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• wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  We’re talking about whether men commonly have their experiences invalidated and you’re like “No, that doesn’t happen because I haven’t seen it.” Basically doing the thing you say doesn’t happen.

  And every argument you’re making to defend yourself is one that if the situation were reversed and a man were making to defend himself, people would deride him for it.

  I’m not saying those arguments are wrong, but that the critique of them is unevenly enforced. It’s wrong when a man does it, but perfectly valid when a woman does. That’s what I mean by double-standards.

  For instance, if someone makes a strawman “so you hate waffles” argument to call me a misogynist despite me not saying anything misogynistic, and I say “No, I never said that,” those same people will bring up some abstract societal critique to justify why I must be a misogynist because that’s what men are in an overly broad generalized sense.

  And no matter what I say or do to defend myself, they’ll have a preset word to dismiss it. “Fragility,” “Mansplaining,” “Derailing,” “Defensiveness,” “taking it too personally,” or whatever else. All of which is aimed at communicating: “You’re too sensitive; men aren’t supposed to have feelings or passions. Just take it on the chin. You have nothing to contribute to the conversation so just sit there and be quiet like a good little stoic. This isn’t about you, it’s about all other men (but if you were an exception then you would already understand that, although if you consider yourself an exception then you’re probably deluding yourself anyway. So it is about you, even though I’m telling you that it isn’t).” Maybe not verbatim, but those are the sentiments it’s usually loaded with.

  To be clear, I think that’s wrong. But it only really gets used against men. And then when a man says there’s a double-standard or that having one’s experiences invalidated isn’t exclusive to one gender, people are like “No, men’s experiences don’t get invalidated. Men don’t even have experiences to invalidate. All they ever go through is being privileged within a patriarchal system, so what could they possibly complain about? No, their problems aren’t valid.” Paraphrasing, of course, but that’s what it boils down to.

  And you’re acting like I’m making all this up, as if I pulled it out of thin air instead of relating a fairly consistent pattern of experience. Which is quite literally invalidating my experience. That wouldn’t be tolerated going the other way, would it? (“No, I don’t think women experience that. I’ve never seen it. I’m not doing that to you.”)

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  • velma@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    you’re like “No, that doesn’t happen because I haven’t seen it.” Basically doing the thing you say doesn’t happen.

    Where did I say this?

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    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      This entire chain is you saying:

      Can you show me an example of this happening?

      At this point it’s getting suspiciously close to sealioning, I’m just not entirely convinced that you’re doing it in bad faith. You seem like you genuinely believe what you’re saying

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      • velma@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I’m honestly asking for examples and you keep conjuring strawmen to fight instead of actually engaging with me.

        You made the claim that the reverse happens all the time and I was simply asking for examples.

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