The answer I can see here is the same I see for solving issues of school - though it's not really much of an answer. The values have to be changed for all involved. People who care about education work on it, people who care about equality will work to that end. The hard part, and here both problems hit a brick wall, is making people value these things.
So I suppose the first step to solving this is making sure everyone is aware of the issue at hand. As you said, InfamousBearAssassin, it is not recognized, but I'd say it's not even about us recognizing it. It's that the effected people aren't aware of it at all.
Overall, though, I'd say it's an intractable situation. You can't shove values down people's throats without committing atrocities, at least, not without taking a very long time, or eternity, for worldwide acceptance.
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My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
You... want to change cultural values through diplomacy, one of the greatest tenants of which is respect for other cultures. Yeah, we'll ask them to change all the values their lives have been built on, and offer exactly what in exchange? They're willing to kill themselves to prove their point, and their will will crumble if you wave a few dollars past their noses?
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Banana of the Month Feb '05 Cool stuff here.
You... want to change cultural values through diplomacy, one of the greatest tenants of which is respect for other cultures. Yeah, we'll ask them to change all the values their lives have been built on, and offer exactly what in exchange? They're willing to kill themselves to prove their point, and their will will crumble if you wave a few dollars past their noses?
You're kidding, right? Communists, theocrats, or good old fashioned dictators, these people are notoriously corrupt. All anyone in some ****-stain, corrupt regime wants to do is get enough money to move to move to the first world with their family, the Hell away from poverty, and actually enjoy the luxuries in life. Every single leader in these corrupt regimes is robbing the coffers blind.
And yes, I want to change the world through diplomacy. Ignorance is rampant. Most people under these regimes have no idea what's going on in the World, they don't know their options. They don't even have access to a basic education. Forget about having advanced knowledge of political structures. Go out and make the case. Democracy works. A nation that spends time destroying itself, destroying it's minority, destroying it's women, is going to, surprise, end up destroyed. Freedom means competition. Competition builds strength. These are the models that work. If you want a peaceful, stable life with economic opportunity and liberty for your kids, pick up a ****ing gun and shoot the ******* dictator running the place.
This topic is a complex and sensitive one, and I've always found it hard to properly address. TheInfamousBearAssassin's opening question is sort of open-ended, but the question I find myself asking when thinking about this topic is "Why is culturally accepted misogyny so common in the first place?"
Assassin, you seem to be posing in your original post that this problem owes itself to an innate misogyny or just irresponsibility present in the governmental authorities of the states in question. I actually agree more with Blinking Spirit that this injustice has more to do with very basic, nigh-invisible elements of the societies in which this takes place than it does with law on its own. Governments are machines of people, and if some phenomena are so ingrained as this as to be virtually ignored by most people, it'd hard to wonder why officials either aren't making much progress in changing it, or aren't even trying to begin with.
My theory is that discrimination and prejudice are extremely commonplace and natural occurences, and that when people are looking to be discriminatory, so to speak, gender is the first dividing line that pops up. It is thought that in our reality there are certain "basic" divisions, distinctions in nature or truth that seem to be elemental and unavoidable and define relationships between entities or ideas within the relevant contexts - i.e. beginning and end, good and bad, so on. The theory is that, in terms of society, this "basic division" is gender. Throughout most human cultures it has appeared that whenever people have had to be arranged or divided in someway, differentiated in terms of recognition and treatment, it has been done using the male-female dichotomy as the yard stick. Most cultures have appeared to have socially prescribed roles for members of each sex - some of the have had different paradigms of acceptable behavior (I read about a tribe in Africa in which women were traditionally hunters and men were traditionally gatherers and hearthkeepers), but nonetheless, usually a person's sex is one of the chiefest factors in determining which social role that person is "casted into."
I think part of our problem now is not that people are fully aware of misogyny and just don't care about women (or other women), it's that much of what is traditionally defined as female and feminine are only relatively recently coming to be seen as being basically misogynistic. I believe that there is a fundamentally similar element of misandry (with negative impact on males) in most societies, as well, it's just that it takes a different form. In short, I'd probably propose that this is incarnated in the form of demands (expectations of achievement, character, intellect, etc) on males rather than external restrictions on them. To be sure, there is such a fine line between "demands" and "restrictions" that contrasting each can probably only be done with regard to individual cases; but anyway, it's a pattern I've noticed.
In other words, I'm not sure that people really are very aware of misogyny, even very educated people, because I'm not sure that most people really understand what misogyny or sexism truly entail. Oh, I'm sure most people can understand it intellectually, in theory - but they might not be able to distinguish an act or attitude that is basically sexist from one that basically isn't. Instances of violent abuse and overt political oppression come to mind, but I think TheInfamousBearAssassin has something when he talks about men volunteering manual exertion for women (i.e. carrying things, opening doors). I, for one, don't mind when people open doors for me, and I don't think that expressing token acts of kindness towards people because of their sex or gender is in itself bad or misogynistic/misandrist, but it's still essentially just bias encouched in traditional inter-gender dynamics, and though this particular manifestation of bias may not be immediately harmful on its own, it can sanctify such a bias in other, more malignant forms.
I believe that social norms that enforce or prescribe behaviors or attitudes to people because of sex or gender identity are largely to blame for the social contexts that enable sexism, misogyny/misandry, and oppression. There was another thread once that was partly about what is called queer theory, and it was asked why the queer theorist desires to abolish the concept of gender. In essence, the problem this thread's topic poses is the answer to that question. Mind you, I don't actually agree with the goal entirely - I don't believe it's either right or practical to attempt to expunge notions of gender from peoples' minds, and since there is reason to believe that gender is instinctual and not entirely a social construct, I doubt it'd be possible anyway. But I agree with the spirit of that goal insofar as I perceive it to be ultimately harmful for either individuals or broader social groups to attempt to force their ideals about gender into reality - i.e. women are supposed to be submissive, women are supposed to want to care for children, et al. While it is probable that there are patterns of behavior and psychology that occur among women, and others that occur among men, there does not appear to be the slightest reason to believe that they are invariable. In our society, currently, it appears less severe, but it still happens that women who do not seem to behave "as a woman should" are faced with social pressures to comform to a preconceived ideal of what it means to be female and feminine. The same socialization occurs for men.
In our country, where women are not overtly or officially oppressed, where both men and women can get jobs, where both men and women can raise children, can run for office, etc, it might not seem that having different standards of socialization based on gender is really harmful. And indeed, I don't know if I'd say having different social experiences is bad - probably more to do with how people are socialized in particular than it has to do with how differently from each other they are socialized just in the abstract.
Assassin actually mentioned something relevant to what I am getting at:
Quote from TheInfamousBearAssassin »
there's not nearly enough militant feminism. If more women trained in the use of guns, if women in these countries learned how to kill, we would see a sharp decline in misogynist violence over night.
Another poster on this forum once raised the point that violence that consistently occurs against women can be especially problematic because most women are socialized in such a way as to not be very prepared for it. Female children are typically socialized against "violent" behavior such as rough games, developing manual skill, or participating in activities which involve not only physical prowess, but the skill of reading, intercepting, and opposing playmates in the use of this prowess - football/soccer, American football, boxing, wrestling, and so on. Even in a "progressive" society such as ours, most boys are encouraged to literally train themselves in physical strength and psychomotor skills and their application to engaging with an opponent, whereas most girls tend to be discouraged from such experiences.
There could be some truth to the notion that boys and girls have different instincts concerning these types of activities that can lead to a preference towards or against them, but again, I doubt it is so hard and fast as to justify a normativism that enforces this distinction, especially when it creates potential for such dangerous consequences. A society in which it is believed that men should be adept at controlling or exerting violence and that women should not be is a society in which women are being made to be more vulnerable to violence. Now, in such a society, it doesn't at all mean that all boys who engage in such activities (a good number never do) as part of their socialization become violent people. However, for those people who are male and do become violent, they will either have the skills and experiences necessary to facilitate this violence or have ample resources to attain them. I don't believe that raw muscle mass is the most important factor - some boys are quite large and yet are as timid and gentle as mice, whereas some girls are rather small and yet behave like streetfighters. However, most boys are not only encouraged to train themselves physically, they are often taught (subtly, throughout life) that it is most appropriate for them to use violence to solve their problems. Officially, verbally, violence is spoken out against - but when it comes to the kinds of experiences that are offered people, the experiences that hone reactions and tendencies, more often than not, boys are shown by social figures, repeatedly, that real men are tough and should act that way, whether in the business world or in terms of literal force. Conversely, girls are taught the opposite about themselves.
