Subject: Yeah, I didn't see it coming either.
Author:
Posted on: 2010-10-14 03:48:00 UTC
It'd be interesting to have a discussion on the topic with the people here, but I think this one seriously got off on the wrong foot.
Okay, so, a fair few PPC-ers have LiveJournal accounts, right? Has anyone else seen the question sponsered by the Secretariat movie? It's this:
Extraordinary Woman
Secretariat is the impossible true story of one of the greatest athletes of all time and the extraordinary woman who believed in him. How has the strength and support of an extraordinary woman helped you achieve an impossible goal?
I had some serious issues with this question. If anyone else does, what say we contact LJ and see what can be done?
Well I can think of a group of trapped chilean miners who were all very stong and supportive of each other. Too bad LJ is only interested in women.
Also, wasn't secretariat a horse?
I do hope you only mean that in reference to the question, which is a bit dated in the first place. Wouldn't be surprised to see a Chile miner question pop up, but it's not like these are meant to be representative of the whole of LJ, which you seem to be implying. And I have no doubt that LJ has megabytes of stuff about the Chilean miners, and almost all of it in support or admiration.
Not that the miners had it all rosy anyway - the reason they are keeping silent about the first 17 days before they were found is apparently because they couldn't stand each other and kept getting into fistfights. They split into three groups that bunked and worked separately to avoid each other.
But this has nothing to do with gender - if you are stuck under hundreds of feet of rock, with scant hope of survival, you are entitled to get a bit frustrated and angry over it, especially if you've had issues with the other guys down there before.
Just, don't venerate people for no good reason, and especially not for an agenda.
The wording's not very good and seems to be saying 'how has a woman been extraordinary by supporting you?'
Bleh.
It would be better if it meant 'how has someone been extraordinary by supporting you?'
Or, how about the question gets changed to 'have you ever done something crazy involving a horse?'
Disagreements have been made obvious, and I think there's been a rather epic series of failures in understanding. Time to leave this one alone before it goes thermonuclear by mistake.
Sorry to start trouble. (Again.) I never mean to, it just... happens.
It'd be interesting to have a discussion on the topic with the people here, but I think this one seriously got off on the wrong foot.
What's wrong with having someone be supporting by believing in them? She was the support for the main character. That's how literature works. It's not really sexist.
Also, the dynamic seems pretty close to how actual horse-training works. I do train horses, so...yeah, it was fairly accurate. The question didn't seem sexist either, it was just asking a question. If anything, she did more than usual. Owners of racehorses usually don't participate in the actual training, that's more left to the jockey and trainer.
I'm taking issue with the (highly ambiguous) phrasing of the question.
And what's wrong with supporting someone by believing in them? Only that, in many forms of media, women take no active role beyond passively believing in someone, and doing nothing to aid them beyond that rather abstract belief. I object to that. (I do not believe that the movie is one of these scenarios, but the LJ question was ambiguous). If you don't, then well...
I mean, unless gender pronouns like 'woman' and 'man' make you upset, I really don't see a problem with the phrasing. She was moral support, that was her role, and that's how the question phrased it. I really, really don't think there's sexism there.
I didn't mean that having a woman be supportive is sexist, no. But the way the question phrased it was irritating and got under my skin. Basically, it implied that the woman was extraordinary because and only because she supported him passively. The passive, oh-honey-I-believe-in-you support, as opposed to the Pepper Potts*, "I-believe-in-you-and-therefore-I-am-going-to-take-action-and-make-sure-everything-work-and-be-proactive-backup." And it just kept on only asking about, or looking at, supportive women. It's not the existence of women in support positions, but the emphasis on them, that bothered me.
(As to the horse thing: Lesson learned, it was a reasonable assumption, and if the woman is the human protagonist than the phrasing bothers me even more).
*Movieverse!Pepper; don't know the comics, don't want to cause more trouble. And yes, I know there are issues with Movieverse!Pepper, mostly in the way she cannot keep her head in a fight, but I loved her proactive support schtick.
