[Discussion] Men talking to men about Feminism

This thread is for people who believe that when it comes to feminism it's important for men to listen to women and to talk to men.

In this thread we assume Feminism is something you wholeheartedly support or want to support. Questions about the validity of Feminism are for somewhere else.

nevermind

Can the men who are upset that they are being trampled on please step to the side of the f*cking patriarchal highway and let the women take the lead for once? The women are a too busy choking on all your disgusting exhaust to concern themselves with the occasional brief crosswind to your feelings.

Pretty sure this conversation is directly in the scope of the thread as well as a direct response to a question.

TheGameguru, Cheeze has a pretty verbose response to your comment which nails the sentiment I had when I made that comment, but I'll give you more context to understand specifically where I'm coming from.

I've got a son who, at age 9, is approaching his mother's height. He's big (just shy of 5'). And this constantly throws me off in terms of assessing his mental maturity and how I should be engaging with him. He's getting to an age where the hormones are probably kicking in and it shows with a rebelliousness that was not present a year or two ago. My approach with him thus far has been to reason quietly whenever incidents happen, to ask him to describe the situation at hand, and to reflect on what would be a better outcome then ask him to describe what he did. That said, I'm not a saint, and there have been many times where I lose my cool and I holler at him and talk down at him. It's those times I've noticed that the message and the lesson behind that message is lost on him and it provokes anger or resentment. It also leaves me feeling like a piece of $hit afterwards.

I think about how I've come across messaging and framing constructive feedback in my professional life. I used to work in a big 4 accounting firm with various partners at the peak of their game. The ones who were great to work with and had a track record of mentoring fantastic practitioners were more often than not the ones which gave you the space to express your thoughts, offered guidance, but when you weren't on point, they helped you dispel your misunderstandings. They didn't do the blame game, they didn't yell but they expressed disappointment and looked beyond mistakes to the issue of rectification and improvement. Being a professional firm, it was dominated at the leadership level by men. That demonstrated to me that a) leading by example is a great thing, b) men can be nice humans, and c) there were valuable life lessons there that could be applied in my private life.

So basically, it comes down to framing the message in a way that doesn't humiliate and turn off the recipient. Rather than just saying that someone is wrong and telling them to read the scope and do some research, I think it's more effective to articulate the issue, point out its flaws, yes you can cite stuff in support and ask the person to reflect before responding. Get the person to engage in the issue in understanding the why of your position rather than framing it as an "us vs you" position. I know it probably gets tiring after a while when you come across the same thing in different Goodjers, but the best thing, like Certis posted, is perhaps step out for a bit, and I bet someone will come along and address the issues in a constructive way that will make you tilt your head in admiration and hit that like button. It's not always the right approach (and it's not your duty) to instantly police the topic with a swift beatdown. When that is warranted, you can count on the mods stepping in to haul the offender(s) into line. And given the nature of D&D someone else is inevitably going to pile on anyway, so there's no real need to do it.

Ending this issue on that note, I welcome women and lurkers equally in this thread, but I also accept that women will feel turned away when we have the same issues recurring. But that's not to say that repetition is unhelpful - if it helps just one more person to reflect and change, then the resolution of misunderstanding and conflict was worth it. There's a lot of good stuff in the thread about sexuality, consent etc. We just need to get better at conflict resolution and being brave enough to start posting more about the issues that concern men and women so that even the regulars in here have fresh content to cover.

jdzappa wrote:

Here’s the thing - you don’t know what that other poster is going through. Yes, I am a white male. I also have a serious mental condition where sometimes I get manic.

I'm bipolar too. It's still on each one of us to not leave our baggage all over the forums.

PS - my wife remains more conservative than me and has expressed numerous times her “woke” male colleagues engaged in atrocious sexist behavior, going as far as to calling all Republican women cya next Tuesday’s. I’m sure in their minds they think they are awesome paladins of righteousness.

Dudes being rampant jackasses is not a left-right issue. Societal structures backstop white dudes wherever they fall on the political spectrum.

