site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I do not think one injustice justifies another. We can, and should, get rid of both.

Empty words. Those pushing for gender equality have proven time and again that they only care about equality when women get the short end of the stick. You need to prove that you will actually get rid of both here rather than stopping once you get the benefits (EDIT:) if you want to convince me to support you.

I don't understand this sentence. No amount of women "show[ing] off" justifies sexual assault or harassment.

The problem is that behavior by men towards women that is perceived as sexual assault or harassment isn't perceived as such when done by women toward men. Men have to "justify" behaviors that women get to just do with no consequence. Women showing off therefore either needs to be more restricted than men doing so or women need to put up with all the behaviors from men that men have to put up with from women.

have to "justify" behaviors that women get to just do with no consequence

Please, please, when you make this argument explicitly name a specific example of a behavior women can do that men can't. It'd help the conversation so much, and prevent it from getting bogged down in each side repeatedly stating their beliefs without coming into contact with the other side.

See just about any instance of "sexualization". For some specific examples, see Julia Serano's Why Nice Guys Finish Last and my response at /r/theschism.

The problem is that behavior by men towards women that is perceived as sexual assault or harassment isn't perceived as such when done by women toward men. Men have to "justify" behaviors that women get to just do with no consequence.

I agree. Society does not take sexual harassment and assault of men by women nearly as seriously as it should.

Women showing off therefore either needs to be more restricted than men doing so or women need to put up with all the behaviors from men that men have to put up with from women.

I don't see how this follows. If the thing is bad we should want to have less of the thing, even if the improvement we make is not necessarily equally distributed among all impacted groups.

I agree. Society does not take sexual harassment and assault of men by women nearly as seriously as it should.

I don't think that's true; there just isn't enough sexual harassment and assault of men by women to justify taking it much more seriously.

I agree. Society does not take sexual harassment and assault of men by women nearly as seriously as it should.

Men don't need protection from sexual harassment by women. It's a trivial problem.

Men suffer different problems than women. Not necessarily more serious problems, but different ones.

If we are looking for men and women to have equal rights, we need to examine the ways in which each gender is currently harmed by society.

For example, in the current system, men are harmed by an anti-male education system which rewards female traits and punishes male ones. As a result of this anti-maleness, 60% of college students are women. Furthermore, this college experience, which is heavily funded by taxes, often rewards its graduates with tax-funded sinecures that provide little value to society.

Meanwhile, nearly all of dangerous jobs are performed by men. Men are 6 times as likely to die at work than women. The death rate for women at work is less than the death rate for accountants. Dangerous jobs, which are nearly exclusively performed by men, pay less on average than white collar work. Meanwhile white collar work is performed nearly exclusively by college graduates, the beneficiaries of anti-male discrimination.

Instead of worrying about women catcalling men, worry about the actual problems the affect men.

For example, in the current system, men are harmed by an anti-male education system which rewards female traits and punishes male ones. As a result of this anti-maleness, 60% of college students are women.

How would you make the current education system more pro-male?

IMO the reason most college students are women is women more strongly follow ideas they see others holding, and education is the thing everyone thinks you're supposed to do.

Put more emphasis on test results and less on subjective grades.

100% agree with all of this

I don't see how this follows. If the thing is bad we should want to have less of the thing, even if the improvement we make is not necessarily equally distributed among all impacted groups.

Sure, but I'm not going to waste my time and effort supporting improvements that are only seen by other people--especially people who have related privileges relative to me--unless they demonstrate a willingness to do the same for me. As I said before, people supporting gender equality now have a very high bar to meet in that regard, as they have a very strong history of saying they'll support men too to get my support and then never following through.