I get what the comic is saying but from my experience men dont ssy this because thats the whole problem with mens mental health, tho women do get ignored but not in favor of men just generally. Point is the world is shit, and yes everyones mental health is shit.
I love when I’m explaining a struggle of mine that is cause of who I am and then being enrolled in the oppression Olympics.
Yeah well imagine what its like being a non-binary half black half Mexican person with disabilities. Ugh I’m so tired of privileged people like you whining about how no one will listen.
Woah, woah.
I wanna say that’s never happened to me when I was talking about my experiences. But … I can’t.
I feel ya
If you wanna talk feel free to DM me.
It’s almost like assholes can’t keep their mouths shut when people don’t talk about their needs. If only society created less of those, that’d be nice.
Honestly same thing happens when we talk about men.
Tons of women coming up, saying “women have it worse” and attempting to minimize the importance if men’s issues.
Let’s just listen to both sides for once, and make everyone heard. When everyone is given a platform to speak, there’s no need to interrupt each other.
Funnily enough you’re in the comic. Not that I think you intended that.
The comic is about the meta issue so it’s not quite the same imo
I agree that it’s not quite the same, and I’m finding it real interesting to ponder how that happens.
This comic and this comment section have been pretty thought provoking. (Heads up, this is overly abstract speculation from here): For example, here’s a mathsy diagram
This is a commutative diagram, and I’m not at the level of being able to explain it properly, but part of it is the idea of equivalence, the fact that there’s two routes from A to D that are equivalent.I’m thinking about this sort of analogous to what we’re seeing in the comic and these comments. Like, the base experiences we’re talking about (being spoken over when you’re trying to share your experiences, for example) are fundamentally shared experiences, but the manner of experiencing them is different, because it’s coloured by our own positionality (of which gender is a big part of). I think sometimes though, it’s like discussions don’t work because we get separated — some of us at B, and some at C. Like, it does matter that our experiences are different, but also, there’s a sense in which it doesn’t, because we need to head to the same place anyway.
I don’t know what converging on D would be in this analogy. Solidarity perhaps? Which would, I suppose, involve recognising that the route you’re on is different to the route other people are on, and that it’s possible to be heading to the same place. I’m not sure, this is quite abstract, but you said the word “meta” and that seemed to catalyse this thought, so here’s this comment. You’re welcome/my apologies
Oh hell yeah, Category Theory! LET’S GOOOOO!
The comic is about how when people speak online online about women’s issues, dudes keep trying to make it about dudes.
The comic itself is someone talking online about women’s issues, and the comments are all men trying to make it about them.
It’s remarkably similar.
The comic is about how when people speak online online about women’s issues, dudes keep trying to make it about dudes.
This is a legitimate complaint in the situations where the topic is uniquely a women’s issue, and people are trying to redirect the conversation to something that really isn’t the same thing and is a separate issue so talking about that means you aren’t talking about the first thing anymore. But the meta issue of someone trying to talk about one group’s problems and getting hit by whataboutism, seems arguably more universal and might not be specifically a women’s issue, so saying something along the lines of “yeah this happens to us too it sucks”, could be supportive and not about shutting up discussion of the original topic.
This isn’t a universal complaint about the frustration of whataboutism.
This is a specific complaint about how any time women try to talk about women’s issues in a forum that may contain men, those men engage in disingenuous whataboutism.
The men replying are almost never showing support, they’re minimizing the issue, or they’re trying to co-opt the thread.
It doesn’t need to be a uniquely woman’s issue for it to be a predominantly women’s issue.
And it doesn’t need to be a predominantly woman’s issue for women to want to talk about it from a woman’s perspective without men making it about them.The men replying are almost never showing support, they’re minimizing the issue, or they’re trying to co-opt the thread.
To me, the comment in question didn’t seem to be doing that. The point I’m trying to make is to object to the idea that it is categorically doing that, given the context. It seems like a divisive way of deciding what is bad behavior, to condemn any statement made in response to discussion about problems faced by one group that is not specifically about the struggles of that group, regardless of anything else about the statement.
This is a specific complaint about how any time women try to talk about women’s issues in a forum that may contain men, those men engage in disingenuous whataboutism.
If you would rather expand on how that goes or the ways in which this is predominantly a women’s issue, feel free to take this opportunity instead of responding to what else I’m saying.
