Friday 12 October 2018

#metoo

I'm not particularly PC, but occasionally, the double standards really hit you.

You are allowed to call a fat bloke at work a "fat bastard" or make derisory comments about his weight, by and large, said fat bloke will either laugh it off or trade insults. No harm done.

I doubt that a fat woman would take this sort of thing with equanimity. She'd probably go crying to all and sundry, her mates would shun you and you'd probably be severely reprimanded (while trying to keep a straight face). Unlike defamation cases, truth is no defence.

19 comments:

Rich Tee said...

Check this site out:

http://voices.avoiceformen.com/j4mb/

They are often pointing this sort of thing out and it is often amusing what they find. They are set up as a political party as well.

Ralph Musgrave said...

Would strongly advise against calling the Shadow Home Secretary a "fat black woman"....:-)

Mark Wadsworth said...

RT, paywall? It asks me to certify I am over 18?

RM, wouldn't dream of it. That's how conditioned we are. But Corbyn is a "skinny old white man", that's fine.

Rich Tee said...

MW, there is no paywall or over 18 requirement.

Perhaps the site is considered "hate speech" by your Internet Service Provider?

Mark Wadsworth said...

RT, can now access site. These thugs are clearly rape apologists, misogynists continued page 94. :-)

Rich Tee said...

MW, that comment demonstrates why I am still unwilling to support your party.

Bayard said...

What the feminists fail to realise is that this whole thing is simply a hangover from the "traditional" role of women, which was to be a mother, not to engage in paid work and to raise children instead. To do this, they had to attract a husband who would be able to support them whilst they were raising the children. A large part of attracting said husband was looking good. Hence good looks were a woman's stock in trade, as it were. Thus pointing out that a woman is in any way unattractive is to criticise her ability to do her traditional job, so it's not like calling an overweight male colleague a "fat bastard", it's more like calling him an incompetent idiot.

If women and men are to be equal, and I'm all for that, then women should realise that their preciousness about their appearance is just one more trapping of patriarchy they need to leave behind.

paulc156 said...

...wasn't there a female posting on here once. Or did I imagine it? :)
B. Agree with that last paragraph.

MikeW said...

I am affraid I cannot comment in 'scientific' detachment here :(

As it happens, I have just been on a traning course this week where a middle aged 'snowflake', women decided, on day two, that I had 'bullied' her and 'invaded her space'.(Despite the fact the tutor had forced us to work on a single doc.) Moreover, she claimed, I hadn't respected the fact she had OCD and had really upset her - WTF! There is more of course, but essentially the women forced a public apology from me, but wanted, I later found out, to move from a 'made up situation' to invoking 'real' company complaints policy.

The course tutor never asked me about any fact, or even what I 'thought' had happenend. Women + OCD was all that mattered to her when she decided my guilt. So what should have been a simple, if rather pointless training course, and a drink on Friday afternoon, was actually pretty nasty. But here's the thing, the women in the other team, during the course of the week, one by one, came over and said 'relax' you did nothing. The term 'snowflake' is their term for the bint above, not mine!

I found developments by mid week even more perplexing . The warfare was 'Assymetric': not a simple battle Man v Women. The Bint above wanted to show group she had the power to 'take down' the team leader they had voted for. Sure. But the 'real war' was when she attempted to assert herself over the women in the other team too. It is complex, I can only say that it got really nasty when the bint tried to wheel out her kids pictures on Facebook. I have no fucking idea how this was a cause of open hostility in the end.

Postscript. 70% of group went to pub on Friday. I thanked the women, hetro, gay men, EU citizens, old and young for their kind words. The bint and her cronies never showed.... So another 'team building' exercise shows its worth :)

MikeW said...

wasn't there a female posting on here once. Or did I imagine it? :)

Paulc 156. There was; I recall she was called Mrs Catfish. I really miss her.Does anybody else recall she used to claim MMT really mean't, for her My Magnificant T**S?

Mark Wadsworth said...

PC, anybody can comment here, it's a free world. People are also free not to comment.

MW, good anecdotal, I hope no recriminations when you were back at work.

George Carty said...

Is it because of Arab/Muslim cultures are strongly patriarchal that "bint" (Arabic for "daughter") became a sexist slur in English?

Mark Wadsworth said...

GC, that has always puzzled me. Mrs W is from Malaysia and it actually said "bint" in her passport (i.e. "daugher of...," same as "bin" means "son of" e.g. "Bin Laden").

I chuckled heartily at that. It's like the really old passports stamped "bastard".

George Carty said...

Actually, "son of" is "ibn" in Arabic: I suspect the al-Qaeda leader was described as "bin Laden" rather than "ibn Laden" in the media because the latter is too difficult for Westerners to pronounce?

And your Mrs W doesn't compute in my mind: a Malaysian with an Arabic patronymic name would most likely be a Muslim, but a Muslim woman wouldn't be allowed by her faith to marry a non-Muslim man such as yourself. (Just as Orthodox Jews can't marry non-Jews.)

MikeW said...

GeorgeC, Mark,

Most Interesting comments re etemology of 'bint'. I thought it was good old Anglo Saxon. Some usage data here.

A conjecture: 16th 17th century, slave trade 'exchange' word?


https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/bint

George Carty said...

Another derogatory import from Arabic (which is almost certainly rooted in the slave trade in Zanzibar) is "kaffir", which means roughly "infidel" in the original Arabic, but which was adopted by racist white South Africans to refer to black people in general.

Mark Wadsworth said...

GC, Mrs W is From Malaysia not an Arab country, her father's name appeared in her passport and it definitely included "bin" in the middle, not "ibn".

Mark Wadsworth said...

MW, from that link:

"Word origin of 'bint'
C19: from Arabic, literally: daughter"

MikeW said...

MW sure. But 'usage' goes back to 1708. So I was thinking about the question of bint = negative slur:

GC 'Is it because of Arab/Muslim cultures are strongly patriarchal that "bint" (Arabic for "daughter") became a sexist slur in English?'


Sure Arab culture is, but no in this case? Because, why is it being used as early as 1708 from the data by the English? What if it has always had a negative attachment for us?

So again my 'Bint' conjecture: 16th 17th century English slang (going back to ancient), slave trade 'exchange' word?

Story telling:

I am a Viking trader I have 'hest', 'swin', 'ox', (male slaves) this month. As ever down on the Spanish coast the Arab traders simply chant do I have; 'bint' bint bint'. Fuck them. No. Do you have 'silver, silver, silver'!

So English negative 'bint' = your just a slave girl, whore, tart?

I'm casting around for falsification here too.