Feminism - Distractingly Sexy Edition

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Karaddin - totally true, but way, way, beyond his capacity to comprehend, I think.

I'm very close with my sister. She has an up and down relationship with this guy, but they have a daughter together (my niece). My sister is unpredictable on this stuff. When they were on the outs a couple of weeks ago and we were all together at a family wedding, I whipped out a pic of my son in my high heels (they were sparkly - he thought he looked amazing - he is 16 mo old). His comment (to my husband) was "dude - don't know if I would allow that". Before my husband started in, my sister laid into him with a series of rapid fire questions ("what's wrong with it" "why is it a problem" "he's a baby ffs". So we let them bicker. But I've heard my sister herself do some of that "like a girl" stuff, so you know, I just don't know. I am leaning to saying nothing now, but if he breaks out with the crap at the beach maybe laying into him because I'm a little sick of him.

[Liffguard]

Ok board feminists, I need your advice. This has been bothering me all morning. I woke up this morning and checked facebook (as one does) and the first thing that pops up is my sister's boyfriend (and father of her daughter) leaving trash talking comments with respect to American football players on teams he doesn't like (not sure why facebook is showing me this, but oh well). His "insults"? Calling the players "she", feminizing their names and calling them "little girls". He is not a [deep] thinker (and not my favorite person either), but not a fundamentally bad dude. Do I say something (not publicly obviously)? Like, we are about to spend a week with them on a family vacation, and I really don't want him doing that stuff in front of my daughters (mind you if he does, I'll just show them Carli Lloyd's hat trick like 15 times, but still, it galls). On the other hand, my sister is the "I'm not a feminist because [insert stupid reason] and by the way I can hang with the boys" type, and, well, it's just a week.

My go-to tactic for things like this when I don't want to make a scene is play dumb.

"Why are you calling them 'she?' I thought those players were men."

If he says it's a joke then:

"I don't get it. Can you please explain it to me."

Deliver it all with complete sincerity. Then he has to explain the joke, which will hopefully embarrass him into reining that sort of thing in, without being directly confrontational. You have to sound genuinely sincere and curious for it to work though.

[karaddin]

Oh I didn't mean that you should explain that to him, I meant for your perspective if you decide to do something about it then that's another positive aspect to it/another reason to do it. I definitely wouldn't try giving him that as a reason not to do it.

[TerraPrime]

Confronting these things can indeed incur social cost, especially when the recipient of the criticism is a family member.

I would have said "I really don't need to read that sort of comment, (name). I also wouldn't presume to impose my standards of sensibility on you, so I am going to mute your FB stream from now on. If you need to contact me, you are always welcome to email or use FB messager. Cheers and looking forward to next week!"

[litechick]

My go-to tactic for things like this when I don't want to make a scene is play dumb.

"Why are you calling them 'she?' I thought those players were men."

If he says it's a joke then:

"I don't get it. Can you please explain it to me."

Deliver it all with complete sincerity. Then he has to explain the joke, which will hopefully embarrass him into reining that sort of thing in, without being directly confrontational. You have to sound genuinely sincere and curious for it to work though.

I endorse this strategy.

A person with smooth social gifts might also work out a remark in the vein of 'oh please, if they can't even catch a football how could you expect them to give birth?' Something that seems like you are agreeing with him while also pointing out the folly of using the feminine as an insult. (I am not smooth and my example may be poor.)

[Seventh Pup]

If you do write out a comment, I would avoid using the word "sexist". This guy probably would vehemently deny any sexism what so ever, and use the "I have a daughter and I want the best for her" line. It would also allow him to see himself as a victim of a humorless feminist. It's harder when it's family, especially family that you will be spending time with. You could always link this commercial.

[Kalbear]

I usually go with the shaming thing of agreeing extra loudly. Like "HAHAHAHA ITS FUNNY BECAUSE GIRLS ARENT AS GOOD AS BOYS"

It works pretty well, but most people already think I'm an asshole.

[eyenon15]

That "like a girl" video reminds me of a friend I had in 7th grade.

