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November 16, 2007 7:46 AM Subscribe

A post about how women experience street harassment has been deleted. The one about how the psychology of exhibitionist men remains. The grounds: This post was deleted for the following reason: one exhibitionism post per day is enough. This is linked in the thread just below this. Please don't use MetaFilter to forward your point from metatalk. -- jessamyn My point was to continue a discussion some people thought valuable from a previous thread deleted apparently because that post was poor. Just can't get the hang of this thing. Hey ho.
posted by jennydiski to MetaFilter-related at 7:46 AM (1163 comments total) 42 users marked this as a favorite

Advertise here: Contact FM.

link
posted by iconomy at 7:57 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

This thing is not about continuing discussion.

The psychology of exhibitionist men thread should be axed too, for the same reason.
posted by yhbc at 7:57 AM on November 16, 2007

My point was to continue a discussion

That's not the point of Metafilter. The point of Metafilter is to share interesting content from the web.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:58 AM on November 16, 2007 [16 favorites]

The post that was originally deleted is currently being discussed in the MetaTalk thread about it. Starting a new post on that topic when there's one on a related topic still a few posts down on the front page seems a little bit like using MetaFilter to make a point, not to highlight something you found on the web. I'm sorry the other post from today was there first, but MeFi is not a call and response battleground for competing posts coming at both sides of a topic and that's what your post looked like.

To be more clear, most times when there is a post on a topic that is already being discussed in a post on the front page, the second post gets removed as a double. This is not true for all topics but it is true for most topics. This has nothing to do with whatever "side" of the issue or topic the original post came from. So, for an example

post 1: OBAMA SUCKS
post 2: OBAMA RULES
result 1: Obama rules post removed
result 2: metatalk thread about how we're against Obama because we left the sucks post and removed the rules post.
posted by jessamyn at 7:59 AM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Also, it was your post. I don't know why you got so passive voice all of the sudden.
posted by jessamyn at 8:01 AM on November 16, 2007 [11 favorites]

As the originator of the other post, let me state that my reason for creating it was a statement by cortex in the MeTa thread that sometimes pulled FPPs get reworked and shared in the different and more appropriate way. So I thought I would make the attempt; shortly after posting it I felt some regret at doing so because the MeTa conversation was still in full bloom and I felt that I all had done was to create a second thread that would pick up the MeTa discussion, and keep both going.

All of which is a long way of saying that I'm quite fine with the mods shutting down my post, if they deem it a good idea and a way to calm everything down. If they decide to leave it, it's just another meh post on the Blue.
posted by never used baby shoes at 8:07 AM on November 16, 2007

"I don't know why you got so passive voice all of the sudden."

Some women get the vapors when their posts are deleted. She merely threw up this MeTa mid-swoon.
posted by klangklangston at 8:08 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I flagged this post earlier because it was rubbish and trying to make a point. No axe-grinding or anything like that.

As an aside, I hope this 'debate' ends soon, it has been one of the most tedious that I can remember in my two years or so of using Mefi.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 8:11 AM on November 16, 2007

Jessamyn: Because I was more interested in the nature of the deletion than in the fact that it was my post that was being deleted.

The two posts are not at all oppositional and weren't intended to be. I was not competing with the interesting post on the psychology of exhibitionism, but wanting to continue a conversation that was stopped.
posted by jennydiski at 8:13 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

That's not the point of Metafilter. The point of Metafilter is to share interesting content from the web.

I think that if TPS and I agree about a statement down to the letter (which, in this case, we do), you can probably consider it statistically significant at around the α=0.00001 level.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:15 AM on November 16, 2007

Some women get the vapors when their posts are deleted.

Vapors? Hysterics? Yes, this is a really cool place for women.
posted by jennydiski at 8:16 AM on November 16, 2007

Well, Jenny, how about you post something to the front page so we can discuss that?
posted by klangklangston at 8:18 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

There are already way too many "let's discuss this" posts on MetaFilter as it is.

What's wrong with getting The Vapors? I've been getting them since the 80s.
posted by iconomy at 8:19 AM on November 16, 2007

I had real bad gas at the last full moon.
posted by cog_nate at 8:19 AM on November 16, 2007

"What's wrong with getting The Vapors? I've been getting them since the 80s."

I didn't know you had turned Japanese on us.
posted by klangklangston at 8:20 AM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Vapors? Hysterics? Yes, this is a really cool place for women.

Klang's comment was clearly a joke.
posted by OmieWise at 8:20 AM on November 16, 2007

* exposes his RCA socket *
posted by [@I][:+:][@I] at 8:22 AM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

That's not the point of Metafilter. The point of Metafilter is to share interesting content from the web.

Isn't that the same thing I said, just one comment above that? So how come she gets the favorites - because she's a GIRL?!?!?!?
posted by yhbc at 8:24 AM on November 16, 2007 [11 favorites]

never used baby shoes, I think the post you made was fine, and a good example of reacting to a deletion with a solid followup (as opposed to the occasional Oh Yeah Well Then Delete This! rawr post we see come out of these sometimes).

jennydiski, your post in a vacuum is fine too, and it's the sort of thing where if you had waited a few days to post it it'd have probably been fine, but following right on the above-mentioned and the still-very-open metatalk conversation that inspired it is exactly the sort of too-much-too-soon reaction posting that tends to read as an attempt to make a point.

As a decent example of the Osama Sucks/Rules situation jessamyn mentioned above, here's a pair of posts where order of succession was (at least a significant part of) what drove the deletion of the second:

Ron Paul, November 5.
Ron Paul, November 6.

That second post had other problems, too, but even if it had been rock solid it'd probably have been canned by the same reasoning.

Call 'em "trend posts", or "trend doubles", or something. If folks get to posting followup posts along the lines of "oh, hey, well here's my take on the topic", the filter starts breaking down. Sometimes it means you're stuck with the post that exists already, or with waiting a little while to give the topic some room to breath. That sucks if you're excited and don't want to compromise, but it's a pretty reasonable situation from the POV of the site as a whole.
posted by cortex at 8:24 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

jennydiski, one of the unwritten rules of metafilter is that you will lose at metatalk 99% of the time when posting about a deleted post, just stop playing it.
posted by 517 at 8:24 AM on November 16, 2007

wanting to continue a conversation that was stopped.

Again, MeFi is not in the business of creating conversation. It's about posting links to the best of the web. That interesting conversations arise from those links is a nice perq but not the goal of a post. And we certainly shouldn't be making posts for the purpose of continuing a conversation.
posted by Durin's Bane at 8:25 AM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Isn't that the same thing I said, just one comment above that? So how come she gets the favorites - because she's a GIRL?!?!?!?

The beginning of the "Metafilter is a Girlzone!" theory. And I was there. So proud!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:26 AM on November 16, 2007 [6 favorites]

"Klang's comment was clearly a joke."

It was as sincere as my advocacy of phrenology and phlogiston.
posted by klangklangston at 8:26 AM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

FOR WHICH I AM WELL KNOWN.
posted by klangklangston at 8:26 AM on November 16, 2007 [10 favorites]

I was not competing with the interesting post on the psychology of exhibitionism, but wanting to continue a conversation that was stopped.

I cannot express enough how clearly The Pink Superhero answers this concern. Threads are not created for discussion. Discussions, even tangentially related ones, can happen in existing threads. Your intention is admirable, but posts must stand on their own, outside of any interesting discussion that might ensue. Part of the criteria for a post standing on its own is the prevalence of similarly themed posts on the front page already. Especially when there has been a hotly contested deletion recently. Your post would likely have stayed if it had been posted a week from now.
posted by shmegegge at 8:27 AM on November 16, 2007

* Ejects SDHC card *
posted by Plutor at 8:28 AM on November 16, 2007

Vapors? Hysterics? Yes, this is a really cool place for women.

The word is "snark". You do have dictionaries at NYT, yes? I'm pretty sure it's in one of them.
posted by aramaic at 8:31 AM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

The point of Metafilter is to share interesting content from the web.
posted by PugAchev at 8:31 AM on November 16, 2007

As the originator of the other post, let me state that my reason for creating it was a statement by cortex in the MeTa thread that sometimes pulled FPPs get reworked and shared in the different and more appropriate way

That was also the basis for making my post.

517: Lose? I'm not doing winning and losing. But as I said, I think I probably hadn't got the hang of this place at all. My misunderstanding.
posted by jennydiski at 8:33 AM on November 16, 2007

Isn't that the same thing I said, just one comment above that? So how come she gets the favorites - because she's a GIRL?!?!?!?

She gets favourites (well, at least one favourite) because she's ThePinkSuperhero.
posted by davey_darling at 8:33 AM on November 16, 2007

Heh. I originally ended my comment with "This place is such a girlzone!" but I decided that would be overkill. Shoulda left it.
posted by yhbc at 8:34 AM on November 16, 2007

"So how come she gets the favorites - because she's a GIRL?!?!?!?"

No, it's because she's a cute girl.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:34 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I like FPPs that generate discussion - even shitstirring discussion. They're fun. But some of the best FPPs I've seen have mostly been ten or twelve comments long, each comment some minutes apart (while people take time to read the content that's linked), and each comment some variation of Wow! or Nice post! or Thanks!

But maybe that's just me.
posted by rtha at 8:34 AM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

That was also the basis for making my post.

And since yours was the second such reworked post, it got removed. It's no big deal, its mostly just timing. Basically shmegegge's got it, context matters. A week from now a post like this wouldn't probably get deleted. This is not to say, by the way "oh please someone make a post almost like this in seven days time" just that this site is one with a semblance of a heartbeat and a memory and this was wrong place wrong time. Plus, what everyone else said about not making a post solely for the purposes of discussion.
posted by jessamyn at 8:37 AM on November 16, 2007

While I do think that discussions are important part of what makes MeFi great, this whole thing rubs me the wrong way. The post from yesterday, good discussion or not, was very clearly well-below the standards of a MeTa post. Miss Lynnster acknowledged as much in her more inside. It was deleted late, but it was a righteous axe.

The subsequent MeTa post was an appropriate place to discuss that. Of course there is room for disagreement, but it seems, frankly, childish to repost something to the front page in order to "continue a conversation that had been stopped," when there is an ongoing thread about the fact that the conversation was "stopped." Now, this MeTa thread contributes to my sense that pique is driving your actions, jennydiski. You've said before that you think that there is not enough criticism of the mods, and you may well be right, but I don't think that this is really an appropriate way to go about protesting their actions. It seems more like setting up a situation in which to complain, rather than addressing your concerns in any kind of reasoned way.
posted by OmieWise at 8:38 AM on November 16, 2007

No, it's because she's a cute girl.

I'd like to think people favorite the things I say because they want to favorite the things I say (for their own favorite purposes: agreement, remembering it for later, spite). Those of you who are favoriting me because of what I look like should move on to more successful methods of getting my attention. Like sending gifts of cold hard cash.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:40 AM on November 16, 2007 [7 favorites]

Just can't get the hang of this thing

This is no country for old men.
posted by yerfatma at 8:41 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

...
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:44 AM on November 16, 2007

jennysidki, But you get my point. Just smile and nod at the hazing, the front page of metatalk is pretty short.
posted by 517 at 8:45 AM on November 16, 2007

FWIW, links to the NY hollaback (which has links to other hollabacks--which are not affiliated with it but done as a courtesy--on its lefthand sidebar) have been posted within threads before.
posted by brujita at 9:08 AM on November 16, 2007

I have also been wondering, from a completely dispassionate curiosity, why there haven't been more posts addressing Astro Zombies and the needs of said Astro Zombies. Nothing to do with myself, of course; just something that I've noticed and wanted to bring up in a roundabout way.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:20 AM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

Somewhere a kitchen has lost its cleaner.
posted by dios at 9:21 AM on November 16, 2007

Man, this place has turned into SUCH an astrozombiezone.
posted by yhbc at 9:21 AM on November 16, 2007

Can't we talk about anything without it devolving into a discussion about Astro Zombies? God.
posted by aramaic at 9:23 AM on November 16, 2007

Astrozombiezone? Devolving? Yes, this is a really cool place for Astro Zombies.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:25 AM on November 16, 2007 [5 favorites]

Won't someone please think of the Terrestrial Living?
posted by brain_drain at 9:30 AM on November 16, 2007 [5 favorites]

Yes, this is a really cool place for Astro Zombies.

You say that as if "Astro Zombies" is some sort of monolithic entity lacking individual opnions and emotions and reactions. I'm not sure that's the case. In fact, I'd like to hear Astro Zombie 3's take on the matter. I suspect it would be enlightening not just for us, but for you as well.
posted by dersins at 9:32 AM on November 16, 2007

Narf.
posted by Astro Zombie 3 at 9:34 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

See? Don't we all feel enlightened now?
posted by dersins at 9:35 AM on November 16, 2007

Astro Zombie, it's all about you. I don't know why you got so third person all of the sudden.
posted by iamkimiam at 9:38 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

“Klang's comment was clearly a joke.”

Apropos of what? Invoking a sexist stereotype had nothing to do with anything. So it was a sexist joke. The knee-jerk tolerance of this sort of thing is exactly what makes MeFi a boyzone and why a lot of women don't feel welcome here. And they tell you this and your response is..."you're being hysterical, you're overreacting, it's just a joke".

Fuck you, klang. Grow up.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:39 AM on November 16, 2007 [11 favorites]

*huffs vapors*

*gets hysterical*

Dude, you gotta try this stuff...
posted by quin at 9:41 AM on November 16, 2007

I love you too, EB.
posted by klangklangston at 9:41 AM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

"Astro Zombie, it's all about you."

Man, dios comes to another thread and makes it all about Astro Zombie.
posted by klangklangston at 9:42 AM on November 16, 2007

Invoking a sexist stereotype had nothing to do with anything. So it was a sexist joke.

No, it wasn't. It was satire of a sexist (and gender bound) position, or that's how I took it.
posted by OmieWise at 9:47 AM on November 16, 2007

I used to say "but what about the discussion?!" but I have since realized that the posts which are centrally driven by the idea of talking end up being lame chatfilter, and the really great posts can sometimes be like rtha said above - the comments just become "wow, thanks!" because -- at least in my case -- I can't think of anything to bitch about.

... that's what comments are for, right ... ?
posted by blacklite at 9:47 AM on November 16, 2007

Can't we talk about anything without it devolving into a discussion about Astro Zombies? God.

At least we aren't talking about jonmc's ass, or my (quite large) penis.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:48 AM on November 16, 2007

Sorry, hit post too soon:

As satire it's not knee-jerk to "tolerate" it, since its whole purpose was to point out the idiocy of the position sent up. Not understanding satire may make some people feel uncomfortable, but it shouldn't outlaw the practice.
posted by OmieWise at 9:49 AM on November 16, 2007

BITCHFIGHT!
posted by quonsar at 9:50 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

“No, it wasn't. It was satire of a sexist (and gender bound) position, or that's how I took it.”

Really? I don't see the context. But I didn't read all these threads, either. Somewhere in all this have there been people arguing that women shouldn't be disturbed by this and they are overreacting?

...

Well, of course there is, isn't there? This is MetaFilter.

So, if that's what your joke was referring to, I take back my accusation and response, klang.

You'd think that jennydiski would get the reference, too, if it was so obvious. I think she has read these threads. Maybe if even she doesn't get it, it indicates the joke wasn't well-considered. And jokes such as these ought to be well-considered.

Even so, again, if it was intended to parody sexist comments that have appeared in these threads, I apologize for misunderstanding it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:52 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

YOU KNOW that there are people reading this thread who are, indeed, serial flashers or public masterbators. There HAVE to be.
...
Well, of course there is, isn't there? This is MetaFilter.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 9:57 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Somewhere in all this have there been people arguing that women shouldn't be disturbed by this and they are overreacting?"

I saw it as a riff on four panels' crazytalk title of his Meta thread from the other day, but I have a soft spot for the fuzzy gun-toting porn worker, so I may be biased here.
posted by jessamyn at 9:57 AM on November 16, 2007

The knee-jerk tolerance of this sort of thing is exactly what makes MeFi a boyzone and why a lot of women don't feel welcome here

No. False. Didn't you and I have a long discussion about how generalizations are bad and all people who make generalizations are mean and evil?

The problem with the boyzone remark is that it often stands in for something else. Most often, it stands in for "This isn't going the way I think it should. Things should be different, in my favor." As with the allegorical boy with a lupine problem, this screws things up for those currently suffering from the actual problem. There may be plenty of chauvinism going on at MetaFilter, but deleting a post that's simply a link to a craigslist post about some guy rolling out his personal welcome wagon is not evidence of a problem.

And why is the Internet male by default? Why MetaFilter? Because a man made it? The problem with staking out victimhood is it becomes self-fulfilling. Someone defend me from boyzone because I, being born a woman and thus distressed, am unable to do it myself. Ride to my rescue, Internet cowhands!

On a more personal note, the whole "feminist" position you've staked out has left "deeply felt sensitive guy" territory and rolled into "trying to get laid" territory. Too bad you couldn't have socked klang right in the nose so everyone in the lunchroom could see what a Good Guy you are. Had I but time and a time machine, all those John Hughes movies would be erased from our collective expectation sets of How the World Works.
posted by yerfatma at 10:00 AM on November 16, 2007 [27 favorites]

Maybe if even she doesn't get it, it indicates the joke wasn't well-considered. And jokes such as these ought to be well-considered.

Yes, I agree, and, again, this is my interpretation, but I think it was a general response to things like fourpanels's using "Hysterics" for the title of his ill-conceived MeTa post below. The point of my post was not to defend klang's as good or funny, but just to point out that I think it was being taken the wrong way, as a sexist joke, rather than a joke about sexism. I could have been more clear.
posted by OmieWise at 10:00 AM on November 16, 2007

On preview: EB, I never even considered you might not have gotten the joke. My white male chauvinist fault.
posted by yerfatma at 10:01 AM on November 16, 2007

"I saw it as a riff on four panels' crazytalk title of his Meta thread from the other day, but I have a soft spot for the fuzzy gun-toting porn worker, so I may be biased here."

Yeah, that's pretty much it, but I've given up on explaining jokes to EB, because he gets apoplectic and then gives a mealy-mouthed apology a few comments later.

And it distracts me from trying to come up with some quip about how hysteria and The Vapors are linked by masturbation.
posted by klangklangston at 10:01 AM on November 16, 2007

'Turning Japanese'? Fuck that noise. When I hear 'vapors,' I think of Biz Markie, and maybe, just maybe, Snoop.
posted by box at 10:07 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Well I'd like some clarification on this.

I don't believe the discussion is continuing in the Metatalk thread at all. The Metatalk thread seems to be yet another "boyzone or no" discussion, with a healthy mixture of "fourpanels sucks! does not!". But there is no discussion like was being had on the original FPP.

Like Jenny, I don't think I've got the hang of this just yet. The original FPP consisted of a bad post, interesting discussion. Jenny argued rather incitefully in the Meta thread that discussion has to matter, and it's a shame to lose it. But the rule seemed to be that MeFi is about posts, not comments. And that's been pretty consistent.

So what is the remedy if there is a bad post that spawns the kind of discussion Mefi should be proud to have? Do we just lose what could have been? My thought was that you re-do the FPP and make it better, and hopefully a good discussion would ensue. I've seen others encouraged to re-do FPPs and that sounds like a good solution.

So that's what Jenny does, but then it is deleted, and the deletion reasons don't make much sense to me. If it was deleted for being a bad FPP then I'd understand that.

First, it is claimed that the discussion is ongoing in the Meta thread. I disagree. I don't see any discussion there that is relevant to Jenny's FPP. And considering the history of Meta threads, there never will be. Women sharing their experiences on this topic is not going to happen there. It's more defensiveness and snark and jokes. Witness this thread, which I am replying in perhaps against my better judgement.

Second, it is said that somebody else already made an FPP on a similar topic (from a completely different angle), and so too bad Jenny didn't start hers in time. Considering all of the computer games threads Mefi has been inundated with recently, I'd think similarly themed posts could be handled better than just deleting the second.

I'm one of the people who tries to avoid Mefi but since it's the main selling point of this website, I try every now and then. I don't think most of the posts are even close to "best of the web", and often posts that are great are followed by very disappointing comments. I guess I saw what Jenny was doing as experimental in a way, and I don't understand what rules were broken.
posted by Danila at 10:10 AM on November 16, 2007 [9 favorites]

“On a more personal note, the whole ‘feminist’ position you've staked out has left ‘deeply felt sensitive guy’ territory and rolled into ‘trying to get laid’ territory.”

Gosh, if just once I'd get laid because I'm a feminist male, this whole last twenty-five years of activism will have been worth it. I guess I've just been wasting my time.

Sarcasm aside, it's also not the case that my feminism and complaints about sexism are the result of being a “sensitive guy” with “deep feelings”. I'm trying to figure out what the analogous stock comment is when it's a white person attacking racism. Oh, yeah, the claim is that it's “out of guilt”.

One possibility y'all might consider is that, in general, I really hate seeing people being treated like shit and it pisses me off. Like most (but not all) places on the Internet, MetaFilter is dominated by men. Men make sexist comments all the time, and they do here on MeFi. When women complain, they're told they are too sensitive and that it's just a joke. Or they're asked if they're having their period. There's a long history of women complaining in MetaTalk that MeFi is a boyzone where sexist comments are tolerated. It's not just been one or two women who have said this. It's quite a few. And they are ignored or ridiculed. This pisses me off, and every time it happens, it pisses me off more.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:12 AM on November 16, 2007 [11 favorites]

Danila: So what is the remedy if there is a bad post that spawns the kind of discussion Mefi should be proud to have? Do we just lose what could have been? My thought was that you re-do the FPP and make it better, and hopefully a good discussion would ensue. I've seen others encouraged to re-do FPPs and that sounds like a good solution... So that's what Jenny does, but then it is deleted, and the deletion reasons don't make much sense to me.

No, that's what never used baby shoes did. Jenny's post came right after, as in directly after, and therefore was superfluous.
posted by koeselitz at 10:15 AM on November 16, 2007

sorry, not perfect link, scroll up
posted by koeselitz at 10:16 AM on November 16, 2007

“So what is the remedy if there is a bad post that spawns the kind of discussion Mefi should be proud to have? Do we just lose what could have been?”

Yes. Is that so bad? Really?

“I don't think most of the posts are even close to ‘best of the web’...”

Yes, and that's because people have come up with all sorts of excuses for sub-par posts. Such as: good discussion is what's important.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:16 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Danila, I'm not sure anyone has argued that the discussion from the first deleted FPP has continued in MeTa, I think the contention has been that a discussion about the merits of that deletion is continuing in that thread, making subsequent threads which are at least partly a response to that deletion (jennydiski's FPP and this thread) superfluous.
posted by OmieWise at 10:20 AM on November 16, 2007

“because he gets apoplectic and then gives a mealy-mouthed apology a few comments later.”

I don't think that's fair. This time, my apology was mealy-mouthed. I admit it, it was ambivalent. Because while your comment still doesn't sit quite right with me, I also see that it was satire and I took it completely differently and wrongly.

But I've admitted I was wrong and/or apologized to you a couple of previous times in the last couple of weeks and I'm certain that at least the first of the two was absolutely unqualified. And the second, as far as I can recall, was unqualified, too, though I'm not certain. So I don't think it's fair for you to accuse me of making faux apologies.

I don't like it when people do that, myself. I shouldn't have done so in this instance. I wasn't trying to have it both ways, though, I was just typing at the same time as I was thinking about it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:22 AM on November 16, 2007

because men are such pigs, chapter 17,459. hey, am i gonna get the girl at the end of this story?
posted by bruce at 10:31 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

hey, am i gonna get the girl at the end of this story?

Signs point to "no."
posted by dersins at 10:39 AM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

No man has ever gotten laid for being feminist. However, they do get the dubious pleasure of comforting female friends when they are fucked over by their asshole boyfriends.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:41 AM on November 16, 2007 [12 favorites]

So there are two reasons that I don't like the "insert sexist statement here" jokes.

First of all, sometimes that kind of joke isn't really a joke. Usually it is, but sometimes it's a way of putting women (or some other marginalized group) in their place and reminding them of their marginalized status, but doing it in such a way that they can't call you on it, because then they're humorless losers who can't take a joke. In real life, it's generally pretty clear whether it's a joke or a "joke." You can tell from tone of voice and from your general sense of whether the person is or isn't an asshole. It's harder to tell on MetaFilter. It's hard to keep track of which posters are and aren't assholes, and there is no tone of voice. You know you aren't an asshole, but it's harder for the rest of us to know how to take it.

Second of all, it's not really funny. It's not clever. It's not original. And if you're going to risk making people uncomfortable, I think you should at least have something genuinely amusing to say.
posted by craichead at 10:48 AM on November 16, 2007 [23 favorites]

jennydiski is four panels?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:56 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Jesus, Alvy. That was low.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:02 AM on November 16, 2007

Second of all, it's not really funny. It's not clever. It's not original. And if you're going to risk making people uncomfortable, I think you should at least have something genuinely amusing to say.

I actually disagree with this, and for one specific reason: "Funny" may be the most subject experience in the world. There may be reasons for criticizing jokes -- I myself am not fond of bullying that passes itself off as comedy -- but "not funny" is not really an effective critique. Because somebody probably finds it funny. And transgressive humor is always going to be hideously unfunny to someone who does not appreciate the transgression, but it might be uproariously funny to someone who does.

On he post 9/11 issue, The Onion was going to have a story titled something like "Business back to usual at the Septagon," but they decided to pull it. They explained that one of the risks of satire is that its not always certain who or what is being satirized. They're right. It's the risk you run when you tell jokes that cross lines. But comedy needs to be able to cross those lines. Otherwise, all we have left are knock knock jokes, and, except for the interrupting cow one, there has never been a knock knock joke that was worth a damn.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:03 AM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Jenny argued rather incitefully

I cannot argue with that.

I really hate seeing people being treated like shit and it pisses me off. Like most (but not all) places on the Internet, MetaFilter is dominated by men.

Whoa, don't stake out too radical a position. The question for me is: why are places on the Internet dominated by men?

1. How do you know I'm even a man?
2. Online, what advantage do men have that allows them to dominate a discussion? I can't physically frighten anyone, so what am I doing that's planting the Penis Flag in the ground?

If you mean that men tend to make a bunch of noise and flame each other in some tired repetition of real-life pissing contests and this causes women to give up on sites on the Internet, I can't argue with it. But it rings a bit hollow: if I signed up on TheKnot.com or TheNest.com right now and started flaming the hell out of the place, would I be able to take the place over by sundown tomorrow? Unlikely. It's more likely I'd get torn to virtual shreds by the community elders there. That would be a girlzone.

The shitty fact of it is people tend to be bores who engage in territorial pissing contests out of fear and insecurity. To somehow assign blame for this truth to the male population just because they are either more practiced at it or simply more populous at MetaFilter is to once again encourage a culture of victimhood that doesn't need to exist on the 'net. There's no obligation to play through the same tropes you do in real life. Assuming a certain amount of safe anonymity, a site on the net could be a level playing field where words really are just words and only have the power to cause fear if you let them.

I realize that's theoretical and I'm sure everyone's got an example of a sister-in-law's maid of honor who got attacked via Nonfriendster or something, but I think rushing to the defense of aggrieved women in castles is giving them a fish rather than letting them figure out how to operate the pole themselves*. I spent a long time treating a female relative as a delicate, hot-house flower and worrying myself sick about how stable she'd be on her own. I'd have been better off helping to push her out on her own, because she's done fine.

Any whiff of sexual innuendo or lady parts you might catch in that sentence is a result of your poor breeding, dear reader.
posted by yerfatma at 11:05 AM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Ouroboros thread.
posted by bru at 11:07 AM on November 16, 2007

There's no obligation to play through the same tropes you do in real life. Assuming a certain amount of safe anonymity, a site on the net could be a level playing field where words really are just words and only have the power to cause fear if you let them.

This seems like an astonishingly un-nuanced view of human psychology to me. We live in the world, with all of its well-documented sexist imperfections, of which the internet is a very small part. It would be nice to think that the rest of reality would have no bearing on what happens online, but the argument about MeFi being a boyzone is precisely that sexism is used as a source of power (often through humor), and this replicates and reinforces unacceptable behavior that women encounter throughout their lives. The argument that this should not be a problem through effort of will is unconvincing, as it assumes that that effort of will should be something that women should be happy to expend. It's a perfectly legitimate criticism of this place (or any other) that it makes one feel shitty because one belongs to a certain class of people and that other members of "the community" should act with more civility.
posted by OmieWise at 11:14 AM on November 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

That was low.

Meh, one is coming from a position of sincerity and the other is just bored of jerking himself off to sleep (Guess which is which, and get a shiny nickle!), but both posted deletionbait to the blue, and both 'Took it to MeTa' for disingenuous purposes. Motivations may be different, but both are just trying to stir the shit.

I can't physically frighten anyone

Well, now that there are profile pics...
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:14 AM on November 16, 2007

I'm such a freakin' troublemaker. Damn. Honestly, in the beginning I just cracked up over a little sketch of some guy's banana & apricots. That's all it was. I'll stick to not posting silly from hereon out if I can avoid it since apparently it just leads to no damn good.
posted by miss lynnster at 11:18 AM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

Ok, AZ, you're right that there may be people who find drive-by sexist comments high-larious. But I'd still submit that they're un-clever and unoriginal. And it's a bit goofy to suggest that there's anything transgressive about a joke that stale.
posted by craichead at 11:20 AM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm such a freakin' troublemaker. Damn. posted by miss lynnster

Don't take it personally (and don't take the credit, either); this is an ongoing issue here and I have a feeling it will outlive both of us.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:21 AM on November 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

except for the interrupting cow one, there has never been a knock knock joke that was worth a damn.

This is possibly the truest and least disputable thing said in this whole thread.
posted by rtha at 11:23 AM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

“but I think rushing to the defense of aggrieved women in castles is giving them a fish rather than letting them figure out how to operate the pole themselves.”

I'm not rushing to the defense of women, I'm just complaining about bad behavior just like I would any other bad behavior. You keep coming up with ulterior motives for why a man would be upset at sexism against women. Can't it just be that I don't like people treating other people like shit? Why, yes, yes it can.

“Online, what advantage do men have that allows them to dominate a discussion?”

This is unbelievably disingenuous. I don't even know where to begin. Do you really think that sexism relies upon the immediate threat of physical violence?

Also, what OmieWise said.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:25 AM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

Otherwise, all we have left are knock knock jokes, and, except for the interrupting cow one, there has never been a knock knock joke that was worth a damn.

I had no idea that this would end up being apropros on multiple fronts three and a half months later.
posted by cortex at 11:26 AM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

Odd how when a handful of women actually speak out to say that they aren't happy with the social/political attitude of the site, we are told that we are claiming victimhood. Victimhood is shutting up, not speaking out.

Women in castles? What goes on in your head? No one is asking anything of you, only objecting to you.

But OmniWise is right, I have got other things to do.
posted by jennydiski at 11:27 AM on November 16, 2007 [6 favorites]

knock knock
posted by Stynxno at 11:38 AM on November 16, 2007

Moo!
posted by Item at 11:40 AM on November 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

Have you heard the dead interrupting cow one. Here goes:

Knock knock!
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:42 AM on November 16, 2007

"Who's there?", he asked expectantly.
posted by yhbc at 11:45 AM on November 16, 2007

And the joke is that I never answer, but it's hard to represent that in a thread.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:47 AM on November 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

I've got a great knock knock joke.
posted by dersins at 12:00 PM on November 16, 2007

You start.
posted by dersins at 12:00 PM on November 16, 2007

Knock knock!
posted by yhbc at 12:02 PM on November 16, 2007

Who's there?
posted by dersins at 12:05 PM on November 16, 2007

Boo Fucking.
posted by yhbc at 12:05 PM on November 16, 2007

...Control Freak: now this where you type in Control Freak Who ?
posted by y2karl at 12:06 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Yay Knockers!
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 12:06 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Who's he fucking?
posted by dersins at 12:06 PM on November 16, 2007

er, this is where you type in Boo Fucking Control Freak Who ?
posted by y2karl at 12:07 PM on November 16, 2007

"Ouroboros thread."
posted by bru

How long have you waited, bru, to snake that word into a comment?
posted by Cranberry at 12:09 PM on November 16, 2007

Well goddammit I'm not a victim and it irks me to even POSSIBLY be painted with that brush, so fuck whoever said that.

There is validity to the boyzone... thing... but it's not gonna change by making up new PC adherence rules, it's gonna change when people fight their battles to their personal satisfaction.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:09 PM on November 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

This here is a tricky issue:

"Invoking a sexist stereotype had nothing to do with anything. So it was a sexist joke."
No, it wasn't. It was satire of a sexist (and gender bound) position, or that's how I took it.
posted by OmieWise at 12:47 PM on November 16 [+] [!]
and
So there are two reasons that I don't like the "insert sexist statement here" jokes:
First of all, sometimes that kind of joke isn't really a joke. Usually it is, but sometimes it's a way of putting women (or some other marginalized group) in their place and reminding them of their marginalized status, but doing it in such a way that they can't call you on it, because then they're humorless losers who can't take a joke. In real life, it's generally pretty clear whether it's a joke or a "joke." You can tell from tone of voice and from your general sense of whether the person is or isn't an asshole. It's harder to tell on MetaFilter. It's hard to keep track of which posters are and aren't assholes, and there is no tone of voice. You know you aren't an asshole, but it's harder for the rest of us to know how to take it. [...]

posted by craichead at 1:48 PM on November 16 [1 favorite +] [!]

It's hard to know who's parodying assholes and who's just being an asshole. And once the fake-asshole stuff is thick enough, normal humans won't want to hang around.

For a recent thread, the middle of which was a funny-at-first and then uncomfortably-realistic "we're being macho/sexist/lame-o internet Dudez -- but it's ironic! so we will do it some more! Also may I present you with a picture of my weiner!", please see Spock LOL fatties. Tell me how someone could tell the different between the middle of that thread and a comparable thread on another site where people meant it.

