Debating With Arsehole Men: need a how-to guide!

All men are bastards, eh?

so all women are dumb bimbos obsessed with handbags?

No . some are but not all. The sexism on here would not be allowed the other way.

"The OP was referencing a specific type of exchange which happens frequently between a certain type of man, IME either left or right wing, and can be "male feminist" or MRA, who is entirely unaware of their male privilege when they "debate" things with women."

I think that's the problem - that lack of awareness.

Those angry men are on a spectrum, with some truly horrid misogynists at one extreme; but at the other there are men who can get angry and defensive in a more undestandable, although not entirely excusable, way.

The problem with online debate is that everything gets personalized, making it difficult for people to stand back and see the bigger picture.

What I mean is that an individual man might react to an assertion that he has privilege or is part of a problem very defensively. 'I am living on a horrible estate with no job and no prospects' he might think. 'What privelige do I have?'. He might even asume the women he is talking to to be affluent and well-educated - a person with much more opportunity and power than him.

Of course the feminist might not mean that he personally has privilege, only that women very generally lack certain priveliges that men, very generally, do have. But because a distinction between a general state of affairs and one man's experience has not been made clear, he is unable to step outside of his own experience and see things from a woman's point of view. He is a man so he doesn't know what it is like to suffer sexual assault or be demeaned in the way she may have been. Conversely, sometimes the feminist might find it hard to see things from the man's point of view.

We all struggle to inhabit another person's experience.

Please do not think I am in any way defending misogynist trolls and woman haters. All I am saying is that on a certain level of debate I can see how wires get crossed - especially where very socially or economically disadvantaged men are concerned.

I know I am quite combative and to some extent I enjoy a cut and thrust debate and will challenge anything I believe to be wrong and damaging. I am self-aware enough to know that it can alienate more moderate people though so I do try not to get sucked in more than necessary not always successfully

You almost never get people's minds to change in internet discussions. I was reading several years ago that it IS possible but the chances of any movement in position will only happen early on in a thread. The longer a thread goes on the less and less likely anyone is to change their minds. There are usually a few strong contributors to a thread who lay out their position then entrench then attack/defend as nauseum.

The value I find is to play to the gallery. A lot of people read rather than contribute and if you are arguing for truth, reason and human decency you are moving the needle in the right direction, just rarely if ever the person you are debating with.

We must all be on guard against bigotry, and not just the obvious ones like sexism/ racism. Often the most unexamined and significant bigotries is political bigotry. We are all leaving with the repercussions of not engaging with an open mind with our political opponents.

I think for that we need a more inquisitorial as opposed to adversarial approach to debate. That is rather than seeing each other in competition even if we are politically opposed we recognize our common and shared humanity and seek to explore and analyze truth as a collective effort rather than a win/lose proposition.

I can only guesstimate this, but I say I have learnt just as much from people I disagree with as those I do. It might not be enough to make me come over entirely to their position, but often they bring up facts and perspectives I either didn't know or hadn't considered.

My only problem is the more information I take on the harder it is to reach a hard position on an issue. I all to often feel I either don't know enough or the situation under discussion is way too complex for an easy conclusion. What grinds my gears a bit is when I'm debating with someone who as time goes it becomes apparent they have committed far less energy and time to thinking critically on an issue yet they are 1000% more sure than I am in their conclusions. Not to be confused with people who I differ on who have really thought about it. In fact I find it equally frustrating when people agree with me on the basis of less data and analysis.

It's not just about changing the minds of ignorant people here (which is what we're mostly talking about, men who spout forth on women's issues without having any idea about them). It's about not letting misinformation and ignorance go unchallenged.

Say your piece and then ignore them. Most of them are deadly dull anyway and there will be more interesting people to chat with.

There is little point in arguing with someone who is not willing to change their view point.

Both people involved believe they are right, both refuse to change their POV, neither will win. Better to graciously accept that some people don't agree with your view point and move on with your life. Debate with people more open minded, more open to differing views etc.

Interesting comment Josef.

I've never had any misogyny thrown at me on twitter because I suspect users assume I'm male. Partly this is because I tweet occasionally about professional events (I work in IT) and partly because I'm careful to keep my professional life and my personal social media separate. There are no clues in my profile about gender.

I wonder if this is the answer. Make them assume you are male and a large percentage of the patronising disappears.

I have encountered women like that before, but it's hugely rarer. It usually means that I can tell a poster's sex when they adopt this style of debating things. Not completely reliable, but I'd say 9 times out of 10 it is.

that's happened to me before!

*an exchange between a certain type of man and women.

It's not really a question of whether there are also arsehole women. The OP was referencing a specific type of exchange which happens frequently between a certain type of man, IME either left or right wing, and can be "male feminist" or MRA, who is entirely unaware of their male privilege when they "debate" things with women.

I don't know OtherHalf. Most of the most vociferous bigots online do seem to be men. All the alt-right forums on 4-Chan and elsewhere are certainly very male dominated.

However I have encountered a minority of appallingly racist women, like the woman I mentioned in my comment above.

Bizarrely, it was reported in the news not so long ago that 50% of online misogynist abuse comes from women. Something like that anyway. How that statistic was established I have no idea though, since I'd imagine there are lots of men pretending to be women. There was one high profile female troll though wasn't there? I think she might have been one of the people sending rape threats to that journalist who was campaigning to get Jane Austen's portrait on the banknote. When they asked her why she did it she said it was because she was bored. Funny old world.

I don't think the gender makes much difference, there are arsehole women just as much as areshole men. Arseholes, by their nature, are unreasonable. A wise man (or maybe his wife) once said something along the lines of "It is futile trying to reason with an unreasonable person". Repeat that to yourself whenever the situation merits it and you should be able to disengage and walk away without feeling you have somehow let yourself down or conceded the argument.

As to the man who tried to argue that Trump was democratically elected and you should just quit moaning, well so was Hitler. Besides, democracy fails when the electorate are denied the right to criticize their elected representatives openly and freely.

User I have talked to all sorts of extraordinarily awful and crazy people. There are thousands of them on the internet.

There was a man on the Daily Mail website who joked that the family of a Syrian man who was run over by a lorry at Calais should pay for any damage to the bumper. There was a woman on Twitter who said she didn't care about refugee children drowning - that she thought that they should all be killed anyway! Then there was a man on the Guardian comment section who made a civil liberties case for the legalisation of child pornography.

I talk to these people because I am fascinated by the darker and crazier side of human nature. But sometimes I think the internet should never have been invented, because it gives all these awful people a media platform and vast audiences.

It makes you realise what a fragile skin civilization is, and how the internet is rupturing that skin. It's fascinating to see that happen but terrifying at the same time.

I too don't bother. I've found I make far more headway when challenging guys who are basically alright about their unconscious prejudices (women too for that matter).

Annoyingly when arsehole men are challenged in their thinking by other men then they (sometimes) seem willing to make concessions.