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The World Beyond BetterMost => Women Today => Topic started by: serious crayons on November 10, 2008, 09:08:58 pm

Title: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: serious crayons on November 10, 2008, 09:08:58 pm
Since I just posted a nice piece by Ariel Levy in the BetterMost People forum, I was reminded of her book, which I read parts of online and thought was pretty fascinating. It's called Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, and it's about Girls Gone Wild and other examples of women doing things that ... well, the reviews on Amazon probably describe it better:

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Amazon.com Review
Ariel Levy’s debut book is a bold, piercing examination of how twenty-first century American society perceives sex and women. Writing vividly, she brings her readers to places she visited to make her assessment; the elevator of Playboy Enterprises with women auditioning to be Playmates in the fiftieth anniversary edition, a Florida beach where sunbathers urge a woman to take off her bathing suit for the camera crew of Girls Gone Wild, a San Francisco Italian restaurant where a lesbian worries she’s not dressed up enough for her date, a CAKE party in New York, with women grinding each other’s pelvises in time to pulsating dance rhythms, and outside a juice bar in Oakland where a beautiful high school student shares disappointment at her experiences with sex.

Levy cleverly leads us to explore the role models women aspire to emulate. We are not pursuing the confident, self-determined, powerful, free ideal the women’s liberation movement would have dreamed for its daughters. Instead, our icons are porn stars and strippers and prostitutes. Paris Hilton and Jenna Jameson flaunt their successes in the pornography industry, and in doing so seem to earn our adulation.

Levy relates our embracing of this raunchy culture to unresolved tensions thirty years ago between the sexual revolution and the women’s liberation movement, and amongst feminists; joy at discovering the delights of our clitoris conflicting with disgust at pornography’s objectification of women. She creates a convincing argument by analyzing a diverse spectrum of material; presents a fascinating palette of interviews with revolutionary women’s libbers, nouvelle raunchy feminists, and everyday women and men. Detailed facts and recurring names are sometimes cumbersome, albeit worth ploughing through for the ‘a-ha moments’.

The reality that we model ourselves on images whose "individuality is erased" is harsh, yet Levy’s work is imbued with hope – hope that women can celebrate their uniqueness instead of their ‘hotness’, explore their sexuality as delight rather than consume sex as currency, and succeed professionally because of their brilliant minds and personalities, not because of their brilliant bodies.--Megan Jones Ady

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. What does sexy mean today? Levy, smartly expanding on reporting for an article in New York magazine, argues that the term is defined by a pervasive raunch culture wherein women make sex objects of other women and of ourselves. The voracious search for what's sexy, she writes, has reincarnated a day when Playboy Bunnies (and airbrushed and surgically altered nudity) epitomized female beauty. It has elevated porn above sexual pleasure. Most insidiously, it has usurped the keywords of the women's movement (liberation, empowerment) to serve as buzzwords for a female sexuality that denies passion (in all its forms) and embraces consumerism. To understand how this happened, Levy examines the women's movement, identifying the residue of divisive, unresolved issues about women's relationship to men and sex. The resulting raunch feminism, she writes, is a garbled attempt at continuing the work of the women's movement and asks, how is resurrecting every stereotype of female sexuality that feminism endeavored to banish good for women? Why is laboring to look like Pamela Anderson empowering? Levy's insightful reporting and analysis chill the hype of what's hot. It will create many aha! moments for readers who have been wondering how porn got to be pop and why feminism is such a dirty word. (Sept. 13)

http://www.amazon.com/Female-Chauvinist-Pigs-Raunch-Culture/dp/0743249895 (http://www.amazon.com/Female-Chauvinist-Pigs-Raunch-Culture/dp/0743249895)

Levy wrote a powerful series about Girls Gone Wild in Slate, which I will post here if anyone is interested. GGW and its ilk have come up in conversations from time to time here, too, often as an analogy to the more out-there apparel and behavior seen at some gay-pride events. Regarding raunch culture, does it reflect poorly on women in general? What causes it? Does it set feminism back? Is it exploitative? Or is it simply women celebrating their sexuality? How do you feel about it?



Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: mariez on November 12, 2008, 02:12:20 pm
Thanks for the heads up on the book! I'm going to the library on my way home from work this evening and I'll check that out.  The subject matter, and the questions you've raised, are perplexing to me and I'm anxious to read more about what she has to say.

Marie
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: serious crayons on November 12, 2008, 02:18:23 pm
Thanks for the heads up on the book! I'm going to the library on my way home from work this evening and I'll check that out.  The subject matter, and the questions you've raised, are perplexing to me and I'm anxious to read more about what she has to say.

Marie

I'm glad you found it interesting, Marie. If you haven't seen it already, here's a thread with a piece by the author, which will give you a taste of her writing (albeit on a very different topic):

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,30126.msg436473.html#msg436473 (http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,30126.msg436473.html#msg436473)

And here's the first of a fascinating/horrifying three-part piece she wrote for Slate about Girls Gone Wild:

http://www.slate.com/id/2097485/entry/2097496/ (http://www.slate.com/id/2097485/entry/2097496/)

Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 19, 2008, 01:25:15 am
Since I just posted a nice piece by Ariel Levy in the BetterMost People forum, I was reminded of her book, which I read parts of online and thought was pretty fascinating. It's called Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, and it's about Girls Gone Wild and other examples of women doing things that ... well, the reviews on Amazon probably describe it better:

http://www.amazon.com/Female-Chauvinist-Pigs-Raunch-Culture/dp/0743249895 (http://www.amazon.com/Female-Chauvinist-Pigs-Raunch-Culture/dp/0743249895)

Levy wrote a powerful series about Girls Gone Wild in Slate, which I will post here if anyone is interested. GGW and its ilk have come up in conversations from time to time here, too, often as an analogy to the more out-there apparel and behavior seen at some gay-pride events. Regarding raunch culture, does it reflect poorly on women in general? What causes it? Does it set feminism back? Is it exploitative? Or is it simply women celebrating their sexuality? How do you feel about it?

True equality means the ability of women to act just as cheap and raunchy or just as high and mighty and everything inbetween just as men do without it reflecting badly on the whole gender.

For every Paris Hilton there is a Natalie Portman.

[shrug]

You have to take the good with the bad.

Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: milomorris on November 19, 2008, 09:53:14 am
True equality means the ability of women to act just as cheap and raunchy or just as high and mighty and everything inbetween just as men do without it reflecting badly on the whole gender.

