# Dear Woman video - pretty amazing **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620 "2011-04-08T02:34:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/401 "2011-04-12T01:47:39Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > In other words, individuals wrong each other in every imaginable way, no matter what their sex. But in addition to the simple wrongs perpetrated by individual men against individual women, there have always been and continue to be wrongs perpetrated against women which are collectively created or agreed upon by power structures controlled and defined by males. That is a very different thing. The thing is, the fact that these power structures are controlled and defined by males is interesting, but is only a small part of the story. First, they’re not controlled and defined by all males: rather, they’re defined by the elites. You need to add “class” to your analysis, and you need to recognize that upper-class women exploit lower-class men a lot more than vice-versa. You also need to add race to the mix for the US and many other historical cultures, and where race doesn’t figure in, there’s often some other system that fills a similar role–nationality, religion, clan, etc.–by which humans have figured out how to institutionalize the exploitation of one another. Second, women work and shape the power structure themselves. I know you’ve previously rejected my point about fgm, but your fingers in your ears don’t change anything. Consider the work women have done to achieve suffrage, then, or abolition of slavery. If women can work to change the power structure in these positive ways, why is it so inconceivable that less honorable women would have worked to change the power structure in more negative ways? Third, here’s an example for you of women working to oppress men: [the suffrage movement in the US](http://www.tolerance.org/activity/african-american-women-and-suffrage-move). > [@tolerance.org](#): > > Around 1900, growing numbers of White southern women joined the suffrage movement. To appease them and win support for women’s suffrage throughout the South, northern suffragists began espousing racist ideas. > > They pointedly reminded White southerners that giving women the vote would prevent Blacks from gaining too much political power, since there were more White women in the southern states than Black men and women combined. Even Sara Bard Field used this racist argument. So are you going to apologize to black men for what white women did to dilute their political power? I hope not, because that apology would be a farce. But if you did, you’d be consistent. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/402 "2011-04-12T02:13:22Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Third, here’s an example for you of women working to oppress men: [the suffrage movement in the US](http://www.tolerance.org/activity/african-american-women-and-suffrage-move). > > So are you going to apologize to black men for what white women did to dilute their political power? I hope not, because that apology would be a farce. But if you did, you’d be consistent. This falls smack dab into exactly what I was talking about in the posts that generated that response. White suffragettes didn’t oppress black men or any men. They couldn’t. They didn’t have any power to. The black men had more power than they did. They argued that they would, if the white men let them vote, vote with the white men, thereby diluting the power the black men already had: to vote. So all they were doing was participating (or promising to, anyway) in the established oppression of the black males. That’s just what women have always done, and I talked about it in the posts that generated this response, on the first page. White women participate in the oppression created by white males in power, but until they are powerful enough completely outside the umbrella of male power to do all their own oppressing, the oppressors are male. And the Margaret Thatchers don’t mean a thing. She’s an individual leading up a decidedly male government, doing things the way they would do them. Show me a female leader leading a government with at least 51% female representation in whatever they call their Congress or Parliament and then the fact that the Prime Minister is female is something to examine. Girls can play, sure, but only by the boys rules. Varied groups of oppressed peoples all jockeying to be less oppressed by the true oppressors, white males, doesn’t tranform them into opppressors themselves any more than being a kapo turned a Jew into a Nazi. So while I admire the effort, white suffragettes don’t qualify as a powerful, rule-making body of females oppressing males of any color. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/403 "2011-04-12T02:19:51Z")
None of which excuses that truly asinine video. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/404 "2011-04-12T02:43:16Z")
