Oh, I see the problem. You’ve been attributing to me something I never said. Go back and look at your first post here–you’re replying to something posted by another member, and something that they didn’t write but was part of something they quoted.
But, again, “you throw like a girl” ***doesn’t mean ***“you don’t throw as well as the best boys”–it means “your throwing style is silly/uncoordinated/untrained/incorrect.”
Whatever, girls refer to other girls as being like boys in insulting ways too. Show me one 13 year old girl who would flattered by a reference to her manly thighs. (or other aspect of the physique). And don’t try to cop out by nitpicking that there isn’t a particular phrase that is repeated over and over that is a perfect example of this sort of sexism. This kind of abuse exists amongst teenage girls.
Bottom line is people come up with insults to refer to someone as being outside of some norm that has been established. It’s a form of mammalian pecking order behavior. The particular insult is inconsequential, whether it’s referring to a boy as a girl, a girl as a boy, or a person of average intelligence as a retard. It doesn’t matter, people insult each other, and there will always be someone who in reality exemplifies the deficiency that is being implied. It’s insulting, it’s meant to be, it’s an insult.
Whatever, this cite is ideological nonsense. The idea that boys are beating up girls because of being told that they throw like a girl is fucking ridiculous. Just because someone doesn’t want to be compared to a girl doesn’t mean that they hate girls.
God I hate pseudo-intellectual feminist victim crap.
1.) Yes, it *does *matter that it’s sexist, because when you let it slide, it says that those kinds of attitudes are okay. Back when the rhyme usually went “Eeny, meeny, miney, mo / Catch a **nigger **by the toe,” my grandparents sure as hell made sure my parents used the word “tiger” instead.
2.) I’m not sure it would be sexist to not admit that most boys throw better than most girls, but it *would *be retarded.
3.) The difference is classifying something as an intrinsic inferiority that’s natural to one gender. There is nothing about being a girl that means you can’t learn how to throw if you want to (granted, you’ll probably never throw as hard or as fast as the boys, but at least you’ll stop throwing “like a girl”), just like there is nothing about being a man that says you can’t keep a clean house (to bring in someone else’s example from earlier).
No, someone isn’t going to go out and beat up a woman just because someone once told him he threw like a girl. What the expression is, is a *symptom *of an attitude toward women, which is the point the article was making, if you could get over your knee-jerk anti-psycho-feminist response.
Yeah, I learned it as tiger. But then that rhyme isn’t insulting when you change it to tiger, so it’s not even a relevant example. Point being that there will always be a new insult and it will always be a derogatory comparison to some other group whether it’s retarded people, paraplegics, girls who can’t throw, girls with manly thighs, or women with Adam’s apples.
lol
But it has been pointed out to you that it’s not ENTIRELY about training, that gender differences emerge in toddlers. In essence it’s not insulting to tell a girl that she throws like a girl. Many canny young women have retorted, “I am a girl retard.” It’s insulting to tell a BOY that they have feminine attributes.
But in the end the problem isn’t what insult they are using, because there will always be some new derogatory phrase to use.
I see your problem, your shit’s all retarded and you talk like a fag.
Actually I know a bit about hitting women because my first wife left me because of it, and I had to dig really deep and hard in order to be able to get over the irrational anger that caused me to do it.
The reason I hit her was diametrically opposite to the idea presented in that article. It was because I thought she was superior and I was genuinely afraid of her. My step-Mother was abusive and tortured me throughout my childhood, and honestly the thing that stopped the abuse was when I started to hit back. I stopped getting my hair pulled, my arms sliced by long fingernails, stopped being hit in the head with a telephone, or a wire hanger across the face when I was strong enough to restrain her at about 13. Then of course I’d get in trouble for hurting her poor wrists and get beaten by my Father or have a stern talking to by redneck police.
So no, I didn’t hit a woman because of a sense that she was inferior, I hit her because I saw her at the very least an equal, and at the most a threat that I was weak against.
The reason I have a problem with feminist psychodrama is because IME the conclusions are so far off base as to be ridiculous. Men hit women because they are AFRAID of women, not because they think that they are inferior. (Though I am sure in some cases it’s due to inferiority, but that results in being slapped around from time to time and not the savage beatings that rise from anger.)
And believe me, hitting a woman makes you feel like less of a man, not like more of one.
Exactly–it isn’t insulting when you change it to tiger. So how about we start saying “you throw like a retard”?
But that’s just the point–“you throw like a girl” ***doesn’t ***mean she throws *like a girl *(with less power than a boy), it means she throws in a way that is untrained. It’s equating the technique with the gender, which is fallacious. It’s saying, “The bad way of throwing is the girl way, and the good way of throwing is the boy way.”
