Apparently someone who can only be bitter about me banning him made the letters of a Salon article. Under the heading, “Are Feminists Necessary?” he writes this multi-paragraph treatise that, frankly, I didn’t read. I sort of thought that his invoking the idea that feminists = Republicans was close enough to invoking Godwin’s Law for me to pass him off at losing at the internet. But I did have to read the paragraph in which I got an honourable mention – no link though, too bad.
The guy, who signed off as Two Sides To The Story (not that you’ll ever learn that) — his aside is ironic, given that unless people find my site they won’t ever actually learn the true context behind what he claims — had this to say:
On one of the links off Carnival Of Feminists (provided in another Boradsheet post) – “Official Shrub” – there’s a rule that says male writers can’t post opinions on the message board that point out that men suffer from discrimination, as well. Preposterously, they actually have a term for it – they call it: “What About The Mens Phallusy?” – which is meant to be satiric and clever, but actually only proves how fascist feminists still are in their thinking, and their desire to completely control the conversation.
Ignoring the fact that this is a, you know, blog and not a message board (a small, but significant difference), let’s just take a gander at what I actually say about men’s issues:
No Hijacking of Threads
Off-topic discussions are tolerated to a certain extent. I understand that threads can, and often do, take a life of their own. However, an attempt to come into a discussion for the express purpose of disrupting the main conversation will be seen as trolling. This includes invoking The “What About the Mens?” Phallusy with arguments like, “but this happens to men, too!” or otherwise trying to shift the focus from an oppressed group onto the individual oppressions a majority group faces. It’s one thing to relate one’s experiences and opinions when appropriate, but bringing up how the poor mens/whites/heterosexuals/etc. have problems, too, when the author’s discussion was about the institutionalized or individual acts of oppression of a minority is not appropriate. Any comment that tries to de-rail a thread is subject to either a warning or deletion, depending on how severe the infraction.
What that means is that if I make a thread that includes a platform for discussion of masculinities, then of course it’s appropriate. But if I’m talking about women, then it’s so fucking rude to come on here and be like, “But [x] happens to men, too!” Okay, great, but that’s not anywhere near my point. If you want to talk about that and feel I don’t give it enough airtime, go elsewhere. I give links. Lots of links. This is my soapbox, you see. Mine. Not yours. And, frankly, if you’re so steeped in your own privilege that you are unable to see the distinction, well, then maybe you deserved whatever ban I gave you for whatever reason.
And remember, ye anti-feminist trolls of jerkitutde, Feminists don’t hate men, we just hate you.
Via reader Darth Sidhe.
Oh, what a difficult life he has. Fortunately, he’s able to stay in his tiny worldview and never learn a thing. Otherwise, he might lose his injured status.
*weeps for him, quietly*
I confess I read the entirety of that thread. Alas it was not encouraging, even the levelheaded participants weren’t asking the right questions. Robert Franklin in particular was harping on the percentage of college enrollees that are male being lower that female as evidence of widespread “misandry”. The idea that the percentage of enrolees into college that are male has dropped to 42% just means there are more women going to college now. The important question is what percentage of male high school graduates are attending college, if that number is going down (which if i recall correctly from other discussions involving the original article it isn’t) then there could be a problem worth addressing. However if women are being given the opportunity to compete equally and are subsequently acheiving, that isn’t a good reason to assume that men are being shortchanged. As a positive note a few people stepped up to call him out there as well.
Commenting on the “It’s not about you” here:
A lot of the time, the writing indirectly is about us (men). Once the message is framed (directly or implied) as “X happens to women because men do Y” or “women have things worse than men because of Z”, it is only fair to have a chance to “defend” ourselves and point that it is not so.
Yocibox: I remember some of the discussions on it when this whole kerfluffle came out. You are correct in thinking that the percentage of male attendees, instead of going down, has actually gone up. It’s just that the percentage of female attendees has gone up more.
And, frankly, men can earn a higher wage than women on average with less education, so there’s less incentive for them to go the academic route. Not that those who cry “misandry” are looking at addressing the wage gap to make it equally desireable for all genders to go to college. Or, even, looking at addressing the problem that higher education is meaning less and less (but being required more and more), and how it doesn’t actually seem to strongly correlate with real life effectiveness in many cases. These squackers are focusing on pre-college education instead. And not in a gender inclusive way, either, but a “fuck the girls’ education, the boys are feeling left out!” kind of way.
AJ: I write about patriarichal systems, and polite discourse in the ways and reasons why men contribute to them are okay/encouraged in certain instances and in certain ways. However, the Phallusy directly referenced by Mr. Bitter is very specific: it talks about men going into women’s spaces and trying to turn women’s issues into a thread about how men are so oppressed by said women’s issue. That’s not “defending”, that’s trolling and derailing, and frankly it has no place on a feminist blog that discusses women’s issues.
Like I said, if my threads don’t provide enough platforms for men to discuss how they are affected by the patriarchy, my links on the right provide at least three other places appropriate for that. The whole world is men’s soapbox, and all I ask for is for them to leave me my space to have mine. But, apparently, that’s too much to ask for, because assholes feel the need to come in and constantly tell me that “x happens to men, too” and then start ranting about “female privilege” or whatever bullshit that they’re enamoured with at the time.
So, please excuse me for, you know, wanting my space to be troll free. And for thinking that, maybe, just once, instead of leaping on the defensive men might actually think about their behaviour and the behaviour of their peers instead of spouting their mouths off in “defense” of themselves, when they really didn’t read or understand what I was talking about.
Blog, forum, whatever the case… is it too much to ask for people to look at where they are posting, before posting? The poster has an issue. They want to talk. Get something off their chest. Understandible. But! If the context is, say, paper-and-pencils D&D, then it’s rude and self-centered to try and shift the confab to a rant about Windows XP. Anyone wanting to talk about that could go over to some place like Woody’s Windows Watch.
In this case, the context could not be more bluntly stated: it’s… about… women. Complaining about “unequal air time for men” here is like barging into the ladies’ room and demanding that they install urinals.