Fuck Sexism

[Truthordeal]

What the fuck.

Do...I...wh...how...uh...yeah....wow...right...

This is a wallbanger if I've ever seen one.

I'll give the guys who made this a paltry amount of credit: their heart was in the right place...I think...I'll give them the BotD on that.

But, its just...wow, how do you even justify that? How the hell does that cut down on domestic violence any? What would've been better is if the person got maced, tackled and arrested by two cops right after the first punch. Maybe its just me, but the game seems to say "Hey, if you only hit a woman 14 times, you're ok, and you're still a real gangsta!" That's not cool.

Ugh...seriously people, THINK before you do stuff like this.

[Lord J Esq]

I saw that game in the news a couple of weeks ago, when it first came out. I checked it out for myself to see what it was really like. Thankfully I didn't need to finish the game to find that out: One slap was enough.

Then, as now, the reaction to this PSA was widespread and almost totally negative. Normally I would have been the first to agree with that conclusion, but one-sided populist reactions always trigger my anti-groupthink alarm, so I gave the whole premise a harder, second thought.

The first thing that occurred to me is that this announcement has gotten domestic violence some big publicity in the past few weeks. That's a good thing.

The second thing that occurred to me is that sexual equality is farther along in Denmark than it is here, and there is less puritanism in Denmark than there is here. Here, one of the major complaints about this PSA is that it laps itself, turning an anti-sexist game into a sexist one. There are too many variations and nuances to this complaint to summarize them all, but the most common logic (as best I can tell) is that the game is desensitizing, trivializing the severity of domestic abuse. To play the game at all, you're forced to commit the crime--in all its brutal, first-person detail. (That's not much different than Modern Warfare 2 or Vice City, except that people actually pay money for those games. Don't get me started...) I am skeptical that it is actually desensitizing (any more than those other games are), although my jury is still out. Of course, to the extent that this is true, it's proof that the PSA was only pointing out a problem that already exists: People are desensitized to domestic abuse.

The third thing that occurred to me is that the PSA has offended plenty of the wrong people. The sexists and the naive, for their part, are enjoying seeing who can hit the bitch the fastest, getting the high score. Only feminists seem to be bothered. That's a bad thing. But the fourth thing that occurred to me is that the PSA's successes, if there were any, would be invisible. If people apt to commit domestic abuse played this game and genuinely felt guilty, then the PSA has done its job. And we don't know if there are such people.

All in all, I have a hard time condemning this. Me...I found it an ugly game. But I don't need a public service announcement to pull me back from my female-assaulting ways. This game wasn't made for me. I would like to learn how it affects the people for whom it is made, before I make up my mind as to its value. It's kind of gross, the thought of appealing to people's consciences by putting the crime in daylight, but it also makes a lot of sense. Domestic abuse rarely occurs in public, in relative terms. It's something that, in the modern developed world, happens in secret. And we don't like to acknowledge its existence. I needn't name names of people at the Compendium who have doubted, or still doubt, the importance of the sexual equality movement, or the horrors of sexism in the world today. And we are but a microcosm. Maybe bringing this out into the daylight is not such a bad thing. The huge backlash against it is eminently understandable and probably desirable: Most people won't have thought it out like I'm doing, and would stick with their initial revulsion. That revulsion is a good thing. But, except for the people who are actually abuses, it's a sideshow.

The more I think about it, the more I think this PSA did more good than harm. There're five hundred ways to assault females in our entertainment media. People who want to do that, have no shortage of options. One public service announcement is not going to tip society over the edge. No one is going to play this game and commit domestic abuses, or otherwise degrade females, unless they already were on course toward perpetrating these crimes. On the other hand, maybe the light of day will provide some of them with a new perspective.

[FaustWolf]

Here's one of those rare articles that will help bring out your inner feminist and force you to confront it, help you divine its true nature and clarify your values. Written by a college student from South Dakota:

http://media.www.dakotastudent.com/media/storage/paper970/news/2008/09/23/Life/Get-Busy.Anatomy.Of.The.OneNight.Stand-3449575.shtml


Many feminists (especially Third Wave feminists) would no doubt celebrate this advice, absolutely unabashedly. It does make very good points about contraception and dating safety, and since it's enveloped in trendy attitudes, it might just be more effective than abstinence sex ed.

