Handling men's attitudes on forums.

[truthisoutthere]

On several boards that i post on there is often horrible language used in talking about women. I hate it. I'm fed up with it but don't know how to argue back. I could simply stop posting but then i feel like the chance to challenge and re-educate the aresholes alpha males is being missed. Also I resent being made to look so sodding humourless.

How do you deal with women hating language and still look witty and clever.

The next time a nasty thread comes up, i'll round up the troops from here. There was an awful one on DV where it was all blamed on women and the men just wouldn't stand up and be counted against the other men belittling it. It made me utterly rethink that particular online community where i was really friendly with a few.

Reading some of these threads has made me stronger but I will be honest and say that confrontation -especially with friends makes me nervous.

But I do hear sexist views and banter that needs to be challenged. I need to be strong and challenge them. I'm just not a very assertive person as my views are not normally listened to and considered important. :(

"But I do hear sexist views and banter that needs to be challenged. I need to be strong and challenge them. I'm just not a very assertive person as my views are not normally listened to and considered important."

You are definitely not alone feeling like this!
I do it anyway, because I feel so strongly that misogyny needs to be challenged. And the more who do it, the better. But it's also important to know when to ignore and conserve one's energy. Some are just not worth continuing a "debate" with.

Yes, pick targets carefully.

I agree that there is less of it in offices these days which is a good thing.

if you complain you are told you lack of sense of humour or must be jealous. Even other women say this crap

I was just thinking about this earlier when I saw some men commenting on a 'jokey photo' on FB.

What do you all think of this?

www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=378627198841127&set=a.141842412519608.14684.141790332524816&type=1

I'm well up for some Boudicca (sp?) style action the next time anyone needs it, I quite like the idea of a FWR action board.

On the slightly more positive side, I think there's starting to be more online spaces out there for women, particularly in "geek culture" areas.

But sometimes, depressingly, it pops up when you wouldn't necessarily expect it. For example, the abuse Rebecca Watson got for asking that men not hit on her at atheist/skeptic conferences (and then got propositioned in a lift at 4am).

Also Popjustice, where most of the men posting on it are gay, used to have some horrid casual misogyny towards female popstars, but then the mods had a massive clampdown and it's better now.

It does need very firm modding and it's shame so many websites can't be arsed/don't see the need to do that.

Yuk that ad's disgusting Ashes.
Jokey objectification of women to sell cameras. Nice.

one way to deal with people who upset you on forums is simply not to put yourself in a postition where they can hurt you. if you dont react they cannot answer nothing.

banter shouldnt be used as an excuse for sexist abuse, however, banter per se isnt allways bad, just listen to last fridays news quiz with sandy toxvig ( there is a podcast) two women and two men on the pannel and some of the most entertaining banter ever.

The only other forum I've ever been a part of was dominated by women with a few gay men and a few straight men.

The straight men were treated like gods, allowed to say things like 'blow my load into her hair' even though it was supposed to be a family friendly board. One man in particular said the filthiest things about sixteen year old girls..And all the women who told him how vile it was, that they had teenage daughters etc etc (and somehow managed to keep their cool) were infracted for violating his right to an opinion?

I left that board because it distressed me so much to see grown women falling all over themselves like giggling, blushing preteens when these men dished out 'compliments' that were comments that anyone would consider sexual harassment in the workplace.

This forum was run by a woman, all woman moderators..Then they decided to make this particular group of men a rank below mods, who new members were supposed to turn to for advice!!

I certainly don't think it's women's fault that men can be so sexist on forums, but I do think there are women out there who love the pretend attention and are to blind to see they're being mocked and degraded.

Interesting the contempt there was for the gay men and lesbians of the forum. Almost every woman who briefly mentioned she was gay was subjected to the filthiest most derogatory comments and then infracted for retaliating.

Oh yeah, this was a forum for pets...

Sounds awful Lurking.

I must say I hate when I see women fawning over men like this - they legitimise the men's behaviour in a way the men could never do alone.

Totally agree Ashes. I'm not saying sexism will stop if we don't facilitate it, but it would help to send a message on a forum with members as young as ten (obviously their parents thought it was a safe place) searching for a question about their guinea pig and find some of those oh so lovely Facebook photos degrading women, while women giggle and pretend they are oh so loved online, ignoring the real world.

One of the biggest facilitators had photos of her identical twin daughters in her signature. Wonder how she'll feel when they have deal with the shocking incestual comments men make about twins when THEY are sixteen? Will it still be a 'cute opinion' then, or is it only harassment when it's not you?

Sorry..Getting steamed up. REALLY angers me when women simper so pathetically.

On a pet's forum?? Good god. Don't worry about getting steamed up - perfectly understandable.

I think slowly we are starting to challenge these things although it's very difficult when you get shouted down.

I've certainly had my attitudes altered (towards a more feminist slant) by being on mumsnet - so some forums are a fantastic force for good in this respect.

There is a feminist activism section here for stuff like this by the way.

I think if you have the strength at that point you have to challenge it, I really believe that even if the "perp" doesn't backtrack, it's good for other women and men to see that at least one person doesn't think it's fine. Humans are wimps for the most part (myself included) and if you can see that you're not the only one going "oh hang on, making sexual remarks about child characters in films [Hermione e.g.] is actually gross" it will make you more likely to challenge it, knowing you're not alone.

Ooh yeah a really useful concept some wonderful woman on here introduced me to is the Overton window which is basically the range of things considered "acceptable". I imagine it a bit like a periscope looking into a landscape where you can't see the whole picture, only one bit at a time through your lens. Changing the contents of the window changes people's attitudes.

So to come up with a really stupid example, if someone said "would you like squeezed lentil juice, herbal tea or coke" you might say "herbal tea" because that's "mid-range", whereas if someone said "herbal tea, coke or a hot chocolate with extra cream" you might make a different choice.

I got myself made a Moderator so I can delete the bastards. I PM them to let them know exactly why, so they won't make the same mistake again.

(It's a certain motoring forum)

Good for you nightsky. And what do they say when you pm them?

Thanks for link Elephants, didn't know that was on here.

I always get an apology along the lines of sorry, I won't do it again/suitably chastised etc.

More importantly, all the male Moderators always back me up 100% when it comes to judgements on what constitutes sexist shite.

What I meant to say was if you come across sexist comments on a forum, PM the Mods and let them know it is unacceptable.

I think there are two ways to approach it

One is to call them out as misogynists, that filters out quite a bit of it. You don't have to lay it on very thick, just say, "why do you call women bitches?" or "have you thought of speaking to somebody about why you dislike women?". A lot of men don't even register that they're doing it, and are just aping what they hear on TV.

For the hardcore trolls, I beat them at their own game, they are a surprisingly coy bunch when confronted with the female body or mind in all it's glory. When they inevitably call you a lesbian man hater, tell them they're a homosexual woman hater and tell them what you are fantasising about them doing with their boyfriends(ie. all their cheerleaders). Also telling them you are reporting them to the police for gender-aggravted hate speech scares the hell out of them. They run for the hills.