First -

I would hazard a guess that it tracks back to the Olde Rules, where women were men's property. This setup has the man as the lawmaker/provider/dominant and the woman as a subhuman/submissive.

In that case, the man is being lowered into a subhuman category through the feminizing insult. Whether it is true or not is irrelevant, since it belongs to the category 'female'. I'm trying to think where the comparison is a favorable remark for the man, but my brain is male and isn't getting me there.

Second -

I think some case could be made that feminizing comments call the man-target's machismo into question - a la 'if you throw like a girl, maybe deep inside you ARE a girl'. This gets into that entire homophobia regime, most of which I believe are cases of 'protesting too much'.

Last -

Conversely, giving a woman stereotypical male attributes (big balls, por ejemplo) is lifting her up. If you want to keep her down, she doesn't have big balls but is instead bitchy (back to a female, a dog this time, but still subhuman).

Well, I hoppe this helps, and I hope nobody takes this as MY viewpoint, but just a thought.

hmm. well..on #1, i don't really see how feminizing a man automatically makes the woman "subhuman." maybe you could explain that part better?

2. yes, they definitely call the man-target's machismo into question. so to be womanlike is desirable for a man? or just "okay," is that it? it's Okay for a man to be like a woman in all ways, so therefor pointing out that he is like a woman in a certain way turns even the comparison into an insult? is that it?

3. yes, i see what you mean. it is a compliment to say someone, anyone, has "big balls." and it is an insult to say a man is "bitching." or a woman. i guess we don't insult women by saying she is being "neanderthal." i wonder, do we have any way of putting down women by using male attributes? hmmm. now that i think on this, it seems every single comparison that insults a gender is comparing a man to a woman. that is telling right there....as if all women's traits are undesirable on a man. but we don't even think of calling a woman manlike when insulting them. as if any male comparison to a woman is a positive. i think this is getting close to the answer, here. i have to think on this more.

we insult anne coulter by calling her manly. how does this figure in? because she is aggressive and rude and nasty and stupid and loud. isn't that the to converse calling a man "bitchy?" or is calling her manly still an insult to women? wouldn't it be more insulting to women to call her a "typical woman?" (which i am NOT for she is NOT!)

doesn't calling her manly insult men? or still women?

It's more typical, though, to insult women by calling them dykes than by calling them manly.

It's not feminizing the man that makes the woman subhuman. It's the ideological setup wherein man=human and woman=subhuman that, if man=woman, then man=subhuman.

thanks for your input, cero.

how does saying a man (por ejemplo) "throws like a little girl" make him subhuman? how does feminizing a man make him subhuman? doesn't it just make him look silly? silly=subhuman???

i'm asking to be convinced. because as i said, i sense something is wrong with such a comparison. but i want to understand why. can you break it out simpler? as if i'm thinking like a caveman? ;)

(i mean no offense to any cavemen who are reading, por supuesto)

I think it depends on context, and that a blanket rejection of the form (as used for the purposes of satire) is too politically correct. However, YMMV.

For me, the concept that such devices render their objects 'subhuman' is problematic ( as, for me, women are not and have never been 'subhuman', by any metric), but acknowledge that others will offer subjectively different opinions based on their own life experience.

I also don't believe that one must assign stereotypically 'male' attributes to a female in order to reinforce/enhance/showcase their strengths, whether those be of character, physical, mental, or a combination of the three. To use a movie metaphor...It's all in the lighting.

The perspective that I choose to use is that of leveling...Those who act, and deem themselves, superior portrayed as equal than those that they believe themselves superior to.

George W. Bush, for example, whom has demonstrated publically (with world leaders) his lack of respect for womankind, stripped of his faux sense of superiority (based on the slenderest reed of biological happenstance within an unevolved society) whisking away the cloak of droit de seigneur that promotes sexist behaviors for a brief moment of levity at the oppressor's expense.

Perhaps the question is determining where the line is between satire and misogyny, and this can only be decided by the individual.
However, in my opinion, this is not a fine line and can be easily discerned by any observer for themselves using native and shared wisdom.

