Miss California

[antmanb]

I agree with you to an extent--often, I found that people often invoke PC as the last line of argument, when they don't know to adequately respond to your point.

But is PC that pervasive in everyday media, though? The example of scientists afraid to publish certain types of studies about gender and race--those still do get published and discussed. For example, I remember reading a news article recently discussing a study in which two scientists concluded that Jews were the most intelligent people. However, studies like these do get criticized, not necessarily on the grounds that they are un-PC, but because they are often scientifically unsound.

I think a tempered form of PC has some use in everyday life--after all, it can shut the real bigots and racists up. Extreme PC, though (as Ray Bradbury would argue) should definitely be frowned upon--but then again, extremism in the majority of things in life is not exactly desirable.

I'm sure there are "proper" studies into this but i certainly know a lot of people that think people being "PC" is just a cover up for people. It's a learned behaviour about what it's acceptable to say but doesn't necessairyl help to change people's thinking. Black friends I have say they preferred it better before people were PC that way they had advanced warning as to who the racists were, now you have to scratch a little deeper to find out

 

[Medusa]

and that is what I was referring to. PC has become so extreme that you just don't know what you're allowed to say before you get labelled a bigot, or a racist, etc...

But PC also depends on the country, doesn't it? For example, do you remember this photo ? Everybody got worked up about it. And I get that it is silly and childish and I personally don't think it's funny at all. But I still don't get what is racist about it. I simply don't.

The team was imitating a physical trait of Asian people. Why is that racist? Isn't then every Asian / Black person colouring their hair red or blonde also racist? Blonde (and red) hair is a physical trait of caucasian people, especially of people with roots in Eastern Europe, Northern Europe and Middle Europe. So maybe the Asians / Blacks colouring their hair are mocking the strange hair colours of Northern caucasians? Same goes for coloured contact lenses, maybe people just want to mock people with non-brown / black eyes.

 

[antmanb]

The team was imitating a physical trait of Asian people. Why is that racist?

I didn't even understand what they were doing until you explained it. I suppose in order to understand anything at all about the situation you'd have to have the cnotext. Why did they do it? What was there intent? When did they do it etc etc.

If they were "mocking" any particular person or team then i find it hard to see how it would not be racist.

Ant

 

[Medusa]

I didn't even understand what they were doing until you explained it. I suppose in order to understand anything at all about the situation you'd have to have the cnotext. Why did they do it? What was there intent? When did they do it etc etc.

If they were "mocking" any particular person or team then i find it hard to see how it would not be racist.

It was, as far as I remember, a photo they did during the preparation for the Olympics in Peking.

 

[dorispulaski]

I grew up in the old non-PC days, and I'll take PC every time.

As a woman married to a guy with a Polish surname, who had an Italian mother in law, I have heard every disgusting ethnic joke ever. Not to mention the endless jokes on the TV about women with the punchlines:

Aren't women so stupid and incompetent!

Ethnic punch lines were:

1. Ethnic group is stupid
2. Ethnic group is unclean
3. Ethnic group eats excrement or other inedible items
4. Ethnic group is lazy
5. Ethnic group A is even stupider than ethnic group B
6. Ethnic group is criminal by nature

Oh such funny jokes ...and if you didn't laugh along with the crowd you were condemned a second time around for not having a sense of humor, so you tried to smile at least, while really wishing the 'humorist' would have some embarassing thing happen to him as soon as possible.

When I see someone complaining about political correctness, I tend to assume that this is a person who is miffed that it is no longer socially acceptable to dump their racist and bigoted filth on the races and ethnic groups and gender they despise. (For example, defending their 'right' to use the n word.)

That may be wrong..after all, like the strange picture above, someone may just truly not know what they did or said was insulting. I recall reading a conversation between two people who agreed that the phrase "you people" was racist and then disagreeing as to whether "you guys" was also racist. I had no clue there was a problem with either. OTOH, I wasn't angry about it-I was glad to be given the hint, because I have no desire to insult anyone, particularly by accident.

 

[Particle Man]

I grew up in the old non-PC days, and I'll take PC every time.

As a woman married to a guy with a Polish surname, who had an Italian mother in law, I have heard every disgusting ethnic joke ever. Not to mention the endless jokes on the TV about women with the punchlines:

Aren't women so stupid and incompetent!

What world are you living in? In the world I live in, what you just said happens 24/7 right now, except it's the MEN who are called stupid and incompetent, verbally abused, mocked and humiliated on a daily basis in all forms of media entertainment.

THAT'S NOT AN IMPROVEMENT.

 

[dorispulaski]

Apparently not the same one you are.

