Miss Universe is a Jackass I guess

[SmoothedShredder]

And yet it would be so dull to live in an ungendered world. Vive la difference, and all that.

[color:purple]You dissin' the lifestyle of the Salanmader?! I Challenge you to a duel!

I'm not trying to argue the contrary, but since experience is so important to your argument, how can you say this for sure?! Hmmm... got some kinda dimensional portal to a boring A-sexual world.

[color:purple]Well I've been to a non-boring asexual world... It was like a perpertual incestus orgy. Not my scene, but definately not boring. Drama out the ying-yang. Open your mind!

Still, it's you that has some explianing to do Mr. Evil Mouse... deliver thy proof of the boring asexual world?! Would said world have a lack of music?

Me, I'm Utilitarian, in so much as I want to be happy. Seems my experience with the opposite sex has been a mixed bag... but ultimately, as I feel with most of my life... it's come out on the positive side. I just want to break even

~W

[Calamity Jane]

W -- you've been terrifically silly and funny all day today. Gimme some of what yer on!

and Dave, your humour also makes my day, daily!!

even the bitter, cynical brand:

Let me be the first to say that the human species ultimately amounts to little more than a civilization of lobsters living at the bottom of a Sea of Air...

I always thought we were this squishy organism that worked hard extracting material off the Earth's crust to use it for a cosmic blip of time before converting it irrevocably to toxic waste. Some get to wear sashes' date=' but only if they're judged squishy in some arbitrarily precise way.[/quote']

[SmoothedShredder]

:grin:

[hamilton]

Okay, I thought I could just let this go, but I think I need to point out at least one thing here:

And sorry Marc-O and Hamilton, fact is, most men never will get what it's truly like to be a woman in this world. Often when men do "get it" is when they start to raise daughters. I tell you it sure kicked my own feminism into higher gear. So feel free to also tell me I have no idea what it's like to have a penis (though luckily I can buy reasonable facsimilies!!!) but don't deny my (and other women's) REALITY of the world!!

This is a pretty lousy argument which attempts to do nothing other than shut down my opinion. If you want to split hairs, no one can ever know what it is like to be anyone else, so just because you happen to be of the same gender as other women doesn't mean that their life experience is the same as your life experience. You may understand generally what life is like for other women, but you'll never know exactly what it is like for every other woman. Clearly, you don't know what it is like to be Natalie Glebova either, simply based on your two entirely different opinions of the Miss Universe contest.

Same thing goes for you, Deeps, when you said:

I once thought I was a "nice guy" and then when I was asked to look a little closer....as I believe Calamity Jane is asking Hamilton to do.

I realized I had some pretty strange stuff bred into me.

I felt like I had been lied to and felt embarassed of myself. Once that wore off I took to deprogramming a lot of the stuff I had taken in and adopted in my youth.

It took a carving like the one Hamilton (who is an awesome guy) got, for me to realize that I hadn't evolved enough.

Just because we're both men doesn't mean that we're going to have the same experiences, and so just because my opinion doesn't perfectly jive with yours doesn't mean that I need to re-examine my ideas until they match yours.

Returning to the original quote however, I find it offensive that I could "never 'get it'". I may not ever 100% understand what it's like to be a woman, but I do have some pretty good ideas - I am after all, a sentient being who has been surrounded by women my whole life. I have close female friends, female acquaintances, female co-workers, female bosses, ex-girlfriends, female ex-roommates, etc. Oh, I also have a mother, a sister, and I live with my girlfriend. And, I pay attention. So it's not like I have no clue.

I've never lived in war-torn Somalia either, but that doesn't prevent me from feeling empathy and sympathy for the people who do. It's interesting that Jane thinks I can't understand what it's like to be a woman just because my post stated that there are many things out there that are both more prevalent and more degrading to women than the Miss Universe contest, and that I disagree with the City of Toronto micro-managing the lives of Torontonians when there are much bigger issues for them to deal with than whether a woman attends an event as a private citizen or as the winner of a beauty contest. I don't ever recall saying that I was in favour of beauty pageants, after all.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Still, it's you that has some explianing to do Mr. Evil Mouse... deliver thy proof of the boring asexual world?! Would said world have a lack of music?

One would think rather too much music, on balance (if such a thing were possible) .

I just want to break even

I think that's about one of my favourite lines from Richard Manuel in The Last Waltz!

[paisley]

are you little girlie men still talking?

Edited July 21, 2005 by Guest
was too wordy

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I find it offensive that I could "never 'get it'".

I don't think I'll ever be able to see well enough into the mind of a sax player, and that pisses me off. All I get are frets and keyboards.

[arcane]

I often fret over my keyboard. What note is the ALT key supposed to make, anyway? Mine only makes suicide notes.

[Paan]

I feel that we have already given women too much... like I mean they can cook what ever they want for us, shop wherever they want, and watch whatever gameshows they desire.... it was all downhill after we gave them the vote.

Give them 6 inches and they want 8!

[StellaBlue]

First, Deeps you've greatly impressed me musically in the past at your gigs and now you've impressed me with your post.

This topic has been an ongoing debate within my household recently. A few weeks ago, while walking my dog, I overheard the conversation of two people passing me on the street. The sentence, "Women's Lib has come a long way", was the only thing I heard as they passed however it instantly jumped out at me. I thought about it the entire walk back, only to come home to find my roommates watching "The New Gilligan's Island" (or whatever the title is) on television. They were cheering and applauding as this one guy traded in some chip or ticket (I don't really know what) to get a massage from an impossibly skinny 20-something while his upset wife looked on.