Nezua, I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that most men are physically bigger and stronger (and better at metabolizing alcohol) than most women, but usually that's not what people mean when they feminize men. Usually they're invoking male supremacy; invoking the subjugation of women, violence against women, rape; invoking homophobia. And that's the problem, not the biological backdrop but the historical one. In other words, it's usually not done in the clinical manner that you've proposed (which is unproblematic), but rather in a manner that's specifically intended to invoke a widespread form of oppression in order to denigrate The Other.

Personally, if I want to talk about a technically-flawed throwing mechanic, or muscular weakness, or inability to metabolize alcohol, I think there are plenty of precise descriptive approaches that don't invoke any painful forms of oppression. I mean, it's also true that quite a few Asians lack the enzyme that metabolizes alcohol (thankfully I'm not such a case), and it's also probably true that most Asians are physically smaller than most Caucasians (forget about Yao Ming for a second); but I see no real value in saying "You drink like an Asian" or "You're weak like an Asian" in order to describe a non-Asian.

Of course this question could be better addressed by women so I'll shut up and listen now...

thank you both for weighing in. darkblack, i agree that "Subhuman" doesnt' really work for me. i can't see how feminizing a man makes anyone "subhuman." but i'm still open to hearing how it does.

kai...i think you're on to something in that why use "little girl?" Why not use "you throw like a drunken lilliputian?"

i just took a walk and thought about this a lot. here's what i came up with:

1. why not say "you throw like a child"? i asked myself. that threw the "Little Girl" choice into stark relief, suddenly. that bothered me. why specify Little Girl? that points to something. and what i came up with was to say "little girl" is furthering the idea that there is a general physical inferiority to females. because why is it MORE insulting to say "girl" than "little boy"? a man throwing like a little boy should also be very degrading to a macho man, no? so...in that instance, the insinuation is not what it seems, maybe. the insinuation is not that the man throws actually like a little girl, but that little girls are physically inferior to little boys. as a father of two girls you can see why i chase this down so.

i still dont think "subhuman" comes into it. i'm open to logic that tells me in my own language and convinces me. but for now, i feel good that i think i have discovered what it is about it that is Wrong. that's what i was looking for. just a way to honestly convince myself without using "because people say so." that is not something i can use to change myself.

Truthfully, if one wished to invoke 'subhuman' within an epithet, they could say 'You throw like der letzte Mensch, but only among Nietzscheans would you be risking a fistfight without some turgid explanation as a prelude.

;>)

A corollary to what you are saying, Kai, regarding 'invoking homophobia'...As one who has targeted political homophobes in my work, few things give as much schadenfreude as recontextualizing such individuals (Rick Santorum, for example) into more 'liberal' settings and imagining their volcano of self-generated frustration upon viewing.

In my comment, I do not intend to mean thatwomen are subhuman, but instead that many "traditional" cultures (I'm thinking SW Asia/Europe) established systems that treated women as less than men. So in the example I mean, the woman is subhuman or inferior in the same manner an ox would be less than human.

I'm not sure about he Anne Coulter thing, I believe it is, in her case, an insulting reference to appearance and not action. So she becomes less desirable as a female because she's mannish. As far as actions, I think the most used slur rhymes with runt.

where to begin? how about here

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20050815,00.html

in many scientific articles on evolution, chimpanzees are shown next to a white male. This is like saying that a white male is at the height of evolution. Time magazine would never have put a woman from Oaxaca next to the chimp. Why?

Looking at people of color and/or women as less than white men is so seeped into our psyche that we don't even notice it is there.

During colonialism, people of color were always compared to women and women to people of color like saying "PoC are the lower gender of the race, women are the lower race of the gender." Men of color were feminized strategically--this made them somehow less than human. women of color weren't even looked at as women, they were less than white women.

You might not mean the things that you say about women as derogetory, but these ideologies have a history. What if someone said "Stop acting like a N******"--think of what that means to people, think of how acceptable it was for politicans to say it 100 years ago, think of how many people tried to justify it though science saying "well, the indian brain or the black brain is different." just like people are convinced that the female brain is inferior today.

