So Sick Of This Gender Wars Bullshit

[Prophet 451]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Agschmid (a host of the General Discussion forum).

Believe it or not, DU didn't used to be like this. I've been here since 2005 and it didn't used to be constant gender wars all the time. Yes, occasionally, some topic would come up and we'd be preoccupied with it for a day or two. Yes, there'd be long arguments and sometimes flamewars over different points of principle. But it wasn't like this.

This was actually going to be a really long post laying out my annoyances and who is to blame for this constant gender wars crap with the perpetual claiming of victimhood and (self-)righteousness. But that post got way too specific, even for a stress-relief rant like this. So I'm just going to say that it didn't used to be like this. Even with this new, much tamer, version, I have a bet with myself on how long it will be before this post gets alerted/locked/hidden.

And now I'm in a really bad mood, I'm going to go play with my cats. Cracker and Lily send their love.

[Fumesucker]

1. Sometimes the only way to win is not to play the game

There are a lot of damaged people of both sexes out there.

[Boom Sound 416]

13. ...

"Would you like to play a nice game of chess"
-- Joshua

[Prophet 451]

23. Maybe we should play Global Thermonuclear War?

Just because they're a group I constantly try to promote, Introversion put out a game based on WarGames called "DefCon". You can get a free demo on Steam.

[gollygee]

2. And another thread that both complains about it and perpetuates it. n/t

[boston bean]

3. I can't stand the framing "gender war"

This is a fight for equal rights for women. It's not some war against men.

[Lost_Count]

4. How's that working out for you...?

Any new converts based on the dozens of threads in the last days/weeks?

Or has everyone just gone further into their particular corners?

[Sheldon Cooper]

5. Actually, I've seen a ton of people

expressing their support for feminists here. These are folks who are outright stating that they are not in HOF, and they have always avoided the "gender wars", but they are now finally so disgusted by the juvenile shit that is being perpetrated here by a select few that they have to speak out. So, all in all, I'd say it's working out fine.

[oldhippie]

22. And then, there is the opposite ....

People who used to support feminists and feminist principles that have seen the ugly tactics of many of them and decided that maybe the previous support was mis-guided.

[cyberswede]

24. If people support feminism as a principle, that shouldn't be affected by the "tone" of discussions.

If people don't support feminism to begin with, then maybe...

[polly7]

25. I support feminism and every other movement towards equality, respect and

opportunity as a principle. But it's pretty difficult to believe those that choose to bully, lie about and call others - especially other women, horrible things, support it ... which is the conclusion many seem to have come to.

You can support anything, but if you see abusive treatment day after day towards people who DO have the same core principles I think you have a right to call that out without being labeled 'rape-apologist!', 'MRA supporter!'. 'pedophile enabler!'.

Respect goes both ways.

[oldhippie]

26. So you don't think "tone" affects people's thinking ....

.... on complex subjects? Political campaign strategists would be surprised to know that.

[cyberswede]

29. Maybe for people who lack critical thinking skills...

which is who campaign strategists target.

[Sheldon Cooper]

30. ...

[Skittles]

52. AGREED

yes INDEED

[Scootaloo]

32. Interesting sentiment from an old hippy

But then you DID give me the argument that a 15 year old girl getting murdered was "natural selection" so it's not nearly as surprising as you might think

[oldhippie]

39. Jumping from a general to a specific .....

Little bit of a reach there, Stretch.

[Scootaloo]

43. Not really

A girl deserved to die, according to you, and feminists are no longer worthy of your support because of their "tactics" (like, I guess, posting in a liberal website about feminist topics?)

I think it shows a telling trend in the way you think.

[oldhippie]

66. No, not really .....

A girl deserved to die, according to you, ...

No, I never said that a girl deserved to die. I said that it happens. So you just sorta made that shit up. I would even call that a lie. But juries let people get away with making stuff up all the time.

I think it shows a telling trend in the way you act.

[Sheldon Cooper]

6. Why don't you simply ignore it?

Are you so lacking in control that you can't simply scroll past these threads, or click the little 'x' and make them go away altogether?

[Prophet 451]

7. I did for a long time

There are so many of them now that it's too much trouble.

[Sheldon Cooper]

8. Well, I guess all I can say then is poor you.

[tkmorris]

41. Is that what you do?

[Sheldon Cooper]

44. Yes.

I have a ton of jagoffs on ignore, because they are not worth my time. In addition, when a topic du jour comes up that I don't like, I hide the threads, and hide by keyword too.

