Treasuring women and femininity doesn’t keep someone from being sexist. Thinking women are weak, or special, or fragile, or emotional, or gentle, or maternal, or somehow “naturally” supposed to be X is sexism.
WHAT? So you are saying is that the definition of sexism is saying “women are different than men.” I see. I completely understand why you think that homophobia = sexism.
Everyone must be sexist then because WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT!
If the definition of sexism is thinking that women are special, then lock me up. I am guilty.
Right. I don’t want to hear that homophobes love and cherish women–that doesn’t convince me that there isn’t a kernal of sexism in their homophobia or their treatment of women. I’d be more convinced if at least one of the words used was “respect.” Women placed on a pedestal are not viewed as equals.
No, that is not what she said, nor what she meant. If you think all women are X, there is an element of sexism there, because you are not viewing women as individuals. If I say “all men are chauvinist pigs” that would be sexism, because I’m speaking of men collectively, and not as individuals. Saying “women are different from men” isn’t sexism in and of itself, but when you start saying “women are softer than men” “women are weaker than men” “women are smarter than men” etc, you get into the realms of sexism.
You all are doing a great job of reminding me why I left this community 3 years ago. You let your emotional biases get in the way of logic.
Just like a woman. LOL ROTFL HAHAHAH!
EDIT:
I don’t need to add the word Respect because I already respect women. It’s in my nature as a man to think with respect.
Read the book, “Love and Respect.”
La Petomaine would have been a big fan of yours.
I think it’s an oversimplification to say misogyny is the “real” phenomenon and homophobia is merely an epiphenomenon of it. But I’d say they are interrelated and bolster each other, and I will add a third to the list: “sissyphobia”.
Misogyny: contempt, hatred of, and disparagement of females
Homophobia: contempt, hatred of, and disparagement of gay people, most centrally of male gay people, often taking the form of implying that gay males are like women.
Sissyphobia: contempt, hatred of, and disparagement of male people who exhibit personality / behavior associated with females, usually taking the form of claiming that this is identical to and indistinguishable from being gay.
In combo, the three of them create a worldview in which males are to be heterosexual if not subject to contempt, hatred & disparagement, are “known” to be gay if they evince any characteristics that are ‘effeminate’ rather than ‘masculine’, and are relegated to being akin to females for that.
In the shadows, unacknowledged and erased from such considerations:
• non-sissy gay males, butch gay males, masculine gay males. can’t be such a thing, because yeesh if there were, how the heck would you know they were like that and needed to get beaten up & stuff?
• non-gay sissy males, non-masculine non-butch males who are into females. can’t be such a thing, because ick, if there could be, why would being masculine be an imperative and a prerequisite for being heterosexual?
Historically also fairly hidden and not really thought of, and also still mostly not part of the mindset of folks with such attitudes:
• lesbians, possiblly but not necessarily butch, definitely female. wait, the whole association of masculinity and male heterosexuality is all about how you “have to be” in order to do the man role in heterosexuality, and disparaging sissy faggots is all about how males who are too womanly to cut it as a hetero guy, well you know the drill, so how the heck could sex be happening if only females are involved? and if females by themselves can initiate and participate in sex, how could you say a male who was a lot like a female would be incapable of having sex with women? sex, in this construct, is all subject-object. man fucks woman. he does her. being sissy and being queer and all is all about being on the ‘getting fucked’ side, and not on the ‘doing the fucking’ size of how a guy is supposed to be, and the existence of lesbians is confusing to even think about.
• gay males as subject not object. the whole thing about hating gay males is that they are like women, a thing to be / wanting to be fucked by someone. built into all the hate of gays is the attitude that gay males want to attract other males (straight males) into hitting on them sexually, that they are “asking for it” sexually (and so instead of hitting ON them the gay bashers just HIT them and say they were asking for THAT). it’s not obvious, but a part of the construct that is NOT present in this mindset is the idea of gay males seeking sexual pleasure in the same sense that hetero males seek pleasure, as distinguished from seeking sexual interest in themselves.
Wouldn’t this thread be better served by exploring the various reasons and theories as to why people are homophobic? I think a lot of people might become enlightened as to what theories are true or more likely false.
Witness the OP. It appears to me that the OP’s idea is dependent upon the claim that homophobes equate homosexuality to femininity. If we actually polled homophobes I doubt you would find many that agree.
I for one do not equate homosexuals to femininity in one bit and that is why I disagree with the OP.
Hmmm… you know if gays do act like women, maybe a homophobe dislikes them because they act like the women the homophobes love, but the gays cannot give the homophobe what he desires, the company of a genuine woman.
