The women in movies today are amazing. Men are usually portrayed as flawed (either no heart, no brain or no courage (the Wizard of Oz syndrome)).
I saw blockers the other day. There are three protagonists. The woman had heart, brains and courage (as they always do). Of the two men, one did not have courage (the smaller guy) and the big guy did not have brains. The woman's only flaw was that she cared too much. Why are men always shown these days as incredibly flawed while women are not? Why?
Men are always treated these days as inferior in movies (excepting the current run of superhero movies). Why?
And when you are talking about movies in general with or without bias, try to stick to this century. We are 18 years into this century, so don't allow the 1800's and 1900's movies to weigh down upon this century. In other words, we don't accept guilt for what those who have gone before us have done. Talk about the now, not the past.
Apparently we don't learn from those who have gone before us either.
It's important to talk about the past so we don't repeat the mistakes of previous generations and can spot the coming trends and pitfalls.
The reason men are being portrayed poorly and women are being put in more of a positive light is probably because they are trying to correct the perceived sexism that's allegedly causing the inequality. It’s all based on the assumption that inequality must be caused by injustice and equality of outcome is a goal worth striving for.
Edit: Generally I haven't noticed this trend in the portrayal of men and women. Maybe we're just watching different movies. But I have noticed a lot of women thrust into the lead roles of action movies. That at least seems like a clear attempt to subvert the "inequality."
Whether you believe women are equally capable on average as men or you don't, you are choosing to believe something that may or may not be true. So to me, this is not an argument about what is true, but what we should choose to believe, and if that is the conversation, then we need to talk about why one should believe thins and what the reasoning for and effects of those beliefs are.
Can you give me one good reason why I should believe anything that isn't true? I just can't think of any.
Practically speaking, it is impossible to really know whether or not the truth is that women are inherently less capable at things or people are equally capable on average, because capability is an abstract thing that is the result of a complex web of factors that humans are not going to be able to reliably measure.
Why do you think that complex abstract concepts can't be reliably measured by humans?
Why do you think that capability is such a complex abstract concept?
Don't you think sexism is a complex abstract concept?
If I took fifty women and fifty men of various different ages, builds, cultures, and muscle masses, and got them all to try and lift a set of objects of various weights, do you think it could measure which gender is more
capable of lifting heavy objects reliably? What if I did that study and then compared it with another study where I took men and women of a specific age, build, culture, and muscle mass? What if the results of both of those studies were almost exact? And what if I did hundreds of these studies all over the world and got relatively consistent results?
In my life I've often heard the words, "I can't." I can't open this jar, I can't solve this puzzle, I can't walk all the way there, etc... and usually if I tell them to try again, try harder, or try another method, it turns out they can. I discovered their capability and all I had to do was ask them to try and then observe the results. I have found in my experience that men are generally more capable of opening jars then women, because when they try they accomplish it more often, in fewer tries, and with less expended energy. I have also discovered that some women are more capable of opening jars than most men, but more men are more capable than most women at this particular task in my experience. The reason is probably simply because men have way more testosterone. I've also noticed that many people, despite being perfectly capable of opening a jar that's hard to open, perceive themselves to not be able to and therefore don't even try. A little coercion goes a long way to discovering the capability of people too stubborn to even try. My most preferred method to discovering people's capabilities is to not do it for them or make it any easier. I have found that the vast majority of tasks that people think they aren't capable of turn out to simply require a little effort or a different method that they hadn't thought of yet.
My friend has a gate up to keep his young daughter from going into the kitchen. She wanted some toast, and I was already in the kitchen. I said, "Okay, come and get some." She said, "I can't open the gate." I said, "Try." Then she opened the gate with a little effort. Now I know beyond any shred of doubt that it is true that she is capable of opening that gate. It was not too complex or abstract for me to discover the truth of her capability.
So to me this isn't an argument about what is actually true, because nobody can be right on that, since there's no way of knowing that. Whether you believe women are equally capable on average as men or you don't, you are choosing to believe something that may or may not be true. So to me, this is not an argument about what is true, but what we should choose to believe, and if that is the conversation, then we need to talk about why one should believe thins and what the reasoning for and effects of those beliefs are. It is probably my fault for even referencing the idea of truth in my argument without clarifying this, but that's more accurately what I mean, and I believe I've already described why I think the belief that men and women are equally capable on average is important and the better, more well-reasoned position, but I'd be happy to elaborate further elaborate if you have any questions on that front specifically.
Taken from the Oxford dictionary, “Believe – 1. Accept that (something) is true, especially without proof. 2. Accept the statement of (someone) as true.”
When you try to remove truth from the definition you come across as someone who doesn't know what he's talking about and isn't being completely honest. You also have some misunderstanding around the word “sexism." If something is true it is just reality, and the universe doesn't discriminate. For example, it's not sexist that women have breasts and men don't. What would be sexist is saying that women's breasts don't ever interfere with their ability to do some tasks as well as men. There are some tasks that breasts will get in the way of, and there's nothing sexist about that. What’s actually sexist is trying to force more women into a job they don’t want or trying to emasculate men for being better at something. If you see an inequality and try to fix it by making it easier for a particular minority group to get the job than someone who belongs to a particular majority group, then you are discriminating, and it makes the work force of that particular field less skilled since they don’t have to work as hard as others to get in. In the name of equality we have pushed many unqualified people into careers they didn’t truly desire and prevented many passionate people from pursuing their dreams just because of their demographic. Western civilization is becoming racist towards white people and sexist towards men. At least I see it a lot in America and Canada, but I haven't looked as closely at Europe, Scandinavia, or the UK.
I would define sexism/misogyny as 'actions or beliefs that are harmful to women'
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sexism
What it actually means is prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping based on sex. You should really use the dictionary more. You can actually harm women without being sexist or misogynistic. For example, by accidentally bumping into a ladder a woman is standing on causing her to fall. Are accidents sexist?
The belief that women are not equally capable to men is a belief that is harmful to women and contributes to the systemic oppression of women (as I described in my equal protection argument above and in many other cases) is therefore sexist under this definition.
But earlier you said there's no way of knowing, didn't you?
So to me this isn't an argument about what is actually true, because nobody can be right on that, since there's no way of knowing that.
It sounds like you're contradicting yourself when you say no one can know and then state your conclusion as if it's a fact.
Edit: Okay wait, so you're saying we can't know if it's true, but even if it's true it's sexist to believe it. So, even if it's true it's harmful and we should believe a lie instead because that will be better? That is some seriously bizarre logic.