@enoch.... dude, PLEASE edit your posts. Seriously, that is just painfully difficult to read.

And yes, the term "friend zone" is an invention to shame women. The implication is always that a woman is being unkind or hurtful or even stupid by not realising the "nice guy" is the one she "should be with". It's patronising at best, creepy as fuck at worst.

Also, your anecdote has nothing to do with the "friend zone".

To some degree I kinda find a lot of sport infantile. Maybe we should just call the men boys more (Lochte springs to mind...).

It did make me cringe though. There were a few occasions where the commentators actually caught themselves doing it and corrected themselves. Thought overall I found the coverage of women in the Olympics to be broadly reverential and not, in the main, patronising, at least not on the BBC where I was watching it.

I agree that compassion is a better word to end with, but only because the word pity is a victim of some of the concepts touched on in this video, when we are pitied we interpret it negatively, we think it's patronising or demeaning, which may be feeding an unconscious fear that we're seen as feeble.
Pity: "The feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the sufferings and misfortunes of others"

Nobody can deny that the current situation made the life of that lady and her children infinitely more complicated, and it will make it more miserable in the future.

However, what about all the Chavs? No, I'm not being sarcastic. What about all the people whose life can hardly become more miserable, because it's been miserable all along with no hope for improvement? Life is shit for a lot of people, and it has been for a long time.

What were their options in this referendum?

Remain told them that their quality of living would decline in case of a Brexit, and that it would decline more slowly if they remain part of the EU. In short, they offered them fuck all. Any notion of reforming the EU from within to make it care about the proletariat is an illusion, and a costly one if you look at either Greece or the recessionary EU in general.

So they went with the demagogues, who spewed such outrageous lies that even Goebbels would be ashamed. But they made an offer nonetheless.

All this talk about stock prices or the exchange value of the Pound is meaningless dribble if you live in places like Nuneaton. How is telling them all to sod off an irrational decision if all they did for decades was shit on you?

So yeah, I fucking hate the anti-immigration part of the discussion. It's despicable. But the patronising reactions from not just the elites but also large swaths of the Remain campaign gives me assteroids.

The casual way they discuss how to ignore or reverse the result of the referendum is a sign of why it went this way in the first place. They look down on the decision made by "those people". It makes no sense to them, so it has to be irrational. Silly plebs are not informed enough to make smart decisions, let's educate them. Or better yet, let's make the decisions for them.

It just oozes condescension. And it breeds contempt.

To end on a personal note: how the German government now appears to be the moderating factor on the EU side is beyond fucked up, given how they were the ones to piss on the plebs the most with their anal fixation on austerity. You really cannot make this shit up...

Edit:
Here's one for sovereignty: just last night, Jean-Claude Juncker said that the European Commission doesn't want national parliaments to vote on CETA. What's the point of democracy then?

Well that's pretty patronising. I'll disabuse you of your misapprehension: I'm a lifelong fan. I've seen all of the series and all of the films. I understand Star Trek pretty fucking well. I think that what you don't understand is that these things are subjective.

I think the TNG films are horrid. Tired, clichéd, uninspired revenge plots that don't represent the TNG TV series or Roddenberry's ethos at all, and as you say, with an emphasis on irrelevant space action and some pretty egregious plot holes. And they are boring, which Roddenberry-era Trek never was, even at its most talky. It's not just the writing and production - half the time the actors are basically sleepwalking their way through the films, and are often completely different characterisations from their TV show incarnations (particularly Picard in First Contact).

That I prefer this trailer over the TNG films isn't so much praise for Beyond as disdain for the lazy work presented from Generations onwards.

"What if I told you that tickling them was like torture?"

Then I'd say: "please explain why this is and how you worked it out so I can contribute meaningfully to the issue."

Genuinely had to check after watching that this wasn't a hoax/satire. I'm not sure it could have come across as much more patronising and manipulative if they had tried.

Really reminded me of G.E.F.A.F.W.I.S.P. thing from brasseye in it's style and presentation. (Poe's law etc.)

Not that I disagree with the underlying point being made (most exotic pets have massive hidden costs to the animals well being), but I think they made it very poorly indeed.

If tickling is indeed torturous to them, then maybe make the flagship advert for your campaign do more than glibly announce "they don't like it!" whilst showing a video of what, to uneducated human sensibilities, appears to be joy/pleasure.

I'm not suggesting they are wrong, but even their website provides no materials or evidence to back up what they are saying. With a term as emotive and loaded as "torture", that comes across as rather disingenuous and makes me naturally somewhat suspicious as to their motives.

i.e. that they are likely ideologically opposed to most/all animal trafficking already and will happily muddy the facts & manipulate emotions if it furthers their higher purposes.

