Salka

I think a large part of the problem is that when you're 15, rape jokes are hilarious. So are jokes about AIDS and cancer and women. It's funny because you're saying things that you shouldn't say or something, I don't know, it's been a while since I was last 15. I guess it's like swearing or something. But then when you actually think about it, these jokes aren't actually funny at all. Just mouthing off about women and sandwiches, and people with AIDS and calling your mates 'nigger' as an hilarious risque greeting just isn't funny. When you actually think about it, all that's happening is that you're simply being needlessly offensive. You say, Twig, that it always seems to be feminists who get annoyed at these jokes. I'm sorry that you were bullied, so was I, but that is different from constantly struggling to prove yourself in society because you're a woman. When every single day you deal with sexist jokes, cat calls and sexual harassment from random men on the street (who get aggressive if you reject them because you should be grateful for the attention, etc... you very quickly realise that these jokes are not funny at all. The best example I can think of to illustrate what I'm trying to say is this: I worked in a pub while I was a student. Sometimes the table numbers would get messed up for food orders, so I'd have to walk around the entire pub asking each table of people one-by-one: Did you order food? And every single group would reply in the same way... slight pause, and then someone would pipe up: "No, but I'll have it if it's going free" at which point all the others at the table would peel with laughter as though they were the first people in the world to say it ever. One time I couldn't find where the food was going the first time, so I went around the pub a second time and I swear to god the same people repeated the same joke, less than five minutes later, as though it was fresh. So, these people think they're being funny and witty and sure, they laugh, but what's actually happening is that they are wasting my time and making the same repetitive, unfunny joke that everyone else does. If NOBODY made this joke, there would still be exactly the same amount of hilarity in the world, maybe even more because people would try to fill the void of stupidity with something that might turn out to be genuinely funny. Maybe. But also there'd be the added bonus of fewer people wasting my goddamned time because they think they're hilarious. So imagine that. Imagine being a woman and every day you deal with the same unfunny, lazy, oppressive jokes, and when you call people out on them they accuse you of being a feminist (as though it's a bad thing to be a feminist, but these people are usually not the smartest), or uptight, or tell you that you don't have a sense of humour, or even sometimes will get angry and aggressive. Or sometimes it happens at work, like when a customer in the guitar shop told me to go make him a sandwich, and then you can't do anything but bite your lip and die a little bit on the inside. Oh sure it was clearly a joke, but he was a stranger who had just basically immediately pointed out that I'm a woman and don't belong near guitars, or whatever. Or actually, on the subject of work, imagine someone at work telling you he thinks women don't make very good guitarists, but are great at playing bass! Today I got off my bike to push it up a steep hill in the rain. A guy stopped me and said "I saw you cycling down the hill a moment ago, now you're going back up, I guess you must just love getting wet huh?" and winked. I didn't really know what to say and suspected it was probably an horrific innuendo but wasn't sure, so I smiled weakly but continued pushing my bike past him. He continued to yell after me that he had been enjoying watching me cycle up the hill at which point I decided it was probably time to ignore him and walk on, at which point his attitude changed and he yelled something about me being a bitch. So when I get offended at people making sexist jokes, maybe this gives you some idea as to why. They're not funny. They're lazy, they're an indication that I probably wouldn't get along very well with someone anyway, and they help perpetrate a much bigger problem. I also call women out on sexism and misandry masked as Faux-Feminism. I found a great article once which I'll try to dig out for you again, but it's 1am now and I have work tomorrow. It's written by a guy and makes some great points on sexism towards women and how men perceive and react to it. One thing that really stood out to me was when he mentioned Gender Ambassadors... basically, due to an entire lifetime of jokes and derogatory comments, women will have their confidence broken down and often feel like when they make a mistake, they are letting down all other women. A good example is when a woman stalls a car and panics that people are going to think it's because she's a 'stupid woman'/'woman driver'. I read that and immediately thought about how much I panic when a guy at work plays Britney Spears across the store, because I worry customers will immediately assume it's me - the ONE girl in the guitar store! Playing Britney Spears! And of course loads of customers do assume that. In fact, most customers assume I can't actually play guitar and that I'm sort of bizarre token female. I used to worry about how a lot of my actions were perceived in case they came across as being a 'silly girl' thing. Luckily now I rest assured all the stupid bullshit I've ever done and said has been a stupid human thing to do, instead of it being a 'stupid woman' thing. Sorry this was rant. Maybe I'll edit it to make it more readable tomorrow. I just wanted to try and help explain from a female, feminist perspective, why these jokes don't tend to go down well. And I'm a proper feminist btw, who loves men and women equally, not the sort of person who claims to be a feminist because men are dumb

