Representation/Sexual Exploitation In the Media
 

First off, yeah I've been gone a while. I just needed some space and time to sort some shit out, but everything's more or less fine now, so yeah. I forgot my password, too, so there's that.

There may have been threads like this before but whatever, everyone's talking about NnT right now and I think there should be some OT activity for the people who haven't had chance to play it.

For a start, I agree that woman are often over-sexualised in the media, it's obvious, but at the same time, is it really as big of a deal as people make it out to be? There's also the fact that it happens to men, too, way more often than you'd think. The difference here is that it's often looked past because women kind of get "special treatment" in that department.
The thing is, everyone gets special treatment in one way or another, and everyone's fighting over everyone else's special treatment. I think that is the biggest problem with the "equality" thing in society these days.

I don't think its wrong we have so many unrealistically sexualised women in media because we all know that the key word is unrealistically. People aren't like that, and it's more offensive to men that people think we only think with our dicks. The thing is, men generally don't care about that, where as you have radical feminists and social justice warriors that will flip their shit about Wonder-Woman's costume. We're all pretty intelligent people and we know that women don't make orgasm noises when they wash their hair.

Another thing is that things like breast cancer adverts (warnings, not places to buy your own tumor) are always geared at women, yet you'd be surprised at the amount of men who can get the disease. I've also never seen anything on TV warning men about testicular cancer.

I guess my point is that feminism is essentially useless in the first world, as women may not be represented in the same way as men, but they are treated as equally as they can be. When it gets down to it, nobody is equal, and that's kind of what keeps things interesting. It's not a good thing when you've got a society or group where everyone is the same *cough*Tumblr*cough*iPhone users*cough*. There's no reason to get annoyed about over sexualisation in the media because not only is it common with both genders, but we know that it isn't real. These comments from a Facebook post are different ways of putting it, but they're basically saying the same thing.

http://puu.sh/b3QD3/45aa8ce2b5.png
I don't know what "testicular cancer robs a man of his sexual identity" means, but the point still stands, I guess.

http://puu.sh/b3Quv/2209b1e84c.png

Those radical feminists on Tumblr don't want equality, they want to be more privileged than men. In some respects women always will be more privileged than men, and in others men will be more privileged than women, but the issues begin when people start crying about it.

All this being said, I'm all for equality, but society is focusing its "efforts" in the wrong area. Sexism exists today, I won't deny that, but it isn't being fought in the right way. What's being fought is the way media portrays women etc. and that's just pointless in the end.
What about the people with power? Sexism and racism is much worse in politics.

Basically it goes from one extreme to the other, you've got the racists, homophobics and transphobics at one end, and then you've got the social justice warriors at the other who exist only to represent their respective groups horribly and give them a bad rep.

BUT WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Semi-related video.

It's great, it's like something off Brass Eye.

No good will come of this.

I do think that the one sided view of sexualization in media is bad, men get sexualized just about as much, I didn't exactly go and count. I do think though that we need to make it blatantly obvious that these people are unrealistically shaped, as I know too many people who think it's a fully achievable thing.

Nepsotic has raised a lot of points and most of them are bullshit, but it's late and I can't be bothered dealing with it.

I'll make one point: Sexualisation of women in the media is often done in a way that robs them of their dignity. Sexualisation of men in the media is usually done in a way that increases their dignity and makes them look stronger. There's a lot of history behind it, including the fact that women are generally shamed for being sexual while men are applauded for it.

I just want to say that any woman who doesn't want equality isn't a feminist, she's a misandrist. Feminism is still a really important part of first world society but I agree it has a more vital role in Asian societies than it does in Western Europe.

If I see one person raise a Tumblr opinion on this thread I'm going to send the person a nice fedora to add to their collection.

Too many of said misandrists are parading around as feminists though and moving modern feminism in a reeeally bad direction that's making a lot of people uncomfortable even exercising the thought they might be a feminist. For this reason I'm against the modern feminist movement in the west and would much prefer to stand on the grounds of full equality for all.

And yet, if I claim I'm egalitarian, I get attacked for illegitimizing the problems of people who are being oppressed, and I can not for the life of me understand how that works.oops accidentally oppressing myself by wanting everyone to be on a level playing field

Excuse me? Robs them of their dignity? There's a pretty big fucking assumption in there that a woman can not be proud of her own body and doesn't want to voluntarily show it off.

So you're basically saying that this is making the guy look stronger and this is demeaning to the girl, taking away her dignity? (Both links aren't full nude, but probably NSFW). If that's what you're saying, holy shit.