The world I was describing was the old un PC days of the 1950's and the early 1960's, if you look at the post.

What I was saying, and apparently didn't make clear, was that I prefer today to the 1950's I grew up in.

But I take it then I have been getting it wrong, old woman that I am, and all those blonde jokes we hear these days are about men???

http://www.zelo.com/blonde/



I don't think today is perfect, just better. But I haven't heard a raft of jokes about men.

Blondes, old people, fat people and rednecks seem to be the targets of the 2000's to me...but I am old (62) and not with the program particularly. I tend to watch West Wing reruns, House, Law and Order, John Stewart & Steven Colbert, Project Runway and Deadliest Catch. I didn't see a raft of men are stupid jokes. But then if I were watching a program that was making that sort of jokes, I'd change the channel, because I don't enjoy jokes with predictable punchlines.

But if you feel the continuous butt of all the jokes, I'm sorry to hear it, because it is a very unhappy state. It's how I felt in the 1950's and 1960's. I was angry about it much of the time back then, from about age 6 on.

 

[Particle Man]

Watch any given night of network television, and figure it out. Part of it is ultra-feminist man-hating. The rest of it is because political correctness has tied the writers hands so much, that the only people left they can use as the constant butt of jokes are white men.

 

[dorispulaski]

Granted, I'm usually in bed by 11 or 12, so I don't see this stuff. And if it makes you that angry, it can't be all that funny. If I were you, I'd change the channel. There's got to be something else on. May I recommend John Stewart & Steven Colbert for humor Or the infomercials for Ron Popeil's latest gadget. I'd stop short of watching the guy talking about colonic cleansing though. (I do wake up in the middle of the night occasionally).

BTW, there are few people that will admit to being feminists any more. That's a term from the 1970's & 1960's. It's odd to hear a youngster like you using it. I would call myself a feminist, because I've been one a long while. To me, the term means that I am a person too, just like you are, neither better nor worse intrinsically. Back in the day, I was not a person, according to both society & my family. If you ever want to know exactly what it was like in the 1960's from a woman's perspective, a very interesting book is The Girl I Left Behind by Judith Nies. Judith worked for a group of 10 liberal Congressmen during that time frame, who among other things, thought that because she was a woman that they didn't need to cough up her salary for weeks at a time. The world is different & better now.

http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Left-Beh...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243039255&sr=8-1

Anyway, if you are just aching to hear women insulted instead, you can OD on blonde jokes or old lady jokes. There are plenty of both out there right now. Heck, tune in to Larry the Cable Guy for that matter.

 

[Spun Silver]

When I see someone complaining about political correctness, I tend to assume that this is a person who is miffed that it is no longer socially acceptable to dump their racist and bigoted filth on the races and ethnic groups and gender they despise. (For example, defending their 'right' to use the n word.)

Wow, this seems one-sided. I complain (usually to myself, lol) about PC'ness but it's certainly not in order to legitimize racism. I see major problems in academia, which is supposedly the fountainhead of free speech but in fact is dominated by leftists who often don't even bother to hide their biases - the idea of objectivity is considered elitist and "totalitarian." Whole areas of study are virtually prohibited because they're not PC, as when Lawrence Summers at Harvard raised the question whether women might be genetically less endowed with scientific minds than men since there are so many fewer women scientists. I'm not defending his idea, but instead of arguing him on the facts or undertaking investigations of the question, Harvard leftists hounded him out of office because what he said was simply unsayable - it violated PC feminist orthodoxy according to which culture is responsible for sexual differences. On principle I object to such a suppression of inquiry. I see an obsession with names (of groups of people) that after a while seems pretty trivial as well as a cheap way of marking off "good" people (who use the right terminology) from "bad" ones (who don't). If you call young girls "young girls" or African-Americans "black" or Latinos "Hispanic" or welfare "welfare" (as opposed to "public assistance" or "income support") expect some group to label you as racist or classist or sexist - extremely serious charges that people throw around like dog toys.

That may be wrong..after all, like the strange picture above, someone may just truly not know what they did or said was insulting. I recall reading a conversation between two people who agreed that the phrase "you people" was racist and then disagreeing as to whether "you guys" was also racist. I had no clue there was a problem with either.

Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about. "You people" (Ross Perot at the NAACP dinner in 1992) made the front page of the NY Times and probably every other major media. Now that's ridiculous. I mean, the media jump on every story, but the upshot of this one is that "you people" has joined the PC lexicon of unacceptable terms. There's a logical connection between this kind of "community policing" to little Pavlik Morozov (the Soviet child who denounced his parents to the government and was ever after held up as the model of a good citizen). We're forgetting our common humanity (another idea that's almost unspeakable in today's academy) and we're using cheap markers of right and wrong instead of searching for truth. The PC obsession, however noble its original intent, is capable of becoming as nasty and inhuman as the evils it sets out to denounce.

