It's ranting time. YOU PEOPLE MADE ME DO THIS... somehow.
American society has a far uglier face than racism, and it's a close cousin in the ism family, sexism. It's absurd! I see no more ingrained, accepted, normal facet of society that is glaringly in opposition to a group of people than sexism.
Especially prevalent is sexism in music. Whether it be country or rap, pop or jazz (ok maybe not jazz), sexism plays an integral role in many songs. I wonder, how can a song like "shush girl, shut your lips, do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips" be played on popular stations, and the band not boycotted? Seriously! Go ahead and ask around, what it is about this song which touts that women should be ogled and not heard, as only sex objects, what it is that makes this song acceptable?
Man or woman, you will probably get the answer "It's got a good beat."
Bull ****ing ****.
Were that true, we would hear songs like this: "Shush [derogative term for blacks], shut your lips, do the Frederick Douglass, and pick me some cotton." We don't hear this. There would be an uproar if this song were played on the radio. Violent reproaches to the band, possibly even physical assault.
Or other songs. You can think of 'em. Get Low is a good example. What is wrong with society?
But what's worse for the case of equal respect is this. It's not that there's some evil empire of men seeking to degrade and pass off women as sex objects. Women themselves are aiding the problem. Where would G-Money-Dizzle be if, in his rap video pouring champagne over women's asses and smacking them and having them drool over him in his sweet ride... if there were no women in the video? What if careers as strippers ceased to exist? But it won't happen. Because women are just as corrupt as men, and sell dignity and self-respect for money and fame. Jesus, just stand up for yourselves! Have some integrity.
In a society where feminine qualities represent inferiority, and masculinity is worshiped, how can we call ourselves equal? How can we look at countries who don't teach their women and criticize them, while we degrade them in our own homes, as a source of entertainment?
The world blows.
I hope people get their comeuppance.
The end.
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This message is in response to being generalized under 'you people' and making me sad... ;_;
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I am reminded of a striking and highly amusing column by Douglas Hofstadter:
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html
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Shake your windows and rattle your walls.
For the record, the "you people" was obviously directed to the ones being mildly sexist in the topic. If it was directed at every guy ever I wouldn't be any better than those posting those comments, and I would have also said, "all guys" or something that.
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Holy **** we're in the Matrix? - Willis
[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]
Oh I know Cheez, I'm mostly joking. It's just when I'm pretty passionate about something I don't want people to think I'm part of the problem, and want it to be out there that I'm of a different feeling. But there was a small part of me that kind of felt neglected by the you people since I was among the only people who posted anything in the topic, and I thought perhaps I was under accusation for not opposing the sexist line of the topic? To say that, by not fighting it, I was supporting it.
All in all, I'm just sayin, I wanna make sure no one be hatin on me. I'm a good guy. =)
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Oh man. That song.
Heard it on the radio once and my jaw dropped.
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Ocarinakid
Right?! It's atrocious! But it's not even that bad compared to some stuff I hear. And I question people, and "it's got a good beat" or "it's not about the lyrics". Bah. Drivel if you ask me, rhetoric to protect themselves from admitting they feel that it's okay to say the things said.
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I <3 this topic.
One of my coworkers doesn't let his wife leave the house without calling him first. What the eff?
Nothing frustrates me more than "All women are crazy overemotional *****es that just play games with you!!" What if I said "All men are cheating bastards that only care about sex and cars!" That would be equally ridiculous.
Or the most awful thing I've ever heard: "Oh, she was wearing a low cut top, she was asking for it." I think I actually heard something like that in a song once and was horrified.
What does make it more frustrating is that, like you said, Mark, a lot of women perpetuate the stereotypes. (Side note: I hate you, Twilight! Worst role models for young girls ever!) Anything a man does that's offensive is written off as "Boys will be boys!" by some women. It's awful.
Anyway, I could talk for some time about women's issues, but for tonight I'll stop and simply bask in what my favorite good-guys-I've-never-actually seen-in-person have to say about it and feel optimistic about humanity. Happy times.
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12345679
I am no good with this kind of topic. Of all the women I know well it mostly consists; my mother 3 crazy women( two) of which enjoyed hitting me; a fairly nice girl who is against nerdyness; and various other family members.
and no I haven't dated; I'm not much for romance(mostly because I believe I have a lot of problems).
