The NationStates Feminism Thread IV: Fight Like A Girl!

[Femboyan]

feninimis

[Wink Wonk We Like Stonks]

feninimis

interesting take.

[Nuroblav]

interesting take.

Indeed a profound reflection on the human condition and the state of our society. Berkman would be proud.

[Names Are Too Hard]

interesting take.

Indeed a profound reflection on the human condition and the state of our society. Berkman would be proud.

I cried a little when I saw his post, it really was telling about the society we live in.

[Aterman]

Indeed a profound reflection on the human condition and the state of our society. Berkman would be proud.

I cried a little when I saw his post, it really was telling about the society we live in.

absolutely astounding, beautiful, wonderful, and a true statement on how people should live.

[Wink Wonk We Like Stonks]

feninimis

feninimis means femboy rights, right?

[Femboyan]

feninimis

feninimis means femboy rights, right?

femnisiism x femboy rights

[Wink Wonk We Like Stonks]

feninimis means femboy rights, right?

femnisiism x femboy rights

that's my otp

[Giovenith]

feninimis means femboy rights, right?

femnisiism x femboy rights

I can 100% get behind that.

[The Blaatschapen]

feninimis

feninimis means femboy rights, right?

The right to femboys?

Not my kink, but I guess I can always sell mine

[Stellar Colonies]

who was given the best inaccurate psych profile? discuss.

...

STELLAR COLONIES: Introverted, logical, science-minded. Few close relationships with people in real life. Skilled at forming compromises and helping with conflict resolution. Unsure of themselves, shy, soft-spoken.
Desired perception: Intelligent, nonjudgmental, generous, compromising
Public perception: [Unclear]
Mindset: Logos

...

Introverted
Yes

Logical
I like to think so

Science-minded
I like to think so

Few close relationships with people in real life
Outside of my family, yes

Skilled at forming compromises and helping with conflict resolution
I like to think so

Unsure of themselves
Perhaps

Shy
Not necessarily, but can be rolled in with 'introverted'

Soft-spoken
Not necessarily, but can be rolled in with 'introverted'

Desired perception: Intelligent, nonjudgmental, generous, compromising
Yes

Public perception: [Unclear]
Interesting

Mindset: Logos
Perhaps

A lot of this could easily have been (and perhaps was) drawn in five minutes from my signature or opinions dispatch. However it was compiled, it is actually somewhat accurate, if simplistic. Of course, the others are certainly less on point and went past the line of...decency.

I like Cekoviu a lot.

What an interesting time to say something so clearly inflammatory.

[Fahran]

Wait, this website is made by an Austrian?

I think it's a joke about Max Barry, long may he write, advertizing his books like a capitalist. I've heard it a couple times.

[Fahran]

"Taking away my fundamental rights gets me all hot and bothered." -Simps

I mean... have you met any simps?

But, yes, she was joking. Even if it wasn't the nicest of jokes. Moderation has addressed it, though someone probably ought to have reported the egregious behavior a little bit earlier. There's not really any reason to belabor the point before she gets back from her two-week vacation. I can make an effort to address her claims next time I see them.

[Des-Bal]

I like mine, possibly because I wasn't called a likely substance abuser or weird simp.

[Santheres]

Not all misandrists are feminists, but all feminists are misandrists for reasons i've covered elsewhere, since the act of saying feminism is an equality movement is an act of misandry that whitewashes it's history of anti-male discrimination.

*** Warned for trolling ***

[Magical Medical League]

While their comments are sometimes inflammatory, Cekoviu has quite a sense of humor.

[Fahran]

With regard to the life-time rape statistic I provided, I can concede that a collection of annual statistics stretching back two decades might prove more useful in formulating a statistical understanding of the occurrence of sexual violence and developing frameworks and strategies to discuss the subject. Upon review, data from both the Bureau of Justice Statistics on reported rapes and the NCVS on all rapes seem to corroborate my theory that a lot of the discrepancy between the life-time and annual statistics was due to the declining occurrence of rape where women were the victims.

