Zonie63
Posts: 2826
Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
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quote:
ORIGINAL: FieryOpal
What I was alluding to is more of a selective equality from those proponents. I am specifically talking about men who make excuses for socially unacceptable behavior towards women by purporting that women are the same as them, that we think with our sex organs like some males think with their dicks. That we don't value relationship because they (males) are not as relationship-oriented, therefore, we aren't entitled to expect men to rise to the occasion (no pun intended). That we use men sexually and sexually objectify them as much as they do us. That our minds are in the gutter as much as their are, so this gives men carte blanche. I see this is as the "All women are whores" mentality, with a modernized twist.
I can see your point, although I would also suggest that's one of the drawbacks of tearing down the old order without having something coherent to put in its place. That's what was going on in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, as society had to feel its way around and stumble through it, without really knowing where we were going or what the final product would look like. We just made it up as we went along, which is the kind of incoherent, bad planning which led society to where it is today.
The rules which defined what is "socially unacceptable" were in a state of flux. Men were finding that even simple rules they used to follow, such as opening a door for a lady, were no longer appreciated or welcome. Prior to the 1960s, society itself also had some rather strict, Victorian-era rules regarding sex and sexual objectification, so even if men had their minds in the gutter, they were still expected to control their behavior and conform to the mores of society. However, women were also expected to conform to those mores as well, and when women started to reject those mores as oppressive, men started to reject them too - but in a different way.
Then, with the so-called "sexual revolution" taking place, it probably might have looked like some kind of free-for-all compared to past eras. Movies, TV shows, and even advertisements and billboards started to get more racy. It was almost as if it was expected of men to think with their sex organs and keep their minds in the gutter, and any man who didn't do that must have something wrong with him. Some men might not want to be that way, but feel that it's expected of them.
quote:
ORIGINAL: FieryOpal
Granted, I'm not denying that there aren't women who do engage in these same or similar behaviors, and that there haven't always been persons of both genders who are out to manipulate and exploit others for the purpose of furthering their own self interests and ego-aggrandizement. What I am saying is that as a whole we do not ordinarily think the [I]same way, we do not have the same identical values or priorities in life necessarily, and I believe that people teach other people how to treat them. I believe that it is up to females to stand our ground and bring a civilizing influence to males, to show them how we want to be treated better - that ALL of us as a human race need to treat humanity better and with respect for basic human rights - not to stoop down to the lowest common denominator level of wallowing with the pigs in order to come out with a few slabs of edible bacon. (See, now this can turn into a bacon thread instead of a fat thread.  )
Well, I guess it's the age-old question of nature vs. nurture. Do men and women think differently because we were born that way? Or is it a matter of how the society and culture raises them? The parents should be the primary influence for children, but then again, who influences the parents?
Another thing that should be mentioned is that the large focus of feminism was on the law itself, not necessarily on the morals of dating, sex, and relationships, which were and still are largely considered a private matter between individuals. The law has an obligation to get involved when it gets to harassment, stalking, and/or violence, but short of that, it's pretty much laissez-faire.
So, when you say that females should stand their ground and bring a civilizing influence to males, to show them how women want to be treated better, this seems to vary among women. Not all women are the same nor wish to be treated the same way. There's also the matter of how such information is actually communicated to the male half of the population, since just as men and women think differently, we also communicate differently.
quote:
ORIGINAL: FieryOpal
I don't know about blue-collar workers, but I noticed there was a toning-down among my white-collar contemporaries, for better or for worse. One of the most frequent complaints we women had then was that men were not assertive enough about asking women out on dates.
I can see that men who value their careers might tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to their place of work. That's understandable.
quote:
ORIGINAL: FieryOpal
Because men became more hesitant and also wanted to keep the upper hand. I have many, many more, but I'll give you two examples.
Having read your examples, I'm still wondering whether this was the result of men becoming more hesitant or whether it might be due to trying to adapt to a situation where the rules are still in a state of flux.
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We effed up, plain and simple. We let ourselves be influenced by the "Let It All Hang Out" hippie counter-culture spouting "Free Love" and "Don't trust anyone over 30" dribble. There are still these older baby-boomer hippie throwbacks among us. Most of them sold out to The Establishment by the '90s, the ones who didn't run off and join some religious cult on a commune out in the wilderness or on the outskirts of town. 
