Caveat: I hesitate to open this line of argument, because I’m sure there will be a fella or two who, after the Hoyden/LP Coultergeist misogyny threads last week, might think that this is aimed squarely at them. Please be assured that this issue truly is much bigger than a coupla fellas on a coupla Oz progblogs.
The familiar phenomenon of sexism as the pervasive, multitudinous expressions of the “double standard” applied to men and women needs little explanation for most of us.
The canonical example of the male mugging victim rarely, if ever, being second-guessed as to “what he could have done differently” (when such second-guessing is the universal experience of the female rape victim) is merely one of the starker expressions of acculturated, reflexive sexism. (Reflexive sexism being unexamined attitudes rather than overt and deliberate misogyny, which is more easily understood and properly refrained from by all decent people.)
Another classic example of the overt reflexive double standard would be the gym teacher who made a teenage girl leave a weightlifting class because all the other students were male and he said she had to leave in case she might be assaulted by the boys: unthinkingly punishing the woman for male lack of self-control, either actual or hypothetical.
Then there’s a perennial favourite: the scowling men who puff themselves up to emphasise their height and weight advantage and then bark “Smile!” at women who are, through minding their own business, being insufficiently mindful of the submission display these men need to get through the day. 
Such men would generally deny that they are being domineering sexists (e.g. I just like it when women smile at me! What’s wrong with being more friendly?), despite the overt bullying nature of the reflexive behaviour.
But there is a more insidious reflexive sexism, which poisons relationships between men and women, because it flies under most people’s radar entirely. What I want to speak of is the special brand of reflexive sexism that I will call occulted sexism: hidden under either a layer of good intentions or a layer of dissembling; depending upon the person involved. (I use occulted here in the same way that astronomers use it.)
The sexism of low self-expectations, one might say. Where men who’ve had their consciousness raised regarding overt expressions of misogyny, and even who’ve had their eyes opened to certain reflexive double-standard attitudes, still haven’t entirely got “it”. The ones who want a cookie, a pat on the head, a bit of acknowledgement please for the amazing achievement of acting like a decent human being when around women.
Yes, the NiceGuys(TM) who want their gold stars.
Many blogular pixels have been expended upon the NiceGuys(TM). I’m not going to talk about the perpetual adolescent NiceGuy(TM) who thinks women are hypocrites for wanting to sleep with “jerks” instead of his niceynice self. That’s been done plenty, and I have nothing to add. I want to talk about the older NiceGuy(TM) who does in fact have relationships with women, relationships that last for some time. Yet in the end these relationships either fall apart or fester in mutual resentment.
Why? Mainly because these older NiceGuys(TM) keep on whining about not getting their gold stars for being NiceGuys(TM) when they treat us women no differently than they treat the males with whom they interact, or when they step up to do a fair share of domestic work (that they never thank the women around them for when the women do the work).
Suck it up, fellas.
If you don’t make a big fuss of thanks and congratulations when the women around you do a domestic task, don’t be offended if no woman gives you a gold star for the domestic task you’ve just completed.
If you don’t make a big song and dance when men at work listen to your good ideas, discuss them respectfully and maybe implement a few, then don’t expect your female colleagues to stop and specially thank you with a gold star if you listen to their good ideas etc.
Think about it.
You don’t get a gold star for not daydreaming at the office.
You don’t get a gold star for not cheating on the exam.
You don’t get a gold star for removing the private details of a male lawyer from your website when you’ve refused to remove pictures and private details of female law students who’ve objected to your website.
You don’t get a gold star for not embezzling from the company.
You don’t get a gold star for not speeding or not drink-driving.
You don’t get a gold star for not murdering.
That’s because there are certain standards that society expects decent human beings to adhere to as a matter of course, because they are ethically sound. Treating women like full human beings who deserve egalitarian interactions is a basic ethical standard, not some noble sacrifice that deserves recognition and praise. It’s basic decency, not a martyrdom.
Corollaries: generally, if you keep on expecting gold stars for stepping up to the plate of egalitarianism and common decency, you will be resented. This resentment will manifest in interactions and environments that are less pleasant for all concerned – i.e. including you – than they would be if you would just let go of the gold star mentality.
Now, there may be some fellas, and some fellas’ partners, out there who think I’m being unduly harsh, even though I’m not necessarily talking about them. Certainly I don’t think all men who state a goal of being non-sexist want their quota of gold stars every single day.
But it surely wouldn’t hurt most men to just have a quiet look inside yourself at how many gold stars you’ve expected lately, eh? Or for most women to take a quiet look at how many gold stars they’ve been expected to bestow.
Treating people decently shouldn’t need reinforcing with gold stars, or if it does the flow should go more than just one way. If a gold star discrepancy is poisoning your relationships, how can you do better?
Crossposted at Hoyden About Town
Don’t you write well, dear.
God love you. Luvvies and their little moral panics and rituals. I did not realize that there were women under the age of 50 who indulged in this kind of manufactured crises anymore. Will there be a “take back the night” march in Mosman y’all will be attending?
FDB:
[insert Sally Field Oscar-winner impression here]
One for the credit side of my ledger!
Humphrey McQueen raised a point vaguely related to this, but pointing in the opposite direction, in his collection of essays called “Temper Democratic“.
He said that it’s not necessarily a good idea for a woman to say ‘it’s about bloody time’ if a man starts to do housework he’s previously neglected.
Tactically, I can see his point, but I guess there would be a counter-argument that goes ‘Actually, I’m sick of having to think tactically just to get a man to pull his weight around the house’.
John Greenfield, the words you use follow all the rules of grammar and sentence construction, but I just don’t see how they in any way relate to the above article. Especially ‘manufactured crisis’.
You may wish to check out Textr, an application that lets you set up your own abbreviations. You could, for instance, just set it up so that when you type ‘arlsl’ it would turn your keystrokes into ‘Age-reading latte-sipping luvvies’, which would save you a fair bit of time.
You have some major issues!!
Bad luck.
Get over it.
As I said to my wife before she left me.
Funny, she never would explain why.
Then thereâ??s a perennial favourite: the scowling men who puff themselves up to emphasise their height and weight advantage and then bark â??Smile!â?? at women who are, through minding their own business, being insufficiently mindful of the submission display these men need to get through the day.
The world is full of jerks. If you’re going to get upset every time you come across one, no wonder you can get so angry about such insignificant behaviour.
I’d have thought that this reactionary crap from Greenfield, Razor and Halfweeg was a caricature written by Germaine Greer on one of her more self-righteous and less-relevant days, if I wasn’t seeing it appear in front of me.
And no, boys, I’m not angling for a gold star either.
Once you pratts have taken the femos down, can’t be long before the lefty beta (at best) males like me are in the sights.
Of course, any woman that simply mentions that sexist attitudes exist is “so angry” and sexist bullying is “insignificant” because Brendan says so.
By the way, any other Oz-bloggers who’ve put up a post for IWD/BASD, please put a link to it in comments seeing as LP doesn’t accept automated trackback pings.
Oh crap. Redirect here everyone who subscribes to the post-feminist (aka hallucinatory) world view. In a society where women are subjected to the greatest amount of violence, earn 85% of the pay of their similarly educated and experienced male peers and do most (I’m guessing 95%) of the unpaid work (child rearing, housework, volunteer work) we still have a situation where a mild call for men not to expect grovelling every time they do the dishes is greeted with “get over it”. (Not including you of course David).
