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Because for the purpose of rape prevention - not general safety, in which case it's fine advice - admonishing women to be "cautious" simply won't help the majority of rape victims (who are targeted by people they know personally and who would not be able to exercise distrust without taking extreme, prohibitive measures). Dressing modestly reduces verbal harassment, but rapists frequently target conservatively dressed women based on the assumption that they're less confident and less likely to put up a fight. The victim can't win, and most forms of safety advice that are rape-specific amount to little more than a placebo in practice.
And is being considered "default" really privileging? Men are considered expendable because they are "default" and less inherently worthy than women because they are "default," too. People care less about the emotions of men, and less accomplished men are considered less noteworthy, for the precise reason that men are considered "default" and women "other." So is being "default" really privileging?
Yes, because everything else is necessarily abnormal.
I still maintain that being a mother for 25 years is a better deal than getting drafted at 18 and getting tortured to death, if you don't die of a heart attack brought on by decades of grueling toil as a cubical worker. Don't get me wrong; I respect good mothers. They're part of the founding blocks of civilization. But men are equally important, and we get just as shafted as women when it comes to gender roles.
I've never met a "normal" person.
OK, look. It's like how, in the media industry, including a straight, white male protagonist is encouraged, even enforced in some circles. In order to make your protagonist female or gay, you are expected to justify that somehow. You don't need to justify giving him a high IQ or him being good at sports.
That's the difference. It's a difference in expectations.
Would an example help? I remember reading a study about small children who were asked questions about dolls that had either white or black skin. Most of them showed a strong preference for white dolls. Though our society no longer considers it acceptable to come out and say that blackness is less desirable than whiteness, whiteness is still very much the default in entertainment and advertising, and blackness is subsequently marginalized and, eventually, undervalued.
People have weird ideas about individuals with high IQs too, but that's not something they can see and judge so easily.
The same thing goes for feminine media and gay media. You won't find as many LGBT shows that have a straight male protagonist, or female underwear ads featuring a gay man trying on bras.
It's a bias, true, but it's only prevalent in modern culture because individual people feel this way.
EDIT: Sammy, paleness of skin has almost always been seen as desirable, because it's a sign of wealth and success. People who didn't work out in the fields had paler skin, and so it became associated with attractiveness. This trend has stayed true throughout history, from ancient Egypt to modern America.
But sorry, it wasn't my intention to derail this into media representations of marginalised groups. That was just an example.
Edit: So because the ancient Egyptians were apparently prejudiced against black people (citation needed, btw), that makes it OK?
"Sammy, paleness of skin has almost always been seen as desirable,
because it's a sign of wealth and success. People who didn't work out in
the fields had paler skin, and so it became associated with
attractiveness. This trend has stayed true throughout history, from
ancient Egypt to modern America."
I hear tanning is all the rage these days.
What are your thoughts on the media's portrayal of kinky hair?
When you're making a movie, you need to appeal to at least two of the big audiences: older male, older female, younger male, younger female, black audiences, etc. If you can't, it's much harder to get a movie greenlit.
As far as kinky hair goes, media has been fine. Haven't you noticed the trend of "curly-haired hot black woman" in advertising these days?
This would be like me saying that anyone who acts in accordance to authoritarian values automatically supports Hitler and the Nazi Party.
I'll believe that marketers need to appeal to the target audience via a
straight white male lead when one of Miyazaki's films bombs.
"She is saying that men who like porn support rape"
Financially, at best.
And while men are more likely to take the active role in heroism in any given plot, men are also more likely to take an active role in villainy. Most CompleteMonster characters are male, and most "pure" characters female; haven't you noticed?
^^^
>Male characters that don't "prove themselves" by being the protagonist, for instance, are considered worthless. Thus, a red shirt is much more likely to be male.
Or, in other words, the protagonist is usually male, as are most minor characters by default. Besides, the whole "women in refrigerators" thing demonstrates that female characters get unceremoniously killed off in fiction, too.
>This carries over to real life, too. (The draft, anyone?)
The draft is based on the (old, no longer so widely accepted) belief that men are stronger than women and women are unfit to be involved in warfare in any way.
>And while men are more likely to take the active role in heroism in any given plot, men are also more likely to take an active role in villainy. Most CompleteMonster characters are male, and most "pure" characters female; haven't you noticed?
Male characters are more likely to take an active role, period.
Still gender roles.
Yep. My point is that men struggle with a restrictive gender role, just like women do.
Or, in other words, the protagonist is usually male, as are most minor
characters by default. Besides, the whole "women in refrigerators"
thing demonstrates that female characters get unceremoniously killed off
in fiction, too.
But a female character who is killed off before she does anything evokes a lot more emotion than a male character who is killed off before he does anything, implying that women have more inherent worth than men do.
Male characters are more likely to take an active role, period.
Yes. My point is that that's not always to their favor.
Men are restricted to active roles, and women to passive ones. It's restrictive either way.
I don't know how one can tell how much worse it is for women and female gender roles than for men and male gender roles. I don't think it's productive to diminish one sex's problems by bring up the other sex's....
I can (and in the topic on the main forum, did) find five feminist blogs against this sort of thing. Hell, I can find five feminists who are specifically pro-porn. I could probably find 25 feminist blogs against man-hating, if I could find 25 feminist blogs period.
"All men are rape supporters"
Only one counterexample is required to disprove a conjecture. Here it is.