Gender Issues Discussion Thread 2.0

I'd like to add something to the Anita Sarkeesian Damsels in Distress discussion if I may. Now this video here is a great counter argument against her video series that I thoroughly agree with. 



It's a great watch. The video in short offers not only alternative views on the characters Anita deemed 'Damsels in Distress' but also adds other female characters to the mix. 

On a personal note even if I agreed with Anita's points I dislike her very much as a presenter and personality. She seems to me disingenuous, smug and regards herself and her arguments above critic.

Tolvo wrote:I wouldn't really say the feminist movement as a whole is tripping over itself, they're doing fine in regards to how they handle things often.  It is just that simply some of the bad apples are louder so people notice them the most, like the woman in the above image whom which for the life of me I can't understand the message behind such an image.  In either case try not to focus on only the negative and also focus on the positive.  If I'm going to be frank I've noticed in this thread seemingly trying to basically diminish the purpose of feminism and a seeking of gender equality.  Just try to remember people that extremists do not represent the whole of a group, just as Christians aren't represented by the Klu Klux Klan.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Agreed! Will somebody give this man a glass of wine?!

If you're gonna bring up feminist extremists, you should read up on MGTOW, which is the male equivalent. I just wish that people understood that you don't have to be on one side or another. We're all on the same side - the human race side.

bunnywink wrote:Yes. Yes. Yes. Agreed! Will somebody give this man a glass of wine?!

Papa Tolvo likes to take a fine Scotch with his pipe tobacco and Sunday paper.

Yikes that website Bunny, it sounds definitely like the male version of the Femitheism movement.  A movement which sounds okay when it is talking about working against violent sexual acts and such.  Until you get to the part about making men into breeding stock and castrating any man to let them join society as higher beings close to the superiors being women.

Though in all honesty I can't tell if the Femitheism movement is a trollish thing because it just seems a bit too crazy.  

There are definitely groups like this that are extremists and often full of irrational people that hurt both sexes.

WhatDoesThePendantDo? wrote:

bunnywink wrote:Yes. Yes. Yes. Agreed! Will somebody give this man a glass of wine?!

Papa Tolvo likes to take a fine Scotch with his pipe tobacco and Sunday paper in the company of Anderson Cooper.

I fixed that for you.

Probing question - do you have to be a woman (or should you be a woman) to be a feminnist?

reim0027 wrote:Probing question - do you have to be a woman (or should you be a woman) to be a feminnist?  

I don't know about "should be" but there are plenty of male feminists.

Feminism is the movement about gender equality, not just the empowerment of women.  It started as such and was called feminism because of the women's rights movement and the much larger disparity between both genders.  Things still are not equal but the movements name has not changed, a Feminist is a person that wishes for gender equality.  As such men and women can be feminists and in fact at the start of the movement there were male feminists even.  There simply is not another word for a person that wishes for gender equality and focuses upon it.  Egalitarianism is the movement for equal rights for all but that term applies to someone who focuses on every single group.

I agree with the heart of the definition of feminism - obtaining equal rights. We should all be feminists with that definition. The question is this: is that how mainstream feminism is viewed? If it is, then men should be proud to be labeled as feminists.

Many people view it as rights and empowerment just for women which it is not, and as were mentioned before some extremist feminists also share that view.  I do believe it would help out the movement if they adopted a new name, but just creating a new name for them to be called by is not a simple task by any means.

Agreed.

The problem with the representation and perception of any cause is the extremeists.

As an example, I'm all for preventing undue cruelty to animals. Peta trying to ban the dead fish throwing at pikes place market on the basis that it is "disrespectful to the life of the animal" is downright absurd, and things like that undermine the cause by getting a lot of coverage, and changing peoples perception of the movement as a whole.

Similar thing here. Equal rights is all well and good. No problems there.

If you're going for "equal treatment" (which doesn't really mean equal treatment, it tends to mean identical treatment, which is illogical for a number of sociological/biological reasons anyways) but assuming you want it, you cannot complain about men making jokes or how women are represented in the media. Men make sexist jokes about and towards men all the time, and all kinds of people of every concievable type are in that industry, and none of them are represented in an even remotely realistic way the vast majority of the time. where women are essentially dolls a lot of the time, men are weapons just as often, the sword for the women to weild by believing x saying y, or being in situation z.

going around calling random men rapists for dissagreeing with whatever it is was said is not helping, and not hard to find videos of (for me, anyways) on youtube with thousands of views. bad for the cause they claim to represent.

Personally I think the name should be changed, but other than that, I don't have a problem with most feminists; dated one in college, actually.

As for Sarkessian, I fully agree that she is waaaaay too smug for her own good.

Forum, the idea is to reduce the amount of all that you mentioned.  Sexism in general towards men and women.  Both the idea that men have to be meat headed musclebound heroes in media and the idea that women have to be sex objects are wrong, the idea is to get rid of both of those concepts.  

