The misc. thread

Couldn't find the discussion about Esquire's list of "books men should read" where this would fit best; didn't want to dedicate a whole thread to the topic...

John Colapinto Revives the Male-Centric Literary Sex Novel

Mr. Colapinto said he had read the Wallace essay and largely agrees with it. But on the subject of the sex-drenched novels of Updike, Roth and the other bards of the male libido, he said, “I couldn’t deny that I had a lot of fun reading those books when I was younger.” In his view, there was an overcorrection.

“Men — at least the men I knew — were still driven by all manner of unruly sexual impulse, however guiltily,” he said. “So I decided to address that in as confrontational a way as possible.”

I hadn't heard of this author before. I'm guessing he'll get plenty of interest, what with the references to Updike, Roth etc.

As I commented elsewhere, I wasn't aware that the "male-centric sex novel" ever went away... nor that sex as such was the problem.

An interesting piece on the commodification of "empowerment":

How ‘Empowerment’ Became Something for Women to Buy http://nyti.ms/1Sd1THE

>2 sturlington:

"Contentless feminism"--good one, definitely something to discuss.

I'd just say about this:

In 1968, the Brazilian academic Paulo Freire coined the word “conscientization,” empowerment’s precursor, as the process by which an oppressed person perceives the structural conditions of his oppression and is subsequently able to take action against his oppressors.

...that it is a much older concept than Freire, called "consciousness-raising", dating from at least Lenin, if not Marx or even older.

And yes, severely needed in every epoch.

"Empowerment^TM" is just another empty capitalist commodity that does nothing besides devaluing language.

>3 LolaWalser: "EmpowermentTM" is just another empty capitalist commodity that does nothing besides devaluing language.


I'm a little worried that "agency" is also at risk, but I don't know what other word to use to describe a person's freedom and ability to make their own choices.

Like "strong female character" has become a cliché and almost a guarantee of the opposite!

I suppose every movement becomes "co-opted" as it gains adherents, but I have to admit, I still associate the word "empowerment" with the first time I was reading Robin Morgan books in the late 70s and early 80s. So it still carries that original surge of feeling for me.

It is a feeling best conveyed by "story" not "stuff" -- bumper stickers on my car and pc underwear campaigns don't hold the kind of concrete meaning for me that, say, reading about Maya Surduts does.

>6 southernbooklady:

Yes--that's why I don't give up on words too--they can thingify and package them all they want, but they can't kill the context, or "story" as you say, the living matrix from which the need for these words springs.

And mostly it's easy to see through the merchandising.

Here's a profile of Mary Beard, writer and troll hunter. I wish it had been more in depth--I would like to know more about her. I think it probably was in the Style section. Interesting, nonetheless.

Mary Beard and Her ‘Battle Cry’ Against Internet Trolling http://nyti.ms/1WwWACH

Mary Beard is awesome.

She's great. I've been following her blog for years, since someone on here (I think) linked to the post about silencing women in antiquity (core example Telemachus, fucking teenager, packing his mother Penelope off to kitchen and "women's things").

Interesting piece:
https://psmag.com/all-bodies-no-selves-45aa1e61ee1c#.rmlwxyrxm

Sex workers, sexual violence, survivors reduced to just a body by those who tell their stories.

>1 LolaWalser: re: Colapinto I hadn't heard of this author before.

According to the Toronto Public catalogue, this is the John Colapinto of As nature made him : the boy who was raised as a girl, the sad account of David Reimer.

Intriguing crossover.

>12 librorumamans:

Yes, quite. I have to say, juxtaposition with the angle revealed by Colapinto's "male-centric" sex novel doesn't give me hope for a progressive read.

>11 sturlington:

I feel stupid. I understand the words but not what's it all about. Help? :)

>13 LolaWalser: I don't think you're stupid. It's a bit dense. I think she's talking about tension between the importance of making the voices of survivors heard versus the need to tell a compelling story in order to attract an audience, which tends to reduce the story to what happened to the body in order to be compelling. The person may feel that they're doing good but find their selves erased in the process.

Ha:

Men Have Book Clubs, Too

Perhaps because participation in reading groups is perceived as a female activity, some all-male book clubs have an outsize need to proclaim the endeavor’s masculinity. In addition to going by the name the Man Book Club, for instance, Mr. McCullough’s group expresses its notion of manliness through the works it chooses to read. “We do not read so-called chick lit,” he said. “The main character cannot be a woman.”

This is detailed in the Man Book Club’s criteria, on the group’s website: “No books by women about women (our cardinal rule)”.

heh (poor mothers...):

Another all-male reading group, this one with a name even more insistently macho than that of the Man Book Club, is the International Ultra Manly Book Club, of Kansas City, Kan. It was started by a group of college friends, and its website hammers home its he-man identity through prominent images of Chuck Norris, Dwayne Johnson (better known as the Rock) and Oprah Winfrey, standing before an Oprah’s Book Club logo beneath the legend “Not Your Mother’s Book Club.”

lol:

The club rates the books it reads on a five-star system for overall quality, and on a five-hand-grenade system for “manliness.”

etc. etc.

Thoughts (I've never been in and don't want to be in a book club):

1. I had no idea the perception of reading in the general public was THIS gendered (and I wonder, is it an American thing?)

2. so much for diversity... just imagine the hay this makes of the idea that fiction ought to/makes you understand "the other".

I predict those book clubs won't last. Nothing kills a book club faster than picking books that everybody agrees with and likes.

>16 southernbooklady:

Hmm, I don't know. Some of those have been going for years...

What's odd to me is how strong there seems to be a psychological need to be "manly" and avoid anything tainted by femininity. I mean, do women form clubs like these? With explicit "Womanly woman's reading club" slogans and RULES about never ever reading "manly" books etc.? I mean, sure, there were those internet drives to read books by women for a year etc. but that's to give greater relief to underrepresented authors, not to appear "womanly".

Or--omg, was that bizarre--the notion that spicy food is MANLY--do women worry about whether they are eating "feminine" or "manly" foods?

Weirrrrrd.

Also--how funny that with all those restrictions and taboos some of those guys seem concerned with appearing (wish to appear) "intellectual". Guys, this is not how you do it.

I read that article too and had a chuckle. But book clubs often do have themes so... I think book clubs are generally seen as something women do. In my experience, it's another social outlet for people with shared interests. The book is the excuse for the club. And there have always been manly clubs of one kind or another. I did notice they weren't completely opposed to books by women. The Goldfinch, for instance, was mentioned as a favorite. Mixed gender would be best for diversity, I would imagine. There's a classics book club at my library led by local writers that I would like to join but the meeting time is not good.

>18 sturlington:

I think it was the gay men's club that read The Goldfinch.

Socialization with like-minded people is one thing (or, as in gay guys' case, making it a simultaneous dating venue) but I don't know, things like banning books with female protagonists seem like an odd "theme" to me. It's explicitly rejecting empathising with a female character. Psychological and social ramifications of this aside, I wonder whether anyone pointed out they're missing out on more than "chick-lit"? No Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, or, heck, Alien tie-ins.

I think it's not about the books they read as an excuse to get together, "no girls allowed". Women have their equivalents. One can always hope that forcing themselves to read a book a month, way more than the average, would broaden their minds to the point where they might be willing to read a book about a woman. In the dark, I guess with brown paper covers on.

PS That article is also in the Style section, which my husband I have nicknamed "The Worst People in the World." I suppose if Donald Trump is elected President, all the political news will appear in the Style section.

So to just check I did a quick google search of "womens women book club" and there is womansbookclub.org. Of course they don't say anywhere on their website that men are forbidden but probably because of manly men like those above. I don't have any problem with single gender book clubs in general but I often find the way they are presented off putting. (womansbookclub.org is all light purples and pinks for instance). The idea though of limiting your reading based on gender is just stupid though. There are so many books out there that you're denying yourself for an arbitrary and stupid reason. More and more I am furious at the men who think that women's voices don't apply to them when my entire life I've been thrown books with male protagonists and hey guess what gotten stuff out of those books and enjoyed the hell out of some of them. What are these "manly" men so afraid of anyway?

The gay men's book club I was part of lasted from (before my involvement) the late 80s or early 90s until 2014, when it petered out due to attrition.

We read fiction, non-fiction and, occasionally, drama. The major parameters were that the book needed to have some queer connection and have substance (i.e. literary fiction, not fluff). The gender of authors and characters was unrestricted.

There were no hand grenades involved in the rating system.

Just as a completely off topic aside, I hate the way mobile devices have introduced so many unintended grammatical errors into my posts. They are often "corrected" to be wrong.

>21 morwen04: While I agree with you, what are you going to do? Telling them they're narrow-minded and stupid just makes them dig in. I recently read a story about an 11 year old black girl who got tired of reading stories about white boys and collected children's literature with black female protagonists. The comments accused her of being racist and worse, merely because she wanted to read books about someone like herself. It's enough to make you want to crawl into a cave for the duration.

>21 morwen04: The idea though of limiting your reading based on gender is just stupid though. There are so many books out there that you're denying yourself for an arbitrary and stupid reason.

The problem isn't focusing on a particular kind of literature or writer, it's forgetting that the perspective you are focused on is not the only perspective. A "manly" book club might have merit if the goal was to explore what is and isn't "manly" (a word I just find funny, I have to say) and why. But the hand grenade rating system suggests that isn't the goal at all. Instead, it sounds like they want to reinforce their own preconceptions of what it is to be manly. More to the point, they want re-assurance that their idea of manliness is not a pure fantasy. Which, of course, it is.

>24 southernbooklady: Agreed. Their purpose is pretty clearly solely about their absurd ideas of "manliness" and how they can reenforce them. People can have various reasons for wanting to have a men's/women's whatever group, some of them perfectly valid reasons, but when that is extended to close-mindedness about said groups, that is when there are problems.

It's a personal preference I guess but focusing too long on any topic would get stale fast. I think some of the men's book clubs in the article are on the same level as the women's book clubs in that they're just groups of men getting together reading a book and discussing the book and their lives. I have no problem with those types, but any group that feels the need to so virulently exclaim that they cannot read a book by a female writer or with a female main character... well let's just say I'd want to know who attends so I can avoid them. (Hilariously I have just finished Sexual Politics so I'm chuckling a little that that group read Henry Miller).

>23 sturlington: I'm fairly non-confrontational so I probably wouldn't say anything to strangers but just think them as very small world sad people and put them in the avoid category.

