- Dorothy Cambridge: The first thing you need to learn, girls, is that boys have absolutely nothing that you don’t have too!
- Larisa: But Cloud has a penis and I don’t.
- Dorothy Cambridge: Penises are just a social construct!
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- Dorothy Cambridge: The first thing you need to learn, girls, is that boys have absolutely nothing that you don’t have too!
- Larisa: But Cloud has a penis and I don’t.
- Dorothy Cambridge: Penises are just a social construct!
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@ Jondera:
Larissa has magical teleportation powers when it comes to penis jokes.
@ PhoulTheGhoul:
That link violates my freedom of speech. You are now going to have to cis my door with a gender while praying to god for a fish. IF the fish does not show up you are satanic and need to visit a camp where people try to lose weight. If you gain weight you are to be taken and put into congress so you can gender the oil supply with your cross.
To Dorothy Cambridge:
Subject: Penises
In response to your remark that a Penis is a Social Construct, I must point out that it is, in all actuality, a BIOLOGICAL Construct.
Regards,
Every Actual Biology Teacher on Earth.
Tell me they aren’t going to show her how wrong she is. I mean, it’s what I’d do if I was in middle school and this happened, but… Actually kids, you know what, do it. Drop ’em. It’ll prove her wrong, and Powree’s not going to draw any of those parts (I don’t think, at least) so I don’t have to look at it. Go right ahead.
I’m saving the link to this page the next time someone asks my why I don’t like tumblr feminism.
@ Novil:
Not really so. Can’t think of a good cartooning example at the moment, but Monty Python had quite a few digs at the left (e.g. the People’s Front of Judea in Life of Brian, or Dennis the Constitutional Peasant in Holy Grail). Most lefties I know love that sort of thing, so long as it feels fresh and based on accurate observation rather than cliché.
Next ask her about chests.
@ Charles:
I think one factor for why people are quick to argue RE feminist perspectives on this comic might be that it is, in fact, tagged with the word “feminism.”
Rob wrote:
I think you are about 20 years out of date… currently almost any stronger joke in europe or US is marked as offesive and in terms of TV actualy “self censured” by it´s lawyers which are afraid to offend anyone.
Rob wrote:
As a rule, people are offended if they are portrayed in a way that 1) they don’t consider a fair portrayal and 2) they think other people will believe it’s fair. If they think the joke or parody or whatever has a point, they can usually accept it and if the portrayal is such that very few will take it seriously, then there’s little reason to care.
In this case, feminists and feminist sympathizers don’t feel this is a fair portrayal of more than a very low minority of feminists. However, a lot of people here think otherwise, as is obvious from the comments. This makes feminists very uneasy about this comic.
That said, criticism against feminism is pretty messed up currently. Often, the most blatantly sexist comments goes unchallenged while people who are coming with legitimate criticism can easily get labeled as sexists. Both a taboo against criticizing feminism and an ignorance based hostility against feminism is running parallel. Those two problems feed each other and I see no improvement in the near future.
You know, something bothers me about this. A critical, vitally important fact that seems.. utterly overlooked.
Larisa pretty much owns Landon, right? Therefore, she is in direct possession of his. So.. she does have one.
my opinion on Dorothy Cambridge?
she is a gigantic hypocrite.
SEXISM GOES BOTH WAYS!
@ Natanji:
You do realize that there are people like this, right? If you don’t, please look up social justice blogs on tumblr.com.
@ cameron:
No, it doesn’t. Sexism is a method of oppression. You can only be sexist if you are in a position of power. If you’re not, you can’t oppress and thus cannot be sexist. Men are in a position of power because of the partriarchy
Is a child hitting an adult the same as an adult hitting a child?
Is a soldier attacking a civilian the same thing as a civilian attacking a soldier?
Is a citizen sentencing the king to death the same thing as a king sentencing a civilian to death?
Congratulations, you’ve learned about power structures today.
@Jo
I think that would depend on the power-dynamic in the specific situation.
