Plutonia, I'd like to use your post as a springboard for some general thoughts I have on the subject of the OP, if you don't mind, more because your post simply set me thinking than that I had any big problem with what you said or how you said it.
Plutonia wrote:So we are in the predicament where both the abuse (exploitative, unequal power relations) and the antidote of Identity Politics- yield the same result. How neat and tidy.
I'm not certain where this supposition of a supposed predicament might be drawn from. I'll try and guess based upon the information in your statement: let's see - you might be presuming that the power structure evoked by the implementation of the new rule and it's attendant results on the board have now overwhelmingly tilted to favor the women over the men, as a result of an exploitation of the new rules whether consciously or not, to the point of degraded overzealousness, yielding the current "predicament", i.e. several resigned, suspended and banned posters, and a wary remaining forum group essentially walking on eggshells.
It's just a guess, though. But however you view it, the remaining situation here is, in my opinion, completely unchanged with regards to certain fundamentals when compared to any previous normative state of affairs. In fact, I'd argue that it is literally impossible to implement any rule here at the forum which could affect or alter the baseline of misogyny which is experienced by the women on the board in any meaningful way. Let's have the new rule at hand for a moment:
Rigorous Intuition wrote:While Rigorous Intuition welcomes a range of informed perspectives, it is not intended to be a forum for the re-fighting of elemental human values. It should be assumed that this is a place where the dignity and rights of all people are respected. Members who challenge these rights may be regarded as disruptive, and members who habitually challenge them will be banned.
...
This is an anti-sexist board. We correctly assume that women, as a group, have been and continue to be the object of oppression based upon their gender. It is expected that members will respect the rights of women to justice and equality in all spheres of life, and to a positive experience of RI. Contending that feminism is a "New World Order plot" will not be permitted.
I have bolded the primary problematic particular of the new rule. "Members will respect the rights of women to justice and equality in all spheres of life, and to a positive experience of RI."
This section of the rule is unenforceable by any means known to anyone here at the forum. It simply cannot be regarded as practicable within the confines of the system as it exists today, and has existed for a long, long time. That is, it is beyond any reasonable scope of possibility that I or any other forum member can in any meaningful way cause this to happen. The culture and environment in which the board and its membership exists is
fundamentally and unequivocally androcentric. For example:
The vast majority of films are written & directed by men. This may result in an androcentric bias with most films (and film characters) being created from a male perspective. Of the top 250 grossing films in 2007, eighty two percent (82%) had no female writers & only 6% had a female director.[5] 70% of all film reviews published in the USA are written by men.[6] Therefore, not only do men have more influence than women over the story-line and characters of most films, they also have the most influence when it comes to publicly reviewing. Because most film reviewers are male, androcentric films (films from a masculine viewpoint) may tend to receive more glowing reviews than female-centric films.
A 2009 Study conducted by the Geena Davis Institute analysed 122 children's films (released between 2006 & 2009) and found both a male bias 'behind the scenes' of the films as we as a male bias in the content of the films.[7] Of this sample, 93% of directors, 87% of writers, and 80% of producers were male. Therefore, an androcentric (male) perspective was dominant in most of the films. The report argued that the male dominance behind most of the films was connected to a male bias (an androcentric bias) in the content of the films themselves. For instance, the majority (70.8%) of the speaking characters in these films were also male, and female characters were much more likely than male characters to be portrayed as beautiful. The report argued that " cinematic females are valued more than cinematic males for their looks, youthfulness, and sexy demeanor".
This is a cultural bias beyond the ken of forum wrangling over particulars, and is in essence a negation of any attempted imposition of any ruling to the contrary which it is possible to create here by fiat.
Any perceived normative bias toward "exploitative, unequal power relations" in favor of the females on the board is an outright illusion. Within this culture, there can be no such bias
by definition.
Plutonia wrote:In my opinion, abuse of every variety is endemic to the System, within which we here are but wee constituents - unless of course some of us here are monarchs, governors, dictators or CEO's. But I don't locate the psychic distortion's genesis in Capitalism, since exploitative and abusive power relations have taken many, even much worse forms, predating its invention. I consider that the origin of the System, as we receive it, is the State.
And this is how I imagine the State's inception:
At one time, all human groups plodded around as nomadic hunter gatherers. Then a few groups here and there figured out agriculture and herding. Because the agrarians stayed put, they were able to accumulate excess of both food and goods. This would have made the agrarians tasty targets for passing nomadic groups, now transformed into marauders, returning again and again to take from the agrarians first what they needed and then what they wanted. And if the villages were beset by competing groups of marauders? Isn't it likely that the villagers would decide to "hire" one of those groups of marauders to protect them from the others - though "hire" is the wrong verb for an essentially coerced arrangement? So that's it then. A protection racket.
I bet that in the moment after their subjugation, the men and women of those early agrarian communities began to relate to each other ... differently.
It's an interesting take, but I have a few changes I would make to your hypothetical prehistory as you laid it out...
- Semi-permanent dwellings almost certainly predated agriculture, and were based on staying where the food was plentiful.
- Neolithic communal groups consisted of male hunters and female gatherers in these permanent settlements.
- The women gathering grains were able to accumulate far more foodstuffs than the hunters.
- Carrying and processing the grain near the settlement gave rise to selected crops close to home, which produced a feedback loop creating even more abundant surplus.
- Hunters became largely superfluous - they would come home from the hunt with two days worth of deer meat for the village, only to find that the women had enough grain to last most of the year. This is the first instance of wealth, along with male resentment.
- Some part of the hunt must now stay behind to protect the stores of grain and the women from other raiding communities, and along with this,
- Hunting becomes ceremonial in nature, and food-types become gender branded, i.e. male steaks vs. female cereals.
