Uh oh Fender... Instagram accusations of being misogynistic

digitalscream

soma1975 said:

Also interesting that you found that joke too far enough to mention it when you knew someone who was affected by it but prior to that you seemed to have an issue with political correctness when it didn't directly affect you. 

Actually, I wasn't offended by that joke at all. I didn't think it was funny, but I certainly wasn't offended by it; I was using it as an example of the hypocrisy and inconsistency inherent in your argument, which you illustrated fabulously by doubling down on it.

And...you're also assuming that political correctness - and the identity politics that go with it - don't directly affect me. As documented on here, I'm a member of a demographic that's far further in the minority than any race or gender, and surprisingly frequently mentioned in poor jokes online. That doesn't change my opinion one bit, though.

soma1975

Guess what? I'm not a brand. I'm a fallible person. I will own my bad jokes and take credit for my good ones. 

There's no hypocrisy in anything I've said. I've both said the person making the original post knew exactly what the innuendo he was making was, and that Fender dropped a bollock in retweeting it.

I've also as a private individual made a joke of arguable quality and arguable taste. And will most likely continue to do so. 

I'm not assuming anything about you. I don't mean this as a dig but I don't care enough about you to find out other than go on what you've posted here. Just like you continue to do with me. 

So I shall continue to state my belief that those bemoaning political correctness having gone mad either don't quite get what political correctness is, or have something to lose by it being encouraged. 

thebreeze

WiresDreamDisasters said:

thebreeze said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

thebreeze said:

Fair enough, but I think it can be problematic to hang on to stances, ideas, logic, reason etc. as if they're the most important thing without being open to meeting someone "halfway".  "Thing" being the operative word, just breaking everything up into objective things.  That the argument becomes the most important thing, to win or to lose becomes the most important thing.  It's easy to forget that there are people involved, people with feelings.

When you say, "I don't care about representational diversity. The door is open. Anyone can register here and rumble with the rest of us. There are no barriers, unless you happen to be a bedroom trader who hasn't announced themselves! This forum is pretty cool in it's ability to have diversity of thought, and I think that is far more important than diversity across the lines of immutable characteristics."  You're right in reason and logic.  But that's not the whole story. Some people may not want to "rumble" like you or they may feel it's hard to have a voice without what is probably a majority of middle aged, white men on here dismissing their comments with either derogatory comments, an inability or refusal to consider a point of view or unfeeling jokes.  The door might not feel so open to them.

I'm not trying to win anything and I've not referred to anyone as a "thing" - that's some invention you've come up with all by yourself!

Quite clearly I am not going to be able to change your emotional stance with a logical stance, so I'm not even going to try. I'll just continue making silly and harmless jokes, and enjoying my life.

Cheers!

It's cool.  I didn't suggest you had referred to anyone as a thing either.  I meant that something thing-like such as an argument or a piece of logic or a pre-held stance was more important to a lot of people than an actual person or a group of people.

Just as a matter of interest, what do you consider to be immutable characteristics?  They seem to be declining from what I can see.  That's not a jibe or anything, I'm genuinely interested in the whole thing.

What do you mean declining?

Immutable characteristics are the characteristics of a person that are perceived to be unchangeable. That would be sex, race, gender, sexual orientation, but I'm sure there are more.

@mods - it probably is time this thread was put into P&E. OP has probably seen a nice spike in traffic to his otherwise untravelled website, and the rest of this discussion clearly isn't about guitars.

I suppose I mean sex, gender, sexual orientation (and I'm slightly confused where you differentiate between them) all seem to be considered to be changeable these days whereas perhaps in the past they weren't.  Which leaves race - possibly changeable?

WiresDreamDisasters

That's insanity. People have fought for decades for the right to be treated as they were born, and now anyone can just decide on a whim what they are from day to day? Nah. That doesn't check for me.

And I diffrentiate between them all because that's what I've been asked to do by society.

digitalscream

thebreeze said:

I suppose I mean sex, gender, sexual orientation (and I'm slightly confused where you differentiate between them) all seem to be considered to be changeable these days whereas perhaps in the past they weren't.  Which leaves race - possibly changeable?

They might be physically changeable, but in terms of who the person is they are immutable. Consider...

Sex - the sexual characteristics you're born with are embedded in your DNA. That cannot be changed.

Gender - how you identify, which is a fundamental characteristic of how your brain operates. That cannot be changed; only the physical manifestation can be changed, to (hopefully) match it.

Sexual orientation - again, a function of how your brain operates at its lowest level, which cannot change (despite many folks' insistence that it's a socially-influenced characteristic).

Does that help?

thebreeze

digitalscream said:

thebreeze said:

I suppose I mean sex, gender, sexual orientation (and I'm slightly confused where you differentiate between them) all seem to be considered to be changeable these days whereas perhaps in the past they weren't.  Which leaves race - possibly changeable?

They might be physically changeable, but in terms of who the person is they are immutable. Consider...

