Alright. I'll bite. Why is this a gendered issue? Nice people are single, while horrible people have plenty of relationships. There's many facets to how people of both genders choose partners, "niceness" is just one of them. Is the point that men who whine about being single are attacked while women are allowed to bemoan their status? If that's the point he's making, its mostly because he is saying he "deserves" to be in a better situation then Henry. I rarely see women say they deserve more men then another women. If anything, I see them discuss deserving a good caring partner. See the difference? "Why do other people have what I don't have" comes off very differently then "this is what I want". One is about jealousy, the other is about personal goals. TLDR: Of course he is allowed to whine, but just like most self-pitying diatribes online (male or female) they tend to not be well received. Bonus Note: Also comparing normal dating to abusive partners is beyond ignorant but I don't have time to write a well sourced piece on that right now. Maybe I'll add it later.
The point being made is that he can't even question why he's alone without someone in the comments bringing up whether he "deserves" to be or not. I would observe that he brings up his three examples (the black man struggling to get by, the male feminist, the serial wife-beater) to argue that "deserve" has nothing to do with it, and that the discourse of the internet has devolved to the point where the question can't even be asked without blame and judgement being injected into the discussion.If that's the point he's making, its mostly because he is saying he "deserves" to be in a better situation then Henry.
He's the one saying what he deserves, not someone in the comments. He's attempted to sound even handed by leveling blame at feminists and at MRAs, although the fact that he equates the two is itself inflammatory. Then he repeats classic MRA arguments which have been, at this point, beaten to death, and complains that people might take offense to them. If you want to whine about being single, go ahead. If you want to blame everyone else because you are single, people (men and women) aren't going to respond well. That's not because of feminists or MRA's, it's because your being self-pitying and you are ignoring a very normal response to it. But I did think I deserved to not be doing worse than Henry.
Alright, fair point. He did use "deserve." But he used in the context of: The larger point stands: It's impossible to have this discussion without one or the other side ctrl-f'ing for dog whistle words so that they can dismiss the entire argument out of hand without having to hear it. And the smaller point stands: with the rise of "men's rights" the discussion has become one of "sides" where it becomes necessary to flash the proper feminist credentials in order to (attempt to) inoculate the conversation against dismissal by the "side" you're attempting to communicate with. You see this: Yet you missed this: He argues, in fact, that there are no such things as "classic MRA arguments" because the entire movement is too recent to assign blame to. Which, again, is the main drive of the piece - that it's impossible to have this discussion on the internet without someone, somewhere, looking for a place to assign BLAME. And here we are. This site is more civil than most, and you're arguing that it's "unhealthy for (you) to read this stuff." Why is that? Is that how it should be? How did we come to the place where nobody can talk about "this stuff" without somebody pulling out the rhetorical WMD?And I made the horrible mistake of asking this question out loud, and that was how I learned about social justice.
He's attempted to sound even handed by leveling blame at feminists and at MRAs, although the fact that he equates the two is itself inflammatory.
It would actually be pretty fun to go full internet-archaeologist on the manosphere, but a quick look confirms my impression that, although it is built from older pieces, it’s really quite young. There was a “men’s rights” movement around forever, but its early focus tended to be on divorce cases and fathers’ rights. Heartiste started publishing in 2007. The word “manosphere” was first used in late 2009. Google Trends confirms a lot of this.
I do not think men should be entitled to sex, I do not think women should be “blamed” for men not having sex, I do not think anyone owes sex to anyone else, I do not think women are idiots who don’t know what’s good for them, I do not think anybody has the right to take it into their own hands to “correct” this unsettling trend singlehandedly.
But when you deny everything and abuse anyone who brings it up, you cede this issue to people who sometimes do think all of these things. And then you have no right to be surprised when all the most frequently offered answers are super toxic.
