Misperceptions of behaviour in older times or cultures

I really have no idea where I should post this.
Anyway.
This has irked me a lot lately. You probably all know some old fashioned adverts which are considered highly sexist or even older ones, considered racist. The ones where women lie on men's carpets or just seem to be dumb and cleaning a lot. As an example.
Sometimes you watch old programs like 'Carry on' and everything is seemingly sexist innuendo with funny noises.

As for the culture in different countries, there is an opinion that for example mostly white countries are evil and certain people from other places have ideas put into their heads as to what expect from womenfolk.

As an example. Back in the 80s, I read an article about a Turkish immigrant to Germany, who later became an artist who painted women [careful saucy stuff following] with their legs akimbo.
He painted this to show that when he was a teen coming to Germany, he was told that this is what awaits him and that we were all up for it and sluts.

Now. What I know being [well] over half a century old and present in times of apparently more sexist times is, that yes if you look in from far away this is how it seems. Especially to younger folk or foreigners from stricter cultures.
The truth is though, our behaviour was developed for long times and hence we had ample opportunities to deal with it.

Whilst women were apparently treated and thought of like in the adverts, in real life most secretaries didn't sit on their bosses laps. Depending on where you worked, you had actual ways of dealing with it and the few times it went out of hand were still bad.
However we had learned skills of dealing with it.

Women looking like sluts to foreigners is also a problem, as women know whilst most western countries seem sexually more open minded, most women are still not sluts, they are just liberated.

Natives and people who are actually interested in the culture of the country they move to know that despite the sexual freedoms of women, it is still not a buffet to help yourself.
Certain rules still apply and you have to be brought up in such a society to know all the nuances and not to overstep the mark.
Just as it was decades ago.
Most women just had jobs where they weren't constantly grabbed.
Most women also didn't lie naked on the floor handing their man a drink.
Those were the 'jokes' of the time.

But you had to be around to keep the 'jokes' from reality. Just like you have to be a kid growing up to know that the vast majority of women don't throw themselves at foreigners [I know some do, but not the majority. Those that do would always do it, even in Victorian times].

It's akin to us thinking when you go to Dubai you have to hire a Mercedes and turn wheelies, because you see it on the internet. Or you go to Japan and dress like a furry or computergame character during daytime, because you like that style and have seen some people doing this and believe all of Japan is crazy like that.
When in reality. Japan is still quite conservative and those nerdy cosplayers are very few and far in between.

I guess I'm saying that throughout the sexist years and open mindedness, the vast majority of humans still had standards. Only you had to live there or then, to know how to use and understand them.
Anyone from out of that time or out of a certain culture would not have learned these 'hidden' rules.

All they go by is a broad picture and take it as gospel. [Like every white person is rich and doesn't need to work for it, due to nepotism and white
-evilness- privilege, and hence if I don't get the same, it must be racism.] Lack of growing up white and false beliefs cause this thought error.

There is so much more. Especially what people nowadays find racist, was literally the language at the time. There were just as many/few racists about then as now. Yet it seems if you read old books you think everyone wanted a slave just to torture and be nasty to.
Had you gone back in time, you'd have realised that most slave owners just wanted cheap workers, just like today. As payment they gave them a roof over their heads, food and medical care. Many were actually very nice to their slaves😲 . Only today your employer makes you pay for your own accommodation and food. It's still shocking how people nowadays have to sell their work power and body to a boss for 8 hours or more, just to live and eat, but you know how to handle this, because you grew up with it.



That's all. Just a thought I wanted to share for a while to chat about.

a reply to: Hecate666

There is so much more. Especially what people nowadays find racist, was literally the language at the time. There were just as many/few racists about then as now. Yet it seems if you read old books you think everyone wanted a slave just to torture and be nasty to.
Had you gone back in time, you'd have realised that most slave owners just wanted cheap workers, just like today. As payment they gave them a roof over their heads, food and medical care. Many were actually very nice to their slaves😲 .