Once again, this doesn't mean that if you are a boy, then you have X% more chance of being violent. However, when viewing a society as a whole, I think it does lead to a society that trains its male members to not only be equipped for violence, but trains them to use it. And then it disables its female members to handle violence well, and discourages them from even trying.
An anecdote. It is believed that a personality disorder called borderline personality disorder is considerably more common among women (as well as homosexuals, transgender people, etc.) than men. But there is research that suggests that what really constitutes a borderline personality disorder is underdiagnosed in males, because the symptomology and etiological conditions of borderline personality are, for many males, more likely to manifest as the symptoms of a closely related disorder - antisocial personality disorder, which is more strongly characterized by violent and aggressive tendencies. There is reason to consider that the emotional instability and weak sense of self that is common among those with borderline personality disorder (often manifested through manipulative behavior or self-harm) is more likely to be expressed through violent or unlawful acts among males with the disorder. And while some of this could, theoretically, be because of the influence of testosterone, there is a good chance that the much stronger factor is social influence - the fact that violent or aggressive behavior is both more condoned and more encouraged among males than females.
However, I think it distorts the issue somewhat to make it out to be the fault of vicious men victimizing poor, innocent women. As Assassin pointed out, some women actually are part of the problem by endorsing or advocating social norms which contribute to the division. And furthermore, most men are not being helped by it, either - a good number of men are not living in any kind of life of luxury as a result, and indeed, are often attributed victimizer characteristics that aren't accurate or fair. ButteBlues really raised a valid point, I feel. Unfair treatment of males, though less common and severe than acute misogyny, appears to be becoming not only less unusual, but more strongly justified by people. In my town (in my own workplace, actually) there are a lot of situations in which females are predominant in positions of authority, and male employees are mistreated. Many male employees who work in this general area (especially in service or retail fields) tend to be paid less and are treated less considerately. In my workplace females receive raises much more often, and larger ones, and male employees are typically blamed for poor performance while not really performing any worse than female employees. There is a place nearby where male employees aren't even allowed to be seen - they can only work in positions in which they do not directly deal with customers (and no, it's not like a lingerie store or some other place in which sex might be relevant).
While this hardly "outranks" the evils being committed against women all over the world, attempting to compare the two in terms of "rank of badness" distorts things, because I believe that ultimately they both occur because of the same causes. I believe that this "counter-sexism" is not really the fault of so-called militant feminism, but due to the same tension that is built up between the sexes socially. Organizations or workplaces in which the management or executive staff are primarily females may demonstrate discrimination againts men and boys because some of these executives and managers are bringing their own distaste for males into things; they may have been victims of abuse or have had other bad dealings with men and developed some mistrust of them. However, I believe these are more often than not only surface causes, and that they catalyze the results of a deeper and more troubling phenomenon: most societies seem to pit males and females against each other. Men and women are socialized to be separate from each other, are taught that they are more different than similar, and are essentially segregated. Distrust of the other sex is easy enough to develop among sexual relationships between men and women, but it seems to me that seeing members of the other sex as a kind of foe or challenge is an effect of our basic segregation rather than an incidental consequence of men and women having differences.
I witness this all the time in our culture - in media and in cultural lore, husbands and wives are often depicted as foils for each other, bonded together through some combination of attraction and rivalry. Spouses seem to be commonly perceived as the fulfillment of some necessary but eventually undesirable duty - i.e. "the old ball and chain." It seems from simple observation that antagonism between males and females is normalized and condoned, even encouraged. Boys and girls are taught that it's necessary to decode the other sex's behavior with stereotypes, and men and women are often given the message that they are ultimately not emotionally compatible with each other.
I short, I believe that most societies are truly divided by gender, but not necessarily because of simply recognizing masculinity and femininity as distinct metaphysical entities - rather, because of the reinforcement of the preconceptin that these distinctions are somehow necessary and insurmountable, and by effectively enforcing social segregation between sexes. I other words, I don't think that trying to make everyone become genderless would help, because I don't think that is where the problem really lies. It's with how gender is treated.
Social and political movements to ameliorate discrete problem areas (i.e. violence, occupational discrimination, legal discrimination, etc.) can be very helpful, and should be pursued, but in the end, I doubt that sexism or misogyny or misandry can ever really be eliminated unless the whole of society can be altered or improved in such a way that these attitudes about gender and power, and gender's relationship to power, can change.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
I don't know many families who'd tell their daughter to be abused.
Please see my entire post. Even in the first world, certain kinds of violence are normalized, and, as I said:
A society in which it is believed that men should be adept at controlling or exerting violence and that women should not be is a society in which women are being made to be more vulnerable to violence.
Quote from ButteBlues »
There are far less brutal methods.
We have this wonderful thing called "jail". That's were offenders belong - not inside a body bag.
I don't think he's advocating extermination of known offenders or potential offenders. I think he's advocating abolishment of an environment in which one sex is encouraged towards violence and one sex is discouraged from it, and advocating an environment in which women are encouraged to defend themselves with force if necessary, in the same way that men are. Using appropriate force in self defense is not always pretty, but it's very justifiable. Telling people to wait for authorities to handle everything in the case of a violent attack is often a mandate to just lie still and hand power over to someone who probably won't even be able to reach the problem in time, often at risk to their lives or welfare.
In other words, I doubt he's saying that women should start trying to become like Jennifer Lopez's character from Enough.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
You're kidding, right? Communists, theocrats, or good old fashioned dictators, these people are notoriously corrupt. All anyone in some ****-stain, corrupt regime wants to do is get enough money to move to move to the first world with their family, the Hell away from poverty, and actually enjoy the luxuries in life. Every single leader in these corrupt regimes is robbing the coffers blind.
Go out and make the case. Democracy works. A nation that spends time destroying itself, destroying it's minority, destroying it's women, is going to, surprise, end up destroyed. Freedom means competition. Competition builds strength. These are the models that work. If you want a peaceful, stable life with economic opportunity and liberty for your kids, pick up a ****ing gun and shoot the ******* dictator running the place.
First off, as I said, before, it isn't a problem with the dictators, it's a problem with the culture. Second, you're not gonna be able to argue that. Heck, if you can't argue to an overpopulated and underfed and underhoused country that maybe having eight kids would be a bad idea, do you honestly think that they can grasp "being nice = more money"? That's a far more nebulous concept than "not enough food/space for people now, don't make tons of more people".
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Banana of the Month Feb '05 Cool stuff here.
I don't think he's advocating extermination of known offenders or potential offenders. I think he's advocating abolishment of an environment in which one sex is encouraged towards violence and one sex is discouraged from it, and advocating an environment in which women are encouraged to defend themselves with force if necessary, in the same way that men are. Using appropriate force in self defense is not always pretty, but it's very justifiable. Telling people to wait for authorities to handle everything in the case of a violent attack is often a mandate to just lie still and hand power over to someone who probably won't even be able to reach the problem in time, often at risk to their lives or welfare.
In other words, I doubt he's saying that women should start trying to become like Jennifer Lopez's character from Enough.
What part of the following did you miss?
I will condone any murder that is committed in self-defense. People have the right not to be victims. If he lifts his palm, pull out a knife. Simple.
If more women trained in the use of guns, if women in these countries learned how to kill, we would see a sharp decline in misogynist violence over night.
I think it's quite blatant where he stands on this.
What part of the following did you miss?
. . .
I think it's quite blatant where he stands on this.
As I read him, I think he's talking about self-defense, though perhaps in a somewhat exaggeratory fashion for effect. I do agree that someone shouldn't kill another because he or she struck you - however, in the case that someone is trying to rape or kill you, the use of lethal force in defense is rightly justified. And really, non-lethal force in self defense in less severe situations isn't a bad idea, either. If someone hits you, hitting him/her back or at least resisting him/her can drastically change the situation. This is why self defense classes are offered to women.
I don't really agree with Assassin, however, that encouraging women to defend themselves would really solve misogynist sexism or violence, because I think that's only part of the problem. And really, some of it starts in childhood socialization, anyway. Teaching women martial arts can be empowering and very useful in certain situations; but I think, ultimately, that culturally accepted attitudes towards women, men, and gender need to change, and the power of a social environment in which women become physically vulnerable because they're cast into that role by default needs to be weakened.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
We have this wonderful thing called "jail". That's were offenders belong - not inside a body bag.