If for example a male babysitter doesn’t get the job because for some reason men are seen as sexual predators, the power is pretty clearly on the side of the prospective employer.
Or if a otherwise harmless man is kicked out of the children’s section of a book shop, because a woman feels uncomfortable to see him there alone, which likely would not have happened genderflipped, it seems reasonable to assume that the woman had greater social power than the man.
I consider patriarchy as a catch-all too simple a model for societal power dynamics.
@ Natanji:
I think it, as a comic, is not persecuting feminism at all. In much the same way that there are views that are harsh on chauvinism (and rightfully so), there are going to be instances that this will happen, too. I see too often that feminists are fighting the issue the wrong way. You don’t fight for an issue against inequality by trying to perpetuate another version of it. That tends to be unproductive at best. That being said the joke of this webcomic seems to be more of a parody on Dolores Jane Umbridge, who is a fictional character infamous to the Harry Potter fanbase for being generally a nasty and highly biased teacher. Don’t read into these so much, or you will find your happiness very much a work in (forever stalled) progress.
@ Sambo:
Probably removed in retrospect.
(I came [back] here because of Jim’s blog. Jim sees abject apologies in this strip’s future. I’ll go further and predict the deletion of this whole arc, followed by some more global-warming and health-insurance strips.
@ Nachtschattengewächs:
If somebody is FUCKING RETARDED enough to make that sort of statement, you’re wasting your time trying to talk to them.
@ zimriel:
It wasn’t there to begin with.
something to blow peoples minds:
The Male is responsible for the gender of the child to be. This is because guys produce two types of sperm; One imbedded with an X-Chromosome and one imbedded with a Y-Chromosome. Le’ts call them x and y sperm respectively.
If an X sperm reaches the egg first, you get a female and if a Y sperm gets there first then it’s a boy. So no matter the argument, Guys will always be needed for making more girls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_sperm
@ Nachtschattengewächs:
Those cases are weaker people taking steps to protect themselves. But in the end, the man is more powerful as an individual, and is rightly seen so as a predator. In the had, had they let the man babysit the baby, the baby could be in a bind because he’s left with a predator. Also, they’re taking a chance he might get angry and assault them.
For the bookstore, they had security escort the man out because of the possibility he is a pedophile and let’s be honest, they can’t control themselves. So in the end, male have most power, but with preventive action, we can yes, indeed, shift it a little, but not without putting ourselves in danger if he decides to assault us. This shouldn’t have to happen.
@ Avian Mosquito:
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem
Can’t disprove argument, insults people. Typical. Watch out so you don’t trip on all that masculinity.
To everyone in the comment section:
Why is it okay to see a horrible religious stereotype played completely straight, but not to see a horrible feminist stereotype that’s played for laughs?
Answer: Oh wait, it IS perfectly okay.
@ Crystalgate:
Well put.
I’ve been loving Sandra and Woo, and am really hoping it’ll be back to its normal deviancy soon
Why do I have a feeling that Ms. Cambridge(got that one from the tags) was Mr. Cambridge in the past? Or am I just over thinking this…
@ Jo:
Avian Mosquito is not resorting to personal attacks against you because he can’t disprove your “points” (though let’s be accurate here, they are NOT logical points where you can point to his comment as an ad-hominem fallacy, as you have done nothing to demonstrate why your position is correct and have instead just made sweeping generalizations on nothing but your own say-so), he is doing so because you are making it clear that you are unwilling to hear any argument to the contrary.
And, I’ll just throw in that your response appears to do nothing but prove him correct, as you simply blame the victims in the cases mentioned for having the sheer audacity to have a penis. Your vapid reaching for “the Patriarchy” as a catch-all excuse is nothing but intellectual laziness commingled with blatant sexist prejudices on your part.
@ Rob:
Not anymore. And not in this century.
@ Woden:
So basically, when people take measures to protect themselves and others, like they were advised (for instance, a common argument in reply to “Teach men not to rape” is to say: “Don’t dress slutty” “Don’t go in a dark alley at night”, which can be reasonably summed up under the following sentences: “Take measures so that you can stay safe”) it’s not okay, but when they ask people to teach men not to rape, it’s not okay either? Then what should they do?