I'm not saying "no humor please", but I'm saying that the line between boyzone vs. note-perfect-parody-of-boyzone is awful thin.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:11 PM on November 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

The "cult of personality" is useful in this way, and like I said in the other thread, it's really important that so many of us mefites care about one another enough to allow greater judgments of where people are coming from into the mix. Take klang's low-hanging fruit gender jokes. I make those, too, because they are funnay, but they sure aren't unique around here. I know from reading the site so blooming much that he's not a sexist, just a sonofabitch.

And as I said in the other thread, too. Laydeez, use the social networking features you are supposed to be so deft at maeuvering to gin up a foundation of girl support. It's here. I got your back and a bucket of cocks.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:16 PM on November 16, 2007

maeuvering

This typo sounds like some 40's era powder room feminist movement... lead my Mauve Maeve, the Men-Murdering Maven
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:18 PM on November 16, 2007

Yeah, I know klang was joking with "vapors" above, and I actually think that was fine in this context. I have a pretty good bead on who's joking in general. I'm saying after a while, in cases where the whole background of a discussion becomes ironic-fake-boyzone, that might really not be all that different from its just being a real boyzone, in terms of its being tedious and discouraging certain kinds of participation.
posted by LobsterMitten at 12:28 PM on November 16, 2007 [7 favorites]

So, having just jumped into this, I have to say that two things become immediately apparent to me.

1. Apparently figuring out how to use Metafilter appropriately is super hard for some people.

2. EB is an asshole.
posted by kbanas at 12:33 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

You'll have to take a number, honey.
posted by Floydd at 12:40 PM on November 16, 2007

Ethereal Bligh: my take on it is when someone starts bitching about the patriarchy or some other claim of oppression when there is a completely unbiased, non-oppressive reason for an action, one probably ought to expect that their complaints will be mocked through usage of stereotypical "bigoted" statements.

I just wanted to repeat this comment from dios. I think it explains klangklangston's comment, and it's definitely a practice I've seen employed in MeTa before.

Also, I really hate it. If someone is making a good effort to be a reasonable member of this community, then I think it's poor form to mock them instead of seriously addressing their concerns or questions. Just because it's MetaTalk, snark is not always appropriate, especially this particular brand of snark.

I mean, in the real world if I tried to have a serious conversation with my peers about something, this wouldn't work as a response, even one intended as humorous -- it would come off as crass and sort of cavemanish. I've seen this tactic used in MeTa threads on women, homosexuals, republicans, oversized people, whatever, and sometimes the comments even get favorited so I guess someone really does find them to be funny. It just seems really puerile.

Possibly I am still just annoyed at klang for his comment in this thread (advice re girlfriend in high school).
posted by onlyconnect at 12:43 PM on November 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

1. I wish the FPP hadn't been deleted, as I think it was well put together, just poorly timed. A discussion of the hollaback phenomenon would've been enlightening, especially because the women behind that site seem to believe any compliment from a stranger is evil and bad.

b. Discussions like these aren't necessarily bad things.
posted by waraw at 12:51 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

"I'm saying after a while, in cases where the whole background of a discussion becomes ironic-fake-boyzone, that might really not be all that different from its just being a real boyzone, in terms of its being tedious and discouraging certain kinds of participation."

There's that, and there's also the problem that emerges of the generalized "sexist" ad hominem regarding discussions of "boyzone," something I felt Jenny leaned on pretty heavily with her insinuations about the moderation and tenor. That means that a male respondent has to navigate the Scylla of publicly agreeing to something false through false piety toward gendered concerns, and the Charybdis of sincere disagreement being discounted as a product of andronormativism.

That's combined with a handful of theory arguments back and forth about whether, say, someone's "aggressive" dismissal of concerns regarding the contested space of Metafilter discussion is a legitimate expression of their feelings or if it's part of the culture that evokes those feelings.

Combine that with a handful of bad faith assumptions, some positional soapboxing and the very fact that absolutely nothing will be accomplished beyond the idea of having a discussion (even a fruitless one) on the ways that gender impacts conversation here is somehow positive (as certainly nothing will happen with regard to Jenny's dead post) and it's hard to come up with anything but bored snark, especially if you've seen this conversation before.

Could something positive come out of one of these discussions? Yes, I believe, if there were some sort of project formulated to move forward with, especially one that could be implemented structurally within the collective consciousness. Yes, if there was an attempt made to separate the legitimate concerns of boyzone culture from the attempt to justify this shitty call-out (which is why I believe that most people are talking past each other).

As it stands? The only people that will stick around for stuff like that are the exact ones that shouldn't be leading the project (just like how often the most active activists are the same assholes that you wouldn't want running a tea party).
posted by klangklangston at 12:52 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Re: Anal ultimatum— I explained it here, though I suppose I should be more careful about using in-group slang on MeFi.
posted by klangklangston at 12:56 PM on November 16, 2007

Does anybody wanna go in on some stocks with me?
posted by vito90 at 1:00 PM on November 16, 2007

You mean like a pillory, vito? BDSM is hawt.
posted by dios at 1:02 PM on November 16, 2007

Could something positive come out of one of these discussions? Yes, I believe, if there were some sort of project formulated to move forward with, especially one that could be implemented structurally within the collective consciousness.

You know that, in John Gray's petri dish at least, this is the quintessense of andronormative thinking. We Venutians supposedly prefer freeform continual exchange of perspectives, with steadily improved mutual understanding and empathy, to a format of communication that preferences only lines of discourse that result in the rectification of problems.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:12 PM on November 16, 2007

I agree with LobsterMitten.

Coincidentally the AskMe thread I linked to above was about a guy who got used to talking to his girlfriend mainly through irony and sarcasm, to the point where it was hard for him to tell even in real life when she was being serious and when she was kidding. Some people in the thread even thought that she really meant all the sarcastic bad stuff she was saying about him, and was only hiding it with humor. So, yeah, sometimes in these threads it's hard to decypher who is being an asshat and who is just trying to be ironic, and it can also just really wear a person down.

klangklangston, are you saying that your comment in that thread was ironic, given the origin link you provided? I didn't take it that way in the thread, and I'm not sure it's clear to the average reader you meant it that way.

and it's hard to come up with anything but bored snark, especially if you've seen this conversation before.

I don't know the whole history of this particular series of threads, but I don't think bored snark is a good response to any discussion that you'd like to see "something positive come out of."
posted by onlyconnect at 1:13 PM on November 16, 2007

but I have a soft spot for the fuzzy gun-toting porn worker, so I may be biased here.

'Poodle with a mohawk' of your very own, I suppose.

And I'm not too happy with the image of you as the Ma Barker of Metafilter your remark tends to evoke in my mind, Jessamyn.
posted by jamjam at 1:15 PM on November 16, 2007

The point that is getting lost in the midst of the stupid derails is that as usual within a few responses to this "why was I deleted" post Jessamyn provided a perfectly clear explanation of usual practices in front page moderation: "most times when there is a post on a topic that is already being discussed in a post on the front page, the second post gets removed as a double."

I would feel sorry for jennydiski being subjected to the usual gratuitous MetaTalk flogging if it weren't for the fact that all her comments subsequent are steadfastly ignoring this simple and straightforward explanation. You want to encourage the examination of a perspective of direction of discussion under a general cateogory (i.e. exhibitionism)? Post your examples in the existing thread on the topic.

The subject has now had three FPPs and two MeTas, it's ridiculous. pruning the FPPs down to one seems to me totally reasonable and the general policy of discouraging "here's a different angle on that topic below" posting is a sound one.
posted by nanojath at 1:15 PM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

“Could something positive come out of one of these discussions?”

Of course it could. People like you could stop your obscurantist bullshit and listen to the numerous women who are telling you that a) MetaFilter is unfriendly to women in a typically sexist way, and b) jokes like yours, even when satire, are among the ways in which it's unfriendly.

Bored snark in this context is sexist and the fact that you don't realize this is revealing. When several women are complaining about what they perceive as sexism, bored snark from a man in response is indisputably sexist. It's also typical of the tactics men use to marginalize women who dare to speak up.

“Some people in the thread even thought that she really meant all the sarcastic bad stuff she was saying about him, and was only hiding it with humor.”

I come from a family steeped in sarcasm. We make sarcasm an art form. And you know? It's disguised hostility. Don't let anyone bullshit you that it's not.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:17 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Reading these threads exhausts me, because I usually get onto them when they're 100+ comments long but I still persist. I've read similar threads to these on MeTa over and over again and in the vain hope that something will change, I still do. But it never does. No one changes their view on what they're certain they're right about and arguing on the internet has got to be one of the most pointless exercises to date.

Oh, and why does being a male feminist automatically mean you must have a hidden agenda? Is that because people are so astounded that men might actually CARE about the welfare of women?
posted by liquorice at 1:18 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

You know what I would like? If people stopped explaining that there was no point in discussing this.

I often feel uncomfortable, as a girl on MetaFilter. I'm really trying to approach this in a sensible way and not be all screechy about it. But I feel how I feel and I'd appreciate it if y'all would stop telling me to hush.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 1:19 PM on November 16, 2007 [11 favorites]

"You know that, in John Gray's petri dish at least, this is the quintessense of andronormative thinking. We Venutians supposedly prefer freeform continual exchange of perspectives, with steadily improved mutual understanding and empathy, to a format of communication that preferences only lines of discourse that result in the rectification of problems."

Yes, yes. On the other hand, I tend to view that as too reductive a view of women and generally something that's culturally constructed.

Further, as someone who has ordered pizzas with an anti-war group more than once, I may have a lower-than-average tolerance for privileging discussions of food over than getting food. With the number of things that are available, a conversation has to either be productive or entertaining to be worth continuing.

"klangklangston, are you saying that your comment in that thread was ironic, given the origin link you provided? I didn't take it that way in the thread, and I'm not sure it's clear to the average reader you meant it that way."

The "anal ultimatum" is an immature and passive-aggressive way of breaking up primarily. I probably shouldn't have posted it, given that it's only a way to make the lives of two jerks worse, rather than move them past jerkdom.

"I don't know the whole history of this particular series of threads, but I don't think bored snark is a good response to any discussion that you'd like to see "something positive come out of.""

This discussion was fucked from the outset. I believe that in a different context, a different and productive conversation could be held.
posted by klangklangston at 1:26 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

miss lynnster: I'll stick to not posting silly from hereon

It's actually spelled "heroin."
posted by koeselitz at 1:32 PM on November 16, 2007 [5 favorites]

klangklangston writes "I believe that in a different context, a different and productive conversation could be held."

Well, despite three FPPs and two MeTas, we haven't found that context yet. That leaves me feeling somewhat disappointed.
posted by never used baby shoes at 1:35 PM on November 16, 2007

Yes, yes. On the other hand...

Yeah no fucking kidding. But I think a lot of the "when do we get change out of this, please get to the point" types of comments actually feel silencing to women who just need to jam, and be listened to, about how they're not listened to about how they're note listened to ad infinitum. I think it's a valid observation that there's not a lot of validation here.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:36 PM on November 16, 2007

"Oh, and why does being a male feminist automatically mean you must have a hidden agenda? Is that because people are so astounded that men might actually CARE about the welfare of women?"

It doesn't. It does mean that you have an overt agenda.

"I often feel uncomfortable, as a girl on MetaFilter. I'm really trying to approach this in a sensible way and not be all screechy about it. But I feel how I feel and I'd appreciate it if y'all would stop telling me to hush."

I really hope that this isn't directed at me, since that's not what I'm trying to convey—I think that there could be an intelligent and productive discussion about women being uncomfortable on Metafilter. I do not believe that this or the other thread is an intelligent and productive discussion about women being uncomfortable on Metafilter. I would support a new MeTa about that, but I feel like the well was poisoned here from the first post on.

"Bored snark in this context is sexist and the fact that you don't realize this is revealing. When several women are complaining about what they perceive as sexism, bored snark from a man in response is indisputably sexist. It's also typical of the tactics men use to marginalize women who dare to speak up."

Oh, EB, how about you stop trying to divine what's revealing about what I say, and what I don't realize. I know that you've carved out a position as patronizer-in-chief, but this is exactly what I mentioned prior regarding ad hominems and false piety. Perhaps you were too busy rifling through your library for the proper Greek spelling of Scylla and Charybdis?
posted by klangklangston at 1:36 PM on November 16, 2007

I would feel sorry for jennydiski being subjected to the usual gratuitous MetaTalk flogging if it weren't for the fact that all her comments subsequent are steadfastly ignoring this simple and straightforward explanation.

Shit, how am I going to cope without your pity?

One of the problems here is that there are some people who quite wrongly assume that this is the wittiest, most savage arena on the planet. So far (to quote a UK politican) it's like being savaged by a dead sheep.

Being big, bad and dangerous is OK for playtime, but the world is in deep shit and could do with a lot more considered discourse. This may not be the best place for it.
posted by jennydiski at 1:40 PM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

I agree with EB.
Also, among strangers, err on the side of caution when it comes to possible offence. If nothing else, you'll be funnier working against the constraint.
posted by Abiezer at 1:40 PM on November 16, 2007

Ethereal Bligh: The knee-jerk tolerance of this sort of thing is exactly what makes MeFi a boyzone ---

Metafilter is a boyzone? You don't get around much - in real life or on the net - do you? The discussions here are almost always a notch above the rest of the internet.
posted by Termite at 1:41 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

“Oh, and why does being a male feminist automatically mean you must have a hidden agenda? Is that because people are so astounded that men might actually CARE about the welfare of women?”

Apparently. I'm getting really tired of it. And, as you say, it also says something sad about how people think about these issues. In fact, I'm not really comfortable with how you formulated it yourself. I'm not a feminist because I have a specific motivation to care about the welfare of women qua women, I'm a feminist because women are a class of human beings who are being treated unjustly, every day, the world around. I don't care because sexism happens to be an injustice that is inflicted upon women, I care because sexism is an injustice that happens to be inflicted upon women.

I care for the same reasons as I care about racism. Except, you know, that sexism affects 52 percent of the world's population and while race slavery has largely been eradicated from the world, sex slavery has not.

On Preview:

“Oh, EB, how about you stop trying to divine what's revealing about what I say, and what I don't realize”

I don't have to “divine” it. You revealed, it's there for everyone to see. Likewise, you also demonstrated your lack of understanding. My saying so is neither an ad hominem nor false piety.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:41 PM on November 16, 2007 [5 favorites]

I've just realized I sort of do feel obliged to pop into every feminism/boyzone thread, building up my cred over time as a reasonable feminist with a penchant for filthy humor and a willingness to take my licks.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:33 PM on November 16 [+] [!]

Just stopping back in to say: This rings very true to me. Not about you specifically, but as an experience that smart and spirited people have in trying to stay in groups that are in some way exclusionary -- spending a lot of time "keeping up one's cred" as being "not one of THOSE types". God knows I spent my life from ages 14-21 in pretty much a continual spasm of this mindset -- including trying to stay cool in the eyes of some real genuine assholes -- and this is still my immediate, uncontrollable response to certain situations. (Eg in my male-dominated academic sub-discipline.) Feeling as if you need to make a big point of being a certain way (tough, sex-talking, un-offendable), so that the people who are controlling the discussion will take you seriously.

Probably guys have their own version of this -- witness the hassley attitude toward guys who speak up here to say "that's offensive" or other un-tough things. So maybe it's just the price that everyone pays to get into this pub. Dunno. But now, in real life or online, when I find myself wanting to comment in a way that shows off my macho side, I usually just don't comment -- exactly because when I get that "defend-my-macho/sextalking/etc cred" feeling it's a sign to me that the tenor of the discussion sucks.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:44 PM on November 16, 2007 [18 favorites]

Being big, bad and dangerous is OK for playtime, but the world is in deep shit and could do with a lot more considered discourse. This may not be the best place for it.
posted by jennydiski at 3:40 PM on November 16

Shit. You are so right. But really, you are clearly an enlightened above-it-all British sophisticate that can spot these complex paradigms in the world and work to change them. I wish I could help you, but I'm just a dim-witted American Neanderthal who can't think about these things because I am too busy trying to figure out which woman I am going to club over the head with my freakishly large cock and drag back to my cave.
posted by dios at 1:46 PM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

I really hope that this isn't directed at me, since that's not what I'm trying to convey—I think that there could be an intelligent and productive discussion about women being uncomfortable on Metafilter. I do not believe that this or the other thread is an intelligent and productive discussion about women being uncomfortable on Metafilter.

Well, first: I generally find you a fun and amusing dude, and I want to point out that I recognize that the men who are willing to sincerely enter into conversations with women about this are ...kind of unfairly taking the hit for the many men who won't even engage. So... I guess I'm sorry if you're getting caught in that.

But I hope you can hear me when I say that I am having an intelligent and productive discussion about this, with or without your blessing. There are a lot of meaningful things in here for me. Such as reading about LobsterMitten and AmbrosiaVoyeur talking about the ways in which they come into these debates, for instance.

I'm not macho at all, and I often find women who are really intimidating, so it's really useful for me to hear ladies talking about the how and why openly.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 1:47 PM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

I don't want to read about internetscene boyzone.

I don't want to read about why flashers flash.

I want to read about innovations in flashee responses to flashing.

Two FPPs that hinted they might eventually fill the bill got deleted. One sucked, the other sucked less but got canned as a "double."

Jenny Diski's post may not've been spectacular, but it was not a double of the FPP on why flashers flash. Flashee does not equal flasher. Unless we're assuming that the subaltern experience is lesserthan or subsumed within the experience of the dominantyaaaaadadadaaaa, but again whether or not the world is kind to the subaltern is not what I want to read about. That is not the can of worms I want to open because it is open already and the worms all crawled out and dried up and died about fiftytwo years ago. The can of still-juicy worms I and Jenny Diski and a BUNCH OF PEOPLE want to open is forever getting kicked out of reach before we can really bust into the thing properly and get a look at the wiggly goodness inside. Every foray into the dark unexplored gets the axe--I'm not even quibbling about the reasons for the axings, which after all have so far been pretty solid, but nevertheless I want to open the can, if there even is a damn can, and look at the worms in it.

If Jenny Diski finds something other than hollaback out there, can she post it in, what, two days? Three weeks? If somebody else finds something other than hollaback on this topic can he/she post sooner than Jenny Diski?

If it gets posted can it be sidebarred? 'Cause I'd really like to read about it. I haven't seen it before and find it interesting, you know, in a "best-of-the-web" kind of way.
posted by Don Pepino at 1:50 PM on November 16, 2007

Jesus christ, dios, try to be less reflexively defensive if you want your sarcasm to sting.
posted by OmieWise at 1:50 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Well, despite three FPPs and two MeTas, we haven't found that context yet. That leaves me feeling somewhat disappointed."

Two (rightly) deleted FPPs, and two disingenuous MeTas? The one FPP left I haven't really read.

There's a remedy for that disappointment: A new MeTa that explains why these discussions aren't working and cites posts and comments that form a broader context to support the idea that there is a boyzone and that something can be done about it.

"Yeah no fucking kidding. But I think a lot of the "when do we get change out of this, please get to the point" types of comments actually feel silencing to women who just need to jam, and be listened to, about how they're not listened to about how they're note listened to ad infinitum. I think it's a valid observation that there's not a lot of validation here."

I can understand that, and (NOT IRONIST) I think it's a valid complaint. It's just that I think something as complex as contested gender relations in MeFi is a problem that requires more than just validation, and I'll also cop to coming at it with the (likely poorly communicated) point of view that OF COURSE those complaints are valid, as I've remarked frequently prior, which leads to a bit of impatience when I feel like there's wheel-reinvention abounding. It ends up feeling like kabuki, with the socially-mandated validation of feelings needing to happen prior to any change, when "we" all know (perceived ideological cohort "we) that those feelings are valid.

I also like to skip the reading of the minutes at board meetings.
posted by klangklangston at 1:51 PM on November 16, 2007

This place is really starting to depress me, lately.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:54 PM on November 16, 2007

*eats popcorn*

I don't even know what the hell you people are talking about, but I'm glad half you dorks tipped your hat to jennydiski when she signed up, and now she's gleefully shitting in your plate o' beans. I, for one, think she is a lonely idiot, and don't feel the need to further explain myself.
posted by phaedon at 1:54 PM on November 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

You're probably right, Omie. But I wondered if I was just misreading her earlier in this thread, so I went and read that website linked to in her profile. Re-reading her comments here, I think I was responding to something implied in her comment.
posted by dios at 2:03 PM on November 16, 2007

Everything is offensive to somebody.

Some people fetishize being offended. Some people will parse and parse and parse.

If we bow down to that kind of thing... well... just kiss Metafilter goodbye. Is that what we want? People getting kicked for saying "cunt", "pussy" or "cock sucker?"

Just like any other kind of expressive form you can't always fret about people taking offense.
posted by tkchrist at 2:03 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

This place is really starting to depress me, lately.

Me too.
posted by tkchrist at 2:04 PM on November 16, 2007

as someone who has ordered pizzas with an anti-war group more than once, I may have a lower-than-average tolerance for privileging discussions of food over than getting food.

klangklangston: that is lovely, and thank you for it.

Also - I think this has moved beyond the stated purpose of the thread (it was a good deletion, and someone can post some good anti-flasher stuff in a few weeks), and also isn't really about what the site as a whole Should Do About Sexism. I think the only solution to the constant ironic-sexism thing I was mentioning is just for people who post that stuff (who I think are mostly not sexists) to realize that it can be silencing in its effect, and to voluntarily hold themselves back sometimes.

I don't think it's anything that a site policy could deal with effectively. I, and hmsbeagle and others, are trying to make the case that this stuff has an (unintended) effect that people (nonsexist men) should be more aware of when they post. Talking about it isn't venting or seeking validation. It's meant to be informative to people who might choose to change their behavior once they're informed.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:04 PM on November 16, 2007

Holy crap tkchrist, let me just say you have no idea the world of hurt you just walked into. Learn from my mistakes, pull back while you still can.
posted by aramaic at 2:05 PM on November 16, 2007

Being big, bad and dangerous is OK for playtime, but the world is in deep shit and could do with a lot more considered discourse. This may not be the best place for it.

If you think you've found the Archimedean point from which to change the world for the better, may I be the first to suggest that you go there and start hefting that long, long lever?
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:08 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

But now, in real life or online, when I find myself wanting to comment in a way that shows off my macho side, I usually just don't comment -- exactly because when I get that "defend-my-macho/sextalking/etc cred" feeling it's a sign to me that the tenor of the discussion sucks.

Everything you've said in this thread is so right on, LobserMitten. Anyone who thinks this isn't a productive conversation should take the time to reread all you've written here.

I've done it too -- made the crude joke at my expense before someone else could, or got returned insult for insult with a lightning quickness -- and the point is that it is a sucker's game. It shuts out the quieter and more thoughtful from participating. It convinces the jerks that it's all good, because you are aping them. It hides whatever you might have said that's meaningful in more heat than light.

I'd much rather see everyone who feels the same focus their energies on writing what's smart and real and true than on cheap snark. You can't fight every gender battle on metafilter or in general, and it's okay to be tired and to disengage when you need. But gunslinging and pitch perfect boyzone parodies don't provide any lasting satisfaction -- they just generate more of the same, until we're drowning in it.

This place is really starting to depress me, lately.

This is right on, too. Sad to say.
posted by melissa may at 2:08 PM on November 16, 2007 [15 favorites]

tl;dr
posted by Stynxno at 2:10 PM on November 16, 2007

IRFH and tkchrist: "Lately"? These are discussions we've had before and will have again. Nothing new about it. Plus, I can't imagine why they would impact you in any way. Do you think there's some kind of movement on to encourage banning people who say "cock" too much? There isn't, and that's an unrealistic thing to worry about, seems to me. Most of the women who are chiming in here have extremely healthy senses of humor, come here partly for the funny, and don't want to see Mefi get boring. The thing I was suggesting is that a whole thread of "wanna see a picture of my wang" isn't exactly high-octane humor, and isn't exactly the stuff that sets Mefi apart from other places online.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:11 PM on November 16, 2007

"I don't have to “divine” it. You revealed, it's there for everyone to see. Likewise, you also demonstrated your lack of understanding. My saying so is neither an ad hominem nor false piety."

Bullshit. Feel free to go back and read what I wrote in context, then trot off another one of your wife-beater apologies. If you can't see how discounting what I say based on "sexism" due to my gender is, at least, the literalist epitome of "ad hominem" fallacy, you're a fool. If you say that you can't, you're a liar.

As for the lack of understanding, not everyone who disagrees with you doesn't understand your position—you may simply be wrong.

"But I hope you can hear me when I say that I am having an intelligent and productive discussion about this, with or without your blessing. There are a lot of meaningful things in here for me. Such as reading about LobsterMitten and AmbrosiaVoyeur talking about the ways in which they come into these debates, for instance."

Fair enough.
posted by klangklangston at 2:11 PM on November 16, 2007

This thread has a sour vibe that only inline images could remedy.
posted by brain_drain at 2:12 PM on November 16, 2007

everything comes full circle..
posted by phaedon at 2:17 PM on November 16, 2007

Having read this thread in its entirety, all I can do is reiterate what I said here:
...many men find comprehension just gets in the way of a good discussion. In fact it's OK that you don't really "understand" us, because that's just not what we're about. In fact, most men would rather you just not worry your pretty little heads about comprehension and understanding and listen to our advice whether we know what we're talking about or not, because that's what we do. We solve problems. We're problem solvers. If you have a problem we can't solve, we'll tell you that that's really not the problem you wanted solved and we'll go ahead and tell you what problem you should want solved and we'll solve that.
You don't have to thank us, that's just what we do.
posted by Floydd at 2:20 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

"Do you think there's some kind of movement on to encourage banning people who say "cock" too much?"

There is, however, a movement to encourage banning people who enjoy the comic strip "Crock." Also, people who like "Wizard of Id."
posted by klangklangston at 2:22 PM on November 16, 2007

Feeling as if you need to make a big point of being a certain way (tough, sex-talking, un-offendable), so that the people who are controlling the discussion will take you seriously.

I'm a lawyer and I've totally done this many times at work without really thinking about it. It is even fairly effective. In fact, I really need to think about what is better: doing that or calling someone out and standing my ground. I think it's very possible that blending will often get to a better result. At least in the short term, maybe not the long term.

But anyway, I thought this was a really salient observation and it made me look at my own behavior more carefully. So, thanks.
posted by onlyconnect at 2:26 PM on November 16, 2007

LobsterMitten: Your reading of my comment is way, way off base. I can't imagine why you took it as complaining about any particular view in this thread, let alone the one you arbitrarily decided to assign it to. My point, such as it was, was more in line with the first part of brain_drain's subsequent comment: This thread, and those connected with it, and frankly a number of other threads around the Blue, Green, and Gray these days strike me as containing a "sour vibe." That's not a complaint about the subject of the thread, or the discussion in general, or a passive-aggressive attempt to shut anybody up. It's an observation. Perhaps it's just bad timing or confirmation bias, but the general tone around here has seemed kind of poisonous lately. Yes, lately.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:28 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Did we get to the part of the thread where I call four panels a dick, yet?

Or is that one of the seventeen other threads on the same god damn topic in the last day-and-a-half?
posted by dersins at 2:32 PM on November 16, 2007

IRFH: Sorry for putting words in your mouth. I was obviously quite wrong about what you were objecting to.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:36 PM on November 16, 2007

No problem.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:37 PM on November 16, 2007

Okay, why the hell is this still open? This should've been closed at least around here, after the person who made the post said their question had been resolved.

This isn't really a trainwreck, but it is sort of an accident involving a bicycle, a wagonload of puppies, several small children, and a certain amount of bruises, blood, and whinging.
posted by koeselitz at 2:38 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Personally I think this may be the most move-the-ball-forward boyzone threads we've had on MetaTalk since the "would a woman really feel strange driving cross country alone?" thread. All these different voices in here, it is just really nice.
posted by onlyconnect at 2:38 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

many men find comprehension just gets in the way of a good discussion.

The entire comment is a clever piece of writing, but it's just a generalization which gives one group just another reason to ignore the other group.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:41 PM on November 16, 2007

Margaritas all around!
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:42 PM on November 16, 2007

Feeling as if you need to make a big point of being a certain way (tough, sex-talking, un-offendable), so that the people who are controlling the discussion will take you seriously.

I also want to say that this is very enlightening. I myself don't do this, and I have often watched other women do this and experienced a sense of betrayal, and a general complete bafflement as to why someone would do that.

This is very helpful in understanding it. Thanks!
posted by thehmsbeagle at 2:49 PM on November 16, 2007

women!
posted by de at 2:50 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

The thing I was suggesting is that a whole thread of "wanna see a picture of my wang" isn't exactly high-octane humor, and isn't exactly the stuff that sets Mefi apart from other places online.

Lobstermitten, I'd like to add my voice to those praising your contributions in this thread. I like hearing your account of working in and through a community dominated by snark and irony. But I'd like to ask you to consider something about bad, humorless snark: it quite clearly marks its users with the taint of dim-wittedness.

Metafilter is a space where we talk about a lot of different topics, it's relatively open to contributions at a number of levels, and it functions through communal shaming. We insult each other's positions as a method of finding points of weakness in those positions. We try to mix careful argument with rhetorical flourish. And the result is that wit and humor sometimes beat good sense, and cutting sarcasm can be more useful for exposing a weak position than a syllogism.

That's the nature of the public sphere: we don't grant each other a hearing or a reading. You've got to make yourself heard, on metafilter as anywhere else. It's clearly the case that a misogynist culture has prepared fewer women with the capacity to force uptake than men. It's also prepared fewer men to hear and take up female points of view. But I reject the implicit claim that it's unfeminine to be brash or distinctive: that's some dangerously essentializing old school feminism, and I refuse to grant that the opposite is essentially true about men.

It's true that public sphere theory often gets criticized as potentially chauvinist, but I like Iris Young and Seyla Benhabib on these matters: you get heard by couching your claims in the language of your interlocutor. We can expand the kinds of uptake we grant to a certain extent, but this always happens through combination and mixture. There's no pure voix feminine, nor a pure masculine style.

Talking about it isn't venting or seeking validation. It's meant to be informative to people who might choose to change their behavior once they're informed.

It seems like the response to weenie-waving online should be the same as it is in public: "That looks like a penis, only smaller." You wouldn't go discursive with a flasher, so why go confessional with an asshole?

Bad, tasteless jokes mark their tellers with the stigma of not being very funny. They suggest that this or that dimwit is probably not going to have anything bright to offer in more serious matters. They reduce the commenter's overall uptake, in a number of nonlinear and difficult-to-quantify ways, but they still do it. Perhaps we need to more clearly demarcate irony from semi-ironic sexism. I think we should preserve a space for the first while shaming the second. I'm not sure why we have to drag the whole of the joke-swapping, fun-loving, and occasionally deranged rhetoric that permeates this site into a discussion that was started, I thought, with some clear examples of unalloyed misogyny. It's a strange slippage, and one that hasn't, I think, been properly justified.
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:52 PM on November 16, 2007 [5 favorites]

Being big, bad and dangerous is OK for playtime, but the world is in deep shit and could do with a lot more considered discourse. This may not be the best place for it.
posted by jennydiski
Shit. You are so right. But really, you are clearly an enlightened above-it-all British sophisticate that can spot these complex paradigms in the world and work to change them. I wish I could help you, but I'm just a dim-witted American Neanderthal who can't think about these things because I am too busy trying to figure out which woman I am going to club over the head with my freakishly large cock and drag back to my cave.
posted by dios

Jenny's comment (this one - not others) came across as pompous and ill-advised but the response from dios reads appallingly.

Still - both are a wonderfully telling examples of what this thread is about.

(Another vote of approval for lobstermitten's smart words about women feeling they have to act unoffendable to join the club. I know it well - and I just end up sounding like a shrill jerk anyway!)
posted by Jody Tresidder at 2:55 PM on November 16, 2007

“All these different voices in here, it is just really nice.”

I assume you mean “a bunch of women have chimed in with their grievances/experiences on MetaFilter in this thread”.

And, yeah, that's great. I think it proves the assertion that there's a problem.

But I don't think that anyone is listening. In this and the other thread, is there a single example of a man saying, “oh, I guess you're right, making those sorts of jokes creates a hostile atmosphere?” Is there any indication that there will be stricter moderation against sexist comments?

When I said in the other thread (or this one?) that I've watched the women who speak up against sexism progressively silenced here, obviously I don't mean that every single one has been entirely silenced. But it's certainly true in general. Occihiblu is a good example; there are many others.

There have been some seemingly productive conversations, but they've usually been when it's a number of like-minded participants. And the problem of sexism on MetaFilter isn't going to be resolved by conversations among the few of us who are like-minded in believing that there's a problem.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:59 PM on November 16, 2007

anotherpanacea:
I'm not any kind of essentialist about gender or communication styles. I also work in a field which also in many cases "functions through communal shaming. We insult each other's positions as a method of finding points of weakness in those positions." so this is something I've thought about a looooot.

I'm all for communal shaming of lame sexist (and other) crap, and I think for the most part Mefi does a fair job of this. I'm grateful for the people who are tireless in calling it out, because lord knows I don't put much energy into that.

why go confessional with an asshole?
I think the "confessional" stuff that women have posted here and in related threads, about how sometimes the tone of discussion here is silencing/unpleasant for them, has not been for the consumption of assholes. It has been for the consumption of the dudes (and ladies) here who are not assholes, who are not sexist, but who may not realize the effect that their choice of jokes has. The idea being that most people don't intend to be exclusionary, don't intend to be silencing, and could in some cases hold back.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:04 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

The idea being that most people don't intend to be exclusionary, don't intend to be silencing, and could in some cases hold back.

I understand this point: my problem with it is that you seem to be tarring sarcasm and sexism with the same brush. It's not clear to me that that's a justified conflation.
posted by anotherpanacea at 3:08 PM on November 16, 2007

is there a single example of a man saying, “oh, I guess you're right, making those sorts of jokes creates a hostile atmosphere?”

EB, I don't think this shows that nobody's mind has been changed. Men pay a heavy price for piping up ("in a PC way") about this stuff, as you know. As thehmsbeagle said in the other thread -- in a lovely insightful comment -- earnestness isn't funny, and so it must be mocked. So I think we just can't tell from the silence whether there have been any receptive eyeballs out there.

