I suppose not in the sense that I would expect them to do this and it would be natural, even healing, but somehow knowing this doesn’t make it less offensive to me. I mean, like I said in my last post, I see hypocracy in this–and it is hypocracy; that’s just a fact. We all have moral compasses built into our brains. When we see such things as mistreatment or unfairness or hypocracy going on, that moral compass goes off and we feel this is unjust and get angered. Knowing that this backlash is natural or healing for women doesn’t seem to turn this moral compass off.
OK, I’m going to move this thread right along. People can respond if they like, or this can turn into my own personal diary.
I want to talk about sexism in the media. Do you think the above images are degrading to women? What about the following images? Degrading to men?
If any of these images are degrading or sexist, who is the sexist? The marketing company that publicized them? The viewer who gawks at them? Society in general and its standards that allow for this kind of junk? Who do we point the finger at?
After thinking about this for a while, I couldn’t answer this question. The sexism, if there is any here, seems to exist in some kind of limbo.
Let’s assume there is more objectification of women in the media than of men, the kind you see in the first three images above. So when a man drives down the street and sees a billboard with a half-nude sexy model advertizing, oh, let’s say Freddy’s Fried Chicken, and he nearly gets into an accident because he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the image, are we to say he’s sexist or that he objectifies women?
I don’t think we can. I think the fact that men like to stare at boobs, perhaps more than women like to stare at penises, is just a part of our biology. We’re more mesmerized and stimulated visually by sexual images. This hardly reflects an attitude towards the other sex nor does it indicate any stereotypical presuppositions.
So I don’t think the male viewer is sexist here. What about the marketing firm that decided to put this image up in the first place? Let’s assume they were all men. Would it be possible that they decide to put the image up even if none of them held any sexist attitudes or held any sexist presuppositions? Well, considering the male viewer we just looked at, the fact that he can’t tear his eyes away from the image tells the marketing team that “sex sells”–and, well, business is business and we all have to eat. So, do whatever works, right? If men were attracted to porcupines, that would be the content of the image decided upon by the marketing team. So I don’t see anything particularly sexist on the part of any male marketing professionals when it comes to their decisions to put up images of sexy ladies in public.
What about society in general just for allowing this kind of stuff? Well, if society is sexist, and we’re not talking about individuals in society, then the culprit here is an abstract asexual unconscious force, and any individuals who may be involved in its determination comprises everyone, male and female, and so we’re all guilty. But I don’t think this is what we usually mean when we say that these images are sexist or objectify women.
So who’s head does the sexism fall on? When asking myself this question, I considered whether “sexist” was just the wrong word. Maybe “degrading” would work better. Are these images degrading to women? I suppose they might be, but degradation is more a matter of the viewer or the message he or she gets out of the image. If one feels degraded when looking on an image like this, then that person is the one who has been degrade–at least, in his or her own mind. If it’s a question of the message such images send out–that message being, I suppose, “the only worth of a woman is her sex appeal”–then you might have a case but only if it can be shown this indeed is the message that society at large is in fact receiving. There is no reason to suppose, as far as I’m concerned, that this message is bound to be the one implanted in the public consciousness. After all, the image is nothing more than that of a sexy woman, and anything gleaned from it in addition to that is projected by the viewer or anyone else making comments about it. A woman can, bear in mind, be both sexy and intelligent and talented and moral and all the rest–so an image of a sexy woman need not necessarily imply that she is nothing more than a sex object.
That said, the aforementioned message may turn out to take root in the public consciousness just as a matter of fact (as opposed to rational necessity), but I wish I could know this before I blindly accept it just because, well, that’s what every one else says. As a man, it is much more difficult to accept the charge of sexism against my gender without proof that it’s true. So I hope any women reading this will forgive me if I seem reluctant to agree that women being portrayed half-nude in the media in order to sell a product or attract male viewers is sexist or degrading per se; it’s just that I’d much rather know that the charge of sexism against my gender is indeed correct. Then I’d feel like I’ve accepted it for the right reasons.
There is nothing wrong about voluntarily being a sex object, I see young people making a living in those photos using natural assets. Being forced is another thing altogether.
First of all, there is a big difference between female spirit energy, and a female human body.
The male and fem energy I’m talking about, they split at some ancient point, and then each ran its own course of evolution.
With time they split into many new categories and sub categories.
