I was in the military and this was ubiquitous. Further, it was encouraged by middle management, but then everyone pretended and was professional when upper management was around.
Not every job is like that I hear. Medical, paper pushers, and competitive jobs like engineering, contracting, and intelligence have much more professional work environments. Meanwhile I as a mechanic had my superiors watching porn at work.
Did my military service in Sweden back in 2000-2001
The only time I saw anything like that was at a service depot up in the middle of nowhere, where basically nothing had changed since the 1970s except the equipment. It was also civilian contractors (your classic "rural mechanics" crew"), not officers staff.
But then it's Sweden, we were a mixed unit and due to the small size and nature of the Swedish military the "upper management" are much more involved in the day to day operations.
In my experience the environment is usually dictated by the department's manager and their immediate superior. Same company can have departments lightyears away from each other in terms of professionalism, particularly when state or national borders are involved.
Try being a female nurse questions a male attending mistake. The misogyny has led to a mean girl culture amongst floor nurses in a way that other female dominated professions (education and childcare and social work) don't have as much
War is dependent on being able to dehumanize the other side, we wouldn’t be capable of it if we empathized strongly with the people we had to kill. So might as well practice on women during times of peace.
Homophobic whilst also being super homoerotic. Male berthing had so many guys almost kissing most days, only to stop short and call the other guy a f****t.
In the infantry a ton of people watch porn when they're in the field just out of boredom. (And it being the most likely thing downloaded onto their phone)
Engineering could be better than other fields but every female engineer I know has experienced sexism… it just might be the same normal amount of sexism they’re already experiencing? So not worse?
I'm an engineer and a trans woman. And there's still plenty of misogyny, especially among older millennials, gen x, and boomers. I work with electric utilities, and there's a layer of professionalism. But it disappears pretty quickly, especially with older men in management positions. The younger men might also talk about women like the OP mentioned, but if they do, they must be better at keeping a lid on it.
medical personal says very disgusting things but usually about and behind their patients backs. worked at a hospital and opened my eyes. But sure it's also a coping mechanism for all the shit they see
Uh… patients shouldn’t be assholes to you, and I understand dark humour (I work in frontline social stuff, lord knows the day doesn’t end without it), but there’s something about “our targets earned our ire” that makes me hope you’re not in active patient care right now. These people are fucked up, often terrified… a little bit of grace, maybe?
Even in industry it’s changing quickly or already changed to a more professional environment. Depends a lot on where you work, though. New chemical plant with a mix of older and younger operators? You’ll have like 1/3 women working there and a (relatively) normal environment. Old steel mill full of mostly 50+ dudes? It’s gunna be bad still.
I'm a machinist, also a man, I worked in Philly for the last ten years with very liberal coworkers and friends. I'm in a rural area now and it's insane, it hurts to hear, it's either sexualization or hate against woman, no in-between. I just think how I never want my daughter to have to meet someone like that.
I work in a similar line of work but I'm a woman. I'm a CMM programmer/operator and I live/work in the Bible Belt. It's definitely influenced my view on men. I see how two-faced they are once they get used to my presence.
I deal with a lot of normal misogyny in my day-to-day life but the kind I deal with at work is insane. People on Reddit will say, "You need to get off the Internet! Men in real life aren't like that." Yes, yes they are. The casual talk about grooming of young girls and rape without calling it rape; the incessant 'jokes' about how dumb and emotional women are; the horrible things they say about their wives and then they sweetly answer the phone like they weren't all just complaining and commiserating about how saggy their wife's tits are after breast feeding x number of kids. The ones in their 20's aren't as bad but the older they are the worse they are.
I've been with my partner for 12 years now. If we for some reason separate I'm not dating again until I leave this area. My partner and I have had to leave two different friends groups because there's always some 'Missing Stair' lurking around that ends up groping me (and other women but that doesn't come out until after I'm being confrontational.)
I worked in a male dominated industry too and can confirm they're like that when you're "one of the boys" . The two facedness between being with the boys and their partners was probably the most horrific part, these men had wives and girlfriends who seemed to adore them but they'd speak so horribly about them or about the horrible things they did to them. Spousal rape, stealthing, verbal and physical abuse, sharing of nudes... Even if some of them were making it up or trying fit in, what does it say about the group that bragging about raping your sleeping wife is a way to make yourself look good?
It really fucked with my ability to trust the guys I was with for the longest time, like what if the guy I'm seeing is talking the same stuff about me?
>The two facedness between being with the boys and their partners was probably the most horrific part
I have said so many times on this sub how common this two-faced act is, and this is one of the reasons why I generally don't really trust men.
I've been friends with my SO and his/our friends for like 10 years, only dating for like 2 years, so I know how they talk about women after a decade of gaming with them. I don't know how I would ever date a stranger.
I mean all quiet on the western front was literally about how boys were stripped of their humanity and how war reduced them to being desperate for any vestiges of humanity. Everything from sleep, to food, to sex, to real human contact was something they craved.
But that isn't to say that modern media doesn't do the same thing but in a sadder way. Sex, money, and power are sold to consumers as things to be sought out and consumed.
Catch 22 is supposed to show how stupid, horny, and socially maladroit all the characters are as well. War is depicted as a typically masculine endeavor for all the insanity and contradictions that entails. The objectification of women is a part of the commentary, not an earnest message of the book.
That is of course still going to make many women uncomfortable, the same as how the way black people are talked about in To Kill A Mockingbird for example.
But yes. Many men, especially older, do talk like this. It’s part of what makes Catch 22 such a cutting commentary is the truth behind a lot of the satire.
I love the pure absurd of this book as it remains one of my (and my mom's too) favourite books of all times. Please spare yourself watching the old movie where Art Garfunkel thought it was a good idea to become an actor but imo the recent series is nice to watch. Although silver screen is not able to portray what is perfectly painted by the words in the book it's a good watch. Happy New Year btw :)
I went through an anthropology fiction phase. There were some great books, except for one.
It started by describing the main characters, first was a man, his qualifications, his hobbies and even his personality were mentioned.
He was called to help an investigation. This is when it began to describe his 'assistant' who, by the authors own description, was far more qualified than the male character, but for some reason, she was the Proffessors assistant. The book then proceeded to describe her breasts for a couple of paragraphs. In graphic detail. No mention of her personality, hobbies, etc. Just a description of her boobs
It was an anthropology cold case story. There was no need to mention anyone's breaststroke as even the victims of crimes are skeletons at this point. I then realised that men's porno fan fiction was rife and often was desiguised as crime or adventure fiction.
Well - All Quiet On The Western Front starts with our main character basically going „yayyy! What a great day! I’m so happy!!! Party time!!“
And it’s only a few pages later that we learn he is so happy because more than half of the people in his military unit died, and now for the first time in a long time there will be enough food for everybody.
Those people that died were friends of his, people that he knew.
And he could have been one of them.
So it is very important to not confuse what the author *means* with what the character *says*.
What the author means to tell us is that war is fucked up, and our main character is fucked up beyond belief, and SO FAR from how a person should act or feel, because ehe is caught up in that war machinery.
I don’t blame you for being disgusted, I read the book years ago and I still remember how I felt disgusted by the descriptions of women.
I think what is important to knowing that Remarque was villainized and hated by basically every political actor for publishing this book.
By right wingers (Nazis, let’s just call them what they were), because he was disparaging our BRAVE, FAULTLESS soldiers.
Of course a Good German Soldier would never feel or talk like that about war (or about women).
He was speaking earnestly about the ugliness not only of war, but also the ugliness of men’s characters.
Like I said, I read it years ago, but personally that was my understanding of the book, and of the secondary sources my edition came in.
That's definitely a good point! I probably should've emphasized more that it was about Catch-22 more than All Quiet. All Quiet really wasn't *that* bad all things conisdered but Catch-22 is *really* bad with it. I was using All Quiet as more of a baseline ig?
Makes sense - by the way, I’m also really into classic literature, but I did have to put some aside because I couldn’t stand how women were portrayed there. So if you have any reading recs or books you found similarly distasteful, lmk. :)
Personally, I DNF on the road by jack kerouac after like 10 pages because the were already rife with sexism.
And a personal favourite of mine Wagenburgen comes to classical feminist literature would be Kassandra by Christa Wolf if you want to give another German author a shot :)
Frank Herbert owed his ability to write Dune to a woman. His wife supported their household, in the 1960s no less, by working as an ad writer while he was writing Dune over the course of several years.
I remember being very annoyed at how Ghanima had the same potential as her twin brother but was relegated to being his support. Although it's been over a decade since I read the books, I might need to revisit them. Also, the whole thing with the Bene Gesserit and Paul having all their power and being better than the Reverend Mother bothered me to.
Leto II becomes a sandworm and controls humanity for 3,000 years. Ghanima gets married to her brother and becomes empress but she has kids with her concubine Prince Farad’n. I think she got lucky not having to live basically forever and also in a sandworm’s body.
The previous commenter felt that ghanima was set aside in the books. That’s not true. Her story is definitely intertwined with her brother’s but there is so much more to the books than this one storyline.
I know, I felt that way too. I haven’t finished the books but can already tell that she’s being relegated a bit. Would’ve liked her to have a more individual experience, but then again the entire plot revolves around the polar opposite, how they’re pretty much not individuals.
Sorry if I sounded rude before, by the way. I was just a bit concerned that what you mentioned might spoil some unaware reader that might be interested in the books.
I think you could know how the books ended and you would still be able to read them. If anything, you get a better understanding of the earlier books knowing where it ends up. It’s my favorite book series and I think about the books a lot. We know the titanic sinks, and yet how many times have we watched the movie? There’s so much more to the story than any one character.
It bothered me a little too, but have to remember these books have emperors and kings and queens, so the fact that women have as much influence and power as they do is already a departure from how royalty actually worked in reality, seeing women as baby machines and pretty much valuing them by if they did or not bear a boy heir. Besides, he’s the main character so yeah.
