Why Do Men Keep Falling for Women's Manipulative Shaming Tactics?

[zengirl]

Taramere, I *DO* think the dumb dad thing is a real issue (albeit one we need to put in perspective; it's about on par as the dumb blonde jokes---wrong and cliched, but not exactly hugely incendiary). That's a good point. (ETA: Ironically, most of those sitcoms are written by men!)

 

I also think there are VARIOUS issues in socialization and cultural representation (TV, movies, etc) for men AND women. For instance, males being socialized to muffle their feelings (not as bad now but still happening) and have a stiff upper lip, and females being socialized to be passive aggressive or simply passive, rather than being given the tools to be assertive that most male children are given. Those two things both generally happen at childhood, and it is mostly at the family level. So, there's little we can do from a societal perspective except increase awareness. As to cultural representations, there are a myriad of problems as well.

 

The dumb dad thing bothers me a lot; I do like sitcoms that turn it around, such as Modern Family, where the dad is yes "dumb" at first glance but awesome, highly capable, and the glue that holds his family together; it feels a subversion of the genre, as the whole problem with the dumb dad is he usually relies on the smart, bossy mom to fix things, but the smart, bossy mom in that show usually needs the dumb dad's help to fix things (and he's much smarter about a lot of stuff -- the most important stuff -- than anyone else on that show). I'm not sure if everyone would see that as a subversion, though; I just think it's one of the clever things that show does. They also subvert a lot of other stuff.

 

But, none of those cultural representations really go back to what the OP was complaining about. He wasn't complaining about sitcoms claiming fathers were ineffectual or that boys aren't taught to express their feelings. He was complaining, essentially, about paying for dinner (on dates I'm pretty sure he never goes on, so in a theoretical way).

 

The misandry is much more subtle. Why is it that on a relationship board a man can't ask advice about what he is going through without being called a whiner?

 

He can. And many do. The OP is not having relationship troubles. He posted a rant aimed at a whole gender, based on hypothetical things that make him angry. I guarantee you that when women post rants, aimed at whole genders, they don't get any more fuzzy sympathy. I can also find posts where men have posted their actual problems (not hypothetical or self-created) and received plenty of sympathy and good-hearted advice.

 

As to venting, I have a low tolerance for venting in general unless it's acknowledged as venting (as, for example, TigressA did in her recent post) by the person venting. I think venting is actually rather selfish and wrong, for any person, if they don't tell the people they're speaking to that any feedback is irrelevant (which is what venting means, really).

 

Woggle, I don't live my life in a gender war. I do believe there is still a fight for equality and what's right --- for both genders, for people of all creeds, all colors, and all sexual orientations --- and I want to fight that and align with any person who wants to right wrongs, regardless of his/her gender, creed, sexual orientation, or color/cultural heritage. I think seeing life as a battle of the sexes is essentially being on the wrong side of that war. You can't right any wrongs if you see it that way.

Edited November 10, 2011 by zengirl

[Taramere]

As a blonde, that must quite an achievement!

 

(dives for cover)

 

Yes, sometimes I even remembered them. To be honest, I couldn't really get outraged about those jokes because at times I've lived them. That, to me, is the purpose of comedy. To remind us to laugh at ourselves (and not just at other people). To not take ourselves seriously 100% of the time.

 

and it always starts at some point. so by shrugging off a little thing one gives leeway to bigger things eventually. who are we to judge what is little and what is a big issue anyway. to some a sitcom with a dumb dad may be harmless and they shrug it off and laugh it off - to a father who's actually out there in the real world experiencing that kind of treatment by his wife, that sitcom might feel not so harmless anymore. kinda like some women and men shrug off porn, but to a woman that has experienced sexual violence a gonzo porn is not so funny.

 

I would certainly agree that it would be concerning if the sitcom involved a woman hitting a man or being emotionally abusive to him and people were encouraged to find that amusing. I'd have to get an example of the kind of scenario you're talking about to help me understand why watching a dumb dad stereotype in a sitcom might make a man feel as bad as watching the depiction of a blonde getting gang-raped, verbally abused and beaten up by 5 men in a gonzo porn film - and knowing that that film had been created for men to jerk off to - would make me feel.

 

However, your typical family sitcom doesn't contain violence or abuse. I realise that some people think it's abusive for one person to speak to another in a condescending way, which might be they're talking about when they say that these sitcoms are degrading. I don't really know what to say about that, other than that when abuse is employed to describe those situations then it gets to the point where pretty much everybody behaves abusively and the word is meaningless.

