(Content warning, discussions of SA and misogyny, mods I might mention politics a bit but I hope this can be taken outside the context of politics and understood as a discussion of basic human decency)
We all know how awful Reddit was when a user mentioned their gender. Immediate harassment, DMs, etc. It’s probably improved over the years? But still awful.
Until recently, Lemmy was the most progressive and supportive of basic human dignity of communities I had ever followed. I have always known this was a majority male platform, but I have been relatively pleased to see that positive expressions of masculinity have won out.
All of that changed with the recent “bear vs man” debacle. I saw women get shouted down just for expressing their stories of being sexually abused, repeatedly harassed, dogpiled, and brigaded with downvotes. Some of them held their ground, for which I am proud of them, but others I saw driven to delete their entire accounts, presumably not to return.
And I get it. The bear thing is controversial; we can all agree on this. But that should never have resulted in this level of toxicity!
I am hoping by making this post I can kind of bring awareness to this weakness, so that we can learn and grow as a community. We need to hold one another accountable for this, or the gender gap on this site is just going to get worse.
The whole “bear vs. man” thing proved that there are still a lot of people out there totally unable to get over themselves. On one side you see people piling on women not knowing the everyday struggle the average woman goes through everyday, on the other side there are people that get mad at memes not accepting that the statement was meant to be over the top in the first place, so it’s ok to find irony in it
the response to the bear vs man thing is basically proof why most women chose bear.
people who are unable to get over themselves:
also people, unable to get over themselves: “you are actually just like hitler”
(this is satire, i’m not legitimately comparing hitler to you people, calm down.)
the irony will never cease to be indescribably funny to me.
Responses like the one OP is talking about were for sure, but since those weren’t the only kind of critical responses I wouldn’t band the whole thing together
downvotes on this are nothing but a tally of guys who are legitimately worse than a bear. So at least speak up and reveal yourselves, you coward ass bitches.
I’ve never raped anyone but I’ve been forced/coerced to have sex with two different women, and yes I’m a little offended at the fact that simply due to my gender I’m lumped in with the perpetrators rather than the victims, and that the perpetrators are lumped in with the victims in my stead. It goes beyond the bear post and is partially the result of the fact that nobody gives two shits about male victims, and the fact that in many localities rape requiring penetration excludes men from seeking justice by default, the being treated as a predator whilst being preyed upon is just the icing on the cake, really.
If that makes me worse than the bear, because I’d rather we not use inflammatory and gendered language to vilify a whole gender and exclude its victims for the lulz, then so be it.
So, You’ve experienced a similar trauma to what a good chunk of women experience, and the remaining women live in fear of experiencing, and instead of being sympathetic and understanding… you are angry at them for trying to protect themselves from similar fates.
Yeah, you sound like a real upstanding guy.
I can tell you haven’t dealt with drama before. If I’m wrong, please forgive me. Everyone has to deal with it differently, please be a little more patient. Maybe they could have worded it more carefully, but I don’t think they deserved this escalation.
This is a problem we need to deal with in society. You acknowledged that yourself. This almost comes across as victim blaming, but definitely comes across as straw manning.
Close, but no cigar. I’m empathetic to those women, and in fact I agree we can all be more vigilant to protect ourselves from harm of any kind. What I do not agree with is the unnecessary inflammatory gendered language which actually does more harm than good and alienates male victims while praising woman perpetrators, and with people like you who minimize my experiences and viewpoints because you’d rather dismiss them than treat me like a human. I do not agree that because some men are abusive we should treat them all as if they probably are, just as my experiences with two of the many women I have met are expected not to taint my view of their entire gender.
I’m not angry at women, I’m angry at individuals like yourself, who are shitty people masquerading as a moral authority, fucking do better.
ah yes, gatekeeping rape.
wouldn’t be the fucking internet if this shit didn’t happen huh?
he’s contributing to the conversation in a positive manner.
rather than being a butthurt bigot who whines about downvotes.
You have a fair point, but that doesn’t make the original point less important. You are on the statistically safer side of the coin, but NO one should be treated this way.
