Female Chauvinist Pigs?

[milomorris]

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

[delalluvia]

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.

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.

[delalluvia]

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.

[delalluvia]

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.

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?

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?

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.

[delalluvia]

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.

[serious crayons]

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.

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.

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.

[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 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
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.

[pnwDUDE]

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

[delalluvia]

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.