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you see, the dog represents the bourgeoisie, and
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Dec 30, 2016 03:25
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Rappaport posted:The dog purports to desire a thing, then acts in a deleterious manner towards achieving that goal. This is a metaphor for dumb male behaviour. Please leave. You're no Tiny Bronto. e: You said "Please". Phyzzle fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 03:28
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Phyzzle posted:You're no Tiny Bronto. Here's a fun feminism topic: Stalkers. A man can do anything he wants to a woman, up to and including following her around the internet and creating bizarre elaborate conspiracy theories about her, but if a woman so much as makes a  face in response she's "overreacting"
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Dec 30, 2016 03:58
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Here's a fun feminism topic: Stalkers. A man can do anything he wants to a woman, up to and including following her around the internet and creating bizarre elaborate conspiracy theories about her, but if a woman so much as makes a You mean people have complained about your posting before? The stalking is coming from inside the house.
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Dec 30, 2016 04:10
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Phyzzle posted:You mean people have complained about your posting before? The stalking is coming from inside the house. Please leave.
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Dec 30, 2016 04:12
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Phyzzle posted:You mean people have complained about your posting before? The stalking is coming from inside the house. You follow me around the forums with an elaborate theory that I'm secretly some other black girl you hate for I'm sure completely non-bigoted reasons. You do it so much our resident idiot modoteen has joined in.
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Dec 30, 2016 04:26
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Colin Mockery posted:many good words about tech
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Dec 30, 2016 04:36
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Phyzzle posted:You mean people have complained about your posting before? The stalking is coming from inside the house. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3577891&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post421169558 For anyone who doesn't have archives Phyzzle posted:You need take control of the relationship in a way where she wont be capable of this poo poo. Look at dogs and their training, some run around and bark, yet others only do it in command. This is an analogy to show you whether you like it or not, but training/conditioning is important in a relationship.
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Dec 30, 2016 04:44
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I Killed GBS posted:https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3577891&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post421169558  That's utterly revolting, and I hope phyzzle finally loving leaves.
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Dec 30, 2016 04:46
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Though that was going to be "point to the door," was disappointed.
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Dec 30, 2016 04:46
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There's a piece up on Jezebel now, titled Becoming Ugly. I'm finding it runs extremely close to how my own feelings are going these days.
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Dec 30, 2016 05:01
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Neo_Crimson posted:It has (to an extent), same with "guys". Problem is they used to be male terms that became gender-neutral, while there has never been a female term that has done so. I suggest we start calling men dames. We'll make it gender neutral yet! I'm glad this thread is managing to talk about feminism! I adore Tiny Brontosaurus. Every time I have wanted to respond to a thing she has responded to it better than I would have. I'm a little nervous about posting in this thread because I don't think I'm educated on Feminism enough. I've read some bel hooks and Alice Walker. I took a feminism class in college. I've participated in a handful of feminist clubs and I consider myself a feminist but I'm not sure I've advanced beyond feminism 101.  I often find myself in a position where I have to call someone (usually a man) out on some bullshit and I always feel so unarmed. Like I'm not educated on women's issues enough to really make this argument. I worry I'm actually doing damage with my lack of expertise. I don't have the practice, I don't have the knowledge, I don't know the right thing to say. I don't know how to win. But no one else is speaking up and I just can't bear to leave that poo poo unchallenged. Recently, I was involved in thread on E/N posted by an ailing husband about to go through a divorce where I pointed out how the OP was completely unaware of the signals his wife was sending that their previously established implied consent was gone. He failed to recognize their relationship had decayed to a point where he was more like a stranger to her than a spouse. Him continuing to treat her like a wife was disregarding her denial of consent. His continued physical contact with her against her consent was sexual assault. Half a dozen men exploded into the thread with comments like, "but she's his wife though." And exaggerated eyerolling complaints about needing signed documents, lawyers, and mediators now. The level of hostility and hyperbole was galling. I and others did our best to explain to these assholes what was going on but they were just being absurd. It was really disheartening that the guys rolling in to make a mockery of consent were thread heroes while the people advocating for decency were mocked and punished. This forum is not reddit yet the level of outcry at anything remotely SJW or safe spacey is really saddening. Earlier in this thread we were talking about the 47% of women who voted for Trump and how devastating and heartbreaking that is. The truth is, however, that this is common for white women. White women have, historically, rarely cared unless it directly effects them significantly enough. They'll organize and protest and fight until they get what they want and then they'll go away. (See: How white women didn't even want black women involved in the women's rights movement though eventually embraced them. Once white women's problems were largely taken care of they just walked away and left the black women who rallied with them to rot.) The rights and privileges that will be stripped away by the