MadameMarque
Posts: 1128
Joined: 3/19/2005 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Level Okay, how about this: A man and woman are at a party. The woman isn't strong, she is however drunk; she begins saying some nasty things to another guest. The man tries once, twice to get her to stop, but she doesn't. Finally, he tells her to "sit down, and be quiet". Is that better, is it the "shut up" that is offensive? Surely not the fact that he's telling her what to do, is. Just thinking out loud here. I would say that is no way to handle a belligerent drunk. Moreover, though, it's way off the question of whether it's a man's societally-sanctioned perogative to talk that way to a woman, simple because he's a man and she's a woman - and whether it would be just as acceptable for her to speak the same way to him, under the same circumstances. Picture it: A man tells a woman to sit down and shut up, and she does it. Now picture this: A woman tells a man to sit down and shut up, and he does it. Do you respect the man, now? Has he been humiliated? Do you respect the woman, now? Has she been humiliated? Did the issue of respect or humiliation for the woman even occur to you, when you pictured that scenario? There you go. The very fact that a "pussy" is slang for a woman's genitals or a weak man...the bias is so entrenched, that if you want to find out if something is disrespectful, offensive, or insulting to a woman, you have to imagine doing it or saying it to a man, instead.
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