Degrees of Misogyny

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It is certainly relevant inasmuch others are ascribing to me that I am male and supposedly hold some misogynistic male stances.
It's kind of sadly ironic when supporters of women's rights do that to a woman.

Before I could even say anything much, they had a go at me, and from then on, it's all been about dealing with their imaginations about me.

I am sure that, in line with the way they have treated me, and so others, so far, they will insist that they have treated me fairly, and that it is I who is in the wrong if I think I have been treated unfairly. I can't compete with their imaginations.
From what I have seen they have done to others here, clarifying my position will not help, because they don't read what is written. They resort to some prefabricated stereotypes they hold and then engage in wholesale dismissal of a person.
However, this method of streotyping and dismissing theirs appears to be part of their message to begin with.

 

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More of the same. Again, you're ascribing to me stances I don't hold.
When I asked whether people should not compete, that question was not rhetorical.
And I did not scoff at your post, that scoffing is all in your mind.

The thing is that you use and rely on the same methods that you criticize when others use them and rely on them.

Anyway, you just keep proving my point.

 

I have done nothing of that nature, and I don't appreciate being slandered by you.

 

I simply view the topic quite differently than you and some others. I make different associations than you and some others.
You see yourself as the boss here, as the one who determines what the scope and depth of a topic is supposed to be?

You have, and I don't appreciate being slandered by you.

How PC.

I'm baffled as to how you can interpret my words this way. Completely baffled.

I am unable to reconstruct how someone thinks who can misread my words so much. Like we're speaking different languages.

How could any of you think, based on what was written, that anyone here was actually tolerating or endorsing street harrassment????

It's as if you operate only in two modes: black and white, 0 and 1, with nothing inbetween, no details, nothing, just a dualistic this or that. I can't do that.

 

I have not. And unlike you, I can illustrate my point:

You posted this, without illustration or argument:

"They have {iceaura has} constantly misrepresented me, have constantly ascribed to me stances I don't hold, and a gender I am not, have constantly demanded of me to defend things I have not said"

I have not "represented" you at all, let alone constantly and falsely.

I have not ascribed stances to you other than by quoting your posts, and have not "demanded" that you defend anything except your own posting here as quoted - copy/pasted - by me.

I have posted nothing at all even implying any personal characteristic you may or may not possess, such as a sex or a height.

And that may explain your failure to provide examples illustrating of any of those accusations. They don't exist.

It doesn't explain why you so often ignored the discussion, observations, and arguments, made in my responding to your posts, in favor of launching different topics or making false accusations.

But it isn't too late. We agree, I hope, that the Buddhist non-answer to the the question of how best to handle politically a cultural norm of misogynistic street harassment of women by men, does not place all sincere and practicing Buddhists on the same moral level as those who deny the existence or excuse the nature or trivialize the effects of such a cultural norm. So progress - - - -

 

Developing Discourse

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​

(1) Those differences shouldn't be arbitrary.

(2) You should be capable of explaining those differences.

(3) You should be willing to put a modicum of effort into your posts, which otherwise read as insincere, trolling excrement.

Starting with a presumption of innocence:

• A proposition is stated.

• A critique is returned.

• Proposition complains that critique is inaccurate.​

→ Proposition never explains inaccuracy, accurate answer, or how either of those answers work.​

So basically, all you're doing is saying outlandish things, complaining when people respond, but never doing anything to resolve the complaint.

In the end, the underlying message we see from these people is that their words should not be taken to mean what those words mean.

Ask Schmelzer↑ for instance; we can't take his words at his word, and he can't seem to explain what he really means, leaving us with the functional understanding that when he says, "It is useful for the society as a whole that it does not forbid any conversation between strangers", what he really means is that it is useful for the society as a whole to not forbid harassment of women.

Well, you know, as near as we can tell, because he apparently isn't capable of stating himself any more clearly.

So bawl all you want↗ about people thinking for you; we shouldn't have to. You ought to be able to comport yourself reasonably, speak for your own self, and, for heaven's sake, actually make sense.

In the end, if you walk into a room and behave just like a thousand scoundrels before you, it is one thing to plead that you are, in fact, not a scoundrel; it is another, entirely, to actually make the point.

Some months ago I had a discussion with a neighbor↗ about this aspect:

I also find myself recalling a farcical scene that has been flashing to mind in recent weeks. Do you recall the scene in Airplane! when the woman starts freaking out, and the stewardess tries to calm her? Then the woman's husband grabs her, telling her to calm down, and starts shaking her aggressively? And then Leslie Nielsen steps in, reminding that he's a doctor, but only beats her? So a nun pulls him away and then attacks the woman, and the camera shows the passengers lining up with violence in their eyes and weapons to beat the shit out of her with?