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Being kind may not pay; but it's the right thing to do.
Mind you I find that song horrifying as well; horribly catchy as well though. gosh darn ear worms.
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Being kind may not pay; but it's the right thing to do.
Mark, I agree with you 100%. In fact, that line is so bad that I don't want to believe it's really that bad. Like, I haven't heard the song, so I wanna be like, "Well maybe he's just telling the woman that she doesn't have to say anything", you know... how some moments don't need any words. But it's totally not that, which is clear by reading the other lyrics of the song. So I'm flabbergasted how they can get away with it. This is why I have never wanted to go to a strip club. The women who don't want to be there but are, are sad... but even sadder to me are the women who do want to be there, who think that empty fake seduction is a power.
I agree with basically everything that's been said in this topic, although I haven't had the misfortune of hearing that song.
I see no more ingrained, accepted, normal facet of society that is glaringly in opposition to a group of people than sexism.
Arguably, prejudice against children is yet more ingrained, accepted, and normal. Just try to find a person (other than me) who doesn't oppose children's suffrage.
With respect to what you said about women being part of the problem: it's true that many women are far too complacent about these issues. However, I'm not sure how correct or fair the idea is that strippers choose to be strippers and exhibitionistic pop stars choose to be exhibitionistic pop stars. I'm not quite cynical enough to think that any sizable minority of women want to be so degraded. I imagine rather that these women believe, rightly or wrongly, that they need to sexually sell out in order to succeed. I'm thinking along similar lines as Sonya in Crime and Punishment, who prostituted herself to feed her family.
Now, let me expound on my own little hypothesis as to the root causes of sexism. I agree with the radical feminists of the seventies that all sexism can be thought of as the product of gender roles. I take their reasoning a step further and say that the real problem is not the particular gender roles we endorse, but the fact that we have gender roles at all. As in race, there's no such thing as separate but equal. So we should seek not to expand our concepts of femininity or masculinity but to entirely disown them, and expect humans only to be human. The natural question is, where do gender roles come from? Why is it that nearly all the world's cultures have concepts of femininity and masculinity, and that, despite the obvious differences between all these dichotomies, there are so many common themes? The answer can only be sexuality. Feminism is such an uphill battle because it stands in opposition to some of our most deeply ingrained impulses. Men are naturally inclined to view women as flesh for the taking, and women to submit. The ultimate goals of feminism can be accomplished only by a partial if not a total rejection of sexuality.
Sisyphean as striving against natural prejudice may seem, it's the most we can do. Such, after all, is the greatness of the human race: from three-and-a-half billion years of blind misery, a spark of purpose. Our achievements are all the more glorious for the obstacles we overcome.
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The Albino Formerly Known as Mimir
Men are naturally inclined to view women as flesh for the taking, and women to submit. The ultimate goals of feminism can be accomplished only by a partial if not a total rejection of sexuality.
Uh... you don't think that's a *bit* much? I mean, I guess clearly you don't seeing as that's the argument you're putting forth, but that's pretty bleak. And looking at the link you posted in Kate's topic (although why Google Books would opt to leave out three nonconsecutive pages baffles me, but I digress) it's looks like there are some pretty compelling arguments that it's an issue of being socialized into a society that devalues feminine qualities and human life in general.
In any case, it seems rather inconsistent to attribute a violent, frankly evil nature to half the population a priori meanwhile insisting that we do away with gender roles as if such a thing is possible--that people are inherently improvable by removing all difference, but men will still be intrinsically inclined to rape.
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir
Is it extreme to think that we humans have a lot of detestable impulses? I don't think so; I think it's hard to entertain the idea that humans have no innate evil biases in a world with enough greed and prejudice to sustain millennia of war, murder, and governmental corruption. I don't doubt that criminals are victims; I just see them as victimized by human nature as well as by circumstances.
My core idea is that while culture is a powerful influence on behavior, culture doesn't come out of thin air. It has its roots not only in the particular environment in which a people live but the features common to all habitable environments, as well as the human genome. Hence, cultural universals.
With respect to that article, notice that it demonstrates that rape isn't universal, and that sexism isn't totally universal, but not that sexism isn't the norm. Also, from what I remember of the article, the argument that sexism arises from devaluing what we Westerners consider feminine qualities, rather than from the simple existence of gender roles, isn't supported by the evidence the author presents.
