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.
@Fembot
While the stereotype may be out there (I disagree with pervasive. To me it seems to exist mainy within the subset of men who have few female friends and little to no success in the dating world), it’s obviously false. And the vast majority of women are in happy relationships with non-asshole men.
And as for calling abuse victims “sick and damaged”, the words have a connotation beyond the face value, and you should know this. It would be like if I said someone who suffered from depression was “sick in the head”. The words apply, but the phrase as a whole has a different connotation, and I would be an asshole for using them.
@Magpie
Obviously a sick abuser. Was it really necessary to point that out in my comment as well? I just assumed we all agreed that a man who beats his partner was wrong, bad, sick, insert Synonym of your choice. You’re all reading too much into my comment and taking from it a meaning I did not intend.
“Buttman, even if you don’t consider her age, which she disclosed after her OP”
It’s odd how she dropped that nugget after her OP. It seems trollish to bring up a young age when everyone is calling you out on it not being rape. If they were both over 18 and both of them were high then it is not rape. It would be another man’s life ruined because a woman regretted having sex.
@Shadow
Ok. My bad.
@Fembot
So often when someone says “she shouldn’t …” they are implying “he should …” I’m glad that’s not what you meant.
@Magpie
That’s very interesting. Never really thought of it that way.
@Fembot
S’all good 🙂
@Fembot
I’m thinking in particular of people who hear about a rape and go on for 5 minutes of “she shouldn’t have …” without one word on “he shouldn’t have …” My Dad did this a bit as we were growing up, and my brother and I (as children) understood it to imply that “she” was wrong and “he” was right.
So, Buttman’s sister has been in physically abusive, possibly sexually coercive relationships and his primary takeaway from this is that dudes need to be more assholish so that can get some?
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I thought we had already heard this evening from the shittiest sibling ever. Looks like we got another contender.
In case everybody runs out of things to talk about, here’s a news story:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-10/court-rejects-teen-abortion-order/3941984
“Man loses bid to stop ex-lover having abortion”
@magpie
Yeah I hate that too. I had a neighbor who would tell his daughter she was asking to be raped whenever she wore a short skirt. So I guess we are all supposed to wear birkas since men can’t control themselves? Pretty insulting to both genders.
““Man loses bid to stop ex-lover having abortion””
Man loses bid to stop adoption
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/13/AR2010041302445.html
Even when it’s not her body it’s still her choice. All rights, no responsibility for women. All responsibility, no rights for MEN.
hahahaha, i no think the problem is with the stories….
I don’t wanna keep harping on this, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that “You’re sick and damaged.”, or words to that effect, is the sort of thing the abused hear from their abusers all the time, as part of a sustained pattern of behavior meant to wear down their sense of self-worth.
Hearing it from people outside the relationship only serves to reinforce it in the victim’s mind.
You seem like a reasonable person, and I know you apologized, so I’m not trying to attack you here, Fembot. I just felt this needed to be said.
@Fembot
Yeah, a mate said that to me the other day, about my teenage niece. I said “so you reckon it’s OK to rape schoolkids, as long as you do it while they are wearing a short skirt?”
@Dracula
No worries. I see that you are right. I think I was just so irritated with Buttman I didn’t realize the connotations of my word choice.
“So, Buttman’s sister has been in physically abusive, possibly sexually coercive relationships and his primary takeaway from this is that dudes need to be more assholish so that can get some? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I thought we had already heard this evening from the shittiest sibling ever. Looks like we got another contender.”
That’s a cheap shot. It wasn’t coercive… at least not on the guys part. She was the one who was more obsessed with the guy. It was a simple example of how guys that are physically abusive are more successful with women than those who try to play the nice guy and hope that the woman notices him.
i’m with you, Dracula. Others have said it here and Fembot has acknowledged it. i worked in Women’s Refuges in the 90s and we gave talks to local groups to raise awareness about domestic abuse. And, inevitable, somebody would say “well, if my husband hit me, i would just leave, why don’t they just leave?”. Our answers to that were as short as we could make then whilst trying to get over the sheer complexity of the situation.
a new clump of buttman comments have just been released form moderation
Someone who trots out his sister’s abuse to prove a completely fucking asinine point about how “Chicks only like assholes!” has no fucking room to whine about “cheap shots”. You miserable scumbag.
Dracula, I just wanted to say thanks for calling that out. I didn’t have the emotional energy for it tonight, and I’m glad someone did.
“It wasn’t corecive” – he just beat her.
WTF?
One tiny little problem with this line of reasoning; men aren’t dogs, you colossal fucking dipshit.
@Chuckadee
You know WHY certain feminism at its inception was hostile to men? because it was men who decided women shouldn’t vote. It was men who decided women didn’t need higher education. It was men who consistently hammered it into women’s heads that they are only good for making babies and cleaning. It was men who belittled and dehumanized women in every possible way. It was men who decided women were to have zero legal rights in marriage. It was men who repressed female sexuality.
Did every single man do this? no. But did men as a class oppress women as a class? yes. Its fucking HISTORY. Read it. Feminism didn’t happen in a vacuum and the hatred of women existed long before feminism. Philosophers, Priests, Lawmakers, Academics…they made their fucking LIVING off of hating women. If these men had awarded women their rights along with other men feminism wouldn’t exist. You started this you rancid pile of shit and you keep perpetuating it by denying women’s oppression and with the rampant hatred of women in your beloved manosphere sites. I am literally still a feminist because extreme misogyny in the manosphere. Why SHOULD women give two shits about the men who laugh in our faces when we discuss women’s rights? Why should I care about men who finally realized that sexism is hurtful towards them, yet for decades laughed at women to shut them up for being too sensitive? maybe you assholes are the ones who are being to sensitive. Man up and stop being so hysterical!
It’s not fun when it’s happening to you is it? congratulations. Now you know what women have dealt with since they were brought into this world.
So all the rape apologists on that r/mensrights thread are just trolls, whereas you with your pathetic brand of misogyny represent the true MRAs, huh? Get bent.