Yet it's not the thrashing of the distressed woman that draws my attention; rather, it's a metaphor.

I lit into someone in another thread for something that annoys the hell out of me, and also, quite frankly, seems at least as dangerous as it is stupid. You've been around here long enough to remember a string of threads regarding catcalling and harassment, abortion politics, rape culture, and the overarching subject of misogyny; and you might also recall that for several years the argument that you or I might describe as defending or promoting misogyny―which, of course, those advocates loathe and denounce―hasn't really changed?

A number of points might apply here, such as the contrast between the complaint of describing all men as rapists or misogynists, and where those descriptions actually come from. It isn't those who denounce misogyny and rape culture, for instance, who tried comparing men's libido to a hand grenade, nor rely on a male's prerogative ....° Nor are they the ones telling women to suspect everyone. We really should acknowledge that after so many repetitions, it doesn't look like an accident. That is to say, at some point it seems absolutely and dangerously stupid to pretend these are just innocent, well-intended people accidentally clodhopping their way into rape advocacy or other misogyny; it really does start to seem calculated.

We need not dismiss that for my purpose at the moment; it's related, and more than tangentially, because the next thing is to remind that we need not actually entertain notions of any conspiracies.

Conspiracies?

Right.

It seems like no matter how much information we give this other bloc, the discussion frequently needs to reset and restart. Consider the topic post, which inquires about rape culture; if we take the question as genuine, there are plenty of ways to answer, and some of us tried. But the topic poster quickly tacked to raise a straw man, and the discussion swirled around that. A couple days later, another member checks in and raises the same straw man. And something like a month and a half later someone else checks in to raise the same straw man.

And this is the way it goes. With each new iteration, the same characteristic applies: The advocate is ignoring everything that came before. So we're obliged in some manner to go about it again.

And we keep going through this. Over and over and over. Something about "just read the damn thread" goes here, you know?

And it's like the scene from Airplane! Not a whit of human sympathy; it's just a woman, after all. It's like they're lining up, and as soon as one exhausts the argument, the next one steps up to try to start it all over again.​

You're just the next one in line. We've been through this many times before; you are anything but original. And as you flail from station to station, nobody is surprised.

There are a lot of people who tell us they're viewing the subject differently, or from an alternate perspective, and in these issues the common trait is that none of those confronting advocates can actually formulate a proper argument. Yes, they're viewing the subject from a particular perspective: What feels good to someone varies from person to person. In the end, such advocacy is nothing more than postulation of feelgood theses with no evidentiary support, thus presented as self-evident.

And at the intersection of human rights and women, it would seem the line wraps around the block.

Stop worrying about reconstructing how someone thinks so much as figuring out how to express yourself clearly. Honestly, at some point it does sound childish. And, yes, every parent has or will experience the moment when all a toddler can do is declare, "No!" without being able to explain what that means. And as we go through these conversations with our children, it becomes clear that the negation is not attached to anything specific within the discussion―it's simply about empowerment. When I was a kid, parents punished this sort of behavior; these days, many recognize it as an expected developmental phase.

In any case, it is the sort of behavior people are expected to "grow out of". That is to say, it is a developmental phase, and thus looks really, really weird, and really, really obvious, when it manifests in people who ought to be old enough to know better.
____________________

Notes:

° Ellipsis omits mysterious sentence fragment most likely overlooked while reformulating clause into subsequent sentence.

 

Basic Errors (Part the First)

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Click for ... er ... ah ... well ... maybe not.​

I see this phenomenon on a lot of social media: There is a tendency to run away from reality and turn everything into some manner of institutionalized conspiracy because it is easier than defending the indefensible.

I mentioned gay men; let's consider that, because for most of my life if a man treated another man as we're discussing the treatment of women, one would be risking his life. Now, at this point, when it's about women, I occasionally run into these bizarre claims like an adult who has never heard a rape joke, or who doesn't remember the sexual obsessions of twentieth century youth. Then again, in a day when people are patrolling restrooms and harassing women because transgender exist, it's a little harder to say one forgets the days when men freaked out over sexual behavior, identity, and orientation.

Then again, I would have thought it impossible to deny the generation that came up between Porky's and American Pie. As a matter of fact, that's a great example. While I don't recall actually making pacts, the idea that, "We're all gonna get laid before ...", wasn't exactly new to my generation. To some people, apparently, American Pie would be ridiculous because such attitudes about getting laid never existed, or something.

