rape culture/victim culture

and your addresses are still wrong. we're really talking about something else here. is there an objective reality? your argument is based on the philosophy that there is not. just because you see things differently than i do, or than holmes does, does not mean that everyone is right.apply biases all you want, but at the end of the day, you're still being sexist. actually, i think has more to do with the human drama of the film. another thing you would notice had you seen the movie -- there's suprisingly little alien in it.but because it portrays BOTH genders, assigning it ONE is silly. (this of course further reiterates a statement i make all the time: feminism has nothing to do with women's rights) bull. here you admit to have gender bias, and then pretend social detachment? you can't do both, and that's exactly the point postmodern feminist thought tries to make.like it or not, by attributing genders to actions, you are forming some kind of judgement. maybe not of the actions, but of the genders. and when people read that judgement, they read it with their own sets of biases. raping is bad, so if men rape, men are bad. you can't be half-biased and half-objective. it just doesn't work. because you ARE taking that position, you just don't want to admit it because it would make not only look bad, but stupid too. your position is based on gender bias, and ascribes attributes to men that a vast majority of people would agree are "bad."

If there is, I advise you to get a grip on it before you attempt to engage me in this debate again.

actually, i'm the one being objective here. you're the one assigning genders to the genderless subjectively.you've argued that female wasps are actually male. i suggest YOU get a grip on objectivity, and then we'll proceed.but i suspect you won't, because your whole argument is derived and descended from postmodern philosophy, which is specifically reliant on the existential idea that objectivity does not exist. so you are by definition "out there."

Look, arach, I can't help you. I don't know what it is you want from me. I'm not going to play the part you've written for me, ok? I'm not going to make the argument you so obviously want me to make, so why don't you just create another account and post the posts you so desperately want to reply to?Because I'm not going to do it, ok? I've made my argument, and it bears absolutely no relationship to the position you're so stridently arguing against. As anyone can read in this thread.You need help. I'm not the one that can give it to you.

Just as a footnote on the Alien issue, the first alien is presumed to be female according to my understanding of such canon as there is. One of the spin-off products, a graphic novel, was titled "Female War" or similar, and that trope of sort of mothers of respectoive species in conflict has been identified by many observers.To some degree the vuiolence of the alien is "masculine", but only in terms of our gender constructs. No such thing as a pacifist Great White of either sex. Our constructs of men = violence and passivity = female are just that. So the movie does play on these cultural sterotypes, but seeing as it does not demonise Ripley for the use of violence, as an unnatural killer, it does not appear to be remotely sexist. Indeed Ripley is a strong female lead, a fully developed female character rather than a prop (indeed, the term female lead, or leading lady, implies romantic subject by convention).But I really do not understand anybodies position here much. Crash says:

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It's demonstratably right. Being a sexual aggressor is definately considered "male", it's certainly not considered "ladylike." Ask your mom. Or ask two bisexual or lesbian women; ask them if they consider the sexually aggressive role "masculine" or "feminine."

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Erm, this seems like an appeal to the popularity of that fallacy. I don't regard sexual aggression as being masculine, I regard it as sexual aggression. It is also the case that sexual aggression is mostly perpetrated by men. But you have to buy into the sterotype of a gender pshycology to assign such characteristics to a gender - and that is indeed invalid, and a replication of the sterotype. And the fact that your mom does not regard it as "ladylike" only demonstrates the depth of this culturally-imposed perception.This message has been edited by contracycle, 04-04-2005 08:38 AM

Well, that's exactly what it is. That is, after all, what we're talking about - what characteristics are "masculine" and "feminine" popularly associated with?It's not a fallacy to appeal to popularity when the position is that a certain stereotype is popularly held. You don't have to "buy into it", you simply have to recognize that these stereotypes exist, and are not uncommon. You may not like it, but as I've said over and over again, I'm merely describing the stereotypes that exist, not advocating or approving those stereotypes. And quite frankly its staggeringly insulting that I have to repeat that to people.

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You don't have to "buy into it", you simply have to recognize that these stereotypes exist, and are not uncommon. You may not like it, but as I've said over and over again, I'm merely describing the stereotypes that exist, not advocating or approving those stereotypes. And quite frankly its staggeringly insulting that I have to repeat that to people.

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Sure. Acknowledging the existance of a thing does not necessarily endorse that thing - a point I keep having to make to Holmes.Lets say there is a differeince between saying violence is a male characteristic, and saying that violence is falsely percieved to be a male characteristic. The former requires buy-in to the sexist stereotype; the latter is a criticism of that stereotype.But as I said, I don't really understand anyones position; hence the clarification.

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You don't have to "buy into it", you simply have to recognize that these stereotypes exist, and are not uncommon. You may not like it, but as I've said over and over again, I'm merely describing the stereotypes that exist, not advocating or approving those stereotypes. And quite frankly its staggeringly insulting that I have to repeat that to people.

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You know, I have mostly skimmed these posts, but I noticed that a lot of time was spent making fun of you for suggesting that a female wasp who penetrates prey in order lay eggs in it could be described as behaving in a masculine way according to the popular culture.Now, what about the male seahorse? It houses the eggs inside his body and then gives birth to the tiny baby seahorses.I think that this is a feminine sort of behavior, yet the seahorse is still of the male sex. In fact, I have seen this kind of example used to counter sexist men try to say that certain human gender roles are "natural".The male seahorse is unusual because he has a role that is very typically female. but he's still a male seahorse. He's just in a role/performing a behavior that we think of as typically female.I really don't see what the big difficulty in understanding is.

Would it be possible to employ language that neither buys in to the stereotype, nor criticizes it, but merely acknowledges that it exists? Might we say that "sexual violence is a characteristic associated with males in our culture"?

Ah, Schaf, if we weren't both married... I suspect its my language that causes the difficulty. It's hard in English not to conflate biological sex and cultureal gender. I guess the Chinese employ the "Yin/Yang" concept to recitfy this ambiguity. Perhaps I will as well. If I can remember which is which.

You sly dog.

holy crap i almost agree with you on this.

are you insane?i'm telling you that the argument you ARE making is based on gender bias and stereotyping. i don't need you to play any parts. the argument you did make is sufficient.

yeah i mostly agree with you too.crash is mostly based on stereotyping. i know he argues that he's not endorsing this stereotype, but he is. he is perpetuating it, and basing his argument on it. even if he were to say "our cultural outlook says..." before his argument, he's still essentially agreeing with it.although i don't agree that the alien in the first was female. there are later books, like "the female war," but if i recal that refers to an android ripley and the queen (or queen mother?). either way, it was a pretty contrived replication of the formula that worked in the second movie, as most of the comic books, graphic novels, books, etc are. they really bear very little relation to the first movie and it's themes. and in these, the "drones" are usually seen as "male."

i suggested this above, actually. but it was to illustrate that applying a female gender to things just because they carry a child is kind of silly. the female seahorse is still the female. she produces one egg, which is externally inseminated, like every other fish.the only essential difference is that instead of laying the egg somewhere on the sea floor, and having the male gaurd it, the male just holds on to it himself. it doesn't make him "culturally female." in seahorse "culture" that's just what males do.if we were to call him female, we're reading our OWN gender roles into it, and our own societal biases and stereotypes. and that's invalid. that's simply my point.