The Bible and The Koran are fairly similar and people distort and twist things on both sides. I recall an anti-choice activist who was holding up disgusting banners outside a clinic in Brighton, quoting the Bible at me as justification for what she was doing. She spoke out of turn to a man, and she was wearing mixed materials, and let's face it she probably eats shrimp too. Picking and choosing... I think that when you read the Bible it becomes fairly difficult not to feel slightly condescending towards people who put any weight in the validity of it. I know Christians who claim not to know whether the Bible is true or not, but they live by the values of it that they believe are good ones (while simultaneously not hating on gay people because they reckon God has probably had a change of mind since then, like he has regarding slaves, shrimp and concubines). I also know Christians who believe all or most of the Bible is true and really, it's a bit fucking worrying. Mark Lunsford Pryor believes in the Rapture and I think that's just about as stupid as people who believe Santa Claus is real past the age of about four, or people who mouth off about black people or women being inferior somehow. I don't think it's wrong to attack or challenge these things. But also that's not why I posted the video, I posted it because it's hilarious.

Yep! I think it's time we tried to restructure the way our patriarchal society works, because I do think it's holding us back. Have you ever watched debates going down in the House of Commons in the UK? It's like watching animals fighting. It's a system not just based on a hideous stereotype of men, but a hideous stereotype from hundreds of years ago. Basically two sides face each other and try to get in as many snide comments and little backhanded comments as possible, while the people sitting behind them yell and roar in either approval or disapproval. Sometimes they don't even try to yell words, they just make random sounds of disgust. It's all such a horrible show of oneupmanship, and each side is like the worst circle-jerk aspects of reddit or something - sometimes it's like they only exist to make roars of approval on the back benches from time to time. When the very top tier of society is acting like a bunch of enraged, narcissistic neanderthals, you know you have a problem, right? I still find it amazing that the country is run and decisions are made in this way. It goes against everything we are otherwise taught about how to behave, how to solve problems together by communicating instead of roaring and smashing our fists. I think it's both hilarious and heartbreaking that some asshole made that Misandry in Games site. I was watching behind-the-scenes footage of the new Lara Croft game, and they interviewed some of the team who - you might not believe it! - were all men. When I worked in the games industry it was just that - men. I don't understand why someone can't see that the problem of the way men choose to represent themselves in Video games is a slightly different issue, perhaps, than the way men overwhelmingly choose to represent women, who themselves are woefully under-represented in the games industry. Even if raising this as an issue means that some women somewhere in the world are more encouraged to join the games industry to assert their own influence, that's a positive change towards less fucking stupid stereotypes of men and women in games. Uncharted is awesome for that, and it had a female game director/lead designer right? Just having gender balance can make such a difference. Well, maybe. I believe so anyway from my experience of working in male-dominated games companies VS more gender-balanced ones. Anyhoo, Sadly, I think some people just have a knee-jerk reaction to hearing people raise issues regarding gender equality. It's easy for people who rarely experience the effects of gender inequality - usually either young men, or teenage girls who have yet to experience much of life - to disregard it as something that doesn't exist anymore, as a problem of the past. I'm sorry that my writing is appalling, I work seven days a week these days as I'm on my Uni break and so I'm too tired to proofraed my own self I have failed you all.

Aw I was walking home yesterday and saw a dead cat by the side of the road. At first I thought he was sleeping but then I got closer and saw he was still it made me sad, it was someone's friend and pet just lying there on his own. I felt like I should put his body somewhere quieter so he could have a little dignity or something.

Wow. I didn't read the entire thread but I got a couple pages in. You guys are awesome, you fill me with hope. I find it so disheartening sometimes when I hear people mouthing off about feminism. It's one of the most misused words I can think of. Women who hate men, using it to 'justify' their hatred; men who are sexist and use it as an insult; people on both sides who think it is just another word for misandry. We have a long way to go in closing the gender gap. I work in a guitar shop and the other day I set up a guitar for a customer to try, and asked if I could get him anything else. His reply was 'you could go make me a sandwich'. I think he maybe thought he was being funny, but the reality is I get that shit all the time (having worked in the games industry and now in a guitar shop while I study, both very male-dominated scenes) and it ceases to be funny very quickly, and just becomes a constant attack on your confidence. Imagine your whole life, people you *don't even know*, making jokes about you being inferior for your gender. It gets old so fast. Christ, if they'd had a black salesman, would they have asked him to go fetch them a bucket of chicken? Wah-hey-hey it's hilarious because I'm not racist but I referenced racism in an ironic way because I'm so comfortable with that! It's just hideously inappropriate, why would you make a joke like that to someone you don't even know. ARGH. The whole issue in a really interesting one. It's fascinating they way media fills our head with subconscious predilections about gender, and frustrating the way men and women continue to misunderstand and demonise each other based on gender stereotypes. Actually, it's just generally bizarre how most people in the world seem to take any difference - skin colour, hair colour, gender, sexuality etc - as a sign of inferiority. Anyway Feminism is awesome and so is this little corner of the internet.

