this post was submitted on 03 May 2024
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I think when a man can't just listen to a woman (or anyone) say their bit without jamming in caveats, it's indicative of something.
Especially if someone is venting, do not expect everything they say to be carefully balanced and measured. These people are not secretly plotting to build a completely female utopia and blast all the men into space, they're just having some feelings like the rest of us. Let them have their feelings.
I think the general mentality is that when a person makes broad, generalized statements about a group while members of that group, who have committed no offense themselves, are part of the audience for that statement, it's tough to not feel that as a personal attack for something they were born as and have no control over.
Don't get me wrong, the "#notallmen" gets overused (e.g. if a woman is talking about violence carried out against women by men, that is not a generalization of all men, that's just pointing at specifically the men that are violent toward women, and saying #notallmen is just derailing the conversation).
But having very reasonable feelings and bad experiences doesn't grant carte blanche to be shitty toward people who have committed no offense. If you're doing it in a close group of other women, then fine, whatever. But doing it in an audience with men (who have committed no offense) tells those men they have no place here, that they belong to the out group. We're not talking about violent men, or misogynistic men, we're talking about men, of which you are a part.
What I think other people have touched on is that in no other circumstance is it okay to generalize a group for things they were born as and can't change (in humans, anyway), except apparently men. And you may call it just letting people have their feelings, but letting that idea go leads to things like the Duluth Model, assuming any violence between a man and women must be the man's fault, and prevents men from coming forward about their own instances of domestic violence against them.
And don't think I don't understand the argument! Pit bulls can be some of the most loving, caring dogs, but they can also be monsters that could end you in seconds. Is it reasonable to by wary of a pit bull you don't know well? Absolutely! Is it a well-trained pit bull's fault that it is physically capable if mass murder? No, of course not, it can't help what it was born as. It just wants loves. So is it reasonable to say pit bulls are scary? Yes. Is it reasonable to say pit bulls are awful, vicious monsters? No. But the difference is, even if you do, the good pit bull doesn't understand that you are calling it a monster. Men do.
Madness! How dare you speak logically with a well thought out response! All men are BAD! They're BAD! If you are defending men, you are clearly a piece of shit. Men must be ashamed of themselves! Women can do NO wrong, and they are perfect in every single way! We hate men! /s
Fun fact: I was in an abusive relationship with a woman from 2005 to 2008. She hit me, bit me, verbally abused me, would lie to me about doing things behind my back, just to upset me, and even hit me with her car when pulling out of my driveway. To this day, I'm told, "You were a guy. You could take it. Men can't be abused by woman."
That shit fucked me up and I'm still recovering from it to this day. So when I see generalized BULLSHIT statements about how all men are bad and abusive and that they can't be abused because they're men, it invalidates my traumas and deep down it makes me feel like I should be ashamed of myself for even thinking that what I went through was abuse, and that it was my fault. And then, when i take a fucking stand about it, I just get dogpiled on. Its top tier fucking gaslighting and I'm sick of it.
AS A RESULT:
I'm afraid to set healthy boundaries
I'm too afraid to say "no"
I've developed severe anxiety and have to get myself under control in my current relationship
I'm constantly fighting myself on if I'm even worth being with
I've developed HORRIBLE panic attacks if I get too emotional
I struggle to maintain eye contact
I take a lot of stupid shit way too personally, even though I know better.
Dude, I'm so sorry you went through all that, and that people you told weren't supportive. It's frustrating that domestic abuse support and discussion is so specifically gendered. I understand that the majority of domestic abuse issues have female victims, but that's no reason to dismiss the needs and experiences of male victims (or enby, or whatever).
I appreciate that. But I only brought it up because this blanket accusation culture we have against men is absolutely 100% bullshit.
The majority isn't as huge as most people assume. It's between 3/4 and 2/3 women as abuse victims, meaning 1/4 to a 1/3 are men. And that's only reported cases, so there's an argument that due to policing issues and social factors it could be more equal https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/domesticabusevictimcharacteristicsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2023#sex
Yeah, I very deliberately left out any modifier for "majority," as it is exceptionally difficult to quantify the others (for lack of reporting and other social reasons).
It's like the people who claim that sexual harassment/assault went up after programs were put in place, when obviously it's that reporting went up. If we can get better services and reduce the social stigma around domestic abuse against males, it will be interesting to see how those numbers change.
