[This is a comment left by Defenestrated in one of the male oppression threads. With her permission, I’m making it a post of its own. ((The original disagreement turned out to be a misunderstanding, but Defenestrated’s comments apply very well to several to self-proclaimed “nice guys” I’ve encountered, even if they were a little mis-aimed in the original context.)) –Amp]
So, for example, if a young UU man likes a young UU woman, what he does is he goes over to her and tries really hard to be harmless. He doesn’t want to oppress anyone by expressing interest or desire, so he just hangs around and acts cooperative. The more he wants her to like him, the more submissive he acts. Not surprisingly, the young UU women find this boring, frustrating, incomprehensible, and just not sexy. He doesn’t understand why this doesn’t work, or why all the young UU women are off dating “bad” men instead of “nice” men like himself.
I think that in this particular instance, there’s something to be said for having had the experience of living on the opposite end of it. There’s a reason that there’s a Nice Guy™ moniker, and it’s not because women don’t dig actual kindness.
From the young UU woman’s perspective, there’s this guy hanging around her (or, more likely, multiple guys doing the exact same thing), pretending to only be interested in friendship when, from your description of the situation, it’s clear that his interest doesn’t end there. Even if the attraction is painfully obvious, since it’s never stated the woman can’t very well come right out and turn the guy down for something he hasn’t asked for. If she does, trust me, she’ll get torn to pieces for being so full of herself (after which the guy will probably resume the kicked puppy pose).
The specific male quandary you’ve described stems from a belief that by hanging around and being “nice,” a man is entitled to female affection. I have a lot of sympathy for a lot of situations that hit men, but being upset by not getting what they won’t ask for (and will thus often try to extract through manipulation, like pretending to be a friend when the friendship is treated as a tedious and insulting means to something else) isn’t one of them. Also, many – by no means all, but enough to make it a more than reasonable concern – of the kinds of guys who make this particular kind of complaint are only a step or two a way from outright stalking the object of their desire. The use of the word ‘object’ isn’t accidental.
I sympathize with the frustration and confusion, but that’s not the same as sympathizing with the reasoning behind the complaint. When I hear one of my own male friends voicing these kinds of concerns (or other anti-feminist thoughts that since we’re friends I know don’t come from malice or any intentional disrespect) I’m happy to help him see the opposite side of his experience and understand why things are that way. What I won’t do is agree that he gets to complain that his female friends aren’t all over him for being so cooperative and friendly. Especially if it comes along with a blanket disparagement of the judgment and tastes of said women (who says the men they date are “bad”? The men they don’t date? Is there a bias there?).
That doesn’t make me an unempathetic person. It makes me a person who knows that to actually relieve this form of “harm” against men without them changing their own behavior would have to mean taking the right to choose one’s own partners away from women. It’s empathy that makes me more interested in pointing out and clarifying the communication disconnect than commiserating about how selfish these independent women are for not being available for every man’s every whim. It’s also empathy that makes me understand that the situation you describe is also difficult for the woman involved, and likely provokes a (well-founded) fear that the man in the equation probably hasn’t faced, and usually doesn’t register.
Eric, it’s funny, I’m realizing as I get into my midtwenties that I’m still growing out of plenty of that social paranoia thang. The “cool” girls in high school that i had only seen but didn’t know at all struck me as the ‘bad guys,’ and it fucked with me to no end when I got to college and had a good friend who hated every woman with my body type-plus-blonde hair (for, from my pov, no discernible good reason). I think it gave me something for a while there which could be reasonably named “Be A Nice,Pretty Girl” ‘butnotTooPretty anddon’tseem TooOverlyNice’ Syndrome.
[and, hence, This Thread]
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“sylphead, it’s disingenuous of you to pretend that the post you quoted said there was no difference between physical and verbal assault. The difference is a matter of degree, though; not type.”
The distinction, as I remember it, was not about physical and verbal assault, my crude ‘titties’ analogy aside. It was with equating the sexism of shy social misfits – if their sour grapes angst can truly be called sexism – with that of the more, traditionally domineering males. Sorry, Animal House has ten times the sexism of Revenge of the Nerds. If you don’t catch my drift, I’m afraid my point has been lost.
So, a certain level of sexism is tolerable and below feminist critique?
Isn’t power a critical component of sexism as feminists define it? If so, how can the impotent anger of a man bitter because he can’t get women to do what he wants them to do be considered sexist? Where’s the power?
Power adheres to classes as well as individuals.
I wasn’t able to read every single comment here so forgive me if this is redundant.
If the issue is that “Nice” guys aren’t getting sex from the female friends they are attracted to, why don’t those “Nice” guys find a “Nice” girl who will date and sleep with them?
If some “nice” guys are lamenting that women are attracted to assholes, maybe they should consider that guys are also attracted to women who are assholes.
In my experience, many many people (both male and female) have a tendency to like the chase. It’s safer to long for something out of reach, and also more attractive–like the mindset that says, “I’d never want to belong to a club that would accept me.”
True Love involves an incredible amount of Ego annihilation. All human beings seem to go through some games to avoid this crushing. True love involves a merger, a surpassing of boundaries. Most of us like to hide safely behind the boundaries we construct.
“So, a certain level of sexism is tolerable and below feminist critique?”
No, but if something or someone is ten times more sexist, especially as it pertains to real life effects and not some creepy deontological judgments, I’d expect that something or someone to get it tenfold. Margin of error of two orders of magnitude.
You’re still missing the fact that many of these impotent men are social victims the same an overweight woman or a transvestite is, for the same underlying reasons. (ex. shy men who can’t assert themselves are less *masculine*, and so forth.) The tone here suggests that all these men are sexist, some are just confident enough to express it and some aren’t (but they’re all equally reprehensible, because in this case mere thought is as deontologically wrong as, say, actually using power to put thought to action); the glaring chunk being left out here is the power dynamic between those ‘just confident enough to express it’ and those who are not. If we started out discussing racial privilege, the claims of workplace discrimination by an upper-class white male and an obese white female wouldn’t be both equally invalid simply because both are both white. People fall under more than just one mode of classification, you know, and this site is usually very good at spotting all of them. Why would it be missed here?
Saying that people are greedy and selfish anyway has this remarkable way of covering for those few who are really greedy and selfish, saying that all world leaders are war criminals anyway has this remarkable way of covering for those are who really are war criminals, and saying that all men are sexist anyway has this remarkable way of covering for those who really are sexist.
“If the issue is that “Nice” guys aren’t getting sex from the female friends they are attracted to, why don’t those “Nice” guys find a “Nice” girl who will date and sleep with them?”
Well, if the issue is money, why not just become a millionaire? Not here to tease you, but ’tis is simplifying it, my friend.
“If some “nice” guys are lamenting that women are attracted to assholes, maybe they should consider that guys are also attracted to women who are assholes.”
Yes, I’ve noticed this also. Many “nice guys” who begrudge women liking assholes often themselves are gaga for the most vapid and bitchy gURlies, because they happen to meet conventional standards of attractiveness – the same ones that tell those same guys that they are about as desirable as unwashed spit in a cup. In this case, I have a problem with them, too – my issue is with people who say that “nice guys” cannot utter a peep, ever, thereby closing the door on another avenue of social hierarchy and stigmatization. Even if recognition of such is personally inconvenient for some involved.
I’m with Mandolin:
I loved Revenge of the Nerds but weren’t there women who hung out with them too? They would be as hurt by the sexism of the nerds as women who hung out with sexist frat boys. Perhaps frat boys do more damage societally than nerds but nerds and frat boys do equal damage when they are sexist on an individual level.
In Animal House, the pretty women were objects of lust. The unattractive women were objects of ridicule.
In Revenge of the Nerds, the pretty women were objects of lust. The unattractive women were objects of ridicule.
In one movie, they were objects of lust/ridicule by the rowdy frat guys.
