Lizzy, I've been around my DV-working super-feminist wife long enough to know where you're going with that. And really, what can I say? The greatest harm inflicted on women in the U.S. is always inflicted by boyfriends, husbands, and fathers. We, as husbands and boyfriends and fathers, are damaging OUR GIRLS. The ones closest to us and the most dependent on us to do right by them; and who suffer the most ill if we do wrong by them.

I'm not trying to disempower or make claims of proprietary, objectifying ownership.

I would also say that "our" works both ways.

My wife? "He's MY husband." My daughter? "He's MY daddy!" In fact, I'd dare say they have a greater claim on me than I do on them. But then, this is part of the Service ethos as well.

Anyway, I know you were not nitpicking. Well, okay, maybe a little? But I understand the sentiment was benign and that you're just trying to keep me honest. It's appreciated.

Posted May 23, 2007 2:25 AM by PublicRadioVet

Jen Roth @ 45: "That would explain why there is sexism in all cultures, but it doesn't explain why it only goes one way."

Any conflict, if it cannot be solved any other way, will be solved by appeal to physical laws, i.e. by violence. Men have a substantial advantage over women when conflicts come to that.

Posted May 23, 2007 2:25 AM by Heresiarch

I probably should have said "matrilineal," instead of "matriarchal." There are elements of both, but on the whole, the Mosuo seem more interested in a sort of balance between the sexes.

Posted May 23, 2007 2:26 AM by J Austin

PublicRadioVet @39 -- Sorry, but your concept of chivalry gives me the creeps.

My cure for sexism can be summed up in three words: Women are people.

They're not weird aliens we men can never understand. They're not property to be cloistered away, or servants to be ordered around and beaten, or sacred icons to be placed on pedestals. They're people. They're our friends and relatives and co-workers.

I can't imagine how much poorer my life would be if I had to regard all my female friends through a window of exaltation-as-life-bringers.

Posted May 23, 2007 2:28 AM by Avram

Heresiarch @ #50: Allow me to expound a little further. The "Service ethos" I mentioned ought to also be grounded in humility. In this way the import or worth of the service is not necessarily tied to the "flawlessness" of those who are served.

When I exhort guys to "Serve women!" I am saying that I think men (all men!) need a mission in life, and that service to wives and daughters and mothers and grandmothers and sisters... This is a good mission, a worthy mission, a necessary mission. It harnesses the male and binds him to a higher purpose than his own selfish lusts, desires, wants, etc. In this way the male transcends himself and becomes something greater than he is capable of becoming all on his own; certainly greater than any stature attained through hurtful dominion or abuse.

Yeah, maybe things get a little worshipful at times. But in a good relationship I think the "worship" often goes both ways. I've been with a peer partner since 1993 and we really do complete each other, as cliche as that sounds. I really do worship her. And not because she is inhuman or flawless, but because I think she is perfect for me and I am grateful that she has chosen to stay with me in spite of all my shit. And she feels the same about me.

Does this make sense?

Posted May 23, 2007 2:35 AM by PublicRadioVet

Avram, see post #55.

Posted May 23, 2007 2:37 AM by PublicRadioVet

I don't see why PVR's idea of service has to be so very gender-defined. Why "Serve women"? Why not just "Serve"? If it is good for a man to serve a women in order to subsume his baser instincts into a cause higher than himself, then it is good for any person to serve another cherished person that way. It is not only women who are valuable, nor men who have baser instincts.

There's also a nasty little side-effect that comes into play with all this elevating of women to Fertility Goddess stature (the idea of serving *women* because they are the source of life). When we overvalue someone for a particular quality, we give the message this quality is *all* they are valued for, that their other qualities do not merit attention. I, for one, do not plan on bearing children. I hope that doesn't make me less valuable as a woman--or as a human.

Another quibble I have is that PVR does not seem to make allowance in his proposal for homosexual couples. It makes his proposal sound like another argument for the obvious natural rightness of the heterosexual norm, which I'm sure he doesn't intend.

Posted May 23, 2007 2:59 AM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

PublicRadioVet.

"It's a cookbook!"

Posted May 23, 2007 3:03 AM by Dave Bell

PublicRadioVet, please, pretty please, don't serve me. That kind of behavior incites fits of violence in me. In fact, I find few things as insulting as a guy who won't hit women on principle, even if she took a swing first. A general policy of pacifism can be noble, but refusing to meet me on the same terms you would somebody else with non-metaphorical balls is disparaging, and since I don't pick fights I don't expect to win, might get your ass kicked, and by a girl. If you need something to subvert your inherent masculine foibles, save African children from war and starvation.

Every woman here who's argued that men have the upper-hand when a situation becomes violent is making excuses that don't count. Honestly ladies, a shot gun works just as well for you as it does for your abusive male whatever. Read the thread about guns and what it takes to be a good gun owner that was up here a while back, take the advice seriously, and then if your size is such an issue, hit a shooting range and find out what works for you. Better yet, if you really want to thwart male brutality, get yourself some training and learn how to make your size and weight work for you. I'm not going to say it's easy, but you've got a responsibility to do what it takes to take care of yourself and if you're afraid of violence, then prepare for it. The argument works historically, but it's not a justification for anything going on in the United States (or much of the western world I suspect) today.

I'm dreaming rather idealistically of the day when people are people, where women don't get to cite wonky cyclical estrogen levels for moodswings, and men don't get to cite testosterone for violence. There are inherent differences between the sexes that come down to the effects of different biological makeups, but on the grand social scale of this day and age, they don't matter much.

Posted May 23, 2007 3:21 AM by anaea

PublicRadioVet: but don't you also serve your son, your father, your grandfather, your brother -- what exactly is the difference? You are describing family love, and it's not split up by gender - do you really become a better person by loving and helping your daughter than you do by loving and helping your son?

(Your wife of course is a different case, because the dynamics in a romantic/sexual relationship are different, but we're not talking only about women in sexual relationships with men - that is half the point).

I have more reservations about this:
'Every boy should aspire to be a Real Man. Real Men are men who embrace Service. Perhaps the highest possible expression of Service can be found in serving a female. She could be your mom, or your sister, a cousin, a girlfriend, a wife, a daughter, a grandmother, etc.'
but I'm not finding the words to express them very well, and I think I'm joining a queue, anyway.

Posted May 23, 2007 3:26 AM by Jenny

Dave @ #58: LOL! I had forgotten that cultural reference.

Nicole, lots of women never have kids, either because of choice or because of biology or because of lack of opportunity. My cousin is such a woman, and she's a fine woman IMHO.

As for childbirthing being given too much importance.... I dunno. What's the whole thing with "womb envy" then, if not placing overt importance on the fact that women (and only women, so far) can produce viable human offspring?

My wife thinks the womb and the ability to make children is an immense and sacred power that women enjoy. She's intelligent and multi-talented and educated, but when it gets down to the baseline stuff of survival and Why We Are Here, she typically sticks childbirth right at the top of her list. Notice, SHE puts it there. I don't touch it. This is her choice for herself. And it doesn't seem to shake her faith in the value of all her other talents or abilities. Nor would my appreciation of her diminish had we been unable to have our daughter. Heck, with how long we waited to have kids, it almost worked out that way anyway.

Now, as to the heterocentric nature of my comments, what can I say? DV is overwhelmingly a problem created by hetero males against hetero females. Obviously it's the hetero males with the problem, hence I am discussing a "solution" in terms of hetero males needing a mission for their lives and a way to change their paradigm and escape the shackles of misogyny.

Posted May 23, 2007 3:31 AM by PublicRadioVet

PublicRadioVet @ 55: "It harnesses the male and binds him to a higher purpose than his own selfish lusts, desires, wants, etc."

Not getting any less creepy, PRV. I don't really think that males need to be "harnessed and bound to a higher purpose," certainly not a purpose like being someone's personal servant. Humility is all well and good, but let's give self-respect a chance too, okay?

I don't disagree that helping others is a worthy mission, but why confine it to inter-gender assistance? Why is helping women a more worthy goal than helping other men? And why aren't women in need of a similar life-structuring mission?

I don't mean to knock your personal experience. It seems like this philosophy has enriched your own life. Nonetheless, I seriously doubt its universal applicability, much in the same way I doubt the philosophy of women who go about exhorting other women to devote all their energy and passion to taking care of their husbands and children. If it works for you, then great, but it pretty much gives me the heebie jeebies.

