and DNA testing this is less of an issue, and social attitudes toward such things are changing as well, albeit at a slower rate. Nevertheless, marital laws are still far from fair. If you want to stop difference in treatment of the sexes, then you may wish to start with the equality in the legal system so there is one less talking point for the patriarchy.
Are you arguing for the propagation of slut shaming or trying to justify it? At least your not denying it exists.
It is very hateful toward women to imply that they should not have freedom to express themselves sexually becuase they cannot be trusted to not steal child support.
It's good to hear your concerned about equality of the sexes in the legal system. What improvements would you suggest for martial law?
EDIT: I also wouldn't go so far as to call bearing children an advantage... >.< sounds uncomfortable
On April 09 2013 12:08 Wombat_NI wrote: Feminists are often right, but their cause has a major, major image problem because the term itself is far too broad and ill-defined. A breakdown into say, I don't what terms I'd use, but ones with more specificity could be prudent.
I agree with what they say regarding games sometimes, but equally I feel it is rather like fussing over a cigarette that you drop on the floor when your house is already burning to the ground around you.
Feminists also far too often give women a pass in perpetuating the gender roles that exist today, in my experience.
I agree. Let the radical feminists stay feminists and rename everybody to humanists. I mean most of us agree that gender roles are a big problem, but most rational people also agree that the hiarchy is bullshit.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Check out girlwriteswhat on youtube. Although her "style" is a bit too polemic for my tastes, her points are usually well researched, and it's also refreshing to see feminism criticized from a women's perspective
Of course it existed. Men were allowed to compete and women were/are being stuck with the households. The ideas of statuses of occupations are seriously flawed nowadays, I hope this changes soon. The work connected with the upbringing of children can be done by the father as well as soon as they are out of the womb, so this argument is invalid as well. Women can have an as competitive mindset as men.
Women CAN be as competitive as men, generally they aren't. This is more likely biological than anything else. Evolutionary speaking, a woman gained no where near as much from competing as men did.
I didn't say patriarchy didn't exist - I said it didn't exist in the form that feminists historically have understood it to exist. Some aspects of what we think of as patriarchy was a way to consolidate power, and it punished lower standing men just as much as women. Girlwriteswhat goes into more depth on this than I ever could - taking a look at a few of her videos is definitely worth the time, imo.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Men are not innately more competitive than women. They are (still) educated to be so. I mean educated in a very broad sense, not just first or second socialization through family and school, but through your everyday life. You will (and have) probably see more ads/stories/newspaper or things like these about men being successfull or striving for success than women. Even though the share has changed favourably for women in the last decade (in terms of exposition). Moreover, as an example, if you read about politics, you primarily read about men competing against men. Yet again, it is changing, but the way women are exposed is hardly not reproducing a "patriarchal" society.
For the same matter, patriarchy is to be understood as a system that was produced by excluding women (not directly to the profit of men). This is why women had to wait decades before getting the right to vote. Or that is why women were not able to open a bank account without the autorization of their husband. That is also why, for example in India (non western society) women, when their husband died, were literally excluded from the society and treated as garbage (close enough) and sometime women decided die instead of living under the shame of a loss of their husband. They were not to live as individuals, but defined by the fact of being married, by the fact of having a husband, thus the patriarchal society In many way, the western society was designed in excluding the freedom of act and will of women. And in that sense, the system was patriarchal. For the same reason, men expected a lot from men, they would be educated to mathematics, latin and "highly intellectuel" stuffs, therefore providing them the best spot and reproducing the scheme. All while women were left literally "in the Kitchen". And this expression is still true vigourously used, especially on the internet. The labour market still has issue to incorporate women who decided to leave the market for a few years because, as a family, they wanted a child. And even though she is being compensated, it is hard for women to value the time they spent with the child on the market.
When you label a girl that's just want to freely use her body (whore/bitch w/e) as she wants, you are committing a patriarchal act as "it is not the normal way for a girl to be". The normal way being exclusive to one man. Being the propriety of the man, and therefore not being definied as a free individual. Insulting girls for their behavior (Slut Shaming anyone?) is patriarchal, sexist (therefore racist). It is also the same scheme when a girl plays video games and she is being labelled "an attention whore" or anything. She is being denied the one fact that a girl could want to play videogames, that she only does that to have the attention of geeks/nerds that are lacking the presence of women. While it may be true in some instances, it clearly reproduces a patriarchal (exclusion of women, remember!) scheme in videogames.
I disagree with your post to such a degree that I find no need to go into it at any level of detail. I talked about competitiveness, which research and simple observation suggests is biologically ingrained in male homo-sapiens, just like it is in many other species and not a socially conditioned behavior. You talk about "slut shaming" ..wtf?
Could you provide a link to the research ? Simple observation is not a valid argument. I did observe only white fucking duck, does it mean there is only white fucking duck on earth, hardly think so.
Still, how do you make such concept of "competitivness" operationalizable when driving a study, especially when leading a biological study ? I would be delighted to read that.
Slut shaming was there to illustrate the fact that women are denied freedom of act and will: this is how the society works: a girl is not allowed to do whatever she wants of her body. When she does so (i.e: sleeping with many men/women etc...) she is being pointed at as a deviant and ensue slut-shaming: "You should be ashamed to sleep with many men/women, to be a slut". Which implicitly means, you should be ashamed to have the liberty to use the body to your will. Which leads to : your body belongs to one person, and that person is not you but your boyfriend/husband (traditionnal couple is a man and a woman whom belong to the man through marriage, both are supposedly exclusive to each others).
And this is a patriarchal act, anchored in a patriarcal system.
For both jobs, more females replied to both job listings than males. Of the applicants to the sports assistant position, 53.5% of those interested were women. The generic job listing was split 80-20 females to male. Here’s the interesting part: for both jobs, when the element of the bonus was added, males were far more likely to actually send in their application than females. Or worded the other way around, females were more likely to pass on the job once they found out part of their pay would be based on their performance versus a co-worker. In the most competitive salary structure, where the base pay was $12 an hour and the bonus $6, List determined that men were 55.5% more likely to apply for the job than women. The conclusion: Women don’t like competition.
How does this relate to the gender gap? List says, anecdotally at least, it appears the industries and positions with the most competitive work environments tend to pay the most.
When it comes to "slut shaming," I don't think you automatically can or necessarily have to attribute that to "patriarchy." It could have some other function -- and often women are the ones who engage in this kind of behavior the most. I'd say it could just as well be a tribal impulse. In a smaller society, "loose" women with many children when there father(s) isn't engaged in providing for the children can become a liability for the tribe itself. And if the male in this instance is from a competing tribe, the mother and child would probably be driven off or worse. This could happen in a "matriarchal" tribe too, patriarchy doesn't necessarily figure into it. This could also explain why an extremely tribal religion like Islam is so sexist.
Relatively speaking, it is very recent that we could have sex for the pleasure of it, with impunity. Of course our biological minds are lagging behind.. it still thinks we're living in caves and being hunted by giant bears after all.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
On April 10 2013 03:48 anatase wrote: What makes me angry is people trying to emphasis social differences based on undocmented biological differences. This is no different from racism from the past centuries yet it seems acceptable because it's only women, eh. Nobody denies the difference between men and women but to build social exclusion/inclusion on these criteria is far from being legitimate.
well, actually there are quite some studies showing biological differences between men and women, e.g. in the brain, and you can find a lot of these in the most important scientific journals, like http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v7/n6/full/nrn1909.html. Take it for what its worth, but i guess any serious scientist cannot deny that there is a _very_ high propability that certain differences between men and women have biological origins. in any case, i do believe this should not be used to justify inequalities regarding rights or whatever.
on another note, i find it very strange that a movement that is meant to fight gender inequality would do so under the name of 'feminism' which itsel implies a certain inequality.
On April 10 2013 04:41 Fruscainte wrote: I like arguing semantics.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
On April 10 2013 04:41 Fruscainte wrote: I like arguing semantics.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
Lots of people do identify as egalitarians with regards to other issues, feminists just think women were particularly historically and presently discriminated against and that that requires special attention.
On April 10 2013 04:41 Fruscainte wrote: I like arguing semantics.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
How.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Check out girlwriteswhat on youtube. Although her "style" is a bit too polemic for my tastes, her points are usually well researched, and it's also refreshing to see feminism criticized from a women's perspective
Of course it existed. Men were allowed to compete and women were/are being stuck with the households. The ideas of statuses of occupations are seriously flawed nowadays, I hope this changes soon. The work connected with the upbringing of children can be done by the father as well as soon as they are out of the womb, so this argument is invalid as well. Women can have an as competitive mindset as men.
Women CAN be as competitive as men, generally they aren't. This is more likely biological than anything else. Evolutionary speaking, a woman gained no where near as much from competing as men did.
I didn't say patriarchy didn't exist - I said it didn't exist in the form that feminists historically have understood it to exist. Some aspects of what we think of as patriarchy was a way to consolidate power, and it punished lower standing men just as much as women. Girlwriteswhat goes into more depth on this than I ever could - taking a look at a few of her videos is definitely worth the time, imo.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Men are not innately more competitive than women. They are (still) educated to be so. I mean educated in a very broad sense, not just first or second socialization through family and school, but through your everyday life. You will (and have) probably see more ads/stories/newspaper or things like these about men being successfull or striving for success than women. Even though the share has changed favourably for women in the last decade (in terms of exposition). Moreover, as an example, if you read about politics, you primarily read about men competing against men. Yet again, it is changing, but the way women are exposed is hardly not reproducing a "patriarchal" society.
For the same matter, patriarchy is to be understood as a system that was produced by excluding women (not directly to the profit of men). This is why women had to wait decades before getting the right to vote. Or that is why women were not able to open a bank account without the autorization of their husband. That is also why, for example in India (non western society) women, when their husband died, were literally excluded from the society and treated as garbage (close enough) and sometime women decided die instead of living under the shame of a loss of their husband. They were not to live as individuals, but defined by the fact of being married, by the fact of having a husband, thus the patriarchal society In many way, the western society was designed in excluding the freedom of act and will of women. And in that sense, the system was patriarchal. For the same reason, men expected a lot from men, they would be educated to mathematics, latin and "highly intellectuel" stuffs, therefore providing them the best spot and reproducing the scheme. All while women were left literally "in the Kitchen". And this expression is still true vigourously used, especially on the internet. The labour market still has issue to incorporate women who decided to leave the market for a few years because, as a family, they wanted a child. And even though she is being compensated, it is hard for women to value the time they spent with the child on the market.
When you label a girl that's just want to freely use her body (whore/bitch w/e) as she wants, you are committing a patriarchal act as "it is not the normal way for a girl to be". The normal way being exclusive to one man. Being the propriety of the man, and therefore not being definied as a free individual. Insulting girls for their behavior (Slut Shaming anyone?) is patriarchal, sexist (therefore racist). It is also the same scheme when a girl plays video games and she is being labelled "an attention whore" or anything. She is being denied the one fact that a girl could want to play videogames, that she only does that to have the attention of geeks/nerds that are lacking the presence of women. While it may be true in some instances, it clearly reproduces a patriarchal (exclusion of women, remember!) scheme in videogames.
I disagree with your post to such a degree that I find no need to go into it at any level of detail. I talked about competitiveness, which research and simple observation suggests is biologically ingrained in male homo-sapiens, just like it is in many other species and not a socially conditioned behavior. You talk about "slut shaming" ..wtf?
Could you provide a link to the research ? Simple observation is not a valid argument. I did observe only white fucking duck, does it mean there is only white fucking duck on earth, hardly think so.
Still, how do you make such concept of "competitivness" operationalizable when driving a study, especially when leading a biological study ? I would be delighted to read that.
Slut shaming was there to illustrate the fact that women are denied freedom of act and will: this is how the society works: a girl is not allowed to do whatever she wants of her body. When she does so (i.e: sleeping with many men/women etc...) she is being pointed at as a deviant and ensue slut-shaming: "You should be ashamed to sleep with many men/women, to be a slut". Which implicitly means, you should be ashamed to have the liberty to use the body to your will. Which leads to : your body belongs to one person, and that person is not you but your boyfriend/husband (traditionnal couple is a man and a woman whom belong to the man through marriage, both are supposedly exclusive to each others).
And this is a patriarchal act, anchored in a patriarcal system.
For both jobs, more females replied to both job listings than males. Of the applicants to the sports assistant position, 53.5% of those interested were women. The generic job listing was split 80-20 females to male. Here’s the interesting part: for both jobs, when the element of the bonus was added, males were far more likely to actually send in their application than females. Or worded the other way around, females were more likely to pass on the job once they found out part of their pay would be based on their performance versus a co-worker. In the most competitive salary structure, where the base pay was $12 an hour and the bonus $6, List determined that men were 55.5% more likely to apply for the job than women. The conclusion: Women don’t like competition.
How does this relate to the gender gap? List says, anecdotally at least, it appears the industries and positions with the most competitive work environments tend to pay the most.
When it comes to "slut shaming," I don't think you automatically can or necessarily have to attribute that to "patriarchy." It could have some other function -- and often women are the ones who engage in this kind of behavior the most. I'd say it could just as well be a tribal impulse. In a smaller society, "loose" women with many children when there father(s) isn't engaged in providing for the children can become a liability for the tribe itself. And if the male in this instance is from a competing tribe, the mother and child would probably be driven off or worse. This could happen in a "matriarchal" tribe too, patriarchy doesn't necessarily figure into it. This could also explain why an extremely tribal religion like Islam is so sexist.
Relatively speaking, it is very recent that we could have sex for the pleasure of it, with impunity. Of course our biological minds are lagging behind.. it still thinks we're living in caves and being hunted by giant bears after all.
The article is interesting, but it doesn't seem to provide a biological explanation for the competition gap, maybe the scientific article does, but not the Time's one.
What I understand from it, is that women are less likely to risk a smaller pay despite an uncertain bonus than men. This could relate to risk aversion, and while some argue, like you, that this kind of risk aversion might be due to cave age (not everyone agrees at all with the prehistoric conception of men and women) it may be due to other things too.
Once again, it is socially constructed that boys are usually encouraged to take risk and be competitive since their childhood, so it was, so it is (even though less). The competition gap might be induced solely on the base that (1) women (girls) are not taught when child to take risk but to secure. Why ? Maybe because we see them as fragile, or because we vehiculate an image of the strong man and the weak woman (2) women (girls) are not taught to be competitive, because competition is display, display is the public sphere, and the public sphere for very long was a men space. While women remain in the private sphere (household, housewives) and are facing no competition because they are alone
Does it mean they are less competitive, in the sense they have been taught to be, then yes of course it does. In the sense it is biologically embedded in their brain, I really don't think so and once again I feel the article does not provide biological evidence for this.(it is a psychological study, not a biological one, lead by economic professors, not biologists)
It just says there is a gap, they shy away from competition, they don't know where that shyness is from.
Now yes, i was agressive, I explained why in my last post, my apologies.
I'd just like to address the "men are biologically or intrinsically more competitive" claim. I don't think that's true, or at least that evidence doesn't properly suggest that.
This study uses a controlled experiment to explore whether there are gender differences in selecting into competitive environments across two distinct societies: the Maasai in Tanzania and the Khasi in India. One unique aspect of these societies is that the Maasai represent a textbook example of a patriarchal society whereas the Khasi are matrilineal. Similar to the extant evidence drawn from experiments executed in Western cultures, Maasai men opt to compete at roughly twice the rate as Maasai women. Interestingly, this result is reversed amongst the Khasi, where women choose the competitive environment more often than Khasi men, and even choose to compete weakly more often than Maasai men.
@sc2superfan, I completely disagree with your assessment of why readers tend to dislike Sansa though you make a lot of valid points, but I don't think that discussion is appropriate here
On April 10 2013 04:41 Fruscainte wrote: I like arguing semantics.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
How.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
Your correct. There are examples of men being the victim of prejudice based on sex. There is no argument whether or not globally there are cultures that oppress women. right? There are a few obvious ones.
So then we want to talk about north american culture. If I understand you correctly you are saying that men and women face equal amount of prejudice everyday. I disagree. I feel that the insecurity created by how heavily society weighs a womans worth by her looks, significantly outweighs any prejudice men face. Over archingly, I dont believe its uncomon to have encountred more casual woman bashing than man bashing. Additionally there are not a group of activities which are labeled "manly" which have a negative conotation associated with them such as those associated with "girly". I feel that it is concretely true to say that our society views women with a measureable amount of negative prejudice.
I personally strongly believe in equality, and I also think that a vast, vast majority of feminists are reasonable and most of their concerns are valid. However, it's sometimes hard to know how to deal with some of the stuff brought forward by some of the more "hardcore" feminists.
It has probably been mentioned in this thread, recently Obama made a speech during a fundraiser where he made a speech in which he complimented the attorney general of California on her competence and her strong character, before saying she's also "the best-looking attorney general" as a pleasantry. She's a beautiful woman and he was just being nice... We all do it, it's part of being human, we compliment others.
Yet feminists thought it was good to call it sexist, even though Obama compliments men on their looks also. At some point, it becomes ridiculous.
I believe that feminism is still necessary today because there are problems that need to be worked on, but some of the BS issues are manufactured by pissed off extremists and they're at a risk of making feminism look bad...
On April 10 2013 04:41 Fruscainte wrote: I like arguing semantics.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
How.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
Your correct. There are examples of men being the victim of prejudice based on sex. There is no argument whether or not globally there are cultures that oppress women. right? There are a few obvious ones.
So then we want to talk about north american culture. If I understand you correctly you are saying that men and women face equal amount of prejudice everyday. I disagree. I feel that the insecurity created by how heavily society weighs a womans worth by her looks, significantly outweighs any prejudice men face. Over archingly, I dont believe its uncomon to have encountred more casual woman bashing than man bashing. Additionally there are not a group of activities which are labeled "manly" which have a negative conotation associated with them such as those associated with "girly". I feel that it is concretely true to say that our society views women with a measureable amount of negative prejudice.
I think trying to quantify who gets marginalized the most when it exists in large amounts on both sides is beyond petty.
On April 10 2013 04:41 Fruscainte wrote: I like arguing semantics.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
How.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
Your correct. There are examples of men being the victim of prejudice based on sex. There is no argument whether or not globally there are cultures that oppress women. right? There are a few obvious ones.
So then we want to talk about north american culture. If I understand you correctly you are saying that men and women face equal amount of prejudice everyday. I disagree. I feel that the insecurity created by how heavily society weighs a womans worth by her looks, significantly outweighs any prejudice men face. Over archingly, I dont believe its uncomon to have encountred more casual woman bashing than man bashing. Additionally there are not a group of activities which are labeled "manly" which have a negative conotation associated with them such as those associated with "girly". I feel that it is concretely true to say that our society views women with a measureable amount of negative prejudice.
I think trying to quantify who gets marginalized the most when it exists in large amounts on both sides is beyond petty.
I think it exists so much more on one side than the other that using the existance of the other side as justification is a weak arguement.
On April 10 2013 04:41 Fruscainte wrote: I like arguing semantics.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
How.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
Your correct. There are examples of men being the victim of prejudice based on sex. There is no argument whether or not globally there are cultures that oppress women. right? There are a few obvious ones.
So then we want to talk about north american culture. If I understand you correctly you are saying that men and women face equal amount of prejudice everyday. I disagree. I feel that the insecurity created by how heavily society weighs a womans worth by her looks, significantly outweighs any prejudice men face. Over archingly, I dont believe its uncomon to have encountred more casual woman bashing than man bashing. Additionally there are not a group of activities which are labeled "manly" which have a negative conotation associated with them such as those associated with "girly". I feel that it is concretely true to say that our society views women with a measureable amount of negative prejudice.
I think trying to quantify who gets marginalized the most when it exists in large amounts on both sides is beyond petty.
I think it exists so much more on one side than the other that using the existance of the other side as justification is a weak arguement.
justification
Nice strawman you set up there, where did you get it from if you don't mind me asking?
I never tried to justify anything. I said there's marginalization on both sides and both sides have clear benefits in our culture/society/legal system. I just listed some in my earlier post and I'd be glad to list them again. I have sources for them too, I'm not pulling these out of my ass. It's not about justification or blame, it's, as Anita put it, for simply acknowledging it's there. We can't progress to an egalitarian society without acknowledging it. Ignoring clear sexism against men because there may be "more" (however you deem that is quantifiable) against women is petty.
That is the purpose of my argument. Feminism is ridiculous because we should strive to remove ALL discrimination, not just discrimination against women.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Check out girlwriteswhat on youtube. Although her "style" is a bit too polemic for my tastes, her points are usually well researched, and it's also refreshing to see feminism criticized from a women's perspective
Of course it existed. Men were allowed to compete and women were/are being stuck with the households. The ideas of statuses of occupations are seriously flawed nowadays, I hope this changes soon. The work connected with the upbringing of children can be done by the father as well as soon as they are out of the womb, so this argument is invalid as well. Women can have an as competitive mindset as men.
Women CAN be as competitive as men, generally they aren't. This is more likely biological than anything else. Evolutionary speaking, a woman gained no where near as much from competing as men did.
I didn't say patriarchy didn't exist - I said it didn't exist in the form that feminists historically have understood it to exist. Some aspects of what we think of as patriarchy was a way to consolidate power, and it punished lower standing men just as much as women. Girlwriteswhat goes into more depth on this than I ever could - taking a look at a few of her videos is definitely worth the time, imo.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Men are not innately more competitive than women. They are (still) educated to be so. I mean educated in a very broad sense, not just first or second socialization through family and school, but through your everyday life. You will (and have) probably see more ads/stories/newspaper or things like these about men being successfull or striving for success than women. Even though the share has changed favourably for women in the last decade (in terms of exposition). Moreover, as an example, if you read about politics, you primarily read about men competing against men. Yet again, it is changing, but the way women are exposed is hardly not reproducing a "patriarchal" society.
For the same matter, patriarchy is to be understood as a system that was produced by excluding women (not directly to the profit of men). This is why women had to wait decades before getting the right to vote. Or that is why women were not able to open a bank account without the autorization of their husband. That is also why, for example in India (non western society) women, when their husband died, were literally excluded from the society and treated as garbage (close enough) and sometime women decided die instead of living under the shame of a loss of their husband. They were not to live as individuals, but defined by the fact of being married, by the fact of having a husband, thus the patriarchal society In many way, the western society was designed in excluding the freedom of act and will of women. And in that sense, the system was patriarchal. For the same reason, men expected a lot from men, they would be educated to mathematics, latin and "highly intellectuel" stuffs, therefore providing them the best spot and reproducing the scheme. All while women were left literally "in the Kitchen". And this expression is still true vigourously used, especially on the internet. The labour market still has issue to incorporate women who decided to leave the market for a few years because, as a family, they wanted a child. And even though she is being compensated, it is hard for women to value the time they spent with the child on the market.
