On the topic of smiling...

[Brittany (gone-ish)]

I get what you’re saying, Rachel, but at the same time I think that the sort of attitude that disregards the discrimination men face can be dangerous. No one is denying that the essence of a patriarchal society is one that enfranchises men, but in a lot of ways feminist movements and the modern age have improved upon those standards. I mean, if you look at the UK today the Parliament recently passed a law stating that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s firstborn—whether it be a boy or girl—will be named heir to the throne. Just one generation ago that was not a thing. That’s not to say that there aren’t still things that need to be worked on or that society is perfect. It’s not, and there will always be misogynists out there.

I think my problem with some of your logic is that just because the discrimination against men is different or not on as large of a scale as it is against women, it doesn’t mean that it should be marginalized. That, in itself, could be misconstrued as sexist. A rape victim ought to be treated like a rape victim no matter the gender in an ideal society. The fact that men are treated differently than women and women differently than men does harm to both, not just women. As for the Victoria’s Secret example, assuming that a man working in the store puts the women at risk suggests that all men in that environment are sexually threatening which isn’t true. Along those same lines, women shouldn’t be allowed to work in men’s clothing stores, but because we’re women we’re not as threatening. Those same gender constructs are just as damning to men as they are to women. Men are always seen as threats to a woman’s security and women are supposedly prey. For a man who has no history of hostility towards women it doesn’t take into account his behavior or beliefs and is a defamation of character.

Men and women should be treated equally on all fronts, but by undercutting the male discrimination because it is in the minority is wrong. Feminism seeks equal treatment and by insisting that the situations, treatment, etc. are different it only perpetuates the very cycle feminism is trying to end. It makes difference instead of likeness the main concern. The discrimination of both genders needs to be treated the same—men can’t be considered less of a victim because the number of male rape victims is lower in the same way that a woman who dresses a certain way shouldn’t be perceived as “asking for it.”

Victims of discrimination are victims regardless. Whether male or female the emotional, psychological, and, in some cases, the physical effects of sexism are the same.

[Reilly]

I know sexism affects both sexes and genders, but everytime I hear "sexism hurts men too!" all I can think of is the MRM guys who like to pretend the tables are turned with false rape claims* and sexism related bias affecting custody battles, people who are trying to diminish the feminist movement, and privileged attempts to dismiss women's experinces.

That's usually what happens. People make it an Either-Or issue. Either sexism hurts women or it hurts men. So few are willing to accept it's a two sided coin.

I roll my eyes at people saying it, because so many bad experinces have made it equal to saying "I don't think you're that opressed". After a while, you get tired of saying "yeah, but it hurts women in more ways..." and it slowly becoming apparent the person you're talking to it using it to forward their thinly veiled misogyny.

[Aly]

May 31, 2012 22:12:33 GMT -8 seymour glass said:

And yes, I see Aly's example's from above, but to me I can only see those as isolated incidents. The first one was ruled unconstitutional, as it should be. The second reason for having Victoria Secret not hiring a man, is something that I would say is aligned with the idea of creating a safe space for women, who want to be in the present of other women when being undressed. This I can only think of to mean, that women shouldn't spend time together, women shouldn't like each other, women should want to be around men only. (In the same way that I have heard complaints about women's only colleges and why can't there be men's only colleges. Or women's history month. My response, is that EVERY month is men's history month.) I digress, however. Women, people of color, queer and genderqueer people are systematically oppressed. I feel like this is undeniable. And this, brings me to my second point.

I would just like to (ignoring every other part of any other argument) bring up that these are only THREE incidents of several. As for the Victoria's Secret thing, it had nothing to do with safety. The man wanted to model. Men and women model lingerie together all the time--it's in the job description. Victoria's Secret, especially, which is a company that sells sex has no reason to believe that a man seeing women in lingerie would cause their clients to feel unsafe unless there were reports of assault--which is not the case in this aspect. And even if it was, models, actors and so forth are bare in front of each other often. It's up to the employee to decide if they're comfortable with that. If they aren't, they are fired (in most cases).

And yes, as these incidents are isolated, they are on the Supreme Court level. That means it affects our nation as a whole. Because of the laws that the Supreme Court have set, it has completely abolished any other laws that could interfere with that, meaning that, for example, if there was a law in a city saying that men or women couldn't drink until 25, it's gone because this law established the legal drinking age.

It does seem like these events are isolated, and they were at one point, but the moment they're brought to the Supreme Court they go nation-wide. They are no longer isolated. These cases have changed a lot of rulings that were previously made that did not come into the media's eyes. I'd just like to emphasize that this is the case with every Supreme Court ruling, such as the Privacy Act when it came to Roe VS Wade, or Brown VS The Board of Education, and so on. I just don't want Supreme Court rulings to be taken lightly, because as little power as the SC has, this is one power that cannot be overemphasized.

