Misogyny and the Conservative Tradition

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Tiassa, Jan 12, 2013.

  1. tali89 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    343
    Clearly you care, since you take issue with the fact that I have high self-esteem, and that this esteem is reflected in my appearance. It is not a coincidence that when someone suffers from clinical depression, their appearance and physical health decline. Therefore, it is little surprise that slovenly feminists and their ilk are chronically unhappy, and have a chip on their shoulder for anyone who is healthy and active.

    Ah yes, I'm proud of my appearance. The audacity! Can't have that. You need to spout paragraphs of drivel to 'take me down a peg'.

    I disagree. Leftism is about quick fixes and a lack of persona responsibility.

    Ahh, so your parents were perpetual victims. Why am I not surprised?

    Clearly they imparted their victim complex on to you as well.
     
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  3. Bells Staff Member

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    Women with high self esteem don't go on about their looks and they do not compare and measure themselves against other women. You do. I am somewhat disturbed by the fact that you appear to have such low self esteem.

    Clearly your reading comprehension is lacking once again.

    You have every right to be proud of yourself and your accomplishments. You have yet to explain what your appearance and whether you are attractive or not has something to do with this thread. I tell you no one cares what you look like and that the only thing that matters here is your intelligence, how you argue and present your points and that your looks don't really matter here and you think I am trying to take you down a peg. Do you see how weird that is? Why do your looks matter so much that you think my telling you that it is your intelligence that matters on this site and not your looks is my somehow or other taking you down a peg?

    Which is yet another stupid stereotype. You seem to cling to those like they are a lifeline. Why is that?

    Who are you trying to convince here? Me? The members who participate here? Or yourself?

    How do you figure that?

    They migrated and moved to another country to do something with their lives and to provide me with the opportunities they were not allowed to achieve and obtain when they were younger. Frankly, what they did was extraordinary, considering they left our whole family behind, what many would consider one's safety net, migrated to a country where they could barely speak the language, worked their butts off, bought something they would never have been able to buy otherwise, which was a house, saved, invested, and now are happily retired. How do you view that as being a perpetual victim? What an extraordinary claim and stereotype again tali89. You are outdoing yourself.

    Or do you think victims of racism and apartheid are perpetual victims because of what they have suffered?

    Why do you think that?

    Why do you think they are "perpetual victims"?

    Or are you the type of racist bigot who believes that black people are "perpetual victims"? You know, the type of people who buy into such offensive stereotypes?
     
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  5. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Look, dude, you really need to understand that this isn't about you except for the fact that like so many people who will say anything in order to aid and abet bigotry in society it always comes down to you.

    It's not about you. And if you are going to take a calculated, inflammatory position, you really ought to bring more to the role than self-centered insecurity.

    Because it doesn't matter how hard you work to keep yourself looking good. When a person acts like you do, they cannot hide the fundamental ugliness that defines them as a person.

    So get it through your head, dude. You're demonstrating the functional problem with the way you think and communicate. Bragging about your appearance is ugly enough. Doing so in order to insult other people, as you did in #136↑? I get that being attractive and going out of your way to accommodate and encourage bigotry is a fundamental component of your personal identity. But I also see that the harm you do by your conduct is nowhere in your conscience, or even your attention.

    And there are no kind words to describe just how unhealhty that sort of behavior is, dude.
     
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  7. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Tali:
    A picture might help.
    Notice the picture of one of mine above the word "sculptor".
    That's the third picture posted in here. The first was removed by jamesR who chastised me stating "this is not a pornography site". (OK--just a casting from a mold made over modeled clay---aroused someone's prurient interests --- I guess that that was a compliment---a tad adroit, but easily taken as such)
    Let (s)he who would not like to see a picture of "buns of steel" stand and speak as I remain seated and mute. If you sculpt your body with hard work and exercise while I sculpt with clay, your's is the more tiring of the 2. Aside from which, I really do not see all that much difference. We are both investing time and energy to create that which we want to see.

    It seems that I was once considered cute or handsome.
    When at my fifth university, I was a full time student. 24-7 that was all that I did, with little time left for eating and sleeping, or skirt chasing. So, quite the inverse seemed to be happening, and women seemed to be propositioning me on a regular basis.
    Once while I was trying to write a paper over coffee between classes, a young woman kept engaging me in conversation. I was raised by a single mother for most of my childhood, and she taught me old school politeness. Rule number one "When a woman speaks, stop and listen!" There were lots of other rules like standing when she entered a room, seating her at table, holding doors for her, etc...etc...(it's actually a rather long list).