(At any rate, purely selfishly, I have found the discussion here interesting - I think AV's initial comment about how she felt she needed to rush into these threads to establish her credibility as a feminist but not a humorless feminist was a terrific insight, definitely an experience I've had and I've been glad to see other people noting that they have too.)

I don't know that there's a lot that could be done through moderation, though.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:11 PM on November 16, 2007

EB, I think people are listening, but I am getting the impression from you, that you simply won't witness any change in the status quo. You sound so fatalistic! What do you think should be done to make change? I, and maybe I'm a blowhard and maybe I'm not, think that continually ginning up "girlpower" (questionable term, I know) works! I think offering to be considerate and supportive to other mefites helps! I'm doing it, we're doing it. Right now. I don't want to hear any more descriptions of silencing in a tone that implies it's "the way things are." Not anymore, not from this moment.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:13 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Being big, bad and dangerous is OK for playtime, but the world is in deep shit and could do with a lot more considered discourse. This may not be the best place for it.

You mean MetaFilter won't save the planet? Matt, I want my five bucks back.

If "considered discourse" is the pious crap that's been floating in this thread, then you're right, it's not the right place for it.
posted by doctor_negative at 3:13 PM on November 16, 2007

ap: I think certain instances of sarcasm end up being functionally equivalent to sexism, for reasons I noted above. When you've got a whole culture of ironic-boyzone, it becomes hard to distinguish from a real boyzone.

Myself, I was mainly talking here just about comments like "my wang this" and "eat a bucket of cocks" and whatnot. Too much of that, even if people don't mean it, and it just feels to me like there's no point in trying to break into the discussion. I would have to do too much macho posturing to get heard, and I think it's moronic even if it's meant ironically. I said "too much" which of course means there's a sliding scale of how much is too much; judgment call, gray area, I know.

I'm not really talking about the conversational style of challenging people -- I think that's a separate, though related, issue which has been a problem for many people who don't dig the aggressive, confrontation style. This is being discussed in the other thread by thehmsbeagle et al.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:16 PM on November 16, 2007

Is there any indication that there will be stricter moderation against sexist comments?

Ethereal Bligh, this is exactly what I find so condescending and obnoxious about the whole discussion.

What are sexist comments? Surely a comment is not a "sexist comment" based on the reaction of the reader. It must be one that is intended to be sexist. And therein lies the problem: you have to guess at to whether it was intended that way. Granted, sometimes you can make informed guesses. But other times, its apt to be wholly wrong. For instance, this very thread seems to be a (wrong and uninformed) guess that a deletion was made out of some sexist reason. Yet, even when it was clearly pointed out that there is no conspiracy, the poster continued her crusade of assumptions about the relative tolerance and intelligence of the crowd here. It is condescending and obnoxious when certain users claim to be able to spot invidious and latent sexism, especially when it only exists when the writers intend it.

Ethereal Bligh, I have a lot of respect for you, and I do not doubt the genuineness of your analysis and the good faith in which you look at things. But if you take someone who is already preconditioned to see sexism everywhere--as the poster appears to be--then there is likely going to be a lot of misreadings and bad assumptions made. If we were engage in a war on sexism here, I might not mind if you were in charge of it. But it would be bad if the original poster was in charge, as she apparently thinks we are all a bunch of chauvinistic troglodytes. Sure it would be great if we all gave voice only to the better angels of our nature here. But crying sexism where it doesn't exist is likely to have the opposite effect than intended.
posted by dios at 3:16 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Astro Zombie: This is a foolishly nitpicky point, but the proposed headline was to with the the Quadrilateral, the joke being, of course, five sides minus one gives you four sides. Septagon, or more properly, Heptagon would be gaining two sides.

---

More to do with the actual thread, there's been a subthread for a bit about the agendas and rationales of male feminists. Putting aside the point that all people should be feminists in the same way that all people should be non-racists or, you know, all around decent people, I have a bit of an admission to make. I'm a male feminist, and I've come to it, not from abstract concern for women's welfare; although that certainly helps; but more immediately for selfish reasons, and from my own experience.

In many respects, I am not particularly masculine. Never have been, and don't desire to be. As I began to explore these issues more thoroughly, I became increasingly aware of the sexism, both internal and external, that said I should be more masculine. This sort of gender experience comprises a minority of modern feminism, and that's why I began to find myself distinctly and strongly identifying as feminist.

Of course, I've been engaging in the process of informing myself with the broader experience of women in our society, and the full force of modern feminism, but at the core I'm a feminist not from concern for the welfare of any subgroup of humanity but because sexism hurts all genders, and feminism is the fight against sexism.

I don't really care much for the delineation of 'male feminist' out from 'feminist', for a lot of these reasons. There are some good reasons to do so, depending on both the situation and the theoretical underpinnings of your brand of feminism (I suspect I will never really agree beyond some superficial stuff with difference or separatist feminists because of this stuff), but for the most part I think it's unneeded.

What's really going on is that the identity of male or female is being used as shorthand to access the fact of the experience of male or female, which is useful but ultimately painfully reductive. My version of the male experience is different from other peoples, and the same goes for females, and the same goes for people whose identity is neither. I don't like putting my identity before my experience, even if it is a vaguely decent shorthand for the set of experiences and privileges that I've had in my life. I'm weakly gendered in the first place, so where I don't have to bring it up, I won't.

The base assumption on the internet that a poster is male unless otherwise specified is unfortunate to this end, but sort of an unworkable impasse. Don't address it, get assumed to be male; address it, be confirmed as male. On my part, I am generally successful in not assuming a gender, but that's not a help with how I think people should approach my comments and persona.
posted by Arturus at 3:17 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

“EB, I think people are listening, but I am getting the impression from you, that you simply won't witness any change in the status quo. You sound so fatalistic!”

Well, I'm in a pessimistic mood about this issue at the moment.

It's too early to say whether this particular discussion will make a difference. But I've been observing and participating in these discussions on MeFi for almost four years, almost six if you count lurking time. And I have watched the women who continually spoke up about it get slowly silenced. They contribute less, they stop talking about sexism, they confine themselves to AskMe, they leave. I'm pessimistic because there's a long-term pattern. This issue has been raised repeatedly in MetaTalk threads, and so far the community has responded, every time, with “there's no problem, women are too quick to cry ‘sexism!’ ”.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:23 PM on November 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

*starts a rousing can-can version of We Shall Overcome*
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:25 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

On non-preview:

What are sexist comments? Surely a comment is not a "sexist comment" based on the reaction of the reader. It must be one that is intended to be sexist.

This is dead wrong. The worst sexism is that which isn't done from a place of intentionality, but rather from a place of 'just how things are' or 'not actually bad/just a joke'. There's a fine line here, of course, but it's fully possible to be sexist without intending to be, and that's the worst, institutionalized kind. The wage gap (largely) doesn't exist because people are deliberately paying women less, it's because of systematic, institutionalized, and largely unconscious actions which create sexism.

The idea of no sexism without intentionality is what allows people of every degree of sexism or non-sexism to decide that they are now completely nonsexist, and that every push against something that they are currently doing is overreaction and shrill.
posted by Arturus at 3:31 PM on November 16, 2007 [5 favorites]

what
posted by boo_radley at 3:35 PM on November 16, 2007

So, what exactly should happen as an end result of these threads? It's fairly obvious that people -- men and women and in-between -- aren't always conscious of the way they're coming across. I'd like to say that it'd be nice if people didn't have to say "You're being a sexist asshole" when they felt offended, but I really don't see that changing. All I can do is accept it when I'm called a sexist asshole, and try to alter or limit that behavior as necessary. Can we agree on that much?

Keepin' the username, tho.
posted by waraw at 3:42 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Arturus, I think you're right that it cannot just be conscious intention that makes a comment sexist. Certainly there can be comments that are sexist because of a speaker's unconscious assumptions etc.

Next: Can there be comments that are made by someone who, themselves, is not at all sexist (even unconsciously), but which nevertheless have a disproportionately negative effect on women? Yes, or so I've been arguing. Are such comments properly called "sexist"? Dunno.

Next question: What should be done about it?

It seems to me that moderation can't be based solely with intentions, because as dios points out we don't have perfect knowledge of intentions, and also some comments can be so bad that they should be deleted even if made with innocent intentions + very poor judgment. What matters is usually not the intention of the poster but the overall effect of a policy on the site -- too much deleting vs. too much letting garbage stand will each have their down sides. (Sometimes intentions matter, but not always, and they're not the only thing that matters.)

But, moderation can't and shouldn't nuke everything that might be sexist in the third sense above. I don't think that's a realistic or even desirable goal. (I don't know if that's the kind of thing EB was proposing, though.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:49 PM on November 16, 2007

it's like being savaged by a dead sheep

Well said, even if it is a bit suggestive of bestiality. Just kind of weird. Because I don't know if I've ever seen the red carpet rolled out for a member like it was for you, for the simple talent of holding down a full-time job* at a The Old Grey Lady (I assume you are working feverishly to have the nickname erased). Instead of basking quietly in the adulation, you're here burning your flannel undergarments over the cessation of a discussion about someone exposing themselves. Not a deletion, mind you, just a closing of the comment box. In a thread about Wee Willy Someone. But without that comment box, no comments, no adulation.

It seems like maybe you do understand how it all works.

* Something of a lie. Adam Savage got the same treatment. At least he acted like he'd been there before.
posted by yerfatma at 3:52 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm saying after a while, in cases where the whole background of a discussion becomes ironic-fake-boyzone, that might really not be all that different from its just being a real boyzone, in terms of its being tedious and discouraging certain kinds of participation.

Maybe it's too late, but I agree with this. It would be nice to have the non-asshole snarkers maybe not take every opportunity to make a "choke on a dick" joke or hold back on yet another witty fat/ugly chick rejoinder. That level of what may seem like edginess just comes across as tiring more often than not to me personally, and I would guess a lot of the other females here who have spent far too much time trying to disambiguate edgy humor from "don't let this guy follow you to the parking lot" angry humor. You want to encourage women to stay on the site, do your part to make the place seem less like a frat house.
posted by jessamyn at 3:53 PM on November 16, 2007 [10 favorites]

*removes beer can sculpture from living room*
posted by Floydd at 3:59 PM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

Okay. My problem is this. Who defines what is sexist?

For instance my wife can read this site and rare if ever define many of things a few people here would typically say is "sexist" as, actually, sexist. An Ann Coulter thread comes to mind. A couple of busybodies were screaming how sexist the thread was and so I was really concerned. I had my wife read some of the posts in question and she just rolled her eyes.

A few very squeaky wheels will ALWAYS be offended no matter what. Who do you listen to?
posted by tkchrist at 4:08 PM on November 16, 2007

From Kate Harding:

You, dear male reader, are totally not one of those men. I know this, and I appreciate it. I really do. But here’s where all this victimy girl shit concerns you:

* every time you don’t tell your buddies it’s not okay to talk shit about women, even if it’s kinda funny;
* every time you roll your eyes and think “PMS!” instead of listening to why a woman’s upset;
* every time you call Ann Coulter a tranny cunt instead of a halfwit demagogue;
* every time you say any woman–Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Phyllis Schlafly, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, any of us–”deserves whatever she gets” for being so detestable, instead of acknowledging there are things that no human being deserves and only women get;
* every time you joke about how you’ll never let your daughter out of the house or anywhere near a man, ’cause ha ha, that’ll solve everything;
* every time you say, “I don’t understand why thousands of women are insisting this is some kind of woman thing”;
* every time you tell a woman you love she’s being crazy/hysterical/irrational, when you know deep down you haven’t heard a word she’s said in the past 15 minutes, and all you’re really thinking about is how seeing her yell and/or cry is incredibly unsettling to you, and you just want that shit to stop;
* every time you dismiss a woman as “playing the victim,” even if you’re right about that particular woman…

You are missing an opportunity to help stop the bad guys.

You’re missing an opportunity to stop the real misogynists, the fucking sickos, the ones who really, truly hate women just for being women. The ones whose ranks you do not belong to and never would. The ones who might hurt women you love in the future, or might have already.

‘Cause the thing is, you and the guys you hang out with may not really mean anything by it when you talk about crazy bitches and dumb sluts and heh-heh-I’d-hit-that and you just can’t reason with them and you can’t live with ‘em can’t shoot ‘em and she’s obviously only dressed like that because she wants to get laid and if they can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen and if they can’t play by the rules they don’t belong here and if they can’t take a little teasing they should quit and heh heh they’re only good for fucking and cleaning and they’re not fit to be leaders and they’re too emotional to run a business and they just want to get their hands on our money and if they’d just stop overreacting and telling themselves they’re victims they’d realize they actually have all the power in this society and white men aren’t even allowed to do anything anymore and and and…

I get that you don’t really mean that shit. I get that you’re just talking out your ass.

But please listen, and please trust me on this one: you have probably, at some point in your life, engaged in that kind of talk with a man who really, truly hates women–to the extent of having beaten and/or raped at least one. And you probably didn’t know which one he was.

And that guy? Thought you were on his side.

As long as we live in a culture where the good guys sometimes sound just like the misogynists, the misogynists are never going to get the message that they are not normal and that most people–strong, successful men included–do not hate women.

When you trivialize what even the women you love are saying to you, when you let sexist remarks slide, when you insist that women view things from your perspective (rational! calm! reasonable!) because you don’t feel like trying to see theirs (emotional! hysterical! nuts!), when you sit around laughing with other men about how crazy chicks are before you go home to the wife and daughters you love more than life and always treat with respect, when you say the fact that online harassment disproportionately affects women somehow doesn't mean we should be considering it through the lens of women’s experiences in particular, you’re not fucking helping. You’re being willfully obtuse. You’re enjoying the luxury of not having to take what we’re telling you seriously–and that’s why we get so goddamned frustrated and angry and hysterical. Because we don’t have the option of not caring about this shit, and you just keep telling us not to.

And because the really bad guys don’t pop out of thin air as fully formed misogynists. They need encouragement and reinforcement in order to completely miss the fact that there’s something deeply fucking wrong with them. Subtle sexism gives them that. Keeping your mouth shut about overt sexism gives them that. Not really listening to the women you love, let alone women you don’t even know–thereby being one more guy sending a message to women that we’re only worth listening to on men’s terms–gives them that. Telling yourself and anyone who will listen that that’s just the way it is, and people need to quit whining gives them that. How can they clue into the fact that there’s something deeply fucking wrong with them when so many guys are acting just like they do in public, or at least never calling them out?

[Related: "We believe this [study] shows that humorous disparagement creates the perception of a shared standard of tolerance of discrimination that may guide behavior when people believe others feel the same way."]
posted by occhiblu at 4:11 PM on November 16, 2007 [160 favorites]

This is a pretty good discussion, all things considered. Kudos to all the women who persist in presenting their divergent points of view, and for listening and responding openly. Makes this old codger get all sentimental.
posted by languagehat at 4:14 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Whaaaaaaat? Who are you, and what have you done with the real languagehat?
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:16 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Keepin' the username, tho.
posted by Ladies, I sure do love cunnilingus

I bet you will:)

Just out of curiosity, though, are there any women around with a username like, say-

Guys, I sure fancy licking cock?
posted by Jody Tresidder at 4:16 PM on November 16, 2007

No, that's totally gross.

You want to encourage women to stay on the site, do your part to make the place seem less like a frat house.

Ok, but what specifically do we do? Because, to me, the kind of guys you're talking about might be vocal members¹ but not important ones. They're just noise to me and I never even see it, which is probably why I'm tone deaf to some of this, because I do just tune out the guys on the spectrum occhiblu is talking about (and thanks for the post).

1. Phallic.
posted by yerfatma at 4:22 PM on November 16, 2007

Ok, but what specifically do we do? Because, to me, the kind of guys you're talking about might be vocal members1 but not important ones. They're just noise to me and I never even see it, which is probably why I'm tone deaf to some of this, because I do just tune out the guys on the spectrum occhiblu is talking about (and thanks for the post).

You specifically realize that many of us can't tune that out. You specifically choose to stop exercising your ability to tune it out, and you specifically start paying attention to it. You specifically say, "Hey, not cool" when you see it happening.

Really, that's it.
posted by occhiblu at 4:26 PM on November 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

Yes.

And I don't want to speak for anyone but myself, but it's absolutely pathetic how grateful I frequently am to adult males gently guiding the younger, wackier ones.

An occasional "Hey bro, settle down with the BUCKET OF COCKS, all right?" goes a long way.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 4:28 PM on November 16, 2007

what specifically do we do

Refrain from making those little jokey comments that build up the Dudez vibe (I'd hit that; my dick is so big; ...)

Don't encourage folks who make those comments; or, encourage wittier stuff of theirs.

When someone makes a more-egregious sexist comment, call them out or make fun of them for it, rather than just letting it pass silently. (Men are often in a better position to set the tone on this issue than women are, since people making those comments are more likely to care what guy's -- a fellow frat brother -- approval or disapproval.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:31 PM on November 16, 2007

You can have my bucket of cocks when you pry it from my cold, dead... Ah, shit! Which oriface did I stash my bucket of cocks in this time?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:33 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Okay.

I guess my experimental foray into being earnest hasn't worked out.

Back to advice about pasta on AskMe.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 4:44 PM on November 16, 2007

IRFH: that's pretty tone-deaf, even as a joke.
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:46 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

And, when someone shows up in MetaTalk with some clearly crappy "what the fuck is up with all these uppity women" questions, tell him he's completely and totally full of shit. And comments like these should perhaps not be met with silence.

"Hey bro, settle down with the BUCKET OF COCKS, all right?"

There are a lot of people here who do this really well, but I wish there were more.
posted by jessamyn at 4:47 PM on November 16, 2007

IRFH: that's pretty tone-deaf, even as a joke.

IRFH: bleah.

See? Simple.
posted by jessamyn at 4:49 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Hey bro, settle down with the BUCKET OF COCKS, all right?

But my problem comes when I look at trying to hit the finer points of occhiblu's long post.
posted by 517 at 4:51 PM on November 16, 2007

IRFH: that's pretty tone-deaf, even as a joke.

Yeah. I was in a hurry, and rattled off a crappy one-liner instead of saying: I think the bucket of cocks jokes are not really good examples of the problem here, IMO. Now, my Quattro formagi saucei s getting lumpy. Gotta go stir.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:51 PM on November 16, 2007

They're piling in the back seat. They're generating steam heat. Pulsating to the back beat. The Blitzkrieg Bop. Hey ho, let's go.
posted by Item at 4:52 PM on November 16, 2007

Ethereal Bligh, your point about silent women has some merit. Take this comment by jokeefe about "leaving thread now," favorited 30 times mostly by women. The thread was one about ads that some women find offensive, and there was about a 4 to 1 male to female ratio of participation ... yet many more women silently favorited those women who did speak out, indicating that there are a lot of lurking women. Why don't these women speak out too? Why don't they participate more?

In particular, some women-oriented issues and threads can be teh suxor, hellish places indeed. Sometimes the topic interests me but when I get the tenor of the thread, I decide to walk on by. I am not reluctant to speak out, but eh, it takes an energy I can't or don't always want to sustain; life is short, how much of it do I want to spend jousting with internet assholes who evaluate women by whether they'd "hit it" or not? (Bless you, Ambrosia Voyeur for your energy and unflagging enthusiasm for taking up the cause).

Mostly, I like the guys here on mefi and find some so refreshingly and astonishingly egalitarian, sensitive and just plain great that it warms my heart. I think it has gotten better for women not worse in my four years here, but I can still have my days of despair. I am fairly aggressive with thick skin earned in corporate boardrooms so I am willing to jump in the fray. But I see so many women here that I admire whose participation starts out strong and then peters off; later, in threads like these they attest to their discomfort. So we aren't there yet. Just as we aren't "there yet" in pay parity, corporate boardrooms, or congress.

Lord_Wolf's comment about a whitezone (in this flasher meta, or the other one, I may be confused) also resonated with me. As I was looking at the pic page I was thinking how we are very white male as a group, and very much so when you consider the most active participants. (Granted, the pic page is not a good sampling because it is a self-selected group of people who chose to post photos and many are cartoons, illustrations, or icons. But still, the point stands.)

I think these conversations are worthwhile at least now and again. I have an enhanced measure of regard for some people based on wonderful things they've said, it inspires me. It behooves us all to try to understand "the other" more, however pitched the battle to do so, and to engage in talk and behavior that is inclusive rather than exclusive.
posted by madamjujujive at 4:56 PM on November 16, 2007 [10 favorites]

But my problem comes when I look at trying to hit the finer points of occhiblu's long post.

That's ok. Start small. Really. Small protests build up quickly. I certainly don't expect any one person (myself included) to gung-ho warrior their way into fixing the problem all on their own. In the long run, such individual action create burn out anyway.

It really is mostly just a question of noticing what's going on as often as you can, and saying something about it as often as you can. If others are doing the same, it starts to build a critical mass of people who are actively trying to build understanding and inclusiveness into the site.
posted by occhiblu at 5:00 PM on November 16, 2007

IRFH: I was on the brink of making very nearly the exact same crappy joke, but stopped when I realized that this was possible the perfectly wrong time and place to make such a joke.

Cheers.
posted by Arturus at 5:02 PM on November 16, 2007

occhiblu, when I read through that comment I can't distinguish between no talk of sexual differences as acceptable and the acceptable talk the post is defining. I get the general idea behind the points but the actual execution seems impossible.
posted by 517 at 5:07 PM on November 16, 2007

You specifically say, "Hey, not cool" when you see it happening.

Fair enough. I always feel like that rings false online, but . . . if you're saying I have free reign to go after the bucket of cocks type "jokers", I am your man. My problem here is two-fold:

1. There has to be some sort of threshold lest MF become a series of comments about whether a comment was sexist.
2. "Refrain from making those little jokey comments that build up the Dudez vibe (I'd hit that; my dick is so big; ...)"-- not doing that is easy, but it's a negative space thing. I've never done that. I will continue to never not no don't do that but my inaction will nürvër be noticeable.
posted by yerfatma at 5:09 PM on November 16, 2007

I agree with most of what Occhiblu said, except that part about calling Anne Coulter a tranny cunt. Because she is a tranny cunt.
posted by empath at 5:13 PM on November 16, 2007

517, I'm not following you very well. Can you give an example, or elaborate a bit?

1. There has to be some sort of threshold lest MF become a series of comments about whether a comment was sexist.

Better that MF become a series of comments that are sexist?

Like I said above, if people could just do a little bit, whatever they were comfortable with in whatever form they were comfortable with, to challenge sexism around here rather than just letting it pass, I couldn't even begin to describe how enormous an improvement that would be. Not the least because it take such enormous pressure off the few people who consistently do make those stands now.
posted by occhiblu at 5:14 PM on November 16, 2007

"it's like being savaged by a dead sheep'

So that is the dry british humor I've heard so much about. Oscar Wilde would be proud, I'm sure. You've insulted the real "grey" lady that is metatalk, and for that you must be punished.

knock knock

who's there?

I'm a pile-up...
posted by vronsky at 5:14 PM on November 16, 2007

"Hey bro, settle down with the BUCKET OF COCKS, all right?"

*settles down with bucket of cocks*
...and when they finally start laying, the eggs will be all mine!!
posted by Floydd at 5:14 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Or, 517, we can just use that last comment from empath....

Anne Coulter is a vile human being. Calling her a vile human being is not sexist.

She is not a vile human being because she is a woman, so calling her a "cunt" is sexist. It brings her gender into the discussion for no reason other than to point out that she's a woman. Why's that relevant?

She is not a vile human being because of the way she looks, so insulting her appearance is sexist, because it reinforces the idea that all women should be judged on their looks. Why's that relevant?

Throwing "tranny" into the mix throws transsexuals under the bus for absolutely no reason at all, and is just a vile thing for anyone to do. Why's that relevant?

Does that make any sense, or get at what you were asking?
posted by occhiblu at 5:17 PM on November 16, 2007 [16 favorites]

occhiblu, your concrete suggestions are so good. I have one more simple action, an easy one of omission rather than commission. Don't favorite sexist comments. More than once I have seen a comment that I find terribly offensive that is favorited by many, and when I see the list of people I otherwise love who favorited it, my heart dies a little. I know that it is difficult to know what could be hurtful. One possible litmus: Think if it is something you would be comfortable laughing at and endorsing if your wife, girlfriend, sister, mom or daughter were here.

I am not a humorless dour, pc schoolmarm that wants to wring all the fun out of mefi (I hang out with quonsar for God's sake). I would just like to see us raise the bar a bit.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:25 PM on November 16, 2007 [5 favorites]

Sorry had to step away for a second...

What I as getting at was that I understand the idea of not specifically criticizing someone in a sexual context (Anne Coutler) and not specifically mentioning things like a bucket of cocks (I'd get tired of hearing about the reverse of that from a group of women) but what I don't understand is the more subtle layer of the comment that any expression of difference is sexist ("...she’s obviously only dressed like that because she wants to get laid.")
posted by 517 at 5:36 PM on November 16, 2007

I had written something longer about the Kate Harding quotes, but my thoughts can be summed up based on this quote:

* every time you dismiss a woman as “playing the victim,” even if you’re right about that particular woman…

Awesome, even when you're right about the situation, you're still wrong. You really can't win, can you? So why not throw in some snark and amuse yourself and your friends.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:37 PM on November 16, 2007

I can only skim this thread, but perhaps I can still offer something worthwhile.

Women, I'm starting to 'get it', truly.

I was raised in a (mild to moderate) feminist household. The idea of a strong, capable woman is not threatening to me - more-or-less a requirement and even an expectation of friends or partners. Neither is the idea of a broad spectrum of human sexuality of all sorts, diversity being that which makes us Human.

Even in such an environment learning about, supporting and learning how to coexist with women hasn't been easy. There's still a great deal of momentum and resistance. It's still a man's world - generally for the worse, IMO. And the raging madness of hormones and youth is no asset to tolerance or understanding, either. Much less tact.

In a younger age - yes, on one level I have paid lip service to equality and feminism, wrongly thinking it would make me more attractive to the women in my life. This, obviously, a great falsehood, and a deep offense...

...even if part of the motivation was whole and pure, as well, because not only do I also suffer when those around me are oppressed and abused, but also because I - like many - really do care.

But it's wrong as hell to simply pay lip service to feminism, and it feels exponentially even more wrong to confuse and compound falsehood and selfishness with empathy. Wrong for me, wrong for you, wrong for everyone.

Part of the reason I'm writing is is that I want to apologize - for a number of things. Generalized, open letters of apology are worth much less than personal, private ones, but perhaps not entirely worthless.

First, I'm sorry for treating women as objects. Strangers and friends. My eye and mind wanders and my imagination takes liberties it really should not. Especially as I seem to believe in some sort of metaphysics or spirituality, this is wrong.

As I get older, I still have no solid 'why' that might explain such things, but as I get older, the unsensible madness of hormones and youth seem to be waning and leaving me with a more pragmatic and less wind-blown personality.

I'll allow for some bioethics to come into play - we're wired for sex and attraction and procreation, etc. But that's not an acceptable explanation for the type and depth of objectification that occurs from men in general.

Second, I'm sorry for whenever I've failed to stand up and say something when it was time to do so. Every "woman driver" slag I've let slip by. Every "dumb blonde" joke I've ever heard. Every leer, every offensive catcall, every spoken or unspoken threat of sexual dominance or wrongness. Every abusive spouse, every dismissive boss, every wage imbalance, every goddamn wrongness...

There's too many to count and remember - I could spend the rest of my life trying to recall all the moments in just the life that I've had - and that speaks volumes about the continuing problem all by itself. Terrible, thick volumes full of ill will, strife - oppression. The things I've heard some men say makes my own blood boil with anger and shame.

I fear I can only approach the edge of this great, collective hurt and it terrifies me and overwhelms me. There seems to be a terribly unjust sadness or hurt to being a woman in this world, and it's starting to bother me on a fundamental level.

Third, I'm sorry for the terrible things that have come out of my own words. I've made at least one comment here on MetaFilter that I'm very, deeply sorry for - and a few others, besides. In ignorance or malice or both. I won't even attempt to defend the one in particular as humor, as it's not worth the defense. It was stupidity.

There's so much more than I can put into words - even with my easy way with them. I'm sorry. I will strive harder for understanding and equality. Bridges are built from both sides for a reason.

In closing:

While MetaFilter is indeed "boyzone", perhaps it is because the world itself is still so - the bad old world that it is.

If MetaFilter is "boyzone" above and beyond that, I can only suspect that it is so not because it is populated by fratboys, jocks and wimmen-hatin' manly-men - but because it is still partially populated by nerdly-nerds and "early adopter archetypes" as early computing itself and the early 'net once was. And we have lots of historical, anecdotal evidence about how nerds are overwhelmed, awed and often even frightened by women. Cooties and all.

Regardless, I'm going to do my best from now onward to help MeFi be less boyzone. Please do feel free to call me on it, to discuss anything with me, or tell me anything you think might help me understand. My email is listed and my MeFi Mail is open.

For my mom, 'cuz it's my birthday. Thanks, mom.
posted by loquacious at 5:38 PM on November 16, 2007 [27 favorites]

eponysterical
posted by yerfatma at 5:44 PM on November 16, 2007

You can win by not being an asshole. I know, it can be hard to resist, but that's the prize.
posted by languagehat at 5:44 PM on November 16, 2007

Wow, good luck with that.
posted by yerfatma at 5:45 PM on November 16, 2007

Oops, sorry, that was to BB. I forgot how quickly this thread moves.
posted by languagehat at 5:45 PM on November 16, 2007

Happy birthday, loquacious!!
(Mine's tomorrow.)
posted by Floydd at 5:46 PM on November 16, 2007

I really liked your comment, occhiblu, because it's true generally and it's right on the money when it's entirely true—but it also bothers me because it's really annoying that women feel like they have to say “I'm not saying that you're a sexist, you're one of the good guys...” just to get listened to by men.

Because, frankly, based upon the comments I've seen here on MeFi, a large portion of the men here are sexist. And a subset of them are virulently sexist, they just usually hide it.

I wish I could recall the specific thread, but there was a thread where I got into an argument with someone (thankfully, I've forgotten who it was) who argued strenuously that men have it much worse than women. As I vaguely recall, that thread had a surprising number of really vicious anti-women comments from a surprisingly large number of men.

There's a lot of male resentment out there against women and while some or most of those men delude themselves into thinking that it's not sexist of them to resent women the way they do, it is sexist. Just as few of us are deceived when some white guy starts ranting about “reverse discrimination” and how blacks have all these advantages, blah, blah, blah. Few of us fail to recognize that person as a racist; likewise, men who resent women are sexist.

I mean, why is it that a man can say, “look who is on the rag” and get away with saying it was “just a joke” and be corrected by women with the disclaimer that she doesn't think that the man is really sexist...while an equivalent racist “joke” would never get the benefit of the doubt (and rightly so)? Fuck that.

I'm not reacting just to your comment, I was stewing over this because there were a number of comments in these two threads where it was asserted that the men here really aren't sexist and we're all certain that most of this stuff is just misguided humor. I understand the need for diplomacy and I also understand giving the benefit of the doubt. But I'm not sure that men will get the reality of sexism into their thick heads until people stop treating them with kid gloves. Because, you know, that's part of the sexist tactic, right? To make the cost of pointing out sexism too high.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:48 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Okay - back for a minute. Here's what I wanted to say. I wanted to differentiate between conversations and comments that are hostile to women and conversations and comments that are merely not inclusive for some (or most) women. So I threw out a quick bucket of cocks one-liner (since that was the example last raised) which, tasteless and unfunny as it was, was intended to be an example of a tasteless one-liner that is exclusionary rather than misogynist (there were actually no women referenced in the "joke" at all, even implicitly). Why do I think it's important to make this distinction here, now? Maybe it’s not, really, but we've reached that part of the discussion where we're starting to talk about proscribing other's behavior. A point at which I think it might be useful to be really clear about what we mean when we say let's openly discourage "BoyZone." Yes - we should speak out against hostile behavior when we encounter it. But given our history of also having to constantly fight against "maleanswersyndrome" in threads intended primarily for (or primarily relevant to) women, we need to be pretty clear that we're talking about a very specific type of behavior, not insisting that everybody suddenly try to be all-inclusive all the time. And no - I don't think it's important to make that distinction because I see everybody suddenly trying to be all-inclusive all the time as a real possibility. I don’t think we’re in any danger of suddenly converting to a “GirlZone.” I think it's important to make that distinction because history shows that people find change threatening and any hint of prescriptivism tends to increase the knee-jerk noise level of resistance. Plenty of evidence of which can be found in these associated threads.

Okay - Hope that was a little bit clearer. Next time, I'll take the time to write out the comment rather than hope my point rises through the ugly snark.

---

Holy crap! That's a lot of new text on preview. Uh... I don't have time to read it all. Uh... If anyone else is taking me to task, you're probably right.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:50 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

You can win by not being an asshole. I know, it can be hard to resist, but that's the prize.

I get your point LH, but I'm explaining that the Kate Harding quotes can be seen as very anti-guy and batshitinsane. They're so out there it's like there can be no form of mutal understanding and even worse, no effort made towards understanding. The exact opposite actually.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:50 PM on November 16, 2007

(Mine's tomorrow.)

Mine too, actually. Huzzah! Happy birthday!
posted by loquacious at 6:00 PM on November 16, 2007

tkchrist, what if we didn't call it "sexism" but said that the "I'd hit that" etc, even said in jest, but said 1000 times, made it an unpleasant environment for the women around here? And that if the men here said stuff like that less, we'd enjoy that, and also that stuff is usually rote and not very funny anyway so there'd be little loss?

Okay. Whatever.

I just asked my wife if calling Ann Coulter a "cunt" is sexist. And she said "Is calling Rush Limbaugh a "dick" sexist?"

I'm sorry but allot of this is in the eye of the beholder here.
posted by tkchrist at 6:01 PM on November 16, 2007

I just asked my wife if calling Ann Coulter a "cunt" is sexist...

Some of your best friends are women.
posted by transona5 at 6:04 PM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

Some of your best friends are women.

Oh. Come on. That was totally unfair.
posted by tkchrist at 6:05 PM on November 16, 2007

the Kate Harding quotes can be seen as very anti-guy and batshitinsane

I so don't see that, BB.