Even now, you’re trying to derail the conversation, which is about how women have to deal with this bullshit all the time online, and make it about a topic you care about.
You don’t need to participate, if this isn’t the subject that you want to talk about.
You’re right, and we all know who downvoted you
My point is that it is a universal issue, all while many people are trying very hard to represent it as women-specific.
When male voices are shushed both under their posts and under those focused on women, they don’t have much of a platform to speak out. And they need it, too.
If all sides have an opportunity to say things without being interrupted, there is no point in chiming in and saying the other side has it worse.
As much as you may be right that both men and women are experiencing this, the post was talking about how women experience it. And when women speak out about it, it’s apparently hard to talk about just that and instead the male experience has to be discussed as well.
Again, I really don’t think you intended anything bad here. But as you said:
If all sides have an opportunity to say things without being interrupted, there is no point in chiming in and saying the other side has it worse.
Women try to talk about it (e.g. via this topic), but you interrupted by chiming in how men are also affected. That might well be true, but it’s also the kind of interruption that can be frustrating because, and I say this as a man, the experience women have is probably different (on average) from the experience men have.
You’re not one of the voices in the comic shouting “misandrist” or anything, but it is a kind of “and what about the men?” type of statement. And I don’t think you’re trying to be dismissive here at all and I do believe your intentions are good, but the result here is that what women want to talk about is once again not talked about, which is what the comic is about.
Your well-intentioned statement I think perhaps unbeknownst to you is steering the discussion away from the intended topic. And it’s exactly that problem that this comic addresses.
I see where you’re coming from, and I agree for the most part (and I also don’t agree with people taking pitchforks on you), but the direction I take to “steer it away” is to look at it as something universal, which is simply more helpful to understand why it happens, not to tie attention to men’s issues specifically.
I believe we’ve come at the point where women and men issues are so intertwined, so much permeating each other that it’s no longer helpful to see them as separate issues to begin with. Sure, we have different experiences, but those very experiences come from the interaction of problems on both sides, and looking at them from one side is essentially screaming into the void and hoping it helps - and when it predictably doesn’t, this leads to people vilifying each other instead of exploring the reasons behind it.
Everyone has to familiarize themselves with the issues other sides face, and come from the side of compassion if they want to be part of an actual solution. That includes men, women and enbies, too.
the direction I take to “steer it away” is to look at it as something universal, which is simply more helpful to understand why it happens, not to tie attention to men’s issues specifically.
I understand your intentions, but it doesn’t have the intended effect. By doing this you are making the assumption that the way women experience these issues is (close to) the same as the way men experience it. But you can’t really assume that, and often people disagree.
When women want to talk about problems they face, it’s important to hear them out and address their issue, instead of what amounts to ‘deflecting’ to a “grander” issue. At its core it’s a whataboutism that derails the conversation, and that’s not what you intended.
So my genuine advice is: don’t. Address these problems one by one. The solutions can often be different.
You have to assume that
I believe we’ve come at the point where women and men issues are so intertwined, so much permeating each other that it’s no longer helpful to see them as separate issues to begin with.
may well not be correct, and it can feel incredibly invalidating to people by assuming that this is the case.
I tried to make it clear that women have a drastically different social experience. It is true, and it would be weird to debate it.
But we have to separate venting from finding solutions. My very point is that we often cannot practically address women’s issues without addressing men’s ones, and vice versa. Going one by one, you will quickly hit the wall, as men (or women, if we talk about men’s issues) just won’t be able to do what they’re asked for. And instead of accepting that and working together, people tend to assume that the reason the other side doesn’t change is because they act in bad faith. This is inherently imbalanced and unworkable.
I see, but the point of the comic is that women don’t seem to agree with you and find that way of thinking about it fairly exasperating at times. In many cases there hasn’t been a serious attempt to address the issues raised, so claiming that you can’t address them without also addressing men’s issues would be perhaps a bit premature.
As much as you may be right that both men and women are experiencing this, the post was talking about how women experience it
Right, but if I made a post about how “Men poop,” and women came in to say “women poop too,” it would make complete sense. Maybe we should be talking about how everybody poops and everyone’s poop stinks at that, instead of “women’s poop stinks, no men’s poop stinks!”
We’re not talking about basic biological functions here. We’re talking about issues that men and women may experience differently. This example is apples to oranges.
