Your ornamental function must be your important asset — never mind those degrees and skills and various non-superficial attributes. I can imagine how Sheril must feel, but have never experienced it myself. Strangely, I’ve never met a distinguished stranger and had them compliment my looks or ask after my marriage status.
It’s the Western complement to the burka: women aren’t hidden away overtly, but instead every one is seen as if they’re wearing a beauty queen/cheerleader costume.
It must be HORRID to have men tripping over themselves to talk to you, give you compliments, ask if you need assistance, and offer to buy you things. So irritating. It’s like when those mean photographers bother famous celebrities. If I were a filthy-rich rock-star (or your average attractive woman) I certainly would be irritated to have people constantly fawning over me and adoring me.
Errr…:
Certainly looks as if you are trying to create such a straw-man argument.
“Certainly looks as if you are trying to create such a straw-man argument.”
How is it a straw man? It’s a fact that women get raped in large numbers (1 in 4). It’s a fact that women get harassed in public on a regular basis. It’s a fact that there’s a power dynamic between the genders.
You’re unwilling to admit that your gestures make women uncomfortable and that means you fail at basic empathy.
“It must be HORRID to have men tripping over themselves to talk to you, give you compliments, ask if you need assistance, and offer to buy you things. So irritating.”
Certainly creeps me out when people do it to me.
Yeah, much worse that people averting their eyes, and distancing themselves from you, and actively avoiding any interaction with you to the point of pretending you don’t even exist.
I never realised I was so lucky!
I suspect you’re still overgeneralizing (that, or I profoundly object.)
Counterexample: babies. Another counterexample: children at play. (Yeah, Aqualung. Get serious.)
My own personal counterexample: the late Bettie Page. Offhand, I couldn’t tell you what kind of figure she had in all of those photos — I only remember the smile. Damn, what a smile! There was someone who was having fun with being alive and it just glowed out of her. You’d have to be made of stone, male or female, straight or gay, to not feel some empathic happiness just looking at that smile.
So, since all of this started with a face shot of Sheril: sorry, not quite in Bettie’s league but a very nice smile anyway — I’m glad she’s enjoying life, and seeing that photo lifts my spirits a bit too. It’s good being human and it’s good being able to share a bit of the good parts of being human.
Thus endeth today’s lesson.
AnthonyK:
“I guess I must be a misongynist then.If you say so. No point in arguing, is there?”
AnthonyK, one paragraph later:
“You are a lying twat.”
LOL denial FAIL.
“Yeah, much worse that people averting their eyes, and distancing themselves from you, and actively avoiding any interaction with you to the point of pretending you don’t even exist.”
A suggestion? Maybe if you didn’t leer at them they wouldn’t react that way?
It must be HORRID to have men tripping over themselves to talk to you, give you compliments, ask if you need assistance, and offer to buy you things. So irritating.
Iseewhatyoudidthar.
Seriously, it is irritating. I am not by any means a supermodel, but when I worked at an office I walked to and from the bus every day, and I’d get catcalls and crap ALL THE TIME. It’s not about admiring women. It’s about demeaning them. It reminds us, every day, that our bodies are supposed to exist for the viewing pleasure of others. Don’t even get me started about asking if we need help. I appreciate assistance when I need it, but it always makes me wonder–would he have helped me if I were a man? What if I weighed 500lbs?
Who watches stranger’s babies and kids purely for the physical pleasure it gives them? I mean, besides priests.
Fuck you and your assumptions.
“Fuck you and your assumptions.”
I’m sorry, you were so busy defending the practice, I thought you must engage in in on a regular basis. It’s not that big a logical leap.
Why do you people feel it’s necessary to be able to tell a woman you think she’s attractive? Why is your opinion so important to share?
Just because it needed to be said again.
Who said I denied it? If I am a mysogenist, especially if Pete Rooke says so, so what? I’ll be the good sort of mysogenist then, the sort who actually values all genders and types of people as equal and somehow worthwhile. Except religious lying religious apologists. They can go fuck themselves.
AnthonyK doesn’t get it, Carlie. :D
It must be HORRID to have men tripping over themselves to talk to you, give you compliments, ask if you need assistance, and offer to buy you things. So irritating.
Well, yeah. Especially when you don’t know what he expects from you in return for his attention. Especially when you know how quickly “Hey there pretty lady” can turn into “Hey, I’m talking to you, bitch” can turn into following you home. Especially when it happens constantly. Especially when you’re 14 years old and he’s in his 30s. Especially when you’re alone and he’s got a gang of friends with him.
Can people please stop being defensive long enough to hear what we’re trying to tell you?
“AnthonyK doesn’t get it, Carlie. :D”
Gotta love life’s little ironies.
On a different note, I’m curious as to this:
“As an introvert, I wish it were socially acceptable to wear a light or button which said, “Not interested in social discourse right now.” I’d just as soon not have to deal with the chat of store clerks either.”
I thought there were things to do that indicated you don’t want to talk to people, like reading, or listening to Ipods… How effective are those at reducing interaction?
dveej, my main point isn’t that looking at someone with sexual desire is wrong, but to blatantly show it is, unless you’re in a setting where this sort of thing is a good thing. People do need to be able to take some weirdness, but the same way that is the responsibility of people being viewed, the (and no, I am not claiming someone can’t both look at others and be looked at) viewers have the responsibility of not doing this too blatantly and disruptively. Looking isn’t as bad as random commenting, too.
Seconding
though I’d like to modify it to gender neutral. I’ve seen it be done by too many women as well. I was at a dinner party with a lot of drunken women once, and when the poor (not bad looking) male caterers/servers walked in with more food they got catcalled and a lot of inappropriate comments as well as some fondling. It was fucking terrifying and disturbing. I would have felt as nauseous no matter if it had been men behaving that horribly inappropriate or women. That group of women had even complained at another meeting about how they were objectified, so the blatant hypocrisy was truly disturbing. They were otherwise interesting and fun company. That event took a big chunk out of my trust for my fellow human beings, which wasn’t that great to begin with because of my childhood. I just wish I had spoken up, but I was a bit drunk being shocked beyond belief at the time, and the party ended shortly after that (the dessert was being served when the by then those intoxicated women behaved that badly).
Can people please stop being defensive long enough to hear what we’re trying to tell you?
Exactly. Over 500 comments, and it can basically be boiled down to:
“I like telling women they’re pretty.”
“They generally don’t like that.”
“Um…so?”
Yeah, what are you implying? Who told you?
Bastards. *sulk*
Sorry, I’m not into dualism [1]. Pleasure is pleasure, it’s all biological. Even if you presume dualism, I defy you to tell the difference between someone who’s smiling for “physical pleasure” from someone who’s smiling from “spiritual pleasure.”
[1] Especially, fer FSM’s sake, on PZ’s blog.
Umm, I don’t watch other people’s kids for any type of pleasure, physical or otherwise.
I should add, that those waiters were clearly extremely disturbed with and unhappy about the situation, in spite of being mostly if not all straight males (I know this because they were at the same uni edu program as what I was, some the same class).
“Exactly. Over 500 comments, and it can basically be boiled down to:
“I like telling women they’re pretty.”
“They generally don’t like that.”
“Um…so?””
LOL I’d like to add a few lines…
“So stop doing it!”
“But I like telling women they’re pretty.”
Repeat ad nauseum
@Carlie #520,
I would disagree just a bit. I think that some here are finding this enlightening. And I also think your earlier observations on obesity were quite intelligent and informative.
Not all of us here are quite as stubborn as you imply, though I see there are some that are.
CatBallou@379: A very good point. But it doesn’t matter so much what is ‘learned’, the instinct is there to learn it, you see? It is very true that it is almost entirely culturally dependent what constitutes a sexual display. Making it more, not less, true that miniskirts are en mass sexual displays, as gender-specific clothing. Even more of a sexual display then nudity, which can, as you point out, be gender neutral.
If anyones getting the notion, btw, that I think how genders display or react to displays is immutable or unvarying in humans, let me dissuade you. I’m not trying to say anything controversial when I point out that it is the women who are both wearing makeup heels and miniskirts, and wondering why men react to it. I’m not saying that any reaction is thereby blameless. I am saying it is context-dependent as to how normative it is.
SuzieGirl@380: What is ‘the other way around’? You don’t see people talking about how most men routinely overcome their instincts or don’t make inappropriate comments? Yes, interesting, that. Or did you mean you don’t see much castigating them for having those instincts instead of explanation about how they have those instincts? Well, that’s just the discussion we’re having, I think, not evidence of patriarchy.
Amanduh@398: Point taken. And I’m seeing a theme. Odd-looking people, fat people, women…, everyone gets to resent being part of how humans are often judgmental, callous, and ignorant. Not to mention boorish. And only white men do this, and we know that because they’re still mostly in charge. Bastards. I mean, the word “boorish” itself just means “white male”, doesn’t it?
Be advised all that I’m a much stronger feminist than you could possibly imagine based on my comments here. But I am also involuntarily drawn to contrary positions. Also, I’m a white male who is a worst-case scenario for successful mating behavior, so I’ve got my own issues I’m dealing with. ;-)
No, not in today’s world. But interestingly, when Gerald Durrell set up his zoo in Jersey, he deliberately built the children’s playground next to the gorilla enclosure. Why? Because the gorillas loved to watch the little children play. I thought this was both clever and sweet.
DC, I get the feeling you are being deliberately difficult. Objectification is looking at another adult and admiring them purely for the pleasure it gives you–usually sexual. Is that clear enough? It doesn’t apply to animals, or children, or actual objects. Usually when someone sees a playing child, their hearts are lightened by how happy the child is, and they may even reminisce about their own childhood. There is a difference between that and staring at a woman’s hips because they attract you sexually.
“I would disagree just a bit. I think that some here are finding this enlightening. And I also think your earlier observations on obesity were quite intelligent and informative.”
Rational dissent and inquisitiveness is appreciated and encouraged! :)
No, not in today’s world. But interestingly, when Gerald Durrell set up his zoo in Jersey, he deliberately built the children’s playground next to the gorilla enclosure. Why? Because the gorillas loved to watch the little children play. I thought this was both clever and sweet.
I have news for you, Justin. There are men out there so stupid, so sure that their need for power or sex over-rides all other considerations that no amount of reading, no amount of iPods – one plugged into every orifice – would stop them.
I remember one particular case. I was running a job club and one of the clients was a woman who designed IT security systems for the financial sector. She had been very successful but because she was also dyslexic producing written material to support her job application was hard work.
Along comes Mr Prick-on-Wheels. He decides to chat her up and she gives all the negative signals anyone has ever imagined. Then she told him in words of one syllable to get lost. Next day, same scenario and so forth for a couple of weeks during which I told him just what she had been telling him but with no attempt at allowing for his sensitivities. It was clear he had none.
After two weeks I threw him out of the club and as my body was propelling him through the door he was whining, “but I was only being nice to her, it’s not fair.”
Most women could tell you a similar tale but, remember, it is not down to us whether you guys ever grow up. You have to take responsibility for that yourselves. Many here have done so – the others are hereby prescribed some of SC’s patent deep introspection.
“Most women could tell you a similar tale but, remember, it is not down to us whether you guys ever grow up. You have to take responsibility for that yourselves. Many here have done so – the others are hereby prescribed some of SC’s patent deep introspection.”
You’ll find no disagreement from me there, I was just curious as to how effective those techniques were in reducing unwanted attention. Of course the onus is on the guys to stop acting like jackasses.
At about comment #236, I gave up and skipped to the end so forgive me if this has changed between that post and now, but while it’s difficult to tell through aliases what sex a person is, it seems to me the only people who aren’t seeing the problem here are men. To those men – if all the women in these comments are telling you there’s a problem, could it be that, I don’t know, there may be a problem?
And no, the problem isn’t who you personally are attracted to (Kel in particular seems to keep coming back to this).
Look, you’re attracted to who you are attracted to. That’s fine. The problem here isn’t that, it’s about appropriateness of comments in context. IN CONTEXT.
If I’m buying a new outfit and you tell me I look great it in, wonderful! If I’m meeting you for the first time as a colleague or a peer at a conference, the first thing out of your mouth shouldn’t be how great I look (if we’re old friends, that’s different, and I can’t help if people can’t see how obvious this is).
Look at it this way – if you were to meet, say, PZ Myers or Richard Dawkins, assuming you don’t get all fan-ish over them, how would you greet them? No matter how attractive you find a woman, greet her the same way!
Here’s the thing, don’t greet the person as a man or a woman but as a fellow human being.
Equality – it’s not such a tough concept.
Pete Rooke wrote:
Oh Pete. This is why I didn’t vote for you in Survivor. You have earned the scorn heaped upon you and so many of your posts hurt your cause so much that we need to keep you around as an example.
Kel wrote:
Eagle Forum is run by Phyllis Schlafly and it’s usually the mothers who take their daughters in to have their genitals mutilated. Women buying into the patriarchy isn’t news, just as any traditionally oppressed group having members who try to buy into the oppression isn’t news. Using it as an example that it’s all okee-dokee just doesn’t work, and I’ve seen guys use examples like this to put equal blame on women for misogyny.
