MetaTalk posts tagged with boyzone

Thanks. :)

miss lynnster — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:55:08 -0800

Wow. I'm so impressed with the healthy, interesting, and totally civil (from what I've read) discussion in this post . I just wanted to say THANK YOU. :) Man, this place has really come a long way in its discussion of women's issues, surprisingly fast. I felt like I just had to say something and give everyone a big group hug of appreciation. (Okay, quit grabbing my butt. Sigh.) It was only a little over a year ago that I did a *ridiculously* silly post about flashers, something all women have experienced. It centered around a totally cheesy craigslist ad, for if you know my posting style, cheesy is often my main theme. (I rarely do posts about the fall of Yugoslavia or symbolism in the oeuvre of James Joyce, people. I'm more about alcoholic cupcakes, The Marx Brothers and upside down dogs.) After a bit, the thread morphed into a serious discussion between a group of women who had experienced flashing, sharing their experiences (a lot of women never tell much of anyone afterwards, trained that it's best to keep such unseemly experiences to ourselves, pretend nothing happened and just move on). We were telling our stories, partly to comedic effect since that's a coping mechanism. Ahhh... but then we admitted to eachother that sometimes we wished we could understand what's in a flasher's mind... and speaking for myself, I meant purely for my own edification. I then made a stream of consciousness statement, openly pondering the law of averages, and wondering if anyone reading the thread had flashed and could explain something I really didn't understand. (And might I add that within the next two weeks, I received six such lengthy and incredibly candid e-mails from people. They were actually really interesting and enlightening to me -- so thanks immensely to those who were brave enough to share their stories with me. They were all really respectful and I appreciated the insights they contained.) Anyhow, at that point in the thread it was just women kinda bonding over a shared experience, until a Meta was called by a male member whereupon I was firmly branded "sexist." The title of the Meta was "Hysterics" (which of course was not patronizing or sexist at all, for as I am ladyfolk, hysteria, the vapors, and consumption are clearly things I deal with on a regular basis). Within five minutes of the Meta my post was ceremoniously deleted, however not an eyelash was batted over the original poster's comment: "Yeah, men are scum, miss lynnster. Now bend over." as being inappropriate or demeaning. That sent me a big message so at this point I decided that rather than defend myself (I just squeaked out a few awkwardly uncomfortable responses like, "Geez, I'm a troublemaker, huh?" and "I'm not sexist. I loves me some men!") or letting myself get terribly upset, I walked away from the situation for my own benefit, pretty much acknowledging that my voice wasn't going to be heard as it wasn't my peer group or audience. I'm old enough to know you should choose battles that are big enough to matter and small enough to win... and I knew I was in over my head with this one. Besides, it seemed surreal to me that all of this ire had stemmed from a silly craigslist post. The two intense Metas that followed, with their thousands of comments and the multi-flameouts (Jenni Diski, for example) were unexpected and to be honest at first they freaked me the Hell out as they were happening. I was like, "Jesus. This is too intense. I can't believe my stupid flashing post instigated this." But as it unfolded I read along, and after being inspired by so many of the comments I walked back in after a while. That second thread became the first time I openly told the story of when I was attacked as a teen... which, frankly, was very freeing to be able to speak about publicly. I was able to share because at that moment I felt that I was in a safe enough environment that I wasn't worrying at all about how I or my experience would be judged, and I can't stress enough what a big thing that is for people. Later I went to a couple of meetups in SF where women pulled me aside to thank me for my part in the Boyzone conversation, and in truth I was kind of humbled and embarrassed by the attention at first. It felt weird, having people I had never met before coming up to me to talk about it. But reading the thread that happened today I suddenly got a warm feeling about those conversations and this place as I realized there really HAS been an insane amount of progress in the attitudes and dialogues and that Metafilter really has become a safe, less judgmental place in regards to women's issues and perspectives. Seems to me that those conversations last year really made a difference. So I'm just proud of people and wanted to say so. For any positive part you played in those conversations in order to help this community to evolve into a better, more welcoming place... please pat yourself on the back. You rock. It's a great thing for people to not feel they have to walk away from a topic, acknowledging that their stories aren't going to be understood or heard before they even try. It's much better to feel safe, respected and included. And on a personal note, I'm thrilled that both women AND men here now uniformly recognize why telling a woman to "bend over" when there's a disagreement *really* isn't funny. Anyhow, I'm babbling. But I just wanted to thank you all for your part in making the inter-sexual communication in this place SO much more healthy, interesting, and mutual. Yay. I'll shut up now.