She is a transgender woman now but back then I (and everyone else) assumed she was a boy. Later on people thought he was a gay male due to his mannerisms.

We were both kind of misfits so we got really close that year.

One day in PE we were paired up and throwing the football to each other.

He was abnormally bad at it so I said to him "You throw like a girl!"

I'd never seen a boy throw like that but I'd seen several (not most) girls throw exactly like that.

I'm not sure if that has anything to do with feminism but that video reminded me of that.

[Lyanna Stark]

Right, since I was recently confronted with a host of questions on how women and gender are represented in literature and games, perhaps it is time to revisit a couple of issues regarding it here, since it is off topic in the other thread(s).

Why are you dragging feminism into this?

One of the first comments that generally surface when one comments on stereotypical and flawed gender roles in games and/or books is "but aren't there more important things to focus on?" This is an extremely annoying comment to defend against, since it at its core pre-supposes both that it is impossible to focus on more than one thing at a time, and secondly that literature, games, TV-shows, movies etc. don't affect us and that we in fact live in some sort of cultural neutrum state.

Further, Anita Sarkeesian is now on Times list of most influential people due to doing exactly that: doing media criticism promoting gender equality. From this we can draw the conclusion that media criticism is important, it matters.

Sexist & misogynist settings in popular culture

Secondly, challenging/criticising a work of fiction (be it a novel or a game) makes you often end up in discussions like "but this is just the way it is, why quibble about it?" as if whatever magic system or other sexist crap inserted into a world happened by some sort of Divine Intervention and did not come from a writer's (or several writers') brain(s). This did not happen by chance. I've previously had a short rant about Witcher 2 (haven't purchased Witcher 3 and won't until it drops significantly in price). Helpfully Anita Sarkeesian and her co-writer for Feminist Frequency Jonathan McIntosh have some commentary on this and then there is a response that ties directly into the "but it was Divinely Ordained that it is Sexist and it shall be So". It looks like this:

"the fictional universe of The Witcher 3 is one of deep gender inequality. It would be downright stupid and dishonest of CD Projekt Red to not include this reality in its fiction, simply to make a certain small segment of the population sign off on it has wholly politically correct."

As one of the readers comment to this, and I completely agree:

This paraphrase makes it sound as if the fictional world of Witcher 3 is a real place the developers discovered and must document faithfully; as if altering the fictional gender inequality would somehow be real-world political correctness.

The real question is-- why is that world one of deep gender inequality? You made it that way. Why did you choose that? Why do so many developers choose that? (As well as those who make other kinds of media as well.)

The problem isn't that this is a mystery, but that it is all too obvious: because it makes light work of distinguishing good from evil, and appeals to the largely male audience by allowing male characters to struggle over ownership and control of female characters while still remaining "the good guys".

Further, my main issue with the Witcher world is actually not that it is a deeply sexist world. That could have been handled in a multitude of ways, but the way it actually IS handled is that this is a Fact of Life, and the women characters in-universe never reflect on this, try to tackle it, instead they don't have any thought on it at all, nor do they push back against it. Women are constant victims of extreme sexism, from objectification to how they are treated by all and sundry, and to a (wo)man they accept this as a Divinely Ordained fact, making them seem less than human and complicit in their own oppression. Compared to Westeros, another sexist world, we get women constantly grappling with and trying to deal with sexist oppression. They constantly reflect on this fact and rant and rage against it, even when they cannot change it. They are not mindless automatons unable to recognise that they have fewer rights, and little bodily autonomy.

Thirdly, the mixing of the messages "you just want something politically correct" is a complete failure to understand that feminists don't want literature to be constrained to read about utopias where equality reigns and unicorns are constantly shitting rainbows. In fact, that is definitely not what most feminist literature deals with. Hell, take one short look at "Dirty Weekend" by Helen Zahavi and that idea is shot (literally) to pieces. A lot of literature looks specifically at sexism and the problems that brings. However, nowhere in there are things left with women being complicit in their own oppression and degradation and this not being even dealt with. The whole point of something being "feminist" is that it dares to turn over those rocks and take closer looks at the problems and human cost of sexism, misogyny and oppression. What does it do to people? How does it shape our expectations of life?

