LABELS - The Thread!

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

I don't think it's contempt, I think it's just phrased that way. Personally I think if all you want to do is "talk about your feelings," they have therapists, drum circles, and spouses for that. I don't particularly care what Random Person X from City XYZ "feels" about anything. When it comes to that scale of things, I care that the police don't fuck with me too much, that trains run on time, and that I can afford food and shelter. I do not care about the inner child of any person I don't personally know and that is because the people I do know are already standing in line for the limited number of fucks I have to give about that kind of thing.

If we're going to have Public Discourse about something, please, for the love of Christ, let its goal be action and tangible changes to society, not a grand intercontinental effort to talk about building the world's largest clothesline so we can all air our dirty laundry on it.

You can't control the interpretation of what you write, though.

There were 4 of us who came up to this wall about how a certain aspect of being female fucking sucks, we were all pretty much saying the same thing about that aspect.

We didn't even get a fucking chance to get to get to tangible actions and solutions, related to the case of creepy dudes and street harassment/sexual assault because the snarky disregard shown to how living this situation makes us feel on a day to day basis.  If a portion of society feels that certain behaviours are intimidating that come from another group, isn't that what the meat and bones of systematic racism or sexism is all about? The lived experience of the group in question?

Draw a parallel between street harassment of women by random assholes and stop-and-search of people of colour.  We all get het up about racial profiling by police here, and rightly so.  If instead we all told people of colour not to look/act/dress in a certain way to avoid getting stopped, or that the problem was how they responded to this threat and to change the way thinking of it, there would be an epic shitstorm.  Both of these situations are experienced emotionally by the target, and make them feel that freedom of movement and the ability to just go out and do this whole life thing without fear or frustration isn't something that either of these groups can currently do as it stands.

telling women/ POC to act/dress/think about it differently doesn't solve the root of the problem, and if it is a scenario that doesn't affect you and you say this shit and you aren't taking on how the emotional or experiential aspect is part of the result of oppressive actions by the group with the power and laying it down at the feet of those with the direct experience, like Geraldo telling POC not to wear hoodies in the wake of the egregious shit that happened to Trayvon Martin.

Does my parallel make any sense to anyone but me? (I'm predicting Nigel will get it, possibly Freeky and a couple of other bods.)

[Signora Pæsior]

I don't think it's contempt, I think it's just phrased that way. Personally I think if all you want to do is "talk about your feelings," they have therapists, drum circles, and spouses for that. I don't particularly care what Random Person X from City XYZ "feels" about anything. When it comes to that scale of things, I care that the police don't fuck with me too much, that trains run on time, and that I can afford food and shelter. I do not care about the inner child of any person I don't personally know and that is because the people I do know are already standing in line for the limited number of fucks I have to give about that kind of thing.

If we're going to have Public Discourse about something, please, for the love of Christ, let its goal be action and tangible changes to society, not a grand intercontinental effort to talk about building the world's largest clothesline so we can all air our dirty laundry on it.

You can't control the interpretation of what you write, though.

There were 4 of us who came up to this wall about how a certain aspect of being female fucking sucks, we were all pretty much saying the same thing about that aspect.

We didn't even get a fucking chance to get to get to tangible actions and solutions, related to the case of creepy dudes and street harassment/sexual assault because the snarky disregard shown to how living this situation makes us feel on a day to day basis.  If a portion of society feels that certain behaviours are intimidating that come from another group, isn't that what the meat and bones of systematic racism or sexism is all about? The lived experience of the group in question?

Draw a parallel between street harassment of women by random assholes and stop-and-search of people of colour.  We all get het up about racial profiling by police here, and rightly so.  If instead we all told people of colour not to look/act/dress in a certain way to avoid getting stopped, or that the problem was how they responded to this threat and to change the way thinking of it, there would be an epic shitstorm.  Both of these situations are experienced emotionally by the target, and make them feel that freedom of movement and the ability to just go out and do this whole life thing without fear or frustration isn't something that either of these groups can currently do as it stands.

telling women/ POC to act/dress/think about it differently doesn't solve the root of the problem, and if it is a scenario that doesn't affect you and you say this shit and you aren't taking on how the emotional or experiential aspect is part of the result of oppressive actions by the group with the power and laying it down at the feet of those with the direct experience, like Geraldo telling POC not to wear hoodies in the wake of the egregious shit that happened to Trayvon Martin.