Black men also had the very special power of being lynched. Why, white women could only aspire to their heights! And sometimes, they sacrificed their own reputations just to see black men succeed in getting lynched. But did they get lynched themselves? No. Such nobility. Such goodness. I’m all teary now. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/405 "2011-04-12T02:47:34Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Black men also had the very special power of being lynched. Why, white women could only aspire to their heights! And sometimes, they sacrificed their own reputations just to see black men succeed in getting lynched. But did they get lynched themselves? No. Really? I had no idea! And here I was saying that their experiences were identical! Oh wait…no I wasn’t… Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/406 "2011-04-12T02:57:59Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > White suffragettes didn’t oppress black men or any men. They couldn’t. They didn’t have any power to. The black men had more power than they did. They argued that they would, if the white men let them vote, vote with the white men, thereby diluting the power the black men already had: to vote. So all they were doing was participating (or promising to, anyway) in the established oppression of the black males. Nonsense. They were proposing a means by which black men could be further oppressed, a means by which they could lift themselves up by standing on the heads of the black men. And the idea that because southern black men could vote they had more power than white women is a new low. You’re twisting yourself into knots to keep your 1960s Feminism v1.0 intact. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/407 "2011-04-12T03:02:07Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > White women participate in the oppression created by white males in power, but until they are powerful enough completely outside the umbrella of male power to do all their own oppressing, the oppressors are male. This statement bears special examination: it’s ridiculous. If Bob creates the machinery by which Mary delivers an electric shock to Jim, only a fool would blame the shock on Bob and not Mary. Remove gender from your absurd theory to see its absurdity. Unless there’s some sort of penile network going on that makes all men culpable for oppression, oppression and oppressive structures are made by individuals. Is only the first person to initiate a new oppressive structure responsible for it, or is everyone who helps in the building responsible? Obviously the latter. And if the structure was initiated by men but women contributed to it, their gender is irrelevant: the particular people who support and continue the oppression, no matter their genitalia, are responsible for their actions. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/408 "2011-04-12T03:03:58Z")
What sticks in my craw is the bigotry. It’s like blaming all white people for slavery, including white abolitionists. Not all guys are oppressors. I won’t say it’s perfect but I will say I don’t enjoy being slurred for other people’s actions. I’m part Hispanic by ancestry. Maybe I should apologize for Castro. Who cares if my ancestors came from Argentina, and I was raised by my anglo side? Castro was a Hispanic movement. I’m sorry about Castro, guys. I won’t Cuban Missile Crises anymore. I promise. As has been said countless times, all crap like this does is distract from actually solving problems preventing 100% equity. Shit like this discredits people when they try to fight real gender inequality. In short I am not an oppressor because I’m male. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/409 "2011-04-12T03:05:27Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Unless there’s some sort of **penile network** going on that makes all men culpable for oppression, oppression and oppressive structures are made by individuals. Is it… Fox News? ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/410 "2011-04-12T03:20:31Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > That’s just what women have always done, and I talked about it in the posts that generated this response, on the first page. White women participate in the oppression created by white males in power, but until they are powerful enough completely outside the umbrella of male power to do all their own oppressing, the oppressors are male. Please provide a reputable cite for any of the above nonsense, or for that matter any of the nonsense assertions you’ve made. If it will help we can compile a list of the unsupported claims you’re made throughout this thread any you can then, one by one show research, sociological or other wise that support your claims. > [@Stoid](#): > > And the Margaret Thatchers don’t mean a thing. She’s an individual leading up a decidedly male government, doing things the way they would do them. Show me a female leader leading a government with at least 51% female representation in whatever they call their Congress or Parliament and then the fact that the Prime Minister is female is something to examine. > > Girls can play, sure, but only by the boys rules. So the weak-minded little wimmins don’t have the strength to stand up to the big bad men and must bow to their will, even when in an executive position? If it’s true that “Girls can play, sure, but only by the boys rules” then the only logical action is to revoke the right to vote untill women can exercise it responsibly. You’re doing a fantastic job of advancing the position of women in society - as long as we define “advancing” as reverting to the status they held 100 years ago or so. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/411 "2011-04-12T03:24:44Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > If it’s true that “Girls can play, sure, but only by the boys rules” then the only logical action is to revoke the right to vote untill women can exercise it responsibly. Or that there’s actually no difference between men and women at all, if they play by exactly the same rules… Hey! ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/412 "2011-04-12T03:27:00Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Is it… Fox News? I warn you, if you blame me for Glen Beck, **I will throw down.** ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/413 "2011-04-12T03:29:04Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I warn you, if you blame me for Glen Beck, **I will throw down.** Oh, I know your kryptonite now! And if I use it, it will be the fault OF SOME MAN. Hot diggity, I like these new rules. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/414 "2011-04-12T03:43:57Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Varied groups of oppressed peoples all jockeying to be less oppressed by the true oppressors, white males, doesn’t tranform them into opppressors themselves any more than being a kapo turned a Jew into a Nazi. Or a house slave into a slave master. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Jacquelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Le\_Jacquelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Jacquelope)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/415 "2011-04-12T04:45:47Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Yeah, I think the “and/or” could get contentious given that we have had folks in full possession of male genitals categorically deny their manhood hereabouts. But then this is the Dope, where an assertion that water is wet is generally met with “_Cite!?_”. _Coffee spew_ That should be THE disclaimer you get when you sign up. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/416 "2011-04-12T05:18:30Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Nonsense. They were proposing a means by which black men could be further oppressed, a means by which they could lift themselves up by standing on the heads of the black men. And the idea that because southern black men could vote they had more power than white women is a new low. Nonsense! Having uttered the magical word, reality is now altered! Hmmm…simple, efficient…I like it! Have fun, kids. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/417 "2011-04-12T05:43:00Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > White suffragettes didn’t oppress black men or any men. They couldn’t. They didn’t have any power to. The black men had more power than they did. They argued that they would, if the white men let them vote, vote with the white men, thereby diluting the power the black men already had: to vote. So all they were doing was participating (or promising to, anyway) in the established oppression of the black males. I think you’re selling women short, **Stoid**. Of course white suffragettes had power. In fact, they wouldn’t have been able to be suffragettes had it not been for the privilege their power afforded them. Let’s examine just a few of the feminist icons from the 18th and 19th centuries here in the United States. Abagail Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Grimké sisters, Elizabeth, Cady Stanton, Frances Willard, and Lucretia Mott to name a few. What did they all have in common? They were all decently educated, white, and from wealthy families. Why do you suppose that is? Let’s examine what many of these women accomplished during their life time. Do you know anything at all about the Grimké sisters? They certainly had the power to oppress blacks. Instead they chose to buy a couple of half-siblings out of slavery, send them to college, and the sisters were ardent abolitionist. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union certainly did a lot to put pressure on counties and states to go dry. Even if women couldn’t vote they seem to have some sort of power, no? ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/418 "2011-04-12T07:24:41Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Varied groups of oppressed peoples all jockeying to be less oppressed by the true oppressors, white males Oooh… I’m a true oppressor! I’m getting that shit embroidered on my wallet. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/419 "2011-04-12T09:36:09Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > And the Margaret Thatchers don’t mean a thing. She’s an individual leading up a decidedly male government, doing things the way they would do them. Show me a female leader leading a government with at least 51% female representation in whatever they call their Congress or Parliament and then the fact that the Prime Minister is female is something to examine. > > Girls can play, sure, but only by the boys rules. See, that’s all kinds of cool. Now I know I’m to blame for Imelda Marcos, Madame Ceaucescu, Bloody Mary, Elizabeth Bathory, Marie de Médici, Lucrezia Borgia and Queen Victoria. My dick did it all, ALL OF IT ! They were just poor innocent fragile Earthy womyn, oppressed by my oppressive gonads into being dicks themselves. I had no idea my dick could do that much. Which, as I said, is kinda cool - up until now the only trick I knew for sure it did was the helicopter. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620/420 "2011-04-12T11:33:51Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Even if women couldn’t vote they seem to have some sort of power, no? William Ross Wallace, 1875: “For [the hand that rocks the cradle](http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/wallace1.html), is the hand that rules the world.” This was Lillian Gish’s recurring transitional eternal mother vignette in D.W. Griffith’s 1916 _[Intolerance](http://www.archive.org/details/Intolerance)_, which followed his epic Civil War film _Birth of a Nation_. The meme asserts that the eternal earth mother is a fundamental force of good, due to a mother’s tremendous influence on her child. The problem with the earth mother meme is that it fails to recognize that motherhood is a two edged sword, passing on societal norms and individual behaviours, good or bad, from one generation to the next. We are all part of society, and to a significant degree products of our society, which is formed by women and men, not just men, so blaming all the ills of the society on men, as Stoid and that pathetic video attempt to do, is facile and bigoted. As Robert De Niro put it in _Brazil_: “Listen, kid, we’re all in it together.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-woman-video-pretty-amazing/577620.md?page=22)