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lightcastleI am sure many of you have seen this on Facebook.
While you SCREAM at your woman, there's a man wishing he could talk softly in her ear. While you HUMILIATE, OFFEND and INSULT her, there's a man flirting with her and reminding her how wonderful she is. While you HURT your woman, there's a man wishing he could make love to her. While you make your woman CRY there's a man stealing smiles from her... Post this on your wall if you're against Domestic Violence.
Unsurprisingly, many people have pointed out the deep fail that is inherent here. This has nothing to do with a moral argument, or any acknowledgment of the women involved as thinking, feeling human beings with agency of their own. It is simply, "if you don't treat your cow well, then someone will come along and take your cow and then you will be sad".
So yeah. Fail.
Except that I've grown cynical in my time. I may view this as fail, but I think we've established by now that my instincts on people and how they should behave are terrible exemplars for what to do in the real world. In the real world, you are effective by appealing to people in terms that reinforce their frame about the world, not ones that challenge them. That's one of the reasons advertising is so reactionary... it works like that. Don't try and sell toys to girls by saying they can be anything, just reinforce the current frame of them being princesses.
So this may actually be vastly more effective than pointing out that women are complete human beings who have their own rights. It's casting out the idea that reinforcing your dominance by beating "your woman" will backfire and you will lose the marker of your dominant status. Telling people like this that beating your partner is bad doesn't get through, because it is saying "give up your dominant status marker without any reward".
It is like a recent discussion I saw on Yes Means Yes concerning rapists. Someone came on and explained repeatedly that convincing men they shouldn't rape because it is wrong isn't going to work on it's own. You have to convince them they shouldn't rape, and that other men won't back them up but will instead kick the living shit out of them. If the language they understand is violence and dominance, then express it all in those terms.
Part of me doesn't believe this, of course. I would like to think an appeal to morality would work. But after years of watching politics and personal interaction, I am less optimistic than I once was. You need to tell people a story that gets the behaviour you want by making it seem like it makes sense in their terms. Yes, it is unethical and grotesque, but then it seems to get people what they want in relationships and probably will in this scenario as well.
Yes it reinforces the frame of "Woman=property/reward", which is repugnant. In some ways it is like the people who argue against torture by saying it is ineffective. We lost the moral argument some time ago, so using their own frame is all we have left.
A while ago, there was a discussion in a few places about women as property in the libertarian philosophy and the idea that women were more free when they were property which seems sort of relevant to the discussion.
While you SCREAM at your woman, there's a man wishing he could talk softly in her ear. While you HUMILIATE, OFFEND and INSULT her, there's a man flirting with her and reminding her how wonderful she is. While you HURT your woman, there's a man wishing he could make love to her. While you make your woman CRY there's a man stealing smiles from her... Post this on your wall if you're against Domestic Violence.
Unsurprisingly, many people have pointed out the deep fail that is inherent here. This has nothing to do with a moral argument, or any acknowledgment of the women involved as thinking, feeling human beings with agency of their own. It is simply, "if you don't treat your cow well, then someone will come along and take your cow and then you will be sad".
So yeah. Fail.
Except that I've grown cynical in my time. I may view this as fail, but I think we've established by now that my instincts on people and how they should behave are terrible exemplars for what to do in the real world. In the real world, you are effective by appealing to people in terms that reinforce their frame about the world, not ones that challenge them. That's one of the reasons advertising is so reactionary... it works like that. Don't try and sell toys to girls by saying they can be anything, just reinforce the current frame of them being princesses.
So this may actually be vastly more effective than pointing out that women are complete human beings who have their own rights. It's casting out the idea that reinforcing your dominance by beating "your woman" will backfire and you will lose the marker of your dominant status. Telling people like this that beating your partner is bad doesn't get through, because it is saying "give up your dominant status marker without any reward".
It is like a recent discussion I saw on Yes Means Yes concerning rapists. Someone came on and explained repeatedly that convincing men they shouldn't rape because it is wrong isn't going to work on it's own. You have to convince them they shouldn't rape, and that other men won't back them up but will instead kick the living shit out of them. If the language they understand is violence and dominance, then express it all in those terms.
Part of me doesn't believe this, of course. I would like to think an appeal to morality would work. But after years of watching politics and personal interaction, I am less optimistic than I once was. You need to tell people a story that gets the behaviour you want by making it seem like it makes sense in their terms. Yes, it is unethical and grotesque, but then it seems to get people what they want in relationships and probably will in this scenario as well.
Yes it reinforces the frame of "Woman=property/reward", which is repugnant. In some ways it is like the people who argue against torture by saying it is ineffective. We lost the moral argument some time ago, so using their own frame is all we have left.
A while ago, there was a discussion in a few places about women as property in the libertarian philosophy and the idea that women were more free when they were property which seems sort of relevant to the discussion.
Perhaps a compromise is possible?
Date: 2010-05-13 07:27 pm (UTC)Self-respect. It's an old argument, but it's true. I'd like to see a world in which young men grow up too goddamned proud to coerce or harm people to get what they want sexually and domestically. (And in general, but, one step at a time).
