The discussion on this thread – originally about an Ohio rape case – has gotten too long, and has drifted considerably. So I’m closing that thread and starting a new one.
The new topic appears to be questions of lust, gender roles and power. Do girls and women have more “sexual power”? Do boys and men feel more lust than girls and women do?
I’ll quote parts of recent posts by Aegis and La Lubu to start this thread off, but feel free to respond to any post on the old thread, here on this thread.
Aegis: Understanding the disadvantages that a certain social system grants in one area should not lead us to ignore the way that system also grants certain advantages in another area. Obviously, the pressure on women to be beautiful, and the pressure on men to earn money are both disadvantages. But because of that pressure on men, they often succeed in earning more money, granting them economic power (although this power require sacrifices in other areas). Those poor men, being forced into having all that financial power! Likewise, the pressure on women to be beautiful may result in them improving their beauty, and consequently gaining sexual power over males. Of course, female sexual power does not always translate into respect from males, and it often comes at a price of other types of power. […]
Surely being viewed sexually can often be a very positive experience for females! Isn’t it nice for an attractive woman to have a guy she really likes become totally smitten with her? Isn’t it nice for her to be able to wait for a guy to approach her, and then let him do most of the work when he does approach?
And some of my first experiences not being viewed as sexual were negative. I felt competely unnattractive to women until I was age 18, and this had horrible effects on my self-esteem and ability to interact with women. I also remember one time when a friend of mine who went to middle school with me told me only half-jokingly that she would like to marry me some day… just so she could sit in my big house and look at my artwork. I don’t think she would have been interested in dating me in a million years, but apparently I was good for earning money to buy a big house and adorning the walls of said house with paintings. Imagine how you would feel if a guy told you that he would like to marry you simply for your looks.
I am not saying that a guy who encounters comments like this and feels unnattractive necessarily has things as bad as a woman who gets catcalls and creepy older suitors all the time, just as I am not saying that a man never being seen as sexual in the business world has as much advantage as an attractive women who can easily attract men. Those comparisons are difficult to make.
One thing that bugs me about claims of “women’s sexual power” is that, insofar as it exists at all, it’s entirely indirect power. A woman’s so-called sexual power doesn’t mean that she gets to decide which project will be funded, who gets hired or fired, etc; at best, all it can mean is that she has the indirect “power” of influencing men who in turn get to make the actual decisions.
How much power did Monica Lewinsky actually have to determine US policy? I’d argue, virtually none. But no doubt it could be claimed by some that she had “sexual power” over Bill Clinton.
La Lubu: Aegis, being viewed sexually can be a positive experience for females. However, I would argue that most women have experienced being viewed sexually as either equally positive and negative, or more negative than positive. Why? Because we don’t get to keep being viewed sexually within its context, in other words, our perceived sexual persona is elbowing into all the nonsexual areas of our lives.
Like the professional world, for example. No matter how neutral our dress or behavior, the mere fact that we are Female, with a Female Body, brings sexuality into the equation as work. For women, this often translates into reduced opportunities at work. Potential mentors shy away from us because they don’t want to be tagged by the inevitable sexual rumors. Higher-ups don’t want to believe that women are on the job to work rather than find a husband. The Mommy Track is real. Even when we’re not mommies. How attractive we are or aren’t can translate into what work opportunities we are given, or aren’t. I once had a foreman on the job walk me around to all the journeymen already there, asking the guys if it was ok if I worked with them…he didn’t want to make anybody’s wife mad. Out of thirteen journeymen on the job, all said they’d work with me, that it was cool. But only two of them thought the whole idea of singling me out like that, for that reason, was complete bullshit. Only two other journeymen on the job thought it should have been irrelevant whether anyone’s wife got mad. The other guys thought it was nice of him to ask!
* * *
Again, don’t feel constrained to responding to only the above on this thread. Any of the posts on the old thread may be responded to here.
You are doing two things:
1) Associating my comments about how people play power games in relationships with the negative consequences that ensue from this.
2) Accusing me of supporting this.
Are you talking to me? Was I even responding to you, Mr Someone, or referring to you? Nope. I was adding my own comment to Q Grrl’s own comment, on a mentality in society at large.
If you want to be the one and only subject of all discussions about gender, sex, social norms and expectations, feel free, but you know, there’s a society out there that’s made by more people than you.
A similar argument that could be made:
You might agree that paying taxes is unpleasurable, but it doesn’t mean that taxes don’t exist.
This post on Hugo’s blog discusses issues relevant to this thread.
someone,
Even if the overall topic wasn’t the original thread on a rape case narrowed down to focus on sexualtity and power, how do you seriously expect to discuss sexuality and power on a feminist website without someone bringing up rape?
And on that note, I’d like to bring up another “old argument”
(you are welcome of course, to exercise your power of autonomy and ignore it-although you will get bonus points for discussing how much actual autonomy you would have if you didn’t have the power to say no, or if such power was conditional or such rights were inneffectively enforced).
Aegis says:
(sigh) No, any 18 year old boy who presumes to know more about women’s desires than the women he is debating with is viewed by said women as well, naive, at best.
And as far as someone being viewed at the Patriarchy Incarnate. Well, literally, yes. And I mean that in a very precise and non-insulting way. Patriarchal societies, according to feminist theory, accord men certain privileges that women do not have, most especially a sense of entitlement. Incarnate means “in the flesh ” So yes, a living male person who argues that he knows more about women than women themselves do, and who also makes it clear that he deserves to be called an adult, but women his age do not, and who can only defend this stance by saying “that’s the way it is”? is most definitely Patriarchy Incarnate to feminists like myself. Not because we think he’s evil or even mysigonistic, but because that’s what the words mean.
oh, and Amp, sorry for repeating what you just said.
The anonymous troll said
Ok, I will be going now… more replies later.
I had hoped you’d take the time to upgrade your reading level. You’ve misunderstood or miscontrued most posts, ignored or turned inside-out the responses to your inane assertions, and demanded that people “respond” to you after they have many times. Misunderstanding the reason The Rules was linked to was classic. I was starting to wonder if English was your native language until someone mentioned “18 and 19 year old…” in which case, a few college level English classes might help remedy the problem. One hopes.
This constantly telling others how to behave in this thread is getting annoying. You obviously don’t have a firm grasp of the issues. The old “everyone must now play by my rules of LOGIC” trick is usually hauled out whenever someone gets frustrated that they can’t convince others of their (frequently illogical) argument. Funny, nearly everyone here, except for you, has been making quite logical and reasoned posts so far.
Uh oh, the personal attacks and ad hominems are starting. Heh heh…
noodles, so who were you referring to when you said
Is the “those” referring to me and Aegis?
If it isn’t, then I apologize for misunderstanding your post.
someone, you don’t get to define sexual power. What has practically every woman on this thread and the last one been telling you, ad infinitum? That your definition of “sexual power” is complete meanningless crap! So, being pretty gets you more attention than being ugly. Big effing deal. Most of that attention is very negative; it’s disrespectful, demeaning, and intended to “put you in your place”. And it damn sure doesn’t put food on the table or a roof over your head, so it’s irrelevant.
When Samantha (or any other woman) is getting harassed on the street, she is not the one in the position of power!! That unprovoked verbal attack is designed to put her in her place; a reminder that she is the lesser party, that she is only avoiding a beatdown or rape because of the ‘good graces’ of her harasser. He is reminding her that he not she, is the one with the real power. A little “don’t get too uppity, ‘cuz I can still fuck you up, bitch” reminder.
I wonder how you’d see the power dynamics if your narrow young ass was thrown in prison, with larger, meaner, older men deciding that you were the “pretty one”. The one that was going to take the place of females. I wonder how much sexual power you’d be able to wield.
Go read the thread on Hugo’s blog, since Amp posted the link here. Pay close attention to the sociobiological argument for rape. It’s garbage, but a helluva lot of people, including women, buy into it—that rape is both a way for men to increase their progeny, and a way of getting the “big bad dominant genes” out into the world. If you really believe that viewpoint, then you’re not going to take rape seriously for what it is; you’re not going to think of rape as being a real crime. That’s the baggage that we women carry around with us without our consent. We have to recognize that if we are raped, that a significant number of people, male and female, don’t think it’s that big a deal, or even that rapists are a twisted form of ‘good guy’, because they’re the “big, bad” muthas.
I can always feel my eyes glaze over when men start talking about women’s “sexual power.” If men really thought that the “ability” to be constantly seen as a disposable, interchangeable object by an entire class of people was such a huge form of power, they’d be doing everything they could to cultivate that power for themselves. Aside from certain sectors of the gay and/or urban community, all-over, all-consuming beauty regimens (or cults, as I prefer to call them) aren’t all that common among men. When MAXIM, et al, start teaching men the joys of bi-monthly body-waxing or tell them to leave school in order to make an easy fortune as strippers, I’ll start believing in all this supposed “power” I’ve been “gifted” with simply by dint of having breasts and a rounded rear end.
Note that I am not arguing that men don’t use their physical appearance at time to their advantage, or that women don’t respond to physical appearance in men. I AM arguing that there’s not a veritable industry and/or secular near-religion built up around one particular, saleable icon of male beauty. Nor is men’s appearance marketed to them by other men as their primary concern, and the most practical and proper route to getting what they want in life. MEN’S HEALTH doesn’t have any two-page cosmetic spreads about how this or that product will make a man just as dreamy as Orlando Bloom, or whomever.
Some killer posts in here, especially La Lubu’s.
La Lubu… fine I will answer your post. But I expect you to return the courtesy and actually respond to my posts.
Big effing deal? That’s an interesting way to put it.
Apparently being able to negotiate your own terms for a relationships better and being able to select from a larger pool of mates is meaningless.
Because people don’t actually care about being unattractive, it is not a source of great discomfort for many people, not a reason for depression, alcoholism and suicide.
People don’t worry about finding a good relationship either.
No one suffers from heartbreaks, no one suffers from unrequited love, no one suffers from being dumped, no one suffers from not being treated the way they want to be treated by their partner.
Nope. It’s all a “big effing deal”.
Sorry, but I have to disagree….
This has been mentioned earlier, and I have responded to it, here:
So here is the question again:
Do the negative drawbacks of being sexually attractive outweigh the positive advantages?
Would most sexually attractive women want to become less attractive?
I also asked this question of Samantha, I am waiting for her answer.
It would be really nice if she answered.
I disagree with the claim that only something that can put food on a table or a roof over a head is useful.
There are other things that can be useful.
As I have mentioned before several times (but too lazy to find the quotes), sexual power IS NOT a synonym for economic power.
The ability to afford food and a place to live is dependent on one’s economic power, not one’s sexual power.
If Samantha is worried about affording food and shelter, this is what a job is for.
