Writer's Block: It’s Women’s Equality Day!

[facethestrange]

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The answers to this question are mostly depressing, so let me quote a whole epic post. (Some of the links are no longer working.)

We Can’t Be Equal While:

Gender Roles

1. Men are the default and women are the Other (and therefore lesser).


2. Being called “girly” or a “sissy” or “pussy” are some of the worst insults you can give a man.


3. When a woman shows confidence in herself, she is said to “have balls”, or conversely she is a “man-eater”, “ball-buster”, or a “bitch” because she was “too” assertive.


4. Men are beat up, ridiculed, or made fun of for being “effeminate” and women are beat up, ridiculed, or made fun of for being “masculine”.


5. Many people get angry when a woman questions the intentions behind a “chivalrous” act from a man.


6. There are men who refuse “chivalrous” acts from a woman, such as refusing to walk through a door that a woman holds open for them, while believing that it is rude for a woman to exercise the same right to refuse.


7. Women can’t express anger without the very real fear of being accused of “hysterics” or being “shrill”.


8. Women get scolded for “un-ladylike” behaviour: using coarse language, talking frankly about sex or other “impolite” topics, confidently voicing one’s dissenting opinion, etc.


9. People continue to believe and perpetuate gender essentialism based on bad science or using actual studies to “prove” the innateness of gender roles when the study itself supports no such thing.



Relationships, Sex, and Sexuality



10. For different-sex couples, women are expected to take their husband’s name, or at the very least hyphenate, but many men still balk at the idea of even considering adopting their wife’s name. If a woman decides to keep her name, both partners are interrogated and shamed by friends and family.


11. For same-sex couples, people think it is okay to ask “who’s the woman/man of the couple?”


12. Women are seen as the “gatekeepers” to morality/sexuality, charged with the duty of fending off the advances of men. If they fail then they were “asking for” it and/or are “damaged goods”. Their clothing/actions will always be questioned to see if they were “leading on” the man at all.


13. Men are seen as “beasts” who are unable to control their “raging hormones” – which absolves them of guilt for “improper” sex (anything from date rape to sex outside of marriage) but also paints them as uncivilized brutes.


14. Women are “sluts”, men are “players”.


15. Women’s worth goes down according to how many sexual partners people think she has had.


16. Men’s worth goes up according to how many sexual partners people think he has had.


17. We live in a rape culture where many people continue to blame the victims of rape and domestic violence.


18. We buy into the myth that all men (even minors) are, at all times, willing to fuck a “gorgeous” woman and any man who would pass up sex with a remotely attractive woman is deserving of ridicule.


19. Wives/mothers are still expected to do most of the home/childcare, even if they have a job outside the home.


20. Fathers/husbands are seen as bumbling dolts who are mentally incapable of cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, or any other traditionally feminine task.


21. There are significantly more stay-at-home moms than there are dads.


22. Men are expected to pay on a date, and some men expect women to put out for this “service”.



The Public Sphere



23. Men continue to be a clear majority in the government, prominent positions in businesses, and other public places of power.


24. There have been so few female leaders in most countries. For instance, in the Group of Eight:
    
    
    
    • America has never had a female president.
    
    
    • Canada’s first, and only, female prime minister was Kim Campell [1993].
    
    
    • Britain’s first, and only, female prime minister was Margaret Thatcher [1979-1990].
    
    
    • France’s first, and only, female prime minister was Edith Cresson [1991-1992].
    
    
    • Italy has never had a female prime minister.
    
    
    • Japan has never had a female prime minister.
    
    
    • Russia has never had a female president.
    
    
    • Germany’s first, and only, female Chancellor is Angela Merkel [2005].
    
    
    
    


25. Pakistan, which is held up by many Americans as a “backward” country regarding women’s rights, elected a female prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, twice while Americans were still debating whether or not America was “ready” for a female president (here are some other female leaders who have been elected while America has been dragging its feet).


26. There are still areas in our so-called “equal” societies where sex discrimination, sexual harassment and the glass ceiling are alive and kicking.


27. It’s considered “big news” when articles tell mothers who work outside the home that they “can’t have it all”, but not so much when articles call for work reforms and male responsibility.


28. Women in the sex trade, even those who have chosen the life, are treated as sub-human on a regular basis.


29. It is not seen as sex discrimination to include harmful (and expensive!) items such as makeup and high heels in the requirements for a woman’s dress code while having no such constraints on the men’s dress code.


