Joss Post at Whedonesque
POSTED BY: FireflyPassenger
UPDATED: Monday, June 11, 2007 08:49
VIEWED: 40107
PAGE 7 of 14
Not only do I endorse it, but I nominate KayleeWannabee's post as post of the year on the entire internet.
Always a breath of fresh air to have female endorsement protecting or most important Constitutional right to combat Rosie and Oprah thinking. Thank you KaleeWannabee!
(I do not own a firearm myself, but I am aware that without the right to bear arms, all of our other rights are, or will be, meaningless).
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:That goes both ways too. Like someone wrote in a Buffy book that I don't own: "There'll be more Buffies when there are more Xanders."
Originally posted by KayleeWannabee:
However, women are also (in many cases) weaker emotionally and psychologically than men, making them more likely to be victimized (most often, by a man or men). I think this is the result of acculturation and can be changed.
There's plenty of room to "re-educate" guys as well.
Hell, I grew up surrounded by stories of women like Lisa Hayes, Miriya Parino-Sterling, Dana Sterling, Princess Cimmorene, Kazul the Dragon, Beverly Crusher, Deanna Troi, Princess Leia, Mara Jade, Barbara "Oracle" Gordon, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Elisa Maza, and the Sailor Scouts. They were nobody's victims.
It boggles my mind that there are still guys out there (in North American society --I've met some) who still buy into the "women = weak/stupid" He-Man crap (which didn't even hold true in He-Man, ironically enough).
I've never met a woman that I'd call inferior.
*wonders if anyone here knows who Cimmorene is*
-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Reading this post reminds me of how I came to be fan of Joss Wheadon in the first place. I heard him interviewed and talking about what led him to create Buffy the Vampire Slayer several years ago. He talked about his respect for strong women and how he disliked the way they have been portrayed in films.
I read through most of the posts that followed this one and I'm always fascinated how themes evolve and morph. As one of the older (age-wise) Browncoats and female, I have lived through earlier feminist experiences, the rise and fall of the Equal Rights Amendement (the question they asked us then was why do women need equal rights anyway?) and other such events.
Reading Joss' quite eloquent rants is stimulating and insightful in a number of ways. Like all his shows, I'll read it again and continue to think about it. While there is anger and frustration, he also posits a challenge not to accept the inevitability of the worst of civilization. What does it matter whether his theories are correct or not? Womb envy or penis envy are only words we use to try to make sense of the senseless. I personally don't see why anyone should feel guilty about having a penis or a womb, being white, black, American. Those aren't choices they are simply who we are - like having brown eyes. Religion is another matter. That we can choose and use for good or ill. I'm not a religious person. I'm not even sure if I'm spiritual.
I try to be a good person, to be honest, caring and do no harm. I avoid watching reality based shows or movies that poison my mind and heart with horror. I'm not exceptionally good but I try to be humane and support ideas, causes and people that have the potential to elevate us as human beings.
Maybe we are headed for chaos and disaster. Maybe it will get worse and only the rich and powerful will survive in their mansions with all their stuff. However, people have learned to rise above themselves in the past. I have to believe that we can choose to do so and continue to work toward a future that is better and saner for everyone. Maybe I'm a foolish, idealistic dreamer. I thought I had become more cynical as I've gotten older. I don't know that I have faith or hope but I'll try for compassion. There's that "C" word again. Compassion for myself and my failures, my humaness, my weakness (as a woman and as a person). I'm reminded of Madelein L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time...."such frail vessels..." Yeah, Joss!
Siri
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
REDHEAD: First let me say thank you for a civil debate. I realize that I can come of as extremely argumentative and this is usually out of frustration and rarely is it directed personally at anyone, but more in fierce opposition of things that are said that I don't believe. Thank you for recognizing my words as not a personal attack or an attack on woman, but more an attack on just another thing that I percieve as another huge and unwelcome guilt trip that Joss is putting on men, many of which don't diserve it in the least.
That being said, I'd like to take the time now to address your thoughts.
Quote:
You've set the parameters of allowing me no statistics. Brutal! No science, only opinion allowed. Well, at least I don't have to do any research.