Does my parallel make any sense to anyone but me? (I'm predicting Nigel will get it, possibly Freeky and a couple of other bods.)

It makes sense to me! Thanks for being far more articulate than I can ever manage about this stuff, Pixie.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

I was counting you in the "will most probably know what the fuck I am talking about crowd."

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I don't think it's contempt, I think it's just phrased that way. Personally I think if all you want to do is "talk about your feelings," they have therapists, drum circles, and spouses for that. I don't particularly care what Random Person X from City XYZ "feels" about anything. When it comes to that scale of things, I care that the police don't fuck with me too much, that trains run on time, and that I can afford food and shelter. I do not care about the inner child of any person I don't personally know and that is because the people I do know are already standing in line for the limited number of fucks I have to give about that kind of thing.

If we're going to have Public Discourse about something, please, for the love of Christ, let its goal be action and tangible changes to society, not a grand intercontinental effort to talk about building the world's largest clothesline so we can all air our dirty laundry on it.

You can't control the interpretation of what you write, though.

There were 4 of us who came up to this wall about how a certain aspect of being female fucking sucks, we were all pretty much saying the same thing about that aspect.

We didn't even get a fucking chance to get to get to tangible actions and solutions, related to the case of creepy dudes and street harassment/sexual assault because the snarky disregard shown to how living this situation makes us feel on a day to day basis.  If a portion of society feels that certain behaviours are intimidating that come from another group, isn't that what the meat and bones of systematic racism or sexism is all about? The lived experience of the group in question?

Draw a parallel between street harassment of women by random assholes and stop-and-search of people of colour.  We all get het up about racial profiling by police here, and rightly so.  If instead we all told people of colour not to look/act/dress in a certain way to avoid getting stopped, or that the problem was how they responded to this threat and to change the way thinking of it, there would be an epic shitstorm.  Both of these situations are experienced emotionally by the target, and make them feel that freedom of movement and the ability to just go out and do this whole life thing without fear or frustration isn't something that either of these groups can currently do as it stands.

telling women/ POC to act/dress/think about it differently doesn't solve the root of the problem, and if it is a scenario that doesn't affect you and you say this shit and you aren't taking on how the emotional or experiential aspect is part of the result of oppressive actions by the group with the power and laying it down at the feet of those with the direct experience, like Geraldo telling POC not to wear hoodies in the wake of the egregious shit that happened to Trayvon Martin.

Does my parallel make any sense to anyone but me? (I'm predicting Nigel will get it, possibly Freeky and a couple of other bods.)

I think that there are two separate lines of thinking happening...

On the one hand, I agree completely with you that people shouldn't need to modify who/what they are in order to avoid harassment.
On the other hand, we live in a shitty society and 'should' rarely translates into anything real.

Of course anyone who wants to should feel safe wearing a hoodie, a miniskirt or whatever they damn well please. Unfortunately, that's not how it works today, even though most of us here agree that is how it should work.

Tangible actions and solutions for the problem would be a good idea. I think, though, that many of the responding guys were thinking about tangible actions and solutions NOW (ie be tough, carry a sharp point thing and know how to use it, etc). I think, perhaps, the women were more interested in discussing tangible actions that would influence society at large, reducing or eradicating the guys that act like assholes.

That leads us to the second layer of the issue; the overall jaded view most of the people at PD.com have of the world in general. I.E. A just, equal, egalitarian society may be highly desired, but given the large number of monkeys... its something difficult to even conceive of in a realistic way.

I can see how that might feel dismissive to the women, while feeling realistic to the guys.

[Signora Pæsior]

I was counting you in the "will most probably know what the fuck I am talking about crowd."

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I don't think it's contempt, I think it's just phrased that way. Personally I think if all you want to do is "talk about your feelings," they have therapists, drum circles, and spouses for that. I don't particularly care what Random Person X from City XYZ "feels" about anything. When it comes to that scale of things, I care that the police don't fuck with me too much, that trains run on time, and that I can afford food and shelter. I do not care about the inner child of any person I don't personally know and that is because the people I do know are already standing in line for the limited number of fucks I have to give about that kind of thing.

If we're going to have Public Discourse about something, please, for the love of Christ, let its goal be action and tangible changes to society, not a grand intercontinental effort to talk about building the world's largest clothesline so we can all air our dirty laundry on it.

You can't control the interpretation of what you write, though.

