To the young woman sitting behind me who said feminists were "man-hating Nazis":

The BBQ Pit
41

No, he was an actor. Until his wife, Brynn Hartman, murdered him and then showed off the body to her friend before offing herself.

As opposed to how common it is for men to kill a woman who left them? Aren’t both of them rare and both of them equally bad?

I still think that it’s comparable to female circumcision. My ‘new position’ was nothing more than explaining to tdn that two things that are the same can differ in the severity of their effects. I believe both to be barbaric practices that should have no place in the modern world.

Who has ever done this and meant it as more than a joke? They’re the same kind of jokes made about macho, idiot men.

Name one that exists in the United States today?

42

Exactly. It’s not like I spend hours per day pining for my lost foreskin. In fact, if I had the choice to get it back, painlessly and without cost, I’d probably say no.

43

That was 1970, alright. All of that is very familiar.

Reminds me of after my parents got divorced. My mom bought a house, but because it was less than 30 days after the divorce, she needed the signature of another relative on the deed and the mortgage. I happened to be in town, and my sig - here I was, just out of college, unemployed, no credit, no nothing, but my sig made the purchase legal; hers wasn’t sufficient.

Would my dad have had the same problem? Apparently not - he bought a house, by himself, before the divorce proceedings were finalized.

That was in 1976, JFTR.

44

Beats me. I can’t think of any off the top of my head. That wasn’t the point of my post anyway. The point was that my first definition of feminism does count. And, in fact, I believe that’s the only real definition for feminism.

They’re supposed to help get equal opportunities for women. Anything beyond fighting for equality becomes pretty militant. So, I suppose, my argument is that those people aren’t feminists, but power-hungry, man-hating “grrrrls.” And I’m guessing that’s what type the girl in the OP was complaining about–the power hungry ones, not the equality ones.

45

Guess my sarcasm whooshed on by. I don’t freakin’ care who Hartman was.

Murder is equally bad in either direction. But they’re not equally rare. According to this BJS chart, men are about 1/3 as likely to be killed by someone they’re intimate with as a woman is.

And let’s look at this logically: with abusive men tracking down their women, murder is obviously the tip of a much larger iceberg of violent responses. I can’t see how that can be the case in the opposite direction. I’m a male of average size and build, with probably below-average upper-body strength, and an absolutely terrible fighter. But if a woman who’s not in the top few percentiles with respect to fighting ability tries to tangle with me without the aid of a firearm or motor vehicle, or sheer unexpectedness, the fact that I’m larger, stronger, and faster than the vast majority of women will enable me to protect myself. Even if she’s got a freakin’ machete, I can run to safety, find a large branch to use as a cudgel, or just get in a car and drive away.

If they have vastly different effects, most people wouldn’t consider them ‘the same.’

FWIW, you also explained your ‘new’ position to me, and in that post, you simply described male circumcision as " a surgical procedure that carries risks and damage and is completey medically unnecessary."

I won’t argue with you on that. With respect to male circumcision, you may be right or wrong; I don’t really care. But in all the bull sessions that men have about sex, you’d think that if circumcised men had substantially inferior experiences, we guys would have noticed by now. So I have every reason to believe that, whatever the pros and cons of circumcision, our deprivation is relatively modest. Which is, by most testimony, a vastly diffferent outcome than the victims of female circumcision.

Trust me - it used to be not a joke, but an article of faith.

46

Sorry, but I find it terribly ironic that you’re complaining about this while under a username like Tracy Lord. Is that not a take on Traci Lords, the porn actress?

47

catsix is not a dishonest debater for changing her position on circumcision. She’s a dihonest debater for ignoring every other point that’s been made. I remember the marital rape issue. I was 12, I think, and it was on Barney Miller. I was pretty astounded that there could be such a thing. So, for that matter, were the left-wing screenwriters, who resolved the issue by having the cops have a talk about gentleness and kindness with the husband and then sending them home together.

