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Double standards in the media
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://beta.news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-News/Danny-Dyer-Sacked-From-Zoo-Magazine-After-Agony-Uncle-Advice-Over-Cutting-Exs-Face/Article/201005115627685?lpos=Showbiz_News_News_Your_Way_Region_7&lid=NewsYourWay_ARTICLE_15627685_Danny_Dyer_Sacked_From_Zoo_Magazine_After_Agony_Uncle_Advice_Over_Cutting_Exs_Face
Zoo magazine rightly sacks Danny Dyer for suggesting (even if he meant it in a 'humorous' way) violence against women as a way to solve a problem. So I wonder why when women are seen to slap or beat up men in the media it's almost viewed as being funny? I can't ever remember this happening to a woman. Indeed artists like Pink, Sugababes etc have made a career out of music videos depicting men getting beaten.
Where's the outcry for men that certain women's protection groups came out with when they insisted on a radio ban for Tom Jones' "Delilah" because it featured the line "I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more"?
It's widely believed that women suffer more domestic violence than men (there's no concrete evidence as it's believe many many fail to report it for whatever reasons so an accurate comparison is just about impossible), I accept that but it does not make violence against men any more acceptable or 'funny'.
I'm all for empowering women but dragging them down to level of the types of men they oppose just makes them lose any trace of credibility.
Zoo magazine rightly sacks Danny Dyer for suggesting (even if he meant it in a 'humorous' way) violence against women as a way to solve a problem. So I wonder why when women are seen to slap or beat up men in the media it's almost viewed as being funny? I can't ever remember this happening to a woman. Indeed artists like Pink, Sugababes etc have made a career out of music videos depicting men getting beaten.
Where's the outcry for men that certain women's protection groups came out with when they insisted on a radio ban for Tom Jones' "Delilah" because it featured the line "I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more"?
It's widely believed that women suffer more domestic violence than men (there's no concrete evidence as it's believe many many fail to report it for whatever reasons so an accurate comparison is just about impossible), I accept that but it does not make violence against men any more acceptable or 'funny'.
I'm all for empowering women but dragging them down to level of the types of men they oppose just makes them lose any trace of credibility.
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We also have a pretty feminised media in this country. Look at TV schedules, for example - most of the programmes on TV now are aimed towards women. Newspapers are no different - tabloids like The Sun and the Daily Mail have a huge female readership, both for different reasons, and editors know this full well. This might explain why the Mail's website is stuffed full of celebrity gossip, or why celebrity magazines are so massively popular with women. How many men do you know that read Heat magazine, for instance?
I think the whole thing has been overdone, frankly. It was undoubtedly a very stupid thing to write, but the man himself did apologise for it, so that should have been enough.
All I said was that it's been overdone.
He suggested that a man took a knife to the face of his ex-gf. It's only right that he was sacked. That should now be the end.
But as for using this as an excuse to rant about women, bloody hell! The TV schedules are biased towards women? Since when? Celebrity gossip on the news has only followed decades of reporting sports results as if they're actually news. There's enough blokey programmes out there to keep Dave in business for the next 10 years. Every other cooking programme has a very masculine, aggressive style nowadays. The only area where I would genuinely identify a discrepancy in favour of women is in the reporting of men's health issues vs. women's health issues, although I think that's partly a result of women's greater willingness to talk about such issues. Oh, and daytime TV, because there are more women watching.
But as for the wider issue, there is always going to be a discrepancy on this issue, just like there is with race. There will always be sexism against people of either sex, and racism against people of all races, but in society as a whole, there are undoubtedly some groups that suffer more and with greater frequency from it. That doesn't mean we shouldn't oppose it wherever it happens, but some will obviously get more coverage because it is more widespread.
And as for women only wanting equality when it suits them; bollocks.
Care to show me where I've defended Dyer in any capacity?
Awesome! I think I'll use that line on women the next time we have a thread on female victims of domestic abuse.
Meh, there were white people moaning that black people had it better than them at the height of slavery in the US.
There still are re BNP et al.
Anyway, not sure there's much evidence of a double standard here. If a female agony aunt recommended to a woman writing in that she cut her boyfriend's face, people would be pretty appalled.
I don't know anyone who finds domestic violence against men "funny". I found the video by Pink pretty shocking, but in no way did I think it trivialised or glamourised beating up men, so the analogy is flawed. Danny Dyer is making jokes about cutting a woman's face; I don't think Pink's video can be interpreted as promoting beating the shit out of men. (Not familiar with the Sugababes video you're talking about.)
I dunno, I just don't see the issue. Danny Dyer rightly got sacked, and where is the supposed double standard you're worried about? I don't see any evidence of it.
Women only want equality when it suits them? Nonsense. I don't think anyone of any gender should be cutting anyone's face. I don't think cutting someone's face should be promoted as an amusing way of getting revenge on your ex partner, whatever genders are involved. He's been sacked, and apologised, and no one is making a big deal about it any more. And I don't think women should be allowed to be "beastly" towards men - everybody should respect everybody's rights, and gender doesn't come into it.
Oh, and I know plenty of men who read gossip magazines and celebrity news - they just pretend not to.
Stop imagining you're some persecuted and victimised minority in society, because you're not. It's all in your head.
You really need to stop putting words in my mouth. I said..
I don't think you'd disagree with me about that. The point I made was it's unknown how many men fail to report domestic attacks. All these figures can show is reported cases. It's extremely difficult for a man to admit to being a victim.