I disagree that it has be either/or. The type of insult being used can be as much of a problem as the fact that there’s any insult at all. Personally, I see a big difference between a kid telling another one to “Stop dressing like a fag” and saying “Your shoes are fucking ugly.”
I don’t think I’ll ever not love that movie.
Not all men who beat women do it for the same reason, though. It’s not like there’s one magical answer. And there *are *a lot of men in sports with sexist attitudes about women, and “throw like a girl” *is *an example of it. By equating the “girl” way of doing things with the “bad” way, women are set up as naturally inferior, and when a person is inferior to you, you should be allowed to control her in any way you see fit.
Thank you for sharing, by the way, and I’m glad to hear you were able to figure your issues out. That takes a lot, especially when it means reliving all the shit you had to deal with as a kid.
LOL, I’m down. Especially since my 2 year old daughter is totally badass and has a pretty good arm.
Well it’s both. The boys are more likely to be trained for technique because they are more likely to have an aptitude AND interest. I don’t think the two can be separated.
Yes, obviously, but my point is, ‘Stop dressing like a fag.’, will be replaced by, ‘You dress like a Hobo.’, is telling someone they dress like a homeless person insulting to homeless people? Yes, obviously.
Of course not!
It’s ok, I had a girlfriend who was tarded once, she’s a pilot now.
Yes, there are a lot of people with sexist attitudes. Feminism can be so sexist. True gender equality will come when we recognize that gender differences do exist and are ok. One of the problems with feminism that I’ve found and this is true of victim ideology in general is that it assumes that the men in the situation have more power than they do and that women have less power than they do. Yes, boys can be insulting, ‘You throw like a girl.’, but a girl hearing it bears some responsibility in taking it to heart. Generally that kind of insult is going to be heard within a group of eight year olds, acting like the eight year old boy is more responsible for hurting the girl’s feelings than she is for just shrugging it off as a stupid snipe, is diminishing to girls, probably even MORE diminishing to girls than the actual insult.
My view on feminism can be summed up in a nutshell. Men can’t oppress women if women won’t put up with it. It’s not up to men to empower women, it’s up to women to make their stand and establish their boundaries, just as it is up to men to establish their own boundaries with women.
When presented with the stereotypical, “Am I nothing more than just a pussy to you?”, comment, my response to that is, “I like having sex, and I’m not going to fucking apologize for it, yes you are more than a pussy, but you are also a pussy, that’s a part of who you are, I didn’t want you for your pussy I might be with a man instead.”, basically there’s a lot of implications in feminist ideology that certain natural masculine traits are things that we should be ashamed of. I reject that, because it is in the being ashamed of what and who we are that is a fertile ground for pathology. If I had been comfortable in my own masculinity, and been ok with who I was, I never would have hit my ex-wife.
Yes, there are sexist attitudes in sports, but there are sexist attitudes in everything and men are no more likely to be sexist than women, and women no more need to be coddled and protected from potential nastiness than men. Some girls take, “you throw like a girl.”, as a challenge and work hard to be good at softball or something so that they can lord their physical prowess over every sexist douchebag that they beat in the game.
Long story short, it is that people WANT to insult and hurt each other that’s the problem.
Yea well, if you want to have a good relationship with a woman ever, then it’s kind of a requirement. Also, it probably helps that it wasn’t something that I was able to keep hidden. All of our friends found out about it and so there was social pressure of, “If you want to remain our friend control your shit.”
And thanks for not being a dick about it. I’ve shared this before, and there’s one person who likes to bring it up in irrelevant circumstances just to interrupt a discussion about something else. I don’t like to share it, but I also think there are a lot of misconceptions about the issue. You’re absolutely right that there are a myriad number of reasons why people do the nasty things that they do, but I think feminism is often very sexist in its own right. There are a lot of basic assumptions about men just wanting to oppress women and keep them as inferior. While admittedly there is some truth in that, otherwise you wouldn’t hit her, it is accurate but not precise.
We insult each other for multiple reasons. Insults can be good and they can be bad, for every person who is crippled by insults they received, there is a person who strove to rise above the perceived weakness implied by the insults. Some of my best friends are the ones who I have been able to just nail their deepest insecurities and vice versa. Some of the most fun times I had was with an ex-girlfriend and another friend. The three of us would sit in a circle just ripping into the denials of the others, and the target would shift to all three of us. It was pretty radically honest and was a very helpful time of growth.
