Have you felt alienated/discounted by the autistic men here?

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I'd say it matters a quite a lot, much as in the legal system with murder vs manslaughter and such. Intent is important, as you'd treat someone who accidentally stepped on your toe much differently than someone who marched right up and stomped on it on purpose, yet too many times I see SJ activists screaming at the inadvertent as if it were deliberate, and this goes a long way in undermining their credibility with people. It's kind of a "crying wolf" situation; if you yell sexism every time someone uses a term that is "problematic" in feminist circles but perfectly ok outside of them, pretty soon people just decide that feminists are nuts and ignore the potentially more valuable things they have to say. It doesn't take a man-spiracy or THE PATRIARCHY to do this either, people just tend to stop taking a group seriously when it flips out over every seemingly petty utterance.



It would be one thing if we were talking about old southern folks and how they talk about black people behind closed doors rather than in public or something to that effect (watch, an offended southerner will appear momentarily), but we're talking more along the line of someone suddenly deciding that they're very offended by your grammar because, say, the word structure is Eurocentric and isn't inclusive of non-white grammatical constructs, and then demanding that you use Creole grammar instead. Think of how annoying grammar Nazis are, then add in the fact that this one will accuse you of being some sort of bigot who won't check their privilege if you refuse to "correct" yourself. Sounds delightful, right?



So, you just said that people probably aren't meaning to offend, but you call them dicks anyways? Can you see why someone encountering that attitude might not be receptive to your request? Especially, say, someone with a communications disorder?

Sad to inform you, but I'm getting those stories off of liberal sites like Salon The Atlantic, Slate, etc, and these people are all over my Facebook, so unless Rupert Murdoch has found a way to hack my highschool friends' brains and make them spout crazy SJW stuff, I'm afraid it's legit. Looks like you've got my old "Ted Nugent" problem again; who needs enemies with friends like these?



That's a noble sentiment, but it's not what "PC" refers to, at least outside the halls of social justice activism (have you noticed that a lot of words are like that when it comes to SJ?). I also see a distinct lack of that sentiment when the human beings in question are white, cis, straight male, etc, then a different set of rules seem to apply. Hell, this entire thread is essentially an attack on the men of WP as a whole after all.



Allow me a brief ad hominem; did you really just cite a Salon article featuring Arthur Chu at me? You do know that Salon is where I go when I look for liberals saying stupid things to mock, and Arthur Chu is like the mother-load? Did you know that he views SJ politics as a literal war, encourages people to lie and distort and generally fight dirty so long as it supports a cause he approves of, and "mind kills" himself to prevent himself from thinking about things he considers "dangerous"? Not that any of that means he's wrong here, I'll get to that in a minute, but he's really not a guy I'd want to associate myself with, just saying.

As to his argument, here's a much better one from the other side:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/01/untitled/

For bonus points:

http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/200 ... lic-guilt/

The whole war of men vs women on here is really frustrating to me.

I feel like it's almost a contest. Why is everyone so angry?

It's a touchy subject around here, with a long history of rancor.

It's part of the problem with this mode of communication. What I saw was people spouting unreasoned, irrational, lynch-mob-mentality stuff, accompanied by people who find nicer ways to say pretty much the same thing and none of whom made any effort to support what they were saying except with information that (as far as anyone else knows) seems to have come from places the sun has never shone. That gives the perception of "these people are not down for an actual discussion". That in turn makes people unwilling to attempt one.

As regards "aggression", I (and others) have noticed that opponents of social justice, etc. tend to label anything that explicitly disagrees with them as "aggressive", "rude", "strident", "shrill", "confrontational", etc. no matter how it's phrased. It's a very common silencing tactic, and its use as such puts those who actually would listen if the message were conveyed differently in a tough spot because it's challenging to tell "the way you say what you are saying upsets me, stop it" from "what you are saying upsets me, stop it." The former is an entirely reasonable request, the latter is intellectually dishonest and childish.

Again, it's a problem of the medium; on a forum, you generally don't know a person well enough to tell whether they're just trying to make you shut up or whether they'll actually listen and you can't pick up on any cues that might offer hints.

Coming in swinging is usually not a great idea. I did it anyway because again; the assumption based on what I'd seen was that persuasion of any sort was not on the table. That was unfair, and unworthy of me... but what I'm asking is if you understand why a person (and for our purposes, assume a reasonable person) would get that impression and react in that fashion. If not, please give it some thought.

I don't mind people disagreeing with me. I do mind when they waste my time by pretending they're willing to listen when they're really not.

I've already invited you specifically to discuss these social justice-related topics in an actual debate. With logic, and evidence, and all that good stuff which I have seen very little of (from anyone, and I have not presented much myself) to date. I'm not sure if that's possible without the peanut gallery turning it into a massive clusterf***, though.

I responded to you privately, and won't discuss details here.



It would be naive to think it's, "all in how you approach it". I'm certain we both know that there are plenty of people who will lose their s**t if someone even mentions an opposing viewpoint exists. These are not people who are willing to have a real discussion with someone who disagrees no matter how you go about it. The aforementioned "inciting people" is a problem there, because I'm talking about folks who consider pretty much anything to be incitement.

Still, you're probably right on some level. But I hadn't seen that and the fact people were so brazen and very nearly in lockstep in their views with a little bit of very gentle dissent does not create an environment where a person is likely to feel any potential payoff is worth the effort. That's what I slammed face-first into the moment I stepped into PPR. To be fair, I probably should have known better.