This is a two way street. Women enjoy seeing a naked in-shape male body just as much as men enjoy seeing a naked in-shape female body. The notion that women somehow don't enjoy their sexuality as much as men do (or shouldn't be allowed to) is completely preposterous.

Sexism exists because humans are sexual creatures. Men lust after beautiful women, so men put beautiful women in their commercials, movies, games to entice other men. Because they know what men like.

Flip the coin around and there are the women who lust after beautiful men. So the women put beautiful men in their commercials, movies (and sometimes games) to entice other women. Because they know what women like. There's a reason Christian Grey from 50 Shades is a tall handsome muscular man and not a short, bald, fat guy with glasses.

It happens equally in every medium but for some reason it's wrong for men to look at sexy women because women are told this 'objectifies' them. Which is bullshit. I can't for the life of me imagine how a man staring at a girl's ass for 2 minutes because it's so perfect can possibly be seen as insulting. If anything it's supposed to be a compliment.

Feminism is full equality for all though. Misandry =/= feminism. That's like saying the Soviet Union shed atheism in really bad light so I won't associate myself as an atheist and instead call myself a goddlessist. It's the same thing you're just branding yourself differently.

Feminism is fighting for gender equality and egalitarian is fighting for equality on all fronts not specifically gender, and even then feminism only focuses on the rights of men and women, and seems to exclude intersex/gender variant in the mix. from what I've seen. correct me if I'm wrong

And yes I know feminism isn't misandry did you even read my post

I have no qualms with saying I'm a feminist but I'm against the modern feminist movement because it's not being lead by feminists it's being lead by misandrists and a lot of people shy away from the term feminism because THEY equate feminism for misandry

What's modern feminism then? Can you show me some of the misandrists 'leading' the movement?

I wrote up a whole lot of shit and decided it was too much bullshit so I'll just sum it up. From what I've seen:

Current feminism is just trying to control women, the exact opposite of what it should be doing
Current feminism is harmful to both men and women in the same way the so called "patriarchy" is, and we need to be taking a different approach even though that's difficult since all political movements tend to devolve to be kyriarchal in the end anyways


I like some of those things they're doing in commercials and stuff where they're encouraging little girls to be more varied in their skill sets and not only focusing on dolls and sparkles though. That's very good. We need more of that.

I... actually can't pinpoint any specific feminist leaders because most of what I've seen was in passing, or shown in ideals held by very large groups of people. When an ideal is that wide spread, it usually trickled down by a leader or someone else in a position of power, OR it's spread along like telephone. I know a lot of the more menial issues with current feminism came from Tumblr bullshit, but that doesn't mean it should be dismissed. Tumblr's toxic ideals have seeped out into the real world on more than a few occasions.

A minority does not equal a whole, even if that minority is incredibly loud.

You keep talking about 'current feminism' but I really still don't know what you're talking about. Let's just ignore Tumblr keyboard warriors for a minute because they literally have no impact on anything ever outside of their little incestuous cliques.

Feminism is equality for everyone regardless of gender. Anyone who says they are a feminist but campaigns for anything other than equality is not a feminist.

I don't really know what to tell you man, it just seems like you've seen some vocal misandrists talking hate about men and decided the whole movement is a lost cause.

Nobody listen to Nate. I've been told from reliable sources that Zoe Quinn paid him in sexual favours to forward the Feminazi agenda.

On a serious note there are points I want to make, but I'll need to suffer through those awful terrible looking videos that Nep posted first and there's no fucking way I'm doing that sober.

I came back to say that this thread is fucking stupid

Yes, Tumblr is full of whiny overly-sensitive shits and there's plenty of man-hating sex-negative grouchycunt monster radfems out there, but the majority of women just want equal pay and not to be treated like a hysterical dainty flower. It still happens, it's still patronizing, and it's still conditional to certain situations.

Just like everything else.

That said, some women are evil cockslut bitches and deserve everything they get! And so do some men.

Seeya shitlords

I've got work, so I'll deal with this this later. But regarding those videos, these past few years I've been witness to the absolute spectacle of Thunderf00t going off the deep end into some truly psychotic behaviour, all of which revolves around his crazed opposition to feminism, about which he understands nothing and is willing to learn even less.

I'm currently running a pot on what side OANST is going to take in this debate and how much of an asshole he'll be about it.