Historically, rape victims on both sides have been ignored, blamed, and chastised. This needs to change. We need to have better treatment and justice for SA victims. Gender or sex shouldn’t come into the picture for how the situation is handled.
I get why you’re mad at this, and I do not want to talk about details of my life, but I get why you’re mad at this for personal reasons. I just think it’s slightly misdirected. I wish people would take you seriously, again, for personal reasons. I hope you find support and safety.
This is basically my entire point. Don’t make posts like “I’d rather the bear than the women because a bear will just maul me but the woman will force me to have sex with her,” which are designed to evoke a negative reaction. Instead, a real conversation where it’s victim v offender instead of man v woman is likely more productive. Now that it has become an inflammatory gendered thing all we’re doing is talking about that instead of the “original intent” (frankly I think it was intended as it came, but “benefit of the doubt” I guess.)
Yeah. Definitely fair on the probably not pure intentions part as well, but I’m frequently too quick to give the benefit of the doubt, even after all this time.
I’m sorry if this conversation is rough for you.
Thanks, but I’m over what happened now, it was years ago, but it just bugs me to deal with all the bullshit surrounding it, like this issue with the bear thing.
I just think we should all come together on this issue for the betterment of everyone instead of bicker about “men this, women that, and nonbinary don’t exist in this conversation.”
men don’t get support and safety for being victims. we get ostracized and many see our confession of previous abuse as ‘evidence’ that we deserved it and brought it upon ourselves.
For many things, yes. I used to want to adopt kids, but I don’t think I can deal with the public perception of being a male(-ish) person caring for children anymore, having heard so many rough stories from close friends, who at least have a wife to yell at sexists. Having a less traditional partnership won’t win any positive counts in the public eye, no matter how good of parents we might be.
There are quite a few stories of the same ostracizing for females (regarding SA), just less public attention on the stories for males who go through similar problems. All in all it’s fucked and we need people to take this seriously. I see the stand that this is making everyone defensive, but at the same time it is at least calling up the issue and maybe after people calm down, more people might acknowledge it? Yeah. I am too naive. Or wishful.
i am naive too, but experience has taught me that with age people only get worse, they don’t get better.
i’m now at the age where if i walk my dog and someone’s kid wants to pet it they think i’m a pedo trying to seduce their kid. nothing is just innocent and pure anymore. the well has been poisoned and people assume the worst when they have zero reason too… (well other than that the internet/tv told them to do it)
exactly.
it’s about abusers vs abused, not about men vs women. women can be abusers. trans people can be abusers, non binary people can be abusers. asexual people… can be abusers.
but that’s too subtle for most folks, for whom man = bad, woman = good.
god forbid we focus on the act, rather than the identity of the person(s) who did it, and making stupid discriminatory generalizations based on the identity of that person(s).
Apt username
im no coward, in fact i’m not even a bitch, i don’t downvote shit unless it’s just like an actually wrong opinion.
actually you know what fuck it i won’t even expand upon my thoughts here, if you care go look at my post history. There’s plenty there.
i’m just a little disappointed woman seem to consistently be a minority here
Who will win: Gender equality or a funny bear
This is the equivalent of saying that MS Outlook is a community. It’s not and neither is Lemmy. Each server has its own rules, and each community on those servers can add rules beyond that.
Address a specific community or server, there’s no central control over the fediverse.
I don’t know how you can solve this. Lemmy has become a refuge for outcasts. Men with social/personality issues are the biggest group of outcasts. Women are much less likely to be outcasts and so have far less interest in being here.
To create an environment that is welcoming to a particular group takes a certain critical mass of people from that group. If you’re such an extremely small minority you’re going to have a very difficult time reaching that critical mass and the negative environment further discourages people from joining.
If outcasts are people who don’t feel welcome in any irl or mainstream communities; women are just as likely to be outcasts. Women online can avoid outing themselves because even female oriented online support spaces get brigaded by men. There are a handful of female artists in my circle who identify as male online because they kept getting creepy dms. They still get them, of course, but less so. Less violent and rapey.