Slarg I should mention this is a thread about gender issues and discussion not a discussion of how smug you think a single member of a community is.  This is getting very off topic in regards to Anita and if I knew people would focus so much on her personality and not about the actual work she is doing I would not have even brought her up.

now what do you do about women that want to be sex objects and men that want to be muscle bound heroes?

I don't think the name should be changed so much as the perception and negativity surrounding the name should be changed. There are plenty of reasonable movements where in the beginning the negative perception made it difficult for them to be taken seriously but has since then been seen as very reasonable and normal.

@Nsane: Women that want to be sex objects can, it's their prerogative. You are entirely in the wrong, however, when you objectify someone(note that I didn't say a woman, so that includes men) without their permission, without their consent. You're thrusting something upon them that they never asked for, and that's where feminists take offence to objectification of women. As for men wanting to be muscle bound heroes, again, it's their prerogative, but if you see a problem with it it's your duty to try to change the perception that that is the norm, that's the way it should be, that men are inherently powerful and have to prove it through machismo.

If I can also talk a bit about the idea of sexual objectification in fictional characters or forcing male characters to be macho heroes.  It isn't that having such characters are inherently wrong.  It is fine to have male characters that are muscular and try to be "Manly."  It is fine to have a female character that is submissive towards a male character.  The issue comes in that this is the majority of what we see in a lot of forms of media and seen as the norm which it shouldn't be.  

Think of it this way, in an example.  So let's say we have video games come out one year and there are black people in them.  20% of the black characters are gangsters, that's not really an issue.  The other 80% are soldiers, heroes, doctors, scientists, whatever.  This is acceptable.

Now think of this, games come out a year and that year every single game that features black characters, 95% of them are gangsters.  Alright now that is using stereotypes in creation and being basically racist in the use of an ethnicity.  Thus wrong.

The issue isn't that you can't have a female character that is objectified in game.  It is the issue that the majority are.

I'd add that that's part of the issue and not the whole story, but otherwise I agree. Overuse of stereotypes and tropes isn't just lazy writing, it's downright insulting, especially when the writers show the capability of fleshing out entire characters and make them as human as possible when dealing with protagonists. It's even more insulting when well fleshed out and believable characters are forced into trope situations because of lazy writing, situations that go well against what the characters are really like.

Well the idea is in that if we see a lot of variety, it isn't a stereotype anymore.  Perhaps in the idea of it being a call back to a darker time I can see that as a valid opposition.  But if we were in a time where the majority of female characters were totally fleshed out that one out of a bunch would just be a pair of large breasts used to excite people.  Though I'll also agree that it would just be lazy writing at that point.  Maybe not sexist anymore but still lazy.

Even disregarding the offensive aspect of tropes and stereotypes, they're still lazy writing tools that don't challenge creativity. I understand the difficulty of being truly original in any creative medium, but lazy writing conventions don't help with that.

I agree, I was simply saying it wouldn't be based on gender at that point and would just be someone designing a very simple character.  That since it isn't a stereotype at that time or even what is seen as fairly regular it isn't an issue of sexism in that sort of world.  

There is of course the issue though that by not seeing an issue with it that it could become standard again and an accepted stereotype like it had been in the past.  This sort of thing has happened in history generally in countries where governments have taken advantage of old laws usually but not always relating to religious doctrine and bringing back the prejudice of the past.  I would say people should be trusted to reject such ideas, but it's happened in the past so it's a tricky thing.

Agreed, but the best course of action in many of these cases is educating and trusting in humanity to reject ideas we've established as harmful.

Indeed, being overly strict about censoring such things after they are no longer a problem could lead to rebellious attitudes to overly strict guidelines meaning people would revert to ways opposing the standard.  It's sort of the sad way the world works though such psychological factors can be just as good as evil.

I have no problem with objectification in many contexts. (for the record, as i mentioned, where women are "dolls" men are "swords" in much of the same media, which is still objectification)

media is mostly for entertainment and not a reflection of real life, nor should it be, so complaining about objectification in that media is like complaining about the sky being green in a fantasy movie.

in the public arena, i don't know these people, and know little to nothing about them. men or women, untill i have established a positive personal relationship, you are, to me, an object to be used to advance my goal (whatever it is) or ignored. not that i treat these people badly, that would get in the way of my goal.

in personal relationships, yes i'd agree its bad. otherwise, its irrelivant or not a representation of real life (wether or not its trying to be) so i don't care, and don't see why others do.

I'm not sure how much longer I will follow this thread, but I wanted to post a few interesting reads I found:

http://kotaku.com/5868595/nerds-and-male-privilege

http://kotaku.com/5873885/nerds-and-male-privilege-part-2-deconstructing-the-arguments


Also, let's play bingo!

http://geekfeminism.org/2011/11/03/quick-hit-sexism-in-games-bingo/