There were 4 of us who came up to this wall about how a certain aspect of being female fucking sucks, we were all pretty much saying the same thing about that aspect.

We didn't even get a fucking chance to get to get to tangible actions and solutions, related to the case of creepy dudes and street harassment/sexual assault because the snarky disregard shown to how living this situation makes us feel on a day to day basis.  If a portion of society feels that certain behaviours are intimidating that come from another group, isn't that what the meat and bones of systematic racism or sexism is all about? The lived experience of the group in question?

Draw a parallel between street harassment of women by random assholes and stop-and-search of people of colour.  We all get het up about racial profiling by police here, and rightly so.  If instead we all told people of colour not to look/act/dress in a certain way to avoid getting stopped, or that the problem was how they responded to this threat and to change the way thinking of it, there would be an epic shitstorm.  Both of these situations are experienced emotionally by the target, and make them feel that freedom of movement and the ability to just go out and do this whole life thing without fear or frustration isn't something that either of these groups can currently do as it stands.

telling women/ POC to act/dress/think about it differently doesn't solve the root of the problem, and if it is a scenario that doesn't affect you and you say this shit and you aren't taking on how the emotional or experiential aspect is part of the result of oppressive actions by the group with the power and laying it down at the feet of those with the direct experience, like Geraldo telling POC not to wear hoodies in the wake of the egregious shit that happened to Trayvon Martin.

Does my parallel make any sense to anyone but me? (I'm predicting Nigel will get it, possibly Freeky and a couple of other bods.)

You're equating telling people to be loud and assertive when the situation calls for it to telling black kids not to wear hoodies or they might be shot?

At what point did anybody say ""I am urging the parents of female youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing miniskirts. I think the miniskirt is as much responsible for rape as rapists are."?

Where is this "anything but assertiveness" coming from, anyway? It does nothing to advance women, or anyone else.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

Yea, immediate solutions to the way it is now is something most women have covered anyway, so telling us "that's just how it is" seems to shut off the conversation as to HOW TO CHANGE THE ORIGINAL DYNAMIC THAT CAUSES THE BULLSHIT, because we already know and have already been doing the things suggested, and telling US how to fix it without looking in yourself to see if you can contribute to a change in the situation isn't going to do shit and is going to make you seem like a condescending, patronising menstrual cramp.

I've never been under any impression that change is going to happen overnight if dudes just did as we told them, just that there is a dynamic maybe that hasn't been considered, and to work on it in your personal sphere of influence is how to spread the idea that racist/sexist/homophobia/ableism/any other ism you can think of isn't something you will tolerate in your personal space and in that of those around you, and the scripts for dealing with these situations, and affect a creep towards a less shitty situation.

After all, it was only 150 years ago we were pouring grains into male and female skulls and measuring intelligence based on brain size, and all the racist and sexist notions of those times and those paternalistic superiority of the white dude just HAD to be proved by science.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

I don't think it's contempt, I think it's just phrased that way. Personally I think if all you want to do is "talk about your feelings," they have therapists, drum circles, and spouses for that. I don't particularly care what Random Person X from City XYZ "feels" about anything. When it comes to that scale of things, I care that the police don't fuck with me too much, that trains run on time, and that I can afford food and shelter. I do not care about the inner child of any person I don't personally know and that is because the people I do know are already standing in line for the limited number of fucks I have to give about that kind of thing.

If we're going to have Public Discourse about something, please, for the love of Christ, let its goal be action and tangible changes to society, not a grand intercontinental effort to talk about building the world's largest clothesline so we can all air our dirty laundry on it.

You can't control the interpretation of what you write, though.

There were 4 of us who came up to this wall about how a certain aspect of being female fucking sucks, we were all pretty much saying the same thing about that aspect.

We didn't even get a fucking chance to get to get to tangible actions and solutions, related to the case of creepy dudes and street harassment/sexual assault because the snarky disregard shown to how living this situation makes us feel on a day to day basis.  If a portion of society feels that certain behaviours are intimidating that come from another group, isn't that what the meat and bones of systematic racism or sexism is all about? The lived experience of the group in question?