Posted May 23, 2007 3:48 AM by Heresiarch

Rad Geek had a good three part series on what men can do. Part II sounds pertinent.

Posted May 23, 2007 3:49 AM by Bill Humphries

"I for one welcome our Overladies."

Posted May 23, 2007 3:56 AM by Serge

Jenny: I think there is worth in all honest service. I'm not trying to say that men should serve women to the exclusion of all else. I am saying that if the majority of hetero men in the world made service to their wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, etc, a top priority, and turned the traditional me-first male paradigm on its ear, then the world would be a vastly different and vastly better place.

anaea: I think there is a lot to be said for context. For instance, if I am riding the train on a weekend and it's crowded and a woman gets on who can't sit down, my old-fashioned sense of decorum might kick in and I'll give her my seat. The same is not true if I am riding the same train and it's a work day and we're all headed either to or from work. The context has shifted and in the modern work world gender does (should?) cease to exist as a factor, so the minute I am in "work mode" a lot of my old-fashioned sensibility in this regard goes to sleep.

Also, I think it's important to note that I have intentionally mentioned the following: wives, daughters, mothers, sisters, yadda yadda. Notice, they are all close relations to the man doing the serving, if not a blood relation. I am not advocating "stalker" service, wherein a man picks a total stranger and then throws himself at her in a bizarre attempt to prove himself. No. I am talking about men doing more for the women and girls already in their lives, the people they are closest to and who (according to statistics) are the most likely to suffer DV or abuse at their hands.

Again, we're discussing women-hate and violence against women. My clarion for "Service to Women!" is my personal answer to women-hate and DV, and I practice it every day of my life.

And no, I do not believe when a man serves a woman, and does it humbly, he in any way is sending a message that he thinks she can't do things for herself.

Case in point. My wife hates to make the bed. Hates it, hates it, hates it. She leaves it a rumpled mess, which suits my bachelor instincts just fine. But you know what? I make the bed. Because as much as I know she hates to make the bed, she likes to get into a made bed at the end of a long day, and since I don't mind making the bed and she does... Well, that's a good, modest example of service. We both know she is CAPABLE of making the bed. That's not the point. The point is, I perform a service for her that she appreciates. And that's all I am saying really.

Posted May 23, 2007 3:59 AM by PublicRadioVet

There's a huge heterosexual assumption in all this, and it's one that, 20 or 30 years ago, I might have shared.

The world has changed, and so have I.

It sometimes looks as though the whole male power business is driven by a general hunger for power, and the attitude to women is at its heart an effort to eliminate half the competition.

How much were lynchings about the purity of white women, and how much about the maintenance of power? It wasn't just "uppity niggers", it was people such as Ella Watson.

Yes, the current political inferences are obvious. And promoting the power of men over women lets the power-hungry give some politically insignificant power to those who support them.

Posted May 23, 2007 4:25 AM by Dave Bell

Sexism has an overwhelming stench of fear in it. Violence gives false bravado and disguises the fear. Causing terror and fear in others to deny your own. Misogynists are cowards.

Posted May 23, 2007 4:34 AM by T.W

Scott @ 37 and Heresiarch @ 47

Pretty much zero pressure to be a stay at home mom is one of the major reasons the Icelandic population is actually growing (not super fast but I think it's currently at around 2.3 children per woman on average). Childcare is cheap compared to most places, i.e atleast half of what it is here in the UK. They also provide childcare and support (and more importantly no social stigma) for universtiy students with children so when I was studying there would occasionally be a sleeping baby with us in class because a babysitter had flaked out.

There isn't stigma either attached to single mothers. I mean yes having two parents is ofcourse recognized as being better for everyone, but there's not a taboo about being a single mother.

I grew up with not a single of my friends having stay at home mums (or dads) and thought the whole concept was just bizarre when I heard of it first.

Also children born out of wedlock are more common than in. On account of the population in general not being hugely religious and tending to get married when they have a 3-4 year old children that can then carry the rings up the aisle in the church.

Things are far from perfect over there but I've had a few culture shocks running into more conservative cultures.

Posted May 23, 2007 4:35 AM by Sica

anaea @ #59 - Er. Telling other women to carry guns and go out and get some training to protect themselves is all very well and good, but your post feels uncomfortably close to blaming the victim to me. Not all of us have access to/money for/the ability to use/want to use martial arts or guns, and in a hell of a lot of situations where men attack women, the women don't have a good reason to expect it - and not all attacks start out physical.

Was it my fault my second boyfriend berated and abused me until I felt like I should accept his physical abuse, too, because I didn't want to shoot him or beat him up?

Please tell me I'm reading your post wrong. I really hope I am.

Posted May 23, 2007 4:59 AM by Renatus

#42: the point about "our women" reminds me of that Draco Tavern story about the language that has three different forms of the possessive, depending on whether it's "my leg" (intrinsic), "my car" (possessive) or "my sister ("relational").

Also Chesterton's "The Absence of Mr. Glass", which makes the distinction between a man's hat and a hat that is his. My hat is the one I wear. If I own a hat shop, there are hundreds of hats that are mine, but only one or two that are my hats.

English, as a language, needs improving.

Posted May 23, 2007 5:12 AM by ajay

Power structures and power trips are imposed on people from without: oppression is quite literally top down. And that can't be changed at the top, because the ones in charge are the ones who benefit most from the status quo. As a number of commenters have pointed out, a lot of oppression of women comes from giving men with little power themselves someone else to hold power over, to keep them content with the rule of those who really hold power.

Cultures always change in the long-term bottom up, because people start acting differently and ultimately make the old structures irrelevant and powerless. It's a matter of education in the largest sense: raising people who are educated to recognize as a fundamental part of their world view, not just intellectually, that the old notion of superiority/inferiority is unacceptable and undesirable.

That sort of education comes from being raised by and knowing people who believe it themselves: the people commenting here and their ilk. The idea that misogyny is a bad thing is not new, but it seems to be growing in acceptance, perhaps because it really does have survival value to the human race over the long run. It's clearly not time to pat ourselves on the back, or Dua Khalil would still be alive, and we would not be facing a presidential election in the US where the white electorate might actually vote for a black man because the alternative might be a woman. But it just may be that there is hope for the future.

As a personal example, I was raised in the Eastern US in the mid-20th century; as misogynist a culture as you'll find in Western civilization. The only reason I didn't assimilate that culture and its views completely is that I come from a family containing a number of strong women, including one aunt and one female cousin who were* among the best and most recognized in their respective professions, and several others who had successful professional and family lives.

This exemplar of strong women was what led me to marry a woman who is also strong, and our marriage has lasted 37 years for the simple reason that we are partners, we have each other's back. Neither of us would be alive today without the other, and that's a whole lot stronger a bond than any notion of proper station or a role in life received from above.

* before they retired; both of them are alive, my aunt is going to be 95 this year.

Posted May 23, 2007 5:32 AM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

Stephen Frug@46: I had not previously encountered those pictures.

The first site you linked to has 100 pictures. I had to stop after 25. I simply could not keep going. I don't have the words to describe my feelings right now.

Posted May 23, 2007 5:57 AM by David Goldfarb

anaea at 59:
"I'm dreaming rather idealistically of the day when people are people, where women don't get to cite wonky cyclical estrogen levels for moodswings"

A woman's hormone levels can and do change radically from one day to the next, and it DOES cause mood swings. One of the treatments I'm on for my bipolar disorder is Seasonale, precisely because it evens out those levels to a large extent for months at a time. Since my hormonal cycle was making my bipolar cycles more severe, it's helped a lot. And when it's time for the week of sugar pills, I can d*mned well fall apart.
While yes, women use it as an excuse to be assholes and men use it as a way to put down women, and both of those things are wrong, it's still a very, very real phenomenon. Acknowledging that both men and women are people doesn't and shouldn't mean ignoring the very real physiological differences between us. It should instead mean that we treat one another with respect and compassion.

Posted May 23, 2007 6:11 AM by Rebecca

ajay @ 70

In "The Dispossessed" Ursula Le Guin describes a society whose language has no possessive form at all. Instead of saying "my partner", they say "the partner". As in the Draco Tavern atory, this leads to a different way of thinking.