Palmer v. Jones

lord_wolf — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:41:10 -0800

When is it okay for the sexiness/attractiveness of a woman to be discussed? The Amanda Palmer post versus the Grace Jones post. First: I'm not accusing anyone of anything or trying to call anyone out. I'm just curious as to why there was a (heavily favorited) comment fairly early on in the Palmer discussion and its subsequent MeTa thread complaining about people opining on Ms. Palmer's appearance and/or whether they'd have sex with her while there's relative silence from folks concerning I'd hit it/not hit it comments in the Grace Jones post -- even though it includes similar comments (including the always fun to read and hear thoughts about how simultaneously "intimidating" and sexy strong black women are). Looking forward to hearing your opinions. Cheers.

Boyzone? Really?

grobstein — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:52:54 -0800

Is this discussion boyzone-y? In what might be a throwaway comment here, seanyboy calls "boyzone" on the thread. I wanted to engage that issue without derailing what seems to me like an exemplary discussion of the topic. This is probably the worst abuse of the 'boyzone' label I've encountered. seanyboy seem to be concluding boyzone from only the following elements:

1. Apparent difference of opinion distribution along gender lines. (I take it to be that the "isn't this just like smoking" opinion is relatively male, in the sense that males seem to have a higher probability of sharing this opinion.*) 2. Expression of apparently 'male' opinion by users who are presumably male, without deference to apparently 'female' opinion.

Note that most of the problems usually discussed in connection with boyzone are missing. There is no intimidation or personal attack of female users or any female people, unless you count civil disagreement and inquisitiveness as intimidation. If anything, the proponents of the relatively female position are using more aggressive tactics that tend to silence opposition, for example by attacking other commenters for their perceived ignorance. But: I think most people on all sides of the discussion are being extremely reasonable. We are having an interesting discussion that includes syntheses of the various positions, for example touching on the interaction between notions of "choice" and "mental illness." Things are going fine. To cry 'boyzone' here combines both its worst problems: 1) characterizing women as too weak to deal with even civil disagreement, and 2) characterizing seemingly honest male disagreement as coded discrimination. Fortunately, the thread proves those characterizations wrong. We should be proud. The 'boyzone' call seems to me like a nuclear option, because it has the (intended) effect of making conscientious male writers check themselves. That's good when there's been a testosterone spill and Mefites are getting hurt or scared off. But in general I prefer a free-spirited exchange where posters aren't actively worrying about whether they might have the wrong opinion. Self-censorship and eggshell-walking should only be invoked for special occasions. ----- *Whether this opinion is actually statistically more male or female or whatever is not really a concern of mine. Rather I'm trying to reconstruct what seanyboy means when he declares "boyzone" but doesn't explain himself. It's not implausible, though. One might think it's a statistically male opinion because it is somewhat callous towards anorexia, apparently a statistically female problem.

Misandry and Ask Metafilter.

Second Account For Making Jokey Comments — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 06:04:21 -0800

