I am vindicated! 'Pretty (Bad Ass) in Pink' video (Feminism)

[Shodan]

@mswas

‘If you beat one man up, others will amend their ways automatically.’

Well, yeah - if.

The average man is bigger, stronger, and meaner than the average woman. The rule of law, however imperfectly applied, is in opposition to this.

If you establish “everyone has to obey whoever is best at beating other people up” as the general rule, then whoever is best at beating other people up is in charge. Guess what - it ain’t gonna be a woman, no matter if she is wearing a flashy pink sari or not.

Like it or not, the liberation of women came about because Western technology made it practical to allow women to do something other than work in the fields, and breed farm hands. Women who thought otherwise tended to get put into their place pretty firmly.

Unfair? Maybe. When you live too close to the edge to be sure you won’t starve to death if the crop fails, it is hard to worry a lot about fairness.

@jlzania

I have to agree with mswas although I am generally against all forms of violence. No oppressed group is ever ‘given’ their rights by the oppressor simply because the latter had a shift in consciousness.

Maybe not simply, but Martin Luther King had it right and Malcolm X had it wrong (at the beginning) - if it came down to a race war, blacks were gonna lose. There are more whites, and we have more money and power and armaments.

Sure, there was violence during the sixties, but it was the majority imposing its will on the minority - because the majority had changed its mind. In large part because there was no reasonable answer to “if black people can fight in World War II, why can’t they vote?” But that’s not the question the Black Panthers were asking - it came from Ralph Abernathy and MLK and other reasonable folks, folks who saw themselves as part of America and wanted to be fully part of it.

The Black Panthers were the ones trying to say they would terrorize white America into giving them their rights, and they wound up mostly dead or in prison.

Regards,
Shodan

[mswas]

My argument is that patriarchy requires women to be complicit. This is a statement of idealism. I do not expect this ideal to be put perfectly into practice, but as I see it, it is basically a truism. If women as a whole don’t put up with men beating them, then men won’t beat them. Part of what is implied here is that women are less powerful than men. By expecting men to make the change you are asking for a soft patriarchy where men ‘allow’ women to have their rights as opposed to the end of patriarchy where women simply have their rights. It is not up to ‘me’ whether any woman has the right to be treated with respect. She simply has that right. This is what I intend to teach my daughter. I will teach her that she has rights and that she should never allow a man to make her feel like she doesn’t have those rights, that it is her responsibility to protect and defend her own rights. That she is her own sovereign as any other individual human being is, that this isn’t a matter of gender or racial roles but simply the rights of any sentient being capable of taking a stand for themselves.

I simply fail to see why it is controversial at all to say that if someone who is oppressed wants to stop being oppressed they need to stand up for themselves.

If Mothers in Muslim countries were willing to cut their husbands throats to defend their daughters do you think that the tradition of honor killing would stand? Honor killings are parties in Muslim nations, the Muslim women serve the guests tea and cakes after their daughter is stoned to death or beheaded. I am saying, ‘Stop serving them fucking tea.’

Your point of view is all well and good but completely and totally ineffectual. Wishing for oppression to end just doesn’t cut it.

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

mswas, here is a personal anecdote. Here is a representative list of the things that I, a white American male, have done today to preserve my self-worth and human dignity:

[ul][li]drank some tea []scratched my butt []made fun of this one guy sent an email about the Patriots in which I made fun of this other guy[/ul][/li]I appear to have all my vital personal freedoms intact, however, despite the fact that I don’t seem to be fighting very hard. Someone else must have fought for them at some point, I guess; sure wasn’t me. So it must not be the case that everybody has to fight for them. Maybe it’s the case that you only need to fight for them if somebody’s trying to rob you of them. If that’s the case, maybe everybody who has the opportunity an the capacity to fight should do so, rather than sit around making glib declarations about how everybody needs to fight his own battles.

[Nava]

@Cat_Fight

If every single person who’s oppressed has to start a movement or become a perfect citizen in an attempt to change people’s minds, not only re they not free, they never will be.

(others said the same but you said it shorter)

Not everybody needs to be a trailblazer. But without trailblazers, there is no trail. Someone at some point needs to stand up and say “does not happen! will not happen!” Someone, not the whole lot.

[mswas]

@Shodan

Well, yeah - if.

The average man is bigger, stronger, and meaner than the average woman. The rule of law, however imperfectly applied, is in opposition to this.

If you establish “everyone has to obey whoever is best at beating other people up” as the general rule, then whoever is best at beating other people up is in charge. Guess what - it ain’t gonna be a woman, no matter if she is wearing a flashy pink sari or not.

You cannot go to war with women unless you want to see the decimation of your culture. Without women you cannot breed. You need a woman’s cooperation for your line to continue, there’s just no two ways about that. Women have power over a culture’s reproductive future.

Like it or not, the liberation of women came about because Western technology made it practical to allow women to do something other than work in the fields, and breed farm hands. Women who thought otherwise tended to get put into their place pretty firmly.

Unfair? Maybe. When you live too close to the edge to be sure you won’t starve to death if the crop fails, it is hard to worry a lot about fairness.

