What constitutes Misogyny?

[JackRiddler]

The culture we live in is brutally nihlistic and necrophilial, and evidences a blind, fearful hatred of the planet itself, of the animals upon it, of the plants, the seas, the birds and the air. So yes, in some ways, misogyny is just another subset of our sheer existential disgust with everything there is. At least as far as I can tell, judging from events such as the recent bombing of the moon.

While granting your general point as the Daily Obvious (and just as Daily Taboo, therefore important to Point Out Daily), what's with everyone thinking that was "bombing the moon"? I thought it was an experiment to measure water content. Do you think the moon minded?

.

[barracuda]

If I may turn that one around upon you, as mankind's creations must inevitably turn upon their creators, the evils of modern society exert their most restrictive and damaging efforts against men, and is a feature of the consumer society driven mostly, indeed disproportionately, by female spending, and is the ultimate responsibility of the voters, of whom the majority are female and of whom the female contingent are disproportionately likely to vote.

Get thee behind me, Stephen: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Mind you, if the men of Egypt had acted nice they would still have a blood-thirsty dictator in charge, so not too nice and not too soon.

Begging to differ, but it seems the uprising in Egypt was greatly facilitated by the absence of violence and the presence of goodwill on the part of the protesters.

I thought it was an experiment to measure water content.

That's what they want you to believe. [/moon hoaxy]

[Project Willow]

I'm just occasionally going to throw some research into the conversation...


Gender Differences and Sexism in the Knowledge and Use of Slang
Aryn L. Grossman and Joan S. Tucker

Abstract
Gender differences and sexism in the knowledge and use of slang were investigated. Thirty male and thirty female undergraduates (mostly Caucasian and middle-class) reported all the slang terms they knew to describe either a woman or man, how many terms they used, and how frequently they used them. The terms were categorized as sexual or non-sexual Males listed more terms than females, but no gender differences were found in the listing of sexual slang or the use of slang. More sexual slang was listed to describe women than men, and participants reported using fewer of the terms describing women. Results suggest that although gender differences in the knowledge and use of slang may be narrowing, it remains the case that more sexual and derogatory slang exists to describe women.

Or perhaps a bit of pop writing on the subject...

The New Language of Feminism
"Women's liberation" just doesn't cut it anymore.

In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan argued that American women suffered from a malaise she called "the problem that had no name." Her critique of domestic ennui helped launch the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s, leading to many of the advances women now take for granted. But not everything has changed. So we asked women to answer this question: If you had to pinpoint today's problem that had no name, what would it be? Read the other responses here.
http://www.doublex.com/section/news-pol ... e-feminism

[Joe Hillshoist]

The babysitter's wage and status versus the plumber's wage and status.

A babysitter, when not just a member of the family, is most often a teenaged girl sometimes still in school. A plumber, on the other hand, is a skilled craftsman with a professional qualification and registration who may well be supporting a family. An equal wage would be fundamentally unjust.

This is precisely what I was getting at.. this is sexism, right here. It's so obviously what I was getting at, in fact, that I'd like to believe you are just trying to provoke me. In case you really do believe this, let me correct you (And Nordic, too, who seems to think babysitters can afford BMWs or whatever luxury model car he mentioned in his post.)





Educational requirements for Early Childhood eduction, which a person will need if s/he wanted to be employed in a day care center where s/he might have some job security & benefits is 2 full years of school, sometimes requiring an undergraduate degree first. This will cost (In Ontario) roughly $6,000 tuition. Plumbers need anywhere from 12 weeks to 24 weeks of education and follow on apprenticeship years which vary by region. Apprenticeships are paid. Right now in Alberta, Canada, they can achieve this for $1200 tuition.

At the end of the day who fares better in this situation? Why?

In Australia the first few years of any apprenticeship always involve wages so low they are basically unlivable. But the demand for trade qualified people, especially Plumbers, is so high that they can charge what they like, turn up whenever they feel like it and probably do a shithouse job. Usually they are contracters too, they own their businesses and charge what they like. Childcare is different, and the pay is about half that. But a qualification in Childcare takes 6 months of one day a week study, and you can work in childcare at a full wage during the same period.

Wages are the same for men and women who work in childcare, and although its predominantly women who work in the field men do as well.

Its a fundamental flaw with our society that child care workers are payed so little when they do such an important job, and no doubt sexism has a lot to do with it. However my wife works in childcare, and she is probably one of the best in the entire area (according to the paremnts, many of whom I know anyway). Her wage (20 bucks an hour) and mine (18) while we were working different jobs both minimum wage, was obviously better than mine, and woirth an extra 70 bucks a week. I was working on a farm, using chemicals and equipment - chainsaws, tractors spraying equipment etc etc, and managing irrigation across several hundred acres.

