[Rian]

Yes.

For example: My sister and I were followed for three blocks by a group of young men who catcalled us the whole way. We were on a crowded, public street in broad daylight, and I feared for my safety.

At sixteen, I was stalked at my weekend volunteer job by a middle-aged man who cornered me and asked me if I believed in love at first sight. He continued to show up every week, even after I reported him to my boss. I eventually quit the job because I didn’t want to deal with that anymore—many women don’t have that luxury.

Every time I am alone with a man I do not know well I consciously assess the probability that he will assault me.

Oh, and every other woman I know has had similar experiences. Here are a few more anecdotes.

From the second link:

Holly Kearl, a George Washington University graduate whose master's thesis focused on street harassment, conducted an anonymous email survey of some 225 women and found that 98 percent of respondents experienced some form of street harassment at least a few times, while about 30 percent reported being harassed on a regular basis.

Really, my own experiences are relatively mild. I consider myself lucky, in fact. But the fact is that some men—not all, but certainly not an insignificant number—believe that women’s bodies are public property, and that they are entitled to comment on my appearance, sexual predilections, etc. That’s what systemic sexism does.

[Ghostavo]

I feel like you're missing the point we're making, here, because I couldn't agree more that a similar crime should be prosecuted equally in both genders. But I don't understand why you possibly think I should disagree. The law should be gender-blind.

Actually, strangely, I can provide experimental evidence to refute one assertion:

But how do you destroy implicit sexism? By changing the way people think about genders. So to achieve true equality you have to treat both exactly the same way.

Banaji et al. at Harvard found, in a rigorous series of studies, that the only way to remove implicit prejudice was to present positive exemplars of the minority group (strong women) and to present negative exemplars of the majority group (men.) It's ugly. But simply presenting strong women does not work.

Acting as if feminism is over is empirically the wrong strategy.

Curious, do you have a link to the article? I'd be very much interested.

As for the rest, I will back down, your arguments make sense, but there's something I'm not really feeling comfortable with that I can't really point out.

[iamzack]

Right.

The funny thing about our world is, you can have people read an article about old people, and when they get up from the chair they will walk measurably more slowly.

Talking about how women need protection and coddling is in itself dangerous.

You should stay calm in the face of reasonably and rationally presented ideas. But High Max's sneering assertion that she was 'unstable' (unlike Asian women) was practically weaponized hate - inflaming a memetic virus that we're all infected with. Because everyone who reads a sentence like that will find his or her behavior subtly altered.

We have this crappy heuristic bug called 'mere repetition'. If you hear an opinion enough times, you will eventually believe it. It doesn't matter if you reject it each time you hear it; it worms its way in.

That's why misogynistic speech has to be shut down wherever possible.

You're saying that in the following exchange, it's High Max who spouts dangerous memetic viruses, and not iamzack?

About Feminism: I've been reading Yahoo answers under terms like "feminism is bad" and there are women, probably from usa, on that topic that are against feminism because like me, they feel that in a marriage, it doesn't work and the woman tends to put herself, her career, and kids before her own husband, which goes against what marriage is all about. the husband gets tired of being treated like he is not important and the wife is being selfish, and he leaves her. It might explain the high divorce rates here in usa. So not all women want to be treated like men, and actually, more than people here might think, many don't want to take the role of leader of household because they look up to their love and husband for taking that role.

But it is also bad for the kid if the mother puts her career first when her husband already has one.

Submissive isn't the point. It is being loved and putting husband and kids before career and possessions and the man should be the same way to his wife.

Submissive isn't the point. It is being loved and putting husband and kids before career and possessions and the man should be the same way to his wife.

**** you High Max. That's all I can spit out right now.

And it isn't an emotionally stable way of talking and acting. That's part of my point. Most foreign women and even foreign men who I have talked to never talk like that to me The average person seems to be more polite and shows more self control in that part of the world, and I have respect for people who are good at staying calm.

Yeah, he's probably pretty misogynistic, but at least he was being civil whereas she was acting like a 5-year old. Heck no it's not a reasonable reaction, it's simply stupid and childish. Saying that it's reasonable and acceptable should be, by your logic, spreading a meme that it's ok (for women?) to act stupid and childish. Condoning direct insults or other ape**** insane behaviour no matter the context sends a far more harmful message than allowing someone to express their personal distasteful opinions in a civil manner. It basically boils down to "we don't need to follow the rules because we're right".

"**** you" is the only response High Max deserves.

