Okay, I'm going to shamelessly plug an old post of mine on this subject:

http://hugoboy.typepad.com/hugo_schwyzer/2004/09/guilty_until_pr.html

80% of the disagreements would be solved if everybody could put away the words "Well, I..." in discussing most any issue, gender-based or otherwise. I'm not sure if that's argument by anecdote, or argument by solipistic ignorance, but pissing all over somebody's subjective experience because one doesn't happen to share it is not a flattering trait.

[this post is not necessarily directed at either the author of this post or the author of the linked post]

i actually pretty much agree with her and i think it goes again to the "if you don't do this then i'm not talking about you" point that so many men seem to miss anytime anything negative is said about their gender. (i.e. the "men rape" discussion or "but women batter too!" syndrome.)

i think it would be better addressed to "dear men", but that's just me. i think that *MOST* men across the board suffer from the "everyone is entitled to my thought/opinion/idea/perspective on any topic that happens to come up". i encounter it on a daily basis and i pretty much just tolerate it, until you get those guys that start with "well, i don't know much about _____ but i think ____ about it."

it definitely seems like an entitlement issue. it seems that women are conditioned to think that no one gives a shit what we think so we should remain quiet unless we're experts on the topic, and men are conditioned to think that everything they have to say *IS* valuable, whether they know what they're talking about or not. and it does get frustrating when topics get derailed (i.e. rape and DV) because men have to keep pointing out that not ALL men rape, and some women batter too!

yeah, we know that already. but can we please discuss the topic at hand and not how you feel insulted by it because you're not a rapist or batterer.

you know?
xoxo, jared

This letter didn't bother me. I think the author was driving home the point that while yes, it is important to hear other's perspectives, too often (waaaay too often), productive discussion is stymied by the fact that the esteemed members of the other gender don't want to let go of their own paradigms and jump feet first into a feminist paradigm. They want feminist beliefs to fit nicely into their lives without too much effort. I think the author of the letter is trying to get across the point that we can't make this world, this country, etc. better unless members of our fairer sex (ha ha) really listen to women and really commit to equality. Which is true of any group that has power.

Of course any generalization is going to fall short of reality, because men are not robots and don't all react the same way. But I too have come across a lot of lip-service liberals who don't really want to make the effort to effectuate change. And while I'm fully aware that change can't happen till we get men on board, I'm also getting tired of catering to how men want to hear about the changes.

This reminds me of a portion of a MacKinnon speech reprinted in Feminism Unmodified. She's part of a panel discussion on porn or violence against women, and she tells the crowd that really, we [meaning feminists] love men. It breaks my heart, that this brilliant theorist has to reassure the audience that she's not advocating the death and destruction of the male gender in her explanation of the feminist cause. As if that could really be what feminism is all about.

But that's another story.

Also, everything that ms. jared said.

To which I say, sure, and there are also lesbians and straight women and gay men who do the same thing. I don’t think this implies self-centeredness. How can anyone completely separate from their personal experience while discussing gender issues? And why would we want to? Personal experience is what makes for a meaningful dialogue about how gender is lived on a daily basis. I want to hear what my straight, male friends have to say. And I expect them to listen to me, too.

I agree with you. At the same time, though, I believe what the letter intends to say is that liberal men who are using their "personal experience" in a debate about women's issues may not always be completely honest and, therefore, could very well have the intent to disrupt and derail the conversation. Therefore, much like someone who claims to "support freedom" but interjects their belief that the Patriot Act and Total Information Awareness are key aspects of "supporting freedom," we must see that their stated intent differs from what the actions would support actually lead to. Obviously, she's dealt with a lot of men who seem to think they're liberal, feminist supporters but end up harboring the same old patriarchical views.

Basically, I agree with her points, but I find the generalizations unecessary. All generalizations being false, after all...

i actually pretty much agree with her and i think it goes again to the "if you don't do this then i'm not talking about you" point that so many men seem to miss anytime anything negative is said about their gender.

That's great, and I appreciate that it must seem like men are dogpiling you when they respond to what they percieve as an unwarranted generalization. But I've never seen any indication that the women on discussion boards that would say the above statement ("if you don't do this then i'm not talking about you") seem at all inclined to offer a man speaking about women the same benefit of the doubt.

How about this - how about if both sides make absolutely sure that they're communicating what they intend to communicate, and that they've limited the scope and applicability of their comments to precisely the people they intended to comment on. I don't see why it's anybody's responsibility to read another person's mind, and so we should all be very, very cautious about making unwarranted generalizations.

i think that *MOST* men across the board suffer from the "everyone is entitled to my thought/opinion/idea/perspective on any topic that happens to come up".

Nobody's entitled to anybody's opinion, but on a public board where people can comment, everyone is entitled to post their own opinion. Nobody is entitled to be shielded from opinions they don't like by means of restraining the opinion-giver.

it definitely seems like an entitlement issue. it seems that women are conditioned to think that no one gives a shit what we think so we should remain quiet unless we're experts on the topic, and men are conditioned to think that everything they have to say *IS* valuable, whether they know what they're talking about or not.