However, my own inner feminist couldn't help but throw up vigorously as I read through this. While the egalitarianism is appreciated, the literal use and immediate shedding of any human being to fulfill one's own short-term urges is not what I signed up for as a feminist, nor as a humanist -- and perhaps this is where I need to make a distinction between feminism and humanism in my personal philosophy. I think up until now I had the two conflated, due in no small measure to my particular fascination with that obscure animal known as "care feminism".

Third Wave Feminism, or what I've seen and studied of it, seems devoted solely to political, economic and social egalitarianism; in a word, Freedom*. This is no bad thing, but the article has driven me to the conclusion that I want to promote and be a part of something above and beyond bare sexual equality. I want to explore a world of deeper human connection, and for that reason I fear being targeted for the kind of activity the student's article promotes. It seems easy at first to brush this concern aside, to just "be careful," but I'm not so sure people of either gender who are literally out for a "one night stand" are that readily differentiable from people interested in forging some kind of emotional bond. We are all strangers to one another at first and these are extremely complex interactions; just because a person is persistent doesn't mean he or she doesn't also intend to throw you away after the feast.

Here we get to what I believe is the crux of the extremely vehement attitudes Second Wave and Third Wave Feminists sometimes harbor toward one another: each side views the other as trying to fashion the world in a certain image, and the other side fears living in that world. Third Wave Feminists have given me the impression that they don't really want to be hindered with communal concerns; everything is about the individual, her or his personal needs. Second Wave Feminists, on the other hand, gave (and still give, where they still exist) me the impression that they wanted to foster a deeper, richer human community -- yes, that's likely to require great self limitation and self control. It's sad, but these goals are in a way inimical to one another -- there is nothing communal about a "one night stand" other than the physical pleasure both parties might derive from it. As an analogy, a string of "one night stands" sounds like a perfectly good way to keep one's bed warm but still end up cold and lonely in the end. It's better than prostitution only because it's financially cheaper.

The attitudes espoused in this article were the greatest shock and surprise to me when I began seriously studying feminism; like Jessica Valenti's Full Frontal Feminism, this article seems representative of the movement's current vanguard. I attached feminism to myself as a way of escaping attitudes and practices rife within traditional masculinity that I felt were destroying me inside; what a shock to discover how eager other feminists are to enter that very world and exercise power within it. I'm sure some pride can be gleaned from the power trip, at least for a time, but that power trip is no longer for me.


*It should be noted that there is a strong cross-cultural component to Third Wave Feminism that Second Wave Feminism lacked -- or was often seen as lacking. This is why I still consider Third Wave Feminism a step forward. And Third Wave Feminism really can't be described in any succinct way, because it's an incredibly eclectic movement. I can't claim that I've even managed to scratch past the surface of it.

EDIT: I might seem like I'm joining a bandwagon of protest already levied at the author by her commentators, but I think those people are missing the concern I'm raising. Most of the already-levied criticism seems to revolve around shame associated with traditional morals. Make no mistake, the author feels precisely empowered by what she's suggesting, and she knows her peers engage in this regularly and see no shame in it. My concern is that the author and the culture she's celebrating are reducing human interaction to a pursuit of cheap thrills and therefore robbing it of some value. In a perfect world without STDs or unintended pregnancies I would have the exact same concern.

[ZeaLitY]

This article seems comically shallow. While sexual liberation is on the side of justice, I'm not sure advising everyone to go out and fuck as many random people as possible would accomplish it. Yes, you're getting boys and girls to have sex, but there's no advice on the attitudes and circumstances necessary to make this a positive event. If you take a random guy and a random girl and have a one-night stand, then all constants held, you're probably going to end up with the same problems—the guy is probably unempathetic about love-making, benefits from being seen as sexually active, reinforces gender attitudes by "scoring", etc.—and the girl gets all the negative baggage. People have been going out and fucking each other willy-nilly for the entire record of human civilization, and we still have sexism. What a vapid article (at least when viewed from a humanistic perspective).

