AIBU to treat male and female posters differently on feminism threads?

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

First of all, I want to make this clear that this only applies to feminims threads.

When a woman poster posts comments where it is clear that she doesn't understand feminism or her arguments are contradictory, I am more than happy to spend lots of time gently explaining my point of view. I know I still have a lot to learn about feminism and part of that is hearing what other women have to say. And I know that when I started posting comments about feminism on the internet I didn't really understand it, and many of my comments will have been contradictory.

Some lucky women grow up being taught about feminism - usually by their mothers. But for most of us, we learn about feminism as adults and as we grow up. And as feminists I do think we owe it to women to explain our point of view gently. I know not all women will agree with us, but most of us became feminists because of other women taking the time to do this.

I feel quite differently about men posting on feminist threads. When men post comments that show they don't really understand feminism or are contradictory, often they just derail threads. On a feminist thread I don't feel women should have to take the time to explain to men about feminism or argue with men. It should be a space for women to discuss feminism. I should clarify that I am not talking about men being abusive, just men not understanding feminism.

But then when I post something to a man like - you obviously don't understand feminism and are not contributing anything, I just feel guilty. Is this just my socialisation telling me I should be nice to men coming through, but my basic analysis is correct? Or is my analysis wrong? I am genuinely interested in the views of other feminists. If you are a man and you post I will ignore you. This is not a thread about men. It is a thread about what as feminists it is reasonable for us to do.

Sorry this is such a long post.

Chairman, they are all reasonable questions, but if we do all this in here, on this thread, it may get some people's backs up. So, let me give it a quick go and then if you have more questions, click on the 'message poster' above this reply, and we can exchange in private.

This thing about 'oppressing' anyone - it makes you think of actually being deliberately nasty to someone, keeping them down by any means to make things better for yourself. A bit like the Romans did to us all those years ago. In fact the meaning here is again, just by virtue of not being disabled, you have a natural advantage. No surprises I guess, you can do stuff a disabled person might not be able to (or not do as well). It can seem funny to call it oppression, but that is just how the word is used in here.

Anyway, press the 'message poster' link above this, and we can cover it better. I have waffled enough.

Apologies to the OP - I am not trying to take over. Have some by way of apology.

'If people talk about privilege in this thread, it doesn't mean that our life -yours or mine - has been a bed of roses. Far from it in many cases.'

So, even if your life is completely crap, you're homeless etc..as long as you're male, you're still privileged because some men in senior positions are?

'It's more a general point that all other things being equal, us blokes have a lot of stuff loaded in our favour.'

Such as? Girls are outperforming boys in schools and universities, more women than men go to university. What do blokes have loaded in their favour?

'Things like being likely to be paid more for the same job, which every survey will tell you.'

Not true.

'Most of the people in power are men - the government, the banks, the CEO's of major companies, so it must be easier for men to get to the top.'

Or, maybe more men choose to work in these industries, and are less likely to prioritise family over work.

If you're such a campaigner for equality Sanjeev, perhaps you'd like question this article...

www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12132990

More men than women contract this cancer, and yet free vaccinations are offered to girls only. Men have to pay for it. Would you class that as equality?

TCMM

Firstly about employment. In construction, there are few women. In work of equivalent skill/education level that is female dominated, the pay for that work will be less. And a lot of this is not historical. When more women started to become GPs the status and pay of the job went down.

The rest is pretty deep stuff, and not possible to explain fully in a thread like this.

As far as hard knocks not being gender based - I am not talking just about promotion in employment. Put it this way, there are a whole host of additional barriers women have to face that men don't have. For example, me being sexually harassed at work by a man who spoke in double entendre and suggestiveness, never directly to the point I could call him out on it, and would act offended when I didn't want him to give me a lift to the station after work, etc. The scenario felt a lot more sinister than I can communicate here. I actually felt very threatened and quite sick to the stomach with anxiety when I went to work. I doubt that as a man that this is the kind of thing that is part of your life. There are many other specifically gender-based forms of oppression I've faced that are definitely because I am a woman.

And although a man can have class-based knocks, disability based knocks, race-based knocks, etc.... A woman can have all of those and gender-based knocks too.

Being 'an oppressor' can simply mean for example, contributing to an oppressive environment by reinforcing myths and stereotypes that create barriers for others. For example by unthinkingly using oppressive language e.g- "that is lame". An able-bodied and disabled person will hear and respond to that term very differently. The able-bodied person will say "no I'm not literally talking about disabled people as a metaphor for inferior/worthless - its just a turn of phrase " yet to the disabled person it is deeply offensive that disability is used as a metaphor for inferiority/worthlessness. By using that term you are creating an oppressive environment for disabled people, and that is one way in which you can act out a role as oppressor without realising it.

Mr Magnolia, chairman, come over to here;

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/1470071-A-thread-started-by-a-man-to-throw-a-few-things-around

We can take it all in there! This isn't the thread.

