Is there a name for this thing that seems to happen all the time on feminist threads? It happens on other subjects too,, but it's very noticeable on feminism.

[BertrandRussell]

Somebody will post about something they've observed. Something that only every happens to women, for example. Like being called a girl, as a 45 year old professional woman. And another poster will say that "Oh, people use "boy" to describe 45 year old professional men all the time"
Which is simply, observably, NOT TRUE.

On the thread about gendered endearments, people are suggesting that "mate" is non gendered.
Which is simply, observably, NOT TRUE.

Is there a name for it? If not, should we invent one? The Blinker Fallacy?

Feisty - where the fuck are all the feisty men?

Probably off flaunting their enviably long legs and trim bikini body only 2 months after their wife had twins

@BertrandRussell "selective memory to support the unconscious bias". SMTSTUB

Not that it matters - but the hits I get for "Bubbly Boy" are a computer game, a character name in a final fantasy game, and one graphic someone posted on Twitter. - it's the third page before I get to it being a description of someone - and even then, those are from books so I don't know if they were real people, or what age they are.

"Bubbly girl" on the other hand is descriptions of women and girls from the off.

I'm not in the UK though, perhaps there are more bubbly boys in the UK (not really)

@manclife - sorry, been busy on the Black Lives Matter website giving them the benefit of my advice ........
To answer your question, anyone can 'discuss and champion' feminism. However, I have noticed that many of the contributions from men who post on here are goady, aim to 'catch other posters out', and also to derail discussions. Sometimes with a NAMALT approach and sometimes because they are far more interested in promoting their own views rather than listening to women people sharing their own experiences. Doesn't mean they aren't allowed to post - I just find it tedious.
Anyway - enough derailing - sorry OP - back to bubbly...

I agree 'bubbly boy' sounds unlikely but it's not impossible I googled 'bubbly boy' and sadly it's a term often applied to boys who have been killed in tragic accidents

It is almost the default descriptor in those situations- so much so it feels insensitive to copy and paste obituaries to prove it.

"But instead you picked a thread about personal experience of what people call their children "

Actually, it was a thread on the feminist board about gendered and non gendered endearments. And I have to say, if you got all that from my opening post your extrapolation skills are much better than mine!

Well of course I would. I haven't heard it so I thought I'd have a look on the internet to see if that's odd. Which it turns out it isn't.

sorry, been busy on the Black Lives Matter website giving them the benefit of my advice

Let me guess @enough you led with "but all lives matter!" amirite?

Perhaps the 96% it was a reference to the prison population then, manc.

There are about 84,000 people in prison in Britain and 80,000 of them are men.

Men are just really shit at getting caught, obviously.

Men are just really shit at getting caught, obviously
@elfin I think it's our feminine wiles and our push-up bras that help us evade capture

@IfyouseeRitaMoreno

I pulled my boss up a few months ago for referring to a female job candidate as a girl. Ever since then I've been very conscious of not referring to any of our male colleagues as 'boys' because my boss will just be waiting to get me back (in a good natured way). I felt sure I was bound to slip up but actually it's been easy. I obviously think I call men boys more than I do.

I try not to call men 'boys' ...don't think I ever do :)

Talking of gendered language though - have you noticed that you can call a group of women 'you guys' (as well as a group of men, or a mixed group), but you don't call an individual woman 'a guy', whereas you can certainly do so with an individual man.

'He's a nice guy' = perfectly acceptable

'She's a nice guy" = weird and never done

I think that there are 2 different ways in which this happens.

1. For a genuine reason, the outliers in a discussion do need to be recongized and remembered, e.g. if discussing who gets to use which bathrooms, the smaller number of people who would be most traumatized by mixed bathrooms shouldn't be forgotten just because they're a small number.
2. It's just another example of whataboutery. There's a discussion going on about how women find it hard to walk in certain shoes, and how women's shoes are really uncomfortable. Someone comes on and says that they've always thought men's shoes are uncomfortable because they rub so badly on the heel, and then starts trying to prove that men's shoes are more damaging than women's.

In the second example, the person is putting their own personal example as being a better form of 'proof' than the average statistics for an entire nation, and THEN (and this is the shutting down part) insisting that people ignore the main topic and discuss Oxfords v. brogues etc. To ignore that derail isn't shutting down the discussion - the discussion is how much women's shoes hurt feet. It isn't denying that person their experience, it's having a discussion based on large-scale data rather than personal anecdotes. If someone wants to discuss whether men's shoes rub their heals, that's fine - but off they pop to another discussion.

It's a bit like being in a history class and suddenly wanting to discuss poetry on a similar theme. The teacher would say something like "thank you for that interesting point, but let's get back to the dates. Perhaps you could ask you English teacher to follow that up."

@tiktok I used to use 'guys' when in front of a class as it's supposed to be a gender neutral albeit an Americanism.

That's another interesting train of thought. I cannot think of a single "gender neutral" term that is not a male word that women use. Are there any that have gone from women to include men?

@elfinpre it is closer to the prison population but males are more likely to get a prison sentence than females. I'm not starting a debate as to why this is the case, it's just statistically the case.

Beryl, I had a very similar conversation at work this week. Female coworkers convinced that women sexually abuse children at the same rate as men but are just not caught for it.
I felt very hot

Sounds strange but I'm sure one woman in particular wants to defend men in front of me because I'm a lesbian.

I know people who use 'folks' in preference to 'guys' - it never comes naturally out of my mouth for some reason. And if you're American you can get away with 'you all.'

I don't think there are any that have gone from women to men. The recent 'you lad' thing, my dds have said to me in jest. ('pie for tea? really? you absolute lad!'). But I can't see anyone calling Jeremy Corbyn (for example) an absolute lass any time soon!

And Tiktok is right - 'guys' isn't gender neutral, it just neutralizes women within men. As proven by the fact that nobody says 'Sally is a top guy', they only use it to the group.

" males are more likely to get a prison sentence than females'.

For excellent and well researched and understood reasons.

The mate thing, is actually regional, I lived in a place were everyone said to each other. it was grim

It's was said very much like duck is in Nottingham.

'Guys' isn't gender neutral, it's a male term that is stretched to a group.
'Folks' is about the best I get to, otherwise no, can't think of a female collective that could comfortably include a man without it appearing you hadn't noticed he was there.

It's the same as in French where a group of women takes the feminine but add in just one man and the group becomes masculine.

"'Guys' isn't gender neutral, it's a male term that is stretched to a group."

This applies to most gender neutral terms.