Trump administration does not effect them. More specifically, the inevitable loss of abortion access is not going to affect middle class white women and working class white women don't think it could ever happen to them. Only poor people (minorities duh) need abortions so why the gently caress should I care? And they're already making due well enough with their unequal pay. They don't need equal pay the same way lower class single moms supporting their family do. I don't know what Trump said that appealed to them but they aren't interested in fighting for other people's problems. Why did they vote for Trump? There were many explanations but the truth is unless we ask each one of them individually we will never truly know their true reasons (and they might lie.) It's all well and good to be enlightened and just assume their other priorities overrode their defense of womanhood but, to them, this was not a betrayal of women because it doesn't effect the right women (them) enough. When guys come in here asking why should they care I am pained because women also don't care. I don't know how to make people care.  *note, I am a white woman. Jenner fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 05:44
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FactsAreUseless posted:Have you had a chance to ask them why they leave? Exit interviews or anything? 3 of the 4 said they had to move because of their husband's job (about the same ratio of men leaving because of their wife's job) Of course, I'm pretty aware that anywhere from 0% to 100% of the truth actually comes out. 1 transferred to a similar dept where the GM is a woman, though she quit pretty quickly because the GM is kind of crazy with working hours and screaming at people who aren't doing 12 hours, apparently especially if you're racially aligned with her because you're letting her race down. That exit interview, hoo boy. Anyway that's a different topic. BarbarianElephant posted:This is a really interesting question. What is the general area of your business, if that isn't revealing too much about you? I'm in industrial research and basically min reqs are engineering or physics PhDs with specialization in the project area we need. Generally people need to manage their own budget, setting up contracts with legal, making an over arching schedule and detail themselves. Kelp Me! posted:Without more detail on the environment, it really sounds like those 20 males have created an environment of toxic masculinity so thick that no amount of "here meet these other women at the company who are unrelated to your department" will help. TBH, if it's so bad that you've had 4 women come on and then leave because of the workplace environment, making efforts to introduce them to other women outside of their department seems like it would make things worse - it comes off as a tacit acknowledgement that this woman is stuck working with 20 boorish men, and instead of trying to fix that, you're actually emphasizing the fact that the problem is that she's a woman, and her only solace is in commiserating with other women at the company, even though their jobs may be completely unrelated. We have an awful awful awful lot of personal administrative tasks to do like online and offline training, setting hours, setting and generating budget reports, etc which I thought might help but if it is taken the wrong way then I won't do it next time. Colin Mockery posted:I live in California and use, depending on how formal I'm being/my audience, any one of: "dude", "peeps", "y'all", "guys" Thanks for taking the time to write this up. Just so there's no misunderstanding in the future, is that this is a pretty big multinational corp. A lot of the examples you gave are still there, just a lot more subtle and hard to pinpoint and dig out (as an overall company culture). Also, overt sexism is not really present in the department, its more how to encourage honest and serious engagement of workplace tasks, and how to have a fulfilling workday for the woman who has to walk into a meeting where 10 men are talking among their selves. 1. We do have an HR (though its a big corp HR and it makes me weary sometimes), and after reading this I think next time I meet with my HR rep I'm going to bring it directly to the attention of her, and ask for resources or direct engagement to help the situation. 2. I agree with this but unfortunately I am no where near the level to affect this. We have a few VPs who are women. 3. I actually read about this before last time and it did come up. After a dept meeting I overheard someone ask her to clean up the dishes and I stepped in and just made everyone clean up. Then I told her to tell me directly anytime someone asked her to do something like that or do admin stuff for them. That was a really obvious time though, and there's going to be things where I don't even realize when something is grinding gears. Plus I can ask for trust and request for her to tell me when something is up but will she really trust in me or let me know especially if its a request from our direct boss? This gets compounded by the fact our department is very diverse culture wise, which goes back to the point about acting so they don't need to stick up for themselves. Sometimes the victimized party would tell me 'oh its okay' when its really not okay, this is when I feel it would be the best time for ME to have an ally (preferably a woman) who can help me explain that its okay to say 'this isn't okay'. If I straight up just report something without getting some consensus I feel it can lose trust. Especially since almost every person we hire is out of candidacy and is in their 'first real job' situation. 4. Our HR is the lead in all exit interviews, and I feel like they do a good job but eh. 5. We have a new guy and ugh I wish it was a simple as the fact he was saying 'Wow Sally in sales got big boobs' but its always way more subtle than that. Lately we've had lots of work and he always says poo poo like 'Oh I can always do overtime because my wife cooks all my meals'. And its crazy, because his wife is finishing up her PhD - so I know its not some equal sharing of life responsibilities there. 6. Yeah all that stuff already exists and I totally agree that it can be meaningless if nobody actually follows through and embeds it in their daily work routine as an example. If there are also some resources on how to show to women employees their input is used, appreciated, and encouraged, and then how to get buy in from other male employees that these are legitimate ideas without being pandering or camp or whatever, I'd like to know about them. Also we're getting a new GM rotated in from the home country next month so I'm hoping I can talk to him about this at the beginning of his term and get him on board with this kind of thought. I'm not sure if its better before or after he goes to his 'This is diversity in America' training.