Jayhawker wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

How many of the men in this thread have been so affected by the posts/behaviors of GWJers that their spouses are checking in on their emotional health? Anyone?

Honestly? Mine did. My wife is a feminist, and very liberal, more than me on a lot of issues. She cried herself to sleep when Hillary lost.

I felt like was treated like crap in these threads a few months ago and purposely misunderstood. She read the thread and agreed. She agreed enough to call another friend and have her read the thread. They had an "intervention" with me. In this one, they joked that they could easily round up women who not only like me, but view me as an ally, to write letters of reference.

And they did this because the way I was treated here affected me hard. My wife could tell I was off, and wanted to know what was bothering me. I wasn't going to talk to her about it, because it is kind of embarrassing, to get dogpiled.

But I get it, that was supposed to be a rhetorical question. You didn't really want to know.

I wanted to know this. A lot of folks here probably did. But you seem to have your mind made up on everyone and their motives. Is that true? Why say that last bit if not? Hell, I was in tears over typing out your name while trying to explain what was going on, because I felt my motives weren't going to be understood. (The part where I said a post came across kind of sh*tty, and I knew you didn't mean it so hey... probably want to know.) Here we are again.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

But I get it, that was supposed to be a rhetorical question. You didn't really want to know.

You really are incapable of staying off your bullsh*t for one single post, aren't you?

I would have phrased this much differently, Jay, but I had a very similar response to MrD. You had a really nice post then had to get in a dig in at the end that took away the effect of your heart-felt post.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

But I get it, that was supposed to be a rhetorical question. You didn't really want to know.

You really are incapable of staying off your bullsh*t for one single post, aren't you?

I wish I had a downvote/dislike instead of just reading and not “liking.” Alright back to not posting again.

SallyNasty wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

But I get it, that was supposed to be a rhetorical question. You didn't really want to know.

You really are incapable of staying off your bullsh*t for one single post, aren't you?

I would have phrased this much differently, Jay, but I had a very similar response to MrD. You had a really nice post then had to get in a dig in at the end that took away the effect of your heart-felt post.

I deleted it. It was unnecessary.

LouZiffer wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

How many of the men in this thread have been so affected by the posts/behaviors of GWJers that their spouses are checking in on their emotional health? Anyone?

Honestly? Mine did. My wife is a feminist, and very liberal, more than me on a lot of issues. She cried herself to sleep when Hillary lost.

I felt like was treated like crap in these threads a few months ago and purposely misunderstood. She read the thread and agreed. She agreed enough to call another friend and have her read the thread. They had an "intervention" with me. In this one, they joked that they could easily round up women who not only like me, but view me as an ally, to write letters of reference.

And they did this because the way I was treated here affected me hard. My wife could tell I was off, and wanted to know what was bothering me. I wasn't going to talk to her about it, because it is kind of embarrassing, to get dogpiled.

But I get it, that was supposed to be a rhetorical question. You didn't really want to know.

I wanted to know this. A lot of folks here probably did. But you seem to have your mind made up on everyone and their motives. Is that true? Why say that last bit if not? Hell, I was in tears over typing out your name while trying to explain what was going on, because I felt my motives weren't going to be understood. (The part where I said a post came across kind of sh*tty, and I knew you didn't mean it so hey... probably want to know.) Here we are again.

I honestly believed SixteenBlue was not asking for men to tell their stories, but to admonish us for not realizing how harder it is for women on the internet. Maybe that assumption was wrong, but adding the extra "Anyone?" at the end, before anyone could have possible replied, was a sign he expected no responses.

That doesn't mean mean my snark was warranted, so I removed it.

bekkilyn wrote:

Personally, I hope this thread continues and does not shut down. Even though men here sometimes say some pretty stupid things, it's a place where men are at least seriously discussing the issue between themselves, rather than just with women, which typically means women have the primary responsibility of doing all the teaching and/or women having to justify our existence as people on this earth. If men are getting burned out by the discussion, then there may be some understanding in that experience as women also get burned out and we often don't have anywhere to retreat to. (Mind you, not that I wish for anyone to get burned out because there should in a much better world be no reason for anyone to get burned out.)

