Archived Discussion

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

Unknown Troper: I've moved Distressed Damsel to under the "Frequently sexist in execution or delivery, but not sexist in nature" category. A damsel in distress isn't sexist by nature, it's just a simplistic, if overused, plot device. If the damsel in question exists only to get rescued (ie, has no story impact otherwise), it's sexist. Otherwise, it's no more sexist than the gender flipped case, which isn't listed at all.

Violet: Why is Rape as Drama here? From the article I presume that its because its usually male on female, but is that really a double standard as it simply reflects real life.

Khym Chanur: Why is Death by Childbirth a double standard? Men can't get pregnant (at least not yet).

Ununnilium: Taking out:

More general examples:

Much of the humor and ecchiness of Mahou Sensei Negima, featuring a 10-year-old teacher and his female teenage students who don't seem to know the meaning of the words "sexual harassment", would be considered far less funny with the genders reversed.
Similarly, the Kanker sisters of Ed Edd N Eddy actually physically attack the title characters to get their romantic attention. The only reason it falls short of actual rape is that it's a kids show, so there's nothing sexual going on.

...because they're specific examples of Dismissed Gender.

I've got a problem with the formulation : some tropes exist because of a backlash against "traditional", misogynist sexism that went so far as to become a new form of misandrist sexism. Most of the exemples given as sexism against males are actually traditionnal sexism, in that they refer to traditionnal male model. It's not actually backlash.

Cliché: "This goes both ways; sexism also manifests as misandrist tropes. (Just look at this obviously female-biased introduction)" Okay, so instead of merely Lampshading the trope, why couldn't we simply avert it? The irony in all this is that the wiki frequently mocks this kind of behaviour, yet this engages in it in a different kind of Double Standard.

—-

Narvi: I don't follow why Hood Ornament Hottie is sexist against women. It's just Fanservice after all. Like a Page Three Girl.

Narvi: If nobody has any objection to it, I'm removing it. I see no Double Standard there besides men and women having different tastes in Fanservice.

Slvstr Chung: I just want to add a funny quote from an Orson Scott Card re-telling of Sleeping Beauty, Enchantment, which hopefully someone can use somewhere:

Ivan: A woman puts on her husband's shirt and we think it's charming. That it shows love and intimacy between them.

Katerina: And does the husband put on his wife's dress?

Ivan: Well, actually, no. I mean, some do, but we think of that as... strange.

Gentlemens Dame 883: Is there any page for other, non gender-related kinds of so-called "double standard", such as... well... No-Holds-Barred Beatdown is okay, it's "interesting" (would deliver some sort of Take That!, but this is not the place), but Curb-Stomp Battle is "boring"? Or anything else that might exist...

Is this an example of a trope? —Document N

Cliché: Due to the fact that the argument over whether Mary Sue qualifies on this list is getting overly cumbersome, but interesting (as I have a part in it), I decided to move it to purgatory and hope that we can continue our lovely discussion here, and maybe eventually come to a conclusion we all can agree on. ADD: I'm removing the rest of the justification for now.

Maybe because Mary Sues are universally loved, whereas Marty Stus are usually just universally talented, which is less annoying.
Unless the Stu is a whiny brat and/or a know-it-all.
Don't forget, Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls, and that's where most Mary Sue characters are synthesized. It also happened to be a woman that coined the term. It's simple creator demographics, not Double Standard.
Except that far from being restricted to fanfic, *male* Mary Sue characters are ubiquitous in mainstream fiction, but never recognised or called on it. Consider James Bond, Paul Atreides, Cletus Grahame, André-Louis Moreau, James T. Kirk, Peter Blood, Dillon Hunt, Bellarion Cane, and any number of omni-competent, near-superhuman, sex-god heroes from books, films and TV. It's not creator demographics, it is a double-standard based on our culture's assumption that ridiculous superiority is more believable in men.
First off, the assumption that "Mary Sue" being the original term displays sexism is still an association fallacy. Like I said before, a woman coined the term, and the "first" Mary Sue was a Parody Sue of the trend, which unfortunately ended up undergoing Flanderization, leading to its place here.Presenting, the Trope Namer. I'd love to see some female examples, because just listing off how Marty Stu is accepted doesn't necessarily show how Mary Sue isn't in canon, although I am aware that female characters tend to be judged according to a nastily thin line between Faux Action Girl and Mary Sue.

Nornagest: God, this page has gotten angry since I last looked at it.

Cliché: I hate how every single dang trope that could be considered even remotely offensive ends up here. It seems like people are willing to be offended by anything.

Removed the discussion under the Groin Attack listing. Regardless of who's genitals are more painful when attacked (That's what Troper Tales are for), it's still a Double Standard that women are never attacked here.

Cliché: Why is it a Double Standard? I personally find it hilarious, and I'm a guy with first-hand experience. Then again, the trope probably doesn't necessarily have to be an offensive Double Standard.

Pulled this: Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement

Real life reactions too. As this article illustrates, a woman who stays at home to care for their children is hardworking and respectable, and a woman who gets a job and earns money is lauded for breaking gender roles; a man who stays at home to care for the children is lazy, worthless, and unmanly. The couples in the article are notable in that the decision for the husband to stay home was mutual, meaning the women are, essentially, being supported by the courts (British courts heavily favor mothers in custody cases) for being fickle shrews.

Rann: So I'm guessing that at this rate, every single trope on the wiki will be listed here with some way it's been twisted into being gender-offensive by... oh, May at the latest.

((Jester))

>I've got a problem with the formulation : some tropes exist because of a backlash against "traditional", misogynist sexism that went >so far as to become a new form of misandrist sexism. Most of the exemples given as sexism against males are actually traditionnal >sexism, in that they refer to traditionnal male model. It's not actually backlash.

>Cliché: "This goes both ways; sexism also manifests as misandrist tropes. (Just look at this obviously female-biased introduction)" >Okay, so instead of merely Lampshading the trope, why couldn't we simply avert it? The >irony in all this is that the wiki frequently mocks this kind of behaviour, yet this engages in it in a different kind of Double >Standard.

Fixed some of the 'What about the MENZ!!' whining; the fact that we have this page is great and it shows an attempt to document the existence of sexism in the media by a great media site. Let's not have it clogged up by some man (who's making the other men look bad) whining that some Straw Feminist stole his precious privilege, plz. It's just ridiculous to act as if the Double Standard relating to gender cuts just as bad both ways; why have this page in the first place if that was the case?

Cliché: Prejudice is bad regardless of which group is being targeted. Admittedly, some men go too far, but downplaying sexism against men in general is simply reverse discrimination. I'm also flattered you decided to dig up a comment I made many months ago, especially after the comment I was referring to had already been removed.

Rann: I'd add you to the Straw Feminist page, if you weren't real.

Jester I'm not downplaying sexism against men, I admit it exists, but the page as it stands/stood gets the proportions wrong - it almost imples that there is an equal amount of sexism against men and women. You're not actually suggesting that that is true, are you?

Cliché Sexism is sexism. It's an archaic way of thinking to prioritize one kind of prejudice over another, like how the plight of blacks gets more attention than the plights of Native Americans. All it does is lead to Positive Discrimination and Acceptable Targets.

Rann: Right. The page isn't intended to be anyone's personal pulpit. Cutting or changing examples to make sure that one type of sexism is featured more prominently than the other, because someone's decided it has to reflect the amount of sexism they see in the real world, is just... well, sexist. Trying to say that all of the examples of sexism against men were added by one male, who's "giving all the rest a bad name", and that they don't deserve to be there or must be minimized to rail against sexism against women... honestly, that's all massively sexist. It's not up to you to decide the proper "proportions" need to be displayed. Honestly, until recently one of the things that I thought was great about this page was "Hey, a fandom-created page that actually acknowledges that men sometimes get the shaft (and isn't a slashfic)". I'd find it rather sad, depressing, and pathetic if it was just turned into another soapbox for, to put it how it was phrased above, "WIMMENZ IS BEIN UPPRESSED!!!1111!!!"

Jester: Um, hello. That's what the trope is about. The trope is about a Double Standard; it is about one group being priviledged over another. That's what the trope is. Saying men are equally oppressed is saying that a Double Standard doesn't really exist at all, and you should be campaigning for the removal of this trope.

As for the whole Native Americans vs Black people, way to totally illustrate my point for me. Those are both oppressed groups. What is happening here is not one oppressed group being priviledged over another, it is somebody arguing that the traditionally dominant group is oppressed at exactly the same level as the oppressed group. In your analogy, you are basically getting at me for daring to suggest that racism mostly affects people who aren't white.

I'm sorry to break this to you, but men are not an oppressed group. Men 'sometimes getting the shaft' doesn't warrant equal attention, for the same reason that there isn't a White History Month.

Cliché: This article (theoretically) merely points out the ways different genders translate to different treatment. Unfortunately, Flanderization has set in and now everything is shoehorned as sexist. This happens to be a problem in general, not just on the male side.

Anyways, prejudice doesn't necessarily affect only one side. Set gender roles in general are a hindrance to equality. Take My Girl Is Not a Slut compared to A Man Is Not A Virgin. For women, it's a horrendous inkblot on one's personality to lose virginity; for men, it's a responsibility lest one be seen as a loser. Either way, it's the same principle, yet it demeans both.

By the way, I'm rather flattered that you assume me to be pitymongering by merely suggesting that it's not a good idea to treat one form of prejudice as lesser than another. I sincerely apologize that my biological code prevents me from experiencing a lack of "privilege". Perhaps a sex-change operation could fix things up?

Rann: I doubt there's any reasoning with a real-life straw feminist. Best just to try and minimize any damage she'll do to the trope in pushing her own viewpoint.

Cliché: Oh, there's no need for name-calling, ya know.

Rann: Then why did you start it? Throwing things like "giving all the rest (of the men) a bad name" and accusing people of turning it into 'What about the MENZ!!' isn't exactly calm, reasoned, and polite discussion you know. Despite the way you're acting, people with penises do indeed have brains and feelings, and are both capable of feeling insulted and knowing when we're being insulted. So if you consider being compared to a straw feminist a bad thing, then I'll just suggest you try a little harder not to act like females are the only ones to develop human emotions.

Jester I wasn't the one who said you were name-calling. That was Cliche. In my opinion, calling somebody a real-life Straw Feminist is more nonsensical than insulting, so I'm not that bothered about it. The 'giving men a bad name' thing was put in primarily because I didn't want to come across as insinuating that all men have this weird pseudo-feminist persecution complex - the majority of men are perfectly reasonable. I suppose the difference here is that I was being insulting and dismissive to the general sort of guys who like to push the 'sexism is just as bad for men' card, and you are calling me specifically names.

I don't actually hate those guys, they just irritate me. I'll explain why, if I can, because it wasn't my intention at all to have a go at you personally. What is annoying about vocal male 'victims' of sexism is not their complaints themselves, which are often perfectly reasonable - yes, A Man Is Not A Virgin is bad. Yes, gender roles hurt you, too. The problem is a lack of perspective. Male oppression is not 'lesser' than women's in the sense that it's less important, it's just lesser in the sense that there is less of it. What annoys feminists is that men who have realised that sexism hurts them too get a little bit too into it, and start going on about it so much that any reader would think that there was an equal amount of sexism towards both genders, which just isn't true. Basically, it comes across as very self-centered - when from the man's perspective, all that's going on is that prejudice just feels worse when it applies to you. That's only human. However, what is needed is for those who are on the privileged side of the dichotomy to get a bit more perspective. Yes, if you're a virgin when you're thirty, people will think you're a loser. In some cultures, if a girl loses her virginity too soon or to the wrong person, she can be killed. It's different.

All I have changed on the page so far is things which I felt were factually incorrect - for example, somebody had claimed that Male Gaze and Female Gaze were cyclic tropes, which is only true if a few, mostly Played for Laughs inversions and subversions of the usual female-for-male fanservice equals one cycle, and 99% of all fanservice ever equals another.

