The Gender Equality Checkpoint
 

As most of you know I have a strong interest in sexism and gender roles - how they arise, how they shift, and the current contours of our gendered culture.

Often I read an article, or series of articles, which set out, or highlight current areas of gender inequality, or more optimistically, of the closing of that gap in some way, and I think to post them in here. I never know quite where to put them - and if i started a thread for every article - or even every little cluster of related articles - I'd flood the Cellar :p

Sexism - however it manifests - like racism needs to be discussed and understood.

The world is changing. And our concepts of gender are changing. These shifts - sometimes seeming to move towards greater parity and sometimes seeming to shift back - have been a part of the human experience for as long as we can reasonably trace back through our history, and most likely for as long as we have had the human capacity for complex thought and self-awareness. It does feel, though - looking at the past few hundred years in western culture - that we are broadly moving towards greater parity and towards a less stark division of labour and a less polarised understanding of gender roles. (though - some would argue we are returning to greater parity)

Looking specifically at the now, however, it's clear that movement is a stuttering one. We take steps forward - we take steps back. There are areas of broad consensus and areas of deep struggle.

Well - that's enough of a rambling introduction from me. This thread is for all those little snippets of news or current studies that speak to the shape of gender in our culture, that show how far we have come or how far we still have to go - and whether we even all agree on the journey.

As a final note: from my perspective sexism, and in particular gender inequality, is usually something I associate with the female experience. But these divisions are not clean cut - and this thread is intended as a space for other perspectives as well. The ways in which men become trapped or coralled into particular roles, and the ways in which those expected roles can then disadvantage men in some areas of life (such as child custody, and rights to parental leave) are part of the same social system that disadvantages women in other areas of life. Add in the range of LGBT experiences and the intersections of race and gender, and the different perspectives multiply far beyond the binary division of male and female.

I'll come back later and post a few snippets that caught my attention over the last couple of weeks - but for now a bit of positive news:


http://www.theguardian.com/education...ice-chancellor




And a funny vid (though for a serious cause)

'If men had periods - manpons'

.

I've got a lot of conflicting thoughts about feminism.

I grew up as a strong feminist. I was exposed to it as a child. For example, my mom served a term as president of the League of Women Voters for Maine back in the 70s when that group was reaching the height of its activity. I believed there were pretty big injustices for women then and something had to be done.

In college, I wasn't active in feminist issues, but I supported them.

I still do support feminism, but I define it more in terms of equal rights and protections for all. Not in terms of lifting only women up or tearing men down. I've been in the professional working world for a quarter of a century, and for that entire time, my bosses have all been women. For over half that time, their bosses have been women. Maybe my personal experiences don't match others, and maybe it's because I'm in a field with a lot of women in it (paralegals) but from where I'm standing, I don't see a need to help women to gain more power over men.

One thing that bothers me is the idea of driving wedges between people. Doesn't matter if it's man/woman, black/white, gay/straight, citizen/immigrant. Whenever I hear people talking about feminism, all I see is a big fucking wedge.

But I support equal opportunities, treatment, and protections for all.

A bit of a tangent...
A friend on FB bragged this week about how she got a car salesman fired because he kept hitting on her during a car sale. His behavior sounded horrible and needed to be corrected, but I didn't see how there should be a congratulatory celebration on FB about destroying this guy's livelihood. She had scores of posts from people cheering her on. And maybe it's all appropriate. This guy had bad people skills and didn't understand the proper way to interact with women. Yes, it's OK to convey to a woman that you are interested in her, but not when the only reason she is spending time with you is so she can buy a car. And even if you make a comment or subtle body language in an appropriate situation, if she doesn't pick up on it or respond in kind, she's probably not interested in you, and you should stop making advances. This guy needs to learn both lessons. Maybe getting fired will help him learn that. Or maybe getting fired will cause him to hate women. The only thing good that realistically might come out of this is the car dealership management might increase their training efforts on what constitutes inappropriate behavior. I kinda doubt it though. So it's a FB celebration about fighting sexism by destroying a stranger's livelihood.

I think my thoughts on feminism maybe changed when I was watching Thelma and Louise with a large group of people, and the feminists in the room cheered loudly when the sexist trucker had his truck blown up by Thelma and Louise. His advances on the women were objectifying and crude, and he looked gross, but he didn't deserve to have his entire livelihood destroyed. And to have that cheered.

It all leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't like wedges that divide us.

The following exchanges made for a delightful morning's read,
particularly since I had just finished reading Dana's new thread.

