Like so many waves eroding the cliffs of the patriarchy (FEMINISM THREAD)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Like so many waves eroding the cliffs of the patriarchy (FEMINISM THREAD)

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

Cool, barely into page 2 and already the most pressing feminist issue is male feelings. Since icantfindname, who is on my ignore list for being a huge bigot, incidentally, has had his answer maybe he can go off and chew on it by himself and not make this thread about him any longer? Men on the internet have a habit of seeing feminism threads as female attention dispensers, and it would be cool if people didn't let that happen here.

I am an activist in real life and one of the things I talk a lot about with people out there is concrete, achievable goals. With something as huge as patriarchy that can be hard, since it permeates everything and its causes and effects can be very hard to follow out. There's a kind of butterfly effect with societal biases - something as big as "why don't more women succeed in male-dominated fields?" is a river fed by tributaries so tiny people refuse to believe it could possibly matter, and get angry at the suggestion it does. Which is why I'd like to talk about the battlefront of my grandmother's generation of feminists, which has largely been forgotten by my own: Housework.

Ask any man who lives with a wife or girlfriend how much housework he does, and he'll usually say "about half," but taking stocks of all the domestic tasks that get done, that's almost never the case. Frequently a man is barely contributing to the work of keeping the home running at all, yet may feel his share of the chores is incredibly burdensome and he's selfless for putting up with it. Feminist men can be some of the worst offenders of this, because they know men should pull their weight, but the hidden sexism of their upbringing and their subconscious keeps them from really seeing how much work is actually done and who does it. If you ask a man about a household chore he doesn't do, he invariably says it doesn't "need" to be done - his wife or girlfriend only does it because she's so "picky," the silly woman.

Men tend to came the infrequent, showy tasks as their chores - cleaning the gutters might only need to be done once a year, and most importantly it's a concrete task with a satisfying finality when it's done. Not like laundry, dishes, wiping the countertops, vacuuming - a ceaseless grinding cycle of tasks that are never finished in the "don't have to do that again!" sense.

I have two articles I hope any cohabitating man will read. There's going to be some inevitable defensiveness, hysteria at being criticized, challenged, asked to think something new. Please don't post that here, it's not unique or informative, it's just growing pains you have to power through before a new idea can take roots in your brain.

Please also don't post to brag that you do, in fact, you'll have us know, contribute equally to the housework. Perhaps you even do more than the little lady! You're the one who needs to read this stuff most, because you're the one who doesn't even know all the work that needs to be done or who does it.

Here's a classic feminist piece, the best response I've ever seen to the reflexive "but you're just better at it, sweetie!" response men have about the chores they don't feel like doing. The Politics of Housework

Here's a blog post by a man who figured out the ingrained sexism he'd had regarding housework on his own. I haven't read the rest of his site, so if there's something impolitic in there I don't care. I like this post because he voices what I think is a pretty typical thought process men have about women "nagging" them about chores. The underlying assumption that poisons relationships and makes it impossible for men to see they're being sexist about chores is that women are always wrong and the things they want are stupid. You'll find this one lurking under a lot of sexism, really. It is nearly impossible to root out, because it's self-reinforcing. Men aren't being sexist when they assume women's thoughts are stupid and silly, they're just being level-headed and unbiased! Look how emotional this chick is getting when I tell her so, see, she was stupid and silly after all.

Anyway. She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By the Sink

I post these partly because men reading this thread in good faith might still have the impulse to whine "but what can I do?" You see us criticizing the structures of power, and you see yourself as powerless, and it's true. Odds are you're not a CEO cackling on the golf course about how no woman is ever going to make VP in your company, gat-dammit. But are you a man living with a woman who works just as hard as you, trying to succeed in a job just like you, who always has to put your dishes in the dishwasher for you because "who cares"? That's a drop of energy she has to burn and you don't, and those add up.

I wanted to quote this since it was posted pretty early and therefore may have been glossed over in the initial influx of "justify feminism to me!" posters, and it's a Really Good Post that also hit really close to home for me. While I managed to shape my rear end up and fix things, my SO actually moved out for a period of time a few years back because of tiny-seeming things like in that blog post, and what brought her back to me (and also improved the relationship 1000x in almost every way) was the same realization the guy came to - shame he couldn't fix things up, since it sounds like he actually learned something.

It's pretty crazy how even in an ingrained relationship where both people have a pretty solid understanding of each other, gender equality issues can still creep in and grow to the point of wrecking relationships beyond repair. So thank you TB for this post.