When you label a girl that's just want to freely use her body (whore/bitch w/e) as she wants, you are committing a patriarchal act as "it is not the normal way for a girl to be". The normal way being exclusive to one man. Being the propriety of the man, and therefore not being definied as a free individual. Insulting girls for their behavior (Slut Shaming anyone?) is patriarchal, sexist (therefore racist). It is also the same scheme when a girl plays video games and she is being labelled "an attention whore" or anything. She is being denied the one fact that a girl could want to play videogames, that she only does that to have the attention of geeks/nerds that are lacking the presence of women. While it may be true in some instances, it clearly reproduces a patriarchal (exclusion of women, remember!) scheme in videogames.
I disagree with your post to such a degree that I find no need to go into it at any level of detail. I talked about competitiveness, which research and simple observation suggests is biologically ingrained in male homo-sapiens, just like it is in many other species and not a socially conditioned behavior. You talk about "slut shaming" ..wtf?
Could you provide a link to the research ? Simple observation is not a valid argument. I did observe only white fucking duck, does it mean there is only white fucking duck on earth, hardly think so.
Still, how do you make such concept of "competitivness" operationalizable when driving a study, especially when leading a biological study ? I would be delighted to read that.
Slut shaming was there to illustrate the fact that women are denied freedom of act and will: this is how the society works: a girl is not allowed to do whatever she wants of her body. When she does so (i.e: sleeping with many men/women etc...) she is being pointed at as a deviant and ensue slut-shaming: "You should be ashamed to sleep with many men/women, to be a slut". Which implicitly means, you should be ashamed to have the liberty to use the body to your will. Which leads to : your body belongs to one person, and that person is not you but your boyfriend/husband (traditionnal couple is a man and a woman whom belong to the man through marriage, both are supposedly exclusive to each others).
And this is a patriarchal act, anchored in a patriarcal system.
For both jobs, more females replied to both job listings than males. Of the applicants to the sports assistant position, 53.5% of those interested were women. The generic job listing was split 80-20 females to male. Here’s the interesting part: for both jobs, when the element of the bonus was added, males were far more likely to actually send in their application than females. Or worded the other way around, females were more likely to pass on the job once they found out part of their pay would be based on their performance versus a co-worker. In the most competitive salary structure, where the base pay was $12 an hour and the bonus $6, List determined that men were 55.5% more likely to apply for the job than women. The conclusion: Women don’t like competition.
How does this relate to the gender gap? List says, anecdotally at least, it appears the industries and positions with the most competitive work environments tend to pay the most.
When it comes to "slut shaming," I don't think you automatically can or necessarily have to attribute that to "patriarchy." It could have some other function -- and often women are the ones who engage in this kind of behavior the most. I'd say it could just as well be a tribal impulse. In a smaller society, "loose" women with many children when there father(s) isn't engaged in providing for the children can become a liability for the tribe itself. And if the male in this instance is from a competing tribe, the mother and child would probably be driven off or worse. This could happen in a "matriarchal" tribe too, patriarchy doesn't necessarily figure into it. This could also explain why an extremely tribal religion like Islam is so sexist.
Relatively speaking, it is very recent that we could have sex for the pleasure of it, with impunity. Of course our biological minds are lagging behind.. it still thinks we're living in caves and being hunted by giant bears after all.
The article is interesting, but it doesn't seem to provide a biological explanation for the competition gap, maybe the scientific article does, but not the Time's one.
What I understand from it, is that women are less likely to risk a smaller pay despite an uncertain bonus than men. This could relate to risk aversion, and while some argue, like you, that this kind of risk aversion might be due to cave age (not everyone agrees at all with the prehistoric conception of men and women) it may be due to other things too.
Once again, it is socially constructed that boys are usually encouraged to take risk and be competitive since their childhood, so it was, so it is (even though less). The competition gap might be induced solely on the base that (1) women (girls) are not taught when child to take risk but to secure. Why ? Maybe because we see them as fragile, or because we vehiculate an image of the strong man and the weak woman (2) women (girls) are not taught to be competitive, because competition is display, display is the public sphere, and the public sphere for very long was a men space. While women remain in the private sphere (household, housewives) and are facing no competition because they are alone
Does it mean they are less competitive, in the sense they have been taught to be, then yes of course it does. In the sense it is biologically embedded in their brain, I really don't think so and once again I feel the article does not provide biological evidence for this.(it is a psychological study, not a biological one, lead by economic professors, not biologists)
It just says there is a gap, they shy away from competition, they don't know where that shyness is from.
Now yes, i was agressive, I explained why in my last post, my apologies.
The notion that men and women are basically the same and that gender is a social construction and not something that arises from biological factors is more or less a by-product of the political climate of the 60s and 70s. There are so many differences between the male and female brain that there has to be more to it than just social conditioning/social expectations.. and certainly the entire field of evolutionary biology and a lot of observable behavior in animals (like our closest relatives) suggest that men and women behave differently according to their biology. Here's an example:
Scientists at Harvard University and Bates College say female chimpanzees appear to treat sticks as dolls, carrying them around until they have offspring of their own. Young males engage in such behavior much less frequently. [...] The two researchers say their work adds to a growing body of evidence that human children are probably born with their own ideas of how they want to behave, rather than simply mirroring other girls who play with dolls and boys who play with trucks.
Anybody who knows a few women in their 30s can attest to biology affects them. I know several women who had no interest in children, and no desire to have them, and then suddenly they have an intense need to procreate. Some also describe it not as a logical want or need, but as an extremely physical, bodily sensation.
On April 09 2013 21:08 r.Evo wrote: If those fantasy books play in a universe where men and women live in medieval times and are equal, those storylines are fine. If they play in a parallel universe of ours and try to be historical accurate, they'd be bullshit.
200 or more year old "save the princess"-stories inherently can't be sexist or discriminating because they're historically accurate. In general stereotyping isn't as evil as you might belief. Our world is defined by binary oppositions, it is not wrong to like a woman because she is more feminine or because she's more masculine. Just like it's not wrong to love men or to love women. What is wrong however is to tell people that they should feel bad for preferring one over the other or that it's not normal to prefer one. Stereotyping != discriminating.
Without stereotypes we couldn't call women women, books books or children children.
That's usually a scary trap I believe people who like to say "it's all equal stereotypes are bad" tend to fall into.
So yeah, the biggest issue is, that there's lack of choice, mostly when it comes to women who want to see strong hero characters, in not so "feminine" (goodness, I hate that definition) way, they are simply at loss. Maybe that is partially why people are upset at characters like Sansa in Game of Thrones, because they are always there, while the other one is not, and therefore, the Salsa-type character is preferred, which of course people like me will not like, because we like having the choice & don't want these characters to depict who we are in general..
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you don't read or watch much fantasy or fiction. I can't even begin to count the amount of female characters who are masculine (in the sense that they fight physically, are adventurous, bold, etc.) Probably more than the other side: female characters who are very feminine (would never fight physically, don't want adventure, passive). And universally, the feminine characters are shown as weak (except for their masculine traits) and the masculine characters are shown as strong (because of their masculine traits). The "tough chick" is so overused nowadays that it's one of the biggest cliches in the arts of storytelling. Can you name one character that you've seen in fantasy who is a strong feminine character? Strong in her femininity? I can name hundreds that are strong in their masculinity. Shit, the only real female character in LotR is Eowyn; and what is her storyline? That she wants to be (and succeeds in being) a warrior.
I see nothing wrong with preferring masculine female characters, but don't pretend like they don't exist.
On April 10 2013 04:41 Fruscainte wrote: I like arguing semantics.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
How.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
Your correct. There are examples of men being the victim of prejudice based on sex. There is no argument whether or not globally there are cultures that oppress women. right? There are a few obvious ones.
So then we want to talk about north american culture. If I understand you correctly you are saying that men and women face equal amount of prejudice everyday. I disagree. I feel that the insecurity created by how heavily society weighs a womans worth by her looks, significantly outweighs any prejudice men face. Over archingly, I dont believe its uncomon to have encountred more casual woman bashing than man bashing. Additionally there are not a group of activities which are labeled "manly" which have a negative conotation associated with them such as those associated with "girly". I feel that it is concretely true to say that our society views women with a measureable amount of negative prejudice.
I think trying to quantify who gets marginalized the most when it exists in large amounts on both sides is beyond petty.
I think it exists so much more on one side than the other that using the existance of the other side as justification is a weak arguement.
Nice strawman you set up there, where did you get it from if you don't mind me asking?
I never tried to justify anything. I said there's marginalization on both sides and both sides have clear benefits in our culture/society/legal system. I just listed some in my earlier post and I'd be glad to list them again. I have sources for them too, I'm not pulling these out of my ass. It's not about justification or blame, it's, as Anita put it, for simply acknowledging it's there. We can't progress to an egalitarian society without acknowledging it. Ignoring clear sexism against men because there may be "more" (however you deem that is quantifiable) against women is petty.
That is the purpose of my argument. Feminism is ridiculous because we should strive to remove ALL discrimination, not just discrimination against women.
I awknowledged it. Its funny you used the "Feminism is ridiculous" line this blog is about not using.
So the purpose of your post is don't ignore sexism against men? Im not sure why you responded to me saying cultres oppress women by saying dont forget about the men...
Who do you think is ignoring clear sexism against men?
On April 10 2013 04:41 Fruscainte wrote: I like arguing semantics.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
How.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
Your correct. There are examples of men being the victim of prejudice based on sex. There is no argument whether or not globally there are cultures that oppress women. right? There are a few obvious ones.
So then we want to talk about north american culture. If I understand you correctly you are saying that men and women face equal amount of prejudice everyday. I disagree. I feel that the insecurity created by how heavily society weighs a womans worth by her looks, significantly outweighs any prejudice men face. Over archingly, I dont believe its uncomon to have encountred more casual woman bashing than man bashing. Additionally there are not a group of activities which are labeled "manly" which have a negative conotation associated with them such as those associated with "girly". I feel that it is concretely true to say that our society views women with a measureable amount of negative prejudice.
I think trying to quantify who gets marginalized the most when it exists in large amounts on both sides is beyond petty.
I think it exists so much more on one side than the other that using the existance of the other side as justification is a weak arguement.
justification
Nice strawman you set up there, where did you get it from if you don't mind me asking?
I never tried to justify anything. I said there's marginalization on both sides and both sides have clear benefits in our culture/society/legal system. I just listed some in my earlier post and I'd be glad to list them again. I have sources for them too, I'm not pulling these out of my ass. It's not about justification or blame, it's, as Anita put it, for simply acknowledging it's there. We can't progress to an egalitarian society without acknowledging it. Ignoring clear sexism against men because there may be "more" (however you deem that is quantifiable) against women is petty.
That is the purpose of my argument. Feminism is ridiculous because we should strive to remove ALL discrimination, not just discrimination against women.
Im not sure why you responded to me saying cultres oppress women by saying dont forget about the men...
I'm not sure why you responded to my post about Western culture and sexism by talking about Middle Eastern countries as if I don't recognize that it exists. Of course there's a legitimate need for increased women rights in countries where they get battery acid thrown in their eyes for the "crime" of learning to read. I made out an entire post dedicated to the discussion of marginalization of men in Western culture and why equality isn't a one way street with a specific anecdotal example and legal examples ranging from the UK, to the U.S., to Canada. Yet you respond with a tangent about how there's discrimination elsewhere in the world.
I understand that. I think it's a given that places like Iran and shit need to have a wake up call. Hence why I have clearly stated, multiple times, we need to push for complete and utter global equality in the political and legal spheres. However, going on rants about how the "patriarchy" because of cultural tropes such as the damsel in distress in Mario or some shit is pedantic at best. Which is what I was originally posting about. That in terms of the Western world, in terms of legal/political/etc. discrimination, both men AND women are getting short ends of the stick in their own ways and we need to stop looking at this as a "feminism" or "patriarchy" issue but an "equality" issue, and to do that, we need to look at discrimination on both sides.
And yes, I do find the notion of feminism ridiculous which this blog is about not using. I respectfully disagree with OP.
On April 10 2013 04:41 Fruscainte wrote: I like arguing semantics.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
How.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
Your correct. There are examples of men being the victim of prejudice based on sex. There is no argument whether or not globally there are cultures that oppress women. right? There are a few obvious ones.
So then we want to talk about north american culture. If I understand you correctly you are saying that men and women face equal amount of prejudice everyday. I disagree. I feel that the insecurity created by how heavily society weighs a womans worth by her looks, significantly outweighs any prejudice men face. Over archingly, I dont believe its uncomon to have encountred more casual woman bashing than man bashing. Additionally there are not a group of activities which are labeled "manly" which have a negative conotation associated with them such as those associated with "girly". I feel that it is concretely true to say that our society views women with a measureable amount of negative prejudice.
I think trying to quantify who gets marginalized the most when it exists in large amounts on both sides is beyond petty.
I think it exists so much more on one side than the other that using the existance of the other side as justification is a weak arguement.
justification
Nice strawman you set up there, where did you get it from if you don't mind me asking?
I never tried to justify anything. I said there's marginalization on both sides and both sides have clear benefits in our culture/society/legal system. I just listed some in my earlier post and I'd be glad to list them again. I have sources for them too, I'm not pulling these out of my ass. It's not about justification or blame, it's, as Anita put it, for simply acknowledging it's there. We can't progress to an egalitarian society without acknowledging it. Ignoring clear sexism against men because there may be "more" (however you deem that is quantifiable) against women is petty.
That is the purpose of my argument. Feminism is ridiculous because we should strive to remove ALL discrimination, not just discrimination against women.
Im not sure why you responded to me saying cultres oppress women by saying dont forget about the men...
I'm not sure why you responded to my post about Western culture and sexism by talking about Middle Eastern countries as if I don't recognize that it exists. Of course there's a legitimate need for increased women rights in countries where they get battery acid thrown in their eyes for the "crime" of learning to read. I made out an entire post dedicated to the discussion of marginalization of men in Western culture and why equality isn't a one way street with a specific anecdotal example and legal examples ranging from the UK, to the U.S., to Canada. Yet you respond with a tangent about how there's discrimination elsewhere in the world.
I understand that. I think it's a given that places like Iran and shit need to have a wake up call. Hence why I have clearly stated, multiple times, we need to push for complete and utter global equality in the political and legal spheres. However, going on rants about how the "patriarchy" because of cultural tropes such as the damsel in distress in Mario or some shit is pedantic at best. Which is what I was originally posting about. That in terms of the Western world, in terms of legal/political/etc. discrimination, both men AND women are getting short ends of the stick in their own ways and we need to stop looking at this as a "feminism" or "patriarchy" issue but an "equality" issue, and to do that, we need to look at discrimination on both sides.
And yes, I do find the notion of feminism ridiculous which this blog is about not using. I respectfully disagree with OP.
I... think you have me confused with someone else. I didnt mention middle eastern countries. and I didnt go on a tangent about how theres discrimination elsewhere in the world.
I think there is a patriarchy issue. As a man in a male dominated environment, why do you feel entitled to tell me that men have it just as bad and I should be focused on mens rights just as much as womens. I strongly feel that women still suffer from more prejudice and social stigma in western society. You can tell me im wrong but thats just like your opinion man. I graciously accepted your point that there have been cases where men experienced prejudice for being men. Feminism at its core for me is stopping the oppression of women. Im more concerned about stopping the oppression of the sex that has been oppressed for all of history. You can say you think we need to take a step back and balance the mistreatment of men at the same time... good for you. but thats not my priority.
On April 10 2013 04:41 Fruscainte wrote: I like arguing semantics.
I just don't understand why we can't call it egalitarianism, because that's what we should be striving for. Feminism implies something, at least to me, something far different than egalitarianism does.
Also, egalitarianism doesn't mean making everyone a bunch of equal grey blobs. There are clear differences between the mental, emotional, and physical characteristics of men and women. Let's celebrate that and embrace that and use that to our advantage instead of trying to make our relationship with each other something it isn't. I think we should strive for true legal egalitarianism and true political egalitarianism and them leave it alone. Let the culture define itself.
I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
How.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
Your correct. There are examples of men being the victim of prejudice based on sex. There is no argument whether or not globally there are cultures that oppress women. right? There are a few obvious ones.
So then we want to talk about north american culture. If I understand you correctly you are saying that men and women face equal amount of prejudice everyday. I disagree. I feel that the insecurity created by how heavily society weighs a womans worth by her looks, significantly outweighs any prejudice men face. Over archingly, I dont believe its uncomon to have encountred more casual woman bashing than man bashing. Additionally there are not a group of activities which are labeled "manly" which have a negative conotation associated with them such as those associated with "girly". I feel that it is concretely true to say that our society views women with a measureable amount of negative prejudice.
I think trying to quantify who gets marginalized the most when it exists in large amounts on both sides is beyond petty.
I think it exists so much more on one side than the other that using the existance of the other side as justification is a weak arguement.
justification
Nice strawman you set up there, where did you get it from if you don't mind me asking?
I never tried to justify anything. I said there's marginalization on both sides and both sides have clear benefits in our culture/society/legal system. I just listed some in my earlier post and I'd be glad to list them again. I have sources for them too, I'm not pulling these out of my ass. It's not about justification or blame, it's, as Anita put it, for simply acknowledging it's there. We can't progress to an egalitarian society without acknowledging it. Ignoring clear sexism against men because there may be "more" (however you deem that is quantifiable) against women is petty.
That is the purpose of my argument. Feminism is ridiculous because we should strive to remove ALL discrimination, not just discrimination against women.
Im not sure why you responded to me saying cultres oppress women by saying dont forget about the men...
I'm not sure why you responded to my post about Western culture and sexism by talking about Middle Eastern countries as if I don't recognize that it exists. Of course there's a legitimate need for increased women rights in countries where they get battery acid thrown in their eyes for the "crime" of learning to read. I made out an entire post dedicated to the discussion of marginalization of men in Western culture and why equality isn't a one way street with a specific anecdotal example and legal examples ranging from the UK, to the U.S., to Canada. Yet you respond with a tangent about how there's discrimination elsewhere in the world.
I understand that. I think it's a given that places like Iran and shit need to have a wake up call. Hence why I have clearly stated, multiple times, we need to push for complete and utter global equality in the political and legal spheres. However, going on rants about how the "patriarchy" because of cultural tropes such as the damsel in distress in Mario or some shit is pedantic at best. Which is what I was originally posting about. That in terms of the Western world, in terms of legal/political/etc. discrimination, both men AND women are getting short ends of the stick in their own ways and we need to stop looking at this as a "feminism" or "patriarchy" issue but an "equality" issue, and to do that, we need to look at discrimination on both sides.
And yes, I do find the notion of feminism ridiculous which this blog is about not using. I respectfully disagree with OP.
I... think you have me confused with someone else. I didnt mention middle eastern countries. and I didnt go on a tangent about how theres discrimination elsewhere in the world.
I think there is a patriarchy issue. As a man in a male dominated environment, why do you feel entitled to tell me that men have it just as bad and I should be focused on mens rights just as much as womens. I strongly feel that women still suffer from more prejudice and social stigma in western society. You can tell me im wrong but thats just like your opinion man. I graciously accepted your point that there have been cases where men experienced prejudice for being men. Feminism at its core for me is stopping the oppression of women. Im more concerned about stopping the oppression of the sex that has been oppressed for all of history. You can say you think we need to take a step back and balance the mistreatment of men at the same time... good for you. but thats not my priority.
why do you feel entitled to tell me that men have it just as bad and I should be focused on mens rights just as much as womens.
....Because men are people too and deserve equal treatment to women?
Also, please stop strawmanning my posts. Please cite me where I said we have it "just as bad", I'm saying it exists in high amounts on both sides and to ignore one side completely is sexism in itself and completely throws away the notion that you want egalitarianism.
On April 10 2013 04:48 ComaDose wrote: [quote] I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
How.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
Your correct. There are examples of men being the victim of prejudice based on sex. There is no argument whether or not globally there are cultures that oppress women. right? There are a few obvious ones.
So then we want to talk about north american culture. If I understand you correctly you are saying that men and women face equal amount of prejudice everyday. I disagree. I feel that the insecurity created by how heavily society weighs a womans worth by her looks, significantly outweighs any prejudice men face. Over archingly, I dont believe its uncomon to have encountred more casual woman bashing than man bashing. Additionally there are not a group of activities which are labeled "manly" which have a negative conotation associated with them such as those associated with "girly". I feel that it is concretely true to say that our society views women with a measureable amount of negative prejudice.
I think trying to quantify who gets marginalized the most when it exists in large amounts on both sides is beyond petty.
I think it exists so much more on one side than the other that using the existance of the other side as justification is a weak arguement.
justification
Nice strawman you set up there, where did you get it from if you don't mind me asking?
I never tried to justify anything. I said there's marginalization on both sides and both sides have clear benefits in our culture/society/legal system. I just listed some in my earlier post and I'd be glad to list them again. I have sources for them too, I'm not pulling these out of my ass. It's not about justification or blame, it's, as Anita put it, for simply acknowledging it's there. We can't progress to an egalitarian society without acknowledging it. Ignoring clear sexism against men because there may be "more" (however you deem that is quantifiable) against women is petty.
That is the purpose of my argument. Feminism is ridiculous because we should strive to remove ALL discrimination, not just discrimination against women.
Im not sure why you responded to me saying cultres oppress women by saying dont forget about the men...
I'm not sure why you responded to my post about Western culture and sexism by talking about Middle Eastern countries as if I don't recognize that it exists. Of course there's a legitimate need for increased women rights in countries where they get battery acid thrown in their eyes for the "crime" of learning to read. I made out an entire post dedicated to the discussion of marginalization of men in Western culture and why equality isn't a one way street with a specific anecdotal example and legal examples ranging from the UK, to the U.S., to Canada. Yet you respond with a tangent about how there's discrimination elsewhere in the world.
I understand that. I think it's a given that places like Iran and shit need to have a wake up call. Hence why I have clearly stated, multiple times, we need to push for complete and utter global equality in the political and legal spheres. However, going on rants about how the "patriarchy" because of cultural tropes such as the damsel in distress in Mario or some shit is pedantic at best. Which is what I was originally posting about. That in terms of the Western world, in terms of legal/political/etc. discrimination, both men AND women are getting short ends of the stick in their own ways and we need to stop looking at this as a "feminism" or "patriarchy" issue but an "equality" issue, and to do that, we need to look at discrimination on both sides.
And yes, I do find the notion of feminism ridiculous which this blog is about not using. I respectfully disagree with OP.
I... think you have me confused with someone else. I didnt mention middle eastern countries. and I didnt go on a tangent about how theres discrimination elsewhere in the world.
I think there is a patriarchy issue. As a man in a male dominated environment, why do you feel entitled to tell me that men have it just as bad and I should be focused on mens rights just as much as womens. I strongly feel that women still suffer from more prejudice and social stigma in western society. You can tell me im wrong but thats just like your opinion man. I graciously accepted your point that there have been cases where men experienced prejudice for being men. Feminism at its core for me is stopping the oppression of women. Im more concerned about stopping the oppression of the sex that has been oppressed for all of history. You can say you think we need to take a step back and balance the mistreatment of men at the same time... good for you. but thats not my priority.
why do you feel entitled to tell me that men have it just as bad and I should be focused on mens rights just as much as womens.
....Because men are people too and deserve equal treatment to women?