Let this be my first minor contribution to what may become a outstanding thread...

This kind of thing pisses me off. It's one thing to make a complaint to a company about the way you've been treated by a member of their staff - it is quite another thing to revel in destroying someone's career because they acted like a dick.

Unfortunately that is something of an exception. Paralegals began as a mostly female thing - it initially came out of secretarial support for lawyers. There are industries where women make up a reasonable percentage of management - though statistically speaking, even in fields that are female dominated in terms of work force (primary/elementary teaching for example) management still tends to be predominantly male.

This is one of the difficulties, I think, with feminism generally. For some people, their life experience is one of strong women in positions of power - and it can make the inequalities that do exist seem less prominent or relevant. It is also important to bear in mind that whilst statistically women may fare worse in the world of work overall (pay disparity, promotional disparity, and the unconscious biases that affect hiring practices) there are areas in which men fare worse (male teachers of younger children for example face a lot of discrimination in hiring) and their experience of discrimination is just as valid and just as potentially damaging to them as individuals.

An interesting look at gender in the legal profession:

http://www.legaltechnology.com/lates...w-infographic/

And a piece by a male paralegal :

http://paralegalhell.com/2010/11/10/...ale-paralegal/

I think making an example of some incident goes far beyond the effect on the individual.
This story will have an effect on all the other salespeople at this dealership, and maybe spread to others as well.

But the take home msg I got from your story was something else.
It was the dealership's decision to fire the man, not the woman's.
This woman did not put up with this behavior, and reported it.
I'd suggest that may be a big part of the reason for the response on FB.

I think reporting it was the right thing to do. Celebrating the downfall of the salesman was overboard though.

It's a facebook fairy tail. For all we know she tried to use her body to literally fuck him out of his commission, and when he balked she felt it was an insult, so she destroyed his livelihood out of spite. :eyebrow:

I really don't see how that kind of thing helps at all. In the grand scheme of life, a bloke hitting on a woman is not the world's worst sin. is it part of the bigger picture? Yes. Do unwanted advances have the potential to twist into a form of harrassment? Yes. And for some women (I'd suggest many) there is a cumulative effect of catcalls in the street*, unwanted strangers groping on buses/trains/in clubs, getting hit on by men when you are just trying to conduct some business and/or access services etc.

But - each individual incident is often fairly minor. That chap got hit with the anger that comes from the cumulative effect of this stuff.








* catcalling in the street usually starts when a girl hits 11 or 12 (sometimes younger) and intermittently continues til around the age of 30-40.

My first experience of it was as an 11year old being shouted and whistled at (and invited to suck cocks) by grown men. My last experience of it was a couple of years ago when a lad leant out of his car and shouted horrible things.

I've also been hit on by a boss, by a much older, senior work colleague and by a hospital porter (whilst standing in the smoking shelter, dressed in pyjamas and dressing gown). And had my arse slapped by an older colleague when I first became a councillor).

Found another interesting article about men in paralegal profession.



http://www.lawcrossing.com/article/2...lass-Elevator/

I've never heard the term 'glass elevator' before. This process of jobs gaining status and wage increases when men enter the profession is a fascinating one. There's a fantastic book, called The Struggle for the Breeches, which looks at male and female working patterns from the middle ages onwards. One of the case studies was the changing status of ale and beer making. Originally, brewing was a female task - something most women undertook as part of their role as homemaker. As brewing processes changed, becoming more complex and 'skilled' and requiring more equipment it moved out o fthe home and became a male profession. Women still made ale at home - but it was a low status occupation. The male brewers, who brewed beers, were considered a much higher status - skilled work. They then prevented women from undertaking such work - through the guild system, which operated as a closed shop disallowing female workers - except in auxillary roles as helpmates for their brewer husbands.

The wholescale entry of men into a field pushes up that field's status - at the same time, the wholescale entry of women into a field pushes down that field's status (teaching being the obvious example).

Obviously, when I say 'field' I am talking in broad terms - but it works for task types within a field too. Spinning or carding versus weaving for example.

On the one hand I totally agree. It isn't helpful to divide ourselves from each other. Unfortunately - racism and sexism (as well as bigotry against LGBT people etc) is already operating to divide us. In order to tackle that it has to be recognised. Equality for all is the goal - but it is amorphous and unfocused to simply call for equality - first the inequality has to be identified.

