This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The main point that I absolutely give the feminists is that physical abuse by males is far more dangerous for women, in terms of the actual harm that can be inflicted, casually.
Likewise, a male is much more capable of raping (in the most basic sense, literal forced penetration) the average female than the reverse.
Now this is based on the differential in physical strength between the genders, so acknowledging this issues dismantles almost all of the rest of the feminist perspective, but I accept it as truth.
So we are faced with a situation where male abusers are a far greater risk factor than female ones, all else equal. And they're absolutely able to deceive and manipulate their way into a position to be abusive, they don't wear a giant tattoo on their face saying "I <3 punching females" so its not trivial to pick them out of the crowd.
Okay, some of them DO wear the equivalent of such a tattoo.
I'm fully on board with the need to heavily police male behavior... but that has to be done by males. Such males ALSO have to be selected to not be abusive, so you want them to be males that also have some skin in the game, some investment in the safety of the females in question.
Sooooo: Fathers. Brothers. Husbands.
Sigh.
And that's the mistake that got you feminism/gynosupremacy in the first place- so instead of male abusers that beat you, you have female abusers who will [have] you beaten if you don't pay a pre-emptive penalty for the beating it's assumed you'll do.
A beating by proxy is still a beating.
Yeah, because it's out of fashion; given way to modern women putting giant tattoos on their faces saying "I <3 male tears". (It's the pointed librarian glasses and the danger hair, in case you were curious.) Ah yes, but that isn't "harmful", only the male version of it is- it's not like we can pre-emptively judge KKK members in full regalia for racism, right?
And I'm fully on board with the need to police female behavior just as heavily in the ways it generally acts out. This hysterical bullshit is just as destructive; but it's a burn slow enough that we can blame the designated abuse gender for not being happy with it. We can start by making it illegal to express opinions like the one this politician has.
Which, given historic DV rates, they're not actually better (especially husbands). I get that the average traditionalists think men were ever any good at this, but they failed pretty hard in the '50s and '60s (and quite a bit before that, re: prohibition).
Nah, the issue here is that its not a random selection.
Its like the stat that more people are killed by cows than sharks every year.
There's a lot more cows, and humans interact with cows far more often. A shark is, all else equal, much more dangerous to the human.
So a stranger can in fact be more individually dangerous, even if the perpetrator of an incident of abuse is more likely to be someone they know.
If a woman interacts with her husband daily then of course the husband is the most likely person to commit any abuse. Doesn't mean he's the most dangerous male she actually encounters.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link