Gendered images, the history of marriage and bromance

[greenie_breizh]

A couple of serious links for tonight:

Jean Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly 3 about images of women in advertising - it's worth watching even if there are no groundbreaking points that are being made in there, and there's some funny. :)

The one quote I really liked was one when Jean was talking about the fact there's been a rise recently in images that objectify men, as well. And how sometimes that's used to say, look, men are treated just as badly as women.

The problem? Apart from the fact it doesn't happen with as much frequency, it is that the structure doesn't work the same for men and women. "There are no consequences to men for being objectified." The images that we circulate that perpetuate an image of masculinity as necessarily violent and unemotional have much more power, and are much more dangerous.

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An interesting post, An exegesis on same-sex marriage, in particularly because it goes over the history of marriage as an institution.

--

And I'll throw a lighter link in there, Nathan Fillion and Joss Whedon being adorable together. RL bromance FTW. :D

Comments

[terra-placidus.livejournal.com]

Um, wow.
You know what? I have absolutely no desire to argue the point with someone who already seems completely set against any argument I may have. I claim the violence between women and men is equal, and should you actually be interested it looking at evidence I refer you to the following:
Magdol et al 'Dunedin Cohort Study'
Capaldi, Kim, Shortt 'Oregon Youth Study (OYS)'
Archer '' Archer Meta-Analytic Study'
as well as
Rethinking Domestic Violence by D.Dutton.
I had a bit of a preview of your argument last night with Helene (at least the ideological framework for it) and it's certainly a waste of my time (as well as yours) to have any meaningful argument with someone whose basic beliefs about how to reach truth are so different from my own. If you believe that behavioural science is an ideology and is hopelessly biased from the beginning, then of course you will be conveniently able to dismiss anything it contributes.
Sorry for the hijack of your entry Helene. I am finished.

[aislingtheach.livejournal.com]

I realize I have hurt you. If that is the case, I apologize. I offer another angle, which might make it easier on you. Feel free to answer it or not.

1) Has your professor provided you with an operational definition of violence?

a) Did he say what process he adopted to get to his operational definition of violence?

b) Did he contrast it with other operational definitions offered by different authors (feminist as well as anti-feminist authors)?

2) Has your professor given you criteria for determining who is a perpetrator of violence and who is a victim?

a) Did he say how he got to select these criteria?

b) Did he contrast it with other criteria offered by other authors (feminist as well as anti-feminist authors)?

3)If he indeed did contrast both the operational definition and the criteria, and did indeed say how he proceeded to select his own, what made you prefer his over some of the other authors'?

If you do not want to answer to me, I urge you, at the very least, to try to answer those questions for yourself. It is important that you do so for all of these sakes:

1 - Owning up to rationality and «facts» claims. It is not sufficient to claim that research results or that particular approaches (behaviorism, critical theory - or constructivism, say) are scientific, rational and sound in order to prove them as such. One day you will get asked by someone else than myself to back up what you are saying. Being prepared will help you.
2 - Learning the tools of critical thought is extremely precious. It makes the difference between caving in to ad verecundiam fallacies (appeals to authority) and gradually making our own minds about things. Do we believe things because an authority figure said them or because we have had the opportunity to compare and analyze all other perspectives, finally concluding that what that authority figure said made indeed more sense?
3- Since this issue is highly important on a human level, it is critical to be able to solidly back up whatever we claim about it - or recognize where we make leaps of faith.

So here goes, best of luck!

[greenie-breizh.livejournal.com]

I get the idea that the working/operational definition for a perpetrator of violence here was someone who gives a blow to someone else. Is that not concrete enough, and if not, why?

The scientific method means those numbers have been obtained using control groups and controlling for all kinds of aspects (I would assume that means gender, obviously, age, race, sexuality, ability). How is that not rational and/or truth?

(I'm mostly asking because I'd just like to understand more about what you're saying.)

[terra-placidus.livejournal.com]

Hi there,
No, was not hurt by your response, I'm just really puzzled by the arguments you're using. (I suspect, as I said before that there is an irreconcilable difference in the methods and ideas we hold as truth.) Your last reply however did come across as pretty condescending, and although I'm quite sure that wasn't intended, I thought I would bring it to your attention. Now, I am pretty hesitant in responding as I'm aware that the ideas I'm presenting somehow go against some pretty core beliefs, and I'm clearly in the minority in this environment.... but here goes.

