@meagloth I could turn this thread into a philosophy contest.
There's something that draw humen attention towards God and what the male is going to do with it. Joke aside , I don't like to participate my thoughts on that. I do think it can be found easily , and it can not be learnt. It is evident , that's because. So any attempts to "explain" it will end up making it look more complicated. Just like quitting smoking. Remember the old Nike motto ?
I still think some people here don't quite understand the subject. No-one said sex is bad and people shouldn't have it. No-one called anyone a slut, man-whore or whatever. The core issue is with things that have become or seem to become acceptable in certain groups, among other things, this includes "sexualization of minors", "minors in sexual relationships with adults" and "sexism double standards".
What words people use to insult each other... is leading this topic ad absurdum. Of course, people don't like any of these words. That's why they are insults. It makes no difference if you call someone "asshole" or "whore", the intent is the same - offend and insult them, so what gives?
@KidCarnival Yuri (the female equivalent of the male/male Yaoi) is written less because most fan fiction is written by women for women. Less women are lesbian than straight, and so they focus on the exclusively male characters. There is woman/woman fiction, but it's generally written by lesbians. (and there is a significant amount of it for the Xena series- and let's be honest and say that the writers and producers of that series did a lot with the idea that the two women were at least attracted towards each other.) I've never watched "The L Word" (a cable series about Lesbian woman), nor have I looked for fiction set in that world, but I would imagine that female/female slash is definitely written about those characters as well.
And I agree with you about Yaoi. Supposedly, it comes from the characters wanting to be equal, but then it immediately devolves into the two characters acting out the most insulting and trite sexual roles that would seem horrible if a man and a woman were to act like that. I actually own a Yaoi manga called "Selfish Love" that made me sick to my stomach. The "Manly man" is so strong in his pursuit of the uke that it seems like Sexual Harassment- not sexy in the slightest. (I have this same problem with early romance novels from the 70's and very early 80's. The men are Alpha males to the point of being assholes, running roughshod over the heroine and anyone else who stands in their way, and I find it sickening. A website I read has the perfect nickname for those characters: Alpholes.)
As for why not acknowledge it, it's because women aren't supposed to be interested in the sex. The role of woman in western cultures (generally) is to be the gatekeeper on sex. The man is supposed to always want it, and it's up to the woman to shut him down Unless/until he's done the "right things" to open the door (propose/get married to her, etc.) This is just one of the reasons why woman tend to get blamed for being raped- it was her job to stop him, if she really *wanted* to stop him, there would have been no act. That's why older white male politicians make all those embarrassing claims about "Legitimate rape". It comes from this attitude, but those men forget that women like sex, too. It feels good. It's also why few people ever claim that men should just keep it in their trousers and just zip up. It's ridiculous that men think they can get away with the excuse that they saw a woman and "Just couldn't control themselves", so that they HAD to have sex with her, even if she was passed out, sick, drunk unconscious and unable to say yes. What sort of attitude does that say about men? That they are raving lust-beasts unable to control themselves at the sight of a woman? How insulting for men! (Imagine me making a disgusted face here.)
I agree with you about sitcoms in general. The thing with Children's programs is that kids generally have more contact with their mothers than their fathers. Even in families where both parents work, the woman generally does more of the child-raising stuff than the men. In the 50's, where a woman generally *didn't* work out of the home, the kids saw their moms making decisions about them 95% of the time, and Dad was the parental figure who was used to back mom up, leading to the old, "Wait until your father gets home!" (there was even a cartoon with that name, although it was actually rather ironic in that the father in that show was pretty ineffectual.)
@Meagloth Can you think of a worse insult than to call a man equivalent to a woman? I am asking for information. Is there is worse insult somewhere that doesn't put the "weaker" man in the place of a woman, only if metaphorically? If you know of one, I'd love to hear it.
@Old_jolly2 Sorry, but I am not sure what you are getting at. I get that you agreed with me in some things, and disagreed with others, especially about language, and I get that you come from a different culture and a different language, but I am just really left feeling confused.
@LadyRhian: I know there is female-female slash, too, but except the Xena fandom, it didn't seem to find it's way into the mainstream fanart community. I haven't watched Xena, and know very little about the show (Lucy Lawless was in it? It's a warrior princess? End of knowledge.). However, that little I saw had a very different tone from the male slash. Neither Xena nor the other woman was "butched up" the way some male characters are made extremly effimate. Maybe it's a skewed view because I've mostly seen drawings without context, but the women seemed to be equals and not put in the classic gender roles of a male-female relationship. Is that the norm in female slash?
I'm not a fan of romance genres or generally fiction with a strong focus on "X meets Y, will they get together?", so I don't know much about the creep/stalker factor.
"it's because women aren't supposed to be interested in the sex"
Well... Excuse the stupid question, but where's the ever present feminism here? Most women (in western countries, at least) seem to have arrived in the present, where it is normal that women wear pants, have jobs/put career before family, can be happily single, have one night stands and so on. The current fanfiction writers are the daughters and granddaughters of the generations that stood up for this - the original women's rights movement. They were not raised to be meek housewives of whom it is expected that they marry, pop out some kids and bring hubby his beer when he gets back from work. It's a mystery to me why they'd so willingly take the rest for granted, but stop here and say "yeah, sure women should have careers and be independant, but like sex? NO THANKS."
Sitcoms are "feel good TV". They are not made to make the viewer think about social issues, they are made to entertain and to amuse. The "com" part stands for "comedy", after all. If the families shown in them were not the "typical family next door, but funnier", and instead have a single mom with 5 kids from 8 fathers (at least 1 in prison, 2 alcoholics), it wouldn't be a comedy anymore. I think to a degree, the "smart mom, stupid dad" dynamic will more and more die out in newer productions. The shows we watched as kids were made by people who grew up in the "50ies family", and largely viewed by people who had similar childhoods. The current generation has more diversity here - more patchwork families, more single parents, and with the gay marriage legalisation and right to adopt, future generations will also have more same sex parents. All that, like any change in a society, will be reflected in fiction, too. And we will have more sitcoms with different gender roles and representations.
Xena was a spin-off from Hercules. She was a female mercenary who, essentially, worked for money. After several (?) appearances, she was "reformed" and got a show of her own. In that, she sought to atone for her past misdeeds (being ruthless and all). She traveled around the world with her female companion, Gabrielle, who started off as being her conscience, I think, and she tried to do things in the "right" way before resorting to violence (where in her old life, violence would be the first thing she went to). She had a disk weapon called a Chakram (which became the emblem of the series) which was like a circular boomerang. There were also male recurring characters, like Ares, God of War, who hated the "new" Xena and wanted her to return to being the old violent warlike persona, and Joxxer, who was a guy who actively sought being a hero, but who was played for laughs (in that, he was trying too hard, if you know what I mean. He even had his own theme song! "Joxxer! Joxxer the Mighty!" which was based on a cartoon of Hercules, I think.)
To be fair, Xena was pretty kick-ass and butch anyway, so she didn't *need* flanderizing in that way. Of course, another recurring character was her dead ex-second in command and lover (he appeared several times in the series, including once when she had to travel through the afterlife, so I consider him a recurring character, though he was vanishingly rare.), who apparently, she still carried a torch for.
Be aware, I didn't watch either series myself (with the exception of one double episode called "Ten Little Warlords", simply because that one was funny- Ares loses the sword that holds his godhood (Why no! No Double entendre there!) and needs Xena's help to regain it. And as a human, he's sort of… less than a success. At one point he gets drunk before boarding a boat, and when he's on it, he says to Xena- why do I feel funny and why do they call it a 'hangover' anyway? And her response is, "Because any minute now you'll be hanging over that rail…" And she's only helping him because he points out that, even as a God of War, he has restraint, whereas the people who are competing to have it have none. So if they become God of War, there will be even more war and more suffering…). So all this is impressions from hearing friends who did watch the series talk.
From what I can tell, women not being in gender roles *is* normal in female slash. I'm not sure about Yuri (the female distaff version of Yaoi in Japan) because I haven't read any of it. I do know that there is some/lots of Yuri in Sailor Moon fan fiction. Because a friend who bought a ton of Sailor Moon Doujinshi (fan-created comics) found they were, like 90+% Yuri (she bought them without looking to see what they were about).
