White male seeking understanding
Nov. 9th, 2006 05:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xoderSo I was reading an Ask Metafilter question about being asked to smile. The thread is interesting but devolves into a giant "Men Are Pigs" fest. The operative theory being that men think women should be pretty no matter what, therefore they should smile all the time. In addition, the smiling somehow reinforces their submission to the males. Personally, I don't think I've ever asked anyone to smile, of either gender, but I often try to cheer people up through silliness and absurdity—occasionally to bad result. Given the initial question at AskMeFi, however, how does the answering public become so certain that the poster is female and is being told by males to smile? (Ignore, for the moment, that the poster marked a response as "Best Answer" pretty much declaring what the previous posters suspected.)
On a slightly related note: (most, if not all of) you know that I'm a tall, white male. That said, I feel very vulnerable telling women I find them attractive, as the song notes suggest I do. Perhaps its from the culture at RIT, where women could bring men up on "looking" charges and then those men could get expelled (although extremely unlikely—forced letters of apology and probation were much more common). Perhaps it's just plain old fear of rejection. Who knows. But I ask you, my reading public (which has many women in it), how do I avoid the first kind of repercussions (the latter, I have only myself to blame, I know)?
And on a related note to that last related note: most of the shame I feel from my eyes catching on attractive women for as long as is "safe" is mostly due to the fact that I feel I am consuming a resource (looking at an attractive person) and not contributing resources back to the "ogling pool", if one exists.
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
s00j's K for giving me that second idea to think upon and ruminiate on since Lunacon '06. And thaanks to Sooj herself for the song which gave me the impetus to actually write out the thoughts I was having.
On a slightly related note: (most, if not all of) you know that I'm a tall, white male. That said, I feel very vulnerable telling women I find them attractive, as the song notes suggest I do. Perhaps its from the culture at RIT, where women could bring men up on "looking" charges and then those men could get expelled (although extremely unlikely—forced letters of apology and probation were much more common). Perhaps it's just plain old fear of rejection. Who knows. But I ask you, my reading public (which has many women in it), how do I avoid the first kind of repercussions (the latter, I have only myself to blame, I know)?
And on a related note to that last related note: most of the shame I feel from my eyes catching on attractive women for as long as is "safe" is mostly due to the fact that I feel I am consuming a resource (looking at an attractive person) and not contributing resources back to the "ogling pool", if one exists.
Thanks to
s00j's K for giving me that second idea to think upon and ruminiate on since Lunacon '06. And thaanks to Sooj herself for the song which gave me the impetus to actually write out the thoughts I was having.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-10 12:39 am (UTC)I've recently decided to agree with you. I do some gaming, and as a woman doing so I'm definitely in the minority. I've started to notice in some circles (not usually my own) with a majority of guys gaming and few if any girls, the guys occasionally make disparaging remarks. I used to just let it go, or bitch to friends, but I've decided it's time I started doing something about it. I've started speaking up to the culprits and others around them, pointing out why that sort of speech is wrong and that they shouldn't sit idly by when others do it, and so on. I hope such direct action will slowly make change, and improve the environment more than "running to whatever legislative body exists" would do.