OT: Can you believe this was just 50 years ago?

[MelanieC]

Oh, I forgot to say: this stuff isn't fiction, it is a biography of my childhood. Only difference is that there were three boys in my family and Mom was often running on 3 cylinders because of the Valium she took. A WONDERFUL childhood I had, indeed!

Mmmm. Stuffed bunny and valium. Sounds like a nice combo for a Friday night. I'm off to my pharmacist and my favorite French restaurant. Adieu!

 

[back alley]

everybody break out the pipes and have a toke ot two...there now, all better!

 

[BrianShaw]

Do you mind if I substitute bourbon instead. Drug testing at work. I even had to give up poppy seed bagels.

 

[rover]

I think I may grab a Scotch if you don't mind.

 

[vladhed]

Dunno, the statement "be a little gay and a little more interesting for him." sounds like some of the racer couples I know

 

[ray_g]

When I was in Istanbul last year, we had the occasion to visit a famous mosque. Many were there to worship - the men kneeling on carpets in front, while the women were all in the back of the mosque.

As some posters alluded to, many, if not most, parts of the world are still this way. Is it because they can't "break out of bondage," or because they choose to, for cultural, religious or other reasons? I don't know. But I think it would be equally unfair to impose our values on them.

 

[planetjoe]

WBut I think it would be equally unfair to impose our values on them.

Relatively speaking, it had taken me some time to come to terms with ray_g's sentiment, which I now personally feel to be true. All things being equal, that is - which, of course, they never are. It's one of those things that makes societal values reside i a rather gray zone.

I think that the issue with the "article" at hand, the provenance of which is still in question, is that each person's (or couple's) choice is still largely, if not totally, their own. I don't personally agree with what we might be calling "subservience" here, but that doesn't mean that other folks can't live that way. The tougher question, of course, is whether they should.

I will suggest, though, that from outside, the commitments made between two (or more!) persons as a matter of course may appear to create a hierarchically bound relationship, when in fact they simply effect efficient survival. Or, something like that. All in all, it's difficult to tell. Each one rows his or her own boat, no?


Cheers,
--joe.

 

[ray_g]

Ok, now just for the sake of (hopefully intelligent) discussion (lest I be labeled as sexist), let me throw a monkeywrench here: Do you think genetic programming has anything to do with such societal structure, and role assignment for males and females (note, role assignment, as opposed to any form of perceived subservience)?

Look at the animal kingdom:

Male lions protecting the pride while lionesses hunt AND let the males have their fill of the prey.

Let's not even talk about the bulls and the cows.

Same thing with gorillas, primates.

What about the alpha male dog.

Humans from the cavemen, to independently developing civilizations in asia, africa, the middle east and later in Europe. Even North America, up until what, 40 years ago?

How about tribes recently discovered in asia and africa, isolated all these years from civilization?

I would particularly be interested in what our anthropologists think.

Goodnight.

 

[jrong]

The problem with whether or not we impose our values on others.... are we giving in to cultural relativism that seems to be all the rage? i.e something is OK because other people have different values to us? Are we prepared to accept practices such as female circumcision? If not, why not? Because we are outraged that it is a barbaric practice? There are many aspects of different cultures that a Western-educated woman like me would consider outdated and even occasionally barbaric. Does this mean I am imposing my values on others...? When certain fundamentalist religious values are adhered to because they essentially assume the objectification of women, am I right to feel unsettled?

I have been thinking about this article - hoax or not, I think it sums up a lot of the values that still prevail in different parts of the world (probably more widespread in the 1950s). It is true that peoplewill choose to behave in such a way out of love, but they do not need to be instructed on how to behave. The instructions make it out into some sort of moral duty and are distasteful because of it.

I'm no anthropologist - but it is obvious (hopefully) humans and animals are different; we have and can make moral choices about how we treat the opposite sex. I don't follow the reductionist argument that we're just "made that way". Hmm, and if you want to bring the animal kingdom into it, there appears to be a female rabbit on this forum who seems to have very sharp teeth and will dominate any hare, bunny-whip or not.

And don't forget the female praying mantis.

 

[Carrotblog]

Just finished an early morning carrot juice

As some posters alluded to, many, if not most, parts of the world are still this way. Is it because they can't "break out of bondage," or because they choose to, for cultural, religious or other reasons? I don't know. But I think it would be equally unfair to impose our values on them.
__________________

That is my point Ray - man is trapped in bondage (let's not refer to Brian's bondage to a menage a trois ) Bondage is attractive for those who are bound to it: in the example you have cited in Istanbul, why on earth would man wish to relinquish this bondage? Woman is enslaved in servitude through man's marginalisation of her as a human being. In your example, female identity is subordinated through man's bondage to his own patriarchal ideology. It is not women in your example who are in bondage: forced into voluntary servitude, death of inner reflection go hand and hand with the oppression and this oppression too can be comfortable as a status quo.

