There is a clear gendered double standard in society when it comes to interpersonal violence, whether it is physical or emotional.
This is the script:
1. If a woman initiates violence on a man, the most he can do is restrain her to prevent further harm, and he may very well be blamed for doing even that.
2. If he initiates, she is entitled to use whatever force and inflict whatever she can, disproportionate to the initial assault or not.
3. If he commits some non-violent transgression, a transgression in her judgment alone, she is entitled to physical violence on him, to include maiming him.
This is a cultural script we are taking about, as evidenced by the way people act them out, without consideration for what the actual consequences turn out to be. We are looking at the rules people act according to.
Examples:
Commenter Sensitive Thug related this:
This makes me think of a memory from high school. I was friends with a boy and a girl. The boy made a bet with another friend that he could kiss the girl at a party. So he did and he won their bet but the girl found out. She responded by kissing him again and this time biting his tongue so hard that he couldn’t speak properly for a week.
Clearly the guys who made that bet were in the wrong too, so it’s a different situation to the incident in this thread. Nevertheless violence shouldn’t be seen as acceptable in either situation.
This is not the only incident of its kind that I remember from high school. Rarely were these girls held to account for their actions. But I’m beginning to think that this must be very frustrating and detrimental for women as well as men.
Not only do violent women sometimes hit other women, it goes deeper than that, as you all know. There are times when I wish I could lash out at people whenever I get upset. But on balance, I know I developed and grew as a person by being held to account for my actions.
Note how the girl reacted with disproportionate force. The injury she inflicted could easily have been permanent and disabling, and note how there were apparently no consequences.
This kind of thing is by no means anomalous, as we saw just a few days ago in this story out of Manatee County. FL where a woman thought she was entitled to start beating and scratching her boyfriend when she failed to reach orgasm. The fact that she was later arrested does not this script was not running, since obviously she acted on it.
Then of course there was the infamous case of Sharon Osbourne and the Talk. In one show she, and not only she but her whole grunting audience, in the studio and at home, thought it was all just wonderful that Catherine Kieu had cut her husband’s penis off and thrown it into the garbage disposal. Her lying apology only showed how perfectly acceptable that kind of thing was, how much it fit the script, and how many people supported her in that. (Read the comments on that one; they tear Osbourne’s lying apologist up for her sexism, while pointing out how common Osbourne’s attitude is.) And she had plenty of boot-licking apologists who tried to trivialize her sexist idiocy. Apparently a lot of people thought her reaction was quite natural and acceptable and by extension what she was reacting to was equally natural and acceptable.
So what is going on?
Clearly this reflects the hyperagency/hypoagency narrative. Hypoagency is not an objective measure of a person’s actual agentivity, it is a socially ascribed status. A hypoagentive person is expected to need excessive force to accomplish the minimal effect necessary effect. Their excessive force is justified, because it’s a David and Goliath situation.
The way this is often cast to look justifiable is false equivalence, where for example a man’s infidelity, even if only assumed or guessed at, is presented as justification for some kind of physical retaliation, however disabling.
Then there is all the objectification of men summed up in the term “male disposability.” This means that it’s permitted to violate men and their bodies if a woman feels the need. It means that their resulting pain is dismissed as their subjectivity and right to describe their own experiences is denied.
Every bit of this is part of the toxic femininity that is at the base of the rotten gender system so many people think they oppose, but instead work so hard to reinforce with their theories and advocacy. It’s interesting to see how faintly they oppose it when it collides with the values and assumptions they have been raised with in that system.
- The Woman Card - May 2, 2016
- Frat boy bachelorettes and the invasion of gay bars - April 15, 2016
- “Not my kid….” - February 22, 2016
by 
just think how feminist’s expect us to take hateful comments by Mary Daly and the SCUM Manafesto as “irony” yet MRA’s are always accused of being a powderkeg of violence waiting to happen…
The double standard is constantly perpetuated by bigots like Futrelle, Schwyzer and Marcotte…
Maiming and mutilation as an appropriate penalty to adultery, eh? Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are closer than we think. Just goes to show the Joker was right; scratch away the thin veneer of civilization and humanity is just as disturbing as it ever was. Feminism is a solvent that removes that veneer quiet well.
Snake Oil baron, welcome!
Human nature is a nuclear pile and we need to keep a lot of rods in and we need to keep an unsleeping eye on it.
Then of course there was the infamous case of Sharon Osbourne and the Talk. In one show she, and not only she but her whole grunting audience, in the studio and at home, thought it was all just wonderful that Catherine Kieu had cut her husband’s penis off and thrown it into the garbage disposal.
It was a celebration. The facebook response was amazing. The level of sadism on display was really creepy and very, very frightening. I was around during the Bobbitt celebrations also. When women display their dark side they have no aversion to doing it in large numbers.
I’ve bored folk for years over Oprah’s treatment of female sex abusers. Likewise the Australian womens’ magazines who have paid such perpetrators as well. (In one of those instances New Idea more than once paid an American woman WHILST she was engaged in breaking US Federal law.)
Nowhere is there any inquiry into wrongness or potential harm. Oprah’s guests weren’t subjected to interrogative but to empathy and applause. Her’s and our womens’ magazines treat these situations is as relationship oddities with an added “you go girl” flavour to them. The really creepy thing to me is the size of the very well targeted audiences playing along.
I guess even boys are fair game.
“Nowhere is there any inquiry into wrongness or potential harm”
If you construct a damseling narrative of inhernet victimhood, all oyu violence towards males – as you say, it’s boys too – is either justified or else just not serious. and yes it is horribly misogynist but still quite conveninet not to take women or their violence seriously.
