[Discussion] Feminism and social justice, plus FAQ!

This thread is for discussing feminist issues--from the narrow meaning (a movement for social justice in terms of gender equality) to the broader meaning (a movement for social justice, period), and from the scope of issues in gaming and geek culture to kyriarchy in general.

Basic questions are allowed here for now, we will split out a Q&A thread should it become necessary.

This friend *knew* what he was doing was wrong, or he wouldn't have been two different people depending on who he was with.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Yes really.

What you're doing is what's defined around here as Playing Devil's Advocate.

There's an auxiliary Feminism thread for men, maybe what you are saying would go over better over there. Or maybe just drop it for now, and return to it when tensions are not running as high as they are now. Or just drop it for good, and trust that if it's so important, a woman equally insightful as you will make this point at the right time and at the right place.

In lieu of a response, please accept this set of comics.

Nice to have you back, Clockwork. ; D

I read his anecdote as a riff off of the article in question about male bonding and his own personal experience of seeing it in action. I understand I may not be as sensitive to the language that caused offense but I tend to read folks posts more for intent or general themes than any specific phrases as others writing styles can lead to all sorts of confusion. Without getting into moderation territory, I just get the feeling that I am missing some past discretion that is being rehashed and folks are reacting to the person in a way that they wouldn't if it were someone else. Or I could be completely wrong and I am ok with that.

Edit - Apologies but I honestly did not realize there was a Man on Man thread which does seem more appropriate for this and I will now go there post haste. (Dons cloak of lurking)

bekkilyn wrote:

This friend *knew* what he was doing was wrong, or he wouldn't have been two different people depending on who he was with.

Yes and no.

We all act differently in different company, and we largely do it entirely unconsciously. I don't have to think hard about not effing and blinding in front of grandparents, I just do it. I behave differently at work than at home, and it doesn't require conscious effort or much introspection about it.

We're social monkeys, and so much of the fine detail of social behavior happens subconsciously.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Yes really.

What you're doing is what's defined around here as Playing Devil's Advocate.

There's an auxiliary Feminism thread for men, maybe what you are saying would go over better over there. Or maybe just drop it for now, and return to it when tensions are not running as high as they are now. Or just drop it for good, and trust that if it's so important, a woman equally insightful as you will make this point at the right time and at the right place.

In lieu of a response, please accept this set of comics.

Nice to have you back, Clockwork. ; D

IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/kl85JovdqAJYA/giphy.gif)

Just want to say I'm really grateful for this thread. I'm grateful to those who share and fight the fight. I learn so much from what I've read, and I have so much greater understanding of the experience of others. I can feel the struggle, but as a lurker-only, I'm grateful for the sharing.

PissedYeti wrote:

I Without getting into moderation territory, I just get the feeling that I am missing some past discretion that is being rehashed and folks are reacting to the person in a way that they wouldn't if it were someone else. Or I could be completely wrong and I am ok with that.

It's not one incident, it's this whole thread. Repeatedly. It's all of society. Repeatedly. If the reason this is a problem is unclear please join us in the Men's Feminism thread which is for the discussion of such things. People here have already said they are tired of repeating themselves. Repeatedly.

I came across a post on facebook which really encapsulates the current clime.
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/qJpsb9a.jpg)

MOD

Please stop the dog piling. It’s now carried over into other threads. Jayhawker clarified his point and apparently didn’t mean to minimize his coworker’s offenses. Let’s move on.

Jonman wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

This friend *knew* what he was doing was wrong, or he wouldn't have been two different people depending on who he was with.

Yes and no.

We all act differently in different company, and we largely do it entirely unconsciously. I don't have to think hard about not effing and blinding in front of grandparents, I just do it. I behave differently at work than at home, and it doesn't require conscious effort or much introspection about it.

We're social monkeys, and so much of the fine detail of social behavior happens subconsciously.

