jigokutamago said:
JWeinCom said:
Well half of those are bad examples anyway... but... In 28 states you can be fired for being gay without recourse. There are people actively fighting to keep it this way. Gay people can not share benefits with their partners, adopt, and so on. Women earn significantly less than men and are often perceived as less capable despite being otherwise qualified. Studies have shown biases towards labeling women as "chatty", "talkative", or "gossipy" even in cases where they have not been. A skinny bodytype is definitely preferred. People underweight on BMI are perceived as healthier and more attractive than those within the normal range. Magazines photoshop already thing people to make them abnormally thin, then promise advice on how to reach these unattainable goals. If you didn't realize when you were typing it, the common denominator in all of these examples is power. The top example is an example of people in power talking about the less powerful group. Quite often these groups have the power and influence to impose, or at least attempt to impose, their will on the less powerful group. So that's the difference here.
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That's a valid point. Because there is so much negativity surrounding certain groups of people, contributing to that negativity seems to hurt more. Ideally however, I think it is best not to speak ill of anyone. Just because someone is not usually spoken ill of, I don't think it would be right to start speaking ill of them, which will surely not lead to anything good.
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Ideally, yes. But until we live in an ideal world, we have to take power structures into account. If a three year old said to a 20 year old man "I'm going to beat the shit out of you" they'd get a scolding, and you'd probably find it funny. If the situation was reversed, you'd probably get child services or the police involved. Power makes things different.
Dunban67 said:
JWeinCom said:
Well half of those are bad examples anyway... but... In 28 states you can be fired for being gay without recourse. There are people actively fighting to keep it this way. Gay people can not share benefits with their partners, adopt, and so on. Women earn significantly less than men and are often perceived as less capable despite being otherwise qualified. Studies have shown biases towards labeling women as "chatty", "talkative", or "gossipy" even in cases where they have not been. A skinny bodytype is definitely preferred. People underweight on BMI are perceived as healthier and more attractive than those within the normal range. Magazines photoshop already thing people to make them abnormally thin, then promise advice on how to reach these unattainable goals. If you didn't realize when you were typing it, the common denominator in all of these examples is power. The top example is an example of people in power talking about the less powerful group. Quite often these groups have the power and influence to impose, or at least attempt to impose, their will on the less powerful group. So that's the difference here.
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There are laws on the books in some states that can send you to jail for spitting on the sidewalk but i ve never heard anyone going ot jail for it
Women benifit from affirmative action- ie in many colleges and companies a woman with equal or lesser scores/experience/resume etc will gain admittance to a school or be given a job/promotion ahead of the very men "in power" you mention
re body type- can t argue w you there
one person s opportunitty comes at the expense of anothers- over time the cream rises to the top naturally- there is nothing wrong with letting it happen naturally- but people are afrad of what it will look like-
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We're not talking about obscure laws on the books. We're talking about laws that are still subject of fierce legal debate. It's not like they're investing so much into pushing these laws that they're not enforcing. As for women having an advantage in getting jobs, nah. There are of course some instances where this may occur, but when you factor out things it's definitely not in their favor.
And no, the cream doesn't always rise to the top. You're assuming people start out evenly, and they just don't. To give an extreme example, you could obviously look at slavery. I'm sure there were a lot of blacks that were qualified to do things that were never able to rise to the top naturally.
binary solo said:
JWeinCom said:
Well half of those are bad examples anyway... but... In 28 states you can be fired for being gay without recourse. There are people actively fighting to keep it this way. Gay people can not share benefits with their partners, adopt, and so on. Women earn significantly less than men and are often perceived as less capable despite being otherwise qualified. Studies have shown biases towards labeling women as "chatty", "talkative", or "gossipy" even in cases where they have not been. A skinny bodytype is definitely preferred. People underweight on BMI are perceived as healthier and more attractive than those within the normal range. Magazines photoshop already thing people to make them abnormally thin, then promise advice on how to reach these unattainable goals. If you didn't realize when you were typing it, the common denominator in all of these examples is power. The top example is an example of people in power talking about the less powerful group. Quite often these groups have the power and influence to impose, or at least attempt to impose, their will on the less powerful group. So that's the difference here.
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I disagree, all of the examples in the OP are bad.
Lemme think. Making critical comments and jokes about a currently and or historically oppressed demographic, by a member of the demographic who used to be, or still is, the oppressor is more likely to be objectively offensive and inappropropriate and assholish than being critical or making jokes about the oppressor demographic. Seems pretty legit to me. I don't really understand why people don't get this. But still making broad negative generalisations about the worth of any demographic group is, generally, entirely inappropriate and is pretty much never absolutely fine. Which is why even if some of the exmaples in the OP are less badly wrong than others, they are all still wrong.
Humour does not exist in a vaccuum and it can be used to further belittle and denigrate an already disadvantaged group, or person.
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It's also ignoring the ability humor has to be subversive.
But people want to oversimplify things to laughable extremes. Let's ignore the centuries of slavery, the fact that women gained the right to participate in government less than a century ago, and that within about a half century homosexuality was punishable by imprisonment or castration in some places (and still is in some places).
I'm not saying that straight white males have to go around with their heads hanging down apologizing to everyone, but we do have to accept that our actions have created a situation where the words all insults are not equal.