I hope this doesn't fall under "do my homework for me," but is there a good direction to go in if I'm interested in the next level of this idea? That is, if I'm trying to apply the idea of "little tiny-seeming things are directly connected to gender-biased roots that crop up and cause major problems" to the world around me and not just between my wife and I?
For example, I've noticed that one of the companies I work with a lot has a tendency to dump certain minor tasks on women in the group, even if they're equally positioned. Like, the last few times I've been over there for meetings, the lone woman on the project team (who has the same position as 2 men on the team) is always the one getting coffee for everyone, making sure everyone has a pen if needed, etc. How do I combat that in my own company, and what can I do when it's not my company/team? I don't know if it's my place to try to explain to a different employees about their ingrained gender biases. Lead by example I guess? I dunno. It's really pretty mind-boggling how even an uninformed dumbguy like me can see subtle misogynistic poo poo like that everywhere I look when I actually pay attention to it.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 16:19

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 16:39

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

BarbarianElephant posted:

I'm a female coder and was one of the higher paid employees at the business that I used to work at. Once my boss was feeling kinda sexist and ordered me to make tea for the room. I did it with a grudging attitude because I was working on a coding problem. The secretary at our office rolled her eyes and told him "You know, that was the most expensive cup of tea you ever had!" And he didn't do it again.

Not sure if there's any good advice there but I still find it funny.

Earlier this month one of the owners of my wife's company asked her to take him and his family's Christmas photos. Not my wife's male and underworking assistant, not the company's actual photographer (also male), but my wife, because he saw her taking photos at one of their trade shows once. She works 9-6 M-F and additionally needs to spend a good 1-3 hours every night cleaning up everyone else's fuckups on her laptop at home. No mention of compensation was made, and he asked her to take a half-day to do it.

Thankfully I think one of the other owners realized how hosed up and lovely that was and gave him an earful, but I was still like :gonk:

That actually leads me to another question: She's got tons of lovely stories like that from work, but one of my most recent realizations is how often I have a tendency to mansplain to her what she should do in such situations. It's super-frustrating to me sometimes, but I think just listening and commiserating is probably more helpful than "well you should have stood up for yourself, tell him you're busy as poo poo and don't have time to be his personal photographer" and the like. But is that really the best thing for me to do? I don't want to fall into the "I'm hearing but not really listening" trap; but it pains me to hear about that poo poo and have to choose between "yeah that sucks babe, gently caress that guy" and "let me tell you how you should respond" - they both seem kind of shallow/unhelpful.

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

Great question! For your office example, the simplest thing you could do is be the one to get the coffee and pens yourself. This may make the other men you work with subconsciously think of you as subordinate, and I don't know how to fix that, sorry, but it would give the women a break from filling that role.

I think you'd be a great candidate for employing amplification, which became well-known as the strategy Obama's female staffers used to make their voices heard in meetings. Obama's another good guy who would never be overtly sexist, but who let subconscious sexism permeate the way he ran meetings, so it seemed natural that men should talk over women and steal their ideas. The women in the room started combatting this by repeating a point their female coworker just made and most importantly, naming and thanking her. "I think Karen makes a great point there..." "Just to build off of what Jennifer said..."

It works so well. A teacher reading the black feminism thread tried it and saw her female students open up and get more engaged in class almost overnight. You're not in ideal circumstances for this strategy since you say you tend to only have one woman on the team. This may lead men to think you're speaking up for her because you're attracted to her ("white knighting," as will I'm sure be posted in this thread a thousand times), so you might spread the field a bit by referring to conversations you had with women who aren't in the meeting, or amplifying any other coworkers you notice get talked over or ignored (minorities are a good bet).

And I don't know what your corporate culture is like, but be mindful for office trends designed popularized by Silicon Valley dorks, because they often have no awareness that what they think is cool might be more burdensome on women. A stand-up meeting goes from casual and relaxed to physically painful if you're expected to wear heels to work, for example.

Edit: Writing that up just made me remember a time I was doing the women's work of meeting prep, sorting and stapling a huge pile of documents, and a man wandered in and asked me if he could help with anything. I was under a big time crunch so I said "Great! Help me staple these" and explained the sorting system, and he visibly blanched and backed out of the room mumbling about how "you're better at that than me." Poor little man hands can't operate a stapler

Thanks for the advice! I think I already had a few brushes with amplification, though not with a gender-based goal - one of the programmers at another company we deal with is so timid at meetings that despite him being leagues smarter than the rest of his team, his contributions get minimized in the same way, so I've actually had to re-center the focus on him a few times in almost the same way! I'll be sure to keep that strategy in mind when appropriate.

Sadly, I'm in a weird position where I don't interact with female employees that much - my company is literally me and 2 other guys, and we deal heavily with HVAC manufacturers and distributors, which are some of the most stereotypically backwards-rear end boys club environments you can imagine. It's super-rare to see a non-secretarial/low-end administrative woman in any of these companies, which is a bummer. The woman in the previous example I mentioned is a rarity, and God bless her thick skin because one of her teammates will make a sexist crack about Eagles cheerleaders and you can almost hear the poor woman's teeth grinding as she laughs along :smith:

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Dec 29, 2016

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 17:01

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

The male gender issues thread is going around around with this mental block right now. I think there are two roots - our culture's sense of morality is very just-world, so if someone has a problem it's because they let it happen. Then people in privileged positions, like men, simply don't run into intractable, structural problems so much. They have a lot more freedom of choice - if your job is bad just get another job, etc. It makes it hard to see that venting about a problem is dealing with it, if you've reasonably determined that problem is not actually in your power to solve. In women's lives more often than men's lives sometimes things just suck and all you can do is manage your unhappiness about the sucking.