In one movie they were objects of lust/ridicule by nerds.
In both, they were objects.
They’re equally sexist on an individual level. I don’t get it when men say the sexism of nerds isn’t equally harmful. Maybe when frat boys get older and run the world e.g. that idiot in the White House they are more sexist to women overall.
I think it has to do with some confusion over the term ‘nice guy’. Some of the people that responded to this seemed to be using the term nice guy to refer to a man who genuinely cares for the woman in question but is too shy or socially inept to communicate this. Others are using it to refer to a passive aggressive man who doesn’t really care about the woman in question and thinks ‘kind deeds’ entitle him to sex or her affections.
The stereotype is of the guy that’s been friends with the girl since they were 5. Now he has romantic feelings for her but isn’t capable of communicating them. She’s oblivious to the hints because she’s infatuated with the captain of the football team. It’s okay though, because after the nerdy friend has a practice montage set to a power ballad he’ll be able to score the winning goal, humiliate the dumb jock, and the girl will realize that their common history and personal connection more than make up for the boy’s acne, lack of social graces and obsession with comic book.
Eventually he’ll go on to start a computer company, she’ll fulfill her dreams of being a famous writer/artist and the jock will end up fat, bald and bagging groceries at the local store. This will all be made apparent at their 10 year reunion when the love birds arrive in a helicopter.
Joe, that is the Nice Guy TM and his fantasy world personified.
Yeah, the real world is usually more complicated. I’d be surprised if the real world didn’t have a lot women that
1. Knew how the nerdy guy felt and tried to ‘let him down gently’ many times without him ever getting it. (please see Brandon Berg’s comments upthread for a possible example of someone not getting it. I’m specifically referring to his conclusion that women dating online are not serious about it. He wrote that’s what they told him but it seems very possible to me that they were serious about it and were just trying to reject him gently.)
2. Thought the arrogant narcissist that had expensive toys and treated her poorly was ‘exciting’, ‘mature’ and ‘confident’. Much to the dismay of the cowardly (shy?) ‘friend’ that kept trying to spark romance with kindness and affection.
That said I dislike the assumption that there’s something generally wrong with women (“Women don’t like nice guys only jerks”) because of the romantic choices they make. Some people probably think the disrespectful guy with a nice car and poor impulse control is worth the hassle.
When I was in high school, the dynamic was that some passive-aggressive dude would fixate on one of my gorgeous friends, who would know full well about the crush. He would do unsolicited favors that made her feel awkward, but which she felt she couldn’t reject because it would be impolite, so she’d smile and say thank you, and perhaps he’d interpret that as encouragement. She would date someone else. He would summon and express his feelings in a great burst that was supposed to show her the light! She’d say, “I’m sorry, I just don’t feel that way about you,” and maybe pull out hte “you’re too nice” to make him feel better, and then he’d stop ever talking to her and tell everyone what a bitch she was.
Bean:
Because men who murder women are highly atypical. Obviously men who murder (or rape, or beat, or what-have-you) women have power over those women, and they abuse it. But this has no bearing on the vast majority of the NiceGuys who don’t do these things. They have no power over women.
Mandolin:
Not in any sense that’s relevant here. The fact that certain other men in certain other contexts have power over certain other women does nothing for one particular man who in one particular context has no power over one particular woman. Class analysis breaks down at the individual level.
Which is why men and women of equal social rank in other ways speak an even amount of time during conversations.
Or, you know, not.
“If a man’s “sour grapes angst” results in sexist and misogynistic behavior — then he is a sexist and a misogynist, and he is engaging in sexism and misogyny. I don’t give a fuck about his reasons.”
First, there’s the issue of whether or not it even impacts his behaviour, which I’m sure you realized because you hastily addended on a post that addressed it by applying Jesus’ old “committing adultery in your mind” rule. Look, a married man cannot commit adultery with his eyes, and a nerd can’t commit as much sexism as a jock can.
Also, the word “behaviour” affords a very broad range of actions that may or may not support your point. Stalking? Yes. Lashing it out on the next woman he sees? We’re getting there, it depends on the severity of the hissyfit. Ranting about “women only like assholes” on his blog? Using your racism analogy, that’s roughly the equivalent of telling a worn out racist joke.
“allowing them to get away with it because they’re “oh so oppressed” because they can’t get a date is just sexism and misogyny in itself — no one is entitled to a date”
If someone’s rejected because a woman simply doesn’t care for him, fine. But surely we can all agree that, say, still being a virgin when you hit 30 is actually just a teensy bit more serious? I’d wager that its more socially debilitating than being 70 lb overweight, though I don’t want to make any rash pronouncements, at least in this particular case.
“In Animal House, the pretty women were objects of lust. The unattractive women were objects of ridicule.
In Revenge of the Nerds, the pretty women were objects of lust. The unattractive women were objects of ridicule.
In one movie, they were objects of lust/ridicule by the rowdy frat guys.
In one movie they were objects of lust/ridicule by nerds.
In both, they were objects.”
See, my problem with statements like these is that it’s the exact equivalent of saying that since poor people are more obsessed with money than anyone else, the poor and the rich are equally to be blamed for ‘materialism’. There’s a dynamic occuring between the two groups, you know. Nerds and jocks cannot be lumped together so neatly. These people have more to contend with than simply being unable to get “a” date. Why is that so hard to grasp?
Sure, no one has a right to romantic relations. There are many who’d say that no one has a right to free amenities or medical care or basic income, either. As leftists all, I don’t see why the simple inequality of the situation, the belittling of a lesser group and the constant apologies made for the greater one, doesn’t bother you on some level. I’m certainly not advocating government solutions, but at least try to see the situation for what it is. You may not think it is as serious as I do – and just why I do, I’ll explain further down – but just stop and think of this: the basic outline of your equivocation of “jocks” and “nerds” (inapplicable in the adult world that we’re talking about, but the basic archetypes will do) is this: what dominant group X does is bad, but weak group Y would do the same if they were in the dominant position… haven’t you heard this same line of reasoning applied somewhere else? And I thought one of the fundamental axioms of a left-wing agitator for equality’s mind is that no, in the real world the weak group isn’t in the dominant position, and that is whole bloody point.
This all may seem overanalysing and affectatious for a subject that is mainly fodder for water cooler jokes and two-stars-out-of-five comedy movies. But I’m telling you, alienation is the way they get you. The average person today has fewer friends than the average person a generation ago – and I think this trend is far more troubling than the explosion of income inequality over the same period of time. The friendless (wo)man is as ripe a target as the penniless one; it’s like what Noam Chomsky said about the atomization of society and the basic unit of society becoming the individual and his(/her) television set. (And yes, I do collect the bonus points for being the first to tie Chomsky into a discussion about dating.) Many socially inept nerds that I’ve known are so much like microcosms of all the disheartening signs in society as a whole: incredibly self-centered. By most measures privileged, yet harbouring a vindictive core. Often out of touch with reality, preferring a fantasy world it can control. We ignore the issue of social alienation at our own peril.
And I understand that I may sound skewed because my discussion of the loser was framed with assumption that I’m speaking of a man. Women of the same predicament arguably have it worse, so I’ll try to maintain better gender balance from now on.
Mandolin:
I have no idea what point you’re trying to make, but it appears to involve some kind of overgeneralization. Again, class analysis breaks down at the individual level.
This is a very minor nit-pik, but in “Animal House” the protagonists were not popular, nor were they jocks; they were the outcasts of the greek system. The popular, jock guys were the villains in “Animal House,” not the protagonists.
Also, in “Revenge of the Nerds” the “unattractive” female students are allies (albeit extremely minor characters), and aren’t made fun of by the protagonists. On the other hand, the main characters install video cameras in the cheerleader sorority, and later on one of the protagonists rapes a cheerleader.
