What constitutes Misogyny?

[82_28]

hold on a sec! Nordic, it's never nice to be the one whose argument gets picked to pieces especially when the post was something that I'm sure you felt was gentle and unimpeachable. BUT... she has some points that bear consideration.

Mostly I agree with her that you were pretty glib making one of your points. Here I go putting words in other people's mouths again, but correct me if I got this wrong. You seemed to say "Hey! I like black people! In fact I like black people more than black people like each other!"

Did I type 'black people?' I meant women. (aside: I am not comparing the struggles of race to those of gender, I am replacing the word to show how awful it sounds when applied to another group) Not to mention that I think your premise is wrong in the first place. I know lots of women that like women. This whole 'women naturally hate each other due to biological competitiveness' thing is almost entirely mythological.

And I can see how your response of "No." to her insightful post would be taken as dismissive and kind of, in a way, illustrative of her points in the first place.

EDIT: barracuda and I agree.

Edit 2: this is not coming from a place of hostility.. not from me. Try not to get your back up.

Funny that. I just logged in to make that exact point. And there you made it for me. (the racism aspect that is)

The thing I think with racism and I have long made this point in life, when dealing with racists/ism: is that many white people believe they're not racist because they feel connections with Oprah Winfrey, Montel, Obama and here in Seattle, Steve Pool etc. They may have no real-world contact with black people, but they firmly believe that because these figures are acceptable to see, watch and like on the toob, that means every time they see a black person at the store, they notice that they are black first and then one more step after that: well, would you look at that, I ain't no racist after all. Problem is, is it's so cerebral. For instance, when it comes to referring to a person who may be black, I never say "oh, it's that black guy over there". I try for other characteristics: "The tall guy in the red shirt." Even though his most noticeable characteristic is his skin color.

However, when it comes to a group consisting of men and women in my line of work, for instance, it's "that goes to the lady and the man gets the X".

More later, I gotta go walk a dog that I forgot I was watching and just remembered!

Ooops!

[Nordic]

hold on a sec! Nordic, it's never nice to be the one whose argument gets picked to pieces especially when the post was something that I'm sure you felt was gentle and unimpeachable. BUT... she has some points that bear consideration.

Mostly I agree with her that you were pretty glib making one of your points. Here I go putting words in other people's mouths again, but correct me if I got this wrong. You seemed to say "Hey! I like black people! In fact I like black people more than black people like each other!"

Did I type 'black people?' I meant women. (aside: I am not comparing the struggles of race to those of gender, I am replacing the word to show how awful it sounds when applied to another group) Not to mention that I think your premise is wrong in the first place. I know lots of women that like women. This whole 'women naturally hate each other due to biological competitiveness' thing is almost entirely mythological.

And I can see how your response of "No." to her insightful post would be taken as dismissive and kind of, in a way, illustrative of her points in the first place.

EDIT: barracuda and I agree.

Edit 2: this is not coming from a place of hostility.. not from me. Try not to get your back up.

I know, Canadian Watcher, I think I understand you, and why you started this tread. I'm happy to discuss these things, and in fact I enjoy it.

But C2W called me sexist, suggested that I was an idiot and deeply flawed for not even "realizing" what I wrote was sexist, and then threw the strawman at me that I was saying women were "bitches" and other things.

I really resent that. And she annoys the shit out of me anyway. I know she's very popular here, and I don't get it, honestly, maybe there's something I'm missing, but if she wants to attack me personally then I'm happy to do the same back at her.

You seemed to say "Hey! I like black people! In fact I like black people more than black people like each other!"

Not at all. Race and gender are two different things. Men and women are two different creatures. We have different DNA. Literally. We have different organs, hormones, brain structures, all kinds of things. That's simply a fact.

Yes, I'm saying I love women. Growing up I liked women and girls more than boys and men. I explained why.

As an adult I've grown to appreciate men more and more. Part of this is that men get a lot nicer once they grow up. A lot nicer. Especially once they have families.

If I didn't explain myself well enough, here's another try at it:

I don't understand why so many women don't like each other. Bottom line is they don't trust other women.

I don't know why this is.

Watching shows like "The Bachelor" become extremely popular with women might be a clue. I worked on the very first "Bachelor" and I thought it was going to be a disaster. I thought women are gonna come screaming angrily out of the woodwork on this, that they would protest the show, boycott the show, because it portrayed women in such a terrible light. But that's not what happened. Instead it became incredibly popular with women! Why? You tell me. Women watching other women compete with each other for an alpha male? Isn't that horribly sexist? It is to me, but apparently it's just a-OK with women.