If you think that the way you speak doesn't fundamentally affect the way you see the world, contemplate martial arts for awhile, and note how training is designed to make action automatic, to create correct habits. Speech is a collection of some of the most basic habits we have, and everything about it affects the way we think of, feel about, and react to the world. Speech about relationships is especially powerful because it describes those relationships to us.

Posted May 23, 2007 6:25 AM by Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers)

Bruce Cohen @ 70:

On the other hand, it's worth noting that the problem of "honor killings" exists in societies that speak very different languages, e.g., Turkey, numerous Arab-speaking countries, Kurdish speakers like the Yezidis that Whedon wrote about, and Pakistan (several different languages). As a language, Turkish is arguably less "gendered" than English (for example, Turkish lacks gendered 3rd person pronouns like "he" and "she"), and certainly less so than French or Spanish (no grammatical gender for nouns and adjectives). This doesn't necessarily mean that Turkish society has more gender equality than the US or Spain or France, however.

Fiddling with minor bits of language like possessive pronouns sounds like an appealingly easy solution to society's ills, but I suspect it's like treating a minor symptom instead of the underlying disease.

Posted May 23, 2007 7:07 AM by Peter Erwin

D'oh. My previous comment was meant as a reply to Bruce Cohen's comment @ 74, not "70". (Although it was also a reply of sorts to ajay's original comment @ 70...)

Posted May 23, 2007 7:12 AM by Peter Erwin

Peter @ #75: In another example of your point, Mandarin Chinese also lacks a gendered personal pronoun. (I'm not suggesting here that language doesn't inform thought, but rather that monkeying with pronouns is unlikely to produce gender equality.)

Public Radio Vet: I do appreciate your attempt to oppose evil with good, but among the reasons your position makes me nervous are:

1. It prescribes "correct" behavior for a very large category of people
2. It assigns an active role to all men and a passive role to all women
3. It mandates that all men must be in relationships with women and vice versa

and

4. The attitude you suggest as proper for men is completely compatible with the obsessive, posessive, stalkery attitude my daughters and I have encountered in a few of our male acquaintances.

In short, I honor your intent, but no thanks. Given a wish, the behavior I'd most wish for from the men I know is either (a) treat me as a fellow human being, with due attention paid to my individual likes and dislikes, or (b) LEAVE ME ALONE! (Luckily, most of the men in my life are perfectly willing to do one or the other.)

There's a truly creepy moment in Deepa Mehta's film "Fire"; a woman asks her husband, who has become celibate in search of spiritual perfection, what HER reward will be for giving up sex and the hope of having children; his startled reply is along the lines of "the glory of having served me!"

Posted May 23, 2007 7:59 AM by Lila

#43 Serge, that would be "crossbow" weddings, ballista are hard to get inside the church. Although, I believe "at the point of the sword/spear/dagger" would also work. A traditional bow would be tiring to hold in the ready position for the whole ceremony.

Posted May 23, 2007 8:02 AM by Steve Buchheit

All right, longer post that I've been trying to formulate. The odd thing about PRV's concept of 'service to the females in your life' is that it seems to mirror a traditional view of how women should behave. Just try reversing the genders...

'Every girl should aspire to be a Real Woman. Real Women are women who embrace Service. Perhaps the highest possible expression of Service can be found in serving a man. He could be your father, or your brother, a cousin, a boyfriend, a husband, a son, a grandfather, etc.'

... and watch the hackles rise.

Now, I think the notion of treating your partner (of whatever gender) with the consideration and kindness that PRV describes is a very fine one, and I appreciate his desire that men should behave well towards the women in their lives. But I object to this talk about what makes a 'Real Man' or a 'Real Woman': how about discussing the way a Decent Person acts? It's recognising the common humanity in others that leads us to treat them well -- not some idealisation based on gender, which can just as well swing the other way into a kind of contempt, or worse. (Actually I think that women who take the 'real-women-serve-their-menfolk' line sometimes do seem to have a kind of contempt for the male gender: 'oh, men are really very simple' etc., which I'm none too keen on).

Also, what about women who don't have a male partner/ close male relative/ whatever? Why should they be worse off without anyone to 'serve' them? What I envy about men is not any kind of biological equipment (ha!) but just the freedom to go your way about the world without the worries that stack up on you for being female. I've had male friends go out of their way -- with the kindest intentions -- to walk me home after a party (I've sometimes wondered if *I* should be worried about *them* walking back on their own), and I've walked home alone when there was no such offer forthcoming. I love walking alone at night. It would be wonderful to be able to do this without feeling like a prey species. (In fact it's fairly safe where I am, but I have been hassled sometimes, and I'm always aware there's a certain risk, even when I choose to take it...)

In other words, PublicRadioVet, I'd rather be on your work train than your weekend train -- though it's sometimes nice to be on the receiving end of a chivalrous gesture without sleazy undertones, I'd trade that occasional event very, very gladly for being seen as a human being first and foremost and as a female human being... let's say, only at times in my life where my private parts are relevant. I'm sure that on the work train you would still give up your seat to someone who was infirm, or had small children with them, or was physically uncomfortable standing for whatever reason, and that's what really matters.

Peter Erwin @ #75, I agree with you. I didn't know that about Turkish, but Hungarian also has no gender in the third person (which can lead to some odd effects in translation: I've heard a Hungarian speaking English consistently refer to his daughter as 'he', which gave me a real mental jolt!). I can't see any particular evidence that this has made Hungarians less sexist than their neighbours; I think it's only one facet among greater cultural forces.

Finally, Sica @#68, I am getting the increasing impression, from what I've heard and read, that Icelandic society is pretty awesome, and different/quirky in an agreeable way. I hope I get to visit there someday.

Posted May 23, 2007 8:44 AM by Jenny

Heresiarch #47

For callibration purposes, I live in a "second tier" city (Fukuyama) which will be less cosmopolitan, modern, and expensive than the "first tier" cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, maybe more).

In my experience, there are definitely women who are avoiding marriage, and housework. But it's far from a majority. I'm sure it's grown since whenever before. I wouldn't even blink an extra time if somebody told me that the number of women who don't want a family (different from don't want to be housewives) was the same as the number of Japanese men who don't want to join a company and start the last-job-they'll-ever-have (also an increasing number).

Another thing that is very different now than a few years ago for birth-rate is the number of 1-child families has positively skyrocketed. Women who want a child have one, but having 2 is a hassle or whatever. Japanese society, overall, seems to provide just about zero support to a mother. Some random newspaper article (in the Daily Yomiuri) I read said that Japan is still moderately hostile to men as primary caregiver for a child.

An electrical engineer I know is married and has 2 children, works the full run of insane Japanese working hours and still finds time to let her mother to complain that her cooking isn't up to snuff yet. I don't get it but I am in awe. This reminds me that I need to figure out how rude it would be to ask about her husband...

For contrast, at a 2-year college, there's a class of 23 IT/Programming students, 6 of whom are women (girls?) 3 of whom describe their future as doing office-work... maybe. Eh? I restate, I don't get this place.

Posted May 23, 2007 9:00 AM by Scott

PRV, have you read Anne Bishop's Dark Jewels trilogy? It's set in a society based on male service to female-- and sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. It's one of those worlds that says it's feminist, but sort of isn't.

Your Service does make me a little nervous, but not because of what it is. I'm often wary of unknown people declaring themselves to a cause. Add anything involving sex and gender and I'm going to stay well away until I know it's not going to cause harm. I can understand how someone who has encountered stalkery men would stay well away *period*.
Some of it is also the dichotomy between men (lustful, selfish, violent) and women (chaste, giving, nurturing) you seem to accept. Lately, it seems I'm been running into that a lot-- if men are X, women must be -X. Men only want one thing, so women have to be coaxed or coerced into it. Men are strong, women are weak. Men are good at numbers, women are good at words. Women form strong social groups, men must be solitary.
It's a stupid way to order the world because gender and sex aren't binary. And because the traits people often take as fixed-- men are lustful, for example-- are really, really not. Up until pretty recently, women were wanton and sinful and men had to protect themselves against them. Men had to guard and protect women against the female nature.
And the result was somewhat the same. Serve women or bad things will happen. If women don't have men to help out, they will be unhappy and the world will be worse off. Women cannot live without men.

