Sexism

In my experience discussing men's issues seems to be hated no matter who it's with.

It's really weird being accused of hating men because you're discussing negative things men face (not on otc).

edited 30th May '15 1:38:44 PM by MrAHR

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That thread also has a longstanding issue of dismissing any men's issue that mentions women or femininity as a women's issue, even when talking about men. Most recently was dismissing short men who felt upset that being short made people think they were feminine as a woman's issue.

Somehow.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Except that's not what happened at all, we were mid way though discussing men's height and body issues (with several people admitting the issues that they themselves had with their bodies) when one person came in and asked angrily whey we were ignoring the issue of men's height from the perspective of its relation to femininity. I objected to the tone of that person in what may well have been an overdue fashion, but I am hardly the only person who posts in that thread.

Also you've papered over the many times that people have come into the thread mid way though a discussion of men's issues and browbeaten us until we give in and talk about the bad things men do to women instead of the bad things that men experience.

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

Can we not fight?

We really don't need anymore of that in these conversations.

edited 30th May '15 2:00:43 PM by SaintDeltora

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

That's fair enough. Though I feel Shima should respond if she wants, as it always strikes me as unfair for one person to get the last word just because they posted before the whole "end thsi conversation" bit came in.

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

Double posting to answer Minda's original question.

I question your premise. Where is this "over-emphasis"? Because a discussion on abuse is going to focus on abusers over non-abusers (the issue of female abusers not being considered is a separate one). In the end we're dealing with a criminal element that damages society, as long as people aren't categorising all men as abusers (which I don't believe they are) there shouldn't be a problem.

If you find discussion of male abuser problematic because you're not one and feel that any discussion about male abusers is an affront to all men, I advise you learn to not take it so personally, because it's not about you personally.

Call it out if you come across it. If you don't come across it then that's fine, lucky for you. You don't need to go out seeking it, just remember that you're obviously in a very isolated position, most people can't avoid the misogamy in the world. Hell I have a very open and kind social circle but I've still been drinking with flat mates and had them say stuff like "we need some bitches in here", I called them on it, saying "maybe you'd get women to visit more if you didn't call them bitches?". I saw it so I called it, I then went back to my nice friendly social circle who don't pull that kind of crap.

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

Infidelity caused by dependency in context of lagging gender expectations

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Er, I don't know where to ask this question, but I'm a bit desperate for help, and I know some people here are very strong at Social Sciences. So for the academics among you, a question:

How the heck does the "ontology, epistemology, methodology" thing work?

In engineering papers it's just "methodology". What are the previous two, besides being huge, huge branches of Western Philosophy? The more I try to look it up, the more confused I get, especially since mastering these three is apparently essential to write publishable papers!

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Depends which social science in how "the nature of things" affects a paper. The quick answer is to look for what approach is being taken: take a paper written from a Marxist perspective. How "things are weighed, perceived and presented" will be through a Marxist lens. And, if you do that in a cognitive science paper focusing on the neurological side, you're probably going to be laughed out the room, however nifty your statistical juggling and painstaking your experiment design. CogPsy has a number of approaches to data handling and interpretation, but bring political ideologies of that kind of nature into it, and you're screwed. EvoPsy: go nuts. It's a laughing stock, anyway and it's not like you're going to be the first with a wacky agenda.

edited 3rd Jun '15 3:23:58 AM by Euodiachloris

Old video, old stereotypes, but funny. I especially like the last one.

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Question: so, since the word 'bitch' when used as a verb, even if it's not directed at a woman or involving a woman, is a gendered insult, I want to ask this two-fold question:

1 - Is there any context where it is acceptable to say "If you want to bitch about [insert name of controversial person]..."?

2 - Is it a problem with the English language and its lack of gender clarity (not sure if this is the right term - apologies), or is it a consequence of progressive times?

edited 18th Jun '15 10:06:35 AM by Quag15

Personally, I see it on about the same level as "bullshit". Not a native speaker, so it might be different, though.

