Senate Let's Talk: Feminism

Thanks for sharing that manhood article, I enjoyed it and the survey referenced. Lots to identify with.

 

The only real time I've ever felt bad about the "friend-zone" was a situation in which a girl couldn't decide if she actually wanted to be in a relationship with me or not. I just got sick of it and told her that I appreciate if she wants to have a friendship with me but expecting me to always be waiting as "the rebound" only for her to find someone else was frustrating and manipulative. It's one thing to be a friend in case something doesn't go well but to lead someone on (if you're either male or female) isn't right.

 

The idea of being "friend zoned" has much more to do with competition among men than it has to do with a man seeing a woman solely as a sexual conquest. When a man is "friend zoned" by a woman, he knows that inevitably this woman is eventually going to choose a man to become romantically and sexually involved with. So in his mind, he wonders what it is about him that makes this woman not choose him for that. Now, it's easy to criticize men and say they shouldn't be so insecure and should be above that and whatnot. I'm not commenting on whether this mentality is right or wrong. It is what it is, and I'm just being honest here. And obviously there are exceptions to it. I'm just saying that this is usually the primary reason for a man to consider himself to be "friend zoned" by a woman. It has very little to do with that man seeing that woman as purely a romantic or sexual conquest. And everything to do with how he sees himself among the competitive environment he is in among other men.

Also keep in mind that just because a man considers himself to be "friend zoned" by a woman does not mean that he cannot genuinely be friends with that woman. It's not all black and white. Just because a man has one thought does not mean he can't have another. We all have a complex array of emotions, outlooks, perspectives, etc. And it is possible to have several opposing thoughts, opinions, feelings, etc. at the same time and still remain within a decent moral and ethical framework. That is okay.

Sorry if this is offensive to anyone. And I hope I don't get banned again for writing this. I just happened to read this thread and felt like it warranted a decent response.

 

Whether you're attracted to someone as a romantic partner is based on a lot of different things and should not be seen as some sort of contest or competition on who is "better". People have different types. Maybe you're outgoing, loud and super social while she wants a quiet bookish nerd to chill and watch Netflix or discuss geeky things with together. Or maybe you're a quiet bookish nerd and she wants an extroverted social butterfly. Or she's super into hiking and skiing and you're not athletic, or the opposite, you're super athletic and into hiking and skiing and she'd rather spend her free time chilling out. Her picking another guy over you doesn't mean that guy is superior to you, it just means that she decided for whatever reason he was a better match for her. And once again, women get rejected all the time too by guys they're interested in and it doesn't mean that she's inferior to whichever woman the guy ends up with.

What annoys me about guys venting about being friend zoned is this view of women as these vending machines that they put kindness tokens into and sex/a relationship falls out. I've heard it over and over again "Well, I was so nice to her, I helped her move/comforted her when her ex boyfriend dumped her/listened to her when she was sad, why won't she date/have sex with me?" It doesn't work that way. Women aren't some credit system where if you do all this stuff for her she'll suddenly be like "Okay, he's reached his minimum credit of being nice to me, now I'll have sex with him!" You're not entitled to sex because you were nice to her. Also, there's a whole other problematic issue of being nice to a woman with the end goal of eventually having sex with/dating her, are you really that nice a guy if you've only been doing things that any other friend would do if you've had an ulterior motive the entire time and get mad when you don't get what you expected out of it?

 

A British football manager, David Moyes, told a female reporter she "might get a slap" for asking a question...

 

For ****'s sake

 

According to Moyes, it seems to be social acceptable to joke about violence towards women.

 

Indiana abortion mandate blocked.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...e-actual-male-friends/?utm_term=.804e5e88853a Article rebutting the absurd notion that it's inappropriate for a man and woman to spend 1 on 1 time together if they are not in a romantic relationship (aka Mike Pence).

 

That is the law of the land here. But, the English Football Association is one of the most conservative bodies in the UK. Moyes, from what I've read in the press, has been invited for a "talk" about his comments. The journalist in question did make an official compliment to the FA.

No fine, suspension or forced to make an official apology. Just a polite chat.

Jolly ol' ******' England.

 

If its so 'absurd' for a man to choose to avoid being alone with a woman he's not married to, why is this such a common trope in media? The married man (or woman) who decides to spend time alone with someone of the opposite sex in order to have an affair with that person. Or the married man who uses his position to take advantage of women. Or even the women who aggressively pursue men.

If there's no potential for misunderstanding, why do some male doctors have a nurse in the room when examining a female patient?

Let's say you have a married couple, one of whom committed adultery. The guilty party comes forward and they're forgiven and they decide to work on improving their marriage. And the 2 agree that in the future the guilty party should avoid being alone with someone of the opposite sex. This is true of anyone who's had any issue with any form of addiction....part of the recovery process is avoiding situations that place your sobriety at risk. And yes, this scenario is deliberately gender neutral since both men and women could be the guilty party.

On the other hand, its possible for men and women to be friends. Its really depends on the individuals, their culture, values and the situation.

 

Um yeah, we should not be basing our every day relationships on what common tropes in media are. It's also a common trope in media for a teenage girl to fall in love with a 900 year old vampire, doesn't mean that applies to real life.

If it's within your own marriage and you think your husband/wife is so weak-willed and unable to control their hormones they literally can't sit down for a business lunch with a colleague or business associate of the opposite sex without trying to have sex with them, then well firstly I question why you're in a marriage with so little trust, but that's your own marriage. But please don't apply some universal standard and judge my life as "inappropriate" as someone who is in a monogamous relationship but who frequently goes for 1-1 lunches/dinners/hockey games/movies with my male friends (many of whom are married or in serious relationships) based on some ridiculous idea that men and women can't be friends. (Somehow, I've managed to get through all those incidents over the years without ever sleeping with any of those guys, who who would have thought?)

