Is Reddit’s Feminism subreddit run by MRAs?
Oh, Reddit, where the demographics are so skewed that virtually every discussion amongst and/or about women ultimately gets taken over by dudes doing the old “what about the dudes” routine. It’s no secret that the TwoXChromosomes subreddit has long been overrun with MRAs and FeMRAs. And now it’s become pretty clear that the Feminism subreddit has gone MRA as well.
If you want all the details of the drama, here’s a thread in the subreddit in which the feminists who’ve stuck with the subreddit take on the MRAs and MRA-symps amongst the mods.
Check out the Feminisms and SRSWomen subreddits if you want to discuss feministy stuff on Reddit without having to deal with endless derailing from MRAs and other shitlords.
EDITED TO ADD: More links:
SRS takes on the whole mess (lots of useful links).
SRS links to r/feminism mods defending MRAs
An r/feminism thread about the recent Captain Awkward posts about creeps that is, naturally, full of endless hang-wringing about the evils of “creep-shaming.”
(Thanks, Cliff, for the links.)
Like this:
Posted on August 15, 2012, in antifeminism, feminism, FemRAs, MRA, reddit and tagged antifeminism, feminism, MRA, reddit. Bookmark the permalink. 181 Comments.
Isn’t there some middle ground on the “creepy” issue? It strikes me that it is used the same way “bitch” is against assertive women - sure, while some women genuinely are bitchy and unpleasant, plenty of women who are assertive or just have more stereotypically male traits get called bitches because they don’t fit people’s preconceived notions of femininity.
Conversely, plenty of men genuinely are creeps/do creepy things. But some men, especially of the type you might encounter on reddit, are completely harmless and have no clue how to express how they like somebody, or are somewhere on the shallow end of autism spectrum disorder or are unattractive and shy. It seems likely that some of those guys are unfairly labeled creeps.
It’s hard to know if individual narrators are reliable when they complain about their treatment at the hands of certain women because we can’t observe their behavior or know what they’re thinking. I think it would be very upsetting if I was trying to tell a girl I liked her and wanted to go on a date with her best I knew how and have her think I was trying to rape her.
So subjectively I have a lot of sympathy with the MRA people who post these kinds of stories, but I don’t know how you evaluate who objectively was in the wrong other than on a case-by-case basis.
Yes, I agree ‘creep’ can be overused. For both men AND women. We’ve all been there, seen the outcasts and the scapegoats.
But in the case of Captain Awkward, the word ‘creep’ is perhaps too sweet. And more important, I think, than the word itself is the main message of the backlash to it. Ladies, don’t trust your instincts. Don’t get us wrong, you should know if that cute, sweet friend of a friend at that party is going to spike your drink or attack you on the walk home – if you don’t, you probably didn’t listen to all my patented anti-rape instructions, or maybe you wanted it and are just regretful – but actually saying something when someone violates your boundaries? Speaking up during the act, or discussing it with girlfriends after the fact? Trusting your gut? Well that’s just wrong. You don’t even have any bruises.
‘I think it would be very upsetting if I was trying to tell a girl I liked her and wanted to go on a date with her best I knew how and have her think I was trying to rape her.’
Agreed. You would probably want to send out signals that your weren’t going to. Un-creepy signals, in fact. If only someone, somewhere could tell you what those were…
(And as for MRAs, plenty of them either don’t think rape exists, or think its inevitable if red-blooded males are around women aka sluts.)
Oh, and as for autism, I still can’t figure out how this is an excuse. If you think it’s tough for guys with autism to hit on women, how do you think women with autism (or panic attacks, or depression, or a history of being abused) feel having their space invaded, inappropriate touching or stalking? What’s good for the goose…
@Cliff - Yes, as I said, but I still do think it’s not quite sufficient in terms of differentiation. I also talked about how certain kinds of ‘slutty’ (I really wish there was a better term for this) behaviour are invasions of boundaries. I’m not seeing how all people labelled creeps are universally less invasive than people labelled sluts. They do both seem to be about imposing intimacy and not necessarily any touch, etc., at least in certain situations.