I agree. But you have to give that time (generations) to develop and change. We all know what the traditional woman looks like, and to a large extent we have had to get folks to understand that there is much more that women have to offer. I think some significant progress has been made culturally in this area. Now we have the GGW type of woman introducing us to a new angle as we continue to try to figure women out.

The extent to which GGW reflects poorly on all women is going vary from person to person. Personally, I can't tell just by looking at a woman if she is a slut or not. Moreover, I mostly don't care. But what worries me is what young men think of women as a result of this raunch culture?? Does it re-set thier expectations of the young women that come into their lives? read below for more thoughts on this.

For every Paris Hilton there is a Natalie Portman.

That's very true. I don't see women flaunting sex en masse the way the Paris Hilton's of the world do.

You have to take the good with the bad.

That's where I disagree. We don't have to take the bad. We should be working to mitigate it. Part of the bad is a culture where teenage boys and girls have decided that oral sex isn't really sex. Part of the bad is girls who have gotten the message that all boys want from them is sex. Part of the bad is female school teachers who rape their male students. Part of the bad is illegitimacy. My youngest niece ended up pregnant at 16 by a boy landed in jail well before the baby was born, and saw nothing wrong with any of it. Her examples--according to my sister--were her friends at school. Most of them had already been pregnant, and some kept the babies. My niece was the last one in her circle of friends who remained chaste. But that kind of peer pressure finally weakened her. She needed to fit in, so she had sex. When she discovered she was pregnant, she fit right in with the rest of the girls.

I don't see how the bad justifies the good.

Milo
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 20, 2008, 01:00:20 am
I agree. But you have to give that time (generations) to develop and change. We all know what the traditional woman looks like, and to a large extent we have had to get folks to understand that there is much more that women have to offer. I think some significant progress has been made culturally in this area. Now we have the GGW type of woman introducing us to a new angle as we continue to try to figure women out.

The extent to which GGW reflects poorly on all women is going vary from person to person. Personally, I can't tell just by looking at a woman if she is a slut or not. Moreover, I mostly don't care. But what worries me is what young men think of women as a result of this raunch culture?? Does it re-set thier expectations of the young women that come into their lives? read below for more thoughts on this.

Raunch culture has been with human civilization ever since there has been civilization.   Straight men find women attractive and anything that enhances that attraction as men see it can be seen as even more sexual.

What turns sexy into raunchy?  Abrahamic religions in the West and patriarchal cultures the world over.  Men had to control their women's sexuality to make sure they were raising their own children, so they had to start differentiating between women whose sexuality could be controlled and those that couldn't.  This was done by raising the social opinion of controllable women and lowering the social opinion of uncontrollable women.

So now women that exuded an enhanced sexuality/sexual appearance, was uncontrolled by men was seen as cheap and trashy.

It doesn't matter what women do, men will always sexualize them.

Look at history.  When women wore yards of cloth, from neck to ground sweeping skirts, what was sexy and oooh - cheap and trashy?  A woman showing her ankle.  When hems went up a little - ooh - ankle high - what was daring and risque?  A woman wearing trousers, outlining the fact that they had legs.  Those little sluts.

Fuck, look at Islamic culture today.  I don't have the link, but in a recent article, in a Muslim country, where the traditional garb for women is a tent with only her eyes showing, one cleric recently went on record as saying the two eyes of women looking out from their tents was tooooooooooo racy and marked them as whores of Babylon (you get the idea - it's the women's fault they have two expressive eyes) so he suggested they only be allowed one eyehole.  You see in countries like the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, even two naked eyes showing out from a tent was too much for the poor tempted men to resist, so those women wore their bourkas with screens over the eye slit, so you can't even see these women's eyes.  >:( 

Men sexualize women's bodies.  You've read studies on how often men think of sex.  There's no escaping it.  And in a culture that separates women into virgins and whores, raunch will always exist.

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That's where I disagree. We don't have to take the bad. We should be working to mitigate it. Part of the bad is a culture where teenage boys and girls have decided that oral sex isn't really sex. Part of the bad is girls who have gotten the message that all boys want from them is sex.

Please point out to me a father who thinks his son staying a virgin until marriage is a good idea and that he enforces this by keeping his son in the home, carefully watching where his son goes and who he is dating, does not encourage his independence and tells him to stay away from 'rough crowds' and to wait for the "right girl", someone who cares for him and marriage. 

I think you'd be hard pressed to find such a father.  Men take pride in their sons becoming independent men, and if that includes sexual exploration, I know few men who think that a bad thing.  They only think it bad if no birth control was used.

And society supports young men becoming independent and growing into manhood.  Rites of passage can include getting drunk and having sex (not that these are mutually exclusive).

So what you have are generations of young men growing up who have little to no social or personal brakes put on their sexual exploration.  Hence, when puberty hits, horny teenage boys want sex, and are not told this is wrong or bad or that they shouldn't pursue sexual satisfaction and girls know this or find this out pretty quick.

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Part of the bad is female school teachers who rape their male students. Part of the bad is illegitimacy.

There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.

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My youngest niece ended up pregnant at 16 by a boy landed in jail well before the baby was born, and saw nothing wrong with any of it. Her examples--according to my sister--were her friends at school. Most of them had already been pregnant, and some kept the babies. My niece was the last one in her circle of friends who remained chaste. But that kind of peer pressure finally weakened her. She needed to fit in, so she had sex. When she discovered she was pregnant, she fit right in with the rest of the girls.

I don't see how the bad justifies the good.

Milo

It doesn't.  It's just going to exist no matter what we do.  Please explain what anyone could have done to keep your 16 year old niece from having unprotected sex - and bad taste in partners?  You know teenagers.  Forbid them to do something and they are suddenly Romeo and Juliet being oppressed by their parents.  What are you going to do?  Lock her up until she's 18?  Put her in a convent?  What could have prevented this was birth control.  Then you would have just had a niece who lost her virginity at 16 instead of pregnant niece.  But sex education and the will to use birth control has to be taught and emphasized.  I do not know what your niece was taught or knew.

A friend of mine one time said that these teenaged pregnancies had to be stopped.  And I agreed completely.  But before he could open his mouth and say what I knew he was going to - reinstate the culture of shame and make pregnant girls pariahs in their own homes and neighborhoods and schools; to force them from schools and make them go into special "homes" so they don't embarrass their families - I asked - rhetorically it seemed since he never answered - "Yeah, so what are we going to do to make teenage boys keep their dicks in their pants?"

He had no answer to that. 

[shrug]
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: Lynne on November 20, 2008, 01:11:56 am
Thanks, Del.  That was a very good post.