Also frustrating is men tend to really not get that a man and the woman doing the same action will get different results. A man is "assertive" when a woman is "bitchy." "Just tell them what's wrong" doesn't work if you know you get interrupted every time you open your mouth at work. Standing up for yourself when you're anything other than a straight white male is a very risky gamble. We all do it sometimes, we have to, but it's something you have to weigh the consequences of very carefully.

I think I get what you're saying. I do wish there was a non-mansplainy way to instill more confidence in her, at least in her workplace setting. At this point she's literally indispensable to the company - so many people are relying on her at this point to keep things running smoothly despite the overall incompetence level that if she up and quit they'd be hosed. I honestly believe that she has enough sway to be able to set an ultimatum along the lines of "these things need to change or I'm out"," though like you said a good chunk of that belief is colored by my male perspective on things (hell even the idea that I want to help her be more confident has tinges of sexism)

It's just so loving frustrating seeing her get home at 6:30 and immediately open her laptop and do more work for another couple of hours every day. I ask her to explain what gently caress-up she's cleaning up at the moment and it's so damned depressing, and the more I pay attention to who's adding to her workload the more I realize it's all men, and how lovely and condescending they can be when asking her to fix their mistakes or do work they didn't get to, etc. :smith:

Sorry, that turned into a little bit of a venting rant of my own.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 17:30

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

Oh this one's actually easy! See when you're telling her "you should have done x" you may think of that as instilling confidence, because to you you're saying "I know you're capable of doing x" but to her you're just reminding her of yet another shortcoming. Switch to saying the reasons why you know she's capable of doing x. Tell her she's smart, tell her she's competent, tell her she's strong.

Yes Botany's suggestion is great. ( ) I can remember very vividly every time someone said "I think TB wasn't finished yet" in real life, because it's so rare and because it cheered me up so much every time. You can actually transfer your confidence to another person just by doing something as simple as that. It's a superpower..

I will try that, thanks

Good Canadian Boy posted:

If one is socialized male until 18 they have developed with male privilege and transitioning to a woman does not change that.

I have very little experience with trans issues but this seems really wrong. Someone who transitions at 18 has more than likely been living with the idea that they are not the gender they're meant to be for years. It's not like a guy lives for 18 years as a stereotypical guy and then one day becomes a woman. To assume that someone who transitions at that age has developed the same male privilege as a cishet male ignores the years of feelings of non-belonging and being different that person has felt for their whole life before building up the confidence to actually transition. I don't want to make any conclusions or endorsements of "should trans women be able to speak for/represent cis women as a whole," because I don't know enough to comment on that, but regardless of the age they choose to transition, assuming that they developed with the same levels of male privilege really seems to marginalize all the emotional baggage forced onto pre-transition gender-fluid (gender-queer? not sure the right term) people.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 17:50

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Uncle Jam posted:

I have a massive problem keeping any women in my department for any length of time. Right now we have about 20 people and its all male.
My last 4 hires have been women but none of them stay more than a year and a half. My thought was that the gender make up of the department has something to do with it, so I try to introduce the new hires to women outside of our department, introduce them to the people leading the internal women's org, etc, but it still doesn't seem to help much.

I vastly prefer the idea diversity that appears when a project is multi-gendered but I'm not sure how to improve the environment enough so that we have the opportunity to have two women on staff at the same time.

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.

Good Canadian Boy posted:

I do not feel that someone that has felt Trans their whole life has not had their own issues and difficulties. They're human after all and not identifying with your gender is tough. But the way others view you affects your socialization. And if you have been viewed male for 18 years you will recieve male privilege from that and have male socialization ingrained in you. Therefore a Trans person in this scenario has a unique experience and not one of female socialization.

Again, though, you're assuming that this person has been viewed male for 18 years, which heavily implies viewed as "ideal" male, when that's almost never the case. Even if they didn't transition until age 18, those first 18 years were most likely filled with criticism and bullying over not being "male enough." The stereotypical view of a male is extremely exclusive, and any deviations from it (differences in fashion, musical/literary/whatever tastes, behavior, etc.) are punished harshly.

So yes, maybe there are some people who blended perfectly in male social circles all the way through high school before transitioning, it seems like the majority of people in that situation faced years and years of taunting and bullying for being not masculine enough, so again, you're minimizing all the poo poo that person had to go through before they transitioned by assuming they've received the same treatment and subsequent development of male privilege as their cishet peers.

