Feminism thread

[dogwalker]

What if it's not all I can do?

 

[Prince EWS]

Aren't both of these things axioms of freedom of thought/expression though?

Movies are structured to satisfy the demands of an audience though. It's likely she's chosen to participate in that because she's getting paid to and not because that's the way she'd most like to be portrayed to get attention. Take away the demand for such things and it won't be included anymore -- the 'problem' is the dominant culture rather than the movie itself. It's obviously fine that she's traded her labour for financial gain but this specific example highlights an objectification of certain people that I think we'd be better off with less of.

I admit I'm much more concerned with progressing to a society where more interactions are voluntary than the underlying preferences that shape those interactions, and I don't think the law or the state more generally really has any business in trying to manipulate the latter, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant from the perspective of cultural advancement.

 

[Teja.]

The problem for mine, is that a lot of the discourse on the topic of equality tends to treat equality as a value in and off itself. I'm not convinced that this is an especially helpful way of framing issues associated with gender/racial/religious divides. A lot of the discussions of the inherent issues focus on equality as something to be promoted and actively pursued, almost as if it is a concept that can be reached out and touched. In my mind, actual equality is more in fact about the absence of direness and horribleness, rather than the presence of positiveness. I fear a lot of initiatives designed to actively positively promote equality, for instance, tend to emphasise the differences between people of different backgrounds etc... rather than play them down.

I remember as a child, of 4 or 5 years old, the entire school being marched into an assembly to be given presentations on diversity. The aim of this session was obviously not ignoble, but what I very clearly remember from that experience was being told you shouldn't treat someone differntly because of their skin colour. I simply couldn't understand why anyone would do that. I hadn't even entertained the possibility of such a thing. From that point onward I recall there was a considerable increase in incidents regarding the kids of ethnic minority backrounds (not that there were many) being bullied and so on.

This is obviously purely anecdotal, but it is perhaps reflective of why I'm sceptical of initiatives designed to enhance diversity that have existed to date.

sledge, It's important to remember that you probably come from a family background of tolerance though leading to you not noticing the difference at all which is not true for a huge chunk of the population wherein children might adopt ingrained racist attitudes unless educated otherwise.

 

[sledger]

Yes, a very fair point.

My concerns about diversity initiatives that have been rolled out and tried to date, however, are based on broader learning experiences etc... That's not necessarily to say I am opposed to initiatives and policies in this vein per se. I'm not. I just have reservations about the form many have taken.

 

[ankitj]

Movies are structured to satisfy the demands of an audience though. It's likely she's chosen to participate in that because she's getting paid to and not because that's the way she'd most like to be portrayed to get attention. Take away the demand for such things and it won't be included anymore -- the 'problem' is the dominant culture rather than the movie itself. It's obviously fine that she's traded her labour for financial gain but this specific example highlights an objectification of certain people that I think we'd be better off with less of.

I admit I'm much more concerned with progressing to a society where more interactions are voluntary than the underlying preferences that shape those interactions, and I don't think the law or the state more generally really has any business in trying to manipulate the latter, but that doesn't mean it's irrelevant from the perspective of cultural advancement.

Agree fully. Ideally I would like for demand not to exist for such crass performances. Until then it is difficult to question the choice of actresses. It almost sounds like moral policing, which contradicts with the idea of complete autonomy of women over their bodies. Also to reiterate the actresses for most part are under no pressure or financial need to perform these acts. Some actresses do actually refuse to do any such dance performances. The ones that don't, don't necessarily have a view on whether they would like such portrayal.

To be clear also, the "male gaze" charge is not limited to these sort of acts alone. This artistic but sensual act too got condemned by some Feminists (though they were divided) recently for catering to male gaze: https://youtu.be/Ff82XtV78xo (has English subtitles, so go ahead and watch it)

 

[Howe_zat]

Agree fully. Ideally I would like for demand not to exist for such crass performances. Until then it is difficult to question the choice of actresses. It almost sounds like moral policing, which contradicts with the idea of complete autonomy of women over their bodies. Also to reiterate the actresses for most part are under no pressure or financial need to perform these acts. Some actresses do actually refuse to do any such dance performances. The ones that don't, don't necessarily have a view on whether they would like such portrayal.