[Lord J Esq]

Just a couple of thoughts to share on Faust's article and commentary...

The complexity and supposed importance of sexual encounters is largely a construct--a matter of perception. Far from thinking that we stripped sex too bare, I think sex is still encumbered by layer upon layer of worthless social baggage. This whole idea that casual sex involves "using" the other person--with a decidedly negative connotation on this "using," insinuating exploitation--is dependent upon a bunch of double standards between sex and other forms of interaction. Do we "use" people when we seek their verbal company and emotional presence to cheer us up? Do we "use" them when we solicit their brainpower for practical advice and analysis?

Let people explore sex at their own pace and discretion. "Sex" is not some monolithic thing. It comes in many varieties, and we're foolish to regard every act of sex identically.

I won't disagree that most folks would screw it up in a small or big way if they sought casual sex. Most people are screw-ups anyway; they'd do just as poorly for themselves and their partners by eschewing casual sex for relationships. Indeed, "relationships" offer a whole new world for screwing up to take place. Should we ban all sex, then? No, and neither should we pin a scarlet letter on casual sex. I actually think people should have more casual sex. I think it would do our society a lot of good. But, to each their own. If some folks don't want that for themselves, I wouldn't force them. However, I expect the reverse to also hold true. This judgmentalism is puritanism, plain and simple, and I'm against it.

Notwithstanding the sexist undertones in the sex-specific advice, I think it's a good article.

[FaustWolf]

The concerns I express above extend well beyond casual sex, though it's true that I singled it out as an example. I view the article as an allegory of the quality of all our interaction nowadays -- so focused on consumption, so wrapped around goods and services. A friendship with little substance seems just as tragic to me as a "one night stand"; same with a cash register operator seeing huge amounts of people and yet getting to know nothing about most of them. It's one of those new age hippie worries like the kind you'd see in Fahrenheit 451, I guess -- the worry that we might lose our ability to forge real, enriching human connections with one another.

This whole idea that casual sex involves "using" the other person--with a decidedly negative connotation on this "using," insinuating exploitation--is dependent upon a bunch of double standards between sex and other forms of interaction. Do we "use" people when we seek their verbal company and emotional presence to cheer us up? Do we "use" them when we solicit their brainpower for practical advice and analysis?

I didn't mean to espouse any sort of double standard for my own part: Yes, I think it's perfectly possible that the offered analogies could lead to exploitative relationships -- it depends, of course, on whether the targeted party feels used. If not, then no easily identifiable harm has been done. But if so, there is a problem.

The "to each their own" question is precisely what I wanted to get at, because I'm interested in exploring some of the conflicts that exist within feminism. Looking at this from a Second Wave perspective, one might argue that "the hookup" has roots in patriarchal exploitation; looking at this from a Third Wave perspective, "the hookup" is something women should be able to pursue freely because men have done this for so long, and it's something all human beings should be able to do. It's fascinating. I think the Second Wave critique still has some value for the reason that ZeaLitY noted: what the article is promoting, in and of itself, may not go as far toward resolving sexism as some feminists might feel. Speaking for myself, I'll add that I fled patriarchal machismo precisely because I thought this attitude toward relationships was harmful (to myself at least, if not to all of society). That's why I can't help but personally view the article with some sense of unease, and why I identify more with the Second Wave camp on this one.

Other than my fascination with intra-feminist conflict I'm not rabidly concerned with this one issue other than a desire to shout out that it's okay to want deeper human connection -- that applies to all types of interaction we might find ourselves in from time to time. Sometimes I feel messages that should be obvious are drowned out by pop culture, i.e., the types of cultural artifacts we're exposed to may be skewed in one direction or another. For example, in normalizing "the hookup" this article suggests this is the normal and most accepted mode of sexual interaction between college students; there is no discussion of other possible relationships and why those, too, may be desirable. The author just tells her reader there's an "itch" that needs scratched, and this is the way to do it, because, apparently, the reader's already doing it anyway.