I think there are things wrong with both genders, but specifically I feel the fems are more wrong because they are so much less militant.
Males are better at militarism and combat. This means they are better at survival.
I am basing this entirely on what I see on the spiritual planes.
Females however, betray less often, and even though they lack militarism, they are socially more cohesive and stable. They do not form societies as often as males do, but when they do form a society, it is allot more ‘humane’.
The sexual aspect and process of genders is not its main purpose or nature. The male and female spirit are all about life. Each is a mode of life.
Body is different. For example, a female body is less strong than a male body, as seen in athletes so that it is not women and men both competing. This is not because it is evolutionarily superior for women to be weaker and smaller. That is BS. What we have is the influence of hormones and genes, which accidentally happened to reduce women’s strength a bit. This was not women’s fault, and it is not evolutionary superiority. It is an accident, which just happened and it was common across some ancient stages of all our development. In reality, a female should be stronger than the male, because she must take care of the eggs or babies or nest, etc.
Personally, I see the female spirit as something desirable in some cases, but it needs to be completed. It is naturally a bit mal-formed. This is all chance and I blame no-one.
It does seem that the radical feminism has gooten to a height lately… it really makes sense that it is a bad thing. I would think that right now women may not have all the equalities that men have but much of that is dieing we have reached that point where feminism has done its job. And now there are those that want to highlight themselves fight for a cause that no longer needs to exist. I mean yes there may still be some inequalities but those will work themselves out where at that stage where we’ve mixed the drink now we just need to let it settle… if you know what i mean.
Some times I think we need a little manism to balance things out to help men jump out of those roles that are expected of them and be more free from cultural expectations.
If the more recent trends in the objectification of men is sexist, then it was very sexist for a long time, primarily in relation to women. We should admit a common ground before pointing at the way things are precisely now and saying, see it is all the same.
But then, look at the range of faces in famous men as opposed to famous women and you will see that women are supposed to be beautiful objects more than men. It is becoming more even, but it is not even.
Do you think there is a danger of the wrong message being conveyed about the worth of women by these images in the media? Porn comes to mind here. I think a lot of young impressionable (and stupid) men do come to believe that women like sex the way porn actresses seem to like it. How dangerous is this? Does it warrant the banning of images and portrayals like this all together, or is there another solution?
I don’t know about this Dan~. War kills more than it helps us survive. In times of self-defense, we do indeed need militant individuals ready to go and fight in order to protect the rest of the tribe/nation, but it is the soldiers who are putting themselves most at risk than those who stay at home. I think the fact that a tribe or nation that has militant types willing to fight is what keeps the tribe or nation as a whole alive and better able to survive.
There’s also the fact that women tend more towards protecting, nurturing, and raising a tribe’s or nation’s young, thereby producing soldiers for the next generation. Without this, a tribe or nation would surely crumble after the first generations dies or retires.
This is an argument that comes up a few times in my youtube research. I’ve since been prompted to research the gender wage gap. I’m getting conflicting results. Some say it still exists with women earning less than men, some say it has disappeared all together, while still others say that men are disadvantaged with women earning more than them.
I started a thread here in the hopes of getting some feedback that might clear up the confusion… and I see you’ve discovered it.
Good call, Abstract. Just stay tuned. I will eventually be posting some of my own “manisms” in this thread. I think one the biggest problems for us men in this battle of the sexes is that we just don’t express ourselves enough. Boys are raised from infancy to understand women. We are constantly taught what it is women want in a man, what their needs are, what turns them on, what turns them off, what their concerns are, how their psychology works, etc., etc., etc… All this contributes to our understanding women better. But I don’t see any of this coming from men. It’s our own fault. We just don’t express ourselves. How are women supposed to understand us. I think if we expressed ourselves more–our needs, our desires, our attitudes, our thoughts–women would gain a deeper understanding of our psychology which would make working with us that much more simple.
If it means more sexy women to look at, I’m all for the objectification of men
gib, the danger lies in prejudices and fears. Hiding a thing makes it more desirable and perverts truth. My husband and son look at porn, it does not bother me, never has.
I have female friends and family that look at porn, I find it utterly boring. Sexual drive and appetite differs for each person. As long as its all legal and voluntary. I think that it is healthy. Hiding it makes it twisted.
