why are there so many threads started by men on thumped about how shit women are? (1 Viewer)

[MDR]

god my grammar is awful tonight

How's yer granda?

 

[sweetoblivion]

I would, too.

I think one of the problems is that a lot of men feel alienated by feminist perspectives because feminism responds, not just to men, but to a concept of masculinity that alienates many women as well as many men, but it takes a bit of a close look at what feminists are really saying to recognise this. And a lot of people see the word 'feminism' and think 'nothing to do with me', when actually, it does.

So a lot of guys out there are hostile to feminism, not because they hate women, but because they, too, feel alienated by the macho image of the 'manly man', and feel implicated in gender inequalities, when they, too feel that they are not endowed with the power that their understanding of feminism assumes they are (even though most feminists would have that whole 'just because power is largely in the hands of white men, it doesn't mean all white men have access to that power' as a mantra). They feel blamed by feminists, when they aren't being blamed, and there are a lot of feminists that would turn around and go, "Oh christ, just shut up." But both strategies just create more antagonism. I think we do have a responsibility to look at why it is people feel hostile toward feminism. Okay, there are people like Bill O'Reilly and JAner who just won't ever fucking get it, and there's no point in trying to show them the error of their ways because they're far too narcissistic to see that there's more than one way to understand the world. But mostly, I would like to see some debate because I think it's important that those men who feel excluded from the narrow set of masculine criteria feel listened to.

In a sense, while feminism should focus on the rights of women, we feminists should use our experience as women to reach out and embrace the fact that it's not men in general who are creating inequalities, it's the relationship between hypermasculinity and success/power that help to prevent the broadening of access to power. Or at least a more equitable distribution of power. Men in general have it easier in some ways, but a white woman will have it easier than a black man, or in a lot of professions, a straight woman will have it easier than a gay man. Or a black dude who is suitably 'middle class' might have an advantage over a guy with a strong inner-city, working class Dublin accent. Or a gay man might 'act too gay', or a black man might 'act too black'. What is considered a good, strong set of professional qualities (and there are lots and lots of exceptions to this, but I'm thinking of a very basic level of 'the professions' and stuff) is whatever most resembles the set of qualities possessed by a very manly, white, middle-class man with the right accent and background.

So a lot of people feel alienated by feminism because it doesn't speak for them, but, instead of looking for what feminists aren't doing for you, why not look at what feminists do for women, and apply those values to your own isms, whether they are isms that harm you, or the isms you carry with you that cause you to inadvertantly pass judgement on others based on assumptions that have no value in real terms?

But I'm thinking of a happy place that isn't just the responsibility of feminists to get to. The problem is, in a lot of circles -- Thumped very much included -- the debate never reaches this point because for debate to take place, people who are hostile to feminism have to be willing to drop the hostility and see that very few feminists (and seeing as there are many, many feminisms, and I can only speak for my personal feminism) say or do anything that deserves the sort of hostility with which it is met. So many people who are hostile to feminism are not responding to real feminists, they are reacting (and just reacting) to a sort of Phantom Feminism that doesn't really exist.

So it descends, time after time, into 'feminists do this' or 'feminists do that' and then the rest of us beating our heads black and blue against the screen going, "SHOW ME WHERE I EVEN SAID ANYTHING THAT COULD BE INTERPRETED AS SUCH."

Everyone should read bell hooks's "Feminism is for Everybody". It's brilliant, and it's really positive, yay, yay, yay for bell hooks.

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
to everything you've said.
Feminism is for Everybody is SO inspiring. It's like 'oh. my. god' when you read it. I wanted to photocopy it and hand it out to all my friends.

A lot of men, like jane said, feel alienated by feminism...I can understand that - there is no male equivalent, really, is there? There was supposed to be a programme on 'masculinities' brought into secondary schools a number of years ago (exploring masculinity/homosexuality etc) - but it was stopped because of the number of complaints/fears expressed by parents/teachers. Many people don't want men to be enlighted on their own place in the world either. Which is mental because you could debate the role of men in society till kingdom come also.

