this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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There is a fine line between valid criticism of gender roles & sexism.
An example of the former would be, "Men are dangerous for women". Of course not all men are dangerous, but it describes the experience of many women & how they have to navigate the world, to not be assaulted.
This one describes the dynamic of a relationship between individuals & assigns a thought pattern to one of those individuals, based on their gender.
Maybe I missed some nuances here & I would be glad to be enlightened, but this looks like plain sexism.
There's a long, documented, researched, history of men being raised to expect things from women. It's not just housework but all kinds of things are taken much more seriously when a woman does something "wrong" than when a man does. It takes a lot of serious introspection and effort to break out of that programming so it's not a surprise that the majority of men don't, or only do so partially. The default state is that this stuff is sort of "invisible" because it seems so normal to how things are. So no, this is a factual description of a "standard" behaviour for men that only some are able to avoid.
If you at all accept that there are harmful but culturally ingrained gender roles then this is a natural consequence of that for anyone who hasn't deeply and actively questioned them. Then as those roles are indeed slowly being broken down it stands to reason that each successive generation is less willing to put up with them - but if you still see them as normal it will come as a surprise.
There's a long, documented, researched, history of women being raised to expect things from men too. But if you seriously think this is the average expectation of men towards women, then you should go outside and touch some grass. Just because toxic gender stereotypes exist, does not mean you have to acknowledge every bullshit sexist stereotype as the truth.
Women know that it isn’t every man, you’re not being helpful here. Women tell us all the time that they don’t feel safe and can back it up with so many examples of people that come off as good right until they’re putting her body in separate garbage bags. For a less intense version of that they come around to trust people and even accidentally the man ends up defensive and trying to make excuses for poor behaviour(s).
They deal with this shit all the fucking time and you complaining like you’re the victim in a post about their struggles is exactly what they’re fucking talking about.
Yes, women deal with literal serial killers all the time. Touch grass and come back to reality. 🙄
I literally said it was an intense example. If that’s what you took from my comment then good fucking lord…
You’re being a shitty person right now, I hope one day you can gather the strength to acknowledge it and do better.
No, and I throw that right back at you. Because you're just supporting terrible stereotypes that further aid in the great divide and ultimately just feed the incel community. It's like me saying all women are cheaters because that's basically my experience, but at least I can acknowledge that I'm just an easy target for female predators instead of shoving it onto the gender as a whole. When you say "all men blah blah blah" then it does not matter if you truly mean it or not, you're still ending up attacking and insulting everyone who is not part of that shit. And what's the next reaction to it? "Oh don't be so sensitive / fragile!" - which basically comes back to just being a toxic masculinity comment about men having to be strong and take it without complaining.
Thanks for proving my point.
Yikes.
The problem is that all too often those harmful gender roles are only called out as being harmful to women, not to men, but they are. The solution to the gender roles issue is not digging trenches between genders.
I find the implication that there is not also a long, documented, researched, history of women being raised to expect things from men, quite amusing in its ignorance.
That is in absolutely no way implied by that statement; the existance of a truth does not imply the existance of it's inverse.
yes but focusing on one side of the discussion ignoring its counterpart is a clear sign of bias, so despite being technically correct it's unhelpful
What?? Keeping a discussion to one aspect of a topic is absolutely not an example of bias, it's an example of contextual scope. It's the only reason we can have a discussion about anything without having to include the full context it's situated within (which would be the entire universe).
Except...entrenched gender roles are normal. This is expected human behaviour for 90% of the world. Equality, be it gender, age, ethnic or religious, is...just not how things work. It may be distasteful for you personally, but the rest of humanity doesn't give a toss - Western civilisation is a thin smear of civility which only popped up in the past couple of hundred years, and what's worked quite well for millennia is what's still working pretty effectively for several billion people.
There is no absolute right and absolute wrong to gender equality, and that there is a regression or progression over time, merely opinions shaped by culture, background and opportunities. The events of the past 10 years have convinced me that the "good" parts of liberalism are unsustainable because people at their core are just...selfish. The only way to convince them to change something is if it is in their self interest. Regrettably, equality rarely aligns with self interest because it requires relinquishing something. Equality and equity of opportunity only exist when the opportunity exist. Otherwise it's back to the dumb old shit we used to do.
Edited to add:
I didn't phrase it well above,
The ground state for humanity is inequality. Whether we wish it or not.
The pursuit of equality and equity means these things need to be prioritised above other things.
It is hard to convince people to prioritise something they are not invested in, especially if they don't benefit from it or value it.
"Normal" is a fluid term. It changes based on what the majority thinks. At some point slavery was normal and a part of life. But we as a society decided that we should move away from oppressive systems that marginalize and discriminate.
So, while it's true that in many cultures "entrenched gender roles" are considered normal, that doesn't mean certain people aren't suffering from it. In fact, it doesn't require much debate to acknowledge that in a system where there’s a power imbalance (in other words, inequality), there will inevitably be an oppressed group, and therefore, suffering.
As long as you consider "reducing the amount of suffering" an "absolute good/right", then abolishing entrenched gender roles is an absolute good. Promoting gender equality doesn't mean that women are prohibited from going to the kitchen and men must be stay-at-home dads. It simply ensures that these roles are a matter of personal choice rather than societal imposition.
Moreover, gender equality is not solely a liberal value; it has been promoted in various ideologies, including socialist and communist systems. While the practical implementation has varied, these systems have often supported the idea of gender equality alongside broader social reforms.
