The idea that male sexuality is dirty is a very sexist belief, as is the idea that a woman who is raped is "defiled forever." Now, it's no problem if you want the characters to express these beliefs. That's up to you. But don't think that you can do a proper deconstruction of sex equality with these beliefs, because such beliefs are really not up to the task of properly evaluating all the pros and cons of a society where men and women are treated equally.
Also, you would do well not to dismiss the advice of the female tropers on this site, especially on the topic of female sexuality and what women want out of an equal society. Combine that with your insistence that female friends have given you excellent feedback being used like an excuse makes it seem like you'll only listen to women when they tell you what you like to hear. If that isn't true, then you would do well to address the concerns of the female tropers here. After all, they have a trove of knowledge and experience they can share with you to make you a better writer.
Ultimately, it's your story. It might turn out good, it might turn out bad. But don't expect me to call it a deconstruction, especially since it doesn't bother to present a realistic depiction of a society where men and women are equal.
edited 3rd Aug '16 11:00:41 PM by dragonfire5000
My name's Ben.
I'm starting to have feelings of contempt for the "ignore the idea, call it sexist and walk away" thing. It's probably best if I just say goodbye and talk to people more comfortable with non pc things. Bye guys.
edited 4th Aug '16 2:03:08 AM by garridob
Great men are almost never good men, they say. One wonders what philosopher of the good would value the impotence of his disciples.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Eew. I knew that was gonna happen![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
Except no one ignored your idea, called it sexist, and just walked away. We all considered your idea, found it sexist when it was clear you didn't intend it to be, and tried to give you ways to improve while you ignored our advice.
But if you want to leave, it's fine. Just remember this: no matter how many of your friends tell you otherwise, your story will never be a deconstruction of a sex-equal society as it is right now. It will only be a tale of one deranged woman's twisted idea of what "equality" is. You just plugging your ears and singing while walking away won't change it.
edited 4th Aug '16 6:47:31 AM by dragonfire5000
If Garridob is still here:
I thought it was a good idea, yes, but then I read this new thread and found a LOT of things about both your plot and characters that just don't seem to hold water.
I wasn't lying when I said it was a good idea because I'm not a psychic. I just found out new information and realized that the new information changed everything COMPLETELY.
Also, we legit GAVE YOU ideas on how to make your concept work without alienating the women who will inevitably read it. How is that "calling it sexist and ignoring it?"
edited 4th Aug '16 1:40:48 PM by Sharysa
The old 'political correctness gone mad' fallback? I never called it sexist, although I'm not surprised others did.
People won't always react to story ideas the way you want, and straw-manning critiques you don't like is pointless.
My name's Ben.
Hey guys,
So I've been thinking about this for a while and here's what I've come up with.
1. I don't share your values. In fact, I actively disapprove of your values.
However, I'm grateful you guys helped me to understand them. It's basically impossible to address an opponent you don't understand and I feel like I understand the group you represent better now.
Indeed, an analysis of your group, partially informed by discussions like this, is a big part of the reason I was able to sign a multi-book contract with Korea's oldest publishing company last week. Sincerely, thank you for your contributions.
2. The echo chamber is a dangerous place. I am much more comfortable speaking with people who agree with me than I am talking with you. My wordpress.com sphere is miles more inviting and accepting than you. So are the philosophy and sociology people I normally hang out with. This is exactly why they're insufficient.
I'm reminded of the GW Bush presidency when Ahmadinejad, former Iranian president, went to Columbia University to address a really hostile crowd. The stuff he said, holocaust denial and gay bashing, were certainly not things I agreed with, but I remember thinking Ahmadinejad had a lot of courage. I also remember thinking I could never imagine GWB giving a pro Israel speech in Tehran. I think that reflects poorly on GWB.
Clearly you guys are not Tehran and the anonymity of the internet lowers the stakes immensely, but this forum afforded me an opportunity to be reminded that there is life outside my echo chamber and that I shouldn't take my own beliefs as gospel.
3. I deeply and passionately believe that the moral systems dominant today are echoes of the turbo charged Christian slavishness, factionalism and victim worship that brought down the Roman Empire. (Check out Gibbon's Decline and Fall or Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals if you're interested.)
I sincerely want something better than the martyrs vs. hypocrits thing we have going on today. However, if I want to help that process along, you guys taught me that I need to get better at deconstructing value systems without offending the people who hold fast to those value systems.