Oddly enough, it’s very rare these days to see people use, for an old example, Amos’n’Andy as a example that blacks are equally responsible for racism, or that African-American stereotypes are hunky-dory.
It’s no surprise how blind people are to misogyny. One only needs to look back at the recent presidential election you all had. No matter what you think of Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin (and I disagree with particularly Palin on soooooo many issues), they were attacked as much for being women as they were for their platforms. Unless there’s nothing misogynistic about Hillary nutcrackers, Citizens United Not Timid, or “Barbie” Sarah.
Misogyny is alive and well, and sorry if it bothers anyone that it’s wrong to tell the pretty ladies how beautiful they are when the context is inappropriate.
Also sorry if this is disjointed and way outdated by the time I hit Post. I’m at work and it’s been so crazy here that it’s taken me a good hour or more just to write this.
Peewee Rooke wrote:
Wow! In one master-stroke of a sentence, Rooke incinerates every shred of goodwill he may have accrued to day. Nice work, Pete. Now I remember why I always held you in such low regard. You’re a mean-spirited fool whose capacity for compassion and willingness to learn are non-existent.
I think one of the problems is that most men are not regularly subjected to unwanted sexual attention, ever. Consequently, they can’t see how horrible it is. Add to that (sexist again!)a man’s lesser empathy and the vastly greater importance he places on the turgidity of his member, and you have a recipe for just the kind of behaviour women complain about. I don’t think it’s primarily a male thing, but more a my-dick-is-more-important-than-your-dignity kind of thing.
Muzz@435:
This well illustrated by Amanduh@425:
Amanduh may have the right to be offended when a stranger compliments her looks, but she doesn’t really have a reason. It is true that most of our social interactions are, well, social interactions, not uncontrolled instinctive responses. So it makes some sense that women, finding that the danger of a loss of dignity in any particular interaction is entirely theirs, complain. But Amanduh’s problem with what happens to her internal dialog when a stranger compliments her is, really, a problem for her.
There is some validity to the right wings complaints about overly “touchy feely” approaches to social ills. I don’t think you’re going to be lowering the number of rapes that happen by ensuring men are too scared to compliment a woman in public.
DJ – thanks. That’s the reason a lot of people keep posting over and over on these threads; not necessarily with hope that the belligerent will stop and think, but that maybe someone reading will either take something to heart, or bring up another angle we haven’t thought about and challenge our assumptions too. I find the creationist-bashing threads very instructional in that regard, too.
Umm, I don’t watch other people’s kids for any type of pleasure, physical or otherwise.
I do. I love watching kids – I’m definitely a kid person. But I don’t go up to children and start talking to them, and I don’t flat-out stare at them. We all know that’s a Very Bad thing to do. It’s an interesting parallel to the current discussion.
“Amanduh may have the right to be offended when a stranger compliments her looks, but she doesn’t really have a reason.”
According to whom? You? Congratulations, you just performed “Amanduh’s a woman, wtf does she know?” manoeuvre. You must be so proud.
“There is some validity to the right wings complaints about overly “touchy feely” approaches to social ills.”
As opposed to the right winger approach of “fuck you I do what I want!”? Seriously?
“I don’t think you’re going to be lowering the number of rapes that happen by ensuring men are too scared to compliment a woman in public.”
Way to miss the point. The point is not to make men “afraid” of complimenting women, but to make them see that they’re being jackasses when they feel as if everyone is entitled to their (the man’s) opinion.
You don’t need to compliment someone in public, and if they feel offended by it, that’s their right and you should respect that. End of story.
One other thing that I think women have going for them is that (obviously based on fact) they are not implicated in pedophilia. This makes it much easier for them to get jobs in childcare, or rather, that men find it more difficult, and more suspicion is directed their way. It almost seems as if any man who likes kids and wants to work with them must have a sexual reason for it.
However – disclosure, I’m a teacher – in reality the situation isn’t quite that bad, it’s just that the shortage of men in teaching – particularly primary teaching – has that as a partial influence on it. The sexualisation of childhood is one of the most horrible things that pedophiles have done to the rest of us.
@ tmaxPA #537,
I’m not sure I understand what you are saying…
Are you saying that a female doesn’t have reason to be offended by random complements? I would argue that there is ample evidence to suggest otherwise, incidence of rape, stalking, harassment, sexual or otherwise. There is plenty of data out there to put anyone on edge when being confronted by strangers.
I’m still interested in determining the best way to communicate with strangers in settings such as the bus or subway. Obviously standard conversation starters that you would use with anyone apply… but is it disingenuous to do that when you are trying to determine personality and intellect for the purposes of mate choice?
I know, totally OT, social interaction is just interesting to me. I interface with strangers all day at my part time job.
I’m still interested in determining the best way to communicate with strangers in settings such as the bus or subway
Well, last Friday I used the BSO concert we had just been at–the Prokofiev and Shostakovich were AMAZING!
(I’m still kicking myself for not getting a phone number)
dveej wrote:
Just out of curiosity, how many of these straight men you’re checking up do you go up to and compliment on their looks? At a business setting, how often are you introduced to a man and the first thing you to is tell him how attractive he is?
Or is doing such a thing inappropriate or even possibly dangerous?
As a woman who walks to the bus stop and back every day I get cat calls all the time, but I don’t feel demeaned or lessened by these events, as I don’t take mental illness personally. No one who does things like that is really a viable human making a pass at you, they’re just crazy people shooting off at the mouth. Its not very balanced I think to derive meaning about your life from such people.
441/442: I don’t have a reference, but IIRC, the actual statistic was that men, on average , think about sex one out of every six minutes. Meaning that the average male thinks about sex a total of three hours out of the day.
And, yes, human males think about sex A LOT. Human females do, too, but what they think about sex is a lot different from males.
Two things to bear in mind: we don’t know what the researchers considered ‘sex’; is thinking about hugging thinking about sex? And also too, ‘male’ and ‘female’ aren’t really the exclusive categories we tend to assume they are. For ANY arbitrary collection of gender-significant characteristics, a statistically significant number of the opposite gender (in all other regards) will have that characteristic. This goes for everything from the Y chromosome to wanting to wear high heels.
Additionally, I’d like to say to Amanduh that for the vast majority of us who have never in all of our lives had a stranger give us a compliment on our appearance, and perhaps for some who have, the experience needn’t be as trying as you make it sound.
I can’t tell you how it roiled my emotions when my (well kept but not in my mind attractive) aunt told me how nice my ass looked in my dress blues. Not all of it bad. But that’s extra icky, of course, because she’s my aunt. Now, you might say I’d be a better person if it didn’t matter whether she was attractive. I’d dispute your notion of what precisely a ‘person’ was, and whether the issue isn’t whether it matters, but whether or not I admit it matters (or claim it matters.)
Having opened up that can of worms, I’m wondering if this thread is really going to suck up the entire weekend.
I’ll check back later. ;-)
#218 Quidam, they’re two different women. The woman referred to in the current discussion is Sheril Kirshenbaum, the woman in the video at the blog for which you provide a link is named Amber Culbertson-Faegre.
Oops! I messed up the close quote in my last post, and to the best of my knowledge I’ve never been a gay man. My comment starts at “Just out of curiosity…”
Oh boy! 500+ posts of generalizations. Whee!
I must be some sort of mutation. I don’t give a gnat’s fart about all this crap, and yet I manage to treat people well. And this is in spite of me being a black hearted misanthrope who laughs with glee at the current economic disaster.
This is all part of the usual overreaction people have to things that bother them in our pampered Western lives. If someone acts boorish, ignore them. Ganging up on them won’t change anything.
Yeah, I know I’ll also be ignored because I refuse to accept the holy writs of hand wringing. That’s the price of being in the vanguard.
No, I’m deliberately pointing out that human society is difficult. Pretending that you can boil down the chaotic consequences of mammalian evolution, adaptation to an artificial environment radically different from that our ancestors evolved in, self-awareness, etc. etc. — to boil that all down to black and white generalizations is no more reasonable than pretending that you can boil it all down to a few words on stone tablets.
That’s sad. Seriously.
I can’t speak for you, but I like looking at people: old, young, male, female, fat, skinny, tall, short — they’re human. John Donne and all that — I look at them and feel connected. Hang out at the park some spring day and watch people tossing a Frisbee around — it’s fun to watch because they’re having fun doing it and we’re social animals who get reward from identifying with members of the troop (or pack, or …)
I truly do not want to live in a world where it’s socially unacceptable to visually participate in being human.
And you think that seeing an old man enjoying a game of chess in the sun can’t give us the same innocent pleasure? That’s sad.
Whether you believe it or not, it’s not always about sex — or at least, not any more than other things are. Evolutionary reductionism isn’t a very useful model for social ethics.
I have not read the whole thread yet but Imust say I am thinking of how this one has a similarity to the other one concerning atheism, academia and IQ. That there are many different characteristics that you can use to differentiated people they all seem to overlap each other.
Even if you are “perfectly well adjusted” does not mean that anyone else is. Nor does it preclude you from having a hidden agenda even one you are not consciously aware of. I myself have to watch out for my own reflexive responses as I would assume do the others I encounter and I try not to take it personally. Does this mean that we should not engage in this kind of discussion? Absolutely not! How are we ever going to learn anything with out asking questions especially of ourselves?
sex in the west does seem to be problematic I would assume it is similarly a problem elsewhere also. Does that not seem amazing that something that is that important could be at the same time so disruptive?
“Yeah, I know I’ll also be ignored because I refuse to accept the holy writs of hand wringing. That’s the price of being in the vanguard.”
Like congratulations that you don’t care about the well being of others. You’re so morally superior. Here’s a cookie. It’s almond flavoured.
Yeah, blockquote fail is the reason so many people seem to say odd or silly things here! (not a snark) Intersesting one though.
I wonder, do gay men, and straight women, look for the same things in a man’s body? Are gay pinups the ones women also go for?
@ Quiet Desperation # 548,
This comment thread is certainly not a waste of time. I agree there is much generalization, but in this case maybe that simplifies the discussion? This is a science blog, it is perfectly reasonable that people would try to understand the root causes of boorish behavior here. I’ll grant you that it is a disorganized round-about way of getting to the meat of the issue, but it’s a comment thread after all.
It’s not an overreaction to care about respecting fellow human beings of the opposite sex. I’m glad you treat people well and I hope you respect them. The two don’t always go together.
Like congratulations that you don’t care about the well being of others.
Thanks! It took a lot of work, both on my part in deconstructing the plastic “moralities” of our modern world, and the part of many endless millions of others acting like complete tools day in and day out.
You’re so morally superior.
No, I just don’t give a damn anymore. Sorry.
Here’s a cookie. It’s almond flavoured.
Aw, was that an arsenic reference? So mean.
AnthonyK wrote:
I know I’ve see pinups of otherwise attractive men that held no interest for me because they seemed – and I can’t think of any way to explain why unless they’re with another man – gay. Now I’ve been unfortunately attracted to gay men before (in that unreciprocated attraction is always unforunate), but there is something about the pictures that say this man isn’t out to attract me.
Cyanide actually but at least you got the point.
Science FAIL.
This comment thread is certainly not a waste of time. I agree there is much generalization, but in this case maybe that simplifies the discussion?
I didn’t say it was waste of time. I just find it an amusing symptom of our oh so modern culture. It’s probably a good thing that we can wring hands about this stuff and instead of where our next meal is coming from or if the local strongman’s (strongpersons?) enforcers will take a fancy to a family member.
This is a science blog, it is perfectly reasonable that people would try to understand the root causes of boorish behavior here. I’ll grant you that it is a disorganized round-about way of getting to the meat of the issue, but it’s a comment thread after all.
OK.
It’s not an overreaction to care about respecting fellow human beings of the opposite sex. I’m glad you treat people well and I hope you respect them. The two don’t always go together.
I try. That’s all anyone can do. That’s why I think I’m a mutant. :-) I just do it. I don’t need to read or write treatises on it. Kind of like the theme from the book “Everything I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten”. It’s all so obvious. Yeah, some don’t get it, and there’s reasons they don’t, whatever they are, and little is going to change that other than time and the slow crawl of humanity’s sociological advancement.
explanation – almond = (possible) cyanide, not arsenic. Incidentally, is it possible to get potassium cyanide from almonds?
“Incidentally, is it possible to get potassium cyanide from almonds?”
No, but you can get HCN from them.
@Justin: Ah, right, cyanide. So your point that I deserve to be poisoned for having an opinion you don’t like? What a perfect human being you are, Justin. I mean that.
“Yeah, some don’t get it, and there’s reasons they don’t, whatever they are, and little is going to change that other than time and the slow crawl of humanity’s sociological advancement.”
Look I don’t mean to be rude (my attempt at cyberpoisoning notwithstanding) but how exactly do you think that society advances? Were we just sitting around one day and were like “Oh, black people are no longer slaves. Fancy that!”? Or, “hmm when did we let women vote? Oh well.”? No it had to be fought for long and hard. This is merely part of the gruntwork.
“Ah, right, cyanide. So your point that I deserve to be poisoned for having an opinion you don’t like? What a perfect human being you are, Justin. I mean that.”
