You just can’t win, as this video shows.
There was one comment that was remarkably clueless (well, actually, lots of them, but I wasn’t going to go digging through youtube comments very deeply):
I don’t understand the motive of this video. Is it supposed to show makeup in a positive or negative light? I’d assume the latter, but the woman’s whole channel is about makeup tutorials so that doesn’t really make sense. Honestly, I agree that makeup is completely unnecessary. It’s time consuming, expensive, and ultimately pointless. Beauty is completely subjective, but beauty is never only skin-deep, and makeup is. I try my absolute hardest to not judge people by their physical appearance, as it is often not even controllable and in my opinion says the least about a person. If this video’s objective is to say that makeup is unnecessary (which I think it is) and anyone and everyone is beautiful to someone, then would the uploader continue to wear makeup and make makeup tutorials? That’s a bit ironic if so.
Pay attention to the video. If you don’t use makeup, you’re ugly; if you do, some wanker will come along to tell you that makeup is time consuming, expensive, and ultimately pointless
. Both sides are judging women on their appearance, and this is done to a degree that men never experience.
Maybe you should try not telling people how they should try to look, whether it’s to wear more makeup or to wear less?
Well this comment thread could quickly become a mine field. I sense the coming of heated disagreements. Going to get the popcorn.
congenital cynic @1
Eh? What do you mean by this?
I thought the “punchline” was going to be different, rape-y, tons of comments from guys telling her how hot she was and what they were going to do to her…..and that would be the Can’t-Win. I’m either ugly or a whore. So I was almost relieved when I saw that they were accusing her of bait-and-switch….until I thought about it a bit more. And when you parse the words carefully, that’s still what they’re saying, with an accusation of dishonesty thrown in. Sigh.
I don’t care how she looks. I care that she’s crying.
I struggled with acne for several years. It’s terrible and it’s amazing what she can do with makeup to cover it.
I’m lucky that I can just grow a big shaggy beard and that nobody actually expects me to be pretty, because I could never manage that, especially not on a daily basis.
You. It’s supposed to show you in a negative light.
The problem isn’t fucking makeup. You could make this about anything as long as it involves women’s appearance and choices. Shoes. High heels? You’re hurting your health! Flat shoes? You aren’t sexy and you’re probably too clumsy to wear anything else. Clothes. Showing too much skin? You’re a slut. Not showing enough skin? You’re insecure and must have an ugly body. Hiding your “imperfections”? You are deceiving people and you are ugly. Not hiding them? You have no self-awareness and you are ugly. Oh, you look too beautiful and I can’t use your physical appearance to hurt and demean you right now? Don’t worry, I’ll make it all about how dumb and shallow you must be!
You can’t win, indeed. And apparently these assholes are as clueless as they are judgmental.
Yeah, the point went way over that YouTube commenter’s head. They think women should just get used to society telling them how they should look, that somehow it’s perfectly normal and acceptable to just judge women’s choices of appearance. And they go on to do exactly that.
A well-meaning comment I actually got one morning when I took the little one to daycare.
What was up? I had to be in college later that morning and since I wanted to shower after I took the kids to school I hadn’t bothered to put on make-up. Just my normal self, teeth and hair brushed.
What people want is for us to wear make-up they don’t notice is there. Because as soon as it’s obvious, it’s obvious that no, we don’t crawl out of bed in the morning looking like this and yes, it takes time and effort to look like this.
Makeup is a medium of personal expression, so how and whether to use it should be an individual’s personal choice. You can critique a person’s form or aptitude in its application, but you can’t denounce them for the attempt to create art and integrate themselves into the work. Well, you can if your intent is to be an asshole.
[manspaining…]
It’s not just women who get judged by looks alone. As a TBI survivor, one of our biggest objections, is being told, “You look great!”. Not just our objections to it, we’re repeatedly told that is one of The Worst Things to say to a TBI survivor.
[getting to my point…]
The big issue we all have to workaround is using visual cues to assess each others health. Yes, our sense of “beautiful” is derived from “health”, but we must remember correlation is not causation. As in: though beauty is correlated to health, beauty does not cause health.
*cough* True, judging men by looks is not a problem; it might only occur in isolated instances, while women experience it ubiquitously over every aspect of their day-to-day.
intentional irony by the commentor?
Lovely video. Is lovely the right word? I don’t know what else to say. Kudos to Em Ford.
I was in 6th grade the first time someone told me I should try wearing makeup. I wasn’t allowed to wear any until 9th grade because my parents didn’t want me looking older than my age. I was barely in 10th grade the first time someone told me I really shouldn’t try going without, said with a scrunched up nose, like my normal face was a character flaw.
In 9th grade a boy in my English class took it upon himself to turn around in his desk and inform me that he didn’t like girls with short hair. I’d cut my hair that summer and had a style I thought was cute and could manage on my own for the first time in years. Before that cut, before I was allowed to wear a bit of powder, mascara, and lip gloss, the boys in my 7th and 8th grade classes would moo and bark at me.
