Recent Gender Idiocies I Have Read

In the gender debate, I think the crux of the problem is that women are far less likely to be treated as people than men are. That is, society is more likely to have the following culturally ingrained and resistant to change: women are women first, not people while men are people first, men secondarily. (Where "women" and "men" means thought of in terms of their gender traits above all else.) It's a working hypothesis, one that I'm refining as I move about in the world and observe how others are treated and how I am treated.

So when I read items as linked below, I hold my hypothesis against theirs and get a few mind-boggling disparities.

The Open-Source Boob Project. How it all began: "This should be a better world," a friend of mine said. "A more honest one, where sex isn't shameful or degrading. I wish this was the kind of world where say, 'Wow, I'd like to touch your breasts,' and people would understand that it's not a way of reducing you to a set of nipples and ignoring the rest of you, but rather a way of saying that I may not yet know your mind, but your body is beautiful." I think it's odd that in pining for a world where sex is not shameful and degrading, someone thought a request to fondle would be an appropriate way to express esthetic appreciation of another's bod. Really, it strikes me more as a wish to bypass emotional intimacy and go straight to physical, which is hard to do without making physical intimacy objectifying, which is degrading.

A Rapist's View of the World: Joss Whedon and Firefly. Hard to know where to start with this one. It helps (for reading comprehension purposes alone) to know that the author considers any heterosexual intercouse to be rape because society has so conditioned women into thinking that their bodies belong to men and not themselves that they can never consent. I've heard about radical feminism and usually discounted the fear of it because it always came in the context of men calling the proponents "feminazis" which is not a good way to critique anything unless it involves actual genocide. However, wow. It's probably one of the most insulting things I've heard that by the very nature of my gender, I cannot think for myself in a sexual context unless I acheive the enlightenment of lesbianism. And that's saying something considering the next link.

Respectful Insolence Links to Someone Else's Misogyny. I can't even bring myself to link directly to the culprit in question or even directly state the man's real or fake name. He lives to run all over the internet with his fanbase and lay the smack down. I'd rather not boost my stats that way. While what this guy says is extremely misogynistic, it mostly boils down to a logical error, a conflation of correlation and causation mixed in with the refusal to discuss what lies at the heart of the trends he opines (see my introduction to this entire post above).

Note to Self: Gender Issues will outlast the cockroaches.