This is not a substantive point, or anything. I guess I’m saying that “Animal House” and “Revenge of the Nerds” aren’t especially great analogies to be using for this discussion.
Why is it so hard for you to understand that sexism is NEVER OKAY? Just like there is NEVER an excuse for racism or classism from anyone on any level? Rich, poor, black, white, male, female. This is as unenlightened a view as men of color who feel they can be sexist towards women of color BECAUSE OF RACISM when women of color experience the SAME racism as the men IN ADDITION TO SEXISM.
Again, we’re talking about individuals on an individual level versus class on a class level. A frat boy and nerd will be AS SEXIST to an individual sorority girl and nerd “ally” in Revenge of the Nerds (Thank you for jogging my memory, Amp. That’s what I liked about the movie). Frat boys and nerds are not sexist on a systemic level because they’re young men.
No, class analysis is more likely to break down on an individual level.
Obviously it has affect on individual lives, otherwise you wouldn’t see various rituals of subservience, which you do in fact see.
I’ll break it down this way, regardless of how popular the person is or how much sex he’s had, if he treats me like meat he’s just as sexist as anyone else who treats me like a piece of meat. His having things to contend with does not excuse or lessen his giving ME one more thing to contend with. As far as rank in the dominance class, what rung he’s on doesnt mean he’s off the ladder. Your social dominance with other men doesnt change the fact that its still dominant over females as a class and individuals.
So, Sylphhead, your reasoning that nerds, as a class of individuals, can never be as sexist as jocks, is because of the rare chance that a male nerd will still be a virgin (whatever that is) at the age of 30.
That’s about as sexist as it gets. To be specific, it is 100% misogynistic for any male to base his own self image, his own ego needs, etc, on whether or not he has inserted his penis into a woman’s vagina.
No woman’s body should be the litmus test for degree of masculinity. But yet they are. We aren’t things. We’re not unrequited sex acts just waiting to happen.
Or even more specifically, my body is not the tie breaker in the nerd vs. jock pissing contest of virility and masculinity. If the nerds can’t compete with the jocks, I’ll be damned if any woman is chosen as the new playing field and someone claims that isn’t sexist.
Mandolin:
It breaks down in the sense that it’s invalid to say that because men are dominant over women in the aggregate, any given man must be dominant over any given woman. This is no more valid than to say that because men are taller than women in the aggregate, one particular man must be taller than one particular woman.
For the record, I’m not saying that anti-women bigotry by powerless men isn’t sexist. I think it is. I’m just pointing out the problem with the notion that power is an essential component of racism or sexism.
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Brandon Berg: what does a power-less man look like in this society? Who is he? What does he do? What and who is his powerless state in relation to?
Nerds can be as sexist as anyone.
But there are male nerds with such low status that they do not have dominant power over any female. They have male privilege, because they’re male, but that privilege does not manifest itself very much in terms of them being able to oppress anyone.
Such nerds can be very sexist indeed, but they are much more often bullied by females than doing the bullying. In that sense, they are “powerless”.
Q Grrl: what does a power-less woman look like in this society? Who is she? What does she do? What and who is her powerless state in relation to?
I think this question is rather difficult to answer, in society I am rather powerless, 22 year old white male, unemployed (just finishing uni). I don’t hold power over anyone else, I have no economic power, my only “power” would be from being white and male and young, none of which give me any benefit as an unemployed lower class person. However there are people with less power than me because I can rely on the state, can excercise my vote (however pointless). Its a very difficult question to analyse, a better one might be who ctually has power in this society?
uh huh, because all those socially inept male nerds arent dominating the fields of comics, or science to name 2. And in the process of dominating these fields, they dont engage in oppressing females in the same fields through forcing them to work twice as hard to be taken seriously or denial of promotions while other socially inept nerdy co workers get the promotions. And socially inept nerdy men never “get even” with female bullies by *raping* them or anything. And they’ve certainly never been known to use women as a bonding tool with other higher males. Thats just unheard of!
“none of which give me any benefit as an unemployed lower class person.”
Except the benefit of being more likely to be hired and the benefit of being paid more than a young white female with the exact same criteria and experience.
Reread the male prievelege list, Brandon.
Chris: it’s not my job to rehash basic feminist theory and reserach. Do your own homework.
Or the slighlty less bitchy reply: Chris, I’m not the one claiming anyone is “powerless”. That would be Brandon. So I’m not sure what you are trying to accomplish with your comment other than your basic drive-by-trolling.
We’re comparing men and women of the same class, race, sexuality, etc. We are ONLY CONTROLLING FOR GENDER HERE. Males and females of the SAME CLASS AND RACE are unequal based on GENDER.
This is the crux of the Nice Guy Syndrome. It’s the nerds who are the most sexist in the end. Nerdy Karl Rove and his neocon cabal couldn’t get laid in college and took out their frustrations through anti-woman policy. In college, they felt powerless COMPARED TO OTHER MEN not other women. So it’s never about women but homosociality. Comparing one’s manhood and competing with OTHER MEN who are more manly. Women who deal with the sexism of the jocks and nerds are innocent bystanders.
Donna, I certainly agree with the last sentence.
But the rest of this seems overly simplistic, cause-and-effect thinking, seemingly based on just one variable. There are other variables involved, like how hypermasculine Ned and Joe to begin with, how much the friends group they hang out with was all-male and how much the friends group emphasized being masculine, attitudes towards masculinity of Ned and Joe’s parents, and so forth.
I’ve known far too many nerdy misogynists to imagine that being a nerd is a “skip-misogyny” card for wimpy men. But I’ve also known many nerds that didn’t turn out that way; and the scholarly literature is pretty clear on the connection between being in hypermasculine social groups (like some male sports teams and frat houses – note I say “some,” not “all”) and rape for me to buy a sweeping generalization like “nerds are the most sexist in the end.”
Admittedly, I may be feeling a touch of pro-nerd defensiveness. :-)
Going way, way back here…
Would any heterosexual man do this to another man, or even to a woman he didn’t find attractive? At worst this approach treats the woman as a video game/vending machine, at best as a backboard against which to practice your volley until you can find a real person to play with. To say that you’re awful at the game and really, really need the experience doesn’t change that.
Posting this kind of advice in what was intended to be a discussion of treating women as human beings could get a person accused of misogyny.
Lu:
I’m a heterosexual man, and I didn’t find her particularly attractive. The goal was to initiate a conversation, however awkwardly, with a stranger, preferably but not necessarily a woman. I did it, I’m happy about it, I’m proud of it, and my life is better for it. And so, as far as I can tell, are the lives of the women who’ve had the good fortune to meet me this way.
I guess. And at worst your characterizing it as such is a malicious attempt to guilt a hapless introvert into a life of loneliness and misery. But neither of these is a natural or reasonable interpretation.
By the sort of feminist who hangs out in these parts, sure. But that ship set sail long ago.
“By the sort of feminist who hangs out in these parts, sure. ”
Dont let the door hit you on the ass then.
Lu,
I prefer to disagree with Brandon, but on this point I have to agree with his approach — I’d rather be approached by a stranger who made their intentions known than have to guess that the discussion about cat flossing is practice being less introverted. Some people might guess that I floss cats, others might just be making idle chit-chat.
Total strangers talk to total strangers all the time. Back in the early 80’s I took one of those “self-actualization” seminars that were all the rage at the time. Learning to get comfortable talking to strangers was one of our exercises. So long as the conversation is situationally appropriate, I see nothing wrong with it. And by making his intentions known from the outset, if he crossed into inappropriate territory there’s a very comfortable out — “Well, when you’re talking to strangers you should say XYZ. Keep that in mind next time. Good-luck! (exits stage left)”
“Learning to get comfortable talking to strangers was one of our exercises.”
Move south. You’ll get a crash course via the submersion method and find yourself chatting away with total strangers in the grocery store about crap you’d never think about.
