My point is that it is a universal issue, all while many people are trying very hard to represent it as women-specific.
When male voices are shushed both under their posts and under those focused on women, they don’t have much of a platform to speak out. And they need it, too.
If all sides have an opportunity to say things without being interrupted, there is no point in chiming in and saying the other side has it worse.
As much as you may be right that both men and women are experiencing this, the post was talking about how women experience it. And when women speak out about it, it’s apparently hard to talk about just that and instead the male experience has to be discussed as well.
Again, I really don’t think you intended anything bad here. But as you said:
If all sides have an opportunity to say things without being interrupted, there is no point in chiming in and saying the other side has it worse.
Women try to talk about it (e.g. via this topic), but you interrupted by chiming in how men are also affected. That might well be true, but it’s also the kind of interruption that can be frustrating because, and I say this as a man, the experience women have is probably different (on average) from the experience men have.
You’re not one of the voices in the comic shouting “misandrist” or anything, but it is a kind of “and what about the men?” type of statement. And I don’t think you’re trying to be dismissive here at all and I do believe your intentions are good, but the result here is that what women want to talk about is once again not talked about, which is what the comic is about.
Your well-intentioned statement I think perhaps unbeknownst to you is steering the discussion away from the intended topic. And it’s exactly that problem that this comic addresses.
As much as you may be right that both men and women are experiencing this, the post was talking about how women experience it
Right, but if I made a post about how “Men poop,” and women came in to say “women poop too,” it would make complete sense. Maybe we should be talking about how everybody poops and everyone’s poop stinks at that, instead of “women’s poop stinks, no men’s poop stinks!”
We’re not talking about basic biological functions here. We’re talking about issues that men and women may experience differently. This example is apples to oranges.
Except it isn’t though. Take cases like the last thread I can recall on lemmy that could have inspired this comic, the french protesting against that one guy who had people come rape his wife. The front facing image of that post was a woman holding a sign that says “not all men but always a man.” What this sign should have said is “rape is bad,” instead it pretended the two women who raped me don’t exist and that I’m guilty by association of my genitals instead of a victim like them for going through the same thing they did. What’s more, I’m told to shut up and let women speak at best, usually with one or two “well you must’ve liked it,” or “what’re you, gay?s” thrown in for good measure, yet the second you say a woman must’ve liked it or what is she a lesbian you’re still the problem, can’t beat em, can’t join em. Even better, nobody says “shut up and let men speak,” we say “stop generalizing us as abusers for having penises,” and that is met with “shut up and let women speak.”
I’m sorry that you’re unable to parse metaphors, but everybody poops.
I see where you’re coming from, and I agree for the most part (and I also don’t agree with people taking pitchforks on you), but the direction I take to “steer it away” is to look at it as something universal, which is simply more helpful to understand why it happens, not to tie attention to men’s issues specifically.
I believe we’ve come at the point where women and men issues are so intertwined, so much permeating each other that it’s no longer helpful to see them as separate issues to begin with. Sure, we have different experiences, but those very experiences come from the interaction of problems on both sides, and looking at them from one side is essentially screaming into the void and hoping it helps - and when it predictably doesn’t, this leads to people vilifying each other instead of exploring the reasons behind it.
Everyone has to familiarize themselves with the issues other sides face, and come from the side of compassion if they want to be part of an actual solution. That includes men, women and enbies, too.
the direction I take to “steer it away” is to look at it as something universal, which is simply more helpful to understand why it happens, not to tie attention to men’s issues specifically.
I understand your intentions, but it doesn’t have the intended effect. By doing this you are making the assumption that the way women experience these issues is (close to) the same as the way men experience it. But you can’t really assume that, and often people disagree.
When women want to talk about problems they face, it’s important to hear them out and address their issue, instead of what amounts to ‘deflecting’ to a “grander” issue. At its core it’s a whataboutism that derails the conversation, and that’s not what you intended.
So my genuine advice is: don’t. Address these problems one by one. The solutions can often be different.
You have to assume that
I believe we’ve come at the point where women and men issues are so intertwined, so much permeating each other that it’s no longer helpful to see them as separate issues to begin with.
may well not be correct, and it can feel incredibly invalidating to people by assuming that this is the case.
I tried to make it clear that women have a drastically different social experience. It is true, and it would be weird to debate it.
