What constitutes Misogyny?

[blanc]

post removed

[Searcher08]

The Asian women said the racism was present only in her own mind.

Bullshit, it was present in the arsehole's treatment of her.

Lots of arseholes are ... racist arseholes. If some arsehole calls me a dirty boong cos they are an arsehole it doesn't mean the racism exists only in my mind. Despite the fact that they are probably also a bullyingly violent rapist jerk about to lose some teeth, and the sort of arsehole who treats people like shit they are also racist. They make those comments because they want to inflict some sort of pain/power trip on other people, and generate a particular emotional response. Same with the parking attendant.

Reading back on what I wrote, I left out some essential stuff. Sorry if it fucked you off, Joe.
First, the carpark attendent herself was female.
Second, the abuse that the parking attendant gave out wasnt racist - she didnt call her a 'Paki' or anything overt- and the Asian lady she said the parking attendent had not recognised her AND was treating her identically to how she treated her before, and to the other people.

My perception is that racism and arseholiness and misogyny probably intersect like a Venn diagram.

[Canadian_watcher]

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?

[Canadian_watcher]

I rarely see hate as the motivator for someone's abusive conduct towards someone else.
Instead, I see insecurity... fueled by the most predominant catalyst for abusive action: fear.
Fear deserves our attention more than hatred, IMO. As the primary instigator of abusive treatment.

Ah but what drives the insecurity & fear? i think it is awareness of needing to coerce, frustrated desire to control/parasitise women.

Men fear women to the extent that they oppress them, as a bad slave owner fears his slaves more than a good one. If i expect women to validate me as an attractive male, and they don't, then i might grow to fear and even hate women as "stuck up bitches". The women have done nothing but make their own mind up, but i'll blame and hate them because they don't play by my rules.
Womens uncontrolability/sinfulness/naturalness/alienness is just men rationalising their own treatment of women as Other and Less Than.

There are women who fear men, too, so we have to recognize that all fears have individual roots. Past experience, learned insecurity, social messaging, in born irrationalities. These all contribute to why people fear things/others.

There's a saying I remember hearing and laughing at when I was a girl of about 9 or 10. "How can you trust something that bleeds for a week and doesn't die?"

I thought it was hilarious... and powerful, to tell you the truth. It wasn't until my mother heard me say it and gave me the look that I knew it didn't mean that women were these amazing superheros who by their very natures made men wary. For me, that became a bit of 'learned response' since my mother taught me that that was insulting, not empowering.

How many of us started off without this level of distrust & suspicion, but then learned it?

That the KKK survives in spite of all the gains made by people of colour/non-Christian religions is because of that same learned disdain/distrust/hate. We aren't hesitant to call it hate in the case of the KKK, but Wintler is right, there's a lot more rationalization going on when we apply this to misogynistic practices.

I agree with the above that

Womens uncontrolability/sinfulness/naturalness/alienness is just men rationalising their own treatment of women as Other and Less Than

and I'll add that this treatment isn't natural in the least. It's learned. Men are protecting the power they have by teaching new male people how to maintain that power over things. "Hey son, think about it.. How can you trust anything that bleeds for a week and doesn't die?"



The son realizes that something that bleeds for a week and doesn't die is not like the other things, it isn't like the men he respects, it is weird, it is wild, and worse yet he actually loved those things just the same as he loved anything else, up till now. This happens over and over - he hears "hos & bitches" everywhere he goes. He is warned of gold-diggers. He is told he would have a better job if it weren't for women taking them. He gets rejected by a woman he has feelings for while at the same time being bombarded with messages that taking a woman ought to be easy.

Except for sometimes, hate takes practice.

[crikkett]

It seems to me that the line between disdain and hatred is drawn based on one's sense of emotional connection to the person or thing towards whom the feeling (or lack thereof) is being directed. Real, gut-wrenching hatred, whether justified or not, requires that someone feels personally wronged (threatened, betrayed, etc.), and is always most intense when focused on someone or thing for which a person, at a deeper level, feels a strong attraction.

