Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    
    	Where do you *think* they are getting it from? Could it be those
    images they see on the #1 media today, the TV screen? Do you actually
    think those who program the TV *care anything* about "consciousness
    raising"? What proportion of all_that_is_learned comes from:
    
    	1) School and books?
    	2) Parental lessons?
    	3) TV and CRIME STORY?
    
    	Do most schools teach this attitude? I doubt it. Do most parents
    teach this attitude? I doubt it. Do most TV shows portray men acting
    out the mega-machismo role model? Yup. It's what *sells* the best,
    and who gives a damn about the societial impact of repetitive
    subliminal programming of negative roles.
    
    	Joe Jas
    
    
    	Joe Jas

    When I read this note, a few questions come to mind:
    1. Why do so many accused rapists go free?
    2. Why are rape charges filed less often than rapes occur?
    3. Why are punishments for convicted rapists so leniant?
    
    Instead of trying to push the blame for the childrens attitudes
    around, take responsibility for your share of their attitudes. I'm
    willing to bet that most people know or know about a lady that has
    been abused in some form or another. When you hear about it or see
    the results, what is your reaction? Horrified....terrified....outraged
    ...and justifiably so! Then what do you do? If you saw someone break
    into your neighbors home, or throw a rock through someones window,
    you'd probably call the police with a notebook full of information.
    But when a lady is beaten or raped by a husband or acquaitance,
    all of a sudden....it's THEIR problem. 
    	WRONG! Its our problem just as any other violation of the law
    should be. If you're afraid of losing a friend or feel it's none
    of your business, you're feeding that same fire that the children
    are using to develop their attitudes.
    	I have two boys, two and three years old. I hope to develop
    their attitudes by example. If they learn nothing else in their
    early years, I hope it is to respect the rights and feeling of others.
    Then when they begin interacting with others without my guidance,
    maybe they will be able to influence others by their example. It
    ought to be easy....right? I guess when they begin to hang around
    with children whose parents didn't take the time to teach by example,
    my efforts may go awry. But my boys will always know that daddy
    doesn't hit mommy. And when mommy and daddy fight, they talk (sometimes
    loudly) to work out their problems. But most of all, if a little
    girl hits them, they should hit her back....right?

	where do they get it from? - MTV ?

    RE: .3
    
       Its more like S&MTV.
    
    But that's what the majority of American's want so that's what we
    got to put up with.  BTW there is a European version of MTV which
    has more jazz and is a bit less harsh on the ear and the mind.  I would
    assume its like that other music channel VH1?
    
    
    BK

    re:.1
    
    Ah, the old chestnut that every ill of our society is generated
    by the t-word.
    
    In a word: bullshit.
    
    How much tv do you watch? I watch maybe about a hour's worth a
    day. The programs I watch (most notably CAGNEY AND LACEY and THE
    EQUALIZER) tend to portray men with the attitudes expressed by
    those Rhode Island schoolchildren as worthless scum to be either
    thrown in jail for life or terminated with extreme prejudice.
    
    TV may portray the footloose and fancy-free lifestyle as being
    something attractive, but the heroes of tv programs as a rule do
    not abuse women.
    
    So look for another donkey to pin the tail on.
    
    --- jerry

    I think we're fooling ourselves if we think those kids aren't
    getting it from us, the adult generation.  Probably part of that
    is television, but remember that television doesn't come out of
    nowhere.  It's written and produced by adults, ordinary people
    like you and me.  It's one aspect of our culture -- but it's only
    one aspect, and it gets its own values from our culture. It
    doesn't grow in a vacuum. 
    
    I think you'd get just about the same results if you polled my
    daughter's junior high school.
    
    I think you'd get just about the same results if you polled the
    people who work at a DEC facility, even a supposedly open-minded
    engineering one.  Assuming that people would answer honestly.

    Let's face it, this is what the majority of people in our culture
    still believe.  I've been trying to fight it for years, trying to
    change that belief, but I don't think we're making much headway.
    
    --bonnie

    
    	re .5
    
    Do you actually think the context of "good guy/bad guy" matters,
    as in "Oh, that's the *bad* guy, so I know what not to behave like"?
    I'm so sure all jr high kids have this in mind as they watch...
    
    Where else could they get the idea that money is soooo important?
    ...that debts_for_life (or, whatever) is a fair, "legit" exchange?
    
    The only trully positive motivational message I see on TV is the 
    "It's OK to be yourself" commercials by the church of Jesus Christ 
    of Latter Day Saints. Wonder how much it costs 'em? Certainly, you 
    couldnt expect the networks to *give* the time "for the collective 
    benefit of society as a whole"!
    