Wow.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: milomorris on November 20, 2008, 01:59:13 am
delalluvia,

You're post only disagreed with what I have posted in a way that highlights the problems. I never suggested a return to the past social structures or solutions to these issues. What I am suggesting, unless I was unclear, is a new approach to all of this.

In the light of female emancipation, there has to be a better way for both men and women to view sexuality. Letting girls go wild is not a solution. Saying that there's nothing to be done, so we gotta live with it is not a solution. Blaming males for these problems is not a solution.

We have to be smarter and more creative than that if were going to fix things.

Milo
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: serious crayons on November 20, 2008, 02:28:43 am
It doesn't matter what women do, men will always sexualize them.

Men are going to sexualize them no matter what, so what the hell, they might as well drunkenly flash their tits and make out with their roommates in order to get featured on a video that gets sold on late-night TV, allowing the male buyers across the country to jack off, the filmmaker to get rich, and themselves to be awarded with a free T-shirt?

Is that women just going about their lives while men sexualize them, or is it women playing along with the sexualization and getting exploited in the process? Just another form of women cooperating with men's oppressive standards, as much as the housewives of the '50s or the burkha wearers of today?

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Please point out to me a father who thinks his son staying a virgin until marriage is a good idea and that he enforces this by keeping his son in the home, carefully watching where his son goes and who he is dating, does not encourage his independence and tells him to stay away from 'rough crowds' and to wait for the "right girl", someone who cares for him and marriage. 

Well, this would be unusual, but a good father would impart some sensibility about sexual behavior to his son(s).

Meanwhile, what sons would flash their usually covered body parts and make out with their roommates simply for the sake of being on a video meant to titillate women? Or turn it around -- how many men don't usually wear loose, comfortable clothes -- with the exception of neckties and sometimes suit jackets on hot days -- while their female counterparts wear skin-tight pants that expose their stomachs and butt cracks, stumbling along in crippling stiletto heels and freezing in tank tops and camisoles and bare legs when it's 30 degrees?

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There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.

Agreed.

Quote
Please explain what anyone could have done to keep your 16 year old niece from having unprotected sex - and bad taste in partners?  You know teenagers.  Forbid them to do something and they are suddenly Romeo and Juliet being oppressed by their parents.  What are you going to do?  Lock her up until she's 18?  Put her in a convent?  What could have prevented this was birth control.

A close friend of mine had parents so strict they used to follow her in their car with the headlights off when she went out at night. She wound up pregnant at 14. She got an abortion with her boyfriend's mother posing as her mom -- her own parents, extreme Catholics, never knew.

Ironically, birth control was readily available, even to teenagers. It's just that she was young and stupid, and wasn't on any yet.

However, the difference between her and a lot of teen moms today was that in that middle-class community, the decision of abortion was almost automatic. My friend had plans for her future, and nobody else she knew was pregnant. Nobody else in high school got pregnant and just went ahead and had their babies and kept them. That wasn't really ... done. On the contrary, in cultures where teenage motherhood isn't stigmatized, where in fact it might even be a mark of status, and when girls have little or no other post-high-school prospects for education or careers, you will find teenagers having babies.

BTW, my friend, 35 years later, is doing well: married for about 25 years to a man she loves, twin sons in college who make her proud, a career she enjoys. Let's fervently hope that abortion-free Bristol Palin is just as happy when she's 50. Seriously.

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"Yeah, so what are we going to do to make teenage boys keep their dicks in their pants?"

He had no answer to that. 

Gee, is that part of the deal?  ::)  You're right, people forget about the boys.



Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: milomorris on November 20, 2008, 08:27:42 am
Men are going to sexualize them no matter what, so what the hell, they might as well drunkenly flash their tits and make out with their roommates in order to get featured on a video that gets sold on late-night TV, allowing the male buyers across the country to jack off, the filmmaker to get rich, and themselves to be awarded with a free T-shirt?

Is that women just going about their lives while men sexualize them, or is it women playing along with the sexualization and getting exploited in the process?

This reminds me of the conundrum of hip-hop culture--rap music specifically. While the dynamics are quite different, the exploitation looks the same. Many in the black community see rap as a form of our young people selling out literally. They are willing to take a uniquely African-American art form, and vulgarize it for the entertainment of the young white men. Rap artists have often been called modern-day minstrels for this reason.

Well, this would be unusual, but a good father would impart some sensibility about sexual behavior to his son(s).

Exactly!!! That is what I'm talking about. You can't make boys not objectify women, but you can give them a healthy context in which to do so.

BTW, what does it mean that there are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents? The dictionary certain says otherwise.


Quote
Main Entry:
    il·le·git·i·mate Listen to the pronunciation of illegitimate
Pronunciation:
    \-ˈji-tə-mət\
Function:
    adjective
Date:
    1536

1: not recognized as lawful offspring ; specifically : born of parents not married to each other

Milo
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: milomorris on November 20, 2008, 09:16:17 am
Just another form of women cooperating with men's oppressive standards, as much as the housewives of the '50s or the burkha wearers of today?

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?

And maybe those Muslim women wear their burkhas because they are true believers in their faith, and think they should cover themselves in public. I live in a very mixed neighborhood that has an Islamic studies center, a Yeshiva, and a Catholic seminary. The Muslims walk around in their burkhas, the Jewish guys walk around in the same suit and hat, and the seminarians can sometimes be seen in the local convenience stores in their robes. Nobody loks unhappy to me. Also I work in a predominantly black neighborhood with several Masjids within a 1-mile radius. Those women seem plenty happy to wear their burkhas to me.

I don't know any of these people personally, so maybe I'm missing some of this oppression.

Milo
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 20, 2008, 09:26:14 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?

Of course.  And no one is saying that women can't act like they did back in the 50's.  Unfortunately for them, it's rare that the rest of society will still allow that - few jobs offer the salary for men to keep their wives at home as housewives.  Divorce no longer has the stigma that it once had, so while women may desire to be kept by their husbands, there are few real opportunities for them to do so.  And it's no longer seen as something a woman should do seeing as quite a few women who do not have adequate job skills in the working world instantly become impoverished if they are kept and their husband decides to divorce them.

Which based on modern stats will be 50% of the time.

