Misogyny as edgy jokes
Discouraging.
I want to talk about how misogyny is often framed as edgy jokes. I want to talk about how this guy is comparing battered women to dogs in an animal shelter and mocking how traumatized and easy to manipulate they are as a result. I want to talk about why men think this is funny. pic.twitter.com/yfwCMIVSz9
— feminist next door (@emrazz) November 6, 2021
I want to talk about how tossing out lazy, bottom of the barrel, vitriolic misogyny online is always done in the key of “king willing to say what we’re all thinking,” and that it’s a common part of the discourse among young men, and especially among progressive or leftist men. pic.twitter.com/udu4jBiV8K
— feminist next door (@emrazz) November 6, 2021
I want to talk about why we call it the old boys club when it’s very clearly alive and well among the young. I want to talk about how people say there’s less misogyny, when what they mean is that it’s slightly less institutional, but twice as insidious. They hate us, but funnier.
— feminist next door (@emrazz) November 6, 2021
This is a good time to ask a question to a broader audience than I have before. Is it better to call this behavior out as it’s happening or better to do it in a less public forum later. I’ve done both but always worry a bit that my saying something will sound paternalistic to women in the room and not saying it in the room might seem complicit. I’ve done both but am never sure I shouldn’t be taking the other approach. Obviously, safety situations are different and immediate intervention is the required course.
I guess I think it’s better to do something than nothing. Kind of like that hockey game – people should have done something.
My view is that if you ‘do it later’, you are defining what is socially acceptable in the moment, then hoping for a more personal interaction later. I’d rather the woman in the situation think I am paternalistic asshole whom she can safely pull on my behaviour, than be quietly be intimidated. I cannot say that I have always behaved that way, nor that is has always worked out well for me when I have, but I have more regrets about the former than the latter.
I have never been so proud as a father than when my eldest got suspended for three days for a fight with two other boys. I was livid with him, until the mother of the girl who was being outright abused came up to me to tell me how important it was that someone was sticking up for her daughter.
In that hockey game, the referee, both of the coaches, even her teammates should have done something. Walk off the ice, take the forfeit if comes to it. I don’t condemn her teammates, they are kids too, but it is normalized by being allowed to play out.
‘saying something will sound paternalistic to women in the room’
I think we’re all aware that men, especially men who are happy to be ‘misogynistic on main’, only care about what other men think of them, and only consider modifying their behaviour as a result of input from other men. So please do whatever you can and whatever you feel comfortable doing to influence other men’s behaviour.
You need to respond immediately (or don’t bother) as neural networks don’t learn efficiently if the stimulus and response are too far apart in time.
However, a somewhat controversial approach is to NOT make a big deal out of it (even outrageous stuff), with the goal of de-normalizing the behavior rather than punishing it. If a social penalty is even just perceived as maybe too excessive, the defendants wiLL center that, and the point is lost.
O/T but found this interesting about how social media encourages narcissism and polarised debate (I know that’s not new but I think it’s well expressed).
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/07/social-media-fuels-narcissists-worst-desires-making-reasoned-debate-near-impossible?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I was reading that at the moment you said this. Spooky!
What the fuck is wrong with people?