Forgive me if this was addressed, but I don't think it was. During a previous struggle session in a statement from the mod team something was said along the lines of "the he/hims aren't beating the allegations".
Personally I do not think this is acceptable, to me this is just using "he/hims" as a proxy for saying men. No one in IRL settings uses "he/hims" as a term to describe people who use him/him pronouns, no one is categorized into a grouping in general based on their pronouns as it is just a preferred pronoun not a characteristic like gender identity.
If there is misogyny going on, just say there is misogyny among users, their pronouns do not change the content of what they said, if someone with he/him pronouns and someone with she/her pronouns typed the exact same degrading thing about a woman, their pronouns would not factor into whether what they said was misogynistic or not.
I am bringing this up as it seems like people in the mod chat are still using "he/hims" to refer to people who have indicated they prefer he/him as their pronouns, you might think this is progressive because you are not directly making a gender identity assumption, but I believe this is in fact reactionary and you are just using pronouns as a proxy for the gender that is most commonly associated with the given pronoun i.e. men in the case of saying "he/hims".
I think this is at least counterproductive and at most harmful, if knowing someone's gender identity is relevant or useful, it should just be asked for.
The point of having pronouns is to accommodate and to treat people with respect and dignity about what they prefer to be called. Using pronouns as a proxy for gender identity undermines this as, treating someone with dignity would involve asking them directly what their gender identity is, not making judgments or assumptions based off of their preferred pronouns.
The only thing that having he/him pronouns indicates is that the person prefers to be referred to with the pronouns he and him. They are just personal pronouns, they are not equivalent to an ethnicity, a gender identity, a gender expression, etc.
If someone with he/him pronouns seems like they are misogynistic, that may have something to do with their gender identity, but it has nothing to do with their pronouns. It is not fair nor accurate to make assumptions of gender identity from pronouns and I think this should be avoided.
This is not to undermine any concerns about misogyny, but misogyny can and should be fought against regardless of what pronouns are involved in any instance of it.
Thanks for reading this, please know all I want is for pronouns and gender identity not to be conflated and to create a safe and respectful space for all users. And I think a good way to work towards this would be to stop using "he/hims", "she/hers", "they/thems", etc. as a way to refer to people who specify they would like to be referred to as those pronouns.
Thanks for this. I try my very best to not be a misogynist and it's actually taken me some time to deprogram my brain from old ways of thinking. I've seen posters throw around the
bit and I know it's not about me personally but I can't help but feel lumped in because I identify as such. idk maybe I'm being melodramatic but like you said, if someone is being a shithead then call that person out rather than make a broad statement like "all he/hims are bad".
this is straight up just "not all men" discourse but the word "men" has been replaced with "he/hims"
observing that a disproportionate amount of misogynistic takes come from he/hims isn't the same as saying "literally all he/hims are bad and that includes you"
It still creates a chilling effect where he/hims feel unjustly scrutinized based on their demographic rather than their individual takes.
The arbitrators basing their policing on expected demographics and "the usual suspects" is never healthy.
this is straight up just "not all men" discourse but the word "men" has been replaced with "he/hims" [2]
the ones who aren't peddling misogyny aren't the ones being scrutinized, and when i say that there's a problem with men i shouldn't have to clarify that i don't specifically mean every single man who exists, it should be a fucking given. all this discourse does is muddy the waters and make it harder to express that yes, this demographic is being particularly hostile to others.
why is this still a discussion on this site? holy shit
I really don't feel like rehashing the whole thing, but this just goes into 'not all men' territory which is shit territory to be in. The argument is just spiced up by throwing in some enbies/trans/gender diverse people into the equation that also use he/him pronouns. Its not enigmatic, we have data on how many people with he/him pronouns identify as cis or not, and unsurprisingly a vast majority of these people are cis on this site. We are all apes that rely on pattern recognition
, of course cis people with he/him pronouns will insist on shoving their brainworms up peoples noses eventually and cause some collateral damage and people will use shorthand to refer to this phenomena.
Frankly, its a bit embarrassing that some users are reverting to this kind of discourse
Yeah, I always just think that either (1) this is something I don't do so it's not about me, (2) this is maybe something I in fact do do, so instead of getting mad about it I should look inward and try to be better, and overall (3) I occupy a privileged place in this particular dynamic so maybe instead of taking up even more rhetorical room than I do simply by being a man, I can shut up and let people that men typically silence say their piece without talking over them.
