A “funny” post was made in reddit about a man winning a women’s tournament. I point out the insidious sexism lurking just below the surface.
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It surprises me sometimes of how many faces male sexism can take. One usually expects it to be in the clear form of misogyny, which would make it easy to point out and counter but more often than not it appears in many other insidious methods which make it difficult to discern.
Such was the case when I stumbled onto a link from the /r/funny subreddit, pointing to a story about a man winning a women’s-only poker tournament. Now that title, or story, by itself is not really sexist (or especially funny for that matter) but what really got on my tits was the OP comment:
Sheesh, feminists: They complain about the world being man dominated, then a man puts himself in a female dominated environment, still wins and suddenly it’s ‘why is he ruining it’.
lame, so very lame.
Not only was the OP displaying his misogyny as what made him find the post funny but he’s spinning the quotes he mined from the article to make it sound as if the women are simply complaining about losing to a man (instead of complaining that he ruined a women’s only tournament which is the truth.) and as if this is some kind of proof of the inherent superiority of males which makes them suitable to dominate the world.
It thus clearly shows that this was pure shadenfreude of a misogynist enjoying a women’s event be spoiled and taking opportunity to make pot shots at caricatures of feminists he has in his small reptile brain. It adequately helps point out how sexist mentality can crop up without being a clear women-hating comment.
As was only natural, when I pointed out the implications of the OP comment, apologetics and alternative interpretations of it were quick to come and I was quick to be buried while trying to set the record straight. People were unbelievably eager to believe that all women were annoyed about was simply that a man won. They were also quick to use a man’s victory as some kind of proof of superiority of the whole genre in poker.
Even worse was the OP who continued to press the issue, even when his misogyny became glaringly obvious. It just goes to show how blind sexists are to their own trait even as they spew out the lowest forms of bile against women and feminists.
Through the whole of this exchange, I was dismayed not only by the popularity of the OP but also by the number of people who in this day and age eagerly jump in to defend him. Fortunately even though I was downvoted out of sight, there were other voices of reason who managed to give the correct context.
All of this just points even more to how widespread patriarchy remains in this day and age and how this mentality spreads itself even without having to be glaringly obvious. We still have a lot of work in front of us.
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If nothing else shows that he's sexist, the very fact that he assumes you are a woman because you stand up for women indicates that he believes no man would feel women are worth defending. (Holy run-on sentences, Batman!)
Well put
As always you refuse to acknowledge that the comments are not to show misogyny as you want to believe you have to also explore other issues that creates this type of anger showing in the blog to start first since you mentioned at the start of your comment the fact that a man was clearly the winner of not only the best female poker at the table but managed to beat an small army of females you may want to say this was not important to the players but I am sure they and you would have preferred to see him lose not for the challenge but womens blogs would have been ecstatic to see a man beating (you go girls!!!). That is what bothers the female bloggers just be honest instead of trying to write an essay on "PMS at the poker table"
I'm really not going to add anything to this other than to point out the hypocrisy of accusing me of misrepresenting the comments (which I've freely linked to for everyone to make their own conclusions) and then go right ahead to assume what women (and I) "are really thinking".
Can men and women ever be equal?
What, in yalls eyes, what justly constitute such a condition of "equality?"
If you cannot provide an answer, then you need to do some thinking before your next serious discussion on the topic.
If you believe, as so many feminists I've spoken to confess, that this fight has no end – that you have no idea what equality would look like, or more likely, recognize that true equality is either impossible or utterly undesirable – then i hope you recognize that what you're really after is gender supremacy.
Feminists continually demand, and subsequently secure, new special privileges for yourselves without regard for anyone else; if a man protests, he is a sexist pig; if a woman speaks up, you call her a witless pawn, or worse.
Definitelly
Anarchism.