So someone on Reddit did a little experiment that confirmed what we already know: that Reddit is overflowing with misogynist douchebags. Here’s the experimenter explaining her somewhat casual experimental protocol:
I noticed after two months as my female username I was constantly having to defend my opinions. I mean constantly. I would post something lighthearted, and have people commenting taking my comment literally and telling me I was dumb or I didn’t understand xyz. People were so eager to talk incredibly rudely and condescendingly to me. People were downright hateful and it made me consider leaving.
Then I decided to experiment with usernames and came up with an obviously male name. While people still disagreed with me which is to be expected, I had more people come to my defense when I had a different opinion and absolutely no hateful or condescending comments. I am completely shocked at how different I am treated since having a male username. I am not saying Reddit is sexist, well kind of yes, but I think it’s really interesting and thought that some other girls on here would want to get male usernames and see the difference for themselves.
She posted this in TwoXChromosomes, a subreddit devoted to women and women’s issues that is regularly overrun with angry MRA dudes and an assortment of FemRAs. This time the MRA squad didn’t take over the discussion, and numerous 2XCers reported experiences similar to that of the OP.
earthpeesfire noted:
I had a feminine user name years ago. Fuck that. It was like having a target on my back.
cantstopthe tried to duplicate the experiment on a smaller scale:
Just wanted to say that I made an alt yesterday with a female name, and continue to post the kind of things I normally post under this account. And today I was told I should be raped.
That has NEVER happened in all my 4 years of being on this site with various neutral names.
misscastaway also tried posting with a clearly female name:
I just tried posting on an discussion from this account. Immediately an insult including the word cunt and remarks on how I’m making a fool out of myself.
Might be a coincidence but when posting from my regular account (which is very gender neutral) that I use for discussions related to science, fitness, books etc I have never received this kind of behaviour. Not even when it turned out someone knew more about the subject and I was wrong/short in my knowledge. Then I was given another point of view, with a source – that was it.
I guess I’ll keep using those accounts in parallel now just to see if this was just by chance or if it really makes such a difference.
fatchick400 reported on the results of a similar experiment:
I created this account a few days ago to comment on some fat-hate, and have actually found it really interesting to see reddit from a different point of view.
The biggest surprise for me is the difference in how fat women are treated vs fat men. There is so much more hatred towards the fat women. A lot of people even refer to these women as “it”, completely negating their gender all together.
Meanwhile in the posts about fat men there are a few hateful comments, but they’re mostly full of light hearted jokes. In a few posts where the guys were obviously morbidly obese, barely anyone commented on the guys’ weight at all. Yet in posts with woman who are maybe 200lbs , mocking her weight always seems to be the main focus of conversation.
twofish added her experience to the pile of anecdotal evidence:
Most people on reddit assume I am male until I make it a point to say otherwise. More often than not, once it’s discovered that I own a vagina I’m no longer taken seriously, my opinions are belittled, and a slough of sexist and misogynist jokes/accusations get thrown my way.
I love Reddit for many reasons but it is one of THE most hostile places on the internet to be a woman.
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, meanwhile, the locals largely dismissed the experiment as unscientific and biased. As DavidByron put it:
Just seems like someone who set out to “prove” her own biases. She was biased to begin with, she ran the “experiment” in a biased way, interpreted the results in a biased way and then presented them to support her initial assumptions.
It’s the usual princess feminism which says men have it easy and women have it hard even while the exact opposite is happening. Why wouldn’t she say which usernames she used in her “test” so others can look at her methodology? Of course it’s not serious but then that’s the point.
Others explained that they weren’t really sexist because they’re such earnest fanboys of GirlWritesWhat, a woman who is able to bypass the usual MRA misogyny by pandering to the misogynists’ fantasy of male martyrdom.
The woman who posted about the experiment in the first place has now popped in to the r/menrights thread, and has (very politely) suggested to Mr. Byron that he try the experiment himself. I guess we’ll see what happens.
Antz, go away. You add nothing of value to the world or to the discussions here. The former is actually more important than the latter; it’s okay that you waste our time and insult us*, but more troubling that you are actively trying to leave the world a little worse, with a little more suffering, than you found it. You are the dogs in this cartoon: http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/It-s-not-enough-that-we-succeed-Cats-must-also-fail-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i8542217_.htm
(*Protip: Since I think you are a lousy human being, every insult just confirms for me that I am on the right path. I would be more worried if you didn’t insult us.)
And fuck reddit, oh god, that is so terrible. A 14-year-old being attacked like that. Antz, I hope you’re proud of your people.
@chuckedee
So you’re saying since feminism started it women deserve to be hated en masse today? I think you spend too much time theorizing on the Internet. Btw, I doubt any of the men who have called me a cunt online would say it to my face. Even without my “white knight Mangina” there to defend me. You MRAs don’t just hate women–you’re scared to death of us.
Oh sure chuckee, ’cause misogyny doesn’t predate feminism by thousands of year or anything. It’s totally a modern invention, created by MRAs and Redditors out of desperation. That or you’re an idiot.
Immediate failure with history: Strong start.
…Such as?
The disease is misogyny, yes.
Is that why it’s decreased in most of the western world? Hell, it’s decreased in the US, it’s just decreased less.
