My generation's most pervasive myth is that talent matters more than practice and effort. In nearly every profession -- nearly every human endeavor -- the person with average capabilities and more willingness to work and adjust outperforms the person with heaps of god-given talent. Research is discovering this more and more. I'd urge you not to pass on the worldview that prioritizes natural gifts and talent as the method by which most stuff is accomplished. Because honestly, it's not.
(Plus, we sure could use more people helping other people, amirite?)
In my experience -- as a teacher in an poor inner-city public high school -- most of the parents care deeply for their kids. Sure, some people don't, or don't enough, but there were a lot of parents really trying their best, but crippled not only by their other obligations and limitations, but also the school's terrible responsiveness (forget about telling parents when their kids are cutting in a timely manner -- I had kids in my class with learning disorders, and kids who spoke NO English, and they barely got any extra attention or care).
"the good public schools already attract parents who want the best for their kids"
I think you are confused. This is not how the public school system works. Parents do not have this choice.
Yup, PC is running the nation. Except that a black man is still more likely to be suspected of crime or suspicious activities, much more likely to be stopped by police, more likely to be searched, less likely to be let off with a warning, more likely to have to rely on a shitty overworked public defender, less likely to receive leniency, more likely to receive a disproportionately harsh sentence, more likely to be tried underage as an adult, more likely to get prison time for a nonviolent crime, and less likely to be given parole. Each of these is a proven fact.
PC has erased racism to the extent that PSAs have erased drug use among teenagers. Thems the facts. Deal with it.
It was the entirety of your argument -- feeding poor people only helps them continue in their ways and breed more poor people. This was literally what you said. I am not interpreting anything here.
"I never stated any of that and I never said only black people."
Your post falls under what is called "coded racism". I think this fact becomes pretty undeniable when you preemptively say that people will find your post racist. Saying "ghetto" instead of "poor and black" is pretty transparent. But that one, I will grant, you did not literally state.
"You stated that blacks are morally and intellectually inferior."
Hahahaha, what? Reading comprehension much? That was my rephrasing of (what I still feel to be) your position.
Here's the thing: you spend an entire post viciously attacking poor people. "Not all poor people", but I assume, a typical poor person (commenting in itself implies that you believe this is a major problem, not just fringe cases). Viciously. Then you assert that aid programs are only sometimes appropriate, because of these facts. A second-grade student could read this and conclude that you're saying poor people are inferior. And a college student, and a professor, and really, probably the majority of the people who read your comment.
Accuse me of putting words in your mouth if you want, but read over what you said. It speaks for itself. It really does.
Number of elementary schools in an area usually determines (correlates strongly & inversely with) the number of prisons.
Turns out when most kids make it through sixth grade, they can get jobs instead of just robbing each other. Most of you are probably aware that it costs less to give a kid an elementary school education than house a prisoner. But that takes foresight, too.
Some people will call this racist? What, just because your argument is, "don't feed them, they'll just breed"? My goodness, what could be racist about that?
Your position, essentially, is that poor, black people are morally and intellectually inferior and they deserve to have shitty lives. But definitely not racism!
Hi! I taught high school in what is known as a "persistently dangerous school" in a very poor, rather black area of Philadelphia. So hopefully I'm qualified to tell you this: holy fuck, are you racist. I mean holy SHIT dude. If you're not going to rein that in, at least don't vomit it on the rest of us please.
At least once a week, on slashdot, I see a comment so full of sexism or racism that it makes me want to cry. I keep coming back because the content is endlessly interesting, but almost every time I look into a discussion section someone has managed to turn it into how feminists hate men and the poor have welfare so they need to quit whining already -- even when the post is only distantly related to one of those topics. It's really a blow to my faith my humanity, which is especially what makes this comment such a thing of beauty. So, you know. Thank you.
Oh, slashdot. Never change. No, wait -- change, please. Change immediately. Let's look at some of the ideas in this comment:
Any intervention in a troubled area is a violation of human freedoms. This is why it is more moral not to interfere with things like genocide. Also, when someone punches someone else, it would be interfering with their rights to stop them continuing to punch the person into unconsciousness and death.Because THAT IS THEIR RIGHT, right?
