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Originally Posted by vanblah
I'm not saying that women need to stop being offended by it ... because it IS offensive. I'm paraphrasing what MM said ... women (in general) need to really stop putting their self-worth in the hands of men; ie. stop allowing themselves to be objectified. This is not to say that we shouldn't legalize prostitution or make pornography illegal. There is a balance.
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YES! I can agree with that.
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Originally Posted by vanblah
The education issue with regard to women I'm talking about for starters is that it's not up to me (as a man) to grant you your self-worth.
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I think that's true, for women past a certain age. But when a little girl grows up in that environment, at what point is she supposed to learn that self-worth does not come from men (especially if her father is the type who WANTS his daughter to be that way, and her mother doesn't have an ounce of self-esteem, either)? Yes, once women hit high school age and later, they can take control of their self-worth (though of course many do not)... but by then, the damage is already quite deep, and many women have to do something like the self-esteem therapy that you mentioned earlier, to re-educate them on how to think about themselves. A lot of women just don't have the wherewithal to engage in that kind of reflexivity, for whatever reasons... they don't even know how to value themselves enough to do that. In their cases, where does it come from? Not from men, maybe.. but perhaps other women. I'd like to bitch-slap quite a few of my female friends who put up with this kind of sub-standard behavior from the men in their life, frankly.
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Originally Posted by vanblah
I think we've got a good start ... but we can't expect change overnight.
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Right, but who's saying people are going to change overnight? I mean, these behaviors have been socially ingrained in us for millenia... it's a slow crawl out of that developmental hole. I expect change, but realistically, I know that maybe only my grandkids, or their grandkids, etc. will feel a real sea change in this sense.
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Originally Posted by vanblah
And again ... we are talking about one aspect of human male behavior. I can list any number of human female behaviors that are "offensive" at least in my world view. I'm sure you can too. Humans have a LOT to work on.
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Definitely... just ask my husband about how much I dislike most women, for those same kinds of behaviors that make me dislike most men. I dislike most people, really.
However, I'm not going to lighten up. Most people around here know that about me. Just one of my character traits, at least when it comes to topics like these in a setting like this.