>24 southernbooklady: >25 .Monkey.: I feel like if they were actually thinking about the word "manly" they'd find out that their definition is very limiting and stifling and doesn't actually hold any water.

I was fascinated by the idea of cultures in transition and the courage of this woman to try to raise her children differently:

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/05/07/477025837/the-mother-who-wou...

It's really great that she's trying to make a better life full of opportunity for her daughter. Unfortunately I'm not sure how much luck she will have once the girl gets a bit older and has a lot more peer & adult pressure to conform, so long as they remain in that area. :/

Poor kid, poor mum... one feels so helpless... and who needs vice police with relatives like those.

librorumamans, thank you for recommending The book of Eve to me, I enjoyed it very much. Incidentally, I remember I got it just weeks before Beresford-Howe died...

P.S. Thought I might link the obituary--or has it been linked already? Sorry, can't remember...

Novelist Constance Beresford-Howe wrote about the lives of women

>30 LolaWalser:

I'm glad that you enjoyed the book!

When Eva leaves home in a cab, at the beginning of the novel, Beresford-Howe writes that the no-nonsense cabbie, sizing her up in the mirror, stares at her "with eyes like the dots on dice." I love that image (if I've still got it right).

You also mentioned that you want to read Susan Glaspell's "Trifles". I find that it's been scanned into the Internet Archive, here.

>31 librorumamans:

I noticed that phrase too! Now I'm sorry I wasn't taking notes, there were some great turns of phrase, surprising twists, dry humour.

I realized mid-way, when Johnny made his appearance, that I had once caught bits of the adaptation with Claire Bloom and the beautiful Daniel Lavoie (can't act, but what a face...)

Thanks for the link, bookmarked.

"Trifles" is incredible! Susan Glaspell is one of the reasons I went to grad school for literature.

What Does a Lifetime of Leers Do to Us? http://nyti.ms/22FiswQ

Living a dehumanized life is a problem that should have a name.

Should we outsource our emotional labor to robots? This is a really interesting article on why we give robots female voices, appearance, and names.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/04/why-do-we-give-robots-fema...

Shared by someone on another site:

(click to see it larger)
The women are: Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B Anthony, Jane Addams, Ida Wells, Margaret Sanger, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Gloria Steinem, Hillary - and the future.

>36 .Monkey.: I really love that.

Yeah, I think it's quite nice. :)

Roxane Gay writes about anger today in the New York Times.

Who Gets to Be Angry? http://nyti.ms/1WIwU7m

The sound of one clown clapping? http://www.librarything.com/groups/thegroupofselfavowed

>40 Bookmarque:

The cheese stands alone.

Yeah I noticed when it was first made. Trolls need attention to live, if it won't happen here, well... *eyeroll*

He won't let me join his group.

Which means I will never have the pleasure of being booted.

Please tell me you didn't actually try? Please don't encourage him. Let his pathetic little attempt to ...steal thunder? whatever, sit there, completely ignored. Do not feed the trolls.

>44 .Monkey.: It's what the 'Ignore Group' function was made for ...

No, it's not. The point is to not engage so he gets the damn idea.

>46 .Monkey.:

Yes.

Please, please do not engage. Tim's being very paranoid that we might discuss someone's ideas when they are not present to participate, and that may well scuttle the entire idea of moderation. Don't give him reason for that paranoia, please.

I'm sure people here have a better taste in ideas than that. :)

I'm posting this in recently active threads, so apologies for the non sequitur:

Vote on the group TOS:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/224406#5618895
http://www.librarything.com/topic/224406#5619215

>46 .Monkey.: & >47 lorax:

Sorry, I wasn't being facetious. I genuinely meant that's what it's for. As far as I knew, the 'Ignore Group' button just removed the group from my feed so it's not even visible, or engageable. My understanding is that no-one else knows I've done that but me. Have I got that wrong? (Again, genuine question not angsty rhetorical one!)

Edited for typo

>50 klarusu: No, but you're entirely missing the point. That group was made so you needed approval to be admitted to it. If members here were going around making an attempt to join, not only would it be hypocritical (by purposely poking at that person) given the whole moderation thing we are getting shortly, but it is also giving attention to something that has been sitting there ignored by everyone on site for the weeks(? I forget how long exactly it was) since its creation. There is no better thing to do with a troll than to simply be silent and not pay them a single bit of attention.

>51 .Monkey.: I wasn't debating that, sorry. Just meaning that red 'x' ing it meant I could forget it completely.

>52 klarusu: I don't see what you have to apologize for. Ignoring the group would just ignore the group and not result in an attempt to join, so post 51 makes no sense whatsoever.

Um, perhaps read >43 Jesse_wiedinmyer:??

>54 .Monkey.: Jesse tried to join the group, not ignore it. The exact opposite of what klarusu was doing.

Dude, read the conversation that followed. Klarusu then responded to me & Lorax saying that's what ignore is there for. Which utterly missed the point that we were saying NOT TO ENGAGE THE TROLL. We are all well aware of what ignore is for and that had no bearing on the situation of someone trying to provoke them by attempting to join their bigotry group.

I think she was saying don't try to join the group, ignore it. In other words she was trying to agree with you and you shit all over her.

Oh good lord.

>35 sturlington: New Statesman article by Laurie Penny "Why Do We Give Robots Female Names?"

That is a sobering article. I can't say anything in there is new to me, exactly. But the take on it is arresting, to the point I feel ashamed I didn't "know it all already". But that's a key reason I read, I don't have all the experiences that I'd like my thinking to be informed with, for one. And for another, I overlook the obvious with amazing regularity. (I think we all do in our various ways.)

I'm a fan of science fiction, and recognise many of the examples, though I read / watch fewer titles today than I did once. I find it interesting that some of the more affecting stories about robots, perhaps because I read them young, are Asimov's various Robot stories. One in particular is about a male robot, "Robbie", and his relationship with a human boy. I think the reason it could work is precisely because the robot was gendered male, though I didn't think of that until now. Precisely the point Penny is making, and it was there in front of me, but I didn't see it.

Has anyone read anything else by Penny?

>59 elenchus:

The link to the article is http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/04/why-do-we-give-robots-fema...

On the other hand, although I'm not a science fiction aficionado, most of the classic robots that first come to my mind are male - Robby in Forbidden Planet, Marvin in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Robert in Fireball XL5, HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the robot head in Lexx, Sonny in I Robot, the Terminator...

>56 .Monkey.: Sheesh! I really was just trying to agree. I guess tone is hard to judge sometimes online. No worries, misunderstandings happen & they're rarely terminal.

>60 John5918: It would be interesting to compare the "genders" of robots in classic science fiction to contemporary fiction, and to compare the personality and functions of these robots as correlates to gender. I have no numbers, only general impressions, but I think robots are now primarily female. Thinking of recent moves like Ex Machina, Her, etc. But are "male" robots correlated generally to stereotypically male tasks/roles and vice versa? Is this consistent throughout science fiction or has it changed recently? Does it correlate to the "gendering" of robots, if any, in the real world? It would make an interesting study, I would think.

ETA To correct movie title and then expanded my thoughts a bit.

>61 klarusu:

I'll state that my stated "attempt" to join the group in question was not an actual attempt, but rather a statement attempting to highlight the fact that the group in question wasn't set to allow people to join.

>59 elenchus:

IIRC, Asimov's Robbie had a little girl "mistress". Don't know whether that matters for what you're saying...

>62 sturlington:

I don't know the numbers or what they would mean, but one of the most notorious stories in all of classic sf is Lester Del Rey's 1938 Helen O'Loy (that's a Wikipedia link). She cooks, she cleans, she falls in love with the master... She's made of tin.

Mechanical or robotic "wives" and sex toys are of course even older... for instance, the false Maria in Metropolis or Hadaly in Villers de l'Isle-Adam's Tomorrow's Eve. ETA: from 1886!

The unifying theme is of men unsatisfied with real women constructing (or having constructed for them) a mechanical version of their vision of a perfect woman.

>63 Jesse_wiedinmyer: ;-) It's an Escher painting of confusion.

>65 klarusu:

Great image!

I suspect a big part of the reason why robots are so frequently gendered female is to indicate that they aren't threatening. Note that this doesn't apply to robots which are meant to be menacing, which are often given male appearances and voices.

>65 klarusu:
Welcome to aphasia.

HAL from 2001 was male, but I suppose he was supposed to be threatening.

The science fiction robot stories that most creeped me out as a kid were both by Ray Bradbury -- one was about an automated house that kept caring for a family that was clearly dead. The other was about a guy who gets a robot made that looks exactly like himself, so it can do all the boring stuff at home without his wife knowing he wasn't really around.

>59 elenchus: I wonder how much of the female gendering of our current 'future' tech like Cortana et al is in response to a predominant bias (if there is one) to female robots and their defined roles in popular culture. Are they responding to an inherent bias in society directly or reinforcing a bias in popular culture now that past science fiction is now our present science fact.

Ah but in that one southernbooklady, the husband finds that the wife he's been living with for ages is really a robot too. Really took the wind right out of his sails. I love Bradbury.

>67 lorax:

Yes, that's how I usually took the gendering of robots as female. Layered on that, of course, the sex object theme as noted in >64 LolaWalser:. I'd simply never thought of the logical extension of thinking of an android or cyborg or other AI as female, so that the question of its feelings or moral rights could be ignored. It's already implied, but Penny's clarity of observation was an eye-opener for me.

>70 southernbooklady:

I know of that story about the house, a memorable one to be sure: "There Will Come Soft Rains". The other I don't recognise specifically, but that overall tone is certainly present in a lot of fiction.

>64 LolaWalser:

Evidently you do recall correctly! I wonder if I projected myself into the girl Gloria's role, when reading, and so incorrectly thought she was a boy. I re-read that within a year, it happens, so had an opportunity to correct the false memory, but didn't.

>60 John5918: I first thought of Data from Star Trek and C3PO and R2-D2 from Star Wars. They all seem masculine to me.

>71 klarusu: Before Cortana and Siri there were The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. Very robotic/compliant females.

>72 Bookmarque: Exactly. That's what was so creepy about it!

There's a story that I swear I'd read when I was in my teens, yet have never been able to find (or even find anyone else that vaguely recognizes the plot) since that hinged on the trope of completely anatomically correct (yet entirely idealised representations, down through personality) androids being sold as sex toys.

