Talk:Sexism

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I removed the male-only conscription thing as the fact that women aren't allowed in combat infantry really does make the point moot. That and it's very US centric. But anyway, I added the recent one regarding insurance and pensions (though it could be worded better). It makes me think of the point in ''HMS Pinafore'' referring to "an accident of birth". That we shouldn't discriminate based on something someone didn't choose. So it would be wrong to discriminate on insurance and pension grounds based on sex because we never chose it - even if there is statistical evidence that those groups have particular attributes such as being safer drivers. {{:User:Armondikov/sig}} 01:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
 
I removed the male-only conscription thing as the fact that women aren't allowed in combat infantry really does make the point moot. That and it's very US centric. But anyway, I added the recent one regarding insurance and pensions (though it could be worded better). It makes me think of the point in ''HMS Pinafore'' referring to "an accident of birth". That we shouldn't discriminate based on something someone didn't choose. So it would be wrong to discriminate on insurance and pension grounds based on sex because we never chose it - even if there is statistical evidence that those groups have particular attributes such as being safer drivers. {{:User:Armondikov/sig}} 01:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
 +
:That example really is a tough one. Predominately, I agree that we (women) should not get a cheaper insurance rate simply because by "accident of birth", we're statistically less likely to be liable for an accident. But at the same time, we run into a problem where we are attempting to deny real fact in favor of equality. There are men and women Olympic events because men are known to have a greater access to natural steroids (testosterone) than women. If we forced everyone to compete in the same events women would be unable to compete without artificial doping. Of course, this creates a situation where by "accident of birth" one group of people is being treated differently than another. Some forms of "sexism" are simply unavoidable. Should it be held that it is sexist for a health insurance provider to only harass women about getting their yearly pap smear? It's a difficult question in this case, because it is a factual difference between the sexes, yet still artificially applied. Cases where it is only one or the other are much more easy to draw the line for. --{{User:Eira/Signature}} 01:34, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Revision as of 01:34, 10 March 2011

Contents

But there ARE more sexes

Anyone ever heard of the intersexed, or transsexuals? 4.152.24.66 19:09, 4 December 2007 (EST)

Well, yes, all right, but that's still only three. Racists have much, much more options for hatred than three. Look at all the skin colours there are to hate! DogP 19:12, 4 December 2007 (EST)

Actually, I've known people who've managed to come up with about 5 or 6 genders...but, most of you garden-variety sexists can't figure that out. Researcher 19:14, 4 December 2007 (EST)
There are only about four skin colors (white, black, red, yellow) although racists hate Jews and Gypsies as well as people of different skin colors. 4.152.24.66 19:16, 4 December 2007 (EST)

Gosh, yes, you're right! It's so tricky being a racist! I could never figure it out, I had to drop that class at school. DogP 19:26, 4 December 2007 (EST)

Also keep in mind that most racists are also homophobes. Sloganwoz 19:28, 4 December 2007 (EST)

But it's not a precondition of being a racist. Concurrence does not make things related.  :) Still, while there are "5 or 6 some sexes" or whatever, you need to realize that racists in Mexico came up with 20 some races based on how much of each heritage you had. So, really, it's all where you're drawing the lines really. Gender is a lot like Autism... masculinity is a spectrum "disorder" (ok, variation) that can result in numerous greys between 100% male, and 100% female. What is known is that 100% of either does not exist, it's just the crazy heterosexists that feel that there is only a binary dichotomy... --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 02:24, 3 September 2008 (EDT)

Jesus! What's with all the complications! When will it ever end?! DogP 19:30, 4 December 2007 (EST)

Idiot

I tried to add a post in the talk page of the Conservapedia article on sexism, trying to sound as submissive as possible. Not much luck, though... Why not go over there and quickly copy the page before it is burned. Some people never learn.--lol, wut?! 14:17, 1 November 2008 (EDT)

Be fair

Conservapedia has an article about sexism and sexual discrimination, which lists only examples of perceived discrimination against men (and highly tenuous if not laughable ones at that) while ignoring the much larger subject of historical and contemporary sexism against women.

