Comment by lkey
6 days ago
It is that deep and 'I was just joking' ironic misogyny is still misogyny. This is the process of normalization. You go from 'edgy' to true believer without ever noticing a sudden shift.
It is how we got from 'ironic' nazis forums online 30 years ago to practicing nazis
[or 'white christian nationalists concerned with preserving the future for 'white children' and 'white culture' from trans (((globohomo))) marxist genocide'... if you insist there's a difference]
in high office in the US government.
I don't really see the misogyny here. The OP was talking about 'robotic catgirls', which I would take as a joke about sex robots under a more frivolous description. Saying: "at least we'll get some fun out of AI before they come to kill us".
AI/Robots are not really bound to traditional gender concepts, and I read your reply as more of a thing about slavery rather than misogyny. But I wouldn't consider robots self-aware either. The joke seems to me about the stereotypes around robots in scifi pop culture, in almost every movie they are either coming to kill us or serving as sex dolls (or both).
PS: I'm part of the LGBT+ community and I hate ultraconservative and nazi values (and by American standards I would definitely be in the 'marxist' corner as well as being very atheist) but I honestly don't see any bad here.
'some fun' here is owning and having sex with a women shaped object that can never say no?
I don't think that's a good impulse to indulge, and its worth figuring out why that feels 'normal' to you (and others here). I'm not saying y'all're bad people. I want folks to think about this and change their minds. When feminists talk about rape culture this is what they mean.
Notions of ownership and objectification of people underwrite both slavery and the devaluation of women and children.
> AI/Robots are not really bound to traditional gender concepts
Not by nature, but we immediately project those concepts onto them, like we do to other people. Straight male transphobes actually are the most likely to gender and treat their AI companions like their loving girlfriends. It's really funny how little 'biological pronouns' matter when 'she' is affirming them.
> in almost every movie they are either coming to kill us or serving as sex dolls (or both).
Yes! Exactly! This is systemic misogyny. It is important to be able to identify and critique the systems that reproduce and normalize this stuff.
"In almost every missive from abroad our legions report of inhuman savages that are an existential threat to our way of life... but their women are unrestrained, exotic, and are actually eager for the guiding hand of our civilization"
Could have been written by any imperial culture in recorded history. The fact that [technically AI are not real people] isn't what's relevant, it's how your beliefs are being shaped by this very old message.