But you know that there is something about the effing and such that is not acceptable in "polite society" or at least in front of grandparents or you wouldn't be concerned about it. While we all put on masks to some degree, this guy seems like he took it to a Jeckl and Hyde type of level. I'm not willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt that he had no idea whatsoever what he was doing and that it was all subconscious. There was a reason why he hid that part of his personality from Jay and from other more decent people. He knew they wouldn't like it and he very likely knew the reason why they wouldn't like it.

nvm

This really good article showed up in my feed this morning.
Kavanaugh-Ford hearing: A dramatic lesson on gender roles (AP News)

Throughout their riveting, nationally televised testimony on Thursday, Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh served as Exhibits A and B for a tutorial on gender roles and stereotypes. Amid the deluge of reaction on social media, one prominent observation: Ford, as a woman, would have been judged as a far weaker witness had she behaved as Kavanaugh did.
“Imagine a woman openly weeping like this on a national stage and still getting elected to the Supreme Court. Or any office,” tweeted Joanna Robinson, a senior writer with Vanity Fair.

Full disclosure: I haven't watched the entirety of the hearing, because - I - just - can't. But I've watched bits and pieces here and there, and it's just heart breaking. And infuriating, depending on who's on the stand. But one thing did jump out at me. Despite how much I wanted to cry when I saw an excerpt of Blasey Ford's testimonial last night, I was struck by how dignified, and strong she looked. She was articulate and though this was clearly very difficult for her, she powered through.

Kavanaugh, on the other hand... Snapped, wept and raged. Switch the reactions, and Blasey Ford would've been called "hysterical" (a problematic adjective on its own). This article hits the nail on the head.

These Brave Sexual Assault Survivors May Have Forced an FBI Investigation Into Kavanaugh (The Mary Sue)
As the subtitle says: “Just in case you still thought protest couldn't bring about real change.”
Because asking nicely for an investigation got us exactly nowhere.

I believe this will be appreciated here...

How dare you do this to Brett Kavanaugh (WaPo)

Every man in America needs to watch this.

Eleima wrote:

These Brave Sexual Assault Survivors May Have Forced an FBI Investigation Into Kavanaugh (The Mary Sue)
As the subtitle says: “Just in case you still thought protest couldn't bring about real change.”
Because asking nicely for an investigation got us exactly nowhere.

"Look at me when I’m talking to you,” the woman said to Flake, who had been looking at the floor and appearing to pretend to push elevator buttons until then. “You’re telling me that my assault doesn’t matter, that what happened to me doesn’t matter, that you’re going to let people who do these things into power anyway.”

Powerful.

I went to an all women boardgaming event today and it still managed to be crashed by a male ego. He wasn't even a participant, just was in fancy dress for some other event down the way and wanted a photo with people there in front of the food table. (And didn't stick around, thankfully).

Jfc.

I've been watching Netflix's Punisher series, and it has unsurprisingly been virtually wall-to-wall tropes of toxic masculinity. To be fair, I didn't really expect much better when the protagonist is predicated on the idea of righteous masculine fury as a hyper-violent super power.

All the same, parts of it have stuck out to me not because they're especially egregious but just because they're curious. It's interesting to me that the best-acted and best-written scene in the series has been a conversation between two women... about a man. They were so close!

There's also a scene where two of the male protagonists, Frank (the Punisher) and David, are talking about Thanksgiving dinner in their households. Frank reflects on how his wife, who is now dead, used to do all the cooking for Thanksgiving. This is set up in gauzy contrast to David, who split things "pretty much 50-50" with his wife.

Now, up to this point, the show has repeatedly gone out of its way to belittle David's masculinity, especially in comparison to Frank's virile, brutal example of manliness. The Thanksgiving scene feels like yet another example of that belittling. (The show has a particular preoccupation with that classic toxic masculine trope of the willingness to commit "necessary" violence as a litmus test of real manhood. David, naturally, avoids acts of violence himself and does not fully endorse Frank's plan to kill everyone in their way and is even so fallen in his manhood as to "call a guy" to do things like fix sinks and repair garage doors.)