Is that handwringing I see? Is that only justified when you personally are offended? How lovely.
Is that handwringing I see?
Not really, no. Perhaps I should have referred to you as a *typical* human being. There is nothing particularly extraordinary about your comment wishing harm upon another for an opinion. I haven’t wrung hands over that aspect of humanity in 25 years.
Is that only justified when you personally are offended? How lovely.
LOL! Whatever, Justin. You’re in just another person living in a finely tuned reality distortion bubble. I gave up trying to pierce those long ago due to the lack of a sufficiently powerful particle accelerator. Have a good life, kid. Steer clear of suspicious cookies.
“Not really, no. Perhaps I should have referred to you as a *typical* human being. There is nothing particularly extraordinary about your comment wishing harm upon another for an opinion. I haven’t wrung hands over that aspect of humanity in 25 years.”
Yes clearly it didn’t affect you in any way since you actually decided to comment on it instead of laugh it off as the joke it was meant to bed. Hilarious, truly an individual you are. Just like everyone else! :)
“LOL! Whatever, Justin. You’re in just another person living in a finely tuned reality distortion bubble.”
Do explain, I would LOVE to hear how I’m distorting reality!
“I gave up trying to pierce those long ago due to the lack of a sufficiently powerful particle accelerator. Have a good life, kid. Steer clear of suspicious cookies.”
Oh yawn. Here’s a ladder, use it to get over yourself!
No it had to be fought for long and hard. This is merely part of the gruntwork.
I never said fighting wasn’t part of the slow crawl. But there *is* a difference between enslavement/voting rights and idiots making boorish comments. The big problems can be legislated away with enough will on the part of the people. The others, well, lacking mind control rays, all that’s left is education and time. You savvy? You could start passing laws against certain speech, but is that a road you really want to go down? I don’t, and I’ll fight long and hard against that sort of law.
I like that.
“Kids, you’ve eaten all the nuts!”
“Hey Anthony – did you remember to remove the cyanide?” “What? I thought that was your job!”
And poisoned child mayhem amusingly ensues…
As for me wishing you death, I cannot believe I have to explain this joke.
Offering someone an almond flavoured cookie: Not a threat, I’m not advocating you eat the cookie, nor do I say that it’s poisoned or that I want to you die. Do what you want with it. The joke is in the possibility of it being poisoned.
Contrast this to: “You suck, people like you should be shot.”
A common refrain from some right wingers I come into contact with. I hope you can appreciate the difference.
“The others, well, lacking mind control rays, all that’s left is education and time. You savvy?”
Social conventions are every bit as binding as law (for most people). When we change the social conventions we change the way people behave.
How do you think we change social conventions? By education yes, but by voicing our outrage and our opinions in the public sphere. This is part of that.
Yes clearly it didn’t affect you in any way since you actually decided to comment on it instead of laugh it off as the joke it was meant to bed. Hilarious, truly an individual you are. Just like everyone else! :)
No, just bored. It was this or go do yard work with a mildly tweaked lower back. :-)
Do explain, I would LOVE to hear how I’m distorting reality!
Well, everyone distorts reality. It’s part of being human. And I’m just yankin your chain, bro. You *did* try to cyberpoison me after all. ;-) Retaliation is not hand wringing. Winston Churchill said that, I think. :) Or Stalin. Someone like that.
Oh yawn. Here’s a ladder, use it to get over yourself!
Ladder? I need a rocket for that!
DC, that’s exactly what I mean. “Objectification” is generally used to describe viewing others for sexual pleasure with no thought put into their person or how they may react to your stares. Watching an old man play chess in a park and enjoying how happy he is or watching a beautiful woman read in a library and wanting to meet her is NOT objectification and I never said it was. In these instances you are considering the whole person and respecting them, not just mentally undressing them and/or yelling “nice rack!”
Do you understand the difference? Or will it take several more reiterations?
“Well, everyone distorts reality. It’s part of being human. And I’m just yankin your chain, bro. You *did* try to cyberpoison me after all. ;-) Retaliation is not hand wringing. Winston Churchill said that, I think. :) Or Stalin. Someone like that.”
I could make the argument that voicing one’s outrage against inappropriate comments from strangers counts as retaliation. :P
A common refrain from some right wingers I come into contact with. I hope you can appreciate the difference.
OK. I’m not a right winger. Or a left winger. Or a winger of any kind. I didn’t even like the band Winger.
Well, now I’m just getting weird. Maybe I should go do that yard work. The Desperation Compound doesn’t clean itself.
AnthonyK @ 552- “I wonder, do gay men, and straight women, look for the same things in a man’s body? Are gay pinups the ones women also go for?”
Speaking as a gay man, I would say body is only one thing (and not necessarily the most important factor) that I notice or enjoy looking at. And like many people here I’m sure, I am constantly surprised by finding someone attractive I wouldn’t have thought myself interested in.
That being said, I’ve always been interested in unusual types. For example, if you’re under 35, you aren’t on my radar.
Do gay men and straight women find the same qualities in men attractive? Features and whatnot? To make a generalization, I’d say no. The differences would probably split along gender lines. Gay men have a lot more in common with their straight counterparts than they do with women.
All of the women I know who are fans of the TV show “Lost” become weak in the knees over Sawyer. Me? Matthew Fox. Any day of the week.
But my sister can’t get enough of Desmond. So much for generalities.
This conversation has been fascinating for me to read, because I have never in my life gone up to a strange man in public and commented on his looks (outside of a social arena encircled with dayglo tape clearly marked “gay”). The idea is inconceivable.
It’s like I live in a different world than y’all do.
Your sister isn’t the only one. I certainly appreciate Desmond very, VERY much.
Yet I still wouldn’t go up to him and say, “You are a very attractive man.” I would let him know I appreciate his work on Lost though, which I do.
Oh is that were all the gay men are? My bad. I thought they were just crimescenes ;O
You’re moving the goalposts — for instance, you’re going back and forth on whether it applies to children; likewise, there are lots of ways to “objectify” people that don’t involve sex. Slavery comes to mind, for instance. However, the immediate issue is that you’re turning “objectification” into a purely subjective “sin of the heart” matter and making it impossible to judge behaviorally.
Now, maybe it’s my upbringing sneaking in here but one of the first things I can remember firing my BS detectors was Christianity’s inclusion of stray impulses as “sins” that would get you roasted forever. Smelled a lot like being set up to fail, that.
Yes, as a matter of fact you did: “Objectification is looking at another adult and admiring them purely for the pleasure it gives you.”
Die gedanken sind frei.
If I’m walking down a sidewalk and pass you going the other way and I smile at you, is that a Bad Thing? Bear in mind that you have no objective way of knowing whether:
* It’s a beautiful day,
* The outfit you’re wearing reminds me of someone I know and like,
* I’m not really smiling at you; I’m just high as a kite,
* I just got a honking bonus for hard work well done,
* You remind me of a long-ago lover and bring back happy memories,
* I just received word that The Ex-Wife From Hell was in a bad wreck,
* You make a nice picture against the background I see behind you,
* I always smile at everyone I meet just because it makes the world a better place,
* I really am undressing you mentally,
* My daughter just received her PhD,
* It’s not you I’m undressing, it’s the little kid behind you …
* etc.
All you have is the smile. How does it make you feel?
* Isn’t “gluttony” supposed to mean “excess” and/or “addiction”?
* What do you mean by “sap[p]hic love”? Surely not what I think you mean!?! [Edit: well, see below. <sigh>]
* Who in the First World would like to put on weight?
<headshake>
It would mean – unambiguously – that you’re seriously interested in starting a relationship with her. So, if that’s not the case, don’t do it.
Why else would you do it after all? Why else would you say such private thoughts aloud?
Nooooo. Imagine someone taking a photo of you and then wanking while looking at that picture. In your presence, and knowing that you sit in front of them.
That’s why such attention is unwanted. The kind of constant stare described by Amanduh basically just skips the photo and the laying of hands, but all the rest is the same as in my analogy.
I don’t think there is any argument against solipsism, except for the principle of parsimony. Not that I care, though – if I’m the solipsist, my imagination is consistent enough that science still works :-)
<headdesk>
<headdesk>
<headdesk>
<headdesk>
<headdesk>
<headdesk>
I’ll try to do this slowly and calmly. (HARGNNNNN!!!!!)
Pete, you’ve made an inductive inference: you took a sample of two and generalized from it. But induction doesn’t work. It’s unscientific.
Also…
* Why did you google that?
* Why on the planet do you tell us that you googled that? I mean, I don’t care about your, er, preferences, but why don’t you want to keep them private?!?
* So fat lesbians exist. Fine. How on the planet do you get from that premise to the conclusion that female homosexuality is an excuse for wanting to be fat?!?!?
You’re a very strange person, Pete. You must have had a thoroughly disturbing childhood.
Sometimes I wonder if you should seek professional help.
Oh, BTW, why “chicken”? I thought the term was “chick”? Or did you actually mean to look for what comment 469 suggests?
…This being Pete, maybe he did actually google for a chicken recipe. :-| What do I know. But in that case, Pete, you should have told us that, in order to avoid misunderstandings.
If only getting fat meant turning into a lesbian, instead I’m still stuck in this man-body. And I’m with David, who the fuck actually wants to get fat in modern society?
A while ago, at Christmas, I complimented a female colleague, and friend, saying simply that she was looking well. I though no more about it. A few months later, the next time I saw her, she told me that as a result of my remark, she had run off, spent the next two hours crying in her car, and had been so upset that she hadn’t been able to speak to me since.
What do you make of that? There was an explanation, kind of logical, but whatever it was, a perfectly innocent remark, meant nicely, truthfully, and without a hint of trying to pull her, ended up causing such a distressing misunderstanding.
I guess that’s a reason for being so careful about what you say – though in this case, it really was not my fault.
Of course, that’s never really the argument, is it? Most compliments about an attractive woman are not in any way coupled to the implication that their attractiveness makes them less valuable in other ways. Most of the time, nobody is claiming that they are “ONLY things to marry, and look at, and nothing more.” When they are, please, be angry about it. But when a compliment is just a compliment, it is completely unreasonable to pretend otherwise simply to justify some good ‘ol feigned outrage.
Pete, if you’re ever up for banishment, Survivor-style, again, I really hope you’ll play the “lesbian chicken” card in your bid for immunity. Just that, no long-winded insane pseudo-rationalizations of anything else. I’ll vote for you to stay on that basis, just for the fully-unconscious entertainment value you provide.
DC, you’re the one who’s moving the goalposts. No one’s saying you can’t think something, objectification or not, although overtly moving the goalposts from 1) women clearly objecting to actions to 2) claiming they’re objecting to supposed thought-crimes is a well-worn anti-feminist trope.
To be very clear, it’s the mistaken assumption that random female strangers care to hear about every thought a male has about their attractiveness, or lack thereof, that this post is about. Think whatever you want to; who cares? But if you act on the thought, you’re taking a real risk.
As someone pointed out above, you don’t tell people about it every time you feel the urge to defecate (at least, I hope not!), which is also a perfectly normal, natural desire. Most people manage to learn this growing up; if some guys don’t, they’re the ones with the problem. I mean, really, in what universe is “mmmmm……wo-man” an appropriate reaction to a scientist writing on scientific issues?
I am encouraged, though, by how many males get it nowadays, compared to when the women’s movement first emerged. If I listed all the male commenters here whose comments I look forward to reading, knowing that I can trust them not to make me wade through their misogyny, I’d inevitably omit some accidentally. So I’ll just say I think there’s critical mass here, with PZ and like-minded male allies, and strong female commenters, which it’s why it’s one of the best places on the Web to hang out, and let it stand at that.
Appropriate public reaction, I mean. Like I said, as long as you just think it, who cares? It’s this compulsion to share one’s private thoughts, regardless of whether or not the sharee wants to hear them, that is problematic.
Guys, look, let’s be rational about this. You can disagree with our hypotheses as to why, but all evidence clearly indicates that when women receive comments on our appearance, positive or negative, from either total strangers or professional colleagues, we often have a negative emotional reaction. In light of this objective fact, regardless of why it is fact, you have three options:
1.) Deny reality, and continue to make random unwanted comments. This runs a greater-than-normal chance of chronic podophagy and looking like a douche.
2.) Declare reality to be silly, and argue that women should not have the reaction that they do. This runs a greater-than-normal chance of looking like a condescending asshole.
3.) Accept reality, and modify your behavior to not provoke negative reactions. This runs a greater-than-normal chance of looking like a decent fellow.
The ball is in your court, gentlemen.
Wow! That’s creepy. :-o
If you had actually read those 500 comments instead of just complaining about them, or if you had ever witnessed anyone being bullied in school, you wouldn’t have stupidly ignored the possibility of them ganging up on you.
:-o
On the one hand, I really do think you shouldn’t have said it. Telling someone you’re romantically and/or sexually interested in them, when you actually aren’t, is just stupid*; and if you really are, then… that’s not something I have any experience in, but in that case you should probably start the conversation with something else, so as to make sure she likes you when you get to the topic.
* Yes, as I’ve mentioned near the beginning of this thread, it was once required by politeness. I’d have come across as impossibly rude 100 years ago. I suppose this stupid, stupid attitude still lingers on in some people.