 

[MDR]

My maleness is only a small part (snigger) of who I am and I wouldn't want it to become the defining feature of my world view.

I don't feel I need a class about life as a man, as a white person, as a straight person, or life as an able-bodied person, even though i am all these things.

 

[CitySickness]

ok but why is this issue genderised in terms of who is doing the buying and the writing, how it compares to the male equivalent, etc...

isn't this more of an issue around the commodity culture of spectacle? i think it's a problem with capitalism's drive to identify and create markets than it is to do with gender. limiting it to a gender issue is going to drive you insane. imho

Trying to tackle the whole idea of why people, male or female, hand over money for acres of insulting dross will drive me insane long before treating it as a gendered issue ever will.

Publishing is driven by advertising (as in, in most cases, advertising writes the agenda and actually generates the content from whence there was none) and as such, it's all driven by the urge to sell frivolous products. Women have long been seen by the dementedly sexist ad industry as the richest seam to mine, so that's why there's such a preponderance of titles concerned with "the women's sector". But who's buying 'em?

 

[oh shit]

How's yer granda?

he's tired from fuckin my grammar

 

[oh shit]

Trying to tackle the whole idea of why people, male or female, hand over money for acres of insulting dross will drive me insane long before treating it as a gendered issue ever will.

Publishing is driven by advertising (as in, in most cases, advertising writes the agenda and actually generates the content from whence there was none) and as such, it's all driven by the urge to sell frivolous products. Women have long been seen by the dementedly sexist ad industry as the richest seam to mine, so that's why there's such a preponderance of titles concerned with "the women's sector". But who's buying 'em?

not this guy

 

[jane]

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
to everything you've said.
Feminism is for Everybody is SO inspiring. It's like 'oh. my. god' when you read it. I wanted to photocopy it and hand it out to all my friends.

A lot of men, like jane said, feel alienated by feminism...I can understand that - there is no male equivalent, really, is there? There was supposed to be a programme on 'masculinities' brought into secondary schools a number of years ago (exploring masculinity/homosexuality etc) - but it was stopped because of the number of complaints/fears expressed by parents/teachers. Many people don't want men to be enlighted on their own place in the world either. Which is mental because you could debate the role of men in society till kingdom come also.

Yeah! I remember that! They were meant to have 'exploring masculinities', but a lot of parents objected. Same for the 'Stay Safe' programme meant to help prevent and detect sexual abuse, and encourage kids to respect their own bodies (and to learn when someone else isn't treating their body with respect), rather than some hyper-catholic 'don't look, don't touch' thing. But parents objected because they didn't want their five year olds learning about 'sex'. When the programme for little kids was just meant to teach them how to identify situations that might be inappropriate, and teach them the language to tell an adult. Fucking hell.

It's funny, a lot of times when people were going, "Oh, Ladyfest, eh? Where's manfest?" And it'd be like, "Ladyfest isn't about 'why women are better'. But if you want to stage a male equivalent, in which you look at and discuss the experience of being a man, then that'd be amazing. It's about time someone did that. So let me know when Manfest is on, and I'll be all positivity." A lot of time, people just wanted to be antagonistic. But a few people saw that it wasn't about that at all, and I would be absolutely excited if there were a Manfest, where men got together and discussed their experiences of masculinity because it would really indicate that we've begun to move beyond basic dichotomies of gender. I've had loads of interesting chats with dude friends over such matters, and it's really eye-opening.

I keep Feminism is for Everybody in my bathroom.

 

[It Will Never Last]

Come on dudes, pointing out that women can't be male prostitutes is pretty not cool.

Cheers for singling me out dude...

 

[CitySickness]

not this guy

Minor Threat :heart: Women's Way

 

[muffin]

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
to everything you've said.
Feminism is for Everybody is SO inspiring. It's like 'oh. my. god' when you read it. I wanted to photocopy it and hand it out to all my friends.

