Fuck Sexism

[FaustWolf]

And that, also said, leads to the fact that there is never, "Why? Because I'm a boy/guy/man?.

TK, there are also male stereotypes. "Men don't cry;" "all men think about are sex, food, and sleep -- in that order"; etc. I fear these assumptions and feel that they devalue me as a human being. In the first case, the assumption of non-emotion implicitly takes men's humanity away entirely; the second trope reduces men to a very small aspect of their humanity, let alone an aspect of humanity that they do share with women. Feminism needs to deconstruct all these things.

After reflecting on my campaign experiences, I'm wondering: how often do we hear the term "vag" versus the term "dick" to describe someone who's an asshole nowadays? Either way, this language is implicitly devaluing a part of the human body, and if "vag" or "pussy" is being used more often, then it represents a disproportionate devaluing of women's bodies as opposed to men's.

How can we reconstruct our very language to eliminate this kind of implied sexism?

[Temporal Knight]

Well, I understand those assumptions, being the stereotypical role that we as men are expected to play in this world today.

It's just funny how it's become more of a joke in this case.

[Uboa]

I'm not trying to steer the topic away, but I just need to rant for a wee bit.

Why do some (read:: many) people think it's funny or cool or whatthefuckever to use the word "rape" to mean "pwned" or "failed" or "I completely won this argument" ?  And since when has it become funny or cool to make fun of rape or molestation or pedophilia?  I'm sorry, I fail to see how such a horrifying, life-altering event could ever possibly be thought of as funny.  And I'm sorry, but I fail to see how using the word "rape" in such an inaccurate and childish manner isn't incredibly degrading.

When people use such heavy words like that, and when they make fun about assault or even talk about it in a joking manner, what they're basically doing is making light of abuse.  They're turning it into something trivial, something that's okay to make fun of.  I don't care what George Carlin said (and do know that I really liked him), there are some things that are simply not amusing.

And yeah, people can call me a raging feminazi or whatever (not like I give a shit...and I know that's pretty unlikely to happen on this thread) or say I'm "too sensitive" (of course I'm sensitive to this, you ignorant fool), but it makes me so angry.

How are we supposed to fight sexism if we are trivializing words that are the direct result of sexism at some of its worst??

I used to not think twice about these kinds of jokes.  I also used to not think twice when I would hear men, some of my friends, "jokingly" put down or negatively stereotype women.  They made it seem so innocent, you know?  Like, "Oh, you know we love you, but you're still a woman, so we have to give you shit."  I figured it was just the way things were.  There was no getting away from it, so I didn't say anything to my friends at the time, especially since I'd seen worse from other men.

[ZeaLitY]

Yeah, as a UT player even I grew accustomed to using the word rape. As of 2008, I don't.

It's a real problem. I expect the main counter-argument to be, "it's just a word; sticks and stones etc." and that's bunk, because words do hurt.

[ZaichikArky]

Good point. I find the word "rape" used as pretty offensive too. It's like back in HS when so many people were homophobic, especially guys, and people would constantly use "gay" as a pejorative. I found this incredibly offensive. Thinking of how "out of the closet" homosexuals were treated at my school still angers me. One friend of mine came out after HS (I was sure he was going that way), but I was glad he did it later because I didn't want him to be harassed. Maybe I should make a homosexuality thread. It is something I feel pretty strongly about...

[ZeaLitY]

When domestic violence is brought up, some people may say, "why doesn't the woman just leave the abusive boyfriend?" That may have validity in a tiny number of cases (and I do mean tiny), but there are three points:

• It is harder for a woman to be independent than a man in a sexist society; some women may not be able to leave and survive on their own due to socioeconomic status or disability.
• "Well now, why can't the man just stop beating her?"
• Women, in most cases, can't just "leave" the abusive husband. Every week in the United States for the last decade, 23 women are killed as a result of domestic violence. And of all women killed each year from domestic violence, 74% of them had separated from, gotten a divorce from, or filed a restraining order against their former boyfriends who abused them. It's when a woman leaves that a man committing domestic violence finds the temper to commit murder.

Those statistics were from that Atlas of Women book I mentioned earlier; it's a fantastic book for this kind of thing. Who can argue with scientific information? Creationists can try, maybe, but anyone with grounding in reality cannot. The problem will be acknowledged.

