Why is DU in a gender war anyway?

[gollygee]

25. OMG wish me luck but I'm going to answer this!

And only because I think people don't see or understand the other perspective, and maybe it'll help clear things up if you do. Maybe I have a desire to start off the new year with some clearer communication. Or maybe this is a mistake and is going to turn into a mess.

People on DU post about all sorts of progressive issues, not just feminist issues, but obviously including feminist issues. There's nothing "gender war" about starting a post about a feminist issue.

But something happens in threads about feminist issues that doesn't seem to happen in threads about other issues. Except threads about race, I've noticed. We get the "+1" and "I read about that" and other types of responses, but we get a few responses that say something like, "Why are you telling us this?" or "That isn't just a problem for women" or "why is this on DU" or whatever. And then those responses turn into flame wars.

To me, THAT is where the gender war problem starts. If you see something about how you should give decent tips to waitstaff, do people ask why people feel like they have to tell people at DU that? Do people say, "Waitstaff aren't the only underpaid workers!" No, you have a bunch of responses that are "+1" and some talking about how they figure tips. But feminist issues give people what looks almost like an allergic response, certainly anyway a response that other issues don't give people.

I don't think that's the fault of feminists posting feminist issues. And yeah there's been so much blowback against any feminist issue at all being posted in GD that we're getting pissed off about it and are probably sounding pissed off some of the time. That's what happens.

Feminist issues are going to be posed on GD just like other issues are talked about here. It's a progressive community and feminist issues are progressive issues.