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Portrayal of Men in Society? Bad for XYs?

Byzantine

Well-Known Member
I'm personally of the belief that a lot of the "bias" against women that is supposed to still exist is just plain imagined. Some of it is obviously real, but then there is real bias against men as well. As it stands it just irks me that people complain that a woman hasn't been president, or that half the government of any country aren't women. My answer is simple: Are half the people who ran women? No? That's your problem. And if half were women, then was was their ideological spread? That is to say which party were they affiliated with, and how did their results compare to the norms for that area. Unless something is horrible off on that then the problem is still a case of who is running, not a case of any bias. I would have no problems voting for a woman, but if it was someone I fundamentally disagree with I wouldn't vote for them for the same reason i wouldn't if they were a guy, because I disagree with them.
 

meteor64

Show Me Ya Noobs
I'm personally of the belief that a lot of the "bias" against women that is supposed to still exist is just plain imagined. Some of it is obviously real, but then there is real bias against men as well. As it stands it just irks me that people complain that a woman hasn't been president, or that half the government of any country aren't women. My answer is simple: Are half the people who ran women? No? That's your problem. And if half were women, then was was their ideological spread? That is to say which party were they affiliated with, and how did their results compare to the norms for that area. Unless something is horrible off on that then the problem is still a case of who is running, not a case of any bias. I would have no problems voting for a woman, but if it was someone I fundamentally disagree with I wouldn't vote for them for the same reason i wouldn't if they were a guy, because I disagree with them.

You assume people have brains. It didnt take us long to find someone on this thread to say "well women aren't supposed to lead", did it?

And I'll point my finger again at this disgusting excuse for a human being to prove my point further.

Also, I'm not trying to single out religion here, but religion tends to go hand in hand with sexism (READ THIS PROPERLY- I am not saying sexism is caused by religion, but sexism tends to be caused by specific aspects of a religion).
An obvious example would be (I'm gonna get bashed) the Catholic Church.
No female leaders, eh? Because we are all equal in Gods eyes, you see.
Islam is a culprit too, but I won't go into that.

My point being that since over half the planet is religious, and sexism may be provoked by religion, sexism towards women is very real, very relevant. I'm not trying to pin the blame on religion, but sexism is linked with religion. Its a fact.
 

AndyBananny

Preschooler Trainer
Yes I am a spoonfed sexist person, who is not speaking from experience (which outweighs opinions), and enjoys using the Bible to justify every action I do in life.

Really people? You have officially won this debate. I'm done posting in here.
 

GhostAnime

Searching for her...
What experience do you have? Please enlighten us. You've been stereotyped as every single stereotype in the world?
 

Cool_Trainer_Tyrone

Only Train The Best
To all the self hating males,how but you man up,and stop being so down on yourself.I mean are you a rapist or woman beater? I'm guessing no,if so you should be proud of who you are.I'm proud of being male,I have equal respect for woman,and as long as your remember,its not down to sex,race,or religion,its about the individual.
 

CSolarstorm

New spicy version
To all the self hating males,how but you man up,and stop being so down on yourself.

"Man up". Wow that fixes everything. (sarcasm) Did you not get the memo about how low self-esteem works?

I mean are you a rapist or woman beater? I'm guessing no,if so you should be proud of who you are.

Being proud of who you are should be a completely independant from being abusive or a rapist. Does a man have pride simply because they don't hurt women? It's apples and oranges. It has nothing to do with women at all.

That raises another devil's advocate question though; do men often judge their own worth by what value they are to women?
 

Cool_Trainer_Tyrone

Only Train The Best
Im a man, but i feel like im a prisoner. its almost like a sin/crime to be a man in todays world.
I was talking about this,I don't see how the bad actions or stupid stereotypes other men can get some one down about them selves,that they consider it a crime or sin to be a man.

P.S the man up thing was a pun,I guess i keep forgetting how sensitive jokes are on forums.
 
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meteor64

Show Me Ya Noobs
That raises another devil's advocate question though; do men often judge their own worth by what value they are to women?
Personally, I do.
 
