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.
Aegis, as you made clear in the other thread, your idea of men’s “initiating” things involves making sexual contact without permission. That doesn’t contribute to rape. It is rape.
So, what you are saying is that rape wouldn’t happen if women didn’t contribute to their own rape by saying “No“? Well, there you go. We can cross rape off our list of worries. Women just have to say “yes” to every man that wants sex . I mean anything we can do to relieve the burden on you poor, poor men.
Mousehound,
No, actually that isn’t what he said at all.
He said that expectation that men should initiate sexual activity was, in his view, about as connected to rape as the expecation that a woman who goes to the bedroom of a date is signalling an interest in sex is. While he agrees that both of these expectations might contribute to rape happening, he argues that the much more important set of beliefs are those that directly relate to attitudes towards rape:
Your paraphrase simply isn’t in the same universe.
Aegis,
To my mind, while it is possible to conceive of a universe in which men are expected to always initiate, and women are expected to communicate their sexual interest purely through how they dress and whether or not they go to a man’s bedroom, and yet rape doesn’t happen, that isn’t the universe in which we live. In this society, the idea that men should always initiate is strongly tied to the standard romance myth, which is very much about men overcoming the resistance of reluctant women, which is very much tied to women as the possessors of sex, and is very much tied to rape.
While I’ll agree that the ideas specifically relating to “no doesn’t mean no” and entitlement are more directly tied to rape happening, I think that the larger romance concept of male pursuer is fundamentally tied to the rape culture and to all of the ideas you list as more central, and that it remains bizarre to talk about how the idea of the male pursuer inconveniences men while refusing to recognize its part in the rape culture.
I think your ideas about how the standard romantic model leads to resentment in men, which leads to misogyny and rape, are interesting, but I think they need a good deal more work. Your current statements of these ideas tend to be facile and bordering on the offensive (there seems to be disagreement on which side of offensive they fall on), probably becasue they are usally tacked on to the end of a post about how much the idea of pursuing inconveniences men. Also, I think you may be still looking at the structures from the vantage point of a somewhat resentful man, which lends your descriptions a tone of undue sympathy towards men’s resentment. Resentment and hostility towards the standard romantic model seems justified to me (for both men and women), but resentment towards women for the existance of the standard model and for the fact that many people insist on playing it out seems unreasonable and injust, and seems strongly tied to the standard romantic model itself (particularly to the idea of women as the possessors and gatekeepers of sex).
Resentment towards women for the existance of the standard model is part of the maintanence of the standard model.
I didn’t know it was possible to rape someone only by kissing them. Perhaps you mean “molestation.”
Anyway, I’m not sure exactly what your point is. That is not really “my idea” of initiating; I am simply describing the way some men respond to the incentives that some women give.
No, that’s not what I am saying. If you had read my point in context, you would have seen that I was actually condemning victim-blaming attitudes. Simply because a woman’s actions can increase the chances of her being raped, it doesn’t make her responsible for her rape. My larger point is that we shouldn’t say that something causes rape simply because it contributes to rape, or else we would have to say that a woman’s action can be a cause of her own rape (which sounds awfully close to victim-blaming).
mousehounde, if you continue with gratuitous misrepresentations of my posts, I am going to stop responding to you.
Aegis, you’re not making any sense.
It’ s a well-known fact that public housing buildings, if they’re designed with very few open spaces, and lots of blind corners (corners which are not visible from the street), will experience more crime (assaults, drug dealing, etc.). If we design a building in a certain way, it tends to facilitate crime, by providing a context in which crimes are more likely to occur.
In response to this, forward-minded designers and public housing advocates now insist on designs that emphasize open spaces and eye lines and reduce or eliminate blind corners.
But if we followed your logic, we’d have to say those designers are wrong. If you were consistent, you’d respond like this: “Conceivably, a world could exist where there were lots of blind corners in public housing, but crimes did not exist. Blind corners only “cause”? crime under a very loose notion of causation. By that notion, a mugging victim’s actions can also “cause”? him to be mugged (because they can also contribute to a context where muggings are more likely to happen).”
That’s very poor logic. Blind corners aren’t a guarantee of crime, but that doesn’t mean they’re not a contributing factor, and a designer who doesn’t therefore try to avoid blind corners is being horribly irresponsible.
Similarly, the social expectation that women passively possess sex, and men pursue women to get sex, is not by itself a guarantee of rape, in the sense you’ve been talking about. But it’s certainly an important contributing factor, and it therefore makes sense to try and reduce it as part of making rape less likely in our society.
Those statements are talking about two different issues. The second quote was a response to post #157 in the previous thread, where you said:
I thought you were responding to this statement from me:
Notice that I am not claiming that if a man is inconsiderate of a woman’s feelings, that he is being more hurt than she is. Nevertheless, overall I argue the expectation for males to initiate is more of a burden on males.
You and Charles have brought up some valid objections to that argument which I will answer now.
1. Women have to do a lot of work to be beautiful.
Sure. I don’t think this measures up to the work that males do initiating. Most of the work of being beautiful can be done in advance of the interaction in private. Furthermore, it lasts for a decent period of time. In contrast, the male job of being proactive and confident doesn’t let up. Once a woman has made herself beautiful, she can attract multiple men with that beauty in the same evening (in fact, as several posters have pointed out, she has no choice to attract multiple men, even when she doesn’t want to). On the other hand, for a man to interact with multiple women in one evening, he needs to re-initiate with every one of them. Imagine if a woman had to go into the bathroom, change clothes, re-do her hair, and reapply her makeup between talking to guys at a party. If this was the case, then maybe females would be doing as much work as males do. Or if guys could buy Confidence Cream ™ at the store which they could apply in advance to make them confident for the whole evening, then maybe the burdens would become equal.
2. When they play the passive role, women face at least as much anxiety as men do.
Ok, so both people are nervous. But it is the man who is expected to get over his nervousness and initiate things. On top of his anxiety, he must be proactive. And the woman always his the choice to initiate things herself, or drop more obvious hints to remove the ambiguity. Yet the guy usually doesn’t have the choice to be passive and wait for the woman to initiate things.
Furthermore, nervousness and anxiety impair a man’s ability to initiate and be confident. But they do not impair a woman’s ability to be beautiful (unless she is so nervous in the bathroom that she puts lipstick on her ear??). Anxiety causes suffering for both people, but it makes the man’s role much harder to play, while it doesn’t impair the woman’s ability to act out her role as much.
Perhaps I should back away from the claim that the expectations for males to initiate causes more suffering for men that it does for women. Yet I still think that the system creates more work for males than it does for females. And because males cannot always handle this inordinate burden, both males and females suffer. Men being overly passive, men being pushy, and men being creepy are all examples of them not being able to correctly play their role as initiator.
You see, if the man doesn’t understand the sexist tradition, then he doesn’t have the choice to blame it. Though you may still be correct that he chooses misogyny. Still, if he doesn’t think outside the box (and many people don’t think outside the box), then he might not be aware of other alternatives besides blaming himself or blaming women. And yes, it does fit into sexist programming. That is what I am getting at: when males have negative experiences with women, then they are more susceptible to sexist programming. Hence, many aspects of male socialization are a problem because they set males up for negative experiences with women.
I think the market for that would be surprisingly big, even if it is just a placebo. Stick with that business idea! And there are plenty of placebo confidence stuff for men (I won’t name any brands but expensive watches, cars etc.)
And beauty care products for women are marketed as making you more confident in addition of being more attractive.
Imagine if a woman had to go into the bathroom, change clothes, re-do her hair, and reapply her makeup between talking to guys at a party
Umm, why do you think we take so long in the bathroom? If fact, why do you think so many make-up companies sell travel sized hairspray/hair straighters etc. Okay I don’t change clothes, but I certainly carry a hair-brush/lipstick/eyeliner/mascara/t-zone powder brush with me _everywhere_ Everytime I go to bathroom, I check my hair and make-up and touch-up where nessisary. Everytime I eat, I go to the bathroom and touch up my lipstick. I’m not sure how common this is, but I’ve dressed up then I make sure I keep it up.
Talking about “work in order to attract other sex” (which isn’t quite the point of my make-up, but hey), can I add carrying make-up products everywhere gets pretty heavy.
Tell you what, you cleanse, tone and moisturise twice a day for the next say, five years? And then put on a full face of make-up, and keep it up, and then tell me how much effort it is to say “hey I like you, can I kiss you”. Are men’s vocal cords so difficult to operate?
But it is the man who is expected to get over his nervousness and initiate things. On top of his anxiety, he must be proactive. And the woman always his the choice to initiate things herself, or drop more obvious hints to remove the ambiguity.
And the man always has the choice not to act. Don’t want to play the active role, then don’t.
Please notice, the man’s anxiety is only over whether or not the girl is interested – he doesn’t have the “what if I say no, and he doesn’t listen and rapes me”. I have that even if I like the guy – the paranoid second track on my brain going “I like him, but I don’t know him that well, what if I make the first move and he takes that as permission to do whatever he wants”.
Don’t you think you’d be a bit more “anxious” if as well as rejecting you, you were worried the girl might push you to the floor and sodomise you?
…And I forgot to mention the tried and true Confidence Drinkâ„¢, beer. (Okay, these are serious matters, that was the last silly post)
Well, there’s always shyness which might impair the vocal cords slightly (and curiously, some women probably find that very shy way of asking cute) but very good point, VK (as was the rest of your post).
Sure. I don’t think this measures up to the work that males do initiating.
As a woman who did and does the initiating, Aegis, I can confidently say that you are flat-out wrong.
And the woman always his the choice to initiate things herself
We’re talking about men and women who, in your words, “don’t understand the sexist tradition.” Under that tradition, women don’t initiate. That’s call being forward, desperate, and coming on strong, and anyway, initiating means he wasn’t interested in you because if he WAS he’d have initiated.
Sorry, Aegis, but you can’t have it both ways. Saying that the poor men can’t make other choices but the women can is playing poor pitiful me, and that’s a song you’re not especially good at singing.
Men being overly passive, men being pushy, and men being creepy are all examples of them not being able to correctly play their role as initiator.
Another one for the ‘I’m not saying it’s right, just describing how it goes’ series, I guess. Then why the use of ‘correctly’?
Nevermind. Sounds like someone here needs to take a peek at the world beyond their high school corridors.
Aegis,
Look, your continued attempts to support an argument you aren’t actually willing to make any more are unconvincing and, frankly, silly.
Paraphrasing:
“It doesn’t cause more suffering, but maybe its more work.”
So what?
“Women just need to buy hundreds of dollars in beauty products and maintain a constant vigil of attention to their appearance, but men actually need to open their mouths and speak, on those occaisions when they feel like it, so men must be doing so much more work in the only instant that matters, which is when a man decides to approach a woman.”
As VK and Mythago said, wrong.
I think if you would stop arguing over your now ridiculous point and look at why you are holding to your position even though it has been cut to shreds, I think you would be well positioned to do some real and serious thinking about rape culture.
and curiously, some women probably find that very shy way of asking cute
well, as a great man once sang, “shyness is nice, and shyness won’t stop you from doing all the things in life you’d like to… nature is a language, can’t you read? so ask me ask me ask me” =)
Not really that curious or suprising, when we actually observe human behaviour rather than trying to categorise it before we’ve even understood it yet.
For those like Aegis who are so much more interested in categories than actual humans, discussion achieves nothing. They’ll either stick to reinforcing their compartmentalised view, or if they venture out into unnown territory they’ll inevitably bang their head against a reality that’s a little more complex than their minds thought. At which point, epiphanies might dawn or minds lock even tighter, depending.
I really, really, really admire the contributions you’ve made to this discussion, Noodles. But the above paragraph seems to me to be needlessly personal, insulting comments about another poster.
(Disclaimer: My moderation style is “random spot check,”? and thus a bit arbitrary. I fully acknowlege that other people may have been just as bad and not gotten a comment from me. I’m sorry for that, but I don’t have the time to fully moderate every single comment on “Alas,”? so spot-checks are the only viable alternative to no moderation at all. ““Amp)
Also, I disagree. Just because Aegis has been unwilling to shift his ground in this discussion doesn’t mean that the discussion won’t have a positive effect on his views someday, once he’s had the benefit of more time and distance. Minds rarely change over the course of a single argument; even when people do change their minds, they usually do so as a cumulative result of many arguments, and by gradually shifting their views between one argument and the next. (Perhaps that’s what you mean by saying “epiphanies might dawn.”)