Cliché: I feel a lot better now that you actually explained your points rather than implicitly accusing me of having a victim complex. Guess I don't have to spend a load of money on that operation after all!

Chocolatepot: Exactly, Jester.

Cliché: Um...Do you have anything actually substantial besides cheerleading to add? (05/21/09)

Gfrequency: I'm juuust a bit late to the discussion, but felt I should clarify something, as I'm the one who originally made the point that Male Gaze and Female Gaze are both prominent. Perhaps cyclic was the wrong word (and one I don't recall using, for that matter, but I could be wrong on that count), but are you actually claiming that 99% of all fanservice ever is intended for men? If so, that's just plain untrue. Have you never watched True Blood? Lost? Supernatural? Most currently popular TV shows? Any film ever made involving Hugh Jackman or Matthew Mc Conaughey? Honestly. Go to your local Wal Mart and look in the poster section. A quarter of the posters will be Tila Tequila or some other essentially interchangeable swimsuit pinup. Another quarter will be Robert Pattinson, Orlando Bloom, the Jonas Bros., et cetera, with their shirts unbuttoned. And the rest will be Halo 3. That said, I take no real issue with fanservice for either gender, so long as there's something else to the movie/show/game that features it.

Anonymous Internet Person: I was wondering why only gender-related double standards are discussed on the main page, and why they are considered to be exclusively a bad thing (perhaps because this is only in regards to double standards related to gender?).

Double standards exist that encompass things other than the whole gender binary dealio. A double standard is defined as "any code or set of principles containing different provisions for one group of people than for another". Age, race, social class, all sorts of stuff can be used to create double standards as well, and oftentimes double standards can even be considered justified.

For instance, consider the belief that it is immoral for children to consume alcohol, but acceptable for people older than a certain (widely-varying) age to imbibe. Also, the notion that it's okay certain people to use certain slurs as long as the person using them is a member of the group that the slur is targeted against (ie. it's okay for black people to call each other niggers, and gay people to call each other fags, but a white person can't call a black person a niger and a straight person can't call a gay person a fag) can be seen as a double standard as well. However, whether these are believed to be justified for one reason or another doesn't matter because by holding different people to different standards you would be engaging in a double standard.

The term itself can be neutral, but the justification behind holding double standards is prone to a whole lot of Moral Dissonance. So that said, I don't know why this is under the list of "bad" tropes, or why the definition used in the article covers such a narrow range of double standards.

TBeholder: First, because let's face it, for post-protestant cultures (let alone their freudistic offshot) sex is one of "default" themes, or no phrases like "talking about it | this" without providing specific context would be used. Second, ~~lurk a bit more~~ because most of the rest is covered on either "Screw The Rules I Have XYZ" pages or on N-Word Privileges respectively.

Whitelaughter Those figures on child abuse are flat out wrong. Figures from sexual abuse textbooks {frex Courage to heal, Victims no longer) put abuse of boys as being as prevalent as amongst girls, and interviews with child abusers indicate that most don't care what gender their victims are. Grab some more up to date figures, or cut the entire paragraph!

Leigh Sabio: Will someone please remove Rape as Drama from "sexist against women." Portraying women as always the victim is not any more sexist against women than portraying men as always the rapists is sexist against men. Should we never adress rape, even seriously and realistically for legitimate Emotional Torque? (Sorry, rhetorical) That sounds very much like Political Correctness Gone Mad to this (Female and feminist) troper.

Leigh Sabio, again: Moved it to "Frequently sexist in execution or delivery, but not sexist in nature."

Leigh Sabio: I think Vasquez Always Dies should be on the list. Does anyone second?

Twin Bird: I've removed...

[No Bisexuals is mostly "no male bisexuals" nowadays] because Girl on Girl Is Hot and Most Writers Are Male so...yeah.

Because it seems like another "but really, it's all men's fault" Justifying Edit, and, frankly, one I don't think is true. There's a definite advantage in pro-sex feminism to this idea, especially in the AIDS era.

Twin Bird: Sorry it took me so long. Let me be a bit clearer in my objections here.

Most Writers Are Male and Girl on Girl Is Hot are no more true today than they were five years ago, yet in regard to women, No Bisexuals is much less true.
Certainly, bisexual women are much more visible, or at least louder, in Real Life today than at that time. You're not accusing God of Girl on Girl Is Hot, are you?
In the twenty-first century, doubt is frequently cast on the existence of men being attracted, even slightly, to another man (other than Even the Guys Want Him jokes) while remaining attracted to women. The idea of "no bisexual women" generally refers only to "true" bisexuality, in the sense of "true" Scotsmen.
Bisexual men - MSM in general, but especially the female-infecting, less PC-protected bisexual men - remain demonized out of proportion to actual, admittedly somewhat damning, numbers in the continuing AIDS crisis. It's hard to use one without certain associations becoming expected, or the opposite.
This statement plays into an oppressor/oppressed narrative of patriarchy that, I feel, has contributed to the above; that is to say, I feel the lesser protection of bisexual men and their demonization comes somewhat from the fact that the narrative is in the form of Men Oppress Women, and Other Men to Do So, Explaining the "Reverse Sexism." It is bisexual men oppressing women by infecting them, and straight men oppressing bisexual men as a female-frightening "other" to associate with the male-frightening "other" of less-oppressive gay men, while simultaneously objectifying bisexual women. It is not that bisexual women wish to disassociate themselves from bisexual men, or that their nature plays into the concept of "fluid femininity, rigid masculinity"; it's all men's fault.
Please, please don't try to get your way through Edit Warring. If there's any reasonable doubt about the statement, for the time being, it shouldn't be there. If you feel the doubt is unreasonable, try at least posting something, for God's sake. GET UP HERE!

Alrune: Alright since I don't want to engage into Edit War either (despite what is assumed) and thought it was discussed on forum, I'm coming here. Sorry about the whole edit-back-and-forth thing.

So then, my purpose wasn't about saying something like "it's all men's fault" . It was just about stating something that has been verified many times. But since you've been pretty clear about your objections, I'll just explain myself and reply to your points.

Yes, exactly. Can't deny that.
I'm an Atheist so accusing God of anything makes no sense to me whatsoever. Girl on Girl Is Hot is a sure thing, as long as it serves men's fantasies. Porn speaks for itself in that matter.
There's a social bias against male bisexuality that doesn't exist against female bisexuality. Many scientific studies were lead in order to disprove its existence but none of them has come with a 100% irrefutable answer (qv The Other Wiki). However, there are many instances of male bisexuality to be observed throughout the world and historically many examples have been noted. The Down-Low is probably one of the most relevant examples of this but let's not delve too deep into this since there also many other factors to consider in this particular matter.
That's exactly what I'm trying to say. And it would be much refreshing to see a wholesome, drama-free one.
You're making this statement by yourself. Don't put words in my mouth, I had no intention of talking about patriarchy here. If you state yourself that it is "all men's fault" then so be it but I never said such a thing myself.

Twin Bird: Okay, sorry, I should have come back to this a long, long time ago. I guess someone somewhere sold you on this since I changed it around the time of the Adam Lambert scandal (with an edit summary ruder than it should have been) and it wasn't reverted. So.

So I hear you saying that one has changed, and the other hasn't, but there's still a causal relationship.
Um. Well, I didn't mean any literal God, I meant that the double standard was coming up even in Real Life interactions, where if there were a "writer," he would be God. Admittedly, though, that's a bit more strained the more I think about it.
Yes, exactly. There is a social bias against male bisexuality, and that's a large part of the reason for the double standard. It's not the desire for female bisexuality, at least not mainly, but the disdain for male bisexuality.
I'm sorry, but this seems to be the opposite of what you're trying to say; you're saying that the disparity is just because "bi girls are hot," which really seems to me to be downplaying the hostility towards gay and bisexual men.
But you're saying it's all men's fault, or primarily men's fault, right there. It's "because Most Writers Are Male," that's not much of a leap. Every time I look at the treatment of male sexuality in the past few decades, I can't help but think that it's the academic feminist movement's attacks on male sexuality vis-à-vis female sexuality that have shaped it to a degree, and it's hard not to connect that to a stigma in male homosexuality that in some ways even exceeds that of the forties and fifties. I can't condemn them for it, but I can condemn them for shirking the blame. But when you give a single reason that paints men in a bad light, when there are other reasons that paint men in a more sympathetic light, for an example biased against men, it really does feel like you're trying to fold it into that narrative.

When I'm watching a man who put his wife in the hospital say his piece on the same network that had blackballed a performing artist^*

the same day for reminding the country that gay men have sex with one another in between style tips, haircuts, romantic insight, and vocal lessons, I can't take this simplistic "the (tsk) men in charge do it for a wank" reasoning being cited as the cause anymore, even if I was the one who dropped the ball. "Go to hell" was something I shouldn't have said, but...well, never shop hungry.

Idler: The Millionaire Playboy is not the Spear Counterpart of the Rich Bitch. A Rich Bitch's defining traits are wealth and nastiness, a Millionaire Playboy's are wealth and having lots of sex with different people. Bruce Wayne is a Millionaire Playboy but I doubt anyone would call him a bitch, for example. He's too good a person.

Aquillion: Please do not try to discuss the validity of double standards in the description. That is even slightly not important; tropes are neither good nor bad, and the description therefore does not have to try and convince people either way. That topic is highly controversial and would require a massive essay just to provide even a fair overview of the most common interpretations. The back-and-forth sniping that started to blossom the instant the subject was brought back up is exactly the sort of thing that I trimmed the previous huge essay to avoid; it's sufficient to say that these tropes reveal our assumptions abousectionst genders, without trying to explore the extent to which those assumptions are valid — this is a quick description of the trope, not an essay about the larger place of gender in society.

It probably goes without saying, but I also hate the way the page is currently divided into 'sexist against XYZ' . There are so many things wrong with that. First, by separating things into sexist and non-sexist, you turn the charge of sexism unnecessary value judgment on the underlying reasons for a trope, which are complicated and not necessarily easy for anyone to dissect; it implies that the tropes under there draw on assumptions that are 'bitchslapping' a particular gender, while the ones that are "not sexist in nature" are not. This division is not meaningful. A distinction between tropes that reveal or embody a double standard, and tropes that are generally applied as a double standard might be more useful, but even then, there's going to be a huge amount of overlap.

Likewise, dividing it up by gender makes no sense, since genuine double-standard tropes usually reveal and imply gender roles for both genders. A Man Is Not A Virgin, for instance, implies an entire framework of sexuality that is applied to both sexes, even if the trope itself describes males.

Alrune: I agree with most of the things you say but I think planning to sugar-coat a page in the name of "correctness" or because it's too offensive is like putting a veil on the problem.

Sexism is sexism. Period. Trying to make it look like a more convoluted problem with many underlying implications doesn't help. Some tropes are sexist against one gender, some are sexist against both, others often put a gender down despite not being sexist per se. Sometimes yes there is more to the trope than its sexist aspect, sometimes there's not.

I understand that a Double Standard is supposed to concern both genders but currently it is divided in who gets put down by applying the trope in question and I believe it's a pretty fair way of doing it.

Idler: I'm not sure Charlize Theron being cast in Monster is an example of discrimination against unattractive looking actresses. They made her up to look really, genuinely hideous, not Hollywood Homely, so they would have had an easier time casting someone naturally bad looking, which suggests that she was cast purely on the merits of her acting.

Alrune: Feel free to remove it if you think it's inappropriate. I'll just point out that there has been a (short) fashion among beautiful actresses to alter their beauty in order to give themselves more depth. Nicole Kidman in The Hours is another example. But then again, Hollywood would likely never cast a really unattractive female in a major role and make her famous, which is why they chose regular actresses that accepted to make themselves ugly.

