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Yes, @thelivingroyale, I was talking about misogyny. I guarantee most of the people who call him that don't even know the meaning of the term.
The sexism of James Bond could even be debatable, at times. While the Bond of the books (it's easier to talk of his sexist side when discussing the original) was very biting in his views of Vesper, and how he thought women like her shouldn't hold a job involving contact with men like him, Bond is also the first person to support women who can do the job, or who do rise to the occasion to do what must be done. He didn't take to Vesper immediately because she treated him like a hero for killing people, and that didn't leave a great first impression on him. He's later quite right to feel angered at her performance, he just mislabels her as incompetent, and not as a woman in over her head at the pressure of another organization. But his anger and resentment comes from a genuine place, and in some ways he was right to criticize Vesper because she was as in over her head and ill-suited to the work as he prophesied. His mistake was putting too much of that criticism on the idea that it was because she was a woman, instead of an ill-suited person for the job.
But look at those like Gala Brand or Tiffany Case, women who hold what could be viewed for the time as very masculine positions, far more masculine than anything Vesper did for her job. Gala is a policewoman and Tiffany is a big league diamond smuggler, both dangerous, high-pressure jobs that ask a lot of the person working the occupation and that are, to this day, more masculine seeming jobs as they are authority and crime based, attributes not popularly ascribed to women. And yet we don't hear Bond going into the same random lashings about women having mens' jobs when he meets these ones, nor is he ever heard calling out Gala or Tiffany and belittling them or their work because they're women. The opposite, in fact. Bond marvels at Gala's ability to remain disconnected and focused on only the work, a trait he respects but also feels challenged by (he wants to make her feel for him) and her ability to actively help him oppose Drax proves the idea he already had of her: that she was a driven and fantastic investigator. When it turns out that Gala is already betrothed to another, Bond's immediate reaction isn't even to call her out as a flirty, manipulative woman or a promiscuous cheat. Instead, he blames himself for not realizing the purpose of her ring and seeing the truth, and he walks away because he respects her and her choice.
With Tiffany, Bond is beyond impressed and mystified by this alluring and captivating woman who also has amazing focus, professionalism and her own code that she keeps to. Like Gala, she is driven and not caught up in romancing men, but not for her job and instead for a very personal reason that keeps Bond engaged to her. When the spy finds out about her dark past, he is only spurred on in his interest in her, not only for the fascination and respect he holds for her, but also for the desire he feels to protect her.
So in many ways, Bond views women as we as people would view anyone working with us on a certain task. If they are bad at their job, it's easy to be biting and remorseless in our criticisms, but if we think they can do their jobs well, we look beyond anything, including gender, and give them that respect and notice. Bond does at times (again, like with Vesper) say things approaching "Damn women" territory, but he also has a greater respect for women and a far more open mind as to what women can or should be allowed to do (including the jobs they take and how they should act around men) than what I'm sure would be the majority of his generation. Bond is a puddle under the feet of women, prepared to do anything for those he fancies, and that very much comes from a place in his heart where he can't get enough of them. And this love he has isn't for their symbol or for their role, to serve a man like him, it's just plain love, and quite an agreeable and overall egalitarian love.
Bond doesn't expect women to serve him or act to his whims, he in fact gives them the choice he'd given anyone. When he looks at Gala or Tiffany he'd be the last to say, "Women, doing THAT job?" to the chortles of his fellow men, just like his repulsion at what happened to Tiffany and Honey during their respective rapes is so telling. He despises when women are used or made to do things they don't wish to do, especially when it comes to very intimate things. Bond loves sex and beautiful women, but the thought of making a woman do something with him she didn't want, or worse, the act of forcing them to do something with him, is beyond vile to him. Bond's interest begins and ends with consent, and that need for consent that he must reach with a woman again comes from a place that respects them and wishes for them to have a say in whatever he wants them to do.
To make a long story short, you could find some minor examples where Bond espouses what could be argued to be sexist thoughts or ramblings, but I think his larger actions and words in other instances really show the overriding view he has on the matter of women, which is, for his time, a very progressive one.