A few years ago, after a trip to the salon where I’d gotten a haircut I really liked, I went to the grocery store. I was feeling confident and smiling a lot. A guy my elder passed me in the aisle and commented that “someone got a new haircut today!” with an approving tone. When I looked up to smile at him, he sneered at me.
Boys at my middle and high schools used to follow me down the halls making fun of the size of my butt. In my 20’s, guys were fond of telling me that I’d be a lot prettier if I exercised once in a while– I didn’t have a car so walked everywhere I went, and went dancing twice a week. I wore makeup, tried to be fashionable, and styled my hair every morning, but that wasn’t quite enough to keep the public comments at bay. Had a guy, once, when removing my bra, inform me those weren’t the boobs he brought home with him. Had another guy discuss my scant leg hair with a friend right in front of me, he likes it so much better when girls shave like she does, don’t you know. Neither of us was dating him. He was our ride home from the Lilith Fair.
In my 30’s, a few weeks after having a baby, went out dancing with some girlfriends for the first time in months. I loved to dance! Went to the bar for a water, and an ex boyfriend approached me. To say hi, nice to see you out, I thought. Nope. To disapprovingly jiggle the fat on the back of my arm.
I’m in my 40’s now. Hardly wear makeup, rarely style my hair, have quit covering my grey, am definitely not fashionable most of the time. The comments about what I should do to present myself to the public differently are slowly subsiding, in a way. People don’t feel inclined to touch me nearly so often, or to list my supposed flaws to my face, probably because I’ve
belonged to a manbeen partnered up for the past 15 years, and have reached the age of invisibility. Still, when I do take some time to fancy myself up, there’s a peculiar sort of commentary: You look pretty today, have you lost weight, are you getting more exercise, did you go shopping, are you having a good day? Suddenly, I’m visible.The video above is definitely not about cosmetics.
Well, she is really skilled when it comes to applying makeup. I’m sure that’s a useful skill.
The idea that the makeup is “false advertising” is just stupid. Yes, human beings can look flawed and pock marked and wrinkly … or what have you. According to their personal choice, humans can also alter the look of their skin. If you respect a woman as a human being, (perhaps she is your friend or coworker as well), then it really matters very little or not at all what she looks like sans adornment.
I think Nightjar nailed it exactly in comment 5.
I sorta suspect if I’d been born a woman I’d be in jail or dead by now. Seriously. How do people even stand this crap?
Wear this, don’t wear this, I don’t like you wearing/looking like that…
Shut uuuuuup. Seriously, I occasionally get this stuff as a man, but let’s face it, rarely (and, thankfully, more rarely still as I age, it seems). I think, by now, if I’d had to go through life getting it like women do, yeah, bad things would have happened by now.
The supreme irony in this video is that as a WoC, I’m completely invisible.
To white men.
Always have been. I can look however the Hell I darn well please, and wear whatever I want because no amount of makeup or clothing is going to make me attractive to the kinds of people who think my primary goal in life is to attract men. It’s curiously freeing.
Men of color, on the other hand….
That’s much more complicated.
Thought I’d leave this here. I think it’s hilariously sad:
http://youtu.be/MlNUIIyDA_w
everything is awful indeed.
I appreciate the dilemma women face it is much more extreme that what men face. We are all judged by external characteristics we have no or little control over. We feel we must try to be pleasing to some group or segment of society so we will be accepted. Since that group and it’s judgment is often ill defined it has to be internalized. Any comment and all comments are taken out of context just as easily as not. Some people will end up going to amazing lengths in order to please the internalized arbitrary ideal of what their appearance should be.
It took me some time to realize what Lakitha suggested that in fact it is impossible to please “the other” I could just look what ever the hell I wanted or what ever I did look like. Dealing with the feelings while doing that is another thing.
uncle frogy
What makes this doubly painful is that it can be demonstrated in so many ways, yet so many people are completely oblivious to this double standard, and will get bent out of shape denying that any such thing exists, you wussy beta-male, white knight, mangina SJW, you!
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/nov/17/male-tv-presenter-same-suit-year-female-colleagues-judged
I suppose that I have always been different from the usual woman. I’ve never cared much about fashion.
As a teenager, I discovered that I much preferred comfortable shoes and couldn’t stand heels.
I didn’t get my ears pierced until after I had my first child at the age of twenty, and I still wear the same birthstone studs, rarely changing my earrings.
I was never very interested in wearing makeup, and finally tried it when I was in my thirties, but frankly didn’t have much time for it since I was busy raising five kids with a husband who didn’t care at all if I wore it. I did wear makeup regularly when I was teaching, but I never took more than five minutes to apply it.
Now that I’m that invisible middle-aged grandma, a quick application of lipstick is all I need.
I’ve never given much thought to how I look to others. I’m just me, and if someone can’t deal with that, I don’t have time for them.