I know you don't mean to suggest these things, and you live in a way that's right for you, plural you. It seems sometimes that everything I take in involving sex and gender tells me that the world is a messed-up place. I've learned to watch for the barbs past experience tells me are there. Stories, essays, manifestos on sex and gender are almost always bad news or worse news.

Posted May 23, 2007 9:09 AM by Diatryma

Jenny @#79

Gender equality etc. still has a way to go back home in Iceland, the average salary for women is still a fair bit lower etc. But the lack of taboo around working and/or single mothers is great.

I also like the fact that we still have a last name (patronyms) system that doesn't involve changing your name when you get married. That's another concept I found completely bizarre when I encountered it first and I still can't really get my heard around it.

As a side effect of that, children of a couple have get the same name, no matter if the parents are married or not which probably is one factor in the "lets not get married until we have a house and a few kids" thing that a lot of people do.

That's hardwired enough into me so that I went to a wedding in the UK where the bride and groom to be had borrowed a child the bride used to babysit to carry the rings up the aisle and it felt really *wrong* (in the truthiness place) to me, to have an intruder that wasn't a part of the core family fulfilling that function. It should either be their child or no child at all. Heh..

Anyway to be slightly on topic, I wonder if the lack of surnames has shaped the culture. I.e there isn't the concept of a family linage that hinges only on male children being born.

Posted May 23, 2007 9:11 AM by Sica

Some random newspaper article (in the Daily Yomiuri) I read said that Japan is still moderately hostile to men as primary caregiver for a child.

Unless you're talking about "Lone Wolf and Cub", of course.

Posted May 23, 2007 9:12 AM by ajay

To PublicRadioVet:

Every boy should aspire to be a Real Man.

Whenever I see something like that, it looks to me like "I'm trying to take your self-respect hostage. You don't get to like yourself unless I approve of what you're doing."

I've been told by men that the Real Man vulnerability is just built into boys. If that's true, of course I'd rather have a relatively sane and civilized standard of Real Manhood, but is this really necessary? Is it commonly accepted nonsense, deep psychological truth, or true for some temperaments but not for all?

In re making your wife's bed because she strongly prefers having a made bed but hates making it herself: Does this need an ideal of Service, or would reasonable (and probably reciprocal) kindness be enough?

Posted May 23, 2007 10:16 AM by Nancy Lebovitz

Steve Buchheit... A few years ago, during a staff meeting, one of my co-workers announced that she was getting married. That took us all by surprise because we had no idea she was seeing someone. Everybody congratulated her. I, since my mission in life was to tease her, asked if it was going to be a shotgun wedding. People actually gasped, except for my co-worker because, being from Hong Kong, she didn't know what that means. I proceeded to explain. Which gave her nightmares from then until the actual wedding that she'd become pregnant, and visibly so, by the time of the ceremony. Heheheheh...

Posted May 23, 2007 10:21 AM by Serge

As a man, I'm a bit reluctant to jump in here. However, I think (and it's been stated above) that some (most?) misogynistic behavior is based on male fear. If you're afraid of something, you may react violently.

Misogynistic cultures seem to treat sex as something women have and men want, and go to great lengths to "protect" women from men. The whole point of the burqa is hide a woman's form, so that men don't get "carried away" by a woman's sexuality. Ditto Victorian female attire.

Ritual, violent and public deaths, whether lynchings or "honor killings," are a form of control. They are a symptom, not a cause.

I don't have the training or background in psychology to cite studies in support of this, so all of the above is my opinion, YMMV.

Posted May 23, 2007 10:23 AM by Chris Gerrib

Paula Helm Murray #27: I would say that education is the one "vaccine" that will work against honour killings. That, and making clear that they are going to result in condign punishments for the killers.

Posted May 23, 2007 10:28 AM by Fragano Ledgister

#75 ::: Peter Erwin: Fiddling with minor bits of language like possessive pronouns sounds like an appealingly easy solution to society's ills, but I suspect it's like treating a minor symptom instead of the underlying disease.

#77 ::: Lila: (I'm not suggesting here that language doesn't inform thought, but rather that monkeying with pronouns is unlikely to produce gender equality.)

Agreed. But reading Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness is a very different experience from reading her short story 'Coming of Age in Karhide,' in large part because of her conscientious use of pronouns. These pronouns didn't change the world. They did, however, change my world a little bit.

Posted May 23, 2007 10:32 AM by Will A

linnen #30: Honour killings occur when the woman in question takes up with an 'unsuitable' man, that's true. The man is unsuitable precisely because he has not been chosen by the family (i.e., by the elder male or males in the family), so the 'dishonour' resides in the woman's sexuality being outside the control of her older male relatives. This is also why a woman 'dishonours' her family by being raped. Her virginity is a commodity to be prized because it can be sold, in essence, to a suitable man. Anything which brings that commodity into doubt is going to be treated as a threat to the stability of the family, the social order, and the natural order of the universe.

In the process, women are completely dehumanised.

Posted May 23, 2007 10:35 AM by Fragano Ledgister

Will A@ #88, I was musing the other day about whether or not The Left Hand of Darkness was a book that it would be possible to film...

Posted May 23, 2007 10:50 AM by Jenny

heresiarch@47

It's not just happening in Japan.

The US Census Bureau has reported that the number of women in marriages (well, marriages in general) have decreased a lot from 100 years ago. IIRC the number is around 50% of the population now where before it was 90 to 95%. (I got the information second-hand and have no links or cites.) Reasons are listed as: Divorced (and not doing that again), Looking (without success), and Just Not Interested.

I also heard that there are various European countries where the birth rate is below replacement. Mostly in countries where mothers get paid to stay at home and can't have other work outside the home.

Posted May 23, 2007 10:53 AM by Victoria

Chris @ #86:
The whole point of the burqa is hide a woman's form, so that men don't get "carried away" by a woman's sexuality. Ditto Victorian female attire.

Um, not exactly. Victorian female attire - which, incidentally, includes about half a dozen significantly differing styles - is made to emphasize female curves - bust, waist, hip. This is the precise opposite of what a burqa is supposed to do. It's not just a matter of covering up skin, though there are certainly people whose imagination doesn't extend far enough to process anything other than "showing lots of skin" as sexy.

You might want to read up on Victorian costume history and the preceding and succeding eras of costume before making sweeping statements about its "point".

Posted May 23, 2007 11:00 AM by Susan

As a woman, here's a question directed to the men: What is it like to grow up without the expectation that you are, at your very core, a nurturer?

When you were growing up, was there any generic message you got from society as a whole on what you were? Some kind of consensus from all the messages thrown at you?

Posted May 23, 2007 11:07 AM by mayakda

I don't have much to add about what PRV said except that it seems well intentioned and that, as a gay man, I'm actually rather sick of being told who a Real Man is. (But this is a personal quirk which has nothing to do with PRV.) Like Niki, I wonder why it's "to serve women" rather than simply to serve and to engage in building a healthy community and society. I don't think PRV means it this way, but his manifesto reads to me like a first step people take as they work their way back to becoming healthy members of society. (i.e., you start off doing the specific case, then you work your way to the general case.)

#77: Written Chinese, OTOH, does have a gendered personal pronoun. I believe this is a comparatively recent invention. It drives me nuts. You end up with a language where gender-neutral speech is pretty simple, but gender-neutral written text is not. (e.g., you can't play the game of shifting into the plural because you indicate plural with a suffix, not with a different word. You wouldn't write "he or she" because "he" and "she" are written differently but identically.)

However, make of this what you will, whenever my Mom spoke, she invariably got "he" and "she" mixed up. (Of course, she also never really got the hang of verb tenses. Chinese has particles to indicate aspect, but none to indicate tense.)

Posted May 23, 2007 11:07 AM by JC

PRV, no offense, but stay away from my feminism. Serving women is just as misguided as trying to dominate them. We're not objects, we're not goddesses, we're PEOPLE. See Avram's post. We're just like you. I want to be respected as a human being, not exalted for some parenthetical biological function (not all of us need or want children, and "bearing life" is NOT our greatest calling). You want a higher calling? Join the Peace Corps. Spread truth. Fund good causes. Do something with your life and your money that betters the lives of all people, men and women both.