 

[Ptichka]

Doris, I think the term "feminist" has enjoyed a resurgence over the last decades. We, the feminists of 00's, are starkly different from out predecessors. For instance, one thing I found off putting with original feminists is that they... well... didn't want to be very woman-like. I love my make-up and my jewelry and my high heels, and I enjoy getting men's attention (and yes, I do enjoy getting the little things I can get as an attractive woman). For the 70's feminists, such attitude was anathema; yet it fits right in with the spirit of today's feminism. Also, the feminists of yesteryear, in their attempts to achieve equality with men, often forewent things that are unique to women. For example, formula was supposed to bring equality to parenthood; today's feminists, by contrast, fight for a woman's right to breastfeed wherever and whenever.

I believe that we still have much to fight for, though today's fight is cultural rather than political, and is therefore that much more difficult. It's one thing to force politicians to sign a law; a totally different thing to make people think differently. Let me give you an example - a good friend of mine has a 12-year-old sister. The girl is very bright; she has attended several Math and Science Olympiads (winning one or two) and is currently taking math at the local high school. While she may not be in love with math, she does like it, meaning she doesn't just do it to please her parents. Now, though, there is a problem. Boys don't like girls who are in that advanced math program. In fact, she is the only girl there! Boys who are in it are not all that popular either, but they're not seen as complete social losers. Now, this girl is not "boy crazy", she doesn't even want a boyfriend necessarily, but she doesn't want to be a social pariah. Changing the society in a way that turns those attitudes around is what I see as our next huge challenge. (Not that I do too much but I did help several times with the BU program that talks to girls from all high schools, from the poorest to the most affluent, about the careers in science, technology, and medicine, and about how cool they are.)

I see major problems in academia, which is supposedly the fountainhead of free speech but in fact is dominated by leftists who often don't even bother to hide their biases - the idea of objectivity is considered elitist and "totalitarian." Whole areas of study are virtually prohibited because they're not PC, as when Lawrence Summers at Harvard raised the question whether women might be genetically less endowed with scientific minds than men since there are so many fewer women scientists.

As I've said in my post on PCness, I do separate it into two parts - one about how you say things (which I see as positive) and the other about what you say (which I see as evil). A friend who's doing a psychology PhD at McGill often complains about professors curbing research on gender differences, which are clearly very important in psychology of all disciplines.

BTW, from what I've heard from Harvard Economics insiders, there was a long standing desire to push out Summers and it had nothing to do with any of his political believes; it just had to do with the politics within the international Economics academic community, and certain decisions he made. When the row over his statements started, it was just a convenient time to push him out.

 

[evangeline]

What world are you living in? In the world I live in, what you just said happens 24/7 right now, except it's the MEN who are called stupid and incompetent, verbally abused, mocked and humiliated on a daily basis in all forms of media entertainment.

THAT'S NOT AN IMPROVEMENT.

I find it extremely ironic that you view the world this way, when we live in a world where political and corporate power is mostly held by men, where the average man out-earns the average woman, where academia is dominated by men, where women in some countries are not even permitted to drive....do I have to continue?

As for "ultra-feminist man-hating" jokes on television, I don't know what you watch, but I don't think it's mainstream television. Hipsters of both genders seem to be the most fashionable targets du jour anyways, along with the types of people dorispulaski mentioned.

Re: dorispulaski: I am definitely a youngster, and would call myself a feminist. However, I found that people my age often hesistate before calling themselves feminists because they don't wish to be labelled as ultra-feminist man-haters by some, despite the straw man implications of that label. Which is sad, actually, for there is nothing to be ashamed of in striving for gender equality.

By the way, your descriptions of how life was in the 1950s-60s are very interesting indeed.

 

[Tonichelle]

*shrugs* I'm a young female american woman... I don't see or feel the discrimination, and I know enough blondes to get where the jokes came from (I work with this blonde woman that I swear her IQ is below bedrock. She can't answer the PHONE without five pages of notes... it's just insane... and then she blames EVERYONE around her saying we never told her -I have a freaking cheat sheet TAPED TO MY DESK so that when people are relieving me for my breaks or the end of the day they can remember what they are supposed to do!) I don't agree with using stereotypes to sum a person up before meeting them, but unfortunately (or fortunately in some cases) some people DO fit that role.

