What constitutes Misogyny?

[Stephen Morgan]

That reminds me. Hava said some stuff about Judaism, Christianity, monogamy and women that wasn't very solidly founded, oh....Maybe 103 or so pages ago? Anyway. It's been preying on my mind ever since. Western religion and misogyny have gone hand in hand for centuries. So it's really kind of worth looking at up close, imo, if anybody else is up for it.

You can count me out. Just wanted to point out that there are a lot of claims made these days about women in the early church. Having positions, and that. Don't see any significance in it myself, but there's a lot of talk about it. Also, the majority of church congregations in most Western countries are female. Don't know why, don't concern myself with organised religion. Even Quakers are too organised for me.

Monogamy is a very interesting issue. With the religious aspect and the supposed relation to the alleged discovery of paternity and so on.

[JackRiddler]

He just likes to harsh on women. PERIOD > and I'm sick of it. I wonder when you will be?

I am sick of it. I'm also sickened by it. However, while I don't even know if Stephen is the real person he purports to be, rightly or wrongly, I perceive someone's non-narcissistic and unique humanity in his posts, along with all the usual fixings that go along with it in all their usual paradoxical complexity, including but not limited to the need to be understood, the need to understand, the need to be amused, the need to be amusing, the need to make sense out of chaos, and the need to feel safe and whole.

Let's stop there because I see the same. And I think others do. Probably this is the reason that people who find his views to be factually inverted, hateful, hurtful and destructive still engage him. But for me an end has come trying to reason with the content equivalent of Rush Limbaugh bewailing the tyranny of "feminazis," even if Morgan is, unlike Limbaugh, a sensitive, sincere, layered, erudite interlocutor capable of better. He doesn't always produce outbursts like the "batter" post; but he does so regularly. At what point do you say enough? My preference by the way would be for a narcissist reaching for the real over a fool peddling sincere madness.

.

[brekin]

compared2what wrote:

brekin wrote:
(A lot of straw and willful blindness)

I find it incredibly disrespectful to summarize my quotes in the above way.
If anything it really shows the level of filtering you do.



During a hostile exchange about a bad Furnace man experience
with a few posters (male and female) Canadian Watcher shares a
horrible personal assault experience addressed and closing like this.
You don't see the following as baiting and taunting?

Canadian Watcher wrote:
Okay all you lovers of me,
Here's another real life experience:

analyze that. let's see what you're made of.

and then posts:

it's like a really fun afternoon of tennis!

To which I posted:

brekin wrote:

Look, that is horrific and I'm truly sorry that happened to you. Full stop.

In all earnestness I don't think you should be posting this right now in relation to this thread.
It doesn't have anything to do with what we were just talking about and I think you are posting
this out of place that isn't going to be good for anyone. I thinking sharing something like this in
this way just isn't what maybe could be good for you right now.

I'm less concerned about what others think or their reaction to this but where you are coming from right now
for your sake.

brekin wrote:
Okay you force the analogy.
compared2what what if I said right now that I've been sexually abused as a child?
Yeah, Where do you go from there?

compared2what wrote:
You go here or someplace very like it:


brekin, oh my god, I had no idea. I'm very, very sorry for your pain, of course. But I'm even sorrier if something I wrote out of dumb pig-ignorance triggered or evoked it inadvertently. So I very much hope you'll forgive me if it did. I was too hung up on airing my own hurt feelings in connection with what I experienced as your willful blindness to remember that I might not be the only person who had any. Thank you for reminding me that I'm not.

yours, in humility and solidarity,

c2w

Perhaps something like what I posted above or the following?
Remember my initial concern was that
this was something too painful to use as subject matter during
a hostile thread. She subsequently expressed that she was fine
about sharing it. And only much, much later did I challenge her on
the connection of the two events and the way she shared the second
event with the first after it was clear she was ok in using both
as subject matter. Because she was the one who continued to
do so.

Canadian_watcher

Quote:
This is the reality of the world women live in. We can't just not have these experiences with us when we meet people who laugh in our faces at the door. We can't.

brekin wrote:
Look, I'm not even going to try and discuss this on a rhetorical or logical level.
I think what you went through is horrible and has affected you deeply.
We have left the area of the Furnace man.
I hope you are able to talk to someone about this. Not because you need to be "fixed" or
because it is anything you did but for your own sake. I just don't think
here is that place.