30. Women are still discouraged from entering the sciences by social stereotypes, lack of job availability, and the continuing belief that women just aren’t smart enough.


31. It is considered appropriate to attack a female public figure because of her appearance and fashion sense.


32. One of the first ways to discredit women who speak up in public forums is to threaten sexual violence.


33. Women are disproportionately affected by fat discrimination in the workforce and other places.



Appearance, Bodily Sovereignty, and Personhood



34. Men’s bodies belong to no one but themselves; women’s uteri are seen as the property of men, the government, and even strangers.


35. Women’s place as full-fledged legal and social adults is not assured.


36. Women are seen first and foremost by their physical attributes and secondly by their relevant qualities.


37. The double-standard of beauty is camouflaged under myths of empowerment and liberation.


38. Women feel the need to undergo a potentially dangerous operation on their healthy vaginas in order to please their husbands/boyfriends by striving towards an unrealistic beauty standard set by mainstream porn.


39. It is seen as appropriate for stranger and friend alike to give unsolicited comments on a woman’s appearance: her weight, fashion, leg/armpit hair, etc.


40. Eating disorders, caused primarily by our society’s unhealthy obsession with fat, are still rampant among women (significantly more than among men).


41. There are contests like “Pimp My Ride”.



And many, many other reasons.

Feel free to reblog the whole thing on tumblr.

Comments

[queer-theory.livejournal.com]

I am always happy to see this post again.

[facethestrange]

It's pretty much perfect. *nods*
I didn't want to touch this writer's block question until I saw the answers that already were there ("women aren't treated equally, women are treated MUCH BETTER than men" o_O). Now I checked again and there are suddenly many awesome answers (I'm kinda suspecting that someone linked this question somewhere :P), but this will stay on my lj nonetheless. :D

[affliction.livejournal.com]

Perfect icon.

[affliction.livejournal.com]

THIS. ONE HUNDRED TIMES OVER.

quite a controversial writer's block question LJ has here..

[facethestrange]

YESSS. ♥

IDK if it's that controversial, I mean, it's obvious that women are not treated equally, not even in the "Western" world, let alone in most other countries. Unless the side that says "women shouldn't be equal because they're different" counts, but I'd rather they not count. :]

[affliction.livejournal.com]

TRUE. Irl though everywhere I've come across, it's been a ~touchy~ topic. Maybe that's just the people I know LOL.

Iawtc.

[facethestrange]

Internet people's opinions > RL people's opinions, trufax. Though it depends on the corner of the internet, heh, because RL people's opinions definitely > youtube people's opinions. ;]

[mariella1983.livejournal.com]

Very good. As I am from Germany, I like it, that you mentioned
Angela Merkel.

Point eight was and is something that I deal with for some time now. One month ago I had a conversation with a former co worker - who is a man - about sex, being gay or lesbian and so on. It was all on a fun basis, nothing serious. So tell this friend of mine about this conversation and he think, that a woman shouldn´t talk like this with a man, only two men are allowed to talk like this. (welcome in the 21st century)

And that this kind of humour is cheap and and lowbrow. And if I contract this kind of homour I will change for bad (which is interessting, because people keep telling me that I change for good since I work at that company,that I am not so shy anymore).

Maybe I just overreact, but I haven´t talked to him anymore since this argument, because I don´t know what to say to him after this long time and because I can be unforgiving, when I think I am right. And I think, I am right. A woman can talk with a man like that if she wants that. At least, thats my opinion.

Anyway, thanks for sharing that post with us.

[facethestrange]

that a woman shouldn´t talk like this with a man, only two men are allowed to talk like this
This makes me so angry. He's basically saying "oh, I'm a guy so I can do whatever I want, but you're not a guy so you can only do things I approve of." :[

You're absolutely not overreacting, you have every right to talk about anything to anyone. Why should you have any limits put on you just because of your gender? It doesn't make sense. And if he's one of the guys who think "women who aren't shy and talk about sex aren't attractive to me, so they should stop", then he's 1. a controlling asshole and 2. missing out on a lot of awesome women. :D

[mariella1983.livejournal.com]

I think, you are right. I also think, he is a bit jelous, because I met this new people at work, most of them I like, I visit them at home, then there is this guy, I really like, he spents the night at my home and I at his home. I have a life outside the net, he said a few month ago, that he feels lonely. But that doesn´t give him the right, do say this things to me.