Isn’t it strange how every expression of a political view which engages with issues predominantly experienced by women draws some variant of “oh you are just being emotive, *insert sexist diminutive here*.”
Fuck OFF NOB HEADS (please feel free to disemvowel, moderator).
I think people making this point should flesh it out more when they do.
Every job I’ve worked in, I’ve been paid the same as my female colleagues in the same role (most of my work has been done in call centres).
I assume this figure is driven by:
1) Women at higher levels of the corporate ladder getting paid less (which I can’t find myself getting too worried about)
and
2) Women being over-represented in lower-paid jobs, which is a real issue, IMO.
To people who work in standardised jobs like call centres, it appears at first glance that there is equal pay for equal work, so going a bit further to explain it might help to sink the point home a bit more.
Are there any factors I am missing?
David, there are usually two factors operating – vertical gender segregation (ie men clustered in the higher grades of an occupation or workplace) and horizontal gender segregation (ie women have the majority of jobs in industries where low pay prevail). With WorkChoices, though, it’s now becoming more common for men and women doing the same work to get unequal remuneration – because an excuse can always be found to distinguish between individuals on individual agreements.
Oh, and men are more likely to have full time jobs.
no disemvowelling required for good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon bluntness, Suze.
And don’t let FDB’s wit blind you to his general non-needing of gold starriness.
But yes, as to your general point, it’s amazing how the mildest pointing to the everyday intimate exercising of the double standard gets some goats, isn’t it?
But sadly predictable, tigtog.
For John Greenfield’s information, I’m 33. He might like to talk to some women trade unionists, or actually take note of actually existing women involved in feminist groups, and reconcieve his ludicrously stereotyped ideas. But that might stop him from using “luvvies” in every second comment. If he had to, you know, think about stuff.
What about when you want me to get a gold star?
Btw, great post, tigtog!
Ditto!
Thanks tig tog ( I notice I needed re-enconsonanting as well)- I was wise to FDB’s tongue in cheekiness, and was venting at Grassland, risible and halfweet.
I wonder whether there isn’t some general point to be made about how issues related to basic human rights and societal issues for women get enframed by men as purely personal, and interpersonal beefs hence all the “hey men get hurt too” style of refutation. (But I’ve been supping at the Feministe Barre et Grille and have got no further than wondering.)
I think the Whimiscal War of late 2006 is a good place to start.
That sort of thing is one of the reasons I value LP, even though my opinons are in a tiny minority here about 70% of the time.
Helen has a post up at Cast Iron Balcony:
http://castironbalcony.media2.org/?p=327
And Kirsty has a groovy picture for IWD:
http://galaxyofemptiness.blogspot.com/2007/03/hey-sistah.html
And Dr Cat had a post about sexism yesterday!
http://pavlovblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/not-at-all-dolce-gabbana.html
Every day is Blog Against Sexism Day!
Here’s my contribution.
PS – Ignore the wingnuts.
PPS – Tigtog, you’ll never get a husband with an attitude like that
Suze, only just noticed this comment because I didn’t think anything you said could have been referring to me, since I’m about seven years past my need for affirmation as a pro-feminist (thankfully).
I think the most pathetic thing I ever said while I was being a tryhard was that women should not learn formal logic because it was a ‘masculine construct’ or some bollocks like that [cringe, any jeering or criticism will be taken on the chin].
The young feminist who I said that to said that she found it very interesting indeed that just as women were starting to get their hands on these sort of analytical tools, there was an intellectual movement that tried to devalue them.
I’ve also had some rather painful realisations in the last seven-odd years about my own bullying habits, which is one of the reasons I live alone and do my own dishes.
But that’s enough about my problems. How can men be of actual use in a struggle for equality?
I’ll give you a gold star David.
I wrote a post yesterday (coincidentally with IWD) on how I got to be so angry about how women are regarded and treated. I am not panicked I am murderous. IWD shits me because it reminds me of how many times in recent years I’ve had to suffer the subtle and not so subtle put downs by men, young and old, who were threatened by me because I was intelligent, forthright, generally far less cowardly then they and alot less stupid. Such qualities as they should’ve had themselves but apparently realised they lacked and so instead attacked me for having them.
If you can’t get through the whole post, scroll to the bottom where there is a link to a paper that has just been written on the subject of women in Australia over the last 10 years.
link
DJ
Well, I maybe wrong, but my take is that men should treat women/men as people rather than indulging in gender – specific generalisations.
Matter of fact, I think the same should apply to women, too.
Might result in humanity though
Of course, Dr Cat! But today’s there’s a logo and tigtog gets to post a picture of a dinosaur!
[PARODY]
Well that spoils everything. You’re obviously not a real feminist.
[/PARODY]
Your attitude in your post appeals to my prejudice that freedom and rights are not given, they are won by defying the established order.
Your friend is a revisonist sell-out. I’d have advised you to glass him.
IMMEDIATE AND WORRIED DISCLAIMER: Yes, not the correct response, I know, but that’s my gut reaction. So let’s move on from there.
Serious suggestion instead of violent fantasy:
If that guy thought you were going to react in some way that would damage his pride or physical well-being, he would have been far less likely to do what he did.
This brings into sharp relief the differences between two quite different strategies to advance the freedom of women.
1) Winning male allies where possible.
2) Thinking ‘bugger asking the males to play nice, we need to get stronger so they won’t dare to muck with us. Let them deal with us on our terms.’
(NB not the same as separatism, which I think is a ridiculous and self-defeating strategy, although it can be of value as a short-term tactic in EG shelters for abused women and children)
BTW, the link to the document at the bottom of your post is broken.
Pterosaur, on one level I get and agree with what you are saying. I do all I can, and succeed a lot of the time. in treating my female friends as intellectual equals (not that they would let me get away with anything else).
But in a world where there are structural differences that affect the status of women v men, there may well be actions required that mean we have to go well beyond the implications of your suggestion.
Link, assuming you mean the study from the Democratic Audit people, this is the link to “How Well does Democracy serve Australian Women”. (pdf file).
Thanks David, here it is. Re arsehole in pub, he was a complete coward because he could see that my hands were quite literally full and that I had no way of defending myself. However, I rarely react violently in the instant, mostly intuiting that it is neither a smart thing to do or, on quick reflection, will it allow me to claim the moral highground. I don’t know what I should have done. My hands were full, but my feet were free maybe a swift kick to the shins or elsewhere might have sorted him out and then I could have had him ejected. I was probably mostly concerned however with not dropping a tray full of glasses.
The only way this ‘war’ (ducks under bombardment) will be won is through reason and commonsense, which under current regimes is not going to happen in my lifetime. It took the better part of at least 5000 years for it to be recognised by most men (not all and certainly not globally) that women were equally intelligent.
I don’t understand the post.
I havn’t expected any gold stars lately.
That’s the one David merci. I don’t know how to hyperlink a PDF file.
Oh, come on. Expecting praise for performing tasks others don’t particularly value is a very human trait. I’ve met tonnes of women (as well as a multitude of men) who act in the exact way tigtog describes above in all kinds of circumstances.
It’s more revealing that this very commonplace manifestation of the ego has been turned into a gender issue. The old saying about everything looking like a nail when you’re a hammer springs to mind.
Link, it should work in the same way as linking to any other web address. If you are using the Firefox browser, I went to the ‘focus’ page that you linked to above, right-clicked on the link to the pdf file and pressed ‘copy link location’ in the menu that appeared when I right-clicked.