As for your question about "where is the feminism?" This attitude is from Before feminism, and sadly, many women and girls today have been raised to see feminism as a bad thing. Remembering that today, "feminism" apparently, according to most people means that women want to have *more* rights than men, many women want to not label themselves in that way. Even me. I'm a feminist in the old sense of women being equal to men, not better. "Feminism" is destroying our culture, dontchaknow. (Yes, I do find that ridiculous.))
Ah, that does add context. I know how Xena looks, from DVD covers and such, and I mainly meant that she looked the same in fanart of any kind. (There was quite a bit for both Xena and Hercules, which I have both never seen). There was no difference between "Xena posing in a random forest" and "Xena kissing her female lover". In other fanart, there was often a notable difference between "Guy posing in a random forest" (looks like in show/comic) and "Guy kissing his male lover" (suddenly 1 head shorter than in the show, slimmer/less buff, bigger eyes, longer hair...).
The feminism... Well, like I said, I find it weird that this one relict has survived, while nearly everything else the original feminists (depending on your age, your mother or grandmother) fought for is now the norm (or on the way to become normal). 50 years ago, it was - like you pointed out above - normal that the woman stayed at home and raised the children and the man went to work. Today, you don't think it's weird in any way if you see a woman working. Sure, there are still some fields where it is rare, i.e. female lumberjack or oil platform worker, but it's not unheard of and it's nothing that makes people go "whoa". Yet "liking sex" has remained a relict from the past - despite being challenged heavily in media and economy? That's weird.
I don't consider myself a feminist and from what you say about that, you are looking for this term, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarianism Anyway, I see the opposite of what you're saying. Kids today are raised to see feminism as important and a good thing, and if you aren't a feminist, you must be a backwardly PUA douche.
The women are quiet , this is true. They don't rebel , and they don't act to raise their own voices
Actually I think that doesn't have anything to do with one's gender but if not with how society expects each gender to behave, and when it comes to raising their own voices—it (society) doesn't want to lead anyone to do it.
Being quiet isn't a gendered trait. It's the trait of introverts. If women were generally quiet, you wouldn't have female celebrities, for example. And to deconstruct further, women are considered more empathic, and therefore seen as having good "people skills". People with such skills don't need to be "loud" to communicate their opinion. It also doesn't mean they don't "rebel" (which I take as "try to change what they dislike about a system or society"). There are probably few groups people consider more "quiet" than nuns. Yet there are many nuns who are active in feminism, social justice, human rights.
Insult, I'd go with "comparing to child". Saying someone acts immature and has the understanding of a child, i.e. "Don't make such a scene, you're not 5 anymore", "Shut up, now the grown ups are talking", implies inexperience, that the input isn't considered valuable and/or that the insulted person is dumb.
I can twist this around. You can insult a woman by saying "You look/act/smell/etc. like a man."
If a woman's private parts are smaller than a man's, there's far less shame and embarrassment ingrained into their minds: someone will likely be interested regardless of chest size. The same isn't as likely to be true of small pumps.
Here's an insult only men can get, and at the most inopportune times: "Is it in yet?"
Or let's use a similar situation. The N word. I personally think it's a bigger insult to call one that...
Then again... ever hear this line: "You can't use that word... but I can because I'm black!"
Things just get confusing, but personally, it's far worse than being called a woman.
Or maybe this one: your mom/dad/wife/brother/son/etc. deserved to die.
No curse words, just scummy things to say. That's far worse than any slur.
@KidCarnival@CrevsDaak Yet , the women are the leaders in complaining about the society's current status. As a man , I am confident that I can survive , and I can fight against people's oppression quite easily ; I proved myself that I can survive on my own , so I am calm when amongst people. I address to the women guild not some specific individual. Dear two people , I'm not meaning to do acts of propaganda , walking in the street and showing your face off in the cameras , though I'm pretty sure male gender have number superiority there as well , it is irrelevant of what I meant. The emphasis was on the success rate. I only count successes without any interpretation to it. I only know only 1 ( tale ? ) of a woman "world changer" , and may be even 2 if you add Marie Curie to it ( and both are French also ? ). I was addressing , speaking to LadyRhian , whom I guess that she is a woman , and she was doing some complainments. As far as I recall , those people yet are the same as the raisers of 'serious' complaints when the topics turn to mention about sexes. I know , I can see yet still the majority of posters in this topic seems to be male , but @LadyRhian 's complaints actually renders to something that clicks something in me , like "we need to change".
Rebelling is not posting instagram pictures. And raising your voice is not posting on gaming forums or to Hollywood cameras. I don't think Jean D'arc , as they told , did any of that.
I do think all those "woman superiority" in animes , films or games are the futile efforts of some men trying to "motivate" their soft voiced kinsmen to a status they like to see , calm and powerful. The rest of weirdness that is there can be the futile effort "quitters" that just like to tease with whatever they can find , aiming to disturb women especially , so retaining their intention to "make the women go out finally". Where are women ? Walking in the street , in high places like councils , presidencies , as leaders of cults and mafia that rule many amount of people though it is evil , running corporates and bussinesses , talkers in television that are respected , not twerking , not hilariously ranting ; where ARE THEY ?
What I'm getting to , that I don't like weird things. And I move away from them. But women tend to quit their arms to their sides and surrender pretty easily. AFTER this , they talk like this is not their fault , because they couldn't have done something. Like , for example , rape. How could you not do something against rape ? How could you not do something against men insulting you in words that you have stated , if they are insults ? I'm really tired of seeing weak "roleplayers" among women. And I don't really think gender is a matter of "serious" categorization. It's just like blue eyes or brown eyes , etc. Human is the only name for it , and no one has the luxury to "act" weak. And women are not more emphatic that men. I can disprove that. Empathy is not a "sexual" difference , because it is not a "color". It is more analogy to "light" itself.
Please , do think that , "harmed , is the guilty". If you think you're being harmed in any way , the fault is only your own. The otherwise of this , is insanely evil. Because no one can change no one else , for ever; and accusing other people for your carelessness is very evil. And this applies for everyone , including me. And I do think when a woman confronts even 5 men , IF AND ONLY IF those 5 men are insane , those 5 men again stand no chance against her. That's why when I hear a woman ( and the selection of words , the writing style usually renders a good probability rate to guess the gender , in cases that you haven't met with the writer ) complaining that men are like this , society like this , etc. , I'm both a little sad , and a little angry. And a little tempted to write
I am Turkish. But I'm not a nationalist. However when I heard Tuğçe Albayrak was killed by a Serbian hobo in Germany , Offenbach ( please do read the news story if you don't know , it's a recent event ) , I am fed up. After few minutes of dreaming in anger , I knew that no body could have done something except HER. I may sound insensitive but actually I am aiming to solve something : Harmed , is the guilty ; and sadly , this counts only for those who still exist. She mustn't have intervened with the Serbians , but , if she deemed it was necessary , she should have acted more careful. A human threatened with its life should berserk easily. And a woman is sorts of something "anti-men". No man can stand a chance against a woman when fighting , if that woman is what I and those "artists" dream to see around , calm and unhesistating. Those art efforts often are abused by "feminists ?" by what they call ( yeah , that shirt of that famous rocket scientist ) , and I also know that "I" cannot change anyone as well even if I posted to UN forums(?) or something.
Everyone is free %100. This means actually women are content with how they are portrayed and treated ( but me : sadness & anger ).
Dreaming will not make anyone "the perfect human".
@Old_Jolly2 I take issue with several things you have said. First of all, women are not a guild, any more than men are. We are a collection of individuals with differing ideas, values and goals.
Secondly, there are many women who changed the world. In some cases, like Rosalind Franklin, the discoverer of the true structure of DNA, her discovery was stolen by male colleagues of hers, and she was never credited because she died before the truth became known: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin
And then you have Margaret Sanger, the lady who popularized Birth Control in the west and instituted the idea of spacing out the children you give birth to so that each child gets the chance to grow and develop properly and that their mothers don't die from being forced to give birth over and over and over again. (some women did just that, as gestating a child and giving birth depletes of necessary nutrients, among other things, that women have to struggle to get back into their bodies afterwards. Also, childbirth is much riskier, medically, than having an abortion, especially back in the 1900's, when she was working.)
