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 -
Can men respect women as agents?
For all its hypocrisies, there is one aspect of girlboss feminism that continues to seem valid to me, and which makes me frustrated on behalf of women. I am talking about whether men (and women?) can respect or admire or empathize with a woman on the basis of her actions in the world or the way she wields power.
I was recently tickled but these posts on twitter/reddit:
and
In response to a man's story about "the haunting feeling of fumbling a 10/10":
I bring these examples up not to harangue men but to explicitly set aside the discourse about romantic relationships, in which most men and women seem happy to accept a certain asymmetry. A male friend recently gave me the dating advice that what's important in a partner is that they are "naturally happy", which struck me as a hilariously insufficient and condescending criterion, better suited to choosing a puppy. As a spergy gay man, I don't have a dog in this fight, if it is a fight, but I do find explicit commentary on the expectations of gendered social interaction helpful (and entertaining).
But outside the romantic context, is there not still a weird asymmetry in attitudes? For instance, women seem more able to put themselves in the shoes of male protagonists in fiction, while men generally seem uninterested in female protagonists. I am not here to say that you are sexist if you did not enjoy Captain Marvel. I hate being lectured to in my entertainment as much as anyone and find woke fiction repulsive. But it's generally hard to think of good examples of female characters occupying much mindshare among men. (Skyler White?) Who are the female counterparts to Harry Potter or Sherlock Holmes, popular among both boys and girls (and whose roles and stories do not particularly depend on their masculinity)? And of all feminist talking points, the Bechdel test stands out as one that I actually find revealing.
I am happy to grant or even defend all the usual replies, such as that women are in fact less likely to be out in the world doing extreme, daring, exciting, risky things that make for good stories. Maybe when women attempt to fill traditionally masculine roles, they will be less effective, less capable. Never mind that few women want to be mob bosses or whatever in the first place. But none of that entails that when women are competent actors in the world, men should be uninterested or even annoyed.
On the flip side, one could argue that women actually deserve no "empathy credit" for their interest in male protagonists, or at least no more credit than men deserve for their interest in Princess Leia, if women are only interested in stories about men taking action in the world when that is precisely what makes them eligible mates. But I'm not entirely convinced here.
Of course I don't think it's a moral failing if, say, by some effect of psychology, a man is incapable of admiring a woman for her achievements in the same way he might admire a man. Maybe nothing can be done to change such feelings. But if this is generally true of men, more than the reverse is true of women, then when I see rallying cries of the "nevertheless she persisted" variety, after the cringe has subsided, I must still have some lingering sympathy.
Ha, this is such a female way to write. If a guy wrote “when I read women’s opinions on men and interactions with men it gives me this disgusting skin crawling feeling all over that makes me want to puke. I wish I was born gay” he’d come across as a histrionic fruit-cake and would get mocked into the shadow realm for being an incel instead of receiving 200 upvotes.
I imagine part of that woman’s dramatic reaction was motivated by OP writing about women like they’re objects that can be fumbled, and not acknowledging women as Wonderful, agentic girl-bosses. However, women are incredibly passive in dating and courtship, especially in the early game, so it’s understandable for men to metaphorise them as inanimate objects that can be fumbled away like a crappy gather or sloppy behind-the-back-pass. Sometimes a man has been James, sometimes he’s been Curry, sometimes he’s been Thompson looking exasperated while a wingman botches a group approach or double date.
Men need to do the approaching, lead the interactions, drive the conversations, perform the monkey-dancing and court-jestering, hold court if necessary, navigate any shit tests, figure out when/how to make the first move, make the first move, and figure out how to seal the deal from there. Women just exist and follow or not. For men, picking-up and/or dating women is like going on job interviews and conducting escort missions; whereas for women getting picked-up and/or dating men is like shopping and going on guided tours.
Online women like to prattle on about emotional labor and so forth, but the efforts of men when it comes to dating and courtship are completely invisible to them. Romance and courtship are things that Just Happen to women like Acts of God. Yet many of them enjoy shaming and mocking men for perceived dating ineptitudes as if they were petty Monday Morning Quarterbacks, just like they’ll pin white feathers on alleged draft-dodgers and laugh at men running to escape the draft. As Norah Vincent remarked in Self Made Man:
Women certainly have ones that got away (cue the Katy Perry song), but they generally don’t have ones that they think of having fumbled away. In contrast, just reading the words "the haunting feeling of fumbling a 10/10" was a cognito-hazard; I got a pit in my stomach while the memories of past fumbles flash-flooded across my mind.
In the romance novels most popular among women, the female protagonists are passive, hypoagentic damsels in distress to be swept off their feet by an active, hyperagentic suitor. Sometimes there are even two such suitors for a Let’s You and Him fight scenario.
I don’t think men are fundamentally disinterested in female protagonists. Ripley in the Alien and Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider franchises come to mind, as female protagonists that are more popular among men than among women. Even brutish, cynical wrong-thinkers like me have contentedly watched the entirety of Love and Death. However, men don’t like getting lectured about #GirlPower in what should be entertainment, from Marvel girl-bosses assembling for a pose-down to an X-Men Mystique walk-off of “by the way, the women are always saving the men around here. You might want to think about changing the name to X-Women.” All while the actress has photos floating around of her on her knees getting facialed.
Both men and women are more concerned for the safety and well-being of girls and women in a movie or television series, just as they are for girls and women in real life. It’s no coincidence that popular works like 28 Days Later, World War Z, The Last of Us, Station 11 have the protection of daughters/daughter-figures as plot points to keep the emotional stakes high for the viewer. A girl/young woman dying gruesomely is/would be much more of an ”oh shit” moment than a boy/young man doing so.
Nor do I think men are inherently incapable of admiring women for their achievements. It’s not like Cathie Wood's lacking in simps and fan-boys. Neither is Elizabeth Holmes, for that matter—strong, independent #GirlBoss when winning; damsel in distress when getting charged with fraud. If anything, women garner greater male (and female) admiration for a given level of achievement than men do.
There’s some apex fallacy here. Men don’t generally admire women for their achievements, because they don’t generally admire other men for their achievements either. The Don Draper I-don’t-think-about-you-at-all is the default.
When men admire the achievements of other men, it’s often in the realm of right-tailed achievements in science, mathematics, business, or sports, where women are usually absent. Given greater male variability in interests and ability, there are far fewer female Terence Taos, Elon Musks, or Jeff Bezos’s; the Forbes list of top 10 female billionaires is a who’s who of widows, heiresses, and divorcees (including MacKenzie). It’s even more sensible that men generally don't admire female athletes, as they generally don't admire random high school boys athletes, who are often better than professional women. It’d be weird as hell if grown men admired random high school boys athletes, Foxcatcher vibes but worse (it’s already pretty weird how many grown men admire and have parasocial relationships with their favorite professional athletes/teams, wearing other men’s names on their backs and cheering their performances).
Yet, despite the relative lack of right-tailed female achievement in sciences, mathematics, business—even aided by the tailwind of affirmative action—and female professional athletes being worse than high school boys, men are constantly bombarded by girl-power propaganda in media and entertainment, schools and workplaces. So it’s natural if some annoyance results, especially when men's experiences in romantic contexts suggest that women are not, in fact, strong independent hyperagentic girl-bosses (more like the opposite).
When I read women's opinions on men and interactions with men it makes me see red that makes me want to follow in Ted Bundy's footsteps. I wish I was born gay.
Somehow I read your nickname as "adjective born noun"
There are two things I miss from Reddit here: comment counts on collapsed threads, and autogenerated throwaway names.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link