Who knows how many women are out there, lurking in the shadows, just trying to look at memes about linux and communism.
I think they’re including people that aren’t exposed to communities even if they would be welcome. Men are more likely to become socially isolated (I’ve only seen studies for 30+ yrs of age), which means they generally turn more to online. Definitely a surprising amount of women lurking, but look at any group online meet-up and it’s almost all men (even if all members show up)
How does one look at any group online meet-up? Is there a place where all group, online meet-ups are posted?
As an example, if you look up “reddit irl meet-ups” it’s either a majority men or an overwhelming majority men, I’ve met up with a community for a game I’m interested in and it was mostly men. Maybe men would just be more likely to show up? but anonymous statistics on websites also report the same.
I looked that up and couldn’t find any data on the demographics for reddit IRL meetups. But we were debating whether or not more men or women go online to find community. My point what that women don’t always out themselves because of negative attention. The most recent statistics I found showed that women in the US are self reported to more likely to use social media than men. Worldwide, it varies by the platform, but the disparity is highest on Twitter, with more male users. Anecdotal evidence doesn’t work when people are actively avoiding being recognized as women, and online communities can vary widely in their gender makeup.
I don’t believe there have been studies on irl reddit meetups, but usually there is a photo posted. With image recognition tools you could probably get a rough distribution, but my theory that most who show up will be male is based on anonymous polling data, which I don’t believe women would hide their gender on. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255182/distribution-of-users-on-reddit-worldwide-gender/ Many women use Instagram or snapchat or tiktok etc, but I think you’d agree those aren’t general conversations focused. Most (all that I have seen) that focus on discussion are majority men. You could say the discussions that happen on these sites are just more appealing to men, or that women get pushed out, and I can neither prove or disprove that. If you know of any websites that focus on general chatting that are mostly women I’d be curious to hear about them. Omeggle I know actually was pretty neutral on gender.
I’m not arguing that women don’t look for online spaces, the statistics aren’t even that lopsided and I know many women IRL who spend much more time online than I do. It just seems to me if men are more likely socially isolated, they are more likely to become outcasts, and hence more likely to spend all their time online. Not that women won’t be in these spaces, or some communities aren’t majority women.
Evidently online usage for the younger generation is almost exactly even across the two sexes, but I’m not sure how much of this is for conversation vs how much is watching tiktok/posting on Instagram.
I don’t believe evey meetup posts pictures of their entire groups, nor do I think there’s a database for that, or that, if that database existed, it would be a good tool for assessing whether or not men are more likely to be outcasts. Reddit is only one social media site, like I said, and has a shrinking market share. Whether or not other social media platforms are conducive to conversations was never my point, it was the one-sidedness of saying men are more likely to be social outcasts. I don’t think looking at a few pictures of reddit meetups proves anything.
Excellent explanation, thanks for this.
Yes, unfortunately Lemmy has gone like Voat - only the “extreme” (generalising) have stuck around. Hopefully something new will arise to displace Reddit and capture its mainstream users.
Idk man it’s not that extreme
The good thing about lemmy is that it don’t get directive from any governments to censor certain issues like what happen to Google, reddit, meta and other social media For any other case, the mods will take care of the instances. If you don’t like it, just block whichever instances, communities or users you want. Whats so difficult about that? Nobody is forcing you to be in whatever toxic instance/community is or to read posts that you don’t like.
Bro there is like maybe 25 active communities on here… if I have to block half of them then what’s the point of being here?
when the toxic behavior is spread over multiple communities and instances like this, that’s an indicator that the problem is systemic rather than individual
that the kind of people you’ll come across in liber-media. You’ll find toxic people, but you’ll also find accommodating people. If you want to play safe, then I don’t think any lemmy or any future-whatever-libre-non-lemmy will suit your taste. Make your own server and just make sure that whoever subscribed to that are up to your expectation.
I commented about it and some guy replaced every instance of the word “men” in my post with “Jews” to prove to me that I am a bigot. His comment was removed by mods, but later un-removed because we’re big fans of bad faith arguments and invalid comparisons on this platform.
e: argue this point with women in person and see how well it goes.