In any case, it seems rather inconsistent to attribute a violent, frankly evil nature to half the population a priori meanwhile insisting that we do away with gender roles as if such a thing is possible--that people are inherently improvable by removing all difference, but men will still be intrinsically inclined to rape.
I don't think it's inconsistent to say "We're tempted to do this, but we shouldn't do it." And I don't mean to argue that completely abolishing gender roles is possible without eliminating the physiological distinctions between males and females. I just think we should resist the temptation to construct and endorse gender roles. It's better to try and partially succeed than not try at all.
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The Albino Formerly Known as Mimir
I think I will agree tentatively with mimir. It seems as if it were human nature, though perhaps what we call human nature is merely human behavior, to seek to destroy the "other team,"
Religion, patriotism, race, and other concepts are often targeted as the reason people hate other people, but really, these concepts don't do anything. We do things, like create prejudices, and justify them with the concepts themselves.
By instituting gender roles, we encourage differences which will be used, infallibly, to degrade and hate those who are of the "other team." However, the dissolution of these roles I imagine to be impossible, considering that men and women simply have different genetic wiring.
However, take away religion, patriotism, race, sex... what do people do with their hate? Target age groups (this is an appropriate time to mention yes, mimir, sidelining children is definitely more ingrained into us), target those who wear a certain color, work a certain job, make a certain amount of money. There will always be something to hate, until everyone is identical, and that's a world that's frightening. Perhaps the disparity of our world is the charm to it. Living like the Borg, though perhaps an idyllic future to some, seems terrifying to me.
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I guess I just have an irrational worry about living in a world like THX 1138, a film with a setting so boring and monotonous that I have never and will never watch it. But I've kind of watched it and I'm pretty sure that's what they were going for--a world so mind-numbingly boring you'd never want to inhabit it. Not to say that sexism is necessary, but more that I find it objectionable to declare that there's a moral imperative to decreate sexual difference on the notion that difference is bad.
Note that I don't have a solution; well my solution is that everyone "keep it real" but that's not really an enforceable thing. [The rest of this post is me ranting and don't feel obligated to respond to it.]
This is in addition to the whole "dudes are implicitly rapists" thing. I won't disagree with you that there's ample evidence for human evil in the world, but it's ridiculous to say that people are inherently drawn to profound evil, especially when they haven't been socialized to it (at which point it's hard to call it "profound evil').
I had a conversation with a Jesuit teacher of mine way way back when all the priest scandals started hitting the news, and at the time the governor general of the New York province went to everyone and asked them to sign an affidavit that they'd never molested anyone. And he talked about being torn between his very real anger at the accusation of something so vile, and his rational realization that no harm came to him from simply having to assert his non-molesterness, that he was assumed to be a reprobate until he clarified that "oh, I'm not one of those priests."
As an aside, I just copyedited this book: http://www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?session=cd28067fcf44b8994d7a70b649c0c832&cat=&id=9780823232956
which is all about how and why non-hegemonic groups deal with this sort of pre-judgment every day, and the utter indignity of having to explain that "I'm not one of those black people" or whatever. It's pretty interesting, if you have a background in Peirce. Anyway, despite the irony of me in particular *****ing about it, a priori accusations suck no matter what! This was touched upon in Kate's topic.
But that's an objection born of emotion, so instead: people like sex, women included; to say that men are inclined to see women as flesh for the taking isn't, I suppose, mistaken, but women are entirely capable of seeing men as flesh, and if that impulse is equally actionable (which it can be), it's not an issue. To say that people render other people nondistinct (that is: to identify them with the function they currently fulfill relative to you) and perhaps nonpersonal (that is: to extrapolate their whole being from a single context or action) in order to enjoy a physical interaction is not inherently bad; it's an effect of encountering so damned many people each day.
I suppose it's tragic that women in the west feel a disproportionate need to base their personal value on a sexual appeal, but the solution isn't to stigmatize the mechanism behind sexual appeal. If you want to believe mankind is perfectible, that's great, but to say that we're not perfectible in our passions is to remove an essential conceit of humanity. I know it's cliche, and I know that my opinion is rather suspect in this instance, but perfection of that sort sounds overrated.
