Respectful Requests: Please no personal attacks! Attack the argument, not the poster. Also, request for male posters to please identify themselves as male.

submitted by BEB from self.GenderCritical

I just spent a lot of time on my "US Conservative women are out there fighting for women's rights..." thread trying to figure out a response to my Original Post that attacked me personally while completely misrepresenting what I had said.

I took the time to respond, explaining, very carefully and politely, what I had said, and also spelled out what I meant, and was met by another personal attack misrepresenting my posts.

Then I looked at the attacking poster's history. He is male. Then the whole exchange of attack and misrepresent my words made a lot more sense.

Now, I am not averse to having men on this sub (although I know that other women are), I do however, think that men should identify themselves, so that we know that the comment is coming from a male perspective.

And also, the mods have been WONDERFUL about keeping personal attacks off this sub - could we just respect each other please and attack the argument and not the poster?

Because we're all in this together, we are all working towards the same goal and we should respect each other as women (or men), while engaging in healthy back and forth.

Thanks, and thanks again to the mods for their hard work and for keeping this sub civilized!

all 12 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

Making a sub rule where all males have to identify their sex before being permitted to post gets a definite "NO" vote from me.

I also think your portrayal of what happened on the other thread is extremely inaccurate.

[–]BEB[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Did you read the thread?

I was called "bigoted" in response to my throwaway line (that was not actually offensive) about the conservative women's group I had just finished talking to, who I was working with to plan a rally against the US Equality Act.

And then the poster attacked again - he said I had used the term "pond scum" or something when I had done no such thing.

Everything I said in that thread I stand by and I would invite people to read the thread and note the time stamps.

And I'm not demanding anything, I said "Respectful Request" because, had I known that the poster was male, I would have walked away from the conversation.

I have too much to do trying to raise awareness of a vote NEXT WEEK on the US Equality Act to waste my time arguing with a man who completely misrepresented my words, attacked me and wanted to talk about his mother IN THE UK and her ABORTION activism, when the thread was specifically about the AMERICAN Equality Act.

Anyway, I invite everyone to read the original thread - just scroll down a little and judge for yourself.

And now I'm off to work with CONSERVATIVE women in an attempt to stop the atrocity called the (AMERICAN) Equality Act. I hope everyone who can, will do whatever they can too.

Be best!

[–]WildApples 10 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

I just read the exchange and, while he was clearly critical of a part of your message, I would not call it an attack just as I would not call the line you wrote about conservative women bigoted. He reasonably explained why he disagreed with your characterization of conservative women, and I found his explanation rather enlightening because it was not really about you so much as about the way feminist spaces can unfortunately become echo chambers.

I do not know many conservatives, so I'll admit to having what might be a caricature view of conservative women as being anti-choice and regressive about female roles. That same perception has played out in a lot of feminist spaces, and I've seen feminists argue against partnering with conservative women on GC issues for that reason. He is highlighting that in this way, we can be our own enemy.

Clearly, that is not you, but I can imagine it is probably pretty isolating to identify as conservative in spaces like this, and I can see why he had a lot of pent-up frustration that you became the unfortunate target of. At the end of the day, I do not think his criticism was as much about you as it was about all of us and our need to see beyond our potentially myopic viewpoints.

And since, as you said, it was a throwaway line anyway, maybe accept the criticism and acknowledge that all conservative women do not believe women should only be wives and mothers or disregard it because ultimately it does not matter to your main point that we all need to organize against the Equality Act. It seems like you and he have more in common that not. You both want women of all political stripes to come together to combat TRA attacks on women. I hope you two can overcome your differences and fight the good fight in a united front.

Either way, I appreciate you and your efforts to keep us mobilized! You've motivated me to start drafting letters to my members of Congress. :-)

[–]jjdub7Gay Male Guest Commentator 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

He is highlighting that in this way, we can be our own enemy.

I'm also a conservative, and gay, man, so its always interesting to read the GC crowd's take on right-leaning women. This (transanity) is one of the issues where I think we all need all the help we can get in order to stop it.

[–]Rationalmind 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Agree, good insight.

[–]BEB[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

So glad you're motivated - the Senate Democrats have now announced they're putting the Equality Act up too, so please write your senators too as well as Cory Booker, Tammy Baldwin and Jeff Merkley, the Senators pushing it.

RE: the man w the UK activist mother. Did you see in his second post when he made something up about me calling conservative women "pond scum" - I did no such thing - that was pure defamation. Maybe he deleted his second post, but it was pretty attack-y.

Here's the thing: We all come from wildly different backgrounds and we're of different ages. I am possibly much older than many on this board, including him. I grew up with women whose only goal was to be wives and mothers. It's why I get along so well with conservative women, including those who want to be wives and mothers only - they were my childhood friends.

I see nothing wrong with choosing to be a wife and mother - in fact being a mother I think is the most challenging job in the world. That wasn't my point: my point was that conservative women who don't think that women should work outside the home were out there organizing to save women's rights/safe spaces and sports, while so many "feminist" women I couldn't even get to pick up the phone and call Congress.

Anyway, I am so glad that you're taking action!!!!

[–]our_team_is_winning 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Grateful for your work!

[–]censorshipment 7 insightful - 6 fun7 insightful - 5 fun8 insightful - 6 fun -  (4 children)

Males didn't have to identify themselves as male on the GC subreddit... so that likely won't be a rule here either.

[–]jjdub7Gay Male Guest Commentator 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I did it voluntarily. Feels helpful to communicate that there are indeed men out there who agree and also see the impact this all has on women (while men largely pay no price).

[–]BEB[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I titled it "Respectful Requests" for a reason, which would be that I personally am asking men who post to identify themselves as male. It does make a difference in my response, because when I'm talking to a woman, I can be almost certain that we share at least some of the same experiences that I do not share with any men.

But again, it was a request, not a demand.

[–]Rationalmind 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Males were largely banned from the GC subreddit. That’s why.

[–]censorshipment 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (0 children)

Not if they followed the rules. As I've stated a few times... there was a stickied mod post about longtime GC women being banned for being "uncivil" towards men (and libfems) on the subreddit months before the banned. The mods said men were welcomed as long as they followed the rules, and they didn't have to use flairs to identify that they were men.

GC men were welcomed with opened arms which frustrated some GC women to the point of the mods telling women to be nice. "Misandrists" were banned in favor of keeping men.

Disgusting.

PinkPillFeminism didn't allow men which was so much better than the GC sub.