Oh Noez! What about Teh Menz? -Patriarchy isn't a dude's friend EITHER!

[P3nT4gR4m]

I know it was like 50 pages ago but I was sleeping (due to the fact that I'm a white, scottish, TLA, male and am geographically and timezone-challenged) but I'd just like to go on record as being in complete agreement with Roger regarding the egalitarian - stick your labels up your fucking arsehole - thing.

Me and roger might not be living in the real world but at least we're doing it the way we think it should be and fuck everyone else's opinion on the matter because they're wrong. People with hobby-horse causes and crusades? They're standing on a soapbox, yelling about how it shouldn't be this way and it should be some other bullshit way and they're going to accomplish this by putting everyone in the boxes they belong in, as if that wasn't how we ended up with this clusterfuck in the first place.

Newsflash: for all intents and purposes there are no TLA white entitled people, there are no straight, gay lesbian, black yellow or green people, unless you're one of those poor demented fucks who believe in that kind of thing. There are just people. Most of them are assholes but they all deserve to be hated equally, without prejudices about what shape their genitals are or what they like to do with them when they're not using them to pee out of or what colour their skin is or how much they weigh or which brand of toothpaste they use.

That shit is irrelevant. It's irrelevant to judging those people and it's doubly irrelevant to how they judge themselves, despite their protestations to the contrary but, hey, me an Roger are idiots, what the fuck do we know about the plight of the one eyed black irish lesbian pepsi-drinker?

[Sita]

on the subject of the OP for a minute, I can say that as a man, it's really annoying that my wife cannot even get a job at fucking McDonalds to help will expenses - they won't even look at her application, because she has spent the last 6 years being a stay at home mother and therefore "has no relevant work experience." how the fuck does that add up?

I have this problem too and it's annoying as hell.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I know it was like 50 pages ago but I was sleeping (due to the fact that I'm a white, scottish, TLA, male and am geographically and timezone-challenged) but I'd just like to go on record as being in complete agreement with Roger regarding the egalitarian - stick your labels up your fucking arsehole - thing.

Me and roger might not be living in the real world but at least we're doing it the way we think it should be and fuck everyone else's opinion on the matter because they're wrong. People with hobby-horse causes and crusades? They're standing on a soapbox, yelling about how it shouldn't be this way and it should be some other bullshit way and they're going to accomplish this by putting everyone in the boxes they belong in, as if that wasn't how we ended up with this clusterfuck in the first place.

Newsflash: for all intents and purposes there are no TLA white entitled people, there are no straight, gay lesbian, black yellow or green people, unless you're one of those poor demented fucks who believe in that kind of thing. There are just people. Most of them are assholes but they all deserve to be hated equally, without prejudices about what shape their genitals are or what they like to do with them when they're not using them to pee out of or what colour their skin is or how much they weigh or which brand of toothpaste they use.

That shit is irrelevant. It's irrelevant to judging those people and it's doubly irrelevant to how they judge themselves, despite their protestations to the contrary but, hey, me an Roger are idiots, what the fuck do we know about the plight of the one eyed black irish lesbian pepsi-drinker?

I am disconsolate about their plight.   

But I'm not Irish or Black or a Lesbian or even a Pepsi-drinker, and both of my eyes work (to one degree or another), which means that I can't understand them...Though they, of course, understand MY plight (such as it is) perfectly.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm just against the politics of division.  There are people out there that COUNT on us being divided.

Does that make me "privileged"? 

So I'm privileged.

So am I. Both against that division and privileged. Choosing to just see people as people is much easier when you aren't given daily reminders that you are one of "those people".

Attacking the concept of cisgenderism feels to me like telling blacks that "there ain't no 'whitey' we're all just people" as if THEY are responsible for the distinction being made.

He makes a valid point here, IMO.

I just don't need anymore stuff stapled to my face.

[Cain]

for all intents and purposes there are no TLA white entitled people, there are no straight, gay lesbian, black yellow or green people, unless you're one of those poor demented fucks who believe in that kind of thing. There are just people. Most of them are assholes but they all deserve to be hated equally, without prejudices about what shape their genitals are or what they like to do with them when they're not using them to pee out of or what colour their skin is or how much they weigh or which brand of toothpaste they use.

I agree with this as the way things should be.

But.

Well, do you remember the discussion about "not seeing race"?  Because this kinda reminds me of that.  You might not see these things...but rest assured, a lot of people do, and they will actively hold prejudices based on those opinions.  Even while they may have no objective reality, the fact is a whole lot of people believe there is a class of people called "women" who, for various reasons, should have less rights than they do, and they will viciously enforce that in more than a few places, with beatings and prison and stonings.