I just asked my wife if calling Ann Coulter a "cunt" is sexist. And she said "Is calling Rush Limbaugh a "dick" sexist?"

Despite my deep hatred for Ann Coulter, I cannot go into any threads about her because of the violent sexual language, threats and imagery so frequently directed at her. Take all the "I fucked Anne Coulter" in the ass hard. I hate that shit, it's not funny, I find it violent and scary, this humor at "punishing" bad women with sex. Man. I would be happy if the worst that happened in Coulter threads was calling her a cunt or a dick - that might be progress.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:11 PM on November 16, 2007 [15 favorites]

tkchrist, what if we didn't call it "sexism" but said that the "I'd hit that" etc, even said in jest, but said 1000 times, made it an unpleasant environment for the women around here?

Do people really say that all the time here? I mean, I've said it, but the last time was in reference to photos of men that were said to look like older lesbians.

It seems to me the few times I've seen it, the phrase has been used in a similarly absurdist fashion.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:15 PM on November 16, 2007

Because, frankly, based upon the comments I've seen here on MeFi, a large portion of the men here are sexist. . . . As I vaguely recall, that thread had a surprising number of really vicious anti-women comments from a surprisingly large number of men.

Which is it, are we mainly sexist or mainly not sexist so it's surprising when we're sexist?
posted by yerfatma at 6:18 PM on November 16, 2007

It seems to me the few times I've seen it, the phrase has been used in a similarly absurdist fashion.

I would agree with you, but it's not true anymore. It shows up in threads that you probably never click into because they're obviously useless. I'll never get it. One of my former co-workers used to ride with us on our mid-week excursions to the comic book store. Invariably, he'd spend the time telling us semi-sexually explicit stories. in the year this went on, I managed to never once say, "We are three adult males. On our way to a comic book store. There is zero reason to try to impress us with a sex story. Stop it."

The moral here, apparently, is I need to give manhood lessons to the kind of losers on their way to comic book stores as adults. And me, the kind of loser on his way to a comic book store.
posted by yerfatma at 6:24 PM on November 16, 2007

“I just asked my wife if calling Ann Coulter a ‘cunt’ is sexist.”

and

“Oh. Come on. That was totally unfair.”

No it wasn't. You're using your wife's opinion as a means to invalidate all the opinions you disagree with.

Your wife isn't special. Being female doesn't automatically give one an infallible ability to identify or understand sexism. A lot of women are indoctrinated into denying that “bad” sexism really exists at all.

I'm a somewhat reliable authority on how I've experienced discrimination and bigotry with regard to being a disabled person. I'm not an authority on how all other disabled people experience it. I'm more likely to have some insight into the general phenomena than able-bodied people, of course. But just how much more likely and just how insightful are open questions.

And if you are a disabled person who says that you believe that I've been discriminated against on the basis of my disability, even when I've not recognized it, you're probably right. And if you're an abled-bodied person who says that I have (even when I've not recognized it) on the basis of what other disabled people have said and on your own observations of how disabled people are treated, then it's total bullshit for me to attempt to invalidate your opinion just because I'm disabled and you're not.

As it happens, I don't much notice discrimination against me on the basis of my disability. But maybe I don't want to notice it. Maybe it's much more comfortable for me to not notice it. And that's where I actually have some legitimate authority: my own experience. Other disabled people's experience? Not so much.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:27 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

I just asked my wife if calling Ann Coulter a "cunt" is sexist. And she said "Is calling Rush Limbaugh a "dick" sexist?"

Actually - as the politics are understood - yes. But here's why, and I'm not actually picking on you in particular. My own language is readily laden with such gender-politic landmines.

I'm just dissecting the language objectively, I've no horse nor interest in whatever particular argument you may have in this thread.

Let's start with cunt. What is, exactly, the "etymology of offensiveness" behind it when used as a negative epithet?

Obviously, on the surface we're dealing with the idea that the vagina is bad, or even that owning one is bad - and looking at a similar negative epithet used in conjunction with "cunt" which is "bitch".

Pardon me if I get all Noam Chomsky or Andrea Dworkin on this shit, but why would a vagina be bad? That the woman being insulted is a crazy, angry bitch? What about "cunt" - as in, denied access to? Frigid? All of the above, and more?

Cunt is a complicated word. Hell yes, it can be sexy and non-negative and empowering. But in the negative context? What exactly is being implied?

Conversely, what about "pussy"? As in, 'that guy is a pussy.' What is being implied, there? Weakness? Femininity? That. Guy. Is. A. Pussy. Receptive to copulation and dominance, perhaps?

Now, let us consider "dick". That which penetrates. In the negative context it implies a dominance over others - the dick is the one doing the fucking over. He ain't no pussy. He might be a shitty asshole, too, but first and foremost he's a dick. He's on top of things and fucking shit up.

Damn near a compliment, really. Manly. Aggressive. Full of win - if disliked terribly for it.

Note, my semantics even shift automatically to masculine pronouns while using "dick". "That woman is such a dick!" Try saying it out loud. Doesn't quite work the same way, does it? Not the same way that "That guy is a total cunt!" does, does it?

QED.
posted by loquacious at 6:28 PM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

“Which is it, are we mainly sexist or mainly not sexist so it's surprising when we're sexist?”

What was surprising was the virulence of the comments in that thread. Sorry to thwart your “Gotchya!” attempt.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:29 PM on November 16, 2007

Do people really say that all the time here?

Well there's this, and thats just the last 30 minutes.
posted by jessamyn at 6:30 PM on November 16, 2007

I so don't see that

Fair enough, but I'm telling you what I see and what a lot of other very reasonable guys might see. The quotes reeked of wanting to micromanage every thought, feeling and utterance of a guy and many would probably say "forget that, I'm just a sexist pig" and call it a day, while placing anyone who says anything similar in that very specific place in their mind.

Seriously a woman is plays the victim card, a guy calls her on it and "You are missing an opportunity to help stop the bad guys." That doesn't make any sense.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:31 PM on November 16, 2007

Retroactive apologies to George Carlin. Damn near reads like a sketch he'd do.
posted by loquacious at 6:31 PM on November 16, 2007

FWIW, I've always hated the word 'dick' as a synonym for penis. It's extremely unsexy. makes me think of Dick Tracy and this weird boss I had named Richard who said call me Dick.'
posted by jonmc at 6:33 PM on November 16, 2007

Despite my deep hatred for Ann Coulter, I cannot go into any threads about her because of the violent sexual language, threats and imagery so frequently directed at her. Take all the "I fucked Anne Coulter" in the ass hard. I hate that shit, it's not funny, I find it violent and scary, this humor at "punishing" bad women with sex.

Wait a minute calling her name and conflating THAT with anal RAPE!? Sure the dude that did the Blog was an asshole but again we are going to be stuck with people just looking to be offended when we start saying using words like "cunt" is defacto sexist. What the hell. To some people it is to some people.... MANY women (depending on the context)... it isn't. It is NOT sexist in my opinion to call ANYONE a cunt. And I am sorry. But that is way it is.

The fact that I used my wife as a barometer for these things is not some sort of dodge. I live and own a business with the woman. I value her input as a woman... and, yes, as my BEST friend, much more than I do anonymous posters. Sorry. But that is the way it is.

I am all for a more civil board here. But part of that is NOT jumping down somebodies throat every time you get your boxers in a bunch. Like Transona5 just did up there to me.

I don't go posting "I'd hit" and shit like that. It's stupid. But I'm not going to censor myself beyond being commonly decent worrying about offending people. Because somebody is ALWAYS offended. See what I am saying. If I have crossed a line somebody can point it out. But if they are sarcastic or snarky doing it I will just think "Well. Fuck you."

BTW. If we actually lived our lives according to some (though some I agree with) of things in that Kate Harding list we would be banned by men and women alike as self-righteous assholes.

Let play some roll reversal:

"*every time you don’t tell your girlfriends it’s not okay to talk shit about a man, even if it’s kinda funny;"

"* every time you roll your eyes and think “Testoerone!” instead of listening to why a man’s upset;"

Will it cut both ways? It better.

Context, people. Sometimes the genders — women and men— amongst ourselves, talk about the opposite in derogatory way to actually help work things out. It is usually harmless. When we get personally insulting in a sexist manner... okay, a line is most definitely crossed.

I am all for creating a more equitable civil site. But I suspect there are some MeFites ITCHING to play sheriff who will (and already do) abuse their self anointed status.

I want the rules to fair for everybody. And apply equally to everybody. So I think they DO have to spelled out.

Otherwise we start playing this "Your Racist" or "Your Sexist" game back and fourth ALL the time between our selves this site is going suck shit and NOBODY will want to be here except the Always Offended.
posted by tkchrist at 6:35 PM on November 16, 2007 [4 favorites]

Not the same way that "That guy is a total cunt!" does, does it?

In the UK people say it to men ALL the time.
posted by tkchrist at 6:37 PM on November 16, 2007

Otherwise we start playing this "Your Racist" or "Your Sexist" game back and fourth ALL the time

What you mean 'start,' Kemosabe?

[NOT TONTOIST]
posted by jonmc at 6:38 PM on November 16, 2007

A lot of women are indoctrinated into denying that “bad” sexism really exists at all.

So MY wife is indoctrinated now becuase she disagree with YOUR opinion.

Jesus Christ. Forget it. I'm done.
posted by tkchrist at 6:39 PM on November 16, 2007

Unable to adapt to the new demands placed upon it by its environment, it lost the ability to reproduce. Metafilter died amidst the cold grey swirls of winter shortly thereafter.
posted by 517 at 6:40 PM on November 16, 2007

Well there's this, and thats just the last 30 minutes.

Oh, that jonmc, undermining my points.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:41 PM on November 16, 2007

"Being female doesn't automatically give one an infallible ability to identify or understand sexism."

No, for that you need to be Ethereal Bligh.
posted by klangklangston at 6:42 PM on November 16, 2007 [5 favorites]

Oy, jess. That thread was deletion-bound and from what I can gather intended as an excersise in puerile humor. I'm all for civility, but do we want to get all Nurse Ratched?
posted by jonmc at 6:43 PM on November 16, 2007

In the UK people say it to men ALL the time.

But that was my point! Hell, I threw a floater! The frisbee is still hanging there, hovering over your head!

I'm all for civility, but do we want to get all Nurse Ratched?

Man, you eat the weirdest shit. Those feet of yours can't be tasting good.

Unobfuscated: You just called Jessamyn a cranky old bitch-nurse. The insult implies gender, etc. WTF, eh?
posted by loquacious at 6:48 PM on November 16, 2007

do we want to get all Nurse Ratched?

Some people do. Some people don't. Some people think they don't but they really do, while others really do, at least for that asshole who just won't shut up, but otherwise they don't.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:50 PM on November 16, 2007

In all fairness, I've actually met Louise Fletcher, and she was a lovely and gracious woman.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:52 PM on November 16, 2007

do we want to get all Nurse Ratched?

I pointed no fingers and named no names. Someone asked a question and I answered it with a link. Any Nurse Ratched you see or hear is all in your head.
posted by jessamyn at 6:53 PM on November 16, 2007

That thread was deletion-bound and from what I can gather intended as an excersise in puerile humor.

No no no. I like you but are you listening?
posted by onlyconnect at 6:53 PM on November 16, 2007

You just called Jessamyn a cranky old bitch-nurse. The insult implies gender, etc. WTF, eh?

To which I say, so what? I've been called much worse many times in my life and to tell the truth, I'm getting a wee bit tiredof people who oftentimes seem more like bosses than iberators telling me how oppresive I am.
posted by jonmc at 6:54 PM on November 16, 2007

Someone asked a question and I answered it with a link.

With my name attached. I can either stand up for myself or let myself get stomped.
posted by jonmc at 6:55 PM on November 16, 2007

BrandonBlatcher: I'm explaining that the Kate Harding quotes can be seen as very anti-guy and ...........insane.

Wow, really? She seems to be going far, far out of her way to make it as pro-guy as possible. I was going to go through it and pull out the quotes that especially indicated that, but I wonder if there'd be any point? It's more about an overall message than sentences taken out of context.

I honestly want to know, that really came off as some insane rant to you? It made no sense? Spoke to nothing in your experience?
posted by Danila at 7:01 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

well, jonmc, someone above just posed the question about whether "I'd hit it" comments and jokes were all that common, and you just happened to have made the most recent one. Jess's link merely said that one had been posted in the last 30 minutes. How is that stomping you?
posted by madamjujujive at 7:02 PM on November 16, 2007

By making me the posterboy for mefi misogyny by saying 'look what jon said,' even though in the context of Zach's thread it's clearly intended as absurdist humor.
posted by jonmc at 7:05 PM on November 16, 2007

I can either stand up for myself or let myself get stomped.

You should really get over this attitude.
posted by languagehat at 7:05 PM on November 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

“...but I wonder if there'd be any point?”

No, there wouldn't be a point because people like Brandon Blatcher refuse to acknowledge anything but the most blatant sexism and take complaints of sexism as general attacks against men.

Here's a rule of thumb that I've found useful: if a man asserts that run-of-the-mill complaints about sexism against women are “anti-male” or sexist themselves, he is a nutcase who can safely (and best) ignored.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:08 PM on November 16, 2007

scroll scroll scroll oh it was a short one.
posted by 517 at 7:16 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

You should really get over this attitude.

Experience, both here and in the real world, has taught me the opposite. And because I'm so visible, people looking to score points will take a cheap shot at me. I can either let them think they've won or smack 'em down.

(for the record, I am not talking about jessamyn, who I get along with. I was just a bit miffed at having myself posited as an example of sexism, yet again, by people who are often completely without a clue)
posted by jonmc at 7:18 PM on November 16, 2007

"No, there wouldn't be a point because people like Brandon Blatcher refuse to acknowledge anything but the most blatant sexism and take complaints of sexism as general attacks against men."

Yes, when someone has a criticism about one single item out of about 20, clearly he is an extremist crank. That's a failure to acknowledge anything but the most blatant examples. You, sir, are a paragon of understanding. All women should want you to wear their garters.
posted by klangklangston at 7:18 PM on November 16, 2007

Seriously a woman is plays the victim card, a guy calls her on it and "You are missing an opportunity to help stop the bad guys." That doesn't make any sense.

It made a lot of sense to me and I thought it was a great point. It seems like you found her statements incoherent and aggressive. I thought they were persuasive and contained wisdom and empathy. Rather than assume that one of us is insane, I assume that we are coming from different perspectives, ways of perceiving, seeing, etc.

Imagine if you were surrounded by her/my perspective frequently, and not just in the random blog posting. If the people around you seemed aggressive and spoke out insanely for reasons you just don't understand. This is how it feels to me a lot of the times when these discussions are had.

I'll say this, I think so far this thread is going better than most.

Oh, and about the "victim card". It's typically only the members of a victim group that are accused of playing the "victim card". It is because she is a woman that she is seen as a member of a weak group, and is then accused of using that to her advantage. If it wasn't a woman, odds are another argument would be used (unless it was a black man or a gay man, etc.). Thus the perceived sexism.

I think a person can do or say something sexist without being sexist. But I get the feeling that a lot of people are dying on that hill.

klangklangston: when someone has a criticism about one single item out of about 20, clearly he is an extremist crank.

He said she seemed insane and anti-guy. It's not a criticism of "one single item out of about 20". It's a fundamental disconnect and while I am not as pessimistic as EB, I see it too.
posted by Danila at 7:23 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think accusations of “playing the victim card” is another big, red flag.

Really, that and the “reverse sexism” response both reveal the sexist context. In both examples, the defensive response sees the complaint as a means to get power. Ask yourself: what kind of person in what kind of world would instinctively react to claims of sexism as if they were threatening power grabs? Might it be those who are jealous of the power they hold and fear losing it?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:30 PM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

Your wife isn't special. Being female doesn't automatically give one an infallible ability to identify or understand sexism. A lot of women are indoctrinated into denying that “bad” sexism really exists at all.

I was with you on many of your points, but you're veering into crazytown here. Are you really playing the false consciousness card? Maybe tkchrist's wife has a viewpoint that is not shared by most women, but discounting her opinion on the basis of some alleged "indoctrination" is incredibly condescending. If you really want to speak to how women feel about various types of communication and treatment, you can't just perfunctorily write off opinions like that.
posted by brain_drain at 7:49 PM on November 16, 2007 [3 favorites]

it's clearly intended as absurdist humor.

Absurdist, maybe. Humor, that's a stretch.
posted by justgary at 7:50 PM on November 16, 2007

"I think accusations of “playing the victim card” is another big, red flag."

You think everything is a big, red flag. It isn't. [AND I SAY THIS KNOWING FULL WELL THAT CHARGES OF PLAYING THE VICTIM CARD ARE ENDEMIC AND A FORM OF OPPRESSION].

When a woman fakes crying in order to get out of a traffic ticket, she is making it harder for other women's tears to be taken seriously. When a woman makes a fake rape complaint [AND I SAY THIS KNOWING FULL WELL THAT RAPES ARE BELIEVED TO BE UNDERREPORTED] she is playing the victim card and making it harder for other women to be taken seriously.

That I had to use those all-caps asides was to preempt the bullshit you were about to say.

"Ask yourself: what kind of person in what kind of world would instinctively react to claims of sexism as if they were threatening power grabs? Might it be those who are jealous of the power they hold and fear losing it?"

Ask yourself: What kind of rhetorician prefers conjecturing questions to stating points? Might it be those who seek to impugn rather than to put forth? To imply that an opponent is a terrible sexist rather than to call him one?

The obvious answer to your rhetoricals is "Yes, it might be the power-holders, and contingently that their primary motivation is sexism." But saying that you're a motherfucker and then saying, "What kind of man reacts defensively when it's insinuated that he has Oedipally-known? Might it be someone who has, indeed, been matronly coital?"

Is anyone who tries to prove he's not a motherfucker therefore a motherfucker?

That's clearly the best argument for parsing, "Naw, fucked your mother, motherfucker."
posted by klangklangston at 8:02 PM on November 16, 2007 [6 favorites]

But I'm afraid that us two being assholes has driven all the women from the thread again. Go us!
posted by klangklangston at 8:04 PM on November 16, 2007

arent all our fathers motherfuckers?

I'm just saying.
posted by jonmc at 8:06 PM on November 16, 2007

Wow. Is it too early to go back to -

Knock, knock!
posted by yhbc at 8:06 PM on November 16, 2007

"arent all our fathers motherfuckers?"

Don't you talk about my momma.
posted by klangklangston at 8:08 PM on November 16, 2007

"The vapors" is a loaded expression. You obviously did mean it as a joke in the other thread, klangklangston, knowing that it had inherently sexist connotations regardless of the existence of actual women who faint. Well, "playing the victim card" is just as bad.
posted by transona5 at 8:14 PM on November 16, 2007

“...but discounting her opinion on the basis of some alleged ‘indoctrination’ is incredibly condescending.”

Here is what I wrote:

“You're using your wife's opinion as a means to invalidate all the opinions you disagree with. Your wife isn't special. Being female doesn't automatically give one an infallible ability to identify or understand sexism. A lot of women are indoctrinated into denying that ‘bad’ sexism really exists at all.”

I wrote that “a lot of women” (which does not necessarily include her) are “indoctrinated into denying that ‘bad’ sexism really exists at all” which is quite specific and doesn't refer to her in any way, unless tkchrist has quoted his wife as denying that “bad” sexism exists. But he didn't, I didn't think he did, and I wasn't referring to his wife.

I used that as an extreme example of how it's prima facie not the case that, merely by virtue of being female, a woman is necessarily a reliable judge of sexism.

Is it really so hard for people to correctly interpret what they read?

And if some woman does claim that sexism really doesn't exist, I will write off her opinion as being “indoctrinated”, whether or not you or she or anyone else thinks it's condescending of me to do so.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:14 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

MJJ: Despite my deep hatred for Ann Coulter, I cannot go into any threads about her because of the violent sexual language, threats and imagery so frequently directed at her. Take all the "I fucked Anne Coulter" in the ass hard. I hate that shit, it's not funny, I find it violent and scary, this humor at "punishing" bad women with sex. Man. I would be happy if the worst that happened in Coulter threads was calling her a cunt or a dick - that might be progress.

I can't express how passionately I agree with this. Literally, I guess, because I've been trying to expand the thought, and just keep deleting my attempts. So, I'll just say, oh god, yes, and thank you.
posted by taz at 8:15 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

"tkchrist, what if we didn't call it "sexism" but said that the "I'd hit that" etc, even said in jest, but said 1000 times, made it an unpleasant environment for the women around here?"

Do people really say that all the time here? I mean, I've said it, but the last time was in reference to photos of men that were said to look like older lesbians.

It seems to me the few times I've seen it, the phrase has been used in a similarly absurdist fashion.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:15 PM on November 16 [+] [!]

Yes - I think people intend most of the "I'd hit that", "look at my giant wang" etc as a joke - irony, absurdism, etc. I'm saying that EVEN SO it gets tedious.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:15 PM on November 16, 2007

Oh, come on.

KNOCK, KNOCK.
posted by yhbc at 8:15 PM on November 16, 2007

WHO IS THERE?
posted by klangklangston at 8:17 PM on November 16, 2007

That's more like it.

Dwayne.
posted by yhbc at 8:18 PM on November 16, 2007

Oh, sorry - I meant:

DWAYNE.
posted by yhbc at 8:22 PM on November 16, 2007

At least one man's consciousness seems to have expanded here tonight, and I may be hearing a creak or two from my own brain pan as well. I may have learned a thing or two. This is not an easy thing we're trying to do here, but it's a thing that needs to be done - probably over and over and over again. I look forward to the next try at posting about whatever the heck we were talking about in the first place - women's reactions to men's piggery? May that thread fare as well as this one.
On Preview: Maybe not so well after all. Is there no learning you guys?
posted by Hobgoblin at 8:31 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Danila writes "So what is the remedy if there is a bad post that spawns the kind of discussion Mefi should be proud to have? Do we just lose what could have been?"

Yep.

madamjujujive writes "More than once I have seen a comment that I find terribly offensive that is favorited by many, and when I see the list of people I otherwise love who favorited it, my heart dies a little. "

Keep in mind favouriting != agreeing with. There are dozens of reasons I might favourite something besides agreement.
posted by Mitheral at 8:33 PM on November 16, 2007

But I'm afraid that us two being assholes has driven all the women from the thread again. Go us!
posted by klangklangston

Still here.
posted by Jody Tresidder at 8:34 PM on November 16, 2007

oh, all right, I won't deliver the planned punchline, which involved leaving the body in a tub overnight. It was yet another attempt at ironic misogynistic humor.
posted by yhbc at 8:34 PM on November 16, 2007

Several of you will be pleased to learn that pips just made me take out the garbage. down three flights. and it's really cold.

(I do it every week, but I figured it'd please you all nonetheless)
posted by jonmc at 8:38 PM on November 16, 2007

I was going to put a "Badass Neanderthal huntress? I'd hit it" in the appropriate thread just to piss people off, but I restrained myself. FEMINISM WINS.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:42 PM on November 16, 2007

Hey jonmc, when I said in the other thread that you should go troll somewhere else, I didn't mean in this thread.
posted by Kwine at 8:47 PM on November 16, 2007

One of the more interesting metrics that has been slightly mentioned here is the silent favoriting by women. I guess its an impossibility in a practical sense but it would be a very interesting to see some expanded stats/narrative of this characteristic of the site. Rainman, wherefore art thou?

Otherwise, I apologise generally on behalf of my gender. I'm just happy that any women deign to hang around this place. I love youse all and especially love it when you post and comment.

I do hope some tiny bit of attitude change has been inspired by these emotional rollercoaster threads (this and Hysterics). I've had to sit on my hands a lot of the time and I've deleted a few attack comments which would have been ill-advised in all the circumstances.
posted by peacay at 8:50 PM on November 16, 2007

Otherwise, I apologise generally on behalf of my gender. I'm just happy that any women deign to hang around this place. I love youse all and especially love it when you post and comment.

He's also a Scorpio and loves walks on the beach.
posted by jonmc at 8:54 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Does he have a goatee?
posted by yhbc at 8:58 PM on November 16, 2007

Re: Mefemme stats: I note Mitheral's comment - it would take qualitative rather than quanitative adjustments to reduce it down to some ballpark-believable interpretation. I don't think in the majority of cases you would say that it was 50:50 chance that a favourite was saved for postitive reinforcement/bookmarking -vs- 'other' reason. You could probably safely call it as 80:20 most of the time.
posted by peacay at 8:59 PM on November 16, 2007

(also, I was just teasing, peacay)
posted by jonmc at 9:01 PM on November 16, 2007

Sure peacay, but if it's causing one to die inside a bit every time one could lie to oneself that the ratio is really 20:80.
posted by Mitheral at 9:06 PM on November 16, 2007

For what it's worth... nobody flashed me today.* Only left the house once, though...

*Although I do know a few people who would've if I had asked.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:16 PM on November 16, 2007

I just thought I'd pop in and note that I too learned something from the women posting in this thread. I liked occhiblu's post quite a bit.
posted by onalark at 9:27 PM on November 16, 2007

couple of busybodies were screaming how sexist the thread was

*Sticks nose in, screams about how he is not a busybody*

And I said the tranny comments were lazy and homophobic, tyvm. Assuming we're thinking of the same thread.

At the end of the day, I think there is one thing we can all agree on. Despite it's grammatical propriety klangklangston's use of quotemarks for quotes, instead of italics, is jarring and momentarily confusing.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:56 PM on November 16, 2007

Where the hell did that apostrophe come from? And where did the comma go?
Grammatical propriety, indeed, Ampersand.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:59 PM on November 16, 2007

Rainman, wherefore art thou?

I've done this to myself, haven't I?
posted by cortex at 10:16 PM on November 16, 2007

I'd be more inclined to blame jessamyn for having instilled the name as a brainworm. But yes, your penchant for the statistical minutiae is writ large, and it blinks.
posted by peacay at 10:56 PM on November 16, 2007

loq, one aspect of the "cunt" thing you're missing is the sexual intimidation portion of it. Calling a woman a "cunt" reduces her to her sexual organs, and, to me, in hostile sexualized contexts like the ones usually present when such insults are hurled at Coulter, really does create the subtext of "You're nothing but a hole, and I can overpower you at any time, bitch."

That said, thank you for your comment. I appreciate it a lot, and I wish you a happy birthday.
posted by occhiblu at 10:58 PM on November 16, 2007

I have a lot of women friends on line, and I've talked up Metafilter because there have been some really wonderful discussions and finds here. But of that pool of women I've tried to convince, only one has actually joined and she hasn't really participated. No matter how I sell the intelligence of the site, it fails in the face of them coming here and realizing how women are treated in the threads. A bit of lurking and they lose interest.
posted by FunkyHelix at 11:03 PM on November 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I had the truth of what a lot of the women saying here brought home to me as a youth working in one of our local pubs. The number of older men on the day shift when things were quieter and there was time to chat over the bar who'd regale you with the most vicious misogynistic crap but in this pathetic inclusive-to-me "we're all lads together" kind of way was genuinely quite a shock. My family and the people we knew were very traditional in gender roles really, but everyone was respectful and you would be forgiven that thinking equality was just a matter of shifting the division of labour rather than some really entrenched spite and aggression. Out in the big wide world I learned different.
It also drilled home to me what a contemptible mindset this is - Christ, I hated that behaviour - dull, weak, and whining. Ironically, the antithesis of everything I'd been brought up to think being manly was all about. Same as the racists. In a service role where I couldn't just tell them to fuck off, I did learn that the best way to respond was with anecdotes and jokes that were just as unsettling to their prejudices and would demand they break the matey facade and come out and say what they thought straight if that's what they were really about.
Life's dealt you some shit as a white working class man. That can get overlooked in some of the middle class liberal politics I came into contact with. But coping with that by anger at the people who have it even worse than yourself is the height of misdirection and either moronic or a cowardly failure to confront the things that really are wrong in the world, because those who make it that way are more powerful than you.
posted by Abiezer at 11:05 PM on November 16, 2007 [7 favorites]

Misdirection is a great word for it, I think. Well said.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:08 PM on November 16, 2007

The more I think about it, the more ashamed I am that I tried to use a cheap rhetorical ploy to make a point in a serious thread. I seem to be disregarding my better instincts lately, so I think I'm going to walk away from the Filter for a while until I figure out what my major malfunction is. I said I was finding this place poisonous, but maybe it's actually my own poison I'm tasting. I'll try to figure that out before I bother you all again. Sincere apologies.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:27 PM on November 16, 2007

Ach IRFH; I find your comments funny, positive and subversive of the dull orthodoxy by and large. Don't be too hard on yourself for perhaps a missed moment (I do applauded the self-reflection). I long realised that if every time I made a bit of arse of myself I took a vow of silence, I'd never speak again. And like that's going to happen.
posted by Abiezer at 11:51 PM on November 16, 2007

I second what Abiezer said, and said so nicely, IRFH - please don't go away. No harm done, just a wee pecadillo ;-)
posted by madamjujujive at 12:05 AM on November 17, 2007

Women be different than men.

Discuss.
posted by The Deej at 12:06 AM on November 17, 2007

IRFH: the Flo must not ebb. You are usually funny, not malicious. A walk around the block should be enough to set you back into your customary groove before you"bother" us again.
posted by Cranberry at 12:15 AM on November 17, 2007

Thanks, both of you, but if I've learned anything from this thread it's that words have real consequences to the community no matter what the intentions. More than once recently I've contributed exactly the kind of negative energy to this site that I personally despise the most. Maybe it was inadvertant, or maybe it was reflective of some shit I'm going through and internalizing more than I realized. Or maybe I'm just tired and posting lazy and taking good will for granted. I'm not sure. When I figure it out - When I'm convinced that I can go back to contributing positively... well, doing no harm, at any rate - I'll be back. Hopefully soon. Thanks again for the kind words. I'll be back when I can live up to them.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:17 AM on November 17, 2007

both of you

All of you, even.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:18 AM on November 17, 2007

Hey guys, so um....like where do I go if I want to say I totally see and have no problems with the deleted threads having been deleted? I was just informed there's too many people being quiet and silenced and, well, shucks, I didn't know, and I'd hate to be contributing to a problem by not saying anything and nobody's viewpoint is really representing my own. Well, I did my part. Carry on then.
posted by kkokkodalk at 12:41 AM on November 17, 2007

Well, what is a bit disheartening to me, as a lurker chiming in, is that a woman just dropped an "everything is fine...nothing to see here people, move along" bomb in a thread where a man has to ask his wife if something is sexist, another man owns up to his own misogyny, women and men both bring an amazing wealth of honesty to the table, really really smart people debate really really important AND interesting ideas and others continue with KNOCK KNOCK jokes.

Plus, she's only addressing the "guys."

This just makes my brain feel all....ouchy. Like the rollercoaster just....

*continues to lurk, as confused but riveted/bored as ever*

(and as a woman, I feel like a total ...err..dick chiming in just to call out a woman. I return upthread to favorite all the amazingly thoughtful things that have been said.)
posted by metasav at 1:10 AM on November 17, 2007

“is that a woman just dropped an ‘everything is fine...nothing to see here people, move along’ bomb in a thread”

I can't find the comment are you referring to. Was it deleted?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:33 AM on November 17, 2007

You know, I really have avoided reading these two MeTa threads because when I was called sexist in the first one it was SOOO far off base from what my actual motivation was for the comment I made. It just couldn't have been further off of the mark, and so I felt that I would rather just walk away than be defensive. I just wasn't up for the drama and didn't feel like being attacked when I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. And I didn't feel like participating in the macho shitstorm that Mefi can be sometimes.

But from reading the last few comments, it sounds like there might have actually been some good reading and some insightful comments in here. So maybe I'll stop being cynical/afraid and later today I'll try to plow through the 300 comments to see what actually occurred in the shitstorm while I was busy swimming to shore.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:39 AM on November 17, 2007

That list was 25% on the money and 75% ridiculous, sorry, mostly for the reasons that tkchrist pointed out, but also because you can't be responsible for "engendering hatred" in the freaking loons of society because you don't call people out, in every conversation, for being people. (yes, boys talk shit and so do girls -- make sure you shut that down at every opportunity and report back)

Now what goes on in a public forum is a very different thing, and I think the percentages of usefulness of those rules shift in that context. I also got a lot out of what some female posters have had to say here. But the idea that anytime anyone gets offended, someone has stepped over the line is ridiculous. (interestingly, it's only men in this thread taking that extreme a line) Intention is important, even if it isn't the whole story.

As an aside, "dick" is synonymous with "asshole" as an insult, and there is no implied compliment. You are manufacturing evidence for your own theory, and thus are engaging in your own bit of public masturbation. QED.
posted by dreamsign at 1:56 AM on November 17, 2007

Ohfergawdsake people... I've got a newsflash for ya: Men will always be pigs and women will always overreact... It's human nature.. Let's all accept it... Can't we all just get along?

I, for one, have totally noticed the "boyzone" atmosphere of Mefi (especially in the "male answer syndrome" of AskMe) but I am not intimidated by it in the least... I am secure enough in my womanhood, and in my intellect, to either ignore it, or take it on where need be. I jump in with both feet...

I think we women diminish ourselves when we play the "victimhood" card (and, yes, I've experienced more than my fair share of victimhood as a girl and as a woman)...

If you don't like something one of the boys says here, engage them directly! Take them on! Act like an equal, and you'll be treated like an equal! Go girls, Go!
posted by amyms at 1:56 AM on November 17, 2007

I, for one, have totally noticed the "boyzone" atmosphere of Mefi (especially in the "male answer syndrome" of AskMe)

WAIT. AskMe isn't about getting answers? People just want their problems to be heard? I am so all over the green from now on.

(also: good for you, amyms)
posted by dreamsign at 2:04 AM on November 17, 2007

dreamsign said: WAIT. AskMe isn't about getting answers?

AskMe IS about getting answers... My reference to "male answer syndrome" is about the boys who insist on jumping in to give THEIR version of the "answer" even after it's already been spelled out numerous times (often by a woman) because the boys assume that THEIR answer is the ONLY correct one... It's very funny when it happens, and if you spend enough time in AskMe you'll see it in action.
posted by amyms at 2:16 AM on November 17, 2007

No, no, wait, actually, Male Answer Syndrome males jump in to answer a question about a subject they really have no knowledge of, but feel that they must contribute something anyway...in any event, I totally know what I'm talking about here, ok?
posted by Snyder at 2:25 AM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

...because the boys assume that THEIR answer is the ONLY correct one... It's very funny when it happens...