    I've seen Mr Rogers saying "pick out only the programs you like
    and watch only the ones you want to watch" - 'course, that was channel
    2. You'd *never* hear that advice given on the network channels! I'm
    sure they're preferance would be to have the kid's face glued
    to the screen every waking moment! Why? Commercials...
    
    Ever notice how they cut up those cartoons made in the 40's so they
    can get in more commercial time? A half hour show is rendered 15 mins
    show and 15 mins commercials. Money, Money, Money - that's *all*
    they care about, because they're a BIG business...
    
    The fixation people have today with *image* is a direct result of
    the tubular reality portrayed to them. If you watch it long enough
    and during your formative years, *every* part of your value set
    will be relative to the *image*; you'll see yourself driving up
    to the ivy league school in a alfa romeo with the top down. Subjects?
    Curriculum? Those really dont matter...as long as it's an ivy league
    school...
                                                                 
    I'm at 31, a television child. We had the 'ol 25" black & white,
    by GE. I remember my mother saying "If you dont get your face out
    of that TV, I'm going to take out all the tubes and break 'em so
    that'll be it!!!" I could'nt understand why it was such a big deal?
    It was just something to do. Another family two door down forbade
    their children to watch TV during certain waking hours, and "cartoons"
    were absolutely taboo. The kids would just go over to a neighbor's
    house to watch. Still, the message was the same: "learn to entertain
    yourself". But that's *hard* compared to being entertained - you
    have to think - unnnhhh!
    
    				*	*	*
    
    "I am gross and preverted, I'm obsessed and deranged, I've existed
    for years - but very little has changed. I'm the tool of the government
    and industry too for I am destined to rule and regulate you! I may
    be vile and volicious - but you cant look away. I make you think
    I'm delicious - with the stuff that I say. I'm the best you can
    get - have you guessed me yet? I'm the slime oozing out of your
    TV set!"
    
    "You will obey me while I lead you and eat the garbage that I feed
    you - till the day that "we" dont need you -  dont go for help no one
    will heed you. Your mind is totally controlled it has been stuffed
    into my mold and you will do as you are told until the rights to
    you are sold!"
    
    "That's right folks - Dont Touch That Dial!!!"
    
    	Joe Jas			(quotes by FZ)   

I think that boys pick up these attitudes from their buddies,
the same way that most kids get most of their sex information.
Street attitudes have always been of the "didja get any?"
variety.  The kids who are most willing to talk about
sex are the older kids, who are bragging about their
(real or imagined) exploits, and who are generally more
sexist in their outlook.

The only way to combat it is for parents to talk with their kids 
about sex and sexual attitudes, early and often.  Unfortunately,
it seems that many parents are unwilling or unable to do this.
    
    bruce

    re:.5
    
	Trouble is, McLuhan (sp?) was right - the medium is the message.
	The image seen often enough gradually becomes acceptable, even
	if it is accompanied every single time by morally correct plot,
	(which it often even isn't), and even when viewed by those whose
	ethical bulwarks are firmly in place (which it often even isn't).

	One begins to wonder if even the 'legitimate' and 'concerned'
	coverage of our current murder/rape/drugs/etc. epidemic isn't just
	adding to the already overflowing pool of subliminal imagery,
	inuring us to the very ills it hopes to call concern to. I flash
	on the current anti-cocaine ads, which make the drug look cool and
	glamorous for forty seconds, then end with twenty seconds of pious
	voice-over about the dangers and consequences. I recall a recent
	segment from a magazine-format show (West 57th Street?) about the
	alarming increase in motorcycle fatalities caused by inexperienced
	young riders buying a certain new type of high-performance bikes-
	which segment was heavily interspersed, of course, with 'sexy'
	shots of the bikes in action, including one film clip from the
	movie Top Gun which shows Tom Cruise on one of them, 'dragging'
	against an F-14 jet...wonder how many more 16 year old males emptied
	the piggy bank and headed for the dealer after that one...

	
	I don't really know where to take this...I'd oppose both the concept
	and the implementaion of media censorship, but I sometimes wonder if
	primitve tribes who declared 'taboo' certain topics, didn't know
	something that we've forgotten. At least for them, the morally
	outrageous remained so.

    Actually, one of the scarier things to me about the survey was that
    40+% of the GIRLS had similar attitudes about rape and forced sex!
    
    LKF

    As I recall the article..some 80+% of the boys and 70+% of the
    girls thought that forced sex in marriage was acceptable.
    There was also a large percent of girls who said that if a man
    has spent a large amount of money on a date (large being 10-15 dollars)
    then he was entitled to a kiss goodnight...or more and forcing a
    date was okay.  
    
