is there a new cognitive dissonance thread?

[kickassangel]

if so, please link, i can't find it.

if not, i'd like to add some things

using personal experience to prove a point is not a great argument. we have to start with the bigger picture, then see personal experiences as a case study which exemplifies, but does not prove a point.

i'm not even sure that i view myself as a feminist. i view myself as someone who believes in equality (not just on male/female issues). the generalisations about feminism being a religion i find offensive, as they both ignore the patriarchal society we live in (and this assertion can be backed up by endless statistics & experiences), and assume that one particular viewpoint is religious.

is marxism a religion? what about other schools of thought?

feminism is a broad range of thought, and there will be changes and shifts within the arguments, just as there are in other sociological concepts. and there will be women who abuse, just as there are men who do so.

however, look at the structure of society, and it is impossible to say that it isn't patriarchal. just look at the possession of wealth, the media representation of people, the male/female ration in positions of power.

if it was as simple as some women 'not bothering' to push themselves forward, there would still be enough women to fill 50% of all key positions in society, and to hold 50% of the wealth, but that isn't what happens. so, it sin't due to a lack of women exerting themselves, it is due to the inherent sexism within society.

Also the you hate men insult is so scraping the barrel.

In a feminist debate, it has become a bit like patriotism -the last refuge of the scoundrel.

hm, i also think there's a real difference between a joke about rape, and flaunting sexuality.

a joke about rape is as acceptable as a joke about hanging 'n***s' would be in the southern US in the 1970s - not a joke at all, more about someone trying to promote racism/sexism. it invokes the debate of whether it is acceptable for a dominant sector of society to use violence to promote their own dominance.

sending out overtly sexual messages is a completely different issue & revolves around the debate on how much sexuality is too much.

now, i'm sure you didn't mean it to come across like this, but the 'i took it off her' comments, re niece's t-shirt, smack of a man telling a woman how much she's allowed to show of herself. your niece should not have to be the 'gatekeeper' of men's desires.

some people believe that the way to equality is if we all have sexual freedom, others believe that it's through showing respect & keeping a certain amount of 'distance' between sex & other aspects of life. that is a separate debate. however, it is NOT imo, up to others to judge & condemn someone who is comfortable with their sexuality and shows it in a relatively moderate way.

as i said earlier, we should be able to show our bodies & sexual feelings, without it leading to rape. just as we should be able to show our possessions without fear of robbery. it obviously isn't safe to do so indiscriminately, but anyone who suffers from having done so is a victim, not a perpetrator, and should be given the due sympathy.

Larry, how is the niece's t-shirt simultaneously something that put her in danger and something offensive?

What did the niece need protecting from?

Offensive to whom and in what way?

Why (or did you) assume that only men would be reading the t-shirt and inclined to take her up on the suggestion there?

The boy's t-shirt contained a misogynist manifesto for male and female readers alike, both in what it said and in the fact that it was considered funny to make light of rape. A piece of performance art if you will.

You never answered my earlier question about objectification. Objectification is not subject to the passive voice; it requires the participation of an observer as the catalyst. Objectifying someone or a group of people requires the active role of the beholders. 'A niece wearing a t-shirt in a forest...', etc., etc.,

(I have already been called a man-hater on another thread today, and last night too, by men with whom I didn't see eye to eye, so no need to belabour that particular point.)

.. the catalyst in the reaction.

I found that post about taking the god-daughter's (or was it niece, sorry) t-shirt off her hugely creepy.

Me too.

yes, i wondered how her parents felt about it, but it may be normal in their family - i have twin aunts & sometimes almost forget which kid goes with which parent, they swap back & forth so much.

i also assumed the niece/god-daughter wasn't actually wearing the t-shirt at the time he removed it

in the US 'bite me' is short for something along the lines of 'I'm not scared of you - what you gonna do, bite me?' in other words 'na na na na na'.

don't know how the yoof in britain see it these days, but i would have thought they see it like that. so, nothing to do with sex, more like sticking up two fingers, or a pic of a tongue being stuck out at you.

Noooo..
He took a 17 year old's T-shirt off her??? Missed that part...
Ewwww

Yes I'd forgotten that bite me means "piss off" in yoof slang. So perhaps for them it doesn't have any sexual connotations at all.

Have been thinking more about this removing a 17 year old's t-shirt thing and realising why it disturbs me.

I remember my parents dictating what clothes I should wear right up until I was 18 and even after that there were always bitchy comments about the clothes they didn't like. It was incredibly frustrating, intrusive and disempowering. I used to have to sneak a dress out of the house a couple of days before whatever social event it was and give it to a friend so it was already at her house and then take the clothes my parents approved of on the day of the event so that they thought I was wearing something they approved of. I just hid everything from them and never told them anything.