A quick word about 'patriarchy':

That staple of feminist theory is often misunderstood and mischaracterised. But - as a way of understanding power structures it has some value. It is important, though, to take on board the negative impact of such power structures on female and male lives. Patriarchy isn't something men impose on women - it is something we, as a society, impose on ourselves, and whilst in some regards that system of power structures benefits men at the expense of women, it doesn't benefit all men - nor are all women disadvantaged.

Patriarchy at its heart disadvantages most of us, and shores up the power of the few.

Here's the answer to your dreams.
Let it well up, fall around your shoulders, and ooze between your whatever.
http://cellar.org/2015/personality.jpg
Wow, is that some sick shit or what. :facepalm:
I suppose it's like Scientology, or The Power of Positive Thinking, if you believe, anything good happens it gets credit and anything bad is your failure.

Here's another one.
People not only making money reinforcing insecurities, but convincing women... and men, that women must be painted hussies.

Both great finds, Bruce :)

Speaking of not knowing the whole story, and of cumulative effects, did she get him fired all by herself, or was her complaint the final straw?

Not sure if this is a good place to put this but...

A 2010 checkpoint: "To be made to penetrate" - Female on male forced sexual intercourse - was counted in the US for the first time as a catagory of rape... Within the confines of a study, not legislation, in which it is still not quite considered rape yet. But it's progress.

OK, that didn't quite spark the debate I thought it would...

Although male rape is an under reported problem, I leave my door unlocked every night in hopes of gathering evidence, so is false claims of rape. But the intention of Dana's thread, as I understand it, is more the institutional rather than physical.

Bruce is right about the institutional focus. But culturally, the issue of male rape by a female perpetrator and how we as a society define and respond to that, is part of that bigger picture.

It presupposes agency for the male victim, in a way that implies a corresponding lack of agency for their female counterparts. It suggests that rape is a male act - because it assumes that sex is a male act - something men do to women. At the same time, rape is a way to physically impose, it is an act of power - something we do not, as a culture associate with women.

Rape of a woman is a heinous act - and society condemns it (though with a high degree of victim blaming thrown in for good measure) - but rape of a man subverts the entire gender system in which we currently live. It threatens our understanding of what it is to be a man or a woman at a fundamental level. Our culture therefore finds it very difficult to accept and understand the reality of those victims' experiences.

The problem is that it is not that "female on male rape" it is an under reported crime, it's that it's not a crime to report. At least in the US, If you say "I was raped by a woman" , since rape legally requires the actual penetration of a penis, there's no such thing unless she at some point in her life had a penis. The closest report you can make is for sexual assault.

The issue in question isn't merely a cultural one of an unreported crime, it's an institutional one of what doesn't legally count as a crime.

Bingo - what I was going for :cool:

In fairness, it is also impossible to impregnate a man, so the acts--while both depraved and horrific--are fundamentally different in my opinion.

If a man anally rapes another man, is that legally considered "rape" or "sexual assault?" I'm okay with the idea of the word "rape" only applying to women, as long as a woman forcing herself on a man is called the same thing as a man forcing himself on a man.

It is now considered rape, though even that was a rather recent update, until a couple of decades ago the definition was exclusive to when the victim was a woman.

While we are on case distinctions: While legally women can't commit rape - since the lack of consent isn't enough to define it as such under current laws, they can commit statutory rape - which is defined as rape because of the inability to give viable consent :eyebrow:

Are you saying rape should be redefined as "attempt to impregnate"? Would it then not count as rape if the rapists used protection, if the woman was too old to conceive or not count as statutory rape if she was too young?

That also brings up an interesting side note, since there are quite a few cases where men are paying child support for children born out of sex they didn't consent to have in the first place.

Interesting. Why? Why would a transgression (Non consensual sex) need a special sub category with it's own unique loaded word for female victims?

Non sexual forms of physical violence can also have different consequences to members of either gender simply by virtue of impacting a different set of organs - if we redefine rape for women because they might get pregnant should we redefine physical assault on women because they might already be pregnant and abort the baby in the process? And why not anything else? Is murder for men fundamentally different because it can result in stopping the blood flow to a penis?

I'm not saying it needs it. You're saying it has it, and I'm saying I don't necessarily object to that as long as it's consistent.

We already do--if you punch a pregnant woman in the stomach, it's physical assault on her but it is also legally the murder of the baby.

It's not that it would "not count," it's that it has the potential to be called something else. I'm certainly not suggesting that raping is fine as long as there is a condom involved, I'm just saying nuance is better than lack of nuance, when trying to define involuntary punishments that are to be handed down by the state.

