Women's rights

[BloatedGuppy]

A cartoon will always have multiple meanings. That's the nature of pictures. But it's ridiculous to judge them by their most offensive possible interpretation instead of by their most obvious interpretation (unless, obviously, those are the same).

For me, and for cat, those are the same. For you, they might be different. The issue here isn't whether you're right, or I'm right, because we're viewing something for which interpretation is fundamentally subjective. We can argue all day along about whether we like it or hate it, or whether it's clever or stupid. The issue is that cat had a reaction to it, and I had a reaction to it, and there was plenty of evidence to support that reaction to it, and the argument seems to be that having that reaction to it is stupid/wrong/over the top/etc/etc/etc.

So, what's it gonna be? Is it subjective, and there's multiple ways to view it, and cat's perspective and my perspective are as valid as any other? Or is subjectivity a myth, and there's one RIGHT way to view it, and that's the way YOU view it, or the way ABANDON4093 views it, because misogyny is a myth, and shit like this is always 100% innocent?

 

[KirbyKrackle]

Haha, whole lot of "this one time a friend of a friend of mine..." stories being used here to justify being offended by women who confront institutionalized sexism in society.

Oh, and if pink is being used to indicate femaleness in that comic, why isn't the wolf pink? Is it not female? Is the wolf a male misandrist? What does that have to do with the feminist movement? Is the comic about how some men overdo it in their attempt to fit in with the feminist cause? What a poorly thought-out and constructed comic.

 

[finalguy]

OK

so we all agreed that the cartoon is portraying the idiom of "beware the wolf in sheeps clothing".
OK
so WTF IS the meaning of using that idiom in the context of that cartoon? what im saying is its not a blank slate cartoon just representing the idiom, if that was the case it would just be a sheep and a wolf. now we can never truly know what the artist was trying to convey with it without some commentary from the artist themselves, but i think its only fair to say because of the speech bubbles and the scrotum, that the cartoon was speaking to something beyond the idiom, or that to be more clear, it was applying the idiom to feminism.
OK- i just dont think this can be argued at this point

so if the cartoon was portraying feminism with the idiom, then it must be saying SOMETHING about either how feminism is viewed or how the artist thinks feminism is.
OK

so in the end if the comment is on how its viewed then the cartoon isnt misogynistic but saying that society is(or at the very least ignorant of real feminism) and if the comment is how the artist feel then the same could be applied to the artist themselves.(read misogynistic and/or ignorant)

THE END

 

[Biscuits]

I believe men and woman have the same rights. Yet we still find ourselves having to fight for those rights. It's up to the individual to remember that you gotta fight for your right, to party.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'm back to my favourite piece of lazy summing up of a topic.

Feminists are fine, just as christians, muslims, liberals and conservatives are fine.

Extremist assholes are the problem, whichever of the above group they happen to come from, or whatever other group they may choose to inhabit.

I think women should get equal pay and rights, yet, I'm still against hitting women, and I still open doors for women. Does that make me sexist or more feminist?

Sure, I believe that there still is a level of sexism and racism left in society, but when people say that all white people are holding back the black race, or viewing porn is the same as rape, you're not helping your side, you're a loon and an asshole.

I think that just makes me someone wanting equality while at the same time having some respect for people, whatever's flapping away under their belly button.

 

[Hagi]

A cartoon will always have multiple meanings. That's the nature of pictures. But it's ridiculous to judge them by their most offensive possible interpretation instead of by their most obvious interpretation (unless, obviously, those are the same).

For me, and for cat, those are the same. For you, they might be different. The issue here isn't whether you're right, or I'm right, because we're viewing something for which interpretation is fundamentally subjective. We can argue all day along about whether we like it or hate it, or whether it's clever or stupid. The issue is that cat had a reaction to it, and I had a reaction to it, and there was plenty of evidence to support that reaction to it, and the argument seems to be that having that reaction to it is stupid/wrong/over the top/etc/etc/etc.

So, what's it gonna be? Is it subjective, and there's multiple ways to view it, and cat's perspective and my perspective are as valid as any other? Or is subjectivity a myth, and there's one RIGHT way to view it, and that's the way YOU view it, or the way ABANDON4093 views it, because misogyny is a myth, and shit like this is always 100% innocent?

Of course it's subjective. But you should be aware of your own subjectivity. You attach the meaning of misogyny to the picture, it's not inherent in the picture itself. Don't blame it on the picture. Blame it on yourself.

Now if this entire thread was railing you might have a point. But it's just you and cat. That's a pretty clear sign you're overreacting.

We don't judge the effect of subjective material by singular anecdotal accounts. We judge it's effect by the numbers (and no, numbers is not the same as the majority). Two people whining isn't enough to form a misunderstood minority. That's just two people being silly.

