Women's Issues

Well, the point is should that be the normal?

I mean, yes while I do like to see if my wrestling works in a real life or death situation doesn't meant that should happen, or that should happen often enough to be considered something "normal" or "be expected to happen". Having smallpox epidemics and dying in one used to be the norm too: no one complained when that's no longer the case, right?

So yeah, you live in fear and you're cool with you. Good on you. That doesn't mean that having to live in fear should be common enough to be regarded as "normal" or "expected".

edited 25th Aug '14 11:17:50 PM by IraTheSquire

Offensive Handle, there is a difference betweenhaving an opinion and understanding.

In general:

No one asks what the rapist was wearing. No one asks where the rapists' buddy was and why they didn't stop it. No one wants to admit that the odds are anyone who roofies a girl probably already knows that girl.

We have had this conversation a million times. And it is frustrating. I should be able to go jogging in the morning and not have to take my dog unless I want and be treated just the same. I should be able to wear what I want without people thinking my body is their property and they have a right to comment or touch as they see fit. I want to make the same wage for the same work as a man.

Items like this are a start in providing hints, but they don't provide safety.

Women, like everyone else, deserve to be safe. Only a major cultural push can make this happen in significant numbers.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

A proposed new anti-Anita Sarkeesian “documentary” promises to give voice to the loudest “silent majority” the world has ever known.

These are possibly the two weirdest individuals I have ever seen. Two white men promising a "defiant strike" against the "degeneration and corruption"...of Anita Sarkeesian talking about video games. Apparently it's going to be free of "sophomoric behaviour" and a "serious look" at "professional victims". God, what a pair of dicks.

The thing that always strikes me about Sarkeesian - and other people who talk about sexism in general - is that even when they get stuff wrong, the response is always out of all proportion to the actual impact.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

One of them is a self-described white nationalist, IIRC.

Oh wow.

Says a lot about the kind of people who'd make this kind of video, eh.

When I see things like this it makes me wish I were a white man for just a day just to see what kind of shit I could get away with.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Fark bans misogynistic posts. To quote Drew Curtis, "If the internet was a dude, we'd all agree that dude has a serious problem with women".

Drew is all for the ladies now is he? I'll been sure to bake him a cookie...

hashtagsarestupid

I have kind of mixed feelings about this. It's a good idea, but it seems like it'd be easily abusable.

Considering the article specifically mentions the trouble of dealing with rape imagery and discussed issues like web content providers having to catch child porn, I highly doubt they're just going to jump on anyone.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Regarding victim-blaming — there are two different levels of it that people aren't making a distinction between.

One is taking responsibility for your own safety. There are bad people in the world who will do bad things to you if they have a chance. You can't stop them from being bad people, but you can stop them from getting a chance to hurt you. Let's say that someone gets mugged after getting drunk and then wandering down a dark alley with $100 bills falling out of their pocket. Saying "well, if you hadn't been drunk and flashing cash in a dark alley, you probably wouldn't have gotten mugged" is a legitimate point. Sure, it sucks that you have to think about those things, but the world sucks sometimes.

The other is absolving the perpetrator of their responsibility. Saying that it's okay to mug you if you're walking down a dark alley drunk with cash visible on your person is a very different thing than saying "you were engaging in risky behavior, what did you expect?". That's the part that's not okay (and is overwhelmingly applied to rape victims rather than other crimes).

The nail polish thing seems like the first type to me. "Here's an additional tool to help keep yourself safe" is a good thing, full stop. Yeah, it sucks that it's necessary, but not having it wouldn't make it unnecessary, it would just mean it was necessary but unavailable. It's already necessary, so making it available can only improve things.

edited 26th Aug '14 8:07:18 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

lol

On the banning of misoganistic posts thing I'm fully on board with that and don't see why an issue should be made over it. The mark of a place joining the civilised section of the Internet is when it starts banning people being assholes in their space, I don't see why bring an asshole to women should be an exception to that rule. Personally I'm always welcoming of more communities joining the civilised section of the Internet, I long for the day when people can use the Internet and only enter the civilised bit, allowing us to leave the filthy hatred filled section to choke to death on its own bile.

edited 26th Aug '14 8:23:04 AM by SilasW

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Sofia Vergara called out on her Emmy skit

I don't watch the Emmys because not only do I not have a television, I haven't seen many of the shows that win or are nominated, so the only part I have seen is the clip this article links to, which is apparently all there is.

Now I don't think it's the most horrible thing in the world, but I certainly don't think it's funny. What is the joke supposed to be? Are we supposed to be laughing because she's basically begging us to look at her while the guy is droning on? Is it supposed to be satire that the audience doesn't really care about merit (Modern Family, Vargara's show apparently wins everything it's nominated for all the time) and just want a piece of ass to look at? I don't know but it's not funny and I agree, why not put a cute guy up there if you're trying to make a point about objectification or whatever?

Some of the male actors, such as the guys on True Blood are quite sexualized and would actually make me think this is satire more so than just a lame joke that fell on it's face.