Sex - the sexual characteristics you're born with are embedded in your DNA. That cannot be changed.

Gender - how you identify, which is a fundamental characteristic of how your brain operates. That cannot be changed; only the physical manifestation can be changed, to (hopefully) match it.

Sexual orientation - again, a function of how your brain operates at its lowest level, which cannot change (despite many folks' insistence that it's a socially-influenced characteristic).

Does that help?

Thank you, yes it's helpful to set it out in that way but not especially helpful in my understanding of it.  As I say, I'm confused in the main.

I can see that if sex is embedded in your DNA.  However, can genetic engineering not change that?

Gender, people tell me they can change this and that it has as much to do with societal influences as it does anything else.

Sexual orientation, pretty much the same as gender.

What I do know is that I cannot say "this is how my brain operates at its lowest level or it's a fundamental characteristic of how my brain operates".  No one - even the most eminent neuroscientists, have any great sense of how the brain/mind/consciousness (are these distinctions important?) operates on any level (whatever that means).  It's one of the reasons I can't go along with Drew's conviction that logic or reason trumps emotion.  They're both equally valid and coming form the same place.

I can't say, as you do in your first sentence, "this is who or what a person is".  There's a fluidity to any person and in all sorts of ways.

WiresDreamDisasters

soma1975 said:

Guess what? I'm not a brand. I'm a fallible person. I will own my bad jokes and take credit for my good ones. 

There's no hypocrisy in anything I've said. I've both said the person making the original post knew exactly what the innuendo he was making was, and that Fender dropped a bollock in retweeting it.

I've also as a private individual made a joke of arguable quality and arguable taste. And will most likely continue to do so. 

I'm not assuming anything about you. I don't mean this as a dig but I don't care enough about you to find out other than go on what you've posted here. Just like you continue to do with me. 

So I shall continue to state my belief that those bemoaning political correctness having gone mad either don't quite get what political correctness is, or have something to lose by it being encouraged. 

In a truly politically correct world, you would be suffering severe consequences for your joke that links telecaster owners to sex offenders.

I for one am glad we don't live in that world. But you? You want to have your cake and eat it it seems. You expect context to be applied to the terrible jokes you make, but everyone else has to live and die by the sword.

And I'm not the joke police. Make whatever jokes you want. I am however the hypocrisy police, and consider this a caution!

WiresDreamDisasters

thebreeze said:

I can't go along with Drew's conviction that logic or reason trumps emotion.  They're both equally valid and coming form the same place.

I don't think that's really captured the spirit of what I've said here. It's not that reason trumps emotion. I just refuse to accept that emotion trumps reason. And part of the reason for that is that emotion is very volatile.

The stoics taught us that emotions are controllable to some extent. How we respond to a situation is not some arbitrary kneejerk thing that we have no control over. People chose to be offended by the Fender Instagram post, because right now that offense holds a lot of political currency.

digitalscream

thebreeze said:

digitalscream said:

thebreeze said:

I suppose I mean sex, gender, sexual orientation (and I'm slightly confused where you differentiate between them) all seem to be considered to be changeable these days whereas perhaps in the past they weren't.  Which leaves race - possibly changeable?

They might be physically changeable, but in terms of who the person is they are immutable. Consider...

Sex - the sexual characteristics you're born with are embedded in your DNA. That cannot be changed.

Gender - how you identify, which is a fundamental characteristic of how your brain operates. That cannot be changed; only the physical manifestation can be changed, to (hopefully) match it.

Sexual orientation - again, a function of how your brain operates at its lowest level, which cannot change (despite many folks' insistence that it's a socially-influenced characteristic).

Does that help?

Thank you, yes it's helpful to set it out in that way but not especially helpful in my understanding of it.  As I say, I'm confused in the main.

I can see that if sex is embedded in your DNA.  However, can genetic engineering not change that?

Gender, people tell me they can change this and that it has as much to do with societal influences as it does anything else.

Sexual orientation, pretty much the same as gender.

What I do know is that I cannot say "this is how my brain operates at its lowest level or it's a fundamental characteristic of how my brain operates".  No one - even the most eminent neuroscientists, have any great sense of how the brain/mind/consciousness (are these distinctions important?) operates on any level (whatever that means).  It's one of the reasons I can't go along with Drew's conviction that logic or reason trumps emotion.  They're both equally valid and coming form the same place.

I can't say, as you do in your first sentence, "this is who or what a person is".  There's a fluidity to any person and in all sorts of ways.

Genetic engineering can't change an existing person's DNA, to my knowledge; that's a common trope in sci-fi, but not within the realms of current technology. There have been trials and experiments, but there are no solid conclusions on that as far as I can tell.

It's reasonably well-established that gender is not socially-influenced, inasmuch as we're talking about transgender folk. Somebody who was born male (sex) but identifies as female (gender) cannot change that fact. There are instances where people have physically transitioned and realised it was a mistake, but that's a problem of incorrect diagnosis rather than social influence. This failure, in itself, reveals that gender is a function of brain structure rather than social influence.