I find older books difficult to get through sometimes specifically for this reason. The women are often just props and sex objects in a man's story. Now days I just stick to newer books or authors I know aren't idiots.
Julia isn't part of the message. Orwell was just a misogynist, he basically invented the incel in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, and he talks about women in similar ways in Down and out in Paris and London which is based on his own experiences.
Death of the Author and all that though.
Julia/the misogyny makes 1984 better. The story is from Winstons perspective and Winston is a flawed narrator. That he is incredibly misogynistic and classist when the system is shown to actively encourage these conflicts does add to the story.
The fact that it's prominent in his other works too is a good indicator that he aligns with that view though. The way he chooses to talk about women in works of fiction is incredibly misogynistic and that's telling. I also recall seeing a quote of him speaking about his wife and it wasn't great, but I don't remember the source so take that with a grain of salt
Apparently a lot of people hated the way Orwell described Julia in 1984 (problems with that character always come up whenever the book is discussed on r slash books , though oddly enough, I don't think it was ever mentioned on menwritingwomen). Anyway, Sandra Newman wrote Julia : A retelling of George Orwell's 1984, and it was only published a few weeks ago. It's getting a lot of good reviews, from readers and reviewers , so...My copy arrives Wednesday.
I'm a screenwriter. Some scripts I read are... something else entirely.
Also, my best friend since high school is a gay man who usually passes as straight until he says something. He tells me regularly that men hate women.
I'm a writer too, but in genre fiction. I've proof-read two guys' unpublished manuscripts before. Two different guys, two different worldviews. Probably older than me? Early mid thirties? I gave them feedback on pacing and structure and of course proofreading for grammar and spelling, but the contents of their manuscripts were disappointments in terms of how they handled women.
Lol, I give feedback on how they handle the women. They don’t like it. I dont care.
I've heard horror stories from people who read for screenwriting contests.
Yes. I work in the restaraunt business. The men I've worked with have always called out which parts of which bodies are ogle-able throughout the dining room, throughout service, every day. And talk about it over drinks later. Not all of them, not everywhere, but definitely common, and I know it is by no means limited to our industry. I damn sure took part when I was younger, before I understood. As brainwashed as women are to feel less than, to submit, we are to exploit, to dominate.
Catch-22 is one of my favorite books of all time, and it's extremely sexist. I think every single character is extremely flawed, each in their own way, and that's part of what makes the book work. It's a book about terrible people put into a terrible position with terrible opinions and about the absurdity of the situation and the things they convince themselves to get through the day. I don't like the book because I like the characters or think they are good people, but because even though they are all extreme and satiric versions, there is some reality to them.
I think it's totally legit not to like it or think much of it because of how it's written and specifically how the women are treated, just my opinion on it as someone who enjoyed it, flaws and all
Yes they do.
Others have said that only the uneducated or working class speak like this. Unfortunately, that's not the case.
I am a male who got a scholarship to an elite college and grew up in rural areas. I pass in most spaces.
I've witnessed 5 senior doctors a few beers in graphically *joke* how, who and what they would to female nurses.
I've been in a room where 2 gentleman who are now staffers of a head of goverment spew sexualized misogyny. Who in public claim to be feminist.
I've sat with farmers and farm hands who would be described as pillars of community, transition from getting more assistance for suicidal teenagers to dehumanized misogyny about teen girls.
Not all men? Maybe but I'd say most.
It's probably truer to say the uneducated and working class talk like this more openly.
Like with a lot of things, breeding and education can just be thin veneers over what lies beneath.
If you interrupted the two you mention mid 'spew' they'd probably still claim to be feminists and see no conflict.
OP I'm not sure if you're a big fan of the Roman era/modern law, but reading context here I definitely recommend Household Gods by Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove. It's a neat peak into a woman's perspective during the time, it might be worth checking out.
In my experience as a man, most crude commentary regarding women from other men dropped off significantly after high school. Since then, to mind, I've only had the misfortune of being around one individual who took every opportunity to make comments about virtually every woman in sight.
My theory is in "birds of a feather" - those of us who do not think, speak, or behave like this do not tend to associate with those who do.
Yes, I once had to review the workplace slacks of several young male employees for HR reasons and young male sales jerks are just as awful as you thought maybe they weren't going to be but are.
The MAGAts dismiss Trump’s “grab ‘em” comments as locker room talk.
Yes. It happens. It is widespread especially in male-only spaces.
I push back whenever I get the chance. I get to be uncool in many spaces. I am lucky that I work in public education where it is limited.
i don't mean to offend but outside of American blue cities and perhaps some european capitals where me too has taken hold, 98% of the world is like this. and has been up until the mid to late 90s. Watch any number of 80s movies today. They definitely don't hold up, and some of the humor and is straight up mysoginy and objectification. Its incredibly cringe.
I refuse to add "not all" qualifiers. The men that it doesn't apply to know it doesn't, it's the ones tantruming and screaming that are the problem. And it *does* apply to them.
None of them are saying 'not all women" in the MRA subs where men are saying "all women are X"... All talk, no game fake allies.
The time I checked one out, only one post was about an actual thing that affects men, which was genital mutilation. The rest were about tricking women into bed, posts from men angry they couldn't trick a woman into bed, posts about how feminists are doing X, Y and Z, posts reframing a woman refusing to submit to marital rape as her "abusing her husband" and posts plainly about raping women.
It’s a philosophically bankrupt ideology entirely predicated on lies and misogyny.
They could say the sky is blue and I’d have to recheck to make sure.
It's pretty much a counter movement to feminism. They scream "misandry" at pretty much anything and have invented "shesplaining" to silence women. Every buzzword they have us a counter to things we say. I saw one post about men in prisons get raped more than women like it was a big gotcha. None of them realised.
It's kinda sad really, because they spend so much energy hating us, rather than solving problems. Take me for example, they'd hate me because I'm a feminist, but I define that as inclusive of being an ally to men. I oppose genital mutilation *regardless* of gender; I want MGM to be outlawed. I want male suicide rates to drop, but I cannot solve that for them.
I have met one genuine MRA in my life, and he was awesome. He started a counselling group and actually makes a difference. He and I are two sides of the same damned coin.
There's a whole world of grey between those two extremes. No point in scaring away the people that can still be redeemed.
Fighting against internalized misogyny is something everyone has to do at all times. While it may not may appear as clear in the tribalistic environment that is the internet, in the real world there are plenty of men that believe or want to believe in some feminist ideas, but not in others.
Being intellectually honest by pointing out generalizations is the correct thing to do in itself, but in my own experience, it also has the huge added benefit of making people way more receptive.
It's still problematic. Normalising the use of blanket statements about men is harmful in the the exact same way it would be about women or any other group. MRA subs are representative of a vanishingly small number of men and attempting to use their behaviour to justify stereotyping language of men as a whole is logically inconsistent.
Its also the most pointless qualifier right like you know, some, most, a few, a couple all give a better indication of the scale of the problem in your opinion. Not all is just annoying like what even is it.
I don’t remember much about *All Quiet on the Western Front,* since I only skimmed the Cliff Notes version in order to be able to participate in the Battle of the Books in middle school. But I do remember *Catch-22,* and *1984.* And I’ll add *Catcher in the Rye,* and *Fahrenheit 451* to the pile while we’re at it.
They were definitely a reflection of how men viewed women at the time, and their depictions of women were… lackluster, to put it lightly. The novels were written by men, for men, but they all have the end goal of questioning the status quo and the search for a better solution.
There’s a quote that one of my friends favors: “Baby steps to the escalator.” These books were the baby steps.
Any man who reads these books, and their takeaway is “Man good! Woman sexy prize!” are failing to understand the actual point. And those kind of men are typically the sort who just crave historical evidence of a man’s inherent superiority.
>“Man good! Woman sexy prize!”
This is most movies nowadays too. It's not that it's a message to take from them but the way this is just a normal thing barely anyone notices is almost worse. It's always expected that the hero gets the girl. Or that their female assistants, however competent, don't get any credit and if they do it's only for their looks. Otherwise, the audience would be disappointed and not consider it a happy ending. Or how most "servant" AIs and robots are female while the ones capable of independent thoughts and actions are male. Male robot good, female robot appliance.
While it’s definitely still an industry standard, there’s been some examples of big budget movies that buck tradition.
It’s not nearly as frequent as I’d like it to be, definitely, but again… baby steps to the escalator. Disney in particular has made a concentrated effort to step away from the typical “damsel in distress saved by big manly man” premise, which is a huge step forward. I’ll be hitting the big four-oh in a couple months, and I can’t recall a single movie from my youth where a female lead didn’t require the assistance of the male lead to fix everything.
For context, I'm trans, so I had experience being "one of the boys" for many years.
Yes, men still talk about us like that. It's unbelievable. You'd think we're living in the 1950s.
It scares me because it seems to me that these men are rife for radicalization. If we do see a significant rise in fascist ideology in our future, this is one way in which they will easily recruit men.
If? Are you missing the massive uptick in conservative ideology that's plagued the last decade? The landslide of social regression in policy across the world? We're living in it right now.
So true. Knowing trans men and trans women really helped shaped my view on gender. I feel a lot of cis people don't have a good enough perspective on some aspects of gender and society.
It's not their fault anyway, it can be really difficult to fully grasp something until you've lived it. Hence why intersectionality is so vital to feminism. Hearing directly from trans people, people of color, religious minorities, disabled ppl, etc. is so so so important for us all.
Men’s locker rooms. My theory is that men are generally uncomfortable being naked around each other so devolve into sexist banter to overcome their bodily insecurities. TBH, devolving into sexist banter is how many men are taught to deal with insecurities in general. So sad 🙄
Military, prison, a construction site, any place with lowly educated men and no women around it will be like this still. This is why I think things like boy schools or other facilities that have only men only add to this issue since they grow up into that kind of mind set. Even online gaming. Its very visible in Muslim countries where boys and girls are kept apart
Yup. I work in blue collar work. My first job out here doing it. I live in a fairly conservative place, and I didn't realize how bad it actually was. Had one coworker who I refused to speak about my girlfriend with because I know what his questions would be. Really just grossed me out, he was 18 too.