Continue onward with your debates XD

[bunnny]

everything that ever needed to be said was said by seymour, truly. your whole story is so relevant and so... ugh, story of my life. i'm constantly being told that i need to smile more, and that people think i'm bitchy or scary or something, when really, i just don't feel like smiling 24/7, nor do i feel the need to. just because i'm not smiling doesn't mean i'm not happy. i'm just not going to walk around with a ridiculous smile on my face all the time. and i just completely agree with you, seymour, that it's ridiculous how people just demand that i should smile, when it's really none of their business nor their right to have a say in my facial expressions or my emotions or anything of the sort.

pretty much, pretend i said something like what seymour said, all nice and pretty and intelligent and entirely relevant. Bl

[Maddie]

One thing I've noticed is that Kristen Stewart gets made fun of a lot for not being a total ray of sunshine. I used to take part in that a lot but really the only reason I don't like her is for the Twilight movies. She was pretty good in Speak, I thought, and she does well playing the roles where the character is less than thrilled with their life and doesn't have to smile all the time. I'm starting to like her more now and I can see why she doesn't want to smile, I honestly think being famous must suck and I'm not a smiley person myself.

[mercy]

I never thought of sexism against men originating in the sexism of women. Which seems so obvious, and I think now what you meant to say when we (Rachel and I) were discussing what sexism is so long ago and yeah. Sorry I didn't get that at the time if you were trying it then! Ah.

I mean, men are expected to be the opposite of women, because women have these rules of what it is to be a woman and men's rules are a result of what is made for women. I agree that men are ridiculed, but when they're ridiculed, when they're singled out and called gay or stupid and why when they're raped they don't tell anyone because they are ashamed because they are supposed to be strong (and, by a result, women are supposed to be the "weak" ones that get raped), it's because they are like women. I mean we can also rag on men for the stereotype of like oh he won't take directions, but I would argue that's a result of how women will ask for help but men don't feel like they should because then they shouldn't need help they're a man!

So anyway that opened my eyes.

I also kinda wanted to just put my two cents about my experiences with sexism toward me. Which is how this started and all, Rachel asking us to give you your examples not to ask for how you view feminism, though of course it's okay a conversation gravitates elsewhere I'm just explaining why I am writing about this and not continuing in that direction.

I have a tl;dr after the spoiler.

SPOILER: Click to show

Anyway, uhm, when I was younger, and even to today, my sister and my mom kinda ragged on me for being too "boy-like." And granted I did avoid things like pink for a while because I was expected to like them and yes it was cliche to be like PINK IS LAME as a way to just state that I will not be your puppet (because in a way their expectations did mold who I was, which was what I hated), but I was very young and I've grown out of it. I just...I dunno, so this is close to me, because I have never identified as a woman or man, I have identified as some weird person that was given the name Mercedes and grew up in Colorado. Not that people that identify as a gender are wrong to do so, just that I suppose what I am defined is as agender. Really I just...I found all these requirements of what you should be if you have a penis or a vagina were nonsense and that was immediate, and still is. I will defend that to my death. People are their own, so stop trying to make their reality mesh with yours. (not preaching here, just basically if you could sum up what I fight for at all these days it's that and I figure that's important to all that)

Anyway, so what started as me simply liking what I liked, turned into me purposely disliking "womanly" things because my mom and sister were trying to push them on me. In truth I didn't like dresses, and still don't really like wearing them, because I get cold with that much skin revealed (which can be none with some dresses, but often is at least the arms and clavicles) and because you couldn't bloody do anything with your knickers almost always exposed. I dislike that vulnerability, that limiting that so much of "womanly" clothing does, but when my sisters put it on me it became a stand of - I will not be who you want to be. I am my own person. So I wore baggy jeans, like really baggy jeans, and my sister thought it was because I thought I was fat and really they were just comfortably but in truth they are also very hard to get around in. I wear skinny jeans now, usually, because they tend to be easier to move in and you know I like the look. But when I started to, which was months or maybe a year before I met and hung out with Max, my brother, my favorite brother who seemed to understand my cause more than anything (be who you wanna be, there are no limits or requirements), thought and mentioned that the only reason I was doing it was to grab Max's attention.