No one is saying that she is supposed to rely entirely on her sexual power to do this. (Although this is not impossible, and successfully done by large numbers of attractive women.)
The two powers are completely different things. (although they can contribute to each other)
Economic power is about one’s “value” in purchasing capacity. What kind of things can they afford? What kind of abilities does their money give them?
Sexual power is about one’s “value” in the world of dating and relationship. What kind of criteria can she put on a potentional mate? How hard is it for her to attract someone? How much power can she wield in a relationship?
And of course, of course, OF COURSE, economic power is far, far, FAR more useful than sexual power!
Economic power in a large degree is incredibly useful.
However, sexual power can also give her an economic advantage to some extent, since it may make it easier for her to attract a wealthy man.
Summary:
Economic power is considerably more useful than sexual power, but this does not mean that sexual power must be viewed as a replacement for economic power. It has its own domain of operation, where it comes useful. And indeed it is useful. It is something most people would rather have than not have.
The claim that being made here is that when someone insults her, this gives him power.
Does insulting someone really give you power? I don’t think so… It might give you some satisfaction, but not any measurable power that does something useful for you.
Samantha mentioned before that most of those men that insulted her were homeless or lived in poor minority neighbourhoods.
Samantha herself is more or less economically stable, she has a nice place to live in, she is probably getting higher education in a university or college now (or maybe already completed it), and she has a generally good quality of life.
I don’t think that it is correct to say that a homeless man has more social power than Samantha. Neither does a poor one that belongs to an ethnic/racial minority.
Firstly, describing my ass as “narrow” and “young” and then suggesting how I might get raped is pretty offensive. You could use some neutral imaginary person instead, no?
Now the point itself…
I don’t think that the dynamics between dominant and submissive inmates in prison which are based on physical domination, humiliation, and mob pressure can be accurately compared to the dynamics between women and men in a civilized society which are based on mutual interest, negotiation, and (for many people) ultimately trying to seek out someone to be your lover and a loyal companion in life.
You know, someone, I kind of think that it’s the blog maintainer’s privelege to post rules and so forth. But then again, you’ve been giving orders since you got here.
A really good rule for you–well, aside from anything about listening, that is—would be to go read stuff that Amp posts.
Seeing as how you don’t appear to read the stuff you do post—your response to the blogwriter you quoted selectively was extremely revealing—I’m probably being too optomistic.
Amp, if you’ve got nothing better to do upon awakening, perhaps you can explain why “someone” is somehow less “dominating” of the conversation or less offensive in attitude than NYMOM was when you asked her to leave. Honestly. He jabbers above about jobs as somehow a seperate field or pursuit that doesn’t figure isn’t this discussion at all. This after Lubu and others have repeatedly explained how men’s twisted notions of “female sexual power” DAILY undermine and damage women’s lives ON THE JOB –even when a woman has so much utility clothing on that you probably couldn’t figure out her gender from more than ten feet away. That’s just one example among many of his listening skills, and his intentions– the former of which are clearly not honorable and the latter of which are not even remotely geared toward learning anything here.
Or vice versa. :o Hell with it. I’m going to get coffee.
You might agree that paying taxes is unpleasurable, but it doesn’t mean that taxes don’t exist.
Not only is Someone lecturing us all about female sexuality without having a clue, he’s also pontificating about rules of proper discussion and logical fallacies and straw men arguments without having the sligthest idea of what logic, proper discussion, or straw men are.
I am impressed at the ability to monopolise entire threads. That’s definitely a skill.
Ad hominems and twisting my words are not a good tactic for a debate.
I can understand what argument you are trying to make, that women’s sexual attractiveness brings more negative drawbacks (including hurting their economic potential) than positive advantages.
If this is what you want to say, then say it in a reasonable civil manner, instead of a hostile attacking manner.
“This isn’t a thread about rape, it’s a new thread with its own topic, so this complaint is meaningless. If you don’t want to discuss this topic, then don’t. ”
For those of you who were around for February’s example of male reversal’s, here’s another classic! Absolutely classic, in fact.
You take an intense thread about rape, inject an 18-year-old misogynist male’s views on female sexuality, tell that male it is inapprorpriate to talk about that in a thread on rape, he ignores you and continues derailing. He then gets a new, solitary thread entitled after his design (and not, say Ginmar’s line of reasoning) and then he has the FUCKING BALLS to write the above statement. Nice.
Troll.
So, back to rape. I really think it is impossible to honestly talk about women’s sexuality and power without fully discussing how rape (or the fear of rape) is used to shape young women’s sexuality. To talk about “female power” without acknowledging rape is just to talk about another version of male objectification of women. Someone and Aegis aren’t talking about women’s reality (as they ignore all that the women have written here and kiss up to the men) — Someone and Aegis are talking about their objectified view of women’s sexuality. Women are “other” and “different” and have “power”. Women are never just women. And perhaps that is why they can ignore rape.
In fact, Someone’s pathetic cry that the feminist women are diverting his topic with talk about rape is an act of condoning rape. His blindness to the effects of rape put his actions into the rape apologist category. Again, to him, rape is a crime (horrors!)… and then well, what else is there to talk about. Oh, yeah. We can talk about women’s sexual power! Hubba Hubba. Could it be any more transparent that our society condones rape. Come on people!
Someone: while rape is a crime (horrors!) to you, it is a force, both physical and psychic, that shapes women’s sexuality as we know it. But you probably know that — you use the same tactics verbally that many men use physically on women. You cannot hear a woman say “no” because it is far more important that your perception of reality plays out, despite anything that a woman says or does. You’ve already proved this.
Ad hominem.
Uh. What Alsis said, amp.
I also want to quote Someone, so this doesn’t completely fly under the radar:
I don’t know which angle is the most insulting: his attitude towards the feminists posting here, or his underhanded slam of disabled people.
for it to be an ad hominem, it would have to be false.
someone, the reason I don’t put any stock into attractiveness, is because I have experienced life as the “ugly one” and life as the “pretty one”. Meanwhile, I was the same person inside and out. I found that the emphasis placed on my looks by strangers or acquaintances was shallow and meaningless. What counts is how folks treat you when they know you. Anything else is as fleeting as the wind. Really.
And for the record, being “pretty” doesn’t shelter one from depression, addiction, suicide, heartbreak, unrequited love, or being dumped. Nor does it offer any easy path to a decent relationship. Relationships are not built on what either partner looks like. And while you are young, and are experiencing life through a lens where “looks matter”, as you get older, you will find that “looks” don’t matter all that much. You will also find, as you reach your late-twenties, early-thirties, that women are just as likely to call you and/or ask you out, as you are to do the same.
As for the comment about “gettting a job”, hell!! What do you think I have been trying to get you to understand? That for women in the job market, our physical appearance is always an issue for us, to the detriment of having our work examined and evaluated objectively. Our appearance, whether “pretty” or “ugly” or any shade in between, is an obstacle in the employment arena. When you were born, there was a popular book called “How to Dress for Success.” The idea was that women had to walk this fine line between being too feminine, and not feminine enough at work. The book had elaborate wardrobe, makeup, and hairstyle strategies that were supposed to help a woman advance in her field. Wardrobe. Makeup. Hairstyle. Strategies. Perhaps I’m completely dense, but uhh….shouldn’t education and ability take precedence? A man can go to work, be clean and neat, and be dressed professionally…..and that’s enough. Not so for women. Age and weight are also huge obstacles for women on the job.
Put the “but….you can attract a wealthy man!” canard down for the final cluck, willya? What I hear in that statement is “Quit your bitching and be a prostitute! Anything you get in this world should be based upon what a man is willing to give you! You don’t need a brain. You have a pussy!”
And what makes you think that the men who rape other men in prison are any different from the men who rape women outside of prison? The whole point being, is that rape is a crime of violence, and an assertion of dominance. The only place you would ever experience a feeling of fear of sexual violence is in prison. We women have to deal with that fear periodically throughout our lives. When Samantha was walking down the street being harassed by those men, it didn’t really matter that they were poor or homeless. They still had the power to rape her, and the chances of her seeing justice served would be slim, statistically. The chances of her being blamed for her own rape would be high. She would be asked “why were you walking there? why didn’t you take a cab? why were you alone?”.
Prison rape is tolerated because it is a form of social control. Rape outside of prison is a form of social control, also. It is also a weapon of war and genocide.
You didn’t answer my question. How much sexual power would you wield in prison?
ginmar
Proposition does not equal imposition. All I did was ask whether this would be a nice rule to follow to make debating more effective. And you know it perfectly well.
So this is a Strawman.
Stop it.
La Lubu
None, because I wouldn’t be able to select my “lovers” on my own, they would force me.
This is not the case with women in a civilized society which do select their lovers on their own. In a society that practices arranged marriage and the parents decide for their daughter and she is not allowed to refuse a marriage, women hold no sexual power. But this isn’t how the modern western society functions.
More La Lubu
They had the power to rape her, but not because they have more social power than her. I can murder a rich man and get away with murder, but do I have more social power than him?
Also obviously it isn’t their insults which give them the capability to rape her, but rather it is the fact that she is relatively defenseless, and they are physically stronger.
“Do the negative drawbacks of being sexually attractive outweigh the positive advantages?”
That is actually a very good question. And it doesn’t have an easy answer.
On the one hand, who doesn’t want to be attractive? Only a very strong, secure person can be 100% satisfied with him/herself. As a student, I see young women who just obsess about it. They think the only way they will be loved is if they are drop-dead-gorgeous. I don’t think they are right about that, but that’s what they think. I would even go so far as to say they think they are worthless if they are not beautiful. It is sad and I used to feel sorry for them, but now I’ve gotten to the point where I’m just annoyed by their lame wimpiness. Sure, they hate catcalls, but they still need that “gaze” in order to feel validated. :barf:
On the other hand, you want to be seen as a fully human non-object, and perhaps you want some economic power. (That was another good point, btw, by acknowledging that sexual and economic power are different.) So to get economic power, a woman may have to make herself less attractive.
That’s kind of where I’m at. I just graduated from college. I have very long, blonde hair, and I know it is part of my attractiveness. But now that I’m looking to start a career, it will be more of a hindrance. I don’t want to be the “piece of ass” at work. I want to be respected, and I have very high career goals. So yeah, some of my attractiveness will have to go.
But then let’s say I chop off my hair. I am not a whiny, insecure wimp, but yet I’m not strong 100% of the time. I’m sure shorter hair will make me think I’m not quite as good as the Cosmopolitan model I see on the supermarket shelf. I will still be attractive with short hair, but I won’t be “smokin hot”. I won’t obsess about it, cry, or consider suicide, but still… I will have to give something up.
