Ladies! You may think you’ve got the men of the world fooled, but the guys over on MGTOWforums.com can see right through you! As dontmarry puts it:
Everything that a woman does is deceitful. From makeup, push-up bras and high heels, to fibbing about her dick count or proclamations of ‘I don’t mind marrying a poor man’ (oh yes you do).
That’s right, ladies! We know those eyelashes aren’t real! We know your cheeks aren’t really that rosy! And your lips aren’t really that red! And your boobies aren’t really … um, what was I saying? I got distracted thinking about boobies. Anyway, you’re all a bunch of liars! I bet some of you even wear Spanx, which are a tool of Satan.
Also, that thing he said about the dick count. Stop the lies! We demand dick count accuracy!
Ninja-ed.
Nobinayamu, I’d like to counter your theory with another: What if women really don’t feel that victimized and/or pay much attention to this stuff until they become indoctrinated by feminist circles and told how they’re supposed to feel (angry and victimized) or else they’re betraying the feminist cause?
Anyway, even if your entire circle of women you associate with experience no harrassment whatsoever, it still wouldn’t be proof against MY experiences and the experiences of many other women, some of whom posted on that link I gave you.
No, you’re right. It just shows that it’s not universal, and the ones who do claim to experience it are usually the ones who tend to overreact (sorry, I read through that site for a bit and 90% of the entries are of the “I got catcalled/somebody said women aren’t as good at x! I’m victimized by the patriarchy!”
“If one of your female friends came to you and told you about a really ugly exchange she had on the street with a guy who told her she had “dick sucking” lips while she was waiting to cross the street, what would you say to her?”
She should have told him “Thanks, so do you” 😛
I’m going to repeat myself, since you seem to have completely ignored an important part of my reply;
Might I add that dismissing someone’s lived experience as being oversensitive is just a tad oppressive?
Don’t really believe that’s all that oppressive and think I am being oversensitive? Okay, let’s try a thought experiment. Let’s say I proclaim that men are never actually abused by women, and furthermore, I issue a challenge for a man to step up and describe his experiences with abuse. In response, I say that well, none of MY male friends, or my brother have ever told me they were abused, so maybe men who are abused are just pussies who need to learn to stand up for themselves?
You’d think I was kind of an asshole, right? Quite apart from the fact that by denying such abuse exists (and even if it DOES exist, it’s because those men are wimps) feeds into and reinforces a cultural trend in which men who are abused by women are silenced, shunned, and looked down upon as weak, is the very definition of oppression.
touché
So, if a male friend of yours came to you with the fact that his spouse abuses him, you would tell him “You should have just punched her back, man! You’re bigger and stronger than her, aren’t you?”
Do you see where I’m going with this?
Hengist, I’ve been walking around in my female body for a long time now. I didn’t like being harassed on the street when I was thirteen years old and I don’t like it now. Feminism and the “feminist cause” have nothing to do with it. I don’t think that every form of attention I receive/have ever received falls in the category of harassment. But that’s for me to decide as an individual. Like all women, I’m an individual. Not a monolith, not a hive mind; not someone walking around looking for reasons to be offended. There are women who feel harassed by things I just brush aside. There are women who feel flattered by attention I would consider harassment. Individuals.
All of this is beside the point. Shora answered you -pointedly, candidly, and in great detail- about some of the unpleasant experiences she’s had, and continues to have, because she’s female. And you chose to dismiss her experiences as unimportant because you know a few women and they don’t complain to you about harassment. Your rebuttal is asinine and illogical. As for the your “theory” have you ever read any books that have direct, first-hand accounts of how women who lived in cities and worked outside the home prior to the 60s and 70s, and the mainstreaming of second-wave feminism felt about sexual harassment?
And then if the guy that’s with him laughs and he gets mad and calls her a “fucking bitch”?
Hengist: I don’t see why women in your circle would tell you about experiencing harassment in the first place. After all, they are going to get shot down and told how they are just being typical irrational female hysterics, and it’s really not as bad as they think it is. Certainly, getting groped, catcalled, threatened, or treated dismissively in one’s place of work is not anywhere as bad as getting turned down for a date. That’s what you would tell them — right?
