Sexism on L&D

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I agree with you. What's not okay is to do so in a way that leaves the realm of the specific "this woman did this and I hated it" and wanders into generalizations about women. (Or men.) If it stays specific, the ideas about why he hated it ("Women should --" "No, what should she in particular have done, and why do you think she should have done that, without resorting to 'women should'") will pretty quickly reveal for him what the actual problems are. And then maybe there's some hope of dealing with them in a sane and non-misogynistic way.

I agree, and here is a timely and cogent examination of exactly what you're talking about:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... ne/373069/



The whole article is worth reading, but the opening frw paragraphs alone go a long way towards making my point, that too often these spats are not about fair debate but about quashing dissent, in this case from feminist orthodoxy.

I get what you're saying. You're saying to quit making hasty generalizations about population groups. In addition, what you're saying is to quit making universal affirmatives about a population group and instead use particular affirmatives instead. For example, instead of saying All entities are x make the claim that some entities that I've encountered so far are x. If this is what you're saying, you know what I can go with this and it makes sense critical thinking wise and logically as well. Why do a number of folks on here have problems with your logic and StarvingArtist's logic? It makes perfect sense to me.

Honestly, I wish as kids grew up that critical thinking skills were taught more and they were shown at early ages how to dissect arguments and taught what a sound argument vs. unsound argument is. Teach them about fallacies as well. I bet if critical thinking skills were taught at early ages and in a rigorous and in-depth manner I bet things like misogyny would go down substantially.

What do you think about everything I've said here?

First, a completely non-sarcastic tip: You don't have to use the URL tag every time when posting links, they'll automatically hyperlink if you just post them, you only need the tag if you're trying to make a word into a hyperlink without the address showing in the post.

Now then:

Someone talking about misogyny, not actually an example.

A former moderator, and a feminist at that, warning people about trivializing rape, which kind of undermines your premise that these things are under-moderated.

A poll about whether or not men found feminism attractive in a potential wife.

billiscool rambling about feminists, not women.

Generalizing about feminists.

More about feminism, including my own contribution http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp6059751.html#6059751 .

Hmm, more about feminism...

A guy explaining that he doesn't hate women, he hates everyone.

Horrible title but the post doesn't generalize much, but more importantly, from 2008, five months before you even joined in fact.

Borderline, but a bunch of people stepped up to correct the author and offer their own perspectives, which is how things are supposed to work.

Clearly upset person talking about their own personal experience, didn't say anything about 'all women' or words to that effect.

A banned spammer, and the thread was locked quickly, again undercutting your contention that these things are ignored.

I'm not sure what your problem with this one is, it's someone complaining about gender stereotypes, sounds right up your alley.

Again, not sure what your problem with this one is, it's a discussion of 'benevolent sexism' started by a feminist to discuss things like holding the door open for women.

Hmm, 3 in a row now that I can't figure out where your objection is coming from; I'm even in that thread defending the feminist...

A guy talking about his own misogyny and musing about why he feels that way.

A meta-discussion about online sexism.

Another discussion of sexism, not an example of it.

A repeat, you already posted this one once. (it's the one about gender stereotypes)

Also a repeat, the guy explaining he's a misanthrope.

A discussion of misogynistic attitudes and how they affect relationships. Started by a moderator, 4 years ago.

Yet another discussion of misogyny.

7 years old, discussing a forum that no longer exists...

And again, a person talking about misogyny without actually providing any examples.

Did you just search 'sexism', 'misogyny', etc and posts the results without actually looking at them? That's the most charitable explanation I can think of, cause none of this supports what you're saying, and it's bulked with repeats besides, which I'd call dishonest if I thought you did it intentionally.



I think my thread by thread analysis speaks for itself; you've got nothing here, and a number of examples of sexism being moderated contra to your claims to boot. I believe this is normally called shooting yourself in the foot...



