this auld wan that's up the duff (4 Viewers)

[glen]

what's it going to do with all that junk inside that trunk?

I drive these brothers crazy,
I do it on the daily.

 

[snakybus]

Jane: it seems to me it's not true that men think women are whores and liars. Seems to me that that could be considered inflammatory language, designed to incite....oh I dunno, internet aggression? And it seems to me you are quite, quite aware of this. I think that's the point that Pete is making. It's also the point egg made.

 

[broken arm]

Jane: it seems to me it's not true that men think women are whores and liars.

some people fancy the idea of women as whores and liars. holding guns. beside a burning bank. holding a bag of cash. etc.

 

[jane]

Jane: it seems to me it's not true that men think women are whores and liars. Seems to me that that could be considered inflammatory language, designed to incite....oh I dunno, internet aggression? And it seems to me you are quite, quite aware of this. I think that's the point that Pete is making. It's also the point egg made.

I never once said that men think women are whores and liars, did I? No, I didn't. I said that there existed within society attitudes about men and women and masculinity and femininity that are harmful to everyone. They are not always consciously expressed, but they are there, and not only did I not ever say that they came from individual men, I never even said that they were present only in the behaviours and interactions of men.

If you want to say that acknowledging things that I -- clearly stupidly -- thought were actually pretty well known among a generally educated population is me being inflammatory, then that's seriously not my problem. So actually, anyone who is accusing me of inciting internet aggression by pointing out the existence of attitudes which I have at no point blamed on any individual is doing the inciting. Not me. It would be a little bit like being accused of inciting hatred by saying that the British once colonised Ireland, and that anti-Irish and anti-British sentiments still exist. Or that even though slavery is no longer legal, that racial assumptions still exist. Or suggesting that racism has nothing to do with you or your life, simply because you yourself aren't racist. Acknowledging it is not inciting.

Yes, I know these things upset people, and that actually, pointing out that we don't live in a vacuum might be troubling, but at no point have I laid the blame at anyone's feet, except in the context of saying that what Ro proposed is sexist, which it clearly is. But I never even said that he thought all women are whores and liars because I don't actually think we can make generalisations about individuals like that, I don't think it's true, and I don't think it's my judgement to make.

 

[pete]

What, like if we discuss gender, we have to pretend this isn't true? Because it is.

Well I don't agree with you on this, and I know I'm not the only one. Just so we're clear, I'm specifically talking about this quote, not anything else:

Underneath all the 'sanctity' of life is an underlying attitude, one which bolsters all of Western Christian philosophy, that women are all whores unless they are adequately civilised by men, and that we are liars until validated by a man (or a collective paternalistic unit like a courtroom), and that we will kill our own children if given half a chance.

At a guess I'd say that the majority of pro-lifers don't really give to much thought to the underpinnings of western christian philosophy. I get the impression they have a problem with abortion because they see it as baby killing first and foremost, not because they think badly of women.

In other words, anti abortion legislation and the constitutional position are there not to hurt women but to 'protect the unborn'. Telling women what to do is the inevitable result of this position, not the other way around.

And sure while I'm setting myself up for a lynching anyway, you also said

... the comments of Michael McDowell about how abortion can't be allowed in the case of rape because 'it will result in an increase in false accusations of rape if that were the means of access to abortion', are based around the concept that women are unruly liars and whores.

You don't think that maybe his reasoning (whether you agree with him or not) was precisely what he said: people would lie. Not because they're women / "unruly liars and whores", but because it's what people do. Nothing more.

 

[snakybus]

"Underneath all the 'sanctity' of life is an underlying attitude, one which bolsters all of Western Christian philosophy, that women are all whores unless they are adequately civilised by men, and that we are liars until validated by a man (or a collective paternalistic unit like a courtroom), and that we will kill our own children if given half a chance."


men - "paternalistic": check
think - "attitude": check
women: check
are: check
whores: check
and: check
liars: check

Are you really, really saying you haven't used language to incite aggression? When you say that men wouldn't like what you would advise be done to their sexual organs, for example?

come clean, come on

 

[Jerry Twig]

I said that there existed within society attitudes about men and women and masculinity and femininity that are harmful to everyone.

there exist in society attitudes about anything you feckin want.

 

[jane]

Are you really, really saying you haven't used language to incite aggression? When you say that men wouldn't like what you would advise be done to their sexual organs, for example?

come clean, come on

No, but I'm teetering dangerously close to doing so, but since you seem to be enjoying winding me up by deliberately twisting my words because you want so badly for me to accuse you of misogyny, I will try my best to use the detached reserve everyone seems to expect regardless of how strongly I am having to argue.