As always, whenever you see a bunch of cackling women celebrating the violence they inflict against men, there’s a self-righteous White Knight or two lurking somewhere in the background ready to pounce on anyone who has a problem with it.
I love this scene from some reality TV show that shows this in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1C7vP061iqs
The great thing about it is that the host calls the violent woman and her White Knight husband out on their behavior and tells her it’s unacceptable for her to hit other contestants. He even points out right in front of everyone that she has an abusive relationship with her husband. So of course, the husband goes right after the host and attacks him for it!
Anyway, we need more men like the host, Joe Rogan, to stand up to these women and their White Knight enablers.
I think I related this before – I was arguing with my wife, about money and bills, and how depressing it was, like a huge weight on me. She said it was all my fault, that I was the man of the house, and if I REALLY didn’t want her to max out all the credit cards I would have made her stop.
She expects/has the freedom to pick and choose, whatever standard she wants at the moment. She doesn’t have to be consistent.
I’ve probably told this story here before, but when I was in 7th/8th grade, two of my classmates- a boy and a girl- got into a fight, I don’t remember what it was about, but the point is, they were both yelling at each other but the girl made it physical. She pushed him, hit him, even went so far as to throw a metal folding chair at his head (she missed, thankfully) He kept trying to walk away from the situation, but she kept dragging him back into it. And afterwards, when our teacher was talking to us about it, all she could focus on was the fact that he pushed her *once* when she got in his face.
Paul:
Your teacher has a point.
If a 90 lb girl hits a 120 lb boy, is he justified in pushing her and by that potentially falling backwards and cracking her skull?
Girls who are violent do huge damage, but the idea that a dangerous response to a non-threatening situation is WARRANTED is horrifying to me.
Damn I meant:
“is he justified in pushing her and by that potentially making her fall backwards and crack her skull?
Umm… she was pushing him. Potentially cracking his skill. And throwing chairs at his head. Potentially cracking his skull, knocking him down and cracking his skull, causing bleeding from the head, or hitting the eye and wrecking that. And punching him potentially crushing his throat, causing bruising around a critical neck vein, hitting his eye, or knocking him down and cracking his skull.
Although you do provide a very good example of the hypo-agency/hyper-agency narrative. The girl can’t cause any harm to the boy.
I actually accidentally saw Sharon Osborne talking about cutting off men’s dicks about a week ago while fixing my parents’ TV. I made a comment about it to my mom, but I left it on the channel for less than five minutes. I guess that’s what gets her viewers.
“If a 90 lb girl hits a 120 lb boy, is he justified in pushing her and by that potentially falling backwards and cracking her skull?”
somehow this same logic doesn’t get applied to smaller boys. Infact smaller boys are told not to pick fights with the big guys. That’s where that magical little thing that feminist’s deny exist comes in-female privilege…
another example was when that lady assaulted a bus driver. He hit back, granted it was unprofessional. Maybe he should’ve just pulled over, called the cops and had her arrested. But no boy or handicapped man would’ve thrown the first punch and then expected that they were immune to retaliation. This is also one of the reason’s I much prefer all male work environments. (The femmies will say that it is because I am a “misogynist.”) If another guy picks a fight with me and I retaliate, there’s a good chance people will stick up for me and say he had it coming. I wouldn’t get that luxury if a womyn throws the first punch–that bus driver is proof of that on a societal level….
here ya go…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlFAd4YdQks
Well in the UK it seems that being drunk actually is a mitigating factor when sexually assaulting/abusing under age boys. If you’re a woman at least….
http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/too-drunk-to-go-to-jail/
As I don’t have the power to delete comments and close down comment threads, when things don’t go my way, I will try a more serious approach.
There is a reason why there should be a different standard for women/girls than for men/boys when it comes to violence. In short the powerful should have more responsibility not to harm, the vulnerable should get more protection from harm; men/boys are more powerful and women/girls are more vulnerable. To expand this I will compare typical woman/girl and a typical man/boy, of course there are exceptions, but the typical case is more important.
1.Physical differences:
Men/boys are bigger and stronger, they are more skilled in fighting and defending themselves and they are tougher, meaning they can take more without serious harm.
2.Psychological differences:
Men/boys are taught how to defend themselves, to fight and to face an enemy. Women/girls are taught to be peaceful and to appease and please people.
3.Societal differences:
There is a culture of male domination and violence against women, hence an attack of a man/boy against a woman/girl is an attack against all women girls.
Juppina, did you take a wrong turn somewhere?
Boys are taught not to defend themselves against girls and women. Males also bear the brunt of violence in our culture. You don’t have the right to minimize that by saying they’re better equipped to deal with it (I’m terribly sorry if you thought otherwise).
You’ll also have to supply a shred of evidence for your point about “societal differences”. The most priviledged classes of people tend to feel oppressed the soonest.
“She expects/has the freedom to pick and choose, whatever standard she wants at the moment. She doesn’t have to be consistent.”
RR, thisn is Cluster B behavior. The unifying tait of all the Cluster B disorders – and a person can display the symptoms without having the disorder, can have assimialted the behaviors as a cultural norm fomr family culture or whatever – is that the person ses himself as the only living being in the universe. That means other people are onlyobjects to them – either instruments or as some kind of mirror. That explains your wife’s attitude about money and your role – she is trying to instrumenalize yuo by shoving all responsibility off onto you.
The other correllary is that the persosn refuses to be held accountability for anything. From their point of view as the only living being it’s simply absurd to be accuutnable to any of these objects around them. They are the law themselves.
Succulent Fishsticks, Juppina is a parody sock puppet. Believe me, you and Jupp agree on your points.