Except there absolutely is an absolute right and absolute wrong to gender equality (and more importantly, equity) - the genders are either equal or they're not. You've either achieved equality, or you haven't. You either want equality, or you don't.
And you clearly don't.
Lie to yourself and make up as much pseudo scientific nonsense as you like, but it won't change that you're just another wilfully ignorant self serving misogynist who is wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There is not. Equality is arbitrary. Equity is arbitrary. They are ideals / values that we each hold individually, and rank individually. Clearly, equality is an important value for you. Good. But your value of equality is shaped by you, not anyone else.
If you take your value set and say this should be the value set which everyone else has - you won't change them. That's my point. Equality is a value. It is ranked amongst other values. Do you value equality more than security? Financial independence? Safety? Control? Family? Social status? Faith? Children? Education? Career? Mastery of skill? Respect? Knowledge? Influence? Conservatism? Freedom? The environment?
For a given person you engage with, whether it be online, in person, in a relationship, over the phone, randomly in a street - their value set is intrinsic to them. Equality might not rank in their top five, or ten values. When you speak up on equality and say "you should", people who don't share your value set hear something different. What they hear is "You are wrong". Speaking of which:
sigh
That's a shame. I'm sorry that you feel that way. Have to say it's the first time I've been called a misogynist. I think if you met me you wouldn't think that at all.
Your opinion of me doesn't really matter - it doesn't change anything. What did change things for me was reading The Mental Load by Emma. It crystallised what I already knew, and helped me to better understand the difference between contribution, effort and load.
Do you want to know why?
Long documents and researched history.
They say with no support.
This is a chat thread on a meme post, not an academic paper. "Gender roles exist" does not need a citation.
Women expect things from men: "women power!"
Men expect things from women: MISOGYNY !
Expectations of women of men: basic human decency, don't rape
Expectations of men of women: be completely subservient in every way
atro_city: "these are the same picture"
There is no way you're actually dumb enough to think those are representative of what the expectation norms are for either sex.
So stop being disingenuous.
Hmmm.
I'd phrase it differently. Unrealistic expectations of the opposite sex [^1] exist by both sexes, but that there outcomes for women when the stereotypes of men hold true are often more dangerous. One is saying it isn't sexist; the other is saying that there's a vast difference in risk. This becomes one of those tautological arguments where women can't be sexist because sexism is redefined to mean "it can only be sexist if it's men doing it."
The "Would you rather a bear or..." question could be reused in a very uncomfortable way. You could swap men with a group of yoing, black, inner city men and rural white men for women. But instead of demonstrating that men are the issue and women the victims, suddenly it'd be black men who are the victims and rural white men the problem. And, yet, the fear and the risk of confirmation of stereotypes is the same - only in this case, believing those stereotypes makes people racist.
These sorts of tautologies - only whites can be racist, only men can be sexist - is sloppy, lazy, and dangerous, because it prevents introspection and always externalizes blame. I'm not saying that you are arguing a tautology, but that's the essence of this thread: minimizing sexism against men in the basis that it can't be sexism if rape isn't involved. Which is exactly how this thread went, isn't it?
I want to reiterate that I agree that there's a false equivalency; consequences for women can be higher. My argument is that it doesn't make it not sexism to broadly brush all men with a demeaning funny little tweet.
Also: there should be a Godwin's Law for rape. The conversation was about household stereotypes. That was a bit of a leap.
I'll leave this here.
https://www.who.int/news/item/09-03-2021-devastatingly-pervasive-1-in-3-women-globally-experience-violence
In the US it's 1 in 6 women (and 1 und 33 men).
https://rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence
And last but bit least:
https://www.humboldt.edu/supporting-survivors/educational-resources/statistics
So no, jumping to rape is not a leap. The fear of sexual violence is part of beeing a women. I don't know a single women that wasn't in a situation that did or did almost resulted in sexual violence.
It's not part of beeing a men. I have never in my life feared about sexual violence and I share that with the vast majority of men.
I'm surprised it's dropped. The statistic used to be 1 in 4.
Yeah, it is. The conversation was about gender roles, until you brought in rape.
Was it tough?
Then rape isn't part of the risk you were talking about here?
Fear of rape, among others. Which I wanted to show is backed by the data.
lesser pain vs worse pain doesn't mean that lesser pain is inexistent
Yes, those are the only expectations all men and women have /s
It's not at all an uncommon story. Go to any women's support group or site, and it'll be a very consistent trend. A lot of people still have the old gender roles stuck in their heads, but they fail to acknowledge that some things have changed.
The big one is that women can now be financially independent. We're only 2 generations away from women being able to open a bank in their name in the US. Before that, women didn't have the financial freedom to live alone or divorce abusive/neglectful spouses.
The other one kind of ties into the first one, freedom of choice. It's not as big an expectation for women to marry, and people are finding that a lot of women would prefer to be alone and single than married. Where do you think all these memes of childless cat ladies come from? It didn't start with JD Vance. He just amplified it.
https://www.zawn.net/blog/hello-youve-reached-the-not-all-men-hotline
It isn't about what an individual's in or out groups are, it's about what they are in society at large, and the power imbalance between them.
The point being made is that you won't solve the issue if you divide society between men and women, instead of normal people and sexist bigots. The point is not to replace existing harmful sexist stereotypes with your own sexist stereotypes, but to come together and listen to each other.
"So stop getting so pissy about me assuming you're a gangbanger, Jamal."