There could just as easily be a new term for women forcing themselves on men for the express purpose of impregnating themselves--seed theft, for example, which might earn a punishment equivalent to those currently given for rape, or not, but the point is that calling everything by one term almost never improves things.

If it's simple semantic consistent you are seeking then it already is, even without having the same term for women raping men as that of men raping men, simply by virtue of having a specified weapon instead (Penis).

Narrower and more selective categorization often result in more ignorance then more understanding:

When it comes to social & legal policy it's more often then not used as a means to excuse unequal treatments, such as a corporate alliance lobbying for a nuanced exceptions in the tax code, making a nuanced distinction between how you punish drugs popular in black culture and how you punish drugs popular in white culture, or let's say... Gender treatment [insert pretty much an topic that would be relevant to this thread].

When it comes to day to day ethical decisions it usually involves explaining why the time I pickpocket someones jeans is totally different from the time someone pickpockets my khakis.

Are any of those better because they are treated as more distinct categories?

Is manslaughter better defined as murder? Is the consensual, but nonetheless statutory rape of a 17-year-old by her 18-year-old boyfriend indistinguishable from a violent rape in an alleyway at gunpoint?

There is room for loopholes in a nuanced system, it's true. But if the sentencing laws for different drugs are resulting in unfair results, the answer is not to say "all drugs deserve X punishment, end of nuance." The answer is to change the punishments in the places where they are currently inappropriate. Should the punishment for cocaine be harsher? Perhaps. But that will not be achieved by pretending cocaine is crack when it is not. That will be achieved by making the punishment for cocaine harsher.

I would say the pretense is on the other foot: When making an artifical distinction for arbitrary reasons that aren't consequentially meaningful, we are pretending that the same behavior and actions consequences or objects can be treated as distinct and often incomparable because we name them differently.

The words we choose don't particularly have that power, and we do choose them - there isn't a matter of defining something as something it is simply not - it is a matter of defining it in a way that maximizes the understanding of the meaning it carries (Unless you worship the magical sky dictionary, in which case I am sorry and meant no disrespect towards your beliefs).

Digging into why we define things differently provides a more accurate understanding, as more often then not doing so to account for variables that aren't meaningful to the subject matter demonstrate how those variables are meaningful to us elsewhere (Such as defining a loaded term of sexual violence in a distinct way that might illustrate the assumptions that sexual agency is inherit to males or our outlook of gender roles and victimhood).

Just as an aside, I happened to mention to a male friend about recently being offered money to perform a sex act. He was really quite shocked. I had to make a mental adjustment to remember that for a man, this is not the sort of thing they hear on a regular basis.

I have never accepted a straightforward financial transaction in return for sexual favours, although I admit the lines became blurred between me and the Evil Ex, who would summon me over when it suited him, but I would always leave with more than it would cost me to get home.

But I have had the opportunity to be paid for full intercourse, oral sex (that seems to be a favourite, with the lowest offered being £50) and even anal (£200). None of these men were complete strangers either, I hadn't wandered into a red light district and been mistaken for a prostitute. They were men I knew socially, worked with, drank with or bought food from. And in every case my refusal was shrugged off with an attitude of, "Ah well, it was worth a try."

I know I'm not alone in my experience; look what happened with the poor teenage girls groomed by gangs of men. I was just older and had a more secure self-image and home life, so that I didn't get started on that particular slippery slope. But I think men who don't try to get a bit of female flesh for hire don't realise that this goes on. Perhaps even the really fun guy that they crack open a few beers with has tried it on occasion. And then they wonder why women can sometimes be genuinely offended by a pat on the bottom or a catcall in the street.

Anyway, as you were.

By the age of 15, I had been aggressively hit on by two separate men in their 30s--not in a leering sense, but in a genuine "you can trust I would make a very good boyfriend," entitled sort of way--and had one adult man of indeterminate age whom I had never met attempt to engage me in phone sex. And I led a rather protected, upper middle class life, at that.

~ to be fair you do excellent voice work ~

We hear about it the same way women who don't get this kind of attention hear about it - from stories of our friends who do - and it's hard for both men and women to get because, well...

http://i.imgur.com/4WXGw3j.jpg

To put it in perspective, while some women get sick and exhausted from beating the horde of potential lovers away with a stick, many women and almost all men can occasionally go through a few years without anyone approaching and saying anything that can remotely be interpreted as complimenting or nice. For women it's because male attention is rather focused on the upper tire, you can see it manifesting in statistics in places like okcupid where very few women receive almost all messages. For men it's because female intentions aren't usually expressed that directly and men don't generally have a culture of complimenting each other. From that position, the implication that someone is finding you attractive is a lot more significant then the implication that your standards are low enough that you'd accept money.