Also, please stop strawmanning my posts. Please cite me where I said we have it "just as bad", I'm saying it exists in high amounts on both sides and to ignore one side completely is sexism in itself and completely throws away the notion that you want egalitarianism.
the largest difference in our views seems to be that you are approaching the topic as if prejudice against the sexes is remotely close to equal now. I disagree.
I know men are people too and deserve equal treatment to women. Do you understand how an intellectual that believes that there exists much more sexism at women than men could be more concerned about those issues? especially when you consider we live in a male dominated society and have for all known history?
It is not sexist to try and improve womens rights. It is not being discriminatory or prejudice against men.
It is wearisom to continue to respond like this when you just completely ignore everytime I correct you. I may have insinuated your implication and attacked it. but you strait up made shit up.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
Your correct. There are examples of men being the victim of prejudice based on sex. There is no argument whether or not globally there are cultures that oppress women. right? There are a few obvious ones.
So then we want to talk about north american culture. If I understand you correctly you are saying that men and women face equal amount of prejudice everyday. I disagree. I feel that the insecurity created by how heavily society weighs a womans worth by her looks, significantly outweighs any prejudice men face. Over archingly, I dont believe its uncomon to have encountred more casual woman bashing than man bashing. Additionally there are not a group of activities which are labeled "manly" which have a negative conotation associated with them such as those associated with "girly". I feel that it is concretely true to say that our society views women with a measureable amount of negative prejudice.
I think trying to quantify who gets marginalized the most when it exists in large amounts on both sides is beyond petty.
I think it exists so much more on one side than the other that using the existance of the other side as justification is a weak arguement.
justification
Nice strawman you set up there, where did you get it from if you don't mind me asking?
I never tried to justify anything. I said there's marginalization on both sides and both sides have clear benefits in our culture/society/legal system. I just listed some in my earlier post and I'd be glad to list them again. I have sources for them too, I'm not pulling these out of my ass. It's not about justification or blame, it's, as Anita put it, for simply acknowledging it's there. We can't progress to an egalitarian society without acknowledging it. Ignoring clear sexism against men because there may be "more" (however you deem that is quantifiable) against women is petty.
That is the purpose of my argument. Feminism is ridiculous because we should strive to remove ALL discrimination, not just discrimination against women.
Im not sure why you responded to me saying cultres oppress women by saying dont forget about the men...
I'm not sure why you responded to my post about Western culture and sexism by talking about Middle Eastern countries as if I don't recognize that it exists. Of course there's a legitimate need for increased women rights in countries where they get battery acid thrown in their eyes for the "crime" of learning to read. I made out an entire post dedicated to the discussion of marginalization of men in Western culture and why equality isn't a one way street with a specific anecdotal example and legal examples ranging from the UK, to the U.S., to Canada. Yet you respond with a tangent about how there's discrimination elsewhere in the world.
I understand that. I think it's a given that places like Iran and shit need to have a wake up call. Hence why I have clearly stated, multiple times, we need to push for complete and utter global equality in the political and legal spheres. However, going on rants about how the "patriarchy" because of cultural tropes such as the damsel in distress in Mario or some shit is pedantic at best. Which is what I was originally posting about. That in terms of the Western world, in terms of legal/political/etc. discrimination, both men AND women are getting short ends of the stick in their own ways and we need to stop looking at this as a "feminism" or "patriarchy" issue but an "equality" issue, and to do that, we need to look at discrimination on both sides.
And yes, I do find the notion of feminism ridiculous which this blog is about not using. I respectfully disagree with OP.
I... think you have me confused with someone else. I didnt mention middle eastern countries. and I didnt go on a tangent about how theres discrimination elsewhere in the world.
I think there is a patriarchy issue. As a man in a male dominated environment, why do you feel entitled to tell me that men have it just as bad and I should be focused on mens rights just as much as womens. I strongly feel that women still suffer from more prejudice and social stigma in western society. You can tell me im wrong but thats just like your opinion man. I graciously accepted your point that there have been cases where men experienced prejudice for being men. Feminism at its core for me is stopping the oppression of women. Im more concerned about stopping the oppression of the sex that has been oppressed for all of history. You can say you think we need to take a step back and balance the mistreatment of men at the same time... good for you. but thats not my priority.
why do you feel entitled to tell me that men have it just as bad and I should be focused on mens rights just as much as womens.
....Because men are people too and deserve equal treatment to women?
Also, please stop strawmanning my posts. Please cite me where I said we have it "just as bad", I'm saying it exists in high amounts on both sides and to ignore one side completely is sexism in itself and completely throws away the notion that you want egalitarianism.
the largest difference in our views seems to be that you are approaching the topic as if prejudice against the sexes is remotely close to equal now.
On April 10 2013 04:48 ComaDose wrote: [quote] I think a big problem with letting the culture define itself is that a lot of culture is currently oppressing the rights of women.
How.
By making video games where people save princess'? This isn't 1910, we live in a very equalized world. I think for true egalitarianism we need to accept some hard facts. The hard facts are that yes, we men do have a lot of benefits or "perks" per se that women do not have. However, on the flip side, women also have many benefits/perks in our society that men do not have the luxury of having, this goes double for United States culture which I assume is the primary focus of this discussion.
Let me just give a personal example. I've worked in retail most of my life. I have the most experience with Publix. Want to know where almost every single guy works? In the back. We are cleaning the dishes, we are collecting the plates in terms of the restaurant I worked at (which are even worse in this regard), we are cooking the food in the hot ass kitchen, we are forced to go outside and collect the grocery carts in the hot ass heat, we have to stack the shelves, we have to COLLECT THE FUCKING GROCERY CARTS IN 100 DEGREE WEATHER GOD DAMN, so on and so forth. Want to know where I've never seen a woman assigned to? Those above jobs. Want to know what they do do? They sit in the nice air conditioned front area where the customers are checking out groceries or working the deli area making subs for people, also a very chilled and pleasant place to work. In fact I think the only time I ever saw a male working a cashier counter in the 3 Publix's I've worked at was when it was super busy and one of the suits had to step in and help. No girls were required to ask customers if they'd like help with their groceries, guys were.
Let me make this clear though -- I'm not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY or some shit. I'm being paid a salary and I do the job I'm assigned and I love where I work regardless. I just want to emphasize this isn't a one way street. It's a give and take and let me make it clear I don't feel privileged at all that I have to sign up for the draft and women don't despite now being able to fight in combat or that since 1976 the Department of Justice has shown that men are ten times more likely to be executed than a woman for the same crime, or that until late 2010 British Airways would not allow an unrelated adult to sit next to an unaccompanied child on any flight (note: this policy only applied to males). I don't feel privileged that in Canada fathers can not apply for Federal Child Benefits without getting a signed note from the childs mother or that in Massachusetts the likelihood of a female being imprisoned for not paying child support is 1/8th the rate of that of a male.
Again, not saying FUCK THE MATRIARCHY. We all have privileges. We need to stop pretending it's a one way street.
EDIT: I feel obligated to put a source list for that last tangent there:
Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support - Consumer Income, Issued December 2011, P60-240. Current Population Reports. U.S. Department of Commerce,
British Airways:
BA says men cannot sit with lone children. The Times. Smith, Lewis (16 March 2001).
Who Can Sit Next to Children on Flights? Forbes. Hans, Joshua (14 August 2012)
Your correct. There are examples of men being the victim of prejudice based on sex. There is no argument whether or not globally there are cultures that oppress women. right? There are a few obvious ones.
So then we want to talk about north american culture. If I understand you correctly you are saying that men and women face equal amount of prejudice everyday. I disagree. I feel that the insecurity created by how heavily society weighs a womans worth by her looks, significantly outweighs any prejudice men face. Over archingly, I dont believe its uncomon to have encountred more casual woman bashing than man bashing. Additionally there are not a group of activities which are labeled "manly" which have a negative conotation associated with them such as those associated with "girly". I feel that it is concretely true to say that our society views women with a measureable amount of negative prejudice.
I think trying to quantify who gets marginalized the most when it exists in large amounts on both sides is beyond petty.
I think it exists so much more on one side than the other that using the existance of the other side as justification is a weak arguement.
justification
Nice strawman you set up there, where did you get it from if you don't mind me asking?
I never tried to justify anything. I said there's marginalization on both sides and both sides have clear benefits in our culture/society/legal system. I just listed some in my earlier post and I'd be glad to list them again. I have sources for them too, I'm not pulling these out of my ass. It's not about justification or blame, it's, as Anita put it, for simply acknowledging it's there. We can't progress to an egalitarian society without acknowledging it. Ignoring clear sexism against men because there may be "more" (however you deem that is quantifiable) against women is petty.
That is the purpose of my argument. Feminism is ridiculous because we should strive to remove ALL discrimination, not just discrimination against women.
Im not sure why you responded to me saying cultres oppress women by saying dont forget about the men...
I'm not sure why you responded to my post about Western culture and sexism by talking about Middle Eastern countries as if I don't recognize that it exists. Of course there's a legitimate need for increased women rights in countries where they get battery acid thrown in their eyes for the "crime" of learning to read. I made out an entire post dedicated to the discussion of marginalization of men in Western culture and why equality isn't a one way street with a specific anecdotal example and legal examples ranging from the UK, to the U.S., to Canada. Yet you respond with a tangent about how there's discrimination elsewhere in the world.
I understand that. I think it's a given that places like Iran and shit need to have a wake up call. Hence why I have clearly stated, multiple times, we need to push for complete and utter global equality in the political and legal spheres. However, going on rants about how the "patriarchy" because of cultural tropes such as the damsel in distress in Mario or some shit is pedantic at best. Which is what I was originally posting about. That in terms of the Western world, in terms of legal/political/etc. discrimination, both men AND women are getting short ends of the stick in their own ways and we need to stop looking at this as a "feminism" or "patriarchy" issue but an "equality" issue, and to do that, we need to look at discrimination on both sides.
And yes, I do find the notion of feminism ridiculous which this blog is about not using. I respectfully disagree with OP.
I... think you have me confused with someone else. I didnt mention middle eastern countries. and I didnt go on a tangent about how theres discrimination elsewhere in the world.
I think there is a patriarchy issue. As a man in a male dominated environment, why do you feel entitled to tell me that men have it just as bad and I should be focused on mens rights just as much as womens. I strongly feel that women still suffer from more prejudice and social stigma in western society. You can tell me im wrong but thats just like your opinion man. I graciously accepted your point that there have been cases where men experienced prejudice for being men. Feminism at its core for me is stopping the oppression of women. Im more concerned about stopping the oppression of the sex that has been oppressed for all of history. You can say you think we need to take a step back and balance the mistreatment of men at the same time... good for you. but thats not my priority.
why do you feel entitled to tell me that men have it just as bad and I should be focused on mens rights just as much as womens.
....Because men are people too and deserve equal treatment to women?
Also, please stop strawmanning my posts. Please cite me where I said we have it "just as bad", I'm saying it exists in high amounts on both sides and to ignore one side completely is sexism in itself and completely throws away the notion that you want egalitarianism.
On April 09 2013 13:03 zbedlam wrote: Nothing is wrong with feminism.
Something is wrong with feminists in general however, every feminist I have met has acted like all men are rapists etc.
Women are not a minority, women are not repressed in the western world, there is very little reason for the hate mongering this fringe group seems to vocalise consistantly.
They're not legally discriminated against for the most part, I still feel there is much to say about media culture and portrayals of women in that sense that is an important to discuss and debate.
Yup on the media portrayal stuff.
Legally, however, the law isn't necessarily free of systemic gender inequality either...
Sexual assault cases are often the worst on this. There are pervasive, popular, and harmful opinions that often negatively impact these cases.
The most common of course is that women are somehow responsible for their victimization or are "liars". Most people are no stranger to this problem. There's no shortage of pictures on tumblr and reddit of women holding up signs on the matter. It's easy to dismiss the matter as Yet Another Internet Social Justice Campaign.
But these opinions are widely held, sometimes unconsciously. Worse so, they have a real and harmful impact.
One of the more shocking examples of this happened in Canada a few years back -- where a judge of the Alberta Court of Appeal, Justice McClung, commented in a sexual assault case that "the complainant did not present herself to Ewanchuk or enter his trailer in a bonnet and crinolines”. He went on to talk about how, if she really didn't want to have sex, she would have physically resisted.
This is a comment by a member of the judiciary. Not some uneducated juror.
To top it off, the case was appealed to our Supreme Court and a female Justice (L'Heureux Dube) rebuked those comments, pointing out that requiring physical resistance means that women across the country would have to literally fight off their assailants.
Immediately after the decision was rendered, the Justice McClung wrote a letter to a national newspaper stating that: "The personal convictions of [Justice L'Heureux Dube], delivered again from her judicial chair, could provide a plausible explanation for the disparate (and growing) number of male suicides being reported in the province of Quebec."
Yep. In his mind, Justice L'Heureux Dube is responsible for a male suicide epidemic because of her feminism.
To add salt in the wound, L'Heureux Dube's husband had actually committed suicide many years ago.
It's a sensational example of course. It's not often that there is a public controversy between judges. But in any case, it's an example of how harmful stereotypes can pervade the system--even manifesting itself in written judgments.
It's obvious in this case. McClung's views are so ensrhined in him that they made it into his written decision, but what happens when these things aren't on the surface? It's not so obvious when a trier of fact unintentionally disregards a female witness because he feels she was asking for it.
And yet, more often than not you'll see plenty of people respond to these problems with, "Yeah but what about all those wrongful convictions of males!?" As if a) it happens as often (it doesn't) and b) two wrongs make a right.
Anyway, I'm kind of rambling here. I've used your post as an excuse to go off on how the justice system is by no means perfect... but I think I've touched on what really gets me going when it comes to these discussions online. That is, people often respond to valid feminist complaints with, not a rebuttal, but a deflection.
On April 09 2013 13:23 Ruscour wrote: There is no problem with feminism, there is a problem with people who call themselves "feminists", and in reality feminism in everyone's mind becomes what they see feminism to be, which has become a lot of nitpicking and cis white male-hating. If you care about equality for everyone, why label yourself with a term clearly favouring a particular gender? We are far from gender equality for women, but at the same time it's nowhere near as one-sided as it once was. Modern feminists don't care about men's issues while expecting men to care about theirs.
Why should they care about men's issues? Did a civil rights activist in the 60s have to care about white people problems?
I'm not sure how that affects the, often valid, complaints they raise. However annoying it can be when its in your face and you already know it.
@ComaDose I don't know that it's possible to say men / women suffer from more discrimination without further refining the area in which you are speaking. I don't have my ear to the streets and wouldn't say I know what's happening above or below me, culturally... but if you were to declare that middle class north america was grossly discriminatory against women, I would wholeheartedly disagree.
On an indirectly related subject, what's always weirded me out about feminism is that there isn't really a healthy place for men in it. I've a few friends that subscribe to some of the various branches of feminism (Which is a subject in itself... saying something like "Feminism is ridiculous" is about as impactful as saying "Religion is ridiculous" because anyone that hears it will assume you're referring to their particular branch... and for all intents and purposes Christianity is to Buddhism as 'original' Feminism is to Modern.) and between talks with them and reading some of the stuff suggested to me, I've arrived at the conclusion that my natural impulse of "Awesome! This is objectively good! What can I do to support it?" could ultimately be construed as a natural male impulse to support and provide, thereby robbing her of the opportunity to build something herself. Meaning that the actual answer for "What can I do to support it?" as a dude is to basically stay the hell out of the way and let her do her thing.
Is it possible to be a "Male feminist" without just straight white-knighting? And if so, why the fuck would it still be called feminism?
Comparing the current state of the female to the state of the black in the 60's is fucking despicable.
I don't even got anything more to say, that's just disgusting you think it's any comparable. Are women being water blasted by policemen for protesting? Are women being lynched for wanting more rights? Are women not allowed to go to schools with men?
On April 10 2013 08:09 Fruscainte wrote: Comparing the current state of the female to the state of the black in the 60's is fucking despicable.
I don't even got anything more to say, that's just disgusting you think it's any comparable. Are women being water blasted by policemen for protesting? Are women being lynched for wanting more rights? Are women not allowed to go to schools with men?
But this isn't about comparing the plight of people. You missed the entire point. Let me spell it out for you:
When someone raises a valid feminist criticism, a common response is not to rebut but to deflect. Asking women to "care about mens issues" too is ignoring the very valid complaints. There is no obligation for any one person to "care' about every single issue various groups face.
My problem is that I have fallen kind of lock, stock, and barrel into that final idea the OP outlined, that (essentially) "Feminism isn't immediately ridiculous because the person/company/idea being yelled about isn't blatantly or even consciously perpetuating the feminist problem."
I have interacted with so many feminists that declare me a "rape apologist" because I think advice like "Hey, don't go down that alleyway at night" is appropriate. Apparently I'm not supposed to give common sense safety advice. I'm supposed to go around to men and say "Hey, don't rape women in that alleyway."
The minute I look at a particularly hazy case of alleged rape and admit "You know...it is kind of hard to legally prove that she was raped" I'm no better than the "alleged" rapist. I never once said she wasn't raped, nor did I ever say that if she was she deserved it, or that the guy deserved to avoid jail time. I merely said that the guy might be innocent, and I am condemned to the special circle of Hell reserved for rapists.
How about the fact that it's now become a social joke to be proud of your masculinity? If I lift up something particularly heavy, and even hint at bragging about it, I'm being an idiot jock, or a belligerent misogynist. Why? Women can brag about child birth, but I can't brag about the fact that since I'm a foot taller and have one hundred pounds on a girl that I can lift something heavier than she can? Women can have "Sweet 16s," but what do guys get now? And if I wanted a party to mark my 16th party like a "Sweet 16" does, I would be lambasted.
Women can brag about having their husbands/boyfriends/friends wrapped around their little finger, but if a man does, he's an abusive spouse. Don't even get me started on the idea of men as victims of rape by women. (EDIT: As in, the idea that a man can't ever be raped by a woman because he has a penis, and those things get hard.)
There are legitimate points where women are discriminated against by society, and I think those should obviously be worked upon and abolished outright, as with any discrimination. But I have interacted with so many fullbore, over the top feminists that I honestly believe I have lost sight of what a reasonable, grounded feminist actually looks like/believes. And I'm not even talking about random internet commenters/blogs. Everything I listed above is from face to face conversations I've either had with the Feminist Registered Student Organization on campus or with my own feminist friends.
TL;DR: I don't hate women (in the slightest) and actively believe and communicate that women should be treated equally with men. I believe that there is no reason EVER to treat a woman differently simply because she's a woman. I thought that was enough to be considered at least a friend of the feminists, if not a feminist myself. Apparently, I have to actively wish to subjugate the entire male population to the whims of feminists (purposefully didn't use the word women there. Woman =/= feminist) in order to even apply for passage at the gate. And that's where, I feel, a lot of the ridicule and ignoring of certain "social outrage" stems from. The vocal minority pisses in the pool, and won't even let anyone in to see if they'd still like to swim in it.
On April 10 2013 08:09 Fruscainte wrote: Are women being lynched for wanting more rights?
No, women are not literally being lynched, but there are plenty of posts in this thread (and all the other threads on feminism on TL) that deride the push for social and political equality for women - some of them written by yourself.
For the record, the term "humanism" is taken by another ideology; it has nothing to do with equal rights for all people regardless of gender. Egalitarianism is closer, but it implies that we are all already equal by status quo, which remains untrue.
EDIT: I feel like there are a lot of people in this thread saying "feminism is good on paper, but all the feminists I've interacted with are extremists", which is like saying, "religion is good on paper, but all the Catholics I've met are extremists" - just because you've experienced one end of something doesn't and didn't like it doesn't absolve you of the responsibility of being open-minded to the wider concept.
On April 10 2013 08:04 Staboteur wrote: @ComaDose I don't know that it's possible to say men / women suffer from more discrimination without further refining the area in which you are speaking. I don't have my ear to the streets and wouldn't say I know what's happening above or below me, culturally... but if you were to declare that middle class north america was grossly discriminatory against women, I would wholeheartedly disagree.
On an indirectly related subject, what's always weirded me out about feminism is that there isn't really a healthy place for men in it. I've a few friends that subscribe to some of the various branches of feminism (Which is a subject in itself... saying something like "Feminism is ridiculous" is about as impactful as saying "Religion is ridiculous" because anyone that hears it will assume you're referring to their particular branch... and for all intents and purposes Christianity is to Buddhism as 'original' Feminism is to Modern.) and between talks with them and reading some of the stuff suggested to me, I've arrived at the conclusion that my natural impulse of "Awesome! This is objectively good! What can I do to support it?" could ultimately be construed as a natural male impulse to support and provide, thereby robbing her of the opportunity to build something herself. Meaning that the actual answer for "What can I do to support it?" as a dude is to basically stay the hell out of the way and let her do her thing.
Is it possible to be a "Male feminist" without just straight white-knighting? And if so, why the fuck would it still be called feminism?
Yeah of course! like I said earlier the root of feminism is anti oppression against women which of course is a good thing! good picture from earlyer post: + Show Spoiler +
So yeah I am a feminist masculinist LGBTIQist and LGBTist lol who wouldn't be? I like what you said about religion cause its pretty much what I said in my earlyer post.
Now about the middle class north america thing. It's difficult to begin explaining why the way the world is reflects commonly held opinions that may have negative effects on women specifically. I would say that a good example and keystone to start explaining it would be women's representation in the media. The oversexualized woman that appears in the majority of womens roles in advertising advocates and legitimized many opinions that are held by society. Similarly the housewife and docile home-care giver represented in a multitude of shows and movies presently further reinforce a stereotype of women. Whether these opinions are voiced or even acknowledged consciously is a matter of awareness. These things in and of themselves are not sexist. It is the mentality of the objectified woman that is sexist. and these things serve to reinforce that. This is the mentality that leads to examples like the woman who was raped two years ago who was teased and insulted by the police when she called for help. The first questions she were asked were about her intoxication and outfit and how willingly she went to his apartment, all of which are irrelevant, and would not be brought up in a less woman oriented crime. Similarly, I would be surprised if you haven't notice a not so subtle tinge of misogyny in standard locker-room banter when it turns to women. e.g. "lol bitches dont know shit" is an extremely sexist thing to say. Once you unlock an understanding that women do not particularly enjoy being viewed the way society is asking them to be, you cant watch 15 min of middle class north american television without witnessing the objectification of women.
On April 10 2013 08:09 Fruscainte wrote: Comparing the current state of the female to the state of the black in the 60's is fucking despicable.
I don't even got anything more to say, that's just disgusting you think it's any comparable. Are women being water blasted by policemen for protesting? Are women being lynched for wanting more rights? Are women not allowed to go to schools with men?
But this isn't about comparing the plight of people. You missed the entire point. Let me spell it out for you:
When someone raises a valid feminist criticism, a common response is not to rebut but to deflect. Asking women to "care about mens issues" too is ignoring the very valid complaints. There is no obligation for any one person to "care' about every single issue various groups face.
To play the devil's advocate:
So he's good (or just as bad) then?
I mean, theoretically he's raising valid "male-ist" criticism, but his responses are deflected more than rebutted.