To be clear also, the "male gaze" charge is not limited to these sort of acts alone. This artistic but sensual act too got condemned by some Feminists (though they were divided) recently for catering to male gaze: https://youtu.be/Ff82XtV78xo (has English subtitles, so go ahead and watch it)

You've missed the point. Male gaze is a problem because it's so endemic. If you can't see it because things that seem entirely normal to you and to the rest of us are what people highlight as the issue, that shows how ingrained it is.

While I accept that calling out 'male gaze' and providing no other contextual criticism is not helpful, there's no getting around that this exists and is an issue in terms of equality in culture. It's not an acceptable state of affairs that things that are set out to be presented for everyone are assumed to be from the point of view of a heterosexual man.

As it is we have male perspective as a default. Female perspective is subversive. It's a symptom of a really big, really difficult problem.

 

[Burner]

Are none of you going to say how hot (beautiful) that chick (woman) in the photo is?

I am the disappointed.

 

[fredfertang]

Now that women have achieved equality feminism can be abolished

 

[Uppercut]

I kind of realized that that term is not universal. Has been used in Indian media. It's basically about objectifying / sexy-fying women in media or entertainment industry for pleasure of "male gaze".

EDIT: Elaborating further, this is somewhat tricky and I struggle to come to terms with this. On one hand, there is talk of complete sexual autonomy of women and their right to choose how they dress up and behave. On the other hand, there is condemnation of excessively sexualized portrayal like the one in the still below from an Indian movie:

That's an interesting picture to choose. The woman is of much higher status than any of the men. A picture with the male/female positions reversed would strike me as more sexist than this one.

 

[Swingpanzee]

That's an interesting picture to choose. The woman is of much higher status than any of the men. A picture with the male/female positions reversed would strike me as more sexist than this one.

yes, people talk about how she is being objectified (to me the pitcure is unappealing) but equally disgusting is how the men are literally BEGGING for a chance to be with her.

 

[Athlai]

yes, people talk about how she is being objectified (to me the pitcure is unappealing) but equally disgusting is how the men are literally BEGGING for a chance to be with her.

Well it's pretty straightforward. Why is that a picture of power? What is she flaunting and what do the men want?

The image isn't remarkable because in isolation it shows a woman being in a position of power over men, it's because this is the typical explanation when pulp media is portraying a female as a protagonist.

You can definitely read way too heavily into these things but it's definitely a cop out argument to say that men being portrayed like this does anything at all towards "balancing out" the inequalities. I don't really want to weigh in on this debate because it's one of those things that is actually improving over time but is probably still going to exist in some unpleasant way till long after I'm dead.

 

[Dan]

Less than a page to get into a structure-agency debate.

I've trained you well. Carry on.

 

[zorax]

Eh I have a view on this that might be pretty dire.

We are where we are as a society for a reason.

I don't think patriarchy and inequality between sexes was imposed onto us by some foreign being. It's a concept that evolved from humans and put into place by humans into their own society.

The earliest tribes and societies had no grasp of the concept of sexism. It's just that, genetically, men would fight and hunt and seek power and look to impregnate lots of women and the women would be draw towards nurturing and caring and building a community.

Add hundreds of thousands of years onto this and we end up where we are at now.

We haven't changed biologically, but we realise that its wrong to impose expectation and limitations on other people, limiting their freedom in the process. Women should obviously be free to do what they like. So should men. We shouldn't have to follow cultural roles.

But in a perfect society...things would still be more or less the same. Traditional family structures will still be commonplace. Male dominated industries will continue to remain so. That's because, I believe, that a lot of us choose willingly to end up in these roles. Give the world perfect freedom and I expect most of us will just choose to be where we are now. Lots of women love being moms and hate being engineers. Lots of men love working and hate raising kids. They're not going to change that just because it's easier for them too.

I feel a lot of arguments on feminism fail to account for all this. We aren't going to re-wire the human brain. We aren't going to eradicate the genetic differences in place. We can create a world that is equally accepting of men and women in all of walks of life, but that doesn't mean we are going to have a 50/50 split in everything.

All this talk of lack of women CEOs or stay at home dads...idk, I feel it's nonsense. Lets talk about removing the barriers in place for women in society, definitely. Lets talk about removing these pre-conceptions written into our culture. Lets stop defining gender roles. But lets not expect things to actually change significantly as a result. We've reached where we are as a society, as a species, for a reason. It's coded into our DNA. It's pointless to fight that.

