Okay, but I feel your dismissal of this issue as people going out and looking for problems isn’t respecting the individuality of other people. We’ve had, in this thread, someone just outright claiming that anyone who disagrees with them is lying. Representation of groups in media has an effect on those groups, and I got a pretty bad vibe from this poster at a single glance without trying to see a problem. That was real, and I think it was even more real coming from some of the people who complained about the poster to the Red Cross. I think an apology and removing the poster is a reasonable response to that, and I don’t see anyone making up a problem where there isn’t one.
I talk about the outrage-at-outrage machine as a kind of parody. So often I hear about the internet outrage machine, but it seems to always come from people who are outraged that anyone might be outraged about racism or sexism. I look at our society and I don’t see outrage at racism run amok, I see complacency about racism run amok, and people acting like pointing out racism is worse than actual racism. I feel like sympathy for the poor graphic designer is misplaced. This isn’t a mom and pop shop making their own ads. Tons of people reviewed this before it went out, and the fact that they didn’t notice any problems shows they are out of touch with the people they are serving.
The gender problems are really complicated. Women are more likely to go to college and more likely to graduate college, but they are still perceived as being less educated and competent. In Canada among lawyers practicing 0-5 years, over half are women but they are getting paid less than their male counterparts. You see few female CEOs but among young people unemployment is higher among men. Women still have to deal with catcalls walking down the street. Men can’t let their kids run free at the park because if a man at a park isn’t clearly assigned to a child then he’s assumed to be a pedophile.
I am worried about the messages we are sending to young boys. It’s like we are simultaneously setting people up to be unsuccessful and making them feel entitled to success. It’s crazy toxic. The message to girls is the opposite: do what it takes to be successful including being quiet about abuse you suffer along the way. Men are expected to live in the dog-eat-dog world of neoliberalism where there is no society, just a couple of winners and many losers. Women are expected to keep everything running while the men have their contests.
But then I’m super frustrated because while the response of women I know seems to be to rally for changes to stop treating women so negatively and taking women for granted; the response of men I know, in significant numbers, is to use that fighting posture they’ve been told to adopt that is causing the problem and turn it against women as a group. Instead of women wanting women to be successful and men wanting men to successful, I see women wanting women to successful and men wanting women to fail because they live in a bizarre zero-sum world where another group’s failure is the just as good as their success (obviously an unfair generalization).
So those angry “losers” (I’m not calling people losers in a pejorative sense, but talking about people who are ending up at the bottom of the pile of the big man-fight) end up voting for Trump and for Brexit - basically trying to return to the old way where they were automatically given preferred status. That solution doesn’t work for anyone.
So I think in order to enter a conversation and point out the problems that are facing men today, you need to build up some reasonable-person capital beforehand. In an ideal world we all would just treat each other with respect and assume reasonability to begin with, but indignation that people don’t assume reasonability is just showing entitlement. The fact is, when someone points out the gender of the “uncool” kids, they are either trying to make a genuine point that concerns them; or they are trying to deflect a discussion about racism by feigning concern about gender equality; or they are trying to blame all of their problems on women (surely there are more options too). I think I’ve been perfect civil here, but I certainly read your comments as the second option (deflecting discussion by feigning concern).
So I read this, “I am, of course, out of the you-know-what!” and looked at the rainbow coloured hearts and thought my post had turned you gay. Of course, it’s Pride Week, and my brain just tells me everyone gay during pride week.