There's an assumption in there somewhere.
posted by 517 at 3:03 AM on November 17, 2007

Do you have a problem with your keyboard, amyms? It looks like your “.” key is sticking.

Alternatively, you're a near-illiterate goof who spouts nonsense like “Men will always be pigs and women will always overreact... It's human nature.. Let's all accept it...”, in which case your apparent belief that an ellipses is three times as good as a period is just par for the course.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:41 AM on November 17, 2007

I can't speak for the women, but I can speak as someone who finds this place to sometimes be offensive when discussing people who look like myself. Not always, mind you, but enough that I get tired of rolling my eyes, and clicking out of a thread rather than call someone a fuckjob. I do grow weary of deciding "Oh well, I let the last 3 slide, so I'm contractually obligated to chime in this time."

What it comes down to is this. Just like the world outside, this place isn't all gummi bears and sunshine. If you ask me, we live in a society filled with inequalities. We live in a society that is racist, sexist ageist, xenophobic, fat-hating etc, and so on. Very few people deviate very far from where society as a whole is.However enlightened you think you are, pick an -ism, and I'm sure we can find an area where you need some work.

When someone gets close to practicing real equality, we tend to shoot tham and then name inner city elementary schools after them. If nobody's shooting at you, or inviting you to speak at a Wellesley commencement, chances are you could stand to shut up and listen on occasion. I'm not saying you support the repeal of the 19th amendment, just that even if you knew everything yesterday, today might be the day you have something to learn.

We are is doing a lot better than we have in the past, but we arent perfect yet. As society as a whole becomes more tolerant, we all move along with it. As the bigots get a little less bigoted, and the progressives seem a little less progressive in comparison.

I don't think anyone is asking anyone else to be perfect. I don't think anyone is calling for a humorfreesafetyzone. But don't act like this isn't a community that can't enforce standards. One thing I love about this place is that if you're fucking up, someone is going to call you on it, quickly and repeatedly. I'm still convinced that some people have an actual "Pepsi Blue"* key on their keyboards.

But mostly understand that whoever you are, whatever you are, however you define yourself, nobody needs your permission, sanction, or approval to speak up. I feel like a big part of this isn't about stopping people from saying offensive things. It's about respecting the right of those who aren't in the majority to say "that last statement was a little off" without being, demeaned, or drowned out in a pool of the same old snark. At least come up with some newer funnier snark.

To put it as bluntly as possible, and in this, I hope I speak for the women, the men, black, white, whoever...

You can call me a second class citizen all you want. I don't care. It doesn't hurt me in the least. The second you expect me to believe that I am a second class citizen, Me and You have a problem. If you don't see the difference between the two, you really should talk less and listen more.

*I don't understand how quick people are to jump on a double post, but the same lame jokes get trotted out again and again and again.

p.s. loquacious, floydd, and all other scorpios, Happy Birthday! Mine was on Thursday. As far as I'm concerned, thanksgiving always comes a week late. For the record, I do not believe in astrology.
posted by billyfleetwood at 3:41 AM on November 17, 2007 [8 favorites]

Ethereal Bligh, I don't agree with what amyms said but in the great scheme it was a low trajectory fairyfloss grouphuggy aside. There was no directed malice or venom in there. Your response on the other hand was insulting and unnecessary and does much more harm to your global reputation as an often well reasoned debater.
posted by peacay at 4:13 AM on November 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

global as in general/historic/metafilter, not so much as in world
posted by peacay at 4:17 AM on November 17, 2007

Well, the part I quote from her was risible, even if she wrote it in a nice way.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:04 AM on November 17, 2007

I honestly want to know, that really came off as some insane rant to you? It made no sense? Spoke to nothing in your experience?

As I said originally her entire point boiled down to even you're a nice, non-misogynistic guy, you're wrong on so many levels for so many things you do that help the "bad guys". It reeked of black and white thinking. Seriously, if a woman, who is playing the victim card, gets called out be a guy for playing the victim card and according to Kate Harding, you're just helping the "bad guys" which implies that a man shouldn't or can't call out a woman for playing the victim card, which is batshitinsane.

There may be good general point in her quotes, but she's poured so much crap on top that it's not worth picking out.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:13 AM on November 17, 2007

Well, the part I quote from her was risible deserving of the old college smackdown by a person who claims on a regular basis, and quite aggressively at times, to be a staunch feminist, and in a thread which has in part been about the feelings that women experience on metafilter from being smacked down.

As I said, I'm not arguing that the content of the pullquote you addressed was correct but you are rivalling jonmc for the contextual foot-in-mouth award for the last 24hrs.
posted by peacay at 5:41 AM on November 17, 2007

Dear Metafilterians,

Metafilter is not a feminist battleground, but if you find a great site that is a feminist battleground, metafilter is the place to post a link to that site.

Cheers,
The Monkey
posted by The Monkey at 5:43 AM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

“...deserving of the old college smackdown by a person who claims on a regular basis, and quite aggressively at times, to be a staunch feminist, and in a thread which has in part been about the feelings that women experience on metafilter from being smacked down.”

Being a feminist doesn't mean I need agree with every person who happens to be a woman. And nowhere in this discussion did I endorse the idea that aggressive discourse was inherently sexist—I don't think it is.

It's not true that this thread has been, in large part, about women complaining about being “smacked down”. They've been complaining about being “smacked down” with sexist comments and insults. And “smacked down” specifically for talking about sexism and feminism.

There have been a few women who have complained in this thread that combativeness makes them feel unwelcome. I understand this, I believe it's true, but I don't think combativeness or a toleration of combativeness is sexist. Combativeness also makes many men feel unwelcome, too, grumblebee among them.

Some people seem to confuse being a male feminist with chivalry. However, the former does not require the latter. I'm not chivalrous; chivarly, in fact, nauseates me. If a woman says something contemptible, I'll treat her with the same contempt as I would a man who said the same thing.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:00 AM on November 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

Brandon Blatcher, I think you were just looking for a reason to dismiss everything she said.

By the way, everyone, everywhere is "wrong on so many levels for so many things". Just right now, we're talking about this one thing. Every time anyone tries to challenge sexism or racism or any of the -isms that oppress, there will always be disingenuous people who say it's impossible to do anything about it, and it's not fair to expect so much. I say these people are disingenous because they haven't tried and wouldn't have tried in the first place.

I have known honorable men who did not openly tolerate sexism (which is all Kate Harding is talking about). It wasn't too hard, it wasn't impossible, it's not insane to expect it.

Let's all accept it... Can't we all just get along?

No, we cannot all just go along to get along. amyms, I honestly want to know what was the point of this? It happens so often, and it's so frustrating and dismissive.

If you don't like something one of the boys says here, engage them directly!

What did you think was happening here? Every single time anyone actually does try to "engage directly", a bunch of people will come along saying "what's the big deal, get over it". Like you just did.
posted by Danila at 6:07 AM on November 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

Ohfergawdsake people... I've got a newsflash for ya: Men will always be pigs and women will always overreact... It's human nature.

I don't agree with this either, and I suspect that if a guy had said this we'd be all over him now. In the context of the discussion we've just had it hits the wrong note with me. EB was rude, but I think it's appropriate to call amymns on this statement. (And actually EB I want to say you take alot of shit here for being willing to put your viewpoint out there, and I don't always agree with everything you say but you often do move the ball forward and get alot of scorn mostly in return, and I really wish that was not the case). So, in brief: blech.
posted by onlyconnect at 6:14 AM on November 17, 2007

Being a feminist doesn't mean I need agree with every person who happens to be a woman.

Oh, for gosh's sake no, you only agree with people who agree with you. Couldn't possibly agree with stupid women who don't see how they're being oppressed. There are other people with different life experiences who don't fit into the 6 or 7 pre-fab pop psych containers you can buy on TV from an 800 number. As someone often guilty of it, I ask you to please not confuse repeated statements of your intellectual positions with reasoned debate or discourse. Keep plowing over anyone who disagrees; that's sure to leave rich intellectual soil for a great garden of people who think just like you.

The sad thing about the Internet is that all this communication with people all over the world and most people use it to create echo chambers. You came into this thread thrashing around about creating a better environment for people with different viewpoints and you've spent all the time stopping people from talking. I'm not trying to traffic in "Gotchyas", but I'm not the only person suggesting there's hypocrisy in what you're doing. We're all reasonable folks just making an obvious point to ourselves.
posted by yerfatma at 6:15 AM on November 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

I think you were just looking for a reason to dismiss everything she said.

and thus the cycle continues. Look, the quote from Kate Harding is going to turn some guys off for reasons I've already stated.

If the goal is change, the Kate Harding type of quotes aren't going to help because they're not communicating effectively. In comparision, the simple request that guys call out other guys more when they see stupid shit happening makes better, more reasonable sense. That's more like "Oh, that's what you'd like us to do, help put an end to stupid shit? No problem!" as opposed to "You're a nice guy and all, but every damn thing you do is wrong and you're part of the problem because every little joke you make is actively killing a woman."

In short, keep it simple and direct.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:20 AM on November 17, 2007

They've been complaining about being “smacked down” with sexist comments and insults.

And as a response to amyms's words you said or implied that she's either illiterate or a fool.

Reconstrue that as anything but an insult.

I mentioned your feministic badge of honour not because I accused you of hypocrisy or sexism, but because of the irony. It's this thread where you have insulted someone and that someone happens to be a woman.

I believe it's in the dictionary under buffoonery.
posted by peacay at 6:32 AM on November 17, 2007

Your response on the other hand was insulting and unnecessary and does much more harm to your global reputation as an often well reasoned debater.

And you're doing it a lot lately. Seriously, you're way too comfortable with your own combativeness. I have the same tendency, but I try to rein it in when I feel it taking over.
posted by languagehat at 6:33 AM on November 17, 2007

You called amyms "a near illiterate goof" - not cool man. You should apologize.
posted by vronsky at 7:05 AM on November 17, 2007

Non-blue-posting butch dyke here. I have a toolbelt, but I don't customarily wear it while walking and I can count the times I've eaten fried chicken on one hand, which is a shame because it's tasty. If I wore my toolbelt while walking and eating fried chicken, it would probably result in enw00tment, because women can be pretty weird. I'll admit to hating the sad, stunted outliers among men (and women). I'm OK with everyone else.

I don't post in the blue because a healthy number of posts there are ensnaringly stupid when it comes to women or homos (although I've noticed that this is getting slightly better). What I mean is, engaging at all is a trap -- if you're earnest you will be mocked for not getting it or being PC, and if you let it get to you and react aggressively, you're embodying a stereotype, and if you laugh along with it, you're going to have trouble looking at yourself in the mirror. I don't think this is the direct result of ill will; I think it is the sensitivities of individual men combined with the one-to-many reality of the site demographics. For every woman who says something in a discussion that veers into gender, there are far more guys around to have reactions to it based on their own tendencies. There is a small but shrill "shitcock" brigade, there is a loose "fear of a PC planet" group (BTW, I worry about this too), and there are captains of condescension and lulzers. It's unappetizing, and the part of me that thrives on nerdrage conflict isn't the part of me that I like or want to indulge. The bottom line is not that it doesn't feel 'safe' to me (safety is overrated), but that I can't ever figure out how I would interact with it in accordance with my own values.

FWIW, I thought miss lynnster's original post was iffy, but that her "out of all the men here" statement was interesting, and I was surprised that alert people operating in good faith could have misunderstood the percentages she was referring to.

In a kind-of unrelated thing, this is the second site that I spend time looking at that is having drama this week, with the value of "teh lulz" as a major subtext. I've noticed that sometimes stupid lulzy things make me laugh, and then my SO, who is not an internet-interested person, will ask me what I'm laughing at. I explain, and she is just horrified. And then I think "True, it's also horrifying." When I then wonder exactly what aspect of it is funny to me, it often seems like it's mostly the experience of sharing a shocking or disgusting or amazingly stupid experience with a group I identify with. My instinct about lulzy humor is that it's primarily an insider/outsider filter, and as such it's probably death to good, challenging conversation when it becomes a common mode of interaction. But I don't think Metafilter is there yet.

I have major respect for jennydiski for tilting at these windmills, even if her form is technically incorrect, and for all of the women and men in this conversation who are going to so much effort to move closer to understanding. That's pretty neat.
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 7:18 AM on November 17, 2007 [17 favorites]

Because, frankly, based upon the comments I've seen here on MeFi, a large portion of the men here are sexist. And a subset of them are virulently sexist, they just usually hide it.

let's qualify that; a large portion of people here on mefi are sexist. men are sexist towards women and sexist towards men; women can be just as sexist towards women as men are and can be sexist towards men. it happens everywhere.

if we're looking at the grand sum of who it's hurting, sure, women as a whole come out on top, but combatting it is about combatting individual instances of sexism, so let's make sure to be on the lookout for ALL types of sexism, cool?
posted by dflemingdotorg at 7:39 AM on November 17, 2007

Dear The Monkey,

You've impressively demonstrated your utter lack of understanding. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,
OmieWise
posted by OmieWise at 8:09 AM on November 17, 2007

Seriously, if a woman, who is playing the victim card, gets called out be a guy for playing the victim card and according to Kate Harding, you're just helping the "bad guys" which implies that a man shouldn't or can't call out a woman for playing the victim card, which is batshitinsane.

Brandon Blatcher, I think you’re misunderstanding Harding’s point. I doubt she wants you, or anyone, to condone manipulative behavior. If she’s like me and most people I know, she pretty much agrees with klangklangston:

When a woman fakes crying in order to get out of a traffic ticket, she is making it harder for other women's tears to be taken seriously. When a woman makes a fake rape complaint [AND I SAY THIS KNOWING FULL WELL THAT RAPES ARE BELIEVED TO BE UNDERREPORTED] she is playing the victim card and making it harder for other women to be taken seriously.

I’d cut “believed to be” and I’m a little curious about why kk felt the need to include it—but that’s a separate discussion.

The thing is, discussing an incident of “playing the victim card,” very often leads straight into “See, they all do it.” In fact, that’s often the whole point of bringing up the incident in the first place.

When I find myself in one of these discussions, I generally respond with some version of, “Yeah, that’s inexcusable. And it pisses me off, because there are so many more incidents of real abuse and this shit just makes it easier to dismiss them all.”

I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of response Harding was talking about, and I can’t see how it falls into the batshitinsane category.

My birthday was yesterday and one of my presents was a MeFi membership.
posted by dogrose at 8:14 AM on November 17, 2007

"You're a nice guy and all, but every damn thing you do is wrong and you're part of the problem because every little joke you make is actively killing a woman."

The Kate Harding quote listed eight (8) things that men do which makes them complicit in sexism. Even without discounting the final one, which doesn't really make sense, that hardly equates to suggesting that every damn thing men do is wrong. And, it seems pretty concise, all things considered.

It's hard not to suspect that you don't really want to think about sexism as an issue, in any general sense, and how you might specifically be promoting or opposing it. That's ok, you're free to make your own choices about where to spend your time and attention, but it hardly seems fair to castigate Harding's simple and direct advice if you've already made your choice about what you care about.
posted by OmieWise at 8:17 AM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Alternatively, you're a near-illiterate goof who spouts nonsense like “Men will always be pigs and women will always overreact... It's human nature.. Let's all accept it...”, in which case your apparent belief that an ellipses is three times as good as a period is just par for the course.

I'm not sure why you feel like your disagreement with amyms' position justifies such a bitchy, petty grammar/style flame, is the thing. Call her out point for point on the substance, but mocking ellipses? Seriously?
posted by cortex at 8:42 AM on November 17, 2007

SPARTA!
posted by shmegegge at 9:11 AM on November 17, 2007

oh, dammit.
posted by shmegegge at 9:11 AM on November 17, 2007

Myself, I was mainly talking here just about comments like "my wang this" and "eat a bucket of cocks" and whatnot.

I'm fine if I never have to hear another mefites' genitals or sexual proclivities outside of a relevant askme ever again. With this caveat, I'd say we're in complete agreement: ironic boyzone falls on the sexist side of the sexism/sarcasm line. I'm gonna go hunt down thehmsbeagle's comments (which thread? there's been a few at this point) and see if I can agree with them too.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:16 AM on November 17, 2007

*kicks shmegegge down penalty hole*
posted by cortex at 9:17 AM on November 17, 2007

"I’d cut “believed to be” and I’m a little curious about why kk felt the need to include it—but that’s a separate discussion."

Oh, I just meant that the very definition of "under-reported" precludes being able to prove that (and quantifying it is even harder). I do believe that they are under-reported, but I didn't want to get hit from the other side with calls for proof of under-reporting—if asked, it's easier to cite authorities that are willing to state they believe rapes are under-reported.
posted by klangklangston at 9:22 AM on November 17, 2007

Dreamsign: That list was 25% on the money and 75% ridiculous, sorry, mostly for the reasons that tkchrist pointed out, but also because you can't be responsible for "engendering hatred" in the freaking loons of society because you don't call people out, in every conversation, for being people. (yes, boys talk shit and so do girls -- make sure you shut that down at every opportunity and report back)

I would disagree. If I hear someone make disparaging, racist jokes or comments about black people, I speak up and say that it's not funny or not acceptable.

Now many may think that it's obvious not to tolerate racism, but I can tell you that I grew up in a day not all that long ago when people didn't speak up. While many in my *nice* middle-class Catholic neighborhood may not have been overt racists, there certainly was a passive tolerance of racism, and this was true in many sectors. Maybe it was simply the seemingly small thing of letting a cruel joke or an unkind stereotype go unchallenged. It took many people overtly saying "no, that's not OK to say" or "no that's not OK to do" before the needle started moving. But in my lifetime, I have seen overt racist shit move from having society's tacit approval to fairly strong disapproval. Is racism gone? No, of course not, but we have at least moved to where racism largely viewed as a negative rather than being passively tolerated.

That is what I hear Kate Harding saying. She is saying there is some really ugly women hate out there, and although you may not be the one doing the hating, every time you passively tolerate misogyny in others or encourage it with a nod and a wink, you are contributing to a climate where the truly ugly, hateful people think they have your approval.

To talk about these things is not playing the victim. I'm old enough to have been among the first women in some very sexist work environments, and I didn't succeed by whining or playing a victim, I can tell you that. It's not a chip that I carry on my shoulder every day. But the reality is that misogyny and sexism are still things that have blindsided me, hurt me, disappointed me deeply, angered me, paid me less for the same work as male cohorts, and occasionally made me fear for my physical safety. My life is largely happy and I like and respect men. But I hope my nieces - and all your daughters - have an easier, happier time of things. And you are a part of whether they do or not.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:23 AM on November 17, 2007 [18 favorites]

I don't have anything more to add to this discussion, which has been interesting to me. Generally, I hate this place being insular and thus self-selecting in members who want to join. I really believe that insularity detracts from this site. I really don't want to contribute to insularity, so one thing this thread has made me personally think about is that, while I have discounted the 'boyzone' label in the past and considered the 'sexist' label too frequently abused, there does appear to be a significant number of reasonable individuals who do feel that the place is a boyzone hostile to women. So, irrespective of whether I believe that is objectively correct, the effect is there. And since I don't want to contribute to insularity, I need to make sure that I don't make the cheap joke or insult that has a broader effect. I will try personally not to add to the boyzone when I consciously can.

So I guess I want to echo It's Raining Florence Henderson whose progression of thought on the topic appears to me to somewhat track mine.

That being said, I still find the affect of jennydiski obnoxious and her smug accusations odious. However, that could have been pointed out by me without being broadly offensive.
posted by dios at 9:29 AM on November 17, 2007 [5 favorites]

Ethereal Bligh said: Alternatively, you're a near-illiterate goof who spouts nonsense like “Men will always be pigs and women will always overreact... It's human nature.. Let's all accept it...”, in which case your apparent belief that an ellipses is three times as good as a period is just par for the course.

Wow, Ethereal Bligh. I said something you disagreed with, and it obviously touched a nerve, but instead of arguing my point, you attack me for using ellipses?. If that's my biggest crime, then I guess I'm doing okay...

I should have expressed myself more clearly in my original statement above. When I said Men will always be pigs and women will always overreact I meant it in a more universal "bees will always sting, dogs will always bark" sense (certainly not directed at anyone personally), and I should have said it like this: In any given population where both genders gather together, some men will always be pigs and some women will always overreact...

Danila said: No, we cannot all just go along to get along. amyms, I honestly want to know what was the point of this?

Danila, I never said that anyone should "just go along"... I just think that some of the things men do that piss us off aren't worth fighting over. Sometimes a sexist joke really is just a joke. We women say sexist things all the time too, and if we're willing to dish it out, we'd better be willing to take it. If we constantly react to every perceived slight, including the miniscule ones, we're going to waste a lot of valuable time that could be spent battling the big ones.
posted by amyms at 9:32 AM on November 17, 2007

The Kate Harding quote listed eight (8) things that men do which makes them complicit in sexism. Even without discounting the final one, which doesn't really make sense, that hardly equates to suggesting that every damn thing men do is wrong. And, it seems pretty concise, all things considered.

Fine, lets go down the list:

1. * every time you don’t tell your buddies it’s not okay to talk shit about women, even if it’s kinda funny;

It's perfectly ok to shit about women, men, blacks, whites, jews and gay politicians who tap their feet in bathroom stalls, especially if you're with your buddies. Hell, that's the whole point of being with your buddies.

2. * every time you roll your eyes and think “PMS!” instead of listening to why a woman’s upset;

This goes with #7, so I'll answer it there.

3. * every time you call Ann Coulter a tranny cunt instead of a halfwit demagogue;

A cunt, like a bitch, is a derogatory term for a woman so if any woman should be called a cunt, Ann Coulter is high on the list.

4. * every time you say any woman–Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Phyllis Schlafly, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, any of us–”deserves whatever she gets” for being so detestable, instead of acknowledging there are things that no human being deserves and only women get;

Detestable people deserve what they get. They don't get free pass 'cause they're a woman.

5. * every time you joke about how you’ll never let your daughter out of the house or anywhere near a man, ’cause ha ha, that’ll solve everything;

Sometimes a joke is, you know, a joke, especially considering that every father knows exactly what every teenage boy has on his mind.

6. * every time you say, “I don’t understand why thousands of women are insisting this is some kind of woman thing”;

Don't understand this one, but hey, when someone doesn't understand your point, mabye that's a good time to explain it?

7. * every time you tell a woman you love she’s being crazy/hysterical/irrational, when you know deep down you haven’t heard a word she’s said in the past 15 minutes, and all you’re really thinking about is how seeing her yell and/or cry is incredibly unsettling to you, and you just want that shit to stop;

There's nothing wrong with telling anyone that they're being crazy/hysterical/irrational and they'll need get a gripe at some point.

8. * every time you dismiss a woman as “playing the victim,” even if you’re right about that particular woman…

Alrerady answered this one

Harding's point with all this was that nice, non-misogynistic guys are helping the misogynists when they don't object to this things, because you know all those sexist jokes you said? You probalby said one to a misogynist and that just helped his world view! and they're everywhere, so you never know when you're talking to one, so you gotta be careful and just never do/say things at all! You gotta trust her on this one.

Yeah, whatever. The general point has merit, but her specific examples are shitty and a huge turnoff that does indeed sound like a batshitinsane rant.

And four panels, please stop being such an immature dick.

On preview:
What amyms said
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:24 AM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's perfectly ok to shit about women, men, blacks, whites, jews and gay politicians who tap their feet in bathroom stalls, especially if you're with your buddies. Hell, that's the whole point of being with your buddies.

To clarify, it is okay to make fun of them because they're women? Because they're black? Because they're Jews? You and your buddies sit around telling racist and sexist jokes? Because that's what's she's talking about. No one is saying you can't say a negative thing if it is about a woman. But deriding women because they are women, black people in general, Jews in general, etc. is bigotry.

Detestable people deserve what they get. They don't get free pass 'cause they're a woman.

Did you miss this : there are things that no human being deserves and only women get;

I dismiss people who can't refute Michelle Malkins/Hilary Clinton/Anne Coulter etc. on the merits, but have to drag sex into it. But it's also frightening. It doesn't matter what a woman does (good or bad), she's still just a woman after all.

6. * every time you say, “I don’t understand why thousands of women are insisting this is some kind of woman thing”;

Don't understand this one, but hey, when someone doesn't understand your point, mabye that's a good time to explain it?

Yeah, but you dismissed it all as insane anyway. I understood it. But your kneejerk dismissal indicates you're not really curious about it. So we'll leave that one in the "insane" pile.

There's nothing wrong with telling anyone that they're being crazy/hysterical/irrational and they'll need get a gripe at some point.

I see. You don't seem to agree that women are singled out in this respect (men not listening but dismissing what they said anyway, as crazy/hysterical/irrational, which is exactly what you're doing right now). But that's also probably why you didn't understand point number six.

The general point has merit

Well on that we agree.
posted by Danila at 10:42 AM on November 17, 2007

Would someone be willing to post links to the other relevant threads which have been referenced here, or at least point me in the proper direction? I don't think I've ever wanted to follow a discussion here as thoroughly as I do this one, and I feel that I'm missing parts of it.
This whole thing reminds me of being taken to school about my sexist thoughts, words and behavior by a few women in the 70's. I needed to hear their point of view and I needed to open up and to actually change my ways of looking at women and at men's interactions with women, and I needed to change some of the words I spoke, and on and on and it has become a process for me, like many others, that is ongoing and continuing.
posted by Hobgoblin at 10:44 AM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Sometimes a joke is, you know, a joke, especially considering that every father knows exactly what every teenage boy has on his mind."

This I disagree with. I remember it annoying me when I was a teenage boy, both because I sometimes did just want to be friends with a girl and felt it unfairly limited my options, and because I knew girls who really did just want to fuck. I was way more interested in blowing shit up and industrial metal.

What I don't want to say, though, is that jokes about "what every teenage boy has on his mind" should be off-limits, just that part of the humor should be in the mutual knowledge that the cliché's not true and that teenage girls don't need to be protected because they're girls (though the risks of sex are greater), but because they're young.
posted by klangklangston at 11:04 AM on November 17, 2007

So, irrespective of whether I believe that is objectively correct, the effect is there. And since I don't want to contribute to insularity, I need to make sure that I don't make the cheap joke or insult that has a broader effect. I will try personally not to add to the boyzone when I consciously can.

Congratulations. I'm really glad some people are having this reaction, and I too am going to try to be more aware of this problem in general. I know when I went into the stone-age feminism thread and saw the first few comments were stupid snarks, my heart sank more than it usually would have. People, can we try to discuss things like human beings? Just because a boobie joke pops into your head doesn't mean you have to hit "post."

As for jennydiski, I keep forgetting to mention that she misspelled "heigh-ho":

1801 M. EDGEWORTH Angelina ii. 22 Heigh-ho! must I sleep again without seeing my Araminta?
1871 W. H. BEEVER Daily Life Farm 40 Heigh-ho! this dreary day!

posted by languagehat at 11:04 AM on November 17, 2007

"It's perfectly ok to shit about women, men, blacks, whites, jews and gay politicians who tap their feet in bathroom stalls, especially if you're with your buddies. Hell, that's the whole point of being with your buddies."

To clarify, it is okay to make fun of them because they're women?

Danila, look at the quoted point:

1. * every time you don’t tell your buddies it’s not okay to talk shit about women, even if it’s kinda funny;

It doesn't say "talk shit about women, because they're women". It says "talk shit about women". It also sounds to me like she's saying men can't say bad things about women, ever. Or, as a parallel, white people can't say anything bad about blacks and vice versa. Jews and Goyim. Gays and straights. Don't say anything bad about anyone who is different than you.

there are things that no human being deserves and only women get

Women get the short end of the stick sometimes, sure. Racial minorities do too. Gays and trannies too. But what are these abominable things that only happen to women? Is this code for rape and allusions to sexual violence? Women don't have a monopoly on being raped or abused. Is it code for having their motives and competency questioned because they're women? That happens to racial minorities and non-heterosexuals too.
posted by CKmtl at 11:22 AM on November 17, 2007

With that citation, languagehat is testing us all right now.
posted by psmith at 11:22 AM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

and that teenage girls don't need to be protected because they're girls (though the risks of sex are greater), but because they're young.

you ageist bastard...

hey, you know, EB is right! An elipse is three times better than a period... (Look, I just did it again ... and again oh, god, it feels good ...)

This is an exceptional discussion and I would gladly buy anyone involved a beverage of their choice, when/should the opportunity arise. Though I don't think it is what jennydiski had in mind (I agree with the admins' decision), she certainly got a discussion going and a far better one than her instigation foreshadowed.
posted by From Bklyn at 11:26 AM on November 17, 2007

Hobgoblin, here is linkage for how this thread evolved.

miss lynnster posted on flashers, and it was subsequently deleted for being a thin content post. But in response to some comments by miss lynnster in that thread while it was open, four panels posted Hysterics in Metatalk.

As part of that discussion in the Hysterics MetaTalk thread, some readers said they were unhappy about the deletion because the in-thread discussion in miss lynnster's post was worth keeping. Some people decided to recast miss lynnster's topic with more substantial posts. After that, two fpps ensued: This one, by never used baby shoes, which stayed up, and this one, by jennydiski, which got deleted and prompted the thread you are in.

There have been other threads discussed here too, but I don't have time at present to track them down!
posted by madamjujujive at 11:30 AM on November 17, 2007 [6 favorites]

It seems to me that the people ultimately responsible for the tenor of this site are the mods. As helpful as it might be for fifty people to respond every time somebody says "I'd hit that," it would be more effective to just delete the comment. Over days/months/years of participating in this site, I think you develop a very good sense of what is/isn't allowed in comments -- on the blue, the green, and the grey. That people operate with an implicit understanding that saying obviously sexist/threatening things without fear of having their comments deleted, or having their accounts put on hold, suggests to me that it's not just an issue of community, it's an issue of community moderation.

I don't mean this as an attack on matthowie/cortex because they both seem to be decent people who, in my mind, do an amazing job moderating this site. However, it might be nice to have an equal gender ratio in moderating. If anything has been reconfirmed for me in reading the past 1,000 or so comments in these various threads, it's that I simply can't have any idea what it's like to be a woman. I don't know what it's like to be a girly-girl who doesn't believe sexism exists; I don't know what it's like to be a tool belt chicken-eater; and I don't understand what it's like to be any of the other ~3bln women around the world. Given that so many women in this and other threads have said that they see something in the comments that most men don't, it would probably be valuable to get another one of them evaluating the quality of comments/threads on this site. Not because m/c are bad people but because their sensitivity seems to be different from a lot of other peoples' on this site.

I appreciate that there are some gender assumptions in this post (having left jessamyn out of it), but that's the point. If so many women are able to see something that so many men don't, get another woman to have input. I may be wrong, but isn't jessamyn mostly responsible for moderating the green, which appears to be the most woman-friendly of the sites?
posted by one_bean at 11:34 AM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

jennydiski is a pile-up who.

(too soon?)
posted by vronsky at 11:44 AM on November 17, 2007

Thank You loquacious.

This comment helps redeem a lot of truly crappy stuff that's been tossed about in this thread.

I am not in favor of censoring out every edgy snarklet, but context is everything. When you have an environment (here and in the greater world outside our doors) that is so heavily unbalanced toward the snarky sexist comments, each additional jokey log added to the fire (so to speak) becomes less of a delightful aside and more of a bullying slapdown, regardless of the poster's original intent.
posted by stagewhisper at 11:47 AM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

klangklangston: Makes sense to me. Thanks for the explanation.

Brandon Blatcher: See what you did here?

And four panels, please stop being such an immature dick.

That's pretty much exactly the response Harding is asking for.

Perhaps you'll consider calibrating your standards just a bit more finely, so you respond this way to misogyny/sexism/creepulence that isn't quite so far over the line.

On preview: Maybe jennydiski screwed up the punctuation instead of the spelling.
posted by dogrose at 11:55 AM on November 17, 2007

I am thrilled to see so many eloquent ladies articulating about those things which grate on me so often, the jokey asides and just-on-the-border of sexist comments ("I'd hit that", for example). And thank you to all of the gentlemen who have demonstrated by their posts that they "get it" - bless you all. But to put the burden of tone on the moderators, especially Jessamyn, is just unfair. I prefer to see what we're all participating in now, a community effort to set some kind of standards, yet still allow for humor and stuff that is interesting to read.
posted by Lynsey at 12:07 PM on November 17, 2007

To clarify, it is okay to make fun of them because they're women? Because they're black? Because they're Jews? You and your buddies sit around telling racist and sexist jokes?

Yes, yes, yes and we don't tell *just* racist and sexist jokes. course there's the part where it's s mixture of chicks, black and whites, italians, and jews. No gays though, we really need find a gay person to add to the group, just to round it out.

Do we say these things at work or church or the general public? Of course not, but when we're together, then any particular group could be teased, ususally based on what's going on the world. So yeah, when Harding says "Trust me on this" and"You're helping {paraphrasing} the terrorists {/paraphrasing} win"and I think of the people I've actually known then the reaction certainly is "Lighten up". Do the misogynists crack such jokes? Of course, but they also eat pizza too, should we stop eating pizza? There is a fine line with this sort of behavior and jokes of course, but the blanket condemnation is really off putting.

Did you miss this : there are things that no human being deserves and only women get;

No, I just think she's making a piss poor example. Plenty of men have done detestable things and be called on it.

But your kneejerk dismissal indicates you're not really curious about it.

You are correct. Considering that most of her other points were out there, I see no reason to be curious about it.

You don't seem to agree that women are singled out in this respect
It's a fine line. I've seen it occur and have certainly done it, but I dont' think it's so much a sexist issue as that the genders see thing SO differently at times, so in order to communicate when these wires are crossed, both sides need to try to do a bit of understanding of the other. Baring that, one side (and not just women) should realize that the other isn't getting the message and adjust how they're communicating so they get their message. If you're being hysterical, calm down. If you're insisting on being coldly rational, open up your heart a bit.

