Feminism

[Roderick]

Is misogyny a natural animal state? I generally see it as a(n unfortunate) human development. But perhaps females are subjugated in the animal realm as well and indeed it is something that came with us as unwanted baggage. Perhaps we even started logically explaining and defending it (as we do with all our urges) by viewing women as lesser beings, which is a mere step removed from hating them.

All speculation on my part!

[Gwardinen]

That's somewhat difficult to answer, I think, because we don't really know enough about the group and sexual dynamics of our most recent ancestors. More distant relations such as currently existing ape species aren't much help because they show a fair amount of variety in those cases. In terms of basic "dominance", though, I think most primates do have a male dominance structure. This is probably for the simple reason that most primates have quite a lot of struggles with others of their species over territory and with other species for safety, and in most (all?) primate species, males are more physically dangerous.

That said, if you consider misogyny to be characterised by groups of men subjugating groups of women, that's definitely not a general ape trait. In most ape species, members of the same gender are not allies. Males compete amongst each other for females and females compete amongst each other for males. Unless directly related, members of the same gender in a group of apes usually have pretty weak social interactions with each other, and are sometimes outright aggressive. Interestingly the difference really comes when there are no females around at all, at which point male gorillas, for example, suddenly become friendly to each other.

Anyway, kinda wandering off topic at the end there but basically I think misogyny is probably too complex a behaviour to really call a holdover from some previous stage of evolution, but with more evidence there could potentially be a line drawn from male-centric social structures among primates to male-centric social structures among humans. Hopefully this actually helps us, as changing needs in society should make different qualities valuable - we can already see changing social attitudes to physical strength, as it is now rarely a key to success in the modern world. Since that is one of the chief differences that may have resulted in male-centric social structures among our forebears, perhaps that means that feminism will automatically become more and more obviously sensible. However, it is worth noting that people are still impressed by muscles and men are still conditioned to believe that being physically strong is not just something they are likely to be in relation to women, but actually a kind of duty. So these things move slowly and may never be complete.

[ThunderPeel2001]

We can look through history, and there have indeed been civilizations that placed women on an equal, or higher, social footing than men.

[Salka]

can you link me to some info on these TP?

[brkl]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16592633

[MrHoatzin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matriarchy#History

[Salka]

Well that's pretty much a lot of evidence that it's not an inherent trait. That fills me with a lot of happy. Thanks!

[youmeyou]

#1reasonwhy has been trending the past two days. it's a hashtag for why women do not feel welcome in the games industry, neither as consumers or creators.

https://twitter.com/...h?q=#1reasonwhy

kotaku has featured a few here:

http://kotaku.com/5963528/heres-a-devastating-account-of-the-crap-women-in-the-games-business-have-to-deal-with-in-2012

[Ben X]

Man, some pretty horrible stuff there. It's easy to forget how nasty the industry and culture can be, especially if you hang out with the right people, until someone compiles a list of this kind of thing, or XBox IM scumbags (I think someone linked to that site here previously).

I know a woman in the industry who covers her face or jumps out of the way whenever a photo is being taken, not because she's insecure or anything but whenever a single photo of her gets out on the internet, she suddenly gets a barrage of creepy/nasty attention from strangers. And it's nothing to do with how she looks, just the fact that she's female instantly opens her up to this shit.

[Argobot]

Does anyone know what caused the hashtag to get started? The Kotaku article makes it sound like the whole thing was unprompted.

[Luftmensch]

  On 7/11/2012 at 7:33 PM, Rodi said:

Is misogyny a natural animal state?

I view that idea much in the same way as I think about free will or fate. Can we really control our actions? Do we really have the power to change the future? Can you push yourself forward with sheer willpower? Whether we do or not, it's a counterproductive mindset to assume we're not in control of ourselves, or that we're naturally evil, or whatever.

[toblix]

Just accidentally dropped in on a live Twitch stream of some Amnesia Fortnight team meetings at Double Fine, and the moment a lady stepped on camera, several people would immediately start dropping really sleazy comments about her in the chat. I don't know how their ad-hoc studio was set up, and whether the people on camera were able to see the chat directly, but I hope they didn't. Really embarrassing.

[Ben X]

Ugh, I know, the Kickstarter finale livestream was like that too.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yeah, but was she HOTTT?????!!!!!111

[Ben X]

She put the fine in dubllfine lolz

[castorp]

  On 12/1/2012 at 11:05 AM, Ben X said:

Ugh, I know, the Kickstarter finale livestream was like that too.

