Sexism on L&D

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No idea, but I just kind of briefly summarized it. There was more to it than that, and I don't know the details. But it happens.

People have committed suicide over cyberbullying (not saying cyberbullying is currently happening here or anything, just an example of how words can kill.)

Last edited by ReticentJaeger on 26 Jun 2014, 12:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

Pfft, coming from you?

Here you are implying that someone should be punched in the face:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp6069131.html#6069131

Here you are acting rudely towards me when I'd been nothing but polite:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp6069395.html#6069395

Ahh, a personal favorite, the time you accused me of sexism with no evidence whatsoever:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp6072464.html#6072464

Aaand a whole series of posts in which you and starvingartist attempt to tag team me, among other things accusing me of arrogance and bullying, when I wasn't even interacting with either of you and without anything to back up your accusations:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp6072314.html#6072314

Maybe your house is a little too brittle to start throwing this particular stone? Especially when you're the sidekick to an extremely rude poster yourself? Just a thought.

This is the spam thread. could we please stay on topic. I am learning how to make gourmet spam so my husband will love me more.

I hate to hear that happened, but you have to think about this a minute please. If somebody suffers a mental breakdown over something someone said on an internet forum, then that breakdown was coming anyway. It would have been over a commercial, or over something a relative said, or a funny look from somebody at the store, or anything else that pushed that particular button. It pulled the trigger on a loaded breakdown gun for one person but it didn't do it to the rest of the people who didn't have that loaded breakdown gun at the time. I'd like for everybody to avoid breakdowns but short of surrounding every person in the world with babysitters to say nice things and prevent any stress, it's not happening.

We cannot prevent accidentally causing something like that. If one or two people are having trouble mentally with something said here but you have two thousand others who aren't having trouble with it then address the person's trouble issue and not the behavior that while annoying to some and amusing to others and justified to a handfull, is still not causing most a breakdown?

This is sort of like outlawing all nuts because 200 people have life threatening allergic reactions. While nuts can kill a minority of people (please, PLEASE for the love of all that's holy and unholy, nobody post a thing about nut allergies arguing statistics lol, this is an analogy and not literal) crystal meth does kill lots of people so it's rational to outlaw that. Thats an example of nuts being more of a personal issue and meth being more of an actual social issue, like the mad guys talking bad about women in general on here vs something that actually effects womens lives. The allergic person has the responsibility to avoid the nuts as an adult and while a person with mental problems that are at the point that words on a forum can cause a breakdown can't really be held responsible for being sure to avoid upsetting things, we never know what might push a particular button, just like we never know what a stranger might smell or swallow that could cause a reaction. Our options are to either ban anything at all that could cause problems for anybody or try to help the person with the problem avoid it.

In other words, we cannot bubble wrap everyone and everything, just in case. To do so would impose too many unneeded limitations on everybody else. Thats pretty much what this whole thing is.

And for you spammers, I must humbly insist that the spam slider is the apotheosis of spam cookery. To make one, cut the spam into 1/4 inch slices and marinate in soy sauce, and then prepare an Asian style coleslaw by mixing 1/2c of rice vinegar with 1/4c each of soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and sriracha sauce plus about a tablespoon of minced ginger, and using it to dress shredded cabbage mixed with shredded carrot, chopped cilantro, and chopped green onions (I use 6c cabbage to two carrots to one bunch each cilantro and onions), with salt to taste. This will make way more 'slaw than you need, but it's delicious by itself and keeps well in the refrigerator. Make a chile mayo with mayonnaise and hot sauce, sambal or sriracha work well, or Korean gochujang if you have it, just mix to taste with a little salt. To complete, fry the spam slices on a griddle or in a frying pan, dress a sweet Hawaiian roll with the mayo, and top with one slice of spam and a generous pinch of the 'slaw. In my experience, you'll need 3-5 of them per person, though my brother once ate a full dozen in one go. You can also make it as a full sandwich on brioche, substituting ham thinly sliced ham for the spam, and just heating it through with a little soy sauce.

Oh my God, I don't even?

This person didn't just leave a couple of mean comments on a thread and accidentally offend someone. At least not at first, by the sound of it. I know I didn't make this too clear, as I hadn't rechecked what she said for details before I wrote the above, but it was full-blown cyberbullying?'severe cyberbullying', she told me, which fueled an intense breakdown.

She also made a pretty good point about how people should really think of the consequences of their words and take responsibility for what they write, and I coudln't agree more. Sure, you shouldn't have to tiptoe around people and make sure everything you say is politically correct to the point where it's almost annoying. But this wasn't a much greater issue.