It is very relevant to Misogyny, but after the back and forth in this thread I don't think
it is prudent to share something so personal and deep with some people on this thread.

This was viewed as deeply paternalistic. And because I refused to see the Furnace man
situation as related I was tainted. Canadian Watcher went on to say she was fine with
using this example from her real life and never did show (to me sufficiently, remember I'm
entitled to my opinion) how the two events were related at all. I felt like conflating the two
made one a target if one challenged the first (which was ambiguous because she
herself stated she wasn't sure and the second which to I think everyone was a clear
horrible case of misogyny) and basically I just voiced that. And
again much later in the thread after the two events were repeatedly brought up
as being similar and if one was challenged, both were somehow, and even in a strange
extrapolation all women's experience was negated.

brekin wrote: :
Do you continue to debate me on other matters?

compared2what wrote:
To a certain extent, that might depend on what you're debating, the severity of your grievance, and the extent (if any) of the other party's misconduct. However, strictly wrt the hypothetical as phrased:

No, you do not. If it's important, it will keep and you can return to it later.

I agree with you there. The thread became a tar pit at that point and I bowed out, but had to come back
in when I was being used as a poster boy for paternalism and then as a misogynist for not agreeing with
Canadian Watcher assessment of the Furnace Man story. Round and round we went and here we are having
to go over the same ground 60 pages later.


Quote:brekin wrote:
How do you empathize with someone when you try to help them
after such a admission during a hostile thread exchange, are attacked for trying to help and
then are labeled worse and worse labels the more you
disagree? See sometimes others create the monster
they want to fight.

compared2what wrote:
Well, for starters, you'd have to be genuinely trying to help them, as opposed to, let's say, "trying to preserve your won interests by silencing them under the guise of trying to help them on the grounds that you were only telling them to shut up out of concern for their own good." Which means you would have been scratched right out of the gate.

And that's about it. But please do let me know if you have any further questions on the matter. I'll be more than happy to answer them if I can.

compared2what you are compressing huge chunks of time to fulfill some personal framework that won't hold up.
Never would I caution someone after posting certain personal material unless I felt it may not be in their personal
best interest. To use an example I used earlier if someone in a gaybashing thread did something similar, I would caution them
that something so personal and traumatic during a hostile exchange wouldn't be good for them in my opinion. It's funny
that such concern and sensitivity can be painted as nefarious and condescending, but then when the person establishes that
they needed no such protection and the matter can be used in rational argument, (the person themselves chooses to do so) but
when you go on to treat it as such and analyzed honestly then it is seen as being insensitive!

People need to decide whether they want empathy or argument sometimes. It's great when you can have both, but it's not always possible
when you explore volatile core issues.

And don't worry about standing by to answer any of my questions. I'll call a tech support helpline before I request your assistance.

Canadian Watcher wrote:

I know that this doesn't involve me, but since it is partially about me I'd just like to say YES to what c2w wrote here. All of it, actually.

Brekin, questioning someone's mental health and telling them you are just doing it for their own good is not helpful. Maybe it would be through a PM if you really were concerned and had good reason for that concern. But in this instance it was just a power grab by you in order to blame me for a problem that was not created by me.

I erred in later saying something like I was concerned about your mental health when you posted your personal experience in a hostile environment. I should have said your mental health at that moment. Some would think even that is too intrusive, but I tend to think, and this thread would tend to show anyone can post something rashly in the heat of the moment not in the best state of mind. I would remind you also that you have questioned numerous peoples mental health and frankly not out of the intention of helping them. I know for one you have equated me with ill mental health behavior that is narcissistic, bullying and even stalking (!) without any examples when people have sought to express what my point of view or intentions may be.