You know, the thing is that I'm actually against the death penalty in most cases. However, the thing you need to realize is that the concept of prisons only works when you're talking about a small minority of the population. Anything else is undoable. When you have a system of total anarchy, you can't jail everyone. You can't imprison a riot of ten thousand people. And you can't imprison one half when it's attacking the other half. If we jailed everyone who hit their wife, 10% of the adult population of the Earth would have to be incarcerated.
Deserve has nothing the **** to do with it. This isn't tea-time. We have a ****ed up situation on our hands. Hundreds of millions of women live in oppression and fear, without rights, fearing for their lives. **** your concern for the husbands that put them there. There is no nice and easy way out of this bull****. Appeasement as a policy has never worked in the history of the ****ing World, but mutually assured destruction? Now there's a peace policy that works. Maybe women being taught how to fight back wouldn't end violence, but it would sure as **** put a damper on the amount of one-sided abuse suffered.
And for the record, if a husband regularly beats his wife, she has every right to reasonably fear for her life and is fully justified in cutting the mother ****er's throat. Most relationships that end in the husband killing his wife, and there's a ****ing ton of them in the world, involve gradually escalating violence because they have no reason to stop.
First off, as I said, before, it isn't a problem with the dictators, it's a problem with the culture. Second, you're not gonna be able to argue that. Heck, if you can't argue to an overpopulated and underfed and underhoused country that maybe having eight kids would be a bad idea, do you honestly think that they can grasp "being nice = more money"? That's a far more nebulous concept than "not enough food/space for people now, don't make tons of more people".
Who said anything about being nice? Being nice isn't necessary. But you can certainly make the argument that the best way to protect your own liberty is to defend your neighbor's. Maybe they won't listen, but almost no one's really making the attempt
I think I see what TheInfamousBearAssassin is getting at. Law only has so much power, and when perpetrators of violence aren't playing fair, insisting on playing fair back sometimes just isn't good enough, especially not if your life is in danger. Telling people not to defend themselves is especially problematic in this case because it's another example of discouraging women to use force. In a void, discouraging force is a good thing. Violent force shouldn't be common toward anyone, male or female or otherwise, period. However, in a culture in which violence is both encouraged and discouraged by way of double standards and doube-binds, this is another instance of women being told "you're not supposed to be the one to use force. Let someone else (an authority) do it."
I think putting responsibility onto others is part of the problem. People should be encouraged to be responsible for themselves. Taking responsibility out of individual victims' hands is similar to blaming men (as a sex) for women's problems - it consequentially allocates power to the victimizers and villainizes those who suffer for it, men and women alike. "Don't fight back, don't resist." Sometimes that's very good advice. Sometimes, however, it's just as much a means of inadvertently licensing victimizers, while simultaneously penalizing victims for being victims.
I have a good friend who used to be regularly and seriously beaten up by his brother. His brother had strong violent tendencies and usually didn't hesitate to take them out on family members. Even though you'd think that this would cause the parents to punish the violent brother more, the environment of the household was characterized by attempting to make way for the victimizer. The non-violent brother was harshly punished for anything which was perceived as provoking the violent one, and was usually more severely punished for fighting back. The one brother's violence was something they had come to expect, and they accomodated it, whether they realized it or not. They told the victimized siblings not to make matters worse by fighting back, and as such, essentially made allowance for the violence, since their measures were generally not sufficient.
I don't think, however, that women should be encouraged to be more violent people, or to just be aggressive towards men. That would only complicate the problem and exacerbate the already flagrant inter-gender division. I don't think that this is what Assassin is really advocating, however, if I understand him.
Quote from TIBA »
Wow.
You agree, right? I think that one of the most effectual (if gradual) ways of ameliorating this kind of oppression is ameliorating the gender politics that catalyze it. This involves actually trying to educate and improve culture in general, instead of just addressing problem areas (though the latter is still helpful).
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All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
I mostly agree. I am saying that women should fight back. And to be honest, you need a radical, violent fringe to get anything done. When the balance is this far out of whack, it's hard to get anything done if you're just asking for equality. It's dumb, but people have a tendency to take the "compromise" view over the balanced one. Sure, white people listened to Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King, but don't discount how much of that was because W.E.B. DuBois and Malcolm X scared the living **** out of them and made them realize how bad the situation was. You have one guy denouncing you as the devil and saying that your balls should be cut off, and suddenly the guy just asking for equality seems pretty reasonable.
In a way, I think men have to be discriminated against, the same way Malcolm X made white people feel discriminated against. Know how the other side feels for a bit and then let's see if you feel as comfortable going back to the way it was.
I sympathize with Buttes' early point, and he's right, the pendulum has swung pretty far in western/1st world society. I think the main point of conflict in this argument is that most of you are referring to 2nd/3rd world country women, but Buttes is referring to 1st world women. There's a big difference here. I completely agree that there is still a lot of terrible sexism towards women in third world nations, but few people are willing to do anything about it. The ones who can don't care. Even the western feminists rarely touch the issue: it's just not in our individual priorities to care about people who are half a world away, we're just content to pursue our own selfish goals, deluding ourselves to think that we're doing it for the greater good.
As for the topic of western sexism, I do indeed think that largely, we've just reached the point where men have started to become the discriminated race, at least in the widespread, cultural sense, on the surface. While the law says we're equal, women do in fact have some more options/rights than men. I'm not saying that there aren't isolated pockets of sexism against women (as well as violence, as has been stated, although I believe the numbers are a bit skewed since I doubt very many men would report violence from their wives.), but in general, as a cultural whole, men have become the underdogs secretly, while still forced to play the role of the patriarchal oppressor. We're still labelled with the age-old "oppressive patriarchy" notion, while in truth, how many excesses does a boy/man born to modern society enjoy these days? It's omnipresent in everday culture - watch any commercial - who gets to be the brunt of all the jokes? who gives the punchline, and who receives it? Men are always bearing the brute of it because society is still afraid to take off the kid's gloves around women - some still think in chauvinistic terms that women shouldn't be exposed to such things, and the others are afraid of being castrated by feminism the second they say "umm, isn't this crossing the line?". (I think the best example I have of this is a recent demonstration by feminists where the slogan was "off with the *****" or something similar, their goal, whether metaphorical or not, I'm not sure, was mass castration.) The majority of us are young enough to have been raised with the notion that we're the evil bad oppressors, and thus we should steer clear and give the women some leeway. When they start taking more than they're due, between sex appeal, feminism and pop-culture depictment, we start believing it's ok, because we're still the oppressors. Pop-culture gets away with so much blatant misandry it's ridiculous.
Take for example the argument on this very thread - is it ok to say a man is stronger than a woman? It's a blatant fact, yet we're still so afraid to admit that, yes, men can do something better than women. This is a very good reveal of the state of society today. How many woman do you know who are afraid of saying "women are better communicators than men"? My point is that these days, women can essentially do whatever they please, backed by the dual blades of feminism and chauvinism (if one doesn't apply, use the other!), and men can do very little for themselves, for fear of sounding sexist. The workplace is a good example, my female supervisors often joked that "finally, a woman, someone who get something done!" whenever we hired a woman. Would a guy have gotten away this saying this? Hell no.
I'm fine with either one, feminism or chauvinism, not with both. You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's either equality or the two-sided coin of preferential treatment.
Maybe they won't listen, but almost no one's really making the attempt
What realistic plan do you propose, then? Fighting won't work, talking won't work, and economic pressures change governments, not cultures. Maybe the reason no one's doing anything is because there's nothing they can do?
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Banana of the Month Feb '05 Cool stuff here.
you need a radical, violent fringe to get anything done.
I think you should be careful with this
I think people know there is a problem, we are not blind to the fact that it happends. It happends everywhere. Teaching BOTH to be violent seems like it would add to the problem. May cause male dominated relationships, female dominated relationships, and relationshsips where both are violent twards eachother. Why not push for teaching both NOT to be violent, and teach them how to defend themselves IF they need it.
In a way, I think men have to be discriminated against, the same way Malcolm X made white people feel discriminated against. Know how the other side feels for a bit and then let's see if you feel as comfortable going back to the way it was.
Those tactics didn't change anything, and that method will never change anything.
I'm surprised you sincerely believe this would work.
Compromise was pushed over balance because compromise gets results where balance does not. Case in point: Israel/Palestine.
If not for Arafat and his "balanced" views, we would have peace.
There are other concerns besides penultimate morality.
And to be honest, you need a radical, violent fringe to get anything done.
What constitutes a radical, violent fringe?
In a way, I think men have to be discriminated against, the same way Malcolm X made white people feel discriminated against. Know how the other side feels for a bit and then let's see if you feel as comfortable going back to the way it was.