Nice song, that it is :-)
Amp, with all due respect, it may not be a very intelligent move on my part personally to say this, but I myself have been far harsher with Aegis on the other thread than Noodles has been here.
More to the point, I don’t find the section of her post you’ve quoted “insulting”, especially in light of the attitudes Aegis has displayed here.
What I mean is: yes, of course, most of the time if someone writes something that happens to piss you off and you call them, say, a fascist (just to give a popularly misused insult), that is usually out of line and shouldn’t be condoned. But is it wrong if what that person has written actually seems to you to support a fascist perspective? IMHO, if that is the case, you are not making a cheap insult but rather calling it as you see it.
And I honestly, truly do think that Aegis’s posts very much support Noodles’s assertion that he cares far more about categories than real, live humans.
Ok, Amp, point taken – it was a bit pretentious of me to say that, I guess. But you know, even if I could rephrase the concept to make it sound less scornful or rude or whatever, after all this back and forth I just can’t help getting the distinct impression that Aegis comments show the mindset of someone who really hasn’t had much experience with grown up people with different personalities, and really isn’t that interested in acquiring it.
Is that less insulting? How can I say that without saying it? :-)
Of course I don’t know him, but I know what he’s written here. He’s made caricatured generalisations on women – and men – that do sound pretty insulting to both.
I didn’t expect Aegis to change his mind or shift his positions, no, but maybe that there could have been a non-frustrating discussion that actually moves on; I mean, after all, me and others posting here are part of the human race too and of the female or male gender so when he says things like ‘most women this, most men that, women have told me this, men have told me that’, it’s like everything we’ve said is from some kind of freak margin of reality that doesn’t count.
I can only draw my own conclusions from that. I have my own moments of thick-headedness and I don’t consider myself particularly enligthened, but I do know a bunch of ridiculous, useless stereotypes when I see them.
In other words, what Crys T said (thanks).
And I don’t despise Aegis, for what it’s worth I think he’s been at least far more straighforward in presenting and arguing his views than Robert is, for instance – sorry AndiF, we’ll have to disagree on that one – but it still does feel like banging your head against a wall. There’s only so many times you can hear ‘men have to do so much more work in approaching women’…
Minds rarely change over the course of a single argument; even when people do change their minds, they usually do so as a cumulative result of many arguments, and by gradually shifting their views between one argument and the next. (Perhaps that’s what you mean by saying “epiphanies might dawn.”?)
Yes, indeed, Amp, but not out of arguments, or not only at least, out of experience, more than anything. Or at the very least a mix of both. That’s what I meant with epiphanies. Real life situations, not hypotheticals, showing us that categories are not very useful.
It’s not like we’re talking of a government policy after all, we’re talking personal human interaction between the sexes, something that we discuss based on our own direct experience and observation, not theories. There’s bound to be a great variety of behaviours and mentalities that people display in their actual life, not just in arguments. I don’t have to ‘agree’ with or like them all to acknowledge they exist, in far more complex terms than case a or case b, initiating man, initiated woman, etc. etc. Anyone who’s not fixed on clichés can see that.
Anyway, I do take your point, that bit I wrote was even a bit of a generalisation of my own.
AE, you really do spend 4-6 hours a day hitting on women? If not, then you don’t put as much time into obtaining and pleasing a partner as women do. Period.
I noticed, too, that the guys pushing the “men have it harder” argument like to pretend that sexual relations predominantly occur within the context of one night stands. In reality, most sex happens in marriage and other long term relationships, and I doubt anyone here can put forth an argument that men put more work into their long-term relationships than women do. So even if men have more initial work in obtaining the wife/girlfriend (which I doubt), they can reasonably expect that once they have the relationship, they can shift the workload of maintaining it over to the woman, as well as a host of other duties in their lives like housework and maintaining family relationships. For instance, most men I know, especially over a certain age, expect their wives to do things like call their mother for them and purchase gifts, return RSVPs, and otherwise handle all social functions for the couple.
This is why so many men for so long have resisted women getting jobs and equal wages–without the money to hold over their wives’ heads, it’s hard to convince women to do all the housework and relationship maintenance.
I’d guess that’s because for them it probably does.
Also, I believe a lot of these guys who complain so much are really after the whole thing of “the chase” anyway. If that is what gets you going, what could be more boring that having sex with someone you’ve already “conquered”?
Of course, if you are into that sort of thing, it does seem more than a bit hypocritical to then complain about “all the work” you have to do to get laid.
Which frequently includes–as most of us in long-term relationships can attest to–initiating sex. And no, just because “the ice has been broken” doesn’t automatically make that easy to do every time. Though I’m guessing some people who haven’t been in a very long-term relationship with all those ups, downs and weird bits in between won’t really believe it, even in a good relationship, there are times when it would be easier to go out and pick up a stranger for sex.
“Nevertheless, overall I argue the expectation for males to initiate is more of a burden on males.”
You consistently try to seperate this from the fact that this “burden” easily turns into an excuse for men to simply do what they want, the woman’s opinion and wishes be damned.
Not being able to recognise that “expected to make the first move” and “can’t stop themselves from rape’ are at both ends of the spectrum of “guys are supposed to be more dominant” is an example of saying that “men being encouraged to ignore women’s wishes and autonomy is somehow more hurtful to men than women is.”
You can’t act as if the “burden” doesn’t spring the same well as typical excuses for rape. Trying to argue that the dating scene sucks for men more than women, without taking into account how disempowering and physically dangerous it can be for women, does just that. And what’s the point of arguing that one tiny aspect of dating, in stereotypical situations, hurts one party more than other? Isn’t the real issue how the system as whole works and if we should and how we can dismantle it? Looking at the pieces is useful, but usually only if you tie it to a larger context. Otherwise you are, you know, not seeing the forest for the trees and all that.
Look, there are lots of ways that guys and boys have it rough in modern America. I work at the kid’s section of a large bookstore and I get parents coming in all the time looking for stuff in a desperate attempt to interest their boys in reading; the girls are more likely to be the ones dragging their parents down and begging for the latest Tokyo Mew Mew, Gossip Girls, or Cornelia Funke novel. Parents of boys also have a much harder time finding “self-help” type books for boys on puberty, friends, school, etc., than parents of girls do.
However, you can’t seperate this out from the fact that boys will avoid anything that hints of girl like the plague, while girls gobble up (or at least are less likely to dismiss out of hand) even the most “boyish” of the “boy” books, or the fact that this boy aversion to “femininity” also translates into them being more likely to ignore or reject their mostly female teachers (and that this in turn leads to fewer male high school English and elementary school teachers), or the fact that parents encourage this aversion (I’ve had several parents reject picture books for their toddlers because the character is a girl, but I’ve never had one reject one because the character is a boy). Trying to look at the symptoms without delving into the root causes isn’t going to help in the long run.
You can take small steps to help in the short term without trying to deal with the entirety of the problem. Jon Scieszka’s new book and campaign “Guys Read” is a good example of this: he’s attempting to get more boys into reading by encouraging writers to write more books for boys and creating resources for parents and teachers, and boys themselves. But in the end, until I have fewer boys (and parents of boys) who loved “Kidnapped” and “Treasure Island” dismiss my suggestion of “The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle” simply because the character on the cover is a girl (even as I have girls coming up to me gushing about all of Andrew Clement’s books, even the ones with class-clown boys as the main character), and until more than a handful of boys not ignore any suggestion I make, whether it be “Ender’s Game” “Hatchet” or “Hank Zipzer” either girls are going to be shortchanged by lack of female protaganists and role models, and probably read less than they do now, or boys are going to be shortchanged because they can’t find stuff they like (or don’t think reading is for boys), and will therefore read less than they ought.
What the parents of boys looking for good “life-changes” books seem to forget, or not realise, is that many of these “self-help” books for girls (and their parents) – especially the really good ones, are relatively new and are a direct result of feminism. “Reviving Ophelia” and Pleasant Co.’s excellent “The Care and Keeping of You” are both only a decade or so old and were created by women who came of age during the feminist movement of the 70’s. Even if many parents did realise this, I have the feeling their reaction would be a Christina Hoff Summers “look at how feminism has hurt boys!” rather than the more logical response of, well, maybe we need a stereotype challenging movement for boys and men. It’s not a zero sum game unless we make it one.
Aegis, what I get from your posts overall is not only a need to complain about the stereotypes that hurt you (which in and of itself is just fine – venting and naming problems are both important), but also an unwillingness to actually do anything yourself change them, or even suggest things that others could do. Perhaps in part because doing so requires taking on a certain amount of repsonsibility as well as delving deeper into the roots of such stereotypes. Or it could be that you just don’t know where to start. I don’t know, only you can answer that question. But take your time in doing so, because the answer will determine whether you learn to balance assigning responsibilty with taking personal action, or whether you simply spend your life blaming others.
I’m back, after several days of not being able to get on this site due to a hosting error message.
I this is part of where our fundamental difference in assumptions lies. You, and most of the feminists here, seem to see current gender roles as rape, but in a lesser degree (or something like that). This radical critique is interesting and definitely worth discussion, but I am not sure it is correct, and in the least that critique needs more explanation. It seems to me that the reductio ad absurdum of current gender roles would be something like S&M, not rape. Actually, to be fair, I would say that some scripts/norms (like ones that appear in certain types of pornography) might be rape in a lesser degree, but most would reduce to S&M. Btw, this disagreement explains some of the reasons that I don’t believe that society condones rape.
The “standard romantic model” (I like this term so I will keep using it) doesn’t seem to be an allegory of rape, but rather an allegory of something like S&M. The difference is that rape is obviously nonconsensual, while S&M is consensual (even though some types of it may be unhealthy). You summarized the standard romantic model thus:
I think it only looks like a rape myth because you defined it so broadly. I would say that the standard romance model is something like this:
(initiating man -> hesitant woman -> persistent man -> yielding and consenting woman -> sex)
I think part of the point of the standard romance model is that the woman does consent in the end when her “token resistance” has been overcome. Hence, I see rape as a deviation from the standard romance model. The standard romance model seems to operate under the assumption that women are masochistic and only consent to sex when they are “taken” or “swept off their feet” (and that a man who cannot do this is a wimpy, unworthy “beta male”). These dominance and seduction scripts are certainly sexist and lead to unhealthy psychological dynamics for both sexes, but they seem fundamentally different from rape myths because they still maintain the idea of consent.
You are correct: my current discussion has a bunch of holes in it, probably because this is the first time I have presented these ideas, and I haven’t completely thought them through yet. Sometimes the only way to develop strong arguments is to put them on the table and see how others respond to them. Nevertheless, it was a mistake for me to present my ideas in a manner that was not appropriate to my audience. Although the treatment I have received here has been mostly shameful, I should have known better than to present an essentially radical masculist critique to an audience consisting of many radical feminists. I am sorry if some of my claims have been offensive to some people, because that was not the spirit I intended them in. I am glad that you, Ampersand, and perhaps a few others seem to understand that my intent is honest and serious. Because I was unable to resolve some fundamental differences in assumptions (partly from me not responding fast enough due to limited time and smashing my thumb in a door), it made some of my arguments built on those assumptions impossible to hear.
Hence, I have decided to abandon the claim that the expectation for males to initiate causes more suffering for males than for females. I still claim that the expectation creates more psychological effort for males than for females. As for the claim that females have more sexual power than males, I will leave that for later (it makes more sense for me to address the other issues first).
I would like to take an opportunity to reframe my theory:
Gender roles create suffering for both sexes (though not necessarily the same amount, or in the same contexts). Yet in some ways, females are better prepared to play their roles than males are. Consequently, females suffer more extreme disadvantages of gender roles, such as harassment, and rape. In the area of relationships and sexuality, because they are better equipped to play their roles, they also can attain more advantages of those roles, such as greater mate choice and less effort spent in pursuing mates. There are also areas where the female gender role is more flexible than the male gender role: for example, females can play either the passive or proactive role, but for males, the proactive role is the only realistic choice. Also, female socialization is more effective in helping females learn to attract mates than male socialization is in helping males learn to attract mates. This inneffectiveness in male socialization means that some males are set up to be incompetent in the area of relationships with women; that incompetence will lead to rejection, and bad experiences. Rejection and bad experiences can lead to misogyny. This misogyny may translate into negative treatment of females, or into female bashing (which will contribute to a context where other males are more likely to mistreat females).
