Over-extended Feminism

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AceOfSpades
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04 Apr 2011, 5:07 pm

LKL wrote:

AceOfSpades wrote:

I didn't say all women were girly or all men are manly.

{emphasis mine}.
Did you mean, "I didn't say all women were womanly..."? Because as it stands, you are describing the statistical agregate of feminine traits using a word that indicates immaturity.

Whatever word makes you happy, but when people wanna indicate immaturity they usually say "like a little girl" rather than "really girly". Girly is usually used to describe how feminine something is. I'm 19 so keep in mind I usually have women of my age in mind.

LKL wrote:

Quote:

The thing I was saying about men being better drivers in general proves this. Guess what us having better spatial perception in general is attributed to? Testosterone. It has something to do with the hunter-gatherer thing where we would have to navigate our way back home after a long day of hunting....

LKL wrote:

AceOfSpades wrote:

...men tend to be better drivers (Yes, this isn't just a stereotype since men have better spatial perception).

*snort*
insurance company statisticians say otherwise.

That's cuz men tend to not only drive longer distances but drive more recklessly. But it's a fact that our brains are wired to have better spatial perception. Even then we have less accidents per mile, but our crashes tend to be more brutal when we do...

What part of 'having more crashes,' driving more recklessly,' and 'having worse crashes' do you sync up with 'being better drivers?! You are, quite simply, in denial of reality. Having fewer crashes = being a better driver; navigation is just one factor in driving well, and is far from being the most important factor.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2004/ ... questions1
quote:
...new Home Office figures revealed men are guilty of a staggering 97% of dangerous driving offences and 94% of accidents causing death or bodily harm...
Even if men drive more than women, they don't drive enough more to account for being responsible for that proportion of offenses and accidents.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3148281&page=1
quote: ...researchers with the Social Issues Resource Center beg to differ. Its 2002 report analyzed a stack of studies on male and female driving differences and came to a bold conclusion: "In all studies and analyses, without exception, men have been shown to have a higher rate of crashes than women."

Men, the report claims, drive faster than women and have less regard for traffic laws: They speed, drive drunk, run stop signs, and therefore crash twice as often as women do. In the United States, men cause 71 percent of all road fatalities, a figure that's remained constant since 1975.

But don't men drive many more miles than women do? Wouldn't that account for some of the difference? It's true that males account for 62 percent of all miles driven, versus 38 percent for females, but even after miles are clocked and driving hours are factored in, men still get into way more fatal accidents.

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article. ... tid=788126
(check out the data in this one)

http://kyaccidentinfo.com/statistics-re ... ers-women/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16698153/ns ... e-science/

Quote:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-dr ... le1598231/

this link lacks any actual data.

I meant "better drivers" as in having more cognitive advantages when it comes to driving such as better spatial perception. Women get into more accidents overall mile for mile but they tend to be a lot less lethal. Hybrid cars are more efficient than regular cars, but more gas is typically used up on em. Does that mean hybrid cars don't have the advantage of using up less gas? The hybrid car thing is supposed to be an analogy btw just so you don't get it mixed up.

Oh and yeah the globe and mail article didn't have any statistics so I'll bring some to the table:
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/should-w ... rance.html

Quote:

These statistics were re-affirmed by John Hopkins School of Medicine and Public Health, which found that men are three times more likely to be killed when they crash. However, the same study also reported that women are more likely to be involved in crashes than men. American women were involved in 5.7crashes per million miles driven, whereas male drivers clocked up just 5.1crashes over the same distance. What appears to be a common trend throughout the numerous studies conducted into the driving records of men and women is that when men crash the results tend to be far worse and often lead to fatalities. It is believed that men take more risks than women in most areas of life and as a result they suffer disproportionately when it comes to car insurance. Even though women are involved in a similar number of accidents, they generally tend to be less serious. This means that they are less expensive from an insurance point of view. The consensus is that women tend to drive more slowly and with more caution than men on the road.

LKL wrote:

Quote:

Ok women being called b*****s for having an opinion isn't the norm from what I've seen...

It's rarely voiced out loud. More often it comes out in dirty looks, being interrupted, exasperated body language, and/or exclusion from future gatherings.

That doesn't prove anything and it's nothing but speculation. And besides you are pretty much attributing it to a woman having an opinion by default. What if those reactions are cuz the woman holds an opinion that one disagrees with and not cuz one thinks women aren't entitled to their own opinions?