Defne 'attention'.


On catcalling:

This isn't something that happens to the pretty girl, but not the plain girl, the young girl, but not the older girl, the available girl, but not the married girl. This happens to women pretty much randomly. It starts when you're very young - for most girls- and it continues, on and off, until you read the age of invisibility (somewhere around 40 usually).

This idea that we, the ones who get noticed, should be grateful for the attention because, hey - first world problems right? Men find us actractive, boo hoo, right? Feel sorry for the ones who get ignored, right?

Which fundamentally misunderstands both the tenor and impact of that kind of attention.

Walking to the shop, minding my own business, just going about my day - I don't need a total stranger to tell me to smile (is my facial expression not acceptable, Mr Man?), nor do I have any interest in sucking his cock. I don't particularly like the experience of having the entire street's attention directed my way because the two lads hanging their heads out of a second story building are shouting comments about my tits or my willingness to do it doggy style. It is of no interest to me that yet another random stranger feels I'd be prettier with make-up /wearing a skirt, or that I really should get some meat on my bones.

These are not compliments - they are an imposition. They get shouted at women of all shapes, sizes and aesthetic types.

But hey - we should all be fucking grateful right? Because that's what all women really want - attention from men. Got it.


As for propositions - when I was 18 years old my landlord (and a mate from around town) tried to persuade me to let him set me up as a high class prostitute. I laugh about it now - and I always had some affection for Harry (mad old sod) but actually, they were a little too pushy about it for that to be an entirely comfortable memory. They were in their early 40s.

Lost a whole GD post - I hate the library computers sometimes/

I was basically saying that a loving relationship, or acquiring a lover, is nothing like being propositioned for money.
The flip side of that would be taking a woman on a date asking her "for coffee" at the end of it and having her bring out a charge sheet. "What's wrong honey, didn't I use the right font?"

I haven't been in a loving sexual relationship in years. Would I like to be? Probably. Not enough to actively work towards it though. And only partly because I have enough in my messed up life to deal with right now. But the idea that I would equally miss the unwanted, unasked for comments, catcalls, open discussions about my sexual orientation, size of my breasts, shape of my butt on the street just doesn't work. Little boys tend to pull the hair of the girl they fancy, then run away. Grown men don't. This is about power, not attraction.

I'd hate to think that my brother ran the same gauntlet every day with attention from gay men. He doesn't, although I'm sure there are an equal number of manipulative gay men out there who like to throw their weight around. Perhaps they have to be more careful in who they direct their aggression to because there are more men ready to stop them down for the insult.

Running the gauntlet. That's such a good way to put it.

I remember when i was about 11 years old, maybe coming up on 12 - my best mate and I often used to walk up the back street, from my house to a local park. There were several houses in that block which had been converted to bedsits, and mostly housed single men.

Running the gauntlet is exactly how that walk felt. Sometimes we'd shout something back (if we were feeling brave), often we'd just try to ignore them - our cheeks burning (poor Maddie got very embarrassed very easily and it always showed in a full-on red face).

The stuff they shouted to us - Jesus. If I caught a grown man saying stuff like that to one of my nieces I'd have the police involved in three seconds flat. But that was normal - that shit just happened. I look back at how young we both were, and how young we both looked, in our peddle-pushers and bright t-shirts - and it makes me feel a little queasy.

Likewise, walking down the street as school girls of 13 in our uniforms was like we'd flicked a red light on over our heads. You knew, as a girl that age, that the blokes on the building site on the way to school would make lewd comments or whistle. Cars would occasionally slow down so that men, not boys, men could comment and leer.

I'm not saying it happened constantly - but often enough for it to form a part of our understanding of the world in which we moved. Want to know what it feels like to be prey? Be an adolescent girl walking down the street of an ordinary industrial town in Britain.

I didn't said any "should's" - She was speculating why men don't get it, I explained that it had very little to do with whether they know what is happening and a lot more to do with their point of view in the dynamic of what is happening.

