Re: [OT][STRIPS] Great quotes . . .

Fish Eye no Miko wrote:
> "5parrow" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Fish Eye no Miko wrote:
> > > What about the "Have you ever had an alien girlfreind?" thing (No,
> > > I've never has one, being, ya know.. a straight woman).
> > The fact is that the number of series featuring an alien _boy_friend
> > can probably be counted on... oh, one finger?
> Hitomi had two all by herself.

And that's the one finger right there. ;)

Besides which I wouldn't quite call Allen her "boyfriend"...

> > > And as for, "Well, they're only addressing the guys."  Really?  Then
> > > why is that not prefaced with "For the guys" or something?  Without
> > > that, it does feel like tey are addressing the whole ng, and assuming
> > > that we're all staight men.
> > Not every thread here has to be labelled, stamped and addressed, you
> > know. If I start a "What's your favorite Gundam series" thread, it's
> > obviously not addressed to people who hate Gundam on general
> > principles.
> That is so not the same.  Sorry, it's just NOT.

Again I agree that there's a burglar in one of the metaphorical trees, 
but you're barking up the wrong one. The sex-threads are offensive 
because they objectify women, not because women aren't included in the 
discussion.

How, then, would you deal with a more innocent thread like "Would you 
marry <female character X>"? I don't really see a straight woman having 
more than a passing interest in that sort of topic; by your logic, then, 
any gender-specific topic should be censored, stamped, filed, 
marginalized. Ain't gonna happen.

> > > It's extremely disheartening be in a fandom and watching fellow
> > > fans reducing women to body parts, and ignoring the existence of
> > > female fans altogether.
> > Well, I do agree with you to a point. However, you may have
> > overestimated the seriousness of the problem.
> Are you a guy?  I'm tempted to say, "that's easy for you, as a guy, to
> say," but I'm not sure you are.  Maybe you;re just a woman with a different
> view on these things than I.

Well, yes, I am a guy, and it is easy for me to say that, BUT that 
doesn't mean the possibility should be discounted.

> > There's a very small group of fans here (I'm thinking the Ayanami
> > Psycho Club, but there are definitely others) who often behave in
> > that way, but by and large I don't get that vibe from the majority
> > of the group. Ordinary people can make slips and have blind
> > spots too, contrary to popular belief.
> Yes, and that's the crux of it... these are slips and blind spots that I
> don't make.  That I CAN'T make.  Do you think I can forget, for a moment,
> that there are men in this hobby?  No.  There's too many of them, and their
> presence is too prevalent in the fandom for me to EVER forget they exist.
> Yet is all too easy for fellow fans--and fan mags, and networks, etc, to
> not even address me, to act like I don't exist. 

So just how would you "correct" the problems you enumerate, given the 
power to do so? I suspect that any solution would amount to "remove 
offensive material", which basically means that the problem for you, on 
the NG at least, is not "being ignored" or "being marginalized" so much 
as "being offended". At least, that's the half of the problem that OTHER 
PEOPLE are creating, so why do you refuse to flatly state "this is 
offensive to us; stop posting it"? As it is, it seems to me that you're 
trying to fix what you can't, in a way which is only going to antagonize 
the people you're trying to educate.

Perhaps you want to look into having a section of the FAQ created 
regarding expected etiquette on the NG, so that at the very least we can 
point to one source if people are out of line.


The other half of the problem is this: you can't expect male fans to 
post on topics they have no interest in. There are plenty of threads on 
this NG which have equal relevance to both genders. If you feel there's 
a dearth of topics which would be of interest to your gender, the onus 
is on female fans to come out and start posting.


The companies and fanmags are another issue, which you would do better 
to write to THEM about.

- 5parrow