Does True Feminism Exist Anymore?

[Llamalandia]

Sounds like the Radfems have driven many people mad. I am pleased to see I am not alone.

you never where. what Radfems and other sjws don't seem to comprehend is that their actions hurt the whole movement. who wants to be in a movement represented by bigots? or learn to understand x movement when they'll just be yelled at for their ignorance?

Well that page is awesome, though 32,000 notes only mean that people have either liked adn or reblogged that post, for all we know many of those reblogs could be from pissed off radfems going see here this just confirms my point that anyone opposing us is a hater (or whatever their warped logic considers them I don't know like misogynist collaborators or something).

but couldn't we use the same logic and say that many of the reblogs from Radfem posts are people calling the Radfems out? ;3

True, I was just pointing out that notes on tumblr don't mean a whole lot. I mean it's fairly easy to just like or reblog something you come across. Heck people commonly reblog stuff just because someone they follow happened to reblog it, it's like twitter in that respect.

[Anubas]

you never where. what Radfems and other sjws don't seem to comprehend is that their actions hurt the whole movement. who wants to be in a movement represented by bigots? or learn to understand x movement when they'll just be yelled at for their ignorance?


but couldn't we use the same logic and say that many of the reblogs from Radfem posts are people calling the Radfems out? ;3

True, I was just pointing out that notes on tumblr don't mean a whole lot. I mean it's fairly easy to just like or reblog something you come across. Heck people commonly reblog stuff just because someone they follow happened to reblog it, it's like twitter in that respect.

under most circumstances I wouldn't take anything from tumblr, no matter the notes, with more than a grain of salt. since The Serbian Empire is bringing up tumblr I'm just playing by the same logic they are.

[Forsher]

I wish for a day when quotas are no longer needed, but I am not entirely certain that they aren't needed anymore.

They're just plain bad.

I don't think so. The biggest issue with quotas is that they just cover up the issue. They're the equivalent of shoving everything under the rug. The symptom (an untidy room) is solved but the problem persists (it's still untidy, you just can't see it).

And there are other less significant issues with them.

There still exists some educational bias, where schools that tend to cater to minorities tend to receive less funding, and so minorities tend to get less good of an education, and so are not able to score as high on standardized tests as others, regardless of whether they're smart enough or not. Quotas allow schools to let students who may be able to excel once given access to a better education in, even though they may not have as impressive test scores as another student.

Problem: funding is screwed up (the US, more generally, has massive problems with this, our system in NZ is better but flawed).
Solution: quotas.
Result: we still massively fail our responsibility to thousands of students but opponents can point at the quotas to support no meaningful reform actually happening.
Verdict: quotas are either negligent in the extreme or a deliberate attempt to avoid reform. They worsen the problem.

You could have a system of zones whereby parents are forced to send their children to local schools. This has its uses but is, in all honesty, probably a worse solution than quotas for this problem. Certainly, after a few years it creates massive premiums for houses zoned for well respected schools. There does tend to be some room for out of zone students (it's a bit like a quota when all things are said and done) but, from what you're saying, the problem is that informal school zones exist along ethnic lines.

Therefore, the solution is to fund schools that do worse more, to fund schools that have more students from lower socio-economic backgrounds more than ones with smaller proportions and to work on getting good teachers to go to these schools. Fix their image and their cashflow and the results will follow.

Additionally, some households still teach that young girls shouldn't be at all interested in learning, and should be content with doing housework for the men of the house. Young girls under this parenting style would probably not receive the time they would need to complete their homework as well as they could. Quotas, again, give those who weren't able to make the most of their pre college/university years, but who have the basic mental abilities to compete with those who were able to make the most of those years, a chance to have the same post high school education as others of their basic intelligence level.

Problem: families prevent female children from extracting the most from their school years.
Solution: have a quota system whereby such female children can get into uni, presumably with lower entry requirements.
Result: families continue to prevent their female children from pursuing this option.
Verdict: probably won't do anything, doesn't solve the issue (and how do we identify these families anyway?) and is likely just draws resources away from the bigger socio-economic divides seen in education given that (in the developed world) girls have a much better chance of doing well in school than boys anyway.

I'm not sure how to fix this issue beyond giving media with messages like that found in Matilda more airing in the public as I've got no idea how to separate the problem families from the more general population. If we assume that religion is a likely cause of these opinions creating a more secular society is obviously something that would help. Basically, it'd be something to include in general school curricula "the role of women in society through the ages". It's a worthwhile lesson and by characterising the "women do housework" as a thing of the past it's typically easier to convince people that it's a bad idea.

If everyone could be guaranteed to get the same education, the same lifestyle at home, quotas wouldn't be needed. But unfortunately, that's not the case.

Yeah, no. You've got the right reasons but a completely harmful and poorly thought through conclusion .

Some of the characterisations of programmes I have watched/do watch/have seen significant chunks of struck me as being off base. NCIS being the one that annoyed me enough to bother responding.

Nearly every main character on NCIS is smarter than nearly every main character on The Simpsons. However, Lisa is portrayed as smarter than Bart, Marge is portrayed as smarter than Homer, and Abby is portrayed as smarter than the men she works with.

No she isn't. Abby is portrayed as being their expert in forensics. In her specialisation she is better than the men she works with and they tend to be better in their specialisations (field work, shooting people etc.) than her. Whether or not McGee or Abby is actually better with computers is another question altogether and, in many respects, I think you'll find that when it comes to dealing with the machines Abby is better. At any rate, they rarely don't work together in this respect.

[

quote]Not accurate. Ted is a successful architect, and Barney is very intelligent.

"Successful architect"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_King_Clancy : Fired.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosbius_Designs : Tries to make it on his own
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Fast_as_She_Can : Tony offers the teaching position out of pity. Really doesn't want it, still trying to make it as an architect, thinks that's a last resort (not terribly realistic, but there you have it).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leap_( ... our_Mother) : Gives up on trying to be an architect, takes the teaching position.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition ... our_Mother) : Demonstrates that he is completely unqualified to be hired for the position, which he only got because some really rich connected guy decided to do him a favour.
[/quote]

If there is any concerning social theme here it's best expressed through quoting School of Rock, "Those who can't do, teach and those who can't teach, teach gym".

His lack of qualifications extend to walking into the wrong class. Should've gone to SpecSavers. You could argue that he should've picked up on the cues from the students but he was new to what was going on. Does the programme return to his teaching skills later on because they'd be a better point of reference.

I take it that you haven't actually seen the show. Gibbs, DiNozzo and McGee are by no stretch of the imagination stupid and incompetent.

Incompetent, no. Non-intellectual and substantially less intelligent, yes.

And whoever that guy is that works in the lab with Abby sometimes, he regularly does really dumb things that Abby corrects.

McGee very much doesn't suit your characterisation and, in some ways, neither does DiNozzo. Despite being annoying, DiNozzo has cultivated a very extensive body of knowledge about films etc. This is presented neither as being nerdy nor feminine. Gibbs embodies, quite deliberately, a more old-school way of doing things. DiNozzo and McGee, for instance, were quite stumped in an episode where they were stumped in the absence of electricity. Gibbs solves their problem. I cannot recall if Abby was in a bit of fix as well.

I presume you're referring to Mr Palmer who, to be honest, seems to exist mostly as a reason to have Ducky show off his status as an intellectual. His character expansion has made him into something of a worry-wort, which is perfectly fine and not an issue.

On the whole, your issue seems to be that there is a female character in a role that requires some sort of a degree whereas the rest of the cast isn't in such a profession. McGee (as far as I recall) is depicted as an MIT graduate but seems suspiciously absent in your treatment of the programme. If there is an equality issue in NCIS it's that the fourth slot in the team can come across as "token female" but it does, by and large, a good job of making sure this isn't the case. It's entirely appropriate for a forensic episode to come across as smarter than a "very special agent". It's like expecting Mr Reese to be as clever as Finch or Root in Person of Interest; ridiculous.

I'm taking your word on it. Is or is not Hannibal an evil male character that the show is named after?

So, we can no longer present men as being evil? Um...

See above.

Yeah, maybe there should be more villainous women. Or, at least, ones that fulfil more deliberately evil or thuggish villain roles. I recall the ethically off mother who manipulated her son's genetics and Adelind definite examples of not like this. On the other hand, some of the assassins sent after Nick have been female. Let us not mention more specifics because I'm not sure how delayed our viewing of these programmes are.

1) As far as I can tell, he acts that way. It's hard for me to buy the show's premise in observing how he acts. 2) And he is very far from the paragon of fatherly competency when it comes to his daughter.