Last year I made the acquintance of a tenured college math professor (open your dictionary to “gravy train”.) I asked her what made her decide to go into the field, and she said her high school guidance counselor told her a black woman wasn’t capable of doing it.
I think there are some communities in South Africa that could use your wisdom. I understand where you’re coming from, a bit – my god, even women who frequent hardcore feminist sites and boards complain about being weighed down by bad news. But this is the world we live in. It;s not going to change iof everyone takes a cue from Pollyanna or that kid from Annie and puts on a happy face.
A random insult shouldn’t ruin someone’s life, but they’ve got to have enough there to counteract it (e.g. parents who’ll play catch with them, positive female role models, a gender balanced vocabulary, a fair gym teacher, a school that values skills other than ball throwing…). No kid’s going to ‘toughen up’ merely because someone bigger tells them to.
Well, in more extreme traditional societies my advice to those women would be that it’s time to start slitting throats or other parts of the male anatomy. I mean I’m glad that didn’t happen to me by my first wife, but the fact that it was considered inappropriate in our culture gave her other ways to deal with it.
I agree. But, sometimes ‘toughen up’ is reasonable advice. What I would ask the girl is, “Do you not like the way you throw? Do you want to learn to throw better?”, if the answer is yes, teach her how to throw. If the answer is no, then ask her why she cares what people have to say about how she throws then?
And…if fighting back doesn’t work because women are as you yourself admit physically weaker than men, then what?
Plus, the fact that it’s frowned upon for women in S. African culture to fight back by cutting off testicles hasn’t given them other ways to deal with it. I guess I’m also a little confused about what your first wife has to do with it. You said earlier that you hit her because you were afraid of her/she reminded you of your abusive stepmother. But…if she wasn’t actually abusing you, why were you hitting her? It sounds like she had a lot more to fear from you than vice versa.
It doesn’t matter, you can’t oppress someone who won’t allow it. Yes, on an individual level you can’t do anything, but if women unite and refuse to accept the culture the way it is, then the culture WILL change.
Yea, I am not going to discuss this with you because it sounds like you are asking me to justify my actions, which I won’t do. I was wrong. It was the wrong thing to do.
I will concede that yes, she had more to fear from me than I did from her. But that’s utterly beside the point and has nothing to do with what I said. We were talking about motivations, irrational motivations admittedly and I challenged one of the ideas presented about why men hit women. I’m not arguing that I was justified in what I did, I am just explaining why it happened. So if you are looking to get me to justify it I’m not going to, because I don’t think what I did was the right course of action and it cost me the love of a fantastic woman. Also, your question is kind of unfair because you are asking me to talk shit about the things that she did. She was abusive in her own way, we were both kind of insane little kids really. So I am not going to go into specifics, but she did do some fucked up things, which she agrees she did some fucked up things, and people who were present agreed that she did fucked up things. To put it in a nutshell, usually my hitting was an attempt to escape to get her to go away. She was generally more aggressive in the relationship than I was. But the reality is, I should’ve just taken it or found a different and better outlet. My first course of action before it was ever violent was to go on long walks. She found a way tactically to remove these as an option.
So really your question is difficult to answer because what you are asking of me is to tell you intimate details about someone I love and how our pathos was intertwined. I don’t want to talk shit because I still love her and always will and she still loves me, we just were a mess together, and now I am remarried and have a kid with another on the way, so that relationship was lost. If that were not the case I think we could probably be together today without it getting violent.
So I am sorry that I can’t answer your question directly. But my point was not about vindicating my behavior, it’s not to be vindicated, it was wrong, I think it was wrong, I won’t ever tell you otherwise, it’s the worst thing that ever happened to me. I’m just trying to explain my mindset from a personal perspective, not to get you to think that what I did was ok.
This, to me, is another “retarded = stupid.” Homeless people do actually dress like crap. Whereas there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with dressing in a manner that’s stereotypically what a gay man would wear.
Agreed and agreed.
That is complete bullshit. You’re just blaming the victim. By this reasoning, it’s the fault of a rape victim that they were raped, and slavery was the fault of the Africans who were brought over and their descendents.
Do some women need to stand up for themselves more? Hell yes. Does this mean it’s their fault if they’re oppressed? Fuck no.
Yeah, well, that person is a douchebarge.
Can insults lead to growth? Sure, but that doesn’t make them good things that we should tolerate. If you break a bone, it will heal stronger in the place where the break was, but that doesn’t mean you should thank me for taking a tire iron to your legs.
You know what else leads to growth? Encouragement. And **that **doesn’t backfire and convince people that they’re worth less than they are.
