Jimquisition : Objectification And... Men? →
A common argument in the ongoing debate over gender and videogames is that women and men both are equally objectified. Is that really true?
My brother send me this video and I thought it was pretty good. I think it explains objectification (in games and what it actually means in general) pretty well.
“As long as women’s natural body hair is called disgusting and inappropriate while men’s isn’t, I am a feminist.
As long as I can’t watch an episode of a popular sitcom without having to sit through multiple sexist comments or “jokes”, I am a feminist.
As long as women have to face the rational fear of being sexually assaulted every time they walk home past dark while men don’t, I am a feminist.
As long as misogyny exists in any country in this world, I am a feminist.
As long as women are being raped, then stoned to death or forced to marry their rapist, I am a feminist.
As long as companies promote men to manager when there are women who are equally as or better qualified, because they find that men look more authoritative, I am a feminist.
As long as women (her choice of clothes, her friendly nature, her weakness, her choice to drink alcohol) get blamed when men rape them, I am a feminist.
As long women’s opinions on online social networks are dismissed with phrases like “tits or gtfo”, “get back to the kitchen”, “are you pms’ing?”, I am a feminist.
As long as dressing like a women is degrading for men and as long as men are insulted with phrases like “you throw like a woman”, clearly implying that being like a woman is shameful, I am a feminist.
As long as both men are women are expected to work, but taking care of children and the household are still largely considered a woman’s job, I am a feminist.
As long as boys and girls are treated differently, expected to act differently, and surrounded by different toys and colours from the day they are born, I am a feminist.
As long as topless women aren’t allowed in public unless they’re on the cover of a men’s magazine, I am a feminist.
As long as women who have sex frequently are generally told they are “sluts”, “lacking self-respect” and “lacking morals” by both men and women, while men who frequently have sex are “just being men” and it’s “natural for them”, I am a feminist.
As long as there are places where women have to pay more for health insurance than men, I am a feminist.
As long as men experience situations with equal gender representation as female-dominated, and don’t consider a group discussion equal unless there are significantly more men then women participants (as has been proven), I am a feminist.
As long as there are men who think it’s their wife or girlfriend’s duty to have sex with him whenever he wants, I am a feminist.
As long as the word feminism (“the movement aimed at equal rights for women”) has a negative connotation, I am a feminist.
As long as misogynist people exist, I am a feminist.”
LE CHRYSANTHÉME: I am a feminist. (via psychedelicpaisleyprincess)(Source: livefromplanetearth)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on feminism.
“
Women invented all the core technologies that made civilization possible. This isn’t some feminist myth; it’s what modern anthropologists believe. Women are thought to have invented pottery, basketmaking, weaving, textiles, horticulture, and agriculture. That’s right: without women’s inventions, we wouldn’t be able to carry things or store things or tie things up or go fishing or hunt with nets or haft a blade or wear clothes or grow our food or live in permanent settlements. Suck on that.
Women have continued to be involved in the creation and advancement of civilization throughout history, whether you know it or not. Pick anything—a technology, a science, an art form, a school of thought—and start digging into the background. You’ll find women there, I guarantee, making critical contributions and often inventing the damn shit in the first place.
Women have made those contributions in spite of astonishing hurdles. Hurdles like not being allowed to go to school. Hurdles like not being allowed to work in an office with men, or join a professional society, or walk on the street, or own property. Example: look up Lise Meitner some time. When she was born in 1878 it was illegal in Austria for girls to attend school past the age of 13. Once the laws finally eased up and she could go to university, she wasn’t allowed to study with the men. Then she got a research post but wasn’t allowed to use the lab on account of girl cooties. Her whole life was like this, but she still managed to discover nuclear fucking fission. Then the Nobel committee gave the prize to her junior male colleague and ignored her existence completely.
