IOW I tend to operate on the assumption that people who are NOT sexist don’t say sexist things. And to be honest I always thought tekanji was trying to raise this as well. Are you so sure she’s not?

Personally, I generally think whether or not a person is sexist is irrelevant when discussing sexist things that they have said. I don’t know Lisner, I’m not very familiar with his work, and I know nothing of his personality outside of this one blurb. I can’t say whether or not he, as a person, is sexist, nor was I trying to.

But, that said, the persona that he projects in this blurb is that of a misogynist. Whether it’s his true feelings, or his trying to go along with the whole “theme” of Wizard’s “How to Draw” series, or he thought it was funny, or didn’t realize just how offensive it is to his female readers, or whatever… it doesn’t matter.

What matters is his sexist language and what that says to an audience who views Wizard and those who write for it as an authority on the comic book industry. And what it says isn’t pretty.

I’d also just like to make one point about your previous comment where you said:

I’m not disagreeing because I’m “privileged”. I’m disagreeing because I think you’re wrong.

The two are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, disagreeing from a position of privilege is still disagreeing because you think we’re wrong. It just means that you’re doing it in in a way that ignores and/or diminishes the valid experiences of people on the receiving end of this kind of thing.

And your comment also misses the point — it’s not that you are disagreeing, it is how you disagree. As a regular commenter, I’ve given you a lot of leeway in the hopes of you just needing some time to get adjusted to the discussion rules here. But you’ve been here long enough to know what is, and is not, acceptable, and I (and others) have made things pretty clear on this thread.

You’re welcome to post here for as long as you want, but I’m letting you know that any further comments that break any of the discussion rules will not be published. If you type a comment and it doesn’t go through, I suggest that you re-read what I’ve said on this thread about your behaviour as well as what I say in the discussion rules and try to understand why it was inappropriate in a discussion here.

I, personally, am also slightly skeptical of how open-minded you were about everyone else’s arguments considering that you read tekanji as saying that Lisner was sexist, even though she never made a single comment about Lisner as a person in the original post. It’s not that I think you secretly hate women, it’s that your behaviour strongly suggests that you are bringing certain unspoken assumptions to the discussion.

Ah. Perhaps this is it.

I agree that when someone says “what ___ says is ___ist” then I, acting on the concept that we generally “own” our voluntary conduct, assume they are saying that the speaker is ___ist. IOW I tend to operate on the assumption that people who are NOT sexist don’t say sexist things. And to be honest I always thought tekanji was trying to raise this as well. Are you so sure she’s not?

I’d also like to clarify that my distinction about sexist behavior verses sexist people, again, isn’t really about the goodness of particular individuals - mainly it’s just another attempt at being precise because being clear helps.

At one end of the spectrum are people who engage in sexist behaviors without wanting to or even knowing that they are doing so, despite attempts to educate themsleves. Even the best of feminists rarely reach this end of the spectrum. At the other end you have people who treat women horribly because they really are misogynists.

Somewhere in between you have people who engage in sexist behavior - even after the consequences of such behavior have been pointed out - out of nothing more than refusal to acknowledges one’s mistakes. I consider such people sexist because behaving in sexist ways is something they have willingly chosen to do, even if their reasons are not malicious, and in fact are often born out of guilt, pride, or sheer stubborness.

To me, repeatedly confusing the difference between sexist behavior and sexist people, for no other apparent reason than to rush to the unneeded defense of people behaving in sexist ways, falls under “refusing to acknowledge mistakes” - even if mistake in question is someone else’s.

I’ll also clarify (because I have a feeling this will be misread as well) that simply arguing that “woman lawyer” isn’t sexist may not, necessarily, be sexist behavior. We just remain unconvinced and stand by our arguements. I, personally, am also slightly skeptical of how open-minded you were about everyone else’s arguments considering that you read tekanji as saying that Lisner was sexist, even though she never made a single comment about Lisner as a person in the original post. It’s not that I think you secretly hate women, it’s that your behaviour strongly suggests that you are bringing certain unspoken assumptions to the discussion.

First:

The language Lisner uses throughout the blurb Others, dehumanizes, and ultimately objectifies the women that he’s talking about — both drawn and real.

What matters is that his language is consistently sexist…

-tekanji

(emphasis mine)

The discussion is about behaviour, not whether Lisner is a good person or not - no matter how much you try to turn into the latter. This, in fact, has been said repeatedly from beginning to end.

Second:

Yes, shockingly enough, I consider the ABA’s use of “woman lawyer” to be sexist. I seriously doubt I’m the only one. I also think the term “co-ed” is sexist when used to refer to people and not a school or program, and it’s prevalant (mis)use at many colleges was one of the many factors that went into choosing my alma mater.

