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Yes it does trivialise the suffering of domestic abuse victims: the idea that abuse against men doesn't happen (it does) or doesn't matter (it does) basically is what enabled the abuse I went through. There's a perverse logic at work that basically starts from the premise that abuse is something that happens to women and not to men – therefore the older woman who forced herself on me when I was 8 must not have been abuse, the older woman (someone different) who would beat me for 15-20 minutes at a time when I was around 14 must not have been abuse, and the ex-girlfriend who thought it was entertaining to gouge at my hand with the rings she wore (literally because it was fun) must not have been abuse. This kind of dismissive attitude towards the abuse I received has come from both traditional and feminist circles; male feminists more so (most of the feminists who reacted compassionately were women), although I find those who blame “other-men/male-attitudes/patriarchy” tend to be far worse than said other-men/male-attitudes/patriarchy. Because the traditional camp at least acknowledges that I was mistreated (while usually advising me to just endure it stoically), while the ones putting the blame on other men have consistently in my experience used it as a means of victim-blaming or to make me feel ashamed of speaking up. Yes it is actively harmful, because it goes a long way towards encouraging the attitude that a man in pain is not allowed to speak about it. In some ways I don't want the ironic misandry to stop – because it's not ironic, and they announce their callousness in a way that helps me identify abusers. They declare their malice openly, and so I can limit my interaction with them. It's easier to not take what they say personally because I know they are vicious people who would say anything they thought they could get away with saying in order to further hurt someone they find vulnerable. I want these people to advertise. The dangerous ones are the people who take the attitude that violence against men is less severe (it isn't) – that attitude is a huge factor in why I endured abuse for so long, because I was essentially gaslighted by people who insisted that DV was less severe when it happened to men. If what happens to men is less severe then what was being done to me must not be a big deal… Essentially that is the truly harmful attitude that extended my vulnerability to abuse. There's also a subtle prescriptive attitude in place; the violence will be seen as less severe because it is happening to a man, and becomes a vicious circle that encourages people to ignore or downplay the violence that is happening. Give me ironic misandry over that any day of the week, because I can't confuse the ironic misandry for an attempt at well-meaning or helpful. Or, men are seen as not needing shelters. Presumably this is believed to be the case since they're not using shelters (you know, the shelters that don't accept men :| ). I bring this up because I think the true barrier for men leaving toxic relationships is the potential for guilty-until-proven-innocent witch hunts against a man who tries to leave. I know false allegations are kind of a cliché, but does anyone seriously believe an abuser would not use a false claim of abuse against her victim? Give me ironic misandry over the attitude that men don't need the help any day of the week. I would prefer 1000 ironic misandrists to 1 of the people trying to claim that the severity of DV against men is lesser. I think of the future-brother-in-law who was knifed by a woman he was dating… but it's not as severe, right? I think of the 15-20 minute beating I received from someone who paced herself so she could continue beating me for longer without getting tired… but it's not as severe, right? I think of my best friend who was attacked while he was sleeping… but it's not as severe, right? Bahar Mustafa was a problem because of the office she held – her “jokes” just revealed her contempt for some of the people she would be dealing with as a diversity officer, and her willingness to abuse her position. Some victims use self-deprecation as a way to speak of their pain in a more comfortable fashion, and I don't want to rule out humour as a coping strategy, so safe-spaces or forbidden language becomes a whole new can of worms that I expect to do more harm than good – the obstacle I face is that I'm so heavily discouraged from speaking of what happened to me. Suppressing another voice, no matter how objectionable I find it, is not really a solution for me. The problem is the difficulty finding those people willing to hear from a man who has been abused. EDIT: So-called ironic misandry is a symptom of the problem, not the cause. Trying to get rid of it will just conceal the symptom without addressing the core problem. From the perspective of someone who has suffered abuse, I want the symptom to be visible, because it's the insidious kind of trivialisation that really hurts. Which is why I want more discussion. I don't think we're ever going to stop the trivialisation of abuse against men, but it will do far more to help if men become more aware of abusive behaviours against them, the harm they can cause, and ways people will try to trivialise it - that way they can form effective strategies to protect themselves against further abuse. For me at least, an important aspect of my ongoing recovery from that abuse is recognising habits or beliefs I held that made me such an easy target (such as chivalry and appeasement, where I saw it as my responsibility to make her happy). Suppression is a temporary measure at best. I favour a long-term solution where men have a better understanding of healthy and unhealthy relationships. Railtus fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Mar 3, 2016 |