Draw a parallel between street harassment of women by random assholes and stop-and-search of people of colour.  We all get het up about racial profiling by police here, and rightly so.  If instead we all told people of colour not to look/act/dress in a certain way to avoid getting stopped, or that the problem was how they responded to this threat and to change the way thinking of it, there would be an epic shitstorm.  Both of these situations are experienced emotionally by the target, and make them feel that freedom of movement and the ability to just go out and do this whole life thing without fear or frustration isn't something that either of these groups can currently do as it stands.

telling women/ POC to act/dress/think about it differently doesn't solve the root of the problem, and if it is a scenario that doesn't affect you and you say this shit and you aren't taking on how the emotional or experiential aspect is part of the result of oppressive actions by the group with the power and laying it down at the feet of those with the direct experience, like Geraldo telling POC not to wear hoodies in the wake of the egregious shit that happened to Trayvon Martin.

Does my parallel make any sense to anyone but me? (I'm predicting Nigel will get it, possibly Freeky and a couple of other bods.)

You're equating telling people to be loud and assertive when the situation calls for it to telling black kids not to wear hoodies or they might be shot?

At what point did anybody say ""I am urging the parents of female youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing miniskirts. I think the miniskirt is as much responsible for rape as rapists are."?

Where is this "anything but assertiveness" coming from, anyway? It does nothing to advance women, or anyone else.

No, at no point have I advocated not encouraging assertiveness,  but if that's all we are suggesting then the problem isn't going to go away, is it?

When the rock hits me or grabs my ass, I am going to fucking well holler.  Doesn't mean the perp will change his attitude or stop the behaviour. That kind of instruction or change is going to come from someone that the perp respects, which obviously isn't women or he wouldn't behave that way. 

But the "don't wear that skirt" sentiment is rife outside of PeeDee, in the world at large, otherwise we wouldn't have had the SlutWalk movement.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I get feelings. I'm not like a robot or spock or some shit. I see someone who's obviously fucking pissed off about something, I'll be all like "What's up" and they tell me that someone did something shitty at work or their cat's dead or something and I'll be all sympathetic and shit, like genuinely sympathetic, not like I have to simulate it and, if they want advice I'll give em anything I can come up with and, yeah, sometimes I'll be the asshole that gives unsolicited advice. But if you're telling me the only reason they told me the cat story is so's I'd know they were feeling down, that's retarded. Their face told me that - it's why I asked in the first place.

And why the fuck would you feel the need to tell someone how some shit made you feel is beyond me. Feelings are personal, they're what you feel. Why tell someone who, in all probability, would feel completely differently in the same situation? What's in it for either party?

Fuck yes. This x 1000.

Regardless of what bits you have dangling between your legs, communication solely for the purpose of emotional validation is fucking retarded. Learn to deal with your own head and save conversing with me for when you have something interesting or relevant to relay.

But Hustle, the delicate little snowflakes shouldn't have to learn to deal. The world should be nice and fluffy and unicorns and shit and, until we make it like that for them, we should listen to them whining like little bitches, cos that makes them feel all better.

Wow.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't think it's contempt, I think it's just phrased that way. Personally I think if all you want to do is "talk about your feelings," they have therapists, drum circles, and spouses for that. I don't particularly care what Random Person X from City XYZ "feels" about anything. When it comes to that scale of things, I care that the police don't fuck with me too much, that trains run on time, and that I can afford food and shelter. I do not care about the inner child of any person I don't personally know and that is because the people I do know are already standing in line for the limited number of fucks I have to give about that kind of thing.

If we're going to have Public Discourse about something, please, for the love of Christ, let its goal be action and tangible changes to society, not a grand intercontinental effort to talk about building the world's largest clothesline so we can all air our dirty laundry on it.

You can't control the interpretation of what you write, though.

There were 4 of us who came up to this wall about how a certain aspect of being female fucking sucks, we were all pretty much saying the same thing about that aspect.

We didn't even get a fucking chance to get to get to tangible actions and solutions, related to the case of creepy dudes and street harassment/sexual assault because the snarky disregard shown to how living this situation makes us feel on a day to day basis.  If a portion of society feels that certain behaviours are intimidating that come from another group, isn't that what the meat and bones of systematic racism or sexism is all about? The lived experience of the group in question?