It’s kind of like what happend in The Crying Game. In fact it’s almost precisely like The Crying Game. “You tricked me! You aren’t a woman! You are a man! If I wanted a man I would look for a man!”
Wow, that’s about the most internally inconsistent post I’ve ever seen.
Women don’t like to be called manly either. That doesn’t mean a woman acting like a woman is offensive or a man acting like a man is offensive.
If you don’t believe me tell your wife/girlfriend/sister/mother how you’ve always admired her manly arms and see how she reacts to your ‘compliment’.
I think perhaps that you took my “just like a woman” a bit too seriously. LOL
*Note that by weird I’m basically saying neither masculine nor feminine.
I think what people are not taking into account that homosexual males are not as easily identified as they are if they didn’t use the language and move weirdly as they are generally depicted. These characteristics aren’t necessarily feminine and probably belongs to a category all on its own.
In real life I know two homosexual males and they both act exactly the same way as the media portrays them. That really hit me as a surprise because I thought the media always made fun of gays by exaggerating their different-ness but they’re actually more accurate than I had expected.
If you knows the image I’m referring to, when I say the image that the media portrays the gays, then you’ll probably agree with me when I say those people REALLY get on your nerves.
These are the people who are living comfortably outside their closet. Some common behaviors they share includes: walking weirdly, throws a LOT of insults towards males, and laughing at their own jokes in (again) weird ways. Any one of these behaviors in a heterosexual person would make me hate them already so imagine a manifestation of them all…
With that said, I don’t actually hate those 2 guys because I know they’re gay and I “spare” them more intolerable (to me) behaviors than normal people. If anything, I’m trying to be nicer to them although I carry many characteristics of a homophobic person who’d hate them. I’m aware of the existence of butch homosexuals but since the topic is linking the homophobia with sexism, this is the group of gays the discussion is focused on.
Now regarding the sexism. Some people said it is only true when you generalize a sex to something and not just identifying their differences or something. Generalization though IS the same thing as identifying the fact that women are different than men. See which of the following you find sexist: All women have vaginas. All women have breasts. Women have less testosterone than men. Men are more suitable for physically demanding work. Men should be firefighters and women shouldn’t. Sure there are exceptions where some women are tougher than men but they’re exceptions, not every woman is an exception.
I have another example from when I was working at a grocery store. This girl and I (a boy) are both labor workers but her tasks was to stock up the inventory in the dollar section while I had to push buggies, lift things, and generally do more demeaning and tougher things. Two other girls also had the same job as her while about eight other guys had the same job as me. Statistics aside, we know that it is normal for the girls to do the less physically demanding work while the guys do the tougher things. This makes work much easier for girls but at the same time, they’re not needed as much because you don’t need eight girls working in the dollar section but you do need eight guys working around the rest of the store. Feminists always talk about double standards but equality(fairness) between the sexes creates just as much, if not more, double standards. There is no such thing as equality between males and females. Males do no equal females so the way you treat males do not equal the way you treat females. Fairness is different than equality. It starting to become a pet peeve of mines when I hear people use the word “equality” so loosely.
By the way, this is all for the sake of fun debating so even though I’m not saying I don’t believe what I’ve said above, some people take these too seriously.
You would hate someone because they walked funny?
I don’t even have a follow up to that. I honestly never would have imagined that even the most homophobic person would say that they’d hate someone they knew to be straight solely because that person walked in a “gay” manner.
Okay… it’s easy to pick one line of any opinionated paragraph and make the person sound crazy. Within that second line of yours I can already point out things you’ve said that were wrong.
*
I honestly never would have imagined that even the most homophobic person would say that they’d hate someone they knew to be straight solely because that person walked in a “gay” manner.
*
First of all, I never said I was homophobic nor have I said I hated gays. I may identify them and treat them differently, but that is not a demonstration of phobia. You cannot compare apples with oranges (in a sensible way). I also said they walked weirdly which I defined at the beginning as neither masculine nor feminine. If you think that everything is either manly, womanly, or gay, then maybe you are the homophobic one.
I admit I had not articulated my response as well as I could have and some parts of it, including that line you quoted, may have been exaggerated. I don’t spend hours making sure everything I say makes perfect sense because I’d rather do other things. The rest of what I’ve said should have, however, made me not sound like a crazy person.
That aside, I clearly didn’t make that list properly but they were just to reinforce the idea of what media portrayed them of which was what I was referring.
