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Do white men need to walk on eggshells?
(reddthat.com)
We are a women's only community, so please no male comments.
Edit: thanks all for reporting the hostile remarks! You really are an amazing group of people. Really appreciate how positive so many men have been as well. I see you all and value you ❤️
When a man makes fun of a woman for something seemingly inherent to a woman, the response isn't to attack all men. That's being sexist to defeat sexism.
When a white person makes fun of a black person for something seemingly inherent to black people, the response shouldn't be to attack all white people. That's being racist to defeat racism.
It is a flawed response as it will always be as equally incorrect as the initial remark. It doesn't fix the thing you take issue with, it just further deepens the line between groups.
Maybe, but in the tweet, did soph say "white men" or "all white men"?
There are times when hurt people do call out all men in their wording, which isn't accurate to say, but there seem to be more times when the language is just ambiguous or overtly does not call out all the people of a group and the #notallmen people read into things and then get angry on the internet.
But beyond even that, I sort of just think social media was a mistake. #notallmen wasn't a thing in the past because women vented in person to each other, or to male allies they trusted enough about other men. Women could express their feelings, and a portion of men wouldn't get angry due to feeling as though they were personally called out. Everything about Twitter from its limited character counts precluding context and people feeling like they can say any horrible thing to each other without consequence has regressed us as a species.
The very beginning. "If white men are so afraid" is the antithesis of her latter point which is "white men aren't afraid" and insinuates they don't stop talking or are generally just more abundant. Even if it's not directly insulting, it's a generalization based on race (and sex) that pushes away people who happen to be white and male but also feel their voice doesn't matter.
I'm just trying to be helpful in pointing out that it's ineffective to become the monster you're fighting. I'd like racism, sexism, all of it to be extinguished and I think things even like the community rule of "only women can post" is severely detrimental to meaningful change. We must choose our responses more carefully so as not to grant the assumption that black and white are opposites no more than men and women are opposites.
There's far too much division online that doesn't exist nearly as much when we step away. We need to be reminded of that more often.
Make the point that individuals are the ones who are racist, not the demographic. People aren't racist/sexist because they're white/male, so making a claim against white/male people is ineffective. However, individuals who identify as Nazis, are racist, because the group itself is racist.
It leaves less room for "oh they're just racist misandrists targeting us" by reframing what you're saying. The critique isn't the problem but the manner in dispensing it which gives the opposition fuel to "uno reverse" the situation.
She insinuated she hears a lot of white men and made no attempt to specify what kinds of white men, only that she hears them often. Generalizing isn't bad in itself, but targeting characteristics that can't be changed for the sake of a counterpoint, is. Someone can't choose to be a man or white, so rather than allow the opposition to make it about either, reframe it into what it is. Racism, sexism, etc.
It seems pedantic but you don't want to appear to be the enemy they paint you as. You don't want to use the language they'll benefit from, no matter how right you are.