Neither job required a four year apprenticeship, but both required the same amount of training approximately (tickets for tractors, chainsaw use, chemical use etc etc.)

Still she should have got an extra 10 bucks an hour at least imo. That doesn't happen cos Child Care is predominantly done by women.

[Canadian_watcher]

In Australia the first few years of any apprenticeship always involve wages so low they are basically unlivable. But the demand for trade qualified people, especially Plumbers, is so high that they can charge what they like, turn up whenever they feel like it and probably do a shithouse job. Usually they are contracters too, they own their businesses and charge what they like. Childcare is different, and the pay is about half that. But a qualification in Childcare takes 6 months of one day a week study, and you can work in childcare at a full wage during the same period.

Wages are the same for men and women who work in childcare, and although its predominantly women who work in the field men do as well.

Its a fundamental flaw with our society that child care workers are payed so little when they do such an important job, and no doubt sexism has a lot to do with it. However my wife works in childcare, and she is probably one of the best in the entire area (according to the paremnts, many of whom I know anyway). Her wage (20 bucks an hour) and mine (18) while we were working different jobs both minimum wage, was obviously better than mine, and woirth an extra 70 bucks a week. I was working on a farm, using chemicals and equipment - chainsaws, tractors spraying equipment etc etc, and managing irrigation across several hundred acres.

Neither job required a four year apprenticeship, but both required the same amount of training approximately (tickets for tractors, chainsaw use, chemical use etc etc.)

Still she should have got an extra 10 bucks an hour at least imo. That doesn't happen cos Child Care is predominantly done by women.

Thanks for commenting on this. (I just noticed that I didn't code the quotations right in the response, above, so it looks like I wrote some of what Stephen actually wrote. yikes. anyway, hope you can tell which is which)

'ghettoization of labour' is a BIG issue imo.. obviously not just for women.

I appreciate the points you make regarding the equal pay for jobs that require equal training and about how work predominantly done by women is routinely more poorly rewarded than that of men. Its interesting to read how this sort of thing plays out in different countries or regions. the plumber situation wrt to the amounts they can charge is the same in Canada. It's so highly in demand that they write their own tickets, really. But the funny thing is that childcare is also highly in demand in Ontario, at least, and yet the incentives to become a child care provider (yes, wages mainly but also grants for education) are non-existent.

as an aside I think it's kind of strange that it's one a day week for 6 months to train to be a childcare provider in Australia .. why stretch it out like that? And if the training is important in the first place, why let them work before hand?

[Joe Hillshoist]

I hardly think that needs stating, and the fact that the first thing that occurs to you when you think "legal rights for fathers" is "abusers" is telling.

and the same point again. no debating you. that is ridiculous.

The fact remains your only demonstration of sympathy for a position which you acknowledge to be in the right, that a relationship should be allowed and encouraged between fathers and their children, is tainted by the implicit assumption that any moves to allow this are playing into the hands of child abusers.

Bullshit, thats not what she said at all. She said the only cases that shouldn't be allowed is where there is a reasonable chance of abuse. I agree, and have in fact spent the last 2 months (among other things) helping out men who have been wrongly accused of abuse of their spouses and children. And one who ... probably crossed the line a bit - certainly didn't indulge in physical abuse but still needs to wake the fuck up and take a good look at himself.

Still he had access to his kids the other day, (I hope he didn't fuck it up) one of the two "innocent' parties has sorted out his issues with his partner, the other - thats a tragic situation and nothing much seems to help at the moment.

In both those cases where the guy was unfairly messed around the women had issues of their own, and in the case that sorted itself out both parties had issues and the good will to sort things out, and a desire to the best by their kids regardless of how they felt about it personally.

To assume men are always the victims is the same as assuming women are, and in many ways Stevo you're only doing exactly what you perceive the worst of the "FemiNazis" to be doing.

[charlie meadows]

The thread title is "What Constitutes Misogyny." I don't know if you thought I meant something other than that, but I didn't, so you can unfreeze yourself now.

You asked "What constitutes misogyny"? My response is that what constitutes misogyny is a confusion of some and all. Without putting words in his mouth?, Wombat IMO intimated as much in the second? post of the thread. Maybe he'll return to flesh out his position.

In grammar it is taught that the omitted modifier is "some". Some of the times, some of the places, some of the people. In informal rhetoric (often used as propaganda) it is implied that the omitted modifier is "all". Or it is implied that the exceptions are not worth considering, or perhaps that they may be acceptable collateral damage.

Earlier I commented on Nordic's repeated use of absolutes in his repartee--which invited like, and in fact got it. Such repeated use of absolutes is indicative of a mindset, which might, though not necessarily in Nordic's case, 'constitute' misogyny.