3) He reminds me of Miss Cleo more than he does of Sherlock Holmes. And that's in spite of the genre difference.

1) He's a laid back character who uses his contacts to force the police to allow him to function as a consultant of sorts. It's not so different to the Mentalist or, even, Cracker. All three get results despite their flaws.

2) I disagree. He's never come across as either a bad or good father. He doesn't seem like a jellyfish, is generally supportive and probably just embodies a reasonably ideal modern parent.

3) Who? And I think he's more Doyle than Holmes.

[Tahar Joblis]

I'll respond more in depth at a later point, but there's no paedophelia in GoT. I'm sure some character has done it somewhere, but it's in no way central to the plot. Yes, people marry young, but that's not at all the same as paedophelia. I think you're confusing this with incest. There's a lot of incest, but it's consensual, and at least in the main incestuous relationship, it was driven by the woman.

While there's a lot of threats of rape, and some that's happended off screen, there's not a lot of actual rape. None of the main characters have been raped. Dany's wedding night was not well fleshed out. It's abundantly clear in the book, however, that Kahl Drogo got her full and non-coerced consent before they had sex. The series does imply it however, with Dany asking one of her handmaids how to get good at sex, and the fact that Kahl Drogo was a really nice guy despite looking scary. Him looking scary is more a commentary on foreigners than men.

From what you've said, I doubt the people reviewing the show have actually seen a lot of it. They certainly haven't read the books.

I'm not confusing it with incest, because I've not seen GoT, and if I read the first few books (it's possible, I've read enough fantasy novels to forget a few hundred here and there) it was long ago enough that I've completely forgotten. Look at the review I linked to earlier - I've seen and either read or skimmed a bunch like this one, and it mentions pedophilia. Prominently. Repeatedly. There's also a lot of feminist complaints to be heard about incest, rape, and gratuitous sex.

I'm not going to stand up and say "No, ASoIaF / GoT is full of pedophilia!" Especially not when this is bringing us full circle back onto where I enter this particular quote tree, where I announced that negative stereotyping of men is on the rise (I was speaking especially of men as rapists/pedophiles, and implied - later said explicitly - that feminists share some responsibility for this change). My familiarity with GoT comes from what crosses my news feed, e-mail lists, et cetera - and that includes a disproportionate amount of feminist media, because I'm on lots of progressive mailing lists, and have lots of friends who think of themselves as feminist (and in particular, including a significant number well outside my personal age cohort, so a broad cross-section of different generations of feminists).

What I'm familiar with, when it comes to Game of Thrones, is not the actual TV series or books so much as how fans and critics talk about the series. Fans tend to be close-lipped about the details, because a lot of GoT fans really don't like spoilers. And all the talk about how much rape and pedophilia is in there (I can put up with consensual incest, especially when we're talking about how fucked up royalty is as an institution, and gratuitous sex doesn't bother me a bit) has frankly turned me off from wanting to read the books or watch the TV show.



I'm serious. Even though I'm not the most credible person when I read feminist media, I really did take the word of all those critics that GoT really had a lot of rape, incest, and pedophilia. If it's just a lot of incest with the occasional rare threat of rape, maybe I should given the series a try.



So if you're telling me that my impressions are completely wrong and that the critics that have given me them probably haven't actually read the books or watched the TV show, I really am inclined to take that as evidence that there are feminists who are (and not ineffectually) fueling moral panics over rape / pedophilia / incest / sex crimes in general, and doing so with dishonest disrespect for reality.

[Yumyumsuppertime]

Why is "Ban Bossy" horrible? It's not a call for an actual legal ban, but rather a call for leadership skills in young girls to be recognized in the same way that they'r'e recognized in young boys. If my daughter has the ability to lead and organize her peer group in activities, I don't want some well-meaning teacher gently explaining to her that it's bad to be bossy, so long as she's not forcing anyone to go along with the activity.

This explains it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVKyesBzDAs

I usually have a policy against allowing YouTube links to take the place of people actually standing their ground and defending their statements, but I made an exception in this case, only to be reminded of why I have this policy. I stopped watching after approximately forty seconds, when the narrator sneeringly stated something like "Perhaps if one is discouraged from being a leader by being called bossy, then one is not qualified to be a leader". I paraphrase, but I'm confident that this is an accurate summation of the narrator's argument. This misrepresents the entire point of the "Ban Bossy" campaign, in that it is targeted specifically towards young children, and not adults. Children are easily influenced by the language used around them regardless of gender. The point is that young girls are called "Bossy" when they show characteristics associated with leadership, while young boys are encouraged to continue expressing these characteristics within certain guidelines.

At any rate, with that blatant and intellectually dishonest misrepresentation, the narrator lost his claim to any further attention from me.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

They aren't. But "Ban Bossy" is. Men and Women should be equal , but we are now getting MAN HATING Feminists.

Why is "Ban Bossy" horrible? It's not a call for an actual legal ban, but rather a call for leadership skills in young girls to be recognized in the same way that they'r'e recognized in young boys. If my daughter has the ability to lead and organize her peer group in activities, I don't want some well-meaning teacher gently explaining to her that it's bad to be bossy, so long as she's not forcing anyone to go along with the activity.

The statistical foundation is flimsy. If you read the original paper provided by the Girl Scouts, of the self-reported barriers to leadership listed by children who were already not interested in leadership (which we ought to note), "not wanting to seem bossy" is only the eighth most common factor for girls (29% listed this as a reason), below more gender-convergent reasons like "not wanting to speak in front of others", "not wanting the responsibility" and "simply not being interested". There is a distinct gender imbalance among some of them, like "not wanting to seem bossy", and that probably does represent the different ways that boys and girl perceive leadership, but I really don't see banning the word as doing much to help girls who want to become leaders. It's a nuanced problem that needs a nuanced approach, and "bossy" itself seems like a symptom (and a very minor symptom at that) of a more complex issue.

[Tahar Joblis]

If there is any concerning social theme here it's best expressed through quoting School of Rock, "Those who can't do, teach and those who can't teach, teach gym".

His lack of qualifications extend to walking into the wrong class. Should've gone to SpecSavers. You could argue that he should've picked up on the cues from the students but he was new to what was going on. Does the programme return to his teaching skills later on because they'd be a better point of reference.

I can remember seeing an episode where he was teaching a class on Robin to Barney. In a university classroom, audited by a random Chinese student who thought it was an actual class for credit. (The Chinese student complains - in Chinese - that they forced him to wear a wig and play the role of Robin during role-playing exercises.) This somehow ends up working out for the budding Barney-Robin romance, but doesn't exactly fall under appropriate use of university resources (or appropriate treatment of students).

Synopses tell me that later in that season, he dates a graduate student ( catastrophically inappropriate to do as a professor), but I'm not sure if his teaching skills ever come up anywhere other than those couple of episodes.

McGee very much doesn't suit your characterisation and, in some ways, neither does DiNozzo. Despite being annoying, DiNozzo has cultivated a very extensive body of knowledge about films etc. This is presented neither as being nerdy nor feminine. Gibbs embodies, quite deliberately, a more old-school way of doing things. DiNozzo and McGee, for instance, were quite stumped in an episode where they were stumped in the absence of electricity. Gibbs solves their problem. I cannot recall if Abby was in a bit of fix as well.

I presume you're referring to Mr Palmer who, to be honest, seems to exist mostly as a reason to have Ducky show off his status as an intellectual. His character expansion has made him into something of a worry-wort, which is perfectly fine and not an issue.

On the whole, your issue seems to be that there is a female character in a role that requires some sort of a degree whereas the rest of the cast isn't in such a profession. McGee (as far as I recall) is depicted as an MIT graduate but seems suspiciously absent in your treatment of the programme. If there is an equality issue in NCIS it's that the fourth slot in the team can come across as "token female" but it does, by and large, a good job of making sure this isn't the case. It's entirely appropriate for a forensic episode to come across as smarter than a "very special agent". It's like expecting Mr Reese to be as clever as Finch or Root in Person of Interest; ridiculous.

I'm not saying it's spectacularly inappropriate for some female characters to be smart. I can, however, predict routinely that whatever shows I find playing in front of the treadmills at the gym, if the show is of modern vintage, then I'm going to see women making men look dumb far more often than the reverse.

In the case of shows where the main cast is supposed to be competent (medical dramas and CSI-type shows being really in that genre) where we see our dumb characters is in the opposing forces. In the case of Grimm, these are generally Wesen.

So, we can no longer present men as being evil? Um...