Mandolin:
Again, class analysis breaks down at the individual level. A man may have certain privileges that most women do not (and vice-versa), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he has power over any particular woman, or any woman at all. You can look at specific individuals in a specific situation and analyze how their class membership contributes to the balance of power in that situation, but you can’t know what the power balance actually is without analyzing the specific situation and the unique qualities of the individuals involved.
As I see it, that’s what racism and sexism are all about—the failure to see individuals as individuals, instead jumping to conclusions based on general traits (real or imagined) of the classes to which they belong.
Q Grrl:
That last question is the right one to ask. Power and privilege are highly fluid and contextual; no one is powerless in every situation, and everyone is powerless in some situation. Specifically, I was referring to the fact that NiceGuys are powerless to get what they want from the women they desire. It doesn’t matter how much power they have in other contexts (although they generally don’t have all that much); in this particular context they have none.
Wanting something and not getting it does not make one powerless. The men we’re discussing have other kinds of social power to leverage in the situation.
In fact, the whole nice guy phenomenon is about nice guys meeting one kind of powerlessness — in this case, not being able to get approval from a desired female — and trying to use other kinds of power (derived from gender privelege) to manipulate the woman’s feelings or actions, or others’ perceptions of the woman. This includes trying to deny her choice (saying women don’t know their minds), trying to tap into the slut myth to denigrate her, trying to tap into her socially encoded guilt to force her into a relationship through “kind” acts, and of course what’s at heart — the perception of entitlement (again, gender encoded) to someone else’s body. [This is not meant to be a full list of the ways in which Nice Guys (TM) use their privelege in this situation, merely one that illustrates a few examples.]
Leaving aside class/individual analysis for a moment, this is the heart of the argument. NICE GUYS (TM) are leveraging their MALE PRIVELEGE because of a sense of ENTITLEMENT in order to try to shame, punish, or force certain behaviors, from a woman. That’s an attempt to use POWER.
If that’s not going on, then it’s not a NICE GUY (TM) situation.
Some people, in some circumstances, for some periods of time, manage to neutralize or flip class priveleges. The fact that this occurs does not mean that class privelege is not a good predictor for behavior. It means it’s not a 100% accurate one, but only a guide to probability. In particular, because we are only looking at one dimension here (gender), there will of course be other factors (class, race, abledness, etc.) that will complicate the matrix. Nevertheless, where a NICE GUY (TM) attempts to use PRIVELEGE to manipulate, etc., etc., that’s an example of a situation where gender privelege has been levereged, whatever other factors may also be present in the situation.
I’m sure you already have heard all of this. You’re aware of feminist theory. You have made your decisions regarding what you believe. That’s your choice. But I don’t see the point of repeating a conversation that I’m sure has already been had -with you-, elsewhere. If other people get involved, I might speak again.
Thank you for reading my comments and choosing to engage with them. I cede you the last word or words.
[edited repeatedly for clarity of argument and general fussiness about language]
Here you are, Hugh
Ta-dah!
http://finallyfeminism101.blogspot.com/
http://finallyfeminism101.blogspot.com/2007/03/faq-i-asked-some-feminists-question-and.html
Your question probably covered ground they have gone over many times before, and they didn’t want to derail the interesting discussion they were already having.
People find ignorant questions frustrating, and questioners find being ignored frustrating, and such mutual dissatisfaction can totally disrupt a discussion. By sending you here the feminists hope to avoid being interrupted, yet are also not completely ignoring your question(s).
Maybe you didn’t ask a question at all, but stated an argument that denied the importance of the topic being discussed. Feminists naturally don’t care for the thought of trying to run you through reams of introductory material before you gain the grounding to realise the basis whereby they perceive an important problem where you may not.
Either way, educating you on the basics would derail the discussion about the actual topic the feminists are interested in, just for you. That’s an awful lot to ask of people on the net who don’t even know you, isn’t it?
This blog exists to give you a few pointers to places you can find more information to answer your question (although we’re only in early days yet, FAQs will continue to be added until the basics are covered). Once you are better informed you will be able to contribute to lively feminist discussions productively, armed with facts and theory, even if/when you don’t end up agreeing with all the theories….
Now Read On, as they say.
Oh, that text above should be in blockquotes. It’s Tigtog’s, not mine.
it is 100% misogynistic for any male to base his own self image, his own ego needs, etc, on whether or not he has inserted his penis into a woman’s vagina.
I disagree that it’s misogynistic. That’s kind of like saying that if your self-image depends on getting celebrity autographs, you’re anti-celebrity.
But it is self-defeating, at least for guys who (like me) don’t get laid much. Once you realize that an orgasm feels the same whether it comes from intercourse or some other way, and the only difference is an ego boost you get from your own value system which you’re free to change, life becomes a lot less stressful.
The original post and this thread aren’t about rape. It’s about nerds who hang around women who think women should sleep with them:
As far as the nerds who eventually oppress women on a systemic level, look at all the Republicans behind anti-woman legislation. It’s very clear most of them were these Nice Guys who couldn’t get laid in high school or even college. This thread isn’t about rape. Studies show frat boys rape disproportionately on college campuses but the original post was only about how nerds talk to and hang around women.
“That’s kind of like saying that if your self-image depends on getting celebrity autographs, you’re anti-celebrity.”
Its certainly not treating them with dignity or respect though is it? Theyre an object. A goal. Not people.
Two points:
1. Not necessarily. If you have no interest in celebrities other than getting autographs, then yes. But you could also be interested in learning all you can about what they’re like as people. Similarly, you can get an ego boost from getting laid and still be interested in women as more than sex objects.
2. “Misogynistic” means more than just viewing women as objects. It implies an active dislike for them.
Do we really have to play “your argument is invalid because I’ve decided I get to set the rules for vocabulary, despite established usage?”
Point taken, Mandolin. Let’s just say we disagree about the meaning of the word, and let it go at that. I do think there’s a difference between a guy who just wants sex and a guy who hates women (although of course the same guy can be both), and using the same word for both confuses things.
Rex Little writes:
A guy who thinks of women as the place where he gets sex, hates women.
You might not think of that as “hating women”, but if you’re a woman and guys keep trying to sex you up, it’s not going to be all that long before women think those guys hate them.
And a guy who thinks of butchers as the place where he gets meat, hates butchers.
Once again, the women are meat analogy!
1. All women sell sex as a commodity that can be taken home?
2. All sex is a business transaction?
3. A butcher’s human identity is butcher, and not woman or man? Or alternately, a woman’s profession is “woman?”
Also, anyone who thinks women are comparable to meat, hates women.
People who think meat is a commodity hate cows.
Is that a joke, Robert?
[Moderator hat on.]
Robert and Brandon, it’s not clear to me if you genuinely don’t understand that “women = meat” metaphors are offensive to many feminists, or if you’re trying to be offensive (a la Larry Flynt’s famous Hustler cover).
But in either case, cut it out now, please.
[/Moderator.]
[Comment removed at moderator request.]
Robert, I didn’t ask you to explain the purity of your motives. I asked you to fucking stop the “women are like cows” metaphor. If you can’t do that — if you make one more cow joke here — you’re banned from this thread.
Is THAT clear enough for you? Because it seems that my previous “cut it out” request was somehow not clear to you.
I’m not, by the way, saying you can’t disagree with “the original formulation.” I’m saying you have to find a different, less offensive way to do it.
Dude, I haven’t compared women to meat.
I and several other moderators believe you did, Robert; however, even if you meant something else and we’ve misunderstood you, the time has come to let the matter drop, please.
OK, consider it dropped. I’ve removed my response to Mandolin’s discussion of the metaphor.
Mandolin:
Sorry—butcher was the first thing that came to mind. Let’s say “doctor” and “checkup” instead. And we’ll make it a female doctor so we can eliminate a variable.