[Project Willow]

Let's stop there because I see the same. And I think others do. Probably this is the reason that people who find his views to be factually inverted, hateful, hurtful and destructive still engage him. But for me an end has come trying to reason with the content equivalent of Rush Limbaugh bewailing the tyranny of "feminazis," even if Morgan is, unlike Limbaugh, a sensitive, sincere, layered, erudite interlocutor capable of better. He doesn't always produce outbursts like the "batter" post; but he does so regularly. At what point do you say enough? My preference by the way would be for a narcissist reaching for the real over a fool peddling sincere madness.

My parents kissed and hugged me and told me they loved me everyday. My mother wouldn't allow me to cross the street without holding my hand until I was 7 or 8 years old, and reflexively reached out to stop the forward movement of my body if she had to hard brake in the car. My mother also drove me to a bar to sell me to a line of men. My parents would also torture me hours after those daily and nightly hugs and kisses. The constant underlying those extremes in behavior was their erasure of the trauma I experienced. Over time the hugs and kisses felt more like mockery, and I deeply resented them. My mother was always popular and well loved in her jobs and her various community activities. All my teen friends envied me that she was so loving and so cool.

People can be unfathomably complicated, able to express what appears to be empathetic or nurturing behavior, or might even be genuine in a dissociative capacity, towards some people while being abusive to others. I still am not able to make a determination that there exists a consistent or central orientation towards good or ill within my own parents, people I lived with for 20 years, I can't imagine being able to do so with a stranger in this limited environment. What is absolutely clear however, is that bargaining or debating with someone engaged in abusive behavior is not the correct response (and so we have the new rule here). My parents were also horrifically abused by their parents, and I have no doubt those experiences contributed to their abusive behavior towards me, but my empathy for them shouldn't require me, or anyone else to continue to accept their abuse. You have to draw a line in front of the behavior, hold up a big "No" sign, or you're doing everyone, including the transgressor, a huge disservice.

[compared2what?]

Let's stop there because I see the same. And I think others do. Probably this is the reason that people who find his views to be factually inverted, hateful, hurtful and destructive still engage him. But for me an end has come trying to reason with the content equivalent of Rush Limbaugh bewailing the tyranny of "feminazis," even if Morgan is, unlike Limbaugh, a sensitive, sincere, layered, erudite interlocutor capable of better. He doesn't always produce outbursts like the "batter" post; but he does so regularly. At what point do you say enough? My preference by the way would be for a narcissist reaching for the real over a fool peddling sincere madness.

My parents kissed and hugged me and told me they loved me everyday. My mother wouldn't allow me to cross the street without holding my hand until I was 7 or 8 years old, and reflexively reached out to stop the forward movement of my body if she had to hard brake in the car. My mother also drove me to a bar to sell me to a line of men. My parents would also torture me hours after those daily and nightly hugs and kisses. The constant underlying those extremes in behavior was their erasure of the trauma I experienced. Over time the hugs and kisses felt more like mockery, and I deeply resented them. My mother was always popular and well loved in her jobs and her various community activities. All my teen friends envied me that she was so loving and so cool.

People can be unfathomably complicated, able to express what appears to be empathetic or nurturing behavior, or might even be genuine in a dissociative capacity, towards some people while being abusive to others. I still am not able to make a determination that there exists a consistent or central orientation towards good or ill within my own parents, people I lived with for 20 years, I can't imagine being able to do so with a stranger in this limited environment. What is absolutely clear however, is that bargaining or debating with someone engaged in abusive behavior is not the correct response (and so we have the new rule here). My parents were also horrifically abused by their parents, and I have no doubt those experiences contributed to their abusive behavior towards me, but my empathy for them shouldn't require me, or anyone else to continue to accept their abuse. You have to draw a line in front of the behavior, hold up a big "No" sign, or you're doing everyone, including the transgressor, a huge disservice.

Beautifully and wisely said, as well as notable for not showing the slightest sign of wishing to hit them over the head with that sign. I very much agree.

[compared2what?]

During a hostile exchange about a bad Furnace man experience
with a few posters (male and female) Canadian Watcher shares a
horrible personal assault experience addressed and closing like this.
You don't see the following as baiting and taunting?

Canadian Watcher wrote:
Okay all you lovers of me,
Here's another real life experience:

analyze that. let's see what you're made of.

and then posts:

it's like a really fun afternoon of tennis!

