Feminism

[Roderick]

Yeah, I think we need a very loose rope here, with a lot of slack, lest we become totally obsessed with 'doing the right thing' so much that we stop doing anything for fear of getting it wrong. I think as with lot of things, intent is important. Education too.

 

On occasion I love acting like a gallant gentleman of yore and opening doors for ladies, etc. It's playful and always received as good sport. I think that's a style you can adopt that doesn't at all need to be demeaning or sexist. I guess it really depends on how you do it, with what kind of intention.

[osmosisch]

The easiest way out is just to be gallant to men as well. That's my solution anyway. Bonus: if they get insulted or weirded out you've just found out more about that person.

[Argobot]

I generally am really bothered by this type of question because it is either used as a thinly-veiled attacked against feminism -- equality makes everything too complicated, women won't let me open doors for them! -- or it tacitly lumps all women into one amorphous blob and doesn't account for individual tastes. Some women like having doors held open for them, some don't, and that's ok. Social relationships are inherently difficult to navigate (if they weren't, no one would write music/books/movies about how hard relationships are) and there's no magic answer for how to treat women, because not all women are the same. Do whatever you want, treat women however you want, but don't be a jerk about it.

[brkl]

Zeus already basically said this, but don't think that not helping is the 'neutral' way to act because that's how you act with men. That we should be able to take care of ourselves with no outside help is just another myth related to how gender is perceived in our culture and stems from the same source as the damsel myth. No one can actually deal with everything by themselves and sometimes we leave our friends without help when they need it because it's such a taboo to offer aid to another man.

[Twig]

some don't, and that's ok.

DISAGREE.

 

If I'm going to be nice to you, don't turn around and be a piece of shit to me. That happened to me once and it ruined my day. "I don't need you to hold the door open for me." I'm paraphrasing and text can't carry the "what the fuck are you doing" tone that she used. YOU WERE CARRYING A BUNCH OF TEXTBOOKS. JESUS.

 

This goes for dudes, too.

 

I hold doors for everyone. Fuck you if you don't like it!

 

(I know that's not literally what you were trying to say but it triggered a memory that RILED ME RIGHT UP.)

 

I'm also reminded of something that went to shitty TV court once: at a two-door layered entrance, a lady held a door open for a man, and then the man didn't hold the next door open for the lady. She kept walking thinking he would hold the next door open for her. He didn't. She broke her nose on the door. Or maybe the genders were reversed. Either way it was dumb, and not really relevant to this, it just, again, triggered a memory. This one makes me laugh because who WALKS INTO A DOOR.

[Argobot]

I probably should have said: some women like men to be chivalrous and some don't care.

 

The 'holding the door' example breaks down really quickly and makes you start sounding like a crazy person who hates door-holders.

[Zeusthecat]

If I'm going to be nice to you, don't turn around and be a piece of shit to me. That happened to me once and it ruined my day. "I don't need you to hold the door open for me." I'm paraphrasing and text can't carry the "what the fuck are you doing" tone that she used. YOU WERE CARRYING A BUNCH OF TEXTBOOKS. JESUS.

 

Wow! That's shitty for someone to react to someone doing a nice thing in that way. I can honestly say that has never happened to me.

 

Keep holding doors open man! I'm sure 99% of people appreciate it.

[Twig]

Heh, nah, it's cool, I figured that's not what you really meant. Mostly just wanted to share a fun/shitty story.

 

Now back to your regularly scheduled Feminism thread!

[syntheticgerbil]

I like to actively bar people from opening doors to public places.

[Gormongous]

I like to actively bar people from opening doors to public places.

 

You know there's a whole line of work for people like that. A fulfilling career in bouncing could be yours today!

[Sententia]

I don't think I've ever seen a person hold a door open for someone else, it's always a sort of open the door, hold it long enough so the person behind you can reach it before it closes much, and walk through first yourself.  People do it for each other all the time at my college regardless of gender, it just depends how far behind the person is to the one at the door.