I doubt anyone can imagine the following passage coming out of the mouth of any of the women in Wheel of Time or The Witcher, from ACOK, Cersei speaking to Sansa.

" 'What do I get' I remember asking. We were so much alike, I could never understand why they treated me so differently. Jaime learned to fight with sword and lance and mace, while I was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock, while I was to be sold to some stranger like a horse, to be ridden whenever my new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for a younger filly. Jaime's lot was to be glory and power, while mine was birth and moonblood."

In other words, we have two women discussing what is basically feminist issues. This proves that even in a deeply sexist world, women are not automatons unaware of their own oppression (unlike in Bakker-world, where they need to be told they are oppressed and in The Witcher where they are unaware and nobody tells them and they can't figure it out), neither are they silently complicit. This even goes for Cersei who is a poster girl for internalised sexism, and more so for the other female characters who try to work around various issues, for instance male primogeniture (Asha, Cat wrt her daughters, Dany, Arianne), bodily autonomy (Sansa, Dany) unconventional gender roles (Brienne, Arya) among others.

Lastly, this brings me to male characters in sexist settings. As we have seen, sexism and misogyny are often added as a shortcut to add "grit" as some sort of background, sort of like painting the walls brown instead of using a nice wallpaper. It's also often used in RPGs to make it possible to discern quickly who is the Good guys and the Bad guys (Good guys don't hit women and animals, while bad guys do, often while also having ugly scars) and it can provide the hero with some motivation to go save his lady and get the lady-prize if he's heroic enough. This can be really frustrating to read novels, or to play games, featuring this type of hero. I often just want to stop the narrative and sit the guy and ask him what he thinks about things, what he feels about things and to actually move past the silent, stony dude-bro face and get something more than a violent, angry sword-wielding shell of what could be someone with an interesting personality. Example from the previously linked short article:

"Geralt of Rivia is the perfect embodiment of hegemonic masculinity," said McIntosh.

"Geralt from Witcher 3 is emotionally deficient in the extreme. Never cries or laughs. Never expresses grief, fear, sadness or vulnerability," he continued.

"When the only form of emotional expression available to male characters is looking pensive once in a while we’ve got a masculinity problem."

"Anger and rage are the only real emotional expressions male game protagonists are allowed. Needless to say that's a toxic message for men."

On the flip-side of shitty gender roles for women, you also have shitty gender roles for men. I found a similar problem with the protagonist in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, who gets both his legs and arms amputated and replaced with super high-tech prosthetics. Really interesting, I thought, now they can explore how he managed his new life as basically a disabled hero, and how he dealt with the change. But do we get any insight in what he thinks of feels about this? No, all we get is a smashed mirror and one line of dialogue: "I didn't ask for this." As for the rest? He's stony and occasionally pensive. If this is not a toxic and unhealthy message of what masculinity is supposed to look like, I don't know what it is.

I feel it is fitting to end this post with a quote from Julia Serano's Whipping Girl specifically on the obsession and anxiety over male expressions of femininity, which highlights that this desperate clinging to a narrow masculinity is based in just that: obsession and anxiety.

Because femininity is seen as inferior to masculinity, any man who appears as "effeminate" or feminized in any way will drastically lose status and respect in society, much more so than those women who act boyish or butch. But it's not just that males who act feminine lose the advantage of male privilige; rather, they come under far more public scrutiny and disdain. This is because, in a male-centered world, women who express masculinity may be seen as breaking oppositional sexist norms, but they are not a perceived challenge to traditional sexism (i.e. their "wanting to be like men" is consistent with the idea that maleness is more valued than femaleness). In contrast, males who express femininity challenges both oppositional sexist norms (i.e., someone who is willing to give up maleness/masculinity for femaleness/femininity directly threatens the notion of male superiority as well as the idea that women and men should be "opposites").

[C.T. Phipps]

Thanks for inviting me, Lyanna! I mean that!