Men in all patriarchal civilizations, including ours, have worked to downplay or deny women’s creative contributions. That’s because patriarchy is founded on the belief that women are breeding stock and men are the only people who can think. The easiest way for men to erase women’s contributions is to simply ignore that they happened. Because when you ignore something, it gets forgotten. People in the next generation don’t hear about it, and so they grow up thinking that no women have ever done anything. And then when women in their generation do stuff, they think “it’s a fluke, never happened before in the history of the world, ignore it.” And so they ignore it, and it gets forgotten. And on and on and on. The New York Times article is a perfect illustration of this principle in action.
Finally, and this is important: even those women who weren’t inventors and intellectuals, even those women who really did spend all their lives doing stereotypical “women’s work”—they also built this world. The mundane labor of life is what makes everything else possible. Before you can have scientists and engineers and artists, you have to have a whole bunch of people (and it’s usually women) to hold down the basics: to grow and harvest and cook the food, to provide clothes and shelter, to fetch the firewood and the water, to nurture and nurse, to tend and teach. Every single scrap of civilized inventing and dreaming and thinking rides on top of that foundation. Never forget that.
”from a post by Reclusive Leftist on women’s erasure in history.
her comments relate specifically to an article by the NYT thanking “the men” who invented modern technology, but pick absolutely any academic field of study, and women’s contributions are minimized, if not outright ignored.
literature has been a huge part of my life for a long time, and i grew up reading the classics—which, of course, are typically books written by white men, depicting their experiences. i was taught that the first “modern novel” was Don Quixote, written in the early 1600s by a guy (Cervantes). i don’t think i know of a word to accurately describe my mixture of outrage, shock, and pride, when i discovered later that actually, the first modern novel was written 600 years earlier—by a woman! (it’s The Tale of Genji, written by a Japanese lady-in-waiting who was known as Murasaki Shikibu.)
this might not seem important, but if you’re a woman you know just how vital this knowledge is. even now, when women are being told that we can do anything we set our minds to, the historical, literary, and scientific figures we learn about are all men. it’s a much more insidious way to discourage women from aiming high—because what’s the point in putting in so much hard work if it’s not even going to be remembered after you’re dead?
(via sendforbromina)
All of this. For a long time, women couldn’t apply for patents in the US, so even if they invented something, they had to let their husband or male colleague take credit for it. Us ladies had made significant contributions to every field of study out there, and I am sick and tired of seeing that shit get ignored.
(via stfuconservatives)
Why Women With Autism Are Invisible. →
The first step to solving these problems, say advocates, is actually diagnosing autism in girls. Lawson says, “there needs to be a more feminist approach to autism which is often seen as owned by men,” and that doctors and treatment programs need “an understanding of how autism is experienced by females.” Willey agrees, arguing that the problems of diagnosing autism are similar to those surrounding heart disease: “We now know the calling cards of a heart attack for men, are in many ways different for women. When we better describe autism as it effects women, we can better diagnose.”
Eddplant: radioheadofficial: let me tell you what I think about feminism.... →
Let me tell you what I think about feminism. Feminism does not fight only for women. It fights for your average man, too, because patriarchy and all the bullshit that comes with it negatively affects the lives of both men and women (especially women). Patriarchy simplifies men as being creatures incapable of true intellectual thought and compassion, it creates this image of males being testosterone fueled sex addicts who control everything in their world by force, including their women. Patriarchy takes this image and teaches young boys from their childhood on that this is what they are, no matter what, and that over there is what women are, no matter what. It assures us all that yes, it’s just that simple. We all know that isn’t true. That is not what all men are, or rather that is not what men have to be. Not only do men buy into this fantasy world, but many women do as well. It is not a simple matter of gender vs. gender.
Feminism does not hate your average man. It hates what men are forced to believe they are, how they are raised, what they are taught to be, and what they are told not to understand. It is a fight against how this creation hurts women. It is not man against woman. It is human beings fighting ignorance, it is human beings fighting cruelty, it is human beings fighting pure stupidity. It is human beings fighting for each other and for the assurance that we will all be treated like the equal human beings we ultimately know we are. That’s all.
“No” does not mean: “Convince me.”
Seattle Slutwalk 2012, Sunday Sept. 9th(Source: jakegirnusistotesawesome)
