Feminism

[Johanna]

I split the part about singular 'they' etc. That discussion can now be found here: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=40617

[md0]

Now, on the topic of women's social roles (not necessarily feminism)

I was reading the news this noon and I noticed something that happens every 1 or 2 months.
A man isolates a woman somewhere, in this case, at the parking area of the building she lived, kills her, then he commits suicide.
Police discovers that the man was romantically pursuing the woman but she wouldn't respond. Labelled "a crime of passion" by the police, and if the man hadn't commit suicide, he'd receive a lighter sentence.

Now, in the rare occasion you hear about a woman killing a man for a "crime of passion", she is often his mistreated or even abused wife, and she is described either as "blinded by jealously" or something that makes her rage sound less "acceptable" and less "rational" than a man killing a woman that didn't want to date him.

So yeah. That happens regularly.

[Varislintu]

We have this ongoing murder trial here in Finland (it's been in and out of court for years now), where the prosecution seems to think that a wife killed her husband (but not the children) and then claimed it was by a strange intruder. They seem to think her motivation would have been a controlling jealousy, possibly coupled with domestic abuse.

The trial's a mess now, and we'll likely never find out what truly happened, but if it's true, then it's one example of a woman doing something like that.

But anyway, yeah. One thing you, as a woman, often worry about, is whether the guy who's trying to pick you up is one of the looney ones. Will this be the guy that can't take a no and will escalate into verbal abuse, and perhaps violence? Women who have this worry usually don't like being approached and propositioned in enclosed or isolated spaces. It's something that seems especially hard for some men to understand and accept, given Elevatorgate, for example.

I recently read in the newspaper a short article of how a Helsinkian woman was approached and propositioned on a tram stop, declined, and the man reacted by pushing her onto the tracks in front of an approaching tram. Of course, these kinds of men are rare. I try to not let fear of this kind of stuff creep into my head, and I try to always assume the best. But you end up scanning anyway, evaluating, covering your back. I wish it wasn't so.

Edit: I thought I might add, because there sometimes seems to be confusion about it, that if a woman is suspicious of you when you approach her to talk to her, men, then she is not usually afraid of men in general, she's afraid that you might be that escalating creep she has been waiting for all her life, or perhaps has met before (I met mine at 15, but it didn't make me feel like it was unlikelier to meet them again). It's not personal, so try not to feel offended.

[linguoboy]

But anyway, yeah. One thing you, as a woman, often worry about, is whether the guy who's trying to pick you up is one of the looney ones.

One thing that's always stuck with me is something a good friend said four years ago when we were discussing this incident. A straight male friend of ours who's had a very unsatisfying romantic life questioned what made a straight woman and a gay man think they had as much or more insight into the straight male killer's psychology than he did: "If you have sex with men, your life literally depends on telling the ones who might kill you from the ones who won't, because sooner or later you're going to end up naked in an enclosed, private space with them."

[md0]

As I said in the past, things like Grindr are death traps. Are gay men so stupid as to give their gps coordinates to potential honour killers?

It's so creepy.

[mōdgethanc]

Now, on the topic of women's social roles (not necessarily feminism)

I was reading the news this noon and I noticed something that happens every 1 or 2 months.
A man isolates a woman somewhere, in this case, at the parking area of the building she lived, kills her, then he commits suicide.
Police discovers that the man was romantically pursuing the woman but she wouldn't respond. Labelled "a crime of passion" by the police, and if the man hadn't commit suicide, he'd receive a lighter sentence.

Now, in the rare occasion you hear about a woman killing a man for a "crime of passion", she is often his mistreated or even abused wife, and she is described either as "blinded by jealously" or something that makes her rage sound less "acceptable" and less "rational" than a man killing a woman that didn't want to date him.

So yeah. That happens regularly.

"She wouldn't sleep with me, Your Honour, so I killed her."
"Oh, okay. You're a man and can't control your raging hormones and your biological need to spread your virile seed around. Whereas if she had defended herself, that would have been awful."

[Levo]

These ones above are interesting too.

