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  • Yeah, but no

    There are assholes on both sides, like it or not.

    Yes, there are loads of men who don't deserve the name, that put women down, who can only be happy on the back of women. Fuck them

    Having said that, I very much remember that video of guys going to a support group for men that committed uicide with feminists waiting for them outside to yell things like "it's good that he killed himself!". Fuck those assholes too.

    Can we maybe ALL be nice to EVERYONE?

    I'm sorry, but this comic doesn't help. The reality is that both men and women face the same nonsense when they bring up what they have to contend with so how about we don't try to disparage either side? Listen to both sides? You know, the thing we should be always doing?

    • I'm sorry, but this comic doesn't help.

      I don't think it necessarily has to? Like, I agree with pretty much everything in your comment, aside from this part and what it implies. I read this comment as an expression of frustration from the artist, and it's certainly one that I can relate to. I also realise that there's a heckton of men who'll relate too, because of how men who want to carve out space to talk about men's issues can be cut off, even if they're not the same men as the assholes who only want to talk about men's issues when they're speaking over a woman. However, I think that saying "both sides" to this misses the point of the comic

      It can be useful to ground statements in our own personal perspectives because of how it limits the scope of what we're saying. A smaller, messier example is that I am autistic and have done both disability activism and autism activism in the past. I am autistic and because of that, I am also disabled, and so many of my experiences as an autistic person can also apply more generally to disabled people. However, generalising a statement can be difficult, especially if on a difficult topic, such as institutional ableism. I was able to speak confidently on how that affected me personally, and to a more limited degree, how it affects other autistic people, because of who I am in community with. However, I don't directly know any deaf people, for example, and thus I am cautious when talking about my experiences as a disabled person, lest I over-generalise. I get a similar sense from the comic's use of "as a woman". Grounding stuff in that way is often an attempt to limit the scope of the discussion to something more manageable when grappling with something hard to articulate.

      I also do think it's useful to recognise the difference in experience. As a silly example, I might say "as a woman, I need to breathe air in order to survive". I could also say "as a human, I need to breathe air in order to survive". I could also say "as an animal, I need to breathe air in order to survive", but actually, I'd need to go and double check the facts on that last one. That's sort of my point — sometimes statements are overly specific and should be simplified, like in the "as a [woman/human]" statements. However, limiting the scope (like in the "as a human" statement compared to the "as an animal" one) actually gives space for the possibility that some weird animals don't need to breathe.

      Apologies if I have explained this poorly. I don't mean to come off as lecturing or argumentative; I am replying to your comment because I appreciate your points and I am open to discussion.

  • I've noticed this an uncomfortable amount on Lemmy. Being trans, I've started bringing up my pretransition experience/traumas living as a dude even if it's not relevant whenever I talk about a women's issue that effects me because I don't get taken seriously otherwise.
    Well, actually, lately I've taken up just not talking about women's issues, and really just commenting less frequently over all, because this whole place is like a mine field of people who just wanna argue. Every time before I hit send I have to think "Is somebody gonna think this is about them and get pissed with me?" And 99% of the time the answer is yes.

    • I'm sorry you had to deal with that lemmy is definitely a bit more wild in terms of strong opinions, some very cool people on here but also a lot of immaturity.

      I'm not trans but isn't that a normal thing to think before posting? I'm fine with saying to my friends "(wo)men have hurt me in the past, and it makes me less trustful of them" but I wouldn't comment that publicly, since either I get weirdos saying "yeah I hate (wo)men too" or weirdos saying "the other sex does this but worse!" Either way they don't get what I mean, so I'm going to be very careful with qualifying what I say. It's a hot-button topic and it sucks I have to do that just to share an experience, but a lot of people are sensitive (myself included) to perceived attacks. I still get people misunderstanding it, but that's usually 1/100 instead of 1/5. It sucks that it doesn't feel like a group of friends, but there are a lot of communities on lemmy that will ban people acting like jerks (lemmy.blahaj.zone for one)

      • I suppose I just had higher expectations for Lemmy tbh. When I first joined on the first instance I found, the community was so nice, supportive, and in general just an amazing place to be where it felt like anybody could have a reasonable discussion about anything. It just really, really quickly devolved into what every other social media site is.
        I did find using the app Connect to block lemmy.world where I assume most of the most toxic people land purely on account of its size instantly reduced toxicity in my feed by a massive amount, but it also unfortunately blocks half the content on the site and I also don't like that I have to block plenty of reasonable users as collateral to achieve it.

    • I know I'm just one person, but your experiences are important and imo, necessary for women's liberation (and human liberation more generally). I'm not going to say "you should share your experiences" because I get how exhausting it is to be challenged on basic shit all the time and that means commenting can be akin to self harm if overdone. I guess I'm just trying to expand that 1% of non-assholes into a larger percentage.

      I say this as a cis woman whose feminism has gotten a hell of a lot more intersectional in recent years, in part due to trans friends. Knowing trans women in particular has helped me to feel more at home and happy in my own gender (femininity and its relationship with womanhood is complicated). Having lived as a guy for a chunk of your life no doubt means that your lived experience (especially with respect to gender) is messy and complex, but that's great, because the world is messy and complex. At least, it would be great, if more people were open to listening to you when you share. I'm sorry that you have to do the cost:benefit analysis before commenting — that part is something I can relate to.

    • Pshhhh, noone here is going to argue with you. You're wrong /s

      Seriously though, sorry the internet is full of hatefull people. Thank you for what you have shared in the past. Some of us do benefit from hearing other people's struggles, but just don't comment as much. Negative engagement usually outweighs positive engagement on all social media platforms.

  • All lives matter type shit. We live in a patriarchy, the least you can do is listen to those most affected, women. Don't expect compassion if you can't show it.

    Exactly how I am sure poor white people have it bad in this system(and it needs to be addressed), yet those primarily affected by racism have to come to the spotlight, exactly this way men have problems(and need to be addressed), yet those primarily affected by the patriarchy have to come to the spotlight, women.

    Conflating one social problem (patriarchy) with others (economic inequality and poverty for example) is harming the cause and it's disorienting, it's wrong. When we talk about the patriarchy, the discussion should not be diverted and those mostly affected are women, so we talk about women's problems and how they experience it. That goes for queer people's problems as well. It goes for any underprivileged/minority social group. That's it.

215 comments