wonderingwanderer
@wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
Wherever I wander I wonder whether I’ll ever find a place to call home…
- Comment on mindset 1 hour ago:
I never limited my statement to this community specifically. But the fact is that it does happen all the time and I’m not going to go hunting for examples for you because they happen often enough as it is.
And you’re still doing the thing that a man would get trashed for doing to women. “I haven’t noticed that, so it doesn’t happen.”
- Comment on mindset 1 hour 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
- Comment on Happy birds 1 hour ago:
That penguin is saying “Hey hoomans! Get off my lawn!”
- Comment on Happy birds 1 hour ago:
Emperor penguins get up to 3’ but those are the largest species, the others range in sizes but most aren’t that big
- Comment on mindset 1 hour ago:
A true egalitarian.
- Comment on mindset 1 hour 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.”)
- Comment on mindset 2 hours ago:
You’re right, you’re not all women. So just because you haven’t used the argument doesn’t mean no woman has ever.
But guess what? Being a man and simply not making misogynistic arguments about women isn’t enough to protect one against criticisms aimed at “men” as an abstract whole.
Responding to those criticisms with “I’m not like that” or “I don’t do that / haven’t said that” gets hit with the “nOt AlL mEn!!1!” ridicule…
- Comment on Bee fly 2 hours ago:
I want one as a stuffie
- Comment on mindset 2 hours ago:
It’s either both or it’s neither, unless you want it to be gendered and exclusive.
- Comment on mindset 2 hours ago:
It’s not fair to lob an accusation and then say it’s in subtle undertones.
That’s a very interesting statement considering I used the same argument that women often use to talk about their experiences. Odd how it suddenly doesn’t apply when a man makes the same argument…
- Comment on mindset 2 hours ago:
This isn’t a female safe space? Holy shit, way to tell on yourself.
It’s not just men here and this community isn’t a male safe space either. It’s a shitposting community and you couldn’t handle a woman making a post about a woman’s perspective.
It’s a safe space for both. It’s not a “male safe space” any more than it is a “female safe space”.
If you can’t see the contradictions here then I don’t know what to tell you…
It’s one. It’s not the other. It’s both. It’s neither.
Okay…
- Comment on mindset 2 hours ago:
Nope, missing the point
- Comment on mindset 2 hours ago:
These are the kinds of subtle undertones that one learns to read as a man in society simply by the experiences and microaggressions that one’s received since boyhood. They’re not always overtly stated.
- Comment on mindset 2 hours ago:
I’ll point it out next time I see it
- Comment on mindset 2 hours ago:
I mean if you reread your last couple comments, you’ll see you contradicted yourself twice in as many comments. That is funny.
- Comment on mindset 2 hours ago:
This is the first thing that came to mind, but it’s more that a woman deliberately made something gendered that wasn’t gendered to begin with, specifically to attack men, and then when men took issue with she doubled-down with some exceptionalist rhetoric and moral pedestal standing while saying she doesn’t care about men’s feelings and that they should just suck it up because no one cares about them or their problems:
As you’ll see, not all of that is still visible as most of the conversation got removed.
And of course it’s not the exact scenario, but I’m not going to go digging to look for situations that match a little better, even though many of those have been more recent.
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
But would you? It seems more often the response is just to call it misogyny that someone would even ask for proof.
And what about for discourse about stuff that happens in person rather than online, where there’s no written record of the things said and done?
How do you prove microaggressions that are whispered in passing? It would be ridiculous to expect someone to prove that kind of experience.
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
It’s not theoretical either. If everything that happens becomes merely “theoretical” as soon as the thread moves out of the all-feed, then we’ll be stuck in an endless loop like Groundhog’s Day.
I’m telling you it happens all the time and you’d have to be selectively ignoring it not to see it.
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
Are you saying you won’t take my word for it as a man that my experiences as a man have included a pattern of being invalidated and erased in spaces where people talk about the problems they face?
Imagine if the roles were reversed. Imagine a man saying “You said it happens all the time. Can you show me what you’re talking about?” to a woman who says she’s experienced a pattern of treatment by society.
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
Sure, I’ll tag you next time I see it. I’m sure it won’t take long
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
Okay well it happens all the time. Like men talking about something that effects them as men and someone goes “why do you hate women?!?”
I agree that that’s pancakes and waffles, but only calling it out when it’s men commenting on a post about women is a double-standard. Very likely the men who pointed that out on this post were doing so as a result of and/or to call out that double-standard.
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
Okay, so now that’s clarified
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
You’re usually the one doing the crucifying, so I’m not surprised you haven’t witnessed it as a spectator.
Media is usually centered on the male perspective.
