[quote=zk][quote=CA renter]ZK, the ONLY “point” you’ve made are that I am imagining things. Every single one of your posts regurgitates this theory of yours (and you attempt to state it as fact). Your “point” is that I have made everything up, and I’m imagining things.
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Actually, I’ve made dozens of points, most of them related to the weakness of your arguments. I really don’t have to list them, because anybody reading this can start on page 4 of this thread and see point after point after point in each of my posts. It’s apparently easy for you to just ignore my points. If you had some sort of arguments against my points, that would carry more weight than just saying I don’t have any.
[quote=CA renter]
Apparently, you think you know more about the people I’ve known, and the incidents I’ve experienced, than I do. Were you there? Did you talk to these people about these particular issues? No, you weren’t; and no, you didn’t…but I was there, and I did talk with them about these issues.
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I wasn’t there. That’s why I asked you questions. Questions you ignored. You said that, in every single instance, girls were the ones being excluded, and that in every single instance the reason was that parents were afraid that boys would be feminized by exposure to girls. When I asked you if you asked every single parent about this, or how you knew this, you ignored the question. When I asked you to ask one of those parents why they thought exposing boys to girls would feminize girls, you ignored that.
[quote=CA renter]
You have absolutely no idea about the things I’ve seen and experienced. How in the world can you claim to know more about my life than I, or any other person, would?
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I do have some idea, because you’ve told me about them. I never claimed to know more about your life than you. You ask that question as though I’ve claimed that. You do that consistently. Another sign of the weakness of your arguments.
[quote=CA renter]
Trust me, I am not afraid to express an opinion or ask someone about their reason for doing things. If I perceive something that might be sexist or misogynistic, I will ask people explain what they are doing and why.
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Ok. So what do they say when you ask them why exposing boys to girls will feminize them?
[quote=CA renter]
Everything I’ve said is true. Nothing has been made up or imagined. It is true that I see sexism and misogyny where you don’t because you are not aware and alert to it in the same way that someone who has experienced it personally would be. Just because you haven’t seen or experienced something, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
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For you to claim that segregating boys and girls for fear of feminizing boys is prevalent, overt, and explicit, and then claim that I wouldn’t notice it even if somebody actually told me they were doing it (and that I wouldn’t notice a single instance of it despite 15 years of hanging around parents) is ridiculous. When I asked if anybody else on this forum had ever seen such a thing, there were no responses. If you’re the only one who’s seeing something, perhaps it’s time to reevaluate your perspective.
[quote=CA renter]
As to why you supposedly haven’t seen or heard anything like this, it’s entirely possible that you aren’t very sociable, or that you don’t get into deep conversations with others about these things. Perhaps you’re afraid to challenge people when you perceive that something is off. Perhaps you just think it’s “normal” or “acceptable” behavior, and blow it off (this is my guess, based on your posts).
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4 guesses, all of them way off base. Again, I’m not the only one not seeing it. In fact, it appears you’re the only one seeing it.
Not that I need this to make my point, but if this is as prevalent a social phenomenon as you think it is, somebody somewhere is going to write something somewhere about it on the internet. Besides you. Can you find anything anywhere that talks about parents being afraid of boys’ exposure to girls feminizing them?
[quote=CA renter]
The fact that you think something should be acceptable to another person or group of people has absolutely no standing in the real world. Your opinion of how someone should perceive a certain behavior doesn’t matter, and this is especially true if you’ve never been on the receiving end of a particular action or behavior..
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What did I say that you’re referring to, here? Or did you make up a position for me again?
[quote=CA renter]
Yes, “rip,” the paper was literally ripped out of the boy’s hands. Yes, I’ve seen it in many other situations as well… a doll or Barbie being ripped (yes, ripped) out of the hands of a boy as he was told to go play with games that were made for boys. I’ve seen boys who wanted to take dance classes or acting class being told that they couldn’t do that because those things were for girls, but they could take soccer, or football, or baseball, instead.
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Did your mother literally shove you out of the way to get to your husband?
Is your consistent inability to clearly read what I’m saying (or your consistent and purposeful misrepresentation of my positions) based on your emotion, or is it something else?
[quote=CA renter]
No, ZK, you are not an expert on sexism and misogyny, but it would do you a world of good to read about it.
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For the I-don’t-know-how-many’th-time, I never said I was an expert on misogyny. And I never even brought up sexism.
[quote=CA renter]
It’s very clear from your posts that you still don’t understand what it is, or how to identify it, or why it should matter.