You don't seem to agree that women are singled out in this respect (men not listening but dismissing what they said anyway, as crazy/hysterical/irrational, which is exactly what you're doing right now).

Either they're being crazy/hysterical/irrational or they aren't. If they're not, then make the point and prove it. If they or anyone else are being hysterical then they can certainly be told to get a grip and if they don't, they can certainly be ignored until they do get a grip.

Are women singled out in this respect? No, they aren't singled out, though I'll buy they do get it more than men, especially from men. To which I say, either you're being hysterical or you aren't. If not, make the point.

I'm also curious as why all these supposedly silent women can't speak up and call men on this BS. If it bothers them that much, why wouldn't they speak up? Isn't staying silent just what they misogynists want, and if so, why give them what they want? Either something is worth fighting for or it isn't. If it's not, don't bitch when it turns into a boyzone.

On preview;
it might be nice to have an equal gender ratio in moderating.
Yes, we need quotas, that'll fix everything, because all women are alike.

Perhaps you'll consider calibrating your standards just a bit more finely,
No, they're good for now, thank you. Perhaps others will speak up, be they male or female, when their misogyny/sexism meter goes off.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:08 PM on November 17, 2007

one_bean, I'm not so big on deletions and I think that would put an unacceptable interpretive burden on the mods. We are already beat hard on them as a group for the deletions they do make. I for one am not looking for PC police. Sometimes a joke is just a joke. I went looking for examples of "I'd hit it" and found a thread about the guy who threw a pie at Ann Coulter, but largely missed because he had bad aim. Someone followed with "I'd hit it." Well that was teh funny.

I second Lynsey, I'd rather have unacceptable behavior be called out with a swat from a fellow member or generate a metatalk thread. I'd rather our community standards be largely self-policed by us, the users, and transparent.

I don't want to convey that I think it is horrible on mefi, I mostly like it here. I don't expect a saccharine, sanitized Holly Hobbit world. But some of the threads about women's issues or women can be very horrible, and sometimes in other threads the testosterone rises to, shall we say, exuberant levels.

I must say that I have found this discussion very positive and hopeful because I feel people are listening to each other. Perhaps this is mostly what needs to be done - recommiting to calling out cruel or hurtful behavior (certainly not just to women), not rewarding or encouraging sub-standard behavior, being more sensitive to potential "isms" (and I would add age in that), and listening before leaping.
posted by madamjujujive at 12:17 PM on November 17, 2007

Neither Edgeworth nor Beever, Languagehat. Vonnegut. Hey ho.
posted by jennydiski at 12:24 PM on November 17, 2007

Fine, I'll speak up.

It's far easier to dismiss a point on the basis of some personal characteristic, such as the speaker's sex, rather than because the point is something you disagree with. As I see it, calling someone else crazy and hysterical means you're too intellectually lazy to actually take a second to listen to what the other person is saying. So if you're asking why we don't speak up more often, perhaps it's because so often the reaction is that we're "just crazy/hysterical/irrational". It's a waste of time articulating my thoughts, especially on threads where I find the post personally relevant, if they're only going to be dismissed in a way totally irrelevant to what I am actually saying.

Ann Coulter, for example, is a detestable woman. She is a woman who says detestable things. She is not saying detestable things because she is a woman, and she is not detestable for being a woman. So if you're going to attack her, it should be for being detestable ("idiotic right-wing polemicist") and not for being a woman ("skanky tranny bimbo"). Because being a woman has nothing to do with her fascist rhetoric, and if you're going to fling poo at her at least try not to splatter the rest of us with your bad aim.
posted by casarkos at 12:54 PM on November 17, 2007 [10 favorites]

Neither Edgeworth nor Beever, Languagehat. Vonnegut. Hey ho.

As any of us lesser well reads more well knew or, as in my case, guessed. Ha! Hoist by your own pedantard, languagehat.
posted by y2karl at 1:01 PM on November 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

A point, aimed at the thread in general and no-one in particular:

-Everyone is sexist. Fact. Men and women both, feminists and not, everyone. The "I'm not sexist" game is one which only engenders denial of actual sexism when it happens, and stops individuals from examining their own behavior critically to find and remove sexism. You'll never get all of it, so people need to stop claiming non-sexism. Fighting sexism isn't about that, it's about engaging with sexism in yourself and others in a critical and progressive manner.

---

On another note, I object to nearly everything amyms has said here. She seems to be a perfect example of what I was talking about when I mentioned feminists who I really can't agree with anything on beyond "hey let's treat women right". Which is, admittedly an important thing to agree on, but man. You managed, amyms, to be both essentializing and reductive about the classes of men and women, and went on to rhetorically construct 'equal' as 'on men's terms'.

EB was, however, genuinely slightly out of line in his reaction, but he gets shit for things like this way beyond what anyone else would, because of how he's perceived as trying to construct himself as above error. I don't think he'd really doing this, but people dislike him for it anyway, and it leads to him getting shot down when he hasn't done anything wrong, and shot down even harder whenever he steps out of line a little bit.
posted by Arturus at 1:05 PM on November 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

Yes, yes, yes and we don't tell *just* racist and sexist jokes. course there's the part where it's s mixture of chicks, black and whites, italians, and jews. No gays though, we really need find a gay person to add to the group, just to round it out.

I have a very raunchy, ill-mannered group of Friends as well Brandon. I've been known to sit around trading offensive quips about women, minorities, white folks, whoever.

You know what I DON'T do? I don't defend it.

I'm also curious as why all these supposedly silent women can't speak up and call men on this BS. If it bothers them that much, why wouldn't they speak up? Isn't staying silent just what they misogynists want, and if so, why give them what they want? Either something is worth fighting for or it isn't. If it's not, don't bitch when it turns into a boyzone.

because the response is usually along the lines of what you're doing here. Nitpicking one persons of words in a willfully obtuse manner, and in essence defending something that you probably don't even believe in. But you just can't help yourself. Sometimes you gotta just bite your toungue, disagree politely, and then just shut up and listen. Otherwise I don't agree with every single word of that Harding list. But I fully understand the frustration that leads one to say exactly what she's saying.

As hard as you're trying to defend whatever it is you're trying to defend, Put that much effort into really trying to understand what this world must be like for a woman. Or anyone who isn't you, who is speaking up and saying "even if you don't mean it, sometimes your words hurt"
posted by billyfleetwood at 1:05 PM on November 17, 2007 [4 favorites]

I spell it "hay hoe" to emphasise my peasant roots.
posted by Abiezer at 1:06 PM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

madamjujujive, Thanks for that. It's just what I want. I appreciate your help.
posted by Hobgoblin at 1:13 PM on November 17, 2007

"Hi ho," no?

Oh Abiezer, you're such a rake.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:18 PM on November 17, 2007

Hey ho has earlier citations than heigh ho.
posted by matthewr at 1:31 PM on November 17, 2007

languagehat - I'll take it back a bit further heigh - ho C16th Jonson + Shakespeare.
posted by adamvasco at 1:55 PM on November 17, 2007

does anyone read the posts down here?
posted by ALongDecember at 1:56 PM on November 17, 2007

You Google either, I Google either
posted by jennydiski at 2:09 PM on November 17, 2007

“Call her out point for point on the substance, but mocking ellipses? Seriously?”

Seriously. It's fucking annoying.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:12 PM on November 17, 2007

Ach, the perils of navigating from the Recent Activity page!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:20 PM on November 17, 2007

Re: Ann Coulter. The issue is not that people disparage her. Disparage away! She's a shit-heel and a blight on humanity. Nobody thinks she should get a free pass because she's a woman.

The issue is the particular kinds of things said about her.
For one thing, (it seems to me anyway) worse stuff gets said.
For another, some things are worse when they are said about someone from a group for which those things have special significance. Saying Ann Coulter "should be beaten up and raped" or that kind of thing is -- really and truly -- worse than saying the same of a male demagogue. It's worse. It's worse for the same reason that saying Al Sharpton "should be lynched and then dragged behind a car" is worse than saying the same thing about a white public figure. It's worse because -- even in jest -- it connects to a whole lineage of people saying that stuff and really meaning it; it reinforces the idea that these specific kinds of violence are especially well-suited for dealing with women or black people etc who get out of hand. At a certain point, joking about sexually attacking female public figures doesn't feel lke a joke to (many?) women who are reading. It feels like seeing a side of your friends that you are really shocked and horrified to think might, after all this time, be what's lurking beneath some of that other friendly banter about dating woes and so on. It's ugly and revolting and juvenile, and the point of all this is that the crowd here is better than that.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:26 PM on November 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

Seriously. It's fucking annoying.
Seriously. Your riposte are self defeating.

Ann Coulter, for example, is a detestable woman. She is a woman who says detestable things. She is not saying detestable things because she is a woman, and she is not detestable for being a woman. So if you're going to attack her, it should be for being detestable ("idiotic right-wing polemicist") and not for being a woman ("skanky tranny bimbo"). Because being a woman has nothing to do with her fascist rhetoric, and if you're going to fling poo at her at least try not to splatter the rest of us with your bad aim.

I find this somewhat disingenuous — she would not be notable were she not a woman.
posted by blasdelf at 2:26 PM on November 17, 2007

“Seriously. Your riposte are self defeating.”

Your base are belong to us. Also, you seem to have confused answering a question with a riposte. You'll be able to recognize my ripostes by the pink, bubbly fluid leaking from someone's lung.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:54 PM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

she would not be notable were she not a woman.
posted by blasdelf at 5:26 PM on November 17 [+] [!]

So what's notable about her is that (a) she is a loudmouth bigot etc, AND that (b) she's a woman at the same time. And, of these two features, what people choose to rip on is the latter rather than the former? See why that seems sexist or misogynist or otherwise grody?
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:03 PM on November 17, 2007

I've already said elsewhere that I regret the sexist things I've said in the past about Coulter. But I'll offer an explanation of my state of mind in what was a unique departure from my normal behavior.

First, it really does seem to me, and others, that Coulter is occupying the place on the public stage that she does by virtue of her sexuality. It's hard to pin down, but I think it is revealed when you compare her to other rightwing nutjobs who happen to be female. Michelle Malkin, for example. She's arguably attractive, too, but I just don't have the sense that she's capitalizing on it to get attention. Somehow, I feel that Coulter is. So her sex isn't incidental.

Second, I pretty much can't think of any public figure I despise more than I despise Coulter. Maybe there are some other high-profile wingnuts out there who really went as far beyond the pale in their hateful rhetoric, but I'm not aware of them. Coulter titles her books with titles that simply declare that all liberals are traitors to America. She says the most outrageous things, and gleefully. So my hatred inspires in me the strongest feelings and the desire to excoriate her with language to the greatest extent possible. Sadly, as we're in a sexist society and Coulter is female, the sharpest weapons in the rhetorical toolkit employ misogyny.

I recognize this is wrong now—I knew it then, honestly. But I was ignoring it as much as possible. Because if she got into a terribly car accident tomorrow and died, I swear I'd do a happy jig around the house for twenty minutes, and that's saying a lot given my disability. My lapse was motivated by extreme hate. Which is an especially unsympathetic and weak excuse, but there it is.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:15 PM on November 17, 2007

Because being a woman has nothing to do with her fascist rhetoric

Coulter uses her sexuality — primarily — to sell her fascist rhetoric. She deserves whatever criticism she has earned, which addresses that fact.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:20 PM on November 17, 2007

LobsterMitten: I get what you're laying down, but I disagree.

Saying someone should be raped and beaten, or lynched and dragged behind a car, is ugly, revolting, and juvenile. But I don't think it's uglier, more revolting, more juvenile, and worse when the target of the comment is female or black.

Gay guys get beaten and raped. I've known a few Coulter-esque Log Cabin (read: gay) Republicans. The ones in question were in-suffer-a-ble. I wouldn't see wishing thrashings and rapes upon them as somehow less odious than wishing them on Coulter.

Men in prison get beaten and raped. I don't think it would be less odious to wish them on... well, I was going to say Scooter Libby, but he's not in jail as far as I recall. You see what I mean, I hope.

Black people aren't the only lynchable group. This recent one popped up on the first page of Google hits. Granted, you said 'worse than saying it of a white public figure', and I'm extending it to all non-black groups.
posted by CKmtl at 3:27 PM on November 17, 2007

BP: She deserves criticism of the fact that she uses her sexuality to shape her public image and acceptance. Yes. Criticize away. But when this high-minded "criticism" takes the form of jokes about how she's asking to be raped or something, that's shitty for the reasons I stated a minute ago.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:28 PM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Any criticism of her along the lines of power and sexuality turns her sexualized rhetoric against her. She's a special case, if only because she has made herself a special case. Criticizing her is not about criticizing women — it's about criticizing her and her decisions regarding the rhetoric she uses and the power structure she worships.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:34 PM on November 17, 2007

CKmtl: just for clarity, I don't think it's worse to actually have these things happen to you if you're male, female, black, white, gay, whatever, and I don't approve of wishing these things on anybody. What I mean is that the rhetorical tone being set when people say rape stuff about women (or lynching stuff about black people or gay-bashing/Matthew Shepard stuff about gay men, or die-in-the-desert-wetback stuff about Latinos, etc) is worse, more hostile, more scary, more crossing-a-line-and-what-other-lines-might-you-cross, etc than when people say similar things about groups for which those aren't the special intimidation tactics. The effect on the community is worse.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:35 PM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

BP: Using sexualized rhetoric against anyone legitimizes sexualized rhetoric. Criticizing sexualized rhetoric, trying to defuse its power, is a different enterprise entirely.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:38 PM on November 17, 2007

You know what I DON'T do? I don't defend it.

Neither do I, as I don't think it needs defending.

As hard as you're trying to defend whatever it is you're trying to defend,

Which was that Harding's points were batshitinsane, not because she's a woman, but because they were too general and came to piss poor conclusions. The general point had merit and the larger point made in her blog of the different standards for woman had merit.

But her thoughts on how non mysgonist guys inadvertently contribute to a hostile environment to women was way off and smacked of nonsense. Mind you, I can agree that males, by culture or tradition, can unknowingly do things that perpetuate a systematic lack of respect. But telling dumb blond jokes and calling Michelle Malkin a dumb bitch isn't it.

Put that much effort into really trying to understand what this world must be like for a woman. Or anyone who isn't you,

Been there, done that and according to them, doing fine, thanks!

who is speaking up and saying "even if you don't mean it, sometimes your words hurt"

Only if they listen to the "even if you don't mean it" part.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:44 PM on November 17, 2007

Hoist by your own pedantard, languagehat.

Quite true, and I admit it cheerfully. But we shall meet again, jennydiski!
*doffs plumed hat, bows*

I regret the sexist things I've said in the past about Coulter

...who will never know of them. But you do not, apparently, regret the shitty things you said to amyms, who is here to appreciate whatever regrets you might have. Interesting.
posted by languagehat at 3:46 PM on November 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

Using sexualized rhetoric against anyone legitimizes sexualized rhetoric.

I disagree. Context is important. Coulter is a rare monster that evokes a universe of context about her.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:48 PM on November 17, 2007

I don't know about more or less offensive, but I've always considered prison rape jokes to be particularly odious, and it bums me out that so many people on my side of the political fence seem to think it's funny to wish rape on the Scooter Libbies of the world. I don't care how much of a nefarious weasel Libby is: nobody deserves to be raped. I don't see a lot of references to raping men outside of prison rape jokes, though. People may despise Bill O'Reilly, but they don't fantasize about raping him. And if some very sick individual did crack such a joke, I don't think it would be as offensive as the steady stream of sexual violence jokes about right-wing women, just because the threat of rape isn't as ever-present a fear in men's lives as in women's, unless you're talking about men in prison. When you crack that kind of joke about women, you remind all of us that rape is a punishment that could be meted out on us if some man decided we were outside the bounds of respectable femininity. It's not just a threat against Coulter: it's a reminder of the ever-present implicit threat against all of us. I just really don't get why that seems so hard for some men to understand.
posted by craichead at 3:53 PM on November 17, 2007 [9 favorites]

"So if you're going to attack her, it should be for being detestable ("idiotic right-wing polemicist") and not for being a woman ("skanky tranny bimbo"). Because being a woman has nothing to do with her fascist rhetoric, and if you're going to fling poo at her at least try not to splatter the rest of us with your bad aim."

One thing that I'll mention is that Anne Coulter's a sticky issue with that: she definitely uses her "femininity" as a method of controlling discourse, which can provoke attacks based on that. The counter-argument would be that this ultimately plays into her hands, but I'm not sure either side is more convincing.

"You'll be able to recognize my ripostes by the pink, bubbly fluid leaking from someone's lung."

I AM INTERNET TOUGH! GRRR!
posted by klangklangston at 3:55 PM on November 17, 2007

Haha. That's what I get for not refreshing the thread!
posted by klangklangston at 3:57 PM on November 17, 2007

craichead: better put. Thank you.

BP: Do you think "ugly bitch asking to get some of my hot cock" is a more effective and deflating critique of Coulter than "she offers fascist views, and hopes to use her sexualized persona to make them more appealing"?
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:00 PM on November 17, 2007

...who is speaking up and saying "even if you don't mean it, sometimes your words hurt"

Only if they listen to the "even if you don't mean it" part....

if you don't mean it, why do you say it?
posted by Lynsey at 4:01 PM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Or to put it another way:
If Coulter is implicitly saying "I'm hot, listen to me", is it more effective to say "you're not hot" or to say "your views are contemptible and your appearance is a red herring"?
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:03 PM on November 17, 2007

Any criticism of her along the lines of power and sexuality turns her sexualized rhetoric against her.

It also turns her sexualized rhetoric against all women.
posted by occhiblu at 4:04 PM on November 17, 2007 [5 favorites]

... worse, more hostile, more scary, more crossing-a-line-and-what-other-lines-might-you-cross, etc people say similar things about groups for which those aren't the special intimidation tactics. The effect on the community is worse.

... It's not just a threat against Coulter: it's a reminder of the ever-present implicit threat against all of us.

(Quoted both as they're in the same spirit, and I'm responding to that.)

Fair enough, I see what you mean.

I guess what's still sticking in my craw is the only in "things that no human being deserves and only women get" from before. It'll unstick itself sooner or later.
posted by CKmtl at 4:14 PM on November 17, 2007

CKtml: I agree that "the only women get" is overstated. Other groups are targeted for sexual violence, and it's equally as bad as when women are targeted for it. But I don't think it's out of line to say women are the targets of sexual violence plus "you should like it" plus "you're ugly and you should be sad that I think so" or "you're hot and you should be grateful that I let you know in my loudest voice" plus etc, more than other groups.
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:27 PM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

if you don't mean it, why do you say it?

Sometimes. a. joke. is. just. a. joke.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:29 PM on November 17, 2007

Then you're telling it wrong.
posted by casarkos at 4:33 PM on November 17, 2007

CKmtl, the Harding post was in direct response to the harassment of Kathy Sierra, harassment which included photoshopping a photo of her decapitated body being raped in the neck, as well as death threats.

I think that context helps explains Harding's point a bit. Women who speak on the internet tend to face harassment that's sexualized and violent above and beyond what we'd consider "normal" harassment against men online. Then many defend that harassment by saying that women who choose to speak in public "deserve whatever they get." That's what Harding is reacting to, as far as I can tell.
posted by occhiblu at 4:42 PM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Then you're telling it wrong.

Nope, some people laughed. Just not everyone.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:45 PM on November 17, 2007

Brandon Blatcher, you didn't have any problem making the judgment that four panels' comment wasn't just. a. joke. Yet you seem to be vehemently arguing against anyone making the same judgment about anything you might say.

Let me suggest (again) that you consider the possibility that other people's greater sensitivity is not necessarily over-sensitivity—even if it annoys you, even if it bores you, even if it makes you feel guilty.

Also, I don't believe you saw my first comment, addressing your original "batshitinsane" objection. Any response?
posted by dogrose at 4:51 PM on November 17, 2007

Seriously. It's fucking annoying.

So what? So is excessive puncutation in general. So is a reliance on emdashes. So is characteristic prolixity. Failure to capitalize; insufficient carriage returns; too many carriage returns; poor spelling; poor English: which of these things would you classify as most justifying prickish dismissal of comments with which you disagree?

It was a low-ball, bitchy response to someone whose argument you disliked.
posted by cortex at 4:55 PM on November 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

Careful; cortex! lest, you-taste-his-steel....
posted by yerfatma at 5:06 PM on November 17, 2007

"I think that context helps explains Harding's point a bit. Women who speak on the internet tend to face harassment that's sexualized and violent above and beyond what we'd consider "normal" harassment against men online. Then many defend that harassment by saying that women who choose to speak in public "deserve whatever they get." That's what Harding is reacting to, as far as I can tell."

Yes, though I think Seirra's an interesting case, because what I remember from her was an attempt to lump all criticism of her into a group with the criticism that was clearly out of line.

Which is what happens a lot in intra-liberal debates: claims of sexism are serious, and are a powerful rhetorical framing device, and it can be used to distract from other debate. Discussions of sexism can be prejudicial, on both sides, and often it feels to me like men have to answer charges (generally legitimate, but sometimes not) for all men prior to being allowed further in conversation. That's what I was touching on with pieties, above.

I also feel, and I know this to be the feeling of a lot of men and women, that there are some of the dumbest and craziest idiots who have internet access. I understand that because of a larger context of sexualized violence what doesn't feel intimidating to a man can feel intimidating to a woman, but I can also understand the desire to simply dismiss the dumbest and most egregious stuff, especially as in the case of Sierra, where it wasn't all coming from the same site.
posted by klangklangston at 5:21 PM on November 17, 2007

but I can also understand the desire to simply dismiss the dumbest and most egregious stuff, especially as in the case of Sierra, where it wasn't all coming from the same site.

OK, but then there are also cultural imperatives in place on women to Pay attention! At all times! You must preemptively identify those who want to harm you, if you don't, you're negligent, and deserve to be hurt!

And to me, the fact that it's *not* all coming from the same site, that there are multiple places where this sort of thing is encouraged, just points out how much of a problem it is on the internet in general.
posted by occhiblu at 5:29 PM on November 17, 2007

LobsterMitten: But I don't think it's out of line to say women are the targets of sexual violence plus "you should like it" plus "you're ugly and you should be sad that I think so" or "you're hot and you should be grateful that I let you know in my loudest voice" plus etc, more than other groups.

Not as a refutation or anything like that... but I've heard similar things (not necessarily directed at me personally, mind you) from a specific sub-genre of gay teens and twinky 20-somethings. The arrogant, self-centred, more often than not pretty and very aware of it, bitchy type.

But, yeah, 'more than' works fine with me.

occhiblu: I think that context helps explains Harding's point a bit.

Ah, yeah. That helps a bit. Especially since, as it showed up here, her list just looked like a general "to-do" list. (Also: ew.)

The "only" still strikes me as overboard though. I mean, I can easily imagine something similar happening to, say, Dan Savage if he happened to say something that pissed off the wrong people.

As above, I've no problem with 'more than'.
posted by CKmtl at 5:38 PM on November 17, 2007

you didn't have any problem making the judgment that four panels' comment wasn't just. a. joke. Yet you seem to be vehemently arguing against anyone making the same judgment about anything you might say.

Four panels comment was, IMO, taking things too far in a sensitive situation in a public place, whereas the personal instances I was talking about where specifically not done in public place and done among who known each other well enough to make jokes about whatever, knowing it's not real. In short, it's a fine line.

I didn't say anything the first time I saw FP's comment, but I distinctly remember wincing on the inside and thinking "dude, that's too far". So the earlier request to just say something in those instances seems perfectly reasonable, so I said something where I thought the comments were going too far, even if it was a bit late.

Yeah, it's totally possible to take these things too far, especially in a public place and then hide behind the "oh it's a joke" line and of course it's wrong to do. Harding's statement about such joking and comments being wrong all the time is just bullshit, IMO.

sidenote: Safari 3's ability to re-size any textarea, like the ultra small ones on Metafilter, has made using any other browser to make long comments pure torture.

Also, I don't believe you saw my first comment, addressing your original "batshitinsane" objection.

We've had different experiences it seems. I can't remember off-hand when I've seen a woman being called on playing the victim card descend into discussions about "they're all like that." Seriously. You say Harding was talking about such a response when she made the statement, but I'm not seeing it, whereas you are. For what's it worth, I'd prefer your version, of Hardings reasoning, though it doesn't jib with my experiences.

This is about the sixth time I've reread Harding's points (so I may be obtuse, but it's not willfully so) and I still think they're batshitinsane for their generalities and seeming paranoia about the misogynists who could be anywhere, so you gotta be careful what you say.

On preview:
Hardings comments make a bit more sense in light of the Sierra situation she was responding to, but they still come off as pretty nutty. Again, not because she's a woman, but because of the gross generalities. There's still a heavy odor of "All of you guys are to blame for this!" as opposed to the seriously fucked up people
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:51 PM on November 17, 2007

"OK, but then there are also cultural imperatives in place on women to Pay attention! At all times! You must preemptively identify those who want to harm you, if you don't, you're negligent, and deserve to be hurt!"

Yes, which is terrible and is often confused with "If you are not paying attention, you increase your risk factors for being a victim of violence." And even further, I understand that even well-meaning attempts to raise awareness about violence toward women both engender women to feel less safe (through a constant focus on their safety), and can raise knee-jerk false equivalencies with the immediate "No excuse for hitting a woman? There is an excuse for hitting a man?" responses.

"And to me, the fact that it's *not* all coming from the same site, that there are multiple places where this sort of thing is encouraged, just points out how much of a problem it is on the internet in general."

An anecdotal response: One of my responsibilities is screening the mail for Barely Legal and Taboo. I see a whole spectrum of crazy and misogynistic and sexist that most other people don't, and there's a lot of overlap. I remember a conversation comparing racism to mental illness, and I feel similarly about the most egregious forms of sexism—it goes beyond ignorance to delusion.

There is no response to any of these letters; we don't even acknowledge that we get them.

I feel that people posting pictures of stump-fucking Sierra are deranged, and there's no real way to have a conversation with them on any real level.

And yes, it would be best if there was more credence given to the legitimate threat that women can face, but I also believe that these lunatics have the right to post these pictures.

So that's why I can understand the "There are a lot of assholes on the internet. Whatareyagonnado?" response, which I think is both dismissive and realistic at the same time.
posted by klangklangston at 5:58 PM on November 17, 2007

CKmtl, I totally believe that gay men are also targeted, but.... that's kind of the point. Oppressed groups face more oppression than other groups. I think there are huge overlaps between women's issues and gay issues, not only because (obviously) there are gay women but also because that kind of "Real men are like this, and real women should behave like this" comes down hard on the GLBTQ population as well. I think it's all part and parcel of the same thing.
posted by occhiblu at 6:01 PM on November 17, 2007

It also turns her sexualized rhetoric against all women.

Think very, very, very carefully about what you are giving her a free pass for. Think about it very, very, very carefully.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:02 PM on November 17, 2007

I'm not giving her a free pass for anything. Insulting non-feminist women in misogynist ways, however, does nothing for the cause of supporting women in general, regardless of their views. I don't want to live in a world in which women are silenced simply for having the audacity to be women, so I believe it's important to speak up any time that happens, regardless of what that particular woman is saying.
posted by occhiblu at 6:10 PM on November 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

Coulter's not necessarily getting a free pass if people don't call her a tranny scank.
posted by klangklangston at 6:11 PM on November 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

...a unique departure from my normal behavior.

Hardly. For instance, there was this bon mot you deployed when Paris Hilton went to the pokey. I have never forgotten it. It is thoroughly brutal. And that it came from you, with your stated commitment to gender equality -- well, that just made it all the more awful.

Here is what you need to understand. It does not matter, one iota, whether you think a woman is exceptional, whether you think she deserves the most violent and derogatory put-down you can dream up. In all likelihood, Paris Hilton will never read your comments. But I will, and it will stay with me that you have these words in your repertoire ready to deploy if you think some woman deserves it. That, if I am a woman and in public and someone decides I am disgusting and odious enough, he may feel free -- even feel righteous and justified -- to wish specifically sexual violence on me.

As a woman in public -- and the internet counts as public space, too -- there is always that awareness that there are those men who have a stock of such images and tactics at the ready. When someone does this who I think of an otherwise decent guy, who has even demonstrated a deep nuanced commitment to thinking about gender issues in general, it is a feeling like a cold pit in my stomach.

I can be plenty tough myself, Ethereal Bligh. But I didn't respond to that remark when you made it because I just don't always have the energy to do so. These things are a hurt, and they make me so damned tired. Tired of explaining myself, tired of being dismissed out of hand, tired of other women outright denying there's a problem at all or worse, saying boys will be boys, things will never change, just meet fire with fire. More tired than you could possibly ever be about the subject, frankly.

All of which suggests that despite your advanced knowledge of the subject, there may still be a thing or two for you to learn. So please: stop trying to cut everyone with the fine blade of your intellect and listen for a change. Don't dream that you're defending me or any other woman by treating another person here as you did amyms. You are taking pleasure from cruelty, and it isn't helping a soul. Not even yours.
posted by melissa may at 6:17 PM on November 17, 2007 [65 favorites]

BP: why "giving a free pass"? She should, obviously, be criticized for using her sexuality as a way of making her revolting views more palatable. I don't get why you think that criticism needs to take the form of misogyny to be effective.
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:26 PM on November 17, 2007

occhiblu: I wasn't trying to put Harding's "only" in your mouth, I hope you didn't take it that way.

It just seemed, at first, like she was claiming the winning stroke in some sort of hardship pissing contest. That's what got under my skin. I suppose she didn't mean it that way, given the context of you cited. Maybe it was the heat of the moment that made her write 'only', or she was only thinking in terms of men and women. Or a combination of the two, *shrug*.

Anyway, we're pretty much on the same page with this. So, round of Cosmos on me.
posted by CKmtl at 6:31 PM on November 17, 2007

it will stay with me that you have these words in your repertoire ready to deploy if you think some woman deserves it.

Yes.

This reminds me of the point made waaay upthread about, in some discussions, feeling as if one has to establish one's toughness credentials. Men are subject to that feeling too, and I often get the sense that some of this stuff is a toughness performance, so that people will take someone seriously as an Important or Worthwhile Metafilter Voice (rather than as just a wimpy girl sympathizer). If more and more people just refrained from this garbage here, it would take pressure to talk this way off men as well.
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:35 PM on November 17, 2007

If they had summarily executed the skanky bitch by fellatory asphyxiation, that would have been newsworthy enough (just barely) to justify a NewsFilter post.

Well, if it had been a single YouTube link post.

That was pretty shitty comment EB.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:13 PM on November 17, 2007

...a unique departure from my normal behavior.

Hardly. For instance, there was this bon mot you deployed when Paris Hilton went to the pokey. I have never forgotten it. It is thoroughly brutal. And that it came from you, with your stated commitment to gender equality -- well, that just made it all the more awful.

Oh, man, I had forgotten it. But upon re-reading I do remember reading it back then and having the same reaction. I was appalled.

As for the rest of your comment, well spoken, Melissa May, well spoken.
posted by y2karl at 7:20 PM on November 17, 2007

I have known honorable men who did not openly tolerate sexism (which is all Kate Harding is talking about). It wasn't too hard, it wasn't impossible, it's not insane to expect it.

Laughing, non-serious sexist comments? Because apparently the nutjobs in our midst can't tell the difference (and I'm not sure they can; I just disagree that I'm responsible for them). If whimsical sexism is to be shot down at every opportunity, I expect to see that among women, too. And the list doesn't say anything about mixed company; this is not about offending those present. So you might want to make sure you're keeping your girlfriends in line on one of those girls-nights-out. Let's be appropriate at all times, in all company. Why is this starting to remind me of the Antioch College policy?

Men are subject to that feeling too, and I often get the sense that some of this stuff is a toughness performance, so that people will take someone seriously as an Important or Worthwhile Metafilter Voice (rather than as just a wimpy girl sympathizer)

Well there's certainly the opposite of that, too. Establishing sympathetic credentials. But apparently to call that into question is to brand yourself as a caveman projecting his own fears of something or other onto those more enlightened amongst us. couldn't just be scoring points, and that people can always see through the B.S. of their own gender more easily than the other.

Good points about targets of public abuse, though. If you want to see a person's biases, give them reasonable reasons to hate a person who is also a member of X group, and see what epithets they resort to.
posted by dreamsign at 7:22 PM on November 17, 2007

Oh, and for the record, I was supporting amyms' strategy of direct confrontation, not the view that biases and overreactions are somehow a fixture of gender.
posted by dreamsign at 7:29 PM on November 17, 2007

Brandon Blatcher:

We've had different experiences it seems. I can't remember off-hand when I've seen a woman being called on playing the victim card descend into discussions about "they're all like that." Seriously. You say Harding was talking about such a response when she made the statement, but I'm not seeing it, whereas you are. For what's it worth, I'd prefer your version, of Hardings reasoning, though it doesn't jib with my experiences.

Sorry; I didn’t make myself clear. I was thinking more along the lines of what abiezer describes—an alpha group talking about the behavior of another group.

I’m a woman, so I’m generally not privy to men’s discussions of women. However, I’m also white, so I’ve found myself in way too many conversations which* suddenly jump the rails into “those people” territory, with my interlocutor assuming that amongst our pallid selves, we can ditch the PC pretense and speak power to truth. There’s always at least one Outrageous Anecdote recounted to prove that “those people” are lazy, stealing our jobs, whatever. Most often, the Outrageous Anecdote is some Fox News froth of distortion and indigestion—but occasionally, it’s a tale of truly and authentically fucked-up behavior.

That’s the situation I was talking about earlier. That’s when you acknowledge the fucked-upness but reject the notion that this particular incident justifies contempt for anyone but that particular person. (The rest of the time, you point out the distortions. Or you say, “Sorry, I gotta take this call” or “Hey, I think the game’s on, Uncle Bill!”)

No one wants you to drag-ass around in sackcloth and ashes. No one is blaming you, personally, for the evils of the world. But the fact is, you are privileged. (As am I, as are all MeFites.) Recognize your privileges. Try not to abuse them.

Also, it's not "jib" (a kind of sail) but "jibe." Though you do get points for not using "jive."