I am engaged to a good man. He doesn’t say, “No, don’t cut your hair!” like some men do. He doesn’t look at playboy or go to strip bars or any of that crap. Yet despite his devotion, I can’t help but feel deep down that he will find me less attractive if I cut my hair.
So what I really wish more than anything is that I were a man. That way I could be both beautiful and successful. Please don’t confuse attractive with beautiful. Attractive women can be successful, but beautiful women will have a very hard time. Beautiful men do not have this limitation.
someone. Women do not always have the option of choice. Go over to RAINN, and you can see that one in every six women in the United States has been the victim of a rape or attempted rape. Think about that next time you’re in a roomful of women, like in a classroom or at a club. Start counting heads. Then start thinking about the number of women who have been sexually attacked.
And this is in “modern, western society”. Go back to the original rape thread and follow the link I posted about the likelihood of a rapist being convicted, imprisoned, or of spending more than one year in prison. The odds aren’t in favor of the rape victim. I consider the palty, short sentences offered to the average rapist to be indicative of an acceptance of rape in this culture. If we didn’t accept it, we would demand mandatory, long sentences to keep rapists off the streets.
And again, yes, women have some ability to choose a lover in this culture. However, women do not have the option of keeping their sexual personae out of nonsexual situations. There is no neutral ground on which we can stand. And rape survivors didn’t choose a lover. They were raped, just as you would likely be raped in prison. And just as you would have no sexual power, the power resting in the ability of other men to force themselves upon you, women have no sexual power when confronted by a rapist, either. And we are of limited power (as individuals) to make our way through a culture that demands that women are sexual at all times. Hence, the need for a feminist movement, and a collective action that can effectively change the culture in a beneficial way. We have made gains. There’s still more work to do.
Wow. This is just stunning. Q Grrl’s comment #116 sums up 500 plus comments as well as can be done. And someone pays it no mind, thus adding credence to said comment – adding unneeded validation.
someone, we have heard what you have to say over and over and over again. What you have to say is opinion based on ignorance and inexperience. What you have to say is that your need to be right is so overwhelming that you will not listen to those who disagree with you nor will you address refutations of your sophmoric opinions. Your need to be 100% correct in all of your statements leads you to ignore the fact that you are a prime example of how our society condones rape.
So go back and read comment #116, read comment #90. Do you see any truth in them? You should. You have become a stereotypical, classic example – nay, a caricature of misogynistic white male privilege.
To take a page from your book… you should stop commenting here, go away, do some research and learn something about listening to others before you post anywhere ever again.
“This is how you have Type C of sexual power, a larger choice of mates, and access to better mates. This doesn’t mean that you are guaranteed to find someone that you like and fits all of your criteria, but that you have a better chance at doing so than a less attractive woman.”
That is true in theory, and sometimes true in practice. But if you’re a hottie, you also have to watch out for men who only date you for your looks. It is harder to weed out the good ones.
Once I had my hair all in braids (like in the pic on my blog), and it made me less attractive. I didn’t have as many hot guys or rich frat boys hitting on me. BUT I noticed that shy, sweet men started to approach me more. You know, men I would actually be interested in! It didn’t matter because I was (and still am) engaged, but I made a mental note of it.
I eventually took the braids out because my business school peers treated me like a white trash piece of shit. (But I personally thought I looked cool and badass with the braids!)
Anyway, I think I hit on something with the piece-of-shit comment. I think women feel like they are pieces of shit if they are unattractive. And in some ways, society does treat them that way. So part of wanting to be attractive is not necessarily wanting “power and privilege” but wanting to NOT be a piece of shit.
Which then means that attractive women do at least have power and privilege over pieces of shit. If you can’t be valued for who you are, maybe you can at least be valued for your sexuality. Hey, that’s better than nothing!
Does that makes sense?
drumgurl
Thank you for making a wellwritten and reasonable post. Much appreciated.
I agree that there might be many insecure young women that obsess about their looks.
But I doubt that all of them (or a significant majority) really think this way.
If you look at young women as a whole, not all of them are so insecure and lacking self-esteem.
Many can be quite confident and quite demanding in what they want in a mate.
For some young women their looks might be something that makes them feel better about themselves, for some others it is like a “fun hobby”,
for more others it is just their way of life, because this is how they were raised, to believe that they should concentrate on their looks
and their goal should be to get a rich man and they don’t know any other way to behave.
And of course we should make a difference between women that concentrate on their looks to the point of obsession, and women that put some
effort into it but within reasonable borders. I think that the latter category would include the majority of women, especially when they get
a bit older (22+). (For teenage girls I can’t be so sure of which type there is more… In my area girls do try to be attractive, but within
borders… many are a bit chubby and they steal wear revealing clothes, many don’t use make up or use minimal make up, etc…)
I am not female, but I suspect that this kind of thing can be addictive…
And then she gets caught into a loop of having to be “hot” all the time, so that she feels the “high” of her hotness being acknowledged.
I’m not too sure about this though, please correct me if I am wrong…
Okay… so we can agree that being attractive can bring some positive advantages as well as some negative drawbacks.
It is possible to say that being more attractive (especially in a reserved way, instead of an openly sexual way… like long hair isn’t
something very openly sexual) at work would actually be beneficial in some ways… (social interactions), but whatever, it’s up to you to
decide.
“I think women feel like they are pieces of shit if they are unattractive. ”
No they don’t. But they’re told they should.
Yeah, so women have all this power, right? Yet who’s derailing and whining and bitching when he doesn’t get his way in thread after thread? NYMOM got asked to leave, but not this kid? It’s a feminist message board…yet it’s the trolls who are dominating?
Wow. Power.
I’m going to address two major questions that I see here:
1. Does being attractive give you a form of power?
The obvious answer to this is yes, of course it does. But this is actually an overly simplistic, and hence rather pointless, question to be asking. What needs to be asked is; what form of power it provides an individual? That’s the far more informative and, I would argue, interesting, question to ask.
The piles of research and theorising out there show that the form of power that attractiveness, particularly in this case female attractiveness, is in actuality a ‘resistance’, in the Foucauldian sense. In other words, the imposition of power and oppression actually provides a space where those that are oppressed can exercise a form of power. However, ‘resistences’ are themselves, while a form of power, are highly tenuous, and intrinsically damaging, because they involve participating in the system that is oppressing you, in order to avail yourself of the space that is provided for you by that system (of course, this space may be your only option, but that’s another discussion).
This then leads on to the second question:
2. Does attractiveness as a form of power for a woman outweigh the oppressions in a patriarchal system?
The simple answer is no. By being a resistance it can only hope to claw a measure of disempowerment back. But moreover, the damages to women are considerable in ‘playing’ this game. For a start, it’s playing the game on the basis of rules that are designed to disempower you. By having women defined as sexual objects, and then becoming a sexual object in order to garner the power involved in acquiesing to and excelling at the rules of soceity, one becomes vulnerable (for want of a stronger word) to the consequences of ‘accepting’ the dehumanising positioning. Particularly in the way our society deals with objectification the dehumanisation involved means that you have less rights, and less safety, as an individual. Hence rape, hate crimes, etc.
Not only are such acts of violence an imposition of power over to ensure you, as an oppressed minority, are kept in your place if you are stepping out of it, but even if you ARE playing your ‘place’ then this does not afford you any more of a safety from the consequences, ie violence. Hence, attractiveness has nothing to do with these expressions of violence, but rather contributes as an imposition of power itself onto women to ensure that they are kept in a place where they can be raped, abused, etc … ie be made as ‘less’.
However, further, the consequences of TRYING to perform one’s ‘place’ (ie a woman ensuring that she is attractive) are considerable, on a societal level. The fact that minority women are only considered attractive in the mainstream if they conform to white beauty ideals, the fact that bodily ideals are causing women to diet themselves into death and disease, to perform dangerous modification surgeries not because they want to, but because they feel they have to, etc, etc all show that conforming to an oppressive and extreme narrow ideal is hardly empowering.
Finally, the obvious evidence is the lack of women in positions of power throughout the world. IF the sexual power of women outweighed the oppression in a patriarchal society then we would see women equally represented in society in positions of power. We simply don’t.
Anyone that honestly thinks that women somehow gain power over men through sexual power is showing their ignorance in thinking that somehow the playing field between men and women is level, and moreover, is actually seriously heterosexist.
Can I second both Q’s post #116, and Alsis’s post #112?
That is a nice point… but I still believe that having a larger pool of potential mates is better in the end.
It makes sense, no?
The same is true for a “rich” or “hot” guy, but I still would rather prefer to be rich and hot, and then I would simply avoid girls that look like they are interested only in my money or my looks, and talk to ones I like, and then I would have a better chance for them to like me back.
(Although for the type of girl I hope to meet money shouldn’t be a factor in looking for a sincere loving relationship at all, but whatever… It still would help me.)
Okay, so in your particular case, changing your hair style made you less attractive to “hot” and “rich” guys and more important “shy and
sweet” ones.
However there is two important points to remember…
1) “Hot” and “rich” guys usually are more successful with girls than “shy and sweet” ones (being shy is usually detrimental to success), so
from this we can conclude that more women prefer to attract “hot” and “rich” ones rather than “shy and sweet” ones.
2) If you are interested in some particular “shy and sweet” guy, you can try to get to know him and ask him out on your own, or you
can be a bit flirty and drop hints until he takes the initiative.
That means that your good looks which cause “hot” and “rich” guys to be attracted to you do not prevent you from getting with a “shy and
sweet” one which you are interested in!
This is important.
And furthermore, “shy and sweet” guys still are human, so they are more likely to be reciprocal to a more attractive woman.
For example if this “shy and sweet” guy you were interested in (if we imagine that you are single) hated your face, that wouldn’t be very beneficial to you, right? Regardless of who you want to meet, it is always better to look good.
Typo fix: Okay, so in your particular case, changing your hair style made you less attractive to “hot”? and “rich”? guys and more attractive (perhaps because of looking more approachable?) to “shy and sweet”? ones.
Yes, that was true for me as a teenager. I was always aware of people looking at me. If I didn’t have a significant number of gazes, I thought something was wrong. And I tried harder the next time.
Thank God I grew out of it by 18. I will admit that it was all due to insecurity. But I sure wasted precious time in front of the mirror.
Yes, I believe the “net benefit” is greater if you’re attractive. The rich and hot comment made me laugh my ass off.
I see the male anti-feminists are still running riot over this “feminist” blog whilst feminists and anti-feminist women (like NYMOM) get banned.
How come you found her views and behaviour so much more offensive than that of someone’s or Aegis’ Ampersand?
I don’t think women feminists should be posting here. There ought to be some kind of sisterly solidarity. There are plenty of feminist blogs run by women who don’t give tacit support to anti-feminist men whilst banning women to choose from.