Violence, here, is not operationalized as a theoretical construct, which is what you seem to be suggesting? It is operationalized as a number of discrete, measurable, quantifiable and distinct acts, as I stated when I replied to your first question above. This rests on the Law of Parsimony: if an idea or theory rests on a number of other theories, it is rejected as a poorer idea than one the rests on no corroborating theories. This is how we operationalize concepts in psychology. Here is an illustration: when we operationalize something like depression, we don't use a description of what we think depression is (this person has been suffering from low mood for the last six weeks, the mood disturbance is accompanied by changes in appetite and sleep patterns as well as a lack of interest in sex, etc), rather, we give it an operational definition: we make it measurable: this person scored XX on the Beck Depression Inventory, this defines them as depressed. Acts such as hitting, biting, kicking, threatening with a weapon, etc - define what we call violence.

In terms of victimization, numerous studies look at statements given to police, input of a therapist in court-mandated marital therapy, self-statements, witness statements, etc. In couples where the violence is bilateral, generally both partners are considered both victim and perpetrator. Regarding theories from other disciplines, again, we use the law of parsimony: if you can't quantify a theory of violence or victimhood, you cannot falsify it and if you cannot falsify it, you cannot prove it and if you cannot prove it, it has no persuasive scientific value. (This is not to say it has no value, I'll come back to that shortly.)

I prefer the methods of psychological science because they are scientific - they are testable, and falsifiable, and don't rely on politics or ideology. Scientists themselves, of course, as humans are potentially biased, but the scientific method is not. I prefer the scientific method not because claims of psychology are essentially claims mad by an authority, but because they are logical, falsifiable, testable and provable. I evaluate the scientific method as superior because it looks at ideas equally: any idea has to open itself to falsification before it will be taken seriously.

(cut off for length, continued below)

[terra-placidus.livejournal.com]

Feminism is an incredibly powerful political ideology, and as a woman, no, as a human being, I would be ungrateful and idiotic to pretend it has no value and is not important. However, it just that: a political ideology, not a tool of science. If feminism wishes be seen as a science then the onus is on it to express its tenets in an falsifiable way and then actually do the testing in order to prove itself. It is inappropriate and dangerous for feminism to dictate how and when scientific arguments are valid. As you said, this issue is of huge importance on a human level and that is why I find it deeply troubling that so many people are unwilling to consider facts established by the behavioural sciences based on feminist ideology. Ideology, not science.

I would invite you, in turn to consider why there is such a huge resistance to these ideas. Both you (I'm sorry I don't know your real name) and Helene, in response to my argument wherein I introduced the idea that men and women may be equally violent, you did not bother to engage with the idea itself, instead you attempted to undermine the source of the idea, a logical fallacy in and of itself. I agree critical thinking is of utmost importance, so why is it that you are using this discussion to criticize, but, and do correct me if I'm wrong, but not to think about the idea that these findings might be correct? What is so threatening about the possibility that there is equality in this sphere? What fundamental beliefs are so threatened by the notion of equality in violence?

Ideas of violence have a huge impact on that violence, and it's important that we get our concepts right. Right now, court mandated treatments of domestic violence are largely informed by feminist doctrine (ie, the Duluth model) and that is a horrible mistake. Psychology is able to examine, evaluate and predict behaviour, and when you look at studies of recidivism when treatment methods are compared, treatment based on psychological principle are far superior in combatting the problem. That is because psychology looks at what works and what doesn't and it adapts its approach to the problem.

The idea that male and females are equally violent with one another, should have a huge impact on how we treat violence, both legally and societally. That is, we are operating under an unproven and sexist concept of how domestic violence works, and that should be a problem to anyone who places any importance at all on the idea of gender equality.

[greenie-breizh.livejournal.com]

I want to (re)state that my problem is not with the idea that men suffer minor domestic abuse from women as often as women suffer minor domestic abuse as men do, or that domestic assault are often both partners exchanging blows. I want to find out more about the finding (which is up to me to do) because it is automatically suspect to me when a group that possesses privilege gets cast a victim, but I certainly have no problem with the idea that women can be just as violent as men. It would be pretty essentialist to believe differently. My interest is in what we make of that knowledge and how we understand it to fit into a greater framework of men-women relationships.

(Didn't you say that women do more often suffer greater harm as a result of abuse? I think it's important to distinguish between equality of intent and equality of actual harm caused. Not that I have a particular opinion on that topic as I haven't thought about it and the implications, but it does strike me as an important distinction?)