 

[orangeban]

Your presumption here with that fool analogy is that misogyny is some rarefied beast that exists only in very specific parts of the world, and not at all here in North America. Which is patently ridiculous. So no, it is not "correct". It is your interpretation, based on your existing confirmation biases, which appear to be that angry, man-hating, testicle hunting lunatics have infiltrated the sweet pink ranks of feminism and are after your scrotum.

No, I'm saying that because feminism was represented as a pink sheep, you don't automatically assume misogyny. Atleast if you're a rational human being you don't. From an artistic perspective. Colour is used as a subtle way to convey a detail that would otherwise have to be explained. Pink being synonymous with women is not a misogynist suppression technique. It's simply a way to tell the viewer that [insert whatever here] is female.

Reading this (and I totally agree with Abandon here) I'd just like to but in and say I interpreted the fact the sheep was pink was because it was meant to be sweet and cuddly (pink=sweet seems like as fair an assumption as pink=women (and before anyone jumps on me, that does not then mean woman=sweet. Some are some aren't)) and therefore feminism was meant to be sweet and cuddly.

I suspect the sheep was meant to be a mixture of the fact that pink=cuddly and pink=woman/feminism.

 

[finalguy]

there are no pink sheep. then asked to think of a sheep, no one thinks pink. it has nothing to do with the idiom and there for was inserted by the artist to infer a meaning beyond the idiom.
i know plenty of woman who would and have complained that simply relating pink to their sex is misogynistic because of the way society places meaning behind that color.( case in point a male wearing a pink shirt is considered gay,metrosexual,wimpy,etc by alot of the dumb unwashed masses). pink is looked at in society as weak,soft,wilting, fragile,FEMINE. so fine if everybody wants to just gross over that, then maybe we are further along the road to gender blindness then i thought. good for all of us

 

[SenseOfTumour]

As for the cartoon, the moment someone brought up the pink colour, I'd have edited my post, replacing it with a white and a brown sheep.

Then left it for another page of angry posts, and replaced the picture with the same one, but with the colours reversed.

But then I'm easily amused.

(I'm not actually a troll, but damn I'd have been tempted this time )

 

[BloatedGuppy]

No, I'm saying that because feminism was represented as a pink sheep, you don't automatically assume misogyny. At least if you're a rational human being you don't. From an artistic perspective. Colour is used as a subtle way to convey a detail that would otherwise have to be explained. Pink being synonymous with women is not a misogynist suppression technique. It's simply a way to tell the viewer that [insert whatever here] is female.

The fact the sheep is bleating about feminism wouldn't have been clear enough, eh? You're aware, too, that feminism and misandry are not uniquely female traits? Still, it's a good thing we had the pink there to remind us the sheep was female. What about the insipid, winsome look on its face? Oh right, that was to remind us it was a fucking sheep. There weren't, after all, any other available visual clues to aid us in that regard.

Bhuuuuull fucking shit.

Maybe if you completely misunderstand how artists approach things such as colourisation and characterisation. I however, don't.

Yes yes, we've heard this before. YOUR perspective is the RIGHT perspective. You understand colorization! And characterization! Although not how to spell them, lamentably.

Because it wasn't a stretch. She claimed to be a feminist. She was just another man hater. The theme... she a fits!

And I actually stated at the end of her little sumary (maybe she was just crazy.)

It was nice of you to make room for the possibility that she was *possibly* crazy.

People like you are why I think feminism needs a complete overhaul. Off with the archaic rhetoric. Bring in the new set of people. People willing to admit gender bias on both ends of the spectrum and who don't go out intentionally looking for something to find fault in. Because a picture presented feminism as a pink sheep, and you don't like pink thefore it's sexism. And Teh mahyn is tryna oppress y'all with colour n such!

I'm sure feminists everywhere are super excited about your progressive ideas for pushing their movement forward. Be careful though. Some of them are misandrists in disguise! They're gonna cut off your balls!

 

[orangeban]

No, I'm saying that because feminism was represented as a pink sheep, you don't automatically assume misogyny. At least if you're a rational human being you don't. From an artistic perspective. Colour is used as a subtle way to convey a detail that would otherwise have to be explained. Pink being synonymous with women is not a misogynist suppression technique. It's simply a way to tell the viewer that [insert whatever here] is female.

The fact the sheep is bleating about feminism wouldn't have been clear enough, eh? You're aware, too, that feminism and misandry are not uniquely female traits? Still, it's a good thing we had the pink there to remind us the sheep was female. What about the insipid, winsome look on its face? Oh right, that was to remind us it was a fucking sheep. There weren't, after all, any other available visual clues to aid us in that regard.

Bhuuuuull fucking shit.

Maybe if you completely misunderstand how artists approach things such as colourisation and characterisation. I however, don't.