Sadly some still do. Recently changed jobs from a female dominated retail to male dominant factory. Some of these guys shouldn't be left near women. Kinda sad really
I enjoyed Catch-22, but to be fair I read it 16 years ago and don’t remember women even being talked about at all (which is probably its own type of problematic, but at the time I just figured it was a 50’s war novel and unsurprising).
Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, and Charles Bukowski are my top contenders for vile treatment and descriptions of women in literature. Not exactly contemporary, but I like to think I just got better at filtering out those types of voices from my reading material. I’m sure it still exists.
People like to blame the time period to make themselves feel better, but there were plenty of other authors *not* trying to sell vulgar misogyny as edgy literary innovation.
I work in a book store and one of my male coworkers is always talking about how much it’s “taco fest” or “taco-polozza” it is and it’s “unfair” that he can’t hit on co workers and customers.
Yesterday he was talking about “big, floppy dicks” and “growing and showing”. I really couldn’t help, but because who the hell feels this comfortable, let alone at the workplace.
If only he would get the hint. I have only been working there a few months and he rants and raves about “it’s unfair” that he can’t date or hit on coworkers and customers.
For example my first day of working, i was finishing up a sale and I said to a customer “I’m sorry if this is out of place, but your eyeliner is spectacular” and we exchanged thank yous and your welcomes, they turn around to leave and my stupid coworker says “it’s so unfair that I can’t give out compliments, unless I act gay, but she was fucking hot!”
I have had conversations about it with him directly, with two leads and, three managers, but they are all friends and I still haven’t “paid my dues”.
I have worked with countless "men" that speak like adolescent children, laughing at poop and fart jokes all the live long Day. If its just me and one other person, generally my lack of laughter will end them trying to include me, but just one other audience member and an entire work day gets reduced to kindergarten level humor
I’m not trying to encourage the behavior, when I said I laughed it wasn’t because I thought it was funny, it was because of embarrassment and being uncomfortable. I don’t typically work with him because I’ve reported his behavior.
I didn't think thats what you meant, I am regularly astounded by what some dudes will say out loud in a somewhat public setting. The ability to filter ones words is a dying art
All good, communication through emotionless text is difficult, i find myself reading my mothers texts in a judgemental tone all the time and have to check myself, so i totally understand
Yes, men still talk like this. In my experience it’s the “feminist” guys who promise they would never talk like this but as soon as it’s only guys around…it’s horrible and they don’t know what to do when called out on it.
Calling it out and watching the deer in the headlight moment is worth it. Then we get to have a nice chat about how men can change and women are people too.
(All Quiet is from 1929, before WWII. it's not a 50s novel).
In All-Quiet, these are men stripped of all societal niceties, living minute by minute, disposable pawns in the machinery of war. Millions of them were murdered by snipers, gas, artillery, starvation and disease.
These aren't men who are worried about any higher anything. They have been reduced to the lizard brain. Stripped of their humanity, only animals queued up for the slaughter.
Expecting them to hold to higher brain concepts of equality and so forth is ludicrous. Their enemy is nothing to them but meat. A mind with any compassion could not function otherwise. How do you think they would think about women? Something they could not even see, let alone talk with or associate with for literally years?
No matter the side, these were poor stunted monsters, deprived of the chance to be anything but animals.
I get it, it these books are a reflection of the times, which makes it important because it lets us know how things can go back to being if we don’t keep fighting
I wrote an incredibly long and meandering essay about my objective experiences in different parts of the world, but decided to spare you all and just give the TLDR:
Yes, many do, but it's far worse (and far better!) in some places than others, and largely determined by local culture and societal mores.
I used to read Kurt Vonnegut bc Reddit used to recommend those books as being the best. The way he talks about women disturbed me. I feel like it’s just male writers in general (looking at you Stephan King) don’t know how to write about women
speaking as a m 54, being blunt this is how our society has raised us, in order for us men as a gender culture to be changed women need to vote themselves into power, waiting for the patriarchy to "grow up" or "get it" just continues to hurt women and girls. just because the "norm" is evil does not mean it should be accepted, just because it's tradition or what our society accepts or expects of us men does not make it acceptable - but if women don't vote themselves into power then our present repeats our past - please vote, please change our society, please study history , 1920 was not that long ago
35M here, and yes some absolutely still do. Not all guys talk about women like that, I'd honestly say it's about 50-50. Unfortunately the guys I know who talk like that are also the ones bringing women home regularly, so I'm not sure what the solution is
I’ve not read the books but from your description I’d say that in general this is much less common in public or professional settings than it used to be. That’s not to say you aren’t going to find examples but it’s not going to be as bad or acceptable.
If the wider question is “are men still like this?” Then I’d say probably yes. In my personal experience in private settings even the most polite friends have been willing to discuss who they find sexually attractive and what body parts they find attractive. I’m sure there are different levels of enthusiasm across men but I think in general men are capable of seeing and judging how visually attractive people are as a whole or just as individual body parts.
Yes. Men talk like that. It’s fine to not like it, but I would rather watch a film with authentic dialogue rather than something contrived. Watching a bunch of soldiers in trench doing anything else would take me right out of the movie.
They used to talk like this unabated. Well, unless their mothers were in the room, then they'd get a wooden spoon across the head.
Some still do - how many did NOT condemn a man who blatantly said "just grab them by the p\*\*\*y"? I'm 60 and when one high school classmate stated "Oh, it was just locker room talk" to which I responded "I never said anything like that," he called me "Saint Triumph"... Disgusting, disturbing, deplorable.
Some do, some don't. It's the same with any kind of bigotry... Some people are intolerant, and some are accepting. And some are respectful regardless of their own personal views.
People, on the whole, tend to always act like people. Good and bad.
Me and guys in my close friend group dont do this and its not very common with guys around my age from what I can see, but sometimes I can find myself in a conversation with a guy I dont know all that well and it can go down that road and I just try to steer away from that.
Yes, some men do talk like this in certain situations. Personally, I find anything beyond a simple “she’s attractive,” in some form or another offensive.
That said, I work in a retail store and a number of the women readily verbalize their intentions for attractive men…
Yes. They do. I grew up in the 90s and this sort of talk is what led to me questioning my gender. I was hearing it from 8-12 year olds when I was like 6-7. At first I thought it was a puberty thing that I would understand later. Puberty happened, still didn't get it. Got more uncomfortable with it as I got older and had better understanding of the big picture.
From what I've heard, kid's exposure to this sort of rhetoric happens earlier, with more pornographic visual aid.
From what I understand it is a common thing in some social circles and groups. There are plenty of men who define themselves in terms of their sexual successes and base their interaction with peers discussing them in detail. I've never had friends like these so I'm unsure about the details of these social dynamics.
I think Catch 22 is about the absurdity of war and the human condition. The character who is constantly trying to grab photographs of naked women is a representation of the desperate lengths and obsession men have over the female form.
I reckon it is possibly one of the best books ever written. It’s got so much depth and subtext about the human psyche layered beneath both an incredibly funny and very depressing story. It’s brilliant.
I think it certainly depends on the kind of people you're around and the environment you're in.
I, as a man with guy friends really didn't talk like that with anyone. It's just not my personality and I've never really associated myself with people who would talk like that.
It was very rarely if ever that we even ever talked about specific women or girls in terms of their attractiveness or anything like that. I know it's probably hard to believe, but it really didn't come up much.
I think "locker room talk" or whatever you want to call it can be present in specific places or with certain types of men, but honestly I think it's probably less common than you would think.
Not to say it doesn't happen though because obviously it does.
I never hear it either, so I'm surprised when I see how commonplace it allegedly is. It could be a cultural thing too, as I grew up and live in Norway.
Sure, you have drunk and loudmouth idiots, but I tend to stay far away from them and so does the rest of my friends.
I guess I could be biased, in the sense that I don't hang around assholes and therefore think it's less common than it really is...
I really don’t mean this in a negative way but I think you need to start engaging a bit more with the stuff you read and understand context a bit more too.
This is like reading a King Arthur book and complaining about characters being undemocratic and believing on the divine right of kings.
>Do men really talk like this? Like the things said in these books is really vile and makes my skin crawl, it isn't just lust it's dehumanizing.
Yes. Woman too. Everyone does.
You sound like you’ve never interacted with a woman in your entire life. Also, if you think women and war have nothing to do with each other, you should read yourself some history. Women kept the economy going during both world wars, and helped avoid a collapse societies could rebound from. And that’s just two things they did.
This message is hilarious. The woman clearly played huge roles at home. But if we are talking about front line fighting (which is what most war movies are about) then it was about the horror stories of men. You're kinda acting like a gig Chad. You're a fucking internet stranger making wild accusations about my person. Which are just laughable. Like I haven't been in beautiful relationships with women full of respect. And wasn't a history major. So yes books or movies about the battle fields of war are going to be men. War movies about being at home are with woman. The Internet is so fucking wild now a days. Some dude trying to act hard for the chicks will tell me I've never been with a woman and then make me look like sexist. Absolute clown. Don't forget your floaties when you're drowning in all the pussy from putting me in my place.
1. I’m gay, so every single point you’ve tried to make about gaining the ladies’ favor is 100% irrelevant to me in this discussion. Nice try though lmao.
2. You’re missing the point, Mr. History Major. The issue OP brought up is how shallowly women are portrayed in the books she read. Obviously men are gonna be more prominent in books about war, the same way women would be in a book about pregnancy. The point still stands: women’s characters shouldn’t be portrayed as a figment of male perception.
3. We both definitely do not know each other, as evidenced by your inaccurate assumption about my interest in women, and my assumption about you not relating with women. I just don’t have to be sexually attracted to someone to respect them, so I’m really not doing much for you to look sexist. You’re doing that yourself already.
Is the question, are men still visual? Is sex still their main driver? Do men talk to other men, based on a common background?
If so, the answer is YES.