Satisfied?

[MadrasT]

9. So sorry people (women and men) speaking up for women's right

to be treated as full human beings and not just sex objects has ruined your day.

[Prophet 451]

10. Yes, that's exactly what I was saying

Thank you for posting a shining example of exactly the kind of guilt-by-snap-assumption that makes me so sick of the gender wars. You know jack shit about me, my beliefs or my opinions on anything at all but just because I'm sick of the gender wars crap, you feel perfectly entitled to leap to a snap judgement that I must be a misogynist. Screw you, you're like the right-winger who complains that anyone criticizing Obama gets labelled racist.

[Katashi_itto]

14. Bravo, very well said. If you don't agree and dare to have a different opinion your automatically

Last edited Thu Feb 20, 2014, 11:04 AM - Edit history (1)

a misogynist. They will warp anything to fit that view too. I regard DU as a waste of time anymore.

Especially when the double standard is in full play:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x8711061

[kcr]

17. Start a thread, people are going to respond

Did you think your "I'm sick of the gender wars!" was somehow going to magically receive different responses from all the other "I'm sick of the gender wars!" threads? No, the poster doesn't know jack shit about you or any of the other posters who started threads exactly like yours. Why are you perfectly entitled to a different response from all the other posters who started those threads.

[RBStevens]

28. Who called you a misogynist?

Seems that you are the one who jumped to a conclusion.

[Prophet 451]

33. Don't play that game

The poster said "So sorry people (women and men) speaking up for women's right to be treated as full human beings and not just sex objects has ruined your day". I chose to summarise that as accusing me of misogyny. Don't start the exact words game.

[RBStevens]

35. Yes I read what was said. That you chose to summarize

that as accusing you of misogyny is jumping to a conclusion which is what you have said others are doing.

That is hypocritical and I play no game.

[Sheldon Cooper]

31. "screw you"???

How charming. I'd alert but I know it wouldn't get hidden. Such is the state of this website. But at least your comment is out there for all the see.

[Prophet 451]

34. Go ahead and alert if you feel the urge

Given what the poster accused me of, I stand by my response.

[RBStevens]

38. You were not "accused" of anything. You "chose" to interpret it that way.

[RBStevens]

45. Ah see? But you know "jack" about me

yet you are now accusing me of either being blind or a troll.

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

[Scootaloo]

36. Well, for one thing it's not "gender wars"

Your framing it as such lets us know much more than "jack" about you. Your posts about how you're "tired of it" give a good insight into your opinion - apparently the problem you have with social content between your sunday lolcats and TYT videos naturally supercedes the problem anyone has with some dedicated trolls making DU a hostile place for women.

Whether you realize it or not, telling people to shut up about an issue - which is exactly what you're doing - places you opposite them, in support of the issue they're on about.

Now what I want to know, issues like this are pretty much the bred and butter of liberalism. So what exactly do you come here for, if you wish to avoid such things? Is it just this subject you don't care for? Are there OP's from you telling people to "shut up with the gay threads" perhaps?

[Prophet 451]

37. I explained all of this a couple of posts below

Look at post 20, in response to justiceischeap.

[Scootaloo]

53. And demonstrated that you don't get it

First off, I reiterate - this is a liberal messageboard, where liberally-oriented topics are going to be discussed. At least it's supposed to be. Feminism and feminist issues are inevitably going to be among these topics. If you dislike that... tough.

Second, you ar very obviously taking sides in this "gender war" you claim to dislike as a whole. The only "villains" are the feminists, the "Our Sisters of Perpetual Outrage" as a HOF poster mockingly used to include in her sig line. It seems to have slipped past your radar all the taunt threads, all the callouts, the mockery of feminism and a very dedicated trolling effort by worthless trashbags. When a poster starts a thread explaining some of the terminology used by misogynists on a rather shitty chunk of the web, and suddenly there's eight different threads with similar but mocking titles, all started by people who have been working very hard to attack and insult anyone who speaks on a feminist topic?

But all you see are those of us who are bothered by such activity. We're the ones at fault. Because, why, because we come to a liberal messageboard, expecting to discuss such topics without constant reactionary bait and trolling? Becuase we expect standards or - god fucking forbid - for the existing standards to be enforced, if they won't be respected?

It's interesting that you are only complaining about anger and frustration being directed at the people who are very intentionally creating a hostile and toxic environment, and not on the people actually doing that. But then you also seem more bothered by people being called misogynists, than with displays of actual misogyny.