All your last link is is a person claiming that they're refrained from joining the site because of "sexism", without further explanation of what that means. Even if I grant your premise that L&D is awash in unmoderated sexism, (and I don't), that still leaves the other 20+ sub forums, which I doubt even you would argue are so hostile to women as to actively repel them, and as that member provided no examples, we have no way of weighing the veracity of her claim either way. Further, you could say the same thing about any sub-group that receives flak here; I have an inbox full of unsolicited PMs from people who are grateful that I defend non-liberals in the PPR section, for example, but I'm not arguing that people should be censored for bashing Republicans or Christians, as I believe free discourse is more important that no one ever feeling attacked, even if that means some people don't participate.

My advice to you is this; report posts that you think are sexist when you see them. If you think someone is repeatedly being sexist, PM a moderator with the links and explain why you think that. Like I said to another member earlier, I've successfully pursued complaints against fairly subtle trolls who technically broke no rules because I was able to explain, and more importantly, demonstrate why I thought they were intentionally attacking others and stirring up trouble. If the sexism as is blatant as you say, you should have no problem convincing a moderator to take action when you see it, Alex or no Alex, as he has little to nothing to do with the day to day running of the site. Seriously, I have a PM to him sitting in my outbox from 2009, unread. I got a hold of him once on IM, and leaguegirl called him on the phone once (looong story, and it didn't end well...), but he is not easy to reach, and unlikely to act.

you honestly read through all of those threads and found no examples of people making sweeping negative generalisations about women, and no women (or men) talking about how those generalisations are hurtful and how they impact our lives? wow, that's incredibly selective comprehension you have. i get it now--you don't want to acknowledge sexism on wrongplanet, so there is none. i understand.

^^^ To be honest generalizations hurt everyone on the receiving end if not anger them, but the person generalizing is too pissed off or frustrated to care due to negative experiences from a few he or she has witnessed as a group sometimes that person needs to be reminded that two wrongs don't make a right i say when it comes to sexism individuals making sexists post instantly get warned once second time thread is locked followed by a message from the moderators and give that member a probationary period of at least a few weeks if that member violates that probation he or she is suspended for a month! Just my 2 cents there anyway.

Dox, I still don't understand how any of this is a free speech issue if the 1st amendment applies to the government only. We're a guest in Alex's cyber home right? He controls what goes on his property right? How would censorship apply if this has nothing to do with the government? Why claim censorship when censorship does not apply here since freedom of speech can be moderated by a private property owner?

Edited to Add: I think she wanted you to read through all of the comments on each post not just the OP's post.

Again, you gave me a padded list of threads with 'sexism' 'feminism' or 'misogyny' in the titles with no explanations and no links to specific posts; as you're so fond of saying, it's not my job to comb through hundreds of pages of threads to find what you're talking about if you're too lazy to link to them. Also again, I suspect you simply used the search tool with a few keywords and regurgitated the results without actually reading them, as I did in fact read all the way through most of the shorter threads and several pages into the longer ones, and many if not most of them contain nothing even remotely objectionable, as anyone else who cares to read them can clearly see, and those that did included mod intervention. Finally, I gave you a detailed post in which I actually took the time to look through a good dozen plus threads provided by you and give my thoughts on them, including my own advice as to a better way to achieve your goals, only to be dismissed without you even attempting to address anything I said, with you then topping it off by insulting me...

We've been over this before, free speech is not the same thing as the First Amendment, which I did not invoke. Censorship is censorship, it does not require being backed by law to qualify as such, same as free speech.



She clearly didn't, did you? In fact, I'd wager that I read more of them than she did, considering the repeats and threads she'd likely agree with, if she'd bothered to actually look at them before posting them.

if you have 100 people and offer them a red box or a blue box, 80 of them pick the red box. could not one say most people wanted the red box?

so my post, I read 1000 post 75% of those women mention the need to be fit, have a car, house, and job along with being handsome. so why is it wrong for me to say most in my area want ____.

It is statistics to me. if one sees a majority want or do something one then says a majority wants or does somthing.