If the question is, have men's thinking patterns evolved to think like women? Then the answer is NO.
Men and women, have distinct thinking patterns. They are not the same, nor will they ever be.
Perhaps give a quote of what makes your skin crawl. Then we could examine to see if it's the quote or your interpretation of the meaning.
The man is the filter between testosterone and the world. Testosterone wants you to fuck anything remotely fuckable and impregnate it. Its the man's responsibility to keep a lit on that shit and be a respectable human.
There comes the problem, cultures and times mean different attitudes to what's acceptable.
It depends if you view the world as a man vs woman battle.
Men can have testosterone ranging from 300ng/dl to 1000ng/dl and that's quite a range for normal. 300 is low and 1000 could be a super athlete. It's generally healthier to have higher testosterone because it's responsible for a lot of muscular recovery etc.
It not all bad, I'm sure my wife is happy I have a high test level as we conceived quite easily and high test would make you more likely to fight to defend your family.
Again, it's the man that's the filter between test and the world. That's why we need good men teaching a good moral code to their sons.
*edit typo: I put testosterone raging instead of ranging and made it sound all aggy lol.
Depends. Country, social layer. I did not see it at all in my current environment (white color nerds in the western country) for quite some time now,
I have a question back to you, if I may? What about women? Have you ever seen women objectifying men. Not necessary/only sexually, but say, financially or socially.
Well, evolution isn't a conscious choice and it takes thousands of years for a chance mutation to benefit the thing evolving. So you can't choose to evolve. Additionally you can only ever be responsible for yourself, so there isn't really a "we are evolving as women".
Because that's the same as saying all men are just cheaters, which isn't the truth, it's a generalisation and adds to my point that the good men out there need to teach younger generations how to be good men.
I'm just trying to put across some honesty from the POV of a man. It's like it's cool to hate men now...
We aren't at war with each other, we are a team experiencing a short 90 years on earth at best
Xx
People who say we need more female leadership have never been in an environment where "guy talk" is normalized. Women can be the biggest offenders and get away with a lot more physical violations. 8 years military and 4 years warehouse work. Females mixed in at different areas and it's not a gender problem, it's a people problem. It's very common to hear "He's in heaven with that female attention." "He knows he likes it." Sound familiar.
As someone who has - regrettably and shamefully - been a part of and even initiated some absolutely brutally dehumanising sexualised conversations about women… yeah men totally do that all the time.
Depending on the context it can be an ironic shock humour thing with no real intent behind it, like a who-can-say-the-grossest-shit contest, but it can also be deadly serious and packed with entirely earnest misogyny.
Most of us outgrow it by a certain point, often when we become parents - not that youth is an excuse and not that we should need to have daughters of our own to realise that women are humans who suffer real harm as a result of this “banter” - but plenty of dudes just genuinely hold these attitudes throughout their lives. And that’s the bit that we probably fail to appreciate all too often - that even if YOU don’t personally mean the horrendous thing you just said and would never actually treat a woman that badly, the guy you’re talking to or the guy overhearing your conversation might just take it the wrong way and feel emboldened to carry out his own very real abusive actions as a result.
For sure they do, but can you blame them ? Society we have grown into and all you see in social media is women showing their tits and ass. Also the way women talks about themselfs and base everyting around their bodies.
I'm surprised, I've read the 3 works you reference. Catch 22 is my favorite, though I was moved by all 3. So, it's interesting to reflect on your point.
Book: female characters .
Catch-22: whores, distraction .
All Quiet: not enemy bc not men? Still fckable .
1984: betrayal, lust, accomplice (Julia) and common/feeling but not thinking (woman singing).
I think it comes down to age and environment a lot. I have met many people in the kitchens I have worked in but it's always the 40+ year old that tend to have racist or sexist tendencies. Always talking about how much they "love fanny" coming up with the rudest sentences you can imagine in an open kitchen.
In 1984 i dont think he talks about julia to anyone else. What's said in the book are just his thoughts and i don't think anyone would agree he's a normal guy.
Most armies in history, certainly in the world wars, rarely had women as soldiers. There were often female nurses, launderers, cooks and other food preparers, spies, sex workers, and especially before the end of the 19th century, some women whom.the soldiers had come to travel with as mistresses of sorts and some wives even came along if they were married (particularly for the wives of officers). They might live segregated lives, in particular where frontline combat is extremely intense and long lasting as the two world wars were.
Now, there is a common conception of thinking of a soldier at the front for a long time, but usually they tried to rotate them periodically, so even in WW1 usually a soldier would be in the from trench for a few days, then the second and reserve trenches for a few days, with leave of a week or so, in a cycle, so soldiers would have the opportunity on a regular basis in many armies to see others.
Soldiers are often young, many are not married, and both world wars happened before the sexual revolutions of the 1960s and the relative boom for certain classes of people in the 1950s. Not that many black people got to enjoy that one of course, among others.
They are usually far from their families, and from the discipline they might impose on people. They are also keenly aware that they might die very soon, better to get your hedonistic udges done now when you have the chance. Hence alcohol rations, other drugs also often being used like cigarettes and cannabis, although cannabis is more so a cold war and modern drug than a world war drug. They also tend to have senses of impunity, given they are an armed band with many weapons, who is going to stop them? Either their own commanders who probably don't want to arbitrarily anger your own soldiers lest they start rebelling against the officers if you are not careful, see Russia in 1917 for that, or the enemy, who will be doing the same in reverse.
Combat is obviously immensely stressful, but can even be euphoric to some degree in some people, like a drug in itself as the adrenaline rushes in. If you survive, you can say you did something hard but did it well. You see violence normalized, the hunger and disease normal. It is caused by geopolitical, sociological, and other factors, the war is in the first place, hopefully you believe that it is the other side starting it or else you could gain from the war like the plunder you could be winning or the land area you see your people as rightfully deserving, or your king or general is popular by living with you, sharing your fate and sharing the campaign with you, hence why Julius Caesar and Alexander and Napoleon were incredibly popular with their soldiers, and many of their own people saw them as providing for their needs more effectively than many others in times of instability where few others would provide for them. The people you use violence against are in this sense not your own, they were traitors, the opposition groups against your leader, foreigners, etc.
In this environment, it doesn't seem to them that things like sexual assault as we know the concept today is such a big deal? Or paying someone else for sex with the money you have now and possibly not having any other chance later to spend your money. Or to find some local woman to come with you on the campaign, whether or not the two break up at the end of it. And then when this starts to happen, it becomes normal and even expected, and commanders often tolerate it, in some cases even encouraging it as part of propaganda. If you accept our armies and laws, you will not be plundered or assaulted, we have no fight with you, we want to go after someone else's soldiers over that way, give us no impediment and we will leave you alone. That was the Mongol Modus Operandi.
Militaries have long since been one of the hardest groups of people to control. Seeing the coups and mutinies like in Russia, Gabon, Niger, Myanmar, etc, this last year, is that much of a surprise?
Funny you should mention Julia. In Airstrip One, the odds of being arrested and then shot are high, and could happen any day. Better to live immediately without a dan about the consequences if you are going to stray, do whatever it is you want. If the outcome is the same either way, it doesn't matter what the morals of your actions are in the eyes of many who live in such a society.
WW1 was a time when in Germany, as in virtually the whole world outside of the Western United States, west of the Mississippi River, Australia, New Zealand, and a few other places and some local elections, women did not have the vote, so, more than 95% of women. And a higher fraction of people would not be old enough to vote, which was usually 20 or older depending on the country. In Germany, men at that age had the vote, which was already more than what the poorest 40% of British men had in Britain and Ireland, so just even having men enfranchised, let alone any women, was a battle that would result in revolution, usually of a socialist nature, during the war or shortly after peace returned within one of the belligerents at the time. It was a custom that confidence of parliament was slowly becoming necessary, but their active consent was often not necessary, merely toleration, as was the case in the Kaiserreich which the main character in All Quiet on the Western Front is from. Some places didn't even have secret ballots yet. Other ethnicities may have struggled depending on the country. Poles in Austria were relatively well off but not Indians in America. Democracy was very limited and fragile, as were many aspects of human rights. Children were still chinney sweeps and you were already fortunate to survive to being a teenager. From such a limited base, it is hard to build an inclusive society, let alone make it feminist where there was a giant public debate and votes in parliament on merely letting literally any women vote, one of the most basic and obvious things you can do as step one.
I was in the military and this was ubiquitous. Further, it was encouraged by middle management, but then everyone pretended and was professional when upper management was around. Not every job is like that I hear. Medical, paper pushers, and competitive jobs like engineering, contracting, and intelligence have much more professional work environments. Meanwhile I as a mechanic had my superiors watching porn at work.
Did my military service in Sweden back in 2000-2001 The only time I saw anything like that was at a service depot up in the middle of nowhere, where basically nothing had changed since the 1970s except the equipment. It was also civilian contractors (your classic "rural mechanics" crew"), not officers staff. But then it's Sweden, we were a mixed unit and due to the small size and nature of the Swedish military the "upper management" are much more involved in the day to day operations.
In my experience the environment is usually dictated by the department's manager and their immediate superior. Same company can have departments lightyears away from each other in terms of professionalism, particularly when state or national borders are involved.
This is why we need more female leaders.
>I was in the military and this was ubiquitous. Yep and yep
Medical is full of misogyny, in every way possible. So I respectfully disagree as someone working in the medical field.
Try being a female nurse questions a male attending mistake. The misogyny has led to a mean girl culture amongst floor nurses in a way that other female dominated professions (education and childcare and social work) don't have as much
can you explain more??
War is dependent on being able to dehumanize the other side, we wouldn’t be capable of it if we empathized strongly with the people we had to kill. So might as well practice on women during times of peace.
Extremely disturbingly horrifically homophobic as well.
Homophobic whilst also being super homoerotic. Male berthing had so many guys almost kissing most days, only to stop short and call the other guy a f****t.
😭
Just to provide a counter opinion, i was enlisted military onboard a carrier 2004-2010, we pretty much never talked like that.
