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.
I hope he actually doesn’t.
http://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/q0dof/as_a_black_man_i_think_reddit_has_a_race_problem/c3tptt5
I’ve been in on this game over over three years now. Shit never changes.
@AndersH
“chuckeedee, can you explain what you mean by this? I’m on the edge of my seat here.”
Everything that happens within a culture happens as the interplay between two genders. You cannot have one without the other. In a very real sense, feminism is as old as western history, and is merely a modern reincarnation of old-fashioned chivalry. Feminism could never have come about without the complicity of men. That’s why I am ultimately opposed to any kind of gender-supremacist movement, whether it be feminism or masculism.
chuckedee: We are simply witnessing the symptoms of an already diseased culture.
On this we agree. What the disease is, however, we have very different views on.
I would have been more interested in these experiments had they been conducted before contemporary feminism had taken root.
Well… one can look at how men who advocated for things like suffrage for women, or the abolition of slavery were treated, and compare that to the way the women who did the same were.
The general answer is the women were, largely dismissed as “hysterical” and the men were treated as rational beings, albiet wrong.
Buttman: They’re probably self-hating White Knights, Manginas. I see these guys doing everything for a woman and she still has no interest in him. They would be better off to get some balls and treat women how they deserve in public.
Right…. Pull the other one. You mean to tell me the men who are pulling this are “feminist manginas”, when the MRM has “theorists” who explain that hating women is a requirement of being a well-versed MRA, and that the apotheosis of the movement is, “fucking their shit up.” With that we are supposed to accept that the assholes aren’t more like you, than like us?
Me, I figure there is a lot of stupid mysogyny out there, and the MRM is doing it’s best to increase it. Feminism (though I know you can’t understand it) is actuall reducing it. But you lot, because your hatred is irrational, can’t imagine that could possibly happen. Any lessening of misogyny has to be something feminism, “imposed”, as opposed to the result of men seeing women as equals.
False. Men are required to pay medical care bills for “her body, her choice”
False. He’s paying because of what he did with his body, his choice. He chose to have sex. He chose to take the risk. Sometimes, when people fuck, a pregnancy happens. If it does, there might be a child.
The child needs support.
Buttman: 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.
You don’t understand what a false flag is. A false flag would be someone pretending to be an MRA making an original post which said horrific things.
What this might be (one can only hope) is what the “spermburgling” post was on April Fool’s, i.e. a ”
honey pot”; a post designed to get the MRM to come out and show it’s true colors.
Dude, you obviously didn’t read the entire article, or you simply disregarded the parts that didn’t fit your preconceived notion of the woman hatred. You know why this guy isn’t getting his kid back after his girlfriend went behind his back and adopted it out? The religious law of Utah, that’s what. They don’t want single people being parents. It has nothing to do with the mother getting more rights than the father. This is an issue of religious extremism.
Buttman: Females don’t think they should ever be held accountable.
Says the guy who wants men to be non-responsible for the children which might ensue should they have sex.
No irony there.
And who is the one being “held accountable”? The woman? For being beaten? Oh, wait, I get it. The dude likes to beat women, and the woman was spending time with him, so she needs to be held accountable for his desire to beat women… the beatings are her just desserts for spending time with an abusive asshole.
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.
Most peope wouldn’t compare men to dogs. They would say that, as a rational creature the man should know better.
You, however, say the woman should be, “training” the man to be better (or perhaps shooting it*). Feminism believes that men should be made accountable for their actions.
The MRM, the one you support, the one which you say is all about reacting to the evils of feminism’s hatred of men, says any attempt to change male behavior is evil, and merits women being hated, even attacked.
Cognitive dissonance much? No. Because you seem driven by one overarching idea… everything is the fault of women.
Men hate them? Women aren’t being nice enough.
Women being shouted down? They are too vocal about the things they think matter.
Women being abused? They aren’t doing enough to stop it.
*which is a reference to Karen Pryor’s book, “Don’t Shoot the Dog
Buttman: Quackers: … you are leading him on.
Pray enlighten us, O Sage, how do you know this? What insight from the Gods has made you aware of his sentitments?
Buttman: 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.