 

For me, possibly because of my professional background which at one point involved investigaing allegations of very serious abuse, abuse means harming or exploiting somebody who doesn't consent (or doesn't have the capacity to consent) and is unable to protect themselves. So it bothers me somewhat that my feelings about watching a depiction of violent rape should be regarded as comparable to a man's feelings about a man playing the clown and being spoken to in a condescending way on a sitcom. I think comparisons like that trivialise genuine abuse, and really don't do the Men's Rights Activist movement any favours.

 

Taramere, I *DO* think the dumb dad thing is a real issue (albeit one we need to put in perspective; it's about on par as the dumb blonde jokes---wrong and cliched, but not exactly hugely incendiary). That's a good point. (ETA: Ironically, most of those sitcoms are written by men!)

 

That's the thing. They're written by men, and I've seen lots of men laughing at them...yet in internet-land, it seems as though they're a massive offence perpetuated by women against men.

Edited November 10, 2011 by Taramere
bloody space bar

[zengirl]

The wage gap is a lie.

The glass ceiling is a lie.

The "patriarchy" is a lie.

Historical oppression of women by men? another lie.

Double standards in judging men and women for similar sexual behavior? Lie.

Men imposing housework or childbearing on women? Lie.

 

I think that about covers it.

 

Now back to the thread topic, anyone have anything to add about "shaming?"

 

Forget the whole list, and just focus on 'historical oppression' for a minute. We have 100% easy-to-locate proof on this. When did men get the right to vote in this country? When did women get it?

 

Unless you believe the history of our Constitution has been compromised in some grand conspiracy, there's no way you even believe what you just said.

 

A lot of the others are bunk too, but it'd take more in-depth statistics to refute them. All I need to refute the historical oppression is the 19th amendment, which isn't even 100 years old.

 

Granted, I don't go around being mad at today's men over my ancestors' oppression. Unless they say it never existed. Next you'll tell me there were no internment camps either.

[oaks]

As a blonde, that must quite an achievement!

 

 

Nice one!

[betterdeal]

Forget the whole list, and just focus on 'historical oppression' for a minute. We have 100% easy-to-locate proof on this. When did men get the right to vote in this country? When did women get it?

 

Around about 1920 in both cases in this country.

[Negative Nancy]

For me, possibly because of my professional background which at one point involved investigaing allegations of very serious abuse, abuse means harming or exploiting somebody who doesn't consent (or doesn't have the capacity to consent) and is unable to protect themselves. So it bothers me somewhat that my feelings about watching a depiction of violent rape should be regarded as comparable to a man's feelings about a man playing the clown and being spoken to in a condescending way on a sitcom. I think comparisons like that trivialise genuine abuse, and really don't do the Men's Rights Activist movement any favours.

 

I'm sure there's better (or rather: worse) examples than the one I brought up, but degradation is degradation.

 

A quick search found me this:

 

Male Abuse.

 

How would you guys like to don a dress and then ride a donkey backwards down the main street of your town? Everyone could line the street snickering and making fun of you.

 

I doubt if you would even consider it.

 

Yet, in medieval France, a man who had been physically abused by his wife was forced to do this so everyone could see how weak he was.

 

Male abuse by women: is it real?

 

We probably all accept the fact that both men and women can be the victim of emotional abuse. The "hen-pecked" man abused by his wife has been the brunt of jokes and cartoons forever.

 

Physical abuse is another story. In our society we think of women as the victims and men as the aggressors in physical abuse.

 

But that is not true. Equally as many, if not more, men are assaulted by their girlfriends or wives as vice versa.

 

A 1997 survey conducted among dating couples showed almost 30% of women admitting that they had used some form of physical aggression against their male partners within the dating cycle. This runs counter to official documentation of female abuse against men.

 

Why?

 

1. Less men report abuse. They are ashamed to report being abused by women.

 

2. Health care and law enforcement professionals are more likely to accept alternative explanations of abuse from a man. They will believe other reasons for the presence of bruises and other signs of injury.

 

3. Our justice system sometimes takes the word of the woman above the word of the man in abuse cases. It is just more believable that the aggressor was the man, not the woman.

 

4. Men will tolerate more pain than women. They are more likely to "grin and bear it." And again, many are ashamed to seek medical help for abuse.

 

5. Unless a woman uses a weapon (and many do), a woman usually does not have the strength of a man to inflict serious injury by abuse.