But it turns out society has long had a taboo against conversations working toward sticking one's dick into other people's bodies; we just suspend the rule when we're talking about sticking our dicks into women.

So let's try the question again (1↑, 2↑; see also, 3↑), since nobody really wants to answer it:

• On such occasions that you might be seen reading in public, how often is that act intended as a signal that you want a man to try to get your permission to stick his erect penis inside your body? I would further remind that there comes a point at which the affirmative means you're likely not going to be hitting on women. Bisexual is one thing, but it's not going to work at Starbuck's, it's not going to work at the pub, generally speaking; and the places where it might work (A) you won't be hitting on women, and (B) it might still not work because in the gay male community, "too desperate" is sometimes interpreted as "lethally dangerous".

That is to say, among the men who most need to consider these questions, it seems rare are the days you'll grant another man who might be thinking of how good your lips will look with his sex jammed between them the same manner of intrusion and disruption of your reading time so many would otherwise oblige of women.​

Like I said to Daecon: The women are telling us what the problem is, and the response is to simply invalidate them. When they speak of disruption, the response is that they ought to be grateful for the compliment. When they speak of catcalling, the response is to complain about banning "conversations". When asked what gives him the right, we are told she must make herself clear; one neighbor has gone so far as to instruct women on the proper procedure for rejecting men; what is absent from any of this is, say, what the women are telling us, and apparently the verbal abuse, physical abuse, and even murder in the wake of these rejections just apparently aren't anything men need to consider. After all, her feelings aren't worth considering on the front side, and when she tells us what the problem is, her feelings aren't worth considering, full stop.

And between, say, my expression of the blowjob question↑ on Sunday, and your tinfoil post Friday, we've seen all manner of disgrce, like strange↑ theses↑ on competition, including that "misogyny is a tool in such competition", and, you know, that would only seem to reinforce the point, wouldn't it? In the context of sexual harassment, if misogyny is a tool to "compete" a woman into bed ... I mean ... it seems so self-evident I'm having trouble formulating the question, and, "What the hell does that even mean?" is too general.

We've also seen an outbreak of invalidation:

• "Why should [men remain silent and not approach directly] if they see a woman who takes their fancy?" (Bowser, #436↑)
• "Of course, some people never get compliments." (mtf, #437↑)
• "If someone you fancy gives you a compliment, your response is to feel offended and intruded upon, right ... " (mtf, #441↑)
• "Modern political correct America. You have to shut up. Freedom of speech? Forget about it." (Schmelzer, #445↑)
• Twofer: "I was not aware that the talk was about harassing. (Schmelzer, #449↑; "Do you really think that I read all the ... written here?" (Schmelzer, #455↑ [sic])
• A Grateful Dead post (Bowser, #457↑; see below; see also Billvon, #459↑)
• "Maybe, but who cares? This was not what I was talking about." (Schmelzer, #461↑)
• "It is useful for the society as a whole that it does not forbid any conversation between strangers. Because such conversations may have, sometimes, very useful results, as for the participants, as for the society as a whole." (Schmelzer, #462↑
• "He doesn't need a right in a free country." (DaveC426913, #465↑)
• " Fortunately for our hypothetical gentleman on the street, his greeting does not fall under that category of 'certain ways and certain circumstances' .... It is not someone's right to not be spoken to, in public." (DaveC426913, #470↑
• "In each instance I have the option to ignore them completely, tell them to ****-off, give a polite yet non-committal reply, or seek to extend the conversation further." Ophiolite, #471↑
• "Oh yes, this appears to be the tendency these days." (mtf, 472↑)
• "I was addressing a specific point. The claim, made by someone, that persons in public have a right not to be spoken to. That is arrant nonsense and focusing on that generic objection, wherein you conflate aggressive speech with any speech, you automatically brand a large portion of the population (male and female) as either mysogynist or idiot." (Ophiolite, #484↑)
• "I chosed to defend the freedom of communication between strangers, not sexual harassment." (Schmelzer, #499↑
• "I think the issue is how we define harassment. Does a compliment, especially when offered to a women, qualify as harassment?" (Bowser, #500↑)​

I'm going to add one more, because it identifies the central issue:

• "Depends on the environment. There have been several cases where nothing but compliments (as defined by the person offering them) have been declared sexual harassment by the courts." (Billvon, #502↑)​

On that last, this is the linchpin: It doesn't matter how the person offering defines the words.

And that is the error of the list preceding it.