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Dec 30, 2016 05:47
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I Killed GBS posted:https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3577891&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post421169558 golly the mods were so horrified by that they gave him a week to think about what he'd done
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Dec 30, 2016 06:47
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so the " Let's talk about the impacts of patriarchy/misogyny/male privilege on men" thread turned into a 13-page circlejerk of guys making excuses for why housework is hard and it's women's fault for having high cleanliness standards and not making written schedules to remind them to do poo poo around the house and then got closed  like jfc i'm a lazy sadbrains pothead and I get that poo poo done how loving hard is it to run a vacuum cleaner/swiffer wetjet across your 4-room apartment once a week 
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Dec 30, 2016 06:55
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Housework is very hard for me, a woman The crippling depression probably has a lot to do with that, granted
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Dec 30, 2016 06:56
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Kelp Me! posted:so the " Let's talk about the impacts of patriarchy/misogyny/male privilege on men" thread turned into a 13-page circlejerk of guys making excuses for why housework is hard and it's women's fault for having high cleanliness standards and not making written schedules to remind them to do poo poo around the house and then got closed Can one be at all surprised that a thread discussion on toxic masculinity missed the point completely and became... toxic?
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Dec 30, 2016 06:57
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Octatonic posted:So, I wanna talk a little more theory, even if people ITT may or may not be into it (hard to tell, I didn't get any responses last time) but I think that some of the problem with talking about trans exclusionary radical feminism and trans inclusive feminism is vocabulary. I don't think there's any contradiction at all with respecting a trans person's navigation of gendered signifies and working to abolish gender. Note that I come from a perspective that's very very influenced by writers like Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, as well as earlier feminists like Simone de Beauvoir. I really like this post. Thank you. A little empathy goes a long way. BarbarianElephant posted:I feel that you may be expressing feelings of self-hatred linked to depression by seeking out media that validates your negative thoughts. A matter to work over with your therapist. If you read newer trans-positive feminist writing it should be more positive. Remember that the transphobic feminist stuff is quite obsolete. It's like reading old medical manuals where being gay is a psychological disorder. They sincerely believed it back then, but they were wrong and it is obsolete. It would be very appreciative if you could link so trans positive feminist articles. MageMage fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 07:26
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Jenner posted:Earlier in this thread we were talking about the 47% of women who voted for Trump and how devastating and heartbreaking that is. The truth is, however, that this is common for white women. White women have, historically, rarely cared unless it directly effects them significantly enough. They'll organize and protest and fight until they get what they want and then they'll go away. (See: How white women didn't even want black women involved in the women's rights movement though eventually embraced them. Once white women's problems were largely taken care of they just walked away and left the black women who rallied with them to rot.) If you're honestly curious, a lot of the consensus on women voting for Trump seems to be that for starters no one really expects him to follow through on the awful poo poo he said, and also the huge factor that for vast numbers of people in the rust belt things like abortion access and LGBT rights come second to "my town is literally dying, there are no jobs and I can't feed my family". Essentially, they're stranded in the desert, and being given the option of voting for the guy who promises to lead them to a yooge, luxurious oasis just over that hill who also has some awful opinions and is a horrible person, and an empty suit who tells them the water is gone, it's not coming back. Also you don't really need water, your body is 90% water already, seriously did you hear what that guy said? Terrible, right? You can just go ahead and vote for me now. Also her husband is the one who stranded them in the desert in the first place. This analogy really got out of hand. Oh and as far as gender-neutral terms go, let's skip the whole debate and just address everyone as 'fucko'. some plague rats fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 11:15
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I Killed GBS posted:https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3577891&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post421169558  holy loving poo poo
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Dec 30, 2016 11:22
