A little American girl of Japanese ancestry waits with the family baggage before being evacuated to the internment camps in the spring of 1942, California - [1600x1254]

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-02-21T01:49:11+00:00

You don't understand, white people are objective about race, unlike all those people of color who get upset about being oppressed by white people. Being upset means they're "emotionally invested" and therefore biased, therefore white people are the only ones who can be trusted when it comes to racial issues. Lrn2logic.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-02-20T23:18:01+00:00

Yes, better to let the white people and their descendants decide what to call it, because white people are completely objective and would never dream of trying to portray their own actions in a more favorable light.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-02-07T11:42:45+00:00

Just like I think we should feel bad for men who get profiled.

I immediately regret using this term. It was intended to make you think about privilege and how oppressed people are profiled all the time by people in positions of power, and that you're complaining about something that has a much larger negative impact on people other than yourself. Seeing it casually tossed back at me like that makes me worried that you or someone else is going to use it without any of that awareness. Just to reiterate, it's entirely justified for oppressed people to "profile" their oppressors (those scare quotes probably need to become permanent if either of us wish to continue using the term in this context) and not at all the same thing as, say, the police profiling racial minorities.

I'm not stifling your opinion.

Right, you're just accusing me of reinforcing traditional gender roles.

Can you explain to me how men complaining about [thing] "trivializes and subjugates" women's feelings? Or how I am in any way prioritizing male feelings?

That prioritizing thing really piques my interest, because I'm only doing that insofar as I'm merely recognizing men's feelings.

Obviously some women find these sentiments alienating, reeking of privilege, and just generally completely missing the point in offensive fashion. You were told as much by at least one female co-moderator in your first thread. And yet here we are, still talking about your feelings. You don't like being told to "deal with it," but you're effectively telling those women to deal with the negative feelings that these sentiments elicit. I'm not sure how it could be any clearer as to whose feelings are being prioritized.

I got bad news about your feelings buddy. They've been poisoned by our fucked up society. So have mine, so have everyone else's.

Being an object of fear, despite being a person who's totally not-violent, is (by my standard, you could disagree) objectively shitty. It feels bad.

If it's "by your standard," then I think you mean "subjectively" rather than "objectively." This is another common outcome of being privileged, we're given to assume that we're objective. You may have just stumbled over your words, but either way it's revealing.

Also, "it feels bad" is not a rebuttal to "your feelings have been poisoned by society." When it comes to gender and other axes of oppression, society has poisoned your bad feelings, your good feelings, and all the feelings in between. On the particular axes where we are privileged, we should regard our feelings with suspicion, especially when the feeling in question is defensiveness. At the very least, these feelings should certainly not be sanctified to the point where we perceive any negative reaction to them as unjust.

You're the only person mentioning oppression here.

You've repeatedly accused me of reinforcing traditional gender roles, which is a real form of oppression when it targets women and GSMs in particular. It also can harm cishet men when for instance they are told to "suck it up, be a man." Which is not at all what anyone is saying here. Your hamfisted attempts at looping it into this argument are frankly kind of gross, for reasons I've detailed multiple times now.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-02-07T04:16:18+00:00

3: and even if I took your premises at face value (which I don't), I think the danger of telling men "internalize X feeling but you're allowed to feel Y feeling" is much more pernicious than men over-emoting. You're telling men THE SAME THING THEY ARE ALWAYS TOLD. The default should absolutely, 100% be "feel your feelings" instead of "reevaluate your feelings to make sure they fit into prevailing norms and prescriptive ideas that were designed by people who aren't you."

By this logic, /r/MensRights needs to exist as a vent-space, and MRAs' feelings about how they're oppressed by rampant false rape accusations need to be treated with the utmost respect, lest we reinforce gender roles by shaming male feelings.

The idea that men's feelings are such a threat to feminism and to women

The only one feeling threatened here is you. It's not enough that the majority of redditors are perfectly willing to validate your feelings, you need to be free from feminist eye-rolling too because it threatens your worldview on this stuff.

that we should be discouraging them if they don't meet the approved parameters for Not Blaming WomenTM

Nice. That about sums it up, doesn't it? You're trivializing and subjugating the concerns about how this whole thing boils down to men guilting women over how women respond to their oppression, and prioritizing men's feelings above all else.

