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Notes -
A few thoughts on the male feminist sex pest.
With the (in internet terms, not very) recent news of Neil Gaiman's escapades, a lot has been said about the agency (or lack thereof) of women, and to the corrupting effect of fame on men, but I've been giving some thought again to the Male Feminist Sex Pest phenomenon.
Most people here are probably aware of it, it's notable enough to get a comic from good ol' Stonetoss. Basically, the idea is that male feminists are disproportionately prone to acts of sexual misconduct.
What is the reason for this? I've been thinking about a few possible ones:
The MFSP as a predator: The classic right-wing stereotype. Guys of dubious moral character will take up an ideology with the intent of making potential victims lower their guards.
The MFSP as salience bias: Basically, male feminists are not particularly rapey, it's just more suprising so it makes the news. This could be true, but is basically impossible to verify in either direction.
The Male Feminist as a man struck with guilt: In this formulation, the man's bad behaviour is in their past, and their male feminist views are, in a way, compensation for the fact that he has behaved shittily towards women.
The Male Feminist as a man seeking absolution: If all or most men behave poorly, then the male feminist's past behaviour is not particularly noteworthy. By subscribing to the most deranged feminist assumptions, the male feminist can morph from a "bad man" to just "a man", or even a "good man", because at least they're willing to fight their deplorable male instincts.
The Male Feminist as a man stuck in time: For this man, being a feminist means some vague notion of "equal rights" and it being acceptable to have non-committal sex with younger girls. This is not in line with which more modern feminists believe, as he might eventually find out.
I am aware this is not the audience most in tune with the mentioned cohort, but what do you guys think? Any of the above resonate more? A little bit of each? Something else entirely?
As an aside, the last few explanations imply a type of person that people here might be very familiar with: the nerdy anti-feminist nice guy (no capitalization). It is perfectly possible, as an upper-middle class guy in a moderately to very liberal environment who doesn't like partying or going clubbing, to never notice the behaviour many women complain about (because neither you, nor your close friends and family engage in it), see that they don't seem to be particularly disadvantaged in any of the environments they interact with them, see that their ire is directed very broadly at men in general, and conclude that the whole thing might just be a scam.
The simplest explanation in my eyes is:
Male feminists, being feminists, tend to hang around with female feminists.
Female feminists are more likely to make sexual misconduct accusations at any given level of sexual pestiness than are non-feminist women.
It’s Simpson’s Paradox all the way down.
Am I more likely to make sexual misconduct accusations at any given level of sexual pestiness? That’s news to me. What evidence do you have that maintains that belief? And what is a “non-feminist” woman, according to you?
I'm going to upvote all your posts so you get out of the filter already, I promise that's the only reason though.
It’s ok, I’ll forgive you this one time ;)
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I suspect she'll drop back into it (if you even manage to get her out of it) due to all the downvotes she gets; AIUI it's (upvotes - downvotes) that determines whether you're filtered. There's a reason 80-90% of mod actions are approvals of SJer posts.
It's not 80%-90%, but yes, someone who is a consistently liberal poster will unfortunately stay in the new user filter because they get downvoted so much the system cannot distinguish between "someone with unpopular opinions" and "troll." We're actually working on a solution.
First two pages of the mod log have 40 approvals and 10 other actions (first four pages 81 approvals and 19 other actions), although I suppose a few of those approvals were of actual noobs and that might be above average. (Note that I'm counting a modpost and the ban (if any) accompanying it as separate actions here, because that's what the mod log does.)
A solution would be neat, both to help retention and to save you guys some time.
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