Thanks, truly.
edited 2nd Nov '16 8:21:35 PM by garridob
Great men are almost never good men, they say. One wonders what philosopher of the good would value the impotence of his disciples.
Here's something that I don't think has been said...
There's a lot of "Oh, but women don't appreciate the benefits of the pedestal we put them on," going on. Some talk about how if a woman is harmed that is a greater tragedy than when a man is harmed, (and how women should appreciate this concern for their safety, or their sanctity as the case might be) "Women and children first," right?
I sort of understand where it's coming from. I can tell you that if I witness or hear about a woman being harmed there is an fundamental, emotional level on which that is more upsetting to me than the same harm being inflicted on a man. It all feels very noble and magnanimous and it's easy to justify these feelings and reassure oneself that they are good and right, y'know, just give yourself a pat on the back for being such a courtly and respectful gentleman.
These feelings about protecting and elevating women are pretty common, they've been expressed a lot of times and places, historically speaking, but... what have they actually yielded? In terms of status of women and the things women actually want, these attitudes being common among men hasn't served women very well at all.
Now, I couldn't tell you why that is. Maybe there's just something about the way social structures evolve that mean a caste or group which is denied the chance to an equal share in risk and responsibility will never actually be able to possess equal privilege and power, no matter how much anyone might wish otherwise. Maybe men aren't able to extend this "magnanimous" attitudes towards women without becoming resentful or expecting something in return ie, The Red Pill who, seem to have similar ideas to you about inherent gender roles and have used those premises to conclude they should treat women like crap.
I can't tell you why it is, but it is.
Now, if you want to try to do a deconstruction, you're going to have to think a bit more about some things you're taking for granted: Ask if they're really true and if they are, why so.
Also, as others pointed out, you'll need to think about men as well. As long as you're thinking about men as some kind of default which women are a variance from, you're not going to be in a head space where you can say anything meaningful about gender roles.
For instance: You said if we treat women and men the same then we think nothing of punching a woman. So you would think nothing of punching a man? The man you punch will probably have a different view of the significance of it. Is that a default you're just willing to accept because that's how things are? People do think that way sometimes, but that's weird, that needs to be examined, you can't just shrug your shoulders at something like that and move on.
If you'd like to involve some kind of commentary on what feminists think you'll have to learn what feminists think.
Expand your notions about not killing women because they are not a threat, a bit. Try looking at some other examples from fiction of people not being killed for the sole reason that they are not a threat. I think that with some analysis you'll find that while the recipient of this sort of "benevolence" does not appreciate it and the person bestowing it is not shown as being a good person for doing so (and usually comes to regret it) very seldom is the message "The morally correct thing to do would have been to just kill everyone".
There are ways to expand on or explore "Kill the men, rape the women," other than killing the women. The "Men" in this case usually start at around 13 or 14 years old, which is pretty horrific to modern sensibilities.
What about old, crippled men? They are at least as much of a non-threat as young adult women in good health. What happens to them?
Killing unarmed, untrained civilian women because, "hey, what if they decide gender-roles are stupid and get training and weapons and come kill us back one day," is really no more or less evil than killing unarmed and untrained civilian boys for similar reasons. Even if you are convinced the latter group has the potential to form a more effective fighting group than the former, you're still slaughtering innocent people based on a vague notion that they might be a problem sometime in the future.
Slaughtering female noncombatants just moves the Shin's from evil with (sexist) standards to regular evil.
Regarding the prince who is going to use sleeping around as a super power... I get that you're wanting to create a situation where sleeping around is a rational best/most moral behavior available. It's coming off as contrived because that requires an awful lot of conspicuous elements to line up in a conspicuous fashion and everyone is noticing. I couldn't tell you how to "hide the gears" so to speak.
edited 3rd Nov '16 11:52:25 AM by ThePaul
My name's Ben.
Thanks for the response, it's very thoughtful and I appreciate the time you clearly put into it.
I'm trying pretty hard to avoid moral judgments in general. Kind of the idea that "women should appreciate the pedestal we put them on" reduces, in my non-judgmental framework, to "women are on a pedestal, for better or worse, which is up to you to decide." At least, that's what I'm shooting for.
