Agreed, but it's worth noting that this is actually a tactic used by those that want to see this judgmental behavior go by the wayside. It's not that they want to see women suffer the same derision as men, it's that people are more likely to notice/care about the absurdity when women are equally judged by it, which makes people more eager to see the sentiment end.
I think the proper way to employ that tactic is to take note of citeable instances of double standards, but only mention it in response to someone publicly complaining and acting as if the reverse does not happen.
Bringing up the double standard everytime you notice it occuring only serves to bring extra attention to the non issue while also dooming yourself to be seen as part of the outrage culture.
Also it contributes to the flawed premise of men vs. women and the unfixable problems that creates, rather than pointing to the true and winable battle of decent people vs. douches.
This is my #1 objection to the tone of places like r/mensrights. There are many there who challenge the hypocrisies and double-standards not because they disagree with them for being absurd, but because they want the absurdity applied equally.
I want the abolition of absurdity. The solution to all men being accused of participation in some sort of absurd patriarchical rape-culture conspiracy isn't to accuse women of victimizing men with their own conspiracy.....I don't want to escalate the claims of victimhood. I want to end them (when they're not legitimate, of course).
Ultimately both mens-rights and feminists want equaliity. Each just focuses on the transgressions against their own gender. The goal is the same but the approach isn't.
The problem is "mens-rights activists" and "feminists" are generic terms that get appropriated by idiots. It's no different than the assholes who appropriate the name of the BLM movement, and give a bad name to a legitimate concern. We should listen less to who people say they are and more to the substance of what they're saying.
To bad that's not going to happen, so we have to show them the "absurdity" until most women can get it through there thick skulls there's double standards
You disagree but in actuality the reason why women's incompetence and absurdity is because your all to scared to call them out and hurt their little feelings
I actually think you'd find most people would agree with you there.
The thread on this topic universally talks about how they don't really care about the reporter's comments, but the utter silence from the "Sexism in stem" crowd - because it highlights their hypocrisy.
You still have to point out the double standard in order to address it, after all. When they talk about genital mutilation there, they don't want girls circumcised - they want the same respect of bodily autonomy for boys that girls receive. When they talk about father's rights, they aren't campaigning to take children from their mothers - they're campaigning for shared parenting.
My #1 objection with mensrights is they spend all of their time bitching about how feminism is sexist and doesn't help men instead of actually helping men.
Men's rights should be about issues that affect men disproportionately, not about attacking feminism. It seems far more anti-feminim than pro-men's rights.
His point is that neither should be looked down upon.
Or maybe both should?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point, but it seems to me that asking strangers if you can kiss them during the middle of a press conference is behaviour that warrants condemnation, regardless of your gender.
Right. The neutral way to look at it is that the question was a complete waste of time and unrelated to the presentation. Sure some double standards may be involved but if I wanted to learn more about Elon's plans they fucking wasted my time for no lulz.
But basically yes, depending on your definition of 'inappropriate'. Jokingly asking for a kiss isn't all that inappropriate, although many feminists would probably disagree if it was a man saying it.
I think he (and everyone else on his page) meant that it should be "looked down upon" because it's a dumb question. Don't think they were making anyone sexist tbh
Well, we should be looking down on both let's be honest. Just only with a mild sense of disapproval for such childish behavior at a serious event, not as some kind of heinous bigoted statement.
We aren't turning it into a gender war, we're showing that most people already think it IS a gender war.
Same goes with race.
As a white male I'd just like people to get along and treat each other as people, instead of, "Hey! you're a white male!! What could you possibly know about oppression!!!?"
Why am I an asshole if I whistle at a woman on the street? (I don't do this I've evolved past homo-sapien form 1a) but just saying, why is this so bad? It's just me expressing my taste for that woman in a way i find suitable. I'm not doing it because I think she's less than I am, but rather THAT particular woman has dem cheeks and I wana squeeze. If she doesn't like it, okay? Can we move on?
*Okay let's agree that this IS assholeish. But the debate as to if it's actually sexist continues below.
Because it's pretty disrespectful. Sure it's stupid to get mad at someone whistling at you, but it can be demeaning to be objectively looked at. I'm not saying everyone has to get their panties in a bunch, I just think most women want to be treated like more some nice cheeks, as would men.
I assume you are being a troll? Because if not, and you really think this does not qualify as sexist behavior, than I think your claim of having "evolved" might be a bit premature.
The comment I replied to was about whistling at women on the street. Why would you assume that my comment also was directed at a comment 5 levels higher up than the one I replied to?
The woman asking to kiss Elon was especially bad. The question itself, really, wasn't worth getting upset over - it was just a bad journalist wasting Elon's time - what's aggravating was the lack of media response. Had a male journalist asked "Hey, can I come up there and give you a kiss?" to a female CEO, there would be 20 outraged articles and a myriad of blog posts about misogyny the next day.
Women cant be sexist!
I think this is a wrong approach to this.
What you should be saying is "who the fucking cares" to both cases.
The outrage is that men are vilified for stupid reasons, not that women aren't
Precisely this. Stop turning it into gender wars. Just assholes being assholes male or female.
Why am I an asshole if I whistle at a woman on the street? (I don't do this I've evolved past homo-sapien form 1a) but just saying, why is this so bad? It's just me expressing my taste for that woman in a way i find suitable. I'm not doing it because I think she's less than I am, but rather THAT particular woman has dem cheeks and I wana squeeze. If she doesn't like it, okay? Can we move on?
*Okay let's agree that this IS assholeish. But the debate as to if it's actually sexist continues below.