My wife tells me she doesn't trust women because she thinks they're always plotting behind your back and you can't trust them to not try to steal your guy away from you.

My stepdaughter tells me that you can't trust most girls because if you confide in them they'll tell all their other friends what you said. Like most of the other women I know, she has one best friend that she can actually confide in, the rest are "friends" of a completely different caliber. Friends that they know they can't trust completely.

I don't know why this is, and I don't even get it, I'm just telling it like I see it in life, and then I get attacked for making a fucking observation.

[barracuda]

I don't know why this is, and I don't even get it, I'm just telling it like I see it in life, and then I get attacked for making a fucking observation.

Perhaps think for a moment about the reasons men don't trust men. Ever. Because you have to wonder about just why there might be a special subset of that characteristic that isolates it as something specific to women.

[Nordic]

I don't know why this is, and I don't even get it, I'm just telling it like I see it in life, and then I get attacked for making a fucking observation.

Perhaps think for a moment about the reasons men don't trust men. Ever. Because you have to wonder about just why there might be a special subset of that characteristic that isolates it as something specific to women.

There are men in my life I trust 100%.

And some women. About an equal number, actually.

I'm sorry if you've experienced otherwise.

[barracuda]

There are men in my life I trust 100%.

Of course there are. But generally speaking, do you trust men?

[Searcher08]

For me, I think misogyny (or misandry) isnt necessarily about belief. Or even behaviour.

I was reminded about a story about racism in the UK from years ago, an Indian Briton experienced a belittling racism from a car park operator. Or so she thought. Several years later this woman suffered from very bad vitiligo and effectively looked like a white person. She had occasion to interact with the carpark woman, but this time also saw how the woman in the car park was simply an asshole. He treated everyone she interacted with in the same demeaning way. The Asian women said the racism was present only in her own mind.

Similarly, I have seen managers treat women in a way I thought appalling.
Sometimes though, this is conflating misogyny with assholiness.

On the other hand, there is a type of much more subtle and manipulative effect which lies in the domain of inclusion / exclusion, in the area of boundaries, and who is 'inside the circle and who is not'.
It's about access to information or a refusal to accept information unless it comes from certain sources.

The case of the Sky Sports reporters who were fired in the UK, who were a pair of deeply repulsive frikken tools
reveals a lot about this. The side of it I most detest is around information, and how they ignored anything from a particular female colleague, even if it was to their advantage, it had to come from their boss. Fuckers.

I also passionately disagree that woman cannot be misogynists (to me that is coming from the same bollocks that says black people cannot be racist).

[Canadian_watcher]

I'm happy to discuss these things, and in fact I enjoy it.

okay then. I don't feel bad anymore, so thanks for that.

I don't understand why so many women don't like each other. Bottom line is they don't trust other women.

I'm not part of that 'they' you speak of. And honestly, I worked in a place a couple of years ago where the majority of the people were female. I would have thought this would have been cat-fight central. There were a few personality conflicts, sure, but to be honest with you it is the one workplace from which I still have friends that I talk to almost every day. Women of all ages. It was great.

and yeah the Bachelor? WTF? why?!? I am friends with people who are addicted to that show. They're young. Maybe that is the key there.

I don't know why this is, and I don't even get it, I'm just telling it like I see it in life, and then I get attacked for making a fucking observation.

like you said, that's been your experience and I have no reason to doubt that from where you sit, that's the truth. I'm glad that I don't have that crap around me though.

[23]

Tangentially speaking.

When my daughter was 11, she asked me the following question (paraphrased 'cause I can't recall her exact wording)

"Dad, why do we give so much power to someone's opinion of us to drive how we respond?"

The answers are myriad, of course.

But just recognizing that we do, may be sufficient enough.

[Nordic]

There are men in my life I trust 100%.

Of course there are. But generally speaking, do you trust men?

Well I'm trying here, Barracuda, but I don't quite get your question.

I don't trust anyone until I get to know them. I moved around a lot growing up, so I learned quickly that you just can't trust anyone right away. Often the boys who were the most friendly at first were just setting you up for some pretty sadistic social abuse.

So " in general"? No, I guess not.

[barracuda]

Well I'm trying here, Barracuda, but I don't quite get your question.

It's an odd question, isn't it? I'd say it's a question that is distinctly unfamiliar to most people, partly because the answer is obvious. In general, men are not to be trusted. They will use you and kill you, for starters, as we all know. Why even bother to ask?

But the formulation that "women generally don't trust other women" seems perfectly natural. This is one signpost of the misogynist culture we swim in.

So " in general"? No, I guess not.

