Feminism Catch-All (with FAQ)

Hypatian wrote:

This specific example you gave is somewhat connected to the part of "rape culture" where we blow off the behavior of boys and men with "Oh, that's just the way guys are" but presume that women should know better and avoid tempting the men.

...Well, that went dark fast. But, I quite see it, even though CK's character just opened his beer bottle on the table edge rather than with a church key.

Bloo Driver wrote:

I do want to point out, however, that as a man who deals in counseling and education professionally, there is a strong bias against men, and it's not because people think they/I should be doing something more worthwhile.

Bloo, I've worked in education, and yes, it's a field that can be problematic for men--largely because it's regarded as Woman's Work, a maternal and nurturing field. So, yeah, it ties to misogyny.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Bloo Driver wrote:

I do want to point out, however, that as a man who deals in counseling and education professionally, there is a strong bias against men, and it's not because people think they/I should be doing something more worthwhile.

Bloo, I've worked in education, and yes, it's a field that can be problematic for men--largely because it's regarded as Woman's Work, a maternal and nurturing field. So, yeah, it ties to misogyny.

Thanks for the rundown!

Bloo Driver wrote:

I wrote some paragraphs and deleted them and wrote some again because this is a place where I have to tread carefully - that's just the reality of it. The bottom line, to me, is that I think people just don't get how insulting and dismissive it is, as a man, to be told that problems I encounter because of my gender are misogyny. Women's problems. I can grasp that they are, by and large, man problems caused as a blowback effect of misogyny, but I am not a woman. The problem certainly includes women, but I don't grasp how you can have a group that understands the othering of always saying "him, his" etc but have no qualms of saying that a problem that affects a man needs to be called misogyny, if you really think about it. What that says, again, is "your problems aren't real, they're actually my problems, you're fine", which is an unfortunate thing. It's a nuanced topic that is done a great disservice by just smoothing it out to "it's all misogyny". It's a weird double dip and makes me think of political run-offs when some party does something obviously shockingly inconsistent or logically wrong, but people get behind it anyway because giving ground is the same as losing.

Anyway, it's more of a thought exercise to me. I try to tread carefully around this sort of thing because people get weary of any pushback - and for good reason. This sort of pushback is usually just the pre-cursor to someone finally firing both barrels of "the patriarchy is a boogeyman" or "men also have problems, QED, sexism is equal across the board". I just guess I don't like the zero-sum attitude, but in the end I guess people nitpicking over a word is going to be what it is. People trying to nitpick that it's "actually misandry" are, at a guess, 95% of people who are doing that as a step to diminish the importance of recognizing misogyny. I guess I just think one needs to be careful with saying "it's all misogyny" and then trying to point out the inconsistency with calling it "humanism". They're very similar lines of thought in that it's one word that applies to everyone.

With that, drunk Bloo is done making his meandering craply to drunk Hyp?

(*I hesitate to go further down this road, because I think the inconsistency is there and I want to talk about it, but I don't want to try and be the guy flailing around proving man problems are a thing. I do want to point out, however, that as a man who deals in counseling and education professionally, there is a strong bias against men, and it's not because people think they/I should be doing something more worthwhile. It's because there's an institutional belief that women are just superior at empathy and conveying knowledge. I have, literally, gone to the point of having my first name put down as an initial so that I can get my foot in the door with some groups. Men are treated, at best, as anomalies that need to prove themselves over and over again to the next woman in a position of authority or gatekeeping, or, at worst - probably child molesters. This has near-zero to do with the argument I am making above, as I'm sure we both agree that guys get hit by some of this either directly or collateral damage and I don't think anyone is trying to dismiss that fact. Just a data point for you, I guess?)

I do think that there is this bias towards thinking of this as "women's problems". But I'd like to point out that this in itself is an example of minor-misogyny. This is a big reason that I disagree with a lot of radical feminist deconstructionist thought about gender, even though I do have some sympathy for the idea at the heart that "we need to tear this sh*t down completely, because it is f*cking [em]broken[/em]".

And this is a big reason why I felt the need to emphasize in the original post that feminism addresses the issue of sexism towards men--because I do think that it is the trend of modern feminist thought to see that there's a whole complex of problems that hurts [em]everybody[/em] that is rooted in misogyny. The further problem, the minor-misogyny I alluded to before, is that misogyny is then considered a "women's problem" and something that either shouldn't or can't be addressed by men. And that, in itself, is a problem.