The basic gist of the story was that the protagonist had become stultified and bored with such things, as the makers of the robots had spent so much attention to detail and worked to present an "idealised" version of what market tests had indicated that men desired, that the man felt the experience to be sterile, inauthentic, unengaging and flat. Something of a Stepford effect, I suppose.

He then stumbles across (sought out?) a real woman, and her realness in the story is denoted by her "imperfections." After meeting the woman, they eventually have sex and he finds it a much more satisfying experience, precisely because of its messiness and imperfectness.

And then the spoiler/kicker comes when as the woman goes to leave, she says something along the lines of "Congratulations, you were selected to test market the xxxxx model 3200xv simulator. Please leave your feedback after the tone so we can continue to improve our product."

>59 elenchus: Has anyone read anything else by Penny?

Yes. She's been writing for New Statesman for a few years now. Her columns are consistently interesting. Google her and you'll find lots of stuff.

>75 Taphophile13: R2-D2 is distinctly non-gendered. Maybe we assume maleness as the default.

>80 klarusu:. That's thrown me a bit. You're right! R2-D2 is non-gendered but I consistently think of 'him' as male. I may have to rewatch with altered assumptions.

Star Wars wiki says he "was an R2 series astromech droid manufactured by Industrial Automaton with masculine programming." He is referred to as "he" at least a few times, too, such as "That malfunctioning little twerp. This is all his fault! He tricked me into going this way, but he'll do no better."

>80 klarusu:, >81 .Monkey.: You're right! R2-D2 is non-gendered but I consistently think of 'him' as male. I may have to rewatch with altered assumptions.

I can't think of any characters in the original Star Wars movies that are really gender neutral, which is interesting given all the alien species in the Cantina. But the general default is male.

Yep. If a robot is "wearing" a skirt (i.e. part of its build), it's female, otherwise, assume male. Same for the other exotic things, if they have distinctly "womanly" attributes, female, if not, assume male.

I recently read a book by John Scalzi called Lock In that is somewhat related to this discussion. I didn't realize this until after I finished the book, but the protagonist has a non gendered name and is completely paralyzed, so uses robots to get around. There is never any indication of the protagonist's gender. The reader's assumptions determine that.

I actually have yet to read any of Scalzi's work (I really want to, but he's just not huge enough for me to randomly stumble upon him over here), but I really like him. If I recall, a few yrs ago he was also involved (with a few other people) in doing some photos posed in the female superhero poses. So, he's one who gets it. Wait...
*digs it up* One post, another, and a collection. You can search for Scalzi or Jim Hines "pose-off" to dig up more info.

>85 .Monkey.: Yes, I enjoy his blog but this was the first book of his I read because I didn't want to get involved in a series. I thought it was a good read but have to admit I wasn't thinking gender as I read it.

>84 sturlington:

I recently read a murder mystery called Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell. It is not about robots, but is narrated in the first person by the amateur detective, an academic named Hilary Tamar, a suitably ambiguous name. It gradually becomes apparent that there are no clues whether the narrator is male or female, and that it doesn't actually matter. As a murder mystery it wasn't that exciting, unfortunately.

On the topic of blog posts, this-- http://www.theuglyvolvo.com/an-open-letter-to-the-female-hat-wearing-dog-from-go...

I remember this book from my own childhood, and read it to my kids, without really thinking about the problematic bits. Now it's painfully apparent. I loved this book for its silliness and fun--I wish it could be repaired.

>87 John5918: It gradually becomes apparent that there are no clues whether the narrator is male or female, and that it doesn't actually matter.

My classic example for this sort of thing is Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body, where the narrator is grieving the loss of a lover,. It's a particularly fascinating experience to read it, because it is physical and erotic -- it is all about the physical body, and yet we never know if the narrator is male or female. I used to give it to book clubs to discuss, and it always amazed me how important it was to readers to know the sex of the speaker. Groups usually ended up polarized between those who thought it was man speaking, and those who thought it was a woman. And each side was adamant that they were right.

>88 Marissa_Doyle: Fantastic!

I can’t help but think of Rosie from the Jetsons - she was their maid. That article about why many robots are ostensibly female says it’s because we shift our drudge work to robots which is something women have been handed for time out of mind. In general we don’t feel badly about shifting our scut work to a woman (and this applies to women, but not maybe as much as to men), therefore making a robot a woman feels right, especially when we really overwork her. Does that make sense? I’m taking a break from putting together patio furniture and I’m a bit scattered.

One more reminder to everyone in the Feminist Theory Group to vote on the group TOS:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/224406#5618895
http://www.librarything.com/topic/224406#5619215

Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion of robot-genders.

The robot from Lost in Space had a male voice.

How much are changes like this window dressing, and how much are they significant improvements to the culture in which we live?

I tend to think they're both, it depends on the individual and the circumstances faced by each person as to whether the answer is one or the other.

I think Miss Scarlet and Miss Orchid should kill off everyone else in the house and turn the basement into a lab where they develop a brand of super heroin they can sell on the black market, bringing in enough money to spend the rest of their days together in some island country with no extradition treaty, having hot girl on girl sex on the beach.

Our potential Vice President -- http://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12190380/mike-pence-trump-vice-president-abortion-f...

I know you are not surprised.

I'm still sort of shocked about Trump and everything.

Yeah, it's almost like you keep waiting for everyone to burst out laughing and say, "Naw, just kidding." I don't think you are here in the US, Lola, but I am fairly freaked out about this election. I have to have faith that people in the end will do the right thing. I think if they don't, though, my faith in humanity might just be gone forever.

you keep waiting for everyone to burst out laughing and say, "Naw, just kidding."

Exactly this.

No, I'm not in the US, but damn Canada's close. :)

This is genuinely scary. Dubya seemed like a bad joke, but Trump... is impervious even to parody. Cartoon on legs.

Still, the whole campaign seems like a giant joke. I mean, they can't be serious, right? Look at this logo: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/15/twitter-reacts-to-terrible-new-...

>100 sturlington: it does feel like some kind of weird performance art, doesn't it?

OMGGGGGG!!!!!!!! LOL?! BOL! BURST OUT LAUGHING!

The pixelated one killed me.

Unbelievable.

The last one, the gif, is rather disturbing. I just hope it doesn't come true.

I found this article (on how white people in the U.S. avoid personal accountability for racism) to be insightful, and had two questions for the group:

1. Do you agree with me in thinking the insights on white fragility could be applied to (I'll coin a term) cismale fragility?
2. Do you think there there is a special reason for cross-posting this article on Everyday Feminism, though it's explicitly about racism?

Maybe those are really two ways of asking the same question.

ETA The author linked to another article which amplified her idea of white fragility, linked here for easy reference.

>104 elenchus: Without having read it yet (I'm just eating a quick snack before heading off to bed), I'm going to guess re:1 - yes. It's pretty much two sides of the same coin.

I thought this was a really lovely read - http://hazlitt.net/feature/hunger-makes-me

>100 sturlington: Who could have foreseen this? They changed the logo!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/07/16/we_hardly_knew_ye_trump_pence_...

>107 Taphophile13:

I loved the NYCAction guerilla graphic with the condom. Safe! And Classy.

>107 Taphophile13: I'm sorry to hear this. I was going to use it as a possible write-in candidate.

I'm reading The Thin Man at the moment, and near the start he says he "\...\ tried to remember something Wynant had once said to me, something about women and dogs. It was not the woman-spaniel-walnut tree line." So of course, I was rather curious what this "line" was and looked it up, whereupon I came across this article: A Thousand Proverbs Later, It's Still a Brutality, which as the headline implies, is all about the various nasty proverbs against women around the world, for thousands of years.

(The one referenced by Hammett, for those wondering, is "A woman, a dog and a walnut tree -- the harder you beat them, the better they be")

Why do we love brutality?

I know we were talking about libertarianism somewhere, but I couldn't remember where. Came across this quote today and it's the truest thing I've read in a while:

Libertarianism would not exist without the male ego. Libertarianism is built on, around, and for the male ego. Libertarianism is the male ego distilled into political ideology. If you don’t understand what the male ego has to do with Libertarianism, then you don’t understand either Libertarianism or the male ego.

Spotted on http://dearcoquette.com/

It was the anti/rape culture thread.

Someone had responded with a question about anarchism, which made me laugh when I saw who published this...

http://imaginenoborders.org/pdf/zines/UnderstandingPatriarchy.pdf

Wasn't sure if there was a more appropriate place for this; I know I've seen various places on LT where the whole "_____'s wife"/daughter/etc has been complained about, and similar issue in the presidential thread with photos of Bill, but, yeah, latest insanity:

:|

>115 .Monkey.: There's an article about the context behind that tweet, among other media coverage issues, that was posted here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/226665#5683739

Ah nice. I've been LT-slacking recently lol, missed that.

>115 .Monkey.: Actually, that was covered in an article posted by elenchus in the global examples thread in which the article's author says it isn't sexist because the editors were just trying to find a local angle to the story. (The blog it's from is called XXfactor which I assume has good feminist credentials?).

So I missed this earlier this month but I feel like I have to honor her somewhere:

Joani Blank, founder of Good Vibrations, died this month:

http://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Good-Vibrations-founder-Joani-Blank-feminist...

Sorry. I had considered posting that earlier but had assumed it would be sand to the beach.

An Onion article that seems more true than satirical: http://www.theonion.com/infographic/primer-everyday-sexism-53591

>121 sturlington:

That's excellent!

>121 sturlington: It also pays to be blonde.

>121 sturlington:

My favourite:
Q: Is sexism as prevalent as women say it is?
A: No. The longstanding practice of ignoring, invalidating, and silencing female voices would indicate that sexism is much more prevalent than women say it is.

>125 sturlington: Also my favorite:

Q: Who is harmed by sexism?

A: It ultimately hurts everyone because of the way discrimination erodes societal values and dovetails with other modes of oppression, but to answer your question: women

Interesting piece on the use of and reclaiming of the word "female": http://time.com/4300170/female-word/

Thoughts? I'd love to hear 'em!

This is my favorite thing in quite some time:

http://observer.com/2016/08/women-are-trolling-conservatives-by-trading-in-their...

>127 RidgewayGirl: Maybe I'd better add Hide From Hildabeast to my Mangenda.

>127 RidgewayGirl: Love it!

>127 RidgewayGirl:

So much quality there, I couldn't settle on a single favourite. Oddly, the line I remembered immediately after opening this post was "Buy new markers". Because, y'know, the old one just didn't do justice to the manocide.