In keeping with the immortal words of Cooter Bee* you need to back that shit up. Citation needed.
That’s fine. All I’m saying is that women would rather be with a jerk that beats her than a nice guy that doesn’t turn her on. I see fat girls with guys all the time and the guys are 100-150 pounds lighter than them. You can change being fat and men can change being nice so it’s a win-win situation.
More citations needed. Guys can change being, “nice”. They can be honest. They can say, “hey, I”m interested in you. Wanna go on a date.” Then the woman can say, “yes”, or “no” and they move on. That’s not what the “nice guys” you talk about do. They do things, in the hope they can induce a sense of obligation, and the women will put out. That’s not nice. That’s manipulative, and creepy.
And your idea of, “win-win”, is that men become assholes, while women diet to make them happy?
That’s some fucked up shit. It’s worse than the “nice guys”.
And anyway… shouldn’t the men be held accountable for their actions? They chose to chase after a woman who wasn’t interested. As a result they didn’t get what they wanted.
I just corresponded in an email to a feminist professor that helped craft a bill in Missouri to completely wipe out a father’s rights in an adoption.
Citation needed. (I’ll help, what I mean is a link to the text of the bill).
*Endless citation, refutation of fallacy and Socratic pursuit of truth are the tools of reason.
@Buttman, I’m a woman, and I have friends that I’m attracted to. In fact, I’ve even had friends that I’ve had romantic crushes on that I never acted upon, even during periods when neither of us were in relationships. Like any halfway decent human being, I’m there for them emotionally when they need someone to lean on, just like they are for me — it’s this fun thing called friendship. I’ve helped them move, given them stuff I can’t use anymore but they can, you know. Standard friend stuff. More than once, I’ve been a major or the major source of support for a friend I’m attracted to as they worked through a tough break-up with someone else.
My question is: are they leading me on? See, I actually enjoy my friendships with them, otherwise we wouldn’t be friends; and I don’t actually feel like I’m some sort of self-sacrificing saint because I do normal friend stuff anyone would do. But maybe I should resent them for not rewarding my meeting-basic-standards-of-human-behaviour with sex!
Another question: does it matter if the friends in question are men or women? I figure, maybe you can’t think of a single reason to spend time with a woman if sex won’t be involved; but since you think men are people, not sex dispensers, maybe you can wrap your head around why I might value my friendships with them even if they’re not “rewarding” me with orgasms. Something you can’t picture Quackers’ male friend doing with her, because women have no value beyond sex in your head.
Most of my female friends I’m attracted to are straight. Should I be pissed at them for not fucking me? After all I’ve done for them? Okay, maybe I’m not their “type”, but they kind of owe me, right? They should at least give me a chance. Yes?
By the way, I don’t believe for a second that any significant number of women are “attracted to jerks”. I think that’s just code for “attracted to people who aren’t me, that bitch.” But even if it was true, and I could make my women friends want to jump into bed with me by abusing them or treating them poorly, I wouldn’t. Because they’re human beings, and it’s never okay to treat human beings like that, even if you get rewarded with sex. Respecting other people and treating them well is a damn sight more important to me than having sex with them is.
Maybe the question to ask with these “men are animals, you should know better” analogies isn’t “is that what you think of men?” but: “would you blame a dog that gets beaten?”
…Probably.
Any dog that stays with a man that beats it deserves what it gets. There’s probably a nice guy out there that really wants a dog, but everyone knows dogs prefer the jerks that beat them.
/sarcasm
Mostly, I just want to draw out the “but women aren’t like dogs because a dog can’t decide who its owner is and a dog can’t understand human behavior and dogs are locked up or kept on a leash!” objections so we can start talking about the various important ways men are not like dogs.
Yeah, I get that (sorry if it wasn’t clear) — I just suspect Buttman and his ilk would have more compassion for a dog than he does for a woman. I don’t think he really views women as, you know, human.
Wait, I thought men were the dogs in that analogy. Which makes me wonder if Buttman thinks we should treat violent men like we do violent animals? If so, well I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by how low a Male Rapist and Abuser would sink, but still, how about we don’t act like men are just mindless idiots anyway, huh? And I hope to God that that sister is imaginary.