Granted, there's plenty of other media to the contrary -- but once again this is an issue people often view in binary fashion. Either you're a hookup promoter or you belong to a tacky abstinence club. There need to be voices representing other positions, even if those positions are more nuanced and complex.


EDIT:

Indeed, "relationships" offer a whole new world for screwing up to take place.

Aha, I missed your meaning here before. So, a utilitarian approach to the subject, perhaps: if people who are just looking for sex feel forced into a relationship, then it'll be a sucky relationship. I can buy that. My concern was for precisely the opposite situation -- that there might be people who want a relationship but society dictated the only desirable thing was casual sex. Again, I admit it's a concern worthy of Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World and other dystopian fiction; only I actually felt that I was being trained to think this way earlier in life.


EDIT AGAIN: Looks like I might have binged a little too much on the judgmentalism in my previous post; I wanted to clarify that it's not my design to advocate forcing a certain mode of behavior on others but rather to highlight the nature of intra-feminist conflict I've read into recently. That required reflecting on the issue through one of the many lenses that exist in this movement.

When it comes down to choice over one's lifestyle, I'd probably advocate better mechanisms for segregating those who are after casual sex from those seeking deeper relationships. It's when people with such starkly differing goals unknowingly intermingle that we have problematic outcomes.

[Uboa]

Faust, you mentioned something in the "Stuff you Hate" thread that caught my attention and I was hoping that maybe you'd give some follow-up on it here.  On second thought, anybody can feel free to join in answering this question, which was originally intended for Faust, if they feel so inclined:

How has any pervasive aspect of our culture -- media, religion, art, academia/pop-science? (other?) -- had a resounding influence (positive or negative) on your view of the opposite sex, or your own sex for that matter?  What about relationships or sex itself, for better or worse?  The article that Faust posted is a good example of a potentially strong influence, as was the "friend zone" article which was posted several pages back.

I am going to have to do some reflection before I post my own answer to this question. 

[FaustWolf]

I had a difficult time finding any kind of official research or editorials that explore the subject I'm about to tackle in response to Uboa's question. Without making widespread generalities the only thing I can really offer is a fleeting glimpse into the life of an average male growing up in average conditions of (Mid)Western patriarchy in the United States.

Before I begin, a bit of a theoretical tangent. After reflecting on our conversations here, I'll posit up front that no single cultural artifact (ranging from the Bible to Beyonce's Single Ladies -- it was one of the best videos of all time!!! Look at the lighting! The skilled choreography! That video editing!) is necessarily sufficient in and of itself to generate sexism. Each individual could conceivably have his or her own varied interpretation of the Book of Genesis and Beyonce displaying her rather nice gams for all to see. Is Eve being made from Adam's rib implying that "women are the crowning jewel of creation" or is it implying "women are second rate beings"? Is Beyonce "putting out" for me on command like dancers in the old harems, or is she displaying a fierce sexuality that strikes out at patriarchy because it is all her own? Sexism occurs when these cultural articles are arranged together in such a way or framed in such a context that they carry a sexist message. The explicitness with which this message is communicated and disseminated, then, may determine how many fall under its sway.


Since I still feel a need to lend some credence to the possibility that the issue I'm about to address is of societal significance, let's first turn to three Youtube videos I found on short notice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWR1Z4AiyWM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VDvZYcrq0o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua1g-eGn3V0

These videos tell stories about men in our society and their view of women, and specifically their views about how they relate to women. In each case the viewer will likely pick up strong vibes of anger toward women (and thus thinly veiled misogyny).

In the first case the literal message is, "Feminism screwed us up! Society was so much better when things were arranged more orderly!"

In the second case, it's "Hey, numbnuts! Start acting tough or you'll never get laid!"

In the third case, it's "Hey, you retard girls! If you'd stop dating assholes and start dating 'nice guys' like 'us' your lives will be a whole lot better!"