Just my two cents, FWIW.
You know, something that’s really striking about these two is that they’re so young–and so sexist already. They’ve got all the tactics down, all the attitudes—where did that come from, anyway? They know enough to derail conversations about rape to conversations about female ‘power’. They go on and on about that stuff. Where does that come from? ‘
Because, hey, if they’re going to derail, I say we re rail it right back.
“The same is true for a “rich”? or “hot”? guy, but I still would rather prefer to be rich and hot, and then I would simply avoid girls that look like they are interested only in my money or my looks, and talk to ones I like, and then I would have a better chance for them to like me back.
(Although for the type of girl I hope to meet money shouldn’t be a factor in looking for a sincere loving relationship at all, but whatever… It still would help me.)”
If you are dating girls, you are a pedophile.
Thinking more about it, maybe it is better to use a term like “sexual advantage” or just my older term “alpha”…
The term “sexual power” implies that it is something that you can directly apply to perform some tasks, but it has a different nature. It’s more like a “boost” to your capabilities in the areas that it concerns.
It isn’t guaranteed to work and it isn’t very reliable (unless you are extremely attractive), so the word “power” is not such a good choice.
Sorry Alsis38.9 I didn’t refresh the thread before I made my post so I missed yours.
What you said.
I’m going now, more replies later. (To Sarah in Chicago, and La Lubu and others.)
Another vote for #116 and #112.
Ginmar,
It’s something that is taught to little boys – the derailing thing, I mean. So for someone it isn’t a tactic brought to bear (bare?) just here. It’s part of his method of social interaction. Hey! I wanna talk about this! Listen, listen, listen to me!!!
If you’re looking to end this as a predominant characteristic in men, you not only have to point it out to those doing it and insist that they stop, you also need to stop it being taught as a good way to interact to little boys.
More worrisome to me is that he takes conclusions drawn solely on his own experience and holds them as articles of faith. They are unshakeably, unquestionably true. And if something is brought up that would bring them into question distraction & misdirection and false hurt (“ad hom, ad hom, don’t twist my words”) is used. Those are characteristics of fundamentalism (fundamentalism need not only be of the religious variety).
Has anybody actually done a count of how many comments someone has made in these two threads? I’m going to guess at 200. Talk about dominating a conversation and trying to win through application of a blunt, metal object.
Yet more examples from someone of the, “I’m not talking to you if you don’t follow my rules,” thing.
A quick reply to drumgurl
So I was right… nice.
Do you think your parents could have done something to help you?
Ok, so we agree. :)
And now I’m really gone…
I think this thread is different, though. I’ll quote Amp:
The whole point of this thread is to address points by both La Lubu and Aegis. I mean, let’s say you were quoted on a MRA blog. Wouldn’t you feel compelled to participate in the debate? Wasn’t Amp basically encouraging people on both sides to participate? And didn’t he ultimately agree with you?
Jake –
Really good points and examples :)
I also noticed this:
So, not only “I’m not going to play if I can’t make the rules” but also should you ‘win’ on the basis of his rules, then “I’m going to change the rules on you”.
In addition to #112 and #116, I’d like to post a vote for #120. heh.
“Do you think your parents could have done something to help you?”
Yeah, they could have not been ultra-conservative fruit loops. Haha!
But seriously, I think think everyone here (including the MRAs) would agree that parents can help their daughters by encouraging them to develop as people, rather than encouraging them to be just the cute little princess.
Because there’s another thing besides attractiveness that is a guy magnet: you are an interesting person. Not that getting a guy is everything, but a good relationship is at least worth something.
Is this what the boys tell you over at SYG? To twist things around to make the man look like the victim? That Someone is just here defending his good name or some such rubbish?
Please.
If I were quoted on a MRA blog I would ignore it.
What I will do here is to point out the blatent tactics of a misogynist.
I haven’t been to SYG in a long time, but so what? I’ll take an MRA over a conservative anyday. Some of them are actually pretty nice.
How did I make the men victims? By pointing out that it appeared to me that they were invited to discuss this?
I also wouldn’t do something just because a boy told me to!
And lastly, I think that when someone said ‘power’ wasn’t the right word to use, I think he was trying to say maybe y’all have a point about women not having having real power through their sexuality.
I feel you’re being overly-optimistic, Drumgurl. I think MRAs are only capable of having feeling for their daughters if they ARE cute little princesses.
You know, there are some interesting topics going on here, but the derailing and constant demands for attention are making any truly productive dialogue impossible (which is, I very much suspect, the whole point).
So…..I’m off to indulge my raging libido (heh, heh) with some nice, sweaty thoughts about my newest Sex-Beast Lust Object……
No, the claim being made was that when someone has the social right to insult you, and make graphic comments about the violently sexual things they want to do to your body, then they have greater power than you. They believe themselves to be superior to you. They’re using verbal abuse to reinforce the unequal relationship: you’re the worthless object to be used, and they’re the one that uses you. To the extent that society condones their verbal abuse and harassment, and offers you neither protection nor support, they’re right. This stuff is normal, ubiquitous; I doubt you can find a woman who hasn’t suffered it at one point or another. These men know that it’s perfectly okay to harass women, and that no one is going to speak up and tell them they’re out of line.
Have you ever had some strange w0man–or man–talk about how he’d like to rape you? Ever been groped? Would that make you feel sexually powerful?
Remember how before you talked about how important it was to distinguish between different kinds of power and advantage? Why are you conflating them now?
So many examples, but I want to share two juxtaposed in my mind when I dwell on the subject.
One morning in Brooklyn I put on baggy sweats and an old shirt to go across 6-lane McGuinness Blvd for a pint of milk for coffee. As I was in the middle partition waiting to get the rest of the way home a man in a van stopped at the light smiled wide and started wagging his tongue at me. Without thinking I threw the milk, and when it hit his half open window it exploded all over him and then fell onto the street. Then quickly the light had changed and he had to go so I laughingly picked up the empty box and went to get another milk. It was so worth it.
Same crossing a few months later, I’m on my way home from work and decide to get myself a sweet treat. Waiting in the middle I see a car full of boys who looked barely able to drive, maybe 15-16, pull up to the light. I brace myself and wait for the inevitable when one boy in the back points at me and says to his friends, “Hey! She’s got an Italian ice.”
To continue with the tactics of derailment and assumptions made from male privilege/MRA point of views….
Aegis from comment #103 on the old thread:
Tactic #8 c. Compare rape to divorce as a way to belittle the social control exerted by rape. Or perhaps as a way to claim that women have social control via their huge advantage in divorce.
Tactic #8 d. Take as given that women always “win” (take more than their share/take everything) in divorce.
That line was, to me, the dead giveaway as to where Aegis’ sympathies lie – particularly tactic 8d. It states as fact that wives “screwing over” husbands in divorce is both the standard for divorce and common.
600 comments worth of this crap has left me feeling the need for a very long, very hot shower.
If women had more sexual power than men, we wouldn’t consistently, as a whole, “settle” for men less attractive than us. If you think of the extreme exemplars of female “beauty” – young models, actresses and ‘trophy wives’ – they have an unfortunate tendency to be paired up vastly older, physically decrepit, often repulsive, and possibly impotent males. YUCK. Not a high quality choice of mate material there.
Then there’s the “According to Jim” phenomenon, which encourages men to believe they have the ability to attract a beautiful, younger women in spite of their own physical unattractiveness, boorish personality, or even their earning potential. Research shows that while women consistently underrate their own attractiveness, men consistently overrate their own. So even when we’re more attractive than they are, they’re less likely to recognize it – and less likely to accept women equally (or less) attractive than they are. Women have equally lowered expectations of men (physically speaking) so we’re not choosing “better” mates even if we are believed beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder all right: the beholder who has come to expect more attractiveness from women than men.
But none of this is apparent in high school. Dating there is a truly bizarre ritual that has no relation to the real world.
someone, you keep focusing on how “sexual power” or “sexual attractiveness” or “sexual advantage” or whatever the hell you feel like calling it, operates within a potential dating relationship, which is, of course, its proper context.
Why do you keep avoiding discussion on how it operates outside of that context? You know, how it operates in the rest of life?! For most adults, the dating scene is a miniscule aspect of their total lives. In the meantime, we have employment, higher education, community work, clubs, hobbies/avocations/interests, our family and/or children, our children’s activities and education, mundane everyday/every week chores, our health, our finances, our home, our spiritual life and intellectual growth, etc. to carry on with. And like it or not, our perceived sexual power or attractiveness intrudes on all these other spheres as well as its proper one. This isn’t the case for men.
It’s very telling that Redneck Feminist has to make decisions about her personal appearance lest her personal appearance take precedence over her job qualifications and performance. How many men have ever thought that their employer would either find them too handsome or too ugly for a job? Other than models or actors, I can’t think of any. But this is a universal concern of women in the job force, even where appearance is irrelevant to the job description.
Personally, my answer to the “is sexual attractiveness a positive or negative”, I’d say 10-15% positive, 85-90% negative, mostly because of the weight it is given in contexts where it is irrelevant.
Are you so sure that these are mutually exclusive terms ?
I’m going to generalize a bit, but I was surprised to find that most MRAs are not conservatives. That’s something I learned from visiting SYG.
I had previously assumed MRAs would be all like, “Women should just get married, have babies, and stay home.” So it was a shock to find out that they don’t generally think that, and in fact they think women should be a little more independent and take responsibility for themselves.
And you know what? I agree.
Sorry I derailed there. I just wanted to respond to alsis.
NYMom and Someone are both people who were borderline cases, and I was considering banning both of them the day I banned NYMom.
In NYMom’s case, a regular “Alas” reader had emailed me suggesting she be banned, so I banned her. In Someone’s case, a different reader suggested to me that, so long as responses to Someone don’t dominate more than one thread at a time, he should be allowed to continue. Both readers are people whose judgement I trust, and as I said, I was borderline in both cases anyway. Honestly, that’s all there was to it.
I think that Someone’s presence has led to some really good posts and observations from people responding to Someone, so I don’t regret not banning him. But if we want to say “enough’s enough” and move on, that’s cool with me too.
It sounds like the consensus here is in favor of banning “Someone.”
Someone, from now please don’t post any more comments to any thread started by me on “Alas.” I know this will disappoint you, but you’ve already posted 149 times here, so you’ve had a more than ample opportunity to state your views. (It’s up to Pseudo-Adrienne whether or not you can post on her threads).
someone says
I will agree that sexual power is about one’s “value” in the world of dating and relationship. What you seem to be missing, however, is that the higher a woman’s sexual power, the lower her value as a person. Female sexual power, by definition, is dehumanizing. Female sexual power silences women.