Please list some of these crimes.

Lilith killed newborn babies - granted this was out of revenge, but it it was still pretty awfull. Eve got Adam and herself kicked out of Eden. Genesis may as well have been called "How women ruined mankind". Marie "Let them eat cake" Antoinette allegedly starved France. Bonnie Parker killed civilians and police alike.

And that's just of the top of my head. In short there's a reason women have endured thousands of years of degradation.
 
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Profesco

gone gently
Lilith killed newborn babies - granted this was out of revenge, but it it was still pretty awfull. Eve got Adam and herself kicked out of Eden. Genesis may as well have been called "How women ruined mankind". Marie "Let them eat cake" Antoinette allegedly starved France. Bonnie Parker killed civilians and police alike.

And that's just of the top of my head. In short there's a reason women have endured thousands of years of degradation.

Er, well, those are certainly some impressive examples. I suppose, even not comparing these women to the men ShinySandshrew already proposed, it's still not a solid argument.

The actions of a few women (real or fabled) aren't a legitimate reason for women, in general, to suffer millenia of degradation. I doubt women are being payed such-and-such% less than men because their boss is thinking, "Curse that Marie Antoinette and her confounded confections! Susie deserves less money than Mark!"
 

Trillian

The hoopy frood
Before I give my response to the debate, I hope you'll allow me to indulge my inner grammer nerd. When you said "quote on quote" I think you meant to say "quote unquote" - this is only really ever used in spoken language (it can be replaced with making the 'bunny ears' sign) and, as you put the quotes around the phrase anyway, wasn't really necessary. It's nothing to do with the topic, but I just wanted to point it out as it's a little quibble of mine!

A problem I see is that I've noticed it seems to be assumed that it is perfectly acceptable to portray women in a positive light, while putting men in the bad light. Such as the women I see around school and college who freely talk about how women are smarter, rule the household, how their men are dumb, stupid, stubborn, etc. How women really control everything. But I saw a man mention how men are better at thinking clearly, and everyone completely blew up on him. It is definitely all right to have pride in your gender, but this seems slightly excessive.

The trouble with trying to keep sexism against females out of this discussion (as much as I can appreciate your reasons for doing so) is that you get an incredibly skewed view of the problem when you refer to one gender and not the other. The only time I've ever experienced what you're talking about is when I'm joking with a male friend and I have a playful jibe at him, only to realise he didn't take it as a joke. Apologies very quickly follow if that happens, though.

Having lived with plenty of guys, however, I've seen a lot of the opposite. As much as I ignored it to get along with them, the fact that I had to endure the guys in my flat talking about the girls they'd met the night before in terms of a rating out of ten or what they liked physically about them really annoyed me. Maybe it's not a direct way of pronouncing superiority (at least not as direct as, "you're a girl, so naturally I'd be better at maths than you," or something along those lines), it's still reducing a member of the opposite gender to an object or a number. That, to me, is still an effort to appear superior. Not too long ago in the UK there was also the debacle of two Sky Sports presenters, who were caught with their mics still on, commenting about a female linesperson for a football/soccer match. One of them commented that "someone better get down there and explain the offside rule to her," simply because she was a woman.

It may be banter and it may go on all the time between guys, which is fine; but if men expect women to put up with that as normal, they shouldn't then get offended if women make belittling comments about them as well. Granted, in your case the girl shouldn't be degrading him to his face or making him feel like dirt there and then, but if it wasn't a joke and was intentionally meant to hurt him then the girl's just being cruel.

It doesn't help how men are portrayed in television, especially sitcoms; it's always the dumb, deadbeat husband who has a crappy job. He makes the vast majority of the stupid decisions and messes everything up while the wife is the one who is right most of the time. A lot of these shows have entire episodes depicting how women are smarter; but at the same time, depicting men as superior is a problem.