Seriously ??!!!
A PC world
Does this mean all the people who demand statues of the likes of Nelson and Rhodes be torn down will now turn their opprobrium on Neil Armstrong?
They were all heroes when judged by the standards of their day but now we realise they displayed disgusting attitudes that are simply unacceptable when viewed from today's moral high ground.
@TheWizardOfIce, the same thing is happening in the states, where statues of confederate generals are being torn down because it took people all this time since they were built to get offended. I guess the general idea in removing statues of people like Robert E. Lee is to protest the pro-slavery attitudes of confederate leadership a century and a half since the confederacy and slavery died out. The same people that call for these pro-slavery confederates' images to be torn down are wearing extremely rose-tinted glasses, however, as there is very little to separate the likes of Lee or Jefferson Davis from our founding fathers when it comes to that particular moral issue, who openly kept slaves, treated blacks as barely a fraction of a human being and who had little concern in stopping slavery from their high seats. My stance on Trump is known, but he had a point when he asked when it would end. If the confederate statues go, shouldn't Washington and Jefferson's statues go too with that same logic (or lack of it)?
But all this outrage speaks to the mood of the time and how thick we've gotten. People only care about things when they are trendy now, when they feel in on something with others. Most people in my country had no problem with the confederate statues as theywere walking or driving past them for decades, and like most of our history, they probably didn't even know the statues were commemorating confederate history or even who the men depicted were or what they did. But one day a group got offended by one statue and the state caved to their whining, tearing the statue down and showing everyone else the power they had if they cried and threw a loud enough tantrum. Before you know it a trend was set up around having confederate images removed, because it became the "trendy" thing to do whether you understood what the statues meant or not.
And with all trends, these ignorant buffoons will soon forget about their statue crusade and start a new trend by being outraged by something else. My predictions? I bet one day people will be mad Washington and Jefferson had slaves, so a group of snowflakes will get the government to chip them off Mount Rushmore, leaving the word, "Racist" where their faces once were. And maybe the name of "The White House" will one day trigger snowflakes too much with the racist connotation that can be made of the title, and suggest the building be painted a neutral blue or hot pink to avoid having its color suggest white supremacy and anti-black notions.
In this world, nothing would surprise me. Christmas is on its way and more snowflakes are bound to suffocate us to fit the season.
And I do not mind female directors as long as they deliver a decent movie.
I got a hearty chuckle out of the title of that, not even going to bother looking into it.
If people genuinely believe that the cause of rampant, unchecked sexual abuse and rape in Hollywood is due to there not being enough female directors, then they need a proper brain examination.
Perhaps - stick with me, this is a radical and CRAZY idea - they should simply root out the sexual abuse and put an end to it when it begins? It's no secret that Weinstein was doing this for decades, so why it was suddenly a topic of "shocked outrage" (something I also don't buy for a second) is beyond me.
Exactly, @Creasy47, these kinds of things don't end when more women are around; you're not getting to the heart of the issue. It was apparently an open secret what Weinstein was doing to a shocking degree of people, and yet nobody banded together to roast him either at the top or amongst the creative community below him. This isn't about shaming victims or anything like that, but when you know of such a widespread issue, whether you're a woman or a man in the industry, I think it's on you to speak up. So many women violated because people thought Harvey was too high on the Hollywood ladder to touch and would make sure they never worked again. Sometimes things are worth sacrificing.
Pathetic,it never did me any harm or my kids :
Smacking children to be banned in Scotland.
Scotland is set to become the first part of the UK to introduce an outright ban on smacking children, after the Scottish government confirmed it would ensure that a member’s bill to give children equal protection from assault becomes law.
John Finnie, the justice spokesperson for the Scottish Greens, has proposed a member’s bill to remove the defence of “justifiable assault” from Scottish law, giving children the same legal protection as adults.