A lot of men, like jane said, feel alienated by feminism...I can understand that - there is no male equivalent, really, is there? There was supposed to be a programme on 'masculinities' brought into secondary schools a number of years ago (exploring masculinity/homosexuality etc) - but it was stopped because of the number of complaints/fears expressed by parents/teachers. Many people don't want men to be enlighted on their own place in the world either. Which is mental because you could debate the role of men in society till kingdom come also.

i love love love when i find other people who seem to be thinkin exactly what i am..i think that while a lot of men on thumped are girl positive, however there is the casual girl hatred around here that can just wreck my head..maybe i'm somewhat naive but i also kinda presumed that the 'underground' community would be down with feminism considering it's roots is in rebellion and fighting against the system..but again i accept that this is just naivety on my part..

on the girl magazine thing..i often think that if i ever actually did it , thats what i'd write my book on..i sometimes wonder if i balance my feminism with modern life adequately or if i'm totally selling out the sisterhood everytime i buy closer or reveal..in recent months i've tried to make every effort to not buy anything that i feel contradicts who i am but sadly enough i've realised it's left me with very few options..

but i think a lot of people ,not just men, find it hard to admit to being a feminist because there is still a bad connotations that go along with it. The boy is writing an essay on the representations of women in photography in the 19th century and he was saying that when he tells anyone in his class that that's the topic he picked he gets funny looks.from both men and women...i think we're just lucky that women on thumped seem to be so girl/women positive..

 

[jane]

My maleness is only a small part (snigger) of who I am and I wouldn't want it to become the defining feature of my world view.

I don't feel I need a class about life as a man, as a white person, as a straight person, or life as an able-bodied person, even though i am all these things.

Fair enough, but the fact is, we all look through a gendered lens. You may not notice yours because the 'standard' for the world is set up as a white male one. But it's something that many women find it hard to avoid because we are defined along gender terms whether we like it or not. In the same vein, we don't often notice that we see the world through a white, heterosexual lens because the power structures and the 'norm' are set up to privilege the white, heterosexual perspective as the norm. But we should be aware of it. I only sometimes am. I do catch myself sometimes making statements that assume a person is straight, and I don't like when I do that. My experience of whiteness is no less a racial experience than a black person's, but I'm not constantly made to think about it because the western world is made easier for white people to negotiate. But I should think about it. Because for there to be real racial understanding or gender equality, and if we are to accept a variety of sexualities, we should all have an understanding of how our experiences of the world are gendered, racialised, and hetero-normative (meaning that heterosexual relationships are seen as the norm, and anything else an anomaly).

I was at a wedding recently, and the priest was going on about marriage being between a man and a woman and families being about mothers and fathers and children. And okay, that's the mainstream catholic teaching, and I wasn't surprised. But I did have a moment where I was like, "Wow, I feel really awkward about such heteronormative terms." But I couldn't empathise, really, as far as I could get was, "I can't imagine what it must be like to navigate the world as a gay person." Because whether or not you like it, you are constantly aware of your sexuality being something other than the norm unless you are straight.

 

[Bellatrix]

I don't feel I need a class about life as a man, as a white person, as a straight person, or life as an able-bodied person, even though i am all these things.

Umm...as defining characteristics, all of the traits you described are invisible because each of them is regarded as a societal norm. Even though they impact on your world view at all times, it's easy to feel that you can move beyond them because they never present themselves as obstacles.

People whose traits mark them as other than the norm find it a lot more difficult to move beyond them (even though I'm quite sure they'd be delighted to share your "citizen of the world" outlook) largely because they're not allowed to. I'm sure the gay men on thumped are reminded of the issue presented by their sexuality every time some idiot around here calls their idiot buddy a faggot. For example.

 

[It Will Never Last]

I was in a queue behing a man the other day and it was the first time in years that I have been genuinely getting annoyed about someone's dithering. He didn't put everything up on the conveyor until he reached the teller, then he watched her scan the items instead of bagging them. When he paid he watched her count out his change and only then did he decide to bag his purchases while everyone patiently waited. He should practice going shopping more often.