I don't think the entertainment industry as a whole has fully grasped just how tired of this stuff people are and that women are getting rather sick of the real world consequences that the media culture is contributing to.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

I agree with this. Unfortunately, a popular counterpoint is often this:

That activism is not needed because things are improving, which is basically the activist equivalent of saying, "I don't need to take my medication because I feel okay." Social injustice is a disease. You don't stop taking the medicine because the symptoms are starting to wear off; the only reason the symptoms are lifting is because you are taking the medicine.

On carrying a weapon for self-defense

There are a few matters to be addressed here. The first is: is it historically normal to need to protect yourself from physical harm? The answer is absolutely yes. The world is a violent and dangerous place. Those of us with the luxury of living in the first world can forget about this and grow up without having to be prepared for it, but remember that civilization takes its roots from nature, and nature is very much a bloody, dangerous fight for survival.

The idea that we need to protect ourselves has its roots in the fact that our ancestors lived in a world where you had to beat your breakfast to death, where someone you did not recognize could potentially be the vanguard of your society's extermination. This attitude is alive and well in many parts of the world today, from Asian warlords to deranged American gun nuts; more appropriate in some places than in others.

Being prepared for Kill Or Be Killed circumstances is the most natural thing in the world; it's ingrained in our instincts. It's also something we, in the First World, are supposed to be above. We're supposed to have that luxury I mentioned before, that we are, by and large, protected from those who would harm us by virtue of living in a wealthy and powerful nation, a place in which we can have other people beating our breakfast to death for us and killing our enemies while we sit in the comfort of never having to think about a bloody kill one way or the other.

So while there will always be those people stockpiling weapons and preparing for war to come to their doorsteps - people more attuned to instinct than society - the ideal goal of a civilization is to reach a point where the majority can feel safe putting down the club and welcoming people of different tribes. Bringing this back around to the topic, a critical step of that process is that the people need to feel that those who are charged with fighting their battles for them are doing their job, and that's where our treatment of rape falls apart.

As Gabriel said,

Women do not feel protected. They do not feel safe laying down their clubs. They need their clubs because their enemies are going unfought. In the First World, that's unacceptable.

edited 26th Aug '14 10:05:31 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Happy Women's Equality Day!

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

Where? Most of the world celebrates march 8th.

[[https://www.google.com/#q=women's+day International Women's Day is March 8]]

[[https://www.google.com/#q=women's+equality+day Women's Equality Day is based on the ratification of the 19th Ammendment granting woman's suffrage.]]

Both days are for women, just different aspects. Women's Equality Day is based on making a progress report on women's rights and where we need to go from there.

edited 26th Aug '14 10:13:54 AM by Gabrael

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

The difference here is that, for most of human (pre-)history, those threats came from outside the tribe/society. Having to protect yourself from intra-social threats is not historically normal.

I'd disagree with that. It's not so much that there's more reason to protect yourself nowdays as it is that society is a little more sensitive about those things so they come up to light more, which naturally makes people afraid.

Check out my fanfiction!

I meant in tribal societies were everyone new everyone else and crimes couldn't be hidden easily. That's like 90% of human "history"^note actually prehistory.

For most of that we don't know how people actually acted socially within tribes.

Lots of years BC. Before writing. Most of human history.

edited 26th Aug '14 1:52:42 PM by AnotherDuck

Check out my fanfiction!

You're going to have to narrow that answer down. There are a multitudes of cultural groups that qualify as tribes we know almost everything about and others we can only confirm their existence.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

The Fine Young Capitalists, a group that was earlier shut down by a hacker that accessed one of the group organizer's accounts, has been restored back on Indiegogo. And the funding continues.

For those of you who don't know, TFYC is a group that is focused on bringing in women that have never made a game before and giving them professional concept artists to help them design said ideal games. Anyone who backs this project has a percentage of the proceeds go to their charity of choice, as well as the ability to get a say on how the game will be designed and marketed. Their overall mission is "to create media using under represented labour, for unexplored demographics to fund non-profit organizations."

On another note, a concerned feminist blogger who used to support Zoe Quinn in her condemnation of 4chan as misogynists and TFYC as shady assholes (among other things) no longer supports her after looking into the situation a bit more. She herself is still a feminist, and thus continues to look down on anyone who harasses anyone with harsh insults and foul language. And by anyone, she means *anyone*, including SJ Ws that are supposedly on her side in the gender issues debate. She rebuts the notion that 4chan funded TFYC purely out of spite by reminding people of when they (which I assume are SJ Ws and other feminists) threw money at Anita Sarkeesian for her Kickstarter, and while it too was done out of spite, in the end they still believed in her cause. So it stands to reason that 4chan, upon giving TFYC money, also believed in TFYC's cause as well and money isn't given that easily unless they felt it was something worthwhile.

In the end, she said that Zoe is not "an emblem of feminism in gaming" like many others treat her as, but rather a Straw Feminist that she never would've thought existed had this situation not blown up.

edited 26th Aug '14 1:26:48 PM by Nettacki

My point was not that we shouldn't need activism: my point is that we have no idea whether the activism that we have right now is working, or for that matter, the most efficient and quickest towards our goal. Would you still be taking the same medicine and not change when you found out that the reason why it seems to work is the placebo effect? Should we now start using homeopathy?