First example – when I was fourteen, I took a summer class in typing at the local high school, because it wasn’t offered at my jr. high. One day, as I’m halfway to school, crossing this big field, a guy I’d met precisely twice before grabbed me and started kissing me and feeling me up. He informed me that he was a star wrestler, and that I was going to be his girlfriend. I informed him that my tastes ran to skinny bespectacled geeks who read a lot, and I had no interest what-so-ever in being his girlfriend, thank you very much. He insisted that I only said this because of a “poor self-image,” that he was going to make me popular and happy, etc. etc., ad nauseum.
No matter what I said, this guy “translated” it to fit his preconceived notions. “No” meant “yes.” “Not interested” became “interested but won’t admit it.” “You’re not my type” becaome “she’s just shy.” Many feminists argue that pornography “silences women.” This is what they mean. The woman is only allowed to say what the man wants to hear – even if what she actually says is completely different. Pornography that plays with the rape myth tells the story of a woman who says no, but ultimately means yes. That is what this guy was doing to me. He was insisting that whatever I said meant what he wanted it to mean.
Another real life example of how a woman’s sexual power silences her. I was not one of the “popular kids,” partly because I had little interest in being one, but one of my good friends was exactly what you describe when you are discussing a woman with a lot of sexual power. She was a cute, feminine blonde, popular, intelligent, cheerleader, upper middle class, dressed conservatively but was perceived as sexy. The guys I hung out with – who, like me, were NOT socially powerful – said she was the most beautiful girl in the school. What did all this sexual power get her?
Well, in 10th grade it got her raped by most of the guys on the football team. She was dating one of them, he slipped her something stronger than she was used to, then passed her around to his buddies. When she told people about it, most of her friends basically said she got what she deserved – if you’re going to be beautiful, them’s the hazards. Mind you, she did not disagree – she accepted that this is just the way the world is. When I pointed out that being pretty is no excuse for rape, she said I was probably right, but what can you do about it?
Nothing. There is nothing a beautiful woman can do about it. From her perspective, and in her experience, woman’s “sexual power” means that she does NOT get to choose her mate. If she was not interested in the most “alpha” guy around – tough. If said alpha guy laid claim to her, she was stuck, because he viewed her as his property, and any guy hanging around too close would be chased off. In high school, at any rate, if said alpha male was on a sports team, not only would he monitor her activities – his buddies would monitor her activities. If she was interested in another guy, she had no chance of talking to him or getting to know him.
Of course, once you get past high school (and college, in some cases, but she deliberately went to a college that did NOT have any sports teams), this male control is less blatantly obvious. But it’s often still there. Look at Kathleen Parker’s story (on the web). John Rushie’s harrassment of his ex-wife’s family. Paul Corey. Eric Bleicken. A dear friend’s husband, who called everyone on her side of the family (including me, a non-relative) to tell them what a whore she was when she left him – this despite the fact that his adultery had so destroyed her reproductive system she had to have a hysterectomy and ovariectomy at 27.
Another friend, whose husband used to rape her when she was unconscious from the drugs they were using to help her sleep – this despite the fact that she was undergoing radiation treatments for her cancer and despite the fact that she was in constant pain and his rapes only exacerbated it. Yes, she’s blonde, long-legged, charming, and popular. What did all this “sexual power” get her? Abuse, plain and simple.
Most of the kids at my second high school were upper middle class. I used to hang out with actors, artists, engineers in the aerospace industry, millionaires who owned their own company. I’ve talked to the “beautiful people” of both sexes. Men who are beautiful complain that “she dumped me because I shaved my head” or “I never know whether she likes me for my self or for my looks or for my cash.” Women who are beautiful worry about being raped, about being abused, about ending up in a marriage to someone who will try to completely control them.
Again, men have access to sexual power, too – more access, through more channels, than women do. And the risk of sexual power for men is minimal. For women, sexual power is often outright dangerous. For women, sexual power is as disempowering as it is empowering. A woman weilding sexual power is easily silenced.
Ted writes:
Yes. I don’t know Amp’s reasons for letting someone blather on, but at minimum someone is demonstrating precisely the problem many women face. Rape exists primarily because a man decides that his version of reality is more important than the woman’s – he decides he gets to tell her what reality is. Whatever his motives (sex, power, anger), a rapist’s reality is that the woman’s sexiness somehow justifies his treatment of her. Everytime a male non-rapist treats a woman as a sex object, rather than a person, he is supporting the rapist perspective.
Arguing that a woman’s sexual power in any way “evens things out” between the sexes is to miss the point entirely. A woman’s sexual power is used to justify rape; a woman’s sexual power is used to silence her; a woman’s sexual power is used to dehumanize her. The fact that some women manage to use their sexual power in some instances to their benefit doesn’t change any of this.
Post #162. Hands down.
This was a thread about rape so this is not a meaningless complaint. Moreover, Amp made it explicitly clear that posters were to
Predictable attempt to dismiss the original topic though … yet again.
If you don’t wish to discuss it maybe you should stop dominating the thread – or even stick to your statement a zillion posts and five days ago that you were going to stop posting.
Perhaps we can request a new thread in which we return to the subject of rape culture (even though I still don’t like the term) as defined by Q grrl about 450 posts ago. I find the viewpoints of Q grrl, La Lubu and others quite interesting on this subject which I suddenly find myself quite concerned about (after reading all this). I’m sure I could peice together their viewpoints through all the mess of these posts but with all the responding, fussing, etc… I haven’t the time or energy.
Any seconds on the notion???
Perhaps it could be titled something along the lines of “how pre-puberty education influences the sexual dynamics between men and women in the modern workplace”. Sexual dynamics should probably be changed to something else, but I cannot think of it right now.
“On Rape Culture” would be clearer.
There’s already a discussion going on here, but this thread is getting long, so maybe starting a new thread would be a good idea.
Hm.
Would it be pre-emptively hijacking and diverting attention from rape to vote for a thread on sexual entitlement and its opposite? With a focus on how these dynamics support rape and/or rape culture, including harassment and objectification?
Then maybe discuss what we remember from childhood and adolescence? I’d like to talk about what we were taught. And I’m interested in questions about what women and men believe. I just don’t want these things to be analyzed out of the context of a society in which men frequently rape women.
Could people suggest a particular post (or two or three) they’d like me to quote from when starting the new thread? Preferably, stating the post number so I can find it easily?
I like Piny’s idea. A quote from Shiloh’s #162 would work, or maybe one of La Lubu’s posts from the thread that this came out of, maybe #2.
“Post #162. Hands down”.
Here! Here!
To answer the question Amp posted at top:
“Do boys and men feel more lust than girls and women do?”
Well, as Amp said, it’s not really something you can measure, but I’d say logic, eveolutionary theory and personal experience argue that at the most we are more alike than we are different. Just as the overlap between test scores for boys and girls on both verbal and math portion of the SAT is far greater than the small difference that gets played up, whatever differences there are betweeen the strength of male and female desire don’t amount to much, if any exists at all.
Now, boys and men certainly express more lust than girls and women do, but that’s obviously due to the fact that female sexuality is still repressed and frowned upon.
“Do girls and women have more “sexual power”??”
Hell, no. A “power” that’s as likely to harm you as help you isn’t much of a “power.” Women are more likely to “use” their sexual power in more overt ways than men because that’s their socially acceptable option. Period.
And I’d just like to second this comment by La Lubu:
“In high school, I’d have rather died than admit I jilled off, let alone admit the frequency of said jilling off! Now, I don’t give a shit.”
And thanks ever so much, La Lubu, for good ammunition the next time my brother tries to argue the ” women’s sexual drive doesn’t mature until late 20’s or early 30’s”? crap. God, I want to kick him every time he says that. I’d already promised myself that the next time he did he would subjected to a very detailed description of my first orgasm at age 13. I figure it’ll hurt him more than it will hurt me.
[shrug] I appreciate the response, drumgrrl. It’s not what I’ve observed, but perhaps I’m imagining a different definition of conservative than you are. In any case, even men with radical politics can have remarkably retrograde views about women’s rights. Hell, some of those have been the worse cases I’ve ever seen.
Let’s substitute getting hit over the head by a lead pipe for sexually offensive comments and acts. Suppose that the more aggressive or suggestive a comment or act directed at you is, the harder the lead pipe hits your head. Suppose that this begins when you are a teenager (a conservative beginning, yes?) and continues on a daily basis for most of your adult life. Someone, if this were happening to you, would you be angry and/or upset if just walking down the street got you bopped on the head? Would you be angry or upset if you got bopped on the head just for showing up at work, attending meetings, getting coffee? Could you conceive that people would try to avoid situations where they would feel the lead pipes on their noggins? Now suppose that calling attention to the fact that your head is sore (or cracked open, or bleeding) is treated with surprise, or that it’s somehow your fault, or that somehow you have control over who gets to hold the lead pipe. Not fun or fair, is it?
The argument that women’s sexual power gives them an advantage in dealing with men is just another version of the “men are ruled by their dicks” theory of social interaction. What, aren’t adult men supposed to be able to control themselves when in the presence of potentially sexually available women? A real man uses his brain, treats everyone like intelligent human beings (unless proven otherwise), and saves the mating dance for the proper context. Ditto for real women. Too bad too many people are taught otherwise.
La Lubu:
I’ll second that one, too.
Shiloh:
And it’s no coincidence at all that this is silencing of women and attempting to force a male-defined version of reality is EXACTLY what’s being done by the 2 posters here who are claiming that society doesn’t condone rape.
I’d be interested in a new thread about sexual entitlement & how it is related to rape culture too, btw.
Alsis, sad but true. People often hold contradictory ideas. But while I can’t remember my socialist group ever having to expel someone for racist behavior, I can remember several times we’ve had to expel men for sexist behavior. And the less severe cases are also not unfrequent.
Rape Culture and the Myth of “Female Sexual Advantage”.
Hi there…
Let’s make a little post.
Stuff about MRAs:
I’m not an MRA, although I think that they have some valid points. (And so do feminists.)
A major problem that I have with MRAs is that they have a tendency to minimize statistics about rape or spouse abuse, and they seem to have this idea of a huge conspiracy to make overinflated statistics.
I see little reason to trust what MRAs say over official statistics…
And another problem that I have with both MRAs and feminists is that they are “gender warriors”, which is annoying and misses the point.
It is impossible to ever cause some positive change towards reduction of sexism if you view the opposite sex as “the enemy”.
Stuff about myself “dominating the discussion”:
It is true that I make a lot of posts, much more that most of the other posters here. Why? Because I am actually trying to be a decent debate opponent and respond to people’s posts. That’s why.
In this light these accusations about me “taking over” make no sense. I make lots of posts because I try to answer as many people as possible, and I am one against many. (Aegis is apparently dead or something.)