>126 sturlington:

I don't absolutely avoid "female" as adjective (although I can't think of any reason I'd prefer to say, for example, "female dentists" rather than "women dentists"), but I hate it used as a noun in English and most other languages I speak. In all of them, albeit in different degrees and nuances, there's a strong animalistic connotation, reflecting the ingrained habit of thinking and talking about women as inferior-and-"other"-to-men objects, property, a form of cattle.

The same animalistic flavour hangs around "male" too, but as being male is excellent, and being female is the worst, phrases with one or the other term, applied to human beings, are never equivalent.

>131 LolaWalser: I also don't like to use female as a noun and I am immediately suspicious of the writer's/speaker's motives when I see it used that way. I am a bit of a grammar snob but I don't object to using "woman" as an adjective, as the author of the article did; nouns are transformed into adjectives all the time. When "female" is used as an adjective, it carries connotations of scientific/medical usage or police reports; it seems overly clinical.

>130 elenchus: That was my favorite, too. Apparently, the Vagenda encourages Hive Mind.

Here's another. It seems that I can't leave this topic alone.

https://medium.com/@saraschaefer1/todays-vagenda-2747885a4497#.s2kfypewj

I see from the relatively low comment numbers that PZ Myers lost a big chunk of the readership he had a decade+ ago, but his blog is as worthy of attention now as then, as I (re)discovered after having drifted away for a couple years:

Pharyngula

He writes well about science and politics, he's a staunch atheist AND anti-bro (looking for an almost-sixty white man who not only doesn't flinch at calling himself a feminist, he also doesn't knee-jerk sneer at requests for safe places and trigger warnings, actually extending his compassion and understanding to those less fortunate than himself? Look no further.), and he still loves the woman he loved when he was eighteen.

From his last week's posts I learned, among other, that the shit who raped the unconscious woman might actually get a paid college talk tour about the dangers of alcohol, that in Oregon a white supremacist ran over a black teenager on purpose, that the "meninists" are encouraging growing beards as a symbol of masculinity--presumably the bigger the better; that there are men who see any advances that women make in rectifying the gender inequality as personal loss and endangerment... It echoes that finding about 30% female participation in discussion being experienced by men as women dominating the discussion...

“I actually feel like women are taking over the world,” says Ishwar Chhikara, a 36-year-old investment officer at an international development bank, citing statistics showing more women now have college degrees in the US than men. He says this laughing, but with no audible irony.

“I feel bad for men, especially those who don’t go to school, or study. The whole system is changing drastically with the coming of the information age. It’s not about strength anymore, it’s about the brains.”

I can see where this cretin would worry about competing with brains...

ETA: link to 'I didn’t choose to be straight, white and male': are modern men the suffering sex?

Anyone heard of "Men going their own way" before? I haven't. The evolution of MRA-ism! They are branching and diversifying... while remaining same old, same old crap. We Hunted the Mammoth, a site that "tracks and mocks new misogyny", has some fun with them.

Do women really enjoy sex, men who hate women ask

“The more I learn about them,” writes original poster psychomantis01,

the stronger the impression I get that women are only really interested in childbearing, money, and companionship. It seems to me, as somebody here once put it, they are only really in love with the ‘idea of being in love’, and not in love with the actual man himself.

And another:

If women actually loved sex as much as men, they’d be approaching men everywhere, watch porn everyday, and frequently visit male prostitutes.

Of course, they may swoon over the occasional Chad. But realize they are only turned on by upper echelon of men. We only need a woman to be attractive…if even that.

And another:

Women are always saying they love sex but in my experience they are completely f**king frigid and really low sex drive unless you are already having sex with them. They never, ever really ACTIVELY pursue or initiate sex with a stranger because they really just don’t care about it, unless its to get something out of a man, like love, affection, dinners, cards, romance.

They are so completely disinterested in sex and stuck up about it , it makes me f**king sick. This is why they can charge such a heavy price for it, because they really don’t want it and really don’t need it.

A top 5% male like Chad Thundercock may have pussy literally thrown at him though. I am not him, so I wouldn’t know.

It's almost enough to make you feel bad for laughing... then I remember they are actually loose in the population at large.

Wasn't sure which thread to put this, so going in the catch-all. It's apparently from the Sun, that glorious home of incredible reporting. *groan*


ETA: A short article on their BS http://www.eonline.com/news/797291/emma-watson-gets-bullied-for-promoting-gender...

So this guy is getting reamed on Twitter tonight: http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2016/09/28/why-women-in-tech-might-consider-just-us...

>137 sturlington:

Yeah. Mr Greathouse refers to the screen employed by orchestras, and then confuses the change agent throughout his piece. The musicians didn't bring screens with them. The auditioning panel set them up, all musicians used them without option, and as I understand, it became a norm followed by orchestras. So if that precedent be followed, the hiring companies and HR teams need to do the changing, not those being interviewed.

>137 sturlington: That piece is subscription only.

>139 MarthaJeanne: I don't have a subscription, but you really don't need to read it to get how awful it is. He is telling women in tech they should hide their female identity online and when applying for jobs or venture capital--use initials, don't use photos--to avoid bias. He says women should appear gender neutral, i.e., male.

Here's a response http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/28/13101402/wsj-women-should-go-by-initials

>140 sturlington: Yes, I picked up on the idea that women would succeed better if they hid the fact that they are women.

>141 MarthaJeanne: Just trying to be helpful. I was able to read the article without a subscription, so I didn't realize others wouldn't be able to.

I think the Wall Street Journal does that thing where you can see a few articles for free per month, and then it starts trying to charge you. I was able to read it (I noticed that Mr. John Greathouse not only used his full name, but had an avatar/portrait). If people cleared WSJ cookies from their browsers, they might be able to see it.

>143 southernbooklady: Thanks! That's helpful.

And it might be related to country in which one's ISP operates: MarthaJeanne is in Austria, I believe. I'm in the US and was able to read it without subscription, after navigating several annoying pop-ups.

>145 elenchus: It makes it very hard to share anything. This is my beef about the web in its current state. It is so polluted by ads, subscription requests, and other things designed to make it difficult to access the content that it has become impossible to actually read anything on the web. There is a long list of websites that I simply refuse to look at any longer. And it's way worse on my tablet than on my computer because at least on my computer I can run an ad blocker. I only subscribe to the New York Times, and even they badger me or make things difficult more often than they should.

I feel like I am gradually migrating back to paper just when paper is going obsolete. :-(

>146 sturlington: I can't read anything from the NYT because I don't accept cookies by default, and they're one of the ones that only allows a few articles per month, therefore if they can't track you and see what you've read, you can't read anything at all. And I'm not about to give them access to my stuff for such a bogus reason. So, yeah, I agree, it's irritating as hell when places do all that kind of stuff.

I had a professor in grad school named Michael although a woman. Parents, the ball's in your court. Other fine names for girls: David, Patrick, William and of course any version of "John", but especially Jonathan (so long, so OT-serious).

While I don't mind paying for the things I read, it does narrow down the number of sources one can easily access.

So Trump can't let the Alicia Machado thing go and is continuing to berate her for her supposed weight gain. And Gingrich has joined in. The irony of two obese men fat-shaming a woman is obvious, although I suspect they don't see it, since men are not judged solely on appearance.

On the bright side, I follow a variety of voices on twitter, and activists in the #blacklivesmatter movement, like Deray McKesson, have been clear in their declarations that this is not acceptable.

Of course if I were to read something on any sort of frequent basis that was of quality, I'd have no problem paying for a subscription. But for the, like, one article a month that someone passes a link to on NYT and whatever, nope, sorry, not happening. Stupid.

Yep I've just recently decided to try sticking my foot back in the twitter pool and I've seen tons of posts in the past day already, railing at Gingrich for joining forces about it. *sigh*

>149 RidgewayGirl: I think Hillary was brilliant to bring this up at the end of the debate. Trump et al have focused on this, which makes them look petty, reinforces their misogyny in the eyes of voters, and has also distracted them from any more substantive discussion of any issues raised in the debate. Hillary knows he can't let these things go, so she baits him successfully and then lets him do all the dirty work of making himself look bad in the process.

Cannot let it go: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/298645-trump-check-out-sex-tape-of-f...

Meanwhile, Newsweek's cover story is all about how Trump broke the law by violating the US embargo on Cuba: http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/14/donald-trump-cuban-embargo-castro-violated-fl...

This brief article comes across as amusing, or at least: is written in a breezy, comedic voice. But I think the premise is serious, and while it shouldn't be "shocking" that parenting roles should not be defined / constricted by one's gender, of course it is.

Things to make one mad: when a philosopher with super-interesting thoughts on ecology, religion and other stuff turns out to be a misogynistic anti-feminist uncomprehending turd. Peter Sloterdijk, you dick.

And the worst is, this bullshit comes up in form of a dumb novel in his 69th year. Yeah, the whole world's agog for what old men think about sex, we absolutely had to have this unprecedented incomparable unique gem!!! Never heard THAT stuff before!

But no, maybe the WORST-worst is that the refugee crisis made him flash his Nazi panties.

Arrrghhhhh!

IS NO ONE SAFE

/vent

>154 LolaWalser: I am definitely stealing this: "made him flash his Nazi panties"

Interesting essay: about imagining a future after the patriarchy in science fiction.

http://thebaffler.com/blog/fear-feminist-future-laurie-penny

>156 sturlington: Why is it that mainstream culture is either afraid of a feminist future—a world where women have equal power at all levels of politics and society, a world beyond the violent stereotypes that squash all of us into narrow boxes of behavior and strangle our selfhood—or unable to envision it at all?

It seems to me that the "alt-right" people she is is talking about equate "a world where women have equal power" to a world where women have all the power. There's no discernible distinction between the two scenarios from their perspective.

>157 southernbooklady:

I get the sense that observation applies to anyone not themselves, and not only to women, which usually translates to anyone not a straight, white, xian man and the host of cultural / social values constellating around that historical identity. It's white supremacy ideology, of course, even when not intended / consciously preferred, and I think the majority of the time it is very much a deliberate decision.

I think it's the masculine view; total control. When they have it, they can't imagine anyone else not wanting it. Therefore, if women get any power they must want it all.

I suppose if your world view is founded on your own supremacy, then there wouldn't really be a difference between sharing power and losing it.

>160 southernbooklady: Exactly. After all, if you're the only person allowed a specific right, having to share that right with others is a loss.

