Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

ps LL I didn't see yours for some reason, or I would have liked it.

need an option to turn off the "Like" function on some of your own posts - since it'll never be taken from the system as a whole - but beyond that I guess we just need to remind ourselves that social media is a great emancipatory tool for communication and support and a gross commodification of those things at the same time and just take people in the best faith we feel able to

xpost to simon h - there are so many cringe-inducing types like that on twitter, such a creepy vibe from them, it's not a huge step for a man who self-defines as the most wonderfully aware ally of all time to sound extremely patronising and tokenistic towards women. like patting his little dolls on the head.

i guess this is more personal but i don't feel so comfortable describing myself as a feminist, because of this type of person. i would say i support feminist views and feminism but as a man i figure i am responsible for instances of sexism, probably in ways that i'm not always aware of. but i find people behaving as tho they are beyond reproach, in any matter, p offputting.

moral confidence is difficult for me - i'm often kinda put off by it. i know that's partly some of my own issues of self and certainty, but equally i can't quite understand how people are so willing to reproach others - i start most things from the pov that i'm probably wrong. catholic upbringing maybe.

i often read like "woke" tweets and think "the behaviour you're describing is just human ignorance" - i guess some people who are less privileged are by nature more aware of ignorant or oblivious behaviour, but hardly all. most of the time i feel like our existence on this planet is a war between the maddening ignorance of the terminally oblivious and the sad neurosis of the constantly self-aware.

xp - it's ok i'm not keeping score :)

i really do feel relieved of a hellacious burden by speaking up at all. i felt the same way about taking up an instrument (a loud one, at that) as a grown woman. like, i'm here now. continuing to ignore me or pretend i am not here is no longer possible. i am too loud.
(and i am not actually very loud!)

i guess this is more personal but i don't feel so comfortable describing myself as a feminist, because of this type of person. i would say i support feminist views and feminism but as a man i figure i am responsible for instances of sexism, probably in ways that i'm not always aware of. but i find people behaving as tho they are beyond reproach, in any matter, p offputting.

yeah, this is where i'm at most of the time, thx for putting it into words

moral confidence is difficult for me - i'm often kinda put off by it. i know that's partly some of my own issues of self and certainty, but equally i can't quite understand how people are so willing to reproach others - i start most things from the pov that i'm probably wrong. catholic upbringing maybe.

yeah I feel this & hope a lot of ppl feel similarly, though I don't think it's a catholic thing. the need for moral purity distorts how ppl see things

fear of being perceived as a certain (undesirable) type of person for speaking up is a very effective tool of the oppressor imo

don't wanna be a complainer! be cool!

xp yes it can be turned into 'Why are you bothered about this when this issue doesn't affect you?'

i disagree. i think that the impulse not to "speak up" on social media is a good one. the virtue here is about changing your own behavior, or intervening in predation when the situation arises. there's no moral value in posting some variation on "hey fellow men this #metoo campaign is v important we must all speak out" etc. that kind of thing doesn't stop real behavior - it's just performative imo. xxp

no predator has ever in history been like wow i'd really like to touch this woman on the bus but now i remember this v passionate male ally told me on fb that wasn't cool any more

xpost to simon h - there are so many cringe-inducing types like that on twitter, such a creepy vibe from them, it's not a huge step for a man who self-defines as the most wonderfully aware ally of all time to sound extremely patronising and tokenistic towards women. like patting his little dolls on the head.

i guess this is more personal but i don't feel so comfortable describing myself as a feminist, because of this type of person. i would say i support feminist views and feminism but as a man i figure i am responsible for instances of sexism, probably in ways that i'm not always aware of. but i find people behaving as tho they are beyond reproach, in any matter, p offputting.

moral confidence is difficult for me - i'm often kinda put off by it. i know that's partly some of my own issues of self and certainty, but equally i can't quite understand how people are so willing to reproach others - i start most things from the pov that i'm probably wrong. catholic upbringing maybe.

i often read like "woke" tweets and think "the behaviour you're describing is just human ignorance" - i guess some people who are less privileged are by nature more aware of ignorant or oblivious behaviour, but hardly all. most of the time i feel like our existence on this planet is a war between the maddening ignorance of the terminally oblivious and the sad neurosis of the constantly self-aware.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Tuesday, October 17, 2017 11:06 AM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thanks for this LG, i identify w/ a lot of what you wrote here

i agree that it is performative and cookie-hungry

the virtue here is about changing your own behavior, or intervening in predation when the situation arises.

yeah, otm

there are so many cringe-inducing types like that on twitter, such a creepy vibe from them, it's not a huge step for a man who self-defines as the most wonderfully aware ally of all time to sound extremely patronising and tokenistic towards women. like patting his little dolls on the head

Faraci was a good/terrible example of this iirc

yes, the real work for men happens IRL not on social media xp

marc loi, never forget

Extremely Online Allydom weirds me out tbh. many people who have truend out to be huge creeps also used that sort of language in very public and demonstrative ways.