However, this does not corroborate Ostro's assertion that men and women are victimized to an equal extent by sexual violence. In the more recent annual data sets, we can observe that men and women were victimized about as much in 2011, potentially with men being even slightly more likely to be victimized due to the exclusion of incarcerated populations from the sample. In the 2015 data set, the opposite is true - with women being far more likely to be victims of rape, even when accounting for the exclusion of incarcerated populations from the sample. With regard to the occurrence of rape, the best an MRA can genuinely argue is that male victimization is far more common than we often acknowledge. That said, I don't really consider "Who was raped more?" a good topic of debate. It seems insensitive and dismissive to victims.

Plus it doesn't really refute feminist arguments to the effect that sexual violence remains a gendered problem, not because "women most affected", though between 1973 and 2020 this seems to be an accurate statement given the data we have, but rather because gendered socialization plays a contributing role to the risk factors that lead to engaging in sexually aggressive behaviors in both male and female perpetrators.

With regard to why women are hyper-aware of sexual violence directed against them, I would assert that we socialize girls to be aware of these dangers in a way that we seldom socialize boys, likely because a lot of women in their 30s and 40s remember a time when sexual violence towards women was much worse, and, furthermore, that, when we move beyond the broad definition of rape I provided earlier, women and girls seem to experience other forms of sexual violence far more often, including dangers associated with human trafficking, sexual coercion (see my previous links where it is defined as badgering and wearing down people to obtain consent), and cat-calling. We also need to account for the fact that the agent-object dichotomy that exists between men and women in our culture leads to male victims not receiving the same consideration. Not to mention the problem of underreporting sexual violence against men.

[New haven america]

With regard to the life-time rape statistic I provided, I can concede that a collection of annual statistics stretching back two decades might prove more useful in formulating a statistical understanding of the occurrence of sexual violence and developing frameworks and strategies to discuss the subject. Upon review, data from both the Bureau of Justice Statistics on reported rapes and the NCVS on all rapes seem to corroborate my theory that a lot of the discrepancy between the life-time and annual statistics was due to the declining occurrence of rape where women were the victims.

However, this does not corroborate Ostro's assertion that men and women are victimized to an equal extent by sexual violence. In the more recent annual data sets, we can observe that men and women were victimized about as much in 2011, potentially with men being even slightly more likely to be victimized due to the exclusion of incarcerated populations from the sample. In the 2015 data set, the opposite is true - with women being far more likely to be victims of rape, even when accounting for the exclusion of incarcerated populations from the sample. With regard to the occurrence of rape, the best an MRA can genuinely argue is that male victimization is far more common than we often acknowledge. That said, I don't really consider "Who was raped more?" a good topic of debate. It seems insensitive and dismissive to victims.

Plus it doesn't really refute feminist arguments to the effect that sexual violence remains a gendered problem, not because "women most affected", though between 1973 and 2020 this seems to be an accurate statement given the data we have, but rather because gendered socialization plays a contributing role to the risk factors that lead to engaging in sexually aggressive behaviors in both male and female perpetrators.

With regard to why women are hyper-aware of sexual violence directed against them, I would assert that we socialize girls to be aware of these dangers in a way that we seldom socialize boys, likely because a lot of women in their 30s and 40s remember a time when sexual violence towards women was much worse, and, furthermore, that, when we move beyond the broad definition of rape I provided earlier, women and girls seem to experience other forms of sexual violence far more often, including dangers associated with human trafficking, sexual coercion (see my previous links where it is defined as badgering and wearing down people to obtain consent), and cat-calling. We also need to account for the fact that the agent-object dichotomy that exists between men and women in our culture leads to male victims not receiving the same consideration. Not to mention the problem of underreporting sexual violence against men.

That's because these studies only count reported claims, unreported claims (Because males aren't seen as being able to be raped or be victims of sexual violence in general in a lot of places) are ~equal that of women.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

NSG statistical analysis - round 2: eclectic boogaloo
Cekoviu^1
1 Corresponding author (University of Ediacara, Department of Phrenology)

Abstract

(Image)

Introduction
It is a well-documented phenomenon that on any forum dedicated to political discussion, topics related to feminism will inevitably become the most toxic hives of scum and villainy on the forum. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the political forum NationStates General, which is hosted by the web game and Austrian book advertisement NationStates; there have been approximately 1,545 pages (a page consisting of 25 posts) of "Feminist Discussion Thread" content. For the most part, regular contributors to this thread have remained surprisingly consistent, with some but not an extreme amount of turnover. Notably and despite the name, the thread is inhabited by a significant cohort of anti-feminist individuals, or "MRAs" (men's rights activists).