I’m confused how that is a bad faith argument or comparison in anyway. They changed nothing about your commentary except for the group you were singling out. Lol.
It isn’t a bad faith comparison, you’re just seeing cognitive dissonance in action. A person who believes that bigotry is wrong is having their deeply held bigotry pointed out.
Rather than reject one of those two incongruous beliefs, they tell themselves (and insist to others) that the person pointing out their bigotry is in some way wrong despite their argument being rock solid.
Men are not a marginalized group. With the concerning amount of antisemitism becoming common in the US, it’s VERY bad faith to try comparing the perceived discrimination against a hypothetical man to the actual struggles of real people.
Nah. It’s not bad faith at all. You are perceiving it that way due to external factors. But the truth of the matter is the same. Change it from Jews to Asian. Or any other group and I bet you’d never say it.
So because you state “men are not a marginalized group”, men aren’t able to be used as a comparison as a group of people?
Sounds like you are marginalizing men totally and are so sure of your “fact” that it clouds your judgement.
What the fuck ever dude, big apologies to all the men I offended. VERY glad I don’t know any of you clowns in real life. Good luck interacting with women.
It’s not about offending anyone. It’s about you marginalizing groups because you believe XYZ. You are doing the thing you hate.
🤡
Name calling doesn’t really change my opinion. But you do you lol.
Stereotyping people based on aspects of their personality they were born with is wrong. Period.
Die on whatever hill you want to, it doesn’t make it a valid comparison.
Making judgements based on your past experiences is vastly different from doing so on cultural stereotypes. I have never pointed to stereotypes or “vibes” or anything else non-concrete. I am drawing on my lived experience to inform my opinions.
Let’s just be explicit, are you saying rape victims are biggoted for having trauma involving men? Because that is absolutely the core of the issue here.
By your logic a person who gets assaulted by a black person allowed to prejudge all black people.
I feel perfectly fine saying that’s morally wrong.
By your logic, it’s the assault victim’s fault that they have any notions at all. Trauma can manifest in all sorts of fucked up ways bud, we don’t get to choose.
It’s whacky to say something is “morally wrong” while completely ignoring it’s cause, context, and any other relevant factors. There’s this little thing called nuance that you’ve been stomping on all this time you’ve been trying to paint me into a box.
I was sexually assaulted by a female family member as a child. Repeatedly. I was then made to believe that that was “fun” and to seek it out.
My experience does not under any circumstances allow me to be a misogynist.
I find bigotry wrong. It took a lot of years to process what happened to me at the ripe old age of six, but it was my moral responsibility to do so rather than to take the shortcut to hatred.
God it sucks that people are replying to you just repeating that same argument.
PSA for those in the back: fear or even hatred of men is not equivalent to racism of any kind. Women have years of lived experience of men being shitty, from casual sexism to sexual assault. Knowing that any man could be dangerous is not prejudice, it’s the truth, and remembering it allows us to exist and survive in the world.
Idk, to use another lemming’s comment from this very post,
My proverbial beef isn’t the pointing out of how manny men are predators and that the risksfor women are non-zero; my problem more specifically is that the meme stacks handily on top of the already vexing racial profiling I deal with as a black man who’s had false allegations leveled in the past and lost jobs because of the weaponization of this fear. I have already spent damn near a half century being presumed some kind of feral Mandingo rape beast purely for existing while black. The presumption of interest in all of these women like a scene out of Kentucky Fried Movie gets really old and they get super vindictive when rejected.
To me it does seem analogous to the whole racist “black people are 12% of the population but commit 50% of the crime” thing, in that while it is true it is still racist to assume every black person will commit a crime against you and use it as a basis to fear them. Furthermore white people also commit plenty crime and get away with it, padding the numbers, and many women also get away with coercing/forcing men to have sex because nobody believes or gives a fuck about male victims (trust me, am one, 2 diff women,) so it often also goes unreported. On that note actually in many places in the us “rape” requires penetration, so if a woman forces you to penetrate her “you must’ve liked it” and no court case for you!