Looks like you may be falling victim to the same misconceptions that you are pointing out in others.

I am sure most slaves did not see things the way you just described.

We have a tendency to place things in the categories that we think we can relate to. Unfortunately, we usually miss the mark when it comes to things that are foreign to us.

There are a couple of places and times I've been giving thought to concerning this very subject.

The Old West during the 1800s is one. With all the nonsense portrayed in books, movies and T.V., I have to wonder how wild the West really was back in the day. In the Gunsmoke T.V. series for example, every episode had a gunfight in Dodge City, except everyone was required to be unarmed in town, they had to leave the guns at home or check them.

Another culture I've been looking into is medieval Europe, particularly the UK after the Norman invasion. Was there any law and justice in the kingdoms or just rich lords screwing over the serfs who worked the land like in the tales of Robin Hood? How violent was living in that place and time?

Everyone peers through a dirty and distorted lens it seems when considering other times, places and cultures.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Everyone peers through a dirty and distorted lens it seems when considering other times, places and cultures.

So true. Add to that personal thoughts, beliefs, and bad info, and you end up with a misconceived fantasy.

Hollywood adds the steroids.

Now men are portrayed as metrosexual cucks and every woman is a goddess. At least that's what the idiot box portrays between the trillion pharmaceutical commercials. I'm not sure men and women are even human at this point. Just mindless drones in a hive like society. You point out a topic I've found strange since the early 80s watching old cartoons from the 40s and 50s. The sexual political propaganda finds its way into every outlet. Star and Flag for you.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

I didn't say I wasn't falling for the same misconceptions. I am sure I do, but I can't talk for other countries or times past that I know nothing about.
The point is that it happens nowadays far too often and leads to book burnings or saying women were just playthings back in the day. This is insulting to the majority who were just women.
Did we have less rights?
Well in certain areas absolutely, at least we had our own sports, without men waltzing all over us.
POint is that nothing has ever changed.
A lot of men will see women as less intelligent than men or as sexual playthings. It doesn't matter if it is the deepest 70s or 2023, Victorian times or in ancient Rome.

All that changes are the words and what people consider offensive at any given time, when in fact our perception of these things at the time were different because we had learned coping skills, were eased into it and grew up with it.

Also I didn't say all slave owners were nice, but I know 100% that plenty were [from their own writings which are not shown at school], because we are all humans and there are sadists and people with empathy. Yes, even in deepest slaveland, there were good people.
For you to not believe this is just as wrong as to say all of them were bstards.

Humans gonna hume is what I always say, words and laws may come and go, but humans stay human. Good and bad.

I am peed off with toppling statues which show white males just because they lived at the same time as slavery.
I am peed off at the lies foreign immigrants are told and see on TV or Hollywood crap and think all women are like the ones they are watching.
I am miffed that kids think the 70s were a giant sex festival and women were just helpless.
We knew that some were just sitcoms or dramas, we knew that you could be nurse and very authoritative as a woman. They don't. It's lazy to just take it at face value, because it wasn't like that everywhere all the time.

As I explained with the wheely driving in Dubai. I don't believe that this is how it goes down there, but I have seen western Nerds getting bad looks by Japanese people because they wear some cosplay on a workday just on the street.
Because they believe Japan is crazy.

I am talking from my three countries I love and lived in [Germany, France and England and what I as a woman have experienced by foreigners, both personally and through family. Not hearsay]. The article I mentioned was from a Turkish male teen viewpoint telling us what he was told would await him. By people who have never been to Germany for example.

Whilst I fall for it in some ways [like all muslim women are oppressed, all girls get mutilated in Africa etc], I always err on the side of the potential victim, never on the side of looting for all, free stealing, free loose women etc. That makes me a better person than those who come to cause mayhem for personal gains at the expense of others.
On the sole basis that they were told these things and see them in movies.
Same with all the woke nowadays. They see bad things in everything out of their reach by time or space. Everyone was a racist back in the day, all white men are dictators, books which hurt feelz must be destroyed etc.

