If you want my advice, it's to pay attention to and think about perspectives like this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crossnerd
I know, for me, I have participated in these competitions in the past, but over the years I've become less comfortable with it. The truth is, I don't feel like I'm naturally included in a game that rates womens' hotness. Its also embarrassing, demeaning, and negatively impactful for not only me and other female posters but women in general to be rated on their physical appearance as their primary value indicator, which is really what this is if the ultimate metric for voting is physical beauty.
I know many women, including myself, have participated in these in the past as purely a beauty competition. But if I'm entirely honest, I think thats largely due to wanting to be included in the "fun" of the community. But its not fun. Its not fun for there to be a yearly lady hotness competition.
I was suggesting we change that to something we can be less ashamed of.
I am a woman and a pogger, and Miss Pog should represent Pog as a whole, not just how many men in Pog want to bang her.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TimeLady
There's a whole thing about being a woman in a male dominated space - you go along with things to fit in. If I fought every guy who was being sexist I'd have quit POG after about 3 weeks. Plus there's this whole insidious phenomenon of the 'i'm not like other girls' mentality. I tried to nominate women who at least something else going for them that's not 'looks great in a bikini' but it didn't always work. Plus I felt that if I ran it I could have more sway over it, such as not allowing porn stars or whatever.
Frankly, this is quite a personal subject to me as during that time on POG I was experiencing anorexia, and whilst Miss POG did not directly cause it, it's representative of the wider societal issues that did. Valuing women on their looks first, thoughts opinions and ideas second. I see there is now a Person of the Year thread, and I have a funny feeling that if there are men contributed that they are going to judged on their achievements, what they have created or discovered, and not how good they look with their top off.
I think it's hard to write a short-enough-to-be-readable explanation for why beauty contests are problematic in relationship to the tendency to evaluate women primarily as sex objects while still allowing room for the expression of sexuality. I think it's hard for several reasons
1) It's hard to talk about with men specifically because we don't directly experience it in the same way. People tend to be skeptical of experiences they don't share. This is one reason why I also think it's good to hear about this from actual women, not from me.
2) It's hard because it involves thinking about cognitive, emotional, and behavioral tendencies that are deeply embedded in culture. Even women struggle with this aspect of things, for example
this article from the current Gender and Society relates how basically all of the women they interviewed (professors) could relate stories in which they experienced sexism (while, re: (1) none of the men reported similar experiences), but the women tended to conceptualize these experiences as singular episodes, rather than as representative of a general problem. This also complicates things by making it fairly easy for people who are disposed against taking complaints about sexism seriously to dismiss those complaints by pointing out (for example) that women also participate in things like Ms. POG. Yet, both TL and crossnerd touched upon some of the complexities relating to that participation.
3) In relation to both of the above points, a lot of men tend to experience discussions about sexism as an attack on their character, or as you put it an attempt to educate "vile sexists". The defensiveness is an impediment to a productive conversation, but I also think the tendency to think of a complaint about something like Ms. POG as an accusation of "vile sexism" against individuals misses most of the larger questions.
4) Like I said, it's also difficult to make clear distinctions between unobjectionable expressions of sexuality and "objectification". I think that's largely related to (2). I don't think that means we should give up on drawing distinctions, but it again makes it pretty easy for the so-inclined to straw-man concern about objectification as being an unrealistic attempt to suppress "normal" human sexuality.
Anyway, I don't know all the answers but I think paying attention to what women tell you about their experiences and thinking about those kinds of issues is a good place to start.