Father Time said:
The one we've been talking about, this one
Fine.
evilthecat said:
I'll give you one clue, see if you can work it out.
Feminism.
Feminization.
They have the same prefix. Why?
This is a rhetorical question. The purpose is to encourage the reader to consider a form of logic which they wouldn't otherwise in guide to them to understanding something on their own without me just sitting here and having to explain it.
In this case, the OP did not see what a guy being ashamed of enjoying a strap on had to do with feminism. So I used the rhetorical question to try and illustrate the link.
Feminism posits the existence of a sex/gender system in which men and women are not just physical classes of human being but also social classes, and are differentiated from each other not just physically but also socially. These social differences are, normative feminism would argue, hugely exaggerated and extrapolated into behavioral and psychological expectations. These are "masculinity" and "
femininity". They are clearly not the same thing as male and female, as they can both be applied to people who are male
or female.
Masculinity and femininity are different in terms of what they enable someone to do. This can be in very broad terms (such as strong, athletic people being regarded as more masculine) or in very intimate terms (being sexually receptive being regarded as a feminine position). According to feminism, many of the problems women in society come from the fact that many "feminine" behaviors are either less rewarding or are actively disempowering and humiliating when compared to their masculine counterparts.
For a man to enjoy being penetrating is
feminizing in a very specific way. For most men, the very idea is humiliating. It has overtones of submission and powerlessness.
And now we get to the point. Those overtones of submission and powerlessness do not magically go away when it is a woman being penetrated, which means that to some extent our social conception of sex, but also the behavior around sex, dating rules, sexual morality, marital role distribution and so forth are structured as if penetrative sex is one partner (the receptive one) submitting to the person who penetrates them.
Feminism was never about the social advancement of women, it was about the social advancement of
femininity. Therefore,
feminism provides a tool for this guy, who enjoys adopting a
feminine position in one area of his life, to challenge in his own mind and advocate socially against the unfortunate social implications and baggage which come along with that, just as it does for many women as well.
evilthecat said:
Would it have been easier if she had written it in pink?
I've already done this one to death, but I'll do it again. Basically, she's being sarcastic.
A great many people on this thread seem to have come away from that picture with the impression that she genuinely wants to be harassed in the street. She doesn't. In fact, that would be a contradiction in terms because if she did it would not be harassment. That is the joke.
Going back to the previous point when I was talking about masculinity and femininity as behavioral expectations which might have positive or negative consequences for individuals based on their ability to enact them in different situations. Well, one consequence is that women have generally been discouraged from displaying any recognizable social virtue apart from physical attractiveness, skill as a mother and a few vague ideas about intuition and emotional intelligence. Analytic intelligence, physical or emotional strength or competence has only recently become a real source of social reward for women, and for many it still comes at the expense of their perceived "femininity". Meanwhile, of the valuable "feminine" traits, physical attractiveness is the only one which brings widespread social acclaim to women, and the one most women obsess the most over in their social interactions and relationships with each other.
What the card is trying to suggest, in this case, is that this intense social demand to beautiful is highly damaging both to women who are not attractive, but also (importantly) to women who are, something that's occasionally been neglected or missing from the theory. The point she's making is that it's a double bind, that there is no acceptable way to be a woman which will not result in you being subject to negative consequences. If you are not attractive, there are few other socially acceptable ways to distinguish yourself. If you are, you're going to be treated like a sex object. Both can be prejudicial and damaging to you as a person.
Again, agree or disagree, but it's still wrong to read it as a literal statement.
evilthecat said:
Read the sign one more time. There's a very big clue in the way it is phrased.
To refresh. The sign said:
I need feminism because I contribute to rape culture without knowing it.
The response was:
Because I don't subscribe to feminism, I'm for rape? lol what
At this point, I'm kind of done talking about rape culture. It's not an idea I particularly support or feel is very useful, but it should be very obvious that the two statements above don't mean the same thing, in fact it strikes me that they they are directly contradictory. Being "for" something (in favour of it) suggests active endorsement.
evilthecat said:
No it's not.