Except it isn’t though. Take cases like the last thread I can recall on lemmy that could have inspired this comic, the french protesting against that one guy who had people come rape his wife. The front facing image of that post was a woman holding a sign that says “not all men but always a man.” What this sign should have said is “rape is bad,” instead it pretended the two women who raped me don’t exist and that I’m guilty by association of my genitals instead of a victim like them for going through the same thing they did. What’s more, I’m told to shut up and let women speak at best, usually with one or two “well you must’ve liked it,” or “what’re you, gay?s” thrown in for good measure, yet the second you say a woman must’ve liked it or what is she a lesbian you’re still the problem, can’t beat em, can’t join em. Even better, nobody says “shut up and let men speak,” we say “stop generalizing us as abusers for having penises,” and that is met with “shut up and let women speak.”
I’m sorry that you’re unable to parse metaphors, but everybody poops.
Comic: “I’m here to talk about women.” Heckling ensues
First Comment: “This is exactly what happens to men.” Wall of Upvotes
Proof that you can pull the users out of the Reddit but you can’t pull the Reddit out of the users.
For me, while I get where the post is coming from, a lot of the narrative seems to revolve around the dynamic of:
“We need to have an open dialog about XYZ. Let’s have a conversation.”
“Okay, then here’s ABC for context, as a comparison to XYZ.”
“Actually I’m here to talk about XYZ, not ABC. And you’re the problem for not strictly limiting this open conversation to the specific scope I want to consider.”
Like… you can either ask for open discussion or you can say, “Everybody shut up and listen to what I have to say, and unless you’re opening your mouth to completely agree with me in every way, don’t bother because I’m not here for anything other than letting you all know what I think.”
I’m not saying that the points are wrong or bad, just that it’s a bad look to start out with talking about an interest in having a dialogue, then as soon as there’s any expansion of the scope of discussion, suddenly being unhappy that there’s thoughts different from where it started out, and playing the victim or worse, blaming whoever took the invitation for an open dialogue at face value and engaged in good faith.
I feel like that’s a pretty gross misrepresentation of the issue.
The people in the comic (and in the comments here) are often trying to minimize the issue on which she is speaking, or co-opt the conversation for their own issues (typically forcing her and the original issue to the sidelines). They’re not adding context or having a discussion in good faith.
Like… you can either ask for open discussion or you can say, “Everybody shut up and listen to what I have to say, and unless you’re opening your mouth to completely agree with me in every way
There’s a big middle area you’re ignoring.
I’d actually disagree with you.
I don’t think the Comic is specifically about women.
I think this is about the overarching problem of whataboutism and its consequences on society and societal discourse.
In which case the OP would be on-topic and you would be the one derailing.
I am not saying that either of you is trying to derail but rather just showing that different interpretations (a more literal interpretation on your side and a more symbolic on ours) can lead to different discussions.
“Wamen” is one of those jokes that has taken a new meaning in the context of my marriage. But I always come close to saying it around people who don’t know that.
sounds like baby Ramen, and now im hungry
All lives matter type shit. We live in a patriarchy, the least you can do is listen to those most affected, women. Don’t expect compassion if you can’t show it.
Exactly how I am sure poor white people have it bad in this system(and it needs to be addressed), yet those primarily affected by racism have to come to the spotlight, exactly this way men have problems(and need to be addressed), yet those primarily affected by the patriarchy have to come to the spotlight, women.
Conflating one social problem (patriarchy) with others (economic inequality and poverty for example) is harming the cause and it’s disorienting, it’s wrong. When we talk about the patriarchy, the discussion should not be diverted and those mostly affected are women, so we talk about women’s problems and how they experience it. That goes for queer people’s problems as well. It goes for any underprivileged/minority social group. That’s it.
We live in a patriarchy
I don’t even know what this means anymore.
I’m just going to speak my mind as a Closeted transwoman who would look like a guy
I didn’t honestly want to get involved with this thread at all in fear of creating an absolute mess
But being trans myself I see myself having empathy for both woman’s and men’s rights because I know and understand the issues men are facing and see the issues woman are facing
I don’t like seeing the devide on either side and absolutely hate seeing the division and fighting especially when people advocate for men’s rights or woman’s rights
I personally advocate for both because I see everyone having rights as part of equality and equity and if you don’t want any one group to have rights then that isn’t equality or equity
We should be free to talk about both men’s rights and woman’s rights without being attacked for it
Someone downvoted you which is lame. All you’ve advocated for is that both groups have their issues be respected in public discourse.