Draw a parallel between street harassment of women by random assholes and stop-and-search of people of colour.  We all get het up about racial profiling by police here, and rightly so.  If instead we all told people of colour not to look/act/dress in a certain way to avoid getting stopped, or that the problem was how they responded to this threat and to change the way thinking of it, there would be an epic shitstorm.  Both of these situations are experienced emotionally by the target, and make them feel that freedom of movement and the ability to just go out and do this whole life thing without fear or frustration isn't something that either of these groups can currently do as it stands.

telling women/ POC to act/dress/think about it differently doesn't solve the root of the problem, and if it is a scenario that doesn't affect you and you say this shit and you aren't taking on how the emotional or experiential aspect is part of the result of oppressive actions by the group with the power and laying it down at the feet of those with the direct experience, like Geraldo telling POC not to wear hoodies in the wake of the egregious shit that happened to Trayvon Martin.

Does my parallel make any sense to anyone but me? (I'm predicting Nigel will get it, possibly Freeky and a couple of other bods.)

Yes, it makes perfect sense to me, and I agree with it completely.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't think it's contempt, I think it's just phrased that way. Personally I think if all you want to do is "talk about your feelings," they have therapists, drum circles, and spouses for that. I don't particularly care what Random Person X from City XYZ "feels" about anything. When it comes to that scale of things, I care that the police don't fuck with me too much, that trains run on time, and that I can afford food and shelter. I do not care about the inner child of any person I don't personally know and that is because the people I do know are already standing in line for the limited number of fucks I have to give about that kind of thing.

If we're going to have Public Discourse about something, please, for the love of Christ, let its goal be action and tangible changes to society, not a grand intercontinental effort to talk about building the world's largest clothesline so we can all air our dirty laundry on it.

You can't control the interpretation of what you write, though.

There were 4 of us who came up to this wall about how a certain aspect of being female fucking sucks, we were all pretty much saying the same thing about that aspect.

We didn't even get a fucking chance to get to get to tangible actions and solutions, related to the case of creepy dudes and street harassment/sexual assault because the snarky disregard shown to how living this situation makes us feel on a day to day basis.  If a portion of society feels that certain behaviours are intimidating that come from another group, isn't that what the meat and bones of systematic racism or sexism is all about? The lived experience of the group in question?

Draw a parallel between street harassment of women by random assholes and stop-and-search of people of colour.  We all get het up about racial profiling by police here, and rightly so.  If instead we all told people of colour not to look/act/dress in a certain way to avoid getting stopped, or that the problem was how they responded to this threat and to change the way thinking of it, there would be an epic shitstorm.  Both of these situations are experienced emotionally by the target, and make them feel that freedom of movement and the ability to just go out and do this whole life thing without fear or frustration isn't something that either of these groups can currently do as it stands.

telling women/ POC to act/dress/think about it differently doesn't solve the root of the problem, and if it is a scenario that doesn't affect you and you say this shit and you aren't taking on how the emotional or experiential aspect is part of the result of oppressive actions by the group with the power and laying it down at the feet of those with the direct experience, like Geraldo telling POC not to wear hoodies in the wake of the egregious shit that happened to Trayvon Martin.

Does my parallel make any sense to anyone but me? (I'm predicting Nigel will get it, possibly Freeky and a couple of other bods.)

I think that there are two separate lines of thinking happening...

On the one hand, I agree completely with you that people shouldn't need to modify who/what they are in order to avoid harassment.
On the other hand, we live in a shitty society and 'should' rarely translates into anything real.

Of course anyone who wants to should feel safe wearing a hoodie, a miniskirt or whatever they damn well please. Unfortunately, that's not how it works today, even though most of us here agree that is how it should work.

Tangible actions and solutions for the problem would be a good idea. I think, though, that many of the responding guys were thinking about tangible actions and solutions NOW (ie be tough, carry a sharp point thing and know how to use it, etc). I think, perhaps, the women were more interested in discussing tangible actions that would influence society at large, reducing or eradicating the guys that act like assholes.

That leads us to the second layer of the issue; the overall jaded view most of the people at PD.com have of the world in general. I.E. A just, equal, egalitarian society may be highly desired, but given the large number of monkeys... its something difficult to even conceive of in a realistic way.

I can see how that might feel dismissive to the women, while feeling realistic to the guys.

There are two categories of solutions.

Category A is the category of solutions that are coping mechanisms. That's the category you address when the discussion is NOT about changing culture/society, or trying to make the world a better place, but rather simply of trying to get along as well as you can under the existing circumstances.

Category B is the category of solutions that are social change; of making the world less fucked-up so that the coping mechanisms in category A are less necessary.