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “Mr Finnie’s proposals are not a Scottish government bill; however, we will ensure the proposals become law. We believe physical punishment can have negative effects on children which can last long after the physical pain has died away. We support positive parenting through, for example, funding for family support services.”
Finnie said on Thursday: “Giving children equal protection against assault will send a clear message to all of us about how we treat each other and underpin Scotland’s efforts to reduce violence.
“The physical punishment of children is already illegal in 52 countries and my proposal will give children in Scotland the necessary protections to flourish in a healthy environment and encourage the building of stronger relationships between children, their parents and others who care for them.”
The UK is currently one of four countries in the European Union that have not committed to legal reform over the physical punishment of children. The Welsh government announced in June its own plans to consult on removing the defence of “reasonable chastisement” for parents.
A three-month public consultation on Finnie’s proposed bill, which took place over the summer, received an overwhelmingly positive response from organisations and individuals, including the Scottish Police Federation, Unicef UK and the NSPCC.
Finnie’s bill received a further boost as Scottish Labour said supporting it was “the right thing to do”. Labour’s education spokesperson, Iain Gray, said: “Labour MSPs have discussed John Finnie’s bill and do believe that the time has come to provide children with the same protection as adults under the law.”
You can guarantee that some problem children will hold their parents or single parent to ransom with this coming in.
That's a given ,Rogue me old mate.
My eldest daughter used to joke to me about doing it and I would hand her the phone and say 'go on then' with a wink,
Now,if they say that,what the hell can a parent do or say ?
The kid's can do what they want...they can even lie about it and still instigate an investigation,tarnishing the reputation of the parent regardless.
Indeed. I think I would take the same tactic as you, but also add that if you were to go down this road? You would suddenly realise that the REAL WORLD is not such a rose tinted place, and that their life will change almost overnight.
Would love to see the face of some precocious tosser of a child grassing their parents up only to find themselves plucked from surburbia and dumped into the care system.
This is why children are classed as children and not granted certain responsibilities such as voting or driving because they don't yet possess the mental maturity to make correct decisions.
I presume following on from this the government will also outlaw the far more serious mental abuse of allowing parents to indoctrinate their children in whatever particular religious delusion they themselves suffer from? Because this is a far more insidious abuse with more far reaching consequences than a clip round the ear.
So true..but that's taboo to these cowardly councils and politicians.
They're too shit scared to go down that route and upset the so called 'minorities'.
Just as I was finishing nightshift this morning they start closing roads near Wembley for Diwali. They had a permit to do this from 17.00 this evening but not 06.00 so I was going to force them to reopen the road as per the terms of their permit but my manager instructed me to leave it as 'it's religious.'
So if you had a shit morning trying to get to work on the North Circ today I did my best but my hands were tied by TfL gutlessness to force religion to abide by the same laws as the rest of us. You try closing roads in London outside the terms of your permit and see how big your fine is but for religion anything goes as usual.
I'm not even remotely surprised by this shit anymore.
We really are the minorities in our own country.(Whats left of it anyway.)
We shouldn't be walloping kids daily, of course, but a small smack on the rear has a way of telling the child, "No, you shouldn't do that again" sometimes more than words they can just ignore. When I was little and I did something bad, I was far more likely to listen if I got a pat than if I didn't, though those situations didn't really come up as I didn't have that kind of relationship with my parents. I don't think one should rule out small smacks and pats for parenting, as sometimes they are needed. If your kid is ridiculing the kids of the neighboring house and pushing them over onto the pavement, I think a smack is warranted to make sure they know what they did wrong. But the myth that these small smacks of reprimand will lead to decade's long impacts on their brains and sense of functioning is lunacy. I turned out fine, partly because I always knew what was wrong and what wasn't...and that comes from proper parenting! I don't look bad at times when my parents yelled at me and thought, "Wow, how traumatic" I thank them for stepping in and teaching me not to do whatever it was again.
What a tender world it would be, Wiz...
But as we know, the physical side of life always has precedence over the mental. Insurance is ready to cover physical injury because you can't ignore someone losing an arm in a wreck, but if the mind is harmed we can't see that, like it's almost not there, and so why offer coverage for mental trauma?
