We? Who is “we?” It’s really toxic to try to divide the world into teams like this. Especially when it’s “you’re either everything I command you to be or you’re subhuman scum.”
“Men” are not a team or a monolith. You seem to subconsciously believe they are.
And no, my argument is if the first thing people hear from you is derision and insults, they’re going to walk away. If after that, they hear “wow, those people were really mean, that sucks bro, why don’t you come sit with us?” they’re far more likely to say yes. Do you want to associate with people who call you names, consider you subhuman or lesser than, repeatedly tell you you’re irrelevant and need to shut up? Do you want to listen to those people? And what if, after that, someone seemingly kind hearted sits down and says to you “I had the same experience with those people. Let me hear your side,” would that not be an attractive offer?
Think about the times you have been explicitly told either to shut up or that your feelings don’t matter. Did the person saying that to you appear more or less credible? Did you want to associate more, or less with that person? Then flip it. The last time someone was inviting and listened to you, did they appear less or more credible? Did you want to associate more or less with that person?
These people aren’t on the fence about joining MRA’s. Most of them, so far as I can tell, haven’t even heard of MRAs until someone starts accusing them of being one. They don’t seek out those groups because they have strong opinions that align with them. It’s more like “what is this MRA thing they keep calling me?” They wind up checking out those groups and then getting indoctrinated and radicalized because instead of being insulted, belittled and alienated they’re welcomed with open arms and drizzle fed all sorts of nonsense.
Ultimately, when you’re asking someone to do something (anything, including not doing something), you’re making a sales pitch. “I hate you, you monster” is a really, really bad sales pitch.
Thank you for making a point that had little to do with the subject at hand, isn’t remotely supported by evidence and is based on ludicrous stereotypes and fearmongering. In the same vein, I would like to come out against the importation of millions of rabid wolverines. Clearly there are many dangerous animals out there that we should not be letting loose in our elementary schools, and I feel people are too swift to dismiss the danger they pose.
Yeah, I pretty much already do this. It’s called being a female night auditor at an upscale resort. You’re describing about 20% of my interactions with guests.
That’s terrible. Really, it is. I’ve worked customer service and been on the receiving end of some abuse, but I haven’t had to deal with entitled rich jerks who want all the wrong things out of me so I can only speculate just how bad it was. Understand, I do want that to change for you. You shouldn’t have to deal with that.
But my question to you (and anyone who’s looking for civil discussion) is how you feel about being treated that way. Would you, for instance, choose to interact with those 20% of people if it wasn’t your livelihood? Put another way, given no other incentive like pay or work requirements, would you freely choose those a-holes over the ones who aren’t jerks? And when they treat you that way, do you think more highly or less highly of them? About their beliefs?
After a long day of work and having to deal with those people, is it not at least a minor relief to be able to join or read a discussion group that calls those people out for making you feel that way?
I don’t mean to ask obvious questions and of course I can guess at your answer. But take those feelings that 20% invoke in you and apply it here. If one of those 20% came at you and started saying that A) you should feel that way and B) you have to agree with them, would you even want to hear them out?
For about the sixteenth time, or maybe the sixtieth: nobody is saying the crap you’re attributing to us. You’re doing the equivalent of showing up at Burger King screaming at them for giving you a bad ptarmigan wing sandwich.
First of all, it’s been pointed out by a lot of other posters that “explicit hatred” is a very exaggerated way of describing the criticisms of some male behavior that have been made here.
But what strikes me is that even if there are some men who are reacting that way to what they consider “explicit hatred”, aren’t these men being really fragile snowflakes in their overreaction? Flounce out of civilized society entirely and go join an incel/MRA pack just because you think some women were mean to you? Really?
After all, I and most other women encounter online evidence of genuine explicit hatred towards women from men all the time. We don’t think that entitles us to go start some female equivalent of incel/MRA groups. Just because some men are horrible assholes to us doesn’t entitle us to be horrible assholes to half the human species in return.
Don’t you think those “lot of men” you speak of should be at least a bit ashamed of themselves for giving themselves permission to be horrible assholes of the incel/MRA type just because they think some women were mean to them? Aren’t you a bit ashamed of yourself for treating their inexcusable vindictive behavior as though it’s just a natural and predictable consequence of receiving some criticism that comes across as too harsh and “hateful”?
Don’t you think such men have an ethical obligation instead to put on their big boy pants and hold themselves to reasonable standards of decent behavior, rather than making some “hateful” criticism an excuse for turning into horrible assholes?