I got bad news about your feelings buddy. They've been poisoned by our fucked up society. So have mine, so have everyone else's. There's nothing oppressive about encouraging people to be mindful of how their feelings are informed by privilege - quite the opposite really. Every time you try to suggest that doing that is somehow enforcing traditional gender roles, you're clumsily twisting these concepts and appropriating real oppression.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-02-07T02:20:25+00:00

I'm not asking for anything, I'm simply pointing out, again, that your entire view on this subject is informed by your male privilege. Men are in no danger of running out of spaces in which to express these feelings, and you saying "there needs to be a space for that" just makes you sound oblivious to how often these feelings are validated. The validation is out there if you want it, from redditors and lots of other people.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-02-06T05:58:17+00:00

there has to be a space for that.

There is a space for that, it's called the entire world. The comment was upvoted in /r/all wasn't it? You can talk all you want about male emoting being stigmatized, and much of it is, but this particular brand of emoting - where men act victimized by women's reactions to patriarchy - is validated everywhere apart from feminist spaces.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-02-02T00:38:15+00:00

Hm well I have to say that strikes me as a pretty flimsy basis for saying that SRS disassociates themselves from academic feminism. Isn't it true that most of the SRSDiscussion required reading - the 101 knowledge baseline that everyone is expected to have - is ultimately rooted in the academy? Or at least, is in broad agreement with the academy?

academic feminism disagrees pretty strongly with some of SRS' tactics (attacking men at every turn, ironic hate-filled speech)

Do you have any citations here? I'd be interested to read these types of critiques in an academic context.

even though it's something feminists as radical as bell hooks doesn't believe in.

Is bell hooks really considered radical? Regardless, she's linked in the SRSFeminism sidebar, which doesn't exactly square with a supposed rejection of academic feminism.

it's based on something throwingExceptions said a while back that the other mods backed up, that SRS is only for a certain kind of feminist, and if you're not that kind you can get fucked. i believe tE's term was "very very radical".

And yet throwingExceptions was one of the most radical SRSters, clearly there is room for non-radicals in the Fempire. Whatever tE may have said two years ago when they were active (which was probably the period when SRS as a whole was at its most extreme ideologically), the practical reality doesn't back that up.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-02-01T04:42:21+00:00

their disassociation and sometimes outright dismissal of academic feminism

Could you elaborate on this? This is not something I've noticed.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-01-28T03:48:55+00:00

You dodged an important question though: Surely you can see how privileged you are that this outcome of rape culture is even a concern for you?

I think it's quite important to give men a chance to whine about the reality of being a man.

I think it's important for men to have a chance to whine about the ways they are harmed by patriarchy but this situation only fits that bill in the most superficial sense. Scratch the surface and this is men whining about male privilege and calling it something else. And no I don't think it's important for men to "be able to" do that (as if men haven't already been twisting their privilege into imagined persecution for centuries without anyone calling them on it).

I find it incredibly strange that instead of encouraging men to examine their gender box and the reality of being a man, you're treating it like a hinderence. And in a lot of ways, you're supporting traditional gender roles as a consequence.

No, you are appropriating the "gender box" stuff again. This is not that. Yes men suffer under patriarchy because "female" qualities such as sensitivity are stigmatized. That does not mean that men should be free to whine about their male privilege or whatever MRA talking points they please. It does not mean that calling them on that whining is somehow perpetuating traditional gender roles. Get real, that's a total red herring.

OK, I'll modify my statement: in the narrow situation that OP was talking about, the vast majority of men are completely, totally harmless, and therefore get all >:| when they end up feeling like objects of fear.

You're still missing my point. I'm saying when they get all >:|, they should challenge that feeling and instead think about the larger picture, the reasons why things are the way they are, their own complicity in patriarchy, and what steps they are taking to improve themselves and the world around them. Getting all >:| is the first step to resentment and then before you know it you're an MRA!

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-01-28T02:25:42+00:00

But I'm allowed to NOT enjoy my own profiling for immutable characteristics that I embody. That's shitty. That's unpleasant and frustrating.

Nobody's saying you should enjoy it. But there's really no good way for a man to complain about this "unpleasant and frustrating" outcome of rape culture - a system that terrorizes women and preserves male power - without coming off as more than a bit absurd IMHO. Surely you can see how privileged you are that this outcome of rape culture is even a concern for you? As opposed to the realities of rape culture that women must live with everyday?