Mh, I still shudder when I think about the moment when a guy with Asian features appeared on screen and the whole chat seemed to start shouting something about 'blablabla, play Starcraft', or along those lines. God, people...

I mean, how can you be fan enough of a company like Double Fine that you watch their stupid Kickstarter-stream and still be such a mindless person? It just does not fit!

[Luftmensch]

I overheard my mother lecturing my sister about the recent death of Savita Halappanavar, who was refused an abortion and died because of complications to her miscarriage. She insisted that it's "proven" that there's never a medical need for an abortion, and consequently it was impossible that her death could have been prevented.

I don't have a problem with people being against abortions necessarily. There's several logically valid ways to look at women's reproductive rights. I don't practice veganism or necessarily agree with it 100%, but that doesn't make it necessarily invalid. It's all in the axioms you start with, which in turn are based on your emotional preconceptions.

But damn, what the hell woman. This was a woman who died a preventable death. And by the way, the fetus died too. And you're saying it didn't really happen because you axiomatically believe that abortion is never appropriate? That isn't a valid moral viewpoint, that's sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "NYANYANYANOTLISTENINGNYANYANYA".

I'm pretty lax about standards of morality, as long as they can be justified with tangible statistical outcomes. According to my mum's Catholic newsletters, Ireland has the best birth mortality, infant health, and child care in the world. I don't know that that's true, but if it is, I'm willing to acknowledge that they're doing something right. I've also read that foreign occupation in the middle east has driven down violence. I don't know if that's true either, but if it is, I'm fine with accepting it might not be all bad.

But cripes. in no way does it makes sense to say, "abortion is never medically appropriate" and, when shown a very clear exception, dismiss it on the grounds that "it must not be true because abortion is never medically appropriate". That's a hypothesis, not an axiom.

Sorry for the aimless ramble.

[Iosef Stalin]

  On 12/2/2012 at 7:19 PM, Luftmensch said:

I'm pretty lax about standards of morality, as long as they can be justified with tangible statistical outcomes. According to my mum's Catholic newsletters, Ireland has the best birth mortality, infant health, and child care in the world. I don't know that that's true

It's 22nd in the world according to a Wikipedia table. That whole story about that woman made me spitting mad tbh. She died a completely preventable death because "this is a Catholic country". I mean I guess it shows you how far that fake "except in the mother's life in danger" clause gets you from pro-lifers.

  Quote

I've also read that foreign occupation in the middle east has driven down violence

Yeah and president Romney would have been fantastic for women's rights. Seriously, what?

[Luftmensch]

  On 12/2/2012 at 11:36 PM, Iosef Stalin said:

Seriously, what?

What I've read is probably playing with statistics a little bit, but I've read that effectively modern military occupation is more analogous to policing than a traditional invasion. So, it's less like storming Normandy, and more like running patrols in gang territory.

Anyway, like I said, that's probably oversimplified or manipulated or something, but the point is, violence is reasonably quantifiable, and if there's good statistical evidence to support that a given policy is effective, I'm willing to accept it might be valid.

I think it's interesting that Singapore gets a lot of flack for having poor human rights, because it has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world, one of the lowest homicide rates in the world, 15th in life expectancy, and an obesity rate lower than 10%. It's fair to say you're not interested in living in a country where you can still be publicly whipped, but it's hard to argue with the results.

(I'm also relieved to see that my mother's precious Ireland stats she spouts are bullshit)

[ThunderPeel2001]

Here you go:

http://bit.ly/FirstW...InfantMortality

As you can see, America has the worst infant mortality rate in the 1st world -- but their healthcare system is the best in the world. Weird, huh?

[TychoCelchuuu]

Critical Distance's "This Week in Video game Blogging" has a good summary of some articles about the #1reasonwhy tag down in the "#1REASONWHY" section (go figure).

[toblix]

She had the real authentic Japanese FFIII, so they were wrong to be misogynistic assholes lol!

[Argobot]

Speaking of comics that are funny/depressing, here's a site (http://thehawkeyeinitiative.tumblr.com/) where artists can reimagine ridiculous female character designs from comic books, by drawing Hawkeye in the same pose. This one was by far my favorite: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mef5inbiiW1rmx3kqo1_1280.jpg

[Luftmensch]

Speaking on nonsensical poses...

also, related

[Twig]

I don't even know what's happening in that pose. Does she not have a lower torso. I CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT.

That Hawkeye thing is goddamn hilarious I love it.