Misandry and Ask Metafilter. A few months ago we had a watershed moment here in MetaTalk. We established that AskMe, even perhaps Metafilter itself, was and perhaps still is, a boys club. That misogyny ran rampant here and that it made the women uncomfortable when it reared its ugly head. That was an important discussion and there is no two-ways about it. It's good that we had that discussion and hopefully things have started to change. Now it's time we had another discussion about a less well known topic. Indeed, it is a topic that is described by a word that even my spell checker, which recognizes the word 'misogyny' with ease, dosen't know. That word? Misandry. Most of you may be unfamiliar with the word. This is understandable. Google Fight shows that 'misogyny' beats 'misandry' with a score of 1,740,000 hits to a mere 153,000 hits. So just what is misandry? Those of you who did not read the linked Wikipedia article will read that it is a "hatred (or contempt) of men or boys" and that it is "parallel to misogyny - the hatred of women." I have to say I've not seen much examples of misandry on Metafilter, but Ask Metafilter is full of examples. Far too many to link to here, in fact. But time and time again we see examples in AskMe, mostly in relationship-filter questions, where men are denigrated and put down for no other reason than that they are men and must be, at least in some way, evil. Jessamyn would (and does) disagree with me. Recently I expressed this feeling to which she replied "I'm sorry a question you asked there once went badly, but I really don't see this as the case generally." I have the greatest respect and admiration for the job that the moderators do here, but I feel that this is an issue that’s slipping under the radar. And I owe jessamyn a great deal and though we are likely bound to disagree on this topic, I know (hope?) she’ll understand that I hold her in high esteem but also that she’ll understand why I feel this way. As she said, a question I once asked about my own relationship, one which I regret asking and one which I freely admit sounded misogynistic but which was asked when I really wasn’t in the clearest state of mind, turned into a blood bath with most people calling me a misogynist, a claim I still resent and refute to this day. And ironically, the more I recanted, the more I tried to defend myself, the bigger a misogynist I seemed to become. At least according to most of those who participated in the thread. This is why I’m posting this in my sockpuppet account. That, and a fear that the mere fact I have raised this topic as a matter of concern for discussion will once again paint me as a misogynist. Back to the topic at hand; jessamyn does not see this as the case but I do and I wonder if the community would do as well, when presented with some evidence (or at the very least the notion in general). For the purposes of this discussion, it is very important to differentiate between those AskMe questions that are misandristic in nature and those that are not, as I have no issue with the latter. Those that aren’t are questions that are along the lines of "My boyfriend is beating me" or "My husband drinks a lot and gambles away all my money" or something similar within which people answer DTMFA. This is an entirely understandable response to that situation and certainly the best course of action as these are quite often clear cut cases in which the man in question deserves to be called out for the loser that he is. But all too often a woman will ask a question like "I love my boyfriend and he loves me but I have a fear of commitment" or "My husband and I had an argument the other night about money. He treats me well but I think he spends irresponsibly sometimes. How can I rectify the problem?", and the answers will invariably come back as "DTMFA." All to often a man will ask “One of my girlfriends habits is a problem for me. How can I overcome it?”, only to be shouted down as controlling, abusive, passive aggressive and, you guessed it, a misogynist. In my view, AskMe always seems to come down on the side of women and more often than not seems to imply that men are vile pigs who can't ever be trusted so just don't. Recent examples include this question, in which a woman explains that she has been with her boyfriend for five years and they get along great but she is freaking out about moving in with someone. She's never lived with anyone before and so its understandable that she'd be a little nervous, right? Well according to some, she should run because the guy is probably being a tad misogynistic in his behavior towards her. Says Lesser Shrew; "Run. Don't do it. In fact, take a vacation by yourself right now.... If I am reading this right, your need for solitude is a defining feature of you. And your boyfriend shrugs this off as a "quirk," feels free to tell you that what you think and feel about your own thoughts and feelings is less important than his own opinion that "you'll be fine."" Lesser Shrew repeats this pattern of misandrystic behavior quite often, it seems. In this question, a woman questions