I really don’t want to wander down the path of excusing such behavior, but I have to wonder how much of this due to the ABSENCE of accountability training in the upbringing of young girls. How often have we seen boys disciplined (or even verbally corrected) for violence, and how often were girls exposed to similar education?
I think it’s human nature to do whatever you can get away with–just like attractive women get to act crazy because nobody will ever call them on it, while plain ones have to learn how to respect others’ boundaries.
” There is a culture of male domination and violence against women, hence an attack of a man/boy against a woman/girl is an attack against all women girls.”
this is misandry pure and simple….
that’s like blaming EVERY white person EVER for slavery….
(Yes there were white people responsible, but not every white person was.)
this is where you get the men can stop rape schtick. That’s like saying men can stop terrorism or men can stop cancer….
I’ve also figured out why feminists are so threatened by MGTOW. It’s not “misogyny” as much as bigots like Futrelle and Marcotte scream that word. It’s the fact that guys are saying YOU don’t deserve my utility. You want equality, you got it, let some other chump do your heavy lifting. I can take care of myself and don’t owe you a thing….
SucculentFishsticks:
This is mainly intragender violence, this is a different issue than intergenderviolence. Although both have in common that the majority of perpetrators is male.
Great, another privileged dude denying women basic rights. I am not saying it isn’t bad for men, but that it is even worse for women.
Many men might have a problem to realise that there is a war on women, because the oppression of women is often hidden. Through violence and the threat of violence women are forced into the roles, that men want them to play (being chaste, being a whore, being a mother, smile at strangers, being submissive and making sandwiches, etc.) See for example
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175641/tomgram%3A_rebecca_solnit%2C_the_longest_war/ for an explanation.
stonerwithaboner:
Members of the oppressor class are responsible for the oppression.
Though I have little hope that a Misogynistic Guy Tolerating the Oppression of Women cares; especially one with such a threatening nickname.
“Succulent Fishsticks, Juppina is a parody sock puppet. Believe me, you and Jupp agree on your points.”
Ahh… that makes sense. I thought he was an actual SRSer type.
He is keeping the persona screwed on pretty tight, isn’t he. And he does sound very SRS.
This may be a first. We are having our own radfem drag show. Fabulous, isn’t she? I’m waiting for the raunchy humor to start.
Someone said there is little difference between an extremist and a parody of an extremist, they both tend to appear pretty fucked up to most people.
Nonetheless you must acknowledge that, even if you support apartheid for them, the significant majority of the victims of violence are male.
Great, another feminist non sequitur. Comment did not reference class women as a subject let alone their “rights”. Your response is not framed as an advocacy for anyone’s rights but, rather, a demand for denial of rights to others. From this point you are not advised to label yourself an equalist of any sort.
You can’t see the “war on women” because the “oppression of women” is hidden? It’s invisible. When you get a little older you’ll come to realise that physics makes the universe work. Not magic. Of course when something you believe oppressive – smiling, being a mother? – is engaged in enthusiastically by massive numbers of women your argument really lacks fizzle.
We’ve heard you. Regardless of individual circumstances no boy or man has a right to protection, self or otherwise, from anything any female wishes to do.
You’d be far more at home at the RadFem Hub. If you really want to fantasize about boys and men willingly marching to their own executions that’s the place to be.
Oops, have I jumped the tiger? or was it tigger?
“Of course when something you believe oppressive – smiling, being a mother? – is engaged in enthusiastically by massive numbers of women your argument really lacks fizzle. ”
Not sure this is an argument. Following you, going in combat roles in the army, even involuntarily, is fine and all, because massive number of men have been brainwashed to think their manhood hangs on the balance (ie white feathers) and done it in apparent enthusiasm.
Sometimes people make your wellbeing, if not survival, contingent on following rather oppressive and strict roles. I just don’t consider motherhood more oppressive than being a 60+ hours/week worker, in the past. Both had drawbacks, both had perks, they used to just be way more strict and railroaded into based on genitals than they are now.
The “women have to have it all” problem is a non-problem, it’s having incredible expectations when people used to have less and exaggerating the peer pressure you now have by wanting to please everyone, not just people who “work” for you (ie, like a rapper trying to please mainstream and “dance” people, while keeping obscure and underground enough – pick one – as in, motherhood or, career, or a balance of both, but don’t obsess over doing both to the 11, you’ll ALWAYS disappoint someone, just don’t associate with them).
“Great, another privileged dude denying women basic rights. I am not saying it isn’t bad for men, but that it is even worse for women.”
You know thos stock phrases “Patriarchy hurts men too” PMHT and “Not all feminists arelike that” NAFALT? Well I think we have another:
WAHIW – Women always have it worse. It’s pronounced “weaaaaaahhhh!!!!”
It is a correllary of hypoagency and it’s a form of damesleing.
Juppinia, I have never seen a parody carried on this long. well done!
“Many men might have a problem to realise that there is a war on women, because the oppression of women is often hidden.”
I love it! This is a classic Compensatory Inversion. It denies and inverts the actual facts. The fact is that there is and has been a war on men, and tit is denied and minimized all the time. Excellent!
“Though I have little hope that a Misogynistic Guy Tolerating the Oppression of Women cares; especially one with such a threatening nickname.”
Outdoing oyurself withthis one. Stonerwithaboner is threatening? A phallus is threatening? We can do the same thing with vaginas, can’t we?
And is someone a misogynist for not jumping in and white knighting whhen he sees women “oppressed”? We need a name for this kind of passive aggression, something beyond “mean bottom”, where the aggressor objectifies the victim by instrumentalizing him to serve her. It needs a name.
I honestly didn’t think it was parody at first. It was too elegant, too believable that some radfem came in here and started spouting off crap. The only give away was the name.