Quote
And maybe those Muslim women wear their burkhas because they are true believers in their faith, and think they should cover themselves in public. I live in a very mixed neighborhood that has an Islamic studies center, a Yeshiva, and a Catholic seminary. The Muslims walk around in their burkhas, the Jewish guys walk around in the same suit and hat, and the seminarians can sometimes be seen in the local convenience stores in their robes. Nobody loks unhappy to me. Also I work in a predominantly black neighborhood with several Masjids within a 1-mile radius. Those women seem plenty happy to wear their burkhas to me.

I don't know any of these people personally, so maybe I'm missing some of this oppression.

Milo

It could be that you are.  People who have been oppressed for so long sometimes no longer notice that they are being oppressed.  None of the distinguishing clothing that men wear in your example are to hide their sinful tempting bodies from the opposite sex.  The women's clothing are.  Thus the bourka isn't some sort of sign of respect, it's a sign women are too sinful to be allowed to expose their bodies.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 20, 2008, 09:29:21 am
delalluvia,

You're post only disagreed with what I have posted in a way that highlights the problems. I never suggested a return to the past social structures or solutions to these issues. What I am suggesting, unless I was unclear, is a new approach to all of this.

In the light of female emancipation, there has to be a better way for both men and women to view sexuality. Letting girls go wild is not a solution. Saying that there's nothing to be done, so we gotta live with it is not a solution. Blaming males for these problems is not a solution.

We have to be smarter and more creative than that if were going to fix things.

Milo

Well you're preaching to the choir, Milo.  You need to be speaking to teenaged boys and tell them that nudie pics/vids/games of women and their naked bodies is something they shouldn't want to see, admire and desire.  Good luck with that.

To diminish the supply, you have to fight the demand.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 20, 2008, 09:34:26 am
Men are going to sexualize them no matter what, so what the hell, they might as well drunkenly flash their tits and make out with their roommates in order to get featured on a video that gets sold on late-night TV, allowing the male buyers across the country to jack off, the filmmaker to get rich, and themselves to be awarded with a free T-shirt?

Is that women just going about their lives while men sexualize them, or is it women playing along with the sexualization and getting exploited in the process? Just another form of women cooperating with men's oppressive standards, as much as the housewives of the '50s or the burkha wearers of today?

Well, this would be unusual, but a good father would impart some sensibility about sexual behavior to his son(s).

That's what I just said.  Fathers already do that.  They do that by putting condoms in their son's hands.  They don't tell them to wait for marriage or not to pursue their desires.  They simply say, "Here, fuck responsibilty."  That doesn't help change any young man's attitudes toward women as people.

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Meanwhile, what sons would flash their usually covered body parts and make out with their roommates simply for the sake of being on a video meant to titillate women?

Don't young gay men do this? 

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?

Quote
Or turn it around -- how many men don't usually wear loose, comfortable clothes -- with the exception of neckties and sometimes suit jackets on hot days -- while their female counterparts wear skin-tight pants that expose their stomachs and butt cracks, stumbling along in crippling stiletto heels and freezing in tank tops and camisoles and bare legs when it's 30 degrees?

Don't young men wear only shorts during hot summer days?

Quote
A close friend of mine had parents so strict they used to follow her in their car with the headlights off when she went out at night. She wound up pregnant at 14. She got an abortion with her boyfriend's mother posing as her mom -- her own parents, extreme Catholics, never knew.

Ironically, birth control was readily available, even to teenagers. It's just that she was young and stupid, and wasn't on any yet.

Exactly.  That's what the education part is about.  Her parents apparently kept her in the dark.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 20, 2008, 09:38:03 am

BTW, what does it mean that there are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents? The dictionary certain says otherwise.

Milo

Sure it does.  And who came up with the concept that children should get categorized into who is acceptable by society (legitimate) and who is not (illegitimate)t?  Yep, a patriarchal society that didn't want to give hard won resources to children born out of wedlock - this was to reinforce the shame culture that kept women only sexually accessible to their menfolk and women who weren't sexually controlled without the power or social status to demand resources from unmarried lovers.

It's a terrible expression and label to pin on children who had no say in the matter that should be done away with.  Hence my statement.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: serious crayons on November 20, 2008, 10:32:29 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?

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.


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.

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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?

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?

Exactly. Because it's hot, and shorts are comfortable. God knows it's not for women's benefit.


Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: serious crayons on November 20, 2008, 03:00:58 pm
http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,24410.msg440948.html#msg440948 (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.



Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 22, 2008, 02:41:16 am
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.

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.

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.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: pnwDUDE on November 22, 2008, 02:59:19 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.

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
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 22, 2008, 03:03:20 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

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.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: pnwDUDE on November 22, 2008, 03:07:53 am
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.

Eh gads. Are you saying all men are rapists?. Help me here.

Brad
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 22, 2008, 03:33:06 am
Eh gads. Are you saying all men are rapists?. Help me here.

Brad

Of course not.  But usually most rapists are men.  But you're missing the point of my statement.  Women can be forced and coerced by physical means by men.  Men cannot be victimized the same way by women.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: pnwDUDE on November 22, 2008, 03:34:46 am
Of course not.  But usually most rapists are men.  But you're missing the point of my statement.  Women can be forced and coerced by physical means by men.  Men cannot be victimized the same way by women.

So are you saying women are weaker???

Brad
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: pnwDUDE on November 22, 2008, 03:47:26 am
I actually think this is a good discussion. I spent many years in a police car with my partner, who was/is a female. I never thought less of her because she was a woman. When the chips were down (shit was weak), she was there. Tough and ready for the challenge. She is now the Chief of Police (and it is a big west coast city). The only time I saw her as chauvinist, was when, during an OB (Operations Branch) staff meeting, and she said there was "too much testosterone" in the room. I gotta say she was right.

Brad
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: opinionista on November 22, 2008, 07:37:16 am
Many '50s housewives undoubtedly loved their role.

Some even promoted it. When I was a kid I used to get mad at my grandma because she would made me and my sister do the dishes and help her around the kitchen while my brother got to sit down to watch TV or go outside to play with my male cousins. My grandma would argue that she was teaching us to be women! Luckily, at home my parents didn't allow that and my brother had to do the dishes and help around the house.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: opinionista on November 22, 2008, 07:53:11 am
So are you saying women are weaker???

Brad

Women in general have less muscle strength and are shorter in height which make us less strong than most men, and that's a fact. Nothing to do with being sexist. Obviously, there are some women who are lucky to have a stronger physique, and in that sense they are able to compete with men, but that's not the case for the vast majority of us. However, while is true that having a weaker physique put us in certain disavantages, it does not make us cowards.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: lia on November 22, 2008, 07:57:41 am
This is a fascinating discussion, particularly to the mother of both a boy and a girl, even though by now both are - at least on paper - adults. ???