SO BASICALLY since I was a very sort of small, I was told you should dress like this and this and this (and really I never cared about clothes in the beginning, I didn't expect them to be seen as representations of who I am until middle school really) because you are a female, that particularly my mother but also my sister shoved on me. To this day they still sorta do, but because I've worn dresses I think they think they've won or something and don't speak of gender or sex standards and how I'm breaking them and should stop. They think I've assimilated, but really I just came around to the idea of dresses. And so rules of how to dress if you are a female are probably the most recurring and lifelong experience of how sexism affects me. Because it was more pushed on me by other females, I used to sort of just prefer males over females (no matter what these males or females identify as in in terms of gender), which was itself sexism still. It took me a while to realize it and I think I've finally come to the point where I really have no preference of genitals because I no longer am stuck on the idea that males aren't as repressive as females. Which I appreciate in myself because that reflexive sexism that happened because the females in my family repressed me much more than the males made me hypocritical and I hate that.

There's other stuff, of course, but yeah. *explanation over*

[seymour glass]

Just quickly, apropos to some things said above.

Firstly, yay, Chey, that's really sweet of you to say, and I'm glad that what I'm saying makes sense with you! And visa vise the whole K-Stewart thing, she's kind of just doing her own thing. She seems happy enough, but maybe uncomfortable in the public eye. Either way, it's my opinion that she should just be able to do whatever she wants and that she's held to much of a higher scrutiny than male actors, which is I think what you're point is. Male actors don't smile all the time and they're called mysterious, and when K-Stewart doesn't smile she's a ungrateful bitch. Which was my original point.

Birttany, firstly, I was not at any point that male and female victims should be treated differently. Actually, I believe I was suggesting the exact opposite of that: that when men are raped they are taught to deal with it different than women. This usually because men are not often raped within a domestic situation, rather in other connotations, such as in prison or on the street. And in these cases people (regardless of gender) are told to seek the police. Whereas in domestic situations most women put up with it, because they believe that it is their partner's right, and that what is going on is totally normal. This kind of thing has happened to me, and my friends. We were just being good girlfriends, right?

On the basis of the Victoria Secret case, I still stand that in a situation where having a male model (I believe he was working in the store, however if he was just working in print, this is a whole other issue, and in that case I misspoke.) in the store, is still threatening. This is because men have the ability to rape women. 99% of rapists are male, and while there can be female rapists, it is VERY VERY rarely seen, read: 1% of the time. This means that in a situation where I am surrounded by undergarments am possibly undressing, this means that the male worker could be aroused, and then act out in response to that arousal. Sound like a little bit too much? Here's a quote about men who were not working in the bathing suit section, but just passing by:
"One time I was in T.J. Maxx shopping for bathing suits. I was not trying them on, just browsing the aisle, and I looked over to the novelty-lotions gifty-crap section, and there was a man staring at me and jerking off with the lotion from the tester. I was 15."

We need to have safe spaces for women. And I'm not saying that every man is a rapist, but I am saying that 99% of rapists are men.

Regarding supreme court cases, I don't know a whole lot about them, but I will say while it may have affected the law in some capacity, it has yet to affect society, or stopped sexism. And honestly, I haven't met a whole ton of guys (or even one) that is complaining about not being able to work at Victoria's Secret.

And now, I move on to Reilly's comment, that when I hear sexism affects men too, I can only think, wow, you're just being even more sexist! It is just another privileged attempt to dismiss my experience.

Annnnnnd that, is why I started this thread. Because the forum is compromised almost exclusively of females, I thought that this would be a good chance for women to be able to talk about their own experiences of sexism, in a safe environment. My intention wasn't to debate what sexism is or isn't, and while I obviously have no control about how people will respond to the topic, I am going to try and steer the conversation back in that direction.

So on the topic of street harassment... I'm curious if anyone has ever experienced it, and how they deal with it. When I was ten I started to take the train on my own, and this was an interesting decision that resulted in way more looks from men than a 10 year old should get. And eventually these looks elevated to whistling, and then those elevated to yelling things at me, and then that elevated to to men whispering things in my ear and grabbing me as I walked by. And honestly, it almost feels silly to write this, because this probably happens to every woman everywhere. And secondly, I should just deal with it. It's just the way life is, right? And none of these men raped me, so this is just life. And I wish that this entire process didn't make me feel weak, and demoralized. But it has this really amazing way of making me feel like it is 1. my fault that it's happening, and 2. that I shouldn't speak out, or act back. Even though, when it happens in a hypothetical sense, that my response is obviously we should act out against street harassment, but when it's happening to me, I'm too scared. It's just disgusting, but what do you guys think?

Also, Mercy, I loved your post, and what you wrote. I never knew that about you (is it possible that we don't know things about each other?), and I don't know, I'm just so happy that you exist!