All profits will go towards bringing back user profile information for the Native and Industrial themes, and/or buying Alcar a new spleen.

I'll put $1000 on him being on the opposite side of whatever side I'm on.

Edit: Wait, why are we betting if we can't win the pot?

It’s all just digital currency so it’s not like it matters. Like bitcoin!

A minority that is incredibly loud can be enough to avert people from joining in on a movement.

I've experienced the shit both online and offline.

The majority of people who claim to be feminists that I've met that are supposed to be advocating for feminism have not shown they are fighting for equality. This is a problem and why a lot of people have become anti-feminist, despite actually being feminist themselves, because these people are everywhere.

And yes, that's basically what happened, but I don't think the movement is a lost cause. I just believe a different approach needs to be taken.

Is the whole 'real women have curves' thing a feminist thing or is that something different?

I think that's a general "body positivity" thing gone wrong

I WILL FIGHT YOU

FIGHT ME YOU BASIC BITCH!

I have 1117 DogeCoins.

You do? That's wonderful!

Yes! Let's have an enjoyable, productive conversation about crytocurrency.

Cryptocurrency: the money of the future, today!

Especially in the regard that you can't buy anything with it right now.

Japan has the right idea here. Anime portraying gross infanitilizations of effeminate young men are a big market right now. Bonus points if they're touchy feely with one another.

It's sort of disgusting but hey, that's equality for you. Can't argue with what female fans want out of what they watch.

If this was true then holy shit it would take more than a pair of breasts to adveritize something. Men think with their dicks and we are socialized to think that women are objects and this is okay. It's been getting better, but it still exists.

That sure is a buzzword.

Gee I wonder why this could be.

Call me back when we have no pay gap, k?

Other considerations aside, you are far too white to speak that bullshit.

Nate's response to this was far more eloquent than the incoherent ramble I'd subject you to, but if you think that life doesn't imitate art you are dead wrong.

http://puu.sh/b3Quv/2209b1e84c.png
Soooooo creating insular male created and male orientated industries is okay with you...? You better watch those arguments you're co-opting sir.

The issue with inequality doesn't begin when people start crying about it. It begins with the inequality itself. I am struck dumb by this entirely vapid and unsubstantiated argument. Also you're assuming radfems are the be all and end all of third wave feminism and that's just not true.

Basically how are those two sides at all equivalent? Yes, TERFs and the like are awful, but holy shit so what? They're not in positions of power. They're not policy makers. Racists and homophobes and misogynists are.

Agender-panromantic-asexual-relationship anarchist says: reject ALL the normative relationship models!

— Tumblr dot TXT (@TumblrTXT) August 21, 2014

Are they? Are they really? Your homework shall be to collect the names of popular campaigners, authors and academics who are part of the Feminist Illuminati.

Make sure you don't get disappeared!

And yet, though roughly 50% of the human race is female every industry is male dominated on every level from concept to audience...?

http://bit.ly/1q7SVtR

If you say this in the context of a discussion about sex and gender what it sounds like you're saying is 'Yes women have it worse but I'm fighting for the rights of men too.' You have to use language relevant to the context of the discussion because most people are fucking idiots and will bite your head off because they think you meant something you didn't. There seems to be this misconception that there's a line called equality and we straight white males (Disclaimer: I'm not straight and I don't really identify with being male either, but that's not relevant here.) are either situated on the line or a bit below it. That's wrong. We are far above the line. If we need to be taken down a peg to allow those below the line to have some elbow room to climb, then so be it. Privilege is a zero sum game.

There's some unfortunate truth in this, but as it stands it's basically an appeal to worse problems. Feminists don't need to fight for trans rights just like they don't need to fight for the rights of starving African babies. Trans people can stand up for themselves and the eeeeeevil straight white males who control the world can support them. We have the privilege! You'll also find that a lot of feminist groups are openly supportive of trans groups which is nice but we shouldn't cloud the issue here.

I agree! But don't get men to make it.

Fucking Dashcon, man.

But I don't want to.

The more I like a character, the harder it is for me to read them as cishet.

— Tumblr dot TXT (@TumblrTXT) August 23, 2014

i slept on the floor last night and now my wings feel cramped/weird. They keep twitching and shifting, and I can’t seem to stop it.

— Tumblr dot TXT (@TumblrTXT) August 20, 2014

They're so funny!

I just went and quoted myself to remind everyone that Nate is superduper privileged (Thanks for that, God) and he's two degrees of separation from the Illuminati. Probably.

