Revisiting misogyny on Metafilter

June 11, 2014 11:05 AM

The comments of this Metafilter post about misogynist songs at Trader Joes demonstrates that our work to keep Metafilter free from sexism is far from over.

There were many comments in there demonstrating the problems with the overall thread - mansplaining, talking over women commenting in the thread, saying "well Woman In My Life is ok with X therefore all you other women should agree!". And while there were a good number of commentors trying to reel in the meta-misogyny and sexism, they are fast becoming outnumbered and overwhelmed.

I suspect that a lot of the commentors there were not around during the constant discussions about Metafilter's Boyzone atmosphere (I noticed a couple of other comments on that thread making a similar remark). It took a lot of effort for Mefi to get to where it is when it comes to misogyny and respecting women's voices, and I'd hate for that to be rapidly erased.

I wanted to start this MetaTalk thread because there was a lot of discussion on the Mefi post about how the post itself was going, and with 300+ comments there already I figured it would be better to hash out site-related qualms here on its own thread.

posted by divabat to Etiquette/Policy at 11:05 AM (1844 comments total)

I was labeled a sexist misogynist. I reached out to Nora Reed to explain why, and she said it was not her responsibility to tell me. If anyone would care to examine my remarks in that thread and explain it to me, I would really appreciate it. I really thought that I was being even-keeled, and as my last comment just noted, if a man had pulled the same stunt, I'd have the same advice for him.
posted by Roger Dodger at 11:16 AM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

I read that thread but did not post in it, and I share your dismay at some of the comments on it (although I think it was really just 1 or 2 prolific posters who were responsible for the vast majority of the WTF quotient)

One thing I was wondering about, though, and didn't see mentioned in the thread was the title of the FPP itself: "Take it easy babe." Was that supposed to be addressed to the author of the blog post? If so, I think that was really sexist and condescending and I'm surprised that didn't come up in the thread.
posted by Asparagus at 11:17 AM on June 11, 2014

I don't think labeling people who self-identify as feminists and leftists as "sexist and misogynist" or the use of snarky neologisms like "mansplaning" help maintain a healthy, respectful discussion, help further mutual understanding, or advance our common cause.

Asparagus: it's a line from the goddamn song that started the whole shitstorm. Jesus Christ on a Segway.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:18 AM on June 11, 2014 [59 favorites]

One thing I was wondering about, though, and didn't see mentioned in the thread was the title of the FPP itself: "Take it easy babe." Was that supposed to be addressed to the author of the blog post? If so, I think that was really sexist and condescending and I'm surprised that didn't come up in the thread.

It's one of the lyrics to "Under My Thumb," the song being discussed by the subject of the FPP.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:19 AM on June 11, 2014

It's a Rolling Stones lyric.
posted by elizardbits at 11:19 AM on June 11, 2014

Roger, I just did that on the blue.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:21 AM on June 11, 2014

I don't think labeling people who self-identify as feminists and leftists as "sexist and misogynist" or the use of snarky neologisms like "mansplaning" help maintain a healthy, respectful discussion, help further mutual understanding, or advance our common cause.

Nor is repeatedly disparaging feminists as being as bad as misogynists because their tone supposedly alienates people, without a single shred of evidence to back those assertions up. Which is another thing that happens in every thread about feminism.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:21 AM on June 11, 2014 [54 favorites]

Asparagus: "Was that supposed to be addressed to the author of the blog post? If so, I think that was really sexist and condescending and I'm surprised that didn't come up in the thread."

Oh, man. Context is king paramount.
posted by boo_radley at 11:22 AM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Isn't that the thread where somebody commented that he was gonna to start "cut(ting) dudes' dicks off until they fucking listen"? I guess you're right that we haven't progressed all that much since the days we thought it was rhetorically ok to rape an Ann Coulter.
posted by 0 at 11:22 AM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Nor is berating and swearing at a person who is not intimately familiar with the Rolling Stones.
posted by Melismata at 11:23 AM on June 11, 2014 [39 favorites]

I read something recently about how hastags like #yesallwomen served a similar function to feminist consciousness-raising sessions. Our world is so toxic, so steeped in unthinking misogyny, among other things, that it becomes invisible. It's just this pervasive thing, barely noticed or acknowledged, and so when people use the hashtags, suddenly there is an eruption of "Oh my god, this is shitty! And it really does happen all the time!"

But this is often women speaking to women, and men remain outside of the discussion, or are unaware of it, or ignore it, all of which is a mark of privilege -- they don't participate in these things because they don't experience what is being discussed, and so can ignore or dismiss it.

As a result, we end up with one group of people who are tremendously savvy to how privilege tries to ignore or silence the discussion, and another group of people unthinkingly engaging in those very silencing tactics, but thinking they are engaged in good-faith discussions. They think the most important thing to discuss is tactics, and their ideas for what tactics work best, never mind that they are men and haven't tried anything that they are talking about. They tone police the complainer, and think they're being helpful. But every single time, they are moving the discussion away from the subject of misogyny. Or worse, they just decide the subject is beneath discussion, leap in early, and make a few shitty jokes at the expense of the discussion.

I'm glad women are getting consciousness raising. I think men need it as well.

Asparagus: it's a line from the goddamn song that started the whole shitstorm. Jesus Christ on a Segway.

This kind of shit has got to stop. Try being respectful to your fellow posters, for fuck's sake.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:23 AM on June 11, 2014 [123 favorites]

Snip snip snip!
posted by shakespeherian at 11:23 AM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Isn't that the thread where somebody commented that he was gonna to start "cut(ting) dudes' dicks off until they fucking listen"?

Nope.
posted by KathrynT at 11:24 AM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

How do you talk over someone in a linear thread where everyone has a box to type in and can respond at leisure?
posted by biffa at 11:24 AM on June 11, 2014 [20 favorites]

Right, it is pretty unreasonable to ask someone to be familiar with the lyrics to a song that is the subject of the post.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:24 AM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

0: "Isn't that the thread where somebody commented that he was gonna to start "cut(ting) dudes' dicks off until they fucking listen"?"

No. Not unless it was deleted. And if it was deleted, the rest of your argument is pretty much moot.
posted by zarq at 11:24 AM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Thanks Misantropic, again!
posted by Roger Dodger at 11:25 AM on June 11, 2014

biffa: "How do you talk over someone in a linear thread where everyone has a box to type in and can respond at leisure?"

Easily. By dismissing and demeaning them and then getting a bunch of other people to pile on. Classic silencing tactics.
posted by zarq at 11:25 AM on June 11, 2014 [23 favorites]

It was indeed deleted. Still somebody felt comfortable going there.
posted by 0 at 11:25 AM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

It was a dumb comment and was rapidly deleted, yes. I'm not sure an argument based on the implied acceptability of dumb shit that gets rapidly deleted makes a lot of sense.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:25 AM on June 11, 2014 [24 favorites]

It was indeed deleted. Still somebody felt comfortable going there.

Yes. A man.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:25 AM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Personally, I feel like the article in question was shitty clickbait and lumping it in with "feminist posts" does a huge disservice to the wealth of excellent, diverse, thought-provoking material posted to the Blue about women's experiences. I say this as a feminist but also as a man so apply what grains of salt you will.

I found this thread frustrating because, even aside from the piece's problems, I think an article describing a political process, posted to a political journalism site, invites a more analytical and critical discussion than, say, a personal anecdote posted to someone's blog. I actually think it's really condescending to instantly port anything tangentially related to "feminism" or "women" to the discursive realm of lived experience, which is by nature personal and beyond critique.
posted by threeants at 11:26 AM on June 11, 2014 [38 favorites]

0: "It was indeed deleted. Still somebody felt comfortable going there."

So what? It was deleted.
posted by zarq at 11:26 AM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Also, that thread has been a mess six ways to sunday and as much as I think it's okay if people want to address specific site-view stuff related to it it would be great to not have this just turn into a rehash or grudgematch about it. I appreciate divabat coming at this from a "let's talk about the site and sexism" perspective and think that'd be a hell of a lot more productive and useful of a conversation to have than Yeah But That Trader Joes Post Tho.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:27 AM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

btw, Roger Dodger, if you're participating in a discussion about feminism and women's issues and someone says your statements are reminding them of other sexist, misogynist derails, and you instantly demand that the entire thread change topic to whether you personally are a sexist misogynist? That's a pretty solid example of what divabat is talking about. You did it there, you're doing it here. I say this not to make it personal about you, but to point out that this is one extremely common way that conversations about women's issues get derailed into talking about men, and I don't know what to do about it.
posted by KathrynT at 11:30 AM on June 11, 2014 [100 favorites]

I didn't comment on that thread because I was conflicted.

1. The words to the song are heinous.

2. I like the Rolling Stones

3. I hate censorship.

4. I think the author took it a bit too far

5. It wouldn't occur to me to get in an uproar about the song at Trader Joes, but maybe it should.

So I did not make up my mind about what I wanted to say, and so I said nothing. Except now, because I've thought about it.

As for misogyny, I guess in this instance it's a third world problem. Did we get our girls back? Are women still sex slaves? Do I still make .66 for every dollar a man makes? I have bigger fish to fry here.

But then, am I guilty of minimizing an entrenched misogynistic idea, that could very well be contributing to the larger problem?

I think any post from a feminist viewpoint is going to run into these problems. There are people who are going to wonder why you're blowing something out of proportion. There are people who are going to think that you didn't blow it up enough! There are people who are threatened by something they have accepted as normal and good for all these years, and who now have had their eyes opened, and you've pissed them off.

Good posts comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

And yes, there are some right assholes here.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 11:30 AM on June 11, 2014 [57 favorites]

Wow, people are in a rotten mood these days. What's up? Usually this kind of fighting only happens right before the holidays.
posted by Melismata at 11:30 AM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Self-identifying as feminist or leftist does not mean you are suddenly absolved of misogyny or that you can never be sexist. Indeed that self-identification puts more responsibility on you to actually be aware of how you perpetuate sexism (intentionally or not) and examine how you can better integrate feminism into your daily actions.
posted by divabat at 11:31 AM on June 11, 2014 [62 favorites]

I guess I start from the presumption that if I don't share somebody's experience, I am not going to know what tactic works best. As a man, I get a different response when I call in to complain than a woman does. As a man, I get different responses when I write an article. Tactics that work for me might do nothing at all for them, and so I would never presume to lecture somebody about what they should have done differently because something different would have worked for me.

I mean, I have argued with the police before and been treated as an irate citizen. Were I a person of color, that tactic may have had a different outcome.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:31 AM on June 11, 2014 [15 favorites]

Really it was a terrible post to begin with, the equivalent of someone's blog.
posted by 2bucksplus at 11:31 AM on June 11, 2014 [13 favorites]

I ended up not posting this in that thread, but it seemed that a lot of people read the blog post and thought that the author had picked some random cashier or stockboy to start grilling about the radio selections, when in fact she was directed to the guy she addresses in the blog. He was the human in the store she was supposed to direct complaints to. He gave her the store manager's info, she couldn't reach him, and she complained about his unreachability. But her blog post was not about how "Kyle Soandso is such a jerk because he wouldn't personally take that song off the radio".

Towards the end of the thread I posted something that included the question: Can we take this [thread] as a micro example of the exact phenomenon she was talking about? That women's opinions, complaints, feelings, depictions in our culture are often not taken seriously?

I did mean it as a question, an invitation to consider further. And yet within a few minutes, I was shouted down by someone who literally informed me that my interpretation, my opinion, was WRONG. Objectively wrong. And maybe I worded it poorly, or maybe it was taken as a directive rather than a question???
posted by nakedmolerats at 11:32 AM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

But this is often women speaking to women, and men remain outside of the discussion, or are unaware of it, or ignore it, all of which is a mark of privilege -- they don't participate in these things because they don't experience what is being discussed, and so can ignore or dismiss it.

This, and the rest of Bunny Ultramod's comment, is a good analysis of the situation.

To the end of consciousness raising, of why arguments like #yesallwomen happen and why they are needed, Melissa McEwan recently posted a powerful piece "We Need to Talk About This."
posted by audi alteram partem at 11:32 AM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Okay, I get it, I think. So offering advice about how things can be accomplished can be viewed as a silencing tool? Seriously, I'm trying to understand.
posted by Roger Dodger at 11:32 AM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Christ, Roger Dodger, look "mansplaining" up.
posted by sukeban at 11:34 AM on June 11, 2014 [20 favorites]

I guess I start from the presumption that if I don't share somebody's experience, I am not going to know what tactic works best. As a man, I get a different response when I call in to complain than a woman does. As a man, I get different responses when I write an article. Tactics that work for me might do nothing at all for them, and so I would never presume to lecture somebody about what they should have done differently because something different would have worked for me.

I mean, I have argued with the police before and been treated as an irate citizen. Were I a person of color, that tactic may have had a different outcome.

All good points, but/and this is sort of the exact kind of conversation I was looking to have in the thread itself.
posted by threeants at 11:34 AM on June 11, 2014

I think a few people got a bit wrapped up in how much they don't like the way the author handled this particular situation, and a couple others made some statements in the context of the wider discussion that were not great. A lot of people seemed to be conflating the two.
posted by Hoopo at 11:35 AM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

See, this isn't even a conversation.
posted by Roger Dodger at 11:35 AM on June 11, 2014 [22 favorites]

...our work to keep Metafilter free from sexism is far from over...

And in the very next sentence...

...mansplaining...

☹
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 11:35 AM on June 11, 2014 [22 favorites]

I don't know much about how women experience the world because I'm a man, but I do go into Trader Joe's 2-3 times a week.

People were telling me that Trader Joe's employees were poorly paid (they are not), that its only aging hippies who shop there (not the case at all), and that it is staffed by people on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder.

All of this, of course, goes against my lived experience, but people who never step foot in a Trader Joe's were telling me how a Trader Joe's actually is.

So, thanks to that thread, I have a slightly better idea of what it is like to be a woman.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:36 AM on June 11, 2014 [47 favorites]

You may not like the word mansplaining, but it describes a phenomenon women experience and need a word to describe, and is not sexist, and has been thoroughly addressed in previous discussions.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:37 AM on June 11, 2014 [59 favorites]

Roger Dodger: The issue is that in a thread where people are trying to talk about either the community as a whole's response to sexism - or, in that thread, about having to deal with misogynist content in public spaces - you are pulling attention away by demanding that people try to educate you personally. This is despite many other people already posting many, many times the answer to your question - but because it wasn't addressed specifically to you, you don't seem willing to listen.

This isn't the thread about you, Roger Dodger. But it does demonstrate the larger problem of the marginalised being demanded to personally educate and hand-hold the non-marginalised even when previous efforts have shown to be futile. I don't mind education in and of itself personally - but it gets tiresome when the other party doesn't seem willing to listen.
posted by divabat at 11:37 AM on June 11, 2014 [48 favorites]

I don't think labeling people who self-identify as feminists and leftists

Self-identification matters little. Your behavior marks you as what you are.

I don't think labeling people who self-identify as feminists and leftists as "sexist and misogynist" or the use of snarky neologisms like "mansplaning" help maintain a healthy, respectful discussion, help further mutual understanding, or advance our common cause.

Oh no, not snark! Some opinions and behaviors deserve as much ridicule as they deserve patient counter-argument. I talked about this a while ago in the Elliot Rodger thread.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:38 AM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

sukeban: Christ, Roger Dodger, look "mansplaining" up.

Yes, let's look up that dummmmb fuckin' word.

There has been disagreement among women regarding the usefulness of the term. Given its gender-specific nature and negative connotation, the word has been described by some feminists as being inherently biased, essentialist, dismissive, and a double standard. Some other feminists, however, find the term useful for exposing the ways that male privilege can manifest itself in social interactions. Still others argue that the term is too easily misunderstood and misappropriated and is therefore counterproductive in calling out problematic behaviour. They cite the coinage of the term "womansplaining" to describe a woman interacting with someone in a condescending manner as evidence of this misappropriation.

posted by gman at 11:38 AM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

Previous MeTa on mansplaining contains several viewpoints on how the term can function in a productive conversation to address sexism.
posted by audi alteram partem at 11:38 AM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

...mansplaining...

☹

Hey, if you can come up with a word explaining the extremely common real-world occurrence of men explaining things to women in a fashion that is either implicitly or explicitly belittling because of gender differences, often used as a tactic to silence or otherwise minimize women's contributions to a conversation, and it doesn't take an entire paragraph like I just did, you're free to do so.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:39 AM on June 11, 2014 [100 favorites]

*shakes his head and steps out of the thread*
posted by entropicamericana at 11:40 AM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

traderjoesplaining
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:40 AM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

Good God, let's not turn a thread about something that affects women into a thread about how offensive the word mansplaining is. That's literally the sort of diversionary tactic that this thread was created to address.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:42 AM on June 11, 2014 [130 favorites]

Roger Dodger: "Okay, I get it, I think. So offering advice about how things can be accomplished can be viewed as a silencing tool? Seriously, I'm trying to understand."

Kinda, yeah. there's a few versions of this. Here's an option that seems pertinent to this situation: Your advice was already followed by the woman, but there's an implicit assumption that she was too dumb\ intimidated\ etc to try it without having a man propose it. ex: "why didn't you talk to management" "I did... "

Another version is basically "well, who asked you?". Sometimes men present answers to things that aren't really problems in the way that the man perceived. The advice is off target, or makes assumptions about the situation that are unfounded in hurtful ways.

and so on.
posted by boo_radley at 11:42 AM on June 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

"But this is often women speaking to women, and men remain outside of the discussion, or are unaware of it, or ignore it, all of which is a mark of privilege -- they don't participate in these things because they don't experience what is being discussed, and so can ignore or dismiss it."


It's also possible that some men decided to not to participate in the discussion because if they express any kind of disagreement -- no matter how reasonable or unsexist -- they get labeled as misogynist/sexist/mansplainers.

Can't say I blame them. If you don't want to create an echochamber for yourself, don't turn the debate into a bunch of personal attacks.
posted by mikeand1 at 11:42 AM on June 11, 2014 [29 favorites]

So offering advice about how things can be accomplished can be viewed as a silencing tool?

Well absolutely. Why is it that you presume to know how to do something better than someone else?

Your gender colors your experience. It may seem obvious to you that all you have to do is X and Y and Bob's your uncle, problem solved. But if I were to take that same tack, I won't have the same success with it, because we are different genders and because the world works differently depending on who you are.

If you were born male and white in the US, then you're at an advantage. The system was set up with you in mind and so your ways of dealing with it will work more often than not.

A man is a leader, a woman is bossy.

A man is assertive, a woman is a bitch.

A man is stupid, a woman is blond.

It gets old, and I find it interesting that there are still white men out there, who don't even see that the world is a completely different place for them than it is for women, people of color, immigrants, non-Christians.

Nothing is more annoying than someone who is privilaged, telling someone who isn't how easy it is to just cowboy up and get it done.

I'm not bitter about my experiences, they've made me a strong, capable person, but when someone tells me that MY experience is less informed than THEIR experience, and that I need to try it their way before I can be angry that my way didn't work...no. That's disappointing and as far as we've come, there's quite a way to go yet.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 11:42 AM on June 11, 2014 [53 favorites]

No, offering advice about how you think things can be accomplished because you assume that the woman trying to accomplish things has a) not already done so or b) might, just possibly, have a totally different experience trying to use those tactics as you do, because you're a man and she is not, is a silencing tactic, because the woman in question now has to have a discussion with you about how no, she already did XYZ and it didn't work, and you say "oh but that's not how I think it would go based on my experience". If you fail to recognize that your experience, as a man, is very likely to be significantly different as a woman's experience, even when taking the same action, it's dismissive and disrespectful, and veers the whole discussion away from even acknowledging the woman's feelings about the matter.
posted by Kpele at 11:42 AM on June 11, 2014 [29 favorites]

not all mansplainers
posted by elizardbits at 11:43 AM on June 11, 2014 [117 favorites]

It's also possible that some men decided to not to participate in the discussion because if they express any kind of disagreement -- no matter how reasonable or unsexist -- they get labeled as misogynist/sexist/mansplainers.

Cite?
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:43 AM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

There was some discussion on the other thread about how the attention seemed to be overly on the way the writer presented her case than what the case was actually about.

Now I see that in this thread, something very similar has happened: a conversation about Metafilter and sexism instantly derailed to my use of the word "mansplain". Because I knew of no other term that succinctly described the effect I observed (and honestly I wasn't trying to be snarky).

Thanks for proving my point.
posted by divabat at 11:43 AM on June 11, 2014 [25 favorites]

Yes, the mainsplaining entree with a side order of tone argument. A wildly popular meal.
posted by elizardbits at 11:45 AM on June 11, 2014 [43 favorites]

Cite?

Won't that just lead to an argument over whether any provided example is actually an example or not, and then be taken as more evidence of derailing the topic?
posted by Justinian at 11:45 AM on June 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

No, offering advice about how you think things can be accomplished because you assume that the woman trying to accomplish things has a) not already done so

Better yet, there were many instances of people in the tread saying that the writer should have done X, when she described in detail in the article, how she had done X!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:45 AM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

Martin Seligman reports that the most annoying series of scientific studies that he had ever read was the work by Alloy and Abramson reporting that depressed people are less subject to a host of cognitive biases. Lots of good arguments against this one, but there's evidence across a host of different bias-inducing tasks that depressed people judge their skills more accurately, their ability to change things more accurately, etc etc. There exists evidence against it too, it's a hairy old psychology thing with plenty of shit studies and plenty of good studies disagreeing.

It's got to be noted, though, that besides the manifold terrible symptoms of depression, there is one that stands out in particular to me: depressed people have psychomotor impairment: their physical movements are significantly impaired, and their capacity for thought at all is significantly impaired.

If you carry forth Seligman's oft-repeated and oft-disputed statement that unipolar (not bipolar, which has easier-to-tell biological roots) depression is a pathological case of pessimistic thinking, there's an abstraction to make with regards to the capacity of action and the capacity of truth, I feel.

That is, that it might be the case that these two quantities, the capacity of action and the capacity of truth are opposed. I note the shaky foundations, but I always found that the claim that the raising of consciousness and the establishment to truth will necessarily lead to action very under-examined. And there is speech as inducement towards action and speech as inducement towards truth.

I leave this statement abstract because I don't know what I feel about this, so I will say this abstract thing that I know.
posted by curuinor at 11:45 AM on June 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

Roger Dodger: “I was labeled a sexist misogynist.”

I think the best thing for you to do would be to ease up on acting as though "sexist" or "misogynist" is a violently evil accusation. It is not. It's a description of stuff that people do.

It's like racism. If somebody says I did a racist thing – or even tells me that I am racist – it's my responsibility not to respond by complaining that I've been "labeled" a racist. The correct way to respond is to approach it rationally: "what did I do that seems racist?" If they can tell me, clearly, and they're right, then I can correct it. If they're wrong, well, whatever. They're wrong.

Now, I want to say that I've been told I was racist or sexist on this very website, so I know how it feels. It can be tough not to take it personally. It can be very difficult not to get a bit outraged at how people are tossing around a word I don't like and connecting me with it. But things like racism and sexism are serious, so we need to be clear on them, and we need to approach them directly. Anything else will only lead to confusion.

What matters is not what people "label" us. What matters is what we are. If someone says you said or did a racist thing, the key is to focus on the thing they say is racist, and to listen to their argument carefully and honestly with the aim of correcting the problem or creating understanding.
posted by koeselitz at 11:47 AM on June 11, 2014 [79 favorites]

divabat, I'm sorry for indulging in this derail. I believed that "hash out site-related qualms here on its own thread." was a pretty big tent, and if somebody had a question about this that seemed honest, I might take that question up on my own. I apologize for the derail and will take anythings else between me and Roger Dodger to memail.
posted by boo_radley at 11:47 AM on June 11, 2014

"Cite?"


No. I've had it. Too many people in this thread have already demonstrated that they are incapable of debating in good faith. I've wasted too much time on it already.
posted by mikeand1 at 11:48 AM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

Just shopping at Trader Joe's is an expression of white, middle class privilege, really.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:48 AM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

Yes, the mainsplaining entree with a side order of tone argument. A wildly popular meal.

But the portions, they're not small enough!
posted by rtha at 11:48 AM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Thanks for proving my point.

I'm not sure what your point is. There were several vocal pro feminist people who were handling objections just fine. Not sure a MeTa was needed, but clearly we differ and that's fine.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:49 AM on June 11, 2014

Count me in among those who were too gobsmacked by the thread to post anything in it. The pervasiveness of sexism in pop culture is an interesting topic, but the comments about how This Is The Senescence Of The American Left were like DO NOT ENGAGE alarum bells.
posted by psoas at 11:50 AM on June 11, 2014 [20 favorites]

Just shopping at Trader Joe's is an expression of white, middle class privilege, really.

Except for the fact that, in L.A. at least, it's actually one of the more inexpensive supermarkets. (Though it's true that they tend to be in middle-class neighborhoods.)
posted by scody at 11:52 AM on June 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

"My point" being that the "zomg why did you use the word 'mansplain'" seemed like a derail and a diversion.

boo_radley I didn't think you were derailing, but I appreciate the concern (and I'm not the ultimate arbitrater on what makes a derail, so.)
posted by divabat at 11:54 AM on June 11, 2014

If someone says you said or did a racist thing, the key is to focus on the thing they say is racist, and to listen to their argument carefully and honestly with the aim of correcting the problem or creating understanding.

Yeah, it is important to remember that in a society built on a foundation of racism and misogyny, it is very literally impossible not to unconsciously participate in it. When somebody tells you you did something racist or sexist, it isn't an accusation against you personally, but instead potentially identifies a place where you have unconsciously absorbed a societal ill.

I suppose there needs to be a destigmatization of the phrase, but, then, it's mostly stigmatized by the people who have privilege, and so they are the one responsible for taking the hurt out of it. From what I have seen, black people witness so many small acts of racism all the time, and women experience so many little acts of sexism, that it's sort of understood that that stuff is out there in the ether all the time, and people will say stupid, thoughtless things all the time. You're not damned if they call you on it, you've just blundered a little, no big deal. It's the people who are called on it who respond with a hostile "HOW DARE YOU IMPUGN MY VERY SOUL," which makes it enormously difficult to let people know when they've blundered.

Just shopping at Trader Joe's is an expression of white, middle class privilege, really.

It was my neighborhood grocery in Hollywood, which is mostly a recent immigrant neighborhood with one of the largest Thai communities in the world.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:55 AM on June 11, 2014 [27 favorites]

Bunny Ultramod: "You may not like the word mansplaining, but it describes a phenomenon women experience and need a word to describe, and is not sexist, and has been thoroughly addressed in previous discussions."

So we can't come up with another word that isn't derogatory? We should all quit bitching about it?
posted by I am the Walrus at 11:55 AM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Ooo boy.
posted by Justinian at 11:56 AM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

You may not like the word mansplaining, but it...is not sexist

Other than the inherent sexism, maybe.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 11:56 AM on June 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

So we can't come up with another word that isn't derogatory? We should all quit bitching about it?

lol that you think you've made a good point there
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:56 AM on June 11, 2014 [34 favorites]

I'm happy to call it relentless tedious douchebaggery if that will make you feel better, since a douche is also something that is bad for women.
posted by elizardbits at 11:56 AM on June 11, 2014 [81 favorites]

Yes, the mainsplaining entree with a side order of tone argument. A wildly popular meal.

Whenever possible, one should eat the rude.
posted by bfranklin at 11:57 AM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

If y'all want to form an independent committee to research possible replacements for "mansplain" and bring us a report in 8-12 weeks, go crazy, but maybe just let it drop for now.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:57 AM on June 11, 2014 [81 favorites]

So we can't come up with another word that isn't derogatory? We should all quit bitching about it?

I suppose you could open another thread about it, although I can't imagine what good it would do, but you're derailing this one, and that's a gender-neutral asshole thing to do.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:57 AM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

Wow, people are in a rotten mood these days. What's up? Usually this kind of fighting only happens right before the holidays.

Personally, I'm in a bad mood because of Elliot Rodger, George Will, that shit-for-brains Washington Post op-ed about domestic violence, and a couple incidents of creepy shit I have experienced lately. Things just feel especially sucky, and I am angry and on-edge. I've been mostly laying pretty low on MeFi, but I totally went off on someone on Facebook yesterday who deserved a smackdown but didn't deserve the nasty way in which it came out. I would appreciate it if people tried to understand that when they're arguing about a particular incident, that incident exists in a bigger context in which women are feeling especially under threat and with good reason.
posted by naoko at 11:57 AM on June 11, 2014 [66 favorites]

divabat: "My point" being that the "zomg why did you use the word 'mansplain'" seemed like a derail and a diversion.

Right, then maybe don't use it if you don't want people to tune out what might be an important topic. It's like PETA; they do some great work and have an important message, but their delivery converts no one. I stop reading at the word mansplain.
posted by gman at 11:58 AM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yeah, it is important to remember that in a society built on a foundation of racism and misogyny, it is very literally impossible not to unconsciously participate in it. When somebody tells you you did something racist or sexist, it isn't an accusation against you personally, but instead potentially identifies a place where you have unconsciously absorbed a societal ill.

An accusation of racism or misogyny may not always be a personal attack, but it is also a tactic used to discount people's arguments or experiences that do not comport with the accuser's ideology a fair bit. And it's not trivial to tell which is which.
posted by bswinburn at 11:58 AM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

There was some discussion on the other thread about how the attention seemed to be overly on the way the writer presented her case than what the case was actually about.

Yes, this exactly. I also felt there was a lot of "tone attacks" based on her behavior. It was wrong of her to call that guy out by name. It was wrong of her to use her power as a blog editor to write this rather than going through "appropriate channels". Etc. She should have made less of a scene and gone through customer service first. She should have become an executive (??) to execute "real change".

Basically, a lot of different critiques of HOW she addressed the issue that seemed to demonstrate, even within the thread, that there was no way for her to talk about this issue without someone telling her it wasn't the right way.

And yeah, some people might and can see those critiques as just a Person thing, not a woman thing. But when there are multiple women and men in the thread saying it seems like a gendered thing, maybe it's worth thinking about.
posted by nakedmolerats at 11:58 AM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

Right, then maybe don't use it if you don't want people to tune out what might be an important topic.

Yes, if only her tone had been more acceptable.
posted by elizardbits at 11:59 AM on June 11, 2014 [46 favorites]

I stop reading at the word mansplain.

And yet you don't stop participating.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:59 AM on June 11, 2014 [91 favorites]

Man, this thread is just Lewis' Law writ large.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:59 AM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

I stop reading at the word mansplain.

Apparently not.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:59 AM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

Bunny Ultramod: I suppose you could open another thread about it, although I can't imagine what good it would do, but you're derailing this one, and that's a gender-neutral asshole thing to do.

Sure, because this one's going places and will have the desired outcome.
posted by gman at 12:00 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Be the change, man.
posted by DingoMutt at 12:00 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

zombieflanders: Apparently not.

I can be more clear if you'd like - I stopped reading the actual post at that word. How's that?
posted by gman at 12:01 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

An accusation of racism or misogyny may not be a personal attack, but it is also a tactic used to discount people's arguments or experiences that do not comport with the accuser's ideology a fair bit. And it's not trivial to tell which is which.

A really bad way to tell which is which is to immediately deny the possibility that you could have said or done something X-ist.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:01 PM on June 11, 2014 [15 favorites]

I'm not even sure you can "derail" a Metatalk about a thread by talking about site issues related to that thread. What other site issues are being discussed here? So far all I've seen are Roger Dodger's stuff and the mansplain thing.

If there are other site issues to be talked about then lets talk about them. But I'm not seeing anyone even trying?
posted by Justinian at 12:02 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

And yet you don't stop participating.

Be the change you want to see.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:02 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

I can be more clear if you'd like - I stopped reading the actual post at that word. How's that?

And yet you continue to hold forth on the problem, having admitted that you not only didn't follow the extensive discussion, but steadfastly refuse to do so, So There.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:02 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Here I thought the firefight shitshow popcorn threads were going to dry up once the Metatalk queue was made permanent. It'd been a quiet couple of weeks.
posted by echo target at 12:03 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

An accusation of racism or misogyny may not always be a personal attack, but it is also a tactic used to discount people's arguments or experiences that do not comport with the accuser's ideology a fair bit.

So what words do you propose we use for identifying racism or sexism? Or should we stop identifying them altogether?
posted by scody at 12:04 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

i say we call it notniceism
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:04 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

Yes, because it might hurt the feelings of the bigoted. That's the real crime.
posted by elizardbits at 12:05 PM on June 11, 2014 [37 favorites]

Count me in among those who were too gobsmacked by the thread to post anything in it. The pervasiveness of sexism in pop culture is an interesting topic, but the comments about how This Is The Senescence Of The American Left were like DO NOT ENGAGE alarum bells.

Yup.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:05 PM on June 11, 2014

Justinian: I suppose you're right, in a way - the way the thread has gone demonstrates the issues Metafilter has with discussing sexism. What I want to see is those issues addressed so that it doesn't happen again, rather than recreating the exact same problems here, and I'm grateful to commenters like Bunny Ultramod, Ruthless Bunny, zombieflanders, elizardbits, and others for their support.

I'll be frank and say that the way that thread went made me seriously reconsider my Mefi donation.
posted by divabat at 12:06 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

I also felt there was a lot of "tone attacks" based on her behavior. It was wrong of her to call that guy out by name. It was wrong of her to use her power as a blog editor to write this rather than going through "appropriate channels".

How are these questions of tone? Whether she used the guy's name or not is not a matter of tone, it's a matter of substance. She made this guy into a public figure against his will to her site's millions of readers. I can see how reasonable people might disagree on whether or not that was justified, but I don't see how you can possibly argue that her naming or not naming him is only a question of tone. It's clear to me that when you are a senior editor at a major media outlet, choosing either to name someone or to allow them to remain anonymous is a substantive act.
posted by enn at 12:07 PM on June 11, 2014 [36 favorites]

Also, I would like to point out that the "calling behavior sexist is silencing" argument is the delightful flip-side to "how can we know what's sexist unless you tell us" argument. If women call it out, we're attacking men (and therefore we only have ourselves to blame for the continuation of sexism). If we don't call it out, we're refusing to educate men (and therefore we only have ourselves to blame for the continuation of sexism).
posted by scody at 12:07 PM on June 11, 2014 [152 favorites]

I did mean it as a question, an invitation to consider further. And yet within a few minutes, I was shouted down by someone who literally informed me that my interpretation, my opinion, was WRONG.

Hi there. I think you're talking about me. If you'd like to discuss that exchange, I'd be happy to do so here—or via MeMail, which I've just switched on, since this MeTa seems to be going not awesomely. To respond quickly, I'm sorry that you felt shouted down. I read the first paragraph of your comment as squishing together a bunch of criticisms so as to marginalize and brush them off, and I read the second paragraph as implying there was sexism in the fact those criticisms had even been raised. I disagree pretty strongly with that, but I'd be happy to continue the conversation directly. Maybe you and I misread each other's comments.
posted by cribcage at 12:09 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

zombieflanders: And yet you continue to hold forth on the problem, having admitted that you not only didn't follow the extensive discussion, but steadfastly refuse to do so, So There.

Holy fuck, I really need to spell this out for you, eh? I (me) stopped (no more) reading (looking at) the actual post (the words written by divabat up top) at that word (mansplaining).
posted by gman at 12:10 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

*shakes his head and steps out of the thread*

No. I've had it. Too many people in this thread have already demonstrated that they are incapable of debating in good faith. I've wasted too much time on it already.

I stop reading at the word mansplain.

Ah, the old rhetorical chestnut of taking my ball and going home.
posted by kmz at 12:11 PM on June 11, 2014 [19 favorites]

"My point" being that the "zomg why did you use the word 'mansplain'" seemed like a derail and a diversion.

I really dislike the word and am not surprised when it causes a derail. Sure, there are plenty of people who feel it's usage is perfect, while there's clearly others who don't. That latter will always find problems with its usage. Perhaps a different choice of language in terms of that word would be good.

Personally, I go with asshole, because everyone has one of those.

What I want to see is those issues addressed so that it doesn't happen again...

You can not control how anyone else on this site responds. This is fight and battle that will literally have to played out over years, possibly decades on this one site to get where it where you want it to be. That doesn't mean you shouldn't fight for what you believe in, but the goal you have in mind does seem impossible.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:11 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I think there's sort of a fuzzy line here between being vigilant of the tone argument and failing to accord a national-level writer the agency she deserves as a political being, which could potentially come in the form of critique.
posted by threeants at 12:11 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

That's inception-level-mansplaining.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:12 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Cortex has already asked that we table the discussion of mansplaining, and the FPP author has said that she would have chosen a different word.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:12 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

when a man on the internet tries to justify "mansplaining" to me in his explanation, isn't that mansplaining too?
posted by bruce at 12:12 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Also, I would like to point out that the "calling behavior sexist is silencing" argument is the delightful flip-side to "how can we know what's sexist unless you tell us" argument. If women call it out, we're attacking men (and therefore we only have ourselves to blame for the continuation of sexism). If we don't call it out, we're refusing to educate men (and therefore we only have ourselves to blame for the continuation of sexism).

It's a super insidious and gross technique used by oppressors in virtually every instance these days, this coopting of language used by the oppressed to call out oppression, and using it for their own needs. See also: various instances of creepshotters claiming that they are being "kinkshamed" for wanting to get off on nonconsensual sexualized images of random women, MRAs saying that women have the "real privilege" because the women choose not to have sex with them, etc.
posted by elizardbits at 12:12 PM on June 11, 2014 [71 favorites]

I'll be frank and say that the way that thread went made me seriously reconsider my Mefi donation.

The reason why this site is worth supporting is that we get far, far more things right than we get wrong, in sharp contrast to pretty much every other available avenue for online discussion.

Even in the wake of a debate that goes poorly here, I'd gently suggest you remember what a great place this is before you huff and puff and talk about taking your coupla bucks and going home.

No disrespect to your actual arguments. But that little addendum there didn't come off well.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:13 PM on June 11, 2014 [33 favorites]

gman: Did you only participate in the thread to complain about the word 'mansplain'? Did the sentences prior to that not give you enough invitation to consider how Metafilter can deal better with sexism?

Dismissing my thread (which I tried to craft as carefully as possible, and I appreciate cortex for noticing) based on the one word is in itself exemplerary of the way sexism plays out here and elsewhere - our attempts at drawing attention to an issue that affects us gets ignored because we didn't couch things in the softest of language.
posted by divabat at 12:13 PM on June 11, 2014 [29 favorites]

zombieflanders: And yet you continue to hold forth on the problem, having admitted that you not only didn't follow the extensive discussion, but steadfastly refuse to do so, So There.

So there what? Tell me where I "admitted" I didn't follow "the extensive discussion". I stopped reading divabat's post here when I saw that word. The end.
posted by gman at 12:14 PM on June 11, 2014

when a man on the internet tries to justify "mansplaining" to me in his explanation, isn't that mansplaining too?

No.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:15 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

So what words do you propose we use for identifying racism or sexism? Or should we stop identifying them altogether?

I'm not suggesting you use other words. I am suggesting people don't automatically assume that a person reacting as if it's personal attack is acting irrationally. As it is used as a personal attack.

Just because someone calls something "mansplaining", doesn't make it so.

Just because someone calls something "sexist", doesn't make it so.

Just because someone calls something "separate but equal", doesn't make it so.

It's perfectly acceptable to think, "huh, this person called me a racist/sexist, but upon reflection, I am not acting in that manner. They are either wrong in their assessment, or full of shit."
posted by bswinburn at 12:15 PM on June 11, 2014 [12 favorites]

It's not about you and how you feel about one word, dude.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:15 PM on June 11, 2014 [22 favorites]

So there what?[...]The End.

Thanks for illustrating how you acted without me having to do it for you. Consider this line of discussion dropped per the OP's and mod's requests.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:16 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Mod note: gman, drop it. All comers, likewise. Massively tired of this sidebar.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:16 PM on June 11, 2014 [14 favorites]

DirtyOldTown: It's not such a "great place" when I can't be sure that people like myself would be treated with respect. Just because it's better than many other places doesn't make it perfect or infalliable or immune to criticism.
posted by divabat at 12:16 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

I don't think there is a single part of this discussion that might not be improved by everybody taking a five minute break and having a nice tea or something. The vitriol to engagement ratio is waaaaaay off right this second.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:17 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

Since a motion to adjourn is always in order, can I ask that this thread be closed? I don't really see any good outcome for this.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:17 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Just because someone calls something "mansplaining", doesn't make it so.

Just because someone calls something "sexist", doesn't make it so.

Just because someone calls something "separate but equal", doesn't make it so.

Each of these things is just like the others
All of these things are just the same

It's perfectly acceptable to think, "huh, this person called me a racist/sexist, but upon reflection, I am not acting in that manner. They are either wrong in their assessment, or full of shit."

Usually, it goes "huh, this person called me an X-ist, but upon exactly one picosecond of reflection, which I will not demonstrate in what I say next,"
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:18 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

How are these questions of tone? Whether she used the guy's name or not is not a matter of tone, it's a matter of substance. She made this guy into a public figure against his will to her site's millions of readers. I can see how reasonable people might disagree on whether or not that was justified, but I don't see how you can possibly argue that her naming or not naming him is only a question of tone.

I meant for "tone attacks" to be an analogy, as in most of the critiques of her behavior, I saw as analagous to someone saying "you're shouting or sounding angry or etc so I'm not listening to your point".

For example, I saw far less criticism of her for "exposing" the guy's identity or taking his right to privacy. The attacks on her "outing" him were more rooted in a) how mean she was to yell at him when he couldn't do anything about it and b) especially because it wasn't an issue worth being upset about anyway. The criticism, to me, seemed more about the manner of her behavior (was it "mean" to expose him, was it "oversensitive" to be upset at all) .
posted by nakedmolerats at 12:18 PM on June 11, 2014

Just because it's better than many other places doesn't make it perfect or infalliable or immune to criticism.

That's entirely true. And I'm not going to tell you how to criticize it. I'm just saying that the money thing was a sour note there, to my ears. Two cents and all of that.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:19 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

So one thing that keeps coming up in threads about common experiences of sexism in Europe and the US is the "first world problems" thing. It's incredibly frustrating to be literally told that just because you're not being raped in a Nigerian jungle, a given situation is a. not sexist and b. not worth being discussed and improved upon. It reminds me of Richard Dawkins' "Dear Muslima" comment - the Rational Wiki calls it the "not as bad as" fallacy.

Like the "first world problems" comments, this irritates me. I've spent some time in parts of the developing world and hung out with ladies there (and been a lady there), and you know what? Even in the developing world - and, I would bet, in Nigeria - small-scale misogyny is fucking irritating, even in light of larger systemic problems. When I went to the market with an Ivorian friend and some guy shouted the equivalent of "Hey sexy," she got angry. Even in light of the frequent domestic abuse she was suffering from. Women would get pissed off at their husbands trying to sleep with other women, even if they'd had clitoridectomies. One woman told me she wished that a popular artist didn't release a song that started out with the sound of a woman being slapped and crying about it because it was upsetting and anti-women. Ladies out dancing at the Diskoteca in Peru would tell off men who started grinding, even in light of a pretty big rape problem in the area. Women in India don't like cat-calling and get angry about it, even though cat-calling pales in comparison to gang rape.

Microaggressions are still OBNOXIOUS. And though you personally may think there are bigger problems in the world, solving the small ones can help solve the big ones. I know we don't like getting all prescriptivist here, but it'd be GREAT if people would stop using the "not as bad as" technique to make women feel small, bad, and selfish for trying to change the small sexist things on the way to changing the big ones.
posted by ChuraChura at 12:20 PM on June 11, 2014 [295 favorites]

All comers, likewise. Massively tired of this sidebar.

Yet, it keeps coming up, indicating it's an issue for some.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:20 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

ChuraChura: Thank you. The comment of "third world problem" bothered me but I couldn't articulate why until your comment. (Technically I'm a third-worlder who is temporarily residing in the first-world - so this shouldn't matter to me?)
posted by divabat at 12:22 PM on June 11, 2014

If you spend this much time explaining why a word is or isn't helpful, it may be a shitty word.

Use the word all you want, but don't be surprised when you get a negative reaction to it.
posted by lattiboy at 12:22 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Personally I'm sort of frozen in place, deer-in-headlights style, like when a family argument at Thanksgiving turns ugly. I should leave but I can't look away.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:22 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

"an issue for some" describes everything
posted by psoas at 12:25 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Divabat, I'm just curious- can you share what you think Metafilter (meaning, the mods, I guess) could or should have done to help make that thread go better?

Because even though I saw a lot of sexism in that thread, I don't know if there were specific comments that were in my view slam-dunk cases of "should be flagged for deletion." But I may in part feel that way because those attitudes are so pervasive that they don't stand out the way the use of an offensive slur would, for example.
posted by Asparagus at 12:25 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hide under the table with the pumpkin pie.
posted by elizardbits at 12:25 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

If you spend this much time explaining why a word is or isn't helpful, it may be a shitty word.

It may also be that derailing a conversation about a large and consistent issue by focusing on a single word is an all-too-common and shitty debate tactic.
posted by Etrigan at 12:25 PM on June 11, 2014 [53 favorites]

I just donated another $5 right now. Matt, please use that to buy the mod on duty an ice cream cone or a shot of rye or something. Thanks.
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:25 PM on June 11, 2014 [62 favorites]

Good idea, elizardbits. You got a deck of cards? I've got vodka.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:26 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

the french revolution was initiated by revolutionaries. then hardcore revolutionaries came along and guillotined them, and then the true zealots came along and guillotined THEM. i will be interested to see whether the true zealots in this bloodless analogue succeed in creating a perfect metafilter.
posted by bruce at 12:26 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

can we at least agree that "Every Breath You Take" is far worse than the song TFA was complaining about ?
posted by k5.user at 12:27 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Asparagus: I think the mods were doing the best they can and I don't envy their position.

What I found utterly disappointing about the thread has been addressed by a lot of commentors in that thread and in this one, which I addressed in the actual FPP: dismissing the writer's concerns as somehow being a betrayal to socialism (or whatever), taking attention away from the core issue through derails about tone arguments, basically not listening to women or taking them seriously. As I mentioned before, what I would like is for the Mefi posters to be more aware about how their comments perpetuate misogyny and sexism.
posted by divabat at 12:28 PM on June 11, 2014 [16 favorites]

the french revolution was initiated by revolutionaries. then hardcore revolutionaries came along and guillotined them, and then the true zealots came along and guillotined THEM. i will be interested to see whether the true zealots in this bloodless analogue succeed in creating a perfect metafilter.

If your point is that you think people are too easily offended, say that.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:29 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

I'm a zealot for caring about feminist issues?
posted by agregoli at 12:29 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

. i will be interested to see whether the true zealots in this bloodless analogue succeed in creating a perfect metafilter.

As no heads are being lopped off, and what is being requested is a voluntary cognizance of behavior that makes conversations about women's issues difficult, and as past examples of this have actually driven women off the thread, I would suggest your analogy is flawed.

can we at least agree that "Every Breath You Take" is far worse than the song TFA was complaining about ?

It was actually written as a critique of stalkery tropes in love songs, and Sting was appalled at how it was received.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:29 PM on June 11, 2014 [15 favorites]

Personally, I'm in a bad mood because of Elliot Rodger.... I would appreciate it if people tried to understand that when they're arguing about a particular incident, that incident exists in a bigger context in which women are feeling especially under threat and with good reason.

Men were the main victims of that mass murder, and the murderer's manifesto was about killing men and women. So even your prime example of how women are "especially under threat" isn't a good example.
posted by John Cohen at 12:30 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

If you spend this much time explaining why a word is or isn't helpful, it may be a shitty word.

Or maybe people just don't listen and then refuse to offer any viable alternatives as shorthand when asked because they know that's how they can shut down the conversation.

To get back to the point of the OP: We still can't even have threads about rape or sexual harassment or women being fucking murdered for being women without a bunch of people (often the same ones over and over) coming in to nitpick women's lived experiences, find any way they can to denigrate feminists and/or a nebulous "left," or just plain be nasty towards women for saying their piece. It may not be a boyzone, but that bar is so low even Barbados Slim couldn't limbo under it.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:30 PM on June 11, 2014 [38 favorites]

Yeah, I don't think telling people who have passions or causes they care about that they're zealots is a great thing to do. Being blase isn't useful.
posted by boo_radley at 12:30 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Um, no. Let's not get into Elliot Rodger. He hated women, that's why he did what he did, full stop.
posted by agregoli at 12:30 PM on June 11, 2014 [46 favorites]

nakedmolerats, thanks for explaining. Certainly, there were plenty of tone arguments in that thread. But I think there is a legitimate privacy argument to make too, one which is not off-topic or a derail, though you are probably right that it was not generally being made in the thread. (The privacy thing hits a little close to home for me, I am a private person and the idea of being dragged into the national spotlight like that literally makes me sick to my stomach to think about so it was hard for me to avoid picturing myself in the Trader Joe's worker's position when I read the Alternet post.)
posted by enn at 12:31 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

the beatles' "run for your life" is much worse than "every breath you take". i was a little offended the first time i heard it, which was before most of you were born.
posted by bruce at 12:31 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

John Cohen you owe metafilter 5 more dollars.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:32 PM on June 11, 2014 [22 favorites]

there are a lot of worse songs. and?
posted by agregoli at 12:33 PM on June 11, 2014

Jesus Christ, I give up.
posted by naoko at 12:33 PM on June 11, 2014

often the same ones over and over

This is such LOL coming from you. You post more nasty comments in gender threads than a dozen of the people you are complaining about do combined.
posted by 0 at 12:33 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

Men were the main victims of that mass murder, and the murderer's manifesto was about killing men and women. So even your prime example of how women are "especially under threat" isn't a good example.

yeah he only wrote a hundred-odd pages about how he was going to commit murder because of how frustrated he was that women would not give him access to their bodies as he felt he deserved so yeah he's definitely not a good example of something that should make women nervous and good on you for reminding us that men were the real victims here
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 12:33 PM on June 11, 2014 [97 favorites]

not listening to women or taking them seriously

Honest question - is this still a problem when it's other women saying they have higher priorities than railing against ancient Rolling Stones songs, or is it just when men dismiss it? Treating "women" as though they were saying a single monolithic thing in that thread is a bit misleading.
posted by dialetheia at 12:34 PM on June 11, 2014 [16 favorites]

Men were the main victims of that mass murder, and the murderer's manifesto was about killing men and women. So even your prime example of how women are "especially under threat" isn't a good example.

Women’s issues are often dismissed as a niche concern, but we constitute half of the human population. Once that’s recognized, it’s not hard to see how hating us can inflict significant collateral damage among all people—including the men who are our partners, our relatives, and our colleagues. Misogyny kills men, too. [...]

Men who loved women also incurred Rodger’s wrath. “I will destroy all women,” Rodger wrote. “I will make them all suffer for rejecting me. I will arm myself with deadly weapons and wage a war against all women and the men they are attracted to.” Rodger viewed women as objects, and he resented other men for hoarding what he viewed as his property. “If I can’t have them,” he wrote, “no one will.” [...] Every year, a number of men die at the hands of other men who murder the current partners of their ex-girlfriends or ex-wives. [...]

Elliot Rodger targeted women out of entitlement, their male partners out of jealousy, and unrelated male bystanders out of expedience. This is not ammunition for an argument that he was a misandrist at heart—it’s evidence of the horrific extent of misogyny’s cultural reach.

posted by scody at 12:34 PM on June 11, 2014 [88 favorites]

This is such LOL coming from you.

far more hilarious coming from you tbh
posted by elizardbits at 12:35 PM on June 11, 2014 [16 favorites]

I appreciate divabat coming at this from a "let's talk about the site and sexism" perspective and think that'd be a hell of a lot more productive and useful of a conversation to have.

posted by ChuraChura at 12:36 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

You guys realize you're just name-calling now, right? Maybe everybody take a break for a few minutes?
posted by jbickers at 12:36 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

is this still a problem when it's other women saying they have higher priorities than railing against ancient Rolling Stones songs, or is it just when men dismiss it?

Not Problematic: "I have other priorities than this, but fight the good fight, sisters!"

Problematic: "I have other priorities than this, and your priorities should line up with mine or you're part of the problem."

Really, really problematic: "I have other priorities than this, and your priorities should line up with mine or you'll just cause otherwise sympathetic people to turn against you, you monster."
posted by KathrynT at 12:36 PM on June 11, 2014 [57 favorites]

We still can't even have threads about rape or sexual harassment or women being fucking murdered for being women without a bunch of people (often the same ones over and over) coming in to nitpick women's lived experiences, find any way they can to denigrate feminists and/or a nebulous "left," or just plain be nasty towards women for saying their piece.

Honestly, and with zero snark or malice intended, I think this is just a thing that'll have to acknowledged as happening and then kinda ignored. People just don't learn very easily. We could speculate on why and what not, but ultimately they're just a small part of the puzzle. Just address the issues, as Bunny Ultramod did a good job of doing or ignore'em.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:37 PM on June 11, 2014

not listening to women or taking them seriously

Honest question - is this still a problem when it's other women saying they have higher priorities than railing against ancient Rolling Stones songs, or is it just when men dismiss it? Treating "women" as though they were saying a single monolithic thing in that thread is a bit misleading.

I don't think divabat is using "women" as a monolith there. She's saying that actual multiple womans were not being listened to or taken seriously.
posted by Etrigan at 12:37 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

Men were the main victims of that mass murder, and the murderer's manifesto was about killing men and women.

DONT. EVEN.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:37 PM on June 11, 2014 [70 favorites]

I mean, is the contention that there is not sexism and misogyny on display in various threads on Metafilter? I suppose it's possible that someone could contend that, but I think it'd be tough. Given that, what's the pushback about?
posted by shakespeherian at 12:37 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hi there. I think you're talking about me. If you'd like to discuss that exchange, I'd be happy to do so here—or via MeMail, which I've just switched on, since this MeTa seems to be going not awesomely. To respond quickly, I'm sorry that you felt shouted down. I read the first paragraph of your comment as squishing together a bunch of criticisms so as to marginalize and brush them off, and I read the second paragraph as implying there was sexism in the fact those criticisms had even been raised. I disagree pretty strongly with that, but I'd be happy to continue the conversation directly. Maybe you and I misread each other's comments.

I do really appreciate this (and look, we are hopefully having a Productive Discussion!)

I can see how I could have been read as marginalizing the critiques, though I did and do feel that all those attitudes were present in the thread.
I do think there were sexist attitudes in at least some of those criticisms.

My major issue with your comment was not that you disagreed with me but that you said
"So you can brush off all criticism of her tack as sexist or tone-argumenty or whatever else, but you are mistaken."

Maybe it's just a sticking point for me, but these discussions seem to go better when neither side engages in telling the other that they are point-blank wrong. And by flatly saying "you are mistaken" rather than "I think the critiques were more about xyz".... it feels like you are using your perspective as Objectivity and you have the power to determine whose perspective is right and wrong, and that is the same dynamic that often makes women feel like they are being dismissed as just plan Incorrect, rather than having a different opinion.
posted by nakedmolerats at 12:38 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

God, if I could just ignore people who get up in my craw I'd have a much happier craw.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:38 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

okay here's the deal: if you want me to explain why you were doing sexist or misogynist things and send me a memail, and you don't want me to mock you and/or tell you I don't give a shit about whether I hurt your goddamn feelings and then block you, you've gotta use your first message to ask about rates or make me an offer, because I spend a lot of time reading shit about feminism and spent four years of college studying it and asking me to educate you one-on-one for free does not exactly show that you value my goddamn time
posted by NoraReed at 12:38 PM on June 11, 2014 [49 favorites]

Hey, if you can come up with a word explaining the extremely common real-world occurrence of men explaining things to women in a fashion that is either implicitly or explicitly belittling because of gender differences, often used as a tactic to silence or otherwise minimize women's contributions to a conversation, and it doesn't take an entire paragraph like I just did, you're free to do so.

I'm not sure why it's necessary to make that kind of ad hominem argument at all, using any words. When so much of your point is about who is saying something, rather than the content of what they're saying (as is true with a lot of this thread), it tends to be unconvincing. No one is right or wrong because he's a man, and no one is right or wrong because she's a woman. As long as the focus stays on the body of who is speaking rather than the content of what they're saying, people are predictably going to get defensive. (Some may see this as a feature rather than a bug.) Yes, in an ideal world, everyone would be perfectly open-minded about being lectured on how their privilege and relation to past oppressors has tainted their opinions. That may be a valid point in the abstract. But in the real world, the ad hominem approach is usually not that effective.
posted by John Cohen at 12:39 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

I don't actually have any pumpkin pie. Or vodka. But I did get motivated and make some pumpkin bread muffins. Theyll be ready in about ten. And I have some beer. And țuică.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:41 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Thank you, scody. I actually said, "For Fuck's Sake" aloud when I read John Cohen's comment.
posted by zarq at 12:41 PM on June 11, 2014 [21 favorites]

What KathrynT and Etrigan said, pretty much.

Brandon Blatcher: I really don't understand this idea of "well this is always going to happen, so just ignore it". Why bother pushing for change at all if all we had to go was "ignore" the status quo?
posted by divabat at 12:41 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

is this still a problem when it's other women saying they have higher priorities than railing against ancient Rolling Stones songs

You know what? I have higher priorities than railing against ancient Rolling Stones songs.

Not because I don't think they're awful and sexist and should go away. But because I am enormously, painfully, physically exhausted with all the crap I have to endure as a woman in this world. And I only have so many spoons.

If other ladies have time and spoons enough, more power to them. And dudes, stop assuming if we're not fighting something actively, we support you. We are all of us walking wounded at this point.
posted by corb at 12:42 PM on June 11, 2014 [45 favorites]

As a counterpoint to the speculation upthread that a bunch of "people" (meaning, I suspect, "men") would have commented in that thread, but didn't, because of the risk of being labelled sexist:

Hi! I am a man. I would have commented in that thread, but didn't, because of the risk of actully being sexist. I had a gut-level irritated response to that post which, when I attempted to put it into words, turned out in every variation to be one of the items on my own list.

A little bit of introspection was enough to convince me that if the things I wanted to say were so closely correlated to standard sexist reflexive responses, that was was probably because the emotions underlying them were rooted in unexamined sexism. "Hey!" I wanted to say,"I LIKE the Rolling Stones. And I Am Not Sexist! Therefore that song cannot be sexist!"

So, that momemnt of self-examination was enough to demonstrate that I didn't have anything useful to add to the discussion. But that doesn't mean I was "silenced" in any meaningful sense. It just means that my own feelings on a subject aren't necessarily worth putting in front of a community of several thousand people, most of whom I respect quite a bit, and many of whom have bigger concerns than my bruised privilege to deal with.
posted by Ipsifendus at 12:43 PM on June 11, 2014 [222 favorites]

scody is giving some realness about how misogyny hurts men too, yall.

And I might also venture that our culture encourages this kind of shouty, dismissive, what-about-x-though situation as a tool of all kind of oppressions, not just misogyny. If we spend all our time flaming, fighting, and refusing to see other perspectives, the status quo continues, and it is a shitty status quo. So yes, I am publicly willing to say that the original blog post that generated this Metatalk had some elements of shitty clickbaity journalism to it. BUT, there were a lot of gendered insults and critiques of her in the original FPP that a lot of people picked up on too, and even a shitty clickbait writer doesn't deserve that, and it would be nice if we could analyze both those things.
posted by nakedmolerats at 12:43 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Ipsifendus, that was stupendous.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:46 PM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

But in the real world, the ad hominem approach is usually not that effective.

There are some major assumptions here. A list:
1. The Internet is not the real world.
2. Convincing people is the only goal.
3. Convincing people is the highest goal.
4. Any given statement is done to convince.
5. If a statement does not convince me, it will not convince anyone.
6. I am a person capable of being convinced.
7. I am a person worth convincing.

There are undoubtedly others.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:47 PM on June 11, 2014 [25 favorites]

So, that momemnt of self-examination was enough to demonstrate that I didn't have anything useful to add to the discussion.

I wonder then, if there would have been a discussion at all. What is the point of posting something like this on MetaFilter? To expect that everyone will somehow agree?

As I pointed out in the thread, the Stones and middle-class Boomer youth culture in the 60's was meant to be controversial. Now that they're just another billion-dollar corporate machine we tend to forget that, and just treat them like the background noise they always were.

Of course, other people may have different opinions than I do on the subject, which is why we create a post on a great site like MetaFilter. I don't understand why we always have to pretend we're all liberal arts majors publishing the Columbia student newspaper or something and agree, using the same progressive vocabulary of "privilege" this and "oppression" that.

I certainly mastered the lingo 25 years ago, though.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:52 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

The word "mansplaining" is just a word some people parrot to shut other people up; anyone should ignore it and continue contributing.
posted by michaelh at 12:52 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Thank you, sir.
posted by Etrigan at 12:53 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Gentlesir, please.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:54 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

We have literally been begged to drop the mansplaining derail.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:54 PM on June 11, 2014 [13 favorites]

I wonder then, if there would have been a discussion at all.

I don't understand. If people refrain from discussions because they recognize that they won't add anything useful, then... there won't be any discussions? There are lots of discussions I refrain from entering because I have nothing useful to add, and yet threads about Star Trek and barbecuing and giving birth and running marathons continue without me.
posted by scody at 12:54 PM on June 11, 2014 [25 favorites]

Well, no, that's incorrect. I have never used the word "mansplaining" to get anyone to shut up, but thanks for the invalid assumption.
posted by agregoli at 12:54 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

cortex, exasperated, asked us to stop the derail.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:54 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I don't understand why we always have to pretend we're all liberal arts majors publishing the Columbia student newspaper or something and agree, using the same progressive vocabulary of "privilege" this and "oppression" that.

I use it because it clearly and directly describes the subject I am discussing. But kudos to you for somehow having grown out of the ideas they represent.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:55 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

cortex, exasperated is the new girl, interrupted
posted by elizardbits at 12:55 PM on June 11, 2014 [42 favorites]

So it's cortex using 'mansplain' to shut people up!

CONSPIRACY
posted by shakespeherian at 12:56 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

I wonder then, if there would have been a discussion at all. What is the point of posting something like this on MetaFilter? To expect that everyone will somehow agree?

No its to discuss the issue! Cribcage was someone who I disagreed with but at least I could do so knowing they were engaging in good faith and they weren't just parroting stupid sexist old tired boring arguments.

using the same progressive vocabulary of "privilege" this and "oppression" that.

*rolls eyes, they fall out*
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:56 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

cortex, exasperated is the new girl, interrupted

...or the Best Downfall Video Ever
posted by scody at 12:57 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

I don't understand why we always have to pretend we're all liberal arts majors publishing the Columbia student newspaper or something and agree, using the same progressive vocabulary of "privilege" this and "oppression" that.

ha ha right of course because OF COURSE only childish tedious college freshmen (nice snipe at libarts too btw) would care about things like this, wow what a useful contribution to this discussion you have provided, well done indeed
posted by elizardbits at 12:57 PM on June 11, 2014 [54 favorites]

Is someone going to have to be forced to condescendingly explain that we're done talking about mansplaining?

Because when I tried to draw a diagram of how that would work, I had to use a moebius strip.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:57 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

Don't forget rich new york ivy league tedious college freshmen.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:59 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I knee-jerked in that thread and felt shitty about it. Not something I've never done, and I do have kind of admittedly radical views on art and what art is and interpretation and whatever, and to be fair I was cranky yesterday for unrelated reasons, but I've been trying to think about why the blog sort of brought out a bad reaction in me, because I think it's the same reason that made the thread go so, so poorly.

And I don't know - the post managed to sort of touch on so. many. tedious and hot-button issues - art, censorship, misogyny, retail, class, history, TJs, and it was a really easy post to have a grar reaction to. I think there's a good argument that it was a pretty not great post to begin with. It was like a jumble of all the things that tend to get people riled up, but not super obviously so. It was all kind of embedded in this one weird slice of life at a TJs and pulling it apart turned into a huge mess.

I think part of the issue honestly is that if there is one thing I've learned here is that you can have a pretty dissenting opinion about something, but if you put it forward in a reasonable way people are generally amenable to being respectful and considering your opinion and such. And I don't think we in the thread nor the author of the blog post did a great job of that all around. I'm not really sure there was a great way for that thread to go. I regret commenting in it.
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:59 PM on June 11, 2014 [18 favorites]

I've noticed this phenomenon lately with infuriating sexist crap increasing on the site. I thought that it was people who hadn't been here very long who were coming out of the woodwork with offensive sexist derails, but when you look at the user numbers a lot of them are people who had accounts for eons but hadn't posted.

I don't know what that says, but it is pretty irritating.
posted by winna at 1:00 PM on June 11, 2014 [15 favorites]

I don't see how this problem is solvable, really. There are always going to be men saying I disagree with you that am shaming/silencing/dismissing any particular woman's voice. These threads on Metafilter are encouraging that they happen at all, as the interent is a cesspool of opinions that run roughshod over anyone trying to patiently explain societal truths. I appreciate the women here for being as patient as they are, honestly. The word exhausting doesn't even cover it, but at least there's a place here for it, and mods who care.
posted by agregoli at 1:01 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I would say that it was modsplained to us, but that would mean cortex could tune it out because it would mean he's been just as silenced all his life, obvs.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:01 PM on June 11, 2014

I don't understand why we always have to pretend we're all liberal arts majors publishing the Columbia student newspaper or something and agree, using the same progressive vocabulary of "privilege" this and "oppression" that.

This is the best George Will parody I've ever read.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:01 PM on June 11, 2014 [58 favorites]

when you look at the user numbers a lot of them are people who had accounts for eons but hadn't posted.

The douchebeacons of Mefi are lit! The MRAs call for aid!
posted by elizardbits at 1:01 PM on June 11, 2014 [49 favorites]

I am an atheist for the most part, but I will pray for this thread.
posted by Drinky Die at 1:03 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

exaspersplained
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:03 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Is there a feminist Jay Smooth on the net? Given how often that video gets posted here, it seems really peculiar that people seem to completely ignore his point when it comes to gender issues.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:04 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I wonder then, if there would have been a discussion at all. What is the point of posting something like this on MetaFilter? To expect that everyone will somehow agree?

Believe, I am not so deluded as to believe that my opinions or thoughts or feelings are universal. Still less do I believe that, absent my contributions, discussions at metafilter will somehow fail to occur. Honestly, that concept seems ludicrous enough that it can't be what you meant to be asking about, but I'm not seeing any other way to interpret the question.

I don't understand why we always have to pretend we're all liberal arts majors publishing the Columbia student newspaper or something and agree, using the same progressive vocabulary of "privilege" this and "oppression" that.

I am not "pretending" anything, and I don't imagine most people are. Perhaps your resistance to the idea that we should collectively exercise greater care in how we express ourselves here has something to do with the faulty assumption that that care amounts to "pretending"

I certainly mastered the lingo 25 years ago, though.

How about the concerns that gave rise to that lingo?
posted by Ipsifendus at 1:05 PM on June 11, 2014 [21 favorites]

Whoo, i love the comment Ipsifendus linked to.

Philosophy students basically play Logical Fallacy Bingo and get really good at learning how to say what they want to say, without accidentally stepping in a Fallacy Trap and losing the conversation.

I wonder if there's a place for using Sexism Bingo (e.g. studying derail techniques, identifying them in the wild, and learning how best to avoid employing them oneself) or Derail Bingo to help people say what they want to say without falling into a Sexism Trap and losing the conversation.

(this comment is 50% joking (no such thing as winning a conversation after all) and 50% serious (if anyone's interested memail me))
posted by rebent at 1:06 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Sorry, skimming a bit on mobile and didn't realize the gman/derail mod comment had broader implications.
posted by michaelh at 1:07 PM on June 11, 2014

Maybe it's just a sticking point for me, but these discussions seem to go better when neither side engages in telling the other that they are point-blank wrong.

That's not unfair. I think you're right.

When I write comments, I'm ambivalent about this. On one hand, I feel like "IMO" goes without saying for almost every comment that's posted. I tend to dislike including it. It's like having a conversation about rules and feeling compelled to constantly state, "But of course, there are exceptions." Usually I feel like it elevates the conversation to leave unstated what everyone implicitly understands.

On the other hand, I'm aware of the smoothing effect certain language can have. Eg, "It will rain tomorrow," versus "I think I heard rain is likely tomorrow." Sometimes I do deliberately insert that language. I know the room can be fighty and snarky, and if that extra effort can mitigate the possibility that my comment will be read as fighty without diluting my point, I'll try to throw it in.

and look, we are hopefully having a Productive Discussion!

I hope so, too. And even if disagree on the particulars of that or another thread, I hope we'll both walk away having disagreed in a friendly way, ready to agree heartily in the next thread about poetry or the history of ketchup or casting Ben Affleck as Batman.
posted by cribcage at 1:08 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

...I had to use a moebius strip.

Won't somebody please think of the platonic solids!
posted by Pudhoho at 1:08 PM on June 11, 2014

Is there a feminist Jay Smooth on the net?

yeah there is he's called Jay Smooth
posted by NoraReed at 1:08 PM on June 11, 2014 [29 favorites]

I would say that it was modsplained to us

In the MeTa there's a thousand things I wanna say to you
posted by scody at 1:09 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

The douchebeacons of Mefi are lit! The MRAs call for aid!

Sons of Metafilter! Sons of Reddit! My brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of dudes fails, when we forsake our bros and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day! An hour of Tumblrs and tyrannical SJWs when the age of bros comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this earth I bid you stand, men of MeFi!
posted by zombieflanders at 1:12 PM on June 11, 2014 [12 favorites]

As a mod, I'm most interested in what and why and how that thread turned into such a shitstorm, like on a ten miles up sort of level. Like from a level so high we could separate some of the visceral knee-jerk reactions and the following reactions to reactions.

It's obviously a strong combo of issues, but I think at the core it's an op-ed about a microaggression, and a lot of people debated aspects of those two vectors. Was the op-ed strong enough or too strong? Was the microaggression something worth fighting to change or was it too "micro" to spend energy fighting?

Throw gender, wealth, and power dynamics into the mix and we had a powder keg.

Does that sound about right if read in a detached-from-the-biggest-obvious-issues sort of way? I'm trying to figure out how to predict/re-rail these kinds of things, what we could do as mods to prevent them from spiraling, but this one is super tough.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:12 PM on June 11, 2014 [26 favorites]

replace the horn of gondor with the cowbell of misandry, etc etc
posted by NoraReed at 1:13 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

Matt, it was also the headline of the op-ed, which was very clickbaity, did not represent the actual text of the op-ed, and was, frankly, really unfair to Trader Joe's.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:16 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

I'm trying to figure out how to predict/re-rail these kinds of things,

I know the thread got one flag.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:16 PM on June 11, 2014

I don't really know how we're supposed to act anymore. I thought the original claim, that "Under My Thumb" is sexist, wasn't terribly convincing but okay, it's worth debating. I also thought the author of that piece acted like an asshole about it, both in the store and by publishing the piece. But the thread turned into full-on "if you attack THIS woman you are attacking ALL women" so I left before I could be accused of being an MRA apologist.
posted by 2bucksplus at 1:17 PM on June 11, 2014 [30 favorites]

Microaggressions are still OBNOXIOUS. And though you personally may think there are bigger problems in the world, solving the small ones can help solve the big ones.
posted by ChuraChura

[+] ALL the favourites

I think the thing that annoyed me most were comments that were saying, essentially, this is no big deal and you should just toughen up or you'll never make it in the Real World. And that the best way to affect change in terms of sexism was to become a CEO or judge (imsorrywhatnow?) But not the comments themselves - everyone's entitled to their opinion. Rather the response when women pointed out that it isn't so easy to brush off when you're surrounded by it all the time, and anyway why should we have to. If you don't want to be labelled sexist, you could say "ok then, maybe I'm wrong, just my opinion." If you do want to be labelled patronising or sexist or whatever, go right ahead with: No YOU are wrong and I am too right and I know women who would agree with me and everything and I'm going to repeat myself over and over again.

I'd like this MeTa to have the effect of some people thinking that maybe they should just listen a little more, that's all. Maybe if even one person gets to thinking just slightly differently about how they feel when they're called out for sexism and realises it's not about them, it's about their behaviour - which is totally within their power to change - then it hasn't been a waste of time. Either way, thanks for trying divabat.
posted by billiebee at 1:17 PM on June 11, 2014 [22 favorites]

Does that sound about right if read in a detached-from-the-biggest-obvious-issues sort of way? I'm trying to figure out how to predict/re-rail these kinds of things, what we could do as mods to prevent them from spiraling, but this one is super tough.

I think it's the same sort of thing that's led to a lot of "Trans 101" type MeTa posts and links in FPPs. A lot of the routine objectionable stuff on those topics seems to have been tamped down, and a lot of the issues on this FPP (and this MeTa) are straight out of Feminism and Microaggression 101.
posted by Etrigan at 1:17 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Does that sound about right if read in a detached-from-the-biggest-obvious-issues sort of way?

Yes, but I would also add that the fact that it was about sexism in popular culture -- especially a band as embedded in the cultural experience and therefore many people's personal lives as the Rolling Stones -- also triggered a whole 'nother set of reactions. The first is around the song itself (is it sexist or not? Does liking a sexist song mean you like sexism?); the second is around the idea of critiquing culture (is criticizing culture the same thing as censorship?).
posted by scody at 1:18 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Matt, it was also the headline of the op-ed, which was very clickbaity,

I repeatedly refrained from saying that the author was not responsible for the headline, because those are usually authored by a copy editor or whoever edited the piece, but she's an editor so I just don't know. I think it is useful to approach these things like they sometimes do sports events, where they throw out the highest and lowest score. Maybe approach an FPP by throwing out the thing that most irritates you but also the thing that you most agree with?
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 1:19 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think long term the best way out of situations like that is for more people to make posts that are so much better, and not comment on the bad posts' threads, so that more members will feel like lower quality stuff isn't appropriate or worthwhile for MeFi.

I realize that's not exactly an actionable fix by the mods, but it is something many members of the community can help with and doesn't create more work.
posted by michaelh at 1:21 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

I think the viral/clickability strength of the headline is part of the general "op-ed was too strong/not strong enough" dynamic.

Anyway, it got barely any flags, very slowly, which is also a head-scratcher. I think people had such a visceral reaction to any single aspect of it that they commented disapproval instead of flagging?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:21 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

mathowie: "I'm trying to figure out how to predict/re-rail these kinds of things, what we could do as mods to prevent them from spiraling, but this one is super tough."

Smacking people's heads together could work.

There were a lot of defense mechanisms in play in that thread. Sarcasm. Dismissiveness. Assumptions of all stripes. Anger. Outrage. Annoyance. Humor. A variety of comments defending or denying people's privilege. It snowballed quite quickly.

You won't be able to interrupt those defense mechanisms effectively. You may be able to help people see eye to eye though. Or grudgingly accept each other's right to be Wrong.

I suspect one of the reasons MetaTalk is better at helping people to resolve their disagreements is the mods are more actively involved in discussions, and people are willing to speak their minds without too much derision. (Of course, that last bit's relative.)
posted by zarq at 1:24 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

In retrospect, I should have flagged it.
posted by agregoli at 1:24 PM on June 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

On the mod end, there were a whole lot of snippy, dismissive, "this is just bullshit" drive-by comments at the very start, and those can really set the tone for the entire discussion. If you think it's a shitty article, flag it. There are a ton of threads about stuff I think is nonsense, but I don't pop in immediately just to let everyone know how ridiculous I find it.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 1:24 PM on June 11, 2014 [14 favorites]

I think at the core it's an op-ed about a microaggression

That's interesting, because as I read the article, I thought it was about what is acceptable in a song lyric today versus 50 years ago. But I work in the music business, so of course that's the lens I'm going to look at it from on first read. I think this was a uniquely flammable article that everybody naturally brings their own baggage to.
posted by jbickers at 1:24 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think people had such a visceral reaction to any single aspect of it that they commented disapproval instead of flagging?

I feel like that's a thing that happens sometimes, yeah. It's easy to get swept into having your say about something problematic and thus get distracted from the more direct route of just signaling "this isn't such a great idea" with a flag.

Which, it's a very human thing, I get it and I've done it, but, oof, I'm still a little mystified how the original post ended up with so few flags and so many embroiled arguments about among other things the quality of the content in the barely-flagged post.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:25 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

They might also have been a little more optimistic about the way the thread could have gone in - a discussion about what gets played in overhead speakers, how much control do people really have over those playlists, how background noise can still be damaging.

The post in and of itself didn't seem like it would be danger bait at first (and I say this as someone who has made posts that were immediately deleted not because the links themselves were suspect but because they could have led to contentious threads), which may have explained the lack of flagging.
posted by divabat at 1:26 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Brandon Blatcher: I really don't understand this idea of "well this is always going to happen, so just ignore it". Why bother pushing for change at all if all we had to go was "ignore" the status quo?

Well, specifically I said this "Just address the issues, as Bunny Ultramod did a good job of doing or ignore'em."

Basically, people are always going to be assholes or something that irritates. This is known, especially in the comments on a website. Sure, Metafilter may be better at this, but there's still plenty of ignorance that occurs on the site. It is known. So when I suggest ignore it, consider "Does answering this comment really fix anything? What about this other comment in the thread? Or another?" Where can yo do the most good for your cause and do you have realistic goals.?I personally don't think "never having to explain this again" is realistic, but that's my point of view.

Ignore the little stuff, concentrate on the big stuff and don't let the bastards grind you down.

I'm trying to figure out how to predict/re-rail these kinds of things, what we could do as mods to prevent them from spiraling, but this one is super tough.

The original post was pretty terrible, imo, because it's either agree with Op-ed or don't, with little grey on s sensitive subject. To me, it's flip of the coin on how those threads will go. Either it's going to be sharing thread, where the majority share and talk about their experience or people are going to get combative about it.

Ultimately, it's women trying to communicate some of their viewpoints to larger audience that is often being introduced to it for the first time or might just being a bad day. There will be friction there for some time.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:28 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I opened the FPP when it had only one or two responses. I just went 'ugh' and moved on without flagging.
posted by Pudhoho at 1:29 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Ignore the little stuff, concentrate on the big stuff and don't let the bastards grind you down.

Enough little stuff grinds anything down, even rocks.
posted by winna at 1:29 PM on June 11, 2014 [46 favorites]

I didn't flag it because I didn't blame people's behavior in the comments on the quality of the article. It wasn't the article's fault.
posted by zarq at 1:31 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Does that sound about right if read in a detached-from-the-biggest-obvious-issues sort of way? I'm trying to figure out how to predict/re-rail these kinds of things, what we could do as mods to prevent them from spiraling, but this one is super tough.

Yeah, you have it about right, from where I sit. The only addition I'd make is that there is also the unfortunate tendency of human beings to sometimes continue to be angry based on their initial impression, even after the facts of the matter have shown that impression to be inaccurate. People in the thread were railing against what they imagined the author to be saying, in some cases.

Like, if you picture the thread as a group of conversation strands, there are a lot of them and they're all happening simultaneously. There's a bit of crosstalk here and there but a lot of the sprawl of the thread happened because the post just managed to exist at the center of a tangle of hot-button issues.

As far as what to do about them: This is probably one of the many reasons I'm not a moderator, but I don't see threads like that as being especially avoidable. They're like weather - they just happen. Sometimes there's a shit-fight and sometimes there isn't.

If anything, I'd think this is also a product of its time. We're in the early going post-Elliott Rodger and people are pretty on edge, on both sides of things. Sometimes, whether a fight starts is a function of how likely a person is to see a fight where one may or may not have been intended to be. It may not have happened if it had been made before the spree or if it had been made a little while from now when (if) the conversational temperature returns to the normal low simmer.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 1:34 PM on June 11, 2014

I know part of the Metafilter ethos is "There aren't a lot of hard and fast rules", but I'm almost starting to think there may be a need for an official call from the refs regarding the appropriate way to engage with an FPP.

One of the key divides I see here, which comes up frequently in threads about touchy subjects, is whether or not comments should focus on the actual specific content of the links in the FPP or if comments should instead try to limit themselves to discussing the "larger issue" an FPP brings up instead of getting hung up on details.

In this case, the content of the FPP was the anecdotal, first-person account of a woman who heard a song with misogynistic lyrics being played as background music during a visit to the grocery store and the story of what she experienced when trying to make a complaint with the store about the incident.

From a certain viewpoint, it comes off as really strange and unfair to see people get heavily criticized, shamed and have unsavory labels thrust at them for simply having the audacity to comment on the content of the text in an FPP link. As one example, if the author of the subject article herself brings up the tactics she used to get her complaint heard by the appropriate, responsible people at TJ's, should it not therefore be fair game to discuss the potential efficacy of those tactics in the comments?

But I can see, if you come to Metafilter with the view that we should be discussing not the specific (arguably minor) details surrounding an FPP but instead having a more noble, high-level discussion about the larger societal issues an FPP brings up (in this case, the pervasiveness of casual, everyday misogyny and the difficulty of effecting change in this area), having people get hung up on things like whether or not the manager should have been outed by name in her article, whether she should have waited out the weekend before writing this piece, etc., could come off as distracting from the main, more important point.

My understanding is that either method of commenting is currently allowed, but perhaps some of the strong reaction and fightiness would indicate this needs revisiting so people have a better idea of what is acceptable and what is not?
posted by The Gooch at 1:35 PM on June 11, 2014 [16 favorites]

I didn't participate in the thread, despite the topic being interesting and, as divabat said, having several facets entirely worthy of discussion. I didn't participate because I predicted, rightly or wrongly, that I would likely have vitriol directed at me for not being feminist enough and that, if I responded by trying to defend my point, I would then be accused of trying to make the discussion about me.

That just didn't seem like a great use of my time.

I didn't flag the post mostly because flagging a post about a woman's experience of sexism for deletion seems kinda... anti-feminist.
posted by 256 at 1:36 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

Kind of like how every single FPP about drugs turns into "Drugs are not bad and should all be legal and you are a bad person if you disagree with that."
posted by Melismata at 1:37 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yep, like zarq, I didn't find the article that bad but flagged the hell out of the comments.

I think it's kind of unfair that a 'light' post on microaggression is responded to by 'flag it and move on' so it can be removed but a 'light' post on a new music video would get to stay. I mean the problem isn't 'light' posts - it's that people are being jerks (so. much. jerkiness).

I don't know if I'm being clear here. I'd just be really really disappointed if all of sudden certain topics have to put into perfectly crafted, excellently argued posts because some people can't help give their 2 cents.
posted by hydrobatidae at 1:38 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

I'm still a little mystified how the original post ended up with so few flags and so many embroiled arguments

Is it just me wondering if it's some kind of unconscious reaction to all the peace and love and warm fuzzies* that has been a result of the State of MetaFilter crisis? Personally I made a couple of sarky comments in the thread where I normally try not to. I'm not proud but it kind of felt a bit like...something to get my teeth into? (And also I meant them, but anyway.) Maybe we were scared that we broke the place.

"I love you guys!"
"I love you more!"
"Shit. Have we lost our edge?"
"You suck!"
"No YOU suck!"
"Oh thank fuck."


*I still love the warm fuzzies
posted by billiebee at 1:39 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

It wasn't the article's fault.

I disagree. This fight escalated because some people thought they were talking about this particular situation at face value, and other people thought they were talking about microaggressions as a broader thing of which they see this as yet one more example. People weren't having the same argument and they ended up talking way past each other because the framing was so narrow - is this individual case an outrage, or is it an outrage that women are exposed to crap like this so constantly that it becomes background? Obviously the latter makes a better discussion, but the post as framed was really more the former case. I don't blame people for responding to the stated content of her piece instead of the broader issue which was not really included in the FPP.
posted by dialetheia at 1:40 PM on June 11, 2014 [36 favorites]

FAMOUS MONSTER: " As far as what to do about them: This is probably one of the many reasons I'm not a moderator, but I don't see threads like that as being especially avoidable. They're like weather - they just happen. Sometimes there's a shit-fight and sometimes there isn't."

I'd be curious to see if a mod comment briefly summarizing debunked points in a fast-moving thread would help calm things down. Even people who skim threads might pay close attention to a smalltext comment since they stand out. One's eye picks up on them.

For example:

[Here are the known knowns:
* Point 1
* Point 2
No need to repeat what's already been said, folks.]
posted by zarq at 1:41 PM on June 11, 2014

mods don't have time for that, though. We should all be reading the thread before commenting.
posted by agregoli at 1:45 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

zarq, I've left something like a mid-thread "[no, really, it's been established that x, please stop going nuts about not-x]" comment every great once in a while on the blue but it's not something that I think is likely to scale well, for a couple reasons:

1. It's often not 100% crystal clear what the deal is in a situation, and mods jumping into assert that a probably should be treated as a definitely could be super touchy.

2. We will not always have the time and ability to be sure of the specifics of a situation even if in theory or in practice those specifics are knowable. Especially in a fast-moving thread (or two or three), most of our time is going to go to trying to just keep pace with flags and such rather than corralling known knowns.

So I think the principle is fine but as a proposition for something to become regular practice it's a big ask and not all that realistic.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:45 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

And yet within a few minutes, I was shouted down by someone who literally informed me that my interpretation, my opinion, was WRONG. Objectively wrong. And maybe I worded it poorly, or maybe it was taken as a directive rather than a question???

The first person who shouted you down is pretty much openly an MRA so no worries on your end.
posted by elizardbits at 1:47 PM on June 11, 2014 [18 favorites]

dialetheia, those are good points. Will have to think about them.
posted by zarq at 1:51 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

yeah pretty much if TFB tries to shout you down in a feminism thread that means you're doing something right
posted by NoraReed at 1:52 PM on June 11, 2014 [23 favorites]

cortex: " So I think the principle is fine but as a proposition for something to become regular practice it's a big ask and not all that realistic."

*nod* I'm definitely not trying to frame this as a strong suggestion or an actual request that y'all do it. I don't think it would be practical. Am just sort of wondering aloud.
posted by zarq at 1:53 PM on June 11, 2014

I think this was really important, and was lost in the thread, and so I am copying it:

"A crude but often revealing method of assessing male bias in lyrics is to take a song written by a man about a woman and reverse the sexes. By this test, a diatribe like "Under My Thumb" is not nearly so sexist in its implications as, for example, Cat Stevens's gentle, sympathetic "Wild World"; Jagger's fantasy of sweet revenge could easily be female—in fact, it has a female counterpart, Nancy Sinatra's "Boots"—but it's hard to imagine a woman sadly warning her ex-lover that he's too innocent for the big bad world out there." (Willis 2011:136)
posted by kbanas at 2:00 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

elizardbits: "The douchebeacons of Mefi are lit! The MRAs call for aid!"

sound the horn of goondor
posted by boo_radley at 2:03 PM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

it has already been established as a cowbell, boo_radley

though I had someone also suggest an eigenharp
posted by NoraReed at 2:05 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I thought the post itself was kind of meh and was a little irritated that she looped in Eliot Rodgers into the discussion like "in this post Rodgers society" as though THAT was some sort of seismic event in the abuse toward women narrative, which it isn't really was sort of annoying (granted, it's tragic and horrifying and a classic example of how some men's feeling of entitlement toward attention/sex from women can incite abuse and violence).

Reading the discussion though, I was interested in the conversation around how pervasive misogyny is, even in the music you hear at the store -and didn't think "no one listens to the background music anyway so who cares" is really a viable excuse.

This fight escalated because some people thought they were talking about this particular situation at face value, and other people thought they were talking about microaggressions as a broader thing of which they see this as yet one more example. People weren't having the same argument and they ended up talking way past each other because the framing was so narrow - is this individual case an outrage, or is it an outrage that women are exposed to crap like this so constantly that it becomes background?

I can really see how this is true, and it's a common frustration of mine - it's like a game of telephone sometimes where people will cut and paste part of the OP or someone else's comment while either willfully or mistakenly missing the person's larger point, and everyone ends up on a side discussion even if they largely agree.

I don't know, though, I understand how people can be irritated at the way the post was written and framed and the whole print-out-lyrics-and-take-them-to-the-guy approach, but still, if you really dig your heels in to discuss that instead of the larger issue of what's going on with pervasive misogyny basically everywhere, I don't think you should be that surprised that people will have some issues with it on Metafilter. I mean as much as "people are going to be assholes" or whatever and we can't ever have a sexism free safe space on Metafilter (which is cool with me actually) , we're also not going to have a space where no one's ever called out for sexism or misogyny.

If someone says you're being misogynist or sexist, who cares? I don't see why it starts these huge huffy derails about "but my wife says I'm a feminist" or whatever.
posted by sweetkid at 2:06 PM on June 11, 2014 [14 favorites]

That thread is a shitshow. Metafilter at its worst. If I had a bingo card for Lewis' law, I could have filled almost every space. And it's a potentially interesting topic, too, precisely because there are a lot of different facets to talk about--but the most important thing turned out to be a bunch of people, many of whom qualify as The Usual Suspects in feminism-related threads, had to make it all about them as usual.

can we at least agree that "Every Breath You Take" is far worse than the song TFA was complaining about ?

Jumping back to an old point in the thread: I'm pretty sure Sting said it was a satire on every creepy romantic song he'd heard at the time they put it out and he's creeped out by people using it in their weddings.
posted by immlass at 2:08 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

Metafilter has become--with respect to certain social and political issues--Tumblr for grownups.

Honestly, I see more irrationality/unreasonability on this site than any other site I follow closely and/or comment on, and it always comes from the left. (I'm mostly a liberal, though a largely-centrist-y liberal, incidentally. It would be very difficult to paint me as a conservative (though several here have tried...)).

Disagree with someone over someone else getting extremely bent out of shape about playing the Rolling Stones...at...and I am not making this up...Trader Joes? Then you are a misogynist, jack.

Consider, if you will:

...
But this is often women speaking to women, and men remain outside of the discussion, or are unaware of it, or ignore it, all of which is a mark of privilege -- they don't participate in these things because they don't experience what is being discussed, and so can ignore or dismiss it.

As a result, we end up with one group of people who are tremendously savvy to how privilege tries to ignore or silence the discussion, and another group of people unthinkingly engaging in those very silencing tactics, but thinking they are engaged in good-faith discussions. They think the most important thing to discuss is tactics, and their ideas for what tactics work best, never mind that they are men and haven't tried anything that they are talking about. They tone police the complainer, and think they're being helpful. But every single time, they are moving the discussion away from the subject of misogyny. Or worse, they just decide the subject is beneath discussion, leap in early, and make a few shitty jokes at the expense of the discussion.

Yeah, you know what? I know as much about this stuff as the people who tend to lecture me about it around here, and, to be perfectly honest, I seem to have thought much more deeply about it. But disagree with those people here, and the only question is "why are you so confused?" The possibility that you might be right--or even have a right to an opinion at all--is simply not considered. Rational disagreement is "mansplaining" or WTF ever cute, unserious terminological abomination is being deployed this week to allow the lefty-left to convince itself that it is always right about everything, and that disagreement with their orthodoxy is simply evidence of counter-revolutionary attitudes.

I think that there are interesting questions in this vicinity, and, actually, that the "Under My Thumb" question was one of them. A little bit, anyway.

But I don't go to MeFi for serious discussions of such things.

What you find here is a rather nasty, very dogmatic echo chamber--and one in which people are commonly accused of bigotry for failing to be enthusiastically and unthinkingly nutty.

Actually, I find that looking in on these threads actually pushes me to the right. So I just come around here less, and try to get myself to stay away from the social/political threads. (As you can see, I failed this time...)

Wanna have a cool discussion with people about H. P. Lovecraft, or find something interesting about trains or BtVS, or whatever? MeFi's a good place. Wanna have a rational, dispassionate, at least minimally objective discussion about social and political issues? I advise you to go elsewhere, my friend... Because around here you are going to find things like actual apparent grownups mouthing mindless, faddish nonsense like "check your privilege," and people shrieking "OMG HE SAID 'NOT ALL MEN'!!!111" if you correct some outlandishly false universal generalization about males.

Hell, I don't even always disagree with the local left-lefty orthodoxy. But I almost always disagree with the way the orthodoxy is defended. And, to my mind, the character of the reasoning that leads to a conclusion is at least as important as the conclusion itself. (But, of course, questioning dogmatic, fundamentalist fervor will be re-interpreted as "tone-policing" or some similar nonsense...)

I could go on...but why bother? As I've said in the past: no sense getting all bent out of shape about this. MeFi simply isn't a place for free and open discussion of certain issues. With respect to those issues, there is a local orthodoxy, and that orthodoxy is no more up for discussion here than it is at, say, FreeRepublic. If you are looking for that other thing, then go some other place. There are a very large number of places where people really are interested in thinking through such issues, without pre-ordained conclusion, and without attempting to badger or shame people into agreement.

In summary:
MeFi: Tumblr for grownups
posted by Fists O'Fury at 2:09 PM on June 11, 2014 [27 favorites]

If someone says you're being misogynist or sexist, who cares? I don't see why it starts these huge huffy derails about "but my wife says I'm a feminist" or whatever.

It's funny, because if someone catcalls (general) you on the street, or sends you an anonymous rape threat in email because you wrote about sexism, you are often advised to just ignore it, it's just trolls, it's just whatever and why are you making such a fuss. But if someone is called sexist or racist? Well, that's clearly a national tragedy and everyone should stop and listen to why that's wrong and what should be done about it.
posted by rtha at 2:11 PM on June 11, 2014 [86 favorites]

I'm pretty sure Sting said it was a satire on every creepy romantic song he'd heard at the time they put it out and he's creeped out by people using it in their weddings.

Sting copped to it being about trying to control his ex-wife here: "Once I'd written and performed it, I realized it was quite dark. My intention might have been to write a romantic song, seductive, enveloping and warm. Then I saw another side of my personality was involved, too, about control and jealousy, and that's its power. It was written at a difficult time."
posted by scody at 2:12 PM on June 11, 2014 [16 favorites]

Wow you're totally right, you have changed my mind completely, my anger at rape culture is just faddish nonsense!

thank god you were here to educate me
posted by elizardbits at 2:12 PM on June 11, 2014 [26 favorites]

I say "Under My Thumb" is creepier than "Every Breath You Take," because it's clear that Sting is being deliberate creepy but that Mick didn't give a crap.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:13 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

Metafilter has become--with respect to certain social and political issues--Tumblr for grownups.

That's ridiculous. We don't even have the IMG tag.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:13 PM on June 11, 2014 [18 favorites]

Or, on seeing scody's quotation, never mind, everyone's bad.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:13 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

MeFi: Tumblr for grownups

[passes out blowing dogwhistle as hard as possible]
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:14 PM on June 11, 2014 [27 favorites]

They might also have been a little more optimistic about the way the thread could have gone in - a discussion about what gets played in overhead speakers, how much control do people really have over those playlists, how background noise can still be damaging.....
posted by divabat at 4:26 PM on June 11

This is how I felt. My problem, from a FPP standpoint, is that there were two major issues in the event that were presented simultaneously in the article:

1) Person hears problematic music being played in a grocery store that is very upsetting to them.
2) Method by which the person tries to have the musics removed.

In regard to #1: my personal opinion was that the song is offensive, but even if it wasn't to the vast majority of people, the author should have the right to complain and ask if the song can be removed.

In regard to #2, however, I wasn't able to take the article in good faith. If her main goal, as she states it, was to have the song removed, she could have at least attempted to call the company that actually provides the music and decides what's on the playlists, or Trader Joe's corporate. Yes, she has the right to be upset. Yes, she has the right to complain. But I'm suspicious of the methods that she used to achieve her main goal. Her article read to me like she went to the store and metaphorically flailed around, then went to the internet and flailed around some more. Maybe I would have had less of a problem with this if she wasn't a journalist who should know how to research who to talk to when looking for information.

I didn't post any of this because the thread seemed to be moving in a "all things must be discussed together and can't be separated," direction. Which is many times good, but not in this case, in my opinion*

*I'm biased by my lived experience. I successfully had a sexist song removed from the playlist of Detroit Pistons home games. To have the song removed, I had to call a few people and work my way up. This lead to a few dead ends, but I was eventually able to get to the person in charge of the playlists, and that person removed the song. It took a fair amount of effort and phone tag, but it can be done. Just maybe not by the first few people that you talk to.
posted by Shouraku at 2:14 PM on June 11, 2014 [29 favorites]

Metafilter: never mind, everyone's bad
posted by elizardbits at 2:14 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Fists O'Fury: "
MeFi: Tumblr for grownups"

I guess we go to tumblr for different things then.

elizardbits: "Metafilter: never mind, everyone's bad"

metafilter: perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle
posted by boo_radley at 2:14 PM on June 11, 2014

Really though all I hear when someone says "too much like tumblr" is "these minorities are gettin uppity and i don't like it one bit".
posted by elizardbits at 2:15 PM on June 11, 2014 [86 favorites]

and without attempting to badger or shame people into agreement.

This this this this

It happens with all hot-button topics around here (rape, trans*, drugs, I/P, etc.)

It's like, we're all trying to mind our own business, and be the best person we can be, and suddenly we're bad people just for trying to weave our way through a complicated society? It reminds me of the time at my church years ago, when we had both a white priest and an African-American one, and I was called a bad person for not noticing this fact, and how wonderfully diverse the church was. What do people gain from being so nasty to others?
posted by Melismata at 2:15 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Honestly the only place I've ever seen Tumblr equated with this notion of 'stupid social justice' is in the particularly MRA-y corners of Reddit, so frankly I would try to stay pretty fuckin' far away from using that kind of description as pejorative.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:16 PM on June 11, 2014 [24 favorites]

Okay but being the best person you can be sometimes involves being ashamed to once have believed terrible things, or having your eyes opened to those terrible things in your current belief system. It's all part of growing up.
posted by elizardbits at 2:17 PM on June 11, 2014 [26 favorites]

At what point does disagreement become "talking over" and "shouting down"? Honestly not trying to derail or dismiss the MetaTalk thread through nit-picking. Also not really looking for a hard and fast rule since that's often impossible, especially here. But since the analogies get used here on MetaTalk and people obviously feel this way, how can one identify if what they're writing is a disagreement or a shouting down?

I will probably just continue to comment in good faith and trust the community, but is that good enough?
posted by ODiV at 2:18 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I still love all of youse folks and if you wanna come over and have some of these pumpkin bread muffins and drink Romanian hooch with me, you're all invited.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:18 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

MeFi: Tumblr for grownups

Given the amount of slash on my dash, there's a lot more interest paid to what women want on tumblr than there is on the blue.
posted by immlass at 2:18 PM on June 11, 2014 [15 favorites]

I mostly associate Tumblr with people nerding way the hell out over TV shows I've never watched. Oh, hey, FanFare.
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:19 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Can we at least make a token effort not to call one another names or lump one another into categories? This thread makes me practically ill for how crappy both sides are being to one another.
posted by ElliotH at 2:19 PM on June 11, 2014 [12 favorites]

MeFi: Tumblr for grownups

Oh my, pass me the smelling salts. How very dreadful.

*sigh* Now I'm sad because once upon a time being compared to Livejournal would have been the go to dismissive metaphor to silence marginalized voices.
posted by kmz at 2:19 PM on June 11, 2014 [14 favorites]

I mean it's not necessarily that you are a bad person, but to refuse to acknowledge basic facts about the world around you such that you end up denying the constant and pervasive lived experiences of minorities CAN IN FACT present you in not the best of lights.

(the general "you" not you in particular)
posted by elizardbits at 2:19 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

I think it's the same sort of thing that's led to a lot of "Trans 101" type MeTa posts and links in FPPs. A lot of the routine objectionable stuff on those topics seems to have been tamped down, and a lot of the issues on this FPP (and this MeTa) are straight out of Feminism and Microaggression 101.

Metafilter used to have a bad reputation for transphobia, bad enough that I stumbled across criticism of it on other sites. Now it's one of the better general-purpose forums on the internet. Awesome.

(By "one of the better" I don't mean good. Metafilter's being sort of less overtly transphobic than it used to be isn't something we get to throw a parade about, nor can we assume that it's going to automatically get better over time.)

Clearly the 101 approach helped. Can anyone link to an actual "feminism and microaggression 101" document? Because if such a thing were available it might be a good idea to provide a link to it at the start of threads like this before they start going wrong.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:19 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

if there's anything I've learned from Tumblr and people ragging on Tumblr it's that people are really, really threatened by people younger than them who are more well-educated and well-versed in sociological issues such as privilege than them, and they really are into using their platforms to shit on those people

but because so much of Tumblr is made up of young people, especially young women, people figuring out their identities, and the woman and girl dominated sides of fandom, people are much more able to get away with shitting on it than they are at shitting on other places, because the big group of the most vocal Tumblr users are members of marginalized groups doing things that are often frowned on by the mainstream

and, like, I've been following these corners of the internet since I was a kid, and people really are able to do some pretty revolutionary things carving out their own spaces with their goddamn fingernails and have to put up with a lot of abuse for it, they really have to defend the space they have, both in that space (there's a lot of harassment on Tumblr, especially from people who come from places like /r/tumblrinaction specifically to harass POC, queer people, disabled people and women) and the reputation of that space from people happy to shit on it on sites like here, so I find it really, really offensive when people use the "Tumblr" label dismissively like that, because it uses something a lot of people have worked really hard for and learned a lot for

anyway if you were wondering why I mentally substitute "DAMN FEMINISTS/QUEER FOLKS/WOMEN GET OFF MY LAWN" for any comments mentioning Tumblr in that light, that's why

also I've heard our bad reputation for transphobia mentioned around the web and considering that a significant portion of our great trans users left I really don't think we can say we're doing well there, we have a lot of work to do
posted by NoraReed at 2:22 PM on June 11, 2014 [58 favorites]

MetaFiltr
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:22 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

I really question the judgment of someone who reads this site and walks away thinking, "This place should be more like reddit"
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:23 PM on June 11, 2014 [18 favorites]

Something we all need to view.
posted by Talez at 2:24 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

gotes.jpg?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:26 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yes. It has lots of cute little goats showing us how to be more mature.
posted by Talez at 2:27 PM on June 11, 2014

Phew.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:27 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

gotes.jpg?

I clicked on the link and only afterwards saw the url. Thankfully, it is in fact a picture of cartoon goats so I stopped screaming.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:28 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Hmm. I'm all over the map on that one.
posted by Melismata at 2:28 PM on June 11, 2014

I was told to look at a picture about goats back in the 90s and I was forever traumatized.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:29 PM on June 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

ElliotH: "Can we at least make a token effort not to call one another names or lump one another into categories? This thread makes me practically ill for how crappy both sides are being to one another."

Yeah this. It's pretty telling when actual comments of people attempting to have a conversation are met with derision and sarcasm. When you do that you aren't interested in hashing out a damn thing, only in keeping the fire going.
posted by Big_B at 2:29 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

It was not goats.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:29 PM on June 11, 2014 [13 favorites]

Sting copped to it being about trying to control his ex-wife here:

So yeah. As I was trying to say in the thread, art has a point of view, it must, and it's not always the point of view of a 100% awesome, not-flawed person. It could be because the author created a bad character as "satire" (though that's so often a cop-out to excuse darlings like, say, Louis C.K., when his work verges on being textually indistinguishable from Andrew Dice Clay's). It could also be that the author is himself a jerk, and that's his point of view. Ultimately most of us will never meet the author, and the work is the work.

I think some of the friction may be coming from strong, gut-level anti-censorship reactions a lot of people here have (myself included). While I'm well aware the 1st Amendment does not guarantee the right to be muzak in Trader Joe's, I doubt that most of us would want to live in a world where the only art we're exposed to is from a completely sanitized, "good" point-of-view. I believe sexism is pervasive in our society, and it sucks. I think we can always work towards having a better, more tolerant community. I also believe art makes the world a better place. There's a discussion to be had there, and it's not black-and-white at all.
posted by drjimmy11 at 2:30 PM on June 11, 2014 [12 favorites]

Let me find that illustration of the girl representing tradition and the girl representing progress sharing the cup of unity...
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:30 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

I'm just going to keep on ignoring that thread, and apparently this one too, because this is all really gross, and I prefer to think Mefi has avoided all this MRA crap that has actively infested most of the rest of the internet (puts fingers in ears)
posted by likeatoaster at 2:35 PM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

> I doubt that most of us would want to live in a world where the only art we're exposed to is from a completely sanitized, "good" point-of-view

Good thing nobody's campaigning for that, then.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:36 PM on June 11, 2014 [13 favorites]

BTW, klang just redeemed the original thread. If you wanted to drastically expand your knowledge of Snow's Informer, head on over.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:36 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

If someone says you're being misogynist or sexist, who cares?

Because they are implicitly/explicitly saying you are a bad person because of that.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:37 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

> they are implicitly/explicitly saying you are a bad person because of that

But that's the thing. They're not. They're saying, or at least if it's me, I'm saying, "you have done this one thing that is sexist, don't do it again." And if you don't do it again than that's it, it's done.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:39 PM on June 11, 2014 [16 favorites]

And, on topic: I didn't post in the original thread because it made me angry. Ideology should not trump art.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:39 PM on June 11, 2014

^^ corpse in the library (with the problematic assumption) that's them assuming that is how people will take it, which is an empathy failure. Aren't we trying to increase empathy?
posted by Sebmojo at 2:40 PM on June 11, 2014

It's all part of growing up.

Part of growing up, too, is perhaps coming to understand and accept that not everyone may not immediately share your personal understanding of the world. In that light, one might perhaps begin to ask what these kinds of posts are about: Is it about mature discussion of a broader set of ideas, or is it about didactic instruction — or perhaps just simple venting — at people who are not considered mature?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:41 PM on June 11, 2014 [12 favorites]

If someone says you're being misogynist or sexist, who cares?

Because they are implicitly/explicitly saying you are a bad person because of that.