These 'commonsense' arguments that pretend that there is no such thing as an underlying attitude about gender do, in fact, get my back up. And with good reason, too.

Dude, the fact is, the anti-choice camp does, yes, talk about unborn babies. But how about the absolute and utter reality that many of these people are the same people who also demonise single mothers? How do you explain that? Because if they really believed that it was all about babies, then they would value all of the born, of all ages, equally, and because they would value them all equally, they would have a lot more trouble than they do placing the lives of the unborn before those of the born.

As for the men's organs thing, I don't usually like the 'turn the tables' argument, but if that bothered you, maybe then you know a little bit about what it feels like to have your body (and I am a woman, and therefore abstract discussions about women's bodies do affect me) talked about as if it was someone else's to make decisions about?

 

[jane]

there exist in society attitudes about anything you feckin want.

Explain, please.

 

[pete]

Dude, the fact is, the anti-choice camp does, yes, talk about unborn babies. But how about the absolute and utter reality that many of these people are the same people who also demonise single mothers? How do you explain that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28logic%29 ?

oh and another thing - you say "society" considers women to be whores / liars. How many women think that?

 

[classic seanc]

....edit

 

[jane]

men - "paternalistic": check
think - "attitude": check
women: check
are: check
whores: check
and: check
liars: check

If after all of the explaining I have done about how this is not the equivalent of saying that women are whores and liars, you still insist that in order for me to fit your image of the Angry Feminist, this must be what I meant by it -- and all the fucking multiple times I have qualified that statement by providing more detail, and more explanation, and the more theoretical stuff I give you, the more you accuse me of hostility, then that's really not something I can help you with.

Rather than try to understand all of the qualification I have tried to provide, you still have to be obsessed with equating those statements, which I never intended -- even if you ended up reading it that way, I have tried to explain my intention, and thus, you should drop the accusation that that is what I said -- then perhaps you might ask yourself why you bothered making me jump through hoops like that in the first place?

 

[Dr Winston Umbogo]

I drive these brothers crazy,
I do it on the daily.

now i hold my crotch, cause i'm top notch.

 

[glen]

I'm so cross I could snap a pencil.

 

[jane]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_%28logic%29 ?

oh and another thing - you say "society" considers women to be whores / liars. How many women think that?

It's not a non sequitur, but whatever.

I never said that 'society' thinks it. I never said that any individual consciously expressed it.

I said that there are underlying attitudes that are sometimes unconsciously reproduced in people's behaviours. I didn't say that individuals even go around saying it, but if you want any kind of evidence that there are harmful attitudes, isn't the existence of the illegal sex trade enough? Yes, it is individuals who are responsible, and no, I don't think they necessarily go around saying that women are whores and liars (though they do force them to be whores), but it is the failure to challenge all of our underlying attitudes that allows this sort of thing to happen.

I made the argument in the first place because I was in part trying to point out that changing a law does not automatically lead to a change in people's relationships, behaviours, language, whatever. NOT so that you could twist my words into some sort of accusation that I think all men hate all women.

If you are having real trouble comprehending some things that I'm astonished that people don't already know, given the amount of social theory people here claim to have read -- and so I thought that people would be more familiar with how deep-rooted social inequalities actually are -- then perhaps you could:

1. Tell me what you think explains social inequality
2. What precisely I have not explained well enough, so that I can explain it better.

Unless, of course, you just want to disagree with me on principle, in which case, there's no point in me even trying.

 

[JohnnyRaz]

Dude, the fact is, the anti-choice camp does, yes, talk about unborn babies. But how about the absolute and utter reality that many of these people are the same people who also demonise single mothers? How do you explain that? Because if they really believed that it was all about babies, then they would value all of the born, of all ages, equally, and because they would value them all equally, they would have a lot more trouble than they do placing the lives of the unborn before those of the born. ?

and most people I know who would be pro-choice would also be anti capital punishment and generally not too keen on adults being killed for whatever reason.
My own views on abortion would be more or less in the pro-choice vein, but its a scientific fact that your killing something that would in all likely hood otherwise surive and be born as a human, whether he/she would grow up loved/unloved contribute greatly to society/recreationally kill small animals regardless
moral ambiguity is not the purely preserve of the right.
there goes all those rep points!

 

[glen]

Yeah - well I'm cross too so I'm going to bite this pen.

 

[La La]

so who's getting any work done today?

 

[broken arm]

so who's getting any work done today?

i just wrote a paper on bullet points and their importance in cost-effective negotiation.

 

[jane]

so who's getting any work done today?

Surprisingly?

Me. I've written 1600 words of an article in the midst of all this.