I didn't miss the bit you quoted, it's why I said what I said about him attempting to be even handed. It's typical middle ground fallacy. If MRA debates are new for you fine, but gamergate alone has been around for a year and a half and I've had plenty of time to hear these tired points. They haven't come up with much new in that time. As for the blame point, who am I blaming? I disagree that lonleyness is a gendered problem and I disagree that men more then women aren't allowed to discuss singledom. The only one assigning blame is the author himself, who instead of some introspection assumes his negative feedback must be the fault of a toxic internet. The heart of the article, to me, is not against radicalization, it's perpetuating it. Your last three points seem like they are based on assuming some motive I don't have. It's unhealthy for me to read for personal reasons unrelated to gender debates, and I'm pretty sure you have no idea what I meant by "this stuff". So I can't really answer your questions because they don't really make sense. Did you assume I meant gender rights debates? I have a whole suite of theories on why the internet is recently so radicalized, and none of them have to do with the mistreatment of nice guys or a lack of safe space for them to complain on the internet.
And this is exactly the point: the argument put forth (in a truly oblique and verbose way) is that it is becoming harder to discuss loneliness without being antagonized. Personally, I don't believe this argument is worth a preamble, 7 parts and 7,400 words. I also don't think there's much merit in quoting a blog that makes this point so that you can blow 7400 words agreeing with - but not really agreeing with - the argument. BUT That's not the argument you're having. First you argue that any attempts to be even-handed make the arguments invalid. Then you whip out a dog whistle word. Then you argue that 7400 words of navel-staring isn't introspective enough, then you attack me for bringing your personal reasons into the discussion when you're the one that brought them up. Meanwhile, our debate about the subject started when you dismissed any comparative arguments as invalid and, by the way, have a few times put forth the notion that since "they" (who's "they?") haven't made any new arguments in a year and a half, there's no point in having the discussion at all. Is "they" "men's rights activists?" Because I'm not one. I don't think anybody here is. Again, I find the tired whingeing of the dateless to be pointless, boring and not useful to their love lives. But I also think that finding an excuse to fling gamergate at anyone with a Y chromosome is unhelpful to the discussion. Which is, again, the broader point: "this discussion must be held in exactly this way or you are worthy of disparagement and personal attack." I think that's true for far too much on the Internet but in this particular instance, I can actively disagree with the statements and still end up getting tarred with the MRA brush. So what logical fallacies am I employing? How am I perpetuating radicalization? Because honestly? I'm trying to say "let's talk about this" and the response you're giving is "only those who hate women would dare to talk about this." I don't think loneliness is a "gendered problem" either. However, I think it's fair to point out that the label "MRA" falls somewhere between "furry" and "pedophile" on the insult severity scale while "radical feminist" is something many people aspire to be. And if those are the two "sides" to the argument, it's hard to argue that they are being made from equivalent ethical standing.
You seem to be agreeing with all my original points in a very angry tone. So this had probably gone wrong at some point. At the risk of continuing the mess I have a few things I'd like to respond to - I'm not going to do the line by line quotey thing because I think taking peoples comments line by line tends to ruin context and prevent real discussion. I will say I disagree with your interpretation and comments on my intentions pretty on pretty much all points. I'm not dog whistling, wishing the article was longer, or ever, at any point, attacking you for disagreeing with me. The only time I mention you is to ask you to not bring up irrelevant things I mentioned in another thread. That wasn't an attack on you, I just don't think it helps the conversation for you to make assumptions based off a point about me personally that you don't understand. I never said you were employing a logical fallacy - I said the author's points were a pretty typical golden mean fallacy "They" is gamergaters, sad puppies, and authors who use abused women as a benchmark for their sex life. I never implied it was anyone on this site, although hubski definitely has a few. Maybe you have them filtered, or maybe you've just had a much longer timeline for this stuff so we've had a different experience here. Feminism is the only tag I've seen trolled to death, and the comments on my hugo awards post were far from a more thoughtful web. It's incredibly unfair you assume that because I disagree with you I'm labeling you as sexist. Or really labeling you as anything. None of this, until this post, has been about you in the slightest. I disagreed with an article and said why. I never had any intention of painting you or anyone else on this site into a corner with a pejorative label. "MRA" "Feminist" "Racist" "Sexist". I came here to escape that bullshit. Sure I'm a feminist. I'm a lot of other things too, and I prefer following people instead of interests because you get the full range of what they have to offer. I have no intention of turning boyyski into another cesspool. I love the idea of more men focused discussions and I'd hate to be a detractor from that. I'll switch to lurking here, end to the heated conversations.
