Does anyone else consider this quite telling about the ones making anti-feminist comments?
Ok, this is starting to become a trend. It’s the third time now (that I remember) that someone I’ve been arguing online with about feminism in one way or another, with me on the side of feminism of course, has assumed that I am a female. The last example was more subtle, but of course the best one was this comment where the misogynist insisted that I’m a female even after I explictly said I’m not.
I guess this happens a lot in reddit because I do not have an avatar and my username is fairly neutral in gender. This generally means that it’s assumed that I’m a man 90% of the time. The only exception is when I argue for feminism.
I generally do not bother to correct them up until the point where they’ve put their foot in their mouth as I find the hilarity that ensues after making such assumptions excellent. I do not deny that I’m a male when asked directly or when obvious female traits are implied (such as menstruation), but I do not act like a female nor do I try to trick them. In fact, I continue speaking as normal, as I would speak if they knew I was a male, which seems to confuse them greatly since their brain doesn’t eem to be able to compute someone acting/speaking “manly” and yet defending feminism.
The funniest must have been the one who accused me that I was simply stubbornly refusing to hear a “man’s opinion”. For some reason he stopped replying after I told him that I was presenting a man’s opinion. 🙂
Anyway, does anyone else consider this quite telling about the ones making anti-feminist comments? I can’t really put my finger on why I think this is damning however. What do y’all think?
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The second link isn't working. It just links to the article about child hunger in India.
I don't call myself a feminist, but that misogynists' mindset seems to be that the only way one can be anti-sexism is if one is a victim.
Sorry. Should be fixed now.
Those kind of comments imply that the only way you can be a feminist is if you're merely a victim of sexism/patriarchy (which males can't be, at least not directly), and your experiences as a victim are bound to cloud your judgment. Apparently opposition to sexism is nothing but an emotional reaction. Was that what you find damning about it?
Hmmm, perhaps. I need to mull this analysis over. Thanks
I think that's exactly it, Noor. If you need to put a name to it, db0, it looks to me like a subtle example of a circumstantial ad hominem fallacy.
I get this all the time. The truth is that males should be feminists. Well, most are, actually, whether they realize it or not. That is, they are first and second wave feminists (meaning they support women's liberation). If that position is so rational to adopt (as most Western males today would agree it is), I don't understand why the radical feminist positions are so irrational to them. I mean, we call it feminism, but it's just a recognition that equality of the sexes still hasn't been achieved. I think capitalists in particular are uncomfortable with the idea of true equality of the sexes because it seems to advocate socialist policies, such as maternity leave, increased paid sick leave, wages for a household labor, etc.
Your experience with people assuming you're male most of the time reminds me of this:http://contexts.org/socimages/2010/05/24/male-as-… And in case that link isn't working, here's the cached version:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=ca…
The effect of the cultural assumption of "male is default" is that male becomes normal and female becomes abnormal, thus a pro-female position makes you an abnormal person who must be a woman, because no normal person would defend an abnormal person, duh. 😛 I personally think that the biggest sign that the power of the patriarchy has ended will be when people no longer assume another person's gender to be male by default.
I'm not sure that the assumption that most people online are males is because of sexism and not because of the generally male-oriented history of the net. Of course that is in turn related to the patriarchical way by which technical roles have been primaly male-oriented and therefore it was males who pioneered the web. So it's more of an indirect thing 🙂
Misogynists like linkedlist make me so fucking angry. He actually treats you (while assuming that you're female) as if you're different from him, inferior to him! Unbelievable!! What the hell is it that makes women so irrational? Does he have any peer-reviewed studies to back up his bullshit? Women and men have more in common than most people are aware of, biologically and psychologically. We are not a different species. Why on earth is it so difficult for some people to admit that women deserve equal treatment and equal respect to men?
There are actually some feminists who take that view – that men can't be feminists because they don't have the experience.
Truth be told, I am often surprised when I find men taking feminist positions or arguing with other men about feminist issues. It just doesn't happen that often.
Yes they do exist. Male feminists are male who support female supremacy. It's like a black person supporting the KKK.
People who care about men and men's rights are called MRA, not "male feminist". It was mostly because of feminism's sexism toward men & boys that MRAs exist in the first place.