That is an overly-broad generalization and not even remotely accurate. Maybe fifty years ago that would apply in most cases, but still not all.
And unless you’ve literally never read media analysis in an academic journal, we both know that male-centered media is considered a faux pas at best.
We quite literally live in a patriarchal society.
Patriarchy harms men and women. You can’t just lump all men in as “the patriarchy,” that doesn’t even align with the perspectives in actual feminist literature.
Patriarchy is specifically the structures of dominance and oppression which, while traditionally ascribed as a male role, women can also participate in. There is such thing as women participating in patriarchy and if you don’t believe that then you’ve never read actual feminist philosophy.
By the way, reinforcing patriarchal standards of toxic masculinity (such as "men can’t/shouldn’t talk about their problems or their feelings) is participating in patriarchy. Way to go.
Egalitarianism is about equality. If you think uplifting women means putting men down, then you’re not a feminist.
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
Would you have the same reaction to a woman posting “but what about women?” In a post talking about men?
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
Doesn’t that prove the point though?
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
So it’s trauma-dumping when a man does it, but when a woman does it it’s just “a part of a conversation” or “women talking about their experiences”?
I think that double-standard is precisely what this conversation is about.
We talk about how it’s an issue that men aren’t allowed to talk about their problems or their feelings, but that’s clearly just an abstract idea to some people because when men actually do try to talk about those things, it’s always the same reaction.
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
Sure, make a post about guys and see how long it takes these same users to comment saying “why is this unnecessarily gendered?!? Women experience this too!” Or even “That’s not an issue men face! It’s clearly a women’s issue.”
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
Is it a safe space or is it not a safe space? Because you seem to be claiming both in one comment.
Don’t gender it, it’s either a yes or a no. Is it a safe space for all genders, or not a safe space for any gender?
- Comment on mindset 3 hours ago:
Making a post about women doesn’t - and shouldn’t - mean you’re excluding men. I feel like excluding should only be defined as an active attempt to prevent people from associating with the post
Does this apply to making posts about men? Because if so (meaning, the rule applies universally without making exclusions for certain demographics), then I’m inclined to agree.
Experience shows however that posts (or any media) about men usually get attacked for ostensibly excluding women, even without explicitly doing so.
I would rather instill a mindset in all people that would allow for situations where, for example, a man can find relevancy in a post about women, rather then try to get all people to only share content that specifically addresses who all is intended to be able to relate to it.
This is almost hilarious. I mean, on the surface I agree. But again, if we flip the situation then we can see how comical it is. Can women find relevancy in a post about men without commenting by saying it isn’t gendered, or even that it applies to women more than it does to men? The same thing applies to race. Can POCs find relevancy in a post about white people (even just implicitly), without claiming it’s excluding other races?
The fact is if a white guy wants to create any form of media, be it writing a novel or making an indie film or whathaveyou, he has to be very careful to explicitly include other genders and races, because anything less will get nailed as being exclusionary.
But when a post is explicitly exclusive to one gender, as long as if that gender happens to be women, then suddenly “Oh it’s fine, men can just find relevancy in it even if it doesn’t (explicitly or implicitly) include them. It doesn’t have to be gendered even though it’s clearly and deliberately gendered.”
Like, the mental hoops people will jump through to justify double standards as long as men are the ones being disadvantaged by them. That is not egalitarianism.
- Comment on mindset 4 hours ago:
It’s not misogyny. Maybe the experiences of boys and girls aren’t comparable, but somethings transcend gender, and getting ridiculed is one of them.
This post unnecessarily genders something that isn’t gendered, so it makes total sense that someone would point out that it’s not restricted to one gender.
Guys are used to having their experiences invalidated when it comes to this kind of stuff. “Oh, be a man. Don’t be so sensitive. No one cares about your feelings. Man up, be stronger, stop being weak and then people won’t make fun of you,” the list goes on.
And then there’s the aspect where bringing up issues that impact men always gets hit with “BUT WHAT ABOUT WOMEN?!? MEN HAVE IT SO GOOD, WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLE HAVE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT?!?”
So when a post directly implies that “girls get ridiculed, to the exclusion of boys,” it makes sense to clarify that “boys get ridiculed too.”
Also, it’s mostly women and girls who judge other women and girls, so trying to make that about misogyny is kind of a stretch. Men and boys get judged by men, women, boys, girls, and everyone else.
Not to mention when a woman or a girl gets made fun of, like thirty people have her back, but when a guy gets made fun of, no one cares.
Just overall, making this a gendered issue from the start was the wrong call, and the people responding by saying this affects other genders too aren’t the ones unnecessarily gendering the issue.