And then you have the many women who agitated for women getting the vote. Women's suffrage has many leading ladies, Elizabeth Cady Stanton among them, who changed the world for women and mankind as a whole.
And, in a fairly minor way, Bette Nesmith-Graham invented correction fluid (which she called "Mistake-Out") when she was a secretary. Her son, who she was raising alone, achieved some fame as a member of a late 60's band called "The Monkees". He was Mike Nesmith. You may not think this is significant, but correcting fluid did change the world.
So, there you go- more than two women and not all French. And these are just a few of the many. I didn't even take "women's studies" in college, and I know of these women. I can lump in more from History, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who went to war in the Holy Land with her Husband, King Louis of France. After failing to birth him a male heir (but two daughters), her marriage was annulled, and she married King Henry II of England and bore him another 8 children, including 5 sons. She was a Queen more than equal in lands and consequence to her husband. In both cases, she was mistress of the entire south of France, the Languedoc. Not only was she rich and powerful in her own self, she endowed many abbeys, including Fontrevault. She also popularized the idea of courtly love, and that love and affection should be the basis for a relationship not for families to increase the size of their holdings. While there were some problems with her court (she ruled that love was impossible within marriage, and that the relationship between lover and beloved should take the form of longing, poetry and songs, but never actual sex), this was still a revolutionary idea.
I won't go any more into this, but I think your ideas are flawed in a major way.
@old_jolly2 I'm sorry, I really can't follow most of the posting. The one thing I can make out is the question where the "powerful women" are, and you mentioning Germany. Germany IS run by a woman, and it's one of the world's most influential nations. Is the "her" you think "could have done something" about the murder Angela Merkel? If yes, I'm even more confused.
I also very much doubt that Jeanne D'arc and Marie Curie were the only infuential women in history. Frankly, the claim alone that no-one else "changed the world" is ridicolous, as is comparing historic figures to people who post "activist" stuff on social media. In my posting above, I gave you an example of women who do something other than Facebook postings or "talking to Hollywood cameras" (whatever that has to do with anything). I said that the Catholic nuns, usually percieved as very "quiet" by the public, are actively doing something about various social issues. Unless you truly believe you have to be "famous" to change something, that addresses the thing you critize (?) now. Do you think Jeanne D'arc changed the world all alone? She had followers, as does any leader, and they were not "famous".
As an aside, I find it fairly disturbing that you list "cult leaders" and "mafia bosses" as positions where you'd like to see more women. You forgot "serial killers to strike fear in our hearts"; that's another "powerful position" with a quite bad female-to-male ratio. /s
"But women tend to quit their arms to their sides and surrender pretty easily."
You are generalizing.
"Everyone is free %100."
You are delusional or living in a dream world. Have you watched the news in the last few... years? No, not everyone is 100 % free and I don't think it will be the case in my lifetime.
"all those "woman superiority" in animes , films or games"
I don't know what you read or watch, but I don't see "superiority". In recent years, I see that women are more written as actual characters rather than "lead's love interest" in certain genres (specifically the action genre), and have evolved beyond "eye candy" in others (specifically crime shows now have more female leads or main characters, as opposed to the 80ies and earlier, where there was Miss Marple and a legion of male detectives). If something pushes "superiority" of any group, it stands out and rarely as positive.
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Agreed with @Dazzu, you can turn that insult around - telling a woman "you look like a man" - also works. Generally, I think any insult about something a person can't change - i.e. skin color - is worse than being compared to the opposite sex.
@KidCarnival Agreed. Let's not forget that the entire first movie of Terminator, Linda Hamilton's character is a damsel in distress, being rescued by Michael Biehn's character, right up until the end of the movie, after he is killed. It's only in the later movies that she became the kickass mother heroine. In that first movie, she's pretty weak- she only fights back after Michael Biehn is killed (and she ends up destroying the T-1000 in a metal press). Later on, in other movies, her character grew and became more of a fighter.
Also, he may be thinking the Harem Animes as "women Superior" because they are all fighting over the attention and affections of their hypotenuse. But generally the man only has a harem because he's unable to make a decision on which woman he wants to end up with- and he's got the attentions of multiple hot women all wanting him, which is the biggest appeal to the male ego I can think of off the top of my head. Yes, the women tend to be effectual, because the man isn't. And it's a fantasy… In real life, I think it would be *much* less appealing.
@old_jolly2 I think you're forgetting Margaret Thatcher. I'd say prime minister of Great Britain is a pretty important and influential position, same goes for Angela Merkel (German chancellor)
Jolly, either you're mean spirited or whatever Babelfish program you're using is making you sound really rude.
On topic, I'd say if people see a big problem with art, then we must remember: Art imitates real life. If art rustles your jimmies, you might be a bit more horrified to read a newspaper.
Are there problems? Sure, the burkah should be abolished quickly and forcefully. Forced circumcision is not funny. A woman having the dimorphic instinct to raise her children the way most of our closest mammal relatives do... is not sexist. You want sexist, think about stray cats: the male up and leaves after he's done trying to preserve his species. Is it evil, rude, or mean? No, it's an instinct to simply find more places to make more cats.
On the other hand, male lions will get pissed off and kill cubs if he knows they're not his.
In short, human nature is for mothers to be motherly and care for their young.
So to quote a game we all know well: Don't mess with nature, or it'll mess with you.
We also forgot to mention Mother Theresa, who I think counts as influential, world changing person, too. Generally, we can safely assume the statement "Jeanne D'arc and Marie Curie were the only women who changed the world" has been proven to be bs.
@LadyRhian Terminator is perfect example for how action movies evolved. After all, we ended up with the SARAH Connor Chronicles as a series, because that's the character who generated enough interest and material.
I don't read animes, and maybe there are genres that are like... I still don't quite understand what old_jolly2 is getting at. But then, there's a niche for everything. I try to keep my examples as mainstream as possible - niches simply don't reflect the current trends and changes because they are made for... niche audiences. The existance of a genre where some guy has a harem doesn't mean a thing in a discussion about how female characters are written in mainstream fiction. Even if that's what he means, the point can be countered by the existance of, I don't know, My Little Pony where all characters are female (I think?). That just means a show with an exclusively female cast exists, not that all mainstream fiction has only female characters.
@KidCarnival I've never watched "My Little Pony", but just from seeing stuff on DeviantArt about it, I know there are some male characters. Spike, a little dragon. Big Macintosh, who is the brother of Applejack (one of the "Mane 6"), and there is a villain/obstacle Dragon… thing whose name is Chaos or Nemesis or… something, for some reason I see him in fan art with Rainbow Dash as his "waifu" or something (Waifu being the Japanese pronunciation of "Wife" in English. The male term would be, supposedly, "Husbando". :P) It almost scares me how much pop culture knowledge one can absorb just being exposed to that shizz on a semi-regular basis.
I mean, I have books on anime as a whole. back when I was into it, I got a ton of them. There are certainly anime where female characters predominate. Female-centered shows like "Sailor Moon" (where all the main characters tend to be female and the male characters are really incidental, like Tuxedo Kamen (Kamen meaning "Mask"). You have parody shows like Kekko Kamen, a show that takes place at an all-girl's school with a heroine who fights in *Only* a mask and who takes out villains by cutting off their air with her crotch (and I do mean that literally- she wraps her legs around their neck, and they THANK HER FOR IT. No, no double entendre there!). You have the wider "Magical Girl" genre with characters like Creamy Mami, who are generally children who morph into an older form for reasons and by magic. Sailor Moon hangs out in that area, but isn't really a "Magical Girl" anime in any except the widest sense. It's more a Sentai show (See below).
There are anime like "Magic Knight Rayearth", about three school girls from different schools in Tokyo who are drawn into a magical world to save it. There are also Sentai shows, which are the "Five man/person team" shows. In Japan, they usually have one female member, in America, the yellow Power Ranger became female- I guess because they thought it was sexist to only have one woman on a team. Sentai comes from a word used to describe a military group or squadron. Generally, the one we know in America was "Battle of the Planets/G-Force/Gatchaman/Science Ninja Gatchaman" (Different names were given for the various shows depending on how much had been cut out from individual translations. G-Force was one of the worst- so much was cut that to take up time, they added 7-Zark-7 bits in to make up time. In fact, the original Gatchaman in Japan is fairly brutal, with the team members snapping necks and doing similar ninja stuff- that was one of the reasons why it was censored.).