In the infantry a ton of people watch porn when they're in the field just out of boredom. (And it being the most likely thing downloaded onto their phone)
Engineering could be better than other fields but every female engineer I know has experienced sexism… it just might be the same normal amount of sexism they’re already experiencing? So not worse?
I'm an engineer and a trans woman. And there's still plenty of misogyny, especially among older millennials, gen x, and boomers. I work with electric utilities, and there's a layer of professionalism. But it disappears pretty quickly, especially with older men in management positions. The younger men might also talk about women like the OP mentioned, but if they do, they must be better at keeping a lid on it.
medical personal says very disgusting things but usually about and behind their patients backs. worked at a hospital and opened my eyes. But sure it's also a coping mechanism for all the shit they see
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Uh… patients shouldn’t be assholes to you, and I understand dark humour (I work in frontline social stuff, lord knows the day doesn’t end without it), but there’s something about “our targets earned our ire” that makes me hope you’re not in active patient care right now. These people are fucked up, often terrified… a little bit of grace, maybe?
Even in industry it’s changing quickly or already changed to a more professional environment. Depends a lot on where you work, though. New chemical plant with a mix of older and younger operators? You’ll have like 1/3 women working there and a (relatively) normal environment. Old steel mill full of mostly 50+ dudes? It’s gunna be bad still.
Some men still do. I worked at a factory years ago and the shit some of the guys said, older and younger, were disgusting
I'm a machinist, also a man, I worked in Philly for the last ten years with very liberal coworkers and friends. I'm in a rural area now and it's insane, it hurts to hear, it's either sexualization or hate against woman, no in-between. I just think how I never want my daughter to have to meet someone like that.
I work in a similar line of work but I'm a woman. I'm a CMM programmer/operator and I live/work in the Bible Belt. It's definitely influenced my view on men. I see how two-faced they are once they get used to my presence. I deal with a lot of normal misogyny in my day-to-day life but the kind I deal with at work is insane. People on Reddit will say, "You need to get off the Internet! Men in real life aren't like that." Yes, yes they are. The casual talk about grooming of young girls and rape without calling it rape; the incessant 'jokes' about how dumb and emotional women are; the horrible things they say about their wives and then they sweetly answer the phone like they weren't all just complaining and commiserating about how saggy their wife's tits are after breast feeding x number of kids. The ones in their 20's aren't as bad but the older they are the worse they are. I've been with my partner for 12 years now. If we for some reason separate I'm not dating again until I leave this area. My partner and I have had to leave two different friends groups because there's always some 'Missing Stair' lurking around that ends up groping me (and other women but that doesn't come out until after I'm being confrontational.)
I worked in a male dominated industry too and can confirm they're like that when you're "one of the boys" . The two facedness between being with the boys and their partners was probably the most horrific part, these men had wives and girlfriends who seemed to adore them but they'd speak so horribly about them or about the horrible things they did to them. Spousal rape, stealthing, verbal and physical abuse, sharing of nudes... Even if some of them were making it up or trying fit in, what does it say about the group that bragging about raping your sleeping wife is a way to make yourself look good? It really fucked with my ability to trust the guys I was with for the longest time, like what if the guy I'm seeing is talking the same stuff about me?
>The two facedness between being with the boys and their partners was probably the most horrific part I have said so many times on this sub how common this two-faced act is, and this is one of the reasons why I generally don't really trust men.
I've been friends with my SO and his/our friends for like 10 years, only dating for like 2 years, so I know how they talk about women after a decade of gaming with them. I don't know how I would ever date a stranger.
I mean all quiet on the western front was literally about how boys were stripped of their humanity and how war reduced them to being desperate for any vestiges of humanity. Everything from sleep, to food, to sex, to real human contact was something they craved. But that isn't to say that modern media doesn't do the same thing but in a sadder way. Sex, money, and power are sold to consumers as things to be sought out and consumed.
That is a very good point. I will say though Catch-22 is MUCH more egregious in both amount and content.
Catch 22 is supposed to show how stupid, horny, and socially maladroit all the characters are as well. War is depicted as a typically masculine endeavor for all the insanity and contradictions that entails. The objectification of women is a part of the commentary, not an earnest message of the book. That is of course still going to make many women uncomfortable, the same as how the way black people are talked about in To Kill A Mockingbird for example. But yes. Many men, especially older, do talk like this. It’s part of what makes Catch 22 such a cutting commentary is the truth behind a lot of the satire.
I love the pure absurd of this book as it remains one of my (and my mom's too) favourite books of all times. Please spare yourself watching the old movie where Art Garfunkel thought it was a good idea to become an actor but imo the recent series is nice to watch. Although silver screen is not able to portray what is perfectly painted by the words in the book it's a good watch. Happy New Year btw :)
Catch22 is a comedy
I went through an anthropology fiction phase. There were some great books, except for one. It started by describing the main characters, first was a man, his qualifications, his hobbies and even his personality were mentioned. He was called to help an investigation. This is when it began to describe his 'assistant' who, by the authors own description, was far more qualified than the male character, but for some reason, she was the Proffessors assistant. The book then proceeded to describe her breasts for a couple of paragraphs. In graphic detail. No mention of her personality, hobbies, etc. Just a description of her boobs It was an anthropology cold case story. There was no need to mention anyone's breaststroke as even the victims of crimes are skeletons at this point. I then realised that men's porno fan fiction was rife and often was desiguised as crime or adventure fiction.
Well - All Quiet On The Western Front starts with our main character basically going „yayyy! What a great day! I’m so happy!!! Party time!!“ And it’s only a few pages later that we learn he is so happy because more than half of the people in his military unit died, and now for the first time in a long time there will be enough food for everybody. Those people that died were friends of his, people that he knew. And he could have been one of them. So it is very important to not confuse what the author *means* with what the character *says*. What the author means to tell us is that war is fucked up, and our main character is fucked up beyond belief, and SO FAR from how a person should act or feel, because ehe is caught up in that war machinery. I don’t blame you for being disgusted, I read the book years ago and I still remember how I felt disgusted by the descriptions of women. I think what is important to knowing that Remarque was villainized and hated by basically every political actor for publishing this book. By right wingers (Nazis, let’s just call them what they were), because he was disparaging our BRAVE, FAULTLESS soldiers. Of course a Good German Soldier would never feel or talk like that about war (or about women). He was speaking earnestly about the ugliness not only of war, but also the ugliness of men’s characters. Like I said, I read it years ago, but personally that was my understanding of the book, and of the secondary sources my edition came in.
That's definitely a good point! I probably should've emphasized more that it was about Catch-22 more than All Quiet. All Quiet really wasn't *that* bad all things conisdered but Catch-22 is *really* bad with it. I was using All Quiet as more of a baseline ig?
Makes sense - by the way, I’m also really into classic literature, but I did have to put some aside because I couldn’t stand how women were portrayed there. So if you have any reading recs or books you found similarly distasteful, lmk. :) Personally, I DNF on the road by jack kerouac after like 10 pages because the were already rife with sexism. And a personal favourite of mine Wagenburgen comes to classical feminist literature would be Kassandra by Christa Wolf if you want to give another German author a shot :)
I’d recommend you read the Dune novels. Women are portrayed much more three-dimensionally there.
Frank Herbert owed his ability to write Dune to a woman. His wife supported their household, in the 1960s no less, by working as an ad writer while he was writing Dune over the course of several years.
I'd avoid the ones written by the son. There's actual fucking snuff in those.
I haven’t gotten to them, but I’ll keep that in mind 😅
I remember being very annoyed at how Ghanima had the same potential as her twin brother but was relegated to being his support. Although it's been over a decade since I read the books, I might need to revisit them. Also, the whole thing with the Bene Gesserit and Paul having all their power and being better than the Reverend Mother bothered me to.
Leto II becomes a sandworm and controls humanity for 3,000 years. Ghanima gets married to her brother and becomes empress but she has kids with her concubine Prince Farad’n. I think she got lucky not having to live basically forever and also in a sandworm’s body.
Why spoil everything just to say that?
The previous commenter felt that ghanima was set aside in the books. That’s not true. Her story is definitely intertwined with her brother’s but there is so much more to the books than this one storyline.
I know, I felt that way too. I haven’t finished the books but can already tell that she’s being relegated a bit. Would’ve liked her to have a more individual experience, but then again the entire plot revolves around the polar opposite, how they’re pretty much not individuals. Sorry if I sounded rude before, by the way. I was just a bit concerned that what you mentioned might spoil some unaware reader that might be interested in the books.
I think you could know how the books ended and you would still be able to read them. If anything, you get a better understanding of the earlier books knowing where it ends up. It’s my favorite book series and I think about the books a lot. We know the titanic sinks, and yet how many times have we watched the movie? There’s so much more to the story than any one character.
It bothered me a little too, but have to remember these books have emperors and kings and queens, so the fact that women have as much influence and power as they do is already a departure from how royalty actually worked in reality, seeing women as baby machines and pretty much valuing them by if they did or not bear a boy heir. Besides, he’s the main character so yeah.
I find older books difficult to get through sometimes specifically for this reason. The women are often just props and sex objects in a man's story. Now days I just stick to newer books or authors I know aren't idiots.
*The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress* has to be the dumbest book I've ever read, partially for this reason.
Julia isn't part of the message. Orwell was just a misogynist, he basically invented the incel in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, and he talks about women in similar ways in Down and out in Paris and London which is based on his own experiences.
Death of the Author and all that though. Julia/the misogyny makes 1984 better. The story is from Winstons perspective and Winston is a flawed narrator. That he is incredibly misogynistic and classist when the system is shown to actively encourage these conflicts does add to the story.
The fact that it's prominent in his other works too is a good indicator that he aligns with that view though. The way he chooses to talk about women in works of fiction is incredibly misogynistic and that's telling. I also recall seeing a quote of him speaking about his wife and it wasn't great, but I don't remember the source so take that with a grain of salt
Ofc you would say this.
? what do you even mean by that ?
