More saturday morning propoganda.

We had this stuff beamed into our homes as children. It's interesting to watch it again, with the hindsight of the things I've learned as an adult. The historic context of how women actually got the vote, what motivated them, and, of course, how politics panders to the women's vote.

Samus Aran was never a strong female character.

In the first Metroid game, the player controls the character of Samas Aran. Only at the end is it revealed that the character is female.

"We were partway through the development process when one of the staff members said 'Hey, wouldn't that be kind of cool if it turned out that this person inside the suit was a woman?'" Link1

Let's sidestep the pink bikini for just a moment, I'll tackle that a bit later. Samus' sex was irrelevant. An important distinction, and one that I think was indeed kinda cool. But over the years this aspect of the game has grown to ludicrous proportions.

Which brings us to Other M. Where overwrought and possibly sexist storytelling portray Samus as a weak woman who seeks the approval of a man. And the argument has been made that Samus' relationship with Adam is dysfunctional. Link2

What's the nature of that dysfunction? Is it... Sexist? Is it... Misogynist?

I'll give you my take on it. It's a fantasy based on fanboy perceptions of what a strong female character should be... male.

Yes. Our perceptions of agency are male-centric. In order to be percieved as being strong, a female character acts in ways typically viewed as masculine. "Kicking ass and taking names."

But.

This clashes with our real world experiences of the feminine. Most women act through others, and avoid direct conflict. Those that do stand out because of their rarity. (Please lay your opinions on Thatcher's politics aside for a moment.)

So we have this odd clash of typical feminine behavior, and fantasy female behavior. And it implodes spectacularly in the story of Other M. Where Samus defers to Adam's authority with little reason and no sense of self-agency. This is a story by men for men about the "strong" woman fantasy. Samus kicks ass at the direction of a man.

Remember the pink bikini? 

The Zero Suit is Other M's pink bikini. Again, it's an appeal to the male fantasy of a sexy woman, acting like a man so the fan can feel better about ogling her butt. The mishmash of feminist guilt versus male sexuality. Just ogle her goddamn butt and get over your societal induced shame of your sexuality. 

Man Bad, Woman Good.

I read a blog post today that I wanted to comment on.

http://www.danielleparadis.com/2014/01/26/but-prove-to-me-that-patriarchy-exists/
"It seems wholly doubtful to deny that individual acts of sexual discrimination exist, and I think most people would agree. Really then to say that patriarchy exists is only to claim that these acts of discrimination are not simply random acts of individual prejudice or individual bad behaviour, but a more generalized social prejudice that favors males as a demographic and/or masculinity as an ideology."

The problem is that the tone and message has been "Man Bad, Woman Good" for a very long time. Since 2nd wave feminism definitley, and possibly for a lot longer than that.
Take the Redstockings Manifesto.

"All men receive economic, sexual, and psychological benefits from male supremacy. All men have oppressed women. "

This kind of rhetoric erases men's oppression and suffering and elevates women's condition to the level of martyr, and only and solely oppressed class. Saying that "Patriarchy hurts men too" is a mischaracterization of the human condition though history. Men AND women particpated in a patriarchal system because it was the most effective system for survival of the species.

"4. Violence: women are more prone to being abused

• 7 sobering facts about violence against women
• Violence against women in Canada
• Amnesty Internationals facts on violence against women"

The disinformation campaign continues. Women and men are equally prone to violence against each other. And there is some evidence that women are more prone to initiate violence against their partners.

http://fermat.unh.edu/~mas2/ID41-PR41-Dominance-symmetry%20-%20corrected-pg255.pdf

But feminism and their Patriarchy Theory has long asserted that domestic violence is an issue of patriarchal dominance, and not a pattern of learned behavior, and poor conflict resolution skills.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duluth_model

This kind of misinformation continues to portray men as the villains, and women as the victims. This does not match up to facts and the lived experiences of men and women, but it's the kind of thing, created by feminist thinkers to keep the threat narrative going.

"5. Paid work: women are likely to be paid less

The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics describes the gap between wages, something that economists have been tracking since 1890. Worth noting that although a pay gap exists between men and women in general, it is dramatically more pronounced among women of color especially migrant workers."

Another debunked assertaion, which I have blogged about before. There is no pay gap. Women are paid the same amount as men. Women EARN less because of their choices, not because of some patriarchal system that undervalues the work of women. If anything, perhaps men should consider if working themselves into an early grave is worth the tradeoffs.

http://chadnine.blogspot.com/2014/02/obama-misogynist.html

So yes, patriarchal systems did exist, and feminists like Gloria Steinem cast those patriarchal systems as "The bad guy" in order to gain political clout via sympathy from the public. The victim narrative is strong, and when it's used to portray women as victims, logic and facts get thrown out the window.

"It is worth noting that many people prefer to use kyriachy to describe interlocking systems of oppression because patriarchy alone does not cover the entire scope of oppression. Patriarchy sometimes misses queer, class, and racial oppressions. Patricia Hill Collins in Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination moves us closer to an inclusive definition of understanding oppression,"

The retreat of the argument from Patriarchy to Kyriarchy kinda sorta aknowledges that patriarchy theory does not describe human history very well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory

Women have held power, and used it just as oppressivley and for great evil as men have. Oppression is oppression, it is done by both men and women, and gender roles are not a source of oppression, but a factor in how that oppression plays out.

Patriarchy doesn't hurt men too. Feminism hurts men by portraying them as the villians of the feminist Patriarchy threat narrative. And until feminists can let go of blaming men, the problems with their ideology will continue to harm men.

I should give a shout out to Justicar, who made a video response to this blog post, where I got the link.

ABC Afterschool Specials

Discussions about the media made me remember these afterschool specials that were popular in the 70's and 80's. I have a dim memory of the content of these specials, and so I reviewed the list of episodes on wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_Afterschool_Special

The first few seasons seem innoccuous enough, though the liberal bias is pretty apparent even early on. The very first ABC special dealt with an endangered species.

As the list goes on, they delve into topics like rape and abuse. To be fair, the list does portray women as capable of wrongdoing, like Please Don't Hit Me, Mom. But a lot of them have the man as the villain, like Don't Touch, and Andrea's Story.

There's a lot of these, and quite a few are uploaded to youtube. I'll have to see if I can make the time to review some of these old videos and go further into the content.