AH & Perceived Sexism

liah

It's funny, any time I've made an off the cuff remark about men without using "some men" I've always been immediately called out for it. Not taken action against, I mean, but the men get incredibly pissed off and go mad at me and certainly don't "just ignore it" or see it as a joke.

Yet when a man makes an off the cuff remark about women of the exact same nature it's all lols.

In other words, take the same statement applied to both genders. One said by a woman to a group of men (we'll go with "men are bastards"), and one said by a man to a group of women (we'll go with "women are bitches").

When "men are bastards" is said by a woman, men tend to jump on the "don't generalize" boat and start throwing their weight around. Then the woman typically disappears.. or it ends in a war between the woman who said it and a bunch of guys attacking her.

When "women are bitches" is said by a man, there's generally a response from woman or a few with "don't generalize" and a bit of weight thrown around, and a SLEW of thanks and more of those style of jokes. The women then get run out of the thread for reacting the exact same way a man would.

I mean, obviously it depends on the thread, not every one that goes down like that, but I'm nearly positive most of the women posting have experienced something like this on at least one occasion, if not many more times, or been witness to it.

I really don't think the posters calling myself and Dudess feminazis and man-haters quite meant it in a lighthearted way, for those of you arguing. Seems to be only people who've read the thread within the last few hours, maybe those posts have been since cleaned up?

Procasinator

There was definitely some abuse in the Sexual Harassment thread, a lot it towards Dudess (who in my eyes was the most logical posters in that thread). It was frustrating how idiotic some people were, and how they actively ignored others points and just kept on posting the same dribble over and over.

But beyond reporting posts and tackling the particularly irate and vulgar posters, as well as the serial offenders, I don't see what else can be done. Or if anything else should be done.

The other isms come up on a regular basis too, and often unless they are personal abuse or particularly bad, they are ignored.

My advice is to report posts or ignore them. Just put it down to one of the negatives of participating in AH.

metrovelvet

Just because its framed in a joke doesn't make it not sexist and offensive.

Logical Fallacy

metrovelvet wrote: »

Are you kidding? Reporting sexists post on AH is like reporting political posts in Politics or Allah posts in Islam or Waxing posts in TTL. It would never stop.

The thing is misogyny is never ever going to go away. EVER. Its like wanting people to not be misogynistic. You can't. It's a losing battle.

People fight losing battles everyday, mainly because they hold out the hope they can win them.

When there is a system in place to deal with offensive posting and people don't use it, but complain about the state of things...what else is there to do?

neuro-praxis

janeybabe wrote: »

I don't think it's fair to say that those women who are not on the side of the people who think AH is sexist want to be 'one of the lads'.

A quick re-read of my post will remind you that I did not say this.

But it's great to hear that you strongly disagree with the OP's simple contention that misogyny should be treated in the same way as racism etc.

Toto Wolfcastle

metrovelvet wrote: »

Just because its framed in a joke doesn't make it not sexist and offensive.

But the OP said that jokes are ok. And she seems to have taken it upon herself to speak for those who have a problem with AH, so surely that includes you too.

Toto Wolfcastle

neuro-praxis wrote: »

A quick re-read of my post will remind you that I did not say this.

But it's great to hear that you strongly disagree with the OP's simple contention that misogyny should be treated in the same way as racism etc.

I merely believe that people get offended too easily and I also believe that there are some people on this site who are actually man-hating feminazis who trawl the site looking for things to get offended about.

liah

janeybabe wrote: »

But the OP said that jokes are ok. And she seems to have taken it upon herself to speak for those who have a problem with AH, so surely that includes you too.

No, I haven't, I've repeatedly said "the majority of women who have posted," since it seems to lean that way, I never claimed I spoke for all and said a few times that I don't.

billymitchell

I am getting the feeling that the problem here is that some poeple are up for serious debate, others are up for messing/trolling. The two dont really seem to meet anywhere in the middle.

