Fuck Sexism

[FaustWolf]

IIRC: If I Remember Correctly.

AFAIK: As Far As I Know.


It's the new linguistic age of phrase compression! If we compress entire paragraphs into a few acronyms, we'll get past the phenomenon of TL;DR. That is my belief...at least for now.

[Uboa]

Back on topic...I am really not interested in a debate on male circumcision, so I think I'll bow out for now. I'll check back in when the topic changes again.

Just been bopping in and out of this thread, but... is it just me or do topics veer off course in this direction way too often?  Not limited to here either; it happens on a lot of forums.  I'm not really knocking the sensibility or appropriateness or anything, just making a statistical observation...(Fascinating!)

I guess now I have to say something worthwhile, but forgive me for hitting on some points in snippet format rather than forum essay format.  Just don't really feel like getting into that quite yet since I've only been back a couple of days.  (Sorry for being one of those flaky posters.)

First, I guess it's time I come out of the "closet"...  I'm of the, er, female species, to put it evasively.

Second, as far as abortion goes, I don't think that the act of performing an abortion can be examined philosophically in itself at all.  The decision to carry a child to term or have an abortion would always be circumstantial and deeply personal.  To detach the issue of abortion from everybody involved just doesn't make sense.  That's all I really have to say on that subject for now, and I know it's probably not even enough to warrant a comment.  Just felt it should be said.  I'll probably add more later.  

Third, removing the burden of carrying a child and the pain of childbirth seems to remove a great deal of the sense of gravity of bringing a child into the world.  Also, the "baby pod" issue that keeps rearing its head here is somewhat misguided in that it's part of a movements towards absolute equality between the sexes.  Absolute equality between the sexes is more of a vapid concept/vision than a lot people give it credit for.  To quote XKCD, "People are complicated!"  These kinds of envisioned alterations to society don't always pan out for the best when they're enacted...

Fourth, the current "new atheism" (of which Richard Dawkins is the intentional god-like figurehead, and I don't knock him for it -- a brilliant move on his part to counter the hypnotic effect of religious figureheads) is largely a reactionary movement against the mainstream religions of today.  While it isn't as guided toward self-understanding as I wish it was (it does idolize "science" to a degree that I find burdensome, if not a little scary) it is more than necessary given the sickening amount of religious oppression in the world today.  I imagine that out of the post-secularist era there will be a new movement to try to come to a real deep understanding with human spiritual roots, and to learn from them.

Fifth, as far as deciding whether or not to be sexually active given the possible consequences, I respect anyone who puts as much thought into the decision as Daniel does.  I wish more people put one hundredth of the amount of thought into their actions.  However, as turbulent and risky as human sexuality is, it is also a catalyst for personal growth if you're high minded enough...

Finally, I have no problem with men arguing about feminist issues.  That you guys give a damn makes me happy.  Debate on.

Feels good to be in the arena, and back on the forums for that matter.

Edit -- Here's something:  Since this thread is about sexism, how does knowing my gender, if you thought otherwise previously, change your perception of me?  Don't bother writing it (really), just think about it.  I wondered to myself how people might perceive me differently after I posted this, and I figured I'd just note my observation of my own subtle sexist thoughts coming to the surface at the time, directed at both my own gender and at men.  I don't want specifics from anyone, and likewise I'm writing no more than just that!

Edit 2:  This is a great documentary about the abortion debate.  (I should warn you that it is very graphic.)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0841119/
It's available to watch online on Netflix... I think.  It was a while back, but I haven't checked its status lately.

[Exodus]

I wish someone would give me one decent drawback to having a circumcision.

And no, the "mutilation" and "religious" arguments don't work on me.

It has no medical benefits, desensitizes and deforms/disables the penis and was used widely in America during the so-called "masturbation hysteria" as a tool to control male sexuality, which obviously didn't work.

It's an antiquated, barbarous act of mutilation for which I still hold a grudge against my parents for allowing to happen.

Hm... didn't Lord J just post an article describing benefits? I think that there aren't really any benefits either, but this is to say the same as it isn't mutilation. It isn't traumatic and it isn't mutilation, it's just one of those perhaps unneessary procedures that don't really do anything at all except make the penis look bigger. Hey, that's a benefit! Do you seriously expect me to believe that you are desensitized because your parents "castrated" you? Do you actually experience ANY lack of sensation, or are you just saying that because you're against the procedure?