As far as "innate" differences in the sexes go, whether physical, psychological, or emotional, science has proven again and again that while there probably is SOME biological difference, it's so small as to be negligible. Are women less capable of aggression? More nurturing? Less strong? The biological answer tends to be "Maybe, but not enough to make a difference." The rest is up to culture.

Does anyone else remember this awful book?

I am so sick and tired of throwback feminism that claims to be interested in "protecting" women from their own choices (thank goodness for Justice Kennedy! We can't be trusted to make informed choices about our bodies). Poor poor women who have the unimaginable burden of being 100% responsible for sex. The author says she did not discuss men because women are the "sexual gatekeepers." Yay for blaming the victim.

What really troubles me, though, is this total misunderstanding of the function of sex. To her and so many others, it's currency. She says she wants women to embrace dating and romance "the better to get to know each other" and "Guys will do anything for homemade baked goods." Worse, she claims that "Real power is not giving it away, but using it wisely. That’s when you’re liberated, really." Because liberation shouldn't be about the simple capacity to make sexual choices and not be stoned for it--it should be about using sex to purchase power. And this is in my own country. Is that really the solution? I sure as hell hope not.

Posted May 23, 2007 11:07 AM by Torie

Sica @82:
That's hardwired enough into me so that I went to a wedding in the UK where the bride and groom to be had borrowed a child the bride used to babysit to carry the rings up the aisle and it felt really *wrong* (in the truthiness place) to me, to have an intruder that wasn't a part of the core family fulfilling that function. It should either be their child or no child at all.

I've lived in the UK my entire life, and that sounds wrong to me, too. I don't think that's a cultural difference, that's just a bizarre wedding.

Posted May 23, 2007 11:11 AM by Jules

Jenny @90: Fun! Maybe. So long as it isn't filmed by idiots. The story does have a few dramatic, icy landscapes, and it could be fun to share Genly's visual misreading of gender cues.

Googles . . . okay, wiki claims that "a feature film is being developed for release in 2008," hopefully not by idiots.

Posted May 23, 2007 11:15 AM by Will A

"I don't see why PVR's idea of service has to be so very gender-defined. Why "Serve women"? Why not just "Serve"? If it is good for a man to serve a women in order to subsume his baser instincts into a cause higher than himself, then it is good for any person to serve another cherished person that way. It is not only women who are valuable, nor men who have baser instincts."

Absolutely - shouldn't one 'serve' one's parents, one's children, one's brothers and sisters and friends? Shouldn't one do so regardless of one's own sex?

But really, with the exception of actual dependents (and I wouldn't count a spouse as 'dependent' in this sense, regardless of whether they work outside the home), I think the ideal should be less one of service and more one of fellowship and partnership.

My wife works about the same hours that I do, so when we're home it only makes sense that I take on my share of the cooking, cleaning, helping our son with his homework, etc. Fair's fair, and don't partners and friends at least try to be fair to each other?

I find it hard to fathom those who think (and have felt free to say to one or both of us) that the woman should have to take on all these household chores while the man is free to kick back, regardless of the fact that both work hard outside the home. Now, if one or the other of us made enough that the other could afford to stay home, we'd have to reevaluate the division of labor, but by no means do I think that would result in the 'bread-winner' being let off of all household duties; frankly, I think there's probably more to do to keep a home and family running than there is to do at any job I've ever had, with the possible exception of teaching high school. And yet, unless the decision were made for us by who gets a better-paying job first, I think my wife and I would both be fighting to be the one that gets to stay home...

"In "The Dispossessed" Ursula Le Guin describes a society whose language has no possessive form at all. Instead of saying "my partner", they say "the partner". As in the Draco Tavern atory, this leads to a different way of thinking.

If you think that the way you speak doesn't fundamentally affect the way you see the world, contemplate martial arts for awhile, and note how training is designed to make action automatic, to create correct habits. Speech is a collection of some of the most basic habits we have, and everything about it affects the way we think of, feel about, and react to the world. Speech about relationships is especially powerful because it describes those relationships to us."

True enough, but I don't think by this token that PRV necessarily deserves to be jumped on about the use of the word 'our', given that the possessive is also used reciprocally by the ones we're related to; e.g., my wife says 'my husband', my son says 'my father', and so on.

Yes, the lack of different forms for different types of connection is a problem for English, but it doesn't necessarily reinforce one party's role in the relationship more than another's. Nor does it indicate equality, either; a slave could refer to 'my master', after all, without implying ownership. But to assume that the use of 'our women' and 'our girls' has the same inequality built in to it just validates the attitude we're trying to deconstruct.

So, I didn't find PRV's use of the possessive creepy - just the assumption that 'service' would be all or mostly one way and gender-based.

Posted May 23, 2007 11:17 AM by Scott Harris

Torie at 95, I read an interesting post some time ago, possibly at Real Adult Sex, possibly just linked from there, that said that the reason "she's just giving it away!" is such a problem isn't that she is having lots of sex, but that she isn't charging for it.

I liked reading Left Hand of Darkness with the somewhat broken pronouns. I'm stubborn and dislike Messages in books, so being able to point to the pronouns and say, "Hey, that's imprecise," helped. Instead of perceiving a Message that may or may not have actually been there, I had a conversation with the book and my own preconceptions.

Posted May 23, 2007 11:30 AM by Diatryma

Serge @ 43
Steve @ 78

It's surpising how many medieval marriages ended in divorce (or the other way out, where the man repudiates the woman and the marriage.) From this far away in time, it's hard to tell what caused it, although I suspect changing political alliances and few sons explain many of them.

As for putting women on some kind of pedestal, as PRV advocates: that sounds like almost every male-dominated culture where women have few (if any) rights. Putting people on those figurative pedestals has two consequences: they're unable to do anything (constructive or otherwise), and the only exit is falling off.

Posted May 23, 2007 11:31 AM by P J Evans

#93 ::: mayakda When you were growing up, was there any generic message you got from society as a whole on what you were? Some kind of consensus from all the messages thrown at you?

Yes. Machismo. A flawed, reductive ethic whose ostensible goal is to stoically deal with crap (heroic crap, like getting rid of spiders or protecting the family from ninjas, or something--the annoying and mundane crap is for everyone else).

This is bad, but at least it isn't a paradox. Playing the machismo game is much easier than trying to simultaneously avoid the labels "prude" and "whore."

Posted May 23, 2007 11:31 AM by Will A

P J... That's the problem with pedestals. They don't give you much choice as to where you can go. And they can be wobbly.

As for marriages... It's kind of funny when someone talks about the sanctity of marriage, and how the institution is being devalued by our kind of people, especially when homosexuals are allowed to do it too. (I'm still waiting for the Gay Apocalypse that Governor Arnie warned us against when SF's mayor allowed 'them' to get married.) True, marriage has changed, but for the better. It used to be a function to regulate procreation. Now it becomes more and more what romantic ideals used to talk about, the union of two (or more) souls. What do they see that's wrong about that? A lot, obviously.

Posted May 23, 2007 11:41 AM by Serge

Susan... Still, both approches to female clothing are about physical control, aren't they? How much can one do while wearing a crinoline?

Posted May 23, 2007 11:44 AM by Serge

PJ Evans at 100-- in my bioethics class some time ago, we discussed sex selection via IVF and abortion. Some people, including me, thought that having a sex imbalance (too few girls) meant that the girls would be treated better, but historically, that hasn't happened. Societies with more boys than girls tend to keep the few girls they have safe and protected, which of course means keeping them away from the world. I think (and this is me making things up) the only way to get a society with far fewer, but more powerful, girls would be to start with one where women are equal to men. It's easy to go from protecting your daughters by keeping them hidden to protecting your one and only daughter by keeping her very hidden, as befits a precious rarity.
It was an interesting bioethics course, not least because it presented me with a group of my peers who didn't always agree with me-- usually, we'd just talk about other things, but I got weird looks for the strangest ideas. Most of my classmates were mystified that I wouldn't want to know the sex of my child until it was born.