...

Thanks for wading in here and offering the reinforcement you did, and thanks also to MathGoddess and ClockworkHouse for your perspectives. I think they've been really valuable to hear.

Jayhawker wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

But I get it, that was supposed to be a rhetorical question. You didn't really want to know.

You really are incapable of staying off your bullsh*t for one single post, aren't you?

I would have phrased this much differently, Jay, but I had a very similar response to MrD. You had a really nice post then had to get in a dig in at the end that took away the effect of your heart-felt post.

I deleted it. It was unnecessary.

For what it's worth, I read it the same way you did.

So hey, since people are opening up, how about we declare the next couple of pages a friendly place? No snark, no lectures, nothing to kill the vibe of openness that's starting to get going. A place where if you assume the best when you read what someone else wrote, you'll probably wind up being right, etc.

Jayhawker wrote:

I honestly believed SixteenBlue was not asking for men to tell their stories, but to admonish us for not realizing how harder it is for women on the internet. Maybe that assumption was wrong, but adding the extra "Anyone?" at the end, before anyone could have possible replied, was a sign he expected no responses.

You're right in that it was mostly rhetorical. Reading a request to compare how you're feeling at the moment vs how MathGoddess was feeling as admonishment is all you, though.

If you actually read my post as saying "women have it harder on the internet" why was your response to once again say "Here's my experience about having it hard." Are you debating the idea that it's harder for women? Are you trying to equate your experience?

Jayhawker wrote:

I honestly believed SixteenBlue was not asking for men to tell their stories, but to admonish us for not realizing how harder it is for women on the internet. Maybe that assumption was wrong, but adding the extra "Anyone?" at the end, before anyone could have possible replied, was a sign he expected no responses.

That doesn't mean mean my snark was warranted, so I removed it.

Yeah, maybe SixteenBlue was trying to inspire a particular line of thought that it is tougher for women to have a voice in general. You know... kind of how you feel after posting something that reads as missing the point in a place where it wasn't warranted and it getting pointed out (which isn't the end of the world as a single incident - but maybe what some folks are thinking about "that feminism thread" is what things are like for women just about everywhere, and they can be given a degree of space/extra thought we seem to expect). It doesn't matter what someone is aiming for or why though. It's all about how we respond.

I've struggled a lot in my marriage with my anger. Not in the way where I am going to cause harm to my wife. But in a way where she points out something sh*tty I've done or said and instead of ruminating on that information and readjusting my attitude or outlook, I instantly get pissed off and storm out of the room or puff up and do the 'quiet anger' thing. Why? Because my view of myself is a contradiction from what I'm actually doing and that hurts my pride/feelings. She's not wrong, I am, not only in the way that I react, but in the original problem. It's been 8 years, I've gotten better at it, but it still happens once or twice a year and she's a damn saint for giving me time to process and apologize.

If 20 people are saying that your stance or you view is ignorant or sh*tty and that conflicts with what you think of yourself, perhaps take a 10 moments to ruminate on it before engaging, because doing what I do and doubling down is not helpful.

(This isn't directed at anyone in particular but it seems to be the core problem with this whole thing, some men got their feelings hurt and are damn pissed about it without doing much of the self reflecting part.)

Jayhawker wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

How many of the men in this thread have been so affected by the posts/behaviors of GWJers that their spouses are checking in on their emotional health? Anyone?

Honestly? Mine did. My wife is a feminist, and very liberal, more than me on a lot of issues. She cried herself to sleep when Hillary lost.

I felt like was treated like crap in these threads a few months ago and purposely misunderstood. She read the thread and agreed. She agreed enough to call another friend and have her read the thread. They had an "intervention" with me. In this one, they joked that they could easily round up women who not only like me, but view me as an ally, to write letters of reference.