As for Mike Pence, I don't care about his own marriage, but here's an article that explains much better than I could on why this is a much bigger problem than what goes on his own marriage.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/w...is-easy-to-mock-its-also-rape-culture-at-work

"At its core, Pence’s self-imposed ban is rape culture.

The explicit reasons for Pence’s restriction are religion and family, but the implicit reason is that he must avoid alone-time with women lest his stringent religious moral code fall apart in the presence of a little lipstick and décolletage. That is rape culture.

This is a vice-president who opposes abortion, who voted Thursday to break a Senate tie to strike a rule from the books that barred states from defunding abortion care services for political reasons. This is a man who has defended gay conversion therapy (though to what extent is debatable). This is a man who wrote the first bill to federally defund Planned Parenthood — which is much more than a sexual health care provider for millions of American women. This is a man who signed several bills restricting abortion access as governor of Indiana, one requiring aborted fetal remains be buried or cremated.

This is a man who sits to the right of a president who said he grabs women by the vagina because he can (and offer a rote apology years later). This is a man who sits in the whitest, malest cabinet since Ronald Reagan. One has to wonder if he meets alone with the four female Cabinet members, or whether his wife joins him like a chaperone in a period piece.

So, while Pence’s marriage is none of our business, his attitudes towards women are. And if, in 2017, he believes they remain such fallen, lascivious things that he can’t possible be in a room alone with them, it says less about his faith and more the fact he sees women as lesser beings."

 

Well, I think the original rationale with Billy Graham wasn't that he was afraid he would actually have sex with whatever woman he ended up being alone with. It was the idea that, as a minister who spent a lot of time traveling, he had to do everything he could to avoid the appearance of anything immoral going on. He didn't think, and neither did his wife, that he would lose control of his raging hormones and have sex with any woman he ended up being alone with; what he did think, and I get where he's coming from, is that as someone claiming to be a man of God, he needed to protect his ministry from even the allegation of wrong-doing. His ministry could have been destroyed by even the accusation that he was cheating on his wife. I'm not saying that it's a great practice or whatever, but I'm saying that I think the original rationale was never about preventing sexual behavior - it was about preventing the accusation/appearance of sexual behavior. I think the tendency of a lot of people to boil it down to "HE THINKS MEN CANT CONTROL THEMSELVES" is kind of missing the point.

For instance: "the implicit reason is that he must avoid alone-time with women lest his stringent religious moral code fall apart in the presence of a little lipstick and décolletage." I think that is entirely ridiculous. I don't think Mike Pence believes anything like that. I don't think that's why he has this rule in place. I think the rule is a kind of paranoid overreaction, but I would be willing to bet that both Pence & his wife see it as a way to avoid the appearance of anything untoward, not anything actually untoward.

 

I get the idea that the very suggestion of impropriety could be damaging to some. But there has got to be differentiation between, say, business lunches in public, or conferences in an office, as opposed to an out-of-town meeting in a motel room. Shutting women out of communication as a matter of "always" policy is damaging.

 

"Alone" is the operative word there. He and another member of the ministerial staff would probably have been fine. As most of these ministries run A)family members tend to be fairly highly ranked in their administrative structures anyway and B) most non-family senior staff were probably male. I think Rogue1.5's point is how radically different it is for a minister in a religious organization to apply such a principle as opposed to a public official attempting to do so.

 

And as a minister, that's different that Mike Pence who's a public official. It's his job to constantly go for business lunches and dinners with politicians and other key players to discuss business. Any VP is going to be expected to frequently be attending business lunches and dinners with other politicians and staff. So for him to shut out female staff and turn down lunches or dinners with female politicians because they happen to have a vagina is a much bigger deal than a private citizen who has those rules within their marriage. He's literally denying them a seat at the table because of their gender.

I also think the "People would gossip he was having an affair if he was seen with another woman!" is overblown. If he took Angela Merkel or Theresa May out for a business lunch in public to discuss politics, people seriously think that the rumours would start flying they were having an affair even though that's a fairly routine thing to happen if they were visiting?

(Also, if Mike Pence was actually really serious about the perception of impropriety based on his religious values then you'd think he wouldn't serve as the VP under a President who's been married three times, openly cheated on two of his wives and was caught on tape bragging about grabbing women's vaginas without their consent.)

 

Unless there's more to it than I saw in the video that comment from Moyes was delivered and taken in a very light hearted fashion, perhaps somewhat sexist but wholly unmerited of the reaction its gotten.

 

Yeah I agree in that respect it is but a lot of the reporting seems to suggest a threatening and dismissive manner from Moyes that simply wasn't present in the video I saw.

 

In public isn't alone. Having a one on one dinner at a public restaurant isn't, I don't think, what he's talking about. That's not being "alone." Unless, he's said something to the effect of not being one-on-one with a woman even in a public place. I mean, it's an overreaction anyway, but that would be even more stupid.

I agree completely about that. Absolutely. I mean, you'd think. I'm pretty disgusted by the number of "Christians" who somehow justified voting for Trump. Serving with him is an even higher level of hypocrisy.

 

Relevant to here too I think:

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-uk-politics-discussion.50026251/page-133#post-54250193

 

He said he wouldn't dine alone with another woman who is not his wife, which would include in a restaurant and also that he won't attend events that serve alcohol without his wife. That rule is pretty common among fundamentalist religious types, but like I said above it's a much bigger problem when it's the Vice President of the United States.

They're rallying around defending Bill O'Reilly now....so they can stop with the BS that they're against transgender bathrooms to protect women from being sexually assaulted, since it seems they're fine with women being assaulted or harassed by old white men.