What constitutes Misogyny?

[Canadian_watcher]

Analysis in the absence of action is just self-gratification.

Now, you're talking.

That'll be $95.00

That means you still owe me $15 USD.

this is how our conversations go:

charlie: Why then does the duck not eat too much seaweed?
C_W: I have no idea what you're talking about.
charlie: What I'm saying is that people should learn more about their origins.
C_W: OOOoooh! I see, so you mean that we should delve into our histories?
charlie: There's that duck again.
C_W: yes, there it is. (WTF?)

it's proving to be problematic for me.

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

He's just taking the piss love.

[charlie meadows]

charlie: Why then does the duck not eat too much seaweed?
C_W: I have no idea what you're talking about.
charlie: What I'm saying is that people should learn more about their origins.
C_W: OOOoooh! I see, so you mean that we should delve into our histories?
charlie: There's that duck again.
C_W: yes, there it is. (WTF?)

Fascinating. I have no idea what you're talking about. Where is Sammy Smith in all this? The pack of seahorses? I do appreciate that 17 is the 17th word however. I'm sure it's highly quotable.

But at least now we're on a first-name basis, Canadian. Thank you for that.

Pierre: Not at all, but some would have you think so.

[JackRiddler]

.

Quoted for the bold part, with a bit of context:

http://www.feminisms.org/2585/were-slut ... ets-rocky/

SNIP

Just like Suicide Girls and the Neo-Burlesque movement argues, Slutwalk seems to encourage the perspective that objectification is ‘ok’ so long as we are objectifying women who deviate from the norm perpetuated by mainstream media (ie. blond, thin, white, conventionally attractive). Making feminist fights palatable to men or anti-feminist women means that it is ok and, feminist even, to objectify, for example, ‘curvy girls’ and not skinny ones:



These comments tend to be met with back pats (because being attracted to ‘curvy girls’ is progressive! You are such a forward thinking man!)

(I totally wish that were true, but fear I could not seriously sustain such an argument.)

and supported by arguments that ‘if you are objectifying yourself then it is ok’:


Naturally leading off of this kind of commentary, posts will inevitably draw the line between ‘good feminists’ (i.e. sluts) and ‘bad feminists’ (i.e. radicals). Ariel Levy is, in this thread, viewed as ‘shrill’ and ‘incoherant’, one would assume, because she criticizes this nonsensical and ‘post-feminist’ concept that objectifying oneself is somehow empowering.


The constant differentiating between the imaginary ‘man-hating feminist’ (radical) and the ‘sexyfun’ feminists who like to be objectified is just, well, pukey. Are we meant to turn a man into a hero because he ‘likes big butts’? What purpose does it serve in a conversation about women, sexual assault against women, and victim blaming (women) to continuously remind everyone that women are perpetrators as well?

I believe that we all know that men are assaulted as well as women and it is indeed important to keep talking about this in order to disrupt the ‘men cannot be victims’ dichotomy that is so much a part of our tiny little vision of what ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ means. Conversations about male victims are important and should be had. But, as Elsie Hambrook notes in her piece: “The Facts and Politics of Intimate Partner Violence”, ‘But, What About the Men?!’ comments are rarely made in good faith. “They are rarely made in an effort to add to a meaningful discussion…These comments are more often ‘meant to grind the conversation to a halt”. It would appear that, under the circumstances I am looking at, these comments are meant to erase gender from the conversation. Hambrook adds: “It is meant to take away from the few occasions where women’s concerns are taken seriously.”

[compared2what?]

Esalen damn well can be disregarded when that's what the person affiliated with it should be, is what I guess I'm saying.

Allow me to rephrase: Bullshit is bullshit, irrespective of pedigree. Also, isn't there some more constructive use to which you could put your Socratic inclinations than the rust-colored quotation of others? Maybe parsing the finer symbolic implications of eight-pointed stars in contemporary cinema, or harbingers of 9/11 in the work of the Coen brothers, or something of that nature?