 

http://www.cyberparent.com/abuse/maleabuse.htm

[Taramere]

I also think there are VARIOUS issues in socialization and cultural representation (TV, movies, etc) for men AND women. For instance, males being socialized to muffle their feelings (not as bad now but still happening) and have a stiff upper lip, and females being socialized to be passive aggressive or simply passive, rather than being given the tools to be assertive that most male children are given. Those two things both generally happen at childhood, and it is mostly at the family level. So, there's little we can do from a societal perspective except increase awareness. As to cultural representations, there are a myriad of problems as well.

 

The dumb dad thing bothers me a lot; I do like sitcoms that turn it around, such as Modern Family, where the dad is yes "dumb" at first glance but awesome, highly capable, and the glue that holds his family together; it feels a subversion of the genre, as the whole problem with the dumb dad is he usually relies on the smart, bossy mom to fix things, but the smart, bossy mom in that show usually needs the dumb dad's help to fix things (and he's much smarter about a lot of stuff -- the most important stuff -- than anyone else on that show). I'm not sure if everyone would see that as a subversion, though; I just think it's one of the clever things that show does. They also subvert a lot of other stuff.

 

I don't see these things as problems so much as issues to challenge in debate. As happens on here. The sitcom portraying stereotypes offers people an opportunity to ask "well, is that how men/women perceive eachother? Is that stereotype true in your life? Are there actually aspects of these ridiculous characters that, if we drop our egos for a moment, we might recognise in ourselves?"

 

For me the dumb blonde character isn't threatening or insulting. It's just taking a tiny element of the kind of human foolishness or lack of common sense that you can see every day, blowing it up and encapsulating it in this easily recognisable "dumb blonde" character. Boyfriends I've had find it charming that they can see elements of that in me (and likewise, I've seen elements of dumb sitcom dad in them when they're playing the fool).

 

I don't think I could go through life being angry about that dumb blonde stereotype. If I were in a job where the dumb blonde stereotype was being used against me by somebody who clearly disliked me and was out to undermine me, then I'd deal with it....but not by demanding that society itself stops making childish jokes about blondes.

 

But, none of those cultural representations really go back to what the OP was complaining about. He wasn't complaining about sitcoms claiming fathers were ineffectual or that boys aren't taught to express their feelings. He was complaining, essentially, about paying for dinner (on dates I'm pretty sure he never goes on, so in a theoretical way).

 

I just don't understand, when there's this endless issue about paying for dinner dates, why people can't just go out for a drink on the first date. Take turns buying rounds. That's the norm where I live. Some men will insist on taking women out for dinner and treating them. There's a lot of money where I live, and it's mainly men who are earning the big bucks due to the lucrative local industry being a very male one.

 

If I get asked out by a guy I like, who wants to eat at his favourite restaurant and laughs at the notion of splitting the bill, Im not going to say "I can't let you pay, even though you've offered to treat me and want to treat me. What would the men of Loveshack say about that? Please let's just have a sandwich in Starbucks and take our calculators along so that the bill is worked out precisely and neither of us are so much as a penny out of pocket."

 

This is what gets me, on Loveshack. It's not enough for people to decide "here are my rules, and this is how I will conduct my life." They've got to call for some social movement whereby everybody else will follow the same rules - whether or not they want to - so that they don't feel like outliers.

[zengirl]

I don't see these things as problems so much as issues to challenge in debate. As happens on here. The sitcom portraying stereotypes offers people an opportunity to ask "well, is that how men/women perceive eachother? Is that stereotype true in your life? Are there actually aspects of these ridiculous characters that, if we drop our egos for a moment, we might recognise in ourselves?"

 

Very true, and I'm not angry at those sitcoms for existing. For the most part, I don't find the joke very funny, unless it's given a new twist. And I also think that idea that motherhood is more sacred than fatherhood (one that's going away) is problematic for both genders, but sitcoms themselves aren't a problem if we're able to discuss such issues openly and honestly.

 

For me the dumb blonde character isn't threatening or insulting. It's just taking a tiny element of the kind of human foolishness or lack of common sense that you can see every day, blowing it up and encapsulating it in this easily recognisable "dumb blonde" character. Boyfriends I've had find it charming that they can see elements of that in me (and likewise, I've seen elements of dumb sitcom dad in them when they're playing the fool).

 

I don't think I could go through life being angry about that dumb blonde stereotype. If I were in a job where the dumb blonde stereotype was being used against me by somebody who clearly disliked me and was out to undermine me, then I'd deal with it....but not by demanding that society itself stops making childish jokes about blondes.

 

All excellent points! FTR, it doesn't bother me when Asians are portrayed as nerds on TV shows either or Asian parents portrayed as controlling or whatever the stereotype, if it's done in an interesting way, and when it's not done in an interesting way, it doesn't bother me in a "That's racist!" way; it bothers me in a . . . "Yeah, that's lame," way.