[Twig]

The impending disaster for all door-holders is when you hold the door for one person... and a stream of fifty people suddenly appear! Who do I stop for?! Will they hate me?!?!

 

WHAT WILL I DO WITH MY LIFE!!!

[toblix]

The whole deal with holding doors for people is so problematic in general, I wonder why there isn't more focus on eliminating manual doors entirely.

[BigJKO]

And don't even get me started on revolving doors!

[Twig]

It's big enough for two, but should I go in or wait? There's a long line of people waiting to REVOLVE. SOCIETY! Why do you make doors so stressful?!

[Dewar]

I generally am really bothered by this type of question because it is either used as a thinly-veiled attacked against feminism -- equality makes everything too complicated, women won't let me open doors for them! -- or it tacitly lumps all women into one amorphous blob and doesn't account for individual tastes. Some women like having doors held open for them, some don't, and that's ok. Social relationships are inherently difficult to navigate (if they weren't, no one would write music/books/movies about how hard relationships are) and there's no magic answer for how to treat women, because not all women are the same. Do whatever you want, treat women however you want, but don't be a jerk about it.

 

I just want to note that I specifically didn't bring up the door opening thing becuase:

a) I do actually open doors for everyone

I had a girlfriend when I was in college that would actively go walk through another door if you were holding one for her, but she was wierd in a lot of ways, so whatever

c) I realize that it's a pretty classic subject to attack in these sorts of conversations

 

In response to some of the other posts, I've always been quick to feel guilty about a range of things that sometimes are and sometimes aren't my fault. That at times makes it difficult to have these sorts of discussions because (for instance) I look at some of the crap that happens in the gaming industry and I feel guilty for having gaming as a hobby, which makes it easier to just turn a blind eye rather than feeling bad about the whole thing. On top of that, I tend to have a pretty dominant personality, which I have tried to tone down over the years, which then makes me look at these things and get uncomfortably introspective.

[Patrick R]

Who are these people who don't hold doors open for other people, regardless gender? Just hold the door open. If more people come, wait. It's nice. When someone holds the door open for you, say thank you. Holding doors open is the fundamental building block of our society. It's what separates us from the beasts of land and sea.

[Sententia]

I women doors open.  Some doors like it, others are ambivalent, a small number get offended.

[Merus]

I've had someone get offended at me for holding a door open because they assumed I was holding it open due to chivalry. It was very odd. I basically decided to ignore them.

 

Anyway: is it me, or have the majority of AAA exclusives on the Xbox 360 had serious issues with the way they portray women? I'm trying to think of whether it's been as bad on the PlayStation 3 (I can't speak for Resistance or Killzone) but I can't think of anything as blatant as it is in Halo or Gears of War.

[Dewar]

Halo Reach and ODST had some pretty strong/pivotal female characters. Really, the bad vibes from that are pretty much from Cortana right? Gears is weird because they did the whole hiding away the women so they could have children thing in the first couple games. I suppose, if your race is really in a situation where genetic diversity is in danger, protecting the women would be pretty important, but they gave it a very icky overtone. In Gears 3 they redeemed some of that by having Anya don the armor and be a fairly major character, along with that other crabby chick voiced by the female lead from Farscape.

 

Unfortunately, I don't own a PS3 so I can't comment on the comparison really, except to say that JRPGs (which Sony has at least a few exclusives of) are often really bad offenders for this sort of thing.

[tegan]

The ideal solution is to tear the door off its hinges, really.

[I Saw Dasein]

ideal solution is replace all doors with bead curtains. 

[Jake]

ideal solution is replace all doors with bead curtains.

That way it's even more awkward when someone holds the door for a woman but not the man immediately following her, who gets a face full of beads.

[tegan]

So here's how twitter reacted to Anita pointing out that Microsoft's E3 press conference had no female protagonists.

 

 

This one's my favourite:

 

[Twig]

yerk i threw up a little bit in my mouth