Feminism

[Lotesse]

Originally Posted by HOBBIT

on graduation -
Lotesse - why did having to wear a different color offend you? I just don't understand. It is a harmless tradition probably found at a lot of High Schools. Men and Women ARE different - and one color is no better or worse or more masculine or feminine than any other (except perhaps for pink and purple ).

It didn't OFFEND me, it annoyed me, for no other reason than that I happened to have wanted to be able to wear the red cloaks, 'cause I thought they were much more beautiful than the boring white ones. I wasn't heroically wanting to make some grandiose stand for feminism, all I wanted was the right to be able to wear the red cloak! It bugged me that just because I was a girl, I couldn't wear the colour that my PEERs, different from me only in that they were my male peers, wore. See, ALL of my classmates were my peers, not just the women. Understand what I'm sayin'? ALL of us human students were each other's peers - why differentiate us by our sexual physiognomy? And it's not about what colour may or may not be "any more masculine or feminine than any other" - whatever that means, I mean, a colour is a colour. It has no sexual preference or identity - it's a COLOUR! It's about all of my school academic peers and me graduating from our school as equals, as PEERS, together, in the same colour.

Especially when that gown colour is a sensual, luscious crimson red.

Is that so much to ask??

[Nurvingiel]

Lotesse, you are awesome. I really don't see why the colour of one's grad robes has to be based on gender.

Originally Posted by Bombadillo

My own school is nice, but feminism makes up about half of the literature requirements. As if it wasn't difficult enough to get a sophomore boy interested in a book, they made him read "The Secret Life of Bees" this year, "a book that mothers will pass on to their daughters and cherish for generations." (back cover)

The Secret Life of Bees is a great book though. I'm more of a fan of giving a selection of about six different good books to read rather than forcing everyone to read the same book. If you get to choose, you're more likely to enjoy the book. If there's a selection, you're also more likely to enjoy the book.

I wouldn't call The Secret Life of Bees a feminist book necessarily. All the main characters were women, but that wasn't the point that I took from it. I thought the main themes were a young woman growing up and coming to terms with herself, and also about the civil rights movement.

[Bombadillo]

*grunts androgenically in disregard*



It might not have been a good book (I'm not compelled to read it anyway) but high-school aged boys, most of whom despise reading, obviously won't appreciate it. There was a list of about 20 other books that they could choose from additionally, but my school required the Secret Life of Bees. Way to kick off the year by giving students boring expectations of you.

I feel kind of bad though, because I mentioned that pretty enthusiastically to my English teacher, who happens to be the nicest lady in the world, and it turns out she's the one who mandated it. She said "but I thought they'd like reading it" so delicately that I wanted to hug her and apologize. Ah, we both made mistakes.

HOBBIT, what you have to do know is spread this news: every boy order a blue robe, and every girl a pink one. Your principal lady would love that.

I fully expect at least one person in my class to moon the audience on stage. There are too many of just that kind of dumbass around me for it not to happen.

[HOBBIT]

Lotesse - so if the guys at your graduation wore white and the girls wore red, you would have been okay with it? It seems to me like all you wanted was to wear red, and you were annoyed that only guys could. What if red wasn't one of the colors at all?

What if you really wanted to wear a suit but had to wear a dress/skirt for a function? What if a guy wanted to wear the dress/skirt but had to wear a suit? Forcing men and women to wear different clothes sexist? No, it is tradition, society, etc. Men and Women wearing different colors at graduation big deal: no.

I see nothing wrong with both sexes wearing the same color and I see nothing wrong with both sexes wearing different colors.

The issue at my school: it has been a tradition since 1964 for all I know (definitely a tradition past 25 years, I can see from pictures... I'd assume that it has always been tradition) for guys to wear green and girls gold.

-Why change a tradition with such history? it looks nice too
-Why change it without complaints?
-ALL the females I have talked to about it want it to be the way it always was.
-This is just something coming from the women who now run the school district and school - has NOTHING to do with student concerns.

Everyone got their senior pictures back. Most girls have their graduation photos with golden robes on, when they will in fact be wearing green.
That is messed up.

I still predict chaos at graduation

[Lotesse]

Originally Posted by HOBBIT

Lotesse - so if the guys at your graduation wore white and the girls wore red, you would have been okay with it? It seems to me like all you wanted was to wear red, and you were annoyed that only guys could. What if red wasn't one of the colors at all?

No, you're missing my point. My point was that I wanted ALL OF MY PEERS to wear red, as one student body. What if there was a rule that blacks, Latinos, and whites all had to wear a different colour, to separate them by race? Same difference. I was annoyed that there was no choice about it, and it was mandatory that we could not choose to all wear red, or by majority vote all wear white for that matter. Segregation by sex is wrong, and undermines the struggle for sexual equality in the workplace and in the world's structure in general.

AND - tradition, shcmadition. It was also a tradition - and even a law - for centuries, up until not even a hundred years ago, that a man beat his wife if she got out of line. That's an awfully extreme example, but if you think about it, how come just because something has been established as a tradition automatically means that it is the right way or acceptable way to keep doing? Tradition does not mean good or fair, it's just a social habit that hasn't been broken yet.