I thought about posting this link in the Drum, but I think it’s relevant here as well:
Ranking Women Somehow Not Issue In Miss USA Debacle:
What kind of a twisted world is this when the Onion is writing better articles about real problems than the so-called “real” newspapers?
It’s nice that Trump’s comments are seen as toxic, but as the Onion noticed, it underlines the fact that almost nobody sees judging women (and only women, since there is no popular male equivalent, and even if there were it would have also been wrong) as you would cattle.
And now I’m sad.
My initial reaction is that I find her eyes very attractive, but slightly put off by the excessive makeup. She does smile while wearing the makeup, however, and that is also very attractive. Yeah me, I’m not a jerk about her skin. Oh wait… Is my focus on her eyes any less superficial then her skin? Her eyes color says nothing about her as a person and yet it is undeniable that it is what I am attuned to. I’m still grappling with what this means.
I have grappled too with the question of the smile and how attractiveness seems to shoot through the roof if I am graced with one. My conclusion is that unlike other superficial traits the smile is the one few behaviors that can very quickly and selectively be used to increase attractiveness. So demanding a women should smile is like ordering her to make herself attractive to you. Thought about that way it sounds so brutal, rather then a compliment, when you her others say it.
troll
Related dilemmas for trans women: look feminine “enough” (note moving target), or be misgendered, with all the pain and risks that brings. Look too feminine, and be told off for trying too hard, looking like a clown, And all of this can come as easily from cis women as men.
I’m just enjoying what was referred to as the invisible age above by magistramarla. I’m nearly 50 now, and this gives me an invisibility that has become comforting in a strange way – sort of safer, if that makes sense.
To those men who insist they’d have some strong words to say if they were subjected to this, I say you’re fooling yourselves. 1) you’ve not been subjected to it ALL YOUR LIFE, the way women have. 2) Assertiveness about boundaries is strongly discouraged in women, as part of the rape culture. We’re expected to be accommodating about these kinds of comment, and if we’re not, we bring our very identity as women into question, and yes, I’m talking about cis and trans women here. 3) We are strongly discouraged from speaking up, in every part of our lives: from school where our questions and comments are ignored, through workplaces where men are cheered for repeating ideas we’ve already laid out, to private conversations where men talk over us and interrupt us constantly.
What you’re suggesting when you say you’d have strong words for anyone putting you in this circumstance is, “If I were a woman and still had all my male privilege, I’d totally never put up with this!” – in other words, you’re blaming the victims, women, for not stopping our own harassment by being more assertive, ignoring the costs that assertiveness bears for women.
It’s a nice fantasy to have, but it’s a fantasy that ignores the reality of women’s lives, and the reality of male privilege.
Wow, powerful video.
@21: I am going to take the risk of not knowing what bannable offenses are here and go ahead and tell you to fuck yourself.
@22, @25 I liked how @5 evaluated the video “You. It’s supposed to show you in a negative light.” That was I was trying to point out about myself @21. Perhaps I lack eloquence (spelling and grammar), but I was sincerely questioning my own feelings and reactions to the video. I stated my reactions, not an obnoxious demand for her to change her appearance to meet my petty standards. I stated them because I saw that as the point of the video. If I had no feelings about the video then how am I to question those feelings? Am I to suppress and ignore them, or learn and become more accepting?
I was hoping to learn from some insightful discussion as to how to balance how I, like every person, finds certain features attractive while accepting people as they choose to be. Not making cruel unsolicited no win comments to the person or others is an obvious start and outside of this particular context not something I would be likely to do. So care to add some enlightenment? Or should I just go fuck the troll you imagine me to be because that is the height of your eloquence?
dorght #26
For your next comment, use the [return] or [enter] key to make paragraph breaks.
And also try to make a comment without using .
Because this really is NOT about you.
You might also consider responding to people by their nym in addition to the comment number.
Caitie
THIS.
One of my first experiences with gender was being called a boy as a child and then, upob learning that I was a girl, people would tell me that I’d better been a boy.* And later, whenever we don’t comply with “feminine” norms of behaviour, we get told we’re not women. I remember how our German teacher told my friend that “as a feminine being, she shouldn’t use such masculine insults”. She had yelled “asshole” at a classmate who had behaved like one.
I can’t even imagine how much more transwomen get. I sometimes get a glimpse of it on Twitter, where TERFs will acertain you’re a dude because you don’t bow to their 3rd grade bilogistic bullshit.
*Please, folks, if you habe the word “tomboy” lying around in your household, take it out and put it in the toxic waste bin
dorght
If you’Re wondering why people are reacting the way they did, consider this:
You showed up here and told us long and wide about your reactions to the video, the various levels of attractiveness, your judgement. And yes, I understand that you’re questioning your own reactions and that is a good thing. But you’re doing it in a thread about how male judgement of our features is fucked up and that we’re fed up with being perceived only in terms of our attractiveness to men. So folks are annoyed when there’s another guy who makes it all about himself.