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You keep saying that, and you keep having no evidence for it.[/quote]
Again, every single one of your “points” hinges on your belief that I “wear misogyny-tinted glasses.” If you can show me a point that you’ve made that addresses the issue without relying on this claim, please point it out. I can’t remember a single point that you’ve made that doesn’t rely on this underlying assumption. Your statements that I’ve “made things up,” or that I’m “imagining things” don’t count as logical arguments. To the contrary, you have not witnessed a single situation that I’ve talked about…so YOU are the one “making things up,” based on your faulty assumption that I am incapable of identifying sexism or misogyny because I experienced it at an early age — as do most people, BTW; but you wouldn’t necessarily notice it because you think it’s “normal” behavior. For your information, guiding your daughter to pink toys is sexist; dragging her to malls and nail parlors, without guiding her to “boys” events and activities, with similar frequency and enthusiasm, is sexist; suggesting to your children that there are “boys activities” and “girls activities” is sexist.
I didn’t ignore your question about the parents’ intentions. And I will go into further detail about it in a separate post, since you aren’t even aware that these situations exist.
[quote=CA renter]ZK, the examples I’ve mentioned were absolutely based on the fact that these parents didn’t want their boys to be “contaminated” by anything remotely feminine. They made it very clear why they didn’t want their sons to sit with girls or, in the case of the infant boy, to wear pastel clothing. They didn’t beat around the bush at all. I just can’t type out the conversations and social history in a post here, for brevity’s sake.
And the segregation I’m talking about happens at a very early age — infancy, in some cases. I’m not talking about teenagers who are segregated by their parents because the parents are worried about rape, etc. At that stage, the kids are already reintegrating themselves because they are going through puberty and want to have sex with one another. The problem is that this is happening after years of brainwashing and segregation that highlight and exacerbate the differences between the genders and result in people objectifying each other because they don’t know how to relate in a healthy and holistic way. Kids should never be segregated in the first place, IMO; not by gender, race, age, religion, etc., because this amplifies the worst in each group, whereas integration balances things out because people can learn from one another and relate with one another in a more natural way.
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You might not notice the segregation if you’re guilty of segregating based on gender, yourself. If you’ve been pushing your daughter into “girls activities” and not encouraging her, with equal enthusiasm and energy, to get involved with boys (and girls!) in “boys activities,” then you are guilty of these behaviors, yourself. Just the fact that you insist that there are “girls activities” and “boys activities” is sexist in itself (read the literature, you don’t have to take my word for it). The fact that you think that the spectrum of gender-based behavior looks more like a barbell with huge curves at each end and very little mixing in the middle shows that you have sexist beliefs. So much of what you see and believe is socialized, it is not innate, as you seem to think it is.
As to your inability to see all this sexism and misogyny in your own life, if you believe that it’s “natural” for boys to do “boy things” and girls to do “girl things,” then it’s unlikely that you would question the parents about their behaviors…that’s probably why you “haven’t seen these behaviors” in 15 years of parenting. Do you frequently associate with families who have sons? Do they bring their boys along to play/hang out with your daughter, or do they drop their sons off at other “boys’ activities” or another boy’s house before they come to visit with your family (I’m not talking about the infrequent guest, I’m talking about patterns of regular, consistent behavior)? If you notice it, do you question it, or do you just chalk it up to “normal” behavior? If you don’t challenge it, you’re unlikely to hear their reasons for doing it.
Yes, my mother literally shoved me out of the way to get to my husband on multiple occasions — literally push me aside physically as she bee-lined for him with arms outstretched calling out something along the lines of, “Oh, it’s so good to see you, son.” Yes, shove. Again, I’m not making this up, and am not imagining things under any circumstances.
How do I know that you can’t identify sexism or misogyny? Because you have claimed that overtly sexist behaviors and beliefs aren’t sexist or misogynistic. The segregation of boys and girls is sexist. Exaggerating the differences between genders, and claiming that environmental influences aren’t responsible for most of what you describe, is sexist. Claiming that there are “boys activities” and “girls activities” and having a very binary view of the differences between genders is sexist. Claiming that a woman who describes sexist or misogynistic experiences is “imagining things” is sexist. Not realizing that the most popular insults that are directed against both boys and girls denigrate feminine traits or behaviors, or the female anatomy, shows an ignorance about the sexist and misogynistic beliefs that are systemic in our society.
As for the “expert” comment, when I suggested that you don’t know as much about sexism as I do because you’re not a woman, you came back with a comment about a female with an IQ of 70 not knowing as much as a male “expert” on sexism. I understand that you might not have meant that as a direct comment about the status of you and me, but it certainly comes across in a peculiar way…
Finally, I sincerely doubt that you would tell a black man that you know more about racism, or tell a gay man that you know more about homophobia. I sincerely doubt that if they had related some of their experiences with prejudice to you that you would tell them that they “have issues” or that they are “imagining things” or “making things up.” We may never know, because it’s unlikely that we’ll get to experience this in a common setting like Piggington, but I really and truly doubt that you would have talked to them in the same manner that you’ve done with me. Just something to think about…