All problems in troubled areas were created by people from those areas. The economic (and military) interference from more developed powers exacerbates, and indeed often creates, strife in less developed countries where there are fewer laws and less government preventing anyone from doing anything they want -- for example, lethal union-busting (Coke), requiring people to use your product even though it makes their babies sick (Nestle) or just literal slavery (any sugar, bananas or chocolate not labelled fair trade -- oh, and look into the history of Chiquita banana because 50 years ago they convinced the CIA to overthrow a beloved democratically-elected leader in Guatemala because he wanted to privatize the banana industry -- and then install a warlord dictator). Generally globalization doesn't give a shit about human rights. Actually, here's an example -- apparently there are conflicts being caused by the Western demand for more rare metals. Weird! In conclusion: stop pretending Africans cause all their own problems. It's delusional.
I realize your comment is about not being ashamed of your lack of empathy. But for gods sakes, please find some. You really, really need it.
This argument rings more and more false as the continued efforts of many wonderful people are thwarted, increasingly, by an oligarchy with absolutely zero accountability to the public.
This comment is entirely false. Do I need to say anything else? Every statement made in this post, feminism believes the opposite of that. Advocating for male rape victims? Feminism. Advocating for equality in divorce settlements (btw 50% of disputed custody cases end with the dad winning; it's just that so many are undisputed the figures are skewed)? Feminism. Babbling about equal rights while discriminating against men: not even close to any feminist I have ever read, met or even heard about. What?
"How many females will you find in the group fighting for fathers' rights?"
I don't know, but I can tell you it includes ALL FEMINISTS.
Seriously slashdot, what the fuck. This is why I swear not to ever come back here once a week.
Spoken like someone who has never been on welfare (demonstrably insufficient to live on), government housing (=/), or tried to get a job recently (less than 10% of applicants are accepted to jobs at McDonalds, by the way, and that includes a much larger than usual percentage of college grads).
Well I didn't actually mean to argue with you, just sort of a pet issue of mine that seemed to come up several times in the discussion section. I would certainly be in error if I said that Ham, in particular, has never been exposed to those arguments. I will say, though, that before you can imagine how he would respond to them, you must also consider how you (impersonal you) respond to compelling arguments for things you hate.
"Ham, on the other hand, has undoubtedly been exposed to numerous arguments in favor of evolution that convince virtually everyone who doesn't have a religious bias."
If you believe this, spend a year in rural Kentucky. Will you be exposed to any arguments or evidence that creationism is bullpappy? Nope. Not a single one. Most people online seem to enormously underestimate the degree to which your surroundings (and your friends and neighbors) influence your views -- not just on politics, but of reality. The sad fact is, if some totally gamechanging fact popped up, but nobody on tv made a fuss about it, and nobody in the papers, and not your family, and not your neighbors, you probably wouldn't give a crap either. Because it's very hard to care about something nobody else does, and it's very hard NOT to care about something EVERYBODY else does. We trust the people around us to help determine fact from fiction -- we ALL do -- and in places like (much of) rural America, that system (due, if you ask me, to intentionally distorted information and a media-sponsored news cycle) has failed. Well, I guess it always fails, to some degree, and always succeeds. But there has been a notable failure on this particular breed of issue.
I knew a girl raised Catholic, sweetest thing you'd ever meet, and it wasn't until she found herself in a more diverse setting (with liberals, mormons, gay people etc) that she felt comfortable asserting -- because this was REVOLUTIONARY where she grew up -- that maybe, if two men love each other and they're not hurting anyone, just maybe, God would be okay with that. With that kind of compassion, she would've grown up in the northeastern US and become a gay rights crusader! But because of where she was born, she suppressed those beliefs because she knew they were not widely shared and hence not acceptable. And the thing of it is, she wasn't suppressing those ideas intentionally. Until her surroundings changed, she didn't even know she had those opinions and beliefs. Think what opinions and beliefs you have, right now, that you don't acknowledge because they're awkward, or maybe people or positions you sympathize with that you're not supposed to. How many more of those doubts would you find, if suddenly everyone's beliefs were different? If everyone fucking loved Nickelback tomorrow, would you make a fuss? Or would you keep quiet and start to notice the redeeming qualities of their music? Hey, here's a related question: how many of you listen to a genre of music that none of your family or friends listen to? How many of you have even thought to try?