Are we presenting men as evil more than we are presenting women as evil? Is there something significantly wrong with presenting men as evil disproportionately often?

1) He's a laid back character who uses his contacts to force the police to allow him to function as a consultant of sorts. It's not so different to the Mentalist or, even, Cracker. All three get results despite their flaws.

2) I disagree. He's never come across as either a bad or good father. He doesn't seem like a jellyfish, is generally supportive and probably just embodies a reasonably ideal modern parent.

3) Who? And I think he's more Doyle than Holmes.

1,3: Miss Cleo was a famous TV psychic hotline personality.

2: He's not a bad father by modern lights so much as one that's confused a great deal. And, pursuant to gender norms, in the episodes I've seen dealing with this, Miss NYPD detective whose expertise in raising children consists of not having had any seems to understand his daughter better than he does. Which isn't crazy, TBH, even if it is very stereotype-conformal.

[Yumyumsuppertime]

Why is "Ban Bossy" horrible? It's not a call for an actual legal ban, but rather a call for leadership skills in young girls to be recognized in the same way that they'r'e recognized in young boys. If my daughter has the ability to lead and organize her peer group in activities, I don't want some well-meaning teacher gently explaining to her that it's bad to be bossy, so long as she's not forcing anyone to go along with the activity.

The statistical foundation is flimsy. If you read the original paper provided by the Girl Scouts, of the self-reported barriers to leadership listed by children who were already not interested in leadership (which we ought to note), "not wanting to seem bossy" is only the eighth most common factor for girls (29% listed this as a reason), below more gender-convergent reasons like "not wanting to speak in front of others", "not wanting the responsibility" and "simply not being interested". There is a distinct gender imbalance among some of them, like "not wanting to seem bossy", and that probably does represent the different ways that boys and girl perceive leadership, but I really don't see banning the word as doing much to help girls who want to become leaders. It's a nuanced problem that needs a nuanced approach, and "bossy" itself seems like a symptom (and a very minor symptom at that) of a more complex issue.

And if the "Ban Bossy" people were stating that this program was targeting every issue regarding gender roles, your post would be relevant. As they're obviously targeting the 30%, it's not. Kind of like how people try to get kids to stop using "gay" as a synonym for "stupid". Nobody claims that this is going to solve the issues of anti-gay prejudice, but it does attack one element of the problem.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

The statistical foundation is flimsy. If you read the original paper provided by the Girl Scouts, of the self-reported barriers to leadership listed by children who were already not interested in leadership (which we ought to note), "not wanting to seem bossy" is only the eighth most common factor for girls (29% listed this as a reason), below more gender-convergent reasons like "not wanting to speak in front of others", "not wanting the responsibility" and "simply not being interested". There is a distinct gender imbalance among some of them, like "not wanting to seem bossy", and that probably does represent the different ways that boys and girl perceive leadership, but I really don't see banning the word as doing much to help girls who want to become leaders. It's a nuanced problem that needs a nuanced approach, and "bossy" itself seems like a symptom (and a very minor symptom at that) of a more complex issue.

And if the "Ban Bossy" people were stating that this program was targeting every issue regarding gender roles, your post would be relevant. As they're obviously targeting the 30%, it's not. Kind of like how people try to get kids to stop using "gay" as a synonym for "stupid". Nobody claims that this is going to solve the issues of anti-gay prejudice, but it does attack one element of the problem.

And I'm saying it ought to take a wider approach (and the language of the campaign would lead you to believe it is). The 30% is representative of a subset of a subset of girls (and 15% of boys listed being perceived as bossy as a barrier, so we're actually just looking at a differential of ~15% within a subset of young people). Sure, you can justify this as "attacking one element of the problem" (as you could anything that's remotely correlated with bad outcomes), but realistically we're looking at a problem that is comprised of countably infinite elements, all of which are stemming from social and cultural attitudes that require a much more nuanced approach to solve than "sweeping things under the rug". Also, the equivalence here between "gay" and "bossy" is weak. "Bossy" is primarily a term used to describe a particular style of leadership; overbearing, domineering, etc. Perhaps girls are disproportionately perceived that way when they take leadership roles, and that's a problem. The word itself isn't. Even if actually banning it isn't the objective, it's sending a very fuzzy message.

[Snafturi]

I'll respond more in depth at a later point, but there's no paedophelia in GoT. I'm sure some character has done it somewhere, but it's in no way central to the plot. Yes, people marry young, but that's not at all the same as paedophelia. I think you're confusing this with incest. There's a lot of incest, but it's consensual, and at least in the main incestuous relationship, it was driven by the woman.

While there's a lot of threats of rape, and some that's happended off screen, there's not a lot of actual rape. None of the main characters have been raped. Dany's wedding night was not well fleshed out. It's abundantly clear in the book, however, that Kahl Drogo got her full and non-coerced consent before they had sex. The series does imply it however, with Dany asking one of her handmaids how to get good at sex, and the fact that Kahl Drogo was a really nice guy despite looking scary. Him looking scary is more a commentary on foreigners than men.

From what you've said, I doubt the people reviewing the show have actually seen a lot of it. They certainly haven't read the books.

I'm not confusing it with incest, because I've not seen GoT, and if I read the first few books (it's possible, I've read enough fantasy novels to forget a few hundred here and there) it was long ago enough that I've completely forgotten. Look at the review I linked to earlier - I've seen and either read or skimmed a bunch like this one, and it mentions pedophilia. Prominently. Repeatedly. There's also a lot of feminist complaints to be heard about incest, rape, and gratuitous sex.

I'm not going to stand up and say "No, ASoIaF / GoT is full of pedophilia!" Especially not when this is bringing us full circle back onto where I enter this particular quote tree, where I announced that negative stereotyping of men is on the rise (I was speaking especially of men as rapists/pedophiles, and implied - later said explicitly - that feminists share some responsibility for this change). My familiarity with GoT comes from what crosses my news feed, e-mail lists, et cetera - and that includes a disproportionate amount of feminist media, because I'm on lots of progressive mailing lists, and have lots of friends who think of themselves as feminist (and in particular, including a significant number well outside my personal age cohort, so a broad cross-section of different generations of feminists).

What I'm familiar with, when it comes to Game of Thrones, is not the actual TV series or books so much as how fans and critics talk about the series. Fans tend to be close-lipped about the details, because a lot of GoT fans really don't like spoilers. And all the talk about how much rape and pedophilia is in there (I can put up with consensual incest, especially when we're talking about how fucked up royalty is as an institution, and gratuitous sex doesn't bother me a bit) has frankly turned me off from wanting to read the books or watch the TV show.



I'm serious. Even though I'm not the most credible person when I read feminist media, I really did take the word of all those critics that GoT really had a lot of rape, incest, and pedophilia. If it's just a lot of incest with the occasional rare threat of rape, maybe I should given the series a try.



So if you're telling me that my impressions are completely wrong and that the critics that have given me them probably haven't actually read the books or watched the TV show, I really am inclined to take that as evidence that there are feminists who are (and not ineffectually) fueling moral panics over rape / pedophilia / incest / sex crimes in general, and doing so with dishonest disrespect for reality.

My apologies for saying it was you confusing incest and paedophelia.

Yeah....this person didn't understand what they read.

*That's not soap opera amnesia. Not remembering the events immediately before a huge accident are normal.

*Caitlyn. Uh, no. Well, yes that all happened, but there's so much more to it than that. It's not at all irrational that you won't leave your son's side after he's been pushed from a window, then an attempt on his life is made a few nights later. Her treatment of Jon is downright hospitable according to the rules of society. There's so much more to that story too, but that's better read than summarized. Kidnapping Tyrion was impuslive, but she also took him to her sister (who she didn't realize had gone completely insane).

*Sansa was raised to the role of being a Lord's wife and acts as such. She's completely naive and helpless which makes her all the more tragic for what happens to her.

*Aria isn't the way she is because "girl things are bad". She realized at a young age what her life was supposed to be (married as a bargaining chip and having tons of children) and is rebelling against that.

*Dany. This is the paedo stuff???? FFS, no. As mentioned, her wedding night (despite how it looked in the series) was consensual. The whole point with Kahl Drogo was that he *was* an awesome guy. The Horse People have a brutal culture (they're essentially plains priates, and Dany and him do clash, but he actually listens to her. He doesn't follow what she says, but he does actually consider things. By the end of their relationship, she'd convinced him to at least have his Kahlasaar stop the raping part of the raping and pillaging. Yes, rape is a part of war in this universe. But again, as a backdrop and off stage.