Unfair to impose our values on them? From which cultural and relative moral high horse? From the western imperialist' stance - yes. From the human existential stance - yes. From an exploration of how social and cultural values trap and localise identity into submission and servitude.

Look at the animal kingdom:

Male lions protecting the pride while lionesses hunt AND let the males have their fill of the prey.

A rabbit response to the monkeywrench:

Do you think genetic programming has anything to do with such societal structure, and role assignment for males and females (note, role assignment, as opposed to any form of perceived subservience)?

Whatever your apperception, subservient behaviour is a phenomenological datum: it can be observed by others in master-slave; controlling-controlled; dominant-dominated; bully-victim; tyrant-oppressed roles between individuals (interpersonal) right up to societal level (countries). Yet this subservient behaviour has become synomymous with the 'female role' in some patriarchal societies and boys clubs.

'Role assignment' for males and females is an assignment based on cultural values. Your question about genetic programming imputes a biological framework for this cultural role assignment to take place. We have a biological foundation and we have seen here through the comical examples in this thread how woman's role assignment is denigrated and demeaned; particularly by those in bondage to ideology of some tangent. Whatever cultural 'role assignment' man and woman occupy, no sentient human would seek to defend 'equality' on the basis of epistemological naivety. Men and women are different and do not occupy the same roles, culturally assigned or not.



At the end of the day, comparative ethnology has its limits in its insights and man gets no further towards discovering himself when he compares himself to the biological basis of a monkey or gorilla, forgetting that language and reflection are the tools which renders his identity unique in terms of cultural development. Take that - coming from a rabbit.

xoxoxo

Miffy

http://carrotblog.livejournal.com

 

[Carrotblog]

The problem with whether or not we impose our values on others.... are we giving in to cultural relativism that seems to be all the rage? i.e something is OK because other people have different values to us? Are we prepared to accept practices such as female circumcision? If not, why not? Because we are outraged that it is a barbaric practice? There are many aspects of different cultures that a Western-educated woman like me would consider outdated and even occasionally barbaric. Does this mean I am imposing my values on others...? When certain fundamentalist religious values are adhered to because they essentially assume the objectification of women, am I right to feel unsettled?

I agree with this in principal Jin: at the core of humanity lies the worth of the human being. Not political correctness and a fear of upsetting others' blinkered views.

However I will not defer thinking nor reflection to "an expert" such as an anthropologist.

Why not?

We have 10,000 fundamental cults all claiming to have complete and exclusive access to the truth and everyone else's perspective is subordinate to this one and only sole perspective.

In modern science, we have the same phenomenon: specialised knowledge claiming to know more than what others know in one narrow field: focalisation of a problem through one specific (and narrow) discipline. It's time for the rabbit masses to make a stand and think for themselves instead of relying on some curmudgeonly self-proclaimed "expert" in any field, claiming to know more than others, as a form of power-over-the-unknowing and unreflecting masses.

When man is able to recognise this, then he shall be set free from his own inner and ideological bondage.
And I'm off to scarper across English fields in case others come after me to set my front teeth free

xoxoxo

Miffy

http://carrotblog.livejournal.com

 

[Jocko]

jocko, i did a small edit on your post (#24)

I entirely concur Joe and genuinely regret any offence my devotion to textual accuracy may have caused. I have myself now edited the post to render it entirely fit for family reading

But, as this thread began with a spurious document, so I would like to now offer the genuine article. The enclosed advertisement from "Good Housekeeping" January 1952, conclusively proves that the essential domestic tasks of the American home in the 1950s were exclusively carried out by men dressed in degrading costumes, callously derided by their big-skirted wives. The latter, judging by other advertisements, were also economically dominant, having earned immense fortunes by selling oneanother greetings cards.

Perhaps more disturbingly, in another commercial, that fine actress Miss Deborah Kerr confides that Jergens Lotion keeps her "lovely and smooth as silk for romantic close-ups when "my hands are tied" literally, with a harsh rope".

And we think we're liberated!


Cheers, Ian

 

[ray_g]

Now isn't this so much more interesting?

Funny you post this picture, Jocko. I am trying to read snippets of this thread while I am preparing breakfast for my wife and kids.

 

[BrianShaw]

Now isn't this so much more interesting?

Funny you post this picture, Jocko. I am trying to read snippets of this thread while I am preparing breakfast for my wife and kids.

There's nothing wrong with cooking for the family; some of the best chefs in all of history have been male. But were you wearing the frilly apron, Ray? Or were you wiping your hands on your pant leg... like a real man?