Maybe it's just watching these shows from my own viewpoint, but I've always seen those shows as sexist towards women. Shows like that, for example 'King of Queens' - yes, they have the 'dumb, deadbeat husband' as you say, but he's always the main protagonist. What may be logically seen as dumb is often emphasised as being goofy and just part of who that character is. Maybe it's just my perception of it, but it's often played for laughs and even to make the audience sympathetic to him, whereas the wife (who is always good-looking) has to be the voice of reason, the 'straight guy', if you will, and yet never comes across as likeable as the man. Just to veer off gender issues slightly, if you replaced the woman in that situation with another guy and made them friends, you'd have pretty much a classic comedy double act. Why the woman is made to play the more serious role has never been clear to me, apart from the old perception that women are the homemakers and so it's their job to keep stability in the household.

In essence, I guess you can take different things from these shows if you look at them from different angles.

Yes, I understand the REASONING, since women fought hard for equal rights, and in such, any knock towards women can be perceived as sexism; but this topic is purely about what you think about the criminalization of men, and do you think it is an issue?

Yes. There are a lot of very valid points raised in the thread so far and there is a perceptible unfair advantage towards women in certain areas; however, I'll bring my argument back to my first point that you can't have a balanced discussion without bringing inequalities of both genders. You have the example of rape being okay when it's female on male, but at the same time there's the perception that sleeping around is okay for a man and it's just boys being boys, but if a girl sleeps around she's a whore or a slut. So is it an issue? Yes, but only inasmuch as female inequality is also an issue. Personally, I don't think they can be argued seperately.
 

GhostAnime

Searching for her...
Lilith killed newborn babies - granted this was out of revenge, but it it was still pretty awfull. Eve got Adam and herself kicked out of Eden. Genesis may as well have been called "How women ruined mankind". Marie "Let them eat cake" Antoinette allegedly starved France. Bonnie Parker killed civilians and police alike.

And that's just of the top of my head. In short there's a reason women have endured thousands of years of degradation.
It's the friggin' Bible. Good luck convincing me those events actually happened. Even more luck convincing me that's the reason why women suffered for the last few thousand years.

The Bible is sexist. No question about that, but it could also easily just be a political agenda.

Trillian said:
Having lived with plenty of guys, however, I've seen a lot of the opposite. As much as I ignored it to get along with them, the fact that I had to endure the guys in my flat talking about the girls they'd met the night before in terms of a rating out of ten or what they liked physically about them really annoyed me.
Yeah, I think both genders are really guilty of that.
 

Trillian

The hoopy frood
Yeah, I think both genders are really guilty of that.

Both genders are guilty of focussing on looks, yes. In a discussion between girls, there's naturally talk about whether a guy's physically attractive or not, but I've never experienced girls 'ranking' guys from 1-10. That's just my personal experience, though, as I pointed out in my post. But it's just an example of gender inequality on both sides (in this case, judging someone on aesthetics), and trying to focus on one without the other gives a rather unbalanced viewpoint.
 

GhostAnime

Searching for her...
Maybe guys are more in touch with their numerals than women? :p
 

Trillian

The hoopy frood
Or maybe women just have more important things to do than work out the maths! :p
 
Personaly I think the main cause of discrination is that most people would rather focus on what makes us different than what makes us the same.

It reminds me one of own personal quotes; "Somtimes we can see more clearly with our eyes closed". Which is kinda funny when you realise that you CAN see with your eyes closed!
 

~-Overheat-~

Black/White!
I've had this topic in my mind for a while. Lots of valid points here from both sides of the spectrum, but i'd like to point out that the whole notion of 'chivalry' has greatly played a part in this.
 

octoboy

I Crush Everything
That raises another devil's advocate question though; do men often judge their own worth by what value they are to women?

This one does. I don't really think I could truly like myself until I found a woman who loves me. I suppose in my mind, that's what proves if I really ought to be loved. And if my sister ever gets angry with me, I feel I don't deserve to walk this earth.

But then again, that may not answer your question properly... Maybe guys who are truly "men" don't feel this way.

I mean are you a rapist or woman beater? I'm guessing no,if so you should be proud of who you are.

The rapist thing is only part of it. I have no problem seeing a horrible rapist get hurt, but when you see guys on TV who are pretty much no worse than you are character-wise have "strong" women kick them in the balls apparently just for having them, I can't help feeling undeserving somehow.