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Gender socialization and culture can interact with capitalism in ways that are not always what you'd think. Here in Chile, our company is super-majority women. All my top paid hires are women. The reason? Women are less likely than men to be cocky assholes who want a ton of money to do mediocre work while strutting around like they walk on water. Chilean men are the worst (source: I am a Chilean man). So because women are socialized differently from men, they get preference over their potential male colleagues because thin skinned dudes who are all machismo and no work ethic are less effective than people who will listen when they need to, not fight with our clients, and hustle to get things done. Also because women are socialized differently, I get to pay 60% on the dollar (peso), get better work, and have fewer hassles because it's still a step up. And when I do hire men I can point to the prevailing salary level in the company to justify low balling them  edit: This is a serious post presented in an unserious way. Please don't probate. =( edit 2: What I'm trying to say is equality for women proceeds in different ways depending on the prevailing culture and level of development. Here in Chile, women are starting to get into positions they couldn't before (for reasons) because some norms are changing (women getting more educated and pursuing careers over early families) while others (being socialized to interact with people differently) are not. Right now that also implies a certain amount of economic exploitation, but in a few decades educated women are going to be running things as right now they're the ones climbing various ladders. wateroverfire fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 12:02
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wateroverfire posted:Right now that also implies a certain amount of economic exploitation, but in a few decades educated women are going to be running things as right now they're the ones climbing various ladders. You're assuming the ladders stay fixed. But this is a common phenomenon: male-dominated career is prestigious and well-paid; women start doing it in large numbers; men leave now 'feminine' profession, prestige and pay plummet. See e.g. secretaries, teachers.
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Dec 30, 2016 12:38
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Oh dear me posted:You're assuming the ladders stay fixed. But this is a common phenomenon: male-dominated career is prestigious and well-paid; women start doing it in large numbers; men leave now 'feminine' profession, prestige and pay plummet. See e.g. secretaries, teachers. I had a male doctor once tell me very seriously that women entering the profession would bring down wages and prestige. He framed it as 'women are ruining this' rather than 'it's hosed up that this will happen', too. What a fuckwit. Didn't the opposite happen with computer programming, too? Back at the start it was often done by women and considered menial and boring admin work. Then the men got hold of it.
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Dec 30, 2016 12:49
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Oh dear me posted:You're assuming the ladders stay fixed. But this is a common phenomenon: male-dominated career is prestigious and well-paid; women start doing it in large numbers; men leave now 'feminine' profession, prestige and pay plummet. See e.g. secretaries, teachers. It also works in the opposite way. Jobs which traditionally were female dominated gain prestige when men decide to get involved with them. Virtually all of the early computer programmers were women, for example, and it was a pretty bad job.
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Dec 30, 2016 12:54
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HopperUK posted:I had a male doctor once tell me very seriously that women entering the profession would bring down wages and prestige. He framed it as 'women are ruining this' rather than 'it's hosed up that this will happen', too. What a fuckwit.
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Dec 30, 2016 12:54
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Thank you for link! Good thing the men came along to rescue all those women from doing a task so fundamentally unsuited to their illogical female brains. I'm cross today.
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Dec 30, 2016 13:23
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Rush Limbo posted:It also works in the opposite way. Jobs which traditionally were female dominated gain prestige when men decide to get involved with them. Virtually all of the early computer programmers were women, for example, and it was a pretty bad job. HopperUK posted:Thank you for link! The NPR article was pretty interesting. Lots there that I didn't know about the history of computer science. But you have to look at more than a narrow narrative. The change in gender balance and prestige in computer programming also coincided with massive growth and change in the industry itself. There was little money or prestige in programming back when it was either a narrow academic pursuit or the rote task of programming calculations into primative computers. Without personal computers, the internet, productivity software, etc, the returns were just not there. Once those things developed and were adopted and integrated into the culture, it became possible for programmers to make mega bank and be superstars. The whole notion of what a computer programmer does is very different today from what it was. So did men come in and raise the prestige of the industry, or did the industry change (develop, really) and induce men to follow the promise of more money and prestige? I think there's a far stronger argument for the latter. Though that is not in any way to deny that sexism exists or that social expectations (or not wanting to deal with sexist rear end in a top hat sperglords) don't discourage women from going into CS today. I found this posted on NYT. IMO a lot of the cited research suffers from similar problems. edit: For instance, the article cites the following facts from one of its linked studies. The study is by Paula England, a Sociology professor at NYU. quote:The same thing happened when women in large numbers became designers (wages fell 34 percentage points), housekeepers (wages fell 21 percentage points) and biologists (wages fell 18 percentage points). There is a lot one can say about the study that is worth talking about. But the big-picture criticism is that if large numbers of workers pile into industries that are not growing in proportion to the influx, a decrease in wages is what you'd expect. The narrative that the decreases are due to gender balance isn´t supported. Though that isn't to say that sexism is not a thing or that other narratives about gender are wrong. wateroverfire fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 13:54
