this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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Women are going to be wary for as long as they have reason to. You're essentially just stating that we shouldn't talk about this fact because it hurts the feelings of men who were probably part of the problem to begin with. It's on those men to listen to the feedback and internalize it, not on women to keep their opinions to themselves.
They didn't say that at all. What they are trying to express is that stereotypes, such as "men are usually dangerous to women", or "women should fear men just in case", are disingenuous ideas that harm both sides.
Some men are good people and some are bad. Some women are good people and some are bad.
Condemning either group for the actions of a few perpetuates the stereotype by making impressionable indiviuals on both sides of the equation start accepting the "complimentary" stereotypes just because they observe a few correlations from time to time.
Before long, critical thinking goes out the window, correlation is assumed to be causation and you've got men reacting aggressively to posts that say they are dangerous and women saying "I chose the bear!" even though they know that is staticallyess safe because it aligns with the message they think they need to share because they buy into the same stereotype the men did and vice versa.
It runs parallel to the same sort of thing playing out in politics around the world though it's certainly more pronounced in the US thanks to the two party system and volume of communication.
Talking about the issue is fine but this discourse is flawed. Imagine how it would play out if the question was "white people, would you rather be stranded on a island with a black person or an alligator?"
And now your argument would be "white people should be afraid of black people until they are given a reason not to be."
Doesn't that sound really messed up to say? I hope so because it felt bad just to type out for the purpose of this comparison.
Each person is an individual unto themselves and I think if you can agree with that, then there is no rationale that can support group stereotypes in human psychology.
I do understand the point you're making, but the example in the OP has more layers to me than strictly speaking about a bear vs. a man.
It shouldn't take an incredible leap in logic to ascertain that the comparison is meant to present simply that "men are dangerous to women". Actually picking the bear is evocative hyperbole. All any man would need to take from this is "I should strive not to make women feel this way".
If a man takes this sentiment personally and then becomes a threat to a woman, that man is interpreting in bad faith and in fact wants to threaten women. We have a system of patriarchy precisely because men feel superior to women, and women have little they can do about it. I'd wager these angry men were going to find their excuse to exercise their superiority regardless of what a woman says. This rift exists without anyone else's help, regardless of if you want to accept that's what it is. We need more clueless yet compassionate men to understand a woman's struggle, not less. If we pretend that there aren't a worrying number of dangerous men, we are those dangerous men.
I could write excessively about how a white person describing a black person as dangerous is far and away a completely different conversation from this, but I don't want to expend the characters. Tiniest tl;dr, the power dynamics and history are not the same (they're roughly inversed, in fact), and your example has a legitimately sinister reason to happen. It's far from a 1:1 comparison.
I do not disagree that the two things have vastly different histories but that isn't the point of the conversation to be had. A woman's fear of interactions with any random man is her perception molded by her life experiences.
I am not a woman so of course I can not speak with my own experiences on this through my own lens but I have had many conversations with the various women in my life to atleast recognize a portion of their perspectives.
I do also concede that they have explained feeling more fearful around men than I can relate to as a man with a physically imposing stature most of my life.
I totally understand that I don't know what it's like to be a woman in a male oriented society and to be looked at like an object as they sometimes are.
HOWEVER, not one of these female friends, family, or partners had ever been sexually assaulted and of all of them, only two had ever been in physical altercations with a 1 man each.
Now before you jump on that as an "aha!" moment, consider that theae incidents occurred in their 30s.
As a generally mildly mannered person, I have also found myself in physical altercations with other men a few times in my life... More so than my female friends.
Only one incident in your whole life as evidence of violence and ready to consider all men as dangerous? Wtf?
How can you have such a low opinion of 50% of the people in your life that you think they are worse than a wild animal? It's unfounded in reality
An alarming number of the women I've spoken with have been sexually assaulted as children. The women in your life are blessed with untroubled pasts I guess. Perhaps this may be why you're not properly grasping the bigger picture here.
Spelling it out, no one is saying literally "all men". They are saying "guilty until proven innocent keeps you safer against strange men". This is generally good advice.
Who exactly are you trying to defend here? The only ones with a finger pointed at them are men who willingly threaten women. Are you that? Do you think this messaging will turn you into that? Some advice, in that case: Accept that you are going to be scary to some strangers because you are bigger and stronger than them, and treat them kindly. I promise you, you will be fine. If someone tries to tell you this is why they hate women, get the fuck off of 4chan.
I'm not trying to defend someone here, I was trying to seek understanding while also expressing that I think any person assuming stereotypes are a valid way to think about people you have never met is a bad mindset to have because it elevates the "value" of confirmation bias.
