It’s certainly that.
And perhaps using some narrow definition of sexism/sexist one could debate if the cartoon is actually sexist or not but for want of finding a more accurate word or form of words to describe how the cartoon would appear to others in our supposedly more enlightened times (!), I will accept sexist as a lazy way to describe the cartoon…
Is this comic really worth getting angry and burning bridges over?
The comic depicts the sexist reality of the unwanted romantic attention that frequently burdens all women. Ultimately, it fails at humor, since it is not a funny situation, but it does say something about society.
A charitable interpretation of the comic would be to say that it is meant as critical satire putting down male Go players, and that we are meant to cringe at the behavior of the men in the second panel, as we remind ourselves how common this is and realize how it is uncomfortable, at best, and far too often, even worse. The caption of the second panel saying “She is also Mary” reaffirms that she is the same, but it is her environment that is different, which reminds us that we should not blame the victim or fault women for their misfortune of simply existing in a sexist society. The first panel provides a baseline for normalcy, where Mary and her co-workers are each occupied with their own tasks, which contrasts with all of the attention being focused on her in the second panel.
However, given the context provided the original poster, perhaps this satirical interpretation was not really the intent. By trying to cast the situation as simply funny, it downplays the problem of these types of experiences, which are far too common and often escalate to much worse.
Getting angry about an act of injustice is reasonable, but this thread is not about that, regardless of a “it bring it to light” argument.
The thread derailed fairly fast and then became a front for personal views on a “bigger issue”.
It’s as appropriate as me asking “would feminists turn to terrorist bombings a la Charlie Hebdo if “white men” don’t accept that this is offensive”?
well, on the archipelago that is off the north west coast of Europe women did turn to terrorism in the early 20th century because they couldn’t vote…
Are you referring to Emmeline Pankhurst of the British Women’s Social and Political Union?
And that
is Great Britain?
yep
Your description did puzzle me for a while 
I always confuse archipelago with peninsula, so I was also quite puzzled for a while…
I got into a little bother on another thread and someone referred to Britain as the archipelago and I thought it was a much better way of describing where I live.
I wanted to say the British archipelago but I had done some reading around at the time and discovered that even describing these islands as British could be problematic!
Such is life for some us that live in this disunited kingdom
I said I didn’t want to contribute anything more, but actually, I’m still not sure what I’m supposed to make of this. This was the point where I thought “She’s joking, right?”, because honestly, this sounded like you’re imitating the annoying kind of woman that yells “Sexist!” at every notion of men and women having different interests, so I tried to go along with the joke.
Now that you obviously put much effort into defending your position, I have to take this seriously and I respect what you said later. But it really is annoying that I can’t say “pottery classes are predominantly female and Go clubs male” without being called sexist. It’s as if I made a statement about which one is superior and which is inferior, which I didn’t; and if you think I did, that tells more about you than about me. Pottery and Yoga are awesome, and so are sewing and gardening.
Actually, it is not that easy to think of hobbies in organised groups open to all genders where one can reasonably expect a female majority without getting into clichés. Or even male. I can think of clubs for board games, hunting, fishing, and bowling (and other pub games), but even here we’re in clichés, no? I’d never see myself in any of those except Go, but pottery or yoga, sure.
Why couldn’t annoying men yell “Sexist!”?
The problem isn’t with pottery classes being inferior to go clubs (they aren’t), or with the objective truth that pottery classes often have more female attendants than male, and reversed for go clubs.
The problem is that you’re sketching pottery classes and yoga clubs as being something feminine, while they have objectively nothing to do with gender. It’s a sexist stereotype, that fits into a broader perspective that men and women have fundamentally different hobbies, values, roles. Such stereotypes are harmful, since thinking in these kinds of divides easily leads to condescension, prejudice and discrimination (even unconsciously).
I think you could say that without being called sexist but that is not what you said.
It’s harder to have this kind of debate in written form without tone/expression and such. However, using words like “whatever” and “girls” and a couple of examples with question marks certainly made me feel like it transmitted an implication of inferiority of hobbies which happen to have greater female participation.
I feel like I’m very late to the party so I’ll leave it there but I’d hope that we could all support the cause of encouraging a better gender balance in our hobby. I fear the comic would not encourage women to attend a go club…
Because Gia’s a woman and I assumed it would be natural to play the part of a woman. Just a matter of linguistics I guess; if she were a man, I’d have said man.
Or just say person/people
Yes, but what does it mean to play the part of a woman?
To me, there is no such thing.
It’s not relevant what the gender is of whoever is speaking. In wanting to respond differently because you know you’re talking to a woman and not to a man, you’re not treating someone’s arguments for what they are. That is, the things you wish to say do not depend on the content of what is written, but on who has said it.
You’re right, I should have been more careful. And well (without trying to put the blame away from me, I just want to make clear how it came about), Leira said it wouldn’t be realistic with a Go club, so I was trying to say it as if I had to go out of my way to make something up just to make it more realistic.
Yes, that’s the sensible thing to do, but it doesn’t come naturally for the way I speak and think in my language to use a word like “person”, or even “human”. I could also have said “somebody who is annoying”, that’s another way I would form the sentence in my head before translating it.
The first step of emancipation is realising there is a problem. Being aware that you’re (general you) “wired” by language to think a certain way is only evidence of the fact that sexism, and other forms of discrimination, are deeply rooted in our society. They take effort to be removed, but it starts with being aware of your own biases.
There is also no point in blaming yourself for having those biases; everyone has them, exactly because discrimination is so deeply rooted in our society. But, there should be blame for being both consciously aware of being biased, and choosing not to counteract (since counteracting your own bias is the second step towards emancipation).
Having generated 80 posts in less as a day with your drawing, I am curious how these have contributed to your question.
So what’s your own analysis?