You really might want to give some such undertaking a try. Because I think you just might turn out to have a knack for them.
____________________

On a tangentially related note, please also allow me to apologize for inadvertently having called Grof for the wrong bullshit. I mistakenly assumed that by "re-birthing" Plutonia meant "re-birthing." And Grof doesn't do that, as far as I can tell. It looks like what he does would be more accurately characterized as:

"Telling credulous westerners that they can just skip right over the years of dedicated hard work and rigorous self-discipline required by eastern esoteric practices and go straight to a highly evolved state of spiritual consciousness that transcends time, simply by using hallucinogens and/or hyperventilation-induced hypoxia in an LGAT setting and in accordance with your commercially trademarked directions, in exchange for payment of an appropriately hefty fee -- full recall of prenatal experience and birth included at no extra charge!"***

I regret the error.

He's one presently-affiliated-with-a-dubious-Laurence-Rockefeller-funded-institution piece of work, that Grof.

But Plutonia, doesn't it kind of raise more than a red flag for you when you bump into someone charging lots of money for the exact same promises and guarantees on which L. Ron Hubbard built his empire?

And btw, I only put it in those terms because I know you're not an LRH fan. The should-be-self-evident problem with Grof's line of bullshit technique isn't that (horrors!) it has quite a bit in common with Scientology. Lots and lots of schools of thought do, after all. Because Hubbard just wasn't what you could really call an original thinker. It's more like:

As a matter of common sense and self-protection, it should just be evident on its face that people who ask you to take their word for it that of coursethe commercially trademarked method for one-stop-shopping, comprehensive, profound, and universally applicable personal transformation affecting all spheres of life and functioning that they happen to be selling totally works as advertised are dangerous and irresponsible. At best.

They might not go on to blithely injure or harm you, or at least not very much, granted. But do you really want to swear by practices that not only include blithely injuring or harming some (or any) people, but also routinely denying it and/or blaming those people for being the cause of their own injuries, due to [SOME FLAW TO BE NAMED LATER]?

I mean, trade-offs are a part of life and they can function for the greater good sometimes, that goes without saying. But they're only as equitable as their terms are to all parties to them. So you do have to draw the line somewhere.

Each in accordance with his or her standards, for sure and no argument. I'm just stating mine for the record.
_____________________

*** Warning: May cause psychotic breaks, cardiopulmonary failure, and assorted other irreversible ills. Please make sure to sign your liability waiver before entering treatment.

[Plutonia]

Oh, sorry, I guess i meant breath-work. Not so up on all those alt. therapies.

Which reminds me, I never meant to advocate that anyone actually do his therapy whatsit- lord no! I just said some of his ideas and worth looking at- even if he is an evil reptile serving his troll-lords interests now or then - worth looking at particularly if he's an evil reptile serving his troll-lords interests even and yes, he does look to be that. But we are adults. Anyone who is interested can go and have a look without harming themselves, I'm pretty sure of that.

And Esalen had open arms for the Scilons in their heyday. Maybe still, I don't know. And Scilons do tend to poison the well at the same time as being useful to the troll-lords:

"...Most poignantly, what are we to do with the rather astonishing fact that there is very solid empirical evidence to suggest that the superpowers are common features of real-life human experience, that is, that they may be, well, real?..."
http://www.esalenctr.org/display/supernormal.cfm

So as I said, approach with caution.

[charlie meadows]

You might crosspost this [Edit: c2w?s last post] in the "magick mirror" thread, as the content doesn't have much to do with this one.

"Harbingers of 9/11 in the work of the Coen brothers?" Now you have piqued my interest.

Re: Grof? You'll have to take that up with Plutonia. I had not heard of him before he/she mentioned him.

Telling credulous westerners that they can just skip right over the years of dedicated hard work and rigorous self-discipline required by eastern esoteric practices and go straight to a highly evolved state of spiritual consciousness that transcends time, simply by using hallucinogens

You're condemning maybe 50% of the members of the board, including most of your friends. But not me. It is, in fact, one of the biggest problems I have with this board: The top-to-bottom advocacy of artificial enlightenment. Interestingly, I have not heard you speak out about it until now.

Do you have anything to add about the relative bottleneck at the birth canal and the possible ramifications etc? A minor point in the scheme of things (or maybe not?) but only Plutonia has addressed the issue itself. Thanks Plutonia. It seems to have instigated much trolling though.

[Plutonia]

Do you have anything to add about the relative bottleneck at the birth canal and the possible ramifications etc? A minor point in the scheme of things (or maybe not?) but only Plutonia has addressed the issue itself. Thanks Plutonia. It seems to have instigated much trolling though.