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It is? I mean, in my 16 years in the military, normally "bitch" is used either for a) complaining about something, as in 'to bitch', that is utterly beyond said sailor's ability to change or impact in any way; or b) describing someone who is incompetant while having a major attitude problem, and gets applied to men more than it does women^note though that's possibly because of the numerical imbalance in the military. The first usage is by far more common than the second.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

I do not think it is the word itself that is gendered. It is the context that genders it.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

I'm not a native speaker either. Same feeling here.

That's what I thought too^note (for the context that led to the question, see the Catholic Church thread). I tend to use it in the context of the former.

Idem.

edited 18th Jun '15 10:26:49 AM by Quag15

I think the "gendered" in this world is its implication; it is an insult in the sense that it denigrates the person directed at. However, this is not by denigrating them directly but by by vinculating them to an already denigrated term: not just a dog, but a female dog.

But this just makes use of an already too established idiomatic expression. It does not belong merely to the english language anymore...

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

It's a gendered insult so thoroughly ingrained in our language that it's easy to forget it's a gendered insult.

To "bitch" about something means you are whining like a bitch, 'cause bitches always be nagging and whining amirite. It perpetuates both a specific negative stereotype about women and also the general idea of anything female being an insult.

It's been part of our terminology for so long that many of us just learned to use it from other people using it and never gave two thoughts to what the word actually means. So while the intent of people using the word is not always hostile to women or even having anything to do with women, the intent of the word itself is.

edited 18th Jun '15 10:50:24 AM by TobiasDrake

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/ I see.

I think I had no malicious intent (though I was certainly pissed off) when using it in the context, though I know I wanted to emphasize my point in that discussion.

Is there a better replacement? Because the verb 'complain' sounds... too soft, and I want to use a harder word, since the word that is being discussed here is discouraged.

edited 18th Jun '15 10:59:25 AM by Quag15

Most non-gendered insults involve butts or stuff that comes out of them (asshat, shitface, ect...).

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

The fun thing about English is that you can invent new words if existing words don't communicate the idea well enough. The word "f*ck" in particular tends to get conjugated and spliced in all sorts of ways, such as a particularly nasty curbstomp being described as the character being "f*ckstomped".

That's actually how we got "bitching" in the first place; the noun "bitch" got verbed into an action representative of a specific negative depiction of the noun. Half of William Shakespeare's writing is just words he made up.

Plus, every time you do it, a linguist somewhere cries, so that's a plus. ...just don't do it on the wiki. Avoiding both vulgarities and made-up words is generally an unspoken rule of formal writing.

edited 18th Jun '15 11:06:52 AM by TobiasDrake

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/ I know, I know. I was just looking for a replacement/synonym for the word 'complain' that could describe the same action.

It's difficult to remain formal, when there's a bit of snark going around. Oh well, guess I got too instinctual.

Thank you for all the answers, everyone.

edited 18th Jun '15 11:09:42 AM by Quag15

Words don't have intents. Words have connotations. I've always interpreted "bitching" about something more for the dog connotations than the female. Yapping like a dog.

Religion is another common source of bad words (although perhaps more straight out swearwords than insults).

edited 18th Jun '15 11:31:56 AM by AnotherDuck

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As bitch is a gendered insult due to a gender root why in witch? As the root of witch is gender-neutral, with men and women being tried as witches.

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

Só... Question about the dog thing.

What if I said something like "My sister took her bitch out for a walk"?

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

Depending on its usage, it can be. "Witch" and "crone" are both insults commonly thrown at strict or aging women, but I'll note that they're almost never targeted at men; as such, "woman" isn't part of the insult. The insult in "witch" is that the person is old and evil.

So it's a gendered term but not a gendered insult; the insult is unrelated to the gender.

edited 18th Jun '15 11:57:54 AM by TobiasDrake

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