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Mar 3, 2016 16:39
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Talmonis posted:Absolutely. I don't know about a lof of the posters here, but I understand what you've gone through. My wife gets frustrated with me when I apologize profusely for things she gets mad at that I have nothing to do with. Or when I react with a flinch when she yells at something. Or (one I need to stop somehow) putting myself in between her and the cats or our son. It breaks her heart to see that reaction to what is just a minor expression of frustration. But to me, it's just a reminder that "I need to fix it." or "I need to take the beating so my sister doesn't (in this case, cats & son)". I know that she's not abusive. I know she'd not hurt our son or the cats. But you can't turn it off. I grew up trying to keep my (unknown to me) abusive mother from leaving us. I felt that since my father was always working, it was my responsiblity to appease the lunatic in the next room, so that I still have a family for another day. When you're in that situation, you don't see it for what it is. You just do what you can to solve it. Talking about it without riducle from your peers is very important. Thank you, I appreciate you telling me about this. It's not often easy stuff to share. I think breaking the silence is very valuable, although I'm not entirely sure what to add. I'm very glad you're with someone that you're safe with, and presumably happy with. Far too often I've seen people with similar experiences to ours bounce from abusive relationship to abusive relationship, seeking an emotionally corrective experience (aka: “form a relationship with a guano crazy lady so she will not act like a guano crazy lady”). My partner helped me overcome a lot of the programming I went through, mostly by teaching me that I don't need to rescue her from all her problems, that she doesn't need special treatment, and that I don't need to be the one to fix everything, sometimes she can fix things as well and it's OK for her to do so. Those were really important lessons. Recovery is still an ongoing process. On the subject of being able to talk without ridicule being very important, you're always welcome to talk to me about these things if you would find it helpful. If you want to go off-topic for this debate thread, I had an old thread some months ago we could use ( http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3740698 ).
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Mar 4, 2016 01:32
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rudatron posted:Ultimately I don't think misogyny/misandry/patriarchy are good labels, the theory has evolved to such a point that it's not useful to think of it in terms of 'hate' or 'rulership', but ideology. Like patriarchy isn't an actually coherent system like oligarchy, it's a language, a virus, a set of symbolic associations, a religion, a set of faulty assumptions, etc. Though I know how that must sound, "The etymology is wrong, what a tragedy", but I think it's important to have the right first impression. Which I kind of think is what motivates the thread topic in the first place, as a framing of something to do with the relations between sexes only (which is why the constant refrain to the rape of women getting highlighted is 'well men get raped to'), when the correct framing should be of one ideology versus another - the 'traditionalism' that disempowers women and shits on effeminate men for the sake of enforcing highly constrained & demeaning gender roles, and, well the feminism that seeks to grant people freedom to self-express. I agree the labels tend to be pretty bad. Labels like “Patriarchy” and “Feminism” attempt to shoe-horn a gender onto a point of view, and even the very notion of “Patriarchy” seems to presume the old-fashioned gendered assumptions of men as actors and women as acted upon. I would find terms like Traditionalism & Egalitarianism as far better for discussion the actual issues and belief systems in place, rather than attempting to assign a gender to one side or the other. I'll stop there because I don't want to get drawn too far into a discussion that's gone beyond the original topic. Or, to turn it back to how it relates to my experiences, being seen as part of the “oppressor-class” or a “not the real victims” seems to contribute a lot towards the trivialisation I encounter.