    Anecdote: Those rules made me a victim of sexual harassment one day when I stood and offered a woman, carrying packages, my seat on the el in Chicago. She started venting on me with: "What, do I look crippled?!" and didn't stop. What to do in a situation like that? Slide a book down over your balls and pray. Fortunately(or so I had thought) at the next stop, an old man got on the train car, and I stood and offered him my seat. "Thank you." he said and seated his self. So, I walked to the other end of the car, trying to escape the thing that Rush Limbaugh would have called a feminazi, but she followed me still haranguing me for something that another woman had inculcated into my standard behaviour patterns. I was caught in a double bind(thanx mom). I simply could not be impolite to that woman who was being so impolite to me. If you can't fight you can always try running. At the next stop, I got off the train. Fortunately, she did not follow, and I got on the next train and arrived at my destination 10 minutes later than I had planned.

    sorry about the ramble
    Back to the coffee, paper, and forced conversation which the current young woman was carrying on almost single handedly.
    as/re the progress on the paper: It was time to go back to my apartment and precisely quote a paragraph from one of the books I was referencing in the paper. It would fit perfectly in support of the point I was making. I searched for a short way to end the conversation politely, and all I could come up with was "Would you like to have sex with me?". Her response was: "Well, you are kinda cute".

    So, maybe I actually was "cute"? (once)
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2014
  8. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    OK so this is how your mom taught you to treat women.

    So after a few minutes of distracted idle chat your response was "Would you like to have sex with me?", it was not something a bit more polite such as "excuse me I have to go now".

    I struggle to understand your point. Is it that maybe you are nuts?
     
  9. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    It seemed to be what she wanted.
    She seemed to be wanting a relationship, so, end the conversation while encouraging the relationship----
    There seem to be certain things about which women do not like being the first to raise the subject. Does it not, then, fall upon a gentleman the task of saving a woman the discomfort of having to voice that desire?
    Perhaps I could have done it better, but time was precious to me.
    Don't get me wrong, i'm usually a social retard who doesn't seem to recognize when I am boring, offending, or startling my conversational partners. It is often very difficult for me to understand what someone wants without them just saying it. On this occasion, I nailed it. What I asked was exactly what she wanted.

    With males, I normally just say: "Do me a favor and cut to the bottom line" or "Bottom line it for me".
    Based on my upbringing, I am most likely a sexist, biased toward pleasing women.
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2014
  10. Bells Staff Member

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    Dear god..

    If you want to know what she looks like, you could try facebook or other social media sites.

    Err why didn't you just say 'please stop speaking to me and abusing me for being polite to you and please leave me alone'?

    It's interesting that you felt you couldn't tell a woman who was abusing you unnecessarily and unfairly on a train to stop doing so, because your mother taught you to not be impolite (by the way, she was being impolite), but then we have this:

    You don't think saying that to her was impolite?

    What is wrong with 'I'm sorry, but I have to go now or I will be late for an appointment, it was lovely chatting to you, have a nice day!'?

    I have to agree with Origin. What the hell? I don't think it's you just being sexist. I think you're also a tad sleazy.
     
  11. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    8,466
    perspective matters
     
  12. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    It's perhaps worth pointing out that looks do matter to some people, and they don't place a high value on thoughts, opinions or intelligence.

    For example, take your average model (and don't get me wrong - I've known a few very intelligent models). Their job is to look good. And they work at it. If you're a model, you spend time working out, you watch what you eat, you spend time and money on making your body look as attractive as possible. Your value in the industry depends on your maintaining your looks. Not so much on your thoughts or opinions.

    Making a career out of how you look is a choice, as valid as any other career path. And in terms of achievement in a career where looks matter, your looks really do mean diddly squat. And it's not just models. It's also actors, television presenters, PR people etc. - and not just women either.

    If your career doesn't depend on looks, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't care about how you look, either. Looks count in every facet of life, for good or ill. You can argue that looks shouldn't matter, but they do.

    What interests me more is the claim that being conservative rather than liberal somehow makes people better looking - a claim that I find quite bizarre, if that is indeed what is being claimed. I can't see how being a feminist, for example (conservative or liberal), could possibly change one's appearance. Perhaps tali89 can explain that one for us.

