The idea behind curriculum diversification is that a good deal of mediocre writing (especially from the Victorian period) is shoehorned in as opposed to much better writing from nonwestern areas of the world.
I don't really think that's a ridiculous argument to make. In fact I think the counter (that there is somehow just not any literature of merit in those areas) is much stranger.
Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
It is true that not all cultures have exactly the same gender roles. To give an example, while the sciences are male-dominated in the western world, there are several countries in Africa (I forget which) whose gender roles greatly encourage women to go into research.
However, these gender roles generally follow the same pattern, which suggests that it is more influenced by biology than we might think. Remember how Naney and Deathonabun were talking earlier about how women are seen as weak and in need of protection? I think I have an explanation for that.
Which group of people could have more children in the same amount of time: one man and ten women, or one woman and ten men? And remember, having children is what allows us to preserve both our species and our own individual genetic material. So in that case, who should have the priority of being protected in a society that's still learning how to survive?
This of course is not to say that gender roles should be enforced. I just think that the biological aspect is often overlooked when it really shouldn't be.
> An embryo has unique DNA, a metaboism, grows, and responds to stimuli. That's life.
First, the same can be said of any cell that has genetic material. What you're talking about is human life.
Second, what you said is also true of many different types of human cells. What you're talking about is the life of a whole human.
> in the absence of no-fault divorce laws, parents would still be able to get out of abusive relationships.
From what I understand (i.e. based on Wikipedia): > No-fault divorce is a divorce in which the dissolution of a marriage does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party.
There is a cost (in time, effort, and money) to producing an evidentiary chain by which to fault someone legally.
How does this cost compare to the potential benefit, divided per family, of a policy change that would theoretically benefit children whose parents would otherwise undergo frivolous divorces?
Because...
> What would change is that they'd no longer harm their children, the most vulerable members of the family, for selfish reasons.
One can go through a fault-based divorce for selfish reasons, and one can also go through a no-fault divorce for non-selfish reasons.
Not to mention that people don't magically become good, responsible parents if you force them to stay married. Those people who are good, responsible parents are more likely to stay married even given the option of no-fault divorce (albeit not guaranteed to do so).
I'm pretty sure early society was matriarchal. I can't remember where I heard that, though.
There's a lot of debate about this subject.
Mostly because all that we have of pre-writing cultures is artifacts that we can only make educated guesses as to the use and purpose of. In the archaeological community there is certainly a sect that likes to simply make the least conventional claim, since it brings press and press brings research grants. That doesn't necessarily mean that the "early societies were primarily matriarchal" theories should just be discounted, but they should be taken with a grain of salt.
"It is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected.... Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him." -- Charles Dickens
However, these gender roles generally follow the same pattern, which suggests that it is more influenced by biology than we might think. Remember how Naney and Deathonabun were talking earlier about how women are seen as weak and in need of protection? I think I have an explanation for that.
Which group of people could have more children in the same amount of time: one man and ten women, or one woman and ten men? And remember, having children is what allows us to preserve both our species and our own individual genetic material. So in that case, who should have the priority of being protected in a society that's still learning how to survive?
This of course is not to say that gender roles should be enforced. I just think that the biological aspect is often overlooked when it really shouldn't be.
This is exactly it. Men are expendable because they don't bear children, and the trade-off for their lack of security is a chance at power.
Of course within that vague universal, the particulars vary according to the means of production, religion, etc.
@Mojave: Inclusion of non-Western classics is a moot point for feminism (though your point about Victorian novels is accurate enough), since they were also written by men.
Inclusion of non-Western classics is a moot point for feminism (though your point about Victorian novels is accurate enough), since they were also written by men.
"It is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected.... Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him." -- Charles Dickens
> in the absence of no-fault divorce laws, parents would still be able to get out of abusive relationships.
From what I understand (i.e. based on Wikipedia): > No-fault divorce is a divorce in which the dissolution of a marriage does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party.
There is a cost (in time, effort, and money) to producing an evidentiary chain by which to fault someone legally.
How does this cost compare to the potential benefit, divided per family, of a policy change that would theoretically benefit children whose parents would otherwise undergo frivolous divorces?
Because...
> What would change is that they'd no longer harm their children, the most vulerable members of the family, for selfish reasons.
One can go through a fault-based divorce for selfish reasons, and one can also go through a no-fault divorce for non-selfish reasons.
Not to mention that people don't magically become good, responsible parents if you force them to stay married. Those people who are good, responsible parents are more likely to stay married even given the option of no-fault divorce (albeit not guaranteed to do so).
First of all: yes, I am talking about a whole human, The embryo is its own organism distinct from the mother. Now there can be definitional issues with the word "whole", but even after birth the brain is undeveloped and, Peter Singer aside, that's not used to justify killing.
