What constitutes Misogyny?

[JackRiddler]

As I tried to make clear on page one, I think only a woman can authoritatively answer that.

I don't believe that. The term itself requires someone to be doing the hating, as well as an object thereof. Also, the hating is widespread and shapes the world, also affecting all those who aren't feeling it or directly targeted by it. In such a discussion good insights will come from both men and women, and even the misogynist will at least provide data for empirical observation.

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[brekin]

I do remember in elementary school and junior high (late 80's) all the jokes about Madonna being promiscuous.
For some reason it was just a given that she had slept with the world. Girls who wore lace, even lace gloves,
were seen as proto-Madonnas and were viewed as all but lost. This was all based on her music videos of course.

[barracuda]

@ Jack - I either concede the definition of the specifics of their oppression to the object of that oppression, or I deny that they are oppressed in the way they view it. I find the latter to be presumptuous in this case, so I listen to the voice of their authority, and acceed my own judgements as necessarily prejudicial. This doesn't render my thoughts on the matter as valueless, but merely admits that it may be impossible for me to adequately model a female worldview of significant empathy to speak for them with equivalent authority.

[compared2what?]

Funny stuff, Beeline! Yeah, growing up with at least one older sister is a highly recommended experience. I can usually tell, among my circle of male friends and acquaintances, which ones grew up with sisters and which one didn't, just based on their feelings and attitudes towards women. Thinking someone had lost fingers, that's just hilarious!

Sisters help demystify the female. Which is a good thing.

C2W, that was an excellent take on Madonna. I never really thought of it that way. I think I probably agree with you there, the Lolita-nymphet Britney Spears probably never would have come on the scene without Madonna paving the way. I think Madonna started it, then Britney finished the job. Of pretty much destroying feminism, that is, for an entire generation of young women/girls. I don't hold it against Britney either, in fact, I hear she's a real sweetheart. And bipolar, which is something I wouldn't wish on anybody.

Madonna is an amazing businesswoman, and I think she shrewdly managed to find her niche within the Zeitgeist of her time, and she was rewarded lavishly for it. I understand she's really tough, but you always know what she wants, and that you always know where you stand with her. FWIW. I don't know if she really gives a damn about how she's perceived, though, and what her role in our culture is, as long as it keeps her in the center of attention and making lots of money. Just my opinion.

I don't really think either Madonna or Britney had any impact on feminism, one way or the other. Madonna was and is an enormously influential figure in the localized arena of female pop-stardom. And probably always will be. She's the Elvis of that particular sub-genre, more or less: No one who came after her can really avoid coming to terms with the paths she forged. Because those paths are a defining feature of a terrain that didn't really exist until she brought it into being by occupying it.

But that doesn't mean that Liz Phair, Britney Spears and PJ Harvey all had to go the exact same route as Madonna (or as one another), obviously. I just picked Britney because she's a very clear example of where the Madonnalogical tangent represented by the lingerie/Boy-Toy stuff ended up going in the culture at large. Which was basically: Nowhere. Britney was a kiddie pop idol like Susan Dey was a kiddie pop idol. But in the post-Madonna era. So she could cavort around in that little plaidskirted schoolgirl ensemble like a stripper while beaming messages of pure virginal asexuality to six-year-old girls who had no trouble whatsoever perceiving that she wasn't any more of a sexual threat (or sexual role model) than My Little Pony.
___________________

Yeah, I "know" both of them (ie, have had dealings with both of them). And Britney is a wreck, poor thing. That was pretty disturbing even before it was evident as such (speaking for self here, not consensus) on the social-interface level, just because she was so, so just not there at all. I mean, presumably she was herself in some way that nobody except the inner, inner circle ever saw. But when she was as much as two steps outside of it she was a perfectly charming, gracious, modern-little-Southern-belle robot, as far as the eye could see or the senses could sense. There was, like, no human energy or dynamic anywhere in, around or near her person at all. Just nothing living there. So I'd say, speaking for self, that she was very sweet and easy and likable in every way you could possibly name or identify or see, but nevertheless, a very distressing (even alarming) presence well before she went off the rails. Because in no way that you could possibly name or identify or see, you felt and knew that had already happened.

Though I don't know what she's been like since that got to be something no one could help seeing, apart from what I read in the news. I did see her crying in a building lobby shortly before her public breakdown once. But I have no idea at all what that was about. We didn't ever have a personal bond or anything. Or anything at all close to one. I was just one of the hundreds of people she had to have some one-on-one contact with for professional purposes on a regular basis for a short period of time, year in, year out.

