Apparently, this 'women' thing has gone too far...

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mudsticks

Squire
Just as an aside , As a youngster I was voracious reader in a home without a lot of books in it so I always read the books my mum and sister brought home too and continued to read book aimed at female readers. I do wonder if this is why I grew up without the rigid 'them and us' feelings most of my male friends had at the time.


Who know it's quite hard to tease out cause and effect.
I know my kids had a very wide range of reading and influences.

All sorts of role models real and imaginary.

No telly for the first few years of their lives, lots of Radio 4 and story tapes.

From William Brown to much more modern stuff.

They certainly don't have any outdated notions about fixed roles for men or women.

In fact they'll even pull me up on the occasional bit of sexism.

Which is very sweet, and hilarious too. :rolleyes:
 

mudsticks

Squire
I truly thought that no reference was too obscure to use here in NACA. Here you go, enjoy:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15020263-900-illogical-captain-the-physics-of-star-trek/


Yeah I kind of got a whiff of that..

But then of course you could also just have been paying me due respect 😊
 
OP
OP
Ian H

Ian H

Legendary Member
Out of interest, does that apply to porn too? Ie it’s (supposed?) effect on (some) men’s attitude to women?
I think so. I suspect it's pretty much unprovable whether looking at porn influences attitudes or vice versa. Short of conducting utterly unethical long-term experiments on captive subjects, I don't know that the question can be resolved.
But educating boys & men to respect their fellow humans, regardless of sex or gender, might remove the need for it. I'm no psychologist & my opinions are tentative.
 

Rusty Nails

Country Member
But then we've all observed our kids casting themselves in any number of imaginary roles.

And that forms them to a certain degree as kids
And I'm sure as adults too.

I know I got inspiration from the (at the time relatively few) adventurous , and self assured female characters that I read about as a girl

Definitely a case of

"Well if they can, so can I"

And that's definitely carried on even in terms of nowadays.

Younger women than me, having heard about some of the things I've done, have said that it's 'inspired' them to do the same.

The stories we hear and tell about 'people like us' have a strong influence, even if only as a backcloth to the rest of our lives.
Everyone is different. I used to read voraciously as a very young kid, everything from the Beano, The Eagle, Treasure Island, Zane Grey and Charles Dickens, but I can't remember getting any inspiration from the characters or thinking they were remotely like me, except in play acting games such as cowboys & indians, because I knew it was not real life. It was fantasy and escapism.
I fully realise that in the past, fictional heroes were almost always men, except in those middle class books about boarding schools or horses and historical/regency novels, so there was less opportunity for role models for girls.
I have always assumed you are a real person, not a fictional character, so young girls taking inspiration from your real life achievements, or the achievements of someone famous like Helen Sharman or Greta Thunberg, is much more likely than being inspired by Wonder Woman or DI Jane Tennison.
 

mudsticks

Squire
Out of interest, does that apply to porn too? Ie it’s (supposed?) effect on (some) men’s attitude to women?

Anecdotally yes it does .

Apparently young peoples expectations of what constitutes 'normal' sexual behaviour is influenced by watching porn.

I guess it's unlikely (and properly so) that young people will have 'real life' role models to emulate.

So 'healthy relationships' and properly respectful, consensual sexual activity needs to be discussed, but not modelled, in quite the same way as other behaviours.

Personally I don't see how having constant access to internet pornography, often violent pornography, can be a good thing, for anyones mindset, least of all for young peoples.

It's often cited as a cause, or at least an amplifier of incel culture.
 

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
Anyone care to back my campaign to recast Wonder Woman as Wonder Man?

Not in that Lycra outfit, please!
 

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
Anecdotally yes it does .

Apparently young peoples expectations of what constitutes 'normal' sexual behaviour is influenced by watching porn.

I guess it's unlikely (and properly so) that young people will have 'real life' role models to emulate.

So 'healthy relationships' and properly respectful, consensual sexual activity needs to be discussed, but not modelled, in quite the same way as other behaviours.

Personally I don't see how having constant access to internet pornography, often violent pornography, can be a good thing, for anyones mindset, least of all for young peoples.

It's often cited as a cause, or at least an amplifier of incel culture.

I didn’t say it was a good thing.

I was asking the, to me, rather obvious question, if porn influences behavior and/or attitudes, why doesn’t other forms of fantasy?

Like @Ian H I am no expert, but, it always seemed to me that even fantasy must influence behavior to a degree, after all,isn’t that what advertising does? I think we can assume that, in general, advertising works, otherwise, those wicked capitalists would not spend so much on it.
 
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Xipe Totec

Something nasty in the woodshed
I didn’t say it was a good thing.

I was asking the, to me, rather obvious question, if porn influences behavior and/or attitudes, why doesn’t other forms of fantasy?
It probably does but the main difference is that on the whole porn doesn't seem to be presented as a fantasy.
 

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
It probably does but the main difference is that on the whole porn doesn't seem to be presented as a fantasy.

I bow to your superior porn knowledge, but….

Lots of advertising is not presented as fantasy either. Indeed product placement type advertising often strives not to be fantasy.
 
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