Because like the comic is pointing out as the issue and that OP has just done that exact thing - steering the conversation of topic away from the focus.
In a discussion about women by a woman, it sounds crazy but maybe they want the focus to be on women. That doesn’t mean men issues don’t matter or don’t exist. There are an infinite number of venues to discuss it that are not in a thread regarding women issues.
And it’s fine to talk about enby issues in any discussion, because enbies are the most oppressed gender demographic.
Yea, that happens online. It rarely happens irl with regular folk. It’s really quite obvious when you actually interact with the outside world regularly. I’ve found that many ppl do empathize with most ppl’s problems. More often than what online comics imply.
Is this thread really about women’s rights though?
It’s more of a meta thread about the issue the comic brings up, it’s about how some men switch the topic around. If the comic was intended to focus entirely on women’s rights it would end at the first image
YES!
As a person who is just genuinely against all discrimination, including discrimination of women and men, I never quite understood why is this divide so powerful.
We’ll do our best if we work together, not compete for attention. Women face real issues. Men face real issues. Many of them play out of each other, and solving one would help untangle the other.
All while people will seemingly rip you apart for saying we could work together.
No, I don’t want to play the tug of war or steal the attention from the problem of “your side”. I just see how those issues intertwine, and working with both is paramount if we actually want to solve them. Let’s do that instead of whatever mess has been created.
Guys is it misogynistic to not like misandry?
Also last time I heard anyone even talk about the MRA crowd was like 10 years ago
Yeah, but no
There are assholes on both sides, like it or not.
Yes, there are loads of men who don’t deserve the name, that put women down, who can only be happy on the back of women. Fuck them
Having said that, I very much remember that video of guys going to a support group for men that committed uicide with feminists waiting for them outside to yell things like “it’s good that he killed himself!”. Fuck those assholes too.
Can we maybe ALL be nice to EVERYONE?
I’m sorry, but this comic doesn’t help. The reality is that both men and women face the same nonsense when they bring up what they have to contend with so how about we don’t try to disparage either side? Listen to both sides? You know, the thing we should be always doing?
I’m sorry, but this comic doesn’t help.
I don’t think it necessarily has to? Like, I agree with pretty much everything in your comment, aside from this part and what it implies. I read this comment as an expression of frustration from the artist, and it’s certainly one that I can relate to. I also realise that there’s a heckton of men who’ll relate too, because of how men who want to carve out space to talk about men’s issues can be cut off, even if they’re not the same men as the assholes who only want to talk about men’s issues when they’re speaking over a woman. However, I think that saying “both sides” to this misses the point of the comic
It can be useful to ground statements in our own personal perspectives because of how it limits the scope of what we’re saying. A smaller, messier example is that I am autistic and have done both disability activism and autism activism in the past. I am autistic and because of that, I am also disabled, and so many of my experiences as an autistic person can also apply more generally to disabled people. However, generalising a statement can be difficult, especially if on a difficult topic, such as institutional ableism. I was able to speak confidently on how that affected me personally, and to a more limited degree, how it affects other autistic people, because of who I am in community with. However, I don’t directly know any deaf people, for example, and thus I am cautious when talking about my experiences as a disabled person, lest I over-generalise. I get a similar sense from the comic’s use of “as a woman”. Grounding stuff in that way is often an attempt to limit the scope of the discussion to something more manageable when grappling with something hard to articulate.
I also do think it’s useful to recognise the difference in experience. As a silly example, I might say “as a woman, I need to breathe air in order to survive”. I could also say “as a human, I need to breathe air in order to survive”. I could also say “as an animal, I need to breathe air in order to survive”, but actually, I’d need to go and double check the facts on that last one. That’s sort of my point — sometimes statements are overly specific and should be simplified, like in the “as a [woman/human]” statements. However, limiting the scope (like in the “as a human” statement compared to the “as an animal” one) actually gives space for the possibility that some weird animals don’t need to breathe.
Apologies if I have explained this poorly. I don’t mean to come off as lecturing or argumentative; I am replying to your comment because I appreciate your points and I am open to discussion.
After this election I agree. We are toxic animals that should be killing ourselves.
I’ve seen the opposite of this happen way more often. In fact, I think we should take care to let people speak on these issues without diminishing or having another issue hijack the discussion.