I also want to note that gender--the way we think of gender today--is a european construct. in some native american tribes, females held a lot of power. calling a man female was a compliment; therefore, it is not only a sexist remark to say "you through like a girl" is is a eurocentric one. the same can be said for homosexuality: in some indigenous cultures being gay wasn't a big deal, therefore, calling someone a 'homo' wasn't a slap in the face. when women were bold and said what was on their mind they were not manly, they were not bitching, it wasn't gendered in the same way.

hi luisa. thanks for commenting. isn't that white male supposed to be God? so, not supposed to be at the "height of evolution," but rather the maker of all things! even worse.

yes, you are right. we dont notice. that's why i am talking about this. i want to find it all, find it in my thinking, and counter it, talk to it, see through it. this is my process now, in a few areas.

well..."stop acting like a n--" is not quite the same thing. "little girl" doesn't equal the hate slur of "n----," and it would be hard to agree that a person who says the former doesn't mean harm or hate, right? i am talking about more subtle things...but i do understand that you mean to show an extreme example to make a point. yet, its such an extreme example that it almost ruins the comparison.

i wasnt saying the female brain is inferior...and i dont think it is.

i was looking for why it was wrong to feminize a man as a way of insulting him. i was wondering, (as an example) "what's wrong with comparing a man to a little girl throwing? doesn't that accurately show how poor he is throwing?" but i think i hit a lot of it when i realized that using "little girl" instead of "child," pointed to something that made "little girl" more insulting than "little boy" or "child" and that was a big clue.

that clue helped me come to the conclusion that to use "little girl" in that instance was not harmless. it was making a statement about girls in general...because by not choosing "child" (which would work to contrast against what a man "Should" be throwing like in the example) and choosing "little girl," one was saying something very specifically about girls. which tipped me off to the Why i was looking for. get me?

i always appreciate your input on these things. you are sharp as a tack. and i'm glad a female aside from cero finally chimed in.

on your second comment, luisa: very good points. thank you.

"...isn't that white male supposed to be God? so, not supposed to be at the "height of evolution," but rather the maker of all things! even worse."

well, there are many examples of a chimp standing next to a white man to illustate the point i was trying to make. but i think your point is actually better. whose god is that? the aztec god? and imagine the havac time mag. would have caused if the illustration had done that...

""stop acting like a n--" is not quite the same thing. "little girl" doesn't equal the hate slur of "n----," and it would be hard to agree that a person who says the former doesn't mean harm or hate, right?"

true but what about the subtle ways of referencing race? What if my hair was messed up one day and someone said "damn! your hair looks like an afro!" afro would mean bad, right?

or, a white woman was talking about how she likes black or latino guys because they "are better in bed." although, many blk and latino guys add to this stereotype, it comes from looking at them like they are savage, hot-blooded fucks with no mind. the white women might argue, "but they are! it has been my personal experience. i don't see anything wrong with it. It is part of their culture." she does not take into account the history of these stereotypes and how they are used to keep the powers that be in power.

walking like a woman, throwing like a woman, is the same. i think...

exactly. the white eurogod of michaelangelo.

but...what if your hair did look like an afro all puffed up, Luisa? why is that a negative comparison, then? isnt thinking such a comparison negative a negative statement in and of itself? (unless the person were sneering or something)

i am a savage in bed! and i slide a bone through my nose before i get down. aw yeah.

(but i agree.)

"isnt thinking such a comparison negative a negative statement in and of itself? (unless the person were sneering or something)"

yes, and there in lies the problem. i would think they were saying something negative. just like when i was a little girl and someone said "you throw like a girl." just like when i was a little girl and my brother would say i "looked like a little native girl" or someone said "you look jewish" now, i have learned to say "thank you" (as you did when the women at feministe thought you were a female in your writting). we have the choice to turn things upside down and take them as compliments but that is not the mainstream understanding of "you are such a homo" or "you are a cocksucker."

you are not saying that "your hair looks like an afro today" is comparable to "you are a cocksucker"...

are you?

oh and actually i really didn't have to "turn it upside down" when Feministe quoted me as a woman writing. because given a blog like Feministe, it implied great praise that they would assume that.