It is for the last reason above that I came to all these conclusions in the first place.

The answer to all of this is education. Allowing all material to be looked at and discussed with the culture and time taken into consideration. Also knowing that whatever you read or see isn't how the majority actually lives or thinks.
Young people need to learn proper history, warts and all good things [like the ending of slavery by white people] and 'refugees' must be taught our culture and our laws and especially our way of behaving.
It must be done for all to have a good life, and not just believe their feelz and misinterpretations.

Well, “sluts” or otherwise, the Muslim community is given the go ahead in the Quaran for Muslim men to rape Christian and Jewish women since they are closer to animals than human beings. If there are four witnesses who witnessed the penetration, Muslim girls can very rarely get the attacking gang bang slaps on the wrist. But Christians and Jews are meant to be enjoyed, enslaved, to get a man off and be tossed aside, they are animals and rapable gifts from God! When they go to western countries and see normal girls, not SLUTS, they are further aroused by the seeming sex toy wrapped up in almost nothing compared to their niqabs and burqas and they go for it cuz it must be true.

a reply to: Hecate666

Yeah.
I don't think women are all sluts any more.

I was in another country back in the '80s. This guy who had been in country for a while said about dressed up women going into clubs, "Just grab 'em on the ass, they expect it."

When I tried that, this lady with very long finger nails raked my right arm all the way down to my hand.

Blood dripping to the ground, I said "I'm sorry. I must have mistaken you for someone else".

a reply to: Hecate666

Many were actually very nice to their slaves😲

Define nice, as in one whipping vs two?

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: Hecate666

Many were actually very nice to their slaves😲

Define nice, as in one whipping vs two?

No, some were almost part of the family and the kids loved them. It was still bad to be away from home but as I said, there are good people and bad people.
Just like back in WW2 Germany, there were plenty who didn't hate the Jews and even helped. Yes.

what girl wouldn't be thrilled to find a Hoover under the Christmas tree!!!!!

I remember a few years ago at a Bible study
teacher suggested 'give a man a cordless drill for his birthday he'll be thrilled; give a woman a vacuum she'll fume.'

I suspect 50s and 60s pop culture had a lot of very chauvinistic men behind the scenes. I never saw Mad Men but I suspect that was a look at some of them.

I get a little squeamish now looking at some of this stuff.

a reply to: Hecate666

No, some were almost part of the family and the kids loved them.

Of course the kids loved the slaves, they sucked on their boobs and were raised by them.
That doesn’t mean they were like family.

a reply to: ElGoobero

And yet we still have product sexualisation in advertising and elsewhere, it now just woke product sexualisation.

originally posted by: Hecate666

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: Hecate666

Many were actually very nice to their slaves😲

Define nice, as in one whipping vs two?

No, some were almost part of the family and the kids loved them. It was still bad to be away from home but as I said, there are good people and bad people.
Just like back in WW2 Germany, there were plenty who didn't hate the Jews and even helped. Yes.

My mother's side of the family were slave owners from their first ancestor here in the New World, one who helped found James Town. My great Aunt kept the family stories from the pre-civil war days and I was lucky enough to have an audio recording of them. She never called them slaves, they were the family's "help". Also, at the end of the war when the "help" had to be let go, the entire family cried, including the "help". So in our family's stories, slavery was more like having extended family, they were far from being considered mere beasts of burden as many might believe they were nowadays.

That wasn't my whole family, just a branch on mom's side, the one that went back to her earliest ancestor in the New World. Those family stories were well told and confirmed for the most part by my research on the family tree.

ETA: This discussion makes me consider how torn-up our nation was due to both the Civil and Revolutionary Wars. I haven't looked into it, but I imagine I had family on both sides of the Revolutionary War. Overall I'd say most of the family was too busy just trying to get by to be too politically involved in their respective eras.