In any case, I've said my peace and I'll move forward. You are welcome of course to return to anecdotes poignant which prove universals.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Men are so heartbreakingly, hopelessly and excessively sensitive to just about all perceived and real criticism, rejection and/or abandonment by women and have so much unaddressed guilt and fear and anger and performance anxiety about sex and have so few resources and coping mechanisms for dealing with those feelings that (loosely speaking) it's generally either pointlessly cruel or pointlessly dangerous to raise those issues and/or a host of associated issues with them at all directly. In those terms or, for that matter, even closely related terms.

Because no matter how carefully, lovingly, impartially, or non-critically you do it, they just go into a complete state of defensive meltdown immediately. They are, in fact, that thin-skinned. So the conversations all end up like this thread. Women try to say something about themselves, then spend the next eternity soothing, handling, wrangling with, or expiating themselves for whatever brutal thing about men the men who heard them thought they said.

Thats true, and as a man the only real response I have to that is that men should harden the fuck up. (And yes that applies to me when I do it, as I did the other day.)

[Project Willow]

Please pay attention. I implore you. The issue is not male hatred of women. It is not fundamentally about sex, relationships, dating or push-up bras. It is not a boy-versus-girl problem. No one is accusing, indicting or yelling at men generally, or a man in particular.

Please exclude me. I have and I will accuse, or yell at, without shame, because at some point the high road fails and one must also draw a line, make a boundary, beyond which certain behaviors are not allowed. Otherwise, one's high road becomes a system of enabling that serves no one, most especially a transgressor. While I believe we should work to understand what processes generate systems of oppression as well as bullies, such systems and individuals must also be combated or penned, else we betray ourselves. There is another approach that is effective in certain cases where the soft approach runs short.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Friendship! That's key. You wouldn't believe the funny shit me and my lady have done.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Mind you, if the men of Egypt had acted nice they would still have a blood-thirsty dictator in charge, so not too nice and not too soon.

the people of Egypt.

Yeah, and they didn't just act nice, the engaged in some violence and moderated it so the violence wasn't excessive, but was self defense, ie they rarely counterattacked and when they did it was limited to holding territory that was vital to their safety, ie that bridge when people were bombing them with molotovs.

Sure the men were mostly involved cos most of the time adult males are better at violence. Thats a cultural thing that seems to cover most post agricultural societies.

[Joe Hillshoist]

The culture we live in is brutally nihlistic and necrophilial, and evidences a blind, fearful hatred of the planet itself, of the animals upon it, of the plants, the seas, the birds and the air. So yes, in some ways, misogyny is just another subset of our sheer existential disgust with everything there is. At least as far as I can tell, judging from events such as the recent bombing of the moon.

While granting your general point as the Daily Obvious (and just as Daily Taboo, therefore important to Point Out Daily), what's with everyone thinking that was "bombing the moon"? I thought it was an experiment to measure water content. Do you think the moon minded?

.

Yes its quite annoyed, watch the tidal surges next week/month.

[compared2what?]

Interesting take. Having never been in a romantic relationship with a man, at least not a two-sided one (that was a joke), I'll have to take your word on that, to a point.

I would just like to add that men and women are sensitive about different things.

I had to tell my stepdaughter some time ago that the worst thing she could ever call a man was a "loser". For women, it seems the worst thing you can do is criticize her weight or her appearance.

So criticizing a man for his level of income is the same as criticizing a woman for being overweight.

I live in close quarters, and interact directly, in both my professional and my personal life, with a lot of rich people. I mean, super rich, entire neighborhoods of them. Whenever I have to dive into that world, I feel like the fat chick at a Victoria's Secret modelling fitting or something. It's really tough on a guy's self esteem to be surrounded by nothing but wealthy men.

My point of this is to say, as a response to your missive, that women perhaps don't understand what it is that makes a man emotionally hurt.

The biggest one is to criticize him for his economic situation, his job, his income. This is like us saying you "look fat" or "you know you'd look so much better if you lost a few pounds".

The other is the loyalty thing. Guys are like dogs, they travel in packs with each other, there's usually an alpha involved, and they're expected to be loyal as dogs in these situations. When we take a vow to be loyal to a woman, we expect the same in return. So when a woman suggests "maybe we should just split up" or hits you with that "I'm not sure this thing is working with us" or whatever, we are devastated. I've been with women who have later admitted they did this just for attention. But to us, that's the worst punch in the gut you can imagine.

Dogs and cats.

This thread is turning into a 24/7 dinner party. First thing I did when I got up this morning was check into this thread. WTF?

I'm sympathetic to those concerns. And familiar with them. And also with that thing about never admitting the need to ask for, get or take directions on the highway. Despite which, (may the lord have mercy on me):

Turn right! Up there! No, right! QUICK! At that sign that says "THR'WAY TO TOPIC"!!!!