Unless you count anecdotal evidence, in which case I'd (unfairly, but still) point out that my mother beat me when I was young, and a good friend of mine has a warrant out for his arrest because his girlfriend screamed abuse (and he was charged with zero evidence for something she openly admits she entirely made up), and that more than one fellow I've worked with over the years were sexually abused by peers/teachers in their earlier years and still show scarring from a wound they (as males) aren't even allowed to admit is a wound. And that's just stuff that's happened to -me-, nevermind the stuff that isn't socially relevant or a "good story" and thereby won't show up in papers.
As a disclaimer, I won't be able to click the "post" button without feeling like an ass. I want to clarify that I'm playing the devil's advocate here, and I ABSOLUTELY understand that rape is a fucking HORRIBLE crime and one where female victims are in majority.
On April 09 2013 21:08 r.Evo wrote: If those fantasy books play in a universe where men and women live in medieval times and are equal, those storylines are fine. If they play in a parallel universe of ours and try to be historical accurate, they'd be bullshit.
200 or more year old "save the princess"-stories inherently can't be sexist or discriminating because they're historically accurate. In general stereotyping isn't as evil as you might belief. Our world is defined by binary oppositions, it is not wrong to like a woman because she is more feminine or because she's more masculine. Just like it's not wrong to love men or to love women. What is wrong however is to tell people that they should feel bad for preferring one over the other or that it's not normal to prefer one. Stereotyping != discriminating.
Without stereotypes we couldn't call women women, books books or children children.
That's usually a scary trap I believe people who like to say "it's all equal stereotypes are bad" tend to fall into.
So yeah, the biggest issue is, that there's lack of choice, mostly when it comes to women who want to see strong hero characters, in not so "feminine" (goodness, I hate that definition) way, they are simply at loss. Maybe that is partially why people are upset at characters like Sansa in Game of Thrones, because they are always there, while the other one is not, and therefore, the Salsa-type character is preferred, which of course people like me will not like, because we like having the choice & don't want these characters to depict who we are in general..
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you don't read or watch much fantasy or fiction. I can't even begin to count the amount of female characters who are masculine (in the sense that they fight physically, are adventurous, bold, etc.) Probably more than the other side: female characters who are very feminine (would never fight physically, don't want adventure, passive). And universally, the feminine characters are shown as weak (except for their masculine traits) and the masculine characters are shown as strong (because of their masculine traits). The "tough chick" is so overused nowadays that it's one of the biggest cliches in the arts of storytelling. Can you name one character that you've seen in fantasy who is a strong feminine character? Strong in her femininity? I can name hundreds that are strong in their masculinity. Shit, the only real female character in LotR is Eowyn; and what is her storyline? That she wants to be (and succeeds in being) a warrior.
I see nothing wrong with preferring masculine female characters, but don't pretend like they don't exist.
I think it's extremely self defeating and harmful towards women when you explicitly define passivity and "not wanting adventure" as feminine. I don't think the conversation will move any further if you can't see why. I think it's ridiculous to dictate that an audience must like completely passive characters. I think we should be able to expect more from our fictional heroes.
On April 10 2013 08:09 Fruscainte wrote: Comparing the current state of the female to the state of the black in the 60's is fucking despicable.
I don't even got anything more to say, that's just disgusting you think it's any comparable. Are women being water blasted by policemen for protesting? Are women being lynched for wanting more rights? Are women not allowed to go to schools with men?
But this isn't about comparing the plight of people. You missed the entire point. Let me spell it out for you:
When someone raises a valid feminist criticism, a common response is not to rebut but to deflect. Asking women to "care about mens issues" too is ignoring the very valid complaints. There is no obligation for any one person to "care' about every single issue various groups face.
To play the devil's advocate:
So he's good (or just as bad) then?
I mean, theoretically he's raising valid "male-ist" criticism, but his responses are deflected more than rebutted.
Unless you count anecdotal evidence, in which case I'd (unfairly, but still) point out that my mother beat me when I was young, and a good friend of mine has a warrant out for his arrest because his girlfriend screamed abuse (and he was charged with zero evidence for something she openly admits she entirely made up), and that more than one fellow I've worked with over the years were sexually abused by peers/teachers in their earlier years and still show scarring from a wound they (as males) aren't even allowed to admit is a wound. And that's just stuff that's happened to -me-, nevermind the stuff that isn't socially relevant or a "good story" and thereby won't show up in papers.
As a disclaimer, I won't be able to click the "post" button without feeling like an ass. I want to clarify that I'm playing the devil's advocate here, and I ABSOLUTELY understand that rape is a fucking HORRIBLE crime and one where female victims are in majority.
It's not deflection, because this thread isn't about discussing the issues that men face. It's about discussing the issues that women face, and it's specifically devoted to talking about feminism. In fact, your objection (understandably, devil's advocate) is just another deflection to the main discussion. Here's the flow of the conversation:
Problems women face and feminism --> BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEN???? --> You're deflecting and going off-topic, here is why. --> BUT POINTING OUT MY DEFLECTION = A DEFLECTION.
If you have a thread about men's issues, discussing all the obstacles that men face, and then someone brings up, "But what about the women!" that is deflecting. In this context, I argue that it isn't.
The "think about the men!" comment is basically empty rhetoric along the same lines of THE STARVING CHILDREN IN AFRICA. Just because there are starving children in Africa doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fix or discuss other issues. It also doesn't make anyone's issues any less valid. We're not trying to play the Oppression Olympics here.
That is how I see it, in any case. HP might have a better thought out explanation though.
On April 10 2013 08:09 Fruscainte wrote: Comparing the current state of the female to the state of the black in the 60's is fucking despicable.
I don't even got anything more to say, that's just disgusting you think it's any comparable. Are women being water blasted by policemen for protesting? Are women being lynched for wanting more rights? Are women not allowed to go to schools with men?
But this isn't about comparing the plight of people. You missed the entire point. Let me spell it out for you:
When someone raises a valid feminist criticism, a common response is not to rebut but to deflect. Asking women to "care about mens issues" too is ignoring the very valid complaints. There is no obligation for any one person to "care' about every single issue various groups face.
To play the devil's advocate:
So he's good (or just as bad) then?
I mean, theoretically he's raising valid "male-ist" criticism, but his responses are deflected more than rebutted.
Unless you count anecdotal evidence, in which case I'd (unfairly, but still) point out that my mother beat me when I was young, and a good friend of mine has a warrant out for his arrest because his girlfriend screamed abuse (and he was charged with zero evidence for something she openly admits she entirely made up), and that more than one fellow I've worked with over the years were sexually abused by peers/teachers in their earlier years and still show scarring from a wound they (as males) aren't even allowed to admit is a wound. And that's just stuff that's happened to -me-, nevermind the stuff that isn't socially relevant or a "good story" and thereby won't show up in papers.
As a disclaimer, I won't be able to click the "post" button without feeling like an ass. I want to clarify that I'm playing the devil's advocate here, and I ABSOLUTELY understand that rape is a fucking HORRIBLE crime and one where female victims are in majority.
To the broader point: Someone raising an issue specific to males as a gender is perfectly entitled to do so. The problem is when someone raises these points in response to issues famales face as if it is a rebuttal.
On April 09 2013 13:03 zbedlam wrote: Nothing is wrong with feminism.
Something is wrong with feminists in general however, every feminist I have met has acted like all men are rapists etc.
Women are not a minority, women are not repressed in the western world, there is very little reason for the hate mongering this fringe group seems to vocalise consistantly.
That's some quality anecdotal evidence, man: you met a few feminists, didn't like them, therefore, your words here, "something is wrong with feminists in general."
Every group or bad broad label (like conservative, feminist, liberal, a person who identifies themselves as vaguely Christian) has its extremes.
There aren't many feminists that want to lock men in cages. Primarily, they want equal treatment across the board, where it applies. There are other higher niches though, such as women who want paid leave during pregnancy, which is obviously a more elaborate issue, at least here in the States. But all in all, they want to be treated as people first.
On April 09 2013 13:03 zbedlam wrote: Nothing is wrong with feminism.
Something is wrong with feminists in general however, every feminist I have met has acted like all men are rapists etc.
Women are not a minority, women are not repressed in the western world, there is very little reason for the hate mongering this fringe group seems to vocalise consistantly.
That's some quality anecdotal evidence, man: met a few feminists, didn't like them, therefore, your words here, "something is wrong with feminists in general."
Academic rigor and care is often left by the wayside when real people get involved, true story. Even those who are normally meticulous -- you know, those who double-check and triple-check their assumptions before data analysis -- still somehow fall prey to this.
On April 10 2013 08:36 ComaDose wrote: Yeah of course! like I said earlier the root of feminism is anti oppression against women which of course is a good thing! good picture from earlyer post: + Show Spoiler +
So yeah I am a feminist masculinist LGBTIQist and LGBTist lol who wouldn't be? I like what you said about religion cause its pretty much what I said in my earlyer post.
Now about the middle class north america thing. It's difficult to begin explaining why the way the world is reflects commonly held opinions that may have negative effects on women specifically. I would say that a good example and keystone to start explaining it would be women's representation in the media. The oversexualized woman that appears in the majority of womens roles in advertising advocates and legitimized many opinions that are held by society. Similarly the housewife and docile home-care giver represented in a multitude of shows and movies presently further reinforce a stereotype of women. Whether these opinions are voiced or even acknowledged consciously is a matter of awareness. These things in and of themselves are not sexist. It is the mentality of the objectified woman that is sexist. and these things serve to reinforce that. This is the mentality that leads to examples like the woman who was raped two years ago who was teased and insulted by the police when she called for help. The first questions she were asked were about her intoxication and outfit and how willingly she went to his apartment, all of which are irrelevant, and would not be brought up in a less woman oriented crime. Similarly, I would be surprised if you haven't notice a not so subtle tinge of misogyny in standard locker-room banter when it turns to women. e.g. "lol bitches dont know shit" is an extremely sexist thing to say. Once you unlock an understanding that women do not particularly enjoy being viewed the way society is asking them to be, you cant watch 15 min of middle class north american television without witnessing the objectification of women.
Sure, but what you have to remember is that you're making an argument that oppression against women is greater than that of oppression against men. Media also pumps unattainable amounts of machismo into male roles! Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis are iconic "male" figures... nevermind virtually every superhero movie in the last decade... nevermind shaving / body wash / deodorant commercials directed at males often EXPLICITLY oversexualized because "that's what guys are/should be". I mean, go watch a fucking axe commercial and try tell me that the male roles in the commercial are every bit as bad (or worse) than the female ones.
You can't make an argument like "Once you unlock an understanding that women do not particularly enjoy being viewed the way society is asking them to be" without also allowing for "Once you unlock an understanding that MEN do not particularly enjoy being viewed the way society is asking them to be".
And again, I'll raise the story I raised before: A good friend of mine has a warrant out for his arrest because his girlfriend claimed that he beat her, and they pressed charges without ANY physical evidence whatsoever and with her IN HER STATEMENT declaring that she did not want to press charges. Yes, there have been rape cases where it turns out the (probably male) police are idiots... but again, you're making an argument that oppression of females is WORSE than oppression of males, and I've heard (and immediately refuted) sexist generalisations like "Girls are just like that" as much as I've heard "men are stupid"
On April 09 2013 13:03 zbedlam wrote: Nothing is wrong with feminism.
Something is wrong with feminists in general however, every feminist I have met has acted like all men are rapists etc.
Women are not a minority, women are not repressed in the western world, there is very little reason for the hate mongering this fringe group seems to vocalise consistantly.
That's some quality anecdotal evidence, man: met a few feminists, didn't like them, therefore, your words here, "something is wrong with feminists in general."
Academic rigor and care is often left by the wayside when real people get involved, true story. Even those who are normally meticulous somehow fall prey to this.
See: the department rumor mill @ university.
You talk about real people proof but you said: "women are not repressed in the western world" which makes me think you don't know much about the real world either. EDIT: WOOPS
On April 09 2013 13:03 zbedlam wrote: Nothing is wrong with feminism.
Something is wrong with feminists in general however, every feminist I have met has acted like all men are rapists etc.
Women are not a minority, women are not repressed in the western world, there is very little reason for the hate mongering this fringe group seems to vocalise consistantly.
That's some quality anecdotal evidence, man: met a few feminists, didn't like them, therefore, your words here, "something is wrong with feminists in general."
Academic rigor and care is often left by the wayside when real people get involved, true story. Even those who are normally meticulous somehow fall prey to this.
See: the department rumor mill @ university.
You talk about real people proof but you said: "women are not repressed in the western world" which makes me think you don't know much about the real world either.
Actually he didn't say that; he was quoting me who had quoted the person who had actually said that.
On April 09 2013 13:03 zbedlam wrote: Nothing is wrong with feminism.
Something is wrong with feminists in general however, every feminist I have met has acted like all men are rapists etc.
Women are not a minority, women are not repressed in the western world, there is very little reason for the hate mongering this fringe group seems to vocalise consistantly.
That's some quality anecdotal evidence, man: met a few feminists, didn't like them, therefore, your words here, "something is wrong with feminists in general."
Academic rigor and care is often left by the wayside when real people get involved, true story. Even those who are normally meticulous somehow fall prey to this.
See: the department rumor mill @ university.
You talk about real people proof but you said: "women are not repressed in the western world" which makes me think you don't know much about the real world either.
You should double-check and triple-check your assumptions before data analysis.
On April 10 2013 08:09 Fruscainte wrote: Comparing the current state of the female to the state of the black in the 60's is fucking despicable.
I don't even got anything more to say, that's just disgusting you think it's any comparable. Are women being water blasted by policemen for protesting? Are women being lynched for wanting more rights? Are women not allowed to go to schools with men?
But this isn't about comparing the plight of people. You missed the entire point. Let me spell it out for you:
When someone raises a valid feminist criticism, a common response is not to rebut but to deflect. Asking women to "care about mens issues" too is ignoring the very valid complaints. There is no obligation for any one person to "care' about every single issue various groups face.
To play the devil's advocate:
So he's good (or just as bad) then?
I mean, theoretically he's raising valid "male-ist" criticism, but his responses are deflected more than rebutted.
To the broader point: Someone raising an issue specific to males as a gender is perfectly entitled to do so. The problem is when someone raises these points in response to issues famales face as if it is a rebuttal.
They're both valid issues to be concerned about.
I suppose using something of such nature would be based on the presumption that feminism is a stand for equality in women's rights? In that case it would make sense to rebut essentially a claim of "Women could have it better" by saying "Men have it just as bad, but in different ways"
Motbob seems to be saying feminism (or at least feminist criticism) is transcending application to gender, though, and is more of a commentary on how the patriarchy (Which itself is becoming fairly gender-ambiguous, no?) affects our culture?
On April 10 2013 08:36 ComaDose wrote: Yeah of course! like I said earlier the root of feminism is anti oppression against women which of course is a good thing! good picture from earlyer post: + Show Spoiler +
So yeah I am a feminist masculinist LGBTIQist and LGBTist lol who wouldn't be? I like what you said about religion cause its pretty much what I said in my earlyer post.
Now about the middle class north america thing. It's difficult to begin explaining why the way the world is reflects commonly held opinions that may have negative effects on women specifically. I would say that a good example and keystone to start explaining it would be women's representation in the media. The oversexualized woman that appears in the majority of womens roles in advertising advocates and legitimized many opinions that are held by society. Similarly the housewife and docile home-care giver represented in a multitude of shows and movies presently further reinforce a stereotype of women. Whether these opinions are voiced or even acknowledged consciously is a matter of awareness. These things in and of themselves are not sexist. It is the mentality of the objectified woman that is sexist. and these things serve to reinforce that. This is the mentality that leads to examples like the woman who was raped two years ago who was teased and insulted by the police when she called for help. The first questions she were asked were about her intoxication and outfit and how willingly she went to his apartment, all of which are irrelevant, and would not be brought up in a less woman oriented crime. Similarly, I would be surprised if you haven't notice a not so subtle tinge of misogyny in standard locker-room banter when it turns to women. e.g. "lol bitches dont know shit" is an extremely sexist thing to say. Once you unlock an understanding that women do not particularly enjoy being viewed the way society is asking them to be, you cant watch 15 min of middle class north american television without witnessing the objectification of women.
Sure, but what you have to remember is that you're making an argument that oppression against women is greater than that of oppression against men. Media also pumps unattainable amounts of machismo into male roles! Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis are iconic "male" figures... nevermind virtually every superhero movie in the last decade... nevermind shaving / body wash / deodorant commercials directed at males often EXPLICITLY oversexualized because "that's what guys are/should be". I mean, go watch a fucking axe commercial and try tell me that the male roles in the commercial are every bit as bad (or worse) than the female ones.
You can't make an argument like "Once you unlock an understanding that women do not particularly enjoy being viewed the way society is asking them to be" without also allowing for "Once you unlock an understanding that MEN do not particularly enjoy being viewed the way society is asking them to be".
And again, I'll raise the story I raised before: A good friend of mine has a warrant out for his arrest because his girlfriend claimed that he beat her, and they pressed charges without ANY physical evidence whatsoever and with her IN HER STATEMENT declaring that she did not want to press charges. Yes, there have been rape cases where it turns out the (probably male) police are idiots... but again, you're making an argument that oppression of females is WORSE than oppression of males, and I've heard (and immediately refuted) sexist generalisations like "Girls are just like that" as much as I've heard "men are stupid"
Well HP talked about why "it's happening to men too" isn't a good answer in and of itself here, but I stand by my statement that its "worse" in some measurable way for women.
I am not the spokesperson for society by any means and this maybe isn't the best place to continue it... but things I would bring up in a full argument would include: history (all of it. its all bad for women.... from start to finish). I accept that of course men are also pressured to be as they appear in the media which can put undue pressure on them to be buff and manly. But in that same axe commercial there were also over sexualized women. And the women were there FOR the man, the man is in control in that commercial. I would suggest that I observe more commercials objectifying women than men. I would find a way to objectively compare the number of overweight and less physically appealing actors to actresses. I would recite the statistics on sex distributions amongst positions of power, both across the globe, locally, politically and in business.
And ultimately I would plead you to imagine how different a world be where a child could never get the idea that sweat, cigars, and swearing were not lady like. Then help me try and quantify the differences so I can explain it better next time >.< EDIT: + Show Spoiler +
On April 09 2013 13:03 zbedlam wrote: Nothing is wrong with feminism.
Something is wrong with feminists in general however, every feminist I have met has acted like all men are rapists etc.
Women are not a minority, women are not repressed in the western world, there is very little reason for the hate mongering this fringe group seems to vocalise consistantly.
That's some quality anecdotal evidence, man: met a few feminists, didn't like them, therefore, your words here, "something is wrong with feminists in general."
Academic rigor and care is often left by the wayside when real people get involved, true story. Even those who are normally meticulous somehow fall prey to this.
See: the department rumor mill @ university.
You talk about real people proof but you said: "women are not repressed in the western world" which makes me think you don't know much about the real world either.
You should double-check and triple-check your assumptions before data analysis.
On April 10 2013 08:36 ComaDose wrote: Yeah of course! like I said earlier the root of feminism is anti oppression against women which of course is a good thing! good picture from earlyer post: + Show Spoiler +
So yeah I am a feminist masculinist LGBTIQist and LGBTist lol who wouldn't be? I like what you said about religion cause its pretty much what I said in my earlyer post.
Now about the middle class north america thing. It's difficult to begin explaining why the way the world is reflects commonly held opinions that may have negative effects on women specifically. I would say that a good example and keystone to start explaining it would be women's representation in the media. The oversexualized woman that appears in the majority of womens roles in advertising advocates and legitimized many opinions that are held by society. Similarly the housewife and docile home-care giver represented in a multitude of shows and movies presently further reinforce a stereotype of women. Whether these opinions are voiced or even acknowledged consciously is a matter of awareness. These things in and of themselves are not sexist. It is the mentality of the objectified woman that is sexist. and these things serve to reinforce that. This is the mentality that leads to examples like the woman who was raped two years ago who was teased and insulted by the police when she called for help. The first questions she were asked were about her intoxication and outfit and how willingly she went to his apartment, all of which are irrelevant, and would not be brought up in a less woman oriented crime. Similarly, I would be surprised if you haven't notice a not so subtle tinge of misogyny in standard locker-room banter when it turns to women. e.g. "lol bitches dont know shit" is an extremely sexist thing to say. Once you unlock an understanding that women do not particularly enjoy being viewed the way society is asking them to be, you cant watch 15 min of middle class north american television without witnessing the objectification of women.
Sure, but what you have to remember is that you're making an argument that oppression against women is greater than that of oppression against men. Media also pumps unattainable amounts of machismo into male roles! Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis are iconic "male" figures... nevermind virtually every superhero movie in the last decade... nevermind shaving / body wash / deodorant commercials directed at males often EXPLICITLY oversexualized because "that's what guys are/should be". I mean, go watch a fucking axe commercial and try tell me that the male roles in the commercial are every bit as bad (or worse) than the female ones.
You can't make an argument like "Once you unlock an understanding that women do not particularly enjoy being viewed the way society is asking them to be" without also allowing for "Once you unlock an understanding that MEN do not particularly enjoy being viewed the way society is asking them to be".
And again, I'll raise the story I raised before: A good friend of mine has a warrant out for his arrest because his girlfriend claimed that he beat her, and they pressed charges without ANY physical evidence whatsoever and with her IN HER STATEMENT declaring that she did not want to press charges. Yes, there have been rape cases where it turns out the (probably male) police are idiots... but again, you're making an argument that oppression of females is WORSE than oppression of males, and I've heard (and immediately refuted) sexist generalisations like "Girls are just like that" as much as I've heard "men are stupid"
Well HP talked about why "it's happening to men too" isn't a good answer in and of itself here, but I stand by my statement that its "worse" in some measurable way for women.
I am not the spokesperson for society by any means and this maybe isn't the best place to continue it... but things I would bring up in a full argument would include: history (all of it. its all bad for women.... from start to finish). I accept that of course men are also pressured to be as they appear in the media which can put undue pressure on them to be buff and manly. But in that same axe commercial there were also over sexualized women. And the women were there FOR the man, the man is in control in that commercial. I would suggest that I observe more commercials objectifying women than men. I would find a way to objectively compare the number of overweight and less physically appealing actors to actresses. I would recite the statistics on sex distributions amongst positions of power, both across the globe, locally, politically and in business.
And ultimately I would plead you to imagine how different a world be where a child could never get the idea that sweat, cigars, and swearing were not lady like. Then help me try and quantify the differences so I can explain it better next time >.< EDIT: + Show Spoiler +
On April 09 2013 13:03 zbedlam wrote: Nothing is wrong with feminism.
Something is wrong with feminists in general however, every feminist I have met has acted like all men are rapists etc.
Women are not a minority, women are not repressed in the western world, there is very little reason for the hate mongering this fringe group seems to vocalise consistantly.
That's some quality anecdotal evidence, man: met a few feminists, didn't like them, therefore, your words here, "something is wrong with feminists in general."
Academic rigor and care is often left by the wayside when real people get involved, true story. Even those who are normally meticulous somehow fall prey to this.
