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Kaon wrote on 2014-11-03 23:17
Quote from SlurpTASTY;1253061:
Hold up, what? I've never once been taught that it's my right to start harassing woman, I think many of the guys on this forum (or pretty much anywhere) can also agree. Are you not a male who also disagrees with the behavior of men harassing women? I'm not against what you're saying just because my viewpoint is different.
Also you seem to miss the point completely (I'm not even talking about being raped because that will happen regardless of what you're wearing), I never disagreed about people not having to be worried about their safety based on their clothing. I'm merely stating that in a perfect world girls would not be harassed by people based on their clothing, but this isn't a perfect world and unfortunately you have to live with it or adapt. All the things I stated in my previous post are things nobody (reasonably) should have to be worried about, but billions of dollars are put into car/house insurance and alarms. There are certain precautions people have to take to avoid certain situations.
It's not, in a purely literal sense, something taught, like from an official standpoint, but an underlying aspect of things society encourages. We live in a patriarchal society, that's a fact. As a quick example.. in lots of stories, the guy 'gets the girl'.. the wording itself is an implication of belonging. The guy was rewarded for his efforts and actions with a woman. Simple little things like this are all over society, and have been for a long time, showing as men above women, women as objects for sex or reproduction. This is how society teaches men.
And, like I was saying, I think clothing is entirely beside the point at hand. And it gets brought up all the time in regards to this issue, exactly the way you mentioned it. If we can agree that rape happens regardless, then why is it relevant? I'm not talking about women being careful, I'm talking about issues in society that people need to make an impact on.
As an aside, gender icon is that way <--
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Space Pirate Nithiel wrote on 2014-11-03 23:20
This is getting way too tumblr-y for me.
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Kaon wrote on 2014-11-03 23:30
Quote from Space Pirate Nithiel;1253066:
This is getting way too tumblr-y for me.
Well, we wouldn't want anyone to be uncomfortable now, would we?
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SlurpTASTY wrote on 2014-11-03 23:33
Quote from Kaon;1253064:
It's not, in a purely literal sense, something taught, like from an official standpoint, but an underlying aspect of things society encourages. We live in a patriarchal society, that's a fact. As a quick example.. in lots of stories, the guy 'gets the girl'.. the wording itself is an implication of belonging. The guy was rewarded for his efforts and actions with a woman. Simple little things like this are all over society, and have been for a long time, showing as men above women, women as objects for sex or reproduction. This is how society teaches men.
And, like I was saying, I think clothing is entirely beside the point at hand. And it gets brought up all the time in regards to this issue, exactly the way you mentioned it. If we can agree that rape happens regardless, then why is it relevant? I'm not talking about women being careful, I'm talking about issues in society that people need to make an impact on.
As an aside, gender icon is that way <--
I brought it up because being raped and being catcalled are two completely different things, and as I said in my previous post I am strictly talking about being harassed on the street. Just because someone won't rape a girl because of how she's dressed (although I'm sure it's happened before) doesn't mean they wouldn't catcall them.
Also I knew exactly what you meant, but I don't agree with it. I've seen lots of movies from Aladdin to American Pie to Scott Pilgrim to whatever the fuck where the main motif is "getting the girl" and never once has it been embedded in my mind that girls are my property or that I have a right to fuck them. Not to mention in those movies they break their fucking backs and do a bunch of crazy shit to get the girl so I'm not even sure how any man with half a brain would conclude that they have a right to get girls from stuff like that.
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Kaon wrote on 2014-11-03 23:39
Quote from SlurpTASTY;1253061:
I think Kyishi illustrated the point perfectly in another thread:
Why does the fact have any relevance otherwise than to reduce the importance of the action itself?
'This girl was raped'
'She was wearing slutty clothes!'
..why does that 'fact' matter? What does it accomplish?
It shifts focus to the victim, as opposed to the person who committed the crime. That's the only thing it does. Hence 'victim blaming'.
Quote from SlurpTASTY;1253072:
I brought it up because being raped and being catcalled are two completely different things, and as I said in my previous post I am strictly talking about being harassed on the street. Just because someone won't rape a girl because of how she's dressed (although I'm sure it's happened before) doesn't mean they wouldn't catcall them.
Also I knew exactly what you meant, but I don't agree with it. I've seen lots of movies from Aladdin to American Pie to Scott Pilgrim to whatever the fuck where the main motif is "getting the girl" and never once has it been embedded in my mind that girls are my property or that I have a right to fuck them. Not to mention in those movies they break their fucking backs and do a bunch of crazy shit to get the girl so I'm not even sure how any man with half a brain would conclude that they have a right to get girls from stuff like that.
