[Eastern Girl]

Originally Posted by Sliver

We've opened up a conversation here and I think we can keep it productive and moving forward if we all take a step back and tone down the dramatics. "Keep your thanks" is a bit combative, but I'll overlook it because I can now see you're upset.

Yes it was. I am starting to get defensive. My apologies.

I think a question you need to ask is if you want equality, or if you want special treatment for women. This conversation is going in the right direction, and if we're all respectful to the broader change that is evolving by the day here, you'll see that removing a sexualized avatar is part of the solution we ultimately want to keep this an all-inclusive site. Because I am male does that mean I shouldn't care about sexualized images on a site to which I come to talk about current events?

I am not asking for special treatment. I am asking for people to think before they post.

You can care, as a male, about sexualized avatars. The reason I never rallied against the pictures themselves or avatars in general is mainly because we run the risk of just demonizing the human body, and that's not something I think we need to do.

I guess I just didn't see my avatar as sexual. Regehr on the cover of a sports magazine to me is not sexual. There are avatars of pretty women in bikinis that I don't see as sexual. I think you would have a point with the bulging penis shot and I think I have a point with the breast/ass shots. That, to me, is more sexual.

I think it's just too hard to define what is and is not sexual and where the line is. I preferred to take on the negative language as I felt that was more harmful overall. That was reflective of attitudes in general.

I never went in the YLYL thread, but I can't help stumbling upon soft-core avatars on a regular basis in other threads and since it's topical I asked you and others to remove them. Your reaction to that request has definitely surprised me, though, and that reaction has coloured my impression of how well thought out your arguments are much more than the picture to the left of your text.

While I don't like hearing someone thinks negatively of me, my intent is not to make sure you all think favorably of me. I don't mean that in a dismissive way, it's just not my intent. I am not trying to collect 'thanks' here. I feel I've done fairly well taking on the issue. Either way, hopefully we can move forward and speak more respectfully.

Speaking generally, what bothers me about having to take down my avatar is that people are calling me a hypocrite. I never tried to take the girly pictures down, as I mentioned above and numerous other times. I never tried to take the girly avatars down. I was asked what I thought we should do with it and I chose the option of getting rid of it, because I thought its existence was fostering a very negative attitude on the board. I chose to speak about pervasive attitudes on the board. If the thread had stayed, so be it. If the avatars stay, so be it.

I put my avatar up as a result of the constant stream of complaints that I received every time I posted a picture of a guy anywhere on the site. These same posters, putting up shots of women's ass cracks and boobs bouncing around, are telling me my avatar of Regehr posing is gross. That seems like an unfair double standard.

And please go back and read my post to you about taking your avatar down as I'm now going to be saying this for a third time. I did ask everybody to take down their sexualized avatars - they add nothing and I'm surprised in light of the current conversation and progress we're all making here you guys even need to be asked:

Yes, you did. I received a number of posts telling me to take down my avatar. I suppose when I saw you mention my handle, I just tuned out. Again, my apologies.

I don't have a crystal ball, but, yes, I am optimistic. Don't you think things are trending more toward equality? Look at how we treat homosexuality as a great example. I graduated high school in 1994. If we didn't like something we called it "gay" or "gaybar". If you hated somebody you'd call them a "fag". Those words are going the way of the dinosaur and I'd say most of the positive momentum on that front has been in the past five years. And myself and my friends would never dream of judging somebody negatively just because they're gay.

I think in some ways, things are trending toward equality, but I think in other ways, we are trending backward. I proposed a more respectful board atmosphere and was inundated with a lot of slippy slopes. It's that kind of attitude that scares me. And that's not disingenuous, that attitude really does scare me.

I'm not sure those words are going away though, personally. People still use the word '######' and there are a lot of people that have tried to have its usage removed from everyday language. And there's still a lot of people using the words you noted (fag, etc.). Anytime someone posts something that might interfere with a commonly accepted masculine trait, someone posts the "You know how I know you're gay?" meme. I don't see the difference from that and just flat out posting, "fag."

There are always going to be people (probably all of us) that pre-judge others based on their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, socio-economic background, accent, and, yes, gender. Our goal is to work toward equality for everyone. So sure, some girls will likely face sexism even a hundred years from now, same as somebody may have a preconceived notion about a person with a Newfie accent; however, I think our society right now is on a progressive path of working toward breaking those barriers down. Gender is one where progress will continue to happen and I am 100% sure my eight-year-old daughter will be less impeded in her journey through life by her gender than every previous generation before her. That's why I'm optimistic and not weeping.

Well, I can't argue your optimism. I don't see it that way at all. I think your eighteen year old daughter has likely already faced quite a bit of, at the very least, casual sexism.

Well your avatar is representation of you. You chose an avatar of a half-naked guy to represent you in a serious discussion about sexism and gender equality. That was a strange choice on your part; please don't put it on me for bringing it up and asking you politely to take it down. If you didn't agree it was distracting from your argument (I don't see how you could since it was), you could have always left it up.

I can't personally say that I judge based on avatar. I don't judge Shawnski because he has a boob avatar. I just read what he writes.

I feel it detracted from my argument, because those with opposing viewpoints chose to target it out of spite, in my view. From their perspective, they saw it as a double standard. From my perspective, I saw it as a double standard.

I'm sorry if this is a disjointed post. I am trying to actually do some work while still responding.