If we were to live there and see it with our own eyes, it would be one thing, but this is not the case. Frankly, I don't believe a single statistic I've ever read. Statistics are skewed in favor of whatever point is trying to be made with them, and they get away with this because usually there is no way to really prove them wrong. I worked for a retired Repuglican Congressman doing political campaigns and demographics and I know first hand how numbers are manipulated to get a point across. All somebody needs to do is put those two words "Experts say" and it legitimatizes any numbers that follow. So, if you want to look at numbers for your own benefit, great. I was just saving you the trouble of looking them up on my behalf, because I give them no creedence. I haven't decided whether God exists or not, and I figure if I can't do that than I certainly am not going to give blind faith to any concept that I haven't seen with my own eyes.
Quote:
You are right that she died because she was perceived as having broke the rules of her society. Unfortunately, in her case,those perceived rules were applied to her because she was a woman so Dua Khalil did die because she was a woman.
I'm not arguing that in her particular case she is dead because she broke whatever freaky rules women are supposed to abide by there. She did not die because she was a woman though. She died because she lives in a backwards place where women have to live by concepts that are very foreign to us and she broke the rules. My point is that the men there also have to live by a code of ethics that is very foreign to us and without knowing firsthand by living there I would not doubt that many men are lynched and killed for ideals that we can't comprehend in the West.
Quote:
Now, I'm going to do something that is risky because you aren't here to correct me. I'm going to restate your argument and I hope I get it right. Your argument appears to be that because the world is getting "tougher," you need to prepare yourself for "living on next to nothing" and you don't have the energy to worry about what happens toQuote:. (I couldn't help but notice your similarity to Jayne there.
these people, they mean nothing to me)
Heh.... It is rather Jaynelike, isn't it?
It's not that I don't have the energy to spend on worrying about these people, it's that I choose not to waste energy worrying about these people. Not only is there absolutely nothing that I can do for them in the first place, but there are plenty of causes to get behind right here, and I assume, that there are many ways you could start yourself by just helping those that are close to you (family and friends).
Quote:
You have a point, you can't worry about everybody and you can't fix all the world's ills. And I'm sorry that people try and make you feel like you are a bad person simply because you are white, male, and American. They are behaving no better than a person who tries to make someone feel bad because they are black, female, and from a ghetto. However, Whedon's point was just that---people shouldn't be made to feel bad, be subject to violence, or to special rules simply because they are something--in Dua Khalil's case because she was a woman.
Dua Khalil's deathNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
I've never met a woman that I'd call inferior.
I've met plenty of people who I'd call inferior. Some of them just happen to be women.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Not only do I endorse it, but I nominate KayleeWannabee's post as post of the year on the entire internet.
Always a breath of fresh air to have female endorsement protecting or most important Constitutional right to combat Rosie and Oprah thinking. Thank you KaleeWannabee!
The whole entire Internet? You're too kind.
I realize that what I've said will probably frighten and offend some folks who read it, but I truly in my heart believe that we women have to grow up and learn to take care of ourselves. Take responsibility (sometimes spelled response-ability). While there are mostly good and kind and rational people in the world, in some latitudes they seem to be few and far between. And we have to have the means to deal with them.
I think it's quite significant that Joss' strong women characters tend to be slight--but they also tend to be heavily armed. Even in the comic book genre, female superhero(ine) characters tend to have either weapons or some innate weapon-like characteristic that gives them as much (if not more)power as the male characters.
Just another 2¢.
-----
It's my job to incite powerful yearning in the hearts and loins of my clients. No, silly, I'm not a Companion...I work at an advertising agency.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
KayleeWannabee, the things you said needed to be said by someone. But being a male and having said them in the past, I caught all matter of hell for it. Specifically the sentiment that "Women are victimized because they allow themselves to be". I am so very glad to hear it come from a female. Not because it takes responsability away from me, for you see, it never was my responsability. I'm glad because it means that at least one female is taking steps towards empowering herself.
I would also very much like to echoe the sentiments of 6StringJack. I don't care about this tragedy or that tragedy, because I am not responsabile for them, and more than that, because I have absolutely no personal control over them. I think my biggest problem with Joss's post is that he asserts that activism can change anything. Last I checked, China still controlled Tibet.
The unfortunate thing about living in a physical realm is that that's how things have to get done. I might not care about any particular issue personally, but I'm happy to start caring when my job puts me in a position to. The basic idea is that we can only solve so many problems at once, and that it is WE, the military, who solves them, not college kids with picket signs. Passive nature is what got half these people into the shitty positions that they're in today. If women started stoning people back, I don't forsee honor killings being so much of a problem in the next 10 years or so.