And they did this because the way I was treated here affected me hard. My wife could tell I was off, and wanted to know what was bothering me. I wasn't going to talk to her about it, because it is kind of embarrassing, to get dogpiled.

But I get it, that was supposed to be a rhetorical question. You didn't really want to know.

In the interest of, you know, contributing to the discourse, rather than making unproductive fun, I present a short story as preamble and then maybe some commentary.

When this post popped up, I made a catty remark about it in IRC. That does no one any good. If I feel like I have something useful to say about this, about what it evinces specifically and generally, this is actually the right spot for it. Not somewhere behind the scenes. I was called out for it, not specifically for taking it to another space, but for the comment, and I think a fairly good conversation sprang out of it. For me anyway. So, for what it's worth, I apologize for not making a good-faith response in the thread where it really belongs, as a man who claims to be 100% behind men doing the work of working with other men to help make feminism prosper. That's on me, and, to avoid any possibility of misinterpretation, I am not being one bit sarcastic.

Now, the main issue I had, having not really talked with you, Jayhawker, nor having played games with you, and so having no real sense of where you fit into this community, is that the last sentence made your whole post read as disingenuous. As defensive. As I said in IRC: "pouty". Combined with recollections of having secured character witnesses, it evoked an image of a defensive white man who doesn't understand that having friends who are feminists doesn't absolve him of anything, any more than having black or gay or Asian or any other brand of friend.

I actually didn't take SixteenBlue's question as rhetorical (though, to be clear, that's probably because I'm too-linear of a thinker sometimes), and the fact that you typed out and posted "You didn't really want to know" really read--for me--as pouty, defensive, childish.

I get it, though. I have struggled sometimes to feel understood by people across the wire. I have struggled to feel understood by people in-person. I like words and feel like I use them well enough that what I'm saying should be easy to grasp. The problem?

The problem, that I'm only coming to grips with way late in the game, is that I am often perfectly well-understood. It's me who's not listening. I have too often conflated disagreement with misunderstanding on someone else's part, which is a product of thinking too highly of my worldview and philosophies. Right? And this isn't ancient history. This is now.

So when I read your post, I saw some of me there, eager to find justification for my feelings, eager to be understood by people. And so I snarked on you, effectively behind your back, and here sits a thread purpose-built to enable just these sorts of critical assessments and a vulnerability to reason and truth. So here it is. But enough about me.

If you really felt "so affected by the posts/behaviors of GWJers that their spouses are checking in on their emotional health" then that sucks. I think it's worth reflecting, though, on those feelings and their root causes. Again, I have felt awful in situations that I later came to understand were my own doing. I had attached too closely to how I wanted others to see me and lost sight of who I was, or at least how I was presenting myself. And you and I and our other dudes here need to shoulder the fact that we deserve less benefit-of-the-doubt than we're used to. It feels like being judged, when often it's actually just being held accountable, for our actions and our privilege.

I am always nervous about posting on the D&D board and just tend to lurk now, but since it was asked I've also spoken to my wife about feeling "dog piled" in the past and felt ashamed of my previous posts I thought Id speak up here. I always try to not carry internet baggage with me into the real world but this community holds a little more water with me then that and I really do want to be considered apart of the conversation and someone who adds rather then detracts to conversation. Now sometimes I may have spoken out of turn or really missed a mark and after stepping away I have realized my mistake and tried to apologize to any offending parties. At times though I think there are some regulars on these boards that are very eager to jump onto the pile to really hammer home a point and sometimes it seems unnecessarily (not in my cases) just overall in threads I find. It often makes posting here very intimidating.

I just always assume everyone with a pretty established post history here is generally coming from a good place and is usually far more open to new ideas then the average person on the street so when I see posts like this:

There is **nothing** special about the white dude that makes us uniquely deserving of being put in a lofty position. Our experiences are not better or more valuable than the non-white dudes who have different experiences.
And? I see no problem with that. Unless a white dude can prove to me they have never, ever in their life, experienced male (or white) privilege, well, they can just suck it up and deal. Because, I can guarantee you, every white male out there has been advantaged compared to a non-white male who started out in the same position.