 

I just don't understand, when there's this endless issue about paying for dinner dates, why people can't just go out for a drink on the first date. Take turns buying rounds. That's the norm where I live. Some men will insist on taking women out for dinner and treating them. There's a lot of money where I live, and it's mainly men who are earning the big bucks due to the lucrative local industry being a very male one.

 

If I get asked out by a guy I like, who wants to eat at his favourite restaurant and laughs at the notion of splitting the bill, Im not going to say "I can't let you pay, even though you've offered to treat me and want to treat me. What would the men of Loveshack say about that? Please let's just have a sandwich in Starbucks and take our calculators along so that the bill is worked out precisely and neither of us are so much as a penny out of pocket."

 

I don't think your date would go very well if you said that!

[Taramere]

I'm sure there's better (or rather: worse) examples than the one I brought up, but degradation is degradation.

 

A quick search found me this:

 

 

 

http://www.cyberparent.com/abuse/maleabuse.htm

 

I'm not questioning that abuse against men happens. What I'm questioning is the emphasis some men (and women too, as it turns out) place on trivia about sitcoms.

 

There's surely a difference between abusive behaviour that there should be zero tolerance for, and insulting parodies. I'm not at all keen on censoring humour...even when it's humour I find somewhat offensive. It's got to be pretty bad before it gets to that stage, and I just can't see how a dumb blonde or a bumbling dad stereotype can be perceived as so offensive that it's creating some kind of social problem.

[verhrzn]

Around about 1920 in both cases in this country.

 

I... what?? Both?

 

White men have had the right to vote (so long as they owned land and weren't Catholic or Jewish) since the beginning of the nation. Requiring property rights to vote are done away with between 1792 to 1856, depending on the state, so all white men can vote. In 1870 African American men are given the right to vote, so long as they are natural citizens.

 

Lastly, women (regardless of ethnicity) are given the right to vote in 1920.

 

Where in the world do you get "both" from that??

[betterdeal]

I just don't understand, when there's this endless issue about paying for dinner dates, why people can't just go out for a drink on the first date.

 

I think the issue is the "Real men " part, not the "have millions of dollars / can swim the Atlantic ocean / have a Y chromosome" bit that follows.

 

Why these threads go on for 20 pages is there are many posters who aren't interested in advising how to deal with such snipes and would rather write very long posts about something else.

 

Ignore it.

Tell them to go kick rocks

Laugh

Tell them to stop being mean

Tell them you're an imaginary man

Avoid them

Don't take ownership of their anger

 

That's essentially the options for responding without getting wound up about it and if that's what people were interested in imparting, the thread would have drifted its way down to the bottom quite naturally in one or two pages.

[betterdeal]

Where in the world do you get "both" from that??

 

From the UK, which is this country; the one I am in.

 

http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/chartists/keydates/

[dasein]

Are people seriously suggesting that these characters are created out of hate, or to promote hate...or to feed the viewer's desire to hate?

 

No, men sometimes toss "hate" around indiscriminately, but the primary "hatehatehate" callers aren't men.

 

As far as where the roles come from, they come from the audience and what the audience responds to. There are generally two branches of drama/comedy where gender stereotyping is concerned, some outliers but not that many. The first branch has limited mass appeal, off the top of my head, Seinfeld, Married with Children, Absolutely Fabulous, Family Guy, Always Sunny in Philadelphia are some comedies. 24, Law and Order, CSI some dramas. Plenty of good books. Lots of varied types of character actions and roles. Gender divided audience, gender neutral content, just plain funny, scary, dramatic. These kinds of shows/movies are a minority, and focused on a more intelligent audience of both genders IMO.

 

Then we get to the current majority of U.S. mass entertainment. Women control most U.S. household purchasing power and over half of overall wealth, women are more responsive to advertising.These shows allow us to hold a mirror up to what appeals to a female audience, how the average woman likes her mindless entertainment as the average man likes his sports and history shows. The category includes bestseller and romance novels, cinema, TV movies, sitcoms, drama shows, soap operas And the stereotypes are predictable. For males, there is the "stud," "buffoon," "evil white businessman," "crusader for women's causes (much overlap with the stud here)," "psychotic serial killer," "abuser not rising to psycho," "kindly harmless elder usually not white." Very few exceptions. For women there is the "practical yet all knowing career gal," "all-knowing sage mother," "all knowing carefree loveable floozy," " all knowing naughty but justified wrongdoer," and the "bitch." Few exceptions.