>156 sturlington:

That is fantastic, thanks so much! Some incredible resonances with the discussion Tim Spalding brought to the old sci-fi thread in connection with John Christopher's No blade of grass (for anyone interested, my analysis of character representation was given here in May: http://www.librarything.com/topic/221092#5590581 , there was some initial discussion, then Tim appeared again in October going back to that book, here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/221092#5750163.)

This in particular:

Over at Return Of Kings, an alt-right discussion hub and steaming compost-heap of the sort of diatribes that pass for serious philosophy in the less hinged corners of the conservative internet, writer Corey Savage tells us “4 Reasons Why Collapse Will Be The Best Thing To Happen For Men.”

The collapse will mean the restoration of natural order: the rule of the jungle . . .

One of the best aspect of the new order would be the return of masculine virtue . . . only an organized group of men with strength, courage, mastery, and honor . . . will prevail in the post-apocalyptic world. Men will be men again. Who knows what savage energy is begging to be unleashed within that man serving as an office drone?

And guess what? There won’t be feminist harpies demanding “equality” when strong men are needed to rebuild civilization and defend against gangs and rival tribes. They’ll be begging for some of that “toxic” masculinity to come and protect them. They’ll kneel in submission to a patriarchal order faster than they would have screamed “rape!” in the previous world . . . the unstable and fat ones will likely disappear first as they offer no value to anyone.

(If you haven't read Christopher's book (published in 1958), this is exactly what happens in it.)

But the whole thing is just splendid:

This, incidentally, is how we got to the point where a bloviating man-child with distressing hair and an entitlement complex bigger than his unpaid tax bill, a man whose main political strategy is to stand at a podium screaming about Muslims and Mexican rapists, is still, to millions of Americans, a more conceivable president than his only normally monstrous opponent who happens to be female. A world with women in charge, a world where women stand together and for each other in any respect, is not just inconceivable—to conceive of it is an active identity threat for those whose sense of self has always needed a story with men on top.

(...)

As I write, all the evidence suggests that in just under three weeks, a woman will become President of the United States, despite the best efforts of a man who is the very personification of a wilting erection in a suit, leaking drivel everywhere in his failure to grab America by the pussy.

(...)

If you can imagine spaceships, if you can imagine time-travel, if you can conjure entire languages and alien races out of the wet space behind your eyes, you shouldn’t have a problem imagining a society beyond patriarchy. A feminist future may be inconceivable—but it is coming nonetheless. It is already being written and rewritten by those who reject the brostradamus logic of late capitalism, by those who refuse to cling to the paleofutures of previous times.

BROSTRADAMUS LOGIC...! :))))

This fear and panic (most blatantly but not exclusively exemplified by the right, "alt" or not) to me prove just how widespread and deeply rooted is the definition of male AGAINST the female. Only lip service is paid to the idea of "different but equal" (and that in limited circles).

What also alarms me is how little it takes for the insanity to kick in, how disproportionate the actual gains in women's rights to men's perceptions of them (the same crazy optics that make Trump to anyone an acceptable candidate, to say nothing of being MORE acceptable than Clinton).

The most recent book in the old sci-fi thread, Theodore Sturgeon's Venus Plus X, was published in 1960, and features two contemporary male characters, both husbands and fathers, discussing how women are taking over. IN 1960. What's bizarre, especially 50+ years later, is what sort of thing is meant by that (as far as I could tell). The wives--both housewives and avid followers of their husbands' career interests--have gone out for a night bowling, while the men are taking care of kids, watch television together, and discuss new models of men's underwear, as men who take care of children inevitably develop girly interests. One of the women also renamed the "His" and "Hers" appliances "His" and "Ours" (NB: not even a question of "HERS" and "Ours"!), and likes to talk about how she and her husband are "a team". Clearly the only thing that differentiates her from a radical feminist castrator is that she refers to herself as "Mrs. Herbert Raile".

Again, that's about all it took for women to be seen as "taking over". And as in 1960, not all that different today...

I am aware that what I am about to say is simplistic hypothesis spinning. But isn't a significant source of misogyny among those whom you are discussing the mostly unconscious awareness among them that men are in large measure superfluous biologically and economically?

In the long-span-of-time context, young males are mostly expendable canon-fodder and need to be got rid of in sufficient numbers if society is to be stable. So societies have waged endless wars, sent them to sea in labour-intensive and fragile ships to fish, trade, or explore for occupiable territory or sent them down mines. And the genetically-driven high levels of aggression, along with the delayed maturation of the pre-frontal cortex makes a large number of these young men eager to participate.

And although it is harsh for me to say it, I expect that for a sizable portion of those boy-men, that model perhaps offered them the most meaningful contribution they could have made.

But take away war, adventure, labour-intensive farming, fishing, resource extraction, and manufacturing, while also becoming obsessed with workplace safety for those few heavy jobs that remain, and we end up with a cadre of men who feel their lives are pointless and who, perhaps, were never temperamentally suited to settling into stable relationships and raising kids. (Not to mention that we've also succeeded at last in dramatically extending the life-expectancy at birth of women, who also need something to do.)

Out of this progress we get a pool of (perhaps) young jihadists and resentful, unskilled, xenophobic adults.

A bit wordy and possibly crap, but ideas I've been mulling.

>164 librorumamans:

Well, I'm not sure what's your point. I'm wary of talk about "genetically-driven" human behaviour because that's based on little or no evidence and biased narratives of development. Typically, narratives that serve to justify male violence as normal and natural, and criminalise the entire sex in the process.

In the long-span-of-time context, young males are mostly expendable canon-fodder and need to be got rid of in sufficient numbers if society is to be stable.

We are all superfluous and expendable, every single one of us--or, another way of looking at it, we are all in the position to make ourselves "useful", to ourselves or others.

I'm not aware that the theory of war as a machine for grinding away superfluous men is anything but a theory. Men and women are born in about equal numbers and occur in most habitats without special interference in about equal numbers. Where men are truly superfluous--as where, say, population exceeds the means of sustenance--women are superfluous too.

>165 LolaWalser:

So, part of my point was to invite responses from some well-read people who are distinct from the Pro-and-Con crowd. And I've pondering for a while on the unattractive and self-destructive behaviour of some portion of the male population, and trying out possible explanations for it.

An area where you and I do differ, I believe, is in our readiness to accept? work with? even play with? motivations or behaviours, or something like that, which are not entirely culturally conditioned. I have been much influenced by Tinbergen, Lorenz, and Wilson.

It is not hard to find species that cover a range of social structures where males provide little else than their genes. And although I have no figures, I am pretty confident that for mammals in general the calories required to raise a male to the point at which he can reproduce are a fraction of the calories a female needs to reach fertility herself and raise offspring to a fertile age. So in that respect females are likely more valuable to the species' future.

I spent decades up close with many hundreds of adolescents. I don't think it's a particular exaggeration to say that many of them — not all, certainly — are basically insane for some period of time and to some degree starting around puberty and extending somewhere into their twenties. There's a good neurological basis for saying that. And some boys, and more boys than girls, show aggression and do incredibly stupid things, aggression and stupidity that I think are culturally conditioned only at a secondary remove.

Given the wide range of individual difference, I don't think that seeing this aggression and risk-taking as originating in biology is in any way to criminalize the sex in general. Or, indeed, to criminalize at all except where there is criminality.

We are all superfluous and we are none of us superfluous. But that's another discussion in a different context than the one I was working in.

I don't have figures, but given that males and females are born in roughly equal numbers, and given that until recently the risks of pregnancy and childbirth significantly lowered women's life expectancy, would there not tend to be more adult men than women, other risks being equal? Making the other risks unequal is part of what I am kicking around.

>166 librorumamans: I'm having trouble making sense of what you are saying, but it seems to condense down to male aggression as a kind of biologically determined behavior. But even supposing such a thing could be proven (and I don't see how it could -- we are biologically hardwired to be social just as we are biologically hardwired to be violent, so calling cultural conditioning "secondary" seems arbitrary) there is little point to such an observation except to act as a de facto justification for aggression.

As Lola points out, we are all superfluous -- from an evolutionary perspective no single person among us has any importance or statistical significance. We are only imbued with such significance as we assign to ourselves, in which case biological justifications for our importance would seem unnecessary and even irrelevant.

>166 librorumamans:

OK, I still don't know what's your point as relating to previous posts here. I hope it's not to take up the "rape is natural" argument again?

I have been much influenced by Tinbergen, Lorenz, and Wilson.

None of whom are geneticists and none of whom focussed on human behaviour, be it said.

The notions you champion are extrapolated from cherry-picked data on animal behaviour and inevitably biased personal observation, how can you not see that? We can find all kinds of behaviour in the animal world, none of which have evident implications for behaviours in human societies (insofar we are even able to judge them objectively, which is far from certain). And why is it always aggressive behaviour that triggers these "it's in the genes" discussions? Aggression and non-aggression--bonding, cooperation etc.--are equally in our genes. ALL our behaviour is shaped on a genetic basis.

So in that respect females are likely more valuable to the species' future.

Any binary species may die out because of a lack of females, but it can also die out because of a lack of males. The optimal balance of the sexes depends on the circumstances.

And although I have no figures, I am pretty confident that for mammals in general the calories required to raise a male to the point at which he can reproduce are a fraction of the calories a female needs to reach fertility herself and raise offspring to a fertile age. So in that respect females are likely more valuable to the species' future.

Maybe someone feeding lions and gorillas can enlighten us, but this is an odd conclusion. If males needed fewer calories, they'd place less of a burden on resources, meaning that groups of predominantly males would be favoured over groups with equal representation or more females. But this is actually the opposite of truth--mammals tend to exhibit sexual dimorphism, with females, typically, being smaller, and having lower caloric intake than males. Yes, pregnancy and birth increase caloric intake, relative to a single male, but so what? The "babies" are still going to consist of roughly half male individuals! So how on earth do you conclude that males are "less valuable to the species' future"?

If males were "less valuable" they wouldn't be born in equal numbers to females to begin with.

And again--what exactly does this have to do with humans? In everything I've learned about the primitive and poorest societies, they still put the men ahead of all women and children, typically allowing the latter to starve much sooner than the former. The men get the biggest and best shares of food and everything else.

There's a good neurological basis for saying that.

I beg to differ. We are accumulating a lot of what is called "neurological data" with only the flimsiest notion of how to relate it to behaviour. (Which isn't stopping imagers and headline hunters, of course.)