@Sharculese - Your response is exactly what I was critiquing. There are plenty of people who say slut-shaming isn’t a real thing. The NO U back-and-forth doesn’t get us anywhere and does feminists no credit. It is exactly how to respond without saying that creep-shaming isn’t real and just leaving it at that that I am trying to improve on. Or, well, I was hoping to but, much as I expected, the majority of responses (not yours, to be clear) seemed to be based on getting all enraged and superior, or just being terse (yours), rather than fostering any kind of actual conversation.
@ithiliana - I can’t say I think of the automatic rape apology in the term ‘slut’. I’m not sure if that is the general (not general feminist, just general human) understanding, even if that is yours. I guess that’s part of the problem I’m having with ‘creep’ too. There’s no popular understanding that supports the way people here seem to be using it. Certainly I think the distinction you propose is not a universal one. And that’s the wrench about language, of course — no one can ever be sure exactly how another person means to use it. But that’s an interesting element to ‘slut’ that honestly hasn’t entered my mind when I was writing. I tend to think of it as coming from a place of shaming only rather than permitting violence. I’m not sure I’m convinced by what you’ve written but I find it useful to consider.
And yes, I’m a huge MRA troll because I dare question the internet feminist status quo. Sheesh, that sounds worryingly like one of the hyperbolic fantasies MRAs come up with about lockstep feminism. Except it sort of really happened.
@Shaenon - You hit on my concerns precisely. There doesn’t seem to be a clear distinction between the kind of unfortunate-in-social-situation folks you mention in your post and the actual creeps who are clearly in the wrong who, say, leer at someone in a park and start demanding smiles, etc. Some of the problem seems to be because it’s certainly a newer term (if not idea) than ‘slut’ and so the meaning needs tightening up if we’re going to be able to respond to cries of “creep-shaming is misandry and no different from slut-shaming” and so on.
@drst - I’m not sure to which post you are responding because you certainly read things in there that I never wrote. If you want to RAGE all over the place then I’m happy I could give you a bit of diversion in your life. Still, I was hoping we could wear our big kid pants and that feminists (even ones on t’interwebz) would be able to be a bit reflective and consider what some folks at the party see as possible problems, inconsistencies, or weaknesses in some of our thinking. I missed the memo that said we all had to follow unquestioningly or be screamed at.
@kristinmh - That’s what I’m saying about the intense and aggressive imposition of assumed interest in sexual intimacy that some people feel from ‘sluts’ (of any gender, just to be clear). I’m saying I can see the possibility of an overlap if we’re only talking about creeps as overstepping other people’s boundaries. One of the things that get some people’s backs up about being slutty in public performance and presentation is that it also violates certain people’s boundaries. I’m trying to find the divergence between the two ideas of overstepping boundaries so we aren’t just doing the same thing as slut shamers.
@AHodges Thank you.
@Nada Yes, (internet) feminism is indeed full of arguments and woefully short on discussions, which seems a real pity to me.
——
I guess (as I feared) we can’t really have a discussion about this or contemplate that we might be slightly off base or need to refine our thinking, or just defend our positions without being offended by the mere fact of someone not automatically agreeing. I’ll know never to darken this door with such depravity again.
Wearing “revealing” clothing in public does not violate anyone else’s boundaries. If they claim that it does, it is because they have fundamentally and woefully misunderstood the entire concept of “boundaries.”
Assuming sexual interest might involve violating boundaries, but to the extent that it does it is because it involves being creepy. If you’re aggressively pursuing sex with a person who has expressed disinterest, that makes you a creep. It’s possible for a person to both be considered a slut by society and engage in creepy behaviour, but zie should only be shamed for the latter, because only the latter actually involves harming anyone.
Your entire bullshit false equivalency is based on a (hopefully ignorant, rather than dishonest) framing of “slut” which overlaps substantially with “creep,” then pretending that creepy behaviour is what’s defended by feminists who oppose slut-shaming. That’s just not the case.
