I heard those kind of things, too. The context that I heard them was that those are the bad guys. Their existence is why you have to behave as we have taught you to behave, because you may not become one of them, and it is your job to make their life difficult. I believe they exist.
I think the problem is that the kind of people that behave that way heard much the same things that I did, and in the same fashion. Their takeaway was “don’t do these things in a way that you will get caught,”. “Choose your victims carefully,”. “Have a good excuse ready, like you were “just playing.’
I think it’s similar to bullying. Everybody is taught not to be a bully, that bully’s are bad. There is no bully culture where it is ok or admired. Quite the opposite.
Hmmm. I remember learning that boys cant control themselves, and that is ESPECIALLY true if they like you. They will be jerks if they like-LIKE you. So some guys learn that that is the BEST way to demonstrate they like-LIKE you. God knows girls are told, directly and in so many words, that the reason he is unable to control himself is because he has a crush. Isnt that sweet!
Your takeaway was that girls are the ones who are really in control, and good southern boys are taught not to behave like bad boys. You seem to be completely discounting the power of all the other lessons that society imposes on us. Culture as a whole likely does has a mitigating power on the awfulness of people, bit certain lessons are just reinforcing and reinforcing certain bad behaviors. Guys get together with their peers and make crude remarks and joke about grabbing her boobs or hey, maybe get *real *persuasive with that drunk chick. She has learned that if he gets *too *persuasive when she was drunk , it was her own fault. Not his. Hers. Boys may be explicitly told to treat girls with respect, but implicitly are told, day after day, joke after joke, movie after movie, that girls are no more than objects to be won or taken.
And that is what rape culture is.
I disagree that is no culture that reveres bullies. there are a number of environments that have in the past or currently revere the strong, and revile the the weak. Military schools, fraternities, even high schools sports. Explicitly they are told not to be bullies, but implicitly bullies are rewarded.
…the current President of the United States is a bully. And his behaviour is okayed and excused by his peers and he is loved and adored and supported by millions of fellow Americans.
I can’t speak to what you were taught, but I did not think that is what girls were taught, and it is pretty much the opposite of what I told my daughters.
I remember dating and I could see on my dates face (or imagined I could) her deciding whether or not she was going to be alone with me. For me this was no decision at all. I had nothing to worry about. For her though this was a pretty important judgement call. I remember very early deciding on a strategy for what to do when they decided they would be alone with me. I would like to say that this strategy was motivated by my inherent good nature and respect for women, but the fact is that was a completely self-interested strategy.
My strategy was to be immediately over responsive if a girl signaled me to stop or slow down. My theory was that if the girl knew that she was in total and complete control, she would be much more comfortable going further than is she was concerned that I would be over enthusiastic and difficult to dissuade. So, I tried to demonstrate that this was true. Most of my encounters were relationships that went on for some time, and I seemed to do a good job of establishing comfort so that I got invited back.
I was aware that other people had different experiences, but frankly, I did not talk about it with my friends. First because it seems wrong to talk about these things with girls I liked. Second, I knew that if word got back that I was talking about things, the girls would not be happy.
When I was 12 years old I once lied to a friend and said that I had fooled around with a girl when no such thing had happened. Word got back to the girl, and she confronted me asking why I would lie and say something horrible and lie like that. I said nothing because I was speechless with shame and humiliation, which I deserved.
But I never talked shit about girls ever again.
That is not the way I thought or think or behaved. I understand that these things happen and too frequently.
I disagree. That’s what in spite of things. I don’t understand why what I am suggesting is so difficult. Society does a lot of preaching about what is right and wrong, how we should behave, and treat each other on a huge variety of topics, and we fail miserably to follow or live up to or respect the standards of right and wrong that we know. We know the difference and we chose to do the wrong thing anyway.
That’s not rape culture. That’s human failure. I truly don’t think that cultural systemically teaches boys to behave in a predatory fashion towards women. It is overwhelmingly negative on the topic.
Bu they do it anyway. Again, like bullying. It’s not an admirable pastime from a cultural standpoint. They don’t do it because culture tells them it is admirable or a good thing. They do it anyway because they get something out of it.
I wouldn’t know.
You seem like you want to have an argument with me or convince me of something, but I don’t get what or why. I am sorry that you have had bad experiences.
Liking the strong and reviling the weak is not revering bullies. A bully is someone who specific preys on those that can’t defend themselves because they enjoy the feeling of power it gives them. You can be strong and successful and competitive without being a bully.
You’ve never seen a movie where the bad boy first gets cussed at by the prom queen, and is pretty nasty to her as well, but she is overtaken by his awesome bad boyness and cant help making out with him? (Hint- he pounds his fist in the air as he crosses the foot ball field after said makeout session and the credits roll) How about one where the good girl even breaks into song how she’s in love with a guy (he is so bad he wears a leather jacket) (Listen to the part of Summer Lovin’’ where his friends ask if he got lucky or if she “put up a fight”) Never saw any media where a father tells his daughter she is not allowed to go out “looking like that” (it’s because she is sending the wrong messages and those boys will not be able to control themselves!) ? Never heard about boys “teasing” girls they liked? Never heard of girls playing hard to get and needing to be won over?