And some boys, and more boys than girls, show aggression and do incredibly stupid things, aggression and stupidity that I think are culturally conditioned only at a secondary remove.

Boys are also expected to "be boys", including show aggression and be incredibly stupid. Girls have good reasons not to give in to aggressive impulses so easily. It doesn't mean they don't harbour them.

And it's still "some boys", not all boys, and it's still behaviour that diminishes rather than increases their fitness. In a word, the opposite of "natural".

Given the wide range of individual difference, I don't think that seeing this aggression and risk-taking as originating in biology is in any way to criminalize the sex in general. Or, indeed, to criminalize at all except where there is criminality.

One, it's hard to tell when or whether you are talking about male sex (i.e. all men) or some exceptions. Two, and I repeat myself--aggression and risk-taking "originate in biology" in the same way non-aggression, bonding, cooperation etc. do. I don't see why you take one as more indicative of what is "natural" than the other.

Or why you brought up jihadists as examples of aggressive behaviour, now that you say you would not criminalise aggressive behaviour because "originating in biology".

We are all superfluous and we are none of us superfluous.

We are all superfluous, all unnecessary, individually, to the survival of the species, to say nothing of this poor, man-devastated planet. Please, not with the religion.

I don't have figures, but given that males and females are born in roughly equal numbers, and given that until recently the risks of pregnancy and childbirth significantly lowered women's life expectancy, would there not tend to be more adult men than women, other risks being equal? Making the other risks unequal is part of what I am kicking around.

Google sez:

How many men and women in the world?

washingtonpost.com.

Overall, there are slightly more men than women in the world. According to 2015 estimates by the United Nations, there are 101.8 men for every 100 women, with the number of men rising gradually each year since 1960.

Note that women are being actively destroyed in more than one place in the world.

>167 southernbooklady:

Hmmm. 'Justification' as I understand the word is not a notion that was at all in my mind in either of my recent posts. Also, it's the risk-taking more than the aggressiveness that intrigues me because it's so potentially self-destructive.

If neither you nor Lola can grasp what I'm getting at, then I'm not clear in my own thinking. Feedback is what I was after, so I'll retire the idea or perhaps just toss it away.

Thanks, though.

Risk-taking is not equivalent to aggression either.

>169 librorumamans:

Do you see risk-taking as somehow "male" behaviour? Because, if I may use personal observation, women are incredible risk-takers. And I don't mean just the now trite "well they date men and have sex"... :)

>170 southernbooklady:

Hey, I keep cross-posting with you--how come you are not enjoying the Debate? :)

Heh. I'm working late tonight and countering speculations about male aggression are my version of taking a cigarette break. It seemed less frustrating than watching the debate.

>170 southernbooklady: Risk-taking is not equivalent to aggression either.

I wasn't suggesting that it is, or at least that's not how I read what I said earlier.

>168 LolaWalser: I hoped that you had come to understand me enough to know that I would never excuse rape as natural or acceptable. And if you didn't know that, you do now.

My comment about neurology originated some years ago from an in-service session given by an eminently credentialed academic from U of T in which he outlined how puberty initiates a cascade of changes in the brain so extensive that he considers adolescents to have a new brain that works significantly differently than the brain the individual had at, say, nine. Subsequently I have read much the same idea more than once, although I can't say whether it has been the same research reiterated, or a further confirmation of the earlier research.

My reference to jihadists at the point I made it expresses my incomprehension at why some young men (predominantly so up to now) who may in fact lack any linking familial, religious, or cultural heritage feel so urgent a need to join themselves to a cause that is so unlikely to be beneficial to them in any conceivable way. I'm not entirely satisfied by explanations from nurture, or sociology, etc., and wonder if there is not some instinct that is perhaps at work in some individuals.

But, I repeat, you and I have very different ideas about when and where and how to place distinctions between humans other animals.

I'm really not interested in getting into a fight over this — I'm not that committed to the hypothesis — and I've evidently triggered you in a number of ways. So let's leave it here.

>173 southernbooklady:

Thank God, I have no reason to think I ought to watch the debate.

>168 LolaWalser: OK, I still don't know what's your point as relating to previous posts here.

Oops; I missed the last part of that sentence. This is the misc thread, so I thought semi-sequiturs and vaguely-sequiturs are okay, even non-sequiturs now and then.

Near the end of this short-ish piece, the assertion that "among the most important items of unfinished business for feminism today is a more serious reckoning with the effects of essentialized masculinity.”

Its effects on men, that is, with downstream effects for women who interact with those men. So "a more serious reckoning" in the sense of efforts to establish a healthy conception of masculinity, not of resisting / opposing those effects (which implicitly is taken as a given).

Should that goal, as admirable as it is, be considered unfinished business for feminism? Or more properly, as unfinished business for masculinism (or whatever the term should be for people concerned specifically about how men are defined in our culture)? I sense that women are again being saddled with anything that is not killing or building.

ETA fix HTML

>174 librorumamans: I'm not entirely satisfied by explanations from nurture, or sociology, etc., and wonder if there is not some instinct that is perhaps at work in some individuals.


If there is an "instinct" (meaning what? innate behavior?) at play in influencing our social behaviors then I wouldn't pick "aggression" -- I'd pick our capacity as a species for adaptability.

>176 librorumamans:

I thought semi-sequiturs and vaguely-sequiturs are okay, even non-sequiturs now and then.

Of course, but I thought you were driving at something and didn't (and don't) understand what puberty and teenagers and neurology have to do with anything. They are not the causes or main exponents of misogyny. Let's also remember misogyny we discuss isn't mere affect, some crazy "hatred" of women, but structural cultural injustice and inequality.

Speculating about ducks and chimps and teenage boys doesn't have much relevance for the problem of, say, current femicide through selective abortion in Armenia, which has resulted in a stunning demographic imbalance (115 boys to 100 girls) in mere twenty years or so.

>174 librorumamans:

My reference to jihadists at the point I made it expresses my incomprehension at why some young men (predominantly so up to now) who may in fact lack any linking familial, religious, or cultural heritage feel so urgent a need to join themselves to a cause that is so unlikely to be beneficial to them in any conceivable way. I'm not entirely satisfied by explanations from nurture, or sociology, etc., and wonder if there is not some instinct that is perhaps at work in some individuals.

I suppose you realise the jihadists clearly don't think their behaviour is not beneficial to them, especially "in any conceivable way". No individual operates with any regard to evolutionary concepts.

As for instincts, they work in all of us, all the time. How and how much we let it SHOW depends a lot on circumstance.

Something light hearted:

If women wrote men the way that men write women:
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/if-women-wrote-men-the-way-men-write-women

>180 southernbooklady:

:)))

>180 southernbooklady: +1

>180 southernbooklady: Thank you! I needed that.

"Arrival" and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

https://debuk.wordpress.com/2016/11/21/sex-death-and-aliens-a-feminist-guide-to-...

Apparently the movie does not pass the Bechdel test.

Ugh, such clichés. And seriously, there's only one adult woman in the entire movie? Fuck you, Hollywood.

>184 southernbooklady: >185 LolaWalser:

Perhaps it's meant as an allegory for adult women in modern patriarchy!

Yeah, I sincerely doubt any such reading is intended. Too bad, I find the Sapir-Whorf thesis intriguing though it's largely debunked (and I've not read thoroughly into either the thesis nor the criticism, so I'm not yet taking sides on the matter), and the movie could have been interesting. I doubt I'll rent it, and definitely won't see it in the cinema.

>186 elenchus:

The strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been thoroughly debunked for human languages. It is as yet untestable for non-human languages such as those in Arrival.

(Haven't seen the movie, have read the very very good story it's based on. Criticizing it for failing the Bechdel test misses the point spectacularly; there are basically two human characters in the story, both female, and it is structured as one of them telling the other the story of the other's life. (Exactly when is hard to say, because of the non-linear time that makes up an essential part of the story, but it's a woman telling the daughter about daughter's life, before daughter is born.) And, of course, the aliens, but I don't remember whether they have gender.) Sure, it's a technical fail, but hardly deserving a "Fuck you".

I was commenting on the information (in the linked post) that there's only one adult woman in the movie, not the failing of BT as such.

If there are more than two human characters in the entire thing, and it doesn't take place in a freaking monastery, there could have and should have been more women around. On general principle.

Also, Hollywood earns a permanent Fuck You from me for a number of reasons, so if anyone else is inordinately bothered by this instance, just trust that I can reel off scads more.

Speaking of Hollywood, I can use a laugh right about now, and this gave me one: http://www.viralwomen.com/heres-what-romance-scenes-would-look-like-if-movies-we...

This billboard is on display in my home state, everybody. So proud.



http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article134440999.html

Note that the cowardly organization that purchased this billboard refuses to be identified. Way to stand by your message there.

ETA Do NOT read the comments. I did and regretted it.

Oh, my.

I hope it galvanises a response. That's truly obscene.

Somebody is compensating for something.

Wow that's gross. And you hit the nail on the head -- you want to take out a billboard but not admit who you are? How brave. Aren't real men supposed to be brave? Hmm.

>192 southernbooklady:

Indeed. Since when did "real men" need to be told what to do to be "real men" via billboards? Too many Marlboro ads consumed in tender youth methinks...

But I wouldn't take it lightly, given the times in the US. It's an assault that goes in many directions but the focus is on working women, and all women who may some day try to get a job. Or qualify to get a job, etc. The downward spiral starts here.

Trump's cabinet is in perfect sync with it. He and his minders clearly don't believe much in jobs for women that don't involve mattresses and pasties.

Also, people working minimum wage jobs don't earn enough to support themselves, never mind a family.

On Australian Broadcasting's Radio National site, this week's episode of The Philosopher's Zone looks at "The Golden Age of female philosophy" — that brief period in the 1940's and early 50's when there were few male undergrads at Oxford and that produced Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley and Mary Warnock.

I found the episode (about 25 min) interesting, especially because it includes an interview with Midgley, who at 97 is the last of the group alive.

India Is Gearing Up to Launch a Safe, Effective, Cheap Male Contraceptive With Little Support From Drugmakers

(...) Not only is this new male contraceptive method safe and effective, it could easily be far cheaper than the most popular contraception on the market today. Bloomberg reported on Thursday that, “India’s reversible procedure could cost as little as $10 in poor countries, and may provide males with years-long fertility control, overcoming compliance problems and avoiding ongoing costs associated with condoms and the female birth-control pill, which is usually taken daily.”