I asked if using most, some or in my area would be better but you or the t lady can't remember which said it would be sexist regardless that one must assume every woman is different despite the numbers showing that they are in common on some points.

people can be different but then again people can also have things in common. for example almost all people in the us want money, we have that want in common but we are individuals , not all Christians go to church but people will say most do. I can not speak to what women are like outside my area, except for the few I have met. I suppose I could look over profiles and adds from other states. I have seen a few and they have also mentioned the "list" most does not mean all. 51% would be consider most or a majority yet there are still 49% that wouldn't fit it. yet this is often used to say the majority or most want something when used in many other topics. it seems to be quite accepted by society and general population.

saying women do doesn't mean all women. I tried to use other words to limit it to those I experienced. and was shot down saying it would still be wrong.

my problem is not with one or two women that I dated but with the thousands I've dealt with or read profiles. I can not possible name them all by name, I must use some word to describe a group of people. being as they represent the majority of those i've dealt with most would come to mind. in my haste and depressed state of mind I was upset and I said just women. the net is filled with such post saying men ..... or women.... why do men do...... why are women like.....

I tend to see stuff logically and poll like. I get samples of people i met then make an anidea of what most will be like. most I met want the list. I battle my own mind to think that while most want that that there are still the others.

big problem I have is that while most thin women say they want a thin guy, I then feel that I am not good enough for any thin or pretty woman.

I refrain from making any threads myself. As it has been pointed out i am sexist. I do not wish to be banned from here as the result would be me being alone. I post in others to try to get help aside from that I went back to google/yahoo.

Right, exactly. And if you do this, you still get stuff like, "The women around here suck," so if a thread is all complaints about how "the women around here suck," this becomes a problem, because someone has to step in and ask, well what do you mean by "suck". Then you have to head off the sexist evopsych nonsense about what women are supposed to do and want and bring the conversation back around to "what is it exactly that you wanted that you didn't get, and why -- without making sexist generalizations -- did you think you should have gotten that." It's just standard therapy stuff -- making "I" statements instead of "you" statements.

The rough thing about it for the complainers is that it does away with a scapegoat, and then they have to face problems more directly, maybe, than they wanted to. Or feel powerless because they can't turn around and hate on someone else when they feel terrible about themselves. But then that's where the other stuff that AngelRho and some others were talking about comes in -- people showing them that there are other ways of handling these feelings and problems, and acknowledging that they're real and difficult and sometimes unsolvable. It's all very well to say "well, you have to deal with your own problems," but the problems are real and, for many here, permanent or close enough, and that shouldn't be trivialized.



Critical thinking along with concern for getting things right rather than point-scoring, yeah. Compassion in there someplace, too.

I was just thinking about these things because my university's got a sudden huge influx of Chinese students, and the school's not handling it well. Got a lot of racist kids here and while the admins understand the exchange rate, they don't know anything about what worlds the Chinese kids are coming from, have no idea how to help them acclimate, be part of the school. They're effectively segregated. And faculty don't know what to do, either, especially when they find that some of the Chinese kids have a whole range of habits nobody's told them won't do here, like cheating to an extent that makes the Americans look like Jiminy Cricket. It's a mess, basically. But the school's unwilling to crack down on these hideously racist US kids, citing free speech. And I'm just blinking at this, thinking, wtf, this is *your school*, you guys make the rules here, you have the power to make this stop. Enforce civility. They're afraid to, is my guess, because sooner or later they'll have to send some racist kid home to his tiny town, and his racist dad's going to go on the legislative warpath about how those fancy university people care more about furriners than about our Merican kids, and then budgets will be in trouble.

I can't tell you how many of these arguments I've had in my life, where I'm talking to some crazy-racist or -sexist or homophobic or antisemitic or whatever person and it takes about seventeen years before they understand that I'm not there arguing with them because I want their turf or to vanquish them and jump around in some celebratory mob. There's always this freak moment of clarity where they see and admit that yeah, what they've been doing is f*****g horrible and mean and also unnecessary and deeply unreasonable. Then we have to go around in a circle again. But it's like they have trouble believing that that's it, that's the whole show. Just stop being ghastly to people, think a little. (Some of those I'm done with, though. I don't think I can have any more, "Yes, Christmas is a Christian holiday, not a secular holiday that everyone celebrates, no, not everyone is Christian," conversations. It's nice when the recognition dawns but I'm all played out there.)

