2 ms·

You are right. I'm painting with a brush MUCH too broad. And a LOT of this is personal. Being a feminine little guy my whole life, I had a LOT of friends that

You are right. I'm painting with a brush MUCH too broad. And a LOT of this is personal. Being a feminine little guy my whole life, I had a LOT of friends that were girls, had I been gay I think they wouldn't have pulled away from me when they got boyfriends and we still would have been friends. So I began to have more friends that were guys and this allowed me to get a good look at both the female and male worlds. And after seeing both sides of the gender spectrum and seeing how men treat and talk about women behind their backs and how women treat and talk about men. I have to say there is an INSANE amount of sexism on the part of the men. Not the blatant "go to the kitchen and make me a sandwich" kind. But a more subtle kind that has to do with blame, anger direction, and superiority. And every single male I know is just completely oblivious to it. They just don't see it. They can't. "It's a bunch of fans expressing their dismay". From my personal life experiences, dismay expressed towards a girl is much worse than a guy. The girl won't get up and kick your ass, the guy might. So when women mess up, it's much easier to go bat shit crazy on them. There's lots of examples of it happening the other way around but for me, my particular life experiences have shown heavily that females just get yelled the fuck out for things that men would get a slap on the wrist for. Look I'm not trying to be a "oh the poor women victims, look at me on my white horse coming in to save them" and all that bullshit. I just wish just once, every man in the world could be aware of his male privilege and inadvertent sexism. I see it so often, I see it in my friends, in my FATHER, in my neighbors. I'm so sick of this thick headed male I didn't do anything wrong / I don't know what you're talking about crap. Seeing it a few times and it annoys you, a few years and it bothers you, seeing it from a young age to an adult and it drives you absolutely insane. And that's what it's doing to me now.

disgruntledphd2 15y ago
I'm not disputing your major points here, I think many of them are quite valid. However, you're not comparing apples to apples in your comments about spending lots of time with otherwise exclusively male or female groups. Regardless of how you perceive yourself, you are a man, and this almost certainly affected what women said while you were present (even at a less conscious level). Thus, you may be judging men too harshly. That being said, I have spent a lot of time in both male and female groups, and both groups have a commonality in that they pick on the other group, in subtle and not so subtle ways. Many people are aholes, some are not, but the a-holes often tend to be louder.
true_religion 15y ago
You're essencially valuing your own experience as more real than everyone else's experience and saying that although we may all look at the same situation, you are correct simply because you know the correct way to look at the scenario. It's pretty circular to me. Now, speaking about your experience... isn't it possible that your female friends would soften the way they talk about men around you? Despite being as you say a 'feminine little guy', you're still a man. Any reasonable person would tone down their language to avoid offending their friend. Anecdotal evidence: I have a female friend who will swear that women are worse than men but I believe she's suffering from the same lack of perspective you are: no man would speak so freely around her and thus she thinks men are more gentlemanly than they really are.

disgruntledphd2 15y ago

I'm not disputing your major points here, I think many of them are quite valid. However, you're not comparing apples to apples in your comments about spending lots of time with otherwise exclusively male or female groups. Regardless of how you perceive yourself, you are a man, and this almost certainly affected what women said while you were present (even at a less conscious level). Thus, you may be judging men too harshly. That being said, I have spent a lot of time in both male and female groups, and both groups have a commonality in that they pick on the other group, in subtle and not so subtle ways. Many people are aholes, some are not, but the a-holes often tend to be louder.

true_religion 15y ago

You're essencially valuing your own experience as more real than everyone else's experience and saying that although we may all look at the same situation, you are correct simply because you know the correct way to look at the scenario. It's pretty circular to me. Now, speaking about your experience... isn't it possible that your female friends would soften the way they talk about men around you? Despite being as you say a 'feminine little guy', you're still a man. Any reasonable person would tone down their language to avoid offending their friend. Anecdotal evidence: I have a female friend who will swear that women are worse than men but I believe she's suffering from the same lack of perspective you are: no man would speak so freely around her and thus she thinks men are more gentlemanly than they really are.