 

A perfect recent example of such lowbrow stuff would be the immensely popular "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" series of books, movies. Full to the brim of the most atrociously negatively slanted male characters, nazis, sadists, serial killers. Written by a man admittedly, but men pandering to a female audience is nothing new. Poorly written and plotted, not even a good mystery, hilarious in polarized "good and evil" excess. Offers some made up, unsourced statistic about men abusing women at the beginning of every chapter if the pandering weren't clear enough already. Women love it.

 

Now note the disparity in gender roles. The conclusion is, if he isn't f-ing her, the female audience prefers to view men negatively, and themselves as alternately all-knowing, faultless, justified in their bad behavior or juxtaposed to a competitive threat. To what extent do these mass media messages shape the attitudes of the female audience? Who knows? but that they are reflective of aspects of what women want to see, of preconceived gender attitudes is indisputable. After all, unpurchased entertainment does badly in the marketplace.

 

Does this rise to the level of misandry? I don't know for certain, probably. If women were contantly portrayed as psychos, sluts, weak, stupid, criminals, gullible, in mass entertainment, would that rise to the level of cultural misogyny as reflective of attitudes in the audience?

Edited November 10, 2011 by dasein

[Metis]

I make it a point to say that I am not talking about all women. I just want to ask are men allowed to express our views on relationships or are only women allowed to vent? It sure seems like some women around here want things to be one sided. It's like men are not allowed to be human.

 

You surely are allowed to express your views. As far as I can tell, no one deletes your posts. You don't get imprisoned or fined for your views. People disagreeing with you, criticizing you, or calling you on obvious falsehoods and hyperbole does not rise to the level of not allowing you to vent. Vent all you want. But inasmuch as YOU brought up the idea of having a "real debate", realize that it involves people, you know, debating you, and telling you you are wrong. If you can't handle that, that's your problem, not the problem of people criticizing you.

[Metis]

Girl with a Dragon Tattoo fails the Bechdel Test.

 

So does every movie (as far as I know) that certain men here like to invoke as some kind of evidence of a feminist conspiracy to malign men.

[dasein]

Forget the whole list, and just focus on 'historical oppression' for a minute. We have 100% easy-to-locate proof on this. When did men get the right to vote in this country? When did women get it?

 

Most men got the right to vote in the mid-late 1800s in the U.S., many women got it in the early 1900s, before the actual amendment. Regardless, the time between male voting rights and female voting in the U.S. in human historical terms is the length of a gnat's turd. For 99.99% of human history, .5% of people held ALL political power, and that highly concentrated power rested very often in the hands of a woman or women. That's "100% easy to locate proof." Go ask King Elizabeth.

 

Next you'll tell me there were no internment camps either.

 

Disgusting to compare anything women have experienced, as a gender, throughout history at the hands of men, as a gender, to the Holocaust, and the brave men, and women, who died and suffered to combat that evil.

[betterdeal]

Dillon Moran sums it up:

[dasein]

Girl with a Dragon Tattoo fails the Bechdel Test.

 

So does every movie (as far as I know) that certain men here like to invoke as some kind of evidence of a feminist conspiracy to malign men.

 

1. So what? was there a conclusion in that nebulous implication?

2. Specifically, the plot of the GWTDT is so full of men doing the most heinous things to women that there literally isn't ANY ROOM for any meaningful interaction between ANYONE. The book was originally titled "Men who Hate Women," could there BE any more blunt, obvious instrument? Restating, the mass female market LOVES it. Loves to see men portrayed in the most hideous light imagineable (unless it's "the stud" of course).

3. Misses the point, regardless of the "Bechdel Test," women FLOCK to this stuff in droves, so if indeed women talk to other women about nothing but men, it must be what they want to read and see. I can walk into any library or bookstore and find you 1000s of titles written by men or women that PASS the Bechdel test wasting away unsold on the shelves, but I assume that somehow men are forcing women to buy what men want them to buy, watch what men want them to watch.

 

There are all sorts of bad assumptions behind BS like the "Bechdel Test." Par for the course.

[Metis]

1. So what? was there a conclusion in that nebulous implication?

 

That it's not a "feminist" movie.

 

2. Specifically, the plot of the GWTDT is so full of men doing the most heinous things to women that there literally isn't ANY ROOM for any meaningful interaction between ANYONE. The book was originally titled "Men who Hate Women," could there BE any more blunt, obvious instrument? Restating, the mass female market LOVES it. Loves to see men portrayed in the most hideous light imagineable (unless it's "the stud" of course).

