Re: Gendered experiences that really should not be gendered

[PintsizeBro]

I'm pretty optimistic about those statements because of things like this:

[Enail]

Yeah, I'm quite excited that there's going to be a female villain whose schtick (presumably) isn't sexy femme fatale who did we mention she's sexy?

[Wondering]

Doesn't excuse Abrams saying Star Wars was only a boys' thing.

I had a gendered experience at one of the most predictable places yesterday: Car dealership service department. It was just exhausting and took me a while to even realize what was going on because it was lots of teeny things.

But most notable, this dealership has no women service advisors. The prior two that I've gone to over the years always had at least one, if not a several, women in those roles.

[nearly_takuan]

I took his meaning as equivalent to the marketing behind "All-New, All-Different Marvel" and suchlike, where the creators will tell the press that comics used to be just for straight white men. The phrasing is problematic as all hell because it pretty much erases the experiences of people of color who are already comic fans despite whom they're "for", but it's probably meant well. I resent the implication that Amadeus Cho is "all-different" from the "normal" audience, but am pleased that he's "all-different" from what was typical of Marvel content in the past.

Which is to say, my dad enjoying Iron Man comics as a kid and my dad feeling a little ashamed that all the Iron Man bad guys were literally painted with yellow skin are not mutually exclusive realities.

Which is to say, since most people would lose the "name three women from the Original Trilogy" game even if they remembered the ten minutes Aunt Beru was alive, I object to the way Abrams said it but choose to interpret the intent behind his statement as "I'm going to try to make my movies at least not obviously fail the Bechdel Test."

[reboot]

"Parents are four times more likely to tell girls than boys to be more careful" . Here is the Op-Ed piece . Teaching girls to be scared of things really holds them back and does not allow them to develop their own risk thresholds

[Wondering]

You know, I get worried about that. Because I tell my daughter "careful!" all the time. But I'm a worrier and have that anxiety thing (specifically about her safety), so I can't imagine I'd be doing it less if she were a boy. (I tell my husband to be careful a lot more than one probably normally tells an adult, too.)

But none of that matters if I'm telling her to be careful too much and making her a worrier. *sigh*

[eselle28]

I had thought that the whole "husband refuses to buy decent clothing for himself until wife drags him, under protest, to the store" thing was in the past. Apparently, it's really, really not. People play it out with varying degrees of humor, and I laugh along with it if it seems that's the reaction that's being played for, but inside I'm pretty embarrassed for both people. Why would you want to advertise either your unwillingness to do a basic adult task, or on the other side of things the extent to which you try to police someone else's appearance? And why on earth would you want to show off your marital conflicts to a complete stranger?

[reboot]

The use of the word "mistress" and the aftermath of an affair with a public figure: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/fashion/david-petraeus-paula-broadwell-scandal-affair.html?_r=0

[eselle28]

Apparently, even a "stuff you didn't learn in history class" podcast (which should, by the nature of its subject matter, lean toward mentioning women, people of color, social history, and the like) comes across as featuring too many women - even though only 21% of the episodes were exclusively about women, compared to 45% that were exclusively about men.

http://www.missedinhistory.com/blog/our-final-answer-on-too-many-women/

[Wondering]

So, they didn't add any of the women professionals emojis that were asked for. Because a pita sandwich is more important than a woman doctor?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b81S9lWIMnE&feature=youtu.be

[reboot]

Feminism's unfinished work in the Western world http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/05/opinion/sunday/what-does-a-lifetime-of-leers-do-to-us.html

[Enail]

I found that article really depressing, but it also put a finger on something that's always floating around in my head during discussions about harassment etc., but I've never been quite able to get a handle on.

[eselle28]

I found that article really depressing, but it also put a finger on something that's always floating around in my head during discussions about harassment etc., but I've never been quite able to get a handle on.

Same. It made me think of the difference between having a brick thrown at you and having to drag an ever-increasing number of pebbles around with you every day. The second one isn't quite as easy to work into conversations, especially with people who don't share experiences, as the brick is.