―End Part I―​

 

Basic Errors (Part the Second)

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Click for more of the same, only more so, and most definitely send the children out before you do.​

Let us take DaveC as a specific example, Billvon; in the time since I started this post, he has answered the question↗:

“I am not lumping street harrassment under public interaction - you are lumping public interaction under street harrasment.”​

Or, as I had previously suggested↑ to Daecon:

(1) That the generalizations are intended to invalidate and exclude the actual examples by simply ignoring them.

(2) That the generalizations do, in fact, include the specific examples, and this is our answer, anyway.​

In the context of the women telling us what the problem is, they tell us about harassment, and DaveC changes the subject.

Once is an accident, maybe. Repeated insistence over the course of months would seem to require some deliberate attention; and now we have this to settle the question―the women tell us what's wrong, and DaveC tells them what's really important.

The disrespect is obscene, and after this long, and with enough iterations, it would be exactly contrary to presume this is some manner of innocent accident. Bells↑ appears to have made the point sufficiently in DaveC's↑ case, but there is, in that circumstance, always the proverbial tomorrow, and there are also several others who are taking part in the basic error of insistently disregarding and disempowering women.

†​

Think of it like a cynical punch line: Hush, dear, the men are talking.

In my lifetime, it hasn't always been a punch line. Indeed, the only reason we call it a punch line is that the same sectors of society that once relied on such presuptive supremacy are also the ones who bawl any time a feminist reminds of the words. To the one, they disdain the stereotype; to the other, they really, really want what it describes―the voiceless, subordinate role of women in a masculine hierarchy―to be real. And, you know, after decades, it would seem those voices in my generation have finally figured out, for the most part, to not say it explicitly.

But this attitude is a powerful component of American culture; it even has a home at the Supreme Court.

I'm not joking; consider this notion: A seventy-some year-old man asserting child molestation isn't a big deal because he knows how a thirteen year old girl really feels about being molested by a group of adults. These days, the legend of the Notorious RBG captures headlines. While Justice Ginsburg has always been a tireless, poweful voice for equality sounding discord against perverse harmonies of institutionalized prejudice, her rise to this celebrated notoriety begins with the Safford United debacle, when she granted a press interview in order to publicly excoriate her male fellows on the Court for so wilfully and thoroughly silencing a young victim. The majority drove the point home in its decision: Yes, the school district acted illegally; yes, they should have known. But, hey, they say they meant well and didn't know, and since there's no harm done, we will give them a pass. Oh, and we're not setting any precedent today.

†​

When you read that list of quotes, can you tell me where the women are?

How about this: It doesn't matter where the women are.

At various points, Billvon, you have even called out this behavior; that's one of the reasons I tacked your post, #502↑ to the end of the list. There are a couple others in there, too. And that's the thing: You know this is going on.

Are you searching for some "pragmatic"-sounding "middle ground"? Because in the face of insistent, identifiable behavior, it seems absolutely absurd to go pissing your credibility all over the carpet for the sake of potsherd diversion.

And if you were watching the arsonists run down the street, torches in hand, setting fire here and there, would you stand in the way of the fire trucks to split hairs about your opinion of the definition of arson?

Because this has been going on a long time. Colloquially speaking, this has been going on "forever". In the Sciforums chapters, there is always a persistent crowd of seeming newcomers ready to step up and give the same roadworn, offensive, objectifying arguments about putting women in their place, as if simply repeating the stuff yet one more time will finally convince people.

Over the course of the last couple years, we've engaged these issues repeatedly as a community, and the result is pretty straightforward; the discourse is stalled at the insistent objectification of women. And it really is like the scene from Airplane!

†​

Macro: We are professionals who compete at the highest tier of the premiere political league in the world ... which is why our candidate went into Election Day not only projecting the confidence his supporters need to see, but actually believing he was going to win because he had no clue what was actually happening. Our professional expertise is why you could watch, real time, the candidate and his wife falter from believing in his inevitable victory and plummet into the slow and agonizing comprehension that they just lost. We are professionals who compete at the highest tier, which is why our team had exactly no clue what was about to happen.

Micro: I am a passionate advocate deeply invested in this issue, which is why I have never heard of this component over here, and when I go looking for answers can only find the opposition. My passion leads me to invest myself in misinformation, which is why my opinion is definitive of the issue.

There comes a point at which the only real question is why certain people aren't paying attention. In the face of consistent results the idea that one needs to delve into conspiratorial distractions in order to find some middle ground redeeming some aspect of an an irrational argument advocating inequality and injustice just seems rather quite ... oh, what's the word ... desperate?