@LadyRhian I read all that and still don't know a thing about anime. It's an art style I never got into, so trying to teach me about all the genres I'll never read or watch is relatively pointless. I can only take your word for it and your interpretation, but I can't have an opinion. It's like explaining someone who knows nothing about soccer how soccer works - even the most neutral observer will give you a slightly biased example of who makes a good goal keeper, or what club has the best fan base. Biased by own taste and preferences, so I'm not saying it's malicious misinformation, just that Soccer Fan A might see things differently than Soccer Fan B.
For me, it works better to use examples of mainstream media, which I define as "something I see on TV while zapping major networks around prime time", or for print media, something I might see advertised at a big store in a mall. Law & Order is mainstream. Twilight is mainstream. Breaking Bad is mainstream. Game of Thrones is mainstream. That's the shows and books and movies I see on prime time TV and in the shopping windows of bookstores. Out of these random examples, Game of Thrones is the only one I actively follow, but I can still tell you what the others are about and at least 2 or 3 characters. That is mainstream, that is something most people have some sort of opinion about, even if they don't know the work intimately.
Tell me about it. As a teenager, I concluded "not into girls, so I must be gay". When I also wasn't interested in guys, I concluded "must be really picky". When nothing had changed about that in my mid-twenties, the logical conclusion was "must be the pickiest person alive or asexual". On some level, I am interested in the rare guy, but still not in sex, though I also think the "sex negative" crowd is overdoing it. Sex is natural and not "ewww so disgusting, no-one should ever sex!11". I'm indifferent, and I admit I often look away when people kiss on TV because it's not exactly aesthetic either, but if it makes a partner happy, it's ok for me. I just wouldn't seek out sex for the sake of sex. I don't understand one night stands or porn or people saying they are going crazy because they had no sex for (insert amount of time). It's just alien to me, but I wouldn't say those people are the freaks. I'm aware that I am the freak, biologically speaking, because if a majority was like me, this species would have died out long ago. The dating pool is more a legend than a reality if you are, simplified, gay and not very interested in sex. If people ask for labels, I say "gay if I had a libido" or "celibate", which usually shuts people up very quickly and amuses me.
Some of these teenagers most certainly use "asexual" as "rebellion" against everything being oversexualized, from advertising to fashion. And that's pretty sad, that people feel a need to rebel because they are what I consider "just being kids". To me, it's absolutely normal that teenagers are not a kinkfest on legs and still figure things out, and I also think most have the sense to know when they are "ready". Claiming the asexual label is a weird defense against being pressured into things they are not ready for. "There, I have a label, technically I'm not even straight, so stop discriminating me!" instead of "Geez, I'm 13, can I wait a few years?"
However, my problem is not with them. I feel sorry for that group that they need an elaborate excuse to just be their age. My problem is with the trend-hoppers who were bisexual at age 12, briefly asexual between 13 and 13 1/2, pansexual at 14, then again asexual for a year, before becoming transsexual and trigender and so on. That's where labels become a problem. I do not think anyone knows exactly at age 16 who or what they are. Claiming labels and trying to live up to them isn't healthy. Using one after another is what gives others the impression they are "not normal" because they haven't figured it all out yet. And it is also not helping people who actually are these things - most notably asexuals and bisexuals, who will hear all their life that "it's just a phase" and "one day, you'll make up your mind/decide". It's also not healthy to never be taken serious and instead patronized by everyone who knows "better". In short, I think labels should be discouraged, and people - teenagers and adults alike - should give everyone the time to figure things out for themselves. And that is never - no exceptions - going to happen at age 16. Hell, most people aren't so sure at age 26.
hmmm... I just came in and read the last few posts.
i think the reason I myself started identifying as asexual was pretty much because people, unfortunately, seem to expect everyone to be able to identify into a sexuality. most teenagers I think pretty much see that if you are not straight and have never been with a girl (assuming you are a guy like me), then you are gay. the thing with me is that I have had crushes on girls, but never a desire for sex all the way to now, at 19. unfortunately, most of my peers back in high school and some around now would likely automatically classify me as gay if I told them I have never been with or even had sex with a girl. believe me, I've been asked before a few times. before I knew of asexuality, it was very hard to push the idea that I wasn't into girls, but still not gay, so many would just continue presuming as such. eventually I learned of it and now I currently identify myself as one, and most people get the point. it is pretty much as though they expect a label, and if not then it is up to what they think.
you are right though, people need to give others the time to really decide what they are. many people wouldn't really know exactly what they are in their teenaged years. I wouldn't slap a label on myself just yet if people weren't always expecting me to be something and know who I am. I've been calling myself asexual for at least 2 years now, but I can't really be entirely sure that I am not late/haven't met the right person yet. if I really am asexual, then I will grow more and more sick of the talk that I will make up my mind 10 years from now, and that will be because of those people that constantly change their label.
also even as an asexual I am not sex negative. as kidcarnvial said, I am fully aware that it is a very natural thing that I just happen to not like, at least at this time. hell, in a Bioware game I indeed do the romances despite them usually resulting in sex. sure I'll turn it down if I am given the option (such as Jaheira) because of personal preference, but I could care less if my character was going to engage in the act. it is a natural thing, and I can let my characters be natural. DAI has full nudity in it's scenes, but I was neither turned on/disgusted. I would only say that it was unneccessary for me as I am just as fine with a fade to black. if my friends have fun doing it then good for them, they are just being normal. if nobody had sex, we wouldn't be around. just leave me out of it.
tldr: sadly, most people expect a label. if we did give people more time, you wouldn't see people switching labels so much. also while I am not interested at this point of time, I still don't look at it is a bad thing, just something I'm not interested in.
It's funny. I'm 46, and I've never been with a man, but I'm still attracted to them- men, that is. I view sexual orientation as "what you are attracted to" rather than "What you've had in your bed". I have never been attracted to another women in the way I am attracted to men. I also tend to view people who are angry over other people's orientation are somehow insecure in their own. There is nothing in what another person is attracted to that should make me angry about it.
Yes, there are people attracted to kids and the too young. I find that sad rather than horrible. You can't change who and what you are attracted to- or at least, I've never seen any evidence that anybody could actually do it rather than *saying* they could, but it must suck being attracted to what society says is wrong and criminal. I do agree that people who molest kids should be put in jail, but I do feel a bit sorry for them in the way of what they are attracted to. Because, again, that's one thing it seems impossible to change.
It's funny. I'm 46, and I've never been with a man, but I'm still attracted to them- men, that is. I view sexual orientation as "what you are attracted to" rather than "What you've had in your bed".
well, there is still a difference between romantic and sexual orientations. I've stated that I've had crushes on women, but haven't had any sexual desire. it wouldn't make me straight sexually, but rather I would be an asexual heteroromantic. as kidcarnival stated he liked men but not sexually, meaning he would be asexual homoromantic. honestly it is kinda sad for me because as much as I would like to have somebody I feel unable to compromise and do the deed, not to mention my disinterest in having kids. so I think it should be broadened to "what you are attracted to sexually" because some people still have an attraction, even if not sexual attraction. (in the same way some bisexuals would only be romantically attracted to one sex, and so the other sex would be more just one night stands than marriage)
as for the rest, yeah, it is rather sad. i do not discriminate against gays or whatever. i kind of just say so long as you understand who I am, I will respect you as well. it is their business what gender they are interested in, just don't be interested in me even after I announce my disinterest to you. it just makes no sense to me that someone could be mad. what someone does/doesn't do in the bedroom doesn't affect them. lucky me though I am pretty uninteresting (a bit on purpose) and never gained the attention of somone of either gender. i am not saying i am not fun to be around, but I am unlikely to be someone's crush
Yeah, label hopping results in the very issue childofbhaal described. Everyone has sooo many labels, why don't you?! "Make a choice! Settle for SOMETHING, it doesn't have to mean anything, you can just switch it out if you change your mind!" Umm, logic? Why pick whatever if you are free to switch it out at any time, even for the complete opposite? The people who actually are the label they pick will never be taken serious if what people see is "Ah, Jane was pansexual, asexual, lesbian, transgender, sapiosexual and now she's bi, it's all just a phase, and Janine (who actually is bi) will also be something else next year". When Janine dates a woman, she'll hear "yeah, it's your lesbian phase, just wait a few months". When Janine then dates a man, she'll hear "see, I told you it was just a phase". Even more so if Janine marries someone and "settles" for being straight or gay. It's completely and utterly impossible she's still as attracted to both men and women because bisexuals don't exist and she clearly made a choice now. Phase over.