To which I posted:

brekin wrote:

Look, that is horrific and I'm truly sorry that happened to you. Full stop.

In all earnestness I don't think you should be posting this right now in relation to this thread.
It doesn't have anything to do with what we were just talking about and I think you are posting
this out of place that isn't going to be good for anyone. I thinking sharing something like this in
this way just isn't what maybe could be good for you right now.

I'm less concerned about what others think or their reaction to this but where you are coming from right now
for your sake.

brekin:

[Canadian_watcher]

Beautifully and wisely said, as well as notable for not showing the slightest sign of wishing to hit them over the head with that sign. I very much agree.

PW has Morgan on ignore, and has had for some time. She also mentioned earlier that the fact that others still engage with him is re-traumatizing for her. She has chosen (out of necessity) to remove herself from part of the board due to someone else's hurtful behaviour - I don't think she should have to do that. I think the bad behaviour should stop.

Honestly I do not understand how you're viewing my sticking up for myself and other women who have contacted me privately equates to me being a bully, but if that's how you feel, that's how you feel.

[compared2what?]

Searcher08, I certainly hope that you know how much I love and enjoy you. I've always found it to be as much of a pleasure to agree with you as it is to disagree with you, with only one exception, in the exchange starting here.

I told you then that I'd still love you if you didn't want or weren't able to understand that it was a non-negotiable wrong for me to have my sexual boundaries violated, and absolutely promised not to hold it against you were that to be the case. All of that still stands.

I also said that I could live with it comfortably, if that's just the way it was. That still stands too, in a way. But it's a very, very sad thing that it does.

Neither I nor any other woman should have to live comfortably with the knowledge that when she's sexually demeaned, harassed and (virtually) assaulted, the community as a whole won't object to it, offer her sympathy, or even acknowledge that it happened.

Nor should she have to live comfortably with the knowledge that if and when she objects to it herself, people of good will who wish for amity and peace will try to achieve that by telling her she must be mistaken about what happened to her.

Nor should she even be so thoroughly conditioned to know and accept that her status as a person whose feelings merit concern and respect will automatically default to a level lower than that of man she loves and enjoys when those feelings make him uncomfortable that of her own volition she prefers dwelling with them in solitude and pain to discomfiting him and is happy to do so out of love and consideration for him.
________________

I did that with you, and I didn't mind doing it. I still don't. When I look at that exchange and see it ending with your expression of concern for the welfare of the person who treated me like a piece of trash and then belittled me for continuing to exist in the face of his cruelty and indifference, I not only feel warmth and love for you, but also appreciation for your decency and intelligence. I want to protect the innocence in you that prevented you from extending those qualities to me, which is beautiful in my eyes. I take comfort in knowing that you can inhabit it. Because I know it's horrible to live with the degradation and ugliness of its loss, as I do, and wouldn't wish it on anyone.

None of that is your fault. If anything, it's mine. Because Willow is correct in saying that perpetuating the acceptance of wrong as right and cruelty as justice does a disservice to everybody it touches. It corrupts rather than preserves your decency to pretend otherwise. And it does that by denying you enough access to the understanding of another person's life and essence for you even to be responsibly capable of distinguishing between decency and savagery in relation to her (or maybe him) for yourself.

That's wrong. In every sense and to every person. It was cowardly of me not to have acted in the knowledge of that way back when, and I apologize to you for it with all my heart.

It's been incredibly painful to watch the results of my cowardice play themselves out in your posts over the course of this thread. I should have said no to it then. But since I didn't, with nothing but love I say to you now:

No. Searcher08, that's wrong. It's wrong.

[compared2what?]

Beautifully and wisely said, as well as notable for not showing the slightest sign of wishing to hit them over the head with that sign. I very much agree.

PW has Morgan on ignore, and has had for some time. She also mentioned earlier that the fact that others still engage with him is re-traumatizing for her. She has chosen (out of necessity) to remove herself from part of the board due to someone else's hurtful behaviour - I don't think she should have to do that. I think the bad behaviour should stop.

Honestly I do not understand how you're viewing my sticking up for myself and other women who have contacted me privately equates to me being a bully, but if that's how you feel, that's how you feel.