On the other hand, crying for two hours nonstop is, well, not normal. I suppose your colleague 1) got several emotions at once, causing her to cry, and 2) is one of those few people who are capable of crying for hours. I remember when my sister was prevented (by a closed door) from exacting revenge on my brother and cried for three hours without interruption.
Did she go on to explain why she had cried that much?
David #586:
“Telling someone you’re romantically and/or sexually interested in them”
I read it as a casual “you’re looking well/healthy” sort of thing you’d say to anyone regardless of gender.
* So fat lesbians exist. Fine.
Not in Pete’s video, they are straight girls playing “lesbian chicken”. They are not even pretending to be lesbian. Another fail!
I guess I should get back to the other things I need to get done today. Hopefully the conversation here is fruitful.
Guess I’ll check in later if possible.
I would have wondered at the response to the “you’re looking great” comment too, until I met people for whom that really is a terribly triggering statement. One has battled anorexia for years, and if she hears it when she’s eating she assumes they’re lying to cover up how fat she looks, and if she hears it when she’s in anorexic mode it will spur her to try even harder not to eat because it’s working so well. Another was battling cancer, felt like all hell, and was stunned with horror that people thought her broken, emaciated, hair-falling-out body was something to be complimented on and striven for. It’s so hard to know what might be going on with someone else. That’s one reason why if you don’t know them at all, any comments on their appearance are unwelcome. Someone you know, but not well enough to know that, though, is trickier. I think in that case you aren’t at fault, but then know better not to say it again.
DC, these are all quoted from me re: objectification:
comments about her body or comments of a sexual nature
looking at another adult and admiring them purely for the pleasure it gives you–usually sexual
viewing others for sexual pleasure with no thought put into their person or how they may react to your stares
DC, I have made myself extremely clear that “objectification”–IN THIS THREAD/CONVERSATION–refers only to the SEXUAL OBJECTIFICATION OF ANOTHER ADULT HUMAN.
Smile at me all you want, douchebag. Just don’t get offended if I don’t smile back. I have a feeling you’re one of those NiceGuys(TM) who get pissy when a woman doesn’t respond to their compliments/advances, cause you were just being Nice and what a bitch!
I’m really, really done trying to explain this. Guys, why risk pissing off a woman you may have romantic interest in by complimenting her in a way she might think is creepy? Why compliment a woman on her looks if you aren’t interested in them in that way? Why why why must you impose your opinion on people who don’t know you and didn’t ask for it?
You people are all idiots.
Not for nothing, but Amanduh@457 is again, making sense but losing points. What, young males acting rudely? What better to wound her tender ego.
Let us remind you you’re on Pharyngula, where we are forced to take a cold hard look at the truth of what you say. Not that your body is supposed to exist for the viewing pleasure of others; but that its form, and the very fact that humans perceive such a thing as attractiveness or beauty, does in a very real way exist to, well, attract. Whether it is “supposed to” is a mind game you’re playing. Frequent confabulation of your social unease at catcalls in public and your general anxiety about being physically sexually assaulted points out that you don’t want safety. You want dignity.
And, yeah, more social dignity for all women. Even the ones who wear makeup and high heels.
But it all, unfortunately, has the ring of kabuki theater, social interaction-style. When all is said and done, she’s right, of course, being creepy is, well, creepy, and a lot of women are rightfully concerned about their physical safety in a way that most men simply can’t imagine.
But wanting everyone to be positively Vulcan in our non-mammalness just isn’t going to work.
Oh, dear. Does that mean that all of those conversations I’ve observed where women are complimenting each other on hair, nails, clothing, etc. were actually lesbian flirting?
Dang. That’s really stressing me out, now, over all the times I’ve admired some of my colleagues’ new hairstyles or new clothing acquisitions. What am I going to tell $INDIAN_COLLEAGUE when she comes back next month with a load of new outfits?
Tabby@534:
Actually, it is. As the long bits in the latter 400’s show, where any particular woman’s line of harassment is has far more to do with the context than anything else. Had Mr. Boorish from #532 managed to overcome her resistance, it would’ve been a romantic story about true love instead of a creepy story about an egotistical man.
But of course women resist; men want sex all the time, and they can’t afford it, even if they’d want it too.
I gotta tell you, if I were attractive and constantly harassed on the street by strangers, well intentioned or not, I’d figure out a way to look less attractive, and I wouldn’t blame the hoards of inept admirers and would-be rapists, I’d blame myself for not having the fortitude to stand up to it. But then, I was raised to think that I should think that way because I am a male. I’m sorry, NOT EVERY URGE TO TAKE CARE OF AND PROTECT WOMEN IS MISOGYNY. You might think, you might insist, that it inherently hurts your dignity to be “objectified”. But another thing I was taught was that nobody can take your dignity involuntarily.
That brings up an issue with romantic comedies and why I tend to avoid so many of them. What’s seen as “romantic” in them would be stalker behaviour in the real world.
You’re doing a good job of blaming women who are just too darned attractive for not uglying up enough to avoid unwanted attention. You’re coming just short of suggesting burqas here.
I’m sorry, but unless the woman in question is related to you, yes it is. It assumes that women need protecting and taking care of. Note: This isn’t the same as coming across a person, any person, male or female, in need and helping them out.
Like the dignity of those in human pyramids at Abu Ghraib? I’m sorry, but that’s just bullshit.
The solution as to why the woman cried for 2 hours when I told her that I thought she was looking nice was that she mistook the intention of my remark.
The background what that in a horrible series of events at my place of work, this woman had been someone who had said things which led to a colleague, and friend of mine being sacked. Some people, though not me, blamed her for this – I thought she was honest but mistaken. It also seemed, or could seem, as if she had profited from his departure by taking over some of his responsibilities. I’d been off work, so had no influence or input on any of this.
So, when I said “Hi, Sally, nice to see you, you’re looking well”, what she heard was something like : “oh there you are, you fucking bitch, you’re looking happy now that you’ve shafted Tom and got his job.”
Hence her tears. (I gave her a huge hug and kiss when I found out – we are still friends).
I really couldn’t possibly have seen it coming. And yes, with a friend or colleague – even a man – I would still compliment them if I thought they deserved it.
I am left, having read this interesting thread, wondering how one should go about getting sex with a beautiful stranger who fancies you.
Paying for it is one option, though being rather old-fashioned I find this less romantic.
Surely, tmaxPA, the truth about 532 is that every word he spoke, every move he tried made it less likely that she would ever speak to him, let alone melt romantically into his arms.
But he had no way of receiving, let alone processing, feedback – a major deficiency in human relationships, don’t you think.
Even faced with two very angry and very articulate women he was looking for a way to prove to himself that one more boorish gesture would reveal the beautiful truth – that he was irresistible!
Huh? No one said anything about protecting anyone, unless you think telling someone they look nice counts as protecting them
So? It doesn’t have to strip them of their dignity to be a disrespectful/unwelcome comment.
Blaming the victim.
No.
Being rather old-fashioned myself, I would suggest modifying the “stranger” part before (long before) introducing the “sex” part.
QTF. Music, too–I love the music of Édith Piaf and Billie Holiday, but goddamn if I would ever live my life the way the protagonists of their songs do!
Or, QFT as that should have been, if I weren’t so simultaneously sleep-deprived, hypercaffeinated, and on deadline…
I think tmaxPA is going for route 1 AND 2 simultaneously from Falyne’s succinct post @ #584
It takes a certain amount of flair to both deny reality AND claim reality to be silly.
Oh, and men do not want sex all the time. We are not dogs, and even if we did, there’s a thing that humans possess called rationality to help us behave in ways that are not rife with douchebaggery.
Beauty is such a problematic gift. A young woman I have known since she was a child, got a full scholarship to Cal Tech. (She since has gotten her PhD from MIT). Beautiful, stacked, an athlete, and brainy, she was deeply resented by the typical CalTech nerds who proceded to make her life miserable. She ended up shaving her head and dressing in the ugliest clothing possible in a futile attempt to deflect attention from herself. She was never accepted, even when she got the full ride to MIT, surely an indication of superior intellectual talent. In the end, she dropped out of the rat race, married, and is now having doing volunteer work and being a homemaker.
Ok you broads, I have a question.
Are you upset when a person you know compliments you on a new haircut? In my experience, women I know well are very happy to get the compliment and quite unhappy that if I don’t notice.
Justin:
Who’s point? Your point? I’ve been mostly ignoring your comments, they don’t really add much to the discussion.
Here we’ve got a problem. Because “it offends me” is simply not enough reason for someone to stop doing something. Ever. I no more respect it when you say it then I do when the religionists say it. And I think you need to examine just how parallel your attitude is.
Falyne @584 said:
You are not entitled to speak for “women” in general, and I don’t recall giving you permission to speak for me. Speak for yourself, not “women”, “womyn”, or me.
I have no problem with compliments about my hair, clothing, shoes, etc. Nor do I immediately leap the Grand Canyon to arrive at the conclusion they are only interested in “one thing”, as #578 assumes. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I accept it as a compliment. I accept that my grace and beauty has brought ephemeral joy to their dreary meaningless day.
If they offer me an insultingly personal comment, it’s my choice to accept it or not. As the Buddha said, “He who is angered by the words of a fool is a bigger fool.” And if they make unwanted physical advances, their dangly bits get to meet the distal end of my femur.
Amanduh @591 said:
It is YOUR assumption that a compliment means the guy wants to have sex with you.
Let’s examine the assumption: Maybe the guy is a photographer and sees color and light and likes the way light reflects off your hair. Maybe he’s in the fashion business and thinks you did something interesting with a scarf. Maybe he was brought up to believe that saying complimentary things to people would make them feel good.
Maybe you could try not assuming that douchebags (and that’s a strange insult to apply to a male, isn’t it) are more common than pleasant male humans.
By assuming that all intentions are innocent until prioven otherwise, I have met many interesting people, and only had to flatten a few of them.
“Who’s point? Your point? I’ve been mostly ignoring your comments, they don’t really add much to the discussion.”
THE point.
And I’m so glad you could turn your attention toward me at long last. I’m ever so grateful.
“Here we’ve got a problem. Because “it offends me” is simply not enough reason for someone to stop doing something. Ever. I no more respect it when you say it then I do when the religionists say it. And I think you need to examine just how parallel your attitude is.”
Hilarious. Ok so that means I can randomly insult you at any time of my choosing, or make you feel uncomfortable at whim? What do I care if you’re offended? That’s some grade a douchebaggery.
There’s a difference between criticizing someone’s belief system and doing something that you know makes them uncomfortable on a a personal level just because you can.
It’s a shame you can’t see that. I feel sorry for you.
When the spawn was dating using match.com (he had a very hectic career schedule), he made the acquaintance of an interesting woman through the emails they exchanged. However, she refused to send him a picture, but he didn’t care, she sounded so great anyway. When they finally met, he reported later, “Mom, I think *I* was the blind date!.” She turned out to be supermodel beautiful, a woman who had only heard all her life how staggeringly beautiful she was, she learned to distrust advances of any kind. They ended up married (and divorced a few years later, but that’s another story). On at least one occasion, when they were out together, a stranger got between them just to tell her she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The spawn allowed her to handle it herself which endeared him to her, and set the stage for an interesting courtship.
So, DC you’re saying that “Hello darling, what do you think of this” is best not said on the first meeting?
Possibly old, but a would-be Lothario had decided on the best chat up line for his dancing partner. Pulling her close he said “How do you like your eggs in the morning?”
Pushing him off she said: “Unfertilised, you bastard!”
DJ@541:
Sounds like we’re making progress. ;-)
Yes, I am. They have the right to be upset, they don’t have the right to be offended. Or some other fine hair splitting to assure you I’m not being extreme.
And I would dispute that this is evidence which pertains to things that are not those things. Being offended and being harassed are not the same thing, and being sexually forward and sexual assault are not the same thing.
I’m again thinking back to someone posting about how vulnerable a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL would be BY HERSELF with a crowd of men. I’m willing to be so non-progressive as to say that this is a question of parenting, and that does not require me to hold the men blameless should anything happen. You might fantasize about a human society where the most innocent of waifs can walk in the most disadvantaged of neighborhoods without a thought to their safety. I don’t.
Please see my comment about the Buddha.
It’s only an insult if I decide to take you seriously … and most people who run on insults aren’t worth the time it takes to care.
I don’t give people that sort of power over my thoughts and feelings.
“Yes, I am. They have the right to be upset, they don’t have the right to be offended. Or some other fine hair splitting to assure you I’m not being extreme.”
Gosh that reality, SO SILLY hahah! I’ll just do what I want. Hey you there! You, the one crying after being catcalled for two blocks! Suck it up you silly waif!
I’m not in any way speaking for women in general, or you in the specific. I’m saying it’s evidentially clear that women often have negative reactions. YOU may not, but many women do. Ultimately, I’m arguing that, given that fact, it’s generally in a man’s best interest not to comment on a woman’s looks in a professional (or random stranger on the street) context. That’s all.
“I’m again thinking back to someone posting about how vulnerable a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL would be BY HERSELF with a crowd of men.”
