Female, Male, Gender, Sex, Society: What is Gender Equality?

[Water]

An interesting question to make a very interesting discussion from today's Qanda and I invite all my Atarnian friends to join into this debate in the following:

How can "50 Shades of Grey" be in any way empowering for women when the female protagonist is controlled and owned by a richer and more powerful man, conforming to traditional and sexist gender roles? Do you think the novel would be nearly so successful if the woman was in the position of the dominant?

[brenden]

An interesting question to make a very interesting discussion from today's Qanda and I invite all my Atarnian friends to join into this debate in the following:

How can "50 Shades of Grey" be in any way empowering for women when the female protagonist is controlled and owned by a richer and more powerful man, conforming to traditional and sexist gender roles? Do you think the novel would be nearly so successful if the woman was in the position of the dominant?

As well as equal pay and all the written rights I don't think we'll have gender equality until it becomes a state of mind or way of being for many males today. You could have all the legal equality in the world but it won't truly happen until the underlying misogynistic beliefs disappear. The use of the word 'slut' and its applications iterates my point.
Whilst 50 Shades (hereon in referred to as Filth) features a sexually subservient protagonist which could arguably detract from gender equality, what it does do is popularise a taboo and acknowledges the sexuality of women (pity that it was done with such trash).
On the success of Filth, I don't think it would have been as successful. For one, she'd have to come up with her own ideas and probably wouldn't execute them as well as the parallels with Twilight, or Original Filth. I also think the idea of being sexually submissive is perhaps more within the realm of the target audience than being dominant would be.
Good topic.

[ninwa]

Relevant http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/to-love-and-to-submit-a-marriage-made-in-2012-20120824-24ru7.html

[Biceps]

An interesting question to make a very interesting discussion from today's Qanda and I invite all my Atarnian friends to join into this debate in the following:

How can "50 Shades of Grey" be in any way empowering for women when the female protagonist is controlled and owned by a richer and more powerful man, conforming to traditional and sexist gender roles? Do you think the novel would be nearly so successful if the woman was in the position of the dominant?

As well as equal pay and all the written rights I don't think we'll have gender equality until it becomes a state of mind or way of being for many males today. You could have all the legal equality in the world but it won't truly happen until the underlying misogynistic beliefs disappear. The use of the word 'slut' and its applications iterates my point.
Whilst 50 Shades (hereon in referred to as Filth) features a sexually subservient protagonist which could arguably detract from gender equality, what it does do is popularise a taboo and acknowledges the sexuality of women (pity that it was done with such trash).
On the success of Filth, I don't think it would have been as successful. For one, she'd have to come up with her own ideas and probably wouldn't execute them as well as the parallels with Twilight, or Original Filth. I also think the idea of being sexually submissive is perhaps more within the realm of the target audience than being dominant would be.
Good topic.

The only true equality occurs when men stop taking advantage of the most precious thing to women. Their virginity.

[MonsieurHulot]

The only true equality occurs when men stop taking advantage of the most precious thing to women. Their virginity.

I guess that will create an equal society, there will be no females to treat unequally.

[yearningforsimplicity]

LOL, I haven't read 50 SOG but I think the only reason 50 shades of Grey/Twilight/most curry films & dramas are sooo successful is that they show the woman as this helpless damsel in distress who can only be saved and whose whole life depends upon a heroic male figure, which tbh I find utterly annoying and pathetic. If the tables were turned and the female took upon the heroine role for the 'weak' male figure, people would find it controversial and odd (as they did with Disney's 'Brave', where people even questioned the female protagonist's sexual orientation because of her rejection of men *facepalm* ). and as if the female protagonist is 'empowered' in 50 sog?! More like objectified and denigrated! Imo, the only time we'll see real gender equality is when women are acknowledged more for what they can (and already do) contribute to the community, to their families and to the world as a whole - rather than what they contribute through their appearance, sexual objectification or by their docility

[Biceps]

The only true equality occurs when men stop taking advantage of the most precious thing to women. Their virginity.

I guess that will create an equal society, there will be no females to treat unequally.

Perhaps you misunderstood what i meant by "taking advantage."
By the way i didn't say kill all the females (which would be quite sadistic if i did). I said that they should protect their virginity till they are mature enough to lose it to a person they are willing to commit to.

[mark_alec]

What is "virginity"? Does it apply equally to males?

[Truck]

The only true equality occurs when men stop taking advantage of the most precious thing to women. Their virginity.

I guess that will create an equal society, there will be no females to treat unequally.

Perhaps you misunderstood what i meant by "taking advantage."
By the way i didn't say kill all the females (which would be quite sadistic if i did). I said that they should protect their virginity till they are mature enough to lose it to a person they are willing to commit to.

What you're saying is inherently sexist in itself - it's important for female's to stay virgins but males can screw as many girls as they like? Double standard.

[ninwa]

Why is virginity such a precious thing?

[Russ]

The only true equality occurs when men stop taking advantage of the most precious thing to women. Their virginity.

I guess that will create an equal society, there will be no females to treat unequally.

Perhaps you misunderstood what i meant by "taking advantage."
By the way i didn't say kill all the females (which would be quite sadistic if i did). I said that they should protect their virginity till they are mature enough to lose it to a person they are willing to commit to.

What you're saying is inherently sexist in itself - it's important for female's to stay virgins but males can screw as many girls as they like? Double standard.

He didn't actually say that tbh

[Truck]

The only true equality occurs when men stop taking advantage of the most precious thing to women. Their virginity.

I guess that will create an equal society, there will be no females to treat unequally.

Perhaps you misunderstood what i meant by "taking advantage."
By the way i didn't say kill all the females (which would be quite sadistic if i did). I said that they should protect their virginity till they are mature enough to lose it to a person they are willing to commit to.

What you're saying is inherently sexist in itself - it's important for female's to stay virgins but males can screw as many girls as they like? Double standard.

He didn't actually say that tbh

"The only true equality occurs when men stop taking advantage of the most precious thing to women. Their virginity."

Most precious thing to women => their virginity.

Men taking advantage of women, there is no mention of male virginity being "precious" in any way or women taking advantage of mens virginity. So please tell me where I misinterpreted it?

[Russ]

You made an inference, he never said that men should sleep around as much as they like. His statement can be interpreted as men shouldn't have extramarital sex as well.

[EvangelionZeta]

You made an inference, he never said that men should sleep around as much as they like. His statement can be interpreted as men shouldn't have extramarital sex as well.

Context always matters for interpretation though, and the general sense of statements such as those he made put women's virginity as somehow more needing to be protected than men's, even if the sense is merely implicit.

Speaking as somebody who actually studies feminism, we're pretty far off gender equality; part of the issue though is that a lot of people aren't critical/reflective enough to realize this.

Re: the main topic, I actually had to debate this the other day in debating.  I think it's arguable whether or not the text itself is pro or anti feminist; the discourse which surrounds the text though is however more problematic, as the thing that most people take out of it is that the woman is most definitely submissive, and that she is never really capable of being otherwise; not much else (particularly the way in which the woman could empower herself) is discussed.

[Biceps]

I'll rephrase what i have said. BOTH GENDERS SHOULD STAY AWAY FROM SEX UNTIL THEY'RE WILLING TO  COMMIT TO EACH OTHER.
Women are disrespected all the time because men treat them like sex objects. If  there was some way to prevent this then that would be an equally fruitful alternative.