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Dec 29, 2016

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 17:57

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Good Canadian Boy posted:

Feeling as an other, depression, bullying and any other things that might come as a result of not feeling your gender are not synonymous with being a woman or anything like that though? Plenty of white Cis males experience many traumas and difficulties in their life growing up and that doesn't give them a spot at the table. In fact closeted gay men can often have similar experiences as trans women growing up and that doesn't qualify them to speak for women either?

You're right in that it doesn't necessarily qualify them to speak for all women, but it is because their experiences are wholly unique, and not because they have too much male privilege. Talking about closeted gay men is irrelevant because "should closeted gay men be able to speak for cis women" isn't a debate that exists, but "should trans women be able to speak for cis women" is.

To put it another way, "feeling as an other/depression/bullying" is not synonymous with being a woman, but "living/presenting as a male until age 18 before transitioning" is not synonymous with "being instilled with standard male privilege" either.

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Dec 29, 2016

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 18:08

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

I need to work on my gender-neutral descriptors when addressing people. I walked away from a conversation with 2 female FedEx employees at the branch where I'm a regular with "have a good weekend, guys!" and immediately felt like a giant asshat.

Mostly it stems from high school; most of my friends were girls and the word "dude" was thrown around so much that it just became ingrained in my head as a gender-neutral term of affection. Sadly I can't remake the world around my own preferences, so I need to accept that calling a woman "dude" or "bro" isn't really a good idea.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 22:46

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Philip Rivers posted:

Y'all is my favorite gender neutral address.

I'm a big fan of "folks" but that worked better when I was in the service industry, it doesn't seem like a word I would use in everyday conversation.

I should just use "friends" but always say it with a creepy grin. "Have a good weekend, friends! :mrgw:

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 23:03

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

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 :negative:

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 :psyduck:

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 06:55

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

I mean my first post in this thread was literally the first time I've posted in any sort of social activism thread or even in D&D period, and I have a barely 101-level understanding of feminism right now, and yet I managed to get a detailed, thoughtful response from several of the better-known feminist posters, including TB, without any name-calling or negativity. I didn't even have to tiptoe around any triggerwords or anything dumb like that.

So either the people that keep getting shouted down for being jerks are being jerks intentionally, or they're revealing their own biases through their words and having a lot of trouble dealing with those biases being exposed.

Also just for the hell of it I tend to dig deeper into peoples' histories when posters like TB call them out for weirdly specific past transgressions and wouldn't you know it they're almost always correct about them!

Like I'm not trying to act like Mr. Perfect Feminist Ally here but if you read through this thread there's a pretty obvious difference between the "but but I posted in good faith and everyone called me a bigot" posting and the actual discussions like the workplace sexism discussion. You'll notice that that started out with that poster being called out on unintentionally fostering a sexist environment, and I think there's been some really good discussion and progress on that subject. I wonder why?

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 17:24

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Nevvy Z posted:

Is that what you think I was trying to do there? Interesting.

It's pretty black-and-white considering your response to "here is a detailed argument why getting angry in a debate is OK and why dismissing the debate due to that anger is lovely and defeats the purpose of the debate" is just repeating your original argument which was "I don't want to listen to what you say because you're being too angry about it"

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 17:26

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

On video games, it's pretty stereotypical in a "this comes up literally every time anyone mentions empowered women in video games" way, but when I was little I had 2 friends who absolutely refused to play the original Metroid because Samus is a woman. A friend's older brother told me the password to start the game as Samus without her suit (so you can actually see she's a woman) and that was it. Refused to even try to play it.

Your loss scrubs, that series is the best :getin:

Also just as a shout-out to women in that industry, Yoko Shimomura is one of the best composers out there. Street Fighter II, Mario RPG, Final Fantasy XV, and almost every non-Final Fantasy RPG that Square put out during the PS1/PS2 era. She rules.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 15:30

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Of course that didn't happen naturally, it had to be forced:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/star-wars-force-awakens-rey-toys_us_568bef03e4b0b958f65cf2c7

quote:

Three Hasbro toys in particular riled people up. One was the �Force Awakens� Monopoly game, available for $25 on Amazon, which doesn�t include Rey, but does feature Kylo Ren, Finn, Luke Skywalker (who appears for all of 30 seconds in the movie) and Darth Vader (who appears for even less time than Luke).

Another was a model of the Millennium Falcon featuring only Chewbacca and Finn � even though it�s Rey who flies the Falcon in the movie, not Finn.

The third was a six-pack of action figurines, which includes Finn, Chewbacca, Poe, Kylo Ren, a stormtrooper commander and a tie-fighter pilot � but again, no Rey. Adding fuel to the fire, the six-pack was sold at Target, a store that made headlines last winter for its decision to eliminate �boy� and �girl� signs in its toy and bedding departments.