- Then it's only a matter of time before protecting the communal grain and the women at the settlement becomes protecting "our" grain and "our" women, as male resentment solidifies into ownership, and the hunting group becomes the standing army.
- Before women were owned there were no husbands. From now on, ownership of women begets tyhe system of paternity, which is the genesis of the existing rape culture prevailing up to this day.
Let's be clear about this:
nothing important can change about the state of the world - about the state of constant war, about the plundering and destruction of the environment, about any of it -
until men change how they act and relate to women. It is a destructive systemic fault which is deeper than economic constructs, and deeper than the State. The State would not exist as we know it today without having sprung from male subjugation of women.
___________________________
Have you heard of the
Yale University Title XI complaint? It would seem to be a fair representation of the fundamental nature of androcentricism and misogyny within the culture:
Most of the Title IX Complaint documents a series of high-profile events that have taken place at Yale over the last seven years. In reverse chronological order:
Last October, 45 members and pledges of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, of which George W. Bush was once president, marched through Old Campus, where most Yale freshmen live. The 15 pledges chanted "No means yes, and yes means anal!" and "My name is Jack, I'm a necrophiliac, I fuck dead women and fill them with my semen!" The 30 older men shouted "Louder!"
No disciplinary action was taken.
In September 2009, an email ranking 53 freshmen women according to "how many beers it would take to have sex with them" circulated among fraternities and athletic teams, before going viral. The "Preseason Scouting Report" classified the women, who had arrived on campus only a few days before, under the headings "sobriety," "five beers," "ten beers" and "blackout," along with an overall grade of "HIT" or "miss," and some extra colorful commentary.
One of the students responsible, it seems, was quietly reprimanded by Yale's Executive Committee (the university's formal disciplinary body, better known as Excomm). But we can't be sure, because Excomm is strictly confidential.
In January 2008, over a dozen pledges for the Zeta Psi fraternity gathered in front of the Yale Women's Center shortly after midnight and shouted "Dick, dick, dick!" One Women's Center student employee was approaching the center at the time, but intimidated by the scene, she retreated and entered through a back door. The men then took a photo of themselves holding the sign "We Love Yale Sluts," uploaded the picture to Facebook and tagged themselves.
The Women's Center employee filed a complaint to Yale's Sexual Harassment Grievance Board, which was in fact created after another Title IX Complaint against Yale three decades ago. The case was then brought to the Excomm on the lesser charges of intimidation and harassment. The men were found not guilty, and the student wasn't allowed to appeal.
In May 2007, a group of over 150 medical students signed and submitted a letter requesting a review of the school's sexual harassment and assault policies. The Working Group that resulted found that students were unaware of the resources available to them, and also believed that if they were assaulted, their case might be dismissed, held against them, or their confidentiality breached.
According to the Title IX Complaint, no changes were made to Yale's sexual harassment and assault procedures.
In 2006, fraternity brothers surrounded the Yale Women's Center and shouted that favorite, familiar refrain: "No means yes, and yes means anal!"
No disciplinary action was taken.
Every year, the Yale Women's Center participates in Take Back the Night (TBTN), a nationwide rally against sexual violence. In the evening's solemn and stirring climax, students stand in a circle and share their experiences of sexual assault, often for the first time. As part of the event, rape survivors also decorate t-shirts and display them publicly on campus. The man who raped me is still at Yale; I hurt, but I am not silenced. They are a reminder to the Yale community that sexual violence happens, and happens here, and that its victims have a voice. In 2004, women were heckled by passerbys as they told their stories to the crowd. The next day, four t-shirts disappeared. In 2005, almost half of the 48 shirts were stolen.
No disciplinary action was taken.
So this is what freshmen women entering the most prestigious university in America, and possibly the finest in the world, have to expect as their introduction to higher learning:
- They will be sexually harrassed as a matter of course, and no authority will intervene.
- They will be sexually assaulted, and no one will be found accountable.
- They may be raped, and no one will be dismissed from the university.
- Any and all of these circumstances can and will routinely be used as a source of humor and frivolity by the men on campus, and no one will be in any significant way rebuked or held accountable.
The whole article by Claire Gordon is worth a read. But this stands out:
According to Excomm's annual reports, between 2007 and 2010, there were 17 cases of harassment and/or intimidation; 13 were withdrawn and 4 received reprimands. There were four cases of sexual assault; 1 was withdrawn and 3 received reprimands; and 1 case of sexual assault and rape, which was withdrawn. In this same time, 24 students were suspended, and 36 were put on probation, for cheating.
This is the culture the women here, and everywhere, learn to adjust to as best they can from infancy onward.
Rape culture 101:Rape culture is 1 in 6 women being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is not even talking about the reality that many women are sexually assaulted multiple times in their lives. Rape culture is the way in which the constant threat of sexual assault affects women's daily movements. Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you're alone, if you're with a stranger, if you're in a group, if you're in a group of strangers, if it's dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you're carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you're wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who's around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who's at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn't follow all the rules it's your fault.
Please read the whole thing, those of you who have a real interest in gaining a glimmer of what day-to-day, don't-get-dressed-without-it life is probably like for the vast majority of women here.
Honestly, I don't really care if people's feelings get hurt here about this. I know for a fact that if one in six women are sexually assaulted, the only real conclusion that can be drawn from that statistic is that men are, generally speaking, largely a bunch of fucking rapists. And until this attitude changes -
men's attitude toward women - the nature of the state will never change, the wars will never end, the pollution will keep pumping, the assaults will keep happening, the prisons will get fuller, and on and on.
The most dangerous traps are the ones you set for yourself. - Phillip Marlowe
