I’ve updated my comment above to be a bit more indepth, regarding that view specifically.
I also do think that there are plenty of people who would much rather take down society than to change for the better. The assholes in oregon are but one example. There are literally people who’d rather live in a fascist state than give women and people of color of all genders, and LBGQT+ people equality. I’m really not being hyperbolic, either. Just look at our president. That was in response to a black president and greater representation in popular culture.
Oh I don’t actually believe that all men are trash on an individual level, however that has never been the point of Men Are Trash.
When other men react to Men Are Trash with a defense of their own (or their friends, or perhaps some famous Good Man) decency, I have a tendency, probably most informed by exasperation, to push back by ramping up the hyperbole, if only for the simple fact that being a Good Man is not enough.
I actually believe that most people are decent. It isn’t human decency that I see to be the problem. The problem is that billions of decent people are effectively shut out from affecting critical reform from within the trash power structure(s).
I think all or most of us mutants, at least, would agree that we are standing at a tipping point in the human story. It becomes clearer by the day that stark, drastic decisions will have to be made, and an immensity of effort we still do not comprehend must be undertaken if we are merely to have a chance at functional civilization by the end of the century.
Every Single Thing we have done to this point has not been enough to move the needle in a positive direction, and indeed right now the trends are Very Fucking Bad (record emissions, rise of global fascism…)
I used to hold out some hope, albeit skeptically, that reformism might be enough to at least tend to our wounds, so to speak, and perhaps allow space for the peaceful revolution needed to rid ourselves of these toxic ideologies.
Going back to the original topic, isn’t “Men are trash” incredibly mild? I realize that saying “men are trash” is evidence that the speaker is an anti-man extremist, but it’s weak as shit as evidence goes. Is there no proportionality to anything? People talk about punching up and punching down, and that’s important, but beyond that what about just understanding what people say in the context of the society they say it in. Like we get nervous about people comparing minorities to animals because we know that dehumanization is a precursor to genocide. But if you hear a woman say, “Men are pigs” the most likely way to translate that is, “I’m feeling incredibly frustrated with the behaviour of someone I love very much.”
If a woman is saying that men need to be eliminated, giving out links to the SCUM Manifesto, streaming herself watching videos of men being killed or seriously harmed while she laughs, and making indirect threats to kill men, then by all means call that extremism. I’m not saying that in the whole wide world there aren’t a few scary women bent on harming men.
But I’d place a significant wager that the majority of women who have ever said that men are trash are people who love men in their lives, who recognize men as human beings worthy of the same dignity and respect they are, and who would never dream of harassing or being violent towards someone because they are a man. Unless Brazil has a mobilized anti-man movement that is actually harming men that I’m not aware of, it’s just absurd to interpret “men are trash” as “extremism”.
Oh, absolutely. I can’t judge or blame any woman who says it out of frustration, considering the violence and abuse so many of us have to deal with on a daily basis. And maybe, just maybe, hearing it will wake up some men and make them stop and think, “Is this me? Am I part of the problem? How can I be part of the solution?” Unfortunately, there are too many listeners who get defensive and automatically deny, deny, deny when they hear those words. They close the door on any possible truth by focusing on the literal words. And I don’t think any of us really believe that every single man is trash.
I just see a bit of myself in @FlyerJack’s concerns about how to do good when you feel like a bad person. If there’s any truth to the maxim “hurt people hurt people”, then the challenge is, how do we break that cycle? How do we encourage empathy, instead of a lack of self-worth (and/or a surplus of entitlement) that perpetuates the pain?
I don’t have the answers. I wish to Goddess I did.
Edited because, after all that typing, I forgot to include the quote I meant to reply to.
Rather than “ban all games” or “abandon all social media”, maybe it’s time tech started using a QMP and HACCP approach (for those of you not steeped in manufacturing, QMP is Quality Management Plan and HACCP is Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point).
For example, in your kitchen, an identifiable hazard might be raw chicken which carries a risk of Salmonella. Rather than abandoning the idea of ever having chicken ever again, you create control points to manage the hazard: you use a separate cutting board for the chicken and vegetables, you prep the other items first and you wash all contact surfaces and utensils with hot soapy water and possibly a foodsafe sanitizer.