Oh, and you can probably drop the “beleaguered defender of truth attacked by shrill dogmatic feminists” act, unless you intended to look like a whiny passive-aggressive douchecanoe.
Gametime: Thanks, you said what I wanted to, but I couldn’t work out how to word it. Also every time I looked at their post I could just feel my head asploding with wtf.
@Gametime - Again, with a lot of what you wrote I’m not sure what you’re responding to but it doesn’t seem like my post. If you want to read into it things you find angering then there’s nothing I can do about that. It seems you wanted to take what I wrote in bad faith. Your parting shot is the most absurd point, particularly seeming to actually attribute that last bit to me by framing it as a quote. There have been attacks and they have been disproportionately aggressive, Call me all the names you like but that won’t change the fact that my question drew (and draws) ire and ad hominem seemingly just for daring to have been asked. I’ve never used anything like the words shrill or dogmatic. Those are your words. As for whiny and passive-aggressive, I’m sure as hell not whining. I’m responding to the mud that has been slung (and all other manner of less nasty responses, to be fair) and my words have been neither passive nor aggressive. I have been pretty measured and cordial, especially considering this is arguing on the internet. I can’t really fathom what of my writing you feel to be passive-aggressive and whiny. As for being a douchecanoe, well, one must call these as one sees these if one feels strongly compelled to do so.
As for misunderstanding boundaries, I think it’s also shaky ground to take this kind of stance, of just saying anyone who doesn’t share your understanding lacks an understanding. It risks the response of those who are all upset about ‘creep-shaming’ just coming back and saying the people who find certain behaviours creepy also misunderstand or overestimate boundaries. I mean, I’ve already seem them doing that in the comments on this blog and similar ones elsewhere. That’s the thinking behind the gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair there seems always to be when some men get all “why, oh why do women treat me like I’m going to sexually assault them because I get into an elevator” and so on. At least it seems to be to me.
Just for clarity’s sake I’ll restate the point, if my writing didn’t match up with was I was thinking and trying to get across. I’m not referring to just dressing a certain way and I hoped what I wrote included a wider scope of performance and behaviour that is labelled ‘slutty’ for lack of a better word. I think sexually aggressive is more precise but I’m trying to think in terms of the wide range of things the idea of someone being a slut can encompass. I’m trying to find the wiggle room there might be for the don’t creep-shame crowd to respond by targeting slut-shaming as being equivalent and then see what sort of reasoned and dispassionate response I might give to that kind of an outcry (oh, the misandry!). I want more than to just say they’re not even remotely the same kind of thing because there are some ways in which they seem similar.
The overlap you mention is interesting and important. That’s exactly the overlap I’m thinking of when I ponder this. I don’t see how my framing is necessarily any more problematic any anyone else. It’s particularly the framing of creep that I’m interested in. I’m not entirely sure I understand what you mean when you write “then pretending that creepy behaviour is what’s defended by feminists who oppose slut-shaming”. Obviously I have some idea but I don’t want to bluster along responding to what I think you mean rather than what you actually mean. Creepy behaviour does seem to be varied in how it is defined by the people who refer to it and, in the case of this blog, the people defining it are (generally) feminists who oppose slut-shaming. Or so it appears.
It does seem like there’s the kernel of an interesting discussion here but people want to get angry with me just for having the apparently extreme cheek to try and examine it. I mean, for those who find it a painfully stupid thing to consider, feel free not to respond. But anyway, if that’s not the flavour of feminism folks prefer here then okay; I’ll absent myself so you can get on with doing it the way you fancy.
Oh, God. They just get whinier and more pretentious, don’t they?
o rly?
All of this is passive-aggressive nonsense. You’re dismissing the criticisms of your argument by framing the critics as “enraged,” as avoiding “actual conversation,” as defending the “status quo,” as “unquestioningly” following others, as “offended” by nothing. (By the way, your complete failure to understand the contextual use of quotation marks as useful for things other than actual quotes was pretty great, but to avoid confusion all the above instances of quotation marks are, in fact, quoting the things you said.)