I don't deny that one can initiate a fault-based divorce for selfish reasons. One has to suspect ANY divorce is initiated because one party selfishly prefers money and domestic and sexual freedom to their family's needs. There just needs to be an escape for abuse.
And um, in a way people do become responsible parents because you force them to stay together. Single mothers' boyfriends are by far the most common physical abusers, to say nothing of neglect from diverting attentio from parental duty to dating (which goes for either sex).
The embryo may be its own organism genetically distinct from the mother, but that does not mean it is a human. Your stance that is predicated on the assumption that said embryo is a human, which is a philosophical postulate, not a self-evident truth.
One should suspect any divorce of BOTH selfish desire for money and/or domestic/sexual freedom as well as an escape from abuse. Both hypotheses may be correct, and in fact they are not even mutually exclusive.
Forcing couples with children to stay legally married does not by itself obligate them to stay physically proximate. People can and will continue to have extramarital affairs anyway. A married woman can have an extramarital boyfriend, and independent of whether she does, her husband may still neglect his parenting responsibilities; the same goes for the opposite-sex scenario.
Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
And um, in a way people do become responsible parents because you force them to stay together. Single mothers' boyfriends are by far the most common physical abusers, to say nothing of neglect from diverting attentio from parental duty to dating (which goes for either sex).
Actually, I remember reading somewhere that women commit child abuse more often than men. I don't remember exactly where, though, so don't hold me to that just yet.
You know, Mr. Darcy, that's not really so much a critique of feminism at large as of certain very general ideas that happen to be common among certain feminists. One can argue that women are unfairly treated in our society while still considering oneself anti-abortion and generally opposed to divorce on principle.
I do not agree with those views, but opposing feminism as a whole based on a small number of nitpicks with rhetoric strikes me as unnecessarily contrary and narrow.
Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
I take it you mean the one-child policy and traditional preference for boys leading to abandonment of girls, selling of brides, and a significantly high male-to-female population ratio?
Huh, I never really thought about that as a feminist issue. Considering that the government is elbows deep in the way society works in China (well, more so than in Western countries, at least), I always thought of it as a sociopolitical or civil rights issue.
Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
Yeah, China and certain other countries in the Eastern world are places where women's rights movements like feminism are particularly important.
Incidentally, two out of the three feminist bloggers I've followed regularly spent a good amount of their life in China. I'm sure that's shaped their perspective.
I guess that's just me being ethnocentric with my definition of the word feminism.
Matter'a'fact, I think this is the first time in a while that I've heard feminism used on a situation outside of the US. Tumblr's where I get most of my feminist material from, and they always focus on the US (and sometimes the Middle East)
Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
That's actually a criticism of Tumblr feminist blogs that comes up sometimes. Some of them focus on US issues to the point where trivialities such as people sitting with their legs spread out on the bus are more important to them than issues like China's "missing girls."
This is not to say that women's issues in the US are trivialities, merely that some people go overboard in their examination of them.
Also, as nice as it is to bring up the larger sexist problems, in context, US citizens don't have any political changing power when it comes to china's policies.
Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
Clock has a good point. Oftentimes it's the culture you live in that you have the most perspective on and can contribute the most to discussing.
But it's important to remember that there are things in US, UK, and Canadian culture that don't apply to Chinese, Indian, or Iranian culture, and vice versa
Yesterday my friends and I were at the arcade. Some guy was playing on one of the games there. A kid was looking at it and it was clear he wanted to play on it. He wasn't being a little shitty brat about it - he wasn't throwing a tantrum or anything - it was just obvious to everyone that he wanted to play on it.
So the guy gets up and lets the kid play. He even gave the kid some quarters so he could play longer. We all went up to the guy and started patting him on the back. We applauded his behavior and called him "manly" for doing that.
That got me wondering. Is there anything inherently wrong with the word "manly" or is it just the way people use it? My friends and I use it to refer to when someone shows an admirable display of maturity and/or selflessness, not hypermasculinized stuff.
Well, if you were to use "womanly" in the same sense to describe a woman being awesome, I think that would be relatively unproblematic, although it is a less gainly word syllabically speaking...
I guess in that case it's really just about being an ideal person, not a gender thing per se. And you certainly aren't stereotyping. So I'm OK with that.
Or how about we abandon the terms that have connotations associated with one's gender and just use the terms that are gender neutral so people don't get confused.
Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
I guess in that case it's really just about being an ideal person, not a gender thing per se. And you certainly aren't stereotyping. So I'm OK with that.
yesquote
As for the last picture, it's not wrong to identify as a feminist, but there are legitimate reasons for not wanting to do so. One might be more knowledgeable or concerned about the other side of gender equality (which there really shouldn't be anything wrong with). One might also dislike the fact that many feminists sometimes uphold patriarchal values without realizing it (namely, the way rape and domestic abuse are often approached).