When walking home from school all young girls must have a male escort or at least a burqa…
Is that what you’re saying tmaxPA? Sure sounds like it!
High Society:
“that’s a lovely dress – do you think I could talk her out of it?”
That said, when I have been to formal balls, it is pretty much de rigeur for a man to tell all his female friends that they are looking absolutely gorgeous.
Context, guys, context.
Nice try at putting words in someone else’s keyboard. I’ll write this slowly so you might be able to follow it:
No, you shouldn’t (“can’t” is not on the table) “randomly insult [someone]” because that’s rude and generally disruptive in a civil society. Your insult is under your control.
Your victim’s being offended, however, is not. In fact, it may well be a total minefield, because offense is a product of hir history, tastes, etc. Which is why “not being offended” is not privileged and “not being groped” is — there are conventions against the latter, but there isn’t even a conceivable possibility of a convention against the former.
Now, you may argue that you don’t mean “not offended” that way, that you actually mean something more precise (such as, “not being crudely propositioned by a total stranger.”) If so, then I would strongly suggest that you acquire the skills necessary to write what you actually mean rather than leave it up to others to divine your intent — because expecting others to divine your benign intent is exactly where this all started and it FUCKING DOESN’T WORK.
Uh, yeah, if you’re saying that it’s a “question of parenting” if a teenager is allowed to walk by herself anywhere a pack of assholes would form, that’s…. more than a little bit problematic. In the first place, packs of assholes harass female passerby in the NICEST of neighborhoods, too, and harassment can lead to credibly threatening behavior anywhere, too.
Hell, I live in fucking gentrified Chelsea, in NYC. The majority of males around aren’t interested in me (or any other woman) at all. There’s a college dorm with a 24-hour guard on my block, and a precinct the next over. I’m 24, not small, and could handle quite a bit of a fight. And yet, some dude on the street stands behind me catcalling as I’m searching for the key to my building at 2 am? That’s not “words will never hurt me” time, that’s “freaking scary” time.
“No, you shouldn’t (“can’t” is not on the table) “randomly insult [someone]” because that’s rude and generally disruptive in a civil society. Your insult is under your control.”
And you shouldn’t randomly compliment someone you have no business to compliment because it’s rude and generally disruptive to civil society. That was the point I was trying to make.
“Your victim’s being offended, however, is not. In fact, it may well be a total minefield, because offense is a product of hir history, tastes, etc. Which is why “not being offended” is not privileged and “not being groped” is — there are conventions against the latter, but there isn’t even a conceivable possibility of a convention against the former.”
So wouldn’t it be best to err on the side of keeping the peace?
“If so, then I would strongly suggest that you acquire the skills necessary to write what you actually mean rather than leave it up to others to divine your intent”
I’m sorry, my intent was plainly clear had you read my comments from before.. “because expecting others to divine your benign intent is exactly where this all started and it FUCKING DOESN’T WORK.”
EXACTLY so stop making remarks about their appearance to total strangers! They don’t know what you’re after so STFU!
Speaking as the loving parent of an almost-13-year-old girl, this thread is scary and depressing.
“And you shouldn’t randomly compliment someone you have no business to compliment because it’s rude and generally disruptive to civil society. That was the point I was trying to make.”
That should be “compliment based on their looks”.
One more thing. If you don’t understand what I’m writing, you should ask to clarify instead of flying off the handle. I mean gosh, tmaxPA gets tonnes of do overs and I get called out for one slightly (and in my opinion not very) unclear post?
thalarctos@582:
The one with the Internets. I consider the commenter to have been doing a personal service, in a way, by alerting Sheril to the facts about a) who has access to the internet, which is to say everyone, not just smart and/or polite people, b) the great degree to which every civilized male masks their inner thoughts. The real point is, if this were a scientist writing on scientific issues in a context of science, she should have continued her policy of not posting a picture. She’s smart. She knows that people actually do behave differently depending on how you look. She wanted to ‘express her true self’ or some such. Well, mission accomplished. She’s a blogger writing about science, not a scientist seeking peer review.
Again, the complaint seems to be that it is unfair and unjust that women are “judged on their looks” (which is to say how men [and other women] react to them varies based on how closely they approximate an imaginary ideal of an attractive woman.) Well, we didn’t design the system that way. Nobody did. That is, however unfortunate or unfair you may consider it, the way the system evolved. Sure you can say that it shouldn’t be normative in social interactions. But you have very little chance of that having any effect unless you at the same time seek to understand it as an adaptive behavior, rather than focusing only on how it subjectively makes you feel.
Seriously. Can we get a break, please, from the “if you don’t condemn catcalls then you justify rape”? If your argument rests on the idea that men should be able to act rationally, you’re going to have to do the same.
Another commenter thought it ironic that such a central part of our existence as sex should be so complicated. That’s like saying it is ironic that water is wet. What, somehow things that are central to our existence get more simple?
Justin beat me to it, but it’s worth repeating:
“because expecting others to divine your benign intent is exactly where this all started and it FUCKING DOESN’T WORK.”
Which is EXACTLY WHY YOU SHOULDN’T COMMENT ON A STRANGER’S BODY.
#618 some dude on the street stands behind me catcalling as I’m searching for the key to my building at 2 am? That’s not “words will never hurt me” time, that’s “freaking scary” time.
I’m friendly, not naive or stupid. My self defense teacher said it’s a good idea to make sure you have the key in your hand BEFORE you get to the door, so there is no searching.
And have your can of bear spray in your left hand. “Bear spray” can be any annoying eye-irritant spray you wish that is legal in NY, from Windex to the real grizzly-deterring brands with a 40-foot range
“But you have very little chance of that having any effect unless you at the same time seek to understand it as an adaptive behavior, rather than focusing only on how it subjectively makes you feel.”
An adaptive behaviour to what exactly? And how would you rationalize this in a context other than how it makes the victims feel? Hmmmm
Ok I have one, you’re infringing on the person’s security of person whenever you make an unwanted attempt at a pass or whatever you want to call it. If someone doesn’t invite you into their space, you don’t belong there. Can you understand that?
The real point is, if this were a scientist writing on scientific issues in a context of science, she should have continued her policy of not posting a picture.
Yeah, dammit. If she wanted to act like a scientist, she should have worn a burqa. Did you think perhaps she posted her picture so that other scientists might better recognize her at meetings and such? That networking is a part of being a scientist, and she’s trying to use her science blog to do so? That she was trying to simply give a face to put with her name?
If your argument rests on the idea that men should be able to act rationally, you’re going to have to do the same.
But it’s feminists who hate men. Right. If men can’t control their basic impulses, perhaps they shouldn’t be making decisions in the public sphere.
Oh noes Carlie! By calling tmaxPA out on his misogyny you’re no longer “adding to the discussion”. And will be ignored! A fate worse than death! *gasp*
“The ball is in your court, gentlemen.”
The problem is, you are not talking to the gentlemen who display this behavior. I’ve always lamented the nature of things just as much as you. The difference, I think, is how much we believe we can change the nature of things.
I remember when I was a teenager. I am a gentleman, always have been. So I never did what many if not most other boys were doing. Which is to constantly pressure and cajole every female available to engage in some form of sexual behavior. At least as far as the anecdotal evidence of my experience goes, the results are conclusive. Only boys who pestered got some. And girls who kept coming back for more pestering were the ones giving it to them. I found the boys’ pestering obnoxious. I found the girls’ refusal to avoid the boys scary.
And so again, I say, although I do not care how a rape victim was dressed or how she behaved or what part of town she was in, to the victim of some simple boorish degradation by calling attention to her sexual attractiveness, I ask, were you in heels and mascara?
“I remember when I was a teenager. I am a gentleman, always have been. So I never did what many if not most other boys were doing. Which is to constantly pressure and cajole every female available to engage in some form of sexual behavior. At least as far as the anecdotal evidence of my experience goes, the results are conclusive. Only boys who pestered got some.”
So you’re basing your entire life’s outlook toward women based on what happened in HIGH SCHOOL? That is messed up. Like seriously. You are aware that people for the most part don’t act like children when they grow up right?
to the victim of some simple boorish degradation by calling attention to her sexual attractiveness, I ask, were you in heels and mascara?
tmaxPA, you are a total douche. And I very rarely trot out that word. 630 comments, and you willfully still have no clue. I wonder if anything could possibly ever get through to you.
@#629 tmaxPA
“to the victim of some simple boorish degradation by calling attention to her sexual attractiveness, I ask, were you in heels and mascara?”
There you go. You think that all attempt to show any “sexual attractiveness” is an attempt to attract simple boorish degradation? I think not. When men dress nicely, for example, they are not inviting boorish degradation. Perhaps they want to be seen well, and appear nice, but they are not inviting boorish degradation.
to the victim of some simple boorish degradation by calling attention to her sexual attractiveness, I ask, were you in heels and mascara?
There is a hidden tax on women in the workforce, especially corporate or public situations. Women are expected to wear mascara and heels to look “professional”. Indeed, in some places a full manicure and jewelry is also expected. Also, for women there’s no professional equivalent of the business casual comfort of khakis and a button-down.
Ah, what’s the point. Anyone who thinks women bring harassment on themselves by wearing eye makeup is hopeless.
maureen@598:
the truth is that your recollection of the event seems far more egotistical than his would have been. This isn’t about how annoyed you were, or how successful he was in this attempt . But how many attempts he makes, and how successful any one of them is. It seems you may be claiming he was “egotistical” mostly because he wasn’t so emotionally fragile he gave up prematurely. You may claim it was for-ordained that he wouldn’t win her over and it become a real-life romantic comedy ending. Neither he nor you had no way of knowing that then or now, so as far as I can see, his behavior was entirely “appropriate”, from a social perspective.
We are all allowed to be just a little bit boorish. It’s called “the pursuit of happiness”.
I love how tmaxPA doesn’t debate anyone actually here, but talks to people far up in the thread, as if he would like to get the last word in.
“It seems you may be claiming he was “egotistical” mostly because he wasn’t so emotionally fragile he gave up prematurely. You may claim it was for-ordained that he wouldn’t win her over and it become a real-life romantic comedy ending. Neither he nor you had no way of knowing that then or now, so as far as I can see, his behavior was entirely “appropriate”, from a social perspective.”
No means no and GET LOST means GET LOST! The male’s behaviour in that story was entirely inappropriate. The fact that you don’t take a woman’s opinion at face value says a lot.
Justin;
You are obviously trying to be more than a little bit annoying. Get over yourself.
“Oh, and men do not want sex all the time. We are not dogs, and even if we did, there’s a thing that humans possess called rationality to help us behave in ways that are not rife with douchebaggery.”
Sorry, buddy. From personal experience, and widely confirmed evidence, we are dogs who want sex all the time. As long as it is with constantly new women. I look forward to the day when you stop behaving in ways that are rife with douchebaggery, but I’m not going to pretend or lie about the fact that men are male apes. For that matter, women are female apes. All of your higher faculties and all of our civilization and all of our values and morality can fade to dust or be vaporized in an instant, the only thing that is really important to our biological existence is that we keep fucking.
All adolescents, male and female both equally, are always going to do everything in their power, without even necessarily knowing they’re doing it, the instinct is so strong, to fuck each other. There is no society we will ever build which will prevent it. There is literally nothing in this universe that will deter us from getting our freak on. So please, forgive me for not taking too seriously how offended some women get when they get hit on. Welcome to the planet. And really, don’t expect sympathy from me when you mock someone and claim they’re too self-involved because they were persistent in chasing after the wrong chick.
Ok so that means I can randomly insult you at any time of my choosing, or make you feel uncomfortable at whim?
You can try. Doesn’t look like you could pull it off, but best of luck.
What do I care if you’re offended? That’s some grade a douchebaggery.
That’s just what I was thinking.
Ok, I’m calling whatever the misogynist douchebag equivalent of a Poe is on tmaxPA. No one could actually believe what he just wrote.
“You are obviously trying to be more than a little bit annoying. Get over yourself.
Why do you care what I do? You don’t have the right to be not annoyed ;). Besides your outright refusal to debate anyone who can actually answer you back in real time is telling.
“Sorry, buddy. From personal experience, and widely confirmed evidence, we are dogs who want sex all the time. As long as it is with constantly new women. I look forward to the day when you stop behaving in ways that are rife with rward to the day when you stop behaving in ways that are rife with douchebaggery, but I’m not going to pretend or lie about the fact that men are male apes.”
Speaking as a male, I call bullshit. And second, if men are just “apes” we should treat the gender as such. What a self hating way to view yourself, as nothing better than an animal. For shame.
“[T]he only thing that is really important to our biological existence is that we keep fucking.”
Our biological existence is not our entire existence. We have higher reasoning faculties for a reason!
“All adolescents, male and female both equally, are always going to do everything in their power, without even necessarily knowing they’re doing it, the instinct is so strong, to fuck each other.”
Yes and?
“So please, forgive me for not taking too seriously how offended some women get when they get hit on. Welcome to the planet. And really, don’t expect sympathy from me when you mock someone and claim they’re too self-involved because they were persistent in chasing after the wrong chick.”
Oh boo hoo that poor woman getting creeped out when I really just want to hump her leg!