The trouble, of course, is that it [em]does[/em] in fact dilute the message to just think of this as "gender inequality"--because it's absolutely true that women feel the impact much more than men do. And that's why people resist the idea of trying to change the name and focus away from "feminism".

As a trans person, I read a lot of stuff about gender issues, and I see a lot of hurtful sh*t from both sides. As an example, both many MRAs and many radical feminists claim that trans women are really just men. And, yeah, neither one of those groups gets it at all. The idea of two such opposing camps both seeing people like me in the same way. It makes me weep. I struggle daily with questions about how I ought to act: whether I should keep on behaving the way I always have, or moderate my behavior to that more befitting a woman. I stress over what it's going to be like at work when I come out: whether people will expect me to behave differently. Whether I should behave differently. Whether it will be a betrayal of my feminism to behave differently. Whether, when someone respect my opinion it will be because they still see me as a man, or because they equally respect the ideas and opinions of women. It's... messy. It's really, really, [em]really[/em] messy. I basically can't put into words how confusing and complicated this is.

But at the end of the day, all I can really come back to is the idea that everybody should be treated equally. Everybody should be held to the same standards. Everybody should be shown the same respect.

And I can't see anything to call that other than feminism. I can't see any path better than to spend more effort on upholding the rights of women first and foremost, simply because everything else is... smaller. I certainly won't overlook it if an acquaintance or colleague is passed over for something because they're a man... but I'm not going to spend my effort on men as a class over women as a class, because I know that when I act in a broader less specific context, the majority of the disparity hurts women more than men. Whenever I [em]personally[/em] see inequality, I'm going to call that out--but I can't be everywhere at once, so my action-at-a-distance through the causes I support will be less precise. When I see a problem between a man and a woman, I will consciously take the woman's side until I know the details, because I know that the system is weighted against her. When I know the details, that may change, but without the details I do the best I can.

And yeah, that's not perfect. It's just... the best I can do.

We recently hired a new person at work, and I do wonder, looking at my thoughts, whether I preferred her over an alternative hire because I knew she was a woman. I feel like her performance was better than his, that it meshed better with my ideas about how a software developer in our group should behave than his did. But I doubt. So I check, and check, and re-check how I decide that she was the better choice. And in the end, I'm satisfied... but I still know it will have an impact on how I treat her as she begins work with our group. And I still re-check and doubt my choices, because I know there was a certain bias to my preference, even if that bias is part of a conscious attempt to avoid allowing less conscious biases to take hold. I find I do not trust myself. And I know that if I had chosen a male candidate I wouldn't be having these worries, because I would know that my bias was contrary to that choice. So, in a way, my counterbias has itself teased out in me a thread of misogyny.

I really really look forward to the day that this isn't the case: when I won't feel the need to be more vigilant for women's rights than for men's. But... honestly, I'm really sad to say that I don't expect to meet that day within my lifetime. I really hope that I recognize it if it does come to pass. And I have faith that if I don't, then younger generations will recognize it for me, and that their enthusiastic voices will drown mine.... just as I feel that the enthusiastic voices of women of my generation and those after are drowning out the voices of women who bonded themselves to even stronger biases.

In the end, we do the best we can--and if we're good people, we apply our full faculties to every case that we can address personally. For the rest, we try to communicate our principles fairly, and place our hope in those we communicate with, including those who come after us.

Wow, that last post of mine was maudlin. Yay, booze.

I just wanted to put a final boozy note in on this subject of biases. I've remarked before to some people personally that I worry about "mansplaining". It is... a very awkward position to be in. I am someone who has always felt strongly about feminism. At the same time, I have lived my life perceived by the majority of people I interact with as a man... and perceiving myself very much as a woman. That makes for some pretty impressive cognitave dissonance. So, I hope that anyone who has grown up as a woman, who has internalized the rules of gender as a woman does, will feel free to correct me if I'm an arrogant ass about anything. (See: Sex Educations: Gendering and Regendering Women (A radical transfeminist) for more thoughts about how trans women learn different things about gender than cis women do.))

I will try not to bring this up again, but... well, I'm rather stressed about my gender identity in this context, so I felt the need to say something. I hope that my attitudes aren't completely broken, and that perhaps my perspective will be enlightening at times when a cis perspective would not. But please let me know if my trans perspective is ever getting in the way. I have yet to really understand what it means to feel threatened by "men's spaces". I think I'm going there soon, but... I'm not there yet. And when I get there, it won't be the same way that cis women get there. So, I worry.