[Aly]

^ The man was trying to model with them. Just to clear that up.

Also, stores such as Victoria's Secret, sex toy shops, lingerie shops must do background checks before hiring someone for retail. Not hiring a man to work at Victoria's Secret is in direct violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 only if the man is not white, which the man was white. Unless the job description was a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification, there is absolutely no reason for a man not to be hired at Victoria's Secret. The reason why this is such a hot topic is because white men between the ages of 18 and 40 are the only group (excluding sexual identification and orientation--which varies from state to state with whatever Act each individual state has passed) not included in the Civil Rights Act. This means that if someone decided to discriminate against a man between the ages 18 and 40 for whatever reason, these men have absolutely no right to sue unless their state has said otherwise--which most (if not all, I'm fairly certain) do not.

[Maddie]

Even if the man was planning on retail as opposed to modeling, it might not be that bad. I mean, who said the guy is straight? Or is even cisgender? (Although in that case, they wouldn't be a man, exactly.) I have mixed feelings about it.

[Aly]

I, personally, am not for any person being wrongfully discriminated against in any context. I don't care what kind of human you are. Unless you're proven to be a sex offender, then any man should be allowed to walk his happy ass to Victoria's Secret and work with abnormally expensive bras all day.

[Reilly]

I'm starting to think the "you can't be sexist against" men idea isn't entirely accurate. It seems to be based off of a formula dictating "you can't be X discrimination type against X privilege group". And sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

For example; you can't be racist against white people. There's just far too much power in the hands of white people (mainly straight, cismen) for it to be a legit claim.

Sexism, on the other hand, is different. It's not something that only hurts one sex, or can only be negative. Sexism can hurt you and help you, no matter what sex you are. It's all about putting it into context.

[Aly]

(^ Ah, I'd like to disagree on not being able to discriminate against white people. Sure, a lot of white men hold a lot of power, but in places like California white people are starting to become minorities. For example, in middle school I was made fun of for being white because I was a minority. It just depend on your experiences.)

Yeah, that is an interesting point, Mikkay. I'm the kind of person that when I go to get a facial (which includes a neck massage and so forth--sometimes they go a little too far for comfort) I request a female esthetician because I don't like when men touch me. However, I don't care much if they see me buy underwear. It's like buying mini-pads for me. I don't care much for that stuff. But if they touch me they may find themselves in the fetal position, crying >_>

[tähti]

(I'd have to agree with Aly on this. I'd like to assert that people who say that do not live in a predominantly minority community. I am the minority here, and it was often times held against me. I wasn't allowed in MESA in elementary school because I was told they had their 'white quota' and needed more minorities. I mean to say that you can't be racist against white people is utterly ridiculous. Even white cismen, who can be judged because he is a white cisman and perceived to have that power...and therefore thought of as a certain way.)

I agree with Mikkay. The idea of a man working at Victoria's Secret does not bug me. They aren't going to be feeling me up or anything in the store. I don't think I'd be comfortable with a male massaging me though...like Aly I'm not a huge fan of male touch. A man being there when I'm buying underwear however does not feel like a threat to me. I haven't read a lot of the rest of this thread but I will try to come back later and comment on that.

[Reilly]

True. But I didn't say it's not possible to discriminate against against white people, just no be racist against them. There is actually a difference...I just don't know how to explain it. I believe it's something along the lines of privilege + power? It requires being backed up by systems that support the discrimination, to put what I can remember shortly. I'll try and dig up some links that explain it better than I can.

And, who's the majority has very little to do with population size. Women make up 51% of the world's population, but are still considered a minority because we're underrepresented in nearly everything.

I'm not trying to invalidate your experinces Aly, I'm really not. I believe you when you say you picked on and it must have felt horrible. Like I said, *discrimination* against white people is 100% possible, it's just the two words carry different meanings.

[Hello Holly]

I am just going to throw this in here amongst this beautiful discussion, if you have not read Cailtin Moran's How To Be a Woman I strongly recommend doing so. It's not just hilarious, and provides some excellent arguments for feminism, it also made me feel better as a woman. It made me want to stand up and say "Hey, I'm a woman and I count and I don't need to listen to your bullshit idea of how I should look, so fuck you."
It covers things from shaving, to the way you dress, to the expectation for us to have children, and abortion. Things that have made me feel better about myself and much more confident.

If you haven't read it, I think you guys would love it. It's so good. I've recommended it to Reilly but I'm not sure if she's had the time to read it yet. It's just an excellent read (one we should use in a book club!). Now I'm going to scurry away because I'm not as eloquent with words as you all are /sighs