See, while you and Battuta and Ghostavo get to debate whether sexism is real, whether women are equal, I'm over here, actually being a woman, actually being targeted by strange men in the street or groups of dudes in cars. If I'm driving and I swerve, what do I hear, every goddamn time? "Haha, women can't drive." If I had a ****ty day, and I'm not as polite as I could be to a stranger, what do they say? "What are you, PMSing? *****." If a total stranger approaches me and demands that I pay him and his 'compliments' attention, and I don't, what do I get? "Stupid *****." And when I call people, usually guys, on their misogynistic bull****, I get called a feminazi.

And it never ****ing ends. It goes on and on and on and on.

Sort of a side note: Last time High Max and I had a large disagreement, he PMed me a huge rant about how I am a selfish, ugly, stupid whore/slut. Selfish because, if you recall, I like to have sex just to have sex. When's the last time a guy on here was attacked for being a slut, eh? Because we have plenty of slutty guys here.

High Max's posts are *not* calm and civilized. High Max's posts directly target me. They attack my abilities and my character, and I'm not going put up with his condescension and retardation.

[General Battuta]

Dude, Rian, that was brave as hell to post.

Men have the privilege to never have to think about that kind of stuff.

Curious, do you have a link to the article? I'd be very much interested.

As for the rest, I will back down, you arguments make sense, but there's something I'm not really feeling comfortable with that I can't really point out.

I do.  I will try to dig it up. Banaji has a huge amount of research, so a cursory Web of Science search didn't bring it up right away.

And, yeah, I appreciate your consideration. I harp on this topic pretty hard.

Check out this abstract for an example of what I'm scared of:

The threat of being negatively stereotyped in math impairs performance of highly qualified females on difficult math tests, a phenomenon known as "stereotype threat"-ST. Perhaps more alarmingly, recent studies based on unselective samples of elementary-, middle-, and high-school students show that ST also operates in girls from the general population. Here we offer first evidence that ST does operate (with large effect sizes) even in middle-school girls who deny the negative gender stereotype. Children's beliefs about the two genders math ability, therefore, do not necessarily moderate their susceptibility to ST, an important issue that remained unclear so far. This new finding is also of great practical significance: School girls' counter-stereotypic beliefs cannot be taken as sufficient evidence for deciding whether the struggle against ST is or is not needed. Appropriate interventions should be the default option when aiming for true gender equality in math and science achievements. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Basically, you can take the most math-savvy middle school girl, tell her that girls can't do math, and watch her math scores drop even though she firmly rejects that opinion.

You can't do that to white guys. We don't have that weakness. It's as if everybody had a command word that could magically make you bad at something.

And a big to iamzack.

[zookeeper]

iamzack was perfectly within her rights to say '**** you' in response to misogyny. Why engage with a racist or misogynist on his or her own terms? It's like arguing with a conspiracy nut. You're not going to change their mind.

By engaging with a racist or misogynist on his or her own terms you can change someone else's mind. Or make them less likely to be swayed by the racist or misogynist. I never go into a debate (on the internet) about these kind of subjects intending to convince the person I'm debating with. That's useless, that almost never happens.

If there's a debate between sides X and Y, then it doesn't matter jack who's really more right and who's more wrong if X acts like a tool and Y acts in a reasonable manner. The one acting like a tool will immediately lose credibility in the eyes of anyone who hasn't really entrenched on either side of the issue yet. By acting like a tool one harms whatever cause they argue for immensely. Looking at what High Max actually said on the last couple of pages and how he was subsequently attacked and how those attacks were labeled reasonable would mostly only strengthen all sorts of feminazi stereotypes in the eyes of a lot of people who aren't (yet) misogynists themselves.

I am happy to argue with fundamentally decent people like Ghostavo, but High Max has a history, and if you were one of the groups targeted by his history and behavior, I think you would empathize with this degree of anger.

Maybe. But I give the benefit of the doubt to anyone I can without unreasonable mental effort (that is, if I don't have first-hand experience that they're a full-blown idiot).

[General Battuta]

See, normally I'd agree, but with High Max...

Maybe. But I give the benefit of the doubt to anyone I can without unreasonable mental effort (that is, if I don't have first-hand experience that they're a full-blown idiot).

He's kind of fulfilled these criteria all over.

If there's a debate between sides X and Y, then it doesn't matter jack who's really more right and who's more wrong if X acts like a tool and Y acts in a reasonable manner. The one acting like a tool will immediately lose credibility in the eyes of anyone who hasn't really entrenched on either side of the issue yet. By acting like a tool one harms whatever cause they argue for immensely. Looking at what High Max actually said on the last couple of pages and how he was subsequently attacked and how those attacks were labeled reasonable would mostly only strengthen all sorts of feminazi stereotypes in the eyes of a lot of people who aren't (yet) misogynists themselves.