Sexual orientation...well, try to make a gay man straight. Many have tried (and poured billions into it), and nobody has succeeded at the fundamental level without reversion.  You could try it the other way, of course, and make a straight man gay. That would similarly fail; it is, to all intents and purposes, impossible.

As for logic/reason and emotion coming from the same place...that is plainly not true. Logic and reason are empirically provable; emotional responses change by the day.

zepp76

thebreeze said:

digitalscream said:

thebreeze said:

I suppose I mean sex, gender, sexual orientation (and I'm slightly confused where you differentiate between them) all seem to be considered to be changeable these days whereas perhaps in the past they weren't.  Which leaves race - possibly changeable?

They might be physically changeable, but in terms of who the person is they are immutable. Consider...

Sex - the sexual characteristics you're born with are embedded in your DNA. That cannot be changed.

Gender - how you identify, which is a fundamental characteristic of how your brain operates. That cannot be changed; only the physical manifestation can be changed, to (hopefully) match it.

Sexual orientation - again, a function of how your brain operates at its lowest level, which cannot change (despite many folks' insistence that it's a socially-influenced characteristic).

Does that help?

Thank you, yes it's helpful to set it out in that way but not especially helpful in my understanding of it.  As I say, I'm confused in the main.

I can see that if sex is embedded in your DNA.  However, can genetic engineering not change that?

Gender, people tell me they can change this and that it has as much to do with societal influences as it does anything else.

Sexual orientation, pretty much the same as gender.

What I do know is that I cannot say "this is how my brain operates at its lowest level or it's a fundamental characteristic of how my brain operates".  No one - even the most eminent neuroscientists, have any great sense of how the brain/mind/consciousness (are these distinctions important?) operates on any level (whatever that means).  It's one of the reasons I can't go along with Drew's conviction that logic or reason trumps emotion.  They're both equally valid and coming form the same place.

I can't say, as you do in your first sentence, "this is who or what a person is".  There's a fluidity to any person and in all sorts of ways.

If a person identifies as transgender or gender non-conforming and experiences gender dysphoria it has absolutely nothing to do with societal influence, especially if the dysphoria continues after puberty.

 

Springywheel

I find most people who are overly reactionary in the PC sense initially could not give two shits about gender identity and other matters that get under their skin.... but prompted by the news, tabloids, etc. they've suddenly adopted being a humorless twat as their identity, as though they can't think for themselves. 

WiresDreamDisasters

digitalscream said:

Sexual orientation...well, try to make a gay man straight. 

Lost count the number of times I've tried to make a lesbian woman straight. They just wont have it!

zepp76

WiresDreamDisasters said:

digitalscream said:

Sexual orientation...well, try to make a gay man straight. 

Lost count the number of times I've tried to make a lesbian woman straight. They just wont have it!

I know that was a funny, and no I’m not offended in case this gets taken out of context but believe it or not there is even Transphobia within the LGBTQ+ community. Some PRIDE events have been picketed by Lesbian groups stating that transgender females are just men using it as an excuse to try and sleep with lesbians. I jest you not.

WiresDreamDisasters

zepp76 said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

digitalscream said:

Sexual orientation...well, try to make a gay man straight. 

Lost count the number of times I've tried to make a lesbian woman straight. They just wont have it!

I know that was a funny, and no I’m not offended in case this gets taken out of context but believe it or not there is even Transphobia within the LGBTQ+ community. Some PRIDE events have been picketed by Lesbian groups stating that transgender females are just men using it as an excuse to try and sleep with lesbians. I jest you not.

I'm very well aware of the civil war occurring in that community. From some feminists perspectives, there is a lot of misogyny within the LGBTQAI+ community, with people co-opting femininity in order to perpetrate patriarchy. I shit you not!

Context once again is everything

Brio

I didn’t really care about the word gay being repurposed by the gay community. 

The use of the word ‘they’ being taken to mean ‘he/she/don’t expect me to say which’ is however simply stupid as a basic plural is now retasked. Time for a new word maybe instead of making a useful word unusable in most situations.
Other than that IDGAS.

prowla

I have to say I'm finding it difficult to figure out who's arguing about what and whether they're for or against whatever it is that they're arguing about anyway.

:-)

Sassafras

A lot of people care more about being seen as 'right-on' than they care about the issues at hand.

Brio

I thought it was a joke about Brazilians (the pubic topiary) rather than an a dig at the ladies of Brazil. A puerile joke worthy of a guilty snigger but no more than that. Certainly not what id expect from a major company these days unless they they had a rep for being ‘edgy’.

WiresDreamDisasters

Brio said:

I thought it was a joke about Brazilians (the pubic topiary) 

weirdest pizza I ever ate

Brio

Well obviously if you put pineapple on it what do you expect?