Posted May 23, 2007 11:50 AM by Diatryma

Scott @ 80, about Japanese women and career goals:

One of the stranger bits of culture change in my small town is that the local Benedictine Abbey and College has, over the past two decades, become a place of foreigners learning English and western business administration skills. The large fraction of those students who are Japanese women (wearing Jimmy Choo's on the bus in western Washington mud, dressed to the nines in designer clothing, a sharp contrast to the Evergreen students in hiking boots and vintage hippie gear) are planning to work for Japanese companies, outside of Japan. The interviews I've seen have not addressed the matter of marriage and family directly, but it's notable that, unlike the other college graduates interviewed every spring, the Japanese women do not mention those items on their own.

Posted May 23, 2007 11:54 AM by JESR

@Serge #103

And how much ass-kicking can you do in an ankle length skirt? Oh wait... I did watch Chinese Martial arts movies... never mind!

If you want to talk about physically incapacitating clothes, your go-to-guy (girl?) is going to be the corset. Breathing is men's work!

Posted May 23, 2007 11:55 AM by Scott

Susan @ 92 - I don't know how much I don't know* about Victorian fashions, but what I was thinking of was the thrill Victorians seemed to get by seeing a flash of ankle, and how scandalized they were at bloomers.

Of course, Victorians were in general modest folks, so that does confuse matters.

*Rumsfeld was an idiot as SecDef, but he did know how to turn a phrase.

Posted May 23, 2007 11:58 AM by Chris Gerrib

Hi all; I've read Making Light for a couple of years, but have never posted. I tend not to post unless I feel I have something to add to the conversation, and that's rare.

Now though, a couple of ideas on this topic. Chris in #86 stated something similar. The text that witch hunters used to find and convict witches, the Malleus Maleficarum, states that one of the signs that a woman was a witch was that she inspired lust in men. This makes me think in terms of power, and the reasons for subjugation. Obviously, not all women convicted as witches would inspire lust, but to me, it is a clear sign of power dynamics. And also hopefully obviously, I'm making sweeping generalities here and don't mean anything I'm saying to apply to all (or even most) men or women.

A woman who inspires lust in a man has some hold of power over him. This hold of power may threaten the man's masculine identity, by inspiring feelings such as fear of rejection, fear of looking a fool, by feeling threatened or angered that the man can't control his own thoughts and desires. He wants her so badly, and she might not care about him at all.

He may then, in order to restore his feelings of power, transfer that anger to the object of his lust. She, simply by being her, MADE him feel that way, SHE did that to him, he didn't do it. So women end up being manipulative, as Joss says, because the woman twists the man's emotions and makes him feel weak. A woman is a slut because she makes men feel lust. A woman was a witch because she still has power over men even though she does not have any property, political power, or education of her own.

Another thing; I'm not sure how well cited this might be, but I think it was Robert Graves who believed that a lot of societies in ancient Europe were matriarchal until sex was discovered to be the means by which women gave birth. After that, he believed, men were no longer in awe of the life-giving power of the female, since they had discovered they had a part in it as well, and they started taking power.

As a vocal feminist in a red state, I could talk myself blue (heh) on this topic. And I do, and tend to annoy people. I was at my mom's house watching television with her a few months ago and there was a commercial on tv. A man kisses his wife good-bye and leaves their home on his way to work by jumping off a cliff and getting into some fancy SUV. My mom said, "That commercial has always bothered me." I said, "Why? Because they show the man going off to work and just leave the woman to stay at home?" and she looked at me funny and said, "No, I just wondered how he gets back up."

Posted May 23, 2007 11:58 AM by Carri

Susan @ #92

Victorian clothing didn't just emphasize the female form, it also exaggerated out of all proportion -- partly so that the actual form itself wouldn't be seen. Not logical, but then, fashion often isn't. That cloaking of form also included furniture (which, as someone who once spent WAY too much time cleaning upholstery, I still resent).

Posted May 23, 2007 12:02 PM by Chris S.

Oh, you have just reminded me of Grey's Anatomy. Season finale, big prom dealy, two characters have an argument.

Woman: Stop looking at me!
Man: Stop making me look at you!

And these are presented as not only equivalent transgressions but *foreplay* and *romantic* and that is a great deal of why I stopped being able to watch the show without mocking it.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:06 PM by Diatryma

Will@ 97: I think it could be excellent - ice landscapes, very visually striking, and an exciting plot with danger and politics. I was thinking about casting - would you cast women or men, or both, for the Gethenians? How many actors/ actresses are there who could be convincingly androgynous and create the necessary gender vertigo - since, not just the leads, but every single person onscreen has to be gender unidentifiable except for Genly? And if I remember rightly the Gethenians look rather like Inuit, which narrows the casting pool further... On the other hand it would be an interesting acting challenge; maybe a bit of subtle CGI could help? And it would be really fun to design the costumes/architecture/material culture of that world.

I'll be interested to see what the 2008 film is like: I hope it isn't made by idiots.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:07 PM by Jenny

Serge @ #103:
Still, both approches to female clothing are about physical control, aren't they?

You're laying a lot of meaning on clothing; it's not like anyone thought up these fashions as a deliberate plan. Modern trousers are "about" physically controlling the male genitalia, right? They make rather less sense than skirts for men. And modern neckties are "about" providing a convenient leash to lead errant husbands by?

The Victorian era was one of the most fetishistic fashion eras in history; one way or the other, women's outfits were as much "about" covert sexual display as anything else, which puts them right in line with (but considerably more developed in this era due to advances in construction technique than) the previous several hundred years of fashion. The burqa is the opposite of sexual display - it hides the face and form under a shapeless sack. Lumping these together suggests an inability to grasp any meaning of sexy that does not closely track with naked, but I assure you that the Taliban and co. do not suffer from this problem - they'd be quite ready to pop a burqa over my hourglass Victorian outfits, even if I'm already covered from chin to toe.

Actually, a rather notable change in fashion in the Victorian era was that men's clothing became less about display and standardized on boring, so the women's stuff stands out rather more by comparison. And one no longer gets to admire men's shapely calves.

How much can one do while wearing a crinoline?

Less than one can do while wearing a hoop skirt, which is one reason women welcomed the development of hoops - it enabled a fashionable silhouette while freeing up the legs and feet. (You do realize that crinolines per se are a brief fashion only at the very start of the Victorian era and not particularly representative of it, right?)

Posted May 23, 2007 12:08 PM by Susan

Welcome, Carri.

About the power of women being a threat to men... That reminds me of the scene in Lawrence of Arabia where Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharrif tell the sheik played by Anthony Quinn that he should attack a specific place. He isn't too keen on the idea, but they eventually 'seduce' him. He gives in, reluctantly, but says that the two of them trouble him the way women do.

My wife, being a writer, works at home so the woman staying at home didn't bother her. Or it may simply be that what bothered her the most was the same thing that bugged your mom. How does he get back up?

Posted May 23, 2007 12:12 PM by Serge

Scott @ 106

If you want to talk about physically incapacitating clothes, your go-to-guy (girl?) is going to be the corset. Breathing is men's work!

I know someone who wore a corset to a wedding and the reception following, where she was doing the twist, down to the floor and back up. It's a support structure by design, not a breath-stopping device. (For women of a certain build, it beats the alternatives.)

Posted May 23, 2007 12:16 PM by P J Evans

Serge @ 103 and Scott @ 106:

Victorian clothing (and this is a huge category, as Susan said) was not about restricting, cloaking, or punishing women (or at least no more so than beauty/cosmetics through the ages). It was a fashion choice. The same goes for Renaissance clothing. Queen Elizabeth I often wore dresses that revealed her breasts because it was a sign of purity and chastity. Victorian corsets aren't about preventing you from breathing but accenting your breasts and hips--the idea was to get a cone-shaped figure. No one said fashion made any sense. But the sometime costume mistress in me will argue that really, there was no oppressive male conspiracy going on--just oppressive, silly, illogical beauty standards (no different than today). How those beauty standards inform or reflect our attitudes towards women is a different story.

And for the record: if you're a certain body type corsets are way more comfortable than bras.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:18 PM by Torie

Susan @ 112... You're laying a lot of meaning on clothing; it's not like anyone thought up these fashions as a deliberate plan.