Well, people can get a bit tetchy when you start talking about their woophanoos.

I was already primed for it though because of reading up on the size and accelerated brain growth of autie babes- and all things autie.

I'm interested in where you are going. Bring it on!

[JackRiddler]

Do you have anything to add about the relative bottleneck at the birth canal and the possible ramifications etc? A minor point in the scheme of things (or maybe not?) but only Plutonia has addressed the issue itself. Thanks Plutonia. It seems to have instigated much trolling though.

Well, people can get a bit tetchy when you start talking about their woophanoos.

I was already primed for it though because of reading up on the size and accelerated brain growth of autie babes- and all things autie.

I'm interested in where you are going. Bring it on!

What'd I miss? Did our heads grow or did our woophanoos (of all varieties) shrink?

.

[charlie meadows]

Do you have anything to add about the relative bottleneck at the birth canal and the possible ramifications etc? A minor point in the scheme of things (or maybe not?) but only Plutonia has addressed the issue itself. Thanks Plutonia. It seems to have instigated much trolling though.

Well, people can get a bit tetchy when you start talking about their woophanoos.

I was already primed for it though because of reading up on the size and accelerated brain growth of autie babes- and all things autie.

I'm interested in where you are going. Bring it on!

I wonder if there some mistaken impression that I'm going to assign blame somehow.

As my context is the magick mirror, I'll think I'll take it there if anywhere.

It was after all an aside while waiting for the boys to weigh in with their experiences.

<Cue The Girl from Ipanema>



Thanks again for the reference to Grof, charletan that he is. He led me to Manzi, Bock, Lieberman, Mitchell and so on and on...

to the Starchild?

Anyone read Childhood's End?

Sorry, wrong thread.

[barracuda]

If this were my forum, which of course it is not, I would make it a condition that all new members admit (at least privately to the mods) to previous monikers as a condition of their membership.

Rust is the code color you've chosen to denote irony, I believe? I don't really hold with its use in this manner, as it seems to be a crutch which masks an inability or reticence to actually say what you mean, but I'll use it in this instance as a way of bridging the communication gap. You're posting here through a proxy, so your statement is ironic.

Do you have anything to add about the relative bottleneck at the birth canal and the possible ramifications etc?

Do you mean the quote you supplied back on page 113?

http://www.scientiareview.org/pdfs/114.pdf

The human species was first set apart from its ancestors when the population began to walk upright. Some believe this change in gait occurred because it made mobility more efficient in open areas, such as the savanna. The bipedal characteristic could have also occurred due to the emergence of gathering as a food source. Evolving from moving on all fours to only two legs caused some changes in the shape and anatomy of the pelvis, which resulted in a narrower birth canal for women. Less space in the birth canal causes a more difficult and painful birth for the mother (Bock, 2009).

The anatomy of the human pelvis is perfectly suited for walking upright. The pelvis balances the effects of gravity on the organs caused by walking on two legs by tilting towards the front of the body. The pelvic bones must keep the internal organs from falling right out of the human body; therefore, the bones are linked by a series of rings all attached at the coccyx, or tailbone. The degree of tilt of the pelvic openings varies throughout the birth canal, leaving a difficult path for the infant to follow. The mother’s body does adapt to prepare for childbirth, which makes the journey a little easier. The ligaments holding together the pelvic bones soften so the openings can increase in size to let the baby through (Mitchell, 2006).

Once walking upright, humans began to work on problem solving and social interactions, which led to larger brains. Eventually, through natural selection, humans with superior brains survived to pass on their genes. As brain size increased, it became more dangerous and difficult for mothers in childbirth because the larger heads did not fit through the birth canal as easily. This tight fit could almost definitely kill the mother and child (Bock, 2009).

If so, there are any number of problems with the quoted material. It is largely composed of creation myth, for example...

The human species was first set apart from its ancestors when the population began to walk upright.

The species Homo in all likelyhood did not even exist at the time of the first hominid uprights. And, as any number of other hominid species walked upright and yet failed to survive into the present, it can be assumed that upright walking might not have really been the final arbiter of any such setting apart which may have happened. It's a nice, simplistic view of the ancestry of man, to suppose that once the species began walking their superiority was in some sense assured or demonstrated, but it doesn't really match the fossil record in any significant way. Rather, the statement reveals a variety of prejudices, and leaps of faith, and storytelling aids which have been used for some time to simply spin the yarn of the apotheosis of human evolution in a convincingly simple fashion.