^ I don't want the above to come across as support for the Slow Loris pet trade, their unsuitability to domestic life and the need for pretty specialised knowledge to keep them healthy is reason enough (same as the vast majority of exotics). Chris Packham is one of the supporters and I have a great deal of respect for the guy's knowlage on such subjects.

But this, if anything, makes that advert seem all the more distasteful. YOU HAD EXPERTS! Persuade me better!

I also don't want to come across as suggesting that tickling definitely isn't deeply unpleasant for them for whatever reasons, but a cursory google and inspection of their own campaign site yielded nothing of any substance on the subject either way. (maybe my search-fu was lacking today?)

Again, I'm willing to accept the premise. If it will stand on it's own merits then I would like to understand. I will even advocate for the movement myself! But I'm not going to endorse anything I either can't or don't yet properly understand myself.

For every level headed campaigner with a basic sense of discernment and empathy for other creatures, there seems to be a mob of authoritarian ideologues eager to beat us around the head until we see things exactly their way and deny and semblance of nuance (i.e. PETA).

Nothing - absolutely nothing - that this video attributes to religion cannot be provided without it. "the challenge is to learn from religions?" Thank-you, but we have already. Religion is not didactic, it is dictatorship. Watch it again, and if you are not patronised by statements like love, art, community, sharing etc, are borne from religion, then you sadly need religion to think for you. Think for yourself. Be a good person for its own rewards not imaginary ones.

The explanation I heard was thus:
They didn't want to go with red, the tradtional Labour colour, because they wanted to make a statement that they were trying to reach out to women and break from the norm. So they went with pink, which is close to red but not red (symbolic of a change or break from the mainstream), is not affliliated with any of the other major parties, and is a bright, warm colour. Clearly they are still guilty of being so out of touch they couldn't see how it might be perceived, but I can sort of believe that the thinking wasn't purely " girls like pink, lets make a pink bus".

This all came to pass because of polls showing that voter turnout for women is abysmal (frankly I can't blame them...) so here is Labour making a clumsy stab to try and engage with half of the voting public.

I think it is silly to deny that men and women care more about different things. Is it patronising to focus on education, or childcare, or care for the elderly (all things women ranked higher than men) in order to try and score votes, or is perhaps the greater sin to simply ignore any difference and continue the existing dialogue which seems to be turning women away from politics in droves?

Your "obvious" solution has been progressing for years... Indeed Sarkeesian cherry picks games that offend her, but ignores that there are quite a few more games where women are protagonists, and /shock horror even dressed appropriately...

It's obviously not good enough for her, or apparently you...

As for your daughter and Mario, no, there's not something wrong with that. There are quite a few games (and more are coming) with female protagonists. Perhaps you should introduce her to Child of Light? Or let her play through the Longest Journey series? Guess what, not every game is going to give you the choice of a male/female protagonist, and I'm not sure why it's required. Honestly, I'd love it if reality TV shows about dumb socialites would disappear from the entertainment spectrum, but sadly I don't get to dictate to the media (or indeed the viewing public) what they should be doing.

In response to your points about the fight, you're right, and it should keep going and we should all try to support it. But Sarkeesian undermines that fight. Not because she dares to speak out, but how she does it. In her attacks, and they are attacks, she tars all male gamers as either deliberately misogynistic or hopelessly naive. That's great, really, you convince people to support you by insulting them continuously?

As for this snide little bit of crap...

"Look, I'm sorry people pointing out to you how fucked up it is how women are sometimes portrayed in games is somehow ruining your ability to enjoy games. But there are serious problems here. Maybe not problems for you, but problems for people like my daughter. "

This is a problem you and Anita share... Presumption. That just because I think she's a hack, that somehow she's ruining my fun (she isn't), that I support a male character domination of the industry (I don't), that there shouldn't be more strong female characters represented (there should) and so on and so forth. You have concocted a scenario in your head and jumped straight to the insults without ever bothering to find out what my opinion on the games (as opposed to the person blasting them) is...

Would it be sexist/misogynist to think that the woman in the article is batshit insane?

http://thelibertydoll.com/2014/08/22/meet-woman-reduce-male-population-90-for-peace/

Not because she's a woman, but because of what she's saying, and how she's saying it. This is why I object to Sarkeesian and think she's a shameful opportunist who's willing to set back feminism in her quest for fame or perhaps relevance..

"You can still have your Damsel/Dude in Distress trope, by the way. I have no doubt lazy developers will continue to use it as a substitute for meaningful story. Just don't expect people not to call out the utter absurdity of it, is all I'm saying."

Oh, it's my trope now... /eyeroll

I can't point out how ridiculous it is to try and kill off a trope that pervades every aspect of human story telling since the dawn of time without it becoming my personal favourite? Pro tip, if you're trying to convince someone of a viewpoint, it usually helps not to be a patronising git... X D

I think she's opportunistic and more interested in pumping up her profile than legitimately advancing feminism.

She picked the one media that was guaranteed to get a worldwide furor (the 'establishment' loves to hate vid games, but movies/books/magazines or heaven forfend rap bloody music, meh, yesterdays news) by lambasting mostly male, mostly young guys for playing games where, frequently, women fulfill the same stereotypical roles they do everywhere else in our culture...

The same demographic that is most likely to, clad in the armour of anonymity and mounted on the soapbox of the internet, to say the most horrible and abominable things (things they would never dare say to the face of an actual female)...

She's a troll and she barely needed to bait to get the desired reaction... Ironically, she's also patronising as hell because us guys are obviously too fucking stupid to understand that women are still objectified... /eyeroll

But the internet will keep giving her exactly what she wants (and needs) to stay relevant. Like any good troll, they only go away if you actually ignore them, and that ain't going to happen.

ps. For the record, I have no skin in the GG bs either way, the whole thing is a bad joke and completely abrogated so idiots on either side of the line can insult and attack each other.

Where did I infer that; ""shit works okay, why should we bother trying to do better?" Nowhere. You appear to have missed my comment; "But we are getting there." Which, obviously, implies things are being done.
As for your patronising; " When you have seen enough information/had enough experiences." Not that it matters, but I have been around the world 3 times. I have seen - first hand - the sad state of some countries and try to do my bit.
FYI, technology and healthcare DOES actively reduce abuses. Also, we source from cheaper countries so that our goods are cheaper. Does that include bad working/remuneration packages? Sadly it does. But fair trade agreements are starting to tackle the issues. As badly off as some workers are, do you propose that we don't deal with the companies that exploit them? That would not be in their interest as they would have no income at all. And it would not be in our interest as we all like affordable goods. In that regard you are right, we are ALL complicit, but then we are all after making our money go further for our families.
Life is not fair my friend but, as I said, we are getting there.

This is so patronising

Hang on, if he's required to be patronising every time he listens to say politicians he'd end up with a rep as a huge twit.

Rodman's ineffectual and confused rhetoric said it all. But being impolite to your guest, no matter who they are or what they say, is not particularly clever.

George didn't need to dismiss him quite so patronisingly at the end.

Rodders needed to be a bit more savvy in how he spun his visit - he just comes across as missing a few gears.

We'll get there. I'm sure @ChaosEngine will respond again, he's a last-word kind of guy.

Hey @ChaosEngine, I agree, the video is stupid, but I wasn't commenting on the video, I was commenting on your gender-bias'ed ideas about what careers suit which sex.

Male nurses? WTF AM I RIGHT.
>> ^Unsung_Hero:

>> ^ChaosEngine:
>> ^KnivesOut:
What do we gain by having more people in science? How about more science?
Christ, would you please go back and read my post? I've already said I want "more capable, passionate scientists".
>> ^KnivesOut:
The point (that you're missing) is that by encouraging more people to be interested in science, we'll hopefully get more scientists, and at the very least, more smart people. How is that a bad thing?
You I doubt you'll get "more smart people". The percentage of "smart people" will stay the same as it roughly always has. You'll just get more mediocre people doing things they're not good at.
That said, more scientific literacy can't be a bad thing. But I'm not arguing against more people in science. I'm asking why we need more of insert-demograhpic-here in science. I don't give a rats arse what their gender, race, orientation is. This kind of thing just feels like quota filling.
>> ^KnivesOut:
I've worked with plenty of those programmers that you describe, primarily people with dollar signs in their eyes. Sure, if you don't love it enough to read a C++ book while your wife is in labor (guilty) you may not be the kind of person I'd give the nod to in an interview. At the same time, I'm glad that the world has more programmers. Hell I'm glad the world has more bad programmers, because it makes us good ones look that much better when we clean up their messes.
I'm not. That's a pretty selfish attitude to be honest. I would rather see those people doing something they're good at, or at least something they like.
>> ^KnivesOut:
I'm not sure why you're upset about the idea of the world having a high proportion of smart people.

I don't disagree with promoting science.
So far, even if you agree with the goal and methodology, it's a complete fail. This wouldn't convince a single teenage girl that science is cool. The ones that think it's nerdy will have that confirmed to them by this desperate attempt to be cool and the ones that like science will be disgusted by this patronising bullshit.
Now if there are barriers to women in science, they should be removed.

I just wanted to be part of this extremely long quoted comment. Are we near the record yet!?