I wrote about one aspect of this elsewhere, i.e. why it's predominantly women who write slash (m/m fanfiction), and some of it seems to me to fit right into this discussion, so here's most of it:

...why women write m/m fanfiction, instead of sticking to what they (should) know, i.e. m/f stories and m/f sex. The trouble is that heterosexual sex is simply loaded with prior assumptions, 1000s of years of conditioning won’t go quietly. Two men meet, they like each other (NOT a prerequisite), they have sex (even if in secret). That's what men do. No no, I know that's not what all men do, but it's accepted by society, nobody thinks of them as "sluts" just because of it. A man and a girl meet, and no, they don't just have sex. Society demands that there's at least some commitment before they have sex, otherwise the girl is considered a slut. Not the boy, of course. And afterwards: does he think any less of her because of it? Does he actually want a relationship? Do we think any less of him if he doesn't? What about the risk of pregnancy? There's an inherent power imbalance in heterosexual relationships, caused essentially by the biological difference. Even today the old double standards often prevail: boys may be given condoms and told to be careful, girls are much more likely to be exhorted to abstain until after marriage. And not entirely without reason: after all it’s the girls who are mainly suffering the consequences of unwanted pregnancy, boys/men can walk away more or less unscathed (except hopefully financially) and society won’t do any more than frown heavily. Another aspect: in my job I see a lot of police reports, and the cases of violence within relationships seem to be about 100 m/f to 1 f/m (though no doubt many more case go unreported). I have yet to see a police report of f/m rape, I see a lot of the other sort, plus the occasional m/m (though the latter are no doubt underreported, too).

The ramifications are endless, and a lot of women, consciously or not, turn to writing m/m fiction to bypass all of them and just concentrate on personality issues. Two equal partners, even their sexual roles interchangeable, just imagine the possibilities. Too bad and really ironic that a lot of those writers promptly proceed to make one (or both) of the protagonists into a woman in all but shape. Conditioning, as I said before.


Edited to clarify: I wrote "girls are much more likely to be exhorted to abstain until after marriage. And not entirely without reason". No, it's not how I brought up my kids, I am well aware of the dangers of forbidden fruit (see alcohol), but I can see how parents who love their daughters and want to protect them from the life-changing consequences of early pregnancy may come to think abstinence is the only way to achieve that.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: serious crayons on November 22, 2008, 11:58:51 am
I can see how parents who love their daughters and want to protect them from the life-changing consequences of early pregnancy may come to think abstinence is the only way to achieve that.

True, although over the past few months we have been treated to a high profile example of how well that works.

Interesting post, lia! You are right that heterosexual couplings are fraught with complications. In fact, when I see a straight couple in a movie  immediately have sex on their first night together, I'm always somewhat bothered. Not in a judgmental sense, but I always wonder, do people still do that very often in real life? Do they live happily ever after? I do know a couple of two who had sex immediately upon meeting and went on to have good relationships, but I know of countless more situations where the sex was the end of it.

Men who split after a one-night stand have at least an evolutionary basis, if not a moral one, for doing so. Since men can have virtually an infinite number of children, it makes sense to spread their seed as widely as possible -- the more offspring they have, the more their genes will carry on (some of them presumably in boys who grow up to echo those promiscuous habits).

But also, if a woman has sex with a man on their first night together, it may imply this is a frequent habit of hers. So if she's having sex with a lot of men, and then gets pregnant, which man is going to be stuck providing the time and resources to raise a child that may not be his? There's no evolutionary payoff in that -- his efforts do not go to passing his own genes along. Therefore, again from a purely Darwinian perspective, it makes sense for the man to move on quickly after a brief encounter.

Evolutionary psychology can suck sometimes.

It's funny that movies have no problem breaking this evolutionary "law," (maybe just for the sake of succinct storytelling), but rarely break the "law" that says males are rarely younger than their female partners.

Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: lia on November 22, 2008, 12:21:53 pm
Edited to clarify: I wrote "girls are much more likely to be exhorted to abstain until after marriage. And not entirely without reason". No, it's not how I brought up my kids, I am well aware of the dangers of forbidden fruit (see alcohol), but I can see how parents who love their daughters and want to protect them from the life-changing consequences of early pregnancy may come to think abstinence is the only way to achieve that.

True, although over the past few months we have been treated to a high profile example of how well that works.

Well, as I said, a) it's NOT my personal opinion. And b) I may be able to see that parents telling their daughters to wait till marriage quite possibly do so because they love them, but at the same time I am firmly of the opinion that to preach abstinence at the expense of teaching them about birth control is irresponsible.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: Marge_Innavera on November 22, 2008, 12:25:22 pm
Men who split after a one-night stand have at least an evolutionary basis, if not a moral one, for doing so. Since men can have virtually an infinite number of children, it makes sense to spread their seed as widely as possible -- the more offspring they have, the more their genes will carry on (some of them presumably in boys who grow up to echo those promiscuous habits).

But also, if a woman has sex with a man on their first night together, it may imply this is a frequent habit of hers. So if she's having sex with a lot of men, and then gets pregnant, which man is going to be stuck providing the time and resources to raise a child that may not be his? There's no evolutionary payoff in that -- his efforts do not go to passing his own genes along. Therefore, again from a purely Darwinian perspective, it makes sense for the man to move on quickly after a brief encounter.

Right.

But from a purely karmic perspective, he has no right to squeal like a stuck pig if he finds out that his partner-for-a-night is getting an abortion.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: Marge_Innavera on November 22, 2008, 12:31:05 pm
Women in general have less muscle strength and are shorter in height which make us less strong than most men, and that's a fact. Nothing to do with being sexist. Obviously, there are some women who are lucky to have a stronger physique, and in that sense they are able to compete with men, but that's not the case for the vast majority of us. However, while is true that having a weaker physique put us in certain disavantages, it does not make us cowards.

Self-defense courses for women have come a long way since the days when women were usually blamed for attacks (e.g., "what was she doing out alone?"  "why was she dressed like that?") and the best advice women got was to rely on male protection.  There are defense tactics that don't depend on physical strength, especially upper-body strength which is the area that we women tend to be weakest. 

And in terms of just general physical ability: while women do tend to be generally less physically strong, most women can handle heavier work than they think.  The problem is that most of us, when we try to do things like lifting heavy loads, we try to do it the way we see men do it and with female muscle development and center of gravity being different, that doesn't usually work.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: serious crayons on November 22, 2008, 12:44:17 pm
Well, as I said, a) it's NOT my personal opinion.