    The Kardashians are valued in certain quarters, like it or not. Just because you don't place high value on them doesn't mean that nobody else does.

    Just saying.
     
  13. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Which has what to do with this discussion or this thread? Is this thread about models and politics? Or how one looks, works out, how attractive they are, how they compare to other women and politics?

    Which was why I pointed this out to tali89 in the first place. What did it have to do with anything being discussed in this thread and what did it have to do with her political beliefs? Are you looks based on your political beliefs? Is your work ethic based on your political beliefs?

    Tali89's stereotypes that people who are on the left of the political spectrum (not to mention feminists, liberals, etc) are somehow lazy, fat, ugly. In saying this, tali89 then advised that she works out, is attractive compared to other women, especially liberals and feminists, and that is because of her political beliefs. Which is why I asked what did her looks have to do with anything, in particular this thread, this site and this topic.

    Perhaps you can answer that question for her? You know, since looks do matter to some people and I never claimed that they did not. Quite the contrary. What I did ask was what did it have to do with this thread and this site. Do you care about how people on this site look like? Do you equate people's looks, their health and fitness with their political affiliations? Since tali89 has yet to be able to answer these questions and since you are pointing out that looks matter to people like models, for example, perhaps you could explain what do looks have to do with this thread, this topic and this site? Because I am yet to try to understand why she felt it was important to tell us she was attractive compared to left liberal feminists. What point is she trying to make with that particular stereotype?

    I'll put it this way, say you are participating in a discussion in the physics forum. Do you judge people on whether they tell you they are attractive or not? Or do you only care about their argument and how they present their argument on this site and in that thread?

    And if tali89's employment is based solely on her looks, then it is excellent that she is doing all that she can to protect her source of income, whatever that may be. And even if it isn't based on her looks, it's great that she is doing all that she can to remain healthy and fit. But what exactly does that have to do with this discussion?

    I'll put it this way, in a discussion about misogyny amongst conservative circles, do you think coming out and saying something along the lines of 'I'm attractive, work out, am fit and healthy and it's because I am not a left leaning liberal feminist' is not actually buying into the misogyny of the conservative right? Okay, she's attractive, takes care of herself and works out. That's great. And? That's it? I mean, this is an achievement that somehow matters in this discussion? Are we supposed to care what she looks like and what she does to look like she does? Do you care to know? Perhaps sculptor does, since he asked her to post a picture. But I don't think anyone really cares. And I certainly do not think that people would assume that she must be attractive, fit and healthy because she is a political conservative.

    But it isn't just liberal. Apparently it's also being a feminist.

    Which tali89 clearly is not. While she is enjoying the fruits of feminist labour, being allowed and able to get an education, go to a gym, live her life as she sees fit, have choices, have a job of her choice, she is bagging those very feminists that made all of that possible for her, and apparently they are all "land whales" because of their liberal and feminist idealogy. And it doesn't end there. She went on with more offensive stereotypes and accused my parents of apparently being "perpetual victims" because I had mentioned that they were left leaning liberals who have an amazing worth ethic who overcame racism and apartheid to achieve all they achieved and pointed out that work ethic has nothing to do with one's political affiliations (neither do looks, which she thinks they do because apparently left leaning liberals are slovenly and apparently fat because they lack personal responsibility that as a conservative, has her at the gym working out), but by the morals and values one gets from ones parents.


    Of course people do. People who place a high value on how her butt looked in her sex tape which was used to launch her and her family to celebrity status certainly place a high value on them. However if they posted on this site, what would matter more? Their looks? Or what they said here?

    Which was my point to tali89. Your looks matter diddly squat here. It's what you say and how you say it that is of value.

    As for the Kardashians, they work hard at selling their brand. Even if it means releasing sex tapes. Is it their political affiliation that imparted that particular work ethic?

    Let's look at tali89. Is it her political affiliations that imparted her work ethics and made her go to the gym, as she claims, to make her more attractive compared to the other women she compares herself to, women she deems are feminists and left leaning liberals, not to mention, as she was so kind to inform us, improved her career prospects and love life? Do her looks matter here, in this thread? I don't think it does. Perhaps someone could explain to me why it does matter?
     
