Sexism

By "football" I don't suppose you mean "Soccer", yes?

Makeup is understandable because you need it when you're going to be on camera or on stage, just to make you look normal. The shaving, not so much.

Didn't The Hungers Games make a point of it, though? I remember a paragraph where Katniss notes that the beauticians wax all of her body hair off before she goes into the Games, but Peeta gets to keep his chest and leg hair.

edited 10th Dec '14 6:38:43 PM by LoniJay

They didn't wax off Katniss' hair. They lasered it off so that it wouldn't grow back so that she would look nicer on camera. So weirdly, there is canon reason that she doesn't have body hair while fighting for her life.

Nope American Football, even the teachers told me to while suppressing a giggle.

I don't think "looking normal" is what the make-up artists have as a guideline, even if you do need something to actually look normal.

In one of the pictures the guy in the background is also shaved, so I wonder how much that happens. Even if they have a "rugged" beard, I wonder how trimmed it is.

Blood and gore is cosmetic too, since it always seem to happen to portray the character in a certain way.

Basically, everything is artificial.

Actually, in the case of the Walking Dead, continuing to remove body hair isn't that hard to believe.

They raid pharmacies and drug stores. Why not grab razors or wax? They're light and sometimes you don't need water to use them. They also have other uses that double it.

And especially in a situation like that, little luxuries like clean pits and faces go a long way.

Wait a bit, volleyball is seen as a "girl"'s sport?

edited 11th Dec '14 5:25:18 AM by SaintDeltora

Yes, it is. Or a naturist sport.

First time I hear of that.

I have a feeling that this post is going to land like a fish out of temporal water... but here goes nothing.

Feminity. Masculinity. Are these ideals to strive for or simply a stereotype? Should these ideals be fostered and encouraged? Or do they simply pigeon-hole somebody into acting out a role whilst keeping their real self in the closet?

Personally I am of the opinion that masculinity and feminity is moot. That all it does is hamper your personal growth in order to fit society and their expectations of how you behave.

Let me bring up the attributes that masculinity tends to take to the forefront: Bravery, taking action and having a fit body. Not to be too eager to show emotions.

The above is perhaps not the most accurate portrayal of masculinity, seeing as it varies from country to country, culture to culture. But these seem to be wide-spread as far as I am aware.

Now onto feminity: Beauty, passiveness/submissiveness and motherhood. Long hair and all that.

While these are rough sketches of respective social expectation, I think it could do well as a starting point. Feel free to add in anything, as I am aware that it is extremely rough and simplified. But bear with me, if you can.

It seems to me by having skimmed through the various pages of masculinity and feminity that is on the internet and the library, that there is often this idea that men act, women are. Now, I realize that this trope already exists, but I feel that it could be an interesting topic to talk about. To start with: Do these things have any value? Why should we shape our attitudes and personalities based on what kind of junk we have between our legs? If the core of masculinity is to be courageous, strong and independent, shouldn't these values be taught to everyone? Why are these things considered to be manly? I myself have never really been able to wrap my head around this. If a woman is out hunting or fishing, instead of being at home, is she acting like a man or is she simply being herself?

Now to flip it: If a man likes to sew, read and play with the kids instead of hunting or other such activities, is he being feminine or simply being who he is?

Instead of calling these attributes manly or feminine, shouldn't we instead call these positive attributes unto a person? Instead of a man shouldn't hit a woman, shouldn't it be a person shouldn't hit another person?

It's probably an American thing. I've only heard about it in American media, but not in Europe. Same with handball. And kind of my dad, who refers to it as "handball" and "men's handball". Probably because he's involved on the women's side, so that's closer to him.

I have a bit of a divided opinion on that. On one hand, I don't think gender differences like that will ever go away, and it's probably not necessary either, even for an equal society. On the other hand, they shouldn't preclude someone from following the path they want. Basically, I think it's okay if those differences are statistically expected, but not expected as the preferred goal, if that makes sense. Or if you will, being masculine isn't the same as being less of a woman, and vice versa.

edited 11th Dec '14 6:36:03 AM by AnotherDuck

In other words, it's fine to act like a stereotypical girl as long as it's an expression of your true self and you're free to act like anything else you want, for example.

Mocking boys for playing volleyball strikes me as absurd, but I have been subtly rejected from "feminine" activities before: when I was a kid, the women wouldn't let me help in the kitchen, and, as a grownup, I remember trying to go into scrapbooking after having seen Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, only to be told by the shop owner and atelier leader that "uh, hm, oh dear, well, it's considered to be a bit of a feminine activity, ah, that is, in case you didn't know".

The only "girly" extracurriculars I've been allowed to enjoy so far were swimming (the only sport where I hear no homophobic jokes in the fucking locker rooms, for fuck's sake), and poetry (a majority of girls, but Warrior Poet is very much a thing).

If you have to use masculinity and feminity, it should always be descriptive not prescriptive.

The separation of toys by gender is kinda troubling.

On christmas there are drives for donating gifts and I am going to participate on them, but you are required to label the toys for gender. What if I want to donate a football? Football is a "male" sport yet the countrys female team made it to some important tournament and it doing well, it might fathom the interest of some young girl and footballs are rather accesible pricewise, and it is better to give plenty of small gifts than a single more expensive one.

That last bit is pretty much what I meant.

I grew up with pony action figures and He-Man dolls. Although generally girls collected bookmarks and stuff, and boys marbles, I did both. Gender schmender. Never had any trouble from either side.

There is nothing wrong with "feminine" or "masculine" in themselves. It's what these labels are applied to that make it a problem.

Example: Feminine heart attacks have different symptoms and signs than Masculine heart attacks.

This is fine to me. It's factual and medically accurate. The way I see it, feminine and masculine should be reserved to mainly the medical sphere because these are the only significant and dare say, legitimate, differences between the genders.

In other words, gender dimorphism, which is a different thing from gender roles and gendered constructs.

Thank you! That's the phrase I needed and couldn't find.

Female erections

Also, masuclinity and femininity are just...labels. Can be as good or bad as you use them, but generally, using labels as expectations for something no one even signed up for seems harsh. As in, if you enter the olympics, yeah, you will only be considered an olympian if you can do certain parameters at a certain sport and that is something agreed upon.

But to an infant who was born with X or Y genitalia, to expect for his or her whole life to conform to something before the creature can't even tell its own existence from that of the contents of its diaper? Sounds harsh.

I think it's somewhat ingrained in human nature (whether biological or cultural, who knows) to want to define things in relationship to each other. If a man is one thing, then a woman is this other, opposite but complimentary thing.

It's all a bunch of arbitrary bullshit, but we do love our patterns and asymmetry.

Ah... how sexist is this?

It's not, imo. He's more poking fun on how we use different words/language in regards to similar situations, but within different types of relationship.

Kinda like George Carlin (who also poked fun at language control and/or different usage by special groups, whether they be religious groups, feminist groups, and so on and so forth).

Chris Rock is actually a strong feminist at times. Good Hair is a wonderful documentary.

@Gabs: Chris Rock calls things as he sees them without too much in the way of a filter. It's why he annoys people in just about every camp. I like the guy personally (I don't always agree with him though), but I know a lot of people who think he's an asshole. Funny how that works.

Plus, he is a comedian. His job is to make you laugh first then social commentary.

So I keep that in mind.