(not that i don't get your point)

NIKE ran a very successful ad campaign in Mexico using "You run like a girl" as their slogan. Of course, the "girl" was Ana Guerva. The best ad had a slighly nellie little boy being chased by bullies, then showing him as he got older... turning into a buff hunky guy running on the street and Ana saying "you run like a girl" and the guy saying THANKS!

The guy was still obviously a little nellie, which made it all that much better. It's reality anyway... the buffest men at your local gym are the gays, verdad?

Look at the folks who use that phrase... they're the same yo-yos that associate effeminancy with homosexuality with weakness. It's an attempt to keep down woman AND gays, of course... but it backfires once in a while, much to all our amusement.

no doubt about that richard. you're talking to someone who has spent a few years in manhattan! you could almost tell who was gay by who had the best (male) bodies!

I'll ask you una pregunta a ti.
If it comes down to biological attributes, then if it is OK to say “you‘re weak like a girl” or “you drink like a woman”, why not, like Kai said, "you drink like an Asian" or "you're weak like an Asian"?
Just substitute race with sex.
Or like John Lennon said, “woman is the nigger of the world”.

The key factor is, as you said, you mean it as an insult or a negative judgment. There is a big difference when you are stating differences as mere facts, there is no judgment where you explain the biological differences between sexes.

It’s also interesting how typical male attributes like physical strength or the ability to hold alcohol have been agreed to be commendable virtues. But with physical strength usually comes not so desirable qualities like arrogance and aggressiveness. Especially when it comes to global matters, the kind of thinking that might makes right.

Since what is desirable and what is not has historically been decided by a self-centered, all male, mostly northern European jury, it’s not strange to find the “you are weak like a girl” kind of value judgments.

I’m not saying that having a higher ratio of body muscle makes you a chest beating asshole, it’s what you do with it that matters. Historically it has being used to justify the domination of women.

Now in daily life most of us are capable of hurting other people with our mouths more often than physically, the “you’re weak like a girl” is a good example.

sitting frog, that is wisdom, all of it. thank you.

sitting frog, one small point (that does not invalidate your other points, but i have to point it out). as i said, women naturally and biologically cannot metabolize alcohol as well as males. THAT's why "you drink like an Asian" is not comparable. unless, unknown to me, Asians cannot metabolize alcohol as well as other peoples.

i hate to tack this here, because the rest of your words were so damn on point and one of the best comments on this i've read here.

I know some folks have already answered your question, but I wanted to add two cents that haven't been mentioned yet.

The reason why feminizing men is an insult to women is because the assumptions are built on the faulty logic that is also used to oppress women.

You say that "throwing like a girl" is accurate because women are generally weaker than men, but is throwing ability all about pure strength? Usually, when a guy "throws like a girl" it's about poor technique. Most women have poor technique because they are traditionally discouraged from sports. This analogy depends on that fact. Seriously, would you take a ball in the face from a woman (or female-bodied person) on the softball team? That even goes for women who haven't played before. My first season, I couldn't toss worth a damn, but after some decent guidance and practice, no one's making jokes about my arm anymore. And I was a lightweight then, 5'5" and 115.

As far a man that "holds his liquor like a woman", the science doesn't really hold up to real life experiences. There are too many guys who can't hold his liquor and far too many women who *can* (sometimes defying all logic in regards to their size) that this saying is only about the fact that women are considered inferior and therefore used for a negative comparison. That's the problem with these sayings, that your reasoning is based on the way that the system says things are *supposed* to be, not how they really are, or how they can be.

Actually, your question touches a very serious issue with gender policing. Though comments like these are innocently made, the system of reasoning behind them (a mix of sexism and transphobia), that being like a woman is a negative trait for a man, and being like a man is negative trait for a woman, is used to tightly enforce gender boundaries. And crossing those boundaries, has gotten folks harassed, beaten and even killed. I know that sounds real dramatic, but the "like a girl" as an insult doesn't stop at the way someone tosses a ball. It extends to the personality and behavior of guys who are feminine or have some feminine traits, becoming an attack on the validity of their identity. (And vice-versa with women)

yes. so true. the little is the big. the big is the little. the subtle lie we spread so innocently ties them both in the middle. thank you for this.

you are right! it's not really about strength...people DO mean technique! what a good point i had overlooked. that really does throw the statement into a sharper focus.

i dont mind anybody adding something new to this thread. it's a very valuable conversation. i'm sure there are a few people out there who need to have it but would never voice their doubts on it. i know it has helped me.

thanks again for speaking up.