  14. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    5,160
    There are objective and subjective realities. Objective reality is governed by reason, while subjective reality is governed by emotions. Both reason and emotion have their complementary places within culture. However, these two can clash when appeal to sentiment is applied to the needs of objective reality, or too much objectivity is applied to things that are designed to be subjective. Like playing chess, objectivity is able to think several moves ahead; longer term, while subjectivity tends to limited to one move at a time; immediate needs.

    In general, men and women differ in their approach, in that men, by long term natural selection, have historically been the provider and protector. They need to be more rational since hard reality is not how we wish it to be; reality is not a utopian fantasy but has predictable hazards and pitfalls.

    Women, through natural selection have historically raised babies and children. They need to be more concerned with the emotional needs of children, who can't reason, as well as keep abreast with the fads of culture and its long term traditions. Christmas is not logical, but does serve collective emotional needs; goodwill, generosity and charity. The women drive the holiday season. If you reason this all away, like with rational atheism, this does not benefit collective cultural emotions. Male and female are complementary. It is not one is better than the other, all the time. Both have their places and work as a team.

    Misogamy appears when female subjectivity/emotions try to overlap areas of culture that should be governed by reason. This begins to lead to predicable problems and costs; chess moves down the line don't align properly.

    For example, when the family was broken apart, by liberalism using emotional appeal against the trends of history, no liberal saw the huge social costs three moves forward in the chess game. The rational mind saw this and tried to avoid it. It is times like those were reason needs to be heard, even if the short term gain seems stronger; one chess move. The analogy was this move got the other person's queen, which is a huge move. But three moves later, you are in check mate. It was hard to reason that taking the queen was not a good move, so few liberals and woman listened. Misogamy often begins to appear after too many lost chess games, due to appeasing short term feminine thinking, that can't see the future consequences due to lack of reason in these choices.

    Liberalism is feminine and appeals to emotions. The Obama Care health sales pitch appealed to feminized emotions. This was similar to taking the queen early in the game; all people will have health care, how wonderful. This felt good. No liberal, if any, saw the pitfalls three moves down; higher cost and high deductibles with even more people out of the system, since reason was not part of the process; three moves ahead.

    The classic example of the contrast, is the wife asks her husband, do I look fat in this dress? She is not looking for objective truth and advice, but short term validation because she feels insecure. The husband begins by thinking logically and does not what to tell his plump wife looks skinny, since she will not try to change anything in the long term. She wants to take the queen right away and feel good, while he wants to win the match with a trim and healthy wife.

    In relationships the male is often required to put aside the long term in favor of short term appeasement. In the larger picture of emotional and subjective needs if she is happy, this will lead to other benefits that will balance out. This may be OK for a relationship, but this approach damages culture, since long term cultural health depends on the path of reason and not quick fix political emotions and horse trading for benefits.

    Maybe we need to establish where each apply and should be the leader, and not allow each to invade the other territory if this causes damage to the other area. This is why I like the idea of male and female each defining their own needs apart from the other sex. This will tell us the line in the sand where complements are optimized.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2014
  15. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    2,562
    I'm terribly sorry to intrude, but shouldn't this thread have been closed long ago on the strength that it is simply more regurgitated hash?
     
  16. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Out of curiosity, how do you view the juxtaposition of what one does in society with what those actions do to society?

    It's not that I disagree that looks do matter to some people, but there is a difference between working as a model and being passed over for promotion not on grounds of merit but because one doesn't look fuckable enough to the boss deciding who gets the promotion.

    More generally, there is a range of appearance considerations to consider; the idea that someone is overweight? In and of itself that means nothing in terms of function. If that appearance is unhealthy, or includes related disruptive conditions (body odor; loud, ragged breathing; an inability to walk down the hall without becoming winded) it is a lot harder to criticize prejudice against appearance.

    But being underweight is also unhealthy. However, in my society, and as I understand it, in sectors of your own, this appearance of unhealthiness is often considered and even commercially promoted as attractive.

    The relationship between the aesthetic and its practical effect seems important. And in terms of women's lives and work, sometimes that aesthetic prejudice can come down to how much makeup a woman wears. Too much and she's irresponsible for being reckless; too little and she apparently doesn't care enough about her appearance. And in that constant debate we witness—and acknowledging that it is a quieter debate than other questions of sexism—it is often denounced as an extremist position to question why women should be expected to paint up their faces in the first place.