Poor kids can't afford therapists. Testimony from children is only sometimes admissible because you can make children say anything. Do I have time to take my kid to a physician to diagnose sleep problems? When am I going to do that, if I'm poor, and how exactly does that get paid for? If the kid doesn't tell anyone, if the other kids didn't overhear, if any pone of a thousand things happens, there is no evidence. There is no proof. Of course, those are each only things that might happen. But given how many times a scenario like this has played out, we can assume that they have all happened, given that they all reasonably could. Conclusion: sometimes, yes, there's evidence. Sometimes there is not. The harm is still there. Of course, the entire argument I'm making here is that sometimes harm is still extant/significant even when it is not legally visible, which you apparently aren't even saying, so.... what? Wasn't that your argument?
My point is not that this remark hurt people. I don't care about THIS example at all. My problem is that slashdot is having a discussion about racism and concluding that, if you can't convince a judge something was hurtful, then it wasn't. And since the proxy measures of harm you mentioned (doctors, testimony etc) are all even less available to something on a societal level where each individual act is not harmful so much as their aggregate (kind of like how having one person shun you would suck, but having your entire village shun you would devastate you emotionally), the effects become even more impossible to demonstrate.
I'll just note that, through this whole discussion, I've never once told you something would "shut you up". You're welcome.
So if my child's kindergarten teacher says something horrible to her, and I have no proof and there's no metric to calculate emotional damages, what do I get? Because that's completely unprovable. There is literally nothing except for hearsay. Do you understand that just because you can't prove something in a court of law, doesn't make it untrue? Assholes get away scott free all the time because the people they hurt can't prove it. This is a subcategory of that.
(P.S. The only thing I do that in any way seeks out racism is read slashdot. Other than that, it basically comes to me. By and large, the people affected by racism aren't affected because they seek it out. It's more because racism is an ever-present and unavoidable struggle in their lives.)
No no, I'm not talking racism. I'm saying, any emotional damages, of any kind, are unprovable. Hopefully you agree that they still exist. But not everything is admissible. That doesn't make it irrelevant.
Thank you! It's a common and endlessly frustrating myth that talking about real-world discrepancies is racism. And if you just take them at face value, or see it as the way things are, okay, it is. But if you look at those facts and how they came to be true, how things are different when you're a member of a minority, well that's just about the opposite of racism. "Uneducated black people in Africa gets AIDS. LOL!" is racism. "Uneducated black people in Africa get AIDS. Can you imagine being subject to a disease surrounded by misconceptions and not having access to medical care, damn. I wonder how I'd feel towards those rich, white people if that were me" = not racism.
Do you realize that bigotry hurts other people? We don't say, "oh, hitting your wife is just something people do, I can't discriminate". A part of your identity, unchangeable and NOT harmful to yourself or others, is in no way -- no way AT ALL -- the same as a habit that is hard to break and that actively hurts others. How could you even make that connection? And how did this get upvoted? Shame on anyone who did.
People who think everyone is inherently bigoted are ignoring as much science as a flat-Earther. The idea is simply absurd.
You don't need legal standing to have been wronged. If someone makes a hurtful remark, you can't prove how it affected you. This is the common internet error of assuming legal = acceptable. Just because you CAN say anything you want, doesn't mean other people are obligated to suffer through it. You won't get arrested, but it's still not appropriate or acceptable. And yes, racism is hurtful -- not "offensive", but genuinely hurtful -- even to those not its targets (though obviously much less so). Listening to talk radio for a month will make you more conservative, so what do you think years of listening to other people's racism does to you or me?
The fact that you think people pointing out racism is just endless, useless complaining says a lot though. Most people who point out racism get derided and dismissed whether their claim is correct or not. Don't buy into that.
-_- Indeed.
The reason t is less than accurate in this day and age is because it is a way that everyone, women and men, has been conditioned to view women. But it was still men behind the camera who created that phenomenon. There weren't exactly a lot of lesbian directors making commercials. And the fact is that women today are encouraged to do things like go to strip clubs with their guy friends and comment on other girls' asses just to be cool. Women are being pressured (not to mention manipulated) to adopt a male view and see other women the way (straight) men see them. So, the phenomenon is still defined by a toxic "masculine" perspective that is now being adopted by nearly everyone. Of course, not only is this damaging to women (this way of seeing the female body is, as you might imagine, responsible for a huge toll of body image diseases and eating disorders) but it's damaging to men as well, who get taught to pursue and sexualize women all the time and from an early age, AND that not doing so will make them less masculine (which would, it is implied, be terrible). So yes, I think this name was the most appropriate, and it is still enormously appropriate, not because of who started or perpetuated it, but just because of the worldview it advances. The real unfortunate part of that is that it sounds like it's disparaging men, just like the term "the patriarchy" sounds like it's disparaging men. It's not, but I can see how it would sound that way.