This really could lead me into personal philosophies about conflict and war being the center of and perpetuating factor in existance, but people don't like to hear that type of stuff in general.
[IMG]
Ride down from Asgard to the battlefield,
Bringer of the valiant dead who died but never yielded,
Carry we who die in battle over land and sea,
Across the rainbow bridge to Valhalla,
Odin's waiting for me.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Jack,
When I was thinking about how to respond to you, I put this quote from your post on my paper
Quote:
I know in my heart that I'm not a bad person, but I have to hear about how I'm a bad person everyday simply because of my demographics. This is something that women in the West today don't understand because if any of this were directed towards them it would be a hate crime, or at the very least sexist and a fireable offence. It's a double-standard that I'm not at all comfortable with and quite frankly I am growing very tired of.
I’ve read it over and over because it touched me. I am occasionally guilty of lumping all men in the You-have-done-this-to-me-and-my-gender basket. And I don’t blame you for resenting it.
However, when you turned to AgentRouka and said
Quote:
Globally, you may be right that women are not treated equally, but I look around me and I don't believe that women are treated poorly simply because of their sex.
I believe that you, too, are guilty (as most of us are) of only feeling the wounds on your own body. It is hard to look from another’s perspective and see another’s pain. But I think Kayleewannabe’s experience shows that women “are treated poorly because of their sex.” She speaks of how acculturization has made some women “weaker emotionally and psychologically.” She speaks eloquently of her own experience with our American culture. She wasn’t stoned like Dua Khalil but she suffered also--as most women have. Since I’m not allowed to use statistics
, I will have to bring in anecdotal experience. In any gathering I’ve been, where women are with close friends and over about 25 years old (this allows them time to have these experiences), at least a quarter will admit to having experienced sexual abuse by a male family member, or date rape (or at least attempted date rape). In addition, they experience little indignities that are generally not the province of the male. I personally have lost count of how many times men (not my lovers) have pinched, slapped or otherwise fondled some part of my anatomy just because I happened to be walking by them. Before I learned how to discriminate on the kind of men I dated, several times I had bruises from pressing into the inside of a car door in attempts to avoid unwanted groping.
Now, because I’m complaining of experiences I have had with some men does not mean you should feel some kind of collective guilt. I don’t blame you for these men's actions. I am just saying that our culture often portrays women as bodies to be conquered not people to be enjoyed. And our culture does indeed treat women poorly.
Having said that, I understand why you and others, as men, take offence when Whedon points out how poorly women are treated. You might think he is pointing his accusations at you. However, I believe he was speaking to both genders. I certainly took it that he was talking to women also. I believe with Chris and Kayleewannabe that women have some responsibility for standing up for themselves (I am a martial artist after all
) and I believe that men also have a responsibility to behave in ways that respect the other gender. If you are already doing that, then by all means ignore Whedon. But I believe that I need to do more to stand up for my own gender.And, Chris, I would argue with you that it is “the military, who solves {problems}, not college kids with picket signs.” I would say that what is happening in Iraq is a pretty good indication of how many problems military intervention solves. (I have nothing but respect for men and women risking their lives. I just don’t think they are succeeding in solving problems there).
That doesn’t mean that military action never solves problems just that it rarely does. Those same “college kids with picket signs” are following in the fine tradition of Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. While I don’t see Whedon on a par with either of these men, his blog is a cry from the same tradition. He asks, as do those great men, that we reach out to change o
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by redhead:
I’ve read it over and over because it touched me. I am occasionally guilty of lumping all men in the You-have-done-this-to-me-and-my-gender basket. And I don’t blame you for resenting it.
However, when you turned to AgentRouka and saidQuote:
Globally, you may be right that women are not treated equally, but I look around me and I don't believe that women are treated poorly simply because of their sex.
I believe that you, too, are guilty (as most of us are) of only feeling the wounds on your own body. It is hard to look from another’s perspective and see another’s pain.
Perhaps we have both been guilty of that. This is a very good point. Maybe I underestimate the volume of cases similar to this. I grew up in what was considered a "good" neighborhood, and though you might have heard about an incident from time to time, you really didn't know anybody anything like this happened to. Maybe we were spoiled? I'm glad that what I had said previously had touched you though.