If there's any negative stereotype, it would be the race one, but I don't even agree on that one. It's far more complex than that. Dany might be right about rape from our perspective, but she also shows herself to be very wrong in other respects many times in the series. She has an inability to understand that sometimes cultures are just different, and that comes back to bite her many times.

She was married at the same age most girls are married in that universe. Not paedophelia.

There was no gang rapes at her wedding in the book as far as I recall (definitely not in the series), there was public sex. The public sex seemed quite brutal to Dany, but it's in the culture of the Horse people. They have sex in public, they have sex with multiple people.

I'm going to leave off the rest of the contentions with the review. I will say that *if* the author actually did read the books, they really failed to grasp anything beyond the most superficial. Really it sounds like she half-arsed watched the series and *still* failed to grasp what was really going on.

And anyway, I don't think your contention is so much with the female characters, but with the men and how they're portrayed.
l

.

Honestly the biggest issue with the TV series is the white washing of it. The books are a lot more colorful. That's not to say I agree with the SJW's assertions of racisim.

There are two major plot points that do have something to do with rape.

One happens off screen. I do believe the war that put Robert Baratheon on the throne was bound to happen, but the justification was the alleged kidnapping and rape of Leanna Stark by Rhaegar Targaryan. But up until now, we still don't know if that was actually what happened or if they ran off to be together because they were in love (and being highborn and part of very important houses, being in love means exactly fuckall). Would it be horrible if Baratheon (or others) lied about a rape to start a war? Absolutely, and that's totally the point.

The other one it hard to explain without giving away one of the bigger twists of the series. Let's just say that it's not a case of men being cast as bad guys so much as one man having such hatred for one of his family members that he does something extremely fucked up (he didn't do the raping, and the people who did, were completely unaware that it was rape. Yes, this makes sense when the story is finally told. You end up really feeling bad for the unwitting rapists too. In all honesty, one of the participants was having sex under pretty extreme duress to the point you could make the case he was a rape victim in this too. That character certainly is shown dealing with the aftermath of that sexual encounter and it's quite obvious he was scarred by it. This shows that all guys aren't just about t3h sex, and actually don't want to have sex all the time.). By the way, it's the reviewer's lack of mentioning this pretty major story that makes me certain she never read the books.

So that's the notable rape. Rape otherwise happens in the context of war. One character is the spawn of a rape. Slaves are raped on the other continent. None of that really happens on screen, so to speak.

Paedophelia...no. As readers we can (and at times probably should) be uncomfortable with the age at which they decide girls are women in that world. This is actually a cause for concern for certain characters, but for others it's just the way life is and they don't see it as wrong. Regardless, it's not an attraction to children anymore than it's paedophelia to be attracted to someone who's just reached the age of consent. There's also not that much sex. Dany's wedding night is very important to the story. Sansa hasn't had sex. Every other married person is older I believe. It's not just women who marry young either. Men often are required to marry young as well.

Honestly though, if you like fantasy you should give this one a go. It is extremely dark, so you might not like it on those grounds. I'd be surprised, however, if you didn't like it because of the male characters.

You have so many that are wonderfully complex, and most exist somewhere in the gray spectrum when it comes to good and evil. You have quite a few gender roles turned on their head too. As cold as Stannis is, you'll come to realize that he's the caring and sane parent, for example. Jon Snow takes his vows of chastity very seriously, and when he does have sex, the story really emphasizes his emotional connection to the act. Kahl Drogo. Big, scary, pirate horse lord turns out to be caring, devoted and loving.

ETA: I would mention that the crazy "feminist" review of GoT isn't the only insane review out there, and it's not just rape/paedophelia-centric. For some reason GoT gets all kinds of weird anger. You have a lot of reivews dedicated to showing how overrated it is, and going to extremely insane lengths to prove it. You have the race issue, which, while some criticism is valid, this goes to an overblown level. I'm sure there's even more. It's cool to hate GoT these days, apparently.

That said, I'm not justifying the blog posts/ect about the rape/paedophelia/sex crimes. That's completely wrong on a number of levels.

[Priory Academy USSR]

I'm not confusing it with incest, because I've not seen GoT, and if I read the first few books (it's possible, I've read enough fantasy novels to forget a few hundred here and there) it was long ago enough that I've completely forgotten. Look at the review I linked to earlier - I've seen and either read or skimmed a bunch like this one, and it mentions pedophilia. Prominently. Repeatedly. There's also a lot of feminist complaints to be heard about incest, rape, and gratuitous sex.

A story, set on an alternate version of 15th century England (roughly, but the general medieval similarities are undeniable), with the story told from the perspective those 15th century characters, has scenes that are inappropriate in a modern context? Impossible!

[Knask]

No, I'd like to know how these shows portray men as stupid and incompetent. Because.

Follow the quote train up. It's on the general subject of negative stereotyping; which is then supported by an increase in the portrayal of men as stupid.

That really isn't happening.

I listed the top 30 TV shows

Which could then be compared to, say, this list.

Knock yourself out. Remember to compare how many shows had females as the main protagonists while you're at it.

It would also be interesting to see if women also are being portrayed as stupid and incompetent in those shows.

The comparison is, IMO, more illuminating than the absolutes.

Nearly every main character on NCIS is smarter than nearly every main character on The Simpsons. However, Lisa is portrayed as smarter than Bart, Marge is portrayed as smarter than Homer, and Abby is portrayed as smarter than the men she works with.

Incorrect. Abby is shown to be an expert in her chosen field, not generally smarter than the rest.

Shouldn't be difficult for you to demonstrate that.

Much easier if your list actually focused on domestic sitcoms. I Love Lucy, I Dream of Jeannie, Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver, etc can be contrasted to Home Improvement, Married... with children, The Simpsons (the longest-running TV show of the era), etc.

Yes, you're absolutely correct. There really is a the growth of men being portrayed as stupid and incompetent in media... Sorry, I mean, there's a growth of men being portrayed as stupid and incompetent in sitcoms.... Sorry, I mean, there's a growth of men being portrayed as stupid and incompetent in domestic sitcoms... Sorry, I mean, there's a growth of men being portrayed with negative traits in domestic sitcoms...

...

I already pointed quite directly to the TVTropes pages, which point out quite correctly that the dumb dad was originally novel and now has become standard.

TV tropes as an authoritative source? Yeeaaahhh...

What "feminist reviews"?

I can't provide a good listing of the ones I've read, skimmed, or avoided reading that led me to that impression, but I can give you a quick series of links showing you the existence of the sort of angry feminist reviews of GoT that have been so far my main source of specific information on gender role treatment within GoT (there's a slicker for you):

http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/08/26/ent ... -r-martin/
http://www.thefword.org.uk/reviews/2013 ... ubjugation

There's been a big feminist backlash against Game of Thrones, and it's centered on rape and pedophilia - which are, as far as I can tell, entirely fit within the narrative of evil male perpetrators.

You should watch it yourself, because that's not at all accurate. There are indeed rapists in the show, but all of the characters are horribly flawed. Joffrey is clear-cut evil, but he's also insane. Cersei, his mother, is completely sane, but is the one character responsible for most of the horrors in the show. Mellisandre seems to be totally sane, but burns people alive apparently due to her faith. The two most beloved characters are male: Tyrion (Flawed, but far from evil) and Ned Stark (flawed, but the only truly good character, perhaps apart from his sons).

Men are not shown to be stupid and incompetent, nor do they display more negative sides than the women.

Well, what, then, does that tell me about the people angry about the show?

Probably that people have a tendency to be angry at stuff they haven't seen, based on what someone else have told them over the internet.

Hmm... Rings a bell...

They are smart, but they have flaws. The men are just like the women (sometimes identical Sheldon is dating what really is a female version of himself, sometimes mirror images, Leonard is dating the opposite of himself). The men does not stand out as stupid and incompetent.

So you say that the women are equally inept outside of their chosen domains?

Not accurate. Ted is a successful architect, and Barney is very intelligent.

"Successful architect"?

Yes. The bank headquarters gets built, landing Ted, 33, on the cover of New York Magazine as the youngest architect to design a skyscraper in New York City.
A successful architect and a successful professor, having been featured in Time Magazine and New York Magazine, ends the show being headhunted to Chicago after having designed one of the largest skyscrapers in downtown Manhattan. At age 33.

Any career will have ups and downs, but in what world would those merits not be counted as successful?

I take it that you haven't actually seen the show. Gibbs, DiNozzo and McGee are by no stretch of the imagination stupid and incompetent.