Also, I have had something happen to me that is very similar to circumcision and almost all women have it happen to them later on in life when they do remember it. It's called... BREAKING THE HYMEN. It is almost always done very voluntarily, because the woman wants it to be "cut" and it hurts a fucking lot. Sure, I bled and it hurt , but I don't regret the "procedure" happening. I think that it has a potential of being just as "traumatic" as circumcision, but most women don't view it that way- they view it almost as a necessity.  So to me, it is very comparable.

So then if women remember that experience and circumcision is NEVER remembered by the infant, why the hell aren't we calling breaking the hymen mutilation? My hymen was really pretty and round before I lost my virginity. Now it is ugly and torn up. It LOOKS mutilated. Does a penis look mutilated after it's circumcised? I would argue that in America, a cut penis is much more attractive-looking than an un-cut penis. 

So what does that say? Circumcision is very subjective. I'm not for it, and I'm not against it, really. No, I absolutely do not agree with anyone who says that it's "traumatic mutilation" because a far more traumatic mutilation is the breaking of the hymen for a woman, and no one ever even considers that when all they are thinking about is making a tiny incision on an infant when it will remember nothing that happened the next day, and certainly not later down in life. It has NOT been proven that men who are cut lack sensation on their penises. People may point out the fact that all this sensitive nerve tissue is down there, but does that make it any different to compare an uncircumcised man's "pleasure" to an uncircumcised man's pleasure? I really do not think so, and it is incredibly difficult to prove otherwise.

Edit:

If the doctor slips up, he could end up castrating the kid he's supposed to be circumcising (it's unusual, but it has happened). Is that good enough for you?

Absolutely NOT. That is complete bullshit logic(if I were even to call it that). Doctors can fuck up in ANY minor operation. It applies to EVERYTHING in the field of medicine. That's just like saying someone goes in to have their tonsils removed and instead comes out with their voice box removed. Does that happen? Maybe, but really freaken rarely... These days, since they got rid of the "burning" method of circumcision a while back, it's really really rare to even think about fudging up that procedure and then going back to what I said, it is absolutely no different from doctors scewing up on ANY other medical procedure.

It removes sensuality for the sake of religious bullshit.

[Truthordeal]

Exodus, we've had that argument up and down. There's never been any definitive proof of it. If you can find a report from a respectable source supporting that supposition, I might be more inclined to believe you. Until then, it gets the same anecdotal merit that it did the last 100 times someone said it.

[Thought]

There shouldn't be cable or anything promoting entertainment.

To be fair, which would you rather criminals do: watch cable TV or organize crime cabals in their spare time? True, it isn't very effective, but it is a cheap sedagive.... I mean, sedative.

It removes sensuality for the sake of religious bullshit.

Pish posh, that is a very self-centered argument concerning a social act. Men are generally incapable of multiple orgasm, yes? Like the Death Star, we need some recovery time. Increased pleasure could logically decrease the build-up time. The experience is more intense for that guy, but not for the partner (the gender of which is here unimportant). A lot of guys (if one trusts anecdotal accounts) are already selfish when it comes to sex; being uncircumcised would seemingly make the matter worse. Desensitization is a useful tool for sex.

Though to be fair, I have no scientific evidence to suggest that circumcision does increase the average time from original arousal to orgasm. It just seems like it would.

Given the physiological implications of sex (orgasm being something that releases various hormones that are conducive to emotional bonding and trust formation), it seems that one's primary concern ought not be one's self, but that is where your argument inherently lies. Though to be fair again, I suppose it would be improper to physically alter an individual in order to encourage common courtesy.

[FaustWolf]

Third, removing the burden of carrying a child and the pain of childbirth seems to remove a great deal of the sense of gravity of bringing a child into the world.  Also, the "baby pod" issue that keeps rearing its head here is somewhat misguided in that it's part of a movements towards absolute equality between the sexes.

I think there's a line that could be drawn between social equality and experiential equality as well. Social equality being, "woman who isn't pregnant gets same pay for given work as man who isn't pregnant"; experiential equality being, "woman never gets pregnant thanks to baby pods, so there's no need for maternity leave and thus there's absolutely no market rationale for valuing her less as a worker." I don't agree with the obviously sexist mommy track market rationale, but I've heard men express that as a supposedly viable business reason for why women might be turned down for certain jobs or else paid less than their male or even transgender counterparts. I think that's the major reason why I tend to go gung-ho on experiential equality; I'm not completely confident that social equality can be achieved in its absence. I dearly hope that I am mistaken.

I still like the idea of birth pods though. When we develop this technology (it has to happen eventually, just like landing on the Moon), I wonder if it will catch on like wildfire or if women will stick to the natural way more often than not?