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Mar 4, 2016 14:17
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rudatron posted:I actually think 'feminism' is a fine label, most for historical reasons, but hell it has the -ism suffix, what more do you want from an ideology? More seriously, what you point out is actually part of traditionalist ideology, that unfortunately seeps into people who would otherwise regard themselves as progressive or whatever. This takes it's most obvious expression in TERFs, who fundamentally see all men as kind of predatory, and therefore transwomen as just another expression or avenue of that predation. That's obviously different to the more usual expectation that men should be predatory, and if they're not then there's something wrong with them, they're not manly enough or whatever, but similar assumptions are being made. First of all, I want to murder your gif. It's so distracting when I'm trying to think of an intelligent comment. :P There's definitely a lot of confusion. I also think the idea of “feminism = women's rights” would also attract a lot of traditionalists who want to 'champion' women, which would encourage a lot of that overlap and misunderstanding. I gave up on the word largely because it stopped telling me anything useful about the views of the people using the label; it could describe views similar to Karen DeCrow or beliefs more like Sally Miller Gearhart. rudatron posted:So to turn it back to your case, Railtus, the reformation would be that there aren't victimizers in the usual sense when we're talking about this trivialization (ie criminal, like the people who abused you), but people who fit and people who don't. People's whose experience and position largely confirms their emotional attachment to the dominant ideology (them), and those who cannot make that reconciliation (you). It's then totally natural to want to discard information if it doesn't fit, which is why you got trivialized, but everyone does it everywhere, just on different things. Hell, you have to, you can't afford to take everyone and everything at their word, that'd just lead to themselves being abused. That sounds very accurate, from what I've seen – I definitely got the impression that I was/am perceived as a threat to their world-view, and an almost panicked-seeming defence of it. There also seemed to be on occasion this kind of outrage that I spoke up, like I was taking something away from people who mattered more than I did, or they were equating "threat to our world-view" with "threat to women." It probably doesn't help that my experiences oppose feminist narratives to such ridiculous extremes; my background was women holding power and authority that they received for being women, and this gender-specific social power being the primary factor that made the abuse possible, because they as women had a license to commit abuse and I as a boy (as a male child specifically, rather than just as a child) was obligated to take the abuse without complaint. The interesting part about people assuming I provoked the abuse in some way, with the woman seen as fighting back against my unknown crime, is that it is an incredibly traditionalist form of thinking; it assumes I have the power to make her behave in those ways, glossing over any decision-making power on her part = men are actors and women are acted upon. People who theoretically should be most against that line of thinking were ironically the people practising these brands of traditionalism the most aggressively. I definitely see the framing as a powerful force at work, and honestly I think the main obstacles to knowledge/understanding/solutions is that the framing has been pushed forward to the point that anything outside that framing becomes heresy just for existing outside the framing - like the framing is overshadowing the original goal.
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Mar 4, 2016 19:42
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GAH! Yes, I do get what you're saying, and I don't disagree. Investment in a belief system happens to anyone. I was expanding on what you said about traditionalism seeping into people who would otherwise describe themselves as progressive, since it was something I had witnessed in action. Sorry for any confusion there. Also, as an aside, I'd prefer referring to the ex who abused me as “ex” rather than “partner” please – just to avoid any confusion between my partner (who is wonderful) and my ex (who was abusive). I know it's probably a little overprotective on my part, but I just don't want to accidentally give a bad impression of my partner.
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Mar 5, 2016 02:54
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wiregrind posted:Prankster misandry has no effect on those already comfortable with traditional masculinity, you don't see them complaining about ironic misandry. The ones who talk about it are outcasts, misfits, and men who were abused. I wasn't sure how to interpret this at first, because comments that sound *like* it can be used to further shame the men who are vulnerable, essentially claiming “only losers have a problem with it” - but after reading again I doubt that your intention was anything of the sort, in which case you do highlight a good point that the guys who represent the “traditional masculinity” that is considered a bad thing are a very different population to the guys who are affected by ironic misandry. rudatron posted:Apologizes, you did say you had a new partner, so I should have caught that. No problem, I knew what you meant (although my partner and I have been together for nearly 8 years now, so it's not exactly new).