Well, you’re the one who started making excuses for “a lot of men” voluntarily signing up for the incel/MRA “team” because they were butthurt about supposedly not being treated as nicely by some women as they felt they deserved. What’s toxic is not that such behavior is being criticized, but that you’re trying to make out that such behavior is somehow the fault of women for allegedly being too harsh in some of their criticisms of men.
@Kimtsu I typed up a much longer reply, but rather than get lost in the woods, this…
…is a succinct summary of the root of where I’m coming from. I want to take the time to say Thank You for pointing this out. Believe it or not, I rarely if ever hear this point being made. It’s usually the opposite.
I also want to respond to this:
I hear you, and I completely accept that this is true. But, men get hatred from women all the time as well. It’s not a problem exclusive to one gender, but rather a consequence of our division against each other. Look at it this way: you see constant, rampant evidence of hatred towards you that men are totally oblivious or insensitive towards. Isn’t it possible that the same is true for both genders?
I like the first quote, but I like this rephrasing better “Just because some people are horrible assholes doesn’t entitle anyone to be horrible assholes in return.” Those men who go full asshole against women? Just as bad as the women who go full asshole against men. It’s the same sin. Nobody gets a pass.
In practice, however, what generally gets referred to as “women going full asshole against men” usually boils down to some women not being careful enough with their qualifiers (“not all men”) when condemning male violence and harassment against women.
“Men going full asshole against women”, on the other hand, tends to involve men openly identifying with explicitly misogynistic incel/MRA groups, harassing and threatening women online, and periodically “pulling an Elliot Rodger” and deliberately murdering women.
Trying to present these different behaviors as “the same sin” is most definitely giving the male “assholes” more of “a pass” compared to the female “assholes”.
Yeah… I know… but I don’t think it’s intentional. I want to believe it’s not intentional.
I don’t know of any insult or verbal attack more viscerally impactful than genuinely calling a man a rapist. I can’t think of a clever metaphore because it’s the equivalent of infinity - a direction, not a distance. Like… Hitler was an evil sack of shit, but at least he wasn’t a rapist. So, casually and repeatedly reducing every single person born with a penis to an evil worse than Hitler is a pretty big thing, even if it doesn’t seem that way.
And the reverse is also true. Women who are abused by assholes often join radical feminist groups that are explicitly misandric. Both genders are just people. They have more in common than they have differences.
Men get the same harassment from angered women. Really, people get harassed by angry people. It’s what angry, hateful people do. It’s wrong. I honestly think we can agree on that.
This is the danger, and why I’m saying lets not feed those groups. Let’s not make it easy for them to recruit people. Let’s not provide fuel for their fire, so they can’t occasionally spit out an Elliot Rodger.
I will grant that there are far more Elliot Rodgers than female mass killers (there are almost none). That’s a result of the most violent men being more violent than the most violent women. However, most of the species occupies a sane, healthy, and completely overlapping middle range. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent lie on the extreme edge.
The smaller and less easy we make it for extremist groups, the less likely they can get their hands on Rodgers.
But the other things? It’s a door that swings both ways.
Can you point to any poster who suggested that you are a rapist? Because if so, I missed that.
As I said above (perhaps my post was too long and people skipped it) the joke/satire, which some men here found offensive, doesn’t WORK unless you assume that most men AREN’T rapists, or dangerous at all.
What?!?? Do you seriously think that anyone is arguing that if Hitler had been a rapist instead of an evil racist genocidal dictator, that alternative would have been worse? I think you must be misinterpreting that.
Again, this really comes across as a false equivalence between phenomena that are massively different in scope and impact. What are the “radical feminist groups” you’re talking about? How many women are actually in them, compared to the number of men in misogynist “manosphere” communities?
Do they? Do men get from women, for example, “the same harassment” that Anita Sarkeesian got from men merely for politely pointing out some ways in which certain video game tropes involve sexist stereotypes?
Let me put it another way: when I go to work, I check where items are that I can use in self-defense if I have to (specifically our three hole punch; that thing is perfect for hitting someone with). Do you do that? The men at the front desk don’t. There have been times for safety reasons our security has to escort female employees to their cars. When is the last time your work did that for men? And only men?
I said “visceral reaction” as in gut or emotional. I never said it was a logical one. Certainly Hitler was objectively worse than your garden variety rapist (I mean, his actions caused the rape of untold thousands of women). But yes, on a purely emotional level I’d much rather be thought of as a swastika tattoo’d Nazi than a rapist. I don’t know many men who wouldn’t agree.
