Sexism on L&D

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I'm not really caught up on everything happening in this thread, but I would like to say that in my opinion, name-calling detracts from one's argument.

I know the kind of comment you are talking about. I see it as bitter guys who say all women this and all women that and get online and type stupid opinions about women when they are frustrated and enraged because women won't have anything to do with them, probably for a reason. I've been in threads and discussions and arguments and all caps "shouting" matches with a few of them. I've tried to help and given them a little advice and pep talk and even specific suggestions of small things to change that might help them meet someone and maybe just not repel women instantly. Most won't try. It's easier to blame the whole sex for their failure than it is to do some work that may or may not get them the results they want. It's also easier for them to blame all women than it is to have to face the fact that they have some pretty big flaws and are rejected because of that instead of whatever they want to think. They won't change anything at all and always say they tried it already and it didn't work, even before they listen to the actual suggestion of what to change. I argue and fight and fight and argue and it goes on and on till the thread is locked because I get so mad at them over it. Not so much that they blame women, but I get mad over the fact that they are shifting blame without trying to fix the problem or even admit that they might be doing something wrong at all. I'm pretty well known for that on this subforum.

However, please tell me why you think that a guy who is frustrated and rejected and powerless and who comes on here and b*****s about how none of us want them and how horrible we are as a whole because of that, can harm women with his comments that he posts which most other posters except for a handful of other rejected or recently rejected guys, very loudly and pointedly disagree with and speak up about it. I'm not defending them at all. I can't stand them or that type of person who does that about anything, but what are they hurting other than making a dumb statement out of anger which no one agrees with anyway? What are their comments causing to happen to hurt women? Thats really what I want to know. How exactly are they hurting women by doing this. They are offending some people and pissing them off for various reasons, but what harm have women suffered because of their words?

These quote trees are outrageous! [Mod. edit: now fixed; it would be so nice if people took more care with this]

But anyway, I know it was said in another thread, but I won't be able to find it for a needle in a haystack; I'm wondering who this person is and what is her/his expertise and possible bias or experience of autism.

I'm thinking Clash of the Titans.

Which one of them is the Kraken?

Certainly not all of the "women don't like me so they are evil" comments clearly cross the line from venting into sexism/misogyny. Some of them definitely do.

However, not letting people know they're pretty darned close to that line encourages others to think it's okay to talk the same way. Soon, it becomes its own subculture of mild hatred for all things female. Not only is that a dangerous mindset to encourage (whether actively encouraged by agreeing, or passively encouraged by ignoring), it also is absolutely counterproductive for the men who are having these kinds of problems.

The goal here is to discourage men from thinking of women as objects for "getting." No. Women are people. Every single one of us has our own separate identity. No two of us, not even identical twins, are EXACTLY the same. Sure, there are some traits that are more typically male and some that are more typically female than others, but it is dehumanizing to reduce us to a mere category or stereotype.

And yes, it works both ways. Women shouldn't lump all men together, either. However, since women are outnumbered on WP, you see less of the male-bashing than you do of the female-bashing. I have a friend who is going through a nasty situation with a cheating husband, and she has a tendency to fall back on the "all men are a**holes" school of thought all too frequently. And I find that just as disturbing as I find the sexism/misogyny here.

I've also noticed, as I've spent a fair amount of times searching for specific topics and reading old threads, that even as little as a year ago, there were considerably more women posting here (not just L&D, but everywhere on WP). Not only is that number startlingly lower now, it also appears that there are more men posting in the Women's Forum than there are women posting in the Women's Forum. What this indicates to me is that the overt sexism here is chasing women away from WP.

(And, honestly, the "ooh, big strong man can grope me/come on to me/ compliment me/pay for everything" attitude I see from some women is just as sexist as some of the "women are evil" talk coming from the men at least in the sense that it fosters stereotyping.)

I understand that if "all <whatever group you're bashing> are <some negative trait>," then it's not YOUR fault that something bad happened to you. If it's someone else's fault, that means you don't need to examine your premises or take action to improve yourself or change the situation. Much easier to blame all women/men/blacks/gays/Asians/Martians, whatever.

Ideally, everyone would get their knickers out of a twist and start recognizing their own self-defeating behavior. Blaming others, back-biting, and sniping amongst ourselves is not a particularly useful path to that end.

You'd have to smell their breath,if there is the odor of Seamen,them you have found the Kraken.

Just an odd thought, and not original, but something that seems to be more in focus to me now.

Sexism is not a motivation, its the poor choice byproduct of frustration. So the ammount of sexism a person displays can be a rough gage of the ammount of sexual frustration they experience.

.....must ...not...laugh...*starts to slowly crack a smile*....gah I cant help it Damn my sense of humor.

So far, the poll shows most people don't want a rules change. So, putting together a set of rules to offer to the group for rattification may be a waste of time.

I don't think anyone is saying "don't say anything", most of the clashes we're seeing are over the proposal to tighten moderation, which some of us think would be counter-productive at best. That, and my insistence that someone making a claim back it up, which I don't think most people could really call unreasonable.



I don't see a problem with that, in fact I see that exact thing go on all the time here.



What are the numbers? Is there even a way to sort posts by gender and calculate a ratio? (I honestly don't know) Even with hard data, that a difficult correlation to prove, as I imagine if anything the site has gotten less sexist over the years, at least if the stories I've heard of the Men's forum are to be believed. Supposing that I granted you the premise, which I clearly don't, what would you propose as the solution? I've suggested aggressively moving any gender-political discussion to PPR, the mods have created chat thread to handle the OT posts, and others seem to want stricter moderation; do you have a different idea?



I agree, but then I'm not the one "disinviting" dissenting voices from participating in threads and getting defensive when pressed on specifics.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... lt/373501/

Wow, good timing.

After reading this forum and other forums my conclusion is we all think we know but in reality we do not know. No person knows as much as they think they do about every other person. This applies to real life as well. NTs(too simplistic IMHO) think they know but really they do not.

It seems to me that people are ignorant about many things but do not even realize they're ignorant about these things. For myself, all I can conclude is I do not know nor do I understand.

I don't think you can really consider a total of 69 votes to be representative of the entire forum considering the number of members here. Also, it's a WP poll, it's not like it's independent research or something. The way I see it, one could manipulate the poll relatively easily if someone really wanted to, so it's kind of meaningless in a way.

The wording of the poll doesn't acknowledge the fact that the use of sexist language is already prohibited under forum rules. What's currently lacking is enforcement of those rules. A lot of people may not be voting because, in that context, the wording of the poll makes little or no sense.

It's a WP poll, therefore it doesn't count. lol Yeah, THAT'S logical! WP members voting on something couldn't POSSIBLY be right.