But here's the thing: David's example of splitting Thanksgiving dinner "50-50" means that he makes the turkey, and his wife makes everything else. Granted, I have fairly limited experience with cooking meat, but I am the sole cook in my household and have helmed my share of holiday meals, and the amount of work to produce the turkey versus the amount of work to produce everything else for the meal doesn't even approach 50-50.

There's this weird idea men have that making the meat portion of a meal is some kind of epic undertaking that nearly outweighs all others, but it just isn't. Sorry, gents, but grilling that steak or roasting that bird is just another part of the complicated juggling act of making a meal and it's not even close to half the work. Chop the damn vegetables, at least.

Anyway, it just struck me as funny that even when attempting to show how much less masculine David is than Frank that the writers for The Punisher still pulled from the playbook of toxic masculinity. They couldn't even depict an egalitarian relationship despite trying to, so steeped is the whole thing in one rigid notion of manliness.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I've been watching Netflix's Punisher series, and it has unsurprisingly been virtually wall-to-wall tropes of toxic masculinity. To be fair, I didn't really expect much better when the protagonist is predicated on the idea of righteous masculine fury as a hyper-violent super power.

All the same, parts of it have stuck out to me not because they're especially egregious but just because they're curious. It's interesting to me that the best-acted and best-written scene in the series has been a conversation between two women... about a man. They were so close!

There's also a scene where two of the male protagonists, Frank (the Punisher) and David, are talking about Thanksgiving dinner in their households. Frank reflects on how his wife, who is now dead, used to do all the cooking for Thanksgiving. This is set up in gauzy contrast to David, who split things "pretty much 50-50" with his wife.

Now, up to this point, the show has repeatedly gone out of its way to belittle David's masculinity, especially in comparison to Frank's virile, brutal example of manliness. The Thanksgiving scene feels like yet another example of that belittling. (The show has a particular preoccupation with that classic toxic masculine trope of the willingness to commit "necessary" violence as a litmus test of real manhood. David, naturally, avoids acts of violence himself and does not fully endorse Frank's plan to kill everyone in their way and is even so fallen in his manhood as to "call a guy" to do things like fix sinks and repair garage doors.)

But here's the thing: David's example of splitting Thanksgiving dinner "50-50" means that he makes the turkey, and his wife makes everything else. Granted, I have fairly limited experience with cooking meat, but I am the sole cook in my household and have helmed my share of holiday meals, and the amount of work to produce the turkey versus the amount of work to produce everything else for the meal doesn't even approach 50-50.

There's this weird idea men have that making the meat portion of a meal is some kind of epic undertaking that nearly outweighs all others, but it just isn't. Sorry, gents, but grilling that steak or roasting that bird is just another part of the complicated juggling act of making a meal and it's not even close to half the work. Chop the damn vegetables, at least.

Anyway, it just struck me as funny that even when attempting to show how much less masculine David is than Frank that the writers for The Punisher still pulled from the playbook of toxic masculinity. They couldn't even depict an egalitarian relationship despite trying to, so steeped is the whole thing in one rigid notion of manliness.

Is it possible that Punisher (this series specifically) was written in such a way to identify and deconstruct such issues while still being accessible to the sorts of people drawn to gun vigilantes?

If so, I have seen no evidence of it yet, but I'm only 2/3rds or so through the series.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

If so, I have seen no evidence of it yet, but I'm only 2/3rds or so through the series.

I only ask because, to me as a straight white cis het gun-toting male, all the characters are pretty clearly coded that way.

Coded in what way? As repudiations of toxic masculinity?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Coded in what way? As repudiations of toxic masculinity?

Yes. Repudiations from the perspective of one who either actively rejects the idea of toxic masculinity (what does that even mean, bro?) or who may not being fully considering the ways in which they are impacted by such elements of the patriarchy.

Interesting. I'd love to revisit this topic once I've finished the show.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Interesting. I'd love to revisit this topic once I've finished the show.