Oh, I know. You made that clear. I was concurring, not debating. :)


Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: lia on November 22, 2008, 01:26:32 pm
And in terms of just general physical ability: while women do tend to be generally less physically strong, most women can handle heavier work than they think.  The problem is that most of us, when we try to do things like lifting heavy loads, we try to do it the way we see men do it and with female muscle development and center of gravity being different, that doesn't usually work.

Whilst I am not disagreeing with you, I remember reading a long very article in the New York Times a few months ago with the title The Uneven Playing Field (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/magazine/11Girls-t.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=cruciate%20girls&st=cse) about the very high rate of injuries suffered by girls playing competitive sports. Injuries in general, but focussing particularly on the disproportionately high rate of ruptured anterior cruciate ligaments (which is the ligament that stabilises the knee), I think 7 out of 8 cases are female. And one of the conclusions was that they happened so much more often to girls because they move differently from boys, i.e. land with straighter legs after jumping, crouch less when sprinting etc. And a programme teaching girls to move more like boys appears to have very promising results.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: Penthesilea on November 22, 2008, 02:38:29 pm
True, although over the past few months we have been treated to a high profile example of how well that works.

Interesting post, lia! You are right that heterosexual couplings are fraught with complications. In fact, when I see a straight couple in a movie  immediately have sex on their first night together, I'm always somewhat bothered. Not in a judgmental sense, but I always wonder, do people still do that very often in real life? Do they live happily ever after? I do know a couple of two who had sex immediately upon meeting and went on to have good relationships, but I know of countless more situations where the sex was the end of it.


I have only a vague idea if people still do it very often in real life. I'd say yes, but it's no first-hand experience (and refers to Germany not the US). I've never been into the dating-business as an adult, I was seventeen when my hubby and I met.
Which brings me to the next question: yup, we did have sex on the first night, we had sex some weeks before we were officially a couple. And for the last 23 years we've lived happily ever after and I think we have a very good and loving relationship.

I often have the vice versa feeling with American movies. 'Under no circumstances have sex before the third date, otherwise he'll think the woman is a sl*t' seems to be a motto in Amercian movies and series.
 ::)
I have to admit that it adds the stereotype of "the prude Americans".



Quote
Men who split after a one-night stand have at least an evolutionary basis, if not a moral one, for doing so. Since men can have virtually an infinite number of children, it makes sense to spread their seed as widely as possible -- the more offspring they have, the more their genes will carry on (some of them presumably in boys who grow up to echo those promiscuous habits).

Agreed this makes evolutionary sense. But it makes also evolutionary sense to stick with the female you had sex with and help her raise the joined offspring. The chances for the offspring to live to adulthood (and reproduce themselves) are much better if two adults care for the progeny. The less offspring a species produces in general, the more important it is to care for them. And humans and other higher mammals do not produce as much offspring as, say insects.



Quote
But also, if a woman has sex with a man on their first night together, it may imply this is a frequent habit of hers. So if she's having sex with a lot of men, and then gets pregnant, which man is going to be stuck providing the time and resources to raise a child that may not be his? There's no evolutionary payoff in that -- his efforts do not go to passing his own genes along. Therefore, again from a purely Darwinian perspective, it makes sense for the man to move on quickly after a brief encounter.


Evolutionary it can also make much sense for females to be promiscuous, and therefore let several males believe they are or at least could be the father of their offspring. Female lions and chimpanzees do this for example.


Quote
Evolutionary psychology can suck sometimes.

And it's tricky.  ;)
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: Marge_Innavera on November 22, 2008, 03:32:50 pm
I often have the vice versa feeling with American movies. 'Under no circumstances have sex before the third date, otherwise he'll think the woman is a sl*t' seems to be a motto in Amercian movies and series.

I'm not sure about that with movies -- but I do know that on American TV, nobody ever, ever, EVER has an abortion.

Quote
Agreed this makes evolutionary sense. But it makes also evolutionary sense to stick with the female you had sex with and help her raise the joined offspring. The chances for the offspring to live to adulthood (and reproduce themselves) are much better if two adults care for the progeny. The less offspring a species produces in general, the more important it is to care for them. And humans and other higher mammals do not produce as much offspring as, say insects. Evolutionary it can also make much sense for females to be promiscuous, and therefore let several males believe they are or at least could be the father of their offspring. Female lions and chimpanzees do this for example.

It's generally tricky to use models from nature, or evolutionary models, for gender roles since for every example you can find to support Opinion A, there's likely an example to support Opinion B.  Nature doesn't have any respect for what human beings want to believe.  And that evolutionary argument does start getting very shaky when you start looking at non-human primates.

Here's an admittedly nonprofessional observation about birds:  people often note that the males of some avian species have bright, elaborate plumage while the females tend to be shades of gray, brown and black.  And from a human perspective, it's easy to assume that nature is just more generous with the males; but the evolutionary reality is that this bright plumage serves no purpose other than to attract females.  As far as survival is concerned, it's a handicap: the female's "drabber" coloring serves her well when she's sitting on a nest.  And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the species with gaudy male plumage are the same species where the male has very little role in raising the young.  After all, under those circumstances, Nature would hold a male's life quite cheaply.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: Penthesilea on November 22, 2008, 03:41:49 pm
It's generally tricky to use models from nature, or evolutionary models, for gender roles since for every example you can find to support Opinion A, there's likely an example to support Opinion B. 

Yep, this is exactly what I wanted to convey with my counter-examples.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: serious crayons on November 22, 2008, 03:45:01 pm
I have only a vague idea if people still do it very often in real life. I'd say yes, but it's no first-hand experience (and refers to Germany not the US). I've never been into the dating-business as an adult, I was seventeen when my hubby and I met.
Which brings me to the next question: yup, we did have sex on the first night, we had sex some weeks before we were officially a couple. And for the last 23 years we've lived happily ever after and I think we have a very good and loving relationship.

Way to go, Bud! I certainly didn't mean to imply this never happens. As I said, I have a couple of friends with similar experiences. Well, in one case, they divorced about a year later, but that had less to do with having sex too soon than getting married too soon.

Quote
I have to admit that it adds the stereotype of "the prude Americans".

That's us!  ;D

Quote
Agreed this makes evolutionary sense. But it makes also evolutionary sense to stick with the female you had sex with and help her raise the joined offspring. The chances for the offspring to live to adulthood (and reproduce themselves) are much better if two adults care for the progeny. The less offspring a species produces in general, the more important it is to care for them. And humans and other higher mammals do not produce as much offspring as, say insects.