As part of your self-improvement, you should look at what body language experts say about women and power. There were a couple of journal articles I read about this once when I was studying, but I can’t remember exactly where. However, body language experts seem to have repeatedly found that the vast majority of women feel less powerful than men, and those that do not show this power deference are commonly shunned from society. Similar conclusions can be drawn from sociolinguistics.
Radical feminists aren’t out to be anyone’s friends. They think that women who are still sucked in to the modern world will necessarily be weaker than they could be, that they need liberating from the whole of society. Moderate feminists seek reform within the system. This parallels the distinction between MLK and Malcolm X - one believed in reform inside the system, the other believed that blacks would never be equal inside the current system. Society, predictably, venerates MLK, but seeing as blacks remain sorely discriminated against in just about every way other than legally in the U.S., Malcolm X’s beliefs were probably more accurate. Here’s a problem with discrimination: when you make everyone equal under the law, a lot of people suddenly think ‘hey, everyone is equal now’. But society itself is much more than just a legal framework, and deeper issues of discrimination remain. Black people still, by and large, are much worse off than White people in a number of ways in the U.S. (fewer well paid jobs, more likely to be imprisoned, worse schools in traditionally black areas etc). The same could be true of feminism, at least in radical feminist’s eyes it is.
But moderate feminists just want reform of the system. Is that really a path to equality? Well, I don’t believe in radical feminism, not at all. But I also think that anyone who thinks that women are now equal is wrong. There’s still a battle to be had for women, a long hard battle before they become equal. Just on a purely practical level, the expectation is very often that women should be stay at home mums. Some women may like this, many may not if they really had a free choice of the matter. But in most new families, I imagine the free conversation about who should be the one that stays at home is never even had. Many women still do all of the housework for a man who goes out with friends. many husbands don’t think their wives should go out and drink with friends like they do. And many women seem to accept, even endorse, these expectations. Such women need some form of liberation: they should see there’s no reason why they should be treated as inferior. I think its totally acceptable for feminists, even moderate feminists, to try and transform the way that women see the world. Therefore, the fact that some - even many - women reject ‘feminist’ notions isn’t necessarily a sign that feminism is ‘wrong’ - in fact its probably a sign that in some sense it’s fundamentally right.
Yes men are plagued with expectations not to reveal emotions when men can truly be just as emotional as women.
There is also more pressure on men to be athletic rather then well educated it seems…
there are many stereo types pressed on men that lead to expectations of behavior, many of them you can see in comedy when they start going on about the differences of the sexes.
Oh yeah, you’re American. “Liberal” and “conservative” don’t quite have the same connotations up here in Canada.
I believe that the vast majority of women feel less powerful, but I wonder how much of this is because they are told they are less powerful.
This makes any prospect of true equality and fairness seem very bleek. It sounds like an either-us-or-them dilemma. Either we have a system that works for us but sucks for them, or a system that works for them but sucks for us. It would take a stroke of genius to contrive a system that works for both equally.
I gather from their arguments that the women who reject feminism are rejecting radical feminism.
You and I must live in totally different quarters of the world because the kinds of people who still cling to these old traditional gender rolls are far and few between where I live. It is a vast world though, and I’m sure there are such communities throughout the western world.
I just wish I had the demographics that showed where these communities were, how prevelant they are, why they cling to these values (religion? education? SES?).
I don’t know. In fact, I think I got that wrong. I think I mixed two reports into one. I do remember one source saying that radical feminists are making it more difficult for women to get jobs, but I think the source that said that some businesses are going under because of affirmative action was a different one. The latter, I now recall (vaguely), was talking about discrimination in general, and these businesses were being charged with discrimination because they did not receive enough job applicants to meet their quotas. I recently read another article that explained the job barriers to women because of feminist affirmative action as being a result of raising the wages for traditional female jobs, thereby making these jobs either more scarce or coming with great skill/education requirements.
I have lived in many countries, I’ve yet to find an exception. Where do you live? In most (almost all) couples with babies I know, the woman stayed at home when the baby was born and the woman does most of the childcare, even among the fairly liberal friends I have, I’d say few of the men genuinely considered being a stay at home dad whilst his wife/girlfriend went out to work. I don’t know where you are from, but in America less than 4% of stay-at-home parents are male, and statistics for other Western countries are similar, suggesting that you are in a particularly interesting society.
