Using up all your likes? Not cool. You’re getting added to the next version of the poster. Now, how to represent that…
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And in every community on the planet, female human beings are significantly more likely to be harmed or killed by male human beings than the other way around.
But the fact that 51% of the population is responsible for 57% of the college population…boy howdy, that’s a REAL problem which deserves to take over the topic when the discussion at hand is about unconscious racism.
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etc!
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This thread makes me want to drink.
Drinking is cool.
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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.
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In this neck of the woods, Italians were definitely not considered white when you were growing up (based on OPs stated age of 43).
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Thanks for contributing!
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Bingo!
Also, dude, that was beautiful. You have the patience of a saint.
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I’ll second that.
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Yet in my neck of the woods they were. My Italian friends all filled in the “White” box on their college applications. Because that’s what they consider themselves.
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The important part is that you’re an open-minded person who is willing to seriously consider the perspectives of other people and occasionally concede that there might be some merit to opinions that are not your own.
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Cue the straight white men whining about there being a double standard, since it’s okay for a woman to call another woman “dude.”
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I’m not familiar with how to understand other people while I am explaining to them how they feel and why they feel that way. I’ve found that telling people how they feel is invariably disagreeable behavior. Something something Sartre.
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That’s one thing I like about this place. It does attract buttheads, but also a higher-than-average percentage of regular participants who demonstrate a willingness to consider other perspectives and at times, openly demonstrate a willingness to alter their own in response.
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Do you mean Grown Ups? Because that’s a huge part of being one.
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Hmm, maybe Honorary Grown Ups? Because I know a lot of biologically grown-up people who spend a lot of time acting like obstinate, bratty kids.
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Maybe they’ve mistaken BoingBoing for a bouncy castle? Kids LOVE the bouncy castle.
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Well, I see this thread is going so much more civilly today than yesterday; groovy.
I concur. The difference is quite noticeable to anyone who’s spent time on various social networks, and when I first got here it took me a moment to adjust to the change of pace.
Those two highly prolific and insightful comments of yours, though…
You silly.
Excellent question.
That’s the interesting thing here; most people on this thread weren’t demonizing the Red Cross, even though that was disingenuously insinuated by a few gentlemen.
I also give them credit for owning their fuck-up and taking steps to fix it.
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Technically, yes. And yet in high school everybody thought I was “dating a black girl” because of my half-Italian girlfriends features and complexion. Of course, I lived in Detroit, as did my girlfriend, while my school was in Grosse Pointe…
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