Relatedly, I have a problem with the idea that feminism should be the only movement concerned with gender rights. A comment I once saw on tumblr said it best: In a society where both genders face significant disadvantages, it's kinda like saying that the only movement for racial equality should be black civil rights and that Asians, Latinos, Arabs, and Native Americans shouldn't worry about their own issues because theirs will be fixed indirectly.
There are significant debates within feminism about this issues, especially considering "accidental" upholding of patriarchal vales. I do have my own opinions about these matters, which is why I often snark at many feminists :) I've used to think that it should prevent me from identifying as feminist, but my opinion changed recently.
Not that I do anything but argue on forums, because, where I am, open agreement with feminism might easily make me unemployable. Such is life :)
As for the disadvantages males suffer, I still think that most of them can be traced to the very same gender norms and relationships that feminists are against. Yes, dominant masculinity comes with a price, noone is denying it - but, well, feminists are against the whole thing. It's not as much that male problems would be fixed "indirectly" - rather, they are the two sides of the very same problem.
To your example about racial equality, I would say that the more appropriate example would have been a white person getting treated in an unfriendly way in a black communities. Surely fixing racism against black people would be instrumental to fixing that - which is not to say that it makes such behaviour acceptable or non-problematic.
Remember back in the 50s when they'd record like Elvis singing YOU AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HOUND DOG and then they'd turn the record over and reverse it and it was all NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP NYERP and people were all like, "That is actually the voice of Satan coming from that song."
I certainly won't deny that gender roles cause both male and female issues. However, it doesn't seem like male issues are that well understood by the feminist community (or communities, I probably should say) as a whole. They also tend to get downplayed more than they really should. Granted, this is not unique to feminism; society in general is guilty of this.
Nonetheless, that's why I personally prefer to look at things from a double-sided perspective as a gender egalitarian, at least when looking at American, Canadian, and British societies.
But from what I've heard of Russia, gender issues are much more heavily skewed against women, so feminism would certainly be a good thing to have there.
"It is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected.... Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him." -- Charles Dickens
As for the disadvantages males suffer, I still think that most of them can be traced to the very same gender norms and relationships that feminists are against. Yes, dominant masculinity comes with a price, noone is denying it - but, well, feminists are against the whole thing. It's not as much that male problems would be fixed "indirectly" - rather, they are the two sides of the very same problem.
I think most of us are "against the whole thing" as it now stands. But the other half of the questio is what feminists arefor. If they believe the careerist individualism of bourgeois masculinity is a superior lifestyle wome have unjustly been kept out of, then there's a conflict with anyonee who has a different vision of the good. Remember Burke's outrage at Rousseau confessing that he dumped his infants in an orphanage to focus on his career.
Yesterday my friends and I were at the arcade. Some guy was playing on one of the games there. A kid was looking at it and it was clear he wanted to play on it. He wasn't being a little shitty brat about it - he wasn't throwing a tantrum or anything - it was just obvious to everyone that he wanted to play on it.
So the guy gets up and lets the kid play. He even gave the kid some quarters so he could play longer. We all went up to the guy and started patting him on the back. We applauded his behavior and called him "manly" for doing that.
That got me wondering. Is there anything inherently wrong with the word "manly" or is it just the way people use it? My friends and I use it to refer to when someone shows an admirable display of maturity and/or selflessness, not hypermasculinized stuff.
See, this is why we should bring back "wereman" because "manly" then becomes "personly" or something like "an exceptionally good person", so we can use it on men and women with reckless abandon and not have to worry about any connotations.
Funniest thing that many feminists would agree with you that liberal individualism is not the way to go (though they'll still demand that women are free to make their own choices in every sphere of life), while I, personally, do think that "bourgeois masculinity is a superior lifestyle women have unjustly been kept out of". Which puts me at odds with many feminists.
> Or how about we abandon the terms [such as "manly"] that have connotations associated with one's gender and just use the terms that are gender neutral so people don't get confused.
I'd rather do this. I would have called that person "mature" or "cool". Not "manly".
> bourgeois masculinity
If by this you mean the whole idea of conquering the world (in varied ways), leaving one's mark everywhere, aiming for social dominance, and doing so via conspicuous consumption, one could say that it's also mightily inefficient.
Comments
The idea behind curriculum diversification is that a good deal of mediocre writing (especially from the Victorian period) is shoehorned in as opposed to much better writing from nonwestern areas of the world.
I don't really think that's a ridiculous argument to make. In fact I think the counter (that there is somehow just not any literature of merit in those areas) is much stranger.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
^^ That also goes into the large number of fertility goddesses that have been found from the wayback times.