There's so many other examples of it tho. And it's not limited to just women, the ideas of masculinity and what men are judged on are stupid too. I just picked 'getting the girl' as an easy example.. individually you can pick apart each one, but the fact that there are countless examples.. just adds to the point.
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Campylobacter jejuni wrote on 2014-11-03 23:56
Sorry Kaon, but that is some serious ivory tower shit right there. The fact taht asses behave like asses has nothing to do with them watching Aladdin as kids. In the age when they watched Aladdin they were too fucking dumb to concentrate on the movie as having a plot and especially on its finer details that are only revealed when you think about it really hard, like the towers of the castle in Arielle accidentally vaguely resembling a dick or the whole "women are the ones being gotten" thing.
And even so, jumping from "you are the one to show initiative" to "you are entitled to her and she's just a fuckthing" is something only someone with a severe disassociation could do, i.e. the minority of men. This sort of behaviour is not encouraged in movies or books or anywhere, basta.
I would rather speculate (and that's all it is) that these stories are made because it is ingrained within us that this is how it works, and no tthe other way around. Sexual dimorphism is the rule in the animmal kingdom, and that includes us. Just because we sometimes can overcome our primitive instincts doesn't mean everything we do is controlled by culture, albeit probably all of it can be influenced by it. We should be proud of how far we have come despite natural tendencies and a very heavy patriarchal iron cage built around our cultural habits in the past (more related to extraneous and expllicit epatriarchal efforts during the age of enlightenment rather than consuming popular cultural artifiacts).
Men think they are the ones to make an effort in every society, no matter how it handles the exact manners in which to do it (something like the more extreme cases here is probably looked down upon everywhere, except maybe in Italy where they are proud of filth like Berlusconi). You can't just boil it down to and single out popular cultural artifacts produced and widely consumed in only a fraction of the societies of the world in only a fraction of the time humanity has existed and spread its arms all across the globe.
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Kaon wrote on 2014-11-04 00:01
Quote from Campylobacter jejuni;1253077:
Sorry Kaon, but that is some serious ivory tower shit right there. The fact taht asses behave like asses has nothing to do with them watching Aladdin as kids. In the age when they watched Aladdin they were too fucking dumb to concentrate on the movie as having a plot and especially on its finer details that are only revealed when you think about it really hard, like the towers of the castle in Arielle accidentally vaguely resembling a dick or the whole "women are the ones being gotten" thing.
And even so, jumping from "you are the one to show initiative" to "you are entitled to her and she's just a fuckthing" is something only someone with a severe disassociation could do, i.e. the minority of men. This sort of behaviour is not encouraged, basta.
I would rather speculate (and that's all it is) that these stories are made because it is ingrained within us that this is how it works. Severe sexual dimorphism is the rule in great apes. Just because we sometimes can overcome our primitive instincts doesn't mean everything we do is controlled by culture, albeit probably all of it can be influenced by it. We should be proud of how far we have come despite natural tendencies and a very heavy patriarchal iron cage built around our cultural habits in the past.
Men think they are the ones to make an effort in every society, no matter how it handles the exact manners in which to do it (something like the more extreme cases here is probably looked down upon everywhere, except maybe in Italy where they are proud of filth like Berlusconi). You can't just boil it down to and single out popular cultural artifacts produced and widely consumed in only a fraction of the societies of the world in only a fraction of the time humanity has existed and spread its arms all across the globe.
I suppose I should be more careful with what I say without citing something specific.. because yeah I can see where what I said seems pretty extreme, especially based on things like 'Aladdin'. I apologize for that. Stepping back from that, I still stand by all my other points.
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Campylobacter jejuni wrote on 2014-11-04 00:08
Well we're still not encouraged to rape or cattalk women by consuming popular cultural artifacts. You really overestimate the energy we put into carefully interpreting the media we consume casually. No one outside of gender study students, amateur or professional, feels there is any connection.
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Kyishi wrote on 2014-11-04 00:21
i knew i wouldn't regret making this thread.
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Kaon wrote on 2014-11-04 00:39
Quote from Campylobacter jejuni;1253079:
Well we're still not encouraged to rape or cattalk women by consuming popular cultural artifacts. You really overestimate the energy we put into carefully interpreting the media we consume casually. No one outside of gender study students, amateur or professional, feels there is any connection.
It is a fact tho that media consumed has an effect, whether conscious effort is put into it's interpretation or not. Racism as a whole, for example, is based on it.
Also, just because the average person doesn't draw a connection between one thing or another, doesn't mean it's not there.