These men are potentially dangerous, and thus are removed/not allowed in a space, by women who put themselves in danger removing him, who are looking out for each other or for the kids. What is wrong with that? They can’t know if the men are safe or not, so they take PREVENTIVE measures by removing them. Sure, not all men are predators, but it’s impossible to filter them out one by one, and screening them, and sometimes the most dangerous can avoid detection because they’re sharp. And let’s be honest, they CAN’T control themselves. Sure, they appear, to, but let’s be real, they go home and watch porn. Not erotica, PORN. And then fantasies of power, of “fucking them”… yuck.
Preventive action is the only solution. Sucks for the “victims”, but they need to be understanding that we need to protect the weaker people from them. Besides, what is a man doing in a child area of a bookstore anyway? Next will he go in the child playground of McDonalds?
@ Brian:
“all heterosexual sex is rape” never made sense to me. On any level. I can see the hint of truth in the others, but this one never even hinted at truth. Can someone explain it to me?
@ HalfTangible:
No always means no, but sometimes yes means no.
http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2012/01/coerced-consent-yes-means-no/all/1/
@ Jo:
Good grief, you are downright insane.
I’m just going to say, you are the very sort of person that causes the negative perceptions so many people have towards feminism, and which comics like these are making fun of. Your comments make it abundantly clear that you neither care one iota about equality, nor about “protection”; you simply hate men, automatically assume the very worst about them (while simultaneously ignoring every shred of evidence that doesn’t lend itself towards your hateful prejudices, such as your counter-factual assumption that only men can be child molesters), and want to make their lives as miserable and oppressed as possible.
Heard a funny quote the other day that reminds me of Larissa. A girl told a female friend that she might be in love with her (jokingly after a favor) and the ditzy friend says, “Oh no honey. I’m not a lesbian. I played in the minor leagues but never went pro.”
@ Jo:
“Besides, what is a man doing in a child area of a bookstore anyway? Next will he go in the child playground of McDonalds?”
I dunno, maybe he actually has a CHILD?
Now for the actual argument:
“So basically, when people take measures to protect themselves and others, like they were advised (for instance, a common argument in reply to “Teach men not to rape” is to say: “Don’t dress slutty” “Don’t go in a dark alley at night”, which can be reasonably summed up under the following sentences: “Take measures so that you can stay safe”)”
This I can agree with. To a certain extent, people can take measures to protect themselves, regardless of gender. Frankly, however, to a certain extent, men are less powerful in such cases, because many people (not all, but many) don’t take sexual assault as seriously if it is perpetuated by a woman, and will persecute a man who may have perfectly legitimate reasons to be somewhere because a woman is uncomfortable.
This is not to say that men are not in the majority of sexual crimes, nor that women have a right to speak up if they are uncomfortable. But one must also keep in mind that the course of action you recommend here:
“These men are potentially dangerous, and thus are removed/not allowed in a space, by women who put themselves in danger removing him, who are looking out for each other or for the kids. What is wrong with that? They can’t know if the men are safe or not, so they take PREVENTIVE measures by removing them. Sure, not all men are predators, but it’s impossible to filter them out one by one, and screening them, and sometimes the most dangerous can avoid detection because they’re sharp.”
Women are potentially dangerous to men, too. Children are potentially dangerous to either. Give any human a knife, and they are potentially dangerous. Give anyone a sufficiently heavy dictionary, and they are potentially dangerous. Give anyone a pencil, and they are potentially dangerous. Give anyone a freaking roll of toilet paper and they’re potentially dangerous.
Let me put this in caps for emphasis: “POTENTIALLY” DANGEROUS IS NOT ENOUGH.