Of course, I will need to explain these claims in more detail (what do I mean by “effort”? What does it mean for males to be “set up to be incompetent” with women, and how does this happen?). To make sure I don’t procrastinate again, I have already written some of it out and I will post it after I reply to Ampersand.
Stop right there, Amp! ;) My logic is not prescriptive, hence we would not have to say that those designers are wrong. I have never claimed that the expectation that males do all the initiating is a good thing!
Yes, I would respond like this, because all of those statements are accurate. Blind corners don’t cause crime, although they are a contributing factor. Yet that response could not be used to argue that we shouldn’t get rid of blind corners. Even if all blind corners do is contribute to mugging, that is still bad enough that we should get rid of them.
I completely agree. I am simply trying to point out ideas like “women passively possess sex” are damaging to males as well as damaging to females (although not as much).
Btw, I think we got on to this subject because I was claiming that the expectation for males to initiate causes more suffering for males than for females. Several people pointed out that the expectation for males to initiate caused rape, hence I should not claim that it makes males suffer more. I felt like this missed my point: rape seems somehow extrinsic to that norm, while males doing more of the work and suffering more from being actively rejected seemed more intrinsic to the norm. I don’t know what I think of that reasoning now, which is why I am no longer claiming that the norm of male initiation creates more suffering for males than for females.
P.S. I emailed you a while ago. Did you not get it?
This actually seems to prove my point. Cleansing, moisturizing, and applying makeup takes work, but that work is manual and mechanical. I will definitely grant that the female role takes more mechanical work than the male role. What I am getting at is that initiating takes more psychological effort and emotional fortitude.
And yes, I think it can be a lot of effort for many people to say “I like you” or “can I kiss you,” because it is so emotional, and it requires you to show vulnerability by putting your ego on the line (when you know there is a chance of you being rejected). For some people, yes, this may translate into difficulty getting the words out, especially if they are male and have some degree of emotional repression, and especially if those people are young.
Imagine a scenario where a guy asks a woman out on a date. He tells her that he likes her, and she responds that she likes him too. It seems to me that in asking her out and saying “I like you,” he has expended a lot more energy and displayed more vulnerability than she does in dressing up and saying “I like you too.”
Anyone agree/disagree?
Come on, this is not realistic. Of course a man has this choice, but it means majorly constricting his choices in women, and probably enduring long periods of celibacy also (unless he is very attractive).
This is actually an interesting point. What I can’t help wondering is this: if a man wouldn’t listen to “no,” then wouldn’t he be likely to date rape regardless of whether the woman initiated or not? It seems to me that “she made the first move so I had permission to do whatever I want” seems more like a rationalization a date rapist might use after the fact, and less of an indication that a woman initiating things would really be putting herself in extra danger (she is in danger already if the guy believes such a rape myth). Thoughts?
Also, if a woman doesn’t want to initiate things, then she doesn’t have to. She can either count on him to initiate, or reject him and count on a future guy to initiate things. Males cannot count on females to initiate things.
Wait, so because you find initiating easier than playing the female role, then you know that it’s less effort in general for males to initiate than for females to play the passive role? B.S. I’ve talked to several women who agree with me that the male role takes more effort. Why should I believe your perceptions over theirs? Furthermore, you are making the massive assumption that initiating things as a female with a man (?) takes the same amount of effort as initiating things as a man with a woman.
If a man and a woman are on a date, the man is less likely to refuse a kiss from the woman than the woman is from the man (unless maybe he is super-Christian??). A woman can ask a man for a kiss without risking a good chance of getting rejected for asking, while a man doesn’t have that security. Also, for women there is a much wider margin of error in initiating a kiss. The idea seems to be that if a woman even tries to kiss a man, then he should be grateful regardless of how she handles it. If a man botches a kiss, he risks being rejected not only for the kiss, but being rejected completely. Hence, it wouldn’t surprise me if some females don’t find it terribly difficult to initiate kissing with males.
Actually, under the version of the sexist tradition we have today, it is seen as acceptable (if not always encouraged) for females to initiate things, at least in my area (California Bay Area). The issue is that most females choose not to, which is why males cannot rely on females to initiate things, even though some females may do so sometimes.
So some males will perceive, arguably correctly, that these expectations are unfair.
To answer your previous point about whether energy expenditure is important: yes, it is. I am using energy expenditure as my measure of “work” rather than simply mechanical work (like moisturizing your face). If males perceive, correctly or incorrectly, that they are expending more energy pursuing or initiating things with females than the females are expending being pursued or being receptive, then those males may feel resentful of women and see them as selfish for making males jump through all these hoops.
Btw, are you RadGeek?
Thanks for sticking up for me, Ampersand. I would have loved it if you had done so a lot earlier, and to posters who were being more insulting!
Also, it’s not true that I haven’t shifted my ground. I have backed down from one claim. True, that may not be much, but it shows that I am willing to have my mind changed (which is more than I can say about 90% of the posters here). In a post a while ago, I gave suggestions for changing the minds of non-feminist males, yet only you, Charles, Redneck Feminist, Tuomas and (maybe) Jenny and one or two other people have given so much as a tip of a hat towards those suggestions.
I’m curious, what exactly is wrong with describing how something is with saying that it’s right? If we could only describe things that were politically and socially just, then we really wouldn’t have much to talk about.
And perhaps my use of the word “correctly” was unclear. By “initiating correctly,” I mean “initiating in a way that women feel comfortable with and respond well to.”
Now I will begin the explanations I promised Charles…
Certain aspects of gender roles set males and females up for negative experiences with each other. Because of these negative experiences, individuals will be more likely to develop bitterness towards the opposite sex. When you have a negative experience with a group of people, that experience is likely to color your perception of that group in the future, and you are likely to associate negative feelings with that group of people. Of course, individuals can choose to buy into those perceptions and feelings, or resist them. Yet people are not always rational, and negative experiences with the opposite sex make various sexist beliefs that much easier to believe.
Hence, norms and expectations that cause negative experiences with the opposite sex, or are inherently unfair, pull down the quality of human relationships for everyone, not just for the individuals who have those negative experiences. There are at least several ways in which this occurs.
First, these individuals may blame themselves for their hardships, and develop insecurities/neuroses that will negatively impact members of the opposite sex who interact with them in the future.
Second, these individuals may blame the opposite sex as I described above. Because of this resentment, they go on to make life difficult for members of the opposite sex who interact with them or are in relationships with them in the future.
Third, this resentment may result in male or female-bashing with members of the same sex. This bashing amplifies and spreads sexist attitudes, and both sexes definitely engage in it. Even if the original person doing the bashing might not actually treat members of the opposite sex in a negative manner, his or her bashing may encourage members of the same sex who don’t have such restraint.
Of course, negative experiences with the opposite sex aren’t the only possible source of resentment. Both sexes resent each other for their respective criteria in dating and relationships, because those criteria are difficult (and often damaging) to meet. The main point here is that sexism doesn’t develop from nowhere. Attitudes towards the opposite develop not just from socialization, but from the combination of socialization and concrete experience.
Everyone with me so far?
In my opinion, feminists often ignore this latter aspect in the case of males developing sexism towards females. This tendency is understandable, because feminists want to raise consciousness of institutional and cultural misogyny. Yet it is an error, because it leaves out important aspects of the development of misogyny, and consequently closes off avenues for preventing it. It seems tempting for feminists to overstate the role of social conditioning in the creation of misogyny. Yet if males are so heavily conditioned to become misogynists, how can they be held responsible for their misogyny, or for action based on that misogyny? If misogyny is such a deeply ingrained constant of male socialization, why does sexism vary widely even between misogynists, and why do some men start out with very positive attitudes towards women and later become bitter towards them?
The answer is because, although some aspects of misogyny may be deeply ingrained, and some males receive more misogynistic messages than others, misogyny develops through the combination of social conditioning and negative experiences with women. These negative experiences make that conditioning suddenly believable. Of course, such males still choose misogyny to some extent. But then we must ask the question: why do they make that choice, and what motivates them to do so? The answer: their negative experiences with women bias them to an extent that misogyny seems like the common sense, rational point of view.
…continued…
Now for the end of my posting spree today (don’t worry, I didn’t write it all today… some of it I started a few days ago when I couldn’t get on this site).
When males are set up for failure with women by their socialization, they are more likely to blame themselves, blame women, or blame both than they are to blame the system. For example, some romance/dating scripts foisted on men are not only unhelpful, but can actually cause failure with women. An example of such a script is chivalry. Chivalrous scripts encourage males to court females by doing them favors, paying for dates/drinks, acting like their therapists, doing their homework, being nice to the point of obsequiousness, and in general giving any kind of unreciprocated positive treatment: supposedly if a woman is given enough of such treatment, she will go “ka-ching!!” and magically be attracted to the guy and fall in love with him.
The fundamental assumption behind these scripts is the commodification of female sexuality. In other words, that the romantic attraction of a woman (or at least sexual access to her), can or should be bought. In other words, that female sexuality is something men take or get, and that women give up or give out. As most feminists already know, this view is very prevalent in American culture, and it is often shared by members of both sexes. Yet it is sexist against both sexes. There are several ways in which the commodification of female sexuality usually manifests:
Male entitlement – “if a man gives gifts, does favors, pays for dates/drinks, acts like a therapist, does homework, is nice to the point of obsequiousness, or gives another kind of unreciprocated special treatment to a woman, then he is entitled to sex with her.” In other words, if a male “pays” for female sexuality (and the woman is assumed to be selling it), then he is entitled to get what he paid for, or at least whine if he doesn’t. If he pays, and there is no “ka-ching!” then there must be something wrong with the machine, err… the woman. He will go whine in the corner, kick it and see if it works, or extract his prize forcefully. Like feminists, I abhor this point of view.
Chivalry – “unless a male gives gifts, does favors, pays for dates/drinks, acts like a therapist, does homework, is nice to the point of obsequiousness, or gives another kind of unreciprocated special treatment to a woman, then he is not worthy to have sex with her.” This view either assumes that those actions attract a woman on a sexual level (which they do not, and cannot, because they operate on a material/platonic level), or that women only possess a kind of passionless, platonic love. If a man delivers his “payment,” and there is no “ka-ching,” then he must not have offered enough. Males following this script often complain about how nice they are, but how women never appreciate them (when maybe women do appreciate them, just not in a sexual way, because appreciation is a totally different thing from attraction).
Female entitlement – “if a woman has sex with a man, then she is entitled to some of those forms of unreciprocated special treatment.” In other words, a man is indebted to a woman for sexual access to her. One form of this belief is the notion that the man should buy a diamond ring. Another version is that a woman is entitled to a relationship with a man, or commitment from him, if she has sex with him. (Surely if a man is to have a relationship with a woman, it shouldn’t simply be out of a feeling of debt to her for “giving” him sex, but rather because he likes her as a person?)
All of those views are really different sides of the same coin (if we can have a three-sided coin?), because they stem from the commodification of female sexuality. Feminism has done a good job of combatting the “male entitlement” version of this assumption, because it is the most obviously misogynistic and damaging to women. Yet the other manifestations of the commodification of female sexuality also cause misogyny through the indirect route I described in the previous post: both cause resentment in men towards women, because they are unfair and will set males up for bad experiences with women. For example, many females might consider the chivalrous script I outlined above to be unnecessary, obsequious, manipulative, or otherwise a turnoff (hence the script causes failure). These scripts are based less on what women actually go for, and more on inaccurate stereotypes about what women should want. When males using these outdated scripts fail with women, they are likely to see females as unappreciative, selfish, and manipulative.
Yet the chivalrous scripts still exist. They are enshrined in movies, books, and Romantic poetry (or at least poor interpretations of Romantic poetry). Perhaps they persist because women benefit from chivalry in a material manner, and the damaging effects of the assumptions behind chivalry aren’t understood. Unfortunately, feminists seem to frame chivalry exclusively as sexism against women (for instance, by only noting that chivalry can lead to male entitlement or gestures of possession). This view is one-sided, because it ignore the way that chivalry can also be a gesture of submission and obsequious from the male, and that it causes males to needlessly waste their time and resources only to be rejected (and that such behavior may even cause their rejection!).
Note: my critique is not “why is it that males work so hard to pursue women and get nothing in return?” (because that would assume that female sexuality is something that women “give” and men “get”), but rather “why are males socialized to pursue women in a way that doesn’t work?” Perhaps if it was recognized that chivalrous romantic scripts are sexist and damaging towards both sexes, then getting rid of them would be easier.
