Sexism - It's a Real Thing

[Guy Chamberlin]

56 minutes ago, zoogs said:

@Guy,  that wouldn't be the same point at all.

 

 

It's precisely the same point. At least the point I'm trying to make. 

 

It's about a world where we get to judge writers and writing by the content of their character, and roll our eyes at whatever we want.

 

I'm not threatened or discomforted by Amy Butcher. I just think there are literally hundreds of women and men who have more interesting and less specious takes on this subject. Something about the piece felt too invented to me. Too Stephen Glass. 

 

For someone who recently found it fascinating how many posters wanted to limit the definition of feminism, you seem really keen on setting the definitions yourself. 

 

 

[Landlord]

2 hours ago, zoogs said:

Their pity for Mr. Levine was obvious

 

 

This is just an absurdly baseless conclusion.

[BigRedBuster]

11 hours ago, zoogs said:

Connecting some threads on perspective, film, and the perfectly normal and usually respected valuing of different traits by gender, a Twitter thread:

 

I have to admit....I'm confused on the point you are trying to make.

[zoogs]

10 hours ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

It's precisely the same point. At least the point I'm trying to make. 

 

It's about a world where we get to judge writers and writing by the content of their character, and roll our eyes at whatever we want.

 

I'm not threatened or discomforted by Amy Butcher. I just think there are literally hundreds of women and men who have more interesting and less specious takes on this subject. Something about the piece felt too invented to me. Too Stephen Glass. 

 

For someone who recently found it fascinating how many posters wanted to limit the definition of feminism, you seem really keen on setting the definitions yourself. 

This was never to suggest women are automatically immune from criticism. The point is that by default, we are prone to trivializing interpretations of the work of women. That it takes work to not just see things firmly through this lens. That the lens is revealed when we reduce them to provocateurs looking for blog hits. 

 

To suggest that the problem is, in fact, the opposite one -- that we need to keep more in mind that the possibility this is the accurate interpretation exists -- and then to assert this as the real equality, would be breathtakingly backwards. I don't think you truly mean or agree with that idea. You just didn't like the piece. I did.

 

Quote

This is just an absurdly baseless conclusion.

Incisive commentary on the stuff that matters.

[BigRedBuster]

2 minutes ago, zoogs said:

This was never to suggest women are automatically immune from criticism.

 

But, yet....any time a woman is criticized, you are the first to scream "SEXISM".

[zoogs]

1 hour ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

I have to admit....I'm confused on the point you are trying to make.

What those series of images did a good job of showing was the roles we give to men in our society -- central, protagonist ones, around which the rest of the story orbits. And the roles to which women are allowed -- side pieces and alluring body parts. Women are there to help men along in their stories and good ones are good eye candy in the meantime. 

1 minute ago, BigRedBuster said:

But, yet....any time a woman is criticized, you are the first to scream "SEXISM".

This is because I am a melodramatic, hyper-aggressive feminazi. 

[BigRedBuster]

Just now, zoogs said:

What those series of images did a good job of showing was the roles we give to men in our society -- central, protagonist ones, around which the rest of the story orbits. And the roles to which women are allowed -- side pieces and alluring body parts. Women are there to help men along in their stories and good ones are good eye candy in the meantime. 

 

So....now we can't have movies where women are shown in a sexual roll???

[RedDenver]

1 minute ago, zoogs said:

What those series of images did a good job of showing was the roles we give to men in our society -- central, protagonist ones, around which the rest of the story orbits. And the roles to which women are allowed -- side pieces and alluring body parts. Women are there to help men along in their stories and good ones are good eye candy in the meantime. 

This is because I am a melodramatic, hyper-aggressive feminazi. 

Switching back and forth between sarcasm and seriousness is undermining your arguments IMO.

[zoogs]

Just now, RedDenver said:

Switching back and forth between sarcasm and seriousness is undermining your arguments IMO.

 

I mean, how do you want me to respond to a characterization like that? 

 

I posted an article I enjoyed. It got a great heaping of really withering criticism, and I pushed back against parts of this, repeatedly emphasizing that yes, I liked it but you do not have to, for god's sake. But maybe we keep referring to the author as an uncredentialed blogger and not an award-winning essayist, and maybe it's really odd that despite no actual indication (please point it out, if you can see one) we are talking about how she might be trying to pull one over. Like, fine, let's leave it at you didn't like this, and you think those criticisms are fair in this case and I don't, but one basic, general thing on which I hope we can agree is that we do have a deeply ingrained habit of looking at women this way. 