Actually, no, they're just pointing out that the thing you're saying or doing is misogynist or sexist. If you choose to see that as someone telling you that you're a bad person, that's your problem.
posted by palomar at 2:45 PM on June 11, 2014 [27 favorites]

Who said anything about Ideology?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:45 PM on June 11, 2014

I think metafilter in general has had a lot of good feminist threads. The ones that invariably go bad are the "look at this terrible thing that happened" types, and I would lump the discussed thread into that category. I understand why people want to talk about those events, but they don't seem to go well.
posted by Esteemed Offendi at 2:46 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Because they are implicitly/explicitly saying you are a bad person because of that.

No, they're not. They're saying you're doing a misogynist/sexist thing. Also even if you take it to mean "I think you're a bad person" who cares?

That sort of thing derails every single discussion. I don't even know who on earth I would think of as a "bad person" except for like, oppressive dictators or something, but not people I talk to every day. However people I talk to every day are constantly saying sexist, misogynist things.

A few days ago I was out with a few friends, a couple (man and woman) and basically the man said so many questionable, misogynist things (and he'd consider himself a feminist) but I basically just stopped arguing back and was like, "I guess maybe you're right about that" instead of gently questioning his assertions because trying that got a lot of "well, biology," type responses which is exactly what happened the last time we all hung out and has happened before when I hang out with couples, when the guy and I get into some huge debate and the girlfriend/wife says little or nothing and I basically feel like everyone, me included, just thinks I'm a crazy woman rather than just a person with an opinion.

Like the real world is full of SO MUCH "well, no, you're wrong" that I don't feel super shocked if I encounter it here as well and am not sure why anyone would.
posted by sweetkid at 2:46 PM on June 11, 2014 [19 favorites]

Ideology should not trump art.

Not sure who's arguing this.

One comment I did see in that thread was scody's where she acknowledged loving the Stones but finding that song gross.

A lot of people here and else where are able to have ideology, if you will, about an artist and their art and still like their work, or most of it.
posted by rtha at 2:47 PM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

As a mod, I'm most interested in what and why and how that thread turned into such a shitstorm, like on a ten miles up sort of level.

Polarizing threads put off people who have sort of a partially formed opinion, or a desire to talk it through slowly. If you walk into a room and people are having what reads as an actual fight about some issue you're sort of on the fence about, you feel like you don't belong, because everyone's all shouty and hating on each other and everybody feels like crap and you're sitting there going 'er, well, I don't know...'

So you feel like you have to have total clarity, plus a willingness to defend whatever you say, and you'd better say it right.

So yeah, it turns away those who are interested but not willing to invest in a shitstorm.

At least, that's how I felt about it, and why I didn't comment. (Or at least I think I didn't. Now feel like I should run and check.)
posted by A Terrible Llama at 2:48 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

> ^^ corpse in the library (with the problematic assumption) that's them assuming that is how people will take it, which is an empathy failure. Aren't we trying to increase empathy?

Yes. Empathy with the people who are getting pricked by the racist or sexist comment.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:50 PM on June 11, 2014 [12 favorites]

Actually, no, they're just pointing out that the thing you're saying or doing is misogynist or sexist. If you choose to see that as someone telling you that you're a bad person, that's your problem.

Except that quite often, as seen in this thread, the pointing out is accompanied by little insults such as "Jesus Christ, I can't believe you said that" which generally implies that the person thinks you're bad.
posted by Melismata at 2:50 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

It isn't a predictor, but I think threads where people directly reply to one another, rather than making general arguments to the room often lead to this flavour of unpleasantness. (There is a reason why debating chambers require you to address your comments to the chair).
posted by ElliotH at 2:52 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ideology should not trump art.

This is an odd blanket statement. Lots of art sucks, for a wide, wide variety of reasons: lack of care in composition, failure to fulfill the perceived intentions of its creator, failure to engage honestly with its subject matter, plain old ugliness, and, yes, falling afoul of some bit of ideology or another. "Birth of a Nation" may have been innovative in a lot of ways cinematically, but that truth does nothing to immunize it from charges of racism, because hooly shit is that ever racist.

Some art is great is a few respects and lousy in others. Some is lousy enough in some respects that it's no longer suitable for display or performance in public without some careful acknowledgement of what is now problematic. "Playing in the background at the supermarket" probably doesn't clear that bar.
posted by Ipsifendus at 2:54 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

Honestly, I'm not sure why "someone on the internet might think bad things about me" is a point of debate here. Who gives a shit if someone doesn't like you? Are you not capable of moving on with your life when someone doesn't like you? Have you never heard the saying that other people's opinion of you is none of your business?
posted by palomar at 2:54 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

It seems a shame that so much ire has been exchanged over a link to a pretty poorly-written piece. The subsequent conversation didn't go well, but then exchanges have been over a piece that seemed to intend more to extract outrage-driven click-throughs than anything else, so the outcome could be seen as predictable. On re-reading, the post-facto editing of Meredith Hunter's gender suggests that, at least, the author did not really know the victim was male, which makes it a pretty odd example to use to connect the song with misogyny (especially when its lyrics can do that on their own).
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:55 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

which generally implies that the person thinks you're bad.

Again I'm not really sure what effect "Thinks you're a bad person" or "thinks you're bad" is even supposed to have, but I like the idea of thinking you're sort of a tourist in discussions if it's not about something you experience every day. I've made comments in trans* discussions that I got called out on and that I had thought were reasonable and fine. However, even if the person was angry at me when calling me out on it, and even if I didn't think they were right to call me out, the truth is that they had more personal experience and context to comment than I do. For me it's sort of a theoretical, somewhat academic exercise for my brain, not a real thing I experience every day to be trans*.

It doesn't hurt to step back and think of it that way, and the person upset with me for a misstep doesn't need to take the exact perfect most helpful tone when explaining my misstep. They really don't.
posted by sweetkid at 2:56 PM on June 11, 2014 [24 favorites]

"Jesus Christ, I can't believe you said that" which generally implies that the person thinks you're bad.

That actually sounds to me like a pretty clear example of saying "the thing you said was terrible" rather than "you are terrible."
posted by naoko at 2:58 PM on June 11, 2014 [18 favorites]

Ideology should not trump art.

So if someone started singing "Coon Coon Coon" which bills itself as "The Most Successful Song Hit of 1901" you'd have absolutely no problem? If it came over the speakers in Trader Joe's would you still have that problem?
posted by Talez at 2:59 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was interested in the idea behind the piece. I've heard music with lyrics I hated in stores plenty of times, but it never crossed my mind to do anything about it other than roll my eyes. I wish the piece had been better written, that the writer had known the corporate structure of Trader Joe's better, that she had been nicer to the person she talked to face-to-face and not used his full name, and that she had known Meredith Hunter was a man.

Maybe then we could have had an interesting conversation about confronting the little needles of day-to-day sexism we run into.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:59 PM on June 11, 2014 [17 favorites]

On re-reading, the post-facto editing of Meredith Hunter's gender suggests that, at least, the author did not really know the victim was male, which makes it a pretty odd example to use to connect the song with misogyny (especially when its lyrics can do that on their own).

That was so heinous and tone deaf and awful and it really deeply grossed me out. The incident itself could have easily stood on its own merits, there was no need to try and tie it to a wholly unrelated and badly misinterpreted tragedy that happened decades ago, and imo to do so revealed some not excellent things about the writer's character.

THAT SAID, this is not the primary reason the thread was terrible. Although I guess I understand if that made it difficult for people to assume good faith on her part.
posted by elizardbits at 3:03 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

The worrying about someone thinking you're bad thing is particularly exhausting to me because it's always a bunch of dudes who are worried that someone might think they are sexist as if we really give a shit about the individual people on the internet who subscribe to a dominant cultural paradigm that affects our lives on a daily basis. Responding to "what you says reflects a dominant cultural paradigm that is misogynistic" with "HOW DARE YOU CALL ME A SEXIST" is incredibly self-centered, annoying as shit and also an attempt to derail a thread about a culture-wide issue to make it about one single man, and doing so reflects a dominant cultural paradigm in which it is okay for a man to take over a conversation like that and make it all about his feelings, which is sexist.
posted by NoraReed at 3:04 PM on June 11, 2014 [68 favorites]

Does that sound about right if read in a detached-from-the-biggest-obvious-issues sort of way? I'm trying to figure out how to predict/re-rail these kinds of things, what we could do as mods to prevent them from spiraling, but this one is super tough.

It was a single link op-ed OutrageFilter post. Yeah, it didn't get flagged much, and I don't know why that is, but still - fact remains.

I think you guys should take closer looks at single link Op-ed FPPs. I'm not so sure they are really Best of The Web and only rarely it seems do they tend to foster any sort of meaningful discussion here.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 3:04 PM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

I wish the piece had been better written, that the writer had known the corporate structure of Trader Joe's better, that she had been nicer to the person she talked to face-to-face and not used his full name, and that she had known Meredith Hunter was a man. Maybe then we could have had an interesting conversation about confronting the little needles of day-to-day sexism we run into.

I agree with this. Her article reminded me of the saying: "when you're right, don't ruin it by becoming the new bad guy."
posted by Shouraku at 3:05 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

I agree with this. Her article reminded me of the saying: "when you're right, don't ruin it by becoming the new bad guy."

Walter Sobchak: Am I wrong?
The Dude: No you're not wrong.
Walter Sobchak: Am I wrong?
The Dude: You're not wrong Walter. You're just an asshole.
Walter Sobchak: Okay then.

posted by Talez at 3:07 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Ideology should not trump art.

Under My Thumb is not art. It's (formerly) commercially popular music that's almost a half-century old. It's okay for it to fall out of popularity because people think it's gross now.
posted by immlass at 3:08 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

I agree with this. Her article reminded me of the saying: "when you're right, don't ruin it by becoming the new bad guy."

How about the saying "Perfect is the enemy of good"? Requiring perfect victimhood and perfect activism from anyone speaking out is a long-established way for oppressors to comfortably shut their ears.
posted by northernish at 3:11 PM on June 11, 2014 [15 favorites]

What? OF course it's art. That doesn't say anything about this thread or anything, but songs are art.
posted by Justinian at 3:12 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yeah, you know what? I know as much about this stuff as the people who tend to lecture me about it around here, and, to be perfectly honest, I seem to have thought much more deeply about it.

You seem to think you have, at least, so points for that.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 3:12 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it didn't get flagged much, and I don't know why that is, but still - fact remains.

To be clear, for me at least "didn't get flagged much" isn't so much of an issue of like "ergo I can't delete it"—I'll nix what seems like a sufficiently bad post even if it has zero flags—as it is a "I don't know to go take a close look at something I'm not getting a clear Take A Look At This message about". It not getting flagged much is an impediment to us being super likely to look at it early and closely.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:13 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

How about the saying "Perfect is the enemy of good"? Requiring perfect victimhood and perfect activism from anyone speaking out is a long-established way for oppressors to comfortably shut their ears.

I actually agree with this as well. However, my personal opinion is that she wasn't even good (in my opinion of her handling, not her right to be upset).
posted by Shouraku at 3:15 PM on June 11, 2014

Under My Thumb is not art. It's (formerly) commercially popular music that's almost a half-century old. It's okay for it to fall out of popularity because people think it's gross now.

What? OF course it's art. That doesn't say anything about this thread or anything, but songs are art.

Even songs by Pitbull? Hmmm????

Checkmate.

I'm sure the ghost of Walter Benjamin is delighted to read this sub-argument, but could we please not have a derail about whether "Under My Thumb" or pop music in general is art?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:18 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

I like the "what is art" argument a lot but this isn't prolly the time.
posted by NoraReed at 3:21 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

How about the saying "Perfect is the enemy of good"? Requiring perfect victimhood and perfect activism from anyone speaking out is a long-established way for oppressors to comfortably shut their ears.

It is sort of easier to take someone's complaints about gender suppression more seriously if they don't make the mistake of assuming someone named "Meredith" is female.

Yeah, maybe mistakes like that shouldn't be relevant if the arguments and evidence are sound. But people gonna people and if she as a putative journalist can't be arsed to look simple facts up, why should anyone take her word on anything else she might have to say ?
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 3:25 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

THAT SAID, this is not the primary reason the thread was terrible. Although I guess I understand if that made it difficult for people to assume good faith on her part.

The stalwart defense of the author by people now saying how shitty the thread was is kind of annoying.

I somehow have a tab open with average Trader Joe's employee salaries which was posted by one of the people twisting themselves into knots defending the authors behavior.
posted by lattiboy at 3:27 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Eh, there's probably a difference between 'got a fact wrong, no matter how easy to fact-check' and 'lying about her own lived experience.'
posted by shakespeherian at 3:28 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

So as it stands: author didn't fact check the Meridith thing, or wrote it poorly and then corrected it without highlighting the correction = easy to dismiss everything she wrote
Numerous people insist she bullied a minimum-wage clerk, and that her income vastly outstripped his; disproven by basic Googling = no problem, people who did the googling are twisted in knots
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 3:31 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

Please direct me towards the comment of mine which you have wrongly construed as a stalwart defense of the author. Or did you mean someone else aside from me when you said "people" while directly quoting my comment word for word?
posted by elizardbits at 3:33 PM on June 11, 2014

if she as a putative journalist can't be arsed to look simple facts up

To be fair, the person was called Meredith. I've only ever read that as a girl's name so she maybe didn't think she needed to fact-check it? Obviously she was wrong, but it's not like he was called David and she thought "that was probably a woman who died at the gig because the Stones are so sexist" or whatever.
posted by billiebee at 3:34 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

THAT SAID, this is not the primary reason the thread was terrible. Although I guess I understand if that made it difficult for people to assume good faith on her part.

Agreed, but the whole piece felt click-baity and I still don't understand why a link to it remains, especially since the author made such significant changes to it after the fact. It hasn't lead to much in the way of interesting discussion, which seems self-evident. Usually, we share links to stuff that is interesting, beautiful, worthy of passing around and sharing, but there's little here but an excuse for certain people to have license to shout at other certain people. Maybe this is the place for that. I don't question my financial gift to Metafilter, but I am starting to question a little to what extent perhaps that click-bait outragefilter might have contributed to decreased traffic, as outrage media spread its claws over the web. Which isn't to say I haven't enjoyed venting at evil myself, particularly where gay rights were concerned, but as I get older, I see its pernicious effects when triggered by lazy thinking and lazy writing. Again, maybe this is the place for that; it depends on what kind of community people want, as defined by what posts they share and what conversations they have. Maybe this is just where we are and that's that.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:38 PM on June 11, 2014 [14 favorites]

The talk upthread about trans members we've lost to fighty MeTas and insensitivity got me wondering if anyone is in touch with ArmyOfKittens, and if so, if they might send her a heyhowareyamefimissesyou.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:38 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

ODiV: "At what point does disagreement become "talking over" and "shouting down"? Honestly not trying to derail or dismiss the MetaTalk thread through nit-picking."

Just in my own experience, when I feel talked over or shouted down, it's usually because the shout-down-er isn't actually listening to or trying to understand my points; he's using the time when I'm talking to frame what his next argument is going to be.

When I am in a position of privilege (as a teacher, or as an elected official), I try to be very conscious of making sure I understand where someone is coming from and what they are trying to say, before I respond. When you're in a position of power or privilege, even just diffuse social privilege, it's very, very easy to minimize or dismiss others' complaints that don't already fit into your worldview. A lot of people, especially when stressed or upset, don't express themselves clearly, use poor or muddled phrasing, confuse their points, or lash out. There are some threads on MetaFilter where I'm interested in the topic, but I really don't get where people are coming from, and in that case I generally shut up and read and try to understand.

Sometimes something as simple as saying, "I hear what you're saying," can help a conversation go more smoothly. Acknowledging the other person's point. Sometimes people preface a comment on MetaFilter by saying, "PosterJoe's point made me think of something related, this is a little tangential to his point, but my thought is X, Y, Z," when they want to be clear they're not ignoring Joe's main point and arguing past him, but just adding some related thoughts Joe made them think of.

When I feel talked over or shouted down for being a woman, by men, whether in "real life" or on the internet, generally the running theme is, they don't really care to listen to what I have to say, they're just going to make their point, come hell or high water, and anything I say is just going to be used as a jumping off point to make their next point. They're not going to actually respond to my concerns or my comments, and if it's a nuanced, complex point, they're definitely not interested in understanding its complexity.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:40 PM on June 11, 2014 [45 favorites]

This is a side comment from my above comment but I wanted to make it separately since it's a little off the point in a different direction, and I feel like the next part isn't phrased well, but it's a point I feel like I need to make, so everybody cut me a little slack if I didn't phrase it well.

Being called a racist is shitty (especially when you acted in ignorance rather than malice), and it's a powerful word with the power to wound. But being called racist is not nearly as bad as racism. I don't think "sexist" or "misogynist" are quite as powerful as words, but even if they are, being called a sexist isn't a pleasant experience, but it is nowhere near as unpleasant as being on the receiving end of sexism. I acknowledge that it hurts to be called sexist, especially if you aren't sexist and your actions or motives have been misconstrued. That sucks, and I'm sorry. But the way to fix the problem where you are called a racist or a sexist is not to demand people stop using the words, but to fix the world so that they become meaningless words. You know when being wrongly called sexist will no longer have the power to hurt you? WHEN SEXISM STOPS DOING INCREDIBLE HARM TO WOMEN. The patriarchy hurts everybody.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:40 PM on June 11, 2014 [65 favorites]

So as it stands: author didn't fact check the Meridith thing, or wrote it poorly and then corrected it without highlighting the correction = easy to dismiss everything she wrote
Numerous people insist she bullied a minimum-wage clerk, and that her income vastly outstripped his; disproven by basic Googling = no problem, people who did the googling are twisted in knots


Oh god, it isn't just the Meredith thing. It was a lot of other weirdness, such as an editor with a PhD not doing any "basic googling" to find somebody who could actually make a change at TJs and completely ignoring Muzak, the company who provides the songs until the last paragraph.


Please direct me towards the comment of mine which you have wrongly construed as a stalwart defense of the author. Or did you mean someone else aside from me when you said "people" while directly quoting my comment word for word?

I was listing other things I feel made the thread go terribly, not trying to call you out specifically.
posted by lattiboy at 3:42 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Oh god, it isn't just the Meredith thing. It was a lot of other weirdness,

I guess I don't understand. She representedt what she was trying to say in a manner you found to be imperfect. So what? The whole of her point gets tabled and instead we end up with an extended discussion of what she did wrong?

You literally just insisted that a site member had twisted themselves up trying to defend her, and then, when called on it, said that's not what you meant. At this moment, do we bypass everything you're trying to communicate and instead focus exclusively on how badly you espressed that one point?
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 3:49 PM on June 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

When I say "stalwart defense" and "twisting into knots" I'm referring to people I can't imagine being supportive of the author's behavior in any other context or situation.

Printing out the lyrics to a song you heard on a previous visit, streamed from a 3rd party, which is contracted by a giant corporation, of which the employee may or may not be a local manager of, and then putting that persons full name on your website is not awesome behavior and I'm seriously surprised that people are seemingly fine with it.

That is "angry old man complaining about small print details of a coupon to cashier" behavior. If you've worked in retail the last sentence will make more sense..
posted by lattiboy at 3:51 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

Was a MeTa really necessary? I mean i'm not going to tell someone to Sit Down or whatever, but i'm a good portion of the way through that thread and basically every time someone says something shitty they get called out, and the person who called them out gets immediate air support.

The System Is Working, from what i can see, is my point.
posted by emptythought at 3:51 PM on June 11, 2014

Like i mean, this meta has become way more mean spirited and shitty than the actual thread has gone, anywhere i've seen.
posted by emptythought at 3:52 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

That is "angry old man complaining about small print details of a coupon to cashier" behavior. If you've worked in retail the last sentence will make more sense.

I worked in retail for a decade, and I'm going to say that structuring things like "obviously people who disagree haven't had experiences that would make them actually know what they're talking about" is a pretty crappy way to argue. That may not be how you meant it, but it also showed up in the thread, and I'd ask people to be cautious about that sort of thing, because we don't know what experiences other people have had. They may be equally experienced and just disagree.

I mean, I've also worked in journalism and a lot of the "she's a crappy journalist" aruments sound to me like things that people who don't know anything about journalism would say, but people can decided for themselves what is and isn't journalism they trust.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 3:58 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

I tend to stay out of these kinds of threads because I worry my virulent misanthropy will be interpreted as misogyny. But it was worth reading for klang dropping knowledge on "Informer."
posted by Bookhouse at 4:06 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm going to say that structuring things like "obviously people who disagree haven't had experiences that would make them actually know what they're talking about" is a pretty crappy way to argue

On the other hand, relevant.
posted by shakespeherian at 4:07 PM on June 11, 2014

I worked in retail for a decade, and I'm going to say that structuring things like "obviously people who disagree haven't had experiences that would make them actually know what they're talking about" is a pretty crappy way to argue.

That wasn't my intention. "Angry old man..." makes more sense if you've ever interacted with an older customer who wants you (a cashier/shift manager/ect) to change corporate policy on a whim. Somebody who has not worked retail might not be aware of that type of customer.
posted by lattiboy at 4:08 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm not going to argue over the general use of the word "mansplaining." The site norms are what they are. But I do think divabat is expanding the meaning of it considerably to include an expression of disagreement about how matters should have been handled. Likewise "talking over" is a real, physical behavior that happens in IRL conversations and characterizing online discussions with that term is similarly an expansion.
posted by tyllwin at 4:11 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

What matters is not what people "label" us. What matters is what we are. If someone says you said or did a racist thing, the key is to focus on the thing they say is racist, and to listen to their argument carefully and honestly with the aim of correcting the problem or creating understanding.

I think this presumes that someone's opinion of your behavior is necessarily correct. I think it also presumes that what you say or do = what you are.

It may be more effective for all concerned to focus on the results and effects of racist, sexist, misogynist, etc. actions than simply to try to pin labels on people that often put them on the defensive. Sometimes when people get backed into a corner their immediate response is to react aggressively and strike back, not to listen and try to reach understanding.

I'm glad women are getting consciousness raising.

Not trying to derail the conversation but consciousness-raising isn't new. Plenty of women were trying to raise their consciousness back in the 70s. However, the heard tell collective consciousness largely did not include that of women of color or women below a certain socioeconomic level. I'm not sure the situation is significantly better this time around even though it's much easier now to communicate the concepts in a widespread manner. That's probably another discussion for another time.
posted by fuse theorem at 4:12 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

On the other hand, relevant

I probably phrased myself poorly. I meant: Don't assume other people's experiences when they disagree. They may share your experience but simply have come to another conclusion.

But then, I really like old men.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 4:13 PM on June 11, 2014

That last sentence looks different on my computer than it sounded in my head.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 4:13 PM on June 11, 2014 [26 favorites]

I'm not going to argue over the general use of the word "mansplaining." The site norms are what they are. But I do think divabat is expanding the meaning of it considerably to include an expression of disagreement about how matters should have been handled. Likewise "talking over" is a real, physical behavior that happens in IRL conversations and characterizing online discussions with that term is similarly an expansion.

talking over someone in a text forum is inherently different than talking over someone in a vocal discussion venue. Realizing that the way it occurs varies from how communication is taking place is not an "expansion" any more than realizing failing to yield in a vehicle can vary depending on the circumstances, what type of road you're driving on, etc.

Mansplaining is also a very "i know it when i see it" thing. Some folks take this to mean it mostly doesn't exist unless it's a particularly egregious case everyone can agree on and see. It's not just disagreement, it's the way the disagreement is presented especially when it relates to how the person they're disagreeing with "should" be reacting, or whatever.
posted by emptythought at 4:14 PM on June 11, 2014

I'm an exceedingly shrill and equally humorless feminist, but I dismissed the link/article discussed in the OP as meaningless clickbait as soon as I opened it. (Yes, even women can be oblivious to microaggressions. Especially when articles elaborating on accumulations of same seem to misgender Meredith Hunter in their first handful of sentences. @#$%@#$!) When I noticed it was garnering an unusual amount of comments, I started to read the discussion, and it dawned on me almost immediately that things on my dumb list of dumb shit that gets posted in threads about sexism were appearing as responses -- responses to the meaningless clickbait! What? How?!

Could adult humans really get so defensive about an acknowledgment of background radiation-style misogyny, however clumsy? Could an article this clickbait-y really inspire multiple iterations of "But I am not sexist, personally, so you should not be talking about your obviously incorrect notions of sexism in front of me like I'm not even here" and heaps of "But I do not receive this behavior as gendered/sexist, and since it is invisible to me, your idea that it is gendered/sexist is invalid," not to mention every tone argument imaginable? They could, and they did. And here I'd sort of figured we all knew about things like this, how sometimes straws can break backs, and how sometimes you just need to Stand Up and Say Something, even if it's just to an employee or two at Trader Joe's and then your blog.

I kept scrolling, and it all just kind of morphed into this giant blob of sadness that honestly reads to me like one of the most cringe-inducingly sexist discussions I've ever read here. After countless 101s, after this thread and this thread and this one and many more that I am too exhausted to link. OMG. And then I thought, Huh, I've been actually getting that feeling around here more often lately, but I am very, very tired, so I haven't wanted to start a discussion about it because I would want to participate and I don't have the energy for it at all.

So anyway, thanks, divabat. I am too tired to engage with anything else in this thread but I just wanted to say thanks for starting this MeTa. A hale and hearty +1 to everything you wrote.
posted by divined by radio at 4:15 PM on June 11, 2014 [66 favorites]

I worked in retail for a decade, and I'm going to say that structuring things like "obviously people who disagree haven't had experiences that would make them actually know what they're talking about" is a pretty crappy way to argue.

Um, like saying that someone criticizing an article must not have had experiences that would make them actually know what they're talking about? Because that seems to be all over too.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 4:21 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Because that seems to be all over too.

Like what?
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 4:24 PM on June 11, 2014

From divabat's original post:

And while there were a good number of commentors trying to reel in the meta-misogyny and sexism, they are fast becoming outnumbered and overwhelmed.

I'm one of the people who saw this happen in the post and decided not to comment at all lest I be steamrolled by the rising tide (how's that for mixing your metaphors) of ad hominem, sexist attacks. A fighty tone might raise the number of comments and fan the flames, but it doesn't make for good conversation, or much of a conversation at all.

Given the way these threads usually go, and the way this thread is going, I'm kind of stumped about whether we can discuss The Issues of The Day in a civilized, inclusive way. Not how—whether. And that makes me sad, because MetaFilter is somewhere I go for nuanced conversation and varied perspectives.

Sorry if this doesn't add much to the conversation, but I feel distressed at how Every. Single. Conversation. about issues that really concern me and others somehow descends into a miasma of the behavior they are purportedly there to discuss/deconstruct.
posted by mynameisluka at 4:27 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

but I dismissed the link/article discussed in the OP as meaningless clickbait as soon as I opened it.

I am actually wondering, as a legitimate question, why people dismissed this as clickbait. I mean, I may not agree with all of the author's methods, however, I never had any reason to believe that her story wasn't an accurate retelling of the microaggressions that she faced and tried to correct.
posted by Shouraku at 4:28 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Was a MeTa really necessary? I mean i'm not going to tell someone to Sit Down or whatever, but i'm a good portion of the way through that thread and basically every time someone says something shitty they get called out, and the person who called them out gets immediate air support.

The System Is Working, from what i can see, is my point.

This is an extremely exhausting and dispiriting thing to have to do over and over and over. It is even exhausting and dispiriting to read without participating.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 4:32 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Printing out the lyrics to a song you heard on a previous visit, streamed from a 3rd party, which is contracted by a giant corporation, of which the employee may or may not be a local manager of, and then putting that persons full name on your website is not awesome behavior and I'm seriously surprised that people are seemingly fine with it.

That is "angry old man complaining about small print details of a coupon to cashier" behavior. If you've worked in retail the last sentence will make more sense..

I worked in retail for years. Given the amount of totally insane things people complained about* I'd have welcomed someone complaining about something for such a substantive reason. I didn't want to listen to some of the crap they piped in either, but it's not like that was a complaint that was going anywhere.


*One that I remember fondly was about our evil pricing of prunes more expensively than dried apricots, a complaint where the person got so irate that she had to be escorted out of the shop without us even getting a chance to say anything. Also they threw (unpurchased) bags of prunes to punctuate their sentences.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 4:39 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

I try to stay out of discussion about these kinds of issues, because I just don't have anything useful to offer, I don't think, but this comment

What you find here is a rather nasty, very dogmatic echo chamber--and one in which people are commonly accused of bigotry for failing to be enthusiastically and unthinkingly nutty.

Actually, I find that looking in on these threads actually pushes me to the right. So I just come around here less, and try to get myself to stay away from the social/political threads. (As you can see, I failed this time...)

Wanna have a cool discussion with people about H. P. Lovecraft, or find something interesting about trains or BtVS, or whatever? MeFi's a good place. Wanna have a rational, dispassionate, at least minimally objective discussion about social and political issues? I advise you to go elsewhere, my friend... Because around here you are going to find things like actual apparent grownups mouthing mindless, faddish nonsense like "check your privilege," and people shrieking "OMG HE SAID 'NOT ALL MEN'!!!111" if you correct some outlandishly false universal generalization about males.

is about Metafilter itself, and stirs me to respond a bit before my morning coffee wears off.

I think that most people here, at least people who are actively engaged commenting members of the site, the sort of folks who spend (as I do) more time in Metatalk than any other part of the site, would find this risible.

But I'll tell you -- it's the overwhelming opinion about Metafilter in places other than Metafilter amongst people who know about Metafilter but don't come here. I've seen this kind of opinion expressed about MeFi all over the place over the years.

I bums me out a bit, because at the same time as I think there's some small element of truth to it, I think it's also basically looking at an aspect of the site culture (one that I am sometimes mildly exasperated by, too, sure) that makes the community a far, far better, more inclusive, more interesting place than it would otherwise be.

People who are driven away or driven to scorn by the ways (which really have become more front-and-center in the last 5 years or so) in which the community here, or at least many members in it and the moderators, attempt to nudge conversation away from paths that end in sexism and racism and homo- and transphobia and all the rest of the nasty pits that gape open all over much of the rest of the internet -- well, it's not so much our loss as theirs, I think, which I acknowledge is ironic if inclusiveness is something to be valued.

And that's an attitude and a statement that, even if not shared generally, does certainly lead to concerns about echo-chambering (a concern and discussion that is evergreen, here and in every web community). I don't think it's something that needs to be worried overmuch about, as long as a) it is stated explicitly, as it always has been, that all are welcome and you can and should think what you like but we expect certain standards of behaviour to be followed and b) that care is taken, on an individual level, to just step back from the pile-on/flameout dynamic that crops up all too often.

Metafilter is seen in many places as a beacon of rational discussion, thanks in large part to steady hands on the tiller and a culture that values words and the ways they are used. Metafilter is also seen as a place where people simply love arguing about minutiae and can sometimes be, yes, dogmatic and hectoring (which is an impression I think that people have of the membership much more than the administration and staff).

For my part, I sometimes grow mildly weary of our collective inclination to hammer at bumps until they are smooth too, but I absolutely and steadfastly think, even if it gets upsetting and in the heat of arguments can lead to valued voices simply giving up, even if it means that in many places around the web at large people point at the latest Airing of Grievances and sigh 'they're at it again', that it's valuable and positive overall. It's talking about things, and disagreeing, that keeps things fresh, and gives us the opportunity to discard, personally and collectively, stuff that isn't working, and come up with new stuff that will work better.

At the same time, I am inclined to agree that while pointing out things like privilege and prejudice and all the other bad things -- in the service of wanting a better community and a better world overall -- can sometimes end up in the nets being cast a little too widely. People can disagree -- holy shit can they disagree -- about stuff, and doing our damnedest to listen to them and assume good faith until bad faith is unequivocally demonstrated goes a long way.

Which is what the whole hugs thing is about, of course.

So sorry if this is too off-topic, although I reckon it's germane. I'm not trying to explain anything to anyone -- as usual, I'm just nattering on at length about my own personal feelings about this stuff.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:44 PM on June 11, 2014 [45 favorites]

I am actually wondering, as a legitimate question, why people dismissed this as clickbait.

http://www.alternet.org

If you click the link above, you'll end up at alternets homepage. The list of articles there will give you an idea of what that site is all about.
posted by valkane at 4:48 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Sometimes something as simple as saying, "I hear what you're saying," can help a conversation go more smoothly.

And somtimes NOT saying things like "Jesus Christ, what a thing to say" can also help conversations go more smoothly.
posted by Melismata at 4:52 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I liked that quite a bit stavros, and found myself nodding along.

I want to pull quote and highlight the hell out of this:

assume good faith until bad faith is unequivocally demonstrated
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:52 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

If you click the link above, you'll end up at alternets homepage. The list of articles there will give you an idea of what that site is all about.

Thank you for that, it explained a great deal.
posted by Shouraku at 4:53 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Thank you for that, it explained a great deal.

You're very welcome.
posted by valkane at 4:55 PM on June 11, 2014

Yeah, it didn't get flagged much, and I don't know why that is,

Yeah, I didn't flag it, because a cursory read made it feel like Op-Ed (and, to me, clickbaity op-ed), and that kind of thing is just not for me - though I recognise it as a common and popular-with-many 'genre' of post.

To put it more succinctly: I see op-ed posts of similar levels of quality posted all the time; flagging seems to be redundant. They don't often go as badly as that one (I suppose there is more furious agreement if it's about republicans, or whatever), and a lot of members seem to enjoy them - and I kinda feel like I shouldn't really try to enforce my tastes on mefi as a whole so just leave it.

I don't know if lots of people felt this way, but I'm sure lots of people feel this way about particular types of posts.
posted by smoke at 4:59 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

And to expand on this a little: I do subscribe to the view that shitty OPs can make for shitty threads, however I get resentful of the implication of this: that OPs dealing with 'hot' topics like feminism or trans stuff or whatever should have a much higher bar to clear than other, weak OPs about other topics, that are allowed to stand and go fine. It's not fair that it places a burden on those invested in these topics - that are often rife with injustice, anyway. And so that's also why I don't flag them. We should be able to have weak OPs on topics like feminism without the userbase dragging each other off a cliff.

PS I know some people hate the whole 'tone' argument thing, but I can't help feeling the OP and especially this thread would have gone approx a thousand times better without people being really sarcastic and/or biting. I know the issues offend, hurt, inflame, etc; still the sarky hyperbole just degrades dialogue and upsets people.
posted by smoke at 5:07 PM on June 11, 2014 [12 favorites]

But I'll tell you -- it's the overwhelming opinion about Metafilter in places other than Metafilter amongst people who know about Metafilter but don't come here.

It's also an opinion held by some of us who have been here a long time.
posted by DWRoelands at 5:08 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

"Yeah, you know what? I know as much about this stuff as the people who tend to lecture me about it around here, and, to be perfectly honest, I seem to have thought much more deeply about it."

I would find it a bit presumptuous if a woman told me she knew as much about what men deal with than I did; I have found it presumptuous in the past when New Yorkers have told me that they knew as much about the Midwest than I did (me having grown up there).
posted by klangklangston at 5:09 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

I held back because I know I don't really have the facility to lay out my thoughts in a manner which will actually reflect the depth and the thought of my feelings on the topic. What really shocked me reading the thread though was that I thought going in that, while a little thin, the post and the article was something that reasonable people could disagree about and not end up shouting at each other over. Shouraku mentioned the two different points in the article that were at play, namely:

1) Person hears problematic music being played in a grocery store that is very upsetting to them.
2) Method by which the person tries to have the musics removed.

I figured that 1) would be a no-brainer and the discussion would mainly center around 2) somewhat amicably. But as noted it didn't end up that way. Certainly not a great thread.
posted by Carillon at 5:11 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's also an opinion held by some of us who have been here a long time.

Well, sure. I was responding to something a site member said upthread, so clearly there are folks here who feel that way too.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinions about stuff, and everyone is equally able to shape the culture of the place through their participation (or, equally, to let the status quo ride by not actively participating). It's a glorious experiment, and nearly 15 years on, I still enjoy watching it and thinking about it as it evolves.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:15 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I find myself repeatedly frustrated with the catch-22 of trying to challenge sexism.

The jump is so fast from, "I don't like that" to "stop pearl clutching / you are tumblr / get out of your ivory tower" with a side of "stop being so cruel / stop being so sexist, women / you are terrifyingly hurtful".

I don't have a fix for it. All I know is that since the last couple shootings I've had difficulty eating and sleeping. I feel hunted. I'm checking for guns. The recent militia actions across the country, the other shootings, and the disturbing number of people who approve of the idea that women who don't offer sex without ever being a slut deserve to be shot.

I'm tired of reading about women concealing sexual harassment, assault, and rape because of the negative effect it would have on their careers, and who get repeatedly blamed for being harassed, assaulted, and raped.

I'm tired of how ubiquitous it is, and how "shut up and take it" seems to so much be the message people say over and over again. Don't bother the nice store clerk. Don't bother your nice friends. Don't bother the nice published author. Don't bother the nice public speaker. Don't bother the nice political figure. Don't bother the nice blog. If only you weren't such a woman, they wouldn't have had to do things to you.

At every level - shut up and take it. Don't be so sensitive. Don't clutch your pearls. Don't use complicated language. Don't seem educated. Don't write badly. Don't use words we don't like. Don't object to what we did. Don't think you can get away without explaining it all on demand.

Often the demands are directly contradictory or impossible - you can object when this is the most serious sexism with a side note of why don't you just become a CEO already and stop bothering us with this nonsense.

I hurt.

I physically ache.

I feel immense pain.

I would like there to be a world where a woman can object to a song and not have her be described as a horrible person who should shut up.
posted by Deoridhe at 5:15 PM on June 11, 2014 [82 favorites]

Fists O'Fury: "Actually, I find that looking in on these threads actually pushes me to the right."

I haven't read the Trader Joes thread. I'm commenting here because my impression is that this thread isn't about the Trader Joes thread, but about misogyny in MeFi. From what divabat said at the start of this MeTa, I totally agree with her and her goals. However, I'm not about to wade into the Trader Joe's thread, nor to read every comment in this thread, for exactly the reason Fists stated.

I'm a liberal guy. Not ultra-left wing or anything, but every time one of those "Answer these questions to find out your true political persuasion" quizzes gets posted on MeFi, the quizzes say "You're a leftist. Not far-left, but left". I went to a very leftist university, though. And there were so, so many idiots. There was so much irrationality, so many logical fallacies. And what happened was, it ended out swinging me more to the right while I was there. When I'd come back home and talk politics with friends, they were always surprised about how less liberal I'd become while going to a very liberal university.

That wore off within the first year after graduation. I went back to my more innate leftist beliefs, and those have stayed pretty consistent for the last, let's see...18, 19 years?

So, while I may not agree with all that Fists O'Fury said in that comment, this part rings true.
posted by Bugbread at 5:32 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

...so much of Tumblr is made up of young people, especially young women, people figuring out their identities...

I did not know that.

...there's a lot of harassment on Tumblr, especially from people who come from places like /r/tumblrinaction specifically to harass POC, queer people, disabled people and women...

Wait, what the actual fuck? There's actually a subreddit for that?

Any chance someone could send me some links where I could read more about this Tumblr demographic and the harassment they're subjected to? (I'm not going to dignify the subreddit itself with my time.)

Sorry for the derail, but I figure this thread's already gone off the tracks. Maybe if I can learn something it'll help redeem this whole mess somehow?
posted by Guernsey Halleck at 5:33 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Person over-reacts and responds inappropriately to offensive media content, therefore discrediting herself, her group and the general category of her opinions!

Whew. Glad we got that settled.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:33 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

mathowie: "I'm trying to figure out how to predict/re-rail these kinds of things, what we could do as mods to prevent them from spiraling, but this one is super tough."

cortex: "It's easy to get swept into having your say about something problematic and thus get distracted from the more direct route of just signaling "this isn't such a great idea" with a flag."

This week I used the "I've already posted three times in this thread, maybe that's enough" idea for the first time (I'm pretty sure I got that Jessamyn), and stopped posting in a thread that was drawing me in more than seemed appropriate, and it actually felt really good to NOT go overboard on that thread.

I wonder if you could set up a sidebar that would automatically appear in contentious threads, urging people to think about taking a step back?

Something like:

if (number of comments > x) and ((number of comments / number of participants) > y) then

show sidebar:

This thread seems to be getting a little contentious. Please consider adopting the WAIT ("Why am I talking?") strategy and a voluntary three-comment limit to help make this thread better.

Just an idea.
posted by kristi at 5:35 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Even worse... Somebody posted a piss-poor OpEd on MetaFilter!

Or, maybe more appropriately...
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:37 PM on June 11, 2014

What? OF course it's art. That doesn't say anything about this thread or anything, but songs are art.

Music is an art form but Under My Thumb is a commercial product made under commercial constraint for sale to a mass audience. Acting like it's some Deep Artistic Statement and somehow not playing it as background music in the supermarket is censoring an Important Artistic Work is just bullshit, and should be called for such more often.
posted by immlass at 5:40 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

kristi: "This week I used the "I've already posted three times in this thread, maybe that's enough" idea for the first time...I wonder if you could set up a sidebar that would..."

I really dislike the "three comment" rule-of-thumb, because while it can help keep a small subset of super-vocal people from totally dominating a conversation, I think the greater effect it has (on the blue, not here) is to dissuade people from looking at threads as discussions and to think of them more as "places to go, loudly declare your opinions, and bail". I've seen people making really interesting points and discussion say "Well, I don't want to talk too much, so I'm out of here".

I know the mods are overtaxed and understaffed, but I've found the approach where mods come in and say "Hey, user X, let's not make this thread entirely about you" to be far more effective than creating a general culture that promotes declarations over conversations.
posted by Bugbread at 5:44 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

I just thought of a good point. How is this an acceptable FPP when she posts the employees full name? you can get banned on here for doing that to someone. Is it ok because it's by proxy or something?

Literally, from the anchor post of the FPP, "I returned to Trader Joe’s to speak to a harried name redacted". If you open it and cmd/ctrl+f "speak to a harried" it's right there.

Should we really be giving this sort of thing airtime, even if it's speaking truth to power or whatever?
posted by emptythought at 5:45 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's not the naming but the personal details, i.e. "doxxing", which some of us (including me in a round about way) got close to. I feel bad about that.

Your overall point stands though, and this, for me, is clearly outragefilter which is frequently deleted.
posted by Big_B at 5:49 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's only doxxing if it's somebody we like.
posted by Justinian at 5:50 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

I love that idea kristi. A couple of variations that come to mind:

Displaying the message only if that user has commented greater than n times?

Forcing users in threads of that nature who have commented sufficient number of times to go through a 'preview wall' of a few seconds wait? (Message like "This thread seems contentious, please read through your comment for (n counting down) seconds and remember that Everyone needs a hug.")
posted by ElliotH at 5:51 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

If its one thing Metafilter hates, its Trader Joes employees.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:51 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

I literally have never read an article in a newspaper that does not name the people spoken to in the article. She named him because that's literally what every single journalist on earth does. In the old days, they used to print addresses as well, so you knew specifically who was being written about.

There are a few exceptions. Rape victims go unnamed. Children, sometimes. He doesn't fall into any category I know of that involves excluding his name.

I feel bad about that

You should, because it was your repeated insistence on declaring him to be a low-paid non-manager -- in a situation where he had already been named and his place of employment identified -- that made me fact check your claim.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 5:51 PM on June 11, 2014 [17 favorites]

I think that posting someones full name, which along with a location can be used to easily find them on social media especially when you're going "And this persons sucks because XYZ" is doxing for all intents and purposes.

This isn't a newspaper article, this isn't capitol J journalism or some investigative report. This is "i had a customer service issue and this employee didn't help me so i'm posting their full name".

Is there not a marked difference between this and the 6 oclock news doing a special report on some scummy mini mart that's paying cash for EBT cards or something? because it seems like an obvious difference to me.

Posting someones name in this sort of situation is essentially making yourself judge dredd. It's inviting the internet hate machine.
posted by emptythought at 5:55 PM on June 11, 2014 [13 favorites]

I am less interested in a discussion of what is journalism than I am in a discussion of what is art. It's journalism enough that we don't get to criticize her by inventing on the spot special rules that apply to this story but not others that we idiosyncratically think is real journalism.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 5:57 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

Whew. Glad we got that settled.

did you mean to post this in both this thread and the one on the blue or are you just having a Bad Tab Day
posted by elizardbits at 6:00 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

So do i not have a legitimate grievance that his full name was posted? because people in the thread are literally googling him and finding out info. You, in fact, were one of the people who did that.

I'm not trying to be a nit picking asshole, and i've already said i take no issue with objecting to the song being played on whatever muzak/DMX/etc service they use. It's just like, why publicly throw that guy under the bus?

It's either an angry spite thing, or it's a trying to be a Real Journalist thing. And both are kinda gross. I just can't think of a legitimate reason that would be ok, and i would pretty damn angry if i was him and my name had been posted online. It's additionally, somewhat against the social norms for this site from what i've seen over nearly a decade.

I don't think i'm inventing on the spot special rules either. This isn't the Times, it's basically a blog post. I could seriously see this post having been deleted before it amassed 10 comments if a big pull quote including his name had been copy-pasted into the FPP. But putting it behind a link makes it cool?

I just think a fairly clearly defined line is being crossed here, and that people are lumping in taking issue with that with the general nitpicking of every little detail of what she said.
posted by emptythought at 6:01 PM on June 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

A Bad Tab Day for me is when all I have to drink is Diet Coke.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:02 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

"I think that posting someones full name, which along with a location can be used to easily find them on social media especially when you're going "And this persons sucks because XYZ" is doxing for all intents and purposes. "

That's nonsense. It's better for everyone if the default for news stories (which the headline very much positions this as) is to give full names of anyone you talk to. It's part of the general idea that the public should be able to fact-check the journalism too.
posted by klangklangston at 6:03 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

So do i not have a legitimate grievance that his full name was posted?

I have no idea if that grievance is generally legitimate.

But it's probably not relevant in a thread discussing sexism and misogyny on MetaFilter, except perhaps as an object lesson in how pervasive said sexism and misogyny are.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:05 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

emptythought, I generally agree with Bunny Ultramod on politics but I 100% agree with you that it was shitty of the author to include the manager's name. I really doubt she told him that she was going to publish this, as she didn't speak to him as a journalist but as a customer.
posted by oinopaponton at 6:06 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

You, in fact, were one of the people who did that.

Yes. I googled information that he himself made public in order to fact check claims about his position and salary. That's actually why you publish these things -- so the discussion can be based in fact, not presumption. Because, left to presumption, she was a rich woman who screamed at a bag boy, or whatever the conveniently dismissive fabrication was.

I didn't email him. I didn't threaten him. I didn't link to any of his information. As far as I can tell, he has had the exact same experience from this than anybody has when they are presented in a less than flattering light in a news story. And a lot of people have defended him.

I mean, I once wrote a song about Stephen Slater, the Jet Blu attendant who quit his job dramatically. He didn't ask to be a public figure, nor to have me pen an ode to him. Maybe it's unfair, but if it's unfair, it's always unfair for the news to do it, not just in this one instance.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:07 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

"It's either an angry spite thing, or it's a trying to be a Real Journalist thing. And both are kinda gross. I just can't think of a legitimate reason that would be ok, and i would pretty damn angry if i was him and my name had been posted online. It's additionally, somewhat against the social norms for this site from what i've seen over nearly a decade. "

No. Here on MeFi, there's an expectation that our identities are tied to our screen names, and many people have legitimate reasons to keep those names separate from their other identities. In journalism, full names should be used as a matter of public record. It's part of what separates journalism from gossip columns.

"I don't think i'm inventing on the spot special rules either. This isn't the Times, it's basically a blog post. I could seriously see this post having been deleted before it amassed 10 comments if a big pull quote including his name had been copy-pasted into the FPP. But putting it behind a link makes it cool?"

Alternet is a journalistic outlet, and dismissing a blog as not bound by the rules of journalism — in fact, explicitly held to different rules unconnected with the level of formality — is ridiculous. It's that kind of thinking that leads to people just putting specious bullshit up on blogs because whatevs, it's not journalism. Dude spoke for the company in an official role. Dude should know, honestly, that as soon as someone identifies themself as a journalist, that you kick that up to the PR folks so that you don't get caught out as a First Mate (or whatever) making policy pronouncements for Trader Joe's, and if you do make 'em, then you're fair game to have those quotes printed with your name attached. Seriously, this is as silly as arguing that you shouldn't publish photos taken in public that have people's faces in them because they could be identified.
posted by klangklangston at 6:08 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Dude should know, honestly, that as soon as someone identifies themself as a journalist, that you kick that up to the PR folks

Sure, but I don't see where she ever identified herself as a journalist (I just went back and checked, but correct me if I'm wrong).
posted by oinopaponton at 6:11 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

But it's probably not relevant in a thread discussing sexism and misogyny on MetaFilter, except perhaps as an object lesson in how pervasive said sexism and misogyny are.

And i think we're doing a bad job at discussing this sort of thing if we're going to let that sort of stuff go because we have more important things to discuss or something.

I'm not shitting up the main thread, or derailing the discussion about those issues. I specifically brought this up in MeTa(and a MeTa which is about that thread!) because this seemed like the appropriate place.

Oinopaponton covers most of my grievance here. She wasn't interviewing him, she essentially wrote something that would be a write in "from one of our readers" on consumerist.

Dude should know, honestly, that as soon as someone identifies themself as a journalist, that you kick that up to the PR folks so that you don't get caught out as a First Mate (or whatever) making policy pronouncements for Trader Joe's

Where did she do this? As far as i can tell, she presented herself as a customer and then posted this when she didn't get a real response. She didn't go and go "hey i'm a journalist, i'm trying to figure out what's up with this".

You're elevating this to a level of something that it's not. If he knew he was speaking officially, and it would be published, and still gave this crap answer then we'd be talking about something completely different. But he didn't, from the information we have available.

When the TV News, or whoever, does a "stealth sting" where they pretend to be customers they blur faces and don't give names.

And Bunny, the fact that you didn't harass him or try and find more of his personal information is not some guarantee no one else outraged by this story wont. This is the internet, we've covered this a lot on here.
posted by emptythought at 6:13 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

Yknow, as a former Tumblr SJW type, I have a LOT of criticism against the way Tumblr does social justice: without nuance, too absolutist, didactic, UScentric.

I wouldn't class Mefi like that at all.
posted by divabat at 6:13 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

So do i not have a legitimate grievance that his full name was posted?

I don't have an answer in a general sense, regarding the ethics of communication in the wide world. I think pointedly naming people can be anywhere on the train line from slighty weird to totally shitty, and it depends a lot on the context and apparent motive.

But there is not a general policy on Metafilter that links can not lead to stuff that has people's real names in them. The policy we have here about such stuff is specifically about not taking personal details off of mefites' non-google-indexed profile pages and introducing that stuff into indexed discussion threads on the site.

I think there's a decent argument to be made that it wasn't good post material, and I think you could fold a "this seems like a weirdly personal point of identification to include in the article" aspect into that argument pretty reasonably. But there's no "this should never have been posted because it violates a Metafilter policy about real names" grievance, no.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:13 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

It's considered polite to identify yourself as a journalist, but it's not universally required. If it were, a lot of investigative reporting would never get done. There are certain situations where you are ethically obligated to identify yourself as a reporter, but speaking to an official representative of a company acting in his official capacity is not one of them.

I'm going to guess she didn't know she was going to write this story when she spoke to him. I complain to businesses quite frequently, and generally don't say "by the way, I am an art critic and this might show up in my story."
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:16 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

This does really blur the line between poorly written op-ed and overly-specific Yelp review.
posted by lattiboy at 6:16 PM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

And i think we're doing a bad job at discussing this sort of thing if we're going to let that sort of stuff go because we have more important things to discuss or something.

Okay, I'll try this another way.

In a MeTa post that is clearly and unambiguously about discussing how MeFi in general handles sexism and misogyny, is it more important to:

a) discuss how MeFi in general handles sexism and misogyny

or

b) ignore how MeFi handles sexism and misogyny and instead focus on something that someone else did on a site which is not bound by MeFi's rules?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:17 PM on June 11, 2014 [7 favorites]

But I'll tell you -- it's the overwhelming opinion about Metafilter in places other than Metafilter amongst people who know about Metafilter but don't come here. I've seen this kind of opinion expressed about MeFi all over the place over the years.

I think it has some truth to it. So what? I mean, nothing but your own blog is likely to have discourse at whatever exact point one thinks is perfectly balanced on some sort of "troglodyte to PC pearl-clutcher" scale. I can find great value here even knowing that MeFi is more PC than I'll ever be. I can find value on Reddit, too, even knowing that there are some very icky people there.

I mean, really, there about a million places where I can use "bitch" as a verb or a gendered insult and no one will bat an eye. It's fine that this isn't one of them. I don't want it to be, for that matter, because here, we get to hear and interact with people who just aren't going to hang out in a place where that's the norm. Having to roll my eyes from time to time is a cheap price for that climate.
posted by tyllwin at 6:20 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

So what?

Precisely. That's the (rhetorical) question I tried to address in the rest of my comment.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:22 PM on June 11, 2014

In a MeTa post that is clearly and unambiguously about discussing how MeFi in general handles sexism and misogyny...

This MeTa is about that, but it was also posted in response to that thread and links directly to it. If i have an issue with the thread, should i have made another meta?

I'm obviously not going to at this point because i'm pretty much done with the issue i had, but yea just asking.

I wasn't going STOP THE PRESSES KILL ALL PREVIOUS DISCUSSION, nor was i talking over anyone. If it was interpreted that way, i'm sorry.
posted by emptythought at 6:22 PM on June 11, 2014

I'm almost certain that most of the posts on /r/tumblrinaction are parodies. Hilarious, but parodies. I simply refuse to believe there are that many schizophrenics running around unmedicated.
posted by codswallop at 6:24 PM on June 11, 2014

I don't see a problem with naming someone who is the public face of that particular TJ's. It's part of the job of being a manager.
posted by gingerest at 6:25 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think the cognitive dissonance here is that those coming at this from a vaguely anti-feminist angle (whether intentionally or by just stumbling into the cliches) are taking this little article -- basically a one-anecdote blog post -- and reacting to it as though it were a treatise. If it even presents a thesis, it's an extremely narrow one. And there's very little "shaming" going on in it. The dialogue with the manager might be maybe a little embarrassing for him, but the overall effect is to show that he's dismissive out of ignorance, not out of malice, and by the end he agrees that some of the songs might not be totally appropriate.

So there's a disconnect between the really mild thing the linked article is, and the strength of reaction being mobilized against it.

It's not a great article! But the kneejerk anti-feminist reactions to it are much worse.

And it doesn't help that these reactions (unintentionally?) participate in a longstanding pattern of taking even the most mildly feminist things and reacting to them as though they were beyond-the-pale radicalism.
posted by nobody at 6:29 PM on June 11, 2014 [13 favorites]

It's considered polite to identify yourself as a journalist, but it's not universally required.

I work with journalists. It is still, even in this day and age, considered ethical behaviour to tell people when they are on the record. And unethical/shady not to.

This was a personal grievance made public, not investigative journalism. An op-ed, not an article. Did she go to J School? If so, she should know this. She should not have used his full name here.
posted by zarq at 6:30 PM on June 11, 2014 [24 favorites]

That's the (rhetorical) question I tried to address in the rest of my comment.

I don't take issue with you Stavros, more with the people who express that attitude.
posted by tyllwin at 6:32 PM on June 11, 2014

Moving back to the original topic of the post at hand, I don't even know what to say to the women of MeFi (let alone the world).

I think the vast majority of men on MeFi--or at least I hope so--are in favour of equality and an end to -isms in general. And really, it's up to us to kill this fucking boyzone crap.

Who's in?

I simply refuse to believe there are that many schizophrenics running around unmedicated.

Could we please not do this?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:32 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

I don't know which journalists you work with, but I worked with one of the most highly awarded food critics in America. She never identified herself when she went to a restaurant. She did then, as she does now, wear disguises, and use a credit card that would prevent her from being identified. She does this because the service changes when people know she's a critic.

Had this author said "I am a journalist," she would have gotten a markedly different response, and it would not have represented the experience of a non-journalist. It would have been a story about a company managing the press, instead of the way they respond to an individual woman's complaints. That's a different story.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:34 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

I just think a fairly clearly defined line is being crossed here, and that people are lumping in taking issue with that with the general nitpicking of every little detail of what she said.

I think the way you see that line in your head may be a lot starker than it actually is in reality, on MetaFilter. cortex explained how he sees it and I just wanted to chime in that, yeah, being a manager of a public place and having people know your name as a result is something that happens. On-site doxxing or even wink-wink not-quite-doxing (i.e. I am going to link to whois with someone's phone number so you can all call them) are not okay.

I find op-eds on Alternet usually sketch city (and yes, I'm sorry, clickbaity) but I wasn't around today and didn't flag this, as I suspect many people weren't. For people who disliked the post: please use the flagging feature. For people who get into giant same-as-always monster-grudge-wars, please reconsider the utility of those grudge wars on a more thinly-staffed MetaFilter, a place where people still think it's okay to argue about comments that were live on the site for eleven minutes as if they reflect the opinions of anyone (and weren't stupid ironic jokes in the first place, dude you KNOW BETTER than to make those jokes).

I simply refuse to believe there are that many schizophrenics running around unmedicated.

Don't do this. My SO's schizophrenic son is quite well-medicated and sometimes the medication just doesn't work and it's fucking heartbreaking and we would all weep with joy if he were well enough to post shit on Tumblr. Stop.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 6:35 PM on June 11, 2014 [64 favorites]

I would cede to Zarq's experience as a working publicist with years of experience on this one, Bunny.

If it amounts to a hill of beans, I would add that my own years of experience working in PR, and also as a journalist, accord with his take. Obviously, restaurant reviewing is an exception - it is one of very few on a general level. In my experience, failure to declare on/off record signifies a rookie mistake, or unprofessionalism. As the number of amateur journalists with little to no training have exploded, so too has the practice of not doing this.
posted by smoke at 6:39 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

So. Have we sorted out what it is we wanted to sort out? I just can't seem to follow if that has happened or not as the original meta was framed? I wish sometimes contentious metas including a kind of series of checkboxes that we could tick off.

(x) mainsplaining for and against
(x) individual call outs for misogyny and bafflement at being called misogynist
(x) journalistic quality
( ) how we can improve mefi as a result of this meta

That last one.... Its the one that is the struggle isn't it?

Here's what I've learned thus far:

I might be slightly immune to the general culture of misogyny in the West and if I am I need to fix that for my daughters' sakes.

We all still get fighty here sometimes. Even IF the topic is actually important.

Covering important topics doesn't apologize for and allow lazy journalism from pros. Doxing included. That part was ungood. Gender of teller and topic not material.

The lyrics from the stones.

The rapper snow is deep (for real)

Bafflement isn't a word but should be.
posted by chasles at 6:41 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would cede to Zarq's experience as a working publicist with years of experience on this one, Bunny

Um, I was the editor in chief of an Alternative newsweekly, the art critic for City Pages for three years, and recently had my own column at MinnPost for three years, as well as being a Premack Award winner for public affairs reporting and having written for The Guardian.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:43 PM on June 11, 2014 [13 favorites]

The more I think about it the more I think something wrong is going on if you can read the article's mild back-and-forth with the manager and think it's painting him in such a bad light that it risks Internet Feminist Retaliation. His response is average. He is not a special-case misogynist anyone would bother getting personal about. To think otherwise suggests you're responding to a phantom feminist menace.
posted by nobody at 6:45 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

The appeal to authority argument is unfair, here, because Bunny's open about his identity on the internet and zarq's not.
posted by gingerest at 6:49 PM on June 11, 2014

This was a poorly written flamebait article by an obnoxious "author, cultural theorist, producer, and media consultant" with a Ph.D. from NYU who was somehow unaware that Meredith Hunter was a man, and then had the intellectual dishonesty to quietly edit out that rather telling mistake. How is this junk a good post for MetaFilter?
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 6:50 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

It's true. And I actually am Bunny Ultramod from the widely despised band The Ultramods.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:50 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

Look I'm not gonna get into a dick measuring competition with you - our experiences differ; I believe Zarq's experience is the norm, and I believe he knows more about this than you, and I'm well aware of how stringed you feel that your bow is.
posted by smoke at 6:50 PM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

Well, PR people have a right to their opinion, but if you don't want to measure dicks, don't wave yours around first.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:53 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

To think otherwise suggests you're responding to a phantom feminist menace.

This is not at all why I am bothered by her using his name and I don't understand why you would think this. The op-ed doesn't paint him in a terrible light. He's a middle manager who reacted about how you would expect a middle manager to react. Her use of his name bothers me because I don't see why she chose to include it at all except out of spite, as her problem is with corporate policy.

I am a feminist (and a woman) if it matters.
posted by oinopaponton at 6:53 PM on June 11, 2014 [13 favorites]

I regret doubling down on attacking the article in the original thread, and apologize if my posts ultimately contributed to a negative community vibe. My opinions on the piece itself stand, but I should have FIAMOed and helped make room for a more constructive conversation. I think I was trying to outline the ways in which I felt my issues with the article were distinct from those of the misogyny-denial squad, but probably failed majorly at that by getting way too invested in ultimately not-so-important elements and drowning out more germane perspectives.
posted by threeants at 6:56 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

This is not at all why I am bothered by her using his name and I don't understand why you would think this.

Sorry, I think I got seduced by my language a bit and didn't notice it was unclear. "To think otherwise" meant specifically those who thought publishing his name risked retaliation being directed toward him. (And nothing you said suggested that's where your concerns were coming from, so it wasn't meant to be directed at you at all.)
posted by nobody at 7:02 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Let me restate myself more politely. I agree that its almost universally a good practice to identify yourself as a journalist. But there are some circumstances where it can be counterproductive, and there are some circumstances, such as when you're just going about your daily life and only later decide you're going to write about it, where it is unreasonable to expect that the identification is going to be made. I weave in anecdotes from my daily life all the time, as do many journalists, and in none of them did I identify myself as a jouranalist.

I mapped out specific examples of places where it's actually counterproductive to identify yourself, and mentioned that if she had done so, she would have wound up being managed as a member of the press, reather than responded to as a regular customer.

All this is valid. And people can disagree. Journalists disagree about that line all the time. But if that disagreement is exclusively based in an appeal to authority, well, I have some authority as well, and it's odd that it's discounted.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 7:07 PM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

Thanks, nobody. This is such a hot mess of hot buttons that it's hard to keep track.
posted by oinopaponton at 7:10 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

(I actually agree with Bunny, despised or not, on the matter at hand. I have no opinion about whose dick is bigger, it's just not fair to zarq that someone else entered him into the dick-measuring contest which he's bound to lose because he can't open his pants as fully. Oh, this metaphor is gross.)
posted by gingerest at 7:11 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Well, PR people have a right to their opinion, but if you don't want to measure dicks, don't wave yours around first.

I'm not "waving anything around." Nor am I appealing to authority. I am speaking only from my professional experience. I find the metaphor particularly distasteful and would appreciate it if you and gingerest would drop it.

There is a huge difference between investigative journalism, public affairs reporting or acting as a restaurant critic and what this specific journalist did, in filing an op-ed regarding a personal grievance. She was not acting as a reporter or critic until she felt personally slighted. You cannot fail to understand the distinction.
posted by zarq at 7:20 PM on June 11, 2014 [22 favorites]

In all fairness, I was the one who dragged dicks into this thread. I hereby vow to keep dicks off my keyboard, and I sincerely wish I had said "fish-measuring" or something instead - perhaps more absurd, but certainly less... disturbingly visual.
posted by smoke at 7:23 PM on June 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

I understand the distinction. I was pointing out that there is no universal rule that one must always identify one's self as a journalist, which seemed to be your point.

But, then, I think my participation in this particular discussion has run its course. I have made my point, and I realize that this thread, which is about misogyny on MetaFilter, has become a referendum on journalistic ethics in one individual linked story, and I don't wish to continue to derail the subject.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 7:26 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Her use of his name bothers me because I don't see why she chose to include it at all except out of spite, as her problem is with corporate policy. "

Because you include the names of people you quote to protect both them and you.

If she was going to quote him, which she appears to, she should both use his name (or note that he refused to give it, as she did with the call center woman) and have identified herself as a journalist.

Sometimes there's a need to talk to people without identifying yourself, but it increases the libel risk, and is something reporters generally have to get their editors to sign off on, just like using anonymous sources.

These are the ethics I was trained with, at least.

It's also worth noting that this is nominally a column under "economics," rather than an op-ed (or really, opinion piece, since it's weird to think of anything on the web as "opposite the editorial"). It wasn't great journalism, but a lot of the objections here are weird.
posted by klangklangston at 7:32 PM on June 11, 2014 [4 favorites]

I kinda skimmed a little but since we're talking about journalistic standards and all I assume we've solved patriarchy now?
posted by shakespeherian at 7:39 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

I simply refuse to believe there are that many schizophrenics running around unmedicated.

Could we please not do this?

Ahhh, don't worry. My comments get deleted fairly quickly.
posted by codswallop at 7:40 PM on June 11, 2014

That's not an excuse for being shitty.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:41 PM on June 11, 2014 [25 favorites]

Ahhh, don't worry. My comments get deleted fairly quickly.

Not in meta they don't. It's a pretty high bar here, and even if they were, they get quoted, which confuses later readers. Also, you did catch the bit about fewer mod hours, right?
posted by cjorgensen at 7:44 PM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

Music is an art form but Under My Thumb is a commercial product made under commercial constraint for sale to a mass audience.

for the love of little christmas cookies we already have enough grand debates going on in this thread we do not need to add the whole "Is Pop Culture Truly Art" minefield on top of the shit-and-corn-dog trifle that is this thread already
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:46 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

shit-and-corn-dog trifle that is this thread already

If there ever was a time to bring back recipe posts in Meta...
posted by lattiboy at 7:57 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

Ideology should not trump art.

Sorry I didn't respond to this earlier. I had to get back to work -- at the art museum where I'm employed, editing a catalogue about artists who used their art to protest the ideology of Hitler's regime.

But please, get me up to speed about how anyone who ever offers a critique of popular culture is an authoritarian who wants to censor all art while taking a shit on the 1st Amendment.
posted by scody at 8:06 PM on June 11, 2014 [15 favorites]

Bunny Ultramod: "I understand the distinction. I was pointing out that there is no universal rule that one must always identify one's self as a journalist, which seemed to be your point.

Not exactly. I should have been clearer that I was speaking about this situation, and similar instances.

I don't wish to continue to derail the subject."

Neither do I. Consider it dropped.
posted by zarq at 8:55 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

What's up? Usually this kind of fighting only happens right before the holidays.

♫ ARE YOU READY FOR THE SUMMERRRRR?!? ♫
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:04 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

These two threads make me so fundamentally sad. Just... really down. I've been following and reading for nearly 2 days.

I've had a little bit too much time on "the internet at large" lately, and I thought this was the place I could to escape. The place where I don't have to face whether or not my experience as a woman is valid or not.

The reason this is affecting me is because last night I went to a pizza place, ordered a slice, and the guy goes, "What the bitch wants, the bitch gets." And today, I had an iced coffee overflow and when I tried to suck off the excess, a passerby said, "I'll give you something to suck on."

That combined with people out to actually kill people like me because we dare to not give them attention, plus women on the internet constantly having to defend/be aggressive online and in real life has really put me on edge.

And now this. It truly is a hotbutton topic that I wish we could do better.

As much as I appreciate this Metatalk and the way it was framed, I don't think we're going to solve anything here. Because people can't even agree IRL how to deal. We literally don't even have a vocabulary that isn't attacked. It is a site problem and it's also a massive, massive societal problem.

I have no solutions for either. I wish I did. My life (and the lives of every woman ever) would be better if I did. I just hope that Mefi can continue to be the place I love, full of smart, funny, insightful, weird, opinionated people I've grown to care about. I want it to be better.

There is so much pain and misunderstanding in these threads. It's...ugh.

I'm just gonna go hug my idiot dog, avoid the internet for a little bit, and listen to this.






Please dear god don't let that song be terrible and i just don't know it yet
posted by functionequalsform at 9:20 PM on June 11, 2014 [52 favorites]

Here's Tom Petty's memory of his recording of that song:

"At the session George Harrison sang and played the guitar. I had a terrible cold that day, and George went to the store and bought a ginger root, boiled it and had me stick my head in the pot to get the ginger steam to open up my sinuses, and then I ran in and did the take."

That's utterly lovely.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 9:31 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

I'm just gonna go hug my idiot dog, avoid the internet for a little bit, and listen to this yt .

Please dear god don't let that song be terrible and i just don't know it yet

That one's fine (thanks, Tom), but you probably don't want to dig too far into Johnny Cash's catalog at the moment.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:33 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

the widely despised band The Ultramods.

Those guys are such rip off of Keyboard Cat
posted by Hoopo at 9:51 PM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

yeah no you definitely have to go back to that pizza place and beat the guy to death with his own dismembered femur

sorry i don't make the rules
posted by elizardbits at 9:53 PM on June 11, 2014 [33 favorites]

I definitely yelled something like NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK before grabbing my jamaican patty and running down the street.

Didn't make sense, don't care.
posted by functionequalsform at 9:56 PM on June 11, 2014 [9 favorites]

Whatever you chose to do was the right choice, because I don't second-guess any woman's reaction to her own street harassment (woo solidarity) but I hope you briefly considered accidentally-on-purpose slopping some of that iced coffee onto the passerby's crotch.
posted by gingerest at 10:06 PM on June 11, 2014 [12 favorites]

calling in your local Feminist Vigilante Gang on the pizza guy is also allowed
posted by NoraReed at 10:24 PM on June 11, 2014 [16 favorites]

I just read most of this thread in one go, so a little late on this response, but:

I agree that backlash against feminism has been creeping up around the site in general. I think silencing tactics need to get more mod attention and action, more quickly. "This thing that happens to you is a stupid thing to care about and we should talk about this other thing instead" needs to stop being an ok comment.

As for lack of flagging on that thread, I suspect it may have been at least partly because of the monstrously fast pace of the commenting. I commented fairly early, and then said, "What the fuckity fuck?" several times when I saw the rising "X comments since your most recent comments" numbers for that thread on my Recent Activity. It seemed like it got unmanageable unhumanly quickly, and in so many weird directions (socialism! censorship! women should become CEOs and stop complaining until they are!), that I wouldn't even have known where to start in flagging, or figuring out what was a derail, or labeling certain comments hyperbolic, because it seemed like every other comment was a hyperbolic derail in a brand-new direction.

The only structural/mod thing I could even imagine having helped was some sort of selective downtime to keep people from posting so much.
posted by jaguar at 10:52 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

Selective downtime would be a terribly bad precedent. The mods already ask people to step away if they can't handle posting in a thread. Making it some sort of formal process is not good.
posted by Justinian at 10:53 PM on June 11, 2014

I suspect it may have been at least partly because of the monstrously fast pace of the commenting

Yeah, I was reading it as fast as I could, and every time I got to the bottom of the page it would say 56 new comments and I'd read again and see 38 more, and so on. It was kind of fast and crazy there.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:54 PM on June 11, 2014 [5 favorites]

Sorry, yeah, I wasn't actually suggesting selective downtime.
posted by jaguar at 10:55 PM on June 11, 2014

The author of the Alternet piece the FPP linked to could have written an article about misogyny in Anglophone pop music. But she didn't. She wrote an article about how she had complaint at a retail chain, and the peon she complained to didn't hop when she told him to hop, because corporate bureaucracy and policy something something. You shouldn't be surprised that people commenting in the thread ended up discussing the article the FPP was about and focused on what it focused on.

A hypothetical article about the pervasiveness of misogyny in Anglophone pop culture could have been a lot more interesting and would have been a lot more interesting to discuss, but that's not what we got.

It's worth noting that a number of the people who criticized the author's 'blame the peon' tack early in the MeFi thread, and here in MeTa, are fairly prominent Mefi feminists, not 'MRA concern trolls who came out of the woodwork'.
posted by nangar at 11:16 PM on June 11, 2014 [18 favorites]

What I find most ironic about this whole thread is the absurd lack of self-awareness displayed by the well-off people driving it.

I'd really like to know how many of you have spent a significant amount of time in Third World countries dealing with people who are dying for the lack of clean drinking water. Or how many days you've spent working on behalf of women in places where the infant mortality rate is sky-high because they can't get the most basic level of prenatal care.

I'm pretty sure that number is close to zero. Because people who have done those things have a fundamental level of awareness -- they have the basic knowledge that THE MUZAK YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO AT TRADER JOES IS A COMPLETELY FUCKING STUPIDLY TRIVIAL PROBLEM BY COMPARISON.
posted by mikeand1 at 11:33 PM on June 11, 2014

If she was going to quote him, which she appears to, she should both use his name (or note that he refused to give it, as she did with the call center woman) and have identified herself as a journalist.

Yeah, it's disappointing to see doxing get rationalized. Not the best side of the community, for sure.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:34 PM on June 11, 2014 [6 favorites]

I'd really like to know how many of you have spent a significant amount of time in Third World countries...

I'm pretty sure this couldn't get any more textbook of an example of "Something bad exists in the world, so anything that isn't addressing that is irrelevant and you don't care about the Third World!?!".

On preview: Yeah, read churachura's comment. Your comment has no relevancy here.
posted by CrystalDave at 11:42 PM on June 11, 2014 [11 favorites]

hey mikeand1. I come from a technically third-world country (though it's getting to first-world status in terms of development). My family comes from one of those countries with people dying of lack of water and high mortality rates etc etc.

That doesn't make my concerns or this FPP that I made any less relevant. That doesn't mean I care about any of these issues less.

Also you're assuming that "third-world" countries are these backwards monolith that is too poor to have their own sense of culture or internationalisation or whatever. Never mind that many "third world countries" have far surpassed the US in terms of embracing mobile tech, or that many of them are much more aware of the world than many Americans seem to be, or whatever.

No. We must all be dying of thirst, because not wanting to be confronted with remnants of culture that remind us of how unwanted we are in society is just a bourgeois thing.

Don't speak for people like us, please. Your concern-trolling is not welcome here.
posted by divabat at 11:48 PM on June 11, 2014 [69 favorites]

mikeand1: "What I find most ironic about this whole thread is the absurd lack of self-awareness displayed by the well-off people driving it."

If you knew any of the examples of irony in Macbeth, YOU WOULD REALIZE THAT WHAT YOU'RE POINTING OUT IS COMPLETELY UNIRONIC BY COMPARISON.
posted by Bugbread at 11:50 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

THE MUZAK YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO AT TRADER JOES IS A COMPLETELY FUCKING STUPIDLY TRIVIAL PROBLEM BY COMPARISON.

It's part of our culture and it's worthwhile for for people in our culture to talk about. I mean, do you refuse to talk about stuff on TV and the price of gas at the local stations because global warming and omg what about Syria?

The culture we live in affects us directly and we're part of it, so it's an important thing for us to talk about.
posted by nangar at 11:51 PM on June 11, 2014 [10 favorites]

Comment deleted. The "but other problems exist" line of argument was off-topic enough in its own right I feel but it has been made and responded to; doubling down on it with belligerent sarcasm will not improve this already-tricky discussion for anyone.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane (staff) at 12:32 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

The reason this is affecting me is because last night I went to a pizza place, ordered a slice, and the guy goes, "What the bitch wants, the bitch gets."

Fuck. Ing. Hell.
posted by billiebee at 1:48 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yes, mefi has suddenly collapsed into a patriarchal cesspit - I just wonder what thing could be done to re-adjust the imbalance ? What on earth could it possibly be ? Perhaps other mefitez would like to make some posts on my behalf to search for the answer as we mull over this head scratching imponderable ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 1:55 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

last night I went to a pizza place, ordered a slice, and the guy goes, "What the bitch wants, the bitch gets."

One time when I was a teenager I went to the shop, bought something from the lady, paid, and was given change. I said "Thanks a lot!" and turned to go.

"Excuse me?"

"Huh?"

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?"

"I, uh, I said 'Thanks. Thanks, a lot'?"

"Oh. Fine then."

When I got outside I realized that she'd heard me say 'Thanks, slut!', and I felt my face go hot and I never returned to that shop ever again. I also tried to stop mumbling so much.

Unfortunately I don't think the same kind of amusing misunderstanding happened at your pizza place.
posted by um at 2:20 AM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

Yes, the music in Trader Joe's is trivial. So if there's a problem with the music in Trader Joe's -- like an offensive song in the playlist -- that problem should be trivial to fix!

The author of the article pointed out this (trivial) problem, but Trader Joe's didn't seem to take it seriously (weird!), so she wrote about it, which makes sense -- she's a writer, and getting public pressure could help fix this minor problem with Trader Joe's music.

I assume everyone agrees that (1) Trader Joe's has control over what music they play and (2) Trader Joe's should not play songs that customers (even a small number!) find offensive, right?

But the gut responses of people in that thread were super weird -- look at the first 10 or so comments -- commenters think the author is a threat to creative expression, or she's a rude classist who picks on working-class people, or she's the death knell of progressivism, or she's a fascist censor, etc. I call these "gut responses" because a lot of this popular snark showed that the authors didn't read the full article.

If the music at Trader Joe's is trivial, then why are people immediately critical when a woman wants to change it? Why is there so much incoherent criticism and pushback of the author in that thread?

I'm an academic white dude; I have no idea what it's like to be a woman. But I can imagine that if my minor, reasonable requests reliably triggered a sandstorm of biting, empty criticism, I would lose hope pretty fast.

So yeah. If you think the music at Trader Joe's isn't a big deal, but you find yourself really irritated by someone who tries to improve the music at Trader Joe's, then you should think really carefully about what's actually bothering you. And before expressing your irritation, you should realize that people will hear what you say.
posted by serif at 2:30 AM on June 12, 2014 [50 favorites]

I'd really like to know how many of you have spent a significant amount of time in Third World countries dealing with people who are dying for the lack of clean drinking water.

That would be me, and I'm simultaneously capable of being bothered by misogyny when I encounter it here. We contain multitudes, and there's no contradiction in caring about several things.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:46 AM on June 12, 2014 [13 favorites]

a little irritated that she looped in Eliot Rodgers into the discussion like "in this post Rodgers society" as though THAT was some sort of seismic event in the abuse toward women narrative,

I know what you're saying, but I think actually the Rodgers situation was a kind of sea change for all of us. I'm not quite sure why, but I see a lot of us angry and not willing to put up with shit we once were anymore. Maybe because it validates that these micro and macro aggressions are, in fact, the precursors to violence, but I think more because it's a visible example that no, no matter how obvious it is, even if the guy makes a motherfucking manifesto talking about how much he hates women and wants to keep them down, society does not value us enough as humans to consider it a hate crime.

So maybe it wasn't a seismic event in the abuse towards women narrative, but I definitely feel like it was a seismic event in the women fighting back response.
posted by corb at 3:47 AM on June 12, 2014 [32 favorites]

I didn't comment in the Trader Joe's question because it seemed to be the BunnyUltramod show. Even though BU had some good points the amount of comments and immediate emphatic responses left no room for expansion of any other viewpoint and other viewpoints then became entrenched and angry the opposite way.

Also what is with the comparisons to trans* threads and treatment of women in Metafilter??? You know, apart from the fact that trans*women are women? Please. I am new to Mefi (but lurked for years) and it seems to me that in general women are able to speak up and get their points across. In the thread in question much of the animosity came (as mentioned by someone else) in the framing vs the topic.

Discussions of trans* issues until recently were horrific here. In fact I joined Mefi to support the survivors of abuse in the woody Allen thread and to be an ally to our trans* members. I'm not trying to deny the existence of microagressions but *come on* the current discussions around trans* issues and those in a clickbait thread about Muzak are not the same
posted by biggreenplant at 5:16 AM on June 12, 2014 [7 favorites]

I put a MeTa into the queue about this, but it got killed.

I think the post was just ridiculous at face value, almost hysterical at it's root, and it drew out the worst in everyone.

For Christ's sake, someone is bitching about hearing a 48 year old song in Trader Joes? Oh but it is so fucking politically correct now?

Switch positions here, and I make an FPP about how offended I was after hearing I Am Woman at Whole Foods? Think there would be any outrage there? Fuck no. Depending on the hour of the day, there is a HUGE anti-male bias here.

I say grow the fuck up. It's an old Rolling Stones song and nothing else. It wasn't directed at her as an insult, in fact she probably wasn't even born yet when the thing came out.

The notion she thinks this is some great injustice thrown at her in the aisle of a supermarket speaks to narcissism, and bores the fuck out of me.

I don't know the numbers, but I would guess last night alone there are double digits of women in this country who either died or ended up in an ER because of abuse.

And you want to talk about a song from 1966 while you are shopping for your organic kale.
posted by timsteil at 5:18 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Switch positions here, and I make an FPP about how offended I was after hearing I Am Woman at Whole Foods?

That verse where they endorse the SCUM manifesto is a bit much, isn't it?
posted by robself at 5:22 AM on June 12, 2014 [16 favorites]

hysterical bitching, you say
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:22 AM on June 12, 2014 [56 favorites]

I don't know the numbers, but I would guess last night alone there are double digits of women in this country who either died or ended up in an ER because of abuse.

And you want to talk about a song from 1966 while you are shopping for your organic kale.

wow I can care about more than one thing at a time.

am I magic?
posted by winna at 5:23 AM on June 12, 2014 [45 favorites]

The notion she thinks this is some great injustice thrown at her in the aisle of a supermarket speaks to narcissism, and bores the fuck out of me.

I don't know the numbers, but I would guess last night alone there are double digits of women in this country who either died or ended up in an ER because of abuse.

It's amazing to me how much of this thread and its parent are dedicated to telling women the things that they should care more about than x. One day I hope someone draws up a convenient list so I never bore anyone with any of my trivial issues.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 5:26 AM on June 12, 2014 [60 favorites]

Depending on the hour of the day, there is a HUGE anti-male bias here.

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
posted by ominous_paws at 5:28 AM on June 12, 2014 [12 favorites]

Unfortunately I don't think the same kind of amusing misunderstanding happened at your pizza place.

Reminds me of an extremely embarrassing moment when I said, "hey, Paige," to a fellow club member and everyone thought I called her a bitch.

I did manage to go back, but I don't mumble that name quite as much now.
posted by michaelh at 5:31 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's the sneering and hostility that just tires me out. And the same damn thing over and over again.

And of course the damned if you do, damned if you don't aspect of the whole thing. When complaining about microaggressions, harrassments, things that are just part of the culture as a reflection of toxic aspects of that culture, I've often been told "well, why don't you say something? speak up! I would give the man a piece of my mind!"

**speaks up**

"what the fuck do you care about that for!? Grow up! Shut up! It's nothing compared to infant mortality/drinking water/rape etc etc etc"

I just don't know what to do about it.
posted by gaspode at 5:32 AM on June 12, 2014 [64 favorites]

Switch positions here, and I make an FPP about how offended I was after hearing I Am Woman at Whole Foods? Think there would be any outrage there? Fuck no. Depending on the hour of the day, there is a HUGE anti-male bias here.

1) lol that you think a song about a sexual power struggle and "I Am Woman" are even remotely comparable

2) I'm a dude, and even if this site had the anti-male bias that it has only in the delusions of MRAs and their apologists, who would give a shit. That would be good. That would be a shining exception to the rest of the whole damn world.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:33 AM on June 12, 2014 [19 favorites]

I'm truly not sure what the number of abused women has to do with whether or not it's OK to be irritated by something (though if we're still running in circles about the original thread's topic in Metatalk, I suppose you could argue that by not playing a song from the perspective of an abuser, you're ... supporting those abused women, or at least not glorifying their abusers?). Surely every time something irritates you, you don't think "Well, this clearly isn't as bad as prison rape or the number of children dying of malaria," and forget that you were ever bothered. In fact, most of these threads seem to be testament to that fact.

The world is full of nuance, humans are full of the ability to multitask, and doing something about something "trivial" precludes no one from doing something about something "serious."
posted by ChuraChura at 5:39 AM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

Or how many days you've spent working on behalf of women in places where the infant mortality rate is sky-high because they can't get the most basic level of prenatal care.

HAHAHA. I love that you got so stupidly specific about what one must do before one complains. My partner does EXACTLY what you wrote. I don't know the number of days, but it is in the hundreds. We'll be in Trader Joe's later this week. I'll ask what she thinks then report back to you. Since her opinion matters now, I'm sure you'll open your fucking ears.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:41 AM on June 12, 2014 [27 favorites]

Also, why can't people grow the fuck up? They get all hissy and emotional and complain and whine for the tiniest things. I mean someone wrote about how they politely brought some attention to a corporation about how they didn't like their experience in the store, and people FLIP THE FUCK OUT.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:51 AM on June 12, 2014 [13 favorites]

Seriously, there are men rotting in terrible, cruel prisons here in America right now. There are men dying in wars all over the world. There was just a story about men serving as slaves on fishing boats in Thailand and we're instead talking about the trivial, dubious complaint of anti-male bias on Metafilter? Get some perspective, dude.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:55 AM on June 12, 2014 [44 favorites]

What I find most ironic about this whole thread is the absurd lack of self-awareness displayed by the well-off people driving it.

I'd really like to know how many of you have spent a significant amount of time in Third World countries dealing with people who are dying for the lack of clean drinking water. Or how many days you've spent working on behalf of women in places where the infant mortality rate is sky-high because they can't get the most basic level of prenatal care.

I'm pretty sure that number is close to zero. Because people who have done those things have a fundamental level of awareness -- they have the basic knowledge that THE MUZAK YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO AT TRADER JOES IS A COMPLETELY FUCKING STUPIDLY TRIVIAL PROBLEM BY COMPARISON. >

I'm just curious... do you do any actual work yourself in these Third World countries you're so worried about? Or is it just a cute little rhetorical tool for you to make yourself feel like you're better than other people? And if your concern for these issues is so great that you feel it's necessary to leap into a 500+ comment thread and castigate everyone participating because it's not important enough... why did you even post here? You wasted valuable time that could have been spent handing out PlumpyNut to dangerously undernourished children. Doesn't that make you a terrible person, by your own metrics?
posted by palomar at 5:59 AM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

The fact that this is trivial in comparison to, say, infant mortality is ostensibly true. The same thing can be said about almost every single post on the front page right now. I mean, one of the links goes out to a blog I do about theater in Omaha in the early years of the state. I'll go ahead and say that this is a minor concern compared to infant mortality.

And yet nobody is busting into that thread and complaining that there are greater concerns in the world. In fact, most peolle aren't commenting at all, which is fine. If something isn't to your interests, you move on to something else, as this is a great big world and there is room enough in it for us to have multiple interests, of many levels of importance, and to not be interested in other things.

But to go into a thread about women's issues and complain about triviality, and not to do the same in any other thread? That doesn't communicate a sophisticated sense of the ranked importance of the matters of this world. It communicates a sense that this woman's issue is uniquely trivial, so trivial it must uniquely be spoken out against and mocked.

That's not a gesture that speaks to a clearheaded sense of what's important in this world. It's a sexist gesture, and is precisely the sort of gesture that this thread was opened to address.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 5:59 AM on June 12, 2014 [41 favorites]

> I honestly can't tell if that's satire, Drinky Die.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:00 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

in an alternate universe, the same thread about dr dre would have been interesting. i wonder if his misogynism would have been obscured and excused as thoroughly as mick's was.
posted by nadawi at 6:00 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

(It's a satirical comment on how people who make arguments about "You must solve the third world problems before you complain about your own issues!" generally don't hold to that advice for their own complaints.)
posted by Drinky Die at 6:02 AM on June 12, 2014 [9 favorites]

I'm just curious... do you do any actual work yourself in these Third World countries you're so worried about?

I want to know if he actually read the thread before he posted. Evidence points otherwise.
posted by Think_Long at 6:04 AM on June 12, 2014

Of course he didn't. Does anyone really ever read the thread they shit in?
posted by palomar at 6:05 AM on June 12, 2014

To be fair, I try to read the threads, but then I remember the AIDS crisis in Africa and I just don't have the time!
posted by Think_Long at 6:11 AM on June 12, 2014 [18 favorites]

I don't know the numbers, but I would guess last night alone there are double digits of women in this country who either died or ended up in an ER because of abuse.

In harassment threads women get lectured on misunderstanding what men do to criminalize harmless flirting. In rape threads they get lectured on their lack of focus on false accusations regardless of situation. In threads about abuse and violence they get lectured about not talking about abused men enough, or that there's some mitigating factor that is as bad or worse than misogyny. They get lectured with five-dollar words dripping with condescension by men who claim to know oh-so-much more about the world and feminism than they do. In threads about "small" but systemic problems they get yelled at for not seeing the big picture. In threads about large-scale problems they get accused of being sheltered by their comfy first-world lives.They get accused of not being angry enough when they fail to list out all the major problems in the world. They get accused of being too angry when their "tone" is "alienating" to people who compare examining their own possible issues is akin to worries about being brainwashed by the feminist crazies. They can't even mention specific subgroups of men in any of these situations without having "not all men" thrown in their face. They can't suggest that, at one point in their lives, any given man has done something sexist or even misogynist (even with the caveat of it being something they were unaware of) without being branded liars and harpies, even though it's something most feminist male allies would readily admit to. They get accused of being as bad or worse than the misogynists themselves, of being mentally ill, of being misandrists, of being fascist in thought and deed, of being saboteurs of "real" progress.

And these are all things that have happened just since the FPP about Elliot Rodgers went up two weeks ago.

Of course, it's not a recent thing, nor is it limited to the blue. Hell, I see over half of that just in this MeTa. This happens in a percentage of threads about harassment, rape, abuse, and all the other forms of violence--micro or macro--against women so close to 100% as to be indistinguishable. Often times, as it was in the TJ thread and the Elliot Rodgers thread and many others, these come up out of nowhere as some sort of pre-accusatory nastiness. Sometimes the alleged deranged activism is even used as an excuse as to why whatever shitty thing described in the FPP happened. I feel like the point of divabat in posting this MeTa was to illustrate this (and I'm fine with being corrected if I'm wrong about that), to show it's still a problem that can't and shouldn't just be hand-waved away. Apparently that's too much to ask for some.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:13 AM on June 12, 2014 [99 favorites]

One day I hope someone draws up a convenient list so I never bore anyone with any of my trivial issues.

Maybe timsteil can make us an app for that! How convenient would *that* be?

I will say that it's awfully nice of timsteil to come into a thread like this and give such a crystal-clear demonstration of the problem we're tangling with - much appreciated, dude, thanks!
posted by rtha at 6:13 AM on June 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

Think_Long, you could have rebuilt seventy-five village wells in the time it took you to type that comment.

I hope you are ashame.
posted by winna at 6:13 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

almost hysterical at it's root

Hooooooooly shit. Although I am cognizant that this has been a long, difficult couple of threads, and that the moderation staff is reduced and therefore stretched thinner, I have to say, timsteil, that was a giant stinky turd of a remark.
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:15 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

Switch positions here, and I make an FPP about how offended I was after hearing I Am Woman at Whole Foods? Think there would be any outrage there?

Not if you posted it in AskMe, where it would most likely be welcomed with a flood of excellent suggestions that would benefit you greatly, provided you were able to sit still long enough to comprehend them.
posted by Pudhoho at 6:19 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Not that a man's opinion is necessarily wrong on any topic related to misogyny, but the best tactic for a man participating in this sort of discussion is to just listen. There's no real need to step in with a knee-jerk reaction and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT BECAUSE I CAN'T BE WRONG and THERE ARE WORSE THINGS IN THE WORLD. It's good to just listen. Let it resonate, and if you still disagree with what is being labeled as misogynistic then carry on as you were, there's no helping you right now.

I found this comment insightful:

The fact that this is trivial in comparison to, say, infant mortality is ostensibly true. The same thing can be said about almost every single post on the front page right now.
And yet nobody is busting into that thread and complaining that there are greater concerns in the world.

Folks need to stop advocating for some sort one-problem-at-a-time stop-the-presses form of activism. No one is going to parachute into fantasy country X and liberate all its women before they take care of an immediate, local issue, just because the parachute scenario is the bigger victory. This is one way we can improve the discourse around women's issues on Metafilter.

If you're lurking and looking over the number of comments here and can read the general tone of the discourse, how can you not see that there's definitely a teachable moment here, that there is something worth all of the vitriol?

I thought the initial post was thin and showed some poor journalistic tendencies, but I definitely don't think of that Stones song the same way (I'd never given it a second thought before) anymore.
posted by GrapeApiary at 6:27 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

Switch positions here, and I make an FPP about how offended I was after hearing I Am Woman at Whole Foods? Think there would be any outrage there? Fuck no. Depending on the hour of the day, there is a HUGE anti-male bias here.

You'd be offended by a song that doesn't mention men at all? Because not mentioning men is the height of anti-male bias. (Why am I not at all surprised by this.)
posted by rtha at 6:32 AM on June 12, 2014 [47 favorites]

timsteil: "Depending on the hour of the day, there is a HUGE anti-male bias here."

There is an anti-asshole bias on Metafilter. An anti-misogyny bias. An anti-MRA bias.

There is no "HUGE anti-male bias" here. If there were, you'd likely have been banned by now. Along with a few other folks.

No, at most there are a few women who seem very sick and tired of taking an endless stream of shit from men. I certainly can't blame them for that.
posted by zarq at 6:34 AM on June 12, 2014 [21 favorites]

rtha, that is a good comment and you should feel good.
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:34 AM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

There is an anti-asshole bias on Metafilter. An anti-misogyny bias. An anti-MRA bias

Sometimes I wonder.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:37 AM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

Switch positions here, and I make an FPP about how offended I was after hearing I Am Woman at Whole Foods? Think there would be any outrage there?

Here are the lyrics to Under My Thumb.

Here are the lyrics to I Am Woman.

And here's what I would like from you, before this conversation goes any further, because I have a lot to say about this subject but I would like to be as fair to you as I possibly can.

I would like, if at all possible, if you would please confirm whether or not you believe the lyrics to Under My Thumb and the lyrics to I Am Woman are equally objectionable, and that either both or neither of them contain a depiction of a fucked-up dynamic between men and women.

Again, Under My Thumb is a song whose lyrics talk about how great it is (and how the song's narrator is responsible for the fact) that a woman now does what she's told; how she speaks when spoken to; how she cannot look at other men but he can look at other women.

And I Am Woman is a song whose lyrics talk about being a woman who considers herself to be wise and strong.

Do you believe these two songs are analogous in their depiction of gender dynamic? Does I Am Woman offend you? If so, what is it about the song that offends you? More to the point, what is it about Under My Thumb that leads you to say that switching positions would result in writing about I Am Woman instead?

These are not rhetorical questions; please take a few moments to ruminate over them before answering. Once you have, I will be happy to engage in this discussion with you. Thank you.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 6:40 AM on June 12, 2014 [57 favorites]

There is an anti-asshole bias on Metafilter.

If only
posted by Reggie Knoble at 6:40 AM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

There is an anti-asshole bias on Metafilter.

First they came for the dicks and I said nothing...
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:48 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

I'm a man and I find Metafilter a totally welcoming place for men who do their best to respect women. If you're a man, in a thread, telling how it is about sexism, and you find yourself feeling unwelcome, it's not a bad idea to check with yourself about why this is and what you are doing.

FWIW, I went into the TJ-Muzak thread feeling like I could see both sides and like it probably wasn't as big a deal as the woman in the OP was making it out to be, but the patient, thoughtful explanations of many commenters in that thread -- I'm thinking here especially of Frowner, scody, Bunny Ultramod, KathrynT, and others whom I'm forgetting at the moment -- have pretty much brought me around. Culture does matter; and misogyny at the near-subconscious level of grocery-store muzak is actually pretty gross and something worth spending a certain amount of energy resisting and working to change.

So, you have my thanks for your efforts and your patience, folks. It does make a difference.
posted by gauche at 6:55 AM on June 12, 2014 [33 favorites]

Hope that clears up the confusion.

Since I was addressing that comment to someone who was not you, I think the only confusion here is yours.

unless you just accidentally outed your own sockpuppet, in which case, well done indeed
posted by elizardbits at 6:55 AM on June 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

This thread could easily be about music. A lot of music is problematic and we listen to it and even sometimes sing along to it anyway. A lot of music is problematic.

Not the music I listen to, mind, I mean the music you listen to. I listen to electronica so I can have the high moral ground in such discussions.

This thread could also easily be about comments. A lot of comments are problematic and we read them and sometimes we [+] them anyway.

Anyway someone once had a thread about the problematic, and that was a good thread. Go on and read that and tell me I'm wrong.
posted by vicx at 6:58 AM on June 12, 2014

The notion she thinks this is some great injustice thrown at her in the aisle of a supermarket speaks to narcissism, and bores the fuck out of me.

Great. How about, if you're so bored by threads like the TJ one you're referring to, you stop reading and commenting in them? How about you never again comment on a thread about women and their experiences that you think is boring or stupid? How about you just leave those threads alone -- and the MetaTalk threads that occasionally spring up to discuss them -- so that I never have to read another willfully smug, dismissive, infuriating comment like the one you dropped in the middle of this thread?

You know what "bores the fuck out of me"? Your opinions on whether or not women have a right to be angry or upset about something.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 6:59 AM on June 12, 2014 [35 favorites]

You know what "bores the fuck out of me"? Your opinions on whether or not women have a right to be angry or upset about something.

Yeah I feel like maybe you meant to put your "This article sucks" comment in the original MeFi thread, not here where people are trying to have a metadiscussion about the issue of how we talk about sexism on MetaFilter? Your comment is mostly just about you.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 7:04 AM on June 12, 2014 [9 favorites]

Anyway someone once had a thread about the problematic, and that was a good thread. Go on and read that and tell me I'm wrong

Needless to say, I have had the song "Under My Thumb" stuck in my head since the thread began. And I don't really mind it, because, by many standards, it's a genuinely great song, although, by one important standard, it's got issues. But that problematic art thread is right -- we can like things that have issues. I like HP Lovecraft, although, as an Irish Jew, he probably would have seen me as the real world analog to the corrupt fish people at Innsmouth.

Fortunately, I can enjoy the song when I want, in the way I want, cognizant of the song's problems, and aware that they don't have the sort of impact on me as a man as they might on a woman.

In general, I love garage rock too, which always heavily borrowed from the Stones. But, oh my God, were those guys fucked up about women. It's like the soundtrack to sexual neurosis as snarling, countercultural posturing. I love their music, but thank God I wasn't their girlfriend.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 7:06 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

So, I remember a conversation I was involved in online (probably in the blue) about sexism in video games. Someone commented that the problem wasn't that a game was about a male character, but that the game was about a male character in the context of almost all the games being about male characters. Reading that, I realized that, even if a game designer have REALLY good artistic reasons for making a game about a male character, it's really challenging for anyone to tease those reasons out from the knot of general sexism that makes male the default.

I've been trying to apply that idea to my life. I mean, let's say that I have a really good tip about how the author could've more effectively gotten the song removed. Me saying that (while it might be true, and may not be coming from any sexism on my part), happens in a context where critiques of a woman talking about sexism in her life are used to discredit the claims and move the discussion away from her claims. So, in these conversations, I don't bring up that stuff, because I don't want to take part of that larger pattern. I don't want to give the impression that I think you need to be perfect to complain.

That's a choice I've made. It's not because my speech has been chilled by some imaginary mob out for male blood. It's not because I'm afraid of being called a sexist. It's not because I'm interested in being part of an echo-chamber. It's because by not saying them I can make people's days slightly nicer. It's because it's something I can do that makes the Metafilter slightly less hostile to women. It's also because, selfishly, I'd like to not have to stop and consider if my comments are part of a sexist pattern, and one way to help that pattern go away is by not participating in it.

That's not a choice I can, or want to, make for anyone else. Maybe you have some great suggestions about how the author of the piece should've acted. Having them doesn't make you sexist, but because of the culture you're in, saying them means you're participating in a sexist pattern, even if you do so unintentionally. Maybe what you have to say is important enough that you're willing to make that trade. All anyone can really ask is that before you hit post, spare a moment to consider that the context of comments often has just as big an impact on the reader the as the content.
posted by Gygesringtone at 7:28 AM on June 12, 2014 [32 favorites]

Shut up, annoying person! No, you shut up about saying shut up! No, everyone should express their feelings! No, people should back off and listen without judgement! No, I want to let you know what a fuckwit I think you are for thinking that thing that you think which I don't agree with! etc., etc., ad nauseum.

I get annoyed by what I consider to be trivialities, it's true. I mostly just spray spittle on my monitor and stay away from typing it out because it's just my fucking opinion and we all know the cliche about that. The way I feel about something may be wildly different from how others feel about it but how is my contempt for their feelings going to be of use to anyone? Just because it doesn't affect me the way it does them doesn't mean that their feelings are bullshit. And often, if I shut the fuck up for long enough, whilst I still may consider it to be a trivial thing *to me* I often will learn exactly why others don't think it's so trivial and is in fact a small and nasty cog in something so large that I hadn't even noticed because it's everywhere. And as horrible as those revelations can be it's good to be reminded, every now and then, that the world is so much bigger than just our individual experience of it.
posted by h00py at 7:30 AM on June 12, 2014 [8 favorites]

You know, as much as I don't care for a lot of the current (IMO) over-sensitivity of MeFi, the idea that things are somehow "anti-male" is so fucking silly I just can't process it. CANNOT.
posted by lattiboy at 7:57 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

You know, as much as I don't care for a lot of the current (IMO) over-sensitivity of MeFi, the idea that things are somehow "anti-male" is so fucking silly I just can't process it. CANNOT.

And yet it comes up pretty much every single time we have a MeTa about feminism. That's less "silly" and more "horrifying" if you ask me.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:59 AM on June 12, 2014 [16 favorites]

I tend to think that not many people actually got better about feminist issues, they just learned to stay out of these threads because they would be argued with . But then you have a thread like this one about taking away the Rolling Stones, and they couldn't resist adding their comments.

But I'm the pessimistic sort.
posted by smackfu at 8:07 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

It amazes me that, in a thread about showing respect to people (gender be damned, that's basically what this is about, right?), people can't show respect to people.

A bit wearisome....
posted by HuronBob at 8:08 AM on June 12, 2014

I assume everyone agrees that (1) Trader Joe's has control over what music they play and (2) Trader Joe's should not play songs that customers (even a small number!) find offensive, right?

I doubt whether everyone agrees to 2). A lot of people find (for example) any kind of rock and roll, or any kind of hip-hop, offensive. For businesses to ban something at the first complaint would really be problematic.

I've spent a lot of time working for a big-box book chain that plays CDs they are trying to sell. Comments about the music being offensive happened on a daily basis for so many different reasons. Mostly people's problem was with the genre. It was possible to complain and to get individual songs removed and in fact this happened on a regular basis. I am now kind of ashamed that I didn't do more about certain music. But no, I don't agree with 2). Some of the things people complain about are seriously not offensive enough to get rid of. Do the people complaining deserve a hearing? Yes.

And honestly, I think Trader Joe's should reconsider this case.
posted by BibiRose at 8:11 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

I avoided the thread on the blue and this thread, not because I didn't have anything to add, but because it wouldn't have been helpful - I felt myself coming down on the side of "Really? World's fucked up as it is, and she's offended by a forty-eight-year-old song?"

Intellectually, I recognized that feeling was wrong and broken, but still the feeling was there. Best thing to do is not to give it (another) voice.

Woke up this morning, read a few more comments on both threads, some back and forth about whether she should have said this or done that. Had opinions about those details as well, but I was beginning to notice something. There's a recurring theme, something that's getting repeated over and over and over again, but every repetition of the theme is being missed because the words are being dissected instead of heard.

Now, if you're male, and you're involved in a back and forth about one detail or another, it won't have the same impact unless you drop the argument for a moment and focus, but I promise it'll be worth it, if you can:

Bullying, catcalls, threats, violence, hitting, raping, ogling, groping, dismissing, belittling, objectifying, condescending, and a thousand other ways of grinding a person down. Mention it, and be ridiculed. Complain about it, and the treatment gets worse.

All the time. Never goes away, even with people you hope you can trust, 'cause you never know, and you never know.

Every. Fucking. Day.

And then the world tells you you're overreacting when a fifty-year-old song about finally taking control of some uppity bitch makes you see crimson because it's playing in a fucking grocery store.

So yeah, everyone needs a hug and whatnot, but before turning all Gregory House on a complaint about misogyny, maybe step back and try to see that theme running through the thread, 'cause I'll bet you it's there.
posted by Mooski at 8:11 AM on June 12, 2014 [14 favorites]

Sorry, instead of "at the first complaint" I should have said, "just because there is a complaint." One reasonable complaint may be plenty.
posted by BibiRose at 8:12 AM on June 12, 2014

But then you have a thread like this one about taking away the Rolling Stones.

Nobody is taking away the Rolling Stones. They will still be available at the store and online and maybe even at a concert venue near you one day. One song with extremely sexist lyrics just might get pulled off a Muzak playlist that people hear in the grocery store.

Some men in this thread are exasperated that women care enough about the lyrics of the ambient music in the store to expend any energy trying to fix it, particularly when there are more important world problems to solve. I'm exasperated that (some) men care enough about hearing the song they like, regardless of the way it affects other people around them, to spend that much energy on defending Under My Thumb.
posted by immlass at 8:18 AM on June 12, 2014 [9 favorites]

The notion she thinks this is some great injustice thrown at her in the aisle of a supermarket speaks to narcissism, and bores the fuck out of me.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Today, I woke up and traveled to work. On the way to the subway, I got to hear no less than three shitty guys call out to me to try to get me to talk to them and one who tried to demand that I smile. I opened up my Facebook while waiting for the train, and was greeted with the news that the VA was rating female PTSD claims from military sexual trauma at much lower rates than male PTSD claims from combat. Another female veteran was talking about her experience going into a VA and being asked for her husband's social security number. Another post was a man with a "funny meme" about how women should be cooking in the kitchen with lingerie on.