I'm saying it's the QWERTY keyboard of names. It was the best once, and now it isn't, but good luck getting people to call it what it should be called. Given all the resistance people have put up to the simple suggestion of not calling homosexual men faggots, it would seem people are not always open to making this kind of minor linguistic change. It infringes on their freedoms, donchaknow.
Wow for a second I thought that I'd be able to read and enjoy a discussion on slashdot without somebody telling me about how our media and society hate men and feminists have ruined us all. What a naive hope!
It's only called a male gaze because that's what it has been historically, and because it's mostly perpetuated by men because it's mostly men behind the camera. You're right, though, that the name is increasingly inaccurate. A better term might be "the female-objectifying gaze", but of course, longer and better terms for things don't usually catch on.
Slashdot Mirror
My generation's most pervasive myth is that talent matters more than practice and effort. In nearly every profession -- nearly every human endeavor -- the person with average capabilities and more willingness to work and adjust outperforms the person with heaps of god-given talent. Research is discovering this more and more. I'd urge you not to pass on the worldview that prioritizes natural gifts and talent as the method by which most stuff is accomplished. Because honestly, it's not.
(Plus, we sure could use more people helping other people, amirite?)
"the good public schools already attract parents who want the best for their kids"
I think you are confused. This is not how the public school system works. Parents do not have this choice.
Yup, PC is running the nation. Except that a black man is still more likely to be suspected of crime or suspicious activities, much more likely to be stopped by police, more likely to be searched, less likely to be let off with a warning, more likely to have to rely on a shitty overworked public defender, less likely to receive leniency, more likely to receive a disproportionately harsh sentence, more likely to be tried underage as an adult, more likely to get prison time for a nonviolent crime, and less likely to be given parole. Each of these is a proven fact.
PC has erased racism to the extent that PSAs have erased drug use among teenagers. Thems the facts. Deal with it.
"Where did I state that?"
It was the entirety of your argument -- feeding poor people only helps them continue in their ways and breed more poor people. This was literally what you said. I am not interpreting anything here.
"I never stated any of that and I never said only black people."
Your post falls under what is called "coded racism". I think this fact becomes pretty undeniable when you preemptively say that people will find your post racist. Saying "ghetto" instead of "poor and black" is pretty transparent. But that one, I will grant, you did not literally state.
"You stated that blacks are morally and intellectually inferior."
Hahahaha, what? Reading comprehension much? That was my rephrasing of (what I still feel to be) your position.
Here's the thing: you spend an entire post viciously attacking poor people. "Not all poor people", but I assume, a typical poor person (commenting in itself implies that you believe this is a major problem, not just fringe cases). Viciously. Then you assert that aid programs are only sometimes appropriate, because of these facts. A second-grade student could read this and conclude that you're saying poor people are inferior. And a college student, and a professor, and really, probably the majority of the people who read your comment.
Accuse me of putting words in your mouth if you want, but read over what you said. It speaks for itself. It really does.
Number of elementary schools in an area usually determines (correlates strongly & inversely with) the number of prisons.
Turns out when most kids make it through sixth grade, they can get jobs instead of just robbing each other. Most of you are probably aware that it costs less to give a kid an elementary school education than house a prisoner. But that takes foresight, too.
Your position, essentially, is that poor, black people are morally and intellectually inferior and they deserve to have shitty lives. But definitely not racism!
Hi! I taught high school in what is known as a "persistently dangerous school" in a very poor, rather black area of Philadelphia. So hopefully I'm qualified to tell you this: holy fuck, are you racist. I mean holy SHIT dude. If you're not going to rein that in, at least don't vomit it on the rest of us please.
P.S. Racism.
At least once a week, on slashdot, I see a comment so full of sexism or racism that it makes me want to cry. I keep coming back because the content is endlessly interesting, but almost every time I look into a discussion section someone has managed to turn it into how feminists hate men and the poor have welfare so they need to quit whining already -- even when the post is only distantly related to one of those topics. It's really a blow to my faith my humanity, which is especially what makes this comment such a thing of beauty. So, you know. Thank you.
-a woman
Oh, slashdot. Never change. No, wait -- change, please. Change immediately. Let's look at some of the ideas in this comment:
Any intervention in a troubled area is a violation of human freedoms. This is why it is more moral not to interfere with things like genocide. Also, when someone punches someone else, it would be interfering with their rights to stop them continuing to punch the person into unconsciousness and death.Because THAT IS THEIR RIGHT, right?