THIS IS EXACTLY THE thing that inverted my brain about restorative justice and turned me into a weirdo about this shit. The literal most abusive person I've ever met has also the most obstreperous Twitter feed. I actually talked about his behaviour with some friends, who told me, "we are seeing more and more that the language and cause of restorative justice is being twisted and used by abusers."

I think I should take a break from thinking about this stuff because it's gotten to a point where I'm arguing for a "full decriminalization of sexual assault" on Facebook

A friend linked me to this the other day and it's very interesting: http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/why-ive-started-to-fear-my-fellow-social-justice-activists-20171013

I tried to write a "me too" post, admitting to the times I'd been abusive to others, talking about what I'd done to hold myself accountable, talking about what I'd done to hold my friends accountable when they'd been abusive-- my best friend raped somebody last year and it's been a difficult time-- but I couldn't admit to my own abuse without feeling like I was leaving myself open to persecution (it's far more complicated than anybody's attention span could withstand), and I couldn't post about my own allyship without feeling like it was performative

Talking about this stuff is agonizing

it is

so much otm above - i think a huge flaw with things right now is people assuming they're doing something just by screaming angry things on twitter, or even politely stating encouraging things. i mean if people are going to spend time there anyway then i guess by all means state the things you believe, but sometimes it feels as if people think the main battleground for change is this actually quite small social media tool.

many, many people i know don't use twitter and the discussions i have offline are far more civil and thoughtful, present company excepted.

also, more and more i feel like people who mean well on twitter are just amplifying the views of those they oppose. i saw breitbart in my feed for the first time this year because somebody was quoting a tweet of theirs and criticising it. i've prob mentioned this before but "banallmuslims" trended as a hashtag in the uk before and i clicked on it and almost all the tweets were people criticising the fact it was trending.

having said all that, i find it difficult to point myself in any one direction. i find it difficult to unite it with people, i always find problems with things or think that actually we all disagree about x, y and z. i'm aware that's a position of privilege in itself. i mean by modern definitions i have a disability, as someone with chronic illness, and i think to an extent that fuels a sort of deep independence which was prob there to begin with, to an extent.

also like, hashtags are just kind of stupid.

I only responded to one metoo post as it was from a relative

As to whether men would be better joining in the metoo conversation or keeping out of it and listening, or where, between those two behaviours, we should be, I don't know; I don't know what women want us to do; but feel like keeping out of it is the best way to avoid dragging arguments right now

many, many people i know don't use twitter and the discussions i have offline are far more civil and thoughtful, present company excepted.

i should say that i'm sure there are far worse discussions i could be having offline too - i just tend to socialise in a small circle of friends who are v liberal.

no predator has ever in history been like wow i'd really like to touch this woman on the bus but now i remember this v passionate male ally told me on fb that wasn't cool any more

― Mordy, Tuesday, October 17, 2017 4:27 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe not quite to that extent, but opening up the topic and making it accessible to men (via other men) might make them think about their own past behaviour with a view to changing their own everyday sexism

if men peer-pressure each other into sexist behaviour, surely it can work the other way round

I would like to post about my own experiences regarding abuse and assault but I'm going to have to do so on 77

I was thinking yesterday about what a decent progression of understanding others looks like, in this particular context but also in general. The end goal is to not harass or even offend others, but that's the thing you strive toward, not the thing on which you judge your success.

I'm wondering if there's a good formal list, or if I'm even cribbing from something I've read:
Acknowledging you have some attitudes and behaviors that are based in sexism and might be harassment
Accepting (and soliciting) feedback from others
Others feel comfortable giving feedback without soliciting it, and you accept it
Recognizing the reactions of others and realizing you've said or done something inappropriate
Being able to identify when your own thoughts and behaviors are coming from faulty conclusions and adjusting without feedback from others

no predator has ever in history been like wow i'd really like to touch this woman on the bus but now i remember this v passionate male ally told me on fb that wasn't cool any more

you know, i'm like you, mordy, i'm reading the posts and just listening and not saying anything, but your argument in favor of my practice is actually pushing me away from my practice, because the predators aren't all creeps on the bus -- some of them are people in my workplace who wrongly think that all their male co-workers know about and are on board with what they're doing, or don't know about but WOULD be on board with what they're doing.

