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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
Man, the stories I could tell you about the military and sexual harassment/crime. I just ... fuck man, I don't want to go there because it's fucking depressing. Even in the "progressive" branch (Air Force, and it's not that progressive), it was very much an ol'boys club and often flat out disgusting.
Let's just say that "It's okay if she's drunk!" is only the very tip of the iceberg.
__________________ Father Helel, save us from the dark.
The idea that Love and Sex are scarcity resources controlled by women seems mostly presented by men who are so used to getting their way they are sure they have been victims of a secret 'withhold the pussy' cabal when they don't get it. I find it fascinating that the one thing that's guaranteed with any leader/writer of the MRA movement is a pathetic string of relationships and failures.
Polyamory is a great counter example, and not just that people can seriously date multiple people at the same time and not go batshit-staby but that the vast majority of leaders and educators are women and the majority of interest comes from women. Anecdotally women do better in poly and are more likely to stay than men. It's not that they are somehow less monogamous than men (although it's a nice twist on the usual claim/excuse that men are less monogamous) but that the current system is so weighted against them that finding one that's still finding its footing is a breath of fresh air. One of the more popular sex party organizing groups in SF was created by a woman and one of their more popular events is women oriented.
Maybe women don't actually want less sex, they just want less sex with you, Mr MRA.
Well, that's not all of it.
MRA and other dumbfuck internet types (and real world types, although it seems a LOT more of a "thing" on the net) seriously consider women to be a vending machine.
Insert enough "coins" or what the fuck ever, and sex is supposed to pop out eventually. They're frustrated that it doesn't work that way, and that's why they became MRA morons in the first place, or at least it has a WHOLE LOT to do with it. They blame feminism for making a world where women aren't said vending machines, romanticizing a time when women were bought and sold like cattle, because they have no fucking social skills and probably don't even completely understand the fact that yes, women are human beings, not sex vendors.
The weirdest thing about this is that it's taken more and more hold over the years that the internet has become worldwide. Like, instead of trying to address the problem and get wiser, these internet manchildren have retreated further into mom and dad's basement to lash out against the world of stupid whores who fuck everyone else but them.
It's also having real world effects. Look at the IT industry now - it's somehow MORE sexist than it was 25 years ago, and it's by far the most egregious fields, although it's happening in science and other aspects of technology as well.
Fuck, this world makes me sick sometimes.
__________________ Father Helel, save us from the dark.
Every group, including the excluded and disadvantaged, create cultural capital and behave in ways that simultaneously create a sense of belonging for them in their existing social circle while also potentially denying them entry into another one, often at the expense of economic capital. It’s easy to see that wearing baggy, sagging pants to a job interview, or having large and visible tattoos in a corporate setting, might limit someone’s access. These are some of the markers of belonging used in social groups that are often denied opportunities. By embracing these markers, members of the group create real barriers to acceptance outside their circle even as they deepen their peer relationships. The group chooses to adopt values that are rejected by the society that’s rejecting them. And that’s what happens to “weird nerd” men as well—they create ways of being that allow for internal bonding against a largely exclusionary backdrop.
But life’s not just high school, and there is not one kind of hierarchy. What happens when formerly excluded groups gain more power, like techies? They don’t just let go of their old forms of cultural capital. Yet they may be blind to how their old ways of identifying and accepting each other are exclusionary to others. They still interpret the world through their sense of status when they were “basically, outsiders.”
That kinda goes back to the whole MRA thing. Those are exactly the people you're talking about there. They felt ostracized as kids and now they've grown up to be misogynist assholes.
Hell, Shea you know me, and you've known me for at least 14 years. Remember when I used to sound something like that on II, before I grew a fucking brain? I remember when I was 20 and posting about how dating was prostitution and oh god I was probably on the threshold of MRA in those days, please kill me (I mean, we can all debate that I'm not much smarter now and I don't have many arguments against that but, still)
Imagine that but 100 times worse, and with the power of hundreds or even thousands of facebook/tumblr groups backing them up and making them feel RIGHT about this whole crusade against women. And they just won't grow up.
Holy shit, looking back on my horrible past now, I am SO GLAD I didn't get caught up in that bullshit. Who knows what kind of monster I would have become. I've got enough goddamn demons as it is. Ugh.
__________________ Father Helel, save us from the dark.
BTW I had a weird discussion yesterday with a lady in my cab and I'd like some clarification.
I consider myself a "feminist sympathizer" ...I use that term because I'm not a woman. I feel like to be a feminist you have to be a woman. Am I wrong there? Because that's what she told me. She says, if you're an advocate for women's rights you are a feminist. I just kinda felt wrong about having male privilege and calling myself a feminist because I think it sounds like bullshit. I've always felt that way, or at least, since I grew up.
I'd like some input from the women here as to how that sounds, or even what I should say. I don't fucking know, as you are probably all aware, I'm kinda stupid.
__________________ Father Helel, save us from the dark.
BTW I had a weird discussion yesterday with a lady in my cab and I'd like some clarification.
I consider myself a "feminist sympathizer" ...I use that term because I'm not a woman. I feel like to be a feminist you have to be a woman. Am I wrong there?
Extremely. Men and women and people who identify as neither can and should be feminists.
Quote:
Because that's what she told me. She says, if you're an advocate for women's rights you are a feminist. I just kinda felt wrong about having male privilege and calling myself a feminist because I think it sounds like bullshit. I've always felt that way, or at least, since I grew up.
She is right. You are wrong, regardless about how you have always felt.
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I'd like some input from the women here as to how that sounds, or even what I should say. I don't fucking know, as you are probably all aware, I'm kinda stupid.
