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‘I don’t date at all now’: one woman’s journey into the darkest corners of the manosphere
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
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Again, if we're going to include any single type of incident over the life of a person, and then start to discriminate on the common perpetrator, you end up with bigotry regardless of that incident Or intent.
Its not 'not all men' it's 'not even a third of men.' more black people as a percentage of total black people have assaulted someone than the percentage of men that have sexually assaulted someone, so we should look into profiling black people for violence and work to correct the systemic issues that causes black people to be violent, right?
There's a right way to go about solving the problems you're discussing, and they are very real problems, but becoming a pathetic bigot is not the way to go.
Victimization does not give you the right of discrimination based on immutable characteristics, and you are objectively a bad person if you think otherwise. There aren't any valid exceptions to this, and accepting this behavior leads to absolute pieces of shit like jk Rowling.
Your biggest problem is you are reading "not all men" as a literal. Not everything has to be taken literally. Language absolutely can work that way, and very often does. When a woman talks about the countless men that have harassed her, and she says "men disgust me" and your response to that is "not all men disgust you, right" then you have completely missed the point. She is conveying the hurt that has fell upon her by many men, and that is the part that should be addressed. Not the technicalities of who she is talking about exactly. And it is absolutely incorrect if your response to that was to call her a bigot or an objectively bad person.
Comparing the black race to sexist men is also a terrible comparison. Black people have historically been oppressed. There is countless literature on just the problems black men and women have faced in the last 50 years. The systematic issues with race are an entirely different beast, and not at all comparable to the issue with men.
Men have historically been the oppressors. There is no systematic oppression they're battling. They are the ones with the majority of the power. They are simply continuing to abuse those they either have power over, or feel they have power over.
So again, don't get hyperfixated on this "not all men" because even when people make a generalized statement, they are not talking about LITERALLY ALL MEN, they are talking about a problem they've experienced enough from one common group that they are able to widely complain about it. If you went day after day of constant cat calling, womanizing, discrimination, dick picks, mansplaining, and god knows what else women have to deal with, you might be saying things like that too. I don't know if it's a man thing, or if some people that take these things super literally have diagnosed or undiagnosed autism, or what ever else, but they (myself included at one point) seem to not be able to understand the fact that generalized statements aren't talking about everyone but a common issue they have.
I get it, you want them to say "Some men" or might even be fine with them saying "most men" but that isn't going to happen when someone is fed up with the treatment they've faced from men. They're fed up with the treatment they've faced their entire lives, and they're saying something about it. That is not bigotry. Period.
No, I want them to say rapists, or sexual assaulters. Not some men or most men or whatever bigoted excuse they have.
They have a problem with the actions, not the gender of the people that specifically victimized them.
Its not about the oppression dynamics of shit, it's about not prejudging people based on immutable characteristics. Period.
When an extreme majority of those rapists and abusers are men, how are men not the problem? Given the fact you are getting defensive when nobody is talking about you shows you're a part of the problem. You're ignoring the issue among men to get caught up in semantics. You are literally just responding by calling them bigotted. That is, once again, not a super nice thing to do. You really should use a different username.
You cannot simply ignore systematic oppression. That is a key detail when discussing societal issues.
NOBODY IS JUDGING YOU. Can you get that through your thick skull? I thought I said it time and time again in the last comment. THEY ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT EVERY SINGLE FUCKING MAN. THEY AREN'T TALKING ABOUT YOU. Stop taking shit literally and using it as an excuse to ignore their extremely real complaints.
Most murderers are black in the US, how are black people not the problem?
That's not even true
Black communities have faced generations of systemic racism, segregation, economic disenfranchisement, and over-policing, all of which contribute to crime statistics. That is not the case for men in general. So even if it were true (which it's not) it can still be explained by systemtic oppression and widespread racism.
Men are the oppressor, black people are the oppressed. It is punching up vs punching down. They are not comparable.
Oppression Olympics does not excuse racism nor sexism.
Men are not the problem, rapists are. Black people are not the problem, poverty is.
If you can understand one, you can understand the other. If you have a problem with one, you're a bigot, not a victim.
Stop defending bigotry and attack the actual problem, or get lumped in with the rest of the literal nazis saying the same thing you are, just with a different immutable characteristic in its place.
'mexicans are rapists' is the literally exact same rhetoric as 'men are rapists.' there is no difference whatsoever. It is as equally as disgusting. It is as equally wrong.
Men are not the oppressors, they are a gender like any other. Until you understand that you will never change a single thing and will just make the world worse.
This line, do you not see how those are different? If these were the same, you would say "Black people are not the problem, thieves are" but poverty (among a hoard of other things) are what make people more like to steal. What causes people to rape? What systematic oppression made them sexually harass a woman? What hardship forced them to cat call that random woman walking by them? What tragedy caused the boss to sexually extort is employee? Do you not see how these are different still?
A government can exponentially reduce theft by taking care of people. People who do not have to worry about food and shelter do not have a need to steal. You may still have mental health issues that may lead to kleptomania or other addictions, but if people are taken care of, they generally have no reason to steal. The solution to theft is not arrest thieves more, it's to get to the root of the problem. It's all about proactive vs reactive.
What does a government do to stop men sexually harassing women? Arresting all the rapists in the world would be reactive, but what is the proactive approach? What stops it from happening in the first place. What is the problem that needs to be solved? Obviously, the problem is not "man" itself. But the problem is 100% among men.
Literally speaking, there is at least one obvious difference. One is a race, and one is a sex. A woman can easily go day after day of being sexually harassed by men. The odds of someone, day in a day out, being sexually harassed by just Mexicans is basically non-existent. Racism is generally caused by ignorance, political manipulation, general biases, or ideas along those lines. It is rarely from a widespread experience. At best, it's rooted in one or two negative experiences they apply widely to the entire race.
Women that have a distrust in men exists solely from countless experiences in every area of life. There is no political manipulation happening to get people to distrust men (because men are the ones with the power), it happens because of the things many men have done to them. While obviously not all men, when it happens frequently enough it does become reasonable to just simply say "men". And it is, indeed, happening that frequently.
You seriously need to pick up some history books. Or at least read a Wikipedia page.
You seriously need a new username. The most I've insulted you is to say you are not being a super nice person, and meanwhile you are calling me (and rape victims, and women who complain about their abusers) bigots and nazis.
You say we need to "attack the actual problem" but what is the actual problem? The problem is not rapists, because the goal is to stop it before they rape. What caused them to rape? What was the root problem that needs to be solved?
Do you not see we need a cultural and societal shift among men? Can you not easily picture the party where the man is trying to sleep with a clearly uninterested woman? Where when someone tries to intervene, the dude gets pissed for being cock blocked, and all his bros are just trying to help him get his "dick wet". Maybe they give her more alcohol, or maybe they peer pressure her more until she feels like she has no other choice. Or maybe, if they're fucked up enough, they just drug her drink. This is happening constantly, and it's super normalized. The problem is the man that was trying to pressure the woman, but it was also the friends encouraging the friend and making him feel entitled to sex. It was also any of the men that saw this happening and didn't step up. The problem was the male role models in those mens life for not showing them how to treat women properly. Men are more likely to listen to other men, so men have to do something about it. That is why people say "men are the problem". Then men continue to be the problem by responding to that with "you fucking bigot nazi"