[Turambar]

How are people so unable to see how much of a moron she is?

[Blue Lion]

She's kinda hot



Not a shop

[iamzack]

She's kinda hot

Yes, that's right. Appearance is all a woman should ever be judged on! How could I forget?

[Ford Prefect]

You know, I'm a fervent supporter of feminism, and I have to say, lacking a sense of humor really doesn't do any cause much good.

[General Battuta]

Easy there, Ford. I can see iamzack's point. When the objectification of women is one of the points you're explicitly fighting against - and one of the topics of the thread is, in fact, how women are evaluated as compared to men - it does seem a little offensive to drop in a comment like Blue Lion's.

While it's easy to criticize that reaction as humorless and shrill, the fact is that remarks like that are a source of a lot of the implicit attitudes that make things difficult for women.

[Turambar]

She doesn't look too bad for someone who's shoved 4 kids out of her vagina, but her appearance isn't the issue, her slow-firing neurons are.

[Ford Prefect]

Easy there, Ford. I can see iamzack's point. When the objectification of women is one of the points you're explicitly fighting against - and one of the topics of the thread is, in fact, how women are evaluated as compared to men - it does seem a little offensive to drop in a comment like Blue Lion's.

While it's easy to criticize that reaction as humorless and shrill, the fact is that remarks like that are a source of a lot of the implicit attitudes that make things difficult for women.

Well perhaps I'm giving Blue Lion too much credit here, but I sort of assumed that the blatant impropriety was supposed to be the joke's active ingredient.

[Blue Lion]

It was a joke

"Why do you pay attention to her?" "Duh, she's got teh boobs!"

[General Battuta]

Yeah, that's a distinct possibility. And if so it is kinda funny.

But, as the default power group here (a white heterosexual male myself) we should probably leave it up to the people who aren't on top of the patriarchal power structure to decide when they're offended. I guess. *sigh* After a lot of learning psychology I've realized that it really is important to crack down on casual, funny misogyny...but I still feel like a bit of buzzkill doing it.

EDIT:

It was a joke

I know, I know, but...eh, y'know? Feminism has this problem with being seen as joyless, *****y and shrill, and cracking down on jokes doesn't help, but the fact is that stereotype threat research shows that those things really do affect women in tangible ways (like lowering scores on math exams after activating appearance stereotypes.)

[iamzack]

Hey, if she was a model, or an actress, or trying to become Miss USA, sure "she's hot" is relevant.

What I hate most is its irrelevancy. I'm so SICK of people going "wow, she's pretty" or "she's a great mother" or whathaveyou when it doesn't. ****ing. matter.

NO, I'm not going to go "haha, yeah, she's hot, she should totally be president." Mostly because it's not funny.

Hell, I don't find it in the LEAST funny when I hear people go on and on about how Anne Coulter is ugly or a tranny or whatever else. It's not funny, because the joke isn't on Anne Coulter the joke is on unattractive women and transexuals.

If all you can judge a woman on is her appearance, then you should pretty much just shut your goddamn trap because everything you are going to say is completely worthless to anyone who might hear it.

(And, yeah, I figured it was a joke, but I don't care. It wasn't funny.)

[Blue Lion]

If anything it was an insult to the GOP who couldn't see past her as a pretty face who spouted their stuff (that was the joke) and not "haha women are objects!"

I'm saddened I actually had to explain that.

[iamzack]

If anything it was an insult to the GOP who couldn't see past her as a pretty face who spouted their stuff (that was the joke) and not "haha women are objects!"

That doesn't make me any less pissed off. Basically your joke was that you were mocking the GOP types through imitation. I didn't mean to seem specifically angry at you, but I didn't even make an effort not to.

So, yeah, I see joke, haha, still not amused, because it was a fail joke.

To be clear: it's NOT a good joke if the people you are mocking would look at it and heartily agree.

[Blue Lion]

Hey, if she was a model, or an actress, or trying to become Miss USA, sure "she's hot" is relevant.

What I hate most is its irrelevancy. I'm so SICK of people going "wow, she's pretty" or "she's a great mother" or whathaveyou when it doesn't. ****ing. matter.

NO, I'm not going to go "haha, yeah, she's hot, she should totally be president." Mostly because it's not funny.

Hell, I don't find it in the LEAST funny when I hear people go on and on about how Anne Coulter is ugly or a tranny or whatever else. It's not funny, because the joke isn't on Anne Coulter the joke is on unattractive women and transexuals.

If all you can judge a woman on is her appearance, then you should pretty much just shut your goddamn trap because everything you are going to say is completely worthless to anyone who might hear it.

(And, yeah, I figured it was a joke, but I don't care. It wasn't funny.)

Not one person here has judged her on her appearance. You have just gone full on screaming here and in the other thread and it's getting kinda funny.

Oh and it's Ann Coulter.

[Blue Lion]

That doesn't make me any less pissed off. Basically your joke was that you were mocking the GOP types through imitation. I didn't mean to seem specifically angry at you, but I didn't even make an effort not to.