I would like to know how the examples of discrimination on that page (ok, the coaches one and the restrooms one are arguably justifiable) are laughable. I won't pretend that their article was by any means fair, but is it possible you could consider the possibility that discrimination against men can (and does) happen without writing off its purponents as misogynist? I don't mean to sound aggresive; I'd genuinely like to know your reasoning. Thanks. --JW (talk) 19:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Yawn. Tell you what--and I've made this argument before--count up the number of female US Senators, House Representatives, State Senators, State Congresspeople, governors, Fortune 500 CEOs, members of the Bar, doctors, judges, mayors, city council representatives, high religious officials (bishops, cardinals, etc...), tenured professors (including in economics, business and finance departments science and engineering, not just the Liberal Arts), journalists, professional athletes earning over a million dollars a year, and Nobel Prize winners. Then add victims of rape and domestic violence. When those numbers come anywhere close to fifty percent, I'll try to give a shit about "sexism" directed towards men, okay. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 19:20, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
That in no way justifies or makes it right, TOP. You can't just dismiss something because the problem is small. Ultra-feminists who take the "all sex is rape" or "all men are bastards" view on the world just prey on that kind of attitude. If you extrapolate that sort of idea, then a black man killing a white man because of race is less of a crime than it is if the ethnicities were reversed. This just misses the point entirely. The original question was why the article (specifically, that paragraph) seems to take the stance that discrimination against men is laughable, and if that excuse the reason, then it's a very, very bad one indeed. Scarlet A.pngmoral 19:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps the article takes the stance that discrimination by women against men is laughable because the idea of discrimination by women against men is laughable. I read the CP article in question and could find nothing that it pointed to that offended me in the least as a man. The problem is so small as to be non-existent. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 20:01, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Hardly. I understand your point about men occupying the top jobs--and feminists complain about this scenario vehemently. Whether it is fair for men to have these jobs, I am not in a position to judge, though I suspect that it is a result of past sexism--so it is perfectly right for feminists to be upset about it. But I think it's the attitudes, not the emplyoment figures, that tell us about society the most. It may not offend you at present, but taking that complacent attitude just encourages the problem to worsen.
For example, pro-choice parties in the abortion debate repeatedly refer to women's rights to have abortions, yet men's feelings are scarcely taken into consideration; sexual assault directed towards men is seen as comedy, whilst sexual assault on women is deadly serious. And the other day, a friend asked me (jokingly) what I would do if a certain girl in my class tried to rape me. I told him I would use hit her, or something ammounting to that, and another friend called me a "woman beater." Yet it is acceptable for women to hit or even sexualy assault men for the comparitively minor offence of sexual harrasment. If you don't think that's misandry, you're deluding yourself.--JW (talk) 21:11, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Sexual harrassment & assault are very serious problems, & perpetrated many times more often by men against women than the reverse. That is the reason why some countries or companies offer women-only buses or train carriages. If some guys choose to view this as discimination in favour of women & to the detriment of men, as the CP/Supawiki article does, then yes I do find that attitude laughable. Whether violence is a justified reaction to sexual harrassment would depend on the context & how serious the threat is - e.g. for self defence. I suspect that the discussion you & your friends had about being "raped" by a girl in your class was not entirely serious. WéáśéĺóíďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 21:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

JW, there's a world of difference between the situation you describe--in which you must imagine that you are being raped by a woman--and the reality that you will most probably never have to deal with that situation while one in every three American women (your mom, your sister, your girlfriend. One, two, three. Think about that....) is the victim of sexual assault. The fact that your friend asked you the question "jokingly," as you put it,says an awful lot about what a "serious problem" we are dealing with here... And do you know why pro-choice activists don't take the "feelings" of men into account in the abortion debate? This may be \news to you, but men rarely have abortions, so their feelings are pretty irrelevant to the question. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 22:51, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