If someone is not into it, you walk away. If you can’t get that VERY SIMPLE RULE through your thick skull I don’t know what hope you have of staying out of prison. USE YOUR BRAIN AND NOT YOUR CROTCH FOR ONCE!
“You can try. Doesn’t look like you could pull it off, but best of luck.”
You’re right, one has to be smart enough to understand that one is being insulted…
Justin; #615
Still trying really hard to be a prick, I see.
Am I to suppose you are advocating that fourteen year old girls be encouraged to go off by themselves to meet groups of men?
“Still trying really hard to be a prick, I see.”
Well I’m still just a pale shadow compared to you, but hey we all need role models!
“Am I to suppose you are advocating that fourteen year old girls be encouraged to go off by themselves to meet groups of men?”
No, and I never said that. However, a 14 yr old girl who is walking to school should not be subject to catcalls or “compliments” on her looks from men old enough to be her father.
disingenuous misogynists are such fun!
They don’t have a clue, and couldn’t find one with maps and GPS systems.
Res ipsa loquitur: the thing speaks for itself.
Would you? I wouldn’t unless asked or unless there’s another very specific reason (like the person was recently ill and probably wonders, or something). I wouldn’t even get the idea that I could.
But then, I’m capable of talking to people for an hour without asking for their name, because I’m just not interested in it… :-|
That looks like a remnant of Victorian-style politeness. See near the start of this thread.
Speak for yourself.
And, frankly, a bit strange. Though still less kinky than the foot fetish. (Heels? Seriously? Is that where you look? I mean, the 19th century is over, you can see a lady’s ankle now…)
When “their space” is in public, we have a conflict. No, sorry, PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO SPEAK TO YOU OUTDOORS. They do NOT need your permission. It doesn’t MATTER if you are a frightened vulnerable practically paranoid 14 year-old rape survivor or not. We simply don’t live in the kind of EMOTIONALLY safe world you wish we did, Justin.
“When “their space” is in public, we have a conflict. No, sorry, PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO SPEAK TO YOU OUTDOORS. They do NOT need your permission. It doesn’t MATTER if you are a frightened vulnerable practically paranoid 14 year-old rape survivor or not. We simply don’t live in the kind of EMOTIONALLY safe world you wish we did, Justin.”
And when you tell them to fuck off or get lost then they have the imperative to do so. From your previous posts it seems you don’t believe that obvious fact.
Akiko @ 327 I just want to say I feel you. I work in an area that is male dominated and I fell into it accidentally because I happen to be good at it. I also happen to be female and considered attractive. In fact, I used to model. At the risk of being attacked here I’m going to say to all the “ugly” girls on here that having a random and often disgusting man grope you and inform you that he’d like to put his penis in you doesn’t feel any better than being called ugly. I’ve had it both ways because before I was pretty I was ugly, and I’ll be ugly again when I still have a good 40 or more years to live. IT’S PART OF THE SAME SICK DYNAMIC.
Sorry for the all caps, but it really has to be said. It’s all part of what amounts to a fucking disease within our culture IMO. And yes, we cut off almost half our potential at the root by trapping each upcoming generation of women in this bullshit.
“Yeah, dammit. If she wanted to act like a scientist, she should have worn a burqa.”
It is not my understanding that scientists commonly wear burqa. Nor do they submit head shots with their papers for peer review.
I actually disagree with that one, even though the rest of your comment bears repeating till tmaxPA grows some empathy.
“It is not my understanding that scientists commonly wear burqa. Nor do they submit head shots with their papers for peer review.”
No but they have their pictures freely available, especially if they’re teaching or working for certain companies. Do the males typically receive this attention? No.
Dishonesty much?
“I actually disagree with that one, even though the rest of your comment bears repeating till tmaxPA grows some empathy.”
I can see where you’re coming from actually… An interesting discussion to be had at least ;).
Anyhow it will have to wait. I have to work tomorrow and I need to be up early. Someone take over for me!
*tag!*
Nor do they submit head shots with their papers for peer review.
No, but most of them do have to have pictures on their university web page. And depending on how good of a sport they are, they might get suckered into being in promo pictures for the college. Since scientists work with cool-looking lab stuff and it’s a small school, my other female colleague and I get tapped for this kind of thing fairly frequently. Does that mean our appearance is up for grabs and we should put up with whatever shitty comments people want to throw at us?
Ooo, Comic Sans. I wish I knew how to code in Comic Sans for tmaxPA quoting.
Oh sorry for the link in my name. I’m using my friend’s computer and her stuff is saved the browser… oh well.
Overgeneralization. At least one presenter at ISSCC was an Iranian woman, and authors for the JSSC typically have pictures of their faces published along with their personal summaries.
Customs, patently, vary.
Note to all the guys worrying about compliments. A compliment is a compliment. It should be personal and genuine and you should be familiar enough with the person to make it, or keep it distant enough not to be creepy. A good rule of thumb to follow is to ask yourself if it is something you would appreciate being complimented on. A good compliment is usually one that is made about something the other person has done, a choice they made, or something that they clearly care about.
As far as looks go, this is why “Your new haircut is pretty” is a compliment, but “You’re so pretty, why aren’t you married?” is not. “I like those glasses” is pretty neutral, bonus points for actually saying something descriptive about the frames. “You remind me of Kim Kardashian (giggles or pounds fist with a colleague)” is not. Most importantly looking down at a female colleague then looking back up at a male one with a grin and saying “good choice!” is not complimentary.
Secondly it isn’t what one single person says, but rather the cumulative effect.
Some people clearly think so. I know two female undergrads in the same research group who turned down offers of grad study at a certain institute of technology because of the reputation that particular department has for sexual harassment of female students, and for having a chair that doesn’t particularly care about cracking down on it.
Upthread, the analogy of a tax on female professionals was drawn. I think that analogy is a very good description of what happens when female students have to choose how much sexual harassment they’re willing to put up with as a condition of graduate study. Some fight back, and others decide the struggle’s not worth it.
Guys like tmaxPA either don’t know what toll this crap takes, or they don’t care. At some point, though, determined ignorance becomes indistinguishable from malice, so it really doesn’t matter.
When did I say that?
That would make sense only if you assume that women can. I wouldn’t expect this to be any more gender-specific than intelligence or musical talent. Still, being able to resist blurting out something inappropriate based on the strongest of biological motivations doesn’t seem on the same order as organizing governments or industry.
To Justin @630: ah, dear, sweet Justin. Poor, sweet, naive, stupid Justin. Just because I used an anecdote from my past to illustrate a point, doesn’t mean I base my undestanding of the issue solely on that experience. M’kay?
And to Carlie @631: I’m not sure what you think is supposed to ‘get through to me’ or what clue you think I’m missing. I think you stopped rationally considering my words because of something I said THAT YOU TOOK WRONG. Go back and read them all from the beginning.
I wish I could say I am shocked to be called a misogynist on this thread but I’ve been posting on the Intertoob thingies way too long to have not been well aware that was going to happen. It is way too easy to read any explanation of the extent as normative, which is to say you think I’m somehow not in favor of men acting civilized, or that I’m a misogynist because I will insist that miniskirts are a sexual display.
Some of you people really need to grow up.
Justin@635: Just trying to catch up from all the piling on everyone’s doing. Yowza, what fun.
Sniper: “Anyone who thinks women bring harassment on themselves by wearing eye makeup is hopeless.”
The discussion way up thread (perhaps you have forgotten, or perhaps you really don’t care and just want to get your dander up over ANYTHING I say, no matter what it is, now that you’ve identified me as teh bad guy) was over how context-sensitive the term ‘harassment’ is.
Carlie, the good Rev. BDC explains it here.
Anyone call bingo yet?
“All adolescents, male and female both equally, are always going to do everything in their power, without even necessarily knowing they’re doing it, the instinct is so strong, to fuck each other.”
What the fuck are you talking about? I spent my HS years wearing multiple button down sweaters, hair in a bun, and old-lady shoes in the hopes that I would be judged on my academic merits. I wanted to be as far as possible from the “in pictures” me and the last thing on my mind was sex. All I wanted was to be taken seriously as an artist, and liked as a person. It’s not all sex, dude. There’s a lot more to life and some of us are even aware of it. Besides, there’s something seriously wrong with saying all this kind of person or all that kind of person. It’s pretty much bound to be wrong!
I couldn’t resist popping back to check in on the thread and I find this:
“To Justin @630: ah, dear, sweet Justin. Poor, sweet, naive, stupid Justin. Just because I used an anecdote from my past to illustrate a point, doesn’t mean I base my undestanding of the issue solely on that experience. M’kay?”
Anecdotal evidence is not proof of any trends or a reliable source for information.
FAIL
OK, fine, that’s enough. You’ve all degenerated into meaningless babbling. I wish I was only unsurprised and disappointed, but the fact is that I am angry.
“Guys like tmaxPA either don’t know what toll this crap takes, or they don’t care. ”
You haven’t a clue. Fuck you and the horse you and your jackass friends rode in on. I’ve never said a single god-damned word that should give any reasonable person justification for saying that, and I’ve refuted it specifically in several comments. Go back and read it.
I hope mynabird got her damn books home OK. See you freaks tomorrow.
So you knew what was going to happen and you flaunted your opinions anyway… you opinion-slut in an internet-miniskirt!
Anecdotal evidence is not proof of any trends or a reliable source for information.You haven’t a clue. Fuck you and the horse you and your jackass friends rode in on.
You have no right to be offended.
I find it hard to believe that anyone could be quite that self-delusional. I almost wish tmaxPA hadn’t flounced off to bed or we could see if poking him more would make him even more incoherent.
Thanks for the link, Nerd!
Has anyone else noticed how obsessed tmaxPA seems to be with 14-year-old girls?
Tactical advice: don’t attempt to read minds. It’s a rathole.
Concentrate on behavior: “Too damn many guys, like several here, aren’t helping any.” The “aren’t helping any” is ambiguous but (usefully) implies that they may be actively part of the problem.
bingo-II
You know, most people who don’t want to be thought of as misogynistic wouldn’t defend sexist comments at a scientist’s professional site as “appropriate”.
YMMV, of course.
tmaxpa @ 622:
tmaxpa, who exactly do you think it is who doesn’t understand that men’s tendency to judge women by their looks ultimately derives from evolution? What more do we need to understand about the subject before we exercise our tendencies for empathy and moral reasoning and self control (also derived from evolution) to create a society more to our liking?
Has anyone else noticed that TmaxPA is an anagram of the brand name of a feminine hygiene product? Do we have Prince Charles at the keyboard?
heh, menassgill would be a more appropriate anagrammatic nym, under the circumstances.
I have never met any hetereosexual white man who was afraid of being raped or killed by someone who made a comment about their looks or looked at them in a lustful manner. The only people I know who have felt they might be hurt or killed only because of how they look are women and minorities. That is why allowing sexism is so dangerous. It is similar to looking the other way when encountering racism. If people are not corrected they will take it further. It never ends well. 1 in 3 women and girls in this country are victims of sexual assault at some time in their lives. Even the elderly women. This is a real problem and the solution starts with each of us not allowing the “boys will be boys” attitude. Pornography has emasculated our men in this country turnign them into perpetual teenagers peeking through the keyhole and dehumanized our women. And the corproations who push are laughing all the way to the bank.
I have to wonder if she knows what “misogynistic” means. It doesn’t mean “superficial compliments”.
This is what we are afraid of when men “compliment” us. Personally, my heart starts beating. What if he follows me to my car? Who will believe me even if I live? If some one from work rapes me I’ll lose my job if I say anything. I’ll never be seen for myself again. Not all men are like that, but the men who are do enough damage to keep us all half paralyzed with fear. The little “compliments” are just reminders of why that fear is real. They don’t seem significant until you consider the bigger picture. We aren’t typical animals, a big part of our success comes from controlling our impulses.
This thread is finally slowing down? Popular topic.
I like receiving compliments on my appearance… if they are in fact compliments (vulgarities are not), they’re given in social situations, and they’re not coming from complete strangers. Inappropriate comments can be threatening or demeaning. Is that really hard to figure out? Isn’t that just common sense?
About Pete Rooke: I think that guy’s sometimes amusing. In this thread he’s gone on an old-farty fashion police rant, which was just misogynistic and annoying. But he’s also used language that suggests that women in his world are into pony play, and done a fair job of promoting lesbianism. Strange and interesting.
Jeanette: Pete fascinates me. I’m a little afraid of him, but I feel better knowing we don’t live near each other. Don’t forget that he also commented on some one’s myspace, which implies he… looks us up.
David Marjanović:or if you had ever witnessed anyone being bullied in school, you wouldn’t have stupidly ignored the possibility of them ganging up on you.
Or that the possibility was rather outside the discussion at hand, but never mind.
And *I* was regularly bullied throughout my school years because I was ugly (still am- getting compliments on looks is a phenomena I have never personally experienced) and suffered from clinical depression and other neurological disorders which made me standoffish.
That was the beginning of my black hearted misanthropy. I guess it gave me a fairly thick skin and, I admit, little empathy for what strikes me as a moderate annoyance on the Wheel O’ Mortal Sins.