Basically all of it, but funnily enough this sentence is a perfect example.
Okay, let’s see if I can reduce this to the simplest terms possible for you. Please respond as succinctly as possible, because holy hell am I getting tired of trying to pick out what you are actually saying from these rambling walls of text.
Slut-shaming is bad because it shames women for exercising sexual agency and bodily autonomy, neither of which is a shameful activity. Creep-shaming is not bad because it shames people for violating a person’s emotional or physical boundaries, which is shameful. Your confusion seems to stem from this idea that “slut” means (at least in part) “woman who makes persistent and unwanted advances,” which is how the word has been used precisely never. (Again, a person deemed “slutty” by society might be guilty of creepy behaviour, but the word “slut” does not connote creepery.)
As an aside, I’m pretty sure no one here has committed an ad hominem fallacy in responding to you. It’s only ad hominem if the personal attack is used as the reason why your argument is wrong (as in “You’re really stupid, so you must be wrong about creep-shaming”). If the personal attack is attached to a legitimate criticism of your argument, it’s just an insult (as in “Your argument relies on a fundamentally mistaken interpretation of the word ‘slut’ which is supported neither by history nor contemporary culture, you dunderhead”).
More directly relevant to David’s post on the rape threat on reddit, but that’s an older thread, so here!
Jim Hines cancels Q&A on Reddit because of the rapists sharing their story thread:
http://www.jimchines.com/2012/07/why-i-cancelled-my-reddit-qa/
No. I don’t need to have middle ground with someone who thinks I have no right to decide whether I feel safe or not. And that’s what creepers are about.
Let me put this bluntly, since obviously you can’t be bothered to go read the extensive explanations put forward by a lot of other people on this subject just in the last week: if you go up to a girl and ask her out and she says no and you say “OK” and walk away? THAT’S NOT CREEPY.
If you proceed to keep asking, to give her a long list of why her answer is wrong? Creepy.
If a woman tells you “This thing you just did/said made me uncomfortable” and you apologize and never do it again? ALSO NOT CREEPY.
If you respond by continuing to behave that way? Creepy.
If you’re talking to someone and they are not making eye contact, not responding to what you’re saying very much, are leaning away from you, if they actually go walk away from you, and you don’t try to continue the conversation/follow them? Yeah.
Creepers violate boundaries over and over again. They ignore clear signals and in some cases straight up warnings and continue to encroach on people because they think what they want is more important than anything else.
Me being a bitch? Does not violate your boundaries. Mostly because bitch is used to shame women for doing things like, oh, say, declaring boundaries and maintaining them.
Seriously, if you want a fast education on how often women who just try to avoid being harassed get called a “bitch” for the most basic attempts at staying safe, check out the @everydaysexism account on Twitter.
And on the autism/Aspie front, I’ve never known a person who fit into either of those categories who, when told “That thing you do makes me uncomfortable” insisted they could keep doing it because they were autistic. They’ve all said “Oh crap I’m sorry I didn’t realize.” And they stopped.
Stopping the encroaching behavior is the hallmark of a non-creeper. This is not complex.
Oh, kid. you’re really new at this aren’t you?
I quoted you. Verbatim. Right in the top of my comment. I was replying to something you specifically said. And trying to claim you don’t know what I was responding to when anyone reading can go back a page and find what you said and read it is silly.
And let me tell you, that wasn’t even close to real rage, son. I didn’t even break a sweat. I have had this argument a thousand times before with other equally stupid assholes on the internet. But if you get your rocks off thinking I did more than scribble off a comment in 2 minutes, enjoy yourself.
And really, “big kid pants”? Wow. NOBODY EVER SUGGESTED TO ME THAT I WAS TOO EMOTIONAL NOW I AM DEVASTATED AND MUST GO HIDE MYSELF FROM THE INTERNET FOREVER! Except, not:You are damaging your cause by being angry
Your arguments are not new. You are not cleverly needling me or anyone else with your brilliant lines of attack. Your tactics are so ancient they have mildew. Seriously, go read the entire Derailing for Dummies site before you comment anywhere else on the internet. It will save people a lot of eye rolling at your idiocy.