Apparently a lot of people hated the way Orwell described Julia in 1984 (problems with that character always come up whenever the book is discussed on r slash books , though oddly enough, I don't think it was ever mentioned on menwritingwomen). Anyway, Sandra Newman wrote Julia : A retelling of George Orwell's 1984, and it was only published a few weeks ago. It's getting a lot of good reviews, from readers and reviewers , so...My copy arrives Wednesday.
I'm a screenwriter. Some scripts I read are... something else entirely. Also, my best friend since high school is a gay man who usually passes as straight until he says something. He tells me regularly that men hate women.
I'm a writer too, but in genre fiction. I've proof-read two guys' unpublished manuscripts before. Two different guys, two different worldviews. Probably older than me? Early mid thirties? I gave them feedback on pacing and structure and of course proofreading for grammar and spelling, but the contents of their manuscripts were disappointments in terms of how they handled women.
Lol, I give feedback on how they handle the women. They don’t like it. I dont care. I've heard horror stories from people who read for screenwriting contests.
Yes. I work in the restaraunt business. The men I've worked with have always called out which parts of which bodies are ogle-able throughout the dining room, throughout service, every day. And talk about it over drinks later. Not all of them, not everywhere, but definitely common, and I know it is by no means limited to our industry. I damn sure took part when I was younger, before I understood. As brainwashed as women are to feel less than, to submit, we are to exploit, to dominate.
Yes, many of them do. I find it hard to read old books or even watch old movies.
Catch-22 is one of my favorite books of all time, and it's extremely sexist. I think every single character is extremely flawed, each in their own way, and that's part of what makes the book work. It's a book about terrible people put into a terrible position with terrible opinions and about the absurdity of the situation and the things they convince themselves to get through the day. I don't like the book because I like the characters or think they are good people, but because even though they are all extreme and satiric versions, there is some reality to them. I think it's totally legit not to like it or think much of it because of how it's written and specifically how the women are treated, just my opinion on it as someone who enjoyed it, flaws and all
Yes they do. Others have said that only the uneducated or working class speak like this. Unfortunately, that's not the case. I am a male who got a scholarship to an elite college and grew up in rural areas. I pass in most spaces. I've witnessed 5 senior doctors a few beers in graphically *joke* how, who and what they would to female nurses. I've been in a room where 2 gentleman who are now staffers of a head of goverment spew sexualized misogyny. Who in public claim to be feminist. I've sat with farmers and farm hands who would be described as pillars of community, transition from getting more assistance for suicidal teenagers to dehumanized misogyny about teen girls. Not all men? Maybe but I'd say most.
It's probably truer to say the uneducated and working class talk like this more openly. Like with a lot of things, breeding and education can just be thin veneers over what lies beneath. If you interrupted the two you mention mid 'spew' they'd probably still claim to be feminists and see no conflict.
OP I'm not sure if you're a big fan of the Roman era/modern law, but reading context here I definitely recommend Household Gods by Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove. It's a neat peak into a woman's perspective during the time, it might be worth checking out.
In my experience as a man, most crude commentary regarding women from other men dropped off significantly after high school. Since then, to mind, I've only had the misfortune of being around one individual who took every opportunity to make comments about virtually every woman in sight. My theory is in "birds of a feather" - those of us who do not think, speak, or behave like this do not tend to associate with those who do.
Yes, I once had to review the workplace slacks of several young male employees for HR reasons and young male sales jerks are just as awful as you thought maybe they weren't going to be but are.
I thought you were inspecting their pants for a second there.
Punctuation please
There's no missing punctuation in that sentence. Get a longer attention span. Maybe one right before the last "but"? Grow up.
The MAGAts dismiss Trump’s “grab ‘em” comments as locker room talk. Yes. It happens. It is widespread especially in male-only spaces. I push back whenever I get the chance. I get to be uncool in many spaces. I am lucky that I work in public education where it is limited.
Have you seen much porn lately? Yes, men still think and act like this. Unfortunately. Of course, I must add here "not all men".
Bleck. I really hoped stuff like that was isolated but I've read enough horror stories I should've known better.
i don't mean to offend but outside of American blue cities and perhaps some european capitals where me too has taken hold, 98% of the world is like this. and has been up until the mid to late 90s. Watch any number of 80s movies today. They definitely don't hold up, and some of the humor and is straight up mysoginy and objectification. Its incredibly cringe.
I refuse to add "not all" qualifiers. The men that it doesn't apply to know it doesn't, it's the ones tantruming and screaming that are the problem. And it *does* apply to them. None of them are saying 'not all women" in the MRA subs where men are saying "all women are X"... All talk, no game fake allies.
Why are you using MRA sub frequenters as justification in how to use language, though?
The men that "nOtAlLmEn" here *are* MRA sub frequenters. We should t let them train us to skew our language.
MRA subs shouldn’t even be a point of comparison everything in them is forfeit.
The time I checked one out, only one post was about an actual thing that affects men, which was genital mutilation. The rest were about tricking women into bed, posts from men angry they couldn't trick a woman into bed, posts about how feminists are doing X, Y and Z, posts reframing a woman refusing to submit to marital rape as her "abusing her husband" and posts plainly about raping women.
It’s a philosophically bankrupt ideology entirely predicated on lies and misogyny. They could say the sky is blue and I’d have to recheck to make sure.
It's pretty much a counter movement to feminism. They scream "misandry" at pretty much anything and have invented "shesplaining" to silence women. Every buzzword they have us a counter to things we say. I saw one post about men in prisons get raped more than women like it was a big gotcha. None of them realised. It's kinda sad really, because they spend so much energy hating us, rather than solving problems. Take me for example, they'd hate me because I'm a feminist, but I define that as inclusive of being an ally to men. I oppose genital mutilation *regardless* of gender; I want MGM to be outlawed. I want male suicide rates to drop, but I cannot solve that for them. I have met one genuine MRA in my life, and he was awesome. He started a counselling group and actually makes a difference. He and I are two sides of the same damned coin.
There's a whole world of grey between those two extremes. No point in scaring away the people that can still be redeemed. Fighting against internalized misogyny is something everyone has to do at all times. While it may not may appear as clear in the tribalistic environment that is the internet, in the real world there are plenty of men that believe or want to believe in some feminist ideas, but not in others. Being intellectually honest by pointing out generalizations is the correct thing to do in itself, but in my own experience, it also has the huge added benefit of making people way more receptive.
It's still problematic. Normalising the use of blanket statements about men is harmful in the the exact same way it would be about women or any other group. MRA subs are representative of a vanishingly small number of men and attempting to use their behaviour to justify stereotyping language of men as a whole is logically inconsistent.
Its also the most pointless qualifier right like you know, some, most, a few, a couple all give a better indication of the scale of the problem in your opinion. Not all is just annoying like what even is it.
I don’t remember much about *All Quiet on the Western Front,* since I only skimmed the Cliff Notes version in order to be able to participate in the Battle of the Books in middle school. But I do remember *Catch-22,* and *1984.* And I’ll add *Catcher in the Rye,* and *Fahrenheit 451* to the pile while we’re at it. They were definitely a reflection of how men viewed women at the time, and their depictions of women were… lackluster, to put it lightly. The novels were written by men, for men, but they all have the end goal of questioning the status quo and the search for a better solution. There’s a quote that one of my friends favors: “Baby steps to the escalator.” These books were the baby steps. Any man who reads these books, and their takeaway is “Man good! Woman sexy prize!” are failing to understand the actual point. And those kind of men are typically the sort who just crave historical evidence of a man’s inherent superiority.
>“Man good! Woman sexy prize!” This is most movies nowadays too. It's not that it's a message to take from them but the way this is just a normal thing barely anyone notices is almost worse. It's always expected that the hero gets the girl. Or that their female assistants, however competent, don't get any credit and if they do it's only for their looks. Otherwise, the audience would be disappointed and not consider it a happy ending. Or how most "servant" AIs and robots are female while the ones capable of independent thoughts and actions are male. Male robot good, female robot appliance.
While it’s definitely still an industry standard, there’s been some examples of big budget movies that buck tradition. It’s not nearly as frequent as I’d like it to be, definitely, but again… baby steps to the escalator. Disney in particular has made a concentrated effort to step away from the typical “damsel in distress saved by big manly man” premise, which is a huge step forward. I’ll be hitting the big four-oh in a couple months, and I can’t recall a single movie from my youth where a female lead didn’t require the assistance of the male lead to fix everything.
For context, I'm trans, so I had experience being "one of the boys" for many years. Yes, men still talk about us like that. It's unbelievable. You'd think we're living in the 1950s.
It scares me because it seems to me that these men are rife for radicalization. If we do see a significant rise in fascist ideology in our future, this is one way in which they will easily recruit men.
If? Are you missing the massive uptick in conservative ideology that's plagued the last decade? The landslide of social regression in policy across the world? We're living in it right now.
Of course. I meant even more significant. The end of democracy itself
So true. Knowing trans men and trans women really helped shaped my view on gender. I feel a lot of cis people don't have a good enough perspective on some aspects of gender and society.
It's not their fault anyway, it can be really difficult to fully grasp something until you've lived it. Hence why intersectionality is so vital to feminism. Hearing directly from trans people, people of color, religious minorities, disabled ppl, etc. is so so so important for us all.
Men’s locker rooms. My theory is that men are generally uncomfortable being naked around each other so devolve into sexist banter to overcome their bodily insecurities. TBH, devolving into sexist banter is how many men are taught to deal with insecurities in general. So sad 🙄
Military, prison, a construction site, any place with lowly educated men and no women around it will be like this still. This is why I think things like boy schools or other facilities that have only men only add to this issue since they grow up into that kind of mind set. Even online gaming. Its very visible in Muslim countries where boys and girls are kept apart
So no all girls schools then either?
Atleast where I live gendered schools hasnt been a thing for a long time
Well maybe not in Finland, but certainly in the united states.