Didn’t you hear? The latest rumor going around the manosphere is that they all have teeth. Although since none of us have ever seen/touched one, we can’t confirm the validity of that rumor. Although it makes sense, since women are all basically trying to chop our dicks off all the time.
Schala said:
Not sure this is an argument.
It’s difficult to mount an argument in the face of such speciousness. I need to find somebody to sue. I’ve hurt my back laughing. Ohhh, the oppression. Who do I report to?
“Now Sir, did you happen to get the registration of the gravity that threatened you?”
hehe,
as far as “scary vagina’s”….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina_dentata
here’s one:
http://www.shrink4men.com/2011/11/29/dr-drew-pinsky-says-kim-kardashian-committed-domestic-violence-against-kris-humphries/
and there’s a link on Danny’s Corner where a guy gets assaulted by a woman on public transportation…
there seems to be a huge percentage of the population that thinks a man being hit should simply “man up” and be a human punching bag. Remember how there was a special on DV where our joke of a Vice President talked about how a man should never hit a woman. Whoppie Goldberg (sorry if I didn’t spell it right) also said, “And women, don’t hit your men.” To their credit, the audience applauded. Unfortunately Biden (or as McCrystal lovingly reffered to him-“Bite Me”) mansplained ™ right over her and disregarded what she was saying….
I don’t even listen to the violence double standard anymore I chose it my own way, if a girl hits me first and it doesn’t really hurt I will just walk away like nothing happened and if she keeps pulling me back into the fight and kicks me where it hurts (I’m a guy, you know the spot I’m talking about) she better be prepared I’m gonna hit her back for it. Same with a guy hitting a girl she can use self defense for herself. The double standard guys can’t hit girls but its totally ok for girls to hit guys that’s just stupid, I understand self defense but that’s just stupid.
@juppina
The problem with generalizations is that sometimes they can be oh so wrong. Case in point.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=ronda+rousey&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=axwRUdqKIung2QWuy4DIBA&sqi=2&ved=0CKUBEIke&biw=1600&bih=774#imgrc=E-B8uAlyASFmCM%3A%3BuMnE4YJBbBaTfM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww2.cdn.sherdog.com%252F_images%252Fpictures%252F20120303021421_Untitled2.JPG%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.sherdog.com%252Fnews%252Fnews%252FReport-Strikeforce-Champion-Ronda-Rousey-to-Join-UFC-in-2013-Strikeforce-to-Fold-47207%3B600%3B400
Ginkgo:
Thanks, but haven’t you read Hugo Schwyzer?
The problem with the parodying this kind of toxic feminism, is that you still want the things to be kind of believable, but jerks like Hugo Schwyzer make all our attempts look pale, as they have seemingly convinced people that they are serious and again and again raise the bar how far you can defy common sense.
“Thanks, but haven’t you read Hugo Schwyzer?”
Poe’s Law was defined just for instances like him. And he’s not a one-off; he’s the norm.
@All:
I see a lot of anger in your responses, which frankly upsets and triggers me; what I don’t see is compassion for women in difficult situations. Look, if a woman smashes her boyfriends windshield or physically attacks him, you should ask yourself: “What has happened in her life, that made her do it?” And instead of vilifying her you should show her the empathy she deserves.
Fortunately there are some good men get it.
again the link:
good men
if a womyn is abusive it is because teh evillle patriarchy twisted her inherent goodness and made her evillle-she is teh victym ™
if a man is abusive it is because he is inherently evillle ™ and he didn’t hold his evillle impulses in check….
double standard much?
you are treating womyn like precious unicorns and men like untamed beasts-that both misogynist and misandrous….
Fuck the Good Men Project….
“Fuck the Good Men Project….”
I’ll start with Mark Greene…..
Speaking of which… are any of you watching the Jodi Arias trial? I am totally addicted. Surprised there isn’t a huge discussion of it here. I figure that’s what inspired the Good Men piece, since Arias is from California.
I can’t stop watching, especially her testimony today and yesterday. What Juppina wrote is exactly what she is counting on sparing her the death penalty (she already admitted her guilt–the question is whether it was ‘self defense’).
That demure, sweet, innocent act of hers, coupled with the fact that she sliced and diced the boyfriend? Scares the shit out of me, much more than any openly ‘mean bitch’ would.
If they believe her, she could walk.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
@Juppina
The troll force is strong with this one.
But seriously.
Daisy:
Speaking of which… are any of you watching the Jodi Arias trial? I am totally addicted. Surprised there isn’t a huge discussion of it here. I figure that’s what inspired the Good Men piece, since Arias is from California.
While that piece may relate to that trial I doubt that Arias was actually the inspiration for that GMP piece. The inspiration for that was just another call for sympathy for women that do bad things. Honestly I agree that there are cases where it would be ideal to extend some compassion to women when they do bad things. The problem is it’s being aimed at an audience that has a lot of men who have been REPEATEDLY denied compassion because they are men, while simultaneously being told they need to show compassion for women.
I was actually waiting until the verdict came down on Arias. Truthfully Daisy, I think that despite lying about killing him (first she said someone else did it and then she said she did it in self defense) she will walk. If she does I’d be very worried about her changing her name and running into her on the street.
Juppina said: “In short the powerful should have more responsibility not to harm, the vulnerable should get more protection from harm; men/boys are more powerful and women/girls are more vulnerable.”
The problem with this argument when made by feminists is that, if you accept the premise that the stronger of the two should have more self-restraint, they always make it a gender issue. The principle is expressed adequately enough without bringing gender into it: “the stronger of the two should have more self-restraint*”. This covers all instances of violence, not just the ones involving a man and a woman.
*and of course self-restraint doesn’t mean you _never_ respond to being attacked, but that the response is proportional to the situation and just enough to ensure your safety, such as simply pushing away a weaker but violent girl who is attacking you.
