Oh, Reddit, where the demographics are so skewed that virtually every discussion amongst and/or about women ultimately gets taken over by dudes doing the old “what about the dudes” routine. It’s no secret that the TwoXChromosomes subreddit has long been overrun with MRAs and FeMRAs. And now it’s become pretty clear that the Feminism subreddit has gone MRA as well.
If you want all the details of the drama, here’s a thread in the subreddit in which the feminists who’ve stuck with the subreddit take on the MRAs and MRA-symps amongst the mods.
Check out the Feminisms and SRSWomen subreddits if you want to discuss feministy stuff on Reddit without having to deal with endless derailing from MRAs and other shitlords.
EDITED TO ADD: More links:
SRS takes on the whole mess (lots of useful links).
SRS links to r/feminism mods defending MRAs
An r/feminism thread about the recent Captain Awkward posts about creeps that is, naturally, full of endless hang-wringing about the evils of “creep-shaming.”
(Thanks, Cliff, for the links.)
Sorry.
And again, when I say “creepy” I don’t mean Poor Harmless Aspergery Nerdy Guy Who Just Never Learned Social Skills Because It’s So Haaaard Except Mysteriously He Is Capable of Being Perfectly Decent to Other Men. I’m talking about the behavior described in the Captain Awkward posts: guys who make women feel uncomfortable and unsafe with aggressively inappropriate behavior.
Whenever I see NWOslave post, all I can think of is this.
(First time trying to magical link. I probably screwed it up.)
-Steele
I get the feeling that the links say exactly what David said they say, and Steele just chooses to interpret them as meaning something else so he can insult us. Like where any rational person would see men taking over a feminist thread, Steele sees some guys juuuuuuuuust “acknowledging men’s issues at all”.
Nevermind the fact that a space for women’s issues =/= a space for men’s issues.
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Some woman is wearing a tank top because it’s 107 degrees that’s “imposing a sense of intimacy” on someone? Implying that people dressing their own bodies for their own pleasure and comfort is somehow forcing something on you is stupid. If that woman in the tank top never talks to you, never even looks in your direction, what the fuck of your boundaries has been violated?
Also, a “slut” is a woman who sleeps with too many people, where the number that defines “too many” is entirely at the discretion of the person doing the shaming, varying from 1 to infinity depending on the needs of the shamer. That’s why it’s such a convenient slur to use against women.
Having sex with “a lot” of people is (generally) a private activity. Strangely, you can see a woman in a low-cut top and a woman with her arms and legs completely covered. One of them is a virgin and one has slept with 10 guys in a week** AND YOU CAN’T TELL WHO IS WHO BY LOOKING AT THEIR FUCKING CLOTHING.
I fail to see how having sex with “a lot” of people somehow forces anything onto strangers in or affects them in public spaces. How many people you have sex with makes absolutely no impact on me. I don’t give a shit. As long as everyone involved is old enough and consenting, it does not impact my life at all.
Creepers? They do affect my life. They do impact other people by their behavior. BY DEFINITION creeping on someone means interacting with them in unwelcome ways. Existing in the same space as someone and never knowing they are there cannot be creepy.
If Chris Evans was in the same room as me, shirtless, and he never spoke to me or even looked at the half of the room I was in and seemed completely oblivious to my existence? That can’t be creepy because there was no interaction. And I wouldn’t feel oppressed or that he had “imposed a sense of intimacy” on me, for fuck’s sake. And yes, that would also be true if it was Rush Limbaugh shirtless in the same room who likewise never interacted with me at all.
If your argument is that other people EXISTING violates your boundaries? You’ve got fucking ISSUES.
** – if you had sex with 10 guys in a week? Go you. Because hey DOES NOT AFFECT ME AT ALL.
Lauralot, cool! I only wanted to go to Rothenburg because of a special kind of donut they make there, so the Torture Museum was a nice surprise.
As for creep-shaming, whatever. You SHOULD be ashamed if you think it’s OK to violate other people’s boundaries.