Once I was actually on the subway, I had to deal with a man who used the excuse of the crowded subway train to push himself against me and leer at me. When I got off the subway train and into work, I had to deal with one phone call from a client who wanted to talk about how sexy my voice was instead of his situation.

If there was music playing in my office that was sexist as fuck after that first hour and a half, it would likely irritate me. I might not say anything, but it would bother me. And it would bother me because it was piling on top of a lot of other things that happened today -that happen EVERY day.

Of all the things that could possibly be, narcissism is not one of them, and the fact that you think it does says something about you, not about me, and not about the woman who had a problem with that song being played.
posted by corb at 8:25 AM on June 12, 2014 [74 favorites]

Yeah, but on the other hand, some of us might not be able to hear one overplayed Rolling Stones song when we buy our groceries, so take one for the team, will ya?

robble robble
posted by tonycpsu at 8:32 AM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

Now that our moderation resources are more limited, I would be totally okay if the mods decide to put a brake on threads that get out of control, and close the comments. There is no productive discussion taking place in that thread, or this.

Alternatively, I'm also okay with the mods choosing to delete posts that only contain a single link to a poorly-researched article. It seems like this post had all of the ingredients for a shitstorm in the comments: An article about a traditionally-incendiary topic; a reasonably valid thesis; too much hyperbole; and sloppy underlying research.

I'm not saying that the OP is responsible for the mess that erupted in the comments, but I do think that the discussion would not have gone off of the rails if there was a bit more framing and context around the article. A "Try again tomorrow with a bit more framing" deletion would have probably been wise.
posted by schmod at 8:36 AM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm also okay with the mods choosing to delete posts that only contain a single link to a poorly-researched article.

flagging is the way to achieve this.
posted by sweetkid at 8:45 AM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

Wait, where in the article is the "too much hyperbole"?

If it were going to have been deleted, I'd think it would've been on the basis of being a bit thin (which it is), not hyperbolically incendiary (which I have trouble seeing).
posted by nobody at 8:49 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I mean, can you even have too much hyperbole?
posted by gauche at 8:54 AM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

But then you have a thread like this one about taking away the Rolling Stones, and they couldn't resist adding their comments.

First the Feminazis came for the Rolling Stones, but I was not a Rolling Stone...
posted by scody at 8:55 AM on June 12, 2014 [7 favorites]

We will never reach peak hyperbole.
posted by Pudhoho at 9:09 AM on June 12, 2014

I mean, can you even have too much hyperbole?

oh god now we're bringing FRIENDS reruns into this....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:12 AM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

Switch positions here, and I make an FPP about how offended I was after hearing I Am Woman at Whole Foods?

I'm pretty sure I've never heard I Am Woman played in any store, anywhere, ever. Or on the radio, for that matter. In fact I'm pretty sure the few times I have heard it played, it was in an ironic context of some sort. Huh.
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:13 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

A woman can be a misogynist.

I know this because I just googled it and found a Yahoo Answers thread and the best answer was from Melody and I liked her answer because it was non-judgemental and acknowledged the problematic.

Melody explains that misogyny could be related to trust issues with women, perhaps stemming from a relationship with a mother or mother figure in childhood that was full of conflict and hostility.

Now that is something real. If you don't trust women and their intentions or actions then you might act defensively even when there is no actual threat. I'm a little bit like that but so is my mother. She has trust issues with women too, we are alike in that respect.

So you might have defensive responses to words and actions from women that are not intended to be threatening. If those responses were directed outwardly all the time you would have a pathology. That sort of response becomes an aggressive form of misogyny that is highly problematic.

I'm almost done with this comment but I'd like to also add that men and women can also be a misandrist. I googled that too (do you mistrust or hate men). Add your tales of misandry here -> (personally I don't really trust people so I got a double barrel blast of trust issues)

I don't think we should try to eliminate misogyny and misandry altogether because it is IN us and that stuff can't get undone.

I do think we can temper non-pathological misogyny and misandry in mefi conversations by putting it out there, but I don't really think it can really be done away with. It will always be.

Pathological misogyny and misandry however we should recognise as harmful and problematic. Point it out and mod it on metafilter the way one would weed a garden.

If you are very enthusiastic about improving misogyny and misandry, be a mother, be a father, or a mother-figure or a father-figure who is worthy of trust. Remember that trust has to be earned, even by parents.
posted by vicx at 9:16 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

huh
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:20 AM on June 12, 2014 [8 favorites]

First the Feminazis came for the Rolling Stones

I realize you're joking, but it kind of brings to my mind the question of why no one is really going after the Rolling Stones for this here. Their involvement with the song is referenced in the past-tense, which is true as far as its creation is concerned, but their financial involvement is ongoing.

I'm absolutely not saying that the discussion "should have" gone in that direction or that the complaints "should have" been directed at them or anything like that. I'm just interested as to either why they're not really considered as responsible party or why I'm under that misapprehension.

I suppose it could be that because they're artists which affords a certain amount of protection and that they wrote and recorded the song ages ago that their business interests in the song are largely ignored in this case. Or maybe it's that they likely have labels/management making all of these decisions for them so they're not going to be micromanaging (or even necessarily owning) their own back catalog.

It's been a long couple of threads though and I've learned that the way I see a thread isn't necessarily how a thread actually is. What might be my "this is something no one is considering" is someone else's "this is a given and boring".

Also, sincerely thanks for your response, Eyebrows McGee.
posted by ODiV at 9:21 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

Maybe you have some great suggestions about how the author of the piece should've acted. Having them doesn't make you sexist, but because of the culture you're in, saying them means you're participating in a sexist pattern, even if you do so unintentionally

This sort of gets back to the issue I brought up earlier in the thread - is it acceptable to comment on the specific content of an article in an FPP link, or are there separate, special, unspoken rules that apply when an FPP is about sexism (or other issue of prejudice and discrimination) stating that commenters should refrain from discussing the minutia of the links and instead limit their comments only to discussing the greater societal issue the links bring up?

This FPP was a single-link anecdotal account of how the author went about trying to get a song with misogynistic lyrics removed from the Muzak playlist at a particular Trader Joe's store. If I'm reading your comment correctly (and those who have expressed similar sentiments in the thread), it reads to me as saying, "Comments about this story should be exclusively limited to discussing the larger issue of the pervasiveness of everyday, casual sexism. Discussing other aspects of the article, even if they were brought up by the author herself, will be viewed as perpetuating sexism and misogyny. What aspects of the story you choose to take interest in says a lot about you, consciously or unconsciously".

Which doesn't seem fair to me, in a way. In the same way people in this thread have rightly shot down the ridiculous idea of "How can you care about this (supposedly minor) thing when there is a MUCH WORSE THING going on in the world" by accurately pointing out that it is possible to care about more than one thing at a time, it is also true that one can feel the author of this article is on the side of angels, while also thinking she unfairly misdirected a lot of her anger at an impotent middle-manager and low-level call center worker who simply have not been given the power by their employer to tangibly do much to aid her. My profile picture makes it obvious that there is a sense in which I am hopelessly unqualified to make this statement, but I think people should be allowed to discuss whatever part of an FPP link they find interesting without fear of having unflattering labels thrust at them because someone else deems it trivial compared to some other aspect of the same link.There appears to be a kind of special pleading being suggested in threads like this, where if someone is fighting the good fight, as the author was here, comments about her method should be verboten (unless they are supportive).

(This, of course, is an entirely separate issue from the egregiously sexist and misogynstic comments that littered both the FPP and this thread, which were disheartening for sure).
posted by The Gooch at 9:21 AM on June 12, 2014 [9 favorites]

Melody explains that misogyny could be related to trust issues with women, perhaps stemming from a relationship with a mother or mother figure in childhood that was full of conflict and hostility.


No, misogyny is related to the patriarchy and overwhelming sexism against women that pervades every part of our culture. Yes, women can say and do misogynist things, too, like my female spinning instructor who said that hair replacement treatments don't work as well for women because they lose hair because they're "crazy," not for legitimate reasons like men do (???).

It's just...it's everywhere.

Add your tales of misandry here

no, let's not.
posted by sweetkid at 9:22 AM on June 12, 2014 [27 favorites]

Needless to say, I have had the song "Under My Thumb" stuck in my head since the thread began.

Me, too. Unfortunately, it's not a Stones song I like very much, for a variety of difficult-to-articulate musical reasons, so it's especially vexing that the radio in my head will. not. stop.


about taking away the Rolling Stones

Not to make this too much of a call-out, but I think phrases like this are often what people are concerned about when they talk about bad MetaFilter reactions to feminist-related threads.

No-one in this thread or the one on the blue is talking about "taking away the Rolling Stones" - and what does that even mean, anyway? As immlass points out above, "Under My Thumb" and the rest of their songs will continue to be available in a gazillion other places.

So characterizing either the linked article or comments in the thread in such an exaggeratedly catastrophic way will, I think, often lead to heightened tempers on the part of people responding, and/or a derail where the "discussion" quickly degenerates into a back-and-forth of "It's censorship!!", "No it's not!!", "Is too!!", etc. etc. etc.

I guess my point is, if you (generic "you", not specifically smackfu) think that a statement like "taking away the Rolling Stones" is either an amusing bit of hyperbole or a "close enough" way to characterize a thread or comment - maybe you should step back and re-think that. Many people will, understandably, not be amused or find that kind of phrasing accurate enough and will find it difficult to impossible to engage with your larger point.

If you (again, generic "you") genuinely think that that phrase was an accurate way to describe what was happening in the linked piece, the thread on the blue, or here . . . . shit, I don't know what to tell you.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:23 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

I read the original thread before it blew up, and I've been reading this thread with a kind of horrified fascination. It just keeps going!

When I first read the op-ed, I didn't think it was worth a link here; it seemed too trivial. The responses here have really opened my eyes, though.

If I make the most charitable assumption, some of the responses illustrate exactly the problem: misogyny is so pervasive that it's accepted as normal. When you accept misogyny as normal, it seems like a bizarre overreaction to get upset over a misogynist song being played over your supermarket's speakers.

If you don't accept misogyny as normal, then what should seem bizarre is that a woman going about her daily business can't avoid media that demeans her. You should be boggled at that. It should concern you more than whatever flaws there are in the op-ed.

I'm really grateful to all of the commenters in the original thread and in this one who have taken the problem seriously and have tried (however futilely) to make this a discussion of the important issues, whether about our culture or about MeFi.

We need to have this conversation on MetaFilter and elsewhere, but if it's going to be productive, everyone who participates needs to start from common belief that Misogyny Is Bad. We need to not just pay it lipservice. We have to actually believe it and then see where that takes us.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:24 AM on June 12, 2014 [38 favorites]

I'm just interested as to either why they're not really considered as responsible party or why I'm under that misapprehension.

As an artist and a feminist who deeply enjoys some incredibly problematic works (I sang Batti, Batti, o bel Masetto for an AUDITION once), for me, it's because artists are often working from the heart, and the heart is frequently a shitty and problematic place. Eminem was really, really mad at his mother when he wrote Cleaning out my Closet, and maybe for good reasons. It doesn't mean the song isn't misogynist. It doesn't mean it's not a good cathartic listen for someone who's having problems with their own mother, either. Music is frequently conceived of, produced, and consumed in a place where not much sober, intellectual examination is taking place, and that's OK too.
posted by KathrynT at 9:31 AM on June 12, 2014 [28 favorites]

while also thinking she unfairly misdirected a lot of her anger at an impotent middle-manager

Wait, does the article even express any anger? I definitely don't see anything that could be called anger directed at the store employee in that dialogue.

I'm harping on this and the "hyperbole" comment because it feels to me like reading "anger" and "hyperbole" where it doesn't exist is part of the sexism problem to begin with.
posted by nobody at 9:32 AM on June 12, 2014 [10 favorites]

I am trying very hard to keep up with the comments, but I am really sucking at it, so if I'm repeating something or saying something wrong, sorry in advance. I'm a slow reader, I guess.

I think one of the big things to understand about microaggressions is that they don't occur in a vacuum. They're cumulative. That is how they work. Collectively, they have a powerful influence on our perceptions and experiences. As a woman, many of us encounter them far too regularly to even count, much less address. Nobody has the time and energy to address them all, and nobody should feel obligated to.

But since they function collectively, I think the best way to address them is the same way. That is, we address them as we feel like it. If you're in a bad mood one day, if you have the time and feel like going after some minor incident and addressing it, in a public way, even in an over the top way, that's cool! Thank you! We should all be doing that. I'll try to get the next one! These incidents are only minor when they're taken individually, but if some little thing just fucks you off one day, odds are pretty good it's been at least a low-level annoyance for a lot of people who came before you. People who heard that song in TJ's, said UGH, but were busy running errands and didn't have the mental energy to say something and face the inevitable dismissals and accusations that come along with pointing out a minor issue.

A lot of status quo defenders rely very heavily on ignoring and dismissing what they see as non-big issues. You know, they tell you to toughen up about microaggressions, as though women aren't already tough as hell about them already, they deny the existence of subtle cultural factors. Rape culture and patriarchy in particular are HUGE triggers for jerky kneed anti-feminists. Those are kind of grown-up concepts. They're relatively abstract and they're complicated. And you'll never understand them if you can't shut up and listen for a second. But a lot of people don't, and that, I suspect, is a big reason that so many people think 'patriarchy' means them specifically, and think that the things we talk about as elements of 'rape culture' mean that ogling someone on a subway is actual rape. (Seriously, go make an anthropological expedition to reddit. It is a very common belief that feminists think that someone looking sideways at them is rape. And yeah, reddit is a cesspit, but it is an extremely popular, totally mainstream cesspit.)

A grocery store playing Under My Thumb is not the biggest deal in the world to anyone. It's just one more little microaggression, just like all the others. Neither is people ordering you to smile, staring at you on a bus, someone accidentally brushing up against you, invading your personal space, talking to you like you're a child, making sexist assumptions at work, or whatever. But those things all add up to big issues, and they all deserve callouts, but only a fraction of them ever get addressed. So I'm A-OK with there being an element of surprise. Maybe you'll get away with shit like that nine or ninety nine times, and then BOOM SURPRISE CALLOUT. And if every now and again, someone makes a big public deal out of a minor incident, good. That is absolutely fine. If you don't want that to happen to you, you should work on not doing that shit rather than nitpicking the tactics of the person who is reacting to you.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:36 AM on June 12, 2014 [42 favorites]

or are there separate, special, unspoken rules that apply when an FPP is about sexism

No, not rules. No one is asking for different rules for threads about sexism. I don't speak for all people, but I am asking for a basic level of self-awareness from all users in all threads about how they treat women, both women as fellow MeFi users and women as writers and subjects of posted articles.
posted by jaguar at 9:36 AM on June 12, 2014 [10 favorites]

(Following up on what I wrote a few comments up, if the tone of this mild article gets read as anger and hyperbole, how are these readers parsing actually angry feminist writing? Is it, like, multiply the anger by 10, or is it exponential.)
posted by nobody at 9:45 AM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

I guess my point is, if you (generic "you", not specifically smackfu) think that a statement like "taking away the Rolling Stones" is either an amusing bit of hyperbole or a "close enough" way to characterize a thread or comment - maybe you should step back and re-think that.

I should have said "what they see as 'taking away their Rolling Stones'."
posted by smackfu at 9:49 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

That's how I read your comment, smackfu, and I agree with you -- that a lot of the initial reactions felt like "THEY'RE COMING TO TAKE MY GLIMMER TWINS."

I understand it, to a certain extent. There's a healthy knee jerk freedom of speech impulse to us Americans, and it pops up frequently in these sorts of things, even though maybe it shouldn't. I mean, she wasn't asking for a ban on the Stones. She was just asking if this situation, as background noise while she shops, was the best place for it. That's a decision companies make all the time, and doesn't represent censorship or the stifling of speech, anymore than I am stifling speech when my upstairs neighbor is blasting his stereo at three am and I ask him if maybe there might be a better time or volume for that.

Although, in reality, I don't ask him, and am not nearly as polite about addressing his music as this author was about addressing Trader Joe's. But if an FPP were made about my war against my neighbor's music, I think I would get a lot more understanding, in general, than this author has gotten about her concerns about a grocery store's.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 9:58 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

Kutsuwamushi and KathrynT both sum up positions which don't necessarily reconcile. They are both true to me.
posted by vicx at 9:59 AM on June 12, 2014

Kutsuwamushi and KathrynT both sum up positions I find hard to reconcile.

How so?
posted by zombieflanders at 10:00 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

zombieflanders has it. And I'm a little annoyed that it's still But That Trader Joes Thread Tho and not about the site in general.

I looked back at my MeTa posts and saw some from 4-5years ago when I pointed out some really problematic painful ways Mefi comments can go. It seemed like things were changing for the better, but now they've quickly regressed - and I still wonder if a lot of that is coming from new people.

On the topic of whether this post deserved an FPP: I've had similar posts deleted for being too flimsy or weak or not enough to stand alone. I wonder how this is different?
posted by divabat at 10:01 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

I think one of the big things to understand about microaggressions is that they don't occur in a vacuum. They're cumulative. That is how they work. Collectively, they have a powerful influence on our perceptions and experiences. As a woman, many of us encounter them far too regularly to even count, much less address. Nobody has the time and energy to address them all, and nobody should feel obligated to.

Another thing: if you try to discuss it as a collective/cumulative/cultural/societal problem, people will insist that it's important to talk about specifics instead, but if you try to discuss a particular incident (or even a list of particular incidents) the incidents get dismissed as either trivial or as a thing that happened for some non-misogyny reason.
posted by naoko at 10:03 AM on June 12, 2014 [16 favorites]

>> You know, as much as I don't care for a lot of the current (IMO) over-sensitivity of MeFi, the idea that things are
>> somehow "anti-male" is so fucking silly I just can't process it. CANNOT.
>
> And yet it comes up pretty much every single time we have a MeTa about feminism. That's less "silly" and more
> "horrifying" if you ask me.

But that's their lived experience! Some people experience those things as anti-male. Are we about to hear how it's sometimes OK to deny people's lived experience after all? For instance, when they're obviously wrong about what their experience was? Fuller holds breath, hoping.
posted by jfuller at 10:04 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

It seemed like things were changing for the better, but now they've quickly regressed

A sad part of me wonders if this is because the most prominent female moderator has moved on to the next stage of her career, and everyone who had been keeping their mouths shut because they knew she'd squelch them down now feels free to speak more openly. I hesitate to even type that because I don't want it to come across as blaming jessamyn for leaving, or for criticizing the way the site has handled the staffing issues overall, but it's been on my mind since before this MeTa was opened and I think it's an issue that the remaining Mefi staff may need to actively consider.
posted by KathrynT at 10:11 AM on June 12, 2014 [13 favorites]

zombieflanders. Why did you reply while I was in the edit window making sure I would not be misunderstood. Less than 30 seconds!

Kutsuwamushi and KathrynT both sum up positions which are true to me. Logically they look to be at odds. Still I like them both.

That is what I intended to be understood in my comment.
posted by vicx at 10:11 AM on June 12, 2014

Kutsuwamushi's point doesn't seem to me to be at odds with mine at all.
posted by KathrynT at 10:14 AM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

...are there separate, special, unspoken rules that apply when an FPP is about sexism (or other issue of prejudice and discrimination) stating that commenters should refrain from discussing the minutia of the links and instead limit their comments only to discussing the greater societal issue the links bring up?

I can only speak for myself, and was explaining my choice. Which, yes I do apply different rules to what I say in conversations about sexism, because the context of sexism is different than the context surrounding other topics. Yeah, that might not seem fair, but since I don't talk about every aspect of every FPP anyway, I feel like factoring in one more thing in that decision making process isn't that much effort. Especially since it helps to avoid being part of the system that makes me have to make that choice in the first place.
posted by Gygesringtone at 10:14 AM on June 12, 2014

Fuller holds breath, hoping.

Well, this isn't directed at me I don't think, but I will go on record as saying yes, I am totally willing to recognize that timesteil really does feel that a song that doesn't mention men at all is anti-male, and he is allowed to feel that!

That shade of blue looks *great* on you, by the way.
posted by rtha at 10:17 AM on June 12, 2014 [12 favorites]

zombieflanders. Why did you reply while I was in the edit window making sure I would not be misunderstood.

?

The edit window is for minor changes, not adding a whole other post, so I'm not sure what was wrong about my response. It showed up in the "x new comments" dialog and I asked for a simple clarification.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:18 AM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

It seemed like things were changing for the better, but now they've quickly regressed - and I still wonder if a lot of that is coming from new people.

I don't get the sense that it is. Some of the worst comments are coming from longtime Mefites. It seems like there's been a bit of a pendulum swing for a while, and it may be that some posters are now emboldened because Jessamyn isn't a mod here anymore.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:20 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

But that's their lived experience! Some people experience those things as anti-male. Are we about to hear how it's sometimes OK to deny people's lived experience after all? For instance, when they're obviously wrong about what their experience was?

Trolling is very unattractive and I wish you wouldn't do it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:20 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

On the topic of whether this post deserved an FPP: I've had similar posts deleted for being too flimsy or weak or not enough to stand alone. I wonder how this is different?

I feel like I'm gonna come off as a broken record here, but the difference is this barely got flagged anywhere near the start of its life, so we weren't getting any real useful "hey, this is a flimsy-ass post" feedback during the window where it would have made a difference, basically. There's an element of chance there—if the post had happened to fall into my lap somehow when it went up, I think I would have killed it, but so goes the crapshoot.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:20 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I literally cannot understand how so many of the women here are able to put up with so much of this shit with such continued patience.

As bad as it is here, it is much, much worse other places.

What a jolly thought for a Thursday afternoon!
posted by winna at 10:20 AM on June 12, 2014 [8 favorites]

You'd be offended by a song that doesn't mention men at all?

All that roaring is very disturbing
posted by InfidelZombie at 10:23 AM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

Could a mod weigh in here on the MeTa that was allegedly "killed?"

timsteil submitted a terse Metatalk post that read:

"This post seems to be drawing out the worst of everything in every MeFite, and going nowhere good. For the love of Mike please kill it before it kills us."

restless_nomad wrote back a note to commiserate about it being a frustrating thread, acknowledge that it had been barely flagged and that by that point it had been up long enough that deleting it after the fact seemed like a poor option, and basically saying "hey, are you sure this is specifically something you want a community discussion about".

We got no response to that; in the mean time, this post hit the queue and framed the whole thing a little more carefully; we posted this one instead.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:25 AM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

But that's their lived experience! Some people experience those things as anti-male. Are we about to hear how it's sometimes OK to deny people's lived experience after all?

I think it's appropriate here to quote metafilter's own elizardbits from above:

"It's a super insidious and gross technique used by oppressors in virtually every instance these days, this coopting of language used by the oppressed to call out oppression, and using it for their own needs."

posted by soundguy99 at 10:26 AM on June 12, 2014 [27 favorites]

Wait, does the article even express any anger?

Assuming this is a question really looking for answer. I think a certain amount of anger can be assumed based on the fact that she heard the song on a Friday evening and by Monday, she had twice gone back to the store to complain, made several phone calls, and published an article in which she accuses three TJ's employees of "defending racist, sexist, and misogynistic' songs," two of them by full name*. That sort of expediency, and outright aggression, is at least suggestive of strong emotion.

Anger may not be the best word. I'd probably go for something like "entitled". The rest of the comment you quote from is really good though, so I don't think we should quibble about a single word.

* Did you know Alertnet has also published their names under the URL www.alternet.org/tags/firstname-lastname? Guess what google sees on those pages?
posted by 0 at 10:26 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

But that's their lived experience! Some people experience those things as anti-male. Are we about to hear how it's sometimes OK to deny people's lived experience after all?

Yeah, just as some whites during Jim Crow experienced the behavior of "uppity" black folks as outrageously disrespectful.

Just as some fundamentalist Christians experience the fact of gay people getting married (or simply existing) as anti-Christian.

Are we about to hear how sometimes it's OK to accept bigotry because the bigots experience it differently from the people who are at the receiving end of bigotry, and how resisting oppression is actually the more oppressive act? scody doesn't hold breath.

the question of why no one is really going after the Rolling Stones for this here.

Well, we discussed the Stones more directly in the original thread, but that conversation was quickly derailed into the "but is singing about treating a woman like a dog really sexist, or are you ladies-with-the-vapors just too hyper-PC sensitive and/or unsophisticated in your understanding of unreliable narrators to understand that Mick Jagger was clearly making an ironic comment about misogyny several years before that word was even part of mainstream parlance?" derail. (Also: we just don't understand the essential transgressive nature of rock, man, and therefore we want the government to step in and censor all forms of pop culture and fine art that anyone has ever found offensive, ever.)
posted by scody at 10:28 AM on June 12, 2014 [21 favorites]

Anger may not be the best word. I'd probably go for something like "entitled".

That was the company's failing. When a customer has a complaint, you give them a clear process for resolution, and a timeline for when she can expect her response. She was sent up a vague chain of command, given telephone numbers that did not reach who she was told they would reach, wasn't told when the person would actually be available, and was given no timeline for resolution. I mean, the resolution may have been "we can't do anything about this, but we have passed your concerns to Muzac," but that's more than she was given.

Yes, she was entitled. She was entitled to good customer service. Even customers who are wrong are entitled to that. She didn't get it. Had I been in that circumstance, getting what felt like a runaround, I would have lost my temper. And men get to do this, because they are told it is simply being aggressive and having high standards. All she did was simple follow up and, oh my god, how dare she.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 10:33 AM on June 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

I think a certain amount of anger can be assumed based on the fact that she heard the song on a Friday evening and by Monday, she had twice gone back to the store to complain, made several phone calls, and published an article in which she accuses three TJ's employees of "defending racist, sexist, and misogynistic' songs," two of them by full name*. That sort of expediency, and outright aggression, is at least suggestive of strong emotion.

You're really scrapping the bottom of the barrel there. She did journalistic work when she had free time to do so, so she was obviously angry? What would have been "non-angry" apart from just sitting down and being quiet?
posted by sukeban at 10:33 AM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

restless_nomad wrote back a note to commiserate about it being a frustrating thread, acknowledge that it had been barely flagged and that by that point it had been up long enough that deleting it after the fact seemed like a poor option, and basically saying "hey, are you sure this is specifically something you want a community discussion about".

We got no response to that; in the mean time, this post hit the queue and framed the whole thing a little more carefully; we posted this one instead.

hey, that makes sense. I'm liking the way the MetaTalk queue is working so far.
posted by sweetkid at 10:37 AM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

She did those things on a Friday and Monday. That's her fault. Women are only allowed to complain on Tuesdays.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:38 AM on June 12, 2014 [23 favorites]

And it will always be Next Tuesday.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:39 AM on June 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

Thanks, KathrynT and scody. Yeah I saw a bit about whether the song was actually misogynistic or not but I saw it as all framed about their long-past artistic creation of it and nothing about any current-day ties (eg profit). That's not to say it's something that needs to be talked about in addition or even instead of what was and is being discussed. But that we view them as artists first and foremost so we'd primarily discuss their relation to the song in that context makes sense.

I didn't realize the discussion of the song itself had been derailed that badly. My thread-sense must be off. I almost want to read it again from the beginning, but ugh...
posted by ODiV at 10:43 AM on June 12, 2014

The rest of the comment you quote from is really good though, so I don't think we should quibble about a single word.

At this point this is just hilarious really.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:46 AM on June 12, 2014

our work to keep Metafilter free from sexism is far from over.

I think a callout on this is fine. its not fine to say that the entire site is somehow working towards one thing or another. it isn't.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:47 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I wonder if part of the low-flags is that some people felt like they didn't want to leave dodgy comments standing and so felt the need to say something in response to make sure their side was heard? I know I had that feeling when I saw the thread, but there were enough people stating my position by that point that I didn't have to threadsit as much.

I agree that a Feminism/Microaggressions 101 may be useful at this point in time.

Oh and thanks for letting this go through on the queue: when I saw a queue had been set up I did wonder if someone else had made a post for this already, but then I also figured that if that did happen it'd show up eventually.
posted by divabat at 10:49 AM on June 12, 2014

Ironmouth: I would say that the willingness of sections of the community to confront these issues as it happens on Metafilter regularly (and this is not a new struggle) counts as "working towards" something - and for many of us it's part and parcel of working towards a world free of sexism.

If a lot of this can be attributed to jessamyn's departure then that is highly troubling (again, not saying this is jessamyn's fault, but that is doesn't reflect well on us).
posted by divabat at 10:52 AM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

MisantropicPainforest, what do you mean huh?
posted by vicx at 10:52 AM on June 12, 2014

I don't know what was meant, but I favorited it because your comment read like something that would get posted on facebook in Comic Sans over a glittery out-of-focus image of a kitten or possibly an otter.
posted by winna at 10:57 AM on June 12, 2014 [10 favorites]

I don't think I'm at odds with KathrynT either.

Recognizing that pervasive misogyny is serious and harmful doesn't mean that we have to purge misogynist art from our cultural experience. It does mean moving beyond the acceptance of pervasive misogyny as normal, though.

It's not like we've never had to deal with the bigotry in some popular works becoming less acceptable over time. It's not a simple issue, but it's not a new one either.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 10:58 AM on June 12, 2014 [9 favorites]

I mean 'huh' as in 'wtf' as in utter confusion.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:00 AM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

The low-flags thing is in reference to the FPP rather than the comments, no? I know I flagged several comments, including Mr. Snippy up there. I didn't flag the FPP, however, even though I considered it weak and predicted things would not wendell.

I think the primary reason, in my case, is that user 'monospace' does not ring a bell with me. If it had been a name I recognized as an axe-grinder I would have definitely been more apt to flag it. Part of it also is that I have heard the message of giving women the space to discuss these things and do make a real effort to heed it. (I didn't notice monospace was male until now.)
posted by 0 at 11:01 AM on June 12, 2014

not saying this is jessamyn's fault

Of course not. But these things do require moderators basically "riding herd" on them to keep them from becoming out of control shitstorms a lot of the time. The work is unfun and unrewarding but it's easier to do if the underlying topic (microexamination of microaggressions in the interests of exploring and unpacking sexism) is one that is close to your heart.

None of MeFi's mods are overtly sexist. There are varying degrees to which they are anti-sexism crusaders which should be just fine. And there is a big difference, to me, between saying you'd like your favorite website to not be sexist and saying you want it to be actively anti-sexism. So saying "our work to keep Metafilter free from sexism is far from over" is referring to a subset of MeFites when it says "our" and the implication is that people who are not activist about eradicating sexism are maybe not MeFites? Not good MeFites? I'm not certain, but I don't think one can say that. Not everyone is working to eradicate sexism from MetaFilter, for better or for worse, and that's just true, however you may personally feel about it. And how one does personally feel about that may affect how they discuss these topics with each other in threads like this one.

My Perfect MetaFilter would be sexism-free probably, but my realistic MetaFilter would have thin grar-inducing threads like this MeFi one being deleted pretty speedily.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 11:06 AM on June 12, 2014 [20 favorites]

I think misogyny is harmful. I'm not gobsmacked why it exists because I know why it exists.
It exists because pain and loss are real. In my opinion it is a psychological condition.
posted by vicx at 11:15 AM on June 12, 2014

It's a sociological condition and I think is pretty widely accepted as such. Pathologizing it as psychological or medical in origin is pretty ridiculous.
posted by sweetkid at 11:18 AM on June 12, 2014 [24 favorites]

Huh?
posted by Pudhoho at 11:20 AM on June 12, 2014

Sorry but I think there's something really vile about blaming the existence of widespread misogyny on untrustworthy women.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:20 AM on June 12, 2014 [32 favorites]

Mp, Yes. There would be something vile about blaming the existence of widespread misogyny on untrustworthy women.

Sweetkid, Psychological and medical don't go together.
posted by vicx at 11:25 AM on June 12, 2014

I also think misogyny is sociologically harmful.
posted by vicx at 11:27 AM on June 12, 2014

What is happen
posted by shakespeherian at 11:30 AM on June 12, 2014 [7 favorites]

I'm not gobsmacked why it exists because I know why it exists.

Why does it exist?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:31 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

It exists because pain and loss are real.

Clearly elaborate what you mean by this.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:32 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

What is happen

I think those facebook gifs have attained sentience.
posted by winna at 11:33 AM on June 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

This feels like reading an artist's statement about an installation made of instagram filters.
posted by elizardbits at 11:35 AM on June 12, 2014 [8 favorites]

Psychological and medical absolutely go together, but like others I'm interested in why you blame women for misogyny but say you're not blaming women, vicx.
posted by sweetkid at 11:35 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

> Wait, does the article even express any anger? I definitely don't see anything that could be called anger directed at the store employee in that dialogue.

The article presents people like the employee she talked to as the reason why there's sexism in America. It has nothing to with people who manage and select playlists at Muzak or radio stations. It has nothing to do with creatives who work for advertising companies deciding to focus on women's insecurities about body image in advertising campaigns. It has nothing to do with upper-level managers at Trader Joes or any other company. It has nothing to do people who manage websites like hers and what kind of advertising they decide to run and how they decide to handle stories about rape and sexual harassment. It has nothing to do with people in her own demographic group really liking songs like this and making them so goddamn popular in the first place. Nope. It's all because of people like Kyle who couldn't get the playlist fixed.

There's no way well-educated upper-middle class professionals like the author could have anything to do with sexism in our culture, or have anything to engage in self-examination or think about in that context, even though they're the ones who control policy at media companies and other organizations they own and work for, and make up a big chunk of the market for popular media, who keep feeding her misogynist claptrap because people in her demographic group like it. No, it's all because of peons.


Everything wrong with society is always the fault of those with least power in it. That's the view taken by most MeFites.
posted by nangar at 11:35 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

MisantropicPainforest, what do you mean huh?

I can't speak for Misantropic, but in the context of a discussion of sociological sexism as it appears on Metafilter and elsewhere, your comment, which focuses on an individual person's mistrust/hatred of women and supposes it to be caused by untrustworthy mothers or mother figures, is a non sequitur.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:38 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

That may literally be the worst paraphrase and most blinkered attempt to understand a relatively simple piece of writing I have ever seen. Perhaps you should just stick to directly quoting, because you could not have gotten it more wrong.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:40 AM on June 12, 2014 [16 favorites]

The article presents people like the employee she talked to as the reason why there's sexism in America.

You're entitled to your interpretation but I don't think there's any truth to this reading at all.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:40 AM on June 12, 2014 [8 favorites]

That was directed at nangar, if it's not clear.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:41 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

Everything wrong with society is always the fault of those with least power in it. That's the view taken by most MeFites.

That's not my view, and I've rarely if ever heard a similar view expressed here. In fact it's typically quite the opposite. Cites, if you don't mind?
posted by donnagirl at 11:41 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

That was directed at nangar, if it's not clear.

I was worried I'd missed something. Thanks.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:42 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

some of the responses illustrate exactly the problem: misogyny is so pervasive that it's accepted as normal. When you accept misogyny as normal, it seems like a bizarre overreaction to get upset over a misogynist song being played over your supermarket's speakers.

You know what this makes me think of? Fallout.

When you're playing Fallout, at least the recent releases such as New Vegas, they've gone to a lot of trouble to include, in among the innocuous songs, really fucking jarring ones, as in, songs that would never, ever come on the radio now because of being so offensive. It's part of the ambience, to show that in among these things that we think of as idyllic, evil, awful shit lives. And it works, it contributes to that sense of horror. And we recognize those songs as jarring, because they would never play today.

There are songs playing today that in thirty years, I hope are so offensive as to never see radio time. But it's not that those songs will become offensive, by the magic of passing time, in thirty years. It's that they're offensive right this minute, but people aren't recognizing it because we're so steeped in the culture.

Think of these lyrics in the context of anthropological visitors to a strange culture, and it may make more sense.
posted by corb at 11:43 AM on June 12, 2014 [13 favorites]

I was worried I'd missed something. Thanks.

Sorry about that.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 11:45 AM on June 12, 2014

Sorry about that.

No worries. This Exchange: or, The Utility of Direct Quoting
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:47 AM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

> That was directed at nangar, if it's not clear.

It was clear.
posted by nangar at 11:54 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Everything wrong with society is always the fault of those with least power in it. That's the view taken by most MeFites.

We're through the looking glass here, people. White is black. And black is white. Maybe Oswald is just what he said he was. A patsy.
posted by scody at 11:56 AM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

To be fair, the only reason I care about the rights of women, LGBT people, and the working class is because I am a paid apparatchik of the all-powerful communist homogynocracy.
posted by scody at 12:09 PM on June 12, 2014 [28 favorites]

we agreed not to discuss that in public at our last meeting comrade scody
posted by elizardbits at 12:10 PM on June 12, 2014 [33 favorites]

Does this mean another round of self criticism?
posted by Pudhoho at 12:14 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

We can do that but first we have to eat some cookies and have tea.

We have the best tea at our meetings that we don't actually hold.
posted by winna at 12:16 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

My 20ish daughter heard the song in our local TJs and thought Mick was singing "Under my bum".
posted by Ideefixe at 12:18 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

How about a cooler filled with ice-cold beers?
posted by Pudhoho at 12:21 PM on June 12, 2014

To be fair, the only reason I care about the rights of women, LGBT people, and the working class is because I am a paid apparatchik of the all-powerful communist homogynocracy.


Paid? And here I've been giving away the milk for free for years like a C-H-U-M-P.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:40 PM on June 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

they've gone to a lot of trouble to include, in among the innocuous songs, really fucking jarring ones

Yeah, I hate Johnny Guitar too.
posted by Justinian at 1:02 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

As far as never getting an answer from me re my initial MeTa, I have nothing in my inbox, unless it got sent to an old AOL address that I haven't used in years. That would be totally my fault for not updating my info or checking it after the fact.

My take on it is this.

1. Woman is insulted by a 48 year old song she heard in a supermarket aisle.

2. Fine. Express your indignation to a cashier who had nothing to do with it.

3. Take it up with the store manager, who had nothing to do with it.

4. Fine. So follow it up the food chain and maybe somewhere you will find a doofus VP of something, who when presented with a menu of options about what kind of music to play in their stores, chose "Classic Rock", because he is just edgy that way. Maybe Bob Seger makes people want to buy shit. Who knows.

5. As far as the "WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS WHILE I AM SHOPPING?" sentiment? It's what happens when you walk out your front door lady.

I'm not crazy about seeing a White Sox flag flying on my North Side street, but I live and let live. The world is full of little annoyances. They are mosquitoes in August.

6. Yes I guess if you want to sit down and deconstruct the lyrics to a 48 year old song you might well find a sort of misogyny. Shit there are probably a hundred more songs over the years that are worse in that regard.

7. I find the term "mansplaining" highly offensive. It's kind of like "cuntsplaining" if you ask me. If I express an opinion on something, I shouldn't have to have it judged and filtered through my testicles before it is deemed worth of you to mock.

8. Back to the original point. It's a damned song from 1966, that was a top 40 hit, and it came up in rotation while this woman was shopping in a yuppie store.

It wasn't a direct insult to her. It was not an assault. She was not insulted personally. There's half a chance she never even would have noticed it. But this time she did.

But this whining crap about it is just insufferable. If she feels victimized in some way, fine. Sue the fuckin Rolling Stones. See how that goes.

If you walk out your door, you are likely to find things that are going to piss you off on a daily basis, and there's not much anyone can do about that.

But please, just don't get all precious about it like the world is here to hurt you and you deserve something because of that.

You're not special or deserving. You are another pair of feet walking around until you aren't anymore.
posted by timsteil at 1:19 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

7. I find the term "mansplaining" highly offensive. It's kind of like "cuntsplaining" if you ask me.

What the hell. You find 'man' and 'cunt' equivalent?
posted by sweetkid at 1:22 PM on June 12, 2014 [93 favorites]

Ironmouth: I would say that the willingness of sections of the community to confront these issues as it happens on Metafilter regularly (and this is not a new struggle) counts as "working towards" something - and for many of us it's part and parcel of working towards a world free of sexism.

What I'm saying is that people often try and bolster their point by saying "everyone" is behind what it is they are saying. No need for that. Just make the callout.

IMHO, over self-policing and attempting to get everyone to hew to a single political line is what is slowly, but surely killing this site. Its not just the revenue issue from Google. 5 years ago, you didn't see threads with 12 comments on them very often. The mods have been awesome--they are focused on personal conflict and not a particular point of view (no matter how wrong that point of view is)--we can and should be strong enough to hear a disagreeable view and respond to it properly and responsibly.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:23 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

son you got issues
posted by elizardbits at 1:23 PM on June 12, 2014 [74 favorites]

> I'm not crazy about seeing a White Sox flag flying on my North Side street, but I live and let live

I'm a baseball fan, don't get me wrong, but this isn't a just comparison to living as a girl or woman in a sexist society.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:24 PM on June 12, 2014 [30 favorites]

upon which in retrospect i could not possibly be bothered to elaborate because 01) gtfo and 02) the footie is on
posted by elizardbits at 1:24 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

What the hell

I'm not going to link to it, but sadly that's not the first time that equivalence has been made here.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:24 PM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

I'm not crazy about seeing a White Sox flag flying on my North Side street, but I live and let live.

This is literally the most ludicrous, inept analogy I have ever seen.
posted by naoko at 1:25 PM on June 12, 2014 [34 favorites]

As far as never getting an answer from me re my initial MeTa, I have nothing in my inbox, unless it got sent to an old AOL address that I haven't used in years.

Ah, yup, that appears to be the case. We were wondering why we didn't hear back!
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 1:26 PM on June 12, 2014

I have nothing in my inbox, unless it got sent to an old AOL address that I haven't used in years. That would be totally my fault for not updating my info or checking it after the fact.

The email on your account is still set to an AOL address. Please update it today if you can.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:27 PM on June 12, 2014

what in the actual fuck.
posted by gaspode at 1:27 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

I find the term "mansplaining" highly offensive. It's kind of like

Jesus fucking christ, dude. Put this down and walk away.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:28 PM on June 12, 2014 [72 favorites]

I'm not crazy about seeing a White Sox flag flying on my North Side street, but I live and let live.

I'll swap you a SportsBall Fan Flag of your choice if you want to take on the weird whistles during your morning commute, the guy grabbing my phone and entering in his number and then calling his phone from my phone to get my number, and the people who judge my running shorts. Man I'd love to swap all of that. I'd love for that to be the annoyance I face just on the way to Trader Joe's.
posted by jetlagaddict at 1:28 PM on June 12, 2014 [38 favorites]

Analogies can't be literal.

I guess my Chris Traeger voice doesn't come through well in text.
posted by naoko at 1:30 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

I'm not crazy about seeing a White Sox flag flying on my North Side street, but I live and let live.

You know, I wouldn't compare people's concerns about sexism to the fact you have to see a reminder that your baseball team is slowly losing its dominance over Chicago due to not having won a World Series for 100 years.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:33 PM on June 12, 2014 [9 favorites]

that comment is kind of like bad
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:33 PM on June 12, 2014

this is literally like that time I witnessed a bad analogy.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:33 PM on June 12, 2014 [16 favorites]

jetlagaddict: "the guy grabbing my phone and entering in his number and then calling his phone from my phone to get my number"

Whhhaaaattttt

how do you not just, i dunno, atomic knee people or mace the shit out of them
posted by boo_radley at 1:34 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's not like it's a *Yankees* flag, for Pete's sake.
posted by uosuaq at 1:35 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

timsteil: "You're not special or deserving. You are another pair of feet walking around until you aren't anymore."

And oh yeah, please remember this as people react to your horribad analogy.
posted by boo_radley at 1:35 PM on June 12, 2014 [9 favorites]

that comment seems over the line even for metatalk - i flagged, but now that it's stayed and been responded to, i'd like to put my vote in for deleting shit like that in the future.
posted by nadawi at 1:35 PM on June 12, 2014 [19 favorites]

If only being female in a patriarchal misogynist society was a little annoyance, like mosquitoes in August.
posted by inertia at 1:37 PM on June 12, 2014 [12 favorites]

My soul hurts.
posted by hydropsyche at 1:37 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Liz what did you say your killfile script is called?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:38 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

how do you not just, i dunno, atomic knee people or mace the shit out of them

because we'd be charged with assault and it's pretty unsafe to enter into close combat with someone who likely outweighs/outsizes us by a lot. also, it's just expected that we'll take shit like that (although, were he to later stalk and rape her she'd be seen as guilty for not stopping him somehow).
posted by nadawi at 1:38 PM on June 12, 2014 [27 favorites]

does that killfile script block people?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:38 PM on June 12, 2014

how do you not just, i dunno, atomic knee people or mace the shit out of them

Fear of either getting beat down or arrested for "overreacting".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:38 PM on June 12, 2014 [9 favorites]

or does it just block really bad analogies.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:39 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

sweetkid I think it's worse; the comparison is to "woman," because when a man engages in that behavior it's "mansplaining" but when a woman does it it's "cuntsplaining."

Yea I understand that.
posted by sweetkid at 1:40 PM on June 12, 2014

Don't call me Shorely.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:42 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

no need to be sorry. I was *literally* shocked to see that comparison tossed out so blithely though (by timsteil). I flagged the comment too and then irritatedly responded
posted by sweetkid at 1:42 PM on June 12, 2014

W O W
posted by Narrative Priorities at 1:42 PM on June 12, 2014

EmpressCallipygos: "
Fear of either getting beat down or arrested for "overreacting"."

Yeah, I'm sorry, I know that's the case, but holy shit, the absolute gall of people, goddamn.
posted by boo_radley at 1:44 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

...timsteilsplaining?
posted by gatorae at 1:44 PM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

"5. As far as the "WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS WHILE I AM SHOPPING?" sentiment? It's what happens when you walk out your front door lady.

I'm not crazy about seeing a White Sox flag flying on my North Side street, but I live and let live. The world is full of little annoyances. They are mosquitoes in August.

6. Yes I guess if you want to sit down and deconstruct the lyrics to a 48 year old song you might well find a sort of misogyny. Shit there are probably a hundred more songs over the years that are worse in that regard.

7. I find the term "mansplaining" highly offensive. It's kind of like "cuntsplaining" if you ask me. If I express an opinion on something, I shouldn't have to have it judged and filtered through my testicles before it is deemed worth of you to mock."

Dude, come the fuck on, you're better than this. Seriously. I'm really taken aback — I was taken aback by your previous comment, but seriously, "cuntsplaining"?

I've talked to you before and I didn't think you were an asshole — you're coming across like a GIANT asshole.

You've described sexism as a normal part of the world, ignored women on why that's fucked up, denied that "Under My Thumb" is pretty fucking misogynistic when it's directly about subjugating a woman in order to punish her, and obviously not understood what "mansplaining" means despite it being covered about a million times, then upping the ante with something really fucking vile?

Come on, Tim. What do you think your nephew would say if you said that in front of him? He'd probably be pretty disappointed, right?
posted by klangklangston at 1:54 PM on June 12, 2014 [20 favorites]

I think that may be the single most offensive comment I've seen allowed to stand on this site. In part because of how completely bizarre and unnecessary it was.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 1:55 PM on June 12, 2014 [20 favorites]

5. As far as the "WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS WHILE I AM SHOPPING?" sentiment? It's what happens when you walk out your front door lady.

Uh...that's kind of the point?
posted by threeants at 1:58 PM on June 12, 2014 [42 favorites]

Actually, I wonder if we shouldn't just take a "give 'em enough rope" tactic -

Do go on, tim. (prepares to take notes)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:59 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

you're better than this

Is he? Perhaps we should take advice frequently given on the green, which is to believe what people tell us about themselves. He has taken the opportunity to make two comments in this thread, presumably of his own free will, and these are things he's chosen to let us know about what he thinks and how he views the world. I will do him the courtesy of believing him.

And I'm pretty sure I'm remembering correctly other comments made here in the grey, by this same mefite, that have made it clear that this attitude is not an aberration or the result of just really having a bad day.
posted by rtha at 2:00 PM on June 12, 2014 [32 favorites]

I think that comment is a pretty solid example of what happens when people try to stand up and say misogynist shit is offensive and unacceptable.

People, people who maybe never came off as misogynists or assholes before, tell you that your concerns are insignificant, that you are small and insignificant, and that's just life, sweetheart.
posted by inertia at 2:04 PM on June 12, 2014 [31 favorites]

find the term "mansplaining" highly offensive. It's kind of like

You're being awful here and continuing to argue against the original post in a place where it's not at all appropriate. You, and people like you, and this sort of ranty watch-me-bitch performance art are why we can't have useful discussions in this community space. That and the fact that people, including me, seem to be unable to just flag you and move on. I'm really hoping you're just having a bad day.

I've seen less-crappy things deleted from this thread than your creepy "I'm just gonna slip the C word in here" screed. I'm sorry your comment stayed. I understand why it did, but you are taking advantage of the light moderation in this space to play Offensive As I Wanna Be games and it's rude and inconsiderate.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 2:04 PM on June 12, 2014 [83 favorites]

Hey something everyone can finally agree on; that comment was ridiculous.
posted by Justinian at 2:04 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

5. As far as the "WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THIS WHILE I AM SHOPPING?" sentiment? It's what happens when you walk out your front door lady.

Uh...that's kind of the point?

Ex-fucking-actly. Misogyny, we're soaking in it. And we better not complain about it, noooo, no need to get hysterical, little ladies.
posted by gaspode at 2:04 PM on June 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

does that killfile script block people?

It's called diediedead and it indeed blocks people 100%, you will not even see FPPs or asks posted by them. It is very satisfying but make sure to install it on all computers you use or otherwise you will find yourself engaged in stupid arguments with terrible people while at work.
posted by elizardbits at 2:08 PM on June 12, 2014 [14 favorites]

You can complain, you just can't bitch about it.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:08 PM on June 12, 2014

OH GOD NO IT'S ON USERSCRIPTS.ORG
posted by elizardbits at 2:09 PM on June 12, 2014

After this and several other instances (various users), I'm really wondering what it takes to get banned.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:09 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

I mean, on the bright side, "It's what happens when you walk out your front door lady." is actually a pretty decent working definition of microaggression.

ever the optimist
posted by threeants at 2:09 PM on June 12, 2014 [9 favorites]

I'm never sure what to do on MeTa when I see an awful comment that nevertheless contains some kind of conversation-relevant content. My sense is that comments are almost never deleted here unless they're doxxing another user or especially vicious to a specific person. I flag things sometimes but it always seems extraneous as mods are always watching these threads.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 2:10 PM on June 12, 2014

elizardbits: "OH GOD NO IT'S ON USERSCRIPTS.ORG"

i tried to warn people
posted by boo_radley at 2:11 PM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

I was probably super unhelpful in both flagging the comment and responding to it, which makes it more complicated to delete. Apologies, mods.
posted by naoko at 2:12 PM on June 12, 2014

Alright, given that deleting remarks at all on metatalk is a rare occurrence, and that timsteil's second comment has been responded to multiple times, once by a mod no less, I can see why the comment is going to stand. But boy howdy, I'd appreciate some sort of indication that crap like that, in a thread like this, isn't acceptable.
posted by Ipsifendus at 2:13 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

It was a little like watching a firework go off. It's really hard not to want to point and go ooh.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 2:13 PM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

I find the term "mansplaining" highly offensive. It's kind of like

Sorry, Tim, but you're about as bad at analogies as you are at opinions. I hope you apologize, but I don't predict you will.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:14 PM on June 12, 2014

Stuff on Metatalk doesn't really get deleted. Even offensive stuff.
posted by Justinian at 2:14 PM on June 12, 2014

Since I guess we're talking about plugins now, comments from boo_radley's MeTa on the demise of userscripts.org may be of some assistance.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:14 PM on June 12, 2014

Yeah, we can't really delete it since it's been responded to so much, but timsteil, you just earned a week off from the site.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:14 PM on June 12, 2014 [67 favorites]

i flagged it and then waited for a mod to weigh in on it before responding. if it seems pretty clear that it will stay and then i feel like it's fair game to make my displeasure with the comment (and lack of deletion) known. i do understand the impulse to repeat the worst part of the comment in an objection, but i sort of wished as a group we'd do that less.
posted by nadawi at 2:14 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

where i'm living, mosquitos in august give you malaria

according to the bill & melinda gates foundation, "malaria occurs in nearly 100 countries worldwide, exacting a huge toll on human health and imposing a heavy social and economic burden"

you itch and you scratch and it's annoying because you can't go outside without getting bitten, but maybe you don't think it's a big deal, hey it's just mosquitos in august

and then you get violently ill and maybe you even die

so, man, your analogy was less crap than you thought. those harmless, normal little mosquitos aren't actually harmless at all. it's just that you don't know it.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:14 PM on June 12, 2014 [39 favorites]

That is actually a pretty great comment and I'm glad it's staying. I want to etch it in stone to show people, see, this is what men look like when you hurt their feelings by calling out their shitty behaviors. This is what you look like when you don't listen to people who are patiently explaining something to you.

Also, it has the beautifully ironic mansplaining of the term mansplaining. Because it doesn't even mean what he thinks it means, but he's still reallyreally mad about it and is gonna tell everyone why.
posted by ernielundquist at 2:15 PM on June 12, 2014 [37 favorites]

(if i had previewed i would have edited out the part of my comment about displeasure w/ lack of deletion, a week off seems a fair response. thanks, mods)
posted by nadawi at 2:16 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

The mods should send him a bill.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:17 PM on June 12, 2014

Jesus fucking Christ. I bend over backwards to read people as generously as possible in these discussions but every time, even when I don't agree at all with the original complaint, it always always ALWAYS has to come down to Lewis's Law: comments on any article about feminism justify feminism.

To anyone who has complained about being misread or not being given the benefit of the doubt in these conversations, THIS is why we can't have nice things.
posted by dialetheia at 2:17 PM on June 12, 2014 [10 favorites]

I feel like giving him more attention for his shittiness is just enabling him to sit at home feverishly masturbating over all the uproar he's caused. So the only further thing I have to say about this tragic loser is that ideally his handful of lube will turn into a handful of gravel mid-yank.
posted by elizardbits at 2:19 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

Maybe timsteil is actually a huge feminist whose mission is to embarrass the slightly-more-subtle MRAs into shutting up
posted by shakespeherian at 2:20 PM on June 12, 2014

shakespeherian: "Maybe timsteil is actually a huge feminist whose mission is to embarrass the slightly-more-subtle MRAs into shutting up"

they'd just start hooting "false flag!" and getting lathered up about that.
posted by boo_radley at 2:21 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't know if I'm right in bringing this up here, but I just saw that palomar disabled her account after a mod-scolding in the Dan Savage thread, and I'm pretty fuckin' bummed about it. I understand completely that the mods need to prevent threads from becoming just individuals sniping at each other, but the brusqueness of the note coming right after C.A.S.'s condescending "Doesn't seem to me like you get the spirit of this place" left a bad taste in my mouth. I hope she comes back, her voice was invaluable in threads about feminism and body acceptance.
posted by brookedel at 2:26 PM on June 12, 2014 [19 favorites]

I feel sligthtly embarassed for him. I don't feel BAD, and am deliriously happy he can't comment for a week. But yeah, embarassed. I mean, the sentiments were offensive, sure, but so obvious. Not interested in community, and not even a good troll. Eep.
posted by agregoli at 2:28 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

that's how I feel about most men tbh
posted by NoraReed at 2:33 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

Reading that comment by timsteil was akin to being suddenly slapped in the face with a dead fish.

Being slapped with a dead fish wouldn't actually hurt too much and I'd get over it, but the shock of it, combined with the revolting smell, would probably cause tears of anger to spring to my eyes.
posted by Squeak Attack at 2:38 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

Come back soon, palomar.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:49 PM on June 12, 2014 [27 favorites]

but I just saw that palomar disabled her account

Wait, what? Fuck.

Please come back soon, palomar.
posted by rtha at 2:58 PM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

agreed, hope that's temporary.
posted by sweetkid at 2:59 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I understand completely that the mods need to prevent threads from becoming just individuals sniping at each other, but the brusqueness of the note coming right after C.A.S.'s condescending "Doesn't seem to me like you get the spirit of this place" left a bad taste in my mouth. I hope she comes back, her voice was invaluable in threads about feminism and body acceptance.

It made me angry. Someone I've never seen before (to my point made earlier about people with older accounts popping up to troll feminists) spends half the thread goading palomar and then she gets in trouble for it.

If she's reading this or someone knows her, please tell her I hope she feels she can come back sometime because I always appreciate her passion, clarity and knowledge.
posted by winna at 3:09 PM on June 12, 2014 [22 favorites]

What a mess the last couple of days have been.

When there is so much knee-jerkery (from all sides) there's no room for discussion.
I have felt unwelcome to voice an opinion in that thread, and in this one, with the guarantee of being immediately labeled "trivial" or "misogynist".

Metafilter has influenced and recorded a lot of my personal evolution over the last thirteen years, and I'd like to thank the community for that before we part ways.
posted by Catch at 3:11 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

For context, there was a sort of wham-wham-wham-wham string of deleted comments that prompted the mod note, it wasn't a general commentary on the appropriateness of palomar discussing the topic or an endorsement of anybody else's behavior in there. Someone can be totally on the right side of an argument and still be sort of going overboard all of a sudden to the point where we have to clean up and leave a note.

I know it might be a distinction that doesn't always feel like one, but palomar didn't get in any trouble as far as we were concerned, it was just a "please cool it" sort of situation. I hope she comes back soon too, and I totally appreciate her frustration with that whole thing regardless of the dry modly-duty explanation aspect.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:15 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

re: mansplaining, dudes are working REALLY HARD to not understand what it means. Mansplaining should be disgusting to men who aren't horrible. When I see the phrase "White supremacists," I don't get into a lather because it isn't FAIR!!!! I'm white, so the word white shouldn't be part of that descriptive term!!!!! a term that describes a certain phenomenon that is inherently linked to whiteness and toxic notions of whiteness as a marker of superiority!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TAKE THE WORD OUT IT IS A WORD THAT DESCRIBES MULTIPLE THINGS AND SOME OF THEM ARE NEO-NAZIS BUT ONE OF THOSE THINGS IS ME AND ANOTHER OF THOSE THINGS IS MY BROTHER AND ANOTHER OF THOSE THINGS IS BRAD PITT AND HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT BRAD PITT SUPPORTS RACISM!!!!

The word "man" being in the word "mansplaining" does not make that word a universal descriptor of men who explain things. The word "white" in the term "white power" does not mean that every white person in the world secretly longs to get swastika tattoos. Sometimes, words mean one thing in one place, and another thing when being used elsewhere. There is no transitive property that means you are somehow being slandered whenever the term mansplaining is used. The implied critique embedded in the word doesn't come from the term "man", otherwise He-Man and Batman and Manwich and Man Ray would all weep themselves to sleep all night. The critique is embedded in the behavior being criticized, which is something that men specifically do.

Lacto-ovo vegetarians don't get insulted by the insult "lactivists," for example (unless those vegetarians are also militant formula-is-murder types), because the root "lact-" itself is not where the criticism lives. People who call "mansplaining" a gendered insult do not appear to understand how language, gender, or insults work. It is truly bizarre.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 3:17 PM on June 12, 2014 [76 favorites]

For context, there was a sort of wham-wham-wham-wham string of deleted comments that prompted the mod note, it wasn't a general commentary on the appropriateness of palomar discussing the topic or an endorsement of anybody else's behavior in there.

If an in-thread mod note scolds someone for comments that have been deleted, it seems like that note should probably indicate that there have been deletions.

Otherwise it risks giveing the impression that it's the comments still remaining that brought about the mod note, sending the wrong message about what's considered unacceptable?

(And if not for the purpose of signalling that to the group at large, what's the point of a public mod note.)
posted by nobody at 3:28 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

I dunno. I get the feeling that a lot of the people applying the term to others don't really know what mansplaining is either. The author of the piece really deserved a lot of the criticism she got in the original thread, and I think Roger Dodger made very good points (but then kind of got off track WRT to incomes, etc.) about the level of effort it appears she actually made before dropping the involved parties' names all over the internet.
posted by smidgen at 3:29 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

(Which is to say, I don't know what was deleted, but in its current context that mod note seems really unnecessarily harsh)
posted by nobody at 3:30 PM on June 12, 2014

I hear you, nobody. There were probably better framings for that mod note. Just wanted to be clear where it came from.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:32 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I get the feeling that a lot of the people applying the term to others don't really know what mansplaining is either.

It is true, that sometimes people do not understand what the words they use really mean. I have a friend who still says "pacific" instead of "specific."

Obviously the answer to that is not "some people use words incorrectly," but instead, "both of those words are now banned, sucks that we have to rename an ocean and everything but what are you going to do, that's the rule when words are used wrong"
posted by a fiendish thingy at 3:34 PM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

We (two women) bought a house in November. The next-door neighbors are very nice, but the man is just absolutely convinced that two women are unable to deal with the ins and outs of home maintenance. We have both received countless bits of unsolicited advice from him -- like stuff regarding the automatic sprinklers, how/when best to mow, how best to maintain the koi pond (which is not even visible to him since it is in the back yard), why we should probably park on one side of the driveway instead of the other. Every time I pull up the driveway and see him in his yard, I brace myself for another little bit of wisdom from him.

(I'm handy, by the way, and thus far he as not told me anything that I didn't learn from my dad 15 or 20 years ago.)

I was telling my mom about this on the phone one day. I don't remember if I used the word 'mansplain' -- I might have, because I've referred to him that way to others. In any case, I had to explain to her why his offerings of advice offend me. Basically, it's because they indicate to me his certitude that we are incompetent and how could two women know anything about the fundamentals of lawn care and other mysteries of home ownership???

My mom pulled the "Oh, he's just trying to be nice. He doesn't mean any harm," which was accompanied by an audible eye roll.

My response to her was: "Mom, do you think he'd be having the same conversations with either of us if one of us was a husband?"

She was quiet for a minute, and then simply said "Oh" in a way that made me understood that she got it.

For whatever reason, I've never gotten a lot of the really aggressive attention from men that other women experience on a constant basis, and I'm grateful for that. But you just can't escape it. No matter what you call it, it's THERE.
posted by mudpuppie at 3:38 PM on June 12, 2014 [38 favorites]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it should not be used at all -- I just think it's started to be thrown about too carelessly, that's all.
posted by smidgen at 3:41 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm a teacher and if I'm trying to get a student to see something my way, I talk to them. I personally don't label them and create a vocabulary around them. I don't make witty sarcastic remarks at their expense. I don't call their views shitty. I don't get other teachers and gang up on them.

I talk to them - I try to see why they think a certain way without insulting them. I engage them and ask them questions, try to find common ground, and then try to move from there. If they curse me out (and they often do) I take a deep breath and realize they're struggling; they know they have no argument and are going for shock value/deflection.

Once they reach this stage, their anger drowns out anything I would try to say and I know it is time to walk away for a bit. We call a time-out. This is one of the hardest parts of being a teacher - taking the verbal abuse and not engaging the fight - but when I remind myself that fighting with them is the absolute worst thing that I can do if I am trying to get them to see things another way, it makes it easier to hold my tongue. If I fight and engage them, they'll see me as an enemy, and who listens to their enemy? I let them know I care and I'm sorry they can't see what is in their best interest and give them some space. I'll try again another time.

Anyway, sometimes it works and there is much rejoicing. But sometimes, there does come a point where I have to just walk away because the student's belief is just too deeply embedded and strong that I alone can't change their mind about it. I really, really hate when that happens, but its a matter of self-preservation and there are other students whose beliefs aren't so deeply embedded who need me. I like to think that maybe I laid a foundation that someone else might be able to build upon, but that is the optimist in me.

-----

As a teacher, I've also seen where there is a big shock to the school, something big happens and kind of rocks everyone's world for a bit. We all pull together and get through the crisis, but not soon after, there's this odd pressure release valve thing that happens, like all the tension has to explode. People have short tempers and act out of character. It really sucks when that happens, but usually after the steam blows off, things settle down again.
posted by NoraCharles at 3:49 PM on June 12, 2014 [14 favorites]

You know, I was less than 50 yards from my house, having had a lovely commute for once - crossing the street, laden with heavy packages, and a car barely stopped for me, tried to go around me even instead of waiting the two seconds for me to cross. I said, "Can you wait a second, sheesh?" and the man driving put his finger up to his lips as he passed, and gave me a patronizing face, "shushing" me. Cause women are in the way and always be talking, right? I know it sounds mild, but this thread and the microaggressions elsewhere are wearing on me.

Stupid to even post this here, but gah. It's all the TIME with this shit! Women trying to be living their lives while swimming in this hostility of our very existence! Fuckin' remember that!
posted by agregoli at 3:55 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm a teacher and if I'm trying to get a student to see something my way, I talk to them. I personally don't label them and create a vocabulary around them. I don't make witty sarcastic remarks at their expense. I don't call their views shitty. I don't get other teachers and gang up on them.

Thank you for doing that.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:58 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

I am also a teacher! One time, one of my students said "What if JESUS had been aborted?" as if this was going to make me allow students to write essays on abortion. "What if Hitler had been?" I asked, and the student said "um...?" and so different teachers can have different pedagogical approaches, I guess.

Also, the metaphor is not very useful. It is sort of not the job of women struggling to live their lives to act as handholding teacher types to every dude in the world. Sometimes words discovered in anger are still true, and sometimes finding a way to describe that thing you and all your friends have experienced one million times is worthwhile, even if Men on the Internet do not like the word.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 3:58 PM on June 12, 2014 [39 favorites]

I'm a teacher and if I'm trying to get a student to see something my way, I talk to them.

yeah, but as a teacher, that's part of your job, is to teach. Just as the student's job is to listen to what you're saying and treat you and your body of knowledge with respect, and work to learn. I'm not a teacher; I don't always want to spend my energy and time (for free!) to help lead people towards a new, gentler understanding. Sometimes I just want to buy my dang chili-lime cashews without being reminded that some guy got rich singing about how happy he was to have finally overpowered me.
posted by KathrynT at 3:58 PM on June 12, 2014 [32 favorites]

I am so curious, mudpuppie: why does your neighbour care about which side of the driveway you park in? How could that be useful advice for anyone?
posted by jeather at 4:00 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

You'll get used to it.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:04 PM on June 12, 2014

I am so curious, mudpuppie: why does your neighbour care about which side of the driveway you park in? How could that be useful advice for anyone?

Oh yes, I suppose that's rather an odd thing to say without context.

It's because the tree that overhangs the right half of the driveway is an Asian hackberry, and Asian hackberries are subject to horrible infestations of wooly aphids, and wooly aphids excrete a sticky substance that will soon coat your car and which is very difficult to get off. Plus, the driveway gets all sticky and the sticky sticks to your shoes and you track the sticky into the house and onto the floors. That's why, a few weeks ago, he told me we should park on the left side of the driveway and not under the tree.

He apparently didn't see me out there a couple of months ago pre-treating the tree with a systemic pesticide so that we would not have the aphid infestation, which I was doing because I KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I AM DOING MISTER.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:08 PM on June 12, 2014 [28 favorites]

I particularly like how his advice isn't even good advice. (Of course, that's what makes it bonus point mansplaining.)
posted by jeather at 4:12 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm not a teacher; I don't always want to spend my energy and time (for free!) to help lead people towards a new, gentler understanding. Sometimes I just want to buy my dang chili-lime cashews without being reminded that some guy got rich singing about how happy he was to have finally overpowered me.

Shouldn't we treat the disease as well as the symptoms?

And yes, if you are trying to explain why these things offend you to the people who do it, you are indeed a teacher; we are all teachers of something!
posted by NoraCharles at 4:14 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

Shouldn't we treat the disease as well as the symptoms?

Sometimes we all want to take a break from the responsibility of both of those things.

Even soldiers get R&R sometimes. I'd really like that myself as well.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:19 PM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

Shouldn't we treat the disease as well as the symptoms?

There's nothing about being born with two X chromosomes or currently presenting as a woman that obligates me to do either of those things.
posted by KathrynT at 4:20 PM on June 12, 2014 [31 favorites]

even if we were always ready and willing to be teachers, we're going to have different methods - just because one method works for you in a classroom setting doesn't mean that same method will work for everyone, especially in a situation where the teacher/student lines aren't drawn so starkly. we've had men who are mefites (not all mefite men!) say that aggressive reactions to entrenched misogyny is why they changed their outlook on these things and in some cases moved from pua stuff to straight up feminist allies.
posted by nadawi at 4:24 PM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

Grown men aren't schoolchildren, and more to the point, women aren't their teachers or their mommies, and it's not our job to hold their hands individually and gently introduce them to concepts that frighten or confuse them.

The public discourse mansplaining started with Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me. She didn't use the term in that, but women recognized the phenomena and picked up on it and talked about it, and the word was coined by someone else as a shortcut to explain the phenomenon of men assuming they have natural authority on topics that a woman or women actually have greater expertise in. It's an easily Googleable term, and there are tons of clear, concise explanations of it out there. And mansplainers tend very strongly to not listen to women very well, anyway, so not only am I not obligated to hold their hands and walk them through topics that are difficult for them, but it's probably going to be fruitless anyway. I mean, they're already not listening to lots of smart, articulate women. Why would I be different?

I'll be happy to explain it individually to men if they pay me, but otherwise, they're just wasting my time.
posted by ernielundquist at 4:27 PM on June 12, 2014 [34 favorites]

I get paid to teach, and I don't come here to work.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:28 PM on June 12, 2014 [10 favorites]

insisting that the oppressed educate their oppressors on how to act like the most basic of decent human beings is a gross tedious tired out saggy ass nasty old microaggression and im not fucking interested byyyeeee
posted by elizardbits at 4:29 PM on June 12, 2014 [31 favorites]

I teach, too. I am paid to do so. I just got home from teaching today. I am a woman.

I am off the fucking clock right now...as off as possible, anyway, and although I took plenty of gender studies coursework in college, it is not my discipline.

Here is something that a male student has done to me in the middle of a lesson: interrupted me, reached over, took the actual brain I was teaching from out of my hands while I was speaking, and started lecturing the women at the table about the most important aspects of the brain for this particular course. I will tell you there was one person at that table who knew what was on their lab final, and it was not that guy. I was so shocked--and so were the women--we just stood there, jaws dropped for a minute, because you have got to be fucking kidding me. And I honestly had never thought anyone would do that, so it took a minute for me to redirect that kid. How much handholding and listening to him and preciousness did that guy deserve? Was that a learning moment about sexism to be treasured? He directly stole education time from his professional-school classmates.

Seriously, that line of "just teach them patiently how to be human" is some saccharine syrupy craptasticness right there.
posted by Uniformitarianism Now! at 4:40 PM on June 12, 2014 [48 favorites]

I am a therapist. If users here need me to use my professional skills in letting them process their feelings without judging them and in focusing all of my attention on their feelings and needs and none on my own, they can damn well pay me $100 an hour to do so.

Otherwise, I will continue to show other users the respect due to all human beings but also claim my right to be respected and listened to as an equal with my own feelings that are just as important as everyone else's. I'm not going to reward shitty behavior in my personal life just because I'm trained to deal with it in my professional life.
posted by jaguar at 4:55 PM on June 12, 2014 [24 favorites]

I don't think treating men as infantile students does anyone any favors. It supports the patriarchy, like advertisements that show men as inept parents and housekeepers that women have to take care of.
posted by desjardins at 4:58 PM on June 12, 2014 [22 favorites]

And yes, if you are trying to explain why these things offend you to the people who do it, you are indeed a teacher; we are all teachers of something!

Awesome! What is my Blackboard login so I can give a whole lot of people F's in basic human decency?

Or put sad face smilies on their deportment cards or whatever the life teacher procedure is.
posted by winna at 5:09 PM on June 12, 2014 [19 favorites]

Seriously. Anyone who is literate enough in both English and computer skills to hang around this place has enough brain cells to do a site search and/or web search.

hey jaguar you got a sliding scale? ;-)
posted by rtha at 5:09 PM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

This has always been one of my favorite examples of mansplaining from Scrubs.
posted by supercrayon at 5:20 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

timsteil: "I'm not crazy about seeing a White Sox flag flying on my North Side street, but I live and let live. The world is full of little annoyances. They are mosquitoes in August."

As a fifth-generation Cubs fan, I rule your analogy off-point, offensive, and the sort of thing I'd expect from a Cards fan.

Just kidding, even Cards fans don't drop c-bombs. There are things in this world worse than White Sox fans, worse than Cards fans, worse than Packers fans, and it turns out you are it.

Did you know Harry Caray cries in heaven every time someone tries to defend being a complete asshole using Cubs analogies? WAY TO GO THERE, SPORT-O.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:30 PM on June 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

Jeez. I've been coming in and out of this thread to see how the reconciliation process is going, and it just gets worse and worse.

How is this helpful?
posted by sweetkid at 5:32 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Happy travels, Catch.
posted by 0 at 5:33 PM on June 12, 2014

Baseball is a game for louts.
posted by Pudhoho at 5:37 PM on June 12, 2014

Wow, I'm confused. I came in here to say a few things to try to help people understand each other and stop fighting and I get attacked?

Ok, have a good night all, time to walk away.
posted by NoraCharles at 5:41 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

hal, cut it out.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:45 PM on June 12, 2014

People disagreeing with you, and noting that your well-meaning suggestion is problematic, is not attacking you.
posted by gingerest at 5:48 PM on June 12, 2014 [26 favorites]

A loaded (made-up?) word would be "whitesplaining". Not all white people should be offended when that's used, but then again, to someone who is not in your culture of whatever, they will be all "hey, you can't say that".

Huh? Whitesplaining, cissplaining, straightsplaining, etc., and so on - none of these is exactly non-Euclidean geometry. I can easily imagine any of them happening. What?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:52 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

That's actually a gorgeous example right there of a thing all or most of us do about some things at least occasionally, which is to assume that if we haven't heard of it or experienced it or seen it, it doesn't exist.
posted by rtha at 6:00 PM on June 12, 2014 [15 favorites]

I've been to Zzyzx, actually, as part of a science program that included some focus on women in science (and also crazy stuff about remote sensing and Mars)! It's a really beautiful place!
posted by ChuraChura at 6:09 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's awful that this whole thread has been salted with yet more ZOMG MANSPLAINING = MISANDRY nightmare, but I just wanted to add a data point.

There was a similar thread a couple of years ago where I objected to the term for the usual stupid reasons, and y'all were sufficiently patient to take the convince me that I was being a stone-cold, A-grade, 100% fuckknuckle. That hurt, but it was good for me. I have worked to change my approach to these issues. So thanks for that. Discussing this over and over again is aggravating, but it does make a difference.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:36 PM on June 12, 2014 [19 favorites]

I am so confused. How do I be a decent human being that people love and respect? I try. I do. I try to treat people the way I want treated. I try not to get mad when that doesn't work. I expend a lot of energy to insure I refer to people how they want. I try to let it pass when people use terms I hate. I try to pretend that any one religion or superstition is no less important than another. I try to use good faith and imagine words in the best possible light. I try. I really do. So let's make a list of how people can go through life without hurting others and if it's possible I will abide by it.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:42 PM on June 12, 2014

There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind.
posted by Justinian at 6:45 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

I am so confused.

Whatever else there is to say, posting the same paragraph-long comment in multiple metatalk threads simultaneously is kind of noisy and not okay. I'll leave this one here but I nixed the rest.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:48 PM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

I feel kind of bad for divabat. I'm sure she hoped this would go differently. But just because it's a total mess doesn't mean it's a total waste.
posted by uosuaq at 7:17 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

I don't think it's ever a waste, really. Even all the really shitty comments help cement the point. There's some twisted benefit to that.
posted by mudpuppie at 7:23 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

Discuss this brand new concept to people who may have (for whatever reason) 'missed' it, or understand that you have the opportunity to stamp out this ugly attitude, but you choose not to.

the problem with this plan, as explicated in basically every thread about this, is that women are generally surrounded by people who do not understand or have missed this startlingly new concept called "don't be a misogynistic jerkface" literally every single day and probably most of the hours

today: I got catcalled. A neighborhood group had a report of someone who gave her a list of the home repair instructions...to give to her husband. A classmate who gave a sales pitch for her app only be asked how much she makes because her pitch-ee needs a wife for his son.

heck there are still 1.5 hours left in today! except I'm giving up, because that's just today.
posted by jetlagaddict at 7:34 PM on June 12, 2014 [10 favorites]

Mod note: Comment deleted. If you are trying to make a joke you are showing incredibly poor judgement.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:40 PM on June 12, 2014

a fiendish thingy: "The word "man" being in the word "mansplaining" does not make that word a universal descriptor of men who explain things. The word "white" in the term "white power" does not mean that every white person in the world secretly longs to get swastika tattoos."

!! I think this is a perfect way to introduce the topic to some folks in a way that they will begin to understand and not just focus on the "man" part of the -splainin'. Thanks, a fiendish thingy!
posted by barnacles at 7:41 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah. I'm talking about metafilter. I'm not saying that you should go up to some moron who catcalls you to 'teach' him.

At a certain point, it's pretty much the same? Like I love Metafilter, but the fact that it's words on a screen doesn't make it less personal. I've tried-- and I am not as eloquent as many on this site-- but I'm also tired. Some moron who catcalls me and some moron who defends sitting across three seats on the train or some moron who hates maternity leave or whatever-- they're kind of all the same moron.
posted by jetlagaddict at 7:48 PM on June 12, 2014 [10 favorites]

Even on Metafilter it gets tiring. And even when some of us are trying to educate (see: comments on this thread and the others) people aren't really listening - or they are, but we don't know about it because it takes place quietly. And it's not fair to expect us to educate over and over and over, when you don't know if the person is actually paying attention.

Even in classroom situations you need both the teacher and the student to listen.
posted by divabat at 7:53 PM on June 12, 2014 [12 favorites]

I'd like to think I was only showing ordinarily poor judgement, cortex, but I've never once objected to having a comment deleted (I think this might be my fourth time) and I'm not about to.
The non-jokey part of my comment was to the effect that I certainly hope hal_c_on didn't interpret my previous comment as "stifling".
posted by uosuaq at 8:02 PM on June 12, 2014

hal_c_on: Putting the onus on the person being educated to actually pay attention and listen. Why should all the attention be on the educator role?
posted by divabat at 8:06 PM on June 12, 2014 [15 favorites]

Talking in a civil manner, as you suggest, hasn't helped at all (again, see all the threads referred to here).

If you want it to accomplish much, take responsibility as the educated-to person. Don't pass it all onto the people who are already working hard anyway whether or not you are paying attention.
posted by divabat at 8:16 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

hal_c_on, is there a nice way to tell you that you're mansplaining right now?
posted by dialetheia at 8:23 PM on June 12, 2014 [14 favorites]

I'm just saying that telling people who see women as 2nd-class people to "take responsibility for learning how to treat people" won't work.

I'm pretty sure it will work better than coddling them like idiot children. People who behave like fuckwits need to face consequences, not hand-holding.
posted by misfish at 8:25 PM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

And just for clarification, I am NOT putting the responsibility on women to do this. I'm putting the responsibility on ALL mefites.

So you're going to start throwing in with us now, right? Since you understand how this should work?
posted by Snarl Furillo at 8:27 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

t just is, there's no getting around it. But seriously,this is how "it is". Asking sincerely, is there ANY other alternative you see as being effective?

So the onus is on me to metaphorically repeatedly beat my head against a wall until it is bloody enough for some dense man to take notice? He might offer me a bandaid but he won't grok the reason why I am injured and hurting to begin with. Repeatedly attempting to educate people is exhausting and more often than not is met with hostility. "It is" is a poor excuse. Men should educate their sons AND peer group. Speak up dudes.
posted by futz at 8:28 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

What consequences?

Perhaps some mild, easy to handle consequences like being ungently pilloried on a website.
posted by misfish at 8:32 PM on June 12, 2014 [7 favorites]

Dude, I was honestly being sincere about trying to go for the nice way! I don't think you were doing it maliciously. But you just walked in here and started responding to every commenter, making this conversation about you, and defending your idea instead of listening when women tried to point out how your idea might not work for them.

Thanks, I dug that question and had fun answering it! No hard feelings I hope.
posted by dialetheia at 8:35 PM on June 12, 2014 [8 favorites]

hal_c_on, is there a nice way to tell you that you're mansplaining right now?

Amazing. Having a discussion with someone, respecting their views, and offering my own is mansplaining.


but that's what the "education" looks like.


Awesome. I'm out.

And that's why people are reluctant to think the "education" will work.
posted by sweetkid at 8:38 PM on June 12, 2014 [51 favorites]

I figure the "uneducated" fall into two broad categories, viz. those you might have some hope of reaching and those who are hopeless (but thankfully mortal).
I think there are people that might be reached but who are not going to do the work themselves, and however exhausting it might be, it would be progress if they could be reached.
Putting the onus on them is less exhausting but not effective. I think hal_c_on has only been trying to express this sort of pragmatic view. How do you actually make progress?

In a fair world, we'd all be like "psshhaw- this mofo has had 20-40+ years to learn this shit. I am not responsible for teaching this person ANYTHING he has willfully ignored over that time."

In the real world, I'm all like: "yeah, we gotta talk in a civil manner to this dude who thinks its ok to verbally harass women, otherwise he won't be receptive to it...and the problem will continue on and on and on".

I don't think there's a nice *or correct* way to tell hal_c_on that that was mansplaining.
posted by uosuaq at 8:39 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hal_c_on: You clearly identify as an ally, and want to respect the views of the women in this thread. You have just responded to a woman who has objected to your perspective as being less supportive than you intend by saying you're "out", i.e. refusing to participate further in the discussion at all, even to listen. This suggests to me that the reception from men with an "ugly attitude" to whom this is a "brand new concept" will be orders of magnitude more hostile.

It's not only not the responsibility of women to teach men this stuff, it's not necessarily even safe for us to do so.

(I'm addressing this to you in the hopes you're not really "out" but are still listening.)
posted by gingerest at 8:41 PM on June 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

divabat, do you believe that everyone who has worked in retail or customer service and expressed some sympathy for the store manager in the "take it easy" thread because they'd been in his shoes is a misogynist bigot? Do you think the only reason anyone brought that aspect of the article up is because they wanted to derail the thread and prevent a discussion of misogyny in popular culture from happening?
posted by nangar at 8:42 PM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

I don't think there's a nice *or correct* way to tell hal_c_on that that was mansplaining.

it was mansplaining though. The correct way to say someone is mansplaining is by saying "that is mansplaining."

I have many male friends who mansplain, but I have one who knows he does it. He was like, "I mansplain, I know I do it." I was like, "no you don't!" and then I thought about it, and he totally does. He does it even though he knows what the term is and doesn't want to do it.

He's not doing it on purpose though, and I feel like he is definitely making an effort. And when he does do it, I kind of get a sense of where he's coming from and don't feel battled into this corner of "ok, guess you're right."

Basically you're not a bad person or stupid or horrible if you are a person who mansplains from time to time, and women will still like you, even love you and be friends with you and marry you and etc. But that doesn't change your mansplaining into something else.
posted by sweetkid at 8:46 PM on June 12, 2014 [11 favorites]

Mortal? Also, we women were just told to educate men but now there seems to be no nice or correct way to do so. Am I misreading what you are saying?
posted by futz at 8:50 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

it was mansplaining though

Can I ask how so? I get that hal_c_on and I are just male-wannabe-allies, but where did things go wrong?
posted by uosuaq at 8:53 PM on June 12, 2014

Can I ask how so? I get that hal_c_on and I are just male-wannabe-allies, but where did things go wrong?

I think any time a member of a non-oppressed group tells a member of an oppressed group that they have to deal with reality "as it is," they're treading on very very very thin ice.

Because we women ARE dealing with reality as it is, every single day, while men can treat these problems as an intellectual exercise. If you haven't lived as a member of the group you're advising, you really really really shouldn't be telling us to accept the reality of oppression. Trust me, we did that at about age 7; catch up before giving us advice.
posted by jaguar at 8:57 PM on June 12, 2014 [40 favorites]

I should have phrased that more gently, it sounded less mean-spirited in my head. But the thing that makes it mansplain-y to me is that when people told hal_c_on why they didn't agree with what he said and why it wouldn't solve the problem, he started arguing "this is how it is in the real world" and asking what their great solution is if his isn't the answer, instead of engaging with what they said. I totally get that he was trying to help, but he was basically telling women that he knows better about them about both the problem and its solution. Telling women how they should solve sexism is textbook mansplaining.
posted by dialetheia at 8:59 PM on June 12, 2014 [13 favorites]

"Catch up" was needlessly inflammatory; I'm sorry.

My frustration, which is a good sign that I'm being mansplained to, comes from the assumption in hal_c_on's comments that women somehow haven't taken the basic step of accepting that misogyny and oppression exist. The comments are therefore extremely removed from the reality of actual women's lives, and when several people pointed that out, he doubled down.
posted by jaguar at 9:00 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

> I think there are people that might be reached but who are not going to do the work themselves, and however exhausting it might be, it would be progress if they could be reached.

You can learn a lot if you listen and take time to look into shit. This is true in educational settings, and it's even more true in real life (and MetaFilter is part of real life in this sense even though it's not IRL). You can't expect the world to spoon-feed everything to you. You have to make an effort to learn and understand and find sources you can learn from.
posted by nangar at 9:11 PM on June 12, 2014

There are things in this world worse than White Sox fans, worse than Cards fans, worse than Packers fans, and it turns out you are it.

I am totally stealing this EPIC BURN except I'm going to replace Cards with Cubs and Packers with Bears.
posted by desjardins at 9:11 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

Thank you for your answers, jaguar and dialetheia.
There may be earlier comments by hal_c_on in this (what, 800 comment?) thread that I've missed, so I don't want to commit to defending everything he might have said.
What *I* saw was hal_c_on saying that you can't just expect the ignorant to educate themselves, so what's the strategy to educate them? This was in response to, I think,
If you want it to accomplish much, take responsibility as the educated-to person.
(And to think I got back onto this thread, after a couple jokes, just to thank divabat for starting it...)
All I understood hal_c_on to be saying in his response was that if the educated-to person *isn't listening*, then how do you get their attention?
It seems like a fair question (and a very unfair situation).
posted by uosuaq at 9:18 PM on June 12, 2014

I left not because of divabat's words, but because someone came in and said "you're mansplaining". I don't need to be subject to that kind of bullshit.

Saying "that thing you're doing is X", isn't a personal attack, it isn't bullshit, it's an attempt to educate about another point of view. Which is what the last 50 or so comments have been about.
posted by zug at 9:21 PM on June 12, 2014 [18 favorites]

that is whitesplaining.

What are you trying to prove here?
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:21 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

hal_c_on, you kept giving suggestions about educating people. Women kept saying, That doesn't work. You kept saying that people not understanding oppression is just how "it is" -- as if we don't know that already. We know that, and while knowing that, women were saying that your suggestions don't work. You reacted as if women simply didn't understand how the world works and if you just explained reality to us, we would then agree with your suggestions. You left no room for the possibility that we understand reality and your suggestions don't work.
posted by jaguar at 9:25 PM on June 12, 2014 [23 favorites]

that is whitesplaining.

What? How?
posted by sweetkid at 9:27 PM on June 12, 2014

I'm not white either. And that comment isn't about telling a POC how they should relate to their race, so it's not whitesplaining.

nangar: where did you get that assumption from?
posted by divabat at 9:29 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

hal_c_on, is there any way of attempting to educate you gently as to why your approach won't work and why your continued insistence on it is infuriating that will convince you? And if not, if there's no way the "gentle education" approach can work on you in this manner, why do you think it will work on anyone else? Because right now, you are currently being an extremely prime example of that which you claim to rail against.
posted by KathrynT at 9:30 PM on June 12, 2014 [32 favorites]

oops neither one of the women you are conversing with are white
posted by elizardbits at 9:31 PM on June 12, 2014 [20 favorites]

Yea I am totally not white so
posted by sweetkid at 9:32 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

I shouldn't have to tell you to knock it off twice in the same night. I think you had the right idea stepping away earlier. Do it for real now.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:37 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

is there ANY other alternative you see as being effective

yes

the wicker man
posted by elizardbits at 9:37 PM on June 12, 2014 [25 favorites]

I'M IN A GLASS CASE OF EMOTION
posted by uosuaq at 9:39 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

wicker mansplaining
posted by NoraReed at 9:42 PM on June 12, 2014 [12 favorites]

I see one effective alternative, which is for allies to handle the outreach to their fellow members of the dominant class, rather than asking exhausted members of the oppressed class to do so. Needs to be done sensitively, though, with "nothing about us without us" as a guiding principle and without expecting cookies for exhibiting the minimum standard of human decency.

I might genuinely be whitesplaining, though.
posted by gingerest at 9:42 PM on June 12, 2014 [8 favorites]

Thanks, NoraCharles, for saying what you did. Sometimes the people complaining the loudest about how bad feminist threads are here on Metafilter feel like the ones most invested in taking the discourse level down. I'm tired of all the infantilization, sarcasm and contempt. Divabat posted this thread about how to do better, so...

We have had requests for Feminism 101 links in the beginning of some threads. Maybe that is not a bad idea. Maybe we should also have 101 links on general site etiquette, too. Like:

DO skip a thread if you personally think the issue being discussed is a non-issue.
DON'T rant about how Some People Are Really Suffering.

DO give people the benefit of the doubt and try to read their comments as charitably as possible.
DON'T use inflammatory terms like 'feminazis' and 'hysterical' OR 'neckbeards' and 'mansplaining'.

DO remember that very few issues boil down to black or white, 100% right vs 100% wrong.
DON'T assume someone will agree with you if you just keep stating your position often enough.

DON'T bring up that One Comment User X Made in 1993 that still pisses you off.
DO eat some crow and admit you have occasionally been User X in the past.

DON'T ridicule other members with infantilizing sarcasm (even if it gets you easy favorites).
DO point out other Merites' fantastic comments (even if it gets them more favorites than you!).

DON'T feed the trolls (or continue to pile on after 5 or 10 people already responded to them).
DO FIAMO!
posted by misha at 9:46 PM on June 12, 2014 [9 favorites]

wicker mansplaining

I assume this is where you try to patronise someone, but it just comes out all "NOT THE BEEEEEEEESSSSARRGARGAGH"
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:47 PM on June 12, 2014 [10 favorites]

Yea I am totally not white so
posted by sweetkid at 12:32 AM on June 13 [2 favorites +] [!]


I guess I am technically like 21.2% white but colonialism hey what you gonna do. My comment still wasn't whitesplaining though because it had nothing to do with race.

Also I really was being genuine. That's the kind of thing that really makes me feel like "educating allies" is fruitless work.
posted by sweetkid at 9:47 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

mixed race guilt high five
posted by elizardbits at 9:49 PM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

I guess I am technically like 21.2% white but colonialism hey what you gonna do. My comment still wasn't whitesplaining though because it had nothing to do with race.

I think that whole thing was a failed attempt at snark mixed with an unexamined assumption.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:53 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

And that comment isn't about telling a POC how they should relate to their race, so it's not whitesplaining.


My comment still wasn't whitesplaining though because it had nothing to do with race.

Wait, hang on. Obviously neither of you is whitesplaining on any level whatsoever, but I thought I understood mansplaining/whitesplaining/etc. and now I'm not 100% sure. My understanding was that mansplaining is when a man condescendingly explains something to a woman because he assumes that he, as a man, knows better, regardless of whether the topic at hand is gender. In Rebecca Solnit's piece, for example. the guy is lecturing her about the content of her own book. Cases where men tell women how to do feminism better are particularly egregious, but not the only cases. Similarly, whitesplaining would involve white people being pompous know-it-alls when talking to POC and because they assume they know more, regardless of the topic. Am I off-base here?
posted by naoko at 10:02 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

Because we women ARE dealing with reality as it is, every single day, while men can treat these problems as an intellectual exercise. If you haven't lived as a member of the group you're advising, you really really really shouldn't be telling us to accept the reality of oppression.

I don't at all pretend to know what's in the heads of people who say this stuff, but as a boring old person, I can kind of see alternative readings for "deal with it" as it applies to my own experiences. 'Cause I've had to learn myself, and have to keep relearning, that no matter how spitting mad I get or how hard I throw myself at these incidents and issues, I do also need to "deal with it" in the sense of:

a) keep my expectations low, or just do it for the sake of doing something constructive without thinking I'll necessarily get somewhere. Sometimes people do get somewhere, like the marriage equity project; many folks are reeling at even that modest bit of progress within any one human's lifetime, when so many other times, people slog away just as hard and get no. where.

and

b) pace myself. Because, trust me, there will unfortunately still be plenty of sexist crap to be spitting mad about in one's boring old age, so you don't want to blow an artery or tire yourself out too soon, like the FPP guy who covers race issues.

and

c) balance mindfulness, cultural critique, and self-examination with trying not to beat myself or others up too hard out of frustration. I get really unsettled when I see blog post titles like "I Was a Teenage Misogynist." I mean, yes, it's meant to be semi-comic, and I'm sure she was one, I know I was/am, we all are/were, and I enjoy interrogating and introspecifying. But y'know, the blogger was also a teenage kid; even boring old personages are occasionally still teenage humans. I get this possibly inaccurate sense sometimes that many young feminists/progressives currently cut themselves zero slack and feel compelled to be . . . I dunno, hypervigilant to their own foibles and those of their friends and foes and the world, and ON ACTIVE DUTY all the time. I hope everyone is taking snack and rest breaks.

Hell, I could (and actually did) spend six hours fretting about, "OK, is Twilight misogynist, or is it misogynist to think Twilight is in some respects stupid, because it's misogynist to mock things women like? Except if some women hate Twilight because it's misogynist, is it then misogynist to defend women's right to like Twilight because it's dissing the women who hate Twilight, or is it more misogynist to think Twilight is somewhat fun and the sort of thing I would have liked when I was 13? Because most of the stuff I liked at 13 was muy unhealthy and definitely misogynist. And if you think Robert Pattinson is hilarious and awesome for saying that Edward vampire guy is a fucking stalker asshole, well, is that misogynist because he's insulting Stephanie What'sherface?" And that's not necessarily six hours wasted, except it's all in service of finding some way to flagellate myself in the political re-education camp that is my mind. But in reality, we're all just up to our eyeballs in a pool of misogyny, and we do have to deal with the fact that this is going to be the case for the foreseeable future.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:06 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

Also I really was being genuine. That's the kind of thing that really makes me feel like "educating allies" is fruitless work.

I feel like, one, Google exists and I don't understand why people don't use it. Like, don't you feel happy and excited that you found something out for yourself? I also feel like, when people need or want to learn pretty much anything else on the planet, they follow a socially predictable and repeatable pattern. You don't decide to learn French and immediately jump on a plane to Quebec and demand the flight attendants teach you how to conjugate. You don't take up quilting by going to the county fair, pigeon-holing some lady with a nice triple Irish chain, and interrogating her on how to block, step by step. If you want to learn how to throw a baseball, you don't write to Pedro Martinez and ask him to send back an instructional video. People get training to learn how to drive, and file their taxes, and interact socially, and use software. If you want to know the basics of something and you are already on the internet, you can google any combination of "intro to THING" and "THING for beginners" and "THING 101" and "what does THING mean in other THING" and get a handle on things quick. But when it comes to learning about oppressed people and their lives, you're supposed to be able to just grab any person you see who knows something about THING and that person is supposed to teach you everything you want to know and know exactly what you mean when you phrase something poorly and spend as much time as you, not they, want on the material, and you also want the out of being able to dismiss all of it at the end if it wasn't presented exactly how you wanted it presented when you demanded on a whim that a person who isn't a professional teacher but is an expert in something teach you how to do that thing.

Also, when you're the teacher? You never know when the lesson will be bleep-blooping along when all of a sudden the student drops a see you next Tuesday and you suddenly have a migraine and an eye twitch.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 10:07 PM on June 12, 2014 [29 favorites]

Hal_c_on, I think the firm putdown of people to educate their own damn selves about an issue is awesome. There are masses of resources thanks to Dr Google - people who are eager to explain issues, who have put together videos and podcasts and FAQs and memoirs and all sorts of great resources. But there is a huge difference between asking to be educated about something and being told "Look it up" and then going:

A: Thanks, I will. (Google search and research later) Oh I see what you meant, this is my better-informed response.

or

B: No. NOW. Tell me now. You're such a selfish jerk to everyone, excluding me from this knowledge. Tell me now.

One of them is demanding time and attention from someone else that they don't owe you because you can't be bothered to do the damn work yourself.

I get asked 101 questions on several personal topics over and over by people who I know could find it out but don't for some reason. There is a huge difference to me when I feel up to discussing this stuff and when I have to slap a smile on and do it out of work obligations at an emotional cost to me. Metafilter is not a job for anyone - even mods don't have to answer non-mefi questions.

This is different if you're like stuck in a remote village with no internet and someone asks a hard question because there are no resources except you and you may feel obliged to educate. But you're on metafilter. The web is literally one tab away with thousands of resources waiting for you.

The community bar that commentors RTFA or educate themselves about basic issues will improve the site. And people. I read up on Mormon missionaries yesterday because of a thread, posted one comment and then realised although I disagreed with some comments, I didn't know enough to contribute meaningfully beyond reading and learning from people who knew more. That's how it works.
posted by viggorlijah at 10:13 PM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

DON'T use inflammatory terms like 'feminazis' and 'hysterical' OR 'neckbeards' and 'mansplaining'.

Mansplaining is a fine term we should keep using.

You never know when the lesson will be bleep-blooping along

¬_¬
posted by bleep-blop at 10:15 PM on June 12, 2014 [27 favorites]

FelliniBlank, what's your point?

I am dealing with it, in the sense that I do not spend all day in bed paralyzed by the pervasive misogyny of the world. I still find it useful to speak about that pervasive misogyny, because speaking about it makes me feel better and, as far as I understand, leads to better health (mental and physical) outcomes for members of oppressed groups. I am happy to be told that I am misreading your comment, but it seems to imply that people who discuss the injustices they face every day are somehow wallowing rather than dealing. And various psychological studies disprove that, and I can probably dig them up if you need them, but I'm hoping maybe you just quoted my comment and were riffing rather than disputing?
posted by jaguar at 10:15 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yes, I was just applying the phrase you mentioned to my own situation. I'm glad you don't get paralyzed by pervasive misogyny. I don't think I do either, but it does grind at times and certainly has been one (of many) factors in my disengagement from a lot of social interactions.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:26 PM on June 12, 2014

Google exists and I don't understand why people don't use it. Like, don't you feel happy and excited that you found something out for yourself?

I don't know, as a person who didn't grow up in a particularly progressive environment or was exposed to a lot of different ideas or philosophies, the opportunity to solicit guidance from a website where members are pretty educated and savvy on a number of subjects is pretty attractive. Particularly when it comes to a topic that seems as fraught as this one, I would personally feel overwhelmed slogging through it on my own if I were so motivated. Sure, there's a whole big internet out there, but it's sort of like being in a rowboat with a map but no compass. It's the pitfall of autodidacticism; if I don't know thing one about the subject, how can I evaluate the materials I'm educating myself with? I'm not saying that as a result, all those who can educate must do so and plus, they should be flattered, consarnit, just that that may be a factor behind some people's requests for help.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:29 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

61,200 results for "microagressions feminism" - the first page includes a wiki, a site dedicated to explaining them and several articles written for people just learning about the phrase.

It's a question of cost. We could post an ask.metafilter to look for answers from people who want to answer feminism 101 stuff. We could step away from the thread and look for the answers or email someone at a website designed to answer these questions and wait.

But no, damnit, people want an answer right now so they can immediately be educated and participate in a difficult conversation, EVEN IF providing that education takes the time and effort of other people in the conversation. This happens predominantly where there's a power differential whether by gender or age or race etc because effort flows downward.

You feeling personally overwhelmed and not knowing how to evaluate the material does not mean you get other people's time and attention at a cost to their ability to participate in the conversation.
posted by viggorlijah at 10:50 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

So here's a suggestion that I follow myself:

When I realize that I have no good background or experience with major issues faced by groups of whom I am not a member, I google "[x group] blog." I then read through the results until I find a blog that seems well written (many of these are on Tumblr. If you have an issue with Tumblr, get over it). I then read that blog a lot, and follow links to other blogs. Soon, I have a good reading list of people of X group writing about their experiences, and I get to learn from people who are voluntarily teaching about their experiences.

But! (Here's the trick!) I NEVER COMMENT ON THE BLOGS. EVER. Most of the members of oppressed groups who are producing well-written blogs have no fucking interest in anything I have to say. Which is mainly why they are so well written; they are not pre-defended against non-oppressed group members.

I have seen extraordinarily honest and compelling blogs go private when too many people started putting pressure on the writers to do 101 stuff. Metafilter users are smart; if you want to read the smart writing, you need to learn to shut up and listen. Become a professional lurker.

We are living in an age when you can access the life story of almost any type of person, at any moment. The only way you can screw it up is to talk too much.
posted by jaguar at 10:52 PM on June 12, 2014 [35 favorites]

You feeling personally overwhelmed and not knowing how to evaluate the material does not mean you get other people's time and attention at a cost to their ability to participate in the conversation.

Agreed, that's probably why I didn't say that.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:54 PM on June 12, 2014

(And a good start for race issues is This Is Everyday Racism.)
posted by jaguar at 11:00 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh! And! Even if you disagree with something on the blogs you've found, you still do not comment! That is the second part of the trick. The third part of the trick is that you do not dismiss the entire blog just because you disagreed with something; instead, you keep reading and keep trying to understand.
posted by jaguar at 11:03 PM on June 12, 2014 [6 favorites]

I'm personally not a huge fan of "Just Google It" in and of itself, mostly because Google gives different results for different people and there are plenty of sources that are dodgy and evaluating sources is more complex than people realise. But that doesn't make it the responsibility of the oppressed to do the heavy lifting in educating, especially in a context when they hadn't signed up to do so.

And honestly, a lot of times where "so educate me!!!" comes up, it's in situations where education is already happening. Like in these threads, as an example, many commentors were already explaining in various ways how sexism affects them, why this is still a problem, and so on.

If you want to be educated, one of the first things you can do is to pay attention to the conversation already happening. You'll get a lot of education there already. Also it will give you more specific things to look for, which can help with your search for further information. A lot of places where these conversations are taking place would likely have their own links and resources, so you can start there too so you can see what perspective they're coming from.

elizardbits i wanted to message you this but you disabled mefimail, but thank you for your hilarious comments - if it werent for you and sweetkid and jaguar and many other people supporting me i probably would have hit the 'disable account' button like i keep threatening to every 4 years
posted by divabat at 11:05 PM on June 12, 2014 [21 favorites]

elizardbits i wanted to message you this but you disabled mefimail, but thank you for your hilarious comments

I can only assume that elizardbits disabled memail because the constant torrent of 'thanks for being so funny' memails threatened to overflow her laptop and flood her living room.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:21 PM on June 12, 2014 [15 favorites]

Perhaps we can construct and install a bat-signal type of device which illuminates the sky with an enormous yellow smiley-face.

posted by Pudhoho at 11:31 PM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

The device would have to project Teen Wolf .gifs.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:34 PM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

Of course. Select your favorite and I'll submit the work order.
posted by Pudhoho at 11:42 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you intend to infuriate her into smashing her keyboard, Teen Wolf is the answer.
posted by viggorlijah at 11:43 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you intend to infuriate her into smashing her keyboard, Teen Wolf is the answer.

Well, shirtless pictures of Tyler Hoechlin at the very least.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:50 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

We could be classy and project a triskelion.
posted by viggorlijah at 12:07 AM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

viggorlijah: You feeling personally overwhelmed and not knowing how to evaluate the material does not mean you get other people's time and attention at a cost to their ability to participate in the conversation.

Alvy Ampersand: Agreed, that's probably why I didn't say that.

Right. You said,

I would personally feel overwhelmed slogging through it on my own if I were so motivated.

and

I'm not saying that as a result, all those who can educate must do so and plus, they should be flattered, consarnit, just that that may be a factor behind some people's requests for help.

I already know that some requesters' motivations may come from a well-meaning, non-malicious place. Good intentions are better than shitty ones, yes. Still, they can't neutralize the concrete effects: they want people to donate time and energy to explaining stuff for the hundredth time, with no guarantee or likelihood of thanks or appreciation. Or merely that our words will be listened to and thoughtfully considered as a gateway to learning more about a foreign topic! Frankly, what's actually GUARANTEED when you do explain this stuff again is another series of Whack A Moles popping up to criticize what you've said, how you've said it, and complaining about us feminists not getting how reality works, and/or why don't we STFU already. Which leads to many of us burning out.

Good intentions + shallowly considered words/actions can play a part in perpetuating cycles of dysfunction. The above pattern plays out over and over and over again. It's like a law of physics.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 12:13 AM on June 13, 2014 [7 favorites]

Related searches: tyler hoechlin abs

how does google know??
posted by NoraReed at 12:44 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Look, we could play it safe and project Tom Hardy with a puppy, or David Gandy doing anything.
posted by gingerest at 12:47 AM on June 13, 2014

I think part of the reason why I get frustrated with "why don't you just gently teach men to not be oppressive" is that a good chunk of the time there is no way to combine gentle enough with teaching. And because almost invariably no one will actually reply to my walls of text, or if they do it will be to the last sentence, which is usually slightly humorous in an attempt to soften any internal rebukes to make them gentle enough.

But once more into the breech.

Bugbread: I went to a very leftist university, though. And there were so, so many idiots. There was so much irrationality, so many logical fallacies. And what happened was, it ended out swinging me more to the right while I was there. When I'd come back home and talk politics with friends, they were always surprised about how less liberal I'd become while going to a very liberal university.

I have to admit, I am always baffled by this phenomena.

I believe it exists. I don't think I've read a single social justice thread where someone hasn't said, "I disagree with how you are telling us to not be racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic. It makes me want to be prejudiced against those people you are defending."

I just fundamentally don't understand it.

Every Civil Rights figure on the planet could all tell me I suck as a human being and should go kill myself, and I still wouldn't want to be racist.

Currently, a ton of men tell me and women like me that we should be raped, murdered, and left in a ditch. Still not hating men in general.