Dyer's style is irreverant, his column isn't meant to be taken seriously however that doesn't excuse what he said. I'm sure a female in his position would face an outcry but I doubt the reaction would be the same as Zoo's.
I'm not talking about a single video from Pink - have a look at any of them really or check out a lot of her lyrics. The Sugababes have been beating up men in their videos for years (going back as far as 2002's "Freak Like Me").
Violence from men to women is vilified in the media and rightly so. The opposite is generally not.
Well, you're right that it is widely believed that women suffer more domestic abuse than men, and that's because that's what the data shows, I guess. The data is obviously imperfect, for the reasons you give - but what else have we got to go on? It seems reasonable to conjecture that if the stats show women are far more likely to be victims of domestic abuse than men are, then we should provisionally believe that to be approximately correct, until evidence shows otherwise.
I can't help feeling if I were to say "loads more men rape women than we actually know about, the data is unreliable because it's so difficult for women to come forward, but it's likely that most men are rapists" you would be pretty unimpressed with that line of argument. We have to take the stats to be more or less reliable, while recognising their flaws and inadequacies, otherwise we can just make ludicrous and unsupported conjectures about the rate of certain crimes.
And surely lots of women fail to report domestic abuse, anyway?
I'm not familiar with the entire back catalogue of Pink and the Sugababes so can't really comment! I dunno, I'm just not yet convinced. Have you got any specific examples in mind (besides pop videos, because I can't help feeling they are a poor example) of violence by women against men that the media takes lightly?
On TV, if a man is found to be cheating on his woman or comes on too strongly to a woman he doesn't know, more often than not he'll find himself slapped across the face. The fact that scenario is played out so often indicates it's considered acceptable broadcasting. If it were the other way around, I can't see a man slapping a woman being deemed in any way acceptable. I'd prefer that all forms of violence be considered antisocial.
I certainly don't think the World is out to get men, and Dyers comments were unpleasant. However it is certainly more acceptable to portray men in advertising as stupid than it is women. Which of course isn't to say that advertising isnt sexist towards women, most cleaning ads suggest that cleaning is womens work and men are too stupid to do it properly.
sg i really dont.
That's a good example.
To hazard a guess at an explanation, I would say that it's not so much a double standard that's at work there; rather, it's a possibly erroneous assumption about the different capacities of men and women to inflict harm.
I don't think it's because people think it's fine for women to inflict harm on men, whereas it's unacceptable for men to inflict harm on women. Rather, I think that people think any instances of domestic violence are unacceptable, whatever way it occurs, but perhaps falsely think that when a woman slaps a man she is unlikely to do him any real physical harm, so it's not real violence. So it's seen in a similar light to smacking children - something that is done to punish or to shock, but doesn't cause actual harm. Whereas we assume that because men are generally larger and stronger than women, when they hit women it's more likely to cause physical harm, and therefore constitute domestic violence.
I'm not defending those assumptions, but it's a possible explanation for the disparity that isn't based in a double standard which says it's fine for women to harm men but not vice versa. We assume that in the case of a slap round the face, the woman isn't harming the man, but when the roles are reversed, we think it might be harmful.
Re: advertising - I completely agree, but I think the problem is with the way advertisers portray both sexes, and the relations between them. Men are generally portrayed as incompetent, immature, irresponsible buffoons, while women are pictured as nagging, miserable old harridans out to spoil their fun. And if you were to believe British TV adverts, men and women hate each other. It's depressing.
Quagmire does actually have quite a valid point.
I think a lot of men play up to that, though. When I was younger my brother happily accepted the label of idiot so he wouldn't be trusted to do the ironing or washing up.
I think the reason that violence against women is seen to be worse than violence against men is more to do with the emotional impact than the violence itself. Men deal with events as and when they happen and then get on with their lives, women often continue to analyse every detail long after the event has happened. In terms of relationships, especially when there's children involved, women tend to invest a lot more emotionally or be more dependant. I'm not saying that violence against men is ok, and I know that domestic violence is damaging for all victims.
I find it difficult to see how the world can be against men, or that men have an especially difficult time. Life is hard for everyone, and some people just like making it harder. I don't think there's any particular group that's out to get another group.
No, I was using the part of your post where you suggest to Quagmire that he makes something of this cause.
I agree... Sometimes I venture from my cooking books and Tampon Weekly to have a gander at something with substance.
lol joking...
I know men who read Heat, I know women who love Top Gear. There are magazines which are aimed at gender, but what annoys me more is mags which assume men are just in it for the tits and cars and women for childrearing, housekeeping or celebrities... Whatever happened to the cuddly househusband or the Jag-loving tomboy?
The statement was vile. It shouldn't be acceptable to say against any other group (though I believe it's his right to speak out and make a cock of himself).
But really dude... 'Feminised media'?
Maybe men want to read about health, or shopping, or celebrities?
Newspapers are businesses and businesses are there to make money. Of course The Mail has pages for women because it is assumed that women will give them money to read that shite... I guess we could assume too that sports and business and the lovely girl on page three with her puppies out is there for men...
But really... Does anybody else get annoyed at the posts generalising about women (or men)?
Human beings are human beings...
If we're talking about white Brits, I'm with you... Male rape too, is under-report.
I haven't seen the videos you talked about... I saw one recently which has Sugababes (or some generic 'girl band') walking on top of men in heels, though this was more of a fetish thing than misandry imo.
I agree... But you could argue that this is a portrayal of women being irrational and not in control of their feelings, rather than a suggestion that hitting a male is Ok...
The film industry is still incredibly male dominated btw.