MercuryinRetrograde: Re: Women In Refrigerators"At best, it's a cheap method of applying Emotional Torque utilized by bad writers, as something bad happening to a woman is supposed to pack more punch than something bad happening to a man. At worst, it comes across as a terrible sort of subconscious male power fantasy." At _best_ it exploits a social meme that male death is less important then female death? Wow. Why is that the _best_ way of looking at it, ie. the way that sort of excuses it? Think about it. Appalling.

Gfrequency: Original editor here. Neither way of looking at it excuses it. The former is simply the least actively vicious. To clarify, as I can't help but feel my point's been missed entirely here: 1) When did I say it was excusable? 2) Of course the perception that male deaths are somehow less important than female deaths; I did say that something bad happening to a woman is supposed to be more heinous than something similar happening to a man; this is clearly the accepted social view, particularly in America. I did not say it is more heinous. It's a cheap method of exploiting the unfortunate preconception that women are less capable of taking care of themselves and therefore must be looked after by men or else come to harm. While regrettable, do I find this interpretation of the trope less horrifying than the possibility that the writer is getting off on a subconscious desire to see a powerful woman brought "down to size" and devalued through rape or butchery? Yes. Yes I do. "At best" does not mean "good."

MercuryinRetrograde: I don't think society's indifference to male suffering and/or death(when compared to female) is less horrifying. I think it may be more horrifying because, at least, most people automatically think a guy who fantasizes about raping and killing women is evil. Whereas most people think our indifference to male suffering is either justified or irrelevant. (Evil is banal, after all.) Incidentally, isn't that somewhat slanderous? Saying that these specific authors(who are specifically identifiable by their specific works) fantasize about raping and killing women?

Alrune: Many fans do. Why wouldn't the authors?

MercuryinRetrograde: Yep. Fans are f-ed up. Gorn for Girls

Alrune:

@ Mercury In Retrograde: I read your page darling, I know where you're coming from. I know that in Real Life, many women use the Wouldn't Hit a Girl trope in order to get their way and that many Double Standard tropes are demeaning to men. I know you must be somehow tired of Straw Feminist always shouting they want equality, and that women are NOT automatically Closer to Earth.

I saw your and Twin Bird's editing. I think you're not doing the page a great service by simply making it more complacent towards males by putting an equivalent in each and every female trope. Baby, don't be a troll. Replacing a bias by another is not solving any problems. I mean yes, there are tropes that are outrageous against men such as Men Are the Expendable Gender and Pedo Hunt. But there ARE also tropes that treat women like shit.

Most Writers Are Male hence there IS more bias against women since men tend to describe them in a fashion that is often far from accurate, themselves not being women. The whole Moustache de Plume thing further supports this.

Don't get me wrong Double Standard IS unjustifiable, whichever gender it's aimed at.

Also, as for your whole Gorn For Girls being Ryona's counterpart thing, it's not. It WOULD have been if it featured a woman martyring a man. But Gorn For Girls is just a redundancy of Guro, a genre that is exactly what you described and that applies to both men and women.

PS: I read your page. You're NOT a woman.

MercuryInRetrograde: As I posted in the discussion page of Ryona, the point is that a female(male) creator is depicting and enjoying violence done against a male(female) character. If you want to get really technical, there is so much acceptable female-on-male violence in media, no one has to recreate it in fanworks. Just like het tends to be less common in fanfiction. It's partly the thrill of the forbidden.

When I first came across yaoi guro, as a yaoi fangirl, I just shook my head and moved on. But then I saw the Ryona entry and was like... look at all that bitching about how evil men are! Yet I've seen ten times worse from women.

I can't really prove that I'm a woman. *shrug* But glad to have challenged another gender traditionalist's assumptions about what constitutes male and female traits.

Alrune: You don't challenge anything. You just support the same Double Standard you seem to oppose by being biased against women, making it worse if you're a woman yourself (which I somehow find hard to believe but whatever).

I understand you statement about Guro on men, but the same exists on women. It's not a Double Standard, it's a genre - a gruesome one yes - that applies to both men and women, hence not sexist. If you need to know, I first didn't think Ryona was that much of something that needed to be addressed to but after reading many comments and talking to viewers, I figured it might need to be put in the spotlight for everyone to know. Yes I said that Ryona lovers were twisted, I never said something along the lines of "ALL MEN ARE TWISTED". I think this genre does men a great disservice, just like the overuse of All Men Are Perverts with almost no All Women Are Lustful in many works of fiction.

And I'll repeat myself, replacing a bias by another more appealing to you doesn't solve anything.

MercuryinRetrograde: I'm not biased against women, I'm biased against people thinking that women are somehow less human. That they don't have the same struggle with evil as men, that they don't have the same dark desires. Particularly when there is evidence that they do.

Ryona is just as much a subset of Gorn as Gorn for Girls is. No need to single it out and point fingers at men. Or say things like "Often leads the female viewer to further believe that All Men Are Perverts." [1]◊

Alrune: I'm happy you made your position clearer. Still there is something you seem not to understand.

My problem is NOT to deny the existence of Gorn For Girls or soemthing like this. It's that it's already treated under Guro so it's a redundancy. But thinking about it, I believe the problem is more with your examples actually. Your examples would be much more convincing if they featured female-on-male violence/maiming etc... because as it is, it only features male-on-male violence, supporting one mroe time the idea that women can't hurt men with sex. Also, I think you should develop more in your entry.

MercuryinRetrograde: I think they support more HetIsEw. IME, women seem to be more interested in drawing/writing media that depicts man-on-man. I think it may be due to the fact that these relationships/situations are inaccessible to women, therefore they have much more exotic allure. (Or it may be my own sample bias as a yaoi fan.)

MercuryinRetrograde:It's more then just I want women to be seen as fully human, which includes human frailties and evils. I also think it's my social duty to protect men from this kind of 'guilty until proven innocent' gender-smearing. Most of the men I know are decent human beings with human failings, just like most of the women I know are the same. I believe it leads to Men Are the Expendable Gender as it gives the average person the impression that all men are guilty of something thus unworthy of audience compassion or sympathy. When I see something like Ryona, with it's last line implicating all men, I see this dynamic playing out and my instinct is to say 'yeah, but women are just as guilty.' Not because I think women are worse, but because I think men and women are equal. (It just seems like I'm playing one side of the field because of the overabundance of the 'men are bastards' meme.)

Alrune: If you think that I was trying to put down men one more time by putting this last line, you're mistaken. I've written this from my own experience about female's reaction to Ryona and yes it's usually something around the lines of All Men Are Perverts.

I understand your view about men being considered perpetually as expendable or as Complete Monsters who love mistreating women and children. But fact is, tropes like Ryona, Women In Refrigerators, Female Success is Family and Monster Misogyny are not helping to change this. And let's not even get to Most Writers Are Male, Most Gamers Are Male or worse Moustache de Plume. Yes, men are far from responsible for all these tropes' existence. Meddling Executives are. And they mostly cater to a male audience that is considered to be macho, stupid and looking like a standard TV-advert male. It's a vicious circle.

My purpose upon creating Ryona was to inform people about this trope. Yes, I'm being harsh. But the conversations I've had with people who enjoy watching Ryona vids were far from pleasant, especially when they knew I was a woman. Once more, I believe it's not doing men any good. If men want to disprove the whole "men are bastards" meme, they must take notice and acknowledge the existence of such genres because it simply furthers the idea of them being "guilty until proven innocent".

MercuryinRetrograde: I've never really engaged the women who draw Gorn for Girls in conversation but I imagine I wouldn't appreciate their view point very much either. It sounds like you think AllMenArePerverts and MenAreTheExpendableGender are justified until men shut down the small minority of men who like Guro. Your message is: 'Men need to make this small minority of men behave! Or society will continue to treat all men as disposable!' Or, perhaps, 'Because a small minority of men don't behave, all men deserve to be treated/viewed badly.' Well, I can tell you now that this is an impossible condition. There will always be men who behave badly and like things you don't like because men are human. And other men won't have any way of stopping them because they are human too and not omnipotent god-like beings.

In fact this entire construction, blaming all men for the actions of a few, ties into traditional constructions of gender very well. Ryona's assumption is that men have the ability to stop this behavior somehow, thus deserve to be punished for allowing it to continue. But what if they don't? What if, instead of super-potent, men are impotent in this situation? And what Ryona is assuming is brazen bastardry is actually ineffectual weakness.

I seriously doubt men have the ability to change this stuff at all, in fact I think women have more social potency when it comes to saying things like 'these stereotypes hurt me or someone I care about.' Thus it may be time for women to step up and say 'these stereotypes about men are not acceptable'—and not justified because of a minority of men doing X bad thing—because men are weak in this area.

Alrune: That's not what I meant.

I never said neither did I meant that men where Acceptable Targets because Ryona existed. Nor do I blame the entire male population for the misdeeds of a Vocal Minority either. You're quick to put words in my mouth.As you may have noticed, I have removed the last sentence from Ryona's main page. I said I put that there because this is the reaction I've mostly had when female viewers got to know it. And that's all.

Men don't deserve being viewed badly as a whole. I never said such a thing. Just because I state the unfortunate motivations of Ryona viewers as they are doesn't imply all men are just the same. I'm no Straw Feminist with an agenda against men and I readily recognize that men get just as much flack from the Double Standard as women. If you look up the history of the Double Standard page, I also put up there tropes that are sexist against men.

But Most Writers Are Male. It's a fact. Also, many do practice the Double Standard thing unknowingly because, as you said earlier, there is a whole societal construction around Double Standard that many of them are so deep-rooted in our minds that we don't even notice we abide by them. And said writers are not "bad" writers. They just know less about how a woman would react in said situation since they're no women, just like women know less about male's reactions in certain given situations because they're not men. And sometimes the Double Standardis intentional. And it's not more acceptable for males than for females.

MercuryinRetrograde: I don't think MostWritersAreMale means that men can change anything. The people who are capable of social change are quite distinct from the people who gain prestige through parroting comfortable memes and social truthies. If male writers challenged the status quo, they may well see an end to their careers. Not only that, but they may be so emotionally invested in the gender dynamics of society (man strong; woman weak) that they can't conceive that men might need sympathy.

I think women, far more then men, set the social agenda. And the social agenda decides what's considered acceptable for main stream consumption. (Internet, being a Monster from the ID, is sort of the exception to this.)

Alrune: Maybe you're right. It's true that many men just can't challenge the gender roles they are given by default but are rather expected to enforce it. I think some men DO want (and need) sympathy but in our society, it's way too often equated with weakness when such a thing comes from a man for any of them to explicitly state it.

But women are not much more powerful when it comes to putting up a social agenda. At least not for now. But I'd be really happy to witness such a change or to be part of it. I think you should check out Mother Nature, Father Science...

MercuryInRetrograde: Having the power to maintain the status quo doesn't mean you have the power to change it. For the last couple generations one of the main reasons these tropes have evolved and changed is because women have said they were unacceptable(although there were also women saying the changes were unacceptable as well.) It seems to me that often the people who loose most from the status quo are the ones most invested in maintaining it and believing its rationales. It's bad to be hurt, yes, but it's far worse to be hurt because you're a dupe, better to believe you're a white knight taking knocks and not a patsy being played.

I'm not sure what you wanted me to take from Mother Nature, Father Science but I will say this. I've noticed that many people who believe that men are more intelligent but somehow less human(lacking the full range of human emotion) often also think that Asians are more intelligent then white people but also less human. I don't think that kind of stereotyping is beneficial to Asians and in the exact same way, it's not beneficial to men.

Gfrequency: I give up. Every time I add something in as non-confrontational a fashion as possible, someone else edits it to include some sort of sniping at the opposite sex.