Especially considering that the group that experiences the most physical violence, stalking, and rape by intimate partners is lesbians (with the exclusion of bisexual women, where the statistics get super muddy because they don't do much to specify where the abuse is coming from) at 43.8% (having experienced it). Gay men have the least with 26%, and hetero men following with 29%, and hetero women sitting solidly in the middle at 35%.
I don't know what it is about bisexual people, but instead of getting an average of their same-sex and hetero counterparts, they jump up to 35% for bisexual men and 61% (!!!) For bisexual women. People, treat your bisexual partners better!
So basically, the numbers don't suggest women are the nearly exclusive victims of partner violence that seem to be projected, and men are not even remotely the exclusive perpetrators for partner violence.
Edit: Forgot to include my sources. Also, I was a Sexual Assault Victim's Advocate in the military, if that has any bearing.
Totally, I was just trying to add to your point. Even with the conservative 25% of victims are men, it still doesn't justify how heavily domestic violence is gendered in wider culture
Oh, I totally got that, we're on the same page.
I understand this, but I also think it's not reasonable to expect people to always stay silent when someone's venting/feelings leads them to make broad, declarative statements about the badness/problems of a large heterogenous group.
Like, I know I have a lot of personal baggage from growing up in a household where my accomplishments were overlooked and every problem with myself or my actions magnified. The longest streak of doing well could be brought down with a single minor screw up. I know I'm far more sensitive to this sort of shit than the average person.
That said, there is a difference between all and most, or all and enough that it's a problem. I don't think it's wrong to insist that difference is important, or at the very least that the difference exists. Insisting upon that distinction does not need to be a dismissal of the very real issues, it can simply be an insistance that the distinction exists.
Just as we should allow people to have their feelings that x group is bad, shouldn't we also have some room to allow people to feel something when they've been lumped in with an amorphous blob of "badness" that they don't actually belong to?
If you want to argue that "the bad feelings men experience by being lumped in with the bad elements of men are less important than the danger to women from those bad elements" then I'd agree with you fucking 100%. Actual danger trumps feelings, no fucking questions asked.
My issue is that usually the argument is instead that "If your feelings are hurt because someone said all men are abusive, that means that you must be an abusive man upset that you were called out", "see, you saying not all men just means that I was right", or just mocking the true statement of "not all men".
Again, the distinction is important. This post is the first time I have ever seen someone suggest that the response to "not all men" is "enough men". Fucking hell I'm behind that response all the way. I'm not about doubling down on insisting all men are shit.
Venting to your best friend or friend group is not the same as venting in a public forum. Or even to your male partner. Understanding the issue so that it can be solved in a systematic way is our default reaction, not "oh she just wants to vent let's hug her". We don't even have the same emotional response to that, source as of yet unknown. Going out on a limb: Probably not all nature, probably not all nurture.
That said, the proper answer still isn't "not all men" simply because it doesn't have the proper impact. "I don't understand why you're angry at me" is a much better way to stop an "all men" rant mid-sentence because now you're not opening an abstract discussion about the nature of the universe but telling her about the direct emotional turmoil and therefore labour she's causing, leading her to re-evaluate the relative importance of both. YMMV when it comes to online but in-person I can definitely recommend it.
Eh, i find the while 'not on a public forum!!' To be pretty fucking weaksauce as someone whose been visibly female on the internet since the 90's. It rather smacks of rules for thee but not for me.
I've never seen mofos produce such stenorious walls of pontificating text about anything but hurt male feelings
I get that a lot of your statement is hyperbolic, but you should probably be more careful about throwing out wildly untrue statements, unless your intent is just to sow division and further contribute to the cycle of hate
And hurt male feelings aren't ok to talk about because...? Please elaborate.
Are the walls of text wrong though? Or do you just not like what you're hearing?
It's just very...something seeing a demographic that has traditionally had no real problems with broad swathes of denigration suddenly paint such behaviour the Worst Thing Ever and start using other people's words to explain how it's so very very wrong the instant it happens to them.
It's a kneejerk reaction, and so very useful for clouding the issue and abrogating recognition of unconscious bias, advantage and continuation of behaviour.
Right, so surely you agree that painting with such a broad brush is bad in the general case? What makes it different here? Just that men have historically perpetrated it? Does that give us the right to treat them badly as a form of revenge or w/e?
Ah, women have it worse, so men should just shut up, then?
Patriarchy isn't the rule of men, it's the rule of fathers. And most fathers answered to an authority above them. Denigration was rampant. Still is, under capitalism. When did you last hear an employee laud their boss for being such a great person.
Though of course that's besides the point as revenge doesn't ever lead to societal good anyway.
Sexism is bad.