Gender Issue Discussion

Saturday-Saint wrote:Because men are more typically found in combat roles.

that doesnt exactly make it right

Yeah, we need more games like GTA where killing women is just as acceptable and common as killing men. Fight the misandry, down with matriarchal oppression!

yea thats not going to happen

Reaperfan wrote:Stepping back in real quick to ask a question I just read someone else on another forum ask.  I know the people here so I can better appreciate the discussion here than there, so I thought I'd unofficially repost/ask it.  Anyway, for those unable/unwilling to click the link, the question is:

"Ever Notice that you tend to kill more men then women in video games, why is that?"

I exhausted my mental chops on this kind of thing last night, so I can't say I have a detailed personal opinion on the matter right now.  Especially having only just now stumbled across the topic.

 Sorry to disappoint those of you hoping this would be sexist towards men - it's actually part of embedded patriarchal society sexism towards women. "Women are weak and soft, like children", and must be protected and thus you cannot possibly have hordes of armed female enemies - they wouldn't be scary and it would be "wrong" for the hero to kill the weak. You kill men because men are strong and worthy opponents to your bullets because of their digital genitals. Makes a lot of sense right? 

So again, doing away with these stuff is worth everyone's time.

Really depends on what you are talking about, like a military shooter taking place in world war 2, most allied soldiers were men and most nazi soldiers were men.  That really isn't focusing on a gender, that's just historical accuracy.  Same for stuff that takes place in the medieval ages.  Now, modern day there are more women at least in the american army, and depending on what country back then you would see women.  To my knowledge russian women were in the service in World War 2, but I can't remember to what extent.

FexDS wrote:Sorry to disappoint those of you hoping this would be sexist towards men - it's actually part of embedded patriarchal society sexism towards women. "Women are weak and soft, like children", and must be protected and thus you cannot possibly have hordes of armed female enemies - they wouldn't be scary and it would be "wrong" for the hero to kill the weak. You kill men because men are strong and worthy opponents to your bullets because of their digital genitals. Makes a lot of sense right? 

So again, doing away with these stuff is worth everyone's time.

Is there anything involving gender differences that isn't sexist towards women?

Tolvo wrote:That really isn't focusing on a gender, that's just historical accuracy.  Same for stuff that takes place in the medieval ages.

It's accurately reflecting a history of patriarchal oppression.

Reaperfan wrote:Is there anything involving gender differences that isn't sexist towards women?

No.

Reaperfan wrote:

FexDS wrote:Sorry to disappoint those of you hoping this would be sexist towards men - it's actually part of embedded patriarchal society sexism towards women. "Women are weak and soft, like children", and must be protected and thus you cannot possibly have hordes of armed female enemies - they wouldn't be scary and it would be "wrong" for the hero to kill the weak. You kill men because men are strong and worthy opponents to your bullets because of their digital genitals. Makes a lot of sense right? 

So again, doing away with these stuff is worth everyone's time.

Is there anything involving gender differences that isn't sexist towards women?

What do you mean by gender differences? Are you asking if there are instances of sexism towards men? Or are you asking if simply pointing out gender differences is sexist?

There are plenty things that are rotten towards men just like there are things rotten towards women.  Don't make me bring up how women in Gears of War look like fairly normal human beings while men in Gears of War have to look like monsters.

He is asking: in any case of inequality between the sexes, are women not victims of that inequality?

Tolvo wrote:There are plenty things that are rotten towards men just like there are things rotten towards women.  Don't make me bring up how women in Gears of War look like fairly normal human beings while men in Gears of War have to look like monsters.

This is sexist towards women because the women still have to be attractive while it is okay for the men to be mini-hulks. This implies that women are valued more for their sex appeal than the men, who are valued for being strong and chopping dirt-aliens in half.

I Spit On Your Grave is very heavy handed, at least the original haven't seen the remake.  In that film every male character is an awful person and it is seen as a good thing whenever they die, while the main female character is seen as a victim and justified even though she is mutilating and executing people.  That's an incredibly sexist movie toward men, though it was directed and written by a man to my knowledge after he heard about an incredibly horrible event that happened near to him.  That's an example of sexism towards men while just trying to empower women through violence.

FexDS wrote:What do you mean by gender differences? Are you asking if there are instances of sexism towards men? Or are you asking if simply pointing out gender differences is sexist?

Gender differences is exactly what it says on the tin.  Differences between genders.  Nothing more, nothing less. Neither of those things were what I was asking, and I think you were reading too much into the question.

Are there any instances or situations where a difference between men and women being pointed out doesn't imply sexism towards the female gender?

I want to know the scope of your views.  If such a situation exists, I'd like to be provided with a hypothetical example.

@Staint
There are some grave instances of sexism towards males. Father rights are often cited as an important unresolved issue. 