[Nurvingiel]

Lotesse, you are so awesome. *hugs*

[Lotesse]

Thanx Nurvi, so are you! *raises fist* Fight The Power!

[HOBBIT]

We may have to agree to disagree, but I have some more points for debate

separating by race and separating by gender is completely different. Race only bathrooms wrong - gender only bathrooms right. Race only clothes wrong - gender only clothes right. See where I am going with this?

Or do you feel that men and women should never have to wear different clothes? In a great many circumstances, women are expected to wear a dress or a blouse and skirt and men are expected to wear suits or a tux........
....At formal occassions girls wear dresses and guys suits or tuxes for example.

Lotesse: is it a fair statement that you are OK with women being expected to wear a dress and a man to wear a suit in certain situations?

If yes, then that is an instance of guys wearing 1 thing and girls the other. The girls could also wear female suits perhaps - then everyone would be wearing suits. But do women want to give up the tradition of wearing dresses?

That is analogous to tradition = Guys wear green robes, Girls wear gold. it is different, but it is OK.

It is ALSO OK for all to be wearing the same color BUT 1. no one asked for that change 2. this change was imposed upon us with NO student vote or consent 3. it is long standing tradition for guys green girls gold.
-----------------------
It is a tradition that in the school Choir - the girls wear this Gown type Dress thingy and the guys wear Tuxes. In the Wind Ensemble, guys wear tuxes and the girls blouses and skirts. Is that wrong?

If not, how is the graduation thing any different?

In the Jazz band - ALL members MUST wear tuxedos - even the females. The girls in the jazz band hate this and would much rather wear a blouse and skirt.
My point? the girls want to wear a different color - because it is tradition, because it looks nice, becuse they have graduation photos already in gold, because guys and girls wear different things.

And it is a shame that this change has been made.

Your thoughts?

[crickhollow]

Green and gold were my high school's colours, too, and I do know that most of the girls objected to wearing gold, not on the basis of equality, but simply because 98% of people look horrible in gold. (and earniel suggested on the last page that this might be the case in your school as well) Now, the entire student body wears green, and the cords around their necks are gold.

[Lotesse]

My thoughts are that it should have been a majority vote, and that a graduation robe is unisex, and not analagous to everyday clothing, therefore cannot be compared to wearing a dress as opposed to wearing a suit. However, if a boy prefers to wear a dress, and a girl likes the tux, well then LET THEM WEAR IT!!! Screw uptight tradition.

[HOBBIT]

Well, that I can agree with. There should have been some sort a vote - students were not consulted at all.

I have no problem with everyone wearing Green - I just see no reason as to why it was changed, and I object to the way in which it was changed - no student vote.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

if we are allowed feminism, can we also have masculinism? or is that sexist?

[The Gaffer]

The fact that we need feminism would imply that we already have masculinism, it's just that we call it normality.

[truthiscool]

other wards known as sextist.

[inked]

Masculinism ... Feminism ... Kissingism:

Joshua Foer: The Kiss of Life
February 16th, 2006 at 10:54 am
A few anthropologists have suggested that mouth kissing is a “relic gesture,” with evolutionary origins in the mouth-to-mouth feeding that occurred between mother and baby in an age before Gerber and still takes place in a few parts of the world today. It can hardly be a coincidence, they note, that in several languages the word for kissing is synonymous with pre-mastication, or that “sweet” is the epithet most commonly applied to kisses.

But kissing may be more closely linked to our sense of smell than taste. Almost everyone has a distinct scent that is all one’s own. Some people can even recognize their relatives in a dark room simply by their body odor (some relatives more than others). Kissing could have begun as a way of sniffing out who’s who. From a whiff to a kiss was just a short trip across the face.

Whatever its origins, kissing seems to be advantageous. A study conducted during the 1980’s found that men who kiss their wives before leaving for work live longer, get into fewer car accidents, and have a higher income than married men who don’t. So put down this newspaper and pucker up. It does a body good.

Read it all: http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=ht...Q3EVKXQ51_DWg6

borrowed from: http://titusonenine.classicalanglica...11446#comments

[Insidious Rex]

Ive heard such things before. Interesting stuff. But the most logical theory Ive heard on the evolution of the kiss is that its a way to reinforce the coupling position most widely associated with intercourse and therefore reproduction. Its well known that in many mammals (and many primates) direct face to face/eye to eye interaction can easily be perceived as hostility or a challenge. Therefore, in those species where the coupling is often done in this position... it is advantageous to occupy the face with some activity that would counteract this potential hostile reaction. And mouth to mouth contact is the solution. The eyes tend to be closed or at least so close that they cant focus on anything recognizable as hostile. The highly sensitive lips are mutually stimulated adding further to the sex instinct. Furthermore, placing ones face (mouth, tongue…) so precariously close to jaws and teeth of an adult animal can be a sign of trust and/or “acquiescence”. A truce if you will to be maintained at least through the mating behavior. We see similar behavior in some other species and we see wide spread evidence of acquiescent facial behavior in a wide range of species. So intercourse is much more likely to go through to fruition when we are essentially... ahem... face locked in place and occupied by this facial interaction...

[truthiscool]

Right......ok.........