That sort of thinking leads to a similar situation in World War II. And no, for once, this is not about the Nazis. This is about the Americans, rounding up everyone who even looked Japanese and forcing them into concentration camps because they “might have been” spying for the Japanese. And if this link is reliable, the only people who were found spying for the Japanese weren’t even Japanese. http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/japan_internment_camps.htm
So in that instance, we uprooted thousands of people, forced them into uncomfortable living conditions, and treated them with unwarranted suspicion. And all for nothing, because they were innocent.
See any parallels?
Now, the male/female debate clearly isn’t that bad. Yet. But if you make this argument:
“And let’s be honest, they [presumably referring to men in general] CAN’T control themselves. Sure, they appear, to, but let’s be real, they go home and watch porn. Not erotica, PORN. And then fantasies of power, of “fucking them”… yuck.”
Now, if you meant that rapists can’t control themselves, then maybe you’d have a point, but if they look as normal as… well, a normal man, then how are we supposed to filter them out without forcing men into a state of fear of doing anything that could even possibly potentially make a woman feel the teensiest bit uncomfortable? And THAT sort of thing is oppression, and I don’t care how much you argue that men have all the power and that makes it not oppression, MEN DO NOT HAVE ALL THE POWER. If men had all the power and were as terrible as you suggest, this argument could not happen. You’d have been censored and possibly imprisoned by the Male Secret Police. So the very fact that you’re making this argument proves your argument incorrect on a fundamental level.
Now, if what you meant was that MEN can’t control themselves, well, that’s utter nonsense. That’s exactly like saying “Oh, all women are sluts. All they want is a man and they’ll do anything to get one.” Neither statement is correct. I really shouldn’t have to explain this; people, regardless of gender, have a spectrum of morality, and to judge the entire gender by its worst members is sexism, regardless of who’s got the power in that relationship. Some men are jerks and rapists who want nothing more than to defile women. Others are virtuous and good, treating everyone with respect and love. Some women are fools who do pornography and indirectly perpetuate bad sexual habits on a number of levels, including unprotected sex, extra-marital sex, rape/coercion, and what-have-you. Pick your own negative consequence of sex as seen in pornography; there are too many to list. Other women, on the other hand, respect themselves and others and treat everyone with respect and love. Many of both genders are somewhere in between, at a balance between virtue and vice.
And so to say that all men are evil, corrupt rapists while painting all women as only concerned with protecting themselves and their children is, to put it bluntly, just plain STUPID. You’re arguing using stereotypes and ignoring reality in favor of those stereotypes that support your position.
“but when they ask people to teach men not to rape, it’s not okay either?”
It’s okay to teach men not to rape. But let’s think about this. What is the best time to infuse morality into a person (man or woman)? During their childhood. And who’s responsible for that? The parents. The father is responsible for showing through example what a man OUGHT to be: the sons learn what to become by his example, and the daughters see that they needn’t settle for a man with no morals. The mother is responsible for teaching them as well: the sons learn that women are deserving of respect because their mothers are, and the daughters learn how to be a woman without being trashy.
So when you say that we need to teach men not to rape, who are you directing that comment to? It can’t be the schools; frankly, the American school system’s sexual education program is more “oh, they’re gonna have sex anyway, so let’s teach them to use condoms and call it a day, durr hurr”. There is no sense of morality in such a class, and when it comes right down to it, rape is a matter of morality.
Now, one could argue that the government should do it. Well, what the heck can they do that’s not already being done? They already harshly penalize any rapists they catch. If you live in an area where that’s not true, then you have a point, but otherwise, what’re they supposed to do? Segment all men onto one continent and let the women have the other? Yeah, that’ll work. /sarcasm
Even if we could get everyone to agree to that, that won’t stop rape. Rapists are rapists. If male rapists can’t rape women, there’s no reason why they won’t rape other males, and that is just as wrong. If women rapists can’t rape men, they’ll rape other women. Child molesters, of either gender, will molest children regardless of gender.
So the government is doing what it can without infringing on people’s personal liberties (which, I remind you, is one of the fundamental properties of our [assuming you are part of the United States] government in the first place: the idea that one is innocent until proven guilty, and one cannot imprison a person because they might commit a crime in the future). Clearly the government cannot do the job of teaching men not to rape.
