So, the next time some dipshit starts an account here and complains about how he got mugged by a bunch of black dudes, and goes on about why the hell can’t we teach these black people to just get a job and quit loafing on welfare checks and stealing from people, etc. I assume you’ll stop by to endorse his sentiment and explain to all concerned how the conversation is not itself in any way insulting or racist. I mean, he’s just talking about all the crimes and ridiculous shit black people do. That’s not racist, right? He’s obviously not talking about the black people who don’t do that shit, right? It doesn’t even need to be said. And those black people who are offended by the conversation should just shut up and realize it isn’t about them. Right? I mean hell, can we have just one conversation about black people on this board without all the black people swarming in and getting all defensive about it and interrupting our thoughtful recounting of all the wrongs black people have done to us?
Or, maybe you just have a ridiculous double standard.
I’ve already addressed it, but it’s very simple: you’re projecting. You continue to read these comments as if they were about all men when not a single one is written that way. For example the @emma_pins tweet is about how men and women are taught to behave and the standards they’re hold to in our culture and how those place an unfair burden on women, but you keep insisting she’s saying something bad about all men. @cassyhough comments on men who’ve made some specific rude comments thing to her, not men en masse, but all you had to say about it is that maybe the men were right. So on that one you missed the point as badly as you could have possibly missed it. @someone else also commented on men who do a specific annoying thing, but you just kind of belittled it without any apparent attempt to understand the point being made.
I hope that’s enough of an explanation. Maybe now you can justify the offense you’ve taken? Or maybe you could grasp the more general message?
For most of those, I was just commenting that the behavior referenced was not actually misogynistic, merely annoying. So I don’t see how I missed the point at all. Yes, people were rude to her. Being rude to a woman does not mean you’re misogynistic, it just means you’re rude. That was my point.
The one tweet I was actually offended by was:
And you have certainly done a masterful job of providing a speculative interpretation that does not sound nearly as sexist. But none of that was in the actual tweet.
I repeat my question: what is the difference between this tweet and racist variant I posted upthread?
At best this is a quibble, and I’m not sure it’s even that. The behavior is annoying, but since we’re discussing men and women being held to different standards (and women suffering in the process), calling it misogyny isn’t the horror you’re supposing it is.
Was that the point? I couldn’t tell because you didn’t really articulate that in your dismissive posts. You just rejected what they said and criticized their interpretation of what they experienced. This is the kind of thing some people call “mansplaining,” obnoxious as that term can be. And in one case you said the people giving this woman a hard time might’ve been right. This argument doesn’t really work when you’re talking about a lifetime of experiences rather than one incident.
It was much more in the tweet than what you’ve come away with.
They have nothing at all in common. Would you like to deal with the actual quoted tweet and what’s being said, or are you just going to keep thundering on about how you think that if she’d said something different about different people, it would have been terrible?
If you want anyone to understand what the hell you are saying, you should probably use words according to their dictionary definition. I mean, obviously you can use whatever words you want to mean whatever you want, but you should not be surprised when people do not understand your meaning as a result, or object because you have said something that is inaccurate according to the dictionary definitions of your words.
I suppose you could include a little index at the bottom of all written documents explaining your own personal definitions of all the terms you’re using, but that seems rather inefficient. Perhaps we could all agree on some standard terms and definitions and compile them into a reference document that we could all agree to use…oh wait.
Since you seem unwilling to come up with any response more articulate than “They’re different because they’re not at all the same”, I will just drop the topic rather than continue to go around in circles.
I already explained that’s not how dictionaries work. It’s really not how conversation works either. These people are describing various activities as misogynist for reasons that can be explained, whether or not you ultimately agree with their reasoning. You’re responding to it by saying “Dictionary! Dictionary!” And that’s just not correct. A dictionary definition is not a magic totem you can use to win an argument.
Here you’ve chosen your words very well. You’re correct that I’m unwilling to play this game. It’s ridiculous and based on a false premise.