My point is that someone can go to a doctor to get a checkup without thinking about the fact that the doctor has hopes and dreams and a husband and children and plays cribbage with her friends on Thursday nights, and this doesn’t deny the doctor’s humanity or reduce her to an object. And it doesn’t mean he hates doctors. It just means that he’s not particularly interested in all that other stuff right now—he just wants a checkup. And that’s fine.
Similarly, sometimes people (men or women) just want sex. It’s not that they’re not aware that there are all those other facets to members of the opposite sex—it’s just that they’re not particularly interested in all that other stuff right now. The point is that it’s not necessary to explicitly acknowledge the full spectrum of someone’s humanity every time you interact with them in some limited way. People have these kinds of interactions all the time, and no one (well, almost no one) complains. Unless you have some moral objection to casual sex in general, why treat sex differently?
[Moderator hat off.]
Regarding the substantive issue here, I do think there is a conceptual confusion here, stemming from different ideas about what the word “hate” means.
(Julie, did you purposely switch back to being FurryCatHerder, by the way?)
Julie wrote:
I think there’s a distinction between “thinking of women as the place to get sex” and “being sexually attracted to women” which Brandon and Robert either don’t understand or are choosing not to acknowledge.
But a more interesting issue, to me, is what people think of as “hating women.”
Consider these two statements: 1: “The hardware store is where I get light bulbs.” 2: “Women are where I get sex.”
If I think of women the same way that I think of a hardware store, is that misogynistic? I think it is. Not because I don’t think fondly of my local hardware story, but because my view of it is strictly utilitarian. When I buy light bulbs, I don’t worry about how the store feels about the transaction; I don’t feel obliged to make sure that the relationship is working as well for the store as it is for me. Maybe if the store’s misery were shoved in my face I’d wish things were otherwise, but the truth is, I just don’t think about the store’s perspective.
That’s a reasonable attitude to hold towards a hardware store. But it’s a misogynistic attitude to hold towards women.
I think the problem here is that most people think of “hate” as meaning active loathing (wide eyes, clenched teeth, balled fists, etc.) for the hated object. But when we’re talking about things like bigotry and misogyny, that may be too narrow a view of what “hate” means.
To use a specific example, I don’t think most rapists “hate women” in the sense of being angered by women, personally disliking women, or actively wishing ill on the women they meet. I think most rapists are indifferent to women. They want what they want, and what the women wants isn’t something they’re interested in.
In the personal sense of the word “hate,” rapists don’t hate the women they hate, any more than shoplifters hate the owners of the stores they rob. It’s not that personal.
But it’s still a form of hating women.
What Julie wrote wasn’t about rape, but I think the same principle applies. Thinking of women as a place, like a hardware store, where you go to get a needed item (sex, light bulbs, whatever) is misogynistic. Not because guys who think like that personally hate all women they meet, but because thinking of women you have sex with, with the same indifference as you think of a store where you make a purchase, is unreasonable and dehumanizing.
At least, that’s how I interpret Julie’s statement.
Brandon asked, “Unless you have some moral objection to casual sex in general, why treat sex differently?”
I think you’re conflating two things which aren’t the same thing at all; “casual sex” and “treating the person you have sex with as indifferently as you’d treat a merchant.”
Casual sex is fine. Treating a casual sex partner the same way I’d treat a doctor is not fine. Because, basically, I don’t give a damn about whether or not the doctor examining me is enjoying our interaction. I don’t feel obliged to watch out that she’s giving me this examination out of a sense of freedom and agency, nor do I feel it’s necessary to make sure that my own behavior doesn’t pressure her into giving me an examination that she didn’t truly and fully consent to give. All I care about is that I get what I want from the doctor (a diagnosis, say).
That’s not an appropriate way to think of someone I’m having casual sex with. That is how rapists think of sex. And it’s how too many non-rapists who are nonetheless abusive towards the people they have sex with — by being manipulative or coercive, for example — think about sex.
Nothing I’ve written here is anti-casual-sex. It’s possible (and good) to have casual sex, in which neither person treats the other with the indifference one has for a merchant.
[Edited to fix wording.]
But it’s a misogynistic attitude to hold towards women.
It seems more a misanthropic attitude to hold towards people. What’s gendered, in any sense, about not treating a person like a store? A credible claim of misogyny, it would seem, requires something anti-woman. What you’re describing is just someone being an asshole – having a utilitarian view of people.
Thanks, Brandon, I appreciate you shifting the metaphor.
I still don’t think woman = doctor is analagous. Doctor is a profession. A doctor is volunteering to be treated in a professional capacty.
Woman is not a profession.
If it’s a “casual sex hookup” site, in some way, then maybe your metaphor is reasonable. People are volunteering, explicitly, to be treated in a limited fashion.
When it’s applied, though, to a female acquaintance, or a woman in a bar, or someone you just met — that’s not okay. It’s not okay to approach a doctor on his own time and demand a checkup, and to ignore the fact he’s having dinner with his family.
However, I also think ther’es a difference between doctor as object and woman as object. There is no doctr porn; doctors are not frequently depicted as being objects. There is porn of women; women are frequently depicted as objects. Doctoring is a skill. Being a woman is an attribute.
Treating the capacity of the doctor to be a doctor is neither, therefore, treating the doctor as an object (you’re interacting with a capacity) nor reducing the doctor to a doctor (you’re interacting with a profession). Treating women as a place to get sex does tend to be objectification (because it’s interacting with an attribute), and also interacting with a woman as a sex-provider when she has not volunteered to be used in this capacity.
So, leaving aside object v. attribute aspect for a moment: it seems to me the correct analogy is either A) treating a woman solely as something to go to for sex is like bothering a doctor for a checkup at midnight, while he’s sleeping beside his wife, or B) going to a prostitute is like going to a doctor for a checkup.
Fundamentally, doctoring is something one does, and (although gender is a performance) being a woman is something one is, and so the two cannot be directly compared without shifting the terms of the metaphor.
I should probably clarify in light of Ampersand’s last comment. I do think that it’s appropriate to call men who act with callous disregard for the welfare of women “misogynists” (assuming that they don’t treat other men the same way), and vice-versa. What I don’t think can appropriately be called misogyny or misandry is a lack of interest in nonsexual interaction with members of the opposite sex.
My perception is that it was the latter that was in question.
Speaking of which, why are so many people here focusing on NiceGuys’ desire for sex to the exclusion of their desire for the nonsexual aspects of a romantic relationship?
“What’s gendered, in any sense, about not treating a person like a store?”
Because women experience, frequently and systemic, being treated by men like stores that provide sex. It’s a shitty behavior, but it’s one that occurs largely in one direction, and which occurs in a context where women have been conflated with sex, and to remove gender from the equation denies that context.
When both women and men experience objectification at equal rates and with equal implications for identity, career, personal life, and so on, then it will be useful to talk about misanthropy. Until then, it’s more useful to discuss the situation as it overwhelmingly occurs.
“Speaking of which, why are so many people here focusing on NiceGuys’ desire for sex to the exclusion of their desire for the nonsexual aspects of a romantic relationship?”
I don’t know. My feeling was that it was the way the conversation went as we tried to address the terms that other people were using in the argument. I don’t even feel like we’re talking about nice guys anymore.
[Edited to add: Cross-posted with Mandolin’s response to Robert’s question.]
Robert, quoting me, wrote:
Robert, many people hold this “a store where I get sex” attitude towards women in particular, not towards humanity in general. In those people, the attitude I’m describing is misogynistic.
But I agree that, for example, bisexuals who hold that attitude towards people in general are being misanthropic. I’d add that people who hold that attitude towards men in particular are being misandristic. And it’s bad, and harmful, in all three cases.
However, I think the misogyny version merits special concern, because it meshes so smoothly with our culture’s view of “women as the sex class”; that is, the conceptual view that women hold sex and it’s up to men to wheedle or force women to give men sex. I think this view of men’s sexual role is one reason the overwhelming majority of rapists are male (regardless of the sex of the victim).
