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> So I blocked a few people and wrote a quick post: When I read the Mastodon thread, this jumped out at me as well. A couple of the guys who raised the point c

> So I blocked a few people and wrote a quick post: When I read the Mastodon thread, this jumped out at me as well. A couple of the guys who raised the point clarified that they fully agreed that the removal of “groping” was a good thing, but by that point, the author wouldn’t be able to see the clarification. I’m really torn on this. I fully support people’s choices to set boundaries and block abusive behavior. At the same time, “I disagree with you so I’m going to insta-block you and not even give you a chance to clarify” seems at the heart of the brokenness of online discourse. But having seen what some of the women in my life go through re: abusive behavior online, I also understand the hair trigger. I don’t know what the right balance is, and it’s likely very personal and contextual, but I’ve personally started to only engage with conversations if I’m willing to deal with all of the likely categories of response (barring obvious abuse). Disagree=block seems to increase polarization and seems counterproductive in the long run. It also seems like a good way to reinforce my own blind spots, even if it turns out that I’m “right” some of the time.

wpietri 3y ago
> insta-block [...] seems at the heart of the brokenness of online discourse. > having seen what some of the women in my life go through re: abusive behavior online, I also understand the hair trigger Even from your own words, it sounds like the heart is not in the reaction, but what people are reacting to. I am moderately mouthy on social media. I get a much, much smaller level of pushback than similar women do. When I do, the level of respect is higher, and I almost never get my credentials questioned. But I regularly see women with much stronger credentials get those inspected and/or dismissed. Just yesterday I saw a woman with a relevant PhD getting talked down to by some random guy. And then when she made a separate post about her frustration with reply guys and how she was thinking about leaving Mastodon, some different random dude told her to "get a live". Historically, we spent thousands of years keeping women in "their place". That was partly legal, but mostly social. We've solved the legal stuff in the US, but only recently. (E.g., states only started to outlaw marital rape in the 1970s, and it wasn't fully outlawed until 1992.) It should be no surprise to anybody that the social mechanisms did not magically evaporate the moment we passed some laws. And I think one of those social mechanisms is the disproportionate negativity women get from men when they are not in "their place". When they have the audacity to act like they know things and have valid opinions just like men do. If you want to read more on this, Manne's "Down Girl: the logic of misogyny" is a very careful examination of the mechanisms and their effects. If you're looking for "the heart", I think that's a good place to continue your search.
- haswell 3y ago
  I don’t question the disproportionate impact of bad behavior towards women. > Even from your own words, it sounds like the heart is not in the reaction, but what people are reacting to. My point was that more broadly speaking, online discourse is fundamentally broken in most popular social spaces. Most people have abandoned discourse and refuse to have hard conversations. I’d argue that in most cases, this is counterproductive behavior. I’m also not saying this is the only thing broken - there are a myriad of systemic factors, and degrees and kinds of brokenness. Bad behavior towards women is also at the toxic core in my view. I don’t see this as either/or. Dialogue is all we have available to change minds, and this broad erosion of communication is deeply worrisome. I’ve been beating this drum for some time. When I first read the thread, I didn’t realize the author was a woman. The point of my comment was that: 1. I, too, noticed the pattern the parent comment mentioned 2. While I really dislike what online discourse has become, I have empathy for the author and can understand why especially women get sick of the bullshit and just block people And that was my point about how personal and contextual decisions about these interactions are. That in this situation, I get it, but that it highlights the brokenness of the web. For what it’s worth, I’m increasingly convinced that the best move is to stop playing the social media game entirely. I appreciate the book recommendation. As a person who views misogyny as a major problem and unacceptable behavior, and has spent a decent amount of time exploring the subject, do you have an elevator pitch for the insights in the book? I add to my (long) reading list cautiously, and I guess my question is: if I’m already fully convinced that this is a problem and take it seriously, will I still find value in reading?
  - wpietri 3y ago
    > Most people have abandoned discourse and given up on having hard conversations. I agree that the lack of hard conversations is a problem, although I'm not sure how much people have given it up versus just never did it at all with strangers, whom computers now thrust them in virtual proximity to. But again, I don't think the problem is with the people blocking. I think it's with the propagandists and the purposeful jerks. I think blocking is a fine response to encountering somebody who is not only uninterested in reason, but will be a pain in the ass as they try to silence any opposition to their views. Life's too short to waste time on the "change my mind" crowd. [1] > do you have an elevator pitch for the insights in the book? I think the book's value is mainly to people of an analytical bent. Her goal is partly what philosophers call ameliorative, meaning she's trying to sort through the many things that get called "misogyny" and come up with a productive definition for it. As part of that, she gives both a useful theoretical structure (especially valuable to me is her framing of misogyny as the enforcement arm of sexism, as well as her look at who is "owed" what and how people behave when those expectations are violated) and a lot of nuanced examinations of examples. I had no problem spotting open misogyny, but there were a lot of more subtle, stochastic examples that I only saw as a pattern after reading her book. [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/steven-crowders-change-my-mind-campus-sign https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/steven-crowders-change-my-min...