As a comparison, however, there is no denying society is very patriarchal and males are in a position of power within the structure, which of course results on many many more instances of sexism towards females, hence the whole sexism problem. MRAs are people who for some reason believe men's "rights" are infringed upon by women and bring up all sorts of half baked arguments on how evil feminist opressors must be put down. They are quite amusing to watch.

@Reaperfan
Depends on what differences you are pointing out, how, and why. Females have vaginas, men have penises. Mhm ok interesting =/= Females like to do fluffy things and men like to work on lego projects: sexist. 

How you come to your conclusions determines how your statement will be judged and how you present it how it will be received. You can point out differences in anything. Black people have thicker lips and hair in general than Japanese people =/= black people are not as hardworking as japanese people: racist

mostly snipers tolvo, not on the front lines.



Anyways, I'm kind-of confused. See, its not necessarily that the boys were tougher BECAUSE they were boys, but that they were tougher.

The logical thing to do when presented with a tougher opponent (in whatever area, in this case its physically) is to change the rules, play to your strengths.

The strength of the girls in this case, was that they were girls, which they could exploit to their advantage.

Its functionally no different than exploiting a higher tolerance to cold or blood (ect, ect) to gain an advantage, and in not (at least initially, depending on your personal beliefs. I'm not getting into that, because I'm not a dedicated study of the enourmously complex issues there) something that is within your (the individuals) ability to control.

I don't see where any of this is a bad thing.

The thing would be, imo, to teach your daughter, with her values, to show her that women can be just as tough.




On a related note, women tend to have a higher pain tolerance (a requirement for obvious reasons) but men tend to be physically larger and stronger, giving them a decided edge in a fight (again, on average, accounting for ancestry. Ie comparing norse women to norse men, not norse women to japanese men)

The result is that the roudy rough boys are likely (especially as they were designed to be stronger) to be stronger, and the girls would likely have to find an alternate means of victory against a physically superior opponent.




Acknoowledging differences is not sexism. sexism is a bias.

Are most women drawn to be in the military/physical combat? not to my knowledge. Are women a minority in the military/sports like boxing? yes. Is this difference sexist? no, not inherently at least.

Is saying that women shouldn't be in the military sexist? sometimes.

Can it be justified? yes.

As an example, in a survival situation, if there are men to fight in the tribe, the women should not do more fighting than necessary. why? because the survival of the tribe is dependant on healthy, fertile women. 1 man can have hundreds of kids, so he is less valuable to the survival of the tribe because his offspring are fairly easily replaced. Women can have far fewer children, and each child takes an enourmous physical toll on the women, so it is important to the survival of said tribe that the womens potential to be harmed is minimised at all times, meaning they should not be out fighting unless not fighting is more risky than the potential loss of the women.

Now, western culture is admittedly not in such a situation, but my point remains. Not only can this attitude, so often labled sexism, be practical and necessary to survive, but it is not inherently a bad thing.

Women can be more valuable in a combat position than men, or than they would be raising children, and the more women there are in a society the more this is true. To acknowledge these things is not sexism, its pragmatism.

It does not however change the attitude humans evolved over thousands of years, and our natural tendancy as a species reflects the old attitudes, necessary for survival in tribal situations. I wouldn't expect a big change any time soon. Not in our lifetime certainly.

I hate the Men's Rights Movement.

I've got to say men get **** deals, as you've mentioned their are issues with custody of children and a few others things such as an erection being considered legal consent in certain places, or how female on male violence can be seen as comedy while it the other way around is seen as unacceptable.  Now, to my knowledge male on female violence is more common but it's still an issue.

The MRA though see feminists as the enemy, there are radical feminists(The term Feminazi is used for them), but they're a loud minority.  There should be something like a masculinist movement, that works alongside the feminist movement to point out the social issues that hold back both genders and bring equality to everyone.

It's why I prefer to say I'm Egalitarian, there really hasn't been any bad press around Egalitarians and it's just the idea of equality for any nationality/ethnicity/gender/etc.

FexDS wrote:
Depends on what differences you are pointing out, how, and why. Females have vaginas, men have penises. Mhm ok interesting =/= Females like to do fluffy things and men like to work on lego projects: sexist. 

How you come to your conclusions determines how your statement will be judged and how you present it how it will be received.

Alright, but biological differences are simple facts. You can't dispute or imply anything from them. Let me adjust the question a bit then:

Are there any instances or situations where a difference between men and women in human society or culture being pointed out doesn't imply sexism towards the female gender?

@pirate
Power Puff girls is a fantasy setting. There was no reason to "teach" the girls they cannot beat the boys in a fair fight by the rules they've been fighting EVERY other enemy. They have fought grownups, robots, monsters... but alas they cannot beat males? If you don't see the inherent sexism there and really belive that teaching girls that using sex as a weapon is viable, then I feel sorry for you. I honestly do. That's pathetic

Regarding wars and combat and women and fertility. Modern society has no need for brute force or fertile women to be protected from battle. We work deskjobs where you could be a robot and it wouldn't make a difference if you could process information right. The world has changed dramatically in the past 50 years and it will continue to exponentially change and evolve at a higher pace, just like memory chips. There's no "biology" to sexism in an age where physical differences mean little to our intellectual interactions. If i go to the bank I expect to be adressed myself about my account, not to have the clerk look up at my husband and talk to him instead because "men are often in power because of history" -. Change can and will happen, it's a matter of awareness and understanding many of our basic impulses are unnecessary.