I don’t need to be calm and reflective about this, especially not when dealing with trolls online. I don’t need to contort myself or my language into something you will deem acceptable. This is not some academic exercise in thought experiments. Women live with this shit every day. It gets them hurt, it gets them raped, it gets them killed. I don’t owe it to anyone to be civil about this, least of all a stranger on the internet. If you think slut shaming and “creep shaming” are the same thing you’re an idiot and an asshole and I hope you spend the rest of your life walking on Legos.
except that the invention of ‘creep shaming’ follows a known pattern where mras take actual problems and put a lazy spin on them so they can scream ‘me too’ and derail serious conversations with their pretend victim bullshit. “you were blamed for your own rape? well I was blamed for not getting a date to my senior prom and that’s basically the same thing.” except it’s fucking not and you have to be a pretty disgusting person not to get that.
i don’t know if you’re trying to engage in that sort of cheap, cowardly both-sides-do-it-ism or your just fucking stupid enough to be taken in by it it, but no, taking this shit seriously isn’t ‘improving’ anything legitimizing their talking points and demeans the experiences of actual victims. (speaking, fuck you buddy, people aren’t trying to sound ‘superior’ you said shit that’s seriously insulting and people are pissed off. you don’t get to play the martyr card)
*Applauds DRST heartily and giftwraps one shiny internet for hand delivery*
Plus, +1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
the middle ground is these dudes sober up and say ‘yknow what, while its frustrating when i’m held responsible for behavior i dont understand and dont always feel like i can control, that’s not the same thing as being sexually assaulted and i’m sorry for belittling your experience by pretending it was. i’m ready to have a serious and productive conversation about expected standards of male behavior without blaming all my problems of feminism.’
and then everyone wins
Also this excuse:
have no clue how to express how they like somebody
So much blockquote failure!
Oh fuck this. I’m very socially anxious and I freak out when men approach me. A lot of the time I clam up and don’t know what to say; I’ve got flustered and run off a couple of times with particularly aggressive ‘smooth talking’ types of guys (men with excellent social skills who STILL have no concept of boundaries or are choosing to ignore them.)
These reactions get me labelled as ‘rude’ and ‘stuck up’, that I think I’m too good to talk to them. You can’t win.
I can’t imagine how much scarier that pushy stuff must be for non-NT women.
About as much middle ground as can be found with peeps who think creationism should be taught alongside evolution.
Or, to be less snarky, IME “creepy looking” can be misused, “creepy” is much less misused. I’ve been told that people have found me “creepy looking” (usually secondhand accounts so take that for what it is) because I’m tall, dark and quiet. That’s not a problem with the term creepy, that’s a problem with a society that teaches us that dark people are to be feared. I have similarly heard some descriptions of “creepy looking” that follow racial, classist or otherwise oppressive lines. Again, that’s a problem with the messages we get from society, and are all passive. Creepy actions (those that are found creepy by a number of people) have no justification.
This. The MRAs who rail on about the world creepy are creeps. They try to belittle women and make them feel guilty for asserting their boundaries and just want them to just sit back and take whatever creepy bullshit they pull. Sorry but no. If you’re being a creep you’re going to be called out on it.
Its reeks of entitlment. They have plenty of gendered slurs they use for women and constantly rationalize why it’s ok to use them (ie its ok to call women sluts cuz they’re more likely to cheat on you), but now one word that isn’t even gendered gets them all butthurt. Unless you say that men are perfect persons of perfection all the time you’re labeled a misandrist. Pfft….creeps ;P
Also an anecdote, but I (a woman) was told that something I did recently might be considered creepy. So how did I deal with it? First I felt embarrassed, then I pondered it and decided maybe it could be seen as that and decided I’d be more careful in the future. I did not take to the internet and rant about what a gross injustice this is and try to guilt people into not asserting their boundaries though.
I did annoyingly think of douchebag MRAs though and how they insist that creepy is only used on men.