I didn't mean that, C_w. I very much admire Willow for having so much strength, integrity and generosity of spirit that all the forces that were exerted on their destruction didn't rob her of them. I was saluting her for that, not engaging in invidious comparisons between you and her, or you and me, or anyone and anyone else.

I very much admire you on your merits, too. I'm kind of a shy and reserved person. And while I know it's stupid, I feel timid about bothering the admirable by pestering them with my admiration when I don't know them very well. I assume they don't care or want to know what I think. As I said, I basically have no self-respect when no one's trying to force me to do anything. Or possibly self-esteem. Also, all that is good in my character (such as it is) was forged in an environment in which the harshest corrective criticism imaginable was deemed to be an expression of love. I hated that. And I hate it when I notice belatedly that I've reverted to training when under the impression that I was speaking in a way that would comprehensible to another person as "loving." But I still notice myself both reverting to and recovering from it, like, seven times in practically every sentence I write all the time. There's nothing more oppressive than the tyranny of self, in my experience. I do what I can to fight it, though, as do we all.

I'm sorry I hurt you, which I perceive, although you didn't say it. And I'll try to show rather than just tell you that by (among other things) not doing it again. Let me know if I fuck that up, okay?

[compared2what?]

On consideration, though, I guess I'd also like to ask you whether you're unconsciously letting what feels like attack obstruct what might feel like support if you trusted or believed in it from reaching you.

I'm sort of shooting in the dark here. But since I do know my own self to reflexively assign more weight to all negative feedback than I do to any positive feedback (assuming that I even notice it was positive to begin with) and I also know myself not to be alone on that score, it does seem kinda worth a shot, since:

(a) no criticism, implicit or explicit attaches to it; and

(b) I don't think you're a bully for standing up for yourself, haven't said so, and don't treat you as I do bullies; and

(c) Why would I have told brekin that what he said and did to you was bad behavior that had to stop if I wasn't standing up for your right to stand up for yourself?

I'm still sorry I hurt you, all of that still stands. Just asking.

[Searcher08]

Searcher08, I certainly hope that you know how much I love and enjoy you. I've always found it to be as much of a pleasure to agree with you as it is to disagree with you, with only one exception, in the exchange starting here.

I told you then that I'd still love you if you didn't want or weren't able to understand that it was a non-negotiable wrong for me to have my sexual boundaries violated, and absolutely promised not to hold it against you were that to be the case. All of that still stands.

I also said that I could live with it comfortably, if that's just the way it was. That still stands too, in a way. But it's a very, very sad thing that it does.

Neither I nor any other woman should have to live comfortably with the knowledge that when she's sexually demeaned, harassed and (virtually) assaulted, the community as a whole won't object to it, offer her sympathy, or even acknowledge that it happened.

Nor should she have to live comfortably with the knowledge that if and when she objects to it herself, people of good will who wish for amity and peace will try to achieve that by telling her she must be mistaken about what happened to her.

Nor should she even be so thoroughly conditioned to know and accept that her status as a person whose feelings merit concern and respect will automatically default to a level lower than that of man she loves and enjoys when those feelings make him uncomfortable that of her own volition she prefers dwelling with them in solitude and pain to discomfiting him and is happy to do so out of love and consideration for him.
________________

I did that with you, and I didn't mind doing it. I still don't. When I look at that exchange and see it ending with your expression of concern for the welfare of the person who treated me like a piece of trash and then belittled me for continuing to exist in the face of his cruelty and indifference, I not only feel warmth and love for you, but also appreciation for your decency and intelligence. I want to protect the innocence in you that prevented you from extending those qualities to me, which is beautiful in my eyes. I take comfort in knowing that you can inhabit it. Because I know it's horrible to live with the degradation and ugliness of its loss, as I do, and wouldn't wish it on anyone.

None of that is your fault. If anything, it's mine. Because Willow is correct in saying that perpetuating the acceptance of wrong as right and cruelty as justice does a disservice to everybody it touches. It corrupts rather than preserves your decency to pretend otherwise. And it does that by denying you enough access to the understanding of another person's life and essence for you even to be responsibly capable of distinguishing between decency and savagery in relation to her (or maybe him) for yourself.