First, the same can be said of any cell that has genetic material. What you're talking about is human life.
Second, what you said is also true of many different types of human cells. What you're talking about is the life of a whole human.
> in the absence of no-fault divorce laws, parents would still be able to get out of abusive relationships.
From what I understand (i.e. based on Wikipedia):
> No-fault divorce is a divorce in which the dissolution of a marriage does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party.
There is a cost (in time, effort, and money) to producing an evidentiary chain by which to fault someone legally.
How does this cost compare to the potential benefit, divided per family, of a policy change that would theoretically benefit children whose parents would otherwise undergo frivolous divorces?
Because...
> What would change is that they'd no longer harm their children, the most vulerable members of the family, for selfish reasons.
One can go through a fault-based divorce for selfish reasons, and one can also go through a no-fault divorce for non-selfish reasons.
Not to mention that people don't magically become good, responsible parents if you force them to stay married. Those people who are good, responsible parents are more likely to stay married even given the option of no-fault divorce (albeit not guaranteed to do so).
There's a lot of debate about this subject.
Mostly because all that we have of pre-writing cultures is artifacts that we can only make educated guesses as to the use and purpose of. In the archaeological community there is certainly a sect that likes to simply make the least conventional claim, since it brings press and press brings research grants. That doesn't necessarily mean that the "early societies were primarily matriarchal" theories should just be discounted, but they should be taken with a grain of salt.
This is exactly it. Men are expendable because they don't bear children, and the trade-off for their lack of security is a chance at power.
Of course within that vague universal, the particulars vary according to the means of production, religion, etc.
@Mojave: Inclusion of non-Western classics is a moot point for feminism (though your point about Victorian novels is accurate enough), since they were also written by men.
First of all: yes, I am talking about a whole human, The embryo is its own organism distinct from the mother. Now there can be definitional issues with the word "whole", but even after birth the brain is undeveloped and, Peter Singer aside, that's not used to justify killing.
I don't deny that one can initiate a fault-based divorce for selfish reasons. One has to suspect ANY divorce is initiated because one party selfishly prefers money and domestic and sexual freedom to their family's needs. There just needs to be an escape for abuse.
And um, in a way people do become responsible parents because you force them to stay together. Single mothers' boyfriends are by far the most common physical abusers, to say nothing of neglect from diverting attentio from parental duty to dating (which goes for either sex).
One should suspect any divorce of BOTH selfish desire for money and/or domestic/sexual freedom as well as an escape from abuse. Both hypotheses may be correct, and in fact they are not even mutually exclusive.
Forcing couples with children to stay legally married does not by itself obligate them to stay physically proximate. People can and will continue to have extramarital affairs anyway. A married woman can have an extramarital boyfriend, and independent of whether she does, her husband may still neglect his parenting responsibilities; the same goes for the opposite-sex scenario.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
How can you even think of doing that to your own daughter?
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Those are kind of
like
the same thing.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I guess that's just me being ethnocentric with my definition of the word feminism.
Matter'a'fact, I think this is the first time in a while that I've heard feminism used on a situation outside of the US. Tumblr's where I get most of my feminist material from, and they always focus on the US (and sometimes the Middle East)
As for the last picture, it's not wrong to identify as a feminist, but there are legitimate reasons for not wanting to do so. One might be more knowledgeable or concerned about the other side of gender equality (which there really shouldn't be anything wrong with). One might also dislike the fact that many feminists sometimes uphold patriarchal values without realizing it (namely, the way rape and domestic abuse are often approached).
Relatedly, I have a problem with the idea that feminism should be the only movement concerned with gender rights. A comment I once saw on tumblr said it best: In a society where both genders face significant disadvantages, it's kinda like saying that the only movement for racial equality should be black civil rights and that Asians, Latinos, Arabs, and Native Americans shouldn't worry about their own issues because theirs will be fixed indirectly.
Not that I do anything but argue on forums, because, where I am, open agreement with feminism might easily make me unemployable. Such is life :)
As for the disadvantages males suffer, I still think that most of them can be traced to the very same gender norms and relationships that feminists are against. Yes, dominant masculinity comes with a price, noone is denying it - but, well, feminists are against the whole thing. It's not as much that male problems would be fixed "indirectly" - rather, they are the two sides of the very same problem.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
Just thought it would be amusing to mention.
one's gender and just use the terms that are gender neutral so people
don't get confused.
I'd rather do this. I would have called that person "mature" or "cool". Not "manly".
> bourgeois masculinity
If by this you mean the whole idea of conquering the world (in varied ways), leaving one's mark everywhere, aiming for social dominance, and doing so via conspicuous consumption, one could say that it's also mightily inefficient.