Haha I'm not entirely sober and I still didn't watch them!

The power of life imitates art in action. Strike Witch has watched too much bad anime and is now unable to distinguish between reality and fiction :(.

The problem with this argument is lots of men are much stupider than you could ever believe and this kind of thinking and behaviour is propagated and validated through the media's depiction of women. That's the beeee all and eeeeend all here. Ladies and gentlemen.

Rule of thumb: If you are medically healthy (Anorexia and obesity are not medically healthy) then anyone telling you what a real [insert group here] should look like is most definitely not on your side and is poisonous to your cause and your self-esteem. Ignore that shit and get it out of your life.

I have rum.

SCIENCE: IT'S A GIRL THING

This is good homework because I do need to find all the examples I was thinking of when I made that claim anyways

That's a matter of male/female equality in pay and work opportunity, which is not what I was talking about. It's not really that odd for more men to be making career as opposed to women who often choose to have children around the time they're 30, which slows down their career significantly. Men don't have this problem as much and, in turn for women having children, are deemed to provide for their family. They may be old values and stuff, but that's how things work. The majority of women simply don't want to invest more into their career after having had children.

Objectification is a really really really ambiguous thing that means different things to different people. To me objectification is something along the lines of a guy demanding a hot girl have sex with him because she's 'dressed like a slut and that's what she's at the party for'. For me it has absolutely nothing to do with checking out a girl and deciding for myself that she's attractive. Because that's a natural thing that everyone does, consciously or subconsciously, all the time. With everyone we meet.

And I'm not kidding, everyone does it. Men and women, there have been studies on this. When you see a person your eyes will be instantly checking out their sexual attractive regions whether you realize that or not. It's a part of human nature that can't possibly be branded as objectification.

Someone finding your body attractive should never ever be an insult. Not under any circumstance. The fact that to some people this IS an insult indicates to me that there's something very wrong with our society. And that might just have its roots back in the old morals and values of religion (which did and still does an amazing job at actually and truly objectifying women, by the way. Head scarfs and Burka's anyone? And the bible has its own share of passages that seriously oppress women).

So first of all

dis post, dis fucken post mang

Awright, now that I have that out of the way.
I think your perspective is highly skewed towards a version of 'feminism' that exists outside of the realm of actual activism but drifts more towards the 'shitty, loud people on the internet' realm of social advocacy groups.
Your statement that 'Women don't really need feminism' must come from a very ignorant understanding of first and second wave feminism if you have any at all. Splintered and confusing though feminism may seem there are structures within the various denominations of politically involved feminists that are advocating legitimate and constant concerns for women.
Contrary to what you have convinced yourself; Western men have it good. We live like kings and anyone you talk to advocating for 'Men's rights' is a DELUSIONAL FUCKING ASSHOLE and you need to very quickly empty their nauseating ideas out of your head.


Have you ever seen The Expendables or Eat Pray Love? One is a mediocre action film with cheap visual effects that hyperbolizes action movie cliches for fun and profit. One is a self-indulgent wading pool of the need for an escape from a Western society ruled by bumbling, balding ex-husbands. The competition that these two films had is a microcosm of how terrible women in western media are generally depicted.
The females in the Expandables consist of:
Attractive Blonde Biker Chick that leathery bootlike Mickey Rourke treats like a piece of meat.
Attractive Unfaithful Brunette Chick who is physically punished for not choosing the violent-murderer protagonist romantically.
And Attractive Ethnic Chick who can't do anything by herself.
The men are all basically superheroes who can do anything, and also Stone Cold Steve Austin. He gets burned to death. There is no female asskicker amongst them.
This was a film marketed as the ultimate 'guy' movie. A big loud bloodfest to entertain any denomination of assholes dumb enough to fall for the horrible marketing.
Eat Pray Love could arguably be considered the polar opposite of The Expendables in execution, but it can only exist as a piece of positive Female-oriented media by skewing everything into a cartoonish wonderland that can't exist in the real world. It's just as naive and pointless as the Expendables, but it's celebrated because it's an escape fantasy that leaves you feeling nice about pretty ladies.