Hello all I've been given the brief for my final year dissertation. It's as you would imagine a dissertation brief to look. I already wrote a critical study this year which was meant to be a sort of lead-up to a dissertation. The hardest part was thinking of a topic that I wouldn't mind spending 6 months researching and writing about. I'm an Illustration student so it would be good if the subject was related to this. I am interested in immersive, interactive art, and not just from the point of view of Video games... although I have been interested in how, for instance, Happy Action Theatre basically creates illustrated environments for people to explore, and how that could be used in conjunction with book illustrations to blah blah blah interactive blah blah book blah. I'm not sure how any of this could tie-in with a dissertation. Anyway I thought maybe you guys, being the geniuses that you all are, might spark some kind of discussion which would help me get a firmer idea of what I could do. Last year I found talking about things with people really helped, but my ability to do that this year with 'real life' people is severely limited as I'm working 7 days a week, and also working on an unpaid project, doing band stuff, and basically have no time to speak to real people anymore ever Also academically speaking I'm a total fuckwit, but once I have a firmer idea of the stuff I want to research hopefully it'll be easier. Sorry this is a bit vague, I'm at work now and super tired. tl;dr interesting art/illustration related things, talk about what interests you to get my dissertation brain seeping.

Well Happy Action Theatre interested me because it gives, erm, kids *shifty eye* environments to play in. When I was little I always wanted to disappear into the illustrations of books, which seems to be what video games are. It's especially obvious with old-style adventure games I guess, which are effectively just interactive storybook illustrations with text etc. So that interests me from the point of view of telling stories to children, but I don't know how much I get out of that for a dissertation. I guess it interests me because you could use a different way of structuring or presenting a story, and people can explore a story in a different way that strays from the linear style of storytelling you see in movies and books etc. I don't know how to get any more out of that for a dissertation though, potentially because I'm so tired that my eyes are red right now

Do you want to turn my PSD file into a website using Dreamweaver? Allegedly it's a 20 minute job but I hate Dreamweaver. It might be part of my coursework or something. Facts: I have to use Dreamweaver. My course has nothing to do with web design. Please fucking help me I'm sick of it. I'll pay you somehow. Maybe money, maybe just love. We can talk about it.

Well I'm doing an illustration degree, so I can understand that it's relevant to have a website. But I'm an illustrator, not a web developer, so I object to this being a mandatory part of the course as it is. As in, if we fail this we fail the entire course. There are some people on my course who are traditional illustrators and don't even have their own PC. It makes it worse that we are being taught such an archaic method of going about it, using hideous templates that would just make us look ridiculous if we ever displayed a portfolio using them. I don't understand why they don't just show people Flickr and Blogger/Wordpress/Posterous or something. It was also thrown at us from nowhere a few weeks back, with no prior warning as to this being part of our course or something that our award would depend on.

Wow, I posted this thread initially because I had no idea about anything. Now I realise I know less than I ever thought I could.

I think I've got it sorted now but man, I hate this... every year there is at least one module on my course that is completely backwards and outdated. It's really frustrating. I wish I could have spent these past few weeks learning something useful about making websites instead of learning an outdated method on an outdated piece of software that I'll never use again, to produce a site that I will never be able to use, for a course that is nothing to do with web design. Sad face.

Please god someone must be able to help me. Even the tutor can't fucking figure out how to separate out all these tables within tables. This is genuinely the most dumbfuck way of FFURUACARAGHHARHGHHHGHAHRGHARHGAHRGHHH. I'm sitting in class now, there's a whisper of '1x1 pixel' behind me, like I'm going fucking mad and hearing voices in my head just urging me to kill myself.