One such user on the forum (an adult man obsessed with the children's television program My Little Pony and staunch anti-feminist known as "Ostroeuropa") posited that approximately 90% of his posts debunk misinformation spread by feminists within the thread, which is widespread and which the resident feminists refuse to debunk. The primary goal of this investigation is thus to determine how accurate of an estimate that is (I presume that it is a vast overestimate), but we will also look at the characters that choose to inhabit this thread and what their psychologies look like.

Methods
Primary methodology was adapted from my previous analysis on the same site's Right-Wing Discussion Thread. An arbitrary set of pages across multiple iterations of the Feminist Discussion Thread was chosen, fewer samples than for the RWDT due to the smaller range of topics of the FDT. The page ranges are:

• FDT 3: 25-30, 480-485
• FDT 4: 30-40

(This is equivalent to 500 posts, although fewer were included, as some were made by users that were not included due to the low number of posts they made.)
A list was compiled of active users of the thread over the time periods surveyed. Some may have been missed, as there were no specific criteria and the list was done by sight.

Cekoviu, Costa Fierro, Des-Bal, Galloism, Giovenith, New haven america, Ostroeuropa, Purgatio, Rojava Free State, Stellar Colonies, Sundiata, The Rich Port, West Leas Oros 2, Wink Wonk We Like Stonks, The Xenopolis Confederation

These users were additionally sorted by gender and classified as either feminists, MRAs, or neutral, the latter based on espoused opinions rather than self-identification (see appendix A for assignments).
Next, I set up a post classification system as before in order to identify what proportion of each individual's posts and posts in total debunk or spread misinformation:

• Demonstrated falsehood of misinformation from MRAs (abbr. DM) - The post objectively and unarguably disproves a statistical, historical, linguistic, or economic assertion by an MRA.
• Demonstrated falsehood of misinformation from feminists (DF) - Same as DM, but applied to feminists rather than MRAs.
• Arguable demonstration of falsehood of misinformation from MRAs (abbr. AM) - The post presents strong arguments against a statistical, historical, linguistic, or economic assertion by an MRA and may or may not fully disprove it depending on the viewer's perspective.
• Arguable demonstration of falsehood of misinformation from feminists (abbr. AF) - Same as AM, but for misinformation from feminists.
• MRA propaganda (PM) - The post's contents intentionally skew a statistical, historical, linguistic, or economic reality in order to benefit an MRA agenda, or assert the existence of a statistical, historical, linguistic, or economic event or trend which is outright not factual in order to benefit an MRA agenda.
• Feminist propaganda (PF) - Same as PM, but in order to suit a feminist rather than MRA agenda.
• No contribution (NC) - The post states an opinion or is otherwise unfalsifiable, or does not do anything to counteract or propagate misinformation. The vast majority of posts in general and for almost every poster fall into this category.

For examples of these post categories, please see appendix B.

Note that sorting posts into these categories is by nature subjective and due to the volume of posts, I was unable to read every single one in detail, so post counts by category may be slightly off (the only poster who this affects to any potentially significant degree is Ostro due to the average length of his posts here being much longer than everybody else's; I had to briefly skim most of those and therefore likely missed some propaganda. Disproving misinformation is much easier to catch because links and numbers are present, so results will only be skewed in his favor if at all). On a macroscopic level, the counts should still be approximately reflective of the general situation per poster.

While simple post proportions are visible from the data itself, I also examined statistical trends between gender, ideology, and likelihood of spreading/debunking propaganda. I composed a post contribution index (different from the ones in the RWDT analysis, do not confuse the two) using the simple measure (n_[i]D + 0.5n_A - n_P), simply factoring in posts which either promoted or debunked misinformation according to which action they performed. All data was analyzed and all plots were generated using R.

For the creation of psychological profiles, I simply observed trends across posts made by each user as well as posts responding to them in order to glean information about their psychological condition and took notes. Some users were excluded because they did not post enough to get accurate insights.

Results and discussion
The results for PCI (post contribution index) were largely predictable and are as follows.