I've had some bad experiences in the past with saying the wrong thing and stirring up trouble?got banned from another message board twice. Since then I've learned that I can't say anything I want without consequences. But that set of experiences is probably the reason I'm almost afraid to post. Every time someone responds to me my heart pounds and I almost feel sick because I'm terrified that they'll say something horrible.

It doesn't matter if it's coming from the Internet. It doesn't matter if it's just something a stranger posted online. It doesn't matter whose words they are or where they are?words hurt.

OMG you could make Spam Krystal burgers with little Hawaiian rolls! I love you!

I recall there were news years ago about a teen committing suicide due to online bullying, if I am not mistaken. Of course he was already broken but it did trigger his suicidal thoughts.

I get what you are saying, and nobody should bully somebody or just mess with somebody who was having problems. I agree. However, don't let hearing about this kind of think keep you from speaking your mind. There is a difference, and also bullying has intent.

We shouldn't, as a society, start reinforcing the idea that we should all take what others say to heart. We need to help those who take everything to heart and are effected by it. It is possible to grow a callous, which we all need because the entire world is not going to become super nice and thoughtful. To survive out there, you have to be able to let some things go. No matter who you are, if you interact with others, you will run across somebody who wants to hurt your feelings. Short of interviewing everyone and then executing or locking up those who aren't polite enough, there is no solution. The only solution is to help those who are easily hurt.

I know words can hurt. I've been hurt by them and still am to this day. However, the words that hurt me have to come from people whose opinions of me I care about. We can't control our desires to be liked and accepted by everyone else, and it's a lot more important when you are younger for sure, but nowdays there are a handfull of people whose mean words could actually do damage to me. I might get my feelings hurt occasionally by someone else if they are really good at insulting, but it's rare. We need to give people tools to be able to deflect it from themselves emotionally. We need to teach others how to think about it so it's not so bad. Of course in a perfect world it wouldn't happen, but it does. Everybody has to deal with it. The more people you know, the bigger your chances of being insulted by one, so the riskier it is. We need to show others the good and likable parts of themselves so they can know it's there when somebody unimportant hurts them. We need to teach them how to decide who is important and who isn't and who to care about and who not to when they say things. Yes, we have to be a bit mean about those people too. Teach them how to put themselves, mentally inside their own head, on equal ground with the douchebag that's being mean to them. Show them how to pick that person apart in their mind so they can see the guy's faults and stuff so they don't automatically think that he's got the right to judge them. And yes, show them how to give it back as good as they get if they will try that.

I'm concerned because you said you were now hesitant to say things because of how it can be taken by somebody else. Unless you have the intent to do so, or have no grasp of the concept of insults vs manners, that won't happen, and if it does and you don't intend to insult, it's not your fault. You are not to blame for how somebody takes something you say. I'm not using the general "you" here, I'm talking to you personally in this paragraph because you don't seem like somebody who would intentionally cause something. People can get power over others emotionally in one of two ways; by brainwashing and coercion type tactics (requires not only intent but study and better social and manipulative skills than either of us will ever have I think) or by the other person granting them that power in their mind. You are NOT to blame if someone gives your words more impact on them than they should have. PLEASE, don't you ever think so. You could hinder your own self by thinking that way.

Let me give you an example. Lets say I'm me from 1978. Let's also pretend that I'm not the 14 years old I would be then but the 50 year old I am now and as sensitive as I was then. I would have been so floored by the "Oh my God I don't even" remark that I would have written myself off as somebody who always says the wrong thing, doesn't deserve to be around people, and will never learn to interact and I may very well have just shut down and withdrew and stopped basically living. Really. I was that bad then, over something that harmless. The least little bit of fault finding would hurt me for weeks and months. Every remark from someone that wasn't carefully worded would draw first blood. Now, you certainly wouldn't mean for me to just take to my bed and give up on life by what you said, right? And what you said wouldn't be taken that way by most people, but would be by some in a certain group. You would not be responsible for how I took it. If you had gone on and on at me and kept on just to do it and all like you said the poster in question did, then you would have meant to do that and treated me like a cat and doomed and injured mouse. That is the difference.

These guys who say s**t about women aren't doing it out of malice. They are doing it from hurt and from stubborness and ego sometimes and lots of things, and while bad intent is there, it's not bad intent at women because they think we are inferior, it's bad intent at us because we don't like them. That's the difference between sexism and somebody that's just a douche about girls.