But we have to separate venting from finding solutions. My very point is that we often cannot practically address women’s issues without addressing men’s ones, and vice versa. Going one by one, you will quickly hit the wall, as men (or women, if we talk about men’s issues) just won’t be able to do what they’re asked for. And instead of accepting that and working together, people tend to assume that the reason the other side doesn’t change is because they act in bad faith. This is inherently imbalanced and unworkable.
I see, but the point of the comic is that women don’t seem to agree with you and find that way of thinking about it fairly exasperating at times. In many cases there hasn’t been a serious attempt to address the issues raised, so claiming that you can’t address them without also addressing men’s issues would be perhaps a bit premature.
I see where you’re coming from, and not gonna debate it further.
Still, to me it looks this division is growing, and hostility is barely ever a good answer. There seemed to be more unity and more decisiveness to approach things together just a few years prior, and I’m not sure what ended it.
I’ll tell you from my own experience, all I can speak for is me (and I’m not the guy you were talking to btw).
When I was a kid growing up I called myself a feminist, I care(d) about women’s issues and the women children in my peer group were welcoming and cared about me too, “all men” and “men are trash” were relegated strictly to the internet. And then as I got older I started meeting more people who, while they’d be nice at face value, would regularly talk about how much they hate men and “men are trash” any time they had an opportunity. And then some of those women I know who used to not hold those values started to turn as we got older and expressed more and more hatred of men, and then I got raped, twice, by two different women within the space of a year, and then still have to see “not all men but always a man,” “men are trash,” etc, or under a comic in (either 196 or me_irl) right now about how men can be victims of abuse too “mens rights activist” (synonymous with incel to those who use it as an insult).
Now? I can’t call myself a feminist anymore. The culture at large actively rejects me and pretends that I, as a male rape victim of woman abusers (and that’s not even to mention the three different women that cheated on me, one of whom emotionally abused me for almost two years first, and technically raped me by threatening suicide if I was busy when she wanted it making me just give up and roll over more often than not, but I didn’t even include her in the “raped me” category, woohoo), don’t exist, am not important, and need to shut up and let women speak yadda yadda. If they don’t want to include me on their side because I don’t toe the line on the whole “calling me a rapist simply for having a penis” thing, fine, but I can’t not be on my goddamn side so I’ll still advocate for me.
In my personal experience, the divide grew because of that. The fact that women feel safer with a bear also isn’t helping, but that’s just because I now know that women are scared of me at all times and so I should avoid interacting with them as much as possible for their own comfort, so since I don’t talk to women that I don’t already know, that further increases the divide, but it’s better than them thinking I’m creepy or whatever.
My point is that it is a universal issue, all while many people are trying very hard to represent it as women-specific.
When male voices are shushed both under their posts and under those focused on women, they don’t have much of a platform to speak out. And they need it, too.
If all sides have an opportunity to say things without being interrupted, there is no point in chiming in and saying the other side has it worse.
As much as you may be right that both men and women are experiencing this, the post was talking about how women experience it. And when women speak out about it, it’s apparently hard to talk about just that and instead the male experience has to be discussed as well.
Again, I really don’t think you intended anything bad here. But as you said:
Women try to talk about it (e.g. via this topic), but you interrupted by chiming in how men are also affected. That might well be true, but it’s also the kind of interruption that can be frustrating because, and I say this as a man, the experience women have is probably different (on average) from the experience men have.
You’re not one of the voices in the comic shouting “misandrist” or anything, but it is a kind of “and what about the men?” type of statement. And I don’t think you’re trying to be dismissive here at all and I do believe your intentions are good, but the result here is that what women want to talk about is once again not talked about, which is what the comic is about.
Your well-intentioned statement I think perhaps unbeknownst to you is steering the discussion away from the intended topic. And it’s exactly that problem that this comic addresses.
Right, but if I made a post about how “Men poop,” and women came in to say “women poop too,” it would make complete sense. Maybe we should be talking about how everybody poops and everyone’s poop stinks at that, instead of “women’s poop stinks, no men’s poop stinks!”
We’re not talking about basic biological functions here. We’re talking about issues that men and women may experience differently. This example is apples to oranges.
Except it isn’t though. Take cases like the last thread I can recall on lemmy that could have inspired this comic, the french protesting against that one guy who had people come rape his wife. The front facing image of that post was a woman holding a sign that says “not all men but always a man.” What this sign should have said is “rape is bad,” instead it pretended the two women who raped me don’t exist and that I’m guilty by association of my genitals instead of a victim like them for going through the same thing they did. What’s more, I’m told to shut up and let women speak at best, usually with one or two “well you must’ve liked it,” or “what’re you, gay?s” thrown in for good measure, yet the second you say a woman must’ve liked it or what is she a lesbian you’re still the problem, can’t beat em, can’t join em. Even better, nobody says “shut up and let men speak,” we say “stop generalizing us as abusers for having penises,” and that is met with “shut up and let women speak.”