I then came back here, selected the words: ‘this is the link to â??How Well does Democracy serve Australian Womenâ??’ in my post, clicked the ‘link’ button at the top of the comment box and pressed ‘paste’ so that the link address to the pdf file appeared in the dialog box. I then pressed ‘OK’ on the dialog box and the link was added to my post.
Let me know if this is still unclear, or if you are not using Firefox on a PC. In particular, tell me what you see in the menu that appears when you right-click on the link to the pdf file.
James Waterton, if there is already structural inequality in the world (which I believe there is), then a desire for unearned gold stars will weigh more heavily on women than men, even if your assertion that men and women display this tendency equally is true.
This is because men will be more able than women to successfully obtain these stars, and women will have to provide them, or face the consequences for not providing them.
In any case, the fact that something is a common human behaviour doesn’t mean that it means the same in every context. Look for instance at the stats on comparative unpaid homework done by cohabiting couples over the last 30 years – there are many rigorous studies on this. It’s not moved all that much – women still do most of it. But the “gold star” – “look, honey, I cooked dinner” – line clearly invites praise for doing something which is utterly routine and normal for the other partner in terms of expectations and gender roles. Laura had an interesting post (either here or at her blog, I forget) where she looked at some crummy gift book of “romantic cheques” you could buy your (female) Valentine – full of stuff like “I promise not to watch tv tonight and have a meaningful conversation”. Interestingly, all these were couched in terms of women’s nagging and though supposedly benefitting the female partner, were supposed to result in a sexual “reward” for the male.
Bush and IWD:
http://www.democrats.com/node/12205
While we all know that anecdote is not proof, it can’t be a coincidence — ie these stories get told all the time, because they happen all the time — that when I went to meet my oldest friend just this afternoon to buy her a birthday drink (SA sparkling red, aaaaahhh), she told me a story about her early-retired (ie has the whole day free except when he’s playing with his shares) partner proudly saying, when she arrived home from work exhausted, ‘Look, I did the washing!’ and gesturing at the unfolded, unironed clothes spread all over the house — including the six clean shirts, three pairs of impossible R. M. Williams moleskins and 4,000 handkerchiefs of his that she was then expected to iron and put away.
Dr Cat, there are actually studies I’m aware of which point to partnered men having the quickest advancement in their professional careers because someone else washes their socks and irons their shirts and cooks them dinner. True stories! Careers don’t just rest on talent and application, but also on a usually invisible support and care network. Of course, most sistahs have to do it by themselves!
Kim, it’s decades out of date now, but Vance Packard‘s The Pyramid Climbers makes the point that part of the constant, intrusive surveillance and judgement of American corporate managers was an assessment of how ‘suitable’ wives were. Suitablility implied the ability to entertain successfully, to be presentable at corporate functions, to support the husband’s career etc.
Men with more ‘suitable’ wives were far more likely to be promoted, according to Packard.
Once you pratts have taken the femos down, can’t be long before the lefty beta (at best) males like me are in the sights.
Lefties are always in my sights. Equality before the law is not feminism or leftism, it is something I firmly believe in. I don’t believe in equality in outcomes because I know that not everyone has the same objectives or ability or access to resources. The best we can do is allow people to fulfill their potential (pursuing their own personal objectives) within the limits of their ability and access to resources.
Leftists and feminists seek to blame lack of equality in outcomes on these differences, and then go about trying to minimise them by alienating (sometimes even punishing) those with different objectives, abilities and access to resources through collectivisation (grouping disparate individuals together, such as treating women as a homogeneous group), affirmative action (discounting merit over dicersity) and wealth redistribution (punishing hard work and reward for ability).
Leftists discount personal choice in the lack of equality in outcomes, because they often see personal choice as a failing of human nature. From this perspective, people’s failure to make the correct decision is a failure of the education system for not giving them enough information, society’s fault for not encouraging them in the right direction, the privileged’s fault for, for, well, for being privileged and creating envy, and for being prejudiced, and well, for being humans with failings like everyone else, but having economic means and resources that means that they don’t have to suffer for their failings.
Of course, any woman that simply mentions that sexist attitudes exist is â??so angryâ?? and sexist bullying is â??insignificantâ?? because Brendan says so.
I’m sorry, I got the impression that you were quite angry about this behaviour, you weren’t seeming to dismiss it as a minor annoyance. Being pissed of at an idividual who immaturely seeks to peacock about is one thing, but you seemd to have a bigger agenda than simply your own personal experience. I was getting the feeling of “All men are jerks, even the ones that try to be nice” coming out of your post, sorry if I’ve misinterpreted.
I look down on anyone that needs to be fawned or flattered in order to have self worth, male or female. I do, however, get pissed off by feminists having “All men are assholes” rants.
“feminists having â??All men are assholesâ?? rants.”
I didn’t get that impression from this post. And I’m speaking as a real equal opportunity asshole.
And Brendan I suspect some of the things you’ve just said are gonna get ripped to shreds over the next 48 hours in a way that’ll make you feel quite patronized, insulted and throughly bristling over others lack of empathy with how you see your place in the world. Cheer up though, you won’t be alone. Around 50% of the planet quite often feels the same way.
Personally I reckon we’ll have only achieved true equality of the sexes when we see as many incompentent women as men promoted beyond their ability.
But it’s true men are innately superior at some things. Like for instance, employing cursive lettering when writing one’s name in the snow.
No, you don’t get a “gold star” for not doing things – but “treating women (or anyone else) like human beings” is a positive thing, not the absence of a negative one. A person who observes positive standards has a right to expect that they in turn will be treated with a measure of respect beyond that given to someone who has merely neglected to murder anyone lately. It’s possible to read this post (the last few paras in particular) and conclude that the writer doesn’t believe this, because no definition is given for this concept of “expecting gold stars”. Indeed, we are not even sure if gold star expectations are bad things intrinsically, or are merely distributed inequitably.
I didn’t get that impression from this post. And I’m speaking as a real equal opportunity asshole.
Praytell, what exactly is a real equal opportunity asshole? Do you drive around in 1967 Cadilac El Dorado Convertable, hot pink, with whale skin hub caps, an all leather cow interior and big brown baby seal eyes for headlights (to paraphrase the immortal Denis Leary)?
And Brendan I suspect some of the things you’ve just said are gonna get ripped to shreds over the next 48 hours in a way that’ll make you feel quite patronized, insulted and throughly bristling over others lack of empathy with how you see your place in the world.
I doubt I’ll feel too patronized, I’ll be probably be insulted, but feel insulted, unlikely (although I do like a good humourous coal raking), and I don’t really need empathy, so bristling for lack of it might be crossed off the list as well.
Like I’ve already stated, I do believe in women’s (everybody’s)equality before the law, I just don’t believe in equality of outcomes. I don’t believe the law should be used to try to direct more equality in outcomes either.
I don’t have a lot of time for pople who don’t respect people either, and I don’t mean respect their ideas or beliefs, ideas and beliefs are there to be challenged, not accepted.
Complaining about petty behaviour and dressing it up as sexism is counter-productive.
Nabakov
I think that you nailed it right there. There is a reason why it is called the “Peter principle” and not the “Mary principle”. A feature of the phenomenon is that the competent are kept doing the work and the incompetent are promoted to get them out of the way.
There are a number of things that women can do to improve their lot.