Growing into a sane, healthy, enjoyable sexuality. Coercion makes for crappy sex for the coercer as well, and pointing out that far better is available is a crucial step, I think.
Better relationships with women, romantic and otherwise.
Saner, stronger women to have relationships with.
Sons and daughters, if one wants children, who are smarter, stronger, better people who will form relationships with same.
In some ways it is like the people who argue against torture by saying it is ineffective.
I am forced to pick a small nit: the fact that torture is not only ineffective but counterproductive is part of the moral argument. Were it effective, I would still consider it morally reprehensible, but the moral argument and the arguments to support it would be very different.
Actually, it's a big nit: if sexual coercion and domestic assault produced functional healthy families just as well as the lack of them did, then they, too, would still be morally reprehensible, but the arguments would of necessaity be very different.
Re: Perhaps a compromise is possible?
Date: 2010-05-13 07:32 pm (UTC)I'm not sure arguing the "if you treat your cow nicer, the cow will give you better sex" is much better, to be honest.
Re: Perhaps a compromise is possible?
Date: 2010-05-13 07:41 pm (UTC)Yes. And you're arguing that "we lost the moral argument" about torture. I do not think this is true. I think it is not possible to separate the functional and the moral argument. "What are the consequences of this behaviour" is, or should be, always part of the moral argument.
Results are part of what the arguments actually are. The torture mongers argue that it makes "us" safer. It does not. The rape apologists argue that it doesn't really do women, or society, any harm. It does. Domestic abusers argue that "women are happier when they're dominated." We're not.
The decision to torture or rape or abuse does not exist in a vacuum.
Is it okay for my partner to break my ribs? Yes, if he is doing CPR in an attempt to restart my heart.
I'm not sure arguing the "if you treat your cow nicer, the cow will give you better sex" is much better, to be honest.
It's not. But pointing out that if you treat your partners (and the ways of the world are such that male/male relationships are not free of these dynamics) as the equal human beings they are your emotional and sexual life will be infinitely better than it will be if you treat them like cows is, I think, fair game.
ETA: I mean, you're not seriously arguing that there are no personal, individual benefits to NOT being a torturer, rapist and abuser, and those guys actually have more fun, you're just too pure to be like that, are you?
Re: Perhaps a compromise is possible?
Date: 2010-05-13 08:11 pm (UTC)mmm...
I do believe there is a long history of that being the case. However, it also opens up to the "if I can prove to you torture works, then your moral objection goes away" doesn't it?
ETA: I mean, you're not seriously arguing that there are no personal, individual benefits to NOT being a torturer, rapist and abuser, and those guys actually have more fun, you're just too pure to be like that, are you?
These days? It's hard not to think that's the case. After all, it certainly seems to be extremely effective in getting them what they want.
(Yes, that's probably the depression talking.)
Re: Perhaps a compromise is possible?
Date: 2010-05-14 12:48 am (UTC)That said the point isn't that one should "treat one's cow nicer", but rather that the person being shorthanded isn't a means to an end (in this case, good sex), but an independent actor, who is an end, in themselves. [This also (btw) applies to the question of torture, even if we were to accept, arguendo, the efficacy of torture].
Because the act of treating people like things, is to diminish the person who so treats them, which moves out of the utilitarian realm, without leaving the realms of moral agency/calculus.
Re: Perhaps a compromise is possible?
Date: 2010-05-14 03:11 am (UTC)Sure. And it OUGHT to. If it actually WERE possible to save a city's worth of innocents by torturing one guilty party, then my moral objection damned well OUGHT to shift. Significantly. Not, necessarily, go away. But shift.
It is not possible. But the issue has to be dragged out and faced, because any argument against torture that does not face it has a great big hole in it that a very large truck can and will be driven through.
These days? It's hard not to think that's the case. After all, it certainly seems to be extremely effective in getting them what they want.
Well, I've dealt with rapists and abusers. For torturers, I'll have to refer you to Himself Below.
I don't have the spoons right now to go into the long, heavily footnoted arguemtn, but no. If it got them what they want(which is usually some variant on "freedom from feeling afraid, rejected and powerless"), they would do it once, then stop..
It gets them what they want only for a very short time, from a very short, restricted, ugly list of wants. Which is why I say, even were I to ignore all of the reasons why being a rapist and an abuser is wrong (which I do not for one moment intend to do) - no, actually, it's not any sort of decent, satisfying, happy life for the perpetrator either. And this should be pointed out early and often, starting when boys are very very young.
(Yes, that's probably the depression talking.)
I think so. Hon, what are you doing about that and how can we help? I will remind you, gently, that you have a pretty strong and sane and experienced circle of friends who love you, who between us know a metric FUCKLOAD about depression.
Eh, Hell, how did I get logged out?
Date: 2010-05-14 03:12 am (UTC)Re: Perhaps a compromise is possible?
Date: 2010-05-30 07:42 pm (UTC)I'll cop to that.
Hon, what are you doing about that and how can we help?
Find me a job? It's almost entirely situational. A job, getting my own place, any sense of forward movement helps.