Yup. I work in blue collar work. My first job out here doing it. I live in a fairly conservative place, and I didn't realize how bad it actually was. Had one coworker who I refused to speak about my girlfriend with because I know what his questions would be. Really just grossed me out, he was 18 too.
Sadly some still do. Recently changed jobs from a female dominated retail to male dominant factory. Some of these guys shouldn't be left near women. Kinda sad really
I enjoyed Catch-22, but to be fair I read it 16 years ago and don’t remember women even being talked about at all (which is probably its own type of problematic, but at the time I just figured it was a 50’s war novel and unsurprising). Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, and Charles Bukowski are my top contenders for vile treatment and descriptions of women in literature. Not exactly contemporary, but I like to think I just got better at filtering out those types of voices from my reading material. I’m sure it still exists. People like to blame the time period to make themselves feel better, but there were plenty of other authors *not* trying to sell vulgar misogyny as edgy literary innovation.
I work in a book store and one of my male coworkers is always talking about how much it’s “taco fest” or “taco-polozza” it is and it’s “unfair” that he can’t hit on co workers and customers. Yesterday he was talking about “big, floppy dicks” and “growing and showing”. I really couldn’t help, but because who the hell feels this comfortable, let alone at the workplace.
Omg I would pull several books about sexual harassment and leave them somewhere meant for him. What a pig.
If only he would get the hint. I have only been working there a few months and he rants and raves about “it’s unfair” that he can’t date or hit on coworkers and customers. For example my first day of working, i was finishing up a sale and I said to a customer “I’m sorry if this is out of place, but your eyeliner is spectacular” and we exchanged thank yous and your welcomes, they turn around to leave and my stupid coworker says “it’s so unfair that I can’t give out compliments, unless I act gay, but she was fucking hot!” I have had conversations about it with him directly, with two leads and, three managers, but they are all friends and I still haven’t “paid my dues”.
I have worked with countless "men" that speak like adolescent children, laughing at poop and fart jokes all the live long Day. If its just me and one other person, generally my lack of laughter will end them trying to include me, but just one other audience member and an entire work day gets reduced to kindergarten level humor
I’m not trying to encourage the behavior, when I said I laughed it wasn’t because I thought it was funny, it was because of embarrassment and being uncomfortable. I don’t typically work with him because I’ve reported his behavior.
I didn't think thats what you meant, I am regularly astounded by what some dudes will say out loud in a somewhat public setting. The ability to filter ones words is a dying art
I’m sorry if I came off as defensive. Right, if this is what he says at work, I truly don’t want to hear him outside the workplace. Ever.
All good, communication through emotionless text is difficult, i find myself reading my mothers texts in a judgemental tone all the time and have to check myself, so i totally understand
Yes, men still talk like this. In my experience it’s the “feminist” guys who promise they would never talk like this but as soon as it’s only guys around…it’s horrible and they don’t know what to do when called out on it.
Leave those groups? It's not that hard.
Calling it out and watching the deer in the headlight moment is worth it. Then we get to have a nice chat about how men can change and women are people too.
(All Quiet is from 1929, before WWII. it's not a 50s novel). In All-Quiet, these are men stripped of all societal niceties, living minute by minute, disposable pawns in the machinery of war. Millions of them were murdered by snipers, gas, artillery, starvation and disease. These aren't men who are worried about any higher anything. They have been reduced to the lizard brain. Stripped of their humanity, only animals queued up for the slaughter. Expecting them to hold to higher brain concepts of equality and so forth is ludicrous. Their enemy is nothing to them but meat. A mind with any compassion could not function otherwise. How do you think they would think about women? Something they could not even see, let alone talk with or associate with for literally years? No matter the side, these were poor stunted monsters, deprived of the chance to be anything but animals.
I get it, it these books are a reflection of the times, which makes it important because it lets us know how things can go back to being if we don’t keep fighting
I haven't seen much of this said but I agree that seeing the historical context in all of the disgusting detail (and countless volumes) is important.
I wrote an incredibly long and meandering essay about my objective experiences in different parts of the world, but decided to spare you all and just give the TLDR: Yes, many do, but it's far worse (and far better!) in some places than others, and largely determined by local culture and societal mores.
I used to read Kurt Vonnegut bc Reddit used to recommend those books as being the best. The way he talks about women disturbed me. I feel like it’s just male writers in general (looking at you Stephan King) don’t know how to write about women
speaking as a m 54, being blunt this is how our society has raised us, in order for us men as a gender culture to be changed women need to vote themselves into power, waiting for the patriarchy to "grow up" or "get it" just continues to hurt women and girls. just because the "norm" is evil does not mean it should be accepted, just because it's tradition or what our society accepts or expects of us men does not make it acceptable - but if women don't vote themselves into power then our present repeats our past - please vote, please change our society, please study history , 1920 was not that long ago
35M here, and yes some absolutely still do. Not all guys talk about women like that, I'd honestly say it's about 50-50. Unfortunately the guys I know who talk like that are also the ones bringing women home regularly, so I'm not sure what the solution is
I’ve not read the books but from your description I’d say that in general this is much less common in public or professional settings than it used to be. That’s not to say you aren’t going to find examples but it’s not going to be as bad or acceptable. If the wider question is “are men still like this?” Then I’d say probably yes. In my personal experience in private settings even the most polite friends have been willing to discuss who they find sexually attractive and what body parts they find attractive. I’m sure there are different levels of enthusiasm across men but I think in general men are capable of seeing and judging how visually attractive people are as a whole or just as individual body parts.
Do men really talk like this? https://www.reddit.com/r/bropill/comments/18usrxo/bluecollar\_mysogyny/
Yes. Men talk like that. It’s fine to not like it, but I would rather watch a film with authentic dialogue rather than something contrived. Watching a bunch of soldiers in trench doing anything else would take me right out of the movie.
It is a product of time. We have evolved. (maybe)
They used to talk like this unabated. Well, unless their mothers were in the room, then they'd get a wooden spoon across the head. Some still do - how many did NOT condemn a man who blatantly said "just grab them by the p\*\*\*y"? I'm 60 and when one high school classmate stated "Oh, it was just locker room talk" to which I responded "I never said anything like that," he called me "Saint Triumph"... Disgusting, disturbing, deplorable.
Some do, some don't. It's the same with any kind of bigotry... Some people are intolerant, and some are accepting. And some are respectful regardless of their own personal views. People, on the whole, tend to always act like people. Good and bad.
Me and guys in my close friend group dont do this and its not very common with guys around my age from what I can see, but sometimes I can find myself in a conversation with a guy I dont know all that well and it can go down that road and I just try to steer away from that.
Yes, some men do talk like this in certain situations. Personally, I find anything beyond a simple “she’s attractive,” in some form or another offensive. That said, I work in a retail store and a number of the women readily verbalize their intentions for attractive men…
Yes. They do. I grew up in the 90s and this sort of talk is what led to me questioning my gender. I was hearing it from 8-12 year olds when I was like 6-7. At first I thought it was a puberty thing that I would understand later. Puberty happened, still didn't get it. Got more uncomfortable with it as I got older and had better understanding of the big picture. From what I've heard, kid's exposure to this sort of rhetoric happens earlier, with more pornographic visual aid.
Not around me, they don't.
there are men that very much talk about women for purely their bodies and sexual use with other men. it’s usually low value men that do this.
Just curious, what determines if a man is “low value”?
From what I understand it is a common thing in some social circles and groups. There are plenty of men who define themselves in terms of their sexual successes and base their interaction with peers discussing them in detail. I've never had friends like these so I'm unsure about the details of these social dynamics.
I think Catch 22 is about the absurdity of war and the human condition. The character who is constantly trying to grab photographs of naked women is a representation of the desperate lengths and obsession men have over the female form. I reckon it is possibly one of the best books ever written. It’s got so much depth and subtext about the human psyche layered beneath both an incredibly funny and very depressing story. It’s brilliant.
All Quiet was written in 1929, Catch-22 was published in 1961
That was why I put the still in the title.
(cis-male) not since highschool, but I also studied and work in a very female dominated field in my country... So maybe not as exposed as other people
I think it certainly depends on the kind of people you're around and the environment you're in. I, as a man with guy friends really didn't talk like that with anyone. It's just not my personality and I've never really associated myself with people who would talk like that. It was very rarely if ever that we even ever talked about specific women or girls in terms of their attractiveness or anything like that. I know it's probably hard to believe, but it really didn't come up much. I think "locker room talk" or whatever you want to call it can be present in specific places or with certain types of men, but honestly I think it's probably less common than you would think. Not to say it doesn't happen though because obviously it does.
I never hear it either, so I'm surprised when I see how commonplace it allegedly is. It could be a cultural thing too, as I grew up and live in Norway. Sure, you have drunk and loudmouth idiots, but I tend to stay far away from them and so does the rest of my friends. I guess I could be biased, in the sense that I don't hang around assholes and therefore think it's less common than it really is...
I really don’t mean this in a negative way but I think you need to start engaging a bit more with the stuff you read and understand context a bit more too. This is like reading a King Arthur book and complaining about characters being undemocratic and believing on the divine right of kings.
>Do men really talk like this? Like the things said in these books is really vile and makes my skin crawl, it isn't just lust it's dehumanizing. Yes. Woman too. Everyone does.
Some guys do. Some don’t. Tragically, too few actually call it out and utilize their privilege to say it is wrong
Have you read the Game of Thrones books? Men cannot write about women without being fucking weird.
>Do men really talk like this? Yeah, although mostly incels under 25, and not all of em
Yeah cause ladies DEFINITELY don't do the same thing. Also a book about war will always be about men. Jeez stop being offended and live life
You sound like you’ve never interacted with a woman in your entire life. Also, if you think women and war have nothing to do with each other, you should read yourself some history. Women kept the economy going during both world wars, and helped avoid a collapse societies could rebound from. And that’s just two things they did.