I’m sick of the attitude that you must be an MRA if you disagree with anything in r/feminism. I’m a 38-year-old woman and very much consider myself a feminist, and I get downvoted every time I post anything remotely disagreeable in that subreddit. And I’ve seen a lot of reasonable comments get the same treatment.
Maybe you should look at the message you’re putting out and think about it, rather than blaming everything on MRA’s and the like.
*applauds DRST*
Hey AHodges, feminism is full of arguments. So is Reddit. The difference between you and MRAs, hopefully, is you dont advocate beating women, replacing them with sexbots and/or poor foreigners who need green cards or just setting them on fire if they disagree with you.
So the r/feminism mods keep deleting comments by dissenters and have set up a new subreddit called meta-feminism to allegedly discuss the issues. Except that they keep deleting stuff there too.
Also, one of the mods of meta-feminism is … the boyfriend of GirlWritesWhat, and apparently likes to use the word “cunt” to insult people.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Meta_Feminism/comments/ycncg/siiiiigggghhh/
Why are MRAs running a Reddit called Feminism? What’s next, an African American History Reddit run by the KKK?
They need to just fuck off back to to their own side of Reddit.
More on GWW’s boyfriend:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Meta_Feminism/comments/y9151/why_is_wabisabi_a_moderator_of_rmeta_feminism_but/
fembot, there was a subreddit on reddit called blackfathers; it was run by racists, though eventually SRS was able to get it taken away from them, though I think that was only because it was inactive? (My memory is hazy.Anyone know more details on this?)
@David
I’m not surprised. 🙁
David, you realize that if you task yourself with documenting the drama on Reddit (even just the feminist and MRA parts of Reddit), you will never spend time doing anything else, ever.
I know. Disengaging from Reddit drama … now!
Well, for awhile, anyway.
Isn’t there some middle ground on the “creepy” issue? It strikes me that it is used the same way “bitch” is against assertive women – sure, while some women genuinely are bitchy and unpleasant, plenty of women who are assertive or just have more stereotypically male traits get called bitches because they don’t fit people’s preconceived notions of femininity.
Conversely, plenty of men genuinely are creeps/do creepy things. But some men, especially of the type you might encounter on reddit, are completely harmless and have no clue how to express how they like somebody, or are somewhere on the shallow end of autism spectrum disorder or are unattractive and shy. It seems likely that some of those guys are unfairly labeled creeps.
It’s hard to know if individual narrators are reliable when they complain about their treatment at the hands of certain women because we can’t observe their behavior or know what they’re thinking. I think it would be very upsetting if I was trying to tell a girl I liked her and wanted to go on a date with her best I knew how and have her think I was trying to rape her.
So subjectively I have a lot of sympathy with the MRA people who post these kinds of stories, but I don’t know how you evaluate who objectively was in the wrong other than on a case-by-case basis.
Yes, I agree ‘creep’ can be overused. For both men AND women. We’ve all been there, seen the outcasts and the scapegoats.
But in the case of Captain Awkward, the word ‘creep’ is perhaps too sweet. And more important, I think, than the word itself is the main message of the backlash to it. Ladies, don’t trust your instincts. Don’t get us wrong, you should know if that cute, sweet friend of a friend at that party is going to spike your drink or attack you on the walk home – if you don’t, you probably didn’t listen to all my patented anti-rape instructions, or maybe you wanted it and are just regretful – but actually saying something when someone violates your boundaries? Speaking up during the act, or discussing it with girlfriends after the fact? Trusting your gut? Well that’s just wrong. You don’t even have any bruises.
‘I think it would be very upsetting if I was trying to tell a girl I liked her and wanted to go on a date with her best I knew how and have her think I was trying to rape her.’
Agreed. You would probably want to send out signals that your weren’t going to. Un-creepy signals, in fact. If only someone, somewhere could tell you what those were…
(And as for MRAs, plenty of them either don’t think rape exists, or think its inevitable if red-blooded males are around women aka sluts.)