I've really objected to the racism and sexism in Skeptical communities and been deeply hurt and offended by the things prominent skeptics have said. Still not planning to be a creationist, and to be honest while I wish Bigfoots existed, the evidence just isn't there to support their population. Sadness.

Most of my hobbies actively tell me I shouldn't exist, both because I'm fat and because I'm female, but I manage to continue loving Sci Fi, Fantasy, Video Games, etc... Usually the reasons I shouldn't exist are really, really fallacious and easily disproven - but it still doesn't inspire me to become the Anti-Geek.

There have been white gay men who have been really rude to women and ethnic minorities. Still a fan of them being able to get married, adopt kids, and not get murdered. Also a fan of recognizing a non-trivial number of gay people are women and/or ethnic minorities - a fact which seems to get lost sometimes.

I mean, to be honest, even within feminism I expect some feminists to object to my opinions using strong language, but it doesn't make me not want to be a feminist. I've agreed with and disagreed with just about every feminist on this page; not going to use gendered slurs against them, not even ironically.

I fundamentally don't understand "you're on my side, you're making arguments badly in some manner, so I want to switch sides." I'm usually more on the, "You're on my side, that's a stupid argument, HERE LET ME MAKE A BETTER ONE. 8D 8D 8D 8D 8D." That kind of conditional-support response always feels like a threat to me - like people in cheap suits walking around and saying, "Nice social justice movement you've got here. Shame if anything happened to it."
posted by Deoridhe at 12:53 AM on June 13, 2014 [53 favorites]

FelliniBlank hit the button?
posted by klangklangston at 12:54 AM on June 13, 2014

If you want to be educated, one of the first things you can do is to pay attention to the conversation already happening.

Oh yes, this exactly.
Women who address sexist and misogynistic comments are often heckled and badgered by both the men who made the comments, as well as their tag-team brain-brothers, under the guise of 'education'.
This must end. It will end: even if only by the intercession of the moderators, which is the least desirable outcome.

Guys, when a woman informs you that your language/behavior/attitude is misogynistic, believe her.
Don't take it personally, because she is not attacking your person. She has addressed your behavior, which you can change.
If you truly desire an education, get off your hind legs and exercise some restraint.
Women are not a public utility. Please stop treating them as such.
Fill your well of introspection from the aquifer provided by the conversation already happening.
It's all there, at your fingertips. Watch and learn.

Nobody expects anybody to arrive perfect and unencumbered.
Misogyny is institutional, like the roots of a tree that interfere with the plumbing of your house.
You didn't plant the tree, but you can thwart its roots.
posted by Pudhoho at 2:15 AM on June 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

get off your hind legs

*eyeroll* Why should I have to hear about a Pudhoho comparing men to dogs while I’m reading metafilter?
posted by 0 at 4:28 AM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

If only there were a nearby website where people could ask questions about the questions and controversies surrounding different issues.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:33 AM on June 13, 2014 [9 favorites]

It's a horse thing, not a dog thing. But I agree that the less comparing of men to horses, the better.
posted by taz (staff) at 4:33 AM on June 13, 2014

Because I have a nice treat for you, M. Zero.
posted by Pudhoho at 5:04 AM on June 13, 2014

I think part of the reason why I get frustrated with "why don't you just gently teach men to not be oppressive" is that a good chunk of the time there is no way to combine gentle enough with teaching.

I get frustrated with it not because it's a bad idea - because it is, in fact, a good idea - but because in our culture, women are too frequently expected to be gentle just because they are women. So when we're asked to be gentle - even in situations where gentleness is appropriate - my innate response is anger, and a lot of "I've already been gentle too many times, more than I can count, more than I should have been. Why are you asking even more of me?"
posted by corb at 5:11 AM on June 13, 2014 [10 favorites]

Yes, it's far better to compare men to centaurs.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:16 AM on June 13, 2014

As in the typeface?
posted by Pudhoho at 5:28 AM on June 13, 2014

After a while, I said 'hey...I'm gonna memail the people who say awesome things too, it'll reinforce saying awesome things'.

*checks MeMail. weeps*
posted by billiebee at 5:42 AM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

"Get up on your hind legs" is a pretty established idiom, if a little obscure in the US, and it might be better if we responded to the substance of the suggestion than engage in mock outrage over it.

The problem with "Under My Thumb" is not the one line in which a woman is compred to a dog, despite the headline of the FPP, which was one quote pulled from hundreds. It was that the song was pervasively misogynist.

Latching onto a single sentence and using it to represent an entire argument, and latching onto a single idiom from several paragraphs and using it to distract from the substance of the paragraph? Shitty.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 5:42 AM on June 13, 2014 [8 favorites]

Happens all the fucking time, Bunny.
posted by 0 at 5:45 AM on June 13, 2014

Is that your excuse for being shitty? Try to be better.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 5:52 AM on June 13, 2014 [6 favorites]

Happens all the fucking time, Bunny.

Do better.
posted by shakespeherian at 5:55 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

0, it's okay if you don't want to participate in this particular discussion; it's definitely not a required activity. But if you just want to drop in to express disgust that we're having the conversation at all, please don't do that.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:55 AM on June 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

I strongly suspect 0 was attempting to add some levity, which, unfortunately, was met with unintended consequences.
posted by Pudhoho at 5:58 AM on June 13, 2014

If that's the case, fair enough. And i apologize for snapping. It can be hard to read a room, and I have failed at it in the past myself.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:00 AM on June 13, 2014

Yah. If you were here in Seattle, I'd suggest we go over to Bill's and see how much of his liquor we could drink.
Unfortunately, you're not. And they've pretty much razed Bill's place in order to build an apartment building on top of it.
posted by Pudhoho at 6:04 AM on June 13, 2014

If you were in Omaha, I would recommend the Homey Inn, where they have champagne on tap, one wall is covered with newspaper clippings of Omaha tragedies, there is a claw machine that dispenses sex toys, and you can order Italian food from the skirting-the-edge-of-legality Beatles-themed Sgt. Peffers.

Have I previously indicated that Omaha is crazy? I feel like I have.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:09 AM on June 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

Isn't that the place where you can eat steak all day and not spend more than 25 bucks?
Or am I confusing Omaha with Tinker?
posted by Pudhoho at 6:11 AM on June 13, 2014

Bunny, I feel your attempts to derail the point that Parramore's behavior was obviously highly classist by focusing ad nauseam on whether Kyle made above minimum wage were very much in the same shitty vein.
posted by 0 at 6:16 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

When someone remarks "A stitch in time saves nine" do you demand to examine the needle?
posted by Pudhoho at 6:20 AM on June 13, 2014

Bunny, I feel your attempts to derail the point that Parramore's behavior was obviously highly classist by focusing ad nauseam on whether Kyle made above minimum wage were very much in the same shitty vein.

Well, I think your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:22 AM on June 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

How did you know about the elderberries thing? Anyway, I'd rather you didn't bring up painful memories from my childhood here.
posted by 0 at 6:27 AM on June 13, 2014 [6 favorites]

My insight, as a male, is that the dudes who are misogynists don't care about gaining a new perspective. I absolutely agree that it is their responsibility as Homo sapiens, but they aren't thinking about the moral and social implications of their thoughts and actions. They just aren't, and that's why they continue to exist. Sometimes they just don't care even if they have thought about it. To put the onus on them is correct and fair, but it does no good because they have no incentive to be different.

The hard cases may never change, but publicly calling out the hard cases can change the minds of the fence-sitters. I was a fence-sitter. I read a lot of arguments against the hard cases. Some of them were polite. Some of them were furious. The latter shocked me out of my stupor - see how angry people are at the stuff I and my friends believe and do! - and the former convinced me not to return to it. This didn't happen a long time ago. I remember it well.

The onus is on the privileged people who will never change, but it's also on those who can, and polite, private argument isn't the only way to bring them around.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:30 AM on June 13, 2014 [15 favorites]

Anyway, I'd rather you didn't bring up painful memories from my childhood here.

Only after you stop calling other people out for petty bullshit disagreements about things they said in other threads.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:33 AM on June 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I don't think 0 was joking any more. I think 0 suffers from terrible reading comprehension and a markedly immature and unnuanced understanding of class.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:34 AM on June 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

things they said in other threads.

?
posted by 0 at 6:35 AM on June 13, 2014

A couple of comments deleted. Let's go ahead and drop the 0 derail and further personal sniping altogether.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:41 AM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

?

I was going to take issue with this disingenuousness, but on preview, taz said to drop it. Let's move on.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:49 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well, the accusation that two people who are not white were "whitesplaining" did help make a cold, rainy and otherwise miserable Friday the 13th morning much more amusing. :D

(Sorry, hal. It was funny.)
posted by zarq at 6:53 AM on June 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

Even though the sexism threads can be exasperating, I'd like to thank everyone who relates their experience, stories and feelings here. It's much, much appreciated.
posted by ersatz at 7:06 AM on June 13, 2014

Did you guys perceive it that way? What can I do to prevent that in the future?

Talk about what men should do, or about what you are going to do, not about what women should do.
posted by jaguar at 7:08 AM on June 13, 2014 [33 favorites]

And that comment isn't about telling a POC how they should relate to their race, so it's not whitesplaining.


My comment still wasn't whitesplaining though because it had nothing to do with race.

Wait, hang on. Obviously neither of you is whitesplaining on any level whatsoever, but I thought I understood mansplaining/whitesplaining/etc. and now I'm not 100% sure. My understanding was that mansplaining is when a man condescendingly explains something to a woman because he assumes that he, as a man, knows better, regardless of whether the topic at hand is gender. In Rebecca Solnit's piece, for example. the guy is lecturing her about the content of her own book. Cases where men tell women how to do feminism better are particularly egregious, but not the only cases. Similarly, whitesplaining would involve white people being pompous know-it-alls when talking to POC and because they assume they know more, regardless of the topic. Am I off-base here?

I don't know naoko - in my experience/understanding, whitesplaining is different because when I experience it, it's more like "You should be happy to talk about your cultural background! People are curious! I wish *I* were diversity!" or whatever, or "This is how Indian Americans should educate ignorant white people" sort of thing, whereas mansplaining covers "men thinking they know more about x topic than women."

I don't know, I haven't had the experience that white people have felt they were *smarter* than me because they're white. Oh, sometimes they think they know American culture better than I do, despite the fact that we all grew up in the US.
posted by sweetkid at 7:42 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

FelliniBlank hit the button?

Well, crap. I really wish that these kinds of threads did not end the loss of community members. And I hope FB comes back.
posted by SLC Mom at 7:56 AM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

I haven't had the experience that white people have felt they were *smarter* than me because they're white.

I'm sure we (white folk) do this more or less selectively depending on the perceived racial background of the person we're taking to and the cultural stereotypes associated thereto.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:57 AM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

I agree.
posted by sweetkid at 8:00 AM on June 13, 2014

I don't know, I haven't had the experience that white people have felt they were *smarter* than me because they're white.

Not precisely the same thing, but over the past 8 years I have been mistaken for the cleaning lady in my office by maybe half a dozen (usually wealthy) white businesspeople who came to meet with my boss. And these are only the ones who said something about it either directly to me or within my earshot.

Otherwise, I think we both would have had a lot more experiences with whitesplaining if we didn't have obvious american accents. PoC's with native accents absolutely have to deal with white people treating them like they're morons on a daily basis.
posted by elizardbits at 8:06 AM on June 13, 2014 [19 favorites]

yea I fully agree that my perception might be wrong/biased by my own personal narrow experiences with race stuff, not a universal statement. Naoko's question definitely made me think about this and my perception more deeply (cool).

the only time I've been mistaken for "service class" I think based on my skin color was when I went to stay at a fancy hotel after I had a fire in my apartment - I showed up in sweats with my hair in a frizzy bun after dealing with people cleaning smoke and connecting things in my apartment all day, and a black man came up to me as i was going in and was like, "are you here for a shift?" and I was SO CONFUSED until I figured out what he was talking about and was like oh, no.

Then the white staff gave me a four tier upgrade because they felt bad for me because I had a fire in my apartment. I don't know, race is weird.
posted by sweetkid at 8:15 AM on June 13, 2014

"but I'm so strong and handsome"

And 15 hands at the withers!
posted by klangklangston at 8:34 AM on June 13, 2014 [9 favorites]

"Otherwise, I think we both would have had a lot more experiences with whitesplaining if we didn't have obvious american accents. PoC's with native accents absolutely have to deal with white people treating them like they're morons on a daily basis."

This is something that I see in the subway all the time, where a white dude will either presume to lecture some Latino about the transit routes, or will ask a question of the Latino, get a perfectly reasonable answer, then turn and ask me the same question like I gotta cosign to make it legit.
posted by klangklangston at 8:37 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

sweetkid: "I don't know, race is weird."

Very. For any given minority, depending on the region of the country they are living in, unconscious racism may also impact them in different or unexpected ways.
posted by zarq at 8:38 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

I will accept only one point of comparison between a man and a horse, and it certainly does not apply to me

my feet are not surrounded by cartilage and laminae, as hooves are
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:40 AM on June 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

yeah, that's why blanket "POC" type terms and the tendency to interchange "POC" with "black" kind of bothers me - I think something is talking about me, but it's not, it's talking about black people only, which is fine, but just say that?

Also my saying it's weird doesn't mean I just thought of it now. My anecdote was meant to illustrate my understanding of how racism impacts me in different ways than it does other minorities.
posted by sweetkid at 8:41 AM on June 13, 2014

From hal_c_on, pretty far upthread, but this is worth engaging with imho:

This is a really good point. I thought about it a lot. [. . .] I seriously don't feel as if I was not taking the perspective of women into consideration, not hearing out the other side of the argument, or just using my privilege as a male to trump their argument. But maybe I'm wrong.

Did you guys perceive it that way? What can I do to prevent that in the future?

It's interesting to me that you say that, because from my perspective, that was exactly what you were doing. You came in to say "Women, you should be acting like X," and when women said "No, that doesn't work and isn't practical because of ABC," you got increasingly smug and condescending about why our concerns were immaterial and irrelevant, even going so far to pull out the "hey, look, it's not MY fault, it's just the way things are!" line, which is pretty high on the list of condescending irritations. It's also interesting, because the same line of reasoning had been advanced upthread by NoraCharles and had been already addressed there; the implication is that you either didn't read the whole thread or thought that the point needed re-introduction even though it had clearly already caused a lot of irritation.

So, there's the answer to your first question. Yes, I perceived it that way. As to what you can do to prevent that in the future; first, make sure that your big new idea is actually new, rather than treading extremely well-worn and threadbare ground. And second, if you get immediate pushback, don't double down; stop and brainstorm possible reasonings behind that pushback, re-read the thread, examine how you're feeling in response to the pushback, maybe do a little internet research to see if this is a common thing women hear all the time. Accept that women are the best experts on their own experiences, and that if they're telling you you're wrong, you probably are. Even if it makes no sense to you as to HOW you could possibly be wrong.
posted by KathrynT at 9:11 AM on June 13, 2014 [35 favorites]

yeah, that's why blanket "POC" type terms and the tendency to interchange "POC" with "black" kind of bothers me - I think something is talking about me, but it's not, it's talking about black people only, which is fine, but just say that?

Or Hispanic, but only the right nationality/shade of Hispanic....yeah, I feel you.
posted by corb at 9:24 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Oh man, I got shooed out of Tumblr for a long while because I objected to the way people were using "POC" for stuff that only really applied to African-Americans (not even just Africans half the time) and how race is more complicated then that for some people.
posted by divabat at 9:25 AM on June 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

Heh, divabat, a number of the African-American - written Tumblrs I read are expressing annoyance that people are using "POC" way too broadly, too. You're not alone!
posted by jaguar at 9:27 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: Understanding is impossible because words.
posted by Mooski at 9:30 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

jaguar: Now they are? It was the African-American Tumblr contingent that shooed me out for that reason!
posted by divabat at 9:31 AM on June 13, 2014

divabat: Perhaps you helped shift the discussion? I don't know. I'm definitely seeing more reminders that "POC" is useful as a political concept but not always useful when discussing individual experiences.
posted by jaguar at 9:36 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

my feet are not surrounded by cartilage and laminae, as hooves are

we are all relieved you will never suffer from laminitis, then, because that is a major source of ouch for the ponykind!
posted by winna at 9:51 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

There are traditionally male-dominated discussion spaces that are not friendly to newcomers, no matter how basically interested, smart, and willing they are to learn. Basic, simple, easy questions asked by n00bs on many Linux forums are generally met with condescension, RTFM (read the fucking manual), a link to the wikipedia article on man, and so forth.

These are not good communities to emulate. The best communities in that space are the ones that do the most handholding; the best distros are the ones with the most welcoming and patient community members. Community members who keep answering the same stupid questions, over and over again, when they crop up -- while still managing to dig deep into more complicated (actual) problems.

I would much rather MetaFilter be a place where ignorance (even barely excusable, quasi-willful ignorance) was responded to with links to MeFi comments that were relevant, or a link to an external blog post that answered the question, or that took the time to write a thoughtful, relevant reply.

RTFM (google it, I'm not teaching a class here, learn on your own time, however you want to put it) is not good conversation. I strongly disagree with the now-common refrain of "do your own homework" or "pay me, then maybe I'll talk to you about this subject I'm interested in."

I also disagree with the idea that posting information doesn't make a difference. It sure does, and if you don't see that, then it's a gap in your own lived experience blinding you to the reality of the effect you're having on people reading the thread but not posting.

I learn so much from these discussions, but very little from "google it yourself."
posted by jsturgill at 10:59 AM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

Jsturgill, if you believe that a more gently educational atmosphere would be beneficial, there is literally nothing stopping you from taking up that charge and gently educating people yourself.
posted by KathrynT at 11:13 AM on June 13, 2014 [28 favorites]

Jsturgill: except that's ALREADY happening, often without prompting, and still people aren't listening. As I said, paying attention to the conversation already happening will teach you a lot.
posted by divabat at 11:15 AM on June 13, 2014 [9 favorites]

I would much rather MetaFilter be a place where ignorance (even barely excusable, quasi-willful ignorance) was responded to with links to MeFi comments that were relevant, or a link to an external blog post that answered the question, or that took the time to write a thoughtful, relevant reply.

If you have the free time to spend hours of your life answering the same moronic questions over and over again, you are free to do that. But as a woman I spend enough of my life coddling idiots that I'm damnsure not going to feel obliged to explain things for the seven millionth time to people who are (not quasi but wholly) willfully ignorant.

Seriously, if you can answer the same questions for years and not start to get testy about people who can't operate the google, feel free. But don't expect everyone to be that saintly.
posted by winna at 11:15 AM on June 13, 2014 [14 favorites]

I'm not a big fan of the "if you believe that, then you should..." trope. It functions to derail the discussion from whether or not "that" is true. (See also: "Al Gore claims the climate is warming, but did you know he lives in a big house and often flies on planes?" Whether the climate is actually warming is a more important question than whether Al Gore is a hypocrite.)
posted by uosuaq at 11:18 AM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm not a big fan of the "if you believe that, then you should..." trope.

What? If someone believes educating people in these threads is the answer, they should do that instead of insisting other people do it. What is there to be a fan or not a fan of? No one is going to post "please don't educate" to other people who are doing so. No one does that now, in my memory, to people who post links to Feminism 101 Type things, except for people who get offended by the education and leave the thread.
posted by sweetkid at 11:21 AM on June 13, 2014 [7 favorites]

It functions to derail the discussion from whether or not "that" is true.

Then no, I don't believe it's true.

But if someone else wants to bang their head against a wall, I am not going to stop them.

Also, it's very different to have a noob friendly environment about software than about the basic facts of female existence. Why? Because the people who are wanting to learn about the software are motivated, whereas most of the people asking dumb obvious questions about female existence just want to waste our time and jerk our chains.

I'm not a Linux install, thanks so much.
posted by winna at 11:24 AM on June 13, 2014 [21 favorites]

There's a difference though between learning Arch Linux, which is a like tinkering hobby of an operating system, and which most people will never encounter, and should-be-bog-standard treating women like coequal human beings. One I can understand enthusiasts helping folks through esoterica. The other should not be esoteric, inaccessible, or niche.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:27 AM on June 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

is not good conversation.

Those responses aren't meant to be "good conversation." They respond to the way sexism operates in discourse through consistent evasion of substantive, productive conversation.

And there's plenty of good, informative engagement from feminist perspectives on Metafilter in addition to the justified push-back against sexist evasion and provocation.
posted by audi alteram partem at 11:27 AM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

Fine, but the *thread* should be about whether or not that *is* the answer, not about whether an individual poster is living up to their suggestion. Again, what I'm not a fan of is turning a discussion about "what is to be done?" into "yeah, but what are *you* doing?" or "well, you go do that then".

Winna's response to the effect of "we've tried that, it's not working and we're sick of it" stays on the "what is to be done?" topic, i.e. it actually addresses (well, rejects) jsturgill's comment rather than jsturgill.
posted by uosuaq at 11:28 AM on June 13, 2014

Jsturgill: except that's ALREADY happening, often without prompting, and still people aren't listening. As I said, paying attention to the conversation already happening will teach you a lot.

People are listening. I get so much from these conversations. Conversations that don't happen when you get frustrated and burned out and decide it's useless. The idea that answering these questions does not help the community as a whole is wrong.

That particular idiot may continue to act like an idiot in that particular thread, but there are other people reading the thread who will get something out of it... and it may start to sink in with that particular idiot the fifth time they are told something similar, or the 20th.

Because the people who are wanting to learn about the software are motivated, whereas most of the people asking dumb obvious questions about female existence just want to waste our time and jerk our chains.

Dumb obvious questions about female existence are not (always) about wasting your time and jerking your chain. They're sometimes simply about ignorance, and a perspective that is so narrow that the obvious isn't obvious yet to the asker.

This thread, and many others about the state of MetaFilter's treatment of women and LGBT issues, and many other social justice topics, routinely have comments from posters with privelege thanking the community for exposing them to thoughts they weren't having on their own.
posted by jsturgill at 11:33 AM on June 13, 2014 [6 favorites]

Another problem with the Linux forum analogy is that Linux forums n00bs are generally asking questions, not telling long-time users how best to use an OS they've been using their whole lives.
posted by matcha action at 11:34 AM on June 13, 2014 [27 favorites]

the thing is, jsturgill's suggestion is very much more "what are YOU doing" and "you go do that then," and I believe it's fair to point that out. Because of the number of men who have told me that what is necessary is for "people" to engage men in a certain way for greater success, a vanishingly tiny percentage of them are actually willing to engage men that way themselves. They want me to do it. And that's even outside of the offensiveness of comparing a computer operating system which nobody is born learning how to use to my own lived experience.
posted by KathrynT at 11:35 AM on June 13, 2014 [14 favorites]

Personally, I think there is a lot of really good conversation when people who are knowledgeable about basic concepts around racism, sexism, etc, discuss their own experiences and the nature of identity in different societies. Things as complex as the fact that my brother and I have completely different views on what racism is and isn't and how to deal with it despite having the exact same racial background.

It's like that whole conversation is written in invisible ink though, when people keep insisting we're not helping people understand or effecting the right kind of change with what we're doing, and insist we switch gears to educate them instead.
posted by sweetkid at 11:35 AM on June 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

And, I mean, I DO a lot of patient education around here. I've done some of it in this thread. I just want to be able to stop occasionally without men tut-tutting at me from the sidelines. This shit is hard work and virtually thankless.
posted by KathrynT at 11:39 AM on June 13, 2014 [29 favorites]

It's like that whole conversation is written in invisible ink though, when people keep insisting we're not helping people understand or effecting the right kind of change with what we're doing, and insist we switch gears to educate them instead.

Exactly!

When I started learning about trans issues, I didn't barge in and demand that everyone stop their conversations and cater to my ignorance as a cis person. I listened, I quietly followed up suggested links, I made an effort.

It's massive, massive entitlement to expect that women should stop their conversations to cater to ignorance about the basic issues of feminine existence.
posted by winna at 11:41 AM on June 13, 2014 [15 favorites]

And, I mean, I DO a lot of patient education around here. I've done some of it in this thread. I just want to be able to stop occasionally without men tut-tutting at me from the sidelines. This shit is hard work and virtually thankless.

I meant to communicate that the patient education is useful and appreciated, not tut-tut at you from the sidelines.

The idea that the patient communication is useless seems poisonous to me. I get the frustration, and the need to vent. But it's still poison.
posted by jsturgill at 11:44 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Jesus Christ, this is exactly why I never felt at home in RPG/Magic the Gathering/video games/computer culture as as kid. Women aren't install.exe
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:45 AM on June 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

Jsturgill, if you believe that a more gently educational atmosphere would be beneficial, there is literally nothing stopping you from taking up that charge and gently educating people yourself.

I've yet to ask someone to pay me to talk to them on a message board about something I learned in college. I am being the change in the world I want to see. *sparkles*
posted by jsturgill at 11:45 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

I meant to communicate that the patient education is useful and appreciated, not tut-tut at you from the sidelines.


Well you did not succeed in that communication one bit, frankly. If you want to say thank you, say "thank you."
posted by KathrynT at 11:45 AM on June 13, 2014 [7 favorites]

Again, what I'm not a fan of is turning a discussion about "what is to be done?" into "yeah, but what are *you* doing?" or "well, you go do that then".

Then in a conversation about sexism, you're putting 100% of the responsibility for action on women. And so many of us are very, very tired of being not just quietly expected, but repeatedly told outright that we need to take that action -- action to eliminate sexism! to eliminate our own oppression! This is especially trying when it comes from men who are openly disinterested in doing anything except telling women that we need to stop whatever we're doing in order to patiently, calmly, and consistently educate men who don't agree that we deserve to be treated like human beings.

Not-all-dudes, I beg of you: If there is one thing you take from this conversation, let it be that you do not have any kind of standing when it comes to telling women what we should do, think, or say, or how we should react when it comes to issues related to our gender, especially when we're talking about being on the receiving end of sexism. I know you don't agree that [whatever] is sexist. I know you think it's not a big deal and We Should Just and whatever. And I know, more than anything, that you are absolutely certain that you're right. But you aren't. Not about this. Sorry, them's the breaks.

Don't tell us how we need to address sexism on a structural or societal level, and don't give us the old 1. Woman/Women Just Need/s To... 2. ??? 3. Profit!!! when we are relating our experiences on an individual level. If you think you're being helpful, you're not. Please trust me on this.
posted by divined by radio at 11:46 AM on June 13, 2014 [28 favorites]

The idea that the patient communication is useless seems poisonous to me. I get the frustration, and the need to vent. But it's still poison.

Poison? That is ridiculous to me, when we have so so so many comments about how this isn't bad because The Third World, or What Do You Expect, or all the timsteil stuff, or.

Also, I mean plenty of people have been TRYING the patient communication and people just double down and get angry.
posted by sweetkid at 11:50 AM on June 13, 2014 [7 favorites]

No one is saying that patient education is a bad thing. It's a great thing. It is just not a mandatory on-call service required of all female users on this site, or of women in the world in general.
posted by jaguar at 11:51 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was trying to make a point about discussing an issue vs. discussing (or dismissing) jsturgill (or whoever). I hope that doesn't amount to putting 100% of the responsibility on women for anything. It's a general point, and I used an example about climate change.
posted by uosuaq at 11:56 AM on June 13, 2014

No one is saying it's a mandatory on-call etc., either, I hope.
posted by uosuaq at 11:57 AM on June 13, 2014

I'm too white to 'splain whitesplaining much ("Hey, black ladies! You guys should all get professional looking, low maintenance bobs like mine, so you don't have to fuss with your hair before work!"), but for mansplaining, it's just that the "here is how I, as a man, would deal with sexual harassment" type things are the most obvious and egregious examples. In those cases, men who are doing the pontificating are obviously not paying attention to what women are saying at all about their experiences, and they really don't have analogous ones. That's why they so often come up with solutions that would get us fired or physically injured.

Probably the most common type I encounter, though, is this: A woman brings up a subject or fact that a mansplainer is not already familiar with, and the man assumes that she is making it up or has grossly misunderstood something the man is familiar with. Then, if it happens in public, sometimes another man will interject and say, "Oh, hey, no. That's a real thing," at which point the mansplainer directs his attention to the male interjector to have him verify and explain. More than once, my husband has had to redirect someone by telling them he learned about something from me.

And I am literally talking here about men assuming I imagined cell phone bands, colony collapse, the USB standard, fuel injection, the entire field of linguistics, and the ability to boot a computer from an external drive. And oh wait, the men who, when I tell them those stories, assume that I somehow misconstrued those interactions or that maybe I was being super inarticulate somehow.

So now, take one of these guys and imagine trying, as a lady, to explain something as nuanced as a social phenomenon to them. 'Splainings are like that. Someone who is doing that to you has already demonstrated that they are automatically discounting everything you say to them. Trying to educate them is futile, so I tend to approach them strictly from a behavioral modification angle. I'll just point out how stupid they look, maybe laugh at them, tattle on them to their boss, something like that.

I mean, I am actually in real life very patient. I am also really good at explaining things and have been paid pretty good money for that. And if I genuinely believe that someone is asking a question in good faith and is paying attention, I will do that for free as time and inclinations allow, like I am right now. But when some dude rolls up and demands that I immediately drop everything and hold his hand through explaining some broad phenomenon from the very beginning, all while policing my tone to make sure that I'm being nice and gentle and maternal with them, all without having even made a cursory effort to look at Wikipedia or Google his search terms (I always try it in DuckDuckGo just to make sure it's not my search bubble), then oh god, no. I've been there, and I'm not wasting any more of my time on that. I'm just going to make fun of that guy instead.

There are lots of perfectly good explanations and experiences in this thread already. It's long, yeah, but it's a complicated subject. If people keep asking the same basic questions over and over, it's not going to make it any more concise.

PS tho, those Linux forums ugh. Fun fact, dismissive LMGTFY guys: Your shitty "Let me Google that for you" answer to a very specific question is now, predictably, the top Google result. Learn how to computer, buttfaces who do that. Not the same thing at all, though.
posted by ernielundquist at 11:57 AM on June 13, 2014 [14 favorites]

Poison? That is ridiculous to me, when we have so so so many comments about how this isn't bad because The Third World, or What Do You Expect, or all the timsteil stuff, or.


Also, I mean plenty of people have been TRYING the patient communication and people just double down and get angry.

ChuraChura's response to that thought is powerful. Hugely well received, lots of favorites. It's also 101-level stuff. I'm very glad it was posted!

No one is saying that patient education is a bad thing. It's a great thing. It is just not a mandatory on-call service required of all female users on this site, or of women in the world in general.

The primary thing I wanted to add to the discussion was to point to a community that is often dismissive of ignorance in counterproductive ways and suggest strongly that we could learn something from their failures.

It feels like a bit much to take my words as applying to just women (these same things crop up when talking about racism and gender issues, at the very least) or to take it as a call for "a mandatory on-call service required of (etc.)"
posted by jsturgill at 11:59 AM on June 13, 2014

So bringing that argument up is a kinda "where is this coming from?"

Where it's coming from is a lifetime of observation that the men who suggest that "everyone" should do this are so very rarely willing to do it themselves. The implication is pretty hard to avoid. Plus, if you truly believe that this is the responsibility of "everyone," why don't you start by DOING it, rather than by talking about doing it? Particularly when many, many women are already doing it?
posted by KathrynT at 12:05 PM on June 13, 2014 [10 favorites]

It sure does, and if you don't see that, then it's a gap in your own lived experience blinding you to the reality of the effect you're having on people reading the thread but not posting.


You can't reasonably expect women to assume we have any positive effect on people who read but don't post, if they, y'know, don't post. Some of men have said that you acknowledge or even appreciate (yay!) our efforts and I'm grateful for those. The trouble is, your comments are way outnumbered by the assholes, who have no inhibitions about letting their resentments hang out all over each stage of the thread. It would help if more of you let your appreciation hang out all over the thread, in comments, not just favourites.

most of the people asking dumb obvious questions about female existence just want to waste our time and jerk our chains.

And those that are well-intentioned apparently have missed, skipped over, or ignored many comments about how much answering these questions over and over again costs us. Or perhaps they read those comments, but rather than soldiering on with looking stuff up despite feeling overwhelmed, they would rather that we keep on bearing the lion's share of the cost, year in, year out.

Guys who want to learn how to do better re inadvertent sexism could go back to one of the original Metafilter sexism threads (2007) and read those (or re-read, cuz personally, I often find I've forgotten great comments that I read the first time), then move on to the ones in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. See for yourselves what's changed (no "I'd hit it" etc) and what's still the same now in 2014 ("women's perspectives are wrong / too angry / why do women get annoyed at my well-meaning questions?"). Seven years! Are we supposed to be Perpetual Explaining Machines with infinite resources? And if reading all those threads feels like too much work, think about how much work it was and is for the people who actually on the front lines answering and explaining and taking hits here and IRL simultaneously.

I will acknowledge that leaving behind "How dare women tell me that my interpretation of harassment [or whatever] is wrong!" and dealing with "Hey, patient education right here right now would be more constructive than being annoyed cuz annoyance doesn't help your cause" is progress, sort of.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 12:13 PM on June 13, 2014 [5 favorites]

I meant to communicate that the patient education is useful and appreciated, not tut-tut at you from the sidelines.

The idea that the patient communication is useless seems poisonous to me. I get the frustration, and the need to vent. But it's still poison.

This is a genuinely sweet sentiment and there's nothing wrong with it as a first step but women in these threads don't really need thanks, we need a fucking break. We need men to talk to other men about this stuff when it comes up, rather than talking to us to tell us we're doing a good job. Please talk to other men who need patient education so we can catch our breath once in a while. If there really are men who have learned so much about feminism here, we really need them to speak up more often. Please, I'm sincerely asking you to do this, humbly and often. That would genuinely help mute than even the most kind-heated message of thanks.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 12:13 PM on June 13, 2014 [8 favorites]

Microaggressions are still OBNOXIOUS. And though you personally may think there are bigger problems in the world, solving the small ones can help solve the big ones.

*lightbulb*

You've reminded me of a line from a play I read once - it was part of a monologue by a guy who was arguing that his latest big idea for stopping racial and class warfare was to crack down on people for littering - "because people who aren't surrounded by trash don't feel the need to arm themselves against 'filth'."

The small stuff gets under your skin, and makes you less inclined and less prepared to deal with the big stuff.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:20 PM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

winna: "When I started learning about trans issues, I didn't barge in and demand that everyone stop their conversations and cater to my ignorance as a cis person.

Lots and lots of people in trans threads have done and still do exactly that, though. We've literally had multiple metatalk threads started by people asking, "Why was my [transphobic] comment (which was made out of ignorance and/or unconscious entitlement) deleted?"

It's massive, massive entitlement to expect that women should stop their conversations to cater to ignorance about the basic issues of feminine existence."

I agree. However, (and forgive me for stating the obvious here,) regretfully that is not behavior which can magically stop overnight. Re-educating people and undercutting defensive attitudes takes time and effort. Overcoming majority privilege on many issues is almost always a long, uphill battle. And it usually involves having people who are in the majority talk to their peers. In this case, men speaking to other men about their treatment of our fellow women.

My sense of this as someone who tries hard to be a good ally (I fail sometimes, but for better or worse I keep trying) is that one of the better things I can do as a guy is to encourage my fellow men to do as you say and more: To Listen. Learn. Ask questions. Keep an open mind and stop reacting defensively. Educate themselves. Discard old assumptions. Understand that what's being discussed is not about them and shouldn't be turned into a discussion about them. Etc. And I try to remember that this is a generalist website with members from a huge range of backgrounds who are at currently at many different stages in their lives, including what they know, learn and accept.

And when another guy says something I think is sexist and asinine, I try to call it out and stomp hard on the sentiment. To help make sure it doesn't fester.

I understand the frustration you're feeling. I wish there was an easier solution.
posted by zarq at 12:30 PM on June 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

Hal_c_on: There's an unfortunate socialized expectation that when a man enters the conversation, he's supposed to be in charge of it. When you make sweeping statements like "I'm putting the responsibility on ALL mefites," you're being presumptive about a handful of things, including that it's your position to put the responsibility on anyone, that "all MeFites" having responsibility answers the complaint of women saying that the responsibility is unjustly placed upon them (they're part of all mefites too), and that this is a problem that you can solve here if you can just convince the (primarily female at this point) audience to buy in.

Something that I find helps when I find myself doing this sort of stuff: Stick to "I" action statements. Instead of worrying about what other people are going to do, say that you're going to work to educate people in the future. That's what you want, right? Then, when you're doing that, don't presume to represent women; their opinions and experiences aren't monolithic, and there's no need to fansub them while so many women are here to participate.

I hope that helps you feel less frustrated and more able to be a proactive party to decreasing the common frustrations of women trying to engage here.
posted by klangklangston at 12:31 PM on June 13, 2014 [39 favorites]

+1000 everything klang said, with the addition that the way you hyper-responded (often somewhat dismissively, if only from frustration) to each commenter and instantly redirected the conversation to be about you and your recommendations really underscored the feeling that you came in and decided you needed to take charge of the conversation on behalf of women, which comes across as patronizing and presumptuous.
posted by dialetheia at 12:36 PM on June 13, 2014 [14 favorites]

Lots and lots of people in trans threads have done and still do exactly that, though. We've literally had multiple metatalk threads started by people asking, "Why was my [transphobic] comment (which was made out of ignorance and/or unconscious entitlement) deleted?"

Oh, absolutely. I didn't mean to imply (and now I'm a little worried that I might have) that the issue we're discussing here is not a widespread pattern when people in a position of privilege join conversations about systemic social issues that don't affect them.

What I was attempting to illustrate was that the way to participate in a conversation about something you don't know that is fraught with sensitive issues is that the person who doesn't understand the basic challenges of someone else's life should take ownership of their own ignorance.
posted by winna at 12:38 PM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

winna: "What I was attempting to illustrate was that the way to participate in a conversation about something you don't know that is fraught with sensitive issues is that the person who doesn't understand the basic challenges of someone else's life should take ownership of their own ignorance."

Completely agree.
posted by zarq at 12:41 PM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

No one is obliged to step into a thread and educate. Throttling back some to avoid burnout may be a good idea. I don't think there should be this pervasive pressure of expectation to educate.

I do wish it were less acceptable to step into a thread and very pointedly and vocally refuse to talk about something you know a lot about, though.
posted by jsturgill at 1:00 PM on June 13, 2014

> Guys who want to learn how to do better re inadvertent sexism could go back to one of the original Metafilter sexism threads (2007) and read those (or re-read, cuz personally, I often find I've forgotten great comments that I read the first time), then move on to the ones in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.

> We need men to talk to other men about this stuff when it comes up, rather than talking to us to tell us we're doing a good job. Please talk to other men who need patient education so we can catch our breath once in a while.

On this note: This comment and this follow-up (trigger warning on the second, vivid description of sexual assault and rape) from 2009, written by a man and directed to another man - and I don't mean to direct them toward anyone in this thread, five years later - are absolutely, memorably thunderous. But the really excellent comment by that person, in that thread, in a much more moderate vein, is this one:

And the only reason I am telling this story, which is still raw and humbling and shameful, is to remind all the "allies" out there that we can fuck up just as bad as anyone else, and we shouldn't let our supposedly enlightened views take the place of mindful thought and action.

That's solid, patient education, man to men, using real-life examples to make a useful point about how men of good will should think and act. I think it makes a pretty good model.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:05 PM on June 13, 2014 [8 favorites]

Maybe in this thread, we should assume that people are actively working to end this bullshit, and are frustrated at meeting with resistance like a brick wall.

This is exactly what I was trying to get to with my earlier comments. Addressing women as if we are not already doing the work you were suggesting is what triggered my frustration.
posted by jaguar at 1:22 PM on June 13, 2014

... which I understand you understand now. (Not trying to restart something, just acknowledging that you got what I was trying to say.)
posted by jaguar at 1:23 PM on June 13, 2014

I do wish it were less acceptable to step into a thread and very pointedly and vocally refuse to talk about something you know a lot about, though.

Is that a thing that happens a lot? What I see is people in threads talking about the things that are linked, and someone or ones comes along and either wants to know every 101-type thing about that subject, and only from the people right there in the thread (that is, they won't just go google or click links that are already in the thread), or they do a "I don't know much about this subject but nitpicknitpickchallengepickpickpick" and I don't think it's weird or wrong when people who've already by in the thread decline to play those games. That's not the same as marching into a thread about string theory and declaring that although you are the leading expert in the world, you are just there to tell people you ain't gonna talk about it.
posted by rtha at 1:29 PM on June 13, 2014 [19 favorites]

I do wish it were less acceptable to step into a thread and very pointedly and vocally refuse to talk about something you know a lot about, though.

when that something is the topic of the thread. It makes me wonder "then why are you here?

Those comments come after hundreds of others, and they point out that women's unpaid labour is being taken for granted in these sorts of threads, much like IRL. I didn't make one of those comments but I don't think they're objectionable because they're a polite if sharp expression of the frustration of having one's time and energy taken for granted. I'm here because sometimes these conversations take interesting directions and bring out incisive illuminating comments, when they're not being suffocated by the same old derails.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 1:30 PM on June 13, 2014 [9 favorites]

"I'm putting the responsibility on ALL mefites,"

I feel like, as I've said before, the responsibility for making sure we don't need to have another MeTa like this falls 100% on the men of MetaFilter. Not the women at all.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:32 PM on June 13, 2014 [11 favorites]

(Well, the men of the world but we're discussing MeFi specifically so..)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:34 PM on June 13, 2014

For me, what I saw in that thread was:

- She should not have complained;
- She complained to the wrong people;
- She expects the whole world do do her bidding:
- She is a rich woman who has no right to complain to a poor store clerk;
- She should have known the manager was out and unreachable

I am not sure if she would have been attacked for complaining if she had been a man. Maybe, maybe not. But the general tone or feeling I got was that she was being attacked for complaining and being out of line in how she complained. And then the thread escalated (as we all know).

My experience in complaining, or rather, protesting, opening my mouth, has been that I did something wrong to provoke the behavior. If I keep my mouth shut, then I am a doormat and should just put on my big girl panties. In short, I cannot win no matter what I do and thus, I have to have a thick skin. If I cry, I am manipulating someone, if I get angry, I am a bitch, if I am nice, I am subservient. No makeup, I am lazy, makeup, I am painted up like a tart. Hair up, elegant, hair down, whore. Nice clothes, pretty, but not too nice or I will be whoreish and it's my fault a guy looked at me or came on to me. Talk nicely to a guy and I am asking for sex or a come on. Be mean and I'm a bitch. Thanks for solving that problem, now, can you go make me a sandwich, by the way, the bathroom needs cleaning and we're out of toilet paper. Oh, and I am feeling bad about my life, can you pump me up and tell me how wonderful I am and then give me a blowjob and oh, I am out of clean shorts and my shirt needs ironing. What are we eating this week, do you have the grocery list ready? Oh I have a great idea for you, why don't you take your hobby and make a business out of it and support me so I can be a philosopher/artist/novelist, ha-ha? No, no, you don't need to go to school and take courses, just learn it on your own. You'll never be anything without a degree, sorry the old bosses told you that, but you may as well forget those promotions they promised you. Yes, I would love some more coffee. The cable guy came on to you? Were you wearing a bra? I slept with 10 girls in high school, you got pregnant in college, well, girls shouldn't spread their legs, you know. You are so brave for having a child out of wedlock! You want to join the Army? Well, a girl like you would sit around and answer the phones. I'm sorry but someone complained that your outfit on casual Friday was too revealing, so this is a warning. No, you can't have a raise or promotion or even a title change, because even though you do all of that work, you're still really a secretary/we don't have the head count, the big boss is grouchy today. Oh can you go pick up my dry cleaning? What were you doing with that guy anyway? You're just a hysterical woman, what are you getting all bent out of shape for? Are you on your period?

None of this applies to my current situation. It's just sort of a random slice o' life snapshot from the last 50 years.

I know a lot of guys (and people in general) want to fix things. Heck, I want to fix things! I feel like the #1 thing I can tell guys is: have some empathy and say, "wow, that sucks, I'm sorry to hear that." And that's it. Validate the experience. The #2 thing would be if you see a guy acting like a jerk, in a sexist manner, tell him that's not cool (such as Matthowie giving that dude a time off). #3 Is there anything I can do to help? #4 If someone tells you something is hurting them, listen.

For instance: when my daughter was 9, my ex used to put on the beauty pageants, and when I protested, he wanted to know what was wrong with a harmless beauty pageant? (He failed to listen) When my daughter was 10, she came to me and said she felt fat and ugly and wanted to go on a diet. She was neither of these things, but well, media and life and boys at school (who in 5th grade were calling her a bitch and it took me going to the principal because the male teacher didn't really do anything), that stuff, plus maybe her stepdad watching beauty pageants, had gotten to her already, at age 10. So I feel like it really was important to validate this woman's right to complain. It affects us all, women, mothers, daughters, sisters, men and society as a whole. I am a Stones fan, and I still think the song is not something I'd want my daughter to hear at a grocery store.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 1:55 PM on June 13, 2014 [42 favorites]

> Anybody got any suggestions?

See, I may be alone in this, but this is what made me feel that you (hal_c_on) were trying to take charge of the conversation.
I no longer have that feeling now. But it might still be useful feedback.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:57 PM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

Participating in the thread to share our experiences in relation to the topic at hand is not a signal for "btw I am here for all your educational needs!". (Or, what rtha said.)
posted by divabat at 2:02 PM on June 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

hal_c_on: " "I'm not a gay male, but I am an ally." I hate when people say that shit. It makes it seem as if their words are as powerful as someone who has actually gone through the experience of being a gay male."

The term generally means someone who supports gender equality, equal and civil rights and challenges discrimination, homophobia, transphobia and sexism. I learned the term when I volunteered for Gay Men's Health Crisis back in the early '90's. It fits me, so I still use it. It's not intended to make the person saying it sound like they've lived as {fill in the blank}. Only that they're supporting others.
posted by zarq at 2:03 PM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hi. I'm a long time lurker who has been away for a while. I came back earlier this week, popped into the TJs thread and became very very confused. I try hard not to be an asshole to anybody, but I definitely have no background in academic feminism, and I don't recall having read anything in the boyzone discussions. So anyway, the rules of the discussion about TJ were completely unclear to me. Having read that thread, this MeTa, and done a ton of googling, I have learned a lot, and I have a somewhat better sense of how it works, but I'm not yet there.

I have a couple questions which I would be very grateful if I received answers.

Can someone tell me if there are there any documents that lay out the rules of feminist discussion as it is done on Metafilter? I didn't see anything in the FAQs or wiki, but I could have missed it.

Also, Generally what is the scope where these rules apply? Obviously, in the TJ thread, the Dan Savage thread, this Meta, etc. But, for example, does it apply to the #womenaretoohardtoanimate thread?

Thanks for your time.
posted by jaut at 2:16 PM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

There are no rules per se, jaut. However, there are some links upthread to some of Metafilter's seminal (and long, I'll admit) discussions of the treatment of women and women's issues on the site. Reading those would get you up to speed probably faster and with less effort than any other course of action.
posted by KathrynT at 2:31 PM on June 13, 2014 [5 favorites]

jaut: There aren't any documents specific to Metafilter that I know of - a lot of it comes from listening to the women speaking on the thread, as well as resources that often get linked in such threads.

The rules would apply across the board - it tend to boil down to "don't speak over women, trust that they know best what their own experiences are like, and respect what they say without taking them for granted".
posted by divabat at 2:32 PM on June 13, 2014

The Stones discussion is more appropriate for the other thread: this thread is discussing sexism with Metafilter writ large.
posted by divabat at 2:51 PM on June 13, 2014

Can someone tell me if there are there any documents that lay out the rules of feminist discussion as it is done on Metafilter?

I don't think there are any.

Generally what is the scope where these rules apply?

Aside from jargon, which is generally only going to crop up in Those Threads, most of the concepts are universally relevant. Such as, don't hold women to a higher standard for commenting than men, don't try to explain away or invalidate a woman's experience.

Some language that's common elsewhere on the Internet should be avoided, because it's rude as hell at the very least: calling people bitches, saying "I'd hit it," etc.

Systemic issues such as "the patriarchy" and "rape culture" are generally things that the site culture now accepts as existing. Mocking them as concepts is generally going to not be well received.

I thought someone earlier in the thread linked to a "Feminism 101" blog with some easy-to-read info that's relevant, but I can't find it in the thread now and may have stumbled across it somewhere else on MeFi.

So, there's that.

----

By the way, if I have a distinct lack of history of trying to educate others, this is a decent example why. Even with the thread moving slowly, I'm still finding it hard to respond before others do. I just can't, 99% of the time, participate in a fast-moving thread. The doofuses have doofused and moved on long before I notice. (And when that's not the case, half the time I'm the doofus.)
posted by jsturgill at 2:52 PM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Dude. One tiny comment to touch back to a post that prompted this thread, not at all a detail but a writing flourish ending a detailed and thoughtful comment?

That's not a derail to close. You're making noise to dominate this thread and get attention at the expense of the people - mostly women - who are discussing beyond why Hal_c_on and other nice guys don't need to understand the basics to participate in a complex issue.

Seriously. Stop commenting and go read some of the suggested topics and come back later.
posted by viggorlijah at 2:53 PM on June 13, 2014 [6 favorites]

hal_c_on, you've commented 34 times in this thread; assuming you did have something interesting and worthwhile to say in the first place, surely you must have said it by now.
posted by jamjam at 3:51 PM on June 13, 2014

A couple other people have commented nearly that many times. You should call them out too, jamjam.
posted by uosuaq at 3:56 PM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

FWIW I wasn't offended by being mistaken for white, I just didn't think my comment was splaining of any kind. It was pretty directly a response to the kind of discussion that's like "mansplaining is a bad term and basically you're saying someone's a bad person if you say they're doing something misogynist." I was saying that that's not true.
posted by sweetkid at 3:59 PM on June 13, 2014

Participating in the thread to share our experiences in relation to the topic at hand is not a signal for "btw I am here for all your educational needs!". (Or, what rtha said.)

Yes it is. It is for me. I am here to share my experiences and yes, I do want to educate people. My son is a man. If you don't want to do that, fine. I have a stake in this, a daughter, a son, a grand-daughter. I want to relate to men. I love men. My Dad is a man. My brothers are men. Men are not my enemy. I know about the patriarchy. I have lived it my whole life. I am not sure if you were trying to put down my lived experiences or not, but I sort of agree with NoraCharles and SpitBull and some of the others. Are you saying I can't educate people or I am a patsy? Because yes I can. I can educate all I want.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 4:58 PM on June 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

Marie Mon Dieu: You can choose to educate if you wish. I'm saying that not everyone chooses to do so and we need to respect that.

(And I'm not sure where "men are not my enemy" is coming from, because I don't think any of us have actually said that.)
posted by divabat at 5:02 PM on June 13, 2014 [15 favorites]

And yknow, sometimes we do want to educate, but not now. Or we've done it a zillion times already and are getting tired of repeating ourselves in the same thread. Or we're not as qualified to speak beyond our personal experiences much less in an educational role. Or our situation is complex enough that a post on an online messageboard isn't going to cut it.

Nobody is saying you're a patsy for wanting to educate others. What we're saying is that that shouldn't be an assumed role, that if people don't want to do it then that's fine, and if people want to do so then respect them for taking their time and don't take them for granted when they do.
posted by divabat at 5:05 PM on June 13, 2014 [7 favorites]

No one said Men are the enemy and no one said you can't educate. In fact, many people have been doing that in this thread, quite eloquently.
posted by sweetkid at 5:05 PM on June 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

"No one said Men are the enemy"

Not all men!
posted by klangklangston at 5:08 PM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

OK, so if men should be educating (and I agree they should, I try to IRL) how do I do that on MetaFilter without sounding like I'm mansplaining or sounding arrogant for speaking about something that I lack first hand experience of?

In the past I have deliberately stayed out as it seemed wrong of me to try to explain the situation to men in thread while there are a whole bunch of women who actually experience this stuff doing a good job of explaining.
posted by ElliotH at 5:12 PM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Eh, I'm sorry! I am a woman and I get the need to not educate. I do. And I get the frustration of men who want to fix it and the frustration of women who don't want to put up with the men who want to explain how to fix it. I feel for all of those things. And I am very sorry if I put it badly.

Sometimes, as a woman, I feel like I not only have to explain myself to men, but to other women. I didn't express myself properly. I did it wrong. I gave my life experience but that doesn't count. And that was what I was hearing.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 5:15 PM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think one way of men stepping up without mansplaining is if you see a woman eloquently explaining things, cosign her. Highlight her words. Give her credit and (ugh I hate to phrase it like this but) put the weight of your privilege behind them.
posted by (Over) Thinking at 5:16 PM on June 13, 2014 [31 favorites]

Thanks (Over) Thinking. I'm going to take the favourites you've attracted as people being generally supportive of that approach. I'll try and do just that next time I see a place it seems useful.
posted by ElliotH at 5:27 PM on June 13, 2014

yea I regret that I have but one favorite to give to (Over)Thinking's comment, it's great.
posted by sweetkid at 5:28 PM on June 13, 2014

Isn't another part of the education question bound up in the way that most of the time when a man makes a "well, just educate me!" plea in a thread here, it's immediately after being called out for bad behavior? And that a good portion of the time it turns out that the real purpose was so they could nitpick around the edges of whatever the response might be, still trying to win a "No, see, I wasn't behaving badly" argument?

I guess some good faith requests for education might get lost in that bathwater, but it really feels like that fighty undercurrent underlies a lot of these requests for 101 info, and it can be hard to separate the two.
posted by nobody at 5:35 PM on June 13, 2014 [20 favorites]

Oh, I do NOT represent women. This is why I have such a huge fucking problem with the word "ally". People use that term and feel they CAN now speak on behalf of the people they claim to be an ally for.
"I'm not a gay male, but I am an ally." I hate when people say that shit. It makes it seem as if their words are as powerful as someone who has actually gone through the experience of being a gay male.

I totally get this but I don't know what word is better. "One of the good ones" is about all I can think of, and it's, uh, got some problems of its own. I think one of the biggest problems with the word "ally" (that doesn't pertain to "one of the good ones") is that it's self-bestowed, and what one's trying to say with "I'm an ally" is often "Really I get you and I am not a Y-ist", which is really centering oneself instead of the members of any class oppressed along axis Y.
I used "ally" above as shorthand for "dominant class member who wants to help us deal with -Yism instead of just standing by saying 'Yism sucks and I'm sure glad I'm not a member of the oppressed class(es), whew'."

I think one of the hard things about striving towards human decency is that belonging to one oppressed class doesn't translate into any sort of automatic understanding of how to be decent to people oppressed in another class within that axis or along other axes of oppression. I mean, it's really painfully obvious when I put it that way, but geez it's hard to resist that impulse to defensiveness instead of acceptance and reason and behavioral change.
posted by gingerest at 5:37 PM on June 13, 2014 [5 favorites]

OK, so if men should be educating (and I agree they should, I try to IRL) how do I do that on MetaFilter without sounding like I'm mansplaining or sounding arrogant for speaking about something that I lack first hand experience of?

I think the big thing is to speak up but be humble. It's not your job to be The New Boss In Charge Of Feminism and talk over the women in the thread and "explain" what they mean. You can make it more like emphasizing what women are already saying, sharing resources that you've found helpful, and if you're asked to back off, back off.

Obviously other people will other ideas and preferences and I'm not an expert.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 5:39 PM on June 13, 2014 [8 favorites]

OK, so if men should be educating (and I agree they should, I try to IRL) how do I do that on MetaFilter without sounding like I'm mansplaining or sounding arrogant for speaking about something that I lack first hand experience of?

In the past I have deliberately stayed out as it seemed wrong of me to try to explain the situation to men in thread while there are a whole bunch of women who actually experience this stuff doing a good job of explaining.

Speaking for myself, I'm generally perfectly happy to see men speaking up to educate other men about misogyny or feminist issues. Occasionally I'll see that my husband has tweeted something like "hey guys, I just saw one of us doing [x] to a woman — don't do that!" I like that — it feels like evidence that he understands why these things are important rather than anything else (like "he's just making feminist noises to attract feminist women" or something stupid like that).

It's when a man speaks up to educate women about misogyny and feminist issues (what they are, what they should be, how women ought to respond to them) that it often goes off the rails.
posted by Lexica at 5:50 PM on June 13, 2014 [20 favorites]

In the MetaFilter community, we probably have enough women who are already willing to speak up about such things. "How do I educate?" is a tougher question offscreen.
posted by uosuaq at 5:51 PM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

When I think of the most supportive men I know, the most important thing they do is to call out bad behavior by other men. Men tend to be so much less likely to write off a man calling them out than a woman calling them out. A man calling you out is a real challenge, a woman calling you out is easily dismissed as whining. It's way less about the explaining part than it is about the call-out part, to me.

Also, I wish I could favorite nobody's comment 1000 more times, because there is such a huge difference between asking for education from a genuine desire to learn vs. asking for education so that you can more effectively rules-lawyer your way into winning or dominating the argument.
posted by dialetheia at 5:52 PM on June 13, 2014 [18 favorites]

As a man myself, what I try to do mostly is to tell assholes when (& how) they're being assholes when it seems like they're overwhelming a thread, and to mostly shut up when women are explaining their experiences.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:00 PM on June 13, 2014 [12 favorites]

More: Men explaining feminist ideas to men.

Less: Men explaining feminist ideas to women.

(It's highly unlikely to be mansplaining if you're addressing men.)
posted by jaguar at 6:03 PM on June 13, 2014 [26 favorites]

And yknow, sometimes we do want to educate, but not now. Or we've done it a zillion times already and are getting tired of repeating ourselves in the same thread. Or we're not as qualified to speak beyond our personal experiences much less in an educational role. Or our situation is complex enough that a post on an online messageboard isn't going to cut it.

Nobody is saying you're a patsy for wanting to educate others. What we're saying is that that shouldn't be an assumed role, that if people don't want to do it then that's fine, and if people want to do so then respect them for taking their time and don't take them for granted when they do.

I understand that.

I guess... where I am coming from is I was a speaker at a women's conference, about domestic violence. Me and another woman and a university woman who had a PhD. in women's studies.

All of the women in our audience had had an episode of domestic violence. About 99% of them. But about none of them had ever spoken up about it. In fact, one woman came to me afterward to thank me for talking about it because she had been raped and forced to marry her rapist by her family because she got pregnant, and later escaped and yet, she had been too ashamed to speak about it until that day.

Among the other women were one who had shot her husband because he tried to kill her, and another who barely escaped being stabbed. But very few who had not been a victim of domestic violence, including me. Pretty much no way I could have educated them. But we started a round circle, to talk about it. How we could address it.

I have been the victim of domestic violence and have had severe PTSD from it. I have every reason to hate men. I regret saying anything about women hating men. It's true, no one should be put in the position of educating anyone. I respect that. I just want to be crystal clear that if I choose to educate that I am not going to be subject to scorn from the women here on this site. That's all.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 6:33 PM on June 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

I think maybe we all take some risk of "scorn" from other women, though, when we step up to educate, because we're actively speaking for other women, and that's a risky business. There's going to be arguments about priorities and representation and intersectionality, and about what feminism is and isn't. I work hard not to take that dissension personally - it's very much not about me. The cultural instruction that women are a monolith is ubiquitous, and even smart women feminists are just as subject to that instruction as anybody else. I'm going to try to speak for women in the loosest sense but I work to stay aware that I don't have any special dispensation to do so, and that my experience isn't necessarily representative, especially not of women who are members of other oppressed classes.

As well, in terms of fighting between women, there's some tension about the way that always, a few people who belong to an oppressed class are threatened by the notion of working against that system (whether they're actively benefiting from the institution of oppression, or whether they can see that whatever comes to replace it may be worse for them or someone they love, or whether they just identify with the dominating class more than with their own class or whatever) - we all do what we must to survive, so there's always going to be some women who side against feminism (or whose notion of feminism is mostly about whether they've got theirs). Not necessarily women who actively post at MetaFilter, but culturally. Again, women aren't a monolith.
posted by gingerest at 7:14 PM on June 13, 2014 [13 favorites]

Educating people is a real gift from people to other people and this site shines at sharing and teaching in circles rather than hierarchies. No one should scorn someone for doing that.

But there needs to be an awareness that complaining about not being educated to asking in a way that has been rebuffed earlier in the thread is entitling yourself to a gift. And this seems to occur more often in threads about feminist issues by men towards commentators who are not men. Way more than it should.

Teach if you can. People will thank you. But the issue here is the 'students' who are complaining about not being taught how they want to be, not the teachers themselves.
posted by viggorlijah at 7:45 PM on June 13, 2014 [11 favorites]

"what I try to do mostly is to tell assholes when (& how) they're being assholes"

yessss come to the dark side
posted by klangklangston at 8:50 PM on June 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

It's massive, massive entitlement to expect that women should stop their conversations to cater to ignorance about the basic issues of feminine existence.

Men tend to be so much less likely to write off a man calling them out than a woman calling them out. A man calling you out is a real challenge, a woman calling you out is easily dismissed as whining.

Teach if you can. People will thank you. But the issue here is the 'students' who are complaining about not being taught how they want to be, not the teachers themselves.

I'm training to be a teacher. I like explaining things. BUT when it comes to explaining feminist issues and the experiences and effects of male chauvinism and misogyny, I often find that the male 'inquirer' seeks not understanding, but justification. They want me to justify my feminist position according to their 'understanding' of the 'real' situation.

That's one reason why men explaining feminism, male chauvinism and misogyny to other men is so important. It relieves women of the assault of having to justify the validity of their experiences and it cuts through the much of the 'whinging' aspect because, ugh, the females' perspective is legitimised by other males.

This is an incredibly important discussion with so many layers. I am female, strong, outspoken and very aware of patriarchy's effect on my life and those of my friends, and I have learned good things about feminism, language and alternative perspectives from this thread.
posted by Kerasia at 1:44 AM on June 14, 2014 [35 favorites]

Datapoint: I did not post in that thread because it would have taken too long to figure out how to frame a comment as a feminist and a woman.

Parramore is new media savvy and has a career trajectory far removed from "English PhD struggling to make ends meet as an adjunct." This is someone who's either inherited or built a network of connections that she's working to the fullest-- ironically in the cause of economic justice.

I had a visceral reaction to her tactics and felt nothing but sympathy for the worker. I cannot imagine making another person uncomfortable for this particular reason or using my power in this way. Everyone is different, and Metafilter threads grow from the input of members. I do not mean to critique anyone, but to state that as someone who does feminism in ways recognizable to feminists here, I agreed with some of the comments made by the men. It's a tough distinction to draw quickly in a thread so I just didn't do it.
posted by CtrlAltD at 7:26 AM on June 14, 2014 [18 favorites]

> when it comes to explaining feminist issues and the experiences and effects of male chauvinism and misogyny, I often find that the male 'inquirer' seeks not understanding, but justification. They want me to justify my feminist position according to their 'understanding' of the 'real' situation.

Fuck yes.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 7:52 AM on June 14, 2014 [5 favorites]

Well, if I'm included in that critique, I was a clerk for 10 years, and he is a store manager, so you're starting off with your facts wrong
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 9:38 AM on June 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

That's just the sort of comment, Bunny Ultramod, that kept women like me and apparently CtrlAltD from feeling like our perspectives were welcome in the thread.

Maybe if you're a guy in a feminism thread, you could dial back the snappy style shut-downs when a woman is sharing her perspective. Maybe you can participate without coming across like you're showing some of us women how to do feminism.

Apparently some feminism isn't feminismy enough, or it's too tainted by class sensitivities, or axes of other kinds of authorities, or whatever, and those shadings, despite being reflective of our own experiences, don't count, inspire eye-rolly frustration about why aren't you listening to women and this is a derail and oh she didn't say it right and so are subject to snappy shut-down.

If we're listening to opinions formed by people's lived experiences, those responses just as much as the 'mansplaining' contributions hinder a welcoming environment. Women, as noted, are not a monolithic entity. We should be able to have a variety of opinions on the piece, with a variety of prioirities arrayed in different order, without being made to feel like traitors to the cause.
posted by Lou Stuells at 10:47 AM on June 14, 2014 [34 favorites]

Also, if someone here is in Santa Monica, I'd love it if you went to Izzy's, got a reuben sandwich on a kaiser roll, that big ass pickle, the best cole slaw i've ever had, dat clump of hot fries, a tray of different mustards and just ate it all. Then I want you to get that black and white cookie from glass case near the register because spitbull says we all deserve one. Eat an extra one for me while you're hoping that you didn't get a ticket for parking your car near the hospital.

Alack! This is something I could get behind but I am far from this land of Reuben sammich bliss.

I will have to make do with some homemade gazpacho (secret ingredient: kosher dill pickle) and a big glass of water so cold it hurts to pick it up.
posted by winna at 2:23 PM on June 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think there's a fair point to be made about signals some of us read in the piece regarding conflicts between 'academician vs. shopkeeper/tradesperson.' It might even have an inverse relationship to income - the scholar or artist toiling away for intangible reward vs. the corporate cog selling out for the sake of bourgeois comforts. I went to art school and my dad sold auto parts, so skipping back and forth over those lines has been an exploration in interesting territory for me, and perhaps part of the reason I took different impressions from the piece than other participants did.

I think those are interesting territories to explore, and while they shouldn't eclipse the topic of microaggressions and institutionalized misogyny, I think they were an important element in the article in part because they seemed completely invisible to the author and absolutely overlooked, denied, and derided by many commenters. I think there was room in the discussion for exploring the phenomenon. YES there were a lot of bingo card comments in the thread, but I felt that anything not-lockstep with ONE topic was classified in a very binary fashion as AGAINST that topic, against feminism, against women being heard, and a deflection by anti-feminists, defensive men, or apologists.

The topic the author wanted to discuss was the only topic 'allowed', it seemed, and to explore the issues I noted above was to risk being accused of committing a misogynistic act of discussion sabotage.

My natural response when reading 'this thing happened' accounts is to put myself in the position of each participant and play What Would I Have Done (And Would It Have Been Better/Worse)? I don't recall ever seeing anything in an employee handbook for the sort of complaint raised in the article. Independent problem solving seems secondary to presenting a unified company 'face' in retail chains. So 'refer to the next person up' or 'refer to the customer complaints line' would be the default first steps - pretty close to what happened (though of course the system is imperfect - probably it works better for 'my milk was spoiled' than this, and that really shouldn't have been a shock.) In Parramore's shoes, I would have acted a lot differently. The reasons I would have acted differently - and, I think, to greater effectiveness - are reasons derived from what I learned in working those kind of jobs.

Her job is to research and communicate, and she's got quite a bit more schooling than I've got. Maybe I've got a raging case of Dunning-Kruger, but I feel she did a bad job in bad faith. She should, in this instance, be smarter than me because she's got more education and influence than me, and we're apparently on the same side in this fight. It's important, it counts, she's got a voice and she's speaking for me and my cause, but she's playing dumb and it pissed me off. I shouldn't be made to feel equated to an MRA apologist by other mefites because I felt that way about this FPP.

Also I would very much like a black and white cookie... a nice soft fresh one. The treats local to me run more towards local ice cream and Finnish dessert bread, which is nothing to complain about. In the rare treat of being near a proper deli though my inclination is to opportunistically gorge, python-style, and then sleep for a month.
posted by Lou Stuells at 3:05 PM on June 14, 2014 [18 favorites]

and wait wait wait. If it's on a kaiser roll (or, as we call it in my house, a sling roll) --is it actually a reuben?
posted by Lou Stuells at 3:10 PM on June 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't want to be all "Now we must talk about food!" but I have a black and white cookie story that is also a MeFi story. I posted a thing in AskMe about teaching people how to use computers. A nice MeFite from NYC sent me a MeMail thanking me for it, saying she has to teach people how to teach people to do this at her job and it's frequently challenging. I offered to send her a copy of my book since I have a few extras. She said sure and gave me her address and asked if there was anything I wanted from NYC. Well when I was a kid and we'd visit my grandmother in Englewood (and see relatives in Teaneck and Hackensack) we'd go by the Butterflake bakery and get some of the most incredible cookies in a cardboard box with the red and white string and everything. We had okay snacks at home but these were unreal. So, every time someone says "What do you want from NYC?" I always ask for black and white cookies. So she sent me a few, and some coffee beans from Brooklyn Roasting Company and they arrived just before I got back from a trip so they were a little banged up but still: free internet cookies (and coffee) and it was just a wonderful combination that could not be beat. And that is my cookie story.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 3:56 PM on June 14, 2014 [14 favorites]

It took me a long time to try them because they look like the disappointing sugar cookies that function solely as a substrate for pretty frosting and sprinkles.

Nothing could be further from the truth. B&W cookies are a Big Deal and I just noticed the retired badge and have feelings that aren't easy to verbalize.
posted by Lou Stuells at 4:53 PM on June 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

That's just the sort of comment, Bunny Ultramod, that kept women like me and apparently CtrlAltD from feeling like our perspectives were welcome in the thread.

I'm not clear on what you're referring to. My comment was directed at spitbull, and specifically to the comment that presumes what other people's experiences are. I think it's best to not assume that someone is unsympathetic or ignorant of class issues simply because they don't agree with you. It's also a good idea not to assume the financial circumstances of your fellow posters simply because they are focusing on an issue that effects women instead of exclusively focusing on the subject of class.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 4:54 PM on June 14, 2014

B&W cookies are a Big Deal

I'm from central New York, where the black and white (vanilla shortbread base, fondant, NYC/Long Island) mutated into the half-moon (spongy chocolate cake base, buttercream, Utica) (or the other way around depending on who you ask I guess), but my parents are from Long Island and I do know the difference but l use black and white and half moon interchangeably.

I did this once at a meeting of Scrabble club when asking someone to pass me one from a bakery tray and both Archibald and his wife immediately said, in unison, "They're HALF-MOONS." Which kind of a) typifies every interaction I had with them but b) would have actually been kind of funny if I had liked either of them even a little bit and c) still makes my blood boil three years later whenever I get a half-moon (often), which d) probably proves I was more of the problem in that relationship than I wanted to admit.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 5:40 PM on June 14, 2014 [4 favorites]

But Bunny Ultramod, you do this all the time. Make assumptions about other Mefites, I mean. In the Trader Joe's thread, for example, you assume that people who questioned the lazy journalism or the author's choice to print the retail manager's full name are misogynistic.

Can you see why those actions might make others feel unwelcome?

You also accused anyone who didn't agree with you about that of derailing the thread. But you were the one who brought up the wholly unrelated aspect of women's wages, an actual derail.
posted by misha at 6:17 PM on June 14, 2014 [10 favorites]

Also, if someone here is in Santa Monica, I'd love it if you went to Izzy's, got a reuben sandwich on a kaiser roll, that big ass pickle, the best cole slaw i've ever had, dat clump of hot fries, a tray of different mustards and just ate it all. Then I want you to get that black and white cookie from glass case near the register because spitbull says we all deserve one. Eat an extra one for me while you're hoping that you didn't get a ticket for parking your car near the hospital.

I am in Santa Monica, slowly emerging from a week-long haze of toothaches, pain meds, and nothing but liquids and this is the best damn thing I've heard in days. As soon as I'm able, I will walk (no parking tickets!) over to Izzy's and do this even though the half-sours and B&W cookies and hard salami are better at Fromin's.

Lou Stuells, CtrlAltD, I can't speak to the recent threads since I'm behind, but I appreciated the general sentiment of your comments, thank you.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:34 PM on June 14, 2014 [3 favorites]

But you were the one who brought up the wholly unrelated aspect of women's wages, an actual derail.

I didn't. Please go back and reread the thread.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 7:12 PM on June 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

and wait wait wait. If it's on a kaiser roll (or, as we call it in my house, a sling roll) --is it actually a reuben?

No. A Reuben must be grilled, or it is not a Reuben.

Would you call it a Reuben if it were made with turkey ham? No, you would not - and someone would be on their way to the gulag.
posted by Pudhoho at 7:21 PM on June 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

You'd call it a goyben, you schmuck.
posted by gman at 7:34 PM on June 14, 2014 [3 favorites]

A Georgia Reuben has turkey. It's also sometimes called a California Reuben.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 7:37 PM on June 14, 2014

A Georgia Reuben has turkey. It's also sometimes called a California Reuben

Ironically mostly up north in ohio and Michigan. And (ewww) it's usually got BBQ sauce instead of Russian dressing. It's not great IMHO
posted by chasles at 8:16 PM on June 14, 2014

Thank you KathrynT, divabat and jsturgill for your information. That's pretty much where I am already, besides the 7 year review of MetaTalk. That helped, but it still wasn't fully making sense to me.

The topic the author wanted to discuss was the only topic 'allowed', it seemed, and to explore the issues I noted above was to risk being accused of committing a misogynistic act of discussion sabotage.

Thank you, Lou Stuells and CtrlAltD, because that totally answers why I found the conversation in that thread so confusing.
posted by jaut at 8:18 PM on June 14, 2014

Bunny Ultramod, you were addressing spitbull's comment expressing appreciation for CtrlAltD's contribution. Your comment seems to demonstrate that you find more value in making a dismissive potshot than in any of the substance of the conversation they're having, or in any of the points that CtrlAltD bothered to address.

And for that matter.. 'the guy was a manager so your facts are wrong' is a proclamation that presupposes a hell of a lot: that there's an appreciable difference in class between managers and clerks, that class and income are aligned, that a person who is a jerk to a cashier would treat a store manager much differently, etc.

It's not a contribution you're making; it's a shut-down. It's phrased to read as dismissively as possible, that cute thing with the 'this is not even worth punctuation lol' is all the rage with the cool kids.

I have a hard time believing your communication is good-faith communication, I hope this helps you understand why.
posted by Lou Stuells at 8:40 PM on June 14, 2014 [9 favorites]

(A California Reuben doesn't have avocado? Why would I waste the effort of pronouncing that many syllables in ordering one, if there is no avocado?)
posted by Lou Stuells at 8:44 PM on June 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

Well, I don't expect to convince you of good faith when you have interpreted bad faith, but my participation in these threads is in earnest. The fact is, in the thread that instigated this, there was a repeated gesture to paint the story as "privileged woman harasses minimum wage employee," which both colors the story against the author and wasn't based in any established or shared facts, and that was what I was responding to originally. We can disagree with the author's point of view, or the way she wrote the story (and, as I have repeatedly said, I probably wouldn't have done it as she said, but I also know that tactics that work for me may not work for others), but we should have shared facts, and not invent facts that support our narrative.

I rankled when spitbull declared that those of us who disagreed on the question of class were somehow unsympathetic to the experience of clerks. It's an unfair characterization and also repeats an inaccuracy that paints the author in an especially bad light. That was the sum of my objection, and you can accept that or not, which is your prerogative. It is, however, entirely consistent with my participation here.

I'm sorry my typo dropping the punctuation offended you. There are a lot of them in my posts on the thread, and I would ask you to read them charitably, as all of them are accidental.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 8:56 PM on June 14, 2014 [18 favorites]

You might have unexamined class privilege.

paints the author in an especially bad light

Does it?
posted by Drinky Die at 2:11 AM on June 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think 0 suffers from terrible reading comprehension and a markedly immature and unnuanced understanding of class.
...
I think it's best to not assume that someone is unsympathetic or ignorant of class issues simply because they don't agree with you.
posted by 0 at 5:11 AM on June 15, 2014 [6 favorites]

I'm not the subject of this thread. I will duck out now so we can return to the actual topic, and if you have particular issues with me, feel free to memail or start another thread on me.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:06 AM on June 15, 2014

And thus ended the Bunny Ultramod Show for another thread.
posted by gman at 6:09 AM on June 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

*eyeroll*
posted by shakespeherian at 6:12 AM on June 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

Returning to the actual topic sounds like a very good plan.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:31 AM on June 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Somewhere along the way, this thread became less about the actual specifics of feminism, and more about "how to engage in a productive discussion without discounting the experiences or words of others who may have different experiences and thoughts".

I think thats great.

I don't know, I think it's kind of crappy to the people who are most effected by the specifics of feminism, and want to discuss specific instances of sexism on Metafilter.

Would you call it a Reuben if it were made with turkey ham?

Turkey ham? No, turkey pastrami, probably, but if regular pastrami or corn beef is available, you risk a disappointed sigh from me. Oh and does a reuben still count as a reuben if the pastrami's made from moose? Because if not, my 99% home-made (no cave for cheese aging) reubens I've been eating have been nothing but tasty tasty lies.
posted by Gygesringtone at 6:37 AM on June 15, 2014

> I'm not the subject of this thread.

After 53 comments by you (so far) it might as well be. Not to mention another 57 in the thread that spawned this meta. You have totally won both of 'em and can afford to rest on your laurels.
posted by jfuller at 6:58 AM on June 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

53 comments out of 1030 is kind of not a lot.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:40 AM on June 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

That's like saying Bill Gates doesn't have a lot of dough when you consider the total sum of all the other money in circulation.
posted by gman at 7:43 AM on June 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

....Funny, I thought you were returning to the topic of this thread anyway.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:48 AM on June 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

53 comments in any single thread is a lot, particularly a contentious one.
posted by stp123 at 8:01 AM on June 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

meanwhile the people whining about those comments are the ones who caused them by their constant sniping which necessitated responses

irony is a harsh mistress
posted by elizardbits at 8:06 AM on June 15, 2014 [14 favorites]

Man, what an idiotic and insulting derail this comment-counting nonsense is.
posted by koeselitz at 8:13 AM on June 15, 2014 [14 favorites]

That whole point about how important it is to say 'sorry I didn't realize I was participating in a way that made it harder for some women to feel welcome to share I didn't realize I was coming across the way you perceived it' - I thought we were using that now instead of 'you're misunderstanding the men, dear.' And I thought we were way past 'I'm sorry if you were offended' p-a non-apologies.
posted by Lou Stuells at 8:19 AM on June 15, 2014 [8 favorites]

free internet cookies

It's been a few years since I got my traditional birthday cookies from 'the Internet.'
Was it something I said?
posted by jonmc at 8:38 AM on June 15, 2014

How many of the comment counters addressed their concerns via the contact form?
posted by Pudhoho at 8:42 AM on June 15, 2014

Is there a collective noun for 'concern troll'?
posted by shakespeherian at 9:09 AM on June 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

MetaTalk: Was it something I said?
posted by billiebee at 9:10 AM on June 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

53 comments out of 1030 is kind of not a lot.

It's 5.14 % of the total thread. NASA was about to put men on the moon with 5% of the entire federal budget. Upping the amount of nitrogen in the air by %5 would have major effects on life as we know it. 5% more in your paycheck would matter as would 5% less.

Other useful facts about 5%:

5% is more than 4%.

Its a multiple of 10, 50 and 100%

P-values are often coupled to a significance or alpha (α) level, which is also set ahead of time, usually at 0.05 (5%).

5%. It's not joke kids.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:42 AM on June 15, 2014 [7 favorites]

And I thought we were way past 'I'm sorry if you were offended' p-a non-apologies.

I think you should start to consider the possibility that you have gone a bit over the top and got as much apology as was deserved.
posted by bleep-blop at 10:02 AM on June 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

> 53 comments out of 1030 is kind of not a lot.

What's striking about it is not gushing logorrhoea per se. What's striking about it is that the top commenter in both the original feminism-related thread and this feminism-related meta is a dude. And, in both cases, the same dude.
posted by jfuller at 11:14 AM on June 15, 2014 [6 favorites]

What's striking about it is that the top commenter in both the original feminism-related thread and this feminism-related meta is a dude. And, in both cases, the same dude.

Out of curiosity (and as someone who is trying, perhaps with varying success, to be very conscious about not engaging in ways that take up the wrong amount of conversational space), is there a simple way to see the number of posts per person in a given thread?
posted by Dip Flash at 11:23 AM on June 15, 2014

Man, what an idiotic and insulting derail this comment-counting nonsense is.

It is only a derail when it is a critical statement about a popular viewpoint or personality.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:33 AM on June 15, 2014 [9 favorites]

over the top

Hysterical, even, one might say.
posted by Lou Stuells at 11:39 AM on June 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

Yeah, people comment a lot when they are interested and they care about the topic. Sometimes that can be bad for a thread. In this case I don't think it was.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:42 AM on June 15, 2014 [7 favorites]

Blazecock Pileon: “It is only a derail when it is a critical statement about a popular viewpoint or personality.”

No, I object in principle to all comment-counting. Commenting here is free. If someone is posting the Treaty of Westphalia, it's one thing, or at least has a whole lot of consecutive comments; but if someone is just discussing and responding, without escalating or acting like a turd, then it's just commenting. The trick of "let's tally up all your comments in a way that makes it sound like you just won't shut up" has been used against me before, too, and it's obnoxious. So you could say that I'm taking this personally, but only because I don't think it matters one whit how many comments a person has in a thread.
posted by koeselitz at 11:45 AM on June 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm sympathetic, kose, cause there have been times where I was shouted down with comment counting, but there have also been times where I dominated threads while not actually adding anything interesting or productive to the conversation. Comment counting can help quantify that. It's easy to post a lot of comments as an individual and feel like you are just part of the conversation until someone says, "Hey, psst, you have posted a full 10-20% of the total comments in the thread. Maybe back off here?"

As I said though, I don't think Bunny has done anything wrong here, just giving my thoughts on comment counting in general.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:53 AM on June 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

Hey, remember when this thread was about misogyny on Metafilter instead of

A) the value of Bunny Ultramod's comments here

B) the number of Bunny Ultramod's comments here

C) the number of comments anyone posts in any thread, regardless of content
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:02 PM on June 15, 2014 [9 favorites]

First we had to argue with a member by proxy and then when he spoke up to clarify we had to tell him he was talking too much.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:06 PM on June 15, 2014 [8 favorites]

Dip Flash, there is a greasemonkey script called Metafilter Navigator which among other things shows at-a-glance how many comments users have made in a thread. I don't see it online right now, but here's a MetaTalk thread about it.

I think Bunny U made important points in thread and was glad he did.
posted by zarq at 12:53 PM on June 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

I don't think it matters one whit how many comments a person has in a thread.

Surely you'd agree, though, that whatever anyone's personal feeling about the criticism, it is one the community has historically cared about. Taking up all the air in the room has been leveled at other users for a long time, which is why we all instantly know what's meant by "quit making this thread the ____ show." Mods have said it, both publicly and (reportedly) privately. And it's been specifically raised before with men on gender topics.

53 comments out of 1030 is kind of not a lot.

I suppose that depends how you look at it. You can compare X to Y, as you did, or you can compare one person's X to everybody else's X. I'm not going to say either comparison is invalid, but they're different things and I don't think one is relevant if people are objecting to the other.

I think what's troubling me about this is that when it's been the all about ___ show for different commenters here, there's been not nearly as much sympathy for the viewpoint that someone simply must have the ability to respond to each and every argument raised.

Agreed. And to address the mods: I don't think you're great about addressing the attitude that certain comments "necessitate" response. In the more egregious case where someone posts a shitty comment and "causes" a momentary pile-up, you're mostly great about clean-up and chastising that user. But you could be a lot better, in general, about chastising the other people who equally "caused" the pile-up by electing to respond. Mostly you don't. You've asked people to be more diligent about flagging. You should tell them to be more diligent about moving on.
posted by cribcage at 12:54 PM on June 15, 2014 [5 favorites]

This comment-counting derail reminds me of an incident where a city bus, occupied only by its driver, skidded and sideswiped a lamp post one dim winter morning.

When the police arrived, they were greeted by half a dozen 'passengers' - each presenting complaints of whiplash.

Once again, did any of the gripers use the contact form to alert a moderator to their concerns while the conversation was happening?

No? Move along, folks. There's nothing here to see.
posted by Pudhoho at 1:04 PM on June 15, 2014

At this point we are discussing:

• Misogyny
• Class Privilege
• Teaching of people
• Over-commenting by individuals
• Moderation
• Sandwiches

All in the same thread.

I realise this is all in proud MeTa tradition, and I think they're all vital discussions to have. But maybe a number of other threads would yield more healthy discussion? As we flash past the 1000 comment mark with no end to the arguments it seems highly unlikely that a representative sample of the community will be able to participate meaningfully.
posted by ElliotH at 1:04 PM on June 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

100% organic!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:12 PM on June 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think nitpicking the quality of customer service the author of the article got from a local manager at a retail chain is a derail from the larger issue of the prevalence of misogyny in pop culture. Bunny Ultramod hammering away at his insistence that poor customer service was the issue we should be discussing here, attacking anyone who disagreed with him and nitpicking the issue to death is a big part of why that thread turned into a giant derail and why we didn't get to talk about misogyny in pop culture very much.

So, no, I don't think the comment counting is a derail at all. Bunny didn't turn the thread into a derail all by himself, but no one else was as persistent about making sure that was only thing we talked about as he was. His behavior in the original thread is a big part of why we're here.

I know Bunny considers himself a feminist ally, but if you're telling women to shut up when they're trying to discuss something that's important to them, because you don't think they're discussing it the right way, focusing on the right issues, or coming to exactly the right conclusions, then you're not helping, and maybe, just maybe, you should stop to consider you might be doing something wrong.
posted by nangar at 1:14 PM on June 15, 2014 [6 favorites]

I agree with TFA, if not the methods of the author.

It was a huge and useless derail to compare salary to power. Clearly the executive editor of a popular website read by millions has more power than the staff of a grocery store no matter the relative income.

It's possible to simultaneously agree with the author of an article and find fault with their methods and it doesn't require too much imagination to believe that those complaining about the methods are doing so because they want the author to be succesful in their endeavor.
posted by vapidave at 1:37 PM on June 15, 2014 [7 favorites]

The discussion of class issues on Metafilter in general, and the presentation of class issues in threads relating to sexism and other forms of discrimination (intersectionality), are things Metafilter doesn't do particularly well, as mentioned upthread. One of the reasons for that is there's a history with a particular user (whose account is disabled, although I don't recall whether he buttoned or was banned) who tended to argue loudly and repetitively in threads about discrimination and related issues that classism was the real problem and whatever problem to do with race, sex, gender, sexuality, etc. other people were seeing meant they were interrogating the text from the wrong perspective.

There's a lot of that behavior out there and many of us come to these discussions sensitive to "stop bothering us with your issue when the important issue of class is out there". I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other about the class issues in the OP link for this MeTa, but I do feel the gear when someone, particularly a man, walks into a conversation where folks, particularly women, are discussing misogyny in a particular situation and wants to make it all about the struggle of class vs class, it's going to come off badly unless he's careful. That's doubly true on the blue precisely of the history of derailing both on Metafilter and in real life.

The class issue is not radioactive and I wouldn't want it to be, but it would be nice if people would read the room and consider how they present class-related concerns without dismissing misogyny, and, of course, vice versa.
posted by immlass at 1:41 PM on June 15, 2014 [10 favorites]

> How many of the comment counters addressed their concerns via the contact form?

I didn't because I didn't start reading the original thread until after the MeTa was posted and it was mostly inactive, but I wish someone had because I think a note from one of the moderators along the lines of 'you don't have to make this thread all about you' might have been helpful.
posted by nangar at 1:44 PM on June 15, 2014

For me, Bunny was doing the thing I was saying I want feminist allies to do - he was arguing a point that I was flat out too ground down to deal with. (Ground sdown by being a woman in society, not just tiresomeness in a MetaFilter thread.) He may have taken it a little too far but he wasn't alone in that - people just wouldn't drop it.
I'm sorry some women felt excluded - this is a fine illustration of the point that we aren't a monolith - and I hope they can take notice of the fact there were many female voices in that thread and take encouragement to participate. No one should be shut down by one person's voice in a thousand-post thread and that is an important issue.
posted by gingerest at 2:18 PM on June 15, 2014 [11 favorites]

That last bit is shaped like a non-apology apology, but it was "I'm sorry" in the sympathetic sense, not the one that expresses responsibility and penitence. In my extremely literal household, this is a clarification that I have to make a lot, for circumstances like disappointing weather, so if it was obvious to you please don't take it as an insult.
posted by gingerest at 2:33 PM on June 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's possible to simultaneously agree with the author of an article and find fault with their methods and it doesn't require too much imagination to believe that those complaining about the methods are doing so because they want the author to be successful in their endeavour.

I'm a pretty die hard feminist, but even I try to avoid commenting in such threads. I said this earlier, but what made me feel excluded is the "she can do no wrong" pile-ons. In the case of the TJ article, I agreed with the author's premise and distress, but not with all of her methods. It just feels to me like people are taking the "perfect is the enemy of good" mantra to include any action that a person takes in response to an offence, and any disagreement with the offended person's actions is tantamount to shaking hands with the MRA. I just generally don't believe that supporting someone's activism should require that you provide blanket support for everything that they say or do, without any criticism or disagreement. It seems so very all-or-nothing. You're either all in, or you're out. Really not the type of atmosphere that I would dare wade into.
posted by Shouraku at 4:41 PM on June 15, 2014 [26 favorites]

I just generally don't believe that supporting someone's activism should require that you provide blanket support for everything that they say or do, without any criticism or disagreement.

I'm also a feminist who didn't necessarily agree with all of the author's methods, but I also didn't think it was important enough to say anything because the fundamental idea was good.

The difference between thinking the author didn't handle the issue correctly because ladies get too bothered about about casual misogyny and thinking she had good reasons to be bothered but could have handled it differently is a really important line but also a really fine one. It's extremely difficult to differentiate in the best of circumstances, particularly in an environment that is still grappling with feminism 101, and while I can understand being frustrated by it, personally I don't think it's a failing of that thread or MetaFilter in general that we can't always manage it yet.
posted by jess at 5:39 PM on June 15, 2014 [20 favorites]

jess: “I'm also a feminist who didn't necessarily agree with all of the author's methods, but I also didn't think it was important enough to say anything because the fundamental idea was good.”

Yes, I felt that way too. Well said.
posted by koeselitz at 5:41 PM on June 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

I am also a feminist who did not agree that how the author approached it was the most productive way possible. (But then, how many of us manage to do everything in our lives in the most productive way possible?) At the same time, I didn't get the sense that the people criticizing her on that front were (for the most part) doing so from a place of intersectionality. A lot of the criticism along that line that I saw seemed to be coming from a place of trying to invalidate what she was saying, rather than from a place of trying to expand and more fully flesh out what she was saying. I appreciated what Bunny Ultramod was saying about the class issues and how they related to the misogyny issues. A lot of the class issues seemed, given how they were raised in thread, to be more about shouting down the feminist/anti-misogynist points than they did about helping people come to a more fully-rounded view of the situation.

Without meaning to sound dismissive, I find that once I've reached the point that the way somebody is using punctuation (or failing to) is reading as a personal dis, I'm probably at the look at that bitch eating crackers stage and would do well with some time away from the computer.
posted by Lexica at 6:14 PM on June 15, 2014 [16 favorites]

I'm also a feminist who didn't necessarily agree with all of the author's methods, but I also didn't think it was important enough to say anything because the fundamental idea was good.

This is kind of my point. Thinking that the author's methods aren't as important as the fundamental idea is a valid opinion that was overwhelmingly shared in the thread. That wasn’t my issue. My issue was that people who thought that the author's methods were worthy of discussion were dismissed as being the enemy of perfection. Methods of activism should, in my opinion, be open to respectful discussion even if they aren’t seen as being as important as the fundamental idea. More than one issue can be discussed inside of a thread (assuming that they're related to article in question, of course).

The difference between thinking the author didn't handle the issue correctly because ladies get too bothered about about casual misogyny and thinking she had good reasons to be bothered but could have handled it differently is a really important line but also a really fine one.

What I saw happening in the thread was that there was a loud minority who were using her methods to invalidate the offence that she face. Yet, there was another minority that agreed with her, but thought that her methods were both worthy of discussion and problematic. The problem was that the two topics, of her fundamental idea and her methods, were tied together is such a way that the author's methods were no longer acceptable as a topic of discussion at all. I most certainly don't think that the thread was a failure, but I also think that just because something is a fine line, or not as valid as the main idea, does not mean that it's beyond reproach. It's really unfortunate that there were people who seemed to think that the author was out of line for being offended, but taking that to mean that all people who disagree with her methods are disagreeing with her main point was unfortunate collateral damage that I was sad to see.
posted by Shouraku at 6:24 PM on June 15, 2014 [12 favorites]

As it seems we've run out of musical and literary careers to promote, perhaps the mods might like to close this one up ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 6:27 PM on June 15, 2014

...once I've reached the point that the way somebody is using punctuation (or failing to) is reading as a personal dis, I'm probably at the look at that bitch eating crackers stage and would do well with some time away from the computer.

I'm not sure that's entirely fair.
posted by Lou Stuells at 6:32 PM on June 15, 2014

I'm not sure that's entirely fair.

Having read each of the comments you cite as they came into the thread, and having taken care to phrase my comment in terms of "I-statements", I think it is fair.

If the way that somebody is or is not using punctuation is coming across as a personal insult, it's probably time to take a break.

Note: this is a suggestion, not an order. Based on my own experience, however, if I keep commenting once I've hit "look at that bitch eating crackers" stage… it doesn't usually wind up well.
posted by Lexica at 6:39 PM on June 15, 2014

I'm with Lou Stuells. Deliberate omission of punctuation can be intentional. I don't think it was unreasonable of her to read Bunny Ultramod's typo as an intentional expression of contempt, even if we take him at his word that it wasn't.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:44 PM on June 15, 2014

Methods of activism should, in my opinion, be open to respectful discussion even if they aren’t seen as being as important as the fundamental idea.

I would have liked to have that discussion, but I think the well was poisoned by some of the early comments that discussed it being "A or B" instead of "A and B", i.e., "her complaints had merit AND I wish she'd gone about it differently because [reasons]". Once the question of methods became linked to a denial of the validity of the author's complaint, talking about methods was difficult to impossible.

My own comment in the thread was positioned carefully because there was so much pushback against the idea that any sort of complaint about the music in the store was "mean girls taking away my Rolling Stones", which makes me want to laugh (bitterly) about the (un)likelihood of that as a near-term outcome.
posted by immlass at 6:44 PM on June 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

but I think the well was poisoned by some of the early comments that discussed it being "A or B" instead of "A and B", i.e., "her complaints had merit AND I wish she'd gone about it differently because [reasons]". Once the question of methods became linked to a denial of the validity of the author's complaint, talking about methods was difficult to impossible.

Yeah, you said this better than I did. This is what I was trying to get at.
posted by Shouraku at 6:47 PM on June 15, 2014

I do appreciate that, Rustic Etruscan, thanks.
posted by Lou Stuells at 6:47 PM on June 15, 2014

(I admit it feels a bit nervy to quibble with someone named Lexica re: the finer points of written communication, though.)
posted by Lou Stuells at 6:53 PM on June 15, 2014

oh lol "deliberate omission of punctuation can be intentional"

what a dork, I hope my meaning was clear
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:56 PM on June 15, 2014

Methods of activism should, in my opinion, be open to respectful discussion even if they aren’t seen as being as important as the fundamental idea.

This is the case when participants in a discussion agree that whatever fundamental goal is at stake is worth pursuing, and is generally appropriate for a activist or focused group with that goal in mind. MetaFilter is not that space, where instead the goals that some members pursue are called into question by other members.

Using the discussion of tactics and means in order to dissuade, derail, and delgitimize end goals is a time-honored tradition, and unless you can be sure that every other person in that conversation shares the goals, individuals have to prove their bonafides.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:16 PM on June 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

sgt.serenity: "As it seems we've run out of musical and literary careers to promote, perhaps the mods might like to close this one up ?"

Well, that's a shitty thing to say.
posted by gingerest at 7:17 PM on June 15, 2014 [7 favorites]

It's extremely difficult to differentiate in the best of circumstances, particularly in an environment that is still grappling with feminism 101

(Not directed at the commenter I quoted)

I feel like there is a tendency for feminists here to assume that they have an advanced understanding of the subject. It might do us all well to discard that notion. This 101 thing really took off at some point in the recent past. It makes me feel ick. What happened to humility and having an open mind about learning from each other?

Intersectionality seems to be the default way that many people (came to know?) talk about feminism. It's good for self reflection because it makes the personal political. However, it amplifies lived experience at the expense of other kinds of concerns: outrage at injustices suffered by others or passions acquired by learning or training.

Missing from feminism on Metafilter of late is this recognition: you can be a feminist and do work that is not about you. Well there some recognition of a particular kind of work in that vein. It's called being an ally. But there is so much more to it than that. Online discourse about feminism fails to acknowledge the variety of work feminist women do and have done on behalf of other women, children and men for centuries, going back at least to the Abolitionist movement in the early 19th century.

And intersectionality is just one way to talk about gender. There is feminist legal theory, feminist critiques of the state and analyses women's movements outside the West, just to name of few kinds of feminist writing that I rely on in my work.

Yes those fields might rely on gender binaries, but well, no theory is perfect. Not even intersectionality. I am really not sure what going beyond feminism 101 would mean on Metafilter.

I know that people really feel strongly about educating Metafilter about feminism. I am here to say that as a feminist I think that doing so will backfire. I doubt that the internet can serve as a vehicle for personal change of that sort. I am not sure what the feminism 101 tenets are or whether I'd recognize them. It's not about me, and all that.

That's just my two cents.
posted by CtrlAltD at 8:18 PM on June 15, 2014 [7 favorites]

If the way that somebody is or is not using punctuation is coming across as a personal insult, it's probably time to take a break.

Also, it strikes me that if the punctuation of someone's comment is the only thing you criticize, that's kind of like admitting that you can't find anything else wrong with it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:26 PM on June 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

I am not sure what the feminism 101 tenets are or whether I'd recognize them. It's not about me, and all that.

I have thought sometimes that the 101 stuff in comments here is intended in part as an attempt to weed out folks who come into gender threads (feminist and trans related, in particular) operating in not-great faith and demanding education with the intent of derailing and nitpicking. Of course, that unfortunately means that people asking in good faith get dismissed along with the would-be derailers.

If there were an obvious way to thread the needle on this, we'd probably already be doing it.
posted by immlass at 8:57 PM on June 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

Mmm, but there are things that are, if not feminism 101, then woman-life 101 in the same way that the bathroom panic and asterisks discussions are trans 101. Like "But he said something complimentary" discussion of street harassment and "I know a woman who says this is okay" discussion of anything. Even the mansplaining discussion - we've said everything there is to say about it multiple times now, and it utterly displaces discussion of other topics. (Which, for me, means I'm giving it up as a term - I'll find some other way to describe it, because my life is too short to go around about it AGAIN. It just wears me out.)
posted by gingerest at 9:19 PM on June 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

and it's kinda odd that it's the punctuation that's now getting the most attention."

some of us are underemployed copy editors
posted by klangklangston at 9:25 PM on June 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

I find most feminism 101 comments condescending, honestly, and wish we saw far less of that tone.

I saw a comment up thread by zombieflanders accusing men here of lecturing women with "five-dollar words dripping with condescension". I can't recall any comments I would characterize in just that way, but I do agree that I don't care for the patronizing smugness of members chiding other members of equal status as if they were children, whoever is doing it.

I feel like comments of that nature too often get a pass when they are made by popular members, espousing a popular opinion. I would much rather the mods nix that sort of stuff across the board.
posted by misha at 9:30 PM on June 15, 2014 [9 favorites]

Of course, that unfortunately means that people asking in good faith get dismissed along with the would-be derailers.

For people who are hesitant to join the discussion because they aren't sure of the 101 tenants or are afraid of putting a foot wrong, providing a link to a 101 resource within the post allows them to more easily join the discussion. It could actually allow for greater inclusion than not providing that resource would.

Of course, people asking for education in bad faith aren't going to use the resource, and in that sense, ending the derail with a link to the resource is sort of exclusionary. But it's just exclusionary to people who only want to derail the discussion about the link/topics-at-hand and not those who actually want to join the discussion.

I doubt that the internet can serve as a vehicle for personal change of that sort.

For what it's worth, I've actually learned a lot about social justice from the internet in general and from MeFi in particular. Just this week, I posted an AskMe looking for resources on ableism, because I haven't been able to find many resources on my own, and that thread has gone reasonably well.

I find that people are actually very generous with their knowledge and time here, and in my experience, most questions *do* get answered. I also trust that the amount of respect that I get here will be reasonably commiserate with the amount that I've given others. That's not true everywhere, and personally, I really appreciate that.
posted by rue72 at 9:32 PM on June 15, 2014 [6 favorites]

I feel like comments of that nature too often get a pass when they are made by popular members, espousing a popular opinion. I would much rather the mods nix that sort of stuff across the board.

I'd be very surprised to find that popularity figures into the mods' decision-making process.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:57 PM on June 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'd be very surprised to find that popularity figures into the mods' decision-making process.

I would not be surprised if it played into numbers of flags, though.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:03 PM on June 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

What makes a member "popular", misha? I have the impression I have heard you mention this notion in the past but I could be wrong and it seems creepy to do a site search to confirm or disconfirm this impression. If I'm right, I'd like to know more about this - what is your metric?

My impression of popularity is that users with a lot of contacts have a sort of amplifying effect from the activity sidebar - if they make a comment or post that gets some favorites, it turns up repeatedly in a lot of users' sidebars and everyone goes trooping over to have a look at what funny or smart thing their friend has said this time. So threads that interest one of those highly-connected members will get a lot of attention, and that sort of reinforces the centrality of those users to the site. I'm not sure that translates to popularity in the real-world sense, though, and I don't think the mods care about who expresses an opinion except in cases where someone's already got a pattern of good or bad faith going on. Obviously, the mods are going to notice and come to recognize people who are very heavy posters and people whose presence in a thread changes the traffic of that thread, but that's not the same as liking or disliking the content of that person's opinion - it is just a straight-up issue of whether there's name recognition and a pattern of behavior associated with the poster dictating whether there's closer examination of what's said.
posted by gingerest at 10:12 PM on June 15, 2014

I am really not sure what going beyond feminism 101 would mean on Metafilter.

It would mean we could have a discussion in which women's right to exist on equal footing with men would not be questioned.
posted by jaguar at 10:13 PM on June 15, 2014 [12 favorites]

People say time and again that they've made big strides in learning from fellow mefites, and very often point to specific comments and threads that were really helpful in making a transformative understanding for them.

Maybe we can use this and collate some of the good stuff? People could nominate posts and threads they found particularly effective and illuminating for topics like these. Maybe as subtopics in Best Of? There's so much quality here, literally years of it, more if we're counting by accumulated life experience.

Hearing "XYZ wrote a comment explaining the details of exactly what you're asking about, here check it out" and linking to something from another user on-site has a much different tone from 'google feminism 101 dude.'

I know it's such an awesome time for a project.
posted by Lou Stuells at 10:18 PM on June 15, 2014

Gingerest, I will give an easy answer that comes to mind.

Elizardbits is often hilarious. That's just obvious. It's a Thing. If you read Metafilter, chances are you've favorited a billion comments of hers. I know I frequently favorite her stuff. She's got a great Tumblr, too.

Now, one of the few actual written-into-the-site-from-day-one guidelines here is not to attack other users personally. Don't be a dick, everyone needs a hug, etc. People get passionate, tempers get riled up and we all know it happens sometimes anyway. I will cop to having done it myself. Generally, the mods delete that stuff (and most of the time even when it is your stuff being deleted you realize it's for the best, too). You might see more of it stand on the grey, because the grey is more about hashing site issues out, but on the Blue, that's just Not Acceptable Behavior. Technically.

I personally feel that recently elizardbits' humor in some threads has been very biting stuff which is very obviously made at one or another member's' expense, though. The wording was still hilarious, but the pointedness (again, in my opinion, obviously) made it mean and too personal. Clearly breaks the guidelines. And yes, I flagged that stuff.

Elizardbits is popular. Funny stuff gets favorited. The people she is making fun of? Sometimes not my favorite people, either. The mods are only human. Her stuff stands. But should it? Just because it breaks the rules in a funny way? And if the other user gets upset and retaliates, but of course is not so good with the punchlines--who do you think is most likely to get the mod "knock it off" admonishment in the thread?
posted by misha at 10:58 PM on June 15, 2014 [9 favorites]

Not to mention the complete lack of punctuation ;)

Circle of life.
posted by futz at 11:27 PM on June 15, 2014

You know, this thread is getting into some weird territory of people calling out specific members instead of actually talking about the post topic, and I don't really want to encourage this at all, but data on the back end does not support your complaint here, misha. And deleting comments that are "members chiding other members of equal status as if they were children," is not really the sort of thing we do, or are ever likely to do, unless those comments happen to be wrapped into some personal spat, derail, or similar behavior that we moderate for.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:33 PM on June 15, 2014 [9 favorites]

And if the other user gets upset and retaliates, but of course is not so good with the punchlines--who do you think is most likely to get the mod "knock it off" admonishment in the thread?

The website you are describing sounds truly terrible so I am glad that you are absurdly wrong.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:34 PM on June 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

Everyone's least favorite website has a sub, r/Feminism that has a decent primer in the sidebar.

I'm loathe to link it here but r/ainbow now has 30,105 readers and considered discussion as well as sidebarred links to lots of other related subs.

Please don't go to r/ainbow with an agenda or axe, it's not a purity test kind of place.
posted by vapidave at 12:06 AM on June 16, 2014

misha: " The mods are only human. Her stuff stands. But should it?"

This is a callout, and I think if you're going to go this route you need to recognize that and actually go with it, instead of saying some stuff that's frankly a bit vague about a particular person. As far as I can tell, the person you're talking about hasn't broken any guidelines. Snarkiness is not against the rules.

And for what it's worth, I think it's clear that "popular" commenters don't get a pass here. Metafilter's an open community, and the mods are good at being unobtrusive. If they're working with a user behind the scenes, you probably won't know it unless that user is really doing terrible things. I know that when they've talked to me about things I might not want to do so much (which has been several times) I was glad it wasn't public, and it helped. If you're an active commenter on the site, you've probably had this happen before.

