quote:

ORIGINAL: mnottertail

But you were ok with them removing Tar Babies, at the very least, no?

quote:

ORIGINAL: MercTech

I never did see why the mash-up of African folk tales with Cherokee folk tails that are the Br'er Rabbit stories got some people's knickers in a twist. Most of them were very much like Navajo Coyote tales. Using anthropomorphized animals in instructional tales is a tradition going back to Aesop. Maybe it was the Disney film that showed an elderly black man actually befriending white kids that was the real objection.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MercTech

I never did see why the mash-up of African folk tales with Cherokee folk tails that are the Br'er Rabbit stories got some people's knickers in a twist. Most of them were very much like Navajo Coyote tales. Using anthropomorphized animals in instructional tales is a tradition going back to Aesop. Maybe it was the Disney film that showed an elderly black man actually befriending white kids that was the real objection.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aylee

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

Perhaps they have a point, even if it is expressed a little haplessly.

In English we attribute gender to a cornucopia of things that are naturally genderless. For example countries, cars, colours, materials, even pipe fittings. I could go on but the list would be endless. And other languages (eg French Italian) are even worse offenders than English in this respect.

The odd thing is not that someone advertises genderless gingerbread but that someone attributed an exclusively masculine gender to gingerbread in the first place. Even stranger is the fact that we gender so many neutral things promiscuously and assume/insist that it is natural and accurate to do so, inspite of it being so obviously and self evidently not so.

This may be the correct link: http://pointlesslygenderedproducts.tumblr.com/


I do not think that gingerbread per se is ascribed a gender. Gingerbread cookie cut outs are ascribed a gender. There is a song/story about it. Gingerbread houses/tress/and so forth have no gender.

If you look at the link I posted, gender seems mostly handed out by color. Which is annoying. But here is a true story:

Several years ago a young man was bullied for wearing a pink shirt. I do not recall which country. There is NOW a Pink-Shirt Day Anti-Bullying campaign because of this.

I only know about this because the children brought home notes from school about it and I looked it up. And yes, they participated. I even sent the money in so that they could get the bracelets.

But yeah. . . we live in a world that pink = girl SO much that someone wearing one can create an issue that leads to a special day about it.

One more story about needless gendering:

When my daughter was a few weeks old I had her dressed in an adorable little sailor outfit (white with blue trim). SOOOO cute! I actually had a women tell me that I should not have her in that, I should have her in pink so that people would know she was a girl. My response was mostly diplomatic.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
Up to the Victorian era, the custom was that little boys were dressed in pink and little girls in blue. I am told this is still the custom in Belgium today.

It is interesting to note the complete reversal. It makes a mockery of those who insist our social gender attributions are 'natural', that our strange insistence that blue is for boys and pink for girls is somehow natural and not a human invention. What seems to be important is not the actual nature of the attribution but that an attribution is made, and that opposite values are assigned to the two conventional genders.

So this seemingly unimportant matter offers us a real insight into how we all construct and police gender, and then insist that the results of our efforts are somehow 'natural'.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NookieNotes
So, I am to either flirt with everyone, in the interest of being fair, or to flirt with no one, until they somehow become my significant other, and THEN I can completely change my behavior, because then they are now a sexual human being to me.

Got it.

No. That's a lie. I don't.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NookieNotes
Men and women have differences. Knowing those differences, and basing my behavior on them saves me (and others) a lot of time and effort over the long run. It is not sexist to go by your own experience in what works and what does not.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
Up to the Victorian era, the custom was that little boys were dressed in pink and little girls in blue. I am told this is still the custom in Belgium today.

It is interesting to note the complete reversal. It makes a mockery of those who insist our social gender attributions are 'natural', that our strange insistence that blue is for boys and pink for girls is somehow natural and not a human invention. What seems to be important is not the actual nature of the attribution but that an attribution is made, and that opposite values are assigned to the two conventional genders.