I don't, especially not on an individual level. However, what you are saying is very ambiguous. How did Malcolm X make white people discriminated against? I think sexism and racism have some basic dissimilarities that become relevant. For one - and this will probably sound somewhat controversial - I don't believe that racism is rooted as strongly or as deeply as sexism, because I don't think race is rooted as strongly or as deeply as gender is. And Malcolm X didn't start enslaving white people as a means of revenge, nor did he lead to movements which yielded such results. If you suggest that diminishing rights for men would have positive results, I don't agree. If you mean that publicized events entailing groups of women taking action against specific oppressors, resulting in men thinking "hey, this situation sucks," then you have a point.
"Counter-sexism" is still problematic if it becomes justified because it's still people being singled out because of their sex and mistreated because of it. It may solve some symptoms but doesn't even address the disease, which is the very gender bias that motivates any kind of such discrimination. It may be saying "it's not okay to mistreat women," but it's still saying, "it's okay to determine how people are treated based on gender."
What exactly would you propose? There's a lot of ambiguity to this. Should men feel like oppressors? Should white people? Should wealthy people? It's a phenomenon I call "privilege guilt." It's also called "white guilt," "male guilt," etc, depending on the situation. Privilege guilt is the feeling that a person may have if he or she is part of a demographic that is generally more privileged or less discriminated against - the feeling that he or she is bad or evil just by nature of being part of that demographic, regardless of whether or not he or she contributes to or works against the problems of other demographics. This can yield positive results, but I am very against instigating privilege guilt. People who do not face certain problems, and yet are not to blame for them, could be called to be more helpful in solving them. However, I don't believe people should be punished for crimes that were committed by others in the same demographics. In fact, I believe that this (as it does occurr) is ultimately another symptom of the problem - people are defined and typed by their demographics.
I think we are having situations in which men are feeling discriminated against, subjected to retaliatory discrimination. What ButteBlues is talking about is not something he pulled out of thin air. I've heard the same complaint countless times. Sometimes it's exaggerated - claims that sexism against women is basically gone and that it's been replaced with sexism against men. But what we have now, more and more, are men who aren't particularly empowered and who do care, and yet are being told that they're oppressors. I've beheld case studies of group relationship therapy sessions in which male participants are repeatedly asked to describe their complaints about their relationships with the female participants, speak about being treated badly or riddled with false accusations because of being male, and are consequently told to stop whining because they're still not suffering as much as the women. This is called a double-bind, in which the person in the bind is being given conflicting signals that condemn him or her for following any of them.
This is part of a phenomenon called "experience ranking." You said earlier that ButteBlues was complaining about a flesh wound when the woman beside him was in need of treatment for broken limbs, and demanding to be treated first. This is legitimate when posed in such a way, but in reality, many of such problems can and are addressed in different ways at the same times (and in this case, I feel they are part of the same problem). Flesh wounds still need to be treated, even though broken limbs are more urgent and serious. This doesn't mean the one with broken limbs is the only one worthy of treatment, or that flesh wounds are trivial because "there are more serious wounds." Some people make special effort to rank different groups in terms of how badly they suffer as if it were some kind of contest, and allegate blame against those that don't suffer as much as the ones ranked on top.
More serious problems should obviously receive more exigent attention, but in the abstract, experiences shouldn't be ranked. Doing so unnecessarily is malicious and juvenile, and not particularly productive since some of us could really steal the pot with how persecuted we are. I observe that more and more individual men are becoming embittered because of blame being levied against them for crimes they have't committed or endorsed, and are becoming unsympathetic because much of this blame comes from upper-class, white, female activists who often don't have notably apparent differences in life experience than the men in question.
Discrete incidents of women taking action and fighting back are probably more likely to have lasting, positive effect than increasingly more ingrained and justified retaliatory discrimination, not only because they shock people with their immediacy, but because they call attention to what is even being retaliated against. This may be what you meant. And yes, some events such as these can make men sense prejudice against them, and in many such cases this may motivate people to be more sensitive to prejudice in general. Actually, I'd hope it'd motivate awareness of treating people based on their gender rather than their person, and awareness of often ridiculous gender normativism. However, if it degenerates into a "war between the sexes," a cold war over responsibility and privileges, I feel that this would serve to deepen and aggravate the conflict and seperation that currently exists between the sexes, which themselves bear much of the blame for these problems.
Again, this is very ambiguous. You appear to be saying that for women to fight back would be an example of counter-discrimination, though I don't necessarily think it would be. I feel that I agree with you in part, but not necessarily entirely, depending on what you mean.
edit: Furthermore, I think some of the problems lie in attitudes about violence and power in general. I'm not convinced that the two sexes struggling for power over each other really has any substantial hope of ending violence, sexism, or discrimination. If this struggle becomes more visible, then it's destructiveness might also become more visible - i.e. both sides can see what the issues are and how the situation sucks. This seems to be similar to what you are suggesting. However, in the end, part of our need is a change in how violence, politics, and oppression are treated socially, even outside of the context of sexism.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the light that you see. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel. All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
But the rainbow is an image of hope for many reasons, as it is a brilliant sight coming out of oftimes dismal weather.
Sometimes it's exaggerated - claims that sexism against women is basically gone and that it's been replaced with sexism against men. But what we have now, more and more, are men who aren't particularly empowered and who do care, and yet are being told that they're oppressors. .
This seems to be the crux of our current generation. Men and women under 25-30 have very little experience with the real sexism that occurred in the past. Rather, we hear horror stories from the actual women who've lived through that and have fought for their rights.
As of the past little while, we've been born equal, or so we're told, but women are told that they've just earned all their rights, and to bask in their newfangled freedom. Men are told that they're terrible oppressors who've finally released the reins of inequality. To use a biblical metaphor, these days guys are essentially born with Original Sin. We ourselves (meaning the under 25 guys here) have never oppressed anyone before, but we're told that simply by the virtue of the gender we were born into, we have something to apologize for. Society bends over backwards to help the women out a little, apologetically in hopes of making up for the past, but most young guys have no idea what it was like back then, and feel resentment because they're labelled as the oppressors, as a result of things that happened long before they were born, while simultaneously feeling the hypocritical backlash of counter-sexism, which is allowed to run rampant again by an apologetic society. Take a look at the school system for such an example: Affirmative action which spotlights the girls and disregards the guys has finally, after many years, begun to take it's toll, and male grades have slipped, as well as college attendance, which has declined markedly past the 50/50 line. Do the educators say "Oh hey, maybe we should stop now"? No, they say "Hey, good for the girls! They're really taking off!"
I'm a young male - and I don't think I've ever seen a display of male on female sexism in the classroom or workplace (other than maybe between immature students.), but I've seen countless examples of the reverse, mostly jokingly, but still something which annoys me because they get away with it.
Yes, older women may have a legitimate reason to complain against sexism, but many young women these days don't know a thing of it, rather, it's the young men who can feel it more. I look forward to the day when society and feminism realize and apologize for their excesses. Maybe then we can really start working on equal rights.
Those tactics didn't change anything, and that method will never change anything.
I'm surprised you sincerely believe this would work.
Compromise was pushed over balance because compromise gets results where balance does not. Case in point: Israel/Palestine.
If not for Arafat and his "balanced" views, we would have peace.
There are other concerns besides penultimate morality.
I'm actually not sure what you mean, because first you say that you don't think this would work, but then you say compromise works, and that's exactly my point. There were rational black leaders agitating for equality for ages, but they really got attention only about the time that a sizable black population started talking about white devils, military revolution and withdrawal from the US. Fair labour laws only came into existence in response to the radical, Marxist fringe. Certainly I wish people would be inclined to listen to the voice of reason in a vacuum, but there's little historical evidence to suggest that they will.
As for the topic of western sexism, I do indeed think that largely, we've just reached the point where men have started to become the discriminated race, at least in the widespread, cultural sense, on the surface. While the law says we're equal, women do in fact have some more options/rights than men. I'm not saying that there aren't isolated pockets of sexism against women (as well as violence, as has been stated, although I believe the numbers are a bit skewed since I doubt very many men would report violence from their wives.), but in general, as a cultural whole, men have become the underdogs secretly, while still forced to play the role of the patriarchal oppressor. We're still labelled with the age-old "oppressive patriarchy" notion, while in truth, how many excesses does a boy/man born to modern society enjoy these days? It's omnipresent in everday culture - watch any commercial - who gets to be the brunt of all the jokes? who gives the punchline, and who receives it? Men are always bearing the brute of it because society is still afraid to take off the kid's gloves around women - some still think in chauvinistic terms that women shouldn't be exposed to such things, and the others are afraid of being castrated by feminism the second they say "umm, isn't this crossing the line?". (I think the best example I have of this is a recent demonstration by feminists where the slogan was "off with the *****" or something similar, their goal, whether metaphorical or not, I'm not sure, was mass castration.) The majority of us are young enough to have been raised with the notion that we're the evil bad oppressors, and thus we should steer clear and give the women some leeway.