I’m trying to figure out what donsie expects people who don’t believe creep-shaming is a real thing to say, since apparently we’re not allowed to say “creep-shaming isn’t a real thing.”
‘But some men, especially of the type you might encounter on reddit, are completely harmless’…
And some men, especially of the type you might encounter on reddit, are self-confessed rapists.
Dear donsie,
Literally the whole MRM is a “NO U” movement. It doesn’t matter what we say to them, because feminists have been putting out plenty of substance for years. “Creep shaming” is something they invented so that they could pretend that men are oppressed by women.
xoxo
Common Fucking Sense
Misandry, glass cellar, false rape accusations, paper abortions…there’s a long list of MRM “what about us, we want to be oppressed too!” terms.
“If your argument is that other people EXISTING violates your boundaries? You’ve got fucking ISSUES.”
Just because it ought to be said again.
Nomless: You don’t have to like everbody, but you do have to learn to get along with people whom you are repulsed by and who even make you a little uncomfortable.
No, I don’t.
I do have to learn how to cope with situation where, for some reason I can’t leave, or tell them to bugger off, but apart from thiings like work, or waiting in line at the DMV (where there are still limits to what someone can do before I flag the guard and report that person as being creepy) I don’t have to do anything like that.
I am will within my rights (natural and legal) to tell them to piss up a rope. Because I very much don’t have to put up with assholes being creeps.
For that matter, I don’t even need that justification. If I don’t like someone’s taste in clothes, or music, or food, I am free to not associate with them. I can refrain from asking them into my home. I can leave public spaces if I feel like it.
Becuase I, as a person, am not obliged to like/spend time with, just anyone who wants to spend time near me.
Creep is not parallel to slut.
Hence slut-shaming and creep-shaming are not parallel.
First, and it’s hard to do, the question is what is a slut/creep.
So… if we accept the existence of, “sluts” in the framework of the NWOs of the world, sluts are women who engage in being sexy in public; as defined by others, and who have sex with “too many people/in ‘bad’ ways” (again, as defined by others).
These others think this is shameful; even though there is no actual interaction between the “sluts” and the people shaming them (unless it’s people like the cop in Toronto, who went out of his way to tell women they were being sluts).
So “slut” is a state of being, which can only be avoided by not engaging in the autonomous behavior the slut-shamer dislikes.
Creeps are people who make others feel uncomfortable, in the course of personal interactions; this can be communicated to others, e.g. when someone tells you that person “x” is creepy. This commutative effect is based on the trust the person sharing it has earned from the person to whom they are speaking.
That’s the difference. The Creep is being identified from interaction, and the slut from mere existence.
As long as you’re checking out /r/SRS and /r/feminisms, may I put in a plug for /r/GeekFeminists?
If this was 1980, maybe, but in recent years there has been a rise of creepy women! Gender equality.
Boston moron why are you still here? I thought you didn’t do this kind of thing anymore.
Sir donut you always complain about people being fishy trolls are you but you know what? You deserve every ounce of people suspicion because you are a creep who can’t take no for answer. You claim you have changed and don’t feel the need to comment here but you do. No one cares “how much you have changed” because you have not at all. You expect people to merely forgive you harassing them and sockpuppeting constantly to come back. NO it does not work like that.
No one wants you here go away.
Manboobz and his groupies linked to /SRS? Shock, I say. Shock and awe.
SRS is literally the worst subreddit. The shit SRS says is ca-ray-zay!
The problem with the epithet of “creep” is that I’m struck by the belief that the men who complain about being called a creep aren’t telling the whole story. If a guy comes up to me in a bar and I give him all the signs of disinterest right down to saying the words and walking away and I call him a creep, well, he earned it. I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but I have yet to hear of a woman who calls any man who talks to her her a creep. He has to earn it. Conversely, there are plenty of men who just call women bitches because they’re women and for no other reason.
I should add, if I give the signs of disinterest and he keeps bugging me, then he’s earned being called a creep.
There’s now also http://www.reddit.com/r/SRSMen/
For men’s issues from a feminist perspective.