Worth-Based Entitlement
At present, female citizens enjoy disproportionate power to compromise the well-being of male citizens. That power, being vested in laws and institutions, becomes a political power and makes women a political class. This tilts the political board against me, and in light of that fact I have no political obligation to go to bat for women as a class. Under the circumstances, why the hell should I?
Therefore any individual woman I meet will get special consideration from me only in an individual way, and only if she proves herself worthy. And clearly, some women will prove themselves worthier than others. This way of thinking entails no "misogyny" because it entails no opinion, either good or ill, about women as a group.
Now, misogyny means disaffection toward women irrespectively. Hence, even if you were to form a bad opinion about every female person on earth, it would not entail misogyny if you had weighed each case on its merits. You would merely harbor a bad opinion about this woman, that woman, and the next woman -- but not about women.
I am far from having evaluated every female person on earth, and I know my life is too short to do that. So I am content to say that I harbor no opinion either good or ill about the huge majority of women, but that as I make their acquaintances I will evaluate them one at a time. And upon that base alone, I will decide what, if anything, I "owe" them.
Therefore any individual woman I meet will get special consideration from me only in an individual way, and only if she proves herself worthy. And clearly, some women will prove themselves worthier than others. This way of thinking entails no "misogyny" because it entails no opinion, either good or ill, about women as a group.
Now, misogyny means disaffection toward women irrespectively. Hence, even if you were to form a bad opinion about every female person on earth, it would not entail misogyny if you had weighed each case on its merits. You would merely harbor a bad opinion about this woman, that woman, and the next woman -- but not about women.
I am far from having evaluated every female person on earth, and I know my life is too short to do that. So I am content to say that I harbor no opinion either good or ill about the huge majority of women, but that as I make their acquaintances I will evaluate them one at a time. And upon that base alone, I will decide what, if anything, I "owe" them.
posted by Fidelbogen at 2:41 PM
4 Comments:
I consider that every person, regardless of race or gender, has the right to a good reputation unless they themselves destroy it. Whenever people are willing to hate an entire group of people for something they cannot help (such as their gender, their skin color, or the length of their forearms), it is a sign of ignorance and prejudice. On the other hand, do I hate terrorists? Yes, I do. Feminists? Yes. The list could go on, the point being that any person who identifies themselves as subscribing to a perverse mindset is not worthy of my respect. THAT is where public shaming is a useful tool, and once upon a time, was used appropriately as another form of law or social order. But, nowadays, when ANYTHING goes so long as one isn't physically hurting another person, and morality is flipped upside down, those who are shamed are those who should not be shamed: manly men, those who decry women who sleep around, pro-lifers, etc. It's a sad, sad world.
As an aside, does shaming ever work on people who actually deserve it? Is it even directed at people who deserve it?
I'd say, if a person was caught red-handed in some WILDLY flagrant misdeed, shaming would be deserved and likely to be successful as well.
E.G. Nixon and the Watergate scandal, or Clinton and the Monica scandal. I've got a hunch they were both squirming with mortification.
Otherwise, it's like calling somebody an "asshole" -- an insult, no doubt, but it's not something to make you experience shame.
All in all, "shaming" works best when it targets a person of lesser social status than oneself. As with the accusation that you "live in your mother's basement". You wouldn't say that to a big politician or CEO; it would just sound blatantly off-the-wall.
But if you said it to some old nobody, it would be mean and nasty and would inflict emotional trauma whether that person actually lived in his mother's basement or not.
And no, in neither case would that person deserve to feel ashamed. There is nothing inherently shameful about living in your mother's basement.
But the 'sting' comes from the fact that this individual, being low in the social pecking order, is more LIKELY than a big CEO to be living in his mother's basement.
So, the taunt that you "live in your mother's basement" is just a way of rubbing somebody's low social status in his face.
The message it conveys is, "I think you are a low status person, which is why I can get away with saying shit like this. Suck it up, fool."
I mean, after all, you can't have a pecking order if people aren't actually getting pecked once in a while.
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