As a guy, I know there’s a certain aspect of the fear women have that I will probably never understand. So my question is for women: given the fact that so many men get it wrong in their responses to crimes like this, either being defensive, or saying “what about me??” or what have you, what are some things women wished guys would do or say to contribute to the goal of reducing and eliminating this type of violence? How should we respond? What should we say? What’s the proper reaction?
Just listen. You don’t have to say anything, just listen.
E: I mean this for discussions about this kind of stuff. Stopping violence is more about changing mindsets. Next time one of your guy friends makes a shitty comment about women, seems not to take their boundaries seriously, seems not to respect them as human beings, then speak up. But when women share their stories about harrassment or worse, you don’t need to say anything to them – just let them share their experiences.
I’m all for #yesallwomen on it’s own, but it came about as a response to Elliot Rodger’s killing spree and I don’t really see the connection and feel like it’s taking away from the real mental health issues behind the shootings. I notice that the shooting hasn’t been mentioned in this thread yet.
Maybe I’m wrong, it is connected by the fact that he blamed women for his loneliness before he went out on a killing spree (and killed four men and two women), but to me, the lesson to learn is that we need to focus on the mental health issue that led to this, not the idea that all women think all men are potential murderers.
I’m all for talking about gender based violence and some of those tweets linked to upthread are horrifying (oh for fucks sake, can we not get the police to stake out of the roofie dumping lot?) but I feel like the metal health issues will be old news in a week anyway, and probably within a couple days if the focus on this event is that all men are potential misogynists.
Marley23, thank you. That is what I meant. And you’re right, the whole argument presented is build on a false premise, the comparison does not make sense, and the poster has not provided a clear tweet that decisively really belittles the whole gender as bad as the comparison he gives.
gallows_fodder is right. When people who are oppressed (gender, sexual identity, ethnicity, religion, politics, etc.) recount the experiences, it is not necessary to say anything. The experiences are being told so that you can understand a bit of where they are coming from, why they react certain ways (that you would think illogical), why they behave again in a different way to what you may think as logical, etc. It is a way of they teaching you something, opening up your eyes.
What to do with that? Realize that you, in your position of privilege, can do something to change it. Like gallows mentions, when you see those behaviors that were mentioned by the oppressed as being wrong behaviors, speak up, speak against them, don’t tolerate them in your circles.
I know our public discourse often gives the impression that every issue is only about one thing, but that’s not how it works in real life. We know the shooter was mentally ill both because he received treatment for mental illness and because he did some things that were batshit insane. That doesn’t mean we can’t also discuss sexism and violence or prejudice against women in light of the shooting as well. Why would you say the mental health issue here is “real” as if the guy’s violence against women and evident hatred and sense of entitlement to sex were not real? They can all be real at the same time.
I know I referred to it once or twice, and I think some other people did, too. It’s what inspired the hashtag and there’s a whole separate thread about it.
Where are you getting this? That’s not the point of the hashtag and it’s not being said by anybody sensible. It’s about women’s experiences with discrimination and entitlement and sometimes threats and violence - the idea being that all women have experienced that in one form or another, not that any man might become a killer. There could be some lessons to learn about mental health and policing issues here, too, although this does not appear to be someone who lacked treatment or anything of that nature.
For the record, I don’t think the tweets listed in this thread are insulting. I was responding in reference to the article that Karl linked to. There are definitely times when people complain about “men” without any indication that they are aware they are generalizing. Likewise, I’ve heard - including earlier today - people talk about “women” as if they were monolithic in their thinking, personality, and actions.
I’m sure most people who say those sorts of things don’t think that literally every single man (or woman) acts the same as every other man (or woman). They would acknowledge exceptions. But depending on context, that may be the problem - it may not be that there are exceptions to their statement, but that the generalization they make is itself the exception. For example, the article quotes a blogger as saying, “I know. Not all men are rapists. Not all men abuse their significant others. Not all men actively oppress women. I get it.” Later in the same post from that blog is: “It reassures them, falsely, that only a small portion of men behave in a way that is detrimental to the liberation of groups outside of white men (so, most people).”