For example, a black man in 1940's Mississippi would have been well-advised to cross the street and keep his eyes averted if he sees a white woman come down the sidewalk, to avoid being hanged for "eyeball rape". The same black man would be well-advised to grin and yassuh and be cringingly obsequious to any white man who addressed him. These are category A solutions to avoid being the target of violence.

In a discussion of category B solutions (social change), suggesting category A solutions (status quo coping mechanisms) is not only circular and irrelevant, but also insulting. We know about the coping mechanisms; we want social change. If you are not interested in discussing social change, why take part in the discussion? It is the equivalent of going into a Civil Rights movement meeting and saying "Y'all just need to shuck and bob some more; this is the way the world IS, you need to be realistic".

[East Coast Hustle]

I get feelings. I'm not like a robot or spock or some shit. I see someone who's obviously fucking pissed off about something, I'll be all like "What's up" and they tell me that someone did something shitty at work or their cat's dead or something and I'll be all sympathetic and shit, like genuinely sympathetic, not like I have to simulate it and, if they want advice I'll give em anything I can come up with and, yeah, sometimes I'll be the asshole that gives unsolicited advice. But if you're telling me the only reason they told me the cat story is so's I'd know they were feeling down, that's retarded. Their face told me that - it's why I asked in the first place.

And why the fuck would you feel the need to tell someone how some shit made you feel is beyond me. Feelings are personal, they're what you feel. Why tell someone who, in all probability, would feel completely differently in the same situation? What's in it for either party?

Fuck yes. This x 1000.

Regardless of what bits you have dangling between your legs, communication solely for the purpose of emotional validation is fucking retarded. Learn to deal with your own head and save conversing with me for when you have something interesting or relevant to relay.

But Hustle, the delicate little snowflakes shouldn't have to learn to deal. The world should be nice and fluffy and unicorns and shit and, until we make it like that for them, we should listen to them whining like little bitches, cos that makes them feel all better.

That's actually pretty needlessly insulting, and also not at all what I was trying to say so I hope nobody conflates my post with yours. Remember, I was talking about communication SOLELY for the purpose of emotional validation.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I don't think it's contempt, I think it's just phrased that way. Personally I think if all you want to do is "talk about your feelings," they have therapists, drum circles, and spouses for that. I don't particularly care what Random Person X from City XYZ "feels" about anything. When it comes to that scale of things, I care that the police don't fuck with me too much, that trains run on time, and that I can afford food and shelter. I do not care about the inner child of any person I don't personally know and that is because the people I do know are already standing in line for the limited number of fucks I have to give about that kind of thing.

If we're going to have Public Discourse about something, please, for the love of Christ, let its goal be action and tangible changes to society, not a grand intercontinental effort to talk about building the world's largest clothesline so we can all air our dirty laundry on it.

You can't control the interpretation of what you write, though.

There were 4 of us who came up to this wall about how a certain aspect of being female fucking sucks, we were all pretty much saying the same thing about that aspect.

We didn't even get a fucking chance to get to get to tangible actions and solutions, related to the case of creepy dudes and street harassment/sexual assault because the snarky disregard shown to how living this situation makes us feel on a day to day basis.  If a portion of society feels that certain behaviours are intimidating that come from another group, isn't that what the meat and bones of systematic racism or sexism is all about? The lived experience of the group in question?

Draw a parallel between street harassment of women by random assholes and stop-and-search of people of colour.  We all get het up about racial profiling by police here, and rightly so.  If instead we all told people of colour not to look/act/dress in a certain way to avoid getting stopped, or that the problem was how they responded to this threat and to change the way thinking of it, there would be an epic shitstorm.  Both of these situations are experienced emotionally by the target, and make them feel that freedom of movement and the ability to just go out and do this whole life thing without fear or frustration isn't something that either of these groups can currently do as it stands.

telling women/ POC to act/dress/think about it differently doesn't solve the root of the problem, and if it is a scenario that doesn't affect you and you say this shit and you aren't taking on how the emotional or experiential aspect is part of the result of oppressive actions by the group with the power and laying it down at the feet of those with the direct experience, like Geraldo telling POC not to wear hoodies in the wake of the egregious shit that happened to Trayvon Martin.

Does my parallel make any sense to anyone but me? (I'm predicting Nigel will get it, possibly Freeky and a couple of other bods.)

Yes, it makes perfect sense to me, and I agree with it completely.