I understand where mudbunny is coming from but I would expect that maybe given the nature of this community maybe a persons background and history can be given the benefit of doubt rather then being dismissed as a white dudes opinion so he must think what he has to say is more important.

I come from mixed heritage but rarely feel I should need to lean into that when making a post, I hope the content of what I am saying can just stand alone and be taken in good faith. I have been called a CIS white guy here and feel the label is fine and unimportant to what I I have to say. I have said before (and been called out for not putting things in context perhaps) that I do have trouble remembering gender/sex/ethnicity of individual posters so I read the comments for what they are saying or referencing rather then trying to imagine that persons view point unless its brought to attention in that post.

This is such a great welcoming community with tons of people willing to help with furthering social understanding, but as Certis said burn out seems like its a real thing with some people here and sometimes it makes comments come across as far more aggressive then anything I read on other boards.

LastSurprise wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

Personally, I hope this thread continues and does not shut down. Even though men here sometimes say some pretty stupid things, it's a place where men are at least seriously discussing the issue between themselves, rather than just with women, which typically means women have the primary responsibility of doing all the teaching and/or women having to justify our existence as people on this earth. If men are getting burned out by the discussion, then there may be some understanding in that experience as women also get burned out and we often don't have anywhere to retreat to. (Mind you, not that I wish for anyone to get burned out because there should in a much better world be no reason for anyone to get burned out.)

...

Thanks for wading in here and offering the reinforcement you did, and thanks also to MathGoddess and ClockworkHouse for your perspectives. I think they've been really valuable to hear.

A shoutout also to Clover for your feedback. It's important to have female voices even if all you do is express your dismay. It's important you feel safe and confident enough to do so without fear of retaliation or abuse. It's important that men reflect on that dismay and its underlying causes.

For my part, I've previously mentioned that through the course of another hobby, I've made good friends with young women in their early 20s with a view to better understanding the female experience and how to make it better bearing in mind I also have a 6 year old daughter who will confront the same power structures and paradigms. I share my (questionable) wisdom with them as to how men think and they reciprocate by giving me their female perspective on things. I've come to really appreciate having discussions with women, because with their perspective comes a breadth of consideration that I hadn't thought of. It was a real wakeup call to me that I have to teach inverse concepts to the son and daughter respectively - whereas I teach the boy about being a good man and having manners, I have to teach my daughter about situational awareness and safety. If anything, I would encourage the male Goodjers here to step back for a moment to bring this up as a topic for discussion with the women in their inner circle and get some feedback.

Now, getting to the issue of security.

I am not sure how our fellow Goodjer can enhance her personal security without fear of escalation/reprisal from a strong rejection. Yes, there are measures she may take with regards to ensuring she's not alone with the individual, maintaining vigilance, conferring with the building manager to determine whether there is CCTV as a deterrence. Even reporting her concerns to authorities, but all too often their response may be too late. My thinking would be to somehow have support from fellow residents within the building and to have an informal gathering where she might safely interact with this man and assess the threat level and hopefully the man in question will get the message that his attention isn't welcome and he backs off. I feel that if there were a support network around her, a physical presence of others to some degree, this may be enough of a deterrent to the man in question. But it may embolden him to be more aggressive when that physical presence is not there. At the minimum though, I think it would be helpful if someone (not our fellow Goodjer) took responsibility to confront the man and let him know that approaching someone at 10pm requesting entry to their residence is inappropriate and unacceptable. With my experience with LEOs, I am not confident they would take the time to do this. This is a problem I think because proactive LEO involvement could really neutralise the threat.

Wow, coming back in here after a break makes for a bit of a slog. You can add me to the lurker list in this thread. I'm willing to comment or answer questions, but honestly my biggest hope is that the men in here are talking among each other and coming to some of the same conclusions that many of us already know. And if some of you guys are willing to do the explaining for a while, it gives others of us a chance to step back and stop feeling like broken records on mute.