So I think maybe if people want a serious debate on an issue, maybe they should open another thread in a more relavant forum and have the debate there, instead of dealing with the messing that can go on in AH.

Procasinator

liah wrote: »

It's funny, any time I've made an off the cuff remark about men without using "some men" I've always been immediately called out for it. Not taken action against, I mean, but the men get incredibly pissed off and go mad at me and certainly don't "just ignore it" or see it as a joke.

Yet when a man makes an off the cuff remark about women of the exact same nature it's all lols.

I don't think that is quite fair liah. You might count me as one of those guys. But, you didn't use "some men", and you argued your position with stubbornness when people picked you out on it. You claimed people lacked the intelligence even a 14 year old had about how generalisations worked.

I would have put my opinion the same was no matter what the topic was. If you had said "Skittles are red" and claimed we should have known you meant only some, I would have had the same post. :P

Secondly, as you said, no action was taken and I would have never dreamed about trying to instigate any action. I just did what the forum was meant for: discussion. I made two posts on it, and moved on. I didn't fall into a spiral of petty insults or anything.

My disagreeing with you had nothing to do with you being a female or you were talking about men. It was the annoyance of how stubborn you were in your argument which I found flawed. You know, the internet, serious business.

neuro-praxis

janeybabe wrote: »

I merely believe that people get offended too easily and I also believe that there are some people on this site who are actually man-hating feminazis who trawl the site looking for things to get offended about.

Yes. Every offensive comment ever made is merely the product of the over-active and over-sensitive imagination of the man-hating woman it was directed at. Good one.

johnny_ultimate

I'd be very surprised indeed of the 'misogynistic' posters (possibly too harsh a description) acted this way IRL. The attitude on boards shouldn't be any different to how you'd treat the opposite sex in reality. Whatever about a cheap 'women, ey?' joke in the company of friends, but it would ideally be past the point online where it is a 'boy's club' (stick to the Gentlemen's Club ). These forums are public after all, and we aren't all six years old. Like all things on the internet, sometimes you just have to suck it up, as even the most serious conversations can be derailed with the same old tired memes. But an overall male dominated attitude is something I'd ideally like to see avoided. I keep saying 'ideal', which alas, is rarely what is achieved Can only reiterate that it hopefully won't come down to actual abuse against posters, the jokes are something that rarely seem avoidable.

Nevyn

pickarooney wrote: »

I've finally read through the other thread including the examples you quoted and Thaed's Guardian article and have come to the conclusion that those making the comments are completely oblivious that what they're saying can be considered sexist. The line about jokes being OK but sexist comments not is moot in this light as it is utterly impossible to draw that distinction.

The link if anyone wants to read it
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/30/casual-sexism-misogyny

pickarooney wrote: »

I can understand that constantly hearing the same 'jokes' over and over is tiresome and that the more you hear a 'joke' the less funny it becomes and the more it seems like a genuine attack, although the person posting it will very rarely realise this unless he's deliberately winding you up or has a serious grievance best left to other media.

A lot of those posts are to wind up the post, draw attention to their gender and undermind and belittle them.

pickarooney wrote: »

The root problem, I feel, is fatigue. The same 'jokes', memes, comments, threads come up again and again and again and again the longer you stick around. There's no real fix for this short of logging off but it's a curious aspect of the human psyche that of the 1000+ forums on this site alone, posters keep coming back to AH to read the same things over and over.

tl;dr make better threads, drown the muppets

Really funny the ah mods deiced enough was enough with the 'yore ma' and know they delete it and have laid down the law that it's no longer acceptable, why can the same thing be done with the trite comments re in the kitchen, feminazi and pms ?

metrovelvet

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

People fight losing battles everyday, mainly because they hold out the hope they can win them.

When there is a system in place to deal with offensive posting and people don't use it, but complain about the state of things...what else is there to do?

How many times have people complained about this in AH and look, its still happening. Nothing is done about it, so what's the point. Boards wants to keep it a misogynistic cess pool so fine. It draws in popularity which probably draws in more advertising revenue for them so what the hell do they care?