I guess this is because the question of whether women "should" be thankful or angry or whatever isn't very interesting to me. If a woman told me that the pedestal is pure evil and we should eat all the baby males to end the patriarchy, my first reaction would be along the lines of "fascinating, how did you come to such a belief?" I'm much more interested in how people get to those positions than I am in the positions themselves.
And I think there's a lot of truth in what you said. Putting women on a pedestal and shielding them from danger has almost certainly lowered women's social status. Danger and status, I think, tend to be closely corellated. Neil Armstrong has such high status because he took enormous risk and because he was so skilled. However, if someone shielded Mr. Armstrong from the huge risks involved in traveling to the moon in a 1960's tech aluminum bubble, even with all the guy's copious skills, nobody would ever remember his name.
Do you think it's valid to compare risk-taking Armstrong with traditional conceptions of manhood and shielded-from-risk Armstrong with the traditional conception of femininity? This is kind of the idea I'm playing with. You can be high status or you can be safe, but you probably can't be both.
I'm also not sure these roles are inherent. The women I admire usually have a lot of risk tolerance and, as a teacher/professor, the overly timid female students I deal with (ie, the vast majority of them) genuinely make me sad. Developing a tolerance for risk is a huge part of every class I teach, at least it is when I get control over the curriculum.
"You said if we treat women and men the same then we think nothing of punching a woman. So you would think nothing of punching a man? The man you punch will probably have a different view of the significance of it. Is that a default you're just willing to accept because that's how things are? People do think that way sometimes, but that's weird, that needs to be examined, you can't just shrug your shoulders at something like that and move on."
Fascinating question. From my personal perspective, getting punched isn't a big deal. I've been involved in 3 or 4 fist fights stemming from sporting events and probably another dozen from when I worked as a security guard. The fact that another dude (or dudes) was trying to hit me in the face didn't particularly bother me at the time and it really doesn't bother me now. A 200 lb dude accidentally knee dropped on my privates yesterday (in the context of a jiujitsu match). It hurt but I'm going to forget about the whole thing in a week, tops. I've been hit before, I'll almost certainly be hit again and it's not a big deal. The only times it has bothered me were the two times (both security job related) the person trying to hit me was female and that's because I was worried about hurting the woman.
I don't think getting hit gets processed in this "eh, whatever" sort of way by most women. Once again, no moral judgment. If you think women need to toughen up, cool, and I'd like to hear why. If you think my lifestyle is barbaric, also cool and I'd like to hear why.
I'll give you an example of how I think things get processed differently. I got a phone call from an ex-girlfriend yesterday where she told me that her brother had punched her. She processed this as a serious violation, which I think is pretty typical. In my efforts to comfort her and advise her on what to do next, I got more of the story. First, her brother is in middle school and my ex is in her mid twenties. This carried the implicit assumption that a middle school male is more powerful/responsible than an adult woman. No judgment again, but that does seem odd. Second, she explained that he didn't really have a good reason to hit her. After all, she had "only insulted him and slapped his face." Once again, there's a huge difference in the way my ex was processing violence than the way I would process somebody trying to knock me out.
"If you'd like to involve some kind of commentary on what feminists think you'll have to learn what feminists think."
I'm trying. I took a couple of classes on feminism. I read the XX blog on slate.com. I read Atwood and Kingsolver. I've written papers on the "SCUM Manifesto." To be honest, I have a very hard time making a coherent system of out these things, though I do have a theory that divides the movement in two.
"Killing unarmed, untrained civilian women because, "hey, what if they decide gender-roles are stupid and get training and weapons and come kill us back one day," is really no more or less evil than killing unarmed and untrained civilian boys for similar reasons ... Slaughtering female noncombatants just moves the Shin's from evil with (sexist) standards to regular evil."
By the modern standards of a rich and powerful country, I completely agree. From the perspective of a 12th century Byzantine facing extinction at the hands of the Islamic Caliphate ... do you think the same standards would apply?
I ask because a lot of the ancient philosophers I've been reading are pretty adamant that the first duty of a general is to make sure those you've defeated don't take revenge on you. To take Machiavelli as a single example, you can do this by "love" or "force." If by love, you treat the defeated so well that they don't want to take revenge. This is basically what the US did to Japan and Germany after WW 2. If by force, you kill everyone who could be a threat so they can't take revenge. This is how Genghis and the rest of the Khans secured peace over their massive, multi-ethnic empire. Sun Tzu, Han Fei-tzu and Livy say similar things. Whether you should apply love or force depends on the situation, in their view, but the rationale is the same in either case - allowing a war to drag on is the worst possible result and must be avoided at all costs.