Those don't actually contradict:
I need to do groceries and get food and cook followed by washing the dishes - those are chores - frankly sometimes I really don't feel like it, I sometimes even hate it. But I am not sitting around wondering why people from actual 3rd world countries are rationing dried bread for the next few days because the sweatshop money is only coming next week would be having a bit of a difficult time "getting" my complaint.

I am not going to go and tell them that food isn't a privilege but a chore, because I do acknowledge that it can be both, and depending on where you stand, sometimes the value of one of those elements can greatly overshadow the other, and yet that in no way makes me feel any better about the chores ahead.

Yes, your mother's thing about appreciating bad food because of hungry children in Africa is total bullshit, both complaints can absolutely be legitimate in the same time. I am calling her out on it! And I am not afraid if she knows (OK maybe I am. Please don't tell her) .

Perhaps this still has a bit of a proportional problem, so a better metaphor might be this: I hated the army service and the war, the whole running towards people shooting at me and people you care about dying really isn't for me, It was genuinely a very difficult experience for me, but I can still acknowledge that and in the same time acknowledge that people who are living in areas that don't have the means to defend themselves at all might have a hard time seen where I am coming from. One problem doesn't contradict the other.

Edit: For an even more balanced example, someone in the US just got hurt in a car accident on the way from getting groceries, someone from a village in Africa just broke their leg because they couldn't withstand the 5 hour walk with a jug of water over their heads. They are both hurt, but the later got hurt for lacking the means of the former, and might find the particular complaint about driving safety a bit hard to identify with.

Regarding "should's" - if you are trying to get a value judgement out of me... That's difficult. When both sides stick to their guns and just refuse to see how their perspective comes from where they stand rather then the nature of the terrain, or in MMO terms (What class or skillset they picked rather then the overall gameplay), then both are pretty ignorant. I suppose my "Should" would be for both sides of that debate to get their heads out of their asses and try to analyze the exchange as a whole. But that's an ideal I gave up on awhile ago, I still believe most people can do it if they wanted too, but I realized a long time ago that regardless if they can, most people don't want too, since it has the awful tendency to invalidate what they feel.

I was responding mainly to the poster you showed, Trace.

But also this:

Most cat calling isn't about potential lovers complimenting the objects of their desire. It's a power trip (as Sundae pointed out). And it's not about the women for whom this happens, and the women for whom it doesn't - we're the same women. As you say, it is perfectly possible to go for quite a while without anybody saying anything nice or complimentary to you. It's also possible then to get a flurry of incidents across a year or so.

An actual compliment is a lovely thing. Despite the fact that I have a real problem with the idea of catcalling and some of the assumptions and permissions that underlie it - some random bloke (or group of lads) makes a genuine, if clumsy attempt to express appreciation, I generally take them at their word and smile or laugh as appropriate. I generally choose not to take offence if none seems to have been intended - and if I've not been put into a horrible and publicly humiliating position (has happened) by their attention.

But the root assumptions that underlie catcalling are pretty unpleasant to my mind.

Hmm... You seem to be looking at reframing the action itself by superimposing an assumed vilifying frame of intentions that are completely outside of your actual qualia - criticizing the color choices of invisible clothes says very little about anyone else's fashion sense.

If you examine the actions in themselves and view them as harmful, that is a fact about the actions, but if the only reasons they take a negative tone is because of the hidden agenda you assume is there, which you assume because of the negative tone... That's a super imposed image, not an observation.

Not really. What I'm suggesting is that as cultural understandings change it is unfair and unwise to expect all members of the community to move at the same pace and in the same direction. It's a little like not taking offence when an elderly person makes a mildly racist assumption about 'coloureds' - recognising intent is important in any human interaction. We all make assessments as to other people's intentions when they interact with us.

There are different kinds of catcall/uninvited remark which carry very different meanings. Some of the negative elements are obvious, some intended. Some are not intended - but they do not happen in a cultural or social vacuum.

We talked earlier about attitudes towards rape. We can view that issue at a case level - an experience level. Or we can look at how it fits into the bigger picture. Catcalling (and Eve Teasing as it is known in India) also speaks to that bigger picture - it says something about how we view not just the roles of men and women, but the responsiblities, expectations and permissions of men and women.

There is a spectrum of unwanted attention, ranging from clumsy, but well-intentioned come-ons to intimidating and demeaning jibes. They all have at their base an assumption both that women want male attention, regardless of where it comes from - and that men have a right to women's attention. Because the thing about catcalling a woman is the man isn't just paying her attention -m he is demanding hers back. Whatever reaction you give, whether it is to engage, try to scurry away, try to laugh it off, blush whatever - you are now dealing with him and his wants not you and your own stuff.