Anyway, again, I don't disagree with your mission, I'd just argue that culture "on the ground" is a good thing, and there are more people who strive to be good and inoffensive than not, and an unfortunate reality is that changing culture is a slow business, and that's good, because the culture that will come out of the interplay between the work you're talking about now and the existing culture will be way better than just sort of wiping the slate clean a la every single sci-fi dystopia.
However, take away religion, patriotism, race, sex... what do people do with their hate? Target age groups (this is an appropriate time to mention yes, mimir, sidelining children is definitely more ingrained into us), target those who wear a certain color, work a certain job, make a certain amount of money.
I'm pretty sure these are the two most commonly stereotyped things, if I remember my school learnings correctly. Not much to add, just thought I'd throw in a fun fact.
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Ocarinakid
I'm not against individual differences. Indeed, I think they're necessary for intellectual progress. Science would quickly get stuck in a permanent rut if new scientists didn't provide new perspectives. What I'm against is group differences. I envision a world where it's possible to think of individuals as individuals, and of the whole species as the whole species, but without anything in between. In other words, I want a human species no proper non-singleton subset of which is a natural kind. Of course, so long as human nature is human nature, people will create social groups out of thin air—that's how we got our idea of discrete sexual orientation, for instance. I imagine, however, that prejudice operating in this fashion will be insignificant in magnitude compared to the sum of all the prejudices we're familiar with today.
From: willis5225 | Posted: 5/17/2010 10:40:19 PM | #017
To say that people render other people nondistinct (that is: to identify them with the function they currently fulfill relative to you) and perhaps nonpersonal (that is: to extrapolate their whole being from a single context or action) in order to enjoy a physical interaction is not inherently bad…
Going by these definitions, I agree it's acceptable to render other people nondistinct, but I don't agree it's acceptable to render other people nonpersonal. If I know a man only as the postman who delivers mail to my apartment building, it's okay to identify him with this function; that is, to think of him as "that guy who delivers my mail". It isn't okay to then believe everything this fact suggests, such as the proposition that he hates dogs. (Assuming this is what you meant by "extrapolat[ing] their whole being from a single context or action".) That's stereotyping, which is destructive.
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The Albino Formerly Known as Mimir
Of course, so long as human nature is human nature, people will create social groups out of thin air.
This is actually more true than you want to believe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8646236.stm
Basically, Japan is as homogeneous as they can hope to get it, and they STILL find ways to discriminate against each other.
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Holy **** we're in the Matrix? - Willis
Well, for the postman thing, my perfect example was going to be somebody who cuts me off in traffic. We live in a society which results in this exact sort of interaction all the damned time: an impersonal interaction with someone I have never seen before and will never see again.
So I get cut off: my natural recourse is to be pissed because I've been put in unnecessary danger. I can either go with that, yell loudly, and move on, or I can try to sympathize and say "okay, I have also cut people off in traffic, often accidentally or because of ignorance, and indeed it's possible that from that driver's perspective that I am at fault." In neither instance is the other person, in my mind in any way related to the person driving the car. They are merely the guy who cut me off in isolation, whether that is related to my knee-jerk perception of them as a total jerk or to an extrapolation from my own experience of times that I have been a total jerk. That person is not, and based on the one encounter cannot be a person.
I am not uncomfortable with extending that same line of reasoning to a sexual partner, but admittedly I've have had a very long eighteen months. I'm happy to call this kind of profound emotional distance sub-ideal, but I wouldn't call it evil, or even exploitative.
To return to the mailman example: what is the harm of assuming your mailman is only a mailman, if your only interactions with him are as a mailman? With the dog, you would keep your dog away from the door when the mail was about to be delivered. Of course, if you saw him patting a dog joyfully, you would have to reevaluate your opinion of the mailman because you've seen him in a second context ("dude petting a dog") and add that to your catalogue of things-that-dude-is-and-does. But is that second context distinctly more personal, and is your receiving of a service from the mailman any less exploitative (ignoring momentarily that the mailman is a public servant, so there *is* a more profoundly disconnected relationship than usual)?
This is actually sounding eerily Peirceian. I think I'm a stone's throw from declaring that the only way to know people is to know a number of First-order contexts that contain that person and string them together, like that Sea Dragon image manipulation jobbie. Or like Peircian semiotics, if anyone's read him. So a sexual impulse is merely a First arising from mankind's animal brain and no more or less valid than any other First-context, except perhaps that that context gives rise to a particularly evil and particularly common exploitation. It just needn't, is all.