A lot of women complain about being thought of as dumb or not as bright as guys, but we have no problem using that "dumb as a fox" trick when we know it'll work in our favor. Tell me, how are we HELPING the "cause" (and do we even need that cause, I'm not convinced that we do.)

I've had enough female profs in a liberal arts college to know their idea of womanhood is so beyond the opposite of what I want... they do fit the man-hater stereotype and I want no part of that.

My mom's best friend is black. She calls a spade a spade and feels others should to. She doesn't want to be discriminated against, but she prefers Black to any other politically correct term and she can't stand that there's a double standard... she can't stand the people in her own family who use the 'n' word and then start screaming racism the minute it comes out of someone's mouth that ISN'T black...

that's my problem with PCness in this country. It's hypocritical and it doesn't work... it snares those that can't keep up (aka me, because honestly I don't have the time to know which phrase and which is in... I didn't realize "black" was "in" again until this last year)... it's frustrating...

 

[Spun Silver]

(OT: Toni, what is your new avatar? One of your photos? Very nice in a mysterious way.)

 

[Tonichelle]

it's Kurt Browning from one of the opening segments from an NBC broadcast of one of the Gotta Skates...

 

[Particle Man]

I find it extremely ironic that you view the world this way, when we live in a world where political and corporate power is mostly held by men, where the average man out-earns the average woman

Yeah the man earns the money, and then the woman takes away half in the divorce, because of a court system that sides with women 95% of the time.

Here's the fundamental problem with gender roles in our society -- women have been sold a contradiction. You cannot be both privileged and equal. Pick one!

Doris' argument is like an echo of a bygone time. I understand her points of view but they are decades out of date. I'm sorry she feels that she grew up oppressed, but the world she is describing no longer exists. And by saying "the world" I mean the western civilized world, not backward countries where civil rights are equivalent to the stone age. If you want to go to those countries and change things, go for it. I won't complain. But what happens there is not relevant to the lives of US citizens. US citizens and US women aren't oppressed by it, nor women in Canada, Europe, Australia, Russia or wherever else. It's a complete red herring.

So let's see. I have almost no rights in court when up against a woman, I could be called a rapist or child molestor with zero evidence, and get my name and character destroyed. My role as a father is seen as superfluous, all I am to society is a money machine to be leeched off of. If I have kids and the woman chooses to end the relationship, she gets the kids, house and my money. If I have no kids and the woman ends the relationship she still gets my house and money. But apparently "my unfair right to earn more money" is somehow more important than the fact that the woman takes it all away from me anyway? I have to endure 24/7 humiliation of my gender in popular media, women are allowed to hit men but never the opposite. Male suicides are increasing 5 times faster than female suicide rates. Female victims of spousal abuse have dedicated help centers and attorneys chomping at the bit, male victims of spousal abuse get laughed at. Mens' life expectancy is several years less than womens', yet breast cancer research is the most funded cancer research. And last but not least, women are granted absolute power of life and death. Baby, you're only a "person" if your MOM says you are, otherwise you're a soulless fetus who can be chucked into a dumpster.

You need to open your eyes. Would you like to switch gender roles? You can earn more money, and in exchange I get the power to take it away from you if you ever enter any kind of relationship with me, as well as absolute power over the family, the life and death of unborn children, and I get to humiliate you and hit you and then bat my eyes and play the innocent victim if you retaliate. My health and well-being will be prioritized over yours in medical research, while you can go fight wars to protect me. It must sound like a great deal to you, since you maintain that I am so privileged.

 

[dorispulaski]

Particle Man, It sounds like you're going through a very bad time.

However, I have not seen divorce work that way, either now or in the past. In fact, the woman even being able to get custody is a relatively new thing in the US. It started about 1950 or so.

I watched my brother's divorce, and he got everything. My SIL got almost nothing, not even her piano, and he couldn't even play it. The issue is who has the better lawyer. In lawyers, as in doctors, it pays to get the best one, in spades. It's got little to do with anything else other than the legal skill of the lawyers, and the laws of the particular state. OTOH, my brother gave a large percentage of what he got to his lawyers. Financially, divorce is a lose/lose proposition IMO.

In community property states, the most a wife can receive is 50%, so your 95% figure is either inaccurate, or a sign that the person in question had a really bad lawyer.

I've been a feminist since the early 1970's, and I don't hate men. Heck I've been married to the same one since 1964. I worked in a male-dominated profession (engineering) for my entire working life, so most of my close personal friends are men, too.

Again, to get the perspective of older women, I can't recommend The Girl I Left Behind enough. It is a gentle, humorous, but accurate recounting of her life-and how the broader political movements of the day fit into it.