The implication is clear. Most men (or at least, most white men - apparently non-white men get a pass) are active oppressors / abusers / rapists. I think this is ass-backwards and insulting.
Sure, we can do both issues at once, they’re both important. It’s just that these murder rampages stay in the news for about a week then fade away, along with all the talk of actually doing something to help people or stop this kind of thing from happening. Now it’s not just a murder rampage issue, now it’s also about a woman feeling intimidated to lift weights at the gym because guys might be watching her. There are some alarming tweets in there too, but half the country just lost interest because it’s not about a specific event anymore, it’s about fixing male/female relations on nearly every level.
Oh, where to begin. First off, it sounds like you’re saying that even if a blogger goes out of her way to make “Not All Men” thing explicit, that’s still not good enough to spare everybody’s feelings. Come on. And by reading the quote without checking the context, you’ve 100% misunderstood what the blogger was saying. It was actually a year-old post addressing the “Not All Men” concept and does not in any way imply that most men are abusers or sexists. The blogger merely says - and this is the same thing #YesAllWomen was addressing - that the fact that some men are OK does not negate women’s experiences and does not make this less of an issue and doesn’t clear anyone of responsibility to make things better. Which is reasonable and doesn’t blame anybody for anything.
You’re not the first poster in this thread to get insulted by a thing nobody said.
You say that, but at every turn I get the sense you think the non-mental health things aren’t that important. We really can talk about both.
Here’s a dirty little secret I’ve learned from reading too much about too many murder rampages: none of them change jack shit about anything. I’m excluding terrorism, because terrorism can provoke changes - as long as they’re overreactions related to security or spying. I guess high school kids who write graphic stuff are more likely to get expelled or suspended than they were 15 years ago, so if that counts, there’s that. But as far as caring for the mentally ill, guns laws, the immigration system or anything else, nothing happens because our society really doesn’t prioritize those groups of people and those issues. So in this instance I’m glad to settle for learning some more about how other people experience the world and maybe becoming a slightly better-informed and more self-aware human being and treating other people a little better if it’s possible. Because on the policy level, nothing ever happens after these massacres and nothing will happen this time either.
What I said is what I meant. Whatever sense you got from it you brought with you.
So talking about that is a waste of time because it’s not like we’re going to fix it overnight. Couldn’t the same be said about the hashtag?
I’m out. I’m sure I was wrong about everything. I don’t have time to argue about murder or violence, let alone to argue about the merits of arguing about either one, or argue about anything related to twitter.
That’s the problem: I’m asking you about what you said. In post #71 you said there was a “real” mental health issue behind the shootings, which suggests the other issues aren’t so real. You also said you felt the gender-based issues were taking away from that issue and might obscure it. So do you feel that those issues are less real and just a distraction? That implication also permeates the second half of post #75 you kind of implied that this part of the discussion is just a vague distraction. Do you actually feel that way? I’m serious when I say I don’t think we have to choose one or the other.
I literally said the exact opposite of this: talking about this stuff and gaining some understanding that we can share with others is the best we can do. What I said was that you don’t have to worry about squandering some kind of opportunity for major changes. There is no opportunity, and there will not be any major changes any time soon. That’s been the case with every single one of these shooting sprees. If you want to have a subtler discussion, though, there’s plenty of opportunity for that.
I said the same thing about the hashtag, so in my opinion, yes.
Wha … ? That’s actually the opposite of what I’m saying.
It’s pretty interesting that you think I didn’t check the context considering I quoted part of the blog post you linked to in the post you are responding to! It would have literally been impossible for me to do that without having checked the context. So … I have no idea what to say now. I mean, seriously, dude?