Oh, and as for autism, I still can’t figure out how this is an excuse. If you think it’s tough for guys with autism to hit on women, how do you think women with autism (or panic attacks, or depression, or a history of being abused) feel having their space invaded, inappropriate touching or stalking? What’s good for the goose…
@Cliff – Yes, as I said, but I still do think it’s not quite sufficient in terms of differentiation. I also talked about how certain kinds of ‘slutty’ (I really wish there was a better term for this) behaviour are invasions of boundaries. I’m not seeing how all people labelled creeps are universally less invasive than people labelled sluts. They do both seem to be about imposing intimacy and not necessarily any touch, etc., at least in certain situations.
@Sharculese – Your response is exactly what I was critiquing. There are plenty of people who say slut-shaming isn’t a real thing. The NO U back-and-forth doesn’t get us anywhere and does feminists no credit. It is exactly how to respond without saying that creep-shaming isn’t real and just leaving it at that that I am trying to improve on. Or, well, I was hoping to but, much as I expected, the majority of responses (not yours, to be clear) seemed to be based on getting all enraged and superior, or just being terse (yours), rather than fostering any kind of actual conversation.
@ithiliana – I can’t say I think of the automatic rape apology in the term ‘slut’. I’m not sure if that is the general (not general feminist, just general human) understanding, even if that is yours. I guess that’s part of the problem I’m having with ‘creep’ too. There’s no popular understanding that supports the way people here seem to be using it. Certainly I think the distinction you propose is not a universal one. And that’s the wrench about language, of course — no one can ever be sure exactly how another person means to use it. But that’s an interesting element to ‘slut’ that honestly hasn’t entered my mind when I was writing. I tend to think of it as coming from a place of shaming only rather than permitting violence. I’m not sure I’m convinced by what you’ve written but I find it useful to consider.
And yes, I’m a huge MRA troll because I dare question the internet feminist status quo. Sheesh, that sounds worryingly like one of the hyperbolic fantasies MRAs come up with about lockstep feminism. Except it sort of really happened.
@Shaenon – You hit on my concerns precisely. There doesn’t seem to be a clear distinction between the kind of unfortunate-in-social-situation folks you mention in your post and the actual creeps who are clearly in the wrong who, say, leer at someone in a park and start demanding smiles, etc. Some of the problem seems to be because it’s certainly a newer term (if not idea) than ‘slut’ and so the meaning needs tightening up if we’re going to be able to respond to cries of “creep-shaming is misandry and no different from slut-shaming” and so on.
@drst – I’m not sure to which post you are responding because you certainly read things in there that I never wrote. If you want to RAGE all over the place then I’m happy I could give you a bit of diversion in your life. Still, I was hoping we could wear our big kid pants and that feminists (even ones on t’interwebz) would be able to be a bit reflective and consider what some folks at the party see as possible problems, inconsistencies, or weaknesses in some of our thinking. I missed the memo that said we all had to follow unquestioningly or be screamed at.
@kristinmh – That’s what I’m saying about the intense and aggressive imposition of assumed interest in sexual intimacy that some people feel from ‘sluts’ (of any gender, just to be clear). I’m saying I can see the possibility of an overlap if we’re only talking about creeps as overstepping other people’s boundaries. One of the things that get some people’s backs up about being slutty in public performance and presentation is that it also violates certain people’s boundaries. I’m trying to find the divergence between the two ideas of overstepping boundaries so we aren’t just doing the same thing as slut shamers.
@AHodges Thank you.
@Nada Yes, (internet) feminism is indeed full of arguments and woefully short on discussions, which seems a real pity to me.
——
I guess (as I feared) we can’t really have a discussion about this or contemplate that we might be slightly off base or need to refine our thinking, or just defend our positions without being offended by the mere fact of someone not automatically agreeing. I’ll know never to darken this door with such depravity again.
Wearing “revealing” clothing in public does not violate anyone else’s boundaries. If they claim that it does, it is because they have fundamentally and woefully misunderstood the entire concept of “boundaries.”