For the first time I can recall I felt completely defeated. Here was one of my best friends, who I consider one of the "good guys", passing the time watching a surgically altered cosmetically enhanced woman submitting to the fantasies of very average looking men.

So Women's Lib Has Come a Long Way...

What Now?

While it is true that women's lib has come a long way in the sense that we now don't have to worry about overt discrimination ie: unfair wages in the workplace or being considered intellectually inferior (heck we can even vote!), the factors adversely affecting women today are far more insidious.

Everywhere we look, we are constantly inundated and saturated with “the ideal” image of beauty: The typically white, painfully thin, sultry eyed, super gal who can fight off a gang of vampires or survive on an isolated island all without smudging her makeup.

"Maybe she's born with it, Maybe its Mabelline"....or maybe chasing unattainable beauty is a Billion dollar industry...?

The more one single very specific image of beauty is put out there, the more women, especially young women in society are inclined to believe that any deviation from that "ideal" is an imperfection.

The direct benefactors of this are image associated companies: companies that mass market weight loss products, cosmetic companies, hair salons et al.

Setting the bar high and raising it when ever we jump slips us perfectly into the role of good consumers.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I agree with Deeps. Let’s not celebrate the commercial image of beauty even if it is only to protest the attempt of the Corporate Cosmetic Superpowers to buy our souls. Besides, beauty is in the eye of the beholder not the bestower.

"The Medium is the Message"

Marshall McLuhan

Sorry folks I’m never this preachy, but it’s something I feel strongly about.

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

I have to say, I agree with Hamilton....(which is unusual)

The woman is physically incredibly beautiful

What is wrong with that??? Honestly, what is the problem??

Are we not a culture that seeks to find and recognize the absolute best???

Do we not appreciate the fastest, strongest, tallest, sharpest??

I don't believe this is a sexiest issue whatsoever...

For example....(Calamity Jane) why do we teach Shakespearean literature???

Can you honestly tell me that his personal thoughts and ideas are worth more than another writer???

We live in a competitive culture, and that is the foundation of the issue here, at least in my opinion.

[StellaBlue]

I don't believe this is a sexiest issue whatsoever...

Despite the fact that I completely disagree with your opinion I absolutely LOVE that you don't think its a sexiest issue!!

[SmoothedShredder]

No one ever talks about Mens Lib... it's not like we (as Men) ever had it "all figured" out, and we were just denied rights to women because it was part of having it "all figured" out. If things were really good, then why do things seem so very fucked up? (By the way, I got here in '77, I wasn't in charge!)

When an argument is formed on the framework that there is a signifficant distinction between people that there is a need to label them man and woman, there is no avoiding that the resultant argument will be SEXIST. Just how bad, or good, is really subjective...

What I believe is the liberation arises is when we can look past using a Sexual predicate to introduce someone... eventually it'll come up What I'm trying to say is we too easily fall for (Hot Girl) + (Beer Commercial) = Higher Beer Sales. I'm looking in the direction of those who of their own free will choose to drink beverages such as Molson Canadian (atleast when it not the only thing offered). I'm suggesting that if we can liberate ourselves, and look past this, then... well I don't know... where not there....

Generaliztion arguments are inherantly flawed and serve as merely a starting point for discussion... what I want to kow is what are WE (Guys and girls) to do?

No solutions here... only more problems we haven't even considered yet!

~W

[d_rawk]

I'm restricting myself to one general comment: We don't objectify people by acknowledging their physical features, but by refusing to acknowledge anything but. And we risk falling into that trap when we disregard the potential value of someone's opinion, intelligence, capacity for compassion, or other traits because they have participated in a type of superficial pageantry of debatable merit.

We absolutely need to be on guard against exploitation, sexual or otherwise (of which women are the most frequent, but not exclusive victims). And though I find beauty pageants excessively tacky and painfully dull, I don't see, broadly speaking, anything wrong with recognizing and even celebrating physical beauty any more than there is something wrong with recognizing and celebrating, say, intelligence or athleticism. A beautiful face, a gorgeous sunset, the cuteness of a kitten, autumn leaves (these examples sound flakey but I use them because by being common, even cliche, they are immediately familiar and widely uncontested) - they are all equally superficial. They are also all equally miraculous and capable of giving us pleasure through as simple an activity as just witnessing. Simple, basic physical beauty has been the inspiration for a lot of remarkable things. Somebody mentioned Shakespeare.

Problems of self-esteem and unattainable expections resulting in terrible phenomena like eating disorders (of which, again, females are overwhelmingly the most common, but not exclusive, victims) are serious ones - but I'm reluctant to think that the solution lies in casting a shadow over what is appealing to the eye rather than in modifying our dialogue concerning it. While our culture is teeming with examples of injustices resulting from the oversexualized representation of women, we needn't look far for examples in other cultures (or in more puritanical times in our own history) of terrible injustices caused in an effort to desexualize women or hide their beauty from collective eyes. The pendulum swings from extreme to extreme, but the poles of those extremes inch ever closer to the tempered center as it settles. That is - it's a damn bumpy ride, but at least we're getting somewhere and have a basic sense of our destination.

Ok, self-restraint has never been one of my strong points. Actually, I'm not so sure I even know what my point is. But I've successfully killed some time at work, so mission accomplished, thanks for indulging me, and feel free to take me to task.