Alrune: Since I last made the edits, may I ask what you're talking about? I just tried to sum up the longest entries and develop some other ones...

Gfrequency: Honestly? It's probably just me being in a sour mood and reading too much into the edits made, for which I apologize. The addition to the Fanservice entry seems extraneous and I was probably assuming too much to say it was meant to imply that All Men Are Perverts. Condensing the second half of the Moe entry (which was not one of my contributions to the page) without touching the first, on the other hand, seems to skew it toward implied chauvinism rather than a true Double Standard, and the addition to No Bisexuals was just snarky. Adding Most Writers Are Male and Girl on Girl Is Hot to any trope touching upon homosexuality seems just as disingenuous as adding Men Are the Expendable Gender as a gender-flip to any trope involving the gruesome death of a female character.

MercuryInRetrograde: Ah, f*ck it.

Alrune: Look, Armor Piercing Slap and Girls Hit Harder Than The Villains ARE ONE AND THE SAME PAGE! This is why I deleted it. Nothing else. Just putting two alternative titles in a list is redundant and useless. If you want to put your text in Girls Hit Harder Than The Villains, then just do so but don't make two entries for the same page.

As for Stalker with a Crush, the trope itself is NOT sexist by nature. It's a gender-neutral characterisation. Now the playing of it, that's another story and I fully agree with what you wrote. Anything else?

MercuryinRetrograde: Cut "being sexually submitted is humiliating to men but normal for women" from the entry beside Rape Is Comedy When Its Male On Male

I'm hoping this was just badly phrased, but to me it implies one of three things:

1. All heterosexual sex is rape for women (this is not being sexually submissive, this is rape.) 2. That male-on-male rape is seen as _worse_ then male-on-female rape because it is seen as humiliating to men whereas male-on-female rape is not seen as humiliating to women 3. Something even more incoherent.

Alrune: Maybe I'm just wording it badly.

I didn't intend to mean anything around those lines. What I meant is that, since men aren't supposed to get raped, it doubles the feeling of being humiliated because they are being degraded to female status. Yes it's very sexist against both males and females but that's how it works. Being submitted is something men tend to stomach even less than women in general due to what society expects from them. Women live in the fear of getting raped because it comes with the territory when you have a vagina. Not saying that women OUGHT to live in that fear but it's an innate reaction. For men, not as much since they are not supposed to be potential victims in general.

But I don't know how to explain it properly. Maybe you can do better than me?

MercuryInRetrograde: Maybe I'll start with an assumption I'm seeing in your post. "Women live in fear because they have vaginas". Rape is not being penetrated; it's being forced to have sex against your will. Having a vagina does not make women more vulnerable to rape in and of itself. Men have sexual organs that can be abused as well. It's just that, in our society, we see men's sexual organs as somehow invulnerable or even weaponized. Conversely men's vulnerability in this area(groin attack) is the height of humor—I wonder if it's the paradox between seeing penises as invulnerable yet simultaneously highly vulnerable that creates the humor. We could easily hold the same attitude to women's sexual organs as this attitude is entirely arbitrary. Vaginas and penises, both constructed of similar stuff and both vulnerable to injury are not objectively more or less invulnerable, nor is either more innately weapon-like. (Contrast swords with bear-traps for example and remember both are made of steel, not tissues.)

As for being 'degraded to the status of a woman'. I agree there does seem to be that dynamic, particularly in prisons. However it's another paradox. The same men who are 'degrading other men to the status of women' by raping them are also the same men who would brutally murder and rape those men in prison for DV or rape of women. So while they're seeing women as degraded, they're also violently opposed to degrading them. Or maybe, although they see women as vulnerable and vulnerable men as superficially womanly, they don't think a 'real man' exploits women's vulnerabilities although it's perfectly acceptable to exploit men's. A woman's vulnerabilities elevate her to the status of protected person; a men's vulnerabilities lower him to the status of acceptable target.

Just as an aside, one thing that really eased my fear of rape was the realization that, in general, rapists are rape victims themselves. Actually, re-contextualizing women's vulnerabilities in relation to men's was, and continues to be, liberating to me on a personal level.

Alrune: I agree with most of what you said here.

Still, I believe that women fear rape more than men do and not because of how society relates to genitalia. It has more to do with the fact that women, being physically weaker than men, are likely to be successfully subdued and forced since seldom can a vagina impede penetration while men can't be raped by women unless they are put under some drug. It doesn't mean that women can't hurt men with sex, it just means that they can't outright force him to have an intercourse; whereas another man who is stronger than the male victim can much more easily have his way.

Gfrequency: Removed Female Gaze and Male Gaze. Both entries were essentially saying the same thing. It also occurred to me that neither are inherently sexist. They're both fanservice tropes, nothing more, and fanservice is already covered under its own entry. Likewise, the natter beneath Male Gaze is already addressed in Right Through His Pants. Cleaning up redundancy, more or less, though if someone thinks they really do belong here, by all means....

MercuryInRetrograde: "men can't be raped by women unless they are put under some drug". This isn't true. Men can become erect due to stress or fear; they normally have erections while asleep. An erection is an involuntary reaction to a lot of different stimuli; it isn't always a signal of sexual desire. So men can be raped by women pretty much in any situation where you can imagine the reverse. As for women being physically smaller; guns and knives are great equalizers, as are threats of violence by proxy. (One man I know was compelled to submit because his rapist threatened to tell the cops he had raped _her_.)

Alrune: Guns and knives are great equalizers

Do you always walk around with a gun or a knife in any given situation? I don't. Firstly because, in Europe, guns are strictly forbidden to anyone who doesn't hold a licence to wear firearms. Second, because having a knife that is longer than 2 inches is also forbidden unless you need them for your job (butcher, cook etc...). In the absolute, what you say is true. But when it comes to bare hands confrontation, only a superiorly trained woman can actually stand a chance to an equally trained man. Also, if the woman is petite, she's not at an advantage against a 6'2'' or taller man. Like any man her height that's true but men have greater upper body muscular strength on the average. Women can also be strong but we are stronger in the leg area (obligatory for childbearing) and have denser bones but it isn't an advantage when it comes to physical confrontation. BTW have you ever been in a REAL hand-to-hand fight against a trained man? Or even in a REAL fight against another woman (Cat Fight does NOT count, I mean fight with punches, kicks and intent to kill)?

Threats of violence by proxy

Now this can work.

As for men having compulsive erections, it's true. But when a man isn't willing, it's much more difficult for a woman to have him become erect. If the man really doesn't want to have his erection, he won't. Also, some men are impotent which makes them impossible to rape by women. By men, that's another story.

Um, at the last paragraph of the above: I am guessing you are female, and Did Not Do The Research, because no, a man cannot prevent himself from having an erection just by really not wanting to get one. It is true that not all men get erections with equal ease, but it is not something that is consciously controllable by any man. The closest you can come to controlling it is calming yourself, and focusing your thoughts on something calm and unexciting — and this is under optimal conditions, in a relaxing environment, and half the time it's still like trying not to think of pink elephants. In a stressful situation like a confrontation, it is not realistic. This often leads to embarassment for young men who get erections at inconvenient times (and of course, trying to will the erection to go away just makes things worse for them) — and no, men do not get some sort of magical ability to turn off an involuntary body function as they get older, either, although they may not get erect as often or as easily (which is obvioulsy not the same as being able to control it).

Anyway, the fact that men are stronger than women on average is not relevant in all situations, and does not prevent men from being raped. For starters, many rapes (of either sex) happen with the use of drugs or intoxication by the attacker, and if a man is either drugged or drunk, it doesn't really matter if he's ten times stronger than the woman who wishes to take advantage of him — he won't be able to resist anyway, and probably won't even realise what's going on until afterwards.

Also remember that one Double Standard in many societies is that it is more acceptable for a woman to hit a man than for a man to hit a woman. (Obviously, this doesn't stop those men who perpetrate domestic violence, but it does have a great impact on many men). This alone may give a woman the edge in attacking a man — he may have never been in a genuine fight with a woman before, and he might have had it drilled into his head from early childhood that hitting a girl is wrong under any circumstances, so he might choose to let the woman take advantage of him rather than fight back well enough to escape. What takes place in such a scenario is still rape.

Another Double Standard — men are supposed to want sex all the time. Men know that this is expected of them. A man who is being raped might feel a conflict as a result: He knows he doesn't want to have sex, but he's a man, and since puberty he's been bombarded with the message that he should pretty much always be willing and ready, so how can this be? This, too, can make resisting more difficult from a psychological perspective rather than a physical one. And afterwards, it adds extra problems if the man tries to report the crime — in many places, the response he will get if he says that he was raped would be, "you're a guy, so what's the problem?" A female attacker might take this into account, knowing she may be less likely to face consequences as a result.

Also, what does it matter if you do not "always walk around with a gun or a knife in any given situation?" Obviously, if someone is planning to commit an assault, it is not "any situation!" They may take a weapon with them even if they don't normally carry one around — and since they are already intending to commit a very serious crime, local laws restricting weapons may not be enough to stop them anyway.

Mind you, of course it is true that in the majority of rape cases, women are victims, and men the attackers. But please don't try to make the rape of a man by a woman sound completely implausible by using bad or irrelevant arguments. In particular, the suggestion that a man can somehow will himself to not have an erection strikes me as particularly insulting — it basically implies that you think every time a man is raped, he must have not really wanted to prevent it. In other words, Blaming the Victim.

MercuryInRetrograde: "Mind you, of course it is true that in the majority of rape cases, women are victims, and men the attackers." Actually, I think statistically the majority of rape cases a man is both victim and attacker. This is because rape in prison outnumbers rape outside of prison. I've also read surveys of college men and women that put victimization rates of rape and sexual assault comparable between the genders. (Men were around 40% of victims). Plus due to social stigma surrounding male rape victims we really have no accurate way of assessing the situation. What you say may be true, but it's not proven definitively.

Gfrequency: Bear in mind also that not all men are hulking gorillabeasts and not all women are frail and weak. Of course a petite woman is at a disadvantage against a 6'2" man, but you're taking it to extremes on both ends of the spectrum. If that's your point of contention, I could easily point out a close female friend of mine who's 6'3" and could very easily beat the crap out of me if she were so inclined. My sister is two inches taller than me as well (I'm about average height), and quite capable of taking care of herself physically. What you're saying is true enough on average - women do fear rape more than men, and most reported rapes are male-on-female - but to claim that women are entirely incapable of fighting simply doesn't hold true across the board, nor does the assumption that a man can't be taken advantage of by a woman by means of physical force. You can generalize across a population, but not among individuals. And many people would take issue with the notion that lower body strength is useless in a fight.

MercuryinRetrograde: Re: lower body strength. Ever tried to overpower someone with a strong closed guard? Most real fights go to the ground anyway.

Alrune: My question remains, have you ever been in a REAL fight yourself against a man or a woman? Also, have you ever been a victim of a rape attempt.

Alrune: The difference between Abusive Parents and Evil Matriarch is that Abusive Parents has mostly instances of abusive fathers BECAUSE Wicked Stepmother and Evil Matriarch already exist. There is no such trope as Abusive Fathers or Evil Patriarch hence all examples of "bad" fathers go to Abusive Parents, while "bad" mothers are already dealt with by Evil Matriarch and Wicked Stepmother.

As for Evil Matriarch being sexist underneath, that's another matter. The term "matriarch" implies power-wielding and power-wielding women (except for the seldom seen High Queen) are all regarded with at best suspicion, at worst mistrust because "Only a fool would take orders from a woman" (qv God Save Us from the Queen!). And since a matriarch, particularly if the father is absent, is a woman who wields power over her family...yeah. And there are almost no instances of a good matriarch, other than in a Lady Land Mary Suetopia.

Hence Abusive Parents being sexist underneath does not apply here. If most instances are male, it's not a matter of characterisation, it's a matter of non-existence of a particular Evil Father sub-trope and already existing sub-tropes about bad mothers.