1. Write the rules down so that men don’t have to clumsily stumble across them by accident.
2. Dull off their highly selective memories.
3. Become more entrepreneurial.
4. Stop protecting abusive arsehole men.
5. Do what my wife does and just don’t do the housework.
Try it. It might work.
suze says,
How does such drivel persist without serious scrutiny? Shouldn’t we see a ubiquitous number of women walking around with black eyes and busted lips panhandling for that 15% in stolen wages? Last week 1 in 4 women were victims of rape and were only making 72 cents on the dollar. This week they only make 85 cents on the dollar (about a 20% increase) and if 25% of women are victims of rape then one could conclude that a greater number of women are victims of assault. Where are these 30, 40, 50% of women that are “subject to the greatest amount of violence?” The average man should have about 3-4 lady friends out of every 10 that are battered and bruised with pennies in their pockets. Is this reality?
Because it was first articulated by Dr Laurence J Peter.
David
No! even Dr Peter new who buttered his bread. The maid not the butler.
BilB, it’s probably safe to assume that Dr Peter had the implications and advantages of sexism all around him, but that is his name on the principle, and is not in itself ment to be a criticism of gender equality.
But yeah, I’m sure his maid (if he had one) did more work than his butler.
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Which is another way of saying that some leftists, and some feminists and pro-feminists, reject the idea that formal legal equality, in itself, could ever be enough to guarantee even a fighting chance of a good life for many people.
We can aspire to far more than that. We can also study the structures and habits of society that keep some people less fulfilled than others, and seek to change those structures and habits. We can also aspire to raise people’s abilities and make it easier for them to get access to resources.
Petty behaviour as described by tigtog is a constant drip-feed of low-grade sexism that directly helps to enforce the current structures of inequality. What is counter-productive is accepting it as in some way natural or inevitable, and deciding that the world can never be changed.
Oh my GOD! ? Have I been listening to feminists? Who think that society might need to be altered? I feel betrayed.
Perhaps some sort of warning label on the top of LP might make this less likely in future:
WARNING! Despite our best efforts, some posts by feminists challenging the structure of society appear now and again on LP.
We apologise for this, and know you will understand that ever since they got the vote, the women are getting harder and harder to handle.
Oh, FFS! Just how much does a feminist need to walk on eggshells to not have demeaning crap like this turn up in a comments box?
It’s as jaded and pathetic as ‘a feminist yelled at me because I held the door open for her’.
And FWIW, I’ve held doors open for hundreds of women, and have not once been criticised. And if an unreasonable woman claims that I am being patronising by doing so, I will glare at her and say that “I held the door out of politeness, and would expect you to do the same if you were walking ahead of me.”
Not that I expect to ever have to use it
Brendan:
That’s actually a very good summation of the gold-starrers. You are also right to point out that it’s not only male-female interactions where gold stars are expected.
Strawman. What leftists advocate is equality of opportunity, on the assumption that if there is true equality of opportunity then equality of outcomes (demographically) will naturally be the result.
Captain Wacky:
Treating any other human being as a human being is a positive act, not merely the absence of a negative? Really? Your default state, that you have to make a conscious effort to overcome in every single human interaction, is to treat all other people as not human?
Gold stars are a useful transitional training tool in a wide variety of situations, including that of the proto-profeminist. The inequitable distribution of them in any relationship outside a training period is going to foster resentments. Resentments accumulating in either personal or professional relationships are hardly positive.
I’m a tad curious why nearly everyone’s concentrating on the domestic chores side rather than addressing the listening equally to female colleagues side.
Personally, I’m much better at treating female colleagues equally than doing my share of the housework.
trolldaddy (whom the moderator – moi – has whimsically decided to allow through this time):
Addressing only the bolded portions
1) maybe (just maybe) the discrepancy is the differeing rates of pay between your country and our country? Rather than some terrible evil feminist lie?
2) Seeing as how your lady friends would only come from the set of women who aren’t too afraid/bruised/controlled to go out of their homes, how would you know?
If you can address this logically without the usual flecks of spittle I might let your next coment through too.
1. WTF are you like, 7
2. WTF??
3. WTF squared
4. Ah yes the abused are required to take the abuser firmly in hand that is definitely the answer
5. Done.
Where’s your list of what men can do?
Here’s mine;
Take responsibility for your own shit.
Finis
Well written, TT. A gold star for you.
FdG at 9:43am:
Vrrrooooooooooooommmm!
Tigtog: Great Post!
As for Brendan Halfwit, Trolldaddy, John Greenfield, and Razor – thank you for always being there to prove the importance of the feminist movement. People like you only serve to reinforce for me the very reasons why we need to continue to critically examine societal attitudes and structures and to fight for our right to equality – it is pretty clear that we wouldn’t get it if you blokes had your way.
Coming in a little late, but anyway …
David Jackmanson:
thordaddy:
In Australia, the gap between men and women with equivalent experience and education (controlling for other factors, too) is around 13 per cent of wages in the public sector. In the private sector it varies across the wage distribution, from around 6 per cent at the lower levels, to around twenty per cent at the 3 quartile (ie. the top 25 per cent of female wage earners earn around 20 per cent less than the top 25 per cent of male wage earners). See Prof Alison Boothâ??s paper here.
Every time I look at this it astounds me. WTF?? I can’t see it explicitly in my workplace, but nevertheless it’s still there. What are we doing/not doing that lets this continue?
Just to be a little more on the topic â?¦ I agree that trawling for Gold Stars is juvenile and an implicit form of discrimination. But I think that it is a secondary thing, and that there are a number of fist degree things to deal with first.
And what Cristy just said.
I think one of my biggest concerns with the whole ‘older NiceGuy TM’ phenomenon that tigtog describes so well, is that at no point does it require the benevolent one, so proud of treating women and others like human beings, to interrogate his own privilege, to effectively give up anything. The problem isn’t women, or any other non white-middle-class-middle-aged-heterosexual male identity but the thoroughly unexamined sense of entitlement held by so many who have access to so much, simply because they are white-middle-class- middle-aged-heterosexual males.
*waves* Hello.
Maybe if your female friends thought you’d be more sympathetic, they’d tell you about their experiences.
Excellent post, Tigtog.
Actually, I think lists are a really helpful thing. If your partner has different ideas about cleanliness or what housework needs to be done from your ideas, why not have a list?
Do you honestly think it’s a better idea to either ignore the fact that they’re not doing housework and inwardly seethe about it, or to rant and rave at them about not pulling their weight, rather than to discuss and agree to a tangible list of what needs doing so that everything gets done and everyone does their part?
Sheesh, we have a list, and I think it’s the greatest idea ever. Neither of us are seven, either!
Oh, and the 85% thing? Suze referred to it and then David Jackmanson said:
and someone else suggested more women were in part time work. All true, but these figures are standardised for full time employment, and are done for equivalent jobs in equivalent industries – e.g. male teachers compared with female teachers, rather than a whole bunch of low-paid female teachers being compared with male executives, which would make zero sense. So the figures have NOTHING to do with more women doing part-time work, or with women being over-represented in lower paying jobs/industries (which is a whole ‘nother issue in itself).
You can check the ABS stats on the pay gap by industry here.
And it sucks.
(But Suze also suggested women do 95% of the domestic work, which is an exaggeration. The figure is more like two-thirds (still bad, but not 95%))
I’m all for negotiating, Rebekka but that is not what BilB said.