Did you actually read the card?
evilthecat said:
Again, go back and read the card and tell me in what way anything you've said is relevant.
Covering these together because they're so similar.
Card 1
I need feminism because "don't worry, you can't tell" and "I don't think many guys will kick you out of bed" should not be the 'positive' reactions I get for growing out my armpit hair.
lol...again that's a personal confidence thing
Card 2
I need feminism because loving my fat body is apparently a radial concept. Smash patriarchal beauty standards.
A self confidence thing, nothing that an outside power will change for you. You need to do it yourself
I don't think I need to explain beauty standards again do I? You get where these are coming from?
I guess I haven't beaten this one to death
on this post yet so I better do so and not point to the other various threads in which I've covered this. You know, because that would mean reading more than one post, which as we all know is impossible.
Feminism is not mind control.
I know the idea that we live in a savage, dystopian nightmare world where the women are either conspiring to or already have somehow seized control of society seems to be weirdly attractive. However, it's really not accurate, neither is it even possible to countenance if you understand the social history of feminism. Most countries do not have feminist political parties, and in those who do said parties are incredibly fringe. People do not advocate feminism on the belief that it will lead to a military coup to replace the government with a new, feminist order in which they will wield power. They advocate it as an idea which has personal significance to them. If a given idea turns out to have personal significance with enough people,
then it will become political through the democratic process. This has already happened with many issues of gender equality.
To suggest that
any form of advocation of feminism is seeking help from an outside power is a basic misunderstanding. Feminism is not an outside power, it is a highly personal position. It is, in fact, what allows these people to have to
confidence to post pictures of their armpit hair online or to publically affirm their love of a body which is not considered conventionally attractive by many other people. Berating them for a lack of confidence is completely missing the point, however you feel about their argument.
evilthecat said:
You know what's funny? People who justify their own ignorance by claiming that the knowledge in question isn't important.
A cursory knowledge of gender studies would at least help you understand these cards before you embarrassed yourself on a public forum.
I'll accept there was no need for me to say that.. just like there was no need for this thread in the first place.
Like I said though, this is one of those areas where people sometimes feel they have a God-given right to have their opinion taken seriously over and above that of everyone else because they have a penis (or very occasionally a vagina) and thus understand some deep and fundamental truth about "gender" (frequently misusing the term) which is able to override and cut through any formalized knowledge of the subject. After all, it's not like it's
real knowledge, it's biased knowledge produced by women.
Gender studies is by no means the only subject to suffer this, but there is a very peculiar brand of misinformation in some sectors regarding what gender studies is and does. I'm not going to write a full lecture on gender studies 101, there are many books in your local library which do that, however, and which would probably be good to read before assuming you can pass judgement on the field.
evilthecat said:
Really, this is too difficult for you? It's a pretty simple point.. if there's any criticism which can be made of it it's that it's actually too simple.
Probably the only thing I haven't explained at all yet. But then, it is a really simple point.
Most artists whose work makes it into galleries
even today are men.
Almost all paintings of nudes produced
even today depict women.
In the past, art was created primarily for male consumption. Women did not generally have the resources to commission or buy it, and even if they did the idea of women consuming any kind of art with erotic potential has been completely taboo for some time. Women, for much of recent history, have not been thought of as sexual agents at all.
Despite large numbers of young female artists, art is still very much a boy's club, and not just the artists themselves but also the consumers. This has real concrete manifestations, for example women seem to have great trouble getting their work into galleries and tend to be consistently poorly rated.
This may not be entirely unwarranted, there may be stylistic pressures which incline women towards different (less popular or marketable) styles of art, but regardless.. unless we're arguing that women are inherently too stupid to paint, there's a problem here somewhere and it's one which the art world needs to sit down and have a think about, if nothing else because it can't be good for creativity and the lasting appeal of the art of today to have it almost exclusively produced by and consumed by one type of person.
Was that everything you hoped for?