Oh, I know that, and I had intended my post to originally say something along those lines. If I had put that in, I'd then have had to elaborate on my own argument and say that, if it is indeed about physical control, how did the concerted efforts of fashion converge toward that goal. That'd have meant a longer post than I had intended. And it'd have forced me to confess that I don't really know much about much of anything. But I talk about things anyway because I like to learn.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:20 PM by Serge

Carri said (#108):
Another thing; I'm not sure how well cited this might be, but I think it was Robert Graves who believed that a lot of societies in ancient Europe were matriarchal until sex was discovered to be the means by which women gave birth. After that, he believed, men were no longer in awe of the life-giving power of the female, since they had discovered they had a part in it as well, and they started taking power.

Beware of taking Robert Graves too seriously... much of what he wrote was nonsense. Fascinating, ingenious, and even brilliant nonsense, mind you, but nonsense nonetheless.

I think I recall reading somewhere that anthropologists have never found a culture where people didn't understand the connection between sex and giving birth.

(Oh, and welcome, too!)

Posted May 23, 2007 12:20 PM by Peter Erwin

(cont'd from #116)

Drat... I had meant to write "...how did the UNconcerted efforts of fashion converge toward that goal..."

Posted May 23, 2007 12:22 PM by Serge

mayakda@93: What is it like to grow up without the expectation that you are, at your very core, a nurturer? When you were growing up, was there any generic message you got from society as a whole on what you were? Some kind of consensus from all the messages thrown at you?

The expectation I had was to succeed. To go out and find something to do and be the best at it. Better than anyone else, at least out to some circle of people. To win. To find some challenge I could win such that I could "prove" myself, whatever that means.

Was it thrown at me? I dunno.

I think there is some level that this comes from an internal source, hardwiring, genes, hormones, whatever, and then there is some level of what does culture do to direct it to something useful or something harmful.

Some time ago, I was reading this thing about a guy who had had testicular cancer and had to have them completely removed due to the cancer. And the interviewer asked him if he felt any different afterwards. The guy said that before, he would sometimes wonder how he would measure up in combat. (He was a middle aged, white collar worker, never in the military.) Afterwards, he said those thoughts never came up. I don't remember his exact words, but I do remember that I recognized the exact same thought.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:22 PM by Greg London

I don't have the time to read in depth for the immediate future (Patriarchy, made someone NUKE the entire structure and social meme of it, COMPLETELY.... and extirpate for eternity Clorox Housewife and all other sociobiology bullshit regarding housekeeping and biology is effing DOMESTIC horseshit), however...

1. I have know SEVERAL non-biological fathers who are completely devoted to the children they have raised, who once again, are NOT their biological offspring, and in at least two cases went far out of their way to become the legal SOLE custodial parents.

2. Lies, lies, and more lies, and telling and spreading control freak slimeball lies does NOT make something Truth.... welcome to 1984.

3. The mythology of woman as Queen of the Night comes out historically in the oddest places--Chatres cathedral, for example, amidst the intense misogyny of medieval France, "Shabbat ha-Malkah" in Judaish (the Sabbath Queen, whatever-the-term-is for denoting the Sabbath as a person, referred to a Shabbat ha-Malkah, Sabbath the Queen), Britomart in the Carolingian cycle, etc.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:24 PM by Paula Lieberman

Torie @ 115... Duly noted. Like I was saying to Susan, I don't know a damn thing about lots of things, but I am willing to learn, in spite of the risk that I'll embarass myself. This isn't the first time, and isn't likely to be the last.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:26 PM by Serge

Scott @ #106:
If you want to talk about physically incapacitating clothes, your go-to-guy (girl?) is going to be the corset.

Corsets are more comfortable for me than bras, and I regularly spend hours at a time in aerobic exercise while wearing one (most recently, Saturday night.) I'm guessing that's more personal experience with them than you have. The trade off in torso flexibility with a bra for me is in backaches and bruising (or maybe that's scarring - is a purple mark you have for decades a bruise or a scar?) Oh, and bras also better display my shape and make me more vulnerable and accessible to men, and more subject to random men's obnoxious commentary; is that supposed to be a bug or a feature?

In a corset I am comfortable going up and down stairs, walking, running, and dancing. In a bra, I am comfortable sitting still if the chair has good back support, but at least it's easy to tie my shoes.

Which is more physically incapacitating? It's not nearly as simple as people who have no experience make it out to be.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:31 PM by Susan

#121 - Serge

Absolutely! You didn't embarrass yourself. Bottom line is that clothing and fashion are mostly illogical, but we already knew that. I saw a woman this morning in a business suit wearing Crocs.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:33 PM by Torie

Peter Irwin says: I think I recall reading somewhere that anthropologists have never found a culture where people didn't understand the connection between sex and giving birth. and by doing so saves me from getting really wanky on the subject.

Archaeology has no means of reconstructing knowledge, belief or thought. Any statement one reads about what preliterate people did, apart from how they made and used tools, houses, and settlement systems, is bound to be compounded of eight parts wishful thinking, one part uncomfirmed assumptions, and one part strained analysis of physical evidence.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:36 PM by JESR

Without launching off on ten seperate arguments with ten seperate people, let me add a few more things to what I wrote last night.

1) In one of my posts I pointed out that the worth of service is not dependent on the "worthiness" of those being served. I did not at any time advocate putting anyone on a pedestal, did not say women were without flaw, nor did I attempt to make women "inhuman" objects for idol worship. All I said, and have been saying since last night, is that if more men in this world spent more time engaged in service to the women they are close to, the world would probably be a better place. I am surprised anyone could see anything sinister about that.

2) Several people have balked at the heterocentrism of my Service concept. Again, I don't know what to say, other than to point out that the topic of this whole thread deals with men being violent and terrible towards women. Homosexuality doesn't enter into it. Homosexual men being violent towards women is not the problem. We're talking about hetero men and hetero-dominant cultures needing a new paradigm that scuttles misogyny. Hetero men needing to find a new yardstick for self-worth and for feeling masculine. I'm not sure homosexuality comes into this kind of discussion at all.

3) Several women have said, in no uncertain terms, "No thanks guy, you can keep your creepy chivalry!" OK. Again, I did not advocate "stalker" service, as seems to be the impression some have gotten. My point was to be kind to and perform service for the women already in our lives; that we're directly related to or that we know on an intimate level somehow. My wife has several woman friends whom I am friends with as well, all professional and all highly-educated and all feminist, for whom I practice the Service ethos; and not a one of them has ever balked or said I was being "creepy" or that I disempowered them through my acts. And these are NOT mousy women. These are outspoken and headstrong and independent women. I think they'd let me know if I was bugging them.

4) This takes me to an IMPORTANT point I failed to make last night. And that point is: all Service is in the eyes of the beholder. What does this mean? It means that the Service ethos cannot, should not be blind to the needs and wants of those who are served. For women who are made uncomfortable with old-fashioned gestures like giving up a seat on a train, the best "service" in this case is to treat the woman as she wishes to be treated, and not give up the seat. Where my wife's friends are concerned, I don't just blindly do shit for them unasked or out of the blue. It's usually something as simple as just listening to them in normal conversation and picking up on something they gripe about and which I know I can do something about or which might help. I'm a computer geek by profession, and I can't count the number of times one of my wife's friends has said, "My stupid computer is all screwed up!" I offer to fix it for them, we make arrangements, I solve the problem, no-charge, and they're happy and I'm happy. If the problem is an easy or non-hardware related fix, I always try to show them how they can effect the fix on their own. Thus, next time, they won't need me. I think this is EMPOWERING, not devaluing.

5) People have pointed out, correctly I would say, that we should ALL server EVERYONE. And I agree. Last night I think I pointed out that Service to women is NOT an exclusive arrangement. But since our context is hetero male violence towards women, I don't think service to kids or the male side of the equation enters much into this. Again, we're talking about altering the current paradigm, and replacing it with something better. Because I truly believe that if we abolish the current paradigm and leave a vacuum, whatever rises to assume its place won't be what we want. We should try to replace the current paradigm with a new and clearly-defined paradigm that inverts the old women-serve-men reality. And in my experience there is nothing debasing or devaluing about being a man who serves women. Again, if your internal definition of your masculinity does not rest on power trips or domination of the female, but instead relies on service as a major component of becoming and being masculine, I don't see how anyone in that mindset can feel debased or otherwise brought low in service.