I think that's an entirely legitimate point, and I'm sorry that this differential conditioning occurs. I think it's necessary for all persons to overcome the conditioning that would cause them to self-censor. Otherwise how can the discussion proceed if everyone is too afraid to speak?

people need to lighten up. its not an entitlement issue, it is called shooting the shit. If u do not like it, walk away or chime in with your two senseless cents. having grown up with two sisters, spent much time with women in general, i have found women shoot the shit just as much as men.

but i'm not talking about "just shooting the shit" or whatever. i'm talking about men derailing discussions about important topics affecting women such as rape and DV to switch the discussion from the actual topic to HOW IT'S NOT ALL MEN or MEN ARE BATTERED TOO. it happens ALL the time. some guy will become incensed because feminists are discussing how men rape women and rather than further the dialogue with how he and his gender can help eradicate it, he wants to make it all about him and how unfair it is for feminists to say such a thing since, after all, he is a man and he doesn't rape.

so then the discussion becomes women coddling him and saying "we know not you" and "we don't hate men" and "you're such a good guy" etc. etc. and the entire point of the post is lost or forgotten because everyone is too busy soothing his hurt feelings to remember what we were talking about in the first place.

we waste all this time defending our words and pacifying his bruised ego that once again, women's voices and issues are lost or forgotten unless they're all in a chorus of praise and reassurance of him. but i suppose that men's fragile egos are women's responsibility too at the expense of our own well-being.

xoxo, jared

Several points.

Responding to Jared's post, the fact that "MOST" men believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion is a statement about the men Jared interacts with, not men as a sex. Intellectually curious men value a woman's viewpoint not necessarily because the men are feminists (though some are), but because they are interested in as many view points as possible. They don't "derail" topics. They realize women have something unique to say. At least I do. Maybe you should all hang out with me. I think you'd like me.

More to the point, Jared says "it definitely seems like an entitlement issue." Actually it feels more like a "the men you talk to are idiots" issue.

Think about why men, during a conversation about men battering women, will jump up and say, "Women batter too!" It's obvious that men batter more than women, and men know it. It's also obvious that Arabs are more likely to blow up your next flight out of Logan International. But just like we can't frisk every Arab in the terminal, we can't blame men across the board. Malcolm Gladwell had an excellent piece in The New Yorker about profiling, in which he made the point that citywide bans on dangerous dog types, like pit bulls, paint with too broad a brush. Some pit bulls never bite anybody, and a lot of German shepherds maul children. Cities could just as easily, and probably more effectively, ban powerful dogs, or dogs raised by negligent owners, or impose height requirements on front-yard fences. I think members of both sexes have some notion of this when they object to a woman making broad statements about men, which is why you see women cautioning restraint in language and men insisting that they've never battered anyone. Unless men are genetically wired to abuse women (in which case you can't blame them for their actions) you have to look at types of men that batter, or situations that lead men to batter. Making generalizations about men doesn't really address the point, and worse, it puts half of society on the defensive. How you (we) hope to affect social change when that's the case, I have no idea.

Another point. Some of the thoughts expressed here (and, by the way, I've read them all and considered them, which I hope will be generalized to reflect on all men in the way that stupid and willful ignorance on the part of other men is) can be summed up like so: men are socially conditioned to believe everyone wants to know their opinion, and this is the fault of each man who acts in a way reflecting this. Women, on the other hand, are socially conditioned to remain quiet, but this is not the fault of the individual woman. This is the fault of men, or society, or the masters and propagators of society, again, men.

But if we blame an individual man for being a jerk, we should blame an individual woman for being an unspeaking wimp. Or perhaps more palatably, if we don't blame individual women for actions that are created out of social conditioning and gender expectations, we can't blame individual men for the same.

Finally, this makes no sense: "But I too have come across a lot of lip-service liberals who don't really want to make the effort to effectuate change." Really? Consider if you met a man (or woman) who works at the Economic Policy Institute and expressed your belief that women's issues are the most pressing our nation can consider. He (or she) would come away saying, "That was a lip-service liberal who didn't really want to make the effort to effectuate change." Because to him or her economic inequality in this country is the problem of precedence.

There are liberals who are passionate about different things. Some care most about marriage equality, some the environment, some try to keep our country from killing innocent people in lands we don't understand. Can we fault the "liberal, straight men" in these camps without doing the same to their female colleagues? Or is blame itself less effective than a recognition that personal priorities differ, and must be worked with?

Ann is great. [insert smiley face here. men don't know how to use emoticons.]

I agree that statements like that give feminists a bad name. And that's because it's written in a hostile tone.

I think that the hostility is the very reason she overestimates the number of men like this. You find what you are looking for in people.

The idea that straight white men should walk around apologizing for themselves all the time is multiculturalism gone seriously awry. That kind of reverse discrimination is just as bad as any male sexism.

Lastly, it may be a fact that men on average have bigger egos than women. But my belief is that they are just wired that way. So blaming them, or blaming the women who may have a more subservient mentality, is just raging at human nature.

Men constantly have to watch what they say for fear of offending women. How is it that women should be given a free pass when they generalize men as rapists? If being reminded that most men do not rape women breaks your train of thought, so be it.

Well, i don't know much about _____ but i think ____ about it. :)

It seems like Earlbecke has really taken issue with this post. As a result she has choosen to remove feministing.com from her bloggroll and will be no longer reading this blog.

All because someone here disagreed with her