You say the women in my life are blessed with their experiences but are you sure the opposite doesn't apply? That the women you know weren't more unlucky than the usual experience?
The finger being pointed by the discourse around this is just saying "I feel like men in general are more of a danger to me than a wild bear" and statistically that is just false. If a majority of men were truly so bad then the patriarchal structure we live in would be significantly worse and there would be absolutely zero advancements of women's issues for the simple fact that a majority vote would almost never occur in favor of women.
But that isn't the case. Things have improved slowly over time and the biggest set back recently is access to abortion care and reproductive rights but I think that has much more to do with religious influence (which is inheritelt patriarchal) in the republican portion of the population.
Finally, an olive branch. I have simply been presenting a viewpoint counter to your own and I have appreciated your input. I'm sorry that the lack of tone and subtext available through written communication seems to have made you think I was being rude or something but the knee-jerk reaction to insult and belittle me and my opinion by aligning me with a group that carries a negative connotation is sort of similar to what we are arguing about is it not?
We can disagree and have opposing views and opinions without having to be adversarial. I am unique in my experiences just like you are in yours. Grouping me with others is unfair to both of us because just like the innocent men at the end of that pointed finger, you grouped me up with people who make having dipshits psuedo intellectual takes their favorite hobby. You lose something from this assumption of stereotypes too.
I assume your perspective of our conversation was colored by stains of past experiences you had with members of that group (or atleast those you assume belong to that group) and it meant that even though I was being genuine you saw my messages as if they were an attack against you personally and motivated by malice.
And don't get me wrong, I'm still not trying to blame you or anyone for that. Perception is reality afterall. But thats the mindset I'm trying to advocate against. The mindset that a group stereotype allows for a realistically useful assumption about any given "member" of that group's personality, demeanor, or temperament.
Apologies for my conduct faltering. I wanted to go to sleep, and I don't actually like extended arguments over what feels like obvious knowledge. I do understand where you're coming from with your perspective on stereotypes. They hurt me in much more dangerous ways in my day-to-day life. However, "stereotypes=bad" removes the nuance from the conversation and diminishes lived experience.
To continue using the bear, not all bears are going to maul you on sight, but we assume they will, because that will keep you alive in a survival scenario. That is a valuable stereotype. Likewise, when a woman is e.g. at a bar and a man offers her a drink, she'd be correct in assuming the man has the capacity to roofie her drink and rape her, so being vigilant keeps her safer than blindly trusting a stranger. Another valuable stereotype. If I see a cop, I assume he wants to imprison or kill me for my skin color, and I do what a can to avoid being a situation where a cop would be anywhere near me. It doesn't matter that the rule isn't universal. My safety comes first.
Yes, stereotypes can and will be weaponized to hurt vulnerable people, but this is a weapon utilized by oppressors more than the oppressed. A white man is the most powerful thing in our society right now due to our history rich in white supremacy, misogyny, and forced disparity between perceived in and out groups. In this specific case of a woman stating that men make her feel threatened, this is not a weapon, but a tool. The only thing it hurts is the feelings of men who can't read between the lines. If a white man says a black man ringing his doorbell deserves to be shot to death because he could be dangerous, we have a very different dynamic. Think predator vs prey. The predator is trying to kill. The prey is trying to survive. Survival should not offend you.
This is a fantastic response and despite ~~are~~ our disagreements on the topic I just want to thank you for being real about it. Thank you for the apology as well but want to say that you certainly did not owe me one for your conduct. These long texts degrade the value of what would probably have been a really good conversation in person and I do not doubt that my choices of words and phrasing probably came off as dismissive. Passion is an important part of perspective and we seem to have had a very different set of circumstance we grew up an continue to live in.
I grew up as a white male in a rural town with parents who were way too young but thankfully grandparents who were able to prevent us from living in total poverty. One year an uncle of mine died in a car jacking to a few black men and more than half of my close family just up and decided all black people were bad over night. A spark lighting powder keg of pent up confirmation bias. I was to young to understand it well at the time since I was in 2nd grade but my best friend at the time was the only black kid in my school within like 4 grades and when I couldn't invite him to my birthday party later that year and no one could explain why. I was oblivious and angry but looking back he was depressingly somehow already accepting of the injustice. We played basketball at recess and still talked plenty but we drifted apart and it took me a long time to understand why.
There is obviously much more like this than just the one incident but suffice to day I'm in my 30s now, moved away to a large city, and I don't keep in contact with really any of my family with the exception of a 1 cousin (who is also a bit racist at times but serving 3 tours in the military opened his eyes for the most part)
Granted I'm coming at this hatred of stereotypes for selfish injustices rather than countless erosions of my perceive value as a person but I'm passionate about the value of treating others equally none the less.