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir
(I may have gone off and gotten incoherent toward the end there; if so I apologize. I try to avoid really highly metaphysical sorts of discussions because they bring that out of me and it's obnoxious. Anyway, obviously sexism is a multi-valant problem, and the differences between hegemonic groups and non-hegemonic groups aren't easily articulated; I recognize that one can argue that more or less every social anxiety is an outgrowth of those inequities, it's just that at some point we have to understand the people we have and deal with them and their contexts.
See? See what happened? Now this has gotten so general that it's meaningless. I sign off for the evening from this topic)
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir
Great link, Cheez. That's both funny and terrifying. I remember that when I first read the Final Fantasy VII manual and noticed that it mentioned the blood type of each character, I thought "What, is Cloud going to need a transfusion at the end of Disc 2?".
Wil, I don't know anything about this Pierce fellow, so that last paragraph is lost on me. Also, I think I may've been veered off my point. I don't, after all, oppose casual sex to any greater degree than I oppose sex in general. So the phenomenon I see as problematic is not just seeing a person as a sexual actor, but as a sexual object—something whose feelings, thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, and decisions aren't relevant. This is what I call sexual objectification. I state, without being able to find reports of any supportive psychology experiments (I think this just hasn't been tested), that sexual arousal induces sexual objectification in men, if not also in women. The tendency to think about women as sexual beasts instead of as humans is, I think, sufficient to explain sexism. It's an especially good explanation in light of the particular forms sexism tends to take. Does this make sense?
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The Albino Formerly Known as Mimir
Some excellent conversation going on here. I don't really have anything to contribute right now, other than that I enjoy reading.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8646236.stm
Basically, Japan is as homogeneous as they can hope to get it, and they STILL find ways to discriminate against each other.
I don't actually know my blood type. I used to want to know it, but now I don't. Thanks, Japan!
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Shake your windows and rattle your walls.
Okay, that kind of makes sense--in that a sexual relationship is one in which it is distinctly possible to reduce someone to a single function (which you couldn't do with, say, a co-worker or a teacher because of all the talking involved).
I guess I'd go with you that dehumanization is an essential condition of violence (or rather, we'd both go with a massive body of scholarship on the subject) but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it necessarily engenders violence. But that's just sort of a Hobbes/Locke argument, and we've already rehearsed that.
Also WTF @ Japan
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir
Hi guys, I'm a type B.
*runs around being spontaneous, carefree and derailing the entire conversation*
Actually, I don't know what my blood type is. My mom is an O and my dad is a B, so I'm either one of those. *shrug*
As for my two cents on the actual subject, I must agree that sexuality plays a large part in creating a gender divide. I'd venture to say that the majority of women prefer the man to be more aggressive in bed, simply because a dominant partner turns her on more. And to meet that criterion, men have developed more aggressive (and sometimes more distasteful) habits.
Basically, gender differences partially arise because the (majority of) the other gender finds those differences sexy.
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"A period"
~~This is what I like to add to the end of almost every sentence.~~
From: ShadowSpy | Posted: 5/19/2010 9:05:53 PM | #027
Basically, gender differences partially arise because the (majority of) the other gender finds those differences sexy.
If there is a causal connection between those variables, wouldn't you expect it to be the other way round?
By the way, while I was searching the literature, I found this article, which isn't quite what I was looking for but is interesting and relevant nonetheless:
Landau, M. J., Goldenberg, J. L., Greenberg, J., Gillath, O., Solomon, S., Cox, C., Martens, A., & Pyszczynski, T. The siren's call: Terror management and the threat of men's sexual attraction to women.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(1), 129–146. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.90.1.129
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The Albino Formerly Known as Mimir
The notion that physical beauty reminds people supersubconsciously of their own mortality sounds pretty distressingly psychoanalytic to me. Caveat: I've read the abstract and maybe two sections and must now bounce, but I'm damned skeptical of things that are talking theory and writing like science.
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir
Yeah, except unlike Freudianism, these ideas are falsifiable and have resisted falsification.
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The Albino Formerly Known as Mimir