Once again, no judgment as to whether this is right or wrong, just that it is a way of thinking that existed for a long time.
"Regarding the prince who is going to use sleeping around as a super power..."
If you're interested, I would be happy to share the three scenes in which this sleeping-around-because-you're-being-nice pattern is established.
The idea, I should stress, comes from my reading of history. Screwing around was considered a morally good thing for very high status men in a lot of ancient societies. It's one of five attitudes on sexuality I'm including in the book.
The other four, if you are interested, are: 1. Heterosexual monogamy because this girl is awesome and the rest of "women" can go to hell for all he character cares. (Inspired by Ptolemy the Great) 2. Homosexual male who uses sexuality as a weapon to feminize enemies in his hyper-macho culture. (Inspired by Lycurgus) 3. Celibate female because pleasure is a variety of decadence and we should spend our time stomping out suffering before we even think of having fun. (Inspired by the writings of Augustine and the lives of about a million female Catholic saints, such as St. Catherine of Siena.) 4. Adulterous, heterosexual female who prefers slaves as an expression of class privilege. (Inspired by the dominant, Neo-Marxist theorists like Foucault and my sociology profs in college.)
edited 5th Nov '16 3:06:16 AM by garridob
Great men are almost never good men, they say. One wonders what philosopher of the good would value the impotence of his disciples.
Kazeto,
I posted here because Helomoto and Sharysa asked me to.
Hellomoto - "Could you post about your book in Writers' Block Daily? I want to hear about it, and I'm sure many people do."
Sharysa - "I'm going to be honest, that sounds like a FANTASTIC premise. "
The implied follow up question "why aren't you taking our advice?" Well, I am taking some of it. That said, the criticism I'm getting here is, as a whole, very different than the criticism I'm getting from the other groups I've been asking. You guys, especially with the assumption that everything my characters believe is an author avatar, are outliers. You guys also seem to have, how shall I say, stronger faith.
Nothing Unusual Here - Your criticism seems to be that I'm not morally judging women acting in their genetic self interest. If redpill says that women become groupies because they want money and security, I'd agree. It seems more respectful of the woman to say "she's out to get hers" than the radical feminist approach of "women are so weak and easily influenced that they are forced into being groupies by the mere presence of the patriarchy."
Also, I'd appreciate it if you and others could stop interpreting everything a character says or does as being an author avatar. It's getting a little aggravating and it's also impossible since all four POV characters have completely incompatible views on gender.
Sharysa,
Please read post number 14 in this thread, the part addressed to you. Once you understand it, I'm certain you will be able to post a better reply. Also, I need to clear something up. My story is more about men specifically and gender in general. It's not about women specifically. Lastly, I'm getting excellent feedback from women, just a lot of it isn't here. My friend the philosopher has been invaluable, for example, as has been my friend the sociology professor. Many of the ideas you see here came from these ladies, actually.
Eterna Memoria,
The idea that male sexuality is dirty is central to western civilization.
The Bible is full of it: biblehub.com/leviticus/21-7.htm
The church fathers were at great pains to explain the evils of male sexuality: https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/st-augustines-confessions/critical-essays/augustines-view-of-sexuality
Also, there's this: http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-male-gaze-mean-and-what-about-a-female-gaze-52486
https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/07/02/sexual-objectification-part-1-what-is-it/
http://americanantiquarian.org/dimenovelwomen/exhibits/show/character-tropes/the-ruined-woman
And finally, this absolutely makes no sense at all if you don't think male sexuality is dirty. After all, you can't be defiled by a clean thing.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DefiledForever
Dragonfire,
"You also need to think about what men would go through in a world where they and women are treated equally. "Women rights" are only one side of the coin when it comes to "men and women are treated equally." You need to consider how men would be affected by this change as well."
They're going to start taking on traditionally feminine roles, for both good and bad. Trust me, I have thought of this. Guys are also going to be more respectful to women. There's going to be more involuntary celibacy. There's going to be an economic boom and a population crunch.
Most of history has had a lot of eunuchs running around. It's not that difficult to find out how they behaved. I'm not saying it's a one to one comparison, but it will be in the back of my head as I'm writing.
Great men are almost never good men, they say. One wonders what philosopher of the good would value the impotence of his disciples.