No, he said make a list – which is exactly what I did, and it’s working really well for us.
I don’t get why that would provoke a response about are you seven?
Dearest Christy,
Thankyou for leaping to your heroic conclusions.
Perhaps you might like to take into account the fact that:
I acted as an Anti-Discrimination Officer and proudly carry on my belt the scalp of a serial sexual harrasser – cost him his career and marriage!!
I have a daughter who I want to be the first Female Liberal Prime Minister – if she wants to.
I employ more females than males and pay SIGNIFICANTLY above award rates – my lowest paid employee is a non-tertiary trained 20 year old earning $40,000.
I have just had another of my employees return to work after succcesful (so far) treatment of breast cancer. There was no limit to her sick leave. There are now no demands on her to work anymore than she wants and is able to.
I am out here in the real world actually doing real things. I treat everybody equally and expect the same back.
As I said before – get over it. Take responsibility for your own life and get on with it. If females make study and career choices that limit them then that is their choice. If women pair up with men who think in terms of women’s work/man’s work then that is their choice and their problem.
My wife is at home bringing up the kids and I do less house work – this isn’t a male/female thing – it is a rational choice about who is better suited to different roles. I can’t breast feed and she (in her chosen profession) can’t make the same money as I can. She is free to go back to work wheneve she wants. I pick up the dog poo off the lawn, not because that is a guy thing but because we have decided that I look after the garden and my better half dry wretchs when she has to deal with dog poo.
If you want to be a victim – good luck. If you want to make your own decisions, take responsibility for your own life and stick it up a few mysogynists along the way then get on with it.
Rebekka, it is the difference between two people who feel equally responsible sitting down and working out an arrangement and a woman making a list of rules of do’s and don’ts and when and hows. It is the latter that makes the woman responsible by default and leads to the pat on the head mentality. The comment Bil B made was specifically in relationship to what “a woman can do to improve her lot”.
Dearest Rasor
You have addressed Cristy often enough, and had it pointed out often enough, that I can’t help but think your continued misspelling of her name is deliberate. It is rude, lazy and inexcusable.
Well, it appears so. The impression I receive from this post is that you think few if any men observe what you regard as acceptable standards, because those who merely think they do trip up on this issue of gold star expectations. Is this because of a “default state”, or is there something uniquely iniquitous about the way people are nurtured by modern western society?
I hate to drag the discussion back on topic, but I’ve never met any of these men. Most blokes do domestic work to (a) keep the peace and (b) get some nookie and (c) have a shirt for Monday (in that order).
If you’re complaining about some girly-man you’ve managed to subjugate but no longer find appealing because they are subservient, well, suck it up.
Anna,
I don’t know if you believe me but it is not intentional and I apologise to Cristy if it causes offence.
Please feel free to correct the typo if you wish.
It doesn’t bother me how you spell my name.
Sincerely
Razor
No-one ever said you shouldn’t *discuss* the list. But I think if one partner wants more housework done than the other and sees more housework that needs doing than the other, then regardless of the gender of the neater party, they’d do well to “improve their lot” by making a list of what they want done. I don’t see that this makes the woman responsible “by default” – it makes the person who cares more about neatness responsible. In many cases, and this is probably cultural and it’s probably because we’re enmeshed in a patriarchy, but nevertheless, the reality is in many cases this is going to be the woman.
I think this is a laugh. We actually *both* “pat each other on the head” (verbally) for doing housework, because neither of us is wildly enthused by it and it’s nice to get some appreciation that you’ve done it. It’s not gender-specific. If I put some washing on, he’ll say to me “Good doing the washing, Bek” and if he hangs it up I’ll say “Good hanging up the washing” (this turn of phrase, by the way, comes from the we praise my autistic nephew, who doesn’t understand what you’re talking about if you say “good boy” but does understand praise for a specific task. My whole family does this constantly, which I suppose might be a bit odd when I think about it).
I think Bil B’s comment was perfectly reasonable, although you seem to have taken offence at:
I don’t get this double-think. First we’re bemoaning that women still do most of the unpaid domestic work. Then when a guy offers a concrete suggestion but dares to decree our dissatisfaction with doing most of the unpaid domestic work is our lot (which damn it, it is, and that’s *why* we’re expressing dissatisfaction) and we jump all over him for acting like a child??
Cultural or not, in my experience men don’t tend to *see* the same things that need doing as women do. If they ask for a list, for heaven’s sake, what’s wrong with giving them a list? Me giving my partner a list doesn’t mean I’m responsible for the housework – in fact quite the opposite in our case, I work more than he does, and he’s almost solely responsible for the housework (I do the shopping, and cook an occasional meal, but I do not clean, or do laundry, or dishes, or etc). What it is is an acknowledgement of the fact that (a) I am the more organised one and (b) he’d like me to be happy with the state of the house, so he wants to know what needs to be done.
And I’m not talking about dos, don’ts, whens and hows, I’m talking about
1. fridge needs wiping down
2. floor needs sweeping
3. dust bookshelves
etc – and I’m pretty sure that’s what Bil b meant too.
If you are a guy who is single and you keep your place really clean and tidy you will be labelled as either anally retentive or gay. The neatness factor will also be used as an indicator when discussing why the gent is single or a serial monogomist – doesn’t like other people messing up the way he does things, not willing to compromise, is set in his ways etc.
So, if you re a single guy – don’t go over the top with the house cleaning thing – people think you are weird and talk behind your back about it.
Dear Razor
Would you like a gold star?
“I have a daughter who I want to be the first Female Liberal Prime Minister”
Why don’t you want Julie Bishop to become Prime Minister?
I’d like to discuss these posts with my wife but she’s out mowing the lawn, and if I hang in here she should finish in time for her to cook an early dinner. Also, the bloody lawn is only 3/4 of an acre, next thing she will want a ride on mower, so I’ll keep all this quiet, I think,keep the peace.
Cristy – no thanks. Mrs Razor has sheets and sheets of them – she is a chalky.
Spiros, I’d love Julie to get up there as I live in her electorate and voted for her (because she was the best looking candidate). The reality is that she ain’t got a chance in the next twenty years lining up behind the current list of wannabes.
Fair enough.
But now I’m much more interested in your autistic nephew – we are a multi-nontypical family so the phrases you mentioned are completely normal to me!
No gold star for reading for you!
Obviously I’m talking about blokes who have serial failed relationships and/or live in a relationship full of tension and resentment. I don’t actually think that is most blokes, do you? It’s not most of the blokes I know, but it does appear to be a lot of the blokes I hear some other women complaining about. I think it’s probably too many blokes, either for their happiness or for the happiness of the women involved with them, but that’s not quite the same thing.
Nookie as a reward is kinda the ultimate gold star, no?
I bet these blokes who only do domestic tasks to get a bit of nookie then complain about how the nookie reward is a bit perfunctory, as if she isn’t really all that keen. I wonder why she mightn’t be?
Aww, aren’t you cute.
Tigtog.
One old woman to another.
Invective approachs sucks ass majorly.
Rebekka,
I did mean the comment both ways, individually and generically. Thankyou for understanding.
Suze,
There is no point in fuming over things that do not occur to one’s satisfaction if the reason is that one party is unaware or the others expectation. I for one am completely unmoved by the “you should have known” line when mind reading is expected. Men and women’s interests and focii are often very different, and failure to line up expectaions with results is very common. What is wrong with making needs unmistakeably clear. It is just good organisation. Every time you feel a need to internalise disappointment you take out one of the piers that support relationships.