Maybe instead of grabbing at your own face and starting off on a knee-jerk "I'mma make a thread to tell these bitches to stfu and know their place!" direction, maybe try.... listening?

[hfojvt]

63. I am listening

and I hear about things like "a group of dedicated trolls".

As for 8 different threads with similarly mocking titles. I don't know if that is a battle strategy as much as the "loungification of GD".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4528985

Not that I was trying to encourage it, but in a sense if one person does it sometimes other people follow along.

And one of the problems here, as I see it, is the nature of the disagreement (which often happens on DU). Not just about feminist issues, but it is starting to seem to me like a serious failure in some liberals. This unwillingness to listen to, or respect, other points of view.

My sort of favorite example was from a debate about Food stamps. DU was kind of evenly split on whether it should be legal to use food stamps to purchase soda. Well and good, there could be a discussion about that, but it seemed like one side said

I do NOT think you should be able to buy soda with food stamps.

whereas the other side said

I DO think you should be able to buy soda with food stamps AND I think those against it are authoritarian control freaks.

The basic principle seems to be "there are NO decent people who disagree with me/us". There are the good people on our side and the bad people on the other side.

Anybody who is against us is a "dedicated troll", a "misogynist", a "misogynist enabler", a "wilfully ignorant fool who just doesn't get it", a "PINO", a "rightwinger", an "authoritarian", a "sensible woodchuck", a "blind partisan", a "hypocrite". Any number of names that can be used to denigrate somebody who questions, or worse yet, disputes, the absolute dogma of our gang.

Basically a defective person who is a Shark - not a real member of our gang - the Jets. And there's only one way to deal with a Shark.

RUMBLE!!!!

[Pretzel_Warrior]

48. No. This topic needs a quiet period and you know it

[Old and In the Way]

55. When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

[justiceischeap]

11. I don't generally participate in these types of threads

however, I just want to point out the obvious. When you refer to something as a "war" you are part of the problem--whether you are misogynist or not you are perpetuating the idea that this specific topic is life or death. That there is a winner and a loser. When you frame a discussion in that way, you've already lost, and I'll repeat, part of the problem.

Complaining about this topic, when everyone on DU should be standing for equality for all, is only adding to the problem. For example, if a large segment of the women on DU are offended by someone posting the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue cover in GD, instead of creating a thread whining about the "gender wars" and if you support equality for all, then you should be saying, maybe it's not such a smart idea to post something so divisive. One could assume that the reason that was posted was specifically to set-off said "gender war" in the first place. So maybe instead of complaining about discussion that comes out of such a thread, maybe you should be taking to task the person who posted it as flame bait.

[Prophet 451]

20. Hmm

I used the term "gender war" since that seems to have become the accepted term here for the constant barrage of threads concenred with whether X or Y is or isn't sexist/misogynist/misandrist. I do take your point about the connotations of the word though, that's something I hadn't considered.

This isn't specifically about the SI thing. It's more about a seemingly endless stream of threads about... Trying to think of a good way to explain it... You know how conservative Christians are offended by everything? How they're perpetually outraged because they think the world spends as long looking for ways to offend them as they do looking for excuses to be offended? The constant drumbeat of "we're so victimised"? That's how these threads tend to come across. As this self-perpetuating fount of outrage where if you disagree on anything at all, you're instantly labelled sexist/misogynist (see the poster a couple above you). There's also the perception that a lot of responses to these threads come across, rightly or wrongly, as anti-men. Posters feel free to make blanket condemnations of men and if you as a man point out that it isn't true of you, you're condemned for "making it all about you". I'm not going to post examples because now that I need them, I won't be able to find any but I have seen this happen. Of course, as an anonymous poster on a website, you have no reason to believe me, I get that.

These threads don't come off as "discussion". They come off as a place for people to tell each other how outraged they are, post trite "right on!" sayings, engage in simplistic buzzwords about complex problems and condemn anyone who dares to disagree. It comes across like the audience at a witch trial.

Of course, I believe in equality for all. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. And I'm a bisexual Satanist of mixed race, I'd be first on the pyre if the fundiegelicals get their way. But I think a lot of these threads cross the line of becoming more heat and less light, more outrage and condemnation. One I remember started by telling a story about some horrific abuse of a woman and, in the middle of that, suddenly started blaming the whole thing on porn. And instantly, we've gone from sympathising with this poor woman to pushing a pretty radical hobbyhorse and, of course, if you don't agree with that condemnation of porn, you must not sympathise with this woman. There's a point where these threads go from being sharing something for information or sympathy, to just being a bludgeon to beat people who disagree.