LKL wrote:

Quote:

Actually all the talk about the white man holding em down is BS these days. The street subculture is the thing holding em down the most. When it is considered uncool to go to college or move outta the projects, that's what it leads to. When cars, jewellery, shoes, etc. are considered top priority fiscal responsibility obviously isn't being encouraged. etc... etc... but if you want me to really elaborate we can talk about this in another thread.

I'm not going to disagree that a culture of helplessness is a big problem, but it is far from being the only problem. Racism still exists, just like sexism still exists, and both are problems. I disagree personally with the branch of feminism that claims that all of our problems would go away if men didn't exist, but it's a very small subset of feminism and I suspect that it's a very small subset of black people who think similarly wrt. racism.

No it isn't a small minority who is affected by the culture of poverty. This is why it is such a big deal in the first place. Radical feminism isn't the equivalent of it.

Bethie
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04 Apr 2011, 5:21 pm

Gender "roles" are called such for a reason- they are culturally-defined scripts which, depending on the society, men and women must adhere to strictly, some of them being physically and psychologically harmful or else face ostracization and ridicule.

The nature of gender roles is a basic sociological theory.

The perception of female body hair as repulsive is not "inherent".
Men shooting up steroids and women starving themselves is not "inherent".
Women being banned from eating with their families during menstruation is not "inherent".

I could name quite literally thousands of silly, degrading, and downright sadistic expectations based on gender which have absolutely *NO* basis in "nature".

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ZeroGravitas
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04 Apr 2011, 5:34 pm

^^^

Quote:

This all but universal illusion is one of the examples of the magical influence of custom, which is not only, as the proverb says a second nature, but is continually mistaken for the first.-- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

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ryan93
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04 Apr 2011, 6:02 pm

Bethie wrote:

I abhor the idea of gender roles, as even if someone has genetic susceptibility (I don't know if there is in the case of sexes) to something it doesn't mean they have to take a fatalistic view of the world and give in. Not every Schizophrenic is a basket case, not every man is a body builder, and not every woman is a cook, and it is in no way Righteous or Proper that people fit these roles.

Despite the views of <50% of the planet.

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pandabear
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04 Apr 2011, 6:06 pm

Bethie wrote:

The perception of female body hair as repulsive is not "inherent".

On the contrary, I find it a turn-on.

ryan93
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04 Apr 2011, 6:09 pm

pandabear wrote:

Bethie wrote:

The perception of female body hair as repulsive is not "inherent".

On the contrary, I find it a turn-on.

I really dislike it, mostly for, er, pragmatic reasons.

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AceOfSpades
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04 Apr 2011, 6:16 pm

Bethie wrote:

I didn't say gender roles are 100% natural. Part of it is socially constructed and that part usually blows it outta proportion. An overlap of nature and social construction doesn't prove that there's absolutely no basis in nature.

Beauty can't be pure social construction either. There has to be some biological reasons behind it.

Men shooting up steroids and women being anorexic has to do with the fact that people size themselves up to celebrities and develop self-esteem issues. It doesn't prove anything about gender roles one way or the other. All it proves is how much people look up to celebs. Self esteem issues when it comes to people sizing themselves up to celebs pertains to a lot more than just gender roles.

Women have trimmed or shaved body hair since ancient times. It became more common after 1915 (IIRC?) after they started wearing clothes that showed their legs more.

About women not being able to eat during menstruation... can you be more specific? Is that some religious tradition? If so, what is the reason for it? Is it cuz it is perceived as less feminine?

@ZeroGravitas: Can you sum that up? tl;dr.

ZeroGravitas
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04 Apr 2011, 6:28 pm

AceOfSpades wrote:

@ZeroGravitas: Can you sum that up? tl;dr.

My last post in this thread:

Quote:

Contained 40 words.

Perhaps a more succinct statement would be "People confuse nurture for nature," but that may still be too verbose. It is still 12.5 percent of the original length.

"Nurture isn't nature" gets across some of the meaning, but not all. It does, however, shave it down to only 7.5 percent of the original length.

I suppose I will have to default to the most succinct answer mathematically possible, which is always "Johnny Cash." This reduces 95% of the original length, without any appreciable difference in meaning.

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AceOfSpades
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04 Apr 2011, 6:45 pm

ZeroGravitas wrote:

AceOfSpades wrote:

@ZeroGravitas: Can you sum that up? tl;dr.