Yeah, why did you bring ideology into a simple question about make up and why women wear it? Ideologue! /s
I don’t get the hate dorght got for comment 21. Am I missing something, maybe from another thread? And also, I don’t get the “ideologue!” criticism. Isn’t just about *everything*, including skepticism and atheism, an ideology?
Oh, thanks Giliell. I didn’t see your response to dorght.
Okay, dorght is pretty clueless as well, but at least he is trying, as the last two sentence of #21 indicate. Giliell said it just right.
# 15 lakitha tolbert
I am a white man and during high school and college in the 60’s WoC, including Asians and Latinas, were certainly not invisible to me. But sometimes the WoC would get grief from MoC because they were going out with me. I had more white girlfriends, but they used little or no make-up, not even lipstick. Well, we were counter-culture hippies. It wasn’t until I went into the working world that I noticed women were all or almost all putting on make-up. If I were near this woman’s age, I would ask her out as she was in the before pictures.
dorght,
But why are you doing it in this context? Why do you feel the need to comment that you “find her eyes very attractive, but [are] slightly put off by the excessive makeup”? I mean, there is nothing wrong with the fact that you find certain physical features attractive in women. That’s one thing. But you are now making these comments about a specific woman that (I suppose) is a complete stranger to you and the context is how women are judged on an individual basis all the time. Seriously, doing what you just did is all kinds of fucked up, particularly in this context.
***
randay,
What I just said, randay. Don’t do this now. No one needs to know, no one wants to know. Seriously, keep it to yourself.
Dudes, when women complain about how people are always judging everything we do relative to our physical appearance, that’s not a plea to be reassured that you think we’re pretty and wouldn’t be put off by a couple of pimples. Nobody asked you for a boner update even when it’s “positive”. It’s not flattering. It’s just another reminder that you think our worlds revolve around whether dudes we don’t know think we’re hot. Spoiler: they don’t.
Okay, I had to come out of total lurker status to make a comment about something I see happening here. Remember how, very recently, there was this big discussion about how to improve the conviviality of the Pharyngula comment-space? I remember a lot of ideas floating around, including one sort of popular one about giving newcomers’ comments a charitable reading until/unless they have outed themselves as irredeemable asshats. Seemed like a good way not to scare people off.
Enter dorght with a perhaps-not-artfully-expressed comment which, when read kindly, indicates a person who is turning the mirror on themselves and struggling to apply, to what they see therein, the lesson of the video in the OP. Is that so bad that the first two responses it receives are “troll” and “fuck yourself?” I mean, if dorght had been hanging around here for a while being a complete [nongendered slur of your choice], I could understand, but what little content I’ve been able to find from this person has been pretty benign. We can do better than this, no?
I also note that @28 Gilell made a seemingly unfounded assumption that dorght is male (not that this was necessarily a misidentification, just awfully presumptive). Did I miss something?
Afterthought: perhaps this was OT and more properly belonged in The Mended Drum, but I wanted to call out what I saw in context. I’ll take my whacks if the hivemind* disapproves.
*affectionately
Not being afraid to call out that kind of behavior is one of the things we need more of.
allonym
I did not make an unfounded assumption, I came to a conclusion based on dotght’s writing in which they do not seem to include themselves in the category “women”. Of course I could be wrong. But those things are not the same.
Yeah, allonym has a point. There was all that talk about being more charitable and not opening fire straightaway at the first comment of someone who is not obviously a troll… but those rules are still pretty consistently ignored.
Thanks for deciding the topic for discussion from the endless possibilities raised by the video; please elucidate which comments quoted in the video were from men and which ones were from women and how you made that determination.
… or perhaps it might be worthwhile to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself why YOU make THAT the topic and/or why YOU feel the need to be President of Topics.
Usernames @ 39
Um..the post is pretty damn explicitly about exactly what Giliell described. I mean, OK women can be guilty of doing it too but, if you’re planning to argue that it doesn’t primarily come from men, I think you have a lot of work ahead of you. And dorght and randay both pretty damn explicitly did exactly what the video and OP are deploring.
They (dorght and randay) did the equivalent of listening to Rebecca Watson’s exhaustive talk on how you shouldn’t hit on women at conferences, turning to a friend and saying “I’d hit that.” They epitomized the issue. I didn’t reply, because I’d have been way ruder. Even when you’re directly talking about how women are judged for our appearances, we get talked over with the Boner Report, many guys’ favourite radio show. It’s frustrating, dismissive, and a constant presence in our lives, for some of us.
I wonder how many hours per day that woman spends applying and taking off make up? And how much does she spend on it and its various applicators?
The Guardian runs a “How I Get Ready” series. A woman they interviewed said it takes 45 minutes to put on her make up: she plans for that every morning.