I realise this is a bit of an aside, but it shows how the facts are already being twisted to fit the needs of the narrative. More...

Some believe this change in gait occurred because it made mobility more efficient in open areas, such as the savanna. The bipedal characteristic could have also occurred due to the emergence of gathering as a food source.

This is just not how evolution works. Mutations occur randomly, and then they are ajudged as successful or not depending upon the survival ability of the mutated example. That is, the emergence of gathering cannot have caused the mutation which lead bipedalism to arise in the animal. Again, simplified storytelling in service of a mythical narrative.

Neoteny in humans is not extremely far removed from other primates. All primates require periods of dependancy upon the mother.

But more to the issue, is birth itself traumatic to the point of creating discord or disfunction in the child? Probably not. Female hominids have been walking upright and birthing this way for nearly five million years now, and the signs of a morbid cultural psycho-sexual deficiency bordering on psychopathy seem to be relatively recent. I'd tend to look elsewhere for the roots of it, myself.

t was after all an aside while waiting for the boys to weigh in with their experiences.

I've forgotten exactly what it was we're supposed to be getting off our chests. Anyone?

[charlie meadows]

Do you have anything to add about the relative bottleneck at the birth canal and the possible ramifications etc? A minor point in the scheme of things (or maybe not?) but only Plutonia has addressed the issue itself. Thanks Plutonia. It seems to have instigated much trolling though.

Well, people can get a bit tetchy when you start talking about their woophanoos.

I was already primed for it though because of reading up on the size and accelerated brain growth of autie babes- and all things autie.

I'm interested in where you are going. Bring it on!

What'd I miss? Did our heads grow or did our woophanoos (of all varieties) shrink?

.

Thank you, Jack. That's an excellent question. The answer it seems is both. Not only that but it seems the trend is continuing.

As Canadian has pointed out, a great deal of scientific findings are suspect and bear further scrutiny. I'm waiting for a report back from her, based on research she did at the uni.

[Plutonia]

Do you have anything to add about the relative bottleneck at the birth canal and the possible ramifications etc? A minor point in the scheme of things (or maybe not?) but only Plutonia has addressed the issue itself. Thanks Plutonia. It seems to have instigated much trolling though.

Well, people can get a bit tetchy when you start talking about their woophanoos.

I was already primed for it though because of reading up on the size and accelerated brain growth of autie babes- and all things autie.

I'm interested in where you are going. Bring it on!

What'd I miss? Did our heads grow or did our woophanoos (of all varieties) shrink?

.

Thank you, Jack. That's an excellent question. The answer it seems is both. Not only that but it seems the trend is continuing.

As Canadian has pointed out, a great deal of scientific findings are suspect and bear further scrutiny. I'm waiting for a report back from her, based on research she did at the uni.

Woophanoo is just my preferred euphemism for birth canal. Sorry. Continue.

[charlie meadows]

If this were my forum, which of course it is not, I would make it a condition that all new members admit (at least privately to the mods) to previous monikers as a condition of their membership.

Rust is the code color you've chosen to denote irony, I believe? I don't really hold with its use in this manner, as it seems to be a crutch which masks an inability or reticence to actually say what you mean, but I'll use it in this instance as a way of bridging the communication gap. You're posting here through a proxy, so your statement is ironic.

I'm posting through a proxy? I don't even know what that means. All my settings are default. If I have a proxy it is the same as it was before. Help me. And no need to be coy about your purpose.

Again, as with c2w? above, you might have spared the majority and addressed me in private or better yet in the magick mirror thread. But whatever...

I have absolutely no reticence to say what I mean, ever. Often I have commented on a similar statement previously and am content not to repeat myself. The more bizarre the statement, the less necessary it is to comment on it. Quoting it is enough. In c2w?s case, quoting her last bizarre offering about Esalen instigated a restatement.

About the birth canal, thank you very much for your contribution.

[barracuda]

you might have spared the majority and addressed me in private or better yet in the magick mirror thread. But whatever...

Honestly, I prefer not to participate in situations in which "magick" is being attempted. Not so much as I fear the consequences of the ersatz spell-caster's success as that I just don't want to encourage that sort of thing here.

Thanks for the invitation, though.