To what extent, is female competition a significant factor in the problem.

[anonymousjoe]

I am a man, I have no clue how hard it is to be you. I do however believe in equal rights for women in every sense of the word. My sister is my closest family member, and all that I want is to be a good role model for my feisty little niece.

So thats basically my uneducated views on feminism. What brings me here is that I have been assigned a poster on social issues for my graphic design program. I am thinking about promoting either a 2 tiered health care system for Canada (which in real life I am actually a huge supporter of the ideal), or promoting Camaraderie amongst women which was inspired by this: www.upworthy.com/nailed-it-this-ad-calls-out-5-ridiculous-double-standards-women-face-in-less-than-60-seconds-2?c=ufb1

I noticed that the last two; Neat/Vain, and Smooth/show-off are not compliments or insults any man (ok, maybe a very select few) would EVER throw at either gender. Which tells me that this ad is clearly written by women, about how OTHER women judge them. I have asked the females in my class (Which is predominantly female) if they have ever experienced anything like that and they say that they have not. Granted, most are fresh out of high school, and therefore have very little experience in the actual work place. However I have encountered one particularly vocal feminists in other classes who claim this sort of thing happens every day, primarily because women are taught to compete with EACH OTHER.

So really my three part question is rather simple

1. Is it a reasonable preposition to promote strength of gender through camaraderie? or is that just me being ignorant?
   
2. In your opinion, is this supposed competition between females a "statistically significant" factor
   
3. They referenced a Heidi/Howard syndrome study, and I would be very interested to read the breakdown of how many men disliked Heidi vs how man women disliked Heidi as we need articles to support our view point.
   
   Also, I would be very interested to hear your opinions on gender inequality in general, and I am kind of glad to have found this site.

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

Flora, I love you!!!!

[DuskAndShiver]

I think the most important point about this project is the one that has been made by Hazchem.

That advert is actually a shampoo advert. The message is: "Women: continue to work very hard to be as beautiful as possible, some people will have you believe that it is not necessary or even detrimental to your other values and interests, but fuck 'em, being beautiful is still top of what defines you as a woman, your worth, your dignity, and we have stuff to sell you that will help you with that."

In other words, it is not a feminist message, it is an anti-feminist and capitalist message.

If you want to base a poster on feminism, then don't base it on a shampoo advert. This is the original problem with your thinking on the subject.

What would be the objective of the poster? (I mean a good one, not this crappy shampoo one, an actual feminist one) What would the message be?

Because if it is something like, "Women! Don't judge your sisters by patriarchal standards!" who the fuck are you to tell women what to do?

[DuskAndShiver]

Even more insidious really is that the advert plays on the criticisms like they matter. My boss is a man. He makes a lot of unpopular decisions because he is tasked with effecting some big corporate changes. If he asked me "how do you think that meeting went?" and I said "I don't think they find you as likeable when you were telling them about those new tough targets" he would be utterly mystified as to why I had even raised the subject of his likeability.

OP, as you are quite a simplistic thinker, I think if you want to support women you should just make a very simplistic poster that strikes against all this double and triple thinking and fostering of insecurity, and just make a big happy poster saying "WOMEN ARE GREAT"

(this is not a serious suggestion)

[Beachcomber]

That shampoo advert is shit. I mean in feminist terms. It is anti-feminist.

But then it is an advert, it's job is to sell women beauty products and the idea that if you are young and pretty and have swishy shiny hair life will be a walk in the park.

Which is obviously a load of bullshit and sexist to boot.

But what is really getting on my wick about it, is the phrase at the end 'Don't Let Labels Hold You Back'.

Not, 'let's challenge these labels' or 'let's stop labeling women unfairly' .

No, the message is; "you, there, individual woman, stop being so pathetic and letting instituionsalised sexism and misogyny affect you and your environment (over which you have no control), sort it out for goodness sake, and don't bloody come whining and complaining, look we have sold you this overpriced beauty product, what more do you want? Everyone knows that society prefers women to look pretty around the workplace so get some shiny hair will you."

In other words, sexism is rife, we have pointed it out to you, we are telling you it is your fault if you let it 'hold you back' and we are telling you to look pretty whilst you're at it.

FUCK OFF.

