(May 4, 2014 at 3:19 am)Deidre32 Wrote: I'll have you know that I was unaware of the selective service mandate for men only until you pointed it out. I'm now sharing that with other unaware people.
Paying it forward so to speak.
In my eyes, where modern feminism has taken a turn for the worse is when it started telling women that we should demand equal rights and freedoms without having equal responsibility. That isn't what feminism was intended to be about.
I'm glad that you're spreading the word now, because the problem is that a lot of people don't know or juat don't realky think about it. When you actually break down what the SS entails, most people are against it. Like I said the main thing that bugs me is that is one of the best examples of unequal gender laws, but it goes largely unnoticed because the fact that men die in war is thought of as natural part of our world.
(May 4, 2014 at 3:27 am)Losty Wrote: Well the reason it isn't mention in history is because it wasn't that women didn't have to, it was that they were not allowed. The very men who were drafted in against their will would have been horrified at the thought if working beside some lowly woman.
See but I don't think that the primary reason for women not being allowed to be soldiers didn't come from the thought that women are lowly. The way that gender roles have been set up, gave women less rights but also devalued men's lives. That's why we are traditionally soldiers or work more hazardous jobs. The thought behind it is that to put a women in such a situation is cruel to a woman.
All the rest if what you said though I completely agree with.
(May 4, 2014 at 11:40 am)Gooders1002 Wrote:(May 4, 2014 at 4:44 am)max-greece Wrote: I haven't looked this up but I am fairly sure 99% of the causes of war have been men.
That may be true but 99% of the modern age was invented by men as well, and 50% of it (roughly) came out of war, unfortunately.
Gooders beat me to it. And before anyone else makes the obvious retort that the reason 99% of the modern age was made by men is because women weren't allowed to contribute, I would like to add that I agree with that and the same thing applies to war.
(May 4, 2014 at 7:01 am)Esquilax Wrote:Quote:Why is it funny to have a man kicked in the balls or have his manhood damaged but never a woman?,
Why indeed? Could it be that the majority of comedy writers have been male, over the years, and that their assumed audience was similarly male? Oh, and also the majority of comedic actors have also been male... and the studio execs that fund these things...
What's the solution? First of all, remove the veil of mystery surrounding female genitals, but more broadly, get more women active in comedy by cultivating a less gender-exclusionary entertainment industry. One where we don't have to trot out Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as being our obligatory two "women in comedy" for this generation, and have that be it.
Let's face it, if it had been roughly gender equal from the start, the nut shot probably wouldn't have been alone in the annals of lowest-common-denominator comedy, because there wouldn't have been that strange misunderstanding that being hit there doesn't hurt women. We might even be talking about the nut shot and the cunt punt right now.
You'd be surprised how many of the OP's list items could be solved with the answer "less privileging of one gender over another," and strangely, if one were to apply that solution, the course of action would rarely be "less focus on women's issues."
Here is where I'm gonna break from both you and Gooders because you both seem to want to change certain societal attitudes about men and women. I'm fine if someone is a misandrist or a misogynist or wherever in between in their own personal life. My issue is when that bleeds into laws. To use the SS as an example again, I'm fine if someone thinks that a man should give up his life for a woman, that's their personal opinion. When it becomes law that men should give up their lives for women is where I draw the line.
Now I've also been doing stand up for the past few years, I'm not a big name but I got my head in the business. Man getting kicked in the balls is hack comedy. Its been done to death, resurrected like Jesus, and crucified. It doesn't insult me as a man, it insults me as a comic because its just shitty writing. But the reason (at least in my opinion) that its seen as funny is because men's balls are funny. They look weird, they smell weird sometimes; when I run down a flight of stairs quickly in loose boxers and shorts I laugh at the sound of my balls slapping against my legs. But I'll tell you this, I can to a degree talk about hitting women on stage but it has to be in proper context and with good timing and tone. From what I've seen from other comics its more successfully done when used as shock humor. If I'm for example on stage talking about a frustrating conversation I had with a woman, and lead the audience with some jokes about how incredulous this lady is, and how we just aren't seeing eye to eye on anything. Then ended the bit by saying something like "....and we couldn't agree on anything, so I kicked her in the cunt and told her to mind her business", and said this in a very deadpan tone I would probably get away with it. But that's because of the tone, I built up enough love from the audience with my lead in bit, and the act of kicking a woman in her cunt is so incredulous and unbelievable that its funny. But there is a bit of risk that comes with those jokes (not for me but for someone in the public sphere) because women's groups will speak out against a joke like that. I remember a few years back Daniel Tosh got in some trouble over a rape joke, even though I'm sure plenty of male prison rape jokes went right over these women's group's heads.
And I will also tell you this, the comedy business isn't mostly male because execs want a boy's club...its because for the most part, female comics suck. Executives, producers, club owners all want women. Women comics get a lot of breaks from these people because "women" is just another market that you can make money from, some comedy clubs have ladies nights where its just female comics to try and pull more women into the crowds. Radio producers will put female comics on that are only months into the business, meanwhile many men that are into the business for a couple of years like myself don't get that option. Its like the affirmative action of the comedy business. Asking why there aren't more fanous women in comedy is like asking why there aren't more female weight lifting medalists. Just like a man's body is able to pack on more muscle and do it quicker than a woman's body, for some reason the fact that my brain is saturated in more testosterone makes me funnier than an estrogen saturated brain.
And you're right about privileged but again in this case it is privileged towards women. No one, and I mean no one, tells women comics they suck. If I tell a shitty joke, I'll get booed and heckled. That happens a lot less with female comics, and its detrimental to the comedy process. Because if I keep getting shitty reactions to my jokes, I change my jokes. But because no one wants to hurt a woman's feelings, she goes on thinking her shitty jokes are good. And that's why female comics tend to not grow past a certain point. Show business (especially comedy) is brutally abusive. Some women can't take that and they leave. There are some that can take it and thrive, Amy Schumer and Joan Rivers are some good examples of female comics that did well.