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Mar 6, 2016 01:45
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Cakebaker posted:My point was, what connects an experience like that to feminists trolling back at dumb sexist regressive men? What binds the abused man to the plight of the abusing man, just because women can also abuse? None it it makes any sense to me. What abused man? Calling men who complain dumb sexist regressives is a very easy way to dismiss the abused man by presenting him as an abuser instead. Any accounts that do not conform to the narrative can be dismissed as weak whiny losers failing at being men, and since they're whiny their problems are not real, meaning they can be ignored. Once that mentality is in place, men who don't benefit from the existing social structures are viewed as objects of scorn rather than sympathy. And any accounts of abusive women can be dismissed, because if he's whining over nothing and describes a conflict with a woman, she must have been fighting back against his oppression. Ergo, he must be the real abuser. Non-conformance to the narrative becomes a punishable offence. The men who don't benefit from the existing social structures become seen as unworthy for not having those benefits. The only reason I don't think it's the ideal way to promote toxic ideas of masculinity (wouldn't you seek power and display it constantly if the absence of power made you a target and presumed to be an abuser as well?) is because the prejudice is sufficiently blatant to not be confused for a healthy mentality, so guys can look at this and know this person is not their friend. At least, that's why I see it that way. Other abused men may have their own reasons. Blue Star posted:Does anyone have any proof that men are chastized for showing emotion or being vulnerable? It seems to be a common belief but i've never seen it. Men don't get criticized for crying or showing emotional vulnerability; women do! It's women who have to control their emotions at all times, but men can just express whatever and there's always a good excuse for it. If a woman cries, people think "oh typical women, they can't control themselves", but if a man cries people are like "Oh that poor man, he's very brave for showing his vulnerability". Women have to keep a lid on their emotions all the time, and consequently they're actually better at controlling their emotions. What would you accept as proof? That's not an attack, it's food for thought, and also I want to check whether you would be wanting me to dig up an impartial study with sufficiently reliable methodology from the appropriate source and so on, or whether my experiences would count. I ask this in part because I'm finding sharing what happened to me somewhat theraputic, but I don't generally enjoy online arguments where I have to prove everything - digging up research papers is less fun under those circumstances. Another factor is I suspect we might look at the exact same event and interpret it two very different ways. In my experience “oh typical woman, they can't control themselves” was usually used in the context of why I should have appeased her better so she didn't hit me. It was as though the expected standard of behaviour was so much lower for women that I was unreasonable for not anticipating her every wish so that I didn't get woken up by her screaming at me from an inch away from my face, or so I wouldn't get household objects thrown at me. The general pattern is that it felt like I had to be emotionally stable for both parties, comforting and reassuring her, essentially soaking up her outbursts and being the understanding one, without any expectation of receiving any of the same support. When I had the misfortune of sharing a Prince's Trust course with my ex, the coordinator quite happily watched while my ex hit me and taunted me and called me names every day repeatedly throughout the day, but was quick to try chastising me if I so much as raised my arms to stop her blows. When I attempted to seek proper channels and formal complaints procedures, he kept trying to discourage me with “Be a man, laugh it off.” menino posted:Brene Brown cites in her book "Daring Greatly" actually that women often are characterized as being the most contemptuous of make vulnerability. But she didn't offer any data. There's some interesting commentary (for people who haven't read the book) here - http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/messages-of-shame-are-organized-around-gender/275322/ - if anyone is interested.
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Mar 6, 2016 22:56
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nigga crab pollock posted:im taking about straight up purposeful manipulation of one person's perception with elaborate lies, passive aggressive button pressing, strange responses to normal behavior that make you question if what you did was normal or not, and dismissing the other party's concerns off the bat while demanding all their concerns be met. not just petty squabbling over minutae both parties remembered differently - straight up abusive behavior. I believe you. For what it's worth I remember how every expression of concern or distress or nearly any feeling at all could be twisted into an accusation – pressuring you or me to apologise and thus avoiding any examination of their behaviour. It is a convenient way for them to go on the attack to force you constantly on the defensive. I would never wish it on anyone and I'm sorry you went through that.
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Mar 7, 2016 13:28
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menino posted:I still don't get how acknowledging the downsides of patriarchy for men has to imply that women are not hugely adversely affected too. Because patriarchy gets viewed as a system built for men's benefit at the expense of women, with “patriarchy hurts men too” being nothing more than a glib dismissal used to deflect any criticism of that view as “not my responsibility”. If patriarchy hurts men to a significant degree, then the system is not built for men's benefit (or at least not men as a whole or as a group or as a class), and therefore the concept of patriarchy as a system built for men's benefit at the expense of women starts to fall apart. And they cannot see themselves as good people for fighting that system if they start doubting whether there really is that system. Ergo we must live in a patriarchy that benefits men at the expense of women, and the downsides for men must be minor and trivial and not worth talking about. If talking about those downsides is unavoidable, such in this thread, such talking must be limited to constant reminders that men are to blame for any downsides.