This comment
by Jake Squid is offensive, sexist, and uncalled for.
Oh hey… post 161 eh.
So am I still allowed to post in this thread or what?
Just a confession here. I was the person who suggested to Amp that what I’ve come to think of as the “someone thread” be allowed to continue, so long as it didn’t spill over onto other threads and come to dominate the entire blog.
I hope it’s okay for me to break the “no meta” rule by ‘fessing up to that, as well as to smash into tiny pieces Amp’s delicate attempt at anonymity, but I was feeling very uneasy (and a tad guilty) that some people seemed to have come to the conclusion that Amp’s decision must have been due to his inherent respect for the almighty phallus, or something like that. No. Really, guys. No. It was my fault. Mea culpa.
As for why I personally thought the conversation, as profoundly irritating as I was personally finding it, nonetheless had some value…
Yeah. Thanks, Ted. That was exactly one of my reasons. I thought that the thread itself was serving as a rather nice demonstration of a number of the gender dynamics which, IMO, are a large part of what allows rape to continue to flourish.
Also, I thought that it was reaping such awesome posts from some people–La Lubu leaps to mind–that I felt the thread had value on that count alone.
Which isn’t to say that it didn’t make me want to throw things across the room at times…
I’ve found this thread both infuriating and fascinating. From a debate over whether or not society condones rape, we’ve gone to something almost like a dramatic illustration of all of the subtler and more nuanced (if still very ugly) ways in which gender expectations and stereotypes serve to condone rape. Sort of like a Rape Culture Passion Play, if you will. Even when you know exactly who’s going to get crucified in the end, watching all of the nasty dynamics play out can still make for a profound experience.
Anyway, I’m sorry that my lurkerish judgement call proved so contrary to the consensus desire of readers far much more active in these discussions than I am. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.
And I present post 177 as evidence that Jake Squid was right on target…
Elkins, I agree that not banning someone has served a larger purpose.
He reminds me of my younger brother in lot of ways when he was in high school (although said brother would be insulted by this comparison). I still remember THE FIGHT we had during my first visit back home after having left for college. It involved a lot of me yelling and I came pretty close to throwing things. I think it was the first fight my mother moderated between the two of us since I was, like, 9 or so. I also know that I really scared him with my anger. Not my tears or how upset I was, but my flat out, screaming at the top of my lungs RAGE. It had been a couple of years since I’d been able to scare him (I’m three years older, so it was pretty easy when he was, like, five). It was also…instructive, and a little bit liberating, to see him to completely taken aback by my anger alone. It was also gratifying to finally see him so obviously care about how I felt again after several hellish years of our once great relationship having gone down the toilet.
I’m sharing this not to digress, but because the subject of THE FIGHT was pretty similar to the topics that someone was constantly steering the discussion towards, and his debate style was pretty similar as well. The topic was sexism and my brother kept trying to argue (if my memory serves) that, what with all the gains women have made, gender stereotypes now harm boys as much as, or more, girls. (In the boys have it worse than girls way, not the, everybody pays for gender sterotypes way). Not the best fight to pick with someone who had just spent four months at a liberal all-women’s college. Needless to say, I called bullshit – LOUDLY. He tried to draw sweeping conclusions based on his limited experience. I called bullshit – LOUDLY and with my experience, and a lot more data, to back me up. He finally listened, but that was with his sister yelling at him, and his mother telling him to shut up and actually listen every once in a while – and backing me up when he twisted words or tried attacking me personally, or accused me of attacking him when I flat out said he was wrong. And even at that, it took a while (like months) for us both to calm down and really debate the topic properly.
So, I hold out hope for someone, because he’s young, and at least interested in the topic, if still only on his terms. I fear it will take, however, and all out screaming at the top of her lungs FIGHT with a woman he repects and loves for much of this to really start sinking in. I hold out hope for him because he’s said nothing to make me think that he is consiously mysigonistic, and so there is probably a woman like that in his life or his future.
In the meantime, we do the best we can, and figure its at least instructive for the rest of us.
Athough I also think that by the time people started complaining, that it was getting to be a bit much, (but then I’m not a regular poster either). When it comes to privileged boys, there comes a point where you need to show them the extent of their sense of entitlement by demonstrating the limits of their own rights and letting them come to grips with how that differs from what they assumed they were.
And just in case someone is still reading:
someone says:
Oh, the hell it is. Not when your posts are repeatedly peppered (or consist only of) you complaining about how boring the conversation is, how its not worth your time, how no one is taking you seriously because you aren’t agreeing with them, and how you can tell this is so because they aren’t agreeing with you, or refuting you point by point, and other peoples requests to be addressed as adults are simply thrown out there in an effort to bring you down.
If repeatedly belittling others and their conversation, all the while continuing to not only engage in said discussion but also issue orders to others isn’t a prime example of entitlement, then, entitlement must not exist.
Listen up, ’cause this is important: labeling a statement, act, or person as sexist or privileged is not always an accusation or insult. It’s also not a command to act a certain way (although people have the right to their own opinions of you if you don’t – and the site owner can do whatever the hell he or she wants). Sometimes labeling something as sexist is just an opinion or point in a debate; after all, its a little hard to debate sexism without identifying what is and isn’t sexist. The fact that you refer to Jake Squid’s comment as not only sexist, but uncalled for, suggests you are having trouble with this concept, as if simply labeling as sexist a particular type of behaviour that isn’t also illegal is hitting below the belt. It’s not, and I suggest you wrap your head around this idea before you venture onto any more blogs or chatrooms, feminist or otherwise.
And I realise it is hitting below the belt to post this when someone isn’t allowed to post back, so I’ll understand if it gets deleted. I just felt like it needed to be said. again.
RE Comment #177, I vote Someone should no longer be allowed to post here.
I’m tired of people derailing and dominating discussions of feminist thought on feminist blogs and have taken to banning consistent, long-term anti-feminist commenters frm my own blog. Not because I don’t value debate, but because they find it necessary to define the terms of debate on spaces intended for feminist discussion they are not invested in maintaining.
I’m done with it and will no longer tolerate it in the name of inclusiveness. It makes the entire experience of blogging, reading, and commenting less enjoyable for me. Especially on Alas, which is usually a wonderful ground for debate and feminist rhetoric. And to see these kids (which is what they are) attempt to actually redefine classical rhetoric for the purpose of stroking their own egos is telling of their experience, knowledge, and investment in the discussion. Nil.
And I do find it incredibly irritating that NYMOM was asked to leave while Someone et al is allowed to continue bloviating on so much utter bullshit.
Should we allow our feminist space to be their pseudo-intellectual playground? Nope.
I’d like to see a larger purpose served then by allowing the feminist and anti-feminist women who were previously banned from this blog reinstated.
That would be funnie, Paige and NYMOM. Ampersand gives a platform to anti-feminist men whilst banning feminist women. Women being silenced by a man is not good for feminism.
Hi everyone, I’m back (nasty research paper).
I’ve been rather dismayed by most of the comments in this thread, because most people seem to have thoroughly missed the point I was making. But I’m really cheerful today, so it’s ok.
My explanation of how beauty leads to sexual power, and what sexual power is, began when several people in the previous thread asked how beauty could grant a woman privilege/power in any way. In this thread, I have been trying to answer that question. (I’ve also claimed that women have more sexual power than men, but let’s leave that alone for now and deal with my main claim first.)
My answer is simple: Being beautiful gives women gain more, and higher quality, choices in mates. It gives the option to expend less energy in pursuing a mate. It gives them the power to influence the feelings and emotions of others (although influencing someone’s emotions may not translate into influencing their behavior). In other words, beauty gives women choices with men, and influence on men. Is everyone with me so far?
If you have more choices than someone else in a certain context, then you have more privileges than they do in that context. If you have more influence than someone else in a certain context, then you have more power than they do in that context. Still with me?
Choices grant privileges. Influence grants power. Beauty grants choices and influence. Therefore beauty grants privileges and power. Of course, these privileges and power only apply to certain contexts. That’s all my argument is saying. Now I will clarify a bunch of points of confusion.
As I have been saying all along, the sexual power that beauty grants is very limited. Sexual power does not necessarily translate into social or economic power. In fact, beauty can lead women to have negative social or economic power. I have been very consistent on this point:
The strange thing about this thread is that most posters keep pointing out that sexual power does not add up to socioeconomic power. But that’s what I’ve been saying all along!! It’s really weird to get beaten over the head with a point that you have already made several times. Several people responded with “sure, beauty does give advantages, BUT…” and they described all the disadvantages of beauty (objectification, less respect in the workplace, etc…). Yet when you think about it, that is not a counter to my argument, but actually agrees with me.
I think I agree with many of the posters here that beauty has advantages in some contexts, and heavy disadvantages in other contexts. So what is the problem here?
Btw, here are a few others points that people brought up:
1. “Beauty doesn’t give women power over men in general.” Well, yes. I’ve never claimed it does.
2. “Physical attractiveness gives men power too.” True. But it doesn’t contradict my argument that beauty gives women a type of power at all. Also, it’s pretty obvious that physical attractiveness gives men less power than it gives women, because males are more affected by looks than females (I cited research for this in the last thread).
3.”The standards for beauty are really damaging to women.” I agree. Does it contradict my argument? No. Think of it like this: the standards for making lots of money can be damaging to people (though perhaps not as bad as beauty). Does that mean their money is useless and gives them no economic power once they make it? Obviously not.
4. “Some men treat beautiful women as just a piece of ass or harass them.” True. Again, this doesn’t contradict my argument. I stated pretty explicitly that sexual power does not necessarily grant respect. That’s not what it is for: it is for attracting mates. To use my analogy about wealth: people might be exposed to all sorts of risks when they become richer. They are more in risk of getting robbed or scammed, and people might look down on them and assume they are dishonest. But do those risks mean that they have less economic power? Obviously not. I’m not trying to imply that rich people are treated as badly as beautiful women. The point is this: if certain power or privileges you have cause negative side effects in other areas, it doesn’t make your power less real (even if the negative side effects outweigh any benefits your power might give you).
5. “Only beautiful women have these advantages, and only when they are young.” Of course. My argument says that beautiful women have more sexual power, so of course only young/beautiful women have these advantages. This point is a good counterargument to my claim that women have more sexual power, but it doesn’t counter my argument that beauty grants women sexual power in the first place.
6. “Overall, sexual power isn’t actually very useful: the disadvantages cancel out the advantages.” Maybe, although some people might not agree. Though again, this doesn’t contradict my argument. All I am saying is that sexual power has some advantages. That’s all. I am making no claims about whether those advantages outweigh the disadvantages or not, because I can’t really know that. It’s possible to make the analogous claim that making money isn’t worth the effort either, but that doesn’t mean that money doesn’t grant economic power.