The counter-productiveness of these scripts I describe is one of the reasons I claim that males are less prepared for their gender role than females are. (Of course, I am not claiming that being able to play one’s gender role is necessarily a good thing!)
I’d like to make the humble (seriously) suggestion that all of us who are seriously interested in discussing rape culture do so. It is a topic I’d like to see getting the attention it deserves.
I know other people coming in with extreme positions can be distracting and it’s tempting to tear apart their arguments (hell, I’m as guilty of this as anyone else here), but IMO it’s time to quite indulging the pleasure we get from arguing (again, I know this applies to me about 100%) and deal with the original questions.
Crys T, this thread was consciously intended as a thread for continuing the debate with Aegis – the opening post even contains an extensive quote from one of Aegis’ posts.
However, if you want a separate thread for discussing rape culture, I’m more than happy to start such a thread. If you like, you could write a guest-post to start the thread, or if you had some other suggestion for starting such a thread (like a particular comment that should be quoted) please let me know.
Sorry Amp: I’m just getting frustrated that the discussion doesn’t seem (from my point of view, anyway) to be actually going anywhere, and in a lot of ways this thread and the other, related one seem to have become just the same argument being repeated in 2 different places.
Actually, yes, if you wouldn’t mind starting a separate thread, that would be great, though I don’t have a particular comment to start things off in mind. Maybe someone who’s feeling a bit mentally sharper than me right now could suggest what a good starting-off point? I am actually interested in hearing men’s perceptions of how they are encouraged to accept & participate in rape culture. I have my ideas about that, but I’d like to see how males perceive it. I know that’s a pretty extensive topic, but like I said, I’m not feeling too swift today.
Well, I’m really confused on how you can talk about gender, sex roles and power *without* talking about rape culture. Those are the building blocks of rape culture and to not talk about it in this context means that you are only discussing gender, sex roles and power from a patriarchal point of view. You can’t talk about them as if they exist in a social vaccuum — Aegis tries and all he winds up doing is taking about adolescent male fantasies of how women “really” are or how they “should” be.
*shrug*
I don’t know if this is old news to people here, but reading these threads and the debate brought into mind a (prison) psychological study by Nicholas Groth (damn, I don’t know how to link, but the synopsis would be on http://www.interactivetheatre.org/resc/menwhorape.html) on rapists:
(and I am certainly not using this to understand the “poor boys” who rape, but more as a dissection of motives to understand the true problem – rape culture)
1)55% “power” rapists (sexual conquest)
2)40& “hate” rapists (pent-up anger and frustration)
3) 5% “sadist” rapists (fusion of aggression and sexuality)
I don’t really know if this study has been refuted since, but just as a starting point to get to the true point here:
It seems to me that 1) and 2) are both bona fide examples of rape culture. (number 3 I’m not so sure)
Let me explain:
1) Privilege as a motive. A man like this feels superior to women in general, and has been brought up believing that “a true man” takes what he wants. This sort of rapist probably even doen’t think himself as a rapist. Classic date rapist.
2) Misogyny as a motive. This type of rapist was probably brought up by traditional gender roles and sense of privilege. However, a man like this uses rape as a weapon against women. Very commonly in situations when the man perceives the woman has been “uppity” – of course this is by his warped standards.
(Of course privilege and misogyny are linked, btw)
Discussion of how rape culture and patriarchy fosters these particular attitudes. Actually, Aegis in his colossal posts ;-) probably provided some insight on “hate” rapist, as misogyny would probably be created by getting hurt after having totally warped views on “how to treat women” – as if women were different species or something. And rape as an expression of power would be quite mainstream feminism on patriarchy.
And again, I am in no way excusing rape by creating sort of “patriarchy made me do it” or “if the women would have only treated me better” – type of explanations.
That would be my contribution as a possible discussion starter. Perhaps needs some work, but anyway.
er, Amp, forgot to close the bolding. And hey, the link worked.
[Bolding fixed! –Amp]
On the topic at hand, I would say that
I agree that it might be less likely for the man to turn the woman down. Because men are “supposed” to grab any changes (but then again, she is “not acting like a proper lady” to some men). But however:
Precisely because of this attitude it might even be more hurtful for a woman to initiate (and be rejected). Traditional “wisdom” is that a woman who initiates “scores” always – and thus, if the woman indeed is turned down, it might be more damaging to self-esteem (as it is inconceivable to be turned down by “a sex-crazed, yet rational (?) animal like a man”, therefore something must be wrong with her) .
I hope that made some sense.
And I think another side of chivalry is definitely hip – the bad boy. Of course, I personally think this is very much false dilemma, that men were supposed to act/come in just two personality types: the nice guy/therapist/gift-giver and the bad guy/asshole/uninterested/blah blah. Screw the scripts :-) and treat women like persons. May not work right away on teenagers, but will pay off at least in feeling of righteousness.
Aegis, have you read any romance novels? I occasionally (i.e., once every couple of years) read one to remind myself why I don’t read them.
“(initiating man -> hesitant woman -> persistent man -> yielding woman -> sex is the basic myth of romance, and the basic rape myth)
I think it only looks like a rape myth because you defined it so broadly. I would say that the standard romance model is something like this:
(initiating man -> hesitant woman -> persistent man -> yielding and consenting woman -> sex)”
Using the romance novel script as a basis for what a significant segment of the American female audience considers the ideal basis for developing a relationship, I think there are roughly 3 scripts:
Initiating man -> hesitant woman -> persistent man -> overpowered and unconsenting woman -> rape -> persistent man ->yielding and consenting woman -> consensual sex
Initiating man -> interested woman -> persistent man -> yielding and consenting woman -> consensual sex
Initiating woman -> disinterested man -> persistent woman -> interested man -> yielding and consenting woman -> consensual sex
In the last two scripts, the woman almost always needs to be rescued from some peril in order to get it on with the man, which is a disguise for the actual rape in the first script. Which is why we call it the rape myth.
Or you could watch soap operas. “General Hospital” many years ago had a plot line that was the perfect illustration of the rape myth – the Luke and Laura love story. (Which, BTW, I only know about because my grandmother was an avid fan.) Laura is married to Scotty but works with Luke at a disco. Luke is obsessed with Laura. One night, they are working late, and Luke rapes Laura on the dance floor (after first turning on “romantic” music and turning on the glitter ball and persuading her to dance with him). This eventually leads to the breakup of Laura’s marriage and she discovers that she really loves Luke after all. Although my grandmother thought this plot line was a crock, she thought that their romance was one of the great relationships on the show. Go figure.
‘a thread for continuing the debate with Aegis’
Erm, which ‘debate’? He’s just reposting his 99 theses on men and dating. He’s built a model. He’s not been taking in anything that contradicts that model – it may exist, but it’s marginal, so it can be disregarded. He responds to women who say things that don’t fit that model by citing ‘many women’ who do confirm his model. He’s now described his position as masculist and in response to criticism just says, oh I should have known better than to argue with radical feminists – again, presumably defined as any view or behaviour or preference that doesn’t fit his model. He’s describing the romantic model with terms like ‘beta male’ which last I recall were nowhere to be found at the actual beginnings of romantic literature. He says sorry if he comes off as offensive but he really didn’t mean to be offensive, his intent is serious and honest. Good to know! I guess that makes a non-debate an actual debate.
Ok then, if I’m allowed to get just as serious, I will happily accept the terms of that debate, embrace the 99 theses and go even further, to say that not only men have it harder, and their psychological suffering from dating is deeper, but each of their efforts at getting laid are such a monumental expense of energy that could power the New York subway for an entire week, it’s hard to imagine how men can even keep a job at all, with all the amount of time and psychological effort they invest in getting women to fuck them. Meanwhile, women are happily lounging back in their deckchairs, smoking cigars and picking the olives from their daiquiris as they count the money in their trust fund, they sit there watching all these men go by and waiting for one of them to come up and start his own cumbersome task in this mating ritual, and if his efforts are repaid, he will know because the woman will raise an eyebrow, swallow the olive, call the butler and tell him, James, please prepare the bedroom for our guest for tonight I have decided I shall mate. She will then turn a scornful gaze on the initiating man and tell him, you, there, lick my toes and give me all your money. And the man shall be happy. If his efforts are not repaid, however, the woman who has the power to turn the initiating man into a wretched reject with the flick of a finger, and knows it, and thus wields this power with absolute carelessness and cruelty, will call her personal security guard and tell him, Burt, please escort this pathetic specimen of the male gender to the rejection room, where he will be flogged and hung upside down from the ceiling, then the words ‘beta male’ will be burnt on his forehead and he shall be released back into the world, to suffer the scorn and humiliation of more fortunate suitors.
Mind you, no, that’s not what anyone was saying here, it’s just my own slight embellishment of a reality that anyone, anyone can see, but few dare to denounce, because radical feminists have cunningly managed to disguise the tremendous power women yield over the male sex under talk of rape culture, victimhood, whining, blaming it all on the patriarchy, it’s all very slick and sly and only to hide the fact women, really, are the ones who are in control of this cruel darwinian competition of sexual reproduction that’s at the root of advanced human societies in the third millennium.
Now I’ll go back to my daiquiri if you don’t mind, it is such a life of leisure and pleasure, and the only thing I have to worry about all day is, which initiating man am I going to allow into my secret chambers. Oh, little do men know, how weak and powerless they are, because again, the cunning feminist plan that has been secretly ruling the world since Reagan’s death involves leaving them under the impression that they’re privileged and pampered bullies, when in reality that’s what we do. Don’t tell anyone, or the whole scheme may collapse, and I’d have to find myself a real job.
Go, noodles! Go, noodles! LOL.
Aegis writes:
No, Aegis. Read what we fucking write:
Jenny writes
There is a big fucking difference between “expecting men to be the dominant partner leads to rape as well as having to make the first move” and “men doing the asking is rape” I dare you to find anything that anyone else has said that means the latter and not the former. And the fact that you can’t see any type of connection between men kissing women without asking permission first, on a regular basis, and “rape culture” is just….I don’t have words for it. It’s not “radical”, unless you still think that the majority (rather than the fringes) of feminist theory is “radical.”
Who is disagreeing with this? Last I checked, we are disagreeing with the fact that you seem to think that this perception is correct, or that, once that’s said, that’s all there is to do on the matter. Because, seriously, if you ever “gave suggestions for changing the minds of non-feminist males” I missed it.
And as far as the fact that you still are going on about the fact that guys expend more emotional energy: I’d like to aks how that fits into the stereotype that women overanalyze everything a guy says, and challenge how you describe putting on makeup as mechanical, as if feelings of inadequacy never, or rarely, creep into the act of covering up your real face (or even something as simple as choosing underwear – seriously, watch Bridget Jones Diary, ask yourself why its so popular, and then come back and tell me guys expend more emotional energy), but I give up at this point.
I really don’t understand how you can spend post upon post talking aboout how guys have it worse, and we just don’t understand, and that we are radicals for saying current gender stereotpyes foster rape and then turn around and say that we are blind to the fact that that the current system creates mysoginists? HUH?!? Or wait, maybe I do, sounds like a stereotypical guy thing to do. Ignore what other people are actually saying, and then claim it as your own idea once it sinks in. Seriously, if you want us to respect you, try giving us some.
Oh, I second Crys T’s request, although I do warn you, it’s likely only going to feed my need to vent about boys reading habits and parents who encourage their bad behaviour.
Aegis is from the Bay Area? Oh dear, I’m embarrased, there goes the neoghborhood.
Seriously, though, why is everyone spending so much time trying to refute one boy’s juvenile dating theories? If he appeared to be listening maybe we might be serving an educational purpose, but since he just keeps repeating the same theories over and over again what’s the point continuing the conversation? It’s like watching someone on vacation in another country who thinks that since the people they’re talking to don’t speak English, the best thing to do is repeat themselves SLOWLY and LOUDLY, but still in English.
So yes, can we have another thread where the grownups can talk please?
Wait, so because you find initiating easier than playing the female role, then you know that it’s less effort in general for males to initiate than for females to play the passive role? B.S. I’ve talked to several women who agree with me that the male role takes more effort. Why should I believe your perceptions over theirs?
