a question for the men here

[Mitchy1nge]

what makes you think you have anything of real value to bring to discussions about women's experiences and expectations?

obviously some men can make interesting contributions (although those sorts of men don't often announce themselves here) to some discussions but generally, on the whole, everything everywhere else is already pretty saturated in Male Voice so was just wondering where you got the idea from

may i ask why your only contribution to a thread of over 20 pages of discussion is about the spelling of menz?

Your other contributions to fwr include
Bodybuilding mags usually have a pic of a semi-naked guy on the cover
and a defense of prostitution.

Just curious.

Morning campers.
RM - I reported Hully for a personal attack on me. Whether you agreed with her is neither here nor there really, is it? It's what HQ ask us to do. IF someone wishes to 'support' me that's fine, but no bed-hoping, as you so described it,went on. As for Hully being 'angry', I've already referred to her inauthentic posting habits so it's tricky to know if she was being genuine here.
New dawn, new day and other things to do than this.

Mornink

Glad to see my sleepiness-garbled poor sentence construction has caused such amusement

To clarify I didn't feed my cat the wine, though I did dunk myself in it. He prefers vodka.

You see, I can see a difference between a personal attack on an individual poster, like the ones pan got deleted here (and I've been the victim of these on many occasions - never, to my recollection, have I demanded people support me through it), and generalised misogynistic remarks aimed at women (or feminists) as a whole, or gross comments about porn featuring 15yr old girls.

We were asking you to speak out against the latter, pan.

I don't mind coming back.

I still can't get my head around the justification for calling someone a coward on an anonymous Internet forum.

Especially in the context of which forum it is and the guidelines.
And the repeated comments about hide poster buttons.

Arguing on the Internet is mostly pointless especially with trolls. I discuss to challenge my own ideas more than to try and change others.

I'd be quite happy to be on a forum that allowed us to say exactly what we think about certain posts, posters and posting styles, as i know being attacked online wouldn't bother me, but we can't, as its against the forum's policy.

And also what happened to PARD?

sabrina - and neither did I ask anyone to 'support me through it'. Not sure what your point was there.

as for 'challenging' nasty posts aimed at women and womens experience, you seem most dogged in your refusal to recognise I have done this, lots of times (even given examples FFS, and would happily do again) but perhaps before your time here - in the post that seemed to trigger all of this off I used the word "sometimes" when describing my habit of challenging trolls and the like.
Some posters will only read what they want to read, and I can't change that.
Off to work. Have a good day.

"Gross comments about porn featuring 15yr old girls."

Where? I don't think anyone has made any comments about porn featuring 15 year old girls except for HullyGully who was hypothesising that some Eastern European girls in porn are under age. This kind of comment is dishonest because it implies that someone with a different view is a paedophile.

This thread has really degenerated into name calling and general unpleasantness. There are clearly men who want to engage in general discussion and have their own views challenged. They are also very prepared to correct men who make misogynist statements (see my post of 9:42 on Wednesday). There are clearly also trolls and unreformed chauvinists among the men who post. However, among the women, there are several who clearly don't like men, despite their denial of that fact. The evidence is that they always attack the poster rather than the post and that they parse every phrase that a man uses to try to find evidence of prejudice and misogyny even where most people would see none (see the attacks on OneMoreChap's posts). I guess internet message boards will always be like that unless you impose membership criteria.

I am really unsure what to make of the idea that to comment on ideas about a subject that you have to have lived that specific life. Ultimately, it was not slaves that ended slavery (in the Western World, in the most part), but slave owners and legislators who could see that slavery was morally wrong. Could they empathise with the oppressed? Of course not. However they could sympathise and understand. Taken to its extreme, the young could never understand the problems of the old and people without children could never comment on parenting issues. Personally, I don't get this at all. It also seems to contradict the posters who prefer men not to identify themselves as men. After all, if one's post has to be taken within the context of one's "experienced life", surely all posters should identify themselves as much as possible?

I think people learn by discussing and many of us learn best by a Socratic dialogue (challenging ideas and hearing the responses). I have learned much from this board over the years and my posts now are completely different from my posts a couple of years ago. Again, that is not to say that I will ever entirely understand or agree with certain ideas or views. We are all human beings who develop views over time and continually adjust where on a spectrum we feel comfortable. I feel most men on here are like me in that respect.

Finally, I will reiterate, no-one has to see any utility in my posts. I agree that it is a shame that there is not an "ignore poster" button and would be more than happy for my posts to be invisible to whomever wished not to see them. I have posted on 2 feminism threads in the last month, one about something in the news and this one, where men were specifically invited.

Yeah thanks for that larry. Opinion noted and dismissed.

Indeed the merry go round certainly got going and my prediction was accurate. Larry, I think your ref to socrates is spot on, but another more modern phrase came to mind when you spoke of the slaves. Indeed mostly the slaves had to rely on their oppresors to stop oppressing them. Some very notable black people spoke against and changed the minds of many white people. However the power lay in the hands of the all male white law makers.

The same thing with the end of white rule in South Africa, yes of course the end was coming everyone saw that. But it was the white government that chose to go down the route of an orderly hand over of power rather than trying to fight it out. So the phrase that came to mind is "What have the romans ever done for us" well actually they did a fair amount it turns out, But like the other examples they did it as well as oppress and subjugate. By making people slaves and taking away their freedoms. By imposing a culture that did nothing for the poor and the weak.