But now you’re dragging in other stuff to make the analogy not work, Mandolin – Brandon didn’t talk about approaching people at inopportune times or places.
Why is it OK to disregard the backstory of a doctor when seeking medical care, but not OK to disregard the backstory of a person when seeking sexual contact?
(I know the answer in my worldview, and it’s akin to what Brandon alluded to: sexual contact is intrinsically personal and spiritual and cannot be casual. But I want to know what the answer is in your worldview.)
In other words, if we’re allowed to depersonalize sex by eschewing romantic connections, and if we’re allowed to depersonalize sex by eschewing long-term arrangements surrounding it, then why aren’t we allowed to depersonalize sex by eschewing interest in the human story of the other participant(s)?
If it’s misogynistic for a man to do the last one, then it would seem to be misogynistic for a man to avoid love or marriage, as well. But I don’t think you believe that – so what’s up?
Being a woman is not a profession.
Amp, what you say about men who treat women this way makes sense, and you’re quite right, that would be misogynistic when it isn’t symptomatic of the way a person treats everybody.
However, I think the misogyny version merits special concern, because it meshes so smoothly with our culture’s view of “women as the sex class”; that is, the conceptual view that women hold sex and it’s up to men to wheedle or force women to give men sex.
It ought to merit special concern because it involves people treating other people as objects, which is morally wrong. The conceptual view is largely accurate, albeit is only half the picture. I’d like to have sex, which for this sentence is defined as having an orgasm inside a vagina that belongs to a person who wants me to do it. That pretty much means that women hold sex as far as I’m concerned.
Brandon wrote:
Okay, I’m glad we more or less agree on this.
I’d call that misogyny if the person in question is interested in nonsexual interactions with men but not women.
Okay, I’m going to take you slightly more seriously.
“But now you’re dragging in other stuff to make the analogy not work, Mandolin – Brandon didn’t talk about approaching people at inopportune times or places.”
Brandon used the category “women.” Not “women who have asked for casual sex.”
“Why is it OK to disregard the backstory of a doctor when seeking medical care, but not OK to disregard the backstory of a person when seeking sexual contact?”
Because, unless a woman has specifically volunteered for casual sexual contact, she is not putitng herself in a position where it is appropriate for her backstory to be ignored. A doctor who is in business is advertising professional services, and consenting to such interaction.
“(I know the answer in my worldview, and it’s akin to what Brandon alluded to: sexual contact is intrinsically personal and spiritual and cannot be casual. But I want to know what the answer is in your worldview.)”
To be precise, I gave it earlier.
“In other words, if we’re allowed to depersonalize sex by eschewing romantic connections, and if we’re allowed to depersonalize sex by eschewing long-term arrangements surrounding it, then why aren’t we allowed to depersonalize sex by eschewing interest in the human story of the other participant(s)?”
I didn’t say we weren’t. If you’ll notice above, I said that it wasn’t unreasonable for men to seek casual, objectified sex as long as the women and men are in a situation where that’s the expectation. To treat the broad category “women”, or a woman who has not specifically agreed to this, as an object for sex, is a misogynistic act.
Again, This is not like being a doctor, because being a woman is not a profession.
HOWEVER, the culture that promotes the objectification of women who have not agreed to it, that promotes the objectification of women more than it promotes the objectification of men, and that otherwise creates women as a sex class who have fewer opportunities for interaction in which their sexuality is not judged and involved — that is a misogynistic culture! Culturally, broadly, the objectification of women is misogynistic. Men, as a class, are NOT objectified in this way.
I broadly agree that the objectification culture is misogynistic, and that we objectify women much more than we do men, in a sexual context anyway.
Because, unless a woman has specifically volunteered for casual sexual contact, she is not putitng herself in a position where it is appropriate for her backstory to be ignored.
Check me on this, but isn’t this the Nice Guy complaint? That women are ignoring his backstory, and not dealing with him as a person?
“Check me on this, but isn’t this the Nice Guy complaint? That women are ignoring his backstory, and not dealing with him as a person?”
No, I don’t think so. The nice guy complaint that I think you’re referring to is that she’s dealing with a kind of person (asshole) who she shouldn’t be dealing with, and dealing with the nice guy in a way (as a friend) that she shouldn’t be because of how he acts (nice).
However, there are a bunch of nice guy complaints, I think.
The Nice Guy complaint I’m referring to is the complaint, by the putative Nice Guy, that women aren’t treating him the way he want/”deserves” to be treated. Similarly, in #275, Mandolin seems to state that men aren’t treating women the way the women want/deserve to be treated.
In both cases, the treating party is acting in the pursuit of their own interests/desires, and not assigning much if any value to the interests/desires of the other people involved. In the case of the Nice Guy Vs. Those Misguided Women, the objectionable treatment is having the “wrong” parameters for selecting sex partners (“you should fuck me, not him”). In the case of the Fully Realized Human Woman Vs. The Sex-Seeking Guy Who Doesn’t Care About Any Of That, the objectionable treatment is having the “wrong” consideration for whether she is seeking casual sex or something more (“you should care about what I want”).
The commonality I perceive in these cases is that the women who reject the Nice Guy for sex, and the men who don’t care whether the women they’re talking too are interested in casual sex or something else, are both working from internal value systems that do not require them to integrate the thoughts or feelings of other parties into their deliberations. Jane doesn’t care that Joe is a nice guy who wants her; Jane likes to fuck bikers and tough shit for Joe. Joe doesn’t care that Jane is interested in a long-term relationship; Joe likes one-night stands and tough shit for Jane.
Updated to note: I don’t have much sympathy for Joe or Jane. Joe isn’t entitled to have other people change their parameters for his benefit. Jane isn’t entitled to have other people change what they are looking for for her benefit. Joe can reasonably expect that women he approaches won’t point and laugh and throw drinks at him; Jane can reasonably expect that men whose casual-sex interest she detects and rejects won’t rape her. But they aren’t entitled to have other people’s thinking change for their benefit.
“This is a very minor nit-pik, but in “Animal House” the protagonists were not popular, nor were they jocks; they were the outcasts of the greek system. The popular, jock guys were the villains in “Animal House,” not the protagonists.”
Thank you, Ampersand. To be honest, I’ve seen neither movie – I abhor the entire genre, and make a special point not of seeing any of them. I went by what I heard and read about the movies, and thought my point would be clearest if I used them as examples.
“Why is it so hard for you to understand that sexism is NEVER OKAY?”
Not nearly as hard as it is for you to actually read what has been posted in the discussion so far, apparently. Even the material that goes against your position. The idea that what the nerds do – harbour a blanket resentment toward all women, complain on their blogs etc. – even qualifies as sexism is the very point under dispute, making your rhetorical plea a mighty fine example of begging the question.
All right, so the above sounds a bit excessive. Of course, “blanket resentment toward all women” should be counted as sexism. But is it in any way comparable to “blanket violence toward all women”, or say, as Amp brought up, rape, which we know jock types do in disproportionate amounts?
“A frat boy and nerd will be AS SEXIST to an individual sorority girl and nerd “ally” in Revenge of the Nerds”
Poor people will be just as greedy and cutthroat if they were the CEO of McDonald’s or Walmart. Therefore let’s ignore the power dynamic between the two in the here and now.
Yeesh.
“Frat boys and nerds are not sexist on a systemic level because they’re young men.”
And young men AREN’T sexist on a systemic level? I have a hard time believing that. As a whole, young men are sexist to women as it pertains to sexual matters, some more than others: i.e. jocks.
“I’ll break it down this way, regardless of how popular the person is or how much sex he’s had, if he treats me like meat he’s just as sexist as anyone else who treats me like a piece of meat.”