48

Will you broads shut the hell up!? I’m trying t’ watch the goddam ball game! And would it kill ya t’ get me a goddam beer?

49

Tracy Lord was Katharine Hepburn’s character in The Philadelphia Story. (The porn actress undoubtedly was riffing off of that when she chose her nom de porn.)

50

Don’t you think that the appearance of young women who are irritate by what they perceive to be “feminism” is a sign that feminism has, by and large, achieved its goals? The stories people are telling about the US in 1970 sound, to my 25-year-old ears, almost incredible. I can’t believe things were <i>ever</i> that way, because in my life I have never felt that my gender was in any way a disadvantage–and in the very few instances in which someone tried to make me feel that way, the someone was obviously crass, ignorant, and I was better off being away from him.

Having reached a point where there is a whole generation of young women who simply don’t understand what the kerfuffle is about, it seems to me–as one of them–that it might be better to stop making such a fuss about women being a minority group. For instance, I wish that the “women in literature” course would not be <i>required</i> for all English majors at my university. We all had to read Austen and Bronte and Eliot and Dickenson and Woolf and Stein and Angelou and Morrison in other literature classes; we all know that women write books too (it never occurred to us that women might not, because they so obviously do). And as women, we’re acutely embarassed for all the men in the classroom, and acutely embarassed that we’re being singled out as a demographic–possibly for the first time in our lives.

51

For me, I have a problem with the societal norm of what is “sexy.” When I see ads for things like “Girls Gone Wild,” I wonder when I’m going to see the videos of “Girls Gone Smart.” When I see the girls, I think “Hey, she’s really attractive” then she lifts her shirt and dances a bit with a huge grin on her face and I think “What a waste of a perfectly good attractive body, she’d be unstoppable if she didn’t have a slut’s brain.” It also shows what she (shirtless girl) thinks of men. And that’s why it offends me.

Physically attractive girls only get so far, then there’s got to be some level of self respect and dignity within them. A girl can dress “sexy” but her demeanor says a lot more than her clothes. And if she acts like a slut, it doesn’t matter what she’s wearing, she is too whore-ish to come across as anything other than a manipulator. Suddenly the men are being objectified in the sense that the women aren’t even making an effort to attract our individual attention, but they are catering to the Hugh Hefner that they expect to be in all of us. Frankly, a girl I’m not in a relationship with who employs these methods to try to attract me is a major turn-off. It makes my balls ache.

Give me a smart, independent woman who doesn’t need me as an emotional crutch, whose success comes from her own intrinsic motivation, and who keeps the pole dancing and leather between her and me --and, even then, only after we’re in an exclusive relationship or marriage-- and I’ll be in heaven. Show me that intelligence and dignity, ladies. Oh, yeah.

I think that if more men avoided stuff like “Girls Gone Wild,” a lot of the attention-seeking women would realize that there are far better ways to reach for success. A lot of the time, women are declaring that the feminist movement gave them the freedom to cater to the whims of the horny male. While they have that right, it’s certainly not very dignified. And I lay the blame firmly on the shoulders of my fellow men for creating such a demand for the air-headed boob flaunters.

52

Protect you from the woman, yes. From the cops, not so much.

53

Because - as has been pointed out - the fact that white middle-class women are making out like bandits in the West does not mean the war is won.

54

Does that statistic take into account killers hired by the person they’re intimate with? I find it interesting also that when presented with an actual example of a man who died at the hands of domestic violence committed by his wife, your entire response is that you ‘don’t care’ about him.

Would you care if it were the other way around?

Sorry, I’m not interested in your ‘logical’ diminishment of violence that women commit against men.

They’re analogous procedures. Both of them involve the removal of part of the external genitalia, and both are done to varying degrees of ‘part’.

So is female circumcision, although it’s usually not done in an operating room. Then again, are male circumcisions in third world countries carried out in operating rooms? I highly doubt it.

I pick and choose what I respond to, like everyone else does. I didn’t consider that assertion to be worth the merit of a reply, and ignored it.