Men were asked to come here, some seem to have taken the joke about it being a slaughter floor far to seriously. As so often, if one group wants change then they can only get it by working with as partners with those that are reluctant to change. The evidence of this board is that some on here would rather no change occurs unless it is purely brought about by themselves, in which case all of the men who do support the aims of feminists are wasting our time. Larry it was a good post of yours but I doubt it will do any good.

Leith,

It was actually the boycott which ended South African Apartheid. The white government could not continue economically. My mother lived there as a child and took part in what were termed the "torchlight" parades against apartheid. Of course, several on this board would dismiss the contribution of the whites against apartheid as they could not share the "experienced lives" of the oppressed blacks.

I think Nelson Mandela, despite being human and far from perfect, in engaging in equal dialogue and effecting an orderly transition including a respected white finance minister made the largest contribution. It is a rare person, though, who can forgive and co-operate quite like him.

What changes would you like to bring about in partnership with women Leithlurker?

Good god.

I'm sorry I was absent the thread, RL intervened.

I will happily call out DV apologists, people who don't believe rape stats, and people who just come to stir. People who only post in FWR always seem to be a bit "poke the feminists with a stick".

Skimming the thread I've seen stuff about discussion of feminism from men - I've certainly seen that - and even done some of it.

I get picked up for phrasing or views (I think AbigailAdams pointed out what had looked like some women blaming - for which I apologised.)

I'd add that when a thread drifts, like this one did, I tend to stop visiting it - or when I'm wilfully misinterpreted, as I felt x hundred post up there. I tend to try and engage the issues and minimise "speaking as a man" posts [To my embarrasment, I did go and search for how often I've said that; not too often, but it was a well made point and I'll be a lot more conscious of it]

Pleased that a bit of 'tec work has identified the poster.

There was a debate on 'Any Questions' on R4 a few weeks back. It was around the issue of gay marriage in church. One panellist asked the questioner 'Why on earth would you want to? They don't want you!' It's why I don't post here, although I read the more interesting threads. I am not telling the other men here what to do, but I think it's a similar dilemma.

I was obliterated as Hully for some reason last night so couldn't post.

Just wanted to clear up some things.

I firmly believe that in order for evil to triumph it is indeed necessary for good men to do nothing.

Hence if you see evil, and don't call it, it makes you a coward. Seems logical to me.

Also, it's very simple, if men want a dialogue and to work together with women to end sexism and achieve equality, then solidarity and shoulder to shoulderness is indeed necessary. Speaking out is essential and integral to that.

Lastly, I did not call thingy "pussywhipped," he said he would be called that should he speak out in solidarity.

Hulls.

You were calling male posters cowards for not attacking other male posters for their misogynistic posts.

Eben if they didn't know he existed it seems.

Personal attacks aren't allowed on MN, so it looks like you've been banned for for doing to Pan what you wanted other posters to do to DD.

Hully's been banned? For fucks sake, why? Absolutely ridiculous.

If Hully had been rude in a post or offensive, I'd have expected the post to be zorched. That's happened to most of us.

But +1 for FFS, why if she's been perma-banned?
Have you asked MNHQ Hulls?

I really doubt Hully's been banned - if so, that is absurd.

I thought hully was very patient in explaining herself, and clearly some posters responded well to that, whereas others were more interested in what seems to me very like throwing toys out of the pram.

It is pretty immature to respond to mild criticisms with smug comments comments about other people's 'reading and comprehension skills', pan. You tried it with me last night on another thread and you're trying it now with hully.

You disagree with people - this does not mean they are less capable of reading and understanding than you are. Repeatedly claiming that it does makes you come across as spoiling for a fight, but unable to approach the subject-matter of what posters have said. It's not a good combination.

@feministefatale

I reported NE's comment to MNHQ to ask why dd hasnt been banned. Maybe someone could report minis too?

Hello

Just going through this thread now and wanted to address this one: thanks VERY MUCH for all the info and reports about this last night. We had clocked before that DadDancer was from Stripping the Illusion (because he helpfully kept linking to it until we told him off), but until last night we didn't have evidence that he was here specifically to stir up trouble, or that he was reporting back to other sites with abusive remarks about MNers.

But now we do, and he should not be troubling us again.

Oh, that is very good to hear.

Someone, on a recent thread where men were denying that women are sidelined in the media, posted this amazingly succinct piece from Shakesville:

"There are the occasions that men?intellectual men, clever men, engaged men?insist on playing devil's advocate, desirous of a debate on some aspect of feminist theory or reproductive rights or some other subject generally filed under the heading: Women's Issues. These intellectual, clever, engaged men want to endlessly probe my argument for weaknesses, want to wrestle over details, want to argue just for fun?and they wonder, these intellectual, clever, engaged men, why my voice keeps raising and why my face is flushed and why, after an hour of fighting my corner, hot tears burn the corners of my eyes. Why do you have to take this stuff so personally? ask the intellectual, clever, and engaged men, who have never considered that the content of the abstract exercise that's so much fun for them is the stuff of my life."

I would like some of the men here to take note of that. "wallowing in our own sense of oppression" pan? ffs.