User	PCI	Rank
Galloism	4.5	1
Purgatio	4	2
Des-Bal	1	3
Giovenith	0.5	4
Stellar Colonies	0.5	4
Cekoviu	0	5
The Rich Port	0	5
The Xenopolis Confederation	0	5
West Leas Oros 2	0	5
Wink Wonk We Like Stonks	0	5
New haven america	-0.5	6
Sundiata	-1	7
New Edom	-3	8
Rojava Free State	-3	8
Costa Fierro	-4	9
Ostroeuropa	-6.5	10

(A positive result means that the user improved the accuracy of the discourse, a result of 0 means that the user had no measurable effect on the accuracy of the discourse, and a negative result means the user decreased the accuracy of the discourse.)
However, this measurement does not take into account posting frequencies. Adjusted for post frequency, the ranking is as follows:

User	Freq-adjusted PCI	Rank
Purgatio	0.8	1
Stellar Colonies	0.1	2
Galloism	0.096	3
Des-Bal	0.042	4
Giovenith	0.042	4
Cekoviu	0	5
The Rich Port	0	5
The Xenopolis Confederation	0	5
West Leas Oros 2	0	5
Wink Wonk We Like Stonks	0	5
New haven america	-0.018	6
Sundiata	-0.026	7
Ostroeuropa	-0.120	8
New Edom	-0.143	9
Rojava Free State	-0.429	10
Costa Fierro	-0.571	11

Interpretation is the same as above vis-a-vis positive/negative, but keep in mind that these scores are indicative of a person's propensity to spread or reduce misinformation rather than indicating their direct overall literal impact on the thread.

Finally, to directly answer the initial research question, 5.6% of Ostroeuropa's posts were found to either potentially or unarguably debunk misinformation and we can summarily discard his hypothesis.

Please see this gallery for various additional results: https://imgur.com/a/0yjARJS

Results: profiles
Some people aren't on here because I couldn't get enough of a read on them to feel confident in an assessment, or because I forgot them. I swear these are not intended to be personal digs on anyone, I'm taking an outsider's perspective to approach how they would interpret the social interactions here and I'm remaining as honest as possible.

OSTROEUROPA: Extraverted and talkative, but may lack the quality of interpersonal relationships he desires due to his personality trait of valuing being correct over being liked. Likely at risk for substance abuse in order to cope with psychological trauma. Has drive and ambition, and is willing to sacrifice personal relationships if they hold him back. Highly opinionated and stubborn.
Desired perception: Logical, methodical, intelligent, well-spoken
Public perception: Negative - bitter, angry, opinonated, stubborn, verbose
Mindset: Ethos

NEW HAVEN AMERICA: Introverted, albeit not anti-social - bitter over a lack of social connection (particularly romantic?). Possibly on the autism spectrum, exhibits a weak understanding of social cues and comedic timing/context. Enjoys angering people - to compensate for an internal emptiness? Not particularly driven or passionate, a social drifter.
Desired perception: Intelligent, witty, humorous, fun
Public perception: Negative - grating, uninteresting (uncertain)
Mindset: Logos

GALLOISM: Not particularly extraverted or introverted. Well-attuned to social cues. Ashamed of growing conservative with age. Values social justice regardless of group. Statistically inclined, strong ability to recognize patterns.
Desired perception: Well-read, intelligent, witty
Public perception: Positive - accomplished, knowledgeable, likeable
Mindset: Ethos

CEKOVIU: Extraverted and talkative, but shyness and poor self-image result in emotional guarding and few close social connections. Snark and insults are a subconscious means of projecting internal discomfort. Recognition is the most important value, whether positive or negative. Highly self-aware. Quick learner and inquisitive, but also quick to judge. Short attention span and fuse. Unskilled at maintaining positive routines, but prone to forming bad habits. Well-rounded set of interests and strong ambition.
Desired perception: Witty, intelligent, fun, playful, honest
Public perception: Negative - aloof, condescending, contrarian, uninformed
Mindset: Pathos

STELLAR COLONIES: Introverted, logical, science-minded. Few close relationships with people in real life. Skilled at forming compromises and helping with conflict resolution. Unsure of themselves, shy, soft-spoken.
Desired perception: Intelligent, nonjudgmental, generous, compromising
Public perception: [Unclear]
Mindset: Logos