“of course there are exceptions, but the typical case is more important”
Actually the exceptions are more important. A rule based on the typical case without considering exceptions is where oppression and injustice begins.
Adiabat:
Indeed. And yet it seems that many “social justice” people are willing to sacrifice individual justice for the sake of “group justice”.
More generally concerning the question of double standards with respect to violence:
In our world, being a victim is a role to be played. When somebody abuses you, you have to perform victimhood or the abuse you suffered might not count. Some people are unable or unwilling to “be a victim” in certain situations; this is where there are significant statistical differences between the genders.
“Be afraid, be very afraid.”
We know about that kind of thing, daisy, beleive me we do. And now look back over oyur own run-ins with this kind of woman or girl -these people are really not that rare, are they? And I cannot believe there is not an equal numbe ro men prediposed to act like this. So the diference has to be in the way they act out. Men can’t bat their eyelasshes and get away with this kiind of crime – I think bluster may be the only option open to us, and it tends to tighten rather than loosen the noose. The individuals are only a small part of the problem. The problem is the system.
Hey Jupp, if you thought TGMP was bad, get a load of Amanda Marcotte:
At this point, I think she has gone comatose on us and is no longer reacting to the world around her, but to an inner monologue of dripping bigotry and hate running through her head.
“This ad was symbolic vengenance for men who think their human rights are violated because they don’t get to fuck the woman of their choice… ”
I would so love to tie Marcotte to a stake over the pile of all her strawmen and light the thing off.
“What’s interesting is that the ad deliberately makes the kissing as gross as possible, so that you’re grossed out whether you like it or not. ”
It wasn’t that gross, she was actually almost decent-looking… oh, wait, that’s not what Marcotte meant at all. What a vile hater she is.
@dungone:
You see that’s what happens when a woman tries to tell a man what he is thinking rather than asking him what he is feeling. This, “This ad was symbolic vengenance for men who think their human rights are violated because they don’t get to fuck the woman of their choice” is some of the grandest hyperbole (or straw manning even) I’ve seen. A human rights violation? Yeah not too many guys really take it that far.
At best she is trying to cast the extreme reactions of the few men that do think that far out there but at worst she is making an extreme statement in hopes that her fans will ignore the very real issue that guys face when it comes to dating.
TLDR; She is just as full of herself as Filipovic was when she claimed that GMP was an MRA hellhole and as whoever it was that said men that don’t want to go down on women when their on their period, barring an actual fear of blood, are woman hating misogynists (but of course women should have the freedom to turn down oral on a guy for whatever reason she pleases and not have conclusions drawn about how much she likes/dislikes men).
Marcotte is an ugly individual who needs to be told and told and told again how ugly she really is. I’ve been in and around left wing and union politics since the sixties and Marcotte would rate as one of the foulest individuals I’ve ever encountered.
Daisy, go read this…
http://jezebel.com/5981947/whats-the-best-age-to-have-an-abortion
now do you see why I’m not onboard with the pro-choice crowd?
I suppose it is because I am a hateful “misogynist”-not because of their flippant attitudes and the fact that I am seen as less than human…
I wonder what they make of this Will Farrell beer advert: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-57567503/will-ferrell-kisses-older-woman-in-old-milwaukee-super-bowl-xlvii-ad/
As a complete side-track (which I allow myself to do since the post is titled DOUBLE STANDARDS).
There has been some cheering online since the GOP controlled Arkansas house have passed a bill which terminates parental rights for rapists.
Sounds good. But let’s look closer:
Arkansas actually have a gender neutral legal definition of rape.
So far so good.
This new bill itself has to be gender neutral as well. After much cursing at lazy journalists who never provide the bill number much less a link to the bill itself I was able to locate the bill which was passed. It’s HB1002 and it contains this text (my emphasis):
How about that for some nice legal double standard.
There is a small provision for statutory rape. In Arkansas it’s rape if the victim is 14 year or younger – although an age difference of up to three years can be used as an affirmative defence against rape charges. So this will probably nor apply to 17 year old boys making their 15 year old girlfriend pregnant. It also won’t apply to the 26 year old female teacher getting herself pregnant by her 13 year old student.
Another problem with this is in the case of spousal/partner rape where perhaps there were several consensual intercourses and one rape within a time-frame which would make it difficult to prove that the rape was the intercourse where the child was conceived. If the child was conceived during any of the other consensual intercourses then the parental rights isn’t terminated according to this law.
Could any of the moderators please fix my mistake where I forgot to close the a tag after the word rape.
Actually I’d chuck the whole thing up to projection. She’s not exactly attractive, in fact she’s a downright unattractive, inside and out. Rather than seeking out a realistic relationship with a lower-status man, she goes after men who aren’t truly interested in her and then gripes about it. Here’s a Marcotte classic:
She felt so pissed off by the reality that the “boyfriend” she had been so smitten with wasn’t completely in love with her that she lied to him about his own baby. At first she wanted to get an abortion and make him pay for it, quite obviously driven by hatred and rage at the thought of forlorn by him. But as he offered to marry her, she decided just to try to hurt him, instead, by making up an utter fantasy about other lovers and how his horrible behavior forced her, the epitome of feminine virtue, to take on other lovers, how it was all his fault that he lost a faithful lover like none other.
So at first she wanted to get an abortion and make him pay for it just for the sake of rubbing it in, driven by the kind of hatred and rage that only a forlorn woman could muster. And when he offered to marry her instead, she felt that this was the perfect way to spite him even more, and told him it might not even be his. The truth is, of course, all she had been all along is just a loser. A bitter, entitled, a female version of the “Nice Guy” straw men she is so notorious for attacking.