Hard to argue with that, but again, whether or not he actually ‘treats’ you that way – as opposed to wishing and thinking that one day he could be more like the guys who are such players that they do treat women like meat – is the very thing we’re debating. Many of those arguing with me are adopting this standard that says that thinking about doing something is as bad as actually doing it. Everything that makes up a sane legal system or even a coherent ethical paradigm would break down if we tried to apply this rule universally, which is why we don’t. Instead, we apply it in select cases where it suits us.
“Your social dominance with other men doesnt change the fact that its still dominant over females as a class and individuals.”
All else being equal, men are dominant over women. However, all else is not equal between socially healthy women and loser men. If you’re asking to me to believe that the former are being victimized by the latter, I’ll have to give your argument the ol’ Heisman.
Loser men DO have a gender-based advantage over another group: loser women. The social plight of male losers is at least facially lamented in the occasional ‘nice guys finish last’ quip. Women who have nonexistent social lives are completely invisible, and whenever anyone tries to bring this to light, people actually get offended. In which direction they get offended I leave to your imagination.
“So, Sylphhead, your reasoning that nerds, as a class of individuals, can never be as sexist as jocks, is because of the rare chance that a male nerd will still be a virgin (whatever that is) at the age of 30.”
My reasoning is that it’s hard to strongarm and belittle women when you’re too shy to talk to them about anything besides the weather. Impossible? No. There’s the rare one that kidnaps a woman or something. But taken as a group, women are abused and taken advantage of far more often by those on top of the male social ladder than by those on the bottom. (In fact, the male social ladder is arranged on part by the ability to abuse and take advantage of women, as we all know.)
“That’s about as sexist as it gets. To be specific, it is 100% misogynistic for any male to base his own self image, his own ego needs, etc, on whether or not he has inserted his penis into a woman’s vagina.”
Whether or not the pigskin bus has actually ever pulled into tuna town? Yes. Whether or not any women actually look at him as a potential partner? No. If you’re a virgin (and I think we all know what that means), I’d say the odds of the latter are in full lottery mode.
To be clear, I’ve never said that nerds are NOT sexist, and I’m sorry if I gave that impression. I’ve maintained that they’re not as sexist as jocks are, with the obvious corollary that focussing on the sexism of nerds has the effect of excusing the sexism of jocks. Yes, I know that there’s no fixed amount of sexism in the world that makes it a zero sum game or anything. But there is a fixed amount of attention, and a fixed amount of influence, and a fixed amount of cultural mythology that we can impact. I have a hard time believing that attacking the way certain men think about women, when thinking about women is perhaps the closest interaction they get with them in their daily lives, accomplishes much of anything. It doesn’t help women and it hurts men whose hopeless, joyless lives are already a great source of derision and amusement from everyone else.
“uh huh, because all those socially inept male nerds arent dominating the fields of comics, or science to name 2. And in the process of dominating these fields, they dont engage in oppressing females in the same fields through forcing them to work twice as hard to be taken seriously or denial of promotions while other socially inept nerdy co workers get the promotions.”
True, but that’s a separate issue. All workplaces have sex discrimination, for reasons that are above and beyond the nerd/jock social dynamic.
“And socially inept nerdy men never “get even” with female bullies by *raping* them or anything.”
Sure they do. They just don’t do so as often as socially ‘ept’ males. And the epter youse get, the worse it is.
“It’s the nerds who are the most sexist in the end.”
You know, the rest of your paragraph had such good points that it’s a shame it would be marred by such a jaw-droppingly ass backwards claim such as this.
“In college, they felt powerless COMPARED TO OTHER MEN not other women.”
You have a point, but it’s not just about sex. When a socially inept college boy is pissed on from on top of a balcony, or hung from on top of the flagpole (okay, so I’m using outdated, clichéd examples here), it could be a referendum on the infrequency with which he enjoys coitus, but somehow I doubt it. I think the underlying causes are elsewhere, and it’s victimization along those lines that make me sympathetic to them, rather than lumping them in with the worst offenders because heavens to Betsy their ‘thoughts’ coincide with others’ ‘actions’ in one area.
“As far as the nerds who eventually oppress women on a systemic level, look at all the Republicans behind anti-woman legislation. It’s very clear most of them were these Nice Guys who couldn’t get laid in high school or even college. This thread isn’t about rape. Studies show frat boys rape disproportionately on college campuses but the original post was only about how nerds talk to and hang around women.”
The people who said nerds and jocks are exactly equivalent in their sexism made rape an issue. You, especially, who claimed that nerds are MORE sexist than jocks, made it an issue. That jocks rape more than nerds do is relevant to that particular issue, I should think.
Wow. Amp. I’m posting some of your comments at Feministing.
Sylph,
Do you have data on that? Because I have known enough women who were raped by so-called nerds or nice guys to wonder.
‘Cuz otherwise, we’re both operating on anecdote, and I don’t think it’s something that can be resolved without stats.
Okay, Robert, I don’t know if we’re communicating.
What I’m saying is that it’s not okay for you — or anyone else — to treat me as an object, sans my explicit (or implicit) approval of you treating me as an object.
So, um..Im supposed to find it LESS bad that he *wishes* he could treat me like meat? Thats not *treating* me like meat either? She’s a piece of meat, I WISH I could treat her like it?
Wishing he could treat me like meat IS treating me like meat. And Im the final word on the level of offense *I* feel when its aimed at *me*. I get to decide that, you dont get to decide it for me.
A socially healthy women isnt exactly exempt from being the target of sexism by a loser guy. He can call her a cunt as quick as the next guy and have the same affect on her.
Not really, no. Not when you assert “loser” guys have no power over socially healthy women. They do and the workplace is one example.
Even if that were true, the measurement isnt how often that it occues. Its that it occurs, period.
How is choosing not to sleep with or date someone ignoring their backstory or not dealing with them as a person? You can treat someone very respectfully, like a human being, dealing with them as a person, and realize they have a backstory while rejecting them as a partner.
If jane wants bikers that is tough noogies for Joe. If Joe wants a one-night stand that is quite different for Jane if she wants a long-term relationship.
Why the difference?
Because in the first scenario, Jane isn’t treating Joe as an object or as less of a person because she isn’t having sex with him. She sees and acknowledges that Joe is a person, but he’s a person she doesn’t want to have sex with. Joe is entitled to be seen as a human being here – and he is – but her not wanting to be with him is not robbing him of his humanity.
In the second scenario, Joe is using Jane and treating her as an object. If both Joe and Jane wanted a one night stand or casual sex then there really wouldn’t be a problem. But in your scenario, Jane isn’t agreeing to that. She wants to be seen as a human being and he doesn’t care about her humanity. So Joe is in the wrong here. If he wanted casual sex then he should have found someone who wanted the same thing instead of using her and yes, she is entitled to be seen as a human being.
I think ‘hate’ needs to keep meaning what it’s commonly understood to mean. I’ve noticed that activists/partisans (on many issues, left or right) like to use highly charged terms (hate, rape, murder, theft, slavery, racist, treason) to mean milder things than the commonly understood meaning. I think part of this is honestly because the speaker feels strongly about the issue in question and thinks the term is technically appropriate. But I think another part of this is because most everyone agree that those things are all bad and by using that label it adds strength to the speakers argument.
As a rhetorical tool it’s fine but I don’t think it’s a compelling part of the argument. In extreme cases it totally derails the argument because it pulls the conversation into a discussion about vocabulary.
Internet, anyone?
The most sexist males on the internet are the Nice Guys. The ones getting laid spend less time on the internet targeting women and calling them cunts.
Okay, Robert, I don’t know if we’re communicating.
Well, I’m taking what you write seriously, if that helps.
What I’m saying is that it’s not okay for you — or anyone else — to treat me as an object, sans my explicit (or implicit) approval of you treating me as an object.
