Actually it is.
My mistake, I read over the OP again and didn’t catch it. But I agree that’s not exactly poisoning the well nor does it excuse the subsequent posts that came much later.
Neither do I. But then I don’t think calling groups of girls for hysteric harpies or worthless sluts is sexism either. Sometimes it’s just the truth.
I’m really glad we can continue having a grown up conversation about this topic.
I disagree, and I don’t think much of the whole “it’s not an insult, it’s the truth” defense. If that were true there would basically be no such thing as an insult because most people mean what they say when they make crass or dismissive comments about other people - or at least they mean those things at the time they say them. In general insulting people is one thing and it starts to look different once you drag gender (or race, ethnicity, and so on) into the discussion. And I think at this point most people agree that you’re probably making a sexist comment if you call someone a slut.
“Sometimes it’s just the truth.” I seriously can’t anymore.
I just want to say good job keeping the meta-sexist commentary out of this thread for exactly 17 whole minutes. Bravo.
Your presumption is not warranted.
My argument is not that my interpretation of a joke be given more or less weight than that of anyone else. It is that everyone has a different interpretation of a joke, and precisely for that reason, using a joke as an example is problematic. In my opinion, more problematic than those posters who have been using jokes as examples in these threads seem to realize.
I agree that the line between jokes and deliberate offensiveness (when there is a line) is not as thin as some proclaim, but I also think that it is a lot fuzzier than some of the posters in these threads who are relying on those jokes as examples seem to realize. Addressing that more carefully would, IMO, make their overall arguments that use jokes as examples stronger.
But hey, this board doesn’t have a problem with sexism, it just has too many oversensitive whiners, ya know?
I don’t agree - calling someone a “23 year old boy” is really no different from simply calling them “immature” and so undesireable; “beta male” undesireable in a different way. It lacks the put-down trigger-words of your example.
No-one would, I think, object as sexist to a man saying “I hate picking up women in bars - the ones attracted to me are all really immature”.
One behavior I’d like to see moderated is when anyone is called a term of endearment in Great Debates. Its happened to me on several occasions where I’m responded to with some version of “look, sweetie…” Now, generally, me being female and the dismissive endearment coming from a man, its sexists, but I think any dismissive diminutive does not belong in Great Debates. Its a cheap shot. I shouldn’t be called Sweetie and I shouldn’t call male posters “Punkinhead.” I’m not sure that I’ve seen the dismissive diminutive used against a man, and I think its more commonly used against a woman, but it should be used at all.
That’s apparently Rune’s actual opinion, and not the sort of ironic crap I had in mind.
It’s hardly a presumption on my part when you’ve just said it yourself.
[QUOTE=Orr, G.]
There is certainly more sexism/misogyny on this board than I had previously been aware of (I tend not to read the sorts of threads where those kinds of comments crop up).
[/QUOTE]
Some of us do.
It seems to me that by describing the statements in question as “jokes,” you are essentially begging the question. The group of people who the comments are actually aimed at don’t seem to think that they are jokes. To the contrary, the opinions expressed in them seem to all be quite sincere. I fail to see what room there is to term such statements as “jokes” simply because they employ deliberately offensive rhetoric.
Oh well that makes all the difference then, since he’s not only obviously doing it to get a rise, he also really believes it. Carry on!
And you don’t think it is sexist to call someone a beta-male? It has all the characteristics. It is derogative. It questions the manhood or worthiness of the individual. It can only be used against men. As an insult I’d consider it at least equal to slut or whore.
It actually does make some difference. But I’d rather actually hear about Rune’s opinion fromRune instead of speculating about what that opinion is.
Are those people she’s referring to posters on this board? Is her statement intended to insult and upset people on this board?
In this particular context, at least? No.
I don’t think it comes anywhere close. And originally you brought it up to explain Drunky Smurf’s post, which makes even less sense. That post was just a crude driveby taunt (and I was going to edit and add it’s directed at other posters, but ladyfoxfyre beat me to it); MeanOldLady was making a comment about types of guys she doesn’t like to date. If you’re thinking about sticking around to dig up dodgy equivalences all day, I will tell you know that that’s OK - you can save yourself the trouble because it’s not necessary.
The topic of this thread is “sexism.” Not only sexism against board members.
No I did not. I responded directly to the OP.
Your presumtion was that because Orr, G doesn’t participate much in these types threads that he doesn’t think much about the subject. You could make the same presumption about me, but you would be wrong.