Here's why it's wrong. You imply that the way girls through is inferior and is somehow wrong, rather than just different. Do I really want to be able to throw a football a 40 yards down the football field? No, not really.

However, I did play sports as a girl, just like my older brother.

A scenario
Let's say my dad was playing catch with my brother and he threw the ball slowly, inaccurately (or whatever it is you mean when you imply "throw like a girl").

He yells out, "Danny, you throw like girl" in a derisive tone. In the next toss to my dad, Danny makes an effort to throw accurately. He knows he's not supposed to throw like that and instead improves. He knows that he's supposed to throw better because he's a boy.

I on the other hand lose my nerve to go get my mitt and join in on the game of catch. Why? Well... I was just indirectly insulted by my dad.

The scenario never occurred. My dad was much to wise to know that to help his son improve in sports, he should insult his daughter.

In my longwinded way... I think it's simply wrong because there are better alternatives. Language is important. You don't need to say "you throw like a girl." Say what you really mean to say and, as my mom says to her pre-schoolers, "use your words."

hola cindy lu. thanks for the really great comment.

First, I'll get some purely logical points out of the way because I don't want to end on them. That would feel like I am disagreeing, and I do not. Yet I feel I have to list them because you have a very strong argument, but it does have some herrings that I don't want to taint the stew.

- Do I really want to be able to throw a football a 40 yards down the football field? No, not really. Well, okay. I can't say I have a lot of use for that, either! But this doesn't really matter to the point. Right? Whether or not a person wants to live up to the stereotype is irrelevant to whether or not it is wrong or harmful to continue a stereotype.

- "It's wrong because there are alternatives." But this is not really a logical argument. Is walking to the store wrong if there are other alternatives? No.

- "You don't need to say 'you throw like a girl.'" No, that is true. But do you "need" to brush your hair? No, but that doesn't make it wrong.

Please don't misunderstand me: I agree with your overall point. But here, I am addressing the logic of some of the smaller "points." Why? Not to pick on your answer! To help the thread, to underline all the things in this thread that make the point (answer to the original pregunta) as strong as possible. For future readers.

- You are right, the Question implies that a man would be (accurately) insulted by being compared to the abilities of a "little girl." in the Question posed, the insult was that his ability was that of a "little girl." In the example, it matters not if she threw with "something wrong" with her ability, or just "differently." Even if she only threw "differently" and not "wrong," it would still be an insult to that man, in this example. But even this distinction does not matter. Because really, the core of the question is "Why is it wrong to feminize men as a way of insulting them?"

All that being clarified, I get to your (fantastic) point. I see that point as "You cannot contain the potential hurt of a stereotype." Just as I reminded Darkblack that intention is not the end-all-be-all of the effects of one's art, this holds true here. Learning from that lesson (drawn from your example), I can see that even if the statement were accurate (ejemplo: a man throwing like a little girl would be an insult to him if you pointed it out) such attitudes are radioactive and cannot be nailed to any one instance. Just as Darkblack could not contain the effects of using blackface in his art, despite what he meant by it. These spoken stereotypes spill out, as in your example. They infect the hearing of those around us, thus the realities of others. worse yet, they infect our thinking, and our comparisons, and as many commenters here have pointed out, they reinforce very hurtful memes that can grow much bigger and result in death and other types of hate-motivated violence.

What a great example you gave. What a way to drive the truth home. Wow. Your father is wise. My (adopted) father was not that wise. He always used these kinds of comparisons. But I do not want to be like him. Which is why I am hunting down even fragments of seeds and lighting them on fire. With the help of everyone here. I, too, have never said this to any of my kids or about anyone in front of them. but you point out how horribly damaging that would be in a dramatic and personally-moving way.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. You've added a very valuable facet to the conversation, I think.

I don't think we should insult people by calling them the either gender. I mean, just call -them what they are- if they're wimps, call them a coward, for example, or if they're aggressive, just call em that.

good points, AO.