But there is no point in denying that sexism is tolerated in AH, heck its nearly defined by it.

Banned Account

liah wrote: »

It's funny, any time I've made an off the cuff remark about men without using "some men" I've always been immediately called out for it. Not taken action against, I mean, but the men get incredibly pissed off and go mad at me and certainly don't "just ignore it" or see it as a joke.

Yet when a man makes an off the cuff remark about women of the exact same nature it's all lols.

In other words, take the same statement applied to both genders. One said by a woman to a group of men (we'll go with "men are bastards"), and one said by a man to a group of women (we'll go with "women are bitches").

When "men are bastards" is said by a woman, men tend to jump on the "don't generalize" boat and start throwing their weight around. Then the woman typically disappears.. or it ends in a war between the woman who said it and a bunch of guys attacking her.

When "women are bitches" is said by a man, there's generally a response from woman or a few with "don't generalize" and a bit of weight thrown around, and a SLEW of thanks and more of those style of jokes. The women then get run out of the thread for reacting the exact same way a man would.

I mean, obviously it depends on the thread, not every one that goes down like that, but I'm nearly positive most of the women posting have experienced something like this on at least one occasion, if not many more times, or been witness to it.

I really don't think the posters calling myself and Dudess feminazis and man-haters quite meant it in a lighthearted way, for those of you arguing. Seems to be only people who've read the thread within the last few hours, maybe those posts have been since cleaned up?

Liah, it seems to me that your anger is being generated by the fact that when you make a generalisation about men, the men challenge it but when men make it about women it's either not challenged or if it is, it is then counter challenged.

You cannot ask to have certain rules enforced just because you don't feel others are sufficiently rallying to your cause or because your voice is in the minority.

Procasinator

neuro-praxis wrote: »

Yes. Every offensive comment ever made is merely the product of the over-active and over-sensitive imagination of the man-hating woman it was directed at. Good one.

Twist another persons words to mean something completely different. Good one.

Nevyn

janeybabe wrote: »

I merely believe that people get offended too easily and I also believe that there are some people on this site who are actually man-hating feminazis who trawl the site looking for things to get offended about.

Please link to examples of this, if you have seen any, if you haven't the stop trolling.

Toto Wolfcastle

neuro-praxis wrote: »

Yes. Every offensive comment ever made is merely the product of the over-active and over-sensitive imagination of the man-hating woman it was directed at. Good one.

Now you're the one putting words in my mouth.

Look, I am never going to agree with you or with the OP. I believe that the AH mods are doing a great job. I believe that people are using the word sexism instead of the word abuse, which is what the actual problem seems to be. I believe that people have not being reporting posts that they have been offended by, and this is what it has come to. I believe that some people are being overly sensitive. Oh look, I managed not to generalise! Go me. As I said, I disagree with you and to continue posting would be an exercise in going around in circles.

Nevyn

Fitzcaraldo wrote: »

Liah, it seems to me that your anger is being generated by the fact that when you make a generalisation about men, the men challenge it but when men make it about women it's either not challenged or if it is, it is then counter challenged.

You cannot ask to have certain rules enforced just because you don't feel others are sufficiently rallying to your cause or because your voice is in the minority.

Between this thread, the one in ah and the one from 2 years ago there is easily 20+ women who think the casual sexims in AH is wrong and should be stopped by the mods, and many more who also think this but thinks that change is impossible and don't post in there any more.

Liah is not ploughing a lone farrow, and trying to apply that she is, is a shoddy way at trying to undermine her.

neuro-praxis

janeybabe wrote:

Now you're the one putting words in my mouth.

Look, I am never going to agree with you or with the OP. I believe that the AH mods are doing a great job. I believe that people are using the word sexism instead of the word abuse, which is what the actual problem seems to be. I believe that people have not being reporting posts that they have been offended by, and this is what it has come to. I believe that some people are being overly sensitive. Oh look, I managed not to generalise! Go me. As I said, I disagree with you and to continue posting would be an exercise in going around in circles.