6) Some people here seem to be saying that we need to neuter our society completely and that only when gender has been absolutely wiped from human consciousness, as a factor in thinking, then we'll be making real progress. I think this is laudable on paper, but I don't think it will ever pass in reality. Because in reality we are NOT neutered. Men and women are physically and biologically different. We each have differing strong points and weak points and I don't think society can function well if we shave off the hills and fill in the valleys and force everything and everyone to be "flat." I think you an celebrate difference without placing emphasis on one sex being "better" than the other. And I think it's odd that in our modern times, when we as progressive people go out of our way to celebrate cultural and ethnic and linguistic and sexual-choice differences, some of us try to stamp out the gender difference at the same time. That trikes me as paradoxical.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:38 PM by PublicRadioVet

Thanks Serge.

Yes, I often fall prey to my own rants. Women (or men) staying at home don't bother me at all, it's just the default image that bothers me. And the fairly subtle things, like the Grey's Anatomy episode Diatryma pointed out.

When I first met my husband he rarely paid attention to gender issues in the media. But I've run my mouth about it so much that he's noticing them now. We just got back from camping at Mammoth Cave, and had bought a dvd showing footage, among other things, of one of the more difficult cave tours that I am entirely too lazy to take. They interviewed about four men and one woman who they showed footage of taking the tour. The men they showed climbing over obstacles, talking about how it was hard sometimes, but they just squeezed through or climbed over, and no problem. The one woman they interviewed (and there were actually more women than men they showed taking the tour) was the one who was scared and had to be talked into climbing over a drop.

Now maybe none of the men were scared, or had any problems, on this particular tour that was taped. Maybe the other women on the tour declined to be interviewed. I'm not saying that certainly, there is no doubt, that there was a gender bias in creating this tape, but it was refreshing for my husband to point out the disparity to me.

There are also those Hardee's ads that show men not knowing how to make breakfast. Those bother me too. But I'll have to say, one ad that bothered me more than most was a print ad for a bicycle. It was a picture of a jeep, with a guy driving with his bicycle in the front seat, and his girlfriend or wife or whatever strapped to the bike rack on top of the vehicle. That was just a few years ago, here in the states.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:38 PM by Carri

Chris @ #109:
Susan @ 92 - I don't know how much I don't know* about Victorian fashions, but what I was thinking of was the thrill Victorians seemed to get by seeing a flash of ankle, and how scandalized they were at bloomers.

Right: sexual display. The game is "peekaboo", boys and girls. Nowadays men don't go all drooly when they see a woman's ankle; why should they, when people wear sandals all summer? The Victorians were past masters at the game of artificially-induced scarcity. Subtlety is an oft-lost art nowadays.

Of course, Victorians were in general modest folks, so that does confuse matters.

Take a gander at Victorian menswear sometime; you'll note the complete absence of display of skin in anything except bathing costume. I wouldn't want to do a lot of exercise while wearing the equivalent of a three-piece suit and a lot of fabric wrapped around my neck. Men seem to have a harder time at Victorian balls than women - they wear much hotter clothing.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:39 PM by Susan

reading through all the previous posts, I would say that I can recognize a flavor of PRV's idea of serving women in myself, though I don't know if I'd say it occurs at the same level in me.

Generally speaking, I show my wife that I love her by doing things for her. She, on the other hand, just loves me. I can't really explain it more than that because I think I have a sort of blind spot around it, and she's far better at it than me.

I lift heavy things for her and do dirty jobs for her and love her. And she simply smiles at me and loves me.

As it happens, we both love "The Princess Bride" (it might be our favorite movie), and we were watching the beginning one time where Buttercup asked asked Farmboy to fetch a pot she could have easily reached herself, and he said "As you wish" and gave it to her, and they both realized they loved each other, and ever since, I respond to honey-do requests from my wife with "As you wish, buttercup."

Posted May 23, 2007 12:43 PM by Greg London

Torie @ 123... Thanks. There is this saying about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing, and I think I had stepped in it.

By the way, what are Crocs?

Posted May 23, 2007 12:45 PM by Serge

Re men's and women's fashions: there's a fascinating book called Sex and Suits by Anne Hollander (an art historian by training, I think), which deals with the evolution of the male suit and its subsequent uptake by women. Along the way, she provides what I believe is an excellent overview of European fashion over the last few hundred years (though this is about the only book on the history of fashion I've read, so I could be wrong).

One of the tidbits I remember is the curious fact that women's fashions -- prior to the 20th Century -- played all sorts of games with emphasizing, exposing, and covering up necks, bosoms, arms, and waists... but everything below the waist and above the feet was always concealed. In contrast, men's fashion frequently (though not always) emphasized legs -- but almost never revealed the throat or upper chest.

Also the fact that, prior to the late 19th Century, women's clothing was designed and made by women, not men.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:48 PM by Peter Erwin

Thanks Peter and JESR.

I haven't read much Robert Graves, or much about him. I did find it interesting, and wasn't sure how well supported it was, or how well reasoned his arguments are considered.

Regarding fashion, though it is highly unlikely that some man came up with different fashionable ideas to subjugate women, I wonder how often the fashions could be a symptom of the disease rather than one of its causes? It's almost like a class thing combined with a gender thing. Men and women both could wear elaborate clothes that showed off their wealth, restricted their mobility, and compromised their health, yet it wouldn't affect their ability to provide income?

Posted May 23, 2007 12:52 PM by Carri

Carri @ 126... You ranted? I didn't see any sign of that, unless talking passionately about what matters to oneself is a definition of rants.

As for that DVD... I bet you that some of the guys were just as scared, but there's no way they were going to admit to that. Weakness must never be acknowledged, after all. Me, I'd answer truthfully. I know who and what I am, as I said in another thread when we were discussing gender characteristics. Still, I am enough of a guy that I worked in the backyard in spite of my still recovering from a high fever. Thats's what happens when you grow up with role models like Indiana Jones or James Bond. Push yourself to the limit, that's the message for guys. Otherwise, you have no right to pass on your genes. Not that I ever tried to do that gene-passing thing.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:56 PM by Serge

I worked at a Sears Portrait Studio for about four years in college, and one of the things that irritated me more than anything else was parents enforcing their gender views on children. There were impulse items near the kiosk, of course at children's level, so they could grab one of whatever and drag it over for their parents to see. One of those was a big, floppy, cloth doll with big eyes and a plaid dress. Baby (crawling through about 3 or four years) boys went straight for that thing every time. It was soft and cuddly, and just the right size for hugging. I've got to say, Moms were way worse than Dads about taking it immediately away and saying "that's for girls."
Also, they often went straight for the feather boas in the studio, for much the same reasons-- "what..is that Thing? It's Soooooft." Talk about horrified, embarrassed looks from the parents. Girls who like Boy Toys are just tomboys, boys who like Girl Toys are in danger of being....embarrassing.

Posted May 23, 2007 12:57 PM by J Austin

I happened across this story today, and I'm surprised I hadn't seen it before. It immediately reminded me of this thread, and was yet another reminder of how violence towards women is minimized or shuffled out of sight. The interesting part to this story is that there seem to be at least two female witnesses who not only came forward with their story but were responsible for getting the raped girl to the hospital. They received medals for their actions but are still speaking out, since they are shocked and horrified that no charges have been brought to the players.

As for the mindset of the perpetrators--in the words of one of the players, the seventeen year old victim "got drunk and did this to herself." I know we swim through sexism every day, but I'm still amazed that anybody can justify his behaviour to that extent by blaming it on the woman herself and her very existence.

Posted May 23, 2007 1:10 PM by PiscusFiche

JESR said (#124):
Archaeology has no means of reconstructing knowledge, belief or thought. Any statement one reads about what preliterate people did, apart from how they made and used tools, houses, and settlement systems, is bound to be compounded of eight parts wishful thinking, one part uncomfirmed assumptions, and one part strained analysis of physical evidence.

By and large I'd agree with you.

In case it wasn't clear, I was referring to anthropologists studying living cultures, many of them preliterate, not archaeologists speculating about the beliefs of past preliterate cultures. So, yes, we don't really know about past cultures; but if contemporary preliterate/stone-age cultures understand the connection between sex and giving birth, and if the oldest literate cultures seemed to understand the connection, then it's reasonable to guess that past preliterate cultures probably understood it as well.

Posted May 23, 2007 1:10 PM by Peter Erwin