[DuskAndShiver]

Yes - but worse, it is "everyone knows that being pretty, and not being pretty, will both count as excuses to hate you. So stop trying to use "they won't respect me at work" as an excuse to get out of looking like a model all the time. they won't respect you anyway. BUY THIS, NOW"

[Beachcomber]

This is reminding me of that page 3 thread.

"Tits out for the lads to end violence against women!"

"Shampoo to shatter the glass ceiling!"

[DuskAndShiver]

I just imagined the OP looking back at this thread in 10 years and rolling around groaning in unbearable cringe. I am so glad nothing I said or did is around to haunt me.

Buffy - flippy shiny hair won't shatter the glass ceiling but it will look lovely in the reflection of yourself you see, forever underneath it. And that's the main thing.

[Beachcomber]

Arf at slippery glass ceiling.

Buffy, you have revealed the cunning plan - they are hoodwinking women into trying to shatter the glass ceiling with shampoo, only for it to become slippery and difficult to see through.

And I'm only half joking.

[ChunkyPickle]

joe - you ask why I didn't leave those kinds of men behind, when I did leave the women behind - firstly - the women were girls, they grew up, I grew up, and now I haven't had any problems with being bullied.

The men were and are men, not boys - they're my colleagues, strangers on the street, and shop assistants, I'm open to suggestions of how I can leave those behind, because for the life of me I can't think of any.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

[funnyvalentine]

This thread has reminded me of www.theonion.com/articles/man-finally-put-in-charge-of-struggling-feminist-m,2338/

Also, if you want to bandy around terms like 'statistically significant', a course in statistics might come in handy. Coursera have some, their standard is generally high.

Loving the image of the slippery glass ceiling ;)

[CaptChaos]

But surely a slippery glass ceiling would eventually become covered in lint, fluff, dog hair and crumbs? Then it wouldn't be glassy anymore and then how would men get their jollies, gazing down at women fighting to shatter it?

They'd have to let a woman through it... just so she could clean it, like all good women should. As long as she had nice shiny, flippy hair and a man telling her what she should feel about things of course.

[Dervel]

Ok joe this is painful, and to be honest it's not that a man can't make a poster promoting feminism, but doing one motivated by anger at a bunch of people on the internet? Not cool, and not going to end well.

I am not going to shower you with links on pro-feminist males or feminist allies. Just consider this: growing up with the benefit of male privilege myself, if I could distill the message I was bombarded with growing up as a little boy was to be myself, go out and make my mark on the world.

Watching my female contemporaries as I grew up they were bombarded with schizophrenic messages, about being all manner of things, but in my inconsequential opinion by simple virtue of being girls they weren't given that same sense of limitless potential in self and destiny.

If I was faced with the same I probably couldn't find my own arse with an atlas! If you want a neat little focus for a poster do one that encourages little ones to unwrap their own lives like presents.

Drop the whole women vs
women thing, because quite frankly it's toxic and blames women for
their own oppression. Doubtless some women are assholes same as men, and mysogny and patriarchal dominance has doubtless turned some women into the wardens of their own subjugation, but life is not two tone black and white. With sexist men and women who are shit to one another cast as the baddies. We are all in some was compromised by underlying subconscious thinking and attitudes imprinted on us by the society we live in. Feminism roots out the cause of why women get the shitty end of the stick but there is an entire cornucopia of asshattery the human race is capable of.

Also just my two cents here take your ego out of the equation when looking at these things, it's kind of made you act like a bit of a dick on here at points. I don't mean this out of a sense of self righteousness, I myself am capable of all manner of dickery, but I like to think I am capable of mitigating it try to make amends when it's pointed out. So just a friendly suggestion have a sit down and think and then maybe apologise.

[noddingoff]

"The future of feminism bodes ill". Shitting hell.
What is your poster going to say- "Women, stop being such nasty bitches to each other?" I can't think of any poster you could design that would come across in any other way. Either that, or condescending. "Go Team Women!"
If you take the solidarity/united we stand theme and just put women on your poster, it'll look as if you think feminism can succeed in a vacuum without any male input or change. If you put men and women together on your poster though, it might be difficult to do it in such a way that people get the point.
I really, really like the basic idea you have of camaraderie (great word) but I don't think that's something that you can "promote" on a poster. Maybe get into film making and make a version of "Stand By Me" with four girls in it? Where are the female buddy movies? (I don't count the Bridget Jones ones cos the bits where Bridget is having drunken chats with Jude and Shazza are definitely not Bechdel-esque).