What constitutes Misogyny?

[norton ash]

GTFO. I mean really. Rubbish whitey article.

[Twyla LaSarc]

I read this recently and wanted to post it somewhere, if it has been posted before, or belongs elsewhere, please make of it what you will...

http://www.meforum.org/794/how-afghan-c ... y-feminism

She describes something that (IMO) is not exclusively eastern-I've worked around enough asian guys to know that they aren't all assholes, some are here to get away from that shit too- or western either, it's something I sense from many men in general in our own hell-bound permissive culture, especially older ones.

I am not really human to them, just a vehicle for service of one kind or another. Otherwise, they'd prefer not to deal with me.

[Iamwhomiam]

Thanks for posting her article, Twyla. Had his father known of her Jewish heritage, I would imagine he would have had them both killed, her and his son, so I don't think he had known. Her experience took place 54 years ago. All cultures seem to have considered women as tools for their use, property to do with or dispose with as desired. Let's not forget that less than 100 years ago in this country women were also considered similarly. The most rational of people could not expect such drastic change to occur so much more quickly in such a primitive culture with embedded religious beliefs. Change will come in time, perhaps, if there's enough time left. If climate change chaos continues, it will become every man and woman fighting for their own existence.

[seemslikeadream]

......

[seemslikeadream]

women are not responsible for their husbands deeds ...period...end of story ...no excuses

but of course men will continue to believe the woman made them do it

stop hitting me...you made me do it bitch


I will have sex with other women and it will be your fault so shut the fuck up

[Searcher08]

women are not responsible for their husbands deeds ...period...end of story ...no excuses

but of course men will continue to believe the woman made them do it

stop hitting me...you made me do it bitch


I will have sex with other women and it will be your fault so shut the fuck up

What has domestic violence language (for which there is plenty of female on male violence) got to do with a politician threatening possible rape victims?

AFAIK Hilary is / was not in fear of Bill beating her, unlike some of the people who say he assaulted them.

[seemslikeadream]

ever been married?

ever been cheated on?

men blaming a woman for a man's deeds is misogymy

[JackRiddler]

But noting that Clinton embraces her husband as her closest political ally and surrogate is not.

[OP ED]

ever been married?

ever been cheated on?

men blaming a woman for a man's deeds is misogymy

Just the once, currently. Although I did try the once before.

More times than I can remember. Probably about two dozen women have cheated on OP ED.

It also (probably)usually wasn't OP ED's fault that this occurred. (I'm somewhat distant and unreliable as an emotional support, which they should well have known, but this is often offered as the reason) That doesn't make it inherently hateful to apportion blame in the "wrong" direction. Stupid, perhaps.

Of course we outsiders don't actually know anything about their (the Clintons) bedroom rules. WJC's sexual behavior seemed very unsurprising to his wife, perhaps it doesn't concern her as much as it concerns people whose business it isn't.

[Karmamatterz]

As I've come and gone over the years here I missed a lot. Somehow really missed this, or perhaps it was that before my divorce I really didn't think much about this topic. Battle of the sexes was just never as interesting as woo threads on UFOs and 911....etc...etc...

Ive never been called a misogynists, but have frequently been called an asshole by women. I usually take that as a compliment knowing I'm doing something right for myself. A few coworkers now and then half heartedly call me sexist, but they know I'm just messing with them and we're all bantering about being facetious. It wasn't until I started getting more engaged on RI did I even really get a sense that men were so beastly and women so hated. I guess I lead a sheltered life. I know very few men that hate women, in fact only one, and this person has plenty of other issues that are worse than that. Most folks I know treat each other well and aren't fixated on gender battles and blame game.

Perhaps it's not rational to even dig into this War and Peace length thread. I believe it was Heaven Swan who mentioned it in the latest version of flame wars and other methods to ignore and be impolite online. Errrr...abolish the ignore feature. Now I'm intrigued because apparently in my solipsistic world, I never realized RI was a place with a heavy femisnist foundation.

So by the time I'mt done reading this I may find myself banned from RI, or perhaps my mind twisted into knots after delving into this particular rabbit hole. The first two pages were interesting, but I see already rational thought being discarded. This could be the thread to finally make me so disgusted I never return to RI. Or maybe I'll become educated and have thrown off the shackles of being a misogynist pig riddled with toxic testosterone. I don't feel shame for what I am, but I have an inkling that once I'm don't even reading this thread I should feel guilty and shameful.