Assuming sexual interest might involve violating boundaries, but to the extent that it does it is because it involves being creepy. If you’re aggressively pursuing sex with a person who has expressed disinterest, that makes you a creep. It’s possible for a person to both be considered a slut by society and engage in creepy behaviour, but zie should only be shamed for the latter, because only the latter actually involves harming anyone.
Your entire bullshit false equivalency is based on a (hopefully ignorant, rather than dishonest) framing of “slut” which overlaps substantially with “creep,” then pretending that creepy behaviour is what’s defended by feminists who oppose slut-shaming. That’s just not the case.
Oh, and you can probably drop the “beleaguered defender of truth attacked by shrill dogmatic feminists” act, unless you intended to look like a whiny passive-aggressive douchecanoe.
Gametime: Thanks, you said what I wanted to, but I couldn’t work out how to word it. Also every time I looked at their post I could just feel my head asploding with wtf.
@Gametime – Again, with a lot of what you wrote I’m not sure what you’re responding to but it doesn’t seem like my post. If you want to read into it things you find angering then there’s nothing I can do about that. It seems you wanted to take what I wrote in bad faith. Your parting shot is the most absurd point, particularly seeming to actually attribute that last bit to me by framing it as a quote. There have been attacks and they have been disproportionately aggressive, Call me all the names you like but that won’t change the fact that my question drew (and draws) ire and ad hominem seemingly just for daring to have been asked. I’ve never used anything like the words shrill or dogmatic. Those are your words. As for whiny and passive-aggressive, I’m sure as hell not whining. I’m responding to the mud that has been slung (and all other manner of less nasty responses, to be fair) and my words have been neither passive nor aggressive. I have been pretty measured and cordial, especially considering this is arguing on the internet. I can’t really fathom what of my writing you feel to be passive-aggressive and whiny. As for being a douchecanoe, well, one must call these as one sees these if one feels strongly compelled to do so.
As for misunderstanding boundaries, I think it’s also shaky ground to take this kind of stance, of just saying anyone who doesn’t share your understanding lacks an understanding. It risks the response of those who are all upset about ‘creep-shaming’ just coming back and saying the people who find certain behaviours creepy also misunderstand or overestimate boundaries. I mean, I’ve already seem them doing that in the comments on this blog and similar ones elsewhere. That’s the thinking behind the gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair there seems always to be when some men get all “why, oh why do women treat me like I’m going to sexually assault them because I get into an elevator” and so on. At least it seems to be to me.
Just for clarity’s sake I’ll restate the point, if my writing didn’t match up with was I was thinking and trying to get across. I’m not referring to just dressing a certain way and I hoped what I wrote included a wider scope of performance and behaviour that is labelled ‘slutty’ for lack of a better word. I think sexually aggressive is more precise but I’m trying to think in terms of the wide range of things the idea of someone being a slut can encompass. I’m trying to find the wiggle room there might be for the don’t creep-shame crowd to respond by targeting slut-shaming as being equivalent and then see what sort of reasoned and dispassionate response I might give to that kind of an outcry (oh, the misandry!). I want more than to just say they’re not even remotely the same kind of thing because there are some ways in which they seem similar.
The overlap you mention is interesting and important. That’s exactly the overlap I’m thinking of when I ponder this. I don’t see how my framing is necessarily any more problematic any anyone else. It’s particularly the framing of creep that I’m interested in. I’m not entirely sure I understand what you mean when you write “then pretending that creepy behaviour is what’s defended by feminists who oppose slut-shaming”. Obviously I have some idea but I don’t want to bluster along responding to what I think you mean rather than what you actually mean. Creepy behaviour does seem to be varied in how it is defined by the people who refer to it and, in the case of this blog, the people defining it are (generally) feminists who oppose slut-shaming. Or so it appears.
It does seem like there’s the kernel of an interesting discussion here but people want to get angry with me just for having the apparently extreme cheek to try and examine it. I mean, for those who find it a painfully stupid thing to consider, feel free not to respond. But anyway, if that’s not the flavour of feminism folks prefer here then okay; I’ll absent myself so you can get on with doing it the way you fancy.
Oh, God. They just get whinier and more pretentious, don’t they?