The same reason anyone here should believe your own, absolutist, generalizations about how the male role is harder than the female role. Why is it OK for you to say “the male role is harder than the female role,” yet when I say it’s the reverse, suddenly you throw a tantrum and cry BS?
By the way, you’ve talked to several women here who agree with me that the female role takes more effort. Why should I believe your perceptions over theirs?
Unless you have spent time playing both roles–and the same goes for your anonymous female sources–then you have no basis for comparison. And you have zero basis for your double-standard crap, by which the perceptions and biases of Aegis are true of all, but everybody else’s are unique and individual only to them.
Ok, ok, I’ll do a quick response to this…
That’s a valid question, regardless of your uncharitable way of posing it. The answer lies in the way we both supported our claims. My argument that the male role takes more psychological effort is not just based on my direct personal experience, but stems from the nature of the male and female roles. Even if the claim that the male role takes more effort is wrong, I think it still needs to be discussed, so I would appreciate it if people stopped trying to make me out as a bad person just for raising the issue.
Your counter-argument was not an argument at all, but a blanket assertion:
If you had given any kind of argument besides just your personal experience, I would not have called B.S. on you. I know that to some degree, everyone can only really make arguments on this subject that stem in some way from their personal experience. But I think in making arguments based on personal experience, we need to offer more than “my personal experience proves X” (which is what you are doing). Nobody can know what experiences you have had, or how you are interpreting them. Hence, claims like that are useless, because someone who doesn’t know you has no way of qualifying them.
The other problem I had with your claim is how you assumed that initiating is the same experience for a woman as it is for a man. As I explained, initiating may be easier for women in many ways.
You shouldn’t. I’m not asking you to trust my experiences, but rather my arguments. In fact, I’m not even asking you to trust my arguments, only to think about them and consider the ways in which they may be true.
Btw, when I refer to my anonymous female sources, I am not claiming that their perceptions prove my argument. I simply bring up what they have told me to combat generalizations made by several female posters here who seem to think they are qualified to speak for all women. For instance, Amanda claiming that a man asking for a kiss would wow the ladies every time. That is just total B.S. I’ve talked to several females who claim that they can’t stand it when a guy asks permission, hence her generalization is false.
Feminists need to acknowledge that a certain amount of females do not have politically correct desires. If males want to have sex/relationships with those females, then those males will have to act in a way that is not politically correct. I argue that there is a serious shortage of women who do have politically correct desires, hence a least some males will have to cater to females who don’t. Several people here have the mistaken assumption that women who don’t have politically correct desires are somehow uneducated or not conscious of gender issues. As if once a woman’s consciousness is raised, she will (and can) change her desires.
Just as male dominance perpetuates a system of female submission and masochism, female submissiveness and masochism perpetuate the system of male dominance. The two go hand in hand. Before you are anyone else jumps on that last statement, remember that many feminists have made similar arguments, so I’m not just pulling it out of my ass.
I have played some aspects of the female role. It was dead easy. I’m afraid I’m not going into any more detail. Of course, I don’t rest my argument that the female roles take less psychological effort just on that experience. There could be many reasons why the female role is easier for me.
My argument that the male role takes more psychological effort is not just based on my direct personal experience, but stems from the nature of the male and female roles.
Which led you into the absurd argument that hours of direct preparation, “please notice me” mind-reading, and a lifestyle centered on being attractive 24/7 is more difficult than the short time it takes to ask a person out.
What did you base this on? Nothing, not even personal experience: you simply presented it as a fait accompli. That’s not an argument, Aegis. Nor is using “politically correct” as a shorthand for…what? You don’t explain, but we’re apparently supposed to understand that some men and women have “desires” that aren’t “politically correct” and that backs up your arguments about what male and female roles are like for all.
I have played some aspects of the female role. It was dead easy. I’m afraid I’m not going into any more detail.
I’m afraid I can’t really evaluate your arguments on that basis.
Btw, when I refer to my anonymous female sources, I am not claiming that their perceptions prove my argument. I simply bring up what they have told me to combat generalizations made by several female posters here who seem to think they are qualified to speak for all women. For instance, Amanda claiming that a man asking for a kiss would wow the ladies every time. That is just total B.S. I’ve talked to several females who claim that they can’t stand it when a guy asks permission, hence her generalization is false.
Aegis, out of curiousity are you even considering the age ranges of the women you talk to versus the age ranges of the women on this blog?
Do you honestly feel a sample of 18 to 21 year old women is going to yeild the same level of introspection and experience as a sample of women nearly all 25+ years in age (in fact I’d say that the majority are older, though this blog does have a good handful of very sharp younger women as well).
As for Amanda’s generalization, I think that ‘in general’ what she said is true, I know it’s true for me and the women I’m around regardless of whether they are feminists or not.
ack, yield, not yeild. Stupid fingers got ahead of me :(.
Just as male dominance perpetuates a system of female submission and masochism, female submissiveness and masochism perpetuate the system of male dominance. The two go hand in hand. Before you are anyone else jumps on that last statement, remember that many feminists have made similar arguments, so I’m not just pulling it out of my ass.
The difference being, you seem to be contending that it’s justifiable, hence okay. When I’ve seen the argument made by feminists, it’s been within the context that it’s something that needs to be changed because the system is perpetuating a culture of rape, which you don’t particularly like discussing, hence narrowing the scope of the debate to minutia that only works for you.
My argument that the male role takes more psychological effort is not just based on my direct personal experience, but stems from the nature of the male and female roles.
As established by who?
That’s not argument, that is a typical blanket statement. Apparently you seem to take personal accounts as blanket statements when they come from others, but your own obvious blanket statements are supposed to be truths inscribed in Nature, no less.
Give us a break, Aegis. Your “arguments” have been treated far too charitably, considering they consist of nothing but that kind of absolutist assertions.
Btw, when I refer to my anonymous female sources, I am not claiming that their perceptions prove my argument. I simply bring up what they have told me to combat generalizations made by several female posters here who seem to think they are qualified to speak for all women.
Ah, is that so now. Hmm. You must have missed the parts where people said behaviour and preferences are individual and not cut across gender lines, doh. You’re the one who thinks you are qualified to speak not only for all women, but for all men – about the “nature of male and female roles”. Really, you’re so deep in contradiction you don’t even see it.
Feminists need to acknowledge that a certain amount of females do not have politically correct desires
Straw man. *you* see the most normal behaviour such as being annoyed by a sexual advance that’s not welcome as “politically correct desire”. I can assure you my illiterate grandmother who didn’t even know about feminism had the same reactions as me to obnoxious jerks who think they are entitled to attention just because of making a move.
I have played some aspects of the female role. It was dead easy. I’m afraid I’m not going into any more detail.
Hahaha… oh please. This one is so brilliant it takes the prize. :)
How old is Aegis, can he at least grace us with that information?
Last thing – again you repeat and repeat the thing about how your special sources from the female corps disclaim what Amanda said about asking, like no one’s replied on that already, like you didn’t even take in the meaning that “wow” had. You keep defining things in your own terms.
Once again, that “asking for a kiss would wow the ladies every time” does not mean, “will *get you laid* every time”. Ok?
I’ve talked to several females who claim that they can’t stand it when a guy asks permission, hence her generalization is false.
And yours is true, because of your “several females” friends? Try asking your “several females” if they prefer being asked, or having the tongue of a stranger they did *not* fancy or flirt with at all shoved into their mouth.
That’s what we were talking about, unwanted advances, and the difference between making a move out of the blue and engaging in reciprocal flirting behaviour.
He did in the first thread, Noodles. I can’t recall exact, but he’s either 19 or 20 (I’m thinking 19 if I recall correctly as he and I got into a bit of a spat about the disparity in experience on the prior thread).
Thanks Kim, I’d missed that.
Well I’d guessed it was about that age. Not suprising :)
I guess that makes it all more understandable. I mean, if I think of all the bullshit I believed when I was 19. Not about these matters, specifically, but about society in general. Like, I really believed there was such a thing as meritocracy and that was really how things worked, now I know better. ;)
“Like, I really believed there was such a thing as meritocracy and that was really how things worked, now I know better. ;)
Well shit, you were far more optimistic/idealistic than I am, and I’m nineteen. Meritocracy–yeah right! I’m very cynical when it comes to society and politics. Zero idealism with me on those issues. And how can I not be cynical when I watch the news, read political/sociological articles/essays, and read through the comments of these blog-posts about gender issues, such as ‘women’s so called “sexual power”‘ (and the serious lack thereof)? I guess I just “read too much” for someone my age, or so I’ve been told by certain people.
Yep, Aegis’s ignorant comments are certainly that of a nineteen or early-twenty-something-year-old hetero guy whose sexually frustrated.
The unfortunate case is that so many young boys really do share Aegis’ theory that approaching a girl takes such a collosal amount of effort on their part that they’re entitled to a positive response.
Boys, even men, believe this so much that they get bitter when their huge effort of walking across the room and saying “Hey baby, can I buy you a drink?” doesnt lead to hot monkey sex later that evening. Buying into the idea that males put more effort into and more emotion on the line in asking a girl out than a girl does in *either* doing the asking or spending their evening sitting there looking pretty goes hand in hand with the idea of entitlement. And that there’s something wrong with the woman rather than the theory if this theory doesnt yeild results and their “entitlement” should be extracted forcefully.
The fact that this is a really stupid theory doesnt stop it being believed by many males, as has been shown by Aegis’ continued defense of it. The real question then should be *not* “Is it more effort for males than females to initiate an encounter”, but; “What can be done to dispel this myth that initiating an encounter with someone entitles you to anything from them?”
While on this topic I would like Aegis to clarify a few terms. By “initiate” are you refering only to the initial conversation starter “Hello” or it’s equivalent? And, in these hypothetical encounters, is the purpose of initiating conversation to develop a relationship or to organise a sexual encounter in the near future? These points might help us to understand what you are implying is put into the encounter and what is expected to come out of it.
Pseudo Adrienne, heh, I was 19 not too long ago myself (in the 90’s) and I was very idealistic indeed, well a mixture of idealistic and naive as a general tendency (which I still am) and angry and disillusioned on some aspects. What’s changed is the things I’m disillusioned about. Sadly they’re a bit more now! ;)
The real question then should be *not* “Is it more effort for males than females to initiate an encounter”?, but; “What can be done to dispel this myth that initiating an encounter with someone entitles you to anything from them?”?
Exactly. But when someone keeps returning to the first question after the second has already been pointed out (implicitely – you did a good job of putting it in one phrase, mrgrinch!) in previous discussions, well, there’s not much else to expect from that person.
Thanks noodles. I’ve been following this thread from it’s previous incarnation to this one and while I have no illusions about being able to change Aegis’ mind it’s comforting to have one’s opinions put down in words. The fact that many people far better equiped to debate the point than I haven’t been able to sway him shows how deeply ingrained this idea is in some people.
On a slightly different tangent (but why not, this thread was created from a random tangent), I personally avoid letting men buy me drinks because I think they’ll feel as though they’re therefore entitled to my attention for the rest of the night, possibly even more. This idea of being able to buy a woman’s affection has always annoyed me, not least when my own partner insists on paying for everything.
It’s interesting how the guys who often most insist on ‘buying women’s attentions’ also have the most unpleasant opinions of women. I’ve dated guys like this, and they were the ones who just could not move beyond stereotype—chocolates and flowers, that kind of thing. But I hate that kind of thing. It was like they saw all women as interchangeable and resented it when you refused to be interchangeable. They wanted credit for valuing you for your cute quirks, but they resented it when you wanted to be valued in something other than monetary terms or bribes for something other than what they saw in you.
There’s something really unpleasant about the buy-or-bribe mindset, too. It serves as an unnegotiated bribe. The guy is setting up the woman, but he wants credit for being a generous guy, buying her drinks and so forth. It’s like she’s just a prostitute, and he’s paying her fee, but she doesn’t know she’s a prostitute, she doesn’t know that he’s decided what her fee is, and most of all she doesn’t get to do any negotiating.
“Give us a break, Aegis. Your “arguments”? have been treated far too charitably, considering they consist of nothing but that kind of absolutist assertions.”
Hear, hear.
I especially like being lectured on feminist theory by a guy who not only makes absolutionist assertions to support his own sense of entitlement, but also prefaces the lecture by telling us feminists that we just don’t understand that not all women are feminists. Wha?