Personally I think it’d be prudent not to vilify an entire gender while also excluding victims from said gender.
Hell I understand though, at least with the bear I’d only be brutally mauled instead of forced to have sex with it, and 2/infinity women I’ve met have forced me to have sex with them so imo all women could, I’ll take the bear too.
Thanks for the PSA :)
I’d argue that it’s still prejudice, as the word only means to assume behavior from the appearance alone. But in a positive way, as prejudices originally existed for self-protection.
prejudices originally existed for self-protection
Huh?
I worded that badly. What I meant was that the reason humans have prejudice-y thinking hardwired in the brain is for self-protection. If individuals of some ape species have a 30 % chance of being super aggressive and trying to kill you on the spot, your first reaction to seeing one will be negative and retiring – even if this specific one is super nice and wouldn’t hurt a soul.
Ohhhh yeah
I already see people running with the same rage bait shit again and this is not the place for it. As for you, thank you for sharing your experience and I am sorry it was greeted with such toxicity. :)
For the rest of y’all, please see this and this comment which explains how this is a bad faith argument and be civil to one another.
This post is about combating harrassment. If you absolutely must discuss the nuances of feminism in relation to xenophobia, I ask you to make a post elsewhere about it.
Ok but wtf is your name
I literally have no clue what man vs bear is and honestly sounds like it should stay that way1
the internet is a machine that turns attention into currency, it does this at the same rate for negative and positive attention, and negative attention is a lot easier to get. you just burst onto a platform unbidden and say something that will piss people off. You get rewarded, the platform gets rewarded, everybody wins except the users who have a gross toxic time in the comments. Lemmy may not run ads, but it’s structured the same way that other platforms are and we already have a way of using those types of platforms built into our cultural knowledge, so Lemmy just turns into a loose confederation of reddits.
Ya’ll don’t like getting called out on your bullshit. Ofc I’m not gonna let myself get grouped into something worse than a fucking animal. Go have your rights and empathy activism someway it doesn’t clump men in the “not people” category
You are absolutely entitled to that. In fact I quite agree with you on many levels.
None of that makes harrassment okay. Which is the topic of this discussion.
Well, for that a public discussion like this isn’t gonna shine much light. Report then block are the tools ya got.
Personally I think its possibly a bad reaction to the right thinking in a counterintuitive way.
Rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking… they have all been reduced to some of the most vile crimes in the eyes of most men these days that when you hear people claim “Men” do this that some men have a very “Hey, FUCK YOU!” reaction.
I’m sorry but I won’t call a bad reaction to having self-respect. If you were to change most instances of “men” with any other groups (you pick: black, jews, Muslims, gays) said comment would get flagged immediately for bigotry. I’ve learned past my bigotry but I’m not blind to it’s precedents.
To be a woman online means to feel unwelcome. Leaving a new community is pretty much inevitable unless you are willing to swim in toxicity.
I’ve lost count of how many ‘welcoming’ communities for game/hobby/interest that I have left because of the inevitable creep of (male) toxicity and harassment.
And it sucks to watch so many people not speak up, and to be targeted for further harassment simply because I said rape jokes weren’t funny. (Or tying and drugging up a woman so T could have a girlfriend, if the group I play online games with are stalking my account read this. You guys are part of the problem.)
I just want liked minded people to share my interests and play games with.
I, and other women shouldn’t have to navigate or ignore toxicity to simply exist in public spaces.
Thank you for expressing this experience. 🧡
IME of online communities it was the women who supported the abusers in the community and ostracized anyone who called them out as ‘attacking the community’. Quite a few of them were also abusive.
Don’t wack yourself kid. Your too much into the whole business. If I was you, I’d turn off all media, and go and involve yourself in the real world. I don’t know what the bear thing is, but I do know that your gonna come across men and women who are not nice in life. Just keep looking for the good ones. 🙂. Keep your chin up.