[eselle28]

Apparently even the concept of "hobbies" is gendered. David Brooks (I know, I know, but I think this reaches people other than him) believes people don't like Hillary Clinton because she doesn't have hobbies or share anything personal about herself. I do not particularly like her, though I will be voting for her. However, a five second Google search suggests that she enjoys swimming, yoga, decorating, Scrabble, gardening, and crossword puzzles. Like almost everyone, she likes TV, including political dramas and HGTV shows. I get that that's not particularly exciting, especially depending on one's own age or personal interests, but those are absolutely hobbies. The comparisons offered for Obama are basketball and golf. Unsurprisingly for a lawyer, he likes to read, and unsurprisingly for a human, he also enjoys watching television (some of the same politically-oriented stuff Clinton likes, plus sports and sports news). Donald Trump likes golf and collecting cars, both of which are pretty predictable hobbies for a rich real estate developer. Really, the only hobby I've heard of a major politician having that wasn't completely expected based on their age, gender, and persona was George W. Bush and painting, and that's something he did after he was done being president. All of that makes me think that this hobby thing is just another way of saying that Hillary Clinton is disliked for being a 60-something women who likes things that lots of other women her age enjoy.

I think I see some ageism at work here, but I also think this is pretty gendered. I've seen this in the geek community as well, where geeky men talk about getting their girlfriends engaged in their interests or at least finding women who don't mock the things they care about - when all of those things revolve around watching TV, following movie series, playing video games, and other entertainment consumption. Sometimes guys looking to meet women are urged to try things other than the consumption activities, if only because those tend to be homebound, but they're generally accepted as real hobbies. The women in question are generally talked about as not having any hobbies of their own, although they presumably also watch TV, read books or magazines or websites, and play various sorts of games.

[Werel]

Huh, yeah, you may be right that consumption as "hobby" is more accepted for men than for women. I do see a lot of my female friends list things like watching sports or reading books as hobbies, and people seem to accept those as being Real Hobbies, but neither is particularly female-coded.

Or maybe it's also that Clinton is forced by equally gendered definitions of "professionalism" to background her hobbies/personal life to a degree which male candidates aren't? Like, if she were doing a bunch of photo ops of her gardening, I imagine that'd be accepted as a "hobby," but also would draw fire for not just working her ass off 24/7. And yet basketball is legit as a presidential hobby because... competition? Sports league with endorsements? Coolness? If there were an EXTREME GARDENING PLAYOFFS sponsored by a beer, would that be a real hobby?

[jcorozza]

On a related note, I was listening to NPR this morning and the brought up the possibility of Warren being Clinton's running mate as a call-in discussion topic. A large amount of callers liked Warren, but worried that having two women on the ticket would alienate some male voters. Which is probably true, but it was pointed out that somehow no one ever has had to consider that two men on the ticket would alienate female voters. And that just made me sad.

[Wondering]

The Olympics.

Men have 169 events at the Summer Olympics that they can medal in. Women have only 137. And even when men and women have equivalent events, women's events are lesser. Women's road race cycling course is nearly half the distance of men's. Women are only allowed the heptathlon, where men get the decathlon. Even though women do all the events individually that make up the decathlon, and there is an international women's decathlon competition.

Women get only 3 boxing events to men's 10. Women get only 6 weightlifting events to men's 12. And, big news now, there is no women's 1500 meter swim race when there is one for men. Women's longest is 800 meters. And Katie Ledecky of the US is known as the best competitively, and even at times to outdo men in practice, at 1500 meters.

If women can box and lift weights and run the marathon, women can do all the same things men can. This is good old fashioned sexism.

And here's what I think is the most telling: Rifle shooting was mixed gender, head to head, until 1976 when a woman won the silver medal. Then they separated it by gender. And lowered the women's standards. Skeet shooting was mixed gender, head to head, until 1992 when a woman won the gold. Then they separated it by gender.

So women can compete with men in events where bodily gender differences don't matter...until women start beating men.

Your thin skin is showing, international sports federations.

[eselle28]

Otherwise sensible people have been posting this on Facebook all day. Aside from the sexism, it's also sort of creepy.

[Wondering]

There's an ad that's been airing during the Olympics of two women looking up urgent care clinics while their husbands try to pole vault the backyard pool that my husband and I mock for having that exact theme every time it comes on.

[reboot]

I hate the, " Men are always children and it is your responsibility to care for them". It is crap for men because they are depicted as useless manchildren rather than fully functional adults and crap for women because it dumps all the adults responsibilities on them.

[Wondering]

And then the women get labelled/portrayed as nags for it.

[litterature]

I'm really disappointed to discover that women being extremely harsh on other women while letting guys off easy is apparently a thing.

[Thanos6]

To be honest, I'm having trouble thinking of any experience that SHOULD be gendered.

[reboot]

To be honest, I'm having trouble thinking of any experience that SHOULD be gendered.

Childbirth? Prostate exam? Gyn exams? Tampon marketing? Beyond that, I got nothing

[Guest]

To be honest, I'm having trouble thinking of any experience that SHOULD be gendered.

Breastfeeding.

I can only pinch my teats for so long before calling it a day.

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