"Geralt of Rivia is the perfect embodiment of hegemonic masculinity," said McIntosh.

"Geralt from Witcher 3 is emotionally deficient in the extreme. Never cries or laughs. Never expresses grief, fear, sadness or vulnerability," he continued.

"When the only form of emotional expression available to male characters is looking pensive once in a while we’ve got a masculinity problem."

"Anger and rage are the only real emotional expressions male game protagonists are allowed. Needless to say that's a toxic message for men."

Yeah, the depiction of Geralt of Rivia as some sort of emotionless badass is quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever read in my entire life from a video game reviewer and I have read some GENUINELY stupid things in my time from them. Geralt of Rivia remains, quite possibly, the most singularly developed emotional video game protagonist in the entirety of video games in all likelihood. With the vast majority of video game protagonists limited in their motivations to "Badass" and "Punch Things" Geralt of Rivia is a father, tradesman, lover, friend, and observer on the human condition.

Or, to show my argument for my as to why Geralt being a kind of emotionless drone is just bull****, I simply let the game speak for itself.

Beginning at 1:40 and ending around 4:00, though the subsequent scene is cute.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Ciri+and+Geralt

Man, I just...

There have been video games, of course, which relate to fathers attempting to reunite with their daughters but Harry Mason is one-upped by Geralt in an extreme level as the primary theme of the Witcher 3 is that Geralt LEARNS TO LET GO OF CIRI'S FATE. The game has a tracking system for whether or not Geralt allows Ciri to develop herself into a strong independent warrior in her own right (or, at least, acknowledges she is because she goes to fight against evil whether or not he approves).

As she says in the finale. "This is MY story."

You can judge for yourself here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo9nm3D33sk

The Ciri endings acknowledge that Geralt is no longer the protagonist and Ciri has come into her own as not only a woman but an Empress or Witcher in her own right, a superior one to Geralt as she has defeated the greatest threat to the Multiverse and saved entire worlds.

A heavy theme, not only fatherhood but passing along paternal responsibility from parent to child and acknowleging the agency of the woman in question.

Further, my main issue with the Witcher world is actually not that it is a deeply sexist world. That could have been handled in a multitude of ways, but the way it actually IS handled is that this is a Fact of Life, and the women characters in-universe never reflect on this, try to tackle it, instead they don't have any thought on it at all, nor do they push back against it. Women are constant victims of extreme sexism, from objectification to how they are treated by all and sundry, and to a (wo)man they accept this as a Divinely Ordained fact, making them seem less than human and complicit in their own oppression. Compared to Westeros, another sexist world, we get women constantly grappling with and trying to deal with sexist oppression. They constantly reflect on this fact and rant and rage against it, even when they cannot change it. They are not mindless automatons unable to recognise that they have fewer rights, and little bodily autonomy.

I think you would be very interested in this article, in fact, about the character of Cerys in the Witcher 3.

http://femhype.com/2015/06/03/fathers-daughters-gender-politics-of-skellige-analyzing-the-witcher-3/

Not by me.

On the flip-side of shitty gender roles for women, you also have shitty gender roles for men. I found a similar problem with the protagonist in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, who gets both his legs and arms amputated and replaced with super high-tech prosthetics. Really interesting, I thought, now they can explore how he managed his new life as basically a disabled hero, and how he dealt with the change. But do we get any insight in what he thinks of feels about this? No, all we get is a smashed mirror and one line of dialogue: "I didn't ask for this." As for the rest? He's stony and occasionally pensive. If this is not a toxic and unhealthy message of what masculinity is supposed to look like, I don't know what it is.

Eh, while I don't think Adam Jensen is nearly as well-developed as the titular Witcher of said series, I'd have to say he's more a subversion of the stoic emotionless badass archetype than the opposite. Adam doesn't express his emotions well, which is actually part of the cyberpunk mystique but unlike Neo, he very clearly DOES have emotions and he's suffering extreme distress. One of the elements of the cyberpunk genre is that human beings have, essentially, allowed themselves to become mechanized to the point they have lost their higher humanity and become more like machines than people.