DES-BAL: Introverted, blunt, focused, utilitarian. Hard to read; not verbose online or likely in real life. Places little emphasis on interpersonal relationships, particularly with online strangers for whom the investment would outweigh the returns.
Desired perception: Logical, intellectual
Public perception: Neutral-positive - blunt, cold, logical, skilled at debating
Mindset: Logos

SUNDIATA: Extraverted, loyal, perseverant. Appears to cling to Opus Dei and Catholicism as a way of substituting for emptiness in the soul, perhaps caused by loneliness or turmoil in his personal life. Likely lacks positive organic contact with women on a regular basis.
Desired perception: Kind, devout, friendly
Public perception: Negative - fanatical, illogical, simpesque, strange
Mindset: Ethos

COSTA FIERRO: Introverted, bitter, passionate about a very specific set of subjects. Possible trauma, or simple resentment, leads to a severe rejection of the opposite sex. Unconcerned with accuracy if a claim sounds true enough; does not subconsciously value conformance of worldview to reality. Few interpersonal relationships.
Desired perception: Brave, independent, unique
Public perception: Negative - hypocritical, cowardly
Mindset: Pathos

WEST LEAS OROS: Introverted, young, rash, not an overthinker. Perhaps left out of activities as a child or currently, hence the overwhelming desire to be included and validated. Likely to be somewhat uncertain about identity and place. Does not appear to be particularly well-versed in history, politics, sociology, or rhetoric; most familiarity with political discourse was likely formed via social media/Internet fora.
Desired perception: Brave, logical, a desirable comrade
Public perception: Neutral - hot-headed, common-sense, overall adequate
Mindset: Pathos

GIOVENITH: Somewhat introverted, easily offended, protective, deeply concerned with social injustice, occasionally rash. Values fairness over loyalty and enjoys caretaker roles, perhaps interested in education or medicine as career options.
Desired perception: Just, kind, empathetic, intelligent
Public perception: Positive - respectable, fair, assertive where necessary
Mindset: Ethos

WONK STONKS OR WHATEVER: Extraverted, happy-go-lucky, young. Cheerful, up to date on current culture, well-liked by most. Desired perception: Quirky, unique, fun
Public perception: Positive - "in", friendly, humorous
Mindset: Pathos(?)

Conclusion
Ostro was wrong: statistically speaking, the majority of his contributions appear to do nothing to counter "feminist misinformation" and the presence of MRAs does not appear to have any negative effect on how much misinformation is shared, as the majority of misinformation was propagated by MRAs and only Gallo really did anything to disprove any feminist-originated misinformation.

Appendix A - Gender and ideology assignments

Poster	Sex	Ideology
Cekoviu	f	feminist
Costa Fierro	m	mra
Des-Bal	m	mra
Dumb Ideologies	f	neutral
Galloism	m	mra
Giovenith	f	feminist
New haven america	m	mra
Ostroeuropa	m	mra
Purgatio	m	feminist
Rojava Free State	m	neutral
Stellar Colonies	u	neutral
Sundiata	m	feminist
The Rich Port	u	feminist
West Leas Oros 2	m	mra
Wink Wonk We Like Stonks	u	feminist
The Xenopolis Confederation	f	neutral

Appendix B - Example posts
DM/DF posts look like the following:

Crucially, the poster links a study demonstrating the falsehood of the point the other user, who is feminist, is making, rather than simply stating the interlocutor is incorrect using anecdotes or blind assertions.

While a lot of his posts leave me feeling disjointed and so I don't respond to them much, this part is actually factually based.

Barring explicit disclaimers, failing to be sexist against men is viewed as misogyny on average.

When you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

PM/PF posts look like the following:

Most egregious portion highlighted in bold (the claim here is extremely skewed, and Purgatio demonstrates how in a following AM post). It is important to distinguish the unfalsifiable opinions constituting the rest of the post from the very much disprovable historical claim made here, which is what makes this a PM post rather than a NC post.

How so? Plenty of women support an alt-right and far-right agenda and want it enforced on society. Let's suppose they even straight up repealed womens right to vote.

That would still not be political suicide for women. Example, the daughters of the confederacy were able to massively impact society to the point we're still dealing with their bullshit based on the idea that women were inherently "Non-political" and non-partisan, well before they had the right to vote. This was a common strategy by womens organizations historically to force change on society while delegitimizing criticism and opposition through the claim that women weren't able to be political so the person criticizing them had no idea what they were talking about and clearly just had personal failings.

