Sexism against guys

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Recently, a friend of mine called me about a post I'd made on the thread "men always asking you for sex."

He was very annoyed.

"If these sorts of sexist comments were being made against women, you'd be all over it!" he said.

Given that I do try to fight injustice in either direction, I was dubioius.

He read the thread once, and I didn't remember it; a second time, though, I realized that I really hadn't noticed the things he was pointing out.

It would seem that my s**t detector was not as egalitarian as I had believed.

Not only had I not caught it, no one had.

In a forum where the prevailing ideas and the level of censorship are (respectively) determined and highly influenced by those amongst the membership with the loudest mouths, this, it seems to me, merits further discussion.


The original post read as follows:

We can note that it doesn't specify whether the situation is one of asking for sex in an established, sexually active relationship or not.

This was the first objectionable post:
EDIT: This isn't actually objectionable, just (in my all mighty opinion) wrong. I should have said the first relevant post.


The first negative response it received was this:


Now, obviously I'm a bit biased in that I (relatively) agree with him, but this strikes me as being reasonable and even fairly sensitive.

This was the response it got.



So here are my questions.

Why are we letting this- not just this, but presumably, this sort of thing more in general- go un-remarked upon?
Do we all just not have enough time? Do we not care? If so, why do we not care?
How many of us who saw this and didn't comment on it are the sorts to make noise about misogynist viewpoints we encounter?


Also, any men out there, I'd love to hear your thoughts, but please be respectful. . . heck, I'll even say be nice- not my usual policy, but this will not be a useful discussion if it turns into feminist bashing, or woman bashing. . . and it's sort of a discussion the women's forum needs to have. . .

Last edited by Jainaday on 31 Aug 2007, 1:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In a "Women's Discussion" section, you have to anticipate at least a little bit of male bashing

I saw it, but I didn't want to comment on it.

It did bother me, though, just not enough to interject my opinion. I don't always have the wherewithal to defend myself, so if I'm thinking about making a statement, and I realize I might not be able to back it up well, I won't. This is especially true when the other side seems like they have much stronger feelings that I have.

I found that what mmaestro wrote was thoughtful and pertinent, and the reply he got back was uncalled for. Especially in these types of matters, I tread very carefully, as it feels to me that it's frowned upon for a man to give cry of misandry. And I understand that our past experiences greatly influence the vigor with which we approach these problems, but I suppose I have found that trying to separate emotion from one's arguments as much as possible to be the best thing, and if we can't do that, then we shouldn't be arguing.

I don't know, perhaps I'm blathering. I'm gonna go now =(

I expect wrong people everywhere.

Whether it's to be expected is not the question. . .

To me, this thread is not about whether anyone is being used for sex.

This is about generalizations.

Tim

To me, this thread is not about whether anyone is being used for sex.

This is about generalizations. To avoid doing this, we need to have as much information as possible regarding individual people, and then decide how we feel about that person based on that information. But we should never base an entire group of people on one person.

How would any of us on WP feel if people said that "all Aspies are like the Virginia Tech shooter"? I imagine we would be greatly offended.

Tim

Well, I guess I've got no excuse to stay out of this one. I certainly noticed Ticker's comment, and it did annoy me, a lot, which is mostly why I've continued to keep an eye on this part of the site. I would never treat a woman like that and resent the implication that I would.
But, on this forum of all places, I think there's a high likelihood of misunderstandings, and so I think often the best thing to do if someone makes an attack is to assume good intentions and that a misunderstanding occurred, and try to clarify. That's what I did with my followup, I tried to make myself clearer. This sort of topic is also likely to cause people's blood pressure to rise, because there are a lot of women who've had bad experiences with men pressuring them into sex or worse (and, in that case, it is usually a man pressuring a woman, I don't think it's sexist to say so when the facts would back that up), so I think such responses are understandable. I'm not sure calling them out is as appropriate as just trying to calmly say, no, that's not what I meant," and carrying on from there.

Or, more succinctly, on this sort of topic we should cut people a break. I've no idea of Ticker's personal experiences, and she might have good reason to react so angrily.

Yeah. . . I thought of that too.

Personal experiences clearly have a legitimate impact on people's tendancy to make unreasonable statements on topics such as this.

However. . . when I see statements that unjustly generalize an individual's negative experiences with women, I feel the need to say something about it- and I feel that that's the most appropriate response.

At earlier times in my life I have not always been confident enough to do this, and combined with the fact that no one around me was willing/able to do it for me, it made for some really bad experiences.

What I want to know is what makes this different than that. . . and also, what's going through other people's- particularly, women's- heads when they let these things pass.