I hope this clears things up a bit!
P.S. I will respond to specific posts in a future post…
Aegis, this thread actually moved on to a new thread:
Rape Culture and the Myth of “Female Sexual Advantage”?
Thanks. I thought that this thread was for discussion of the sexual power issues, and that thread for was for discussion of issues around rape…
Aegis, the reason you got the responses you did is because the actual point you are claiming is trivial and not disagreed with. Are there any situations in which a beautiful person has a sexual advantage over a non-beautiful person? Yes, obviously. However, when you make a trivial point as though it were significant, you should expect people to respond to you as though you thought the trivial point were significant. When that is the case, it is completely reasonable for them to respond by providing context to your trivial point, which changes the meaning of the trivial point. This is what people have done in response to your argument that beautiful women have some degree of sexual power. Your response of “No, no, let me totally ignore the context so that I can restate at length my trivial point, making several grandeous claims along the way that I promise to actually provide any support to at some later date,” is unworthy of the responses you received.
Your trivial point has been granted. Try looking at the context for a bit instead. How do you think sexual power interconnects with rape culture?
Charles, thanks for trying to explain the reactions I got in this thread. I will keep your explanation in mind, although I disagree with you on a few points.
First, it wasn’t obvious to me that my point wasn’t disagreed with. Second, whether the point is trivial or not is a matter of opinion. I happen to agree with you: the claim that beauty grants sexual power is obvious. Yet I didn’t want to assume that everyone else thinks something is obvious just because I think it is. I assumed that since several people were asking what kind of power or privileges beauty granted women, that the question was not a completely trivial one, and deserved a serious answer. They asked, I answered. Simple as that. And yes, I am glad that they provided context to the disadvantages of beauty standards and the tendency to view women in a sexual manner.
I had to restate my “trivial” point over and over because some people seemed to be misunderstanding it. Because I wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page with me, and I because I don’t have infinite time and energy, I haven’t yet been able to explain my claim that women have more sexual power. Cut me some frickin’ slack. Do me the courtesy of reading my posts with charity, instead of making assumptions. This request applies to everyone.
Perhaps I will attempt to answer that question in the other thread. First, I should probably explain why females have more sexual power than males…
Please not again… You already explained it well enough in post 6 in this thread. What do you expect – that everyone should tell you how absolutely right you are (and you are sometimes right)… While you actually refuse to discuss any other topic than the ones you have started, and keep self-quoting and repeating your own posts over and over again. I think you should realize by now that commentors here are under no oligation to discuss only talking points approved or started by you (and they havent, the discussion has evolved from that, I think).
Charles summed it up nicely and more eloquantly.
Or, if you are going to explain how women have more sexual power than men, please explain how in a manner that rebuts all of the arguments that have been put forth about how that sexual power (in your limited and specific sense) is totally overwhelmed by the larger issues surrounding it. Also, on the trivial level, please be sure to rebut cranefly’s “stable marriage” mathematical argument that utterly blew away your “being the passive participant in courtship equals power” argument. Also, Elkins point concerning the severe disadvantages of beauty and clothing as primary modes of communication. Also, please stop treating the category women as equivalent to beautiful women (it makes your arguments even more irrelevant). Furthermore, even within your trivial technical point, you are actually restricting yourself to the even more trivial point that women gain more sexual power (in your trivial sense) from beauty than men do. This is in no way equivalent to what you claim to be arguing: which concerns whether men or women have more sexual power. If you absolutely must address that point again, please be sure that you are fully taking into account all sources of sexual power.
In fact, for the sake of argument, let me grant you the point and ask that we move on: given that you believe that women have more sexual power than men (in the specific sense that individual women on average have a greater choice of mates), how do you think this relates to rape culture?
Oh, and can we continue this discussion here rather than in the other thread for the moment? Unless you are interested in actually being on the same page (conceptually) with the current topics of that discussion, I think this would merely be a distraction from a really good discussion.
No I didn’t. I explained why beauty led to sexual power, not why women have more sexual power.
Tuomas, I have been on topic the entire thread, so lay off. Last thread, I was the bad guy for digressing; now it looks like I am the bad guy for staying on topic. Apparently, I can’t win. Sure I’ve repeated myself a lot… what would you do if you felt that people were misunderstanding your point?
Charles, thanks for being mostly civil. I will attempt to answer your questions, though it will take several posts because I am trying to cut down on my post length.
Sure. First, I should explain why the issue of sexual power is so important. If it is indeed true that women have more sexual power than men, then that gap in sexual power can cause feelings or resentment and powerlessness in men. Those feelings may well translate into misogyny, especially when you add in a few rejections or bad experiences with women. In fact, we know that a lot of misogynist arguments are based on the perception that women have more sexual power than men. If that perception has any basis in reality, which I think it does, then leveling the playing field should be a goal of anyone serious about combatting misogyny.
I used to be very bitter about women (and still has some issues in that area today), and I have felt misogyny developing in myself, and in other males both in real life and online. Sources of this misogyny are difficulties in dating/romance, resentment of perceived female sexual power, and negative experiences with women. Those all reinforce each other. This misogyny fans the flames of a few legitimate issues into a bonfire of resentment. For examples check out:
NiceGuy’s Rant
The Ladder Theory
Both of those sites are a testament to the screwed-up nature of gender roles, and those are only two of many. They identify very real problems, but the mistake they make is blaming women for those problems. My theory is that:
1. The current system of gender roles causes (young) men to lack sexual power, as I defined it above. Certain aspects of male socialization not only fail to give males the tools to find and maintain positive romantic/sexual relationships with women, but actively hinder them from doing so. This lack of sexual power sets (some) men up for rejection and negative experiences with females. In the extreme, an example of this problem has been called love-shyness.
2. Our culture gives these men two options: blame themselves, or blame women (or both), when the real problem is the system. Because of these negative experiences with females, and the (real or imagined) perception that females have more sexual power than they do, some of these men are more likely to form misogynistic attitudes, or adopt misogynstic attitudes that are already floating around (even though they might have rejected such beliefs in the past). Rejection weakens their metaphorical immune systems to the disease of cultural misogyny. Or these males might adopt behavior or beliefs that are damaging to themselves or to women, even if their intent is not necessarily misogynistic.
3. These misogynistic or negative attitudes will manifest in behaviors that are destructive to these men and to the women who encounter them. For example, the psychologist who writes about “love-shyness” claims that some “love-shy” males engage in staring and stalking behavior because they cannot approach the woman. Other negative behaviors that disillusioned males may engage in may be acting like “jerks” to women, believing that women like such treatment. Or they may engage in female-bashing with male friends or on the internet. On a larger scale, the question is, could these attitudes lead to rape? I think most of the time, the answer is “no.” A guy who thinks “no more Mr. Nice Guy, now I am going to be a jerk to women because that’s obviously what they want” is definitely a budding misogynist, but not necessarily a budding rapist. Nevertheless, when these males spread misogynistic attitudes, those attitudes might trickle down to males who actually are potential rapists.
In short, male sexual powerlessness could be contributing to a misogynistic cultural atmosphere where women are more likely to be raped. That is the short answer to your question on the relationship between sexual power and rape culture.
This may be a legitimate criticism. I have intended my arguments to refer to young women, but perhaps I haven’t made that clear enough. When I say that women have more sexual power than men, I really mean something much more complicated like: “Young women on average have more sexual power than young men except possibly at the highest and lowest brackets of attractiveness.”
Btw, comments such as “it makes your arguments even more irrelevant” are the reason why I was only able to thank you for being mostly civil. Your perception of what is relevant is not universal. As I already explained to you in a previous post (though you strangely ignored my explanation), most of my discussion of beauty and sexual power was in response to the direct questions of several of the feminists here. My answer may have been long-winded, but it is definitely relevant to the questions I was asked (or do you think the questions were irrelevant in the first place?).
Cranefly’s argument does not blow away my argument, and it’s not clear that he or she even intended at as a rebuttal to me. Cranefly was careful to qualify that the algorithm failed to correctly model human relationships. I can think of at least several reasons off the top of my head why it doesn’t apply to reality.
1. In real life, women can initiate, even if their ability to do so may be more constrained in some contexts. For this reason alone, the stable marriage algorithm does not apply.
2. In real life, initiating (and to a lesser degree, receiving/rejecting an advance), take effort. If a male lacks the confidence or self-esteem to make advances, then he will lose out, or be forced to settle for females who are less attractive and intimidating. Some females can choose to drop hints or be obviously receptive to increase a male’s chance of making advances on them. Of course, shy females will have trouble too, but not to the same degree as shy men, because they don’t have to make the initiatives. For reasons of shyness or stress, there will be varying limits to how many initiatives a man can make in a certain period of time, but females can receive or reject a lot more initiatives. Of course, this means that a certain subset of males will be out of the game permanently or temporarily while they steal up their courage for their next advance. This will give extra power for males in the upper brackets of attractiveness and social skills, which is why those males may have sexual power that is equal or maybe even greater than female sexual power.
3. In real life, females may not provisionally accept their initial suitors like in the algorithm. If an initial suitor is below a woman’s standards, and she has her eye on someone else, then she might stay single, even if her first choice goes for someone else. Of course, in real life individuals of both sexes might choose to remain single instead of settling for less, though females are more likely to do so because they seem to be pickier about mates in general.
There are probably a few more reasons the algorithm doesn’t apply to our less than perfect world that I haven’t even thought of yet…
Anyway, the norms for male initiation cause more suffering for males than they do for females, because it takes more work for someone to initiate than for someone to receive advances (and because females do have the choice to initiate). An obvious counterargument is that these norms create more suffering for females because they cause rape and sexual assault. In one sense, this is obvious: if males never initiated, they wouldn’t be able to rape. On the other hand, the norm of male initiation seems like a very distant cause of rape. We could say that a whole host of other factors, like a woman being careless or drinking alcohol also “cause” rape, because she wouldn’t have been raped otherwise. Yet in reality, males initiate, and women are careless or drink all the time without rape happening. Clearly there must be other reasons than these why rape happens, such as “rape myths” and the attitudes of the rapist. Yet the idea that males must initiate is not a rape myth on its own; it is much different from ideas like “woman don’t have a right to revoke consent once sex has started,” which can obviously be connected to rape.
Being rejected by someone takes a greater psychological toll than rejecting someone. Perhaps there are some situations where it takes more effort to reject someone than to make advances on them, namely when the initiator is being belligerent and not taking the hint. Neverthless, the cause of such behavior is not simply the norm that males must initiate, but rather other factors such as thick-headedness, or perhaps an attitude of entitlement. Furthermore, a man forcing his attentions on a woman is socially proscribed, while a man feeling hurt by rejection is not only socially prescribed, but encouraged.