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Octatonic posted:It's pretty easy to get that tied up in the existential realities of gender though. Gender, while a social construct, is absolutely real in its effect on humans. While (TB forgive me) like race, your genetics influence what caste you're born into, the trappings of gender have gently caress all to do with them. There is nothing in the female physiology that makes us more nurturing. There is no physical reason why in the west women tend to emphasize speech more with pitch than men, who tend to emphasize with volume. There is nothing in our genetics or hormonal makeup that makes men better at math, or more likely to take charge or lead. These, however, are all things that we're taught to do over the course of our lives, both by the rewards that we're given, and the punishments we receive. We've mentioned numerous times the way that society punishes female assertiveness, and enforces gendered roles about nurture and domestic work, even in an office environment. When I say that we are made to perform our genders in order to survive, this is one of the things I'm talking about. Firstly, thank you for the posts and taking the time to write them. I agree with most of what you had to say, but this is one paragraph that I would like to explore a bit deeper if you'd permit me. One thing that I've never understood about social-construction theory is the ontology of social structures, and how they are to be conceived. I understand that there are different ways to approach this question, but none of them have ever seemed particularly satisfactory to me. I know from a Marxist point of view that so-called "superstructures" are supervenient upon contingent material historical and economic factors, but to me that just defers the question. We have still left unanswered what it is that leads to certain universalities in disparate cultures (which, most relevant to this topic, includes the prevalence of patriarchy and the marginalisation of women) and the invocation of historical and economic contingency does nothing to explain this reality. Ideological explanations for social structures seem equally inadequate, because it isn't clear to me that there is necessarily a clear-cut relationship between the prevailing ideology of a culture and its outcomes (at least with respect to "top-down" ideological structures). Let's take religious ideology as an example. I'm told that the doctrines of Sikh faith have some of the most radical professions of gender equality among the world's religions, yet women in Sikh cultures appear to be no more liberated or enfranchised than the women of other faiths on the subcontinent. In terms of political ideology, let's take the realities of gender in communist societies. While communist countries formally professed equality between men and women (which admittedly did lead to some practical equalities, such as roughly equal labour-force participation rates) women were still politically marginalised in such societies, and were gang-pressed into some fairly horrifically regressive gender roles. (Having lived in a former communist country for the past 6 years I still see the scars of this, and would be happy to talk about it if anyone's interested.) If the ideology of the ruling classes is capable of exerting genuine power over the way people think about gender issues, such facts strike me as being rather difficult to explain. From a more philosophical angle, while the post-structuralists openly disavowed fixed and immutable truths about human nature, they also seemed to engage in some fairly promiscuous reifications when it suited them. With Foucault, for example, I've never quite understood where he places the origin of "power", a theme which permeates much of his work. To me he seems to treat it is something ontologically actual, an almost free-floating entity which hangs over the entirety of human history like a dark cloud, rather than a contingent process enacted by historically-situated, flesh-and-blood human beings. This shadowy, all-pervasive "They" lurking behind much of his social theory gives his work a disturbingly paranoid quality that I confess I've never been able to get beyond. I have more sympathy for the works of, for example, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida, yet even in these authors I'm unsure how one gets from a radically decentered and free-ranging hermeneutics to their suspicions about the ideological structures which they believe permeate all discourse. Where did these structures come from, what explains their rigidity and consistency over time, and what explains their universality? (By the way, none of my questions here are rhetorical - I'm genuinely interested in knowing if you, or anyone else, would be able to set me straight if I'm suffering under some misapprehensions here.) I think there is genuinely some merit to social theories which invoke hidden regimes of power and ideology, by the way, but they simply fail to follow the train of logic deeply enough. When we confront certain human realities (again, sticking to the theme of this thread, this involves the ubiquity of patriarchy and the marginalisation of women) I think we have to confront the possibility that such realities are most likely pre-social, as only pre-social factors are capable of explaining ubiquitous social realities. The only pre-social fact I can think of might be brought to bear on this issue is biology - specifically, in the current case, that gender is, to at least some extent, a biological construct. Now, don't worry - this post won't devolve into a litany of bio-truths. In fact what I'd like to do (since you brought up de Beauvoir and other existentialist thought in your posts) is canvas your thoughts on phenomenological theories of embodiment and how they might be brought to bear on the issue of gender. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, but I'll give a quick introduction here at least for the benefit of everyone else if not yourself. Merleau-Ponty was (for me, at least) a criminally under-rated philosopher who was interested in the relationship between people, perception and the world. Central to his thought was the concept of chair ("flesh") and how our facticity as flesh-and-blood people forms the basis for our perception of the world. In contrast to more idealistic philosophers (including other phenomenologists like Husserl and Sartre) Merleau-Ponty didn't believe that our perception of the world was a purely mental event, but rather one formed in complete reliance of our constitution as embodied beings. My understanding of an object is not purely analytical, but one pregnant with practical, lived possibilities. To encounter an apple is to encounter it with the understanding that I can walk around and view it from a multiplicity of aspects (forming our appreciation for the apple as a 3d object), that I can grasp it in my hands, take a bite, hand it to a friend and so on. All of these possibilities are obviously dependent on my being a mobile, embodied person capable of realising them. For Merleau-Ponty the possibilities afforded by our embodied nature are not some extraneous facts to be added to our understanding of the world atop some Kantian categories of pure understanding, but rather permit and shape our possibility of understanding in the first place. To understand, in other words, is to have a perspective, and to have a perspective is to have a specific body, which is always ontologically prior. To paraphrase Thomas Nagel, there can be no view from nowhere. (I think, by the way, that Simone de Beauvoir occasionally touched in similar themes. She wrote extensively about the nature of "situation" and "facticity", which grounded her philosophy in comparison, for example, with Sartre's more transcendental concept of consciousness, and which probably places her ontology in the same region as Heidegger's and Merleau-Ponty's. Nonetheless, she never, to my knowledge directly engaged with Merleau-Ponty's philosophy, which is a shame, since I think there was a lot of overlap between their systems of thought. Regardless, what I want to talk about here are recent feminist interpretations of Merleau-Ponty, and how I think they are relevant to discussions of gender.) While Merleau-Ponty has sometimes been dismissed as androcentric, many feminist authors have taken his thoughts on embodiment as a useful starting point for discussions of gender difference. (It's true that Merleau-Ponty largely ignored the question of femininity in his writings, but I don't think means that his philosophy cannot be used in the service of feminist philosophy.) I found a couple of useful introductions to feminist interpretations of Merleau-Ponty here and here. I'd particularly like to highlight the quote from Johanna Oksala in the second article, and ask for your thoughts: "...my argument is that a nonfoundationalist reading of Merleau-Ponty's body-subject can provide feminist theory with an account of the female body that acknowledges its generative status instead of viewing it only as a passive product of cultural crafting". In other words, for Oksala - in keeping with Merleau-Ponty - to be in a female body generates certain possibilities that simply could not be understood by someone with a male body, that these are not purely a social construction, and (this is now my own interpretation) that the divergent perspectives and lived realities of male and female are therefore likely to be at least partly biologically (we might say "existentially" - it amounts to the same thing) situated. A more radical demonstration of this can be found on p. 96 of this book, talking about the philosophy of Luce Irigaray: quote:I would say that the vast body of Irigaray’s writings has been in the service of rigorously thinking through sexual difference, and she has utilized a number of different strategies to do so. In one mode, she is engaged in critical interrogation with the dominant philosophers of the western tradition, including her contemporaries. She also engages in the practice of retrieving and illuminating the works of influential women whom the masculinist tradition has left behind. Most important for my discussion is her ongoing effort to carry out a phenomenology of female embodiment. For example, Irigaray expresses time and again that women have sex organs— organs for pleasure— on the outside and the inside. They have multiple sets of lips for caressing and enveloping a sexual partner. They have inter- uterine folds that shed blood and tissue in a monthly cycle, that can open up to conceive, carry, and give birth to a child. No phenomenology of the body will be satisfactory that doesn’t recognize these and other fundamental differences and experiences women live in their bodies. Now this may take the phenomenology of embodiment a little far (though it's probably not my place to say) but it does extend further the possibility that gender - and its cultural expression - are at least partly determined by certain biological facticities and that gender is not an arbitrary construct. Again, I would like to hear what you or anyone else might think about this. So, to return to your original quote, what about the trappings of gender roles and their relationship to biology? You are right, of course, that many manifestations of gender difference are arbitrary constructs and accidents of history. There is nothing in the biological constitution of human beings that "makes men better at math" or that makes women more adept at performing domestic work. We know this, and so I don't wish to dwell on such crudities here. But I don't think, for all that, that we can dismiss certain facticities of gender difference as explaining universalities in the plight of women around the world. The most important