I’m sorry that you’re unable to parse metaphors, but everybody poops.
I see where you’re coming from, and I agree for the most part (and I also don’t agree with people taking pitchforks on you), but the direction I take to “steer it away” is to look at it as something universal, which is simply more helpful to understand why it happens, not to tie attention to men’s issues specifically.
I believe we’ve come at the point where women and men issues are so intertwined, so much permeating each other that it’s no longer helpful to see them as separate issues to begin with. Sure, we have different experiences, but those very experiences come from the interaction of problems on both sides, and looking at them from one side is essentially screaming into the void and hoping it helps - and when it predictably doesn’t, this leads to people vilifying each other instead of exploring the reasons behind it.
Everyone has to familiarize themselves with the issues other sides face, and come from the side of compassion if they want to be part of an actual solution. That includes men, women and enbies, too.
I understand your intentions, but it doesn’t have the intended effect. By doing this you are making the assumption that the way women experience these issues is (close to) the same as the way men experience it. But you can’t really assume that, and often people disagree.
When women want to talk about problems they face, it’s important to hear them out and address their issue, instead of what amounts to ‘deflecting’ to a “grander” issue. At its core it’s a whataboutism that derails the conversation, and that’s not what you intended.
So my genuine advice is: don’t. Address these problems one by one. The solutions can often be different.
You have to assume that
may well not be correct, and it can feel incredibly invalidating to people by assuming that this is the case.
I tried to make it clear that women have a drastically different social experience. It is true, and it would be weird to debate it.
But we have to separate venting from finding solutions. My very point is that we often cannot practically address women’s issues without addressing men’s ones, and vice versa. Going one by one, you will quickly hit the wall, as men (or women, if we talk about men’s issues) just won’t be able to do what they’re asked for. And instead of accepting that and working together, people tend to assume that the reason the other side doesn’t change is because they act in bad faith. This is inherently imbalanced and unworkable.
I see, but the point of the comic is that women don’t seem to agree with you and find that way of thinking about it fairly exasperating at times. In many cases there hasn’t been a serious attempt to address the issues raised, so claiming that you can’t address them without also addressing men’s issues would be perhaps a bit premature.
I see where you’re coming from, and not gonna debate it further.
Still, to me it looks this division is growing, and hostility is barely ever a good answer. There seemed to be more unity and more decisiveness to approach things together just a few years prior, and I’m not sure what ended it.
I’ll tell you from my own experience, all I can speak for is me (and I’m not the guy you were talking to btw).
When I was a kid growing up I called myself a feminist, I care(d) about women’s issues and the women children in my peer group were welcoming and cared about me too, “all men” and “men are trash” were relegated strictly to the internet. And then as I got older I started meeting more people who, while they’d be nice at face value, would regularly talk about how much they hate men and “men are trash” any time they had an opportunity. And then some of those women I know who used to not hold those values started to turn as we got older and expressed more and more hatred of men, and then I got raped, twice, by two different women within the space of a year, and then still have to see “not all men but always a man,” “men are trash,” etc, or under a comic in (either 196 or me_irl) right now about how men can be victims of abuse too “mens rights activist” (synonymous with incel to those who use it as an insult).
Now? I can’t call myself a feminist anymore. The culture at large actively rejects me and pretends that I, as a male rape victim of woman abusers (and that’s not even to mention the three different women that cheated on me, one of whom emotionally abused me for almost two years first, and technically raped me by threatening suicide if I was busy when she wanted it making me just give up and roll over more often than not, but I didn’t even include her in the “raped me” category, woohoo), don’t exist, am not important, and need to shut up and let women speak yadda yadda. If they don’t want to include me on their side because I don’t toe the line on the whole “calling me a rapist simply for having a penis” thing, fine, but I can’t not be on my goddamn side so I’ll still advocate for me.
In my personal experience, the divide grew because of that. The fact that women feel safer with a bear also isn’t helping, but that’s just because I now know that women are scared of me at all times and so I should avoid interacting with them as much as possible for their own comfort, so since I don’t talk to women that I don’t already know, that further increases the divide, but it’s better than them thinking I’m creepy or whatever.