Now another question raised in me:

Is it accepted / normal that a woman openly starts flirting with a man, or asks him out for a date?

In Hungary I see horrible scenese, especially at the night-trams and buses.

"Couple" not forming into couples. The girls wants something from the man, but doesn't dare to ask... Then becomes unsatisfied, has this frosty face, crosses her arms and talks about something completely else than what is on her mind. And you see the man actually likes the girl, but he's just still not there, or too drunk or shy, ahh...

But what is even worse:
Many girls wear very short clothes, strong make-up, and look kind of slutty with standards over here. At the same time, on many of these, you can see from her behaviour, face, talk, etc... that she is actually only looking for a hug or a romantical kiss with a boy. Nothing more.

There are so many girls here who don't dare to smile into the face of a man, nor ask him out for a date, because then she is considered a "slut"!
So instead, girls here do the conservative way: she dresses up attractively and wait until a man starts flirting with her, or ask her out for a date. She doesn't dare to start anything. In case she didn't manage to get anyone during the night, dresses up in shorter clothes and sharper make-up. And you know,that many of these are not the type that goes out with every other guy! (Not if there was any problem with that either though).

I'm not saying the ones I'm talking about are the most intelligent ones - you can have a romantical relationship by other ways as well - , but many girls don't deserve this, and it really comes from this conservativeness.

How is it elsewhere?

[mōdgethanc]

Is it accepted / normal that a woman openly starts flirting with a man, or asks him out for a date?

I think the expectation is still that the man will make the first move, so to speak, but I don't think it would be frowned upon if a woman did.

Many girls wear very short clothes, strong make-up, and look kind of slutty with standards over here. At the same time, on many of these, you can see from her behaviour, face, talk, etc... that she is actually only looking for a hug or a romantical kiss with a boy. Nothing more.

This is what we call the "master of the mixed message" and it's frustrating to men who just want to get laid but aren't sure if the woman is interested, but they need to remember that just because a woman is dressed sexily doesn't mean she wants to have sex with you. Too many men feel entitled to sex just because a hot woman flirts back with them. Either party is entitled to change their mind about that at any time.

[Varislintu]

Levo -- I know exactly what you mean! I don't know how much this goes on in Finland -- I've never felt I've not been supposed to take initiative, but I never experienced the "club scene" extensively so I can't say for sure that our culture totally allows that. I never encountered it explicitly, this thing where women cannot bring themselves to take inititive and thus end up using the weirdest "manipulation" instead. But we certainly used to have it to some extent, as in olden times dances and I think later even discos would have special events called "naisten haku", i.e. "women's pick-up", when it was the women who asked a partner to dance. Sounds ridiculous to me now.

And I also dislike this thing that women are given the message to manipulate instead of communicate. And I don't necessarily mean malicious manipulation, but just small-scale "use anything but your words" means-to-an-end kind of thing. It's like it's forbidden to talk honestly with a guy. There's this blog Pervocracy, where the author runs a series called Cosmocking, which makes fun of and calls out all the horrible advice the magazine Cosmopolitan touts to women. One running theme in the magazine is to advise women to pull all kind of weird stunts on their guys, because talking to them is apparently not an acceptable way to go about things. The series is hilarious, anyone interested should take a look :

http://pervocracy.blogspot.fi/search/label/cosmocking

[Lauren]

[deleted]

[Levo]

Levo -- I know exactly what you mean! I don't know how much this goes on in Finland -- I've never felt I've not been supposed to take initiative, but I never experienced the "club scene" extensively so I can't say for sure that our culture totally allows that. I never encountered it explicitly, this thing where women cannot bring themselves to take inititive and thus end up using the weirdest "manipulation" instead. But we certainly used to have it to some extent, as in olden times dances and I think later even discos would have special events called "naisten haku", i.e. "women's pick-up", when it was the women who asked a partner to dance. Sounds ridiculous to me now.