    However, I do wonder if the kids involved in the survey really
    understood what is going on in real life among adults. I seriously
    doubt that my 10 year old daughter does. In the case of marital
    rape, for example, the high degree of those responding that it is
    okay may well be coming out of the understanding that marriage is
    the one place where sex is okay...not that they think it is okay
    for men to force women...or in other words, at that age it is hard
    for them to imagine that *anyone* would want sex unless forced into
    it...
    
    We really have to consider the psychological developmental stages
    of those responding to the questionaire.
    
    Bonnie

    re:.7
    
    OK, this looks like another rat-hole opening up, and it's one
    I'm not going to jump into, so this note is my last on the subject.
    If you want to believe that tv is the root of all evil, be my guest.
    
    �Do you actually think the context of "good guy/bad guy" matters,
    as in "Oh, that's the *bad* guy, so I know what not to behave like"?
    I'm so sure all jr high kids have this in mind as they watch...�
    
    I see. But for some miraculous reason known only to you and God,
    they *do* have this in mind when they read books?
    
    I, too, am a "television child". My parents didn't restrict my
    television viewing. Even as a young child, I never accepted what
    was on tv as reality. I knew from my own experiences in our home
    that no family behaved like the Cleavers. I watched cartoons far
    more violent than the ones shown today. And neither I, nor my
    friends who watched the very same cartoons, turned into juvenile
    delinquents.
    
    The television is responsible only so far as a knife is responsible
    for an assault that is committed with it. If the *parents* aren't
    responsible enough to use the tv for anything more than a baby-
    sitter, then it's *their* responsibility. "Television" is popularly
    used as a bogeyman, as a means of passing the buck. No, *we're*
    not responsible! It's Dat Ol' Debbil Television! Halleluja! Praise
    the Soup and pass the lord! Get thee behind me, TV!
    
    re:.9
    
    McLuhan is correct only if you want to believe he is. I don't
    agree with him at all, so as far as I'm concerned, he's *not*
    correct.
    
    --- jerry

    Right on, Jerry!  I grew up in the 50's, and my parents didn't restrict
    my TV viewing either.  I watched some pretty awful violence, both
    in cartoons and in the detective shows I enjoyed so much.
    
    I believe today's emphasis on the evils of violence on TV is yet
    another symptom of a creeping disease in this country.  Personal
    responsibility is no longer in vogue.  If I get drunk in a bar and kill
    somebody in my car, the bartender gets arrested.  If I smoke cigarettes
    all my life and contract lung cancer, I should sue the cigarette
    manufacturers 'cause they held me down and forced me to smoke.  If I
    commit a violent crime, heaven forbid that I should shoulder any of the
    responsibility -- blame it on that nasty ol' TV!  Cop-outs are always
    easier than taking resonsibility for your actions. 
    
    							Pat

    Looking for places to put the blame never solved anything; a child's
    attitudes come from a lot of different directions and what "sinks
    in" one day may have no consequence the next.
    
    I have an 8 year old son and it's obvious that he gets some of his
    ideas and attitudes from me, whether from example or discussion;
    some from situations at school and some from television.  Although
    I don't see any as "the" source of his attitudes (good or bad) they
    all contribute.
    
    He enjoys music very much and for awhile I was very slack about
    letting him watch MTV.  He lost all television privileges for two
    weeks because of a problem at school and during that 2 weeks his
    behavior changed in a very dramatic way and for the good.  I don't
    think we can really compare TV today with TV we watched when we
    were growing up, either...Censorship (then) kept us from seeing
    a lot of the graphic detail that can be seen on any channel now.
    
    Back to the question on rape, I think one reason a lot of women
    don't step forward is they don't want their entire life history
    in a court transcript.  In most cases the woman must prove her
    innocence rather than the state proving someone's guilt.
    
    

    Re: .13
    
    >I grew up in the 50's, and my parents didn't restrict my TV viewing
    >either.  I watched some pretty awful violence, both in cartoons
    >and in the detective shows I enjoyed so much.
    
    I grew up in the 70s and my parents didn't restrict my TV viewing
    either.  The shows I grew up on were at least an order of magnitude
    more violent then those you grew up with.  _Starsky and Hutch_ was
    in its heyday - minute for minute one of *the* most violent shows
    ever broadcast.  In the 5-7th grade range, I had some very strange
    ideas about relationships; the woman was always a victim.  I'm not
    really sure how I tied those images in with reality, since sex was
    one aspect of reality that I never dealt with much in those years.
    
    I'm not entirely sure what happened.  You can't really say I grew
    out of it, but that was kind of the effect.  I think that I found
    alternatives in my other sources on life in general - books.  In
    time I just moved up to reading books that dealt with male/female
    relationships, and got a much more rational picture.  The old views
    just disappeared - I find them rather repulsive now.
    