Adam Jensen, representing the New Man, is actually a subversion of this because much of the game is devoted to his Orpheus-like quest to recover his ex-girlfriend Megan from the fires of Hades. His torment at the realization that, no, she didn't need saving at all (nor wants saving) is a major moment of pathos in the game.

Indeed, one of the staples of the cyberpunk hero is that he expresses compassion and humanity in a world which has clearly forgotten they exist. This being an RPG, however, you have to deliberately go out of your way to choose these dialogue options like talking down your friend from his PTSD breakdown from murdering an innocent man during the Mexicatown Riot and going out of your way to do sidequests to help people.

What Adam and Geralt do share is their role as deeply disillusioned humanists and romantics which are surrounded by hellish worlds of apathy, greed, and bigotry. Both characters appear to be stoic on the outside but in the former case, it is because Adam seems GENUINELY UNABLE to articulate his feelings while Geralt has chosen to feign disinterest because the world is such a craphole.

This is a contrast to the say, more outwardly emotional Dante from the Devil May Cry series, who aside from his Narmtastic "I WANTED TO FILL YOUR WORLD WITH LIGGHHHHHHHT!" reacts to the world around him with complete and utter emotional disassociation and quips.

Of course, the problem with RPG characters is much of the character must be a blank slate to accomadate the vareity of decisions. Cole McGrath of Infamous, for example, must simultaneously be tempted to do unspeakable evil and saintly good which leaves him a complete cipher for real morality.

Adam and Geralt are, thankfully, at the farther end of the spectrum with their much more limited RPGing opportunities.

[C.T. Phipps]

At the risk of self-promoting because I'm really not, I may be projecting on Adam and Geralt because one of the major themes of Esoterrorism (see here), my 1st person book is the fact that the main character of Derek Hawthorne (an agent for the Magical Illuminati-basically), is that he is PERCEIVED by his coworkers as sociopathic, emotionless, and superficially charming due to his cold-blooded reaction to violence as well as propensity for quips. I.e. that he's perceived as basically as how James Bond is treated in many of the movies.

When from the 1st person perspective of the reader, we discover Derek is actually a bundle of guilt, philosophy, moral uncertainty, remorse, and inexpressed emotions. One of the interesting themes I tackled, at least to me, was the fact Derek has large numbers of superificial relationships with women but finds the whole process unfulfilling because they're part of his job (he is a honeytrap agent sent to seduce rival agents or personnel on a regular basis--likewise any relationship within the House is subject to scrutiny and pressures) and is seeking a meaningful connection to another human being. In effect, subverting and condemning the whole 'male fantasy' element.

Derek is a broken individual because his organization and upbringing have forced him into the toxic role of a killer and cassanova which he can't escape and is revolted by. I had a lot of fun by further subverting the Bondian mystique by making the only people Derek genuinely is able to relate to are his twin sister (a lesbian) and her lover before introducing Shannon. A character who has been similarly roped into the role of the Femme Fatale and seducer (with deep deep disgust for the concept) only to find Derek has no interest in such and the two can briefly let their masks drop to discuss deeper issues of faith and decency.

So, I'm actually very forgiving of characetrs who are outwardly stoic but inwardly heavily emotional for personal reasons. I even got to address the issue a bit further from the feminist perspective as the character of Cassandra has a very personal motivation for hating the Red Room/House (Derek's organization) relating to fact she refused to persist in the role she was assigned based on her gender.

[Seventh Pup]

So yesterday I was shopping with my 11 month old son. He was in a stroller and wearing an outfit with mustaches on it so it was obvious that he was a boy. A lady in her sixties stop to talk to me when my son was smiling at her. She asked me if he was my first, and I told her he was. She asked how old he was, and I told her that he was 11 months old. And then she said something which I've heard a few times in which every time it makes me angry. " You're so lucky, boys are so much less emotionally complex and girls!"