And in that spirit I'll shut up now.
I really want to agree with you because your reasoning is nearly flawless but that's the kind of thinking that gets me in trouble here. "Spiced up by throwing in some enbies/trans/gender diverse people" is dismissive of that population, however small, and that's the kind of thing that this place has been trying to stamp out.
I'm genuinely not sure what the solution is either because I'm here for taking it on the chin as a cis guy but I wouldn't want others to ever be lumped in to that.
I'm not being dismissive of them, I'm saying that the people arguing the 'not all men' shtick are basically just using them as rhetorical shields. The vast majority of interactions on this site are from cisgender people using he/him pronouns so when people are discussing this phenomena generally that is definitely what they're referring to
i literally feel like one of those rhetorical shields right now like you say, and it's quite uncomfortable. i'm a queer agender person that uses he/him and i don't feel othered at all by people using "he/hims" when they vent or call out issues of misogyny and other things like that. i honestly don't understand it and don't like that it's slipping into 'not all' reactionary rhetoric at all.
like are we not meant to say down with cis anymore because cis people will feel othered??? i feel like you shouldn't feel othered by those kinds of statements if you aren't actively doing the harmful things the person was venting frustration about. i think people are just taking those kinds of statements very personally when they shouldn't be. and i think people should really examine why it's hitting them so personally rather than lashing out at marginalized users who are venting their frustration.
idk if that makes sense i'm really bad at articulating my thoughts...
:cat-trans:
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he/him whining
is it even possible to express that this kind of thing can hurt my feelings sometimes? I'm always terrified of saying anything about this, for fear of making this "not all men" kind of argument, but fuck it seems relevant:
hexbear is the one place I've felt like i can express myself, but seeing people get upvoted for generic "men are trash" comments sometimes messes with my already non-existent self-esteem. Im not trying to say people shouldnt say those kinds of things, this is my own problem, but i dont even know how to healthily express this kind of hurt is what I'm trying to say, I guess. is there a way to express this without delving into "not all men" territory?
I'm not a man and have not been seen as one by society for a looong time so I probably won't have very useful advice for this other than 'read mens lib shit'. Of course I had a period of time long ago where I thought I was a guy, and certain things resonated with me and do haunt me a bit still. 'Men aren't trusted around children.' 'Being a man near women can feel like you're being seen as a predator.' I hated being seen as a man and hated having these things implied of me, especially early on in my transition. Trans women are often seen as men that are just invading womens spaces to do men stuff, so you know, I guess I get it.
cw trauma, misogyny, sv
Transitioning and being a trans woman feels very much like being thrown to the wolves. Most trans women were never taught how to protect themselves from men and do not have support structures to help prevent that, and I have dealt with many, many situations where trans women were basically homeless for the majority of their lives due to repeated physical attacks by men. I've been SV'd before and was on death's door for months afterwards, and I can't help but think I was too naive. I felt no one ever properly taught me how to protect myself and how to seek support from others to avoid things like that. I personally am not able to go alone anywhere without being almost immediately sexually harassed. I guess I'm attractive or something, but its a never-ending onslaught. The most recent incident was a couple weeks ago, I had walked out of sight of my bf for 1 minute and some guy immediately commented on my figure. Having been SV'd and groped before, this is obviously not something that makes me feel safe. When I say I hate men, I'm referring to what is basically pervasive misogynistic terrorism (or people allying with this sort of terrorism), and it genuinely feels like every man I see is a potential adversary or someone that will overlook a real threat to me. And this is despite starting from a baseline similar to yours.
For me, I guess what I did was divorce myself from being a man, which came naturally of course. I'm not sure if its possible for an earnestly cishet normative man to do this entirely, and I'm not saying you are that. A lot of avoiding trauma is based on vibes. Women might find visibly queer men more safe to be around, some might like being around 'softer' men (like ones that groom themselves a lot and paint nails and so on) because that isn't the typical kind of guy that harasses them. There's a lot of ways to signal that you're not a misogynistic terrorist, basically, and a lot of it has to do with rejecting mainstream masculine norms. Men can give off really bad vibes sometimes to people that are fem/fem adjacent, and the claws will come out immediately. For marginalized people online, they will notice certain tactics being regularly employed, such as semantics arguments to distract from real grievances, and then they will steer clear of those spaces.