Yes yes, we've heard this before. YOUR perspective is the RIGHT perspective. You understand colorization! And characterization! Although not how to spell them, lamentably.

Because it wasn't a stretch. She claimed to be a feminist. She was just another man hater. The theme... she a fits!

And I actually stated at the end of her little sumary (maybe she was just crazy.)

It was nice of you to make room for the possibility that she was *possibly* crazy.

People like you are why I think feminism needs a complete overhaul. Off with the archaic rhetoric. Bring in the new set of people. People willing to admit gender bias on both ends of the spectrum and who don't go out intentionally looking for something to find fault in. Because a picture presented feminism as a pink sheep, and you don't like pink thefore it's sexism. And Teh mahyn is tryna oppress y'all with colour n such!

I'm sure feminists everywhere are super excited about your progressive ideas for pushing their movement forward. Be careful though. Some of them are misandrists in disguise! They're gonna cut off your balls!

Good grief, the comic isn't saying the feminist movement is totally infiltrated by hidden misandrists, it's saying that some misandrists disguise as feminists and someone has never seen a real feminist might mistake a misandrist for a feminist. As does in fact happen, an awful lot.

 

[BRex21]

Valerie Solanos: Because encouraging male gendercide for the creation of an all female society isn't sexism... at all.

1) You've spelt her name wrong.
2) She's not a feminist and never claimed to be.

Valerie Solanas (spelling from Wikipedia by the way) in fact wrote a book not only calling herself a feminist, but speaking of the superiority of females and calling for the extinction of those of us with the birth defect of a y chromosome. She was fully willing to attempt through murder. Of course she was also schizophrenic and in my mind this is reason to cut her a little slack.
HOWEVER the New York chapter president of the National Organization for Women, a feminist organization of which she was a member by the way, openly called her "one of the most important spokeswomen of the feminist movement". The national organization for women is a massive INTERNATIONAL organization receiving large sums of money from most western governments and still is fully willing to say the SCUM manifesto is a brilliant piece of literature and distributing it in many colleges and universities.

Andrea Dworkin: Because accusing men of rape because they watch porn is all fine and dandy.

She didn't do that.

Don't quote people out of context.

This is true, she only went to far as to say that pornography causes rape, merely that it is a tool used by rapists to plan there action she also said heterosexual sex remains:
a means or the means of physiologically making a woman inferior [and is] the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women.
In her book "intercourse." she also went so far as to say that if a man has sex with a woman it is utterly unthinkable that he ISN'T contemplating her murder.

Gloria Allred: Pretty clearly a misandrist.

So what? Did she say that women are worth more than men? It's not the same thing.

Technically no but she fought very hard at times for womens rights to refuse to take responsibility for themselves. Granted she also had financial motive to paint women is ignorant children during her lawsuits so i could agree this is a bad example. She also did fight for some noble causes and was probably more a mercenary than a misandrist.

You missed out Mary Daly, who is a feminist, is openly and explicitly misandrist, and is actually a very nasty piece of work, but who also never said that men are inferior.

She never said that men were inferior, but she said it was time they served as a slave race, she said that men had no business living on this earth, that women were more evolved and that the only way the human race would survive is through the drastic reduction in males.
I think you could very easily argue that stating one gender deserves nothing but slavery and death is a pretty good endorsement that they are inferior.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Of course it's subjective. But you should be aware of your own subjectivity. You attach the meaning of misogyny to the picture, it's not inherent in the picture itself. Don't blame it on the picture. Blame it on yourself.

The ability to interpret the picture in different ways is not "inherent in the picture itself"? So we're back to "there's no such thing as subjectivity", and that there's one right way to view that thing, and it's your way?

Now if this entire thread was railing you might have a point. But it's just you and cat. That's a pretty clear sign you're overreacting.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-popularity.html

Two people whining isn't enough to form a misunderstood minority. That's just two people being silly.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html

"Misogyny" wasn't a concept invented by me and cat for the purposes of this thread. You do understand that, yes?

 

[orangeban]

Your presumption here with that fool analogy is that misogyny is some rarefied beast that exists only in very specific parts of the world, and not at all here in North America. Which is patently ridiculous. So no, it is not "correct". It is your interpretation, based on your existing confirmation biases, which appear to be that angry, man-hating, testicle hunting lunatics have infiltrated the sweet pink ranks of feminism and are after your scrotum.

No, I'm saying that because feminism was represented as a pink sheep, you don't automatically assume misogyny. Atleast if you're a rational human being you don't. From an artistic perspective. Colour is used as a subtle way to convey a detail that would otherwise have to be explained. Pink being synonymous with women is not a misogynist suppression technique. It's simply a way to tell the viewer that [insert whatever here] is female.