Actually, perhaps part of the reason that some men won’t take “no” for an answer is because rejection is so painful for them (although this obviously doesn’t excuse their behavior). Since, men are expected to make all the moves, many men will invest their self-esteem and self-image in their ability to initiate things with women. If men didn’t have to do most of the work of initiating, perhaps rejection wouldn’t be such a big deal because it wouldn’t shatter their self-images, and perhaps they wouldn’t take out their frustration over rejection on women.
Hence, this system where males must be proactive, but females have the choices of being passive or proactive seems to privilege females overall, because it means that males do most of the work. Many men know intuitively that this system is not fair. Who will seem like the obvious scapegoat for this unfairness? Women.
Furthermore, a man forcing his attentions on a woman is socially proscribed
No, it’s called “being persistent” and is heavily approved of, (generally) as long as it doesn’t cross into physical assault or creepy behavior.
You also seem to have this weird idea that women cannot be rejected if they don’t initiate encounters, which is nonsense.
Well, a man “forcing his attentions on a woman” is socially proscribed… but you raise a good point that some behaviors which some might call “forcing attentions on a woman,” other might call “being persistent.” Such behavior is difficult to define and label, and there is some degree of legitimate disagreement about where the line between “persistence” and “pushiness” should be drawn. What I thought of when I mentioned “forcing his attentions” probably corresponds to what you are calling “creepy behavior.”
I don’t think I’ve said or implied anything like this. Yes, women can be rejected even when they don’t initiate anything. Yet I have a hard time believing that being passively rejected and ignored by a the person of your desire is as bad as being actively rejected, where you do a lot of work to steal up the courage and you go through all the anxiety and nervousness of making your advances… only to be rejected outright or find out that you’re seen only as a friend. I could believe that the feelings of rejection are equally bad whether you are rejected passively or actively, but when you make the move, you have to deal with all the effort and anxiety of pulling it off also. If I am missing something here, then please do tell.
Aegis,
Although I am unclear why you think that the expectation that men will initiate sexual encounters does not connect into the rest of the rape culture mythology (initiating man -> hesitant woman -> persistent man -> yielding woman -> sex is the basic myth of romance, and the basic rape myth), your point that the fear of being unmanned by rejection probably plays a part in men refusing to recognize or accept rejection seems to me to be a valid one. However, that still seems to me to have far more to do with the idea that not being able to get sex is unmanly (and with the romance/rape myth), than to do with any actual power inequalties that benefit women.
I think you touch tangentially on why you have gotten such a negative response on these threads when you talk about the connection between the idea that women have more sexual power and the idea that that justifies taking it from them. While you feel that the fact that women have more sexual power leads to this result, most everyone else here thinks that the belief in women’s greater sexual power itself is part of the problem.
Your last paragraph is seriously flawed:
(trivially) Men only have the need to initiate to the extent that women are prevented from initiating, so it is fundamentally nonsensical to claim that men must initiate, but women can choose either to initiate or not. Every het woman who initiates equals one man who doesn’t need to initiate.
(more importantly) To say that a system of sexual expectations in which approximately 1 in 4 women will be subject to attempted rape is one in which women benefit more than men is simply nonsense. I realize that that is not what you meant to say, but it is part of the problem with over-compartmentalizing the cultural system of sex. Certainly, men may feel that they are disadvantaged relative to women (particularly since the idea that women are the possessors of sex, and the idea that therefore women who fail to get sexual partners are not losing out in any real way – ideas expressed by somebody, although not by you – are still very common in our culture), and I agree that that frequently plays into misogynist feelings of resentment, but that requires exactly that compartmentalization, a refusal to recognize rape as part of the same system.
I think you do a very good job of describing a large part of the structure of resentment based misogyny, and I realize that you are attempting to reject and oppose that structure, but I think that you are still holding fast to some key underpinings of the system.
Aegis said:
Probably keep repeating myself (you have a point there)… But still think my point about others talking about things not necessarily related to your posts stands. And it just seemed that you were most keen on attacking those posts that werent much related to your posts and saying things in the effect of “how does that disapprove my theory??” to those posts… As if (and this guessing, I know I cant really know what is in your mind) you have already made up your mind that everyone out there is trying desperately to “win” you. Frankly, not every commentor is that interested in winning or anything. But Ill pop in if I have something more to add, of course you are free to present your arguments… It just seems that youve had plenty of time presenting your (previously unseen and apparently not biased, but completely factual and scientific, according to you) arguments and getting caught in no-I-didnt-say-that arguments isnt really helping your case, and is damned (deliberate?) waste of everyones time. Including yours.
Oh, and my 2 cents on your later post: Being rejected is tough (as anyone who is rejected knows) but for women (stereotypically passive ones, I mean) not being approached by the ones they would like to is probably hard too (and NO I am not saying you have claimed otherwise). All your points are pretty much from young, straight male viewpoint… Thus I can sympathize but women have a different point of view and different problems.
And women can be rejected when they make an active move on men too, after working up the courage and all that (and this happens on regular basis). Not just rejected when “passively trying to attract somebody”.
Aegis, you know I love you. But when you said this
I had to think… hmm. Are there laws requiring men to do most of the work? No. There are just social norms. But men don’t have to abide by them. They can change the norms if they want, but it requires collective action by men. (I’m not a collectivist, but I think you know what I’m saying.)
And that, I think, is the real problem for both feminism and men’s activism. Most people are content with the way things are.
Society to the sexually-frustrated straight woman:
“Rejected, huh? Well, it’s your own fault. You’re just not trying, are you? You know, if you just lost thirty pounds and kept it off by eating poorly for the rest of your life (what do you mean, diets don’t work? Of COURSE they do, silly! It’s just common sense!), and then bought a very expensive new wardrobe which you were willing to maintain for the rest of your life, and then learned to think constantly about how you look and never again have a single relaxed moment–just on the off-chance, you know, that someone might be observing you–and hey! Don’t forget to smile! Watch that posture! Your tits are too big, makes you look cheap–maybe plastic surgery? And how about some make-up? –then you might almost be sexually acceptable. Almost. Not quite, but almost. Oh, and don’t forget: you can never, ever, ever stop thinking about all this stuff. Never. That’s “letting yourself go.” Well. Until you reach the age of 35 or so, that is. Then your currency will drop no matter what you do, so you’d better have a man by then, yeah?
Hey, don’t look at me like that. I’m just sayin’. Did you know that syrup of ipecac can help you to vomit up some of those calories you just took in, by the way? Might be worth a shot. And here, buy some of these magazines They’ll tell you about more stuff you can buy to help you in your new life’s endeavor, and there are also lots of nice pictures to remind you just how inadequate you are. Call it incentive. Why haven’t you done something about your hair yet? YES, of COURSE you need to brush it more than twice a day – what the hell kind of question is that? What kind of a hopeless slob are you, anyway?
“What do you mean, ‘why do I have to worry about all that shit when men don’t?’ Because they’re men, stupid! They’re fine just the way they are. They don’t have to work to be attractive. You, on the other hand…
“What’s that you’re complaining about now? You took my advice, and someone you weren’t interested in just wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer? Well, of course he wouldn’t, dummy. Just look at how you were dressed! How the hell was he supposed to know you weren’t interested in him?”
Yeesh. Talk about anxiety!
And this is probably the reason that I’ve been the one to initiate nearly all of the sexual encounters I’ve had. Because in contrast to the above, the anxiety of risking rejection by saying “hey, wanna go out with me?” just doesn’t seem all that harsh somehow.
Not to mention the fact that when you ask someone out, you can pick who the hell you’re talking to, rather than just broadcasting availability to the room and hoping that the right person notices (and that the wrong people don’t).
On the whole, words are a much better way of talking than looks and dress are. That’s probably why we use verbal communication to negotiate most of the important things in life. Why we think it’s a Good Idea for women to be forced to try to negotiate sex through dress and lookin’ pretty — and for men then to try to interpret those cues through liberal application of mind-reading — is really quite beyond me. We’re intelligent mammals who have developed a sophisticated form of verbal communication, so where does this idea that sex is the one thing for which that form of communication is somehow inappropriate come from?
It leads to all sorts of nonsense–some of it possibly sincere but really quite dangerous nonsense, and some of it blatantly self-serving and self-justifying nonsense. (“She said ‘no,’ but I could see that she meant yes!” “If you have to ask, then you just don’t get it!” “But it would ruin the mood if we actually talked while having sex – I should be able to deduce my partner’s desires through mind-reading [and if I get it wrong–like, she didn’t really want me to hold her down and force myself on her–oh, well, misunderstandings happen].” “Only beta-male nerds actually have to ask what a woman wants!” And so forth.)
Bleh. Gender roles.
Agreed with everyone else who has said that they overall just plain suck, and make life shitty for everyone.
Not a very trenchant or intellectualized analysis, perhaps. Eh, so sue me. I’m just not feeling all that trenchant or intellectual today.
I don’t agree. I think we should attempt to resolve this issue before moving on.
Although the norm that men must initiate everything may create a context where rape is more likely to happen, there is no necessary connection between men always initiating and rape occuring. Conceivably, a world could exist where men always initiated, but rape didn’t exist. Male proactivity only “causes” rape under a very loose notion of causation. By that notion, a woman’s actions can also “cause” her to be raped (because they can also contribute to a context where rape is more likely to happen).
Hence, I think it would be more accurate to say that the norms of male initiation, and the actions of women can contribute to rape (because they can increase the chances of rape happening), but they don’t cause rape on their own, and aren’t responsible for rape.
It seems to me ideas that it is ok to have sex with a woman without her consent, or that “no” doesn’t mean “no” regardles of how it is phrased, or that a man is entitled to sex with a woman for whatever reason, or that women cannot validly revoke consent after sex has begun, are more central underpinnings of a system that leads to rape. Those beliefs will necessarily lead to rape if they are acted upon in a context where a man wants sex but a woman doesn’t. I think there is a big distinction between beliefs/norms that will necessarily lead to rape if acted upon (e.g. “women cannot meaningfully revoke consent after sex has started”), and beliefs/norms that may increase the probability of rape happening, but that aren’t necessary or sufficient causes for rape in and of themselves (e.g. “men should initiate everything”).
No. The expectation for males to initiate is not really responsible for rape (see above), but it is responsible for males being burdened in dating. And I will explain why this expectation creates more work for males than for females, because several people have brought up some good objections to that argument.
Btw, I think it is problematic in general to argue that certain social attitudes “cause” rape or are responsible for it, because that seems incompatible with holding the rapist fully responsible. Rapist: “hey, it’s not my fault, I was just brainwashed by the patriarchy!”