What you are describing is a continuation of sexism, not a reversal of it. Being the butt of a joke doesn't actually hurt you. Women keep the kids gloves' on with women for one reason- they think they're weak. If they think they're weak, they don't respect them, and this is the prevalent attitude throughout culture. Start looking in an objective manner at the behavior of individuals and you'll be shocked by the casually sexist attitudes that are constantly on display, right now, in this culture.
What exactly would you propose? There's a lot of ambiguity to this. Should men feel like oppressors? Should white people? Should wealthy people? It's a phenomenon I call "privilege guilt." It's also called "white guilt," "male guilt," etc, depending on the situation. Privilege guilt is the feeling that a person may have if he or she is part of a demographic that is generally more privileged or less discriminated against - the feeling that he or she is bad or evil just by nature of being part of that demographic, regardless of whether or not he or she contributes to or works against the problems of other demographics. This can yield positive results, but I am very against instigating privilege guilt. People who do not face certain problems, and yet are not to blame for them, could be called to be more helpful in solving them. However, I don't believe people should be punished for crimes that were committed by others in the same demographics. In fact, I believe that this (as it does occurr) is ultimately another symptom of the problem - people are defined and typed by their demographics.
I don't believe guilt is a useful motivating force. I am not suggesting that it would be great if a group of women went around killing men, although I don't think it'd be any worse than the killings of women by their spouses and boyfriends which is already epidemic in many parts of the world, but certainly a group agitating for turning some of that discrimination back can wake people up the same problem that Malcolm X woke them up to- when you start discriminating against people, you can end up being discriminated against too. And MLK said this too, although Malcolm X was the one who highlighted it best- an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. The absolute best protection of your rights is to protect the rights of others. Right now most white males, frankly, don't give a **** because they don't think it affects them, the only things they want to throw a fit about are when they feel they are being discriminated against. I want to see a reversal of some of the stereotypes and bull**** being pushed even in our own culture. I want a thorough study demonstrating that men are better suited to staying home and being dads while the woman earns the bread, I want a suggestion that in school little boys be forced to learn how to cook and iron and little girls get commando training.
I think we are having situations in which men are feeling discriminated against, subjected to retaliatory discrimination. What ButteBlues is talking about is not something he pulled out of thin air. I've heard the same complaint countless times. Sometimes it's exaggerated - claims that sexism against women is basically gone and that it's been replaced with sexism against men. But what we have now, more and more, are men who aren't particularly empowered and who do care, and yet are being told that they're oppressors. I've beheld case studies of group relationship therapy sessions in which male participants are repeatedly asked to describe their complaints about their relationships with the female participants, speak about being treated badly or riddled with false accusations because of being male, and are consequently told to stop whining because they're still not suffering as much as the women. This is called a double-bind, in which the person in the bind is being given conflicting signals that condemn him or her for following any of them.
I've heard it countless times to, and when I push the issue I find it's almost always exaggerated. I'm coming to the point where I think affirmative action should be abolished for it's destructive effect upon white males who take to sitting around *****ing endlessly about how they can't possibly get the awesome jobs they obviously deserve. It's true that there is discrimination against white males and that often it's ignored or laughed at by mainstream culture, but this is widely helped by the fact that it is the tendency of white males, in my experience, to scream and holler bloody murder everytime someone makes a "guys are so dumb" joke or mentions Black History Month. These are usually the same guys, mind, who sit around and ***** about how blacks and women need to shut the **** up and "get over it".
Because, for the seventh or eighth time, we don't have enough manpower by at least two orders of magnitude.
Possibly the last remaining member of the Banana Clan (+1)
Banana of the Month Feb '05
Cool stuff here.
So I suppose the first step to solving this is making sure everyone is aware of the issue at hand. As you said, InfamousBearAssassin, it is not recognized, but I'd say it's not even about us recognizing it. It's that the effected people aren't aware of it at all.
Overall, though, I'd say it's an intractable situation. You can't shove values down people's throats without committing atrocities, at least, not without taking a very long time, or eternity, for worldwide acceptance.
I meant diplomatically.
You... want to change cultural values through diplomacy, one of the greatest tenants of which is respect for other cultures. Yeah, we'll ask them to change all the values their lives have been built on, and offer exactly what in exchange? They're willing to kill themselves to prove their point, and their will will crumble if you wave a few dollars past their noses?
Possibly the last remaining member of the Banana Clan (+1)
Banana of the Month Feb '05
Cool stuff here.
You're kidding, right? Communists, theocrats, or good old fashioned dictators, these people are notoriously corrupt. All anyone in some ****-stain, corrupt regime wants to do is get enough money to move to move to the first world with their family, the Hell away from poverty, and actually enjoy the luxuries in life. Every single leader in these corrupt regimes is robbing the coffers blind.
And yes, I want to change the world through diplomacy. Ignorance is rampant. Most people under these regimes have no idea what's going on in the World, they don't know their options. They don't even have access to a basic education. Forget about having advanced knowledge of political structures. Go out and make the case. Democracy works. A nation that spends time destroying itself, destroying it's minority, destroying it's women, is going to, surprise, end up destroyed. Freedom means competition. Competition builds strength. These are the models that work. If you want a peaceful, stable life with economic opportunity and liberty for your kids, pick up a ****ing gun and shoot the ******* dictator running the place.
Assassin, you seem to be posing in your original post that this problem owes itself to an innate misogyny or just irresponsibility present in the governmental authorities of the states in question. I actually agree more with Blinking Spirit that this injustice has more to do with very basic, nigh-invisible elements of the societies in which this takes place than it does with law on its own. Governments are machines of people, and if some phenomena are so ingrained as this as to be virtually ignored by most people, it'd hard to wonder why officials either aren't making much progress in changing it, or aren't even trying to begin with.
My theory is that discrimination and prejudice are extremely commonplace and natural occurences, and that when people are looking to be discriminatory, so to speak, gender is the first dividing line that pops up. It is thought that in our reality there are certain "basic" divisions, distinctions in nature or truth that seem to be elemental and unavoidable and define relationships between entities or ideas within the relevant contexts - i.e. beginning and end, good and bad, so on. The theory is that, in terms of society, this "basic division" is gender. Throughout most human cultures it has appeared that whenever people have had to be arranged or divided in someway, differentiated in terms of recognition and treatment, it has been done using the male-female dichotomy as the yard stick. Most cultures have appeared to have socially prescribed roles for members of each sex - some of the have had different paradigms of acceptable behavior (I read about a tribe in Africa in which women were traditionally hunters and men were traditionally gatherers and hearthkeepers), but nonetheless, usually a person's sex is one of the chiefest factors in determining which social role that person is "casted into."
I think part of our problem now is not that people are fully aware of misogyny and just don't care about women (or other women), it's that much of what is traditionally defined as female and feminine are only relatively recently coming to be seen as being basically misogynistic. I believe that there is a fundamentally similar element of misandry (with negative impact on males) in most societies, as well, it's just that it takes a different form. In short, I'd probably propose that this is incarnated in the form of demands (expectations of achievement, character, intellect, etc) on males rather than external restrictions on them. To be sure, there is such a fine line between "demands" and "restrictions" that contrasting each can probably only be done with regard to individual cases; but anyway, it's a pattern I've noticed.
In other words, I'm not sure that people really are very aware of misogyny, even very educated people, because I'm not sure that most people really understand what misogyny or sexism truly entail. Oh, I'm sure most people can understand it intellectually, in theory - but they might not be able to distinguish an act or attitude that is basically sexist from one that basically isn't. Instances of violent abuse and overt political oppression come to mind, but I think TheInfamousBearAssassin has something when he talks about men volunteering manual exertion for women (i.e. carrying things, opening doors). I, for one, don't mind when people open doors for me, and I don't think that expressing token acts of kindness towards people because of their sex or gender is in itself bad or misogynistic/misandrist, but it's still essentially just bias encouched in traditional inter-gender dynamics, and though this particular manifestation of bias may not be immediately harmful on its own, it can sanctify such a bias in other, more malignant forms.