3. Misses the point, regardless of the "Bechdel Test," women FLOCK to this stuff in droves, so if indeed women talk to other women about nothing but men, it must be what they want to read and see. I can walk into any library or bookstore and find you 1000s of titles written by men or women that PASS the Bechdel test wasting away unsold on the shelves, but I assume that somehow men are forcing women to buy what men want them to buy, watch what men want them to watch.

Well, the plot of GWTDT bothers me, because being portrayed as a perpetual victim is degrading and because women have enough anxiety as it is about being hunted down by homicidal psychopaths. And I am a woman, so I assume (perhaps overly optimistically) that my opinion counts for something on this subject. I wasn't aware, however, that GWTDT was such a "chick flick", but whatever you say. And I don't think anyone here is claiming that men are forcing women to buy stuff. What women consider most important in their lives, however, is to a large extent influenced by upbringing.

 

There are all sorts of bad assumptions behind BS like the "Bechdel Test." Par for the course.

What bad assumptions are behind the Bechdel Test, praytell? The Bechdel Test, after all, excludes male-bashing items from its definition of non-sexist entertainment. So what's the problem? The idea of female characters whose interactions don't revolve around men for 2 minutes?

[dasein]

That it's not a "feminist" movie.

 

Once more, so what? None of anything I've posted hinges on whether something could be qualified as "feminist" or not, but as appealing to the mass female market for entertainment.

 

What bad assumptions are behind the Bechdel Test, praytell? The Bechdel Test, after all, excludes male-bashing items from its definition of non-sexist entertainment. So what's the problem? The idea of female characters whose interactions don't revolve around men for 2 minutes?

 

Have already made some very clear, for example, SO WHAT? So what if something "fails the Bechdel Test?" Just like so much feminist claptrap, some half-baked sociological pseudoconcept is tossed out as "to be accepted without question" and conclusive of something without any reasoning between the claptrap and the expected conclusion.

 

If the conclusion to be drawn is that women are often portrayed unrealistically in entertainment, then I agree with that. Nothing I've said contradicts it. If the conclusion is that because women are also sometimes portrayed unrealistically in entertainment that men have no right to be annoyed by the vastly greater amount of negative messages about men in entertainment, BS. If the conclusion is that because something fails some test means that it couldn't possibly be a good example of the stereotyping of men in entertainment, that's a total non sequitur, doesn't follow.

[Taramere]

A perfect recent example of such lowbrow stuff would be the immensely popular "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" series of books, movies. Full to the brim of the most atrociously negatively slanted male characters, nazis, sadists, serial killers. Written by a man admittedly, but men pandering to a female audience is nothing new. Poorly written and plotted, not even a good mystery, hilarious in polarized "good and evil" excess. Offers some made up, unsourced statistic about men abusing women at the beginning of every chapter if the pandering weren't clear enough already. Women love it.

 

That formula involving splitting between good and evil is standard low grade drama, though. If you read "The Uses of Enchantment" by Bruno Bettelheim, it examines how that polarisation is used in fairy tales to help children manage their negative feelings about parents. So for instance the wicked stepmother figure allows them to split off negative feelings about their mother and transfer them onto this evil figure.

 

 

Now note the disparity in gender roles. The conclusion is, if he isn't f-ing her, the female audience prefers to view men negatively, and themselves as alternately all-knowing, faultless, justified in their bad behavior or juxtaposed to a competitive threat. To what extent do these mass media messages shape the attitudes of the female audience? Who knows? but that they are reflective of aspects of what women want to see, of preconceived gender attitudes is indisputable. After all, unpurchased entertainment does badly in the marketplace.

 

I don't watch much tv, and what I do watch isn't really reflective of what you're saying here. The long tradition of comedy is that you have the double act. Consider the elements of that traditional double act.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_act

 

I would tend to see the bumbling husband and the sensible or competent wife as something that's in that comedic tradition. There's no reason why the man can't inhabit the straight man role. We have/had - don't know if it's still on - a comedy here called Keeping Up Appearances. The buffoon was a ridiculously snobbish, overbearing woman (Hyacinth Bucket) and her husband played long suffering straight man to her buffoon figure.

 

As a woman, I'd be quite happy to see more of that. Were I an actress, I think it would be a lot more fun to play the buffoon role...but when women inhabit that role, it's more often as the dippy neighbour or wife's mad and incompetent friend/sister.

 

My guess would be that in a sitcom where people are seeing the wife figure as having primary responsibility for the children, they'd feel uneasy about the wife being a buffoon or a space cadet. Perhaps there's no merit in that analysis, and the buffoon father/sensible wife combination exists purely to feed a desire in female viewers to see men (and their own friends, sisters and neighbours) being made to look ridiculous and incompetent.