AND .... I always let my DC's choose their own clohtes (except for formal occasions and even then it's the power of veto - which I've never had to use - rather than telling them exactly what to wear) as I see it as quite important to let DC's decide what to wear, eat, do with their time etc., as and when that becomes age-appropriate and they'll make the "right" choices. It's part of them learning that they are competent to decide what they wear, where they go and what they do and that they don't have to accept being dictated to by someone bigger and stronger than them. It's very important for women to feel empowered and not accept that they have to stay for one more drink/ accept a date/ have sex/ wear a burqua just because some man tells them they have to. It's only one thing, but allowing them to choose their own clothes, is part and parcel of raising in them the expectation that they deserve to have their choices respected.

Of course, you can discuss why things are shit, there's nothing wrong with that - but to teach a young person that she doesn't have the right to make her own clothes choices? Hmmm. Dodgy IMO.

There was an old dragon of a teacher in the DCs school who had what I thought was a neurotic preoccupation with appropriate garb for the girls. No spaghetti strap tank tops for uniform-free days, no skirts or shorts that were above knee length. (This was in the US where weather was warmer in early Autumn and from the start of May) -- and this was for all the girls, even the 6 year olds. She was a grim old bat and the parents were up in arms about her (she was eventually 'told not to return' for the next academic year..).

HB I'm with you on the question of allowing choices and discussion. Either a girl's body is her own or it isn't, and you teach one or the other in everything you say or do. There is no middle ground imo.

Yes, it's not necessarily that one thing is it - it's in an overall framework of teaching your DC's that their bodies are their own, no-one else's and that they're the only ones who hve the right to make choices about what they do with it (subject to those choices not encroaching on the rights of other people).

Kickass,

Her parents were in Singapore. I was helping her pack. Her parents were pleased that I took the decision I did, as was she, ultimately. Again, in a post on here, I used the phrase "took it off", it is just too longwinded to say we had a long discussion and ultimately agreed it was not suitable. If I had to post every disclaimer necessary on here, I would be writing a book, not a post.

I knew people here would see it as a man telling a woman what to do but, guess what, if my son (or any CHILD I had rsponsibility for) wore something offensive, I would take it off her. It is an older person influencing a younger one.

I thought feminists would understand about "objectification". To me, that T shirt portrays a bright person about to go to university as an object and it encourages males to think of her as such.

What a weird idea about children's bodies being their own? So, a 7 year old WOULD have a right to refuse a medical exam or a vaccination. Or your 13 year old daughter would have a RIGHT to sleep with a 40 year man should she desire to (even if illegal for him). Children's rights come in at different ages and like all rights, come with responsibilities. And again, would you allow your male teenage son to wear a "rape apologist" T shirt because "his body is his own"?

That is the problem with seeing any issue through only one polarised lens, you cannot see any flaws in the argument and have to employ cognitive dissonance when someone brings up something which means you have to (even slightly) rethink your worldview.

Larry, I think you did the right thing about this T-shirt actually. Discussing it with your niece and agreeing that it was not maybe such a great idea for a T-shirt after all.

I'm not familiar with the 'piss off' use of the phrase 'bite me' so don't have anything to say on that. I do think a slogan like that could (and would) be taken as sexually provocative by a lot of people. I imagine a young woman wearing a T-shirt like that might get some unwanted attention - I think that is wrong, and women should be able to wear what they want, but I wouldn't want a young niece of mine to test the theory of whether men would feel entitled to harass her or not (they would).

However, my reasoning behind objecting to both slogan t-shirts remains the same; I object to the rape joke one because it is very very offensive and misogynistic. A man wearing a shirt like this would only have to stand on a busy street for about 10 seconds before being seen by a woman who has been raped. Joking about rape is hugely offensive for individuals and a shame on society as a whole.

I object to objectifying slogans on T-shirts for women because I object to the pornification of culture - it does nobody any favours. I don't see how a T-shirt like this could be considered offensive however.

If a child of mine were to want to wear a T-shirt like this I would have a chat about objectification and what it means for women in terms of status and equality. I would not say something along the lines of 'you're just looking for trouble with a shirt like that' (not saying you did BTW Larry).

Kickass,

"i also assumed the niece/god-daughter wasn't actually wearing the t-shirt at the time he removed it"

You should really be ashamed of even making the suggestion, even in a faux negative way.

Why is it OK to get pretty close to calling someone you do not know a paedophile and an abuser of his Goddaughter? Please, someone explain that to me?