Before this argument, I have told you about before, we had another, smaller one, because I have told him about that guy from work and that he spend the night with me. A few weeks after that, he told me the reason why he shouldn´t have answer my question who he was feeling (I never noticed that he didn´t answer, because he said, that work was bad, so how could you feel then?).

He has the theory, that everything I told about this guy from work was a lie, because I was jelous about a woman - which I didn´t even know - who has visit him and it wasn´t my style to let a man sleep at my house.

So, I am a liar with a cheap and and lowbrow humour. When I read this again while I am writing it, i have every right to be mad. I have written about all this at my own livejournal, hoping to get an advice, what I should do now. Unfortuntelly nobody has answered.

I am a bit disappointed because I would describe us as good friends since our trainee days at school, I have never imagined he would react like that.

[facethestrange]

Aww, I didn't see that post in your lj (I was away from lj for a while and in the end I didn't catch up on my flist from that time), I would have replied if I had seen it. Sorry about that! (Also sorry about not replying to this comment last night - I was actually writing those drabbles for scifiland! :D)

This guy sounds like he's being a drama queen. :/ Yeah, it's possible that he's lonely and maybe he even has some problems, but it still doesn't give him the right to take it out on you or to accuse you of lying or to treat you bad in any way. I'm happy that you have other friends who are good for you and balance it out! :D

[mariella1983.livejournal.com]

Don´t worry about not reading my lj entry, as I said, I just needed an advice. Today, this guy is online for the first time in a month or so, I still don´t know, if I should do the first step and write him something or not.

But even if I decided to write him first, I don´t know what to write, after such a long time I just can´t write "Hello, how are you and how was work?"

But I am happy too, that I have some other friends now, they are all crazy, but in a positive way.

[delta-mai.livejournal.com]

I resent the comment about women leaders in England because we have had so many fucking amazing queens who actually ran the country back in a time when sexism was even more ingrained in the culture so yeah. That is actually pissing me off.

But other than that this is a beautiful post and you are a beautiful person for expressing it all so well!!!! *hugs&

[delta-mai.livejournal.com]

Although hun I think your links aren't working :(

[facethestrange]

As I said, some of them are no longer working. :( Many were from feministing, and they changed the format of links a while ago. I don't think it's possible to convert the feministing links to the new format, because the new links include the date when the post was made. Most of the non-feministing links are working, though, only a few are expired. :)

[facethestrange]

I figured that it's intentional that the examples are only from the present, since it mentions G8. I also thought "Hey, but what about the queens?" first, though. (Heck, even Poland had the female king, and right now we're seriously backwards as a country when it comes to women's rights.)

I didn't write it though, the whole post is a quote. :))) I seriously wish I had the patience to actually write something like that, btw. I mean, I probably wouldn't have thought about half of these things, but even if I did I would start to rant by the time I'd get to the second or third point. xD

[missy42.livejournal.com]

It's really a sad state. I had an on-line conversation with a friend of mine recently where we brought up a lot of the points in the "gender roles" section. Like how female-related insults (bitch, pussy, cunt, slut, etc.) just don't have male equivalents. Dick? Jerk? They just don't carry the same weight. We also discussed how restrictive gender roles can be.

In fact, I've often thought that if Ana Lucia had been a man, and did the exact same things, she wouldn't have gotten nearly as much hate. It's a perfect example of gender roles. What she did to protect the other "Tailies" wasn't nice and it certainly wasn't lady-like. But if it had been a man doing it, he simply would have been doing what he had to.

I also have a few more points to add to the list:

Cleaning commercials always show a woman using the product being advertised, and having WAY too much fun doing it. Because, you know, women just love cleaning up after their families and pets! Just once, I'd like to see a guy who's a neat freak.

I heard once that if a woman cheats, it nearly always leads to divorce. If a man cheats, the divorce rate is significantly lower. (I wish I could cite this, but I can't remember where I heard this, and I've tried to find the statistics, but for the life of me I can't.)

I have no statistics to back this up, but I feel like women are severely underrepresented in entertainment. Most movies star one or two men while there are fewer women, and at least one of them is a female love interest. The guy is triumphant and he gets the girl. In romantic comedies, on the other hand, the female character "needs" a man; she isn't happy or complete until the "happily ever after;" she's triumphant because she gets the man.