If you want to start some kind of holy war over rape, remember that male victims of rape (with both male and female rapists) are far less likely than women to ever see their attackers in prison. Some legal definitions of rape that I have seen ignore any possibility of a woman raping a man.

I was with you until you said ‘exclusive relationship or marriage’. Course, I don’t call myself a feminist or feel that I’m a victim either.

55

a) MacKinnon is a radical feminist, meaning that she espouses the belief that our social system is founded on the oppression of women by men. It is a situation that she is contemptuous of, angry about. Much of that contempt and anger spills over onto individual people whose statements, policies, and other behavior reinforce and reiterate that political situation.

You may not agree with her (and from prior posts in other threads, I’m pretty sure you do not), but her anger is internally consistent with her politics; and, more to the point, she doesn’t express hate for men, *but rather for patriarchy and men whose behavior props it up. Again, insofar as you may not agree with her analysis, you may not find this a meaningful distinction.

(I suppose a hypothetical militant 16-year-old children’s libber making angry condemnations of adults whose complicit behavior keeps children oppressed would be difficult to distinguish from a spoiled-brat ridiculously insolent kid who hates all adults for anyone who doesn’t believe children are oppressed by the “institution of childhood” — but there is, nevertheless, an important categorical difference there)

b) Germaine Greer, although she had some incisive observations about sexual politics and the double standard in The Female Eunuch, is hardly a postergal for man-hating extremist feminism. If anything, she’s sort of regarded as a turncoat by many feminists (some of her later writing is more akin to The Rules than to Sexual Politics). I don’t recall any kind of generic opprobrium for males in any of her writing, but only a caustic send-up of certain male sexual practices and attitudes, nearly all of which have become as mainstream as sitcoms in the decades since Eunuch. Do you not think that men who treat sexually active women as “sluts” are deserving of a bit of raucous come-uppance? Seriously, calling Greer a man-hater is like calling Erma Bombeck a feminist fringe lunatic!

c) Steinem? In Ms. Magazine editorials and short articles such as those in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, she would write from the starting assumption that yes, sexism is an entrenched social problem; that feminism is the movement trying to do something about it; and that many men were opposed to feminism and supportive of sexist situations either because, 1: they liked things that way or 2: it was how things had always been and they just hadn’t ever really thought about how it is unfair to women. Again, I suppose if you do not share her starting point assumption (and I believe that you do not), you could read such things as a set of unsupported, unprovoked attacks upon men. But she welcomes men to participate in organizations such as NOW, and is as much the epitome of the “we just want equality and fairness” type of feminism as any public movement figure you’re likely to find.

56

Hear, hear, Charger -well said.

I’m sorry that there are people here that are too young to know what things were like–that doesn’t shunt those events and attitudes into a back closet somewhere. Perhaps you read those authors because they were the lucky few–and I do mean lucky–to have braved and conquered the male controlled business of publishing etc. We don’t have a whole lot of historical female authors–certainly not proportionally to population, anyway. Why do you think that is? Maybe because they weren’t educated? Maybe because they were marginalized? Maybe because men thought that educating a girl was a waste of time and money?

I am feminist (and no, I am not going to qualify that term to bend to catsix’s obsession about “man-haters”–you really need to talk to someone about the vitriol you hold for those who don’t share your opinions) because I am a humanist. I believe in people, period. Each gender has it’s strengths and weaknesses–the world needs both. I do not hold one sex above the other–just like I don’t hold one race above another.

There is still an imbalance in power (glass ceiling and all that)–and to make progress it is neccessary to know history. I don’t think we can take any progress for granted.

And IMS, the whole PMS thing was an issue (and don’t think for a minute that it won’t be again) around the time Ferraro was a VP candidate. It was most certainly NOT a joke at the time–it was a matter seriously discussed.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President, I imagine we will see all manner of swift-boating of “female” problems, assumptions and prejudices. And not just from Hillary haters.