    I don't dispute that at some point looks do matter.

    Nor do I dispute that in many cases people who focus on looks "don't place a high value on thoughts, opinions or intelligence".

    But I also think reaching to a comparatively rare labor sector—modeling°—might undermine your point.

    To wit, yes, the Kardashians are valued in certain quarters regardless of what you or Bells or I think. But functionally, there also comes a point where those quarters are part of the problem. At some point, these issues must necessarily tie back to the societies in which they occur, and in many of the challenges facing industrialized "first-world" societies, the superficiality that makes the Kardashians so valuable to those people is actually part of the problem.

    And I would posit that without accounting for the effects of such outlooks, a point like, "You can argue that looks shouldn't matter, but they do", only describes the problem.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    ° It's also worth noting that despite all that work and self-destruction (eating cotton balls?) models still aren't "attractive" enough; in the digital age, airbrushing is no longer simply something done to even out the photograph, remove a flaw in the actual photograph, regulate skin tone, or hide a scar or birthmark. Now they alter the shape of models' bodies in order to make them more "attractive", and that ... yes, we laugh at ideas like a retail catalog removing a teenager's crotch or armpit from a swimsuit photo, and here I don't mean by cropping; I mean by adjusting her body shape so that there is gaping daylight where her anatomy should be. It's really easy to laugh at such outcomes↱, but it also reminds any number of things about the negative effects of the modeling industry.
     
  17. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Bells:

    We're in furious agreement, it seems.

    I, too, am fascinated to hear from tali89 about how her political views have shaped how she looks compared to those overweight and unattractive feminists and liberals she has talked about.

    This isn't about me, but my answers are "No" and "Not at all". I'm interested in tali89's answers.

    Good question. Let's hope that she explains and doesn't just vanish from the thread, eh?

    Again, I don't think it's that important what I think here.

    I would like to ask tali89 directly to give us her thoughts as a woman on misogyny in general, and on why being conservative makes one not only a better woman but also a more attractive one.

    Yes, that does seem to be a double-think kind of view to take.

    I do so hope that tali89 will explain how she reconciles her anti-feminist views with her success as a woman. It would be an interesting insight into the mindset of a conservative woman who is, by her own acclamation, anti-feminist.

    Regardless of the conservatism that is the thread topic, I am interested in the bare bones of why any woman would be as implacably opposed to feminism as tali89 apparently is. How do women get that way? When and why, in tali89's opinion, did feminism lose her allegiance?

    I hope that this didn't have anything to do with racism. I'm sure tali89 will explain for us.

    tali89 is articulate. Let's wait for her explanation, which I'm sure will enlighten.
     
  18. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Oh no! It's just getting interesting.
     
  19. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Yes, I agree with you, too.
     
  20. Bells Staff Member

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    Oh I am waiting as well.. However I suspect we are in for a very long wait.
     
  21. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, I quite agree. My attitude over the last few weeks has been the result of an observation that, for some, things "getting interesting" are sometimes a reason to devise ways from preventing them from getting any more interesting.
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It's unfair to pressure someone on their personal appearance in this context, even if they themselves introduced the topic.

    We are comparing combinations of appearance and accomplishment, and looking for correlations with political viewpoint.

    This can be done in abstract, with public sources - let's compare anyone on this list, say: http://rightwingnews.com/special/the-20-hottest-conservative-women-in-the-new-media-2012-edition/
    with one of these people (three each of first two, notice that I am comparing media-known authors with media known authors, not movie stars or musicians or other unfair-to-righties categories of accomplishment) :

    http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...ct=rc&uact=3&dur=19464&page=1&start=0&ndsp=52
    http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...ct=rc&uact=3&dur=2125&page=2&start=52&ndsp=57
    http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...ct=rc&uact=3&dur=7223&page=2&start=52&ndsp=57
    - - - - - - -
    http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...ct=rc&uact=3&dur=1096&page=2&start=50&ndsp=56
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/ronnieyip/5493193252/
    http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...i=VeCJVJmbBpWpyAT7goCYCA&ved=undefined&iact=c
    - - - -
    Or since at 50+ you have the face you deserve: http://www.blastr.com/2012/08/want_to_be_on_ursula_le_g.php
     
  23. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Remember, by the National Review standard, Sarah Palin won her vice presidential debate with Joe Biden because she's hot↗.
     

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