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Campylobacter jejuni wrote on 2014-11-04 00:49
If the person doesn't draw the connection, then it's not there for them. That's the point. Drawing a line from "take initiative" to "be an asshole" is like drawing lines from star to star. They're only there for you, the connection is inherently imaginary. And I think even though a disturbing ammount of people do draw lines between stars and say it affects them*, only few people will draw the line from "take initiative" to "be an asshole". At least personally I haven't met one who would openly declare he does, which means it either doesn't happen often, is discouraged, or both. The active discouragement of disrespectful acts towards women is also a factor in a man's behaviour. You can't cut it out. You're at risk of losing everything if you're even jsut accused of rape. That's not encouragement by society in my book.
And someone has to take initiative anyway, so the general mindset has to be appreciated and "taught", whether sex-specific or not is irrelevant. Imagine a society where no one takes initiative, everyone huddled in a metaphorical cocoon like bloody otakos. Even if it would reduce sexual assault incidence in all its forms by 50% or more by reducing the absolute number of people who take it a step too far, it wouldn't be worth the social costs.
If we want to reduce sexual pressure on females or generally sexual assault victims (boys are a big group too), we're going to have to find other ways if we don't want to cut our own flesh in the long run.
I find the claim doubtful that racism is completely based on the consumption of cultural artifacts.
[SIZE="1"]*Talking about astrology if it wasn't clear enough.[/SIZE]
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Kaon wrote on 2014-11-04 01:03
Just because a conscious connection isn't there, doesn't mean a subconscious one isn't. But, either way, there are thing that definitely can cause either in a significant way (the easy access of pornography in our current culture, for one example)
On the point of initiative tho, I do feel culturally, that idea is shifting. The idea that men should take the initiative in a relationship is still a commonplace thing, but the idea that women can to is becoming a much more accepted thing.. which is especially important because the idea that homosexual relationships need to be defined by the standard gender binary roles of the heterosexual relationship is something that is going away with it.
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Campylobacter jejuni wrote on 2014-11-04 01:16
Yeah but that's kinda vague, loaded with presumptions and thus not a convincing argument that a subconscious connection is there or even widespread... I'd guess the data supporting that argument is piss-poor if any real data even exists.
You don't mean to say that pornography consumption increases sexual assault prevalence? If that was true it would've positively skyrocketed during the last two decades. On the contrary, if RAINN got their statistics right, in just that time the incidence rate has apparently almost halved! I'm pretty sure there's a causation between the sudden extreme proliferation of easy access to pornographic material (free porn on the internet) and the sudden extreme reduction in sexual assault prevalence.
A snippet of anecdotal evidence was here but I deleted it when i realised it was Rua's House amterial.
I'm fine with women taking more initiative though. I suspect this would in reverse affect the sexual assault rates on men though, I think it would at best be a zero sum game, so I'm not too passionate about it.
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Osayidan wrote on 2014-11-04 01:31
Quote from Kaon;1253074:
Why does the fact have any relevance otherwise than to reduce the importance of the action itself?
'This girl was raped'
'She was wearing slutty clothes!'
..why does that 'fact' matter? What does it accomplish?
It shifts focus to the victim, as opposed to the person who committed the crime. That's the only thing it does. Hence 'victim blaming'.
I don't think people here are trying to victim blame (I vaguely remember there being a thread on this...).
The point is that regardless of how things
should be (i.e: everyone wears whatever they want and everybody lives safe and happy in a field of flowers), it's unfortunately not how things actually are. I'm pretty sure every decent person on the planet can agree that it's not a person's fault they get raped or whatever else, but that doesn't change the fact that it is true that there are asshole human beings for who the way a person is dressed can be a trigger for rape.
I don't see how seeing that reality for what it is can be considered victim blaming, if anything it's shaming the criminal for having so little self control that a particular article of clothing (or lack thereof) caused them to force themselves onto the victim.
It's no different than telling your kid not to walk alone in a dark alley on their way home. If your kid gets mugged after disregarding your advice are you going to blame them and make them feel bad about it? No.
I'd like if I could safely walk down a dark alley that reduces my travel time by 5 minutes without getting mugged, but I don't. I have the right to walk down that alley, but it doesn't mean it's safe. (fake example since there isn't a dark alley near where I live).
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Campylobacter jejuni wrote on 2014-11-04 01:34
While the term doesn't make perfect sense applied here, Kaon has explained she criticises the behaviour because of the shifting of the focus onto the victim, which would make the debaters lose view of the greatest problem, which is how the perpetrator got motivated to think sexual assault is an appropriate response in the first place.
While it's true that these things need to be mentioned if we want to take an effective and thus necessarily holistic approach to reducing sexual assault prevalence, it can and does often turn into the sole point of the debatte - this was also the case in the other thread. This then is not helpful by neglecting other factors which do need consideration, and probably even more so than the choice of clothing. I don't know if that was her exact point, but if it wasn't it still should be considered anyway.