|
ShaktiSama -> RE: Feminism (10/19/2009 5:38:00 PM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Elisabella
My stating my opinion is imposition, and yours isn't?
You stating your opinion is merely repellent and unwelcome. The fact that your views are shared by a power structure that forces them on everyone in our nation via its public institutions, including public schools paid for by everyone's taxes--including mine? Is an imposition.
quote:
Well that's fine, but it's also irrelevant. I was talking about girls who *want* to be cheerleaders.
I am sure it's possible that there would always be girls who "wanted" to be cheerleaders, in a world where their civilization did not stack a crappy deck against them and lure them down a cultural, social and economic dead end with this waste of their athletic potential. If girls with a lot of athletic potential could win great college scholarships and lucrative careers by using their bodies for sporting events that did NOT involve dressing in skimpy outfits and showing their crotches to strangers, they might go for it. Or hey, maybe all of them without fail are "Born Slaves" like you and would not be interested in participating in sports programs that rewarded them with money and fame.
Unfortunately, we cannot determine whether girls with athletic potential would make other choices when they are really not given many other options at the moment, especially in the USA. People can't make choices when they aren't alternatives. It isn't an election if you can only check one box.
quote:
Well yeah, since you use 'little girl' as an insult, I do hope you aren't the primary caregiver of any little girls.
And I do hope that you are congenitally sterile. But that's not an insult, of course, just my assessment of your "mindset".
Isn't this game fun? Let's play some more.
quote:
You wouldn't call someone 'beautiful woman' as an insult, would you?
"Little girl" is not an insult when applied to a person under eighteen and of small stature. It's only when the context makes it clear that "little girl" is a negative assessment of someone's maturity and stature that it becomes an insult.
So yes, in that context, "beautiful woman" might very well be an insult if I used it in the appropriate context--ie., where being womanly was not desirable. For example, try this exchange:
Y: "Saw Brock Lesnar on the television last night--what do you think of him as a fighter?"
Me: "I think he's a beautiful woman."
quote:
and that makes me wonder if you'd stifle your little girl's little girlhood so she isn't seen as weak and contemptible. Subconsciously, of course.
There's no need whatsoever to wonder. And there's nothing "subconscious" about it; I do not encourage any female person of my acquaintance, of any age, to be weak and contemptible.
In fact, I'd say with fair confidence that I stifle "weak and contemptible" in people of both sexes, of all ages, and of all orientations. I don't respect and I do not coddle weakness, especially of the moral and intellectual variety.
I'm evil that way. Sue me.
quote:
Yeah, and you can say "tricked into accepting a job then kidnapped and forced into prostitution, making money for her captors as she is repeatedly raped"...or you can say "sexually exploited." One's a lot more concise.
Not really. "Kidnapped, forced into prostitution and raped repeatedly" is plenty concise, if that's what actually happened. Facts do not need to be euphemized.
Re-writing the English language so that rape and kidnapping are demoted to "sexual exploitation" and "sexual exploitation" is demoted to "fun with your friends" is not very helpful, in my opinion. Seems to me that the person who devalues the suffering and victimization of women and girls in all these cases is not me--it's you.
quote:
And I fail to see how you can categorize something someone willingly does as 'exploitation' - generally if someone's being exploited it's not their prefered state of affairs.
Your assumption is that people are able to make decisions about their "preferred state of affairs" vis a vis sexual exploitation at the age of eight or nine? I disagree. I think there is only one thing you can call it, when you indoctrinate a person into a submissive sexual role that early: brainwashing.
quote:
See my above point, re: slaves vs citizens. Feel free to say slaves were exploited. But don't use slaves to back up a 'women were exploited' point.
Try to pay attention, won't you? Not all the women in the frescos were slaves. Some of them were merely prostitutes. And yes, they were exploited. Just as women who do sex work of all kinds are often exploited now.
quote:
I fail to see the problem in this. That former cheerleader could just as easily be a waitress or a dance instructor.
Well, the problem, to return to my original point, is that the BOYS on the football field have significantly better social and economic prospects as a result of their participation in our national passtime than the girls do.
You're right, a former cheerleader could just as easily be a waitress or a dance instructor--and do you know what BOTH those other jobs have in common, in comparison to the sort of careers that a boy who plays football really well can look forward to?
That's right. The jobs a former cheerleader can get all pay next to nothing. Whereas many of the boys become multi-millionaires.
Wow, that's fair.
quote:
Well I just think it's pretty dishonest to say "it's sexist because women were their fathers property" when there was absolutely no difference between sons and daughters - it's a non-sexist example of one of the structures of an actual patriarchy. Patriarchy isn't "male dominance" - it's "dominance by the father."
Actually, there was an enormous difference between sons and daughters--sons always had the potential to wield the power of the pater familias, if they lived long enough and behaved themselves well enough to seize the role.
Women were always and forever nothing but chattel, and always at the mercy of the men in their families. Even the most powerful women were often exploited or killed by male family members--Messalina lost her life to Claudius and Agrippina, but Agrippina was murdered by her own son.
quote:
We were also expected to be publicly virtuous (and consequently, rape was punished by death)
*shrug* Lots of things were punishable by death. Augustus regarded the sexual violation of an upper class woman without the consent of her father, husband or brother as a disturbance of the peace analogous to arson, and had the law changed accordingly.
The woman's own consent was never really a significant part of the equation. She could be forced to marry, have sex with, and "be faithful" to just about anyone her family commanded her to, if she was patrician.
Women of the plebian, freedman and slave orders could be raped without consequence or comment, and usually were.
quote:
If my attitude were hostile, why did only two people reply hostilely when the rest were able to engage in civilized disagreement?
Because the rest of those people weren't addressed by you personally in a hostile and aggressive fashion. And from what I can see, many people responded negatively to you anyway, they just didn't bother to quote your posts to do it.
In any case, I don't need to "blame" anyone else for my response to you; I've never responded well to anyone who attacks me personally in their posts and I never will. I also don't care much for women who "Uncle Tom" for patriarchy. The fact that you're also ignorant of most facts, and twist the few facts at your command to serve an evil purpose? Is a three-strikes-and-you're-flamed situation.
|
|
|
|
