The World Beyond BetterMost > Women Today
Female Chauvinist Pigs?
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: milo morris on November 20, 2008, 09:16:17 am ---I don't know if its about men's oppressive standards. Could it be that the housewives of the 50s enjoyed their status, and found some comfort or even achievement in it?
--- End quote ---
You're right. Many women support traditions even if they are oppressed by them. Many '50s housewives undoubtedly loved their role. Many Muslim women prefer to wear burkhas. In cultures that practice female circumcision, it's usually conducted by women.
I guess the issue is whether the housewives and burkha wearers and circumcised girls have any freedom of choice. Betty Friedan argued that the housewives did not, and when the culture changed, a lot of women were more than happy to leave the mop behind. Burkha wearers can be stoned for exposing too much. And needless to say, most girls do not decide about their own circumcisions.
So although women are complicit in their oppression, it's still oppression.
--- Quote from: delalluvia on November 20, 2008, 09:34:26 am ---Don't young gay men do this?
--- End quote ---
Maybe. I don't know. I've never seen an ad for "Gay Men Gone Wild" on TV.
--- Quote ---As for straight men, if women thought of sex as often as men did, and women were known for sexualizing men's bodies, who knows what straight men might do?
--- End quote ---
Well, it's hard to imagine what might happen in this alternate universe, but I would guess that whatever straight men did it would be to their own benefit.
--- Quote ---Don't young men wear only shorts during hot summer days?
--- End quote ---
Exactly. Because it's hot, and shorts are comfortable. God knows it's not for women's benefit.
serious crayons:
http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,24410.msg440948.html#msg440948
I just noticed that Jess commented in her blog on my second-to-last post above. I can't quote it here because Jess does not permit others to quote from her blog. But basically, she apparently interpreted my post to mean I thought that women wearing Burkhas always ARE completely cooperative in the process.
To be fair, my first post was written rather clumsily, at 12:30 a.m., and probably wasn't clear. My real opinion is that there are many women who are socialized to embrace what we would see as oppression -- housewivery, burkhas, circumcision -- and many who don't, but aren't given a choice by their cultures.
She also calls it an "abomination" that I would compare '50s housewives in the U.S. to oppressed women of the Middle East. Of course I recognize that the degrees of oppression are quite different. I'm not trying to argue that scrubbing a floor is just as bad as being stoned to death. The common ground is women being deprived of certain choices and freedoms in their own lives.
delalluvia:
--- Quote ---Quote from: delalluvia on November 20, 2008, 08:34:26 AM
Don't young gay men do this?
Maybe. I don't know. I've never seen an ad for "Gay Men Gone Wild" on TV.
--- End quote ---
Well, you wouldn't, now would you? The audience demographics for mainstream television aren't gay men.
If you peruse certain - ahem - internet sites, you will see such things.
--- Quote ---Quote
Don't young men wear only shorts during hot summer days?
Exactly. Because it's hot, and shorts are comfortable. God knows it's not for women's benefit.
--- End quote ---
Or gay men, but they can be sexualized. I most certainly think of men that way and I get a little embarrassed whenever I see a straight man wearing nothing but a pair of shorts in places like a store buying beer or something casual. I have sexualized him, especially if he's good looking, so I'm reacting no better than men do to women when they take off their clothes. Fortunately for straight men, they can dress as nearly naked or as sexily as they like without fear of being condemned in their morality or forced to do something they don't want to.
pnwDUDE:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on November 22, 2008, 02:41:16 am ---Fortunately for straight men, they can dress as nearly naked or as sexily as they like without fear of being condemned in their morality or forced to do something they don't want to.
--- End quote ---
Oh, Dell, I don't know. I reckon with these straight (and most) men, morality doesnt' mean a helluva lot. And they don't need to be forced into that which they don't wanna do.......
Brad
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: bradINblue on November 22, 2008, 02:59:19 am ---Oh, Dell, I don't know. I reckon with these straight (and most) men, morality doesnt' mean a helluva lot. And they don't need to be forced into that which they don't wanna do.......
Brad
--- End quote ---
That's what I mean. Their morals or lack of them are not a consideration based on what they wear or don't wear. The same can't be said about women. No, men can't be forced period. A dangerous rapist doesn't give a woman victim a choice. He can use violence to coerce and force her into doing what she doesn't want to do. A man can dress however he wants, wander in dark alleys at night and there isn't a woman in the world who can use force to coerce him into doing something he doesn't want to.
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