I think if the sister exists, she’s long since learned that Buttman isn’t a person she can rely on for anything.
“False. He’s paying because of what he did with his body, his choice. He chose to have sex. He chose to take the risk. Sometimes, when people fuck, a pregnancy happens. If it does, there might be a child.
The child needs support.”
You need to re-read that one. MEN are required to pay prenatal costs. It’s not even a child by your own definition We have to pay for her foetus even though it’s her body, her choice. .
Viscaria:
When I’m Queen of the World, I’m making all MRAs watch season 1 of MLP. Just to see if it helps.
These are the requirements from the Missouri bill that Buttman considers unreasonable:
“Consistent prenatal financial support
Payment of prenatal and natal medical care for the mother and baby
Child support payments proportional with his ability to pay
Consistent contact and visitation with the child
Assistance with educational and medical care of the child”
Oh no, it’s so unfair for the state of Missouri to expect single dads to provide the same care that they expect single moms to provide to their own children. If the dad is truly interested in raising the child, then he needs to ensure the baby has good prenatal care, natal medical care, physical care, food, and medicine. Otherwise, the adoptive parents would pay for the prenatal and natal medical care. Basically, Missouri doesn’t want to pay for the medical bills, but instead have the people who raise the baby pay the bills, whether it’s adoptive parents or a single dad.
If a man believes he is the father of a baby, and the father isn’t listed by the mother on the birth certificate, then he needs to declare paternity within fifteen days of the birth. This is from the article linked earlier in the thread:
It is a nightmare for adoptive parents to start raising a baby and then having a father pop up months later to assert his parental rights and take the baby back from them. This bill is a way for fathers to have their own parental rights without putting adoptive parents in a limbo worrying about losing their children.
Buttman, if you can come up with a better solution to a complicated problem, then by all means tell us what it would be. Otherwise, it looks to me like you’re just talking out of your ass.
butman has an incredibly nuanced solution to this problem that just happens to rhyme with lego lunch spout
Pray enlighten us, O Sage, how do you know this? What insight from the Gods has made you aware of his sentitments?
Well, come on. What man would really want to hang out with an icky girl? They have cooties, you know. And their periods attract bears.
I enjoy Buttman’s “crime is the victim’s responsibility because the criminal already has it so hard, what with the possibility of being arrested” theory and would love to see him argue it in court. “Your honor, haven’t I suffered enough from the very existence of laws against peeing on the sidewalk? We need to blame the real responsible party: the sidewalk upon which I peed. Why didn’t it do enough to stop me from peeing on it, KNOWING I could be arrested? That sidewalk is the real criminal here.”
I’m sick of this “women only fuck assholes” stereotype that is so pervasive.
I should have clarified that this stereotype is so pervasive in the manosphere. Yes, I’m ashamed to admit I do spend a lot of time there ; )
In other news, I watched “Gaslight” again last night, and in addition to being an awesome movie, it’s amazingly accurate in its portrayal of how an abusive relationship works (okay, except for the part where the abuser is doing it so he can get to the victim’s aunt’s secret Russian jewels). Also, it would be nice if all abusive relationships could end like this:
To be fair, Fembot, the “women like bad boys” meme is prevalent all over. Books, TV shows, movies, music … and I’ve definitely heard that idea come out of the mouths of people who have nothing to do with the manosphere.
The thing is, it’s true only to the extent that it’s true that (some) men like assholes too. SURPRISE! Not everyone makes unassailably awesome decisions all the time, especially when something like physical attraction, feelings, and experiential preferences comes into play. The lesson here isn’t that women like assholes — it’s that humans be human and shit.
But of course MRAs like to look at everything any woman does and hold it up as an example of why all women aren’t exactly human. Look at Buttman and his examples: He saw a woman on TV who is in love with her brother’s murderer! Ergo, women are such freaks!!!! (Never mind that there are men who seek out death row inmates for relationships.) Buttman’s (hopefully imaginary) sister was in abusive relationships! Ergo, women are such freaks!!!! (Please conveniently ignore for a moment the usual MRM talking point that women are JUST AS ABUSIVE as men in relationships.)