Some excellent points were made throughout these ten pages and this was one of them!

Thank justdrew for that. He jumped on Jack's request for a Guy Fawkes emoticon.

As for hugs, we do have this one if you click "View more smilies":

Thanks, justdrew!

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

If, at the end of the day you're keeping score by counting money, it's a tossup, because I know child care providers who do very well for themselves. But these are people who provide a service to parents who value their children at least as much as they value their plumbing.*

If at the end of the day you're keeping score through more qualitative aspects of life, the child care provider probably carries less of a toxic body load than the plumber, and probably has more young people in their life who love them. So in that regard I call it a win for the child care provider.

Apologies to Willow for using yet another sports analogy!
----------------------------------------

*you aren't going to invest in something you don't value, so your question isn't really about misogyny any more, it's about raising kids.

edited to fix spelling

[Canadian_watcher]

... But what I really am trying to do is to separate out various threads in re misogyny. One view is that misogyny is built into the cultural operating system. Another that misogyny is an ideology, or perhaps some sort of psychological pathology, that a particular person holds. Neither perspective is mutually exclusive, still they are different perspectives. So if the culture is generally sexist, there still can be men in the culture who are especially misogynistic. The existence of those men would seem to suggest that misogyny isn't exclusively caused by the cultural operating system.

agreed, in spite of my last post. I do also believe that there are people who turn their experiences into hate, regardless of the culture in which they reside.

edited to fix quote script

[Canadian_watcher]

Women are not an oppressed class.

Not agreed.

Of course not, you may not be able to present a compelling case for the oppression of women in modern western society, but I don't expect you to disavow it.[/quote]

Not compelling enough for you, at least. There are a lot of people for whom there exists an abundance of proof. This is what I meant when I said that there is 'no debating you.'

I support the men's movement's position wrt access to their children. I'm sure there are specific cases where I'd not support someone - say an abuser trying to continue his abuse by bringing legal action upon legal action against the mother -

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.

As I'm not a father myself, my motives are merely an interest in abstract justice.

same here.

[Infanticide] is an example of a defence women have in court that men don't. Clearly it is unjust to be particularly lenient specifically because you kill your own children.

well, men can't have that defense since they can't give birth. I believe that the defense is based on hormones and post-partum psychosis.

It is therefore fundamentally unprovable, but probably shouldn't be allowed anyway. If you were hormonally imbalanced due to adrenaline, say, you wouldn't be able to use it as a defence in court, nor if you were clinically depressed, the best you could hope for would be confinement to a mental institution for being a danger to yourself and others.

see the defense of provocation.

[Canadian_watcher]

You bring up something I have been meaning to add to this thread, which others have touched upon, and that is that women often treat men as if we have no feelings. We are expected to watch every nuance of what we say, including our tone of voice, our body language, every little thing, yet women seem to feel a complete freedom in spouting off whatever the hell they feel like saying to us, no matter how hurtful, and expect us to have no emotional wounds from it whatsoever.

I see this 'out there.' But I also recognize how very much of that conditioning and response comes not from women but from other men. How do your brothers react if you cry? I don't like to see people cry over what I think is not-that-important no matter their gender. However I recognize that crying can be a primal response and that women have not been encouraged to try as hard to suppress it as men have, so I try and cut people some slack.

[Canadian_watcher]

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

If, at the end of the day you're keeping score by counting money, it's a tossup, because I know child care providers who do very well for themselves. But these are people who provide a service to parents who value their children at least as much as they value their plumbing.*

If at the end of the day you're keeping score through more qualitative aspects of life, the child care provider probably carries less of a toxic body load than the plumber, and probably has more young people in their life who love them. So in that regard I call it a win for the child care provider.

*you aren't going to invest in something you don't value, so your question isn't really about misogyny any more, it's about raising kids.