But in addition to each video's literal message, there is a subtext shared by all three: a false but unquestioned underlying assumption that these men are somehow entitled to something they've been deprived of unfairly, or else they might not be getting so worked up over the issues they're getting worked up about. If we were to have a conversation with them, we might arrive at the core issue here: they feel they are entitled to women.

This would only be a pet theory except for the fact that I myself was in these men's shoes for a time. For me it manifested in such a way that I had a really flippant attitude toward women who were dating or otherwise socially attached to men who were not me; I began categorizing, labeling, every conversation a reconnaissance mission; if she was dating I left for more fertile pastures. During lull periods I would feel alternately frustrated like the guy in video #3; charged with aggressive machismo like the speaker in video #2; and yearning for ye olde days where conservative values simplified these adolescent trials, like the guy in video #1. When I finally paused and actually examined myself and my motives, I realized I was trying to build my whole life around a sense of entitlement. I, a white male living the dream that is middle class patriarchy in the US, was no different than those slave masters of old who defined the worth of other human beings only in relation to themselves. I am, to this day, a recovering sexist. Feminism was my ticket out; I have positive cultural artifacts and feminist women in my life to thank for my interest in exploring this field, and it's been the most liberating experience for me on a personal level.


So I've said thus far that I believe there might be a societal issue here worth addressing: that our culture could be producing self-centered men so fixated on "the score" that they actually get cranky and feel deprived when women exercise free choice, and that free choice doesn't lead straight to them. More simply: male entitlement to women. Others here may report honestly never feeling such things; that's good, that represents progress to me. But on the other hand, between the three Youtube videos and myself, you've got four who fit the sexist mold, at least as captured in video and anecdote. How many more are out there? Does the attitude contribute to extreme behaviors in some cases? Like...acquaintance rape, sexual assault, child pornography, you name it?


And how does this attitude even arise? How could a male baby born with naught but a tabula rasa to call his own, get these ideas in his head? Again, all I can pretend to offer at this point are personal anecdotes. I'll paint a very brief impression of a (probably average) male adolescent life in a middle class midwestern US community:

Age 9: Grade school soccer match during recess. Boy sees a male peer calling another male peer a "faggot." Boy doesn't know quite what that means just yet; only knows it's something he doesn't want to be called himself, judging from the fact that the one peer was screaming that at the other peer. Later that year boy looks up the term; it's not a burning stick like in The Hobbit after all.

Age 12: Boy receives his regular monthly videogame magazine in the mail; approximately half way through is a full-spread Sega Saturn ad featuring a luxuriously reclining woman adorned only by strategically placed videogame screenshots. Boy's response: "Whoa."

Age 13: Boy is accused of being "gay" in an argument; boy vows to drop the games and start lifting weights. Although...the weight-lifting plan is postponed for a year to make more time for Final Fantasy VII.

Age 18: Boy receives his first Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. The covergirl is Yamila Diaz Rahi; and the issue climaxes with an image of Ms. Diaz-Rahi that leaves very little to the imagination (and ironically, what little she is clad in would become the ultimate dress -- or lack thereof -- in Dead or Alive: XTreme Beach Volleyball).

Later that year: Boy is at a lunch table listening to a peer's report of having sex with a drunken freshman -- one of the school's most desirable hotties -- at a party. When someone asks why the peer did what he did, his response is: "Well, who the fuck wouldn't?" Everyone bows their heads because he apparently speaks solemn truth. The issue of whether the sex was or was not consensual does not enter discussion.

Later that year: Boy is inducted into an honor society, the only male. A mother of one of his peers quips of the boy: "He has a harem!"


What does this all amount to? Could be anything, reasonably; for me, the subtext that succinctly unites all these anecdotes thematically is something along the lines of: "Women's bodies are out there for the grabbing, better get busy and prove you're not gay!" That's the kind of attitude I found festering within me after being exposed to all this for so long. Once I saw it for what it was it seemed poisoning and destructive.