At which point I said that he seemed to as emotional as my nieces where. Her comeback was " just wait as they get older you'll see how much easier your boy is. "

This gels with a lot of things I've heard since finding out I was going to have a little boy. Mainly that I'm lucky, my husband is very lucky, and we basically hit the jackpot by having a boy instead of a girl. The girls are very challenging as teenagers, but boys just fly through life. It's been amazing to me how many parents of wonderful beautiful girls will tell me in front of their girls that they had wanted boys.

And makes me so angry because I can see even from this age, people expect my son not to express his emotions as strongly as his cousins who are girls. And because of this suppose it lack of emotion, or conflict he's so much better than them.

One thing I definitely want to teach my son is that it's okay for him to experience emotions strongly. It's okay for him to be angry, scared, frustrated, resentful. That being emotional is not mean being "girlie".

- I am writing this rant after my 3rd night in a row of getting less then 4 hours of sleep so if it's not exactly coherent please be forgiving.

[James Arryn]

So yesterday I was shopping with my 11 month old son. He was in a stroller and wearing an outfit with mustaches on it so it was obvious that he was a boy. A lady in her sixties stop to talk to me when my son was smiling at her. She asked me if he was my first, and I told her he was. She asked how old he was, and I told her that he was 11 months old. And then she said something which I've heard a few times in which every time it makes me angry. " You're so lucky, boys are so much less emotionally complex and girls!"
At which point I said that he seemed to as emotional as my nieces where. Her comeback was " just wait as they get older you'll see how much easier your boy is. "
This gels with a lot of things I've heard since finding out I was going to have a little boy. Mainly that I'm lucky, my husband is very lucky, and we basically hit the jackpot by having a boy instead of a girl. The girls are very challenging as teenagers, but boys just fly through life. It's been amazing to me how many parents of wonderful beautiful girls will tell me in front of their girls that they had wanted boys.
And makes me so angry because I can see even from this age, people expect my son not to express his emotions as strongly as his cousins who are girls. And because of this suppose it lack of emotion, or conflict he's so much better than them.
One thing I definitely want to teach my son is that it's okay for him to experience emotions strongly. It's okay for him to be angry, scared, frustrated, resentful. That being emotional is not mean being "girlie".
- I am writing this rant after my 3rd night in a row of getting less then 4 hours of sleep so if it's not exactly coherent please be forgiving.

So yesterday I was shopping with my 11 month old son. He was in a stroller and wearing an outfit with mustaches on it so it was obvious that he was a boy. A lady in her sixties stop to talk to me when my son was smiling at her. She asked me if he was my first, and I told her he was. She asked how old he was, and I told her that he was 11 months old. And then she said something which I've heard a few times in which every time it makes me angry. " You're so lucky, boys are so much less emotionally complex and girls!"
At which point I said that he seemed to as emotional as my nieces where. Her comeback was " just wait as they get older you'll see how much easier your boy is. "
This gels with a lot of things I've heard since finding out I was going to have a little boy. Mainly that I'm lucky, my husband is very lucky, and we basically hit the jackpot by having a boy instead of a girl. The girls are very challenging as teenagers, but boys just fly through life. It's been amazing to me how many parents of wonderful beautiful girls will tell me in front of their girls that they had wanted boys.
And makes me so angry because I can see even from this age, people expect my son not to express his emotions as strongly as his cousins who are girls. And because of this suppose it lack of emotion, or conflict he's so much better than them.
One thing I definitely want to teach my son is that it's okay for him to experience emotions strongly. It's okay for him to be angry, scared, frustrated, resentful. That being emotional is not mean being "girlie".
- I am writing this rant after my 3rd night in a row of getting less then 4 hours of sleep so if it's not exactly coherent please be forgiving.

That's an oddly one-sided brand of genderization compared with my experience, which generally runs: boys much more trouble than girls pre-teen, girls much more trouble teen, some kind of dovetail once they hit university. I've never heard it expressed as a one-way ticket before, but maybe it's regional. I have never been a parent so can't attest to any kind of assessment of the merits of this particular prejudice, but I've heard it expressed more times than I can remember along the lines I mentioned.

