(Untitled)

[chelonianmobile]

Okay, we're all agreed that women are not naturally less intelligent than men. Of course. However, a cisgendered male-anatomied character transformed by magic or supertech into a female-anatomied character shouldn't become more intelligent with the transformation just because "women are more intelligent than men". Even if it's intended as a

Comments

[kaishinftw]

Being biased against men might be more politically correct than being biased against women... but it's still sexism, and both ways are wrong. (Except in cheap jokes after a bad date :P)

[chelonianmobile]

Goodnatured joking from people I know well enough to know they don't mean it is one thing. Apparently meaning it makes me uncomfortable, even if it's not meant badly.

I have an OC myself who is a teenage girl who sometimes turns herself into a boy for fun - she thinks of it as a really extreme form of crossdressing - and I'm planning a bit where her friends find out and take every opportunity to make fun of her for it. She has a few stereotypically teenage-male characteristics, and I did plan a line where her friend makes a comment about "Yep, you count as a boy." But in that case, I think I'm able to make it clear that they're kidding.

[toujourspret]

Sexism isn't really the word you want to use there, for a couple of reasons. It's inappropriate, unfair, and unkind, but it's not sexist as the word's academically defined.

[magyargirl3]

What? It's still sexist to be insulting men on the basis of gender.

[david_grana]

Sexist implies a power imbalance; you cannot act sexist towards men because men are in an overall position of power throughout the world. Any prejudicial actions/thoughts against them are not a result of years of abuse toward them and thus are not sexist.

[yui_hime]

Sexist implies a power imbalance

In what language? My dictionary and Dictionary.Com both define "sexism" as "discrimination by sex". Misandry's as sexist as misogyny.

[david_grana]

I don't know of any particular dictionary that defines it this way, but in discussions I've read here and other forums that try to explain different "isms" in this way, it's always in this context.

The key thing is that promoting harmful stereotypes against women is far, FAR more damaging than doing so against men. A woman who has sex with many partners is a "slut" and is looked down upon, for example; a man who does the same thing is a "player" and is praised.

[lilenth]

There's no such thing as misandry, the few issues that men face because of their sex are usually an extension of misogyny.

[sephystabbity]

Well, I'll try explaining it through an racism analogy.

Me calling a black person the n word (me being not black myself) is far worse than me calling a white person "white trash" or "cracker". Because there's a whole reprehensible history behind the n word that gives the word and the racism behind it, so much more power than "cracker" or "white trash".

Same way, me being sexist towards a woman is far worse than me discriminating against a man, because misogyny has the whole weight of human history (which has not been kind to women, to put it mildly) behind it.

And fyi, no, misandry is not even remotely as sexist as misogyny.

[pervertparadox]

Lawl, how cute, you think misadnry's a thing.

[pervertparadox]

And by 'cute' I mean fucking stupid.

[rebness]

+1

Please ignore above comment; I am stupid

[yui_hime]

Misandry's as sexist as misogyny.

EXCUSE ME SELF WTF R U DOING

This was just about the stupidest way I could ever have tried to say... I'm not even sure what I was trying to say here. From context, probably something along the lines of "but sexism is bad no matter which sex it's aimed at".

MY APOLOGIES TO EVERYONE WHO HAD TO DEAL WITH MY STUPIDS.

[kutsuwamushi]

I'm not sure that's fair. We have to keep in mind what a dictionary is.

A dictionary is a document of how words are currently used, primarily among the general population. The lexicographers (many of whom are female now) who work on them don't have the leeway to change the definition to what they think they "should" mean, because then the dictionary would no longer be accurate.

Right now, among the general population, "sexism" is does not exclude prejudice or discrimination towards men. The efforts of activists to make people aware (and to make their terminology aware) of the systemic differences between how men and women are treated have not really changed this yet.

In other words, as a descriptive document, a dictionary is pretty much irrelevant when it comes to discussing whether the social/political implications of using a word a certain way mean that it should be used differently. Dictionaries don't make value judgments.