True, but there's still a lot of wreckage from those years strewn all over the social fabric and pervasive throughout popular culture. I tend to think that the 80s took all the worst stuff from the 50s, 60s, and 70s and made it their own. The 80s and 90s still had all the drugs, rock concerts, shocking fashions/hair-dos - even those who joined the Establishment still had their usual fun on the weekends, so it's not as if the actual ideas went away completely. Even the Establishment is more casual and laid-back than it used to be.
I was a bit younger than the average hippie, as I reached my teen years in the late 70s when many of the former hippies had already found the discos and switched from pot to cocaine. The protests were over, the communes were all but gone, and they didn't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore. But the remnants were still there, as well as the underlying issues which led to all those protests in the first place. But all anyone was really interested in was sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Few really cared about any political issues all that much; I was one of the few kids in my grade who actually enjoyed Social Studies class, while everyone else considered it "booooring."
In fact, on the subject of timidity, I noticed among my age group, unlike our older hippie cousins, there was actually a perceived apathy and a lack of any real desire to speak out on issues. I remember a lot of kids in my age group who seemed inhibited or scared of speaking up and contributing to class discussions. I remember Abbie Hoffman speaking rather disparagingly about the college students of the 1980s. I don't recall his exact words, but I think he was disappointed that there wasn't a strong wave of protest against Ronald Reagan coming from the college campuses of that era. Even if the hippies might have sold out later in life, my age group had already sold out before we even came of age. The only right that anyone wanted to fight for was their right to party.
Gender politics and sexual mores were also in a state of transition, and that also might have made things a bit more "fuzzy" in terms of how men and women related to each other. It was around the mid-80s that things started to go in the direction that some people might refer to as "politically correct," which may have started as a noble and well-intentioned attempt to enforce civility and sensitivity. When it got to the point of those high-profile lawsuits we were discussing earlier, then it became a serious business, and if nothing else, it was a sign that the party was over...but not entirely.
quote:
ORIGINAL: FieryOpal
But you have to ask, why would it become necessary for ancient societies to control the masses with sex-negative religious doctrines? Why is it necessary to have to control libido and to institute prohibitions, assuming that other than for economic considerations in getting married off, how else do you protect women and children from rogue men or from those of a more barbaric nature? You will note that even in cultures which allow polygamy, a man cannot take more wives than he can afford to support. In Africa, each wife is entitled to her own separate hut. There is a method to the madness, you just have to delve down deeper to find out what the causative factors are for ensuring a more stable, law-abiding society. Peoples have to work with what they have, within the limitations of what resources are at hand within the time period in which they live. You must streamline for the greater good.
I'm not sure that it was actually "necessary," since human society had to evolve somewhat in order to be able to identify the problem and come up with these religious doctrines as their idea of a solution. Protecting women and children is not something that religion came up with, though. Male animals will protect their females and young just out of instinct. Every family/clan/tribe wants to reproduce and a new generation to carry on their bloodline, and to that end, it is vital that they protect their women and children. In no way would that process have required the sexual objectification of women, but yes, they had to be able to support them, too - one way or another, even if it meant looting and pillaging a neighboring tribe or nation. We can look back at that now and say it was "barbaric," but I suppose if a family is faced with starvation and the only choice for survival is to be barbaric, then that's what people will likely choose.
The religion came into play once the basic need for protecting women and children was already in place. And that "protection" was not exactly a picnic for women back in those days either, depending on who their "protectors" might have been. Marriage may have been a way of perfecting that process of protection, to find better protectors to carry on the family bloodline and protect the family inheritance. Of course, the better protectors weren't going to do it "just because." They had to get something out of the deal, otherwise it wouldn't have worked. That may be where the sexual objectification came into the picture.
They weren't sex-negative in that they were totally against sex. They just wanted to be able to dictate where and when and how, but they definitely needed more families and a lot more babies. That was encouraged, but within very strict guidelines. That's why it's somewhat contradictory, since a lot of the sex prohibitions of the religion still would indicate that someone must have spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff.
quote:
ORIGINAL: FieryOpal
Agreed. Men need to be accountable to other men outside the circle of their own families. Older and wiser men need to be better role models themselves in order to mentor younger males.
As with anything, some men will act accordingly, while others will do whatever they damn well please.
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RE: 10 hours of walking in NYC as a woman - 
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... and those men can sleep alone. 
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