For starters, not every group labeled misogynist is actually misogynist - that’s an accusation that gets casually tossed around for virtually any reason, to the point that the accusation itself has become meaningless. Everything not explicitly feminist is considered misogynist by at least someone. That said, even groups that have a lot of verifiable misogyny aren’t made up of only misogynists. It’s usually just ordinary but desensitized people mixed up with enough radicals to taint the bunch.
Many manosphere groups repudiate R.E. and everything he stood for. I can’t say “most” or not because I haven’t suffered “most” but when it happened, there was a lot of (unreported) backlash against him, what he preached, and what he did at least in the rather famous circles I peeked into. In fact, self-identified Incels are usually rejected by manosphere types as something disgusting to them, so far as I can see.
Anita Sarkeesian is not a good subject to delve into. Discussing gamergate and the issues with Sarkeesian is almost certainly a thread derailment. I’m not sure, but isn’t that issue one of the very few that are actually blacklisted?
You’re missing my question. I never asserted that you can avoid those 20%, I asked you if you had the choice, would you choose them over someone who wasn’t an asshole?
Yes, I do that - at home and at work. Have done that since I was a small child (until recently, I always slept armed and I still keep weapons in my room, just not on the bed). T’wasn’t a good environment, lets leave it at that. Now, I can’t speak for the mindset of other men, but I can say that while I don’t assume everyone is going to randomly try to kill me, I am conscious of behavior that indicates danger and prepared to defend myself if I have to. No one else will come to my defense.
As for escorts, we escort anyone who asks for escort. Men generally don’t ask because, presumably, they expect to defend themselves or don’t want to appear weak and invite the dangers that entails. In the past few years, we’ve had two escort requests: one after a certifiable loon made a scene because he was refused to be hired (the target of harassment was female, but the harassment was entirely based on him being a pushy “hire me now” weirdo and had nothing to do with sex) and another time because the lights were broken (and it was pitch black in the parking lot). That was also a woman. The men expressed fear, but went into the lot.
I’m happy for you! It would be nice if I could say the same, but I can’t. Might be our age difference, might be where we live, you might have had a better childhood, I don’t know. But, honestly, it’s a good thing not everyone has this experience. Unfortunately, I know too many who do.
But look, if it’s truly accepted that calling all men rapists is wrong, and it’s accepted that treating people like shit causes them to drift towards people who don’t, then I’d rather have the conversation about sexual violence (without the sexism) than argue every possible thing that divides men and women. I’m not comfortable with how much of a derailment I’ve been involved with. Can we, perhaps, narrow this down to the hypothetical?
The joke doesn’t work for a myriad of reasons. The most critical reason is that the hypothetical is completely non-analogous. To be analogous, it requires that men be considered rapists. That’s the suppressed premise, and that’s where the problem arose.
If men aren’t rapists, then it should come as no shock that treating them like rapists meets opposition. The contention then isn’t “how dare you impose limits on a man’s freedom” but “how dare you treat men like monsters without justification.” So it falls apart.
The hypothetical doesn’t suggest women should protect men. It suggests women should protect other women by imposing draconian laws against them. Even if I accept that the advice to have backup is misguided, you can’t equate suggesting that someone keep someone around to protect them to locking up half the population.
Now, if men are all rapists, then it makes sense! Imagine actually locking those monsters up! How marvelous to put those subhumans where they belong! But we can’t, because even though it’s better than they deserve, they’d never allow us. Hah, just think of how mad they would be!
No, that’s not the point. The point is that the hypothetical would restrict all men, including the innocent ones. Just like we restrict innocent women.
Literally no one thinks that all men are rapists.*
** It’s a big world. By “no one” i mean an inconsequential number of people. I actually know a woman with a mother who kinda believed that, and she says it really messed her up.
No, they don’t. What they get is pushback. Not the same thing.
Really? Can’t think of any similar insult? Try calling a straight man a homosexual. Or any man a paedophile.
The rape stats say different.
Same.
Gamergate? Not that I can see. Starting a pro-advocacy thread is, according to the rules. But mentioning Gamergate doesn’t seem to be explicitly banned AFAICT. A mod could clarify (@raventhief ?) , but I think if it’s something of relevance (and the response to her is definitely of relevance in discussing toxic masculinity) then it should be OK as long as it’s not a complete hijack of the thread.
So, given your problem with inaccurate generalizations, maybe you should avoid saying that gender discrimination is something that happens to men “all the time.”