A Crash Course in Feminism Mk. II (or, why everyone should be a feminist)

[Mr Mystery]

There's certainly a mix in the production staff like.

Just puzzled as to why so few female writers. Is it lack of applicants, or something less pleasant?

[eldargal]

Showrunners are mostly male so they mostly pick male writers, its not a conscious thing its just how institutional sexism works. Guy A knows and likes writer Bs work so they hire him but men tend to read less literatre by female writers and tend not to think of them as potential hires.

[YorkNecromancer]

Well that's the thing isn't it? In most cases, people aren't sexist because they're evil. They're sexist because they're not paying attention, because there are other matters, because 'I'm just choosing what's best'... despite the fact they probably haven't considered a few alternatives because everyone has personal blind spots.

We need to stop thinking of sexism as a personal thing done by bad people, and an institutional and systemic problem which we all contribute to, most often unknowingly and inintentionally.

Also, this article. This is abjectly horrible and everyone should read it, as that's how monsters thrive: because we ignore things that are too awful to contemplate. Also, as a culture, we should stop using the term 'sex slave'. I know the alliteration is pleasing, but those who have been enslaved aren't having sex. They are being raped. They are rape slaves. That change in the language is important, as this is the most despicable crime, and needs to be phrased as such.

[url]http://www.cracked.com/article_21538_5-things-i-learned-as-sex-slave-in-modern-america.html[/url]

[eldargal]

That is absolutely horrifying.

[Mr Mystery]

Yup.

Importantly, it's important because it dispels the myth that child abuse is organised by 'them' - whoever 'they' happen to be to suit the speakers bigotry.

Consider Ian Watkins. It was the mothers of the children that enabled him. The mothers. Not some shady foreigner. Not some secretive criminal organisation. The mothers.

[eldargal]

Yep and here is where one of the failings of mainstream feminists comes up; they are really, really fixated on the porn industry and prostitution as the crux of the trafficking industry when in fact porn is hardly involved at all and it only happens in prostitution in countries where it is driven underground and can thrive with no attention. The real core of the market is peopel in situations like this and far too little attention is paid to them.

[Mr Mystery]

Yup.

Hide in plain sight behind a curtain of disbelief.

Selling your own child, even to someone with my lack of parental instinct (I swear there are bricks more bent on spawning) it's such a horrible, alien concept.

Yet clearly it makes money. And there's the rub. What is wrong with our society that someone covets money that much? Is it general poverty? Is it an overemphasis on the accumulation of wealth? Is it both? Is it something else? But that drive has come from somewhere.

[YorkNecromancer]

I don't think it's especially complicated. People wants stuff. Money buys stuff. Everything else is just a matter of how far you are prepared to go.

It's like, I spent ages trying to work out why the stepfather of a friend, who was a funny, entertaining, decent guy, would have spent two years sneaking into her room to rape her while her mother slept. And it was simple: he just wanted to. He didn't care about the consequences to her; he enjoyed using her body to make himself feel good.

They do it, because they want to. Maybe they're just selfish, maybe they're psychopathic, maybe they had a bad childhood... the justification is irrelevant. The reason is as simple as can be: they do it because they want to, and they are prepared to put every other consideration aside.

And that's what's so awful. We want there to be more to it, for it to be 'understandable' in some way, 'justifiable'. And it is, in the simplest way imaginable. They do what they want, because that's what they want. And we live in a society where the vast majority of people who are supposed to support victims are either incompetent, powerless, scared of going after the powerful men who do this for fear of reprisals, or complicit in these crimes themselves. The rest of society then assists the rapists by denying the victims' accounts, blaming them for what was done to them, minimising the horror, taking comfort in old cultural myths about what rapists look/are like, and ultimately ignoring the victims in every way imaginable.

And this is how it is always going to be. Sure, there might be one or two put away, one or two who are offered up to salve our cultural conscience, but the structures remain in place, and so once it's all quietened down, we're back to business as usual.

Anyone who says otherwise? Isn't paying attention to how the world works.

[Kirsten]

And that's what's so awful. We want there to be more to it, for it to be 'understandable' in some way, 'justifiable'. And it is, in the simplest way imaginable. They do what they want, because that's what they want.

yup, people want evil to be easily identifiable. to look different, sound different to them. they want it to be something 'other' that they can keep away from, something with a clear distinction from themselves, that way, it couldn't possibly be them involved in any way, however distantly. that is why these right wing groups gain ground, 'look at the problems in our society, they are all caused by those people with a different skin colour'. it is why there are problems I suspect in convicting rapists and the like, people don't want the perpetrator to be an ordinary individual, somebody who might live down the road, have a coffee with. when Madeleine McCann went missing and the parents were suspected, a woman I was working with was furious at the mere suggestion that the parents might be involved, because she was adamant that no parent could ever, or would ever, do something like that. And that is the problem, people putting on the blinkers and determinedly ignoring the problems all around them, so as not to upset their life.

[Mr Mystery]

I'm banned from discussing Madeleine McCann, on account people tend to take offence that it's highly likely the parents were involved....