You can’t see the irony, can you? Not that feminism or feminists really hate, but you do realize it’s a century-long reaction to millenia of misogyny, right?
Oh, I get it, I think you are searching for a different universe, in this one feminism is the name of the civil rights movement for women.
Buttman and Chuckeedee (and Antz too, come to think of it), thank you for providing insight as to what the world looks like in Imaginary Backwards Land.
@ Buttman
“They would be better off to get some balls and treat women how they deserve in public.”
How bout they get some balls and stop expecting women to fuck them for being “nice.” And I like how you presume that women deserve is to be treated badly. Do you include your mother in that? Your sister? I’m all for people being held accountable for their bad behavior (yes even
women) but maybe these “white knight manginas” aren’t being as nice as they think. Oh, and you don’t have a constitutional right to get laid. I love how MRAs think they’re entitled to promiscuous condom free sex with hot young chicks with no responsibility to pay child support if she gets pregnant. Her body her choice her responsibility? Your penis your problem.
I wish you MRAs would just come out and admit you enjoy hurting and raping women. Pretending that you actually stand for equality is somehow making you look even worse at this point.
So, um, what hatred of men am I actually DOING?
Other than the name. The name is a legacy thing, sorry.
“How bout they get some balls and stop expecting women to fuck them for being “nice.” And I like how you presume that women deserve is to be treated badly. ”
I hate it when we agree and you act like we’re saying something completely different. I presume it because I see it every day. They DO need to stop being nice and start being assholes. That what women want. My sister? She has screwed guys AFTER they beat her.
“Her body her choice her responsibility?”
False. Men are required to pay medical care bills for “her body, her choice”. Women have a number of options to avoid responsibility before and after birth. Females have zero accountability.
Looking at that thread on REddit with the 14 year old rape victim, I see that it was linked to by r/mr, and that some of the worst comments are coming from r/mr regulars.
There’s also the strong possibility that the reddit post is another false flag against men’s rights. There have been two cases in just the last month of trolls making up stories to hurt men’s rights. The original post has been edited in a way that makes the comments seem more outrageous.
@Buttman
Sounds like you have been reading RooshV and other PUA blogs. My point was not that men should stop being nice and act like assholes; it was that they should stop faking being nice in order to get sex. Guys like this pretend to care about a woman but then flip the script and say “you gonna put out now?”. Then they whine about assholes getting all the chicks. The fact that your sister is in an abusive relationship just further points to your dysfunctional history with women. I have never “rewarded” an asshole for sex. I only dated men who behaved as gentlemen, and I married a wonderful kind caring man who treats me well. If you think you will be happier in life being an asshole, I don’t care. Just don’t pretend that the women who respond to your Assholery aren’t damaged, sick human beings like your sister. When you spend all your time in a hospital you tend to forget that there’s an entire world outside full of healthy people. Live among the sick and you become one of them.
Hey Man-Butt, since when do the statements “Stop being a passive-aggressive asshole.” and “Start being an actively aggressive asshole.” agree with each other? Did you not understand the meaning of the quotation marks around “nice”?
That feels really out of line to me
Buttman, even if you don’t consider her age, which she disclosed after her OP, there are a bunch of r/menrightsers who invaded the thread and justified what was obviously rape.
Troll or no troll, r/mensrightsers could always, you know, choose NOT to invade threads in other subreddits in order to justify rape.
chuckeedee, can you explain what you mean by this? I’m on the edge of my seat here.
Calling abuse survivors “sick and damaged” is pretty fucked up.
@ Shadow
I’m sick of this “women only fuck assholes” stereotype that is so pervasive. Obviously it wouldn’t be if more women demanded respect from their sexual partners. And what am I supposed to call a woman who sleeps with a man after he beats her? Healthy?
You guys keep saying this. There`d be no point in making up things MAs said because the things actual MRAs say are already so fucked up that they are beyond parody. For example, one of your most beloved figures, Paul Elam, once wrote that rape victims were “stupid conniviing bitches” who were “begging for it”. What could a troll possibly say that would make the MRM look worse than Elam?
“; it was that they should stop faking being nice in order to get sex. Guys like this pretend to care about a woman but then flip the script and say “you gonna put out now?”
Right. Every guy in the world is just pretending to be nice. I’ve never heard any guy ask someone “you gonna put out”. That’s just something women have come up with to make excuses for their primitive lust for abusers and assholes. You’re saying that women have to worry more about a guy “pretending” to be nice than someone that she knows is physically abusive.
@Dracula
Those who stay in abusive relationships have a sick view of relationships. I’m not saying they aren’t victims or they deserve it. But they have been hurt emotionally and will probably need therapy to heal and develop a healthier perspective on relationships. That is all I meant and it wasn’t my intention to be insulting to abuse survivors.
Fembot, what would you call a man who beats a woman and then fucks her?
Well, there’s a good chance you could call her “Afraid not to.” and not be wrong.
Maybe not. You still were, though.
And what am I supposed to call a woman who sleeps with a man after he beats her? Healthy?”
Females don’t think they should ever be held accountable. Most people wouldn’t blame the dog when he keeps biting someone. They would say you need to do something about the dog. But a woman will keep getting bit and it’s still the dogs fault.