Beachcomber,

Agreed with your post except for the bit defending the actual t shirt. So many have addressed the "I'm bite me" bit but conveniently forgotten the "I'm juicy," which preceded it.

"I object to the rape joke one because it is very very offensive and misogynistic"

Agreed, although you have to take a particular interpretation of it to consider it so. You might decide to consider it ironic about the fact that he is so bad in bed, he hardly gets his GF to respond. However, I actually do think that even if it COULD be seen as rape justification, it is tasteless and should not be worn (regardless of his right to wear it in a free society.

The T shirt I was talking about is also, actually, misogynistic, assuming that the most important thing about a bright girl about to study PPE at Uni is her "juiciness".

Larry the 'awake' rape 'joke' is long running and well known. I think it is most odd that you are trying to make out otherwise and coming up with the most unlikely of interpretations.

You seem to want to downplay the rape joke whilst up-playing the issue of an objectifying statement.

I agree that lots of men would get plenty of harassment mileage out of 'I'm juicy'. I do think objectifying slogans like this are misogynistic. Jokes about rape however are misogynistic, objectifying, violent, sick, disgusting, offensive, dangerous, shameful, patriarchal and bursting at the seams with a male sense of entitlement.

A woman participating in patriarchal society's determined campaign to objectify her, is insidious and pervasive and annoying (to me).

Beachcomber,

Nope. I am unaware of the "awake" rape joke.
I am not downplaying one and upplaying the other. I never mentioned another interpretation of the "rape joke" t shirt until everyone decided to defend the wearing of the "I'm juicy" t shirt by trying to deconstruct it and come up with alternative interpretations. I agreed it was offensive and was not a good thing for someone to wear.

I just find the fact that people cannot see how either sex can wear inappropriate clothing to be a little strange.

I'm amazed you haven't heard the 'awake' rape witticism - I have heard it on a regular basis all my life.

I think jokes about rape worn by a man in a male dominated society, in which rape of the non-dominant group in that society, is common and easily tolerated, are worse than stupid objectifying T-shirts worn by young women who are victims of objectification by that male dominated society. But then I'm kind of radical that way.

That does not mean I hate men. It means I hate rape and rape culture and I hate male entitlement to joke about rape and not take it seriously.

Not surprisingly I do not hate the fact that women often collude in their own oppression - I despair of it.

A man joking about rape is an offensive misogynistic fuckwit.

A young woman colluding in her own objectification is probably naive (or a 'fun feminist').

Beachcomber,

No, it does not mean you hate men. I agree. You have a radical view, with which I disagree, but you are at least normally courteous and allow people to have a different viewpoint without shouting misogyny/paedophilia etc. And, maybe you are right that one is "worse" that the other. Murder is worse than assault, but I would not defend a mugger on that basis, as some have defended the t shirt in question.

On the other hand, misandry is possible (even if the date of its coinage was later than misogyny), and some people on this board, to me, seem to demonstrate it. There seems to be an assumption here that it is IMPOSSIBLE to be a man hating feminist. It is a posibble position to take, even if not yours.

And the defence of having a male partner or male friends is the exact syntactic equivalent of "the jews as a culture/race are responsible for a lot of the problems of the world but don't think I am antisemitic as I have a Jewish husband and friends".

Because I suggested that a t shirt was inappropriate and, subconsciously, also contributed to the rape culture, I have been called a rape apologist, a creep and it has been inferred that I have inappropriate feelings towards the Goddaughter I have known since her birth.

Do you really feel that is a reasonable way to have a discussion

Actually Larry no I don't. I have disagreed with plenty of what you have said on this thread and brought rape apology up myself earlier.

I disagree with much of what you have posted about this T-shirt business but I didn't like the insinuations made about you.

I know rape apology is a strong uncompromising term but it does not mean that the person is 'pro-rape' in any way. It means the person is perpetuating rape myths. Every time a person warns women about the danger of wearing short skirts they are engaging in rape apology for example.

"The simple answer is that a rape apology is any argument that boils down to the myth that rapists can be provoked into raping by what the victim does or does not do.

Such apologies feed off the old myth that rapists have no control over the sexual temptation they experience in response to the victim, therefore the victim could have avoided awakening the irresistible rape temptation by behaving differently. It?s classic victim-blaming.

Most people who make such arguments are not consciously intending to defend rapists. They are simply repeating arguments they have heard before and haven?t fully examined."

finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/feed-the-faq-rape-apologist-definitions-clarifications-and-links/

I do actually think it was harsh of me to call you a rape apologist without explaining the term to you. I was just pretty gobsmacked by what you had posted (although would very much prefer that we didn't go over it again) and wasn't feeling like explaining a feminist term in a feminist discussion on a feminist board.