Something else I found interesting is that the US averages about ~1200 women killed from domestic violence each year since 2003, and the population is about 300,000,000 IIRC. In Russia, which has closer to half that population, ~9000 women have been killed from domestic violence each year since 2003 on average. I intend to bring this up next class period and ask why Russia is so massively skewed.

[FaustWolf]

ZeaLitY, why do you think men get so angry when their girlfriends, wives, and domestic partners leave them? Could it be because men are so pressured to be in a sexual relationship that they worry about homosexuality accusations otherwise? Is it something else, like sheer jealousy, combined with a lack of empathy, at play? Violent sexual urges lingering from evolution? We need to identify the source and extricate it!

I didn't realize just how widespread domestic violence (what do we call it in the case of dumped boyfriends? Sepera-domestic violence? Ex-domestic violence?) was until I began seeing this Broadview Security commercial regularly. I mean, any commercial is ultimately playing on some societal trope. It's getting pretty bad when the market is playing on women's fears of their exes.

[Truthordeal]

Point 1: Valid. I don't think its impossible to become financially independent, but if this is a housewife scenario, then I can see the truth there too. Also, independence doesn't simply mean finances, but emotionally too.

Point 2: At the same time its comical, sad and true. I suppose we just put more trust into the judgment of the victim than the assailant.

Point 3: This makes me angry with rage! Why aren't these people thrown in jail?! Are we so far down the beaten path that we can't see this evil for what it is? Although, now that I think about it, it probably has to do with my added point:

Point 4(I'm adding this one): Battered Persons Syndrome is where a person feels emotionally obligated to stay with a person despite abuse, similar to Stockholm Syndrome. Psychological disorders like this can't be overcome by sheer will. These women need help, which we're not providing.

Points 3 & 4 are tied in together because women in these conditions can't cross them because of their emotional attachment. Without a complaintant, you can't charge someone. So, we need some law reform in that aspect.

EDIT: FW, as a very law and order mentality person, I'd have to agree with the one commenter who said something to the effect of "Brinks isn't going to save your ass from a psycho ex. Only a .38 special will do that. "

[FaustWolf]

Truth, I feel that you've stumbled upon something important with all this talk of Battered Woman Syndrome and Stockholme Syndrome.

Could mainstream western society still be teaching women to please men? And meanwhile, men taught to please themselves? Ha, I'm borderline getting into the penetrative sexual model again as I'm always tempted, but I'll stop short of it until I can find some kind of work-safe quote from Betty Dodson or something.

EDIT:

FW, as a very law and order mentality person, I'd have to agree with the one commenter who said something to the effect of "Brinks isn't going to save your ass from a psycho ex. Only a .38 special will do that. "

Yeah. This is why I've been entertaining an expansion of gun rights, or at least a newfound appreciation of tasers, lately.

[ZeaLitY]

ZeaLitY, why do you think men get so angry when their girlfriends, wives, and domestic partners leave them?

Well, hell! How would you react if a) your masculinity-validating, pleasure-giving, socally-expected b) property just got up and walked out of the door? We can probably go up a higher level to male/female attraction, and just add an element of violence to it. Every kid on the playground wants to kick the soccer ball, but there was always that jerk, over-grown redneck kid who shoved others out of the way to get a chance to kick it. Likewise, many men want a female partner for a multitude of reasons, but there's always those aggressive jerks who incorporate corporal punishment into their desire for control.

Edit: Oh, and of course, heartbreak. Jealousy, envy, and emotional pain have a side effect of making their experiencers feel helpless about situations, and getting up and punishing the woman for leaving might feel like a way to mitigate that emotional disruption. It's tough to humanize people who commit domestic violence, but they do still feel human emotions and pain, even from their warped relationships.

[ZaichikArky]

Something else I found interesting is that the US averages about ~1200 women killed from domestic violence each year since 2003, and the population is about 300,000,000 IIRC. In Russia, which has closer to half that population, ~9000 women have been killed from domestic violence each year since 2003 on average. I intend to bring this up next class period and ask why Russia is so massively skewed.

Very interesting. I did some quick research about it and came up with this article:

Here is something I'd like to highlight

Divorce is not stigmatized in Russia, but being alone is. There is a general pressure to get married as soon as possible, and as a result many women marry men they hardly know. If these women change their minds about their marriage or if they face domestic violence, they often don't have an opportunity to divorce because of financial dependence on their husbands.