Further to my earlier comment, I don’t want to be misunderstood: I leave plenty of room for comments like dorght’s to be chastised for being wrongheaded. In stern language, even! Just so long as it is in some way constructive. “Fuck off!” is full of acerbity, to be sure, but very short on constructiveness. Some people got this right, I was only reacting to those who did not. To pounce so quickly with such dismissive rudeness seemed like an unproductive and mean response; a missed opportunity to teach someone why their words made someone else feel that “fuck off!” reaction in their gut. Maybe the misguided commenter could learn something that would help to grow them into a more valuable citizen of the blog (and, indeed, of the world).
Or maybe the clueless asshole would learn nothing and continue to post offensive garbage, at which point, by all means, bury the sword to the hilt!
Giliell
Ok, I’ll accept that unfounded was the wrong word. Unsubstantiated? You inferred it from dorght’s language, but that still constitutes an assumption on your part, and isn’t it preferrable to avoid such assumptions? Also, I do not mean to associate you with the rude comments that prompted me to de-lurk, so I am sorry for that. This is why I tend to lurk—I can be clueless myself at times.
I don’t remember Rebecca Watson ending her talk with ‘now shut the fuck up and never turn to others to help answer questions about your own behavior and attitudes!’
Yes, I am male. Doesn’t matter much because I’m as far below self-deprecating PZ as PZ is below Adonis (or whoever the most highly judged on looks guy is at the moment). As opposed to others my grey hair has made me visible. No longer a threat, I’m much more frequently afforded the opportunity to be my charming, witty self (no really, that scoff was uncalled for) rather then cold shouldered.
Ironically I felt just posting a plain question about how do you rationalize the inevitable snap judgments of superficial attractiveness (you could add social ranking and demeanor) that occur to everyone when meeting might be misread as an attempt to excuse the posts to her social media and therefore trolling. So I personalized and illustrated the question with my internal thoughts, and posted them only here since you cannot read my mind, or apparently even more then a couple of sentences. I will concede that I should have stated my question flat out rather then rely on the ability of others to read, analyze, and contribute an enlightening answer. Obviously having to explain my post means that I did not communicate effectively, and possibility others are willfully misreading it. Most likely both.
The previously unanswered question of how do you handle the inevitable snap judgments of social ranking, demeanor, and attractiveness that occur to everyone when meeting now has an answer. Apparently the correct method is to continue to read them only superficially, unilaterally decree a tiny box of acceptability, and then take as much personal offense to the person as possible.
I’ve read Pharyngula for years, only occasionally contributing to the discussion. If I did look at the comments it was in search of an answer to a question about PZ’s post. Usually others had asked and answered the question much better then I would have. Now I’ve learned that posting on the discussion section actually exist so some can seek offense and witch hunt for trolls. Sincere attempts to seek knowledge and improve a sense of social justice be dammed, there may be a troll about.
Is alienation really intended to be the means of improving awareness?
“You are beautiful don’t let anyone tell you differently. Not even yourself.” Total crap but not without an endearing sentiment that substituting “an equally created person” would capture better.
Thank you allonym.
allonym @43 well maybe not thank you for the clueless asshole remark. Time will tell.
Cluelessness is in keeping with your remarks though. Do the people here seek to enlighten the clueless or just shame them and seek uncontested affirmation of their own un-elucidated views?
Can we get back to the video and the make-up thing?
Now, while I, personally, don’t go in for the whole prettification routine (for so many reasons), I can grok why some feminine people would like it and why others would feel like it’s a necessity. Society insists that everybody live up to mostly-impossible standards of physical beauty and fitness.
WMDKitty #46
I’m kinda with you.
But now it’s not only ‘feminine people’ who do the extreme grooming.
I have anecdotal evidence from the Mens Room …
Axe™ for example.
dorght, dude you’re still exemplifying the problem. You didn’t only receive harsh answers. You had several people quite calmly explain the issue they had. But what are you doing? Instead of engaging with any of it, you’re going on, at considerable length, about how alienated you are and about how all you wanted to do was to get people here to explain to you how to not be like the people the video complains about.
Well here, dorght, I’ll explain it to you. You don’t say it. Nobody is saying you can’t even think it. Everybody looks at other people and has thoughts about their appearance. You just don’t have to say it. The world at large just doesn’t fucking need a play by play of your thoughts on other people’s physical appearance. It’s pretty damn simple.
I had some extended observations of how dorght was literally the problem the video was addressing and it was kind of long. I feel a little weird posting that text-wall as a man talking about a man. Since it’s about how they related to the video would that be alright? I’m not quite sure why I’m conflicted at the moment, but part of it might be because it’s pretty long since I diced up their initial comment and then tackled a bunch of their rationalizations.
chigau @47
Oh, do NOT get me started on Axe “body spray”, that shit is an abomination!
The answer is:
You realize that these superficial thoughts occur and endeavor to be a better person by not acting on them. Not speech nor behavior.
I didn’t see that articulated anywhere. So I felt the need to help the clueless.