Yes, I could be considered a sarcastic prick. But at least I'm a curious one who is willing to crawl out of my cave, put my club down long enough stop scratching my balls and ordering about my concubines to read this.

Into the fray!

[Sounder]

Thanks for that Twyla. Is is good to remember that western culture, despite it's faults, has done much to broaden roles for women. Helen Keller and Harriet Tubman are icons for their achievements, and many others also.

As a young bride in Afghanistan, I was an eyewitness to just how badly women are treated in the Muslim world. I was mistreated, too, but I survived. My "Western" feminism was forged in that most beautiful and treacherous of countries.

In 1962, when I returned to Bard College, I tried to tell my classmates how important it was that America had so many free libraries, so many movie theatres, bookstores, universities, unveiled women, freedom of movement on the streets, freedom to leave our families of origin if we so chose, freedom from arranged marriages—and from polygamy, too. This meant that as imperfect as America may be, it was still the land of opportunity and of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

My friends, future journalists, artists, physicians, lawyers, and intellectuals, wanted only to hear fancy Hollywood fairy tales, not reality. They wanted to know how many servants I had and whether I ever met the king. I had no way of communicating the horror, and the truth. My American friends could not or did not want to understand. As with my young college friends so long ago, today's leftists and progressives want to remain ignorant.

Ouch. Remain ignorant of what?

[dada]

As long as comparison to a culture stuck in the middle ages doesn't slow us down. I get the feeling that the bold quote in the post above means something more like "don't take it for granted. Fight harder." Fight to keep what you've gained, fight to push further. Are we fighting against Afghani culture, or the regressive tendencies in our own, in all cultures?

Why even compare? We still have pretty far to go. Let's try not to remain ignorant of that. Sure, celebrate the victories, but at the same time check ourselves, make sure we're not 'hiding behind the flag' and sliding into complacency. Using progressive victories as a weapon in the "Clash of Civilizations" (or ammunition in the "internet culture-wars") that doesn't help anyone.

It's like enlightenment. If I compared myself to everyone else, I'd say "look at all these muddle-headed sea-monkeys. I'm already enlightened by comparison," and stop growing. ha

[Sounder]

dada wrote...

As long as comparison to a culture stuck in the middle ages doesn't slow us down. I get the feeling that the bold quote in the post above means something more like "don't take it for granted. Fight harder." Fight to keep what you've gained, fight to push further. Are we fighting against Afghani culture, or the regressive tendencies in our own, in all cultures?

That is all well and good dada and of course it is best to tend to ones own garden. Still, the bolded part was preceded by; ' I had no way of communicating the horror, and the truth', referring it seems to the introduction where Phyllis Chesler writes; 'As a young bride in Afghanistan, I was an eyewitness to just how badly women are treated in the Muslim world. I was mistreated, too, but I survived. My "Western" feminism was forged in that most beautiful and treacherous of countries'.

Yes we have a long way to go, but just as Phyllis Chesler's feminism benefited from the experience of the contrary, we progressives might also learn that being allies to the most regressive forces in the world is no way to advance the progressive cause.

[Heaven Swan]

Yes, this is the thread I mentioned.
Thanks for resurrecting it Karmamatterz.

[JackRiddler]

It's like enlightenment. If I compared myself to everyone else, I'd say "look at all these muddle-headed sea-monkeys. I'm already enlightened by comparison," and stop growing. ha

Pretty much, for 80-90% of "everyone else," anyway. Not only would you stop growing, but you'd soon altogether stop seeing when you yourself are wrong. One may stop growing, but one never stops developing. Such a stance inevitably leads to regression, to hollowing out any prior "enlightenment" until it is just a slogan to cover for arrogance, repetitiveness, withdrawal, lack of empathy, hard-heartedness.

You (here of course always meaning "one") would start having the tendency both to dehumanize the "everyone else" in your own cultural or physical space who was not your twin, and also to react poorly to any criticism of your own rigidly defined "culture" that is not preceded and followed by a vigorous and arbitrary bombing of the inferior cultures of others (in a philosophical sense, best case, but inevitably also an approval or apathy about physical bombs). Because that would be relativism!

Is there any doubt here that viewing the last 50 or even 200 years, "the West" could have helped the oppressed women of Afghanistan much more by sticking rigorously to not intervening on their behalf (except through statements and openness to their migration), as opposed to what "the West" has actually done in their country? Latest example among the most hair-raising and horrific, of course.


The Civilizing Process, or: "we progressives might also learn that being allies to the most regressive forces in the world is no way to advance the progressive cause."

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