MercuryinRetrograde: To be honest, I don't have the energy to argue with you anymore. So much of this page is completely arbitrary whining, I don't even know where to begin. I wish society had as little tolerance for listening to women whine as it does for men. But that's not to be. The pendulum swings; the broken record repeats.

As for my personal experiences regarding fighting and rape; I prefer not to share. Thanks.

Alrune: Welcome.

Strangely, your own entries are often nothing else than reverse whining. Yet you seem highly knowledgeable and intelligent. I don't know what you were trying to prove. Were you just trying to say that there is no such thing as misogyny in the media? Or, if there is, it's insignificant compared to misandry? I don't know.

Just bear in mind that media and Real Life, despite being linked, are not copies of each other. While I agree with you that Western women complain way too much in Real Life and that seldom do they realize that they are highly privileged in comparison to women from less advanced countries, I think there are some things worthy of discussion about how women are depicted by men in media, and conversely about how women view men in media such as Lifetime Movie of the Week. That's all.

MercuryInRetrograde: "Strangely, your own entries are often nothing else than reverse whining." I don't think you can 'whine-by-proxy' but regardless. In my estimation the entire double standard for women can be distilled down to one cultural artifact: We value women's femaleness more then their personhood. Conversely we devalue men's maleness. This has everything to do with Chickification, Most Common Super Power, and Right Through His Pants. We over-emphasize femininity to an insane, annoying and pathological degree that, although men seem to enjoy it, I think many women can agree is exhausting and tedious. (Side Rant: If guys want to get an idea of how exhausting and tedious it is, they should go to a gay men's clothing/magazine store and just stand in the center of it and soak in the atmosphere. Most won't be able to stand it for fifteen seconds. That's what it's like for women in our society EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN DAY. And then we're constantly subjected to whining about the miniscule amount of fanservice aimed at women that's starting to crop up.)

Making femaleness a net positive and maleness a net negative leads to some really stupid attitudes towards both. On the one hand you have female characters treated like Mac Guffins—important because of a feature they have, their 'femaleness' but completely lacking in any other characterization and carted around like a child. On the other hand, male characters have to 'make up' for their maleness by being extra self-sacrificing, extra pro-active, extra-stoic, essentially extra-adult (or they're not sympathetic characters). Women have too little to live up to; men have too much.

Alrune: I really wish you would have said that to begin with.

Because I fully agree with what you say.

Like you said we emphasize and idolize femaleness NOT femininity. IE extra emphasis on physical appearance, ability to seduce men and mother children. In other words, the basic things that any woman can do. About maleness, men are supposed to be the "doers" that actually participate in the society's life and must live up to impossible standards that are indefinitely increasing. Women are treated like accessories, a little like we treat children nowadays, who only exist in relation to men. Men are supposed to be overachievers, overperformers, over everything.

About femininity, it's treated as a weakness, as seen in What Measure Is a Non-Badass? and Real Women Never Wear Dresses. It's treated as a childish, ineffectual and silly way of dealing with things when it should actually just be the way women deal with things as opposed to how men do with none presented as better than the other. Just a neutral aspect of reality like Harmony Versus Discipline.

All in all, nothing has changed. If you look closely, today's society has simply become more subtle in how it attributes gender roles. And it's still incredibly imbalanced as you said: too much to live up to for males, too little for women.

girlyboy: I'd disagree on a couple points with both the above: Firstly, women are not always held to a lower standard than men. Remember Closer to Earth? Often, women are expected to be more mature than men, and it's a cliche that a woman has to work twice as hard as a man to be taken as seriously. Women are expected to work full-time and still pick up their husbands' dirty laundry, and can't get away with things that men can get away with on the philosophy of "boys will be boys." So I do not think it is accurate to say simply that society holds men up to high standards, and women to low ones. I think it's more that by default, much more is expected of men than of women, which is both insulting to women and over-demanding for men, but if a woman wants to achieve something, a lot more is expected of her than would be expected of a man, if she wants to earn the same level of respect.

Also, "when it should actually just be the way women deal with things as opposed to how men do": I think the idea that there's a female way to deal with reality, and a male way, is part of the problem. It's a kind of essentialism. Until society as a whole accepts that there is no such thing as a female way and a male way to do things, we will always have some brand of sexism, because it will always lead to black-and-white "girls are like this and boys are like that" thinking, which will always be unfair to both sexes, and will always unfairly pressure people to fit into rigid molds that they might not want to fit into on the basis of their sex.

Dissonant: Characterizing something as "whining" is one of the first steps toward intellectual marginalization. It is possible for intelligent, well-intentioned people to disagree without one of them trying to establish anything untrue or offensive.

Not that I disagree with Alrune about anything (well, except the female-on-male rape thing), I'm just sayin'.

First edit, please excuse my noobness.

MercuryInRetrograde: "Often, women are expected to be more mature than men," Expected to be? Or portrayed as? We're not really shown the process by which women are shown to become 'more mature'; I don't think I've ever seen a 'maturity' boot camp wherein a female character proves her maturity metal whilst less mature women are washing out left and right. I think in order for this to be expected of women like being a badass is expected of men, you'd have to show female characters failing to live up to the maturity ideal. A lot of them. In the same proportions as there are mooks to heros. And they'd have to be openly mocked or treated with contempt or simply get the maturity crap kicked out of them. Like with men. Not every male character is a badass, and the ones who aren't are laughed at. In fact usually there's one or maybe two male badasses and the rest of the male characters are comedy relief, cowards, cowardly assholes, villains, mooks or dead.

Basically, in order for this to qualify as an 'expectation' there has to be very visible situations where women fail to live up to it. Otherwise it's just a case of race ability; women are just more mature because femaleness is more mature then maleness.

"and it's a cliche that a woman has to work twice as hard as a man to be taken as seriously." I've heard a lot of people say this, but I've never seen proof. Thus it strikes me as a generally accepted, but completely vacuous 'truthie'.

So what you're saying is that the average Action girl has to save twice as many Distressed Misters as a hero has to save Distressed Damsels to be seen as heroic? How would we go about testing this?

Gfrequency: Must agree with girlyboy on this one. What's wrong with double standards isn't that they're sexist against women or men - it's that they exist at all. It's the old "nature vs. nurture" argument, of course, and I doubt anyone is going to say anything final on that anytime soon. But yes, I believe that if we didn't simply cram predetermined gender roles down the throats of our children from the moment we put boys in blue blankets and girls in pink, if we didn't assert so aggressively that there must be a fundamental difference in thought, word and deed between one half of the species and the other, we wouldn't have most of these tropes.

girlyboy: Um, about adding a "non-gender-related" folder (which was added with the comment "While Gender roles are a large source of Double Standards, I figured that it wasn't the ONLY source of course.") : I think this trope was intended from the start to be about gender specifically, so yes, in the context of this trope, I believe gender actually is the only source of double-standard. Perhaps the trope should be renamed, to something that makes it clear that it's about gender, as opposed to all double standards found in Real Life? Anyway, the first paragraph of the article reads: "Double standards for the genders are Older Than Dirt; separate gender roles have existed for hundreds of thousands of years [...] A double standard trope exemplifies this; these are tropes whose persistence reveals our collective assumptions about gender roles, drawing in one fashion or another on enduring, often unspoken assumptions that men should be like this and women should be like that. "

So... this trope is about just gender, and nothing else. I think there are a few possibilities here:

Re-write this trope so it is NOT just about gender, changing all the description text. I strongly oppose this, because, well, that's not what this trope is about, and because gender specifically is a pretty big deal, so it makes sense to have a trope about gender-based double-standards specifically. But, this is the way it's going now, with the addition of the non-gender folder.
Create a new trope for non-gender double-standards, move the contents of the "non-gender" folder to this new trope, and delete it from this page; add a "see also" link to this new trope in the Double Standard description. (However, this seems like it would be a very broad super-trope. I mean, what would you even call it? "Stuff that is generally unfair in one way or another?") Does anything like this exist already? Maybe a This Index Is Unfair could be made instead?
Re-name Double Standard to make it clearer that this is about stuff related to gender specifically, so that other stuff doesn't get added; simply delete the non-gender examples, or move them to other more specific tropes.

What say you?

Gfrequency: Brief justification of Screaming Woman edit - I'll agree it's part of a double standard, but the reason given just plain wasn't true. I don't mean any offense by this. Maybe it was true before the late seventies, but movies made within the past 40 years or so are about as likely to feature a screaming man as a screaming woman. Watch anything. Star Wars. Saw. Alien. Even Badass Ensemble Dark Horse Boba Fett screamed when he fell into the Sarlaac.

Leigh Sabio: Should we include Standard Hero Reward under Sexist Against Women? The rationale: It doesn't take into account the princess's desire to marry or not to marry the hero. "Giving" her to the hero as a reward also implies that she is property. Agree or disagree?

girlyboy: Agree, although it's a somewhat discredited trope these days (at least according to the trope page). But you still see it once in a while, even if not played entirely straight. And there's hardly many examples out there of dashing heroines winning marriage to handsome princes (who get little say in the matter and are treated as a mere reward), indeed. So I agree that it's a suitable thing to put on this page.

Leigh Sabio: I'm unsure whether or not Asian Airhead is sexist. On the one hand, there are plenty of Asian and Nerdy intelligent women in fiction, and not all Asian Airheads are there to be Love Interests for a Mighty Whitey. On the other hand, have you ever seen a male Asian Airhead?

Twin Bird: Not buying this one, sorry.

Blond Guys Are Evil and Hair of Gold (Blond men are often played as evil bastards while blonde women are often played as virginal, wholesome ingenues. Blondes Are Evil is an inversion but a very rare one, except in non-Western media.)

It's just that The Libby is always blonde, and the Femme Fatale is quite often blonde; I mean, I'm looking down the list on Blondes Are Evil, and I'm not seeing a whole lot of non-Western works.

MercuryInRetrograde: @Girlyboy. I disagree that women being seen as 'weaker' is the reason why men are seen as expendable. Would it be acceptable for me to point out how men are negatively impacted by the 'sexist against women' tropes as well? How about My Girl Is Not a Slut which is 'really' about seeing male sexuality as degrading to women? Women being seen as less capable then men in physical situations is already covered by a number of tropes under 'sexist against women.'

Why is it so necessary to put the caveat in there when it's already in the trope itself and any similar caveats in 'sexist against women' are removed instantly?

girlyboy: Well, I've never personally removed such caveats as near as I can remember, so depending on what exactly they were I might agree with you that they'd have a place on this page. I don't see a reason why a note on male sexuality being portrayed as degrading couldn't fit under "my girl is not a slut" entry, although I don't think it's as directly relevant to that trope as the addition to Men Are the Expendable Gender are to it. I certainly wouldn't remove that note if you added it, anyway, though perhaps that's just my opinion.

At any rate, I find it odd that you phrased it as "My Girl Is Not a Slut which is 'really' about seeing male sexuality as degrading to women," since that is certainly not equivalent to what the note on Expendable Men says. The note does not say that the trope is "really" about how women are weak, it states, very explicitly, that it is MOSTLY sexist against men, and then adds that it can also be sexist against women — only after making it clear that men get the worst of it.

And anyway, *why* are men the expendable gender, at the end of the day? Because men can stand up for themselves and women can't; because women need protection and special treatment, and men will do fine without it; because men should go out into the world and fight and die and have exciting adventures, while women, with the exception of the occasional Action Girl, should stay safely at home, etc. Yes, these reasons are covered by other tropes, but are also *very* relevant to the Men Are the Expendable Gender trope, and I find it odd that it would be put up on the page without mentioning this aspect of it.