I've done it before; tried to approach things in the kind of way it seems like you're proposing. In my experience it's effectively sisyphean because as soon as you make any progress in an environment like that someone shows up to start something, and then at some point ten or twenty people come in to go "GTFO" and derail the entire thing without adding anything substantive to the discussion.

Again though, you've been here longer and it's entirely possible I've misjudged the character of these forums. So yes, I'll freely admit I came on too strong and could have handled things better, but what I've seen thus far does not make me optimistic about any change in behavior making an actual difference.



In all honesty, it makes me unsure I want to bother with this place. It suggests a toxic culture if a topic like that can't be raised without people foaming at the mouth. There's other reasons I'm still on the fence about WP, but that's one of them.

Not you. I'm not interested in speaking with you, thanks.

I think we are all a lot more alike than different. But it really does seem like there's so much resentment on both sides.

And I look at some of the posts, and see people misunderstanding each other, and then getting angry. And then it just goes back and forth, no resolution.

I wasn't speaking in terms of legality. What does SJ stand for?


I don't recall making a request.

Before someone can understand you, they have to want to, and often it's doubtful at best that this condition is met.

This is mild, and civil by comparison to what happened a year ago. I guess these kind of divisive arguments are a residual effect. From what I understand, the past gender spats (Im refusing to validate it with the word war) were related to events outside of WP, and it was a common experience on different social media back then too, apparently.

I personally couldn't care less, until it effects the general tone of WP, and forces uninvolved people to self censor.
Its not about a shared goal when the methodology is more important, its about personal axes to grind.

I guess I should learn to ignore it, and hope it gets better. It upsets me to see people arguing so much, because it seems really pointless and divisive.

Has anyone changed their mind on a political matter after discussing it here? I can say that Dox47 and a few other members have made me reassess my views on guns in the US. But that's about it. And that was probably because it is an issue in which I have no practical stake.

As I see it, any statement of political/ethical belief comes with many assocations and implicit notions. It is one link in a chain. To arrive at a political belief, one has to come from somewhere on certain paths of thought. And the belief itself will suggest going forward along certain paths to other beliefs.

"If you say y, then you must think x. How can you think x?"

"If you say y, you must want z to happen. How can you want z to happen?"

If one can attack x or z, one may undermine y. Only whoever said y may reasonably point out that it is y that is under discussion, not x or z. And the accuser may clearly draw out the assumptions and implications of that belief. And it all starts to lose focus. What could either of these people, who are both reasonable, have to say to each other that would be at all fruitful?

So much of the time, opposing views break down into a meta/personal back-and-forth about what a thought b said or implied, while b insists they said or implied nothing of the kind. And other members join in on one side or the other. And so on. Again, it is not a phenomena that is likely to bear fruit.

But, as AJisHere noted, such are forums up and down the internet.

My perspective is that if both sides want to argue, take it outside to PPR, that's what its there for, that's why it has different rules.
There is much more to being a woman than feminism. This sub-forum took a long time to 'heal' from the last set of spats, and was unavailable for everyday female issues for Way too long.

The men in PPR don't help matters either, it would facilitate discussion if they were actually open to having a debate and not flattening all attempts at discussion through the sheer volume of opposing male responses to these topics.
A marginalised group of a marginalised group needs a voice too, squishing every attempt at debate about their issues is about having an personal axe to grind, and not very sporting.

I was having in mind the experience wilburforce mentioned in her posts: that she gets under attack for supposedly not having the problems she has, mostly rejection by others. I think it is worst in threads about how frustrating it is not to have relationships, and most of all a romantic relationship. It is not all men who post, the majority is able to just express their frustration, but there are quite a lot who say that Asperger girls dont have this problem, or only to an extent which does apparently not deserve to be taken seriously, and there is still a considerable number who lash out in a really unpleasant way. Something along the lines: you just have to go out into the street with a signpost around your neck "I want to have a relationship", and you will get the f**k you need right there, so please get out of this thread!

I was not saying that some people are making the wrong choices on what relationships they are interested in or not. But that they should learn to accept rejection and not to let it became a burden for future relations, neither in real life nor here on Wrongplanet. I also said or meant to say that NTs in general and some Aspergers value bonding with others higher even if it is not leading to a friendship, an engagement or sex, and that this is the key for developping and maintaining a good and meaningful relationship with someone.

Last edited by Evam on 03 Jan 2016, 12:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Maybe I'm missing something but I probably just don't spend enough time here to see where the war is.

What I saw firsthand in the other thread, is some women including myself disagreed with one guy posting in this subforum, and you start describing it in terms like animosity, anger, hostility, and war.

Like I said this is the women's section so I expect this at least to be the one part of the forum where women have the priority in expressing their views and being understood. But you act like we're supposed to give equal time to the men in here.

And I think it's fair enough to let guys express their views in here too but you can't expect the women not to respond and have their own views as well.

Also realize it's one thing for a guy to talk about his own feelings and experiences. It's something else for him to tell women what he thinks their feelings and experiences are and refuse to listen to them say anything different. I think that is disrespectful and downright abusive.

dianthus, I honestly don't understand how this forum is still open to men given what I'm hearing.

My first impressions of PPR are that it's a lost cause, for the very reason you mention here.