    So TV is a factor - I don't think anyone can argue that - but its
    influence is mitigated by other sources of information.  And if
    there *are* no other sources of information, you're left with what
    you see on screen.  Fortunately, my impression of TV these days
    is that women have more interesting roles than 'victim.'

    
    	Right on! Right on! right on!
    
    Book reading is a proactive effort on the part of the brain; images
    are created within the imagination, not printed upon it like a TV
    does. Reading a book isnt "just set back, relax, let go of the controls
    and be entertained" like watching TV is. Just how much does one
    "give up" when they sit there glaring at the thing?
    
    No ones looking for an excuse from responsibility. I meant merely
    to suggest a possible (OK, I feel it's likely) source of the motivation
    behind the attitudes found in the .0's survey  - 
    
    And of course no one source is the absolute root of all evil, nasty
    motivations. (Perhaps the Religion conference's audience would disagree)
    But there is the duty cycle or time factor of exposure to the various
    sources; kids listen to their friends X% of the time, kids listen to
    their parents Y%, their teachers Z% - and they generally take in some TV.
    I can easily claim that TV exposure time is a significant portion of a 
    kids total daily activities, these days. Therefore, TV is a significant
    source of motivation for a youngster's attitudes. 
                                                                          
    	Joe Jas  

       � _Starsky and Hutch_ was in its heyday - minute for minute one
       � of *the* most violent shows ever broadcast.  

       I beg to disagree. "Starsky and Hutch" or "The A Team" only
       appear violent. The reality is that they are animated cartoons
       with human actors, in which despite the level of technologically
       extreme behaviour (machine guns being fired, cars being crashed,
       etc) No-one is ever seriously hurt.

       In the older generation of shows the bad guys died.

       This is quite different!

       /. Ian .\

    re:.15
    
    Interesting. Reports that I'd read claimed that, minute-for-
    minute, the most violent show on television was THE WILD, WILD
    WEST, which I used to watch all the time in the mid-60's.
    
    While my use of the phrase "Dat Ol' Debbil Television" was
    flippant to a degree, it has a large kernel of truth to it.
    People invoke "Television" these days the way "Satan" was invoked
    in the Dark Ages.
    
    --- jerry

    I agree that the key difference between reading and watching
    television is that watching television is passive while reading at
    least requires you to perform your own visualization. 
    
    I have noticed with both of my kids (14 and 4, one of each sex)
    that the *amount* of TV they watch influences their behavior; when
    either of them has been spending extra time in front of the tube,
    I can tell from the irritability, the vagueness, and the way
    they're easily bored and have trouble becoming involved in family
    activities. 
    
    And it DOESN'T MATTER WHAT THEY WERE WATCHING.  The A-Team, soap
    operas, Sesame Street, a classical music broadcast on PBS all
    have the same effect after about two hours. 

    Instead of trying to keep the kids from being exposed to what is a
    part of the culture they'll have to deal with eventually, I try to
    teach them to separate the good from the bad, to deal with what
    they see and to manage their time. We present other activities,
    play games, and so on. 
    
    It seems to be working; Kat is a good student and a voracious
    reader who is becoming reasonably discriminating in what she
    likes.  Steven's too young to tell . . . he'll devour unlimited
    quantities of cartoons on Saturday, but seldom wants to watch at
    any other time.  His favorite show is --  Saturday afternoon golf. 
    
    --bonnie
    

    For me, the key difference between reading and watching television
    is that there are a lot more interesting and thought provoking books
    available to read than there have ever been TV shows available to
    watch!!
    
    I don't think television can really be blamed for the attitudes
    of children, but I don't think it has done a lot to help either.
     I think some TV shows I watched in the past (such as Mash, Saturday
    Night Live, the original Smothers Bros. in the 60's, and All In
    The Family) probably had a positive affect on my thinking.  But,
    many others such as all the endless sitcoms with all the housewives
    who never had jobs of their own, or Mary Tyler Moore's endless search
    for the perfect man, probably had very negative affects on my attitudes
    towards life.  I've never tried to control what my daughter watches
    but I always give her my opinion of things (violence, women being
    victimized) and she seems to be growing up to be a feminist who
    hates violence (but can stand it more than I can) :-)!
    
    People have, of course, been doing rotten things to each other long
    before television was ever thought of.
    
    Lorna
    

    Re: .17
    
    >I beg to disagree. "Starsky and Hutch" or "The A Team" only appear
    >violent.
    ...
    >No-one is ever seriously hurt.
    >
    >In the older generation of shows the bad guys died.
    
    Death and injury are not the only measures of violence.  (BTW, people
    *did* get hurt in _Starsky & Hutch_, and much of it was in the 
    person-to-person form of violence.)
    
    I would much prefer it if people died when subjected to deadly
    violence.  Nothing like demonstrating the principle of cause and
    effect.