As for men not wanting women to go out and drink or socialize, I’ve found that to be surprisingly common. When I was a teenager, I believed no one in our generation still held these views, but actually I’ve met a lot of people my age who do. Educated middle class couples seem to be generally free from this type of inequality, but in other social groups its very common. Here I’m talking about Australia and England, though, not America.
Yes, it does. But that doesn’t make the viewpoint incorrect. I do think when it comes to these issues, there’s a fair degree of believing whatever it is nicest to believe.
By and large, I believe it is probably the result of social constructs of gender. There are definite hardwired differences between different sexes (although many of the perceived differences are actually based on bad science), but power and power relationships are social constructs, I don’t think they are hardwired or biological, if thats what you are getting at.
No, this is pretty typical here as well (although not for me and my wife in particular–we both work out of necessity and send our kids to daycare).
This is more what I was talking about. My being part of the educated middle class may explain my perceived dissonance.
I live in Canada.
I mostly agree with this. What I was getting at is that regardless of whether or not women actually are less powerful, they will always feel less power if told so day after day (though I tend to agree they are, in fact, less powerful politically–the more interesting question is why?).
I was not thinking political with liberal and conservative. The way to change is to change views on marriage. Or rather the ideal mate. All the longest happiest couples are friends first and last. Not mates as much as partners.
Perhaps it is because women are more culturally inclined to be submissive, due to the restriction in forced on them throughout history. Some of it may be derived from the very nature of them being the care giver to children by assertion that they give birth to the child. That in pre-history times someone had to take on the role of protector of the children which involves being submissive to insure that the woman is not killed of in argument and thus leaving a child behind.
If you want my personal (biased) opinion, the reason why not as many women are in politics as men is because of the maternal instinct to want to stay at home and raise kids. This comes up time and time again in my research: women want to be moms. It’s a very difficult balancing act to do this and hold down a career in politics (or anything really). And if you stick around, you’ll get to read my treatise on why motherhood is the most important job anywhere on the labor market.
One thing us men don’t express enough is our needs. I think sometimes we’re even ashamed to admit we have them. It sounds, I don’t know, winy: “I have neeeeeds–oh, please, nurture my neeeeds”.
But I think this is hurting us. One way in which it hurts us is that women point out our flaws and shortcomings and talk about them as just that: flaws and shortcomings.
We are told that women have certain emotional needs. We are told these needs are important and that men ought to take them seriously–because they are needs. So if I tell a women to quit being such an emotional baby, I look like a insensitive prick.
But if a woman tells a man to get over his inflated ego, she looks like the more mature one. Ego, at least male ego, is seen as something to rise above, to get over, that we’re not mature unless we put our egos aside.
And we accept this, we men, because this is what society tells us. It’s a male stereotype that we buy into, not least because people tend to believe whatever society tells them (even about themselves), but because we men are reluctant to admit we have needs.
But what if we expressed our egos–that is, the need to have our egos recognized and stroked–as a need. Why can’t men have needs. If it was generally accepted that men have a need to have their egos stroked, would it still be a target for ridicule and belittling.
Relationship therapists tend to see it both ways: they emphasize the need for the man to tend to the needs of the woman, but they also emphasize the need for the woman to tend to the needs of the man, and at the top of the list is almost always the need for the woman to let the man know how talented he is, how strong, how much he impresses her with his abilities and gifts. As a man, I can tell you: this feels goooood. And it isn’t a one-way street where the woman sings all these praises and showers him with compliments with nothing in return. When the man starts feeling good about himself (which translates into feeling loved), he becomes inspired, or moved, to give back. He becomes more romantic, more open with his thoughts and feelings, he likes to surprise her with flowers or buy her gifts (big or small–depending on his wallet size), and so on. In a really healthy relationship, this cycle is ongoing because it is self-reinforcing: the woman strokes the man’s ego, the man in return makes the woman feel special via his special treatment of her, and this in turn leads to more ego stroking, and this to more special treatment, etc., etc., etc.
In fact, here’s a youtube video featuring just such a relationship therapist making exactly this point:
So you see, guys and girls, how a man finding out what his needs are, and admiting he has them, leads to happier and healthier relations with women, and not just in formal relationships, but in how men and women relate to each other in general.
Needs are just one thing men need to express about themselves more. There are plenty of others.