I think that makes it clear that assuming that they're just smiling and letting things slide if the people doing those things are among a certain set of users is probably a bad assumption to make.
posted by koeselitz at 12:10 AM on June 16, 2014 [5 favorites]

vapidave: "I'm loathe to link it here but... Please don't go to r/ainbow with an agenda or axe, it's not a purity test kind of place."

Thankfully the people there are not generally as sanctimonious as this. Would you think it was okay to put comments on r/ainbow talking down to people and telling them you'd rather they avoided Metafilter because they probably can't handle it?

Seriously, think a bit about the fact that you're talking to human people here, not a faceless machine or something.
posted by koeselitz at 12:15 AM on June 16, 2014

I'm sorry, misha, because it was my question that led to the "callout" - I was asking NOT for an example, but for your metric. What is it that you use to determine whether someone is popular? Is it just average number of favorites per comment or whether other commenters give the person a lot of compliments, or something else?
I was asking out of interest, but I was thinking about it because there's a possibility of some circularity in there somewhere. If one of the things you notice about someone high-profile is that they seem to have more rule-breaking comments stand, and that's part of your definition of popularity, then maybe your idea that the mods are nicer to the popular people is backwards.
posted by gingerest at 12:34 AM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

I will appreciate a good burn against something I don't like way more than against something I do. I think the mods are better at maintaining neutrality when judging things like this, but I don't think it's at all out of line to presuppose that other users react the way I do in this matter, and if measuring favourites ever has a use, it (very generally) supports that belief.

Metafilter is a frequently anonymous website where we really live and die by our words, and by extension our reputations. The longer you spend here the more you get a sense of your fellow commenters; I personally have a gamut of reactions to many users here, including users who can make me re-examine my beliefs because I disagree with what they've written, but also users where if I'm agreeing with them I'll do the same internal double-check. It won't change my mind, necessarily, but it does prompt re-examination.

It's why I dislike it when posters suggest their calling someone or someone's actions bigoted doesn't matter, because here, on MetaFilter, that's all that matters. Here, because we are defined by words, those words can also include what is ascribed to us. So declare someone's behaviour misogynist, and they are now someone who does misogynist things, and that accusation has equal or potentially even more weight (say if done in a high-traffic thread without a specific cite so people can judge for themselves, or done from a more recognised username towards one that's less known) than the original misogynist content.

I mean, it pisses me off that misogyny isn't unheard of around here, that there we can't assume that a poster's questions or comments are in good faith, and naturally actually being misogynistic is worse than simply being called one, worse still when it's only a behaviour or an assumption that's called such. That's not here-specific, however, that's just how internet commenting goes, and we can strive to be better but there will always be problems.

But overall, there are some great threads about these topics, but also threads where no matter how much a commenter says they agree with the general thrust of the issue (in this specific case, the author's wish not to hear misogynistic lyrics while shopping), to disagree with any of it gets lumped in with disagreeing with all of it. Or attempts from all sorts of directions to define what is really the issue, and anything that doesn't meet that definition is declared derailing, or silencing, or just being ignorant. Or even something as simple as giving no benefit of the doubt to any slight disagreement, while giving all the benefit to someone who is agreeing with you - a 'You both said "I'll hit you," but his was clearly metaphorical and yours was an active threat" approach.

So much of these social issues are more subjective than objective - just look at all the feminists in this one thread with differing reactions to the exact same single article - but are treated as objective fact. So much of the difficulties come down to differences in perception and expression, rather than of fundamental belief.

So much of this issue is something that MetaFilter is actually pretty good at, barring the occasional arsehole, and even there in many cases my 'arsehole' can be your 'maybe a bit sharp, but they're not wrong'. If you're going to go with perfect is the enemy of good, that applies to this here website as well.
posted by gadge emeritus at 12:36 AM on June 16, 2014 [8 favorites]

oh god not r/feminism that sub banned nearly every real feminist for being SRS back when I spent time on reddit. seriously, they ban anyone who links to Fempire stuff, including the often useful r/socialjustice101 and the like, and everyone who isn't nice enough to their pet MRAs. and maybe it's changed, but iirc last I checked r/ainbow was a self-congratulatory pseudoally circlejerk.
posted by NoraReed at 3:01 AM on June 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

Elizardbits is the kooky aunt/grandma/mom's best friend. Generally funny, a bit insane and sometimes "Jesus shut up". But harmless and not taken too seriously because she's just saying shit on a website, not running around town killing men.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:22 AM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

oh god not r/feminism that sub banned nearly every real feminist for being SRS back when I spent time on reddit. seriously, they ban anyone who links to Fempire stuff, including the often useful r/socialjustice101 and the like, and everyone who isn't nice enough to their pet MRAs. and maybe it's changed, but iirc last I checked r/ainbow was a self-congratulatory pseudoally circlejerk.

For people who can't parse this, this means that r/feminism bans people who post to r/ShitRedditSays, a subreddit that links to bigoted/generally shitty posts and comments elsewhere on the site that get a lot of upvotes.

That is, r/feminism bans people for pointing out, among other things, reddit's sexism. So.

The Fempire, meanwhile, is the name for the constellation of subreddits around r/ShitRedditSays. It's pretty good. It is a purity test kind of place, but that's what keeps it good.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:08 AM on June 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

*coughs, taps mic* We're kind of all over the map here, so I'd like to ask anyone who wants to comment further on the post topic to go ahead and do that, and maybe not get into more personality stuff or veer into a Reddit or SRS etc., discussion?
posted by taz (staff) at 5:37 AM on June 16, 2014

I'll bite:

Men of MetaFilter: What are we going to do to combat the sexism and misogyny on MeFi?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:07 AM on June 16, 2014 [4 favorites]

This 55-gallon drum of pure grain alcohol isn't going to drink itself.
posted by Pudhoho at 8:28 AM on June 16, 2014 [4 favorites]

Not contribute to it? Otherwise, let's drop the calls to action.

Action is precisely what's needed. Inaction (on the part of us men who aren't doing anything) and action (on the part of us men who are actively saying sexist things) are the problems here.

So I ask you again: what are we going to do about it?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:30 AM on June 16, 2014 [6 favorites]

In my opinion, which is pretty much a summary of stuff I've seen above and in other threads: Online, call out other men's bad opinions & behaviors when you see them, politely or not, as the context demands. Offline, do the same.

Listen to women to figure out what those bad opinions and behaviors are, and learn to look and listen closely enough to see them when they first appear: We privileged people aren't practiced in seeing our own bullshit.

Finally, be careful not to trample over people or to make the conversation all about yourself. Don't presume to speak for the people you are, after all, merely supporting.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:45 AM on June 16, 2014 [10 favorites]

Oh yeah, most of all, keep in mind that you can and will fuck up sometimes. Apologize and withdraw when you do. Trust women when they say you've made a misstep. If you fuck up a lot, notice that.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:50 AM on June 16, 2014 [9 favorites]

Taz, you're the cool and kooky aunt.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:23 AM on June 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

The usual:

- Flag misogynist comments. (This can be a lot more effective than starting an angry derail about them, even if the latter feels more satisfying.)

- Use the contact form if what's going on is more complicated and heads up to mods with an explanation would help.

- Maybe do some of the educating stuff yourself. (A lot of times this will look something like: 'No, what so-and-so said makes sense. Let me explain it to you in somewhat different language.').

- Try not get too bent out of shape when you get unfairly attacked. (I have a hard time with this one. But gender threads are contentious; it's gonna happen.)

- Participate if you've got something to say, but remember, it's important to let women talk, even when some of the women are saying stuff you disagree with.

- Don't be an asshole.
posted by nangar at 9:33 AM on June 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

In response to rue72:

These are very good points and the crux of the debate from where I stand.

Feminism 101:

If people want to put together a 101 resource, I'd have no problem with it, but I think that is going to be harder than it looks.

It seems like the goal would be to make the perceived bad faith men realize that women around them endure misogyny every day and have heretofore been silent about it.

Personally, I am not interested in that kind of feminist project, but more power to you-- as long as this dichotomy of good faith/bad faith does not continue to spread. It is toxic to civil discourse.

Social justice on the internet:

I agree with you about Ask Metafilter. It is a great resource for finding stuff on the internet. But you have to want that stuff to begin with. More people today than in the past five years believe you can create the desire in others for social justice on the internet. I don't think you can. Time will tell.

Whatever the case, I believe that it is an unreasonable barrier to entry to expect new members to digest position statements on feminism.

I think feminists here do not give enough consideration to this: there has always been disagreement about fundamental issues among feminists. (e.g. rights claims based in language of equality vs. difference)

The plurality of feminist voices within the US is part of the history of feminism. On Metafilter (and the internet?), that plurality gets caricatured as "liberals" vs. "conservatives" or given a cursory nod with the word "intersectionality."

Moreover, there is a lot going on outside the worlds we know best. It's not "us" and FEMEN. It might do us all some good to learn from what women in Korea, Egypt or even the black community in the US are doing, whether or not we agree with their premises.

Conclusion:

Feminism 101 for Metafilter is ok, but there is a need for honesty about audience and expectations. From where I stand, it appears that feminism on Metafilter is about misogyny in everyday life in middle class Western society.

And that's ok. But there is more to feminism than everyday life. Metafilter's feminists need to recognize that people who disagree with the feminist consensus here do not necessarily do so from a place of bad faith or misogyny. There is no way to tell who disagrees for what reason.

Policing bad faith posters as well as silence from other kinds of feminists and from who knows who else are really bad for Metafilter.
posted by CtrlAltD at 9:42 AM on June 16, 2014 [14 favorites]

Hey, gingerest, no problem. I didn't think there was any way to answer your question about who is popular than to be specific, so I did that. To be clear, if I feel a comment breaks the guidelines, I FIAMO, which is what we are asked to do. I am just surprised that specific comments stand. I like 99% of what elizardbits says, so no, I don't want to call her out!

Taz's input here has me thinking the guidelines have changed and I haven't, anyway. I felt that taking issue with a person's words on the blue was always okay (i.e. "X, your foo position is logically inconsistent and your reasoning doesn't follow") while personal attacks on the blue were always not okay (I.e. "Oh, waaaah waaaah, X, you foo-believer, no one wants to hear you cry about how wrong you are").

Now I guess the rule is more that it is okay to do that sort of thing sometimes. Which probably ties into "reading the room", and whether the consensus seems to be anti-foo in particular. In which case, it is allowed now, I guess? Ugh. Not a fan, if so.
posted by misha at 9:55 AM on June 16, 2014 [5 favorites]

Taz's input here has me thinking the guidelines have changed

They haven't. I think you're confusing people poking general fun at a viewpoint and poking specific fun at an individual. If you have questions about why any specific comment hasn't been deleted, send it to the contact form and they will tell you exactly why. General "I guess the rules have changed" assertions seem oddly hyperbolic since my read on taz's comment was that the guidelines specifically haven't changed but that maybe you weren't clear on what they were.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 10:08 AM on June 16, 2014

CtrlAltD and nangar made very good points here and, rerailing the thread, I think that's a good start.

I would probably add that we can't always be telling men to listen to women if what we really mean is "don't comment unless you agree with everything I say." If feminists sincerely want these contentious threads to go more smoothly, we should not assume disagreement = bad faith going in.

Similarly, we can't shut women down by insisting on groupthink among feminists with very different perspectives! as doing so discourages other women from speaking up.
posted by misha at 10:17 AM on June 16, 2014 [13 favorites]

If feminists sincerely want these contentious threads to go more smoothly, we should not assume disagreement = bad faith going in.

Having been on the receiving end of that kind of negative commentary and bad faith assumption, yes please.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:20 AM on June 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

Fair enough, jessamyn. I tried to word my example to clearly poke fun at hypothetical user X; if that kind of "poking fun" is okay, I have had it wrong since day one.
posted by misha at 10:22 AM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

"Poking fun" takes on new meaning when one user posts fantasies of another user masturbating with a handful of gravel.
posted by 0 at 10:25 AM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

0: "Poking fun" takes on new meaning when one user posts fantasies of another user masturbating with a handful of gravel.

You can tell she was serious about it by the purposeful capitalization and punctuation.
posted by gman at 10:33 AM on June 16, 2014

...and here we are again.

I tried. I'm going to try to be a better person. Y'all can do whatever you want.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:36 AM on June 16, 2014

The plurality of feminist voices within the US is part of the history of feminism. On Metafilter (and the internet?), that plurality gets caricatured as "liberals" vs. "conservatives" or given a cursory nod with the word "intersectionality"... From where I stand, it appears that feminism on Metafilter is about misogyny in everyday life in middle class Western society.

From my perspective, that is because when feminists here try to have more in-depth complicated discussions about such things (which I would love to do!), we get almost immediately derailed by anti-feminists into having to do the "patiently educating," and "patiently educating" middle-class Western men about feminism and misogyny ends up focusing pretty heavily on what middle-class Western men might be able to see or experience for themselves.

The reason I get tired of the doing the 101 stuff is that I would like to talk about more interesting feminist issues.
posted by jaguar at 10:39 AM on June 16, 2014 [18 favorites]

0: ""Poking fun" takes on new meaning when one user posts fantasies of another user masturbating with a handful of gravel."

A couple of years ago Tim expressed something particularly shitty towards women (and feminists) on the Blue and his comment completely derailed that thread and wound up in MetaTalk. There's value in taking the high road and hoping people won't do stuff like that again. Move on. Pretend it never happened. To hope that people will grow a bit when confronted with an entire community going, "Whoa, dude." But when it happens a second time -- even though his comments in this thread are milder and less outrage inducing than the last one -- there's also value in placing it all in context, or noting bluntly that someone does seem to have a serious issue.
posted by zarq at 10:42 AM on June 16, 2014

Jaguar, please could you cite some of the anti-feminist stuff you are referring to?

Also, you know you don't have to do anything in those threads., right?
posted by misha at 10:44 AM on June 16, 2014

misha: That seems like a weird misreading of what jessamyn said. What makes you think that personal attacks (even if they are just "poking fun at an individual") have ever been okay? I feel like maybe you're trying to heavily imply that lots of comments that were really veiled personal attacks have been allowed, so therefore it must be allowed by the rules, but I am not really sure that's what you mean.
posted by koeselitz at 10:44 AM on June 16, 2014

I'd like to add, there's a certain style of male competitiveness that can be pretty destructive online, and mixed-gender conversations, it can have the effect of excluding women's voices because they're approaching the conversation differently. I think a lot of times men who are feminist sympathizers or allies do this without realizing it.

- MeFi threads aren't a competitive sport. You don't have to dominate or win them.

- Don't get into one-upmanship contests with other guys about who's a better ally.

- There's a difference between disagreeing with somebody and trying to make them shut up. If someone says something you disagree with, try to do the former and not the latter.


(A lot of men don't enjoy or engage in this style of debate either, and it tends to work very badly online. This is mostly general advice, not something that just applies to gender threads. But it certainly applies to gender threads.)
posted by nangar at 10:45 AM on June 16, 2014 [6 favorites]

Zarq, I strongly disagree. Two comments a couple years apart, with the second being milder even by your metric, does not necessitate a personal vendetta.

People holding grudges on this site is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem.
posted by misha at 10:48 AM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

> "Poking fun" takes on new meaning when one user posts fantasies of another user masturbating with a handful of gravel.

Just flag it.
posted by nangar at 10:50 AM on June 16, 2014

I really like gadge emeritus' comment.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:50 AM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

Jaguar, please could you cite some of the anti-feminist stuff you are referring to?

I'm having a very hard time figuring out what good examples would do here, other than giving people something else to nitpick in the "That's sexist!"/"No, it's not!" vein, or to serve as a backhanded call-out of members in old threads. What information are you hoping to gain?
posted by jaguar at 10:58 AM on June 16, 2014 [9 favorites]

misha: "a personal vendetta."

Let's be clear here that these are your words. I don't believe they accurately describe the current situation. A sarcastic insult or two doesn't constitute a personal vendetta.

"People holding grudges on this site is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem."

Being aware that some people have expressed shitty things about women in the past is not "holding a grudge." It's simply awareness that a person feels a particular way.

For example: there are mefites (current and past) who have obvious issues with women. I could name at least 2 or 3 of them off the top of my head because I've interacted with them in Meta before. That doesn't mean I'm holding a grudge. It means I'm able to remember some shitty things people have said in the past and make a mental connection between their actions then and now.

If I find those attitudes offensive, knowing that a person has expressed them before will totally color my response to them. I'm less likely to try and give someone the benefit of the doubt and think I've misinterpreted something they're saying. Etc.
posted by zarq at 10:59 AM on June 16, 2014 [14 favorites]

If I find those attitudes offensive, knowing that a person has expressed them before will totally color my response to them. I'm less likely to try and give someone the benefit of the doubt and think I've misinterpreted something they're saying. Etc.

To be fair, zarq, that right there could indeed be interpreted by some as "holding a grudge". I personally don't think it is, but that could be the kind of behavior misha is talking about.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:07 AM on June 16, 2014

Being aware that some people have expressed shitty things about women in the past is not "holding a grudge." It's simply awareness that a person feels a particular way.

When the evidence you present is exactly two comments two years apart, it sure looks like holding a grudge, to me at least. And we would all do better to remember that the start of evil is invariably "Well, maybe this thing I'm doing is bad, but that person deserves it."
posted by Etrigan at 11:08 AM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

When the evidence you present is exactly two comments two years apart

It's not just two comments, it's one breathtaking meta and another screed so toxic it earned him a week off from the site. And that's the shit that withstood deletion.
posted by KathrynT at 11:11 AM on June 16, 2014 [15 favorites]

I stand corrected. Two things two years apart. I stand by my point that "Oh, but this person is okay to wish gravel-masturbation on" isn't much of a hill to die on.
posted by Etrigan at 11:14 AM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

From my perspective, that is because when feminists here try to have more in-depth complicated discussions about such things (which I would love to do!), we get almost immediately derailed by anti-feminists into having to do the "patiently educating," and "patiently educating" middle-class Western men about feminism and misogyny ends up focusing pretty heavily on what middle-class Western men might be able to see or experience for themselves.

I don't think there's anything stopping people from selectively quoting and responding to the most high-level, interesting comments. You don't have to engage with people that aren't on the same wavelength, particularly if you feel there are others right there in the thread who are.

I am also not particularly taken with the term "feminism 101." It was nice to see some comments in this thread to that effect.
posted by jsturgill at 11:14 AM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's not just two comments, it's one breathtaking meta and another screed so toxic it earned him a week off from the site. And that's the shit that withstood deletion.

Yeah, lest we forget, the gravel-masturbation curse was in response to a screed that would have been horrific even if it had been timsteil's sole comment. I think I can forgive a strong reaction toward a man who, in all seriousness, says this.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:19 AM on June 16, 2014 [7 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos: " To be fair, zarq, that right there could indeed be interpreted by some as "holding a grudge". I personally don't think it is, but that could be the kind of behavior misha is talking about."

Etrigan: "When the evidence you present is exactly two comments two years apart, it sure looks like holding a grudge, to me at least. "

Two years later, I remember what he said because I thought it was so vile (and to steal a word from KathrynT, toxic) that when I see his username these days, he's now "that guy who said that thing." And I wasn't even one of the people he was talking about.

"Grudge" implies remembering that incident and making a mental connection to it and his current behavior is personal. It's not.
posted by zarq at 11:22 AM on June 16, 2014 [7 favorites]

jaguar's point about wanting more complicated feminist discussion reminded me of the FPP about the woman who filmed her abortion, and how partway through another Mefite came in to talk about her mixed feelings as someone who had either lost a child or wanted one but didn't find any resources from the pro-choice side that really respected her wishes. jaguar and I (and a couple of others) were trying to talk from the intersectional non-White angle of how the pro-choice movement has been alienating to certain kinds of women, but we and the original commentor got shouted down a lot from other Mefite feminists.

And then there was the post about Beyonce and bell hooks, which for the most part was OK but then ended with some slut-shaming by another female feminist Mefite, which got called out, only to end up with some strange assumption that those of us calling out the slut-shaming were accusing this other Mefite of being a man (as though only men can perpetuate misogyny).

So the 201esque feminist discussions are happening...they're just super clumsy.
posted by divabat at 11:23 AM on June 16, 2014 [8 favorites]

Missing from feminism on Metafilter of late is this recognition: you can be a feminist and do work that is not about you. Well there some recognition of a particular kind of work in that vein. It's called being an ally. But there is so much more to it than that. Online discourse about feminism fails to acknowledge the variety of work feminist women do and have done on behalf of other women, children and men for centuries, going back at least to the Abolitionist movement in the early 19th century.

Sure, but a lot of those efforts assumed that middle-class, white women got to set the agenda, and that often resulted in clueless, patronizing and sometimes really counterproductive efforts that didn't take into account the needs and perspectives of the women, men and children whom those feminists hoped to serve. A lot of European and North American women provided explicitly feminist justifications of imperialism, for instance, which had to do with the need for more-civilized countries to rescue vulnerable women from the abuse at the hands of savage, uncivilized men. The idea of being an ally didn't come out of thin air: it was introduced to acknowledge that the history of feminism shows that it's really easy to fuck up when you don't center the perspectives of the people who are most affected by an issue.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:38 AM on June 16, 2014 [6 favorites]

"Grudge" implies remembering that incident and making a mental connection to it and his current behavior is personal. It's not.

That's why I said "could be interpreted as holding a grudge" rather than "is holding a grudge".

What you're describing is nigh-unto unavoidable, but it's still not quite the platonian ideal for fair treatment, which is why I suspect others would categorize it as grudge-esque.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:39 AM on June 16, 2014

What you're describing is nigh-unto unavoidable, but it's still not quite the platonian ideal for fair treatment, which is why I suspect others would categorize it as grudge-esque.

I honestly don't understand how having the memory span of a concussed goldfish is more fair. If someone said horrible things and doesn't appear to have changed their mind about the horrible thing, it seems really weird that people remembering that they said a horrible thing is somehow bad.
posted by winna at 11:43 AM on June 16, 2014 [23 favorites]

yeah, I'm with winna. Not every comment is a Brand New Day.
posted by KathrynT at 11:46 AM on June 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

That way lies /b/.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:49 AM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

I don't feel like I need to be "fair" to someone who has not apparently changed their mind about the horrible thing they said a few years ago if being "fair" means pretending I don't remember that horrible thing.
posted by rtha at 11:52 AM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'd like to add that my objection was in the context of a conversation about the subject of the horrible statement.

I could see if I was all, 'KathrynT once said something mean about cilantro* - bah to her opinions on everything!' But if KathrynT said something mean about cilantro and we were having a conversation about making something with cilantro, that mean cilantro comment would be relevant to my reception of her opinion.

* I do not know KathrynT's opinion on cilantro
posted by winna at 11:55 AM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

Although let's be real if someone said something mean enough about cilantro I'd remember it anyway, which is the case here, particularly since women are not a delicious green herb but, y'know, me.
posted by winna at 11:57 AM on June 16, 2014

Yeah I mean I definitely have a laundry list of folks with whom I disagree strongly about feminist issues, but that much more takes the form of 'Forget it, shakes, it's wolfdreams01town' rather than 'Let's nitpick this statement with which I would otherwise appear to agree because I don't like that person!'

This sort of thing is a fundamental of communication, I thought.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:06 PM on June 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

I honestly don't understand how having the memory span of a concussed goldfish is more fair. If someone said horrible things and doesn't appear to have changed their mind about the horrible thing, it seems really weird that people remembering that they said a horrible thing is somehow bad.

I'm not being clear, my apologies. And for the record, I actually agree with you; I was just trying to explain what was looking like a disconnect between misha's talking about people holding grudges and what actually seems to be happening. I'm speaking more of a degree of reaction to what someone says rather than forming a belief about what they say. And I'll use myself for all examples.

If someone says something shitty once, I'm actually liable to let it pass - everyone has bad days and says things they don't mean. If it really stung, though, I'd maybe hesitate for a second the next time I saw them say anything - but I'd still actually consider what they said on its own merits. If the second thing was also shitty, fair enough, it's shitty.

But the thing is, I still aspire to considering each statement on its own merits. If someone who once said something shitty then later on says something that's.....kinda on the fence, I try to hold my tongue because "maybe the reason I think that's shitty is because I'm still steamed about the last thing they said." (Again, if the second thing they say is also shitty, then....no judgement call needed, it's shitty.)

I think what zarq is talking about is more like: if someone says something shitty once, then I'm more inclined to interpret even the on-the-fence things as shitty. Which is human nature, people do it, and aren't likely to stop because we remember the shitty things people say.

Holding a grudge, now, would be: someone says something shitty once, I remember it, and I'd be hovering like a hawk waiting for the exact second they said something else that was just the teeniest bit nasty so I could flag it or mock them. Even if it wasn't anywhere near as bad as what they'd said last time.

You know? It's kind of a sliding scale of reactions to each individual comment I'm talking about here, from "they said something nasty once in 2003 and so I'm flagging everything they say" to "brand new day with every comment". And even in the middle, there's a difference between "they said something nasty once so I'm gonna assume this edge case is also nasty" and "they said something nasty once, but this second thing is...not as nasty, so I'll just grumble to myself". I try to do the latter, and it sounds like zarq is talking about the former.

I also admit that the more nasty stuff someone says, the less likely I am to be patient (and have probably crossed over into the classic definition of "grudge" a few times).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:06 PM on June 16, 2014 [7 favorites]

'Forget it, shakes, it's wolfdreams01town'

Damn, Mr Snippy, you're way into grudge territory now.
posted by 0 at 12:13 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

Damn, Mr Snippy, you're way into grudge territory now.

WOLFDREAMS01: NEVER REMEMBER
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:16 PM on June 16, 2014 [9 favorites]

Etrigan: " I stand by my point that "Oh, but this person is okay to wish gravel-masturbation on" isn't much of a hill to die on."

Not really trying to stake a flag in that (or any) hill. It's just that given the circumstances, I don't necessarily think the comment was particularly deletion-worthy, either.

My opinion on what makes something deletion-worthy isn't the same as the mods, but for whatever it's worth I usually err on the side of more deletions, not less.
posted by zarq at 12:22 PM on June 16, 2014

I'd be pretty happy with a bright-line ban on (aggressively) invoking other members' genitalia ... and I usually err or the side of less deletions, not more.
posted by 0 at 12:26 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

Because recent events have lead me to believe I need to make a statement:

All I was trying to say was that it looked to me like misha's definition of "grudge" may be matching zarq's definition of "not-grudge," and that may be causing some conversational confusion.

I do not think it is bad for anyone to reserve judgement on anyone else's comments based on one thing they may have said in the past, and I in fact said several times that that was a very common thing. It makes total sense to base one's judgement about what someone says in the present on their past behavior; however, the way one behaves in response to that judgement is a different issue, which I believe is where the question about "holding grudges" comes more so into play.

And in conclusion, please pretend someone has snuck a whoopie cushion onto my seat because I need to be taken down a peg probably.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:28 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

It made sense to me after you explained it but you probably have heretical views on cilantro so Ima squint at you dubiously.

hamburger hamburger hamburger I keed
posted by winna at 12:32 PM on June 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

Action is precisely what's needed. Inaction (on the part of us men who aren't doing anything) and action (on the part of us men who are actively saying sexist things) are the problems here.

A harmless 40 year old song played on Trader Joe's muzak. A sense of perspective is what's needed here.
posted by crayz at 12:35 PM on June 16, 2014

A harmless 40 year old song played on Trader Joe's muzak. A sense of perspective is what's needed here.

Reading the thread is what's needed here.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:37 PM on June 16, 2014 [20 favorites]

Please do not pull long-banned members into the conversation. It never helps.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 12:40 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos: " If someone says something shitty once, I'm actually liable to let it pass - everyone has bad days and says things they don't mean.

Sure. Except iirc timsteil actually doubled down on the idea when challenged on it on the Blue and in Meta.

I think what zarq is talking about is more like: if someone says something shitty once, then I'm more inclined to interpret even the on-the-fence things as shitty. Which is human nature, people do it, and aren't likely to stop because we remember the shitty things people say.

Holding a grudge, now, would be: someone says something shitty once, I remember it, and I'd be hovering like a hawk waiting for the exact second they said something else that was just the teeniest bit nasty so I could flag it or mock them. Even if it wasn't anywhere near as bad as what they'd said last time.

elizardbits regularly snarks at people who express MRA or anti-feminist sentiments. timsteil isn't exactly unique in that regard. Considering the full context, there's no evidence that she's somehow singled him out here in a unique way that she hasn't also done to other people before. And there's pretty much no evidence elizardbits was circling the wagons for the past two years, waiting to take him down the moment he once again said something misogynistic.
posted by zarq at 12:40 PM on June 16, 2014 [4 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos: " All I was trying to say was that it looked to me like misha's definition of "grudge" may be matching zarq's definition of "not-grudge," and that may be causing some conversational confusion."

Once she described it as a "personal vendetta" equivalency was thrown out the window.
posted by zarq at 12:42 PM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Poking fun" takes on new meaning when one user posts fantasies of another user masturbating with a handful of gravel.

And MetaTalk is not MetaFilter which is what I thought we were talking about. In any case, I don't work here and my tendency to get sucked into long and contentious MeTa threads that never end is part of what made working here so unpleasant at times. You guys know where the contact form is.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 12:46 PM on June 16, 2014 [6 favorites]

What makes you think that personal attacks (even if they are just "poking fun at an individual") have ever been okay?

Well, there was that whole Alex Reynolds/drama queen Metatalk call out that persuaded me to sign up here in the first place.

We still have pile-ons, of course. They're just a bit less explicit these days.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:47 PM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

the young rope-rider: "I mean, metafilter is so, so bad for feminist discussion that's interesting (vs frustrating). It's a good space for women to comment in the vast majority of threads, which is great, but feminism or sexism? It's newspaper comment section time. Which would be better if we were allowed to use irony, but whatever."

So I guess the question returns to, how can we make it better?
posted by zarq at 12:50 PM on June 16, 2014

scissors
posted by shakespeherian at 12:51 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

In any case, I don't work here

Anyone else having Clerks flashbacks? "I'm not even supposed to be here today!"
posted by corb at 12:56 PM on June 16, 2014 [4 favorites]

the young rope-rider: OK. I can understand that.

I'm still gonna keep trying, tho.
posted by zarq at 12:57 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

scissors

Mr Snippy indeed
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:03 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'd be with you, the young rope-rider, if I had any faith that what's good for the gander would be good for the goose. Sadly, that if simply don't fly here.
posted by 0 at 1:14 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

Whereas sarcasm is funny (and fun!) while making the same point as earnestness.

It's funny sometimes, and fun for you, but it tends to read as hostile, condescending, or occasionally sincere, and none of these things lead to civil conversation. Blowing off steam is fine, but doing it in the middle of discussion just makes everyone hot and damp and cranky.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 1:15 PM on June 16, 2014 [9 favorites]

I'd be with you, the young rope-rider, if I had any faith that what's good for the gander would be good for the goose. Sadly, that if simply don't fly here.

You mean that people with ridiculous and offensive opinions should be allowed to mock those with well-considered ones?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:16 PM on June 16, 2014 [8 favorites]

restless_nomad: "It's funny sometimes, and fun for you, but it tends to read as hostile, condescending, or occasionally sincere, and none of these things lead to civil conversation."

If sarcastic mocking shuts someone down who is saying things like, "I find the term "mansplaining" highly offensive. It's kind of like 'cuntsplaining' if you ask me." then I must admit I have difficulty seeing how that's not an overall win for civility.
posted by zarq at 1:21 PM on June 16, 2014 [16 favorites]

Jaguar, please could you cite some of the anti-feminist stuff you are referring to?

Also, you know you don't have to do anything in those threads., right?

I'm sure Jaguar is aware that they don't have to comment. They are upset because they would like to be able to comment in a way that isn't completely basic, boring, dull, and uninformative to anyone who has an internet and an actual interest in feminist topics.

That's exactly my point. If you don't want to have boring, self-described feminism 101 threads, you don't have to respond to whatever stuff you think forces that dynamic onto the discussion you want to have.

I'm also sympathetic to jaguar not wanting to post any comments she found anti-feminist . I understand that if you don't put forth examples you are likely to get: "You can't give specific answers because that never happens here!" Whereas if you do give specific answers, you are told to start another thread if you want to call out other users. So there is definitely a damned f you do, damned if you don't problem here, and I recognize that.

However, this whole Metatalk is predicated on the supposition that, "There were many comments in there demonstrating the problems with the overall thread - mansplaining, talking over women commenting in the thread, saying "well Woman In My Life is ok with X therefore all you other women should agree!". And while there were a good number of commentors trying to reel in the meta-misogyny and sexism, they are fast becoming outnumbered and overwhelmed." [Emphasis mine].

So I thnk it is not out of line to examine whether that perception is supported. I saw exactly one poster saying woman in his life was okay with X, and lots of people calling him out for that.

I don't think you can actually support talking over women in a text thread, because it isn't as if you can interrupt a commenter here, and others have addressed that already.

Mansplaining (again, personally don't care for the term but efforts to suggest that we not use it because others find it offensive have gone nowhere) is a tough one because to my mind it is meant to describe a phenomenon where a man tells a woman she doesn't know about a subject on which she is an expert, not a man disagreeing with a woman on a specific incident, which is how I feel it is being used here.

Even in that latter case, though, I would say there were far more people arguing with "mansplainers" than vice versa.

Lastly, I feel that obviously misogynist stuff in the Trader Joe's thread was deleted or resulted in mod action summararily.
posted by misha at 1:22 PM on June 16, 2014 [7 favorites]

I just re-opened the thread in question and at least reading from the top down the overwhelming impression one gets is that the author of the linked article is whining and ridiculous.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:28 PM on June 16, 2014 [4 favorites]

I have difficulty seeing how that's not an overall win for civility.

The win for civility is if we flag the comment and then ignore it. ("FIAMO," if you will.) The mods see it, it gets deleted, no ugly derail is created, we don't have to see that word splattered across the MeTa seven times, and the preexisting grown-up discussion continues unperturbed. That's the win for civility, and it's why sarcastic mocking achieves something different.
posted by cribcage at 1:30 PM on June 16, 2014 [7 favorites]

I just re-opened the thread in question and at least reading from the top down the overwhelming impression one gets is that the author of the linked article is whining and ridiculous.

That's true in the first handful of comments, shakespeherian. This MeTa was posted long after those comments (~24 hours), however, and I did not get the impression that they were the primary source of the complaint.
posted by 0 at 1:33 PM on June 16, 2014

If sarcastic mocking shuts someone down who is saying things like, "I find the term "mansplaining" highly offensive. It's kind of like 'cuntsplaining' if you ask me." then I must admit I have difficulty seeing how that's not an overall win for civility.


That's a ridiculous argument. Sarcastic mocking didn't shut down that comment, matthowie giving timsteil a timeout for it did.

Not to mention your premise is flawed because it implies that one is entitled to simply shut down any user whose tone you don't like, by responding in kind. Ask feminists how they feel about that silencing tactic some day and I promise you will get an earful about why that is a terrible idea.

Also, you and I have vastly different perceptions of what civility means.
posted by misha at 1:33 PM on June 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

cribcage: "The mods see it, it gets deleted, no ugly derail is created, we don't have to see that word splattered across the MeTa seven times, and the preexisting grown-up discussion continues unperturbed."

Until they happen again in a later MetaTalk or Metafilter post. The problem with deletions is the comments in question fall out of sight, out of mind for everyone, including the person posting them. That doesn't necessarily teach the same lesson as direct feedback from the community.
posted by zarq at 1:35 PM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

So what? It was deleted.
posted by 0 at 1:37 PM on June 16, 2014

misha: " Not to mention your premise is flawed because it implies that one is entitled to simply shut down any user whose tone you don't like, by responding in kind.

I wasn't making a tone argument. And I don't believe that timsteil was being sarcastic, so it wouldn't be "responding in kind."

Ask feminists how they feel about that silencing tactic some day and I promise you will get an earful about why that is a terrible idea. "

I'm sorry, but did you not just argue that it's impossible to talk over (and therefore silence) people in a text thread?
posted by zarq at 1:39 PM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

0: "So what? It was deleted."

:) Touché!
posted by zarq at 1:40 PM on June 16, 2014

As far as 'FIAMO' goes, I've seen some people deliberately exploit the deletion rule to say absolutely hideous things secure in the knowledge that 99% of the people who see the thread will have no idea what generated the hostile response they received. Then they get to play droopy martyr to political correctness.

I am sure they get a talking-to but quite frankly I would prefer that people for whom it's a pattern get banned.
posted by winna at 1:45 PM on June 16, 2014 [8 favorites]

misha: " Also, you and I have vastly different perceptions of what civility means."

Stopping people from turning a conversation into a 4chan-style cesspool by countering them with sarcasm seems like a pretty low bar.
posted by zarq at 1:51 PM on June 16, 2014 [5 favorites]

Ask feminists how they feel about that silencing tactic some day and I promise you will get an earful about why that is a terrible idea.

NB this is a weird thing for you, a feminist, to say to zarq, a feminist.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:06 PM on June 16, 2014 [5 favorites]

NB this is a weird thing for you, a feminist, to say to zarq, a feminist.

I genuinely did not know that misha identified as a feminist?
posted by winna at 2:28 PM on June 16, 2014 [8 favorites]

Stopping people from turning a conversation into a 4chan-style cesspool by countering them with sarcasm seems like a pretty low bar.

If that actually happened a tenth as often as it just made things worse, it would be useful. I don't see that happening very often.
posted by Etrigan at 2:30 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

And I say that as someone who does sarcastic mockery pretty often. I just admit that it doesn't elevate the discussion when I do it, and I often restrain myself for just that reason.
posted by Etrigan at 2:48 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

Etrigan: "I don't see that happening very often."

None of this happens very often. I hope you're not (and no one else is) thinking that I'm advocating a free-for-all of unrestricted Optimus Chyme-style sarcastic insults everywhere. I'm focusing on this extreme circumstance. Guy used a very nasty term (in US English) which got him a week-long time out. Average time-outs are (I think?) just a day. In this case, I don't think elizardbits' comment was anywhere as terrible as the comment it was responding to. Plus the additional dynamic of "woman responding to misogynistic comment with sarcasm" affects my perspective of it.

Anyway, people hardly ever use the c-word in outrage on Mefi. I don't think elizardbits makes discussions worse through her participation very often, either. But weighing them against each other, I do know which comment I thought was unambiguously destructive and deserved a time out.

I just admit that it doesn't elevate the discussion when I do it

*nod*

We agree for the most part.
posted by zarq at 3:02 PM on June 16, 2014

my sarcasm and sniping always elevate the discussion but only if you measure the discussion by the last handful of comments, which is usually really low because a bunch of MRAs or mansplainers or someone with equally offensive and awful opinions have been talking, so it's really easy to elevate the discussion, it's like how it's really easy to go from an F to a D but not from a B to an A
posted by NoraReed at 3:20 PM on June 16, 2014 [6 favorites]

"...telling them you'd rather they avoided Metafilter because they probably can't handle it?"

"Handle It" is perfect. This might come as a surprise but not everyone thrives on conflict and some people would rather just, you know, talk to one another.

Can't handle it? Avoided? I linked to the sub.
posted by vapidave at 4:57 PM on June 16, 2014

I just re-opened the thread in question and at least reading from the top down the overwhelming impression one gets is that the author of the linked article is whining and ridiculous.

Some people do. Some women do, even. Others don't. If you are going to demand change until no one is allowed on the site who disagrees with you, either you're going to have a very bad time or we're going to have a dull site.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 5:26 PM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've read that comment like 6 times and I still can't parse it and I'm pretty sure I took my medications today
posted by NoraReed at 5:32 PM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

Some people do. Some women do, even. Others don't.

Do.... what?
posted by shakespeherian at 5:34 PM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

Consider the author of the linked article whining and ridiculous. Here, I'll re-write it for those who have reading troubles:

I just re-opened the thread in question and at least reading from the top down the overwhelming impression one gets is that the author of the linked article is whining and ridiculous.

Some people do think the author is whining and ridiculous. Some women think that, even. Others don't. If you are going to demand change until no one is allowed on the site who disagrees with you, either you're going to have a very bad time or we're going to have a dull site.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 5:42 PM on June 16, 2014 [4 favorites]

If you are going to demand change until no one is allowed on the site who disagrees with you, either you're going to have a very bad time or we're going to have a dull site.

Good thing no one is demanding that. Unless you can link to comments which specify that disagreement should not be allowed?
posted by billiebee at 5:50 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

Sometimes "reading troubles" are the fault of the writer.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:50 PM on June 16, 2014 [4 favorites]

Here, I'll re-write it for those who have reading troubles:

Your original post wasn't very clear. Clarifying and explaining is helpful. Unfortunately, you combined it with being a bit of a jerk. It raises the GRAR level in the conversation, and more than undoes the clarification. In a contentious thread like this, it really doesn't help. Please try to cut back on the GRAR. Thanks.
posted by benito.strauss at 5:51 PM on June 16, 2014

which is usually really low because a bunch of MRAs or mansplainers or someone with equally offensive and awful opinions have been talking,

Sorry, are you just using some hyperbole to joke around here or being serious? I figure the former but it's tough to tell if you're being sarcastic with just the text to go by. Don't think we have a bunch of MRAs on Metafilter, though.

I'm sorry, but did you not just argue that it's impossible to talk over (and therefore silence) people in a text thread?

Sorry, zarq, those two are not equivalent. I said it was impossible to interrupt and thus talk over anyone textually, yes. I did not AT ALL say it was impossible to silence people. You yourself said the desired result was to "shut down" an offensive argument, which implies you agree that sarcastic personal jibes are, in fact, silencing tactics. .

When some comment does strike me as really offensive, I am more likely to remember the gist of the comment than the person who made it, most of the time. An exception might be if a particular user has a really distinctive commenting pattern and comments with some frequency on a regular basis. So a very high-on-the-abstraction-ladder style of discourse peppered by academic terms, a tendency toward malapropisms like "doggie dog world," sanctimonious or patronizing comments might grate on me after a while.

I get that one really inflammatory comment might shock you. Recalling who made it so that two years later you respond with an 'Aha, that's just what YOU would say' reaction? Yes, that is just weird to me.

NB this is a weird thing for you, a feminist, to say to zarq, a feminist.

I genuinely did not know that misha identified as a feminist?

Well, I do. And I don't think that is weird, unless you see feminists as a monolithic entity?
posted by misha at 5:58 PM on June 16, 2014 [4 favorites]

Yes, that is just weird to me.

Would it surprise you if two years later I still remembered a dude who called me a cunt to my face? Because that's pretty much what this kind of "grudge" is about, and that's pretty much what timsteil did above, whether he quite intended to or not.

I'm going to remember timsteil for that comment because, for example, I don't want to accidentally go to a meetup where he might be there, lest I provoke him by complaining about the wrong thing. If I were hosting a meetup, I'd want to be cautious about someone who related to women that way coming into my house and finding out where I live, because in my experience people who literally use the word 'cunt' interchangeably with 'woman' are not safe people to invite into one's life.

Is that holding a grudge or being cautious?
posted by dialetheia at 6:09 PM on June 16, 2014 [23 favorites]

Cautious, informed and intelligent.
posted by futz at 6:14 PM on June 16, 2014 [2 favorites]

Well, I do. And I don't think that is weird, unless you see feminists as a monolithic entity?

It was actually more the way your phrasing suggested that you think of feminists as a monolithic entity to which neither you nor zarq have direct access to.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:20 PM on June 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

shakes and Nora did you even care what TFB was on about there, or did you just take the opportunity to tweak him for saying something that was all unclear?

I was genuinely confused as to why he sounded like a Markov bot, and please don't call me by my given name alone unless I've given you permission.
posted by NoraReed at 6:25 PM on June 16, 2014 [4 favorites]

Yup, "reading troubles" meant just that---some people seemed to have trouble reading the comment, so I re-wrote it to be clearer. Not intended as any snarkier than the comments it was responding to.

Good thing no one is demanding that. Unless you can link to comments which specify that disagreement should not be allowed?

Given that the original discussion at the thread in question was people disagreeing about various things, and the very existence of these disagreeing views was enough to make the OP of this thread say "we have work to do", I'd say the link is right at the top.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 6:41 PM on June 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Do.... what?"

Remind me of a man!
posted by klangklangston at 6:45 PM on June 16, 2014 [11 favorites]

(What man? The man with the power! What power? The power of voodoo! Who do? You do! Do what? Remind me of the man! WE ARE VERY OLD KLANG VERY VERY OLD.)
posted by gingerest at 6:54 PM on June 16, 2014 [21 favorites]

So much of these social issues are more subjective than objective - just look at all the feminists in this one thread with differing reactions to the exact same single article - but are treated as objective fact.

There is a conflation of several ideas in this sentence which I think are important to unpack.

The term "objective" itself can be very problematic. In it's original conception, objectivity was something achieved through the overlaying of several subjective points of view to find the commonalities - that's why science has replication built into it.

Over the years, there has grown this idea that an individual can be objective. Usually this is emotionally felt, and has to do with ones' past experience and a heuristic read of the social clime - this has resulted in a lot of common beliefs being mistaken for objective fact, like "men overwhelmingly play more video games than women". Most people perceive that for a number of reasons, and when the actual numbers come out the majority of the time people will argue that the women don't play the "real" games (what is real changes over time based on what women are perceived to play less of).

In the case of a statement like "men overwhelmingly play more video games than women," there is a lot of things folded into the "objective" statement as well because it is a statement not of a physical reality, but rather of a social reality. That is - humans create games for purposes based on assumptions about large groups of other people, market the games to the other people based on those same assumptions, treat people differently depending on gender in relationship with the game, and then are surprised by the number of people who diverge from the social norm (in this case, more men should be playing these games than women).

Likewise, songs are created by individuals out of their subjective experience and then shared with the world. These songs are identified with by a number of other people, giving them the patina of "objective," but the reasons for identifying with the song vary widely from "I like the band" to "women should be slapped around when they get uppity".

There is nothing in any of this which has the barest hope of being truly "objective" in the sense of a replicable, stable phenomena that multiple people can observe unchanging over time. Social interactions are by definition mutable - they become what enough people think they should be.

Most of the time, these discussions are not ones of objective fact by social justice minded people, they are discussions of ideals; what is interpreted as objective is usually rather idealistic.

Those ideals are grounded in our own, subjective realities. For example, I believe that all people should have equal opportunities to create things in the world and should have their basic needs met such that they can act on their creativity. This is not an objective belief, this is not something I can observe and test, it is rather one of my ideals.

Over the years, as I have learned about human judgement, misjudgment, perception, and perception errors I have altered practical aspects of my own approach. I've tried to be more open to dissenting views and try to assume good faith from people with other subjective realities than mine - like black, gay women, and disabled, latino men. I've practiced different ways of leveraging my ideals and my subjective experiences of things in order to convince other people that my ideals were worth embracing, and to educate them about what those ideals are. This doesn't make any of my communication, no matter how seemingly "objective" actually objective, however.

In fact, the presumption that what I and other people say is somehow objective often becomes a weapon to use against me, even when I am saying nothing of the sort. A response to, "If you want this, consider not doing that" becomes, "why do you always want to control men." A "this hurts my feelings when you say it," becomes "Stop trying to censor us." A "I am really tired of hearing songs about domestic abuse while shopping for tomatoes," becomes "why are you trying to ruin a band."

The immediate jump from a communication of a subjective experience to a presumption of an objective demand is one way of derailing what I and many other feminists do.
posted by Deoridhe at 7:05 PM on June 16, 2014 [16 favorites]

misha: "Sorry, zarq, those two are not equivalent.

Equivalent? No. Similar? Yes.

I said it was impossible to interrupt and thus talk over anyone textually, yes. I did not AT ALL say it was impossible to silence people.

Talking over people is a silencing tactic. It involves ignoring what people say in order to pound your own opinions into the ground, and refusing to engage their arguments. That's certainly not "impossible." Lots of people do it on mefi all the time in political threads. Mild cases are referred to as "talking past each other." When someone absolutely dominates a thread without engaging in it, OR attacks everyone who holds an opinion different than theirs, we call that threadsitting. There are at least a couple of people who threadsit political threads. They routinely wind up pissing people off who try to have honest discussions with them.

You yourself said the desired result was to "shut down" an offensive argument, which implies you agree that sarcastic personal jibes are, in fact, silencing tactics. .

I think sarcasm can have many functions, including attempts to shame people into keeping perceived offensive opinions to themselves in some cases. Certainly not all. Sometimes people say stupid or offensive things and get mocked for them. I assume that at least some of the people who are being sarcastic hold the same hope that I do: that the recipient of said sarcasm might listen to the feedback they are receiving and consider that they just might have an opinion that needs changing.

My comments in this thread have been specifically directed at elizardbits' comment, and timsteil's. They aren't meant to be extrapolated into any other situations.

When some comment does strike me as really offensive, I am more likely to remember the gist of the comment than the person who made it, most of the time.

Okay. I don't. And there's nothing wrong with that. People are entitled to remember things and make mental connections about them in different ways.

In my case, one of the curses or blessings of having an imperfectly eidetic memory is I tend to remember things people have said and associate their names to them. In addition, I use a greasemonkey script which helps with searches related to people's names, so if I have responded to someone on a specific topic I most likely replied using their name and can do a search to review our previous interactions and refresh my memory.

Among other things, timsteil said that women who have abortions should have kept their legs closed. I thought the comment was vile and remember being offended by it. Then the whole thing blew up in metatalk. So yeah, I remember what happened and who was at the center of it. I remember it because I've had conversations with people at two meetups where feminism and misogyny on mefi has been raised, and that comment was referenced by women who remembered it and were unhappy about it. It stuck with them. And with me, too.

I get that one really inflammatory comment might shock you. Recalling who made it so that two years later you respond with an 'Aha, that's just what YOU would say' reaction? Yes, that is just weird to me.

As I said earlier, for me it's more along the lines of "that guy is doing that offensive shit again" rather than a "gotcha." I'd much rather see a single incident stay a single incident. At least then there's some hope that the person might have learned something from the response they received. I don't take any pleasure in attempting to counter misogyny. I find it depressing as hell. It's 2014 and here on metafilter we still have people who think women invite rape. Of that they shouldn't be allowed to have full autonomous control over their own bodies. That shaming women for any number of reasons is not only totally appropriate but justified. Or that equal rights and pay and healthcare and the freedom to make personal choices about their lives are entitlements women somehow don't deserve. Or that giving women any of those things somehow is an attack on men's rights.

Goddammit, it's 2014. 2014! We're living in the future! Shouldn't we be beyond this crap by now? Feminists shouldn't have to still fight for a woman's right to go to a doctor to have a medical procedure without being judged on religious grounds, or shamed for any reason. Etc., etc.

For some of us, misha, it's not playing "gotcha." It's not "A ha!" It's "you've got to be kidding me. How has it escaped this person's notice that women are human beings and deserve respect. Don't treat them like garbage."
posted by zarq at 8:28 PM on June 16, 2014 [18 favorites]

If people can reasonably be considered popular because their posts are distinctive and memorable (which is what I am concluding given the lack of an identifiable and quantifiable predictor for "popularity"), then they can reasonably be remembered as dickholes, especially if they are bad enough actors to merit timeouts.
posted by gingerest at 9:02 PM on June 16, 2014 [8 favorites]

didn't we do this a while ago in that "usual suspects" meta where we established that mefites do indeed have memories and it turns out that if a user is enough of an asshole over time we tend to remember them and then sigh and put our heads in our hands when they join threads because we know they will demand that the discourse be lowered to their level? and probably be all misogynistic and rape culturey and shit too?
posted by NoraReed at 9:23 PM on June 16, 2014 [7 favorites]

i'm not going to produce lists or link comments or make specific accusations so i hope this doesn't end in me being compared to mccarthy again, but i do think we have both pua and mra mefites (or people who can exactly mimic those groups' arguments and style of anti feminist shit stirring). it is something that at times makes it hard for me to enjoy it here.
posted by nadawi at 9:33 PM on June 16, 2014 [13 favorites]

Then the whole thing blew up in metatalk.

Yeah, and he's the one who blew it up - it was his meTa! He thought his comment(s) had been deleted because he was male. I remembered his comment in the original thread, and I remembered the meTa, and I remembered telling him to keep it in his damn pants.

I remember a lot of comments, and a lot of the people who make them. Sometimes I remember because they're so appalling to me they kind of burn into my brain, and sometimes because they're so awesome - insightful, or funny, or just rhetorically beautiful - and are likewise burned in. It's just how things work. Plenty of people have probably said things in any of those camps that for whatever reason, I don't remember. Because brains are weird.
posted by rtha at 10:05 PM on June 16, 2014 [7 favorites]

the young rope-rider: It's a good space for women to comment in the vast majority of threads, which is great, but feminism or sexism? It's newspaper comment section time.

I would disagree with that, though I definitely agree that there's places out there that do these topics better. They're mostly specifically feminist/sexism-focussed sites, however. But newspaper comment sections are massively more toxic than MetaFilter, if for no other reason than stuff gets deleted here.

zarq: If sarcastic mocking shuts someone down who is saying [offensive things] then I must admit I have difficulty seeing how that's not an overall win for civility.

I agree that there's some comments, a few commenters even, who I would happily see replied to with sarcastic mockery. This specific instance of timsteil's is a good example. But it's not the only example, and when it stands it doesn't help the conversation. I enjoy it, but I'm also fully aware that it's not for good reasons and not because it keeps the thread going in a good way, but because (as I said above) I enjoy a burn against something I don't like. It's my personal preference, not something that should be particularly acceptable.

Deoridhe: Most of the time, these discussions are not ones of objective fact by social justice minded people, they are discussions of ideals; what is interpreted as objective is usually rather idealistic.
...
In fact, the presumption that what I and other people say is somehow objective often becomes a weapon to use against me, even when I am saying nothing of the sort.

Well, as suggested by EmpressCallipygos about a different comment, Sometimes "reading troubles" are the fault of the writer. Because you seem to suggest that this commentary should be usually interpreted not as 'this is how I see things', but 'this is how I wish things to be', and that is not at all clear. The examples you give are also of completely different behaviours than the ones I was referring to. Because I'm not talking about 'I feel' statements being countered with blanket dismissals - that happens in all sorts of threads, but it does of course have more impact when talking about personal experience of sexism vs. opinions about a movie. I'm more talking statements of opinion stated as fact, even as mildly as the young rope-rider's comment I quoted from, or NoraReed writing:
because a bunch of MRAs or mansplainers or someone with equally offensive and awful opinions have been talking, which (like misha) I would disagree that Metafilter has a bunch of MRAs, and I wouldn't class mansplainers with MRAs in terms of being equally offensive and awful.

(Incidentally, I think 'mansplaining' is a great word for a very specific concept, and though it gets misused, that is hardly something unique to this particular word. I don't think it at all offensive. But I do find it interesting that it's often the users most inclined to declare in other offensive word MeTas that it's no skin off their nose to stop using a word someone has declared offensive and insulting, who will be among the first to dismiss anyone who complains that they find 'mansplaining' offensive.)

So, Deoridhe, when you say, "The immediate jump from a communication of a subjective experience to a presumption of an objective demand is one way of derailing what I and many other feminists do." I would agree that yes, that happens. In places worse than here, it happens a lot more, but it happens here too. But there is legitimate disagreements to be had in specific cases as to whether that's happening, rather than it being the default assumption over disagreements in these threads. And it is quite definitely not only something that is done to derail or silence feminists.

I believe taking care with our words to try and communicate exactly what we mean would be one way to help these more fractious topics go more smoothly. At least, it would hopefully cut down on the arguments between people who are agreeing, but using different words. That happens frequently enough to make all sorts of threads more heated. Typos and errors are an eternal issue, but being a bit more specific or a bit more descriptive would, I reckon, be a good start.
posted by gadge emeritus at 10:24 PM on June 16, 2014 [4 favorites]

I really wonder how many of the mefites who keep claiming that there are no MRAs or anti-feminists on metafilter have actually spent time interacting with MRAs or anti-feminists. Because I spent a long time on reddit before I realized it was a big part of the reason I'm always angry* and stopped, and I'm pretty familiar with the way they argue, and I see echoes of that strategy here all the time.

*that's my secret, Cap
posted by NoraReed at 10:49 PM on June 16, 2014 [5 favorites]

no MRAs or anti-feminists

Didn't say the second one, didn't see anyone say there's no anti-feminists. But full MRAs? I don't think there's 'a bunch'. There's a difference between 'a bunch' and 'no MRAs' as well. I also wouldn't say there's no MRAs, necessarily.

Also, "echoes of [their] strategy" is different from being an MRA, or even an anti-feminist. I would agree that there's a few bog-standard arguments that get trotted out everywhere, including here, that are utilised by MRAs. But they are also utilised by mansplainers (who aren't MRAs), clueless men (again, not MRAs), contrarians (often annoying, but not MRAs) and even sexists (not necessarily MRAs; though all MRAs are sexist, not all sexists are MRAs).

This happens a fair bit, this 'there's lots of bigotry here!' 'I wouldn't say that there's lots.' 'You're saying there's no bigots here?' chain. It's a subtle exaggeration in word choices that makes one position seem more reasonable and any differing positions more unreasonable, and especially in these sorts of threads it both happens a lot and doesn't help the conversation.
posted by gadge emeritus at 12:36 AM on June 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

Given that the original discussion at the thread in question was people disagreeing about various things, and the very existence of these disagreeing views was enough to make the OP of this thread say "we have work to do", I'd say the link is right at the top.

I disagree. (See? We're allowed to disagree.) The OP was concerned with the fact that
There were many comments in there demonstrating the problems with the overall thread - mansplaining, talking over women commenting in the thread, saying "well Woman In My Life is ok with X therefore all you other women should agree!".

It's possible to disagree without doing these things, which is what divabat was asking people to consider.
posted by billiebee at 1:09 AM on June 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

This and the other thread demonstrate most of what's wrong with the left today.

Then again, I'm pretty sure no one cares what I think.

Carry on bickering amongst yourselves on the internet!
posted by inkypinky at 5:47 AM on June 17, 2014

if we're still discussing what men can do to help the sexism issue on metafilter, familiarize yourselves with mra and other anti-feminist positions and arguments so you can recognize and discourage them in yourself and others.
posted by nadawi at 5:53 AM on June 17, 2014 [9 favorites]

For "most of what's wrong with the left today," please enter your complaint with the clerk in the WWWTL office two doors down. Thenk yew!
posted by taz (staff) at 5:58 AM on June 17, 2014 [23 favorites]

if we're still discussing what men can do to help the sexism issue on metafilter, familiarize yourselves with mra and other anti-feminist positions and arguments so you can recognize and discourage them in yourself and others.

To that end, We Hunted The Mammoth (explanation for the name here) is essentially a running catalogue of MRA thought and activity. The writer's twitter feed will help keep you up to date.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 5:59 AM on June 17, 2014 [9 favorites]

Carry on bickering amongst yourselves on the internet!

This, clearly, is something that only 'the left' does.

Anyway, if you have a 10:1 ratio of normal human comments and MRAesque comments in a thread about sexism/gender/women, its going to look dominated by MRAescque comments, just because of inflammatory and toxic they are. Or at least that is how it looks to me.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:59 AM on June 17, 2014

a running catalogue of MRA thought and activity

Including such thought crimes and general nefariousness as holding a conference! Ssppooookkkkyyy.
posted by 0 at 6:14 AM on June 17, 2014

do you have the same opinion of kkk rallies? is it not acceptable to object to a kkk parade (while, of course, defending their legal right to be shit heads in that manner)?
posted by nadawi at 6:17 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Including such thought crimes and general nefariousness as holding a conference! Ssppooookkkkyyy.

Once again, reading comprehension and context: The thing is that the group in charge of the conference claims to have received all kinds of threats of violence, but the letter from the hotel which supposedly buttresses those claims hasn't been acknowledged by the hotel, and the police haven't received any reports of such threats, either. A Voice For Men does not have a history of trustworthiness with respect to claims about the feminist threat.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:24 AM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

I do not, nadawi. Different things are different. I can provide a copy of the conference agenda if you'd like. You bring the rally agenda and we can unpack their comparisons together.

Read up on your manboobz, Rustic. The threats were confirmed so now the story is they came from inside the MRA.
posted by 0 at 6:28 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Source?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:30 AM on June 17, 2014

Ah, never mind.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:31 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Y'know, if you're so dang torn up that people here paint you as sympathetic to MRA causes, then perhaps being so eager to mock others for being upset that a conference meant to spread MRA rhetoric is going on may not actually help your case. Especially if the group is known for being fairly indifferent to violent misogynist rhetoric, has continually lied about or manufactured news about attacks, and whose members have a tendency to use misogynistic language when refuting the fact that they are in fact misogynists.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:32 AM on June 17, 2014 [12 favorites]

"box cutter wielding feminists!" dude is a hateful misogynist and i don't understand why you keep bringing up his conference or the "threats."
posted by nadawi at 6:36 AM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Circumcision is an MRA topic now? Interesting.
posted by zarq at 6:40 AM on June 17, 2014

It has been for a long while, to attempt to draw an equivalence with FGM.
posted by Drinky Die at 6:41 AM on June 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

Different things are different.

Are they? From the latest interviews with AVFM leaders that WHTM posted:

Ideological feminism is a multi-billion dollar hate industry funded by lies about rape and domestic violence, and they are the cause of a lot of very civil-rights trashing laws like the Violence Against Women Act even though we know that domestic violence is not a gendered issue.
[...]
I think many men are at a disadvantage specifically for a man. I’m certainly a working-class man. You see me sitting here with a missing tooth cause I can’t afford to fix it. This lady [gesturing at Dillaway] probably makes four times what I do.

Just substitute a "Negro" here and a "illegal" there and the differences don't seem that stark.

There’s no doubt that male sexuality has been demonized in our culture. And that’s a real shame. I think that inhibits a lot of men’s sexuality to the extent where it’s not healthy – especially homosexuals, especially gay men.
[...]
I love women. My mom is a woman. … What I do not like is that we live in a culture and in a legal environment where if you do choose to have a relationship with a woman, it makes things very complicated and oftentimes dangerous.

Here you don't even have to substitute anything, it's just flat-out homophobic. And those are just from the last two weeks.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:45 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Circumcision is an MRA topic now? Interesting.

It has been for a long while, to attempt to draw an equivalence with FGM.

It's been an MRA thing since before "MRA" was a thing, and even since before FGM was formally outlawed in the U.S. (1997). I remember Usenet arguments in the early '90s that "showed" correlation between circumcision in the U.S. and pretty much any "negative" consequence of feminism that the proto-MRAer was railing against.
posted by Etrigan at 6:53 AM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

I remember Usenet arguments in the early '90s that "showed" correlation between circumcision in the U.S. and pretty much any "negative" consequence of feminism that the proto-MRAer was railing against.

Wait, what the hell? It's not in any possible way the feminists who started doing circumcision! How the hell do they justify this?
posted by corb at 6:55 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

lies
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:58 AM on June 17, 2014 [8 favorites]

yeah, that's another one of those causes where they argue it from an anti-feminist viewpoint even though lots of feminists are opposed to circumcision. it's like arguments about the draft - mra bros never seem to remember that it was the national organization for women who brought a lawsuit about the inequality of selective service.
posted by nadawi at 7:00 AM on June 17, 2014 [10 favorites]

It's not in any possible way the feminists who started doing x! How the hell do they justify this?

Pretty much the standard reply to any MRA argument.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:00 AM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

There's a concept promoted by MRA's that I assume this is related to, which says that men are weakened by widespread misandry and feminist "supremacist hate speech" in Western society. If you hold the opinion that circumcision is mutilation then it's not that much of a stretch to connect it with "feminizing men" and vilifying feminism.
posted by zarq at 7:00 AM on June 17, 2014

Oh, and thanks for the explanations, Drinky Die and Etrigan.
posted by zarq at 7:02 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Comment deleted. 0, you need to walk away. Do not come into a discussion about how to discuss misogyny on Mefi with bullshit framing about feminists "lying about rape and DV," etc. This is not a suggestion. [Updated: Sorry, this was a wrong read of that comment.]
posted by taz (staff) at 7:11 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

That seems like a mischaracterization of his comment. He pointed those things out as erroneous MRA beliefs that he is not at all sympathetic with.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:14 AM on June 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

Obviously I mis-communicated. I was referring to the quote that zombieflanders posted and saying I disagreed with it. Sorry if I twisted that point beyond recognition. Will totally step away now.
posted by 0 at 7:14 AM on June 17, 2014

It's not in any possible way the feminists who started doing circumcision! How the hell do they justify this?

Circumcision is a plot to take away the pleasure of sex (even before FGM awareness let them make that easy comparison). Sometimes it was more explicitly tied to penis envy.
posted by Etrigan at 7:15 AM on June 17, 2014

the fact remains that circumcision is a practice that was started by men and until recently, largely performed by men (and, while anecdotal, when i hear of couples disagreeing about whether to circumcise timmy, it's usually the dad who is for it and the mom who is opposed).
posted by nadawi at 7:19 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

taz: Comment deleted. 0, you need to walk away. Do not come into a discussion about how to discuss misogyny on Mefi with bullshit framing about feminists "lying about rape and DV," etc. This is not a suggestion.

That's either an inflammatory mischaracterization of what he said or you misread the comment. Either way, I flagged your comment and you should apologize or delete what you said and the subsequent follow-up.
posted by gman at 7:26 AM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

Wow, are we going to start talking about opening doors for women next? And then we can discuss the burning of the bras and spitting on Vietnam Vets and then maybe declawing can become interesting again. I mean, I'm all for letting a conversation go where it will but discussing circumcision in a thread about misogyny? Ridiculous.

And on preview: flagging a mod? Get real!
posted by h00py at 7:29 AM on June 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

Sorry if I contributed to a derail, but to re-rail it:

My point stands: There has been conversation about men concerned about how to not stand in the way or be better allies. So in what way does mocking people for objecting to a conference run by people who actually are on the record as saying those things contribute to this conversation, or any conversation on fighting back against MRAs or anti-feminists?
posted by zombieflanders at 7:32 AM on June 17, 2014

h00py: "Wow, are we going to start talking about opening doors for women next? And then we can discuss the burning of the bras and spitting on Vietnam Vets and then maybe declawing can become interesting again. I mean, I'm all for letting a conversation go where it will but discussing circumcision in a thread about misogyny? Ridiculous."

We're still talking about misogyny. Part of the conversation has turned to Men's Right's activists on (and off) MeFi, and their specific beliefs and tactics.
posted by zarq at 7:36 AM on June 17, 2014

And the KKK apparently. And I think I noticed a nazi reference too! What other super offensive group can we bring into this?
posted by Big_B at 7:40 AM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

if a hate group is part of the conversation than other hate groups might be discussed.
posted by nadawi at 7:44 AM on June 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

If we can't have a conversation about misogyny and misogynist groups without being mocked for pointing out how similar the tactics, rhetoric, and real-world outcomes are to other hate groups, that's also a big problem.

On preview: what nadawi said
posted by zombieflanders at 7:45 AM on June 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

MRA's are revolting, there's no question about that (except maybe amongst MRA followers) - I hear that some of them want to put women in concentration camps and rape them daily. That's both disgusting and not really relevant to this thread either, is it?

I don't think pulling back derails about hate groups and their beliefs when we're trying to discuss sexism on this site is a bad thing, personally.
posted by h00py at 7:45 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

h00py: And on preview: flagging a mod? Get real!

Why wouldn't I? The moderators here have the power to delete comments and then claim the comment said something it didn't, as has occurred here. One would hope that it's not just the single offending mod who sees flags and something would be done about this sort of behaviour. Other options include starting a new MeTa or emailing Matt, I suppose.
posted by gman at 7:47 AM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

Surely the contact form would be a better place to go with your objection. You're more likely to get a response, in any case.
posted by h00py at 7:49 AM on June 17, 2014

I also had to reread the comment carefully to be clear what it said (which was mostly "I don't believe these specific MRA talking points about women lying about rape"), and though the deletion was mistaken I don't think it was in bad faith.
posted by jeather at 7:50 AM on June 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

it's my understanding that flags are cleared by the mod on duty so flagging the mod on duty is really just giving them extra work, which is a pretty shit thing to do considering the current state of mod coverage around here.
posted by nadawi at 7:53 AM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

gman why do you get all worked up only in MeTas about misogyny and feminist issues? It's really disturbing.
posted by sweetkid at 7:54 AM on June 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

Yes, the comment was a bit convoluted in syntax, and I misread it. I'll add a note to my note, and I'm sorry, 0.
posted by taz (staff) at 7:55 AM on June 17, 2014 [12 favorites]

nadawi: it's my understanding that flags are cleared by the mod on duty so flagging the mod on duty is really just giving them extra work, which is a pretty shit thing to do considering the current state of mod coverage around here.

I didn't know that was the case and I didn't realize she was the only mod on duty. Having said that, I'm not too concerned about the rest of your comment as I'm pretty sure, looking at this thread, a single flag isn't going to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

sweetkid: gman why do you get all worked up only in MeTas about misogyny and feminist issues? It's really disturbing.

Can you back up this ridiculous comment? If not, I'd suggest you keep your delusional accusations in your own head where they belong.
posted by gman at 8:00 AM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

Er, you really do seem to though, gman.
posted by ominous_paws at 8:08 AM on June 17, 2014 [8 favorites]

Can you back up this ridiculous comment? If not, I'd suggest you keep your delusional accusations in your own head where they belong.

As a lurker in many of these threads, I can say that sweetkid is not the only person associating your username with comments that come off as knee-jerk and frenzied.

Some food for though.
posted by bfranklin at 8:10 AM on June 17, 2014 [11 favorites]

How about we all just back off of each other and get back to discussing the topic of how we can make this site a better place for women and for the discussion of feminism and other women's issues?
posted by Etrigan at 8:12 AM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

To be fair, gman comes off as knee-jerk and frenzied in MeTas about US exceptionalism too.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:12 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

ominous_paws: Er, you really do seem to though, gman.

You'll notice you used the word "seem". Now don't be lazy; go through my posting history and see if you're correct. It's all right there.

bfranklin: As a lurker in many of these threads, I can say that sweetkid is not the only person associating your username with comments that come off as knee-jerk and frenzied.

Do you lurk in other threads? Because I'm pretty sure you could see my behaviour is consistent, and not just in threads about US "exceptionalism" either.
posted by gman at 8:15 AM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

> Why wouldn't I? The moderators here have the power to delete comments and then claim the comment said something
> it didn't, as has occurred here.

I don't, happily, have much of a history of having comments deleted. But I have made comments I thought might be close to the edge and candidates for disappearing. For these I have been known to do a screen cap right after submitting the comment and saving it locally until I see how things are going to go. If I were ever in the situation you describe and needed to prove exactly what I had said I would be able to put the captured comment on imgur or somewhere and link to it as--not proof, exactly, because I might have created it pixel by pixel in MS Paint, but as pretty strong evidence. N.b. I have never had to use one of these. Either my comments have stayed up, or when one does get zapped I have thought "yeah, crap comment, should have sat on hands a bit longer there." But an incident where I'm like "I said X and it was disappeared as shouldn't have happened" and on-duty mod says "No, you said Y, you know better than that"--that's never happened to me. Been here since 2001.

Rarely, a highly inflammatory comment by somebody else gets deleted and followups from me and others get caught in the thread cleanup. To me that's just one of those "oh well, s**t happens" moments and I'd far rather suffer that sort of momentary indignity than, oh, find cat barf in my sock drawer.
posted by jfuller at 8:23 AM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

gman why do you get all worked up only in MeTas about misogyny and feminist issues? It's really disturbing.

That's a shitty thing to say. Shame on you.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:25 AM on June 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

And so, getting back on topic, how about that sexism and focusing on women's issues that often gets derailed into talking about individuals and misreading comments about men being insulted because they've been misread?
posted by h00py at 8:38 AM on June 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

Big_B: "And the KKK apparently. And I think I noticed a nazi reference too! What other super offensive group can we bring into this?"

Substitute MRA sexism against women by shifting their targets to any other minority group and it's doubtful most people would have a problem identifying it as racism. There are MRA's who engage in hate speech. An MRA schmuck who wrote a manifesto filled with anger against women killed six people and wounded 13 others in a rampage last month.

h00py: " I don't think pulling back derails about hate groups and their beliefs when we're trying to discuss sexism on this site is a bad thing, personally."

Conversations here about women are sometimes derailed by people spouting MRA "won't anyone think of the men?!" rhetoric. Calling that out for what it is seems appropriate.
posted by zarq at 8:39 AM on June 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

Some MeFites do use MRA rhetoric and seem to identify with the ideology. And there seems to be a (smallish) subset of MeFites who mostly just show up in threads about gender issues to harass feminists but don't otherwise participate on the site very much. (Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I just notice them more in gender threads when thy get belligerent.) I'd be curious what the mods and former mods think and have to say about this, because I think they track and pay attention to this kind of thing more than most of us do.
posted by nangar at 8:40 AM on June 17, 2014 [11 favorites]

And just to keep things in perspective, of course there's a difference between someone shooting up a small town and someone saying, "Metafilter has become a girlzone because men are being marginalized." But the problem is, the groups that are advocating for men's rights rarely seem to stop at reasonable arguments like, "we want equality" or "we want divorcing fathers to be treated equally by the courts." No, they seem to sink into misogyny pretty rapidly and it's damned disturbing. As in this incident from last year.
posted by zarq at 8:52 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

A kill-file script looks more and more attractive every day.
posted by Pudhoho at 8:53 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

the fact remains that circumcision is a practice that was started by men and until recently, largely performed by men (and, while anecdotal, when i hear of couples disagreeing about whether to circumcise timmy, it's usually the dad who is for it and the mom who is opposed).

I think I see the disconnect in people not understanding why MRAs are claiming circumcision is "feminist" - you're using actual normal logic.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:58 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yup. The 'R' in MRA obviously doesn't stand for rational.
posted by Pudhoho at 9:05 AM on June 17, 2014

This circumcision derail (which I apologize for abetting) is a thing that annoys me a lot here on MetaFilter -- when someone literally asks "Why do those people think this?" and someone answers, often explicitly saying, "Well, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I know a lot of those people, and here's their reasoning..." and then people spend a lot of time arguing with that viewpoint that no one actually in the thread is espousing.
posted by Etrigan at 9:17 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

i feel like it's important to state the actual facts. i wasn't arguing or suggesting anyone was putting it forward here. i was just saying that a lot of blame the feminists topics are actually something that is a byproduct of the patriarchy. "this is their argument" ... "and here is the counter to that" seems fair game to me.
posted by nadawi at 9:25 AM on June 17, 2014

Etrigan: "This circumcision derail (which I apologize for abetting) is a thing that annoys me a lot here on MetaFilter -- when someone literally asks "Why do those people think this?" and someone answers, often explicitly saying, "Well, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I know a lot of those people, and here's their reasoning..." and then people spend a lot of time arguing with that viewpoint that no one actually in the thread is espousing."

But no one's really arguing the viewpoint. No one here seems to be calling it out as something mefites are espousing.

We're up to nearly 1300 comments in the thread. Some conversation drift is to be expected. An observation was made. A mostly civil discussion ensued. Seems normal enough. It's not like it's derailing the thread beyond all hope of retrieval, after all.
posted by zarq at 9:31 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

You've misread the sentence.

It seemed a pretty straightforward implication that as they were all lumped in together that they were being made equivalent, but if I've gotten it wrong, I'll happily regard NoraReed's actual intent and apologise for any misconception.

I...am not sure what you think people are trying to do, here. Even sarcasm is designed specifically to communicate exactly what the speaker means. Do you think people are purposefully obfuscating?

I think sarcasm is awesome but also very easily misread in a text-only forum. I don't think most posters are purposefully obfuscating, but I do think a little more care in comment construction and bearing in mind that tone does not convey well online is always useful to consider when posting here.

To be frank, your tone evinces the kind of "rational" condescension that makes me rank mefi comment threads about feminism just as highly as newspaper comment threads. It is a common delusion among more educated and articulate men that coarser men are worse, but actually, they're not, they're just more coarse.

The thread was about ways we could make discussions on these topics go better. Many of the suggestions I would make have already been made, but I was making points I hadn't seen addressed and essentially adding my personal opinion.
That you find my tone condescending and equate it to toxic newspaper threads, or think I'm even saying anything about coarseness when I was specific about, well, being specific rather than anything to do with coarseness, is nothing to do with what I wrote. Heated threads have a few patterns to them, I mentioned a couple. I wasn't trying to condescend to the female posters - I wasn't addressing anyone other than anyone who is still part of this thread.

I apologise for any condescension you might have perceived, but it wasn't my intent, and that you read it in such bad faith doesn't make me think the problem was with my phrasing so much as in how you read it.
posted by gadge emeritus at 9:40 AM on June 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

But no one's really arguing the viewpoint.

nadawi: "the fact remains that circumcision is a practice that was started by men and until recently, largely performed by men"

And there's plenty of lulzy Because they're dumb! comments as well that, if they were addressed to an actual MeFite, would be pretty definitely deleteable.

I'm not arguing against any sort of conversation drift. I'm asking that we collectively spend less time and energy on "But these people who aren't in the conversation are wrong!" until someone actually argues that they aren't.
posted by Etrigan at 9:43 AM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

my comment in no way suggests that i think mefites feel like circumcision is a feminist plot. i can broadly agree with your larger point but i've already explained why i made my comment and why i feel like it's pertinent. If you want to disagree with that maybe you can speak to me instead of about me.
posted by nadawi at 9:54 AM on June 17, 2014

Etrigan, I generally agree with the point you are making, but I think the impulse is understandable. Beyond some possible outliers, I don't think the label of "MRA-sympathizer" is one many Mefites are anxious to have associated with their username. I can understand wanting to have a comment on record specifically denouncing an MRA viewpoint, even if it is preaching to the choir.
posted by The Gooch at 9:57 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

And there's plenty of lulzy Because they're dumb! comments as well that, if they were addressed to an actual MeFite, would be pretty definitely deleteable. I'm not arguing against any sort of conversation drift. I'm asking that we collectively spend less time and energy on "But these people who aren't in the conversation are wrong!" until someone actually argues that they aren't.

You do make a good point, in that it probably would appear hypocritical to an outsider for everyone on the one hand to be espousing fair treatment for all viewpoints, but on the other to be dismissive of a given viewpoint.

However:

1. While I may be overlooking it, I don't see anyone dismissing actual MRA people as being dumb, only that the ideas themselves are dumb, which is a distinction MeFi has always permitted.

2. In here, we may also have a sort of amongst-friends informality going on, where we all know we're on the same page and so we're being less cautious about expressing any "MRA ideas, amirite?" sort of thoughts. Which probably isn't also the Platonial Ideal for fair conversational equity, but it's also human nature and may serve as a sort of pressure release valve.

Still, a very fair observation.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:14 AM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

EmpressCallipygos: "...everyone on the one hand to be espousing fair treatment for all viewpoints"

Hrm. How are you defining "fair" treatment?

Obviously, all viewpoints aren't equal or worthy of similar consideration.
posted by zarq at 10:48 AM on June 17, 2014

"This circumcision derail (which I apologize for abetting) is a thing that annoys me a lot here on MetaFilter -- when someone literally asks "Why do those people think this?" and someone answers, often explicitly saying, "Well, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I know a lot of those people, and here's their reasoning..." and then people spend a lot of time arguing with that viewpoint that no one actually in the thread is espousing."

That's a problem way broader than circumcision, though that's a handy example. And it leads to weird outcomes — including both when they don't agree with the views but put forth arguments that are (generally) unnuanced photocopies of someone else's bad argumentation, and when they appear that they actually do agree with them but are in a weird kidding-on-the-square position.

It's a bad habit that I sometimes indulge in, and it's definitely a skill that's encouraged in a lot of opinion/rhetoric/debate sort of classes, where you have to argue a point that you don't necessarily agree with in order to understand the other side's points (ideally to counter them later). But it can be really disruptive for a conversation because it encourages straw man arguments rather by definition.

I dunno — I think that the two biggest regular disruptors I see here are when people do that (reproduce arguments they don't agree with in order to further the conversation while inadvertently encouraging bad faith argumentation) and when people are coming from good intentions but over-generalize in a way that leads to what might be called ancillary arguments, where folks agree on the core intent and contention but disagree (often strongly) on the conclusions or scope. That often leads people to treat their interlocutors as if there's no common agreement, and ends up distorting the terms of the argument in a way that can get pretty ugly between people who normally wouldn't have a beef.
posted by klangklangston at 10:50 AM on June 17, 2014

"Hrm. How are you defining "fair" treatment?

Obviously, all viewpoints aren't equal or worthy of similar consideration."

A couple years back, the org I work for sponsored a piece of legislation called the FAIR Education Act (with FAIR an acronym for "Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, Respectful"). Leaving aside that no acronym should include itself as a letter, what we found was that the public actually had a negative reaction to labeling the updated educational guidelines as "fair," since they didn't trust the government to decide what actually was fair (or accurate). People just hate "inclusive" too, which is weird, because they also hate "exclusive," but it means that you can get a several point bump in approval by switching the description of a plan from "increasing inclusion" to "decreasing exclusion." But the public thinks that schools are already inclusive enough, even though they exclude too many people.
posted by klangklangston at 10:57 AM on June 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

Hrm. How are you defining "fair" treatment?

Not calling people "dumb" and not poking fun at people. Also, I've picked up on a subtle encouragement to not dismiss someone's deeply-held idea as "dumb" outright, if it's an idea that is divisive but still held by a lot of MeFites (theism-vs.-atheism springs to mind).

Ideas are fair game - as you'll note I pointed out to Etrigan - but I think Etrigan made a fair point that we are indeed more likely to poke fun at unpopular ideas, and to an outsider that could indeed appear confusing when someone pokes fun at a popular idea and gets shouted down, but then someone else pokes fun at an unpopular idea and everyone joins in.

That's why I pointed out that the site has a "mock the ideas, not the people" policy, for lack of a better word, and also pointed out that if we know we're all on the same page it's a bit more likely to see the jokey stuff come out.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:09 AM on June 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

the derail about circumcision is now shorter than the derail about the derail.
posted by nadawi at 11:20 AM on June 17, 2014

Maybe it got snipped.
posted by Big_B at 11:22 AM on June 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

Empress, Ok.
posted by zarq at 11:35 AM on June 17, 2014

Two whole minutes before the snipped joke? We're slipping, people.
posted by Melismata at 11:53 AM on June 17, 2014

Just as long as we're not slipping when we're snipping.
posted by Pudhoho at 11:55 AM on June 17, 2014

Just a little off the tip, please.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:00 PM on June 17, 2014

We're definitely sniping, though.
posted by Melismata at 12:10 PM on June 17, 2014

Not calling people "dumb" and not poking fun at people.

I agree with this 100%.
posted by misha at 5:46 PM on June 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

the exact quotes from anything that could be described as lulzy (in a "derail" that spanned something like 11 comments).

lies and Pretty much the standard reply to any MRA argument. (in response to, "Wait, what the hell? It's not in any possible way the feminists who started doing circumcision! How the hell do they justify this?")

so now we've had a bunch of comments about how we shouldn't call people dumb (which no one did) and how these comments would be deleted if they were aimed at mefites (i don't see that, i gotta say) and how we might look hypocritical and unfair to outsiders - all of this over 2 sort of jokes, 2 questions, 3 comments explaining the mra side, 2 or 3 comments about the real world viewpoint of that topic, and a comment of gratitude for the explanation.

and maybe it's just the specific topic of the thread, maybe it's fatigue of sexism, maybe i'm just being grumpy - but it's hard to read the objection to the circumcision "derail" as anything other than telling us we're being nice enough (by mis-characterizing what sort of conversation it was and what was said). i find this pretty frustrating especially here and now.

as a bonus - the whole circumcision thing came up because i said that if men wanted to help, they'd familiarize themselves with mra talking points and arguments styles so they can recognize them easier. NoraReed then provided a link, zarq read that link and had a question, and people who knew more about the history of that gave their answers. no one got fighty over circumcision, zarq and a couple other people learned something they didn't know and it was pretty much done. to my view this was exactly the education asking and giving that was requested upthread.
posted by nadawi at 8:10 PM on June 17, 2014 [13 favorites]

I have read through this whole meta and also went back and reread the original thread to see if I remembered it correctly. I didn't remember it being as misogynistic as this meta implies but yeah, it kind of was.

I was one of the people who found the article to be click baity. I appreciated the points made in this meta by Lou and CtrlAltd about feeling frustrated that anyone not liking the method of complaining and ( for me ) the naming of employees was painted as antifeminist. But through reading this meta I also now see the other side that if the author hadn't approached someone in store that she would have been critiqued for not doing enough.

And I also want to apologize to Bunny Ultramod. I still disagree with some of his comments in the original thread but I referred to his participation as the Bunny Ultramod show in this meta and on rereading the thread he was not dominating the thread to warrant that description. I'm not sure why his name so stood out to me at the time.
posted by biggreenplant at 8:14 PM on June 17, 2014 [15 favorites]

nadawi: " as a bonus - the whole circumcision thing came up because i said that if men wanted to help, they'd familiarize themselves with mra talking points and arguments styles so they can recognize them easier. NoraReed then provided a link, zarq read that link and had a question, and people who knew more about the history of that gave their answers. no one got fighty over circumcision, zarq and a couple other people learned something they didn't know and it was pretty much done. to my view this was exactly the education asking and giving that was requested upthread."

Pretty much. But arguing that I was literally doing what was suggested upthread seemed like a futile exercise under the circumstances.

I've sworn off discussing circumcision in any depth on Metafilter because there are people here who completely lose their shit when it's mentioned. I used to try addressing factual errors with regard to Jewish ritual and ignore the outrage. But there wasn't any point. People were vicious and insulting, and didn't listen or engage in good faith discussions. It's not worth it.

If I thought this thread was taking a turn for the worse after making that relatively innocuous observation, I would have said something. It didn't. But par for the course with the topic here, some people see it brought up and overreact, then mischaracterize what's actually happening.
posted by zarq at 9:48 PM on June 17, 2014

biggreenplant: "I have read through this whole meta and also went back and reread the original thread to see if I remembered it correctly. I didn't remember it being as misogynistic as this meta implies but yeah, it kind of was."

It isn't uncommon for people to claim they just don't have time to read all the comments in a longboat before they can contribute, but you not only read all the comments in the MeTa, you read all the comments in the 595-comment-long post on the blue TWICE, just to check your perceptions. I am quite taken with your dedication to good faith commenting. And then you graciously apologized for a misapprehension! You, sir or madam or other honorific of your choice, are a genuinely good egg.
posted by gingerest at 10:12 PM on June 17, 2014 [22 favorites]

Okay, I get it, I think. So offering advice about how things can be accomplished can be viewed as a silencing tool? Seriously, I'm trying to understand.

I don't mean to pick on any particular user, but this is a thing that can be hard to understand. Basically, it goes like this: someone complains about some injustice they face. Someone offers them advice on how they could have dealt with it better - which is very easy to receive as 'sure you have an issue, but you didn't deal with it or react to it in the right way, so sorry, no dice!'. Now, the person may well have done something stupid, or reacted in a counter-productive way. But, if they try again, in the way you suggested, someone else will disagree with their methods, and let them know. So even if you personally are genuinely only concerned about the particular methods used in this individual case, in aggregate, it's part of a larger pattern where it is impossible not to do it wrong according to someone. The way to break this pattern? By biting back the "you're doing it wrong!" reaction on an individual level, so as it might not be the inevitable reaction to anything, ever, in aggregate.
posted by Dysk at 2:49 AM on June 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

Keep it classy, bullies.

Aside from being-the-change and the eternal hug shortage and so on: if I didn't know any better I'd think this comment was precision-engineered to cram as much criticism of this discussion into as few words as possible while doing absolutely nothing to improve that discussion, or to even appear to participate in it. I mean the best shipmates are always right there on the quay, right?

Absolutely fine to speak out in defense of another Mefite you feel is being treated unfairly, as far as I'm concerned. I mean I may not agree on the substance of that particular sentiment, exactly. But I respect the notion of rising-in-defense on general principle, basically, I honestly do. Plus yes, this is MeTa, and it's the bottom of a long thread with plenty of tangents, I understand if things go all kinds of ways at this point.

But for the sake of bloody-jebus-whatever it is that brings joy and light to our lives, couldn't that very same point -- again, regardless of how it, the spirit of it, would be received -- have been raised in a marginally less belligerent way?

Again this is in full recognition of this page's background colour: if I had a quarter for every hyperbolic analogy I read in MeTa I'd be dribbling caviar on my laptop as I type. More to the point, there's been a lot of talk about tone arguments. Folks have illustrated far better than I ever could how those can seriously obstruct the flow of ideas and cause voices not to be heard, or respected, or taken seriously. Personally I have no lingering doubts whatsoever that this is a real and widespread dynamic and a real problem. But in the context of this thread, this topic, these interactions, for the life of me I fail to see how simply hurling insults from the proverbial quay could ever improve, well, anything.

In light of all that, and stretching a metaphor far beyond any reasonable expectation of its elasticity: speaking as a dude sort of just also hanging out on this ship mostly just nodding and hoping to maybe, ideally, for a brief moment consider the world from a not-my-own perspective, I feel comfortable just throwing the suggestion out there that a general down-a-notch on the rhetoric probably won't hurt. That's personal capacity, mod hat off, no "edict" nonsense or any of that noise. I know how hollow it sounds, what with the big yellow staff tag. But I mean it, just as a user I feel like there's enough grar to go around as it is, and if we're going to talk in here, might as well strive for some vague semblance of civility is all.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane (staff) at 6:04 AM on June 19, 2014 [14 favorites]

Keep it classy, bullies.

I'm not so sure it's bullying to point out that it appears someone's internalized a bunch of the misogynist and/or anti-feminist crap that floats around in our culture. Everyone has, in at least some ways -- that's how ideology works -- and it's worth being mindful of.
posted by nobody at 6:16 AM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

goodnewsfortheinsane: I know how hollow it sounds, what with the big yellow staff tag. But I mean it, just as a user I feel like there's enough grar to go around as it is, and if we're going to talk in here, might as well strive for some vague semblance of civility is all.

What you've said is great and all, but where were you when this baseless moronic accusatory comment was made, which was followed up with further unsupported idiocy by other users?
posted by gman at 6:19 AM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

He was possibly not working, since he kind of got laid off? Or maybe he was asleep?

Man, talk about not notching down the grar.
posted by rtha at 6:24 AM on June 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

gman: Answering a call for civility with "moronic" and "idiocy" isn't really helping.
posted by Etrigan at 6:27 AM on June 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

Holy fuck, some of you mefites are assholes. ... But some of you assholes ...

Instead of being quoted by a moderator, this latest screed should have been deleted on grounds of grar and shittiness.

Isn't there a point at which a serial offender gets at least the stink eye, if not any actual consequences? Or is notching up the grar fun enough for enough people that it's considered worth keeping as a site feature?
posted by Dip Flash at 6:29 AM on June 19, 2014

rtha: He was possibly not working, since he kind of got laid off? Or maybe he was asleep?

Since he lives in the Netherlands, I suppose it could have been a mid-afternoon nap, yes. Not to mention the fact that a comment can be made regarding another comment anytime thereafter if goodnewsfortheinsane felt sweetkid et al were being ridiculous. And as he said above, his comment just now was made as a regular user, not a mod.
posted by gman at 6:32 AM on June 19, 2014

notching up the grar

Obviously you haven't done a search for 'asshole' in this thread. That charge has been pressed multiple times before, so it's hardly notching anything up.
posted by 0 at 6:40 AM on June 19, 2014

feminists are bullies on a witch hunt and want to murder those that disagree with them seems pretty ratcheted up to me.
posted by nadawi at 6:43 AM on June 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

I think it would be better for all concerned if everyone tried to ratchet down the grar, rather than ratcheting it up only just as far as the other side has ratcheted it.
posted by Etrigan at 6:45 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't personally have a problem with the word "mansplain." I think it's a term that describes a specific phenomenon, pretty accurately. And I am not sure that a term that accurately points out sexist behavior can accurately be described itself as sexist. Could be wrong about that, though.

But use of the word consistently evokes ire and defensiveness from some of the men on this site. People who might otherwise be supportive voices. The word has consistently derailed the hell out of any thread where people are trying to talk about the treatment of women here. And on some level, I get why... there are words that set my teeth on edge, too.

There are other words whose use the MetaFilter community now discourages for different reasons. That might be because they're sexist. Or racist. Or otherwise offensive. Or just plain likely to derail a thread.

Might it not be worth considering whether using this specific word is doing more harm than good? We've had at least two or three threads that could have gone in very different, better directions without it. Patronizing condescension and disdain can still be pointed out using other words. The ultimate goal of these threads isn't to get bogged down in whether the specific use of a single word is sexist. I feel like we're losing sight of the bigger picture.
posted by zarq at 7:07 AM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

Also, it would be nice if the usual suspects tried to make an effort by concentrating on the overall message, rather than bogging us all down in a single word.
posted by zarq at 7:10 AM on June 19, 2014

But use of the word consistently evokes ire and defensiveness from some of the men on this site. People who might otherwise be supportive voices.

Granted, this is only in my experience - but in that experience, the men who are annoyed by the word "mansplain" to the point that they would turn away from being supportive voices maybe weren't all that prone to being supportive voices in the first place.

Mind you, that isn't a sign that they're too sensitive to a word. Rather, I would see that as a sign that maybe the defensiveness they feel at a discussion of that particular behavior means they may not be ready to face the fact that "huh, maybe I have done that myself".

I mean, I hear you that it's a derail, but I don't believe that the use of the word is souring would-be supporters the way you're implying it does, and invoking the spectre of would-be supporters kind of feels a bit close to being a tone-argument lecture again.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:21 AM on June 19, 2014 [14 favorites]

has anyone even mentioned mansplain in the last 1000 comments?
posted by nadawi at 7:22 AM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

I's seen it too.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:22 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

nadawi: "has anyone even mentioned mansplain in the last 1000 comments?"

Yes. I just did. ;)

I was under the impression that hal_c_on's rant was referring to the interchange between gman and sweetkid regarding gman's complaint about "mansplain."
posted by zarq at 7:24 AM on June 19, 2014

ok it just seems to me like there's no real point to restarting that fight since the mods asked us to drop it way way up thread, especially with the current conversion turning heated again.
posted by nadawi at 7:31 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

i also fully agree with Empress re: the turning away of "allies" on word choice.
posted by nadawi at 7:39 AM on June 19, 2014

EmpressCallipygos: "Granted, this is only in my experience - but in that experience, the men who are annoyed by the word "mansplain" to the point that they would turn away from being supportive voices maybe weren't all that prone to being supportive voices in the first place.

Personally, I think it's counterproductive to write people off over a "maybe." At least a few male feminists probably had a small epiphany at some point, in deciding to go against the patriarchal grain. I did. Others can too.

Mind you, that isn't a sign that they're too sensitive to a word. Rather, I would see that as a sign that maybe the defensiveness they feel at a discussion of that particular behavior means they may not be ready to face the fact that "huh, maybe I have done that myself".

But it really doesn't take much to make a mental connection between those two things. It's not a great leap in empathy from one to the other.

I mean, I hear you that it's a derail, but I don't believe that the use of the word is souring would-be supporters the way you're implying it does, and invoking the spectre of would-be supporters kind of feels a bit close to being a tone-argument lecture again."

There is value in examining tone's role in civil discourse and I don't buy into arguments that say otherwise. You rarely convince people not to be assholes by saying, "you're an asshole." You may however, convince them not to be assholes by explaining how they are being perceived by others, and whether they are in fact accomplishing what they intend. Get them to change their own minds, in other words.
posted by zarq at 7:42 AM on June 19, 2014

Both the patriarchal and the feminist view are wrong. You're welcome. Thread over.

We are all refreshed and challenged by your opinion.
posted by winna at 7:49 AM on June 19, 2014 [14 favorites]

You may however, convince them not to be assholes by explaining how they are being perceived by others, and whether they are in fact accomplishing what they intend. Get them to change their own minds, in other words.

Right but the point is that the honus is not on oppressed classes to tell their oppressors how best to stop oppressing. Saying 'Stop hitting me, motherfucker!' should never be met with 'I might if you asked nicer.'
posted by shakespeherian at 7:50 AM on June 19, 2014 [16 favorites]

I'm with Empress: if "allies" are so offended by the mere mention of the M-word -- not its application to them in particular, but just the word itself being applied to anyone, even in the abstract -- then I really have to question the strength and usefulness of their alliance.
posted by Etrigan at 7:50 AM on June 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

Yes, humans are fucked. We should listen to the banana slugs! If only they said more than glergle, what a leap forward we could all make.
posted by h00py at 7:51 AM on June 19, 2014

Both the patriarchal and the feminist view are wrong. You're welcome. Thread over.

Im goin down to South Park gonna have myself a time
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:52 AM on June 19, 2014 [12 favorites]

Good lord, shakes that's not what I'm saying. *head desk*

There are battles worth fighting. Fighting for one's right to use "mansplain" when it consistently torpedoes good conversations and turns them into huge derail-filled arguments, doesn't strike me as one of them.
posted by zarq at 7:52 AM on June 19, 2014

Etrigan: "I'm with Empress: if "allies" are so offended by the mere mention of the M-word -- not its application to them in particular, but just the word itself being applied to anyone, even in the abstract -- then I really have to question the strength and usefulness of their alliance."

You debated with me upthread that sarcasm should not be used in conversation because it does not make discourse better. You're arguing here that a word which demonstrably does not lend itself to productive conversation should in turn be used on principle?

I feel like there's a cognitive dissonance here I'm not understanding. Can you please explain?
posted by zarq at 7:56 AM on June 19, 2014

I see what you're saying, zarq, I just happen to think that there'd be something else trivial used as a casus belli in that case.

This is totes the War of Jenkins' Ear, in other words.
posted by winna at 7:56 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Calling someone or something they said "sexist" or "racist" also often has a good chance of torpedoing a discussion, but we shouldn't stop using those terms just because they cause some people to freak out.
posted by rtha at 7:56 AM on June 19, 2014 [26 favorites]

there is no evidence that this conversation would have gone better without mansplain since it managed to rack up so much more grar once that derail was stopped.
posted by nadawi at 7:56 AM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

There are battles worth fighting. Fighting for one's right to use "mansplain" when it consistently torpedoes good conversations and turns them into huge derail-filled arguments, doesn't strike me as one of them.

It's men who cause those derails because their wounded masculinity can't abide having the gendered nature of this behavior pointed out.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:58 AM on June 19, 2014 [14 favorites]

You're arguing here that a word which demonstrably does not lend itself to productive conversation should in turn be used on principle? I feel like there's a cognitive dissonance here I'm not understanding. Can you please explain?

It feels kind of like asking people suffering from discussing missing limbs to be nicer to the people who got hurt by paper cuts.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:59 AM on June 19, 2014

nadawi: "there is no evidence that this conversation would have gone better without mansplain since it managed to rack up so much more grar once that derail was stopped."

It would have been better as a whole without that derail. Also, the fact that the derail had to be stopped was part of the problem, is my point.

It's not like this hasn't happened in other threads, either.
posted by zarq at 8:00 AM on June 19, 2014

And mind you, I agree with the fact that it causes problematic derails. However, I wonder why the thought process becomes "therefore, women, maybe you should stop using it" and not "therefore, men, maybe you should not take it personally unless you know you do this".

It's also kind of like how we try to prevent rape by putting the onus on women to defend themselves rather than putting the onus on men to not do it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:02 AM on June 19, 2014 [20 favorites]

Why should women have to fight to use a word that is just a description? Fight to say something that others don't like to hear even if it doesn't apply to them? It's such a milksop of a supposed insult.
posted by h00py at 8:02 AM on June 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

For fuck's sake. This isn't about being "nice." I am not trying to encourage an oppressed group to kowtow towards their oppressors. If you don't understand that after reading my comments then I give up.
posted by zarq at 8:04 AM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

The term 'privilege' likewise has derails wherever it goes.

The term 'mansplain' is not the cause of the derails. The cause of the derails is the defensive reaction of men who consider themselves not to be participants in patriarcy.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:04 AM on June 19, 2014 [18 favorites]

You debated with me upthread that sarcasm should not be used in conversation because it does not make discourse better. You're arguing here that a word which demonstrably does not lend itself to productive conversation should in turn be used on principle?

I feel like there's a cognitive dissonance here I'm not understanding. Can you please explain?

One difference is that sarcasm is intended to poke, while the M-word is much, much less so.

Another difference is that, as others note, the M-word demonstrably does not lend itself to productive conversation because some people don't want a productive conversation. As I also said upthread: "It may also be that derailing a conversation about a large and consistent issue by focusing on a single word is an all-too-common and shitty debate tactic."
posted by Etrigan at 8:07 AM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

Another difference is that, as others note, the M-word demonstrably does not lend itself to productive conversation because some people don't want a productive conversation. As I also said upthread: "It may also be that derailing a conversation about a large and consistent issue by focusing on a single word is an all-too-common and shitty debate tactic."

It's part and parcel with the stupid "not all men" derails, which are far worse, because, well, they're really fucking stupid.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:08 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

zarq, similar freakouts have happened before the word "mansplain" was coined. You're getting pushback because similar "Why don't you just..." suggestions about various words and terms get made pretty constantly, and when they are followed, it doesn't change the tone of the anti-feminists arguments any and it ends up restricting the way women are "allowed" to speak. It's a big concession for an almost non-existent pay-off.
posted by jaguar at 8:09 AM on June 19, 2014 [19 favorites]

in all these conversations about the word i've never seen a suggestion for another term that retains the gendered aspect and drops the supposed offense. how do you suggest women discuss this without having to say every time, "that thing men do when they tell women about women's lived experiences or explain things to women as if women couldn't possibly know it, especially when the woman is the expert and the man is not"?
posted by nadawi at 8:09 AM on June 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

I find how men react to the word "mansplain" to be a powerful litmus test to see if they're actually likely to be a halfway decent ally or a whiny baby who gets super offended when someone points out his privilege. I'm pretty much done trying to come up with "nice" ways to point out to assholes that they're being assholes and choosing my language to minimize whiny manbaby responses for the same reason I'm done choosing clothes to minimize sexual harassment. I'm not responsible for how men choose to react to me and am not going to accept blame for tantrums about the word "mansplain" any more than I'd accept it for harassment about my choice of skirt.
posted by NoraReed at 8:13 AM on June 19, 2014 [31 favorites]

My take on "mansplain" is that the sort of man who gets unreasonably and repeatedly upset at its use is almost certainly going to be the sort of man who also gets unreasonably upset and repeatedly throws wobblies in feminism/sexism discussions anyway. To the tiny minority who are stuck on the word instead of the concept, I'm sorry, but the word is useful in certain contexts and describes a specific and gendered behavior. Meanwhile, I'll just try to avoid whitesplaining, cissplaining, and other forms of 'splaining myself. (aka, it's not just you, men.)

Kevin Drum tweeted something a while back that ended up in my twitter stream asking women to stop using "mansplaining". My response was, and remains, I'll stop using the term when the 'splaining stops.
posted by immlass at 8:17 AM on June 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos: " It's also kind of like how we try to prevent rape by putting the onus on women to defend themselves rather than putting the onus on men to not do it."

Wow.

Yeah, I'm fucking done here.
posted by zarq at 8:17 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I'm fucking done here.

So, stating the truth about my own feelings hurt yours. Fair enough.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:21 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

You're practically accusing me of being a rape apologist, Empress. The analogy is incredibly nasty. How the fuck do you expect me to react to that?
posted by zarq at 8:24 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

To be fair, the quote zarq highlighted didn't state your feelings. it drew an analogy with zarq's suggestion about the use of 'mansplaining' to people who 'put the onus on women' to prevent themselves from getting raped.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:25 AM on June 19, 2014

It was an unnecessary derail. Bloody mansplaining. Why even bring it up? You must have known that asking people to stop saying it would lead to people saying why they wouldn't because it describes an actual thing that happens and isn't that meaningful, based on every other discussion about it? If people were saying 'cocksplaining' then yeah, maybe I could see a bit of a problem, but nobody's said that.
posted by h00py at 8:27 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

You're practically accusing me of being a rape apologist, Empress. The analogy is incredibly nasty. How the fuck do you expect me to react to that?

I'm not saying you're intentionally doing that or that you're even doing that personally. I'm saying what such statements feel like from my personal perspective.

Just like maybe you weren't accusing any of us of intentionally trying to derail a conversation with the use of a word, but were saying that this is perhaps what it felt like from the male perspective. We get to report on what things are like from our perspective too.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:28 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

One time, on a chat room, I saw an exchange that has stuck with me ever since. One lawyer, a woman, was talking about how male lawyers would often talk over female lawyers. Another lawyer, a man, interrupted and proceeded to explain that legal culture was very aggressive: Of course men were talking over that woman - she wasn't talking aggressively enough herself. He seemed as totally oblivious to the fact that he was explaining legal culture to a fellow lawyer as to the fact that he was enacting the behavior she had been describing.

Eventually the conversation went elsewhere, the discussion on sexism in legal culture thoroughly derailed. It was a sad thing to see.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:29 AM on June 19, 2014 [15 favorites]

"that thing men do when they tell women about women's lived experiences or explain things to women as if women couldn't possibly know it, especially when the woman is the expert and the man is not"?

Patronize

(It even has the root pater like patriarchy)

I'm sure I have been accused of "mansplaining" topics in the past, but I frequently have patronixing conversations with both sexes. Until recently I worked in Universities where I was responsible for teaching organic chemistry to undergraduate students as well as graduate students. I would always try to pitch things at the correct level, but sometimes you throw a pitch that is just too slow. It also tends to bleed into your normal life and you find yourself explaining things in detail to everyone because if you didn't the undergraduate might actually hurt themselves by neutralising the concentrated acidic reaction with concentrated NaOH solution and burning their face off with the boiling acid/basic solution.

I don't know why mansplain irks me more than patronize. I think because it is trying to be more of a gotcha word and deriding someone solely on the basis of their gender. Is it possible for a woman to mansplain something, because I am absolutely certain that although the root pater means father it is entirely possible for a woman to patronize someone, the definition of the word has evolved beyond a gendered insult.