Extremely Online Allydom weirds me out tbh. many people who have truend out to be huge creeps also used that sort of language in very public and demonstrative ways.

I hate these fuckers, tbh

There's a character that's been hanging round my friendship group for about ten years - can't really get rid of him because he's friends with too many of my friends - basically, is as feminist as you can get on social media and in around the table discussions irl but, but, programatically selects older 'mumsy' forgiving girlfriends to live off whilst cheating on them with lots of, I dunno, 'sexy art girl' types and has been doing so for ten years

It's that thing of claiming impossible levels of awareness whilst doing the very basic thing wrong

I think one thing that pushes men towards the reddit shithole mra alt-right whatever ideology is seeing other men energetically performing pseudo-naive moral purity (so not for the first time, men disliking each other makes everyone else suffer, huh)

some of them are people in my workplace who wrongly think that all their male co-workers know about and are on board with what they're doing, or don't know about but WOULD be on board with what they're doing.

But then the place to make that correction is face to face with those male co-workers. Not shouting into the social media void and hoping they get the message.

why one and not the other? people are influenced by social media

bc serious predators know it's wrong already and ppl who allow themselves to operate in moral grey areas are already avoiding the meaning + consequences of their actions so ignoring some fb post from a male ally is a breeze. if you want to make an actual difference with people you need to confront them personally and in person.

it's kinda like what my rabbis used to say in yeshiva during ethics lectures - the people who most need to hear this are the ppl who aren't in the room. the ppl liking your status messages on fb aren't the ppl you're trying to reach.

feel like at some point in the last few years people went from using social media to talk about things they do irl to using real life to talk about things they do on social media.

serious predators

imo this phrase is the whole problem with this series of posts. You are creating this separate "serious predators" category and not recognizing a continuum of behavior and attitudes.

@Mordy - And when the people who need to be reached are encountered in the wild they're fucking terrifying

xp weird - bc i explicitly spoke to the spectrum in that very post

bc serious predators know it's wrong already and ppl who allow themselves to operate in moral grey areas are already avoiding the meaning + consequences of their actions so ignoring some fb post from a male ally is a breeze. if you want to make an actual difference with people you need to confront them personally and in person.

― Mordy, Tuesday, October 17, 2017 5:02 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's not just about 'serious predators', it's about systemic change in a society where sexism/harassing behaviour is so endemic that no one can truly acquit themselves of

i mean just for example, even stopping a Weinstein-type figure is not just about trying to convince Weinstein to stop (which is probably useless) but trying to wake up all the "well-meaning" guys to the fact that they might be brushing something off as relatively harmless, "old-school" behavior or "oh he's a bit of a creep" when it's much worse and not a laughing matter.

i didn't say this campaign shouldn't happen. it should. and men should listen and read and adjust their behavior and not brush off creepy behavior as a laughing matter. i said that those men should then go and make their interventions irl and not in grandstanding posts online.

it /is/ terrifying sometimes to intervene. it's much easier to post online to a mostly friendly audience. but that's the problem. the guy you need to reach is not participating in that venue. he's ignoring your post. so who are you writing it for?

I had a coworker who was relatively beloved who retired a couple years back that would occasionally trot out something patriarchal or borderline misogynist in conversation but for the most part it'd result in eye-rolling or someone half-jokingly saying his name slowly at him. But side conversations, some of them on social media, kind of illuminated the fact that his shtick was genuinely harmful in some ways and people started to make that clear to him.

Now, a few years after he retired, it's more likely someone immediately thinks "wow, that guy was a relic" than "that guy was fun" because attitudes have changed and that shit just really doesn't fly.

so who are you writing it for?

the army of commenters everywhere saying lets not be hast and do a witch hunt here lets wait for a court of law

you're writing it for woody allen okay

you're writing it for all your friends and coworkers who know that guy, and it's a declaration of solidarity that you're going to all call him out!

maybe the one guy will see it and shrug it off or think "wow some people suck" but when multiple people realize they need to tell him _he_ is the guy who sucks maybe things change

when the woman from comcast was changing my modem today she said that things looked different in the store and i said i was always moving things around and she said i was as bad as a woman and i thought of this thread. that's all i've got today.

At leastwe got in a good 600 posts before the conversation started drifting towards "I'm not a men's rights activists but they sure do have a point here"

i don't know who that's directed to but no one said that or anything like that

you're writing it for woody allen okay

the flying lotus guy!