If you really believe that money does not equal power (with all it's spinoff power aside from simple purchasing power) then you have got a lot to learn.

[crikkett]

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

If, at the end of the day you're keeping score by counting money, it's a tossup, because I know child care providers who do very well for themselves. But these are people who provide a service to parents who value their children at least as much as they value their plumbing.*

If at the end of the day you're keeping score through more qualitative aspects of life, the child care provider probably carries less of a toxic body load than the plumber, and probably has more young people in their life who love them. So in that regard I call it a win for the child care provider.

*you aren't going to invest in something you don't value, so your question isn't really about misogyny any more, it's about raising kids.

If you really believe that money does not equal power (with all it's spinoff power aside from simple purchasing power) then you have got a lot to learn.

I never said that money didn't equal power, so please refrain from putting words into my mouth.

What I said was, in terms of money, at the end of the day, "child care provider" is a tossup with "plumber".

That's not the answer you wanted when you asked us who would fare better: child care providers vs plumbers. But that's because you were asking us to compare the earning capabilities of an entry-level child care provider with a professional plumber. Comparing more equivalent positions, for instance an apprentice plumber vs. an entry-level child care provider, bears out my point: in terms of money, it's a wash.

[Canadian_watcher]

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

If, at the end of the day you're keeping score by counting money, it's a tossup, because I know child care providers who do very well for themselves. But these are people who provide a service to parents who value their children at least as much as they value their plumbing.*

If at the end of the day you're keeping score through more qualitative aspects of life, the child care provider probably carries less of a toxic body load than the plumber, and probably has more young people in their life who love them. So in that regard I call it a win for the child care provider.

*you aren't going to invest in something you don't value, so your question isn't really about misogyny any more, it's about raising kids.

If you really believe that money does not equal power (with all it's spinoff power aside from simple purchasing power) then you have got a lot to learn.

I never said that money didn't equal power, so please refrain from putting words into my mouth.

What I said was, in terms of money, at the end of the day, "child care provider" is a tossup with "plumber".

That's not the answer you wanted when you asked us who would fare better: child care providers vs plumbers. But that's because you were asking us to compare the earning capabilities of an entry-level child care provider with a professional plumber. Comparing more equivalent positions, for instance an apprentice plumber vs. an entry-level child care provider, bears out my point: in terms of money, it's a wash.

you are really obsessed with this whole 'putting words in your mouth' thing and until I can feel comfortable extrapolating your meaning from your words, debate is difficult. Nay, impossible. Let's try:

So you say that "in terms of money, at the end of the day, "child care provider" is a tossup with "plumber".
That's not the answer you wanted when you asked us who would fare better: child care providers vs plumbers. But that's because you were asking us to compare the earning capabilities of an entry-level child care provider with a professional plumber. Comparing more equivalent positions, for instance an apprentice plumber vs. an entry-level child care provider, bears out my point: in terms of money, it's a wash."

I disagree based on things I can't go in to, because you never said them.

[23]

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/08010/08102901/
Brain’s ‘hate circuit’ identified

People who view pictures of someone they hate display activity in distinct areas of the brain that, together, may be thought of as a ‘hate circuit’, according to new research by scientists at UCL.

Hate circuit



The study, by Professor Semir Zeki and John Romaya of the Wellcome Laboratory of Neurobiology at UCL, examined the brain areas that correlate with the sentiment of hate and shows that the ‘hate circuit’ is distinct from those related to emotions such as fear, threat and danger – although it shares a part of the brain associated with aggression. The circuit is also quite distinct from that associated with romantic love, though it shares at least two common structures with it.

The results, published today in ‘PLoS One’, are an extension of previous studies on the brain mechanisms of romantic and maternal love from the same laboratory. Explaining the idea behind the research, Professor Zeki said:

“Hate is often considered to be an evil passion that should, in a better world, be tamed, controlled, and eradicated. Yet to the biologist, hate is a passion that is of equal interest to love. Like love, it is often seemingly irrational and can lead individuals to heroic and evil deeds. How can two opposite sentiments lead to the same behaviour?”