I believe that social norms that enforce or prescribe behaviors or attitudes to people because of sex or gender identity are largely to blame for the social contexts that enable sexism, misogyny/misandry, and oppression. There was another thread once that was partly about what is called queer theory, and it was asked why the queer theorist desires to abolish the concept of gender. In essence, the problem this thread's topic poses is the answer to that question. Mind you, I don't actually agree with the goal entirely - I don't believe it's either right or practical to attempt to expunge notions of gender from peoples' minds, and since there is reason to believe that gender is instinctual and not entirely a social construct, I doubt it'd be possible anyway. But I agree with the spirit of that goal insofar as I perceive it to be ultimately harmful for either individuals or broader social groups to attempt to force their ideals about gender into reality - i.e. women are supposed to be submissive, women are supposed to want to care for children, et al. While it is probable that there are patterns of behavior and psychology that occur among women, and others that occur among men, there does not appear to be the slightest reason to believe that they are invariable. In our society, currently, it appears less severe, but it still happens that women who do not seem to behave "as a woman should" are faced with social pressures to comform to a preconceived ideal of what it means to be female and feminine. The same socialization occurs for men.
In our country, where women are not overtly or officially oppressed, where both men and women can get jobs, where both men and women can raise children, can run for office, etc, it might not seem that having different standards of socialization based on gender is really harmful. And indeed, I don't know if I'd say having different social experiences is bad - probably more to do with how people are socialized in particular than it has to do with how differently from each other they are socialized just in the abstract.
Assassin actually mentioned something relevant to what I am getting at:
Another poster on this forum once raised the point that violence that consistently occurs against women can be especially problematic because most women are socialized in such a way as to not be very prepared for it. Female children are typically socialized against "violent" behavior such as rough games, developing manual skill, or participating in activities which involve not only physical prowess, but the skill of reading, intercepting, and opposing playmates in the use of this prowess - football/soccer, American football, boxing, wrestling, and so on. Even in a "progressive" society such as ours, most boys are encouraged to literally train themselves in physical strength and psychomotor skills and their application to engaging with an opponent, whereas most girls tend to be discouraged from such experiences.
There could be some truth to the notion that boys and girls have different instincts concerning these types of activities that can lead to a preference towards or against them, but again, I doubt it is so hard and fast as to justify a normativism that enforces this distinction, especially when it creates potential for such dangerous consequences. A society in which it is believed that men should be adept at controlling or exerting violence and that women should not be is a society in which women are being made to be more vulnerable to violence. Now, in such a society, it doesn't at all mean that all boys who engage in such activities (a good number never do) as part of their socialization become violent people. However, for those people who are male and do become violent, they will either have the skills and experiences necessary to facilitate this violence or have ample resources to attain them. I don't believe that raw muscle mass is the most important factor - some boys are quite large and yet are as timid and gentle as mice, whereas some girls are rather small and yet behave like streetfighters. However, most boys are not only encouraged to train themselves physically, they are often taught (subtly, throughout life) that it is most appropriate for them to use violence to solve their problems. Officially, verbally, violence is spoken out against - but when it comes to the kinds of experiences that are offered people, the experiences that hone reactions and tendencies, more often than not, boys are shown by social figures, repeatedly, that real men are tough and should act that way, whether in the business world or in terms of literal force. Conversely, girls are taught the opposite about themselves.
Once again, this doesn't mean that if you are a boy, then you have X% more chance of being violent. However, when viewing a society as a whole, I think it does lead to a society that trains its male members to not only be equipped for violence, but trains them to use it. And then it disables its female members to handle violence well, and discourages them from even trying.
An anecdote. It is believed that a personality disorder called borderline personality disorder is considerably more common among women (as well as homosexuals, transgender people, etc.) than men. But there is research that suggests that what really constitutes a borderline personality disorder is underdiagnosed in males, because the symptomology and etiological conditions of borderline personality are, for many males, more likely to manifest as the symptoms of a closely related disorder - antisocial personality disorder, which is more strongly characterized by violent and aggressive tendencies. There is reason to consider that the emotional instability and weak sense of self that is common among those with borderline personality disorder (often manifested through manipulative behavior or self-harm) is more likely to be expressed through violent or unlawful acts among males with the disorder. And while some of this could, theoretically, be because of the influence of testosterone, there is a good chance that the much stronger factor is social influence - the fact that violent or aggressive behavior is both more condoned and more encouraged among males than females.
However, I think it distorts the issue somewhat to make it out to be the fault of vicious men victimizing poor, innocent women. As Assassin pointed out, some women actually are part of the problem by endorsing or advocating social norms which contribute to the division. And furthermore, most men are not being helped by it, either - a good number of men are not living in any kind of life of luxury as a result, and indeed, are often attributed victimizer characteristics that aren't accurate or fair. ButteBlues really raised a valid point, I feel. Unfair treatment of males, though less common and severe than acute misogyny, appears to be becoming not only less unusual, but more strongly justified by people. In my town (in my own workplace, actually) there are a lot of situations in which females are predominant in positions of authority, and male employees are mistreated. Many male employees who work in this general area (especially in service or retail fields) tend to be paid less and are treated less considerately. In my workplace females receive raises much more often, and larger ones, and male employees are typically blamed for poor performance while not really performing any worse than female employees. There is a place nearby where male employees aren't even allowed to be seen - they can only work in positions in which they do not directly deal with customers (and no, it's not like a lingerie store or some other place in which sex might be relevant).
While this hardly "outranks" the evils being committed against women all over the world, attempting to compare the two in terms of "rank of badness" distorts things, because I believe that ultimately they both occur because of the same causes. I believe that this "counter-sexism" is not really the fault of so-called militant feminism, but due to the same tension that is built up between the sexes socially. Organizations or workplaces in which the management or executive staff are primarily females may demonstrate discrimination againts men and boys because some of these executives and managers are bringing their own distaste for males into things; they may have been victims of abuse or have had other bad dealings with men and developed some mistrust of them. However, I believe these are more often than not only surface causes, and that they catalyze the results of a deeper and more troubling phenomenon: most societies seem to pit males and females against each other. Men and women are socialized to be separate from each other, are taught that they are more different than similar, and are essentially segregated. Distrust of the other sex is easy enough to develop among sexual relationships between men and women, but it seems to me that seeing members of the other sex as a kind of foe or challenge is an effect of our basic segregation rather than an incidental consequence of men and women having differences.
I witness this all the time in our culture - in media and in cultural lore, husbands and wives are often depicted as foils for each other, bonded together through some combination of attraction and rivalry. Spouses seem to be commonly perceived as the fulfillment of some necessary but eventually undesirable duty - i.e. "the old ball and chain." It seems from simple observation that antagonism between males and females is normalized and condoned, even encouraged. Boys and girls are taught that it's necessary to decode the other sex's behavior with stereotypes, and men and women are often given the message that they are ultimately not emotionally compatible with each other.
I short, I believe that most societies are truly divided by gender, but not necessarily because of simply recognizing masculinity and femininity as distinct metaphysical entities - rather, because of the reinforcement of the preconceptin that these distinctions are somehow necessary and insurmountable, and by effectively enforcing social segregation between sexes. I other words, I don't think that trying to make everyone become genderless would help, because I don't think that is where the problem really lies. It's with how gender is treated.
Social and political movements to ameliorate discrete problem areas (i.e. violence, occupational discrimination, legal discrimination, etc.) can be very helpful, and should be pursued, but in the end, I doubt that sexism or misogyny or misandry can ever really be eliminated unless the whole of society can be altered or improved in such a way that these attitudes about gender and power, and gender's relationship to power, can change.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
I don't know many families who'd tell their daughter to be abused.
I have not once said I was speaking about any third world nation.
Good for you. You're no better than the abusive husbands for doing so.
[KalmWave] [Last.FM]
Ubuntu Linux
What planet are you on? Self-defense is the simplest and most universally accepted occasion for justified killing there is.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
There are far less brutal methods.
We have this wonderful thing called "jail". That's were offenders belong - not inside a body bag.
[KalmWave] [Last.FM]
Ubuntu Linux
I don't think he's advocating extermination of known offenders or potential offenders. I think he's advocating abolishment of an environment in which one sex is encouraged towards violence and one sex is discouraged from it, and advocating an environment in which women are encouraged to defend themselves with force if necessary, in the same way that men are. Using appropriate force in self defense is not always pretty, but it's very justifiable. Telling people to wait for authorities to handle everything in the case of a violent attack is often a mandate to just lie still and hand power over to someone who probably won't even be able to reach the problem in time, often at risk to their lives or welfare.
