Whataboutery

[womanformallyknownaswoman]

A woman representative from a local refuge told me recently that every public meeting she goes to now, the first question she is asked is "what about the men"?

I also observed that same phenomema recently at a women's business forum where the subject was funding for women led start ups. The female speaker, a Canadian old style feminist, spent 30 mins painting the picture of how male venture capitalists support male led businesses to the exclusion of women led ones, even though the latter perform better. She was pitching a solution, but the problem couldn't have been made clearer and was backed up with stats.

Nevertheless, the first question to her, from a younger woman, was what about the men. I felt so annoyed.

We need to rebut whataboutery and cut it off at the early stage.

In the example given, I would respond by something like "What is it about this problem, that profoundly harms and disadvantages 96% women, whilst advantaging all men, that you don't understand?"

What would your response be?

I'd just treat it as a stupid and irrelevant question... at a conference for WOMEN IN BUSINESS then I think that should be the primary focus.

I think some people just like to rattle the person on stage.

I saw a lot of this today on social media about #March4Women

It’s almost as though men know how to fight each other so well that they don’t know how to fight for themselves and they need women to do it for them. If they want to advocate for men bloody well let them but we fought hard for where we are and where we want to be.

I think a good response is that men can and do manage their own trauma therapy groups. They don't need us to do that for them.

"The false dilemma fallacy is often a manipulative tool designed to polarize the audience, heroicizing one side and demonizing the other. "

Whataboutism is essentially derailing a group by asserting that if you are spending time here and now on women you are not spending time on men, with a subtext of as you should be.

Yep I get the derailing tactic - I was curious in a public forum, for example a talk about DV, how others have closed it down.

The biggest derailing is on IWD - observing those women who've been primed to say - "and don't forget the men"!!!!