What your successful strategy was is really kind of irrelevant. You realized that it would be a winning strategy for you so you pursued it. My husband also doesnt really “get” rape culture, because if a girl didnt want to be pursued he just…didnt. He didnt see the point in winning over someone who was “hard to get”. But I know for a fact that he hung around with guys who were less gracious. I dont think he knows that though.
If I seem like I am angry about this it’s because your offhand dismissal of rape culture, and subsequent statement that “mobs of boys” would defend any girl who was mistreated is a direct and flat dismissal of my own, actual personal experiences. As I said, rape culture is the implicit lessons, not necessarily the explicit ones. You didn’t perceive the implicit lessons, so they don’t exist.
and to answer your subsequent response, yes it is possible, and admirable, to be strong and not prey on the weak, but the sort of environment that has such disparate reactions based on superficial criteria tends to encourage bullies. If someone feels weak, in such an environment that hates the weak, there is a quick and horrible way to feel strong - find someone weaker than you are.
But no, I dont think I can persuade you that you are mistaken on this topic. The - what was it, WokeBros? Can see that there are flaws in the lessons we learn, as a group, and I hope that the lessons can be dropped by the wayside as we teach our sons and daughters new lessons.
I do thank Laura for her excellent post.
I hope this isn’t too much of a tangent, but that kind of commentary speaks to a lot of what I, as a woman who struggled to be taken seriously in a man’s world before I basically gave up and stopped trying, have confronted. More times than I can count, in meatspace when I confronted a man about his sexism, the response was a defensive statement along the lines of, “I can’t be a sexist, I have daughters and I want the best for them! I’d feel terrible if someone didn’t take them seriously.”
Of course you feel paternalistic toward your daughters, Scylla. You should, you are their father - and I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically. You feel paternalistic toward your daughters? Duh, you have a paternal relationship to them.
But I’ve noticed - from vast personal experience - that when sexist males get called out on their behavior, they tend to reach for their paternalistic relationships to defend themselves.
The rest of us women **ARE NOT YOUR CHILDREN. **Don’t talk to me about your attitude toward your daughters, because frankly I don’t care. “Billions of women” are not your daughters. You got a little more “woke” because you had daughters? Good for you, but I hold parents of boys, girls, and non-parents to the same standards.
And I don’t hear/read you responding to any (presumed) male posters with comments on how you feel about, or would hypothetically feel about, a son.
Your experience in the meat world is not necessarily what I am doing here, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t automatically color me with the negative encounters you’ve had with others. I’m not them.
I didn’t say that quote. That’s not how I feel, and I think that I would say something very different. If you asked.
Since I am a father, by definition any attitude I have toward the can be labeled “paternalistic.” That does not mean that is traditionally paternalistic, nor does it gain you insight into my attitudes to label it such.
You may have also noticed that Nazis dress spiffy. Guess what? I dress spiffy.
You are dealing with an individual, here, not a group. You are making gross assumptions.
I will talk about whatever I want to talk about. Please don’t shout on me in bold, please don’t put words in my mouth, please don’t attribute to me or assume I possess attitudes that I don’t, and don’t dare to to presume to that you have any right, or pretext to tell me what I may or may not say.
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What? There are all kinds of things you haven’t heard me comment on. What does that have to do with anything? It hasn’t come up here, nobody asked. If you want to know, ask. That’s how that works. I’ll warn you that I am not an authority, and don’t have as many thoughts about it, seeing as I don’t have experience in that particular area.
You haven’t told me your thoughts on what it’s like to raise boys, either. I’m not giving you shit about it.
I’m a little surprised and disappointed to hear that you find JP compelling enough to paraphrase. There is a perniciousness to many of his positions that I find abhorrent. YMMV.
Some choose that label. Others have it thrust upon them in order to broad brush them as other and demonize them. You understand that you’re guilty of doing exactly the same thing that you have so readily accused others of doing. This sort of hypocrisy serves only to weaken your argument.
Fair enough. But you seem to think that their goal is to revive Marxism. Which is equally hyperbolic and laughable. So I’m not sure your right-eous rage is a particularly effective way to make your point. If you have a better idea, express it. Make your case without mis-characterize theirs.
There you go again, Scylla. Telling people they should fear something that has no intrinsic fear value. Modern day ‘socialism’ works in people’s everyday lives. I trust I don’t have to enumerate the ways in which it works to improve your life or the lives of those you love.