I believe that it is morally wrong to treat you as an object regardless of your desires in the matter. What does that have to do with misogyny, though? (Except, as noted, that a man who always does this to women while not doing it to men seems very likely to be motivated by misogyny, not indifference.)
The fact that it, systemically and overwhelmingly, happens in a gendered way. I think both I and Amp answered that earlier, and I thought you agreed with him.
Oh, I see how you didn’t.
There is a pervasive and systemic pattern of misogynistic objectifying in our culture. It seems you agree with that?
This misogynistic and objectifying culture creates circumstances in which women often have a great deal of difficulty not being objectified in inappropriate ways, and this difficulty can impede or impair their personal and professiona lives.
Thus, it is an issue of sexism, because it affects women and men in a gendered way.
Now, it seems to me that your question is about individuals rather than systems. So:
the person who buys into and reiterates the memes of the sexist culture is feeding into sexism. It affects the women, disproportionately to the men, in a gendered way (as above). Therefore each individual act is a sexist act.
Each individual act may, however, be both sexist AND something else. Certainly you can find lots of theorists who believe that all modern interaction is objectification to some degree. So, perhaps you have both a sexist AND a fetishistic act, or whatever.
Also — I would make the argument that more men objectify women than objectify other men. I think others have substantiated that in other places, and I’m not at the moment prepared (in terms of resources) to reconstruct the theoretical arguments that would get us to that place.
ADDITION: Also, the misogyny comes in the context. Since women are the sex class, when I am treated as an object, that is a class-based treatment. Now, if I was treated as a store for producing money for instance, that probably wouldn’t be a misogynistic interaction. However, the strain of misogyny in our culture (see above) creates a narrative in which it is likely for me, as a woman, to be viewed as an object for obtaining sex. That’s misogynistic. In the same way, it is racist — as well as just insulting and unpleasant — to say that black women are unfit mothers, because it feeds off a prior contextual framework in which black women have been constructed as, and impaired because, they were considered to be poor mothers.
So it basically boils down to “this is a misogynistic culture and partaking in the mating practices of the culture is thus intrinsically misogynistic”?
Which, fine, but it seems to devalue “misogyny”.
Men, specifically those who are insecure in their masculinity and maleness, define sex to be a very narrow act, the totality of which is penetrating a woman’s vagina (sometimes just refered to as penetrating a woman) with their penis. When a man bases his own ego and self identity, his worth, and most importantly where he stands in regards to other men vis-a-vis his masculinity on whether he has “done” or “performed” a certain act on a woman’s body, then that is indeed misogyny. One might go so far as to say it’s the root of sexism, the radical basis for feminism.
A woman is not a use. She is not a means. She is not any-thing to any man.
As a whole, young men are sexist to women as it pertains to sexual matters, some more than others: i.e. jocks.
Since we’re all about anecdotal proof, apparently, I call this nonsense. Spend ten minutes playing a MMORPG or hanging out at a techie convention and tell me how woman-friendly and non-misogynistic the atmosphere is. It’s just that the “No Stinky Girls Allowed” sign is hung over the door to the LAN party instead of the clubhouse.
Personally, I dislike the ways in which being treated like an object affect my life.
For you to say that it’s “devaluing ‘misogyny'” (scare quotes included) for me to call that behavior out for the impairment it is to my ability to walk in the world as a human being — well, that’s awfully minimizing. And condescending.
It’s not meant to be. It was meant as an observation – that for me, at least, the concept slash formulation you want me (everyone) to accept is recognizable to me as a bad thing, and something to be resisted – but it’s an extension of what I believe to be the normative definition of the word. I fully recognize your humanity, and I’m not intending to condescend, but to understand.
To simplify Robert, it doesnt minimize it to those who are the targets of it. Basically.
“Men, specifically those who are insecure in their masculinity and maleness, define sex to be a very narrow act, the totality of which is penetrating a woman’s vagina (sometimes just refered to as penetrating a woman) with their penis. When a man bases his own ego and self identity, his worth, and most importantly where he stands in regards to other men vis-a-vis his masculinity on whether he has “done” or “performed” a certain act on a woman’s body, then that is indeed misogyny. One might go so far as to say it’s the root of sexism, the radical basis for feminism.
“A woman is not a use. She is not a means. She is not any-thing to any man.”
I completely agree with that last sentence. But while it makes no more sense for a man to base his sense of self-worth on whether or not he has ever had sexual intercourse than on whether or not he has ever played horseshoes, the fact remains that (at least in the U.S.A), young men over age 18 or so are under a lot of pressure to lose their virginity (and at that age very few men are really that secure in their masculinity). I’m not sure that an abstract desire by such a young man to engage in sexual intercourse for the first time is necessarily misogynistic, even if part of the motivation is to give his self-esteem a boost. Where it becomes misogynistic is when he becomes so obsessed with “getting some” that he becomes oblivious to the fact that the women from whom he is trying to “get it” is not just a vagina with a body attached to it, but a human being with thoughts, dreams, feelings and ambitions (and perhaps the same insecurities about her femininity as he has about his masculinity).
“It’s not meant to be. It was meant as an observation – that for me, at least, the concept slash formulation you want me (everyone) to accept is recognizable to me as a bad thing, and something to be resisted – but it’s an extension of what I believe to be the normative definition of the word. I fully recognize your humanity, and I’m not intending to condescend, but to understand.”
Okay.
So, let me see if I can understand the basis of your objection.
Is it that:
A) You don’t think objectification is sexist, because you don’t see it as something that affects women more aversely, systemically, and persistently, than men.
B) You believe that objectification affects women more aversely, systemically, and persistantly than men, but you don’t think it’s a big deal.
C) You believe that objectification affects women more aversely, systemically, and persistantly than men. Also, you agree that it can be a big deal. However, since it’s not as big a deal as the recent lynching of the Iraqi 17-year-old, you want to reserve the term “misogynist” for things like men who murder their daughters. You would be happy to have a new term coined that would describe systemic sexism, and individual acts thereof.
D) Something else.
C, although I don’t have any strong objection to extending “misogynist” rather than coining a new term, only my traditionalist objection to the redefinition of any word, but that’s purely kneejerk. I yield to the people who use the word the most.
Well, I do hear you about that.
I think it’s important to call it misogyny because … it gets across that even “small” acts of sexism are part of the larger whole, that they’re recursive, if that makes sense. Racism isn’t just burning crosses; it’s also buying into the idea that drug A used by black people should have worse penalties than drug B used by white people; and it’s also telling black women that they loook unprofessional because they haven’t used straightening agents on their hair. Sexism, likewise, is women being stoned to death by their families, and the great likelihood that I as a fat woman will find it more difficult to be employed, and once employed, be less likely to be well-paid than my male or more conventionally attractive colleagues.
Simultaneously, it creates a gap in understanding, and that’s dangerous. Shading of terms would certainly be useful when you’re trying to describe the difference between men who photograph a woman being murdered (misogyny in the first degree) and men who come onto feminist blogs and say that all women want babies because it’s hardwired into them (misogyny in the nth degree).
So, I think there are both advantages and penalties to using more finesse with the language. It’s important, when trying to create a systemic understanding, to underscore the links between different acts of sexism. When trying to dialogue with people who are generally progressive, but who don’t understand why they shouldn’t immediately analyze any news story about rape to see what the victim could have done to get out of her situation, the term sexism can be alienating. If the interlocutor can push through that barier of understanding, though, and realize why what he was doing was sexist, then that’s a net gain, because the lesson about systemic sexism comes partially with it.
I suppose I would say that objectification is misogynistic.
Whether or not I would call a particular objectifying individual “a misogynist” is highly dependent on context. I probably wouldn’t go out swinging that way unless they’d led me to believe they were acting particularly heinously, or they’d already shown other misogynistic tendencies.
But I think the reason that this came up was that Rex Little was telling pheeno that she was using the word *incorrectly* — and that’s certainly not the case.