From: chuckies@cs.mcgill.ca (Charles J. Savoie)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Shaming men's sexuality
Date: 15 Dec 92 15:56:42 GMT
Organization: SOCS - McGill University, Montreal, Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <1gaarvINNfb2@agate.berkeley.edu> mara@panix.com
(Mara Chibnik) writes:
>chuckies@cs.mcgill.ca (Charles J. Savoie) writes:
> >So you believe that hate literature is OK if there is enough [insert-your-
> >favourite-maligned-group-here]-positive literature around.
>
>I have yet to be persuaded that the cartoons in question actually
>constitute what I'd call hate literature. [...]

Generally OK with this so far...

>But there's another point that's more important here.  When a
>"minority" group complains about getting unfavorable exposure 
>it's generally in the context of an absence of *favorable* images to
>balance the bad ones.

Perhaps because a favourable image won't mark them as much?  But that's
another story.

Anyway, OK: I'm ready.  Spring on me your list of `cock-positive' works.
You know, all those recent works saying how beautiful and important
penises are.  I'll be sure to read them so I don't feel so bad about
hearing how ugly and disgusting penises are.

>[stuff about bad images of certain groups not being counterbalanced
> by positive images]

>You don't have this sort of argument when the issue concerns male
>characters.  (I don't mean Black Men, or Jewish Men, or Men Who Work
>On Wall Street, or any other subclass of men; I mean Men.)  So many
>characters are male that you have a huge selection of favorable and
>unfavorable images to choose from.  
>
>This isn't nearly so true for women.

Huh?  Is the proportion of male to female characters in movies these
days really that high?  Is it even over 1?  Even if there were 4 men
for every woman on the screen, given the `huge' selection of men
you wouldn't say there was even a `large' selection of women?  Not
even `nearly'?  IMHO your argument as to how there are many representations
of men, so a few that are negative don't matter, holds for women JUST
AS WELL.  If I think of all the female roles in movies I can remember,
I honestly can't decide whether there are more `favorable' or `unfavorable'
portrayals.

I really don't understand what you were trying to say.  If you mean
there aren't enough women on the screen to get both positive and
negative images, I think you're deluded.  If you mean that most of the
images of women in movies are negative, I again think you're deluded.
Sorry.

Also, while it's on my mind, could someone give me an example of a
*published* work which you believe is a female-bashing analogue to
the phrase "at least it [penis] didn't grow on your face".  I would
like to compare my own thoughts on the matter, and I can't think of
any right now which degrade all women's bodies in quite the same way
(but I'm sure it exists).

> >Face it, any possible complaint that anyone could have that men were
> >being maligned can be met with "well in a sense it's OK if you look at
> >the bigger picture" or "well there is so much of the same the other
> >way, who cares about this stuff?"  Well, it's still people being
> >harmed and harassed.
>
>Excuse me, that's a very silly argument.  Consider the ethnic joke.
>Now I know some that involve Russians and some involving Israelis,
>some with French or Irish or English or German; lots with Americans.
>None of these examples *always* turns out to be the butt of the
>humor.  But that's not so for Polish jokes.  I have never seen a
>Polish joke (except for Polish political humor; that's a different
>genre) in which the Pole was _not_ set up as the butt of the joke.
>It is not the same situation at all as with the others.  Are you
>really going to argue that they are equivalent?

Um, no, because I don't see the relevance.  Unless you're implying that
in every joke involving women, the butt of the joke is the woman
(which I think is preposterous), I don't see the relevance at all.
Can you possibly explain this better?  I've really tried but I can't
see your point.

>There is not a feminist viewpoint on this or on any other issue;

WOW.  Now *THAT'S* a quote-and-a-half.  Thanks, I must remember that
one for future arguments.

>If your article is an example of "starting to realize it" I fear for
>all of us.  This, of course, speaks not a whit to the merits or
>otherwise of the cartoon collection in question.

Nope, I realized it a long time ago.  But the original poster said she
was seeing more and more of this attitude (correct me if I'm wrong).  That
is who/what I meant by "starting to realize it".  Sorry to have confused
you.

>  Mara Chibnik
>  mara@panix.com                Life is too important to be taken seriously.

I think we must take life seriously at times, if we are to enjoy those
moments in which we don't have to.

Charles

-- 

,.. .  . .  . ,.. . . ... ,.. ,..   =====================================
|   |--| |  | |   |<   |  |-  `-.   Charles Savoie  chuckies@cs.mcgill.ca
`'' '  ' `''' `'' ' ` ''' `'' '''   =====================================


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