wpietri 3y ago

> insta-block [...] seems at the heart of the brokenness of online discourse. > having seen what some of the women in my life go through re: abusive behavior online, I also understand the hair trigger Even from your own words, it sounds like the heart is not in the reaction, but what people are reacting to. I am moderately mouthy on social media. I get a much, much smaller level of pushback than similar women do. When I do, the level of respect is higher, and I almost never get my credentials questioned. But I regularly see women with much stronger credentials get those inspected and/or dismissed. Just yesterday I saw a woman with a relevant PhD getting talked down to by some random guy. And then when she made a separate post about her frustration with reply guys and how she was thinking about leaving Mastodon, some different random dude told her to "get a live". Historically, we spent thousands of years keeping women in "their place". That was partly legal, but mostly social. We've solved the legal stuff in the US, but only recently. (E.g., states only started to outlaw marital rape in the 1970s, and it wasn't fully outlawed until 1992.) It should be no surprise to anybody that the social mechanisms did not magically evaporate the moment we passed some laws. And I think one of those social mechanisms is the disproportionate negativity women get from men when they are not in "their place". When they have the audacity to act like they know things and have valid opinions just like men do. If you want to read more on this, Manne's "Down Girl: the logic of misogyny" is a very careful examination of the mechanisms and their effects. If you're looking for "the heart", I think that's a good place to continue your search.

haswell 3y ago
I don’t question the disproportionate impact of bad behavior towards women. > Even from your own words, it sounds like the heart is not in the reaction, but what people are reacting to. My point was that more broadly speaking, online discourse is fundamentally broken in most popular social spaces. Most people have abandoned discourse and refuse to have hard conversations. I’d argue that in most cases, this is counterproductive behavior. I’m also not saying this is the only thing broken - there are a myriad of systemic factors, and degrees and kinds of brokenness. Bad behavior towards women is also at the toxic core in my view. I don’t see this as either/or. Dialogue is all we have available to change minds, and this broad erosion of communication is deeply worrisome. I’ve been beating this drum for some time. When I first read the thread, I didn’t realize the author was a woman. The point of my comment was that: 1. I, too, noticed the pattern the parent comment mentioned 2. While I really dislike what online discourse has become, I have empathy for the author and can understand why especially women get sick of the bullshit and just block people And that was my point about how personal and contextual decisions about these interactions are. That in this situation, I get it, but that it highlights the brokenness of the web. For what it’s worth, I’m increasingly convinced that the best move is to stop playing the social media game entirely. I appreciate the book recommendation. As a person who views misogyny as a major problem and unacceptable behavior, and has spent a decent amount of time exploring the subject, do you have an elevator pitch for the insights in the book? I add to my (long) reading list cautiously, and I guess my question is: if I’m already fully convinced that this is a problem and take it seriously, will I still find value in reading?
- wpietri 3y ago
  > Most people have abandoned discourse and given up on having hard conversations. I agree that the lack of hard conversations is a problem, although I'm not sure how much people have given it up versus just never did it at all with strangers, whom computers now thrust them in virtual proximity to. But again, I don't think the problem is with the people blocking. I think it's with the propagandists and the purposeful jerks. I think blocking is a fine response to encountering somebody who is not only uninterested in reason, but will be a pain in the ass as they try to silence any opposition to their views. Life's too short to waste time on the "change my mind" crowd. [1] > do you have an elevator pitch for the insights in the book? I think the book's value is mainly to people of an analytical bent. Her goal is partly what philosophers call ameliorative, meaning she's trying to sort through the many things that get called "misogyny" and come up with a productive definition for it. As part of that, she gives both a useful theoretical structure (especially valuable to me is her framing of misogyny as the enforcement arm of sexism, as well as her look at who is "owed" what and how people behave when those expectations are violated) and a lot of nuanced examinations of examples. I had no problem spotting open misogyny, but there were a lot of more subtle, stochastic examples that I only saw as a pattern after reading her book. [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/steven-crowders-change-my-mind-campus-sign https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/steven-crowders-change-my-min...