@Reaper
As I said, how you came to the conclusion of those gender differences will determine the validity of your point. "Women like the color pink, and men think its stupid and ***"  is a sexist statement even if it is perceived as "true" because it's simply not real - it's a societal construct. Same with the idea that girls prefer to intearct in groups and are more prone to crying - these aspects are societally inserted and not naturally so.

Real differences between genders are really not important in a large scheme. Women have better early language development and men have better early motor skills development... so what? in the end we all can talk and walk just fine.

Reaper, I think I can answer your question pretty succinctly. It depends on the media source but overall sexism is mainly geared with men in the driver's seat rather than victims. It was stated before but think that only about a hundred years ago women I'm the USA at least couldn't vote yet. That's not a lot of time to shape a culture. So the vast majority of stereotypes and labels don't really harm men because of the vast power differential that still hasn't completely gone away.

Fex's example of child rearing roles or father rights is one area in which the bias harms men but that's likely the biggest one. I was able to take medical leave after my daughter was born but that's a pretty new concept. And even though it's a legally protected right where I am I can honestly say there was shock that I took a month off of work to be with my child. No scrutiny (to my face anyway) but lots of surprise that a daddy had an extended leave.

Also, in the instance of a male being sexually harassed or assaulted by a female there's a bias that harms men. As crime statistics show that this far less frequent than the other way around it's considered a smaller issue than father's rights as far as gender issues go. But make no mistake, it does happen. I've personally been in a few work situations that weren't comfortable for me.

Perhaps a little video about the subject.  Note do not read the comment section, I had to read 3,000 of those to get lines for a reading...I almost gave up on humanity.

Tolvo wrote:There should be something like a masculinist movement, that works alongside the feminist movement to point out the social issues that hold back both genders and bring equality to everyone.

You mean like ega-

Tolvo wrote:It's why I prefer to say I'm Egalitarian, there really hasn't been any bad press around Egalitarians and it's just the idea of equality for any nationality/ethnicity/gender/etc.

Oh okay.

Tolvo wrote:

Perhaps a little video about the subject.  Note do not read the comment section, I had to read 3,000 of those to get lines for a reading...I almost gave up on humanity.

These are actually transgendered women. Thus they aren't geek girls, they're men trapped in women's bodies. Tragically, they probably do not realize it themselves, which will undoubtedly lead to confusion and feelings of social victimization.

TMYK.

@ fex, you seem to have missed my point.

The girls beat males (and females) with straight up violence all the time.

how 1 instance where they cannot win (that just happens to be against males) with straight up violence teaches them that women are weaker than men I'll never know, and these males were characters designed specifically to be better than the power puff girls.

They (the girls) then must exploit an advantage that they do have. In this case, it was their gender. not only does it work in real life (and not even necessarily based on gender. I can feign being weak or strong to gather a psychological advantage against males, being male myself,) such adaptability is something i would encourage my children to consider. If you cannot win with your typical approach or cannot use your typical approach, change the rules.  I'd say a negative reaction to that episode is being oversensative, and instead people should focus on teaching kids what lessons they should be getting from the cartoon, and to explain how the "lesson" they learned previously was wrong.



I disagree strongly though, that knowledge of our basic impulses is not necessary. How can something be overcome, if you do not know what you are overcoming? You don't know what or when to fight, and are simply guessing based on appearences.

In our current (meaning first world) society, I'd agree that such bias about what men/women should/shouldn't do is not necessary, but there are parts of the world where this isn't the case even today, and any of a thousand natural disasters could put us (and given society) right back to that survival situation very quickly.

My point there though, was not that a change won't come, because it will eventually if society continues on its current course, but that these are natural and inescapable tendancies at the moment. They can be mitigated, but not eliminated by sociatial influences, and so gender roles are going nowhere anytime soon.

@Pirates: that specific design was a specific sexist choice on the part of the show creators. You can say that sex is a weapon all you like, that is still sexist and I continue to find it disheartening that you think such a message sent to little girls is good. They didn't tell them to be smart and riddle them out of it. They were made to kiss them! Seriously stop trying to rationalize what is a very clear instance of inadvertent and implied sexism.

And you can know your biology all you like and of course understanding something is relevant. Where did I say it wasn't?. Brute force is still utterly unnecessary in our modern society and whilst you think this won't go away soon I will not stand around idle and quietly thinking I can't change it so why try. That's defeatist.

-- 

Since we are posting, videos, I'll share this rather amusing take on MRAs.

It has always been my stance that you should either be able to hit anyone, or no one.  I'm leaning towards no one.