The Bloomberg report also notes that in spousal relationships women overwhelmingly assume the burden of using birth control, with 60 percent of women using contraceptive pill or another form of contraception, and 8 percent of men using a condom (this information comes from a United Nations study). With enough investments, RISUG could shift the burden of using birth control off 225 million women in developing countries. (...)

>197 LolaWalser: Well, sort of yay? On the one hand, it's nice to think that men will take some responsibility for birth control, but I think this will give them another reason to insist on not wearing a condom, which is so important in the prevention of disease. It'll be good for faithful couples looking for an inexpensive method, but in general, I don't think it will be great for women.

>198 RidgewayGirl:

Yeah, a certain context seems to be assumed here--a couple that is married/committed, monogamous, and equally concerned about how many children they have.

You'd really have to be able to trust the guy.

On the other hand, no method is 100% safe, so having this as a back-up is not a bad idea.

>200 MarthaJeanne: This has always been the question for male birth control -- would you trust a man who said he was on it? With the burden for pregnancy falling entirely on the woman (whether or not the pregnancy is kept) it's a hard sell to me.

And yes, the assumption in the article that all we have is consensual, monogamous sex is laughable.

Linking and quoting in order to highlight the concluding idea, which is something I've tried to articulate in the past:

John Updike’s Rabbit, Run – another American story of men escaping women

... US popular culture is riddled with stories of men who yearn to be free, and the women who yearn only for them not to be. These are doubtless very enjoyable stories for men to read, but for women they can be quite irksome. Always cast as the smothering presence, the old ball-and-chain pinning men down who would otherwise roam wild, women end up symbolising dependence and paralysis while men get to symbolise independence and liberty. I know which one I prefer. ...

Part of the problem for women reading Rabbit, Run is that Updike made the decision to have Harry choose between two stereotypes: after returning home Harry leaves Janice again, this time moving in with a prostitute. Janice, the asexual mother, is small, childish, bony; the prostitute Ruth is voluptuous, large, welcoming and fecund. There are those who argue that Updike is ironising this stereotypical choice, showing how narrow and foolish it is, and it is true he gives both Ruth and Janice slightly more complex interior lives at points in the novel. But Updike doesn’t imagine them really having any desires that are not centred around domesticity or keeping a man...

When Henry James looked at women, he imagined that they thought like him. When Updike looked at women, he imagined that they thought about him. For me, questions about misogyny in literature are of limited efficacy at best; I prefer judging a novel by how well it thinks about the problem it has set itself. Rabbit, Run is a novel ruminating on the costs of patriarchal society that is partly limited by the very limits it depicts, but cannot quite overcome. The incompleteness remains, while the novel endures.

The bolded bit is what continues to baffle me--how we continue to speak of "great" novels and great writers while overlooking such glaring structural defects in their worldview. It's not a question of diverse, random, unpredictable, idiosyncratic failures of individual knowledge and individual bias--this or that writer's bad history, inadequate French, shaky philosophy, faults of style etc.--but of a general subscription to a misogynistic and sexist worldview that never properly SEES women, because it never sees them as people. It's that eternal whore/virgin interpretation female characters get shoehorned in, the very existence of which belies any attempt to "question" it.

Updike (and some others...) wrote more prettily than most but in this he (and some others...) is the same as any pulp fiction hack.

>202 LolaWalser: I've read very little of Updike, Roth, or Bellow mostly because I found (and probably still would find) their suburban, straight white male worlds thin and uninteresting.

Churchwell's Guardian article makes me think of Jude the Obscure and Of Human Bondage, although it's almost fifty years since I read either of them. They share those Circe-like women, although the narratives concern a broader analysis of a stifling social class system that traps their two heroes.

My response isn't exactly relevant to your post, but I wonder how those books read today? Are the social constraints largely responsible as well for the women's behaviour towards Jude and Philip? How much do the novels express their own authors' discomforts with the women in their own lives?

(Soulpepper's adaptation of the Maugham book was outstanding theatre, I thought.)

>203 librorumamans:

I haven't read the Hardy or Maugham. I do admire Updike as a stylist and essayist on many subjects, but all that only makes me more baffled and sad at how limited such a production ends up being. Not that writers like that necessarily lose (female) readers--the in-built bias goes with the in-built privilege of having everyone grow up trained to adopt the white straight man as the supreme subject and his interests as the most important. Insofar we don't mirror him, that's our fault and loss.

Complicated questions, at least for me... the passage of time, loss and change of context, they all impose various filters and modes of reading on one, nothing can be answered simply...

It's tough. Updike is, as you say, quite the stylist. I prefer his short stories to his novels and find that he tends to be somewhat better with his women in those. Maybe the length means he does not have to go deep into character definition, etc.

I have all the Rabbit novels on my shelves but I've never even managed to finish the first book in the series. I might try again just so I can understand Churchwell's points better.

As for the Hardy and Maugham -- I read Of Human Bondage just a few years ago but will have to find my journal from the time to check my notes on how I found it. Haven't read that particular Hardy though his women in some of the other novels, I found, were rather well-presented -- given the societal conditions of their time and their relative social status, of course.

>202 LolaWalser: how we continue to speak of "great" novels and great writers while overlooking such glaring structural defects in their worldview...a general subscription to a misogynistic and sexist worldview that never properly SEES women, because it never sees them as people.

Properly seeing women as people would require a paradigm shift in our conception of humanity that most people just aren't willing to make. By seeing women as people, patriarchal assumptions are invalidated, rendered irrelevant, and those of us invested in patriarchy can't handle the idea that everything we value is also invalid, irrelevant. It's much easier to trivialize feminist critique as "a woman's perspective" than to acknowledge that 95% of the literature -- the culture -- we love is lacking a true human perspective.

Which reminds me that Roxane Gay was on Twitter this morning talking about how the producers of the new TV adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale is positioning it not as a feminist story, but a "human story." Which makes me sad because that book was instrumental in making me a feminist when I was a teenager.

The Handmaids Tale show folks saying the show isn't feminist. Ummmm.

— roxane gay (rgay) April 22, 2017

How is a show about the subjugation of women and forced reproduction not feminist?

— roxane gay (rgay) April 22, 2017

And why do people keep forcing a divide between feminist and human?

— roxane gay (rgay) April 22, 2017

I'll just leave this here. https://t.co/BGTvAdkWtq

— roxane gay (rgay) April 22, 2017

>202 LolaWalser: I thought that was a good piece. I had a goal of reading as many Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction as I could, but I stalled out when I hit the whole Updike-Mailer-Roth-Cheever-Bellow era. I just couldn't bring myself to read these books, when I felt that had absolutely no bearing on me or my experience. Fortunately, more recent winners have been more interesting and diverse.

>207 sturlington:. Wow. I wonder what Margaret Atwood would have to say about that. She's on Twitter too, right? Someone's bound to have brought this to her attention. I'm going to have to head over now to see what else is being said.

>208 jennybhatt: Well, she sold them the rights and she's not naïve, so I'm guessing the producers' focus isn't a surprise.

>209 librorumamans: Yes, true. She probably knew they were going to do the "more human" angle. But I wonder if she knew that it would be at the expense of the "feminist" angle, if that makes sense.

I did check on Twitter and, apparently, she's going to be doing a Twitter Q&A soon. I'm going to watch and see if this comes up and how it is dealt with. Curious because if I wrote a book that was all about feminism, I would not want people to downplay that.

That said, I guess she's had so much controversy over this and other books that she's probably thinking that her longtime fans are not going to stop seeing her work as feminist so if this approach by the latest shoemakers means more viewers, so be it. And maybe the producers and actors see this as a way to allow new viewers/readers entry into the story and then see for themselves how it parallels certain things in our world today. Don't know.

The real shame, I suppose, is that Hollywood feels the need to downplay a story's feminism in order to get more viewers. In the end, this says more about us as a culture, as a society, than it does about the producers or the actors or the writer.

I just hope the show doesn't lack teeth because of this kind of pandering. That would be a real shame.

>210 jennybhatt: You may want to read the review in today's New York times. It has some quotes from Atwood and the opening is "This is the way the war on women begins." The adaptation looks good but I don't think I can watch. Too close for comfort right now. I've been all about escapist fare lately.

>211 sturlington: Will do. Thanks.

So this showed up in the Guardian today:

The Race to Build the First Sex Robot

It's a woman robot, of course.

McMullen has designed Harmony to be what a certain type of man would consider the perfect companion: docile and submissive, built like a porn star and always sexually available. Being able to walk might make her more lifelike, but it isn’t going to bring her closer to this ideal. At this stage, it is not worth the investment.

“My goal, in a very simple way, is to make people happy,” McMullen told me. “There are a lot of people out there, for one reason or another, who have difficulty forming traditional relationships with other people. It’s really all about giving those people some level of companionship – or the illusion of companionship.”

>213 southernbooklady: In your last paragraph there seems to be a problem. He says 'people' but means (disfunctional) men. And while this may make them happier in the short term, it will damage them in the longer term, making real relationships even harder.

>214 MarthaJeanne: Welcome to patriarchy.

>213 southernbooklady: There is some coverage of this on Woman's Hour as well. If you aren't familiar, you can get it as a podcast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007qlvb

It is typical and unbelievable at the same time that we have technology this advanced and yet this is what it is being developed.

When entire societies are devoted to limiting, controlling and outright disenfranchising women, it's hard to see female sex robots as a particularly worrying or new development. The "dream" of a perfectly willing, always available female slave is ancient, widespread and more often attempted than not.

I wish I could think it's just a handful of freaks and unfortunates that are dysfunctional, but taking stock of the world, the problem is general.

Given that the female sexbot is a staple of the science fiction genre, I'm not at all surprised that someone is trying to make one. I do think rationalizing it as a relationship aid is ridiculous. It would be fun to hack them, though, wouldn't it?

So Stepford Wives here we come.

The GOP lawmaker who created The Red Pill

Read at your own risk.

>220 southernbooklady: Ugh. Now I need a shower.

>216 MegEynons:

Thanks for the link.

"About 40% of {polled} men in Germany said they would be interested in a sex robot..."

"...a proxy to rape and beat..."

"...take out your frustrations on them..."

Should we let paedophiles have child sex robots?

P.S. Wow, I posted above as I was still listening--child dolls ARE already being made!