For asexuals, it's going to be "just a phase" for a long time, too. Now I admit, I do think people can know they are not straight in puberty, or that they are. Puberty is when hormones get to work, and it's not that complicated to figure out who you have a crush on. Thing is, there is no "on" switch and no telling when that happens. It varies a lot from person to person. There is such a thing as "late blossomer". I know people who didn't date until their early twenties and then met the "right person". It happens. It's not weird. It's just life. At least in my generation, that doesn't stand out and no-one needed an excuse-label for not dating as a teenager. It was enough to say "there's no-one I like at this school" or "I'm busy enough with school/hobbies, I have no time". Now, you have the "vocal minority" of temporary-asexuals who use that label at age 13, then meet someone they like a year later and "sexuality is fluid, I use whatever label feels right at the time". Yes, sexuality IS fluid and a spectrum and all. But it's not THAT fluid. Not "changing completely every year" fluid. All label hopping as a teenager does is send the message "yes, it is a phase". I'm 34. I still hear "it's just a phase, you'll change your mind once you meet the right person". A friend of mine - "Janine" - is my generation, too. While engaged to a woman, everyone assured her it's totally fine she's a lesbian. Then they broke up and she has a boyfriend now. Everyone assures her it's totally fine she used to think she's a lesbian and that it's good she finally grew up and stopped making out with girls for attention. A- and bisexuals - don't exist.
And since you mention transsexuals - one of my friends of elementary school is a transwoman. Sure she knew for a long time that something wasn't "right". But it took her years to figure out what that was and do something about it. It all seemed "right" on paper - puberty sets in, interest in girls is there, just like everyone else, right? Except not. Except she was a lesbian woman in a male body. Of course that is confusing. Of course you don't just "know" as a teenager. And knowing what a long and difficult process that was, I think it's dangerous to let teenagers happily broadcast how "trans/genderqueer/whatever" they are and act on it. It's nothing you can just reverse over night if you change your mind. It's nice to be liberal and open-minded, but it sucks if you enable a teenager to do something he or she regrets a year later.
I think things in a realistic, analytical and logical view. And many times my views are mistaken as being immoral (which is relative) or whatever, when I am approaching many issues like a scientist, analyzing things for what they are. And no, I am not any short of scientist. It's how my brain works. I like analyzing stuff in general.
Concerning labels, I don't find something wrong with them. Labels are a way to describe and distinguish something from something else in a convenient and fast way. And everyone is both unique and not unique. Somewhere in the world there is someone very similar to you but also none exactly like you.
I also find it hilarious that what people perceive as absolute facts is pretty relative as it depends on the time period and the culture.
For example: what @LadyRhian said about people attracted to kids. There is a psychological and/or even a biological reason for that. To put it really really simply: Chemistry = biology = psychology.
An example would be when your hormones change, your mood and personality changes temporarily or permanently. Women know this better than men. Your body chemistry affects your psychology.
Also it's generally considered that 18 is fine for any "adult" stuff. Yet throughout the centuries, people have had sex and married to younger people and it still happens today. On the opposite side, you have cultures that have the age of consent to be 20+. For them having sex with a 18-19 year old would be the western equivalent of having sex with a 15-16 year old. Others think that any sex before marriage is disgusting and might be the equivalent of walking in public naked and having sex in public for us.
What @Dazzu said about the burkah. I've seen some protests and saw videos of Muslim women that protest or believe that wearing a burkah keeps them pure and it's their choice and right to wear one even when they don't have to. For them, not wearing a burkah is the equivalent of us wearing really revealing clothes or being naked in public.
My point is that everything is so relative and it depends on the culture.
My own philosophy is: Do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt someone else but that doesn't mean I should like it or agree with it.
People will always disagree on every matter. There's no one that is more right or wrong. Because those are also relative terms. And that's because people come from different cultures, different countries, different religions if any etc.
Comments
There's something that draw humen attention towards God and what the male is going to do with it. Joke aside , I don't like to participate my thoughts on that. I do think it can be found easily , and it can not be learnt. It is evident , that's because. So any attempts to "explain" it will end up making it look more complicated. Just like quitting smoking. Remember the old Nike motto ?
What words people use to insult each other... is leading this topic ad absurdum. Of course, people don't like any of these words. That's why they are insults. It makes no difference if you call someone "asshole" or "whore", the intent is the same - offend and insult them, so what gives?
And I agree with you about Yaoi. Supposedly, it comes from the characters wanting to be equal, but then it immediately devolves into the two characters acting out the most insulting and trite sexual roles that would seem horrible if a man and a woman were to act like that. I actually own a Yaoi manga called "Selfish Love" that made me sick to my stomach. The "Manly man" is so strong in his pursuit of the uke that it seems like Sexual Harassment- not sexy in the slightest. (I have this same problem with early romance novels from the 70's and very early 80's. The men are Alpha males to the point of being assholes, running roughshod over the heroine and anyone else who stands in their way, and I find it sickening. A website I read has the perfect nickname for those characters: Alpholes.)
As for why not acknowledge it, it's because women aren't supposed to be interested in the sex. The role of woman in western cultures (generally) is to be the gatekeeper on sex. The man is supposed to always want it, and it's up to the woman to shut him down Unless/until he's done the "right things" to open the door (propose/get married to her, etc.) This is just one of the reasons why woman tend to get blamed for being raped- it was her job to stop him, if she really *wanted* to stop him, there would have been no act. That's why older white male politicians make all those embarrassing claims about "Legitimate rape". It comes from this attitude, but those men forget that women like sex, too. It feels good. It's also why few people ever claim that men should just keep it in their trousers and just zip up. It's ridiculous that men think they can get away with the excuse that they saw a woman and "Just couldn't control themselves", so that they HAD to have sex with her, even if she was passed out, sick, drunk unconscious and unable to say yes. What sort of attitude does that say about men? That they are raving lust-beasts unable to control themselves at the sight of a woman? How insulting for men! (Imagine me making a disgusted face here.)
I agree with you about sitcoms in general. The thing with Children's programs is that kids generally have more contact with their mothers than their fathers. Even in families where both parents work, the woman generally does more of the child-raising stuff than the men. In the 50's, where a woman generally *didn't* work out of the home, the kids saw their moms making decisions about them 95% of the time, and Dad was the parental figure who was used to back mom up, leading to the old, "Wait until your father gets home!" (there was even a cartoon with that name, although it was actually rather ironic in that the father in that show was pretty ineffectual.)
@Meagloth Can you think of a worse insult than to call a man equivalent to a woman? I am asking for information. Is there is worse insult somewhere that doesn't put the "weaker" man in the place of a woman, only if metaphorically? If you know of one, I'd love to hear it.
@Old_jolly2 Sorry, but I am not sure what you are getting at. I get that you agreed with me in some things, and disagreed with others, especially about language, and I get that you come from a different culture and a different language, but I am just really left feeling confused.
I'm not a fan of romance genres or generally fiction with a strong focus on "X meets Y, will they get together?", so I don't know much about the creep/stalker factor.
"it's because women aren't supposed to be interested in the sex"
Well... Excuse the stupid question, but where's the ever present feminism here? Most women (in western countries, at least) seem to have arrived in the present, where it is normal that women wear pants, have jobs/put career before family, can be happily single, have one night stands and so on. The current fanfiction writers are the daughters and granddaughters of the generations that stood up for this - the original women's rights movement. They were not raised to be meek housewives of whom it is expected that they marry, pop out some kids and bring hubby his beer when he gets back from work. It's a mystery to me why they'd so willingly take the rest for granted, but stop here and say "yeah, sure women should have careers and be independant, but like sex? NO THANKS."
Sitcoms are "feel good TV". They are not made to make the viewer think about social issues, they are made to entertain and to amuse. The "com" part stands for "comedy", after all. If the families shown in them were not the "typical family next door, but funnier", and instead have a single mom with 5 kids from 8 fathers (at least 1 in prison, 2 alcoholics), it wouldn't be a comedy anymore.