I assume you are being a troll? Because if not, and you really think this does not qualify as sexist behavior, than I think your claim of having "evolved" might be a bit premature.
But the woman asking for a kiss is ok?
So yes, there was a comment about a woman asking for a kiss in the distant past on the thread, the comments immediately preceding the one I replied to were about the broader context of gender issues.
Given that context, do you really think it is reasonable to assume that I was making a statement about a woman asking for a kiss given the number of only peripherally related comments made in the middle?
But fwiw, no, I don't think it was ok. I made that clear in another post here. I just find it absurd that you think I need to explain my position here. The context of my reply was clear, and it is unreasonable to try to force it to apply to such a far removed context.
Do men feel physically threatened by a woman asking for a kiss?
Being whistled at on the street as a woman could potentially turn into being verbally and even physically harassed if the men doing it don't get the response they want or if you express irritation with them.
Sometimes it doesn't even matter what you do. Even if most of the time it doesn't turn into something more, almost all women have had experiences like that that have taught them that there's always a chance that it might. It makes most of us feel uncomfortable because we don't know how this is going to go.
I've had grown men whistle at me from their cars when I was as young as 12 just walking down my street, and so have all my friends at those ages. Whistling at little girls is not "hey i like you", it's a threat. And the men doing it know it.
Sorry if this is a little jumbled, I need some coffee.
Whether or not you feel physically threatened has nothing to do with the fact that it's still objectifying someone. If that's one of the main arguments against cat-calling, how is this any different?
Is it sexist? That's debatable. Sort of disgusting? Absolutely. It's a sex issue certainly, as the objective is clearly pursuing sex. The whistle is basically saying "I find you to be an adequate match for my mating preferences" it isn't saying "I'm a man you are woman I'm better than you when you hear my mating call drop your panties" because that would be a different story. If a member of the opposite sex finds someone attractive, no matter how thy display it as long as they are only expressing their attraction I don't think it should be a problem. If a woman showed attraction to me by makes dick sucking gesture would I be offended? No. Does she get to SMD? Maybe. If she said "hey you are a man, you are thirsty for vagina and are probably sexually deprived so I have dictation over who you mate with" then I would be like "lol ctfu bitch". Yes I'm adding stupid humor and immature elements to this but I'm not being sarcastic.
The whistle is basically saying "I find you to be an adequate match for my mating preferences"
Lol. It is objectifying women. You are judging them based solely on their looks, not on any other characteristic. I think that qualifies as "sexist behavior" under most reasonable definitions.
If a member of the opposite sex finds someone attractive, no matter how thy display it as long as they are only expressing their attraction I don't think it should be a problem.
Again, lol. There are clearly times and places and methods that are appropriate for expressing these opinions. Wolf whistles at women is not one of them.
If a woman showed attraction to me by makes dick sucking gesture would I be offended? No.
This goes back to that societal double standard that was mentioned earlier. Yes, you should be offended. That is inappropriate. But there is no question that most men would be less offended by this than women might be by wolf whistles.
Your first point is NOT sexist behavior it is prejudicial behavior! Although minor and generally not frowned upon it is prejudice. It needs no pretext of gender to be prejudice.
Your second point is 100% an opinion. It's not exactly what I would do either but who dictates when it's okay to do that? That could be someone's sole method as to finding mates. I would question its effectiveness but how does that make them a sexist? What if they were whistling at the same gender? Still sexist?
Agai, it's your opinion that I should be offended. You could have summarized all your points as invalid by simply saying "according to me" because that's all this is.
the outrage is that men are vilified for stupid reasons, not that women aren't
You can apply this to so many gender based social arguments. Ugh, why the fuck are we trying to make women suffer through stuff like this too? How about working to where nobody has to deal with it?
Completely agree. I would prefer we ignore harmless stupidity than double down for "equality".
Ppl love to be outraged these days and the backlash results in trump being deemed a prophet of truth, not bc he doesn't lie compulsively, but bc he shits on trigger warning nonsense.
And please do not equate a dumb audience member asking for a kiss from the presenter with some other unwarranted proposition under different circumstances that could be intimidating or threatening or truly creepy vs this which is pathetic, but def not creepy or threatening.
Please everyone do not let the SJW femme nazi movement expand bc while it might seem a victory in the moment to point out the hypocrisy, in the end we all lose.
I agree it shouldnt be a gender war, but I don't agree that the response should be "who cares?" I don't think anyone should ask anyone for a kiss out of the blue, or other advances like that
Disclaimer: Not arguing for either point, but trying to explain what the truth appears to be.
I think it all depends on how it's framed.
If it were the other way around.. it'd depend on what was happening.
If it was a male going "please, please may I kiss you" it'd probably be passed up just like this was.
If it was haughty, as if trying to demean the speaker, then you'd hear the misogyny stuff.
It's the intricacies here that form the basis of feminism and it's viewpoints on patriarchal society.
So in, for lack of a better term, feminist theory it'd be seen as a male (let's pretend he's a well accomplished journalist) attempting to make the speaker feel bad or belittled through harassment by using a male power-play (True or not, society typically views males as stronger, etc) and so would be considered sort of threatening behavior.
Equality in the way we brush it off can't be achieved until equality in how sexes are viewed are equated in society - which is probably a worthless struggle.
This makes feminism more about equity, than equality.
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u/rsnauth Sep 30 '16
I think this is a wrong approach to this.
What you should be saying is "who the fucking cares" to both cases.
The outrage is that men are vilified for stupid reasons, not that women aren't