BTW Aegis, noodles doesn’t need more than personal experience to blow your argument out of the water because you are arguing an absolute, so any evidence that contradicts your blanket statement disproves it. You, on the other hand, need a hell of a lot more than personal experience and conjecture to prove an absolute. (psst: maybe you ought to try fewer sweeping generalizations overall – you might actually get somewhere)
ginmar, did you see the flash ad for an employment agency that Utopian Hell dissected a few weeks ago? The gist of the ad was basically that if you went to their site, you will get hired, then paid, then laid. The dipshits who made the ad tried to say it could go either way – the guy or the girl could be the one “paying” for sex, an argument that completely falls apart under even the most cursory review of the actual ad in question.
“It was like they saw all women as interchangeable and resented it when you refused to be interchangeable.”
Nail. Hammer. BANG!!
Well, thank you. I’m dealing with that right now. This is a guy who whines that women don’t like nice guys and won’t be honest and play games all the time, but when you are honest and don’t play games, they call you a bitch. At least the so-called bad boys are honest about wanting to fuck you or whatever. There’s no whinging there.
Jenny, no I haven’t seen that ad.
Here’s a thought. If you really want women to fuck you, why don’t you first ask them, and then—-
Oh. Wait.
They might say no that way.
This is kind of an tangent, but we’re kind of discussing manipulative male behavior, aren’t we? Ever notice guys who either say they’re sorry—and then just keep right on doing whatever it was they apolgoized for—or give flowers in lieu of apologies? It’s like that unacknowledged, unagreed-upon bribe. Man decides in advance what the woman is to him, and there’s no budging him. She’s not worth honesty or negotiation, because those are the things you reserve for human beings. She’s like an animal that he thinks just have reflexes. She doesn’t have thoughts and feelings: she’s just this attractive creature he thinks he can manuever.
ginmar wrote:
“It’s interesting how the guys who often most insist on ‘buying women’s attentions’ also have the most unpleasant opinions of women. I’ve dated guys like this, and they were the ones who just could not move beyond stereotype…chocolates and flowers, that kind of thing.”
Oho. That is interesting. Makes sense, but I hadn’t experienced that.
I’m far too lazy to engage Aegis in debate, but this conversation has had me thinking back on my own dating days, and I almost never did the “guy takes girl out” sort of things. One guy took me out to dinner when I was eighteen (our only date), and the guy I married paid for a movie (I think) and bought a pizza we split with his roommate and roommate’s guests. When hubby and I got engaged he’d spent maybe ten bucks on “dating” type stuff, and no one else spent any more than that. Oh, wait, and a friend’s fiance took me out to dinner and a movie when I was sixteen (never did figure out what that was about, but if she didn’t care I didn’t).
When I dated we mostly went to movies dutch, or to meetings or events that were free (or that cost but I was working them so got in free), or one of us got freebies (I did a lot of volunteer work that got me freebie movie tickets on a regular basis; after we were married hubby once drove a new car around for tickets to the current museum exhibit), or parties put on by our friends (one female friend had a weekly chili dinner that a number of couples would get together at). Even though I didn’t technically “date”, in the sense of going to dinner and a movie, three guys talked marriage with me before I agreed to that idea with hubby.
And I know any number of women who ran their sex lives the same way (whether they were interested in marrying or not – I was the only one who particular wanted to marry). It makes far more sense to me to get to know people through shared interests than through movies – not that it can’t be done the traditional way, but I often think how lucky I am that hubby and I have so many shared interests. Lots more injokes that way, and we can “communicate in code” very easily if we want to discuss something in front of the kids or in public without letting others in on where we stand.
Probably different for people whose main interest in life is going to bars or partying, but even there I’ve known people who met through dance clubs and social groups that didn’t seem to do much but plan parties and have them. But the bar flies I’ve known actually seem to *prefer* ending up with a partner they have little in common with beyond sex. The irony here is when or if they get married – all of a sudden they start living by a completely different set of rules. The wife’s rules. My brother lost his best friend that way – weird thing is, while on the one hand his pal’s wife insisted that his pal start doing completely different things, OTOH she encouraged his worst tendencies. My brother grew up; his friend got more and more immature. Really strange.
I could wander off into my bewilderment over the number of guys who seemed perfectly competant and adult before marriage who then treat their wives like “mommy” and become positively infantile, but that’s completely off topic, so I shall resist.
But I do find the idea that men “have” to spend money on their dates completely laughable. It’s entirely possible to court and mate without spending much cash. Women do not keep men in these roles; it is the individual male’s choice to play that game. Even four-year-olds know that if you don’t like the way a game is going, you always have the option of picking up your toys and going home.
Someone once said that strong-willed kids are just kids who realize early that no one can MAKE you behave the way they want. If you’re willing to pay the penalty, you can do whatever you want. If you’re not willing to pay the penalty, than you are choosing to do what you do based on the circumstances, and the other person is still not really making you do anything. If you want to change said circumstances then you have to do the work. Telling everyone you’re helpless in the grasp of society’s rules isn’t going to get the job done.
It especially isn’t going to get the job done when you’re surrounded by people who have already dealt with and surmounted this problem. Unfortunately for Aegis, he is addressing an audience that already knows from experience that most of his arguments are faint-to-nonexistent. He says he’s played both roles, in some sense. Well, so have I. So have a lot of gay guys. So have a lot of women. Unless you’re doing it for a joke, short term, keeping yourself pretty and submissive is way more effort and far more nerve wracking than having the right to walk across a room and ask someone out.
And on the subject of offensive kissing, I’d like to share a bit of wisdom from Miss Manners. She is responding to a question on how a girl should ask a guy out on a date, but the principle remains the same when it comes to moving through other stages of a relationship (like kissing). She says the best way to ask for a date is “In such a way that it can be refused without insult.” In other words, whether the guy literally says the words, “May I kiss you?” or uses some non-verbal request, the woman should have the opportunity of saying, “No!” Unless you’re in an established relationship, kisses without warning or request are almost always unwanted kisses by definition.
Ah, Shiloh, you brought back many memories with your post.;)
Could the in-grainedness of The Stubborn Young Man’s opinions on the dating game be due at least in part to the many many hours in front of the TV and playing video games? I ask because I’ve noticed that many pre-Ks and early-elementary-school-age kids imitate what they’ve seen on TV or Game Boy (there’s also a lot of research on this). If violence and anti-social behavior patterns are being developed through the mass media, then I would think it likely that courting patterns are, too. And I’ll have to confess I have yet to find a completely feminist program for young people. “Dora the Explorer” and “Cyberchase” come close, but the vast majority of E- and G- rated programs have at best an updated concept and the underlying interactions still mostly follow the old scripts.
Psuedo-Adrienne, that you’re as eloquent at expressing yourself as well as you do at 19 impresses me so much. I wish I were as cool and connected to feminism and social critique at that age as you seem to be. Women like you inspire me.
PA is nineteen? Jesus, nineteen? I must go hide now immediately.
Thanks Samantha! And yes ginmar, I am only the tender age of nineteen ;-)
On computer games: most of the “romance” elements I’ve seen in (singleplayer) computer games are very rudimentary, when they’re present at all, and basically follow action movie conventions — courtship is unnecessary when you’re saving the world from monsters, women can have guns as long as their guns are smaller than men’s guns, etc.
I understand there’s a Japanese genre of games about dating and sex, but I doubt that’s crossed over into the US much beyond diehard (adult) fans of Japanese games.
Somewhat more interesting to look at seriously would be the relationships between players of online roleplaying games. There are both male and female players, though men predominate; curiously, male and female characters are used in roughly equal numbers. Romance between the roleplaying characters is common (and also commonly mocked) — it’s often very stereotyped, and discussion of female characters, especially female characters played by male players, tends to feature a lot of sexism and homophobia.
Hope they were good memories, Lee. :)
Psuedo-Adrienne, I still have some stuff I wrote at 19, and I am now joining ginmar in hiding. I’m the one who’s whimpering.
Brian V.,
Interesting observation on role-players. Am I reading you right – female characters played by men tend to be strongly homophobic? Or are you referring to discussion about the characters?
Wow. Me being only nineteen is that shocking? Silly ;-)
Psuedo-Adrienne
Shocking? No. But when I compare your writing to mine at that age? Embarrassing. Pretty definitely. I could get my point across, but not with your finesse.
Shiloh, gender choices for characters in online roleplaying comes up a lot in discussions about the genre, but the discussions tend to be formulaic; occasionally I’ve tried to ask deeper questions, with mixed success. There’s quite a bit to say on the subject, though. In fact, it puzzles me that there’s little serious discussion of it, since I’m talking about a hobby pursued with great intensity by hundreds of thousands of people. (I originally came to this blog from a link on We Can’t Tell Reality From Fantasy,a feminist blog about the online roleplaying game Neverwinter Nights.)
The bit I had in mind about homophobia was that often, romances between characters are mocked with jokes that while one character is male and the other female, that both players are male — and that the player of the female character is an old, ugly man. The implication, usually left unstated, is that the entire thing is a seduction of young men by old men, by proxy through the characters.
The implication, usually left unstated, is that the entire thing is a seduction of young men by old men, by proxy through the characters.
Huh. I thought the implication was that all the horny young guys were drooling over what they assumed to be hot young women.
I’d have to say, though, that it depends a lot on the game. Some games put an emphasis on “hot elf chicks” and those get a lot of fantasizing teenagers (who, unsurprisingly, tend to be homophobic). Some don’t, and you get less of that.
I’ve found that race is a much bigger issue in online games than gender is, interestingly.
Yeah, maybe I was overthinking that a bit.
I keep trying to think about something to write about on my pathetically underutilized blog, so maybe I’ll write something about gender in online roleplaying.
Hey, shiloh, do you like pizza? Because you know if we’re going into hiding…
Damn, I have stuff from when I was nineteen. Pathetic. Oh so pathetic.
Brian – I think what you say about the homophobia in role-playing games is largely true. I was never heavily into D&D but knew many people who were, and occasionally they would persuade me to roll up a character for a particular campaign. I remember once rolling up a dwarf, and since at the time I could only imagine dwarfs as male, I decided to make my character a male dwarf. Needless to say, the others in the party took a while to adjust, and also strictly kept to business. I think the only banter during that whole campaign was about elf being the other white meat. I was also not asked to participate again for a LOOOONG time after that. On the other hand, with the GMs in my circle, the women characters were generally strong and competent and didn’t have to be rescued any more often than the men characters. The main exceptions were many of my roommate’s characters; she preferred Lawful Good Elf Magic Users and spent many of the combats hiding behind rocks so she could read her scrolls in safety. So probably my experience was different because our parties were usually fairly evenly mixed male and female characters and players.
I think Brian was talking about massive multiplayer online games rather than all role-playing games.
I was, although there’s considerable crossover between online roleplaying and traditional tabletop gaming, and similar patterns of behavior. Also, there’s quite a range of attitudes among players and GMs — I’ve met some amazingly broadminded and mature roleplayers.
In my clumsy way, Brian, I was trying to make that point.
So that leads me back to my original query about the relationship between screen time and the approach to courting in Aegis’s posts.
The romantic and sexual fantasies I’d see acted out in online roleplaying games had, if anything, a longer and more convoluted courtship process than you’d find in the real world, involving lots of long speeches about how the characters had been horribly hurt in the past and were afraid to love again — at least not until they’d avenged the death of their parents who were eaten by werewolves, or what have you. They’d get really, really cheesy.
More to the point: there was nearly always some explicit agreement between the players about the general form of the relationship between their characters, how it would proceed, whether there’d be explicit sexual relations described, and so on. As acted out between the characters, you’d see the dramatic declarations of feelings followed by some emotes describing passionate kissing and whatnot, but it usually had been agreed to beforehand.
In other words, there’d be the pretense of spontaneity, but there was actually a lot of negotiation and planning going on behind the scenes. In that respect, it’s not so different from the reality that Aegis denies.
I would hear about women who were players being harassed by men online, but most online roleplaying environments I participated in would ban someone very quickly for that sort of behavior. Some online environments have administrators who are, themselves, sexist and immature, but people usually quickly suss that out and bail out. One of the advantages of online roleplaying is that one doesn’t have the limitation that traditional tabletop roleplayers often have, of having only one game in town.
Also, in online roleplaying, decapitating someone for making an unwanted sexual advance is not just legal, but generally encouraged.
I would hear about women who were players being harassed by men online, but most online roleplaying environments I participated in would ban someone very quickly for that sort of behavior.