*Which? That? I can never keep it straight.
posted by dogrose at 7:30 PM on November 17, 2007 [2 favorites]

*Which? That? I can never keep it straight.

Use whatever feels good, favoring clarity. You could argue that "which" is less good than "that" there because it introduces an ambiguity—are you saying that you've been part of too many (discussions which suddenly jump), or that you've been part of too many discussions (which are things which suddenly jump...)?—but in general, if it's clear from context, do as thou wilt and the Strunkers can go hang.
posted by cortex at 10:18 PM on November 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

dreamsign: Well there's certainly the opposite of that, too. Establishing sympathetic credentials. But apparently to call that into question is to brand yourself as a caveman projecting his own fears of something or other onto those more enlightened amongst us. couldn't just be scoring points, and that people can always see through the B.S. of their own gender more easily than the other.

I was trying for a charitable reading of people's underlying beliefs - a reading on which people who make occasional misogynist remarks are just performing, not really misogynist. (By extension of my own experience in making comments to be seen as "tough".)

But of course I could opt to see, in what seem to be reasonable comments by men, secret misogyny papered over by a desire to fit in. I prefer to see them as being reasonable. Plus, frankly, I would rather have the social pressure directed toward civility rather than incivility. If people are only being civil in order to curry favor or score points, well, hey, that's great.

Also, I'm bothered by the accusation, in a lot of the comments about the Kate Harding thing that women (or the particular women in this discussion?) must make misandrist jokes when they are around only women. I don't do this. Ever. In any circumstances. And when I can get away with it (eg when it's not my boss) I always call out people who do, because it's lame-ass. My friends are always cool about this and it's never a big confrontational humorless issue. I find it weird that some here are so bothered by what seems a simple exhortation not to go along with that stuff when it's about women.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:25 PM on November 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

Awesome job, MelissaMay.

*Cheers and applause*
posted by The Deej at 10:27 PM on November 17, 2007

I don't get why you think that criticism needs to take the form of misogyny to be effective.

While I would not personally call her a "tranny skank" I think it is very badly wrong to artificially limit one's choice of words to describe her and her actions just because of her supposed genitalia. It is not misogynistic to use her rhetorical techniques and language against her.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:35 PM on November 17, 2007

“...who will never know of them. But you do not, apparently, regret the shitty things you said to amyms, who is here to appreciate whatever regrets you might have. Interesting.”

The two are not the least alike. You and peacay seem to think that any two situations where a woman is insulted are necessarily equivalent and sexist because gender is the deciding factor. It is not. I don't regret insulting amyms. What she wrote was juvenile, counter-productive and, worst of all, used ellipses in place of periods. Which I hate.

“So what? So is excessive puncutation in general. So is a reliance on emdashes. So is characteristic prolixity. Failure to capitalize; insufficient carriage returns; too many carriage returns; poor spelling; poor English: which of these things would you classify as most justifying prickish dismissal of comments with which you disagree?”

Well, none of those obviously bother me, so I wouldn't classify any of them that way. But if they bother someone else as much as misuse of ellipses bother me, thy can prickishly dismiss my comment. And, you know, they have. Often.

“It was a low-ball, bitchy response to someone whose argument you disliked.”

Yeah, it was bitchy. The combination of the inanity and wrongheaded nature of her comment with the grating something-ellipses-something-ellipses style rubbed me greatly the wrong way. My response was bitchy and insulting. Stop the presses! Someone was bitchy and insulting on MetaFilter.

“Careful; cortex! lest, you-taste-his-steel....”

and

“I AM INTERNET TOUGH! GRRR!”

Guys, my riposte comment was a metaphor.

“Hardly. For instance, there was this bon mot you deployed when Paris Hilton went to the pokey. I have never forgotten it. It is thoroughly brutal. And that it came from you, with your stated commitment to gender equality -- well, that just made it all the more awful.”

Yes, that was a deplorable comment that I utterly don't remember. It was wrong and I apologize for it without reservation. Re-reading it, I can only guess that my extreme irritation at NewsFilter was somehow misplaced onto its topic, Hilton. I don't actually have particular animosity against her, my comment doesn't resonate at all with me when I read it now.

“That, if I am a woman and in public and someone decides I am disgusting and odious enough, he may feel free -- even feel righteous and justified -- to wish specifically sexual violence on me.”

Yes, I quite vividly see that and I deeply regret it. It is, I think, the general and correct argument against the Coulter sexist vitriol, regardless of whether or not she is using her supposed sex appeal as part of shtick.

“All of which suggests that despite your advanced knowledge of the subject, there may still be a thing or two for you to learn. So please: stop trying to cut everyone with the fine blade of your intellect and listen for a change.”

Of course there's things left for me to learn.

And the nice thing about a forum like this one, is that my words don't in any way crowd out anyone else's. I have, in fact, paid close attention to what has been written in these two threads, particularly that by women.

On the other hand, do I have anything to learn from Brandon Blatcher? Should I listen to him? Should I consider, as languagehat encourages me to do, that I might be wrong? Nope. There's a lot I can still learn at the margins of the sexism/feminism discussion, lots of details. The essentials of the dynamics and the status of women in today's world, I understand well and it's not a topic open for discussion with me. That rubs some people the wrong way. I don't care.

When I was younger, everything was still on the table. In the case of a number of “big” matters, they were on the table and actively researched and question for fifteen and twenty and twenty-five years or more. Then they were taken off the table. In all cases, I stopped hearing or reading anything of great substance that was new.

“Don't dream that you're defending me or any other woman by treating another person here as you did amyms. You are taking pleasure from cruelty, and it isn't helping a soul. Not even yours.”

First of all, I'm never defending any woman by anything I say on the topic of sexism and feminism. I'm not here to defend women, in particular or in aggregate. My role is to attack sexism and that's what my comments do. They also will attack people who make sexist comments.

And sometimes I'm just an asshole because someone has pissed me off. Again, unless and until the standards for behavior greatly improve here at MetaFilter, I will acknowledge the wrongness of such nastiness and rue it in my behavior, on its own nature in the context of who I am. I won't accept an accusation of egregiousness in the context of this environment, where such comments are as common as some other very common thing.

“Oh, man, I had forgotten it. But upon re-reading I do remember reading it back then and having the same reaction. I was appalled.”

Ah, someone takes me to task in a carefully worded, articulate, sensitive and persuasive comment and this just makes your day, doesn't it, y2karl? So you show up to the thread where you otherwise (mostly) haven't participated and add your two-cents, as you always do. What a surprise.

I keep hoping that we'll stop hearing from you because you've been involuntarily committed because of your evident psychological impairments, but it keeps not happening. Someday, maybe, someone will find that corner in your bedroom where on the wall you've listed those who have offended you and realize that you need professional help and you'll fade from MeFi's collective memory.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:39 PM on November 17, 2007

“Hardly. For instance, there was this bon mot you deployed...”

I just realized that you wrote hardly. Which, given that I wrote unique, is accurate and I won't contest it in that context.

If, on the other hand, and as evidenced by your “for instance”, you intended to make the claim that my normal behavior is hardly non-sexist, then I challenge you to find any other example besides things I've said about Coulter.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:47 PM on November 17, 2007

Yeah, ok, whatever.

You know, if you'd said something like 'sorry about that amyms, but I've got some ideas I'd like to share to perhaps make this a better place' then maybe I'd pay closer attention.

But I'm done really taking too much notice of your opinion this weekend EB. High and mighty words, low and mealy reality. I'm not dismissing you outright and will no doubt enjoy reading your writing on some theme or other down the track, but right now I'm just not feeling it. You can't just take such a high ground and throw grenades around and damn considering their consequences. Your sheen fades and your words lose their power when you continue with such unblinking righteousness.
posted by peacay at 10:57 PM on November 17, 2007 [3 favorites]

Ethereal Bligh: Ah, someone takes me to task in a carefully worded, articulate, sensitive and persuasive comment and this just makes your day, doesn't it, y2karl?

As articulate and resonant as I found melissa may's comment in this thread to be, it isn't necessary to persuade people that your comment in the Paris Hilton thread - in which you express nonchalance at the idea of "the skanky bitch" being strangled by a penis - is viscerally repulsive. Meanwhile, amyms voices her opinion, and you respond by attacking her use of...ellipses? And then you direct this gem towards y2karl:

I keep hoping that we'll stop hearing from you because you've been involuntarily committed because of your evident psychological impairments...

I wouldn't even bother to point this out if I hadn't noticed the, well, memo you posted in the other thread, in which you position yourself as the ideal person to help foster civil discourse on MeFi. Color me unconvinced.
posted by lalex at 11:11 PM on November 17, 2007

I was thinking more along the lines of what abiezer describes
Just a note, you forgot to link to a particular comment.

No one is blaming you, personally, for the evils of the world.
Clearly you've never told a teenager they have to to clean up their room.

Indeed since Harding implies she's speaking just to white males, she isn't talking to me at all. But it seems to me that her broad generalities are likely to push away those who most need to hear her points. That was the point of my sharing personal observations, not so much to take it personally

But the fact is, you are privileged. (As am I, as are all MeFites.) Recognize your privileges. Try not to abuse them.
Um, ok, though I'd actually argue it's fairly impossible for a privileged person not to abuse'em, at least in smaller, unthinking ways.

Also, it's not "jib" (a kind of sail) but "jibe." Though you do get points for not using "jive.

Damn those pesky e's!

do I have anything to learn from Brandon Blatcher?

I make an excellent low fat chicken salad.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:50 PM on November 17, 2007

“in which you position yourself as the ideal person to help foster civil discourse on MeFi. Color me unconvinced.”

I did no such thing. Please quote the part where I talked about a specific person fostering, in some authoritative role, civil discourse on MeFi. I suggested nothing of the kind, not for me or for anyone else.

What I did do was describe an environment where extremely productive civil discourse was the everyday experience. I then argued that such an environment was extraordinary and nothing even remotely like it could be expected to be accomplished in an online environment such as MetaFilter.

I argued that bad behavior is inevitable, there is no possibility of eradicating it. I mentioned that in such an environment, I, like others, am unable to also restrain myself from bad behavior.

So there is no way in which that comment argued for what you claim it argued for. You are greatly misrepresenting it.

I did make a couple of suggestions, which anyone could have made, and which I think would be implementable and extremely constructive.

As for my comment about Hilton, I agree with you completely, without reservation. It was an execrable comment and sexist. There is no excuse for it and I offer none.

On the other hand, y2karl is a passive/aggressive personality who nurtures grudges and keeps them over a period of years. He is disturbed, and this is evident if you correspond with him, which I don't recommend.

Like everyone else, I have good moods and bad moods. I'm well aware that taking the high road is morally superior to taking the low road. I'm also well aware that if one wants to persuade other people, it has practical utility in boosting one's credibility.

But I'm lately not in a good mood, I'm in a bad mood, I don't have much motivation to take the high road, and I haven't been taking the high road in this argument about sexism. I've been aggressive and abusive. I hate sexism and I've argued against sexist behavior. Doing so does not indicate that one is positioning oneself as a moral exemplar. It's puzzling that anyone would think this is the case. It's actually rather sad that we might only expect the most morally advanced people to speak out against things like racism and sexism. At the moment, I don't feel particularly morally advanced and I haven't presented myself as such. I have presented myself as a non-sexist, which I think is true, my Paris Hilton comment notwithstanding.

Anyway, I am already bored with defending myself on this matter. Anyone waiting for some sort of apology to amyms or anyone else should cease. It's not going to happen.

You can take or leave my comments in these two threads, as you wish.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:04 AM on November 18, 2007

occhiblu, thank you for that superb comment. Really, thank you.
posted by nickyskye at 12:06 AM on November 18, 2007

It is not misogynistic to use her rhetorical techniques and language against her.

So she's doing something vile and abhorrent, which means we get to, too? I really reject that line of thought. If she's horrible specifically because of the rhetoric she uses, then why on earth would I be a better person if I also adopted it?
posted by occhiblu at 12:07 AM on November 18, 2007

"Use whatever feels good, favoring clarity. You could argue that "which" is less good than "that" there because it introduces an ambiguity—are you saying that you've been part of too many (discussions which suddenly jump), or that you've been part of too many discussions (which are things which suddenly jump...)?—but in general, if it's clear from context, do as thou wilt and the Strunkers can go hang."

Generally, the AP rule is that subordinate clauses take a "which" and a comma. Otherwise, "that."
posted by klangklangston at 12:13 AM on November 18, 2007

"What she wrote was juvenile, counter-productive and, worst of all, used ellipses in place of periods. Which I hate."

Also, she posted to a meter that fit a Menudo tune. Which I hate. That justifies anything I do.

"Yeah, it was bitchy. The combination of the inanity and wrongheaded nature of her comment with the grating something-ellipses-something-ellipses style rubbed me greatly the wrong way. My response was bitchy and insulting. Stop the presses! Someone was bitchy and insulting on MetaFilter."

Have you met my friend tu quoque?

"Guys, my riposte comment was a metaphor."

It doesn't matter why you said it, it only matters how people perceived it. Isn't that the limning of sexism?

"It was wrong and I apologize for it without reservation."

When I was reading Bill Ayer's book Fugitive Days, one of the things he talked about in his descent into radical madness was that his "cell" held self-criticisms in which the members of the group would be brought forward and accused of things like trying to destroy the movement by eating more brown rice than the other roommates, and the only correct response to any accusation was to apologize immediately.

"First of all, I'm never defending any woman by anything I say on the topic of sexism and feminism. I'm not here to defend women, in particular or in aggregate. My role is to attack sexism and that's what my comments do. They also will attack people who make sexist comments."

Feminism has enough Trotskys.

"I hate sexism and I've argued against sexist behavior. Doing so does not indicate that one is positioning oneself as a moral exemplar."

YES IT FUCKING DOES ARE YOU FUCKING DEAF?

You either argue that you have some moral claim, some way of ordering values, that makes being a total fucking cock about sexism justifiable or that you don't. To men, to women, to anyone you disagree with on what is obviously a subjective call, being an admitted asshole?

Force, rhetorical or physical, is justified by what? If you're not a "moral exemplar," there's no reason inherent in your opinion. It's an aesthetic decision, just like … … … … … … … … … …ellipses.

Being an asshole to someone over aesthetics is only justifiable if they listen to the wrong music.
posted by klangklangston at 12:56 AM on November 18, 2007 [5 favorites]

And so it goes.
posted by waraw at 1:08 AM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Ah, someone takes me to task in a carefully worded, articulate, sensitive and persuasive comment and this just makes your day, doesn't it, y2karl?

As you gleefully hop in any time I am being piled on with your long distance drive by demeaning psychoanalysis. We don't like each other.

I don't like you and it's no secret I think you are a moralizing hypocrite but that comment she referenced I had forgotten. I was surprised at the time when I read it that you of all people had written it.

On the other hand, y2karl is a passive/aggressive personality who nurtures grudges and keeps them over a period of years. He is disturbed, and this is evident if you correspond with him, which I don't recommend.

You reference a handful of emails with I exchanged with you around the time my older brother was dying. Most were short and cordial. I recall I got upset in MetaTalk because you were all sympathetic to me in an email you wrote one evening and then brought me by name in a thread the very next day. as an example of what was wrong with MetaFiilter. I thought that you had the weirdest sense of timing. Were our situations reversed, you would have been the last person I woud choose to pick on in a MetaTalk post, given the circumstances.

You have referenced that period a number of times since in oblique comments about this time I went into a funk and wasn't around here for awhile and then have mocked me about maybe how I might go into in a funk again. Jesus Christ, my brother was dying and I was not my best self here or anywhere at the time and you have brought up my upset and thrown it in my face over and over here over the years. Who is being passive-agressive ? No one should ever reveal any personal information to you if they are wise. You will twist it and lie and use it to smear them should they ever cross you. In my experience, you are a gossip, a backstabber, a character assassin and a liar.

I do recall the last email I wrote to you was short as well but ended with a comment that, after reading, in that despicable thing to which sent me a link about you that was up at IEATTAPES, about how you had torn into someone at #mefi with personal information she had previously revealed to you, that I thought that was a creepy thing for the IEATAPES crowd to write that thing but the part that referenced you publically attacking someone using personal information she had disclosed to you rang true. No one should ever trust you.

You are taking pleasure from cruelty, and it isn't helping a soul. Not even yours.

You can explain your insults in detail, defend them point by point until the cows come home but apologize ? Never. You can not apologize to anyone you have ever insulted because you are so proud of your ability to trash people. That is some talent in which to take pride.
posted by y2karl at 4:40 AM on November 18, 2007 [3 favorites]

Wow. You guys do realize that we've spent untold pixels discussing Paris Hilton & Ann Coulter. And attention, any attention, is what these two wastes of protoplasm live for. I'm just saying.

There was a thread at mecha about Paris Hilton wanting to save the drunken elephants (I don't know) and I said that I hoped an elephant would be found with bleached blonde hair and rhinoplasty wedged between it's toes. I still stand by that.
posted by jonmc at 5:57 AM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Should I consider, as languagehat encourages me to do, that I might be wrong? Nope. [...] it's not a topic open for discussion with me. That rubs some people the wrong way. I don't care.

Wow...

And sometimes I'm just an asshole because someone has pissed me off.

Uh... yeah. This whole thing really saddens me, because... well, I've been trying (increasingly against the evidence) to maintain my image of you as a basically nice, thoughtful person who occasionally has a bad day, like many of us. But it's becoming apparent to me that you've turned into just another internet SHITCOCK1!1!! with a better vocabulary. (I'm also becoming glad I didn't go to St. John's...)

You're willing to abase yourself in humble apology regarding Ann Coulter and Paris Hilton, neither of whom will know or care, but you're unrepentent about your assholish behavior towards people actually involved in the discussion. Yeah, fuck amyms, she can rot in hell before you'll apologize to her. And that y2karl, fuck him too, he's CRAAAYZY! (Which, if true, would be a good reason not to attack him...)

You know what? I've never had the pleasure of meeting y2karl, but I've corresponded with him frequently, and he's a genuinely nice guy. Yeah, he gets cranky, but he's had a hell of a hard time lately, so I cut him slack even when I get annoyed with him, as I sometimes do. I can just hear you now: "You think he's had a hard time? I've had a hard time! I'm a cripple! I can't get out and meet people! (etc ad lib)." Well, if hard times haven't taught you empathy, you haven't made good use of your time on earth, and your precious St. John's doesn't seem to have given you the tools to do so.

So carry on, soldier, in your righteous certainty, undeterred by the slings and arrows of pathetic mortals who don't have your wide vocabulary and superb debating skills. But I know one thing... I'm going to be using a lot of ellipses when addressing you...
posted by languagehat at 6:07 AM on November 18, 2007 [5 favorites]

And so it goes.

Seriously? Is that what we're talking about here? Dude can't even refer to the beauty of boobies in the abstract?
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 6:12 AM on November 18, 2007

A couple of tangents:

I definitely see everybody's point that using sexual violence threats as stock insults is bad, but it can create some odd moments. For instance 'I hope Paris Hilton gets strangeled by a penis' is bad, but 'I hope Paris Hilton gets stomped to death by a drunk elephant,' is perfectly fine (NTM, if we were saying the same things about Rush Limbaugh, say, we wouldn't even be having the conversation.) I'm not saying it's wrong just a little strange. And it can kind of give one the urge to throw ones hands in the air and say 'fuck it, let's go bowling.'

And to restate something I said in the other thread, differences in argument style play a huge part in a lot of misunderstandings here. Those of us who learned how to argue in kitchen table shouting matches and playground fights are going to clash with those who learned in Philosophy graduate programs (I'm not picking on the Philosophers, really) even when they have substantially the same opinions.
posted by jonmc at 6:21 AM on November 18, 2007

So she's doing something vile and abhorrent, which means we get to, too?

If adopting her language against her is needed to highlight what a monster she is, when nothing else seems to work, then that sort of thing may need to be said. All I'm saying is that standards of hateful language do not apply to her.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:50 AM on November 18, 2007

Y'know what? In one fell swoop, this comment made my infamous flashing post totally and completely worthwhile.

I'm glad I didn't get too involved in these threads, for I do have strong feelings about the subject but that was said better than I ever could've done myself.

Thanks occhiblu. And thanks nickyskye for calling my attention to it.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:15 AM on November 18, 2007

Minor point of pedantry:

I hope Paris Hilton gets strangled by a penis

"fellatory asphyxiation" would be choking on a penis. OTOH, the image of a prehensile cock wrapping around and squeezing someone's neck is mildly amusing in an absurd, "WTF?" way.
posted by CKmtl at 8:21 AM on November 18, 2007

jonmc, being strangled by a penis conjures up images of a brutal, violent sexual assault, ugly and nasty when applied to either sex. You say we wouldn't be having the discussion if it had been said about Rush Limbaugh - well violent sexual assault threats are not as frequently made about men, and when they are, are no less OK. But let's face it, the ratio of women to man violent sexual assault is definitley skewed to women. The likelihood of sexual assault is far greater for women than for men. And even falling far short of violent assault, most men have probably rarely (if ever) been in a situation of having to fight, fend off, or deflect unwelcome and sometimes scary sexual advances or sexual bullying. This is not particularly uncommon for women.

Much like what Melissa May expressed so well, I have sometimes felt sucker-punched by an unexpected violent or strongly misogymistic comment from a well-regarded guy on mefi. Whether made in joking or in anger, such comments make me wonder about the person's trustworthiness ... was it just a random over-the-line comment or was it a peeling back of the mask to reveal some ugly truth about the person? So guys, note that if you say such things, your future credibility (an do-ability, heh) with mefi women is likely diminished.

But - the comment linked above, and so it goes, eh, that doesn't bother me, that was word play. YMMV, but I don't think most women are looking for a removal of any sexual bantering or humor. Context and tone matter. I didn't mind the first bucket o cocks joke, but when it gets to be a few tons of cock buckets, well it's just junior high boy stuff. If the truth be known, jonmc, your comment about "Wow. You guys do realize that we've spent untold pixels discussing Paris Hilton & Ann Coulter" is the type of comment that bugs me more because if you think the conversation was about Coulter or Hilton, you weren't paying attention. Not a big deal here, but I use it as an example because such dismissive and reductive comments - even in jest - often occur in threads about women-oriented issues.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:00 AM on November 18, 2007 [6 favorites]

jonmc, I suspect the reason that you don't see the difference is because both of them seem like very strange, weird ways to die to you, and you had never given them much thought before you read the comments.

The reason that hearing the first is abhorrent to me, but not the second, is because I spend a depressing amount of time considering that I might actually die the first way, and considering what I need to do to prevent that from occurring (don't walk alone at night, don't go to a party without a buddy system, never accept an invitation to study at a fellow grad student's apartment if he's a male and we'd be alone, ad nauseum). I mean, "woman raped and killed" is so banal it doesn't even make the A section here anymore.

*That's* the reason saying the first one is different from the second for lot of women. Most of us are acutely aware, all the time, that there are men out there that not only would like us to die choking on a cock, but get off on the idea that we'd die choking on theirs. I spend enough minutes in my week having to remember that, and plan for how to act so that the chance of that happening is reduced, so it'd be nice if people in Metafilter didn't feel the need to remind me about the ever-present threat of violence. I get it. I know. Enough already.
posted by iminurmefi at 10:07 AM on November 18, 2007 [11 favorites]

I've been reading both of these metatalk threads and mostly favoriting rather than commenting, largely because others are saying what I would say very well. Also, this has been a very fast moving thread.

Brandon Blatcher - from your posts it seems clear that you are committed to your position. Your implication that if only women would be sweeter and infinitely more careful when communicating their thoughts and opinions to you, you would listen with an open mind comes across as disingenuous. It is also yet another common non response, non engagement, shutting down tactic of feminist discourse. If you had genuine interest in engaging, you would steel your emotions and read both these threads and the enormous wealth of feminist materials on the web in a very different way. If you want to learn, occasionally the burden may be on you. If not, well it seems like many of us have benefitted from this conversation, which is good.
posted by Salamandrous at 10:25 AM on November 18, 2007 [5 favorites]

madaejujujive, imanurmefi: actually, that's wasn't what I was getting at at all. It's more that saying 'I wish Paris Hilton would get hit by a bus and die' wouldn't start a metatalk thread, but the penis strangling comment does. It's sort of like saying 'it's OK to wish violent death upon her, just don't drag sex into it.'

I understand where your objections come from, I'm just saying that there comes a certain point where to a lot of ears, it may start to seem like a hirs-breadth distinction and prompt people to say to hell with it.

Also, I realize that this thread is not about Hilton and Coulter (and please don't talk down to me, it's insulting), but they were used as examples numerous times in the thread and I do think it's a waste of time to pick nits surround these two wastes of oxygen.

it'd be nice if people in Metafilter didn't feel the need to remind me about the ever-present threat of violence. I get it. I know. Enough already.

Don't take this the wrong way, but do you think that don't live with the threat of violence. We're far more likely to be murdered, assaulted or robbed than women are, statistically speaking. But saying 'I'd like to kill [male asshole] would not have a batallion of men scolding someone into submission.
posted by jonmc at 10:58 AM on November 18, 2007

Most of us are acutely aware, all the time, that there are men out there that not only would like us to die choking on a cock, but get off on the idea that we'd die choking on theirs. I spend enough minutes in my week having to remember that,

When I worked as a clerk in a convenience store in an urban area, there were people out there who would gladly stick a gun in my face for the few bucks in the cash register. There are people out there who will kill someone for being in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time. And I keep this in my head as I live my life, too. Worse, better?
posted by jonmc at 11:05 AM on November 18, 2007

Minor point of pedantry..."fellatory asphyxiation" would be choking on a penis

You are absolutely correct. It was late!
posted by lalex at 11:10 AM on November 18, 2007

So, hey. Genuine curiosity. Are there any good examples of general-interest forums that aren't boyzones, by the "Metafilter is a boyzone" definition? I'd be especially interested to read a site that:

* Isn't specifically "by women for women"
* Has a lot of men participating
* Covers contentious subjects like politics, religion, and sexuality among other topics
* Can be raucous, humorous, and even sometimes crude without being sexist about it
* Is a community-driven site, rather than being one person's blog

Does such a place exist, or are wishes of meaty sexual death on disliked female celebrities endemic to the Web?
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 11:28 AM on November 18, 2007

Also, I realize that this thread is not about Hilton and Coulter (and please don't talk down to me, it's insulting), but they were used as examples numerous times in the thread and I do think it's a waste of time to pick nits surround these two wastes of oxygen.

Well, calling the concerns voiced "nits" tells me you still aren't listening. And your changing the subject to murder and violence against men is another example of the dismissive thing that many have stated as a common complaint when women try to raise a discussion on a matter that is important to them. The concern often gets drown out. Yes, there is a lot of generalized violence but that is not what we were talking about, we were talking about sexual violence associated with misogyny. Iminurmefi shared her feelings and you virtually dismissed them by telling us how much more likely it is that you will get killed.

I wasn't talking down to you or disrespectfully (if you think so, you are too defensive) but I was (and am) talking directly -- not to criticize you, but in the interests of furthering the discussion of what can be troubling to women when we communicate here on mefi.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:30 AM on November 18, 2007 [3 favorites]

Or an even more pertinent example: when I was 15, I was walking to a friend's house down a major urban thoroughfare at around 10am. A guy in a station wagon pulled to the side of the street and beckoned me over. Given the setting, I figured he was going to ask for directions so I walked over. Instead, he asked if I wanted to make some money and asked for a blowjob. I got the hell out of there. The story got out and I had to deal with a lot of dumb jokes along the lines of 'so didja take the money, harhar' and 'must've been your feminine features that got him, dude.'

I've told this story in other online settings and was greeted with indifference. hell, there'd probably be people accusingme of homophobia for calling the police not getting in the car with him.

I doubt that would happen if I was female and told the same story.
posted by jonmc at 11:34 AM on November 18, 2007

jonmc, what I'm getting at (although evidently not very well!) is that regardless of the actual potential for violence, women are socialized to have the fear of sexual violence be ever-present in their thoughts. I have no idea whether you're more likely to meet a violent demise than me; in fact, I would go so far as to say I'm really not sure what my chances of meeting a violent demise are. That's the shitty part. It's this stupid voice in my head, constantly reminding me to change my behavior, to be nervous in situations where I'm the only female, to be on guard among all men, and the net effect is to make me uncomfortable leaving my freakin' apartment. (I'm exaggerating a bit--obviously, I leave the apartment--I'm just trying to emphasize that I think men often don't realize the never-ending narration of "X bad thing can happen to you, to YOU!" that goes on women's heads.)

I think that whether men actually face more violence, they generally don't go through life anticipating and trying to be on guard against it. Women, in general, are constantly aware of it, and "jokes" about wishing a certain woman would die by being raped have the effect of just rubbing salt in the wound of all of us unlucky enough to overhear it, you know? When women in this thread have talked about how certain types of comments in Ann Coulter threads make them feel unsafe, that's what they are alluding to: comments by men that we have before considered nice, safe guys "joking" about how some woman should be raped to death reinforce the sense that we're literally not safe anywhere, among any men. Which sucks, and as you point out, is probably not even true.

The actual acts of sexual violence are just one part of oppression. The constant fear that you live under that you could be next is almost the bigger part of it--and no matter how unlikely it is that you might actually be a victim, the fear itself is the damaging part that makes you want to withdraw from public spaces. Like metafilter, for example.
posted by iminurmefi at 11:51 AM on November 18, 2007 [9 favorites]

I have been re-reading this thread and I have to say that my admiration and respect for madamejujujive has only deepened. The violent sexual and rape innuendos thrown at Ann Coulter here have always creeped me out and, too, I am old enough and old fashioned enought that I just hate seeing the word cunt typed out and cringe a little to even type it. So, I applaud mjj's eloquence on the topic. I only wish I could be as well spoken.
posted by y2karl at 11:52 AM on November 18, 2007

And ditto for iminurmefi.
posted by y2karl at 11:57 AM on November 18, 2007

iminurmefi: my point is, you don't actually know what goes on in people's heads and it's unfair for you to make assumptions based on it.
posted by jonmc at 11:59 AM on November 18, 2007

regardless of the actual potential for violence, women are socialized to have the fear of sexual violence be ever-present in their thoughts.

And part of that is also that women are taught they are responsible for this violence when it happens to them. We were wearing the wrong thing, out too late at night, out by ourselves, not properly chaperoned, drinking too much, ad nauseum. It's not just fear of violence, but a deeply ingrained feeling that we're supposed to do something to keep it from happening.

Which is, of course, generally ridiculous, but it's a highly effective way of keeping women in line and policing their own behavior. If we spend all our time and energy afraid of the world, we're much less likely to challenge the status quo.
posted by occhiblu at 12:04 PM on November 18, 2007 [11 favorites]

jonmc, if you live with the constant fear of being violently assaulted or killed, I think that's a tragedy. I think that it's unacceptable for anyone, man or woman, to have to live like that.

I guess I'm just not sure of what specific behavior you're asking people posting at metafilter to change that would decrease that fear. Are there specific instances where people have made joking comments about clerks in convenience stores being shot in the face that have made you feel particularly unsafe?

Because otherwise, it seems more like you're trying to derail the conversation into the oppression olympics, and I just don't really see what that achieves.
posted by iminurmefi at 12:04 PM on November 18, 2007 [3 favorites]

iminurmefi: I don't know whether you're being willfully ignorant for political reasons or what but what I meant by my last comment is this: the response I got when I've told the story I told above (namely, indifference, and at the time mockery) versus the response here to using the worng words to describe a celebrity who we've all stipulated is an awful person sends a clear message to me, namely that the latter is somehow a worse offense.

Are there specific instances where people have made joking comments about clerks in convenience stores being shot in the face that have made you feel particularly unsafe?

Not exactly. There was a thread about hate crimes legislation, where numerous people expressed the sentiment that a hate crime was deserving of a stronger penalty than shooting someone during a robbery, even though the victim is just as dead. And there was another thread where a man mentioned that he had been physically assaulted numerous times and some wit said something along the lines of 'gee, you must really be an asshole to piss people off that much.'

jonmc, if you live with the constant fear of being violently assaulted or killed, I think that's a tragedy.

I don't. I keep my wits about me, like anyone in a city does, and unpleasant things that have hapopened to me have left their matk to be sure, but I don't walk around in terror all the time, no. What I'm a bit miffed about it is this sense that when things like this happen to women, it's somehow worse than it happening to a man and that's the sentiment I'm getting from you.
posted by jonmc at 12:25 PM on November 18, 2007

Ethereal Bligh said: I don't regret insulting amyms. What she wrote was juvenile, counter-productive and, worst of all, used ellipses in place of periods. Which I hate.

I can only assume that EB flew into a blinding rage at seeing my ellipses because he was the unfortunate victim of a traumatic ellipsis-related event in his childhood. If so, he has my sympathies...

As far as my original comments here, I think they've gotten a bit misconstrued, or exaggerated, in the ensuing conversations taking place. I tried to restate my thoughts in my second post, but I still think I was somewhat misunderstood...

I don't want to go into a long, belabored re-explanation of my point of view because I'm worried about any continued offense I might cause, especially to my Mefite sisters, whom I respect so much. However, if any of you (especially the ones who were upset by my comments) would like to drop me a MefiMail, please feel free to do so, and I will respond.
posted by amyms at 12:32 PM on November 18, 2007

Okay... so when I was 18 years old, I was going to school full time and working two jobs. I came home late after work one night and as I walked to my gate, a strange man (I could tell by the hair he was in the Navy) jumped from around the bushes and tried to pull me away to a waiting car. I fought him off and after a struggle, the car started up, he ran to it, and they sped off. According to the police it was clear that they were waiting for me and had seen me before. So I was under police protection for almost a month.

Do you know what I remember most about that night? I remember EXACTLY what I was wearing. Because I remember thinking I shouldn't have been wearing a miniskirt.

Flash forward to March 2006. I was working on a project with a young upscale guy. He's more than a bit arrogant, a spoiled boy of privilege really, but we got along okay. I was actually put on the project because I was one of the only people he got along with, he treated me like one of the guys and that was good. To a point. Until one day I teased him about something and in response he said, "One word. Bukkake."