SWAB: now do you see why I’m not onboard with the pro-choice crowd?
(sigh)
This article is a parody of countless Glamour/Redbook/McCall’s/Vogue/Cosmo (etc) magazine articles about “the best time to have a baby”… if you didn’t grow up reading that stuff (or more to the point, having them foisted on you), then you won’t get the article.
If you think its “flip”–then I guess it is even more flip to treat children as fashion accessories worthy of a cold-blooded cost-benefit analysis, amiright? Yet, this is how it was usually presented to women in these kinds of magazines, often in sexist articles written by world-class assholes like Dr David Reuben. Seriously. (“Whats the best age to get married?” is another one.)
So: no. I don’t think its any more flip than the silliness that inspired it.
On the other hand, you have just explained the cultural abyss between men and women and why some things seem funny to one gender and seem tasteless/immoral/flip/weird to the opposite gender. For example, I never used to spot the “men’s adventure story” motif until my husband pointed it out to me and compared it to “Dances With Wolves”….
This kind of stuff is what “socialized to be ___ gender” really means.
Thanks Ginkgo for mentioning me in the post. It’s nice to see my name up there, even if everyone now knows what an egotist I am for liking it!
Dungone, pretty shocking words from Marcotte. I found them on her site (judging from google) but couldn’t get her site to actually load right now. I’ll check later but yeah, it does seem ridiculous. Poor guy.
Re: Marcotte.
Here is something written by Naomi Wolfe in 1996. I instantly thought of it when reading Dungone’s post:
Of the abortions I know of, these were some of the reasons: to find out if the woman could get pregnant; to force a boy or man to take a relationship more seriously; and to enact a rite of passage for affluent teenage girls. In my high school, the abortion drama was used to test a boyfriend’s character.
From:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2013/01/archive-naomi-wolfs-our-bodies-our-souls
Wolf is 50 and I am 55. But, I find this passage a huge difference from the way I was raised in the working class Midwest, where abortion was mostly whispered about. We could have named the few girls we knew who had abortions. In addition, I was 15 when Roe v. Wade was made law (and took it very personally), while Wolfe would have been a 10 yr old child. She grew up with the right to abortion, literally, while widespread abortion-accessibility was still being ironed out even during my first marriage. The phrase “she had to go to New York” was our high school euphemism for abortion. We didn’t even use the word.
Here in the south, the Christian moral climate (in my daughter’s generation) also meant keeping the fact of obtaining an abortion fairly private–only talked about among very close friends. Therefore, keep in mind: Wolf is from a rich family in San Francisco and went to Yale, so this comparatively-public “abortion drama” speaks of the privileged milieu she grew up in. And Amanda is about 20 yrs younger than I am, so that tells you how things have changed also. (she went to school in Austin)
Class, geography, age… all of these make an enormous difference in the way abortion is regarded in any given locale and community. (PS: I like Wolf’s overall article, BTW)
@dungone:
Actually I’d chuck the whole thing up to projection. She’s not exactly attractive, in fact she’s a downright unattractive, inside and out. Rather than seeking out a realistic relationship with a lower-status man, she goes after men who aren’t truly interested in her and then gripes about it.
One quick bit. In the interest of not giving them some small thread to pick at in hopes of distracting readers from the read topic let’s not get into the outer attractiveness of Marcotte. Honestly it doesn’t matter if she is a 10 or a -10 in physical attractiveness.
But her inner ugly (the stuff that she says and believes) I think is fair game because frankly she says things that range from odd to misleading to straight up lying.
@dungone:
Actually I’d chuck the whole thing up to projection. She’s not exactly attractive, in fact she’s a downright unattractive, inside and out. Rather than seeking out a realistic relationship with a lower-status man, she goes after men who aren’t truly interested in her and then gripes about it.
Danny: One quick bit. In the interest of not giving them some small thread to pick at in hopes of distracting readers from the read topic let’s not get into the outer attractiveness of Marcotte. Honestly it doesn’t matter if she is a 10 or a -10 in physical attractiveness.
Danny, good point. 🙂 We also have no idea of the status of the man in her account. She did not describe him as low or high status or in any other way. Also, he must have been interested in her on some level, or would not have had sex with her.
He was not interested in monogamy, which is not the same as total lack of interest.
@Danny, I think that they should do whatever they like. Reality has never gotten in their way in the past and I suspect that it won’t going forward. The fact of the matter is that Marcotte is not an attractive woman. I think this is worth pointing out, considering that she’s closer to Jesse Heiman than Bar Rafael. Let’s just see what she says of Jesse Heiman, then: “like putting up gratutitious zit-popping or puking videos.” And you’re saying we should worry about the damsels getting their feathers ruffled?
Incidentally, Bar Rafael is a draft dodger who got married for several months and then divorced in order to avoid military service in Israel. I’m not condemning her for it, at least not right now, but it does add a very special twist of hypocrisy to Marcotte’s lunatic ramblings about male entitlement.
Also, it seems to be like the guy is not quite as “entitled” as Marcotte wants to believe, huh?
ST,
“Thanks Ginkgo for mentioning me in the post. It’s nice to see my name up there, even if everyone now knows what an egotist I am for liking it! ”
It was a good contribution and it’s not egotisitical to be pleased to see it noticed and appreciated. These stories are the ones we most need to publicize because there is so mich denial around this issue.
What Wolf wrote rings true to an extent. Glad you connected it to the way Marcotte tried to use her abortion to gain leverage with a man. But don’t miss the forest for the trees, because this isn’t really about abortions. It’s just a weapon of opportunity. Lots of far more convenient things could be used for emotional blackmail and reprisal. Including engagements and even marriage just to get another man to chase after them, or threatening to break off a relationship completely unless he moves it to the next level. And sexually repressed, passive aggressive Christian girls are particularly adept at this sort of dysfunction. Also, I believe it was Southern culture that popularized the notion of taking a baseball bat to their boyfriend’s car.