This makes sense from a species-wide perspective. But evolutionary psychology focuses more on how individual genes get passed along, through behavior that increases the likelihood of having surviving offspring with one's own genes. A man who raises a child not related genetically will not pass along his genes, so the behavior of wanting to raise someone else's kids (and, by extension, to stick with a woman who seems like she'd be likely to HAVE someone else's kids) does not get passed on as frequently.

Quote
Evolutionary it can also make much sense for females to be promiscuous, and therefore let several males believe they are or at least could be the father of their offspring. Female lions and chimpanzees do this for example.

Yes, this could be a successful strategy. But apparently it's not the one that developed for humans, or we wouldn't have the word "slut." Or at least, we'd have a male equivalent. Human women who sleep around are often judged negatively, in most if not all societies -- from being called sluts to being stoned to death, even for the "crime" of being raped.

Evolutionary psychology often means working backwards, from observing the behavior to determining the logical Darwinian reason. Though that leads to the frequent criticism that evolutionary psychology is just about making up explanations for whatever you want. I don't agree with this, but I can see the point.

Quote
And it's tricky.  ;)

Yup.



Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: serious crayons on November 22, 2008, 03:51:16 pm
I'm not sure about that with movies -- but I do know that on American TV, nobody ever, ever, EVER has an abortion.

That's for sure. Here's Slate's Dana Stevens on this very subject: "The Politics of Shashmortion."

http://www.slate.com/id/2168126/pagenum/all/ (http://www.slate.com/id/2168126/pagenum/all/)
 
Quote
Here's an admittedly nonprofessional observation about birds:  people often note that the males of some avian species have bright, elaborate plumage while the females tend to be shades of gray, brown and black.  And from a human perspective, it's easy to assume that nature is just more generous with the males; but the evolutionary reality is that this bright plumage serves no purpose other than to attract females.  As far as survival is concerned, it's a handicap: the female's "drabber" coloring serves her well when she's sitting on a nest.  And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the species with gaudy male plumage are the same species where the male has very little role in raising the young.  After all, under those circumstances, Nature would hold a male's life quite cheaply.

It's funny that, in humans, the plumage is generally on the other foot.

But then, the presence of a counterexample doesn't mean that evolution isn't responsible for the plumage. Any more than it the fact that some primates are omniverous and some are herbivorus disproves an evolutionary component. Different species just evolve in different directions.



Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: lia on November 22, 2008, 04:07:55 pm
...evolutionary psychology focuses more on how individual genes get passed along, through behavior that increases the likelihood of having surviving offspring with one's own genes. A man who raises a child not related genetically will not pass along his genes, so the behavior of wanting to raise someone else's kids (and, by extension, to stick with a woman who seems like she'd be likely to HAVE someone else's kids) does not get passed on as frequently.

Of course from an evolutionary point of view, the most efficient way of passing on individual genes is polygamy, no point in having sex with somebody who is already pregnant, best turn to the next wife in line. Too bad that most advocates of that particular practice most likely don't believe in evolution in the first place. ;)
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: serious crayons on November 22, 2008, 04:16:00 pm
Of course from an evolutionary point of view, the most efficient way of passing on individual genes is polygamy, no point in having sex with somebody who is already pregnant, best turn to the next wife in line. Too bad that most advocates of that particular practice most likely don't believe in evolution in the first place. ;)

True. But throughout history, this has been common practice for powerful men in many societies.

And incidentally, there is no known culture in which women commonly have multiple husbands.

Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 22, 2008, 09:03:25 pm
So are you saying women are weaker???

Brad

What opinionista said.  Physically, of course.  There is sexual dimorphism in our species.  Men, on average, are bigger and have more musculature than women.  Just fact.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 22, 2008, 09:12:16 pm
I often have the vice versa feeling with American movies. 'Under no circumstances have sex before the third date, otherwise he'll think the woman is a sl*t' seems to be a motto in Amercian movies and series.
 ::)
I have to admit that it adds the stereotype of "the prude Americans"
.

Sad but true.  The northern Americas were settled by Puritans, don't forget.  ;D

A friend of mine once met this guy, and she wanted to sleep with him on the first date.  She was that attracted to him.  But she decided not to because her clothes were too complicated to easily get in and out of.

That simple fact made up her mind.

Luckily for her, I guess.  The guy went on to have a 4 year relationship with her and let it be known that had she slept with him on the first date, he would have considered her a 'slut' and never seen her again - after agreeing to have sex her first, of course.  ::)

The fact that she would have slept with him on the first date and is thus someone he would have considered a slut and not worthy of his company as boyfriend but perfectly fine because she waited one extra week apparently didn't register to him as wonky thinking.

It does to me - and my friend.  Go figure.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 22, 2008, 09:17:27 pm
True. But throughout history, this has been common practice for powerful men in many societies.

And incidentally, there is no known culture in which women commonly have multiple husbands.

There are several actually.  The one I remember best is somewhere in the Himalayan area - Tibet, Nepal, someplace like that.  But it's certainly not because women have more status or get more status when they have more husbands. It's their solution to lack of fertile land availability.

The woman usually marries brothers.  No matter who gets her pregnant, they are all related, so the land stays in the family and the woman can only have a limited number of children to pass the land to through inheritance. 

That is one culture where a man's desire to procreate with a bunch of different women is a disadvantage socially - and economically.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: serious crayons on November 22, 2008, 11:14:47 pm
The woman usually marries brothers.  No matter who gets her pregnant, they are all related, so the land stays in the family and the woman can only have a limited number of children to pass the land to through inheritance. 

That is one culture where a man's desire to procreate with a bunch of different women is a disadvantage socially - and economically.

Not only that, but the genes stay within the family. Evolutionarily speaking, it's the classic exception that proves the rule.

Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: lia on November 23, 2008, 03:41:51 pm
There are several actually.  The one I remember best is somewhere in the Himalayan area - Tibet, Nepal, someplace like that.  But it's certainly not because women have more status or get more status when they have more husbands. It's their solution to lack of fertile land availability.

The woman usually marries brothers.  No matter who gets her pregnant, they are all related, so the land stays in the family and the woman can only have a limited number of children to pass the land to through inheritance. 

That is one culture where a man's desire to procreate with a bunch of different women is a disadvantage socially - and economically.