Incompetent, no. Non-intellectual and substantially less intelligent, yes.

Not true. These characters are all intelligent, and they're all specialized. None of them are "non-intellectual", tho some of them are more partial to taking direct action.

None of the characters are negative stereotypes, and none are stupid and incompetent.

"Vampire" isn't the name for an evil male character, the same way as the collective noun for supernatural creatures isn't Dracula. This show also features the "sexy" sparkly kind of vampires, not the evil scary ones.

The characters who start off as vampires are men, are they not?

Is that a bad thing? Is being described as "good-hearted and affectionate" a bad thing?

No characters on Hannibal are stupid and incompetent. All of them have flaws, some pretty huge ones. By the way, the protagonist is Will Graham, not Hannibal.

I'm taking your word on it. Is or is not Hannibal an evil male character that the show is named after?

He is.

He's neither stupid nor incompetent.

As far as I can tell, he acts that way. It's hard for me to buy the show's premise in observing how he acts. And he is very far from the paragon of fatherly competency when it comes to his daughter.

I see. Are you relying on "feminist reviews" again? Because he is portrayed as a good father. He's loving and caring, dpoing whatever it takes to keep his daughter safe. He has flaws, tend to be overprotective, but being "very far from the paragon of fatherly competency" is simply an incorrect description. He's a single father doing his very best, and it's a very positive portrayal of fatherhood.

Castle is a very successful writer, and he's helping the police solve murders using his knowledge and talent for creative thinking. He thinks outside the box, often coming up with fantastical (and amusing) theories in the process. The theories are often sound, but very creative. He is not "regularly outwitted by the female lead"; if anything it's the opposite.

He reminds me of Miss Cleo more than he does of Sherlock Holmes. And that's in spite of the genre difference.

...

What?

You managed to identify two shows out of 30 possible

As far as I'm concerned, I identified far more than two; and that's with my only commenting on a fraction of those thirty shows; and your list of 30 shows not being particularly tightly concentrated on the genre where we can test the "dumb dad" stereotype.

I can and have provided more than two examples of the "dumb dad," and pointed towards evidence of change over time in the portrayal of male characters.

Look, we can agree that the portrayal of male characters have changed over time. Men are no longer portrayed as flawless one-dimensional supermen. I think it's a good thing. You find it absolutely terrible they now have flaws and show weakness, even if it's more of a realistic portrayal, leading to more interesting characters and better storytelling. You also seem to react to the presence of smart women on the shows, even if they often take the role of "token woman", and you seem to already have formed your conclusion as you examine the different shows. Try having an open mind instead.

[Knask]

So, we can no longer present men as being evil? Um...

Are we presenting men as evil more than we are presenting women as evil? Is there something significantly wrong with presenting men as evil disproportionately often?

Are men being presented as evil disproportionately often? Disproportionally, I expect, compared to how often they're presented as the primary good guy?

How often are women presented as an evil villain, compared to how often they are presented as the primary protagonist?

[Snafturi]

Do you have proof that negative stereotyping of men, especially as predators, is on the rise,

I have a reasonable quantity of evidence.

In every way, perception of men as hypersexual is on the rise. Down to even just adult men casually touching each other looking exceptionally weird to the 21st century Westerner, but the rise of pedophile panic is a very real problem, and all of that attention is focused (not entirely justifiably) on men rather than women.

Then there's the growth of the "dumb dad" of sitcoms, and of men being portrayed as stupid and incompetent in media. This is very well known and not too long ago was reversed.

and if so, can you prove that this is because of feminism?

Prove? Well, we merely have the case that feminists were intimately involved with the rise of the modern pedophile panic, have put out a lot of rhetoric demonizing male sexuality, et cetera. It could be entirely coincidental, one supposes.

The fact of the matter is that feminists have on the whole supported attacking men as a class. The rise in negative male stereotypes at the same time as the rise of feminist intervention in matters of public opinion is unlikely to be entirely coincidental.

Can you also prove that those evil man-hating feminazis never do anything that benefits men on purpose?

While some feminists hate men (I feel that "man-hating" is an honorable and viable political act, wrote one prominent feminist), that's not the general case. Political lesbianism is pretty dead, and the average feminist is heterosexual. It's not about hating men, so much as wanting men to stay in their appropriate place.

Can you also prove that feminists are responsible for the idea that men can't be victims or that that's even a very widespread idea?

Feminists aren't responsible for originating the masculine coding of responsibility and the feminine coding of victimhood. What I said, instead, is that feminists are complicit in maintaining it. E.g., Mary Koss writes in speaking of male victims that "it is important to restrict the term rape to instances where male victims were penetrated by offenders. It is inappropriate to consider as a rape victim a man who engages in unwanted intercourse with a woman (e.g., Struckman-Johnson 1991)."

(That reference is to an article examining victimization of men; David & Cindy Struckman-Johnson have put out an extensive amount of research that examines victimization and coercion of and by both genders, and I've cited a number of their articles in challenging the traditional heterosexist narrative of rape here on NSG.)

You sure are keen to blame feminists for all of the problems man face as men, but to me, it seems like most of them are caused by the sexism inherent in patriarchy, namely, that men are strong, which translates to "dangerous", which translates to "not victims", which translates to "not gay". This is all implicit in the system feminists fight.

You have three very significant mistakes you're making in this statement.

The first is that you think that feminism and patriarchy are opposed to one another on every issue. This is demonstrably not the case. There are a number of issues where an institution originates with patriarchal traditions and feminism has been complicit in maintaining it. This is true of the sentencing gap, alimony (the origin of which is pure patriarchy), the gendered coding of victimhood, et cetera.

The second is that you're overlooking the very real effects that feminism has had on our society in triumphing over patriarchal traditions. One example I already brought up several times in this thread is that the patriarchal tradition placed child custody in the hands of the father in the event of divorce. It wasn't until after first-wave feminists got to work that the "tender years" doctrine was adopted (eventually morphing into a simple default of maternal custody).

The third is that you think that I blame feminists for all of the problems faced by men. This is an unfair generalization and a strawman attack on my position. Feminists are to blame directly only for some problems faced by men. The main negative effect of feminism has not been in creating new problems for men. The main negative effect has been steady opposition to any organized effort at reforming (or even critically considering, from a male perspective) the strictures of the male gender role. Complicity in the maintenance of existing problems is secondary. The creation of new problems for men (e.g., pedophile panic) is only of tertiary importance, and can be compared with similar erasure of problems for men (e.g., support for paternity leave).

Coming back to a more thorough look at men on TV, I have some serious issues with that TV Tropes list, and I'm quite honestly surprised you don't have issues with it either. I'm not going to go through the entire list, there's shows I haven't seen or haven't seen in far too long to comment on.

First off, it omits some pretty major sitcoms of the 90's.

*Full House is one of the longest running TV series ever. Bob Sagat was a wonderful father, competent and not bumbling at all. He managed to hold a house together, sometimes raising other adults along with his kids, and he did an excellent job. If anything he's a bit on the nerdy side, but I don't see where that's bad.

*In Rosanne, Dan was the nicer parent, the more loving parent and spouse, the most competent and level headed person on the show. He managed to achieve his dream of owning a motorcycle shop (no small feat for a family below the poverty line), and he eventually gave that all up for the sake of his family. In the finale, when it's revealed the final season was all Rosanne's fantasy, it's pretty clear that the family and everyone's lives went to shit because Dan died. That's how awesome he was.

For what they do mention:
*Married with Children. Everyone on that show is a parody of an unflattering stereotype. It's also interesting to note that Al Bundy is the way he is because of his wife. He was smart, happy, productive, and then he was destroyed by a woman. Kind of feels like victim blaming here.

*Malcom in the Middle. Hal is not bumbling, he's got some pretty clear and understandable anxiety issues. He doesn't jump at imaginary sounds because he's bumbling, he does so because he's been living in hell and is showing perfectly normal mental wear and tear. Saying he's bumbling is not only victim blaming and misandrist (are we to expect that men in an abusive situation deserve less sympathy?), it's really offensive to claim that mental illness brought about by understandable circumstances counts as bumbling.

Sorry, Hal being on that list bothers me because I have the same mental illness it appears Hal has, and I got it the same way (well, being the child not the spouse). But I really sympathize with him because I know far too well what motivates and drives him. It's not incompetence, I assure you.

*Don Draper is a sociopath, and not the cute pretend kind of sociopath like Dexter. He's also no more or less horrible than anyone else on the show. His ex wife included. Everyone on that show is horrible, and that's why people watch it. Yeah, people defend him, but then again, there's quite a few people out there that defend Hannibal fucking Lecter. People on the internet are insane, what's new?