See: the department rumor mill @ university.
You talk about real people proof but you said: "women are not repressed in the western world" which makes me think you don't know much about the real world either.
You should double-check and triple-check your assumptions before data analysis.
lol whoops! im so happy that was a joke now....
"The man got a job as a friggin' astronaut to be good enough FOR the woman"
What exactly the role is or who is "in control" isn't relevant. If you're saying that the woman by role necessity in the advertisement isn't in control, you're saying that the man by role necessity is in control. The statements are entertwined and equally unfair. While the message to be subservient is being sold to the female, the message to be dominant is being sold to the man. There is no heirarchy to these terms, and being dominant is not BETTER, so pointing out that the woman is being forced into a role without acknowledging the man also being forced into a role just suggests a bias on your part.
I think we shall agree to disagree! We're on the right track, and time will continue to equalize the remaining inequality between women and men!
I accept that of course men are also pressured to be as they appear in the media which can put undue pressure on them to be buff and manly.
Yes. And notice the following statements:
"Stop being such a girl." "Stop being a pussy." "What are you, somebody's bitch?" "Stop being a boy." "Grow some balls."
All of these are derogatory or condescending statements when applied to adult males. I'm sure there are more male-targeted ones (going for specifically gendered insults that are often used against men who don't fit the typical image of masculinity, whether in appearance or personality), but I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of these are terms are related to women. The association is "not masculine enough = feminine = weak = bad" or "not masculine enough = weak = feminine = bad." Of course, as you can see, there is also the association of "not masculine enough = not having gone through puberty = boy = weak" (feel free to swap the middle two in this one as well), but that is also connected to the previous associations of feminine = bad in the end.
On the opposite end of the spectrum (for women, insulted for not fitting the typical image of femininity), I've heard, "What are you, a dyke?" and "What a bitch!" (for instance, sometimes if a woman asserts herself in a way that is often associated with masculinity). The former is somewhat reappropriated these days and is more an attack on sexuality than someone's gender identity as a woman.
I accept that of course men are also pressured to be as they appear in the media which can put undue pressure on them to be buff and manly.
Yes. And notice the following statements:
"Stop being such a girl." "Stop being a pussy." "What are you, somebody's bitch?" "Stop being a boy." "Grow some balls."
All of these are derogatory or condescending statements when applied to adult males. I'm sure there are more male-targeted ones (going for specifically gendered insults that are often used against men who don't fit the typical image of masculinity, whether in appearance or personality), but I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of these are terms are related to women. The association is "not masculine enough = feminine = weak = bad" or "not masculine enough = weak = feminine = bad." Of course, as you can see, there is also the association of "not masculine enough = not having gone through puberty = boy = weak" (feel free to swap the middle two in this one as well), but that is also connected to the previous associations of feminine = bad in the end.
On the opposite end of the spectrum (for women, insulted for not fitting the typical image of femininity), I've heard, "What are you, a dyke?" and "What a bitch!" (for instance, sometimes if a woman asserts herself in a way that is often associated with masculinity). The former is somewhat reappropriated these days and is more an attack on sexuality than someone's gender identity as a woman.
Well, nothing wrong with another man to "grow some balls," which is the equivalent of "man up" or "take responsibility/go for it/get off your ass." That's more of telling a man to be a man, in a more motivational sort of way, so I don't find that particular derogatory to tell a man to man up. Wouldn't make sense to tell a man to grow some ovaries right? Because men can't grow ovaries, or so I've been told, so to have courage for a man is just to "grow/rediscover your testicles." Likewise, I've always been telling women to grow their ovaries in times of cowardice, in addition to the occasional suggestion for them to even reattach the fallopian tubes.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Check out girlwriteswhat on youtube. Although her "style" is a bit too polemic for my tastes, her points are usually well researched, and it's also refreshing to see feminism criticized from a women's perspective
Of course it existed. Men were allowed to compete and women were/are being stuck with the households. The ideas of statuses of occupations are seriously flawed nowadays, I hope this changes soon. The work connected with the upbringing of children can be done by the father as well as soon as they are out of the womb, so this argument is invalid as well. Women can have an as competitive mindset as men.
Women CAN be as competitive as men, generally they aren't. This is more likely biological than anything else. Evolutionary speaking, a woman gained no where near as much from competing as men did.
I didn't say patriarchy didn't exist - I said it didn't exist in the form that feminists historically have understood it to exist. Some aspects of what we think of as patriarchy was a way to consolidate power, and it punished lower standing men just as much as women. Girlwriteswhat goes into more depth on this than I ever could - taking a look at a few of her videos is definitely worth the time, imo.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Men are not innately more competitive than women. They are (still) educated to be so. I mean educated in a very broad sense, not just first or second socialization through family and school, but through your everyday life. You will (and have) probably see more ads/stories/newspaper or things like these about men being successfull or striving for success than women. Even though the share has changed favourably for women in the last decade (in terms of exposition). Moreover, as an example, if you read about politics, you primarily read about men competing against men. Yet again, it is changing, but the way women are exposed is hardly not reproducing a "patriarchal" society.
For the same matter, patriarchy is to be understood as a system that was produced by excluding women (not directly to the profit of men). This is why women had to wait decades before getting the right to vote. Or that is why women were not able to open a bank account without the autorization of their husband. That is also why, for example in India (non western society) women, when their husband died, were literally excluded from the society and treated as garbage (close enough) and sometime women decided die instead of living under the shame of a loss of their husband. They were not to live as individuals, but defined by the fact of being married, by the fact of having a husband, thus the patriarchal society In many way, the western society was designed in excluding the freedom of act and will of women. And in that sense, the system was patriarchal. For the same reason, men expected a lot from men, they would be educated to mathematics, latin and "highly intellectuel" stuffs, therefore providing them the best spot and reproducing the scheme. All while women were left literally "in the Kitchen". And this expression is still true vigourously used, especially on the internet. The labour market still has issue to incorporate women who decided to leave the market for a few years because, as a family, they wanted a child. And even though she is being compensated, it is hard for women to value the time they spent with the child on the market.
When you label a girl that's just want to freely use her body (whore/bitch w/e) as she wants, you are committing a patriarchal act as "it is not the normal way for a girl to be". The normal way being exclusive to one man. Being the propriety of the man, and therefore not being definied as a free individual. Insulting girls for their behavior (Slut Shaming anyone?) is patriarchal, sexist (therefore racist). It is also the same scheme when a girl plays video games and she is being labelled "an attention whore" or anything. She is being denied the one fact that a girl could want to play videogames, that she only does that to have the attention of geeks/nerds that are lacking the presence of women. While it may be true in some instances, it clearly reproduces a patriarchal (exclusion of women, remember!) scheme in videogames.
I disagree with your post to such a degree that I find no need to go into it at any level of detail. I talked about competitiveness, which research and simple observation suggests is biologically ingrained in male homo-sapiens, just like it is in many other species and not a socially conditioned behavior. You talk about "slut shaming" ..wtf?
Could you provide a link to the research ? Simple observation is not a valid argument. I did observe only white fucking duck, does it mean there is only white fucking duck on earth, hardly think so.
Still, how do you make such concept of "competitivness" operationalizable when driving a study, especially when leading a biological study ? I would be delighted to read that.
Slut shaming was there to illustrate the fact that women are denied freedom of act and will: this is how the society works: a girl is not allowed to do whatever she wants of her body. When she does so (i.e: sleeping with many men/women etc...) she is being pointed at as a deviant and ensue slut-shaming: "You should be ashamed to sleep with many men/women, to be a slut". Which implicitly means, you should be ashamed to have the liberty to use the body to your will. Which leads to : your body belongs to one person, and that person is not you but your boyfriend/husband (traditionnal couple is a man and a woman whom belong to the man through marriage, both are supposedly exclusive to each others).
And this is a patriarchal act, anchored in a patriarcal system.
For both jobs, more females replied to both job listings than males. Of the applicants to the sports assistant position, 53.5% of those interested were women. The generic job listing was split 80-20 females to male. Here’s the interesting part: for both jobs, when the element of the bonus was added, males were far more likely to actually send in their application than females. Or worded the other way around, females were more likely to pass on the job once they found out part of their pay would be based on their performance versus a co-worker. In the most competitive salary structure, where the base pay was $12 an hour and the bonus $6, List determined that men were 55.5% more likely to apply for the job than women. The conclusion: Women don’t like competition.
How does this relate to the gender gap? List says, anecdotally at least, it appears the industries and positions with the most competitive work environments tend to pay the most.
When it comes to "slut shaming," I don't think you automatically can or necessarily have to attribute that to "patriarchy." It could have some other function -- and often women are the ones who engage in this kind of behavior the most. I'd say it could just as well be a tribal impulse. In a smaller society, "loose" women with many children when there father(s) isn't engaged in providing for the children can become a liability for the tribe itself. And if the male in this instance is from a competing tribe, the mother and child would probably be driven off or worse. This could happen in a "matriarchal" tribe too, patriarchy doesn't necessarily figure into it. This could also explain why an extremely tribal religion like Islam is so sexist.
Relatively speaking, it is very recent that we could have sex for the pleasure of it, with impunity. Of course our biological minds are lagging behind.. it still thinks we're living in caves and being hunted by giant bears after all.
The article is interesting, but it doesn't seem to provide a biological explanation for the competition gap, maybe the scientific article does, but not the Time's one.
What I understand from it, is that women are less likely to risk a smaller pay despite an uncertain bonus than men. This could relate to risk aversion, and while some argue, like you, that this kind of risk aversion might be due to cave age (not everyone agrees at all with the prehistoric conception of men and women) it may be due to other things too.
Once again, it is socially constructed that boys are usually encouraged to take risk and be competitive since their childhood, so it was, so it is (even though less). The competition gap might be induced solely on the base that (1) women (girls) are not taught when child to take risk but to secure. Why ? Maybe because we see them as fragile, or because we vehiculate an image of the strong man and the weak woman (2) women (girls) are not taught to be competitive, because competition is display, display is the public sphere, and the public sphere for very long was a men space. While women remain in the private sphere (household, housewives) and are facing no competition because they are alone
Does it mean they are less competitive, in the sense they have been taught to be, then yes of course it does. In the sense it is biologically embedded in their brain, I really don't think so and once again I feel the article does not provide biological evidence for this.(it is a psychological study, not a biological one, lead by economic professors, not biologists)
It just says there is a gap, they shy away from competition, they don't know where that shyness is from.
Now yes, i was agressive, I explained why in my last post, my apologies.
The notion that men and women are basically the same and that gender is a social construction and not something that arises from biological factors is more or less a by-product of the political climate of the 60s and 70s. There are so many differences between the male and female brain that there has to be more to it than just social conditioning/social expectations.. and certainly the entire field of evolutionary biology and a lot of observable behavior in animals (like our closest relatives) suggest that men and women behave differently according to their biology. Here's an example:
Scientists at Harvard University and Bates College say female chimpanzees appear to treat sticks as dolls, carrying them around until they have offspring of their own. Young males engage in such behavior much less frequently. [...] The two researchers say their work adds to a growing body of evidence that human children are probably born with their own ideas of how they want to behave, rather than simply mirroring other girls who play with dolls and boys who play with trucks.
Anybody who knows a few women in their 30s can attest to biology affects them. I know several women who had no interest in children, and no desire to have them, and then suddenly they have an intense need to procreate. Some also describe it not as a logical want or need, but as an extremely physical, bodily sensation.
I never said that women and men were biologically equal. Once again, I never said that and that is since my first post.
What i said, is : legitimizing discriminating practice and discource such as "men are innatly more competitive than women" is a socially constructed discourse and it reproduces patriarchal scheme.
I absolutely agree on that weird moment where women decide to go baby. Biological clock, I know it exists and completely agree with you on this fact. I agree that men and women are differents, biologically.
But (1) playing with a doll does not make you less competitive. (2) I am pretty sure plenty of highly competitive boys played with stick like if they were people and fighting against each others (myself did that with pencil when bored at school, it is not different) so difference in behavior does not necessairly translate sexe differences. (3) My point is, was, still be, saying competitiveness arise from biological difference is exactly the same as stipulating black people are idiots compared to white men. There is no proof of such lack of competitiveness among women, as there is absolutely no proof of higher intelligence among white men . Because you did not experience it does not mean it does not exist. Because you experienced weak/fragile/scared girls does not make them all like that. Because i experienced highly competitive women does not make them all like that. But to dare to generalize so loud and clear competitiveness is a "man's quality" is really going to far.
I accept that of course men are also pressured to be as they appear in the media which can put undue pressure on them to be buff and manly.
Yes. And notice the following statements:
"Stop being such a girl." "Stop being a pussy." "What are you, somebody's bitch?" "Stop being a boy." "Grow some balls."
All of these are derogatory or condescending statements when applied to adult males. I'm sure there are more male-targeted ones (going for specifically gendered insults that are often used against men who don't fit the typical image of masculinity, whether in appearance or personality), but I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of these are terms are related to women. The association is "not masculine enough = feminine = weak = bad" or "not masculine enough = weak = feminine = bad." Of course, as you can see, there is also the association of "not masculine enough = not having gone through puberty = boy = weak" (feel free to swap the middle two in this one as well), but that is also connected to the previous associations of feminine = bad in the end.
On the opposite end of the spectrum (for women, insulted for not fitting the typical image of femininity), I've heard, "What are you, a dyke?" and "What a bitch!" (for instance, sometimes if a woman asserts herself in a way that is often associated with masculinity). The former is somewhat reappropriated these days and is more an attack on sexuality than someone's gender identity as a woman.
Well, nothing wrong with another man to "grow some balls," which is the equivalent of "man up" or "take responsibility/go for it/get off your ass." That's more of telling a man to be a man, in a more motivational sort of way, so I don't find that particular derogatory to tell a man to man up. Wouldn't make sense to tell a man to grow some ovaries right? Because men can't grow ovaries, or so I've been told, so to have courage for a man is just to "grow/rediscover your testicles." Likewise, I've always been telling women to grow their ovaries in times of cowardice, in addition to the occasional suggestion for them to even reattach the fallopian tubes.
I think the point was that the association between physical masculinity and being responsible as a personality trait is problematic - though I am amused by your subversion in telling women to "grow some ovaries" :D
The other problem is, as you said, it doesn't make sense to tell a man to "grow some ovaries", and yet, people commonly tell women to "grow some balls" (or similar; "you don't have the balls to do X").
What i said, is : legitimizing discriminating practice and discource such as "men are innatly more competitive than women" is a socially constructed discourse and it reproduces patriarchal scheme.
while I'd agree mostly with you.
both men and women are competitive for status, but in the case of men, competition might have more to do with "fitness" (in darwinians terms) since having higher status is established as increasing your reproductive success, while women are most likely to be infanted no matter the status. Although, women do have adaptative benefits competing for the alpha male who can provide protection but also great social value in terms of cooperation.
but that would be a false statement to say women lack competitiveness I'll 100% agree.
as for men and women being biologically equal, there are recent discoveries that would consider almost no dimorphism couple of thousand years back between women and men and that indicate that the actual dimorphism (in term of strenght) would probably be due to ressource control and work divison (which is the only division in said equalitray societies).
people often talk about emotive the woman is compared to man, but there are societies where women are warriors and kill. mainly the difference between men and women all comes down (biologically) to glands and hormones in the brain. while at birth the brains is at 10% developped the rest develops along with sociality.
My only problem with feminism are feminists that think there is no need for masculism (or those that ignore men problems or think women have everything bad).
Other than that feminism in itself is a great thing, I'm more annoyed by feminists pursuing ill battles or by the use of clichés.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Check out girlwriteswhat on youtube. Although her "style" is a bit too polemic for my tastes, her points are usually well researched, and it's also refreshing to see feminism criticized from a women's perspective
Of course it existed. Men were allowed to compete and women were/are being stuck with the households. The ideas of statuses of occupations are seriously flawed nowadays, I hope this changes soon. The work connected with the upbringing of children can be done by the father as well as soon as they are out of the womb, so this argument is invalid as well. Women can have an as competitive mindset as men.
Women CAN be as competitive as men, generally they aren't. This is more likely biological than anything else. Evolutionary speaking, a woman gained no where near as much from competing as men did.
I didn't say patriarchy didn't exist - I said it didn't exist in the form that feminists historically have understood it to exist. Some aspects of what we think of as patriarchy was a way to consolidate power, and it punished lower standing men just as much as women. Girlwriteswhat goes into more depth on this than I ever could - taking a look at a few of her videos is definitely worth the time, imo.
To look at the world in a feminist perspective is not necessarily to find something to criticize. At its root, a feminist view is to observe the way things are and perceive some way in which patriarchy has made them that way.
The problem here is that patriarchy the way feminists imagine it has never existed. "Patriarchy" wasn't a system to explicitly benefit men at the expense of women - that's more what modern feminism is, actually, in reverse. Patriarchy was a system to allow men to compete with other men, or people to compete with people.. it just happens that competition benefits men more than women, because men are innately more competitive (or successful men are). It's also why men are often the highest payed in their profession, and at the top of any field that allows competition.
It's also why traditionally male occupation lose a lot of their status when they become "colonized" by women -- because men don't gain anything from competing with women, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, and women aren't as interested in competing hard or valuing their occupation higher than having children, etc. This is what is causing the wage gap currently, which isn't even a real gap anymore, because newly educated women make on average 8% more than newly educated men. It's just that they fall behind as soon as they start having children, which is natural, because that demands a lot of your time if you're going to do it right. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html
Men are not innately more competitive than women. They are (still) educated to be so. I mean educated in a very broad sense, not just first or second socialization through family and school, but through your everyday life. You will (and have) probably see more ads/stories/newspaper or things like these about men being successfull or striving for success than women. Even though the share has changed favourably for women in the last decade (in terms of exposition). Moreover, as an example, if you read about politics, you primarily read about men competing against men. Yet again, it is changing, but the way women are exposed is hardly not reproducing a "patriarchal" society.
For the same matter, patriarchy is to be understood as a system that was produced by excluding women (not directly to the profit of men). This is why women had to wait decades before getting the right to vote. Or that is why women were not able to open a bank account without the autorization of their husband. That is also why, for example in India (non western society) women, when their husband died, were literally excluded from the society and treated as garbage (close enough) and sometime women decided die instead of living under the shame of a loss of their husband. They were not to live as individuals, but defined by the fact of being married, by the fact of having a husband, thus the patriarchal society In many way, the western society was designed in excluding the freedom of act and will of women. And in that sense, the system was patriarchal. For the same reason, men expected a lot from men, they would be educated to mathematics, latin and "highly intellectuel" stuffs, therefore providing them the best spot and reproducing the scheme. All while women were left literally "in the Kitchen". And this expression is still true vigourously used, especially on the internet. The labour market still has issue to incorporate women who decided to leave the market for a few years because, as a family, they wanted a child. And even though she is being compensated, it is hard for women to value the time they spent with the child on the market.
When you label a girl that's just want to freely use her body (whore/bitch w/e) as she wants, you are committing a patriarchal act as "it is not the normal way for a girl to be". The normal way being exclusive to one man. Being the propriety of the man, and therefore not being definied as a free individual. Insulting girls for their behavior (Slut Shaming anyone?) is patriarchal, sexist (therefore racist). It is also the same scheme when a girl plays video games and she is being labelled "an attention whore" or anything. She is being denied the one fact that a girl could want to play videogames, that she only does that to have the attention of geeks/nerds that are lacking the presence of women. While it may be true in some instances, it clearly reproduces a patriarchal (exclusion of women, remember!) scheme in videogames.
I disagree with your post to such a degree that I find no need to go into it at any level of detail. I talked about competitiveness, which research and simple observation suggests is biologically ingrained in male homo-sapiens, just like it is in many other species and not a socially conditioned behavior. You talk about "slut shaming" ..wtf?
Could you provide a link to the research ? Simple observation is not a valid argument. I did observe only white fucking duck, does it mean there is only white fucking duck on earth, hardly think so.
Still, how do you make such concept of "competitivness" operationalizable when driving a study, especially when leading a biological study ? I would be delighted to read that.
Slut shaming was there to illustrate the fact that women are denied freedom of act and will: this is how the society works: a girl is not allowed to do whatever she wants of her body. When she does so (i.e: sleeping with many men/women etc...) she is being pointed at as a deviant and ensue slut-shaming: "You should be ashamed to sleep with many men/women, to be a slut". Which implicitly means, you should be ashamed to have the liberty to use the body to your will. Which leads to : your body belongs to one person, and that person is not you but your boyfriend/husband (traditionnal couple is a man and a woman whom belong to the man through marriage, both are supposedly exclusive to each others).
And this is a patriarchal act, anchored in a patriarcal system.
For both jobs, more females replied to both job listings than males. Of the applicants to the sports assistant position, 53.5% of those interested were women. The generic job listing was split 80-20 females to male. Here’s the interesting part: for both jobs, when the element of the bonus was added, males were far more likely to actually send in their application than females. Or worded the other way around, females were more likely to pass on the job once they found out part of their pay would be based on their performance versus a co-worker. In the most competitive salary structure, where the base pay was $12 an hour and the bonus $6, List determined that men were 55.5% more likely to apply for the job than women. The conclusion: Women don’t like competition.
How does this relate to the gender gap? List says, anecdotally at least, it appears the industries and positions with the most competitive work environments tend to pay the most.
When it comes to "slut shaming," I don't think you automatically can or necessarily have to attribute that to "patriarchy." It could have some other function -- and often women are the ones who engage in this kind of behavior the most. I'd say it could just as well be a tribal impulse. In a smaller society, "loose" women with many children when there father(s) isn't engaged in providing for the children can become a liability for the tribe itself. And if the male in this instance is from a competing tribe, the mother and child would probably be driven off or worse. This could happen in a "matriarchal" tribe too, patriarchy doesn't necessarily figure into it. This could also explain why an extremely tribal religion like Islam is so sexist.
Relatively speaking, it is very recent that we could have sex for the pleasure of it, with impunity. Of course our biological minds are lagging behind.. it still thinks we're living in caves and being hunted by giant bears after all.
The article is interesting, but it doesn't seem to provide a biological explanation for the competition gap, maybe the scientific article does, but not the Time's one.
What I understand from it, is that women are less likely to risk a smaller pay despite an uncertain bonus than men. This could relate to risk aversion, and while some argue, like you, that this kind of risk aversion might be due to cave age (not everyone agrees at all with the prehistoric conception of men and women) it may be due to other things too.
Once again, it is socially constructed that boys are usually encouraged to take risk and be competitive since their childhood, so it was, so it is (even though less). The competition gap might be induced solely on the base that (1) women (girls) are not taught when child to take risk but to secure. Why ? Maybe because we see them as fragile, or because we vehiculate an image of the strong man and the weak woman (2) women (girls) are not taught to be competitive, because competition is display, display is the public sphere, and the public sphere for very long was a men space. While women remain in the private sphere (household, housewives) and are facing no competition because they are alone
Does it mean they are less competitive, in the sense they have been taught to be, then yes of course it does. In the sense it is biologically embedded in their brain, I really don't think so and once again I feel the article does not provide biological evidence for this.(it is a psychological study, not a biological one, lead by economic professors, not biologists)
It just says there is a gap, they shy away from competition, they don't know where that shyness is from.