"More men than women contract this cancer, and yet free vaccinations are offered to girls only. Men have to pay for it. Would you class that as equality?"

MrMagnolia,girls are vaccinated against HPV because it is a cause of cervical cancer
"In 2008, 2,938 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer in the UK. It is the twelfth most common cancer in women, accounting for around 2% of all female cancers"
and "Virtually all cervical cancers are caused by HPV infections, with just two HPV types, 16 and 18, responsible for about 70 percent of all cases (5, 6). HPV also causes anal cancer, with about 85 percent of all cases caused by HPV-16. HPV types 16 and 18 have also been found to cause close to half of vaginal, vulvar, and penile cancers (7)." (from here:www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/HPV)
If the incidence of HPV related cancers were the same in men and women then both should be vaccinated,but it doesn't look as if that is the case (though there is a current news story about this,isn't there? Haven't read it yet).

Bloody hell thechairmanmeow, that last post was really offensive. It doesn't take a lot to show true colours on here does it.

take your point about nursing

sorry i offended you, but you diddnt mention rapist in your origonal post, just that you felt some anxiety, i diddnt mean to minimise it, certianly wasnt my intention, but maybe you just wanted a self-ritious bullying?

the point i was trying to make was if a guy you fancy flirts with you it might be rather nice , if you dont like him and you want him to leave you alone it may seem intimidating, but anyway i am sorry i upset you, inspite of your telling me to fuckoff.

FoodUnit shared a very personal story that caused her a lot of anxiety and pain in her real life and it was dismissed by chairman as a delicate wallflower who can't deal with a double entendre.

There are real people behind this screen Abigail and some will react angrily and upset if their shared personal hurtful experiences are dismissed

i diddnt dismiss anything, i chose not to comment on her story but talk around it making another point precisly because i know nothing about her circumstances and what actually happend. you all misunderstood me , and how you love to all wade in!!!

Chairman - I am not wading in. Just pointing out why foodunit reacted the way she did. You did actually minimise it - she posted

"me being sexually harassed at work by a man who spoke in double entendre and suggestiveness, never directly to the point I could call him out on it, and would act offended when I didn't want him to give me a lift to the station after work, etc. The scenario felt a lot more sinister than I can communicate here. I actually felt very threatened and quite sick to the stomach with anxiety when I went to work."

This is not a man flirting un wanted once or saying a few double entendres. I do understand if you don't get it, but this kind of ongoing situation can be very frightening.

Imagine if a colleague who was stronger and larger than you, kept making comments to you and suggestions that were sexually suggestive. If he kept leering at you and basically made you feel so unsafe you didn't want to be in a car alone with him. That kind of situation is frighteningly common and is scary because you don't know, but you fear that he is going to try and sexually assault or rape you. But it is hard to communicate to anyone who doesn't witness it without sounding hysterical.

Eats I am totally with FoodUnit . I thought that post by thechairmanmeow was hugely offensive, as I said. My second sentence was meaning that thechairmanmeow was coming on being all nice and then by the 3rd post is chucking misogynistic stuff around.

Oh and we didn't misunderstand, thechairmanmeow. We understand perfectly.

So sorry Abigail, I misread your post.

Sorry Abigail, I thought you were calling foodunit's post offensive - sorry

No worries!

And its because of stuff like this I vacillate between answering men's questions and points on feminst threads and thinking I am wasting my time

Thank you Eats and Abigail.... This exchange was such a good case for the original post.

Yes it was. Hope you are okay?

But the truth is I still vacillate around my original post. I guess there are some aware decent men who do post in feminism threads, but they seem to be so rare

See this is one of the reasons that I think it is inevitable that men and women are treated differently in feminist discussions. When women talk about sexual violence we mostly 'get' each other because most of us have experienced it to some degree or another.

Why should a man expect to have the privilege of being in the class that is least likely to experience such violence, and yet also expect the class who do experience said violence to treat them as nonprivileged in a discussion about it.

Sounds a bit privileged to me...

Thanks Eats I'm feeling calmer after that blood-pressure raising start to the day - though still pretty annoyed.

I have wasted far too much time on 'nice guys' & MRAs. On the one hand you don't want to dismiss a human being because they are male, but on the other hand, time and time again, you see that's exactly what you should have done.

Yes FoodUnit we have all had that experience - and you kind of just feel suckered in again

Beachcomber - I agree. Even when women know nothing about feminism or anti it, you do start from some shared experiences and most women can understand some of the feminist agenda on the basis of that

i'm not an MRA. thanks for you explaination eats, but i allready totally agree with all you said and if you look, i never disagreed with it.
food unit, please accept my humble apology, and i hope you understand i diddnt intend any offense, looking back i see how what i said can be interpreted and i'm very sorry.