If I've got dressed up and am dancing in a club and some random lad moves up close and tries to make nice - I wouldn't be offended - that's the game. Everyone's clearly playing - we're all in the kind of place where the game is played and God loves a trier after all.

If I am on my way to the bus stop to catch a bus and get to a lecture - or I'm coming back from the shop, with some knotty problem on my mind - maybe wrapped up in a coat and not feeling particularly sociable - I am not playing the game - random strangers are just that: random strangers. Why would any random stranger assume I want to know what he thinks of me?

Drunk lads out on the pull - fair enough - they're in that mindset, they're on the playing fields, and if it strays a little towards catcalling people who aren't playing, you kind of see why. But when guys just do it as an ordinary part of the day - to girls and women who are just trying to go about their own damned business - on the high street, the bus, the school gates - that is different.

What it all goes to say is - that for those men, any woman is potentialy playing the game at all times - if they like her then she is fair game. She might have chosen to not play the game - but that choice doesn't cut it. She might have clothed herself in baggy, saggy clothes that hide her shape and try to make herself invisible - but that also doesn't cut it. Because she is female - and therefore fair game.

So no - I don't like what underlies it. I don't like what it says about my right, as a woman, to opt out of the mating dance. But that doesn't mean I am going to lamp every guy who still thinks that shit is acceptable. Because, like most aspects of sexism and gender relations there are two distinct strands to look at: the theoretical, taking account of the wider cultural context and structures and the personal, taking account of our lived lives as human beings.

That is a curious way of seen things... Did the modern day ability to block users we don't like on social media made it such a "right" in our mind, that we view our bubbles of our own little universes as a right to take for granted and breaching it as a right never given? Instead of the right for free speech, we now demand the right for selecting what speech we hear and view the inconvenience speech we dislike as an entitlement for a right not had?

You'd have a fair point if catcalling was something that wasn't loaded with sexual meaning and gender assumptions. Does it happen to men? Yeah, sometimes - but mainly it is something that women experience, and experience because they are women.

Going back to Sundae's point about being propositioned for cash and after the Quiz for Ladies thread sent me down a Man Stroke Woman road on Youtube - came across this:

It is certainly a manifestation of gender dynamic and it's certainly - at least a good portion o the time - a sexual advance, neither one of those form particular good exceptions to what I said.

There is an awkward combination of competing social forces atm which vilify sexual and/or romantic initiative in more and more of it's forms in a way that makes good old Catholicism and Jewish Hasidics seem like the 60s sexually revolution by comparison. Why should sexuality be exception to the basic tenants of liberty?

I don't suggest that it should be.



Freedom of speech is about having the right to express your opinion without fear of state reprisal or judicial response. It is not the right to express yourself without any social consequence.

Social - yes.
Legal - no.

It's a key difference, our rights aren't a guarantee that everything we do within them is right, just that it isn't right to prevent us from doing it. On that level I have no problem with cat calling becoming consciously rude - maybe to be treated a few decades from now the same we do now with elders using racial slurs. But that's on a level of cultural adaptation.

Still, the general trend this is part of is... Troubling & interesting. We are culturally blocking more and more of the old natural mediums of initiation just at the time we've become remarkably good at consolidating human interaction artificially.

The word "inalienable" makes me think of of in-alien-able, able to be placed in an alien & the over-sexualization of both terrestrial and non terrestrial foreigners, the first I tend to be the larger portions of my life and the later I may or may not be depending on whether mommy lied to me. This offends me greatly.

Next time, TRIGGER WARNING! ;)

Oh, offence is a funny one. Everybody has their own idea of what may or may not be offensive.

At a theoretical level I'm less concerned with the content - I'm more concerned with the context and degree of imposition. At a personal level, the content matters - but again, it's not really about offence. If a bloke tells me my mouth would look a lot better round his cock (and I must say that sort of comment doesn't come my way much now I'm in my 40s ;p) my response isn't so much to be offended, as it is to be flummoxed, embarrassed, suddenly and cripplingly self-conscious and to try and exit the encounter with as much grace as possible.

The only time I feel offended, as such, is when someone has made a really horrible comment which intended to hurt and offend - like being told by a random stranger that i look like a man in a dress - or that I look like a dog.

I've been frightened and intimidated by encounters though. But again - that is all about context.