P.S. I'd personally prefer to keep this entry under "Sexist Against Men," but with the note about women kept as well — after all, many (if not most) Double Standard situations can be sexist against both sexes, but it's a lot neater and more sensible to keep them sorted, rather than lumping everything under "Sexist Against Either." So I think the best approach would indeed be to sort the different tropes by which gender is most (and most badly) affected by it, but to allow additional notes about how the other gender is affected as well in situations like "Expendable Gender" (and "Girl Is Not A Slut," if you prefer).

Gfrequency: As the troper who originally added the caveat concerning the trope's secondary sexism against women, I have to ask why it's inappropriate. Men really are expected to be more capable than "women and children." Death comes with the territory. Yes, the trope has been around for so long and is so ingrained in Western society that female characters automatically enjoy audience sympathy without actually doing anything to earn it. Yes, it's stupid. And I agree - most of the tropes on this page, if you look at them closely enough, are sexist against both genders, but the "sexist against either" index would be overloaded if we put everything in there that deserved to be. Not everything deserves a note concerning its bias against the opposite gender, but this one does. (I added the note after watching yet another episode of some television show in which a spaceship full of male military officers was blown up during an attack on a villain who was bombing "women and children.")

MercuryInRetrograde: Girlyboy says: "Because men can stand up for themselves and women can't; because women need protection and special treatment, and men will do fine without it; because men should go out into the world and fight and die and have exciting adventures, while women, with the exception of the occasional Action Girl, should stay safely at home, etc."

Then the problem is more systemic because in the Men Are the Expendable Gender entry, the stated reason why men are treated as expendable is because they do not start with audience sympathy. Is the real reason men are treated as expendable because they don't start with audience sympathy or because men are expected to take care of themselves?

As for the whole My Girl Is Not a Slut thing being degrading to men... if sex with men wasn't seen as damaging to women somehow, would the insult 'slut' have any potency? If, for example, it was seen as an act that both benefit from, then why would women be seen as degraded by having too much of it?

girlyboy: Um, I agreed with you as far as the My Girl Is Not a Slut entry goes. It does have negative implications for both men and women, but more so for women (just as "Expendable Gender" has negative implications for both men and women, but more so for men). I, for one, have no problem with you adding a note to it, I certainly wouldn't edit it out. There is no disagreement here, nor was there any.

And this is a wiki, after all. The Men Are the Expendable Gender article does not necessarily have an exhaustive, complete, and 100% perfect analysis of why the trope exists, especially since that's not necessarily its goal. And why do women start with audience sympathy, and men don't, if we start with that explanation? Because women are immediately seen as needing protection and special treatment, and men are expected to stand up for themselves. It all fits together.

Not to mention that that trope itself also includes a (brief) note on how it is unfair to women too, because it implies that they are not able to fend for themselves as well as men, and need someone else to look after them.

And generally, a hearty +1 to Gfrequency's comment above. And on that note, can we move this back to "Sexist Against Men" while keeping the note about women?

MercuryInRetrograde: Yes. Although... I think it's less that men are _inherently_ more able to take care of themselves but that they should be able to take care of themselves and if they don't then they deserve what's coming to them.

Alrune: It doesn't change a thing really. If you want to go that way, men are persuaded that women are WEAK and unable to inflict any serious physical damage hence considered incapable and not good at physical fights due to their lesser muscular mass. It's also important to say that, to most viewers, psychological violence doesn't count and is discarded as "bitchiness". Only physical violence should be accounted for, which is one cause of men being seen as more expendable because they are better suited in physical fights.

The whole Men Are the Expendable Gender IS sexist against men but the Unfortunate Implications it has on women are just a side effect of this whole outdated take on female's ability at violence that is so deep-rooted that we automatically consider women sympathetic characters that are Closer to Earth by default. And even when they're evil, they're still less evil than men because they're supposedly less violent, at least physically.

And it's a mistake as well as you know.

Because we assume women are weak and non-violent, we assume men ARE violent and if they're not they should be. And because men are violent, they should be willing to go to war and be willing to die, hence being seen as expendable.

Also I think there's another reason behind Men Are the Expendable Gender. There's the assumption that "women and children" guarantee the future of a people because women can give life and children will grow up to rebuild whatever has been destroyed. I don't know if it's just as influential as the former causes but I think it is an unsaid aspect of this trope.

MercuryInRetrograde: I think this page needs to be cleaned up. There needs to be a rationale for why things go in 'sexist against women' vs. 'sexist against men' or 'sexist against either' vs. 'frequently sexist in execution'. Right now there are duplications of entries.

The rationale listed above for 'sexist against women' vs. 'sexist against men' was that some things impact men or women more, even if they have an impact on both. And if they have equal impact on both, they go in 'sexist against either'. But how do we determine this?

Also, the difference between 'frequently sexist in execution' and the other categories isn't clear to me.

Alrune: How do WE determine this or how do YOU determine this? What do you have in mind exactly?

MercuryInRetrograde: How did you determine that High-Heel–Face Turn is not more sexist towards men then women? I think it's more sexist towards men because, in the final analysis, it results in more male characters then female dying or suffering.

Alrune: Dying or suffering isn't the only measure of sexism. What you're talking about is already covered in a quite precise way under Men Are the Expendable Gender.

High-Heel–Face Turn is also sexist against women BIG TIME. Why?

Well first, you will never see a High-Heel–Face Turn CAUSED by another woman, except in kids' shows. Women don't have enough charisma to do that. Second, it implies that the only thing needed to redeem an evil woman is to have a big strong man entering the room and patronizing her into changing her ways. Meaning, women are indecisive, weak-willed, incompetent and unable to choose their own paths without following a man.

It's not about that whole Real Women Never Wear Dresses thing, it's just we are one more time deemed inherently "weak" and unable to pose a real threat. You know that in Real Life believing such a thing is a mistake, don't you?

MercuryInRetrograde: I don't think anyone can say that I suffer from seeing women as absolutely weaker and less capable then men. In fact my attitude towards female potency is usually what gets me in trouble. Apparently it's okay to believe women can be just as good at men; but you absolutely aren't allowed to argue that they can be just as bad.

Having read through High-Heel–Face Turn, it seems that falling in love with the hero is one plot-line among others to justify why female villains are more redeemable then male. A thought occurs; in most cases the villains are pretty nasty to the good guys. For example in Williow, the daughter of the Evil Queen, kicks one of the male protagonists in the face. He later falls for her and her for him, justifying her High-Heel–Face Turn. Maybe this is more of an effect of, it's far more forgivable when the _female_ villain is abusive to the male hero then a male villain to be abusive to a female hero.

Anyway High-Heel–Face Turn isn't, specifically, about female villains falling in love with male heros, it's specifically about their greater rate of redemption and(from some of the examples) their lesser rate of punishment.

Yes, this trope is related to Men Are the Expendable Gender, but there are several related tropes placed in the 'sexist against women category.' For example, there are at least four related to Disposable Woman.

I consider sexism in terms of hard and fast effects. The most sexist tropes are tropes that excuse, minimize or dismiss physical harm to one gender or result in more harm being visited upon characters of that gender.

Alrune: There's some truth to what you say, I'll admit it.

Still, you're clearly biased. And before you jump at my throat to strangle me, let me explain.

You seem to quantify sexism on the sole rate of physical violence and physical punishment. Which is clearly ONE unit of measure. But it's not THE unit of measure. When one knows your own story, one can understand this stance. But it still doesn't make your terms the only acceptable terms.

Also, you quantify it in terms of immediate results. I'm sorry but immediate results are ONE thing. Long-term, underlying, deep-rooted results are not to be taken for granted. It's true that the whole Men Are the Expendable Gender causes just as sexist portrayals and deaths than Disposable Woman. Quantitatively, it may be even worse. Still, it doesn't negate the existence of Disposable Woman and the usual portrayal of women. Because, no matter how you look at it, Most Writers Are Male and female writers are often obliged to use a Moustache de Plume to be taken seriously.

When you think of it, and in support of your stance, since femininity is weakness and since Closer to Earth is a widely accepted and practised concept in the media, being morally superior equates to being feminine hence weak. Which explains at least part of the whole portrayal of women as inherently weaker.

And about women being just as bad as men, it's related to Closer to Earth. Women can be just as good as men in terms of morality but not just as bad. Why? Women are FEMININE hence WEAK and LESS CAPABLE, it is assumed. Therefore, they cannot pose a serious threat and be the main antagonist WITHOUT the help of a male. When a woman is truly evil by herself, she's invariably beautiful and sexual, hence "dominable" and not TRULY dangerous. Why do you think there is virtually NO plain looking ,let alone ugly, villainesses? Why do you think in so many stories the Big Bad is invariably male?

Also, this alleged weakness has also created tropes like Rape Is Ok When Its Female On Male, as well as you know.

What I mean is that portraying women as perpetually virtuous and weak is a cause of the sexism against males as being obliged to be the "doers", the "ones-in-charge" hence the ones whose death is more acceptable because they're more capable and consequently less worthy of sympathy if something bad happens to them. The Emotional Torque applied to women; on the other hand; seems to be the exact same one as that applied to children.

MercuryInRetrograde: Alrune, I'm not talking about all the 'sexist against X' in toto, I'm just talking about my rationale why High-Heel–Face Turn is more sexist against men.

Yes, it's dehumanizing to women to be constantly seen in terms of their weakness, but it also has the effect of protecting them from the consequences of their actions and the consequences of catastrophic danger(natural disaster, war, etc.)

Maybe you're right and there is no way to quantify if it's worse for these male writers to deprive female characters of their responsibility or kill their male characters, but then how do we decide if something deserves to go into 'sexist against men' vs. 'sexist against women'. Since the same argument that puts Men Are the Expendable Gender into 'sexist against men' also applies to High-Heel–Face Turn.

girlyboy: Just to jump in quickly, I'd say it's not a great idea to have one hard-and-fast rule for how to classify everything into the categories. One reason is because it'll be impossible to agree on what rule to use. Another is that this is not the kind of clear-cut, objective subject that can be dealt with using a simple formula. So I say, go with your gut instict as to which sex gets it "worse" with a particular trope, add a note about the effects on the other sex in cases where it's "worse" for one but also "pretty bad" for the other, and where disagreement arises, discuss it here until a consensus is reached. It's not as neat and tidy, but I think in the long run it's the only way to tackle it; a simple rule like "which sex gets physically hurt as a result" is simply not flexible enough, has the potential to leave too many important details aside, and could never be agreed upon.

Alrune: Oh Mercury In Retrograde darling! Look what I just created: Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female on Male. Don't you just love it? Happy Birthday!

Twin Bird: (Siiigh.)

All right, I'm not really thrilled with this one, since it still seems to downplay women's active role in the situation subtly (honestly, I think it would be better on this index if we just stated the fact and didn't try to speculate why), but it's not as offensive as the earlier one. I'm not going to fight over this version.

Twin Bird: (Some time later...)

Actually, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to remove it, not because I have a problem with the sentiment, but because it looks like Selective Squick doesn't actually mean what it looks like it's being used to mean.

Mac Phisto: Can we get a Troper Tales section?

Gfrequency: Honestly, Alrune, saying that shows like Sex And The City and Desperate Housewives don't count because they're bashed by the exact opposite of their target audience makes about as much sense as claiming that women should revel in the unfettered manliness of Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The shows I listed were successful. Unbelievably so. Women certainly didn't "bash" them for being feminine. The point being made does not stand. On the other hand, I agree with your original reason for Rated M for Manly's sexism entirely; there are plenty of shows out there aimed at men in which women are useless, purely decorative or end up dead to provide the hero with a reason to fight.