*Putting Tim Taylor on there is flat out misandrist. It's blatantly clear that Tim Allen created an idealized version of himself for the show. He's also being criticized for being more of a "traditional" male. Now, if we criticize a woman for wanting to be a homemaker, that's misgynist and sexist (rightly so). Why is it not sexist and misandrist to criticize a guy for being traditionally male?

I also don't understand why men can't have flaws on shows. TV shows with perfect characters, male or female, are annoying and boring. And besides, TV and film has a long and well known history of not putting the mentally healthy on screen. Why? Normal, stable people lead boring lives. Nobody wants to watch that (or not enough, at least).

[Ashmoria]

isn't it time to ask WHY we are dissecting tv shows in a thread about true feminism?

[Forsher]

I can remember seeing an episode where he was teaching a class on Robin to Barney. In a university classroom, audited by a random Chinese student who thought it was an actual class for credit. (The Chinese student complains - in Chinese - that they forced him to wear a wig and play the role of Robin during role-playing exercises.) This somehow ends up working out for the budding Barney-Robin romance, but doesn't exactly fall under appropriate use of university resources (or appropriate treatment of students).

Synopses tell me that later in that season, he dates a graduate student ( catastrophically inappropriate to do as a professor), but I'm not sure if his teaching skills ever come up anywhere other than those couple of episodes.

It's a comedy. In Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby (a much funnier show) they keep a female teacher around despite her remedial English lessons being a cover for a sexual relationship with a student because she's pretty much the only competent teacher in the school. The principal pursued a policy of encouraging parents to send their disability-affected students to the school in an attempt to gain more funding despite the school being only slightly better equipped to handle this than The Killian Curse's (and in that a former principal was some sort of demon stealing the souls of some of the pupils). I don't think you can push these points honestly in the context of a genre that is all about extracting maximum amusement.

This is not to say that comedies cannot perpetuate negative ideals. There's a fundamental difference, though, between what is and isn't being used as a joke. In all these examples, this is what is meant to attract laughs. These things are the joke. In other word the show is doing its best to attach a sign that says "This is wrong" on these things. And that's what causes laughter. Whether it's nervous or amused, at heart there is a twist on the expected order of things (i.e. something is wrong). The show deliberately draws attention to these things, they're not expected assumptions such as "obtain as many sexual partners" in the likes of Two and a Half Men (the "wrongness" lies in specific aspects of what is happening; that first bit is not the joke, it's set-up) which is why I am quite comfortable saying that some things in comedies should be discouraged.*

*And it's not necessarily clear cut. There's a scene in The Boat that Rocked where Doctor Dave and whatever the protagonist's called conspire to get a woman to sleep with the latter rather than the former. Parts of the scene are funny but it's more along the lines of "naked humiliation". Having seen the film multiple times I don't think that it, on any level, identifies what the two of them were trying to do as being in any way dodgy.

I'm not saying it's spectacularly inappropriate for some female characters to be smart. I can, however, predict routinely that whatever shows I find playing in front of the treadmills at the gym, if the show is of modern vintage, then I'm going to see women making men look dumb far more often than the reverse.

Maybe you do, maybe you don't, maybe you just see what you expect.

In the case of shows where the main cast is supposed to be competent (medical dramas and CSI-type shows being really in that genre) where we see our dumb characters is in the opposing forces. In the case of Grimm, these are generally Wesen.

"Maybe you just catch the people who make mistakes." A Crook they did not catch, Luther Series One Episode One.

Are we presenting men as evil more than we are presenting women as evil? Is there something significantly wrong with presenting men as evil disproportionately often?

This happens because there tends to be far more male characters in general than female ones. In Layer Cake, for instance, I think there are three women who get any visible screen time and one of them is a cowering waitress. NCIS is a bit better than this but, compared to many of its fellows, it's kind of very male centred. Grimm is an interesting case. There are basically three women that have any relevance and one of them is very definitely evil.*

*Note, in the last series that I saw Adelind had found two more evil enough women to muck around with.

1,3: Miss Cleo was a famous TV psychic hotline personality.

2: He's not a bad father by modern lights so much as one that's confused a great deal. And, pursuant to gender norms, in the episodes I've seen dealing with this, Miss NYPD detective whose expertise in raising children consists of not having had any seems to understand his daughter better than he does. Which isn't crazy, TBH, even if it is very stereotype-conformal.

Which, as Knask has noted, isn't really something that matches your description very well.

Are men being presented as evil disproportionately often? Disproportionally, I expect, compared to how often they're presented as the primary good guy?

How often are women presented as an evil villain, compared to how often they are presented as the primary protagonist?

It's probably roughly even to be honest. Neither are, in my opinion, particularly common. Maybe leans a bit towards protagonists, especially if you exclude women who are villains but not particularly evil.

First off, it omits some pretty major sitcoms of the 90's.

It's TV Tropes. For the most part, it only lists those programmes/other works that have a particular trope in evidence. In some cases it will list aversions. subversions etc. but the whole point is more to the first bit.

isn't it time to ask WHY we are dissecting tv shows in a thread about true feminism?

Because we're illiterate and cannot read.

Nah, seriously, it's a valid line of enquiry. I mean, wasn't there a big controversy a while ago about the reception a reviewer got when trying to crowd-fund a series of videos analysing video games from a feminist perspective? Anita Sarkeesian that was the name. The principle is the same. Media contains messages relevant to this discussion and it's quite interesting.*

*It has the added advantage in that, for me at least, there's an appeal in defending media that I consume.

[Ashmoria]

Nah, seriously, it's a valid line of enquiry. I mean, wasn't there a big controversy a while ago about the reception a reviewer got when trying to crowd-fund a series of videos analysing video games from a feminist perspective? Anita Sarkeesian that was the name. The principle is the same. Media contains messages relevant to this discussion and it's quite interesting.*

*It has the added advantage in that, for me at least, there's an appeal in defending media that I consume.

how can it be relevant when the posters don't link it to feminism?

is there sexism on tv? yup. of all kinds. and when you have a current comedy mode of it being hilarious when unrealistically stupid people do unrealistically stupid things it isn't hard to find examples of men or women being portrayed as idiots.

but when a person goes on and on about it citing things that someone said some time on an internet site and isn't that awful? not so relevant. especially without exact examples from existing shows and an analysis of where they fit in the FEMINIST world.

there just aren't that many feminists making these decisions or women even writing for tv shows. i might accept a feminist (or anti feminist) analysis of "scandal" since it is created and produced by shonda rhimes and is very much her baby. good luck with that.

[Snafturi]

First off, it omits some pretty major sitcoms of the 90's.

It's TV Tropes. For the most part, it only lists those programmes/other works that have a particular trope in evidence. In some cases it will list aversions. subversions etc. but the whole point is more to the first bit.

I'd agree if they didn't list people like Uncle Phil and Cosby as being "not a bumbling dad". Fine, Cosby is notable for specifically setting out to combat that, but if they're randomly going to throw some in, I don't see why they aren't putting more.

[Yumyumsuppertime]

And if the "Ban Bossy" people were stating that this program was targeting every issue regarding gender roles, your post would be relevant. As they're obviously targeting the 30%, it's not. Kind of like how people try to get kids to stop using "gay" as a synonym for "stupid". Nobody claims that this is going to solve the issues of anti-gay prejudice, but it does attack one element of the problem.

And I'm saying it ought to take a wider approach (and the language of the campaign would lead you to believe it is). The 30% is representative of a subset of a subset of girls (and 15% of boys listed being perceived as bossy as a barrier, so we're actually just looking at a differential of ~15% within a subset of young people). Sure, you can justify this as "attacking one element of the problem" (as you could anything that's remotely correlated with bad outcomes), but realistically we're looking at a problem that is comprised of countably infinite elements, all of which are stemming from social and cultural attitudes that require a much more nuanced approach to solve than "sweeping things under the rug". Also, the equivalence here between "gay" and "bossy" is weak. "Bossy" is primarily a term used to describe a particular style of leadership; overbearing, domineering, etc. Perhaps girls are disproportionately perceived that way when they take leadership roles, and that's a problem. The word itself isn't. Even if actually banning it isn't the objective, it's sending a very fuzzy message.