fact here, I think, lies in the twin facts of sexual dimorphism and tendency towards aggression. Even if these are the only two inherent differences between men and women, I think it is enough to explain the universality of patriarchy and misogyny. As we have said, the body we inhabit frames our possibilities and the means with which we engage in the world. That men are (by and large) bigger and stronger than women means that they have a wider scope for self-assertion than women. Many posters here have spoken about the intimidation they have felt in the face of aggressive masculine behaviour, and the difficulties of defending against such overt expressions of misogyny, and I think this is at least partly predicated on men learning that their physical constitution can be asserted as a means of getting what they want in a manner that simply is not available to most women. Even as a man I can feel this; subconsciously, I would almost certainly be more likely to act deferentially to an aggressive man of 6'4" than an aggressive man of 5'0". Such a seemingly trivial difference, though, can lead to large imbalances in the power of certain social relationships and therefore in the balance of power in society. Men simply have a greater scope for asserting their dominance through violence and physical intimidation, and this explains why positions of political power in basically every society in history have been monopolised by men. The other biological difference worth exploring is the disparity in aggression between men and women. That human males - as with all mammalian males - are more aggressive and more prone to acting violently is, I think, beyond dispute. That men are greatly over-represented in statistics relating to violent crime all over the world is a universal fact, and again one that cannot be easily explained through social-constructionist theories. Whether or not disparities in levels of aggression are determined by testosterone (as some studies have shown) or some other factor, I think the universality of male aggression (again, not just in human beings) is something that clearly has a biological basis. This may be related to the above point, but the great difference here is that unlike sexual dimorphism, the disparity in aggression levels between men and women is something, I believe, that we have the power to change, but to do so we must first admit that the difference exists - this is why I think what I'm writing about is actually important vis a vis gender equality. If it is true that men are inherently more likely to be aggressive than women, then we can address this by teaching boys and girls - from a young age - to be more deferential and more assertive respectively. This involves treating the genders differently, yes, but with the ultimate aim of creating equality later down the road. Now you may ask why we should divide children along gender lines rather than treating them as individuals, but the trouble is that the gender disparities don't really become apparent until after puberty. There is little dimorphism in children, and the dynamics of power and aggression don't really apply until boys and girls approach adulthood. It's here, I would argue, that gender disparity begins, yet by this stage it's also probably too late to change attitudes on a wide scale. A 15-year-old boy who has never been taught not to aggressively assert his masculinity, developing in a peer-ground of 15-year-old boys who have similarly never been taught not to aggressively assert their masculinity, is going to be very hard to reach. Far better is to intervene when boys and girls are very young and to teach them explicitly to be less and more assertive respectively, while their minds are still pliable. I'm reminded of a study I read (I think in this book) talking about the racial attitudes of children and its relationship to their upbringing. Surprisingly, the best indicator of racist attitudes in children was not whether they were brought up in a household that was liberal or conservative, but whether or not they were brought up in a household which openly discussed issues of race. Parents assume that racism is something that has to be taught, but actually it's something that children can fall into quite accidentally if parents don't directly intervene to prevent it from happening (protecting them from harmful ideology isn't enough). With respect to issues of gender, I believe it's dangerous to reject realities of gender difference for the same reason - children who grow up with vague platitudes about equality and with little other discussion of gender are exactly the same people who grow up to say, "I've never benefitted from patriarchy, I treat everyone equally, women have the same rights as me, what's the problem?". Gender-blindness is as problematic as "colour-blindness" and can lead to the same lacunae in people's perception of the world, where under the guise of unimpeachable egalitarianism they simply refuse to open their eyes to very real patterns of discrimination before them. To concede gender differences, predicated on differences in embodiment, is not to fall prey to patriarchy, but to take the first steps towards gender equality. Anyway, sorry, that turned out much longer than expected. There's still a couple of things I'd like to say, especially about transgenderism, but if I've already overstayed my welcome then I understand. Would be genuinely interested to hear what you all think.
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Dec 30, 2016 14:44
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That's a very fascinating read and while I fear my reply will be woefully inadequate I think I might know where you are going vis a vis transgender brains. One of the things I've read, like here https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-something-unique-about-the-transgender-brain/ , has been that trans people have brains similar to the gender we are rather than that assigned at birth. This is fairly new science iirc but it is something that would be a great comfort if true.
