It might be tangential, but that's an odd choice of title for the film given that females are actually the majority in France (as well as in, say, the United States).
You mean; like a world where men would be send to war and just very few women? or a world where most homeless people are straight males? Or a world where women get custody of the child on the majority of the divorces? Oh wait, that is this world; I guess you will have to pick your bias of what oppression actually means.
Who's in control of societies with norms where women are supposed to be at home taking care of kids while men are programmers or something? Dudes. Unless you have a shadow conspiracy where presidents and capitalists are backed by women.
You write as if there's a shadow conspiracy to keep females from playing masculine roles. Have you ever thought that the reason most soldiers are men, that generals are men, and governments and corporations are headed by mostly men, that the parent that stays home to take care of the kid is usually a woman, is because men are more inclined to play masculine roles, and women are more inclined to play feminine roles, out of their own natural preferences, due to the way their bodies are built, and the way hormones in said bodies are emitted? It's undeniable that there are physical differences between men and women, and it would be a gross denial of reality to suggest physical differences' effects on society could be rendered meaningless simply because people agree they can be.
Confucius once said “Let the ruler be a ruler, the subject a subject, the father a father, the son a son.” "Truly if the ruler be not a ruler, the subject not a subject, the father not a father, the son not a son, then even if there be grain, would I get to eat it?” (Analects 12:11)
And I'll add to it "Let men be men, and women be women. If the men are not men and women are not women, then all you'd have are a bunch of androgynous adults.".
It's possible for men and women to have equal status, but it is lunacy to suggest that men and women are equal, because they absolutely are not and cannot be. It makes as much sense to suggest dogs can be equal to cats, that apples can be equal to oranges.
Did you watch the film? Is it necessary to downplay it and bring in your own concerns instead of engaging the concerns raised in the film? This is not a zero-sum game of suffering and your concerns are intimately connected to those raised in the film. How can it be otherwise?
To use your example around men being sent to war. Do you think that's entirely unrelated to excluding the perspective and ideas of half of the population? Such that we've chosen a narrow set of options for conflict resolution instead of including the wide range of human creativity.
Power is a natural game, is not intrinsic to human beings. For example elephants act against other elephants clans.
Yes; I commented because was washing the film and feel repulsion for all the biased lies it tells, did you know men are also abused but just don't report it as much as women because they ridiculed and not taken seriously?.
I actually didn't downplay it enough just for the sake of not getting my comment killed by downvotes, if you want to know why you can learn from a wonderful lady: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqEeCCuFFO8
What's the point with this film? That just because the genders have been reversed, my sympathies would actually fall differently? Is this really still an issue? This seems like a student project from the late 80s. If there is an opposite to "poignant" or "relevant", this is it.
Now watch all the HN men start to defend themselves, completely missing the message.
____
Preemptive: I know what's coming next. Don't even bother asking me what the message is. Doesn't matter what I say, it'll spiral into a mess of disagreements and pointless debate. Here's a hint though... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7204058 . Open your hearts and tone down the logic-machine for just a moment. Allow yourself to feel.
It is important to mention the context of situation in France. France ranks 57th in the world for women's equality, behind much of Eastern Europe, as well as Mongolia [1]. They are really a little behind...
I found the article saying "behind Mongolia" to be a bit misleading, because it's apples and oranges.
I've spent a fair amount of time in Ulaanbaatar and know Mongolian history reasonably well -- it's unique in that it's got a strong warrior/frontier ethos to it, and has since... like, forever. There's very strong traditional gender roles in Mongolia within households, though the women fall into a sort of loose warrior-matriarch ideal like the way we see Sparta depicted in movies. But it's not "women's equality" the way, say, Scandinavia is.
It might be accurate, in a sense, but without context it's misleading. Mongolian society is really unique in that it shares its origins from steppe nomadic culture, traditional Northeast Asian (Confucianism, etc), Buddhism, and yet recently and still today leans slightly more towards the Russian sphere than the Chinese one, and has some elements of Eastern European culture.
The women there are entrepreneurial, but also typically interested in marrying young and having 5+ children. They watch movies and television which show female Mongolian warriors like Chinggis Khan's first wife, Borte. But they also like Korean soap operas.