Women are telling us what the problem is, and the only way for these advocates to deal with that information is to correct the women, because, apparently, women need to be told what their own experiences are. By silencing women's voices―he doesn't need a right to disrupt her for his own purposes, she needs to make her position clear in response, and even has to do so according to certain demanded protocols―they're really no different from Wellwisher↑. No, really:

If a guy is cat calling a woman, this is better described as crime of rudeness. So why the need to create confusion? Why are they trying to make the women afraid, with the buzz word, hate, so women react in the fearful way to a clumsy attempt at flattery ? And do women actually fall for this, and if so, what does that tell you?​

It seemed well enough to ask the obvious question↑: You do realize where Nottinghamshire is getting this idea?

After all, when it comes to silencing a woman's voice in a discussion of her existential condition―(Hush, dear, the men are talking)―we just don't find a more blatant example than what Wellwisher offered.

Go back and read those quotes. His fancy. His prerogative. Her obligation. Some would even go so far as to implicitly protest the obligation to pay attention to what women tell us: "Do you really think that I read all the ... written here?" (Schmelzer, #455↑)

The women are telling us what's wrong; we see an enduring, bigoted response, which is to correct women in order to tell them what is really going on in their lives, because apparently they aren't capable of comprehending their own existence and need to be told.

Would you prefer we pretend none of this is happening?

Or, more directly:

Really?

Do you think you can actually justify your thesis?

Do you think you can actually wave away the mountains of evidence? Can you actually make your case?

Go for it.

I dare you.

C'mon. Put some effort into it.

It'll be fun.

―Fin―​

 

Have a good day, ya'll!

 

No. I thought I was just stating the obvious and that it needs no further explaining.

While I think it would be nice to live in a clean, ordererd society in which nothing bad ever happens and everyone's rights are properly formulated and respected, I also think this is an unrealistic utopia and that it therefore behooves, for one's own interest, to be savvy and to know how to deal with problem situations instead of waiting for others to be nice.

Of course, if I say that, Bells and co. will accuse me of placing the onus on the woman. Which is not what I am doing. Anyone who understands self-interest will know what I mean; to the others, there's no point explaining.

The issue is more complex. People do like being given compliments -- as long as it is by people (even strangers) they like.

Many women measure some aspects of a woman's worth by what kind of compliments she receives from men. The fact is that women are not somehow universally against receiving compliments (including from strangers), but appear to have an ambivalent attitude toward them. I think this is part of the problem.

There were parts preceding that, about resources being scarce (resources range from food to potential mates) and about trying to find pleasure in materialistic pursuits, which are bound to eventually end in a fight because of resources being scarce. You've left out those important parts.

I don't know how you come to that conclusion as you do above. It's not about not taking small steps -- it's about the values and goals that inform the small steps, so that the steps go in the right direction. It's about understanding that theft, rape, robbery, murder, fraud, etc. etc. are in some essential way perpetrated for the same reasons, and that therefore, the way to stop them all would be to address those essential reasons. Addressing only the issues of theft per se, or rape per se, etc. is in effect treating the symptoms, but not the cause. While treating symtpoms is necessary, the real, long-term solution is in dealing with the cause.

I'm in favor of a solution that will be general enough so that various kinds of violence can be addressed with it at the same time. That's how we can hope to get a relatively consistent, stable system of solutions.

I tend to think holistically, I tend to look at the big picture, the context.

I kind of expected that this is how you'd interpret it. No, that's not how I meant it. I meant that some participants are approaching the discussion (any discussion) in a mode of "He that is not instantly and wholly with us, is wholly and totally against us." It's kind of the American way to do things. I see no point in that.

 

You might flatter yourself with that statement, but it seems that it can't be true. You really do not seem to understand biology, or competition, or human emotions, especially not in context.

 

Granted, most people seem to operate in a rather compartmentalized fashion; which may be psychologically cost-effective, but in the long run, appears to have negative social, economical, and ecological consequences.
For example, the ecological disasters or the scarcity of natural resources we're facing would not happen if people had thought long-term and holistically and acted accordingly.

 

So are you opposed to the present limited, situation-specific societal attempts to deal with street robbery and pickpockets, and prefer that we not address that particular problem until holistic solutions that deal with all forms of human violence and materialistic illusion have been developed?

And theoretical consequences as well - for example, some people have so limited and reduced and compartmentalized Darwinian evolutionary theory that they regard competitive interactions between organisms as its central, almost entire, substance.