Now yes, i was agressive, I explained why in my last post, my apologies.
The notion that men and women are basically the same and that gender is a social construction and not something that arises from biological factors is more or less a by-product of the political climate of the 60s and 70s. There are so many differences between the male and female brain that there has to be more to it than just social conditioning/social expectations.. and certainly the entire field of evolutionary biology and a lot of observable behavior in animals (like our closest relatives) suggest that men and women behave differently according to their biology. Here's an example:
Scientists at Harvard University and Bates College say female chimpanzees appear to treat sticks as dolls, carrying them around until they have offspring of their own. Young males engage in such behavior much less frequently. [...] The two researchers say their work adds to a growing body of evidence that human children are probably born with their own ideas of how they want to behave, rather than simply mirroring other girls who play with dolls and boys who play with trucks.
Anybody who knows a few women in their 30s can attest to biology affects them. I know several women who had no interest in children, and no desire to have them, and then suddenly they have an intense need to procreate. Some also describe it not as a logical want or need, but as an extremely physical, bodily sensation.
I never said that women and men were biologically equal. Once again, I never said that and that is since my first post.
What i said, is : legitimizing discriminating practice and discource such as "men are innatly more competitive than women" is a socially constructed discourse and it reproduces patriarchal scheme.
I absolutely agree on that weird moment where women decide to go baby. Biological clock, I know it exists and completely agree with you on this fact. I agree that men and women are differents, biologically.
But (1) playing with a doll does not make you less competitive. (2) I am pretty sure plenty of highly competitive boys played with stick like if they were people and fighting against each others (myself did that with pencil when bored at school, it is not different) so difference in behavior does not necessairly translate sexe differences. (3) My point is, was, still be, saying competitiveness arise from biological difference is exactly the same as stipulating black people are idiots compared to white men. There is no proof of such lack of competitiveness among women, as there is absolutely no proof of higher intelligence among white men . Because you did not experience it does not mean it does not exist. Because you experienced weak/fragile/scared girls does not make them all like that. Because i experienced highly competitive women does not make them all like that. But to dare to generalize so loud and clear competitiveness is a "man's quality" is really going to far.
and I'd say I completely disagree with you, and see plenty of evidence that male humans, and males of many other species are more outwardly competitive than women, generally with males of their same species. "Patriarchy" doesn't even enter into it. It's no more socially constructed than how a "successful" Labrador Retriever loves to swim - it's ingrained in the being. The simple reason is, males can typically have a larger group of females. For example in groups of chimps, only 5% of the male chimps pass on their genetic material, while almost all of the females pass on theirs. The most successful and most competitive men over the course of history have had hundreds if not thousands of offspring. There is also research that suggests that male-to-male competition originates in the y-chromosome, and of course, women don't have y-chromosomes nor can they be male-to-male competitive, so saying women are competitive in the same way that men are is complete horseshit.
You're (2) point is hilarious. There's quite a bit of difference in playing with a stick as if it's a doll or just twirling it around like it's a pencil. Also, it was an article about chimps, not "young boys" etc. The point of the article from my perspective was that males and females are different from birth, and that for example young girls playing with dolls has deeper roots than just doing what society tells them to do.
And your (3) is even worse. No, it's nothing like saying black men er idiots based on genetic make-up, because there's no evidence for that being that case. Your objection to this notion of inherent competitiveness seems completely socially imprinted on you. Anyway, I'll link this again, further into the video.. she's able to form an hypothesis way more succinctly than I am
I accept that of course men are also pressured to be as they appear in the media which can put undue pressure on them to be buff and manly.
Yes. And notice the following statements:
"Stop being such a girl." "Stop being a pussy." "What are you, somebody's bitch?" "Stop being a boy." "Grow some balls."
All of these are derogatory or condescending statements when applied to adult males. I'm sure there are more male-targeted ones (going for specifically gendered insults that are often used against men who don't fit the typical image of masculinity, whether in appearance or personality), but I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of these are terms are related to women. The association is "not masculine enough = feminine = weak = bad" or "not masculine enough = weak = feminine = bad." Of course, as you can see, there is also the association of "not masculine enough = not having gone through puberty = boy = weak" (feel free to swap the middle two in this one as well), but that is also connected to the previous associations of feminine = bad in the end.
On the opposite end of the spectrum (for women, insulted for not fitting the typical image of femininity), I've heard, "What are you, a dyke?" and "What a bitch!" (for instance, sometimes if a woman asserts herself in a way that is often associated with masculinity). The former is somewhat reappropriated these days and is more an attack on sexuality than someone's gender identity as a woman.
The associations of things like "Average female = physically weaker than average male" and even the association "Average female = easier to rattle than average male" are completely acceptable because they have in one case a biological and in the other a social basis.
The actual problem isn't about this part, the part is that there are people who draw the conclusion that "physically weak = bad" or that "easier to rattle" (to clarify, I'm talking about stuff like horror movies and spiders here) are bad qualities. They inherently aren't. I'm a giant pussy when it comes to horror movies, for me that's a reason to not watch them. For others that IS the reason to watch them.
Another side effect is that in todays society "too brave" or "too strong" aren't associated with bad qualities in the same amount their opposites are. The phrase "You're way too manly" can imply "You're an idiot for fighting wars you can't win", the phrase "Can you please hang your balls on the wall for a moment and listen to me?" can imply that someone has so much ego that he's not listening to an actual argument.
The association that "being feminine = bad" is implied by people who want to believe it (hint: That includes you, even though you're trying to argue the opposite). I love my women feminine with just enough balls to smack more feminine women around if they have to. I love my men masculine with just enough ovaries to not turn into brainless monkeys.
This is entirely anecdotal of course and I don't have pretentions that it 'proves anything' but anyone with close female friends/relatives has probably noticed this.
When you were young kids, you were a lot less genderised. You probably would play a lot of the same games with your cousins, or your female friends etc. As you grow up your interests tend to move in divergent directions to what 'boys' and 'girls interests are expected to be, especially notable around the onset of puberty. I had a female friend at primary school who was 'one of the boys', as soon as she got to her all-girls secondary school she completely changed the way she dressed, the things she professed interest in because she got insulted so much for being a 'tomboy'.
I see this happening at a younger and younger age in how even television programmes aimed at kids, and the adverts especially pigeonhole what each gender is expected to do.
I think it's rather ignorant to claim there are no biological differences between the sexes, but equally to ignore the influence of popular culture falls into the same pitfalls.
I accept that of course men are also pressured to be as they appear in the media which can put undue pressure on them to be buff and manly.
Yes. And notice the following statements:
"Stop being such a girl." "Stop being a pussy." "What are you, somebody's bitch?" "Stop being a boy." "Grow some balls."
All of these are derogatory or condescending statements when applied to adult males. I'm sure there are more male-targeted ones (going for specifically gendered insults that are often used against men who don't fit the typical image of masculinity, whether in appearance or personality), but I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of these are terms are related to women. The association is "not masculine enough = feminine = weak = bad" or "not masculine enough = weak = feminine = bad." Of course, as you can see, there is also the association of "not masculine enough = not having gone through puberty = boy = weak" (feel free to swap the middle two in this one as well), but that is also connected to the previous associations of feminine = bad in the end.
On the opposite end of the spectrum (for women, insulted for not fitting the typical image of femininity), I've heard, "What are you, a dyke?" and "What a bitch!" (for instance, sometimes if a woman asserts herself in a way that is often associated with masculinity). The former is somewhat reappropriated these days and is more an attack on sexuality than someone's gender identity as a woman.
i think you (and motbob's original piece) are reading intent where there is none in order to fuel your own beliefs. nicknames and phrases stick for a lot of reasons, too many to list off here in a quick post. calling someone, and it really doesnt have to be a man, a pussy or a girl is not a sexist term. it is nothing to do with girls being inferior in any way. are you going to try and argue that calling someone a dick is offensive to all men by the same logic? inferring that all penis's are inherently bad?
but this seems to be something you realise yourself in the second half of your first paragraph, but then you change direction in the second to assert that it is only the pussy remark which retains its anti feminist meaning.
this strikes me as you holding a view then clawing at things to prop it up, and then when presented with a contradiction sweeping it under the carpet. "pussy is a slur because it implies women as a negative thing, but dick isnt as bad because ive already decided that women are oppressed."
i have absolutely no doubt that there are certain situations in life, work, pleasure whatever where women are at a real disadvantage. but clawing at straws to find offence in everything just makes the whole movement look stupid to a casual observer.
ignoring ofcourse the huge hypocrisy of complaining about words 'real' meaning when talking about feminism, a word which implies female superiority when in fact its a movement for equality.
On April 10 2013 20:12 Quotidian wrote: and I'd say I completely disagree with you, and see plenty of evidence that male humans, and males of many other species are more outwardly competitive than women, generally with males of their same species. "Patriarchy" doesn't even enter into it.
Reposting this because apparently you missed it...
This study uses a controlled experiment to explore whether there are gender differences in selecting into competitive environments across two distinct societies: the Maasai in Tanzania and the Khasi in India. One unique aspect of these societies is that the Maasai represent a textbook example of a patriarchal society whereas the Khasi are matrilineal. Similar to the extant evidence drawn from experiments executed in Western cultures, Maasai men opt to compete at roughly twice the rate as Maasai women. Interestingly, this result is reversed amongst the Khasi, where women choose the competitive environment more often than Khasi men, and even choose to compete weakly more often than Maasai men.
I lost my initial post so I'll keep this one short. I've found myself being annoyed with feminists mostly because I think women are already equal. It seems like the movement is full of hypocrites who want preferential treatment rather than equal treatment.
Also I think the whole diamond league thing misses the point, much like the feminists of today. Blizzard started with copper<->gold. The leagues line up with the market value of the medals. It was then expanded to copper<->platinum. You could argue that platinum has a slightly lower market value than gold right now, so the leagues should switch places, but there is a practical reason for why it was done this way. First, you have the easily recognizable bronze/silver/gold as the Olympic medals. Secondly, injecting a league into the middle is more confusing and more work than adding to either the top or the bottom. So Blizzard has copper<->platinum. For whatever reason copper just doesn't cut it. Maybe it isn't shiny enough, or it is too demeaning, but for whatever reason Blizzard decides that it needs to go. Adding to the top is the most logical step in this situation. Instead of going with the metal theme and introducing the Rhodium or Technetium league Blizzard reflects society and goes with Diamond. If you want them to change it then your article should really be aimed at society explaining why diamonds shouldn't be valuable. If you change society the companies will follow because the best companies are the best slaves.
Bronies are grown men who love and bond over the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in large part because of how friendly and accepting the pony characters are, how welcoming their world is. Brony communities invented ‘bronyspeak’ and use codes of community-enforced niceness so that ‘nopony’ has to suffer social rejection. These folks are not necessarily hurting anyone, but they’re messing with nerdom’s social fabric, pushing it farther away from society at large and making it more repugnant all around.
We had gotten to the point where we could be openly geeky without being stereotyped as neckbearded, sweaty basement-dwellers, but those anime-pillow-loving guys are holding us back.
What if some of the worst trends of nerdom run amok? Look at Japan—from the groping that’s so endemic in its public spaces that authorities have given up enforcement (they’ve created male/female subways) to vending machines that dispense soiled women’s underwear, something’s gone terribly wrong. They have a pandemic of hikikomori, guys who feel so divorced from the social scene that they leave it altogether for the solitude of their rooms and computers, all born of the same alienation that our nerds engage in. Japanese men are having sex and kids in smaller numbers than they ever have—one in four Japanese men in their 30s are virgins, and have given up on real relationships for videogame women or pillow wives—so much so that it’s a national crisis. Men in the United States have taken a different route, frustrated opprobrium rather than apathy, but the land of the rising sun is proof positive that, whether or not you care if geek is cool, trends like ours can go South like a carpetbagger.
Bronies are grown men who love and bond over the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in large part because of how friendly and accepting the pony characters are, how welcoming their world is. Brony communities invented ‘bronyspeak’ and use codes of community-enforced niceness so that ‘nopony’ has to suffer social rejection. These folks are not necessarily hurting anyone, but they’re messing with nerdom’s social fabric, pushing it farther away from society at large and making it more repugnant all around.
We had gotten to the point where we could be openly geeky without being stereotyped as neckbearded, sweaty basement-dwellers, but those anime-pillow-loving guys are holding us back.
What if some of the worst trends of nerdom run amok? Look at Japan—from the groping that’s so endemic in its public spaces that authorities have given up enforcement (they’ve created male/female subways) to vending machines that dispense soiled women’s underwear, something’s gone terribly wrong. They have a pandemic of hikikomori, guys who feel so divorced from the social scene that they leave it altogether for the solitude of their rooms and computers, all born of the same alienation that our nerds engage in. Japanese men are having sex and kids in smaller numbers than they ever have—one in four Japanese men in their 30s are virgins, and have given up on real relationships for videogame women or pillow wives—so much so that it’s a national crisis. Men in the United States have taken a different route, frustrated opprobrium rather than apathy, but the land of the rising sun is proof positive that, whether or not you care if geek is cool, trends like ours can go South like a carpetbagger.
Bronies are a danger to society...
I see no coherent argument in it. They draw examples of a bunch of men that are unsympathetic and easy to ridicule (like the backwards loner in highschool) and then link it as the counterpart of feminism, men's rights. This is no better than finding the worst examples of "feminists", throwing in disapproved of behaviors of females in other cultures for good measure (Japanese men, in this article), and using this as fodder to deride feminism. It's simply bullying, but more subtle and refined than the 4chan and reddit vomit that they cite in the article. People were already called out in this thread for doing the same thing against feminism.
On April 10 2013 20:12 Quotidian wrote: and I'd say I completely disagree with you, and see plenty of evidence that male humans, and males of many other species are more outwardly competitive than women, generally with males of their same species. "Patriarchy" doesn't even enter into it.
Reposting this because apparently you missed it...
This study uses a controlled experiment to explore whether there are gender differences in selecting into competitive environments across two distinct societies: the Maasai in Tanzania and the Khasi in India. One unique aspect of these societies is that the Maasai represent a textbook example of a patriarchal society whereas the Khasi are matrilineal. Similar to the extant evidence drawn from experiments executed in Western cultures, Maasai men opt to compete at roughly twice the rate as Maasai women. Interestingly, this result is reversed amongst the Khasi, where women choose the competitive environment more often than Khasi men, and even choose to compete weakly more often than Maasai men.
I think it's safe to say patriarchy does, in fact, enter into it at least as a factor
not necessarily... I mean, it doesn't even address the type of competition I'm talking about - competition for dominance hierarchy status. The payment scheme they're using doesn't provide any enhancement of social position. The whole notion of the type of competition I reference is that male excellence and self-worth is in large degree derived from competition with other males and the resultant hierarchical dominance (this is talked about in the video in my first post in this thread)
This experiment doesn't address that at all, because the participants don't even know who they're competing against ("As promised, participants were never given the opportunity to learn with whom they were paired"), so the notion of direct competition is completely absent from what I understand.The competition is based around tossing a ball into a bucket, and there were only 155 participants from both cultures combined. It doesn't really prove much, except to suggest that there might exists interesting cultural outliers around the world.
On April 09 2013 13:11 Xayvier wrote: My problem is that trying to abolish gender roles is to try to end a fact of nature; it is natural that men are generally dominant and that women are care takers (note I am speaking in general). Gender roles are not a societal construct.
Physically men are, I don't buy the rest of it as 'natural' and we live in a society where physical brawn is not as advantageous or important as it once was.
I could not agree more, and this is where I think gender issues in society rob women the most. No Darwinian selection society is A GOOD THING. You wouldn't want someone to come to your house, club you over the head, and take all your stuff just because he's bigger and stronger than you. We have police and a legal system to make sure everyone gets a fair shot.
That said, I think having a professional life is part of what it means to be human, like up there with listening to music and having preferences. It pisses me off to know end that women are just expected to drop that part of their life when they have kids. Sometimes marketing people still ask for a "head of the household" as if one person in a marriage is supposed to be subordinate to another. I wish we had some first world labor laws where men got time off as well as women to take care of newborns.
I agree that professional life is part of a human life, but caring parenthood is also important, not only for the ones excersizing it, but for the ones receiving it (the kids). I feel that the roles need/should exist (bringing money, taking care of kids, maintaining the household as an enjoyable and functional place, managing the family economy). Even further, forming a family is/should always be a decision based on personal goals/preferences, and every time you want to achieve something (like family) some other thing in your life will have to be partially or totally sacrificed. I personally (and willingly) sacrificed a good shot I had at continuing my studies because we (my GF and me) got pregnant.
The way I see it, it's not about aiming for everyone to have ALL things into their lives, but to aim for each one of us having the right to choose what we want and to choose what we can sacrifice to achieve it. The roles are ok, assumming there's only one way (men=providers women=housekeepers) to do it is what's wrong.
tl:dr: Roles that may require sacrifice is ok, associating them with a specific gener is not.
Jon Coumes wrote After contending with decades of scorn, geeks are finally at the cool kids' table.
The new geeks may be at the cool kids' table, but the old geeks never were and probably never will be.
Jon Coumes wrote We had gotten to the point where we could be openly geeky without being stereotyped as neckbearded, sweaty basement-dwellers, but those anime-pillow-loving guys are holding us back.
I guess they should just stop existing because they're impinging on your cool factor?
Jon Coumes wrote one in four Japanese men in their 30s are virgins
Is this the part where we all point and laugh at how pathetic it is for a male to be a virgin in his thirties?
On April 11 2013 05:46 Denzil wrote: Can't remember who said it but
Feminism is good feminists are bad
I hate this. It's a catchy phrase but lacks any nuance or analysis. You could say it about almost anything. It's annoying people try to water debate down to catchy rhetorical phrases, especially when those phrases become replacements for actual arguments or thought.
On April 09 2013 21:08 r.Evo wrote: If those fantasy books play in a universe where men and women live in medieval times and are equal, those storylines are fine. If they play in a parallel universe of ours and try to be historical accurate, they'd be bullshit.
200 or more year old "save the princess"-stories inherently can't be sexist or discriminating because they're historically accurate. In general stereotyping isn't as evil as you might belief. Our world is defined by binary oppositions, it is not wrong to like a woman because she is more feminine or because she's more masculine. Just like it's not wrong to love men or to love women. What is wrong however is to tell people that they should feel bad for preferring one over the other or that it's not normal to prefer one. Stereotyping != discriminating.
Without stereotypes we couldn't call women women, books books or children children.
That's usually a scary trap I believe people who like to say "it's all equal stereotypes are bad" tend to fall into.
So yeah, the biggest issue is, that there's lack of choice, mostly when it comes to women who want to see strong hero characters, in not so "feminine" (goodness, I hate that definition) way, they are simply at loss. Maybe that is partially why people are upset at characters like Sansa in Game of Thrones, because they are always there, while the other one is not, and therefore, the Salsa-type character is preferred, which of course people like me will not like, because we like having the choice & don't want these characters to depict who we are in general..
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you don't read or watch much fantasy or fiction. I can't even begin to count the amount of female characters who are masculine (in the sense that they fight physically, are adventurous, bold, etc.) Probably more than the other side: female characters who are very feminine (would never fight physically, don't want adventure, passive). And universally, the feminine characters are shown as weak (except for their masculine traits) and the masculine characters are shown as strong (because of their masculine traits). The "tough chick" is so overused nowadays that it's one of the biggest cliches in the arts of storytelling. Can you name one character that you've seen in fantasy who is a strong feminine character? Strong in her femininity? I can name hundreds that are strong in their masculinity. Shit, the only real female character in LotR is Eowyn; and what is her storyline? That she wants to be (and succeeds in being) a warrior.
I see nothing wrong with preferring masculine female characters, but don't pretend like they don't exist.
I think it's extremely self defeating and harmful towards women when you explicitly define passivity and "not wanting adventure" as feminine. I don't think the conversation will move any further if you can't see why. I think it's ridiculous to dictate that an audience must like completely passive characters. I think we should be able to expect more from our fictional heroes.
You missed the point pretty bad. Especially when I said: "I'm fine with preferring masculine characters over feminine ones." Obviously I am not saying that audiences should prefer one or the other, I'm just saying that we should definitely not pretend like there is some lack of female characters in fantasy/fiction that like to adventure, are bold, and fight just as well as the boys. They are literally littered everywhere in fantasy and fiction, so much so that you'll be hard-pressed to find some stories without them, especially in modern fantasy.
I'm sorry but passivity has always been defined as a more feminine trait. And there is good reason for that. The majority of women will react more passively to a threat than a man will. Not being as adventurous is another common trait in women and girls: in the sense that more men than women will choose to go travel across mountains and oceans for the sense of adventure. Some women will break the mold, sure, but they are breaking the mold, not remaking it.
My only problem is with the idea that feminine traits, such as passivity, automatically equal weakness. And feminism seems to be all about that: instead of celebrating femininity as equally desirable and strong, they ironically celebrate masculinity as the ideal.
I have no problem with Feminists, but I do have a problem with your assessment of Diamonds. While I will grant that there is nothing rare about diamonds they are still quite valuable. First off they have an unparalleled hardness which makes them essential to many manufacturing processes. Secondly, diamonds have not just been revered since the 1930's and in fact many of the greatest mystics in history have used the diamond to represent everything from god, to paradise, to the perfect human. This is because of the diamonds perfect crystalline structure and the purity of its translucence are natural wonders that can be used to represent ideas of perfection. Diamonds are wonderful and amazing things, and the fact that they are common should not take away from that at all (in fact it is a blessing)!
On April 09 2013 12:37 HawaiianPig wrote: Don't let some teenage kid who spouts "girl power" on her tumblr affect how you view a very real and very important lens you can use to view various issues.
This is becoming a harder and harder thing to do recently.
On April 11 2013 14:08 theaxis12 wrote: I have no problem with Feminists, but I do have a problem with your assessment of Diamonds. While I will grant that there is nothing rare about diamonds they are still quite valuable. First off they have an unparalleled hardness which makes them essential to many manufacturing processes. Secondly, diamonds have not just been revered since the 1930's and in fact many of the greatest mystics in history have used the diamond to represent everything from god, to paradise, to the perfect human. This is because of the diamonds perfect crystalline structure and the purity of its translucence are natural wonders that can be used to represent ideas of perfection. Diamonds are wonderful and amazing things, and the fact that they are common should not take away from that at all (in fact it is a blessing)!
OP doesn't say diamonds have no value at all (mystical or industrial). He basically criticize a corporate group that is advertising something as being mystical/necessary to a group of person that has no use of such mysticism therefore creating a fake need for the western woman (and man by association).
If you are into pre-1930 mysticism so that you absolutely need genuine diamonds from that group... sure go ahead (or if you need it for industrial purposes). But diamonds as being a necessary part of marriage or advertising genuine ones being much better than artificial is pure marketing that has true consequences to our traditions, our economy and to the safety of some (blood-diamonds).