In other words, I doubt he's saying that women should start trying to become like Jennifer Lopez's character from Enough.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
First off, as I said, before, it isn't a problem with the dictators, it's a problem with the culture. Second, you're not gonna be able to argue that. Heck, if you can't argue to an overpopulated and underfed and underhoused country that maybe having eight kids would be a bad idea, do you honestly think that they can grasp "being nice = more money"? That's a far more nebulous concept than "not enough food/space for people now, don't make tons of more people".
Possibly the last remaining member of the Banana Clan (+1)
Banana of the Month Feb '05
Cool stuff here.
What part of the following did you miss?
I think it's quite blatant where he stands on this.
[KalmWave] [Last.FM]
Ubuntu Linux
As I read him, I think he's talking about self-defense, though perhaps in a somewhat exaggeratory fashion for effect. I do agree that someone shouldn't kill another because he or she struck you - however, in the case that someone is trying to rape or kill you, the use of lethal force in defense is rightly justified. And really, non-lethal force in self defense in less severe situations isn't a bad idea, either. If someone hits you, hitting him/her back or at least resisting him/her can drastically change the situation. This is why self defense classes are offered to women.
I don't really agree with Assassin, however, that encouraging women to defend themselves would really solve misogynist sexism or violence, because I think that's only part of the problem. And really, some of it starts in childhood socialization, anyway. Teaching women martial arts can be empowering and very useful in certain situations; but I think, ultimately, that culturally accepted attitudes towards women, men, and gender need to change, and the power of a social environment in which women become physically vulnerable because they're cast into that role by default needs to be weakened.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
Wow.
Thank you, voice of reason.
You know, the thing is that I'm actually against the death penalty in most cases. However, the thing you need to realize is that the concept of prisons only works when you're talking about a small minority of the population. Anything else is undoable. When you have a system of total anarchy, you can't jail everyone. You can't imprison a riot of ten thousand people. And you can't imprison one half when it's attacking the other half. If we jailed everyone who hit their wife, 10% of the adult population of the Earth would have to be incarcerated.
Deserve has nothing the **** to do with it. This isn't tea-time. We have a ****ed up situation on our hands. Hundreds of millions of women live in oppression and fear, without rights, fearing for their lives. **** your concern for the husbands that put them there. There is no nice and easy way out of this bull****. Appeasement as a policy has never worked in the history of the ****ing World, but mutually assured destruction? Now there's a peace policy that works. Maybe women being taught how to fight back wouldn't end violence, but it would sure as **** put a damper on the amount of one-sided abuse suffered.
And for the record, if a husband regularly beats his wife, she has every right to reasonably fear for her life and is fully justified in cutting the mother ****er's throat. Most relationships that end in the husband killing his wife, and there's a ****ing ton of them in the world, involve gradually escalating violence because they have no reason to stop.
Who said anything about being nice? Being nice isn't necessary. But you can certainly make the argument that the best way to protect your own liberty is to defend your neighbor's. Maybe they won't listen, but almost no one's really making the attempt
I think putting responsibility onto others is part of the problem. People should be encouraged to be responsible for themselves. Taking responsibility out of individual victims' hands is similar to blaming men (as a sex) for women's problems - it consequentially allocates power to the victimizers and villainizes those who suffer for it, men and women alike. "Don't fight back, don't resist." Sometimes that's very good advice. Sometimes, however, it's just as much a means of inadvertently licensing victimizers, while simultaneously penalizing victims for being victims.
I have a good friend who used to be regularly and seriously beaten up by his brother. His brother had strong violent tendencies and usually didn't hesitate to take them out on family members. Even though you'd think that this would cause the parents to punish the violent brother more, the environment of the household was characterized by attempting to make way for the victimizer. The non-violent brother was harshly punished for anything which was perceived as provoking the violent one, and was usually more severely punished for fighting back. The one brother's violence was something they had come to expect, and they accomodated it, whether they realized it or not. They told the victimized siblings not to make matters worse by fighting back, and as such, essentially made allowance for the violence, since their measures were generally not sufficient.
I don't think, however, that women should be encouraged to be more violent people, or to just be aggressive towards men. That would only complicate the problem and exacerbate the already flagrant inter-gender division. I don't think that this is what Assassin is really advocating, however, if I understand him.
You agree, right? I think that one of the most effectual (if gradual) ways of ameliorating this kind of oppression is ameliorating the gender politics that catalyze it. This involves actually trying to educate and improve culture in general, instead of just addressing problem areas (though the latter is still helpful).
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
In a way, I think men have to be discriminated against, the same way Malcolm X made white people feel discriminated against. Know how the other side feels for a bit and then let's see if you feel as comfortable going back to the way it was.
I think it's safe to say I'm glad you're not in a position to make such choices.
...and that's a flame.
I'm all for equality for women - but not when we step beyond our bounds as a nation and essentially begin WWIII.
[KalmWave] [Last.FM]
Ubuntu Linux
As for the topic of western sexism, I do indeed think that largely, we've just reached the point where men have started to become the discriminated race, at least in the widespread, cultural sense, on the surface. While the law says we're equal, women do in fact have some more options/rights than men. I'm not saying that there aren't isolated pockets of sexism against women (as well as violence, as has been stated, although I believe the numbers are a bit skewed since I doubt very many men would report violence from their wives.), but in general, as a cultural whole, men have become the underdogs secretly, while still forced to play the role of the patriarchal oppressor. We're still labelled with the age-old "oppressive patriarchy" notion, while in truth, how many excesses does a boy/man born to modern society enjoy these days? It's omnipresent in everday culture - watch any commercial - who gets to be the brunt of all the jokes? who gives the punchline, and who receives it? Men are always bearing the brute of it because society is still afraid to take off the kid's gloves around women - some still think in chauvinistic terms that women shouldn't be exposed to such things, and the others are afraid of being castrated by feminism the second they say "umm, isn't this crossing the line?". (I think the best example I have of this is a recent demonstration by feminists where the slogan was "off with the *****" or something similar, their goal, whether metaphorical or not, I'm not sure, was mass castration.) The majority of us are young enough to have been raised with the notion that we're the evil bad oppressors, and thus we should steer clear and give the women some leeway. When they start taking more than they're due, between sex appeal, feminism and pop-culture depictment, we start believing it's ok, because we're still the oppressors. Pop-culture gets away with so much blatant misandry it's ridiculous.
Take for example the argument on this very thread - is it ok to say a man is stronger than a woman? It's a blatant fact, yet we're still so afraid to admit that, yes, men can do something better than women. This is a very good reveal of the state of society today. How many woman do you know who are afraid of saying "women are better communicators than men"? My point is that these days, women can essentially do whatever they please, backed by the dual blades of feminism and chauvinism (if one doesn't apply, use the other!), and men can do very little for themselves, for fear of sounding sexist. The workplace is a good example, my female supervisors often joked that "finally, a woman, someone who get something done!" whenever we hired a woman. Would a guy have gotten away this saying this? Hell no.
I'm fine with either one, feminism or chauvinism, not with both. You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's either equality or the two-sided coin of preferential treatment.
What realistic plan do you propose, then? Fighting won't work, talking won't work, and economic pressures change governments, not cultures. Maybe the reason no one's doing anything is because there's nothing they can do?
Possibly the last remaining member of the Banana Clan (+1)
Banana of the Month Feb '05
Cool stuff here.
I think you should be careful with this
I think people know there is a problem, we are not blind to the fact that it happends. It happends everywhere. Teaching BOTH to be violent seems like it would add to the problem. May cause male dominated relationships, female dominated relationships, and relationshsips where both are violent twards eachother. Why not push for teaching both NOT to be violent, and teach them how to defend themselves IF they need it.
Those tactics didn't change anything, and that method will never change anything.
I'm surprised you sincerely believe this would work.
Compromise was pushed over balance because compromise gets results where balance does not. Case in point: Israel/Palestine.
If not for Arafat and his "balanced" views, we would have peace.
There are other concerns besides penultimate morality.
I don't, especially not on an individual level. However, what you are saying is very ambiguous. How did Malcolm X make white people discriminated against? I think sexism and racism have some basic dissimilarities that become relevant. For one - and this will probably sound somewhat controversial - I don't believe that racism is rooted as strongly or as deeply as sexism, because I don't think race is rooted as strongly or as deeply as gender is. And Malcolm X didn't start enslaving white people as a means of revenge, nor did he lead to movements which yielded such results. If you suggest that diminishing rights for men would have positive results, I don't agree. If you mean that publicized events entailing groups of women taking action against specific oppressors, resulting in men thinking "hey, this situation sucks," then you have a point.