 

Even (or perhaps especially) when it's one we disagree with -- for example, Vox had a good question about how we've been talking about Hope Hicks after her resignation: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/1/17066420/hope-hicks-white-house-communications-director-resigns-aide-donald-trump-child-model:

 

Quote

 

“Hicks was an improbable campaign press secretary and senior White House official,” the Associated Press wrote Wednesday. “A former Ralph Lauren fashion model and public relations pro who worked for Trump’s daughter Ivanka, Hicks had no political background when Trump asked her to serve on his campaign.”

 

At what point does she get to become, like so many young men in politics and media before her, “a wunderkind”? Barack Obama’s bright young staffers were described this way. His 27-year-old speechwriter Jon Favreau was given the “wunderkind” moniker.

 

 

[zoogs]

8 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

So....now we can't have movies where women are shown in a sexual roll???

 

I apologize for putting on my sarcasm voice again; I'll try to reserve it for facile retorts ending in multiple exclamation punctuations.

 

To answer your question, yes, we are obviously no longer allowed to have this. And that is truly, the grand tragedy of our time. One day, humanity will venture towards bravery and once again find the courage to routinely sexualize women. Until then, it's a sexless matriarchial hellscape for us. Tough days for men but we had a good run, hey?

[BigRedBuster]

So....just to be clear, in the last 6 months, I have learned on this board that we should not portray men in valiant brave rolls of war and we shouldn't portray women in sexual rolls.

 

 

[Moiraine]

I've now been accused of being sexist against women about 5 times on this topic and it continues to be f'ing ridiculous. Because it was pretty much just me talking about it, with maybe one comment here and there by someone else.

 

I don't give a s#!t whether she's a man or a woman, and who referred to her as a blogger? I also don't give a s#!t that she's an award winning author, or whatever. Her writing here spoke for itself - the piece was awful. Loads of people think Freud was a great psychologist. I think he was a moron.

 

It seems pretty sexist to me to imagine that anyone who doesn't like the article and calls it overdramatic is doing so because the author is a woman. She doesn't need your protection.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Moiraine

[RedDenver]

7 minutes ago, zoogs said:

 

I mean, how do you want me to respond to a characterization like that? 

 

I posted an article I enjoyed. It got a great heaping of really withering criticism, and I pushed back against parts of this, repeatedly emphasizing that yes, I liked it but you do not have to, for god's sake. But maybe we keep referring to the author as an uncredentialed blogger and not an award-winning essayist, and maybe it's really odd that despite no actual indication (please point it out, if you can see one) we are talking about how she might be trying to pull one over. Like, fine, let's leave it at you didn't like this, and you think those criticisms are fair in this case and I don't, but one basic, general thing on which I hope we can agree is that we do have a deeply ingrained habit of looking at women this way. 

 

Even (or perhaps especially) when it's one we disagree with -- for example, Vox had a good question about how we've been talking about Hope Hicks after her resignation: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/1/17066420/hope-hicks-white-house-communications-director-resigns-aide-donald-trump-child-model:

 

 

I meant that, regardless of the point you're trying to make, switching back and forth between seriousness and sarcasm, especially in the same post without any indicators that's what you're doing, is making it difficult for people to understand what you're trying to convey.

 

And if you post an opinion in P&R, you should expect some disagreement. You have a point of view on this author/blogger/whoever that many here just don't agree with, which is why there's criticism, but I think you're taking it personally when the criticism is for the article/author (or it should be, I don't remember every post).

 

The Vox article about Hicks is interesting in how it deconstructs the way that the media portrays Hope Hicks, especially how they repeatedly mention she was a model (but don't mention that she was a model back when she was 10-16 years old) but not other things (like being captain of her college lacrosse team). However, that doesn't mean she should get some "wunderkind" label simply because she's being treated poorly in the media. What has she accomplished to be considered a "wunderkind"? (Like Favreau had those great speeches.)

[Moiraine]

Also...

 

Quote

repeatedly emphasizing that yes, I liked it but you do not have to, for god's sake.

 

 

Like hell the above is how it went down. Your first reply to my one paragraph post saying I don't like it was:

 

"As women are wont to do, she's probably both hysterical and fabricating."

 

You were so against anyone not liking the article that you said this to me.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Moiraine

[Guy Chamberlin]

I think there's a tendency on political spaces across the internet to have prepared speeches we're ready to drop on our adversaries at any given moment.

 

But sometimes we don't notice that the person isn't our adversary. He or she may be on the same page, but have a specific disagreement. But being the internet, we take any criticism as an attack, and drop the same prepared speech on people who are not the enemy.