And I also dislike this thing that women are given the message to manipulate instead of communicate. And I don't necessarily mean malicious manipulation, but just small-scale "use anything but your words" means-to-an-end kind of thing. It's like it's forbidden to talk honestly with a guy. There's this blog Pervocracy, where the author runs a series called Cosmocking, which makes fun of and calls out all the horrible advice the magazine Cosmopolitan touts to women. One running theme in the magazine is to advise women to pull all kind of weird stunts on their guys, because talking to them is apparently not an acceptable way to go about things. The series is hilarious, anyone interested should take a look :

http://pervocracy.blogspot.fi/search/label/cosmocking

I'll definitely check out this cosmocking when I am not at work.

I knew you guys understand me )

[md0]

I am always schocked by how complex is straight dating is. All those rituals as to not injury a man's manliness or for the woman not to appear "aggressive"... Also, man caves. whythe hell are man caves a thing?

Then again, logging into BBSes designed in MSO frontpage in 1999 and announcing that you are looking for sex at a given place and time is a) the most prominent dating method for gay men aqnd b) utterly disgusting.

[Lur]

At least you get laid.

In a feminist world, I imagine straight dating to be much more similar to gay dating.

[linguoboy]

But we certainly used to have it to some extent, as in olden times dances and I think later even discos would have special events called "naisten haku", i.e. "women's pick-up", when it was the women who asked a partner to dance. Sounds ridiculous to me now.

In the US, these were called "Sadie Hawkins dances", at least on the secondary-school level. (To give you an idea how dated that concept is now, it derives from an episode of a comic strip that appeared in 1937.)

[md0]

At least you get laid.

Dunno if that's directed to me, because I don't get laid. I value my distinct trait of being all in one piece and breathing, and as much as I hate my life, I don't want to be chopped in tiny pieces and left in a ditch somewhere.

In a related note, another woman was found axed to bits near her residence yesterday, a day after a woman was shot dead for not wanting to date her killer. Two middle-aged men were detained as prime suspects for the new case.

The trial of the guy who chopped another guy to bits and left the parts of the body in an abandoned hotel last month, is still under way. Some newspapers deduced that it was a "gay scare" from the evidence found in the possession of the killer. But the trial is still under way as I said.

Btw, all those three cases, in the same district. Larnaka. I always believed that Larnaka should be nuked out of existence, it's an all around shit-hole.

[Lur]

At least you get laid.

Dunno if that's directed to me, because I don't get laid. I value my distinct trait of being all in one piece and breathing, and as much as I hate my life, I don't want to be chopped in tiny pieces and left in a ditch somewhere.

It was a generic you.

[linguoboy]

At least you get laid.

Dunno if that's directed to me, because I don't get laid.

Given the context, I read that as "you gays". (This is why y'all need "y'all", people!)

Btw, all those three cases, in the same district. Larnaka. I always believed that Larnaka should be nuked out of existence, it's an all around shit-hole.

What do you expect when you site your capital in the middle of an immense graveyard? Send in the hieromonachoi to exorcise the shit out of that place.

[md0]

Yeah, I am not sure what group does that generic you encompass.
I understood "gay men", and that generalisation does not hold true.
And I don't want to go all the way to the opposite direction and overgeneralise, but at least here, a straight man seeking for a date is reasonably safe, he could really proceed with only a normal level of suspicion for the girl he approaches.

What do you expect when you site your capital in the middle of an immense graveyard? Send in the hieromonachoi to exorcise the shit out of that place.

Well, in a way, the whole island is a graveyard. We had some "troubles" back in 1963, and we still unearth new bodies from then and DNA-test them.
Now, I don't think that Larnaca (or the predecessor, Citium/Kítion) was never the capital. Those would be Paphos, Famagusta, and now Nicosia. But I could be wrong.

[linguoboy]

Now, I don't think that Larnaca (or the predecessor, Citium/Kítion) was never the capital.

Larnaka is not the capital of Lanarka district? No wonder your administration is so disorganised!

[md0]

Oh, that's what you meant? I thought like, capital of the country.
Yes, the Municipality of Larnaca is the the capital of Larnaca District, but the government is so centralised, district capitals are not at all important. I'd even assume they are only de facto capitals, without any special status (each district has a District Council, that's more relevant in administration that which municipality is considered the capital).