At the least, I hope my voice is as compelling as those of people like bombsfall who have done a pretty good job at being advocates for women without drowning out the voices of women. And at best, I hope to be able to relate how harmful stereotypes about men are to someone who is both expected to live up to those stereotypes and at the same time feels compelled to flee them. (And for the gripping hand: Fully satisfies both sets of stereotypes in a number of confusing ways. I love logic. I love people. I love practicality. I love fashion. And now, having read that, try to understand how conflicted I feel about [em]every single one[/em], because my attitude towards every single one involves either embracing or rejecting the gender assigned to me or the gender that I identify with. I do not believe that the loves conflict in themselves. But... they do conflict in social expectations, and within my very essence.)

Now I'd better go to bed before the contradictions make me explode.

(P.S. All of the specialists in harder math in my group at work are women... if you count me as a woman. pgroce++ for remarking on that once upon a time. P.P.S. Lowering inhibitions is both good and bad. P.P.S. Who invented pre-mixed mojitos? They are a wizard. P.P.P.S. Yeah, I know that mojitos are totally a stereotype, too. But I'm too drunksjo to care.)

I wasn't making my point to dismiss the idea that there are cases where men have it difficult. I personally think they should be talked about, albeit without being the focus. Collateral damage is still damage and, while some disagree, it's probably a worthwhile endeavor to show everyone how they benefit from feminism, not just women.

The reason I asked the question is because of what you said, Bloo Driver. "It's a strange, difficult argument to make when people decide to try and convince others that all sexism is somehow sexism against women in a roundabout way. " It's not a strange, difficult argument. It's actually an easy, logically consistent argument and you've yet to show any examples that it's not.

Bloo Driver wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Bloo Driver wrote:

I do want to point out, however, that as a man who deals in counseling and education professionally, there is a strong bias against men, and it's not because people think they/I should be doing something more worthwhile.

Bloo, I've worked in education, and yes, it's a field that can be problematic for men--largely because it's regarded as Woman's Work, a maternal and nurturing field. So, yeah, it ties to misogyny.

Thanks for the rundown!

Hahaha. I admit to being guilty, occasionally, of absolutely missing a nuanced point in a long post just to post a "nuh uh", but wow, this one was a textbook example. SpacePPoliceman, it seems like you completely missed the entire central argument Bloo made.

SixteenBlue wrote:

I wasn't making my point to dismiss the idea that there are cases where men have it difficult. I personally think they should be talked about, albeit without being the focus. Collateral damage is still damage and, while some disagree, it's probably a worthwhile endeavor to show everyone how they benefit from feminism, not just women.

Sure, and I agree with that. I don't disagree at all with the notion that feminism makes crap better all around for men and women.

The reason I asked the question is because of what you said, Bloo Driver. "It's a strange, difficult argument to make when people decide to try and convince others that all sexism is somehow sexism against women in a roundabout way. " It's not a strange, difficult argument. It's actually an easy, logically consistent argument and you've yet to show any examples that it's not.

Well, I did, but I guess you just either didn't like it, didn't read it, or just want to dismiss it without actually explaining why. Don't worry, though, you weren't the first - SPP quoted one line and then made an argument that seemed to imply that the following several lines after that just didn't exist. The issue I'm having here is, again, this notion that we can't say misandry, misandry is fake, and really it all should be called misogyny or sexism against women. The idea that sexism against men is related to sexism against women in many cases is factual in my experience, sure. But that's different than saying, "Well, we need to say it's all sexism against women." Sorry, but no. When people make selections and biases against men because they are men, there's a word for that. It's not misogyny, no matter how cleverly people want to lawyer around it. It might be part of misogyny, in differing ways and degrees based on the circumstance, but I don't go into talks about misogyny and say, "Oh, sorry, that's not misogyny. See, what's happened here is you're a victim of tribal monarchy, under which misogyny falls. Please stop using that term."

It's always interesting to me that political and social discussions like this are, in the end, a war of language. People bristle at the term "privilege," because it feels like an attack, but in the end, that's the word. It's privilege. MRA folks rail hard against that, though, mostly because well, it makes them all pouty and sad when the word is used. In a similar vein, it seems that feminists would rather just pretend misandry is not a thing at all, and people are very good about being careful to say, "Well things do happen to men, too," but that's about as far into the subject it goes. It feels like something people don't actually believe especially when this sort of issue comes up - "no no, that doesn't happen to you, it's actually happening to someone else, stop trying to make it about you," is about as condescending and dismissive as one can get when you're talking about someone's personal experiences. It's odd to me people just can't grasp that, but in one of the locked feminism threads, there was about three pages or so that got pretty contentious around the basic idea of empathy in this regard, so it doesn't particularly surprise me this time.