To be a woman online means to feel unwelcome.
i think this is a rather interesting take, as someone who lives on the social fringes myself, and has no “support network” or real “social group” I’m what’s best described as a social drifter, i don’t like hanging around places all that much, and i don’t like, and or am incapable of having proper friendships with others.
So when it comes to feeling unwelcome, for all intents and purposes here, i’m just going to argue that for the latter half of my life, that has been pretty much my experience of life. This also means i don’t have certain types of experiences with people being dicks, because i can just fucking ignore them. But what i do understand, is how the isolation plays a factor, and how to pretty effectively deal with people you don’t like in these situations.
And what i’ve learned is that you need to keep a distance. You shouldn’t be attached to the community if possible, because being able to leave them is often a valuable asset to have. Notably, it doesn’t solve the problem but it does keep you nomadic, and in control, which helps alleviate it.
Also for what it’s worth, i don’t think that this is uniquely female. I think it’s a unique female account of the problem, but men also experience similar things. They just happen to be in different manners, so this is very much an “internet problem” more broadly.
Has been for the past 20 years, and will probably continue to be as such.
I don’t actually want to be nomadic, I’d love nothing more than to have a group of gaming friends that lasts. Inevitably, each time finding a new group gets harder.
I have no support network, No real social group either. I am for all intent and purpose a ghost. My opinions don’t matter, my presence isn’t wanted. No one notices when I leave.
This is really the terminal issue with Reddit alternatives. They are just Reddit minus the most recent controversy as of foundation. Reddit is overall just a popular content aggregation website with poorly design discussion features.
Upvotes and down votes, while intended to help users weed out bad arguments and spam, only achive in promoting sophistry and tribalism. What ends up getting upvoted is what “wins” the argument, while good arguments that come from unpopular viewpoints get downvoted.
And with that comes all the toxic elements from old Reddit ruat we all hope just won’t be a part of our replacements. Reddit’s format works at a smaller scale, where users are typically more enthusiastic and therefor better informed, but as the sites get larger you’ll notice they typical hyper-snarky “owned with facts and logic” attitude take hold of a community as more people with a weaker investment jump on the bandwagon and upvote everything that makes them feel smart.
Eventually, the site becomes just like Reddit, but for a smaller and more insulated community, and users begin to question why they’re here instead of Reddit which has the established user base that can reliably cover more topics you are interested in.
We have not learnt from history, and we are doomed to repeat it. Maybe it’ll be different in the future.
Source for the hostile comments? I know that these types of people make up the minority of users, but I would still like a source for these hateful comments.
It used to be a place where mostly leftists hung out - now, unfortunetely, it’s overflowing with liberals… with predictable results.
Personally, I don’t think the bear thing is very controversial. I wouldn’t even call the manufactured outrage peddled by the pro-rape brigade controverisal - that has become a mundane thing, too.
Hi, just a gentle reminder about Rule 1 in this comm - discussion of politics is not allowed; this includes usage of adjacent terminology
I’ll consider myself gently reminded, then.
Regarding Man v Bear I think the topic is rather silly. Most bears aren’t looking to have a meet and greet if you do come across a bear one of three things are true. It’s here to eat you, it didn’t leave because its a she-bear and it has cubs its protecting, or you just startled it. If any of the above is true you are at best in serious danger. If it is actually trying to prey upon you then you are probably fucked. Whereas 100% of the bears you surprise in the woods are extremely dangerous 99.99% of people you meet man or woman are just people like yourself not looking for trouble.
It’s not shocking that the 99.9% of men who aren’t predators waiting in the bush feel justified in feeling unfairly vilified.
I love the casual entitlement of using a “Lemmy is growing more hostile towards women” to just give your opinion on Man v Bear.
I guess that’s not entirely true, since you did use your last sentence to tell them they deserve it.
The poster brought up the man vs bear debate it was the entire topic of discussion. This is the last sentence in my post.
It’s not shocking that the 99.9% of men who aren’t predators waiting in the bush feel justified in feeling unfairly vilified.
Please explain how I told them they deserve it. Use small words.