I genuinely and sincerely would have thought you were implying that there simply is no problem, and that the problems raised by women are because we are feminazi man-haters and we simply want a cause to fight? I would have thought my representation of your post was quite accurate. You haven't disagreed with me either.

I've also not used the word sexism at any point, but the finer details really seem to be lost on you janeybabe.

metrovelvet

janeybabe wrote: »

Now you're the one putting words in my mouth.

Look, I am never going to agree with you or with the OP. I believe that the AH mods are doing a great job. I believe that people are using the word sexism instead of the word abuse, which is what the actual problem seems to be. I believe that people have not being reporting posts that they have been offended by, and this is what it has come to. I believe that some people are being overly sensitive. Oh look, I managed not to generalise! Go me. As I said, I disagree with you and to continue posting would be an exercise in going around in circles.

Cant you see that sexism can be both personal and specific abuse and also a generalised abstract or political abuse? They are not unrelated. You didn't learn that in school?

Banned Account

Thaedydal wrote: »

Between this thread, the one in ah and the one from 2 years ago there is easily 20+ women who think the casual sexims in AH is wrong and should be stopped by the mods.

Liah is not ploughing a lone farrow, and trying to apply that she is, is a shoddy way at trying to undermine her.

I take exception to that implication to be honest. Can I respectfully request that you re-read Liah's post which I quoted above and tell me what you infer from it, because what i got from it is as follows:

Everytime she makes a genaralistic comment about men - the men call her out on it - not take action against it, but call her out on it. Everytime a man makes such a remark, everyone lol's.

If you now re-read my post, I was saying that you cannot hold it against all male posters of AH if women who will respond in a certain way are in a minority.

liah

Procasinator wrote: »

I don't think that is quite fair liah. You might count me as one of those guys. But, you didn't use "some men", and you argued your position with stubbornness when people picked you out on it. You claimed people lacked the intelligence even a 14 year old had about how generalisations worked.

I would have put my opinion the same was no matter what the topic was. If you had said "Skittles are red" and claimed we should have known you meant only some, I would have had the same post. :P

Secondly, as you said, no action was taken and I would have never dreamed about trying to instigate any action. I just did what the forum was meant for: discussion. I made two posts on it, and moved on. I didn't fall into a spiral of petty insults or anything.

My disagreeing with you had nothing to do with you being a female or you were talking about men. It was the annoyance of how stubborn you were in your argument which I found flawed. You know, the internet, serious business.

Fitzcaraldo wrote: »

Liah, it seems to me that your anger is being generated by the fact that when you make a generalisation about men, the men challenge it but when men make it about women it's either not challenged or if it is, it is then counter challenged.

You cannot ask to have certain rules enforced just because you don't feel others are sufficiently rallying to your cause or because your voice is in the minority.

In fairness, I wasn't referring to anything in specific, or in relation to only JUST me. It's happened to all of us.

I don't make those statements very often, either. I've definitely noticed it more towards other female posters than myself, but all the same have witnessed and experienced it more times than I can count. And I'm not the only one.

Dohnny Jepp

In response to people saying " Liah isn't talking for me, or I dont see too many backing her up". IMO if just one person has an issue or a grievance it should be looked at just as seriously as if it's 100 people.

I lurk AH quite a bit and I think it produces some incredibly funny topics. I also think there is no risk of that being lost if there is a clamp down on the sexist abuse.

I think both sexes are at fault to a degree ( obviously us men to a larger degree), but somethin I've noticed in AH is that some of the girls feed off the sexual remarks etc. And that in return encourages more extreme remarks. AH can turn into a big community flirt.

In response to people saying "Just report posts, and the AH mods do enough". I agree with these sentiments however, this thread was needed. It shows how seriously some are being offended, and it will also encourage more reporting of posts in the future.