In the end, anyway, there's words for what's going on, and I worry when we try to redefine or destroy words to win the argument. I don't disagree with the ideas people are trying to get across, but unfortunately I guess when people try to tell me that the exact word used to describe something is the wrong word, I get a little confused. But there's really not an argument to be had, in the end. Words have meanings, and that's really all I can say about that.

I think there are some variations in usage as well. I don't generally use the term "misogyny" to refer to individual acts. In those contexts, I generally reserve it for outright hate speech where the intention behind the words is absolutely clear. And I use the word misandry that way as well: when somebody really off the wall says that all men are animals who ought to be put down? Yeah, that's misandrist.

More often, I refer to speech or actions as sexist. That's because most of those acts aren't really done out of hate, they're done because that's the way we're conditioned to behave. Now, when I start drilling down to the root causes, that [em]is[/em] when I start using the term misogyny again. Because to me, when I'm using it in that specific technical context of social criticism, it's no longer about hate in the same way it is if it's used to refer to individual acts. Here it's being used as a shorthand for "things relating to women are considered less valuable than things relating to men". And at this level, you'll find very very little evidence of systemic misandry. (And that's the thing I would love to hear an example of.)

And yes, not everybody makes such a firm distinction between the levels.

bombsfall wrote:

I also tend to bristle at the obsessiveness over words when talking about this stuff. I'm actually not particularly super interested in whether someone calls themselves a feminist or not, I'm more just interested in ideas and actions. The terminology can snag us. But as you said, words have meanings. And misandry has a meaning and a context that has been pointed out several times now. I'll keep going back to this well, but while there's nothing particularly wrong with the concept of "white pride" it's not exactly something anyone is going to be tossing around because of how it is generally used and the culture and history in which it exists. So that's one reason misandry isn't a term most people are using. And wishing the word didn't have that context in gender issues circles is just howling at a brick wall. It does because that's how the most people have used it. Bummer, but yeah. See also a billion other terms.

As someone who is presumably someone who disagrees with how some people use the term feminism to be a shorthand for elevating women to a superior status and/or punishing men, I have to say I find the response of "Bummer, but yeah," to the idea of a word getting hijacked by abuse a little dangerous. Same with the comparison of misandry and "white pride" - I guess it's just a foregone conclusion to some people that "misandry" is really only shorthand for "I am an idiot who thinks feminism is a problem and the patriarchy is either a sham or extremely overstated".

The priority of what words are worth fighting for is pretty interesting, but I think I already showed in that conservatism thread that I'm prone to just diddling myself over word definition and use. And, like in that thread, I'll do the polite thing and try not to do it in public so much.

I think you're reading an implication or sarcasm in my previous post that really isn't there. When I say I find this sort of thing interesting, I am not saying, "I think your blase' hypocrisy is amusing, yes, yes, tut tut." I literally just think it's interesting. For the reasons you've described, people are willing to let one word go but not another. That is interesting to me.

I tried very hard to make it clear I was more examining the edges of the word and its use in a technical way and not trying to go down the rabbit hole of "but, but dude problems," so I find myself a little sadfacey that I get this -

I think it's less about terms and more about your feeling that men's (and your) particular issues aren't being addressed with enough respect and care.

... thrown at me anyway. My part in this was, again and again, just a bit of surprise that people don't see how that sort've ends. I suppose it gets muddied when I say it comes off as dismissive and insulting, but let me assure you - the power of this forum is insignificant compared to the power of my ego. Or the Force, whatever. So I'm not particularly worried on a personal level. I guess it's just a failure of communication on my part. Obviously, just further proof that the word itself immediately throws up red flags that people are unwilling, unable, or uncaring (don't have to just pick one) to push aside.

I really only brought it up to begin with because the FAQ-ing nature of this FAQ-ing thread seemed to be more about technical approaches and explanations, but I managed to spiral it back into dude problems with my admittedly low-value discussion. So, sorry about that. No sarcasm.

I'd like to respect the spirit of the cute bear, but I really do have to say before you start bandying about accusations of point-missing, and dismissal and what not, well, there's a bit from this book about a mote in the eyes. Consider it.