The question is "How has the strength and support of an extraordinary woman helped you achieve an impossible goal?" It says nothing about being passive or active. Depending on the reader's interpretation, it could be either. I don't see why you think it's necessarily passive support.
Also, I think believing in someone isn't necessarily a passive role. If you're attempting something impossible, like the question says, simply having someone in your corner can be very powerful. I don't think it's demeaning to suggest as much.
As for emphasis, it's just one question, based on one situation in one movie. It's not like LJ is insisting that women can only ever take support roles and nothing else, so I don't think there's any call to accuse them of being sexist.
~Neshomeh
What were you expecting?
The background of the horse involved her to a great deal. She decided to breed and get the horse, she's the one who hired the trainer, the jockey, all of that. She decided to push which resulted in the horse getting that far in the first place.
How do you call that passive support?
Is it because she didn't ride the horse herself? Or didn't do the majority of the training?
There are different roles for everything, and trying to make a false comparison here, as you are doing, is misleading and sexist in and of itself.
Not all roles a person can take are going to be active, nor should they be.
I do not call those actions passive support at all. I do call that a hell of a lot more proactive than simply believing in the horse. Active support = very, very good. What you just described = very, very good. Reducing that to just believing in the horse, as the LJ question did = not good.
*sigh* I could have sworn I made the object of my irritation, at least, clear.
I do not see the LJ question as reducing it down to it.
Simplifying it, perhaps, but that is what she did, extensively.
And, well, I do. I am thoroughly sick of listening to you tell me I'm full of crap, so whatever, see it how you will.
And I would like to ask you to not suggest such.
I would not have continued to debate against you if your opinions were as fetid as you seem to think I think they are.
I do have a serious problem with people calling something sexist when it is not, however.
Several of the issues that you listed in reply to someone else are patently not applicable to your original topic, and these issues are thoroughly misleading as a result.
That question has nothing to do with a man. It has everything to do with a horse and the woman that wouldn't give up on it when the men who "knew better" said it was hopeless.
Secretariat, the horse, is "one of the greatest athletes of all time". He won the Triple Crown, which is a very rare event.
So, I am not saying that your issues would not be valid, if the question were about the things you thought it was. However, I believe the question is actually talking about the horse, rather than a man, so I don't think the call of 'sexist' is necessary.
-Phobos
This is not the main issue at stake, but the Triple Crown is definitely only for extreme athletes, as in horses AND jockeys.
I got the impression the question was discussing the jockey - and if it isn't, it's very badly phrased.
Also, the question itself is still asking about how women have supported the reader, so the question is still a problem.
If your point is that a horse can't be an athlete, I know several horse people who would beg to differ.
And I will say straight up I disagree with your issue. Is receiving support from an amazing woman somehow a bad thing? Does her support of you suddenly mean she can no longer do anything else aside from you? I had an amazing English teacher for most of middle school who taught me so much, not just English but many valuable skills regarding both academics and the living of life. She supported me so very much, but it makes her no less an amazing woman in her own right.
It doesn't mean that men have made any less contribution, but it does mean that the question made me think of specifically my female teacher, because the focus of it is on women who have supported and helped you. Is that a bad thing somehow, to acknowledge them? That's kind of the impression I'm getting off you.
There's one other thing I'd like to add, mostly to get out there and see what everyone else thinks. I've always heard from both mother and father that a good judge for if something is sexist is to swap the genders out. The brawny yeoman draping himself on the lovely captain and proclaiming, "Captain, I'm frightened," is going to be laughed right off the bridge, but somehow it's perfectly all right the other way 'round -- or was, in its time.
However, this question is How has the strength and support of an extraordinary woman helped you achieve an impossible goal? Swap that out, and you're just asking about an extraordinary man. I am a-okay with that, actually.
I'm confused. If a man chooses to acknowledge me for the support I've given him, I should be offended? A man acknowledging the support of his mother, sister, teacher, spouse... is sexist? How does that work? Also, what if I, a woman, want to acknowledge the support of another woman? Is it still sexist? If not, how come it is when a man does it? O.o
~Neshomeh