Not to mention the handiness of the ‘ignore’ command, which effectively makes a harasser completely invisible to you.
School is out, so now my little 19 year-old self can catch up responding…
Sure. That is why I am no longer claiming that males initiating creates more suffering for men. It creates at least as much suffering for women.
The notion that males “can’t stop themselves from rape” is not on the spectrum of “guys are supposed to be more dominant.” That notion comes from the idea that males are weak-willed and cannot resist their sexual drives, which is a different issue than male dominance. It’s also debatable whether “males are expected to make the first move” is on the spectrum of “guys are supposed to be more dominant,” but I will concede that maybe it is.
I don’t think I’ve ever claimed that “men being encouraged to ignore women’s wishes and autonomy is somehow more hurtful to men than women is.”?
Correct. This socialized male aversion to femininity is definitely a problem. But why does it exist in the first place? Because gender roles, in many ways, are more restrictive on males. Why are male gender roles more restrictive? One reason is because of the expectations that a large amount of females currently hold. These expectations encourage male dominance.
Now you are just making assumptions. How do you know that I haven’t done anything to change the system? And I have given some suggestions, such as feminists recognizing the romantic expectations of (some) women are one of the largest pillars of the “patriarchy” (I wish I could take credit for thinking up that idea, but Dworkin and many others beat me to it).
Oh, spare me your condescension and cut out your ignorant assumptions. Why do you assume I spend my life “blaming others?” I am simply trying to figure out how things work. Why do you assume that I don’t take responsibility for changing stereotypes? I have no love for the male-dominant/female-submissive paradigm, but the reasons for its existence aren’t as simple as feminists seem to think. And my personal life is not the issue here.
Wow, it amazes me that yet again you don’t bother reading my post carefully, then you accuse me of doing the same because you didn’t understand it. If you had read my post carefully, you would know that I am not accusing feminists of claiming that “men doing the asking is rape.” Read what I wrote in post #223:
Note the “but in a lesser degree.” Perhaps my phrasing was unclear, in which case you could have simply asked me to clarify instead of swearing at me.
In other words, I am claiming that feminists of putting aspects of current gender roles on a continuum with rape. I think this is an accurate characterization of your position, for instance, when you claim that “men should make the first move” and “men can’t stop themselves from rape” are on the same continuum (which they aren’t).
Remember, when I talk about males kissing without asking permission, I am only talking about situations where the females gave them positive signals, so it wasn’t out of the blue (and hence not on a continuum with molestation).
I think the stereotype is… well, a stereotype. Are you arguing that it’s true?
LOL, in this paragraph, virtually every sentence contains at least one gross misconception or straw man. That is quite a feat. First, I am not claiming that guys have it worse overall. Second, I don’t dispute that current gender roles “foster” rape, but several feminists have gone farther than that, to claim that aspects of current gender roles are on a continuum with rape myths (it is this claim that I dispute). Third, I am not accusing you or others of being a radical. I simply said that the claim that current gender roles are on a continuum with rape is a radical critique. I wasn’t using “radical” in a negative manner; I consider that critique legitimate, although I think it needs more support. Fourth, I have never claimed that you are blind to the fact that the current system creates misogyny, only that feminists are blind to some of the specific mechanisms by which this happens. And what takes the cake is the way you propagate negative stereotypes about men, then have the nerve to talk about “respect” in the next sentence.
Jenny, if you continue to show this level of condescension, distortion, and hypocrisy, I am going to stop responding to you.
It doesn’t quite work that way. Yes, if a woman initiates, a man doesn’t have to. But still, the amount of women who initiate is small enough that a man cannot rely on them to do so. Let’s say that 10-15% of women make the choice to initiate. That doesn’t really help men very much, because if a man chooses not to initiate, there is an 85-90% chance of him getting rejected or the relationship fizzling. A man can’t know if a woman is planning on initiating or not (and maybe she doesn’t know herself). I don’t think an 85-90% chance of things not working out gives males a viable choice to be passive.
Hence, it is not nonsensical to claim that men are expected to initiate, but women have the choice either way. Currently, most women simply choose not to initiate, so it isn’t viable for males to be passive.
Sorry, but you are going to have to explain this argument a bit better. Protection fantasies and rape fantasies are fundamentally different things. I can understand that there could occasionally be overlap between them, but simply equating the two makes no sense. Please explain why you think “rescue from peril” is a disguise for actual rape.
Remember, when I talk about males kissing without asking permission, I am only talking about situations where the females gave them positive signals, so it wasn’t out of the blue (and hence not on a continuum with molestation).
Agh, again… why don’t you narrow it down a bit more, and say you were only talking of situations where the woman has already taken the poor confused man to her flat and then strip naked in front of him.
I mean, what exactly is your ideas of “positive signals”? Would that include simply going to the cinema together? A three minute conversation at a party? Saying “hi”? Smiling politely like a decent human being? What else?
And why insist on and on and on and on and on with this model where the woman is the one who gives signals and the man picks them up and acts. Look Aegis, you seem to ascribe to feminists the mere refusal of strict notions and sweeping generalisations about behaviour that in reality, for everyone who’s had *some* life experience, is a lot more varied! Simple as that!
But hey, keep talking to yourself, mate. I’m sure you’ll learn a lot more that way.
Aegis, talk about pot calling kettle black.
You quote me as saying “you…spend post upon post talking about how guys have it worse” and then claim two sentences later that I am accusing you of “claiming that guys have it worse overall.” Nice editing.
My point was not that you were claiming something so obviously stupid as “guys are worse off overall” but that, rather than talking about the actual topics: rape, culture, gender, power, and sexual attraction, you are constantly focusing on this one thing that hurts guys. Why? It’s certainly not the only topic that has been brought up. Is this the only one that you have an opinion on? Aren’t you at least also concerned about other ways that sexsim affects boys and men? Is this one thing all you have to refute the idea of a rape culture?
And yes, your words were unclear, in that they don’t actually make sense. There “is” or there “isn’t” (well, ok, “possibly” works too). Once you have established that there “is” you can have the “lesser” but you can’t have “lesser” when there is no “is.” It’s like asserting that “I wasn’t thirsty today, but only to a lesser degree” somehow makes sense.
So, did one of us say that “current gender roles are rape” or not? I believe that current gender roles significantly contribute to why we have high instances of rape. Saying that this is the same as seeing “current gender roles as rape” is like saying that “high temperatures make me thirsty” can also be stated as “high temperatures are thirst.”
In the end, your assertion is quite similar to the people who misquote Andrea Dworkin as saying that all heterosexual intercourse is rape. (I am seriously paraphrasing here, so someone please correct me if I’m off.) As I understand it, Dworkin argued that patriarchal culture glorifies rape and treats all heterosexual sex as an act of dominance, and that the physical realities of patriarchies mean that women are more vulnerable to rape than they would be in a non-patriarchal culture.
Our culture is not a pure patriarchy (even assuming that such a thing can exist), but it still has some very strong and significant partriarchal elements. Even you are completely right about how you characterize the dynamic of guys doing the asking out, or whether or not guys should ask before the first kiss, there are still all kinds of ways that current gender roles create a rape culture:
Pornography is made almost exclusively for men.
Some states go so far as to outlaw masterbatory tools (which women use more than men) but not pornography.
Women’s autonomy and privacy, especially with regard to their bodies, is usually considered a “women’s issue” and not a human rights or civil rights issue.
It is accepted that teenage boys have sexual urges, but teenage girls sexual urges are downplayed or even considered non-existent.
Men who have sex with a lot of different women are usually lauded, women who have sex with multiple partners are often considered sluts.
“Feminine” concepts and traits such as relationships and cooperation are valued less than “masculine” concepts and traits like competition and debate.
Because the “feminine” is valued less than the “masculine,” and because our culture has changed it’s views girls and women more than it’s views on boys and men, boys and men are more likely to get called out on crossing gender lines than girls and women are, but women’s work can still be criticized as being “too feminine.”
Just to name a few.
When it comes to actual instances of rape, there are all kinds of contributing factors. Gender roles do not create emotions and characteristics such as want, sexual desire, insecurity, jealousy, empathy, compassion, anger, self-control, shame, etc. Current gender roles do, however, create a dynamic that encourages men to consider male dominance, in some form, essential to sex; dismiss women’s autonomy; value the act of penetration over other forms of intimacy, etc. Current gender roles also create a dynamic that encourages women to think of their own sexuality as dangerous; accept male dominance as a natural part of relationships, etc.
Individuals make individual choices, and not everyone buys into these ideas, and very few people buy into them in their most extreme incarnations, but obviously plenty of poeple buy into them to some extent (we are agreed on that, right?) To argue that this does not contribute to the significant number of rapes that currently occur does not make any sense to me. Would you argue the same about racism, classism, or religious intolerance? It’s commonly accepted that non-violent forms of racism played a direct role in the high rate of violence towards blacks during the Jim Crow era. That is the essence of Brown v. Board of Education: that even supposedly inconsequential forms of discrimination are anything but.
And no matter what else I supposedly assumed about you, I got one thing right, didn’t I? I argued and you responded. Is only debate important, never discussion? There wasn’t anything we could learn from each other on the things that we agreed upon? I like a good debate myself, but I have to say that only arguing with those that disagree with you, rather than also exploring topics that we have common ground on, gives the impression that you don’t actually care what other people’s opinions are, you just care about being right. And that you don’t care nearly as much about changing things as you care about venting about the things that hurt you.
And btw, that is I where I “got” your “unwillingness to actually do anything yourself change them, or even suggest things that others could do.” Again, I never said that’s what you do offline – I never claimed that I could read your mind – it’s just that (to me) that’s the impression you are leaving here, because that is where your energy is focused here.
So, yeah, I was a little steamed that you were patronizing enough to say “good girl” and then move onto other people, but I’m mostly frustrated because I do get the impression that you really care about this, but I just also get the impression that you are more hung up on your personal frustrations than you are concerned about the larger implications of what we are discussing. Again, I can;t read your mind, maybe you aren’t, but that’s the impression you are leaving.
Just to add:
That’s supposed to be “Even if you are” (doh!)
I’m also more than a little steamed at they way that you held me up as an example to the other posters on how they should behave. I’m too tired to find exactly what you said, but the gist of what you were saying seemed to be that I was being reasonable, but posters like mythago and noodles weren’t. Bull.
But still, the amount of women who initiate is small enough that a man cannot rely on them to do so. Let’s say that 10-15% of women make the choice to initiate. That doesn’t really help men very much, because if a man chooses not to initiate, there is an 85-90% chance of him getting rejected or the relationship fizzling.
This makes no sense at all; how can a man “get rejected” if neither he nor the woman initiate?
Your argument is clumsy and doesn’t work by throwing numbers in. Let’s try it this way: if only 10% of women initiate, it means that a man who does not initiate has a smaller pool of available women. And the answer to that issue is not “OMFG!” but “Thank god!” Because, really, you’re after quality, not quantity, aren’t you?
This socialized male aversion to femininity is definitely a problem. But why does it exist in the first place? Because gender roles, in many ways, are more restrictive on males.
No. It exists because sexism presumes that male > female. A woman who “acts like a man” may be unattractive, or gettin’ above her raisin’, but at least she’s trying to elevate herself; that’s why ‘she drives like a man’ or ‘she does that as well as any man’ are compliments. Whereas a man who acts like a woman is debasing himself. Worse, it suggests to other men that they, too, could be debased; it’s a threat.
It has nothing to do with ‘more restrictive’ and everything to do with what going outside the gender lines means.
And I have given some suggestions, such as feminists recognizing the romantic expectations of (some) women are one of the largest pillars of the “patriarchy”? (I wish I could take credit for thinking up that idea, but Dworkin and many others beat me to it).
Did you read this before you posted it? First you say ‘feminists’ should do something, then you admit that feminists have in fact ALREADY done this.
I just like the idea of taking suggestions from a nineteen-year-old boy who clearly has my very best interests at heart.
Hey, ginmar, do you also crap on Pseudo-Adrienne for being nineteen? Just curious.
*snort*
I’m just amused (and annoyed) to no end that a 19 year old guy thinks that the subjects he has the most authority on are dating and sexual desire (in both sexes).
Not having been a 19 year old guy, and not having a whole lot of guys as friends when I was 19, I think that there are some things a 19 year old guy could teach me – at least about what it’s like to be a boy in modern America. This is, after all, one of the reasons I like Scieszka’s Guys Read campaign.