And rightly so.

[82_28]

Watching shows like "The Bachelor" become extremely popular with women might be a clue. I worked on the very first "Bachelor" and I thought it was going to be a disaster. I thought women are gonna come screaming angrily out of the woodwork on this, that they would protest the show, boycott the show, because it portrayed women in such a terrible light. But that's not what happened. Instead it became incredibly popular with women! Why? You tell me. Women watching other women compete with each other for an alpha male? Isn't that horribly sexist? It is to me, but apparently it's just a-OK with women.

Yep. I thought it wouldn't last either. But now I get in trouble when I say I don't want to watch it, as among my many problems I have with the show, my main one is the objectification of women. It is perhaps the most absurd two hours of TV ever conceived as far a "free" and "educated" audience would ever stoop as low as to watch. The more things change, the more they stay the same as far as these fake ass gender roles.

My GF, as I have brought up before, works in the "beauty" industry. All of it is a scam. The shit they sell like candy easily must be marked up thousands of percent, but women lap it up. She's constantly giving freebies to friends and stuff. You wouldn't believe how just about every woman that gets a goodie bag from her has her eyes dilate, face brightens and then they all start shrieking about all the things in it. It's all just a bunch of shit women put on their face to me. I accept this is the way it is, but won't pretend to get it, because I don't. Why can men put nothing on their face and still be cute, but women must, I also do not get.

[Project Willow]

A misogynist culture is one in which it's so normal to look down on women that no man need feel shame for complacently answering a question about misogyny with a post that represented women exclusively in terms of hackneyed stereotypes (ie -- nurturing and pleasant companions, objects of male sexual desire, emotionally needy and/or bitchy).

Well, if you were a guy, I might call you an asshole for that.

There it is again, and completely without shame. I agree with C2W and I've said it to you before Nordic. This is not about like or dislike, this is truly my view of your behavior in regards to this issue. What I don't understand is how a middle class writer, presumably with the requisite education, manages a career, not to mention a baseline performance within his immediate social circle without possessing the slightest awareness of feminist thought. How can you call yourself a writer, if you've never considered the most basic ideas of one of the most important social movements of the twentieth century? I mean, it's kind of like ignoring the classics. Plus, you are raising a daughter, you don't have the slightest interest in attempting to understand how she might view the world out of her own eyes? It's like you're wearing blinders, and C2W is correct in that our culture provides inadequate challenges to that blindness.

.....................

Von Trier had a "misogyny consultant"?

Call me evil, but I think the dark shadows of civilization deserve to be seen and reflected on rather than ignored.

The movie did an excellent job of fleshing out those shadows in horrific detail. It was painful to watch and impossible for me to tell if the movie maker was exploring or celebrating the hatred, excuse me, fear of the female sex.

[Nordic]

There it is again, and completely without shame. I agree with C2W and I've said it to you before Nordic. This is not about like or dislike, this is truly my view of your behavior in regards to this issue. What I don't understand is how a middle class writer, presumably with the requisite education, manages a career, not to mention a baseline performance within his immediate social circle without possessing the slightest awareness of feminist thought. How can you call yourself a writer, if you've never considered the most basic ideas of one of the most important social movements of the twentieth century? I mean, it's kind of like ignoring the classics. Plus, you are raising a daughter, you don't have the slightest interest in attempting to understand how she might view the world out of her own eyes? It's like you're wearing blinders, and C2W is correct in that our culture provides inadequate challenges to that blindness.

.....................

Willlow, your comment displays a shameless blindness to pretty much everything I have ever said. You and C2W seem to be displaying the exact kinds of prejudices you rail against.

Because I'm a guy, to you I can say nothing that isn't sexist, unless I parrot everything you say and want me to say.

So go ahead, try it. Put words in my mouth and see if I agree.

You actually accuse me of not having "the slightest interest in attempting to understand how she might view the world?"

Please. That is so fucking insulting. And nothing I've written suggests it to be REMOTELY true.

You are now just making shit up about me.

[charlie meadows]

As an aside... I think that first-level readers of a certain kind might find RI to be pornography for depressives while a second-level reader might see it as therapy for depressives. Just my opinion. I find that the longer the thread the more it becomes one rather than the other.

Now, back to the show!

My contribution...

obla-di, obla-da...

[Wombaticus Rex]

Props to Nordic for staying calm under examination. Please continue. I definitely see lots of unconscious (??) sexism in your language but you've also got a lot of shit for things you've actually never said anywhere in this thread, too.

Been a very instructive thread, Canadian_Watcher did good by this. Convo needs to happen.