Lookit, I think the focus is all wrong here. The blame surely lies with the (non-gender specific) checkout operators and the Supermarkets (for their poorly designed checkouts). If the checkout operator showed a modicum of common sense (like not firing my shopping down the conveyor belt on top of the preceeding customers who has yet to pack their bags) or the Supermarket provided some way of seperating my shopping from his/hers (like a wooden barrier that can be moved side to side like I;ve seen in Sweden I think IIRC LOTR) men and women would obviously have more respect for each other in a non-threatening manner and this thread would not exist.

 

[Corey]

I feel really awkward about such heteronormative terms too, but thats only because i cant say it without coming across as, well...... odd.

 

[CitySickness]

The only reason I'm harping on about magazines is because it's close to my heart, not that I believe that "women are their own worst enemy" or any such tosh – although a tiny minority of women do such a thoroughly efficent axe job on their own gender that yr average misogynist male needs to catch their breath. The system as it stands, however, is everybody's worst enemy.

Re: a masculinist movement? Not interested in the slightest. What Ro said.

 

[oh shit]

maybe if you all had a bit of cop on and didnt shop in bloody tescos then all wars would end

 

[jane]

Umm...as defining characteristics, all of the traits you described are invisible because each of them is regarded as a societal norm. Even though they impact on your world view at all times, it's easy to feel that you can move beyond them because they never present themselves as obstacles.

People whose traits mark them as other than the norm find it a lot more difficult to move beyond them (even though I'm quite sure they'd be delighted to share your "citizen of the world" outlook) largely because they're not allowed to. I'm sure the gay men on thumped are reminded of the issue presented by their sexuality every time some idiot around here calls their idiot buddy a faggot. For example.

Ah, Bella, you said it better than I did and with fewer words.

Basically, the problem is, there will never be equality until the people whose perspectives are the 'norm' are willing to problematise those norms.

There are very few gay people on Thumped (or at least very few people who are out in the Thumped context), and a lot of casual homophobia. I don't know if the two are connected, but I find a lot of the casual homophobia a real problem, and I know I'm not alone. It makes me uncomfortable, so I can't imagine how it would make a queer person feel. Or a straight guy who can't 'take it'. Because if a dude is 'oversensitive' about being jokingly called a 'faggot', then he is obviously under suspicion of being A GAY.

Thumped may be more woman-friendly than it could be, but it isn't particularly queer-positive. What's also interesting is that people are much more reluctant to make racist jokes or jokes about disability than they are about sexist jokes, when most of the posters are white and able-bodied. It's more acceptable within the Thumped environment to challenge someone's comments about race or disability than it is to challenge sexism or homophobia. I find that very interesting.

 

[Corey]

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
to everything you've said.
Feminism is for Everybody is SO inspiring. It's like 'oh. my. god' when you read it. I wanted to photocopy it and hand it out to all my friends.

A lot of men, like jane said, feel alienated by feminism...I can understand that - there is no male equivalent, really, is there?.

Of course there is. It's just not recognised as positive thing by feminists.

Unlike, say, feminism for example.

I hear you bitches love that shit.

 

[oh shit]

Thumped may be more woman-friendly than it could be, but it isn't particularly queer-positive. What's also interesting is that people are much more reluctant to make racist jokes or jokes about disability than they are about sexist jokes, when most of the posters are white and able-bodied. It's more acceptable within the Thumped environment to challenge someone's comments about race or disability than it is to challenge sexism or homophobia. I find that very interesting.

hey i already said that!

let's start a focus group

 

[jane]

hey i already said that!

let's start a focus group

Yes, let's focus on poops. Poops are something that unite us all, and we frequently ignore that if there is harmony in this strife-ridden universe, it is made out of poop.

Poop=synergy.

"Focus on Faeces", Me n' oh shit's new focus group. Who wants in/out?