Happy New Year Gentlemen!

For the record - Feminism is about seeing all human beings as people, valuing people's contributions with the SAME unit of measurement and treating all human beings as being deserving of consideration AND respect.

Feminism is about seeing that all people have the same level of privledge, regardless of gender.

*Mod* We'll be checking in with a few folks from the thread by PM. But overall, thank you all for trying to pull the conversation back together into something constructive.

Bfgp wrote:

It was a real wakeup call to me that I have to teach inverse concepts to the son and daughter respectively - whereas I teach the boy about being a good man and having manners, I have to teach my daughter about situational awareness and safety.

Please remember to also consciously teach your son how unjust it is that you even feel you have to teach your daughter to shoulder the responsibility of protecting herself from boys/men who are taught that girls and women are commodities.

(Not a mod, my own personal experience)

We all have different roots with this stuff and where we fall down with it. Anger, shame and fear are three of the big ones and we have all sorts of healthy and unhealthy ways of acting out or trying to avoid those feelings.

For me, shame is the big one. When someone tells me I messed up, even if they’re kind and paitient about it, I feel awful. Like, way out of proportion, off balance bad. It’s even worse when it’s in response to me “trying to be a Good Person(tm).” I own it, so much so I’m often second guessing myself on my read on things.

A lot of the conversation here ends up circling around “what are the rules of behavior I need to follow so I won’t have to feel like THIS again.” I think as dudes we have a tendency toward wanting structure and steps in a linear way. So a lot of the debate circles around what happened and whether it was good or bad.

It’s harder to talk about intention and unexamined assumptions. If I’m posting because I want to be part of the Good Person club, I’m still looking to other people (women in this case) for validation. I get upset if I don’t get it when that’s the (usually unconscious) desire pushing my actions.

Couples therapy with my wife has actually been really great for getting into those deep vulnerabilities, naming them and learning to have some love and (oh yes, I’ll say it) tenderness with the feelings. Actually relating with my own internal stuff means I can relate and connect with more ease and not worry so much about getting a certain kind of response to feel ok.

It’s an ongoing work. Untangling all these old, ancestral assumptions is a lifetime kinda deal and it’s not being fair to myself to expect to be perfect or fair to expect it from others. One thing I love about working with Hyp and Dee is we can talk about things BEFORE I post rather than try and pick up the pieces after. Might be a good general idea to use this thread for that instead of jumping right to posting in other feminism threads. “Hey, I’m noticing this inclination when this kind of post comes up, what’s that about?”

Being able to have some loving curiosity when I screw up instead of jumping straight to catastrophising is going to be a theme for me this year I think.

clover wrote:
Bfgp wrote:

It was a real wakeup call to me that I have to teach inverse concepts to the son and daughter respectively - whereas I teach the boy about being a good man and having manners, I have to teach my daughter about situational awareness and safety.

Please remember to also teach your son that it's unjust that you even feel you need to teach your daughter to shoulder the responsibility of protecting herself from boys/men who are taught that girls and women are commodities.

Yep, that's definitely part of the learning program. For example, in the context of bullying, I've taught him from an early age that it's not enough to refrain from bullying others, but the next step is to call his peers out on it with a view to leading by example. It's a big task for a young boy to do though, and he's not outspoken by nature but instead quietly helpful, which is why he seems to gather a lot of respect from his peers (last year he was overwhelmingly voted the class' male student rep council member without volunteering LOL). But he is big in size, and that size grants him a natural degree of attention [fear] and respect, probably from the whole biological/animal thing of size and intimidation. That in and of itself is a privilege and I've carefully worked on him to ensure he doesn't abuse that privilege to lord it over his peers. He hasn't expressed any interest in romance (aside from telling me he had a girlfriend at the age of 7!) so I've not yet explored more complex themes of feminism, but no doubt the time will come in another year or so when his chemical balance starts shifting even further with testosterone.