Now, there's no guarantee everyone would have reacted the same way to these things. Furthermore, I left out various countervailing cultural impressions that at least helped me realize women aren't somehow these, one-dimensional caricatures. But more important than what I chose to leave out are what I'm forced to leave out due to their nonexistence: there was no classroom discussion at age 10 about the fact that the nude woman I saw in a videogame mag at age 9 entered into a complex legal contract, and furthermore was probably photoshopped. There was no discussion at age 18 about female empowerment through sexuality; there was just...Yamila Diaz-Rahi's bare body there, meant to be consumed. There was nothing framing that act of consumption, nothing that helped me interpret the cultural implications of the image in one way or another. I didn't get any of that until I'd taken a women's studies course way later in college.

So that's my spiel about how the sum effect of cultural artifacts can contribute to patriarchy. It's also why I feel a bit of a pit in my stomach when I read what some Third Wave Feminists are up to, and why some remaining Second Wave Feminists share this trepidation. As a concluding analogy to sum up my current feelings about the state of the movement: While I think Beyonce should be completely free to shake her thang, I just hope that for every boy who sees it, there's a parent, friend, mentor, or teacher out there at the ready with a feminist interpretation of what he's seeing. If not, then the movement has much work left ahead of it indeed. We need to actively create discussion and pro-feminist context as an adjunct to promoting sexual freedom.

[Radical_Dreamer]

I saw this in another thread, but I felt it would be more appropriate here: The way you, Faust, describe being a recovering sexist, in the same sense as a recovering alcoholic, is an incredible descriptor. A person with sexist attitudes who is self aware enough to realize this, is ethical enough to realize that they are unacceptable, and has the strength of will to attempt to overcome them is very different from someone who wallows in their sexist views and acts on them, even though we may call both of them sexists. I may have to start using that in other conversations on the topic.

[FaustWolf]

Yeah, I'm glad you picked up on the alcoholism analogy, that's exactly how I wanted to portray it. Groups like Alcoholics Anonymous allow people who have shared a certain negative experience to know it's okay to explore and deconstruct what they went through publicly. Confessions can be incredibly therapeutic, and furthermore maybe the existence of AA testimonies provide some hope that people taking their first sip of alcohol in the future can do so knowing the difference between a properly consumed alcoholic beverage and an improperly consumed alcoholic beverage. Alcohol is alcohol; but the circumstances surrounding every drink are unique. Sometimes they're positive and wholesome, sometimes they're negative and destructive. My experience with sexism and the patriarchy as it exists where I grew up is that it takes sexuality and twists it into something potentially horrific if it's left to grow unchecked. Where I came from, men are entitled to women's bodies; and if they're unsatisfied with what they've had access to so far, they're welcome to take more, because -- hey, it's out there!

The feminist movement could do well to offer men more avenues for exploring and sharing the ways in which patriarchy and its various subcultures have affected each of them. I think this is an important step in dismantling some of the attitudes that are pervasive in at least some masculine-focused subcultures in the United States.


As for what I feel may be a more concrete recent example of men's sense of entitlement and how it may be more widespread than we give it credit for at first, consider the huge buzz surrounding Carrie Prejean's alleged sex tape. A pornography distributor apparently has the video in its possession somehow and is fighting tooth and nail to distribute it for profit (link is safe for work, except maybe for language).

Now, I dislike Ms. Prejean's attack on homosexuality just as much as the next liberal, but consider what happened here if we take this story at face value. Prejean created that footage (however naively) with the expectation that there were to be boundaries laid on its consumption, and that those boundaries were under her control -- it was supposedly for her boyfriend at the time. So what happens? Someone leaks it to this distributor. That leak, regardless of who committed it, was an act of rape. It constituted seizing control over a woman's own body away from her. Anyone who watches that footage other than her boyfriend without her express permission joins in that rape. Nobody has suggested this in the media. I find that lack of context a sign of the great work ahead of the feminist movement, and furthermore a direct outcropping of the kind of raunchy machismo subculture to which I'd been exposed during adolescence. Few men would probably think anything of it if this footage joined the stream of leaked celebrity pornography, despite the fact that it was hardly produced under the stringent legal and even pro-feminist conditions the porn industry is often credited for. I suspect this situation is due entirely to the lack of context in which raunch and machismo subcultures present female sexuality.