Gaming is awful. Fuck videogames and the industry that churns them along. It's a corrupt juggernaut of poorly recycled ideas and fulfillment of various violent or social fantasies of one being some misanthropic grotesque. Whenever anyone brings up the 'Well, games really are being marketed more towards women lately.' argument. They've always conveniently forgotten that
A) Women are targeted for mobile gaming and cutesy trite shit like Candy Crush, not 'big boy' games like Skyrim or Fallout.
B) Look at Ivy from Soul Caliber. Look at her impossible cleavage. You think some even-tempered college educated female signed off on that? You think that a middle-aged factory working woman sees that and thinks 'Yup, that's a fair representation of my gender!'
Women are favored for seeming promiscuous and desirable only when it's convenient for men to be seeking one. Things are slowly changing (for the better if you ask me) but little things like The Wage Gap, all those missing Abroginal Women that the Canadian government isn't doing anything about indicate there's a very real indifference to the reality of gender inequality. The western world is ruled by old people, most of them old men. From political figures to the Elderly Voting bracket. And they have no fucking idea what to do with a world that constantly outpaces them at every turn. So they like to fuel the idea that things are better as they are, because they're old and stupid and they can't keep up with the growing reality of inequality at the core of Western society.

Women are still represented poorly in western media, and no quantity of your reading over feminist tumblr blogs is going to change that or justify Mens Rights assholes whining that their elderly mothers don't give them enough allowance.
Here's a great podcast consisting of various quotes from posters on MRA forums. Warning: If you are sensible human being this will probably piss you off.
Adam Corolla Would Look Better in a Burqa
The entire OP feels like someone's sheltered, naive political diarrhea. I suggest you research a point of view that challenges the doubtlessly extremely comfortable lifestyle you are provided.

Having that initial thought is fine, there isn't really any control over that. The issue is when people act based on those thoughts. I don't like that someone will see another person and then start treating them differently based on what they see.

Oh yes, me having to stick up for my brother when people start refusing to even talk to him because of his gender really proves that point. Or the fact that he can't get a job because hiring people are trying to get more girls to look like they're equal opportunity workplaces. Or I know! What about how every single argument he has seems to end with "Your opinions are bad because you're a guy."

So entire crowds of people are giving your bro the silent treatment? I agree with you; What gives? But I can't really follow without any context whatsoever. Maybe tell him to try talking to some other people?
The Laura Secord Chocolates Ice Cream Etc. Emporium in the Belleville mall (Laura Secord is a sort of dairy-oriented eEastern-Canadian phantom that some folk believes posessed cows to decieve Confederate Soldiers into turning over Slaves, it's true fucking google it) only hires women, so I applied for jobs elsewhere. Now I work at a ghost free movie facility full of popcorn and alarming soda. You'd be surprised how many businesses of all kinds require employees.
If someone is telling your brother his opinions are bad because he's a guy it's probably because that person has never heard someone with a penis say anything before in their entire lives. Once again, in what situation was your sibling addressed in the described way?

Part of it could be where we live, I admit. Around the Portland, Oregon, USA area men are usually just constantly hated and really treated unfairly, in an attempt at "equalizim."

That's actually pretty funny, I couldn't possibly name a place in the North America that I understand that would do such a thing except for Portland. He should start unicycling. I'm not even exaggerating when I say people will react entirely different to him.

There are two things I dislike about this statement.

Firstly it irks me when people matter-of-factually state x or y to not be a real feminist. Feminism has no concrete definition and the goals of mainstream feminist movements have changed much over time.

Additionally, I don't think many people consider themselves against equality. Some radical feminist may advocate things which to the general population seem very anti-male, but I won't assume any mean mean-spiritedness on her behalf. What is 'equality' is largely subjective.

I'll take this bit.

What about when someone threatens to rape you because they think you're attractive? I've had a friend tell me I was lucky I wasn't going to be in Chicago at the same time as him because "I'm so pretty [he] would rape me".

It is my fucking prerogative to choose when to take accept compliments or not. No one has to feel fucking honoured because someone else told them they are pretty, gorgeous, beautiful and I can tell you know women and men can take personal compliments as insulting.

e: Oooh new page, and would you look at the post I landed under.

Yeah, and as I literally just said, the term 'equality' is subjective. I've never heard any self-declared feminist claim to be against equality; though you may consider them as being such. Some feminists are anti-porn, some feminists are extremely transphobic, god knows what opinions the person who coined the term in its modern sense had. Decrying anyone who doesn't share your exact views as being not a feminist is totally non-productive and ultimately an argument of semantics.

How is "equality" a subjective term? It's a very clear term that shouldn't even have a debate on what it means. It comes from a math term, one of the most logical and un-arguable things around. Equality means things are equal, on the same level, or of the same value.

Responding to a Havoc thre-

Oh, carry on.