 

If a particular tv programme is indeed marketed towards a female audience then they may well cast the woman in the role of genius surrounded by incompetents....but my guess is that when people are writing comedy, they have to actually find it funny themselves in order to write with conviction.

 

What I'm getting from your posts is that in analysing situations you start from the assumption that women have hostile intent towards men. That if situations involving men behaving like buffoons have been created by men (eg male scriptwriters creating comedy) then the answer is that they are indulging a predominantly female audience who want to see men being made to look foolish.

 

Maybe there's a distinct difference between British men and American men. If there really is a lot of strong negative feeling amongst men in the US re these sitcom bumblers, then that's in marked contrast to the popular perspective of men here....because a lot of our most popular programmes that have had a strong male following featured men behaving like incompetent clowns.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sitcom/top10.shtml

 

You can see mainly male critics giving their opinions on why the liked these comedies. Their opinions sound very familiar to me. Very much in line with opinions I'm used to hearing from men when they're talking about their favourite tv programmes. I honestly don't think I've ever heard a British man complain about men being portrayed as bumbling idiots on sitcoms. That's not to say they don't complain about it, but I certainly haven't heard it.

 

So is this a man thing generally...or is it a predominantly American complaint? Is there a possibility that American men are inclined to take themselves more seriously than British men do? From my limited experience of meeting American men I would say definitely not...but what you're telling me suggests that those men aren't typical, and that your outlook, whereby you take some offence when you see men being parodied, would be more representative?

[zengirl]

Most men got the right to vote in the mid-late 1800s in the U.S., many women got it in the early 1900s, before the actual amendment. Regardless, the time between male voting rights and female voting in the U.S. in human historical terms is the length of a gnat's turd. For 99.99% of human history, .5% of people held ALL political power, and that highly concentrated power rested very often in the hands of a woman or women. That's "100% easy to locate proof." Go ask King Elizabeth.

 

Actually, while Henry VIII's daughters DID both rise to the throne, their younger brother was first in line specifically because of his male birth. The fact that a few women ever held power historically does not change the fact that men made most of the laws. A woman still cannot, by the laws of the church, be Pope, and the faith was a major political power in its day (still is, though less, of course). A woman could, by the laws of England, be Queen, but it was very dissonant a thought, which was why Henry worried so about not having a son. Of course, Elizabeth became a great Queen, but not because it was easy for a woman to do so in those days, and she could never marry or else she would've lost a great portion of her power. Quite sad, really.

 

I kept it to U.S. history because it's recent and you cannot really claim it "didn't happen" but if you want to open up wide to the huge expanse of human history, women didn't get a fair shake. Not until about 50 years ago. Neither did lots of people, sure, but to say that men never oppressed women is like saying whites never oppressed blacks. It's just a flat-out lie.

 

Disgusting to compare anything women have experienced, as a gender, throughout history at the hands of men, as a gender, to the Holocaust, and the brave men, and women, who died and suffered to combat that evil.

 

Technically, I was referring to U.S. internment camps (internment of the Japanese). I'm not sure anyone has ever referred to the death camps of the Nazis as internment camps. But women have suffered --- and in some countries STILL suffer --- evils just as horrific for being women. What would women being forced onto funeral pyres if their husbands died first? What about women being considered the property of their father or husband? (Real laws from history state this explicitly!) What about women in some middle eastern countries who can still be put to death for being raped?

 

It exists. You just don't want to believe it. ETA: Obviously, I don't hold any of that against American men today, unless they don't believe it existed or flagrantly want women to be in those conditions again (the two sentiments are one in the same; those who refuse to learn and understand history are doomed to repeat it). I live a much nicer life than women in most other places or time periods, and I'm thankful, but you clearly don't know your history or want to blatantly lie about it for some reason.

Edited November 10, 2011 by zengirl

[Metis]

Once more, so what? None of anything I've posted hinges on whether something could be qualified as "feminist" or not, but as appealing to the mass female market for entertainment.

 

None of anything you've posted proves what does or does not appeal to the mass female market. You just throw the claim that GWTDT is a chick-flick out there as a fact 'cause you said so. Did you say something about throwing something out there "to be accepted without question and conclusive of something without any reasoning" to back it up? Yeah.

 

Have already made some very clear, for example, SO WHAT?

"So what?" is not an assumption on which the Bechdel Test is based.

 

So what if something "fails the Bechdel Test?" Just like so much feminist claptrap, some half-baked sociological pseudoconcept is tossed out as "to be accepted without question" and conclusive of something without any reasoning between the claptrap and the expected conclusion.