They completely transformed southern society. If anything it's similar to the "When we do it, it's not sexism" meme we're seeing from women in the modern day. (Which ironically relies on a continuation of the former mentality and denial women had a major role in shaping society.).

Second verse, same as the first.

Works like this tbh:
https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44?t=4248

From here onwards. This entire part of the video describes how feminists operate and how women have historically operated in politics. It is not a coincidence QAnon is mostly women too.

So long as our society continues to believe that if women as a group are upset with a man there's something wrong with the man, so long as it continues to axiomatically reject the notion there might instead be something wrong with women as a group, political suicide for women is not possible. Because they have, can, and will exploit that dynamic to achieve their political goals while denying it.

The key is for men to internalize that rick and morty quote

"Your boo's mean nothing to me, i've seen what makes you cheer.".

This is one example of a demonstrably false claim meant to benefit the feminist side of the argument.

Yes, no feminist of serious academic or legal note believes that.

NC posts are essentially every post that does not resemble one of these.

External resources

• Source data for all the analysis
• R source code
• URL to our complaints department if you have a problem with your scores/psychological profile

I guess I don't make much of an impression.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

I like Cekoviu a lot.

I think she is quite witty and clever and interesting. Pity that she now uses that wit and intelligence in service of a deranged ideology.

[Wink Wonk We Like Stonks]

I like Cekoviu a lot.

I think she is quite witty and clever and interesting. Pity that she now uses that wit and intelligence in service of a deranged ideology.

imagine she's just trolling everyone and isn't actually a proud misandrist. she's just in front of her computer, laughing so hard it hurts, as everyone in the thread gets mad. haha jk ...





unless?

[Fahran]

That's because these studies only count reported claims, unreported claims (Because males aren't seen as being able to be raped or be victims of sexual violence in general in a lot of places) are ~equal that of women.

The previous CDC studies that both Ostro and I cited actually explored both reported and unreported claims by engaging in surveys of the general population and, rather than asking about rape, describing specific forms of sexual violence. My definition of rape for the purposes of these conversations was different from the study I cited, but included acts that Ostro insisted were tantamount to rape. The questions that focused on the twelve months prior to the study serve to ameliorate the problem of men processing trauma differently from women and the framing of the questions serves to minimize errors that might arise due to the stigmas attached to victimized men. The one methodological problem that we could really discuss at that point was the exclusion of the incarcerated population, which would tend to decrease the figure for male victimization given that more men are incarcerated. We used a couple of other cities to address that gap. Hence how I drew my conclusions about the years 2011 and 2015.

With regard to the data sets from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, those do actually emphasize reported instances of sexual violence. I'm pointing out that a decline in reported sexual assaults and the general trend towards a decline in violent crimes since 1973 probably reflects that the occurrence of sexual violence and, in this case, rape in particular has diminished within the time frame of the study, namely 1973 to 2008. I'm not stating definitively that my hypothesis is fool-proof. But it is sufficiently compelling that subsequent studies and breakdowns of available data could reliably test it in all probability. Beyond that, I'm also stating that at least one of Ostro's claims was probably wrong, though salient because it brought attention to the victimization of men.

[Ors Might]

Sorry for replying to these posts several pages after the fact. Real life along with political burnout has been getting in the way.

To comment on how men deal with trauma, I’d like to chime in with my own experiences. I’ve mentioned this before but I’ve been sexually harassed and grabbed by a classmate in the past and it took me a long time before I was really able to register it as wrong and only began to address it when I mentally and emotionally couldn’t ignore it anymore. I’m not saying my experiences on this subject are the norm for men but I do think it could explain some discrepancies.

We need to teach people from a young age what sexual abuse looks like and how to recognize it when it happens to themselves and others. But based upon what I’ve dealt with and what I’ve seen other guys express, I feel like there’s a larger barrier for men on coming to terms with what happens to them.

We do.