>222 LolaWalser: I find it horrific. I also am of the belief that if a man became used to beating or doing other violent things to his "sex bot" that it wouldn't be a far leap to thinking that was permissible with humans. Once an act is "normalized" the action becomes easier to carry out.

As Nicki said, that's the patriarchy for you... anything dick wants, dick gets, and horrific be damned.

Once an act is "normalized" the action becomes easier to carry out.

Right--what happens upon sheer habituation? As if the masses of sexist pigs don't ALREADY objectify women to awesome levels. No, let's HELP them erase the last traces of discernment between a woman and a rubber chicken.

>225 LolaWalser: The rubber chickens would probably be treated better!

>213 southernbooklady: >216 MegEynons: etc.

I wonder, although without much confidence, whether sufficiently sophisticated devices like these would prevent The Collector, Room, or that guy in Austria.

If they did, the technology could be worth developing, to my mind.

(Anyone understand why Touchstones can't match the Fowles book?) Fixed.

The Collector, Fowles

That worked. You can also preceed the title with the work number and two colons 7197::The Collector becomes

The Collector

Just too many other possibilities, I guess.

I'm not sure which guy in Austria you mean, but generally the men who lock girls/women up as sex slaves want to feel that they control someone. I doubt if a robot would satisfy that.

>227 librorumamans:

Fowles' character wasn't interested in sex, and if he could have been satisfied with inanimate objects mimicking the real, he likely wouldn't have needed to hunt down actual butterflies either. Postcards might have sufficed.

I don't think we should pander to psychopaths, but really the problem isn't that--it's what effects this will have on larger society. How will these men interact with real women? We already have problems up the wazoo with objectification of women as it is, with men generally denying humanity and equal rights to women.

Gender and sexual discrimination are rampant, violence against women is common, there are entire societies were women are legally classified as less than men, where their own family members murder them as if they were disposing of garbage.

I don't see how further reinforcing the already omnipresent attitude that women are things to be used by men is the least bit helpful.

Prostitution and pornography have been around for ages and they haven't done away with male-on-female violence and exploitation--in fact, the argument that they increasingly aggravate them thanks to modern technology is becoming ever more solid to my eyes.

This thread is getting long--maybe we should continue it?

Perhaps the robot discussion could go into this old thread on the same topic:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/195769

Just suggesting, as it seems there's (ever more) material for discussion on that topic.

>228 MarthaJeanne: That's a cool solution that I was unaware of. Thanks! But where does the 7197 come from? I don't see it on the work or the detail pages. Oh, wait — it's in the URL. Aha!

The Austrian example I had in mind is Wolfgang Přiklopil who abducted and confined Natascha Kampusch (Wikipedia).

>229 LolaWalser: I'll mention (although you couldn't know) that I read Fowles' book shortly after it originally appeared and haven't looked at it since. It made a considerable impression on my adolescent mind for me to have remembered even that much about it.

Please realize that my comment in #227 was meant very tentatively and with much reservation.

>232 librorumamans:

No problem, I read it a couple years ago and can vouch that it still packs a punch (although I've lost pretty much all detail too). One thing I do remember is the sinking heart with which I read some reviews (can't remember if here or elsewhere)--there are actually people out there who found the captured girl "annoying" and deserving what she got etc. (Quite apart from the fact that my impression of the character, in contrast, was one of singular warmth, vitality and authenticity, how does anyone read of such a fate and thinks "well serve her right, the annoying artsy liberal bitch"...)

>232 librorumamans:

Your post raises a very important question--what is it these sex robots are really for, what their putative masters want them, need them for. I think what some of us find creepy--or at least, I do--is that they aren't (or aren't being marketed as) the usual sex toy for "getting off", but relationship ersatz.

Which brings up a whole host of other question--how much of men's need for sex is simply seeking sexual gratification, and how much it is about asserting themselves, for actualising themselves in the sick fashion that our sick patriarchal societies teach men to "be men".

We can probably all agree that just giving ourselves orgasms is easy, and if that were all sex or love were about, there'd be much less violence and heartbreak all around. But in this sick society, sex is about far more than carnal pleasure--it is through sexual roles and behaviour that we establish who we are and how we are to be treated.

Which brings up etc.

>234 LolaWalser: I think what some of us find creepy--or at least, I do--is that they aren't (or aren't being marketed as) the usual sex toy for "getting off", but relationship ersatz.

It is hugely creepy. It suggests a complete lack of ability to empathize, or connect, with another human being. A pattern of objectifying other people.

>234 LolaWalser: Last evening I watched the DVD of Alain Guiraudie's L'inconnu du lac aka Stranger by the Lake, which is a kind of French Fire Island thriller. My sense is that women don't do much cottaging or Rambling (safety concerns, I know) or even (?) Pussy Palaces. I don't know if there's a lesbian Grindr.

Guiraudie looks, as others have, at the gay male culture that eagerly seeks contact but avoids connection, and that does so by superficially evaluating, judging, and categorizing other men. I think that's a male thing, not a gay male thing. And is less (or less overtly) a female thing?

>236 librorumamans:

I think it's a mistake ever to compare the behaviours of men and women as if they could be symmetrical in a profoundly imbalanced gender-discriminatory society. Women and men simply don't have the same liberty to display the same behaviours (reflecting whatever intimate tendencies, appetites etc. they might have).

Men have always been given far wider latitude in sexual matters. As "masters of the world", men can pretty much do whatever they please. If they want to fuck children, boys, goats, other men--other men might scold, but they will typically show understanding. "Boys will be boys." Personally I think that's a load of bollocks transparently designed to give men a free sex pass while simultaneously punishing women for the same. Gay men profit from the general cultural imposition of dick-worship various and multiple guises. The dick is eminently adorable, the cunt is utterly shameful and the worst name anyone can be called. Male sexual desire is praised even in the bleeding Bible; female sexual desire is the most dreaded thing on the planet. Men rule, women drool.

In those circumstances, what woman will find it worth her while--or skin--to tell the truth?

Well, if one looks around, one finds them. They get stoned to death for it, but there are bona fide lusting adulteresses in Saudia and Afghanistan, women who have had pre-marital sex in India and Pakistan and then been killed or gang raped for it, Erica Jongs and Catherine Millets and Catherine the Greats and god knows how many anonymous ones giving in to god knows how many and how varied appetites.

Anyway, my point is that we don't know the tip of the iceberg of the truth about how women feel about sex because we won't let women talk about it--and, especially, act on it--with the freedom the men have to do so and not be punished for it.

As always, great discussion here. I don't have much new to add but I'm following along.

Sigh. It feels like, each time women take 1 step forward, the world drags us 10 steps back.

>237 LolaWalser: Agree that women haven't had the same social/cultural freedoms granted to straight men, but I'd really contest your second paragraph. How many countries outlaw (or have outlawed in the past) homosexuality between men while not even mentioning acts between women?

Google analysed popular movies and found men were seen and heard nearly twice as much as women, yet female led films do 16% better at the box office.

https://www.google.com/intl/en/about/main/gender-equality-films/

>239 wifilibrarian: How many countries outlaw (or have outlawed in the past) homosexuality between men while not even mentioning acts between women?

That is because men are supposed to fuck, not be fucked. But even so male on male sex is tolerated or ignored in specific circumstances -- ei, where women are unavailable.

But the absence of any mention of female/female sex is not some kind of implicit approval for lesbianism. It isn't mentioned because to the patriarchal mindset female sexual desire just doesn't exist unless it is directed at a man.

Also, since a patriarchal mind sees sex as power, domination, the possession of and objectification of the woman, female/female sex is almost irrelevant. Women are to be possessed, they can't possess. As a class they are powerless and thus can't exercise power.

The concept of a woman as a human being with an active sexual drive that she can choose to express in whatever way she desires -- that her choice is not dependent on or in service to the men in her sphere...that is utterly foreign to the patriarchal mind.

>208 jennybhatt: Margaret Atwood shared this on Facebook today: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/yes-the-handmaids-tale-is-femi...

I also thought this was an interesting (and frightening) commentary on The Handmaid's Tale: https://theestablishment.co/i-grew-up-in-a-fundamentalist-cult-the-handmaids-tal...

>239 wifilibrarian:

What Nicki said. The little import attached to lesbianism is actually another sign of the subjugation of women, not of privilege. Where women don't exist as subjects equal to men, what women want isn't even on the map. But note that where women DO try to establish themselves as subjects in their own right, one of the first accusations will be that they are sexually "abnormal" and variations thereof. Hillary Clinton was called a lesbian in what is practically a routine for any prominent, "uppity" woman.

But it's a complicated topic and I don't want to seem reductive about it, so I'd just emphasise that the one point I was making was about the asymmetrical social positions of men and women in general influencing how they express sexual desire. Just because women don't habitually cruise parks and toilets for recreational sex doesn't mean they have no experience of pure sheer lust.

>242 sturlington:

That whole "not feminist!" thing is too moronic and hateful for words. It's as if they thought calling it "feminist" would advertise against it being a spectacle of female suffering--always the best for ratings. But no need to fear at all, given the description! I'm not sure I have the stomach even to read it, let alone watch.

>242 sturlington:: Thanks for passing on. I do follow the Atwood page on FB but, somehow, missed this. Glad to read that Moss clarified herself in that HuffPo interview.

I've yet to watch the show. Planning to catch up this weekend. A couple of friends on FB have said it has been rather disturbing and raw.

>245 jennybhatt: I'm happy about the conversations it is provoking but I personally can't handle more feel bad TV right now. I need escapist fare.

>246 sturlington: Oh, I know what you mean. I gave up watching TV news a month of so ago for just that reason. I just read online now, though I can't say that's helping me feel great. But, at least, there are no stupid panelists yelling at each other with inane stuff.

I'll have to see if I have the cognitive energy left for this too.

>208 jennybhatt: There was an invitational screening in Toronto this week of episode one of the new Handmaid's Tale TV series. Simon Houpt writes about Atwood's comments in the post-screening Q&A in today's Globe and Mail. I can't say whether the link will work internationally.

I see that I was off track in #209 when I guessed that Atwood knew of the producers' plans when she sold the rights.

>248 librorumamans: Thanks for that link.

I loved this bit too:

“He made up for that by hiring a bunch of women in the writing room. Except he says he can’t get them to agree on things. ‘So – from a woman’s point of view, do you think this - ?’he would ask.” “‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ – and then they have a fight.”

“That’s instructive for him,” Atwood said. “Why should they not have different opinions? Men do.”