This thread reminds me to one of my favorite movie scenes.
@ blueelm
I spent my HS years wearing multiple button down sweaters, hair in a bun, and old-lady shoes in the hopes that I would be judged on my academic merits.
I would be more likely to compliment someone who wasn’t fishing for compliments and actually respected themselves as an individual as opposed to someone flaunting their bodies as a makeweight in an academic battle. Confidence in this respect is really attractive.
I wanted to be as far as possible from the “in pictures” me and the last thing on my mind was sex. All I wanted was to be taken seriously as an artist, and liked as a person. It’s not all sex, dude. There’s a lot more to life and some of us are even aware of it. Besides, there’s something seriously wrong with saying all this kind of person or all that kind of person. It’s pretty much bound to be wrong!
Here in England I’ve found that many young girls desire only to get pregnant, to a father who will later abandon them, and then live off the reasonably modest benefits the state provides in a council house.
I think it’s pretty clear that there are no actual women in Pete’s world.
Sven DiMilo,
roughly 50% of the people I meet in my life are women.
Wow, some of the commenters here don’t have a clue.
First commenter to really piss me off… No it’s not okay to judge people by their health (as indicated by appearance). Asthma isn’t caused by a character flaw, but it makes people pale and drawn. PCOS isn’t a matter of choice, but it can effect weight and cause acne. Cancer can make children bald– I guess it’s okay to despise them, though, they must have done something wrong? Geez, Louise, you do NOT really mean you think it’s perfectly fine to judge people by their appearance because it means they are healthy or unhealthy and therefore worthy or not. You mean you judge them on their appearance because all you think about is who you want sex with.
Middle person to piss me off… no, women don’t all care about how much money their potential mate makes. We’re actually human beings who have emotions. You shouldn’t even assume all women, or all men, actually want kids– in this modern era of medical science, there are things like condoms and birth control pills that make it optional, and women can pick a guy because he’s cute and she can afford him, and men can fancy a woman’s intelligence and sense of humor. You pine for the days of universal deference to the Patriarchy, but sadly for you, women have the right to own property and have careers.
Final person to piss me off before I had to skip to the end and comment… No, life isn’t easier for women, just because the lucky few who are genetically prone to fit the modern beauty ideal can spend a bunch of money on clothes and beauty supplies to attract a rich husband. Even for the few women who do that, their trophy status wears off as they age and they are discarded in divorce. They can even get in trouble when a faithful husband is disabled or downsized in a bad economy.
More likely the woman who makes a career as arm candy, without developing her mind, will be used and cast off without marriage ever coming up. “Contrary to popular opinion,” as Mr. Bennett said, “men do not want silly wives.”
In fact, the modern trophy wife needs a degree and a background career of her own, even if they plan for her to devote herself to supporting his career or raising his kids.
And I think I broke off less than 20 comments in. I can’t stomach any more of this stupid. You want to get defensive about judging people by their looks? Fine, just say it comes naturally and you don’t care what women think about your manners. It’s a good defense for other things, like men unzipping it and urinating on lampposts, right? Except that no, even though urinating freely is a natural thing, men are intelligent and can refrain from doing so, waiting to get to a restroom.
You can learn to treat women as human beings first, making advances only after making friends.
In actual experience, men who find me genuinely attractive do pursue friendship first and then let me know how they feel about my looks. Men who start off with compliments and other advances are usually attempting to intimidate. Sexual harassment is about bullying, not intimacy.
To the few here who lack the emotional intelligence to keep up, this is why I was angry.
I had a moral (and a contractual) duty to keep good order. These shenanigans going on in the middle of a small office were disrupting everyone’s work.
I was walking a tightrope – trying to ensure that the woman had my support without undermining her own confidence in her ability to handle that idiot.
I was getting no work done – one-to-one work was of poor quality because I always had one eye over my shoulder, group work during that time was impossible.
The guy in question was doing no work at all – something for which, in the end, I would be held responsible.
Somewhere, deep in my unconscious, was the memory of giving evidence in court when I had accused someone of indecent assault and the fact that the whole of his defence was that I had spoken civilly to him previously and that therefore ….. The women here will know where that sentence goes next and not a few of the men.
Normally I would scrub what I’ve just written – far too much use of the first person singular, far too much concentration on how it felt but if it will help just one person to think that all this is an actual person negotiating a difficult situation then maybe I can depart from my usual standards.
What this conversation is not – despite various efforts to drag it down – about is a commodity called women, freely available on a street near you. Certainly, there is one person here who really should stop reading boddice-ripper* novels and another who should just get out more.
* soft porn, if that term is not widely recognised
Samantha Vimes,
all of the societal problems disappear if we maintain the sex only comes only after marriage.
Sexual advances in public (compliments etc) would prove to be, for the most part, irrelevant.
So is a “Babes of Scienceblogs” calender out of the question?
If a compliment were to come from Rooke, I’d be afraid the next words out of his mouth would be, “It takes the lotion out of the basket…” because he was prepping to bind a book.
Pete Rooke, cluelessly opined:
Except for the fact that married men have been known to, on occasion, beat their wives. Luckily, if they’re Christians, they’ve got scripture on their side!
Yes, because the world were non-virgins were stoned at the door of their father on their wedding night was the utopia we should all dream of…
Rooke,
Pete do you have evidence that this is true or even practical? Historically, it may have been more likely for people to have sex only after marriage yet we had slavery and women had no rights. In medieval times you were guilty until proven flammable.
Also, despite all the power your church had and continues to have they have done a piss poor job at fighting the human instinct for sex. Hell, they don’t seem to be able to quell the sexual desires of their own clergy.
*comes out of lurking*
Piece of advice for the men? Guide your penis with your brain. Not the other way around.
To those men who already do this, I salute you.
Quiet Desperation:
Sure you do. That’s why you repeatedly appear on these threads dismissing or mocking people’s legitimate concerns, apparently just for your own amusement. …Unless you don’t consider your posts here a form of human interaction, or don’t consider us people.
You’ve mentioned your misanthropy in almost every one of your posts for several months. I have no idea why you feel compelled to do so.
Glad you’re amused. Of course, you’re also laughing with glee at the people who are wondering where their next meal is coming from, or who have lost their life’s savings, or been evicted from their homes, so you don’t have much of a leg to stand on here, do you? And I’ll fill you in on something: Many poor people also care about being treated decently. I posted a link a while back to an article about women in a South African city who are fighting harassment and sexual violence at taxi stands and from taxi drivers. These are poor women.
Look, you twit, these things are not unrelated. It’s about power, and these are but different manifestations of patriarchy.
No, you don’t, and no, it isn’t.
Right. As some may recall, this is the same Quiet Desperation who made that joke about Sarah Palin.
As others have pointed out, social change is something in which we are not entirely passive.
Well, it doesn’t appear that you are.
Again, they’re related. Really, how difficult of a concept is this to grasp? Do you honestly think an environment of verbal “sexual forwardness” and the mentalities to which it contributes have nothing to do with physical assaults, from groping to rape? With the maintenance of a patriarchal system?
How original. You don’t like something and want to change it. You must be proposing legislation or thought control. This is education, and if left to “time,” things can get far worse.
AnthonyK:
I agree that this is a problem, and it’s a shame for men who aren’t pedophiles have this barrier to overcome. But it should be noted that pointing to our overrepresentation in child care – “women’s work,” which is valued and remunerated accordingly (by which I mean these are among the lowest-paid jobs around, in the US at least) – as something women have “going for” us is, well, a bit problematic.
By the way, it is the poorest women (especially members of minority groups) working in the lowest-level jobs who have the least clout in fighting against unwanted “sexual forwardness,” sexual harassment, and sexual violence. This is why they’re so often targeted.
What you’ve described is – contrary to what you parenthetically implied – the effects of a patriarchal system. You’re suggesting an essentialist interpretation of differing levels of empathy and responses to sexual arousal, but these can be sociologically explained as well. Studies (one was discussed a while back here on Sb – I can link to it if anyone’s interested) are showing that empathy decreases with increases in power over others. It is socially shaped.
Also, while it’s generally thought that people have to change their attitudes before they alter their behavior, I’ve found in my own research that the reverse is true – how we think about and relate to other people often results from changes in our behavior towards them. I do believe that if people would make an effort to stop themselves from behaving in this way, it would over time have an effect on their attitudes (and also likely lead to an improvement in their relations with members of the opposite – or any – sex). Decency is a habit.
tmaxPA:
And yet, somehow, it isn’t. All human relationships are complicated. But virtually every man in my large extended family, all of those with whom I’m friends, and the majority of those I’ve encountered professionally (and here!) manage to navigate their interactions without coming across as creepy or threatening assholes. Everyone censors themselves to some extent (however consciously), but if you find that you have to do this constantly, consciously, the odds are good that you’re an asshole.
And when I read something like, “I am left, having read this interesting thread, wondering how one should go about getting sex with a beautiful stranger who fancies you,” I can’t take it seriously.
***
The only argument people like tmaxPA utimately have to fall back on – and they almost always do, if they haven’t opened with it – is “it exists” or “that’s just how things are” (often coupled with “I’m as concerned about it as you are, really!”). This is generally followed by “Things are not going to change” (I even had someone on a recent thread tell me that “c***” would never disappear from British street slang – because of course nothing has more solidity or permanence than street slang). Look, there’s an enormous amount of variation, historically and cross-culturally – in social norms. Gender roles and practices of social interaction are not simply reflections of some essential biology. They are largely cultural products which are subject to change, including directed change. Some of us here are trying to contribute to changing them for the better. If you agree with the goal but wish to go about it differently, feel free to do so. If you think our focus is wrongly directed, feel free to fight the battle on different fronts.
tmaxPA
Wow, I only read the first hundred or so comments, and already I’m disappointed. It seems like a lot of people are trying to come up with flimsy justifications for their misogyny. And more than a few of the commenters seem to be a little insecure about their manhood and think that women have so much power. The simple fact is that a lot of the evo psych stuff is pseudoscience. It’s just a flimsy rationalization that buys into the stereotype of women wanting money from men and men wanting sex from women. The simple fact is that it’s not hard-wired. As women make more money and have more opportunities for a career, women’s priorities for looks over money in a partner have been steadily increasing. From an evolutionary viewpoint, women who want “healthy” men would have offspring that survive better, especially if she can contribute significantly to providing for them, which most women do. It’s fairly easy to come up with an evo psych justification for almost any opinion. And let’s be realistic. No one ever looks at an attractive person and likes them because they are “healthy”.
I came onto this thread expecting mostly rational people to comment, but instead I saw a bunch of people complaining about being too PC, and using rationalizations to justify misogyny in society. It’s also dissapointing to see so many people who don’t seem to understand how evolution actually works and how complex it is.
And all of this was before Pete Rooke even posted. It seems that he’s a little jealous that he didn’t win the Survivor:Pharyngula game, and now he’s trying to prove just how much of a troll he can really be.
You’re going off the rails again, Pete.
I’m telling you–sticking with “lesbian chicken” is a strategy that’s going to pay off much better in the long run.
As some may recall, this is the same Quiet Desperation who made that joke about Sarah Palin.
You know it’s creepy you even remember or care anymore about that. I apologized at the time. If that’s not enough, well, who cares. We all can’t be faultless like you, but, well, one can dream.
A lot of it doesn’t even seem to make sense. I’ve read that in hunter-gatherer societies the bulk of the calories are provided by gathering, and from what I’ve seen both hunting and gathering are group activities. I don’t think a person’s children would be allowed to starve because he or she wasn’t the best spotter or tracker or shooter or whatever. Other primates – the ones that aren’t vegetarians – seem to be opportunistic hunters of very small creatures, and this appears to be done by both males and females. It’s not as though they’re sending out rifle-armed hunting parties. Where is the path leading from this to women allegedly being biologically hardwired to want a man with money? My knowledge may be limited, but I just don’t get it.
*spittake* Yeah, you make a disgustingly insensitive joke and I’m creepy for remembering it.
Look, IIRC I didn’t even participate in the discussion of it at the time. I’m pointing it out now because that act, among others, belies your claim to an effortless decency. It also poses a problem for your argument that efforts at consciousness-raising are of little use. You didn’t apologize for it, or likely see anything wrong with it, until others called attention to it.
Lame. I’ve never once suggested that I’m faultless. I’m anything but.
.
I agree. It is, in part, a justification for not taking childcare (or general care) work by men. Thank heavens for equal pay legislation! And yes, the “rewarding” in a personal way, aspect of such jobs is a factor in why I do it, but their low status – connected with them being “women’s work” (very much in inverted commas) – is a scandal. This is changing, however. Another aspect is that in general care work requires a lower level of education – in part because carework, practically speaking, calls on innate skills of compassion which are not much improved by formal education.
A little personal anecdote, about the “it must be very rewarding” aspect – I remember taking a kid out for a walk once, when I was working at a daycare centre for children with learning difficulties. I wanted to take him with me, I wasn’t told to. He was 14, severely learning-disabled, non-verbal, and in diapers. I held his hand and took him to the local shop. I felt, I must say, somehow privileged to spend time with him – he had, I thought, an aspect of humanity to him which I was proud to associate with – and one which I felt shouldn’t be hidden away. I took him into a church, on my way there, then into the shop, then back home. I talked to him. I, obviously, wasn’t the least embarrassed to be seen with him, in a situation where any adult could see exactly what was going on. At that time, I was profoundly grateful that I (and he) should be able to have such an experience.