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Dec 30, 2016 15:06
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MageMage posted:Can one be at all surprised that a thread discussion on toxic masculinity missed the point completely and became... toxic? A group of bad actors came and made the whole goddamn thing about being clueless of housework in an attempt to drive it into the ground. They succeeded. If I get the time this weekend, I'll make a new thread with a much more specific topic and set of rules.
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Dec 30, 2016 15:32
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Talmonis posted:A group of bad actors came and made the whole goddamn thing about being clueless of housework in an attempt to drive it into the ground. They succeeded. If I get the time this weekend, I'll make a new thread with a much more specific topic and set of rules. And so instead of discussing men's issues, the "but what about the MEN?" crowd would rather trash and destroy their space to spite feminists. It reminds me of what the GOP does to dismantle government institutions: pass bills to hobble them, then when they don't provide the services say "see, the post office doesn't work! we need to privatize it." Wash rinse repeat. - invade, poo poo up, ruin even the most benign feminist spaces - "see, feminism is too divisive and hostile!"
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Dec 30, 2016 15:52
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It was ruined because posters like TB cannot tolerate the slightest bit of wrongthink. E: some posters are allowed/encouraged to be toxic and it spoils any chance for debate and discussion. The Kingfish fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2016 15:58
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Defenestration posted:What's that rule? "any discussion of toxic masculinity online proves that toxic masculinity exists?" Please don't probate...only talking about this because it was brought up... but that thread was going fine until some people came over from this one and made it a fight instead of a discussion. I don't think it's fair at all to pin the death of that thread on anyone but the people who killed it.
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Dec 30, 2016 15:58
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The Kingfish posted:It was ruined because posters like TB cannot tolerate the slightest bit of wrongthink. wateroverfire posted:Please don't probate...only talking about this because it was brought up... but that thread was going fine until some people came over from this one and made it a fight instead of a discussion. I don't think it's fair at all to pin the death of that thread on anyone but the people who killed it. drat those women, always ruining threads by having opinions
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Dec 30, 2016 16:00
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There were women posting in that thread before it got invaded by effectronicas. It was DnD's toxic culture what killed the thread.
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Dec 30, 2016 16:09
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botany posted:drat those women, always ruining threads by having opinions In online discussions, no one knows your gender unless you tell them. Aside from a few posters who have made a point of claiming a gender, I have no idea who is or is not posting as a woman. I think activists claiming a different standard of civility applies to them is a HUGE issue for feminists in online discussion. Accepting that standard implies that the strongest personalities on the "right" side of a discussion can dictate all the terms, run out dissenting voices, and even suppress voices that agree with them if that agreement isn't in the form they like. It concedes every controvertial point to the people most willing to scream about it, and ultimately discussing issues becomes subordinated to keeping the most unreasonable people happy. It's no way to run a discussion forum and it's guaranteed to alienate a lot of people who would otherwise agree with the points raised more than they'd disagree.
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Dec 30, 2016 16:37
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http://www.derailingfordummies.com/derail-using-anger/quote:You’re Being Hostile
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Dec 30, 2016 16:43
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1. Listen, you incredible nitwit. You simpering bufoon. You complete rear end. You misandrist. Damaging causes by being angry and aggressive is an actual thing that happens, you might not like it, but it's a huge turn off for people who ask questions to then get yelled at. It does, in fact, make other people less inclined to participate. And there is such a thing as being too big of an rear end in a top hat, that's not a tone argument. I would go so far as to say that if someone is turned off by your hostility and you trot this out you are straight up dismissing their legitimate feelings because they are inconvenient to you. Denying their lived exerience, as they say. I know TB keeps meticiulous track of everyone she gets mad at but they should still be allowed to participate in threads, especially the one specifically created for their dumb questions. 2. that isn't at all what happened in that other thread and it's really unfair to declare discussion of the other thread taboo and then a bunch of people start mischaracterizing it in a place where we aren't supposed to be talking about it. I hope it's clear I didnt mean any of those mean things I said defen. Just a rhetorical point  botany posted:drat those women, always ruining threads by having opinions The only thing that ruined that thread was that people felt they couldn't have multiple discussions at once and shut the thread down instead of clarifying the genuine confusion some people had and having other conversations in parallel. This thread seems to be doing fine with pages and pages of not about feminism yet also super awesome effort posts and article links about feminism. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 30, 2016 16:49
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I didn't know you could just politely ask to not be probated, i'm going to be making lots more shitposts in my day to day life now I know that's an option
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Dec 30, 2016 16:57
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Nevvy Z posted:You misandrist. This is ironic, right?
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Dec 30, 2016 17:00
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