And you know what else? I also thought it was sexist of me and my feminist friends to assume that the unnamed teacher in the story we read was female. That was rather the point of making this particular psychology test a standard part of the curriculum, because being good and just - even towards ourselves - is all something we have to work at daily.

Do I think they - or we are sexist? Better question: do I care? Is that really the topic put forth in the post? Once again, the important issue, and the topic of the post, is the consequences of behavior, not the relative worth or goodness of various individuals.

Third:

You wanna know who I really conside sexist, and not just someone behaving in sexist ways? People who constantly try to steer the conversation away from things like how language affects us or the consequences of how we treat each other. Especially people who try to turn it into a discussion about really dumb stuff like their unwarranted assumption that another debater who is critiqueing a specific behavior is doing so in order to make judgements about the overall worth of people who behave this way, or even just how such people consciously value other people. Not only have I seen little else that is more counterproductive to such debates, but it reeks of self-absorption, privilege, and lack of introspection.

It’s one thing to make mistakes or pick up bad behaviours because our culture teaches them - or even to argue that such behaviors aren’t really harmful. It’s quite another to refuse to try to change just because you don’t feel like it or it’s to hard - or even to rush the defense of someone who isn’t actually being trashed in the first place - just because someone dares to use their bad behavior as an example of how not to act.

“woman lawyer” is the term they use. Along with “women professional” I think. In any case, “woman” is used as an adjective throughout.

Now, this is improper usage. But either you have to start lumping women like that into your “sexist” category, or you have to acknowledge that really, a LOT OF PEOPLE who use “woman” as an adjective are doing so because they have bad grammar skills, not because they are implicitly sexist.

So then I thought (as I was writing this) Hey, maybe even THAT is too personal, ya know? not about me, and all that.

So I searched NYT for “woman lawyer” (just that, you understand, which is by no means all of the instances involving “woman” as an adjective).
Here are the results:
http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=%22woman+lawyer%22&srchst=nyt
On the first page, there’s only one obviously “male” name, though Jan or Robin could go either way. The users are almost all women. I didn’t bother looking past the first page as this is a pretty random test.

Then, just for the hell of it, I searched “female lawyer” on the same NYT site.
Here are the results:
http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=%22female+lawyer%22&srchst=nyt
They are mostly male, though it’s closer to even.

In any case, I think a simple literature search would show you that “woman” as an adjective is far from proof of sexism; it’s common usage.

I’m not disagreeing because I’m “privileged”. I’m disagreeing because I think you’re wrong.

The difference is intent and action, we may not know what a particular person intends to do when that type of statement is made but quite too often, when that statement is made, it is often backed up by sexist acts.

That’s what I was driving at with this series, actually. I don’t know anything about Lisner outside of this blurb and the art of his that I’ve seen. Given the context of the series as a whole, it’s possible that he had the best of intentions but felt that he had to perform in the same way as the other guys writing — which is to play sexist pig. He could be a great guy who just doesn’t get it.

But, really? None of that matters when it comes time to discuss his finished product. What matters is that his language is consistently sexist — not just in the way he reinforced a male-normative mindset, but in the subject matter (or, at least, the way the subject matter was presented), right down to the words that he chose for women versus those he chose for men. Everything about this article reinforces the treatment of women as objects, and in that context I don’t think anything I’ve said here has been unreasonable.

In the end, the only thing that surprised me is that you chose to breakdown Linsner’s chapter “Women”, instead of Michael Turner’s “Sex Appeal” which then doesn’t even mention the existence of the male form. (as a footnote, I can only speculate, but i suspect your reason for not bothering with mr. turner’s rather egregious piece of writing is that it would be far too simple to rend into tiny pieces).

Ah, the answer is actually more simple than that. Lisner’s article was short and infuriating. I thought, “An excellent subject for a short and snarky post!” Hah. I forget that “short” is impossible when I try to deconstruct things, even if the original text is nothing more than a long blurb.

But I just realized: without even thinking about it, I do it equally every time. I use “males” once for every time I use “females”.

That’s once instance in which the “rules” can be bent — sometimes, as you said, specifying “women and girls” and “men and boys” just is too unwieldy, so using “males” and “females” is fine. It’s just making sure that your language equally applies to avoid the kind of gender imbalance that Lisner set up here.

Just one addition: to me, the phrases “female doctor” or “woman doctor” are equally offensive.

In most contexts, I agree with you. But there are times in which emphasising the gender is important — contrasting females in the profession versus males, or when I look for a gynocologist I specify that I want a female doctor… that sort of thing.

I suppose the difference is that I don’t think “woman [profession]” can ever be used inoffensively (possibly because it’s bad grammar and I’m a teeny bit of a grammar snob), whereas “female [profession]” has a limited scope in which its useful, so I only find it offensive when it’s being used to contrast “normal [professionals]” (ie. male) against “other [professionals]” (ie. female).