Can you think of someone who is PERFECTLY normal in every way except for the way they walked? I think not. I probably shouldn’t have used the word hate because that’s not how I really feel but that was while I assumed people weren’t going to nitpick and would look at my opinion as a whole. A more suitable word I should have used is annoyed.
I said I may have characteristics of a homophobic person which is simply referring to the way I picked on gays in this topic; I did mention that I didn’t hate them. I’d give a specific example for what I mean but I can’t think of any at the moment because I don’t let their behavior bother me too much. If I remember next week, I’ll take note of an example of something that annoys me about their expressiveness. (I know there would be around 2 at any given day)
I can think of another guy off the top of my head though that does walk weird and presumably heterosexual. Actually that presumption may be wrong but let’s just play along for now. This person also talks in a really slow and slurred manner which may suggest a mental disability of some sort. I’ll admit that his presence (the above, plus sitting too close to me and flipping his binder which carries a strong aroma of curry) somewhat annoys me and maybe I’m too judgmental but it’s who I am. By the way, that isn’t necessarily racist either because if a white guy flipped his binder which carries the scent of curry, I’d also dislike him. It just happens to be an uncommon combination.
At the very least, I’m not saying my view is correct and have identified them.
By the way, I noticed we’re defining homophobic as both afraid of and/or hating people of homosexuality.
I don’t think there’s any context in which you could say you’d hate someone just because of the way they walked and not sound like you had serious issues.
*I was trying to be charitable to your position by excluding the possibility that your hatred extended to people who walked “weirdly” because they were disabled. Apparently I was being overly generous.
*“Crazy” is not the word I’d use.
*Yes.
*You thought wrong.
*If you say “hate” I’m going to take that to mean “hate”. If you can’t express yourself clearly you can’t expect others to magically guess your intended meaning. Not that your intended meaning was really much better – as far as I can tell from your clarifications, your hatred extends not just to homosexuals but to everyone who isn’t “perfectly normal in every way”.
*I really cannot see a rational person being annoyed by the way another person walks, not unless they were walking in such a way that was noisy or physically disruptive (e.g. knocking things over).
As a gay man I can tell you straights who hate gays are afraid gays will molest them.
A smaller number are afraid to admit they might be sexually attracted to men.
I found the younger generation doesn’t have this as much as the older generation. Because they realize it’s not an all or nothing thing.
The older generation says “If I even think a guy is attractive, I must be gay.” They see it as all or nothing.
The younger generation says “I’m horny and there ain’t no women around. Hmmmm, well it won’t hurt to get my **** off.”
So they don’t feel threatened.
If you can think of such an example, why don’t you enlighten us?
You are clearly detesting my views but *I really cannot see a rational person * who would be so bent on being hostile to someone like me for providing words of opinion.
If you keep up your hostility, then I will no longer respond to you for irrational people don’t listen to reason even if it bitch slapped them in the face.
I think your first point nailed it. The thing that homophobic people are afraid most of, about homosexuals, is the possibility of them being hit on. Thumbs up for being able to talk about it and I hope my previous message has not caused too much offense. Even now, I’m pointing you out because you are homosexual so I want to ask: Does it get annoying when you’re always being put on the spotlight when people know about your sexuality? I can guess the answer would be “yes” but I’d like to know for sure.
I guess in the end, the root of homophobia would not be sexism for the majority of the cases.
To an extent, it’s true. Male homosexuality is more likely to elicit an “ick” response than female homosexuality. And men tend to be more disturbed by it than women. I think that this is, indeed, because of its implications of feminization of men and, to a lesser extent, the “uppitiness” of a woman who acts like a man.
So you’re willing to admit that men fear other men treating them like women, and then conclude that sexism is not the root? Men hit on women all the time. Men make inappropriate passes at women all time. Men oggle women all the time. Men make women uncomfortable with their own bodies all the time. In other words, men are generally dominant, or believe themselves to be, and wield the gaze. When men lose that ability, when they perceive themselves as becoming passive objects to other men, they have a strong negative, even violent, reaction.
Straight men who are homophobic do not want to be passive, ie, feminine. I don’t see how you can characterize that in any other way than sexism (from mild to blatant misogyny, depending on the person).
I’ve known a number of people in my life who had a gait that was in some way unusual. I doubt you know any of these same people, though. What do you want, their addresses?
*You seem very thin-skinned for someone who is so quick to hate other people for something as harmless as the way they walk.
*I have said nothing in this thread anywhere near as hostile as this sentence, which is itself not unusually hostile for this forum. I think you are falling back on false accusations of “hostility” because you know your position is irrational. Are YOU unwilling to listen to reason?