We don't live in Utopia and we never will. I don't think we'd be happy in Utopia either, unless we all had lobotomies (which incidentally would probably be the only way we could live in a Utopia in the first place). It's a dangerous world out there for both sexes, not just in the military, but even here at home. Barring 9/11, we've been much luckier than citizens of most countries, and though I hope it continues on that way, I have very little faith that it will. This is why I do whatever I can to save every penny I make. I plan on getting myself armed while the law still allows me to do that and I'd like to learn survivalist tecniques and learn how to raise livestock and crops. My plan is to be as self-sufficient and off the grid as I possibly can be so if the shit ever hits the fan I will be one of the people in a position not to have to worry much about it. This is where the ability to arm yourself would be VERY important. I can have all the bottled water and canned food in the world, but I'm not going to live long enough to enjoy it if the guy down the road who has nothing but a gun decides he'd like to squat at my little fortress and all I have is an old baseball bat.
Sorry.... I tend to go off on tangents...
My point is, I think Kaylee's post was so refreshing in so many levels because it was a message of female empowerment, and such a unique one to boot. It was not an interest group thing, it was not a "what are you going to do for me" thing, it was not a blame anyone else thing. It said this is what I am... I'm proud of what I am... these are my strengths, these are my weekenesses and this is what I need to do for myself.
I know plenty of women who would never allow something like that to happen to them, and I can do nothing now but assume that KayleeW is one of these women. It may have taken something horrible to happen to her to make her that way and that made it a double edged sword, but it will not be happening again and I don't believe she'll ever have daughters that allow it to happen to them earlier. I know that most men in "civilized" society are not like this and I feel that every year there are more women who do for themselves what it takes not to let themselves be weak and victimized. The important thing is for women to be self empowered without developing a hatered for men because a few of us are bad. Women don't like being judged like that and neither do minorities and I see no reason to do that to men either. I hope that one day when something like this does happen, it is such a rare occurance that instead of being a "sex" issue it is only recognized as the crime that it is and the perps are punished justfully and the issue is put to bed and not paraded around for a cause.
Now I admit to have seen the occasional ass slap here and there, but let me tell you a little personal story. When I was in Jr. High, I was one of the smallest kids in the class. I also wore braces and glasses too. Suffice it to say, I was not the most popula
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by ChrisMoorhead:
KayleeWannabee, the things you said needed to be said by someone. But being a male and having said them in the past, I caught all matter of hell for it. Specifically the sentiment that "Women are victimized because they allow themselves to be". I am so very glad to hear it come from a female. Not because it takes responsability away from me, for you see, it never was my responsability. I'm glad because it means that at least one female is taking steps towards empowering herself.
The unfortunate thing about living in a physical realm is that that's how things have to get done.
I'm a Libertarian, so I believe in a non-violent, live-and-let-live, do-your-own-thing-as-long-as it-doesn't-hurt-me-or-mine way of interacting with other people. The world would be a better place, IMHO, if everyone shared this philosophy. But they don't.
And every person like me who allows themselves to be victimized turns a little part of the world over to the perpetrators...the ones who believe that their ends justify any means, that women are property to be used (or disposed of) at their leisure, that girls aren't worth educating, etc.
"Activism" can't change the world. ACTIONS can. Actions taken by individual human beings (male or female) who are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore. I can't change THE world...but I CAN change MY WORLD.
I agree with those who don't feel a personal connection with all the tragedies in the world (even the one that inspired Joss' post.) I won't watch the video--I don't need that kind of evil polluting my consciousness or my dreams. I didn't know that poor woman, or the people who perpetrated evil against her. I'm not responsible for what happened to her (i.e., I did't have the "ability" to "respond" because I wasn't there.) All I can do is live my life in such a way that allows me to respond against evil when it confronts ME in my circle of influence.
One of my favorite sayings is Gandhi's "We must be the change we wish to see."
Get that? It bears repeating. Women especially: BE the change you wish to see in the world. If you want "the world" to treat women like valuable human beings, treat yourself like a valuable human being! And in YOUR WORLD, you will be a valuable human being, and an example to other women and men! If you want "the world" to stop victimizing women, stop allowing yourself to be victimized...and in YOUR WORLD, there will be one less victim.
I no longer allow myself to become overwhelmed by world events over which I have no control. It's paralyzing...you feel so helpless and impotent. I concentrate my energy on BEING THE CHANGE I WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD.
Imagine the power that each of us has to change ourselves...because by changing ourselves, we do indeed change "the world."
-----
It's my job to incite powerful yearning in the hearts and loins of my clients. No, silly, I'm not a Companion...I work at an advertising agency.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME