Numbness to GameDay misogyny

Submitted by 950_Blue on

While at a bar watching Gameday before the Cincinnati game, a female friend of mine commented on the requisite 'Ann Arbor is a whore' sign bobbing up and down in the background. As an 18 year old freshman male, I must confess I found these signs and t-shirts fairly funny, and figured Michigan must be doing something right to get so much attention. In turn, I bought a few of my own that jabbed at the usual suspects while en route to Michigan Stadium and Crisler, and was easily acculturated to yelling about how it was 'all their fault' at Yost.

As a 36 year old, I'm ashamed to say the misogynistic quality of that sign, though similar to several others each week televised on national television, was still lost on me. Male sporting events are no doubt a remaining bastion for easy bigotry and sexism, but they can also be a place for Michigan to lead by example. These signs, t-shirts, and chants aren't ironic, they're not witty, and here's hoping the next generation of Michigan Men and Women uphold a more advanced sense of social awareness than mine did. Perhaps we can listen more closely to the lyrics of another common ritual at every game and show how we really are the Leaders and Best.

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TheLastHarbaugh

September 11th, 2017 at 11:38 AM ^

And in another bit of irony, most of the white moderates today who trumpet this cartoonish version of MLK as a kumbaya, everybody sing and get along caricature of the man, were the very people MLK pointed the finger to as being the biggest hurdle in achieving his goals.

Lest we forget the letter from Birmingham jail...

"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

Joined: 08/06/2008

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ScooterTooter

September 11th, 2017 at 12:11 PM ^

Of course, the people I am talking about were....roughly 10 years old by the time MLK Jr. died. 

By MLK Jr. creed, I mean they tried very hard to live by the idea of judging people as individuals. I never heard a racial slur from either of  my parents, never was not allowed to hang out with kids because they were black, never not allowed to have kids over because they were black, etc. The one instance of racism I witnessed was when I was a teen, when an employee of my dad's claimed a client said something racist to him. My dad dropped the client. I know that to the modern progressive this is flawed and imperfect, but the level of vitriol (which I'm sure hides just behind your post!) given toward these people (again, my family) is astounding and goes far beyond calling someone a whore. 

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TheLastHarbaugh

September 11th, 2017 at 10:48 AM ^

But even that's not really what the concept of privilege is. 

Privilege is something that gets thrown around a lot, and people always seem to get up in arms over it, but it should be the least controversial and most benign point imaginable.

All privilege asserts is--all else being equal--if you're in X position, whether it's poor, rich, applying for a job, dealing with the criminal justice system, trying to get a work published, etc...it is virtually always better to be a member of the majority or advantaged group, than it is to be a member of a minority or disadvantaged group.

For example, if both people are poor, a person who is transgender and poor, is going to have a harder time than a person who is cisgender and poor.

It's a fairly simple concept that has gone through the internet bullshit machine and now it's almost guaranteed to cause offense and start a slapfight the instant it's brought up.

Frankly, the term "privilege" is a poor descriptor of the concept, as it denotes some special luxury as opposed to rights or disenfranchisement of minority groups relative to the majority.

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wolverine1987

September 11th, 2017 at 10:41 AM ^

but we all fall victim to that sometime thriough anger or annoyance. To my recollection I haven't done that, and I don't think most people on the board have either. But to be clear, calling someone a pussy is not misogyny--that is a fact, read the defintion. It is poor behavior, and immature, but that is an entirely different subject. 

So bottom line--your "evidence" is not evidence at all. But you want to believe your point on faith, and you're free to do so.

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SpikeFan2016

September 11th, 2017 at 12:24 AM ^

I'm not sure that the Ann Arbor line is the best example, it's mostly just dumb humor and a stupid joke used by our rivals. 

 

The one example of this I will say is a problem and should change is the student section's very newfound tradition of yelling "bitch!" at the end of the You Suck chant. It's in poor taste, needless, sexist and NOT a Michigan tradition. 

This very recently happened. In the 2012 through 2014 seasons, not a single person in the student section said this. In 2015, my senior year, towards the middle/end of the season the top parts of the student section (i.e. predominantly freshman) started to break it out, but it was only a minority of the section and the upperclassmen were typically verbally displeased (yelling "shut up" and things like that).

By the time I went back for a game in the 2016 season, the entire section had adopted it as those young students grew older/moved down, a large portion of those of us who didn't say it graduated and new freshman came in thinking it was normal. 

 

We don't need to stoop to the vulgar student section chants used by OSU ("rip his fucking head off"), Wisconsin ("fuck you, eat shit") and MSU (first down, bitch! Fuck Michigan, they suck balls!). We were better than that for a long time and should be again. "You suck" alone is a pretty tame, PG way to get a 4th down chant across. 

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PapabearBlue

September 11th, 2017 at 12:32 AM ^

I've never considered bitch as a sexist term. I mean, it classifies a type of behavior that both men and women exhibit. I think the real sexism here is you assuming that only women can be bitches.

BUUUUT, I agree about the vulgarity of the student section needing to go.

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SpikeFan2016

September 11th, 2017 at 12:56 AM ^

The sole reason why "bitch" is "funny" in this context is because it's implying that the football team that just failed to get a first down is feminine and woman-like, which is what the history of that insult is associated with.

Sure, anyone can "act" that way, and I never assumed otherwise. But to ignore the fact that bitch is not a gender-neutral term in the context of society and history is intellectually lazy. 

Let me try to explain with an example.

If a teenage girl hurt herself in some sort of painful but not severe way (say a bad trip and fall with scrapes and bruises) and responded by crying in public in front of a group of her friends, she would not be likely at all to be called a bitch. If a teenage boy did the same exact thing, he'd be much, much more likely to be called a bitch (either to his face or behind his back).

Why is this? Because he's supposed to be tougher than she is because he's a guy and she's not. Thus, the underlying logic of this insult when directed towards men is "being a woman is inferior to being a man".   

 

Now, you may say that in this example the boy is the one being the victim of sexism given he's actually being insulted and to that I would agree. Sexist standards hurt both men and women, but they're all derived on the ingrained bias of male superiority. But if your inclination, as you imply above, is that the proper answer should be to call BOTH the girl and boy a bitch to be fair, rather than neither of them, then your real perogative is feeling a need to put others down. 

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SpikeFan2016

September 11th, 2017 at 1:16 AM ^

You did literally say that bitch "classifies as a type of behavior that both men and women exhibit." Pretty directly works as an implication to my example. 

 

Definitely much less of a leap than you throwing out that I apparently assume only women can be called bitches. I'm a man and have been called a bitch myself, so not sure why I'd think that. 

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JWG Wolverine

September 11th, 2017 at 12:45 AM ^

I have hated the addition of that word to the chant as much as the fact that less and less people actually know the real name of the song that accompanies it. It comes off as very sparty-like to me, because it's the exact type of thing a student section over at state does. I don't even bitch (no irony intended) about the chant as a whole anymore because I just want them to at least get rid of this new addition students have made, even though as this commenter said, the students before that told them to stop.

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BursleyBaitsBus

September 11th, 2017 at 12:55 AM ^

I really hope we didn't add "bitch" to the big house lingo. Nothing is more Sparty than that especially considering that their first down chant is "1 2 3 First Down Bitch" bahahaahaha. Secondly why are people annoyed about Big House chants when Yost has a 40x worse chant for hockey? Big house is PG compared to the Cya cheer in hockey...

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LSA91

September 11th, 2017 at 9:38 AM ^

I'm not usually part of the language police, but I am pedantic and analytical, so:

Is "you suck" misogynist or homophobic? Thinking it through, my guess is that it means that performing oral sex on a man is an inferior act.

I honestly don't get the "Ann Arbor is a whore" sign, though. Why is that even funny?

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ReegsShannon

September 11th, 2017 at 9:44 AM ^

I was literally saying this exact same thing on Saturday, and my girlfriend was telling me I was crazy and that there were always a large amount of people adding "bitch" to the end. 

It really does ruin the cheer. I always viewed "You suck" as juvenile in a playful/fun way. "Bitch" just makes it way more aggressive/angry/Spartyish.

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bacon

September 11th, 2017 at 12:18 AM ^

I've never understood this reference. It's not like people hold up signs like: Columbus was a murdering fraud, or East Lansing is the lesser Lansing. Is there some Ann Arbor origin story that we're supposed to care about as Michigan fans?

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philclar

September 11th, 2017 at 12:20 AM ^

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your post, but it's not Michigan fans wearing the "Ann Arbor is a whore" shirt/bearing that sign. Perhaps equally pedantic and misogynistic, Michigan fans wear the "If Ann Arbor is a whore, then why didn't you get in?" shirts. 

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PapabearBlue

September 11th, 2017 at 12:26 AM ^

Kind of like the misogyny of suggesting that we need a university to help women because they aren't capable of doing it without Michigan leading the way?

 

Also, this isn't even misogyny, it's just an insult. It doesn't automatically become some sort of anti-sjw sleight because it's about a woman.

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SpikeFan2016

September 11th, 2017 at 12:35 AM ^

In what sort of twisted world view is helping someone or standing up for them offensive to them?

Are people who donate to Hurricane victims in Houston and Florida being offensive and condescending because those people should be capable of doing it themselves? Should the United States not defend South Korea from the hostile North to avoid offending the people of Seoul? Were the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s offensive to black people? 

 

What is it that makes doing or saying the right thing so problematic? 

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PapabearBlue

September 11th, 2017 at 12:45 AM ^

Because the "misogyny" of the situation is fictional and thus you've created a situation wherein women are weak and need to be rescued out of fiction.

Also it's pretty fucked up that you are trying to use the actual terrible events of a hurricane as some sort of strawman argument about doing right and wrong in the face of telling women that they need your help because some people called a person a whore. Which, btw, is actually you being misogynistic.

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Chuck Norris

September 11th, 2017 at 12:55 AM ^

That just doesn't ring true for me. No one is "telling women that they need our help." (the "our" here being men).

Saying "hey, it's kind of fucked up that someone is calling someone else a whore" doesn't assume that the person being called a whore can't handle it. If I slap you, and someone else says "hey, you shouldn't have slapped him", that's not necessarily because they don't believe you're strong enough to take a slap. It's because it was wrong of me to slap you, just like it would be wrong of me to call you a whore.

Plus, it's still true that sexual promiscuity in women is viewed much more negatively by society than it is for men. The fact that "whore" and "slut" are used as derogatory terms almost univesally for women proves that. There is no derogatory word for a sexually promiscuous man, other than "man whore," and that's almost never meant to be truly derogatory.

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PapabearBlue

September 11th, 2017 at 2:11 AM ^

Your entire first two paragraphs have literally nothing to do with this discussion. This isn't about someone calling someone else a whore, it's about the implication that someone calling someone else a whore is sexist and thus needs to stop for the betterment of all women.

As if:

1) Calling a single woman a whore is a sleight against ALL women.

2) All women need help because a single woman was called a whore.

That final paragraph is some massively personal interpretation shit. I don't think there's anything wrong with anyone being a whore and maybe rather than suggesting that we shouldn't use these words to "end misogyny" we shouldn't use these words because it's just not cool to be shitty to other people.

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Chuck Norris

September 11th, 2017 at 8:19 AM ^

I agree with most of that. People should stop being shitty to people. The point of the discussion is that in this specific instance, the word "whore" is almost always used to refer to a woman when it's meant to be truly derogatory. When a guy is called a whore, it's almost always a joke.

And I know that you can find instances where the reverse is true, but in aggregate women are viewed in a more negative light for being promisuous. Just like men are viewed in a more negative light for, say, being violent (e.g. if a girl slaps a guy, she's just "a little crazy." If a guy slaps a girl he's a monster). And there are large sweeping societal reasons that these issues exist, but that doesn't make the specific instances any worse or better.

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