her compatibility with her boyfriend. She says "I love my boyfriend but I fear we aren't compatible for the long term. How to know if it these are things that are important enough to justify breaking up sooner rather than later." The questioner goes on to say that her boyfriend is "a lovely man [who] treats me really well, and I love him" Lesser Shrew disagrees, painting this man to be the misogynistic pig his girlfriend clearly dosen't know he is. "If he owes you any money at all, even eight bucks, get out now. Also, it's entirely possible that he doesn't "settle" so much as he does whatever comes along that doesn't cause him to much trouble and get in the way of the rest of his life." Another woman asks "I think I've met The One. Or, I thought I had. At the three-month mark, insecurities are plaguing me. I'm a long-time commitmentphobe. Help?" Isn't that great folks? She's met The One! She's happy but afraid of commitment but he's The One so she needs help getting past that. But according to Lesser Shrew, she needs to realise this man is bad news. Seizing upon an admission that The One often comments on the attractiveness of other women, she opines; "Exactly how and why does he tells you other women are hot? If you are in fact commenting, and saying "do you think she is hot?" Stop. No good will come of that. Men have days when they think the bat wing upper arms of elderly woman who just lost 86 pounds are hot. Let it go. If he is volunteering the information that other women are hot, well, then relax, enjoy this for what it is now, and don't forget to notice other men in case you need a new boyfriend in a month or two..." So clearly he's not The One. He'll probably be gone in a month or two but in the meantime, accept that all men will have sex with anything that breathes. That's just how men are. I don’t mean to single Lesser Shrew out, however, as she is not the only person to display such misandrystic behavior. For instance, a woman asks Metafilter about communication problems with her "wonderful S.O" She clearly states she does not want advice that suggests she DTMFA. What kind of advice does she end up getting? Apart from a lot of advice that essentially says "Well, I'd say DTMFA but you've ruled that out", she also gets this pearl of wisdom from beccyjoe. "i think he is being manipulative by not saying "i love you" - he knows you'd like to hear it. he holds so much power over you by holding back. what's so hard -if he does love you- about saying it? if he has trouble getting the words out he could write it on a card. past traumas my ass." Clearly her wonderful S.O is a manipulative misogynist! His past experiences in love and life matter naught! He's controlling you! Run! Run now while there's still time! How about this question, where a woman asks for help about her boyfriend who doesn’t seem to like her dog? Advice in that thread ranges from more examples of "His feelings don't matter and he should get over it", advice that he's a jerk and being passive-aggressive and of course, that old chestnut, DTMFA. Then there was the question about the boyfriend described as "kind and loving and thoughtful in almost all ways" who, after three years of dating, had displayed some potentially misogynistic behavior. In a conversation he had had with his girlfriend, he had explained a tradition in his family wherein the women serve the men at Thanksgiving dinners. Granted, the tradition sounds entirely sexist in its roots but bear in mind that after three years, this conversation was the first time he had ever displayed any kind of misogynistic behavior, and that it had only arisen in reference to a tradition his family holds, one that he was explaining to his girlfriend to prepare her for what might be expected of her when she visited his family for the holidays. I don't need to link to examples of how that thread went. I think you can pretty much guess for yourself. I could go on but I won't. The point I'm trying to make here is that in light of our conversation here in MetaTalk a few months ago where we realized that misogyny and sexism are two things that should not be tolerated here on Metafilter (and rightly so!), AskMe allows a disturbing amount of misandry to go unchecked. If women were being routinely put down in such ways on AskMe, I strongly argue that it would NOT be tolerated. If a man asked "My wife wants me serve her food at Christmas and I feel uncomfortable about it, is she a misandrist?" the answer would be "get over it you baby." If a man asked how he could get his girlfriend to like his dog, the answer would be "dispose of the dog and stop trying to control her, you pig!" AskMe appears to routinely reinforce the notion that misandry is fine, that men are by and large misogynists and that their feelings in relationships matter little to not at all when compared to those of their women. Does the community agree that this is the case? If so, should this change, or at the very least be more heavily moderated than it currently is? If not, why is one form of apparent sexism tolerable in comparison to another that is not?