On April 11 2013 14:08 theaxis12 wrote: I have no problem with Feminists, but I do have a problem with your assessment of Diamonds. While I will grant that there is nothing rare about diamonds they are still quite valuable. First off they have an unparalleled hardness which makes them essential to many manufacturing processes. Secondly, diamonds have not just been revered since the 1930's and in fact many of the greatest mystics in history have used the diamond to represent everything from god, to paradise, to the perfect human. This is because of the diamonds perfect crystalline structure and the purity of its translucence are natural wonders that can be used to represent ideas of perfection. Diamonds are wonderful and amazing things, and the fact that they are common should not take away from that at all (in fact it is a blessing)!
OP doesn't say diamonds have no value at all (mystical or industrial). He basically criticize a corporate group that is advertising something as being mystical/necessary to a group of person that has no use of such mysticism therefore creating a fake need for the western woman (and man by association).
If you are into pre-1930 mysticism so that you absolutely need genuine diamonds from that group... sure go ahead (or if you need it for industrial purposes). But diamonds as being a necessary part of marriage or advertising genuine ones being much better than artificial is pure marketing that has true consequences to our traditions, our economy and to the safety of some (blood-diamonds).
I love precious stones, I wish the world was awash with cheap artificial ones so that I would have a chance of acquiring one. It's fun to browse for hyper expensive gemstones on ebay.
Feminism is also about assessing current gender roles, power relations and how we interact with society. I would certainly argue that people adopting a more feminist approach is certainly a positive, empowering thing. People often think feminism is only about women, but think about how society erects certain standards towards men and women and impose certain norms upon them. Feminism is about deconstructing these norms and opening up options for all sexes.
Once you start living your life thinking that prescriptive gender norms are actually a car full of crap, be you a man or a woman, you certainly feel like you're more in control of your life and your future than before.
I personally liked this web site and use it for teaching to help students better understand these complex issues : http://www.feministfrequency.com . The best videos are the ones on Lego advertisement. Brilliant.
Of course, if you're into the status quo, feminism is your arch nemesis.
On April 12 2013 22:33 Iberville wrote: Once you start living your life thinking that prescriptive gender norms are actually a car full of crap, be you a man or a woman, you certainly feel like you're more in control of your life and your future than before.
I personally liked this web site and use it for teaching to help students better understand these complex issues : http://www.feministfrequency.com . The best videos are the ones on Lego advertisement. Brilliant.
Of course, if you're into the status quo, feminism is your arch nemesis.
The experiments this man has used to explore some of those "Boys play with Lego and girls with Barbie because of society, not because of their genders"-believes would like to have a word with you.
I actually highly recommend those videos linked above for everyone here, it's very rare that someone approaches issues like gender equality or ethnic equality (Among other things one of the episodes e.g. showed an incredibly strong correlation between high IQ and orthodox Jews) from a neutral position and just lets both sides of the fence talk.
tl;dr from the other OP:
What Eia had done, was to first interview the Norwegian social scientists on issues like sexual orientation, gender roles, violence, education and race, which are heavily politicized in the Norwegian science community. Then he translated the interviews into English and took them to well-known British and American scientists like Robert Plomin, Steven Pinker, Anne Campbell, Simon Baron-Cohen, Richard Lippa, David Buss, and others, and got their comments. To say that the American and British scientists were surprised by what they heard, is an understatement.
I think the word Feminism is pretty useless, because there are so many different forms which range for progressive to genuinely patriarchal and negative. By it's namesake, it also tends to suggest rising women up to men's level, rather than exploring negative stereotypes and images men are faced with as well.
So I just call myself egalitarian, or something like that.
I think looking for an audience or some participants to an intellectual discussion on the internet is a difficult thing. There's a lot of strangers you'll talk to plenty on the internet that you wouldn't even bother trying to argue with if you met them in person. Sometimes even just having cues like body language and facial expression and tone can very clearly tell you when someone is set in their beliefs. That look of sincere interest and listening to your argument is critical to intellectual discussion, and you just don't know if it's there or not on the internet. Sometimes just discussing something in person lends itself to being more polite and willing to listen to the person you are talking to, then responding in a real way that involves asking questions about parts which don't make sense.
It would be lovely if the internet were just a place where discrimination based on age, gender and nationality were more difficult, but I think more often the internet is conducive to intellectual incest, where people don't have to come to any kind of common ground if they don't want, and they can always find people who agree unconditionally with them. Forums are the worst for this, 1:1 IMs are a little better. All this, of course, to respond to your point about making an argument about diamonds or feminism or any topic, since I don't think your intention is to really discuss feminism here.
ROFL, I usually don't enter these types of arguments, but that has got to be one of the most disingenuous and blatantly stupid videos that I have ever seen. Not even one of those points makes any sense (except perhaps wimbledon prize money) if you even choose to use an iota of critical thinking.
On April 13 2013 11:05 rezoacken wrote: Today I received an email from the university for a poll regarding gender equality at the university. To answer the poll I must be a woman...
How come they are getting a real study about gender!!S!! equality if they interrogate only half of the studied population ?
PS: and last time I checked there is more women in the university than men... and they are performing better.
LOL. At my school it does seem that there are far more women than men. There is a special women's center on campus. We've had numerous events like "walk a mile in her shoes", "the vagina monologues", and the group "men of strength", where men can show they oppose rape and domestic violence toward women.
On April 13 2013 11:05 rezoacken wrote: Today I received an email from the university for a poll regarding gender equality at the university. To answer the poll I must be a woman...
How come they are getting a real study about gender!!S!! equality if they interrogate only half of the studied population ?
PS: and last time I checked there is more women in the university than men... and they are performing better.
LOL. At my school it does seem that there are far more women than men. There is a special women's center on campus. We've had numerous events like "walk a mile in her shoes", "the vagina monologues", and the group "men of strength", where men can show they oppose rape and domestic violence toward women.
@rezoacken: I suspect the poll regarding gender equality was looking to make sure there wasn't an overt discrimination against women at the university. If you have been discriminated against as a woman while being a man I'm sure they'd like to hear your input. If you think that men are being discriminated against, it might be worthwhile to bring up the idea with your school's administration. Given western society's history of oppression of women and not men, though, it doesn't seem at all unreasonable that a poll might specifically be targeted at women.
@Mothra: The reason for these events you're talking about is in part to prevent rape. The easiest way to prevent rapes is to educate people how to not rape, and to change culture so that our ideas of consent, power, and gender dynamics discourages rather than encourages young men to rape. The Vagina Monologues and groups of men who actively show that raping a woman is unmanly are exactly what we need as a society to move towards a better world.
The feminist critique of society doesn't just point out how women are damaged by the system-- it also points out how men are damaged by the system. The way our gender roles exist and the way our society treats men and women differently harms us all. We've made great strides in creating a better world than we've had before-- and perhaps because of these strides, some of the momentum feminism used to have has diminished. The most overt examples of sexism and damaging gender norms (to both men and women) have been eradicated. But there is still much work to do.
Feminism is like many other cultural marxist theories: insidiuous, intended to instigate conflict amongst separate classes and completely unrooted in reality, evidence or reason.
There is every reason to campaign for women's rights, but absolutely none to endorse feminism. I am very happy that many people that I talk to in the real world are beginning to understand this.
@rezoacken: I suspect the poll regarding gender equality was looking to make sure there wasn't an overt discrimination against women at the university. If you have been discriminated against as a woman while being a man I'm sure they'd like to hear your input. If you think that men are being discriminated against, it might be worthwhile to bring up the idea with your school's administration. Given western society's history of oppression of women and not men, though, it doesn't seem at all unreasonable that a poll might specifically be targeted at women.
Oh I understand where they are coming from and I encourage them finding out if there is discrimination against anybody. But I work in statistics, and making a study regarding 2 groups while ignoring one of those group based on an assumption that is 50 to 20 years old... makes no sense to me. This is just not serious work. + Show Spoiler +
I have also to point out that the study is not titled ''discrimination" but "equality", which are very distinct things, discrimination implies an action from somebody that favors one gender over the other while equality is a larger term that does not necessarily involve a malicious action (for example, maths class being 75% men is not equality but this is not due to discrimination, but enough semantics.)
Or... your study is not about gender equality but about "how women feel". I have nothing against that in itself, I'm just tired because I have a feeling how they "feel" will be considered as being the whole picture. It's like breast cancer, the only cancer the university send e-mails for. In my life, I know (personally) one woman that got a breast removed due to cancer at 27, one guy that died from testicles cancer at 22, and my dad got a colon cancer... So you can understand how I really don't understand why the general population walk around with pink signs on their cloth/cars supporting breast cancer when it should be only about cancer in general (at least the most promoted one).
Anyway, don't worry, its not like I'm angry over it. I'm just annoyed because all this feels like another example of people following the mass without really thinking about it. And even more when its at university level.
On April 13 2013 22:35 LurkersGonnaLurk wrote: Feminism is like many other cultural marxist theories: insidiuous, intended to instigate conflict amongst separate classes and completely unrooted in reality, evidence or reason.
There is every reason to campaign for women's rights, but absolutely none to endorse feminism. I am very happy that many people that I talk to in the real world are beginning to understand this.
I don't see what's so insidious about questioning certain cultural norms, the difficulty in finding 'evidence' for such things is that such things are complex and attitudes are influenced by a multitude of influences.
On April 13 2013 22:35 LurkersGonnaLurk wrote: Feminism is like many other cultural marxist theories: insidiuous, intended to instigate conflict amongst separate classes and completely unrooted in reality, evidence or reason.
There is every reason to campaign for women's rights, but absolutely none to endorse feminism. I am very happy that many people that I talk to in the real world are beginning to understand this.
Tell me, what other "cultural marxist theories" are you familiar with?
I know that the UoT protests have been posted here, but idk if this one specifically has.
I don't agree with feminism at all, but I respect their rights to assemble and voice their opinions like everyone else.
What I don't respect is hatemongering cunts like this woman, who haven't the slightest idea that the lack of respect they get isn't because they're a woman but because they're forcing their opinions down others' throats in the most ironic way possible. Ditto for doing it right outside of a men's rights rally.
I don't agree with feminism at all, but I respect their rights to assemble and voice their opinions like everyone else.
What I don't respect is hatemongering cunts like this woman, who haven't the slightest idea that the lack of respect they get isn't because they're a woman but because they're forcing their opinions down others' throats in the most ironic way possible. Ditto for doing it right outside of a men's rights rally.
Although the red-haired woman seems angry her ideas are fine. I don't think prison rape is good, I don't think blaming rape victims is good, I don't think false accusations of rape are good. All of what she said on those subjects is entirely correct. Might she be out of line counter-protesting at some other event? Maybe. But are her ideas seem reasonable to me. The older woman and her friends who argue about the definition of consent seem like they have a good point. The idea that some rape victims are just people who "regret" having had sex consensually is a very misleading idea. Like, a LOT of the time, people who are straight-up raped and wait a few days before pressing charges or telling someone are accused of just regretting the sex. The man in the hat calls him out pretty hard when he asks him, "have you ever seen that happen?"
Basically, it's an idea that's used to silence and shame rape victims, and although the feminists didn't articulate that idea particularly well, I doubt I'd be able to do so if I were in an emotional state protesting against people who I thought were actively (if unintentionally) promoting rape culture.
In any case, although that interaction looks emotionally charged for sure, I think it's highly inappropriate to refer to these people as "hatemongering cunts" and unbecoming of your standing as my friend and a fellow member of TL. Cunt is a word that is used to remove power from women, and using it specifically to denigrate feminists should be below you, man. Think about what you say before you say it.
EDIT: I'll also note that counter-protest is a legitimate form of expression. When the Westboro Baptist Church came to my high school in the wake of a suicide to protest, we organized a counter-protest and sang songs of love and unity to drown out their hate and disrespect. If I were a woman with skin in the game and had been, or knew people who had been, raped, and I saw the MRA movement as promoting rape culture (intentionally or not) I am absolutely sure I'd be there counter-protesting.
On April 15 2013 05:04 Blazinghand wrote: The idea that rape victims are just people who "regret" having had sex consensually is a very dangerous idea.
I definitely agree with this, but it raises an interesting issue. In my experience, a large number of feminists (definitely the more radical sort) refuse to believe that there are women who falsely accuse men of rape due to regret. While it is clear that this scenario is frequently used as a basis for "slut shaming" amongst a host of other victim blaming strategies, these things most certainly happen, and I'm always left scratching my head when it comes to reconciling a refusal to give public air to such a thought and the actual notion of progress.
On April 15 2013 05:04 Blazinghand wrote: The idea that rape victims are just people who "regret" having had sex consensually is a very dangerous idea.
I definitely agree with this, but it raises an interesting issue. In my experience, a large number of feminists (definitely the more radical sort) refuse to believe that there are women who falsely accuse men of rape due to regret. While it is clear that this scenario is frequently used as a basis for "slut shaming" amongst a host of other victim blaming strategies, these things most certainly happen, and I'm always left scratching my head when it comes to reconciling a refusal to give public air to such a thought and the actual notion of progress.
The reason for this is the same as the reason that people on the far left don't admit that there are leeches in the system, or people on the far right don't admit that there are elements of the social safety net that are good. If you truly believe you are locked in a titanic struggle for your ideas or for justice, you don't want to give any ground. That being said, the red-haired woman in the video above explicitly states that false accusations of rape are bad, and most feminists I know are aware that there are in fact some false accusations of rape. It is a profoundly tiny problem compared to the number of rapes that go unreported or the number of rapes that are not acted on. Also, because of the way the US justice system works, the typical outcome of a false claim of rape is "no outcome", whereas the typical outcome of an unreported rape is "someone has been raped"
Most of the feminists I know (myself included) do not deny the truth of the fact that there are false claims of rape. But, just like the truth that there were black men who were racist against white men in like 1970 or whatever, it's like super irrelevant compared to other things going on.
On April 15 2013 05:04 Blazinghand wrote: The idea that rape victims are just people who "regret" having had sex consensually is a very dangerous idea.
I definitely agree with this, but it raises an interesting issue. In my experience, a large number of feminists (definitely the more radical sort) refuse to believe that there are women who falsely accuse men of rape due to regret. While it is clear that this scenario is frequently used as a basis for "slut shaming" amongst a host of other victim blaming strategies, these things most certainly happen, and I'm always left scratching my head when it comes to reconciling a refusal to give public air to such a thought and the actual notion of progress.
The reason for this is the same as the reason that people on the far left don't admit that there are Welfare Queens, or people on the far right don't admit that there are elements of the social safety net that are good. If you truly belief you are locked in a titanic struggle for your beliefs or for justice, you don't want to give any ground. That being said, the red-haired woman in the video above explicitly states that false accusations of rape are bad, and most feminists I know are aware that there are in fact some false accusations of rape. It is a profoundly tiny problem compared to the number of rapes that go unreported or the number of rapes that are not acted on.
While I agree with your general sentiment, I do not think declaring it a "profoundly tiny problem" is all that fair. If we are talking national Feminism, the sort that is so zoomed out so as to render its members mere numbers, then I guess it applies. But when you tell a man who is serving a prison sentence or is unable to get a job due to a wrongful felony sexual assault conviction that his is a "profoundly small problem", you are discounting a great deal of the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of authentic Feminism.
My point is that Feminism is, in part, about demystifying cultural norms and breaking them down, and to then suggest that a cultural norm posited by Feminism is then somehow able to rely on typicality when others are not is silly.
On April 15 2013 05:04 Blazinghand wrote: The idea that rape victims are just people who "regret" having had sex consensually is a very dangerous idea.
I definitely agree with this, but it raises an interesting issue. In my experience, a large number of feminists (definitely the more radical sort) refuse to believe that there are women who falsely accuse men of rape due to regret. While it is clear that this scenario is frequently used as a basis for "slut shaming" amongst a host of other victim blaming strategies, these things most certainly happen, and I'm always left scratching my head when it comes to reconciling a refusal to give public air to such a thought and the actual notion of progress.
The reason for this is the same as the reason that people on the far left don't admit that there are Welfare Queens, or people on the far right don't admit that there are elements of the social safety net that are good. If you truly belief you are locked in a titanic struggle for your beliefs or for justice, you don't want to give any ground. That being said, the red-haired woman in the video above explicitly states that false accusations of rape are bad, and most feminists I know are aware that there are in fact some false accusations of rape. It is a profoundly tiny problem compared to the number of rapes that go unreported or the number of rapes that are not acted on.
While I agree with your general sentiment, I do not think declaring it a "profoundly tiny problem" is all that fair. If we are talking national Feminism, the sort that is so zoomed out so as to render its members mere numbers, then I guess it applies. But when you tell a man who is serving a prison sentence or is unable to get a job due to a wrongful felony sexual assault conviction that his is a "profoundly small problem", you are discounting a great deal of the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of authentic Feminism.
I'm gonna be real here, wrongful conviction sucks. People get railroaded all the time and it's bullshit. That being said, it literally is true that the human suffering caused by wrongful rape convictions in the US is like way less than the human suffering caused by rape. I don't think I'm discounting any philosophical and ethical underpinnings of any legitimate sort by saying that it's not unreasonable to try to deal with rape culture and not devote effort to dealing with the very small number of people who falsely get accused of rape.
E: It's also worth noting that "helping people who get falsely accused of rape" is probably just under the umbrella category of like civil liberties and stuff, since it's probably more helpful to handle it as a reform of the justice system. Prosecutorial overreach, the reliance of our system on plea bargains and the lack of good defense attorneys and respect for civil rights are all important.
E2:
My point is that Feminism is, in part, about demystifying cultural norms and breaking them down, and to then suggest that a cultural norm posited by Feminism is then somehow able to rely on typicality when others are not is silly.
That would definitely be silly! But I don't think that's what I say. I don't say "it's totally chillbro swaggins if people get falsely accused of rape" or even "false accusations of rape do not exist". I make the factual claim that such accusations are rare, and I make the prescriptive statement that our time is best spent worrying about unreported rapes or the shaming of rape victims. I add in this post that false accusations of rape, like false accusations of anything, are a serious problem in our society, but they should be addressed within that context.
E3: Not sure if this is a helpful analogy, but maybe it will shed some light on my thought process. I am an atheist, and a common critique I deal with of my atheism is "well, you say I can't be sure of god, but how can you be so sure of not-god? Aren't you just making the same mistake in the wrong direction?" or "Aren't you worried about atheists who want to make it illegal to worship god? These people aren't just atheists, they actually hate all religion!"
I view these critiques and questions as like a very clever form of being wrong. They point at real things (such as the fact that you can't be sure of things, or that yes, atheists can be dicks just like religious people) that are also real problems, but they are just not super relevant. The idea that by promoting my atheist, I could be supporting those who would make worship illegal, or that by doubting god I have to be doubting everything, is the same bad idea. It's the idea that attacking and critiquing rape culture very aggressively while not taking actions on other fronts is conceding, or even supporting those fronts. This is a false dichotomy.
On April 15 2013 05:04 Blazinghand wrote: The idea that rape victims are just people who "regret" having had sex consensually is a very dangerous idea.
I definitely agree with this, but it raises an interesting issue. In my experience, a large number of feminists (definitely the more radical sort) refuse to believe that there are women who falsely accuse men of rape due to regret. While it is clear that this scenario is frequently used as a basis for "slut shaming" amongst a host of other victim blaming strategies, these things most certainly happen, and I'm always left scratching my head when it comes to reconciling a refusal to give public air to such a thought and the actual notion of progress.
The reason for this is the same as the reason that people on the far left don't admit that there are Welfare Queens, or people on the far right don't admit that there are elements of the social safety net that are good. If you truly belief you are locked in a titanic struggle for your beliefs or for justice, you don't want to give any ground. That being said, the red-haired woman in the video above explicitly states that false accusations of rape are bad, and most feminists I know are aware that there are in fact some false accusations of rape. It is a profoundly tiny problem compared to the number of rapes that go unreported or the number of rapes that are not acted on.
While I agree with your general sentiment, I do not think declaring it a "profoundly tiny problem" is all that fair. If we are talking national Feminism, the sort that is so zoomed out so as to render its members mere numbers, then I guess it applies. But when you tell a man who is serving a prison sentence or is unable to get a job due to a wrongful felony sexual assault conviction that his is a "profoundly small problem", you are discounting a great deal of the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of authentic Feminism.
I'm gonna be real here, wrongful conviction sucks. People get railroaded all the time and it's bullshit. That being said, it literally is true that the human suffering caused by wrongful rape convictions in the US is like way less than the human suffering caused by rape. I don't think I'm discounting any philosophical and ethical underpinnings of any legitimate sort by saying that it's not unreasonable to try to deal with rape culture and not devote effort to dealing with the very small number of people who falsely get accused of rape.
Ahh, but on what basis are you able to extract the phenomena of falsely accused rape from "rape culture" without entirely discounting any negative role on the part of women in this whole mess? I happen to be of the opinion that many women play an active role in encouraging "rape culture" (certainly not as much as men, but still), and the occurrence, however quantitatively small, of falsely accused rape is worthy of consideration insofar as progress and moving forward are concerned.
Now before you start thinking that I'm blaming women for dressing sexy and the like, allow me to clarify. I'm referencing particular attitudes many women seem to have in regards to gender norms and relationships, many of which are not nominatively harmful. Specifically, there seems to be a straddling of Feminism and traditional gender roles, a "best of both worlds" operation in which a female collects sexually interested male partners with the veneer of the potential for a traditional relationship. More casually referred to as the "friendzone", this phenomena is relatively new as a cultural norm, and although it seems harmless enough, it encourages a sort of "push-pull" in regards to male-female interaction that is patently unhealthy to all involved. While I can see the poetic justice in women celebrating this sort of "power", I think it directly conflicts with Feminism's stated goal of an egalitarian society.
In view of your edits, I'll simply add that I think mainstream Feminism is over reductionist in how it approaches these problems. We can pretend that we can separate out all these gender relations and neatly address them, but I do not think that true progress is found in such a way.
On April 15 2013 05:04 Blazinghand wrote: The idea that rape victims are just people who "regret" having had sex consensually is a very dangerous idea.
I definitely agree with this, but it raises an interesting issue. In my experience, a large number of feminists (definitely the more radical sort) refuse to believe that there are women who falsely accuse men of rape due to regret. While it is clear that this scenario is frequently used as a basis for "slut shaming" amongst a host of other victim blaming strategies, these things most certainly happen, and I'm always left scratching my head when it comes to reconciling a refusal to give public air to such a thought and the actual notion of progress.
The reason for this is the same as the reason that people on the far left don't admit that there are Welfare Queens, or people on the far right don't admit that there are elements of the social safety net that are good. If you truly belief you are locked in a titanic struggle for your beliefs or for justice, you don't want to give any ground. That being said, the red-haired woman in the video above explicitly states that false accusations of rape are bad, and most feminists I know are aware that there are in fact some false accusations of rape. It is a profoundly tiny problem compared to the number of rapes that go unreported or the number of rapes that are not acted on.
While I agree with your general sentiment, I do not think declaring it a "profoundly tiny problem" is all that fair. If we are talking national Feminism, the sort that is so zoomed out so as to render its members mere numbers, then I guess it applies. But when you tell a man who is serving a prison sentence or is unable to get a job due to a wrongful felony sexual assault conviction that his is a "profoundly small problem", you are discounting a great deal of the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of authentic Feminism.