What exactly are the reasons for women to makem, what is it–$.73 for every $1 that men make–for the same work? Is that not discriminatory?
I have plenty to say about girls who lift their shirts for cameras and a few bucks–none of the complimentary to the girls or guys who indulge in such stupidity. But I am not concerned with that issue here–I am concerned that just because young adults today have no experience with pervasive chauvinism they think it either didn’t happen or won’t happen again. People-male and female–give up power only reluctantly and with much hostility. Be glad that we live in a time when things have improved greatly for Western women.

57

Back to the OP for a second…

Do you have a cite for the 3:1 male to female thing? Just out of curiosity, I went back over the last ten plays I’ve worked on, and my ratio comes out almost exactly 1:1 (35 males to 36 females). I understand that the plural of anecdote doesn’t equal a hole in the ground (or something), but I’ve never really noticed a shift one way or another. Also worth pointing out is that of those 10 shows, women outnumbered men in the cast 5 times, men outnumbered women 4 times, and one show was a tie. Sadly, only one of the plays was written by a women, but we did have women directors for 3 of the 10. Just something to think about.

Here’s a link (PDF WARNING) to the Actor’s Equity Association handbook which includes pay scales for all Equity actors. You’ll notice that they don’t have separate male and female rates. The salary table can be found on pages 64 and 65 (which I think are 67 and 68 of the pdf).

58

Is this a whoosh of some sort?

I mean, I presented three alternatives: running away by foot, running away by car (MP&HG: Run away!! Run away!! :D), and defending myself with a tree branch against a woman with a machete.

I’m trying to imagine what problem I’d have with the cops.

59

Well that would depend on whether or not the rape is a violation of any existing law. My point was that I remember when it wasn’t. You may now continue with your regularly scheduled* Holy War.

*Was anyone else counting the posts before **catsix ** popped up in this thread? We should have a pool next time.

60

catsix, you’ve been called a self-hating woman and a misogynist on these boards. Is that really what you want to be seen as?

Dung Beetle her Cassandra column in the Sunday Times annoys me, but I’ve heard good things about that book, I can definitely see where she’s coming from.

Look, I don’t have a cite for this, because it is anecdotal. My uncle used to work as a surgeon in Zimbabwe, and there were cases where a woman was denied life-saving treatment because her husband wouldn’t agree to it (that is, he wouldn’t give his permission, so she wouldn’t go against him and give her permission because if she did she would no longer be welcome in her community, or have access to her children). There were times when blood was needed, if it was for a woman, there would be no volunteers, yet if it was for a man there would be people lining up to donate.

I worked at a hospital in India for a few weeks, there was a woman who was quite obviously dying of AIDS, she declined to be tested, or to have her children tested. Even though this might mean life saving treatment. The reason was that although it was her husband who had contracted AIDS from a sex-worker (he had died a year or two previously), if her condition was acknowledged as AIDS her in-laws (Indian widows live with their in-laws) would throw her and her children onto the streets for bringing shame on their family. She reckoned it was better for them to die in a house with family taking care of them, than to live on the streets with no-one. Her late husband, BTW was given proper AIDS treatment with the full knowledge and consent of his parents but sadly died because he came to the hospital too late.

Those are symptomatic of seriously fucked up cultural views of women and you will not convince me otherwise.

Joey Jo Jo - did you look at any of the cites? Like the one that was mostly about maternal mortality, but also had this gem: African girls are weaned earlier, receive a lower caloric intake, and work 4 times as long as boys. African women work 2490 hours per year, compared to 1400 hours for men. So yes, African men have it hard, but arguably African women have it harder.

As for the abortion thing- I didn’t specify which gender, I’d be against people aborting male foetuses because they were male too. I’m of the “safe, legal and rare” camp, and part of the “rare” part means changing the culture so that girl babies have as much value as boy babies, and if you’ve spent time in an Indian maternity ward, you’d know that this is obviously not the current situation.