Damn, that’s some horrific reading comprehension if you think its “the entire topic of discussion”. If someone says to you “I’m having so much trouble with cost of living. I can barely afford rent and food and I’m two payments behind on my car”, would you say you’re having a conversation about cars?
Clearly you’re comfortable saying “yes” if you really want everyone to hear your opinions about cars.
Everything you mention is one strange assumption after another.
Dunno man. I’m not a woman, but I have met a bear while hiking. We just stopped and looked at each other for a bit, then he grunted and went back to shoveling blackberries into his mouth and I just walked away. They are pretty common in the city too. They just knock down five or so garbages to pig out then go home. We’ve had a few tranqued and moved but nobody has been eaten. One guy got mauled and somehow survived after failing to take a selfie with a bear, I figure he went easy on the guy to teach him a valuable lesson. Maybe bears and the people here are just too used to each other.
Anyway anyone who feels attacked by the whole I’d rather a bear thing needs to stop being a pansy little shit. I guess all these “not me though” or “but a bear will kill you” types don’t get that they are outing themselves as being of questionable trustworthiness. The bear is imaginary yet men all over the place have come out of the woodwork to fight it. It’s weird really. And I don’t believe such a high amount of men who aren’t predators are bothered by it. They might not be sexual predators but I have no doubt they would gladly vote away womens rights because its their party or its the christian way or some other shit like that.
Truly innocent men would just leave women scared of them alone and that would be the end of it. There is no reason to convince them and doing so only makes them more afraid.
Anyway anyone who feels attacked by the whole I’d rather a bear thing needs to stop being a pansy little shit.
to pull a page out of a book that some fuck that spent an entire thread worth of material to yell at me for being homophobic over.
I would just like to share with the world that “pansy” is technically used to refer to “fags” specifically. So do with that what you will.
So they are a bigot basically.
if you get offended by being called a predator, you are definitely a predator, checkmate bearists.
And I don’t believe such a high amount of men who aren’t predators are bothered by it.
It doesn’t bother you when you’re referred to as a predator because you share a gender with some of them?
No. All I have to do is not be a predator, and no creepy glare, no threatening posture etc. It shouldn’t be difficult yet somehow here we are with literal tons of my fellow man feeling attacked with the need to retaliate, over someone else’s feelings. Actually I’ll let the creepy glare slide even since I have that built into my face and I’m not about to get surgery for it.
I guess another way to look at the whole thing, is a bear isn’t going to shoot or stab you. There are unstable fucks that shoot at people for accidentally going in the wrong driveway for food delivery or to turn around. In my city you dont even own the first several feet of the property whether you have a sidewalk or not.
There’s a difference between “men can be dangerous and so I have to treat any unknown man like they are a threat” and “every man is dangerous.” Being treated as dangerous when you are not is not a pleasant feeling, but I understand the need to do that. However, crossing from “you might be dangerous” to “you must be dangerous” happens all too often and IMO crosses a line.
I’m comfortable enough with my behaviour to know it’s not about me. I’m not bothered, even a little bit.
It would be easier if everyone else felt that way too, wouldn’t it?
Anyway anyone who feels attacked by the whole I’d rather a bear thing needs to stop being a pansy little shit.
I mean, the casual misandry stung a bit. Not sure why that’d make me a “pansy little shit”, lmao.
Anyway, the whole thing was ragebait and a big part of the internet fell for it (me included, at least initially).
I’m not engaging further with what I think is a bad analogy.
I guess all these “not me though” or “but a bear will kill you” types don’t get that they are outing themselves as being of questionable trustworthiness.
Maybe outing themselves as pedants who don’t like shitty analogies. How do you get from disagreeing with labeling all men predators to … must be a predator. That just seems like you glued two concepts together and expected it to make a coherent thought. If A in some universe and B in some universe then if A thus B.
I don’t believe such a high amount of men who aren’t predators are bothered by it
I’m not a predator. I’m bothered by it
They might not be sexual predators
So because I disagree I might be a rapist. Super real there.
but I have no doubt they would gladly vote away women’s rights because its their party or its the christian way or some other shit like that.