Yes, there is still far too much real sexism in the world. Yes, a site like DU should be helping to fight that. But when we have thread after thread about this stuff, somewhere along the line, it stops being about fighting injustice and starts being about finding excuses to feel outraged just for the nice self-righteous feeling it gives you.

Anyway, that was somewhat rambling and I'm not sure it made sense but that's how I'm feeling about it.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

46. That is bullshit. It is a war. And you are perpetuating it

[justiceischeap]

50. How am I perpetuating the war?

Please, do tell me.

[Feral Child]

56. So, your answer

is that if everyone takes your side, there'll be no conflict?


Can't argue with that logic...

[justiceischeap]

57. My answer is exactly what I typed

If you call something a "war" it will be treated as such.

[Feral Child]

60. I read what you typed.

You think everyone needs to agree that only one group has a grievance.


Personally, I think that particular thread was probably intended to provoke the opposition party. I also think that BOTH sides in the trash-fest have provoked the other on numerous occasions.

Both sides need to stop screwing around. It's devolved to a state where nothing is discussed, there's just mass ventings of rage. It's beyond ridiculous and borders on neurosis.

At least one person is on a 2nd time-out over this nonsense. I don't know all the players, but I'm sure both sides have taken losses. If it's a "war", it's a war of attrition and we know well how those fare.

[justiceischeap]

62. Hence my suggestion that it not be treated like a war

stakes are different in war. I've been around for some time and I've seen many of these wars and am familiar with many of the players. Both "sides" are doing more harm than good.

[Feral Child]

64. I'll agree with that.

But blaming one side or the other is pointless. All that does is remind them about the others transgressions, and both sides have been ugly, antagonistic and shrill.

There will be no resolution. Both groups will continue the sniping until Admin steps in.


I regret engaging you, since I've sworn off these threads.

If I've offended, my apologies. I don't want to be part of the problem. Think I'll wander off to LBN now...

EDIT: removed a misleading statement, was momentarily confused w/ another thread.

[deutsey]

12. I've been here since spring 2001

Yeah, this is one of the low points, in my personal opinion. I have been trashing more threads than I have ever done before since the function became available.

However, there have been some prolonged trench-flamewars around election primaries, too.

In my time here, it seems to ebb and flow.

[Harmony Blue]

15. Our society is changing

some cling to the past while others don't want to embrace the path ahead.

[snooper2]

16. how long have you been playing Gender Wars?

Gender Wars PC game video
Footage of Gender Wars game developed by SCI in 1995. It's a isometric shooter similar in style to syndicate unfortunately it suffers from a few issues with the AI getting stuck on corners and objects, meaning often your team mates require a lot of micromanaging to get them to follow you.

Category

Gaming
License

Standard YouTube License

[Prophet 451]

21. Holy shit! Is that real?

1995 would explain why it looks so awful but, wow.

[DLevine]

19. wise decision. nt

[JVS]

27. I think this is because of the move from moderated forum to juries enforcing community standards.

Back then you had to have a rule violation, now you just need someone to dislike your opinion and get lucky with a jury.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

42. That's funny. My post title was almost exactly the same

It got over 300 replies before it was locked as Meta. A lot of DU agrees with you.

[In_The_Wind]

47. Count me in on that.

[Prophet 451]

49. I didn't know Meta threads weren't allowed

Serves me right for not reading the rules closely when it was updated to DU3. I guess we're just supposed to be silent.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

51. Oh people post meta threads all of the time

Many survive. Some don't.

[Phentex]

54. I wonder if it's because there is no meta forum anymore...

seems to me meta posts in GD were locked pretty close to immediately early on in DU3. Now, you are correct. Some stay forever and others are locked.

[Feral Child]

58. I do. n/t

[Maedhros]

59. This issue extends beyond discussions of feminism.

In any discussion on DU in which there is conflict between opposing points-of-view, there are some posters who believe that sneering, mocking and belittling somehow substitutes for valid argument. Eventually the discussions devolve into two bickering camps, with thoughtful posters attempting to address legitimate points in the midst of a maelstrom of vitriol.

The solution is less sneering, mocking and belittling across the board.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

61. Here was my thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024513828#post180

[niyad]

65. and we are sick of having to be on the front lines of this war.