A lot of good has been done by people acting like tools. I hate to semi-Godwin this, but Rosa Parks was kind of a tool. Protesters are tools. You can't always just sit down and take it; sometimes you need to make people aware (as iamzack did rather well with that last post) that an opinion is not worth reasonable discourse.

[StarSlayer]

Since its relevant and completely disgraceful:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/27/california.gang.rape.investigation/index.html


Rian's point is completely valid.  Seriously, ask a girl what she does in preparation to walk to her car at night in a parking lot.  I'll bet it's going to sound like a SWAT team prepping to make a breach at a meth lab full of wanted criminals.   You wan't to know as a man when I've ever given a second thought about that similar situation?  Never.  I can't even imagine what it's like having to worry and plan for simple activities because some ass hat thinks there going to jump me.

Though as a bit of a philosophical question for Battuta, if you have a female friend/coworker/whatever (we are assuming your mutual trust level is at a point were both parties are comfortable with this scenario), as a man would you be acting sexist if you offered to walk her to her car?  In effect you are protecting her because of her gender.

[High Max]

Men are rapists. Women are, generally, not.

How is this not sexist? Your argument almost makes sense to me, but the factors that you claim account for rape are part of misogyny and sexism. They're fundamental components. The fact that most rapists are men and that most rapists rape women is evidence that something is very wrong.

Could it be because men and women are biologically different to a certain extent and men naturally tend to be more aggressive physically from testostrone and naturally larger? Is it sexism or is it because there are physical differences? If women were naturally larger on average and naturally had more testostrone, would the situation be reversed and women be the rapists?

[MP-Ryan]

Men are rapists. Women are, generally, not.

How is this not sexist? Your argument almost makes sense to me, but the factors that you claim account for rape are part of misogyny and sexism. They're fundamental components. The fact that most rapists are men and that most rapists rape women is evidence that something is very wrong.

Could it be because men and women are biologically different to a certain extent and men naturally tend to be more aggressive physcially from testosterone and naturally larger? Is it sexism or is it because there are physical differences? If women were naturally larger on averege and naturally had more testosterone, would the situation be reversed and women be the rapists?

I see where you're going with this, and I'm going to head you off before this devolves.

The fact that men are physically larger, tend to be more impulsive and aggressive, and tend to have a somewhat different drive when it comes to the base sexual instincts is not a carte blanche excuse for men to abuse women.  We are thinking and mostly intelligent creatures capable of complex social behaviours and thought processes.  Blaming biology and trivializing the abhorrent treatment of a little over half of humanity by the other half does everyone a disservice.

Excuses are not what's needed.  A fundamental change in thinking is.

[MP-Ryan]

Oh, and a study published this past week indicates that depictions of violence toward women are up 120% in North American popular media this year, with Fox being the worst offender of the big networks.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Violence+against+women+shows+surges/2161698/story.html

Study was conducted by a media watchdog, the Parents Television Council.

[High Max]

@MP-Ryan: I didn't say it was right for a man to physically harm a women or rape a woman, and it is very bad to rape or beat a woman. I don't think it is acceptable at all. I am in no way justifying that it is ok. I'm saying that biology might influence it to an extent, but everyone still has a choice.

@iamzack: I think a man who goes out using people's bodies for sex is a man slut and I don't take his side either. He is also selfish and materialistic for doing so. It doesn't matter if they are men or women, if they do that, they are both bad in my eyes. I guess you don't know what I think. I assure you that gender makes no difference to me if a person does that same action. I'm not taking the man's side in this case and I don't think he is some cool dude for doing it. A long time ago, I kind of insulted Dekker for acting that way and he is not a woman, just like I insulted Anh Tri who is not part of this forum.

@Bat: Just because I'm not an extreme liberal and my views are moderate (in between) and you and many others here disagree with me does not make me idiotic. To assume I'm idiotic is idiotic, correct?

[General Battuta]

Though as a bit of a philosophical question for Battuta, if you have a female friend/coworker/whatever (we are assuming your mutual trust level is at a point were both parties are comfortable with this scenario), as a man would you be acting sexist if you offered to walk her to her car?  In effect you are protecting her because of her gender.

The sexism is what creates the threat. Helping a woman to her car is no more sexist than protecting an officer from a sniper is assassination.

[Goober5000]

That's why misogynistic speech has to be shut down wherever possible.

Whoa there.  It's not possible to create a utopia by force.

[General Battuta]

Certainly not, and I'd never suggest it.

But when such speech does tangible, statistically measurable, empirically verifiable harm, it kind of becomes necessary, doesn't it?

Not to mention you better move the demographic information section of the SAT to the back!