As a disclaimer this whole tangent isn't really fully related to the discourse in this thread, I'm more commenting on 'not all men' stuff.
i appreciate you sharing this, and im so sorry you had to go through all of that comrade. I think you are obviously right to protect yourself, and i dont blame you (or any others) for any "kill all men" sentiment. I dont think i was quite clear enough with this: I understand why "men are trash" arguments are made, and even agree with them. I was lucky enough that my sister ensured that much even without me having read anything lol. but feelings arent always rational, and i was just trying to express that sometimes that kind of comment can really get me down in the dumps about myself and also make me feel unwelcome on this site or that I'm making the site a worse place, and how I'm not even sure where/how to talk about that feeling. idk if that makes sense
There is the /c/menby comm
Challenging one’s privileges can be emotionally difficult, for sure, and I think that it’s okay to recognize this. I think the best way to deal with these kinds of emotions is to read theory, to listen to the experiences of marginalized people, and to talk about these feelings with comrades (who are principled about these issues.) For the record I have experienced similar emotions to what you describe, not around being a man but around other things, though I deal with these feelings very privately. I think you are already on the right track because you recognize that the problem does not lie with the people expressing the anger. While I’m not sure if a public forum is always the best platform to talk about more difficult private feelings surrounding dynamics of marginalization, I don’t think that the conversation can never be had at all. If you want to talk about this further, my DMs are open.
thank you comrade, this made me feel better, appreciate you!
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Hey, I’ve deleted my comment and I want to apologize and self-crit for engaging in tone policing especially as a non-Black POC. I do sincerely agree with your comment and I want to say I really appreciate your input throughout this thread and your observations on toxic masculinity. I think you made your point very clear in this comment and my comment was completely unnecessary and far too concerned with semantics. I am very sorry, I will not do that next time, I am really going to self-reflect on this.
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The mod that just got banned is a he/him/they/them so evidently it's not just a cis guy thing
Non-binary people are also capable of shit thinking. The main issue with Foucalts was his refusal to back down and self-correct after rehashing right wing arguments that detract from the main issue of misogyny.
I wasn't discussing that person in this post
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Not at all what I said
good post
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why? because you think women shouldn’t be allowed to use forceful language? stop tone policing.
joking? or should I actually reply
Is this not tone policing kristina's words.
I don't care about her tone, I spoke about her ideas.
Speaking about misogyny it also took me a while to realise some users here use "misogyny/bigotry/reactionary" as a stand-in for "thing I don't like". I'm looking thru the tailism discussion rn and it happens there too.
I think a better way to phrase this might be, "I sometimes feel like I might be being lumped in, but I hope someone would call me out directly if I was ever being misogynistic". I can see why other people think your comment is similar to the "not all men" discourse, but I don't think this was your intention. No thanks needed, it's great you are on a journey of self crit and deprogramming, that should be commended.
I see it as the discomfort of being in a space that isn't made for me for once.
Am I a huge piece of shit? I don't think so and I don't think many other people would think so. Am I the all-knowing gender God? Obviously not. I'm fine, but I am often made to feel less than fine here.
Everywhere else is made for me and it's extremely comfortable. A very small minority of places are made for not me and my responsibility is to sit in the discomfort that those places create (as long as I'm welcome there in the first place) and work out the root of that feeling.
The solution to all places being made for one demographic is not to make places that are not for that demographic, but to make the other places inclusive. How we go about doing that can be discussed, but arguing that a place being unwelcoming being a "good thing" in and of itself reminds me of black capitalist discourse.
Cities are in large part made for men, but good urban planning isn't to shit on men. It's to stop shitting on everyone else, which, incidentally, turns out to make cities better for men too. And funnily enough if your main goal (or even just if it is just one of your goals) is to make a place unwelcoming for a certain demographic, then you're just going to make the place worse for all involved. Likewise with online spaces. At times you will need to make a place unwelcoming to one group (womens' shelters for example) but you gotta be very consderate about it and consistent, neither of which are going on here.