It may be news to you, but most men would give a shit if they found out they'd got someone pregnant, and want to have a say in the matter of what to do with the pregnancy.--JW (talk) 14:52, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
I mostly agree with TOP here, but this issue isn't that simple. Men can be sexually assaulted, yes, but it's 10x (poma) more likely for the assailant to be another man. Men can be raped by women, but it happens extremely rarely. Does that mean it should be ignored completely? No, but it also doesn't deserve equal footing with the absurd amount of women who are assaulted in their lifetime. By the way, where did that 1/3 statistic come from? I'm not doubting it, sadly it seems totally plausible, just wondering where you got it. Sexism against males happens at such a low rate that it's hardly worth discussing. I hate that we live in a world where women need separate buses and subway cars to be safe, but unfortunately that's the way it is. On the abortion deal....well that's a separate conversation. Speaking from personal experience here, the woman has every right to do what she wants, but calling the male's feelings irrelevant is callous at best. --PitchBlackMind (talk) 23:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
The one in three statistic is one that I've heard repeated at a number of talks on the topic--but a quick poke around the net seems to indicate that 1. the stat might be out-of-date and 2. that any really accurate measure of the phenomenon might be impossible to ascertain. As for the abortion comment, I agree that it's a little over-the-top, but perhaps necessary--I remember a court case in Montreal in the 1980s; a man sued a woman to keep her from aborting a fetus he's impregnated her with, and the woman eventually had to go out of the jurisdiction to have an abortion that legally defied an injunction that kept her from doing so until the case made its way through the courts--the risk being that by the time it had done so, any ruling in her favour would have been moot as the pregnancy would have resulted in the birth of a child she did not want. Taking the "feelings" of men into the equation strikes me as a sly trick to undermine women's rights over their own bodies, and is therefore not something I can bring myself to give a shit about. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 23:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
I like the way you put "feelings" in quotation marks. Are you suggesting men don't have feelings, or that their feelings are somehow less important than women's? And even if abortion does affect women more than men (which it does), suggesting that men have no interest in the decision and thus do not deserve their feelings being considered is ignorant and prejudiced.--JW (talk) 14:52, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
I was wondering about that because the vast majority of assaults go unreported, so reliable statistics are hard to come by. One in three probably isn't that far off, I doubt it's changed dramatically. It's an interesting point on the abortion issue, it would've been nice if that particular case had been done with more haste. I agree on the overall point, it isn't feasible for the legal system to take a man's feelings into account, nor should they consider it. I suppose I was speaking on a personal level. --PitchBlackMind (talk) 00:08, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
So a man should have no say over what happens to his own children? (Not children as such, but potential children however it's described). I don't think that's fair in the slightest. The fact is, many surveys (around 500, according to California State University) have found that women are equally likely to assault men in a relationship, yet the prevailing social attitude is that women are always the victims. I'm not undermining the problem of sexual assault directed at women, but violence against men is not by any means negligible. I'm not claiming it is a worse problem than violence against women; the real problem is attitude. --JW (talk) 14:52, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

hobags?!?!

I find it kinda weird that the term "hobags" appears in the coding for references in the "sexism" article. Am I missing something here? RaoulDuke 03:19, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure it is just a "term of endearment" for the two lovelies it is referencing (i.e. Coulter and Schlafly). Aboriginal Noise with 4 M's and a silent Q 03:22, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
hmmm. Forgive me, but it's still pretty bloody sexist, even if they are horrible people. RaoulDuke 03:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Feel free to change it, as I kinda agree with you. Aboriginal Noise with 4 M's and a silent Q 03:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
I will--but take my back in case I screw up the coding for the reference...RaoulDuke 03:25, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
EC) Yeah, having been a bit of a ho and definitely being an (old) bag, I don't want them associated with me! I am eating Toast& honeychat 03:26, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
It was one of the ladies that did that. I have often found that it is our female contributors who are more willing to make sexist and smutty jokes. (EC) Thanks for proving by point Toast. - π 03:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
All good on the coding. Aboriginal Noise with 4 M's and a silent Q 03:29, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Misandry

"Conservapedia has an article about sexism and sexual discrimination, which lists only examples of perceived discrimination against men. This includes a rant that "women-only" spaces are accepted and encourage while "men-only" spaces are almost universally abhorred as sexist. The article as a whole, however, entirely ignores the much larger and widespread subject of historical and contemporary sexism against women."

This article as a whole almost entirely ignores sexism against men!. Somebody, anybody, please fix this. — Unsigned, by: 24.62.109.225 / talk / contribs

Like what? WěǎšěǐǒǐďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 23:27, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Come up with some examples of historical and contemporary sexism against men, and add them. Literally nothing is stopping you. Picon small.pngLiquid Blue 23:30, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Well, there's that crowd of uber-feminists who go around saying all men should be castrated but I think that's a little different to just normal sexism. Although I did hear from a relative working for the employment service that they were sifting through CVs and someone said "why would a man want to apply for a secretary job??" and promptly put the CV on the reject pile without even reading it. It exists, surely, but it's a little different to the usual stereotypical patriarchal oppression that we usually characterise as "sexism". Scarlet A.pngmoral 11:33, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Although I am a staunch anti-Conservapedian, I do agree with what they said about the spaces. It is okay (on occasion expected), for women to lie, cheat, wear clothes of the opposite sex, cry, have things done for them, commit infidelity, have phony-ass political movements, make fun or discriminate against the opposite sex, physically abuse the opposite sex, etc. But if a man does this, there is controversy. In divorces, who gets everything? Who has a saying that lets them go first? Who doesn't have to pay a cent on dates? Who requires money from their SO & parent of the opposite gender for shoes & clothes they will use (at max) twice? — Unsigned, by: John Galt / talk / contribs
Testosterone has a proven dampening effect on crying. If you're referring however to the fact that men are not allowed to cry, this is not females oppressing males, this is males oppressing males. So, all of these "allowances" that are made for women, are actually just men treating women on a different field than men yet again. As ADK has noted, there are some cases where women treat men differently from how they would treat women, but you can't take "if you're not machismo enough, you get downtrodden" as a definitive indication that women sexually discriminate against men. It is still the case that men are exposed predominately to sexism by other men. --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 13:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Men exposed to sexism by other men... I've never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. However, you can probably bring up similar examples of women being sexist to women; i.e., telling them they have to conform or act a certain way. Take magazines like Cosmo and whatnot. Indeed, the gender/sex orientated magazines are probably our best examples of women being sexist to women and men being sexist to men. Scarlet A.pngmoral 18:21, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
A common error exhibited by the more doctrinaire feminists is to attempt to blame men for any misbehavior among women, including "sexist" attitudes. However, the group of looney-tune feminists who engage in misandry is very small group compared to the groups who practice sexism against women. Mjollnir.svgListenerXTalkerX 18:32, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
You're both totally right. Women do get an incredibly healthy dose of sexism from other women. It has lightened up a lot in some ways, but body image problems are still predominately woman driven. However, pay discrimination remains largely male driven. I just felt it intensely important to mention that "men shouldn't cry" does not come from women, the taboo against wearing feminine clothing is predominately male driven. Beyond the hateful actively anti-LGBT people many women actually admire drag queens for their ability to be more feminine than even we are. --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 00:47, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
I think you could generalise further (a dangerous notion, indeed) and say that sexism is more society vs a gender than gender vs gender. I say this because it's a more complicated relationship that really just taking men alone being responsible for the male driven sexism that you state. Undoubtedly there's a female component "hey guys, we need to impress the ladies, man up bitch" (I'm not saying it's women's fault exactly, just that they're a component). It's just that, up until your post above, I always really considered discrimination as one group against the other (whenever I considered it, anyway), never really one group against itself. But now I'm thinking a little about it I think discrimination comes from a pretty wide spectrum of groups and demographics; it comes from a wider group, and is aimed at a single group. Take racism for instance. That's certainly not "white guys" vs "black guys", is it? It's wider reaching and the causes are far more distributed than just one class vs another. Similarly with religion, every religion thinks it's the true way so cults or atheists are going to get flak from all directions. Also, thinking of it in those terms removes a lot of the unfair blame type aspects you get when you say something like "this sexism is male driven" - as you're implying all men do that and are jointly responsible. Diffuse the blame over the whole of society and we're equally to blame, no one feels persecuted, and we all feel like we can do something about it. Anyway, that's just a half-baked thought at the moment. I'll sleep on it, drink on it, and maybe put something more coherent together later. Scarlet A.pngmoral 01:01, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Examples

I removed the male-only conscription thing as the fact that women aren't allowed in combat infantry really does make the point moot. That and it's very US centric. But anyway, I added the recent one regarding insurance and pensions (though it could be worded better). It makes me think of the point in HMS Pinafore referring to "an accident of birth". That we shouldn't discriminate based on something someone didn't choose. So it would be wrong to discriminate on insurance and pension grounds based on sex because we never chose it - even if there is statistical evidence that those groups have particular attributes such as being safer drivers. Scarlet A.pngmoral 01:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

That example really is a tough one. Predominately, I agree that we (women) should not get a cheaper insurance rate simply because by "accident of birth", we're statistically less likely to be liable for an accident. But at the same time, we run into a problem where we are attempting to deny real fact in favor of equality. There are men and women Olympic events because men are known to have a greater access to natural steroids (testosterone) than women. If we forced everyone to compete in the same events women would be unable to compete without artificial doping. Of course, this creates a situation where by "accident of birth" one group of people is being treated differently than another. Some forms of "sexism" are simply unavoidable. Should it be held that it is sexist for a health insurance provider to only harass women about getting their yearly pap smear? It's a difficult question in this case, because it is a factual difference between the sexes, yet still artificially applied. Cases where it is only one or the other are much more easy to draw the line for. --Eira OMTG! The Goat be Praised. 01:34, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
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