Uboa, I imagine there's a number of Compendiumites who are undercover women, non-Westerners, etc. First rule of the Internet is that the only thing one knows about a person is what he or she posts, and they should be judged by the quality of their content and nothing else. That's the way I think of it anyway, and in that way there's a certain amount of empowerment to "the mask." Perhaps the Internet is the one place where humanity can gather free of ingrained prejudice...uh, with the exception of those skinhead sites that news channels like to flash around from time to time.

[Lord J Esq]

Perhaps the Internet is the one place where humanity can gather free of ingrained prejudice...

That deserves a post of its own.

[Truthordeal]

Perhaps the Internet is the one place where humanity can gather free of ingrained prejudice...

That deserves a post of its own.

Hells yeah. With you all the way there, man.

[Thought]

Perhaps the Internet is the one place where humanity can gather free of ingrained prejudice...

Sorry to be a pessimist today, but I must disagree; the internet has its own prejudices. While they are significantly different than those that you might experience in the “real world,” they are still there. Consider a poster who misspells words regularly, forgets punctuation and capitalization, only uses capital letters, and perhaps even uses texting-speak commonly. Such and individual would tend to be ignored or ridiculed in a lot of threads on the compendium and elsewhere, based not on his/her thoughts, but on the appearance of those thoughts.

Humanity's ability to overcome our prejudices is rivaled (but, I hope, not surpassed) by our abilities to find new ways in which to be prejudiced.

[Truthordeal]

There's a reason for that, Thought. If you can't be bothered to make your argument readable, then chances are the reasoning being your argument isn't worth the reading.

We shouldn't expect people to use FW's level of English, sure. I have trouble with the word necessary often. That's why FireFox and probably IE have spell check built into their browsers.

But the fact of the matter is that proper diction and grammar are essential if you want to have any sort of informed debate. You can't argue against something you can't understand.

Besides, its just common courtesy.

[FaustWolf]

English-as-second-language users might still have a problem though, plus paraplegics using inaccurate voice-to-text diction systems. If the reader doesn't understand the situations of those users, to tell them apart from users like  , then I could see where there'd be issues of (unjustified) discrimination. Language-ism maybe. So Thought has a good point in that regard.

[Truthordeal]

Yes, but I don't wasn't talking about those types of people. Kid123 has writes some of the best posts around here.

And WTF is it with that damn cowboy pic?!

[FaustWolf]

That dude is one of the great mysteries of the Compendium. I have no clue who he is or why he shows up in the smilies box from time to time, though he has a resemblance to Kelsey Grammer that I find highly disturbing.

[FaustWolf]

Okay, I've had it up to here with these Evony ads you always see...everywhere I frequent nowadays. Why is it that I can't visit a videogame news site without being bombarded by images of scantily-clad, fake-proportioned, photoshopped women? Where are the scantily-clad, fake-proportioned, photoshopped men? Oh, nevermind. Bust But still, why the hell are videogame companies in the twenty-first century making an assumption about what drives me as a man? Don't they know that I'm looking for strong storyline and gameplay mechanics, and furthermore, that I'm studying for an econ test while surfing the web half the time? Even Team Ninja is gradually learning the lessons taught by a hopefully less-sexist market...however gradually.

I guess this opens up the conversation about sexism (and furthermore, the possibility of promoting gender equality) in videogames, ironically an issue we haven't covered in this thread yet.

[Truthordeal]

Demographics, FW, demographics. Most of the people who visit those sites belong in the 18-35 nerdy male demographic, and that's who they target to.

Stereotypically speaking, 18-35 year old men are interested in cars, wrestling, video games and scantily clad women. That's why Spike is as popular as it is. If there weren't some truth to this stereotype though, basic economics says that these commercial agencies wouldn't use those ads on those particular sites. Seeing as they do, there's probably a good reason and good profit margin for them.

Here's something I realized recently, though. Women in Square-Enix games suck.

It was always in the back of my head, but it didn't really manifest itself until I started complaining that the main character in FFXIII was a female and how well that did in the past. *cough cough 10-2 cough*

The only real exception to this is FF 12 where everyone was equal, and Crono Trigger where you had Ayla. You might say the same for Chrono Cross, but as far as the best characters strategy wise, I'd pick Fargo and Glenn over Kid and Poshul.

Even then, the characters themselves were either vapid or simply uninteresting(Ayla was the least liked character of CT, according to the Compendium polls, and all of the females from FF12 were pretty dumb and boring).