I'm gonna be real here, wrongful conviction sucks. People get railroaded all the time and it's bullshit. That being said, it literally is true that the human suffering caused by wrongful rape convictions in the US is like way less than the human suffering caused by rape. I don't think I'm discounting any philosophical and ethical underpinnings of any legitimate sort by saying that it's not unreasonable to try to deal with rape culture and not devote effort to dealing with the very small number of people who falsely get accused of rape.
Ahh, but on what basis are you able to extract the phenomena of falsely accused rape from "rape culture" without entirely discounting any negative role on the part of women in this whole mess? I happen to be of the opinion that many women play an active role in encouraging "rape culture" (certainly not as much as men, but still), and the occurrence, however quantitatively small, of falsely accused rape is worthy of consideration insofar as progress and moving forward are concerned.
Now before you start thinking that I'm blaming women for dressing sexy and the like, allow me to clarify. I'm referencing particular attitudes many women seem to have in regards to gender norms and relationships, many of which are not nominatively harmful. Specifically, there seems to be a straddling of Feminism and traditional gender roles, a "best of both worlds" operation in which a female collects sexually interested male partners with the veneer of the potential for a traditional relationship. More casually referred to as the "friendzone", this phenomena is relatively new as a cultural norm, and although it seems harmless enough, it encourages a sort of "push-pull" in regards to male-female interaction that is patently unhealthy to all involved. While I can see the poetic justice in women celebrating this sort of "power", I think it directly conflicts with Feminism's stated goal of an egalitarian society.
I think it's probably true that the vast majority of people support and/or are complicit in rape culture, because that's what we are raised in. I don't believe I discount the negative role of women in rape culture, though I could have misrepresented myself, so I will do my best to clarify: rape culture is culture, it is not just some idea pushed by a small number of people. It's simply the way the society we live in currently operates. Without turning a critical eye to our assumptions and our upbringing, whether we are male or female we are complicit in and support rape culture. Not having a penis doesn't magically make you an ally of the feminist movement.
In any case, I do believe the false accusations of rape are worthy of consideration! I considered them, and having done so, I do not believe it is a priority for me in any way more than general false accusations are. And, getting back to the original thing, the red-haired woman in the video actually disagrees with me. In her statement of values she strongly comes out against false accusations of rape and states it is a priority of hers. Sentinel's use of sexist language to put her down, in addition to being inappropriate, is also misleading.
On April 15 2013 05:04 Blazinghand wrote: The idea that rape victims are just people who "regret" having had sex consensually is a very dangerous idea.
I definitely agree with this, but it raises an interesting issue. In my experience, a large number of feminists (definitely the more radical sort) refuse to believe that there are women who falsely accuse men of rape due to regret. While it is clear that this scenario is frequently used as a basis for "slut shaming" amongst a host of other victim blaming strategies, these things most certainly happen, and I'm always left scratching my head when it comes to reconciling a refusal to give public air to such a thought and the actual notion of progress.
The reason for this is the same as the reason that people on the far left don't admit that there are Welfare Queens, or people on the far right don't admit that there are elements of the social safety net that are good. If you truly belief you are locked in a titanic struggle for your beliefs or for justice, you don't want to give any ground. That being said, the red-haired woman in the video above explicitly states that false accusations of rape are bad, and most feminists I know are aware that there are in fact some false accusations of rape. It is a profoundly tiny problem compared to the number of rapes that go unreported or the number of rapes that are not acted on.
While I agree with your general sentiment, I do not think declaring it a "profoundly tiny problem" is all that fair. If we are talking national Feminism, the sort that is so zoomed out so as to render its members mere numbers, then I guess it applies. But when you tell a man who is serving a prison sentence or is unable to get a job due to a wrongful felony sexual assault conviction that his is a "profoundly small problem", you are discounting a great deal of the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of authentic Feminism.
I'm gonna be real here, wrongful conviction sucks. People get railroaded all the time and it's bullshit. That being said, it literally is true that the human suffering caused by wrongful rape convictions in the US is like way less than the human suffering caused by rape. I don't think I'm discounting any philosophical and ethical underpinnings of any legitimate sort by saying that it's not unreasonable to try to deal with rape culture and not devote effort to dealing with the very small number of people who falsely get accused of rape.
Ahh, but on what basis are you able to extract the phenomena of falsely accused rape from "rape culture" without entirely discounting any negative role on the part of women in this whole mess? I happen to be of the opinion that many women play an active role in encouraging "rape culture" (certainly not as much as men, but still), and the occurrence, however quantitatively small, of falsely accused rape is worthy of consideration insofar as progress and moving forward are concerned.
Now before you start thinking that I'm blaming women for dressing sexy and the like, allow me to clarify. I'm referencing particular attitudes many women seem to have in regards to gender norms and relationships, many of which are not nominatively harmful. Specifically, there seems to be a straddling of Feminism and traditional gender roles, a "best of both worlds" operation in which a female collects sexually interested male partners with the veneer of the potential for a traditional relationship. More casually referred to as the "friendzone", this phenomena is relatively new as a cultural norm, and although it seems harmless enough, it encourages a sort of "push-pull" in regards to male-female interaction that is patently unhealthy to all involved. While I can see the poetic justice in women celebrating this sort of "power", I think it directly conflicts with Feminism's stated goal of an egalitarian society.
I think it's probably true that the vast majority of people support and/or are complicit in rape culture, because that's what we are raised in. I don't believe I discount the negative role of women in rape culture, though I could have misrepresented myself, so I will do my best to clarify: rape culture is culture, it is not just some idea pushed by a small number of people. It's simply the way the society we live in currently operates. Without turning a critical eye to our assumptions and our upbringing, whether we are male or female we are complicit in and support rape culture. Not having a penis doesn't magically make you an ally of the feminist movement.
In any case, I do believe the false accusations of rape are worthy of consideration! I considered them, and having done so, I do not believe it is a priority for me in any way more than general false accusations are. And, getting back to the original thing, the red-haired woman in the video actually disagrees with me. In her statement of values she strongly comes out against false accusations of rape and states it is a priority of hers. Sentinel's use of sexist language to put her down, in addition to being inappropriate, is also misleading.
Ahh yeah, well don't lump me in with Sentinel please I'd definitely still call myself a feminist, I just think the movement needs to, at the risk of sounding silly, become less gendered
I think what people suggested was rather sensibilize the population that wrongful accusations are both real and a crime (with all the criminal charges that come with defamation ?). And what people criticize is that some feminists (of course not all) do not believe its even real and that hiding the fact is just not right.
Let's prevent the problem before it becomes a big one, there is no reason to believe real rapes prevention would suffer from it.
Well I've never really understood the whole "equality" aspect of it because men and women aren't "equal." And what's the deal with "equal" anyway? Nobody is equal stop saying that we are equal for god's sake.
I think women are cool and I know how different they are from men. It's why I love their company (SOMETIMES, depends on the girl).
I just remember growing up in school and being told that women could do everything men could do blah blah blah we're all equal blah blah blah race and ethnicity don't mean a thing blah blah blah PC bullshit all day long.
On April 16 2013 03:50 JadeFist wrote: Well I've never really understood the whole "equality" aspect of it because men and women aren't "equal." And what's the deal with "equal" anyway? Nobody is equal stop saying that we are equal for god's sake.
I think women are cool and I know how different they are from men. It's why I love their company (SOMETIMES, depends on the girl).
I just remember growing up in school and being told that women could do everything men could do blah blah blah we're all equal blah blah blah race and ethnicity don't mean a thing blah blah blah PC bullshit all day long.
The joy of life is to revel in our differences.
Sure, but knowing exactly what those differences are and how to revel in them without subjugating or infringing on others is not exactly a simple process. Folks can be equal yet different ya know.
On April 16 2013 03:50 JadeFist wrote: Well I've never really understood the whole "equality" aspect of it because men and women aren't "equal." And what's the deal with "equal" anyway? Nobody is equal stop saying that we are equal for god's sake.
I think women are cool and I know how different they are from men. It's why I love their company (SOMETIMES, depends on the girl).
I just remember growing up in school and being told that women could do everything men could do blah blah blah we're all equal blah blah blah race and ethnicity don't mean a thing blah blah blah PC bullshit all day long.
The joy of life is to revel in our differences.
Sure, but knowing exactly what those differences are and how to revel in them without subjugating or infringing on others is not exactly a simple process. Folks can be equal yet different ya know.
On April 16 2013 03:50 JadeFist wrote: Well I've never really understood the whole "equality" aspect of it because men and women aren't "equal." And what's the deal with "equal" anyway? Nobody is equal stop saying that we are equal for god's sake.
I think women are cool and I know how different they are from men. It's why I love their company (SOMETIMES, depends on the girl).
I just remember growing up in school and being told that women could do everything men could do blah blah blah we're all equal blah blah blah race and ethnicity don't mean a thing blah blah blah PC bullshit all day long.
The joy of life is to revel in our differences.
Sure, but knowing exactly what those differences are and how to revel in them without subjugating or infringing on others is not exactly a simple process. Folks can be equal yet different ya know.
Not really following you. Example please?
Well, a common example would be athletics. It is abundantly clear that, from a physiological perspective, women and men have different body compositions that make different sorts of movements easier or harder for each. For the longest time, these differences were used as a reason to exclude women from athletics at large, when in reality they simply indicate that head-on female vs male competition is likely a bad idea in most circumstances.
On April 16 2013 03:50 JadeFist wrote: Well I've never really understood the whole "equality" aspect of it because men and women aren't "equal." And what's the deal with "equal" anyway? Nobody is equal stop saying that we are equal for god's sake.
I think women are cool and I know how different they are from men. It's why I love their company (SOMETIMES, depends on the girl).
I just remember growing up in school and being told that women could do everything men could do blah blah blah we're all equal blah blah blah race and ethnicity don't mean a thing blah blah blah PC bullshit all day long.
The joy of life is to revel in our differences.
Sure, but knowing exactly what those differences are and how to revel in them without subjugating or infringing on others is not exactly a simple process. Folks can be equal yet different ya know.
Not really following you. Example please?
Well, a common example would be athletics. It is abundantly clear that, from a physiological perspective, women and men have different body compositions that make different sorts of movements easier or harder for each. For the longest time, these differences were used as a reason to exclude women from athletics at large, when in reality they simply indicate that head-on female vs male competition is likely a bad idea in most circumstances.
Okay I agree with you there. I agree with the notion of equal opportunity. The problem that arises with that notion however is people seem to think equal opportunity means men=women.
On April 16 2013 03:50 JadeFist wrote: Well I've never really understood the whole "equality" aspect of it because men and women aren't "equal." And what's the deal with "equal" anyway? Nobody is equal stop saying that we are equal for god's sake.
I think women are cool and I know how different they are from men. It's why I love their company (SOMETIMES, depends on the girl).
I just remember growing up in school and being told that women could do everything men could do blah blah blah we're all equal blah blah blah race and ethnicity don't mean a thing blah blah blah PC bullshit all day long.
The joy of life is to revel in our differences.
Sure, but knowing exactly what those differences are and how to revel in them without subjugating or infringing on others is not exactly a simple process. Folks can be equal yet different ya know.
Not really following you. Example please?
Well, a common example would be athletics. It is abundantly clear that, from a physiological perspective, women and men have different body compositions that make different sorts of movements easier or harder for each. For the longest time, these differences were used as a reason to exclude women from athletics at large, when in reality they simply indicate that head-on female vs male competition is likely a bad idea in most circumstances.
Okay I agree with you there. I agree with the notion of equal opportunity. The problem that arises with that notion however is people seem to think equal opportunity means men=women.
That reminds me of how in countries with arguably the most equal opportunities for men and women (think e.g. Norway) they have less women who want to work in e.g. Engineering than in countries where womens rights are almost unheard of.
If differences in job choices exist because people have the freedom of choice or if differences in school exclusively boil down to the parents intelligence those are results of systems that work incredibly well, not the contrary - which the die-hard supporters seem to try and suggest.
Rape culture seems to be a hot-button issue at present. I am entirely aware of some of the debates within, but quite confused as to why it is coming to a boil now.
If anything, I see an increasing understanding of issues of consent, of the pitfalls of victim-blaming and the acknowledgement of the terrible suffering that rape victims suffer. Does 'perpetuating a rape culture' refer to not actively working against it, as opposed to merely say, not raping/condoning rape? In the same way I don't know, you could perhaps say that people 'perpetuate capitalism' by not entering a commune and removing themself from the environment entirely?
I may be entirely wrong on this, or people will have alternative viewpoints on what I'm getting at. Would be interested to hear thoughts on it either way.
I think people are just a bit more outspoken about rape culture even though things aren't as bad as they used to be. Although things are getting better, that doesn't mean people will complain less. Also, we now live in a world of social media and internet connectivity. 20, or heck even 10 years ago the steubenville rape stuff would have never become well-known, but now people find out about it. You can see how even as we improve people's notions of consent and prevent rapes, there will be more debates. Of course, there's also the possibility that all these dialogues and increased understanding are happening in part BECAUSE of debates about rape culture and feminism. Instead of saying "weird, things have gotten better and still there's a lot of debate about rape culture" perhaps the more accurate thought is "things have gotten better, and at the same time there is a lot of debate about rape culture, perhaps one of these things is causing the other".
Regarding the idea of perpetuating rape culture, basically yeah unless you learn what it is and stop perpetuating it you are perpetuating it because, well, that's just our culture right now. We all exist within culture and it informs how we think and how we act. Perpetuating rape culture doesn't mean "oh this guy is a bad person" any more than like having racist thoughts because you've never seen an asian person before because you live in the middle of nowhere, Montana, makes you a bad person. We are products of our environment.
And yes, of course we perpetuate capitalism by living in capitalistic societies, but it's not like there's a better alternative (imo). I also perpetuate the english language by speaking it around my nephew who is learning to talk and using it as my primary mode of communication online. In any case, the fact of the matter is, by living "passively" we're just living within the status quo. There's also a difference in terms of degree and type for how someone perpetuates rape culture.
Really though, the idea of people perpetuating rape culture isn't solved by calling people bad or evil or whatever. When people take sexist or ignorant actions, I view it as my responsibility to inform then and critique the actions. This often goes poorly because people have this idea of a person as "a sexist" or "a racist" when really there's no such thing-- there's just sexist and racist actions. We're all sexists, we're all racists, because we all live in societies of racist and sexist culture. That doesn't make us bad people, we're only human. We just do our best to be critical of our own actions and those of others and to do better.
Well the blog link is a viewpoint I very much share. Political discourse is extremely toxic for that kind of reason for one, never mind other kind of internet discussions.
I do largely agree with your post, albeit I would say that the current focus on rape culture perhaps may not have the desired effect of altering discourse and behaviour around the topic for the better.
I am saying this as someone who agrees, but who has observed a backlash of sorts from the kinds of people that ostensibly are to be educated/affected by such campaigns. It seems to me being counter-intuitive in certain ways because it disregards that people do not take kindly to having an inference made as to their culpability in a culture of rape.
Again, I see this as a problem with both feminism is presented by adherents, and received by others brought about by the term itself and other cultural connotations that go with it. For example small-scale radical feminist activism in the 1960s, despite it being very much a minority of the overall 'movement', for various reasons such as disproportionate media attention has become in many peoples eyes what feminism actually is, which is rather saddening.
I do think a lot of the reason critiques of basic culture (such as what feminism does) get backlash because people view their ideas as part of their identity. And I also think backlash is par for the course for any legit critique of society.
See 'Marxism' too. I don't know why, but such critiques really do seem to piss people off in a rather disproportionate manner.
Again, feminism has a lot of validity when it comes to cultural critique, and a lot of people in that field really know their shit. I am rather confused, with the aforementioned expertise in mind, that less is made of how the term itself is actually perceived by the societies that it is used to critique.
I may have come off a little bit harsh in my original post. I'm a very blunt person, and apologize if anyone felt I was going too far. So I'm going to spread out my whole reaction to the video and the responses in this thread. And justify my use of the phrase "hatemongering cunt".
First off, there's a matter of respect. Or a lack of it. I don't care how good her point is (I'll get to it in a second though, it's definitely worth discussing), if I was on the street and this woman opened her thoughts by screaming for everyone to shut the fuck up so she could read her list, that's the sign for me to turn my back on any reasoning because I'm obviously not going to get much of it. Even if the guys she was talking to kept blabbering for five minutes, it's understandable to get them to listen, but going full aggro-mode is lowering herself past their level, further into the abyss.
Basically you can't convince people that you're the good guy when you're the one assaulting them.
As for her argument. She begins by blaming everything on patriarchy, and then pointing out how the MRA's are the evil ones here: About 2 minutes in, she says "You hate sexism but you're an MRA". Now I'm not 100% knowledgeable of this issue, but the MRA's in question, the ones at the lecture, are supported by the Canadian Association For Equality, who seem to be a very tolerable bunch from both sides of the debate and seem to be the least biased gender-issue group I've seen to date. The lecture was actually on misogyny and misandry, analyzing both sides of the coin, and I guess is part of the reason there were so many women at a men's rights lecture. My point here is that the women's rights protesters pulling the fire alarm to disrupt the men's rights lecture has a far different context than counter-protesting a group like the Westboro Baptist Church.
However, on the large scale of things, I find both the Men's Rights Association and the modern-day feminist movement both to be useless movements. If anyone has the right idea it's CAFE, because instead of focusing on women's rights or men's rights, they focus on human rights.
Now we're getting into more rational discussion after three minutes in. The main problem with this next section is that the red-haired lady and her short-haired friend are blaming the MRA's for the same things that the MRA's are blaming women. The reason I don't support either side is because no matter who you talk to, they make it sound like there's some sort of evil force in this debate, and both the red-haired lady and I guess the MRA members she personally talked to are saying "we're the good guys here, we're trying to get stuff done, the other side is obstructionist and is setting back equality." And by realizing that the other side actually has some valid points, both masculists and feminists would realize that by working together through compromise, the only direction they can go is forward. But only through working together.
"If they cared about the issues they say that they do, then they'd be our biggest fucking allies." Going back to my original point that respect is a two-way street.
Five minutes in. Rape culture is part of patriarchy. Prison rape has nothing to do with rape culture, it's simply the fact that if you keep a bunch of men around with nothing to do for almost all of the day, with only breaks for eating and one hour of recreation, they're going to get bored. And the best way to alleviate that boredom is by sticking their dicks into something.
In fact, her points from five minutes in all make sense. They're reasonable except for the whole "patriarchy" horseshit. She's implying through her whole argument that this society is rigged so that men make rules for other men that benefit men and treat women as second-class citizens. This point would've been definitely valid 100 years ago because although the system was in place, women going on to high-esteemed jobs would have been a joke. This would've been valid 50 years ago, and maybe even 30 years ago. But we have had Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, and Hillary Clinton since the 90's. Both were very headstrong women who are seen as the oriflamme of their respective party. Both got shit done, and both proved that women can be taken, and should be taken, just as seriously as men in public office. And you can see the changing tides by looking at probably the biggest masculist of the modern era, Warren Farrell, who was a strong feminist in the 1970's and switched to masculism around the 90's.
There are 20 senators in Congress who are women and 78 representatives who are women. This number should be higher because if Congress truly represented the people, it would match its demographics more closely. But this is more of being behind the times and Congress being a gerontocracy - see how many Congressmen support legalization of weed, know how to use the Internet with moderate fluency, or are Hispanic - the elected demographics and opinions seem to match the 70s or early 80s time period more than 2013.
But I digress. The argument goes over to the older woman who is more rational here than the red-haired woman. I do agree with her points, and I do agree with the fact that the number of people who didn't get raped and say they did is far lower than the number people who did get raped and say they didn't, or in most cases say nothing.
I don't like how the young Asian man and his friends on the left side of the screen begin arguing that it's less of a problem because it's not portrayed in the media. Take the italics out and it's a very excellent point. But the media just reports what people want it to report. It's the reason why school shootings and public shootings make breaking news stories, whereas the cop who pulls out a gun of her own and shoots the shooter before it happens is barely mentioned and rarely spread from the source.
And the end of the video brings up an excellent point about media coverage. The masculist guy sees more fraudulent rape in prevalence because that is what he studies and that is what he focuses on. The feminist guy doesn't see it nearly as much because he isn't focused on that. This could be copied and/or reversed for many different issues, and it's a matter of looking at two sides of the same coin. Even if both the feminist and the masculist are using the same source, Google.
And that's the video. And as a side note, the sound in 10:07 - 10:13 in the video made my day
Lastly, I would like to reaffirm my claim that while the crowd of people the cameraman went to in the end was a tolerable bunch, even though I don't agree with them 70% of the time, the red-haired woman is a hatemongering cunt. I haven't used that word to describe anyone except for a fraction of a dozen people. That woman is definitely one of them. Out of all the characters in the video, she's the least enthusiastic about convincing people of her side's truthfulness. All she does for feminism-at-large is read her list. The rest of her breath is devoted to telling the bearded man and the offscreen man just behind the camera about how evil their side is. No discussion. No exploration. Just silencing, rage, and thinly veiled intolerance. There's certainly both men and women like her behind their respective movements and really behind any cause in existence, although I don't really have a word in my lexicon that describes the spite these men have like I do for her.
That whole post ended up being just for the video, I guess I'll either find some time tonight or tomorrow morning to post thoughts on the comments or the issues being discussed here overall.
I understand that you think your use of the words are justified, and you have your reasons for using them. I disagree strongly with your justifications, and I would absolutely like engage you on this issue and hope to persuade you, if you are interested in a dialogue on this. Furthermore, I will do my best to keep an open mind and be persuaded if I find your evidence convincing. As a skeptic and a rationalist it is my will be my ultimate goal not to convince you, but for both of us to come out of this with true beliefs. Currently I think my beliefs are true, so my proximal goal is to convince you, but also to listen.
Would you be interested in engaging in such a dialogue with me? I propose we do so in this thread, so that others who agree with you or I can read and be convinced or offer their own opinions. That being said, it's entirely reasonable to not want to get into a long discussion about feminism on the internet, and I get it if you have said your bit and are done. Since we have played mafia together and are friends though I hope that we can have a lively discussion and come away from it with the same viewpoint. Two rational people with the same set of knowledge should always come to the same conclusion.
Also, I was a bit harsh in my initial condemnation of you, perhaps just out of surprise that you disagree with me on this issue and used language in a way that I find distasteful. I would like to apologize for that.
Let me know what you think, and if you'd like to debate, I'll respond to the post you've written above.
I'd be more than happy to have a dialogue. I'm not expecting either one of us to completely change our opinions, but it would be pretty interesting to compare notes and find some common ground. And I too will pledge to keep an open mind, hear you out and be rational.
Yeah definitely. Sorry I've been a bit tied up in the past day or so but I'll be glad to share the dialogue, and I'm sure it will be good experience for all.
EPT
). But that is both because people are too lazy to elaborate or too lazy (or hostile) to push for more elaboration or to listen when it is given, in most cases.
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