[James Arryn]

Also, in brief, football players can be emotionally complex too!!

Edit: wait, no they can't.

Edit: well, maybe sometimes, but not D-Lineman, anyways.

[eyenon15]

So yesterday I was shopping with my 11 month old son. He was in a stroller and wearing an outfit with mustaches on it so it was obvious that he was a boy. A lady in her sixties stop to talk to me when my son was smiling at her. She asked me if he was my first, and I told her he was. She asked how old he was, and I told her that he was 11 months old. And then she said something which I've heard a few times in which every time it makes me angry. " You're so lucky, boys are so much less emotionally complex and girls!"

At which point I said that he seemed to as emotional as my nieces where. Her comeback was " just wait as they get older you'll see how much easier your boy is. "

This gels with a lot of things I've heard since finding out I was going to have a little boy. Mainly that I'm lucky, my husband is very lucky, and we basically hit the jackpot by having a boy instead of a girl. The girls are very challenging as teenagers, but boys just fly through life. It's been amazing to me how many parents of wonderful beautiful girls will tell me in front of their girls that they had wanted boys.

And makes me so angry because I can see even from this age, people expect my son not to express his emotions as strongly as his cousins who are girls. And because of this suppose it lack of emotion, or conflict he's so much better than them.

One thing I definitely want to teach my son is that it's okay for him to experience emotions strongly. It's okay for him to be angry, scared, frustrated, resentful. That being emotional is not mean being "girlie".

- I am writing this rant after my 3rd night in a row of getting less then 4 hours of sleep so if it's not exactly coherent please be forgiving.

Reminds me of this article/study
Masculinity is killing men
The roots of men and trauma.
Maybe old news to this gender savy crowd but I found it interesting.
Even parents that claimed they were all about equality still had extreme bias on the way they raise boys vs girls.

http://www.alternet.org/gender/masculinity-killing-men-roots-men-and-trauma

[Seventh Pup]

Yeah I think as a society, we basically expect the girls are going to be more emotional than boys. Because boys are less emotion, they are better at certain things like leadership. Because girls are more emotional they are less reliable.

There's a lot wrong with this expectation. You have fewer emotions that are considered "manly". Because of this you have men who are basically trained from youth no to express their emotions. Unless it's anger, aggression or something else equally "manly". On the flipside it means that if a woman expresses an emotion, like say giddiness, that means that she is being irrationally. I also feel like society encourages girls to over exaggerate their emotions at times. So when you're sad you should cry. If you see something sad that's not related to you, you should feel an excess of sympathy. If you are aren't expressing enough emotions, then you're not being feminine enough.

I think this kind of thinking hurts both genders, and it's sad.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Kids are complex.

[karaddin]

Eyenon I've said before that I consider what we (society, I generally don't blame individual parents) are doing to male children in raising them is tantamount to abuse and torture. I really don't think the process of sundering a person from half of their humanity can be described in less strong terms. It's successful to varying degrees in different men, and a lot will spend their adult lives working to undo this damage, but the damage is done.

There are hormonal differences in the intensity of the emotion, particularly the ability to cry, but the hormonal difference pales in comparison to what comes from socialisation.

Seventh pup - yes that kind of commentary really irritates me. Boys are capable of being just as emotionally complex and troubled as girls if we just stopped telling them they aren't. Girls deserve to be told they are just as valued as boys are by their parents, and saying that shit in front of your own daughter is really awful.

[Deedles]

The way I've heard it expressed is "boys wreck your house, girls wreck your head". Charming.....

[Theda Baratheon]

I was just called a cunt on someone elses status because I asked a neckbeard not to make comments about women being harmed and called him out on his misuse of what a metaphor is. And he comes in telling me to shut the fuck up 'you self righteous cunt'. This status was about how shitty some feminists can be. Lol. What a charmer.

I'm surprised by how shaken up I am though, I don't mind people swearing at me I'm a big girl - it's just that this was within minutes of my post and was so unexpected and ....hostile. even though it was online it actually took me aback. Hands were shaking a second ago...