Agreed, though the lady made a great point about how jobs for all being the only thing that could lift their entire people from poverty. You’re kind of treating this like beating up men who beat women occurs in a vacuum without a whole social movement behind it.

Maybe not simply, but Martin Luther King had it right and Malcolm X had it wrong (at the beginning) - if it came down to a race war, blacks were gonna lose. There are more whites, and we have more money and power and armaments.

Malcolm X didn’t have it wrong. No one would have listened to Martin if they didn’t fear Malcolm. Martin was the carrot, Malcolm was the stick. Eventually people gravitated toward the carrot, but Malcolm was instrumental in that.

Sure, there was violence during the sixties, but it was the majority imposing its will on the minority - because the majority had changed its mind. In large part because there was no reasonable answer to “if black people can fight in World War II, why can’t they vote?” But that’s not the question the Black Panthers were asking - it came from Ralph Abernathy and MLK and other reasonable folks, folks who saw themselves as part of America and wanted to be fully part of it.

Right, and if no one feared the Black Panthers kicking down their doors and murdering them in their sleep they probably would have blown off the more reasonable voices.

The Black Panthers were the ones trying to say they would terrorize white America into giving them their rights, and they wound up mostly dead or in prison.

Nonsense. Plenty of Black Panthers went on to be businessmen and property owners, or just regular people working 9-5. Your set is limited because you think the Black Panthers you were made aware of were in some way representative of the bulk of Black Panthers.

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

@mswas

Your point of view is all well and good but completely and totally ineffectual. Wishing for oppression to end just doesn’t cut it.

And here, to quote one of my favorite philosophers, is where your fundamental mistake lies. Mine is not the passive point of view. Mine is the view that sexism in all its forms and in every degree should be pointed out, shamed, ridiculed and forced to justify itself, and not simply assumed as a status quo and remarked upon only in its passing.

Why are you above this responsibility? Why is it “their” problem and not yours?

[mswas]

@Nava

(others said the same but you said it shorter)

Not everybody needs to be a trailblazer. But without trailblazers, there is no trail. Someone at some point needs to stand up and say “does not happen! will not happen!” Someone, not the whole lot.

^^This

Jimmy Chitwood Would you fight for your rights if someone came to take them away?

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

Sure. Question is, would you fight for my rights if someone came to take them away?

[mswas]

The reason I am ‘above responsibility’ is because I have no power over a foreign culture. Why is that so difficult to comprehend?

Know what I did to fight for women’s rights just now? I told my wife how awesome she is. And now I’ll tell you.

She works on back-end story content for a ton of major entertainment franchises, household names you’d recognize immediately. Do you know what she does? She speaks up for the dignity of female characters. She tells rooms filled mostly with men why it’s important to give female characters fully formed personalities and not treat them as social furniture for the driving of a male dominated plot. She also works on being able to demonstrate why this is important using market data talking to people about missed opportunities to market their work to girls.

At this point in our culture’s development my wife is doing the real work for women’s rights, because there is no more revolution to be had, it’s just a matter of bringing practice in line with idealism, the hard work of day to day culture.

[mswas]

@Jimmy_Chitwood

Sure. Question is, would you fight for my rights if someone came to take them away?

If I were able to conceive of some way that I could do so, yes. But you and I live in the same culture. If I were to fight for your rights I wouldn’t be some mighty white colonialist trying to impose my western liberal values upon you.

[Shodan]

@mswas

You cannot go to war with women unless you want to see the decimation of your culture.

You can, however, smack the bitch if she gets mouthy. Many cultures, in the Third World particularly, include this kind of thinking. And it doesn’t change much if some other bitch in a pink outfit tells her to hit you with a stick when you try it - it is too easy to grab the stick away from her and really let her have it.

Without women you cannot breed. You need a woman’s cooperation for your line to continue, there’s just no two ways about that. Women have power over a culture’s reproductive future.

I regret to inform you, mswas old chum, but it is not necessarily true that women get to say No to sex. Again, this is especially true in the Third World, and before the Industrial Revolution.

If my family paid ten goats to your father for someone to cook for me and give me lots of sons and daughters to work the fields, I am going to get my money’s worth one way or the other. IYSWIM.

Agreed, though the lady made a great point about how jobs for all being the only thing that could lift their entire people from poverty. You’re kind of treating this like beating up men who beat women occurs in a vacuum without a whole social movement behind it.

Not really - what I am saying is the whole thing about not beating up women occurs in a context where it makes sense to not beat up women. Not before.

Although you are correct that the economic development necessary to make it feasible to use the talents of women apart from reproduction and wielding a hoe has to be in place first. It sure doesn’t look like it is in that part of India in the video.

Malcolm X didn’t have it wrong. No one would have listened to Martin if they didn’t fear Malcolm. Martin was the carrot, Malcolm was the stick. Eventually people gravitated toward the carrot, but Malcolm was instrumental in that.

Not from where I was sitting in the 60s, and unlike you I was alive then.

MLK did the March on Washington and the Nobel Peace prize. Malcolm X got shot by a rival mosque, and his Organization of African Unity retreated into insignificance about ten minutes after he died.

Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam was a sideshow - good for Mike Wallace’s ratings but irrelevant to the big picture. They pushed black separatism - name a major initiative based on that notion.

They had good bean pies. Their politics? Not so much.

Right, and if no one feared the Black Panthers kicking down their doors and murdering them in their sleep they probably would have blown off the more reasonable voices.

More horsehockey.

They did blow off the more reasonable voice. MLK was shot too. But the fact that his message was not based on violence meant that his agenda got carried out. Malcolm X got shot. What concrete did he accomplish? I don’t remember any black Muslims going on Freedom Rides to get people registered to vote.

Regards,
Shodan

[mswas]

Shodan What you say about violence against women is true, but that’s not a good counter-argument. People who fight back against oppression are often resisted, but so what? That’s not a reason not to fight against oppression.

As for your bit about Civil Rights, you are asking for a straw man. Malcolm X was clearly quite influential. He wasn’t shot until AFTER he stopped advocating separatism and as such was shot by separatists. To say that he wasn’t influential is just nonsense. There is no proof required, go talk to any African American studies professor and tell you that Malcolm X wasn’t a major force during civil rights and they’ll laugh at you regardless of how old you are.

[Shodan]

@mswas

Shodan What you say about violence against women is true, but that’s not a good counter-argument. People who fight back against oppression are often resisted, but so what?

If you are going to get your ass kicked and achieve nothing, because conditions won’t allow your culture to change (as was the case before the Industrial Revolution), then maybe you should rethink your tactics.

As for your bit about Civil Rights, you are asking for a straw man. Malcolm X was clearly quite influential.

:shrugs:

Malcolm X gets shot. His organization withers away and collapses without having made a single lasting change. MLK gets shot. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is still in existence, having brought about the March on Washington, the Selma Voting Rights campaign, etc., etc.

Regards,
Shodan

[mswas]

@Shodan

If you are going to get your ass kicked and achieve nothing, because conditions won’t allow your culture to change (as was the case before the Industrial Revolution), then maybe you should rethink your tactics.
:shrugs:

Perhaps but that does not seem to be what is occurring here. Nor did I get the impression that these ladies were administering regular beatdowns.

Malcolm X gets shot. His organization withers away and collapses without having made a single lasting change. MLK gets shot. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is still in existence, having brought about the March on Washington, the Selma Voting Rights campaign, etc., etc.

Umm, Malcolm’s organization didn’t wither away because he got shot, it withered away because he turned away from its primary ideology.

Again I dispute that Martin Luther King Jr. made a lasting change and Malcolm X did not. The lasting change was the civil rights movement, to which both of them contributed a great deal. They BOTH made a lasting change.

[Cat_Fight]

@mswas

At this point in our culture’s development my wife is doing the real work for women’s rights, because there is no more revolution to be had, it’s just a matter of bringing practice in line with idealism, the hard work of day to day culture.

But, see, many women in the West would disagree with you, citing workplace inequalities, reproductive freedom and rates of domestic abuse and rape. Perhaps a far cry from some women in other countries, but then I imagine some men in other countries (including India) are under the impression that women have been basically equal since they were allowed to vote, or when rape became illegal, or when they were admitted to universities.

[mswas]

@Cat_Fight

But, see, many women in the West would disagree with you, citing workplace inequalities, reproductive freedom and rates of domestic abuse and rape.

All things that we consider to be bad things. I think you’re missing the difference between cultural belief and practice. Sure, in practice there are still inequalities, but if you stop anyone on the street and ask them whether or not women deserve equal rights to men I doubt you’re going to get many people who say, ‘no’. It’s uncontroversial in our culture to say that rape or workplace inequality is wrong.

Perhaps a far cry from some women in other countries, but then I imagine some men in other countries (including India) are under the impression that women have been basically equal since they were allowed to vote, or when rape became illegal, or when they were admitted to universities.

Equal rights and equal practice are two different things. A woman has a right to go to a university, that doesn’t mean she will go. A woman has a right to equal pay for equal quality of work, that doesn’t mean she will get it.

The point is there is no fight to be had to change the culture, it’s just a matter of on an individual basis with individual relationships women being treated equally. It’s not longer and ideological fight because pretty much everyone agrees that women deserve equal rights in our culture.

[whiterabbit]

I would say the culture isn’t quite as far along as mswas thinks, but I don’t think we’re all that far from it except in some unfortunate pockets here and there. I know that my mother’s experiences growing up might as well have been in an entirely different universe from mine, and I’m 33. We have come a long way in the last 30 or 40 years.

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

Maybe that’s true. In the world I live in, no matter how much lip service is paid to the idea of equality, women are still second class citizens by any number of measures.

[mswas]

@Jimmy_Chitwood

Maybe that’s true. In the world I live in, no matter how much lip service is paid to the idea of equality, women are still second class citizens by any number of measures.

Yeah, it’s not like that here in New York. Sexism exists for sure, but it’s not something that can be dealt with systemically, it has entered the realm of interpersonal.

[foolsguinea]

I think it’s important to understand that one woman alone is not going to accomplish this. They are a gang for a reason. One abused woman without allies is screwed.

So it’s not just, “A woman needs to stand up.” It’s more specific than that. Collective action is vital.