Last edited by tarantella64 on 25 Jun 2014, 12:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

some of the post will say men rape, or men only want sex. or talk about how there is this organization of men that work to put women down or rape them and that while not all men are part of it all men are guilty cause by being a man they get to enjoy the power the system brings.

as you have pointed out saying women do... is sexist, so anything that says men is too, they must say teh man who did such .. right?

some do say they expect all men to rape them, there was a commic posted aobut it recently too. I feel sorry for those who feel that way, but I can also understand why they would after been raped. so while when they say such things, it makes me feel horrible. I do not confront them or wish them banned or silenced.

saying all women are whores is sexist
I just don't see saying women seem to do .... or most women want.. these are more of observations and not general hateful or degrading as saying they are whores.

I have seen people defend the idea of wanting a mate to have a house, car, job. so how is it hateful to say mos seem to want that.

Yes, we've been over this before but This still makes no sense to me at all. Let's say you're in my house or property and I do not permit cursing. Am I committing censorship against you? Do I reserve the right as the property owner to commit censorship against you on my own property? Why or why not? If I do and we're guest on Alex's forum or property why doesn't he reserve the right to do this? I thought the idea of censorship came from the idea of "Government" making laws against one can say or not say? I thought it came from the idea of the 1st amendment. How does censorship apply if Alex is the property owner and he reserves the right to limit speech on his property just like I reserve the right to not permit cursing in my own home? When does your right to be free from censorship and someone else's property rights begin and vice versa? Again, I do not grasp your response and what we went over before? When does your rights end and mine begin? How do you claim that you should be free from censorship at all times? What if it conflicted with someone else's property rights. Like I said, I'm ignorant in many matters. I do not understand how you derive your claims and how the idea of censorship did not originate from the idea of preventing censorship by government which was codified by the 1st amendment to protect freedom of speech from "Government" intrusion not private intrusion.

There were a group of people who are believers in the 2nd amendment and rightfully so. They went into various restaurants with their guns slung on their shoulder. The restaurants kicked them out. Did the restaurants violate their 2nd amendment rights or did the restaurants reserved the right to set policy on their property. Your second amendment rights end on these restaurant's property.





I was making a conjecture.



First, I don't wager and I don't gamble. Honestly, both of you would have to explain your perceptions of these threads and posts. It may be that both of you are perceiving them differently. I ask, did the chicken cross the road or did the road cross the chicken? In fact, did they both cross each other or did neither of them cross and it looked like they crossed?

The truth I can say about myself and I will say is I know nothing and I know that I know nothing. In fact, I don't even know if this is true.

How about a hug to the women who feel hurt and disrespected? Maybe same to some of the men who feel hurt and disrespected as well? I don't know whatever it takes to keep peace and not make people hurt or feel unwelcome.

sly - about power and guilt.

I'm not a guy, but I'm what passes for white these days, and smart and well-educated and reasonably goodlooking and can do the right thing in a conference room. And American. Yeah, there's privilege there, yeah, some of it comes out of other people's flesh. I also make my living at a university, which exists by persuading young people who don't know any better to spend horse-choking quantities of money on a degree of dubious value.

What you can do in those cases is be aware of what goes on, pay attention, actively go find out, and mitigate what you can, change what you can. At work I feel like the f*****g catcher in the rye, talking to these kids, steering them away from internships they can't afford, majors without safety nets, grad degrees they don't need and won't get paid for. All the institutional furniture around here is made by prison slave labor: yell about it, show up, say we have to do something else and here's why this is not good. As much as you can. So if you're a guy and you're benefiting by it at women's expense, and you're a decent person, point out when things are unfair, insist the woman get paid what you do, be willing to testify if she makes a case out of it.

whoa, falling over. more tomorrow

Why is American law the only one being discussed on an international forum?