I would love to discuss it.

As an aside, having facilitated group therapy with other combat veterans, that sh*t was on point.

Reaper81 wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

If so, I have seen no evidence of it yet, but I'm only 2/3rds or so through the series.

I only ask because, to me as a straight white cis het gun-toting male, all the characters are pretty clearly coded that way.

I'm not gun-toting, but that's how I viewed it too. He's as an amazing badass, but completely broken and isolated (don't read until you've finished the series) as a result.

Spoiler:

IIRC, the last third does a much better job of showing how his embodiment of toxic masculinity has ruined him as a person, and validating David's "weaknesses".

Cern scientist: 'Physics built by men - not by invitation'

He also said that he himself was overlooked for a job that he was more qualified for, which was given to a woman.

Amazing how you can sum up some articles in a single sentence.

Prof Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University said that "physics was invented and built by men,

I mean...

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Interesting. I'd love to revisit this topic once I've finished the show.

I've now finished the show, and I'm just not seeing how it does anything but explicitly reinforce tired, toxic views of masculinity.

Unquestionably, Frank, the other veterans of Cerberus, and Lewis are depicted as deeply traumatized and on some level broken by their experiences at war. I have two family members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the stories of the vets in series absolutely resonated with their struggles to reintegrate and to process what they had gone through. That part of the show was really well done.

However, looking beyond that at the rest of the narrative, the show repeatedly buys into toxic masculine culture and even takes shots at alternatives. It questions one aspect of the culture but endorses the framework of the whole.

By the end of the show, everyone who questions the morality or necessity of Frank's vigilante mission directly vocalizes their support for it. Every objection they have, and their support for systems and due process, falls aside when the threat affects them directly. True justice and trie safety are only achievable by men like Castle taking it upon themselves to commit violence for the greater good.

Heteronormative, monogamous relationships are consistently presented as the right kind of relationship to have. I don't think there's a single queer person in the show, but relationships outside of heterosexual marriage are the exclusive domain of villains. Sexual kinks, casual sex, men who care about their looks: that's bad guy stuff. Frank and David joke about David's wife's attraction to Frank from a position of ownership, and her interest in someone other than David naturally evaporates once he's back in the picture. Meanwhile, Frank remains steadfastly celibate and committed to his wife even after her death, and yet for her part, his wife has no personality or even personhood in the narrative, existing solely as a platonic ideal of matrimony in a summer dress, an emotional and sexual prop for Frank's pain.

Everyone who begins the show uncomfortable with violence becomes comfortable by the end. The show's caricature of the gun control debate is embodied in a clean, professional Senator who confesses that he never even held a gun before finding himself in a firefight, and that fight is some kind of transformative moment in his life that makes him question "what kind of a man he really is". Naturally, he's also coward who literally throws a woman at a gunman as a human shield to ensure his own survival and then lies about it.

Cowardice is a repeated theme of the show, as are other nebulous concepts that form the backbone of toxic masculinity, like honor, family, and duty. The primary repeated objection to a domestic terrorist is not that he's exacting his political will through death and violence but that his means of doing so (bombings) are cowardly and dishonorable. Presumably, if he had shot only his intended targets and looked them in the eye first, it would have all been okay. Or not even "presumably", because if he had done that, he would have been Frank Castle, the protagonist.

In the end, the emotional trauma endured by Castle during his military service comes dangerously close to being depicted as a kind of necessary martyrdom. Frank Castle gets the sh*t kicked out of him and does terrible things so that no one else has to, and what sets him apart and keeps him good is his inner strength, honor, and unwavering moral compass. But that conviction that individual men should make decisions on behalf of others, even at great personal cost, guided by and answerable to only themselves is one of the cornerstones of patriarchy.

I just don't see how Netflix's Punisher show calls any of that into question, and if it does, the answer is very much one that supports sexist, toxic ideas of what it means to be a man and what men should or should not do.

Damn, Clock, that really makes me not want to watch the show.