fling gamergate at anyone with a Y chromosome is unhelpful to the discussion.
I can actively disagree with the statements and still end up getting tarred with the MRA brush.
only those who hate women would dare to talk about this.
Thus lies the discourse, bleeding out onto the sand. I'm going to hypothesize that you may not understand the empathy posts like this engender in the majority of men on the Internet. Because heterosexual courtship the world over follows a pattern of men pursuing women, and because men the world over are chided for not pursuing aggressively enough but castigated for pursuing too aggressively, there are few men who have not, at some point, wondered why "the asshole" gets the girl while the "nice guy" does not. At some level, at some point in the past, present or future, every man will relate in some way to arguments such as this. There will be empathy with the position that nice guys finish last. There will be affinity with the calm, erudite person who nonetheless is luckless in the romance department. Thus, there's no way to completely avoid tarring every male in the conversation with the brush. IF you're calling the author a sexist AND I sympathize in some way with the author THEN in some way, you're calling me a sexist. And maybe I am. Probably I am. Probably we all are at some point on some level. That's our humanity, warts and all, working towards betterment of ourselves. And here we are, generally agreeing about lots of stuff, overwrought to the point of capitulation because, as observed by the author, this has become a radicalizing conversation to have on the Internet. Back in the bad old days, a girl with a "great personality" was known to be fat or ugly. These days anyone making that connection is rightfully called a sexist and an asshole BUT the statement tacitly suggests that it takes more than a "great personality" to be attractive to the opposite sex. It would make sense, then, that the question "I have a great personality, why will no one date me?" be answered with "It takes more than a great personality to be attractive" and that would be the end of it. But that's not the way the discussion goes. "I'm a nice guy, why won't anybody date me?" "The fact that you're asking proves you're not a nice guy." And just like that, the loveless, luckless laggard isn't just alone, he's alone and under attack. And unfortunately, so is anyone who has ever related to him. THAT is why it's a gendered issue. THAT is why comparing what men want to what women want and what men do and what women do doesn't help. Damn right - self-pitying diatribes are poorly received the world over. The point, however, is that while sad sacks used to be allowed to be sad sacks, the trend in discussion has sad sacks being pilloried as assholes for the act of asking why they're sad sacks. I don't think it's helpful, and I don't think anyone benefits when the default answer given to the sad sack is a knee-jerk response berating them for their entitlement.
There is no transitive property of sexism. If you made that up then got mad at me for not understanding it, that's on you. If by disagreeing with the author I've tarred all men and killed discourse itself I think the issue is with your sense of proportion, not me.
But really, what kind of person can't think of a single reason why maybe they're alone? I could come up with a dozen if I thought for ten minutes. If you genuinely think there is no reason why you are single, you lack the ability (or desire) to see any flaws in yourself. I am not single, but I can still think of lots of reasons why I might/should/could be/was.
That's not the why of it, though. Anybody can think of reasons why they're single. When this discussion comes up, it's always a comparison between the overwhelming chivalry, charm, soul, generosity or other non-romantic aspect of the protagonist and the dastardly, callow, chauvinist and offensive aspects of the antagonist. This comparison is seen as drowning out any other possible discussion - "well yes, I have a weak chin and an inability to hold a job, but he's such an asshole it shouldn't matter that he's a triathlete trial lawyer!"