I have to say it can be hard reading in this thread at some peoples out looks. I always hoped that us boardsies would be more eager to makes this a better place for everyone.

On a last note, some week for you Lolth! Glad I'm not in your shoes, but good job!

liah

Fitzcaraldo wrote: »

I take exception to that implication to be honest. Can I respectfully request that you re-read Liah's post which I quoted above and tell me what you infer from it, because what i got from it is as follows:

Everytime she makes a genaralistic comment about men - the men call her out on it - not take action against it, but call her out on it. Everytime a man makes such a remark, everyone lol's.

If you now re-read my post, I was saying that you cannot hold it against all male posters of AH if women who will respond in a certain way are in a minority.

And again you're misquoting.

I said that if a man and a woman make equivalent remarks to each other, the WOMAN who makes the remark about the MAN will get run out of the thread immediately and is treated seriously by the posters.
The MAN who makes an equivalent remark about a WOMAN will be applauded, and when a woman responds in the EXACT SAME WAY as a man, she will be belittled and, yet again, run out of the thread.

DOC09UNAM

liah wrote: »

In fairness, I wasn't referring to anything in specific, or in relation to only JUST me. It's happened to all of us.

I don't make those statements very often, either. I've definitely noticed it more towards other female posters than myself, but all the same have witnessed and experienced it more times than I can count. And I'm not the only one.

Best off just requesting it to be locked to be fair, no point flogging a dead horse and having the same argument over and over, only causes hassle and stress for those involved.

Easiest thing to do for them would be to put something into the abuse sticky in AH.

I don't see why we should be able to insult women here, shouldn't be done anyway tbh.

Nevyn

Procasinator wrote: »

My disagreeing with you had nothing to do with you being a female or you were talking about men. It was the annoyance of how stubborn you were in your argument which I found flawed. You know, the internet, serious business.

That is still attacking the poster and not the context of their posts, and what does any of that have to do with the topic of had, the persistent and pervasive comment containing casual sexism to tear down posters, stop discussion and derail threads which permeate the forum.

Dravokivich

Thaedydal wrote: »

Between this thread, the one in ah and the one from 2 years ago there is easily 20+ women who think the casual sexims in AH is wrong and should be stopped by the mods, and many more who also think this but thinks that change is impossible and don't post in there any more.

Liah is not ploughing a lone farrow, and trying to apply that she is, is a shoddy way at trying to undermine her.

You can't put a blanket filter on all posts. With such a high post rate on AH especially when threads like that the 1 from last night pop up (30+ pages over night), they are only going to see and action the posts that are reported.

Liah is asking for something, I think is already in place. It all boils down to abuse, abuse is not tolerated on AH let alone boards, but the Mods are never going to be able to see every single post.

There's a report function, use it. Make it shown in AH that it's not welcome by reporting such posts within AH...

liah

Dravokivich wrote: »

You can't put a blanket filter on all posts. With such a high post rate on AH especially when threads like that the 1 from last night pop up (30+ pages over night), they are only going to see and action the posts that are reported.

Liah is asking for something, I think is already in place. It all boils down to abuse, abuse is not tolerated on AH let alone boards, but the Mods are never going to be able to see every single post.

There's a report function, use it. Make it shown in AH that it's not welcome by reporting such posts within AH...

If it's already in place why are so many people complaining?

Banned Account

liah wrote: »

In fairness, I wasn't referring to anything in specific, or in relation to only JUST me. It's happened to all of us.

I don't make those statements very often, either. I've definitely noticed it more towards other female posters than myself, but all the same have witnessed and experienced it more times than I can count. And I'm not the only one.

But you haven't dealt with the point I raised which is that, from what you've written it seems that you're getting upset at the fact that the male posters on AH are more Vocal or numerous than the female posters when it comes to pulling each other up on silly staements.

This isn't an inherent fault in AH, and not something that warrents the type of overhaul which will require increased moderation or some degree of censorship.