Okay. I'm sorry I raised my voice. May I totally refrain from buying you a drink as a gesture of appreciation the next time we're in a bar in order to avoid any hint or suggestion of all words and deeds that might be construed as reflecting doubt about the adequacy or sufficiency of your income to meet every single want or need that arose or might ever in the future arise? No matter how remote or far-fetched it might appear to be to me?

Oh, look. We're back at the topic already. Because the thing is: The reason that virtually all women in the United States from every walk of life are stone-guaranteed to be familiar with those concerns and very likely to be sympathetic to them is that girls and women are explicitly taught -- including as a part of their formal education -- to regard ever-mindful awareness of the major ego needs of men as inseparable from the female condition. And also as a key requirement for achieving the minimum level of functioning in adulthood necessary for bare survival. And the same goes double, triple, quadruple, or quintuple for success.

WRT the male sensitivity on points of income, that was definitely a part of the public-school-issue sex ed curriculum in my generation and yours, though it might not be any more. I mean, you get hand-outs in class about how to graciously and covertly choose an affordable program of dating events when you're going out with a boy whose income limits you know. And you also get specific and general guidance 'n' tips on (a) how to covertly assess what kind of dinner expenditures a boy might have had in mind before ordering meals in restaurants; and (b) what to do if you can't. (Let him order for you.)

And those are but two of the many, many sample lessons from which any girl who isn't either comatose or a sociopath can't really help but inferring, by analogy, that a very minutely attuned female sensitivity to male sensitivity regarding (but not limited to) issues such as income is a non-negotiable, vital and fundamental part of her natural brief as a living being. Without which, the world might stop turning. And (not figurative) social chaos would definitely ensue, since it's also perfectly clear that there is no other backstop or support of any kind built into the system that handles this stuff. Which is obviously very volatile. So you're pretty much it.

Seriously. I could go on listing specific examples of both the many forms of catechism that preach the abstract principles underlying the ne-plus-ultra responsibility of ceaseless and hypervigilant sensitivity to the needs of men to girls and women and specific examples of the numerous, highly detailed and itemized practice drills for meeting that responsibility in a wide range of circumstances commonly encountered by girls and women dealing with men in their native habitat in the wild pretty much indefinitely.

It's not hyperbole, but rather a plain, blunt fact that at every turn -- in school, at home, or in movies, books, aphoristic generational wisdom, on billboards, and, basically, via every source, route and medium imaginable to which girls are exposed from infancy onward -- they are systematically indoctrinated to regard the accommodation of male needs as the price of admission to life. Where they can think about addressing their own needs after they've arrived.

Obviously, adult unsupervised women are free to make infinite customized alterations to those rules to the upmost range of capabilities to do so. And somewhat less frequently free to refuse to play by them without serious penalty, I suppose.

And I also suppose that a woman who had very valuable assets as an object of sexual desire and some sociopathic anger at the world could go out of her way to inflict grave emotional injuries on as many men as she could seduce into standing still for it. But since I don't suppose such women could exist in large enough numbers to be socially oppressive to men as a class, that's kind of beside the point, isn't it?

Likewise, unless you can make a case that men are systematically socially deprived of every realistically available option, skill, tool and opportunity to seek and assemble a life that includes the basic equipment (complete with affordable monthly maintenance fees) to satisfy their basic needs and wants because (among other things) life's just not set up to service those demands or that sector of the marketplace:

You have my sympathy and understanding. But it's nice when that's a two-way street. Also, you're off-topic. Way off. I know beyond all reasonable doubt that you can do much, much better on that score if you want to, though.

So I leave the choice to you.

[82_28]

Friendship! That's key. You wouldn't believe the funny shit me and my lady have done.

LOL. hahaha. I just remembered, last year we went up to some friend's wedding in the mountains and took turns "marking territory" with little tinkles. Not full on pissing, but just a little squirt of pee here and there in really unacceptable places. She'd pull her pants down and squat and then I'd cover it over. It was hilarious. Guess you had to be there.

I just texted her that I wanna go out for a nice dinner and get in a fake fight when she gets off work tonight.

[compared2what?]

Please pay attention. I implore you. The issue is not male hatred of women. It is not fundamentally about sex, relationships, dating or push-up bras. It is not a boy-versus-girl problem. No one is accusing, indicting or yelling at men generally, or a man in particular.

Please exclude me. I have and I will accuse, or yell at, without shame, because at some point the high road fails and one must also draw a line, make a boundary, beyond which certain behaviors are not allowed. Otherwise, one's high road becomes a system of enabling that serves no one, most especially a transgressor. While I believe we should work to understand what processes generate systems of oppression as well as bullies, such systems and individuals must also be combated or penned, else we betray ourselves. There is another approach that is effective in certain cases where the soft approach runs short.

I meant "without reason, just cause yer there and we like fucking with ya."