By the way, one of the manifestations of the oppression by women is the systematic denial that women’s own experiences, wants, desires or thoughts have any validity whatsoever. Especially when those experiences, wants, desires or thoughts make men feel uncomfortable.
I had men shout at me and my friends out of their cars back when I was still in junior high school, long before I became involved in feminism. It still upset and angered me.
Ooh… Are we playing “gendankenexperimenten” (what if stories)?
What if Hengist was knee-jerk anti-feminist who isn’t going to listen to any facts, or actual evidence; even when he’s asked for it, and will pretend his worldview is absolutely without fail at interpreting the events of other’s lives.
Yah, I know… too farfetched, no one would ever do something like that.
“Nobinayamu, I’d like to counter your theory with another: What if women really don’t feel that victimized and/or pay much attention to this stuff until they become indoctrinated by feminist circles and told how they’re supposed to feel (angry and victimized) or else they’re betraying the feminist cause?”
So really, what you’re saying is there’s no way women can think for themselves. With that attitude, do you really wonder why your sisters and friends don’t come to you with these experiences?
That’s an odd way to say it. Are you trans?
Agreed. And it’s up to others to decide whether you’re overreacting or not.
I wonder how many times an MRA gave a personal account here, only to be mocked and dismissed for it, but that’s beside the point. I never said I didn’t believe Shora, only that she might be oversensitive and her experiences might not be universal (and from what I can see, they aren’t). In this we basically agree. What’s illogical?
Were those books written by Andrea Dworkin and Gloria Steinem?
“And then if the guy that’s with him laughs and he gets mad and calls her a “fucking bitch”?”
Then he’d just look like an even bigger tool. Problem solved.
So really, what you’re saying is there’s no way women can think for themselves.
Only to the extent that people who get indoctrinated into a popular movement which seems to offer answers to difficult questions, ‘can’t think for themselves.’
With that attitude, do you really wonder why your sisters and friends don’t come to you with these experiences?
Yes, that’s the only possible explanation. Little known fact: All men have a purple elephant orbiting their heads at all times. The trumpeting of the elephant can get distracting at times, but it’s something they have to live with. The fact that none of them have told you about this means they don’t trust you.
“I’d like to counter your theory with another: What if women really don’t feel that victimized and/or pay much attention to this stuff until they become indoctrinated by feminist circles and told how they’re supposed to feel (angry and victimized) or else they’re betraying the feminist cause?”
I’d like to offer a related theory: What if blacks in the South really didn’t feel that victimized and/or pay much attention to stuff like not having any civil rights until they became indoctrinated by the Civil Rights circles and told how they’re supposed to feel (angry and victimized)? “Gee, calling me ‘boy’ at 40 years of age is disrespectful? You mean it’s not done out of affection?? Never thought of it that way. I guess now I’m gonna stop being sweet and appreciative, and start drinking at ‘whites only’ fountains and be a general pain in the ass to all the white folk who haven’t even ever whipped me, not once.”
And don’t huff an’ puff, Hengist, racism may at times have been worse than misogyny, but the argument you are making is still basically the same as the one in my hypothetical: “indoctrination” making an oppressed person question whether his or her status as a second-class citizen is “normal”.
“So, if a male friend of yours came to you with the fact that his spouse abuses him, you would tell him “You should have just punched her back, man! You’re bigger and stronger than her, aren’t you?”
Do you see where I’m going with this?”
Hold on, so far we haven’t been talking about physical abuse. But I’m not sure what your point is. Are men not allowed to hit back in self-defense or what?
Hengist,
I never said my experiences were universal. I did not outright say but did imply that my experience’s matter because they happened.
And no, it is not up to people who did not live my experiences to decide if my experiences matter or not. They happened to me, not to you, and you haven’t the slightest idea of my life, so it is ridiculous to think that you would be better at assessing whether or not I’m “overreacting” than I would.
Hengist: Being offended by catcalls is not an overreaction if for no other reason than the purpose of the catcall is to offend. It is not an overreaction to be offended by your ilk’s endorsement of such conduct, since what you are saying, basically, is that women have no dignity to begin with.