Alrune: I know that but apparently Monsund says that it's ridiculous to say such a thing about women being accessories. So I'll just put up the original reason again.

girlyboy: On the Worf Effect comment on Vasquez Always Dies: I'm not sure this trope is applicable at all. The Worf Effect is when a tough character is repeatedly beaten up by enemies to show how dangerous the enemies are, to the point where the character doesn't even seem tough to the audience anymore. As the giant note at the bottom of the Worf trope's page says "All right, Tropers. A little clarification seems to be needed. No one fight or loss can invoke this effect. It must be a series of losses, NOT A UNIQUE EVENT. Also, this does not apply to losses during dramatic final confrontations. Thank you for your time."

In other words, a tough character being simply killed off cannot be an example of the Worf Effect. I'm not deleting this immediately because I get what you're trying to say, but it might need to be re-worded.

Also, I'm not sure there's an "either-or" here. A female tough character can be killed off to show tension, and it can be a Double Standard. For example, it could be in a work where a tough male hero survives, while a tough female hero dies; you can argue she died to show that even the tough male hero was in danger, but it doesn't mean she didn't also die because the writers wanted a more feminine woman to survive to be the hero's love interest in the end. Or some such.

MercuryInRetrograde: gfrequency, I still think the reaction to Non-Action Guy is a lot more extreme then the reaction to Action Girl. In fact Real Women Never Wear Dresses is also considered 'sexist towards women' because it goes to the opposite extreme.

@ Alrune: I want to get this clear. Is it sexist that Vasquez Always Dies because it shows that women shouldn't presume to be badasses? Okay then, why is it that in the _very trope namer_ Ripley manages to take out an Eldritch Abomination basically by herself. Saying that Ripley is less Bad Ass then Vasquez seems rather... uninformed. To use another recent example, Neytiri vs. Trudy. Everyone thinks Trudy is somehow more badass yet Neytiri ends up killing the villain and showing a lot more sheer physical grit. The whole concept seems absurd to me because in many cases the Vasquez character is paired with a Ripley who is tough as nails yet has the sheer audacity to, oh, wear her hair long. Essentially the female character is denied supreme badass status in favor of a character who is _significantly less badass when judged on actions not physical attributes_.

Isn't this the same sort of sexism that's supposed to be behind Real Women Never Wear Dresses?

Alrune: I'm not saying Ripley is less Badass than Vasquez. However, it could be argued that her badassery is based on the whole Mama Bear thing which has some implications about how women can only be badass for sentimental reasons but that's debatable. No. Actually it's about physical attractiveness. A woman that has physical grit STILL needs to be attractive no matter what and in need of a man in order to be complete. The whole Real Women Never Wear Dresses applies indeed: long hair and sentimental involvement are feminine qualities and femininity is weakness to many fans, with all that it implies.

And it's contradictory, yes. That's the point. For writers, a Badass woman needs to be sexualised in order to be attractive to the male audience and thus turned into a Hot Amazon or The Lad-ette, but always with some femininity to herself. To fans (and not always "feminist" fangirls), emotions are feminine thus weak. Which means, a Badass woman needs to have no desire for romance, no "feminine" attributes and no sentimental motives for her rampage, else she looks "weak". Real Women Never Wear Dresses indeed.

Which leads to fans believing that mannish characters like Vasquez or Trudy are the true Badasses. Which is somewhat illogical, I agree with that.

Gfrequency: @ Mercury In Retrograde - The varying degrees of fan reaction to either Non-Action Guy or Action Girl is irrelevant. The fact that the action-oriented female is considered the exception while the action-oriented man is the norm is the double standard here.

paulmil: Okay, me and a couple of others have been in an edit war with fast eddie because for some reason he doesn't feel that Compensating for Something belongs on this page. This is a trope where men are mocked by women(and other men) as to whether a piece of their anatomy happens to be long enough, which is something that is not their fault and they can't do anything about. There's even a line in Scary Movie where a guy is revealed to have a small penis and responds with "A small penis is a disability man! Would you laugh at a guy in a wheelchair? WELL WOULD YOU?". This is supposed to be hilariously funny, but they don't seem to realise that it's a perfectly valid point. And, as I already said, if a man accused a woman of having a really wide vagina, it would cause uproar. On pretty much any show, if a man makes fun of a woman's body he portrayed as a sexist prick, and if a woman makes fun of a man's body it's supposed to be hilariously funny. A small penis is almost always shown as a justifiable reason for a woman to dump a man but if a man broke up with a woman because of anything like this (small breasts, wide vagina etc.) it would be to show what sexist creeps men really are. Could you please tell me how this is not a perfect example of a double standard and sexism against men? Thinking that its natterbait is an insane reason to delete it. Just remove the natter. And besides, several entries on this page have generated more natter than this and I don't see them being deleted. I'm not trying to be a troll and I don't want to be banned, but it's seriously pissing me off that you keep deleting this for no reason at all as far as I can see. Is it because you can't stand the word "vagina" being in an article?

Alrune: What you said about the Double Standard against men is true. Strangely, there's a second aspect on the whole "wide vagina" and "small penis" insult. Women can get away with both. Men with neither. A man who calls another man on a small penis is being a jerk. A woman who calls another women on having a wide vagina because she uses XXXL-sized tampons is seen just as funny as when she calls a man on a small penis.

paulmil: I'll have to take your word on women making wide vagina jokes, but I can tell you that men are allowed to both make and laugh at small penis jokes. In fact its almost compulsory to laugh because if you don't people will automatically think that you have a small penis. I've lost track of how many times I've seen a man taking a woman to task on a forum for a small penis comment only for them to get accused of having a small penis. And before anyone asks, yes, I do have a small penis. I was born with congenital hypospadias and its pretty much ruined my life. (I just got diagnosed with Body Dysmorphic disorder because of it) You can find my story on the Tropers Tale Page for Acceptable Hard Luck Targets and if any of you find it funny, then thank you for proving my point.

By the way, something I forgot to mention is that Fast Eddie threatened both me and Mercury In Retrograde with being banned if we put Compensating for Something back in the article. I know he runs this place, so how would we go about changing his mind? Do we need to start a petition or something?

jfpbookworm: Wouldn't the Distaff Counterpart of Compensating for Something be Pettanko? (Also, I don't think Compensating for Something means quite what you think it means.)

Gfrequency: Women In Refrigerators was deleted why...? There are quite a few tropes on this page that don't belong here, but that's a pretty important one.

Twin Bird: The trope's been merged with Stuffed into the Fridge; Women In Refrigerators is now a page on the website.

Gfrequency: Yes, but both entries have been deleted from this page. The trope is no longer covered here under any name.

Why is "Sexist Against Men" listed first when sexism has always and is still far more prevalent against women?

girlyboy: Near as I can tell, because there is a bunch of editors on this page who are very dedicated to showing that sexism against men is just as bad as sexism against women, and who probably would argue against you 'till the cows came home sooner than accept that sexism agaisnt women is probably more prevalent and, well, a worse problem in society right now.

Gfrequency: And just as many editors who parse through the "Sexist Against Men" folder deleting valid examples or adding snarky comments. Is it remotely possible that the folders are arranged as they are because "M" comes before "W" in the alphabet? Let's put "Literature" first instead of "Anime." That said, would it make people happy if "Sexist Against Either" were first? I'm sorry - I've added more examples to the "Sexist Against Women" folder than I have to "Sexist Against Men," I agree with you that sexism has done more harm to women than men in our society, and in fact I've agreed with every point you've made on this discussion board, but I have to ask: is there any point to the comment above other than sparking a flamewar over who gets to be first in line when it comes to being discriminated against? I'm sick of women assuming I'm either an idiot or a pervert on the sole basis of my gender. I'm sick of other men looking at me as if I'm a Martian because I don't watch sports or talk about women all day because, well, that's what men are "supposed" to do, apparently. Sexism is prevalent in society today. Period. And yes, it is a problem, but we're not going to do anything about it arguing over who bloody has it worse. Certainly not by bickering about whose folder is first on the page. Ye Gods....

girly: Well, I didn't mean to provoke a reaction that intense, sorry. >_> I definitely remember "against women" was the first folder a while ago, and then it was switched, presumably for the reasons I stated above. No, it's not an important point, which is why I never bothered arguing about it or bringing it up before, but a question was asked, and I'm pretty sure the answer I gave is a fairly correct assessment on the whole. Not to dwell on unimportant things, but "alphabetical order," as you pointed out, would mean "sexist against either" should come first (or heck, "frequently sexist..." :P ); and accepting that sexism against women is more common and a bigger problem would lead most people to accept that alphabetizing may not be the most important issue here (and given the nature of the categories alphabetizing doesn't make that much sense anyway). I certainly didn't mean to call anyone an "idiot" or anything else like that as a result. (If anything, it seems to me the position that "sexism against men is every bit as bad" is becoming the more commonly accepted one nowadays...)

And yes, we are indeed having a debate about the order of example categories and whether they should be alphabetical or not. :)

Gfrequency: Sexism is encountered by different people in different walks of life, and it's become so ingrained that we barely even recognize it 75% of the time. By way of example: I'm working on my master's degree in library science, and I've been denied work as a librarian because I'm a man, and men aren't supposed to be good with people. The job went to a good-looking girl with no interest whatsoever in becoming a librarian. I've been turned down for jobs in cafes and coffee houses for the same reason, despite having worked at one throughout my college years. On the other side of the spectrum: I have more female friends than male, always have, and one of them is a very capable housing contractor. She and her daughter renovate houses, put in new bathrooms and electrical wiring, etc. My grandmother flat-out refused to allow her to install her new bathroom because she's a woman, and women aren't supposed to be good at physical work. The real problem with sexism and double standards is that they exist, not whose folder goes first on the page or who has it worse. Try to fix one side of the issue and you end up with a schism in the other direction. And yes, I think "Sexist Against Either" should be moved to the top, for the sake of sheer neutrality - but as soon as that's done, people will start bickering over whose folder should go first after "Sexist Against Either."

MercuryInRetrograde: *sigh* Okay, I'm going to bite. How did you guys determine that sexism against women is worse then sexism against men? As a woman who is really f-ing tired of being told the whole world is against her, I'm really, really curious how you came to the conclusion the whole world is against me? (Yeah, I know it's horrible that I'd actually like to focus on how men have it bad for once. And not see myself as a perpetual victim.)

girlyboy: I think it's important here to distinguish between individual experiences and society as a whole. A particular unfortunate male might have lots of bad experiences with anti-male sexism. A particular fortunate female might be lucky and meet very little sexism in her life. But this isn't about the individual level, but the social level. Looking at society as a whole, it's clear men do have it better. Men hold the vast majority of political and economic power, for starters. Men get paid more on average, even within the same field. On a more domestic level, women are still expected to do most of the housework and childcare, even in two-earner families (i.e. most of them) where both the husband and wife works (the infamous "second shift"). There are still jobs that are considered to be appropriate for men, but not for women, particularly blue-collar jobs (that tend to pay better than "pink-collar jobs" that are predominantly female-dominated). Women in these fields will sometimes meet harassment, and will always be seen as an exception. In Western media, women may fare better than they did a few decades ago, but still don't feature in nearly as many major roles (outside of romance and the like) as males. In fact I personally suspect there might be a back-slide here as feminism drops in popularity: consider the latest Star Trek film, where there was exactly one major female character (and not that major, at that), and compare it to past incarnations of the franchise, for example. Or, while we're talking about media, consider how many actors there are who would not be considered "hot" or "handsome" in the traditional sense, and compare that to the number of actresses who are not "hot" or "beautiful". Pretty sure there's a significant gap there.

Long stories short, you personally may have a great life and perhaps you've never had to deal with sexism at all. That's good news for you. But that in no way means that the problem doesn't exist in society as a whole. You have to look at the big picture. I think sexism is a lot more subtle than it was before, but it's still very much there. And the fact that it's subtle means that people don't experience it as directly as they did in the past, and so are much more prepared to dismiss it, or claim that it affects men and women equally — men because they feel women are getting an unfair advantage, and women because they don't want to be seen as "victims." The result is that sexism is much less prevalent than it was before, but that of it which remains is much harder to weed out, because any suggestion that women do, in fact, have it worse than men is met by scepticism based on personal experience at best, if not full-out accusations of Straw Person-hood.