@dorght 51
I’m not quite sure about posting that extended analysis of your behavior yet, but I do have one tip for you. If you are going to start making emotionally overwrought claims you need to start tying them to the specific claims of people. Otherwise people like me have no idea if your emotion is worth what you are talking about. On the other hand that video in the OP describes a pattern of behavior that commentators here have convincingly tied to your actions via their intense emotions. I’m firmly on the side of the critics here because you are displaying behavior consistent with those over-sensitive to the criticism that Tim Hunt received. You even used the hyperbolic and emotionally overwrought “witch hunt”.
As a man who has started seeing the patterns of behavior that women and other female people have been complaining about, you are honestly getting a rational response from the people here. Women and female people get deliberately stuck in social “no win” scenarios designed to keep them socially subordinate. Those scenarios take the form of constant criticism, personal anecdotes that effectively remove the focus from social behavior and put it on the concerns of one of the people creating the social problem, strategic hyperbolic over-reaction to criticism designed to overcome the signal that tries to focus on the problematic social behavior and other things.
You have received a tiny bit of that same treatment used in the way that it should be, public criticism designed to role-model criticizing the sort of behavior needs to be combated (aka shaming). Basically what is happening to homophobes in positions of power in many places in the US right now. Guess what? Some times you are going to be the social example! I was the social example too and I took that event and used to to understand why the emotion directed at my behavior was as intense as it was. From my perspective you are whining and deliberately avoiding substantive comments directed at you as you choose to characterize all of the responses directed towards you as awful treatment that you don’t even quote.
Brony @52, thank you for some useful critique.
I’m happy now. The issue I was grappling with has an answer (@51). A challenge for any human to implement, but still a worthy goal.
It’s a shame I didn’t get much help here to arrive at more then half the answer. But now that it has been stated hopefully others will be inspired by the challenge of being a better person too.
I am curious though. Is there a better statement of what I said @51? Surely there are enough religious, philosophical, and psychology texts that one has to have stated it more eloquently or concisely.
I wasn’t calling you a clueless asshole, dorght, I presented two possibilities. The epithet was reserved for those who prove themselves asinine in spite of an educational approach by the community. However, I also wasn’t defending anything beyond your right* to not be assumed a clueless asshole from jump, so your thanks may yet have been premature.
*not quite the word I was looking for, but I am tired and it eludes me
Also, note that I phrased it as “comments like dorght’s.” Those remarks were not about your comments, nor about you as a commenter.
Everybody: apologies for the diversion, anything further I’ll either keep to myself or take elsewhere.
@dorght 53
This is equal parts depressing and annoying. You are not supposed to be listening to me.
What makes you think that I’m the one that you need to patch your perceptual abilities? That’s second degree perspective and that sounds like it has a pretty big error rate. I’m a supplement at best and this goes beyond your comment at #51.
This,
…does not replace learning to understand how another person sees themselves and how they feel about what they experience regardless of any agreement or disagreements.
There is no magic bullet. Sure I have a system and it’s patched with bits from philosophy, religion, history and more. But I technically do something akin to hallucinating when it comes to social emotions (I do not trust and I always verify). It’s my system. You may not want the system the guy with Tourette’s Syndrome uses beyond scraps. You have your own set of privilege blinders just as I do. Sure there will be some similarities but NOTHING replaces the source of information.
It can be hard but you need to learn to read the content between the emotional intensity. You let other people patch your perspective with themselves. Motivated reasoning is biology and that biology tends to resist change as much as it can. You don’t lose anything but you do become more complex and capable. In many ways you were (and are based on the tone of your last comment) person #3453445 propping up the social structure.
I don’t know your relationship with the atheist/skeptic community but there is no way that a standard reaction to creationist behavior was anything like what you did and they embodied Godwin’s Law. I don’t remember atheists and skeptics wilting and going into textual fight or flight like I saw with elevatorgate, shirtgate, and now Tim Hunt. Weak, craven humans. That reaction to women and female people is one that can only be created by culture. I can see the way your perception is shaped from your first comment. The compare/contrast between you and the video was stark.
*The video showed someone getting judged repeatedly in de facto harassment for not wearing makeup. The person was clearly being defined by the opinions of others. They finally put on the makeup and at first it was nice, but then repeated judging happened from the other side. The person was still being defined by the opinions of others. The catch-22 is the point.
*Your first comment was full of “My reaction…”, “My focus…”, “I’m put off…”, “I have grappled…”, “…if I am graced…”, “My conclusions…”. It was of the same kind as the comments that the person in the video was surrounded with. You defined them by YOU. That is worth outrage.
The first response you got was “Troll” from chigau. That is content because it means they feel you are disrupting the social environment.
The second response you got was “I am going to take the risk of not knowing what bannable offenses are here and go ahead and tell you to fuck yourself.” from ediblepolygon. That is content. It means that they were so bothered by what you were doing they were willing to be banned.
