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Nerdy men were the first to get access to internet pornography, and for a while it was associated with them. Now guys in the slums of Nigeria are watching it on smartphones. Nerds were the first to have access to online conspiracy content. Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams! Muh Magic Bullet! Now the same conspiracy stuff is hitting young women. From an NYT report about a women's conference:
Women are more hostile to COVID vaccination, perhaps reflecting a female urge to make politics revolve around their bodies.
Many people here have been asking about my politics: it's actually remarkably simple: I want the old America back where children were born within marriage, didn't try to change their gender, and got all the vaccines their pediatrician recommended.
To Rightists with daughters reading this: are you concerned that they might encounter "natural family planning" on the internet and really f*** up their life?
Despite rules about writing as if everyone is reading and you want them to be included, I often see posts like these which assume no female readers. That’s one of the many reasons I mostly lurk.
But this:
You could just ask us. This has an answer. Or at least, I have an answer as to why I have mostly soured on the COVID vaccine and I will not be subjecting my children to it. Hint: It’s not because I want politics to revolve around my body. At least no more than men want to make politics revolve around their bodies.
It’s because ever since I “trusted the experts” and eagerly took the vaccine back in 2021, my life has been miserable for a few days out of every month. As an outcry of women rose up, the news happily reported that this was a “rare” side effect and would go away in a couple months. They basically told us to shut up about it and to stop getting in the way of the solution to COVID. It has been more than four years and I am still suffering the same as when I first got the vaccine. And I know of others in the same boat.
I don’t know of any who are speaking out publicly. That “shut up” command got through loud and clear. However, considering what it has done to some of us, I am not surprised that women tend to be more “hostile” to COVID vaccination.
Yeah. My wife already had an autoimmune condition which seriously worsened after taking the covid vaccine. We even tried to get an exemption for her since she has had similar issues with other vaccines and we saw the early case reports on young women with autoimmune diseases, to no avail. And we're hardly layman, we're both scientists with relevant expertise. Covid was a major blackpill for us on the topic of trusting scientific consensus. If we get shut out like this for a mildly inconvenient opinion (we're not even fully sceptics for the covid vaccine in particular - I took my doses with no problems nor expectations of such), imagine the pressure for even less popular ones! Of course it did not come as a complete surprise due to earlier experiences, but it really solidified our opinion of academics.
On the first part though I disagree strongly. People frequently write something like "men do/are X" with nobody complaining, and the same goes for plenty of smaller groups. If you disagree, just do so in writing, as you did; It's what everyone else does, and a good reason to stop lurking.
Me I got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after the vaccines and my wife had blood clots. For both we didn't even bother mentionning or ask doctors if there was any possible links with the vaccines, out of fear of being seen as "those kind of people", and doctors didn't inquire or propose it as possible reasons. Not saying either of us have had vaccine side effects, and there are plausible alternative explanations for both of us, but then again how do we know for sure it's not the vaccine? I wonder how many people have had side effects that were not being properly recorded because they knew that in blue environments it would code them as people to ignore and shun.
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