erin (she/her)

If one is to engage in pedantry, it can’t hurt to at least be correct. Calling me a “bougouise feminist” was hysterical though.

“Extrapolating things I didn’t say” is called inference, and you can claim something is beside your point but it doesn’t change the fact that your omission commits a logical fallacy. I do not defend shitty behavior, I demonstrate nuance, and yet I constantly see this response online to it. A nuanced position that contrasts your own does not necessarily agree with your opponent, and the ad hominem is just immature.

Committing the same logical fallacy as a “all lives matter” person does not mean I believe you to be the moral equivalent of one, regardless of my disagreement.

Pointing out something objectively shitty as shitty is not in debate. Doing so in omission of other key facts is the problem. Let me provide an example conversation, featuring person A and B, who are both going to be parents soon:

A: “I hope I have a girl!”

B: “I’d support whoever my child is!”

A: “I’d support my child even if they were born very sick!”

Both A and B are using a poor form of argument, which I don’t have a better name for than whataboutism, but is very adjacent to it. By saying “I’d support whoever my child is,” B is implying that A would not. By saying “I’d support them if they were sick,” A does the same. This is the same thing you’re doing when you say:

Dodges the point which was simply that something which is objectively shitty is shitty

You use this same rhetoric throughout your arguments, as do other commenters agreeing with you. I agree that thing is shitty because it was shitty. This is more equivocation. The point is not simply that “thing is shitty because of self evidence,” it’s that by saying this you form a false equivalence and minimize women’s experiences.

If you read nothing else, read this: My argument has nothing to do with whether or not pejorative generalizations are wrong, or to do with defending women who make such arguments. I agree with you on both of these points! My entire argument is that your response of “what if you did this to another group” while omitting the power imbalance that is intrinsic to this issue equates both groups, and therefore dismisses the existence of the power imbalance entirely.

You cannot reply to trans people saying “cis people are trash” with “what if you said that about trans people,” to black people saying “white people are trash” with “what if you said that about black people,” or the above example, or any other similar situation, without also including the nuance that a power imbalance does exist. To do so is to minimize their experience in a defensive position of privilege.

I do not want to be at ideological odds with you. I do not think “men are trash” is an okay thing to say. However, I understand that there is nuance here, and that hurt women are not the target of my ire; the unjust system that hurt them is.

I beg you, read this comment in full. You’ve painted me in your mind as a self righteous egotist, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I won’t continue a back and forth, but I do at least want you to understand that I’m just another person with a set of lived experiences, not a feminist demon from hell here to kick little boys. Men and women are both victims of the patriarchy. Have a good day.

I have never said or meant “men are trash.” I don’t know who gave you that idea. I explicitly didn’t excuse the behavior, I stated it was wrong and unjust, yet explained the societal nuance and why it isn’t okay to equate “men are trash” and “women are trash.” I’m paying nothing forward.

You should read my longest comment within this larger thread. Truly read the whole thing, and its child comments, before forming your opinion. I clearly and explicitly state

I am not suggesting that it’s okay to make men feel responsible for the actions of people that share only a gender with them, nothing else.

and that doing so is unjust. Nuance isn’t the same thing as taking an opposing stance. I even go into the fact that women making such blanket statements likely do not hate all men. If you feel the same way after reading my full comment and understanding it, I’m happy to have a discussion about it, but by the context of your comment, I don’t believe you understand my stance, and therefore I don’t want to engage with it further.

I am not suggesting that it’s okay to make men feel responsible for the actions of people that share only a gender with them, nothing else.

Again, you can stick your head in the sand. It’s your prerogative. I’m not going to argue with you. You can choose to learn or not, it’s your life.

God forbid a rhetorical argument fall into multiple categories. I never said whataboutism and false equivalences are the same thing. You happened to do both. Equivocation has nothing to do with setting two things as equal, it’s the use of ambiguous language to avoid the bigger picture of an issue or to avoid committing to a stance. It is another form of logical fallacy. Via equivocation (omission and vague language) you omitted key facts (social power imbalance) that makes bringing up a connected, but not equivalent, issue (replacing men are trash with any other group, which is a form of whataboutism) a false equivalence.