"Counter-sexism" is still problematic if it becomes justified because it's still people being singled out because of their sex and mistreated because of it. It may solve some symptoms but doesn't even address the disease, which is the very gender bias that motivates any kind of such discrimination. It may be saying "it's not okay to mistreat women," but it's still saying, "it's okay to determine how people are treated based on gender."
What exactly would you propose? There's a lot of ambiguity to this. Should men feel like oppressors? Should white people? Should wealthy people? It's a phenomenon I call "privilege guilt." It's also called "white guilt," "male guilt," etc, depending on the situation. Privilege guilt is the feeling that a person may have if he or she is part of a demographic that is generally more privileged or less discriminated against - the feeling that he or she is bad or evil just by nature of being part of that demographic, regardless of whether or not he or she contributes to or works against the problems of other demographics. This can yield positive results, but I am very against instigating privilege guilt. People who do not face certain problems, and yet are not to blame for them, could be called to be more helpful in solving them. However, I don't believe people should be punished for crimes that were committed by others in the same demographics. In fact, I believe that this (as it does occurr) is ultimately another symptom of the problem - people are defined and typed by their demographics.
I think we are having situations in which men are feeling discriminated against, subjected to retaliatory discrimination. What ButteBlues is talking about is not something he pulled out of thin air. I've heard the same complaint countless times. Sometimes it's exaggerated - claims that sexism against women is basically gone and that it's been replaced with sexism against men. But what we have now, more and more, are men who aren't particularly empowered and who do care, and yet are being told that they're oppressors. I've beheld case studies of group relationship therapy sessions in which male participants are repeatedly asked to describe their complaints about their relationships with the female participants, speak about being treated badly or riddled with false accusations because of being male, and are consequently told to stop whining because they're still not suffering as much as the women. This is called a double-bind, in which the person in the bind is being given conflicting signals that condemn him or her for following any of them.
This is part of a phenomenon called "experience ranking." You said earlier that ButteBlues was complaining about a flesh wound when the woman beside him was in need of treatment for broken limbs, and demanding to be treated first. This is legitimate when posed in such a way, but in reality, many of such problems can and are addressed in different ways at the same times (and in this case, I feel they are part of the same problem). Flesh wounds still need to be treated, even though broken limbs are more urgent and serious. This doesn't mean the one with broken limbs is the only one worthy of treatment, or that flesh wounds are trivial because "there are more serious wounds." Some people make special effort to rank different groups in terms of how badly they suffer as if it were some kind of contest, and allegate blame against those that don't suffer as much as the ones ranked on top.
More serious problems should obviously receive more exigent attention, but in the abstract, experiences shouldn't be ranked. Doing so unnecessarily is malicious and juvenile, and not particularly productive since some of us could really steal the pot with how persecuted we are. I observe that more and more individual men are becoming embittered because of blame being levied against them for crimes they have't committed or endorsed, and are becoming unsympathetic because much of this blame comes from upper-class, white, female activists who often don't have notably apparent differences in life experience than the men in question.
Discrete incidents of women taking action and fighting back are probably more likely to have lasting, positive effect than increasingly more ingrained and justified retaliatory discrimination, not only because they shock people with their immediacy, but because they call attention to what is even being retaliated against. This may be what you meant. And yes, some events such as these can make men sense prejudice against them, and in many such cases this may motivate people to be more sensitive to prejudice in general. Actually, I'd hope it'd motivate awareness of treating people based on their gender rather than their person, and awareness of often ridiculous gender normativism. However, if it degenerates into a "war between the sexes," a cold war over responsibility and privileges, I feel that this would serve to deepen and aggravate the conflict and seperation that currently exists between the sexes, which themselves bear much of the blame for these problems.
Again, this is very ambiguous. You appear to be saying that for women to fight back would be an example of counter-discrimination, though I don't necessarily think it would be. I feel that I agree with you in part, but not necessarily entirely, depending on what you mean.
edit: Furthermore, I think some of the problems lie in attitudes about violence and power in general. I'm not convinced that the two sexes struggling for power over each other really has any substantial hope of ending violence, sexism, or discrimination. If this struggle becomes more visible, then it's destructiveness might also become more visible - i.e. both sides can see what the issues are and how the situation sucks. This seems to be similar to what you are suggesting. However, in the end, part of our need is a change in how violence, politics, and oppression are treated socially, even outside of the context of sexism.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to be the peace that you feel.
All that I yearn for, for richer or poorer, is to fill your heart on my own.
Gaymers | Magic Coffeehouse | Little Jar of Mamelon | Natural 20
This seems to be the crux of our current generation. Men and women under 25-30 have very little experience with the real sexism that occurred in the past. Rather, we hear horror stories from the actual women who've lived through that and have fought for their rights.
As of the past little while, we've been born equal, or so we're told, but women are told that they've just earned all their rights, and to bask in their newfangled freedom. Men are told that they're terrible oppressors who've finally released the reins of inequality. To use a biblical metaphor, these days guys are essentially born with Original Sin. We ourselves (meaning the under 25 guys here) have never oppressed anyone before, but we're told that simply by the virtue of the gender we were born into, we have something to apologize for. Society bends over backwards to help the women out a little, apologetically in hopes of making up for the past, but most young guys have no idea what it was like back then, and feel resentment because they're labelled as the oppressors, as a result of things that happened long before they were born, while simultaneously feeling the hypocritical backlash of counter-sexism, which is allowed to run rampant again by an apologetic society. Take a look at the school system for such an example: Affirmative action which spotlights the girls and disregards the guys has finally, after many years, begun to take it's toll, and male grades have slipped, as well as college attendance, which has declined markedly past the 50/50 line. Do the educators say "Oh hey, maybe we should stop now"? No, they say "Hey, good for the girls! They're really taking off!"
I'm a young male - and I don't think I've ever seen a display of male on female sexism in the classroom or workplace (other than maybe between immature students.), but I've seen countless examples of the reverse, mostly jokingly, but still something which annoys me because they get away with it.
Yes, older women may have a legitimate reason to complain against sexism, but many young women these days don't know a thing of it, rather, it's the young men who can feel it more. I look forward to the day when society and feminism realize and apologize for their excesses. Maybe then we can really start working on equal rights.
I'm actually not sure what you mean, because first you say that you don't think this would work, but then you say compromise works, and that's exactly my point. There were rational black leaders agitating for equality for ages, but they really got attention only about the time that a sizable black population started talking about white devils, military revolution and withdrawal from the US. Fair labour laws only came into existence in response to the radical, Marxist fringe. Certainly I wish people would be inclined to listen to the voice of reason in a vacuum, but there's little historical evidence to suggest that they will.
What you are describing is a continuation of sexism, not a reversal of it. Being the butt of a joke doesn't actually hurt you. Women keep the kids gloves' on with women for one reason- they think they're weak. If they think they're weak, they don't respect them, and this is the prevalent attitude throughout culture. Start looking in an objective manner at the behavior of individuals and you'll be shocked by the casually sexist attitudes that are constantly on display, right now, in this culture.
I don't believe guilt is a useful motivating force. I am not suggesting that it would be great if a group of women went around killing men, although I don't think it'd be any worse than the killings of women by their spouses and boyfriends which is already epidemic in many parts of the world, but certainly a group agitating for turning some of that discrimination back can wake people up the same problem that Malcolm X woke them up to- when you start discriminating against people, you can end up being discriminated against too. And MLK said this too, although Malcolm X was the one who highlighted it best- an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. The absolute best protection of your rights is to protect the rights of others. Right now most white males, frankly, don't give a **** because they don't think it affects them, the only things they want to throw a fit about are when they feel they are being discriminated against. I want to see a reversal of some of the stereotypes and bull**** being pushed even in our own culture. I want a thorough study demonstrating that men are better suited to staying home and being dads while the woman earns the bread, I want a suggestion that in school little boys be forced to learn how to cook and iron and little girls get commando training.
I've heard it countless times to, and when I push the issue I find it's almost always exaggerated. I'm coming to the point where I think affirmative action should be abolished for it's destructive effect upon white males who take to sitting around *****ing endlessly about how they can't possibly get the awesome jobs they obviously deserve. It's true that there is discrimination against white males and that often it's ignored or laughed at by mainstream culture, but this is widely helped by the fact that it is the tendency of white males, in my experience, to scream and holler bloody murder everytime someone makes a "guys are so dumb" joke or mentions Black History Month. These are usually the same guys, mind, who sit around and ***** about how blacks and women need to shut the **** up and "get over it".