Reading this (and I totally agree with Abandon here) I'd just like to but in and say I interpreted the fact the sheep was pink was because it was meant to be sweet and cuddly (pink=sweet seems like as fair an assumption as pink=women (and before anyone jumps on me, that does not then mean woman=sweet. Some are some aren't)) and therefore feminism was meant to be sweet and cuddly.

I suspect the sheep was meant to be a mixture of the fact that pink=cuddly and pink=woman/feminism.

Well you're right. There is another connotation with pink. It's a non-threatening colour. The artist is representing the fact that feminism isn't a threat to anyone. Misandrists who disguise their motives behind a thin feminist veil are a threat though.

Personally, I think the fluffy n cute characterisation is more what's making the sheep appear un threatening. And the pink there as pink is synonymous with women.

A valid interpretation to be sure. I probably agree actually, you've put it better than I could I think. Good luck with your fight for truth justice and sanity!

 

[KirbyKrackle]

I'm back to my favourite piece of lazy summing up of a topic.

I think women should get equal pay and rights, yet, I'm still against hitting women, and I still open doors for women. Does that make me sexist or more feminist?

An easy test to find out: Do you believe hitting women is wrong because they're women or because hitting people is wrong? Do you hold doors open for men too?

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

I think this picture sums it up:

Yeah.. because noone could construe that imagery as misogynist.

The picture implies that the sheep is a real feminist and the "wolf in sheep's clothing" are the loud, obnoxious man-haters who aren't often mistaken for feminists. I'm not sure how you could misinterpret that.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

A farmer with lots of sheep is able to feed and clothe his family.
A farmer with lots of wolves dies.

Oh my god.. stop digging, and think about it.

Equality Feminist = sheep.
Female Supremacist (whose existence I can assume, because as far as I can see they don't exist as a significant social force) = wolf
Man = ? (in this analogy)

Questioning the application of an idiom doesn't mean I don't understand it. You understand the word 'idiot' yet you might have a problem if I called you one.

Look at the dead sheep worn on her back and tell me where you think the testicles came from. The artist perhaps could have been much clearer about this, but I'm pretty sure they were insinuating the dead sheep is male, which is from where the wolf acquired the testicles. Ergo, both men and women in this analogy appear to be portrayed as sheep. At any rate, there's no need to kill each other over what both of you percieve to be a misinterpretation. Relax guys, seriously.

 

[KirbyKrackle]

Now if this entire thread was railing you might have a point. But it's just you and cat. That's a pretty clear sign you're overreacting.

We don't judge the effect of subjective material by singular anecdotal accounts. We judge it's effect by the numbers (and no, numbers is not the same as the majority). Two people whining isn't enough to form a misunderstood minority. That's just two people being silly.

Actually, you can count me in on team "why would anyone think this picture was a good idea?"

And I'm curious, what are the "numbers" necessary to judge subjective material? When will there be enough people to form a misunderstood minority?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I never said that they were, although their intial motis operndi was to fight for women.

The initial motis operndi of misandry was to "fight for women", was it?

I'm English, well done. You just made yourself look like an ignorant troll. Broaden your understanding of etymology. It's lacking.

Pft. Fair enough.

Whether or not she was crazy doesn't detract from the fact that she was a feminist. Which was my point. I only brought it up because she was a bit mad. You need to get a grasp of basic logic my friend. You're failing hard.

How on earth was she a feminist? Feminism is the belief that men and women are equal. Killing a score of men because you have deep seated issues with them does not permit inclusion in that demographic. She became a "feminist celebrity" because of the rapes and abuse she was purported to have suffered prior to her killing spree. So she's a good example of how A can lead to B. She is not, however, an example of a celebrated feminist thinker, or a misandrist disguised as a feminist. She is/was a serial killer. Shall we make a list of male serial killers who killed exclusively women? Pro tip: There will be more than one.

Your point, you failed to make it!

We're both perfectly aware that the only points you're prepared to recognize are your own, or those which support them.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Women don't have rights. Men don't have rights. Both have priviledges that are earned.

When someone can work out a way of keeping both in line without crushing the other's independence, then we can move forward.

You sir are awesome. I wish I had something to really add to this thread, but the constant bickering between the misinterpretation of a cartoon has left me head desking to the point of a negative IQ.

I really do believe what you say is true, however it'll take some serious time before we can make such progress.

The real problem we have is that each gender still judges each other by the lowest point of the spectrum. And that a number of each gender actually duplicate the stereotypical roles - successfully.

There are some thug men and housecleaning women who are very happy, successful and socially aware with their lives. Equally there's some engineer gals and fashion designer blokes.

We can judge trends by gender - but until that's seen as something other than sexist, then we aren't going to make headway - mainly because biologically we ARE different.

And if you're going to start giving out rights, I'd say that respect as a human being should come first - because there's still not enough of that around.