It is the truth, I’ve said it’s the truth, and there’s nothing to deal with. GO BACK AND READ THE POST YOU’RE REPLYING TO, RETARD. In the very part you quoted, I acknowledged that girls will never throw as hard or fast as boys–I argued yet again that they will stop throwing “like girls” when they’re trained.
Because to throw LIKE A GIRL means to throw WITHOUT COORDINATION, WITHOUT PROPER STYLE, WITHOUT LEADING WITH THE RIGHT FOOT, WITH YOUR ARM GOING ALL THE FUCK OVER THE PLACE, BECAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE A CLUE WHAT YOU’RE DOING.
WHICH GIRLS STOP DOING WHEN THEY ARE TRAINED, SO CLEARLY IT ISN’T ACTUALLY THROWING LIKE A GIRL.
What is UP with people’s fucking READING COMPREHENSION? Do I need to use smaller words or something?
But why is the onus on the PEOPLE BEING OPPRESSED to endure physical and mental torture in order to change the culture? How about these Afghan girls, who are scarred for life by acid because they dared to stand up to a culture that said they shouldn’t go to school? Are you going to tell them it’s okay that someone FUCKING THREW ACID ON THEIR FACES, because that’s just their responsibility to change their culture?
No, I reject your comparison. “You throw like a girl.”, isn’t rape, and isn’t comparable to rape. But even if we allow that comparison, ‘just get over it.’, as callous as it is, is the answer to both teasing and rape. You can let it destroy you and feel completely justified in allowing a trauma to destroy you or you can get the fuck over it. After the trauma occurs how you deal with it is SOLELY your responsibility.
Only people who make arguments like you are making ever equate telling someone to stand up for themselves with blaming the victim. No one is saying they ‘deserve’ it if they won’t stand up.
Thanks, and I like that term, douchebarge, when a bag just isn’t big enough.
Heh, but Muay Thai kickboxers harden their shins by kicking trees.
Sometimes people are stuck and don’t recognize a need for growth and will find encouragement insulting. Insults are a tool that can be used for growth. That’s why they are used in Basic in the military.
Because oppression doesn’t just change by itself? Yes, it is their responsibility. If they want to change the status quo then they need to stand up and fight for their rights, because those who benefit from their oppression are unlikely to just one day and wake up and stop being meathead retards.
I forget the name of that woman in Pakistan who had acid thrown in her face or was burned or was lashed for being raped or whatever who went back faced her tormentors told them they were a bunch of pricks and started some girls schools. She took the responsibility for it and she’s doing more for their oppression than you and I are by sitting here chatting about it.
No, it’s not rape–it’s not even remotely close, and I never said it was. But I *am *extending your reasoning to other, more serious, situations of oppression. And “just get over it” isn’t sexist, it’s just callous, so I’m not sure where it fits in.
Now, being somewhat of an existentialist, I agree that people are responsible for how they deal with things. But that’s not all you’re talking about–you’re saying that men don’t need to stop oppressing women, women need to make men stop oppressing them or it’s their fault that it happens, and that’s bullshit.
Then why is it not people’s responsibility to stop saying “throw like a girl”?
Yes, *used as tools *(as the trees kicked by kickboxers). It’s not some stranger insulting you with the intention of tearing you down, and it’s not some guy coming after you with a tire iron.
Agreed, and people everywhere should stand up to oppression, but that doesn’t make the oppression okay if they don’t. See the distinction I’m trying to make?
Well, like physics I think that characteristics of the subject material changes depending upon scale. We can be nice and kind and compassionate to the victims of trauma, but at a certain point someone needs to ‘just get over it’, or remain a victim forever, and that’s up to them.
Bit it is what I am talking about. I didn’t say men need to stop oppressing women. Actually quite the contrary. I said if they won’t stop oppressing women they should be castrated and have their throats cut. I don’t see where you got the idea that men shouldn’t stop oppressing women from my statement that women should use brutality to fight brutality if they need to.
Well, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal really. It’s a small un-nice thing to say, but so is all teasing. It’s just teasing.
LOL
Well generally people are not insulted by strangers, they are insulted by people they know. And being desensitized when you are oversensitive is sometimes useful.
I really don’t understand where you got the idea that I thought oppression was ok.
I just don’t think calling someone a retard or saying someone throws like a girl is some great insult to society, just insulting to the person being insulted.
Also, it probably helps that it wasn’t something that I was able to keep hidden. All of our friends found out about it and so there was social pressure of, “If you want to remain our friend control your shit.”