All problems in troubled areas were created by people from those areas. The economic (and military) interference from more developed powers exacerbates, and indeed often creates, strife in less developed countries where there are fewer laws and less government preventing anyone from doing anything they want -- for example, lethal union-busting (Coke), requiring people to use your product even though it makes their babies sick (Nestle) or just literal slavery (any sugar, bananas or chocolate not labelled fair trade -- oh, and look into the history of Chiquita banana because 50 years ago they convinced the CIA to overthrow a beloved democratically-elected leader in Guatemala because he wanted to privatize the banana industry -- and then install a warlord dictator). Generally globalization doesn't give a shit about human rights. Actually, here's an example -- apparently there are conflicts being caused by the Western demand for more rare metals. Weird! In conclusion: stop pretending Africans cause all their own problems. It's delusional.
I realize your comment is about not being ashamed of your lack of empathy. But for gods sakes, please find some. You really, really need it.
This argument rings more and more false as the continued efforts of many wonderful people are thwarted, increasingly, by an oligarchy with absolutely zero accountability to the public.
This comment is entirely false. Do I need to say anything else? Every statement made in this post, feminism believes the opposite of that. Advocating for male rape victims? Feminism. Advocating for equality in divorce settlements (btw 50% of disputed custody cases end with the dad winning; it's just that so many are undisputed the figures are skewed)? Feminism. Babbling about equal rights while discriminating against men: not even close to any feminist I have ever read, met or even heard about. What?
"How many females will you find in the group fighting for fathers' rights?"
I don't know, but I can tell you it includes ALL FEMINISTS.
Seriously slashdot, what the fuck. This is why I swear not to ever come back here once a week.
Spoken like someone who has never been on welfare (demonstrably insufficient to live on), government housing (=/), or tried to get a job recently (less than 10% of applicants are accepted to jobs at McDonalds, by the way, and that includes a much larger than usual percentage of college grads).
Well I didn't actually mean to argue with you, just sort of a pet issue of mine that seemed to come up several times in the discussion section. I would certainly be in error if I said that Ham, in particular, has never been exposed to those arguments. I will say, though, that before you can imagine how he would respond to them, you must also consider how you (impersonal you) respond to compelling arguments for things you hate.
"Ham, on the other hand, has undoubtedly been exposed to numerous arguments in favor of evolution that convince virtually everyone who doesn't have a religious bias."
If you believe this, spend a year in rural Kentucky. Will you be exposed to any arguments or evidence that creationism is bullpappy? Nope. Not a single one. Most people online seem to enormously underestimate the degree to which your surroundings (and your friends and neighbors) influence your views -- not just on politics, but of reality. The sad fact is, if some totally gamechanging fact popped up, but nobody on tv made a fuss about it, and nobody in the papers, and not your family, and not your neighbors, you probably wouldn't give a crap either. Because it's very hard to care about something nobody else does, and it's very hard NOT to care about something EVERYBODY else does. We trust the people around us to help determine fact from fiction -- we ALL do -- and in places like (much of) rural America, that system (due, if you ask me, to intentionally distorted information and a media-sponsored news cycle) has failed. Well, I guess it always fails, to some degree, and always succeeds. But there has been a notable failure on this particular breed of issue.
I knew a girl raised Catholic, sweetest thing you'd ever meet, and it wasn't until she found herself in a more diverse setting (with liberals, mormons, gay people etc) that she felt comfortable asserting -- because this was REVOLUTIONARY where she grew up -- that maybe, if two men love each other and they're not hurting anyone, just maybe, God would be okay with that. With that kind of compassion, she would've grown up in the northeastern US and become a gay rights crusader! But because of where she was born, she suppressed those beliefs because she knew they were not widely shared and hence not acceptable. And the thing of it is, she wasn't suppressing those ideas intentionally. Until her surroundings changed, she didn't even know she had those opinions and beliefs. Think what opinions and beliefs you have, right now, that you don't acknowledge because they're awkward, or maybe people or positions you sympathize with that you're not supposed to. How many more of those doubts would you find, if suddenly everyone's beliefs were different? If everyone fucking loved Nickelback tomorrow, would you make a fuss? Or would you keep quiet and start to notice the redeeming qualities of their music? Hey, here's a related question: how many of you listen to a genre of music that none of your family or friends listen to? How many of you have even thought to try?