No one (here at PD) has said "don't act/think/dress like that" as advice on how to fix the problem. That happens, yes. It should be stopped. But it doesn't happen here. What we have here is one group of people says "I am going to continue behaving the way I have been and shouldn't be told to change my ways," and another group that says... "I am going to continue behaving the way I have been and shouldn't be told to change my ways." Two equally uncompromising groups who, when we aren't specifically discussing this topic, don't actually cross these lines very often.

What is the point of this discussion? One month ago, nobody here was assumed to be sexist or anti-woman. Now, we have a number of people who are racing for that line because of the nature of the Internet, where arguments become very extreme as quickly as possible. So this discussion, about improving gender relations in society at large, has effectively caused a schism roughly along gender lines in the immediate society. If this is not typical Human behavior I don't know what is.

This is why it is my belief that forcing the issues of one or another gender, however technically necessary it may be, is a bad idea compared to everyone pretending that gender doesn't fucking exist. There's no reason that won't work, except for a dwindling number of assholes who are going to die out anyway.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I don't think it's contempt, I think it's just phrased that way. Personally I think if all you want to do is "talk about your feelings," they have therapists, drum circles, and spouses for that. I don't particularly care what Random Person X from City XYZ "feels" about anything. When it comes to that scale of things, I care that the police don't fuck with me too much, that trains run on time, and that I can afford food and shelter. I do not care about the inner child of any person I don't personally know and that is because the people I do know are already standing in line for the limited number of fucks I have to give about that kind of thing.

If we're going to have Public Discourse about something, please, for the love of Christ, let its goal be action and tangible changes to society, not a grand intercontinental effort to talk about building the world's largest clothesline so we can all air our dirty laundry on it.

You can't control the interpretation of what you write, though.

There were 4 of us who came up to this wall about how a certain aspect of being female fucking sucks, we were all pretty much saying the same thing about that aspect.

We didn't even get a fucking chance to get to get to tangible actions and solutions, related to the case of creepy dudes and street harassment/sexual assault because the snarky disregard shown to how living this situation makes us feel on a day to day basis.  If a portion of society feels that certain behaviours are intimidating that come from another group, isn't that what the meat and bones of systematic racism or sexism is all about? The lived experience of the group in question?

Draw a parallel between street harassment of women by random assholes and stop-and-search of people of colour.  We all get het up about racial profiling by police here, and rightly so.  If instead we all told people of colour not to look/act/dress in a certain way to avoid getting stopped, or that the problem was how they responded to this threat and to change the way thinking of it, there would be an epic shitstorm.  Both of these situations are experienced emotionally by the target, and make them feel that freedom of movement and the ability to just go out and do this whole life thing without fear or frustration isn't something that either of these groups can currently do as it stands.

telling women/ POC to act/dress/think about it differently doesn't solve the root of the problem, and if it is a scenario that doesn't affect you and you say this shit and you aren't taking on how the emotional or experiential aspect is part of the result of oppressive actions by the group with the power and laying it down at the feet of those with the direct experience, like Geraldo telling POC not to wear hoodies in the wake of the egregious shit that happened to Trayvon Martin.

Does my parallel make any sense to anyone but me? (I'm predicting Nigel will get it, possibly Freeky and a couple of other bods.)

Yes, it makes perfect sense to me, and I agree with it completely.

No one (here at PD) has said "don't act/think/dress like that" as advice on how to fix the problem. That happens, yes. It should be stopped. But it doesn't happen here. What we have here is one group of people says "I am going to continue behaving the way I have been and shouldn't be told to change my ways," and another group that says... "I am going to continue behaving the way I have been and shouldn't be told to change my ways." Two equally uncompromising groups who, when we aren't specifically discussing this topic, don't actually cross these lines very often.

What is the point of this discussion? One month ago, nobody here was assumed to be sexist or anti-woman. Now, we have a number of people who are racing for that line because of the nature of the Internet, where arguments become very extreme as quickly as possible. So this discussion, about improving gender relations in society at large, has effectively caused a schism roughly along gender lines in the immediate society. If this is not typical Human behavior I don't know what is.

This is why it is my belief that forcing the issues of one or another gender, however technically necessary it may be, is a bad idea compared to everyone pretending that gender doesn't fucking exist. There's no reason that won't work, except for a dwindling number of assholes who are going to die out anyway.

P3nt did. Just because you missed it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

Yep.