And it's attacking the entire approach of seeing girls as bossy when they show leadership skills, which you agree is a problem. The word symbolizes that issue. However, they don't stop there, giving advice on how to encourage leadership to girls, their parents, teachers, and their future employers.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

And I'm saying it ought to take a wider approach (and the language of the campaign would lead you to believe it is). The 30% is representative of a subset of a subset of girls (and 15% of boys listed being perceived as bossy as a barrier, so we're actually just looking at a differential of ~15% within a subset of young people). Sure, you can justify this as "attacking one element of the problem" (as you could anything that's remotely correlated with bad outcomes), but realistically we're looking at a problem that is comprised of countably infinite elements, all of which are stemming from social and cultural attitudes that require a much more nuanced approach to solve than "sweeping things under the rug". Also, the equivalence here between "gay" and "bossy" is weak. "Bossy" is primarily a term used to describe a particular style of leadership; overbearing, domineering, etc. Perhaps girls are disproportionately perceived that way when they take leadership roles, and that's a problem. The word itself isn't. Even if actually banning it isn't the objective, it's sending a very fuzzy message.

And it's attacking the entire approach of seeing girls as bossy when they show leadership skills, which you agree is a problem. The word symbolizes that issue. However, they don't stop there, giving advice on how to encourage leadership to girls, their parents, teachers, and their future employers.

But that's a relatively minor manifestation of a larger problem. Like I said, being perceived as bossy is not a primary reason why girls aren't becoming leaders (the source material for the campaign shows that quite clearly); the only thing that distinguishes the perception of bossiness from the other factors is that girls tended to identify it as a problem more than boys. So my question is why we're predicating this, as you say, broad-based campaign that offers ways to encourage leadership in young girls on such a flimsy premise? How are you going to encourage others to see this as a broader campaign to empower young girls when it's based on junk statistics and a weird, knee-jerk slogan? You don't have to disagree with the message to disagree with how it's being presented.

[Ashmoria]

And it's attacking the entire approach of seeing girls as bossy when they show leadership skills, which you agree is a problem. The word symbolizes that issue. However, they don't stop there, giving advice on how to encourage leadership to girls, their parents, teachers, and their future employers.

But that's a relatively minor manifestation of a larger problem. Like I said, being perceived as bossy is not a primary reason why girls aren't becoming leaders (the source material for the campaign shows that quite clearly); the only thing that distinguishes the perception of bossiness from the other factors is that girls tended to identify it as a problem more than boys. So my question is why we're predicating this, as you say, broad-based campaign that offers ways to encourage leadership in young girls on such a flimsy premise? How are you going to encourage others to see this as a broader campaign to empower young girls when it's based on junk statistics and a weird, knee-jerk slogan? You don't have to disagree with the message to disagree with how it's being presented.

and why do you have a problem with telling people to leave bossy girls alone? is there a downside to sticking up for bossy girls that im missing?

[Tahar Joblis]

That really isn't happening.

It really is happening. Look at the evolution of the standard sitcom family. We've gone from "Dad is [unrealistically] competent" to "Dad is [unrealistically] stupid" as a standard genre staple.

Knock yourself out. Remember to compare how many shows had females as the main protagonists while you're at it.

Some of the examples I've cited are, in fact, named after the woman of the leading couple - "I Dream of Jeannie" and "I Love Lucy" are both named after the women in them.

You have a major problem in that it's been a very major tradition to have, in shows set in a domestic setting, to have a leading couple. The presence or absence of female protagonists has as much to do with genre as time; the obvious thing to do is to focus on shows that star both men and women.

Incorrect. Abby is shown to be an expert in her chosen field, not generally smarter than the rest.

Not from what I've seen of the show.

Yes, you're absolutely correct. There really is a the growth of men being portrayed as stupid and incompetent in media

Growth.

... Sorry, I mean, there's a growth of men being portrayed as stupid and incompetent in sitcoms.... Sorry, I mean, there's a growth of men being portrayed as stupid and incompetent in domestic sitcoms... Sorry, I mean, there's a growth of men being portrayed with negative traits in domestic sitcoms...

I'm telling you what genre to find most of the growth in. I can (and have) asserted that this is true of action movies. It is most strongly true of sitcoms in which you have a couple interacting as a couple.

I'm not saying that every single male character is portrayed as incompetent and stupid, which is what you strawmanned my position as.

I'm saying it has been increasing, and that this is related to the rise of negative stereotyping of men. (I'm not even saying, with respect to TV shows, that there's a particular direction of causality; it's not clear to me if the growth of stereotyping of men )

TV tropes as an authoritative source?

TV Tropes as a source on what tropes are prevalent when?

Do you have a better source in mind? I mean, I can actually cite feminists readily admitting that there has been a recent growth of stereotyping male partners as dumb and incompetent.

A number of recent situation comedies on U.S. television depict smart, witty, and attractive women who are married to inept, overweight, and immature men, write a trio of authors in the abstract of an article on how this nevertheless "affirms patriarchy."

This is pretty much the standard position of feminists critically analyzing the dramatic shift in the gender roles of the sitcom: That in spite of the rise of the "dumb dad," and in spite of the rise of intelligent and competent women, leading to a complete reversal in which partner is smarter and more competent, this nevertheless affirms patriarchy.

My position is simpler: Portraying men as foolish and inept promotes and/or reflects negative stereotyping of men.

Your position is plugging your fingers in your ears and going "Prove that there's been a growth of portrayal of men as stupid and incompetent!"

Yes. The bank headquarters gets built, landing Ted, 33, on the cover of New York Magazine as the youngest architect to design a skyscraper in New York City.

A successful architect and a successful professor, having been featured in Time Magazine and New York Magazine, ends the show being headhunted to Chicago after having designed one of the largest skyscrapers in downtown Manhattan. At age 33.

Any career will have ups and downs, but in what world would those merits not be counted as successful?

Ah, so this is one of those sort of situations where the guy who's being lampooned as stupid and incompetent nevertheless eventually stumbles his way to success?

Not true. These characters are all intelligent, and they're all specialized. None of them are "non-intellectual", tho some of them are more partial to taking direct action.

None of the characters are negative stereotypes, and none are stupid and incompetent.

None? Or none of the "main" characters? I'm not agreeing with you, but I'll move on to the next point:

Now tell me, how many stupid people do they deal with? And what gender are the stupid people they deal with?

Is that a bad thing? Is being described as "good-hearted and affectionate" a bad thing?

It's one of the primary virtues assigned to the klutzy titular character of "I Dream of Jeannie." She's good-hearted, affectionate, and attractive (the third is still coded as a feminine virtue). She's also a ditz and a klutz, but that's OK.

It's now the primary virtue of Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin. They may be ditzy and klutzy, but they're good-hearted and affectionate (if not attractive).

I see. Are you relying on "feminist reviews" again? Because he is portrayed as a good father.

"Good" and "competent" are two different things.

He's a good father in the same ways that Homer Simpson is a good father. He's also confused a lot and doesn't really understand his daughter, in sharp contrast to his love interest. What's your definition of "good father"?

He's loving and caring, doing whatever it takes to keep his daughter safe.

Like Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin. Both of them are loving and caring and will go to great lengths to keep their family safe.

Look, we can agree that the portrayal of male characters have changed over time. Men are no longer portrayed as flawless one-dimensional supermen.

It's gone quite a bit further than that.

[The Joseon Dynasty]

But that's a relatively minor manifestation of a larger problem. Like I said, being perceived as bossy is not a primary reason why girls aren't becoming leaders (the source material for the campaign shows that quite clearly); the only thing that distinguishes the perception of bossiness from the other factors is that girls tended to identify it as a problem more than boys. So my question is why we're predicating this, as you say, broad-based campaign that offers ways to encourage leadership in young girls on such a flimsy premise? How are you going to encourage others to see this as a broader campaign to empower young girls when it's based on junk statistics and a weird, knee-jerk slogan? You don't have to disagree with the message to disagree with how it's being presented.

and why do you have a problem with telling people to leave bossy girls alone? is there a downside to sticking up for bossy girls that im missing?

No, that isn't what I've been saying. The campaign is exaggerating the effects of a relatively minor problem. It isn't honestly or accurately representing the issue with missing girls in leadership. Behind the fluff, there might well be some substantial material, sure. But what it's based on is weak. I don't have any problem suggesting that people ought to be more discerning with the word "bossy", since we know it is affecting how some subset of girls perceive leadership, but that isn't how the campaign has represented itself.

[Dyakovo]

Do you have proof that negative stereotyping of men, especially as predators, is on the rise,

I have a reasonable quantity of evidence.

In every way, perception of men as hypersexual is on the rise. Down to even just adult men casually touching each other looking exceptionally weird to the 21st century Westerner, but the rise of pedophile panic is a very real problem, and all of that attention is focused (not entirely justifiably) on men rather than women.