Anyone should be able to talk about their issues without being told that it doesn’t matter because there’s some other issue.
Upvote though because I like the discussion.
women are the worst
Even in these comments, people don’t get it, lol.
Cmon. It’s a straw man argument and the comic is intended to be polaeisiing.
Both sets of issues can coexist, and I strongly suspect that many issues have a common root.
We get it, we’re saying it’s bullshit.
I don’t know how to effectively communicate that what you’re saying is part of the problem.
I understand what you’re saying. It’s not a failure to communicate. I just disagree.
Failure on my part to communicate.
I think your stance is very well communicated 😅
Whatever
Equity is oppression brother! Stay strong!
The problem is pretending like the comic represents a real problem.
How very All Lives Matter of you
How very “Israel has the right to defend itself” of you
Lol okay
Look, my cis white male cultural heritage is colonialism and centering my experience
Why does everything have to be so us-vs.-them? We all share the same planet.
Sometimes certain subsets of the planet have problems particular to their region, culture, or cohort.
Telling a person wandering through the desert “I also get thirsty” maybe deflects from the issue at hand.
Telling a person wandering through the desert “I also get thirsty” maybe deflects from the issue at hand.
Or… That may be a show of support, in sharing of a common burden, a message of, “You are not alone in this struggle.”
Rather than always seeing it as a negative, maybe allow for the possibility that it’s coming from a different place.
Honestly, I feel like this whole sentiment of, “Don’t attempt to bring any context into a conversation. Only stick strictly to what one person has decided to talk about.” is not only counterproductive in that moment, but also in the medium and long term has a marked effect in shutting down future conversations about difficult and uncomfortable topics.
I mean, how many times does a person get into a conversation that starts with, “Can we talk about X?” or “Let’s have an open, honest discussion about Y?”…only to add something to that conversation and be told, “No, you’re wrong for bringing that up. We’re only talking about X and why it’s the worst thing ever.”… before they get to the point where the next time someone says, “Can we talk about Z?” they just say, “No, sorry. Not interested.”?
Many of these problems while not strictly zero sum are pretty close to it.
Because humans like to make up categories which naturally cause inequality of some kind. I don’t want this but it’s the way it is and to pretend otherwise is ignorant and silly.
Outrage is the new thing. Many people aren’t happy or able to feel like their life is affirmed without being angry with someone or at something and it’s vital to their ideology to impose their values on others.
Non compliance with their demands is non optional.
Is outrage all that new? It strikes me as evergreen
I would like my own planet.
Isn’t that what Mormons promise lol
Yes and no. It was.
Oh niiice. Do they have any customer reviews?
Yes: stay away and do not join. Seek real progress and learning outside of avoidance, superstition, and bias.
Sincerely,
an adult on an ongoing journey to deconstruct different traumas from being raised in said high-demand cult.
(Also, I can confirm the promise of a planet was canon, and infinitely more than just a single planet. But they recently decided to downplay that part of the doctrine, and some members now deny that there was ever a promise of achieving godhood. The cult always has a justification, and most members are more than satisfied with mental gymnastics.)
This is potentially gender construct and sexism getting directly in the way of advocacy against real issues. Women start a protest advocating against a very real issue they face, by women for women, and it is spun as a direct attack on men. Same thing happens for men’s advocacy.
“…For the Master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support…” - Audre Large, in “Master’s Tools Will Never Take Down the Master’s House”
I don’t think most would blame many women for the practices they do in public to stay safe, despite the behavior explicitly being sexist. This is because we understand that in absence of these kinds of behaviors, women do actually get prayed upon, most often by men. It’s the reality of a dangerous world. however, we get angry when the statements and phrases used to justify these behaviors are said aloud.
What we fail to acknowledge is that that same kind of victimization is possible to a guy. Most guys would find the idea of deliberately using the bathroom at the same time as their friend as weird, possibly even girly. Machismo stereotypes and trying to conform to manliness actively makes men more vulnerable .
We also downplay women being violent, yet again a gender stereotype which not only lets women get physical in public, but actually also makes women easier to dismiss when they’re angry and yelling. This not only lets women get away with toxic behavior, but robs them of being taken seriously at other times.
These are both issues caused by gender, which is also actively defining how advocacy happens and creates an arbitrary divide.
I liked this comment. You wrote with the nuance and balance that I strive for. Thanks for sharing