I certainly didn’t raise mine into any such thing. The very thought of it should sicken any/every parent. But here again you’re missing the forest for the trees. Our culture/society must do a better job of protecting the vulnerable and the victims of sexual violence. The fact that some victims don’t feel safe coming forward means there is work left to be done. You can make a case that calling our society a ‘culture of rape’ is not the right way to go about it and I would agree. But dismissing it a problem that approaches 0 is just a wrong headed denial of reality. To me, your justification for doing so is that on some level you want to deny those evil left-wing Marxist a point of legitimate concern.
There is a lot to unpack in your larger post, as we are talking about some pretty big concepts like Marxism, socialism, neomarxism, it’s current connection to leftist politics, etc etc.
Let’s table that for a moment, accept my hypocrisy as a given (so I’m not accused of dodging) and handle this one piece at a, saving Marxism for later if we don’t end up backing into it, fair?
Starting with Peterson. Pernicious is a strong word. And you use it in a way that seems to indicate you feel it disqualifies if not everything, at least a great deal of what peterson has said. Can you be specific? What is harmful about his positions? Which ones?
You’ve never seen Breakfast Club or Grease? I think our cultural touchstones may be too far apart. No, I didn’t grow up male, but I’m capable of seeing the cultural lessons that our society subtly stresses. You didn’t see this lessons, therefore they don’t exist.
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I’m going to regret this, since I almost never post in GD, but here goes:
Can you please elaborate? This is not an attempt at gotcha, but being Swedish, I’m curious what the Scandinavian phenomenon is? What is this population segregation you mention and how has it increased due the the effort to create equality (did I read your intention correctly?)?
And you don’t need to provide tons and tons of literature, but a few choice example would be nifty.
BTW: There is an ongoing debate here too about glass ceilings, female CEOs, as well as the issue of rape culture.
Agreed. Let’s table the Marxism topic. The discussion on JP is probably fairly tangential as well for this OP. But I’m happy to oblige, if only to make a clarification on my over-broad comment earlier. On the whole, I find JP’s philosophical stance to be either pernicious or disingenuous. However, I don’t think that makes him absolutely wrong about everything. To be precise, I don’t believe him to be wrong with respect to his commentary about human behavior and socio-economic outcomes “at the extremes”. There may be something to that and I don’t know enough to have a basis for disagreement.
Where I find his positions harmful is in his weaseling rhetorical technique and the manner in which he obfuscates his positions by first claiming to resist reducing arguments to axiomatic propositions, but the minute he feels cornered, rushing to either dogmatic or chaotic extremes. Such rhetorical devices seem transparent in their quibbling, but they also appear to be having some appeal (particularly to right leaning audiences) because I see them being deployed with some frequency, including in another more or less current thread in GD.
Also, he is ridiculously thin skinned and defensive which serves to further undermine his positions. Have you watched his more recent debates with Sam Harris? They are quite revealing, IMO.
Not sure I’ve addressed your question to your satisfaction. I do seem to recall that he also has a penchant for tossing the “M-bombs”. I’d have to spend time refreshing my memory of some of his other positions to give you more specific examples of why I find myself at odds with his positions in general.
The Breakfast Club, Grease, and Dirty Dancing are the Holy Trinity. These are the three movies that my wife keeps on rotation while she runs on the treadmill, and she has been watching these three movies over and over since 1993 anytime it is too cold to run outside.
I have this watched the countless times. I think I have them memorized. My wife and I have discussed them endlessly. I may in fact, be one of the foremost authorities on these in the entire world. I would be absolutely delighted to discuss with you in great detail the topic of misogyny, sexism, rape culture, etc. as seen through the lens of these films.
I apologize that we will need to throw Dirty Dancing into the mix, but I insist. These films are of a time and have a lot to say about 79s and 80s culture and I feel they should be taken as a group.
I will risk putting words into your mouth and guess that you think the most problematic is The Breakfast Club.
For me, the two most obvious things to discuss are Bender’s sexual assault of Claire while he is hiding under the desk, and secondly, Allison being portrayed as low value and ignorable until her miraculous transformation into a pretty girl, accompanied by slo-mo and music, her new value being demonstrated to the audience through the admiring and lustful look of Andrew.
(We could also discuss Danny’s assault/near assault of Sandy at the drive-in and her later change in value through her miraculous transformation (it’s fascinating how these mirror each other to some extent in The Breakfast Club and how they differ, and what that reveals about the actual underlying themes being communicated and espoused, but I digress)
Does that sound like a good starting point to you?
If it does, please share your thoughts and tell me what you think is going on with this. If not, and you prefer other scenes, like from Grease don’t let me steal your thunder. Fire away. I am all ears, and excited to discuss it with you.
You said his positions were pernicious. How does being a whiny weasel make his positions harmful? I would think his arguments would hold water or fail to do so based on their merits, not Peterson’s weasilyness.
What position has he taken that you think is wrong or harmful?
Sorry I am putting you on the spot, but your argument seems strange to me since you seem to be indicting Peterson’s Arguments based on his personality.
The ridiculous extrapolation of this line of reasoning would be that one could argue for genocide without it being pernicious as long as one had a good non-weasel personality.