It's a tricky to place to get one's mind around, quite unique, but potentially misleading in a Western-centric piece without context.
Living in France now...they would have made the same movie with a small (let's say 1m50) openly gay and dressing sexy guy, eventually brown skin, and they could have kept almost exactly the same script, there would be no need to inverse genders, and it would be a kind of pseudo documentary instead of some half baked commentary on a complex subject.
Wow these comments are completely missing the point. Any mention of feminism or claims that women are oppressed are met with "but guys have it worse!!!!". Check out everydaysexism.com if you want an idea of what women ACTUALLY go through. It's very easy to think you know what everyone experiences, but if you're male you _cannot_ know what it is like to be female, simply because people will treat you differently based on your sex... as illustrated by this film.
Women have the State completely on their side. They are more or less married to the State. Think about it, if the government collapsed today, it would be the Law of the Jungle out there again. In sitcoms and commercials, women are totally put-together and have the big picture. Men are portrayed as buffoons and losers.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 48.2 ms ] threadIn fact, women often have to fight for the right to be soldiers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_military#In_the_Un...)
Who's in control of societies with norms where women are supposed to be at home taking care of kids while men are programmers or something? Dudes. Unless you have a shadow conspiracy where presidents and capitalists are backed by women.
1. Trying to talk a a man out of becoming a soldier, for lack of anything better to do with himself.
2. Trying to talk a woman out of bearing a soldier, for lack of anything better do to with herself.
It's called "shared responsibility," and the version of feminism that tries to blame men for everything is intellectually bankrupt.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137411/Rasema-Handa...
Also I have had a couple of things from the video done to me by women. How should I feel about it?
Confucius once said “Let the ruler be a ruler, the subject a subject, the father a father, the son a son.” "Truly if the ruler be not a ruler, the subject not a subject, the father not a father, the son not a son, then even if there be grain, would I get to eat it?” (Analects 12:11)
And I'll add to it "Let men be men, and women be women. If the men are not men and women are not women, then all you'd have are a bunch of androgynous adults.".
It's possible for men and women to have equal status, but it is lunacy to suggest that men and women are equal, because they absolutely are not and cannot be. It makes as much sense to suggest dogs can be equal to cats, that apples can be equal to oranges.
To use your example around men being sent to war. Do you think that's entirely unrelated to excluding the perspective and ideas of half of the population? Such that we've chosen a narrow set of options for conflict resolution instead of including the wide range of human creativity.
Yes; I commented because was washing the film and feel repulsion for all the biased lies it tells, did you know men are also abused but just don't report it as much as women because they ridiculed and not taken seriously?.
I actually didn't downplay it enough just for the sake of not getting my comment killed by downvotes, if you want to know why you can learn from a wonderful lady: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqEeCCuFFO8
____
Preemptive: I know what's coming next. Don't even bother asking me what the message is. Doesn't matter what I say, it'll spiral into a mess of disagreements and pointless debate. Here's a hint though... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7204058 . Open your hearts and tone down the logic-machine for just a moment. Allow yourself to feel.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/10/25...
I've spent a fair amount of time in Ulaanbaatar and know Mongolian history reasonably well -- it's unique in that it's got a strong warrior/frontier ethos to it, and has since... like, forever. There's very strong traditional gender roles in Mongolia within households, though the women fall into a sort of loose warrior-matriarch ideal like the way we see Sparta depicted in movies. But it's not "women's equality" the way, say, Scandinavia is.
It might be accurate, in a sense, but without context it's misleading. Mongolian society is really unique in that it shares its origins from steppe nomadic culture, traditional Northeast Asian (Confucianism, etc), Buddhism, and yet recently and still today leans slightly more towards the Russian sphere than the Chinese one, and has some elements of Eastern European culture.
The women there are entrepreneurial, but also typically interested in marrying young and having 5+ children. They watch movies and television which show female Mongolian warriors like Chinggis Khan's first wife, Borte. But they also like Korean soap operas.
It's a tricky to place to get one's mind around, quite unique, but potentially misleading in a Western-centric piece without context.