Celebrity Allegations, #MeToo etc
- Thread starter Buchan
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If you drop the condescension for a second, I might give you an answer.
This isn’t about a few dickheads. This is about billions of women, many more than men, living in poverty, not being allowed to reach positions of power and having to be scared of walking alone ar night or being asked to perform sexual favours by men to get jobs. Even most terrorists, a group someone brought up, are not Muslim but men. Something is clearly wrong with the concept of masculinity, and if you get defensive about it, you need to stop being so egoistic and think about those who suffer the most from the destructive manliness. Maybe not you, certainly not me, but billions of women (and men!) who are forced into predefined roles.
Who's getting defensive? I understand that many men are cnuts. Many women are also. So call them cnuts, don't say 'all men this' or 'all women that' because then you're just looking for things that aren't there. It's a problem with certain people feeling untouchable. It's a problem with certain people not being able to take no for an answer. It's a problem with some people getting caught up in the wrong groups and being brainwashed. But what you can't do is say it's an inherent problem with 50% of the entire population because it just isn't true.
When the vast majority of issues are caused by a particular group, then it's not unreasonable to start asking what it is about that group that fuels that behaviour. It's not saying all members of that group is bad, it's just looking for explanations that could lead to a more positive outcome.
That's fine, it's just the whole "men are naturally evil" thing that I take issue with. All you can do as an individual is not be a cnut, so to then be lumped in with the rest of the idiots who can't keep their dick in check just seems lazy to me.
Even lazier is arguing against an argument no one made by talking about how nice a guy you are.
How is it lazy? And secondly, what?
You're also heavily relying on the no true scotsman fallacy. "I don't do X, therefore you can't say that our group bears responsibility"
Every past or present society of which we have reliable knowledge was/is patriarchal.
Societies don't 'put' men in positions of power. Once a hierarchy exists a man is programmed to climb it, or die in the attempt. I was reading Tom Jones a while back, and Fielding wrote something like: "I have seen rivalry, thoroughly cured at Court by the only remedy, utter failure, break out again in competition over the position of foreman of a country jury."
Again, how is what I said lazy?
I'm not relying on anything. I'm simply saying that it isn't a male problem. Just because a lot of men do something, doesn't mean there's a link. A lot of Irish people drink. But it's an offensive stereotype to say they all do it. A lot of Pakistani people run corner shops, but it's still an offensive stereotype. A lot of men sexually assault women. But it's still an offensive ste- oh wait, no it isn't. They're men so we can brand them all whatever we like.
If anything you should take it as a compliment that you're a member of a group that displays considerable bad behaviour yet you don't.
I don't really take it as anything. It's not admirable to behave normally, and you should absolutely call out those who act like dicks. But the fact that someone else is a dick is nothing to do with gender, that's all I'm saying. It's because they're a dick.
A teenage boy doesn't need any prompting to find girls' bottoms attractive. His hormones take care of that.
It is fair to ask why stereotyping a chunk of people by the characteristics of a problematic bunch is tolerated in certain cases.
On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with calls for self-reflection and increased awareness in light of the recent reveals. There's a fine line between education and counter-productive antagonization.
I've said this before, but my parents were so eager to impress upon me the importance of not having sex at all until marriage, that the conversation of sexual consent and acceptable behavior towards women was completely neglected. I'd wager it's the same for a lot of guys growing up, and that needs to change.
On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with calls for self-reflection and increased awareness in light of the recent reveals. There's a fine line between education and counter-productive antagonization.
I've said this before, but my parents were so eager to impress upon me the importance of not having sex at all until marriage, that the conversation of sexual consent and acceptable behavior towards women was completely neglected. I'd wager it's the same for a lot of guys growing up, and that needs to change.
That's not particularly good logic. It's possible that being male makes you genetically prone to an instinct towards certain behaviours. It's also possible that societal child rearing methods lead to males exhibiting those behaviours. Neither would excuse those behaviours, but saying it's nothing to do with gender is a supposition not based on evidence (or in this case trying to create a rule based solely on certain exceptions).
That's not how it came about.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2...otype-began/SL1aTTvw18blEJZpWmYnjI/story.html
That stereotype manifests itself as someone from Britain First calling them "the fecking paki shops".
Did someone call you a diddler or something?
Men really are fragile about this topic.
Sorry, some men are.
Sorry, some men are.
I don't see anyone here saying all men do this though. They're just saying that when the vast, vast majority of perpetrators are men it becomes rather reasonable to see it as a male problem, even when many men don't do it.
If Irish people topped the charts for alcohol related death by a huge amount consistently and throughout history, it would be fair to say the Irish have an alcohol problem. The fact that many idividual Irish people don't have a problem with alcohol wouldn't change that.
What's a diddler?
It's just funny to me how it's considered fine to lump us all together because kicking upwards is ok.
So you are now saying that women are inferior?
Not at all, unless you're joking?
Sorry.
On topic, I don't think that you should work yourself too much about the stereotyping, it doesn't really affect you or anybody. It doesn't provide a shred of solution though.
Now you are just making things up. By saying men have the power and responsibility to change masculinity to the better, we are saying the exact opposite of men being naturally evil. Having a dick isn’t bad (so you are fine, no one is accusing you), upholding destructive masculinity norms is.
