You are currently browsing the daily archive for December 8, 2013.
The experience of society and day to day living is different for women and men. This should be a simple concept to grasp as it lies at the base of every discussion when it comes to gender roles and society. Gender socialization runs deep and wide encoding behaviours and expectations onto people who live in our society. The enforcement of gendered roles and stereotypes begins at birth and ceases only at death.
A problem (among many) with this socialization is that it is inherently biased toward people that happen to have an XY set of sex chromosomes. Concomitantly, possessing the XX chromosomes presents an entirely different landscape to grow up. Let’s take a peek at some of the experiences of women(quotes from Everyday Sexism tumblr) –
2013-07-13 01:30 : “I was sitting down with my friends eating lunch when a boy walked up to me with his friends and said to me “pop a tit you slut!”. I was wearing school uniform which was track pants and a jumper. His friends laughed. When I looked at the boy angrily his friend scoffed and said “Jesus, you’re moody!” I ignored them and they walked away. Once they were gone I said to my friends that I felt so intimidated and uncomfortable. One of my friends looked at me and said “well he told you to pop a tit, so he must think you’re hot!”
Anon – “On a college spring break trip, one of the guys thought it was appropriate to pat my rear. He was already walking away before I could do more than give him a sharp look. The next day, he sidled up to me and slung his arm around my shoulders. It seems like such a little thing, but I barely knew this guy. We’d spoken only a few times in the past, and I froze. My utter lack of response-ironically enough-seems to be the hint he needed to back off. He didn’t bother me for the rest of the trip, but I still wonder why he thought any uninvited contact was okay?”
2013-07-11 16:46 : “At a choir, a boy called me a slut and lifted up my skirt for all to see. It was mortifying. I’m 17.”
2013-07-11 17:26 : “A man was touching the fronts of my two older (early pubescent) sisters’ t-shirts- he was pretending he was only interested in what was written on the shirts, not what was under them- but he was touching their breasts in reality, and doing this right in front of my mom! I was a lot younger and did not have a T shirt on, and I was clueless and felt a little jealous that the man was not paying any attention to me!! But because of the look on my mom’s face, I knew something was not right as I did not understand that he was fondling their breasts. Mom knew, yet she did NOTHING to protect her daughters! In retrospect I realize that she felt as helpless as my two sisters did.
We three sisters, decades later, learned that mom and her cousins had been fondled by her step-father and not one had spoken up then. Silence is like death.”
2013-07-11 09:19 – “When I want to go out in the evening, I’ve grown accustomed to asking my husband to ‘babysit.’ His own children. Who he lives with. When he goes out, it’s assumed I’ll be here.”
2013-07-11 02:44 – “One of my male coworkers stopped by my desk on more than one occasion to tell me how his wife is no fun to have sex with after she had children (in graphic detail), asked me to do a sexy librarian dance, and critiqued my outfits every day, without fail…when I went to my boss (also male, mid-60s), he told me the co-worker I complained about was “really a good guy” and “didn’t mean it”…”
Huh. Seems a little different that what it is like to be male in society, no? Going further, let’s understand that all of this cognitive baggage is going to effect a person’s performance negatively, and yes dudes, just because it doesn’t happen to you doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening.
2013-07-11 01:07 – “A man approached me at the library to day. He made a joke about a girl (me), wearing a “Twins of Evil” (Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie) T-shirt. I didn’t understand, until he made a grabbing motion with his hands towards my breasts.
He only stopped commenting when I informed him that I have a boyfriend.”2013-07-10 23:14 – “When i was 14 I was in drama class and some boys from my Drama class grabbed me and pulled me behind the curtains and started feeling me up and slapping my bum. I didnt want to make them mad and think that i wasn’t cool so i just casually pushed them away and tried to laugh it off but they took it like i was playing hard to get and started getting more aggressive and when tried to push them off of me i let out a groan and they said “oh my god she likes it, she likes it ” and then one of them turned me around and pulled me into him while the others watched . The final bell rang after they let me go. Im not sure what else would have happened if it hadn’t.”
2013-07-10 22:36 – “I have to put up with my uncles — not uncles by marriage, they are my own blood — calling me sexy, constantly trying to hug me, “tickling” me, and even grabbing my ass. I feel like I can’t fight back or speak up about it because every time I do, the rest of my entire family silences me by saying “Oh, they’re just being nice!” If they were simply trying to compliment me, I think a quick “you look nice today” would suffice. This has been going on since I was 16. I am 23 now. My family wonders why I avoid the annual reunion.”
2013-07-10 17:23 – Teenage boy – maybe 16/17? – “calling me a tosser and a slut as I walked down my local high street. I was nine.”
2013-07-10 17:12 – “The weather has finally gotten nice, and my brother and I walked to a local ice cream shop. We’d had a fun night, when a car passing at around 30 mph felt it was necessary to yell “Tits!” at me out the window. By the time I realized what had happened, they were long gone. And, in under 10 seconds, my really great night was ruined.
I’ve noticed I usually have less problems with street harassment when I’m walking with guys. While this offers a measure of “protection,” it also makes it really tough to explain to the guys in my life why this is such a big issue, and why it can ruin a night. (At the same time, this “protection” also makes me feel like I can’t walk alone, either. Damned if you do…) It was really interesting to watch my brother slowly understand and process what had just happened. And then recognize how much one person shouting messed with me.”
How can you avoid this shit as it is waiting for you outside your door *every frakking time* you step out of your house? One can’t, of course. You steel yourself the best you can and get on with your day.
I spent 1200 words trying to get across the point of the gender differences and inherent sexism in our society, yet watch as Tatsuya Ishida does the same thing with a four panel comic.
Talk about knocking it out of the park. Robert Green Ingersoll informs us on the true nature of the Bible. Go read the full text and donate to site for hosting such a good text. :)
Ministers wonder how I can be wicked enough to attack the Bible.
I will tell them: This book, the Bible, has persecuted, even unto death, the wisest and the best. This book stayed and stopped the onward movement of the human race. This book poisoned the fountains of learning and misdirected the energies of man.
This book is the enemy of freedom, the support of slavery. This book sowed the seeds of hatred in families and nations, fed the flames of war, and impoverished the world. This book is the breastwork of kings and tyrants — the enslaver of women and children. This book has corrupted parliaments and courts. This book has made colleges and universities the teachers of error and the haters of science. This book has filled Christendom with hateful, cruel, ignorant and warring sects. This book taught men to kill their fellows for religion’s sake.
This book funded the Inquisition, invented the instruments of torture, built the dungeons in which the good and loving languished, forged the chains that rusted in their flesh, erected the scaffolds whereon they died. This book piled fagots about the feet of the just. This book drove reason from the minds of millions and filled the asylums with the insane.
This book has caused fathers and mothers to shed the blood of their babes. This book was the auction block on which the slave- mother stood when she was sold from her child. This book filled the sails of the slave-trader and made merchandise of human flesh. This book lighted the fires that burned “witches” and “wizards.” This book filled the darkness with ghouls and ghosts, and the bodies of men and women with devils. This book polluted the souls of men with the infamous dogma of eternal pain. This book made credulity the greatest of virtues, and investigation the greatest of crimes. This book filled nations with hermits, monks and nuns — with the pious and the useless. This book placed the ignorant and unclean saint above the philosopher and philanthropist. This book taught man to despise the joys of this life, that he might be happy in another — to waste this world for the sake of the next.
I attack this book because it is the enemy of human liberty — the greatest obstruction across the highway of human progress.
Let me ask the ministers one question: How can you be wicked enough to defend this book?
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 