You know, "I was abused and my mom killed herself" is a pretty messed up ploy when people were trying to explain to you in a very reasonable manner why your approach is counterproductive.
Scifi with aggressive sexuality
- Thread starter JirinPanthosa
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Fine. Comment deleted. But it just shows you really aren't interested in how people can find their way. Not everyone has the same experiences.
I can't believe you even wrote that.
I gave you an explanation for why we want men to understand we're "someone", not be defined by our relationship to a man. I told you it's easy to just tell men we're human beings like them. And that if a man doesn't want to be stripped of his agency, they shouldn't do it to a woman either.
Do not tell men: "This woman is a human being like that other woman who is defined by her relation to you."
Instead tell them: "This woman is a human being just like you. Women are not 'the other'."
You choose to ignore what women have said about this in this very thread and made it all about yourself. It saddens me and I hope you will reconsider at some point.
That's a lie. I don't have an issue with how you, personally, found your way. But when you promote it as a path others should follow, you invite criticism. Which is exactly what you got.
So disagreeing with you and interjecting my real life experience is making about myself? Okay...
You're turning an issue that primarily affects and harms women into a male-centered issue, yes.
You are defining women through their connection to a man, yes.
You are refusing to teach men that women are human beings just like men and instead insist on saying our main attribute is our connection to a man, yes.
I still don't understand why you disagree with this:
Do not tell men: "This woman is a human being like that other woman who is defined by her relation to you."
Instead tell them: "This woman is a human being just like you. Women are not 'the other'."
When you have people who won't listen to logic or experience, what more do you have? It is better for men who won't listen to continue objectifying women than telling them to look to their own relationships for guidance?
I really don't understand.
Tell them to look how they want to be treated themselves instead? They will never understand that women are human beings just like men if you continue this.
I'd like to give other men enough credit to recognize that women are people, period, without requiring any qualification whatsoever.
Yeah, good luck with that. If that was the case, this conversation wouldn't exist.
I'm not really knowledgeable enough in a lot of this to really take part in the bigger conversation, but I still wanted to say that it baffles me how clueless some guys are. I was mainly raised by my mother and two older sisters, so I would like to think I have a bit better idea of the woman perspective than a lot of guys, and it really amazes me the stuff that some guys say or do. I would feel ashamed if I even started to think about some of the stuff you ladies say you've heard or experienced, much less actually said it or did it.
In other words, two wrongs make a right?
@{Emilia}
Ideally, like I said before, you are 100% right. I wish the world could be as you see it. I really, really do. But my reality is simply different than yours. It would be great for everyone to see each other as humans with no other strings attached.
Though I doubt that will ever be possible.
Ideally, like I said before, you are 100% right. I wish the world could be as you see it. I really, really do. But my reality is simply different than yours. It would be great for everyone to see each other as humans with no other strings attached.
Though I doubt that will ever be possible.
True, it's equally as bad as say men shouldn't catcall women as it is for them to actually catcall women. I'm going to go publically shame myself for daring to say anything about those poor oppressed me who only wanting to scream out their most basic instinctual thoughts to random strangers against their will.
If you can't tell that was also sarcasm, you seem to have trouble with this. So I just want to make it perfectly clear for you.
No, I don't think it's wrong to point that out. That "not all men" idea is complete garbage. Saying that elements of a group are doing something wrong is not an attack on that entire group, it's an attack on that element and their behavior. You don't have to defend awful behavior because you have something in common with them.
I gather she's trying to say that spreading the right message for the wrong reasons is worse than saying nothing at all.
TBH, it's a condition of the human experience that you can more readily relate to a subject if you can personalize it somewhat, bring it closer to home. So saying something like "don't do that, how would you feel if your daughter/wife/mother/sister - (WHO IS A WOMEN AND THEREFORE CAN RELATE DIRECTLY TO THE ISSUE) was treated this way?" - can be more effective than "how would YOU feel if YOU were treated this way?" the obvious extension to either is that everyone deserves their own dignity and should not be harassed regardless of who they are and who they're related to.
Lessons start small, with an easily identifiable concept, and are then expanded to cover the entire issue.
You've hit the nail on the head!!
Of course they do. I wish that was the way things were.
First of all, BillJ I totally get where you're coming from, and I know your heart is in the right place.
What I hear {Emilia} saying is that by appealing to the notion that "She's someone's mom/daughter/etc." it is kind of like empathy-by-proxy. I would feel horrible for the husband/father because I can empathize with him better than with her. Why not skip the "relationship middleman" and go to direct empathy? I connect with her as a fellow human being, not because she is similar to someone else I care about.
My guess is that a lot of men do not have the experiential reality to directly empathize. I bet if you asked a man about being catcalled or hit on constantly, many would say "Great! Bring it on! That would be awesome". And I further guess that the reason behind that is there is no fear involved, generally, with an aggressive woman hitting on a man. Even if he's not interested, there's no threat implied (or otherwise). As many of the women here have mentioned, we do not have the experience of being afraid in that context.
So, we are free to fantasize about how great it would be for women to love our bodies, whistle, buy us drinks, and persistently try to get us into bed. Oh, what a terrible problem that must be! To be wanted and admired for being attractive!
We have to transcend that specificity, and think about how we are vulnerable in other contexts. How we can be afraid too. How we can be anxious and not know who to trust. How we can be riddled with self-doubt, self- consciousness too. How we can be...human.
Once we do that, then we can directly empathize, and the empathy-by-proxy thing falls away. That's a challenge for many of us, but there it is.
JMHO
What I hear {Emilia} saying is that by appealing to the notion that "She's someone's mom/daughter/etc." it is kind of like empathy-by-proxy. I would feel horrible for the husband/father because I can empathize with him better than with her. Why not skip the "relationship middleman" and go to direct empathy? I connect with her as a fellow human being, not because she is similar to someone else I care about.
My guess is that a lot of men do not have the experiential reality to directly empathize. I bet if you asked a man about being catcalled or hit on constantly, many would say "Great! Bring it on! That would be awesome". And I further guess that the reason behind that is there is no fear involved, generally, with an aggressive woman hitting on a man. Even if he's not interested, there's no threat implied (or otherwise). As many of the women here have mentioned, we do not have the experience of being afraid in that context.
So, we are free to fantasize about how great it would be for women to love our bodies, whistle, buy us drinks, and persistently try to get us into bed. Oh, what a terrible problem that must be! To be wanted and admired for being attractive!
We have to transcend that specificity, and think about how we are vulnerable in other contexts. How we can be afraid too. How we can be anxious and not know who to trust. How we can be riddled with self-doubt, self- consciousness too. How we can be...human.
Once we do that, then we can directly empathize, and the empathy-by-proxy thing falls away. That's a challenge for many of us, but there it is.
JMHO
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