Ptichka, I'm glad to hear that some women still think of themselves as feminists. My granddaughter is being raised very little differently than I was, sadly. My DIL is a stay at home mom. My granddaughter is supposed to get wound about Disney princesses as role models-(yeah, there is a real future in the princess business although a lot of the Disney princesses have fine personal traits, as a life model they leave something to be desired.) The granddaughter, however, takes after her granny and takes things apart and is fascinated by the stuff you find under rocks, much to her mom's dismay.

Yes, dressing badly was a thing common to feminists of the 1970's. It did have a sensible reason for it, at least in my industry. If you dressed well, people immediately assumed you were a secretary. There was really no other way to avoid getting sent out for coffee or asked to type up other people's work.

I'm sad to hear about the only girl in the advanced math class, and her struggles to be anything but a social pariah. I was the only girl in the advanced math class. It was just the same. I thought things had changed more than that. In that background, it's hard to take the research interests of Larry Summers seriously about the inferiority of women as mathematicians. Quite often gender differences can be approached in research as part of studies of all students. It would be nice to see some work on learning styles of all students in math. The general way in the past that exploring gender differences has worked is that there were complaints that Johnny Can't Read, and it's a problem requiring new pedagogical strategies. The author then suggests strategies. OTOH when the research shows Jane can't do math, the conclusion used to be that Jane is a girl and too stupid to do math. The 'new pedagogical strategies' approach would be preferable to me.

Toni, just because one blonde you know is dumb is hardly a proof that all blondes are dumb. This is a huge disservice to the people of Scandanavia No one said all blondes are smart. I agree that it is hard to keep up with all the things that make people feel insulted--however, I hope you agree that it's worth the effort. It's impossible to communicate effectively with people if you're inadvertently insulting them. And who would want to insult other people? It's a desire that I don't understand, and is one that for me is at the heart of the PC debate.

 

[Medusa]

Is this PC?

Article in NYT

 

[Spun Silver]

It sounds illegal!!

 

[Tonichelle]

Toni, just because one blonde you know is dumb is hardly a proof that all blondes are dumb. This is a huge disservice to the people of Scandanavia No one said all blondes are smart. I agree that it is hard to keep up with all the things that make people feel insulted--however, I hope you agree that it's worth the effort. It's impossible to communicate effectively with people if you're inadvertently insulting them. And who would want to insult other people? It's a desire that I don't understand, and is one that for me is at the heart of the PC debate.

No, I know having known ONE dumb blonde is not proof enough, but I know ENOUGH blondes to have a good idea of where the stereotype comes from. Being a brunette from 8th grade on (natural change) I have my share of "blonde moments". I can play the dippy girl when I want to (that dumb like a fox thing) it drives my boss crazy but I love it. And he really doesn't care so long as I don't screw up my job. (which seriously is not that hard of a job!)

I dunno... I'm a "hick from the sticks" in a lot of ways, Anchorage-ites make fun of those of us on the Peninsula but we give it right back... and EVERYONE has a few things to say about "the Valley" (aka Palmer and a little town called Wasilla... you may have heard of it.) Yes they're based on stereotypes... but stereotypes come from somewhere... not everyone is like that, but it's still fun... and MOST are good humored about it (even Mrs. Palin doesn't take offense... when it's an Alaskan doing it, not some pundit from the otherside of the world - just as most Alaskans are like. We can pick on each other, but don't you start picking on it.)

It's like our saying about Anchorage (that annoys just about everyone I know in this city, but I see the truth in the statement) you have to go outside of the city in any direction and drive about an hour and THEN you're in Alaska... Anchorage is that really quaint little city NEAR Alaska...

yes it's not TRUE. Anchorage IS in Alaska... is the biggest city here and has more than half the state's population within it's borough (county) but the perception by those of us who didn't grow up here don't feel it's very Alaskan. It's skewed in a lot of ways... it's more of a melting pot... but while its numbers may be more DIVERSE it's incredibly segregated. And a lot of that, I feel, is somewhat from the politically correct attitude the city has.

it's hard for me to explain... but it seems the bend over backwards politeness has made it hard to get to know your neighbors because you still have those stereotypes running in your head and you're so afraid to either let them show or offend someone that you never break down that first barrier. I don't know if this is a problem in the big cities of everywhere else, but that's how I feel Anchorage is. You can live in the same house for over five years and not know ANYONE in your neighborhood... and it's not just for YOUR lack of trying... others don't try either...

Little towns, you run into everyone eventually anyway, so you have to learn to deal with it.