Anyway. She seemed to be trying to avoid notice (I mean "while weeping in the lobby"), so I just got on the elevator and went where I was going. She was really much, much too young to be working such a high-pressure gig, always, imo. And that would still have been true even if she'd had maximum internal resources and extensive external supports. I wish her joy and hope she gets to experience some at some point in her youth.
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Madonna's a sad story, too, ultimately. But if you've ever seen her speak three words on television, as you know, her personal/public demeanor is about as close to 100 percent free of sympathetic attributes as it's possible to be when not actually doing anything offensive. She's kind of an accidental genius that way. Although needless to say, I wouldn't let a little thing like that get in the way of my feeling sympathy for anyone. I'm nothing if not tenacious in the pursuit of my goals. As you know. So poor Madonna, poor thing. I doubt there's much left in her to save, frankly. I just hope her kids are getting enough non-destructive love from her or anyone else to form some vague ideas about what that's like. But again, I totally wouldn't know that on the basis of any personal observation. I haven't been in a position to make any for years and years and years. And years.

Digression over. Sorry. So. Getting back to the finer points of political trends and their impact on the evolution of legal theory and practice in the 13th century....

[compared2what?]

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It's hard to say what would have happened without Madonna because she was the first of her kind, the first to occupy the market/media/mentality niche of world's top female pop star on the attention-grabbing level of an Elvis, which did not exist before her, but probably would have come into existence at some point in the last 30 years without her. So to what extent did she invent and shape this niche? Who knows? From observation, certain rules seem to apply: There is almost always only one at a time that is the top-most and grabs the media attention accorded to the "Queen of Pop." Currently this is still Stephanie Germanotta. In the past, it has been Beyonce, Shakira, Britney Spears, Janet Jackson, and who am I missing? The occupant is going to be sexy in a conventional way and sex will always be a big part of the sell. Their coverage tends to be wrapped in a mantle of great controversy, even if not much real controversy is there. Most of them have also generated a surprising amount of academic print.

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Great minds.

[compared2what?]

I think Madonna started it, then Britney finished the job. Of pretty much destroying feminism, that is, for an entire generation of young women/girls.

Stephen Morgan does not agree with me on this point, obviously, but I'd say the wave of feminism that started in the '70s pretty well destroyed itself almost immediately (ie -- in the '70s) by marginalizing and/or purging itself of all serious political elements and proponents of (basically) civil liberties for women, including but not limited to sexual and reproductive freedoms.

At which point, it effectively ceased being a movement, unsurprisingly. And started being a nebulous semantic label with virtually limitless commercial and popular applications as a brand attribute for goods, services and....I guess "attitudes" for the female sector of the marketplace. And the term-of-art for the same kind of self-help/self-esteem-manual literature for women that's been around since the year dot in one form or another. Or....Actually, in a number of forms that are generically consistent across time -- eg, books. magazines and newspaper columns that purport to offer prescriptive relationship, personal or practical advice to women.

Which do and always have changed to accommodate changing times, of course. But you know. That's not really the same thing as progress. Times change. And feminism had little-to-no responsibility for any of the major social changes of the last thirty or forty years that might be broadly construed in some general sense as advances for women. A few eensy minor ones maybe. But everything significant was market-driven and market-imposed, no one (including women) really had much say or much choice about them.

But you certainly don't have to be a feminist to have a problem with misogyny. Or a feminist perspective to address that problem. They're not inherently related to one another, really. I'd totally accept (and might even argue myself) that misogyny could (or should) be addressed from a socialist perspective, for example. Not the socialist perspective espoused by Stephen Morgan, to be sure. But a socialist perspective nevertheless.

And that's totally not an assault on Stephen Morgan by any means, btw. I mean, the radical left has always engaged in what you might call vigorous debate about questions of doctrine and praxis. I don't agree with him on the political merits of his argument. But that doesn't mean I think he should be, like, flogged or sent to a re-education camp or anything.

Most places where a serious theoretical discussion of socialism was likely to occur, you wouldn't actually have to go out of your way to make that clear. Incidentally.

Anyway. Bottom line: If feminism is anathema or a distraction to you, dispense with it. It's not an automatic concomitant of the topic. They're just frequently co-occurring subjects that share some basic vocabulary.

[Joe Hillshoist]

THE Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, has advocated the introduction of quotas to ensure more women are appointed as directors on company boards.

In comments that could reignite claims she has crossed the line between her vice-regal role and politics, Ms Bryce said she believed affirmative action might be the only way to break the stranglehold of the ''old boys' network'' on Australian business.

''I believe the old boys' network is a powerful one,'' she said. ''No one gives up power and privilege willingly, do they?''..

Last year women made up just 3 per cent of chief executives of the top 200 companies on the Australian Stock Exchange, and 8.4 per cent of board members. ..

Happy International Womens Day, everybody!

On the box last nite Joe Hockey, Kate Ellis and others were all talking about quotas for females in boardrooms.

I dunno if thats the answer, personally I'd prefer less boardrooms full stop, not more women in them. But it was interesting to see such bipartisan support, especially considering the cultural freak out over a woman as PM.

[Joe Hillshoist]

[Joe Hillshoist]

Liz Phair and PJ harvey make much better music (imo) than madonna or britney spears.