Just when I thought we were making progress, I stumble upon this: http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/09/women-strip-men-judge-their-bodies-on-danish-tv-show/

The show, Blachman, was named after its creator, Thomas Blachman, who is the Danish version of Simon Cowell, according to the Telegraph, as well as an award-winning jazz musician and judge on the local edition of The X Factor. Blachman purportedly created the show to get “men discussing the aesthetics of a female body without allowing the conversation to become pornographic or politically correct.”

There are just so many things wrong with this, I don't know where to start... Treating the female body like a piece of meat, for starters... I really don't see the discussion value of a show like this, but I haven't seen it firsthand, of course. Opinions?

wherein I butcher and paraphrase what bombsfall wrote:

I think it's less about terms and more about (the) feeling that men's...issues aren't being addressed with enough respect and care.Which is a different topic altogether, even if it does dovetail into this one. It's also the topic that every feminism thread eventually spirals into.

I wanted to comment on this particular trend, in general, regarding forum discussion about feminism. I'm going to refer to this as Item 1, later. First, though, I'm going to kiiiiiinda white knight Bloo because I cannot resist l letting that kind of delicious irony go unnoted.

We're ganging up on him a bit, so I want to note that I think Bloo's opinion and experience are valuable to this discussion because of his professional insight into human psychology. I hope he'll continue to be a part of this conversation. He's going into detailed and nuanced territory that may be of interest to other readers. So by highlighting bombsfall's quote, I'm not trying to pick on Bloo so much as draw a tangent from their dialogue to comment on something that isn't particular to any one person here.

Item 1: Thoughts.

I think the "but what about the men" comes up in every feminism thread for a variety of reasons, which unfortunately by its nature creates a framework for discussion that assumes a zero-sum situation where "if we're taking about unequal power-balances for non-male people vs. males, then there's no room for the rights of males also harmed by this cultural imbalance." That it is a men vs. women issue, which just isn't true.

The problem with taking a conversation about feminism in the direction of men's rights is that it's often used as a diversionary tactic of MRA's and trolls to derail a discussion about the things that feminism does attempt to address. There's a definite level of... fatigue regarding the subject for folks interested in feminism. So when the men's rights are inevitably broached, it has a chilling effect in participation from women and even the very men disenfranchised by misogyny that appropriates femininity as a negativism to their particular role in society. Because there are people out there using it to intentionally deflect attention from a specific scope of conversation to muddy the issue. Hands are thrown up, threads may be locked, and everyone walks away from the experience with nothing gained but a distaste for the conversation. Which is sometimes the intended effect.

Edit: Oops, accidentally a word. Not even drinking, wtf.

I question the insistence that Bloo's point is "what about the men". I question it because Bloo has denied it four times now, has carefully detailed that it's about a word - misandry - and bent over backwards supporting that point without making the mistake we saw on pages 1-3 of this thread.

I also don't see anything in Amoebic's recent post contradicting that, though. Every observation made I consider accurate, just not in any way applicable to a careful discussion of which words we use when and where, and which words we try to redefine, and why we do that.

Yeah, I did kind of ramble around the fact that this was tangential to a comment from their earlier conversation, and was more about current trends in discussing feminism than the most current deviation of a recent conversation.

Not to be callus, but what they're talking about is personal experiences, which are valuable in their own right but aren't necessarily directly feeding into a FAQ for conversations in feminism. I felt the need to frame my comment so that it was relevant to the OP as a FAQ.

To be clear, I also understand that what Bloo's detailed has been not that, and why I was trying to avoid being someone who's accusing him of it. Fell flat on that one. Apologies.

Will finish posting detail later, trying to post from phone at length is garbage/bugged. Feck.

I have to point it out. That bear is adorable.

Something relevant to what I've mentioned earlier in this thread and others - people who aren't faced with the problem on a regular basis, are not themselves sexist jerks, and tend to have friends who are likewise not sexist jerks might get lulled into a bit of a illusory feeling that the problem isn't really a big deal anymore. Or rather, things are much improved, and that the rest are details that need to be worked out but aren't the end of the world.

Here is a long, somewhat rambly article that notes the various reasons and problems with this phenomenon.