Shora: Certainly you can see how the person who is in the position to harass rather be harassed would see sexual harassment as no big deal. After an act of shitting, the shitter always feel better than the shitted-upon. I just don’t see why the shitter perceives himself as the ultimate impartial arbiter of how one should feel about being on the receiving end of it.
No, were were not talking about physical abuse. This is me reversing the roles to highlight the oppressiveness of dismissiveness.
So we started out with talking about street harassment and such because these are some experiences with oppression that I have dealt with. You dismissed those experiences, and I am trying to illustrate how the very act of being dismissive can be oppressive.
To do that I switched around the genders so that the gender that you care about most would be, in this new hypothetical scenario, oppressed. Since street harassment isn’t something men undergo on a regular basis, I used domestic abuse as an example.
Note!! I am not saying in any way that street harassment is as bad as domestic abuse! In this analogy, what matters is being dismissed, and the damage that comes from it, not the degree of the dismissal, the event, or the damage.
Now, in order to elaborate on my point, my hypothetical scenario (in which I say female to male abuse doesn’t happen, have someone tell me that that happened to him, and I dismiss it) is at is base, the exact same thing you did to me. By take what you did to me, and indeed, many women with similar experiences, and bringing them into another light, I hoped to show you what an asshole move it is to dismiss someone as being “oversensitive” when something bad happens to them.
In closing, my Point: Being dismissive to someones experiences, whether those experiences include street harassment, slut shaming, or domestic abuse, is an asshole thing to do. Stop it.
Not that it would make a difference but, no, I’m not trans. This is my female body; I am more than the sum of its parts.
Fine, Hengist, what qualifies as harassment? How will you determine if I’m overreacting or not?
Using your claim about your sisters and female friends to dismiss her experiences and presented that as an argument/rebuttal of her statement is illogical. Your incredibly limited, anecdotal evidence in no way invalidates Shora’s accounts. Nor does your claim to have no first-hand knowledge of women who complain about sexual harassment in any way indicate that she is “tad-sensitive” or over-reacting. The only thing you proved is that women don’t talk to you about these things. So your rebuttal is both asinine and illogical.
“My sister doesn’t complain about being sexually harassed” is not a logical response to “Sexual harassment is a problem for me.”
Oh, c’mon. No references to Solanas or Daly? Seriously, there are a lot of first-hand accounts, interviews, etc. from women out in the work place, living in cities, etc. that pre-date Dworkin and Steinem. Women have had opinions about sexual harassment for a long time.
Yeah, sure. It’s all one big sitcom; scripted with a laugh track included. Your problem is that you’re viewing the issue through the lens of a guy who isn’t particularly successful with women. So you’re sitting there imagining a scenario in which some decent guy says “Hi, you look nice today” and some indoctrinated feminist snarling “Fuck off, oppressor!” back at him. This isn’t PCU.
You have no idea how quickly and how often, street harassment can turn into something ugly, do you?
When I was on the bus home in middle school, a boy reached over, groped my breasts, and told me “You’ve got some nice boobies.”
By this logic, rather than telling him to get his hands off me and reporting him to the bus driver, I should have reached over, fondled his crotch, and said “Thanks, you’ve got a nice dick.”
Somehow I can’t imagine that would have gone over well.
Oh, noes, chuckeedee used the word “aforementioned”! Whatever will we do now?
*hides under the desk*
I never said my experiences were universal. I did not outright say but did imply that my experience’s matter because they happened.
Fair enough, never said otherwise. To put it another way, I believe that you felt offended/harassed/whatever. And yet when I offered a counter-example, I was basically told that my experiences didn’t matter, that essentially all women feel harassed and the only reason the women in my life never complained about it was because they were afraid of me/didn’t trust me. So whose experiences are relevant? Only mine, or only yours? Or both?
Hengist: Being offended by catcalls is not an overreaction if for no other reason than the purpose of the catcall is to offend.
I doubt it. For most guys it’s a way to bond and ‘show off’ to their friends, nothing more.
since what you are saying, basically, is that women have no dignity to begin with.
WTF?
So catcalling is about showing off without considering the feelings of the person you’ve just harassed? How is that any better or less offensive?