But a cursory look at retailers� online stores suggests otherwise. We searched �The Force Awakens� in Disney�s online store and only found 27 items involving Rey out of a total of 146. When we performed the same search on Target�s website, which features items available in stores as well as online, we only found 17 products including Rey out of 267 (not including a couple items without a detailed photo). On Toys �R� Us� website, Rey is even harder to spot, only appearing in 10 out of 254 �The Force Awakens� products.

The same cannot be said of toys featuring Kylo Ren. The less-seen male character is first introduced in �Episode VII� as well, but is nevertheless featured much more prominently across all three sites. In the Disney store, he�s a part of 42. At Target, we spotted him on 54 items, and at Toys �R� Us, on 46.

(Kylo Ren also appears more prominently on packaging than Rey, and is more likely to be grouped with other male characters, presumably to make the product more appealing to young boys.)

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 16:00

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

BedBuglet posted:

Woah woah woah! Not cool! Female villians needs better representation too you know. Girls need to learn that it's okay to join the dark side if that's what they want.

Phasma better loving get a ton of screentime in Ep8 because they hyped the poo poo out of her and she's in TFA for all of like a minute. I can't even remember if you ever see her with her helmet off.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 19:06

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Talmonis posted:

I was so mad about that. I was pumped that she was the Stormtrooper captain, had the badass silver armor and a goddamn cape, and was just comedy relief for Finn.

Not to mention if you went into the movie blind literally the only way to tell she was a woman was by the voice (although OTOH the idea of heavily-feminized Stormtrooper army is just...ew)

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 19:38

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

BarbarianElephant posted:

Hopefully they don't blame Jane!

You know they will though :sigh:

BarbarianElephant posted:

If you want to avoid boob plates, this is inevitable for heavily-armoured female characters.

Yeah, it bites. Short of a Finn-style "this battle is so intense I need to take my helmet off for a second to breathe" reveal, it would have been kind of tough to emphasize her being a woman without it feeling shoehorned in. Hopefully she gets some genuine character development in Ep8 without it being "let's cut to Phasma in her personal quarters doing fixing her hair for no reason" or something equally asinine.

e: I wish I could remember the specific books/passages but Terry Pratchett skewers feminized armor in multiple different ways and they're all hilarious; he also does a really good job getting in the head of "male character slowly but surely learns about gender equality," a whole bunch of his characters have a lot of emphasis on that specific personality development, and a lot of them approach it from different mentalities entirely. Heck, the entirety of Monstrous Regiment is about gender/species equality.

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jan 4, 2017

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 19:41

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

wateroverfire posted:

Getting promoted / assigned based on what your bosses think you're good at rather than what you want to do (even if you're better at the thing you want to do) is something that happens to all people in large organizations. Learning to not show too much competence in areas you don't want to be tapped for is a crucial career skill.

related: All the goons who are "that person who knows how to fix excel" and similar things.

If the years have taught me anything it is that having zero knowledge of IT network poo poo is preferable to knowing your poo poo.

Time spent Googling why your router is down because you don't understand DHCP or whatnot << time spent fixing relatives'/coworkers network connections

IT: the best real-world example of "ignorance is bliss"

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 21:11

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Star Man posted:

Way back in 1985, some of the staff that developed Gradius were women. One of them suggested that when you enter your initials on the high score screen that you be able to select a male,or female portrait and astrological sign next to your name. Its music composer was also a woman named Miki Higashino, who alao did the music for a few other Gradius games, Contra III: Alien Wars, and the Suikoden series.

I just wanna know who to blame for it automatically changing to something else if you entered rear end into the high score list.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 21:17

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

BedBuglet posted:

So, maybe I'm alone here but I'm hoping they never take her helmet off. She's got a total bad rear end Vader feel to her now and the second they give her some humanity, that goes away. Seriously, look at kylo ren, the instant he took off his helmet he went from this bad rear end Sith to a whiny emo with daddy issues.

Worth the read.

Link doesn't work, but anyway: Vader and Kylo Ren were both heavily established as male characters, but they're very very different and it's not really fair to compare them together to Phasma. Vader was firmly established as a male character from the beginning, and then got 3 movies devoted to his growth as a man and his awful interactions with a woman. I also don't think the reveal of Vader's face at the end of Return of the Jedi changed anybody's opinions of Vader as a badass even a tiny bit. Kylo Ren was pretty obviously intentionally established as a flawed, very human character who is trying really hard to be a badass like Vader.