What I find interesting is the implication that some women might even think to themselves, "But women have gained so much and advanced so far in the last two generations. Banging this drum is starting to feel whiny and greedy." I deal with a lot of women in my line of work (both as professionals and clients), and it's weird that I never really noticed something of a pattern about this. I get asked a lot about sexism issues because - for various reasons - I'm considered harmless or even "one of the girls", so I'm "guy" enough to get talked to about the other perspective, but unlikely to bro out or whatever. Anyway, from these talks I never really thought about it, but I think there's a danger of complacency setting in on 20- and 30-something women who have done well for themselves. They're well educated, they have good jobs, they don't have to deal with the glass ceiling (or, more likely I think, either don't notice it or find that it's an extremely high ceiling and are ok with that), and believe that perhaps they should be ok with what they have. I actually see a weird sort of reversed feminism coming in - these women remarking regularly that it must be hard for guys to deal with "that kind of girl," referring to women who hold feminist ideals high on their list of topics of interest.

Anyway, I wanted to introduce that article to the thread for consideration. It's weird and interesting to me that feminism might have to worry about being a victim of its limited success.

edit: uh let me fix that article link to the right one yes okay thank you ahem

bombsfall wrote:

I'm trying to instate him as an official "no hard feelings, let's move on" symbol.

Gunna instate him as my sig, thanks!

Sorry that I'm generally late to the conversation. I have a little difficulty posting anything at length, so it takes me a while.

That article references The Feminine Mystique, which I think is good textbook history lesson on feminism.

It's telling that some women are quick to settle for "enough." Or that they don't want to "make a fuss."

To be honest, Mr. Three-Eye-Bear kind of freaks me out. >_> Why is he staring at me? (No, I do not know why I assume he is a mister.)

Oh my gosh, this story at The Hawkeye Initiative is fantastic. (Visual aid removed because it's better in context. :D)

Hypatian wrote:

Oh my gosh, this story at The Hawkeye Initiative is fantastic. (Visual aid removed because it's better in context. :D)

Shouldn't his balls be poking out to mirror the underboob in the original picture?

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

Oh my gosh, this story at The Hawkeye Initiative is fantastic. (Visual aid removed because it's better in context. :D)

Shouldn't his balls be poking out to mirror the underboob in the original picture?

The first comment on A Different Site Which Shall Remain Nameless was a rather indignant "She has more clothes than he does!"

plavonica wrote:

Found an interesting reddit discussion in /r/bestof thought I would share it here.

This was alternately interesting, comical, thoughtful, and plain ol' dumb.

I mean to say it was very reddit.

While I agree with the danger of complacency, Bloo Driver, I'm unsure that it solely concerns the 20 and 30-something women. I'm a 20-something woman (dangerously close to becoming a 30-something woman ), and feel I've done pretty well for myself. However, the complacency vibe I get comes from older women, interestingly enough (mostly my mother, some aunts and to a lesser degree my mother-in-law). The general idea is "well, you have all those things and possibilities we didn't have so really, you shouldn't complain all that much, be grateful for you got."

It's something that genuinely disturbs me. When Pasteur discovered penicillin, did scientists say "oh good, we've got one antibiotic, we're set for life?" Isn't this part of humanity, to strive to better ourselves, to better the lives we lead?

The idea of intersectionality is spot on, at least in my own limited experience. I don't lead a profitable company, but I do see what happens to other women, in other lines of work, in different walks of life, and I do feel there is a need to stand together. Being dismissive of these issues serves no one.

Fleming discovered penicillin. Pasteur pioneered microbiology and vaccination, invented pasteurization.

Disney sexes up Merida doll.

IMAGE(http://deredactie.be/polopoly_fs/1.1629920!image/852487299.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape670/852487299.jpg)

Left: Disney doll, Right: Merida as in the Pixar movie Brave.

Note - this is not an attempt to "sex up" the Merida character. Rather, it is Disnry trying to save a buck. The design of the dress is, once you remove the colours and the sash, the same as that if a bunch of the other princess dresses that they use on their small (2-inch) dolls. I think that, between the whole set of princesses, there are only 2 different models of dresses: short sleeved and long sleeved.

This is not me trying to excuse this, it was a stupid decision, and kudos on Disney for (apparently) changing course so quickly. I am just trying to ensure that the proper reasoning behind it is brought forward.

They also changed her face (eyes & cheeckbones), no?

dejanzie wrote:

They also changed her face (eyes & cheeckbones), no?

Again, I think this is to fit in the mold they already have for the dolls.

Hold on, it is my work at home day, let me go grab some if my daughters dolls and grab some pics. Let me see if what I think is right.

Here are the long-sleeved dresses. The one on the right is an outlier. There is some variation from one to another, but not much.

IMAGE(http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e192/mbeau/null-2.jpg)