My wife has a thing about leaving the margerine out of the fridge for even a couple of minutes, she notices every time that it gets left out, comments every time and remembers every occasion. She does not see every time that the margerine is put back immediately, which is more often than not. She can leave all sorts of other food out of the fridge for days, but for some reason the margerine is different. Now that is selective, and the memory that goes with it is selective. If you doubt that you have a selectve memory ask your partner. But ask him in a way that does not signal imminent nuclear attack.
On the issue of abuse. In my cousin Marci’s case she hid the fact that she was being beaten by her ex-marine husband from here sisters despite the fact that they corresponded well and met reasonably frequently. Right up to the point where she put a gun to her head. In a rape case that my sister was involved with when in the Victorian police force where a group of men coerced several dozen girls into submitting to repeated rapes (some several hundred times), you would have to wonder how that can come about. These things are as insideous as drug taking. We have to train our children to cross support each other in a way that is above friendships, and help them know that there is no shame in stopping abuse by informing others of an abuser.
The world needs more women to take the plunge and be independent business people. I would think of that as leading by example in the issue of comparitive wages and conditions. It is not a bad thing to do. Women usually make better business people than men and generate great respect.
BilB
Those are the the same defences wives made a hundred years ago..
“I try..I really do..”
Well yes. Of which particular invective approaches were you thinking?
Talking with a woman of honor when I speak with you.
We don’t need to make a cheap or easy point, do we?
Let’s not make fun of anyone.
I believe the men who write with honorable intentions as much as I do believe the women who write with honorable intentions.
Razor (11:56am)
Your behaviour is commendable (six gold stars!). But unless you are the president of a clandestine organisation that controls the entire economy of the world, there are a great many women out there who do not work for you. Do they have to ‘get over it’ too? Or is your shining example enough to level the playing field? I think it’s great that you do these things but arguing the general from the specific is the oldest trick in the book and we ain’t buying it.
AK, I don’t think I made any cheap or easy points in my post.
In comments stoushes I give as good as I get. Sometimes that involves making fun of people who make wilfully obtuse, patronising or abusive remarks. I think some light making mock is better than going ballistic when people insult my husband, don’t you?
Plastic Druid..
Unless every law on the books is different in Australia, the only thing you can complain about is bad timing or choices.
Prove you have ovaries, baby! Do it!
From an old school gurl.
TT, I’ll read back to see about anyone making fun of of your husband. Missed that, will read again more carefully. Sorry on that account.
David Rubie on 9 March 2007 at 2:20 pm
David, I think that comment tells us more about you than you really want us to know.
So how do you explain the gender gap in earnings, AK? Is it all down to women making bad choices and/or having bad luck?
Not any of the earnings gap is due to systemic biases? How stupid and lazy and just bloody unlucky women who don’t make the same as the men doing the same job, or who don’t get promoted as rapidly, must be then.
Do you want formal inequality before the law to promote equality of opportunity?
That is all good and well if you are talking about a private initiative to shape the institutions and social norms, and good luck to you if that is what you mean. If on the other hand you want to use the power of the state to force people to change their behaviour, then I am against you. I am against state use of force on two fronts, first I believe it is immoral, and second, I don’t believe it works. State monopoly on force has very limited application, such as detaining and gaoling a rapist or bank robber, and these I can accept.
I truly believe that racism, sexism and other types of discrimination are counter-productive, self-defeating behaviours, I just don’t believe that punishing people for their prejudices, when they haven’t actually physically harmed someone, is immoral. The prejudice is immoral, but trying to correct the prejudice with force is also immoral.
That is an unbelievably long bow to draw. Whose feelings are more important here, the women who finds it annoying to be approached, or the block head bloke who has his ham fisted, clumsy advances rejected? No one has the right to not have their feelings hurt. Dictating that people should have good social skills is like dictating that all roses should be red.
Oh, FFS! Just how much does a feminist need to walk on eggshells to not have demeaning crap like this turn up in a comments box?
The problem with people getting pissed off by petty complaints is that any bigger agenda gets lost in the rant. I can’t have a meaningful discussion about society’s ills with someone who gets upset when a bloke puffs up his chest and expects a smile or who expects to be treated differently for being polite.
TT..where are you? Where are living? What are you thinking?
It’s education and location.
Learn, move and earn.
That sounds heartless. It isn’t.
I’d gladly give give a hand to anyone who wants something different. I offer it almost daily to many.
TT..send me a name and an honest desire.
I promise..I am here to help.
You send it and I will.
Yes I do when I think it might be effective, and fair enough, you are on the other side. However I don’t think state action is relevant or effective to solve the sort of thing that tigtog talks about in her post.
No, they don’t. i’m sure tigtog wasn’t especially pleased with the
However, women have the right to complain about that behaviour if they find it a problem, and suggest better types of behaviour, which is all that has happened here. Nowhere at all in tigtog’s post is there anything at all that suggests she thinks that state action would be useful to solve the problem she identifies.
It’s a call to men who are interested in what she is saying. Why does this provoke such negative comments? I guess even the slightest suggestion that women’s approval might be withdrawn when women disapprove of certain behaviours is threatening?
Well, if you automatically reject people’s experiences, you won’t have many meaningful discussions with people.
Maybe that person is dragged down by seeing that sort of behaviour a lot, and by the energy and effort they need to expend to deal with it. Maybe it’s a big thing for them, no matter what your opinion is.
Using the power of the State to make sexual harassment an actionable offense worked very well to change the behaviour of people when nothing else seemed to be doing it. Sticks and carrots dangled by the State are an excellent tool to influence behaviour, and legislation has always been used in this fashion.
Does your principle against State enforcement mean that you are in favour of repealing the sexual harassment statutes?
I described sexist behaviours, some overt and some occulted. Where did I rant? These behaviours do exist and are generally toxic to male-female relationships.
Are the minor petty habits I describe the biggest sexism problem in the world? Far from it. They do however constitute a set of behaviours that may explain why some fellas who are otherwise nice guys might be finding that they can’t maintain a loving and mutually fulfilling relationship. Which is something most nice guys claim to want…
The “smile” thing is just bullying, pure and simple. I think bullying is crook, and I won’t put up with it. I think that makes me assertive and determined, not “upset”.
Stating my beliefs is not a strawman. Equality of opportunity is a pipedream. People are not equal in ability or in access to resources. My belief that equality before the law is paramount is based on the idea that nobody’s right to liberty, to own property, to do what they like with their own property (including their own body) trumps anyone else right to the same things. You cannot make everyone equal in ability, and trying to make everybody equal in access to resources requires you to act forcefully against those with greater resources to compensate those with less. You are infringing on one person to benefit another. I believe this to be immoral.
If however, we create a free market place where everybody can make use of their own unique abilities, then everybody benefits from voluntary exchange. If we try to manipulate the voluntary exchanges, we change the incentives at work, leading to all sorts of unintended consequences.
Be excellent to each other.
I like Ted better. Who do you like?
Bother. Try again.
No one has the right to not have their feelings hurt.
No, they don’t. I’m sure tigtog wasn’t especially pleased when I described her argument in another thread as “poor and imprecise”. http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/26/mckew-takes-on-howard/#comment-350261
However, she copped it sweet, and her only apparently direct response to that was “yes, very bad choice of words earlier”.