Then there's the growth of the "dumb dad" of sitcoms, and of men being portrayed as stupid and incompetent in media. This is very well known and not too long ago was reversed.

and if so, can you prove that this is because of feminism?

Prove? Well, we merely have the case that feminists were intimately involved with the rise of the modern pedophile panic, have put out a lot of rhetoric demonizing male sexuality, et cetera. It could be entirely coincidental, one supposes.

The fact of the matter is that feminists have on the whole supported attacking men as a class. The rise in negative male stereotypes at the same time as the rise of feminist intervention in matters of public opinion is unlikely to be entirely coincidental.

Can you also prove that those evil man-hating feminazis never do anything that benefits men on purpose?

While some feminists hate men (I feel that "man-hating" is an honorable and viable political act, wrote one prominent feminist), that's not the general case. Political lesbianism is pretty dead, and the average feminist is heterosexual. It's not about hating men, so much as wanting men to stay in their appropriate place.

Can you also prove that feminists are responsible for the idea that men can't be victims or that that's even a very widespread idea?

Feminists aren't responsible for originating the masculine coding of responsibility and the feminine coding of victimhood. What I said, instead, is that feminists are complicit in maintaining it. E.g., Mary Koss writes in speaking of male victims that "it is important to restrict the term rape to instances where male victims were penetrated by offenders. It is inappropriate to consider as a rape victim a man who engages in unwanted intercourse with a woman (e.g., Struckman-Johnson 1991)."

(That reference is to an article examining victimization of men; David & Cindy Struckman-Johnson have put out an extensive amount of research that examines victimization and coercion of and by both genders, and I've cited a number of their articles in challenging the traditional heterosexist narrative of rape here on NSG.)

You sure are keen to blame feminists for all of the problems man face as men, but to me, it seems like most of them are caused by the sexism inherent in patriarchy, namely, that men are strong, which translates to "dangerous", which translates to "not victims", which translates to "not gay". This is all implicit in the system feminists fight.

You have three very significant mistakes you're making in this statement.

The first is that you think that feminism and patriarchy are opposed to one another on every issue. This is demonstrably not the case. There are a number of issues where an institution originates with patriarchal traditions and feminism has been complicit in maintaining it. This is true of the sentencing gap, alimony (the origin of which is pure patriarchy), the gendered coding of victimhood, et cetera.

The second is that you're overlooking the very real effects that feminism has had on our society in triumphing over patriarchal traditions. One example I already brought up several times in this thread is that the patriarchal tradition placed child custody in the hands of the father in the event of divorce. It wasn't until after first-wave feminists got to work that the "tender years" doctrine was adopted (eventually morphing into a simple default of maternal custody).

The third is that you think that I blame feminists for all of the problems faced by men. This is an unfair generalization and a strawman attack on my position. Feminists are to blame directly only for some problems faced by men. The main negative effect of feminism has not been in creating new problems for men. The main negative effect has been steady opposition to any organized effort at reforming (or even critically considering, from a male perspective) the strictures of the male gender role. Complicity in the maintenance of existing problems is secondary. The creation of new problems for men (e.g., pedophile panic) is only of tertiary importance, and can be compared with similar erasure of problems for men (e.g., support for paternity leave).

The MRA talking point that TJ has embellished is that Dr. Koss has prevented the recognition of male rape victims.In the past, he has claimed (without evidence) that she has testified before Congress and lobbied to this effect. The only proof is one and one-half sentences plucked completely out of context from one 24-page article from 1993.

Before turning to how the quote is being deliberately misconstrued, I should note that this "evidence" is a grain of sand onthe floor of a heavily cited ocean of work. As of January 2012, Dr. Koss (alone or with others) had authored (57p, pdf) the following publications: 7 scholarly books; 7 textbooks; 103 book chapters and monograms; and 137 refereed journal articles. This is in addition to scores of professional presentations, congressional testimony, lay articles & new reports, etc. Among all this work by a ground-breaking scholar in the study of rape, we are to believe that one small quote evidences her view that men cannot be raped by women and that contrary views must be suppressed. This is even more of a stretch when one finds repeated references throughout Dr. Koss's work to male rape victims and she has other entire publications dedicated to male victimization.

Anyway, the article in question -- "Detecting the Scope of Rape: A Review of Prevalence Research Methods" -- is, shockingly, an examination of methodologies used to identify the prevalence of rape. It is worth noting that Dr. Koss criticizes traditional rape definitions for excluding the rape of men (p. 199), includes studies particularly focused on the rape of men in her review (pp. 200-204), includes multiple studies that include samples of male rape victims in her review (pp. 200-204), and discusses how studies may best elicit information from men about victimization. Dr. Koss discusses at length that one problem with the literature in this field is a failure to use uniform definitions of "rape" and related terms like "sexual assault," "sexual battery," or "criminal sexual conduct." (pp. 199, 206). She notes a preference for using "the traditional term 'rape' to refer to the most highly sanctioned penetration offense." (p. 199) Note that "most highly sanctioned" refers to the legal/punitive categorization of sexual offenses, although it may also reflect her personal view.
Leading to the "gotcha" quote, Dr. Koss emphasizes that studies should stick to definitions that reflect legal statutes, but that issues remain -- including the "sex neutrality of reform statutes, which has been ignored in all but a handful of studies. Instead, focus has been restricted to female victims. This restriction makes practical sense because over 90% of the rapes identified in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) involve female victims (Jamieson & Flanagan, 1989). Although consideration of male victims is within the scope of the legal statutes, it is important to restrict the term rape to instances where male victims were penetrated by offenders. It is inappropriate to consider as a rape victim a man who engages in unwanted sexual intercourse with a woman (e.g., Struckman-Johnson, 1991)." (p. 206-207) This allegedly misandrist statement is descriptive as to the state of the law in most jurisdictions -- particularly internationally -- and only prescriptive to the extent that studies of rape should use such definitions for consistency and (at least perceived) validity.* Consistent with Dr. Koss's objection of confusing the legitimate aim of categorizing "a range of unwanted sexual experiences" with identifying the prevalence of rape as legally defined, Dr. Koss supports identifying the prevalence of various forms of rape and unwanted sexual experiences forced upon males but only within as uniform of categories as possible. (pp. 206-207, 209 (citing Ageton (1983b)), 218.) This may or may not be objectionable, but it is not suppression, not sexism, and not misandry.

The characterization of this sentence is particularly bizarre because Dr. Koss notes later that surveying or questioning individuals using the word "rape" is likely to result in underestimates of the prevalence of rape, including the rape of males. (pp. 207-208) Even more than females, males may not perceive what happened to them as rape or remember the experience with that conceptual label. Males are particularly likely to wish to avoid association with the role of rape victim. Dr. Koss also notes that both male and females may be more likely to reveal the sensitive and stigmatizing experience of rape if interviewers are matched with the gender of the respondent. (p. 214). Finally, Dr. Koss explains that relative consistency in the prevalence estimates of rape of men is "falsely reassuring" because it likely represents a serious failure to elicit reports from male victims. (p. 217). Yeah, she's a "man-hater." :facepalm:
Once again, TJ distorts and lies. This time he also defames.

---

* Important context is that Dr. Koss had to defend her early, ground-breaking studies for allegedly categorizing incidents as rape when they were not perceived by the victim as rape or otherwise supposedly not rape. Dr. Koss was able to explain, however, that the studies matched details of reported incidents to the specific elements required by law to establish rape. TJ is among those who have ignored this in previously dismissing Dr. Koss's 1987 study.

[Ashmoria]

and why do you have a problem with telling people to leave bossy girls alone? is there a downside to sticking up for bossy girls that im missing?

No, that isn't what I've been saying. The campaign is exaggerating the effects of a relatively minor problem. It isn't honestly or accurately representing the issue with missing girls in leadership. Behind the fluff, there might well be some substantial material, sure. But what it's based on is weak. I don't have any problem suggesting that people ought to be more discerning with the word "bossy", since we know it is affecting how some subset of girls perceive leadership, but that isn't how the campaign has represented itself.

*shrug* as long as you aren't expect to participate in the campaign what difference does it make? if its misguided it wont have any effect.

it seems to me that the bossiest girls are not affected by the negative stereotypes of bossy girls. it is the somewhat bossy girls who will be driven to the side. ....I just don't see that its a bad thing to tamp down bad reactions to the natural way any type of person is. I think we need more of it rather than less. not about bossy girls but about all the types of kids that get made fun of.