Some tactics for writing in public

> Even from your own words, it sounds like the heart is not in the reaction, but what people are reacting to.

My point was that more broadly speaking, online discourse is fundamentally broken in most popular social spaces. Most people have abandoned discourse and refuse to have hard conversations. I’d argue that in most cases, this is counterproductive behavior. I’m also not saying this is the only thing broken - there are a myriad of systemic factors, and degrees and kinds of brokenness. Bad behavior towards women is also at the toxic core in my view. I don’t see this as either/or.

Dialogue is all we have available to change minds, and this broad erosion of communication is deeply worrisome. I’ve been beating this drum for some time.

When I first read the thread, I didn’t realize the author was a woman. The point of my comment was that:

1. I, too, noticed the pattern the parent comment mentioned

2. While I really dislike what online discourse has become, I have empathy for the author and can understand why especially women get sick of the bullshit and just block people

And that was my point about how personal and contextual decisions about these interactions are. That in this situation, I get it, but that it highlights the brokenness of the web. For what it’s worth, I’m increasingly convinced that the best move is to stop playing the social media game entirely.

I appreciate the book recommendation. As a person who views misogyny as a major problem and unacceptable behavior, and has spent a decent amount of time exploring the subject, do you have an elevator pitch for the insights in the book? I add to my (long) reading list cautiously, and I guess my question is: if I’m already fully convinced that this is a problem and take it seriously, will I still find value in reading?

I agree that the lack of hard conversations is a problem, although I'm not sure how much people have given it up versus just never did it at all with strangers, whom computers now thrust them in virtual proximity to. But again, I don't think the problem is with the people blocking. I think it's with the propagandists and the purposeful jerks. I think blocking is a fine response to encountering somebody who is not only uninterested in reason, but will be a pain in the ass as they try to silence any opposition to their views. Life's too short to waste time on the "change my mind" crowd. [1]

> do you have an elevator pitch for the insights in the book?

I think the book's value is mainly to people of an analytical bent. Her goal is partly what philosophers call ameliorative, meaning she's trying to sort through the many things that get called "misogyny" and come up with a productive definition for it. As part of that, she gives both a useful theoretical structure (especially valuable to me is her framing of misogyny as the enforcement arm of sexism, as well as her look at who is "owed" what and how people behave when those expectations are violated) and a lot of nuanced examinations of examples. I had no problem spotting open misogyny, but there were a lot of more subtle, stochastic examples that I only saw as a pattern after reading her book.

[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/steven-crowders-change-my-min...

Misogyny, being a form of sexism, is a thought, not an action or an effect. Therefore to know if for example something someone said is misogynistic you need to understand why they said it.

This misogyny% you're speaking of is clearly not a thought (otherwise intention would matter), so it's not sexism. If sexism didn't exist there could be still be misogyny%, because it's something that happens irrespective of anyone's intentions. A woman could mishear something someone said and decide not to speak, and that would be misogyny%, I guess. The speaker was misogynistic% when he read aloud the schedule for the cafeteria because he didn't speak clearly enough. It's not clear to me whether eliminating misogyny% is even theoretically possible.

That aside, what's the alternative? Are you saying women shouldn't have stuff they say critically analyzed, let alone opposed? That they should be met with either approval or silence, because otherwise some women might prefer not to speak? Isn't that itself a misogynistic (no percent) and condescending, not to mention dangerous, idea? Think of the political idea you find most reprehensible, put it in the mouth of a female politician who sees nothing but support and take that mental image to its logical conclusion.

People say stupid shit all the time. It's not just important, but critical to challenge wrong ideas. If that means some people will speak less, and some of those people will be women, well, that's life. I guess it's unfortunate those people never learned how to deal with criticism.