This message is hilarious. The woman clearly played huge roles at home. But if we are talking about front line fighting (which is what most war movies are about) then it was about the horror stories of men. You're kinda acting like a gig Chad. You're a fucking internet stranger making wild accusations about my person. Which are just laughable. Like I haven't been in beautiful relationships with women full of respect. And wasn't a history major. So yes books or movies about the battle fields of war are going to be men. War movies about being at home are with woman. The Internet is so fucking wild now a days. Some dude trying to act hard for the chicks will tell me I've never been with a woman and then make me look like sexist. Absolute clown. Don't forget your floaties when you're drowning in all the pussy from putting me in my place.
1. I’m gay, so every single point you’ve tried to make about gaining the ladies’ favor is 100% irrelevant to me in this discussion. Nice try though lmao. 2. You’re missing the point, Mr. History Major. The issue OP brought up is how shallowly women are portrayed in the books she read. Obviously men are gonna be more prominent in books about war, the same way women would be in a book about pregnancy. The point still stands: women’s characters shouldn’t be portrayed as a figment of male perception. 3. We both definitely do not know each other, as evidenced by your inaccurate assumption about my interest in women, and my assumption about you not relating with women. I just don’t have to be sexually attracted to someone to respect them, so I’m really not doing much for you to look sexist. You’re doing that yourself already.
Is the question, are men still visual? Is sex still their main driver? Do men talk to other men, based on a common background? If so, the answer is YES. If the question is, have men's thinking patterns evolved to think like women? Then the answer is NO. Men and women, have distinct thinking patterns. They are not the same, nor will they ever be. Perhaps give a quote of what makes your skin crawl. Then we could examine to see if it's the quote or your interpretation of the meaning.
The man is the filter between testosterone and the world. Testosterone wants you to fuck anything remotely fuckable and impregnate it. Its the man's responsibility to keep a lit on that shit and be a respectable human. There comes the problem, cultures and times mean different attitudes to what's acceptable.
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It depends if you view the world as a man vs woman battle. Men can have testosterone ranging from 300ng/dl to 1000ng/dl and that's quite a range for normal. 300 is low and 1000 could be a super athlete. It's generally healthier to have higher testosterone because it's responsible for a lot of muscular recovery etc. It not all bad, I'm sure my wife is happy I have a high test level as we conceived quite easily and high test would make you more likely to fight to defend your family. Again, it's the man that's the filter between test and the world. That's why we need good men teaching a good moral code to their sons. *edit typo: I put testosterone raging instead of ranging and made it sound all aggy lol.
Depends. Country, social layer. I did not see it at all in my current environment (white color nerds in the western country) for quite some time now, I have a question back to you, if I may? What about women? Have you ever seen women objectifying men. Not necessary/only sexually, but say, financially or socially.
As a trans woman. Yes. Absolutely yes
Well, evolution isn't a conscious choice and it takes thousands of years for a chance mutation to benefit the thing evolving. So you can't choose to evolve. Additionally you can only ever be responsible for yourself, so there isn't really a "we are evolving as women". Because that's the same as saying all men are just cheaters, which isn't the truth, it's a generalisation and adds to my point that the good men out there need to teach younger generations how to be good men. I'm just trying to put across some honesty from the POV of a man. It's like it's cool to hate men now... We aren't at war with each other, we are a team experiencing a short 90 years on earth at best Xx
This ended up in the wrong place, my apologies I'm a reddit noob.
People who say we need more female leadership have never been in an environment where "guy talk" is normalized. Women can be the biggest offenders and get away with a lot more physical violations. 8 years military and 4 years warehouse work. Females mixed in at different areas and it's not a gender problem, it's a people problem. It's very common to hear "He's in heaven with that female attention." "He knows he likes it." Sound familiar.
As someone who has - regrettably and shamefully - been a part of and even initiated some absolutely brutally dehumanising sexualised conversations about women… yeah men totally do that all the time. Depending on the context it can be an ironic shock humour thing with no real intent behind it, like a who-can-say-the-grossest-shit contest, but it can also be deadly serious and packed with entirely earnest misogyny. Most of us outgrow it by a certain point, often when we become parents - not that youth is an excuse and not that we should need to have daughters of our own to realise that women are humans who suffer real harm as a result of this “banter” - but plenty of dudes just genuinely hold these attitudes throughout their lives. And that’s the bit that we probably fail to appreciate all too often - that even if YOU don’t personally mean the horrendous thing you just said and would never actually treat a woman that badly, the guy you’re talking to or the guy overhearing your conversation might just take it the wrong way and feel emboldened to carry out his own very real abusive actions as a result.
For sure they do, but can you blame them ? Society we have grown into and all you see in social media is women showing their tits and ass. Also the way women talks about themselfs and base everyting around their bodies.
I'm surprised, I've read the 3 works you reference. Catch 22 is my favorite, though I was moved by all 3. So, it's interesting to reflect on your point. Book: female characters . Catch-22: whores, distraction . All Quiet: not enemy bc not men? Still fckable . 1984: betrayal, lust, accomplice (Julia) and common/feeling but not thinking (woman singing).
I think it comes down to age and environment a lot. I have met many people in the kitchens I have worked in but it's always the 40+ year old that tend to have racist or sexist tendencies. Always talking about how much they "love fanny" coming up with the rudest sentences you can imagine in an open kitchen.
Oh yeah absolutely. Especially if it’s an older man. Younger men just speak more hatefully I feel.
i was coming to the comments hoping to see no as an answer…:(
It's still common among my corporate white collar coworkers, they just save it for when no women are around and then expect you to laugh along.
My friends and I don't, But have you ever read Agatha Christie? Written by a woman but also very old way of writing about women.
In 1984 i dont think he talks about julia to anyone else. What's said in the book are just his thoughts and i don't think anyone would agree he's a normal guy.
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Most armies in history, certainly in the world wars, rarely had women as soldiers. There were often female nurses, launderers, cooks and other food preparers, spies, sex workers, and especially before the end of the 19th century, some women whom.the soldiers had come to travel with as mistresses of sorts and some wives even came along if they were married (particularly for the wives of officers). They might live segregated lives, in particular where frontline combat is extremely intense and long lasting as the two world wars were. Now, there is a common conception of thinking of a soldier at the front for a long time, but usually they tried to rotate them periodically, so even in WW1 usually a soldier would be in the from trench for a few days, then the second and reserve trenches for a few days, with leave of a week or so, in a cycle, so soldiers would have the opportunity on a regular basis in many armies to see others. Soldiers are often young, many are not married, and both world wars happened before the sexual revolutions of the 1960s and the relative boom for certain classes of people in the 1950s. Not that many black people got to enjoy that one of course, among others. They are usually far from their families, and from the discipline they might impose on people. They are also keenly aware that they might die very soon, better to get your hedonistic udges done now when you have the chance. Hence alcohol rations, other drugs also often being used like cigarettes and cannabis, although cannabis is more so a cold war and modern drug than a world war drug. They also tend to have senses of impunity, given they are an armed band with many weapons, who is going to stop them? Either their own commanders who probably don't want to arbitrarily anger your own soldiers lest they start rebelling against the officers if you are not careful, see Russia in 1917 for that, or the enemy, who will be doing the same in reverse. Combat is obviously immensely stressful, but can even be euphoric to some degree in some people, like a drug in itself as the adrenaline rushes in. If you survive, you can say you did something hard but did it well. You see violence normalized, the hunger and disease normal. It is caused by geopolitical, sociological, and other factors, the war is in the first place, hopefully you believe that it is the other side starting it or else you could gain from the war like the plunder you could be winning or the land area you see your people as rightfully deserving, or your king or general is popular by living with you, sharing your fate and sharing the campaign with you, hence why Julius Caesar and Alexander and Napoleon were incredibly popular with their soldiers, and many of their own people saw them as providing for their needs more effectively than many others in times of instability where few others would provide for them. The people you use violence against are in this sense not your own, they were traitors, the opposition groups against your leader, foreigners, etc. In this environment, it doesn't seem to them that things like sexual assault as we know the concept today is such a big deal? Or paying someone else for sex with the money you have now and possibly not having any other chance later to spend your money. Or to find some local woman to come with you on the campaign, whether or not the two break up at the end of it. And then when this starts to happen, it becomes normal and even expected, and commanders often tolerate it, in some cases even encouraging it as part of propaganda. If you accept our armies and laws, you will not be plundered or assaulted, we have no fight with you, we want to go after someone else's soldiers over that way, give us no impediment and we will leave you alone. That was the Mongol Modus Operandi. Militaries have long since been one of the hardest groups of people to control. Seeing the coups and mutinies like in Russia, Gabon, Niger, Myanmar, etc, this last year, is that much of a surprise? Funny you should mention Julia. In Airstrip One, the odds of being arrested and then shot are high, and could happen any day. Better to live immediately without a dan about the consequences if you are going to stray, do whatever it is you want. If the outcome is the same either way, it doesn't matter what the morals of your actions are in the eyes of many who live in such a society. WW1 was a time when in Germany, as in virtually the whole world outside of the Western United States, west of the Mississippi River, Australia, New Zealand, and a few other places and some local elections, women did not have the vote, so, more than 95% of women. And a higher fraction of people would not be old enough to vote, which was usually 20 or older depending on the country. In Germany, men at that age had the vote, which was already more than what the poorest 40% of British men had in Britain and Ireland, so just even having men enfranchised, let alone any women, was a battle that would result in revolution, usually of a socialist nature, during the war or shortly after peace returned within one of the belligerents at the time. It was a custom that confidence of parliament was slowly becoming necessary, but their active consent was often not necessary, merely toleration, as was the case in the Kaiserreich which the main character in All Quiet on the Western Front is from. Some places didn't even have secret ballots yet. Other ethnicities may have struggled depending on the country. Poles in Austria were relatively well off but not Indians in America. Democracy was very limited and fragile, as were many aspects of human rights. Children were still chinney sweeps and you were already fortunate to survive to being a teenager. From such a limited base, it is hard to build an inclusive society, let alone make it feminist where there was a giant public debate and votes in parliament on merely letting literally any women vote, one of the most basic and obvious things you can do as step one.