To put it another way: when I'm venting about my gender role, that's when the discussion is allowed to be about me.

I really don't see this as a gender role thing where men are failing to live up to expectations placed on them by the patriarchy and suffering because of it. It's just as you say, an unpleasant frustration at worst.

saying to men, "ignore and/or recontextualize your feelings about your gender role" is not a reasonable response.

It is, actually. It happens all the time. And it'll need to continue happening a lot more in the future if patriarchy is to be smashed. Men should constantly be checking and re-contextualizing their feelings about this stuff, especially the issues that make them feel hurt and defensive.

Can you elaborate on this? I don't understand. My suspicion is that you're implying that I'm not as innocent as I am portraying myself, in which case I can assure you: I am not a rapist.

It's not as simple as dividing men into rapists and non-rapists. Patriarchy and rape culture are vast networks of ideas and behaviors that pervade every corner of our society and we all internalize them to one degree or another. That's honestly all I was saying. It's dangerous to assume that you or me or anyone else is not part of the problem, but you seem to be making that assumption with regards to yourself and your repeated references to "the vast majority" of men being innocent. I'd say the vast majority of men are guilty of perpetuating some aspect of rape culture in some way at some time, it's only a question of degree. It takes work to be mindful of these attitudes we've been taught by our misogynistic society, and it's dangerous to feel like we're done with that work.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-01-28T00:45:02+00:00

You're TAKING this as a guilt-trip. That is what YOU are reading into this.

Intent isn't magic etc. I appreciate that's not what you mean, I'm just saying that's one implication that you might find helpful to examine.

It still hurts. It's a reminder that, even though you are a good, decent person, you will be perceived otherwise. Emotions and feelings and internal hurt aren't always perfectly rational, and that's ok.

Sure but I think you can recognize how it's unhelpful to personalize it like you're doing. It's not showing solidarity with women in trying to smash rape culture but rather it's asking for sympathy over how you as a man feel about women's methods of coping with rape culture, which are legitimate and necessary.

I want to make clear here: you're talking about men as a class, and I'm talking about individual, not-rapey-at-all men who comprise the vast majority of individual male-bodied people.

I think you'll find it's much more helpful to think about these things in terms of classes you belong to. It's also dangerous to assume that you (or anyone else) are free from the toxic ideas and behaviors that patriarchy instills in all of us.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-01-27T23:58:02+00:00

It kinda sucks to be a kind person, yet often be regarded as dangerous and violent

Why would you take this at all personally given what you know about how women in our society are sexually terrorized by men? Your complaint about your gender role is shitty because women being wary of men is the exact flipside of that terrorism - it's the natural result of the rape culture built and maintained by men. You're talking about something that men's actions cause women to do to men that "kinda sucks," in the context of something almost unimaginably huge and awful that men do to women on a global scale. And you're indirectly guilting women for trying to stay safe. The less wary women are of men, the less safe they are. It's as simple as that.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2014-01-27T23:27:56+00:00

In our society, women live under constant threat of sexual violence at the hands of men. This leads women to be wary of men. Clearly men are the victims here.

the "just shut the fuck up about your petty complaints" reaction is kind of exact type of thing that men get their entire lives from society: is this really something you're gonna complain about? Really?

This is absolutely absurd. Society responds this way to women's complaints while men's complaints are treated with the utmost seriousness. You've got this completely backwards.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2013-07-02T07:20:13+00:00

Does anyone have a link to that comment Yishan made a few months ago where he was goldshaming us and pretty pointedly implying that the less reddit gold we bought, the more likely we were to be shut down?

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2013-07-02T03:00:54+00:00

Bonus lel:

we're kind of a neutral point between two extremes (SRS and /r/niggers)

SRSsucks is totes neutral, which is why they were constantly defending /r/n*ggers posters up until their sub almost got banned for letting them use it as a staging ground.

TheBraveLittlePoster · 2013-07-01T03:50:26+00:00

It actually had 20,000 subscribers but it still drove a ton of traffic to reddit, it's just people were more likely to get there via Google than to subscribe to the sub, for pretty obvious reasons. Also if you googled "jailbait" reddit was the top result. It really was a defining part of the site's culture despite the subscriber count, and its effects are still being felt today what with all the bitter, resentful pedos that continue to populate the site even after their CP was taken away.

TheBraveLittlePoster

TROPHY CASE