Anyway, I gotta say I completely disagree that allowing a character some humanity degrades their "badass" status, especially if it's a woman.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 21:58

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

I know I kind of started it (though I was trying to focus on how Phasma's development could have feminist or misogynist overtones depending on what they do with her) but can we not turn the feminism thread into the "talk about which male Star Wars villains are good/bad"

It's unfair to compare any of them to Phasma since that would be diminishing her status as a unique character, which is something that even in the limited screen time she got was pretty well-established. She's probably the least overtly evil villain in a Star Wars movie and I'm really not sure how revealing her face would be a negative thing in any way unless it was shoehorned in in an extremely misogynistic way. In fact I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to have her do a heel turn and end up with the rebels. Honestly the only really "evil" trait she's shown to have is the usual "blindly following orders to a T without considering the implications" that you see in a lot of villain-turned-hero characters (like, say, Finn in the same movie)

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 22:49

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

gently caress

http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/ryan-obamacare-repeal-will-strip-planned-parenthood-of-funding/

GOP will strip Planned Parenthood of funding while repealing ACA - Despite lack of replacement legislation, GOP plans for repeal in coming weeks. posted:

As Republican lawmakers eagerly prepare to scrap President Obama�s signature healthcare legislation, the Affordable Care Act, they�ve announced that while doing so, they'll also strip funding from Planned Parenthood.

In a press conference Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) confirmed that �Planned Parenthood legislation would be in our reconciliation bill� when asked about potential defunding. The reconciliation bill is the budgetary tool that Republicans plan to use to dismantle the ACA with a simple majority and without the potential for a filibuster. A straight repeal would require a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, which the Republicans don�t have. A straight repeal would also open the possibility of a filibuster. (For more on how that process would work, check out Ars� previous coverage on this matter.)

Republicans have long railed against Planned Parenthood, the nation�s largest abortion provider. A 2015 reconciliation bill, put forth by Tom Price (R-Ga.), President-elect Trump�s nominee for the secretary of health and human services, also defunded Planned Parenthood. That legislation made it through the House and Senate, but it was vetoed by President Obama.

Since 1976, federal law prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortion. However, abortion providers can still receive federal funding to provide other healthcare services.

In 2014 (the most recent data available), Planned Parenthood received around $553 million in federal funding, which makes up about 43 percent of its overall funding. The organization runs more than 650 health centers around the country, serving around 2.5 million patients a year.
Despite abortion services drawing the most attention, abortions make up only about three percent of Planned Parenthood�s work. Of the nearly 9.5 million services Planned Parenthood provided in 2014, 4.2 million (45 percent) of those services were related to testing and treating sexually transmitted infections. Thirty-one percent, or 2.9 million services, were for birth control. The rest were largely for pregnancy testing, cancer screening, and other health services such as urinary tract infections and adoption referrals.

�Defunding Planned Parenthood is dangerous to people�s health, it's unpopular, and it would leave people across the country without care,� president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Cecile Richards, said in a statement responding to Ryan's comments.

The combination of defunding Planned Parenthood and repealing ACA is a double-whammy for women, particularly those of low income. With an ACA repeal, 55 million women would lose access to no-copay preventive services, such as STI screening, pap tests, and cancer screening, according to Planned Parenthood.

Republican leaders are expected to introduce and pass the ACA-dismantling, Planned Parenthood-defunding bill as soon as next month. However, the lawmakers have yet to come up with a replacement for the legislation, which could leave the healthcare industry in years-long limbo and/or cause millions of Americans to lose health insurance coverage.

Note that they're planning on doing this in the next couple months despite having literally no plan in place for healthcare afterwards. They're literally winging it to the tune of a $350B cost. Supposedly there are a significant chunk of republicans who realize how loving insanely bad of an idea dismantling the current healthcare system without having a plan for the new system is, so we can only pray that this poo poo gets delayed out of existence (it probably won't though). I have no idea how the PP defunding could possibly be disentangled from the ACA repeal bill, too :smithicide:

# ¿ Jan 5, 2017 21:34

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

stone cold posted:

Also, wasn't there that dumbass Bush-appointee judge down in Texas that had an injunction against Medicare to fund Planned Parenthood?

Yes

it's due to be defunded in TX on the 21st, but PP is trying to fight it:

http://jezebel.com/planned-parenthood-asks-texas-federal-judge-to-stop-pla-1790658708

Planned Parenthood Asks Texas Federal Judge to Stop Planned Medicaid Cuts posted:

In a request filed late Friday in Austin, Planned Parenthood has asked a federal judge in Texas to halt the plan to cut its funding from the state�s Medicaid program.

The AP reports that the request is a part of a larger lawsuit filed last year, which was in response to controversial and highly-edited videos released by anti-abortion organization Center for Medical Progress that purportedly showed Planned Parenthood officials selling fetal tissue. The decision to officially cut Planned Parenthood out of the state�s Medicaid program came on December 20th, leaving the organization 15 days to appeal the decision. It seems that they are doing so, just under the wire.