So this seemingly unimportant matter offers us a real insight into how we all construct and police gender, and then insist that the results of our efforts are somehow 'natural'.

quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

quote:

ORIGINAL: NookieNotes
So, I am to either flirt with everyone, in the interest of being fair, or to flirt with no one, until they somehow become my significant other, and THEN I can completely change my behavior, because then they are now a sexual human being to me.

Got it.

No. That's a lie. I don't.

Could you possibly forced dumber interpretation upon my words? I mean if you actually think that's what I'm saying.....

quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel
Of course, having different standards and different ways of treating one sex vs the other is unsurprisingly sexism.

quote:

quote:

ORIGINAL: NookieNotes
Men and women have differences. Knowing those differences, and basing my behavior on them saves me (and others) a lot of time and effort over the long run. It is not sexist to go by your own experience in what works and what does not.

Is this racist?

[̶q̶u̶o̶t̶e̶]̶O̶R̶I̶G̶I̶N̶A̶L̶:̶ ̶ ̶N̶o̶o̶k̶i̶e̶N̶o̶t̶e̶s̶
M̶e̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶o̶m̶e̶n̶ Blacks and whites have differences. Knowing those differences, and basing my behavior on them saves me (and others) a lot of time and effort over the long run. It is not sexist to go by your own experience in what works and what does not.
[̶/̶q̶u̶o̶t̶e̶]̶

quote:

ORIGINAL: MercTech

Hmm, interesting bend of the topic

What is one person's Archetype is another person's Stereotype.
The failure point is considering either as universal for a whole group.

quote:

What is one person's Archetype is another person's Stereotype.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MercTech

Defining cultural memes exist. But, often when you comment on them, you get labeled with some emotional epithet. Is it racist to dislike the popularization of "thug life"?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Thug+Life
http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/thug-life

I've always thought the meme for "redneck" was "proud of being ignorant".

quote:

ORIGINAL: NookieNotes
Depends on WHY you dislike it. Is it because of a sense of superiority over blacks/hispanics/those that participate in "Thug Life"? Or because you don't like what it represents to ANY race?

And there are those in the cuckolding lifestyle who actively look for "thugs" in their bulls... is that racist? Could be. Can't know with out the why.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NookieNotes
And to be clear, I will go on my experiences as a base point for interacting with people, then adapt to the individual.

I do not believe ALL men, women, blacks, white, Jews, Christians or any type of person are all the same. I do believe that groups of people, by sex, race, religion, and etc. can be guessed at as a starting place, based on experience, and customized/personalized from there.

quote:

ORIGINAL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice
Prejudice is prejudgment, or forming an opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case. The word is often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavorable, judgments toward people or a person because of gender, political opinion, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language, nationality, or other personal characteristics. In this case, it refers to a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on their perceived group membership.[1] Prejudice can also refer to unfounded beliefs[2] and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence".[3] Gordon Allport defined prejudice as a "feeling, favorable or unfavorable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or not based on, actual experience".[4]

quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

quote:

ORIGINAL: NookieNotes
And to be clear, I will go on my experiences as a base point for interacting with people, then adapt to the individual.

I do not believe ALL men, women, blacks, white, Jews, Christians or any type of person are all the same. I do believe that groups of people, by sex, race, religion, and etc. can be guessed at as a starting place, based on experience, and customized/personalized from there.

quote:

ORIGINAL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice
Prejudice is prejudgment, or forming an opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case. The word is often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavorable, judgments toward people or a person because of gender, political opinion, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language, nationality, or other personal characteristics. In this case, it refers to a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on their perceived group membership.[1] Prejudice can also refer to unfounded beliefs[2] and may include "any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence".[3] Gordon Allport defined prejudice as a "feeling, favorable or unfavorable, toward a person or thing, prior to, or not based on, actual experience".[4]

quote:

ORIGINAL: sexyred1

Benevolent sexism is an oxymoron.