The problem though is that we only teach girls that. On the other hand, we teach boys how not to be physically or sexually violent towards girls, which ends up with most men growing up to be much less likely to physically or sexually harm women, yet not knowing that they can experience physical/sexual abuse themselves (And a system that actively punishes them for talking about this type of stuff, like the Duluth Model). Meanwhile, we have a lot of women growing up who think they can only be victims or don't realize their physically/sexually violent behavior in general. (Fun fact: Lesbians are the most physically, verbally, and sexually abusive relationship demographic, as most girls aren't taught that hitting or talking shit about your partner is bad)

You’ve hit the nail on the head. I think that actually recognizing that women can victimize not only women but men as well is a very important step that society needs to take. Not to say that people don’t understand intellectually that women can be abusers, most people absolutely know that can be the case. It’s kinda like how Blue Lives Matter types will admit that police can abuse their power but have difficulty recognizing said abuse when it happens. When people are conditioned to accept a certain dynamic, it can be near impossible to accept events that contradict that dynamic, even when it’s happening right in front of them.

To comment on how men deal with trauma, I’d like to chime in with my own experiences. I’ve mentioned this before but I’ve been sexually harassed and grabbed by a classmate in the past and it took me a long time before I was really able to register it as wrong and only began to address it when I mentally and emotionally couldn’t ignore it anymore. I’m not saying my experiences on this subject are the norm for men but I do think it could explain some discrepancies.

We need to teach people from a young age what sexual abuse looks like and how to recognize it when it happens to themselves and others. But based upon what I’ve dealt with and what I’ve seen other guys express, I feel like there’s a larger barrier for men on coming to terms with what happens to them.

I'm sorry that happened to you, but I'm glad you got to a place where you could acknowledge that you had been victimized and that what your classmate had done was a moral and criminal wrong. I know this is deeply personal and may be a sensitive topic for you, but may I ask if and how you've processed your trauma from these experiences and how the healing process (or absence thereof) has impacted and continues to impact you?

I do think we absolutely need to change the way we pursue conversations about sexual violence in light of how prevalent female-perpetrated sexual violence and sexual violence involving male victims appears to be. I've stated that a portion of our existing framework remains applicable to instances of male-perpetrated sexual violence, at least far more applicable than models that treat sexual violence as an outlier or solely as a consequence of sexual scarcity, but we should approach female-perpetrated sexual violence in a uniquely gendered way as well since rape myths in particular appear to be the product of gendered socialization, specifically the formation of attitudes and beliefs about the opposite gender.

Thank you for saying so. While my experiences with sexual harassment aren’t something I’ve spoken much of save for a few close friends, I’ve been learning over the past several months that keeping things to myself and trying to resolve my feelings internally has been an unhealthy method of coping, so I’m not unwilling to speak on the matter. As I said, I ignored what happened until it more or less caused me to have an emotional break. I’m fortunate to have had a friend that I could talk to about the experience or I likely would have simply shoved it back down. I think I’ve come to accept that it happened and moved on but looking back, it may have contributed to my insecurities about whether or not I’m desirable to others and the like, specifically whether I enjoy it or not. Since this isn’t the thread for it I won’t go into too much detail but I have been questioning how I present my sexuality for a while now and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about sex as a topic.

Agreed. More than anything, we need examine how we socialize boys and girls and how that socialization will impact their development into young adults. For example, dismantling the “boys don’t cry” mentality has been useful for this area, but I also think we need to look at how we socialize girls and how they view their actions towards others has been somewhat neglected. From what I seen, the discussion tends to be centered around how girls are acted upon as objects. Which is by no means a bad thing to examine but focusing upon it solely is limited.

[Sundiata]

I like Cekoviu a lot.

I think she is quite witty and clever and interesting. Pity that she now uses that wit and intelligence in service of a deranged ideology.

She certainly is very special. I don't mind that she's a feminist; I'm a feminist. She's actually a really good person even if she doesn't make it obvious all of the time.

[Sundiata]

I think she is quite witty and clever and interesting. Pity that she now uses that wit and intelligence in service of a deranged ideology.

imagine she's just trolling everyone and isn't actually a proud misandrist. she's just in front of her computer, laughing so hard it hurts, as everyone in the thread gets mad. haha jk ...





unless?

No, no.

While she does joke around she's voicing very serious but unique concerns. She's a good sport but when she raises important points it's good to take her seriously. People like her aren't very common, frankly.

I also have no intention of speaking for her.