In the same token, Scotland is up in arms about parents having moderate tools to teach their children lessons about right and wrong, but are completely devoid of any sense when it comes to the dangerous mental manipulation of what you speak of. Because we can't see the seeds being planted in kids brains from early trips to church and worship, we don't really know what's going on until it's too late. I simply think kids should be given the right to make up their own decisions, and just as my parents never dragged me to church I wouldn't do the same for my kid either. I'd let them make up their own damn mind when they were of an age to understand what it all meant, instead of forcing it on them.
I have to agree with you guys on all that you have written! The PC brigade is crippling parents to teach right and wrong. Or even to have an opinion or free speech for that matter.
Would you care to elaborate please? Women are treaded just as unfairly inside most jewish communities.
https://www.avclub.com/how-the-hell-did-this-racist-kelloggs-corn-pop-happen-1819886765
I've bolded parts of the full article here, marking for supreme stupidity and over-reaction:
In an attempt to make sugary sweet popcorn breakfast cereal appealing to kids, Kellogg’s recently decorated the back of its Corn Pops boxes with a fun search game—one involving anthropomorphic corn-pop “ninjas,” pinwheeling through a shopping mall. While the game gives children something to study intently while ignoring the warning signs of divorce, and it even has the added benefit of teaching them what shopping malls were, Marvel Comics writer Saladin Ahmed noticed another lesson it was imparting—that in this world, brown corn pops get to be the janitor.
Indeed, out of all the naked, oddly narcotized-looking ninjas scattered across the box, there’s only one wearing clothes, and there’s only one who’s been tasked with working while the rest are free to shop and cavort—and it’s the brown one. Why this one corn pop is brown is another question: Does it imply that he was an improperly popped factory mistake? Or is it a subtle suggestion that corn pops, by their nature, come in different colors—and if so, why have we only until now been made aware of them?
But the more pressing question, as Ahmed points out, is what art department troll deliberately made that single, brown, “other” corn pop the guy who has to wear a uniform and clean up after all the other corn pops? Why doesn’t the brown corn pop get to be part of the “ninja” fun, in whatever bizarre, loosely martial arts-related free-for-all world you’ve created here—a society where yellow corn pops can snorkel in public fountains and skateboard down escalators with impunity, but brown corn pops have to wax their floors, with only their outdated Walkmen to entertain them? What kind of f***ed-up division of corn pop labor is this, and what else could you possibly be trying to say with it? And furthermore, how the hell did this get past anyone?
To the company’s credit, it responded almost immediately to Ahmed, pledging to update the box artwork and get them out to stores soon. “Kellogg respects all people and is committed to diversity,” spokesperson Kris Charles said in a statement. “We take feedback very seriously, and it was never our intention to offend anyone. We apologize sincerely.”
Of course, no one ever really expected “diversity” from their corn pops in the first place; they are literally just sugared packing peanuts with no extraneous personalities, and that is what’s so soothing about them. And understandably, this has vexed Kellogg’s since their invention, as the company has struggled to find a suitable mascot since the 1960s, when early TV stars Guy Madison and Woody Woodpecker gave way to a series of increasingly desperate inventions—everything from a gunslinging prairie dog to a cowboy with a whip to a lady porcupine, when the whole Western craze died off. We get it: It’s not easy to come up with a way to make tiny beige corn niblets seem “fun” and “approachable.” But if you’re going to create a whole Corn Pop world, then suddenly try to integrate it, for fuck’s sake, give them each an equal share of the workload.
Every day is a fresh sign the world has lost it.
It's already illegal in 52 countries including Sweden since the late seventies and New Zealand recently. They've been doing worldwide studies on the effects of corporal punishment for decades. I think Scotland will be ok. It avoids normalising a defence of 'justifiable violence' in court cases - and it also erodes the defence of continued violence against children on the grounds of 'religious beliefs' or 'cultural traditions'.