Active Member
What I find sad is that an increasing number of men are behaving like women, or as if they've been somehow castrated by a culture of misandry.WHERE ARE ALL THE BALLS?I am extremely grateful for my male friends though. I couldn't go back to ebing surrounded by women; i'd feel like an alien.
Admin edit: split from the relationships thread. Awkward split is awkward.
Stubby Member
WELP.Originally Posted by AgentofChaos
I've come from a background where if I'm into someone, I'll generally put those feelings on the back burner in favour of protecting the friendship—it feels these days like guys are more likely to jump on things if they have the slightest attraction towards you, which is kind of lame. Especially when I haven't given any real indication that I'm into them ~that way~.
What happened to the days of agonising for months on end over whether or not the other person likes you the way you like them before you ever dream of making a move? Pfft.
Flaccid Member
That video's brilliant.
I'm kind of in that agonising-for-months-on-end-over-whether-or-not-the-person-likes-you-the-way-you-like-them thing at the moment actually. It's kind of just happened and came out of no where. We've just become good friends and talk all the time but have seen other people and not actually discussed how we feel about each other. I completely fancy him and i think he fancies me, but it's actually kind of fun seeing how it all pans out.
In many ways i think the most solid of relationships are born from a good friendship, i mean, if you're not friends how can you demonstrate a healthy level of authenticity? That said though, echoing Hula's sentiment, i tend to act as uninterested as possible in people i genuinely really like in order to protect the friendship or myself, such as now. Le sigh.
Stubby Member
A video bluntly stating why, due to the city I live in (same as video), I'm unable to have male friends.
In university (in England) I had equal male/female friends. The guys knew I had a boyfriend, several of them had girlfriends, and none were the type to try an affair.
Fuck this culture.
God is an American
I see this kind of comment all over the place and I've no idea what it fucking means. "Behaving like women." Do you want men to behave like violent Neanderthals? Do you admire the "lad culture" but only when it is convenient and only from afar? Is the reason men and women are having difficulty relating because women can't figure out exactly what parts of the male psyche they'd prefer remain hidden?
Add Violins
^Yeah, I was a little confused by that statement too. I can't even say whether I agree or not, because I don't understand it at all. In what way are men behaving like women?
Stubby Member
From past posts, I've noticed Icklekitty having issues with men not being domineering enough; and yet, she's a fan of pegging.
Stubby Member
Those two concepts aren't necessarily linked. I've known gay guys who are submissive in day-to-day life but play the role of the top in bed. Power in bed and power everywhere else are two entirely different beasts.
Active Member
Completely agree. And pegging doesn't necessarily mean the man becomes submissive. It'd imply that the woman is usually submissive during regular straight sex. For me, it just means that he's adventurous, and the g-spot is there after all.
By men behaving like women, I mean that they about how great you are but never ask you out (actions and words aren't related), they do the "relationship games" re: calling back, reading extraneous things into everything, or they generally act very needy/clingy and vague. These are traits I associate with women, and why I don't get on with most women. I also think this whole "girl power" thing has created a bit of a gender identity problem for men ("castrated by a culture of misandry". Lad culture is an offshoot of this problem - these are (by and large) NOT strong, confident men.
Add Violins
Well, the problem is that there's a lot of mixed signals out there, because people all want different things. It's not like there's some united front of women who have agreed upon a definitive set of guidelines for how a man should act with a woman he's interested in. Some women like it when guys are direct, others don't. Some women wish that guys were more "sensitive" in their relationships, others may find that kinda lame. Just depends on the person. I think a lot of guys are trying to figure out that perfect balance, which of course varies depending on who they're interested in. It's tricky.
Anyway, I hate it when women complain about some guy who won't ask them out. Just shut up and ask him out yourself.
Hairy Member
Exactly, I made the first move with my husband, and it has worked out pretty well for me.Anyway, I hate it when women complain about some guy who won't ask them out. Just shut up and ask him out yourself.
On the topic of being friends with someone of the opposite sex: I believe you can do it if you really value the friendship. Every guy I have been friends with, I developed feelings for them. But I still continued being their friend. I'm just a hopeless romantic, so it is very easy for me to desire someone.
Throbbing Member
Anyone think this is a result of how ridiculously dumb our culture is? Girls are raised to not want sex and boys are raised to want to have sex with everyone or they aren't really "straight" or "manly". What criteria is this using? If you've ever thought about having sex with that person? I'd bet a million the girls have had those same thoughts...... Why the hell would you define your friendship by that? Anyways I've had a ton of guy friends who have never even tried flirting with me. I guess I am just ugly :3. That being said all my close friends are very conscious of this horrible binary, so that might be why my experiences have been different.AAAHHH! This girl power thing? Are you perhaps referring to the drive to be equal? I honestly see this as logically unsound as talking about reverse racism.
