A pit thread pitting how the dope is male-centric is overwhelmingly dominated with a bunch of men fighting with each other.
I’d like to say that this is surprising, but it really really isn’t.
I’m a guy. And I didn’t intend to post in this thread for precisely this reason. But here I am anyway. Kia kaha to Sunny and everyone else who has to deal with this shit.
Ask is fine; give comments from a woman in your life is also fine. But too often the posts veer into mansplaining or dismiss what the actual women are saying. “I don’t understand why that is offensive” can be misconstrued, its meaning depends on tone; I tend to err on the side of positive interpretation, but I’m not everybody (happy not to be, too). “Whine whine whine”… nope, no way to misunderstand that.
We’re in an international board where some people are offended by the presence of people who are from or live outside the US. When those people come up with their crap I can roll my eyes, but I can do that in part because when I encounter them in my daily life, they’re most likely not pointing at me; in part, because others in these same boards have expressed appreciation for the point of view of us foreigners and expats. People who dismiss women’s responses to threads asking the opinion of women? Those are everywhere. It’s a much more dangerous and damaging version of the idiot who thinks it’s funny to butcher a song named like you: it’s always going to hit a sore point, because that point is constantly being hit and hit and hit and hit and hit and hit and hit and… and sometimes we’d like to get a break.
Back to the OP - I’ll try to do a lot more reporting too. And to actively stop participating in the kind of threads that spawned the OP, if I recognize them in time, and to definitely leave them if anyone raises these concerns after they’ve started.
So is there something about the culture of particular forums like Cafe and GD and IMHO that makes them more hostile than MPSIMS? Or is it about the moderation, and an ATMB discussion about that is called for?
Maybe you can explain to your “children” how much you enjoy shitting on women and how much you hate their own “mother” and how much you enjoy giving BLUMPKINS.
You see children of “octopus” a “blumpkin” is when your “father” is giving a blowjob to another man while that man is taking a poopy.
If most of the people on the board are male then of course the board will be male-centric. How could it be otherwise? If men tend to post more than woman then again the masculine point of view will predominate. Of course, male Dopers could strive to think like women or take views they assume a woman would take but that won’t work either. Despite their best efforts men cannot think like women simply because they aren’t woman.
Unless the board is going to somehow enforce balance in numbers or restrict men from posting more than women then it is what it is. The SDMB will slant male.
s shouldn’t need stating but apparently it does: “Show us your boobs” is not “the masculine point of view” and being a man and not being down with that as the sole kind of masculinity on this board doesn’t mean I or others “think like women” (NTTAWWT)
TL;DR:** “Toxic” is not the only flavour masculinity comes in.**
Actually, the OP did not say “stop posting rate-a-woman” threads. The OP pointed out that they are somewhere between not welcoming to offensive for women and that continuing to post them will have consequences for this forum.
Sure, free speech/First amendment, but speech has consequences. Sunny Daze pointed out potential consequences.
Why should your opinion have more weight than, say, pedophiles that enjoy discussing raping babies? If you don’t like it don’t read it, right? They’re just talking, they’re not hurting anyone … (probably)… (we hope)… Go read something else, right? Then they show up in a thread about baking cookies or mowing the lawn and somehow manage to drag their favorite obsession into an unrelated discussion.
It’s not just one - it’s multiple threads, and multiple posts in other threads. That’s what you fail to grasp, what you fail to see - it’s not one or two things here and there. It permeates the board culture. It makes many threads distasteful.
And all of them are trying to shout-down the concerns brought up by women… which is telling. Oh, the horrors! They might have to consider that they have possibly maybe offended someone else who is asking them to have some empathy for - HORRORS! HORRORS CENSORSHIP I HAVE A RIGHT TO TAWK ABOUT MA DICK AND WHAT MAKES MA DICK HAPPY HOW DARE YOU WOMAN HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT TO SAY YOU BITCHES!!!
Which is only a slightly exaggerated description of how it comes across. Especially octopus.
If you actually read the thread and don’t just come in for a drive-by “joke” posting… if you conduct yourself in a polite and respectful manner… if your question or contribution is actually pertinent to the thread…
Yes. Post in a female-centric thread.
But in my experience those posts are rare compared to the threadshitting posts.
Here’s an example of appropriate contributions:
Let’s say there a thread about menstruation (there actually have been a couple over the decades). If, say, Qadgop dropped in to add some medical facts that would be appropriate. If, say, a man dropped by and said “my new girlfriend has terrible menstrual problems and she’s really miserable… is there anything I can do to help her through this and make her feel better” that would be appropriate (I actually do remember this happening in a menstruation thread, but I don’t remember if that was here or another forum).
Now this is a good point and is making me think. I have already conceded that if the content got to a certain level of gratuitous sex or violence or vulgarity as in the case of Drunky I’d protest it myself. But it’s admittedly not black or white. And I think that where on the spectrum someone lies with regards to content can be different than someone else but each person could have legitimate reasons for their position. My level of sensitivity to boorish threads is not that far from the OP it’s just that my solution, i.e. tolerance, is attacked, or rather I’m attacked.
Again, to be clear, advocating child rape or any form of rape I’m against. Perverts on this board advocate prison rape. I’ve stated opposition to that. I think it’s creepy asking for personal information especially pictures. Especially on a board like this where many of the posters are demonstrably unhinged. It wouldn’t be safe. Perving on women’s breasts is a huge red flag. I mean if you get to know someone in private chat maybe then. But in a public forum? That’s immature. I get all that. I don’t participate in those threads. But outside of advocating for a new rule regulating content what do you expect a satisfactory solution to be?
If misogyny or bigotry permeates the board culture that is a bad thing. I don’t read every thread so perhaps I don’t see it as you do. I do know that I get frustrated with the childish and dishonest conflation of the support of tolerance for free speech in the abstract with a support for every potential and specific offensive permutation of expression. That’s not directed at you that’s just an aside.
Um none of what you wrote is true. Morgenstern and Mr. Dribble are clearly in complete support. Chimera, TriPolar, and octopus are empathetic but feel that the magnitude of the problem is overstated. And no one in that group is talking about what their dick thinks or is calling women bitches.
No. I just read his posts (even though I have octopus on ignore), and he’s getting it fine. He even was conceding an issue in his penultimate post, and was actually somewhat understanding what you were saying, and maybe even coming around to your way of thinking, because of something you brought up. That actually shocked me. I rarely see anyone pull that off!
At the same time, he is entirely right about your claim about the top posters in this thread. The claims you made were entirely false. In your rage you actually attacked two people on your side! And, as far as I can tell, his assessment of the other two posters besides himself is at least arguably accurate.
When you’re even accusing the posters who are on your side of being horrible sexist assholes, only following their dicks, then it’s probably time to take a step back.
(Huh. Never defended 5 people at once before, I don’t think. But I do always say I’ll do that when I see false accusations.)