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Business as usual on OWF. :P
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Tell me about it. It's like amateur hour all up in here, and everyone's trying to reach the heights of Larry the Cable Guy.
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@ Dipstikk - Sorry man, I wasn't being clear (I keep doing that). My argument wasn't aimed at you, though what you said set me off ranting about something I've been thinking about for a while. I have a personal issue with someone who I thought I knew very well, but she insulted my own race and gender simply because, when she pressed me for an opinion of the article about Infamous 2 that I keep linking to, I said that it was nitpicking and that such arguments would be better suited against sexism-related issues that are actually harmful to people.
By doing what she did, she turned me against her cause rather than make me support it, even if feminism is a perfectly just cause. I actually didn't have much of a view on it in the first place, seeing as I didn't see gender as being a reason to discriminate, so therefore never really thought about it much until recently. That too was incredibly criminal and ignorant according to her. But as I said at the end of my last post, maybe my issue is with people who take things too far and become unreasonable.
There isn't anything in your last post that I disagree with. |
I apologize for playing the devil's advocate so often, and I hope you don't think I disagree with you or I'm ignoring you, but in a way, I understand her frustration. I've been there.
Now, I'm not going to say that this stuff has the power to re-ignite the days of lynching and reverse all feminism, but I don't think she was, either. I do think people subconsciously carry racist or misogynist ideas, because racism and misogyny are heavily institutionalized, at least in my society, the society this game was created in. I do think that the more people write these critics off as being "politically correct," the more we're saying, "we don't mind racism or sexism." I hate slippery slope arguments, but I also don't like the idea of racism or sexism becoming acceptable.
Imagine being a black woman who sees the trailer for this game, and sees Nix, a person who looks like her, who is in the same caste she belongs to, and the symbolic representation of being an evil temptress that the trailer invokes. She's dressed in a skimpy outfit, modern jewelry that the designers seem to be using to emulate tribal decorations, she speaks in an uneducated manner, she takes an almost sadistic delight in hurting people. Stereotypes that people of color and women can spend their whole lives trying to escape from, and to see them represented in the game so well... It's enough to make your heart sink.
I feel the same way whenever someone invites me to watch Austin Powers 2 and Fat Bastard waddles onto the screen, overplaying every filthy, disgusting fat stereotype by a mile. I'm back in middle school, bullies following me home, taking my backpack, calling me all kinds of wonderful names. I'm not comparing my experience to theirs, but I can use my experience to understand what they're feeling when they see characters like this.
In that same way, I can understand how you feel and I try not to be pushy about things of a sociological nature with people I like.
BUT CROSS ME, AND I'LL TURN ON YOU LIKE THAT!
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It's case and point of that right here - Taking a view too seriously and insulting people who don't agree with you is a very bad way of putting it across, like my friend did. Learn from her fail.
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I can definately understand that. On the other hand, my point was that many people DO take their positions seriously. I do, because it's a perspective that's personal to me. I actually wish MORE people would take the things they understand seriously, and that people would stop encouraging everyone to not give a fuck about every single thing in our lives.
Lots of people who take part in activism have been taking part in it for a long time, and getting the same responses from an ignorant majority sometimes wears the nerves down. Trust me on this, I've been there and I'm always going back there. You get called "apologetic" or "aggressive" or "paranoid" when you keep re-explaining your position to people who don't seem to ever "get it."
Unfortunately, people won't ever "get it" because there's not enough push for people to "get it" (and an even greater push back from the school of thought that feminism is "irrational"). There will always be an endless stream of victim blamers and he-men because our society kind of permits that. That's one of the ideas supporting the "patriarchal society" argument- most*modern societies value men over women. It sucks, and the only way to really start changing this is to stop demonizing feminism, for men to own up to the privileged status they enjoy without even realizing it, and then we can start to tackle this stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not excusing your friend's reaction. Rather, I'm acknowledging that there must be a joint effort- most of the world is not going to understand the feminist perspective unless it's explained to you in detail, and she can't hope to get people on her side if she writes everyone off as a misogynist. Unfortunately,
it's more common to meet someone who is a misogynist, looking for a feminist to "validate his belief" that women are irrational and feminists are supremacist. You get wary after a while and a lot of folks just end up saying, "fuck 'em." But like I said, mutually understanding this concept must be a joint effort.
So let's all have a joint. Pot will bring about peace.
TL;DR: Robotnik Robotnik Robotnik