[Goober5000]

But when such speech does tangible, statistically measurable, empirically verifiable harm, it kind of becomes necessary, doesn't it?

That sounds rather like a suggestion to me...

Speech never harmed anyone.  Assault, coercion, blackmail, etc. is what hurts people.

And if you don't like someone's speech, there are perfectly acceptable alternate countermeasures.  Like counter-speech.

[Blue Lion]

But when such speech does tangible, statistically measurable, empirically verifiable harm, it kind of becomes necessary, doesn't it?

That sounds rather like a suggestion to me...

Speech never harmed anyone.  Assault, coercion, blackmail, etc. is what hurts people.

And if you don't like someone's speech, there are perfectly acceptable alternate countermeasures.  Like counter-speech.

I think he meant more along the lines of speech urging those things on others.

[General Battuta]

But when such speech does tangible, statistically measurable, empirically verifiable harm, it kind of becomes necessary, doesn't it?

That sounds rather like a suggestion to me...

Speech never harmed anyone.  Assault, coercion, blackmail, etc. is what hurts people.

And if you don't like someone's speech, there are perfectly acceptable alternate countermeasures.  Like counter-speech.

Reread the thread. We have empirical evidence that simple speech can involuntarily lower math exam scores in women. The mechanism of stereotype threat means that a misogynistic individual can actually force women to conform to stereotypes simply by subconsciously activating those stereotypes.

Crazy, huh?

[mxlm]

And if you don't like someone's speech, there are perfectly acceptable alternate countermeasures.  Like counter-speech.

Which is exactly the countermeasure that's been employed by iamzack, Rian, Battuta et al in this thread. Counter-speech doesn't need to be nice.

Battuta didn't say he wanted the government to shut down misogyny, which is the only sort of 'shut down' that would require a 'woah there'.

Just because I'm not an extreme liberal and my views are moderate

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahaah

That reminds me; is it just me, or are crazy righties a lot less aware of their position on the political spectrum than far lefties? I mean, I'm pretty far to the left, but I know I'm pretty far to the left. High Max thinks he's a moderate, and he's hardly the sole far rightie to think that. See also, the various Fox talking heads.

[karajorma]

Why do you think women don’t push for more? It’s not because we’re naturally more conciliatory or any essentialist garbage like that. It’s because the vast majority of us are socialized from birth to be non-threatening and non-confrontational and we get called *****es and harpies when we’re not. It requires a conscious effort to overcome that conditioning, which means women who succeed in male-dominated professions often have to work twice as hard to do so.

Sexism doesn’t have to be direct; and in fact it’s the systemic, internalized variety that causes most of the damage. Looking at isolated cases (whether, for example, a particular boss is sexist or just negotiating wages as usual) rather misses the point, as the causes are more fundamental and deeply ingrained than that. And until we can root out that underlying, systemic bias, the wage gap is going to be there.

I guess I should have made the point clearer that I meant it had less to do with overt sexism and more to do with the sort of bias you mention here.

Men are indeed raped and abused, but it is far less common and carries far less of a cultural stigma.

I already made a post about how the rape of men is definitely a problem; it's simply more damaging for women. I assume you read it, so I'm unsure why you brought it up here.

Sorry but what?


It's all very well being for women's rights but you shouldn't go so far down that line that you start  coming out with this kind of hypocritical nonsense to justify it.

Rape of males, just like spousal abuse of males is hugely under-reported. The cultural stigma attached to a male rape is several orders of magnitude worse than that for females. The victim will almost always face an attitude that a real man would have been able to fight off the rapist and that therefore he must have wanted it.

 I have never once heard a group of people around me respond with laughs and jeers upon reading the story of some woman who was raped by a stranger while walking home but I have heard exactly that reaction when it has been a case of male rape. The attitude towards male rape frequently includes assertions that the victim must be gay even when they are heterosexual or that if they are homosexual that after a while they'd have started to like it.

While you might hear similar things from the truly retarded about rape of women the number of people who will say that about male rape are much larger.



I've already had to post once on this thread cause you were trivialising domestic violence against men but given that the last half of this thread has consisted of you trying to say that people need to be careful of the implicit sexism in their speech it's pretty strange of you to keep doing exactly that yourself.

If you really want to make the point that we should be careful to avoid reinforcing stereotypes with what we say then you should be a hell of a lot more careful when it comes to avoiding the exact ones that prevent the reporting of violence against men.

[Kosh]

Rape of males, just like spousal abuse of males is hugely under-reported.

I was always under the assumption that male rape victims were either molested children or victims of rape in jail by other men. Maybe I'm wrong about?