"Wow, look at the Boobies!"

anastasiav — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:22:37 -0800

How is this not a "Boyzone" post? Its an honest question. With all the talk about "Boyzone" around here, I'm wondering what it is about this post that makes it ok when the community has had such long and involved conversations about "Boyzone" and sexism on Metafilter. I, personally, have no strong feelings one way or another (I can't click the link from work), but have heard from a couple of folks today who do. So, I'm asking: What makes this a good Metafilter post?

What gives?

semmi — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:32:38 -0800

Seeing that, by any other name pundit Frank Rich's essentially anti Clinton bloviaton was given space on the blue for the measure of 131 comments last I looked, I thought it appropriate to post two articles that past muster with Washington Post and was found politically and factually correct to be published. One is about the misogynistic comments across the board against Hillary Clinton --and Howard Dean and the DNC's silence about it, and the other is about the newest wave of belittling "Poor Hillary." Both articles reveal the difficulties the Democrats may face by their own antagonized and disenfranchised Hillary supporters, which I believe worthy of consideration. Yet the post disappeared in a hurry without a trace. What gives?

AskMeFi, not JudgeMeFi

schroedinger — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 13:11:46 -0800

I want to express frustration with some of the responses in this thread. [more inside]

Please don't pretend not to know what I'm talking about.

serazin — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 12:01:38 -0800

Women aren't funny. Please don't pretend not to know what I'm talking about.

I don't know - I think if you filled in an ethnic group and some other behavioral stereotype, with a link to a simularly bigoted rant that contains no scientific information, this post would be seen as explicitly and obviously offensive.

I'm not sure what the best action is here - it's not so overtly offensive that I necissarily think it should be removed. Reading back on previous Meta discussions it seems that this type of post is generally left standing, and looking at the faq, I see that bigoted language is not necissarily a qualification for deleting, but posts that are just saying "this group of people is inherently bad at x compared to that group of people, don't pretend you don't agree with me, and here's a link to some wingnut saying that too" seem to serve no purpose but causing people to freak out. Thoughts?

My delicate sensibilities are offended.

tweak — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 13:57:30 -0800

Sorry if that offends your delicate sensibilities. Yes, actually, it does. It's ok if it's a man, but not a woman? This is vicious talk and a double standard. I flagged it but nothing happened.

a thread about women's issues without any useless "yuck!" comments from the XY crowd

RikiTikiTavi — Thu, 05 May 2005 13:05:20 -0800

I just wanted to say that it's somewhat refreshing to see a thread about women's issues without any useless "yuck!" comments from the XY crowd. Thought it'd be good to say something nice for a change.

I almost posted this in the thread, which would have been deliciously ironic.

I AM PMS-ing

yoga — Sat, 12 Feb 2005 15:27:02 -0800

Snark/non helpful alert. And we wonder why folks think this is a boyzone? Am I pms'ing? Yes. Overreacting? Possibly. Does not calling it out = acceptance, joking or not?

the poster clearly asked for a female response

Quartermass — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 09:00:26 -0800

We've been over this already.

womanparts tag needed

dabitch — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 05:03:08 -0800

Do we need to find a special code for stating "girl grossness/irrelevant to men talk inside, boys kindly stay out" for askme? Seems no matter what one puts in the question, some poor lad will walk in the room and have to share his screams of ick with everyone. We know you'll be peeping anyway, but sharing what you think about it does not follow the please limit comments to answers rule. ta.

There are many people who see Metafilter as sexist, a boyzone....

orange clock — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 15:04:28 -0800

There are many people who see Metafilter as sexist, a veritable boyzone of aggression and braggadocio. What can be done to address these concerns?

Looking for an ex-husband

dame — Wed, 18 Aug 2004 11:07:39 -0800

Misogyny-zone!

Can we stop with the vagina comments?

monju_bosatsu — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 08:16:36 -0800

Can we stop with the vagina comments?

Is Metafilter a Boyzone?

theplayethic — Sun, 24 Feb 2002 06:23:50 -0800

[Mistakenly posted this on MetaFilter - apologies for category error]

Is Metafilter a Boyzone? Was recommending MeFi to one of my girl-pals, and she came back to me with the following: "interesting...but it's a bit of a men's room, isn't it?" When pressed she cited postings like sex classes, gross-out cartoons, nerdish obsession, flimsy pretexts for nudity, and whiny self-pitying threads about failing manhood. Somewhat surprised, and in mild defense, I cited back postings on the horror of honour killings, drag queens talking about false breasts and male self-parody. Now she's actually v. pro-men, and no knee-jerk feminist, so she's got me wondering: Are we? And if so, does it matter?

Does this teach any males here anything? Like, no personal attacks?

cCranium — Thu, 28 Sep 2000 05:46:58 -0800

More regarding this thread (on feminism). Wherein I address Catch, since it's completely tangenital to the topic at hand.