From which I infer that she understands the difference between robust and legitimate argument, and sexism.
Cristy,
I really like the way you’ve taken my name and changed its whole complete meaning. Very creative, I’ve not come across that one before.
I’ll fight for your equality as well, but I suspect you might not agree with my idea of equality whereby every individual has equal rights to freedom from force, freedom to own and use property as they see fit. What type of equality are you fighting for?
All right then, this gold star stuff applies to “older NiceGuys(TM) who keep on whining about not getting their gold stars for being NiceGuys(TM) when they treat us women no differently than they treat the males with whom they interact, or when they step up to do a fair share of domestic work (that they never thank the women around them for when the women do the work), mainly because these older NiceGuys(TM) keep on whining about not getting their gold stars for being NiceGuys(TM) when they treat us women no differently than they treat the males with whom they interact, or when they step up to do a fair share of domestic work (that they never thank the women around them for when the women do the work)”. Why not just call the bloke by his name?
Sorry, that should be “the older NiceGuy(TM) who does in fact have relationships with women, relationships that last for some time, yet in the end these relationships either fall apart or fester in mutual resentment, mainly because these older NiceGuys(TM) keep on whining about not getting their gold stars for being NiceGuys(TM) when they treat us women no differently than they treat the males with whom they interact, or when they step up to do a fair share of domestic work (that they never thank the women around them for when the women do the work)”. Very important that I clear that up.
Very tiresome to read endless complaints.
Better to actually be doing.
Send a request my way. I’ll do something.
The rest of you whiners, shut the hell up.
In principle, yes. There are already laws against physical assault and free speech should be protected absolutely. Here is a nice little article that I largely agree with.
But they are not sexism. Claiming that bad social skills and peacock behaviour is sexual discrimination lessens the impact of attributing more serious ill behaviour as sexual discrimination. I think it was a rant because I thought you were highlighting a very insiginificant lowlight of poor behaviour. Death by a thousand paper cuts, perhaps.
I’m old enough to remember what it was like to be a 19-year old woman in an office where men felt free to slap your arse and snap your bra as you were trying to get on with your job. It didn’t feel safe, that’s what, and I was lucky enough to be strong and able to fight off one lech in the lift. I didn’t report it because no-one would have taken me seriously, and I would have lost my job.
Why do you think it would be any different today if the sexual harassment statutes were repealed?
The free speech of citizens to criticise the establishment? Certainly.
The free speech of arseholes to harass fellow citizens? Not so much.
Defamation and libel laws to protect reputations whereupon earning potentials rely are a keystone of the privileged classes. For the rest of us to have our “creating a hostile work environment” laws to protect our capacity to earn seems like a fair go to me.
As to McElroy’s argument in your link, all the allegedly unjust cases she highlights (without verifiable cites) swing on overzealous institutional procedures in response to the laws, not the actual statutes themselves. By all means reform overzealous procedures, but leave the statutes alone.
P.S. A link to a speech by Wendy McElroy cheerleading for Warren Farrell? Pshaw. Just a tad trollacious.
I may have told the story before, but when I had my first full time job, at age 16, in the state public service back in 1985, there were very few women working in my office. The reason being that until 1974 in Queensland the “resign on marriage” rule had been retained. So while probably the average age of people I worked with was late 30s, all the women employees (with one – unmarried – exception) were under 30. Tracey, who was 21, and used to sit next to me, had to cop “show us your tits, Trace” about five or six times a day from our boss – all this was “joking”. There was a very good reason why she never went to the pub with the rest of the mob after work. She and I became friends, perhaps because I treated her like a human being, unlike most of the men who worked with us, and particularly unlike our immediate supervisor, and her big concern in life was to get out of the public service and go to uni and get into a professional job where she’d be treated with some respect. I hope she attained that goal, but I don’t think that she should ever have had to cop the shit she copped just for going to work and being young and female. And I’m not at all sure that the professions provide a redoubt – I know numerous female lawyers I went to uni with who’ve left the world of private law firms for government work or in house counsel work or out of the law altogether because it’s all too common for them to be patronised, for blokes who are junior to them to be suddenly promoted above their heads because they talk rugby with the boss, etc, etc. Anyone who thinks that the workplace, unregulated, is some sort of wonderful sphere of gender equality has their head in the sand. But it’s a fair bit better than it was 20 years ago now that the culture has been shifted at least to some degree by legislative change.
Oh, and I might add, that the other remark she received frequently from less overtly sexist and more ostensibly well meaning older men we worked with when she got engaged was “Spose you’ll be leaving us soon to go have kids. Your fiancee wouldn’t want you to keep working, surely?” – this wasn’t in the dark ages but in 1985.
What did you DO, Mark?
I know internet comments don’t translate very well and my question is very well meant.
Please don’t read it wrong.
I gave her as much support as I could, AK. I also talked to her fiance, who was inclined to think similarly to our older colleagues. At her request – she thought he might listen more if a man put it to him rather than her. And I put my neck on the line to ask our boss to cut out the “tits” remarks.
Remembering that I only turned 17 when I had been working there for a couple of months, and the workplace culture was pretty much frozen in time. But it certainly prompted me, when sexual harrassment laws were mooted a few years later, to support them wholeheartedly. I’d seen worse, but hadn’t been in an immediate position to do anything about it.
How snarky did my question sound.
Sorry about that.
I prety much shouldn’t have needed to ask that.
Direct, compassionate action is what you’re about.
No, that’s fine, AK. I took it in the spirit it was intended.
The sad thing was that her fiance thought I had the hots for her (again there’s a sad story here about prevailing attitudes among men) and that’s what caused us to lose touch after I left work and went to uni. I was very fond of her and I hope that her life has been happy subsequently!
Oh, and thanks. That’s very kind of you to say.
That doesn’t sound so free to me. In fact by your own definition, you wouldn’t be able to even state “free speech of arseholes”, since that could be construed as being offensive to and harassment of said arsehole. Who gets to decide? Some government bureaucrat? The police? Just who gets to decide what is offensive? What about the thoughts in a person’s head? Are they offensive as well? Should we punish people for having dreams about committing sexual harassment?
I had a discussion about this just recently on another blog, and I’ve come to the conlusion that free speech should trump defamation and libel laws, that all such laws should be struck from the books. It is your right to use your property to say or write whatever you want. You do not own your reputation, as you cannot own the thoughts in someone else’s head, which is what reputation comes down to.
I agree though, that at this point in time, such laws are unfairly biased towards those that have the resources to use them. The rest of us have to rely on people’s good nature.
I’d happily back an ammendment to the constituion that guaranteed free speech, then sexual harassment laws and defamation laws would all be unconstitutional.
No one has a right to earn. Employment is a contract between two people, voluntarily made. I would much prefer to see the employment contract deal with sort of requirement.
How is reform going to prevent frivolous law suits? Do you have any sympathy for a man who unfairly loses his job because of such a suit? Is that man just collateral damage to the cause? Does unfariness beget unfairness?
I don’t really know who these people are or their reputations, I just googled for “libertarian” and “sexual harassment”. I agreed with what she had to say. Who is this Farrell guy? And why is it trollacious (and what does that word mean)?
tigtog wrote:
Keeping the peace is the ultimate reward. I hate to break it to you, but perfunctory sex is still sex, and for a lot of men that is enough.