I’m an Atheist who votes Democrat and supports women’s rights
Truly innocent men would just leave women scared of them alone
This is a discussion forum. The poster started a thread to discuss the topic. I’m discussing the topic. Nobody is attacking anyone with their words.
There is no reason to convince them
This is a many to many discussion forum people aren’t just engaging with the poster they are engaging with other readers interested in the same topic. Notice how our discussion is a sub-thread to each other and merely about the topic broached by the original poster.
doing so only makes them more afraid.
You are infantalizing the poster by imagining that she creates a topic but is rendered afraid by the mere fact that some people don’t agree with her. I don’t think that is even slightly reasonable.
This post could be a subject of an entire paper on how to write dishonestly and for emotional impact instead of honest argument. Please stop doing this.
My proverbial beef isn’t the pointing out of how manny men are predators and that the risksfor women are non-zero; my problem more specifically is that the meme stacks handily on top of the already vexing racial profiling I deal with as a black man who’s had false allegations leveled in the past and lost jobs because of the weaponization of this fear. I have already spent damn near a half century being presumed some kind of feral Mandingo rape beast purely for existing while black. The presumption of interest in all of these women like a scene out of Kentucky Fried Movie gets really old and they get super vindictive when rejected.
This was moving to read. It’s a fucked up situation, thank you for sharing.
I feel for you, the casual racism and sexism against black men is pretty crazy. Used to work with a guy that wore a suit every day in a very casual office, because women wouldn’t get on the elevator with him otherwise.
Yeah that’s what I found the most surprising. Even after you understand what women really mean in this thought experiment, it’s just textbook discrimination and no different than targeting certain races as a cop.
I thought as a society we all agreed that was bad but apparently it’s okay if the victims are men.
So this thought experiment does reveal sexism, the sexism against men.
It doesn’t matter how much it upsets you, “hurting your feelings” will always be safer than “being raped and murdered”.
Maybe it’s time to shake off the insecurity and accept that if you’re not doing anything wrong then you’re not who women are talking about.
My feelings are far less of a concern than my personal safety. The distance between ‘she was asking for it, dressed like that’ and ‘those n-bombs are all rapists, if a woman claims assault for any reason it’s guaranteed he did it’ ain’t as far apart as you seem to think.
I dunno 'bout you, but I’m sure as fuck not looking to be the next Exonerated Five example. And more importantly, being as I’m inot a trigger-happy stand-your-ground state and in the same Metropolitan area where Amber Guyger feared for her life after going into the wrong fucking apartment, I sure as hell don’t trust things to be made right or go smoothly the second white woman tears are involved.
Since you’re replying to a 7 month old comment, I’m guessing your true opinions are even more damaged than the ones you’ve stated here.
It’s not about upsetting me, it’s about making a judgment of an individual based on the demographic, which I thought we collectively decided was wrong.
If someone walks past a group of minorities and feels unsafe, that’s fine as humans are emotional creatures. But if someone makes a decision based on the above logic, that would be classified as discrimination. Same way mostly searching minorities at the airport is discrimination.
The medical history of abuse of black people in America is largely fueled by the nonsense that ‘black people feel less pain’. It’s incredibly fucked up. Horrible shit was done based on these stereotypes.
Same logic applies when women abuse men. 'men feel less pain/are stronger. Abuse against men is just the ‘price we should pay for our privilege’ etc. etc.
I would I’d it didn’t literally cost me jobs, plural. I’ve dealt with enough societal racial profiling and harassment, I don’t need it compounding with my gender to utterly shit on my life when I’m minding my own damn business.
And that applies just as much for women minding THEIR OWN damn business. Leave people be!
Of course I’m not. I just think the analogy is just incredibly overstated. Bears are in fact all fairly dangerous. Most men just aren’t
How do you know all bears are dangerous? Maybe there’s one that just wants to be friends? You should politely treat all bears as friendly so that you don’t hurt that bears feelings.
Yep. It’s incredibly fucked up to think how prevalent that 1920s horseshit still is in many people’s minds 100 years later.
People still seem to think Birth of a Nation is a documentary.