To compare their present results with their previous ones on romantic love, Zeki and Romaya specifically studied hate directed against an individual. Seventeen subjects, both female and male, had their brains scanned while viewing pictures of their hated person as well as that of neutral faces with which they were familiar. Viewing a hated person showed activity in distinct areas of the brain that, together, may be thought of as a ‘hate circuit’.

The ‘hate circuit’ includes structures in the cortex and in the sub-cortex and has components that are important in generating aggressive behaviour, and translating this into action through motor planning, as if the brain becomes mobilised to take some action. It also involves a part of the frontal cortex that has been considered critical in predicting the actions of others, probably an important feature when one is confronted by a hated person.

The subcortical activity involves two distinct structures, the putamen and insula. The former, which has been implicated in the perception of contempt and disgust, may also be part of the motor system that is mobilised to take action, since it is known to contain nerve cells that are active in phases preparatory to making a move.

Professor Zeki added: “Significantly, the putamen and insula are also both activated by romantic love. This is not surprising. The putamen could also be involved in the preparation of aggressive acts in a romantic context, as in situations when a rival presents a danger. Previous studies have suggested that the insula may be involved in responses to distressing stimuli, and the viewing of both a loved and a hated face may constitute such a distressing signal.

“A marked difference in the cortical pattern produced by these two sentiments of love and hate is that, whereas with love large parts of the cerebral cortex associated with judgment and reasoning become deactivated, with hate only a small zone, located in the frontal cortex, becomes deactivated. This may seem surprising since hate can also be an all-consuming passion, just like love. But whereas in romantic love, the lover is often less critical and judgmental regarding the loved person, it is more likely that in the context of hate the hater may want to exercise judgment in calculating moves to harm, injure or otherwise extract revenge.

“Interestingly, the activity in some of these structures in response to viewing a hated face is proportional in strength to the declared intensity of hate, thus allowing the subjective state of hate to be objectively quantified. This finding may have legal implications in criminal cases, for example.”

Unlike romantic love, which is directed at one person, hate can be directed against entire individuals or groups, as is the case with racial, political, or gender hatred. Professor Zeki said that these different varieties of hate will be the subject of future studies from his laboratory.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ad ... ne.0003556
Neural Correlates of Hate

(excerpted)

Abstract

In this work, we address an important but unexplored topic, namely the neural correlates of hate. In a block-design fMRI study, we scanned 17 normal human subjects while they viewed the face of a person they hated and also faces of acquaintances for whom they had neutral feelings. A hate score was obtained for the object of hate for each subject and this was used as a covariate in a between-subject random effects analysis. Viewing a hated face resulted in increased activity in the medial frontal gyrus, right putamen, bilaterally in premotor cortex, in the frontal pole and bilaterally in the medial insula. We also found three areas where activation correlated linearly with the declared level of hatred, the right insula, right premotor cortex and the right fronto-medial gyrus. One area of deactivation was found in the right superior frontal gyrus. The study thus shows that there is a unique pattern of activity in the brain in the context of hate. Though distinct from the pattern of activity that correlates with romantic love, this pattern nevertheless shares two areas with the latter, namely the putamen and the insula.

(excerpted)

This difference in the extent of deactivated cortex, compared to the deactivated cortex in the context of romantic love, may seem surprising, since hate too can be an all consuming passion. But whereas in romantic love, the lover is more likely to be less critical and judgmental regarding the loved person, it is more likely that in the context of hate the hater may want to exercise judgment in calculating moves to harm, injure or otherwise extract revenge.

In summary, our results show that there is a unique pattern of activity in the brain in the context of hate. This pattern, while being distinct from that obtained in the context of romantic love, nevertheless shares two areas with the latter, namely the putamen and the insula. This linkage may account for why love and hate are so closely linked to each other in life.