Planned Parenthood�s request is not without precedent; judges in Arkansas, Alabama, Kansas and Mississippi have stopped similar situations from taking place as a result of the videos and their ensuing controversy. In the request for injunction, Planned Parenthood wrote, �Courts have unanimously prevented these terminations and agreed that preventing Medicaid enrollees from obtaining care from the qualified provider of their choice violates federal law.�

Planned Parenthood is set to be cut off as soon as January 21, pending any decision from the judge. A hearing for the case had been previously set for January 17. Ideally the judge will look to precedent and grant the request, allowing thousands of women who depend on Planned Parenthood for essential services like cancer screenings and birth control to continue to do so.
Megan Reynolds

# ¿ Jan 5, 2017 21:46

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

wateroverfire posted:

That perception is why people are upset. I get that. But...

A) The judge's decision was in line with the parol department's recommendation. Do you think they are part of the club, too?

Yes, that's called the patriarchy

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 17:33

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

wateroverfire posted:

That's a facile explanation. Why is it a patriarchal injustice and not an application of progressive sentencing practices aimed at rehabilitation over punishment?

edit: IDK if NM is reading this topic, or still posting for that matter, but maybe the perspective of a public defender from California (separate from the many public defenders who have voiced support) would be useful here.

Because this kind of rape/sexual assault has been shown time and again to be malicious and intentional and not, as you called it earlier "drunken hookups." That means that there is a burden of punishment, which this sentence does not fulfill.

That sex offender rehab program is a bullshit copout and Turner is going to breeze through that poo poo and not learn a drat thing.

wateroverfire posted:

IDK man. There are societal pressures, and a culture of alcohol use, hooking up, and a general lack of accountability that goes along with being 20 and being in college that contributed to what he did. That doesn't excuse it at all, but that does make calling it callous harm sort of questionable. Ultimately IMO it is better to err towards rehab then towards punishment and to not give in to vengeful impulses. What interest is served by putting a kid in prison for 6 years?

The interest that he willingly took advantage of and raped a girl, that he lied about it and tried to pass it off as "I got drunk because I don't really drink" despite texts from his phone indicating the opposite.

Do you not see how "culture of alcohol use, hooking up and lack of accountability; but those things don't excuse it at all" and "calling it callous harm is questionable" are directly contradictory?

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 18:43

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

wateroverfire posted:

What do you make of the below statement from a Deputy Public Defender familiar with the judge?

That this public defender is also part of the patriarchy? Hint: it's the part where he talks about Brock Turner's humanity and completely ignores the humanity of the woman who watched a man who raped her get off with 6 months and had a big chunk of the men in power nod and say "that seems about right"

He also talks about Turner's sentence vs. those of minorities which is pretty irrelevant to this conversation IMO so I'm not sure what point you're trying to prove with that quote?

e: Khan also had nothing to do with the actual Turner case AFAIK so having what amounts to Joe the Plumber's opinion on the US economy as a whole is pretty worthless as a defensive argument

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jan 16, 2017

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 18:46

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

wateroverfire posted:

It really sounds like you have a general outrage that you're bringing into this situation that probably doesn't belong in any decision about how to handle the case.

Yes, I would say it is correct to have a position of "general outrage" about insufficient sentencing in rape cases. Not sure why you would say "your opinion on rape/sexual assault doesn't belong in any decision about how to handle this rape/sexual assault" case. Unless you mean that what Turner did was neither rape nor sexual assault?

wateroverfire posted:

You call it malicious and intentional and of course he didn't just slip and accidentally finger her, but where does that shift the calculus from rehab to punishment?

because it was an intentionally malicious act that Turner showed little to no remorse for over the entire course of the trial. Do I really need to explain this to you?

wateroverfire posted:

Almost all criminals are acting "maliciously and intentionally" but we'd rather they get better than get time. You seem to be really skeptical that he'll benefit from rehab and I'd ask you why.

See above, also that's an incredibly nonsensical blanket statement. Rehab is offered in an extremely small portion of sentences, and unless someone could prove that Turner had a pathological need for sex or some form of fugue state nymphomania wherein he literally has no control over his sexual urges without therapy or medication, there's no reason to believe the mandatory rehab will be anything but several hours a week he has to kill sitting in a classroom.

wateroverfire posted:

I don't see those things as contradictory. Why do you think so?

Because you are listing reasons why he shouldn't be 100% accountable for his actions, stating that you don't think these are reasons he shouldn't be 100% accountable for his actions, then stating that he shouldn't be 100% accountable for his actions?

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 19:05

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

wateroverfire posted:

I'm not a rape apologist.

I'll drop it because I don't want to be probated. But it's lovely that in the forum for debating and discussing things, it's not permitted to debate or discuss the other side of issues that are complex and deserve more consideration than "hang 'em high" or "that's patriachy for you", no matter how respectfully.

