Post by uncoolio on Mar 13, 2024 4:17:11 GMT -5
Yeah, I would say that "Ender and his wife" is far more dismissive of Delirium than "Stephen King and his wife" is of the latter, given the fact that probably one-hundredth as many people would know who Tabitha King is, compared to Stephen King, whereas Delirium is every bit as known to the Arm community as Ender is. Probably more, really.
Ideally, society wouldn't ever seek to put women below men; but when it concerns a news headline, it shouldn't be a gigantic surprise if they choose to emphasize the globally recognizable name of Stephen King over the comparatively non-famous Tabitha King, given the fact that today's news revolve around presenting everything in whatever way gets the most clicks for the sake of ad revenue.
That's certainly a fault of the way news is presented these days, but the fact remains that it isn't automatically a men>women thing when the plague of "whatever gets the most clicks" is a more likely explanation. There's just always an angle that makes for better presentation (from the perspective of modern news, that is), even if it can be perceived as marginalizing someone.
Which of these headlines are more noticeable:
"Colin Jost and his wife visit children's hospital"
or
"Scarlett Johansson and her husband visit children's hospital"
Even if it was Colin's idea, it's sort of expected that the news cycle would go with the latter because that's how it is. While there's no shortage of examples of women marginalized in society, sometimes it's just defaulting to the most famous name. The alternative, in the case of the King family, would have been to print a story that would have made the majority of readers go "uh, okay, but who is Tabitha King?" Meanwhile, anyone who knows Tabitha King also knows who she's married to. In a sense, it's a title that is as inclusive as possible. I really, truly don't mean that in a bad way. It's just true.
Ideally, society wouldn't ever seek to put women below men; but when it concerns a news headline, it shouldn't be a gigantic surprise if they choose to emphasize the globally recognizable name of Stephen King over the comparatively non-famous Tabitha King, given the fact that today's news revolve around presenting everything in whatever way gets the most clicks for the sake of ad revenue.
That's certainly a fault of the way news is presented these days, but the fact remains that it isn't automatically a men>women thing when the plague of "whatever gets the most clicks" is a more likely explanation. There's just always an angle that makes for better presentation (from the perspective of modern news, that is), even if it can be perceived as marginalizing someone.
Which of these headlines are more noticeable:
"Colin Jost and his wife visit children's hospital"
or
"Scarlett Johansson and her husband visit children's hospital"
Even if it was Colin's idea, it's sort of expected that the news cycle would go with the latter because that's how it is. While there's no shortage of examples of women marginalized in society, sometimes it's just defaulting to the most famous name. The alternative, in the case of the King family, would have been to print a story that would have made the majority of readers go "uh, okay, but who is Tabitha King?" Meanwhile, anyone who knows Tabitha King also knows who she's married to. In a sense, it's a title that is as inclusive as possible. I really, truly don't mean that in a bad way. It's just true.
It isn't really comparable to the "Ender and wife" situation where, although I've never personally talked to either of them, I certainly consider Delirium the much more recognizable name who has had a more active voice in the events surrounding that whole situation, which makes it much more on-the-nose that they would phrase it as they did. That's like saying "Bill Clinton's wife loses 2016 election."
As has probably always been the case, those who society has wronged are also scrutinized more in their rebuttal than are those who wronged them. The regrettable reality is that using comparisons that aren't quite spot-on just gives the pricks the leeway - irrational though it may be - to graft you onto (in this case) the persona of Tabitha King, and lets them do the mental gymnastics to decide that the whole thing equates to her declaring that she's as well-known as Stephen King. That's how bigotry works. When arguing against idiocy, you have to be mindful of the holes that idiocy will wriggle into and use for its next bout of mental gymnastics. They will if you let them, because their view is not based on logic and understanding.
At the end of the day, very few would have cared if the news had printed that Tabitha King had done this or that, so the news print that Stephen King's wife did it, because the thing they're after is eyeballs and clicks. People who have a natural propensity to marginalize women will then consider it a sign that the man should be put before the woman, and that leads to such nonsense as "Ender and his wife."
In the latter case, there was no good argument, and nothing to be gained, from putting it that way. It was just put that way by someone who psychologically considers any couple to be "Mister Whoever and then his woman." That is a little different from a news outlet opting for the more recognizable name because their revenue is based on the number of people who click on the link.
All this to say that Tabitha King was subjected to the news' reliance on clicks for pay, whereas the "Ender and his wife" stems from Armageddon staff's decision to put it precisely that way without any actual need to do it or gain from doing so. That is sexist.
I am wholeheartedly liberal and for equality with every fiber of my being, but it's necessary to differentiate between cases. If the spouses or partners of Oprah Winfrey or Kamala Harris did something, I strongly suspect that the woman's name would have figured first in the headline. I recall reading awful news last year about Nancy Pelosi's husband, having never heard of him before. It was presented as "Nancy Pelosi's husband attacked," at least in my country. The news is a different animal that isn't necessarily (though it can at times be) representative of how society sees women.
ArmageddonMUD has shown much stronger signs of actually denigrating women, as people like Delirium and Bebop have discovered.