Anyway, I hope you get what I'm trying to say here. I know somebody is going to say something like "So, the victim that is insulted is responsible for making themselves deal with it and the a**hole gets away scott free?" and in a sense yes and no. Yes, because if you are by yourself with no one around and in the middle of nowhere and some ass runs by and pushes you down and runs off and you have no other recourse, you are responsible for getting up and getting yourself to help because nobody else can. And in your mind, and the way each person interprets and takes things, they are alone because it's all indivudual, so they are responsible for learning how to do what first aid they can to their psyche and need to be taught to recognize when they need help and also how to tell whether they have been metaphorically shot in the heart or just hit by some pieces of rock that flew up.

The no part of that is where friends, family, therapists or support group places like this come in. The insulted and offended person comes and tells what happen and they get outside opinions and perspective and can be told "he's a douche, f**k him, ignore it" or "you should talk to his boss/wife/mother/the cops/whoever because that was over the line". In other words perspective helps people figure out whether they were hit or winged and if they were hit, how bad they were hit. If for some reason they choose to go overboard even after being told it's not what they think it is, and metaphorically cut off their leg cause they got some dirt on their toe, it's nobody's fault but their own. Should they have gotten psych help for it first? Yes. Can we make them? No. Why not? Cause we can't make anybody do anything without power over them. We can try and convince them to give the power of emotional reality to those who are trying to help, but we can't stop them if they give it to those who are trying to hurt. It's a roll of the dice, really.

Do what you can to help. Try as hard as you can. But if you can't or are taken a different way than you meant it, then put it in the past and go on. And when you are in the middle of live fire, remember that you have the power to hit the dirt and crawl away or to shoot back. Also, every hit is not a mortal injury nor will it draw blood unless you allow yourself to push the bullet deeper in yourself. This is NOT a blame the victim thing. This is a thing everybody needs to learn and most NT's learn it early on and without being taught in lots of detail, but many don't and more of us don't because nobody bothers to explain that you have to do lots of mental gymnastics that you don't believe at first to learn how to, but that's how it works.

Olive Oil, thou art a Temptress, indeed!

May I have permission to kiss your hand?

Before the Semantic Nazi Police get a hold of you, one should note that the "effects of the hurricane had a deleterious effect upon those who were affected."

Yes, but only because you ASKED FIRST lol.

And yeah I get those two mixed up a lot. I also can't spell refridgerator right. See? I make a lot of typos. It's ok I think though.

I'm a temptress. I'm going to be pleased all day by this. Now I sort of want to steer you to the FB aspie group thread about pickup lines and stuff lol.

I am a man of few words when I'm around such Royalty!

People should be allowed to say whatever they want, as long as it doesn't infringe upon anyone's security.

Getting off the subject of spam for a minute, [though I am considering some of the classier recipes here. and what wine do we serve with spam? 2 buck chuck?] I do believe that words can hurt, even drive a vulnerable person to suicide. I feel though that it has been some broken hearted, very likely suicidal young men, already with poor self esteem, who forgot to say "some women are" or ' right now, it feels like some women are," before completing the sentence,it are the ones who have been bullied. And I worry about them.I worry that calling them misogynists or comparing them to murderers is way abusive of already hurting and vulnerable people.

Estimates are that 96% of Autistics have been sexually assaulted. That would include MOST Autistic men too,not just women. And that i tragic. And I understand for many even the mention is triggering. Maybe there should be a seperate area on WP to assist those who need to speak of it and work on healing. Also, as far as triggering, with the estimate so high,has anyone considered that threads like the ones of the past month, that seem to be all over this forum lately, are themselves triggering?

Words do have an impact. I disagree with OOM on that. And words can hurt. And in OOMs' case, words could write one of the most AMAZING pieces of literature EVER. [so, when can we buy it]

To many of us, this seems more like a cruel game than it does anything even remotely constructive. Many of us are feeling protective of some people on here who have to find a reason not to end their lives every single day. We are not belittling the effects of sexual assault on 96% of us, including ourselves. But we do not find that encouraging those whose scars are still raw for whatever reason, to attack those hurting even more, in any way okay.

So, if I serve spam as an entree, is it appropriate to serve a sweet creamy version of it for dessert at the same meal?

I also agree that words can hurt,very painfully.Sometimes lambs become wolves just to survive.That is a shame.
On the spam dessert,I feel nauseous now.

This from a woman who eats scotch eggs. I'll take my banana spam split over your scotch egg any day.