I don't normally respond to these threads because I have an utter fear with something I type being interpretated in an unintended manner. Please when reading this post instead see it as a suggestion to use the word patronize instead of mansplain. Similar to how I have changed my typing upon being guided on this site in the past.
posted by koolkat at 8:31 AM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

The analogy is apt because they're both situations where women are blamed for men's bad behavior. It's all caught up in patriarchy and rape culture. Stop getting all whiny and offended and all-about-me and look at the goddamn patterns, zarq.
posted by NoraReed at 8:33 AM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

There are battles worth fighting. Fighting for one's right to use "mansplain" when it consistently torpedoes good conversations and turns them into huge derail-filled arguments, doesn't strike me as one of them.

I think a problem here is sort of that it rewards threadshitting. Also that there is actually a pretty significant difference between "mansplain" and abusive terms based on race, sex or gender, so I don't think the comparison entirely holds up.

In fact, one might compare the attempt to get "TERF" removed from the discourse. "Mansplain" is part of a set of tools used to examine and critique manifestations of privilege. Removing it from the toolkit because people with privilege don't like the sensation it causes is not, I think, a good response. It just removes a simple term to shortcut a process.
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:34 AM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

i didn't read that as you being called a rape apologist, zarq, but rather Empress pointing out the policing of words used to discuss how women are affected by sexism is on the same long continuum that also includes others telling women how to dress instead of figuring out how to make men stop raping. it all functions to push the patriarchy along.
posted by nadawi at 8:35 AM on June 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

Then they'll just whine that they're not being patronizing. As pointed out above, it's not really about the word, it's about not wanting to have the conversation in the first place. We could eliminate "mansplain" from this website entirely, and there would still be regular complaints about talking about the behavior it describes.
posted by zombieflanders at 8:35 AM on June 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

"Patronize" is not the same as "mansplain" (not least because of that shift from gendered usage) and "mantronize" sounds like a dry cleaner.
posted by klangklangston at 8:35 AM on June 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

h00py: "Why even bring it up?"

As I said above, I didn't. hal_c_on referenced it. I took what he said and asked a question with the intention of encouraging better discourse, and apparently now I'm being equated to a rape apologist.

Why do it? Because it pains me to see people close their accounts. I'm pissed that things got so bad in this thread that palomar felt she had to close hers, even though it wasn't over "mansplain." It pains me to see arguments happen over people being defensive when we should be working towards better goals. I would rather see change happen that makes this place feel safer for women and more productive overall, then see it devolve into bullshit. If I'm going about that the wrong way, then fine. If I've picked the wrong thing to focus on, it's okay to tell me that and why.

What's not okay is to equate my trying to help with being a fucking rape apologist. That's unbelievably offensive and completely out of proportion to anything I've actually said.

And on preview, I see more people piling on. Good job, everyone.

EmpressCallipygos: " I'm not saying you're intentionally doing that or that you're even doing that personally. I'm saying what such statements feel like from my personal perspective."

Well hey, it's good you're keeping what I've actually said in appropriate perspective.
posted by zarq at 8:36 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well hey, it's good you're keeping what I've actually said in appropriate perspective.

I never didn't do that. You were the one that assumed I was talking about you personally.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:39 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

If you don't understand that after reading my comments then I give up.

If I'm understanding your point, it was that no matter what the word's merits, if the word will always be the subject of derails in MetaFilter, then why not avoid the word in the context of MetaFilter—avoiding derails being the larger goal in the context of MetaFilter. ("Fighting for one's right to use "mansplain" when it consistently torpedoes good conversations and turns them into huge derail-filled arguments, doesn't strike me as one of them.") Is that about right?

If so, then I agree with you. But I also think you're missing something fundamental: not everyone shares that goal. Some people don't want to avoid these derails. Some believe this derail is worth fighting; the word is worth the battle for the word, so to speak. Other people like that it's a self-applying litmus test. Put the word on the table, and see who reacts. They feel that's valuable. And a few people just like to fight and snark online, and arguing over this word is familiar ground for an easy win.

You're right that your point was being misconstrued. (Assuming I'm understanding it. Apologies if I'm not.) The logic is valid. But it was misconstrued on a more fundamental level because of different goals. At some point you have to look at repeated behavior and conclude that yes, obviously some people do feel that fighting for the word's usage is a battle "worth fighting," derail or not.
posted by cribcage at 8:39 AM on June 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

koolkat, as you point out, patronize is something both genders do. the gendered aspect of mansplain is required to communicate the problem it is describing.
posted by nadawi at 8:39 AM on June 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

the policing of words used to discuss how women are affected by sexism is on the same long continuum

Its certainly on the same long continuum but its pretty far down that continuum to go from a good faith suggestion (however misplaced and misguided) by someone who I think deserves the benefit of the doubt to rape apology. It doesn't take a whole lot of empathy to see why someone would get upset from that.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:41 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

(As an aside, "patronize" has the same root as "pater", but it doesn't derive from it - it derives from "patronus". To patronize somebody means to behave as if you were their patronus and they were your cliens - a hierarchical inferior whom you sponsor, and who is expected to agree with you, respect you and generally back you up.

Of course, Ancient Rome was a sexist system - a matron is something very different from a patron - which is why "patronize" is a unisex term. Nonetheless, it doesn't mean the same thing as "mansplain.)
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:41 AM on June 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

I don't think anyone thinks you're a rape apologist or anything like it. What's happening is people are telling you that you picked the wrong thing to focus on and why. That's all. I can understand that you're feeling piled up on but your rather lengthy comment on mansplaining at the tail end of this very long thread did seem out of place and unnecessary. It doesn't negate all the good things you've said before that.
posted by h00py at 8:42 AM on June 19, 2014 [12 favorites]

Its certainly on the same long continuum but its pretty far down that continuum to go from a good faith suggestion (however misplaced and misguided) by someone who I think deserves the benefit of the doubt to rape apology.

The thing is, though, encouraging people to not take personally what may not be meant personally would also be an effective way to stop this derail - and a lot of other ones besides.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:44 AM on June 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

FWIW, I like pretty much everyone involved in this particular discussion of "mansplain," and while I think zarq's point, as elucidated by cribcage, is kinda tone-argument-y and focuses on the wrong thing, I don't think he's a terrible person for making it.

On preview:

I can understand that you're feeling piled up on but your rather lengthy comment on mansplaining at the tail end of this very long thread did seem out of place and unnecessary. It doesn't negate all the good things you've said before that.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:45 AM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

One thing I value about "mansplain" and its widespread usage is that it validates the idea that this really is a thing that happens a lot. It helps underscore the idea that mansplaining (especially about how to solve sexism) is a behavior that happens regularly and is worth calling out.

Taking away that terminology makes it much harder to recognize, much less call out, that pattern of behavior. If we use a whole paragraph to explain the mansplaining phenomenon anew every time it happens, not only are we wasting a bunch of time, but it gives the impression that the callout is an isolated incident, which opens the door for people to dismiss the complaint as being overly sensitive.

By having a precise term for the phenomenon, we allow people to recognize it as a recurring pattern, which not only allows people to call it out (and feel more justified and supported by their community in calling it out) but also might help men to curb the behavior if they're interested in doing so ("oh crap, I'm mansplaining again").
posted by dialetheia at 8:56 AM on June 19, 2014 [24 favorites]

Some believe this derail is worth fighting; the word is worth the battle for the word, so to speak.

I have yet to see any cogent response from anyone coming from this perspective as to why they feel the battle is just as worth fighting. After all, we already know that merely explaining the phenomenon, with or without using the word, will get the same reaction, so why shouldn't people get upset that your argument here means that they would have to explain themselves repeatedly and at length just to have it thrown back in their faces?
posted by zombieflanders at 9:10 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

the young rope-rider: "TBH zarq, you and I are sympatico on any number of topics, but you're not only wrong about this you are, ironically, attempting to advise a bunch of women--who are fully aware of the way the site functions, how arguments about sexism go, and how people react to the term "mansplain"--on what is and isn't worth fighting about.

*sigh*

You know that was not my intent.

EmpressCallipygos: " The thing is, though, encouraging people to not take personally what may not be meant personally would also be an effective way to stop this derail - and a lot of other ones besides."

It was meant personally. I took it personally. You knew damned well what you were saying. Especially since you defended it as your personal feelings on the matter. That was terribly shitty of you, Empress.

This will be my last comment in this thread. Removing from Recent Activity. I apologize for derailing it further.
posted by zarq at 9:23 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Do you people even recognize that this is yet another 1000+ comment thread that ends up with just the ten of you high-faving one another? Not really sure what gets accomplished, but your ability to outlast is impressive, I'll give you that.
posted by gman at 9:32 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

It was meant personally. I took it personally. You knew damned well what you were saying. Especially since you defended it as your personal feelings on the matter.

zarq - with all due respect, you're now telling me that you know the intent of my own words better than I do. Perhaps it is indeed high time you took a break from this thread.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:35 AM on June 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

Not really sure what gets accomplished

To talk and tangle and wrangle and communicate. To express and absorb and rant. You are not obliged to partake.
posted by rtha at 9:44 AM on June 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

Now you're just sitesplaining.
posted by gman at 9:46 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm sure this objection has nothing to do with the substance of what people are saying, and only with the 100% uniform agreement clearly evinced by this "discussion" on "mansplain."
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:50 AM on June 19, 2014

Hardee har har ladies are the cockroaches in that joke hee hee hee so gotdam funny.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 9:54 AM on June 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

Now you're just sitesplaining.

FFS, go away.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:54 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

gman: what's with the hostility?
posted by divabat at 9:55 AM on June 19, 2014

I don't even know what to say to that that isn't really hostile.

Just a thought: "Nothing" is a perfectly valid response. Seriously, when you feel piled on in a thread and can't communicate just how enraged you are, just walk away from the thread, without doing a mic drop about how awesome you are and how everyone else is just hatin'. Those few people who will chase you down in some other thread or keep posting "I still haven't heard back from User X about this thing!" are being assholes. Let them be assholes. On MetaFilter, it affects you to the exact extent that you let it.

Yes, I know, I don't do this all the time either. But I'm trying, lord, I'm trying.
posted by Etrigan at 10:04 AM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

oh noes planetesimal were we all supposed to find your pointless throwaway 'wit' at the end of a contentious thread bracing and jolly?

sorry for that we'll all cater to how you think we should behave.
posted by winna at 10:10 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Honestly, planetesimal, you've been so consistently cryptic and lulzy and one-linery throughout this thread that I at least had no idea what you were saying there, other than being dismissive of the very idea of 'splaining.
posted by Etrigan at 10:10 AM on June 19, 2014 [14 favorites]

Look, mansplaining is a great thing to point out in media or other people's interactions, but these threads are public conversations with a very mixed crowd. The mansplainer you're saying has mansplained is still in the room, and presumably still in the discussion, along with hundreds of other people. And we're communicating via text, which is notoriously difficult to parse correctly for tone and emotional cues. Misunderstandings happen all the time. Is it a shitty, condescending thing to comment without proper punctuation, or is it just a thing that happens when people are in a hurry? Well, both. What fun.

So just pointing at someone in the thread and saying "mansplainer" without showing your work is or can be problematic. And not every commenter who uses the term to zing or shut down other commenters is solid gold. Even many of the solid gold commenters who come out for feminism or related threads can have a bad day or make a wrong call. Labeling another's comment as mansplanation is not a golden ticket to being right, but it's being treated here as though there have never been any bad faith or simply incorrect or even debatable assertions of mansplaining. It's also being asserted both that mansplaining is not an attack word that people should be upset at, while also being described as a paper cut--which frankly to me indicates that it is, yes, an attack word that hurts.

I would be happier if people here generally refrained from labeling another comment mansplaining unless they took the time to say why. Even though this is, sadly and predictably, opening the door to nitpicking the justifications given even when the justifications are spot-fucking-on.

Another good alternative to this would be to simply show your work and omit the word mansplaining entirely.

You take the good, you take the bad, and there you have... another data point. Maybe it's all bullshit, but it's my current reading.

BTW, zarq is routinely on the side of angels, and s/he's pointing out friction related to the term mansplaining that is undeniable. Maybe that same friction would exist without mansplaining, as has been asserted. Or maybe it's a different kind of friction, that tangles up different people. But I think s/he's getting more static than s/he deserves.
posted by jsturgill at 10:13 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

jsturgill: So much of this thread has been consistently about "showing your work". The mansplaining "accusation" is not coming out of nowhere - people have been explaining, over and over again, where it's happening and how.

I honestly feel a little bashed over the head with the "BUT YOU SAID MANSPLAIN AND THAT'S BAAAAAAAD" when there's the rest of my OP to consider. Especially when cortex already said ages ago that we should drop the whole 'mansplain' thing and we were talking about other things for quite some time.

also wtf
posted by divabat at 10:20 AM on June 19, 2014 [15 favorites]

winna, you could goad less, but the expectation to not assume the worst is not unreasonable.

I have to be honest that I've almost entirely run out of reasons not to assume the worst when people drop into threads about sexism to make throwaway joke comments.

I don't actually have an 'oh lord it's them again' reaction to your username, but that's the pattern recognition that pops up with lulzy comments so if you are not meaning to get that reaction it is well also not to provoke it.
posted by winna at 10:22 AM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

also wtf

lmao
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:24 AM on June 19, 2014

"Is it a shitty, condescending thing to comment without proper punctuation,"

more oft callow and affectless

4 lulz
posted by klangklangston at 10:25 AM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

Sometimes when you "mischaracterize"

comments get...lost

that means "communication breakdown"

my #1 priority is to communicate in a thread, both to the people participating and those just lurking along at home, because communication is all we have (I decided this is a personal priority, ymmv)

follow along here, please
posted by jsturgill at 10:31 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

I need to get a boat so I can call it the hms callow and affectless.
posted by winna at 10:36 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

So now we're hating on capital letters?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:36 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

So, super late to this party, but I had a thunk...

One of the big geek social pressures is not to call people out, and not to make people feel judged, excluded or shamed - because we are assumed to have traumatic experiences of having been judged, shamed or excluded in the past. However, as has been pointed out more eloquently than I could many times before by many people, often this kind of pressure serves to maintain an unhealthy status quo in unhealthy ways - and that this pressure if often applied selectively as a result.

There's an argument about whether the writer naming her first interviewee was good or bad journalistic practice in the FPP, which it's not profitable to get into again here. What can be said with absolute confidence, however, is that as soon as she did that the thread was going to be troubled, because there is a set of people on Metafilter who respond very, very badly to any suggestion of public shaming of men by women.

You don't actually have to provide names, of course. The thread on Adria Richards was the site of repeated violent and angry responses about her calling out of what she perceived as sexist behavior at PyCon, although she had not named the people involved (but did share a photo of them).

For that matter, the thread on Rebecca Watson and "elevatorgate" back in 2011 saw the same behaviors, and she neither named nor otherwise identified the man in her account of his inappropriate pick-up attempt. And, to loop it all back, it happens in the thread about Solnit and "Men Explain Things To Me" as well. (And indeed one could see it in the very aggressive responses to sweetkid's question here - which may well be incorrect, but should also be testable.)

Basically, any FPP in which a woman is condemning the behavior of a man, especially if that man could somehow be identified (like, what if someone else in the bar at 4am had seen who followed Rebecca Watson to the elevator and named him?) has a non-zero and growing risk of having one of actually a fairly small number of members very aggressively attacking the woman in question, and rules-lawyering the situation, with the attendant damage to the thread. Really, this is too obvious to be worth saying, but there it is. Anyone who has been active on MetaFilter and has any interest in gender politics probably has their own list of people who are likely to go nuclear in that kind of thread, and those lists probably largely overlap.

That's something that isn't moderated on more than a general procedural basis - that is, when someone reaches the point of, e.g. dropping a C-bomb, they get a time out.

(For anyone keeping score, that's where we are with "mansplain". If you accuse another member on the green of mansplaining, you might get moderator attention because it's likely to lead to an unhelpful argument. But if you describe a behavior described in TFA as mansplaining, that's descriptive of a behavior, and not problematic.)

I don't think this relatively small number of members is going to be affected by a shift in site norms, which I think is the purpose of this thread, because this isn't about site norms - it's about the anger felt by a small number of users of the site at women doing things, and how it is expressed. And it's probably less likely that the mods are going to have the resources to respond at this point. So... yeah. I don't really think there's a viable or meaningful response to that. It's just going to keep happening.
posted by running order squabble fest at 10:39 AM on June 19, 2014 [18 favorites]

I had kinda hoped that it would be this not this
posted by klangklangston at 10:53 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

jsturgill: OK, you want us to show our work? Your last two comments here? The snarky one in response to the young rope-rider and the one before where you attempt to explain why men don't lke "mansplaining" and why we should show our work (even when we already have a zillion times before)?

That's mansplaining. As tyr-r says, you're trying to make yourself the expert of how women should discuss sexism.
posted by divabat at 10:54 AM on June 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

the young rope-rider, I used "I" statements and hedged everything about the situation in my comment, which I also explicitly tried to clarify was not a prescription for others but a reflection of my personal thinking and preferences. I also "showed my work," as I often ask others to do: I provided a few hypothesis about the nature of our discussions, how they function, and how the term mansplain fits into that dynamic. I did this because if my work was wrong (that's not how our discussions function, for example) or my perspective flawed (it's not better for lurkers and participants to see explicit reasons for why a comment is perceived as mansplaining), then that could be refuted or (even better) discussed, corrected, expounded upon, whatever.

You turned that into a lulzy post characterizing my comment as talking down to divabat and setting priorities for the entire site in a way that's oblivious to the very real problems with these discussions that I think I've been pretty explicit about acknowledging.

Why am I the problem here?
posted by jsturgill at 10:54 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I did this because if my work was wrong (that's not how our discussions function, for example) or my perspective flawed (it's not better for lurkers and participants to see explicit reasons for why a comment is perceived as mansplaining), then that could be refuted or (even better) discussed, corrected, expounded upon, whatever.

It's been done. Already. In response to all the other people who tried to explain to us why "mansplain" is so wrong as though we haven't heard all of those before.

I did feel like you were talking down to me, for what it's worth.
posted by divabat at 10:58 AM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

(indeed it's been done so many times that very early on the mods asked us to cut it out)
posted by divabat at 10:59 AM on June 19, 2014

...pointing out friction related to the term mansplaining that is undeniable. Maybe that same friction would exist without mansplaining, as has been asserted. Or maybe it's a different kind of friction, that tangles up different people.

The resistance to interrogating one's participation in systems of privilege will occur regardless of the terms used. There will be pushback no matter what.

Objections to mansplaining are just as enmeshed in sexism as the rest of our language. The idea of neutral or objective ideal communication between minds that is disrupted by indecorous language is itself informed by models of language tainted, inevitably, by sexism and other biases. Communication does not occur on a level playing field between equal players. One person's perception of offensive language is the understandable self-defense reaction of privilege preservation in response to another's patient, kind explanation of how gendered discourse patterns perpetuate sexism.

The ethical equation, as I've come to understand it, means that I should address sexism (and other injustices) explicitly knowing there will be pushback because I also know that trying to avoid pushback is an impossible task. This isn't to say people shouldn't take other approaches, go slow, use language they find less alienating. However, I am sure that those who use the term mansplain or otherwise talk frankly about how sexism operates and why it is wrong are doing far more good than the harm done by sexism itself.
posted by audi alteram partem at 11:11 AM on June 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

divabat: I think snark for snark is, if not ideal, then at least human. And I do think that in this instance, mirroring TYRR's comment actually communicated useful information.

I did feel like you were talking down to me, for what it's worth.

...

I was trying so very hard not to, as I mentioned previously. I wish I knew how to communicate better, and I am actively working on it. Could you meet me half way? Right now it feels as though that didn't happen. That feeling could be wrong, but it's where I'm at right now.

auid alteram partem: However, I am sure that those who use the term mansplain or otherwise talk frankly about how sexism operates and why it is wrong are doing far more good than the harm done by sexism itself.

My personal thinking is that the heat (pushback) caused by labeling another poster's comment as mansplaining is different when accompanied by an explanation ("showing your work"). I'm not attempting to create a world where no one's feelings get hurt. But if there's going to be conflict and tension, I'd like it to be as productive as possible.

Also, I'm suggesting that there is a real difference between telling a personal story about mansplaining or commenting on something external to the site as mansplaining, and calling another comment mansplaining. In the latter case, I think showing your work becomes much more relevant because it moves the discussion into the community.

I don't think those nuances are reflected in most of the commentary I've read from people who are tired of pushback on the term. I think these are important nuances, though of course that doesn't mean much. I have read many of the older and present-day threads on feminism, and I'm not attempting to shit on very real and valid frustrations or make this the only topic under discussion.

In fact, I'm at work! And I probably won't have time to comment much further. I think my last few comments explain myself pretty well anyway, so I don't know that I'll have much more to add or time to add it.
posted by jsturgill at 11:30 AM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Wouldn't B just be a subset of A?
posted by winna at 11:35 AM on June 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

Not trying to start shit with this comment, just wondering what the actual accepted definition is. Previously I had thought it was "A", but in this thread, for the first time, I was given the impression that it would be "B".

It's both. "B" looks like it's one example of "A".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:42 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

A. A man talks down to a woman (on any given subject) and uses his male privelege to do so...
or
B. A man talks down to a woman on issues of feminism and feels he has to "explain it to her".

It seems pretty clear to me that A contains B, so I think it can be both, hal_c_on. Even A isn't quite it, from my understanding - not so much that a man is using his male privilege to patronize a woman, but more specifically that he's ignoring her and what he ought to know about her, interrupting her, and so on. The essay that brought people to coin the term, linked above, describes the behavior well, particularly in the opening vignette.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:43 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

It can be about anything.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:44 AM on June 19, 2014 [8 favorites]

That's mansplaining. As tyr-r says, you're trying to make yourself the expert of how women should discuss sexism.

As an aside, you showed your work here. It's mansplaining because I'm trying to make myself the expert of how women should discuss sexism.

So we have an accusation of mansplaining, that I disagree with, that I was able to respond to because the accuser showed their work. This gives everyone else reading the thread (now and in the future) more information to work with. I think that's a good thing, even if I'm wrong about what I'm communicating and am totally failing at limiting the scope of my commentary.
posted by jsturgill at 11:47 AM on June 19, 2014

It can be anything, but mansplaining about feminism is especially ironic, is all.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:53 AM on June 19, 2014 [8 favorites]

As I understand it, "mansplaining" is when a man assumes that, relative to the woman he's speaking to, he's a relative expert on a given topic, and condescends to explain that topic to the woman [in a way even a woman can understand! /sarcasm]. The ~explanation~ can be on any topic and still be mansplaining, but it is likely to be most galling and aggravating to the woman when it's about a topic that *she* actually has an expertise in (such as, but not limited to: the experience of being a woman or how women should behave).
posted by rue72 at 11:54 AM on June 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

jsturgill: you're still mansplaining, and there's no way I can "meet you halfway" because you've dismissed how I actually felt by saying "I don't think that's what happened". It's not your place to confirm or deny how I felt or responded to something.
posted by divabat at 11:57 AM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yup, the true 'joy' of mansplaining is when it's something that you know intimately and of which the man is completely ignorant.

I was in a meeting the other day and someone took it upon themselves to kindly explain to me a report that I myself built. But if I had stopped him with a 'whoa, you realize I know more about this than I think you can imagine?' I would have never heard the end of how rude I was.

The worst part of it is that because all you can do is grit your teeth, it leaves everyone else in the room with the impression that his kindly patronage is just and that you are as ignorant as the lecture you've just received would imply.
posted by winna at 11:58 AM on June 19, 2014 [19 favorites]

It's really depressing when discussions about feminism and misogyny (and I'm not just talking about metafilter) constantly seem to devolve into people insisting:

-you're talking about feminism wrong, you're going to hurt men's feelings.
-you're talking about feminism wrong, here let me explain the *real* situation for you.
-but shitty things happen to men too, so why are we talking about feminism again?
-okay maybe sexism exists, but you're overreacting.


Also mansplaining can be about anything. It's just especially ironic and (to me) disheartening to see men who consider themselves feminists and allies do it regarding issues of feminism, gender, and women's lived experiences.
posted by inertia at 11:58 AM on June 19, 2014 [16 favorites]

Mansplaining is also predicated on an implicit assumption that it is impossible that the woman to whom the man is explaining something could possibly know as much, if not more, on the topic than he does, even when presented with facts to the contrary. The exchange that Rebecca Solnit describes in her essay that gave rise to the term is the perfect case in point:

"So? I hear you've written a couple of books."

I replied, "Several, actually."

He said, in the way you encourage your friend's seven-year-old to describe flute practice, "And what are they about?"

They were actually about quite a few different things, the six or seven out by then, but I began to speak only of the most recent on that summer day in 2003, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, my book on the annihilation of time and space and the industrialization of everyday life.

He cut me off soon after I mentioned Muybridge. "And have you heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year?"

So caught up was I in my assigned role as ingénue that I was perfectly willing to entertain the possibility that another book on the same subject had come out simultaneously and I'd somehow missed it. He was already telling me about the very important book -- with that smug look I know so well in a man holding forth, eyes fixed on the fuzzy far horizon of his own authority.

[...] Sallie interrupted him to say, "That's her book." Or tried to interrupt him anyway.

But he just continued on his way. She had to say, "That's her book" three or four times before he finally took it in. And then, as if in a nineteenth-century novel, he went ashen. That I was indeed the author of the very important book it turned out he hadn't read, just read about in the New York Times Book Review a few months earlier, so confused the neat categories into which his world was sorted that he was stunned speechless -- for a moment, before he began holding forth again.

posted by scody at 12:03 PM on June 19, 2014 [18 favorites]

Big MetaFilter thread on mansplaining.

2013 MeTa on mansplaining.

2012 MeTa on mansplaining, connected to big MetaFilter thread on mansplaining

I think almost any question about the meaning of mansplain or how MetaFilter deals with it is answered in one or more of those three threads.
posted by running order squabble fest at 12:03 PM on June 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

Divabat, I don't think I dismissed your feelings. I tried to explicitly acknowledge them and validate them while also communicating my thoughts and feelings about our interaction, which include thoughts and feelings about my words being, from my perspective, mischaracterized.

Using I statements, hedging (maybe this, maybe that), limiting the scope of my assertions, not speaking for anyone but myself, and really trying to be thoughtful on my part was called mansplaining and characterized as trying to dictate the rules of the discussion (or being "the expert").

I don't think I've done some of the things you've told me I've done, but, as I've said before, I could be missing some aspect of how my words come across. I'm trying to listen and learn while still participating. I'm sorry if I'm failing at that, but I hope you know I'm trying.
posted by jsturgill at 12:04 PM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

You're not listening, jsturgill. you're just digging a bigger and bigger mansplaining hole and refusing to listen to anyone who refutes you, while also ignoring everyone else who has already "shown their work" (what is this, a 4th grade maths lesson?!). Hell even NOW I'm showing you the work, using the I Statements you keep pointing out to talk about how I felt, and you're dismissing them. As though you know better than me how I feel.

>gaaaaaahhhh
posted by divabat at 12:14 PM on June 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

Divabat, I don't think I dismissed your feelings.

The thing is, this is not something that is objectively measureable. It's not like you did or did not physically step on her foot; you said a thing and in response she felt a thing. Whether you intended to cause that feeling is something that can be discussed, but the feeling happened, and you really can't tell someone that they did not feel that thing.
posted by rtha at 12:15 PM on June 19, 2014 [8 favorites]

jsturgill, an aspect of how your words come across to me, which I honestly don't think you mean (and so I'm saying this as explanation, rather than an attack) is that you don't seem to be starting from the assumption that your interlocutor is correct and that your priority is to try to understand what she's saying. Instead, it seems to me like you're starting from the assumption that you are correct and that your priority is to try to get other people to understand what you're saying. I think that that impression is stemming from the amount of space/effort you put into defending yourself relative to the amount of space/effort you put into asking questions and exploring your interlocutors' points of view.
posted by rue72 at 12:17 PM on June 19, 2014 [16 favorites]

Intention tends to matter less than effect in these situations. "I statements" are great in situations of equal social power, but tend to center the feelings of the powerful at the expense of the harm done to the marginalized in discussing social-justice issues.

I think that is what's tripping you up here. Your intentions not to cause harm don't cancel out the harm you caused.
posted by jaguar at 12:23 PM on June 19, 2014 [16 favorites]

One of the problems with being asked to repeatedly "show our work" when it comes to explaining why a particular utterance is, in fact, mansplaining is that the dude who's doing it will never, ever, ever agree that mansplaining is the correct term for what he's doing. I might actually consider this to be a requirement for mansplaining: the man who's doing it absolutely refuses to see himself as an example of it. He will do everything in his power to prove that what he said is not actually an example of mansplaining, up to and including repeatedly invoking claims of "bad faith" where none exist. It should also be noted that thoughtfulness absolutely does not preclude, prevent, or otherwise repel observations that what you're saying is mansplaining.

Mansplaining can be about anything, up to and including sexism -- around here, I find that it most often tends to involve men explaining to women why [x] song/opinion/video game/whatever is not sexist, with absolutely no acknowledgment whatsoever that (many! most! but not all!) men are generally rather ill-suited to determine what might constitute the sort of action, habit, or speech that will be perceived as sexist by women. Hey, dudes, we already know you don't think it's sexist. But that isn't because us ladyfolk are wrong in thinking that it is. The #1 reason you don't think it's sexist is because you're a dude. As I said 500,000 comments ago, I know you think you know better than us, I know you think you're right, but you don't, and you aren't. Not about this.

Other than men regularly telling me that my experiences with being on the receiving end of sexism are wrong, misguided, oversensitive, mistaken, hysterical, etc., the most obvious example in my life is my line of work. I have 10+ years of experience in my rather arcane industry (read this, now this, add millions of dollars, let it all marinate for like a dozen years, and you're probably halfway there), but whenever I mention ANYTHING to do with my line of employ, so many men outside of my industry, none of whom have any idea of what I actually do, will start talking over me in order to explain what they believe I must be trying to say. They can't even let me finish a single goddamn sentence. And they are never doing anything except talking out of their asses. Because I have tons of experience in this industry and they have none whatsoever. It's like they just can't believe that I could possibly know more about it than they do. They'll listen intently to my male co-workers, too. I wonder why that is...

EX: My roommate was a pizza delivery driver for the same amount of time I've been at my job, but he'll still jump in and loudly begin instructing me on what he believes to be the finer points of federal contracting over me, while I am trying to speak, if I ever dare mention something from my workday off-hand. If I say, "No, you're wrong" and correct him, he changes the subject because he doesn't understand what I'm talking about. But if I laugh and say, "Dude, you're mansplaining," instead of acknowledging that he might not actually be an expert at the subject at hand, he gets all het up and refuses to speak to me until he's cooled down. The emission of streams of bullshit sexist condescension is something that does not fit with his idea of himself as a self-proclaimed feminist ally, so he simply says that mansplaining is absolutely not what he's doing, over and over and over again, no matter what sort of work I attempt to show or proof I attempt to provide. The cycle repeats endlessly. It ain't just my roommate. And it is so, so, so exhausting.
posted by divined by radio at 12:26 PM on June 19, 2014 [40 favorites]

Life is hard for the aretaist in a consequentialist world.

I have 10+ years of of experience in my rather arcane industry (read this, now this, add millions of dollars, let it all marinate for like a dozen years, and you're probably halfway there)

The FAR! The FAR! Iä! Iä!
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:33 PM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

jsturgill, an aspect of how your words come across to me, which I honestly don't think you mean (and so I'm saying this as explanation, rather than an attack) is that you don't seem to be starting from the assumption that your interlocutor is correct and that your priority is to try to understand what she's saying. Instead, it seems to me like you're starting from the assumption that you are correct and that your priority is to try to get other people to understand what you're saying. I think that that impression is stemming from the amount of space/effort you put into defending yourself relative to the amount of space/effort you put into asking questions and exploring your interlocutors' points of view.

Let me explain... No, there is to much. Let me sum up:

Divabat, it must be very difficult to feel like you're not being listened to and some idiot keeps poking you with a stick. I'm sorry and I don't mean to be that idiot. If you can help me understand better what I've done to dismiss your feelings and mansplain, I'd appreciate it. If you can't take the time to tell me, I understand.

rue72, thanks for reminding me that space given to a concern is as important as the words used and the ideas I use to communicate.

Jaguar, if you could help me understand better the harm I'm causing, I'd appreciate it.
posted by jsturgill at 12:39 PM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Divabat, it must be very difficult to feel like you're not being listened to and some idiot keeps poking you with a stick. I'm sorry and I don't mean to be that idiot. If you can help me understand better what I've done to dismiss your feelings and mansplain, I'd appreciate it. If you can't take the time to tell me, I understand.

I'm not Divabat, but I have an observation I hope I can share?

jsturgill, I have to wonder why the very lengthy paragraph divabat wrote which you also quoted before writing this wasn't a sufficient enough answer to this exact question. Can you clarify why the paragraph which you quoted was not clear to you?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:43 PM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

It's like they just can't believe that I could possibly know more about it than they do. They'll listen intently to my male co-workers, too. I wonder why that is...

Heh. I have experienced a (slightly less infuriating but no less telling) similar phenomenon re: sports. I'm by no means a huge sports fan, but I have followed football most of my life and have a good working knowledge of baseball and basketball. Mr. Scody doesn't really follow sports at all, but because he works out (and looks like it) and wears baseball caps and is a dude, other men frequently assume he's also a sports fan. So if we are out in public, watching a sporting event, other men will engage him in conversation about the game, and will almost invariably ignore me -- even when Mr. Scody isn't commenting at all, and even when I'm actually the only one of the two of us doing the talking.

This means that I have repeatedly found myself in conversations where we're watching a game at a bar (for example), and I'll say something, and the guy sitting next to us will reply to what I am saying by speaking directly to my boyfriend. And this doesn't happen as a single exchange in the conversation, and then they figure it out after I've said something once or twice; I mean the entire conversation is conducted this way, as if my boyfriend is a sports-loving ventriloquist who is just throwing his voice so that the words about Peyton Manning's quarterback rating are coming out of the mouth of his dummy/girlfriend on the bar stool next to him.

I am, of course, obliged to say that not all men have done this to me -- I have encountered plenty of men who can comprehend that I understand sports. But I have encountered enough men who very obviously cannot comprehend this that it's long since become a running joke between my boyfriend and me.
posted by scody at 12:45 PM on June 19, 2014 [24 favorites]

I think a big part of allied behavior is being open and understanding of how your words and behaviors are interpreted by others.

A while ago I had a conversation with some people, who were discussing how they never realized a word they used as an insult could be considered a homophobic slur. People were saying how they never used that word with the intention of it being homophobic and thus didn't understand what the big fuss was about. Their argument was that since it's so commonly used and everyone knows that they don't mean to be homophobic, what's the big deal.

They asked me if I ever knew the word could be seen as a homophobic slur, and I said that I hadn't, but I would stop using that word. In these kind of instances, I think it's more important to stop and listen to what other people are saying to me, rather then defend my own words or behaviors. Just because I didn't intend to be homophobic/sexist/classist/etc. doesn't mean I wasn't.
posted by inertia at 1:00 PM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos, Divabat last wrote:

You're not listening, jsturgill. you're just digging a bigger and bigger mansplaining hole and refusing to listen to anyone who refutes you, while also ignoring everyone else who has already "shown their work" (what is this, a 4th grade maths lesson?!). Hell even NOW I'm showing you the work, using the I Statements you keep pointing out to talk about how I felt, and you're dismissing them. As though you know better than me how I feel.

>gaaaaaahhhh


You're talking about rue72's comment (that's what I quoted in my previous post), not divabat's last comment (quoted above).

I asked divabat about divabat's feelings because rue72 isn't divabat.
posted by jsturgill at 1:01 PM on June 19, 2014

Ok I've poked along in this thread for a while and...just...

jsturgill: are you trying to be an ally? If you are, remember rule #1 about being an ally: SHUT UP AND LISTEN.

These people ARE explaining the answers to your questions. YOU'RE NOT LISTENING.
posted by disclaimer at 1:05 PM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

In fact, it's just so prevalent I feel I should expand my audience: folks, PLEASE listen to what each each other are saying and take away those words to a quiet corner and maybe think on them for a bit? Am I crowdsplaining?
posted by disclaimer at 1:10 PM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

You're talking about rue72's comment (that's what I quoted in my previous post), not divabat's last comment (quoted above). I asked divabat about divabat's feelings because rue72 isn't divabat.

But if you read it, you would note that it still is an answer to your question.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:22 PM on June 19, 2014

jsturgill: I've already said my feelings - you even acknowledged them at one point as some example of "showing your work". I'm only going to get repetitive at this point. The "please, help me understand!!" comes off as "please educate me, personally, you to me one on one" even though many other people have already said the same things I've been saying.

Listen to everyone else who's commented after me, and many before.
posted by divabat at 1:29 PM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

But if you read it, you would note that it still is an answer to your question.

Partially. But lack of mirroring, a sin of omission, doesn't explain the misinterpretation of my actual statements and twisting them into sins of commission.

How does a clearly hedged statement get read as an absolute?

How does an acknowledgement of deficit and potential error get read as a statement of infallibility?

How does an explicitly highlighted opinion offered up as a new angle to consider in a wider discussion get read as a prescription to the community?

Communication is hella subjective, and what I wasn't writing did communicate that I wasn't listening. But what I did write had some objective tools used to clarify their scope and intent, and those limits were thrown out the window.

Divabat, I'm listening. Rue72 explained why you were upset--while you were simply being upset in my direction. There's a huge difference. When you have showed your work, I still haven't been able to connect the dots from what I've written to what you've read.
posted by jsturgill at 1:32 PM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm not attempting to create a world where no one's feelings get hurt. But if there's going to be conflict and tension, I'd like it to be as productive as possible.

Productive to what end? There is no acontextual "productive" communication. Nebulous concepts of "productive" are associated with the traditional, sexism-inflected models of discourse I mentioned in my comment. In the context of our sexist discourse, talk that is productive to the end of fighting sexism might exist in tension with your understanding of productive. The "nuances" may just not be relevant points to raise in a conversation doing anti-sexism work, and asking that such nuances be addressed may help to perpetuate sexism by derailing anti-sexist arguments.

For those interested in some socio-linguistic background, the interdisciplinary approach of Critical Discourse Analysis offers some interesting discussions on how conversations contain complex systems of domination and resistance.

Tuen A. van Dijk. "Principles of Discourse Analysis." Discourse & Society 1993. [pdf]

Michelle M. Lazar. "Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis." Critical Discourse Studies 2007. [pdf]

The task then of feminist CDA is to examine how power and dominance are discursively produced and/or (counter-)resisted in a variety of ways through textual representations of gendered social practices, and through interactional strategies of talk. Also of concern are issues of access to forms of discourse, such as particular communicative events and culturally valued genres (see van Dijk, 1993, 1996) that
can be empowering for women’s participation in public domains.

posted by audi alteram partem at 1:34 PM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

jsturgill, you keep using the phrase "showing your work" and I admit I can't understand precisely what you mean by that. Can you use a different word to help me understand what it is you're asking for when you ask that?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:35 PM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Jsturgill, you're taking up a lot of the conversational air at this point and I'm not sure it's working for you or anyone. Maybe let it ride for a while and allow the conversation to be less about a specific man's concerns and issues?
posted by Dip Flash at 1:39 PM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

I'll say something, and the guy sitting next to us will reply to what I am saying by speaking directly to my boyfriend.

I had this happen a few weeks ago when buying a used car. I was with my brother-in-law, not my boyfriend. Every question I asked, the seller would listen and then turn to my BIL (who asked literally ZERO questions) to give an answer.

Eventually I got angry and waved my hand in the guy's face and said "HEY!" to try to get him to engage with the person who was actually asking the questions.

It is unbelievably infuriating. The car had problems, and I was relieved not to have to decide between walking away from a good buy versus putting money in the pocket of that jackass.
posted by torticat at 1:45 PM on June 19, 2014

Alternatively, jsturgill, you may want to consider continuing the conversation specifically by raising your questions with other men who do get what we're talking about. There are a number of such men who have been a part of this very thread, who have spoken to the very issue you seem to be grappling with, and who have mentioned that they understand the very defensiveness that you're demonstrating.

Ask them how they came to understand what you're having trouble with.
posted by scody at 1:47 PM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

jsturgill, you keep using the phrase "showing your work" and I admit I can't understand precisely what you mean by that. Can you use a different word to help me understand what it is you're asking for when you ask that?

Sure. I mean explaining why you interpret something as [x] instead of simply asserting something is [x].

I linked to this comment earlier. It's a great comment that captures why dismissing microagressions is problematic bullshit that makes the world a worse place. I think that comment shows its work.

If the comment had simply jumped to the conclusion (it's wrong to dismiss microagressions), then it would be a much worse comment even though its sentiment would still be correct.

If it were both empty of thought process and full of snark, you'd have a classic clusterfuck that contained a lot of hidden assumptions on the side of the people who (I think) are more correct. By putting "the work" out there, even if there is heat or pushback, there's also a great resource that can be returned to, again and again, by others. It's also helpful to people who haven't yet reached the conclusion by the time they started the post, but connect all the dots along with the author and come out with a new understanding at the other end.

Rue72's explanation of how I'm not setting aside significant space to signal areas of agreement is similarly showing his/her work. Many of the earlier assertions of what my comments were communicating focussed on the end result of the commenter's interpretation (as though it were self exlanatory), not including any insight as to how they reached that interpretation.

One of divabat's earlier accusations of mansplaining (that would be the conclusion) contained at least a minimal amount of showing work, in that I was asserting myself as the expert of feminism (the reason why she reached the conclusion).

I disagreed with her "work," yada yada yada, here we are.

It is exactly a reference to 4th grade (or whatever) math, in that an answer with no thought process given will most often either be accepted or rejected by the reader. If you show your work, the reader can learn from or agree with parts of your perspective even if they don't wind up agreeing with your final conclusion.
posted by jsturgill at 1:47 PM on June 19, 2014

I disagreed with her work, yada yada yada, here we are.

Yeah, this is the part where you don't really get to "disagree with her work", though - she's telling you what she's experienced, what it means to her, and what she (and many other women) call it.

Your disagreement is immaterial because you are not actually her teacher. Do you see how the power dynamic of asking for homework (and even 'grading' it as sufficient or not) like you're the final arbiter of what counts as "sufficient work" is not appropriate here?
posted by dialetheia at 1:50 PM on June 19, 2014 [30 favorites]

It is exactly a reference to 4th grade (or whatever) math

As a woman and a feminist, I find this fucking infuriating. It implies that the person demanding a woman "show her work" is in a position to evaluate and grade her reasoning. When it's a man demanding a woman show her work about mansplaining, and specifically about why she feels that way, my immediate response is fuck that noise. Women do not have to prove why their feelings are reasonable to men. Men are not the arbiters of which feelings are acceptable and what appropriate reasons are to feel a particular way. I know men in my American culture have been educated to feel that they are, but they are not and I reject this demand for my time and mental labor to educate men (who are generally mansplaining to me or another woman around me) about how they are engaging in sexist oppression.

This is not me educating anyone. This is me saying FUCK THAT NOISE.
posted by immlass at 1:54 PM on June 19, 2014 [43 favorites]

I'm finding "show your work" to be really condescending.
posted by agregoli at 1:55 PM on June 19, 2014 [15 favorites]

immlass has it. you're making things worse, dude.
posted by agregoli at 1:57 PM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

jsturgill: how about you try sitting on your hands for a spell.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:59 PM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

It is exactly a reference to 4th grade (or whatever) math, in that an answer with no thought process given will most often either be accepted or rejected by the reader.

By thinking of it this way, you seem to be trying to make the discussion into one where there is a correct answer, and that's part of the problem. No one is going to prove that you correctly match the objective definition of "offensive."

Asking people to "show their work" on their having taken offense implies that someone will be able to prove mathematically that you really were being offensive. But then, when you poke holes in their "proof," they were wrong and you are not offending them.
posted by Etrigan at 2:00 PM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

jsturgill: your insistence that people "show their work" is in fact "setting priorities for the site" in exactly the way you were characterized as (and objected to the characterization) and for no better reason than to make you happy. Further, your insistence that the purpose of comments on MetaFilter is discussion or education is fine for your own participation, but requiring that anyone else abide by your own standards or reasons that they have not explicitly said that the purpose of their comments is, is also "setting priorities for the site," again in the way that you explicitly stated that you were not doing.

It is not the responsibility of commenters here that you be happy.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:02 PM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

folks, PLEASE listen to what each each other are saying and take away those words to a quiet corner and maybe think on them for a bit? Am I crowdsplaining?

I'm probably going to get shot for this, but:

If people in this thread are going to say things like "folks, just listen to each other," then please listen to us men when we say that 'mansplaining' is infantilizing and dismissive. "You do not know what you are talking about, because you do not have the experience to know what you are talking about, so please just listen to those who do" may take longer to type, it may not have the emotional satisfaction of dismissing what someone is saying as 'mansplaining' does, but it does keep the discussion on a more even keel. Telling a man that he is mansplaining serves only to shut his ears to whatever else you have to say, because of how rude and dismissive it is. And you want--and your allies (which includes me) want--ears to be open, right?

Yes, obviously, I know that men are rude to and dismissive of women all the fucking time, and to an extent I get how tiring that is (not being a woman I can't understand exactly how tiring it is, but as a queer man I can sort of apprehend the exhaustion that comes from being dismissed solely because of X). But fighting fire with fire only gives us more fire, more polarization, and more entranched positions. Which helps nobody.

I am emphatically not saying that women need to coddle men. At all. I am not saying it explicitly nor am I implying it. At all. I'm saying that in any situation involving an oppressed group trying to educate the oppressors, being dismissive is probably not going to get us very far. Refusing to take the bullshit is totally different--see the Civil Rights movement, the queer rights movement.

That's all. I'm on the side of women--I want my niece to finish growing up in a society that values her on par with men. I want her and my sisters and my mother and my grandmother to not have to deal with that sexism they swim in every day. (I want that for all women everywhere, obviously, but that's where my personal stake lies). I want men to grow the fuck up and listen and take action. 'Mansplaining' isn't a good way to get any of that happening. "Listen to someone who knows what they are talking about" gets a lot closer. Yeah?

I'll say something, and the guy sitting next to us will reply to what I am saying by speaking directly to my boyfriend.

Exactly the same thing happened when my father and stepmother went to buy a new car. She's a better driver and knows a lot more about cars than he does, but the salesman kept talking to my dad even though my stepmother was the one asking the questions.

She paid him back by having him go on the test drive with them, and he white-knuckled the entire way. (She's a really, really good driver. Or was then anyway. Could do that incredible swing the car 180 and slide sideways into a parking spot good.)

Once they got back to the dealership he finally stopped talking with my father and started talking to her instead. Maybe a minor victory for feminism, but a victory nonetheless.

jsturgill, as a man, I think what people seem to be objecting to (correct me if I'm wrong, people who are having objections) is the 'show your work' stuff. There has been way more than enough written in this thread, on the Blue and Green generally, all over the internet, in libraries, etc, that the 'work' has already been shown. That we live in a sexist society is a settled question. It's simply not up for debate. And requiring, as it seems you're doing, women to show proof of some sort that something is sexist is not only demeaning to women and their lived experience, it is placing a burden of education on them which is simply not theirs to bear.

I get the meaning behind 'show your work.' Perhaps if you asked "I don't really understand why that's sexist, and I want to not be sexist, are you comfortable explaining or pointing me at resources that will explain why this particular thing is sexist" you would be having less pushback here and more reception. "Show your work" sounds like a demand that women, yet again, have to explain to a man why a specific thing is sexist, which--quite understandably--women are sick to fucking death of doing, because the answers are out there all over the place.

Perhaps consider that for a while before wading back in here? And maybe demonstrating that you are really listening?

Or, as said much better, by someone who I think is female-identified (not that the gender of who said this is material in any way because saying the Right Thing doesn't matter if you're female or male or in-between somewhere, but it does help drive home the point) this:

Your disagreement is immaterial because you are not actually her teacher. Do you see how the power dynamic of asking for homework (and even 'grading' it as sufficient or not) like you're the final arbiter of what counts as "sufficient work" is not appropriate here?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:05 PM on June 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

thank you all
posted by divabat at 2:05 PM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

Many of the earlier assertions of what my comments were communicating focussed on the end result of the commenter's interpretation (as though it were self exlanatory), not including any insight as to how they reached that interpretation.

This is kind of funny because that's actually exactly what you are doing here. All of these people have commented extensively "showing their work" but you refuse to engage with it - all you want to do is keep repeating that their work isn't good enough without specifying what part of it you don't understand.

And you want--and your allies (which includes me) want--ears to be open, right?

It's not my highest priority, no.
posted by dialetheia at 2:06 PM on June 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

It is exactly a reference to 4th grade (or whatever) math, in that an answer with no thought process given will most often either be accepted or rejected by the reader.

I am familiar with the comment in the context of 4th Grade math, because I am also an adult who went through the public school system - which included 4th Grade math. What I was asking is that you explain why you are using it in such a vastly different context.

It sounds like you are requiring people to explain to an extremely fine degree precisely why, from a logical standpoint, they arrived at the position they hold. Is that correct?

If so, perhaps you could try just asking it that plainly. Perhaps refer to the specific portions of people's comments which you don't understand, and ask "that's interesting that this feels this way to you, can you expound upon that?"

What would also probably happen is - you may read their comments more closely and think about them, which I suspect would also help anyway. You may even find that simply doing that would be sufficient for you to realize that they've already "shown their work" but you just hadn't noticed. (I suspect that this is happening more often than you think.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:07 PM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

It's not my highest priority, no.

Okay. What is? Honest question.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:11 PM on June 19, 2014

I'm probably going to get shot for this, but:

I don't think you'll be shot for making that argument. I don't think you'll be shot for that rhetorical device, either.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:12 PM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

(Oh and dialetheia, I'm not asking you to do the feminism 101 education thing. I'm asking you what your highest priority is and if I, as a man, can help with it or not. I hope my question didn't come across that way.)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:15 PM on June 19, 2014

"You do not know what you are talking about, because you do not have the experience to know what you are talking about, so please just listen to those who do" may take longer to type, it may not have the emotional satisfaction of dismissing what someone is saying as 'mansplaining' does, but it does keep the discussion on a more even keel.

I have yet to see that proven. It wasn't the case before the word came into use, it's not the case now. The idea itself will be dismissed, the only difference is that they wouldn't have just a single word to complain about. It's almost entirely a rallying point for people that don't want to have a conversation about the phenomenon anyway.
posted by zombieflanders at 2:16 PM on June 19, 2014 [12 favorites]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that point, zombieflanders. Cool?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:18 PM on June 19, 2014

> So lets call out the condescension. But not in a way that makes it seem as if its ok for someone to do, but not others

I regret nothing. jsturgill has been asked repeatedly -- and nicely -- to lurk moar and talk less in this particular thread. Sweetness and decency doesn't seem to be working.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:19 PM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's fine, fffm, no worries. I guess in this particular case, with respect to mansplaining, my first priority would be to help other women be aware that mansplaining is a thing that is happening to them because of sexism, and not something that they brought on themselves due to insufficient confidence or poise or professional grooming whatever other self-blaming thing they might think before they realized this is a pattern of male behavior that had nothing to do with how they handled themselves.

I felt so much better about so many troubling interactions once I learned that this is a thing that routinely happens to women. I was able to look back at countless situations I'd been in and realize "oh, that's what was happening!" whereas before I would worry myself in circles, thinking hmm, maybe I smiled/laughed/nodded too much? maybe my clothing wasn't severe enough? maybe i needed chunkier heels to raise my stature? maybe I needed different/better/more/less makeup? It never ends and nothing I did seemed to make much of a dent.

Knowing that mansplaining is just a baseline thing that happens frequently in interactions between men and women allowed me to stop blaming myself for not being taken seriously enough. I want all women to be able to not only know that intellectually but to really internalize it, and I'm not willing to sacrifice that to make potential allies feel better.
posted by dialetheia at 2:24 PM on June 19, 2014 [37 favorites]

I have yet to see that proven. It wasn't the case before the word came into use, it's not the case now. The idea itself will be dismissed

I have seen this exact thing play out in threads that happened without anyone using "mansplain," in threads that happened before the term was widely used or used at all here. I have seen women (me included!) say "Blah blah thing I know about because it happened to me," and been responded to with "Yahbut...." or even flat denials that the thing happened.

The conversations did not continue on an even keel.
posted by rtha at 2:26 PM on June 19, 2014 [13 favorites]

It sounds like you are requiring people to explain to an extremely fine degree precisely why, from a logical standpoint, they arrived at the position they hold. Is that correct?

Sort of.

I think showing why you think a certain thing matters more when you're talking to a diverse group than a narrower demographic, which shares all or most of your assumptions/training. It matters more (to me, assume that for each of these) when you're criticizing than when you're praising. It matters more if you have special reason to believe someone else may misinterpret you. It matters more if there is an audience that could benefit from knowing your thought processes. It matters more when criticizing people directly than when criticizing people who aren't present. It matter more when criticizing people who aren't famous, or paid to take the criticism, than when you criticize public figures etc.

So here in MeFi, in the context of a shitty thread spiraling out of control, I think you hit each of these items that say, to me, it's better to include some of your thought process whenever possible than to not. I don't think the thought process needs to be extremely well developed or detailed to be beneficial.

I'm very open to using a different phrase. I can see how it can carry a negative connotation. I think the concept is useful, minus any infantalizing or dismissiveness. The phrase itself has been commonly used in many other contexts without carrying all the extra weight of dismissing women's views, but it's clearly hitting a bad nerve.

I'm also open to not commenting any further in this thread. I like to respond to people who are talking directly to me, so, you know. This comment. But it is abundantly clear that to many, I'm overstaying my welcome and I don't think I have much else to contribute.
posted by jsturgill at 2:27 PM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Listening is a form of contribution.
posted by divabat at 2:39 PM on June 19, 2014 [8 favorites]

I felt so much better about so many troubling interactions once I learned that this is a thing that routinely happens to women. I was able to look back at countless situations I'd been in and realize "oh, that's what was happening!" whereas before I would worry myself in circles, thinking hmm, maybe I smiled/laughed/nodded too much? maybe my clothing wasn't severe enough? maybe i needed chunkier heels to raise my stature? maybe I needed different/better/more/less makeup? It never ends and nothing I did seemed to make much of a dent.

Exactly. I always thought it was because I was insufficiently informed, or too poor, or just stupid. Even when I had training in the subject and the man didn't, I assumed that someone talking in an authoritative way about something actually knew that of which they spoke. It was a deeply nasty shock to realize that no, apparently men just like talking down to women as if they've spent fifty years in research even if the first time they'd heard about it was when I brought it up.

Seriously, that is a terrible shock.
posted by winna at 2:39 PM on June 19, 2014 [19 favorites]

I have seen this exact thing play out in threads that happened without anyone using "mansplain," in threads that happened before the term was widely used or used at all here. I have seen women (me included!) say "Blah blah thing I know about because it happened to me," and been responded to with "Yahbut...." or even flat denials that the thing happened.

The conversations did not continue on an even keel.

You, The Male Internet Commenter, Read This Comment. Do You:

A) Demand a link to a specific conversation where this happened

B) Deny these conversations happened, or happened the way it says they did

C) Forget that you read it and restate your completely unchanged opinion

D) Say nothing and read and comprehend for once

CHOOSE WISELY
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:41 PM on June 19, 2014 [18 favorites]

"If people in this thread are going to say things like "folks, just listen to each other," then please listen to us men when we say that 'mansplaining' is infantilizing and dismissive. "You do not know what you are talking about, because you do not have the experience to know what you are talking about, so please just listen to those who do" may take longer to type, it may not have the emotional satisfaction of dismissing what someone is saying as 'mansplaining' does, but it does keep the discussion on a more even keel. Telling a man that he is mansplaining serves only to shut his ears to whatever else you have to say, because of how rude and dismissive it is. And you want--and your allies (which includes me) want--ears to be open, right?"

"You do not know what you are talking about, because you do not have the experience to know what you are talking about, so please just listen to those who do" is not synonymous with "mansplaining" and elides the gender aspect, as has been pointed out many, many, many times — even in this thread. Ergo, you're arguing that "keep[ing] the discussion on a more even keel" is more important than having a compact word that incorporates the gendered nature of the term.

This coincides with the general expectation that women will sacrifice their feelings in order to maintain comity.

And you don't speak for all men — I've been caught out on 'mansplaining' and it was a quick check of 'Oh yeah, I'm doing that thing.'

From this, I can conclude that you haven't actually listened to the prior responses to the objections over 'mansplaining,' or didn't consider them important, and personally feel aggrieved by it and are universalizing that feeling in an unsupportable way. If the goal of the conversation is purely to keep you, personally, engaged, then yes, someone may not want to use the word 'mansplaining' with you. But if the goal is to describe a pattern or communicate pithily the gendered phenomenon, then it's hard to see how your personal objections would outweigh that without giving your feelings undue deference.
posted by klangklangston at 2:43 PM on June 19, 2014 [27 favorites]

One thing I value about "mansplain" and its widespread usage is that it validates the idea that this really is a thing that happens a lot. It helps underscore the idea that mansplaining (especially about how to solve sexism) is a behavior that happens regularly and is worth calling out.

This, this, this, a million times over.

I think part of the disconnect between the pro- and anti-"mansplain" camps (sorry to break it down so coarsely, but you know what I mean) is that there seems to be this belief that once the concept/word is accepted, it'll immediately start being abused to tar garden-variety pedants and blowhards who just so happen to be men, that people will tend to see mansplaining where there is none.

The thing is...that's not really how things tend to run, in the real world. It's really, really easy, so easy to write off so much of everyday sexism as something you should've said or done differently, or as people being "old-fashioned" or "edgy", etc. FFFM's phrasing--of the "sexism that [women] swim in every day" is wonderfully appropriate--a lot of it is just invisible, just like water to a fish, until one day it clicks, what the actual reason is that your boss seems to feel free to interrupt you but waits for your male colleague to finish his thought. And even then, it's unpleasant, right? Contrary to what some in this thread seem to think, no one wants to see sexism everywhere. Sexism is depressing and disheartening and awful, and so much of the time it's so much easier to write off microaggressions to some other cause.

And so, yeah. I have to agree that I'm not really placing high priority on what allies, "allies", or outside observers think. What matters is that women have the tools to recognize and make sense of the sexism they encounter, and while I'm not a huge fan of "mansplain" (I think it sounds kind of too cutesy), it succeeds as a tool.
posted by kagredon at 2:45 PM on June 19, 2014 [25 favorites]

Telling a man that he is mansplaining serves only to shut his ears to whatever else you have to say, because of how rude and dismissive it is.

Speak for yourself d00d
posted by shakespeherian at 2:48 PM on June 19, 2014 [8 favorites]

The thing is...that's not really how things tend to run, in the real world. It's really, really easy, so easy to write off so much of everyday sexism as something you should've said or done differently, or as people being "old-fashioned" or "edgy", etc.

Which reminds me: The Everyday Sexism Project and its twitter feed are really, really good for showing A) what sexist behavior looks like, B) its effects on the women who deal with it, and C) how prevalent it is.

Sorry for commenting so much, but I was reminded of it by that two-word phrase there.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:52 PM on June 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

I definitely know men IRL and online who are totally fine with being called out on mansplaining.
posted by sweetkid at 2:53 PM on June 19, 2014

and I'm not willing to sacrifice that to make potential allies feel better.

First of all, I am not a 'potential' ally. I am on the side of equality for all. I guess what I'm saying is (quotation marks not indicated to quote you or change/dismiss/whatever your meaning, just to set my thoughts/how I saw your comment apart) "I am not going to stop saying something offensive just to make other people feel better" seems to me to be one of the #1 things that need to stop when men do them. Is that correct? (Yes, I know there is an oppressor/oppressed relationship here, and thus a major power imbalance, but it seems to me that saying things other people have indicated are offensive sort of flies in the face of the whole notion of social justice. We're all in this together, is what I'm saying, and the more all of us but especially men avoid saying offensive things, the closer we can all get to working together.)

It seems to me that saying things other people find offensive only alienates them--no matter which side you're on, and alienation doesn't solve problems. Again, I am not at all saying that women are responsible for coddling men. I am not at all saying that women should swallow the bullshit men spew. I am in total agreement (not that my agreement, as a man, is necessary to you at all) that women need to internalize "This is not my fault" and stand up for themselves. (There are many parallels here with the queer world, not least the concept of safety when standing up for yourself. I totally, believe me, understand that sometimes standing up for yourself is economically or physically a really bad idea, and therefore that nobody is to be blamed for not standing up for themselves all the time. The behaviour they're standing up against is what needs to stop.)

So how do I, as a man, support you with your goal of helping women to understand that it is no failure of theirs when a man refuses to listen/dismisses/etc? Again you don't need to educate me yourself, if you have a handy link that will help that would be great too. Or tell me it's not something I can support and I will move on to other feminist priorities that I can.

All I'm asking is: "How do I support the important thing you are doing? Can I even support it? Is that support welcome or should I move on to other things I can do?"

rtha, I get what you're saying. I'm just... divisive language is divisive language wherever it comes from, yeah? And less divisive language will, I hope, lead to more listening and less polarization and entrenchment.

klangklangston, your conclusions about me are incorrect, and all I can do is point to my response to rtha.

I am, in fact, allowed to have my own opinions about the word 'mansplaining' and those opinions are that it is generally a dismissive, infantilizing, and divisive word. You may feel differently, that's fine... but you're universalizing your experience in a way that you're telling me I'm doing, which is a form of hypocrisy that is very, very unlike you. It's easy to have a compact word that describes a concept without that word being divisive and dismissive. I'm not arguing against the utility of such a word, I'm arguing against its specific implementation. I have absolutely no expectation whatsoever that women should sacrifice their feelings.

I am speaking for myself, 'd00d', yet I am not alone in my opinion.

Once again, what I am saying is emphatically not that women should coddle men. I'm saying that using language that people have specifically called out as being offensive seems to me to be divisive. Which is the exact opposite of what I understand feminism in general to want.

Okay, so you know men who are totally fine with it. I'm not, and clearly other men are not either. I know queer men who are fine with being called a faggot, and queer men who aren't.

Whatever. I now understand much more what it is like to be a woman whose opinion is dismissed just because of the body form she happens to have. I'm walking away from this now because the entire original point I was trying to make--that plea of "Folks, let's all listen to each other"--is being ignored. And not by me.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:59 PM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

When my wife says I'm mansplaining I go 'Whoa, fuck, sorry.'

Three words.
posted by shakespeherian at 3:04 PM on June 19, 2014 [12 favorites]

CHOOSE WISELY

Whatever. I now understand much more what it is like to be a woman whose opinion is dismissed just because of the body form she happens to have.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:08 PM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

So how do I, as a man, support you with your goal of helping women to understand that it is no failure of theirs when a man refuses to listen/dismisses/etc?

not comparing the word that women use to describe that phenomenon to a slur is probably a good place to start
posted by kagredon at 3:09 PM on June 19, 2014 [16 favorites]

There are battles worth fighting. Fighting for one's right to use "mansplain" when it consistently torpedoes good conversations and turns them into huge derail-filled arguments, doesn't strike me as one of them.

So don't fight this battle. Other people clearly disagree with you and do think this matters enough to fight for - let them.

Okay, so you know men who are totally fine with it. I'm not, and clearly other men are not either. I know queer men who are fine with being called a faggot, and queer men who aren't.

Whereas I personally see it as more analogous to the whole kerfuffle that inevitably results (or resulted? am I feeling that optimistic?) from anyone using the term 'cis' (as in cisgender) than the term 'faggot'. It's not like there's a long history of men being beaten or killed by women screaming 'mansplain' at them (much like it's not exactly commonplace for cis people to get killed by trans people shouting 'cis') but there is something of a history of homophobic violence and oppression associated with the word 'faggot'.
posted by Dysk at 3:09 PM on June 19, 2014 [8 favorites]

I now understand much more what it is like to be a woman whose opinion is dismissed just because of the body form she happens to have.

Yeah because systemic exploitation and marginalization is JUST LIKE having a word made up to describe an oppressive behavior done by the group who benefits from that marginalization.

Saying repeatedly that you're on the right side doesn't make you an ally. Sorry. That's why we get to tell you you're shitty at it when you do shit like comparing "mansplain" to homophobic slurs.
posted by NoraReed at 3:10 PM on June 19, 2014 [18 favorites]

not comparing the word that women use to describe that phenomenon to a slur is probably a good place to start

I'm pretty sure that you don't get to define for me what I feel a slur is.

That's why we get to tell you you're shitty at it when you do shit like comparing "mansplain" to homophobic slurs.

As a gay man I can compare whatever I like to homophobic slurs. Again, you don't get to tell me what is and is not offensive any more than I get to tell women "Oh, that's not sexist."
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:13 PM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I forget who said it in which thread but folks who want to be allies need to do it this way:

Being an ally does not mean constantly interrogating the people you're trying to ally with to find out how to ally better. Being an ally means pushing back against all the assholes.
posted by shakespeherian at 3:13 PM on June 19, 2014 [13 favorites]

One thing I value about "mansplain" and its widespread usage is that it validates the idea that this really is a thing that happens a lot.

I can say that for me, that's absolutely the case. I would have never realized that it was "A Thing that Happens" as opposed to "weird thing my family does," without the word mansplain.

But you know, even if that wasn't the case, I feel like the harm caused by an aggressive description of what happens is way smaller than the harm caused by the thing itself. I feel like it's more productive to get upset that there has to be a word for it than by the aesthetics of the word that's been chosen.
posted by Gygesringtone at 3:14 PM on June 19, 2014 [12 favorites]

Wouldn't a slur also involve some sort of power dynamic? Which in this case doesn't really work with 'mansplain' because it's a word used by an oppressed class to describe the oppressor?
posted by divabat at 3:15 PM on June 19, 2014 [4 favorites]

Fffm, you always say that you are going to walk away and you rarely do
posted by futz at 3:15 PM on June 19, 2014

As a gay man I can compare whatever I like to homophobic slurs. Again, you don't get to tell me what is and is not offensive any more than I get to tell women "Oh, that's not sexist."

Let us know when you dig up all the instances of both systemic and individual uses of "mansplain" that were followed up by women taking away the rights of, physically attacking, and murdering the men who were being condescending douchenozzles when talking to them.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:17 PM on June 19, 2014 [14 favorites]

I definitely know men IRL and online who are totally fine with being called out on mansplaining.


*Raises hand*

Totally. I know I do it, I don't always know that I'm doing it. "You are mansplaining" is like "you are not doing your fair share of the housework" - it's a reminder that society has unfair expectations of men and women, and I'm as much a product of my society as anyone else.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:19 PM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

Is this entire mansplaining thing really just becoming a tone argument?
posted by inertia at 3:19 PM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

As a gay man I can compare whatever I like to homophobic slurs. Again, you don't get to tell me what is and is not offensive

As a queer woman who actually knows that the word "slur" implies a word that enforces marginalization and as someone who spent four years in college doing gender and queer studies, yeah, I kind of do get to tell you that.
posted by NoraReed at 3:20 PM on June 19, 2014 [12 favorites]

Is this entire mansplaining thing really just becoming a tone argument?

It was ever anything else?
posted by Dysk at 3:21 PM on June 19, 2014 [14 favorites]

As a gay man I can compare whatever I like to homophobic slurs.

Privilege is layered and highly context based.
posted by sweetkid at 3:27 PM on June 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

I was able to look back at countless situations I'd been in and realize "oh, that's what was happening!" whereas before I would worry myself in circles, thinking hmm,

Oh my god yes. I am 44 years old and have only realized this in the past decade or maybe half-decade.

I am so grateful, so happy, that my 15yo daughter (AND my 18yo son) are heading into adult life knowing full well that mansplaining is a thing, a thing that happens all the time, and it is complete bullshit.

I am so glad that my daughter is perfectly prepared to wave her hand in a guy's face and say "HEY!" to try to bring him back to earth--she's aware enough to recognize the bullshit NOW, rather than second-guessing herself for the next 20 years of her life.

I know this isn't a new contribution to the discussion here, just wanted to throw in a ME TOO and to note that this is something that has a non-trivial impact on a person's whole life and notion of self and manner of interacting with others. And also, that (from my observations at least) increased awareness of it is definitely leading to progress, at least with some of the youngsters.
posted by torticat at 3:42 PM on June 19, 2014 [19 favorites]

> "Folks, let's all listen to each other"

No. When it's this discussion, it should be "Men, let's all listen to the women."
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:42 PM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm not, and clearly other men are not either.

A lot of people are not okay with having their actions or words described as sexist or racist or homophobic or classist, either. A lot of people find those words divisive. And if I'm not okay with having my language policed to the extent that I can't describe the goddamn water I'm in, does that never outweigh someone else not being okay with me using terms they define as divisive?

At what point are we reduced to pointing and grunting in an effort to avoid causing any amount of not-okay to anyone, ever?
posted by rtha at 3:46 PM on June 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

divisive language is divisive language wherever it comes from, yeah?

Well, no, I don't think so - context is important, which is why the power imbalance that's acknowledged is actually crucial in considering the use of "mansplain."

As far as I can tell, part of the process of working towards social justice (or towards a more equitable society, if "social justice" is a phrase that pushes buttons) is that the dominant group needs to recognize that the non-dominant group has the right to explain how they experience the world, which includes having them participate in defining the terms of discussion and the use of language.

So when members of the non-dominant group (women, in this case) tell us that "mansplain" is a word that effectively and succinctly and accurately describes a set of gendered behaviors, it's our responsibility, as men (members of the dominant group) - if we genuinely want to participate in working towards a more equitable society - to consider that they have a valid point. And however much any of us men individually dislike the word (for whatever reasons), we need to acknowledge that the non-dominant group using the word "mansplain" is part of the process of participating in an equitable conversation.

tl:dr - men complaining about "mansplain" is sort of inherently "punching down", because men are the dominant group in this context, social & cultural power is on our side, and as such we will never have to experience being "mansplained" to.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:47 PM on June 19, 2014 [24 favorites]

" but you're universalizing your experience in a way that you're telling me I'm doing, which is a form of hypocrisy that is very, very unlike you."

No, I'm not. You said something made men feel a way; I pointed out that #notallmen.

You're allowed to have your own feelings. You've stated your feelings. Other people have stated their feelings, and the midpoint is that they're not going to stop using the word and you have to decide how much that matters to you.

Sometimes you get a fair hearing but other people still disagree. You find the word alienating; you can either work to get over that or be alienated. I think the former is the healthier choice, and in the long run the one that will make you happier. But I don't believe that this is a situation where if you just explain yourself more thoroughly or forcefully then people will agree with you or stop saying 'mansplain.' Since that seems to be the situation, what would you like to do going forward?
posted by klangklangston at 3:56 PM on June 19, 2014 [8 favorites]

I feel bad about using jsturgill as an example, but the pit he dug himself into here seems to be a really common one, maybe even especially for men who want to be allies or think of themselves as allies.

Here he sounds like he's really trying!

If you can help me understand better what I've done to dismiss your feelings and mansplain, I'd appreciate it. If you can't take the time to tell me, I understand.

But a mere two comments later it becomes clear that, regardless of the spirit in which that previous comment was made, whether in good faith or bad, the result (if not the purpose) of asking for this clarification was to call the clarifying responses into question as mere "misinterpretation of my actual statements...twisting them into sins of commission."

That second comment is, of course, another example of exactly the behavior he was trying to deny. And this is from someone who, at least momentarily, was talking the talk of being a good ally!

Here's something that might be going unspoken: as a man in our society -- as anyone in our society! -- it is extremely unlikely that you are actually, 100% free of misogynist attitudes or behaviors. Nearly completely impossible. Even if, down the road, you become someone who manages to avoid such a well-trod path as the one you just went down, in all likelihood you will every once in a while be surprised to find you've said or done something at least mildly sexist, and probably worse. No one's free. Recognizing this, recognizing that the best you can ever hope to do is to be mindful when it occurs, to keep yourself as far down the sexism spectrum as possible, will make your life as an ally much, much easier.

You don't have to defend yourself from accusations of sexism as though they were attacks on your very core of personhood. You don't need to come at this from an assumption that if your words or behavior were taken to demonstrate some amount of sexism that means it must have been a "misinterpretation" or "twisting" of the true innocent thing you obviously meant (rationalizing backwards from a starting assumption that deep down you're obviously no sexist). All that energy spent defending your supposedly non-sexist self can be put toward keeping the sexism culture has imposed on you since birth more safely at bay. And, if you're up for it, helping others do the same.
posted by nobody at 4:58 PM on June 19, 2014 [16 favorites]

"Here's something that might be going unspoken: as a man in our society -- as anyone in our society! -- it is extremely unlikely that you are actually, 100% free of misogynist attitudes or behaviors."

pretty sure orb of minwu removes sexism debuff
posted by klangklangston at 5:16 PM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

No, that old thing just whispers "It might not be your fault, but you can do better."
posted by nobody at 5:21 PM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

SUGGESTION that is somewhat off to the side of the current discussion:

I have recently been involved in a couple of meat-space discussions of how to improve public discussion on a particular topic so it's less angry and fraught.

My observation has been that an open discussion of the issues turns into a (very important) airing of grievances, and helps us all identify the problems, but does not move towards solutions. The next step that usually has to happen is for one person or a small group of people to take ownership of 1) summarizing the primary problems; 2) summarizing suggested solutions; 3) drafting a set of suggested guidelines; and 4) highlighting major areas of continuing friction. Then there is a second discussion of the summary and suggestions.

If there are participants in this thread who would like to take a crack at that, I would be happy to facilitate it, having done it multiple times. (I do not want to actually DO it, as I have lost my place in this thread several times, but I will happily facilitate.)

Obviously this would not be to create rules for MetaFilter, which is the mods' job, but there have been many problems identified and solutions suggested in this general airing of grievances thread, it might be worthwhile for a couple of committed people to work through the thread and pull those out, then post a new MetaTalk with a tighter focus of "Here are some specific things that people could keep in mind that might help, let's discuss these specific ideas." In my experience, that will lead to a more fruitful conversation about the solutions. (This has been a very fruitful conversation about the problems, but it is difficult to discuss solutions and improvement in the "problems" discussion.)

If you would be interested, please memail me, and if there's enough interest, I'll facilitate if you would like me to.

/END SUGGESTION
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:33 PM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yeah, but when someone twists my words (admittedly made as a dumb throwaway) to say I called women cockroaches is kind of deserving of a fuck you, but we have to be more subtle here. But sorry for more noise.

I know the thread has moved on, but I've now spent about four of the last nine hours thinking about this, so I thought I would explain: I don't think you actually think women are cockroaches or were making some kind of coded comparison. I thought you made a stupid and out-of-place joke at the end of a long and uncomfortable thread in which everyone else was trying to still have a serious non-joking conversation, which I was following with interest, and I commented on the one aspect of it that I thought was particularly poorly thought out. It was annoying to me to have you come in and want to start making dumb jokes about the term mansplaining when it was very clearly still a live wire that was very touchy for the majority of people having a conversation, and the thing I found most annoying was that you had clearly not thought about the A:B as C:D element of the joke's construction and tried to imagine more than one of its possible interpretations and how it might be received.

That was my interpretation of your comment, and the fact that you call it an "admittedly...dumb throwaway" confirms that it was the correct interpretation: you didn't really think about it or consider it, you just wanted to make a joke. You also wanted me to spend more time coming up with a charitable interpretation for it than you did writing it. I don't feel any obligation to give a stupid joke more than the four minutes of consideration I've already given it, and frankly four minutes is about two minutes too many.

I would say I delete about 30% of the comments I type on this entire website (not just Metatalk, all of Metafilter and the subsites). I rewrite about half of the comments I ultimately post, in some substantial way, and almost all of them in some minor way. It doesn't take me very long to do any of this. I rarely spend more than 10 or 15 minutes on any particular comment, and that's if I'm trying to find links or something. One of the reasons I delete comments is because I think about the joke I'm trying to make and either feel that a) the conversation isn't really at a place for that type of joke or b) the joke could be misinterpreted as making fun of a group I'm not part of or c) I haven't been clear enough about my actual personal thoughts and positions on the topic of conversation, and because of that, the joke might sound mean-spirited when it isn't. I do this because a) I don't want to hurt anyone, even inadvertently and even a little and b) because my stupid throwaway jokes aren't that important.

I wish more people (literally, many more people than just you, plantesimal, you just happened to do it today) would take more time in that way to consider if they really need to add their dumb throwaway jokes to threads.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 6:25 PM on June 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

You know, when I saw that "you assholes" rant up there I knew things were going to go sideways but this is genuinely not where I thought they'd end up.

Quite some time ago, fffm, I was talking to hal_c_on about how tricky it is managing intersectional allyship, especially with difficult terminology (in that case, the word "ally".) The only solution I've found is to develop a thicker skin when it comes to complaints people make about dimensions where I'm the more privileged one (e.g. my identity as a cis woman or as a white woman or another half-dozen aspects of my own privilege). When people who are less privileged than I am on a particular axis complain, even in seriously pejorative language, about the behavior of people who share my privilege, it's not about me unless I make it about me, in which case I am part of the problem, so I should take what I've earned.
posted by gingerest at 6:47 PM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

So don't fight this battle. Other people clearly disagree with you and do think this matters enough to fight for - let them.

I'm not speaking for Zarq, because he's left the thread and I'm not clear on precisely why he felt this battle wasn't worth fighting. But to the extent his objection was strictly to the issue of derailment, "let them fight" is not a solution. The fight ends up taking over the room. People can have separate conversations on MetaFilter, but without threading it becomes impracticable in busy threads, which these are.

This is a problem for people who don't especially care about the word mansplain. The moderators usually chide people about the derail, but people ignore them and participate anyway. Side A says it'll stop when Side B quits using the word, and Side B says it'll stop when Side A quits objecting. There are enough people on each side that bannings or deletions would be a break from policy. So everyone else is stuck with this reality: in sexism threads, there is a non-zero chance the actual topic will be shoved aside to argue about the word mansplain.

That kinda sucks. It's uncharacteristic on a site where we have a derail flag. If you care about the word then it's fine to disagree that this condition sucks, but you should be able to understand the objection and why "let it happen" might be reality but it's not a solution.
posted by cribcage at 7:06 PM on June 19, 2014

As a queer woman who actually knows that the word "slur" implies a word that enforces marginalization and as someone who spent four years in college doing gender and queer studies, yeah, I kind of do get to tell you that.

No, sorry, you don't get to devalue my lived experience.

Unless I get to devalue yours...?

I thought not.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:17 PM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

First of all, I am not a 'potential' ally.

I'm late returning to this thread, but I'm sorry fffm, it says a lot to me that you chose to engage only this particular incidental point within my broader comment about how the phenomenon of mansplaining impacts women, their self-confidence, and their sense of accomplishment in their lives and careers.

Are you sincerely arguing that it's more important not to hurt the feelings of "allies" when talking about sexism than to help women understand and move beyond the patterns of sexism that structure their entire lives?

I put 'allies' in quotes because I agree with much-earlier commenters that ally who will turn against your cause over a single word they don't feel comfortable with is not actually an ally.
posted by dialetheia at 7:32 PM on June 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

So everyone else is stuck with this reality: in sexism threads, there is a non-zero chance the actual topic will be shoved aside to argue about the word mansplain.

Well, this is MetaTalk, where the bar is higher for deletions, and this discussion has lurched all over the shop. On MetaFilter, the easiest thing to do would just be to have a policy of deleting derails in which people complain about the use of the word "mansplain", with an instruction to start a MeTa. I'd be OK with that - MetaTalk seems to average about a thread a year about "mansplain", and in each one it turns out that there is no critical mass of people objecting to it.
posted by running order squabble fest at 7:46 PM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

"When people who are less privileged than I am on a particular axis complain, even in seriously pejorative language, about the behavior of people who share my privilege, it's not about me unless I make it about me, in which case I am part of the problem, so I should take what I've earned."

Even when it is about me, I try to roll with it. I mean, I'm not great at that, but fer example, I made some image about Oregon and marriage for my org, and riffed on Oregon Trail. A lot of people loved it, it got shared a lot, but we got called out by a few Native American activists over it, including a 2500-word essay on exactly how it was an example of systemic racism against Native Americans and African Americans, and the deliberate attempts to erase them from history. They were wrong about a lot of stuff — most notably, they assumed that this was part of an actual pre-planned campaign and that the imagery and wording had been chosen with a lot of forethought, instead of something dashed off in half an hour largely selected because two-thirds of the other ideas were "beaver" jokes.

But you know what? Thinking about it, a lot of their complaints about the game — that it forced a colonialist perspective on the player — were right, and I can see how that image wouldn't be a fun childhood memory for them. Knowing what I know about how the image did versus the backlash that we got, would I do it again? Yeah, probably. But it's definitely something I'm more cognizant of going forward and it was a blind spot I had.

The people criticizing me don't know me, don't know what I'm like, and a lot of the public criticism I take is kind of unfair. But so what? It doesn't really cost me anything to let those folks have their say. I've thought about writing up a response, but it seems like a lot of work just to tell someone that nailed me on a couple of fair points overreached in others. It's not going to make their life better; it's unlikely to make my life better either.
posted by klangklangston at 8:16 PM on June 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

That's a really good point, that it's also so hard but so important to accept that sometimes it really is about me, and that I am just as susceptible as anyone else to thinking meaning well and having good intentions are magical talismans against fucking up and doing or being or assuming something oppressive.
posted by gingerest at 8:22 PM on June 19, 2014 [3 favorites]

Sometimes it's a fair cop. Like, a couple weeks back, my girlfriend was complaining that she didn't like going to our mechanics because she felt they were condescending and jerky to her, and I started off with something like, "Well, they've never been that way to me…" and she just looked at me it was like, "Oh, yeah."
posted by klangklangston at 8:28 PM on June 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

Side B says it'll stop when Side A quits objecting.

As a woman who uses the word "mansplain" when I feel it's appropriate, this statement inaccurately characterizes something I said upthread. I will not stop using the term when people stop objecting. I'll stop using the term when I don't need to talk about mansplaining any more.
posted by immlass at 8:38 PM on June 19, 2014 [15 favorites]

Are you sincerely arguing that it's more important not to hurt the feelings of "allies" when talking about sexism than to help women understand and move beyond the patterns of sexism that structure their entire lives?


No, and it's just as interesting that you ignored all my commentary about that.

"Folks listen to each other," indeed.

I will not stop using the term when people stop objecting

Again, continuing to use language that some people have told you is offensive to them is offensive in the same way that men using sexist language is offensive after being told to cut it out.

But I'm a man, so clearly I'm mansplaining, and not one fucking thing I ever do will ever be good enough to satisfy a feminist. That is the message you are sending.

Here's the bottom line: divisive, insulting, demeaning language is not limited by gender. It's either OK or Not-OK to use such language. Pick one. You don't--and this applies to every oppressed group (of which I am at least two so don't even start)--get to say "It's not okay for you to use offensive language but it's perfectly fine for me to."

Or for a truly feminist perspective (as in one that comes from a woman since the consensus here seems to be that men can't be feminists), which is where I am coming from and was informed a great deal by as a teenager, look at Starhawk's thoughts about power-with vs power-over.

Which one do you think is more powerful and progressive in the long term?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:54 PM on June 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Which one do you think is more powerful and progressive in the long term?

Which one what? And how are you getting "the consensus here seems to be that men can't be feminists"?

And this:
It's either OK or Not-OK to use such language. Pick one.

seems to contradict:
I know queer men who are fine with being called a faggot, and queer men who aren't.

And you're still missing the major point about context and structural implications and reclamation and power dynamics.
posted by divabat at 9:00 PM on June 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

I think it's really powerful and progressive that something I've noticed my entire life has a name and a sociological/historical basis behind it. So much of what's drawn me to progressive causes of all kinds is the feeling that "something's WRONG here" rather than some sort of forced indoctrination or wanting to be cool or hip or popular. It was just a deep feeling of wrongness and I honestly feel catharsis getting to identify things like mansplaining and identify allies and share experiences. It's not this dark, sad thing. It's really great.

But people who come in and insist we're somehow really bigots is a bummer.
posted by sweetkid at 9:06 PM on June 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

Seriously, fffm, what's going on with you? I feel like you're generally someone I respect, and you kind of seem to be going off the deep end here. Are you having a really bad day or something? Because yeah, informing us all what a "truly feminist" perspective looks like does feel like the phenomenon that is described with the term "mansplaining."
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:11 PM on June 19, 2014 [12 favorites]

Again, continuing to use language that some people have told you is offensive to them is offensive in the same way that men using sexist language is offensive after being told to cut it out.

No, what is offensive are dumb and poorly thought out comparisons like this. Those are not the same thing for all the reasons of history and structural power and so on.

But I'm a man, so clearly I'm mansplaining, and not one fucking thing I ever do will ever be good enough to satisfy a feminist. That is the message you are sending.

No one has said this -- it's your issue and your anger, not some crazy feminist attack.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:11 PM on June 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

Starhawk's thoughts about power-with vs power-over.

I'm not convinced that a man, even a feminist, who tells me that I can't use a word that explains a lot of things that have happened to me in my life because it offends him, is practicing power-with instead of power-over. And I read The Spiral Dance when I was in college, in the original edition.
posted by immlass at 9:13 PM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

divabat, the faggot thing was in direct response to (paraphrase) "well I know a guy who is fine with mansplaining as a word so therefore it's okay," which is a sentence construction no feminist anywhere would accept were the genders reversed.

If your reclamation and power dynamics rely on divisive, insulting language, perhaps it's time to rethink how you're doing it. And please, for the love of whatever matters to you, don't lecture me on the importance of context. Again. Queer man. I know how much context means.

Sweetkid, why can't that name be not-insulting?

tl;dr: Look at the difference between MLK Jr and Malcolm X and tell me who was more successful at getting their message across?

informing us all what a "truly feminist" perspective looks like does feel like the phenomenon that is described with the term "mansplaining."

I should have included quote marks. Point being, there probably isn't anyone who can challenge Starhawk on her feminist cred. Again: power-with, or power-over. Inclusiveness vs divisiveness. Which one is more powerful long-term?

No, what is offensive are dumb and poorly thought out comparisons like this. Those are not the same thing for all the reasons of history and structural power and so on.

No, what is offensive is feminists saying it's okay for them to use language that people have explicitly told them is offensive while saying that men are not allowed to do the same. We're either playing by the same rules--respect each other--or we're not. Which is it?


I'm not convinced that a man, even a feminist, who tells me that I can't use a word that explains a lot of things that have happened to me in my life because it offends him, is practicing power-with instead of power-over. And I read The Spiral Dance when I was in college, in the original edition.

Is there a reason why that word has to be offensive? Is there?

I've read both the original and 10th (was it 10th?) editions. Are we having a contest?

Nobody but nobody gets to tell me what I'm allowed to be offended by, unless I get to tell you what you're allowed to be offended by. End of story there. That's the point of equality.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:17 PM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Doubling down on what you've already been told--by more than one person--is offensive language is the sort of thing that gets other people a timeout.

I'm going to bed. Clearly not a single person here is interested in 'reaching across the aisle,' so to speak. I'm on your side. You're welcome to think I'm not, but you would be completely wrong.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:23 PM on June 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

Look at the difference between MLK Jr and Malcolm X and tell me who was more successful at getting their message across?

They were both very successful. So was Nelson Mandela, who famously said, “The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices – submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom.”

Not all of us agree that nonviolent communication is the be-all and end-all.
posted by gingerest at 9:23 PM on June 19, 2014 [14 favorites]

Again. Queer man. I know how much context means.

So the perspective of queer women - and I am not the first of this kind to say this to you - doesn't matter then? Because it really doesn't seem like you get context. Actually you rather remind me of someone I knew who claimed that "the most oppressed person is the gay man" - missing the irony of a gay white middle-class Australian-born man with his own business telling this to a queer non-White female immigrant who was having a hell of a time trying to find a job.

Your sexual orientation doesn't erase your gender privilege, much like the fact that I am somewhat more privileged class-wise than many others is not erased by all the other ways in which I am marginalised.

there probably isn't anyone who can challenge Starhawk on her feminist cred

I did try to google "Starhawk" and "mansplaining" to see if she had actually said anything on the matter, and didn't find anything immediate - but there's no such thing as a person who is free from problems or criticism. I'm sure there's plenty to critique about Starhawk even from other feminists.

Here's a comparison that might make more sense to you, since you bring up your sexual orientation a lot as though it explains everything: this is like straight people complaining that being called "Straight" is offensive. (Something I have actually heard.)

And you still haven't addressed previous comments of whether men actually stand to lose their jobs/livelihoods/lives through "mansplaining".
posted by divabat at 9:24 PM on June 19, 2014 [9 favorites]

Is there a reason why that word has to be offensive? Is there?

If you called someone out for saying something homophobic and they complained that that's an offensive and divisive word, you would light them on (metaphorical and rhetorical) fire. I've seen you do this! And yet.
posted by rtha at 9:24 PM on June 19, 2014 [17 favorites]

this is like straight people complaining that being called "Straight" is offensive. '

Yep.

FFFM, it doesn't feel like you're on our side because you're not listening to us.
posted by sweetkid at 9:25 PM on June 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

I'm on your side. You're welcome to think I'm not, but you would be completely wrong.

See, people who actually make effective allies spend more time proving they're effective allies - which includes accepting criticism gracefully - rather than claiming that the only reason we're not acknowledging that is because we're wrong somehow.
posted by divabat at 9:25 PM on June 19, 2014 [10 favorites]

I've read both the original and 10th (was it 10th?) editions. Are we having a contest?

You're appealing to authority because your comments are not being received in the manner in which you would like. I've read a lot of pagan feminist thought and I read Starhawk differently to you. Or, more likely, I read your actions differently to you.
posted by immlass at 9:26 PM on June 19, 2014

It's nice that folks are at least taking turns now in telling women at length over several comments that they are wrong.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:32 PM on June 19, 2014 [16 favorites]

The thing is, for all that it hurts (some) men's feelings to hear/read the term "mansplain" or even, $DEITY forbid, to be accused of mansplaining, I'm convinced it's not as aggravating as enduring a lifetime of being actually mansplained to, never mind being told you have to reinvent the wheel and "prove" that such a thing actually happens to a dubious and hostile audience every time it happens, never mind that it just happened to you.
posted by immlass at 9:38 PM on June 19, 2014 [19 favorites]

Feck, this pattern of yours: being chummy and can't we all get along, then taking offence and doubling down and then taking your ball and going home is tiring.

You are also the king of "cite" "explain yourself" and "show your work" comments. None of those tactics are condusive to a productive conversation. I get that you think you mean well and I think you do but you have some major flaws in your statements.
posted by futz at 9:41 PM on June 19, 2014 [7 favorites]

immlass: "You're appealing to authority because your comments are not being received in the manner in which you would like. I've read a lot of pagan feminist thought and I read Starhawk differently to you. Or, more likely, I read your actions differently to you."

To be fair, or possibly generous, to fffm, NoraReed did bring her credentials to the table first, when she responded to his insistence that "mansplaining" is a slur.

I know you've gone to bed, fffm, but I want to underscore that I don't disagree with you because of the shape of your body (which I do not know! for all I know, you are a brain in a jar) but because I think your argument is wrong. "Mansplain" is clearly a problematic word but it describes a real behavior that oppresses women. But the only men it describes are men who engage in that behavior. Those men are bringing much more violence to the table than I am in labeling their violence. Take it up with them and leave me the fuck alone. Moreover, not every goddamn feminist is a pacifist, just as not every gay rights activist is. STARHAWK DOES NOT SPEAK FOR ME.
posted by gingerest at 9:47 PM on June 19, 2014 [11 favorites]

feckless fecal fear mongering: "Look at the difference between MLK Jr and Malcolm X and tell me who was more successful at getting their message across?"

Malcolm X. By far.

I am not trying to pile on - we are all on the same side here, but we can have disagreements about the operational details of how to we can get to our goal, and this detail is important: Malcolm X was a purer, more striking, much more direct communicator. MLK was easier to sanitize - he did most of the work himself, since a man with such a personal life had to engage in some sanitizing to be a public figure - but Malcolm X much more fully represents the American experience and the African-American experience, I think, even with all his contradictions.

"As surely as 2008 was made possible by black people’s long fight to be publicly American, it was also made possible by those same Americans’ long fight to be publicly black. That latter fight belongs especially to one man, as does the sight of a first family bearing an African name. Barack Obama is the president. But it’s Malcolm X’s America."
posted by koeselitz at 11:35 PM on June 19, 2014 [5 favorites]

(Another way to put it would be to say: MLK was reviled and treated with contempt by the white public during his lifetime, straight up through and including the president of the United States; his martyrdom makes us forget that, but it shouldn't. Malcolm X was at sometimes hated, sometimes feared, but at least often respected, if only with the kind of grudging respect inspired by firm opposition.)
posted by koeselitz at 11:42 PM on June 19, 2014

If zarq, jsturgill or fecklessfecalfearmongering are still reading this thread, or maybe when you come back to it later, I just want you to know that I feel your frustration.

This isn't really about mansplaining--you all get that, right? You didn't do anything wrong.

There was just no way you were going to be heard, no concessions that would be made no matter what you did or said, how rationally or politely you asked. The people you are up against just HAVE to win at the internet.

These are the people who will tell you that the words you use are offensive and you should stop using them, while coining, claiming and refusing to let go of their own arsenal of patronizing and insulting slurs. The standard doesn't apply to them, you see, because they are 'oppressed'. Which, on Metailfter, just means someone has dared to disagree with something they've said but cannot rationally defend. Nothing is acceptable to them but you agreeing that you are 100% wrong (for whatever they decide to accuse you of, which is anything from being 'weird' or worked up to, apparently, suddenly turning into a rape apologist?!).

They call themselves feminists, but the 'feminists' arguing with you in this thread are the same petty people you will find at the very end of any of these confrontational feminist threads commiserating over how tired they are of dealing with all the misogyny on Metafilter--because they see everything as misogynist.

Of course, none of them actually achieves anything against sexism or for women here, since they just chase away any potential allies and then claim they weren't allies anyway. But they feel good about themselves because they all read the same feminist blogs and so they all agree with each other that they are fighting the good fight when they spend 1000 comments complaining no one ever lets them have their voice. It is really just a bonding exercise for them; you were never welcome to this party anyway, simply by virtue of your sex. Only by agreeing with them that all men are basically worthless will you ever be grudgingly accepted into their midst.

As an honest feminist who enjoys rational discourse and the company of men, I am sorry you got caught in the man-bashing crossfire. But don't worry, I will tell you how it ends so you don't feel left out. They end each thread the same way, anyway--by telling sad stories about how various men have oppressed (really, just annoyed) them, then giving each other verbal high fives and congratulations for somehow plodding onward and winning on the internet. Then they eagerly await the next chance they have to bond over their shared annoyance at all those sexist men who tried to get the better of them on Metafilter. -Fin-
posted by misha at 12:31 AM on June 20, 2014 [8 favorites]

"But I'm a man, so clearly I'm mansplaining, and not one fucking thing I ever do will ever be good enough to satisfy a feminist. That is the message you are sending."

How about you're mansplaining and being kinda a jerk about it?

"Here's the bottom line: divisive, insulting, demeaning language is not limited by gender. It's either OK or Not-OK to use such language. Pick one. You don't--and this applies to every oppressed group (of which I am at least two so don't even start)--get to say "It's not okay for you to use offensive language but it's perfectly fine for me to.""

Dude, you don't even believe this! You're just het up about feeling like you're not being treated fairly and it's making you act like an asshole toward women out of some weird insistence on platonic equality divorced from context because it hurts your feelings.

"Or for a truly feminist perspective (as in one that comes from a woman since the consensus here seems to be that men can't be feminists), which is where I am coming from and was informed a great deal by as a teenager,"

Jeez, man, "Step back, ladies, I've got a truly feminist perspective because I read a book on it as a teenager!" That shit works for explaining a deep knowledge of Xanth geography, but not for lecturing women about feminism.

Think it through again. Why does the term offend you? Because you're feeling like it denigrates you as part of a class ("men")? But that's not how it's being used, and removing the part that offends you would also obscure the gendered nature of the phenomenon. I haven't read Starhawk — do they talk about why the movement is "feminism" not "humanism"? It's pretty much why it's not "humansplain," it's "mansplain."

If you don't like "mansplain" then don't use it. But don't try to lump it in as a slur or demand that your distaste dictate usage here.
posted by klangklangston at 12:33 AM on June 20, 2014 [9 favorites]

> I will not stop using the term when people stop objecting. I'll stop using the term when I don't need to talk about mansplaining any more.

If I read it right, the 'it' in 'Side B says it'll stop when Side A quits objecting' refers to the derails about the word 'mansplaining', not the usage of the word 'mansplaining' itself.
But I could be wrong. It's been known to happen.

(No one but me probably cares about this. Don't mind me, I just like to untangle knots.)
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:02 AM on June 20, 2014

"There was just no way you were going to be heard, no concessions that would be made no matter what you did or said, how rationally or politely you asked. The people you are up against just HAVE to win at the internet."

Misha, it's hard to take you seriously when you post things like this. You were upthread complaining that people are dismissive and condescending, but this is an incredibly bad faith argument and you should have been able to see that when you wrote it. It engages in none of the substance of the claims and proclaims ulterior motivation — it's the rhetorical version of throwing the controller across the room while yelling, "The game cheats!"

"These are the people who will tell you that the words you use are offensive and you should stop using them, while coining, claiming and refusing to let go of their own arsenal of patronizing and insulting slurs."

People have pretty amply explained that context and power matters — fffm was already acknowledging that with the homophobic slurs. Are you not acknowledging that because you didn't read it, because you disagree with it, what? Because this argument has come up multiple times and it's nonsense. "Mansplaining" is not a slur in any meaningful sense of the term — it's dishonest to try to position it as one.

"The standard doesn't apply to them, you see, because they are 'oppressed'."

Not me, chief! Straight cis white male here! Just pointing out that you're making both an ad hominem attack and an inaccurate one at that.

"Which, on Metailfter, just means someone has dared to disagree with something they've said but cannot rationally defend."

… You know that this thread is full of rational disagreement, right? Like, pretty clearly stated premises and coherent reasoning? This does not feel like you're actually engaging with those arguments.

"Nothing is acceptable to them but you agreeing that you are 100% wrong (for whatever they decide to accuse you of, which is anything from being 'weird' or worked up to, apparently, suddenly turning into a rape apologist?!)."

The framing of this is odd, since the position that fffm and others are taking is that women shouldn't say "mansplain" because it belittles men. The only way your framing makes sense is if there were calls for fffm to embrace the word, which there aren't. Women are just saying that they're not going to stop just because fffm et al. are upset. So, they're denying a positive request, not demanding a negative admission. I mean, I'm not the Ladies Lorax or anything, but it seems weird — yep, weird — to argue that they're looking for a statement "agreeing that you are 100% wrong" rather than just saying "No" to a request/demand.

"They call themselves feminists, but the 'feminists' arguing with you in this thread are the same petty people you will find at the very end of any of these confrontational feminist threads commiserating over how tired they are of dealing with all the misogyny on Metafilter--because they see everything as misogynist. "

Again, I'm not gonna speak for other people here, but that doesn't seem accurate at all. More like, they see mansplaining as misogynist/sexist and attempts to assert the authority of male feelings over the utility of describing their lived experience are only going to reinforce that perception. But just to mention one putative malingerer, rtha and I have talked about plenty of things that she hasn't seen as misogynist. Even things that men have done in relation to women! I mean, sexism is pretty pervasive, but this just seems like you continuing to make a bad faith representation of other party's participation.

"Of course, none of them actually achieves anything against sexism or for women here, since they just chase away any potential allies and then claim they weren't allies anyway."

I don't think that claim holds any water at all, speaking specifically about changes to culture here. In fact, when similar sentiments come up, I regularly see women talking about how much better things are now that some of the boyzone is tamped down. As for "chasing away potential allies," that also seems like a pretty dubious assertion, especially when one of the regular features of threads like this is guys talking about how talking on MeFi has helped them be better allies.

"But they feel good about themselves because they all read the same feminist blogs and so they all agree with each other that they are fighting the good fight when they spend 1000 comments complaining no one ever lets them have their voice."

Again, this doesn't feel like anything that's supported here, Misha. I read a couple feminist blogs, but not regularly. Most of the blogs I read are either about gay rights for work or about baseball. And I'm not sure that 1000 comments on MeFi at the bottom of sexism threads supports anything about having a voice one way or another.

"It is really just a bonding exercise for them; you were never welcome to this party anyway, simply by virtue of your sex."

I'm kind of going out of my way to not be nasty back to you, Misha, but this sounds pretty absurd to me, you know, being a dude and all and not feeling at all unwelcome. And it's not like I haven't argued with pretty much all of them about something in the broad social justice realm at one point or another.

"As an honest feminist who enjoys rational discourse and the company of men"

You've been making bad faith arguments and ad hominem attacks. That's hardly an "honest feminist who enjoys rational discourse." I'll take you at your word on the company of men thing.

"But don't worry, I will tell you how it ends so you don't feel left out. They end each thread the same way, anyway--by telling sad stories about how various men have oppressed (really, just annoyed) them, then giving each other verbal high fives and congratulations for somehow plodding onward and winning on the internet."

This doesn't feel like it's based on actual experience of reading any of these threads. Can you provide actual examples of this?

"Then they eagerly await the next chance they have to bond over their shared annoyance at all those sexist men who tried to get the better of them on Metafilter. -Fin-"

I think you might have a better time if you actually engaged with what people wrote rather than creating a fantasy feminist clique to put your baggage on.

"I'm tired of all the infantilization, sarcasm and contempt."

That's what you wrote way upthread, so I tried to treat your comment seriously. But the type of comment you posted is full of sarcasm and contempt, as well as bad faith argumentation and just plain baseless assertions. People don't take you seriously because they don't think you're worth their time. Comments like your previous one don't encourage changing that.
posted by klangklangston at 1:20 AM on June 20, 2014 [38 favorites]

It's either OK or Not-OK to use such language. Pick one.

Hard-and-fast rules-lawyerly context-doesn't-matter cast-iron rules like that is not how MetaFilter works.


Of course, none of them actually achieves anything against sexism or for women here, since they just chase away any potential allies and then claim they weren't allies anyway. But they feel good about themselves because they all read the same feminist blogs and so they all agree with each other that they are fighting the good fight when they spend 1000 comments complaining no one ever lets them have their voice.

Wow, torrent of ad hominems. Needless to say your imagined boogeyman does not represent all of us in any meaningful way.
posted by Dysk at 1:27 AM on June 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

"As a queer woman who actually knows that the word "slur" implies a word that enforces marginalization and as someone who spent four years in college doing gender and queer studies, yeah, I kind of do get to tell you that."

No, sorry, you don't get to devalue my lived experience.

...unless you have a lived experience of having been subject to enforced marginalisation due to your maleness, with the word 'mansplain' having been closely associated with that, you're not actually addressing the point raised, and nor is anyone devaluing your lived experience.
posted by Dysk at 1:30 AM on June 20, 2014 [7 favorites]

ad feminems
posted by Wolof at 1:31 AM on June 20, 2014 [9 favorites]

I can't believe I read the whole thing!

One thing that hasn't come up in this thread is that it seems to be fairly well established that there are differences in how people approach problems and discussions. This sounds a bit 'Men are from Mars...' and I am having trouble finding any actual research into the phenomenon, but nonetheless it appears to be a thing which rings true generally in my experience. A lot of what I am finding is in regards to relationship counseling, but I think it is fairly relevant.

Men and women approach problems with similar goals but with different considerations. While men and women can solve problems equally well, their approach and their process are often quit (sic) different. For most women, sharing and discussing a problem presents an opportunity to explore, deepen or strengthen the relationship with the person they are talking with. Woman are usually more concerned about how problems are solved than merely solving the problem itself. For women, solving a problem can profoundly impact whether they feel closer and less alone or whether they feel distant and less connected. The process of solving a problem can strengthen or weaken a relationship. Most men are less concerned and do not feel the same as women when solving a problem.

Men approach problems in a very different manner than women. For most men, solving a problem presents an opportunity to demonstrate their competence, their strength of resolve, and their commitment to a relationship. How the problem is solved is not nearly as important as solving it effectively and in the best possible manner. Men have a tendency to dominate and to assume authority in a problem solving process. They set aside their feelings provided the dominance hierarchy was agreed upon in advance and respected. They are often distracted and do not attend well to the quality of the relationship while solving problems.

Some of the more important differences can be illustrated by observing groups of young teenage boys and groups of young teenage girls when they attempt to find their way out of a maze. A group of boys generally establish a hierarchy or chain of command with a leader who emerges on his own or through demonstrations of ability and power. Boys explore the maze using scouts while remaining in distant proximity to each other. Groups of girls tend to explore the maze together as a group without establishing a clear or dominant leader. Relationships tends to be co-equal. Girls tend to elicit discussion and employ "collective intelligence" to the task of discovering a way out. Girls tend to work their way through the maze as a group. Boys tend to search and explore using structured links and a chain of command.

Some of the behaviours associated with 'mansplaining' could simply be differences in the way problems are dealt with.
One of my friends was saying the other day that her husband thinks he can 'win' any argument just by presenting facts, which might seem on the face of it to be a logical position. However, there is more to life than 'just the facts, ma'am'.
posted by asok at 2:30 AM on June 20, 2014

That seems like some psuedo-psych essentialism right there, asok, variously couched in conflicting terms of "this is how it is" and then weasel-word "most" "often" and "many" in other places.
posted by Dysk at 2:38 AM on June 20, 2014 [16 favorites]

It's nice that folks are at least taking turns now in telling women at length over several comments that they are wrong.