Can I just put in a sidebar here to say that as heated as things have gotten, pretty much everyone here has been engaging in good faith, in scope, and on topic and the thread is very much doing what it supposed to do.

If men are going to talk about feminism and it's not getting uncomfortable then we're not doing it right. We're the privileged ones here, it should be uncomfortable to examine. I would much rather see a men's feminism thread where people got out of their comfort zones and which occassionally got heated than one that was all head-pats and hand-jobs.

A productive thing for me here, personally, was a greater appreciation of the amount of anger and frustration women have to bear with them every day. And a recognition of the massive privilege men have in being able to engage and disengage at will.

I'd also like to offer props to jdzappa. When his behaviour was challenged on the Feminism thread he apologised politely, brought his questions about it here, and got honest answers back. I think that fact got lost in the subsequent noise and is worth shouting out. That's as much as I'd ever hoped for this thread.

Thankyou to everyone for staying with the topic and arguing in good faith. In my opinion it got angry but it didn't get toxic and I kinda feel proud of us for that.

Certis wrote:

Might be a good general idea to use this thread for that instead of jumping right to posting in other feminism threads. “Hey, I’m noticing this inclination when this kind of post comes up, what’s that about?”

Putting the emotional labour on women has always been a big problem for me, and from what I've read a big problem with men in general.

This last year several of my male friend have resolved to turn to each other first for emotional support when we need it because we've always tended to default to women. Women are generally better at it because women get the practice. We acknowledge we'll probably be worse at offering support (we all still struggle with trying to "fix" things rather than just listen) but it's good for us all to do it so we can get the practice too. We've been doing it too, and with a lot of success.

I also asked a male friend yesterday to check me if I keep going back to women to ask if my feminism is "valid". That's more emotional labour. I have to trust myself that I act as informed and honestly as I can, and if I get things wrong to take the correction on the chin and do better.

There has been a bit of performative wokeness happening too. Not performative in that it's fake, but in that people believe the best way to show their feminist bona fides is to be seen loudly being right instead of being (to quote RedJen) "willing to do the explaining for a while" and help people overcome blind spots or see their actions in a new light. So we get a lot of this and not enough of this.

Also, let's be honest--a whole lot of us are frequent, long time posters in The Forum Formerly Known As P&C, and the C was definitely *not* short for 'comfort'. Those instincts don't extinguish overnight, to say nothing of the baggage.

https://twitter.com/YaaAsantewaaBa/s...

Policing of "tone" is a popular deflection tactic powerful people use to escape accountability because they know society cares more about their "feelings" than the humanity of marginalized people. Pass it on

So basically if you're harping on tone when addressing marginalized folk, I don't trust you

Oh and finally, it should be a clue that the people worried about tone only bring it up after their attempts to deny oppression fails. They move from "what are you talking about? That's not real" to "well you should have said it nicer". It's a deflection tactic

It is a waste of time and effort to talk at people who aren't listening. And the onus also shouldn't be on marginalized people to do this. That's what so called allies are for

I don't really feel like that is relevant to the discussion we are having right now and I feel like you are you are just using that to justify your own bad behavior. I am talking specifically GWJ, specifically this discussion. Frankly, I think that about 90% of us all have the same views, and at this point we are talking about how we talk about going forward. I would just ask you to ask yourself - are you getting the results you are looking for or are you just feeling justified in trashing those with whom you agree? What is your true end goal? Is it lifting others *in this community* or shaming those with whom you disagree?

Honest question.

I just pause when I read white, cis-het folks throwing up their hands about being tone policed. I would have a very very different reaction if it were a PoC, a member of the LGBTQ community or another minority group.

If you don't see how that's relevant to the post above Cheeze's and what it's saying I'm not sure there is even a common ground for discussion.

But to answer your question in good faith, my aim is to get people to examine their discomfort and see that overcoming this is their path to growth instead of retreating into their feelings.