Similarly childish, and conveniently in-line with maintaining a status quo where those who dominate don’t have to change or self-evaluate, is to insist that anyone who doesn’t like how the loudest personalities do things is free to just go somewhere else.
Imagine a room with 10 people in it. 2 of them are engaging in action X that reliably makes 4 others uncomfortable. The remaining 4 may or may not have opinions on action X either way, but it doesn’t make them feel particularly strongly.
The question is, what to do? If the 2, upon hearing that their actions make some uncomfortable, say “well, that’s their problem, they’re free to cover their ears, or go somewhere else,” they are in essence saying “I care less about the comfort of those 4 than I do about my own joy in doing X. My satisfaction at doing X is more important to me than your participation/presence in the room.”
There’s nothing inherently wrong in making that calculation; we all do it all the time. Determining to what degree our own pursuits take precedence over the convenience/health/success/joy of others. But, it does mean that you don’t care enough to change. And you’ve gotta own that. Putting it on others for being too sensitive, or too hypocritical, or too whatever is just a deflection and a ducking of responsibility for your own actions.
I don’t know that there’s something that must be done about this issue, or that every single instance of men posting in “male-centered” conversations is wrong, but let’s get one thing straight. The essence of the problem isn’t that those who are bothered by those posts don’t understand, it’s that many of those who engage in those conversations don’t care that it bothers people.
The whining I was referring to was those who clearly wanted censorship as a solution and were butthurt by the existence of material they found objectionable, and then tried to justify their viewpoints by pointing out an arbitrary mod instruction. Skald including disclaimers of no NSFW content was harmless. Keep working on the rational part, you’re getting closer.
I want to be clear about this, I like Left Hand. He and I just have oil and water personalities and end up sparring with each other a lot. I don’t blame him, it’s more my fault than his.
So, I know this is part of your identity, and I know questioning identities is fraught. But my first interaction with you was when I was bringing up a fairly well-known and replicated and uncontroversial idea from child psychology (Piaget’s conservation experiments), and you just rejected them out of hand, for pages and pages. You didn’t read up on them, you didn’t listen to what folks were saying, you just called bullshit over and over. Eventually, IIRC, you started reaching for some sort molecular arrangement explanation of how the six-year-olds were understanding the question better than the researchers, rather than admit that you didn’t understand childhood psychology better than the folks who’d dedicated their lives to studying it.
Years later I think you admitted your error, which, y’know, points in your favor. But it gave me a powerful impression of how you approached arguments: once your back is up, I’m not sure you do analyze things with anything approaching objectivity.
Which brings us to this:
Of course you can–which is why I said that you can’t do it with any credibility.
You can certainly describe your own understanding of feminism, with a great deal of credibility. But when you’re telling women what real feminists believe, with the very clear implication that they’re not real feminists? I don’t know you’ll find many people taking you seriously.
How is anyone in a virtual community harmed when its own rules are flagrantly pissed on and the valid concerns of an entire sector of its membership is openly held in contempt? That way.
Also, it didn’t do my opinion of Skald much good, either, I’ll admit.
The solution is for the women to post more threads. It’s not like the server is a Commodore 64. At least I hope not. Maybe that’s why avatars are disabled.
But anyways, if the ratio of non-spam content is too high, whatever that means, the problem can be solved by the creation of other content. I think the ratio of conservative content is too low. I’m not going to demand the liberals post less.
And honestly, if a Betty vs Veronica thread is perceived as offensive, misogynistic, oppression then I don’t think the problem is the thread. Ladies, you can make an Archie vs Jughead poll. I’ll even vote.
Skald admitted in that thread that was he was mocking the new rule, because he was irritated that he had to include disclaimers for his humiliation/incest porn fetish, and you continue to insist it was harmless. Yeah, you know how hysterical us womenfolk get, amirite? We’re so whiny when it comes to surprise gang rape porn being dropped into posts with no warning, we should just get over it already. And when the person responsible for doing so gets petulant and butthurt in response, you still think its okay. So, again, you’re part of the problem.
Also, fuck off if you think you’re going to condescend to me.
This board is truly amazing sometimes, and I don’t mean that in a good way.