You look pretty bloody FFFM, tag me in!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:27 AM on June 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

Misha's comment is a joke, right? An attempt to encapsulate all the irritating shit men say in a few paragraphs? That's what the "fin" thing is there for. It's to tip us off.
posted by NoraReed at 3:33 AM on June 20, 2014 [11 favorites]

Manbaby
posted by 0 at 3:35 AM on June 20, 2014

As long as this thing has to keep going on (and to be honest, I'm not personally at all convinced that it does), let's at least try to avoid taunting each other and trying to really up the body count as much as possible. I don't know what else to ask here, since it's basically become the "mansplain" thread and everybody seems pretty enthusiastic about pursuing that down to the raw bloody nub.
posted by taz (staff) at 3:47 AM on June 20, 2014

MLK was reviled and treated with contempt by the white public during his lifetime, straight up through and including the president of the United States; his martyrdom makes us forget that, but it shouldn't.

It's less martyrdom than whitewashing and attempts from conservatives to appropriate his image without acknowledging his words and actions. And really, any time I see someone try to bring up MLK as the "nice" counterpart to Malcolm X, I realize that they've fallen for that narrative hook, line, and sinker. And that they've never bothered reading "Letters from Birmingham Jail," which would get the very same sneering condescension we see in these threads time and time again. The man had very little patience for allies that kept on telling him he was being too mean to them, that his anger would alienate potential converts, and that he was a shit-stirring troublemaker.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:55 AM on June 20, 2014 [19 favorites]

Just to quote a relevant passage:

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:04 AM on June 20, 2014 [29 favorites]

Nope, I'm somewhat sure that wouldn't have set off my sneering condescension then, and I'm quite sure it doesn't today. Compare, if you would.
posted by 0 at 4:10 AM on June 20, 2014

tl;dr: Look at the difference between MLK Jr and Malcolm X and tell me who was more successful at getting their message across?

Not to pile on, but... yeah. That dichotomy is often cited as an example of the power of compromise and of sweet reason over fiery confrontation and violence. In fact, exactly this comparison was used recently by Jeff Atwood, the cofounder of Stack Overflow, to upbraid the feminist coder Shanley Kane for her confrontational manner. There's a recap of how that went here.

Thing is, though, telling feminists to read "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", as Atwood did, is on one level great advice and on another level very bad advice, because, not wholly surprisingly given that he's been thrown in jail, Dr King is actually pretty pissed, and specifically pissed with people telling him that his advocation of non-violent protest against segregation is harmful to the unity of the alliance of well-meaning people who dislike segregation - as Rustic Etruscan says above.

Dr King was not a placid or a conciliatory man. He was advocating nonviolent resistance because he was a Christian, and did not believe that violence, even in response to violence, was morally right, but also because he believed that he and his movement were the only chance to resolve a situation which was leading to the rise of groups like the Nation of Islam, who had abandoned the idea that white America will ever agree to equality, and were advocating violent protest in response to segregation and violence initiated or tacitly sanctioned by a racist state:

If this philosophy [of nonviolent protest] had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble-rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

Dr King's platform was never about being nice, or about not offending people. He knew that there was no way somebody committed to segregation was not going to be offended by being told that what they understood to be the natural order of things was not only wrong but sinful and unchristian. His aim was to get the South in particular to make changes to prevent wholesale slaughter and open war between segregationists and black Americans.

So... Dr King specifically says that it is not enough to identify oneself as aligned with a righteous cause, but to condemn even nonviolent actions taken by those who are actually oppressed by the unrighteous cause to oppose it. The letter is specifically calling out (in particular) the church in the South for not committing to the fight for equality, and identifying the Nation of Islam and other nationalist and separatist groups as what happens when Christianity and moderate elements in the dominant culture fail to stand with the oppressed and back their plays in the fight against injustice.

King and X were ideologically opposed, of course, but they also wanted the same thing. To quote Malcolm X:

The goal has always been the same, with the approaches to it as different as mine and Dr. Martin Luther King's non-violent marching, that dramatizes the brutality and the evil of the white man against defenseless blacks. And in the racial climate of this country today, it is anybody's guess which of the "extremes" in approach to the black man's problems might personally meet a fatal catastrophe first -- "non-violent" Dr. King, or so-called "violent" me.

When X came to Selma, he denounced non-violent protest, but afterwards told King's wife that he thought that he could do more good to King's campaign by condemning him than by supporting him - because, faced with the terrifying spectre of retaliatory violence against the violence of segregationists, white Americans would be more interested in talking to Dr King.
posted by running order squabble fest at 4:16 AM on June 20, 2014 [18 favorites]

Nope, I'm somewhat sure that wouldn't have set off my sneering condescension then, and I'm quite sure it doesn't today. Compare, if you would.

I'm sure you would agree with the substance of what NoraReed and others are saying if only they wrote it in a majestic style.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:25 AM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

Or sneer at it if it was posted on a social network where the author followed it up with a Kawaii Hannibal gifset.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:27 AM on June 20, 2014

Dude, you're the zombie.
posted by 0 at 4:41 AM on June 20, 2014

That seems like some psuedo-psych essentialism

Maybe it is, I haven't got the time to seek out original studies. It does ring true for me in a majority of cases, not always along gender lines admittedly. Is it nature or nurture? I don't know. I don't think it is necessarily a good idea to throw out sexual dimorphism in brain development as gender essentialism just because it has been used as a weapon against equality.

However, the science still has not completely resolved this point when it comes to humans, and while it is likely that our different genetic makeups prescribe different neural circuitry in the brain, the nervous system is particularly plastic, and we have yet to distinguish between the effects of nature vs. nurture in the development of the human psyche. I think that while it is reasonable to believe that male and female children might start out with sexually dimorphic circuitry, as we develop post-natally, our brains are capable of converging. Either way, feminism must be able to adapt to the possibility that science will continue to uncover "evidence" suggesting differences between men and women that some might try to use to justify preferential treatment for men. I was wrong to try and blindly disregard the possibility that science might show a difference between the way men and women would think; by ignoring science, I wasn't spending my time trying to consider how to argue against these findings in a way that would still benefit women. Fundamentally, I and other feminists must adapt our philosophy to incorporate the findings of science, and vocalize the fact that science cannot and should not be used to justify unequal treatment. Rather than continue to argue that women will be found to be biologically equal to men, we just develop the argument that biological difference does not justify social oppression.

posted by asok at 4:56 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Dude, you're the zombie.

stupid zombie Flanders!
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 4:58 AM on June 20, 2014

The fact that sexual dimorphism may be a thing in human brains does not redeem pseudo-psych essentialism as being anything more than treading water in the quagmire of fucked societal attitudes to and assumptions about gender.
posted by Dysk at 5:02 AM on June 20, 2014 [4 favorites]

stupid zombie Flanders!

It's like I'm wearing no skin at all ^{no skin at all no skin at all}
posted by zombieflanders at 5:13 AM on June 20, 2014 [7 favorites]

So... to lead the Birmingham Jail tangent back on topic, "mansplain" is not a bad microcosm of what I was talking about earlier.

We're largely talking in practical terms about a fairly small group of people, who will continue to derail threads on the green with actions like objections to "mansplain". This may be because they are sincerely upset about a perceived double standard. It may be because of a sincere concern about the potential of the word "mansplain" to derail the thread, coupled with a conviction that the best way to deal with that is pre-emptively to derail the thread. It may be a discomfort with the discussion of sexism. Honestly, I don't think intent matters, or in many cases could even be confidently identified by the derailers themselves.

What I'm getting, in practical terms, from this discussion, is:

1) divabat is absolutely right - clearly we're a ways away from not having this kind of discussion.
2) We already know what the mods think about the use of the word mansplain, because the mods have told us.

• Telling another member of MetaFilter that they are mansplaining is potentially iffy, because it risks a derail into an argument
• Describing behavior in general, for example in linked content, as mansplaining is not hate speech, and will not be moderated
• Derailing discussions by protesting about the use of the word "mansplain" is bad form, because derails are bad form, and should not be done
• If you are convinced that "mansplain" should never be used, your next step should be to go away, come up with another term that does the same thing, and moot that it be adopted in a MetaTalk thread

3) The argument over mansplain is microcosmic of a broader discussion about how MetaFilter deals with women's issues, stories and voices, in the links and in discussion on MetaFilter itself.

It's pretty easy to broaden out that microcosm, I think. Let's say we have a relatively small number of users who have extreme responses to discussions of male privilege or the oppression of women, as we have a relatively small number of users who have extreme responses to discussions of trans issues. The roster changes as people join, leave and learn, but we pretty much know that the group will continue to exist and also what they are going to do.

Intentionally or not, the endgame there is that threads are derailed, people seeking to have those discussions are frustrated and ultimately people may disable their accounts. The very long game there is that MetaFilter gets a reputation for toxicity such that people are dissuaded from joining in the future. Whether this is achievable or not, I think most people will agree that it's undesirable.

The mods have expressed an intent to delete the derails in the green, and channel them into the grey. This has the unfortunate consequence that the grey becomes the site of a whole bunch of people taking advantage of the lower moderation bar to use the same tactics, with the same (if more limited in scope) endgame. And, since people who are interested in these discussions often belong to oppressed groups, that has the effect of MetaTalk being a place where women (and trans people, and various other groups) are attacked until they disable their accounts.

What the mods do about this, especially now, is a tougher question. But the first step is probably for people to flag derails on the green, and for the mods to step in there and direct discussion of the derail to MetaTalk.

We've seen that happen. A solid and relevant example is the 2012 thread on Rebecca Solnit that effectively started the mansplain derail as a concept. gman made a comment there that was deleted. He then made a comment about the deletion that was also deleted, and told to go to MeTa. He did, and started a thread in MeTa asking people not to use the word "mansplain". That thread went south incredibly quickly, but that was the system basically working.

(Incidentally, I think this might be where sweetkid was getting his/her apprehension about gman's emotional focus from, above - events relevant to one's interests are likely to stick in one's mind for longer and feel more prominent.)

So, the mansplain derail is going to keep happening, along with other, similar derails and tactics, because it's part of a specific and recognizable set of reactions, and without moderation it will mean a fairly small number of people will going to carry on throwing static on threads involving... well, women doing things, generally, but in particular women having non-positive interactions with men.

If we're talking about MetaFilter responses to that - well, the mods already have a policy on derails. I'd be OK with the mods saying that these very familiar tactics will be pretty much automoderated as derails, and that any discussion after that should be routed to MetaTalk. That turns MetaTalk into something of a Thunderdome, but it kind of is already anyway, so potayto potahto. If people can be confident of that happening, hopefully it will make them more likely to flag and less likely to take issue in-thread.

That's not a cure-all, but it would mean that other examples of about the same behavior set - victim-blaming, amateur psychiatric diagnosis, simple abuse - will at least be on-topic. The next level down would be to look at those, but I think that's trickier, especially with limited moderator resources.

Wow. I was really planning on talking about the World Cup.
posted by running order squabble fest at 5:14 AM on June 20, 2014 [14 favorites]

I don't think this is what's going on here necessarily, but wanted to note that MLK is also a favorite for being whitewashed and then embraced by the subset of modern socialists who seem to argue against almost any feminist action or statement -- repeatedly -- on the grounds that its supposed 'divisiveness' will distract from the only true path to utopia, going on, when pressed, to insist that in this utopia sexism and racism will by necessity disappear anyway since both were originally produced as byproducts of alienated labor fighting against each other over scraps. Which is tricky, because ending capitalism probably would help with a lot, but they seem to conveniently ignore the likelihood -- or even possibility -- of a still highly sexist and racist post-capitalist society. (And from my vantage, though obviously they'd take issue with this, it looks like as white men they're simply having trouble acknowledging the role they might be playing as sexists and racists despite what they think is their best intentions, so comforting is the whitewashed version of history that lets them feel like they're completely on the side of Good.)

It does ring true for me in a majority of cases,

This recent interview talks about how ringing true is often such a problem for sex studies in genetics for the last however many decades.
posted by nobody at 5:15 AM on June 20, 2014 [13 favorites]

As an honest feminist who enjoys rational discourse and the company of men,

I sincerely do not understand how this can be your takeaway here.I would like to presume good faith but this makes it almost impossible.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:06 AM on June 20, 2014 [13 favorites]

Which reminds me: The Everyday Sexism Project and its twitter feed are really, really good for showing A) what sexist behavior looks like, B) its effects on the women who deal with it, and C) how prevalent it is.

Thank you. That link just proved what I suspected both hoped was wrong about, that the blatant, obvious sexism that we talk about happening in the US/UK and I haven't seen happen here in the Netherlands, do happen here (Dutch) as well.

The people criticizing me don't know me, don't know what I'm like, and a lot of the public criticism I take is kind of unfair. But so what? It doesn't really cost me anything to let those folks have their say. I've thought about writing up a response, but it seems like a lot of work just to tell someone that nailed me on a couple of fair points overreached in others. It's not going to make their life better; it's unlikely to make my life better either.

Would it hurt you/your organisation if you did response or apologise to those points you feel the critics had gotten right, as a public way of showing that you have taken it onboard, perhaps keeping silent about the things that you think they have gotten wrong? Of course the danger is always that you get into an extended flamewar about this, but I'd argue that one of the things that we all need to do when we're called out on these sort of things is show that we've learned from them, where they're justified.

Look at the difference between MLK Jr and Malcolm X and tell me who was more successful at getting their message across?

That argument of course depends on a percieved difference of MLK as moderate and Malcolm X as radical that's just not true, as well as the idea that these were the only two options and they the only voices of the emancipation movement.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:22 AM on June 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

I don't think that claim holds any water at all, speaking specifically about changes to culture here. In fact, when similar sentiments come up, I regularly see women talking about how much better things are now that some of the boyzone is tamped down. As for "chasing away potential allies," that also seems like a pretty dubious assertion, especially when one of the regular features of threads like this is guys talking about how talking on MeFi has helped them be better allies.

It should perhaps be acknowledged that this change for the better, the cessation of "Id hit that" and other sexist remarks didn't come about here through just sweetness and asking politely and never ever making the people who did that feel uncomfortable. An inevitable part of making MeFi less sexist or less transphobic is to make people who engage in it feel less comfortable here. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:29 AM on June 20, 2014 [22 favorites]

I think we can agree that pseudo-psych essentialism is not helpful, however science is helpful and not something to be dismissed in the same breath even if it shows there are differences in the way that people address problems that are gender related.

I don't think it is beyond reason to suggest that there could be behaviours that are correlated with gender and I think that should not damage the feminist cause. More research is needed, often the more we learn the weirder things get. There are lots of seemingly unrelated traits that correlate with finger length ratio, for example.
posted by asok at 6:43 AM on June 20, 2014

I don't especially care why people who do this kind of patronizing talk do it, asok, I just want them to recognize when they are doing it so they can stop.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:47 AM on June 20, 2014 [12 favorites]

To be fair, or possibly generous, to fffm, NoraReed did bring her credentials to the table first, when she responded to his insistence that "mansplaining" is a slur.

"I"ve read Starhawk" is not much of a credential and I really doubt fffm and I are the only folks who qualify in this thread. The fact that he's also sadly misapplying what she said makes it worse. (Also totally agreed that Starhawk is not the only approach and she doesn't need to speak for everyone. She has a really useful and interesting toolset to bring to these issues, but it's only one set in the kit.)
posted by immlass at 6:58 AM on June 20, 2014

Correlation is not really something that means an awful lot, though. Certain behaviours are correlated with gender? So are certain modes of dress, but that doesn't make ties or skirts any more meaningfully male or female either.
posted by Dysk at 7:05 AM on June 20, 2014 [4 favorites]

> That link just proved what I suspected both hoped was wrong about, that the blatant, obvious sexism that we talk about happening in the US/UK and I haven't seen happen here in the Netherlands, do happen here (Dutch) as well.

MartinWisse, I'm frankly surprised that you needed proof. You may not see it happen, but I do.
posted by Too-Ticky at 7:05 AM on June 20, 2014

Not so much I needed proof, as not having seen much if any of the blatant stuff women have told me happens on a daily base in the US; I know the likely reasons for that but I had the vague hope that it was in fact a cultural difference to our advantage..
posted by MartinWisse at 7:10 AM on June 20, 2014

What annoys me about the "divisive!" canard is that in a more feminist world, abusers would be jailed. Rapists would be jailed. People who abetted these crimes would be socially ostracized - at least. I suspect this would divide opinion pretty harshly, but I suspect it would be right just the same.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:13 AM on June 20, 2014 [9 favorites]

I think men and women do have different ways of communication, but I think the explaining vs sharing grievances behaviors are mostly socialized that way rather than innate and biological.

Also another thing that bugs me about the whole "men love solving problems, women love just sharing grievances and being understood" is that it seems to me that no one really wants their problems solved, men or women, when they're just talking things over with people. I've never seen a man be like, "Thank you for listing out exactly how to solve this problem with my boss" outside of Ask or therapy or a specific situation in which advice was explicitly asked for.
posted by sweetkid at 7:15 AM on June 20, 2014 [6 favorites]

There are generally recognizable differences in the average way the average man and the average woman approach problems, yes, but I would suspect that (as with every other gender/sex difference studied) there's more overlap of the two groups than not, and I know that women are capable of solving problems decisively and hierarchically and that men are capable of listening to other people and discussing feelings. So if men, on average, tend to first reach for a hammer to deal with emotional problems, that doesn't mean they have no other tools in their toolbox or that it's wrong to ask them to put the hammer away for the moment so that we can all hear each other.
posted by jaguar at 7:16 AM on June 20, 2014 [7 favorites]

Exactly. And average data about the average man or woman doesn't really say anything about a specific individual that you're dealing with. The world is full of outliers.
posted by Too-Ticky at 7:24 AM on June 20, 2014 [6 favorites]

Well, I'd just like to thank everyone for the torrent of abuse after raising a perfectly rational argument that a specific word is offensive to some men. I'd further like to thank the people who've been doubling down on using the word in order to be as offensive as possible.

I'm still on the side of women. I'm still on the side of equality. Belittling each other is not the way to get there.

Oh, and referencing Starhawk wasn't an appeal to authority. I agree with her views and was quoting her to indicate that this isn't that godawful word mansplaining, that my views were formed by an actual factual AFAB feminist.

But all y'all will take any chance... misha was absolutely fucking right. You don't care if some men are offended, someone is wrong on the Internet. If your movement requires offending others, you are committing hypocrisy.

Bye.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:25 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'd further like to thank the people who've been doubling down on using the word in order to be as offensive as possible.

This thread is not about you.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:34 AM on June 20, 2014 [25 favorites]

If your movement requires offending others, you are committing hypocrisy.

Well, as I said a few minutes ago, the movement kind of requires punishing people for crimes for which they aren't currently being punished. Maybe offending self-proclaimed allies is not a thing to be avoided so strenuously.

Bye.

Sure.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:35 AM on June 20, 2014 [8 favorites]

People who get offended by sexism being called are engaging in sexist behavior. If we are not supposed to call out sexist behavior because it might offend sexists, then I'm having a hard time seeing what, exactly, you think a feminist response to sexist behavior should be.

And insisting that women take on the endlessly nurturing, endlessly giving, never angry, never needy Earth Mama "Angel of the House" role feeds into patriarchal ideals for women who know their place and never challenge male supremacy.
posted by jaguar at 7:36 AM on June 20, 2014 [24 favorites]

You know, it's not that I don't care if some men are offended. It's not that I think, as a feminist, men are inconsequential and deserve to be crushed.

I'm just sick of conversations about feminism that end up turning into conversations about how not to upset men about feminism.

If your movement requires offending others, you are committing hypocrisy.
What social justice movement has not offended those in power?
posted by inertia at 7:37 AM on June 20, 2014 [31 favorites]

feckless, you've said the same thing and "stormed out" (not really) more than several times now. I get you're disappointed that people here don't agree with you that the word "mansplain" is so terribly offensive, and that you're not interested in anything less than total agreement with your hurt feelings AND that women stop using it - but that's your problem to deal with. Please stop shitting on us because you are upset. You could be an ally, I'm sure. But if you think the language is more of a problem than the behavior, then there's no explaining it further. It's been explained rationally many times why your equivalence about offensive words is wrong. It's your right to disagree but since you're not getting what you want, I'D appreciate it if you would actually step back.
posted by agregoli at 7:38 AM on June 20, 2014 [17 favorites]

misha's comment was hateful and dishonest and there wasn't anything right about it at all.
posted by sweetkid at 7:40 AM on June 20, 2014 [14 favorites]

If we are to stop using words that people find offensive, that means Rob Ford has taken homophobe off the table.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:42 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Since we're apparently quoting Starhawk:

In New Age circles, a common slogan is that "What you resist, persists." Truly spiritual people are never supposed to be confrontational or adversarial -- that would be perpetuating an unevolved, "us-them" dualism.

I don't know from what spiritual tradition the "what you resist, persists" slogan originated, but I often want to ask those who blithely repeat it, "What's your evidence?" When it is so patently obvious that what you don't resist persists like hell and spreads all over the place. In fact, good, strong, solid resistance may be the only thing that stands between us and hell. Hitler didn't persist because of the Resistance -- he succeeded in taking over Germany and murdering millions because not enough people resisted.

On some deep cosmic level, we are all one, and within us we each contain the potential for good and for destruction, for compassion and hate, for generosity and greed. But even if I acknowledge the full range of impulses within myself, that doesn't erase the differences between a person acting from compassion and love, and another choosing to act from hate and greed. Moreover, it doesn't erase my responsibility to challenge a system which furthers hate and greed. If I don't resist such a system, I am complicit in what it does. I join the perpetrators in oppressing the victims.

I am often astonished at well-meaning, spiritual people who advocate beaming light toward world leaders, who scold activists for expressing anger toward authorities or police, who define compassion as loving the enemy -- but somehow lose sight of the need to love our friends, our allies, and those who suffer at the hands of the perpetrators. I really don't feel much call to beam love and light at Bush or Cheney or the directors of the International Monetary Fund. Whether or not they suffer from lack of love is beyond me. From my perspective, they suffer from an excess of power, and I feel called to take it away from them. Because I do love the child in Iraq, the woman in the favela, the eighteen-year-old recruit to the Marines who never dreamed he was signing up to bomb civilians. I can't love them, or myself and my community, effectively if I can't articulate the real differences in interests and agendas between "us" and "them" -- between those who have too little social power and those who have too much.

To equalize that power means changing an enormous system. And systems don't change easily. Systems try to maintain themselves, and seek equilibrium. To change a system, you need to shake it up, disrupt the equilibrium. That often requires conflict.

To me, conflict is a deeply spiritual place. It's the high-energy place where power meets power, where change and transformation can occur.

posted by jaguar at 7:45 AM on June 20, 2014 [11 favorites]

i'm still not hearing any suggestions for other words to use that retain the gendered aspect of mansplain.

and misha, i've defended you numerous times when people have said you aren't a feminist and i know you have vehemently rejected the idea that anyone else can decide that for you, so it's very disappointing to me to see you engaging in that sort of argument against us.
posted by nadawi at 7:47 AM on June 20, 2014 [8 favorites]

Well, yeah. Dr Martin Luther King Jr, for example, really offended some people. If he had dedicated himself to never offending anyone, America would look very different.

I do not think that the fact that he offended people - that offending people was an inevitable result of nonviolent protest against segregation - made him a hypocrite. And many of the people he offended - the white moderates he complained about - would definitely have said that they were on his side, in the sense of wanting equality and justice for all. But they were offended by his criticism of their methods.

Speaking frankly, FFFM, I think you are an outlier in your belief here about how slurs operate. You seem to believe, as far as I understand it, that any non-positive term that references any part of someone's identity is a slur, and that all these slurs are equal. I think the second of those principles is problematic, not least because the first is necessary but unsafe.

Obviously you can believe whatever you wish, but I think you are the only person on MetaFilter - or to be exact, now that I think of it, one of an extremely small community of people on Metafilter - who believe that specifically. There is another larger, but still small, community of people who may not believe exactly that, but who do agree "mansplain" is hate speech. The vast majority of the community, however, do not take that as given.

So, faced with the statement "mansplain is a slur, on a par with homophobic slurs", I think people are going to experience that as not self-evident. And they are going to examine the ways in which that might be a valid proposition from their perspective. They are going to think that "mansplain" is about a behavior, not a personal characteristic. That it is not describing a group of people subject to discrimination and violence because of personal characteristics. And so on. And I think in general they are not, sincerely and for reasons they have thought through conscientiously, in most case going to agree with you.

I don't think it would be appropriate to advise you on how to react to that. But, you know, this is going to keep on happening.
posted by running order squabble fest at 7:58 AM on June 20, 2014 [8 favorites]

Well, I'd just like to thank everyone for the torrent of abuse after raising a perfectly rational argument that a specific word is offensive to some men.

You are acting like a child, and quite frankly like a jackass. The repeated stomping-out tantrums are ridiculously undignified and I'm embarrassed for you.

I doubt I have used the word "mansplaining" outside of discussions here, but it's descriptive of a real phenomenon; if you find it offensive than suggest another word that captures the full gendered effect.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:58 AM on June 20, 2014 [4 favorites]

Come on FFFM, don't be like that. Talk it out over dinner at Alena's?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:05 AM on June 20, 2014

sweetkid: misha's comment was hateful and dishonest and there wasn't anything right about it at all.

Did you of all people really just say that? Hilarious, the hypocrisy here is overwhelming, to say the least.

On another note, I do my best to try not to tell women how they should feel about their life experiences and I appreciate being told when I am fucking up in this way, BUT as I've said above, if you use the word "mansplain", I won't bother reading the rest of what you have to say.

Ready... set... pounce!
posted by gman at 8:08 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

gman, I didn't believe you cared about what any of us had to say in the first place, so I don't mind if you stop reading.
posted by agregoli at 8:14 AM on June 20, 2014 [18 favorites]

I have a challenge to every man who thinks that mansplaining isn't a thing that happens.

Take your significant other, or if you're gay or asexual, a female friend posing as your SO, and go in Home Depot. Have her ask a male sales associate a question about a home hardware product. Witness the result.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:16 AM on June 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

Sooking and whinging about something that doesn't even apply to you is ridiculous. If you're someone who doesn't talk over the top of women then there's no reason to crack the shits when a word that's been devised to describe that very thing is used. It seems so very fucking obvious.

Blergh. gman, who gives a fuck what you decide to read? Jog on *forks*
posted by h00py at 8:16 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

I appreciate being told when I am fucking up in this way, BUT as I've said above, if you use the word "mansplain", I won't bother reading the rest of what you have to say.

you are fucking up now
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:18 AM on June 20, 2014 [15 favorites]

BUT as I've said above, if you use the word "mansplain", I won't bother reading the rest of what you have to say.

Lighten up, dude.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:21 AM on June 20, 2014

I appreciate being told when I am fucking up in this way, BUT as I've said above, if you use the word "mansplain", I won't bother reading the rest of what you have to say.

I think that's totally your right, gman - that's where you've calibrated your compass. I think the corollary, however, is that you probably ought to not contribute to discussions where the word "mansplain" occurs, because you have ipso facto not read them. And I think it's useful that you have acknowledged that.

So, again, I think you're an outlier. I think most men who appreciate being told when they are fucking up by telling women how they should feel about their life experience are not enraged by the word "mansplain" to the point that they cease to appreciate being told etc.

You're in a small section of the Venn diagram of "appreciates being told etc" and "is not enraged by the word 'mansplain' to the point of immediately ignoring the rest of what is said", where the circles largely overlap.

So, again, what you believe is totally your business. But it's unlikely that MetaFilter is going to reorganize itself to minimize the risk of you reading the word "mansplain", either through culture change or through moderator intervention. That was the upshot of your 2012 MeTa, and the 2013 MeTa on the same subject. If you want to start the 2014 MeTa, go for it.
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:21 AM on June 20, 2014 [6 favorites]

agregoli: gman, I didn't believe you cared about what any of us had to say in the first place, so I don't mind if you stop reading.

Well you're certainly entitled to your opinion about me, as misguided as it is.

MisantropicPainforest: Take your significant other, or if you're gay or asexual, a female friend posing as your SO, and go in Home Depot. Have her ask a male sales associate a question about a home hardware product. Witness the result.

Used to do this all the time with my ex because I'm completely fuckin' useless with tools and fixing shit and she was incredible at that type of stuff. Not saying this doesn't happen all the time, but we never experienced this. Never.

MisantropicPainforest: you are fucking up now

am i hows that
posted by gman at 8:25 AM on June 20, 2014

Is there any way we could not have this thread be just back-and-forth with a guy who flat-out said he's not reading comments that he's responding to?
posted by shakespeherian at 8:28 AM on June 20, 2014 [14 favorites]

yeah its super boring
posted by agregoli at 8:30 AM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

yes a liar! I said mansplain and he read my comment!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:31 AM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

If we start all our comments with "Mansplain" he won't read anymore!
posted by rtha at 8:31 AM on June 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

Mod note: can we drop the mansplain/gman derail for now?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:33 AM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm getting the impression from this thread that there are some people around here who are imagining an angry mob of the Internet Feminist Language Police Who See Misogyny in All Things.

Quick! Someone is wrong on the internet! Full speed ahead!
posted by inertia at 8:33 AM on June 20, 2014

If we start all our comments with "Mansplain" he won't read anymore!

That does not impede him commenting, though, so not so helpy.

Although I'd love to hear about this magic Home Depot where the employees don't behave as if women are nuisances getting in the way of their valuable leaning against the paint counter time.
posted by winna at 8:34 AM on June 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

As an honest feminist who enjoys rational discourse and the company of men,

Do you mean to suggest that every single one of us -- women and men alike -- who disagrees with you is some combination of A) a dishonest feminist, who B) enjoys only irrational discourse, in C) the company of women only?

If so, this is quite possibly the second-most disrespectful instance of bad faith in a thread full of disrespectful bad faith, misha, and that is saying a lot.
posted by scody at 8:34 AM on June 20, 2014 [20 favorites]

It might help to just ignore certain posters right now.
posted by futz at 8:35 AM on June 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

Far out, it's so hard to decide who to be annoyed by at this stage. I'll stop doing terrible pseudo rap shit immediately though, how embarrassing.
posted by h00py at 8:37 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Used to do this all the time with my ex because I'm completely fuckin' useless with tools and fixing shit and she was incredible at that type of stuff. Not saying this doesn't happen all the time, but we never experienced this. Never.

Huh, this sort of explains my intense dislike of the word 'mansplain. I know a fair amount of strong women in my professional and personal life who do the talking over people or inadvertently talking down to people on certain subjects. I think it's just a thing with nerds and geeks. So it strikes me personally as strange to hyper focus on when men do it for sexist reasons (which totally happens), 'cause it doesn't reflect most of my everyday reality.

Which is fine, it doesn't have to, just noting why I intensely dislike the word.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:39 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Although I'd love to hear about this magic Home Depot where the employees don't behave as if women are nuisances getting in the way of their valuable leaning against the paint counter time.

Yeah, last time we were in there my SO had a question about lightbulbs, and after a lengthy lecture and a couple back and forths, the sales associate said, 'now you're learning!' to my SO, who BTW has four degrees, 3 of which are Ivy League, 2 of which are grad degrees in the medical field. But she doesn't know the difference between LED and CFL lights so this prick just had to show her up.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:41 AM on June 20, 2014

'cause it doesn't reflect most of my everyday reality.

Because you're a man. I mean that's the point, right?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:42 AM on June 20, 2014 [12 favorites]

winna: Although I'd love to hear about this magic Home Depot where the employees don't behave as if women are nuisances getting in the way of their valuable leaning against the paint counter time.

Well the two we'd frequent had orange and white signs, like all of them I imagine, and I quite enjoyed the smell near the lumber section. The address of those ones are 193 N Queen St. in Toronto and the other is closer to St. Clair, just off Keele. Not sure what else you're looking to hear about them. Or were you suggesting that my experience with Home Depots here was made up?
posted by gman at 8:42 AM on June 20, 2014

So it strikes me personally as strange to hyper focus on when men do it for sexist reasons (which totally happens), 'cause it doesn't reflect most of my everyday reality.

I wonder why this is?
posted by scody at 8:43 AM on June 20, 2014

Well the two we'd frequent had orange and white signs, like all of them I imagine, and I quite enjoyed the smell near the lumber section. The address of those ones are 193 N Queen St. in Toronto and the other is closer to St. Clair, just off Keele. Not sure what else you're looking to hear about them. Or were you suggesting that my experience with Home Depots here was made up?

No, I believe you, seriously! It's is not impossible that there are in fact Home Depots that aren't annoying in this way. The idea that there ARE Home Depots like that gives me something to dream about the next time I go in to get something and I get the bored and irritated look.

also the lumber smell is the best smell ever I wish it were a perfume.
posted by winna at 8:47 AM on June 20, 2014 [6 favorites]

I know a fair amount of strong women in my professional and personal life who do the talking over people or inadvertently talking down to people on certain subjects.

Me too (though, I don't know lots of women like this, but definitely a few). The thing is, they don't confine their "I am more of an expert than you can possibly imagine" to just men or just women - they are totally equal opportunity more-expert-than-thou.
posted by rtha at 8:47 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Because you're a man. I mean that's the point, right?

Not at all, imo. We're in total agreement that misogyny happens and that sexism is embedded in a lot of interactions in society and exchanges between men and women.

But in my everyday reality, men are not the only people who engage in "explainin'" behavior. That's about it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:48 AM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

[can we drop the mansplain/gman derail for now?]

The thing is, it's a derail and also not a derail - in the sense that the goal of the thread is to discuss misogyny on Metafilter, and specifically:

mansplaining, talking over women commenting in the thread, saying "well Woman In My Life is ok with X therefore all you other women should agree!

In this context, it's totally relevant that there are people with very far-out views about things like the word "mansplain", and that they feel compelled to express those very far-out views, over and over again, even when they claim not to have read the thread.

That's not such a problem in MeTa, which is a bleed valve for outlier behaviors, but it's a problem in MeFi, because it leads to all those things divabat was talking about.

So, engaging with gman may be a derail, and I agree shouldn't be encouraged; in a perfect world gman would start a MeTa about the word "mansplain". It would probably go horribly, of course, but on the plus side literally could not go as badly as the 2012 MeTa about "mansplain". But on the other hand, this whole interaction is totally informative about the issues facing women on MetaFilter.

It's like Schrodinger's derail.
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:49 AM on June 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

But in my everyday reality, men are not the only people who engage in "explainin'" behavior. That's about it.

Right, but the term refers specifically to a gendered talking-down-to in which men act as though their gender means they must be more of an expert on a thing than any given woman. It's not just talking-down-to, it's talking-down-to-with-sexism.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:54 AM on June 20, 2014 [12 favorites]

But in my everyday reality, men are not the only people who engage in "explainin'" behavior. That's about it.

They will get their own -splainin prefix then. And probably get just as pissed off about it. And so it goes, on and on.
posted by h00py at 8:54 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

For an easy example of this, go to any art museum and watch heterosexual couples and notice how every single dude is giving a lecture on technique and art history to a woman.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:54 AM on June 20, 2014 [7 favorites]

oh yeah i mean you're not going to witness men talking down to women as much you are never in the situation to being talked down to because you are a woman.

I mean I rarely witness mansplaining first hand, because I'm never a woman in a man-woman dyad.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:55 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

It should go without saying, but feminists can be sexist, too. Those instances don't invalidate everything they ever say foreverrrrrrrr or make them The Enemy or anything like that. Having good intentions does not immunize you from criticism or failure. My roommate, the inveterate mansplainer, is someone I consider to be a pretty enlightened dude. Probably one of the most outspoken feminists I know. He picks up on the little stuff, always snorting and rolling his eyes when a commercial involving Jewelry Face or The Official Food of Women comes on, and it warms my heart every single time: He gets it! He is very aware of microaggressions and the twin poisons that are gender roles and all that fun stuff. But he still condescends to me in a very gendered way on a very regular basis. I point this out only as an honest, earnest admission that just because a guy has a tendency to Do The Thing doesn't make him an egregiously sexist, irredeemable asshole.

You can tout your own progressive bona fides all the live long day, but if you get so upset by women's language that you feel the need to lash out repeatedly -- at least two men here view the term 'mansplaining' as equitable to slurs I consider extreme, not because it's been wielded as an epithet, or hurled in an attempt to cause damage or emotional distress, but simply because it contains the word 'man' -- you're a paper tiger, a glass cannon. More than that, you've just outed yourself as someone I can't trust will join me at the battlements when it comes to fighting against actual injustice. Your feelings as a self-proclaimed ally are not the most important aspect to this conversation. They don't even chart in the top 100. I sure as shit don't expect populations above whom I am relatively privileged to kowtow to my demands, and I sure as shit wouldn't expect them to agree to any restrictions I might obliviously expect them to make on their language in order to protect my feelings as a member of the group that oppresses them. Why the hell would I? It's tactless, it's graceless, it's rude.

I think men who are given to freaking the fuck out about how women talk about sexism are, among other things, seriously underestimating the value of being able to give a name, however flip, to a phenomenon that many of us experience as oppressive, insidious, and destabilizing. Every term our handful of veteran objectors come up with to replace it erases the explicitly gendered aspect that is absolutely key to its identification; that isn't a coincidence, it's an attempt to isolate and protect privilege. If you insist upon doubling... or tripling... or nonupling down on your objection, particularly when there are women with direct lived experience -- the kind you can't get from reading a book -- telling you that you are wrong, the more it makes you seem like an incorrigible asshole who needs everyone to agree that his personal feelings are more important than creating a feeling of recognition and solidarity among women who are grateful for a particular term because it has helped us come to diagnose the commonality of this phenomenon across our own lives. It's very whistling-through-the-graveyard to me. I enjoy the humor in having a kicky portmanteau to describe 'that thing men do to women, where y'all treat us like infants who don't know our own feeble minds' because it introduces a bit of levity to a situation I find to be crippling in its intensity and pervasiveness.

Feminists are similarly not immune to the message that to identify oneself as a feminist is to identify oneself as a person who is openly adversarial -- antagonistic, even -- toward men. Like, I'm an unapologetic feminist, and I have been ever since I was a little girl who saw a bumper sticker that said, "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people." But I still sometimes catch myself saying things like, "Don't get me wrong, I love men!" in the middle of conversations about sexism because there are huge swaths of people for whom the mere acknowledgment of men's sexist behavior toward women is viewed as a direct personal attack on the very institution of maleness. And a whole lot of people have fully internalized the notion that expressions of male upset must take primacy over maintaining a focus on eliminating social instructions and practices that continue to create and perpetuate patriarchal oppression.

It's obviously not just feminists, either: No one on earth is immune to the effects of the background radiation of their respective cultures, most of which have been very effectively designed to raise up the concerns and power of men to the detriment of women. (IBTP.) If you don't want to acknowledge this, OK, that's your prerogative. But just as an example -- can you ponder for a moment how it came to be that the overwhelming majority of the Americans who are currently, nationwide, right this moment passing laws to restrict the bodily autonomy of adult women are men? For the record, there are 362 men and 76 women in the House and 83 men and 17 women in the Senate. Is that because men are so much smarter or otherwise more deserving of their positions as elected officials? Is it because the gender demographics in this country show that there 21 American men are born for every 4 American women? Sadly, no: Women make up 51% of the population and occupy 17% of Congressional seats. Simply put, I kind of have more important shit to worry about than whether or not someone who insists he is "on my side" needs to reach for the smelling salts whenever he reads or hears a word that women use to identify our experiences with the precise sort of rank gendered condescension that is so often rained down upon notallwomen by notallmen. You think the word is offensive? Living your whole life on the receiving end of the behavior is pretty offensive, too.

The idea that women need to drop everything we're doing and gently, patiently tend to the bruised egos of men who are offended by discussions about sexism is a) the oldest trick in the book and b) such wheedling, amateur hour bullshit that I can't believe we're still getting caught up in its gears in 2014. Then again, I can't believe elected officials are still very actively dictating the precise conditions under which American women will be allowed to access safe, legal medical procedures in 2014, either.
posted by divined by radio at 8:55 AM on June 20, 2014 [50 favorites]

For an easy example of this, go to any art museum and watch heterosexual couples and notice how every single dude is giving a lecture on technique and art history to a woman.

Not in my experience. YMMV. If anything I see a lot of the local art students mouthing off and not art students asking them questions.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:04 AM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

Sometimes identifying sexist and gendered behavior takes context, it's part of an overall larger pattern of behavior that's not always easily identified in a single conversation with a person.

I'm a feminist, I have a degree in Women's Studies, so it's fair to say I've spent a significant amount of time talking and thinking about this stuff--and even I sometimes don't pick up on this kind of behavior when I first see it, or even as it's happening to me.

My point is, just because you haven't noticed it, doesn't mean it's not happening.
posted by inertia at 9:18 AM on June 20, 2014 [4 favorites]

He is very aware of microaggressions and the twin poisons that are gender roles and all that fun stuff. But he still condescends to me in a very gendered way on a very regular basis.

Yeah, this is one of the things I worry about for myself, because it's so easy to be feminist about the behaviour of others, less so to be about your own behaviour. It shouldn't be a big deal to be called upon, especially not when you don't notice you're doing it, but oh the ego can be so dainty, so easily bruised and upset.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:19 AM on June 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

I am so tired of discussions of sexism on MeFi devolving into this debate. So I've been looking for a good replacement for "mansplaining" since our last kerfluffle. In the meanwhile, I've been reduced to rolling out a long sentence/paragraph explaining the phenomenon in real life. As a tactic, this is terrible: eyes glaze, attention drifts off, a dude already inclined to assume I don't know what I'm talking about doesn't particularly care to listen to me delicately phrase the problem, a dude tries to mock me for babbling on about something amorphous, or a dude gets offended that I said he's mansplaining (even though I didn't actually use the word!) ... So, not using the word is not helping me make my point, and leaves me aggravated.

If we are to find a word that easily encapsulates the same meaning as "Mansplaining" - including the gendered component - that avoids concerns that a word that begins with the man- prefix is damaging and precludes the inevitable debate, I am pretty sure our best bet is to find an individual in public life/pop culture/the arts/politics/whatever who does this in a clear and obvious way and name the phenomenon after that individual. (Other words who were coined in this manner include chauvinism (!) and boycott and gerrymandering. There are a lot, actually). One of the reasons "Mansplaining" as a term works for people who have experienced the sour end is that it is concise, feels like it gets to the heart of the manner, and is easily understood by people new to the term. A new word would need to duplicate those attributes at a minimum, and so far, I've got bupkis.

If anyone has any suggestions, please memail me and I'll try to compile a list. Maybe we can actually coin a term that has meaning/impact for MeFites who experience the phenomenon as well as those who currently feel that their gender is being harmed by the usage of the term without sparking this debate every single time issues of sexism arise.
posted by julen at 9:31 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Maybe we can actually coin a term that has meaning/impact for MeFites who experience the phenomenon as well as those who currently feel that their gender is being harmed by the usage of the term without sparking this debate every single time issues of sexism arise.

This is a well-intentioned project and I'd be happy to find a word that magically doesn't offend men, but I doubt that this word exists. As people have said a bunch of times upthread, probably including me, the word may be a hot-button but the concept itself is simply offensive to some people. As long as a term is calling out gendered sexist behavior, it will excite controversy, because the real underlying problem is saying that (some) men are engaging in sexist behavior.

Maybe we should just let all the people who froth about the word go unanswered for a while and have our own conversations talking over them about misogyny and solutions while they froth at each other. I think those of us interested in dealing with misogyny on Metafilter might get more done that way than in endless reiterations of That Guy's or That Woman's grievances about the word "mansplain" or the general awfulness of Metafilter's feminist conspiracy.
posted by immlass at 9:51 AM on June 20, 2014 [19 favorites]

Seriously, if people are going to put time and energy toward something, I'd rather it be something that moves women's issues forward and not something that protects the feelings of sexists.
posted by jaguar at 9:57 AM on June 20, 2014 [21 favorites]

Maybe we should just let all the people who froth about the word go unanswered for a while and have our own conversations talking over them about misogyny and solutions while they froth at each other.

Agreed. I enjoy the other conversations we're having here (not related to needing to prove that mansplaining exists or that the word is a good one that shouldn't offend anyone).

As I said upthread though, it seems like those conversations are hidden in invisible ink because people are always bemoaning the badness and fightiness and terribleness of threads like this.

If you look REALLY CLOSE though, you'll see those conversations, like little Easter eggs!
posted by sweetkid at 9:58 AM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think it's a great idea and am totally down with it.

Currently, my go to word for dickish asshole is Franco, after the actor James Franco, so there's that. Don't know if he's regularly sexist though.

An actor from the '50s might work. Or a particular character from Mad Men?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:59 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

how about 'mansplain'? its funny, catchy, witty! Whats the problem?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:04 AM on June 20, 2014 [9 favorites]

How about notallmensplaining?

But seriously, I think trying to find a different word is a waste of time, because it's precisely the gendered component that the objectors are objecting to.
posted by ottereroticist at 10:04 AM on June 20, 2014 [15 favorites]

Yeah, finding another word is a waste of time and indeed the anger displayed by many men at mansplain proves it hits the target.

After all there are three options:

1) you're not mansplaining and you don't get mad because it doesn't apply to you
2) you're mansplaining and you're self aware enough that you don't deny it nor get angry when you're called on it
3) you're mansplaining and you get defensive when called out on it

Category three is the real problem and won't improve their behaviour if another word is substituted. The offence you commit is calling them out, not using mansplain to do so.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:20 AM on June 20, 2014 [6 favorites]

To be honest this is making me less inclined to make FPPs that have any relation to women or feminism (since that's a lot of what I read online regularly) because when even the people I thought were cool are getting so hostile about this supposed "feminist cabal" then what luck would I have? It used to be that I would want to share it here because Mefites tended to be more savvy about this sort of thing...and now I'm not so sure.
posted by divabat at 10:24 AM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

I hear you all.

I think there's value in trying, and I enjoy language enough on a meta level that it could be enjoyable as an exercise for me and maybe for others. I am realistic to know that this effort may very well end up without a happy ending, and I am OK with it. I know there are some people who just change strategies because it's not really about the word, but there are also people who object for other reasons. So - for me - it's worth a shot.

So if you can think of a classic/famous/infamous - for lack of a better word right now - "mansplainer" on whom we could base a neoligism, drop me a note.
posted by julen at 10:26 AM on June 20, 2014

To be honest this is making me less inclined to make FPPs that have any relation to women or feminism (since that's a lot of what I read online regularly) because when even the people I thought were cool are getting so hostile about this supposed "feminist cabal" then what luck would I have?

Whereas that's all I want to do right now is hammer hostile people over the head with this shit because it makes me so furious.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:33 AM on June 20, 2014 [7 favorites]

In good news, George Will got fired.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:35 AM on June 20, 2014

From having his column syndicated in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I read too soon.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:40 AM on June 20, 2014

George Will got fired?! But one time a woman was mean to me
posted by shakespeherian at 10:46 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Dude, you're totally Georging, cut it out."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:50 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

As long as y'all don't expect us Elsewherians to know who you're talking about...
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:02 AM on June 20, 2014

Oh, you're UnSullied.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:04 AM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

Ruud Lubbersing for cloggies. "Wat ben je weer lekker aan het lubberen."
posted by MartinWisse at 11:06 AM on June 20, 2014

The objections to the word mansplain are not specific to metafilter at all. I've seen the same objections elsewhere, and the same kind of derailing/concern trolling over it.

I've also every now and again seen the term misused and overapplied. I have been accused of 'mansplaining' even though I'm a woman, when my real offense was just being boring and nitpicky. The fact that someone used the term incorrectly doesn't mean the term is useless. Not every instance of being patronizing or boring constitute mansplaining, and I am all for being careful about using the term too broadly, as that dilutes the meaning.

Mansplaining is the phenomenon where men incorrectly assume their opinions and interpretations are more authoritative or valuable than women's simply because they're men. Period. It's a fairly narrow term for a specific phenomenon.

But you can't really name the phenomenon after a single person, either, because the point is that it is something that men frequently do to women. To narrow it enough to fit a single perpetrator misses the point, and would contribute to further derailing as people pointed out how each instance doesn't exactly fit the profile.

The term is exactly the right size. It says what it means, and it does so clearly and succinctly.

And the fact that it was adopted and spread so quickly is evidence that it is something that a lot of women relate to and want to talk about.

If there are men who can't see beyond their kneejerk emotional reactions to it, oh well. It's not a slur, and it's not even a personal descriptor. Finding a kinder gentler way to phrase it would only muddy the issue. Which often seems to be the point of the objections.
posted by ernielundquist at 11:08 AM on June 20, 2014 [30 favorites]

I think manspaining is a perfectly cromulent word, but if "Thanks, George Will!" with an exaggerated eyeroll while the speaker adjusts an imaginary bow tie became another secondary response to communicate the same thing, I would find that very pleasing.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:24 AM on June 20, 2014 [15 favorites]

Basing the portmanteau on "mister" instead of "man" might feel a little...gentler, with the added bonus of the "mis-" prefix's double entendre. In the spirit of silliness, recognizing that finding a new word won't really reduce the pushback, and that seeking something gentler isn't necessarily in anyone's best interest, and that these aren't very refined:

misterlecture

mistersplain

and misterection has too many puns in there to count (though few of them useful here). Feels straight out of Finnegans Wake.

and misterectomy sounds like it would be good for something.
posted by nobody at 11:43 AM on June 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

Just thought I'd drop this here since it's still going.

I was just having a conversation with a guy and he was doing The Thing and I said "You're totally mansplaining to me." He stopped, laughed, and said "Yeah, I take your point." End of, no drama. So I'm happy to keep using the word because the word is not the problem, the reaction to it is.
That is all.

*backs slowly out of room*
posted by billiebee at 11:49 AM on June 20, 2014 [30 favorites]

misterectomy - n. - the operation of putting every self-identified man on Metafilter into a killfile
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:50 AM on June 20, 2014 [9 favorites]

I always thought of Mansplaining as a specific subtype of Sam Hurt's Male Answer Syndrome.

I think Mansplaining is like Alcholism. You can have the impulse and choose not to follow it.
posted by Mad_Carew at 11:52 AM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

misterectomy sounds like the new DTMFA as long as the MF is a dude.
posted by inertia at 12:09 PM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

Cameroning?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:17 PM on June 20, 2014

No, that's when you leave your baby daughter in the bar when going home.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:21 PM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Sounds like this comment thread could've used a little (non gender specific) "calm down, dears".
posted by Catblack at 12:54 PM on June 20, 2014

If "misterection" didn't have the unfortunate anatomy pun in there it would be perfect for a certain kind of knowing derail around here.
posted by nobody at 12:56 PM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

Explaining... pour homme. Now it's classy.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:25 PM on June 20, 2014 [12 favorites]

We OPEN with a series of dissolves, as a string quartet plays "Under My Thumb": from a formal garden to piano keys to an approaching train.

GEORGE WILL appears in a royal blue silk robe. "May I ask you a personal question?"

CUT TO the shadow of a jet moving from the bottom to the top of the Transamerica Building in San Francisco.

CLOSE UP on GEORGE WILL, who adjusts the bowtie he is wearing around his bare neck. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back with a look of knowing. "Do you know how to propitiate the rabble?"

VOICE OVER: "Live the condescension. Explaining... Pour Homme."

posted by scody at 1:51 PM on June 20, 2014 [19 favorites]

Georging could totally work.

At at least be its own thing.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:33 PM on June 20, 2014

Whereas that's all I want to do right now is hammer hostile people over the head with this shit because it makes me so furious.

As an aside, and speaking for myself personally, not modwise: You know, I do get this, but I'd like to also make a plea that Metafilter not be the first hammer people reach for when they are furious and want to bash someone over the head.

I'd like to see Metafilter remain a site with a lot of varied and interesting posts for *everyone* to talk about and discuss, where people will not be bullied, excluded, or demeaned because of race, gender, etc., rather than a place that drifts into becoming mostly/only for posting and talking about social justice issues.

To me, the greater value of Metafilter is that we are able to talk about all sorts of interesting stuff across the spectrum *mostly* without being casually sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. -- because there are very few such sites, if any, that fill that role. And when we can't seem to do that successfully, we have Metatalk where we can work on it and hash out issues as much as we need to, as long as we need to, and hopefully get better.

But I feel like we are clinging to a sort of extremely delicate / endangered ecosystem here, and hope that members can try to help preserve our generalist site identity, because I think that's really very special and valuable and actively promoting equality.

As a woman (for example), I don't want the internet to be a place where I'm compelled to go to walled-off "women's" sites just to have a non-horrifically-sexist discussion – and the only way to do that is to have good, popular generalist sites that are not sexist, racist, etc. There aren't many of those. Metafilter mostly is, but we're not perfect, obviously.

I'd like to see us continue to have conversations about problematic stuff without becoming a place that's mostly only about that stuff ... or, yeah, the place you automatically go to post awful stuff you want to hammer people over the head with. We have a much more valuable role, I think.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:36 PM on June 20, 2014 [17 favorites]

I think Metafilter is a long way from becoming a site focused mostly on social justice issues.

Glancing down the front page currently, there's a post about abortion but other than that I don't really see anything relating to a hot-button political topic. I see a lot of posts about things like arts & entertainment, science & technology, etc. And I think that's pretty typical.

Of course, the hot-button posts get a disproportionate share of the comments, probably because a large percentage of readers have things they want to say about those issues, and because of the back-and-forth debate that can go on forever.

But I do agree-- I like that Metafilter is a generalist site, but I don't see that changing anytime soon.
posted by Asparagus at 3:07 PM on June 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

mansplain

I've been thinking a lot about this word of late, and I really appreciate those who have weighed in, not so much to clarify the reason about its usage, but because it really does reveal a lot about the world in a way that I haven't paid close enough attention to.

In the end, I'm still not crazy about the word itself. Maybe it's my insecurities, maybe it's for better reasons that that. However, I also think it's possible to allow certain words to exist in my universe without feeling as if the entire world is going to fall apart, and also to try and build bridges to the underlying concern behind this term without feeling as if I need to nitpick semantics. I want to look beyond words to intentions without feeling as if people need to be controlled in the way that they express themselves (I think power or fear of losing it is an issue behind a lot of what we choose to be offended by). If I genuinely like people more than I like being offended, I'll find that it's genuinely okay to let certain things roll of my back in the interest of trying to find common ground with people who are expressing issues of hurt.

Learning not to be offended is a great discipline, and I think the world would be a much more awesome place if "offence" were not the fuel driving the train of social change. That isn't saying that we shouldn't be genuinely offended by important things, and the concern that underlies this particular word is one of those things that should cause some offense. But more broadly, it's become such a big part of the currency of social action these days that I feel a bit dismayed at how it's over used and used to fight for petty causes. It obfuscates many other legitimate virtues that can be used to change people's hearts and intentions.

All that to say, practicing not being offended on the lessers really does allow us to make more progress on the majors.
posted by SpacemanStix at 3:31 PM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

Explaining... pour homme. Now it's classy.

And for those of us who are a bit more downmarket, I bring you: hombraying.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:55 PM on June 20, 2014 [8 favorites]

From the comments to that WaPo article about George Will:

Outwardly speaking, George Will looks like he may be a heavy drinker. I apologize if you are not, Mr. Will. It's just what I see and with heavy drinkers often come a whole slew of difficult attitudes the greatest being judging others harshly before one gets judged and outed, Scorekeeping, shame, blame, resentment, inability to ever be wrong, an inflated sense of self that is easily disabled.

Writing about what we know and about what we have studied seems more than reasonable.

Followed immediately by:

Also, it looks like he spanks it a lot.

Oh God I can't breathe.
posted by running order squabble fest at 4:00 PM on June 20, 2014 [6 favorites]

The next time a male talks down to me about a subject I know more about than they do, I am going to wait for him to finish, smile demurely and say: "That's very interesting. Now, could you explain mansplaining to me?"
posted by Kerasia at 4:05 PM on June 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

But I do agree-- I like that Metafilter is a generalist site, but I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Slightly more seriously - yeah, I would agree. Or, more precisely, I think the thing that is more likely to prevent MetaFilter from being a generalist site is not that Social Justice discussions take it over completely, but that the very small relative numbers of members who provide diversity get exhausted and leave, taking their diverse interests with them.

Neither exit ramp, I think, is imminent, but I think MetaFilter is far more likely to end up demographically like Hacker News than Black Feminist Twitter, just through current statistical proximity.
posted by running order squabble fest at 5:35 PM on June 20, 2014 [5 favorites]

Whereas that's all I want to do right now is hammer hostile people over the head with this shit because it makes me so furious.

I empathize with this feeling. Hence my last comment, which went over Oh So Well.

Look, it isn't the term Mansplain that is the problem, IMO, or at least that's just a symptom of a larger problem.

It's that Metafilter is becoming less inclusive and less welcoming because of the insistence that everyone in threads about social issues must confirm to a very specific, academic form of social outrage (which in another thread was termed Portlandia liberalism).

In political threads, this takes the form of people making sweeping comments about the left, libertarianism, liberals, conservatives, the right, democrats, whoever the popular scapegoat of the day is, and the talking down to those who don't agree with them as a way to assert their political superiority.

In social interest threads, it takes the form of people insisting that they know, for example, what is best for the poor, and talking down to anyone (including actual poor people) who disagree.

In sexism threads, this takes the form of people making sweeping generalizations about men talking down to people who do not agree with them.

And here's the funny thing. It can ALSO take the form of making sweeping generalizations about women and talking down to anyone who disagrees about that.

The problem isn't the terminology, it's the condescension and the hypocrisy, combined with the sense that, 'Since clearly I am on the right side, it is okay for ME to use dirty tactics to win this debate.'

Which inevitably leads to a contentious, exclusionary, contemptuous environment that is toxic to any productive debate.
posted by misha at 5:37 PM on June 20, 2014 [7 favorites]

I agree with her views and was quoting her to indicate that this isn't that godawful word mansplaining, that my views were formed by an actual factual AFAB feminist.

Transphobia is everywhere!
posted by Dysk at 5:52 PM on June 20, 2014 [6 favorites]

"Portlandia Liberal" is in general a terrible place to start the whole argument from. It's simultaneously vague and dismissive and sidesteps unreasonably the practical fact that even in the context of the ideological tendencies in the userbase—even, that is, in the subset of the userbase that actually would identify on multiple points with the notional median viewpoint on some of the major issues—there's a ton of variation from person to person and regular arguments on various sides of what are often raised, and by cairdeas' comment again put out there, as some canonical core belief system.

Some wise words there, I think, from Cortex.
posted by running order squabble fest at 6:02 PM on June 20, 2014 [6 favorites]

Cortex's point is well taken. I agree with it. However, the "notional median" of the userbase (if you will) is routinely not especially hesitant to paint outside viewpoints with a vague, dismissive, and rather broad brush. So it becomes maybe halfway hypocritical to criticize the lack of nuance when it's turned inward.
posted by cribcage at 6:18 PM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

"It's that Metafilter is becoming less inclusive and less welcoming because of the insistence that everyone in threads about social issues must confirm to a very specific, academic form of social outrage (which in another thread was termed Portlandia liberalism)."

If instead of responding to criticism you simply repeat what you asserted previously, you're not actually having a conversation. You're being a boor.

"The problem isn't the terminology, it's the condescension and the hypocrisy, combined with the sense that, 'Since clearly I am on the right side, it is okay for ME to use dirty tactics to win this debate.'"

Your very last comment was dripping with condescension and hypocrisy.

Look, my last reply to you took your comment seriously and disagreed with it as such. Rather than reply to that — or any of the other rebuttals people gave you — you have simply restated your contentions without providing evidence. Is that the role you want to play, where instead of actually engaging anyone you simply grind your axe about how all these other "dishonest" feminists are persecuting you because they hate men? Aren't you a little old for that? Or are you simply incapable of coming up with a stronger articulation or one that actually engages with the substance of the criticism leveled against you?
posted by klangklangston at 6:25 PM on June 20, 2014 [20 favorites]

Well... I don't think Cortex is engaged in hypocrisy, Cribcage. Obviously, you may disagree.

Regardless, this discussion is about misogyny on MetaFilter - so, the painting of outside viewpoints isn't really hugely relevant, I think. If by outside viewpoints you mean inside viewpoints - as in inside MetaFilter - that's probably a different matter, but if we're not tying it back to the topic then it's kind of a derail, and maybe sometime to start a new MeTa about?
posted by running order squabble fest at 6:40 PM on June 20, 2014

I'm still interested in how I've tried to fit in with Metafilter feminists by declaring that all men are terrible. When are we getting back to that?
posted by shakespeherian at 6:53 PM on June 20, 2014 [4 favorites]

Klang, this whole thread started with a contention without any evidence given to back it up, as was already pointed out way up thread.
posted by misha at 7:16 PM on June 20, 2014

> ... I think MetaFilter is far more likely to end up demographically like Hacker News than Black Feminist Twitter, just through current statistical proximity.

I don't think either of these outcomes is likely. Without mod intervention, the site would likely become an enclave of liberal* white upper-middle class Americans, because a lot of MeFites have been very explicit about saying that's what they want and completely unapologetic about attacking people who they think come from the wrong kinds of backgrounds and shouldn't be allowed to be on the site. So more like Crooked Timber with cat videos and music posts, and less like Hacker News.

*Yes, we're talking about liberals who don't want 'ethnic' people, or poor people, or lower middle class people on 'their' website, because that's what American liberals are like, and that's what a large group of vocal MeFites are like.
posted by nangar at 7:20 PM on June 20, 2014

Klang, this whole thread started with a contention without any evidence given to back it up, as was already pointed out way up thread.

Have I completely missed something? What lack of evidence? What are you referring to?
posted by futz at 7:31 PM on June 20, 2014 [3 favorites]

this whole thread started with a contention without any evidence given to back it up

Wait, are you contending with just some of the valences described below the fold, or are you saying that "our work to keep Metafilter free from sexism is far from over" is not supported by any evidence. (And nothing in this very thread suggests otherwise?)
posted by nobody at 7:34 PM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Klang, this whole thread started with a contention without any evidence given to back it up, as was already pointed out way up thread.

So? klang was talking specifically to you, not interrogating the entire thread, or what was said by someone else more than a thousand comments ago. But instead, you again respond with a non-response.

But since I am probably one of the seekrit man-hating feminists who's ruining everything, I don't know why the hell you'd listen to me anyway.
posted by rtha at 8:12 PM on June 20, 2014 [9 favorites]

cribcage: "Cortex's point is well taken. I agree with it. However, the 'notional median' of the userbase (if you will) is routinely not especially hesitant to paint outside viewpoints with a vague, dismissive, and rather broad brush. So it becomes maybe halfway hypocritical to criticize the lack of nuance when it's turned inward."

That's not really taking his point well at all, though - it's rejecting it. He made the point that, even among some imaginary common group of metafilter - if they exist - there's so much variation that slapping them with a label is both unfair and also factually quite unfounded and incorrect. Your response, briefly paraphrased, is 'sure, but the main userbase here is dismissive of outside viewpoints.' That's doing exactly the thing that it doesn't make sense to do - slapping a label on thousands of people here, calling them 'dismissive,' and leaving it at that. There are dismissive people here, but to say the 'notional median userbase' (which, again, is probably a bogus concept anyway) is just flatly dismissive is - well, while I wouldn't say it moves toward hypocritical, I would say it's a really ironic thing to do to dismiss a large group of people as 'dismissive.'
posted by koeselitz at 8:27 PM on June 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

Klang, this whole thread started with a contention without any evidence given to back it up, as was already pointed out way up thread."

I do not understand this contention.

The comments of this Metafilter post about misogynist songs at Trader Joes demonstrates that our work to keep Metafilter free from sexism is far from over.

There were many comments in there demonstrating the problems with the overall thread - mansplaining, talking over women commenting in the thread, saying "well Woman In My Life is ok with X therefore all you other women should agree!". And while there were a good number of commentors trying to reel in the meta-misogyny and sexism, they are fast becoming outnumbered and overwhelmed.

The contention is that there is still work to be done on sexism here.

The purported evidence is that there was 'mansplaining,' talking over women and making an appeal to authority based on knowing a woman. Then, the people arguing against that got overwhelmed and the thread got bogged down in it.

What evidence would be sufficient for you to support that conclusion? Is there any evidence that can support "mansplaining" or do you simply deny its validity as a term? If you deny the validity, since what's meant by "mansplaining" has been adequately explicated again and again here, what would be convincing evidence for you? Likewise, the other mentioned behavior? Specifically, please.

I suspect that a lot of the commentors there were not around during the constant discussions about Metafilter's Boyzone atmosphere (I noticed a couple of other comments on that thread making a similar remark). It took a lot of effort for Mefi to get to where it is when it comes to misogyny and respecting women's voices, and I'd hate for that to be rapidly erased.

This isn't in support of the initial contention, but is related. While it's not certain, it seems like a credible observation to me — a lot of the folks that I've seen participating on this have newer user numbers. But the argument that MeFi has gotten better isn't core to her thesis anyway — there can be more work to do on sexism whether or not it's gotten better.

I wanted to start this MetaTalk thread because there was a lot of discussion on the Mefi post about how the post itself was going, and with 300+ comments there already I figured it would be better to hash out site-related qualms here on its own thread.

That seems pretty uncontroversial, but again she's asserting without directly demonstrating that there was a lot of cross-talk in the MeFi thread already. The only way it's contentious is if you disagree not just that there was sexist behavior but also that there were people arguing in quantity over what they perceived as sexism.

Now, where exactly was it "pointed out" that this was a "contention without any evidence "? Because it seems like most of this thread has moved on to either arguing over the use of "mansplain" broadly, or snarking at feminism/feminists, a long and weird derail about the use of the guy's name in the article (only tangentially related to divabat's contentions), and a lot of complaints about the way that divabat went about making her complaint rather than refuting her contentions.

So, no, this wasn't started with a contention and no evidence to back it up, and characterizing it that way does not make you look like an "honest feminist."

And even if we stipulate all of the previous as insufficient, would you accept sexist comments made in this thread? Timsteil got a week off and would have been deleted if the mods had been faster, so I'm guessing you're not willing to count that. How many others would it take to convince you that there is work to keep MeFi free of sexism? Or do you not share that as a goal? If so, you might as well say so, but it's an odd position for an "honest feminist" to take.

Again, your arguments do not stand up to the standard that you are demanding.
posted by klangklangston at 8:31 PM on June 20, 2014 [12 favorites]

Misha, I've taken your posts at face value and been polite to you and other posters, including some people who were not, themselves, being very civil, and you've just blamed me for the site being unwelcoming after calling me a man-basher and dishonest and not a real feminist and just here for bonding and a whole load of other ad femininems (as Wolof noted). I don't care if you meant me or not, that is what you did, and it's something you should keep in mind the next time you're blaming your 'unpopularity' on your so-brave ability to give voice to the status quo.
posted by gingerest at 8:45 PM on June 20, 2014 [23 favorites]

I would say it's a really ironic thing to do to dismiss a large group of people as 'dismissive.'

I don't think it dismisses anyone to agree that broad-brushing is problematic and point out that it happens a lot more frequently here, and to less objection, directed externally to the so-called median demographic. To be honest, I didn't think it was an especially controversial point, but it's one that matters and I thought it was relevant. If you disagree it happens, or maybe you disagree there is any median MetaFilter demographic, so be it, agree to disagree.
posted by cribcage at 8:50 PM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Just came across an interesting article about how to be an ally. The writer's experience is regarding disability rights/ableism (I've been researching ableism, which is how I happened to read the article) but her points are generalizable to a lot of social justice movements, I think, including in feminism.

This is a quasi-related article (it's linked in the article above) about listening skills in the context of being a feminist ally. jsturgill, I thought that you might be especially interested in this, because you seemed to me to be trying to figure out how to be part of the conversation in a respectful way but were hitting the skids a bit in understanding/participating in the dynamic.
posted by rue72 at 9:43 PM on June 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

Klang, I am not holding anyone to a different standard, you are. You require evidence from me that others are not required to give.

Plus, jaguar and I ALREADY COVERED THIS. I respected her reservations about providing examples to back up her own premise, when I questioned the premise of this Metatalk. It's all right there in the thread!

How about you just read the comment, so I don't have to repeat myself.
posted by misha at 10:24 PM on June 20, 2014

In other words, you are conceding that you are, indeed, "incapable of coming up with a stronger articulation or one that actually engages with the substance of the criticism leveled against you" at any point since a comment you made four days ago.
posted by scody at 10:43 PM on June 20, 2014 [9 favorites]

I basically feel like the whole "we have to be ~nice~ and ~inclusive~" thing is bullshit (and generally an application of Geek Social Fallacy #1); we don't have to tolerate bigotry, we don't have to tolerate people who want to police the way women talk about their experiences with sexism and misogyny, and if that drives manbabies off the site, then good, they are welcome to go hang out on basically every single other site on the entire internet, since society is set up to cater to their whiny requests over the needs of people who actually suffer from oppression.
posted by NoraReed at 11:07 PM on June 20, 2014 [17 favorites]

Klang, I am not holding anyone to a different standard, you are. You require evidence from me that others are not required to give.

MANY women in this discussion have given evidence based on their daily experiences AND we are still not believed and are asked TO SHOW OUR WORK. We women have been asked to provide evidence over and over and over again right here in this thread.
posted by futz at 11:16 PM on June 20, 2014 [11 favorites]

Klang, I am not holding anyone to a different standard, you are. You require evidence from me that others are not required to give.

That's of course nonsense. All you've been doing in your last few comments is repeating the same old hackneyed rightwing talking point that liberals are the true oppressors, not entirely unlike what the cadre of professional whingers here on MeFi always does when threads about making this place slightly more friendly to women, or people of colour, or trans* people comes along.

Basically, you've been busy proving the point that there's still a lot of work to be done before MeFi is free of sexism.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:55 PM on June 20, 2014 [12 favorites]

cribcage: "I don't think it dismisses anyone to agree that broad-brushing is problematic and point out that it happens a lot more frequently here, and to less objection, directed externally to the so-called median demographic. To be honest, I didn't think it was an especially controversial point, but it's one that matters and I thought it was relevant. If you disagree it happens, or maybe you disagree there is any median MetaFilter demographic, so be it, agree to disagree."

The larger context we're speaking within is the key here, really: this is absolutely not a thread where there is a monolithic median demographic - is it? There are two sides opposed to each other, apparently. A lot of people have said different things. One side has said that the other is being misogynist when it says that women should not use a certain word. The other side has accused the first of being man-bashing false feminists only interested in winning an argument. This is not a strange dynamic, either. It's an argument we seem to have a lot.

So - where the heck is the median Metafilter demographic here? I don't see one. I do not see any evidence here that some monolithic group with shared ideas is monopolizing the question. It's an argument that goes round and round; that's not always nice, and it would be great to resolve it, but one good thing about disagreements like this: it assures us that there's no lack of ideological diversity.

The fact that none of us seem willing to stop having heated discussions about this, disagreeing wildly with each other, does seem to preclude the idea of the common ideology enforced by frequently expressed dismissal and disdain that I think you're describing.
posted by koeselitz at 12:33 AM on June 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

misha: Do you want me to link to every last comment on that Trader Joes thread to prove to you what prompted this post? Because that could easily lead into 100s of comments, and I don't think it's worth the time given that it's likely that you haven't accepted any of our testimony as evidence, not even looking at the instigating thread itself.

You want proof? Read the Trader Joes thread. I'm not going to risk having my work be rules-lawyered to death because you keep changing the goalposts of what is "Good enough" evidence to you.

I'm somewhat reminded of the thread in 2009 about racism in Australia, where one guy kept sniping back at me and others trying to point out that racism is totally a problem there by claiming that we were only into social justice to attract some girl. (Let me tell you, I wish being social-justice-oriented was enough to find a girlfriend.)
posted by divabat at 1:37 AM on June 21, 2014 [12 favorites]

(Not that I"m questioning anyone's time allocation, but we know that there's no ending here in which Misha listens to people she's already identified as man-hating, high-fiving fake feminists, right? There's no good-faith interaction to be had, here.)
posted by running order squabble fest at 6:14 AM on June 21, 2014 [11 favorites]

"Gentlemansplain" is kind of funny. I mean, it's obviously polite.
posted by nobody at 7:02 AM on June 21, 2014 [6 favorites]

M'ladysplain
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:54 AM on June 21, 2014 [12 favorites]

You want proof? Read the Trader Joes thread.

Divabat, I read that thread. I disagreed that it was dominated by mansplainers and that feminists were overwhelmed by misogynists. Still do. Your comment about changing the goalposts is absurd.

Scody, obviously attempting to respond to klangklangston, who apparently didn't read THIS thread, was an exercise in futility, because HE brought nothing new four days later. I should have realized it was not asked in good faith. How in the hell you are laying his reading failure on me just goes to show how, again, it is more about scoring points on than internet than attempting to "do this better".

Since this is now becoming all about me rather than the issues or people I was supporting and defending, AND I have had to close my Mefimail because of the hateful messages I am getting AND shakespeherian, specifically, has been sharing my responses to his messages with other members, which as far as I know is still against the rules, AND I have an actual life to get to, here is all I have left to say in the thread and then I am done:

Hey! Anyone vehemently piling on to me for my comment? Yes, you. You often say that people who find themselves defensive in sexism threads have not taken the time to examine their own sexism. You say that if a women is telling you something, believe her. You say that if a word is offensive to someone and they have told you so, you stop using it.

This thread proves all of those statements demonstrably false. You are defensive, you do not question envy any of your actions should be examined for your own sexism, you don't care if terms like mansplaining (and neckbeards, and dude bros and claiming people are MRAs or PUAs) are demeaning or offensive to anyone. Congratulations. Your hypocrisy pays off. You win at the internet.
posted by misha at 10:34 AM on June 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

shakespeherian, specifically, has been sharing my responses to his messages with other members

What?
posted by shakespeherian at 10:40 AM on June 21, 2014 [3 favorites]

AND shakespeherian, specifically, has been sharing my responses to his messages with other members

That's a hell of an allegation.
posted by rtha at 10:55 AM on June 21, 2014 [4 favorites]

Hey! Anyone vehemently piling on to me for my comment?

You came in and said that you love men and are an honest feminist, unlike the rest of us who are manhating points scoring high fivers or some crap. Also that no one wants to listen to men in this thread because of their gender, which isn't true at all, especially since we have male feminists participating here.

It's really disingenuous to act like you don't expect people to get angry about at since "feminists hate men" is an extremely common, divisive and harmful trope.

saying people just want to score points is one of the most toxic things to say in a discussion like this because it makes it sound like those opinions aren't real or personally felt, like the "real" opinions must clearly be less progressive. It's a really terrible thing to say.
posted by sweetkid at 11:11 AM on June 21, 2014 [29 favorites]

That's a hell of an allegation.

Yeah don't throw accusations like that around in an already contentious thread. Email us at the contact form instead and we can investigate.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:16 AM on June 21, 2014 [7 favorites]

Let me know how I can help.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:18 AM on June 21, 2014 [15 favorites]

Scody, obviously attempting to respond to klangklangston, who apparently didn't read THIS thread, was an exercise in futility, because HE brought nothing new four days later. I should have realized it was not asked in good faith. How in the hell you are laying his reading failure on me just goes to show how, again, it is more about scoring points on than internet than attempting to "do this better".

Nope. I'm not laying anyone's "reading failure" at your feet. What I'm laying right at your feet, misha, is your refusal (or is it an inability?) to substantively address any of the response or criticism you received following this comment in which, among many other things, you imply that anyone who has a position contrary to yours in this thread (and any other thread!) regarding the state of sexism on Metafilter is dishonest, irrational, and/or a misandrist. A number of people, both women and men, pushed back against that assertion -- including people who have defended you in the past for having a much different take on feminism than many other Metafilter feminists -- not to mention the hypocrisy of your decrying personal attacks, sarcasm, etc. for creating a toxic environment while engaging in precisely the same tactic yourself.

I've disagreed with you a lot in the past, misha, but like at least some others here I generally thought you were engaging in good faith, and thought your contrary take on feminism, in the end, added a net positive to the site. I don't believe that any longer. I believe that if you had any intention or ability to engage these questions honestly, you would have done it by now. But evidently you don't. At this point, your responses resemble nothing so much as the rhetorical equivalent of a squid shooting ink in order to get away.

Feel free to put that down to a lack of reading comprehension on my part all you want; maybe it helps burnish some sense of being Metafilter's one and only honest, rational, man-friendly feminist rather than to consider that you actually bear any responsibility for squandering anyone's goodwill. But I'm not falling for it.
posted by scody at 11:25 AM on June 21, 2014 [34 favorites]

"Scody, obviously attempting to respond to klangklangston, who apparently didn't read THIS thread, was an exercise in futility, because HE brought nothing new four days later."

Your position is that you're rubber and I'm glue, so anything I say bounces off you and sticks to me?

I didn't want to do the work of specifically refuting each of your points if you were simply going to move the goalposts, so I asked you what evidence you would accept, and how you would respond to criticisms already made of your position. If you were engaging in good faith, this would be a pretty simple thing to answer. Instead, you repeated the same thing you said before, then when called on it… said to read what you said before.

What's the benefit in treating you seriously again?
posted by klangklangston at 1:10 PM on June 21, 2014 [5 favorites]

Wow metafilter gets mean
posted by disclaimer at 1:10 PM on June 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

The idea of wanting to "win the internet" is an interesting one, especially given the context of this whole discussion.

In one way it is very true - I want to "win the internet." I want an internet where people don't insult each other, make threats, harass and abuse. There is pretty much nothing anyone can say to me which will deter me from this goal - I am fully capable of blathering on endlessly about it using twenty dollar words. If I got the internet as a prize, it would give everyone hugs and naptimes when they're abusive, and turn itself off until they feel better (which now that I've typed it out seems kinda patronizing - woo, self-analysis in my future).

But part of me wanting to win the internet is to want other people there, even people I disagree with regularly and sometimes with some heat. I just don't want there to be abuse, and insults, and harassment.

And I want to bring everyone still in the thread their favorite cookie with milk and/or a drink of their choosing if lactose intolerant. And something fuzzy and non-allergenic to snuggle.
posted by Deoridhe at 1:15 PM on June 21, 2014 [6 favorites]

Winning the internet, to me, would be making the spaces I hang out in free of toxic misogynist bullshit so that the level of discourse can actually be interesting and not just circling the same handful of points that a bunch of dudes refuse to take as givens and the same handful of dudes who can't handle feminist dialogue without becoming whiny babies. It's like talking about herd immunity with a bunch of anti-vaxxers or the melting of the icecaps with a bunch of climate change denialists; it's annoying as hell to have a bunch of people denying the basic precepts that your discipline is based on shitting all over the place every time that discipline comes up. Except unlike in those cases, more than half the population is actually directly and profoundly affected by the issues we're talking about, so it's not just like "this important issue you care about is being denied by a bunch of ignorant blowhards", it's "this important issue that has caused basically all of the women who you know to suffer harassment, assault and discrimination and modify their lives around that is being deliberately obstructed by men who are whining about your word choice", which is even more infuriating.

This is why I refuse to budge on the "mansplaining" thing, because until these men start being moderated when they force threads to stick on 101 points (or driven away to reddit to find their spiritual kin), they are always going to find something to whine about, whether that's ~misandry~ or the word "mansplain" or some bullshit tone argument or the one woman they know who doesn't mind their behavior so how dare the rest of us complain. They will do this because they are sexist and because they are comfortable in their privilege and do not like having it challenged. Being "nicer", changing our language, and otherwise behaving in the way we are, under the patriarchy, supposed to act, as meek ~ladies~, is not gonna do jack shit.
posted by NoraReed at 1:46 PM on June 21, 2014 [41 favorites]

I'm amazed this thread is still going on.

I would like to tell any allies out there that being an ally is hard because you have to face your own privileges. Being an ally can be hurtful when the people you want to be an ally to say things you find upsetting. You may feel personally attacked. Part of being a good ally is to recognize that systems of oppression depend on this dynamic of "they hurt me so why should I help them", and move beyond that often painful feeling that this is personal against them.

If your allyship is dependent on an oppressed group using only the language or arguments you find appropriate, you're not being a good ally.

If you threaten to ignore, walk away, or not participate in discussions anymore because you're offended, you are using your privilege. You implicitly recognize that you have the POWER to walk away from a situation and not be affected by it anymore. You are acting out the social pattern that oppressed people have to deal with shit and maybe more privileged groups will listen if you "talk right" but otherwise they'll just have to fight alone. That is not being a good ally.
posted by nakedmolerats at 3:38 PM on June 21, 2014 [44 favorites]

I disagreed that it was dominated by mansplainers and that feminists were overwhelmed by misogynists. Still do.
[...]
This thread proves all of those statements demonstrably false.

it's sort of amazing you can start and end a comment like this, misha, without being utterly bowled over by the cognitive dissonance - being so sure about what is an opinion in other people but are wholly unable to realize that your "demonstrable" fact is actually just an opinion you hold. you've often had a begrudging supporter in me - but that stops now. your discourse on feminism is poisonous and i hope you one day realize that.
posted by nadawi at 4:52 PM on June 21, 2014 [9 favorites]

It's possible that she thinks that the thread can't be overwhelmed by misogyny unless the misogyny makes up the overwhelming majority of the content in the thread. The case is that misogyny is like a pile of shit: its smell can overwhelm the room even if it doesn't take up all of the physical space.
posted by NoraReed at 5:01 PM on June 21, 2014 [3 favorites]

It's possible that she thinks that the thread can't be overwhelmed by misogyny unless the misogyny makes up the overwhelming majority of the content in the thread. The case is that misogyny is like a pile of shit: its smell can overwhelm the room even if it doesn't take up all of the physical space.

There is a commonly-referenced idea* that when the proportion of women/female-identified people in a group reaches 17%, many people perceive it as "women are taking over!" Given that, it makes instinctual sense that the proportion of stinky crap can be much lower and it'll still seem to be all-pervasive and stinking up the place.


*Incidentally, if anyone has a cite for this, PLEASE post it/MeMail me — I will owe you the refreshment of your choice. When I search for it, the only citations I find are to Geena Davis, and not to a peer-reviewed article by her.)
posted by Lexica at 5:30 PM on June 21, 2014 [4 favorites]

(Lexica--there was an AskMe about trying to find the original study, though I don't think anyone succeeded in actually turning up a journal article.)
posted by kagredon at 5:33 PM on June 21, 2014

Anyone want a beer?
posted by shakespeherian at 6:01 PM on June 21, 2014 [9 favorites]

The beer has Potassium Benzoate.
posted by sweetkid at 6:08 PM on June 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

Can I go now?
posted by Drinky Die at 6:43 PM on June 21, 2014

The Geena Davis quote is from an interview with NPR:

DAVIS: My theory is that since all anybody has seen, when they are growing up, is this big imbalance - that the movies that they've watched are about, let's say, 5 to 1, as far as female presence is concerned - that's what starts to look normal. And let's think about - in different segments of society, 17 percent of cardiac surgeons are women; 17 percent of tenured professors are women. It just goes on and on. And isn't that strange that that's also the percentage of women in crowd scenes in movies? What if we're actually training people to see that ratio as normal so that when you're an adult, you don't notice?

LYDEN: I wonder what the impact is of all of this lack of female representation.

DAVIS: We just heard a fascinating and disturbing study, where they looked at the ratio of men and women in groups. And they found that if there's 17 percent women, the men in the group think it's 50-50. And if there's 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men.

posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:05 PM on June 21, 2014 [8 favorites]

I've read this entire thread and the TJ thread, and it all makes me sad. I'll tell you why - today, I taught my 12 year old daughter about sexual assault and harassment and showed her how to use her keys as a weapon. She asked me why rape exists and I said "You know those texts about you? (The ones that called her a "fucking bitch" and said "fuck her, but wait, she has a bunch of guys to do that already" and "I can't believe she dated A even though she knew I liked her.") You see how some men believe they're entitled to a woman and her body, no matter how she may feel about it." Did I mention she's TWELVE? This is my reality. This is my daughter's reality. So it's really, really disheartening that this thread has devolved into the same tired mansplaining debate (a word and concept I'll be teaching my daughter about, because it is good to have a name and know it's not your fault) and accusations of man-hating feminists seeing misogyny everywhere. Anyway, thanks to all of you who are fighting the good fight, in spite of the soul-crushing exhaustion of it all.
posted by Ruki at 8:12 PM on June 21, 2014 [41 favorites]

Aww Ruki, I am so sorry! You are doing the right thing by educating your daughter. I wish that you did not have to. I also wish that I had had the tools to deal with even some of this at her age. Nobody told me. Hugs.
posted by futz at 8:22 PM on June 21, 2014 [7 favorites]

Thanks, I wish I didn't have to, either.

I know it's late in thread, and I know some people have already checked out. But regarding mansplaining and tone arguments - look, I do try to be kind, IRL, when calling people out for an -ism, but there is also a righteous anger simmering underneath. I'm sad and I'm angry that I needed to have that conversation with my daughter at all. I'm sad and I'm angry that those texts were between children and that our patriarchal society has done such a disservice to that boy, who just last year was having playdates with my daughter, where they played with Lego and video games. Sometimes that anger leaks out, with good reason. Because it's non-stop, this explaining, this educating, this often futile kindness.

I don't think men are a monolithic group. I do think men can be feminists, and I am grateful for those who are. The word mansplaining doesn't refer to all men, in the same way that the word fireman doesn't refer to all men. But it does refer to a very real thing. Like futz said, "nobody told me." How many women in this thread have written that, before they knew that mansplaining was a thing, they thought that it was their fault it happened? Marginalized groups need language to describe their marginalization. Mansplaining is a loaded word, I get it. So is cisgender and anti-Semite and I've even seen people object to straight.

It has taken me over an hour to write this comment, because I have gone over every word and edited and edited again to be as inoffensive as possible. Think about that when you talk about tone. Over an hour, just so I don't get written off as an angry feminist or turn people off by my word choice. Why?
posted by Ruki at 9:48 PM on June 21, 2014 [47 favorites]

It was an hour well spent Ruki. Your daughter has a great role model.
posted by futz at 10:12 PM on June 21, 2014 [4 favorites]

(And it is highly unfortunate that you had to edit and reedit just to try to avoid the common pitfalls that many of us anticipate when trying to explain ourselves. An hour spent trying not to offend! I would love to see your uncensored version. :)
posted by futz at 10:34 PM on June 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

Some Effects of Proportions on Group Life: Skewed Sex Ratios and Responses to Token Women

The White (Male) Effect and Risk Perception: Can Equality Make a Difference?
posted by divabat at 11:09 PM on June 21, 2014 [6 favorites]

The Mefi thread names Stacy L Smith as the researcher: she has two lists of research publications so it may be there.
posted by divabat at 11:14 PM on June 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

Between the size of this thread and the fact I'm on the train my phone is really acting up but Susan Herring and Deb Tannen also did some work on this.
posted by gingerest at 11:40 PM on June 21, 2014

The Mefi thread names Stacy L Smith as the researcher: she has two lists of research publications so it may be there.

That is the same Stacy Smith that runs the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, so I think divabat has it.

I did find this though: The great disappearing act: Gender parity up the corporate ladder.

Women enter the workforce in large numbers, but over time steadily "vaporize" from the higher echelons of organization hierarchy. In 2009, only 3 percent of Fortune 500 companies had a female CEO. In Europe, women constitute just 12 percent of the boards of directors of FTSE 100 companies - 25 percent of these companies still have all-male boards.
...
[But!]
In the survey results, about twice as many men as women feel that women have an equal chance as men of being recruited in executive roles, promoted on the same timeline into executive roles, or appointed to key leadership or governance roles.

posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:54 PM on June 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

You'll love this, Ruki -- I just spent 45 minutes writing and editing a response about how and why I so closely edit and so often delete the comments that I spend all this time editing without ever posting, and then I deleted it.
posted by E. Whitehall at 11:59 PM on June 21, 2014 [6 favorites]

I don't know if this'll help anyone, but I hope so. I've developed a silly kind of mental model for myself that seems to help me take things more lightly when it's clear that I'm in the wrong in a situation in which I'm the privileged one. I picture my calling out and the subsequent correction as something like pulling a weed. Usually the calling out is only internal: I'll have a racist/ablist/genderist/whatever thought, and see it as the stupid weed it is, and chuckle as I uproot it and chuck it out of my mental garden.

I take it as a gracious favor when someone's willing to do the same for me: to point out my weeds. Once in a while, a weed'll get tall and I won't even notice it. I was telling a buddy a couple of years ago about how nice it was to get to go to the capital of the middle-eastern country where I sometimes live, because my husband and I could hold hands there in public. That buddy, who happens to be a lesbian, smirked at me and said, "Must be nice." In that moment, she utterly schooled me (she's also a Mefite, so hey, dude!). We laughed for a couple of minutes straight. It was absolutely the best. Get that stupid weed out of there.

Getting to say, "Yikes, sorry, thanks for fixing that, there," feels good for everyone, I think.
posted by lauranesson at 6:11 AM on June 22, 2014 [14 favorites]

Possibly of interest re: the 17% thing - which I think is not a derail, insofar as that's probably not a kajillion miles from the male/female ratio on MetaFilter - is a comment by Samuel R Delaney about the presence of another traditionally excluded group from Science Fiction, in his essay "Racism and Science Fiction".

Since I began to publish in 1962, I have often been asked, by people of all colors, what my experience of racial prejudice in the science fiction field has been. Has it been nonexistent? By no means: It was definitely there. A child of the political protests of the ’50s and ’60s, I’ve frequently said to people who asked that question: As long as there are only one, two, or a handful of us, however, I presume in a field such as science fiction, where many of its writers come out of the liberal-Jewish tradition, prejudice will most likely remain a slight force—until, say, black writers start to number thirteen, fifteen, twenty percent of the total. At that point, where the competition might be perceived as having some economic heft, chances are we will have as much racism and prejudice here as in any other field.

We are still a long way away from such statistics.

But we are certainly moving closer.

posted by running order squabble fest at 8:26 AM on June 22, 2014

I think what makes the act of mansplaining so bad, and gives the term such bite when used as an accusation, is its formal and emblematic resemblance to sex as practiced under the patriarchy, in that it seeks to force women into the role of purely passive receptacles for whatever men come up with in conversation, and implicitly denies women authorship or agency in any outcome of discourse, just as patriarchal religious views of conception and development denied women any credit for outcomes of intercourse--though of course women could be blamed for anything that went wrong.

And not only does the fact that mansplaining is an act with sexual overtones that men do to women without regard to consent give it a resonance with rape, the blowback from mansplaining poisons even conversation between men when no women are present by making simply listening to and considering what another man has to say emasculating in itself, and thereby forcing men to shout each other down and never give an inch (much less eight) in order to keep from being punked--that is, feminized.
posted by jamjam at 9:53 AM on June 22, 2014 [4 favorites]

This conversation has been hard enough without introducing and debating a rape analogy. Seriously let's not.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:12 PM on June 22, 2014 [16 favorites]

It most certainly is a difficult conversation, and I sure as shit didn't help it along any.
posted by Pudhoho at 1:43 AM on June 23, 2014

As LobsterMitten has asked, let's please completely drop this really bad analogy altogether.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:18 AM on June 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

Well... there's a point in there, which doesn't need the analogy, about men feeling entitled to women's attention and deference, and becoming angry and aggressive when they don't get it. Mansplaining and over-talking is on a continuum there, along with, say, street harassment - these are bad behaviors based on the expectation that women should give men their attention and time, and not make them feel rejected.

In those terms, that's not hugely controversial - although we're back to the point about whether there is any way to frame these things that is sufficiently agreeable and conciliatory as not to get kickback from angry dudes. I don't know if there is any way jamjam could have phrased that which wouldn't have ended with her being told she should have done more science in high school.

Which, PS, wow.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:30 AM on June 23, 2014 [19 favorites]

Not on topic at ALL, but hey, LobsterMitten is back as a mod now, too? That's wonderful news!
posted by DingoMutt at 5:09 AM on June 23, 2014

(LobsterMitten is subbing for cortex this week while he's on vacation, and I think/hope the plan is to bring back some more hours after this, once we get a more solid idea of reliable income expectations.)

And, look, seriously, we really do not have either the will or resources to continue this thread if it's going to go down "Like Rape" lane. This is a thing that we pretty much routinely delete or strongly, strongly discourage throughout the site, and I understand that though people are apparently really feeling like digging into it here for whatever reason, we've asked now, including this comment, three times: Please don't. So don't, please?
posted by taz (staff) at 5:36 AM on June 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

(I don't like his response, but it looks like hal_c_on -- and then running order squabble fest pushing back against it -- was today trying to respond to the other parts of jamjam's comment?)
posted by nobody at 7:22 AM on June 23, 2014

With regard to mansplaining and alternate terms for it, this comment at Lawyers, Guns and Money I like a lot:

there is a difference between knowing something in a dispassionately academic sense, and knowing something in an intimate and directly experiential sense. Its the same difference between a tourist and a tour guide. A tourist is someone who visits a place and then leaves and, perhaps, if they were a good tourist, learned something in their visit, and maybe imparted that knowledge to someone who has yet to take the journey as a means of convincing them to do likewise. A tour guide is someone who lives and breathes that knowledge as part of their everyday life. They reside in the space under examination. They know about the space because they have to.

The is one of the two distinctions that needs to be recognized by people outside of whatever marginalized class is the focus of discussion. There are too many men, of good will as they may be, who think they’re tour guides when they’re not. This is especially problematic when men act as feminist tour guides to women. You know what a literal tourist who does this looks like to someone who lives in the space they’re visiting? They look like a self-absorbed asshole.

The other distinction is the one between the missionary and the ally. A missionary seeks to change the missionized so that the latter can better integrate themselves into the missionary’s culture. “Let me tell you everything you should do so you don’t get harassed/assaulted/raped by men.” An ally is someone who seeks to change the culture itself so that the marginalizing activity in question doesn’t occur in the first place.

posted by MartinWisse at 7:50 AM on June 23, 2014 [27 favorites]

Well, I don't think the highly emotive bits of jamjam's comment need to be referenced at all. Nor did I reference them at any point.

However, I think the proposition that mansplaining is not just something that happens independent of context, but something which can be compared with other behaviors in which men expect women to be deferential and compliant, and become upset or aggressive when that expectation is not met, is kind of uncontroversial and also super relevant to the thread. So, if it makes it easier let's assume I came up with that idea a nihilo, and go from there.

So, for example, Richard Dawkins lecturing Rebecca Watson about what women having it tough actually looks like is not just an idiosyncratic, acontextual behavior: it's a microaggression that fits into a whole pattern of microaggressions aimed at visible women on the Internet. As, in meatspace, is pestering a woman to take out her earbuds and put down her book so you can tell her she'd look pretty if she smiled, and then getting pissed off when she doesn't.

As is, to cite an example mentioned in a recent post on the green, writing a lengthy piece on Medium about how bad it is when women break off contact with their male exes, and how while obviously women aren't to blame when their exes stalk them, they could avoid it in many cases by just being nicer and helping them through the breakup.

And so on, and so on. All of which takes us neatly and nicely back to the start of the thread, and divabat's initial analysis:

There were many comments in there demonstrating the problems with the overall thread - mansplaining, talking over women commenting in the thread, saying "well Woman In My Life is ok with X therefore all you other women should agree!".

These aren't things that happen in isolation, not are they things that only happen on the Internet - they are behaviors optimized to make shared space less pleasant for women, and encourage them not to participate, or to limit their participation to ways that won't upset the mens. An individual dude might not have that end goal in mind, but this is the end result. And intent - unlike, say, friendship - is not magic.

[I mean, to take a very obvious example, telling someone that their statement is proof that more people should take science classes is itself hooked into a whole bunch of stuff about how women are systematically discouraged from STEM, and how those who persevere and do graduate with STEM degrees often find that the industries that value those skills do not in many cases value women. So, in many cases they find themselves unable to succeed, or forced to tread a very thin line of being the right kind of woman to avoid being marked as "difficult" or "emotional".]

This is all kind of known stuff, obviously, and I guess I'm hopefully being a decent male ally by not leaving the job of explaining it again to the womens.

And, most obviously, this is behavior which isn't even noticed a lot of the time in male spaces - which is why, for example, "I'd hit it" was normalized on MetaFilter for so long: very few people doing it had any intention of alienating or excluding women; it was just the rule of the spaces they operated in, which happened to be and remain overwhelmingly male.

"I'd hit it" was expunged, largely, from the site, through a combination of moderator action and site culture change. Especially now, I don't see moderator action as a very likely response to this discussion. But I think it's useful in terms of site culture. Not least, reading this thread you can see exactly this aggressive stuff happening - men becoming angry at being disagreed with, or being told that their advice is not original or world-changing, or being pushed back on when they tell women how the world, and sexism in the world, works.

So, this thread I think has value not just as a place where people are able to talk about behaviors that put them off interacting, but also a place where people can exhibit those behaviors, and can extend them beyond the point where a mod on the green would probably have told them to knock it off. In terms of learning about site culture, that's not pretty to look at, but it is data.
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:14 AM on June 23, 2014 [24 favorites]

Thanks for posting that MartinWisse. I stopped following LGM after one too many ridiculous posts by Erik Whatshisface. That's a really good comment.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:30 AM on June 23, 2014

It's also about an intersection of non-sexist and interesting. You can be an interesting contributing member of metafilter while being pretty damn sexist. I went for one member in this thread flagging a particularly nasty comment to favouriting and commenting pleasantly to the same member in another thread, and it was quite a strange feeling.

When mefi culture moves to put a dominant (widely-shared enough) frown on garden-variety sexism like token-women defences and mansplaining, some of our interesting voices might fall into their overlap and their own discomfort at the challenge will make them choose not to participate, hopefully only for a while. But I think the overall gains from increasing the comfort and welcome to women will come from skipping past these basic hurdles to the meatier and more interesting discussions, and in new and broader contributions from women on the site.

I know a lot of people don't list gender or fall outside the binary, but is it at all possible to do a comment count for mefi by gender? Are we a female or male dominated site, or are we already pretty distributed?
posted by viggorlijah at 9:37 AM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think the proposition that mansplaining is not just something that happens independent of context, but something which can be compared with other behaviors in which men expect women to be deferential and compliant, and become upset or aggressive when that expectation is not met, is kind of uncontroversial and also super relevant to the thread.

Yes, this is what I found most insightful about jamjam's comment. That deference -- and the good listening skills and interest in the other person's point of view and experience that I think goes hand-in-hand with deference -- is coded as feminine is already a problem. Apparently, a request for men to be more deferential in discussion is read by some men as an attempt to emasculate them, or as a way of hating/limited ~masculinity~ or the presence of men/masculinity in discussion. That's really disturbing to me, because I do think that reveals a really ingrained (and probably not even conscious) misogynistic attitude. It's not feminine to be deferential or to try to practice good listening skills, I don't think, and even if it were feminine, femininity isn't a bad thing, or contemptible, or something that men must avoid as a point of honor.

I think that something that would help discussions on misogyny go better is more open-mindedness and less focus on (personal) honor/feelings of being insulted. Even though I haven't agreed with jsturgill or hal_c_on in everything they've said, I have to say that it's been very refreshing to see them refuse to be insulted or refuse to let ego get in the way of their own thoughtfulness and attempts to learn, and I really appreciate that, and think that that attitude is very helpful when especially it comes to discussions about ingrained prejudices and structural prejudices between members of both the privileged and oppressed class(es) in question. It seems to me that both of them have tried to cultivate a "beginner's mind" when it comes to this (meta) discussion about misogyny, and that's something I aim to cultivate, too. Of course we actually do have experts here and I'm not saying that everyone has to be massively more deferential or show false modesty or anything, but I think that for everyone who, if they're honest with themselves, knows that they're roughly a novice in terms of the subject, or at least has more to learn about it, to aim to cultivate a beginners mind instead of doubling down on making sure their ego is protected and they aren't going to be "feminized" by showing too much deference, etc, that would be really helpful for the discussion general.
posted by rue72 at 10:01 AM on June 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

Okay, so I crunched some numbers from the infodump for the top 50 commentors on mefi in the past 12 months. I sorted into three gender columns: male, female and no gender known. Then I added up the total for comments.

56% of the top commenters are male, 12% are women and 32% are no gender known.

57% of the total comments made by the top 50 commentators are by men, 13% by women and the remaining 32% by no gender known.

That's pretty depressing because even splitting the unknown gender evenly, women still come in far below, and there are far fewer visible women-identifying commentors than male or no-gender stated.
posted by viggorlijah at 10:03 AM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure splitting the unknown gender evenly is correct. I think a good argument could be made that the unknown gender group would skew more heavily towards women. But even if you skew it that way the numbers are fairly lopsided.
posted by Justinian at 10:44 AM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have a very vague recollection of some similar numbers that cortex ran some years ago (maybe as far back as 2007/8?), and the proportions sound similar.
posted by rtha at 11:07 AM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

You know, I would be interested in the gender make-up of various topics, too, mostly just out of curiosity.

I've noticed a lot of women in the Fanfare GoT threads, for instance, and I'm really, really pleased to see that. We'd had some discussions on the site about the books, and as I recall a lot of Mefites were initially resistant to reading the books or watching the show because they'd been warned about rapey content. I am glad that so many decided to keep an open mind and gave the show a try anyway. While the show definitely has questionable content and some truly disturbing scenes have aired (which in many cases results from the showrunners deliberately deviating from the books), I am enjoying both the in-depth discussions about those disturbing scenes and why they are problematic, as well as the more general discussion about the acting, pacing, etc.

Plus, there's added interest in seeing if any of the stereotypes hold at all--like with comics or gaming, there's this trope that men are going to dominate those threads, whereas I feel like we have a number of users, myself included, who clearly bely that stererotype.
posted by misha at 11:21 AM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

for the same reason the cuntsplaining comment wasn't deleted, too many people responded and it became part of the conversation. did you flag it before you quoted it?
posted by nadawi at 11:52 AM on June 23, 2014

Hey misha, you have taken some (deserved, I think) criticism in this thread, but I just want you to know I appreciate your perspective on topics related to feminism and your contributions to the site in general. I agree with you about the GoT threads, I'm going to miss them during the break.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:57 AM on June 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

Then why not delete it?

Because in general we don't like to delete things from MetaTalk unless they're deliberately offensive (which IMO 'cuntsplaining' was, but this analogy wasn't), or really over the line or from a person who's been warned etc. Deleting stuff from MetaTalk is always a judgment call, since we do let some pretty bad stuff stand in here that wouldn't stand elsewhere on the site, and with judgment calls there is room for reasonable disagreement, so I understand if you disagree. This did not seem to me to call for deletion, but instead for a request to drop it (with an acknowledgment that people probably find the analogy highly debatable, but that such a debate would be a major painful derail and make an already hard conversation even harder for no particular gain).
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:24 PM on June 23, 2014

FWIW even without data I would never guess majority female participation on Metafilter.
posted by sweetkid at 12:50 PM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Me either, though I would certainly guess that women make up a larger share of activity on the green than they do on the blue.
posted by Justinian at 1:04 PM on June 23, 2014

I would have figured 2+ hours as sitting as the last comment on a contentious thread would have been more than enough time to get the mods to delete it.

Because in that two hours it looked like no one else was going to respond to it, and any subsequent comments would carry on talking about something else not involving that comment. But then you came back in and referenced it again. Why not just let it lie? Why not abide by the mod note? You want to know why they didn't just delete it. I want to know what was forcing you to respond to it a second time.
posted by rtha at 1:17 PM on June 23, 2014 [4 favorites]

Zzzz. It was a stupid comment, hal_c_on. Everyone knows it was a stupid comment. There is no need to argue about it. We can really move on here.
posted by Justinian at 1:20 PM on June 23, 2014

But can you look up who comments most? Having a 56% self-identifying as male userbase, may be right, but do males make up the majority of the comments?

Considering that even threads about feminism usually devolved into a handful of men shrieking at each other, I'm gonna say yes.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:23 PM on June 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

I actually am pretty happy that the word you referred to above was deleted.

it wasn't deleted - that's the whole point. sometimes offensive shit stands.

and no, i'm not kidding you. if you want something you feel is offensive deleted, flag it and don't respond to it in any way because every response makes it harder to delete from a mod point of view - something they've explained a bunch of times about a bunch of different comments.
posted by nadawi at 1:23 PM on June 23, 2014 [9 favorites]

> if that is what the stats are saying, and I'm just confused about how you did the stats, then what is being suggested? Do we need more women to join metafilter, or do we need more women to talk on here, or what?

Nothing is being suggested, as far as I can see.
Sometimes a statistic is just a number that tells us where we stand, what the current situation is. It doesn't always follow that there is a tool available to improve on that situation.

Sometimes such a number helps us see that we need to find a tool. But I'm not sure that is the case here.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:08 PM on June 23, 2014

Seems kinda bullshit that comments chastising the offensive comment were deleted, but not the actual offensive comment.