Hahahahaha. Basically we have to do this for a module at Uni, which has nothing to do with our course really other than I suppose it's to make a portfolio site. But it's to make a very basic and unattractive portfolio site in 800 x 600 'in case anyone looks at it on their phone'. A portfolio site that I'll never use, basically. But it has to fit certain technical specifications and it has to be 800 x 600 and built in dreamweaver, which makes the whole thing particularly tedious. I keep having to make different fucking tables within tables within tables and spreading 1x1 white pixels around and I'm pretty sure - I mean, I know nothing about web design - but I'm pretty sure this is a retarded dumbfuck way of doing anything.

What is this 1x1 pixel bullshit??! I know nothing about making websites but I'm pretty sure this is bullshit. WEEP.

What... can't you delete threads any more? Oh well I have all the info I need now anyway... so er... yeah. Bai!

You heard me! Go here and be a hero! I'm so excited I could vomit.

I was recently discussing Unilad with Nachimir. If you haven't heard about it, to fill you in: some guys who run a website instructing other University guys how best to get laid, wrote an article stating that most girls are sluts and whores, and if getting her drunk doesn't make her spread her legs, 85% of rapes go unreported anyway. I had a quick look through the site before it was taken down, and the content was horrific, unfunny and hugely misogynistic. But, it was familiar to me. There are very popular blogs out there such as RooshV and Danger & Play, which promote exactly the same attitude towards women, and sadly, have a lot of followers. They are so far removed from the average guy that I don't feel anger when reading their posts; I'm just amazed. They fit the description of a narcissist perfectly; in fact, RooshV even seemed to embrace the fact he is a narcissist, he even posted his test results. The followers are similarly amazing. Check out this angry and incoherent post about why women are not smarter than men, or comments like these. I found a thread yesterday where one guy was complaining that he thought his girlfriend was cheating on him because she'd changed the hand her promise ring was on, but he needed to stay with her because he had no job at the moment and she was his only income. I think it was the first post that someone replied "she's probably looking for someone who earns more than you, typical fucking woman just hanging on to men for the cash". They all agreed, and advised him to stay with her for the money until he got a job and moved on comfortably, with no ability to see how hypocritical they were being! There was another thread in which someone claimed confidently that if I women was wearing revealing clothing, it was a sure sign she wanted you to approach her, whether she knew it or not. Weirdly, I find reading this stuff strangely soothing. My dad was a classic narcissist and held many of the same views and beliefs as these guys. He suckered on to my mum for financial support, and towards the end of their relationship he would talk endlessly about how 'horrible and masculine' UK and Irish women had become (ie., independent and generally no longer bothered to put up with people like my dad). He wanted to move to China because women there 'knew how to treat a man'. He was violent, liked to sexually degrade women, and was the only person I have ever known who could look at himself in a mirror and say out loud to whoever was listening: "fuck ME, I'm goodlooking." I never knew what to make of it until finding this community of men who are all exactly like clones of him. It makes sense now; in a way, reading these comments is like getting an insight into my narcissistic father. It's like getting answers to questions I've wanted to ask for years. It also is a bit of a tragic comedy. These are all men who love themselves and their egos far too much, so much that they are losing touch with reality. My dad got worse as the years wore on, and they will too. They hide behind the internet, deleting comments from people who damage their ego, creating a safe little play-area in which they can air their views to others just like them. I'm pretty sure from the scenarios they describe, that most of them make up a great deal of their sexual encounters, or at least embellish the details hugely. It's both sad, and hilarious, that these guys whose egos are so fragile are themselves the desperate sluts that they paint women as being, but their ability to delude themselves is so great that they can't, and probably won't ever see it. I suggest flicking through those sites, they're a healthy mixture of horrifying and hilarious.

Man, the global response to this has warmed my heart so much.

Hello all! I need your help with an art project. I'm making a little story using mixed media, and for the backgrounds and textures I'm looking for interesting documents and stuff - old newspaper clippings, old book pages, pages from old encyclopedias, old photos, maps, diagrams, blueprints, that sort of thing. So, I thought maybe you guys could have something to contribute - if you upload a photo or scan of something awesome, I will try to make it fit in somehow. I know you have interesting stuff, I just know it.

:tup:

Brilliant, you rule!

Kroms, that sounds like exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for! FANKS!

Yeah KEEP BRINGING IT GUYS!

Don't know if it's been mentioned on here yet, but This Is England is amazing. I've been watching through it all, just about to start on the latest episodes. Totes worth checking out, genuinely some of the most amazingly real characters I've ever seen. Also Dead Man's Shoes by the same director is great.