This analogy helps I guess. I'll be honest, I still strongly dislike the concept at a level that also feels blindingly obvious to me too but because I want to argue that anyone should be at least somewhat suspicious of any stranger offering you a drink regardless of gender.
I just find this whole viral event to be of diminished impact because it hinges on so many women saying something so exist because there are a lot of men who do need to hear from women they trust that their actions (even those with innocent intent) carry the power to strike fear in those same women that they would feel awful for scaring... But they aren't going to hear that because this preposterous doubling down that any random bear is less dangerous than any random man is the thing all the loud and obnoxious assholes who make toxic masculinity and what-a-bout-ism their whole personality are going to latch onto.
Have the conversation, make your feelings known, but starting off on this false pretense just ruins the impact so throughly that it's hard to not be frustrated. I know it's a technicality and that it's petty but most people resist change and introspection because it is hard and awkward to navigate. This gives them an out so the reach is now crippled.
I strongly agree that stereotypes are used by oppressors to terrorize and diminish the oppressed but with one added facet... The oppressors often do not see themselves as the oppressor. Most people with advantages in life don't often see them as advantages. They still have difficulties and issues and traumas that they focus on and when someone comes along saying "I've had it worse in this particular regard" they don't stop to compare objectively they just keep doing exactly what they are already doing until it impacts them. And if that ends up impacting them negatively, of course they are going to resist. Just like anyone would want to regardless of their relative situation when they feel they are being treated unjustly.
This text chain is becoming impossible to read on mobile, so I'll keep my response short.
I thoroughly appreciate you offering your perspective, and I do agree that some bad actors will take this in the worst possible way. I suppose it's difficult to control opposing echo chambers in a way that brings us together. I'm sorry to hear about your friend. It's a shame this was the type of world we were given to change. In all sincerity, you've given me a different way to think about things, and I hope you get to live your favorite life.
Is not what Kate Lister or feminist in general are doing. They're saying that they are afraid of being alone with a man, this is just how they feel.
Here in France, 96% of sexual assaults are performed by men. I don't think you could find a country where the statistic goes the other way. "a few correlations from time to time" really doesn't reflect the reality of the situation. It's not some correlation, it's a systemic issue in our society.
I actually agree that critical thinking goes out the window ! "I chose the bear!" is meant to express that women are afraid of men. The fact that most women would actually be terrified of an encounter with a bear or that they are statistically safer with a man than with a bear is irrelevant. Women want to send a message and instead of listening, you are correcting them on a technicality.
The fact that you are only talking about the discourse and not the actual problem makes me wonder if you really want the issue to be resolved
This is a terrible comparison. When woman say they are afraid of men, it's a dominated group being afraid of its dominators. With your black perso/alligator question, it's a case of dominators being afraid of a group its dominating.
Isn't it though? That's the subtext of saying you are afraid of men. It pretty directly carries the idea that all men are a group that should be feared by women for the potential dangers they represent.
That does little to establish the likelihood of any given man to sexually assault a women. A stat like that is talking about a populate that is comprised entirely of perpetrators of sexual assault. This would be like saying saying "96% of drowning happens in bodies of water" The stat we would need to see instead would be "what % of men will commit at least one instance of sexual assault in their lifetime" and the population sample would need to be all men that resided in a specific location for say 60 years of their life. I'm sure someone more skilled with statistics than myself could express what I'm trying to say more accurately but I hope I explained well enough you can see what I was trying to convey atleast.
When a message predicates itself on a falsehood it should be criticized. How can you have a worthwhile discussion when your invitation to the conversation is a a lie? It's like a time share or a MLM, the premise is a lie so everything that follows is not tainted by that even if there is some truth in it.
So disagreeing with a conversation being built on a lie and advancing a stereotype implies I want oppress women? That's reaching pretty hard. I'm not saying women aren't experiencing an unfair circumstance and that their feelings are invalid. I'm saying that this is the wrong way to discuss it because it means the audience who needs to hear it most is presented with cognitive dissonance upfront and a very vocal portion of the women trying to share their experience are shocked and insulted that the men won't listen or try to defend themselves. Of course that was going to happen when you open the conversation up with nonsense rhetoric and now we silenced women with credible stories to share while galvanizing the very men who need to hear this shit the most from trusting the women with the stories to tell.
You wouldn't bring loud-mouthed, personal insult slinging demagouges to a debate and expect a favorable outcome would you?
It doesnt matter what order you put the adjectives in. It's a terrible comparison because any comparison like this is predicated on stereotypes whether they are gender, racial, religious, or whatever. There is no valid stereotype for individual psychology at such a broad demographic level.