EDIT: Thought I'd toss this in here given the current subject matter.
The National Organization for Men Against Sexism. http://www.nomas.org/

Might seem like something to jump for joy about, but some feminists might say, "Not so fast!"
http://www.nomas.org/node/64
http://www.nomas.org/node/179

NOMAS is very Second Wave -- so much so that I'm surprised by its Second Wave-ness. Imagine how Wendy McElroy, linked a few pages back, might critique the first of those two links especially. So file this one under "potential for intra-feminist conflict," which of course I'm very fond of highlighting because I feel some consensus needs to be reached eventually so more concrete goals can take shape. But these guys probably take these positions for some of the reasons I describe above.

What should be a movement of crystal clear simplicity gets all so very muddled and contentious so quickly, because there are so many ways to interpret things. Perhaps a Fourth or Fifth Wave, or even a non-Wave paradigm can discover a way of reconciling all these different views without diluting the power of each perspective's ideas. I think Second Wave concerns might be well addressed through the creation of "context" without hindering the all-encompassing freedom Third Wavers seek.

[ZeaLitY]

Unfortunately, Alcoholics Anonymous is a very religious program. They'd come out of one patriarchal fire and fall into another.

[GenesisOne]

Unfortunately, Alcoholics Anonymous is a very religious program. They'd come out of one patriarchal fire and fall into another.

Yeah, I haven't been too favorable about those 12-step programs.

I mean, it worked for my dad since he was an alcoholic growing up.  It got him sobered up and off the bottle.  I guess it just falls to whoever's in there wants to make it work for them.

I'm just saying that there are better options out there than 12-step programs.

[FaustWolf]

Well, there's always SOS.

But being a recovering sexist isn't about getting rid of a physical addiction so much as staving off a psychological mindset that's been ingrained through years of implicit-but-pervasive reinforcement.

[GenesisOne]

Well, there's always SOS.

Yay for Secular Sobriety.

[Lord J Esq]

How has any pervasive aspect of our culture -- media, religion, art, academia/pop-science? (other?) -- had a resounding influence (positive or negative) on your view of the opposite sex, or your own sex for that matter?

I come from a developmental background that just didn't fit in with the society to which we are all hooked up. To me, as a kid, I never saw any evident basis for sex-specific attitudes, or sexism. In the course of my later adolescence and political awakening, I was genuinely surprised to learn just how prevalent sexism actually is. In particular, I was greatly dismayed to learn, in the earliest years of my adulthood, just how much of our culture is created by and for young, aggressive males.

I'm a young, aggressive male. I never lacked an understanding of where that energy comes from. Male hormones. But to see aggressiveness so commonly expressed in the form of sexism was greatly disheartening to me. I'm not a misanthrope, but this was a strain on me. It helped inform the thinking in my philosophy which places heavy burdens on all individuals to live up to a minimum of thoughtfulness, intelligence, and respectfulness. And, what's more: It helped me to justify my "Off with their heads!" attitude toward people who willingly defy these obligations and indulge in the abuses of power.

Many of the problems in all societies both modern and historical are reducible to the young, aggressive male who expresses himself destructively or abusively, and who imposes vast burdens and judgments on femalekind as a whole. You can expect to see this issue get a lot of treatment in my philosophical dissertations yet to come...

But to return to your question, I also wondered how many young males are not aggressive, and how many young aggressive males are not, to put it frankly, evil. I don't have a definitive answer yet, but I strongly suspect that the percentage of scum in this group is in the middle of the range...perhaps 30 to 70 percent of all young males. I base my suspicions on my years of observation, as well as the study of history and current events. It's true that the worst people draw the most attention to themselves, overstating their proportions. But it's also true that too damn many people are "the worst."

I pondered similarly the young female half of the equation. Young females are often aggressive too, when it isn't beaten out of them. Aggressiveness is common in youth. That's not a bad thing. "Aggressiveness" does not simply mean "violence" and "intimidation." Such is but one form aggression takes. In the general sense, aggressiveness is the persistence of assertiveness. Aggressiveness built up the world, good and bad.