MercuryInRetrograde: I actually think that always seeing women as victims _is_ one of the biggest disadvantages facing women. You state three basic areas of disadvantage for women:

"Men hold the vast majority of political and economic power."

Really? Yet women, in North America, comprise the majority of the electorate and make the majority of the consumer purchasing decisions. Politicians are products that women purchase with their votes—which is why you'll never see a politician endorsing anything to do with assisting men but you commonly see politicians endorsing assistance to women.

I see your Wage Gap and raise you one Spending Gap.

"Women are still expected to do most of the housework and childcare, even in two-earner families (i.e. most of them) where both the husband and wife works (the infamous "second shift")."

Men are expected to do the majority of the earning and are legally considered second-class citizens when it comes to their relationships with their children

"There are still jobs that are considered to be appropriate for men, but not for women, particularly blue-collar jobs (that tend to pay better than "pink-collar jobs" that are predominantly female-dominated)."

Again, Spending Gap. (I'll use a thought experiment here to illustrate the relative oppressiveness of the wage gap vs. the spending gap. I'm not going to offer my opinion on the relative oppressiveness, people can decide that for themselves utilizing my thought experiment... Would you rather have a person come up to you and say: 'I want to give you an opportunity to _earn_ $100' or would you rather have a person come up to you and say: 'I want to give you an opportunity to _spend_ $100.)

"Women in these fields will sometimes meet harassment, and will always be seen as an exception."

Men in female dominated fields experience harassment as well; worse, men exercising their right to parent their children as primary(ie stay-at-home) parents face harassment. They get told they are worthless, lazy bums and report being frozen out of care groups.

"In Western media, women may fare better than they did a few decades ago, but still don't feature in nearly as many major roles (outside of romance and the like) as males."

And most of the stereotypes regarding male characters remain unchallenged as well. If women can't get into action roles; men can't get out of them.

Sorry, still not seeing it. Our society has a phobia when it comes to men as victims of anything—what I'm seeing is that you share this phobia, not that you've proven that women are bigger victims.

As for myself, I haven't lived a charmed life by any stretch of the imagination. But I have noticed the less I see myself as a victim, the better my life gets. Let men take some of the victimization burden for a change. Or is that just too much to ask?

Alrune: Okay, I'll bite as well. Basically, I agree with what Mercury In Retrograde said and I think her stance is mainly correct. Yet, it's biased for a very simple reason: she's a US citizen.

Which means all that she says is valid in the US, not necessarily in other countries.

Now I know this is mainly an English-speaking site so don't take this as an attack to your country or anything such. What I mean is that the whole thing about paternity is a typically US problem, where I live, fathers have equal rights when it comes to child custody. When it comes to Domestic Abuse, that's another story but people seem to become more understanding about this gradually.

But my point is, you are both forgetting one crucial element in all your reasoning. When it comes to fiction, Most Writers Are Male and that's a fact. Which may explain why heroism and action are still a very male-dominated field in characterisation and why women who take action are always sexualised, hence "dominable", or regarded as "evil" or "suspicious". Female authority figures are either demoted, PMS bitches or related to a superior male somehow.

Women never stand on top and when they do, it doesn't last. Also, ugliness is an unforgivable flaw for a woman, for a man, not so much. Which means that women are still defined by how men regard them, not by what they are in themselves. Can we change that? It will take a very long time...

Mercury In Retrograde, you say in your profile page that women ought to stop acting like victims. Don't you know this is something that is taught to little girls from day one? What do we teach little girls in stories and fairy tales? That they are to be pretty princesses who shall marry a prince and make babies. If they are menaced, they are too weak to defend themselves and shall wait for a big, strong man to free them from the villain. In short, women are "taught" to be weak and ineffectual. For this whole, "perpetual victim" thing to stop, we have to change the role of women in stories taught to children in priority. And then work the way up from there but I doubt it will ever happen.

And bizarrely, it carries on in Real Life. I've been discussing female conscription to military duties with many men, the unanimous answer was a big, hearty laugh and macho vulgar jokes about women's periods and breasts. What can you do against that? If men won't let us take action in significant fields ie politics, economy and the army, how are we supposed to react? I know that it's all a very slow-moving phenomenon but do we have to wait for the end of WWIII, when this planet is turned into a nuclear desert, for women to be allowed to take genuine action in crucial fields?

girly: I... have no idea whether we agree or disagree anymore. :P I guess I pretty much agree with everything said, except for the argument that somehow having spending power/voting power negates the fact that men make up 99.9% of the major executives and a large majority of the politicians, but otherwise I agree with most of it. I just don't see how this all balances out the two forms of sexism being equally bad or equally serious, especially considering MIR's last paragraph there. I guess I understand the link between seeing women as victims of sexism and the sexist cultural attitudes taught to boys and girls from a young age, but surely recognizing a problem does not necessarily mean turning the people it affects into perpetual helpless victims? How do you fix the real life sexism problems MIR describes without accepting that yeah, sexism against women is pretty crappy, and affects women in ways it does not affect men? I guess you can argue that men face the same hurdles getting into traditionally female-dominated fields, but somehow it just doesn't feel like the same thing. I've yet to be laughed at by women when I show any traditionally "feminine" traits, though some do act somewhat perplexed by it. And of course, while people might laugh at me or criticise me if I chose to become a stay-at-home-dad someday, there isn't some big organization to actaully put up obstacles to keep me from doing so, as with women in the military or other male-dominated professions. There's a culture that would discourage me as a whole, but I wouldn't have a female boss who wouldn't believe that a man can do the job, or female co-workers to make my life miserable every step of the way. Heck, many women seem quite happy with the idea of men doing more child-rearing and what-not. So... it just doesn't seem particularly equivalent, to me. And for that matter, it seems to me that men, rather than women, are largely responsible for discouraging other men from being feminine. Take a very feminine guy, and introduce him to the average man and the average woman, and I have no doubt that the man would have a far, far more negative reaction.

MercuryInRetrograde: I'm just going to address this: "And of course, while people might laugh at me or criticise me if I chose to become a stay-at-home-dad someday, there isn't some big organization to actaully put up obstacles to keep me from doing so, as with women in the military or other male-dominated professions."

The biggest obstacle you'll initially find is that most women won't want to fund your choice to be a stay-at-home; women actively prefer men who can offer _them_ the opportunity to stay at home. Another, more insidious obstacle you'll find is that the family courts won't _respect_ your choice to be a full time parent should you and your wife ever divorce. She will determine how much time you get to spend with your child. Finally, I have heard from lots of different people that dads are just not as good as moms at being parents—female-supremacy in child-rearing seems to be a culturally entrenched concept. And you can see that clearly in the sexist 'bumbling dad' stereotypes on tv.

Any theory of employment that tries to explain why women aren't in the top jobs, also has to explain why they aren't in the bottom ones either. In fact there are about one hundred male garbage collectors(or equivalent unpleasant, dangerous job) for every one male politician(top job) whereas there are about twenty female garbage collectors(or equivalent unpleasant, dangerous jobs) to every one female politician(top job). Is there some big organization preventing women from being garbage collectors?

That said, nursing colleges actually did have restrictions on men being nurses; refusing to allow them to enroll or be part of nursing organizations. I believe they still do.

IMHO, the only way to change social dynamics that hurt women _now_ is by not pushing female victimhood. You really can't empower women by constantly saying they're powerless and everything is out to get them. In fact one of the best ways to empower someone is to show them their strength and a person(or group of people) who needs them to use it.

That doesn't mean ignoring the ways that women are victimized, but for gods sake at least make an honest effort to look at how men are victimized as well so there is some CONTEXT and BALANCE.

@Alrune: Ask those guys who are arguing against women in combat if they think it's acceptable to have one group of citizens with more responsibilities to the state then another. As for what to do to change this focus on female victimization, I think you're already doing more then you know since you are contributing to the 'Sexist against Men' category in tv tropes. I think it's quite likely some of those evil professional writers are lurkers here, plus I believe it's really the nets that will create the culture of the future.

Hopefully it won't look like 4chan.

girly: I think the reason few women are garbage collectors is, at the end of the day, the same why so few are politicians: It doesn't fit the cultural perceptions of what women should be like, and of what women should want, that shape both men and women from childhood. Garbage collecting is a job people usually take when they have few good employment options, but even in such a situation, how likely is a woman to consider a job that involves physical labour, working in unsanitary and unpleasant environments, etc? What response is she likely to get from others if she does consider such a job? It's just not the sort of thing women do. Besides, women have their own class of low-end jobs, which are seen as more appropriate for women (and generally pay less than the low-end jobs for men), everything from seamstresses to low-end secretaries. The same cultural bias also steers women away from careers as politicans or that might lead to major leadership positions in business, and ensure that those women who do pursue such careers hit many obstacles. Ambition is good for men; a woman with ambition is threatening, cold, and possibly evil. Men can be ruthless enough to be political and business leaders; delicate, cooperation-oriented women surely can't. Etc.

Add to this the fact that women are expected to do most of the housework and the vast majority of child-rearing — commitments that drain energy and time, and that men don't need to worry about nearly as much.

Why, what explanation are you proposing that explains both the lack of women at the high and low ends of the career ladder? Innate differences, perhaps? As long as we accept that innate differences between men and women trump individual differences and culture, nothing will change, because "oh, men and women are just different, nothing wrong with that" is the perfect excuse for pretty much any example of sexism. Regardless of the fact that it'd seem obvious from the last hundred years or so that it's cultural change, and not evolution, that plays far and away the bigger part in determining gender roles...

MercuryInRetrograde: "Why, what explanation are you proposing that explains both the lack of women at the high and low ends of the career ladder?"

Nope. Innate need. Men have more social pressure to take jobs because without jobs they don't get to have girlfriends, wives and families. Men are defined more by jobs too. A man without a job is a hopeless nobody bum to a lot of people. So men have a lot of incentive to take a job, any job. Also, as you can see from this:

In fact, women already make the majority of the world’s purchasing decisions. [The Boston Consulting Group] estimates that they control some $12 trillion of the world’s $18.4 trillion in annual consumer spending, and that percentage will likely rise as a new upwardly mobile class of young female professionals overtakes their male peers in wealth and status.”

Women control 2/3rds of spending worldwide. The disparity in the US is even more extreme; women control 80% of spending in the US. So even though women make 75 cents to the dollar; they spend a dollar for every quarter spent by men. Women's spend 133% of what they earn; men spend 25% of what they earn(strangely enough single female households have more assets then single male households). The upshot? Women's spending is subsidized, therefore they also don't have as much financial pressure to take higher paying jobs.

If you look at any list of the most undesirable jobs in terms of wage _and_ working conditions, men usually are 95%. Low end jobs for women simply don't compare in terms of deaths, dismemberment and sheer physical stress to low end jobs for men.

girly: That is interesting. I have not seen the figures on spending power before... I should read more about it.

Mercury: A lot of the stuff I've found relating to male victimization is interesting. I was quite feminist in my mid teens but one day I woke up and I was just tired of constantly seeing myself as a victim because of my gender. So I started to analyze all the tenants of female-victimhood and I came to the realization that people just aren't looking at how men are victimized. Likely due to traditional notions of gender: man = invulnerable, woman = vulnerable.

It's been great to let go of the burden of feeling victimized and helpless due to my gender but... at the same time I have become truly frightened for men. For example the lack of awareness or services for male victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Or the rates of suicide among men. Or the apparent lack of simple concern for men when they're vulnerable—instead people seem to get a laugh out of kicking them!

How is Bumbling Dad "Sexist Against Men", my own father's an example.

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