As hazards are identified, you identity control points for that hazard. If games or social media contain a hazard that allows for the translation of hate into violence, you don’t give up on ever having games or social media – you build in controls. Things like a robust moderation system that is capable of being flexible, to avoid false positives (such as banning an anti-violence activist under a policy meant to deter violence, or a victim reacting to her harrassment under a policy meant to deter harrassment). You actively work on recognizing the hazards in your corporate culture – especially those at the top determining what that corporate culture is. You listen to the outside criticism telling you about hazards, do a Root Cause Analysis to determine what needs fixing (is it the game, or is it a disproportionate level of toxic behavior in the community? What can be done to control or counter that toxic behaviour? What is driving that behaviour? Can some of that be fixed? Can we remove the social feedback loops?).
Rather than going “well, we’re not sociologists/psychologists/historians, this is outside our scope”, do what other industries do when they run into areas where they aren’t subject matter experts: bring in those who are.
Recognize the difference between “stakeholders” and “shareholders” and listen to the former at least as much as the latter. Instead of the view that old, established industries are moribund, consider how they became established in the first place.
There’s a reason a 2019 Honda Civic is safer than a Model-T, despite the much greater hazard of other drivers than when the Model-T was introduced. Rather, it’s because of that hazard – recognizing and controlling it. Maybe tech could learn from that, instead of trying to jam us all into Civics with the brakes and steering of a Model-T.
I understand that you didn’t call me trash me individually, you just declared all members of my gender to be trash. Still not cool. I agree with your statements about women, but your dismissal of an entire gender (even the most privileged gender) as all trash is, IMO, wrong.
But it’s not just about me taking your insult as an insult. It’s also wrong, IMO, to tell all members of a gender that they are “trash,” let alone repeat it over and over, and expect that to have a positive effect on their behavior. Aside from being a mean thing to do, that’s just not how humans work.
Edited to add: In a subsequent post, you explained that you were not speaking literally. I appreciate the added explanation.
Sure, but some subset of those would do that no matter what you say to them, whether it’s “men are trash” or “all women at some point in their life have faced some level of harassment.” some of them are looking for any tiny little “slip up” on the part of women to “prove” that we deserve whatever we get. They use this sort of thing to “prove” there isn’t a problem, that it’s “both sides” and that we don’t need to address larger systemic problems that half the population of the world faces on a daily basis. Some subset of these men who believe it applies to them would deny that women ever face these same social problems of alienation.
I think it was Laurie Penny who noted that she faced exactly the same alienation as geeky dudes, but was constantly told by those same dudes that SHE was the problem, not a larger bullying, competitive culture that prized certainly traits over others (stereotypical gender traits, in this case). She was bullied just as much for being a geek as they were, but was never accepted as a geek, despite being a geek and feeling the same alienation. Geek in other words was imagined to equal man. Bullying was something only men felt, and so women who rebelled against patriarchal society was part of the problem, no matter what she did.
I get where you’re coming from, but our own experiences of being bullied and feeling alienated is rarely treated the same.
Go back and read again. That’s not what @wait_really is doing. They are not saying “all men are trash” they are saying that traditional stereotypes that lead men to act in a particular way, which is the predominant mode of being a man in the modern world, is trash.
[ETA] Also, someone in another thread just made an implicit threat TO ME…
So I should’ve taken his words seriously but not literally? I quoted his direct statement, which he repeated for emphasis.
It appears that he’s since explained, after my initial reply, that he did not mean it literally. Gah! Communication over the internet is hard enough as it is. It’s hard to respond when people don’t just say what they mean.
I try not to do that, and end up doing that sometimes… editing a post to add just a line, and end up adding an entire paragraph… Sometimes I also forget to note it… I don’t mean to, but that’s just how my brain works sometimes.
Where have you been? Since there has been an “online” for there to be, men have been attacking women there. These attacks transferred over quite well from meat-space and have been a part of every major modern society to one degree or another for a loooong time.
I quoted his direct statement, which he repeated for emphasis.