That's wrong. In every sense and to every person. It was cowardly of me not to have acted in the knowledge of that way back when, and I apologize to you for it with all my heart.

It's been incredibly painful to watch the results of my cowardice play themselves out in your posts over the course of this thread. I should have said no to it then. But since I didn't, with nothing but love I say to you now:

No. Searcher08, that's wrong. It's wrong.

Yes, it is wrong.

I have just read this and have had a really big emotional upset reaction to it IRL.
This is intensely personal for me because you were the first person there for me after the R.I. 5th Wall crashed into my life a couple of months ago. The thought of me hurting people I care about by negligence is like a torture to me. I'm extremely upset and I feel the pain and damage you were suffering which I didnt see at the time, that you saw that I didn't see it and nothing you could have said would made any difference.

But now I do.

You see, when I look back on that interaction, I see myself not SEEING Y O U. Just interacting with words.
And I know see what that must have felt like cos that neglect, in that context left a mark, it didnt go away...
And that makes my heart feel like its breaking.

And FWIW I'm wailing a river.

I'm sorry
Please forgive me
I love you
Thank you

Ki x

[Canadian_watcher]

Beautifully and wisely said, as well as notable for not showing the slightest sign of wishing to hit them over the head with that sign. I very much agree.

PW has Morgan on ignore, and has had for some time. She also mentioned earlier that the fact that others still engage with him is re-traumatizing for her. She has chosen (out of necessity) to remove herself from part of the board due to someone else's hurtful behaviour - I don't think she should have to do that. I think the bad behaviour should stop.

Honestly I do not understand how you're viewing my sticking up for myself and other women who have contacted me privately equates to me being a bully, but if that's how you feel, that's how you feel.

I didn't mean that, C_w. I very much admire Willow for having so much strength, integrity and generosity of spirit that all the forces that were exerted on their destruction didn't rob her of them. I was saluting her for that, not engaging in invidious comparisons between you and her, or you and me, or anyone and anyone else.

My bad. I thought the 'not hitting them over the head' thing was a sideways comment about my approach. I confess to being very sensitive to that sort of thing right at this moment but I should know you better than that, at least, by now. That isn't the way you do business and I really should have trusted in that. I am sorry.

Also, all that is good in my character (such as it is) was forged in an environment in which the harshest corrective criticism imaginable was deemed to be an expression of love. I hated that. And I hate it when I notice belatedly that I've reverted to training when under the impression that I was speaking in a way that would comprehensible to another person as "loving." But I still notice myself both reverting to and recovering from it, like, seven times in practically every sentence I write all the time. There's nothing more oppressive than the tyranny of self, in my experience. I do what I can to fight it, though, as do we all.

You are an expressive, thoughtful, wildly intelligent, witty, incisive, respected person. I think you've earned the right to some self-esteem outside of any early training. This is all your doing! I share your automatic response towards the underdog though, and the stuff that happened this morning was a balancing act for me; it is difficult for me to call out and accept support. It's easier for me to accept support on behalf of others. that probably doesn't make much sense, but.. that's the only way I can explain it.

I'm sorry I hurt you, which I perceive, although you didn't say it.

You have nothing to apologize for at all. I appreciated our exchange and your honesty. I need that mirror to ensure I'm not off the rails. You provided it and I have thought about everything you've told me. Thank you.

[wintler2]

What i really like about this thread is the related run of trolling it has inspired as some posters troll other threads. 'White-anting' they might call it in workplaces, just a polite term for bullying.. "OMG can't i talk about my rape fantasies without someone bringing up that stupid misogyny thread up again!!". Which reminds me of my old man, "what will those bloody abo's/asians/niggers want next!!" It is easy for me to find them ridiculous and trivial, probably because i'm the privelidged class in a number of ways, but its worth having to skip over them to read Willows last post, and Searchers beautiful apology, and .. you get the idea. Rock on, sisters and brothers.

[brainpanhandler]

Oh, you bastard. You deleted it. I only got one good laugh out of that.

[seemslikeadream]

a little too much box wine?