[brainpanhandler]

[Stephen Morgan]

*you aren't going to invest in something you don't value, so your question isn't really about misogyny any more, it's about raising kids.

I believe she means to say that the job is meant to be less well paid because it's seen as a girl's job, and it's a job with a mostly female workforce. There can be several reasons why a stereotypically male job can pay more than a nominally female job. It may require greater levels of training, as in the situation of a doctor and a nurse, and these are gradually being filled up with women to reduce their importance on this issue. It can be characterised by a more highly organised workforce, for example the gap in pay between school catering staff and bin-men, who have gone on strike many times to gain relatively high wages, a combination of falling real wages for organised labour and legal action under European law are eroding these differences. It can be because the male job is dangerous or unpleasant, this one shows no signs of changing and the top ten most dangerous jobs continue to be held overwhelmingly by men with no grand feminist push to get women better wages by getting them opportunities in the shit-shovelling sector.

That's not the answer you wanted when you asked us who would fare better: child care providers vs plumbers. But that's because you were asking us to compare the earning capabilities of an entry-level child care provider with a professional plumber. Comparing more equivalent positions, for instance an apprentice plumber vs. an entry-level child care provider, bears out my point: in terms of money, it's a wash.

Yeah, that too.

Not compelling enough for you, at least. There are a lot of people for whom there exists an abundance of proof. This is what I meant when I said that there is 'no debating you.'

These people seem disinclined to provide examples.

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.

see the defense of provocation.

Not sure what you're getting at there.

The son realizes that something that bleeds for a week and doesn't die is not like the other things, it isn't like the men he respects, it is weird, it is wild, and worse yet he actually loved those things just the same as he loved anything else, up till now. This happens over and over - he hears "hos & bitches" everywhere he goes. He is warned of gold-diggers. He is told he would have a better job if it weren't for women taking them. He gets rejected by a woman he has feelings for while at the same time being bombarded with messages that taking a woman ought to be easy.

Obviously you'd have more knowledge that I of what goes on in a young boy's head, but where did you get this idea? And why do you continually use ghetto-talk? Anyway, every man hears women being insulted and made fun of, and hears men being made fun of and insulted by both men and women. As sound waves are no respectors of sex I expect women hear the same thing. On what grounds do you believe this to have a profound, and specifically hostile, effect on boys but not girls? If I was a girl I think all the fear-mongering around rape, around not going out alone at night and so-on would make me extremely defensive and hostile. As it is I get rather ticked off when I hear the many sexist jokes women tell amongst themselves, but that's all.

[crikkett]

If you really believe that money does not equal power (with all it's spinoff power aside from simple purchasing power) then you have got a lot to learn.

I never said that money didn't equal power, so please refrain from putting words into my mouth.

What I said was, in terms of money, at the end of the day, "child care provider" is a tossup with "plumber".

you are really obsessed with this whole 'putting words in your mouth' thing

I'm hoping that you eventually see that you have a bad habit of jumping to the wrong conclusion.

You showed us two professions and asked which professional would "win" at the end of the day. I replied in both economic and quality-of-life terms. You responded with a condescending remark that didn't seem to address what I actually wrote, but in which you write that I am clueless about economic power.

and until I can feel comfortable extrapolating your meaning from your words, debate is difficult. Nay, impossible. Let's try:

So you say that "in terms of money, at the end of the day, "child care provider" is a tossup with "plumber".
That's not the answer you wanted when you asked us who would fare better: child care providers vs plumbers. But that's because you were asking us to compare the earning capabilities of an entry-level child care provider with a professional plumber. Comparing more equivalent positions, for instance an apprentice plumber vs. an entry-level child care provider, bears out my point: in terms of money, it's a wash."

I disagree based on things I can't go in to, because you never said them.

Honestly, I can live with that. Thank you. In turn I'll refrain from answering your rhetorical questions.