And then you got defensive and continued to make it about your feelings. “What I was trying…”, “Perhaps I lack…”, “…I was sincerely…”, “I stated…”, “…I saw…”, “If I had…”, “…how am I…” and on and on.
“Why do you see me as disruptive?” or “Why would you risk a ban because of what I did?”
See how those are actually asking the other person what they think and how they felt? The contrast is that stark and it’s only the kind of thing a group used to being dominant could do. Privilege is a fucking neurobiological reality and we are choking on authoritarian instincts.
I learned by watching and carefully reading for meaning over longer periods of time, regardless of if I agreed or not, no matter how offended I was. When I ask questions I ask them for what they think, feel and perceive. When I bring myself up in a social environment dedicated to someone else (this comment section) the intent (which requires practice to make work in reality) is ONLY to support them.
From those two simple examples of responses you got I’m hoping that you can actually do something serious with chigau#27, Giliell#28, Nighttfar #33, and Seven of Mine #48. You can even learn from the discussion about you. That includes Gen, rietpluim, and CatieCat. Did you know that what you might perceive to be gossip is data regardless of agreement or disagreement?
I really want to get into your #44 but right now there is something thrashing around in my head that bears resemblance to the raging monkey in 28 days later. I’m taking a break and I’m not the one dealing with this shit all of the time. I sure can see it now though.
Seriously, you even used a feminist that is not here (Rebecca Watson) to shield yourself from the feminists that are here. The fact that you are male and have been socialized differently is the whole point. There are so many evens that I can’t right now.
That is supposed to be “Nightjar #33“. It was almost perfect.
Brony @56 I’m not positively sure what you mean by “patch your perceptual abilities”? Not a criticism, merely asking for clarification. I thanked you because you clearly took some time and with care laid out some things for me to think about.
I do like your suggestion for questioning and admittedly there is a terrible overuse of ‘I’. There is an important distinction, though, between turning the video into something about me, or as Chigau @27 stated “Because this really is NOT about you”, and endeavoring to improve as a person in light of the video.
Quoting Nightjar @33 “I mean, there is nothing wrong with the fact that you find certain physical features attractive in women. That’s one thing. But you are now making these comments…” and Seven of Mine @48 “You just don’t have to say it.” while trying to encapsulate what they saw as my wrong doing. These statements were dismissed as true yet sadly incomplete as a way to behave. Exclusion from a group, a cold shoulder, given the choice of activities, being admitted before others, and much worse may all be behaviors based on judgments of attractiveness without a word being said.
Last evening walking through Stuffmart I really examined myself about rule @51. Holy hell! It’s going to take some practice. It would be way to easy to slip into ignoring everyone equally in a misguided attempt at behavioral modification.
@dorght 58
I’ll tell you a bit more but I meant what I said, you should not be listening to me and people like the person in the video not being listened to is one of the major problems. There are a couple of things here that are stacked up against you and negated any positives that you intended. I will focus on the video and talk about your first comment again at the end. It SUCKS. Changing society is hard for people on all sides and sometimes there is just no avoiding hurting, annoying or pissing people off.
Keep in mind that they have to tell people like you this over and over and this is a lot of text. They get tired of it.
First,
There is no distinction. You tried to improve BY making the video about you which followed the same general pattern as the people they were showing in the video even if you were not as emotionally intense.
First, since the whole point of the video, the main post, and the emotional emphasis of the thread is the pattern outlined in the video and the way woman and female people are not being listened to, the fact that you can find features attractive in women takes place in a context. It’s how you talk about it that matters and the fact that you don’t seem able to talk about those parts of Nightjar and Seven of Mine‘s comments matters. I will explain more about that below, but you really should be listening to them.
Second, the bolded bit basically shows that you still think it’s important to tell women and female people how they should do things (because you don’t know if they are male or female). This community deliberately lets them act in ways that empower them as a means of working to change society. I will explain more about how this place chooses to change society below. Mistakes will be made but they are the ones who will largely be figuring out how to find the strategies that work for them. I’m mostly not any of my business.
Third, and to your point, human beings exclude based on behaviors all of the time. It’s how we come up with laws but what many of the critics of social justice forget is that what the government is not involved in we get to choose as groups. This community gets to shun, ban and characterize people based on that behavior. The fact that those things can occur is already obvious to me.
“My Pale Skin” Video
3 months of comments on her face with no makeup. Every comment shown was either a “I feel X about her face”, “Her face is X to me”, a simple disgusted word like “Gross” or “Ugly”. The proportions don’t matter because in terms of psychology we tend to perceive a large crowd and our emotional impressions of the crowd are shaped by the most intensely noticeable emotions and humans have a negative emotional bias. They finally put on makeup.
