Your life is a mess, and it's your own fault.

[LMNO]

We women just need to stay in our safe little kitchens, and if we do that everything will be ok.  Let the real men sort out all the important stuff like politics, religion, and when we should have sex.  If we just stay at home, and make sure a warm dinner is fresh from the oven when out husbands get home, everything will be ok.

If you want to be sarcastic, you should probably go all out; the above post reads like an indictment against the men who post here.

And if you want to call the men here a pack of sexist misogynists, it would be best to do so directly.



LMNO
- IN THE BED OR IN THE KITCHEN, AND I COOK BETTER THAN YOU DO!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Most of the men and women here, are not sexist misogynists. I think that what SPS was referencing was the cultural subtext (general Western culture, not this board specifically) that leads to assumptions like the ones I spoke of in my OP.

[LMNO]

Perhaps I am letting separate threads merge in my head, but weren't you saying that your posts here were being flamed because you were a woman, and men here didn't approve of your posting style?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Perhaps I am letting separate threads merge in my head, but weren't you saying that your posts here were being flamed because you were a woman, and men here didn't approve of your posting style?

Nope. Although issues of femininity and cultural approval are part of it.

[LMNO]

If you would, could you please speak more on that, in relation to the culture of PD.com?

I have been under the impression that gender identity meant little on PD.com other than the fact that more women than men are asked to show their tits. 

If you have identified a trend that the majority of women's posts are treated in a different manner than the majority of men's posts, irregardless of content, then I would very much like to know about it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

If you would, could you please speak more on that, in relation to the culture of PD.com?

I have been under the impression that gender identity meant little on PD.com other than the fact that more women than men are asked to show their tits.  

If you have identified a trend that the majority of women's posts are treated in a different manner than the majority of men's posts, irregardless of content, then I would very much like to know about it.

One of the things my OP, and one of my follow-up posts, spoke of was the phenomenon for some people to make different assumptions about women who are divorced than they do about women who are married. It's painfully (and I do mean painfully) obvious when it happens, because words like "bitter", "slut", "desperate" and "whore" are used, and disparaging references to dating and/or sex life come up in completely unrelated arguments. It is reflective, IMO, of a general cultural tendency to view divorced women in a negative light. Fortunately that tendency seems to be relatively uncommon here, but it happens nonetheless.

Not sure what else you're digging for here.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And you know, not just divorced women, as Ratatosk said. I think the social stigma may be heavier for women, but it is applied to men as well, especially men whose wives cheat. "He must have done something to drive her into the arms of another man". My post was about the experience of a woman, because I am a woman. But I bet the divorced men here have also experienced similarly unpleasant social fallout in the forms of assumptions made about them, their emotional state, and their motivations, simply because they are divorced.

[LMNO]

In relation to PD.com, do you find that these words are being used as honest epithets, or as trolling ad hominem attacks because they tend to be hurtful?

I ask this because I feel there is a difference between what one truly feels, and what will be used to injure another during a fight. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

In relation to PD.com, do you find that these words are being used as honest epithets, or as trolling ad hominem attacks because they tend to be hurtful?

I ask this because I feel there is a difference between what one truly feels, and what will be used to injure another during a fight.  

I  think there is some difference as well. Nonetheless, I think that there are certain boundaries that people cross in the heat of argument that really reveal who they are, but have been concealing due to social taboos. Bigotry is one of those boundaries. Family is another. If someone used your recent unfortunate personal experience as a weapon to hurt you in the heat of an argument, unless in retaliation for something equally personal you launched against them, it would, IMO, reveal something pathological about the way that person thinks.

Generic name-calling like "asshole" and "fucktard" are not quite the same level of malice as name-calling based on an element of someone's personal life. It takes a certain level of either actually believing what you're saying, or simple wanton disregard for other people in general, to cross those boundaries, because regardless of how you feel about the person you're addressing, insulting someone based on their sexuality, gender, or race implies a value judgement against anyone else who might happen to fall into that category. It also perpetuates the idea that the person being insulted actually is doing wrong by being, for instance in my case, a divorced woman actively seeking a partner.

When I hear it enough times, especially paired with the "Your life is a mess, and it's your own fault" meme, it does start to form a pattern, and that pattern is that A. people are assuming that my life is a mess, and B. people feel comfortable with, perhaps even comforted by, blaming me, because they do actually on some level believe I am doing something badwrong.

The interesting thing is that my life is not, in fact, a mess, so this assumption is being cut out of whole cloth. It's been in a state of uncertainty for over a year as I've transitioned through a complicated divorce, but now that's almost over and I've come out of it with pretty much everything intact, and I'm doing pretty fucking well. So then the question is, from whence stems the desire to believe that my life is a mess, in order to be able to blame me for it?

[Doktor Howl]

Thanks Squiddy! It's interesting to me that divorce, single motherhood, and female sexuality are still so stigmatized that people will try to use it in arguments as ammunition.

If you're referring to me calling you out on stirring shit, you're out of your fucking mind. What I said has absolutely nothing to do with divorce, single motherhood or female sexuality and everything to do with how you're treating people here. If you're messed up from a nasty divorce that really sucks, but if you start taking it out on people who have absolutely nothing to do with your personal problems then you'd better expect some fucking backlash.

Some people may be too timid to say anything about it, but I'm not.

That said, if this isn't about that then good luck recovering from whatever you're dealing with regardless of the cause.

Actually, you referred to her as a whore, which had nothing to do with the argument in question.

You also agreed with Net, and endorsed his position, which makes you culpable for what he said.

So it did have to do with female sexuality. 

[Doktor Howl]

In relation to PD.com, do you find that these words are being used as honest epithets, or as trolling ad hominem attacks because they tend to be hurtful?

I ask this because I feel there is a difference between what one truly feels, and what will be used to injure another during a fight. 

I don't see a difference.  In either case, the intent was the same.

[Doktor Howl]

We women just need to stay in our safe little kitchens, and if we do that everything will be ok.  Let the real men sort out all the important stuff like politics, religion, and when we should have sex.  If we just stay at home, and make sure a warm dinner is fresh from the oven when out husbands get home, everything will be ok.

Also, no shoes.  Or you're a desperate whore.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

We women just need to stay in our safe little kitchens, and if we do that everything will be ok.  Let the real men sort out all the important stuff like politics, religion, and when we should have sex.  If we just stay at home, and make sure a warm dinner is fresh from the oven when out husbands get home, everything will be ok.

Also, no shoes.  Or you're a desperate whore.

 

[Dysnomia]

It was sarcasm, and was meant to be read as such. 

[Nast]

An example of sexist views manifested on the other side of the spectrum, towards doting and patronization, would be the girls in my class talking about how they can "get away with murder around men" and being able to get special treatment solely because of their sex. I mean, I can't blame them for taking advantage of it, but I would also hate to be treated as some kind of weak princess were I in their places.