I hate the idea that there is some inherent need for men to be nurtured into whatever definition of masculinity people have. I think the inherent problem comes from trying to strictly define masculinity to begin with. Feminism is not to blame here.
Last edited by littlemonkey613; 12-16-2011 at 06:03 PM.
Active Member
Bra-burning, girl-power misandry is NOT the same as the feminist quest for a deconstructive world of multiplicity. It is not a matter of toppling the order so as to replace it - that amounts to the same thing in the end.
(Similarly, positive prejudice is not the same as true racial equality; equality is fair for all)
Throbbing Member
I don't think bra-burning and misandry should be put in the same category, for obvious reasons. That implies that bra-burning takes things too far when in fact people that do that have a point and are actually right when they articulate why they think that clothing is oppressive and what not.
Where is all this misandry? In the world I live in feminism is still taboo, embarrassing to be apart of and associated with something dirty for most people. People who actually want women to take over and dominate men is a very very tiny minority, furthermore trying to topple strict definitions of masculinity are often interpreted as misandry because they scare people who will lose their power in this male dominated culture.
I would say in my experience 9.5/10 time what people interpret as male-hatred to me, is really just women trying to be seen as equal. People don't act the way they are "supposed" to act due to their gender and sexuality, and that scares people and gives them an easy target to blame society's problems on.
Last edited by littlemonkey613; 12-16-2011 at 06:35 PM.
Active Member
Exactly; people. Not women, all people.
I never referred to women doing anything. It's the culture and the language. The "girl power" mindset just wants to topple the status quo, but everyone's still trapped in their roles (albeit they would be different roles). Western culture (Eastern culture too, but let's talk about ours as we know it better) is as much misandric as mysogynistic - and the country you live in is perhaps the best example of this (I don't doubt that you have it worse than we do here). Men need to be liberated as much as women; this world has made them just as insecure, nervous, and scared as women. It's not "us vs them". Feminism is not girl power and it is not about womens' rights, it's people power.
"It is not a matter of toppling the order so as to replace it - that amounts to the same thing in the end" is a quote from The Sex Which Is Not One by Luce Irigaray. Feminism is about the discourse sexuality (masculine/feminine), not gender (man/woman) as it is being used popularly. Hence hence feminism, not womenism. In fact, as a branch of deconstruction, it seeks to dispel all binary definitions, where one sex is not defined by the other (indeed, to reach a point where there is no "one or the other"). Michel Foucault went on to write some truly amazing things about human sexuality (he's a brilliant cultural theorist overall).
Griselda Pollock, who taught me, often said that her proudest achievement was being a successful wife, mother, and feminist. I am comfortable and open with my sexuality and yet I like to live my life as if it were 60 years ago. Hi, I'm a feminist (Of Actual Feminism) who would like a big strong man to take her away from this big bad world. And someone who has the confidence (or indeed balls) to be comfortable in their own skin and act in a way that I therefore find tolerable is hard to come by.
Throbbing Member
Have you ever been called a hypocrite for this? I hear that kind of nonsense all the time. Bad example but like, "you can't want your boyfriend to hold the door open AND be a feminist." People that have that kind of idea drive me crazy and it shows they have no understanding of anything...
Hairy Member
I love reading this thread because--full disclosure--a big part of my major in college is gender and queer studies (the others are critical race studies, and postcolonial studies). I can't tell you how happy I was to see Irigaray mentioned. She's one of my favorite theorists (along with Foucault, of course, whose theories permeate my entire field of study--critical theory and social justice). It is true that there are many feminisms out there, some more gender-centric than others. But there's a reason it is called "feminism", still, and that's because the immediate liberation is for women. But, like colonialism, and other forms of oppression, the very first thing that the movement fails to recognize is that the oppressors truly end up oppressing themselves as much or more than the oppressed. Both in that men are forced into their own binary role, and everything else mentioned in this thread, but also in the moral cost of being male (or white, or heterosexual, etc.) and existing only to prop up the patriarchal, racist, heterosexist structures of power in society. To borrow a term from Frantz Fanon, men (especially white men) are reduced to what Fanon called "enfranchised slaves", meaning they have the illusion of investment in society, that they will benefit from the status quo, and may not be actively prejudiced, but are not actively anti-sexist, or anti-racist, etc., but in reality, are being used by the same structures of power for that very purpose. To prop up the system. The Sex Which is Not One, which you refer to, icklekitty, is really wonderful, and I encourage everyone to read the chapter entitled Women On The Market for an amazing anthropological lens into just the kind of feminism that I think is most important.
Last edited by Aaron; 12-18-2011 at 01:16 PM.
