Letters to the Editor
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TOO BAD SO MANY WOMEN ARE EAGER TO DENIGRATE MEN
by calling them sissies or fags.
my theory: throughout history men struggle to be a 'man' worthy of other men, the easy way is to compare oneself as more of a man than the next guy (less of a woman). Women, meanwhile have been eager to hide from men the power of their own unique reproductive capacity, both to give men the illusion that they are powerful themselves instead of being utterly dependent on women to reproduce and also as a natural continuation of women's power over men by the women 'acting' as needy or weak in order to gain goodies and favors from the men. A woman who acts needy or weak cannot by definition be 'superior' to a man, she has to continue acting 'inferior' or else she is a hypocrite.
So, full circle, females who lead the pack gravitate to the alpha men because it has been defined by society that only alpha men are worthy of reproducing.
So it is quite sad that women are so eager to denigrate men with terms like sissy or fag. For one thing, this prevents the mainstream women from accepting that they could be sole breadwinners while the husband stays home and raises the kids. For another, it limits many men from every being FULLY HUMAN instead of being macho charicatures who supposedly have no feelings or needs beyond the narrow definition of macho.
Women do not have this problem.
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'Girl' is not an insult...
"The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl" What? I can't recall ever being insulted at being called a girl. I am getting to old to be called one anymore, but I'll miss it when it stops. So what if I throw like a girl or act like a girl. I am one.
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Hm.
Well, considering that the Wikipedia is edited by thousands of people, calling it "sexist" is rather blinkered. It sounds like someone thought including a list of vulgar synonyms would be useful information for somebody, and I imagine it would be. Say, if there was a person out there doing a paper on slang or derogatory language, hardly a theme that's never been tried.
Personally, I think getting upset about things like this is counterproductive. Like you said, the words exist, and ignoring them isn't going to make them go away. Seeing those words under a heading titled "vulgar" might actually make someone people avoid using them, eh?
People just get upset over trivial stuff. No big deal.
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Wikis' bias?
I am a big Wikipedia fan. It has become an excellent quick reference source for me, if not the foremost.
However, I am constantly struck by the misogyny that often slithers throught the(chiefly historical) information about women and their accomplishments. Lady Lovelace and "Pope" Joan spring to mind, but there are many others.
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The reason feminizing men is insulting is because men have to prove to women
that they can do somehting for women/a woman that the women can't do for themselves. If a man can't do this he is of no use to women and will pay for it. This is yet another example of willfull ignorance of biology inhibiting usefull discussion and creating conflict and tension unnecessarily, or at least aggrevating it by removing common groud for dealing with the situation.
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Wikis' bias
In order to edit a wiki, any wiki, you have to have Internet access, decent computer skills, free time (see also: Maslow's hierarchy of needs) and, ideally, some knowledge of the topic. Because wikis started out in the programming community, there was a heavy early skew in the user profile towards computer geeks -- who, in turn, tend rather strongly to be men. (If there's one thing I hate about my chosen field, that would be it.)
Wikipedia has been a fantastic reference source for my undergrad math, physics, and computer science classes, because geeks and nerds tend to contribute heavily to those topics. Other topics? Can't say I've ever really looked -- too busy with the aforementioned classes.
Sadly, geeks and nerds also tend not to have the same social filters (either by socialization or biology -- e.g., Asperger's), and tend to hang out almost exclusively with other geeks and nerds. While most of us are eager to learn about almost anything that comes our way, we don't typically run into a lot of feminist thought on our own. Some are active misogynists -- that's going to be true of any population -- but most of us are simply ignorant, and have never really thought about gender or oppression theory.
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Men are Limited, not Women
<<and have never really thought about gender or oppression theory.>>
Most men are oppressed by women, not the other way around.
Notice how many forty something MALE geeks will never marry or have kids. Women do not have this problem. No man tells them whether they can reproduce.
On the other hand, women love to play victim. pretending like society stops them from working and making money when it is just their own laziness and sense of entitlement (the "I should have a rich husband too" syndrome).
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If you replace...
"men" with "whites" and "women" with "African-Americans" in brightstar's rants, you might find yourself becoming ill, and with good reason. The hate expressed by brightstar is not only sickening, it's disturbing, particularly on a site that's supposed to be progressive.
Brightstar: Get help. Go on medication. Do something, but quit trying to portray yourself as a victim when you're a bigot of the worst kind.
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RIGHT
<<"men" with "whites" and "women" with "African-Americans" in brightstar's rants>>
right. men are never victoms. women are always victims. Women are above criticism. Something is wrong if men are not being criticized.
Oxygen channel portrays that man hating POV all the time. Still doesn't make it right.
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Quit complaining and do something about it!
The complaints about Wikipedia are endemic of armchair liberals that don't want to do anything other than analyze and complain about a situation that action could easily remedy.
Wikipedia is constructed by EVERYONE that wants to-- what is interesting is that so much of it (not all) is as accurate as it is. It's very easy to fix the MALE entry with a list of derogatory terms, if you feel slighted by such-- sign up, and do it. JUST DO IT. That's why it is a Wiki. If you don't know what a Wiki is, then read on Wikipedia. Or Google it and read it somewhere. Basically, it's a big, Internet DIY project.
You want the world to be a liberal, sensitive place? Then make it so. Wikipedia is a great, and totally open place to start. Just read the directions and get going. Stop complaining about why you're a victim.