Similarly, I don't hear nearly as many female artists on the radio as male ones, and the ones with actual talent (as opposed to a cute physical appearance) are severely under-appreciated. Sarah McLachlan once joked about mud-wrestling Tori Amos for air time. Of course, it didn't happen, but it is a comment on how women are thrown into competition with each other to get ahead, and in a sexually exploitative way.

Your post touched on the lack of women in the science and math fields. I remember a while back there was a big controversy when it was suggested that men were just better in these fields because...well, they're men. Like somehow, their Y chromosome made them more inclined to be good in these fields, and the XX chromosome made one inferior. In all the controversy, I never once heard someone suggest that maybe it wasn't so much genetics as social pressures/expectations.

Whenever a woman runs for office, everyone always asks how she expects to balance the duties of the office she's running for and her family. I never hear them ask male candidates about such a balancing act.

As I said, a really sad state.

♥

P.S. I think I'm going to post this in my journal. Would you mind if I linked to your post?

[facethestrange]

YES, TO ALL OF THIS! ♥

Cleaning commercials always show a woman using the product being advertised, and having WAY too much fun doing it. Because, you know, women just love cleaning up after their families and pets! Just once, I'd like to see a guy who's a neat freak.
It's even worse here in Poland, because of the different language. In English only "she" and "he" have gender, in Polish a lot of words do (including verbs and adjectives.) So those cleaning (and cooking) commercials always use either the female forms or some half-assed gender-neutral forms (there are no truly gender-neutral forms, but "you" doesn't have gender, so if you mostly use it you can achieve it... but no one cares anyway, because obviously the actor in the commercial is always a woman, sometimes with her young daughter, but never with her young son.) Male forms are literally never used. On the other hand, if it's an ad for something fun or creative, instead of tedious and repetitive, especially for sport-related stuff, it's the other way round.

I heard once that if a woman cheats, it nearly always leads to divorce. If a man cheats, the divorce rate is significantly lower. (I wish I could cite this, but I can't remember where I heard this, and I've tried to find the statistics, but for the life of me I can't.)
I've heard something like that, too. Man is the owner of this wife after all (ugh). :/ I think it has to do with slut-shaming, too - once a woman cheats, she's damaged goods.

[My comment got too long for lj, brb with the second half. :D]

[facethestrange]

I have no statistics to back this up, but I feel like women are severely underrepresented in entertainment. Most movies star one or two men while there are fewer women, and at least one of them is a female love interest.
Oh, definitely. It's called the Smurfette Principle, here is a great video about it. And just last night I read an awesome article about how the new My Little Pony show turns it all on its head and instead there are only girls and one guy. Still, it's only one show. Maybe the kids who grow up with it will do something about it in the future, but right now shows and movies for adults just won't have all women and one man, though they do the opposite all the time. And if something has more women than men (though still many men), then it's "a movie for women" and it's usually dumbed down. :/

Similarly, I don't hear nearly as many female artists on the radio as male ones, and the ones with actual talent (as opposed to a cute physical appearance) are severely under-appreciated.
I don't listen to the radio, and all the music on my computer is at least 90% women, probably close to 95%. But every time I take a step outside my own last.fm profile, there are only men everywhere. Especially the countless famous bands are all men, and a few (2? or 3?) are all men with a female vocalist. Give me bands that are all women and aren't "girlbands", tyvm. :]

Your post touched on the lack of women in the science and math fields. I remember a while back there was a big controversy when it was suggested that men were just better in these fields because...well, they're men. Like somehow, their Y chromosome made them more inclined to be good in these fields, and the XX chromosome made one inferior. In all the controversy, I never once heard someone suggest that maybe it wasn't so much genetics as social pressures/expectations.
Girls are told from early childhood that they aren't as good as boys at physics and math, so of course they're going to believe it. And they are told that the subjects are kinda boring anyway. And they have no nerdy women role models. And then they learn that boys don't like when girls are smarter than them. So yeah, it's obvious that it's society.
Also, this:


If you link it, link the tumblr post. :) I'm going to make the lj post friends-only soon (just like everything else in my lj), it's only public because the answers to this question are linked from the main lj page and I want people who click on it to see mine.

Oh, and Ana Lucia! No one (or at least almost no one) hates Locke for beating up Charlie when he almost drowned Aaron, or even Sayid for beating up "Henry Gale". And what Ana did was much closer to what Locke did, since for Sayid it was about revenge, and for Ana and Locke it was about protecting someone else. And the Tailies had it much worse than the main Losties, so of course they had to be violent. No one would care at all if a man had to be violent to protect his people.