Any time someone states an opinion that you disagree with, you characterize it as being "tossed out as to be accepted without question". That is a value judgment that YOU project on the very act of women having opinions you don't agree with. Your interpretation of the very existence of an idea that you find unpalatable as a requirement that you accept it without question is utterly irrational. It shows that you are incapable of dialogue, let alone debate, thinking that your rights are abridged the moment other people's role in the conversation goes beyond merely agreeing with you. That's your problem, not women's, and certainly not mine.

 

If the conclusion is that because women are also sometimes portrayed unrealistically in entertainment that men have no right to be annoyed by the vastly greater amount of negative messages about men in entertainment, BS.

That's a strawman. No one has said that men have no right to be annoyed at something. Nor has anyone deprived men of the right to express their annoyance by legally suppressing their speech through criminal process. Beyond that, "the right to be annoyed" doesn't entail the right to have your words accepted at face value and never have to deal with the unpleasantness of a disagreement.

 

Also, the problem with movies like that isn't so much that women are portrayed unrealistically -- though there is that too -- as that they portray men as the default sex. Once a gender, or a racial or ethnic group is characterized as a "default", it doesn't matter that much whether it is portrayed positively or negatively. If a non-default group is portrayed negatively, the implication is that it should either be decimated or have its liberties curtailed or both. If a default group is portrayed negatively, at most, it is a reflection on how life just sucks and then you die, a/k/a too bad, so sad. Of course, it's more flattering to be portrayed in a positive light than in a negative light, but men being the default, if they are portrayed negatively, they are akin to a destructive force of nature; you can't punish them for this, or stop them from doing it by taking away their liberty any more than you can do this to an earthquake. Thus, men may get annoyed at negative messages about them, but to say that it's a "vastly greater amount" is myopic. Men, whether positive or negative characters, are portrayed as actors who possess free will and exercise it. Women, however, are invariably portrayed as objects for men to act upon, either for good or for ill -- and that portrayal is tremendously negative. Pointing that out is not tantamount to depriving men of the right to be annoyed at being presented as a bunch of rapists and Nazis.

 

If the conclusion is that because something fails some test means that it couldn't possibly be a good example of the stereotyping of men in entertainment, that's a total non sequitur, doesn't follow.

No, the conclusion is that because something fails the Bechdel Test, it is not a good example of how women are supposedly lauded at the expense of men.

[dasein]

That formula involving splitting between good and evil is standard low grade drama, though. If you read "The Uses of Enchantment" by Bruno Bettelheim, it examines how that polarisation is used in fairy tales to help children manage their negative feelings about parents. So for instance the wicked stepmother figure allows them to split off negative feelings about their mother and transfer them onto this evil figure.

 

What on earth does the above have to do with whether TGWTDT is a fair example of how the mass adult female market enjoys, consumes and responds to over the top negative portrayals of men?

 

We have/had - don't know if it's still on - a comedy here called Keeping Up Appearances. The buffoon was a ridiculously snobbish, overbearing woman (Hyacinth Bucket) and her husband played long suffering straight man to her buffoon figure.

 

That show is likely an example of the first type of entertainment I described. And as far as British/American, IME there is a big difference. Did you know that in the U.S. there are several cable channels devoted almost exclusively to low budget movies depicting women in the victim role 24/7? Usually at the hands of men, occasionally at the hands of a competitive "bitch" woman or an evil spirit or demon of some sort, but always victimized. Whole channels of nothing but, I kid you not! I am unaware of similar trends in British entertainment, but am certainly no expert. Yes, it could be more an American thing.

 

Pfft on the "American men are more sensitive" implication. Is that some subtle way to get back to the "shaming topic" via shaming?

 

If a particular tv programme is indeed marketed towards a female audience

 

There's not much "if" with a vast majority of it. It is plainly meant for a female audience. Other than certain reality shows, where dramatic, comedic programming is concerned, it is pretty much as I described it, a minority of more highbrow fare where who knows who will get the rubbishing next, and equally focused on male/female audience of a certain demographic, and the mass market lowbrow stuff targetted at a mass, predominately female audience, 90% of it translates straight into a soap opera format with little massaging.

 

What I'm getting from your posts is that in analysing situations you start from the assumption that women have hostile intent towards men.

 

You are certainly welcome to your opinion (it's wrong) and the accompanying straw men it entails.

[zengirl]

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was written by a man.

 

Nor is it a chick flick or chick lit, which is a specific genre, in both cases. Mystery novels, in general, are read by slightly more women than men, but that's true across the genre and they are not written solely for women.