Not seeing these distinctions, while noble, doesn't really do much to help with that immediate problem.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

for all intents and purposes there are no TLA white entitled people, there are no straight, gay lesbian, black yellow or green people, unless you're one of those poor demented fucks who believe in that kind of thing. There are just people. Most of them are assholes but they all deserve to be hated equally, without prejudices about what shape their genitals are or what they like to do with them when they're not using them to pee out of or what colour their skin is or how much they weigh or which brand of toothpaste they use.

I agree with this as the way things should be.

But.

Well, do you remember the discussion about "not seeing race"?  Because this kinda reminds me of that.  You might not see these things...but rest assured, a lot of people do, and they will actively hold prejudices based on those opinions.  Even while they may have no objective reality, the fact is a whole lot of people believe there is a class of people called "women" who, for various reasons, should have less rights than they do, and they will viciously enforce that in more than a few places, with beatings and prison and stonings.

Not seeing these distinctions, while noble, doesn't really do much to help with that immediate problem.

I don't see them because I don't care.  Gay, trans, cis, whatever.  They're humans to me.  The objection I have against them is that we're BORN with shit stapled to our faces, and then society adds a bunch more.  Why do it to ourselves?

Another thing is, I am not my orientation.  I am not my gender.  I'm ME.  I don't want a bar code.

If other people need 'em, good on them.  But I personally want to work on being Roger.

[Cain]

It's not though.  If society has already stapled it to your face, it's there.  Recognising it and moving to improve the situation of people given that label is hardly "adding more".

I mean, it's not like the concept of "female" didn't exist until some PoMo theorists in the 1980s invented it, is it?  Every society recognizes that basic difference, and many (all?) discriminate based on it. 

Maybe you're talking in particular about the cis- prefix thing.  I'll be honest, I never liked that all that much, never understood why it was so popular.  I don't find it adds much, and could very easily be done away with, and not exactly harm the rich fruits of the human language.  But P3nt isn't just talking about that, in the section I quoted.  He's talking about all potential labels.

And sure, gender is mostly socially constructed.  But so is race.  And ethnicity.  And people see those all the time.  Going "well, I don't see Albanians" in Milosevich's Kosovo hardly helped the situation any (and if one was a Kosovan, dramatically shortened one's life expectancy).  If society has labelled you already, you can try and deny that label, but if society doesn't go along with your denial...well, things get messy.  Or you can say "yeah, I am [insert label here].  So what?  Shit still isn't right, no matter how you want to dress it up." 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It's not though.  If society has already stapled it to your face, it's there.  Recognising it and moving to improve the situation of people given that label is hardly "adding more".

I mean, it's not like the concept of "female" didn't exist until some PoMo theorists in the 1980s invented it, is it?  Every society recognizes that basic difference, and many (all?) discriminate based on it. 

Maybe you're talking in particular about the cis- prefix thing.  I'll be honest, I never liked that all that much, never understood why it was so popular.  I don't find it adds much, and could very easily be done away with, and not exactly harm the rich fruits of the human language.  But P3nt isn't just talking about that, in the section I quoted.  He's talking about all potential labels.

And sure, gender is mostly socially constructed.  But so is race.  And ethnicity.  And people see those all the time.  Going "well, I don't see Albanians" in Milosevich's Kosovo hardly helped the situation any (and if one was a Kosovan, dramatically shortened one's life expectancy).  If society has labelled you already, you can try and deny that label, but if society doesn't go along with your denial...well, things get messy.  Or you can say "yeah, I am

• .  So what?  Shit still isn't right, no matter how you want to dress it up."
  

If society doesn't go along with my denial, then Kill Me.  Or words to that effect.  In any case, I gotta be me, and I don't hold with these labels.  Call it personal preference, or a state of denial, or whatever the case may be.  I am not going to start thinking of people in arbitrary terms, and if I already AM, then I'm going to work on stopping, whenever I catch myself doing it.

I realize that I'm not articulating this well.  I'm going to have to think it through, and then try again.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

There is value to 'labels' in a context, I think, like Cain is saying. That is "Our current system is obviously biased against *label* and that needs to change".

However, the only way (IMO) to make shit better is to do it yourself and try to get other people to do it to. If you don't like the idea of being labeled, stop labeling yourself. Stop using labels for other people and demand that the assholes that label you take a good fucking look at their own shit... well, I mean, unless that would cause you to lose your job when you really need it... in that case maybe you have to be a little more politic with them.

