site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I mostly agree with this and would say that both extremes here are bad, but I believe that in the West women are getting away with more than men in this case. For instance, women who wear shirts like this should be recognized as doing so to harass men and such harassment should be punished to a greater extent than it currently is.

I really don't think you want to establish a precedent of labeling message t-shirts "harassment" because you think they are meant to annoy you. And how exactly would you like women who wear it to be "punished"?

I really don't think you want to establish a precedent of labeling message t-shirts "harassment" because you think they are meant to annoy you.

That's already the precedent for men with message t-shirts. EDIT: Or rather, the harassment isn't in the message itself, it's in the fact that simply looking at where the message is written is a social faux pas.

And how exactly would you like women who wear it to be "punished"?

I already said above, they shouldn't be granted the additional protections against "sexual" harassment that women are typically given. They are giving shit, they should expect to deal with it given in return. EDIT: Importantly in this case, if you don't want people staring at your chest, don't put words there.

That's already the precedent for men with message t-shirts. EDIT: Or rather, the harassment isn't in the message itself, it's in the fact that simply looking at where the message is written is a social faux pas.

I've seen plenty of women wearing message t-shirts. And I have looked at their t-shirts long enough to read said messages. I've never been accused of harassing them. If you keep staring at her tits while talking to her, she might perhaps feel harassed, though I think this is imagined by men far more often than it actually happens that a guy looks too long at a woman's chest and gets berated for it.

I think you are making up scenarios where women print a message on their t-shirts and then report any man caught reading it to HR. I think you are also pretending that people can't tell the difference between your eyes falling on someone's shirt long enough to check out the message on it, and your eyes being glued to her chest.

As long as it's considered harassment for men to read the message, there's no worse precedent set by labeling women wearing the shirt also "harassment".

Reading the message isn't harassment.

Of course it is. "Eww, that creepy guy was harassing me; he was staring at my tits!"