I think to a degree, the "smart mom, stupid dad" dynamic will more and more die out in newer productions. The shows we watched as kids were made by people who grew up in the "50ies family", and largely viewed by people who had similar childhoods. The current generation has more diversity here - more patchwork families, more single parents, and with the gay marriage legalisation and right to adopt, future generations will also have more same sex parents. All that, like any change in a society, will be reflected in fiction, too. And we will have more sitcoms with different gender roles and representations.
To be fair, Xena was pretty kick-ass and butch anyway, so she didn't *need* flanderizing in that way. Of course, another recurring character was her dead ex-second in command and lover (he appeared several times in the series, including once when she had to travel through the afterlife, so I consider him a recurring character, though he was vanishingly rare.), who apparently, she still carried a torch for.
Be aware, I didn't watch either series myself (with the exception of one double episode called "Ten Little Warlords", simply because that one was funny- Ares loses the sword that holds his godhood (Why no! No Double entendre there!) and needs Xena's help to regain it. And as a human, he's sort of… less than a success. At one point he gets drunk before boarding a boat, and when he's on it, he says to Xena- why do I feel funny and why do they call it a 'hangover' anyway? And her response is, "Because any minute now you'll be hanging over that rail…" And she's only helping him because he points out that, even as a God of War, he has restraint, whereas the people who are competing to have it have none. So if they become God of War, there will be even more war and more suffering…). So all this is impressions from hearing friends who did watch the series talk.
From what I can tell, women not being in gender roles *is* normal in female slash. I'm not sure about Yuri (the female distaff version of Yaoi in Japan) because I haven't read any of it. I do know that there is some/lots of Yuri in Sailor Moon fan fiction. Because a friend who bought a ton of Sailor Moon Doujinshi (fan-created comics) found they were, like 90+% Yuri (she bought them without looking to see what they were about).
As for your question about "where is the feminism?" This attitude is from Before feminism, and sadly, many women and girls today have been raised to see feminism as a bad thing. Remembering that today, "feminism" apparently, according to most people means that women want to have *more* rights than men, many women want to not label themselves in that way. Even me. I'm a feminist in the old sense of women being equal to men, not better. "Feminism" is destroying our culture, dontchaknow. (Yes, I do find that ridiculous.))
The feminism... Well, like I said, I find it weird that this one relict has survived, while nearly everything else the original feminists (depending on your age, your mother or grandmother) fought for is now the norm (or on the way to become normal). 50 years ago, it was - like you pointed out above - normal that the woman stayed at home and raised the children and the man went to work. Today, you don't think it's weird in any way if you see a woman working. Sure, there are still some fields where it is rare, i.e. female lumberjack or oil platform worker, but it's not unheard of and it's nothing that makes people go "whoa". Yet "liking sex" has remained a relict from the past - despite being challenged heavily in media and economy? That's weird.
I don't consider myself a feminist and from what you say about that, you are looking for this term, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarianism
Anyway, I see the opposite of what you're saying. Kids today are raised to see feminism as important and a good thing, and if you aren't a feminist, you must be a backwardly PUA douche.
Insult, I'd go with "comparing to child". Saying someone acts immature and has the understanding of a child, i.e. "Don't make such a scene, you're not 5 anymore", "Shut up, now the grown ups are talking", implies inexperience, that the input isn't considered valuable and/or that the insulted person is dumb.
If a woman's private parts are smaller than a man's, there's far less shame and embarrassment ingrained into their minds: someone will likely be interested regardless of chest size. The same isn't as likely to be true of small pumps.
Here's an insult only men can get, and at the most inopportune times: "Is it in yet?"
Or let's use a similar situation. The N word. I personally think it's a bigger insult to call one that...
Then again... ever hear this line: "You can't use that word... but I can because I'm black!"
Things just get confusing, but personally, it's far worse than being called a woman.
Or maybe this one: your mom/dad/wife/brother/son/etc. deserved to die.
No curse words, just scummy things to say. That's far worse than any slur.
Am I making sense?
As a man , I am confident that I can survive , and I can fight against people's oppression quite easily ; I proved myself that I can survive on my own , so I am calm when amongst people. I address to the women guild not some specific individual. Dear two people , I'm not meaning to do acts of propaganda , walking in the street and showing your face off in the cameras , though I'm pretty sure male gender have number superiority there as well , it is irrelevant of what I meant. The emphasis was on the success rate. I only count successes without any interpretation to it. I only know only 1 ( tale ? ) of a woman "world changer" , and may be even 2 if you add Marie Curie to it ( and both are French also ? ). I was addressing , speaking to LadyRhian , whom I guess that she is a woman , and she was doing some complainments. As far as I recall , those people yet are the same as the raisers of 'serious' complaints when the topics turn to mention about sexes. I know , I can see yet still the majority of posters in this topic seems to be male , but @LadyRhian 's complaints actually renders to something that clicks something in me , like "we need to change".
Rebelling is not posting instagram pictures. And raising your voice is not posting on gaming forums or to Hollywood cameras. I don't think Jean D'arc , as they told , did any of that.
I do think all those "woman superiority" in animes , films or games are the futile efforts of some men trying to "motivate" their soft voiced kinsmen to a status they like to see , calm and powerful. The rest of weirdness that is there can be the futile effort "quitters" that just like to tease with whatever they can find , aiming to disturb women especially , so retaining their intention to "make the women go out finally". Where are women ? Walking in the street , in high places like councils , presidencies , as leaders of cults and mafia that rule many amount of people though it is evil , running corporates and bussinesses , talkers in television that are respected , not twerking , not hilariously ranting ; where ARE THEY ?
What I'm getting to , that I don't like weird things. And I move away from them. But women tend to quit their arms to their sides and surrender pretty easily. AFTER this , they talk like this is not their fault , because they couldn't have done something. Like , for example , rape. How could you not do something against rape ? How could you not do something against men insulting you in words that you have stated , if they are insults ? I'm really tired of seeing weak "roleplayers" among women. And I don't really think gender is a matter of "serious" categorization. It's just like blue eyes or brown eyes , etc. Human is the only name for it , and no one has the luxury to "act" weak. And women are not more emphatic that men. I can disprove that. Empathy is not a "sexual" difference , because it is not a "color". It is more analogy to "light" itself.
Please , do think that , "harmed , is the guilty". If you think you're being harmed in any way , the fault is only your own. The otherwise of this , is insanely evil. Because no one can change no one else , for ever; and accusing other people for your carelessness is very evil. And this applies for everyone , including me. And I do think when a woman confronts even 5 men , IF AND ONLY IF those 5 men are insane , those 5 men again stand no chance against her. That's why when I hear a woman ( and the selection of words , the writing style usually renders a good probability rate to guess the gender , in cases that you haven't met with the writer ) complaining that men are like this , society like this , etc. , I'm both a little sad , and a little angry. And a little tempted to write
I am Turkish. But I'm not a nationalist. However when I heard Tuğçe Albayrak was killed by a Serbian hobo in Germany , Offenbach ( please do read the news story if you don't know , it's a recent event ) , I am fed up.
After few minutes of dreaming in anger , I knew that no body could have done something except HER. I may sound insensitive but actually I am aiming to solve something : Harmed , is the guilty ; and sadly , this counts only for those who still exist. She mustn't have intervened with the Serbians , but , if she deemed it was necessary , she should have acted more careful. A human threatened with its life should berserk easily. And a woman is sorts of something "anti-men". No man can stand a chance against a woman when fighting , if that woman is what I and those "artists" dream to see around , calm and unhesistating. Those art efforts often are abused by "feminists ?" by what they call ( yeah , that shirt of that famous rocket scientist ) , and I also know that "I" cannot change anyone as well even if I posted to UN forums(?) or something.
Everyone is free %100. This means actually women are content with how they are portrayed and treated ( but me : sadness & anger ).
Dreaming will not make anyone "the perfect human".
tl;dr: nevermind
Secondly, there are many women who changed the world. In some cases, like Rosalind Franklin, the discoverer of the true structure of DNA, her discovery was stolen by male colleagues of hers, and she was never credited because she died before the truth became known: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin
And then you have Margaret Sanger, the lady who popularized Birth Control in the west and instituted the idea of spacing out the children you give birth to so that each child gets the chance to grow and develop properly and that their mothers don't die from being forced to give birth over and over and over again. (some women did just that, as gestating a child and giving birth depletes of necessary nutrients, among other things, that women have to struggle to get back into their bodies afterwards. Also, childbirth is much riskier, medically, than having an abortion, especially back in the 1900's, when she was working.)