Daisy,
I guess I didn’t get the parody as I didn’t read Cosmo and such…
I did make a joke in real life to a feminist that so-called woman’s magazine’s featured lots of pictures of women and so-called men’s magazine also featured lots of pictures of women, the only difference being less clothing in the later. She called me a jackass.
I do, however find it ironic that many feminist’s will claim I am supporting “Rape Culture” if I allow a man (very likely larger than myself) to make a “rape joke.” Irony of all ironies, most “rape jokes” I’ve heard have involved male rape…
Guy 1: I took my truck in for repairs.
Guy 2: How much it cost ‘ya?
Guy 1: $550?
Guy 2: Did they Kiss ya?
Guy 1: Wha???
Guy 2: I hope the kissed you cause you sure got f*cked, and f*cked hard, you won’t be able to sit for a week….
Quick, someone tell Jill Filipovich and Amanda Marcotte to putt me on the evilllle misogynist list where guys who’ve never done the real life bad stuff like Schwyzer but need to get demonized more harshl-cause don’chya know, they are all about social justice and equality…
Dungone: Also, I believe it was Southern culture that popularized the notion of taking a baseball bat to their boyfriend’s car.
Well, technically, my dad’s union was FIRST. 🙂 (UAW) Women co-opted a perfectly good anti-scab strategy. (LOL) The first time I saw that kind of thing acted out was in the movie “Waiting to Exhale”–where Angela Bassett sets her husband’s car on fire. (This dramatization was likely inspired by Lisa Lopes setting Andre Rison’s house on fire… which she claimed was an accident and she only meant to burn up his shoe collection.)
If you want dysfunction… hope you are watching the Jodi Arias trial. Unfuckingbelievable… as I said to Danny in the other thread, there would not even be a trial if it was a man who did this.
SWAB: I did make a joke in real life to a feminist that so-called woman’s magazine’s featured lots of pictures of women and so-called men’s magazine also featured lots of pictures of women, the only difference being less clothing in the later. She called me a jackass.
HAHA!
On “America’s Next Top Model” Tyra Banks says —
Swimsuit pose for a men’s magazine: on knees, full on (straight ahead shot), legs apart, chest pushed out. Smile not necessary, pouty-sexy mouth preferred.
Swimsuit pose for a women’s magazine: sit back on heels or curved to one side or the other, curve back in (no thrusting boobs), legs together, smile.
So, there you go.
She had the contestants model the same swimsuit but pose for both markets. (She tells the girls “know your market!”) One of the things I love about her show is how she breaks down the process and demystifies the beauty industry. She is always telling the girls that “beauty” is mostly illusion, and you have to learn to master it. I had no idea how common hair extensions were until I started watching her show! (LOL)
” In my high school, the abortion drama was used to test a boyfriend’s character.”
A shit test! We have Naomi Wolf attesting to the validity of the shit test meme.
Daisy,
“She is always telling the girls that “beauty” is mostly illusion, and you have to learn to master it. I had no idea how common hair extensions were until I started watching her show! (LOL)”
I rate Tyra Banks up with RuPaul when it comes to a healthy and realistic attitude towards femininity and “beauty”, and fashion. To her it is a business and any other approach is doomed.
Re Tyra Banks. Glad to know that the formulaic, self-parodying poses in shitty men’s magazines are a product of what women themselves imagine that men want.
But has anyone looked at a Vogue lately? Or any number of other fashion magazines? There’s more nudity and eroticism in them than in an issue of Playboy. Just because there are prim and proper repressed Christian women’s fashion magazines out there doesn’t mean that other’s don’t exist that publish photography that would force them to be sold in plastic sleeves were they to appear in a men’s magazine.
dungone,
Synchronicity!
“Re Tyra Banks. Glad to know that the formulaic, self-parodying poses in shitty men’s magazines are a product of what women themselves imagine that men want.”
This came up this morning on the train because a freind of mine was reading vanity fair and remarked on the whole fashion thing. I sai it was important to remeber that the men in fashion had rich women as their customer base, not men. There are very, very few men who have much interest in women’s couture or fashions. I said I think fashion is about women’s fantasies of feminity the way professional sports is about men’s fantasies of masculinity.
And sports definitely about fantasy, not realaity. That’s how you get a former football coach like Dr. Phil making so many inane and uniformed comments about men.
Re: Tyra Banks 2. Speaking of abusive women… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdC0a_agt0E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF9HROdJi_k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wuF0dqrLuE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U5MxsJrjGQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dVJfRxO5_Q
I have a few misgivings about this show, but overall I think it is really amazing. The only problem is, I don’t think that abusive men would EVER be given so much deference and so much opportunity to explain themselves and make excuses right in front of their victim. These criminals are just sitting there crying about how hard it is for them. And the vast majority of airtime is given to these abusers, talking to them about how it is that they could unfuck themselves and have happy relationships. Otherwise, this show may as well have been made by MRAs.
for, ahem, research purposes, this is what I found when I googled Vogue nudes….
http://treatsmagazine.com/2012/11/the-nudes-in-vogue/
Holy shit, dungone.
That show is incredible. Holy shit. Ironically, seeing a show about abuse has restored a little of my faith in humanity. If Tyra Banks can get it, so can anyone else.