So then, who does? The family. And you cannot regulate the family, not without infringing on those same personal liberties that we espouse.
And even if we teach men not to rape… let’s be honest, is that gonna stop some people? No. You could have the perfect parents, but if you decide to rob a bank, rape everyone in there, and blow it up, that is YOUR decision and it is on YOUR head. (Now, if the parents had failed to teach him that robbing, raping, and blowing random stuff up is bad, then it’d be on the parents’ heads. But that’s why we have a Child Protective Services agency, to try to stop those whose parenting style has absolutely nothing that is in the child’s best interests, physical and moral alike.) The fact that rape (and, to be honest, other crimes) is so prevalent is sad, but the best way to stop it is not to try to confine every possible rapist/criminal (which would necessitate imprisoning everyone, which is no improvement), but to raise children as best you can and try to teach them correct principles. Then you let them govern themselves, and hopefully the generation you helped raise is not as bad as the one you grew up with. And eventually, we can get to the point where we actually have a functioning society that frowns on rape and crime to such a degree that it is almost unheard of.
THAT is how to fix a society. Imprisoning or segmenting or discriminating against the side that you are prejudiced against is not. And your blustering, your idiocy, and your frankly insane ideas for social reform will do nothing but break the society even more.
Now, if you respond and can actually give reasoned, respectful answers to my points, then I will respond. But if you reply with yet more sweeping generalizations and idiotic suggestions, don’t expect to hear from me again.
@ Drax:
Yea, and this comic just chimes in and ALSO can be read to imply that this as what feminists are like; and the first few comments here definitely made it clear that people understood it this way. That’s one of the problems.
It’s not a minority group’s job to fight among themselves and push out extremists. Having that battle again and again just weakens everyone, and leaves the general society intact without change. It’s the general society’s job to take the non-extremists much more seriously, to portray their positions etc., if they want to be rid of the extremists.
@ The Warrior of Many Faces:
Oh, I’m not insane. I just spouted back Feminist stuff and trolled a bit. Good too see people are sane out of tumblr. I like me some drama.
But that wall of text I didn’t expect, and I thank you for it. I am not worthy. This is full of logical arguments against bullshit that people spout, and I will certainly direct people to, and credit you for it. It was awesome.
@ Jo:
…you were trolling? Oh gosh. Now I feel stupid. *headdesk* So typical of me, to get up in arms and dissect someone’s argument, just to find out it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously…
Glad you liked what I wrote, though.
@ Natanji: To some extent, I agree that it’s the job of general society to understand an issue and its members more thoroughly than its extremists. At the very least, it’s important to know that there ARE extremists and that what they express does not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the more moderate members of that subgroup.
HOWEVER.
If people in a subgroup want to be taken seriously, they have to speak up. They have to speak, if not louder than the extremists, at least more consistently. They have to continually denounce them until it’s clear that the extremists are their own group, separate from the moderates. If they do not, that’s acceptance via nonvocalization. By not denouncing them, they imply that they agree with them, or don’t disagree strongly enough to speak up.
To be sure, the burden is not on the minority group alone, but to say that the minority group has no responsibility for this is ridiculous.
@ The Warrior of Many Faces:
Don’t be. I must admit I do feel some unease (but I don’t feel bad about it) trolling. But, I wanted to experiment a bit. It had to be at SAW commenter’s expense, sorry!
There’s something to be learned from this though. You can never be sure of your interlocutor’s true beliefs on the Internet, especially when the subject at hand is full of pre-made fallacious arguments to use and repeat and repeat. It ain’t that hard to be a SJW, just rote learning.
This… isn’t what Radical Feminism looks like. This is what people who haven’t actually dealt with Radical Feminism think it looks like. For one, RadFems are big on “biological sex = immutable truth of identity”, while still claiming to be against biological essentialism. Having a RadFem who’s claiming penises are a social construct is on the level of having a straw right-winger who’s talking about how great gays are, or a straw fascist fervently supporting labor unions and corporate regulation.