I don't want to call you a rape apologist but your counterarguments thus far have been really flimsy and your response to explanations and arguments continues to be some BS handwaving. A lot of times you ask for clarification, get an explanation and respond to it with another "well why do you think that is?" I dunno if you're trying to promote discussion, but at some point you're going to have to defend your own arguments without deflecting and asking other people to further explain theirs. So far your main 2 arguments have been "here is a male public defender who had nothing to do with the case talking about how the sentence was apt while making a point about racism in sentencing" and "according to Wikipedia he has to do sex offender rehab"

You haven't responded to any arguments with anything substantial beyond asking for more clarification, like that's some sort of defense. I'd be eager to hear your response to my last post, since as it stands your most recent arguments were
- "here are some excuses rapists make, but they're not excuses for Turner, but I wouldn't call what he did callous/intentional/malicious"
-Literally "You seem very angry about lenient sentencing in rape cases, but I don't think that anger belongs in a discussion about lenient sentencing in a rape case"

If you want to take those stances that's fine but you have to actually defend them with some evidence and not keep questioning others about their well-defended beliefs, because taken at face value, yes, those arguments signify a massive lack of respect for rape victims, and can easily be viewed as making excuses and apologies for the rapist.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 20:03

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

wateroverfire posted:

PM me if you want to talk about me? This doesn't need to be in the thread.

Neither did a quote from a male public defender unrelated to the case, making a statement about racism in sentencing, used as a defense for misogyny in rape sentencing, with the justification "here is a guy who is familiar with the judge"

Actually I didn't even notice it before but the fact that you literally tell us he's "familiar with the judge" and then question why I would think they're both part of a larger patriarchal system is pretty :lol:

too

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 20:05

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

e: nvm

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 22:00

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

GlyphGryph posted:

Of everyone in here that spent the last several pages talking about it, the poster who posted as part of a several page ongoing conversation and then almost immediately realized it was inappropriate and removed said posts is the one who pissed someone off enough to buy them a redtext?

To think that for a moment I almost forgot how lovely this thread was to post in.

Does anyone want to hear more about women getting involved in MA politics by the way, both currently and in recent history? It's a pretty interesting topic, imo, and we have a guest speaker coming in next month. I could write that up, depending on how it goes. Preferable without it needed to be prompted by WaterOverFire

honestly it's so goofy I wouldn't even take it seriously and I doubt the person who bought it was being serious.

When you say MA you mean Massachusetts? I'd like to hear about that; I lived in Boston for years and the local political climate was extremely man-heavy.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 17:55

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

GlyphGryph posted:

I liked the gift avatar I had before and never thought to save a link to it. My own fault, in the end, red text is almost always inevitable.

Yeah. It feels like, at least from the bits I've been exposed to, women have been having a lot of success making inroads. Still a good ol' boys club in many places, but improving all the time. Which makes sense, since the political machine here is generally resistant to any sort of change so it takes a while for seeds that have been planted decades ago to really start growing, but it's nice to see. My local DTC is almost completely women so they tend to push exposure to women's issues stuff (which is a good thing).

Are you in Boston our outside of it? Last time there were elections for Boston and the immediate surroundings (Watertown, Brookline, etc.) the candidates were really heavily skewed, but I never paid attention to anything outside of the immediate area, tbh.

It's a pretty weak burn in your red title anyway so just look at it as "some idiot got mad because I was responding to the current topic of discussion" and be proud that your legit truthbombs made someone so frothy they spent actual money on a milquetoast red title

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 18:12

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Saudi Arabia ranks 134th out of 145 for gender parity according to the WEF, it's the only country in the world where women aren't allowed to drive and all women regardless of age or status aren't allowed to leave the house without a male guardian

sooooo

e: and that's literally from the first line of the wikipedia article I'm sure there's tons of other horrible repressive poo poo going on there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia

Snow Cone Capone fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Jan 18, 2017

# ¿ Jan 18, 2017 02:22

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

A psychologist my mom worked with told her and my dad not to try to teach me 3 languages growing up because it would impede my development but gently caress that poo poo, both me and my sister were speaking/reading above our levels in both languages by kindergarten and we totally could have handled a third.

I wish I spoke Spanish damnit :mad:

# ¿ Jan 18, 2017 06:40

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

I'm technically still a grad student so I do have access to a bunch of stuff. I'm not sure if my school tracks what I search through them, or if it matters, but if there's any specific articles anybody desperately needs, I can see what I can do.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2017 02:08

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 16:39

Snow Cone Capone: Jul 31, 2003

Defenestration posted:

When I was doing a lot of No Boston Olympics advocacy someone stood up and asked a representative from the Mayor's office (who were fully supporting this ludicrous bid) what they would do about human trafficking that inevitably takes place around this kind of major event.

The guy said "that doesn't happen here" [in first world countries].

This is a guy at the right hand of the mayor. There is plenty of evidence, there are plenty of people's stories to say yes, human trafficking is a HUGE problem. But out of sight out of mind, right? If he doesn't see it happening, if it's inconvenient to his narrative, it doesn't exist.

Thank you for your part in preventing the olympics from coming to Boston

lordly lord what a dumbfuck idea that was

# ¿ Jan 22, 2017 16:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Like so many waves eroding the cliffs of the patriarchy (FEMINISM THREAD)