Women's Issues

Damn you region block!

Try this one.

Basically, the SNL skit makes fun of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl and other "male-friendly" female character types used in movies, television and other media. One of the problems I have with this character is that it's basically a watered-down, pacified version of how women operate in real relationships of various types. Personally, I think some of the hostility toward more diverse roles for women and subsequent feminist interpretations of fiction stems from this knee-jerk reaction to the revelation that women are not walking devices meant to facilitate character development for male characters - that women are not "cheerleaders" for men, if you will.

One minor quibble I have with the articles written about the video is that they ironically forget to identify the actual woman in the video, but they do identify and credit the male host of the skit. I don't know her name, but I've seen her around before.

EDIT: Among her jokes are her claim that she sleeps in a jersey, that she likes hamburgers (not just salads) and that she and the male lead "discover" how beautiful she truly is when she takes her glasses off. I'm not totally opposed to female characters being written like this because there are, in fact, women who exhibit the qualities she mentions. However, as it was mentioned in the discussion about stereotypes, the problem is that this has become the default assumption about modern female behavior in both fiction and real life. You can see this in offices, schools and personal space where females are expected (and expect themselves) to maintain a support role for male company. Again, the problem isn't that this happens. The problem is that we have come to expect it from women.

edited 17th Dec '14 10:40:01 PM by Aprilla

Two Extremes:

• Isis 'executes 150 women for refusing to marry militants' and buries them in mass graves
• First female Church of England Bishop Rev Libby Lane is a 'bridge-builder'

Gender equality vs. Gender fairness: What are the main differences between the two? Or is this all an issue of semantics? Granted, I am extremely skeptical about the latter, due to both the subjectivity of "fairness"^* especially as I hail from a country whose attempts at creating "economic fairness" has been naught but a miserable failure. and the fact that just about everyone I've seen bandying it about are men.

When I've heard the term gender fairness, it seems to imply that the genders are inherently unequal and that we should return to 1950's gender rolls because those are the most fair and natural rolls where everyone does what they're best at and people get compensated for what they're 'worth'. I've always heard it attached to the idea that men are worth more than women and that its not fair to deny men sex with women when they want it.

You know, I am likely sinning of stupidity here, but I wonder if all those fuckers talking about dumb shit ways women, according to them, should be treated, ever stopped to consider if that is something they would wish upon their own mothers or sisters.

I do not mean to imply they can think, but, "Men should be able to sex women as they please" statements make me wonder how they would react if someone then exercised such "right" upon a close member of his family if they would be ok with that.

I suspect the answer to this question is close to Nightmare Fuel.

Most of them probably wouldn't care. Isn't there some saying about how you should watch how a man treats his mother because that's how he'll treat you eventually?

Well, that crowd tends to magnify one of the classic sexist hypocrisies: that promiscuity is a moral weakness in a woman but praiseworthy in a man.

Yep.

But that can be deceiving as well because some men have very set rules on how they treat specific roles.

Example: I can cheat on my wife because I lavish her with gifts and keep her in comfort. I don't spend that kinda shit on my girlfriend.

I've also seen devoted mama's boys treat women they want to fuck like shit because they're just 'whores.'

Isn't this also the reason why "yo momma" jokes are so prevalent?

Your mother or your sister aren't women, they're special.

Eck, it's extremely common in my community to see domestic abuse cases being reported and then having droves of locals (almost exclusively women, to note) descending upon it with words of encouragement and support for the perpetrator. "Poor thing, that whore must have drove him over the edge," or with rape victims, "That whore was begging for it" kind of stuff. Doubly so if the perpetrator was a former member of the local highschool football team.

Young boys develop the opinions they will carry into manhood on how women should be treated by observing the men and women in their lives. If a man treats women like property, it's often because he learned that was acceptable in his formative years, from observing his parents, siblings, friends, or other male and female role models around which he formed his understanding of what men and women are supposed to be.

Sexism is often rooted not in deliberate malice, but in a skewed perspective of the world.

I would even go as far as to say that a major contributing factor in the hatred between the sexes that exists today is being caused by the fact that actual role models often wind up replaced by the incredibly unrealistic depictions of male/female relationships in television and film. Why are nerds so misogynistic? Because they grew up expecting to be Superman instead of Dad, and blame women for not being Lois Lane like they were supposed to.

Too many parents are letting TV raise their kids, and Iron Man is a fantastic character, but he shouldn't be a child's only male role model.

edited 18th Dec '14 9:05:23 AM by TobiasDrake

Allow me to represent an alternative perspective.

I was raised by a single mother, which gave me a lot of feminist and misogynistic perspectives as I grew up. As has been said, my mother was an "exception" to most rules about women as I grew up. My mother was independent, didn't fool around, and the fact that she was a single mother never seemed like a "weakness" to me. Probably because she never had any other boyfriends besides my Dad (as far as I was aware), so she never got the stigma of "slutty single mom" that a lot of guys seem to develop at some point.

HOWEVER...

As I said, she was an "exception". The type of woman I was always taught to stay away from were the vapid, shallow, slutty, lazy, and irrational types. My mother, more than anyone else in my early life, totally reinforced this idea in my head that "most women" were the ones I need to stay away from, always wanted a bad boy, and would try to "trap me" with a child. She always told me I needed to grow into a "good man" that smart, hard-working women would appreciate.

Then, when I hit my teenage years and had few bitter dating experiences under my belt, a realization hit me: Why the hell was I taking advice from her? Sure, she may have acted like an "exception" and taught me how I was supposed to attract a "good woman", but aren't I living proof that SHE fell for the bad boy too?! At that point, I stopped listening to her for advice and started listening to other guys who had what was (in my opinion) "successful" relationships.

And yeah...that didn't really help much, either.

Some of the best lessons are learned the hard way.

She didn't want you to repeat her mistakes or be a deadbeat dad.

Yes. Although there's more to it than that.

There always is.

When I hear gender equality I think people are referring to gender sameness. Where's the equality in a woman's right to choose what happens to her own body?

This might help.◊

The point isn't to treat everybody the same. It's to get everyone to the best possible outcome.

Women could join British infantry by 2016

Men at work, women at home is best recipe for high-income nation, says Isma - KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 — Malaysia can still be a high-income nation if its men remain the main breadwinners and its women focused on raising children, Islamist group Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) argued amid concerns over the effect of youth marriages on the economy.

Well, I suppose attitudes like this don't help the fact that Malaysia has been faring steadily worse in terms of gender inequality of late (I suppose that's why this "gender fairness" talk exists?).

Raise legal marrying age to 18 to prevent child ‘victims’, Putrajaya told - KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 19 — The federal government should stop child marriages by conclusively raising the legal marrying age to 18, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) said today.

Equality hurrah!

Don't know about anyone else but I'm not about to consider granting women the honour to fight, kill and die for the military industrial complex freedom to be particularly desirable goal of women's rights.

Now, I realize this is a very trying time for everyone who made it out, but there is an important point that I think is worth addressing. This village has been no stranger to the possibility of dragon attack, and I think that maybe, if you're so concerned about the dragon, you shouldn't have built your village out of wood. Wood burns, people, and I don't understand how you can stand there and honestly not have expected this to happen when you presented the dragon with such an enticing target.

I get that everyone's hurting. You've lost livelihoods and loved ones in the wake of the attack. But I'm just saying, if you'd put in even the slightest effort into dragon prevention, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Something to think about in the future.

This is what it sounds like when you ask what she was wearing in the wake of a rape.

No one asks what the rapist was wearing.