I’ve been more active in online spaces recently and I am just astounded at the number of times I’ll be several comments deep with another person and a man will just jump in responding to us both with the least relevant most inflammatory take. The gender of the person I’m talking to is never relevant, but it’s always a guy that interjects. I know the internet is a public forum, and I guess there’s more guys on some platforms than women, but it’s just shocking how often it has happened. We’ll be talking about baking and some guy will come in and say that it actually costs more to bake bread at home or clothes and some guy will come in to say actually both our styles are bad. It’s not even a sexist thing I don’t think, I just think women are socialized more with a live and let live mentality and men are socialized to believe that everyone should hear their opinion. I don’t really have any solutions. I always want to reply with something snarky about how we’re not asking him or how his comment doesn’t need to be shared, but I don’t want to invite harassment. Their comments get upvotes or reacts in agreement and it just feels targeted. Like two people were having a casual chat and this guy comes in and derails and gets positive attention for it. I’m just venting now because it just happened in a gaming discord and I don’t really have people irl who understand how these communities are helpful and how that kind of community reaction is ostracizing.
This is a great post, thanks for posting it. Men can often do that, and women are often trained to be diplomatic, passive and non confrontational so they’re used to us staying quiet when they do. Some men may just think they’re being helpful “correcting” us, but some are just being hostile. Often comment history shows a pattern of targeting women for these comments.
Gaming is bad for misogyny, and scarily, right wingextremist group recruitment is linked to gaming groups. It includes incel mentality grooming, so I’m not surprised you’ve experienced it there.
It’s interesting seeing down voting… feminist stuff too often gets down votes, and I’ve no doubt it’s misogynists doing it. Misogynistic men tend to back each other up if it’s against a woman which is shitty.
It’s all really disappointing that this still happens, and I dunno if it’s getting worse or just more vocal.
Agree all around. I saw a thread recently about street harassment and men were just circlejerking about how women are the ones targeting them 🙄
I tried to start an all female gaming server recently but of course I got a bunch of responses from men explaining how that’s sexist and some other presumably well meaning guys that explained that they are feminists and understand if I don’t want men but would be happy to join if I ever wanted additional people. It’s hard to explain that messaging in the first place regardless of if they were nice about it is an issue. I said women only and I meant women only. They clearly saw that and still replied. I understand they were polite but that’s really not the point.
Yep the clue is in the name! Abusive men often see themselves as victims, their idea of being mistreated by a woman is often just “she won’t do what I want”. It’s exhausting