And the day you discover that someone is deliberately and maliciously trying to destroy your professional reputation will be the day you change your mind.
Such legislation is unbelievable, and I can certainly believe that the distorting behaviour it condoned was well in effect more than a decade after its repeal. The paternalists who formed this legislation probably thought they were doing women a favour, arguments such as “it’s unfair on young women looking for a husband if all the old married women have all the secretary jobs” were probably prevalent. Better get those married women out (after all, they’ve got husbands to provide for them), so that these young girls can go and meet some nice men in the work place and go of and get married and have children. Arseholes.
Legislators are unable or unwilling to consider the unintended consequences of their action. Such legislation poisoned the well for future generations of women entering the workforce, long after it had been repealed. Women who would legally be required to leave once they got married would not get promoted. There would be no female role models for the ambitious to aspire to even a decade later, and no women in roles of authority to break down the erroneous expectations of the older male workers and confront them on their poor behaviour and attitude towards women.
It is examples like this that make me so dubious about government intervention, and yet the victims of such intervention in the past want to wield the same weapon. It is beyond me.
I thought like you as well until recently, the injustice done to me if it happened would be horrific, and I would want justice for sure. Just like the family of a murder victim may call for the death penalty, I may scream and curse the perpetrator and want justice. However, the injustice of limiting free speech to many people, just like the injustice done to one innocent condemned man, outweighs any benefit that may come from such state actions.
Brendan, the paternalists who formed this legislation did not give a rat’s arse about young women, whether looking for a husband or not.
The main reasons for it were that, in the times of which we speak, (a) women married much yonger than they do now and started a family almost immediately, and nobody wanted a woman in the office or whatever who might get pregnant and leave at any time; (b) in all but the most enlightened circles, there was a great deal of social stigma attached to a married woman in the workforce, partly because it was considered shame to the man for not being ‘able’ to support his wife; (c) there was a great deal of rhetoric around about working women ‘taking men’s jobs away from them’, and (d) there was very little point in women working anyway, because they hardly ever got the decent jobs, and whatever job they did get, they were paid a pittance in comparison with men doing the same work.
This is social history pure and simple — attitudes, roles and values, and the way they were enshrined in law — and it’s the kind of history that the Howard government is trying to stop being taught in schools. I wonder why.
But you at least agree with me that they were being paternalists? I agree with all of your above points. And they were all misguided, and the legislation they used to correct for these anomalies (as they saw them) did not work and were counter productive.
Sexual harassment legislation is all about legislators dictating to us how we should live and work and relate to those around us, yet more paternalism. It creates unintended consequences, such as a reluctance to hire women for certain roles because employers may fear legal action because they can’t trust their male employees. No woman gets sexually harassed, because no woman gets employed. So on that front the legislation has worked, yet to the woman without a job, it hasn’t. So affirmative action legislation becomes the solution, which then creates resentment amongst some men that increases tension in the workplace and lead to a “hostile environment” for everyone.
I am not saying this because I condone sexist behaviour, I do not, I am saying this because legislation is not the answer. It changes the prevalent paradigm in ways that are hard to predict, and not all of them good ways.
Brendan, sex discrimination legislation, for all its limitations, has not led to employers not hiring women for fear of sexual harassment claims. What evidence have you for saying so?
In fact, the legislation forced employers, particularly in the non-traditional areas, to employ women where they previously had not done so and provided some of the most significant test cases and development of case law.
Secondly, there is no affirmative action legislation in Australia so the resentment and tension you say it exerts among men simply does not exist.
Thirdly, mischievous complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace are statistically negligible.
Again, a reflexive sexist attitude that punishes women for the hypothetical actions of men.
The employer won’t be liable for legal action if he punishes men who sexually harass if and when they do it.
And as Bridie points out, Brendan’s example is merely an alleged sexist attitude that doesn’t correlate with the legal or statistical facts in Australia.
Dare I suggest that ‘gold star’ is a patronising metaphor for the ordinary forms of recognition that we need as social beings so as not to feel unvalued and alone? I mean, I understand the kind of behaviour that this post is addressing – I lived with somebody who was always desperately trying to elicit recognition for even the most mundane acts – but I’m not clear on how this kind of metaphor is going to be anything other than divisive since it is so patronising. I also think the hierarchy of male ‘enlightenment’ that you imagine to exist is ridiculous. I understand that there is a kind of reverse-misogyny being deployed here, maybe even to bait opponents, but it comes across as tinged with ressentiment.
Dare I suggest that it’s been an enormous eye-opener for me to see how the mildest of complaints from women are labelled as ‘divisive’, ‘resentment’ and ‘reverse-misogyny’ (the word is misandry, actually).
Firstly, an answer I’d wish I’d thought to give way upthread: If You’re Not the Problem, then You’re Not The Problem.
If you’re not a gold-star chaser then it’s not about you, so chill.
Secondly, regarding the resentment accusation: That Is Indeed the Point of the Post.
Not that I am personally in my own partner relationship resentful (we have our problems on occasion, but not the gold star problem), but that gold star chasing behaviour breeds resentment, which is toxic, and a lot of people don’t really realise they’re doing it.
Again, if you read this post and can honestly say “that’s not me at all” then: You’re. Not. The. Problem.
I don’t really think that there is anything wrong with the observations being made here, but I have a small problem with the way they’re being made. I find the ‘gold star’ image patronising and divisive – but those objections only apply to that image, not to tigtog’s point, which is merely redundant, but unfortunately seems to need reiterating even after all this time. Tigtog is making a good point, and it only makes me feel like being contrary because of that image. I also think that tigtog’s hierarchisation of male positions in relation to feminism is simplistic to say the least. It is idealist and progressivist – it prioritises certain kinds of ‘proper’ ways of thinking and speaking over changing habits and practices. I think that foregrounding the mechanics of desire instead of using a process-of-elimination hierarchisation of masculine positions would be more interesting.
And no, if it’s a deliberate reversal of the way which misogynists talk about women (in this case by patronising and ‘assessing’ them), then ‘reverse-misogyny’ is appropriate. Also, I consider that a good strategy, although I can understand how the term might look like a criticism.
I’ll cop to being simplistic, because I find that when discussing basic daily interactions it pays to keep it simple.
I agree that may not be best practice. I was attempting to convey what I see in how many men start out in attempting to be profeminist.
Indeed. You write it, I’ll read it.
I didn’t mean in the sense of being ‘simple’ but in the sense that the hierarchy only relates to one aspect of human sociality: our rational, reasoned self articulations. To be honest, I was mostly replying to David’s ‘j’accuse’ at this point. My concern, tigtog, is that, in spite of offering a timely critique of good intentions, you don’t cast aside the aspirational hierarchy that feeds those kinds of missteps. No amount of ‘good’ speech and corresponding activity can alter two things: 1) the amazing capacity for our milieu to affect us into unexpectedly regressive positions, and to speak to unexpected aspects of ourselves (maybe racist, misogynistic, homophobic); 2) the way in which being ‘good’ usually involves some kind of renunciation of our pleasures or our particular desires, rather than an interrogation of those pleasures and desires as such. Becoming the best pro-feminist male you can be doesn’t answer these things. Perhaps these men (the gold star chasers), to take one example, need to locate the bodily pleasure of inhabiting a clean space, thus replacing a desire to be good with a desire for housework in itself?
But you are right, and I think that I was intepellated precisely because of my anxiety over being positioned as a gold star chaser.