We saw comments about uniforms in the first half of this discussion. Yet every label, when self applied is a uniform (even if you take it off sometimes). I AM A FEMINIST, I AM A TRANS, I AM A WHITE DUDE THATS PISSED OFF AT THE WHOLE FUCKING SYSTEM (we need a good label for that). When you say I am X, people will (because its how our brains work) presume that you will behave like everyone else they've met that wears that uniform.

We need to get out of our uniforms and run around NAKED with all of our human bits hanging out.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

There is value to 'labels' in a context, I think, like Cain is saying. That is "Our current system is obviously biased against *label* and that needs to change".

However, the only way (IMO) to make shit better is to do it yourself and try to get other people to do it to. If you don't like the idea of being labeled, stop labeling yourself. Stop using labels for other people and demand that the assholes that label you take a good fucking look at their own shit... well, I mean, unless that would cause you to lose your job when you really need it... in that case maybe you have to be a little more politic with them.

We saw comments about uniforms in the first half of this discussion. Yet every label, when self applied is a uniform (even if you take it off sometimes). I AM A FEMINIST, I AM A TRANS, I AM A WHITE DUDE THATS PISSED OFF AT THE WHOLE FUCKING SYSTEM (we need a good label for that). When you say I am X, people will (because its how our brains work) presume that you will behave like everyone else they've met that wears that uniform.

We need to get out of our uniforms and run around NAKED with all of our human bits hanging out.

Yes.

In addition, when you wear a label willingly (or even unwillingly), you yourself begin to self-identify with that label.  It may start off as a description, but it becomes a uniform.

Now, if the subject comes up and is relevant, I don't see anything wrong with using the term as a convenient description.  If for some bizarre reason your sexual orientation becomes important, then it's perfectly appropriate to use the correct term for it...I just almost never see any time that this happens.

In fact, the only time I hear these labels is as a perjorative.  At least IRL. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Also, it just seems like intentionally burrowing deeper into your own personal BIP.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I've known some pretty misogynist gay men that weren't cis at all.

I just wanted to pick this out because I don't understand it. They were gay men who did not identify as men? Or do you mean they were born as women but identify as gay men, and are misogynistic? It's the "not cis at all" part that's throwing me.

I mean they are Gay men who identify as women, but hate women.

People are really fucking strange.

[The Dark Monk]

But then they aren't HUMAN bits, they are label-bits, which therefore are discriminated against :P

Gender is a societal uniform you know. However, then again, what isn't?
If you aren't manufactured human A that is exactly like manufactured human B, then there will be a problem.
Also, even posing on that, manufactured human A might have went swimming one day and his hair turned temporarily green, which is HERESY. Chlorine is the devil. Manufactured human B punches and ridicules him, while A feels shame and guilt and tries to go back into the fold.

As far as labels go, a lot of people want them. A lot of people wish to be seen as "white guy" or "Black girl" or what have you. It is what the self identifies with. It is not "we are human beings" which I believe it's the way it should be. Since that happens, a pile of "In your face" does from time to time need to happen. You may be white or black or whatever, but everyone still feels emotion, has thoughts, experiences, etc and sometimes you have to shout at some people so you don't go on a killing spree.
That's where the damage of labels comes in. The fact that they exist in reference to human beings is just insane to me.
But since they DO exist, we do need things like feminism, the marches and what have you, as long as it stays educational and not empowerment. Through exchange of ideas and education you should never feel or WANT to feel like a soldier fighting a war, as then you simply fight for a position on the monkey council. I also believe that that mindset causes more enemies and rebellion than getting your point across.

I apologize if this has been covered already but I wanted to drop a thought in last night I was too tired to post it and remembered it this morning.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

But since they DO exist, we do need things like feminism, the marches and what have you, as long as it stays educational and not empowerment.

I am by no means suggesting that people should not find common cause.  I am also not telling anyone to reject their identity, whether it be cis, Gay, whatever.  Instead, I am saying that people should not allow themselves to be defined by such a minor thing, and labels are just that.

And yes, this "minor" thing may not be very minor in the eyes of mainstream society.  But I do not identify in any way with mainstream society.  They are not on my side, so why should I be on theirs?

Leaving the effects of society aside, are you your orientation?  Are you your "race"?  Your gender?  Isn't that the same thing as becoming your job?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I've known some pretty misogynist gay men that weren't cis at all.

I just wanted to pick this out because I don't understand it. They were gay men who did not identify as men? Or do you mean they were born as women but identify as gay men, and are misogynistic? It's the "not cis at all" part that's throwing me.

I mean they are Gay men who identify as women, but hate women.

People are really fucking strange.

Yeah, like the weird woman-hating right wing women.