But then again, I'm a particularly impressionable television viewer. Maybe that's just me.

Both genders are guilty of focussing on looks, yes. In a discussion between girls, there's naturally talk about whether a guy's physically attractive or not, but I've never experienced girls 'ranking' guys from 1-10. That's just my personal experience, though, as I pointed out in my post. But it's just an example of gender inequality on both sides (in this case, judging someone on aesthetics), and trying to focus on one without the other gives a rather unbalanced viewpoint.

Well, I suppose girls don't poll as much (I certainly don't rank anybody on the "hot or not" scale), but I can't help but notice that females get away with judging others' physical attractiveness without coming off as obscene. I've heard my sister go on about the physical beauty or lack thereof of males and females alike, and not help but think of how if I said anything like what she did, I would be considered a humongous pig.

Marie "Let them eat cake" Antoinette allegedly starved France.

Err... If I remember correctly, Josef Stalin did the same thing to the Russians, and worse. And I'm sure there have been plenty of corrupt nation leaders who have done so, and plenty, likely most of them have been male.


The Bible is sexist. No question about that, but it could also easily just be a political agenda.

Well, Paul might have been (I seem to recall it was one of his letters that said women's treatment was fair because it was the woman that took the fruit), but then again, humankind's saviour was the one born of woman (he was male himself, but he's also called "seed of the woman"). The bible's got plenty of good women in it as well (such as Deborah, Abigail, Ruth, etc.) If Jesus himself ever acted chauvinistic, I don't remember it.
 

CSolarstorm

New spicy version
Jesus rescued Mary from being stoned. It would seriously dampen my day to hear that Jesus was sexist. Jesus is one of my favorite figures in Christianity.
 

Profesco

gone gently
Maybe it's just watching these shows from my own viewpoint, but I've always seen those shows as sexist towards women. Shows like that, for example 'King of Queens' - yes, they have the 'dumb, deadbeat husband' as you say, but he's always the main protagonist. What may be logically seen as dumb is often emphasised as being goofy and just part of who that character is. Maybe it's just my perception of it, but it's often played for laughs and even to make the audience sympathetic to him, whereas the wife (who is always good-looking) has to be the voice of reason, the 'straight guy', if you will, and yet never comes across as likeable as the man. Just to veer off gender issues slightly, if you replaced the woman in that situation with another guy and made them friends, you'd have pretty much a classic comedy double act. Why the woman is made to play the more serious role has never been clear to me, apart from the old perception that women are the homemakers and so it's their job to keep stability in the household.

In essence, I guess you can take different things from these shows if you look at them from different angles.

I actually take a bit of issue with this. I don't think it's fair to call it sexist if the woman in a comedy duo is the straight man (ironic term, no? :p). If the woman were the fall guy (again :p) - dim-witted, flaky, and childish - there would be no shortage of complaints that such depiction was sexist because it implies that women aren't as responsible and grounded as men - and that has in fact been the traditional complaint.

To have the woman play the serious role is not true sexism. They are simply character archetypes. Men and women fit equally into both archetypes, and there are examples of both (take movies like Mean Girls and Clueless). If the sexist complaint is that women in media are treated like irresponsible children while men are the day-savers, then it doesn't work to have a reverse sexist complaint when those roles are reversed. One depiction can be sexist; they can't both be.

Depending on how defensive someone is, they can find a way to file complaints about any depiction of a gender (or other demographic). It's not fair or reasonable to cry sexism no matter which depiction is used.

Both genders are guilty of focussing on looks, yes. In a discussion between girls, there's naturally talk about whether a guy's physically attractive or not, but I've never experienced girls 'ranking' guys from 1-10. That's just my personal experience, though, as I pointed out in my post. But it's just an example of gender inequality on both sides (in this case, judging someone on aesthetics), and trying to focus on one without the other gives a rather unbalanced viewpoint.

It's not sexism or gender inequality if it's done by both genders. It's pure and simple objectification. A form of degradation uninhibited by the contents of your underwear. =P
 
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