They finally get compliments and like them because they want people who like their makeup to compliment them on it in a way that respects their right to do what they want with their appearance without other people trying to control them. But that is not the society we have. But it’s not to last, soon people start giving the “I feel X about what you look like” and “Your face is X to me” as well as the same kind of insults. Just to prove the point someone wants it to be illegal. The state banning use of makeup (which some countries have done so I see that as no joke).
They show us the “no win scenario” that they experience. A trap designed to keep them subservient.
Context #1: What I mean by “patch your perceptual abilities” and the whole point of the video.
The entire point of the video is for:
A. people to see a social pattern that women and female people experience
B. to remember that pattern and learn to recognize it everywhere else
C. to help change the social dynamic
Literally, patch your perceptual abilities. Get the pattern inside of your head as a hypothesis and start looking at the world experimentally. Check out other videos on youtube that have to do with female people and fashion. Think about the reverse to make it more real as a larger social pattern with other versions elsewhere, a man using a purse. There would be lots of criticism and even if each individual human did not know what they point of the criticism was other than “I don’t like that”, we are social primates. ALL of our behaviors have a larger purpose than the emotional sensations they run on.
To avoid showing that you understand this as a main part of your comment is to tell the person in the video and the women and female people here that you did not care about what they were most concerned with. That most broad context must be mentioned and must be the biggest part of your content in terms of emotional impact if you or anyone else had any hope of being considered on-topic. The thoughts having to do with if you should consider changing was a very small part of your comment and negated by how they were shown (below) It’s indicative of your priorities with respect to someone else’s. I’ve seen others working on female and race issues complain of similar things during question and answer sections at conferences. We whites and white males have been used to acting dominant and it’s damn rude to do dominance displays if things are to be egalitarian one day.
You can ask about how you feel but you must do that in a way that shows that you respect what they care about the most in a social exchange. If you are not going to respect what they care about the most they don’t have an obligation to respect what you care about. That’s just plain human and the context (main subject of the post and comment section) determines the emotional priority.
Context #2: people used to acting dominant learning to actually read for content even when people are being emotionally intense.
I’m about as far over on the stereotypical masculine psychology side that you can get (that’s what the Tourette’s does to me, females too but they don’t get the social benefit) and one of the fundamental problems here is the inability of white people and white males to take criticism and actually understand the content even if they disagree. Being part of a dominant social class means that we have inherited a set of social expectations many of which are invisible to us. If you are paying attention to me you should now be aware of some social expectations that you did not even know that you had.
How the fuck do we change that? In a system with many kinds of dominant people using many kinds of strategies each of which maintains the system in different ways? Being nice does not always work. The comment Rebecca Watson made was emotionally tepid at best. But being nice is one social tool that can be used.
“Being mean” does not always work but it’s also a perfectly valid tool to use. You have to understand what being mean IS here. Here it’s shaming which is role-modeled criticism with the goal of showing “people need to stop doing this shit”. When shaming occurs it would be nice if the shamed person used that to learn more and it does happen (like it did with me). But at least half of shaming is a message directed at everyone else so you will have to accept that your feelings are considered expendable here. It’s a perfectly valid social tool and I choose to support the use of it here. Being human is messy.
As an aside it’s just useful for a person to learn to take the content from an emotionally intense communication. It’s why I can see what I see in your comments. Learning to control our impulses and function optimally should be a learned skill, especially for people used to being socially dominant.
Context #3: you looked exactly like the problem in the video.
#21
I bolded everything that was about your opinion about them and your opinion about what you think is beautiful in women and female people. You see how that is everything right?
Your mentions of how the person in the video saw their situation and themselves and your consideration of if you should change your behavior (italicized) were a much smaller part of your comment than your expositions of what your taste in women was. Additionally they were negated by how you did it. Your musing on skin versus eye superficiality is still just you talking about how you feel. A little less crap on my shoe is still crap on my shoe.
Your comment about demanding a woman smile acknowledged that it’s a means of ordering women around changed nothing because it said that it’s intended as a compliment. That point has been addressed here over and over so it’s another example of you being person #352342 propping up the social system. Compliments are tools of control too. That may not have been explicitly dealt with in this video but if you search around on FTB with “woman and compliment” you will find articles talking about that (one link per comment or the moderation filter kicks in. Again, this community chooses to empower women and female people by letting them express how they feel. That includes criticizing other things you do to prop up the system.
Dammit.
I just realized I had you wrong in my #59 dorght when I said,
I can see now that you were referring to how they were referring to you so ignore that second point in the response to your text.
dorght,
Do you want to know how this all feels like from this side of the equation? It feels like being told that your worth as a human being and your right not to publicly be turned into an object is an issue other people have to “grapple with”. A “challenge for any human being to implement”. And on top of it all, it feels like being blamed for failing to appropriately explain TO YOU how not to sound/behave like yet another judgmental asshole.
And yes, I get it. You are actually struggling with this. But you can’t really expect not to piss people off during the process, with the accompanying expletives and insults that may get thrown your way. It sucks for all sides like Brony said, but it doesn’t hurt equally.