You can say I don’t know what I’m talking about. That doesn’t make it true. Your equivocation of your whataboutism argument led to forming a false equivalence.

All lives matter in response to BLM is both whataboutism and a false equivalence. Just because someone didn’t say “what about” or "these things are equal doesn’t make those facts untrue. There is an implied “what about all those other lives, don’t they matter?” which in itself implies that the societal inequalities BLM rose in response to are equal to the pressures felt but the rest of “all lives.”

God damn bougouise feminists.

Lol

This is reductive. I do not disagree with the fact that generalizing diverse groups is wrong, and I made that fact clear in my comment. You either didn’t read my comment, didn’t understand it, or are maliciously choosing to misrepresent it.

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/11782965

And if you took the time to read my messages, you’d recognize that I agree that saying “all men are trash” is an unjustly prejudiced statement. What you aren’t realizing is the societal pressures and power imbalances which you’ve conveniently ignored in your argument. You’re taking the same rhetorical role as the “all lives matter” people in response to BLM. I’m not arguing with you. I’m explaining to you. It’s your choice to learn or to stick your head in the sand, and it makes no difference to me.

The entire second half of your comment is both prejudiced and incorrect. You are generalizing an entire marginalized group by the actions of a few people you have interacted with. I have many trans friends irl, interact in communities with people across the gender spectrum online, and am engaged to a trans woman. I have never experienced someone being rude when they weren’t treated rudely first. Additionally, trans people and “gays” are different categories entirely. You do not sound like the ally you claim to be.

<3

In your comment, whether intended or not. It’s not a long comment. By “whatabouting” the idea of replacing men with any marginalized group, you are making a false equivalence via equivocation. By leaving out the crucial aspect of power imbalance, you minimize its role by implication. See: all lives matter in response to BLM.

You should reference my other comment in this thread. You’re correct that statements like “all men are trash” are unjustly prejudiced, but you’re making a false equivalence.

Additionally, statements like men are trash can hurt other marginalized groups. I’ve heard “men are trash” be followed or countered with “except trans men.” This is transphobic. I’d like to make it very clear that “men are trash” is an unjustly prejudiced statement, but it is one that is a product of a broken system. See: ACAB.

This definitely misses the power imbalance of punching down vs up. If someone genuinely believes all men are “scum,” yeah, that’s prejudiced. However, there is a big difference between a group that has less power in society pushing up against the class that has more power or oppresses them and the reverse. The idea that “y group is (insert pejorative)” and “x group is (insert pejorative)” are equally bigoted statements assumes that x and y groups are equal in social power. Statements like “men are trash” or equivalent don’t necessarily represent an individual’s true opinion of all men, but a general pushing back against a group with more power, many individuals of which attempt to exercise their perceived privilege over women.

Women that say “all men are trash” or similar might not be thinking with this level of introspection and subtlety, but it’s a subconscious reaction to their position as a group with less power. They rarely hold that on a personal level against every individual man, unless they’ve been deeply hurt. I have experienced things that make it harder for me to trust men. My friends have experienced things that make it harder to trust men. I do not think every man is evil. When you see the damage around you on societal levels, see the people calling for your rights to be taken away, see how they treat you like an object or property because of who you are, and you see it in the lives of many many people like you, it creates a resentment of the group that is responsible.

I am not suggesting that there are no women that take advantage of men. I am not suggesting that men cannot be abused. I am not suggesting that it’s okay to make men feel responsible for the actions of people that share only a gender with them, nothing else. However, I am explaining why women might feel hurt or disempowered enough to push back against men in general, and why “men are trash” and “women are trash” (though far more often, the phrase when targeted at women takes a sexual connotation: whores, etc) are not equivalent statements. Both the women that have been hurt and the men that feel hurt by the byproduct of their resentment are victims of the patriarchy. Until everyone, regardless of gender, holds the same societal power, there will always be people of all groups being hurt by the imbalance.

TLDR: Don’t resent the women who are a product of their environment saying “men are trash,” resent the patriarchy that hurts men and women alike.