It looks to me as if this system must produce a lot of surplus girls. Seeing that boys often get a raw deal in US polygamist setups or even get discarded: I wonder what happens to the girls not required for breeding in the example you describe above?
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 26, 2008, 12:31:00 am
This is a fascinating discussion, particularly to the mother of both a boy and a girl, even though by now both are - at least on paper - adults. ???

I wrote about one aspect of this elsewhere, i.e. why it's predominantly women who write slash (m/m fanfiction), and some of it seems to me to fit right into this discussion, so here's most of it:

...why women write m/m fanfiction, instead of sticking to what they (should) know, i.e. m/f stories and m/f sex. The trouble is that heterosexual sex is simply loaded with prior assumptions, 1000s of years of conditioning won’t go quietly. Two men meet, they like each other (NOT a prerequisite), they have sex (even if in secret). That's what men do. No no, I know that's not what all men do, but it's accepted by society, nobody thinks of them as "sluts" just because of it. A man and a girl meet, and no, they don't just have sex. Society demands that there's at least some commitment before they have sex, otherwise the girl is considered a slut. Not the boy, of course. And afterwards: does he think any less of her because of it? Does he actually want a relationship? Do we think any less of him if he doesn't? What about the risk of pregnancy? There's an inherent power imbalance in heterosexual relationships, caused essentially by the biological difference. Even today the old double standards often prevail: boys may be given condoms and told to be careful, girls are much more likely to be exhorted to abstain until after marriage. And not entirely without reason: after all it’s the girls who are mainly suffering the consequences of unwanted pregnancy, boys/men can walk away more or less unscathed (except hopefully financially) and society won’t do any more than frown heavily. Another aspect: in my job I see a lot of police reports, and the cases of violence within relationships seem to be about 100 m/f to 1 f/m (though no doubt many more case go unreported). I have yet to see a police report of f/m rape, I see a lot of the other sort, plus the occasional m/m (though the latter are no doubt underreported, too).

The ramifications are endless, and a lot of women, consciously or not, turn to writing m/m fiction to bypass all of them and just concentrate on personality issues. Two equal partners, even their sexual roles interchangeable, just imagine the possibilities. Too bad and really ironic that a lot of those writers promptly proceed to make one (or both) of the protagonists into a woman in all but shape. Conditioning, as I said before.


Edited to clarify: I wrote "girls are much more likely to be exhorted to abstain until after marriage. And not entirely without reason". No, it's not how I brought up my kids, I am well aware of the dangers of forbidden fruit (see alcohol), but I can see how parents who love their daughters and want to protect them from the life-changing consequences of early pregnancy may come to think abstinence is the only way to achieve that.

Great post.  I posted something along the same lines on a thread in the Story board when I wrote about why I prefer writing m/m fan fiction:

I write m/m fanfiction in at least two fan worlds - have 2 stories going based on BBM (but in alternate universes).  I've always been interested in gay male relationships.  They just tend to be fascinating to me because of the dynamics, so different from male/female or f/f relationships.  In m/f fanfiction, there is always the running undercurrent of domesticity, the soap opera dramas of pregnancy, children, marriage, family relations, all of which are extremely uninteresting to me.  While gay men and women can also be involved in these things, obviously, most of the fanfiction I prefer and write doesn't deal with them

e.g. they're knights well met while fighting the crusades, two monks, two soldiers, etc.
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: delalluvia on November 26, 2008, 12:48:06 am
It looks to me as if this system must produce a lot of surplus girls. Seeing that boys often get a raw deal in US polygamist setups or even get discarded: I wonder what happens to the girls not required for breeding in the example you describe above?

Not sure.  One healthy woman can have a child for every year of her marriage, but seeing as how these people live in such staggeringly remote areas, I tend to think that health care probably isn't the best or readily available and perhaps infant/child mortality takes sufficient numbers of the 50/50 split between male and female babies.

Gag, just found this, granted, the reporting is over 30 years old in this case, but I don't think rural areas have improved that much and it does seem to indicate large surpluses of baby girls wasn't much of a problem in the past:

...indigenous Tibetan populations in northern Nepal who also lack modern health care: for example, in Limi as of 1976, on average 43 per cent of the children born to women had died by the time of the study[17]. Similar findings were reported for the Nyinba of northwest Nepal, Where 54.3 per cent of all children born to women had died[18]. Fieldwork conducted in a relatively poor pastoral nomadic population in western Tibet between 1986 and 1988 also revealed a higher percent of morality, at 26 per cent[19].

http://www.tibet.cn/tibetzt-en/jhsy/jhsy_4.htm
Title: Re: Female Chauvinist Pigs?
Post by: magicmountain on February 06, 2009, 12:31:12 am
Forget raunch – here come the “ladettes”

There's a growing group of young women who are featuring in statistics that used to be the domain of testosterone-driven young men.  More girls are being arrested and charged with aggressive assaults and other crimes than ever before. Girls are now drinking at the same or even more dangerous levels than boys, and they are doing this at younger and younger ages.

These "ladettes", as they have been called, think that being totally drunk, behaving aggressively and even becoming violent is the way to go.

****
The number of women found guilty of crimes has jumped dramatically, partly as a result of alcohol-fuelled young "ladettes" trying to emulate young males. The number of young women offenders has risen 17 per cent in the past four years, compared to just 4.5 per cent for men.

The most significant increase is for traffic offences and in offences against the justice system, which include breaches of bail or bonds and obstructing police. In each of these categories the number of women convicted in NSW jumped about 35 per cent between 2003 and 2007, according to the most recent figures obtained from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.

Paul Dillon, director of Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia, said minor offences were often linked to alcohol. The behaviour of such ladettes was the result of a societal change around alcohol, which had gone from frowning on women drinking in public to a time in which women were drinking as much, or more, than their male counterparts, he said.

Women were also using illicit drugs in more risky ways, and methamphetamines, in particular, if mixed with alcohol, were often linked to violent behaviour, he said. "The whole idea of gangs of young women committing offences was something that was most probably not really heard of 10 years ago."

http://blogs.watoday.com.au/fionastanley/2008/06/the_rise_of_the.html

http://murraybridge.yourguide.com.au/news/national/national/general/ladettes-lead-upsurge-in-female-crime/1416671.aspx

But maybe there's hope with this "Ladettes to Ladies" program lol

http://www.lifestylechannel.com.au/shows/show.asp?id=80&tab=episodes

PS When I was around 11 or 12 I was totally fearless and an out of control delinquent - around the age of 15 I told myself to stop being an idiot and snapped out of it. My inner parent (or inner lady) must have kicked in lol.