Here's two real life scenarios that show a distinct tonal difference:

1. Walking through a housing estate, past a shop and there's a group of young men larking about. They see me coming, and block my way. They're smiling and joking, but I am also half surrounded. One of them makes a lewd suggestion - another says, 'ignore him' and laughingly puts his arm around my shoulders.

I laughed along, made a comment of my own and continued on my way.

It doesn't sound like much - and they didn't say or do anything greatly offensive - but their physical domination of the pavement, and imposition of their interaction on me was intimidating.

2. Standing outside a hotel in London having a quick smoke and a young, very hip looking black guy in his 20s calls over to me if he could get a cig off me. Then asked me if I was looking for another kind of smoke. I declined as i was already sorted for that (;p) he made a very flattering comment and invited me to go back home with him to get wasted. I declined. And before he went on his way he asked if he could hug me goodbye. So we hugged.

That was a positive interaction. He was very sweet - there was a little flirting -It was an uninvited approach from a total stranger - but he wasn't imposing or intimidating. It had a social context - a conversational opening gambit, with continued interaction following social cues. If he'd have made a real pass at me or something, at that point, whilst I'd have declined, i certainly wouldn't have been offended.

The trouble with catcalling is it is without the appropriate
social context. Otherwise it wouldn't be catcalling.

This is the thing that is so insidious. The "good guy" wanted to show that he would protect you from the lewd friend. But the way he does it is not to block or intimidate the lewd friend, but rather to use his body language to claim you as his own.

I have had so many problems in my life with so-called nice guys who in the end behaved with no less entitlement than the lewd guys, but they had convinced themselves that rather than "wanting" it, they had "earned" it. At least the lewd guys usually know they're being a jackass.

I was thinking about this when I read a This American Life transcript just now. Act 2 is a female-to-male transgender person, describing what it's like to suddenly go from no testosterone in your body, to a lot of it:

continued

That's good stuff.

Real humans are so tough to nail down though. Because if I take this, and the experiences of other very frank men, at face value, I can construct the "male experience" as a certain thing, and try to work with it and learn how to interact with it. But then other men who have less testosterone naturally flowing in their system will get angry that assumptions are being made.

On the one hand, I truly believe we're all just a bag of chemicals and free will is an illusion, but on the other hand, we're each such a completely different bag of chemicals, you know?

I would like to see a time where we can all just be accepted as people. Not male or female or any of the other labels in between. Recently there was a transgender child who was born a boy, but has apparently identified as a girl since he/she was old enough to think for herself. She's in year 3, so 8yrs old and recently was permitted to compete with the girls rather than the boys. Whilst ethically I think this was the right decision, it certainly leaves a lot to be asked about physical strength etc and there has been a social media uproar about it over here.

Obviously the reason for that is because, no matter how much women or feminists push to be considered equal to men in all areas, the fact of the matter is that we aren't. Just as men are not equal to women in all areas. Of course there will always be exceptions to these rules, but in general, male and female humans respond differently emotionally and physically to just about everything.

How could we ever expect to be equal?

Is that testosterone or just... Objectophilia?

Actually the exceptions mark huge portions.

Between 00:30 and 2:14:

• "The average woman is better [in spatial awareness] then 33% of all men"
• "33% of men are better then the average woman [in language]"

Disclaimer: These are regarding cognitive psychology though, their might be differences in personality that aren't as easy to place on a metric.

The most obvious one is ofcourse crime statistics, followed by the wage gap analysis. Certainly there are groups that would insist that one of those is systematic oppression while the other is natural (MRA/feminism), but in all closer examinations it seems a matter of the choices people make, which can reflect that men and women do make different choices.

Doesn't the very idea of transgenderism go directly against that?

The moment you agree to the notion that someone is "truly [insert gender inside] but in the wrong body", you agree to the assumption that gender is about what you truly are and not simply your sex. In a way it contradicts with the premise of a gender neutral society.

I had a few interesting discussions about that with an MTF who was more scientific minded then ideological. There is a lot of interesting research done about gender differences that show up in FMRI's and actually correspond with the FMRI of transfolk (MTF get female indicators and FTM get male indicators)... So it might just be that the "Gender = nothing but sex" premise is simply wrong.

Maybe the closest we can come is feminism in the style of Wendy McElroy or Christina Hoff Sommers rather then traditional 3rd wave feminism: Simply a society of equal opportunities within our system & a culture empathy beyond the realms of our own gender. Maybe that's the most that can be done without causing more damage then good.

:p:

Heheh.

Very good.