Poor kids can't afford therapists. Testimony from children is only sometimes admissible because you can make children say anything. Do I have time to take my kid to a physician to diagnose sleep problems? When am I going to do that, if I'm poor, and how exactly does that get paid for? If the kid doesn't tell anyone, if the other kids didn't overhear, if any pone of a thousand things happens, there is no evidence. There is no proof. Of course, those are each only things that might happen. But given how many times a scenario like this has played out, we can assume that they have all happened, given that they all reasonably could. Conclusion: sometimes, yes, there's evidence. Sometimes there is not. The harm is still there. Of course, the entire argument I'm making here is that sometimes harm is still extant/significant even when it is not legally visible, which you apparently aren't even saying, so.... what? Wasn't that your argument?
My point is not that this remark hurt people. I don't care about THIS example at all. My problem is that slashdot is having a discussion about racism and concluding that, if you can't convince a judge something was hurtful, then it wasn't. And since the proxy measures of harm you mentioned (doctors, testimony etc) are all even less available to something on a societal level where each individual act is not harmful so much as their aggregate (kind of like how having one person shun you would suck, but having your entire village shun you would devastate you emotionally), the effects become even more impossible to demonstrate.
I'll just note that, through this whole discussion, I've never once told you something would "shut you up". You're welcome.
(P.S. The only thing I do that in any way seeks out racism is read slashdot. Other than that, it basically comes to me. By and large, the people affected by racism aren't affected because they seek it out. It's more because racism is an ever-present and unavoidable struggle in their lives.)
No no, I'm not talking racism. I'm saying, any emotional damages, of any kind, are unprovable. Hopefully you agree that they still exist. But not everything is admissible. That doesn't make it irrelevant.
Thank you! It's a common and endlessly frustrating myth that talking about real-world discrepancies is racism. And if you just take them at face value, or see it as the way things are, okay, it is. But if you look at those facts and how they came to be true, how things are different when you're a member of a minority, well that's just about the opposite of racism. "Uneducated black people in Africa gets AIDS. LOL!" is racism. "Uneducated black people in Africa get AIDS. Can you imagine being subject to a disease surrounded by misconceptions and not having access to medical care, damn. I wonder how I'd feel towards those rich, white people if that were me" = not racism.
People who think everyone is inherently bigoted are ignoring as much science as a flat-Earther. The idea is simply absurd.
The fact that you think people pointing out racism is just endless, useless complaining says a lot though. Most people who point out racism get derided and dismissed whether their claim is correct or not. Don't buy into that.
-_- Indeed. The reason t is less than accurate in this day and age is because it is a way that everyone, women and men, has been conditioned to view women. But it was still men behind the camera who created that phenomenon. There weren't exactly a lot of lesbian directors making commercials. And the fact is that women today are encouraged to do things like go to strip clubs with their guy friends and comment on other girls' asses just to be cool. Women are being pressured (not to mention manipulated) to adopt a male view and see other women the way (straight) men see them. So, the phenomenon is still defined by a toxic "masculine" perspective that is now being adopted by nearly everyone. Of course, not only is this damaging to women (this way of seeing the female body is, as you might imagine, responsible for a huge toll of body image diseases and eating disorders) but it's damaging to men as well, who get taught to pursue and sexualize women all the time and from an early age, AND that not doing so will make them less masculine (which would, it is implied, be terrible). So yes, I think this name was the most appropriate, and it is still enormously appropriate, not because of who started or perpetuated it, but just because of the worldview it advances. The real unfortunate part of that is that it sounds like it's disparaging men, just like the term "the patriarchy" sounds like it's disparaging men. It's not, but I can see how it would sound that way.
I'm saying it's the QWERTY keyboard of names. It was the best once, and now it isn't, but good luck getting people to call it what it should be called. Given all the resistance people have put up to the simple suggestion of not calling homosexual men faggots, it would seem people are not always open to making this kind of minor linguistic change. It infringes on their freedoms, donchaknow.
Wow for a second I thought that I'd be able to read and enjoy a discussion on slashdot without somebody telling me about how our media and society hate men and feminists have ruined us all. What a naive hope!
It's only called a male gaze because that's what it has been historically, and because it's mostly perpetuated by men because it's mostly men behind the camera. You're right, though, that the name is increasingly inaccurate. A better term might be "the female-objectifying gaze", but of course, longer and better terms for things don't usually catch on.