And then you have the many women who agitated for women getting the vote. Women's suffrage has many leading ladies, Elizabeth Cady Stanton among them, who changed the world for women and mankind as a whole.
And, in a fairly minor way, Bette Nesmith-Graham invented correction fluid (which she called "Mistake-Out") when she was a secretary. Her son, who she was raising alone, achieved some fame as a member of a late 60's band called "The Monkees". He was Mike Nesmith. You may not think this is significant, but correcting fluid did change the world.
So, there you go- more than two women and not all French. And these are just a few of the many. I didn't even take "women's studies" in college, and I know of these women. I can lump in more from History, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who went to war in the Holy Land with her Husband, King Louis of France. After failing to birth him a male heir (but two daughters), her marriage was annulled, and she married King Henry II of England and bore him another 8 children, including 5 sons. She was a Queen more than equal in lands and consequence to her husband. In both cases, she was mistress of the entire south of France, the Languedoc. Not only was she rich and powerful in her own self, she endowed many abbeys, including Fontrevault. She also popularized the idea of courtly love, and that love and affection should be the basis for a relationship not for families to increase the size of their holdings. While there were some problems with her court (she ruled that love was impossible within marriage, and that the relationship between lover and beloved should take the form of longing, poetry and songs, but never actual sex), this was still a revolutionary idea.
I won't go any more into this, but I think your ideas are flawed in a major way.
I also very much doubt that Jeanne D'arc and Marie Curie were the only infuential women in history. Frankly, the claim alone that no-one else "changed the world" is ridicolous, as is comparing historic figures to people who post "activist" stuff on social media.
In my posting above, I gave you an example of women who do something other than Facebook postings or "talking to Hollywood cameras" (whatever that has to do with anything). I said that the Catholic nuns, usually percieved as very "quiet" by the public, are actively doing something about various social issues. Unless you truly believe you have to be "famous" to change something, that addresses the thing you critize (?) now. Do you think Jeanne D'arc changed the world all alone? She had followers, as does any leader, and they were not "famous".
As an aside, I find it fairly disturbing that you list "cult leaders" and "mafia bosses" as positions where you'd like to see more women. You forgot "serial killers to strike fear in our hearts"; that's another "powerful position" with a quite bad female-to-male ratio. /s
"But women tend to quit their arms to their sides and surrender pretty easily."
You are generalizing.
"Everyone is free %100."
You are delusional or living in a dream world. Have you watched the news in the last few... years? No, not everyone is 100 % free and I don't think it will be the case in my lifetime.
"all those "woman superiority" in animes , films or games"
I don't know what you read or watch, but I don't see "superiority". In recent years, I see that women are more written as actual characters rather than "lead's love interest" in certain genres (specifically the action genre), and have evolved beyond "eye candy" in others (specifically crime shows now have more female leads or main characters, as opposed to the 80ies and earlier, where there was Miss Marple and a legion of male detectives). If something pushes "superiority" of any group, it stands out and rarely as positive.
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Agreed with @Dazzu, you can turn that insult around - telling a woman "you look like a man" - also works. Generally, I think any insult about something a person can't change - i.e. skin color - is worse than being compared to the opposite sex.
Also, he may be thinking the Harem Animes as "women Superior" because they are all fighting over the attention and affections of their hypotenuse. But generally the man only has a harem because he's unable to make a decision on which woman he wants to end up with- and he's got the attentions of multiple hot women all wanting him, which is the biggest appeal to the male ego I can think of off the top of my head. Yes, the women tend to be effectual, because the man isn't. And it's a fantasy… In real life, I think it would be *much* less appealing.
On topic, I'd say if people see a big problem with art, then we must remember: Art imitates real life. If art rustles your jimmies, you might be a bit more horrified to read a newspaper.
Are there problems? Sure, the burkah should be abolished quickly and forcefully. Forced circumcision is not funny. A woman having the dimorphic instinct to raise her children the way most of our closest mammal relatives do... is not sexist. You want sexist, think about stray cats: the male up and leaves after he's done trying to preserve his species. Is it evil, rude, or mean? No, it's an instinct to simply find more places to make more cats.
On the other hand, male lions will get pissed off and kill cubs if he knows they're not his.
In short, human nature is for mothers to be motherly and care for their young.
So to quote a game we all know well: Don't mess with nature, or it'll mess with you.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/nov/28/cop21-women-climate-change-frontline-small-grants-mama-aleta-baun-west-timor
@LadyRhian Terminator is perfect example for how action movies evolved. After all, we ended up with the SARAH Connor Chronicles as a series, because that's the character who generated enough interest and material.
I don't read animes, and maybe there are genres that are like... I still don't quite understand what old_jolly2 is getting at. But then, there's a niche for everything. I try to keep my examples as mainstream as possible - niches simply don't reflect the current trends and changes because they are made for... niche audiences. The existance of a genre where some guy has a harem doesn't mean a thing in a discussion about how female characters are written in mainstream fiction. Even if that's what he means, the point can be countered by the existance of, I don't know, My Little Pony where all characters are female (I think?). That just means a show with an exclusively female cast exists, not that all mainstream fiction has only female characters.
I mean, I have books on anime as a whole. back when I was into it, I got a ton of them. There are certainly anime where female characters predominate. Female-centered shows like "Sailor Moon" (where all the main characters tend to be female and the male characters are really incidental, like Tuxedo Kamen (Kamen meaning "Mask"). You have parody shows like Kekko Kamen, a show that takes place at an all-girl's school with a heroine who fights in *Only* a mask and who takes out villains by cutting off their air with her crotch (and I do mean that literally- she wraps her legs around their neck, and they THANK HER FOR IT. No, no double entendre there!). You have the wider "Magical Girl" genre with characters like Creamy Mami, who are generally children who morph into an older form for reasons and by magic. Sailor Moon hangs out in that area, but isn't really a "Magical Girl" anime in any except the widest sense. It's more a Sentai show (See below).
There are anime like "Magic Knight Rayearth", about three school girls from different schools in Tokyo who are drawn into a magical world to save it. There are also Sentai shows, which are the "Five man/person team" shows. In Japan, they usually have one female member, in America, the yellow Power Ranger became female- I guess because they thought it was sexist to only have one woman on a team. Sentai comes from a word used to describe a military group or squadron. Generally, the one we know in America was "Battle of the Planets/G-Force/Gatchaman/Science Ninja Gatchaman" (Different names were given for the various shows depending on how much had been cut out from individual translations. G-Force was one of the worst- so much was cut that to take up time, they added 7-Zark-7 bits in to make up time. In fact, the original Gatchaman in Japan is fairly brutal, with the team members snapping necks and doing similar ninja stuff- that was one of the reasons why it was censored.).
For me, it works better to use examples of mainstream media, which I define as "something I see on TV while zapping major networks around prime time", or for print media, something I might see advertised at a big store in a mall. Law & Order is mainstream. Twilight is mainstream. Breaking Bad is mainstream. Game of Thrones is mainstream. That's the shows and books and movies I see on prime time TV and in the shopping windows of bookstores. Out of these random examples, Game of Thrones is the only one I actively follow, but I can still tell you what the others are about and at least 2 or 3 characters. That is mainstream, that is something most people have some sort of opinion about, even if they don't know the work intimately.
Tell me about it. As a teenager, I concluded "not into girls, so I must be gay". When I also wasn't interested in guys, I concluded "must be really picky". When nothing had changed about that in my mid-twenties, the logical conclusion was "must be the pickiest person alive or asexual". On some level, I am interested in the rare guy, but still not in sex, though I also think the "sex negative" crowd is overdoing it. Sex is natural and not "ewww so disgusting, no-one should ever sex!11". I'm indifferent, and I admit I often look away when people kiss on TV because it's not exactly aesthetic either, but if it makes a partner happy, it's ok for me. I just wouldn't seek out sex for the sake of sex. I don't understand one night stands or porn or people saying they are going crazy because they had no sex for (insert amount of time). It's just alien to me, but I wouldn't say those people are the freaks. I'm aware that I am the freak, biologically speaking, because if a majority was like me, this species would have died out long ago. The dating pool is more a legend than a reality if you are, simplified, gay and not very interested in sex. If people ask for labels, I say "gay if I had a libido" or "celibate", which usually shuts people up very quickly and amuses me.