In a 2003 Ministry of the Interior report that polled victims of domestic violence, 76 percent of the women said they had suffered from abuse for a long time before reporting it to the police or making it public in some other way. The report lists some of the common reasons given by the women: "Didn't believe that the law enforcement would help," "Was afraid of revenge," "Was afraid of losing housing, had nowhere to go," "Was afraid of public scorn," "Didn't want to leave the kids without a father."

Another 2003 study found that most Russian women blame themselves for being beaten or abused by their husbands. In cases of domestic conflict that ends with violence, women are not likely to seek outside help. Rather, they will keep the problem inside the family and consider themselves at fault.

This is very true. Russians like to get married young and then not work through the problems of their marriages. The divorce rate in Russia is somewhere around 60 percent, which is one of the highest in the world. The very highest divorce rate is in neighboring Belarus, which was under the USSR. A factor that the article didn't highlight is alcohol abuse. Many Russian men, in particular, are alcoholics and my mom's side of the family has alcoholics. My mom's dad was an abusive alcoholic and then my grandma married another alcoholic (although he wasn't abusive, just adulterous). The average Russian drinks 11 gallons of vodka a year. So much vodka causes a lot of problems in Russia....

The product of my Russian culture still resonates in the "get fucking married, already" from my dad's side of the family. My grandmother like to call me and set up Jews for me to date. It really annoys the shit out of me. If she wasn't so elderly, I would really tell her off for it. My dad is like that too. They value a career as upmost importance, but getting married is second and I should be more serious about getting married and starting a family.

I refuse to get married, however, until I'm pretty damn certain the marriage will last. I don't know how old I will be, but according to several different palmists, I will be in my 30s, and I know I'm dumb, but I believe that crap. >_>. What my mom predicted long ago when I a kid seems to really be playing out.

[Lord J Esq]

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1110ap_us_military_gays.html

Ah, it never ends, does it? For females to be expelled from the military at more than twice the rate of males under the homophobia law, it seems inescapable that what we're seeing is the result of the male-driven hyper-sexualization of females in the military. When you're forced to indicate your sexual status--"bitch, dyke, or slut"--it would seem inevitable that many more female servicemembers, per capita, would be exposed as homosexual.

Double exploitation.

[FaustWolf]

Wow, I'm actually extremely surprised -- it undermines the notion I had earlier that women's homosexuality is treated more lightly than men's homosexuality.

The article seemed to treat lesbian baiting as the main culprit, but I wonder if there's another factor at play: are male soldiers more likely to see combat duty than female soldiers? Attitudes among military brass toward Don't Ask, Don't Tell are swiftly changing out of what I suspect is a dire need for more combat troops. Thus, I wonder if straight male servicemembers and officers may be less likely to report homosexuality among male cohorts than female cohorts. Male soldiers, being more likely to see combat duty (if this is the case -- I don't have figures), could be more highly valued than female soldiers, and thus some "offenses" on the part of male soldiers could be forgiven.

Either way, it's becoming clear that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" needs to end. It may have been the "right policy for the right time" as Colin Powell described it back in the early 1990s, because it represented an advancement over not allowing homosexual soldiers at all, but even one slip-up by a gay or lesbian soldier invites investigation and discharge. It's ridiculous: straight soldiers probably talk about their husbands and wives all the time. What, if homosexual soldiers talk about their husbands and wives too, that's grounds for removal from service?

[Lord J Esq]

Wow, I'm actually extremely surprised -- it undermines the notion I had earlier that women's homosexuality is treated more lightly than men's homosexuality.

I think in general it is treated more lightly, in that right-wing males hold male and female sexuality to two different standards. The military is a special case, as it brings out some of the worst in still-accepted sexist behaviors. Also, in the military, the "shortage" of females places much more pressure for the existing ones to put out, and so the premise of lesbianism, which many males claim to enjoy so long as they get to participate (ugh...), becomes much more of an inconvenience than it would be in a fantasy or even in interactions with the general population.

Some of this is speculation, of course.

[ZeaLitY]

Yeah. President Obama has done surprisingly little on the LGBT front. IIRC, there's some legislation proposed right now to help eliminate Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but it's been a few weeks since I've heard about it. Perhaps it's stalled in committee.