A lot of women don't know what that means, but I do. And I was instantly sick to my stomach and horrified. I knew he THOUGHT he was making a great edgy joke to me and that it would be a compliment that he thought I was hip enough to "get" it. But he didn't get that I'M A WOMAN and that kind of joke is not harmless to me. Because to me, it implies sexual assault upon me is funny. I'm a professional and I'm good at what I do, and I was working with this person as a professional team. It means a lot to me that I've earned respect in my career. Yet in one second, all of that was invisible and I was reduced to a sexual object. To someone people ejaculate upon. Yet he thought it was HYSTERICAL, and figured that I would too.

I didn't react, I just got my job done, but it ate at me. For months. Finally I asked if we could have lunch and I discussed it with him. At first he was apologetic. I told him that it was a big deal to me. That I'm not sure if he understood how degrading it was or if he fathomed that the level of comment he made is the type that can ruin a career if I had filed a complaint. He got defensive and became offended that I could even IMPLY he would ever lose his job because of something so silly. He started going on about how he's the best at his job and nobody would ever fire him because he's not replaceable. Then he turned it around that I'm uptight and that I've got sexual hangups because the girls in porn films who do bukkake are having fun. It's all about a good time.

It was all SUCH inappropriate conversation for the workplace. But he just didn't get that. He was determined to be the victim.

We never got along after that. And I'm told that since my last project he has badmouthed me so much that other people at the company are uncomfortable hiring me because they don't want to have a conflict. Yeah, I've been blackballed because the man who made a joke about having a group of men ejaculate on my face doesn't like me.

That's the thing guys don't really realize. This stuff is not rare. It happens to us all the time. And it affects us. We try to explain, but it's hard because so often you just aren't heard. Sometimes it's like fishing weights that are attached to your body and weigh you down. It may seem small, but hundreds of fishing weights become awfully heavy.
posted by miss lynnster at 12:53 PM on November 18, 2007 [32 favorites]

By the way, those two stories I just told? I have more of them than I have fingers to count. I'd run out of digits even if I included my toes.

But my friends, I still love men. I just don't like those fishing weights.
posted by miss lynnster at 12:56 PM on November 18, 2007

That's the thing guys don't really realize. This stuff is not rare.

Did anyone actually read this comment? Because the point I was trying to make by telling it (something I don't do often because it's an unpleasant memory for a lot of reasons) seems to have sailed right past everybody or they just don't wanna know.
posted by jonmc at 1:18 PM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

You know, miss lynster, I have been mugged twice. The first time I had a gun in my stomach and another against my cheek and the guy holding the one against my face was trembling while he screamed how it had a hair trigger and he would blow my head off if I made a move. Oh, that was scary.

The second time I was stomped to the ground on a Christmas Eve night and I mean stomped. I couldn't get out of bed or the bathtub for weeks without pain.

The kid who stomped me kicked my legs out from under me each time I got up and jumped on my head. He had pantyhose over his haed and he was brinning and jumping three feeet in the air and I was moving in slo-o-ow motion. It was like I was trapped in amber and he was a hummingbird on crack. And you actually do see stars when someone stomps on your head.

And the powerlessness I felt. I relived those moments for months every day, every hour. And in both cases the guys involved were black. I was so terrified to walk by black men for such a long time. I remember going around a corner and being panhandled by an old black street alcoholic two weeks after the last time I got mugged and having a panic attack. Man, he turned pale when he looked at my face and he was a dark skinned man--I can't imagine what my expression must have been.

And now that I am older, I am even more uneasy to be out at night. And you know what ? I don't think the fear I feel can hold a candle to what any woman feels when she goes out at night. Not a candle. So, I hear you, miss lynster, I hear you.

And you now they say about a conservative is a liberal who got mugged ? Well, I got mugged twice and I am still, in the words of Bob Dole, liberal liberal liberal. Go figure.
posted by y2karl at 1:22 PM on November 18, 2007 [6 favorites]

know how they say, to be sure....
posted by y2karl at 1:23 PM on November 18, 2007

I don't want to go into a long, belabored re-explanation of my point of view because I'm worried about any continued offense I might cause, especially to my Mefite sisters, whom I respect so much.

This strikes me as exactly the wrong response. We can't disagree for fear of hurting each other? It's disrepectful to have an alternative point of view? For my part, I suspect that I would disagree with an elaborated version of your comment, as I did with its shorter form, but I hope you won't withdraw from the discussion because Ethereal Bligh disagreed with you so vehemently. That'd be like miss lynster giving up miniskirts after the assault she described: the unearned burden of a victim.
posted by anotherpanacea at 1:25 PM on November 18, 2007

I don't think the fear I feel can hold a candle to what any woman feels when she goes out at night. Not a candle.

Why not? Because your a guy what happened to you wasn't as bad somehow?
posted by jonmc at 1:29 PM on November 18, 2007

Actually jon, your comment was why I shared mine. And yeah, I have also been mugged and robbed too. I've had lots of stuff happen. But the sexual stuff is very, very different. Because it's more of a power thing than a sex thing. It's much different in the way it can affect you. It really gnaws at self esteem. Which, when I was robbed, that didn't at all. The only thing I remember about being robbed was that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and someone wanted money. It wasn't about someone wanting to degrade me. I could've been anyone at that moment, they just wanted money.

Anyhow, I regret telling the stories now. I was staying out of these threads for a reason. I'm going to go back to leaving it to people like MelissaMay & ochhiblu who are expressing things far better than I believe I probably ever could.
posted by miss lynnster at 1:36 PM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

the unearned burden of a victim

I don't feel like a victim here at all, anotherpanacea. And I'm not withdrawing from the discussion in general. I just know that my comments (whether they were clearly understood or whether they were misconstrued) have caused offense that I didn't intend, so I'm not going to keep belaboring my point in the thread, other than to repeat part of my previous comment:

I just think that some of the things men do that piss us off aren't worth fighting over. Sometimes a sexist joke really is just a joke. We women say sexist things all the time too, and if we're willing to dish it out, we'd better be willing to take it. If we constantly react to every perceived slight, including the miniscule ones, we're going to waste a lot of valuable time that could be spent battling the big ones.

EB's vehemence toward me (over ellipses of all things) has nothing to do with it.
posted by amyms at 1:42 PM on November 18, 2007

You seem like a nice enough bloke jonmc, but this is the thread about misogyny and the feelings of women on metafilter.

It's not about you, your urban badge of existence, your relationship to violence in your past, your socialisation in the arguing fraternity of the family upbringing, male violence, bad language, your musings about people's intents when they write something, martian recipes, violas, humped-back whales, deuteronomy, male -vs- female values or violence or assault statistics.

It's about women and the fears they feel and the reinforcement of the fears they feel by the use of misogynistic, sexually violent and sexist remarks made by persons on metafilter.

That's what this thread is about.
posted by peacay at 1:45 PM on November 18, 2007 [13 favorites]

It's not about you, your urban badge of existence, your relationship to violence in your past, your socialisation in the arguing fraternity of the family upbringing, male violence, bad language, your musings about people's intents when they write something, martian recipes, violas, humped-back whales, deuteronomy, male -vs- female values or violence or assault statistics.

and none of the things you mentioned have anything to do with why there are problems discussing gender issues around here? anything at all?

I guess I'm only allowed to offer statements that affirm what people want to hear. Would that pass muster on the Gospel According to Peacay?

Don't EVER tell me what I can and can't talk about. Thanks.
posted by jonmc at 1:59 PM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

You don't understand, peacay. The minute jonmc enters a thread, it automatically becomes about him. And if you don't agree with him, he'll tell you endless stories about how hard he has it and how that means he doesn't need to cut anyone any slack. And he'll never stop, because that would be letting you win, and the mean streets have taught him never to let anybody else win. So you might as well accept it.
posted by languagehat at 2:00 PM on November 18, 2007 [6 favorites]

See above for case in point.
posted by languagehat at 2:00 PM on November 18, 2007

What I'm a bit miffed about it is this sense that when things like this happen to women, it's somehow worse than it happening to a man and that's the sentiment I'm getting from you.
posted by jonmc at 12:25 PM on November 18 [+] [!]

Scenario 1: A man is mugged. Worst case, he spends some time in the hospital, maybe has some health problems. His friends handle him with kid gloves for awhile, buy him beers (if he drinks), but he's back to normal while keeping an eye out for situations. Best case: he dies and doesn't have to worry about it.

Scenario 2: A woman is mugged and raped. She has to worry about whether she is pregnant. She has to worry about whether it is worth it to tell the police who will take it to trial. She has to worry about going through with the trial because she'll have to relive it and have the defense lawyer say she wanted it. She has to wonder whether or not she can tell anyone for the rest of her life because any time she shows hatred for a man she may be accused of hysterics or worse. She may have to learn to actually enjoy sex again. If she has a child, will she see the factors behind it's birth and be able to love the child?

I'm not going to tell you what you can or can't say or even what you can or can't believe, but I will say that you strutting around in your Working Class Hero underoos with your fingers in your ears screaming "la la la la la" the whole time, then you should maybe expect the sort of reaction you get here all the time.

Honestly, you kind of make working class white males out to be shrill and pathetic morons and it makes me ill every time you do it.
posted by sleepy pete at 2:16 PM on November 18, 2007 [8 favorites]

et tu, hat?

(the fact that I have to constantly defend my statements has nothing to do with the fact that peoplelike to use me to score cool points off me? nothing at all)
posted by jonmc at 2:16 PM on November 18, 2007

whatever. I give right the fuck up. I'm gone fishing for a while.
posted by jonmc at 2:19 PM on November 18, 2007

Dammit! I had managed to avoid that picture of your bare ass until now, jonmc!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:29 PM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Sometimes I am surprised that no one has picked up the nick Travis Bickle yet. Well, now that I mention it, I suppose we could. Then we could have Travis Bickle, Travis Bickle 1, Travis Bickle 3, Astro Travis Zombie Bickle ad infinitum and it could all be Hey, you lookin' at me ? 24/7 or at least until the cows come home.
posted by y2karl at 2:41 PM on November 18, 2007

In the event that you return here jonmc, and as you seem to have misunderstood me, I'll elaborate a little.

I didn't at all tell you what you can or cannot say nor did I infer that. What I did infer is that the subjects you have been discussing have been derails. Thus, I was not attacking you (so you don't need to be defensive) or your ideas. I'm just suggesting that they aren't particularly relevant in this thread.

[and by the by, gender issues is also not the subject of this thread]

I have no gospel and I do not hold myself up as any sort of moral beacon on this subject but I was very fortunate in my formative years to have been socialised in a female-dominant occupation. That only means that my ear was tuned -- I've had the benefit of seeing and hearing more than most (perhaps) about some of the difficulties that are faced by and unique to women trying to live their lives.

I'm sure I say and do, in my own blathering way, things that are sexist and misogynistic on occasion (although I hope that's just by accidental socialisation rather than from any intent) but I remain very aware that the impact is wider (see melissa may/mjj etc) than the jokey or allegedly innocent reasoning I might which to attach to them.

So I don't believe the meandering threads on this general subject of women and the fears and alienation they feel as a result of words typed on this here metafilter are only intended to create an echo chamber where thoughts of agreement are to be aired. I actually think, from our male point of view, that it's more about listening and trying to be empathetic and trying to learn more about the female perspective.

I would recommend that you read loquacious, IRFH and dios actually and note that their perspectives have changed because they were listening.
posted by peacay at 2:41 PM on November 18, 2007

et tu, hat?

Sorry, my man. It gives me no pleasure whatever to say stuff like that about you, and I held off as long as I could. But damn, it gets tiresome watching you jump into threads with a repetition of your standard line about how you don't like to see people privileging the suffering of blacks/women/gays/whatever because hey, you're white and a guy and straight and you suffer too, dammit! (And of course you luv the wimmin and have no problem with gays and you've got photographic proof of your black friends.)

You seem to find it impossible to grasp that your particular suffering does not mean that women, blacks, etc. have no cause to complain, and that the very real problems of sexism, racism, and homophobia are not solved, or even addressed intelligently, by repeating "Hey, we're all people, right? Let's have a beer and listen to the Ramones."

I'm sorry if you went away mad, but I really wish you'd get over the man-in-the-street act. If you have something to contribute, speak up, you're a smart guy with a lot of experience to draw on, but for christ's sake, people aren't using you to score cool points, they're trying to tell you to knock off the bullshit.
posted by languagehat at 2:48 PM on November 18, 2007 [4 favorites]

I would recommend that you read loquacious, IRFH and dios actually and note that their perspectives have changed because they were listening.

Yes! And a big shoutout to them, and anybody else who's been willing to listen, absorb, and change. It really gives me a good feeling about this place.
posted by languagehat at 2:50 PM on November 18, 2007

Oh, and one more thing:
posted by languagehat at 2:51 PM on November 18, 2007

500!!
posted by languagehat at 2:51 PM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

... but this is the thread about misogyny and the feelings of women on metafilter.

Ideally it would be about men and women discussing misogyny and the feelings of women on metafilter, and trying to come to some sort of understanding. Perhaps I'm naive, but this is the first time (well, jointly this one and the one that spawned this one) participating in the discussion of misogyny/sexism.

As such, women (and the men on their "side") should be as receptive to what men are saying as they'd like the men to be to what they're saying. Sighing in exasperation at men who "just aren't getting it" because they aren't agreeing 100% seems just as bad to me as, in terms of fostering understanding, as men adopting a "quit yer bitchin'" attitude about the subject.

I may be projecting myself on jon, but if what he's reacting to is similar to what got my goat yesterday, it's not a matter of a "quit yer bitchin'" attitude. Sometimes there's a, probably unintentional, not-quite-explicitly-said undercurrent of... how can I put it? "Women have it the worst, everything's better for men". Which isn't always the case, so men retort with "Hey, y'know, it sometimes sucks for us too".

But it's not a matter of having it "worse", really. The former isn't a negation of the latter, and vice versa. Each side's situation sucks in a different way, and it shouldn't be seen as an attempt to negate either side's level of suck. Maybe that's not elegantly or explicitly put enough, but so be it.

Scenario 1: A man is mugged.
Scenario 2: A woman is mugged and raped.

That's not really a fair comparison, and I think you know it.

A guy who's raped might not have to worry about becoming pregnant and giving birth to a reminder of his being raped, but the rest of the fall-out you describe can also apply to male rape victims. Whether it's a gay guy who's been raped by another (straight or gay) guy, or a straight guy (well, usually boy) who's been abused by a woman.
posted by CKmtl at 2:55 PM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Out of respect for languagehat:

If that's what you take away from what I've said, I honestly don't know what to tell you, because that is so far off from what I'm getting at. My comments (a few fly-off-the-handle reactions in anger notwithstanding) were actually good faith attempts at trying to explicate some ideas I have about why there's so much disconnect when it comes to these issues. When that got dismissed (and I don't think I'm wrong to say that for many all they had to do was see my name next to it and ignore the substance of what I was getting at) I got angry, and I get especially resentful when I see what I'm trying to say misrepresented or completely miscomprehended which (surprisingly) you did in that comment.

Yes, I do refer to my own experiences in framing my opinions, but that's only because I trust (and have more knowledge of) my own experiences more than data or theories, not to pump up my cred or whatever.

So, maybe I've failed in trying to communicate what I wanted to communicate. It seems almost certain. Or maybe people aren't comprehending. or maybe some people just want to snark. In any case, it's not worth the aggravation anymore.
posted by jonmc at 3:07 PM on November 18, 2007

You seem to find it impossible to grasp that your particular suffering does not mean that women, blacks, etc. have no cause to complain, and that the very real problems of sexism, racism, and homophobia are not solved, or even addressed intelligently, by repeating "Hey, we're all people, right? Let's have a beer and listen to the Ramones."

Maybe I haven't been following along the history here so I'm missing something, but it seems to me that jonmc isn't saying that other people have no cause to complain but rather that their suffering isn't unique. That you don't have to be a member of group x to in some sense understand what it's like to suffer because the same sorts of nasty shit happens to other people too, if in slightly different contexts.

Which makes sense to me. I understand that women are scared to walk alone at night 'cause it's been drilled into them that they might get raped. Well, I live in Los Angeles and it's been drilled into me that I probably shouldn't walk alone at night 'cause I might get violently mugged. Does that mean women shouldn't complain? No, it doesn't. But does it mean that I might have some shred of understanding of what it's like to look at a dark street at 1:00am and decide to avoid walking down it alone? Sure as shit does and acting like it doesn't is a disservice to me.

At least that's what it seems to me jonmc is saying.
posted by Justinian at 3:07 PM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

At least that's what it seems to me jonmc is saying.

And that's a good, charitable interpretation, and I'm sure there's validity to it. But it would be a lot more convincing if jonmc even once put it in that light. As far as I remember (and I'm certainly willing to be proven wrong), he's never said "Hey, I know you women have it really hard; I can't really know what it's like because I'm a guy, but some bad experiences I've had have helped me get a sense of what you go through." It's always "Hey, everybody has it hard—look at me, last year I (insert anecdote here)." He seems to have a chip on his shoulder about anybody asserting group experience, group suffering, group privilege, anything beyond a bunch of individual people having their individual experiences.

And I can understand that, because I'm an individualist myself, I've always been suspicious of groupthink and assertions of group claims. But my entire life experience (meaning what I've read and listened to and seen happen as well as what my own sorry ass has gone through) has taught me that racism and sexism and homophobia are real, that women and gay folks and blacks do have it worse (on average, collectively) than us straight white males, and (however lame and PC this may sound) I support their struggle. And I hate to see anyone drowning out an interesting discussion (and this has been one of the most interesting, productive MetaTalk threads in memory) with repetitions of the same useless rhetoric about how we've all got shit to deal with. It's more complicated than that.

And of course when anyone tells him that, he gets defensive and puts up his dukes. Which gets tiresome as well.
posted by languagehat at 3:37 PM on November 18, 2007 [4 favorites]

Yes, I do refer to my own experiences in framing my opinions, but that's only because I trust (and have more knowledge of) my own experiences more than data or theories, not to pump up my cred or whatever.

All well and good of course but what do your experiences about you have to do with the fears and alienation felt by women on metafilter from misogynistic, sexist and sexually violent remarks?

So, maybe I've failed in trying to communicate what I wanted to communicate. It seems almost certain. Or maybe people aren't comprehending. or maybe some people just want to snark.

But I think you are in fact understood well and you have perfectly valid things to say, it's just that these 2 threads are not actually about what you seem to want them to be about.

I assure you this is not snark jonmc, I'm not trying to be morally superior, I'm not trying to anger you or say that your opinions are not relevant. I have no grudge, nor do I have any reason to score points. I meant what I said when I said you seem like a nice bloke. But when we speak about what is faced by metafilter women, it's not the venue for comparison to other events or suffering. Something like these 2 threads are very unique phenomena on mefi and, as I said, you only have to see loq, IRFH and dios for examples of positive results.

I'm also not saying that I'm lord and master over what this thread is about but I have been paying close attention. It is rare that the women here are offered a platform where issues that affect their time on metafilter or why they feel they want to leave the site or the manner by which fears they feel are stirred up by throwaway jokey sexist comments can be raised.

If I seem at all earnest in trying to...I don't know...promote that or help it or keep it relevant, it's just that this is something of a special moment, an event that has the possibility of doing some real and tangible good for this site.
posted by peacay at 3:51 PM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

has taught me that racism and sexism and homophobia are real, that women and gay folks and blacks do have it worse (on average, collectively) than us straight white males, and (however lame and PC this may sound) I support their struggle

languagehat, I have never denied that these things are real and in fact, I've taken shit in my actual life for saying so. I just tried to posit some reasons where resentments come from: when one group says that their suffering is more important than another's, resentment is often going to occur and most of the time that's going to cause resentment and backlash and start the whole mess all over again. If we can dispassionately look at that, maybe we can make some progress. And as for my 'zealot' comment that started this all, I stand by that, zealotry in the name of any cause does more harm than good.
posted by jonmc at 3:52 PM on November 18, 2007

But when we speak about what is faced by metafilter women, it's not the venue for comparison to other events or suffering.

and with the comments about argument styles, zealotry, mentions of my own experiences with sexual violence/exploitation/whatever you want to call what happened, I was trying to maybe suggest some reasons why discussions of these topics go haywire, both here and in society at large. I'm not saying it's tight, I'm not saying it's what should happen. I'm saying that it's what does happen, IMO, YMMV etc. If I failed to communicate that, I'm sorry.
posted by jonmc at 3:56 PM on November 18, 2007

'not saying it's right' sorry.
posted by jonmc at 3:56 PM on November 18, 2007

jon, I gotta back the other side here. I know you're trying to frame things in your experience because you can relate, because you care and because you're simply a good guy, but sometimes it's not a good idea. Sometimes it sounds like you're talking about you for no good reason, sometimes it sounds like your equivalence means no one's got it worse. Sometimes it's about how much the other person hurts, even if you know you've been cut deeper. Just let it be and be a shoulder.

Goddamnit, I suppose it's sexist that I think that's what being a man means.
posted by yerfatma at 4:00 PM on November 18, 2007

I just tried to posit some reasons where resentments come from: when one group says that their suffering is more important than another's, resentment is often going to occur and most of the time that's going to cause resentment and backlash and start the whole mess all over again. If we can dispassionately look at that, maybe we can make some progress.

Fair enough, and don't worry, it would never occur to me to think you approve of sexism. But like those other guys have been saying, that wasn't the right input for this thread.
posted by languagehat at 4:11 PM on November 18, 2007

jonmc: The stuff that you have said that, I think, has gotten the most negative reaction has been stuff that seemed like a non sequitur in the discussions as they were going. I don't think it's a matter of people deliberately misunderstanding you, as that maybe you didn't say enough in your comment to explain why you were bringing it up at that point. Further, I think you're making a bunch of inter-related points but not always making clear how each is relevant, and since the common factor among them is you or a story about you, it sounds as if you're talking more about you than about the issues at hand. Here are a few interrelated points you seem to be making:
1. Although iminurmefi says she has a back-of-the-mind level of fear, she shouldn't, since you are able to deal with your fear in a dangerous environment by rationally mitigating risks
2. Threatening or violent experiences are equally as bad for men as for women
3. Zealotry is bad
4. If women overstate the case for a decrease in offhand misogynist remarks, men won't want to listen to them
5. People don't take men's descriptions of sexually threatening experiences as seriously as we are asking people to take imaginary hyperbolic suggestions about Paris Hilton and that is bad.

-I think 1. is not very productive - she says this stuff scares her, why does it matter if you say it shouldn't?
-I think 2. is right in a basic way, but in experiences that don't escalate to violence I think there are some things that are worse for women than for men -- eg the flashing and catcalls we've talked about before -- because of the background of general sexism and power inequality in society.
-I think 3 is fair enough but not really relevant here since mostly people are being quite reasonable and not especially zealotous.
-I think 4 is the kind of thing Brandon Blather was saying too, and well, okay, but that's often something that is said to get women to just shut up about a crappy situation ("you're not being nice when you complain about that, men don't want to hear it"), so I tend to be suspicious of that kind of claim in a discussion like this.
-I think 5 is true, and really unfortunate, and I'm very sorry if people have you a hard time about what must have been a scary and unnerving experience. FWIW, I think giving you a hard time about that is part and parcel of the kind of bad stupidly-macho atmosphere that we've been saying should go away.

(Also, from your comment way upthread: Minor misunderstanding. The analytically-trained philosophers here are totally fine with the confrontational style. What I was saying in the other thread is that philosophy tends to be confrontational, and it makes it hard for us to retain female students because many female students don't like that atmosphere. I'm a woman but I made it through grad school by being good at the confrontational stuff, I was just trying to say that a lot of women have a hard time with it -- as I know from seeing how few female students we retain.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:18 PM on November 18, 2007 [2 favorites]

I was trying to maybe suggest some reasons why discussions of these topics go haywire, both here and in society at large.

Ah - I didn't understand that.
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:20 PM on November 18, 2007

I was trying to maybe suggest some reasons why discussions of these topics go haywire, both here and in society at large. I'm not saying it's tight, I'm not saying it's what should happen. I'm saying that it's what does happen, IMO, YMMV etc. If I failed to communicate that, I'm sorry.

Nope, it's perfectly understood. But again, it's not relevant to this thread. This thread is about the women here. Not about the women here compared to x or about discussing why discussion topics go haywire.

Why don't you try a different tack. Instead of trying to filter the topic through your own experiences, why don't you ask the women here a question about what particularly they find offensive on metafilter? Go read some of the wonderful comments by women in these 2 threads, find something you don't get and ask them about it so you can try and see things from their perspective rather than the jonmc one, which you know already.
posted by peacay at 4:23 PM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Not about the women here compared to x or about discussing why discussion topics go haywire.

Well, I (and I maybe mistaken) got the impression that it was about discussions of gender issues (and maybe other similarly emotionally loaded issues) going haywire. I think that to adress that issue we need to try and figureout how everybody, misogynist, victim, bystander got where they are, eprspective-wise. Sometimes, when I try to to that, itmust comeoff like I'm defending something ratherthan seeking to understand it's origins. I'll be morecareful how I approach itin the future.
posted by jonmc at 4:36 PM on November 18, 2007

when one group says that their suffering is more important than another's, resentment is often going to occur

More important? People in this thread have said that women's suffering is more important than men's?

I doubt it, but please correct me if I'm wrong. Seems to me people are saying that women are collectively singled out for a particular form of hostility (sexual violence); that such hostility does not similarly affect men collectively (notwithstanding the very real fact that gay men are, collectively, and that there are rare instances of hetero men who are raped); that women's concerns and perspectives about women's experiences of suffering that are peculiar to women collectively (ie sexual hostility) are typically trivialized, ridiculed, and dismissed compared to men's. It's not clear to me how any of these are equivalent to saying that women's suffering is "more important" than men's.

On preview - yes, you're correct about the difference between yourintent and how it comes across. Thanks for saying so.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 4:41 PM on November 18, 2007

Sometimes it's about how much the other person hurts, even if you know you've been cut deeper. Just let it be and be a shoulder.

Funny, I see that as the traditional female role. I certainly feel that's what I should do (try to do) with my friends or my husband -- and he would probably agree with you, yerfatma. I'd humbly suggest that's what all adults should do.

And to me, fwiw at this late point in the thread, that feels like one way to deal with this problem here on MeFi: remember that others can be/have been hurt and try to be sensitive to that.

It's not a competition to see whose wounds are deepest.
posted by GrammarMoses at 4:44 PM on November 18, 2007 [3 favorites]

(notwithstanding the very real fact that gay men are, collectively, and that there are rare instances of hetero men who are raped);

Just a nitpick; the instances of hetero men being raped are far, far more than rare. We're talking comparable numbers to women being raped. The difference is that it happens in a place and to people that we, as a society, don't care much about and in some cases actually think they deserve it. Sorry, don't mean to derail, it's just thats one of my pet peeves. Prisoners are human.
posted by Justinian at 4:58 PM on November 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

Good point, and thanks for bringing it up in a nonconfrontational way.
posted by languagehat at 5:01 PM on November 18, 2007

Your implication that if only women would be sweeter and infinitely more careful when communicating their thoughts and opinions to you, you would listen with an open mind comes across as disingenuous.

Apologies if I conveyed that, it was not my intent nor what I think. Rather. a lot of the miscommunication between the sexes comes down different ways of seeing things (be it cultural or genetic) and it's important that both sides work to understand the other.

As for the rest of your comments, lets leave it at this:
If I didn't want to learn anything, I wouldn't have posted in the thread and the request to simply speak up when comments like four panel's or EB's Hilton rant occur is an excellent point and I'll try to do more of that in the future.

Thanks to all for commenting.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:03 PM on November 18, 2007

“I can just hear you now: ‘You think he's had a hard time? I've had a hard time! I'm a cripple! I can't get out and meet people! (etc ad lib).’ ”

I have never said anything of the kind and would never said anything of the kind. That you would put words in my mouth using my disability like this is unbelievably offensive to me and incomprehensible that you would think that “you can here me now” now saying them.

You play the condescending, scolding patron just as much as I do. You're doing it here to jonmc. You also get irritated with people and are abusive and unrepentant about it, just as I have a tendency to do. You did it just a couple of weeks ago, several people called you on it, and you responded very like I did with a “I said what I said and I'm not too bothered about it”.

The difference between what I said about Coulter and Hilton and what I said to amyms is that I believe that the former two cases were wrong and the latter was not. Just because you and some others didn't like that I was being mean in this particular case—even though people are mean every day, you no less than most—doesn't mean that I ought to apologize when I don't feel like I owe amyms an apology. Yours and other peoples frustration are that I can't be shamed by you into an apology. This has happened before with me—people think that if they become very hurt and outraged, or someone else becomes hurt and outraged on someone else's behalf, that enough bitching about it should somehow elicit an apology from me whether I mean it or not. Maybe this works for other people, but I don't apologize unless I think I was in the wrong and I don't apologize unless I mean it. And I certainly don't apologize because the grand old mediator of MetaFilter proper behavior, languagehat, has weighed in repeatedly telling me that I ought to apologize. Nor that it's obvious to him that because amyms is present it's my duty to apologize, especially because I've admitted I was wrong in insulting someone who isn't present.

Regardless, though I'm biased, your putting words in my mouth where I excuse any bad behavior because I'm “a cripple” and woe is me is easily one of the most offensive things I've seen anyone write around these parts in a long time. I have never made any such excuses for my bad behavior, I have always taken complete responsibility for it. And I have certainly never used my disability in such a way, the mere idea makes me physically ill with disgust and rage.

And I likewise don't excuse y2karl's behavior. Is he mentally ill? I have come to believe so. But, for example, I think my father is mentally ill. That's no excuse for his abuse. Y2karl engaged with me a couple of years ago in an incident that was very NPD-like, he's been nursing what he perceived as a slight for the entire time since. It's creepy and infuriating. At this point, I really couldn't care less what his life experience has been like or why he is the person he is. Just like me, he is responsible for the way he behaves, adversity is no excuse. I do not offer it as an excuse for myself, I do not accept it from other people.

In the other thread you wrote that I am talking the talk but not walking the walk. But I was not exhorting people to behave better in that comment, I was suggesting that we all make a formal, group effort to behave better, with administrative commitment to enforce it. I also mentioned that I am among a type of personality that has a very difficult time behaving well and not being combative and insulting when other people are also failing to behave well. So in no way was I suggesting that other people should behave in a way that I, myself, was not.

So, too, on the topic of sexism, there's this weird idea that, which klang reiterated against my denial, that asserting that sexism is wrong and attacking other people for it is somehow taking some grand moralist position that implies one should be on good behavior, generally. It is no such thing. It is a condemnation of sexism, not bad behavior, including insults or, say, shoplifting or murder, for that matter. In condemning and arguing against sexism, I'm not setting myself up as some moral exemplar. If I argued against pedophilia, often and strenuously, would people think that I was making myself out to be some morally perfect person that thought everyone else was beneath me? Of course they wouldn't.

There was a period of time a couple of years ago where I did try very hard to behave as well as I could on MetaFilter. The reason I did was because I had invested a lot of myself emotionally in this place. And my better behavior had almost no effect at all in terms of dissuading people from attacking me and insulting me in the way that is so common on MetaFilter and especially common for high-profile and irritating people like myself. What I realized was that I should not invest myself so much in this place. I simply shouldn't care as much. One result of doing this is that I simply don't care very much that people like you think that I'm behaving badly. Everyone behaves badly here, until and unless that changes, I'm not going to lose sleep over my own behavior.

Your comment about my disability is amazingly demonstrative of my point. Even someone with whom I have thought I've been friends would stoop so low as to say something that should be obvious is unacceptable and hurtful. To make a point? Well, funny, that's often the excuse I use to justify the behavior you're criticizing. This place, like most of the Internet, is a cesspool of human behavior. People say the most incredibly hurtful things, casually. I've been active here for almost four years and this has not lessened whatsoever. It's not going to lessen. It's the nature of the beast.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:04 PM on November 18, 2007

Two things:

First off, if Languagehat thought that you were using your disability to reinforce your point, regardless of your opinion of how hurtful that was, under your system of ethics, he'd be justified in saying it. He would be justified in hurting you in any way possible if he believed you were wrong.

So suck it up or come to some sort of epiphany, Keith.

Second, were you frequently declaiming pedophilia, a rational person would take that to imply that you were morally superior to a pedophile and that you embodied the behavior of a non-pedophile.

The rest of your comment is such transparent and petulant tu quoque justifications as to be risible, and not worth any serious response BY THE ETHICAL MODEL YOU YOURSELF ABIDE.
posted by klangklangston at 5:26 PM on November 18, 2007

Don't be silly. You've brought up your disability frequently, I wasn't revealing any terrible secret. And it seems the most natural thing in the world to respond to a remark that somebody else has been having a hard time with "Oh yeah? So have I." You say I should know better than to think you'd say that; I respond that I thought I knew you wouldn't say half the shit you've been saying lately. I don't feel I know the new, nasty EB at all. Sorry if I offended you, and I withdraw the remark about what you might have said. But I continue to maintain you've been shitty for no good reason except to indulge yourself, and specifically that you've felt free to be abusive to women because you're so convinced of your own righteousness.

It may well be that you're being shitty because you're going through a bad spell; if so, I hope things improve and you get back to your old thoughtful self. If you've permanently decided to be a jerk because "I simply don't care very much that people like you think that I'm behaving badly," then I guess I hope you find some other way of occupying yourself.
posted by languagehat at 5:27 PM on November 18, 2007

I don't feel like I owe amyms an apology

I don't want, or need, an apology from you, EB. You showed your true colors upthread, and you were called on it by several people of both genders, even by some of those who disagreed with my opinions...

EB, you insulted my intelligence and you got your undies in a twist over my use of ellipses, but I can take it. And the fact that I can take it, and can respond to you without feeling like a victim, is part of the point I was making earlier...

You acted like a complete jerk, but I don't think your gender had anything to do with it. And my gender doesn't have anything to do with my reaction.
posted by amyms at 5:29 PM on November 18, 2007

Justinian: the instances of hetero men being raped are far, far more than rare. . . . The difference is that it happens in a place and to people that we, as a society, don't care much about and in some cases actually think they deserve it.

Agreed. Thanks for pointing that blind spot out to me. Would

such hostility does not similarly af

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