I don't think it's fair to say no one objected. I objected to the whole theme of the thread by complaining about stereotyping. I saw it in most of the posts previous to mine. The original question didn't have enough information in it and so was drawing all these assumptions.
I took Ticker's particular post as a blatant misunderstanding and reinterpretation of mmaestro's post . But she didn't generalize onto other men, just mmaestro. She came close when she misquoted him and said, ". . . as a guy is telling you as a woman. . . . "

I think relationship complaints assume a sexism when they are posted here in the Women's forum. There's an assumption that an oversexed man is a problem women must deal with. Why wouldn't it be a "mature" question? Or an "aspie" question (social cues, social skills issue)? Or a marriage issue? It's seen as a Woman's problem and men's input is not welcome.

I don't see why not. I mean, I know it's the women's discussion and mmaestro ended up here by accident from the main page of the site where the new posts are listed, but this wasn't a question about "How do aspie women deal with this problem?" (if it had been, I'd agree with you). It was a question about "What is this [possibly NT] man's motivation for his behavior?" I don't see why aspie women would be inherently better qualified than men would to answer questions about what men are thinking when they do something. The OP didn't ask how she should deal with it, she asked what her partner was thinking/feeling. And I noticed that the only people who were able to respond to that issue were mmaestro (a man) and several women who responded based on what they knew of their partners' motivations. I mean, I didn't answer the post, but if I had, my answer would have been something along the lines of "I know that when my husband does so, he does it because..." so even though it would be my answer, it would be my husband's input.

Yes I thought it is a bit off. You have to expect some women and men are going to be bitter for various reasons. I'm aware of others on the site, but I won't name names.

One thing that I might add I don't think likecalco is bigoted. I do think she has difficult understanding some things, which is not apparent in this post because she didn’t mention it but has emerged since. She is sexual, she is just not into ‘standard’ sex. She is into role playing being a baby girl having a daddy and wearing diapers/being changed, which is her right. She just found someone who was fundamentally incompatible with her and that was the problem. She is no longer going out with this person and is with someone else. But I still think that she still has difficultly understanding that although they may play along with her and may or may not get turned on by it, that unless they have explicitly said their not into straight sex at all and she hasn't told them clearly what she is into that sort of thing may happen again. I’m not condoning anyone’s behaviour. Both men and women can be sexually charged or not and can get the wrong idea.

I agree with you there. As far as sexuality goes, these things should be discussed up front while it's still in the friendship phase.

Tim

I see this is known otherwise as the jump on Ticker thread. I never did any thing to any of you so quit jumping all over me just because you don't agree with me. And another thing what business do the men have posting in the women's forum as it plainly says the forum is for women?

Why do men cry SEXISM any time someone disagrees with them? Women have as much a right to having an opinion as men do.

And yes the original thread in question was about whether someone was being used for sex.

Well I don't think men cry sexism that much, I don't find these comment hurtful personally. But at the same time it can defame men, when it is a generalisation in a number of ways. She is referring to disagreeing and you are entitled to your opinion.

I didn't answer the question. The reason why I didn't respond was more to do with likedcalico. I saw a number of posts from her with a similar theme I was trying to figure out what the problem was.

I'm sorry, Ticker. I genuinely didn't mean for this to be a personal attack, and I believe strongly that you have as much right to your opinion- and to voicing it- as anyone else here does.

There are guys on this site who I disagree with who I do jump all over, because I feel that for them to express their opinions- generally about women- unopposed- causes harm.

The perceved dominant social understandings in any culture have a lot of power. They are what make us feel like weirdos, or not. I'm all about freedom of speech, (hard as that may be to see at the moment), but when no one voices opposing opinions, it starts to look like we all agree with you- or at least, that none of us find your opinions to be so wrong as to require calling out. . . and this, not your right to state your opinions, is what concerns me.

Perhaps many of us do agree with you, and I believe- if this is the case- that that merits discussion as well. I very much doubt this will ever happen, but I'd like to think that, presented with overwhelming (EDIT: or even less than overwhelming, come to think of it) evidence in support of your position, I would agree with you. . . and if I'm wrong, I want to know about it.

It also troubles me that every time one of us publicly, in the context of advice or argument, rather than ranting, makes unreasonable generalizations about men, it gives them ammunition- not very good ammunition, but ammunition, none the less- in their unreasonable generalizations about us.

lastly, if you are concerned about how, when, and whether guys post here- which I am as well- it would be great if you could post about it on the "post your ideas for rules about this forum" sticky, and/or take it up with the moderator. Perhaps together we can get something done.[b]

I think relationship questions are legitimate as something one would want to discuss in a sheltered environment.

I think a lot of things belong in the womens forum that also belong elsewhere. Mixed gender input makes for a different discussion of the same topic; sometimes the discussion you want is the "women only" one.

You make an interesting point about a "women only" environment operating under some sexist assumptions, and I'll have to think more about that. . . I'm inclined to believe it still has an independent value that's worth preserving.

I also think that her generalization onto mmaestro was/is enough of a leap that it implies a disquieting willingness to generalize onto all men everywhere. . . but then, that could just be a faulty generalization of mine.