I feel like this would have been funnier if Larisa didn’t just say the obvious fact. I already sucked in a lot of breath at that first line, so the impact of the factually wrong statement had already occured. Then again, her just saying “Er…” might not be in character and/or that much better But if that’s the only thing you change, the teacher just bluntly bringing up the subject of penises (which you didn’t know that she would do because nothing was given to us that would indicate that) would probably have more impact.
Just a thought.
Man… Does anyone know the feeling when you realize after quite a long time, that comics are read from left to right?
Guess i should either read more comics and books or stop reading manga.
You should watch the “Gender Equality Paradox” documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70
@ Takashoru:
Well, then I guess the difference here is that those crazy christians exists, in sizable numbers. I have never seen any crazy feminists like that. But I have seen reasonable feminists being strawmaned as being like this tons of time, though.
@ Lukkai:
White supremacists and black supremacists are both racists, and yeah, criticizing racism is fine. Now, christianism and feminism are, you know, not the same thing. Just like being racist and being black are not the same thing.
@ The Warrior of Many Faces:
You… You didn’t realize that? That was THE most obvious troll I have ever seen in my life. I knew it was a troll, that’s why I never responded.
And Jo, buddy, you went waaaaaay too extreme, so far it was hard to believe. If you want to troll like that, go to Witchwind for a while and see what the people who actually believe that act like, and it’ll improve your acting.
@ Avian Mosquito:
Pardon me for expecting people to post their own opinions in an opinion-based comments section. On the Internet especially, it can be rather difficult to tell whether someone’s trolling, crazy, or just plain stupid, and I’ve never been the best at deciphering such things even IRL. So forgive me for not examining every comment with unwarranted mistrust and harboring the hopes that people actually use the comment section for its intended purpose.
(Come to think of it, given my previous history, I’m starting to suspect that the post I just replied to is also a troll post. Hopefully not.)
@ Natanji:
Uh… I think you’re missing the point of the joke here. Utterly unqualified misandrist philosopher (in the most broad sense of the term philosopher, as she doesn’t seem to actually think) teaching a biology class.
There are appropriate places to discuss gender vs sexual politics. The biology classroom is not one of them.
– From another non-cisgendered identity
(For those who don’t know – cisgender means when one’s ascribed sex matches the internal sense of gender. All those who fall outside of the typical sex/gender binary are non-cisgendered. #HorriblySimplifiedExplanation)
I think it’s important to remember that people like this really exist, and the only thing objectionable here is the realism of such people gaining power. And just how unrealistic that is is debatable; extremists have gained even large amounts of power in the past both distant and recent. How she became their new teacher may have been fanciful, but someone like her becoming a teacher through normal means is not. It’s not like the standards for teaching middle-school are all that high, after all.
I think this serves as a warning to feminists; such people exist, get a lot of press, and get very little criticism from more moderate feminists. Is it any wonder that many people think such views are common? Allowing the whackjob fringe to dominate a movement is one of the surest ways to minimise it’s influence. And frankly, identifying with a group while allowing the crazies to define what the group is is just nuts.
Technically, the male genitalia is made of the same embryotic tissues as the female genitalia: the glans corresponds with the clitoris, the labia minora with the shaft, the clitoral hood with the foreskin, the clitoral frenula with the male frenulum, and the labia majora with the scrotum. In intersex people there’s often ‘halfway’, ambiguous genitalia.
So yeah, it’s kind-of a social construct, in a somewhat far-fetched way.
“Sometimes being quiet is more powerful than taking a stand.”
– can’t see that – sitting by while bad things happen is more like silent collusion. Loudmouths too often claim that the silent majority supports them, and too many bystanders take this as proven.
“For the triumph of evil, it is only required that good people do nothing”.
“There is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.”
@ Guest Man:
@ WJS:
Realism of such people gaining power? They already have.
@ Lukkai:
“Thar be a crapstorm a brewin’…”