As to how it sounds, it sounds kinda stupid. What you should say is, "You were right, my bad. I was working with a wrong definition of feminist. Now that I know better I can definitely say that I am a feminist. Thanks for your help and I apologize if I accidentally tried to mansplain what it means to be a feminist to you earlier."
As to how it sounds, it sounds kinda stupid. What you should say is, "You were right, my bad. I was working with a wrong definition of feminist. Now that I know better I can definitely say that I am a feminist. Thanks for your help and I apologize if I accidentally tried to mansplain what it means to be a feminist to you earlier."
When I see her next I will do exactly that.
__________________ Father Helel, save us from the dark.
Hold onto your hats, guys, because you will be shocked to discover that I HAVE A WHACKADOO HYPOTHESIS ABOUT TECH CULTURE.
For a really long time, at least since I was a kid, there's been a kind of mythos around a few well known usually R&D companies, and little startups like Apple and Microsoft that ended up making it really big, and a lot of the narrative involved stories about non-traditional working cultures.
So back around the dotcom bubble, a whole lot of tech companies tried to emulate various things they'd heard or read about those types of (usually intimate, closed) cultures. But, as expected, most of them did it in a pretty superficial way. They'd abolish the dress code, make the break room a game room, set up a corporate pizza account, and put beer in the vending machine in an attempt to recreate the collegial atmosphere of start up companies that actually consisted of college students; and to a lesser extent, to rarified R&D places like Xerox PARC, which was populated by eccentric academics and other outliers.
Thing is, though, these companies weren't doing the same sort of thing at all. Most of them were just regular programming shops, and the employees were regular programmers and testers and the like, and they had a bunch of boring, run of the mill clients with boring, run of the mill requirements. But they felt really, really special, and that, I think, encouraged a sort of narcissism within those companies. They'd just toss out every sort of policy or practice that didn't immediately make sense to them in an attempt to be really super edgy and innovative, and obviously, too, in a thinly veiled attempt to ensure that their employees basically lived at the office.
And many of them never stopped to think about why those types of standards and practices even existed in the first place. If they don't make immediate sense, they're probably just bullshit, right? It was probably just stodgy corporate political correctness with no rhyme or reason. Why not have shared directories for cool porn you want to share with your coworkers? Can't imagine! Why not change your clothes with your office door open so that anyone who walks past sees your dong? No big. Everybody's got one! Why not have a massive foosball tournament in the middle of the day? We'll just pull an all nighter, because we are freewheeling like that. Call your mom or your wife and tell them you won't be home for dinner. Ha ha, bitches, am I right?
The sort of wealthy to middle class white boys who started those companies aren't exactly known for living examined lives, so they really entrenched a lot of weird privilege into the culture of those companies. They'd vastly overvalue 'cultural fit' when hiring new employees without ever really noticing that, statistically, their cultural criteria skewed young white male. (Or maybe sometimes they did notice that.)
And that doesn't only matter because it encourages workplace discrimination. It also matters because insular bro culture primarily appeals to insular bros, so your position is pretty vulnerable with clients, customers, and potential employees who are not part of that very small minority, and if you're lucky, you'll never know how many opportunities you've lost because your organization is hostile to criticism from anyone outside of your bro culture. If you're a little less lucky, maybe you'll have some gigantic PR blowup that you never saw coming.
That you are even worried about accurate and acceptable terminology is a good thing, Megatron. It's not stupid to make mistakes, it's stupid not to try to fix them and/or do better next time
ES, I was looking through the Image Search you linked to
I was not prepared for the naked man on the Hoveround or golf cart or whatever, under the Dalai Lama there. ETA: Although, in the context of "This is what a feminist looks like..." Greybeard and his balls with his pet bird was pretty goddamned funny.
When you expect one, it's not in your search results. I did get a picture from vimeo of a naked dude in his den holding up a handmade sign with both hands yet still managing to point to a potted plant next to him.
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Much of MADNESS, and more of SIN, and HORROR the soul of the plot.
I've always wanted to do one of these and I finally got the chance. Made my day.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I must be in Y'sb's and slim's filter bubbles because I saw the same cockshot. I thought about whether I could urlhack a safesearch into the query, but then I was like, uck it, cockshot.
All that and all you needed was this picture to refute Meg's assertion:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Megatron
I feel like to be a feminist you have to be a woman. Am I wrong there?
Much like Megatron, I too come from the patriarchy. It's not my fault! Honest! Growing up white and male it just, you know, kind of happened! Lucky for all of you ers, though, I was primed, so to speak, to be a powerful feminist ally. You know, being all beta-ed because I didn't have a dad for the first 12 years or so of my life.
But I understand, I think, Meg's feelings here. Being a man and having all my manly thoughts and feelings, there existed a discomfort in saying I, a man, am a feminist. It's the reactionariness of the patriarchy. For the longest time not only have They established and drilled home the idea that a feminist is a man hating, bra burning anti-establishmentarian shrew (all of the worst things a woman can be) but that any man who supports and espouses those ideas are weak and, you know, probably gaaaaaaay, it's easy to continue to be affected by that mindset. I've had a lot of time and space in my life to come to grips with it. So, I sort of knew the right answer to his question even if I couldn't explain it as pretty as Ensign Steve.
*image shamelessly taken from steve's google search
Wow, way to be charitable. How about next time try looking a word up before telling the woman she's using it wrong? (as opposed to laying out a general request for the ladies of the forum to do it for you)
Re: Return to Gender 101
uck it, cockshot.
Re: Return to Gender 101
and all you needed was this picture to refute Meg's assertion:
Linear Mode