Yea you hit my joke right on the head. Some people see her say the same things other politicians have said, but she has boobs, so it's hot.

So, yeah, I see joke, haha, still not amused, because it was a fail joke.

To be clear: it's NOT a good joke if the people you are mocking would look at it and heartily agree.

Those are the BEST kind of jokes. I wish I could pull off some kind of Stephen Colbert thing here but I can't.

[NGTM-1R]

To be clear: it's NOT a good joke if the people you are mocking would look at it and heartily agree.

I tend to agree, but then, this actually isn't a example of Poe's Law at work, so I'm not sure what you're about.

Except perhaps to note that you bring much rigor to the cause, but also, unfortunately mortis.

[Flipside]

Problem is, it's easy to be casually sexist without even realising it, I posted on the 'Chuck' thread a comment that could, if someone wished to, be taken as offensive, but then you do also have to take into account that, when you get to the very core of the male attitude towards women, you are talking about a very large percentage of thoughts and responses that are completely out of control of the male experiencing them.

Y'See, I find it kind of hard to find comments like that offensive, it's sort of like calling a scientist 'smart' is somehow discriminating against clever people, there's nothing wrong with being sexually attractive, men and women were designed to be physically attracted to each other.

So, yes, I do understand the concerns about the jokes and everything, but I think it is approached in the wrong way, you will never destroy the 'little boy' nature of most men, farting around the campfire will always be funny, and boobs will always be objects of obsession to the male of the species.

I think the important thing here is choice women should be free to choose whether they wish to be with a man who has that kind of attitude, a women should be free to choose her vote based on the policies, not the gender, of the candidate, women should be treated like actually think about things and don't exist purely to be a sex-object.

It's like the 'Typical Men' comment that is often heard in offices across the country, it's a stereotype that will never die, whenever Dave sleeps Tina, the office clerk, whilst being married, the phrase 'Typical Man' will raise it's head at one point or another. Is that really hurting my gender, or is it something we need to look at working around and understanding the irony of, rather than try to bludgeon head on?

[iamzack]

I was already angry. It's not too hard to get me going on anything at this point.

The reason it's not a good joke is because A) the nonmocked subject of the joke is the target and B) the mocked subject feels even more righteous in their idiocy.

Stephen Colbert is ridiculous enough that when he imitates the right, the people most targeted by the right's dumbassedness don't feel targeted by him.

Y'See, I find it kind of hard to find comments like that offensive, it's sort of like calling a scientist 'smart' is somehow discriminating against clever people, there's nothing wrong with being sexually attractive, men and women were designed to be physically attracted to each other.

So, yes, I do understand the concerns about the jokes and everything, but I think it is approached in the wrong way, you will never destroy the 'little boy' nature of most men, farting around the campfire will always be funny, and boobs will always be objects of obsession to the male of the species.

It's like the 'Typical Men' comment that is often heard in offices across the country, it's a stereotype that will never die, whenever Dave sleeps Tina, the office clerk, whilst being married, the phrase 'Typical Man' will raise it's head at one point or another. Is that really hurting my gender, or is it something we need to look at working around and understanding the irony of, rather than try to bludgeon head on?

I totally agree that there's nothing wrong with being physically attractive. It just pisses me off when it's brought into every goddamn discussion about someone who happens to be female.

I also HATE the "typical man" stereotype. Not only does it totally marginalize almost all of the guys I am friends with, it seems to make other guys think they have this pass to go ahead and be assholes ("boys will be boys"). Ugh.

[Blue Lion]

And if I didn't just get done explaining earlier in this very thread how we need to look at woman's policies instead of her gender, it might have been slightly confusing.

I guess what I'm saying is I know what I meant and I personally found it funny. So meh.

[General Battuta]

I think there's a bit of a disconnect here but I have to weigh in with iamzack's right to be offended and not to feel like a joykill for doing it. Her interpretation of the remark is a valid one, not one based on oversensitivity or 'full-on screaming mode', and in fact I'm glad she stood up for her opinion.

That said, the fact that Blue Lion made a remark that could be taken as offensive does not mean Blue Lion is a bad person; the social context is hard to read, and, for better or worse, we all say offensive things. I'm sure that just about any vaguely controversial remark I've ever made could be taken as offensive by someone.

Flipside, I think some of those attitudes are definitely open to change, and part of changing them is recognizing that these remarks are deleterious.

[Blue Lion]

Hey, if she was a model, or an actress, or trying to become Miss USA, sure "she's hot" is relevant.

By the way..... why?

Also GB, we've been talking about sexism this entire time. This thread totally derailed at post 4 into sexism. I personally think she thought I was serious. That is really beside the point. I don't care if she got it or thought it was funny or whatever.

My point is we've been talking about this the whole time and when I make a joke it's like "I hate when this gets brought up" as if we've been discussing something else the entire time.