An interesting counterpoint to the Marcotte abortion-blackmail thing. I don’t know if readers from outside of the UK are aware of this story, but Chris Huhne, a former cabinet minister in the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government, is in some legal difficulties – after he left his wife for another woman, his wife revealed that some years ago she took a speeding penalty for him so he wouldn’t lose his driving licence. They’ve both been charged with perverting the course of justice. He has (belatedly) pled guilty, she’s pleading not guilty on the grounds of “marital coercion”. She’s also claiming that he made her get an abortion while they were married, obviously going for the jury sympathy vote by painting him as nasty as possible.
It seems that, in the event of an unexpected pregnancy, the only acceptable thing for a man to do is pre-emptively agree with the woman. If you want to raise the child and she wants an abortion, you’re a bastard who wants to control her. If you want her to have an abortion and she wants to raise the child, you’re a bastard who wants to murder her baby. And if you agree to support her whatever she decides, you’re a bastard because you’re leaving the decision entirely to her.
And, of course, at all times, you’re responsible and she’s not. The defence of marital coercion is provided for in English (and Northern Irish) criminal law and only applies to acts committed by a wife “in the presence of, and under the coercion of, the husband”. That’s right, under the criminal law in England and Northern Ireland, a husband is still considered responsible for the criminal actions of his wife.
Patrick Brown:
Thanks for pointing that out.
It made sense for a husband to have this kind of responsibility back in the days when women were legally second class. He had expanded marital powers; it made sense for him to have some expanded responsibilities as well -though feminists don’t ever talk about these.
But now this kind of thing is merely an abomination. Women are as free as men in marriage, heck with their almost guaranteed control of any children and no-fault divorce, their ability to earn their own money and so many subsidies – they are arguably, freer. Yet the remains of marital patriarchy persist to hurt the husband. A husband who has never experienced any of the power that was the other face of patriarchal marriage.
[note: this should probably be moved to another thread]
@Ginkgo, Daisy pointed out how models might pose when they’re actually modeling a swimsuit versus if they’re just trying to tease virginal frat boys. But I have no idea what the models who appear in men’s magazines are actually trying to sell with those poses, besides themselves. And so, I can’t help but think that gaining credibility with men is nothing more than a way for these models to sell their brand of femininity back to women, to in turn sell women’s fantasies back to them, as you just said about fashion. It’s wouldn’t be much of a feminine fantasy if what they’re looking at isn’t already coveted by men, right?
At any rate, as SWAB discovered, when you compare the photos in Vogue to the photos in Maxim, you instantly realize just how much of a puerile joke the photography being made available to men really is. It’s amazing to me that this is something that men get shamed for, as though women’s sexuality should be even more off-limits to men than it already is.
So, I was at a Barnes and Nobles with my ex gf a couple weeks ago and she was admiring all of the nudes in Vogue, asking me to compare their bodies against hers (she compares favorably and is a model herself), and I was just thinking that wow, here we are sitting in the middle of the cafe surrounded by people and she is doing this unabashedly. And then I thought of the time, a decade ago now, when I was ramping up for a deployment to Iraq and the PX sold out of Maxims because some local women’s group wanted to ban all the men’s magazines for being immoral. Who is “objectifying” what, really?
Years back I was in a “Classy Artsy Bookstore”–they had a book called The Digital Diaries among other “erotic” books. I suppose if it is over $50 bucks, and in a hardcover book, it qualifies as “art” but if it is a cheap magazine with similar images, it is “porn.”
Daisy:
If you want dysfunction… hope you are watching the Jodi Arias trial. Unfuckingbelievable… as I said to Danny in the other thread, there would not even be a trial if it was a man who did this.
Oh there would be a trial but the difference is if a husband got a treatment like what Arias seems to be about to get or like what Winkler did get the response would be VERY different.
“And, of course, at all times, you’re responsible and she’s not. The defence of marital coercion is provided for in English (and Northern Irish) criminal law and only applies to acts committed by a wife “in the presence of, and under the coercion of, the husband”. That’s right, under the criminal law in England and Northern Ireland, a husband is still considered responsible for the criminal actions of his wife.”
Patrick, Patrick, Patrick – don’t you see that that is really just benevolent sexism? (pretty goddammed benevolent too, if you ask me) Don’t you see how that diminishes all women – she has to lower herself to the status of a minor to get the State to absolve her and blame her husband for her conduct?
Dungone: Re Tyra Banks. Glad to know that the formulaic, self-parodying poses in shitty men’s magazines are a product of what women themselves imagine that men want.
(???) You lost me here. Huh? Have you ever watched ANTM? The winning ANTM shots are featured in the men’s magazines, there isn’t any “imagination” involved. The judges are the photographers and editors themselves.
Of course, Tyra Banks was in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and all of that, and she is passing on what she learned in those situations.
I have a terrible crush on Tyra. Okay, there, I said it.
I have not and can’t think of a reason why I ever would. But I think you missed the point. You are making an arbitrary distinction between what the people on either side of the camera in the modeling industry think, as though they didn’t all agree with one another about how to go about their business. Chances are that none of them have a single rational reason for their expectations of their target audience, other than that’s how they’ve always done it and their points of view are too narrow and shortsighted to see the broader trends in art and fashion.
Dungone: I have not and can’t think of a reason why I ever would.
Right, as I suspected. So you don’t actually know whether Banks does this or not, do you? (But as usual, it doesn’t stop you from criticizing the show, as if you *do* know.)
I agree with what Gingko said about her. Few people are as insightful about the modeling/beauty/advertising industry AND analytical about “the broader trends in art and fashion”… try watching ANTM sometime. Then again, its possible you don’t get the show where you are.
Heya we’re for any major occasion right here. I found that aboard we to get Promoted useful & them taught me to be out a whole lot. I’m hoping to offer something backside and also guide people as you assisted myself.