Most of all, I wonder: Why? Why do females as a group put up with this? Why does male-on-male abuse so often result in conflict, while male-on-female abuse so often results in subjugation? Actually I don't wonder so much; I just don't like the supposed answer, which is: I think it's a product of our animal nature. Wild human societies were male-dominated. Each sex had its own internal power structure, but between the sexes the males called the shots. We see this in several higher animal species: Over vast spans of time, enormous quantities of scarce energy are absorbed into the development of increasingly aggressive males...a sort of evolutionary arms race spurred on by social development and environmental pressures. That's where humanity comes from. And, obviously, it continued to be an evolutionarily advantageous arrangement.

Female humans, who have possessed the same cognitive powers as males, evolved to endure this. As males became more aggressive, the most successful females became those who could best avoid being culled from the gene pool. Females who were more competitive against males were more often killed.* Even today, a fair number of females actually like to submit to their prospective mates--just as a fair number of males like to dominate theirs. In an animalistic sense, it makes sense.

As I have stressed so many times, it is never justifiable to make even the most supportable sex-specific generalizations if you also make the implication that these generalizations apply to everyone, or that they are "truer" or "closer" to human nature than the exceptional cases. If anybody else had written the above paragraphs without making this point, I would have lectured them, and I myself must also make it explicitly clear that individual temperament may be influenced by, but is not determined from, biological sex, and that any discussion of sex-specific divisions in our species can never be used to determine an individual's character or to prescribe gender roles.

The reason that this declaration is so important is not that to leave it unsaid risks the appearance of sexism (thought it certainly does), but that sexism itself exists completely within this gap of ambiguity between actual anatomical differences and constructed social institutions. If everyone could understand that the overlap of personality temperaments among individuals completely nullifies any and all sex-specific predispositions that may exist, then sexism would die. Therefore, in a modern society, both sexes have to be taught the idea of sexual equality. Males have to understand that females possess identical faculties and powers, meriting equality. Females have to understand that they are free and are responsible for asserting themselves as equals. If society could get to the point where nobody judges their own value or anyone else's based upon biological sex, sexism would die. It's worth saying that, with civilization, comes responsibility. Humans are no longer animals who exist on instinct alone. Much of what we have come to value in life is expressed not in the human genome but in human civilization. It would be different if one of the sexes were truly incapable of intelligent thought or deliberate behavior. But, amazingly, for all our differences in musculature and hormones, the human brain between the sexes is, for all intents and purposes, identical. Some people will go on and on about what discrepancies do exist, even so far as to use these to prescribe gender roles. They're wrong. There is no concept that one sex can fathom but the other cannot. There is no question that one sex can ponder but the other cannot. Even if in some cases the brain works differently between the sexes, the level of overall functionality is identical. I have heard it said that boys should be educated outdoors, where they can play and be aggressive. The implication is that girls would apparently do better indoors sitting quietly, as public education is currently structured. That's offensive, not to mention incorrect, as any visit to any playground would evince.

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* That might sound like a statement which would require some high evidence. In fact, however, it is a deduction based on modern observation: The types of specimens which are underrepresented (or absent) today must not have been as successful at reproduction in the past. Since the more competitive females (competitive against males, that is) presumably would have been no more susceptible to environmental dangers than their less competitive female counterparts, the most likely explanations for their lack of evolutionary success include that males were offended by this competitiveness and killed the females at a young age (a theory with a great deal of modern evidence to support it), or that these females and/or their male mates made less successful parents (a more ambiguous possibility).

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What about relationships or sex itself, for better or worse?

I think our culture builds presentations and expectations of sex which are too narrow, restrict individual interpretation, discourage diversity, and create pressures to both have sex prematurely and avoid it overlong. Our culture presents sex as something at once sacred and wicked. To have sex is at once to prove yourself and to demean yourself. It's a contradictory, unsatisfying, stupid-headed philosophy...a mixture of secular progressivism blending with much older religious puritanism blending with truly ancient human biology.

To put it in so many words, our society treats sex like a child would.