[JackRiddler]

@ Jack - I either concede the definition of the specifics of their oppression to the object of that oppression, or I deny that they are oppressed in the way they view it. I find the latter to be presumptuous in this case, so I listen to the voice of their authority, and acceed my own judgements as necessarily prejudicial. This doesn't render my thoughts on the matter as valueless, but merely admits that it may be impossible for me to adequately model a female worldview of significant empathy to speak for them with equivalent authority.

I don't disagree with this. I'm sure you won't disagree that it's complicated. Misogyny is a driving force within sexism generally. Sexism does not stop with the oppression of women to gain particular advantage or privileges for men (which is so) but is a whole way of life for everyone, a system of defining and conditioning women and men, their roles, what their characteristics are supposed to be, and what constitutes "advantage" that is anti-human. Misogyny cannot help but be misanthropy. Sexism is also what happens to boys to turn a (much larger) portion of them (than girls) into adult monsters incapable of empathy (some varieties of which are admired as the best and brightest!) and most of them into emotional cripples of one kind or another. I think it's more true of misogyny than any other form of hatred based on a general category of person that you cannot as a male hate the female without hating yourself, since you, the male, are not entirely but very much female in the first place. (Yeah, I'm more of a we're all the same mindset, or would be if not for the social conditions, than of the difference school.)

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[JackRiddler]

Liz Phair and PJ harvey make much better music (imo) than madonna or britney spears.

Do you know I barely know Liz Phair? But I worship PJ Harvey. For the music. And of course what you say is so true that it's almost redundant, like telling us the sky is blue, assuming a sunny day.

Your mistake is to think Madonna or Britney Spears are primarily "about" the music. They are celebrity phenomena, and therefore among the many, many sub-categories of hysteria. The music does need to fit a certain zeitgeist.

[charlie meadows]

[quote="JackRiddler]I don't disagree with this. I'm sure you won't disagree that it's complicated. Misogyny is a driving force within sexism generally. Sexism does not stop with the oppression of women to gain particular advantage or privileges for men (which is so) but is a whole way of life for everyone, a system of defining and conditioning women and men, their roles, what their characteristics are supposed to be, and what constitutes "advantage" that is anti-human. Misogyny cannot help but be misanthropy. Sexism is also what happens to boys to turn a (much larger) portion of them (than girls) into adult monsters incapable of empathy (some varieties of which are admired as the best and brightest!) and most of them into emotional cripples of one kind or another. I think it's more true of misogyny than any other form of hatred based on a general category of person that you cannot as a male hate the female without hating yourself, since you, the male, are not entirely but very much female in the first place. (Yeah, I'm more of a we're all the same mindset, or would be if not for the social conditions, than of the difference school.)

.[/quote]


"...you cannot as a male hate the female without hating yourself, since you, the male, are not entirely but very much female in the first place."

Something similar to this. And of course vice versa.

[marycarnival]

Well, as a teen I didn't see Madonna as saying that anyone should be a sex-toy. Instead, I saw her as saying that women shouldn't be ashamed of their sexual energy. She's always given the impression that she's the one who has been in control of her body and her business, which is the important lesson, I think.

I am not a fan of Madonna, but I agree.

[compared2what?]

Liz Phair and PJ harvey make much better music (imo) than madonna or britney spears.

I agree. I was thinking of a Liz Phair interview in which she said something to the effect of "We're all just walking behind Madonna, picking the flowers." Which I can't find on the internets.

But I did find one that I've never seen before, which I actually like much, much better:

"Madonna is the speedboat, and the rest of us are just the Go-Go's on water skis." -- Liz Phair

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I don't know whether Polly J. has ever expressed any opinion of Ms. Ciccone, or what it turned out to be if she has. I mean, I'll betcha anything that she's been asked what she thinks of Madonna by some member of the media at some point. Because that was simply an obligatory subject on which to solicit an opinion from every single person on earth for at least a decade, whether you were a member of the media or not. But I'll also betcha she didn't exactly light up when she heard the question. The answer, if any, would therefore be a lot less likely to have ended up in the published record.

And let that be a lesson to all female artists who feel it would be more fertile for them to plant the seeds of their careers in I'm-an-artist-not-a-female-artist soil than it would were they simply to stroll the lawns and avenues of Madonna's tastefully landscaped gardens.

Though either can be a perfectly legitimate choice, if you ask me.

[compared2what?]

Nope. Turns out to be the other way around. Plus, a wonderful opportunity to illustrate a point made earlier. As in:

"I love PJ Harvey, too, I think her lyrics are brilliant. She’s real tortured and I’m drawn to people who are tortured. I’m a huge fan of hers."

-- Madonna

Because seriously. Is there any conceivable way that Madonna could have said how much she loved PJ Harvey that engendered any less personal sympathy for herself? No. That's just past all imagining. Furthermore, one cringes quite enough already without even having to entertain that thought.

And yet, she didn't really say anything that reflected poorly on her character, taste, discernment or even intelligence. It's a gauche thing to have said, but not really a stupid or "wrong" thing to have said. I mean, it's not like that's no part of what PJ Harvey really does convey. So.

Like I said. She's got a genius for being personally off-putting.