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Mar 8, 2016 02:25
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Popular Thug Drink posted:is women's freedom of speech to say #KillAllMen really a downside for men? it hardly seems like a downside, at the end of the day i am not dead because of internet words By downsides for men, I was thinking more of the things I experienced such as sustained beatings and the time I was molested, where the primary reason I was at any risk at all was because of gendered social power that authorised them as women to commit violence and obligated me as male to absorb that violence (and cut me off from access to help). Now these had already been mentioned in the thread, and you are apparently reading my comments based on the fact that you quoted me, meaning you knew that you were addressing someone who has experienced gendered physical, psychological and sexual abuse and yet you still attempt to characterise the downsides for men as “women's freedom of speech” and “internet words”. That is a clear and unambiguous attempt at trivialisation. Thankfully it is so clear and unambiguous that it lacks the subtlety required to effectively hurt me, although I'm not used to the attempts at trivialisation being quite so conscious and deliberate. You're calling it "women's freedom of speech" and "internet words" in the full awareness that you are replying to someone who was the target of childhood sexual violence, and was a target of such specifically as a downside of being male. Yes, I am belabouring the point a little, because this is the kind of thing I would struggle to believe was real without directly witnessing it in action, and I think it's worth people seeing that it happens. Popular Thug Drink posted:you're right about this, #KillAllMen would probably carry more weight as a threat if there had ever at any point in history been a sustained program of violence and oppression targeted at men in general That is moving goalposts: “men in general” implies men of all creeds, nations, classes, races, sexualities, and so on – targeting men regardless of background. That is a much higher standard of evidence than we use to recognise Violence Against Women; when we use that standard of “women in general” we might struggle to find a campaign of violence against women collectively that was likewise indiscriminate of other factors. katlington posted:Is this like soldiers are usually men so wars are violence against men or something? That is a small aspect of it – although it sounds far less far-fetched when you consider the frequency of conscription in wars. There's also gendered idea that it's a man's duty to risk his life on behalf of women, or that we list “women and children” killed as though the men who are killed have less gravity or value. Generally though, I think the issue is less conscious than “let's make men suffer” and more a case of men as targets-by-default. When violence against women is regarded as an especially heinous crime, whereas other violence is somehow more acceptable, that means that the violence is more easily condoned when the primary targets are men. I'll share a wikipedia quote from here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_men quote:Mass killings I think the issue is that we take notice when killings do not specifically single out men. When violence that concentrates on men specifically is just seen as normal violence, that raises the standard of proof needed for the male-targeting violence to receive any acknowledgement as being gendered, because there's an implicit belief that violence in general "should" target men primarily. It's a negative/passive form of prejudice defined more by apathy and indifference or contempt rather than active hatred, so instead than a drive specifically to harm men it is more that violence that happens to men fails to generate the same outrage that should be generated by all violence. There's not the same barriers in place. So there's not the same rhetoric necessarily, or the rhetoric that does exist and is genuine gets passed off as trivial, but there are definitely consequences to being the acceptable targets of violence. nigga crab pollock posted:its all in the context of a society whose expected response is to dismiss your experiences and belittle you. the people who champion the fall of this social construct use the exact same methods of belittling as that social construct except for completely different reasons Kind of. I see it as using different sets of rationalisations and justifications for fundamentally very similar attitudes by people who depend upon that social construct and in many cases who are that social construct. Same system, different decoration. We have gotten in this thread a hammering of "men should shrug off their problems and focus on women's issues", which lines up very effectively with the traditionalist-conservative belief that men should be stoic and that men as a class are collectively responsible for safety and happiness of women as a class collectively. Railtus fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Mar 8, 2016 |
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Mar 8, 2016 15:28
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420 Gank Mid posted:Who else do you think tweets out #killallmen? I would confirm that. There have been self-identified feminists who have shown genuine compassion towards me, whether because of their feminism or independent of their feminism, and they have always been (in my experience) very different to the #KillAllMen crowd.
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Mar 8, 2016 18:46
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