It wasn’t quite so nice a little later on, when another kid, left alone for a while, smeared shit all over his room, but hey that’s life!
MAJeff
“If a compliment were to come from Rooke, I’d be afraid the next words out of his mouth would be, “It takes the lotion out of the basket…” because he was prepping to bind a book.”
I laughed so hard at that I snarfed my coffee!
Fuck’s sake, Rooke, you really are a disgrace. Even if this sentence weren’t so badly written that it is almost incomprehensible, it is complete bollocks.
NEWSFLASH “societal problems” exist before, during, and after marriage.
What a complete wanker you are.
Uh, what equal pay legislation? :(
I’m surprised that you, who have worked as a teacher and child-care worker, would say that. There’s no such thing as an “innate skill.” I worked as a babysitter/nanny several years ago (I was offered the job solely because I’m female), and it was quite clear to me that I lacked the relevant skill set, although I did the best I could. Even properly caring for dogs, which comes much more naturally to me, requires developing skills through either formal or informal training. Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel and Dimed describes well what is really required for a number of “low-skilled” and low-paid jobs, but I think child care is one area in which I wouldn’t count on “innate” compassion to be sufficient. Compassion is, for example, of litte use in an emergency situation. Much that is involved in caring for and educating small children, even those without special needs, involves extensive training. (Incidentally, “men’s work” that requires equally little formal education is compensated better – here at least, where we don’t have “comparable worth” laws.)
It seems that The Free Republic is debating if granting women the right to vote destroyed the republic. I will not link to Freep but instead to Pam’s House Blend. When Pam does this, she pulls out some very juicy Freeper quotes.
Dammit! People who do not own property are the most irresponsible people!
Women are just men with boobs, right? That is why they love porn so much. The idea that men and women may be as different in their internal wiring as they are in their external looks is preposterous …; )*
http://www.biodiversivist.com
*Sarcasm alert
Finley, no one even has to go to your link to know you’re an ignorant fool.
Yeah, OK, I’m not really arguing with you. We so have equal pay legislation in the UK, and in Europe generally. The innate skills thing, well, I assume (and please don’t shoot me down over this!) that women, being so much more intimately acquainted with child care, have even higher levels of empathy than men do, which is not to say all women, or all men. I found, when I started working in child care, that I did have a high level of “natural” concern for my charges, and to be honest I was surprised at the intensity of my feelings. However, in some respects, this makes it initially more, rather than less difficult, because a high level of personal concern is not necessarily helpful – it’s noticeable, for instance, that new recruits in my current line of work – difficult, socially-damaged adolescents – are sometimes so outraged over the home and social circumstances of our charges that they are ineffective in dealing with them, certainly where firm authority is concerned. You can be so blinded by rage that a child’s mother is an alcoholic prostitute that you forget the child’s needs. Overcoming this requires long experience, and even then one is still prone to it.
Anyway, sorry for the long post talking about me. But, as you can understand, part of my life’s journey is working with life’s fuck-ups, and it may give me a slightly skewed attitude to other people’s problems. And being a philosophically minded atheist, I don’t have the pablum of religion to explain the pain!
AnthonyK,
I appreciate your response, and really respect what you’ve chosen to do.
Only one thing:
Of course I’m going to try to shoot you down! How could you even request such a thing?!
:)
The problem wih this is* that you’re suggesting that people who are involved in caring roles tend to develop their capacity for practical empathy (although certainly not all). I would tend to agree with this. But because not all women are “intimately acquainted with child care,” this doesn’t apply in a general way. And, as you suggest, even if such a greater innate capacity did exist it wouldn’t necessarily be of particular value, and may even be detrimental in ways, in certain caring roles. I would prefer to entrust children and others who need care to people who are compassionate and know what the hell they’re doing.** The first may have innate individual and also social bases, but the second is fully learned. Skills are learned. The reason I’m so insistent on this is that when “caring” is reduced to a set of emotional responses it’s all too easy to devalue the amount of practical knowledge required for these jobs and thus to devalue them altogether (more of a problem here where we don’t have legislation to counteract it).
*If you’re making an essentialist biological argument, I don’t think it’s well supported. If it is the case, I think it’s trivially true, given the powerful social influences on the development of empathy, for people of both sexes.
** This is true not just of people working with children but those helping refugees, victims of natural disasters or of torture, sick people,… Compassion is usually broadly necessary, but certainly not sufficient.
I think we are in agreement – and I’m desperate not to make a mistake which implies a demeaned role for women *insert insecure, cringing emoticon* – but for obvious reasons I am interested in these dilemmas.
Re: training – if it is ever truly effective in this field, then the stuff I’ve received is woefully inadequate. Apart from some narrow stuff to do with legislation, and fucking health and fucking safety (let’s not go there!) nothing can train you for the circumstances you find yourself in. No amount of equality training or theoretical stuff on whatever is the current theory of, say, disadvantage, really prepares you for a child who, it seems, won’t accept your help, and where anger management is useless because, essentially the child is managing their anger – by getting angry. I think you need to see a good few cycles of kids growing and changing before you have a real appreciation of the slow nature and long-term consequences of your input, including apparent failures.
It’s all a question of aptitude and experience, as you might expect. And also, as you might expect, religious beliefs seem to be irrelevant to fitness for this line of work (although, guilty secret, if anyone thought fit to put on their application form that they were heavily involved in some church or other, I would take a dim view – if only because thinking it is relevant suggests a tiresome apologist)
So I have a dim view of training in this line of work, as psychology can be so irrelevant and bullshitty – and bullshit is a real enemy of good practice.
Luckily, I love my job, and find these irrelevancies to be just that.
Yeah, you make a disgustingly insensitive joke and I’m creepy for remembering it.
Yes, a bit, but you’re right. No one should be allowed to make a dumb mistake, and should forever be judged by that dumb mistake. I deserve to burn in hell. Oops, wait, there is no hell. Hmmm. We’re back to the poison cookie, I guess. I’ll take Mrs Field’s extra large chocolate chip with hemlock, please.
(QD takes bite of cookie, swoons, and passes from this mortal coil. And there was much rejoicing.)
I don’t think we disagree. When I spoke of education and training, I was including (and in this case implicitly emphasizing) experiential learning and on-the-job training. My point was to make the distinction between innate and learned.
Give it up, man. I didn’t participate in the discussion at the time, and didn’t bring it up on any occasion prior to responding to your claims about yourself. That you own up to it, are embarrassed about it, and prefer that it not be raised actually speaks well of you.
As someone who frequently swoons, I am offended. ;)
*to himself* – phew, I think I got away with it – nice tits love! Wahey! – hey, is this thing on?
Jokes!
AnthonyK,
It’s great that you have chosen this work and that you so much enjoy it so I’m quibbling and definitely not trying to knock you. OK?
This empathy thing – the brain certainly has the hard-wiring to make it possible but there’s a lot of training, too, just not in the workplace. As far as I can work out the hard-wiring is there for men as well but sometimes it is trained out of the lad at an early age.
I remember when my training began – when my Dad became chairman of the local council – no power, no budget but an awful lot of tea-and-cake level entertaining – and I was taught to look around a room – see who needed another cup of tea, a piece of cake, who was sitting in a draught or uncomfortable too close to the fire – at about age 5! I won’t bore you but there were further stages. I never did get the hang of housework though and still haven’t – another thing that’s supposed to be totally natural for women.
Yes, we do have marginally better equal pay laws than the US but it took the 1984 amendment to bring in the concept of work of equal value. It has been utterly useless at tackling the places where discrimination is systemic or really closing the pay gap. Sad to say, the minimum wage as low as it was probably did more on that last one.
That you own up to it, are embarrassed about it, and prefer that it not be raised actually speaks well of you.
(gurgling, decaying noises)
Empathy – nature + nurture, surely?
I think, totally OT, that this can be encouraged by such activities as reading novels, where the skill is central to the enjoyment. And it feels to me as though posting here and interacting with so many smart, anonymous strangers helps me too. Well, that and the opportunity to be (I hope) eloquently rude to the hypocritical religious monsters who come and troll here!
@ blueelm: I didn’t realize he went to that kind of trouble, so that is a little bit creepy.
@ Pete Rooke: ‘K, don’t do that. And I think thalarctos is right: work the lesbian chicken angle. That “women should not wear pants and nobody should have sex out of wedlock” stuff is too mean-spirited to have any entertainment value.
@AnthonyK: Child care is definitely NOT an innate skills thing. Those of us who have been successful at avoiding exposure to the noisy, smelly little creatures don’t have the vaguest idea what to do with one of those, no matter what sex organs we were born with.
I thought it was interesting in this thread to hear from women who complain about feeling bad about inappropriate “compliments” on their appearance, and women who complain about feeling bad about insults because they aren’t generally considered “pretty.”
I experience both extremes at the same time. It’s truly bizarre. Men I don’t know hit on me and tell me how sexy I am, and on rare occasions men I don’t know call me a dog or a pig. It confused me a lot through school and into younger adulthood, because I thought one extreme or the other had to be “true.” But I think it must be that I’m not “hot” or “ugly,” but precisely the very most ordinary-looking a woman can be, so that beauty or lack thereof really is entirely in the eye of the beholder.
I’ve gone to extremes in both directions (being “feminine” and rejecting “femininity” in appearance) down the years, trying to adapt. And for women who do experience either of those extremes, know that the opposite extreme is generally equally hurtful, so there’s really no way to win except to refuse to accept anyone else’s view of you and forge your own self-image.
Boy, that Sheril sure is smart. And cute, too!
(angelic music and shaft of golden light)
Aw, crap, I’ve been resurrected. :-(
I just can’t catch a break.
It doesn’t only work with <p>, but also directly with <blockquote> (but only for the first quoted paragraph!) as well as with <a> and with <span> <span> is what you need when you want to change the font of part of a paragraph.
Er… what?
I mean… anything that says “in this country” is almost certainly wrong to start with…
You cannot possibly be serious.
First of all, that would take a miracle. And yes, I mean it. I don’t mean to say “it’s improbable”; I mean to say “that would take a miracle”.
Secondly, as I’ve already told you, I don’t think people should marry if they don’t know each other inside and out.
?
:-o
Just… wow. I had no idea this attitude still existed in any alleged First World country, or in fact had existed there any time during the last, say, 50 years.
:-o
Just for the sake of SIWOTI completeness, it is in principle possible that you are in fact both extremes at the same time. That’s because – for some people at least – beauty is a property of the face and the face only, while sexiness is a property of (part of) the rest of the body; all combinations appear to exist somewhere out there.
But it’s more likely that it’s, as you say, just a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder, which it very, very much is. To a lesser degree, so is sexiness.
OK, don’t bother showing me the Palin joke. I wanted to take that out when I read comment 715, and then I forgot.
Also, the first line of comment 723 is a blockquote fail.
David Marjanović, there is a lot about the United States that you do not know about. Sadly, there is a sizable minority that would welcome an idealized version of theocracy where the blacks are kept on the land, women are kept in the house and everyone respects god on the pain of death. You can find them at sites like The Free Republic.
Sexiness is in the groin of the beerholder.
one of the most striking things about this thread is how everyone assumes beauty to be a consistent thing that signifies health…. a small amount of study into beauty and its history will prove this notion false. even weirder is how beauty is automatically associated with being sexual when that has not been something automatically tied to sexuality in many periods of history. What is physically desirable has been as far from consistent and you can get, and so all the nonsense about how its something ladies should just get used to is foolish. Different groups of women would have to get used to it, and what do you know, the social prescription for beauty happens to have ties to the social prescription for behavior at the time. Its another tool of sexism and oppression for women.
Also I find it seriously ironic how everyone responded to the charge that ugly women are ignored… when they share experiences of being ignored in society they are told to stop whining by the people who devoted a lot of time to the plight of the attractive woman PZ referred to in his initial post. If you need proof of the kind of bs they were referring to, its all available here in this thread. just… wow.
I knew all that. I’ve even been to Free Republic once (many years ago, and never again – it was way too sickening). I just didn’t know this particular classism still existed.
David, I can sympathize with where you are coming from. You know that these kind of people exist. You do not want to acknowledge it because you want to think better of people.
I didn’t know that just this one particular sort of people existed. :-)
(…And… probably… dozens more such abominations. But I’m not going to try to find that out.)
Of course I want to think better of people, but… as T. H. Huxley said…
<sigh>
It’s interesting that, in a 729 post thread largely about the importance of respect, no one called out post #268, in which http://www.10ch.org asserted that ‘possibly’ most men are pigs.
And frankly, everyone here who believes that unwanted public comments are a prelude to rape and murder really should look at the statistics of how many women are raped by strangers vs how many are raped by people they already know.
What complete rubbish.
Question. If a woman is raped and murdered by a commenter who STARTS STALKING HER, does that count as her being raped and murdered by a stranger or an acquaintance?