Stubby Member
Mayhaps we need a feminism/equality thread? Seems like there are more than a few people who'd weigh in.
Throbbing Member
Yes, please, because I'd love to join in but this is the relationship thread so...
Mars And Daemons
This needs its own thread. I'd love to comment but I would derail the topic even more.
Flaccid Member
Just popping in to say that I disagree with the equating of feminism with gender equality in the title of this thread. Popular feminisms still have a lot of misandry issues to deal with. Feminism was and remains a great paradigm for pursuing women's emancipation. Not so much for pursuing gender equity.
Stubby Member
'Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women.[1][2][3] Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights. Feminism is mainly focused on women's issues, but because feminism seeks gender equality, some feminists argue that men's liberation is a necessary part of feminism, and that men are also harmed by sexism and gender roles. Feminists are "person[s] whose beliefs and behavior[s] are based on feminism."[4]'
So sayeth Wikipedia. I'm a feminist. I agree with the movement; I don't agree with the side of it that has come to the fore. It's like organised religion—is it the philosophy itself that's at fault, or the most vocal and influential figures representing it?
Administrator
Remy, wouldn't you agree that that's an antiquated view of feminism? Nobody here is saying that to be a feminist you must abscond from wearing high heels, marriage, the male penis, blah blah blah. I think as a society we have a lot of misandry issues to deal with, period, regardless of sex or gender.
If shreena has an issue with the thread title, it can be changed. I don't have a problem expanding the subject to gender equality, especially since discussion will probably evolve to include GLBTQ issues.
Flaccid Member
I'm more of a facts-on-the-ground kind of person. I'm not interested in theoretical debates about what 'true' feminism, Islam or Christianity might or might not be. I'm interested in the actions of self-identifying feminists, Muslims and Christians (hence why I specifically highlight popular feminisms), because that is what ultimately has the greatest impact on people's lives.
While I'm far from 100% in agreement with her, Quiet Riot Girl always has very interesting things to say about the relationship between feminism and gender equality.
Active Member
I agree with Remy that feminism and gender equality are separate but I'm not sure that the thread title needs to be changed...the only confusion might arise if people try to discuss racism etc here.....arguably these are shades of feminism too in that they fall under the wider bracket of deconstruction, but the two concepts are so intertwined that I think there's room for both. I agree that misandry is hideously overlooked, but rather than accept the asinine popular assimilation of feminism, it would be nice to have a space to refer to it in its proper sense.
Basically, the very first thing I learned in sexual difference was:
sex: male/female
gender: man/woman
sexuality: masculine/feminine
Feminism is sexuality and gender equality - while equally and undeniably valid - is gender. I guess gender is the blanket term for a collection of sexualities, and in a way gender is the uber-binary of sexuality.
It's conventional thinking to state that sex is the only thing that doesn't change (it's a medical term). Obviously sex binary is also disappearing, but I'm personally not sure if stuff like being trans or intersex falls under sex or gender. I'm totally open to be convinced either way.
I also think Hula's point about how a man being feminine or being gay is so much more taboo than a woman being masculine or a lesbian (although the way it's accepted is fully irritating). Congratulations on coming to terms with your identity too, Hula. You're not the only trans person on this board, and while you're not going in the direction that I can actively offer help for (surprising number of links between mtw transitioning and having PCOS!), I totes support you.
Administrator
Hula, do you identify as transgender or transsexual?
Stubby Member
Transgender. The definitions I've been socialised with always make me feel like 'transgender' is more of an umbrella term for people who identify outside their birth gender, whereas 'transsexual' to me feels more like what I'd be if I took steps to change my body (my sex) to be more like the gender I identify with. As for whether or not I'll actually do that, hah. It was a big enough deal coming to terms with the fact that all those years of trying to be a 'normal' girl were a waste of time and energy.
Active Member
Not to stray too far off topic (sorry), but I'm with you on that one. I use 'transgender' even though I might end up being a 'transsexual,' but until I'm actually sure that's what it is, and not some other gender disorder, I just use the word transgender, because it's an umbrella term.
Throbbing Member
Misogyny is so prevalent, accepted as mainstream and impossible to get away from in the media and society at large. I don't believe that any of the above apply to misandy (please correct me if I'm wrong). I've never felt singled out, victimised or scared to go outside based on my gender alone, whereas it seems I can't go a day without witnessing misogyny in some form. I'm not saying misandry doesn't exist or isn't an issue, but I personally believe educating others about and attempting to limit/eliminate misogyny (and homo-/transphobia) is a much more critical area of focus in today's society.
Throbbing Member
Yeah its quite horrible. Not a week goes by where I can walk in the street at night and not have some creepy car drive up to me and either cat call, say something disgustingly offensive, or ask me to get in the car. This happens even when I'm not walking alone.