But I’m also giggling at the idea that romantic relationships explain why one of my coworkers was told by one elementary school boy that he “couldn’t read Lemony Snicket. Yes, one of the main character’s is a guy, but two of them are girls.”
Of, course I’m sure my assumption that Aegis will simply use any opportunity available to change to topic back to dating norms, is just that; an assumption, – not at all based on his actual actions, and that I must have misread his meaning and intent. (rolls eyes)
(see, this is why quoting is good, even if the post you are quoting is right above yours when you start to write)
My lol was in response to ginmar, in case anyone was confused.
Gee, Robert, do you always like to compare apples and oranges? First it’s racism compared to whatwhite people and white male people suffer at that, and now it’s a nineteen-year old kid who’s been lecturing adult women on how we should all think and percieve the way he does because he knows all. PA doesn’t have any of those characteristics, does she?
Thanks for actually reading my post and thinking about the implications.
I agree that it is a false dilemma, although the bad boy type is more successful with women sexually. The problem is that, as you say, the bad boys don’t treat women as persons, but as sex objects. Paradoxically, that is the reason for their success: a surprisingly large amount of young women respond well to being treated as sex objects. It seems that just as some males have a madonna-whore complex where females are seen as either asexual or hypersexual, many young females have what we could call a “bad boy – nice guy complex,” where males are only placed at one of those poles.
Wow, you really like making accusations don’t you? Yes, I suppose I’ve built a model. But there is nothing inherently wrong with models: the social sciences use models of human behavior, and so does feminism. Please explain exactly what problems you have with my model.
You totally missed my point about radical feminism. My point was that it was foolish for me to argue certain positions here, because there was no way they would be understood, because the people here would have such fundamentally different assumptions (regardless of whether those assumptions are correct or not). A feminist going to a radically masculist forum would encounter a similar reaction. I should have instead stuck to simpler claims that don’t require so much explanation so as to avoid so many fundamental differences in assumptions.
That was the reason for my incredibly long posting spree. I was trying to back up, establish some common ground, and adapt to various criticisms from the feminists here. Do I get any appreciation for this, or even acknowledgement? No, only more straw man attacks and childish sarcasm.
Here is the main summary of what you call my model. Please explain exactly which claims you have problems with.
That was the reason for my incredibly long posting spree. I was trying to back up, establish some common ground, and adapt to various criticisms from the feminists here. Do I get any appreciation for this, or even acknowledgement? No, only more straw man attacks and childish sarcasm
Aww, poor Aegis, now I feel so guilty… here, you want a chocolate cookie? or maybe a glass of pernod? ice, lemon, an olive? want some slice of ass with that, too?
Dude, you’re so full of yourself it’s unbelievable. Several people including the undersigned have already, repeatedly, patiently, politely explained what’s wrong with your view – what’s wrong even if it was merely descriptive, which it isn’t – across more than one thread, so spare us the bullshit about asking for a response after all that tiresome back and forth. If you want to pretend there was open-mindedness on your part and you got no dialogue, feel free to whine on but you’re only making your it even clearer that you’re only here to have an audience for your own egotistic ignorance.
Please do go on believing what you like and behaving according to it, as long as you’re happy with it. You can believe in aliens for all I care. Do you want acknowledgement and approval with it? Well go look elsewhere. You said it yourself you chose the wrong place to spout off your ideas. Well, draw the necessary conclusions. If you think everyone here is biased or thick or dishonest and mistreated you instead of gracing you with far more opportunities for discussion that you deserve, then what are you still doing here?
Aegis says: “Sorry, but you are going to have to explain this argument a bit better. Protection fantasies and rape fantasies are fundamentally different things. I can understand that there could occasionally be overlap between them, but simply equating the two makes no sense. Please explain why you think “rescue from peril”? is a disguise for actual rape. ”
With certain publishers of romance novels, “rescue from peril” is their code for rape. I agree that, up to a point, this overlaps protection fantasy with rape fantasy, but just because the rape is implied doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. I highly recommend you read a few romance novels to see what I mean. You could probably knock of 4 or 5 in a couple of days, since most of them are not very long.
noodles: :D
Some –ahem !– novelists have made a virtual cottage industry out of rape fantasies. See, for example, Beatrice Small.
There was an episode of the Simpsons, a surprisingly serious and dark episode, which described how Marge and Homer first became involved with each other.
Marge was involved in lots of high school clubs and whatnot, and was finally asked to the prom by a guy considered to be the smartest person in the school. There were hints that Marge was actually more intelligent than he was, but didn’t realize it. Homer, meanwhile, had a hopeless crush on Marge. Marge and the “smart guy” were elected king and queen of the prom, and the “smart guy” gave an arrogant speech on why it was a good thing that the other students, instead of electing a jock, recognized his “intellectual superiority.” He didn’t, of course, say a word about Marge. Shortly afterwards, he tried to sexually assault Marge, insisting she was obligated to respond to him. Marge managed to escape him, and found Homer moping around; Homer gave her a ride home, and treated her with respect.
There are conventions about portraying high school students; one of those conventions is contrasting the poor, picked upon smart kid (male) with the popular dumb jock (male). There’s the message, implicit or explicit, that in the long run, the smart kid wins wealth and prestige. Oh, and the picked upon smart kid is almost always white, male, heterosexual, and middle class.
On another blog — Mousewords, I think — someone pointed out how in elementary school, reading books is treated as effeminate. As it came out in discussion, there are a lot men who feel they were hassled all through school, and deserve the rewards they eventually receive — they see themselves as victims. And they believe they get to ignore the privileged treatment they’d received because of their class background, their gender, their ethnicity, and so on. It usually doesn’t occur to them that they were designated “smart kids” because they met the profile: white boy, middle class.
This is what makes me wince whenever I read someone talking about how wonderful “meritocracy” is. It misses the underlying problem that “meritocracy” is all about the belief that middle class and otherwise privileged individuals deserve their privileges — and to Hell with everyone else. Say, someone like Marge, who is treated as simply a trophy, a prize the poor, picked upon smart kid is entitled to. The myth of meritocracy is an underpinning of class system, and it’s closely related to sexism and racism.
When I was 19, I thought I was a genius — my teachers and counselors in high school told me I was. In college, I tried the “Nice Guy” gambit several times — whining that women picked “jerks” instead of me, when of course I was entitled to their attentions. It took a while for me to realize that I was surrounded by people who were smarter and more capable than I was — and it scared me. I don’t think I would like the person I would have become had I not flunked out of college.
I remember that episode, Brian, and what it reminded me of, besides inverting the jock and nerd roles, was a scifi short story I read a long time ago, where this super-genius is obsessed with finding a duplicate of his long-dead girlfriend. The hook of the story was “she’s one in a million” taken literally, but what I took away from it was that he was so smart, he was entitled to assault young women just because they had the misfortune to look like this other person. (Spoiler for the insatiably curious: the Powers That Be decide to clone the lost girlfriend, but super-genius rejects the clone because she doesn’t match up to his memory of her.)
Robert
Yes, PA and Aegis are the same age, but that’s about as much as they have in common as far as I can tell. The main difference as far as your little snipe is concerned is that PA has demonstrated abundant willingness to listen to other people, take their points on board and adjust her opinion in light of new information. So have the vast majority of posters on this board. Aegis just keeps repeating the same points over and over again, and dismisses any points that other make as irrelevant or simply wrong if he does not agree with them.
Also, PA doesn’t generally threaten to stop talking to people just because they contradict her.
Aegis
I believe that one of the reasons people are starting to get irritated with you and are responding with sarcasm is that you continue to state your opinions as facts, while demanding that other people justify their opinions. You do the same with personal experiences/anecdotes – something that happened to you or that a female friend she has experiences supposedly proves a point, bu experiences/anecdotes from people who disagree with you are dismissed by you as not proving anything. You are applying a double standard, which understandably tends to vex people.A few quotes from you.
“The notion that males “can’t stop themselves from rape”? is not on the spectrum of “guys are supposed to be more dominant.”? That notion comes from the idea that males are weak-willed and cannot resist their sexual drives, which is a different issue than male dominance. ”
Where is your proof for either of these statements? The fact that you believe these things does not necessarily make them true. If your purpose here is to formulate and lay out/test out your theory of gender relations, you need to be able to back up your assertions with facts. Simply stating that you have observed something or that your female friends have told you something is not proof. Since you seem to be a university student you should be familiar with how this process works. Please provide actual, verifiable evidence for your statements. I for one am always willing to listen to a new hypothesis, but I am not willing to accept opinion as fact without any supporting evidence.
“Paradoxically, that is the reason for their success: a surprisingly large amount of young women respond well to being treated as sex objects. ”
Again, proof please? This is where I would point out that your experience may not necessarily reflect reality. College campuses are necessarily a representative microcosm of society. TV.movies can also be surprisingly lacking in realism. From my own point of view, I have had plenty of experience of young women reponding extremely poorly to being treated as sex objects. Other people may have had al kinds of different experiences. If you wish people to accept this assertion you need to provide evidence to back it up.
“That was the reason for my incredibly long posting spree. I was trying to back up, establish some common ground, and adapt to various criticisms from the feminists here. Do I get any appreciation for this, or even acknowledgement? No, only more straw man attacks and childish sarcasm.”
The problem is that you haven’t actually backed up your assertions, you have simply given your opinion and some anecdotes (eg my female friends tell me that X is true). I also haven’t seen any attempts by you to establish common ground, but I have seen you react to opposing viewpoints with dismissiveness and not much apparant interest in having a dialogue. Also, why should you expect to recieve appreciation for your arguments? Alas is not a support group. Hey, I’m a feminist woman and I’ve had people here shout me down too. If any of the feminists here were to go post on an MRA board I doubt that thay would recieve much appreciation either.
I actually think that you did make one valid point RE the fact that many misogynists have had negative experiences with women and that those experiences have reinforced their opinions. However, I think it’s a chicken and the egg question. Are they misogynists because they’ve had bad experiences with women, or did they have bad experiences with women because the women they encountered picked up on their misogyny and responded negatively. I suspect that it’s a bit of both, but I have no proof either way, which is why I’m not claiming my opinion as fact. I do think that that would be a useful discussion to pursue, if anyone else wants to continue down that path. Are misogynists born or made? Are their attitudes the result of early conditioning or of their later encounters with women? I of course have my own opinions, but I’d like to hear what other people think.
“Also, PA doesn’t generally threaten to stop talking to people just because they contradict her.”
I would have a whole family to divorce if I ever wanted to do that, and that seems kinda petty to do over something such as differing belief systems. I make comments here and there but mostly I let you folks handle the rest. Being a ‘moderator’ and commenting a lot in threads–especially those that are mine–still feels “awkward” to me. I just enjoy watching you people go back and forth. Really entertaining.
Oh and I maybe nineteen but looking back on my SAT and ACT scores, the last thing I would ever consider myself to be is a “genius.” ::shakes head:: Horrible, horrible. But I still got into a good college, made honor roll my first year (this past year), and earned a GPA way above the freshmen average. Ha-ha! Take that Princeton, New Jersey who makes those damn SAT exams, that supposedly determine all your life’s future successes and failures!
You know what’s funniest in all this talk of gender behaviour in dating… one day you hear that women are getting too forward and aggressive even in approaching men, and The Men Are Confused; next day it’s women complaining that the men they fancy don’t seem to get it unless you hit them on the head, and The Women Are Confused; then someone comes along offering the magic explanation that will clear away this confusion between the sexes and so books get sold and columns get written and dating courses get organised, and one day you stumble on a Google Ad (evil evil evil) that reads “Men! Learn all the secrets to a succesful date!” and you click because it sounds like genius and you get to a website that promises to tell you all about how to spot the right moment for a kiss if only you fill out this form here with your name and email and maybe even your credit card number…
We’re at the stage in history where perceptions and actions about who we are and what is our place in society are not just influenced by society, culture, religion, politics, family environment, childhood, education, experience, etc. but also mass advertising, and it’s everywhere and its influence can hardly be denied – whether it’s a reinforcement of existing stereotypes or creation of news ones, or a loop of both, we are surrounded by it.
And yet, there’s still people talking like mentalities and behaviour are simply things we’re born with and the differences have to be biological.
It’s like what someone said about, if you’re a fish, you don’t even notice you’re surrounded by water, cos you’ve never been out of it.