This is often the case - comments pursuing X after a mod note saying "please don't pursue x" are liable to be deleted. That was the only comment deleted here - one after the mod note, pursuing the line I had asked people not to pursue.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:24 PM on June 23, 2014

yeah that's sort of the problem

that was a penis joke because of cismen with penises being misogynists
posted by NoraReed at 2:25 PM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have been thinking about something that comes up sometimes when we talk about site culture - the "newer users just don't understand how much it's changed" notion. This is somewhat related to the gender split of the user base, which I opine, without data, is probably still male-heavy but perhaps less so as time passes.
I didn't just stumble on MetaFilter one day in 2010. I have been aware of the site since not long after its launch. I thought of it as (sorry, Matt) similar to Ain't It Cool News, in the beginning. It took me a few more years to figure out that a lot was happening in the comments section, but honestly, I wasn't interested in joining, any more than I was in joining Fark or Something Awful, which were also MeFi's contemporaries. MeFi's user base was more thoughtful, but it was still way too hostile and boyzone for me. I really only got interested in taking part in the conversation around maybe 2007, and I wasn't sure about joining/ for a few years after that.
I know there are probably plenty of low-number users who wish it hadn't changed enough to feel welcoming to the likes of me, and of course I'm not the apotheosis of female users. But I wanted to debunk the notion that all newer users were just unaware of MetaFilter's existence. I made a choice not to join early on, and to join when the environment felt more welcoming.
posted by gingerest at 2:29 PM on June 23, 2014 [12 favorites]

I joined in 2006 but was only on Ask until sometime in 2010, because I'd switch to the Blue out of curiosity, feel alarmed at the comment section, and then just peace back out to Ask.
posted by sweetkid at 2:32 PM on June 23, 2014

But we all know that there is less mod cover now, and even if the mods are keeping an eye on this thread, maybe they're not that focused on it since there's lots going on elsewhere on the site? And probably anything that requires a site change to heavier moderation isn't going to be possible right now.
posted by gingerest at 2:38 PM on June 23, 2014

This isn't a conversation in a room. I don't think that a silence means people are offended. it generally means people are asleep, or working, or watching the world cup, or on dates, or playing all the stuff they got on the Steam sale, or watching the new Penny Dreadful, or hiking, or eating dinner.
posted by NoraReed at 2:40 PM on June 23, 2014 [6 favorites]

Or recently posted a comment about when they joined Metafilter and when they started posting on Metafilter vs staying on Ask, and went back to look at the very first comments they made on MetaTalk, and realized they used to be less sarcastic online and possibly in general.
posted by sweetkid at 2:43 PM on June 23, 2014

Quantcast claims MetaFilter is 46% female. I'm not sure how they come up with numbers for gender. To the best of my recollection, surveys on MetaTalk have come up with numbers around 40%-ish, a bit lower than Quantcast's estimate. (I didn't go back and check, but that's what I remember.) All of this is in the same ball park as viggorlijah's numbers if we assume the majority of people with unknown gender are women.
posted by nangar at 2:44 PM on June 23, 2014

the mods are also great at responding to notes sent to the contact form. i've approached them before and said, "if that comment is going to stand then i'm going to respond to it in the following spleen showing ways" and they've responded, very politely, sorta like "yes, the comment will stay for xyz reasons. also, that's a very nice spleen, but worded like that it's against the guidelines. if you can rephrase that go ahead and post it if you feel you have to."

sometimes shit comments stay. sometimes it's because they're borderline. for whatever it's worth, i don't think the comment you are so incensed over is even close to the top half of offensive comments allowed to stay in this thread and i find your hyper focus on it kind of weird.
posted by nadawi at 2:50 PM on June 23, 2014 [9 favorites]

Ok. That sounds logical. Thanks.

Followed by a bunch of not-moving-on from the comment?
posted by shakespeherian at 2:52 PM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

All of this is in the same ball park as viggorlijah's numbers if we assume the majority of people with unknown gender are women.

i think it's fair to say that the majority of unknown gender are probably not-male (a conversation i'm pretty sure has been on metatalk before), but i don't know if it's fair to say they're overwhelmingly women since genderqueer probably features in that number.
posted by nadawi at 2:53 PM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

yeah the mods are indeed great at responding to correspondence. I've sent messages that were like "Why was this post/comment allowed to stay" and they've given Reasons and then everyone moves on.
posted by sweetkid at 2:54 PM on June 23, 2014

hal_c_on, I've explained why I didn't delete it, and how this is consistent with how things go in MetaTalk.

then the policy is "if any one of those 10,000 people references an offensive thing, then we're just going to keep it"

No, and you know that's not how this site works. We're not robots, we don't use hard-and-fast rules like that. We use our judgment to decide whether a derail can be avoided or when/whether a comment is over the line. I judged this one to be not over the line. You disagree, that is fine, but there is no mystery or secret here about why this one comment wasn't deleted.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:56 PM on June 23, 2014 [3 favorites]

Metafilter: That's a very nice spleen
posted by scody at 2:56 PM on June 23, 2014 [7 favorites]

I dunno. I'm a woman, and I added my gender because I realized that people defaulted to assuming that I was a man when it was unspecified. I wouldn't be surprised if some women leave it blank to avoid harassment, but I bet some men leave it blank because they don't need to specify, since unmarked people are assumed to be male.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:57 PM on June 23, 2014 [4 favorites]

i really wish i could find the thread where this all came up before about gender and unmarked and where they fall on the spectrum...
posted by nadawi at 3:02 PM on June 23, 2014

The mods are even sympathetic to Contact Forms that say things like "there are typos in this because my eyes are full of blood from that comment, and I'm telling you this so I don't post 450 characters of screaming in the thread." They understand the use of the Contact form for pressure valve release. (Although going outside or looking at any of the many other interesting things on MeFi or even the rest of the internet are also options worth considering.)
posted by gingerest at 3:10 PM on June 23, 2014 [2 favorites]

I remember this thread but maybe you're thinking of a different one?
posted by billiebee at 3:11 PM on June 23, 2014

> i think it's fair to say that the majority of unknown gender are probably not-male (a conversation i'm pretty sure has been on metatalk before), but i don't know if it's fair to say they're overwhelmingly women since genderqueer probably features in that number.

I don't remember a previous MeTa were we discussed this, but I think you're probably right.

And, yeah, that thread looks like a good candidate, billiebee.
posted by nangar at 3:22 PM on June 23, 2014

thanks! that thread was one of the ones i was thinking of, i think. after some more digging, i found what i was actually looking for - the dump of anonymized gender field labels. someone can go through and add up best guesses on the misc labels if they want to redo the math.

while searching for that, i also found this : There were 15,762 active MeFites* from March 2009 to March 2010. In the March 2010 survey, 2,521 MeFites participated, from across 50+ current countries of residence — that's 16% of the active MetaFilter userbase! 92% of those surveys were from MeFites currently living in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. The average age was 33; average gender distribution was 62% male, 36% female.**

posted by nadawi at 3:25 PM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

and, yeah, i still can't find the specific conversation i'm remembering where we all talked about why people would leave the gender field blank and lots of conversation about women feeling nervous to identify themselves like that for a variety of reasons, but for my own sanity, i'm not going to read through a bunch of contentious gender threads.
posted by nadawi at 3:27 PM on June 23, 2014

I think I should have broken it down into four categories now: male, female, genderqueer, and gender not specified because there's a small but noticeable overlap in people who do not identify with either male or female gender. I went up to the first 100 people commenting and the stats barely changed.

This isn't about volume. The ratio of users:comments is pretty equal after the first few big contributors, with about the same % of gender to % total comments. It's that there simply aren't as many women participating.

It'd be interesting to compare this over time - are there more women on mefi now? Is there a big gender difference in Ask vs Mefi vs Fanfare vs MetaTalk? Where are women talking and participating more?

And does it make a difference - yes. I didn't post two different FPPs in the past two weeks because there was no way to frame them without triggering another derail into Feminism 101 flameout. I asked the mods' advice for the first case and then when the next one came along, looked at this thread and thought, no, not worth the headache.

And that sucks. Pushing for a better community ethos that goes past these basic derails would open up entire new areas for smart and interesting discussions.
posted by viggorlijah at 7:04 PM on June 23, 2014 [9 favorites]

Okay, stuck on a long conference call so I crunched the numbers for posts for the same time period (one year back from today) by gender, and it is much more skewed.

68% of men post 70% of the FPPs. Just 8% of women post 5% of the FPPs. The remaining quarter is done by unknown or gender-queer.

This is so disappointing to me. I thought the numbers would be much better.
posted by viggorlijah at 7:11 PM on June 23, 2014 [6 favorites]

The difficulty, Sister Kelly, is not that you say you have questions or even that you believe that women should receive the priesthood. The problem is that you have persisted in an aggressive effort to persuade other Church members to your point of view and that your course of action has threatened to erode the faith of others. You are entitled to your views, but you are not entitled to promote them...

Although not Mormon (but from and living in Utah, and therefore largely impacted by the local Mormon culture), I have been following the story and the comments in local papers (here is a great editorial by Terry Tempest Williams) and various feminist blogs about Kate Kelly and the LDS Church that was covered in this thread. I have also been following the commentary in this MetaTalk. I'm not a frequent commenter on MetaFilter. I read the links a lot and browse the conversations a little less but still a lot, but I'm usually coming to threads late and after they have mostly died down and I don't do a lot of the talking myself.

Both this thread and the Kate Kelly story have prompted a lot of thoughts and feelings in me about feminism (both in general and my own) and misogyny and the relative values of free expression and safe spaces, and my place here in this state as a single, childless, atheist, 40-something woman who loves music with questionable lyrics. I wish I could come up with a more coherent expression of all those thoughts and feelings than this, but this is all I have left: BLERGH.

I mean, "You are entitled to your views, but you are not entitled to promote them..."? Joseph Smith wept.
posted by freejinn at 8:01 PM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's that there simply aren't as many women participating.

I am not at all surprised by the numbers. I'm a woman and although I participate a fair bit on Ask Metafilter, I pretty much just lurk here and on Metafilter, because the conversational style is pretty combative/competitive and I just don't find that fun. It's a circular thing I think too: there are mostly men here, so the style skews towards what men are socialized to enjoy, that probably self-reinforces over time, and so women probably end up decreasingly likely to participate.

I do want to say a heartfelt thanks to the people here who do the difficult work of trying to keep the site from sliding into boyzone territory, and I am so sorry I don't have the grit and fortitude to help you. I just don't --- life is too short and I can't stand getting that angry. Reading this and the original TJ thread was bad enough. But I really, deeply appreciate what you're doing --- I see it and I am grateful for it.
posted by Susan PG at 8:48 PM on June 23, 2014 [12 favorites]

We've got this summary from iamkimiam, in the thread billiebee linked to:

Just to add some stats to the pile, I conducted two surveys of MetaFilter for my PhD dissertation and found the following:
In 2010, when four options were given for stating gender (Male, Female, Transgender, Other) the distribution was 63% Male, 35% Female, 1% QUILTBAG and 1% declined to state. In 2012, when the question was free-form and data were manually normalized, the distribution of participants was 51% male, 43% female, 4% QUILTBAG and 2% declined to state. Both surveys' data represented over 10% of the active MetaFilter userbase (those who have made at least one post or one comment in the year prior to the survey). Fyi, another study of MetaFilter in 2010 (Warnick, 2010; dissertation) reported 48% Male, 47% Female, 10% declined to state from his 2009 survey data; Sessions (2010) and Lawton (2005) both reported results from a survey conducted in 2004 by MeFite fvw. Referring to the same data, Sessions reported fvw’s finding as MetaFilter being 68% male, while Lawton reported 63% male (but those survey data are no longer available for verifying the actual results).

posted by nangar at 9:34 PM on June 23, 2014

Does anybody go to mefi meet ups regularly (looking at you chicago, and NYC)?

What kind of gender demographics are there?

Last night's Sydney meetup was 40% men/60% women by my count, but there was only about ten of us.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 10:04 PM on June 23, 2014

and, yeah, i still can't find the specific conversation i'm remembering where we all talked about why people would leave the gender field blank and lots of conversation about women feeling nervous to identify themselves like that for a variety of reasons, but for my own sanity, i'm not going to read through a bunch of contentious gender threads.

I used to have mine in my profile until someone made a meta using gender fields to prove some weird point that even now escapes me.
posted by winna at 10:37 PM on June 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is so disappointing to me. I thought the numbers would be much better.

I'm less concerned with FPPs being evenly distributed and more concerned with women feeling like they can participate without problems though of course there will be some correlation there.
posted by Justinian at 10:46 PM on June 23, 2014

Justinian, 8% isn't not quite evenly distributed. That's like Wikipedia numbers. Participation through comments and posts to ask and ff is much closer to the proportion of mefi users, but this is way steeper a divide than a 60% male ratio accounts for.

And FPPs are the front door/main hall for the great party house of Metafilter, so to have the floor so decidedly lacking in voices from nearly half the members, that's concerning.
posted by viggorlijah at 12:36 AM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I post when I see something interesting that's worth posting. I'm neither put off nor encouraged to do so because I'm a woman. Same with commenting. Some days (weeks! months! years!) I don't find anything I particularly want to comment on and then I'll get a bit chatty and then I'll be quiet again. I very rarely find myself shutting up because I feel uncomfortable as a woman. If anything, it's huff puffing at something that strikes me as egregiously sexist that makes me speak up more often, particularly in Metatalk.
posted by h00py at 1:17 AM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm totally with h00py on this one, but it does occasionally get tiresome going over the same silly little derails or objections over and over. It is of course also worth understanding that people differ, and there are undoubtedly are many women who do find the general atmosphere of mefi off-putting or hostile to the point of discouraging participation.
posted by Dysk at 1:42 AM on June 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

Dysk, that sounds likely, and we don't hear from them because they don't participate.

For that reason, it's probably never sound to say 'this is a welcoming place, where no one feels shut out, and we know that because everyone in here says so'.
In other words, self-reflection as a community is a Good Thing, but it's not the Only Thing. It will never give us the whole picture.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:04 AM on June 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I limit my participation in threads both because I want to feel like I have something to say, so I lurk a lot, and because the responses are rarely fun for me. The vast majority of the time, if someone responds to a comment it's to nitpick some minor detail as evidence I'm wrong, and I log out for a while so that I don't get into a back and forth. I don't like who I become when I do that; my focus becomes narrowed and I lose track of why I'm discussing the topic to begin with.

I cut my eyeteeth on a forum that was dominated by women, though - we actually once counted our men; it was a bit of a running gag that we had to protect them from the hyenas (for those who don't know, hyenas are female dominated, emphasis on dominant; official animals of the Fandom Wank Horde) because we only had fifty or so on a forum of thousands. It definitely had a very different feel to most forums; the closes I participate in now is We Hunted the Mammoth, which is also female dominated though much less mean than FW was.

I'm not sure it's the rough and tumble that necessarily discourages women from participating; It might be a numbers game. I know I relax more when it's majority women simply because chances are if something goes down with one of the men, at least one of the women will have my back (can never count on all, but the chances of one is fairly high). That seems really harsh and adversarial - and I don't mean it that way - but there's a mental mathematics I do about where I make myself visible that has a lot to do with self-protection. The closest I came out of not doing that was when I was a moderator on a forum, and that was the only time on the 'net I got death threats and had to deal with sexual harassment. I would imagine a lot of other women have similar types of social calculus, and that may affect online behavior.
posted by Deoridhe at 2:19 AM on June 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

Back in early 2013, an email discussion among friends turned into a realization. We were having the same tired discussions about gender bias, over and over. The details might vary slightly, but it was the same story, again and again, and nothing was changing. It was time to go public and start looking for solutions. We began by inviting others to join our discussion.

Speaking up from women science journalists: the full post with stats, definitions and ideas to bring more women's voices in.
posted by viggorlijah at 2:56 AM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I thought briefly about it and then, like the last two FPPs I thought of, went through:

Do I want to be responsible for bringing another gender-drama to metafilter?

Do I want to have to defend every exhausting detail of the FPP if I frame it as I'd like to, about objective and subjective experiences of sexism, women-dominated activism and deliberately suppressed women's history in science?

Or do I edit and re-edit and water down the FPP to downplay the feminist angle, aim for social justice and straightforward income inequality, and still brace myself for having to defend most of the FPP?

Maybe I could post the FPP and then refuse to get involved in any of the comments - no, that would be pretty crappy to the people who try to read and discuss the actual content, so should I as the person who posted it, be willing to wade in and deal with the inevitable derails?

Or I could sigh and close the browser tab and just forget about it.
posted by viggorlijah at 4:54 AM on June 24, 2014 [13 favorites]

Maybe I could post the FPP and then refuse to get involved in any of the comments - no, that would be pretty crappy to the people who try to read and discuss the actual content, so should I as the person who posted it, be willing to wade in and deal with the inevitable derails?

Count me as one who votes very strongly that this would not be crappy in any way. I do not expect a poster to defend an FPP or to take the blame for derails. That's why we have mods and posters don't have mod powers.
posted by Etrigan at 4:59 AM on June 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

Etrigan - that might be a barrier for a lot of non-FPP posters then. From LJ and other communities, to post a potentially explosive topic and then refuse to engage in the discussion that follows is generally frowned upon.

It's one thing for "Hey, here's this awesome video of a cat knitting" and to step away against posting "Hey, here's this awesome video of Hilary Clinton beating a homeless dude to death", knowing it would likely create a giant storm of comments. Doctor Frankenstein runs from the monster he creates, and he's clearly the jerk of the story.
posted by viggorlijah at 5:06 AM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

That's a thing that kinda drives me nuts about MeFi (and which I talked about above) -- I believe that insisting that someone engage with you is often a form of bullying. Pretending that you won an argument because the other person walked away is little better. We don't have championship belts of debate here; we're just people trying to talk.

I'm not blaming you at all, viggorlijah (despite my using the word "you"). I'm just decrying the general attitude.
posted by Etrigan at 5:31 AM on June 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

The stakes are a lot lower if you're making a FPP about something that you think is kind of cool than about something in which you have an intense emotional investment. I don't see myself making a lot of feminism-related FPPs, because it just feels sort of shitty to provide a platform for people to tear down something I care about.

But I also don't make a lot of non-political FPPs, and I certainly could. Maybe I'll try to step up more, because yeah, those numbers are kind of depressing.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:40 AM on June 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

Maybe I could post the FPP and then refuse to get involved in any of the comments - no, that would be pretty crappy to the people who try to read and discuss the actual content, so should I as the person who posted it, be willing to wade in and deal with the inevitable derails?

What I try to do with every post I make on the blue is to not engage comments immediately, but to step away from it and let it fend for itself for a few hours or so, until the comments get some momentum going. There's no obligation to camp upon your FPP and in fact I've seen mods gently discourage it when somebody does, especially on heated subjects. Ergo, if you were to post this to MetaFilter, there's no obligation for you to police the thread.

If you're worried about framing, I expect the mods themselves would appreciate it if you looked them up for advice?

To be honest, had I come across this article before you linked it here, I wouldn't have hesitated to post it. It's interesting, it isn't axe grindy and is about more than just "here's a bad situation more or less like every other field we looked at on MeFi" but moves towards potential solutions as well.
posted by MartinWisse at 6:05 AM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

It seems like posters are discouraged from getting too involved in their own threads, so I don't do fpps on topics where I know there are going to be shitty misogynistic comments and I can't really respond.
posted by NoraReed at 6:08 AM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure that on the blue one is expected to be able to post something without becoming too emotionally invested in the outcome (within reason, we are all human after all) and that's part of the reason why self-links and links to people that we know are banned. What we do here, in providing links, is to provide a forum for everyone else to thrash it out. I can absolutely understand not wanting to link to something that could easily get derailed in the comments if it's important to you because the temptation very much is to try to keep things on track, but that really is the mods' job.

Having said that, and acknowledging Dysk's point above about not wanting to speak on anyone else's behalf, it is extremely important that you feel comfortable in posting and if you don't because the potential for angst is high then you must go with what is best for you.
posted by h00py at 6:11 AM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

hOOpy, I think that the tension between these different FPP approaches does result in a gap then of FPPs about gender issues.

Is it a well-known and mod-supported community standard that the original poster of an FPP is encouraged to refrain from participating in the ensuing discussion?

As the original poster, they presumably have a deep interest and possibly additional knowledge about the subject of the FPP, so having them sidelined seems counterproductive to me. It also seems to invite a subtle trolling, that one could post a contentious issue and then sit back and make smores over the flaming, while disclaiming any responsibility.

And MartinWisse, I would feel uncomfortable posting it as a female mefi who is posting actively to this thread, like 'all she posts about is gender stuff!' because there have been metatalks complaining about too much gender issue stuff on the blue and the prickle of some hostility outweighs the benign indifference of the majority.
posted by viggorlijah at 6:34 AM on June 24, 2014

Not so much refrain from participating, it's more that the expectation is that once the FPP is posted then the poster is expected to let the discussion go where it will without expectation that all comments will be in line with the poster's original point of view. That can be extraordinarily difficult, particularly when people start talking about things that were not intended to be the main focus of the original post. It doesn't seem to be quite as common now but there was a time where GYOB was a common statement to people who seemed to be overly invested in the posts they shared here. What 'overly invested' means is completely subjective, mind you.

The temptation is to try to drag things back onto the subject which leads to 'threadsitting', where the poster is seen to be taking on commenters who are not just commenting on the main thrust of the link(s). If we're going to post something that we consider to be important to the front page of the blue I think it's important that we trust that we're not the only one who will find it so and therefore others will also step up if derails happen to try to pull things back into line. That's not to say that as FPPers we don't get to comment at all; I think, as MartinWisse said above, it's sometimes a good idea to bite one's tongue to begin with and then join in as any commenter would once the discussion is underway.

This is me attempting to be Spock-like and completely rational. Even in my few and fairly lightweight posts I've often wanted to tell people to fuck off and read the article and forget about that stupid thing they're derailing with. That rarely goes well, though.
posted by h00py at 6:57 AM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I don't post many FPPs because other people usually get to it first - and when I have one deleted (which I did, fairly recently), it might take me 6 months or more to try another one. I get post shy. Whether that figures into the male/female ratio of posting, I don't know.
posted by agregoli at 7:14 AM on June 24, 2014

I'm disappointed that women are posting that they're scared to post FPPs or FPPs on feminist topics or women's issues. Not to call out people individually, which I don't mean to at all, but it's just disappointing.

I've posted a few feminism related topics including ones on sexual harassment, and some of them went crazy but I didn't post them so people would go crazy or so people would tear down something I care about so I could be like SEE! or something. I post things that I think people might find interesting and honestly we shouldn't be afraid to post about feminism or anything else because of the potential reaction just as we shouldn't be eager to post things just to see a fight.
posted by sweetkid at 7:36 AM on June 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

viggorlijah, I briefly contemplated dropping you a note asking if you wanted to work together to draw up an FPP based on your link -- its conclusions seemed so plain and unobjectionable after a quick skim, the drawings are rad, the participants inspiring. But once I sat down and read everything, I knew I couldn't do it, either.

It's not because I'm worried about participating in the thread too much or becoming known for only posting about gender stuff. It's because I just don't have the energy to have my intelligence and life experience repeatedly and directly insulted by the dudes who would romp into the thread not to engage in any kind of dialogue or conversation, but to haughtily and unilaterally inform us that we're mistaken for even believing that women's voices have ever been silenced in the first place -- just like they did in this MeTa.

A certain percentage of men here and elsewhere will be forever given to peacocking their personal conviction that any acknowledgment of sexism must be assumed to be both inherently, self-evidently false (unless they or other men have so nobly deigned to agree with it) and an insult that was pointedly and obviously directed toward all men, everywhere, as a class. Even mentioning the myriad ways in which women's voices have been minimized throughout history, and how tendrils of that minimization can invade and affect our psychology, is seen by them as a targeted affront. Bring up the fact that 1/3 of female homicide victims are killed by a male intimate partner (cite) and they'll be quick to remind you that men make up a greater percentage of homicide victims altogether, so women don't really have anything to complain about. Ask them to consider the notion that their own gender might have played a role in making women's experiences with sexism effectively invisible to them and they'll act like you're preaching liturgy from the goddamn SCUM Manifesto. It's their prerogative to insist that women who speak out about being sexually harassed are whiners, to remind us in every thread about rape or sexual assault that women are liars, and overall that delicate ladyfolk are naturally, biologically prone to emotional overexaggerating hysteria. It's science! And again, it's exhausting.

This is similarly true when it comes to FPPs that have anything to do with class, thanks to the 'poor people shouldn't be allowed to eat anything more appetizing than gruel' subset. I can leap into the scrum and drop knowledge with the best of them, but I can't stand it when people who are utterly clueless -- at least when it comes to a handful of extremely basic issues that loom over women's lives -- feel the need to pontificate, condescend to, and ultimately dismiss the people who know damn well what we're talking about because they don't like what we're saying. I like to visit MetaFilter to learn about smart things from smart people, not to read flailing screeds from dudes who feel emasculated by the existence of outspoken women.

PS, come back, palomar! We miss you.
posted by divined by radio at 7:39 AM on June 24, 2014 [26 favorites]

Isn't what we are talking about here the tension between the stated Metafilter ethos of "Post interesting/cool links you find on the web" vs. the competing impulse of posting with more of a "This is an important issue you should care about deeply" mindset?

Bringing this back to the FPP that instigated this Metatalk, you could see the fight between these philosophies in action. The former makes any part of the FPP fair game to discuss, from the main theme of everyday misogyny and microaggressions to the more specific details of how the author treated the Trader Joe's employees she dealt with, how contracts with outsourced music providers like Muzak work, how the power structure within a Trader Joe's store works, the frustration of trying to deal with a large corporate entity, the best method of getting your way when making a customer service complaint or anything else that was brought up in the article.

The latter makes discussing any aspect of this piece other than the main idea of how common women experience misogyny in going about their daily lives seem like an intentional distraction intended to move the conversation away from women's issues.
posted by The Gooch at 7:41 AM on June 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

I'm getting exhausted too, divined by radio.
posted by NoraReed at 7:42 AM on June 24, 2014

There's not a single person who has ever lived who has reached the end of their days thinking the war has been won against all the shitty things that humans will do to each other in the name of selfishness and privilege etc. Some fights require a constant stream of foot soldiers, but not necessarily the same ones.
posted by h00py at 7:55 AM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Not so much refrain from participating, it's more that the expectation is that once the FPP is posted then the poster is expected to let the discussion go where it will without expectation that all comments will be in line with the poster's original point of view. That can be extraordinarily difficult

I don't post a ton of fpps mostly because I am lazy, and the ones I do post tend to be much more in the "this is neat!" category and much less in the "this is important!" category. If someone wants to take my "this is neat!" post in a direction I wasn't anticipating/don't really like, it's easier for me to remain a little more disengaged.

There are, of course, many fpps that manage to do both, but it's a finer line to walk, and a more difficult post to construct well. And like I said, I'm lazy.
posted by rtha at 8:00 AM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

Isn't what we are talking about here the tension between the stated Metafilter ethos of "Post interesting/cool links you find on the web" vs. the competing impulse of posting with more of a "This is an important issue you should care about deeply" mindset?

There is truth to that distinction, but more relevant is the sustained hostility that feminism elicits here, in both direct and coded ways.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:03 AM on June 24, 2014 [9 favorites]

Just adding my voice to the stream of women who are absolutely interested in seeing sexism- and feminism-related FPPs here but would never consider posting one because it would be exhausting to read the comments. If you diss the latest single-serving tumblr I posted, that's one thing, but if I put together a FPP on a serious subject, I don't want to see the comments descend into newspaper-comment-level garbage. The mods keep a lid on the worst of it (thanks, mods!) but I'm not under the illusion that we wouldn't see comments almost as bad as your average newspaper without moderatorial direction and deletions (df the comment that got timsteil a week off in this very thread).

It is tiring and yeah, I'm tired.
posted by immlass at 8:20 AM on June 24, 2014 [10 favorites]

There's definitely a difference between an interesting take on an aspect of the FPP that branches off somewhere (The Trader Joe discussion about how store music is decided for a relevant example) and the intentional derailment with worn out arguments of an FPP that is happening over and over in gender-related posts.

I would feel better about posting a potentially contentious FPP if I felt there was a broadly understood way to verbally/textually label derails. Flagging them is one thing, but it also helps to get a pushback from other participants the way we do for other widely understood derails like bringing Nazi and rape analogies into a thread.

I can see repeated in some of the comments by people who hesitate to post FPPs on gender issues as well the idea of engagement. When it's a topic that is about part of your identity, it takes a lot of additional energy to disengage to be an 'objective' poster who does not engage further with the discussion.

Why is that the mefi ideal? What's so wrong with having people post about topics they're passionately interested in and personally invested in?

I guess the next time I see an obvious gender derail in a gender-related FPP, I should walk my talk and comment "Derail, dude. That's argument #34 in the Official Feminists of Metafilter Handbook, so here's a derail cookie."
posted by viggorlijah at 8:24 AM on June 24, 2014

Or you could flag it.
posted by Etrigan at 8:39 AM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

Etrigen, flagging is generally silent. Sometimes the mods will leave a note explaining why, but often the comments just vanish. That's effective and vital to the smooth running of Mefi, but it doesn't say much to the people reading. And then along comes the next person to post the second, third, fourth ad nauseum repeat of that derail.

If every FPP about hiphop had to go through the argument about using the n-word, every vaccination thread had to go through the autism-vaccine-link debunk - those posts would quickly choke and flounder. A significant group of people would think why bother, as they are with gender posts.

I updated my profile with The not-very-official-actually-completely-unofficial Feminist Handbook of Metafilter to keep track of derails I've seen.
posted by viggorlijah at 8:50 AM on June 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

If you believe there's more value in having visible community pushback against a derail than in letting it be mod-quashed, that's valid. But after you post your "here's a derail cookie" comment, then what? Often the person is going to answer that it wasn't a derail, here's why, etc. Do you keep engaging?
posted by cribcage at 8:52 AM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well, that comes back to whether this is something the mods have the desire or the bandwidth to address, Etrigan...

Isn't what we are talking about here the tension between the stated Metafilter ethos of "Post interesting/cool links you find on the web" vs. the competing impulse of posting with more of a "This is an important issue you should care about deeply" mindset?

I don't think so, no. What we're talking about right now is interesting/cool links you find on the web, whether they address important issues or not, being subject to usually the same derails by usually the same users of MetaFilter, and the way that discourages other users from bothering to post FPPs at all.

The OP that sparked this particular thread could have gone in a bunch of directions, and indeed did at times - how does Muzak select its playists? How does customer service deal with unexpected issues? Does Trader Joe's hold itself to a higher ethical standard, and is that sensible or justified?

What it also got, however, was a bunch of people who had clearly not read TFA well or at all mansplaining about how journalism handles sources, or condemning this Regina Rich editor at Alternet who had dragged a teller from behind the conveyor and thrown him, naked and protected only by the $5 bill he had earned that day, in front of her millions of baying readers. Or insisting that this was far too small an issue to care about (often over and again). Or insisting that it was a huge issue, and the First Amendment would be imperilled next.

Basically the 3 D's - dismiss, deflect, derail.
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:53 AM on June 24, 2014 [7 favorites]

Cribcage, no I wouldn't. But I would feel reading a thread on a gender issue and seeing others post "Hey, here's a derail cookie" that okay, there are other people who don't want to rehash the same crud, and I would be more comfortable in continuing the conversation and not feel pushed out and shouted at by the derail. Sort of like the difference between walking alone down a road with people jeering at you, versus walking with a group of friends past those same jeering people.
posted by viggorlijah at 8:58 AM on June 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

I hear you, and that's a good analogy. It's important to keep walking.
posted by cribcage at 9:00 AM on June 24, 2014

For what it's worth, I also prefer to just be straight out told that XYZ tactic is a standard and unacceptable way of derailing discussions about the topic at hand.

For example, I didn't know that rape analogies or comparison to the Nazis were absolute no-gos until someone said so in response to those kinds of comments in threads (not that I was constantly -- or ever -- using them before finding out, but I'm glad to know now it's pretty much a rule not to use them, and that people just aren't coincidentally not using those analogies/comparisons). I didn't know that favorites were a contentious and derailing issue in meta-discussions, but someone informed me and it was really helpful. There are a lot of threadbare derail topics surrounding trans*-related issues, too (the "dangers" that gender neutral bathrooms pose to women are one, iIrc?). Relatively recently I've seen derails in a thread about a trans*-related topic stopped by a comment (from a user, not a mod) essentially saying "FYI that's an old warhorse of a derail tactic in threads about this, so we're not going to have that discussion here," and that actually working fairly well! (If people are interested in reading that example first hand, I'll try to dig up the thread, which was within the past month or so -- exactly what the topic and derail was is not coming to me at the moment, though).

A very direct, straightforward FYI that expresses that the derail *is* a derail and isn't OK might actually be useful to lots of people participating in the discussion (not just the people derailing it at the moment, but to everyone, and long-term, in terms of setting boundaries to discussion). Personally, I appreciate that directness, and think that the knowledge that something is a tiresome and obnoxious/offensive/vacuous derail, bad or boring for the discussion as a whole, is a *completely* fair/appropriate sentiment to communicate (and not "rude" or "bossy" or anything like that), as well.
posted by rue72 at 9:20 AM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

An excellent point, rue72. I'd like to suggest flagging and then MeMailing the derailer, rather than making it Yet Another Meta-Derail.
posted by Etrigan at 9:22 AM on June 24, 2014

divined by radio and running order squabble fest and viggorlijah are a billion percent correct. There's a difference between lively discussion of multiple aspects of a post, and repeated derails. The former is fine and the latter is annoying and exhausting. And it's especially frustrating to see women repeatedly positioned as non-neutral, with men framing themselves as objective arbiters.

I do my gender work F2F and on Wikipedia, and I just don't have the energy to do it here too. But I may try to do some in future, because I feel uncomfortable free-riding on the coattails of others who are getting tired.

I felt better about Metafilter when jessamyn was here. Lately I have felt like the mods here are displaying a kind of generalised impatience/exhaustion with everyone, rather than directing it solely or mainly towards people who are behaving crappily. I get that the mods are overworked and I believe they're doing the best they can, but still: I miss jessamyn and I feel like Metafilter is subtly less inclusive without her. I do feel like her leaving has empowered some commenters who are jerks.
posted by Susan PG at 9:27 AM on June 24, 2014 [10 favorites]

An excellent point, rue72. I'd like to suggest flagging and then MeMailing the derailer, rather than making it Yet Another Meta-Derail.

I feel there is a non-zero chance that MeMailing a certain subset of mansplain-derailers is a pretty good way to sign up for a lifetime subscription to just-inside-the-line heckling and grudgefulness.
posted by running order squabble fest at 10:11 AM on June 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

Also I think it's good to try to keep Memails fairly positive, for what that's worth.
posted by sweetkid at 10:15 AM on June 24, 2014

I've MeMailed to keep from derailing a thread before and was blocked after one "nyah!" response for my trouble.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:32 AM on June 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

on the other hand, In The Interest Of Fairness, that derail didn't continue in the thread, but that particular technique won't work with me and that person again
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:44 AM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

An FPP about the "Last Word on Nothing" article is up. It seems to be going OK – just six comments so far, but no threadshitting right out the gate.
posted by nangar at 10:53 AM on June 24, 2014

Yeah, it's an interesting post - I'm still reading the links. It reminds me of this post from not too long ago about racial and gender bias in faculty mentoring. It would be awesome if it didn't have to go down the path of "but there must be other explanations besides bias, there must be!"

Mefites are really good at seeing and understanding certain kinds of systemic issues sometimes, and really terrible at it at other times.
posted by rtha at 11:07 AM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've MeMailed to keep from derailing a thread before and was blocked after one "nyah!" response for my trouble.

I think that's a problem with the "flag and MeMail" option - it's asking someone who quite possibly is directly affected by sexism to put themselves directly in the eyeline of someone indulging in a sexist derail, who is probably unlikely to take that admonition well, even if it works.

That's actually why I think cribcage's:

I hear you, and that's a good analogy. It's important to keep walking.

Is kind of interesting. Viggorlijah's analogy there is street harassment - being jeered at in the street.

The advice to women to keep walking when they are harassed on the street is because, if confronted, the kind of men who harass women on the street may become violent. We've heard stories on MetaFilter of women who have been followed home by men who felt slighted by their reaction to their wolf whistle or pick up line. Keeping walking isn't the best response irrespective of context - it's advice informed by the experiential and contextual understanding that, faced with street harassment, the least immediately dangerous action to take is usually to get away from it as quickly as possible without engaging. It's not that confronting harassers is bad. It's that it's unsafe.

However, we don't have quite the same gift-of-fear stuff operating on MetaFilter, because it's largely pseudonymous, it's virtual, and it's moderated - the mods are at least in part here to ensure the best possible quality of discussion. If you end up getting so worked up at the womens talking back to you that you drop a C-bomb on 'em, or do the virtual equivalent of following them down the street shouting at them, you may get a time out.

That said, just flagging depends on moderation being interpreted in a particular way, and the resources existing to implement it. Flagging and memailing I think might encourage escalation of bad behavior, although it might become focused on one person. And flagging and mentioning in-thread that this is a derail relies on a) derailers actually reading the thread, which seems to be not universal, and b) derailers not then going off on an unstoppable tear about the PC legions silencing and shaming them, which seems to be a reasonable likelihood. Which might then get moderated, but it feels like a hard road to follow.

I have no idea what the good answer to that is.
posted by running order squabble fest at 11:10 AM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

However, we don't have quite the same gift-of-fear stuff operating on MetaFilter, because it's largely pseudonymous, it's virtual, and it's moderated

I am sometimes afraid that an opinion expressed here will result in real-world nastiness. I know enough women that it has happened to that I don't see it as implausible. I can't imagine I'm alone in that concern.

As far as taking it to MeMail goes, if I were in a heated back-and-forth with someone the very last thing I would do would be to take it into a space where it's only my word against theirs for what is said.
posted by winna at 11:44 AM on June 24, 2014 [7 favorites]

For what it's worth, I also prefer to just be straight out told that XYZ tactic is a standard and unacceptable way of derailing discussions about the topic at hand.

One of the things that's tricky in the feminism/gender/trans discussions is that while the really direct derails and offensive comments are easy to spot and flag, there is also a more insidious pattern of derailing. (It showed up a bunch of times in this MeTa, as well.) At the start it looks like good faith commenting, but then you get to comment number three or so and you realize that it isn't really in good faith, and then it goes on to suck all the air out for a while. A bit later, in comes the next one, and repeat.

The exact pattern has shifted over time, though -- a couple of years ago it was the 101-style questions, which are now correctly seen as a derail, so now it's more questioning basic principles or suggesting (dare I say "mansplaining"?) pseudo-solutions that don't really get at the problem, or nitpicky comments about terminology.

The problem is that unlike the really offensive stuff and the 101 derails, these mostly take a few comments to come into focus as derails, and by then people have engaged in good faith and then boom, derail city.

I have zero interest in going back and rereading this and other long contentious discussions, but I'd guess that the derailings follow something of an 80/20 rule, with a small number of repeat offenders supplying most of the problems. At some point that becomes more of a moderation choice, whether or not to treat repeat patterns seriously or just deal with individual comments each time. The comparison to street harassment is a good one, and similarly it shouldn't be on the person being cat-called to find a magic solution to the problem.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:52 AM on June 24, 2014 [13 favorites]

I am sometimes afraid that an opinion expressed here will result in real-world nastiness. I know enough women that it has happened to that I don't see it as implausible. I can't imagine I'm alone in that concern.

I know enough women who've been stalked and harassed for their participation on what are generally pretty "nice" sites that I worry about this too. I certainly would avoid going to meetups with users I know are misogynists because I would feel unsafe.
posted by NoraReed at 12:27 PM on June 24, 2014 [5 favorites]

One of MetaFilter's resident dislikers of feminism disbelieved a claim that I made once about the physical capabilities of a female friend because in his mind all women are weaker than all men. He sent me repeated MeMails about this, saying that I should prove myself by introducing him to her the next time he was in my location (obtained from my profile). I did not feel safe.
posted by hydropsyche at 12:38 PM on June 24, 2014 [11 favorites]

Holy shit. OK, right. Gift of fear back under the Christmas tree of fear.

Mods - clearly those messages exist on the system, and can be checked. It feels like someone should at the very least be sternly talked to and deprived of MeMailing privileges for pulling that. It's not exactly a threat, and not exactly doxxing, but holy shit.
posted by running order squabble fest at 12:44 PM on June 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

I think that's a problem with the "flag and MeMail" option - it's asking someone who quite possibly is directly affected by sexism to put themselves directly in the eyeline of someone indulging in a sexist derail, who is probably unlikely to take that admonition well, even if it works.

Yes. And I can understand that especially women may feel a bit wary of taking this on, as winna explains above. If somebody has been behaving the sexist ass in public, engaging them in private will not go well.

That said, just flagging depends on moderation being interpreted in a particular way, and the resources existing to implement it.

That's the crux, isn't it? To a certain extent modding here is value neutral, calling out individual bad behaviour without necessarily pushing a broader agenda other than expecting a certain level of respect and politeness for everybody. That sort of semi neutrality is probably the best you can expect from a site like MeFi which has explicitely said it's not a safe space and has no desire to be.

That's not a policy I really disagree with, but it does make it harder to deal with people who constantly derail and harass feminist posts, of which there are at least a handful of people here. (It's in fact even against site culture to call them out unless they're actively engaged in sabotaging a thread right this minute.)

And with Jessamyn gone, who, justified or not, was seen as the mod most engaged with making MeFi less sexist, not to mention the fewer mod resources in general, it did feel for a moment as if all the old sexist trolls came back to party in a couple of threads, including the one that led to this meta.

And if viggorlijah's number crunching is right, there is still a problem with the gender representation here on MeFi; seeing several respected and well known posters saying that they themselves would think twice about posting on certain subjects, seems to confirm that there is a problem.

I of course have posted on feminist subjects a few times myself and while I have tried to structure my posts so that they could be productive rather than leading to a lot of aggro (and haven't always succeeded), I'd never feared for any personal consequences of anything I've posted on MeFi.

That's my privilege, but what can I and others like me do to help?
posted by MartinWisse at 12:48 PM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I feel very lucky now that I haven't had those kinds of memails, and I have engaged in "let's take this derail to memail" heated discussions via memail with a few people. Those have all ended by just...ending - one or the other of us just not writing back.
posted by rtha at 12:50 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've gotten nasty emails. I hid my email address, and that solved the problem for a long time. Then a couple years ago, after having my Twitter and Tumblr in my profile for a long time without any trouble, MeFites started using them to contact me to continue arguments. After the fifth or sixth one, I stripped my profile.

I think it's a mix of two things. Partly MetaFilter is just overall a rude community. (I don't care to debate whether it's ruder than other Internet forums.) But it's also the fact that moderators here have always encouraged that behavior. Before MeMail it was, "Take it to email." The mods have always catered to this egotism that if you have something to say that is inappropriate for the public forum, then you should find some other way to say it. The admonition has never been, no, maybe you should just swallow it.
posted by cribcage at 1:43 PM on June 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

Dang. I've only gotten that kind of abuse for daring to be a feminist on reddit; I guess I'm lucky for not having that happen here. That, or would-be antags are intimidated by my ferocious donut-hunting ways as indicated in my profile picture.
posted by NoraReed at 2:03 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Mods - clearly those messages exist on the system, and can be checked. It feels like someone should at the very least be sternly talked to and deprived of MeMailing privileges for pulling that. It's not exactly a threat, and not exactly doxxing, but holy shit.

Certainly that sort of message warrants a talking-to. If anyone ever gets a MeMail they feel edges into threatening or harassing territory, by all means let us know - we do not read people's MeMail proactively, but we can certainly verify what's going on and we will definitely take appropriate action.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 2:07 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Before MeMail it was, "Take it to email." The mods have always catered to this egotism that if you have something to say that is inappropriate for the public forum, then you should find some other way to say it. The admonition has never been, no, maybe you should just swallow it."

It's part of a long tradition, back through usenet, to take flamewars to email.
posted by klangklangston at 2:22 PM on June 24, 2014

If you think "Take it to MeMail/email" is somehow egotistical, how do you think a mod telling one side or another to stop talking about it everywhere would go over?
posted by Etrigan at 2:41 PM on June 24, 2014

"Take it to MeMail" is an instruction intended for people who seem to be having a conversation neither of them is willing to stop having, but that isn't suiting the thread, for whatever reason.

If that's not actually the case, then the solution to the problem is actually just to stop responding to the other person. (Yes, even if that means they seem to get "the last word.") In cases where you're feeling harassed, it's the best solution - for you, for the mods, and for everyone reading the thread. If the other party then continues haranguing you - either in-thread or in MeMail - we will be delighted to make them stop using less delicate means.

If you keep engaging, though, we as mods can't tell which of these two situations we're looking at, and we end up assuming that you are engaging because you want to. Not always, or even usually, the correct assumption, but we do try to operate under the assumption of good faith.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 2:57 PM on June 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

I think maybe more weight should be placed on the fact that the prohibition on sharing the contents of MeMails does not include sharing harassing content with the moderators - which is in the FAQ, but I think might need to be brought out a bit more.

"You two are just fighting each other, take it to MeMail" is like "take it to MetaTalk" - it just means the Mods want to get it out of MetaFilter. Obviously, that shouldn't be read as a license to harass, though.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:05 PM on June 24, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yeah, discouraging people from fighting in public does not necessarily mean you're encouraging them to fight in private.

FWIW, I've interpreted "Take it to MeMail" as more on the discouraging side of things.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:24 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

prohibition on sharing the contents of MeMails

I don't want to sidetrack the conversation -- and I don't know anything about the accusations posted earlier in the thread -- but is there really a prohibition against sharing MeMail contents or it just a prohibition against posting the contents publicly (without permission), like pasting into a MeTa thread?

(I guess I should add that I don't think I've done either one. But if it's the wider prohibition maybe that should be mentioned on the MeMail reply form?)
posted by nobody at 3:41 PM on June 24, 2014

Well, when people seem to be about to mention the contents of MeMails, people go sort of weird. Whether it's a community norm or a rule I don't know. It feels like that might encourage people to be more combative and/or creepy in MeMails, but obviously it would be hard to put together a test of that hypothesis.
posted by running order squabble fest at 4:17 PM on June 24, 2014

I should think that it is common sense just as it isn't generally proper to share the contents of a private email or posted letter.
posted by Justinian at 4:17 PM on June 24, 2014

It's just a prohibition against posting them publicly without permission. You can still contact the mods if you get abusive or creepy MeMails, and they can look at them. They've made it clear in the past that abusive MeMail is a bannable offense.
posted by nangar at 4:19 PM on June 24, 2014

I don't want to sidetrack the conversation -- and I don't know anything about the accusations posted earlier in the thread -- but is there really a prohibition against sharing MeMail contents or it just a prohibition against posting the contents publicly (without permission), like pasting into a MeTa thread?

I think it's the latter, but FTR I didn't do either one and have yet to hear a single additional word about it, which is sort of a bummer and will probably affect my Good Faith metric going forward.
posted by shakespeherian at 4:28 PM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I don't think it's common sense at all. If I happen to disagree with someone in a thread, and that person decides to use MeMail to redirect the disagreement, I have absolutely no onus whatsoever to keep that private. Exactly as, if you post a nasty snail-mail to me, I haven't consented to some imaginary pact to keep its contents private. When you open a channel, you do so at your own risk.

Neatly, this brings us back to the point that if your snowflake of a comment can't be made publicly, then maybe you just don't get to say it.
posted by cribcage at 4:44 PM on June 24, 2014

Just to report a datum: with contact-form-based mod encouragement, I sent a MeMail to say, "UH REALLY DUDE" (except vastly more politely) about something offensive, and the other person was responsive and thoughtful and changed their post. Which wasn't surprising because that person is also a generally thoughtful commenter.

There have definitely been a few people whom I would not have felt it was wise to contact directly by MeMail, but for the most part, I think most MeFites would be appalled to think they were that scary, offputting or intimidating. But better to trust your instincts, y'know?
posted by gingerest at 4:49 PM on June 24, 2014

I have taken it as a site standard that I can reasonably expect not to have details I've shared by MeMail published on the site - cribcage, if I trust you with, say, my real name (surprise, it isn't Ginger Est) in MeMail, you're not going to publish that just because you're angry, are you?
posted by gingerest at 4:54 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

"I don't think it's common sense at all. If I happen to disagree with someone in a thread, and that person decides to use MeMail to redirect the disagreement, I have absolutely no onus whatsoever to keep that private. Exactly as, if you post a nasty snail-mail to me, I haven't consented to some imaginary pact to keep its contents private. When you open a channel, you do so at your own risk."

I tend to agree with this, what with my default being to think that anything written to me should be publishable, but I recognize that part of the goal of MeMail is to give people a back channel for things they wouldn't say publicly — I've written to some folks about sensitive topics on the supposition that it wouldn't be public — and if that came back around, it could get really toxic really fast.
posted by klangklangston at 4:58 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Exactly. Not sharing private emails and similar in public in most cases has been bog-standard netiquette for 30 years.
posted by Justinian at 4:59 PM on June 24, 2014

Woops, I was not agreeing with Klangklangston with whom I appear to at least partly disagree. I think this has been an established protocol for decades.
posted by Justinian at 5:00 PM on June 24, 2014

I don't think it's common sense at all. If I happen to disagree with someone in a thread, and that person decides to use MeMail to redirect the disagreement, I have absolutely no onus whatsoever to keep that private.

You might, in that it's a rule here. I mean, that might be the onus: Mods have said it is not okay to publicly post the contents of memail without express permission. There's no "unless they were a total dick to you" exception.
posted by rtha at 5:00 PM on June 24, 2014

I could have been clearer. Sorry. Yes, that's a rule here. I disagree that it's a "common sense" rule, or that it should be a rule, was my point. The fact that it is a rule is reason #31 why I have MeMail disabled. I know fully well that if some jerk sent me a harassing message and I posted it publicly, some moderator would censure or ban me. I think that rule is idiotic. But y'know, it's not my sandbox, and I've been given fair notice of the rule. I can play by it or opt out. If MeMail didn't have an opt-out, it would be a different discussion.
posted by cribcage at 5:17 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's the same as the difference between flagging a comment that's clearly over the line and responding to a comment that's clearly over the line -- do you want the mods to do something about it or do you want some blood and thunder?
posted by Etrigan at 5:24 PM on June 24, 2014

I hope no one feels I violated the "no publicizing emails" rule. I tried to be as vague as possible, but just give an example of why "take it to MeMail" is not always a great solution. It was some time ago, and honestly it never occurred to me to bother the mods with it because I am used to the fact that hate-filled messages are just the price of being female on the internet.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:25 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't think "someone once said something in MeMail to me about..." could possibly be seen as violating any rules, no worries.
posted by Justinian at 5:46 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

hydropsyche: "He sent me repeated MeMails about this"

I've also been MeMail harassed for being a lady person. 99% of my memail conversations have been awesome, including virtually all of the "take it to memail" types where we may have still vehemently disagreed but done so respectfully. But a very small handful have been scary, or obscene, or verbally abusive out of the blue, and those have all related to gender things and used gendered language and gendered threats.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:14 PM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

Almost all. I can think of one that was not gender-related.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:26 PM on June 24, 2014

I think I'm remembering right, from a thread years ago, something jessamyn said about how angry memails she got tended to use way more gendered language than what cortex or matt got. I wonder if that changed any over the years, and/or because of more female mods?
posted by rtha at 6:33 PM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

But a very small handful have been scary, or obscene, or verbally abusive out of the blue, and those have all related to gender things and used gendered language and gendered threats.

What the fuck. That's appalling and I am genuinely shocked. I thought that we were better than that here.

I wonder how often the mods have had to ban users for this behaviour? It has literally never even occurred to me that people might use memail to be abusive.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:46 PM on June 24, 2014

I'm a dude and I still think all the abusive MeMails I've gotten have been spawned by feminism threads.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:03 PM on June 24, 2014

most of the memail i get it absolutely awesome. very rarely i get a message that's not so awesome and it is always a dude and it is always about gender threads. when this happens they aggresively explain the thread to me as if i weren't participating in it (in a way that feels gendered), tell me how unfair i've been to them, how i'm silencing them, and how even suggesting that they might not be the best arbitrators of women's lived experience makes me a sexist. i generally read it out loud to my husband, laugh at the clueless nature of the complaints, and move on. they're always just inside the line of respectable, not doing anything against the guidelines, but taking a tone i don't feel terribly safe responding to. recently i learned that i can ban individual people from memailing me and that's been pretty great.
posted by nadawi at 7:24 PM on June 24, 2014 [7 favorites]

Most of my memail has also been awesome, including on gender threads, although I know the abuse does happen and I'm sorry about that.
posted by sweetkid at 7:32 PM on June 24, 2014

I thought that we were better than that here.

Here's the thing... "we" are never better than that anywhere. That's the issue. That's the problem. That's the eternal trap women struggle with. Most of us are ok - I've never gotten an abusive MeMail, for example, and the amount of abuse I've gotten - besides my rape and sexual assault, and the usual street harassment - has been very small, the threats very implausible.

The idea that "we" are better than that "here" allows abusers cover. That idea needs to go away.

It actually is a problem for men, too, when we start talking sexual assault and abuse. If they're abused by men, homophobia kicks in. If they're abused by women, sexism does. In all cases, "we" are almost always better than that "here," so the victims should shut up sooner rather than later.

...this came out a little combative - I'm not trying to attack. Cookie?
posted by Deoridhe at 7:34 PM on June 24, 2014 [12 favorites]

I'm a dude and I still think all the abusive MeMails I've gotten have been spawned by feminism threads.

Huh. Now that I think about it... not _all_ of them, but I think the really "woah" ones have been gender-related in some way. Except one about soccer.

I think only one was really concerning, and the mods kind of waved that one off - I was pretty new here and I think they saw a more familiar behavior than I did, although at the time it did feel a little cavalier.

Kind of depressing that women are so accustomed to their concerns being minimized or ignored that they haven't even bothered flagging, but looking at the web as a whole it's not surprising. I guess the more times harassing or threatening behavior is reported to the mods, though, the better a picture they have of how MeMail is being used/misused, even if the immediate solution is for the recipient to block that person.

(In a way it's back to the street harassment metaphor again...)
posted by running order squabble fest at 7:34 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Here's the thing... "we" are never better than that anywhere. That's the issue.
...The idea that "we" are better than that "here" allows abusers cover. That idea needs to go away.

Yeah, I get that. Reading this thread has been useful and enlightening to me in showing me and demonstrating my own (male) privilege and the resulting (incorrect) assumptions, and revealing sexist undercurrents on MeFi which are often hidden from my perspective.

...this came out a little combative - I'm not trying to attack. Cookie?

Not combative at all. But cookies are always appreciated.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:51 PM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

His thoughts were red thoughts: "What the fuck. That's appalling and I am genuinely shocked. I thought that we were better than that here.I wonder how often the mods have had to ban users for this behaviour?"

I don't want to overstate it because literally almost all of my interactions on MetaFilter, public or private, have been positive -- and a much higher percentage than on any other similar site I've been on. In general MeFites are awesome and that should not be ignored or understated. But there are a small handful who suck and who take pains to suck as loudly as possible.

In the past I haven't forwarded these to the mods because they just seemed like the normal toll women pay for being on the internet, and I haven't gotten a truly scary one since I became reasonably well-known on the site -- I think the fact that I'm now embedded in a visible social network of relationships makes jackasses more reluctant to "come at me." (Which maybe is an idea to think about -- how can we make obvious to new members or infrequent users that they ARE embedded in our web and we want them to be safe? And how can we make obvious to potential abusers that those people are embedded in our web and we won't tolerate abuse of them? Is there an easy way to do that?)

Deoridhe: "Here's the thing... "we" are never better than that anywhere. That's the issue. That's the problem."

I went to college at a smaller, tight-knit university with a very strong identity that frequently talked about being "the [University] family." One of my (male) professors said something like, "Yeah, we are a family, but a lot of families are dysfunctional." And he went on to talk about how the rhetoric of "family" was used to obscure (in this particular case) sexual assault, and to dissuade women from reporting instances of actual assault -- and also to dissuade them from reporting ambient hostile environments for women. How rhetoric of a family and all being in this together was used to discourage women from making waves because it'd make problems for your "family." And how in a real, functional family, your parents/authority figures would never dissuade you from dealing with bullying(/sexism/harassment) to protect the family -- how that is basically the definition of an abusive or neglectful or dysfunctional or enabling family.

It was kind-of a toss-off rant he gave one day when he was really worked up about a particular instance of sexual assault on campus; But for me, his words have been enormously helpful as a framing device for understanding and dealing with sexism, racism, and other -isms in tight-knit communities where everyone is part of the "in group" and people who I think are great suddenly come out with appalling ideas, or people who are in the group and therefore to be trusted and admired (because the group is cool) turn out to be appalling individuals. We may be family, but families are often dysfunctional; I can love the group while understanding how it sometimes enables bad behavior, and I can love an individual while understanding how that person is a BAD PERSON. And I can also understand, in more rare cases, how I can have really strong feelings about an institution (family/group/club/whatever) but also need to cut that group off because it is so unhealthy, even though a lot of positive things came from it.

Anyway. It's not a complete theory of everything, but as a generally very trusting person, I've found that idea helpful in thinking about group breakdowns and problematic members of groups, and my mixed and complicated feelings when those things happen.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:01 PM on June 24, 2014 [29 favorites]

how can we make obvious to new members or infrequent users that they ARE embedded in our web and we want them to be safe?

i'm not as good at it as i should be, but i try to reach out to women who are popping up in these tense sort of threads to say hi, that i value their contributions, and that i'm glad they are here. i think if we all keep talking to each other, and i think memail is a great tool for this (i've gotten countless beautiful, supportive, hilarious memails from the feminist cabal), that we'll find our way through.
posted by nadawi at 8:11 PM on June 24, 2014 [6 favorites]

I have spent a lot of time rereading and rethinking the phenomena of the missing stair when it comes to communities in general.
posted by Deoridhe at 8:14 PM on June 24, 2014 [5 favorites]

How rhetoric of a family and all being in this together was used to discourage women from making waves because it'd make problems for your "family."

Yes, my college (small, insular, had been all-male until barely a decade before I got there) did this, too. It's a total mindfuck for kids who have just left home for maybe the first time.

Something else about memail discussions: As I said, mine have mostly been fine. But there was an exchange some months ago that, when it began, I memailed another mefite who was also in that difficult thread to say "Ah, I got a memail from [mefite] and I don't want to read it!" I wasn't afraid it would be threatening or harassing, but I just...I didn't want to read it. The mefite I'd reached out to said that after hard lessons, they had decided for themselves that they would never again have discussions about that topic "behind closed doors", so to speak, with someone who was just determined to No or Yahbut them to death. I should have listened to that mefite, because I did enter into an exchange with the person who initially memailed me, and it was a miserable and shitty experience. They said stuff - again, not at all threatening or harassing, mind you - that they would not dare say in public. I decided then that in the future, I can walk away from that kind of exchange and not give a shit if the other person has "won," and that it does not count as walking away from an opportunity to educate. There is no "winning" if it can't be discussed in the light of day.
posted by rtha at 8:22 PM on June 24, 2014 [10 favorites]

Wow, I don't recall having ever received a threatening or even anywhere near negative MeMail - if I did I must have blocked it from memory. Given how many times I've started MeTa threads about some social justice factor or other, it's kind of surprising.

this is not your invitation to start
posted by divabat at 8:25 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Which maybe is an idea to think about -- how can we make obvious to new members or infrequent users that they ARE embedded in our web and we want them to be safe? And how can we make obvious to potential abusers that those people are embedded in our web and we won't tolerate abuse of them? Is there an easy way to do that?

This is why I genuinely appreciate it when people stop derails in threads by saying clearly "Stop. We don't do that here." If I know something about the topic, it makes me feel that the discussion's boundaries are clear and safe (as it has in threads for feminism/misogyny-related topics), and if I don't know very much about the topic, FYIs like that genuinely help to educate, and in what is hopefully a not overly burdensome or tiresome way for the people doing the educating (as it has in threads for trans*-related topics).

Not that anybody has a particular duty to be assertive about laying down those boundaries -- but I truly do appreciate it when people who know about and are invested in the topic at hand make firm, clear boundaries like that. And if someone *wants* to do that, if she feels like boundaries are getting crossed in the discussion and she's fed up with it and wants to say something, I think that she certainly has a right to and it's completely appropriate for her to do that. Like I said earlier, I don't think that's "bossy" or "uppity" or "rude" or whatever, and I also don't think that communicating a boundary like that should be hidden away on memail -- because the boundaries of a public discussion should be public knowledge or else they're useless, aren't they?

I think that Etrigen's idea of memailing when a boundary gets crossed in discussion is meant help the person who crossed that boundary save face, but frankly, I think that a public statement is more useful, since the boundary-crossing is happening in the context of a public discussion. But again, what irritates me in those discussions is people hearing someone communicate her boundaries and responding as though she just crossed *their* boundaries by communicating what hers were. Turning the tables like that is manipulative and it bothers me to no end on here just like it does in meatspace.

Anyway, what made me personally feel welcome on this site to the point that I was willing to identify as female and use a picture in my profile, things I almost never do online, is because of people like rtha and nadawi and many others not taking any guff, especially about stuff related to gender. I know it's exhausting for you guys, but I really appreciate your fearlessness and openness, including about feminism, but also about your opinions generally, and that has done a lot to make the site feel welcoming to me.
posted by rue72 at 8:27 PM on June 24, 2014 [18 favorites]

I'm glad you're here.
posted by rtha at 8:47 PM on June 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

Okay, there might be a price women pay to have opinions on the Internet - that was galling to type, by the way - does it have to exist on metafilter? At all?

Please report abuse, in any form by any one - to the mods, as long as you feel safe doing it, of course. No one deserves shitty me-mails.
posted by disclaimer at 8:48 PM on June 24, 2014

I think that Etrigen's idea of memailing when a boundary gets crossed in discussion is meant help the person who crossed that boundary save face, but frankly, I think that a public statement is more useful, since the boundary-crossing is happening in the context of a public discussion.

Boundary-crossers who genuinely care about saving face aren't the problem. Flag-and-MeMail is meant to prevent the thing that happened in this very discussion about sixteen times, where the pattern of "Troll A trolls, Trolls B through Z abet the derail by jumping in to defend him" is so obvious that you start wondering whether they drew lots to determine who would get to be Troll A each time. Public statements are what they want, because they want to shut down the public discussion.

If you don't want to do it, I genuinely don't think any less of you for that. But I believe that MetaFilter would be better off with less "OH GOD THERE'S A SHIT ON THE CARPET" and more "Hey, mod, there's a shit on the carpet, I'm just gonna ignore it while you clean it up, mkay?" The mods are constantly saying "I'd love to delete that shitty comment, but the entire discussion is about it now."
posted by Etrigan at 8:50 PM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

Please report abuse, in any form by any one - to the mods, as long as you feel safe doing it

well, i think we're saying that while it's shitty and confrontational and feels a bit claustrophobic due to the back channel nature of it, often times it just doesn't rise to the level of abuse actionable by mods. i went back and read one or two of the ones i was thinking of with my comment and there's nothing reportable in there, just shitty to receive because i get the sense my ladyness and lack of deference is why they got all aggressive.

i agree with hydropsyche that it's sort of the price we pay for being openly female and on the internet. the price is far, far lower here, probably the lowest of anywhere i hang out online, but it's still here.
posted by nadawi at 8:56 PM on June 24, 2014 [4 favorites]

(i've gotten countless beautiful, supportive, hilarious memails from the feminist cabal)

Me too! Including the feminist menz. In fact, it's prob half menz. Feminist men of Metafilter, you are awesome btw.

THE CABAL DEEMED IT SO
posted by sweetkid at 9:02 PM on June 24, 2014 [6 favorites]

I can imagine, too, that with Jessamyn gone, it's going to be just that little bit harder to deal with the unactionable - no matter how smart and sympathetic our terrific mods are, she has the benefit of the lived experience to give a reality check, and say, "Yeah, no, I hear exactly what you're concerned about there," which itself is an action that helps us, (or, reciprocally, the support of saying "I hear you, but I think maybe you're hearing what you're braced to hear" - you have to be able to trust your reality checker, right?). The guy mods, having witnessed but not experienced the endless microaggressions of life as a woman, just can't provide that sounding board. And we can't offer each other that support, because there's a completely reasonable rule about not forwarding MeMail without the author's permission.
posted by gingerest at 9:06 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Hey, mod, there's a shit on the carpet, I'm just gonna ignore it while you clean it up, mkay?" The mods are constantly saying "I'd love to delete that shitty comment, but the entire discussion is about it now."

I have, in the past, consistently flagged users - users that received no sanction, and who later outed themselves as trolls, to the surprise of the mods.

I have, in the past, messaged the moderation staff with my concerns about comments, concerned that merely letting such comments stand would be extraordinarily detrimental to the site, and received in reply "it's going to play out the way it plays out." It indeed played out, and a few people closed their accounts in response to the stupid bullshit that the moderation staff let stand, with no sanction to that user.

I am not confident that your solution of flagging and messaging will work, because it has not worked for me in the past.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:15 PM on June 24, 2014 [5 favorites]

but we have restless_nomad and taz and LobsterMitten sporadically (I think?) who have lived experience as women.
posted by sweetkid at 9:15 PM on June 24, 2014 [7 favorites]

I'm really sorry that memail serves as yet another conduit for shittiness sometimes. I've received very few messages, but all of them have been welcome and pleasant; that is a privilege everyone should be able to enjoy.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:30 PM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

sweetkid: "but we have restless_nomad and taz and LobsterMitten sporadically (I think?) who have lived experience as women."

I am a giant pile of worthlessness and embarrassment. Yes. Yes we do.

I cover myself in dirt and grovel, taz, and r_n, and LobsterMitten.
posted by gingerest at 9:47 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

Please report abuse, in any form by any one - to the mods, as long as you feel safe doing it

well, i think we're saying that while it's shitty and confrontational and feels a bit claustrophobic due to the back channel nature of it, often times it just doesn't rise to the level of abuse actionable by mods. i went back and read one or two of the ones i was thinking of with my comment and there's nothing reportable in there, just shitty to receive because i get the sense my ladyness and lack of deference is why they got all aggressive.

i agree with hydropsyche that it's sort of the price we pay for being openly female and on the internet. the price is far, far lower here, probably the lowest of anywhere i hang out online, but it's still here.
posted by nadawi at 11:56 PM on June 24 [2 favorites +] [!]


Thanks for your response... And yeah it might be a "low noise" kind of thing for you. But if a member of the site is consistently emailing disparaging or condescending or whatever shitty things to people that participate in SJ or feminism threads, it could become actionable if it's a pattern on the part of the member, right? I mean, if some asshole was messaging shitty things to people participating in controversial threads on a website that I modded, I'd want to know so I could keep an eye on the fuckhead and ban if needed.

Just my two cents, I'll go get some air now.
posted by disclaimer at 9:58 PM on June 24, 2014 [2 favorites]

I am now envious of back channel, feminist memailings. *le pout* ;)
posted by Deoridhe at 10:48 PM on June 24, 2014 [1 favorite]

In the past I haven't forwarded these to the mods because they just seemed like the normal toll women pay for being on the internet

Dammit, that should not be a sentence that women actually have to use. Certainly not here.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:29 PM on June 24, 2014 [5 favorites]

I love sending and receiving MeMails (hinty hint) and I've never had anyone send me anything abusive. But once there was a comment in a thread not directly related to sexism by a known "what about the Menz" user that annoyed me. I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was unaware of why what he said was hugely dismissive of a whole area of women's lived experiences and the effects of patriarchy, rather than him deliberately shit-stirring. Rather than derail the thread I sent a very polite message along the lines of "I'm not sure if you understand that X that you're dismissing is in fact very tied up with Y, maybe we could have a conversation about it? All the best" and he sent back a reply dripping in sarcasm, and ended by telling me that if I ever contacted him again he would be reporting me to the mods for harassment. (Which gave me a minor heart attack.)

Reading this now I'm wondering if women are as quick to reply to abusive messages by telling the person they will be reported, or have we internalised the message to just keep walking? And also if men received that warning would they panic like I did or have they internalised the message that they rarely have to pay for crossing boundaries?

PS He messaged me randomly a couple of months later like sup, wanna have that debate now? Which made me do a Buuuh? I was afraid it was a trap. So I think he pretty much won overall on who had the balance of power.
posted by billiebee at 1:33 AM on June 25, 2014 [13 favorites]

Rustic Etruscan and MartinWisse, I want to thank you both for linking and pointing me to the Everyday Sexism project. I've been reading it for days.

There is so freaking much. Even in my own life, and I consider myself mostly lucky in that regard.
But then, that's the point of the whole project, isn't it? Making that undercurrent visible. Well, as far as I'm concerned, mission accomplished.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:02 AM on June 25, 2014

yeah - every day sexism is so good i eventually had to stop following the twitter account (since the undercurrent is visible to me, it just became a sharp stick wiggling around my ribs multiple times a day). i love that it exists and i love all those women for speaking out.
posted by nadawi at 6:16 AM on June 25, 2014 [4 favorites]

Yes indeed, thanks for the link to Everyday Sexism, RusticEtruscan. I thought of adding a story, and still might, but several started coming back to me - some light, some heavy - and my late-night brain had trouble choosing.
posted by valetta at 6:40 AM on June 25, 2014

I have spent a lot of time rereading and rethinking the phenomena of the missing stair when it comes to communities in general.

That is an awesome way of thinking about it. Thank you.
posted by Gygesringtone at 8:42 AM on June 25, 2014

I'm all over the feminist threads and I won't shut up about how pro-choice I am, and I've never gotten an abusive me-mail. I wonder what the difference is.

Oh, once someone told me to fuck off, but it wasn't about feminist issues.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:35 AM on June 25, 2014

Many of the sexism-related threads over my years at mefi have been helpful for me. This one's no exception to that.

In particular, it threw into sharper perspective the deeper structures of anger and displays of anger, and some of how they intersect with gender. How close showy displays of dudgeon just underlie chiding tone arguments and pleas for civility, how making shows of storming out as a 'hold me back!' hinge on unexamined structures of male anger as threat display, and that therefore it's actually not surprising at all just how closely tantrums follow up tone complaints since the oft-unconscious intent is deference and silence if agreement's not in the cards. The stories of gendered memail creepiness aren't surprising; but I can see back not very far at all to when they would have still surprised me to hear.

And I recognize that, yeah, in my position in the winning privilege lottery, that's very much re-perceiving the wheel that others have to actually deal with.

Also even more tangentially, that thinking about anger and how displays of it get entangled in cultural sexism got me to apologize to one of my best friends about a recent moment I'd snapped at her over something minor with more heat than she'd deserved, and the unpleasant personal realization that of course it was hard to say, but I don't think I would have taken the same tone with one of my male friends all other things being equal. She barely even remembered the exchange, but it was necessary, and like everyone, I need to keep striving to be more aware and do better.

Anyway, I'm very glad for the women here and elsewhere who've stuck with articulating their experience even in the face of hostility outright to coded-within-the-lines-of-civil to allies having unexamined bad days and patterns.
posted by Drastic at 9:35 AM on June 25, 2014 [5 favorites]

There doesn't seem to be a better place to put this riff on listening to men by Mallory Ortberg, so here it is.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:01 AM on June 25, 2014 [7 favorites]

Even better: women listening to men in art history.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:20 AM on June 25, 2014 [11 favorites]

I wonder what the difference is.

sometimes i feel like the dudes who are so aggressive and clueless that they'd take it to memail are such a small percentage of users here that it's a bit like a game show wheel - that with enough force and pressure it just stops where it's going to stop. it almost seems random. at the same time, i know there's something about me that gets me this sort of attention in the broader world - not blaming myself, just recognizing that there's something that has me seeing more than maybe my share of aggressive gender based explainers, cat callers, creepy attention givers, all the way up to outright abusers.

whatever it is, i hope your memail stays empty of that sort of attention.
posted by nadawi at 12:24 PM on June 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've realized over the course of this thread that a handful of feminist posters who I thought were women actually identify as men, and it's been heartening to see that there are more men who really get it than I thought there were here. So: Thanks!
posted by jaguar at 1:37 PM on June 25, 2014 [7 favorites]

ended by telling me that if I ever contacted him again he would be reporting me to the mods for harassment

Also, don't worry about this stuff. Speaking as a past-mod, we're pretty canny about jerkish users "reporting" non-jerkish users for "harassment" If the mods really needed to, they could go get a copy of the MeMail in question (they don't otherwise look at MeMails at all) and make an independent verification of that sort of thing. So while getting crappy MeMail sucks, I hear you, don't worry that someone being an aggro jerk to you is going to get any sort of traction on that jerkishness via the Contact Form. won't happen, though lord knows people have tried.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 5:41 PM on June 26, 2014 [6 favorites]

Yes to everything jessamyn just said.

And as to this -

I'm wondering if women are as quick to reply to abusive messages by telling the person they will be reported

If you get a harassing or threatening MeMail, block the person and let us know. You do not need to tell the person anything or engage with them at all.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 6:00 PM on June 26, 2014 [8 favorites]

I have memail off most of the time because I feel mods mishandled an incident similar to above, in which someone sent me an insulting message and then complained when I responded in kind. So, YMMV on that. If you don't respond well to being attacked as I don't, it can be better just not to bother with it.
posted by Drinky Die at 6:22 PM on June 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well, the mods are pretty much always going to favor not taking action over taking action if possible - that's just management by exception. And "both of you knock it off" takes a lot less time and effort than an investigation.

That's unfortunate, if people conclude that there's no point in reporting harassment, but it's not inexplicable.
posted by running order squabble fest at 6:29 PM on June 26, 2014

Not commenting about Drinky Die's specific situation, but just commenting in general on the idea of coming to us with a two-sided exchange -

if someone is just being kind of a jerk, but not in a way that's threatening or harassing, you can ignore and/or block them. Nobody is required to get into MeMail exchanges with anyone. If someone is a jerk to you and then you're a jerk back, well, as restless_nomad said above, now the situation is a two person tango. Disengaging is pretty much always the best way to end an exchange that's turning ugly. If you disengage then it will just be the other person making themselves look bad by pursuing it (and then it's more clear-cut for us to tell them to stop).

This is kind of getting away from the situation of men harassing women via MeMail in a gender-based way, though, which is more what we were talking about.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 6:30 PM on June 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Right - a lot of the time, MeMail exchanges are two people going at each other in a way that wouldn't be possible on MeFi, and at that point who started it doesn't really matter in most cases. It's just anger aerobics, basically.

As long as it's clear that there is a line, and if someone crosses it the right thing to do is not to respond, to block them and to alert the mods, and that the reporter will be taken seriously when they do, that's unproblematic. (And, sadly, the "they" in that case is usually going to be a "she", although not always).

The place where that gets fuzzy, I think, is when someone MeMails in a way that is within the lines but also offensive - basically a microagression. That's back to the street harassment metaphor, in a way. "Block and ignore" is a way to deal with that, but it means that the next woman who sticks her head over the parapet in that guy's eyeline is probably going to get the same treatment. I guess there's no perfect solution there - it's the background radiation thing.

And the other place is where a MeMail discussion starts inside the line and then goes yacko - which is the "turning ugly' part. It feels like there's a phenomenon where a relatively polite (or at least not totally horrible) exchange between a man and a woman goes suddenly south when the dude feels disrespected. And it's worth making it clear that engaging by MeMail - even in a combative fashion - doesn't remove one's right to flag that escalation and have it taken seriously.

I don't think there's anything in that that isn't covered by the FAQ; it just seemed from this discussion like harassment is so normalized in our general culture that there's an expectation that it's not worth reporting, so it's worth maybe punching it up a bit.
posted by running order squabble fest at 6:57 AM on June 27, 2014 [8 favorites]

"Block and ignore" is a way to deal with that, but it means that the next woman who sticks her head over the parapet in that guy's eyeline is probably going to get the same treatment. I guess there's no perfect solution there - it's the background radiation thing.

"Block and ignore and let the mods know and if someone gets into a pattern of doing it and they will handle it" is actually what they suggest. I know a lot of this is subjective. Drinky Die clearly thinks things went one way, for example where the mods think it went another way. I don't remember that example so anything else I say is not about that. Different perceptions are going to happen. The mods will be the arbiter of that sort of thing. In the past there was a greater-than-zero chance that when someone complained about being harassed and we read the MeMail exchange our response was not only "That person did not seem to be harassing you." but "You were harassing that person, actually." You see it when people just interact here sometimes, people's impression of how they are coming across is very different than how people feel they are coming across.

the mods are pretty much always going to favor not taking action over taking action if possible

That's a weirdly shitty thing to say and actually doesn't reflect how things are handled here. I get that you're trying to explain a thing in the way you think it works. At the same time, I think there are a lot of edge-case users in particular circumstances who overgeneralize their own experiences to how the site works in general. Wanting MeFi to be a less-shitty place for women and other folks who are underrepresented means specifically taking affirmative assertive action when doing nothing would actually be something the mods could get away with.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 11:05 AM on June 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

And "both of you knock it off" takes a lot less time and effort than an investigation.

I'm not getting into details for a variety of reasons, but this wasn't how I felt the issue was mishandled. Honestly I should not have even brought it up, old ass news.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:10 AM on June 27, 2014

Bringing up old grievances in a roundabout, no-details-specified way rarely works well in MeTa, based on what I've seen.
posted by Lexica at 1:26 PM on June 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well, I have no knowledge of Drinky Die's case, nor was I talking about it specifically - I was talking about people talking about getting memails on a spectrum from snotty to abusive as a result of their contributions to threads about gender issues and not knowing what to do about them, as reported above by several people. With that in mind, I think I'd suggest you've mistaken my meaning, jessamyn. So, when you say:

"Block and ignore and let the mods know and if someone gets into a pattern of doing it and they will handle it" is actually what they suggest.

I would refer you to Lobstermitten, directly above:

if someone is just being kind of a jerk, but not in a way that's threatening or harassing, you can ignore and/or block them.

"Just being kind of a jerk, but not in a way that's threatening or harassing" = "MeMails in a way that is within the lines but also offensive" in my wording. I said, directly above the sentence you're quoting:

As long as it's clear that there is a line, and if someone crosses it the right thing to do is not to respond, to block them and to alert the mods, and that the reporter will be taken seriously when they do, that's unproblematic.

So, yeah. I don't think we disagree. There are two different things here - microaggressions and aggressions. Lobstermitten's advice on microaggressive behavior is to block and ignore. The advice on aggressive behavior is to block and report. The problem I'm noting there being that the source of the microaggression will then probably do the same thing to someone else, and if they are only blocked and ignored will continue to do that, at least unless or until their behavior escalates. There's nothing for the mods to react to. That may not be a fixable issue, as I also say.

I guess that might help to explain why you went on to:

That's a weirdly shitty thing to say and actually doesn't reflect how things are handled here.

It was not my intention to be shitty, and I regret the imprecision that led it to be read as such.

As the other half of the sentence says, and as I think we all already understand, this is how management by exception works. If you're running a community, or indeed a factory, you have a finite number of staff and person-hours to allocate. The more problems that can be resolved without directly allocating those person-hours, the more allocatable resource there is to address other problems. A huge amount of management is putting systems in place that maximize the assignable time of value-contributing staff.

This is why MeMail and MetaTalk exist, among other reasons - to be mechanisms by which moderators don't have to address individually every single incidence of things not going well on MetaFilter. It's how community-based support services work in general. MetaTalk isn't exactly the same as the Apple support forums, but you can see functional similarities. People ask questions or raise issues, other people answer them, the system is observed by employees who step in when necessary.

So, again, I don't think we disagree that the mods would prefer not to, and indeed would not be able to, micromanage every issue. The resource doesn't exist.

Anyhoo. I'm not going to spend too much time on what I assume is a good-faith misunderstanding on an emotive topic. This, however:

Wanting MeFi to be a less-shitty place for women and other folks who are underrepresented means specifically taking affirmative assertive action when doing nothing would actually be something the mods could get away with.

Is kind of pointful. I think the reason - as a moderator, or a moderatorial collective - for taking action to make MeFi a less shitty place for women and minorities is because one wants MeFi to be a less shitty place for women and minorities, right?

The mods absolutely could get away with doing less or nothing, in the sense that it would still be a product that would operate in the market. Women and minorities might respond to that by leaving, and if departure exceeded replenishment rate, that would end up with MetaFilter becoming a monoculture. But MetaFilter-as-monoculture is a perfectly marketable product. Some current members would prefer it, other people would join specifically because it would be more desirable to them.

My assumption is that MetaFilter is has as one of its community and moderation goals to be a less shitty (and as far as possible totally non-shitty within the constraints of other aims) place for women and minorities, and is factoring that in when allocating person-hours. To put it in Deming-y terms, that's a desired improvement of the product that justifies the allocation of resource (in this case, moderator hours) to it.

Which is why the potential reduction in moderator hours is a cause for concern for a number of people in this thread, as is your retirement, as you are generally seen as having been a huge factor in MetaFilter becoming a less hostile place for women. All of which we've touched on, of course.

But yeah, I don't think anyone here is accusing the mods of doing nothing about sexism. It's a discussion about how sexism operates on MetaFilter, whether that is OK or not OK, and how a whole bunch of levers, including but not limited to moderation, can be applied to it.
posted by running order squabble fest at 1:28 PM on June 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

Maybe we could discuss specific items, problems or issues, than just sort of general charges that moderators don't really care very much and just want to make things easy for themselves and love monoculture or whatever.

Running order squabble fest, if you'd contact us or mefi mail me about the harassing mefi mail that you got that we hand waved away, I can take a look and see what happened exactly; I'm not really finding it quickly in mail archives.

Drinky die, I was able to find the situation you are talking about, and I will say that we saw this in pretty much a completely different way than you did. Like the opposite.

We check out every single complaint of mefi mail harassment or abuse, and we don't hesitate to impose temp bans or permabans whenever that's the case. And yes, we will advise people to block / ignore, when that seems the best thing. Obviously, we can't take action about things people don't tell us about, so if someone feels they've been abused or harassed via mefi mail, let us know. If it was in the past, you can still let us know; even if we don't necessarily ban that person immediately for something that happened some time ago (or we might -- it depends), we can make a note of it and check whether it looks like a system of behavior and keep tabs.

As far as the general complaint (or whatever it is) about the site being like a factory with a finite number of staff and allocating those person-hours, etc., we've been pretty much completely off the map with regard to any kind of factory robot logic at Metafilter anyway, since moderators have always spent by far the most time and effort on the least income-producing parts of the site, so it's basically all been a "labor of love" in terms of how our time is used. In other words, Metafilter the discussion site (plus Metatalk) is expensive and tricky to run (and sometimes just plain exhausting in terms of moderator physical and emotional resources), and Ask Metafilter has historically been the part of the site to foot the bill... until it wasn't able to foot the whole bill, and now we have fewer moderators (at a much greater loss than just not as many "person hours"), and this sort of ambiguous charge that we somehow aren't allocating our time in a sensitive or inclusive way because ... we're too concerned with maximizing return on people hours seems to be pretty much missing the whole boat.
posted by taz (staff) at 3:35 AM on June 28, 2014 [7 favorites]

Running order squabble fest, if you'd contact us or mefi mail me about the harassing mefi mail that you got that we hand waved away, I can take a look and see what happened exactly; I'm not really finding it quickly in mail archives.

I don't think it would be a good use of moderator time? It's not really a live issue for me; it happened ages ago, it was making a threat that was never delivered upon and, although it's connected to gender, it isn't a case of a woman-identifying user being harassed by MeMail so it isn't hugely relevant to this thread. It was an anecdotal data point, and one I now kind of regret bringing up, although it did of course inform my understanding of how moderation handles issues

I mean, if you want to, I could, but it's not something I'm particularly worried about right now.

As far as the general complaint (or whatever it is) about the site being like a factory with a finite number of staff and allocating those person-hours, etc...

Sorry - I have no idea what you read, there, but it wasn't the thing I wrote. You seem to be saying "how dare you say that the mods have limited time and resource, when the mods have limited time and resource?"

I mean... that's what I just said. I don't know where you got the whole income thing from - I didn't mention money at all. I said that the mods have limited time to allocate, and a number of goals they have to meet with that limited resource.

So, yeah. I don't exactly know how to respond to that, because it's unrelated to what I wrote. It is my impression that if the moderators can resolve a dispute without a) directly intervening or b) investigating, singling out and criticising one of the people involved, that is considered a good option. It is partly my impression because I recall moderators saying that on MetaTalk when discussing moderation.

If you want to correct that - that is, to say "no, we actively prefer to investigate disputes and then make sure that one person definitely understands that they are in the wrong" - then I can definitely take that on board, and see my experiences as outliers.

But if you think "MetaFilter is an organisation with finite resources and has to make decisions about where to allocate them" is a complaint, or a charge, then I genuinely don't know what to say.
posted by running order squabble fest at 5:04 AM on June 28, 2014 [2 favorites]

Drinky die, I was able to find the situation you are talking about, and I will say that we saw this in pretty much a completely different way than you did. Like the opposite.

As I said, I felt you mishandled it. I already said I should not have brought it up, so it's fine to drop it.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:08 AM on June 28, 2014

so it's fine to drop it.

Dropping it starts by dropping it.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 7:31 AM on June 28, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yes, let's all drop it.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:36 AM on June 28, 2014

If you want to correct that - that is, to say "no, we actively prefer to investigate disputes and then make sure that one person definitely understands that they are in the wrong" - then I can definitely take that on board

There's a difference between users having different opinions about things and users engaging in behavior like personal attacks, harassment or trolling. If two users are having a long, angry, tit-for-tat argument that's derailing a thread, the mods will tell both of them to knock it off without weighing in on the issue they're disagreeing about. If a user is engaging in personal attacks or harassment, the mods will delete the attacks if they get flagged, and warn or take action against the person making them if they persist.

There's a difference between having wrong opinions or beliefs about something and engaging in ethically or morally wrong behavior on the site. The site has a 'don't be an asshole' policy that the mods are charged with enforcing, and do try to enforce. It doesn't have a 'don't be wrong' policy.
posted by nangar at 7:41 AM on June 28, 2014 [4 favorites]

Huh? hal_c_on, that seems to come out of nowhere, and in general you seem to be making a lot of fighty comments lately. Or that's how it looks to me.
If this is caused by some kind of hardship in your personal life, I hope things get better soon. In the meantime, maybe it's better not to take it out on us.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:16 AM on June 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

hal_c_on, you really need to cool it; when you make attacks against us, we pretty much mostly bite our well-bitten tongues, because that ends up being part of the job to some degree, but don't just jump in to randomly kidneypunch some other member just because this is Metatalk and we don't delete much and you're feeling aggressive or hostile.

I wasn't calling out rosf, I was genuinely saying let's go back and have a look and maybe I can explain any confusion about the response you got, if that was what happened, or perhaps put it in some context that makes sense. Or see if we just dropped the ball there. It happens sometimes, especially when a lot of other stuff is going on sitewise.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:48 AM on June 29, 2014 [7 favorites]

hal_c_on's response seemed so disproportionate and odd that I figured he'd gotten his copy/pastes mixed up or something
posted by NoraReed at 4:24 AM on June 29, 2014

Hal, I think this is maybe your fourth rage-out this thread, during which you've managed to declare you are leaving (pretty early on), accuse people of color of whitesplaining and compare disagreeing with someone to drowning a witch. On the plus side, this means I'm not taking this personally, but maybe think about the way this discussion is going for you.
posted by running order squabble fest at 4:29 AM on June 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

You don't need to attack. You can probably figure out a way to communicate without it being the text equivalent of a glassing. You have been pretty violent with responses here lately, and while people can understand that sometimes folks are having a bad day or a bad week and are maybe being more snippy or quicker to anger over things, this is getting to be a specific ongoing problem with you, and you need to try to exert some effort to discuss in a civil way, or yeah, take a break and come back when you are feeling calmer.
posted by taz (staff) at 4:34 AM on June 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

Drowning a witch??? What the hell. Why are you making this shit up like this?


Just here.

Holy fuck, some of you mefites are assholes.

I don't think there has been a single issue that I have agreed with gman about. In fact, I can say the few interactions I have had with him make me not want to buy him a beer if I ever see him. But some of you assholes are just latching onto someone and making it a freaking witch hunt. Totally unfair.

Yes. Let's take gman, lock him in a box, and throw him in the river, if he survives, he's a misogynist. If he doesn't, then he died for feminism.

And I see you same assholes being a bunch of cowards and latching onto some bullshit statement like "ahhhh....I can't think of anything to say....but methinks gman protest too much about feminism." [+8 favorites]

Keep it classy, bullies.

posted by running order squabble fest at 4:41 AM on June 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

We need to drop this now. We don't need to go into that specific comment, or make this about hal_c_on any further, and hal_c_on, you do need to pretty much leave this thread alone now because it's getting way off track with no apparent benefit.
posted by taz (staff) at 4:45 AM on June 29, 2014

I personally find it kind of refreshing when someone who's been being an antag in a thread just starts behaving in a way that makes me vaguely puzzled, but I wouldn't wish the trouble that seems to cause on the mods
posted by NoraReed at 4:50 AM on June 29, 2014

Well, that was weird and ghastly.

Taz, I'll ping you a memail at some point, to avoid further derailing - the short version is that I got a memail, I flagged it and the mods told me not to worry about it, basically (this was before you were a mod - like, years ago).

Point being, they were right - they were more familiar with the sender's moods, and understood that this was just part of a pattern rather than a serious threat. I wasn't complaining about an injustice - just registering a data point, that the only time I was concerned enough about a MeMail to flag it it was coming out of a discussion about, IIRC, sexist language on MetaFilter.

(Whereas I think the same memail sent to a woman-identifying MeFite might have justified a stronger response, because of the general normalization of threatening behaviors against women's speech in Internet culture.)
posted by running order squabble fest at 6:00 AM on June 29, 2014

I think it's pretty clear the analogy there was likening accusing someone of misogyny without backing it up to accusing someone of witchcraft, and how both are loaded situations favoring the accuser.

I can see the analogy, because the starting position in both situations is a presumption of guilt rather than innocence. One has to prove oneself, in essence, not a misogynist, rather than the accuser having to make the case.

Which is why in modern society, of course, we think the fair and civilized way of treating other people is to start with the presumption of innocence.

To that end, I want to apologize to shakespeherian here for doing much the same thing.

Earlier, shakespeherian wrote me several emails and I responded to one of them at some length, using what I considered singular, specific phrasing and word choices. Soon after this exchange, I blocked my Mefimail. At which point, I noticed the same phrasing from my messages, popping up in this thread.

I had a situation not long ago--and there's no need to go into it here and embarrass the other person involved because it has previously been discussed in Metatalk--where another member internet stalked me and nastily mefimailed me. With that past incident, I felt the user should have had a timeout at least, but the mods chose not to go that way.

So now, when I saw those phrases cropping up in thread, I got very upset. I knew I hadn't shared my Mefimail with anyone and it seemed obvious to me that shakespeherian must have done so, as people were mocking me with what seemed to me to be the exact words from my own correspondence with him. Rather than contacting the mods again for this situation, which I felt would go nowhere, I accused shakespeherian openly, in the thread.

Shakespeherian assured me he did not share those messages. He was so emphatic in his denial and so earnest in that he would not do something like that, I could not help but believe him sincere.

I went back over the messages. I looked at the thread. The words are there. The order is still the same. But now I am looking at it all with the presumption that shakespeherian did not share anything, that the two instances I saw in thread as specifically worded to goad me were nothing more than coincidental. I had stepped away from the thread by this time--Tuesday was my 25th anniversary and we were celebrating--and could look at it all, I think, with a more objective eye.

Several days have passed now and I keep thinking about this and my part in it.

I feel now that I wrongly accused shakespeherian. I told him personally in Mefimail that I accepted his word. But Idon't think that's enough.

I feel terrible for jumping to the most negative conclusion. I accused him publicly of something he didn't do. I wronged him. He must have been upset and angered by that. He had every right to be. But to his credit he never called me any names, or swore at me, or lashed out at me in an ugly way in return, though he had every right to. His Mefimails to me were more concerned with clearing his name than any kind of angry backlash. I appreciate that very much.

Shakespeherian, I accused you publicly, and now I want to apologize publicly. I am so sorry for jumping to the conclusion like I did. I believe you never shared those messages. I lashed out at you in a hurtful way, and it was completely unwarranted. You deserve for everyone else to know that I was wrong, and you never did those things. Again, I am so sorry for accusing you. Thank you for being decent and aboveboard in all your dealings with me in return.
posted by misha at 9:40 AM on June 29, 2014 [16 favorites]

nadawi: at the same time, i know there's something about me that gets me this sort of attention in the broader world - not blaming myself, just recognizing that there's something that has me seeing more than maybe my share of aggressive gender based explainers, cat callers, creepy attention givers, all the way up to outright abusers.

I was thinking more about this and realized I actually had gotten an ...aggressive MeMail message that I had filed in the mental trash-can because I had decided to ignore it. He actually sent me two, one very aggressive which ended with me being described as a brick wall, and one weirdly complementary about how I might be an all right person after reading other of my posts he agreed with. The entire dynamic seemed fucked, so I ignored it.

In online conversation, I would suspect I get less harassment because Deoridhe is an un-gendered name in a basic way, so I mostly notice people treating me in a gendered manner after I present some information which indicates I'm female, or in a place with avatars because they are always female. I also have a lot of verbal tics that read as male - I tend to be forceful and direct in my writing and speech for various reasons, so I tend to be dismissed as crazy or obstinate (see above description of me as a brick wall) rather than engaged as malleable. Both are gendered since they will be applied to women much more quickly and on a lower bar than men, but one is less annoying for me so long as the other person has no power over me.

Within the greater scheme of things, though, all this does is make it easier for me. People who are going to be sexist continue to be sexist whether I'm "tough" or not, and even if it makes me angry more than afraid, it's still a problem (and my response will then often be coded as "making things worse"). People who are going to be abusive may target someone else but they still target someone, and that's still a problem. My responses clear a breakwater for me, but if all women did it than who got targeted would simply be changed because our personal means of dealing with a sexist society often have little to no effect on the society itself.

And honestly, I don't know what will do it.

It seems like having a decent percentage of men-of-influence signing on to the "this is not acceptable" anti-sexist banner is making some changes, but there are major losses in women's health and contraception which will (and most likely has) led to women dying. There are laws in place which mean white people can get away with killing black people more easily again. It's hard to not feel hopeless in the current political climate, even if some of my social circles are carving out areas of awesome men and women who give no fucks about your sexism (and racism) and will tell you so.

The more I think on it, the more I think this general background noise of inequality flavors discussions on MetaFilter, and I wondered what other people thought about whether those of us with this subtext should make that text more often, or if it would be seen as derailing or something else unwanted?
posted by Deoridhe at 3:53 PM on June 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

Drowning a witch??? What the hell. Why are you making this shit up like this?

hal, please try and move on from this, you are not going to communicate what you are trying to communicate right now. Trust me.
posted by Drinky Die at 4:36 PM on June 30, 2014

(and you are good people misha, the site benefits from having folks so willing to be self-critical)
posted by Drinky Die at 4:41 PM on June 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

(Datapoint: Unconsciously, I read Deoridhe as a variant on Deirdre, thus female-gendered.)
posted by gingerest at 6:12 PM on June 30, 2014 [5 favorites]

(I also assumed Deoridhe was a female name, but I think I just assume everyone who seems decent about feminism is a woman and people who aren't are men unless I check their profile for some reason because I am an awful, awful misanderer.)
posted by NoraReed at 9:48 PM on June 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

( Haa haa, it's actually a non-name since it's an Irish word repurposed as a name, but I've had people substitute Deirdre for Deoridhe before, though when I was avatared and thus obviously female. I get hit on a lot less under Deoridhe than I have under more obviously gendered names, though, which is where I get that theory from. )
posted by Deoridhe at 1:25 PM on July 1, 2014

Huh. I had always skimmed your name as Deirdre before.
posted by klangklangston at 2:40 PM on July 1, 2014

I see 'Deodorhize'.

I'm sorry.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:49 PM on July 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's a Rorschach handle!
posted by NoraReed at 2:53 PM on July 1, 2014

*giggles* It's pronounced dthey-or-ee. Yay Irish, where -idhe == ee (see also sidhe/shee). It means wanderer/outcast, and is the politest term in Irish for an outsider (I almost picked the one that meant icky and skummy and throw rocks at it because it was pretty. When I finally met an Irishman he was... nonplussed to say the least at my story and appropriation, but in his mouth my name sounded gorgeous.).
posted by Deoridhe at 5:06 PM on July 1, 2014 [4 favorites]

So, for anyone still watching along at home, this post is an interesting subsequent test case of my supposition above:

Basically, any FPP in which a woman is condemning the behavior of a man, especially if that man could somehow be identified (like, what if someone else in the bar at 4am had seen who followed Rebecca Watson to the elevator and named him?) has a non-zero and growing risk of having one of actually a fairly small number of members very aggressively attacking the woman in question, and rules-lawyering the situation, with the attendant damage to the thread. Really, this is too obvious to be worth saying, but there it is. Anyone who has been active on MetaFilter and has any interest in gender politics probably has their own list of people who are likely to go nuclear in that kind of thread, and those lists probably largely overlap.

The woman interviewed by Ariel Schrag has talked about her experience of being disrespected and patronized by the men in her workplace. She has in doing so suggested that the men in the office - men who have not been named, and could not easily be identified - might not be totally perfect. Let's see what happens next.
posted by running order squabble fest at 9:20 AM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

She has in doing so suggested that the men in the office - men who have not been named, and could not easily be identified - might not be totally perfect. Let's see what happens next.

It took four comments. Which is a little quicker than average, but it's a weekend.
posted by Etrigan at 9:26 AM on July 5, 2014

Ah, and I see you're calling him out on it.
posted by Etrigan at 9:28 AM on July 5, 2014

Yeah, but it's my understanding that taking that kind of dump in the thread probably wouldn't be something the mods would or could be expected to react to. It's just a very low-effort attempt to derail the thread.

In fact, Dip Flash just made a very good note in that thread:

(I am ambivalent about even making this comment, because responding to the shitty derails is part of how they get traction, but at the same time there is value in naming a crappy pattern and how it works, so as to avoid it in the future.)

It's a factor of Internet discussion that some conversations will go to crap. However, concerted efforts to make all conversations about women go to crap in the same way do have a long-term negative impact on the quality of a community's conversation. It's tricky.
posted by running order squabble fest at 9:45 AM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I'm not blaming or deriding you for calling him on it. It's totally a willful derail, and it's totally not something that I think the mods should cut out, because it's not offensive or abusive. It's just obvious and stupid.

And as much as I hate bringing up favorites, ew what is up with all the people who are so eager to jump in on that clownish derail.
posted by Etrigan at 9:57 AM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's just obvious and stupid.

Yeah, I don't think the mods should necessarily delete it, either, but it's the kind of comment that serves as a dog whistle for full-on aggressive derailing.
posted by scody at 10:03 AM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well, people favorite things that resonate strongly with their understanding of the world. The classic example is in the Rebecca Watson "elevatorgate" thread, where a rant about how Rebecca Watson wouldn't have minded being propositioned at 4am at all if the guy had been rich and good-looking, and WOMEN ARE SHALLOW and FOREVER ALONE got about 170 favorites. Which is a lot more than the number at which people are prone to saying "well, looks like a consensus to me", when counting favorites to a statement they agree with.

That doesn't mean that MetaFilter is populated in general by weaponised jembles. It just means that 170 people either wanted to bookmark that for their "avoid meetups with this person" list, or felt the same acidic jemblefeels very strongly. As a proportion of the user base, it's still tiny.
posted by running order squabble fest at 10:14 AM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

This is a good summary of my feelings about it looking at it this morning. Not really the kind of comment we're likely to delete; certainly not when it becomes part of the discussion; but also not the sort of comment that makes me proud to point people to conversation here, because it feels so much like bored grab-at-low-hanging-fruit stuff and doesn't improve the conversation.

Sometimes stuff is pretty mediocre, basically. It can feel worse than things being actionably, distinctively terrible in a way.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:15 AM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Sure - although mediocre plus sexist, I think, is worse than mediocre simple.

It's very, very hard to organise a community in such a way that nobody ever says anything facepalmingly dumbassed, and I think generally people are understanding of that. Whereas when you're seeing the mansplain threadshit for the 800th time, or a tiny detail of a woman's behavior being obsessively nitpicked, or a woman's complaint being described as hysterical and the woman as a sociopath, and have to decide whether to try to clean that big dump up, or leave it to attract flies, that's sort of demoralizing over time.

(Which is, of course, why a lot of this stuff is done - to try to make the experience of MetaFilter less pleasant for women and allies, so they'll leave and MetaFilter can return to a prelapsarian state... although whether that's an acknowledged or a realistic goal are further and different questions.)
posted by running order squabble fest at 10:32 AM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Maybe I'm being gullible or Pollyannaish, but I don't think there's a conscious or deliberate intent to drive women or allies off MetaFilter. It's more a wish we'd just stop talking so much (where of course the perception is skewed so that even a small increase in speech by women is seen as dominating the discourse.) It will be interesting to see what happens if JulybyWomen keeps going gangbusters for the whole month.
posted by gingerest at 7:02 PM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

(At this point, continuing to talk about this one panel to the exclusion of the broader question of women in tech feels like acceding to the demands of a derail which demands that tender, bruised manfeelings be given the place of honor in the thread.)

Indeed. A comment was made, people ignored it, instead commenting on the comic with their thoughts or feeling about the piece. Seriously, it was just completely ignored and that thread proceed along just fine.

Then someone actually responded directly to the comment, asking questions, inviting further comments and then the derail started. Honestly, y'all sounded like your were looking for a fight that wasn't there.

Obviously everyone can do what they want and respond however they feel, but I don't think the thread was improved by dealing with my original comment and doing so actually caused the derail.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:24 PM on July 5, 2014

Now, now, don't underestimate MeFites' persistence or innovation - if the hive mind wants to make a thread about women into a referendum about bruised manfeels, it will find another way.
posted by gingerest at 7:53 PM on July 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Indeed. A comment was made, people ignored it, instead commenting on the comic with their thoughts or feeling about the piece. Seriously, it was just completely ignored and that thread proceed along just fine.

Then someone actually responded directly to the comment, asking questions, inviting further comments and then the derail started. Honestly, y'all sounded like your were looking for a fight that wasn't there.

The second comment after yours was responding directly to it, and the fourth comments after yours was pretty obviously talking about the same issue.

And frankly, it sounds like you're complaining that running order squabble fest hit you back.
posted by Etrigan at 8:00 PM on July 5, 2014 [5 favorites]

Obviously everyone can do what they want and respond however they feel, but I don't think the thread was improved by dealing with my original comment and doing so actually caused the derail.

Brandon, you seem to be saying that people should know better than to respond to things you say.
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:01 PM on July 5, 2014 [14 favorites]

(Which is totally a thing you can say! It's just... unexpectedly self-critical?)
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:02 PM on July 5, 2014

No, just noting that responding to my comment in this instance didn't help the thread, instead it gave it more weight than it deserved. Which, whatever, everyone is free to respond however they like.

But if there's a comment you think is wrong/derailing/whatever and it is being ignored, maybe continue ignoring it, lest the thread become about it.

The second comment after yours was responding directly to it, and the fourth comments after yours was pretty obviously talking about the same issue.

No, I meant responding directly to my comment, not the panel or issue. I don't believe anyone did respond to it until ROSF did, which set off a derail. Maybe that was productive, maybe not, it's up for people to decide, but just a thought.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:32 PM on July 5, 2014

Whether or not you meant it as a criticism that would refocus the discussion to the integrity of the author, it would have done so regardless of ROSF's response, because there are other people who viewed that as a legitimate reason to discount the whole piece. You kicked it off this time, unintentionally, but someone always does when we talk about sexism. That's not to say we can't or shouldn't examine work about sexism critically, but it's an issue that we need to deal with as a discussing community. When you bring up a flaw early on, it had the potential to derail the thread, so we need to be aware and ready to re-rail.
posted by gingerest at 8:47 PM on July 5, 2014

Well, this is the problem with derails early in threads about e.g. sexism and gender equality, I think.

By dropping a deuce in such a thread right at the start, one creates a problem where people have to decide whether to address it, or to leave it and convey the impression that MetaFilter is a community where it's OK to do derailing one-liner drive-bys on these threads, and the women mentioned in them. Neither of which is ideal - especially since, as we saw, the low-effort drive-by can be picked up by others prepared to put a lot more effort in.

So, bumping the decision-making duties back one stage to "is my deuce really necessary?" is, I think, a good move.

(In this specific case, I was genuinely unsure whether this was, in fact, an early-stage derail attempt, because it seemed so comically on the nose. It turns out that it was, however.)
posted by running order squabble fest at 9:00 PM on July 5, 2014 [5 favorites]

But if there's a comment you think is wrong/derailing/whatever and it is being ignored, maybe continue ignoring it, lest the thread become about it.

I thought your first comment was a clear opening shot at derailing the thread, albeit couched in a mild-sounding, "hey, look at this perfectly reasonable insight" way designed to give you plausible deniability when it succeed in derailing the thread.

By contrast, your second comment was interesting and added to the discussion, and I wish you'd made it in the first place.

In other words: you don't want to get pegged with derailing a thread? Then be respectful and self-aware enough to refrain from making comments that you know perfectly well are likely to derail the thread. You're responsible for your own contributions here, just as we all are.
posted by scody at 9:29 PM on July 5, 2014 [11 favorites]

Brandon, you might object that it doesn't reflect your intent in making that first comment, but this comment supporting it spells out how your first comment reads and functions, placing you among a regular fool's gallery of commenters who jump to insist that "stereotypes" and "making assumptions" is the real evil whenever sexism is being discussed. And it sounds like you don't want to get bundled in with that mindset?

Now, this next part isn't directed at you, since it's not your comment, but in response to

Next up is hypocrisy. I feel weird about having to point out a basic thing but generally, people don't like hypocrisy when that hypocrisy comes at them from someone trying to engage them in advocacy, social criticism, and moral stances. Pause for a second and recollect how we felt with the toe-tappin' Republicans. We say, "ha ha, hypocrite," and it made all of the "defense of marriage" stuff look pretty damned silly. And it gets rejected, wholesale.

it seems worth pointing out that, no: the "defense of marriage" bullshit gets rejected on its merits and then the hypocrisy of the toe-tapping Republicans is icing on the cake. To recognize this sort of individual hypocrisy isn't to suddenly discover that restricting marriage rights was silly, as though if only there weren't any closeted homophobes, we could accept homophobia as a reasonable stance.
posted by nobody at 5:09 AM on July 6, 2014 [2 favorites]