My last post in this thread:

Quote:

I wasn't talking about that, I was talking about the link within those words
http://www.utilitarianism.com/ol/one.html

ZeroGravitas
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04 Apr 2011, 6:54 pm

Ah. In that case, successive approximations to conciseness:

1. J.S. Mill was talking about liberty. Specifically, the constraints on one's liberty due to both custom and governmental regulations. He was quite concerned with the subtle influence of tradition, informal suppression of one's rights as a human. In his view, customs could easily account for far more inequality due to their extra-legal nature allowing them to be far more pervasive.

2. J.S. mill was talking about freedom. He thought customs which are not enforced by law, can be just as oppressive as those enforced within the law.

3. J.S. Mill was talking about freedom.

4. Johnny Cash.

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Telekon
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04 Apr 2011, 7:03 pm

Bethie wrote:

What is the origin of the expectations? Why would society (for example) expect women to stay at home and raise children, rather than serve on the front lines of combat?

Bethie
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04 Apr 2011, 7:09 pm

AceOfSpades wrote:

I didn't say gender roles are 100% natural.

That's what "gender role" MEANS....

AceOfSpades wrote:

Beauty can't be pure social construction either. There has to be some biological reasons behind it.

Sure. There's biological reasons for men to be attracted to women with a certain hip-waist ratio, for instance, because it is truly indicative of fertility.
Fat-phobia? High-heels? Tight, colorful clothes and flashy jewelry? Makeup being so compulsory it's a requirement for women to leave the house? Not so much.
Also, for future reference, declaring that something "has to" have a basis in nature, unqualified, is fallacious.

AceOfSpades wrote:

Men shooting up steroids and women being anorexic has to do with the fact that people size themselves up to celebrities and develop self-esteem issues. It doesn't prove anything about gender roles one way or the other. All it proves is how much people look up to celebs. Self esteem issues when it comes to people sizing themselves up to celebs pertains to a lot more than just gender roles.

People size themselves up against celebs because celebrities represent current beauty ideals.

AceOfSpades wrote:

Women have trimmed or shaved body hair since ancient times. It became more common after 1915 (IIRC?) after they started wearing clothes that showed their legs more.

Um. Right. And their body hair was considered unacceptable because....?
An old silly gender role is still a silly gender role, and antiquity isn't synonymous with naturality. These customs are constantly in flux, and vary enormously across the world. They are not inherent.

AceOfSpades wrote:

About women not being able to eat during menstruation... can you be more specific? Is that some religious tradition? If so, what is the reason for it? Is it cuz it is perceived as less feminine?

It's a tradition in many Muslim households, as well as Orthodox Jewish ones. It's because women's menstruation is considered "unclean".
That particular gender custom being unfamiliar to you doesn't make it more ridiculous and harmful than what is expected of women and men in the west.

Last edited by Bethie on 04 Apr 2011, 7:18 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Bethie
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04 Apr 2011, 7:11 pm

Telekon wrote:

Bethie wrote:

What is the origin of the expectations? Why would society (for example) expect women to stay at home and raise children, rather than serve on the front lines of combat?

A centuries-old notion that women are less-suited for combat (true in some instance, but not in the modern world),
and that a woman's domain was the home?

Last edited by Bethie on 04 Apr 2011, 7:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bethie
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04 Apr 2011, 7:16 pm

pandabear wrote:

Bethie wrote:

The perception of female body hair as repulsive is not "inherent".

On the contrary, I find it a turn-on.

Really?

Telekon
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04 Apr 2011, 8:07 pm

Bethie wrote:

A centuries-old notion that women are less-suited for combat (true in some instance, but not in the modern world),
and that a woman's domain was the home?

It has persisted for all of recorded history. But why would anyone have these notions? The people who say that sex roles are social constructs or whatever never explain their origin.

Quote:

Women's "natural" role has always been closely-tied to children and the home.

You think ovaries, birth canals, umbilical chords, breast milk et al might have something to do with that?

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04 Apr 2011, 8:14 pm

There are societies that have different gender roles, though by far the dominant system is that which we see today around the world, which has regional variations based on cultural traditions. Very few of the different/old ways persist. I believe it is in China or Indochina, or one of the islands in that region, where there is a small region where women are dominant, men wear makeup and are what we would consider 'effeminate'.

Quote:

The people who say that sex roles are social constructs or whatever never explain their origin.

Good point. Its hard to tell now though, as many of these social constructs are very old, and in the past, interest in such things as the sociology of gender roles was not something studied, at least until the last 200 years; which coincidentally, happens to be the time period that women's traditional role has been changing. One can look at society over history and see that roles do change. We are undergoing such a transition in this time period

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