Denying that masculinity can be very destructive is just being stubborn for the sake of stubbornness. I would have loved to live in your rainbow paradise.
Sorry.
On topic, I don't think that you should work yourself too much about the stereotyping, it doesn't really affect you or anybody. It doesn't provide a shred of solution though.
I'm not even getting worked up about it really, it's not affecting me. I just think it's an interesting piece of hypocrisy is all. I'm sure the second part of my first sentence is also why it's allowed to be so. It's a small price to pay, I guess.
What did I make up?
My initial quibble wasn't with the assertion that men have the power and responsibility to change masculinity to the better, I'd certainly agree with that, and have written similar in some of my posts. It's up to the guys who aren't dicks to change it, basically. It's about ostracising those who aren't behaving right. That doesn't mean I can't call out some douche on twitter for saying it's a male problem though.
It's a simple issue.
Men find young women sexually attractive and are prompted by nature to pursue them more or less indiscriminately. That response is triggered by proximity, whether in a social context or in the workplace.
Some people have little respect for social codes or boundaries, and, indifferent to the feelings of others, will exploit them given the opportunity. Such men have a strong incentive to transgress against women and some will always do so.
Men find young women sexually attractive and are prompted by nature to pursue them more or less indiscriminately. That response is triggered by proximity, whether in a social context or in the workplace.
Some people have little respect for social codes or boundaries, and, indifferent to the feelings of others, will exploit them given the opportunity. Such men have a strong incentive to transgress against women and some will always do so.
Good, you are starting to see the light. In a few months we will have brainwashed you into joining our man-hating, cock-chopping feminist army. Men are finally submitting to the matriarchy.
Good, you are starting to see the light. In a few months we will have brainwashed you into joining our man-hating, cock-chopping feminist army. Men are finally submitting to the matriarchy.
It's a really small piece of semantics I took issue with, and a small one-line post triggered a 2 page reaction, which wasn't really my intention. I agree with all the general points she made. A lot of men are dicks and they need stopping, I think you'd have trouble arguing otherwise.
The point of the tweet was to say its not about male lust
Don't tell me I've read it wrong? Let me go back and read it again.EDIT: Well she did say "The lesson of the sexual harassment crisis isn’t just about male lust" so she is sort of inferring that's a big part of it. She's basically saying men are naturally predisposed to be like that and are enabled by their positions in society, isn't she?
EDIT: Well she did say "The lesson of the sexual harassment crisis isn’t just about male lust" so she is sort of inferring that's a big part of it. She's basically saying men are naturally predisposed to be like that and are enabled by their positions in society, isn't she?
She's saying that people in power take advantage of people they have power over. And when so many American workers have no union rights and their bosses have near total control over their employment/advancement, it just gives them more opportunity to take advantage. Often this takes the form of sexual assault.
Absolutely. People like to dance around the issue and blame things like religion or culture or race or whatever, anything that disassociate them. It is simply humans and power, give us power and at some point, enough of us will abuse it. It's like that bit about how the only thing stopping us from killing each other is that it is illegal and that if we thought we could get away with it, we'd all be doing. As you say, because men are usually in those positions, that's what happens, nothing really complicated about it.
The Stanford prison experiment is always a good reminder of how cnutish we are capable of being once given a bit of power over others.
So yes, power imbalance is the main issues here. That said, given the disproportionate percentage of men committing violent or extralegal acts compared to women, it's absolutely worth it to examine our psyche, or 'toxic/destructive masculinity'.
If you would be happy for another man to do that to you in the showers at your health club or in prison then no.
If however you might find that invasive or intimidating, why do you expect my daughter to put up with it without say breaking his fingers?
Not that what you say is entirely wrong, but at one crucial point the separation you make doesn't work for me: culture plays a big part in who gets into positions of power and who doesn't.
(On a side note, I'm also sure culture/morals play a big part in why many people strictly wouldn't rape or murder, if they could get away with it.)
I think people exaggerate how much we actually have to do with deciding what culture is. We have instincts, a lot of them are vile but they are also in some cases necessary for our progress. We have been trying to since the beginning of time to tame the horrible side of those instincts and control it through laws and regulations in order to live with each other. The success of this attempts is largely linked to the economical well-being of the individuals and their general quality of life. This to me means that culture in the sense of what we consider acceptable and what we do not is the same everywhere, it's about how much indulgence there is for a specific type of behaviour and powerful people in every walk of life throughout history have been indulged pretty much equally.
When you say that culture plays a big part in who gets into positions of power, I am not sure again as I think it's the other way. People who are naturally power hungry and have that required "ambition" necessary to be influential, tend to end up those positions and therefore they end up controlling said culture, they control the narrative. Or you can look at it in another way, we have an almost inherent need to create a hierarchy among each other. We need to someone on a pedestal to look up to and use as an example. This has been usually religious leaders and emperors throughout history and as much as people like to pretend we are smarter than that nowadays, we have just replaced those figures with more abstract forms of authority. This inherent need in itself creates that imbalance of power that is the prefect springboard for abuse.