 

[Jono]

do you apply that to race relations as well - in particular white and black? or do you see that as different?

 

[Swingpanzee]

We can create a world that is equally accepting of men and women in all of walks of life, but that doesn't mean we are going to have a 50/50 split in everything.

agree with this

 

[ankitj]

You've missed the point. Male gaze is a problem because it's so endemic. If you can't see it because things that seem entirely normal to you and to the rest of us are what people highlight as the issue, that shows how ingrained it is.

While I accept that calling out 'male gaze' and providing no other contextual criticism is not helpful, there's no getting around that this exists and is an issue in terms of equality in culture. It's not an acceptable state of affairs that things that are set out to be presented for everyone are assumed to be from the point of view of a heterosexual man.

As it is we have male perspective as a default. Female perspective is subversive. It's a symptom of a really big, really difficult problem.

I agree with both parts of your argument. Don't think there is much to disagree

 

[zorax]

do you apply that to race relations as well - in particular white and black? or do you see that as different?

IDK. I want to say there are some genetic differences between the races, and assuming all things equal, different races may find a proficiency in different industries. But I'm not very well versed on this so IDK if these differences are significant enough to overcome the effect of nurture. I mean, Patriarchy exists in 99% of the cultures on the planet; so that's something we can say is fairly strongly attributed to genetic differences...but race differences? IDK.

I do think race differences are also a lot more complex; in that it's human nature to group up with people who are alike. We are a species who thrives on a 'Us vs Them' mentality (Look at sports, nationalism, religion...), and race is one of those things that can help us identify with one group and against another. Create a perfect society, and I'd still expect people of the same race to group up together - as it's a very easy to see someone of a different race and go "Hey, you and I have something in common". It's hardwired into us, and I don't think we can change that.

 

[Athlai]

IDK. I want to say there are some genetic differences between the races, and assuming all things equal, different races may find a proficiency in different industries. But I'm not very well versed on this so IDK if these differences are significant enough to overcome the effect of nurture. I mean, Patriarchy exists in 99% of the cultures on the planet; so that's something we can say is fairly strongly attributed to genetic differences...but race differences? IDK.

I do think race differences are also a lot more complex; in that it's human nature to group up with people who are alike. We are a species who thrives on a 'Us vs Them' mentality (Look at sports, nationalism, religion...), and race is one of those things that can help us identify with one group and against another. Create a perfect society, and I'd still expect people of the same race to group up together - as it's a very easy to see someone of a different race and go "Hey, you and I have something in common". It's hardwired into us, and I don't think we can change that.

I think it's very dangerous to just attribute things to genetic differences and using it as an example of why it's okay. We're a young species, and we've only been giving this civilisation yarn a try for a few thousand years. Look how markedly we've changed in the last 100 years.

You touch on a point in the second part of your post, "Us. vs them". That applies to how men and woman have traditionally interacted as well, men are naturally larger and stronger than women. Who knows how much that has changed in how we as a civilisation have developed? We're just one big Bronze Age boys club. That doesn't make it 'right', that makes it the 'natural' order of things. Nature isn't fair, nor civilised. We're the first species in the known universe that can actually dictate what is right so the natural order of things can GTFO.

 

[ankitj]

I think drawing a parallel between race interactions and gender interactions is very unhelpful. In days of slavery, blacks were not even treated as humans and were not taken care of in any real sense. In case of traditional gender roles, there is good argument to be made that women were taken care of and a lot of role segregation was aimed to "protect" women. For example only men went to war so as to protect women who were less disposable because of their ability to give birth to children.

Of course with advancement of technology and more stable political organization, there is no need to sustain traditional gender roles. We need equal opportunity for all, that may not mean equal outcome as Zorax mentions.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I do find the concept of "lack of representation" of women in certain posts a rather pointless topic though. The aim should always be to provide equal opportunity, not equal representation. It's similar to the quota system, which is a whole other debate, but I find it annoying when people make a big deal out of it when women ascend to positions of power , or are elected into high posts in society. I feel its counter-intuitive for the feminist movement as it ends up implying that she only got to that post because women required representation, and not because she deserved it on merit anyway.