Some of these teenagers most certainly use "asexual" as "rebellion" against everything being oversexualized, from advertising to fashion. And that's pretty sad, that people feel a need to rebel because they are what I consider "just being kids". To me, it's absolutely normal that teenagers are not a kinkfest on legs and still figure things out, and I also think most have the sense to know when they are "ready". Claiming the asexual label is a weird defense against being pressured into things they are not ready for. "There, I have a label, technically I'm not even straight, so stop discriminating me!" instead of "Geez, I'm 13, can I wait a few years?"
However, my problem is not with them. I feel sorry for that group that they need an elaborate excuse to just be their age. My problem is with the trend-hoppers who were bisexual at age 12, briefly asexual between 13 and 13 1/2, pansexual at 14, then again asexual for a year, before becoming transsexual and trigender and so on. That's where labels become a problem. I do not think anyone knows exactly at age 16 who or what they are. Claiming labels and trying to live up to them isn't healthy. Using one after another is what gives others the impression they are "not normal" because they haven't figured it all out yet. And it is also not helping people who actually are these things - most notably asexuals and bisexuals, who will hear all their life that "it's just a phase" and "one day, you'll make up your mind/decide". It's also not healthy to never be taken serious and instead patronized by everyone who knows "better". In short, I think labels should be discouraged, and people - teenagers and adults alike - should give everyone the time to figure things out for themselves. And that is never - no exceptions - going to happen at age 16. Hell, most people aren't so sure at age 26.
i think the reason I myself started identifying as asexual was pretty much because people, unfortunately, seem to expect everyone to be able to identify into a sexuality. most teenagers I think pretty much see that if you are not straight and have never been with a girl (assuming you are a guy like me), then you are gay. the thing with me is that I have had crushes on girls, but never a desire for sex all the way to now, at 19. unfortunately, most of my peers back in high school and some around now would likely automatically classify me as gay if I told them I have never been with or even had sex with a girl. believe me, I've been asked before a few times. before I knew of asexuality, it was very hard to push the idea that I wasn't into girls, but still not gay, so many would just continue presuming as such. eventually I learned of it and now I currently identify myself as one, and most people get the point. it is pretty much as though they expect a label, and if not then it is up to what they think.
you are right though, people need to give others the time to really decide what they are. many people wouldn't really know exactly what they are in their teenaged years. I wouldn't slap a label on myself just yet if people weren't always expecting me to be something and know who I am. I've been calling myself asexual for at least 2 years now, but I can't really be entirely sure that I am not late/haven't met the right person yet. if I really am asexual, then I will grow more and more sick of the talk that I will make up my mind 10 years from now, and that will be because of those people that constantly change their label.
also even as an asexual I am not sex negative. as kidcarnvial said, I am fully aware that it is a very natural thing that I just happen to not like, at least at this time. hell, in a Bioware game I indeed do the romances despite them usually resulting in sex. sure I'll turn it down if I am given the option (such as Jaheira) because of personal preference, but I could care less if my character was going to engage in the act. it is a natural thing, and I can let my characters be natural. DAI has full nudity in it's scenes, but I was neither turned on/disgusted. I would only say that it was unneccessary for me as I am just as fine with a fade to black. if my friends have fun doing it then good for them, they are just being normal. if nobody had sex, we wouldn't be around. just leave me out of it.
tldr: sadly, most people expect a label. if we did give people more time, you wouldn't see people switching labels so much. also while I am not interested at this point of time, I still don't look at it is a bad thing, just something I'm not interested in.
Yes, there are people attracted to kids and the too young. I find that sad rather than horrible. You can't change who and what you are attracted to- or at least, I've never seen any evidence that anybody could actually do it rather than *saying* they could, but it must suck being attracted to what society says is wrong and criminal. I do agree that people who molest kids should be put in jail, but I do feel a bit sorry for them in the way of what they are attracted to. Because, again, that's one thing it seems impossible to change.
as for the rest, yeah, it is rather sad. i do not discriminate against gays or whatever. i kind of just say so long as you understand who I am, I will respect you as well. it is their business what gender they are interested in, just don't be interested in me even after I announce my disinterest to you. it just makes no sense to me that someone could be mad. what someone does/doesn't do in the bedroom doesn't affect them. lucky me though I am pretty uninteresting (a bit on purpose) and never gained the attention of somone of either gender. i am not saying i am not fun to be around, but I am unlikely to be someone's crush
For asexuals, it's going to be "just a phase" for a long time, too. Now I admit, I do think people can know they are not straight in puberty, or that they are. Puberty is when hormones get to work, and it's not that complicated to figure out who you have a crush on. Thing is, there is no "on" switch and no telling when that happens. It varies a lot from person to person. There is such a thing as "late blossomer". I know people who didn't date until their early twenties and then met the "right person". It happens. It's not weird. It's just life. At least in my generation, that doesn't stand out and no-one needed an excuse-label for not dating as a teenager. It was enough to say "there's no-one I like at this school" or "I'm busy enough with school/hobbies, I have no time".
Now, you have the "vocal minority" of temporary-asexuals who use that label at age 13, then meet someone they like a year later and "sexuality is fluid, I use whatever label feels right at the time". Yes, sexuality IS fluid and a spectrum and all. But it's not THAT fluid. Not "changing completely every year" fluid. All label hopping as a teenager does is send the message "yes, it is a phase".
I'm 34. I still hear "it's just a phase, you'll change your mind once you meet the right person". A friend of mine - "Janine" - is my generation, too. While engaged to a woman, everyone assured her it's totally fine she's a lesbian. Then they broke up and she has a boyfriend now. Everyone assures her it's totally fine she used to think she's a lesbian and that it's good she finally grew up and stopped making out with girls for attention. A- and bisexuals - don't exist.
And since you mention transsexuals - one of my friends of elementary school is a transwoman. Sure she knew for a long time that something wasn't "right". But it took her years to figure out what that was and do something about it. It all seemed "right" on paper - puberty sets in, interest in girls is there, just like everyone else, right? Except not. Except she was a lesbian woman in a male body. Of course that is confusing. Of course you don't just "know" as a teenager. And knowing what a long and difficult process that was, I think it's dangerous to let teenagers happily broadcast how "trans/genderqueer/whatever" they are and act on it. It's nothing you can just reverse over night if you change your mind. It's nice to be liberal and open-minded, but it sucks if you enable a teenager to do something he or she regrets a year later.
And no, I am not any short of scientist. It's how my brain works. I like analyzing stuff in general.
Concerning labels, I don't find something wrong with them. Labels are a way to describe and distinguish something from something else in a convenient and fast way.
And everyone is both unique and not unique. Somewhere in the world there is someone very similar to you but also none exactly like you.
I also find it hilarious that what people perceive as absolute facts is pretty relative as it depends on the time period and the culture.
For example: what @LadyRhian said about people attracted to kids. There is a psychological and/or even a biological reason for that.
To put it really really simply:
Chemistry = biology = psychology.
An example would be when your hormones change, your mood and personality changes temporarily or permanently. Women know this better than men.
Your body chemistry affects your psychology.
Also it's generally considered that 18 is fine for any "adult" stuff.
Yet throughout the centuries, people have had sex and married to younger people and it still happens today.
On the opposite side, you have cultures that have the age of consent to be 20+.
For them having sex with a 18-19 year old would be the western equivalent of having sex with a 15-16 year old.
Others think that any sex before marriage is disgusting and might be the equivalent of walking in public naked and having sex in public for us.
What @Dazzu said about the burkah. I've seen some protests and saw videos of Muslim women that protest or believe that wearing a burkah keeps them pure and it's their choice and right to wear one even when they don't have to.
For them, not wearing a burkah is the equivalent of us wearing really revealing clothes or being naked in public.
My point is that everything is so relative and it depends on the culture.
My own philosophy is: Do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt someone else but that doesn't mean I should like it or agree with it.
People will always disagree on every matter. There's no one that is more right or wrong. Because those are also relative terms.
And that's because people come from different cultures, different countries, different religions if any etc.