u/tryingtobekindonline

hi all just a reminder that we want to encourage thoughtful posts in this sub. this does mean that we are filtering out a lot of low-effort posts. especially posts that are simply re-posts from other social media. we have also noticed that some of the worst comments tend to come from such posts and we want to minimize that. we want this to be a thoughtful space and not a reactive one. the current media environment feeds off of us being reactive and engaged, and we want to not contribute to such a cycle. we also want to make sure that we are focused on building solidarities rather than assuming the worst of each other and responding in cruel ways. something that is too much of a norm of all social media.

please feel free to share your responses and suggestions below.

i feel weird even asking this because in my books it is clearly rape, but i want to understand if others also are able to see this because i constantly keep coming across men who can't seem to grasp the meaning of informed consent (for example their inability to grasp that we have laws against rape on the promise of marriage). honestly it feels like they will do anything to make rape seem as if it is sex: from she was wearing something revealing, to she said yes when i lied to her. (there was also a recent study that honestly made me feel really depressed that reported 95% of men coerced women into sex)

my logic is that if someone wouldn't have sex with you if they they knew 'xyz' then they aren't actually consenting to sex with you. the kind of false information i have in mind is 'i am not romantically/sexually seeing anyone other than you' 'i don't have any stds' and so on. i would also like to hear the kinds of lies you have by men so that you would have sex with them, which had you known you wouldn't have.

i am asking this because i think the understanding of rape in the popular culture is that it has to be very violent and by a stranger - that's also why our society struggles to grasp the concept of marital rape i think.

edit: as i said in a comment here, i think this is not a grey area for me because i see lying to get me to do anything as coercive. if i wouldn't do something if i knew the truth and the only way for you to get me to do it is by lying then for me that counts as coercion. i would like to to hear how others see it and why it may not be coercion for them.

edit 2: i think one of main differences in opinions is coming from some people thinking of sex in its context (which is closer to my pov) and other thinking of sex not bounded to context. so for people with the later pov it sounds very odd to call sex under false pretenses as rape because consent for those acts was given. for the former, the consent is given in a specific context and dependent on the consent-ers being fully informed of the relevant details.

i think it disadvantages women when we don't call this rape and when we shift the blame for men lying on women instead, that they should know better, as if men have no agency or responsibility to be better people.

also for reference i follow the crisp model of consent where consent has to be: Considered Reversible Informed Specific Participatory

i think it's very important that we honor the women who cam before us while also recognizing that they were human. to neither pedestalize them or villianize them. her legacy is complicated. and deserves to be seen that way. and the women she learned from also deserved to be seen.

we shouldn't have to keep saying this, but here we are. terfs please know that you are not welcome here.

it's honestly exhausting to keep hearing hypotheticals about 'in this case we should have trans exclusive spaces etc.' which more often than not are either in bad faith or not very well thought out arguments. trans women's womanhood is not up for debate here.

and please also note that the sex and gender distinction has been challenged in much of feminist literature which is worth engaging with. as judith butler argues, there is a way in which sex is already gender.

please take this in as good faith as possible, but i have been noticing a trend of people being hostile in this sub and treating other people as if they are coming in bad faith without considering that they might be genuine. this is not an attempt at tone policing, it's an attempt at creating a more inclusive environment where we may be able to work with one another rather than against. i also sometimes think it happens that we get so focused on our own marginalization that we forget that others may also be coming from marginalized positions. i think our space and conversations can improve if we take the time to be a little bit more open to considering that the other person isn't coming from bad faith. at least that is the hunch i have. i know that this is not easy and that i am asking for some work on your end, but i hope you can understand where i am coming from. and at the end of the day this is just a request.

been thinking about how so much of the discourse on social media is based on analogies and how often bad analogies are used to make problematic points.

i think this video does a god job in clarifying the use of analogies and possible responses to them. i think this is especially useful for marginalized peoples because so much of the marginalizing rhetoric is built on bad analogies.

I am afraid too many people do not seem to understand what intersectionality means. It does not mean being tolerant of every opinion, especially when those opinions are based on the exclusion of vulnerable groups. We understand that many people can end up in TERF spaces and rhetoric due to traumatic reasons. However, one's trauma cannot be an excuse to perpetuate that trauma to other groups.

I also think that too much TERF rhetoric is tangled up in hypotheticals rather than the material reality. The reality is that there are already limited resources for women and when we start excluding a category of women who can access them, we only further marginalize them.

We also need to remember that just because we are hurt and we are traumatized, that does not make us immune from hurting and traumatizing others. When we portray ourselves as powerless we abdicate the responsibility for the hurt we cause others. Let's remember our power and let us not form our wounds into weapons to hurt others. We have a lot more to gain from supporting each other.

I think a part of that is also to assume that others are coming from a genuine place and responding accordingly rather than resorting to the worst possible interpretation of their points. If you see people making bad faith arguments please report them rather than engaging with them. The point is not to put down others, but to see how we can build better positions.

All power to all the people.

Just came across this paper: Winning the Bread and Baking it Too: Gendered Frictions in the Allocation of Home Production by Kyle Hancock, Jeanne Lafortune & Corinne Low.

They show that even in households where women earn twice or more than the husband, they still do more housework than their husbands. I wanted to share this as a sort of warning. I don't think I have really seen any heterosexual couples that are actually equal either.

You can read the paper here.

thought this was a good case for punjabi medium education

I think most of us seen many men simultaneously wanting partners with 'clean past' but also wanting to become intimate with women they are dating early on. Not to mention the mocking of marital rape etc by bringing up how women may be comfortable with sexual act with some but not others.

They don't want women to be sexless, but they don't like when women act or express their sexual agency. And then it hit me that the issue is not the act but on whose terms it happens. The same act can be celebrated if it's on the man's terms, but looked down on if it's on woman's terms. Obviously it can be mutual also, but that doesn't get talked about as much.

I wanted to ask others, because this framework just made so much sense for me. Have you experienced this?

trying to understand something and i am not sure that it's a gender thing or a broader thing. but i have noticed often when you call out certain men they will say sorry but not change their behaviour? as if saying sorry gives them a pass to continuing to do the same behaviour just with an apologetic cadence?

have noticed this that if i don't laugh or pretend to laugh at their jokes they get offended. haven't noticed this with women so it seems gendered. idk it feels like an entitlement to be received in a certain way.

people also don't laugh at my jokes sometimes, but i just say oh maybe that wasn't as funny and move on, but many men seem to take it personally if you don't laugh on their jokes and think that you are the problem.

idk wondering if others have noticed this

Construction going next to my place and i am wondering if anyone has any product recs. I've tried foam earplugs and they block maybe 70/80 percent noise, but also feel uncomfortable to me, so thinking of investing in ear muffs.

I've noticed a lot of times in social situations when I say 'no' I face push back, often from men. And one of the things that has kept me safe is that I stop engaging if they compel me again and I have to repeat my 'no'. I don't want to form connections with people who think it's okay to test my boundaries or compel me to change my mind even in low-stakes situations, because that tells me something about how they are receiving my 'no' as something that they need to convince me out of rather than accepting it. This is crucial, especially when it's gendered, because women's no is treated as negotiable and people who do that are not safe to be around.

I thought to share, because I realized this may not be common knowledge and it's really important when it comes to our safety. Especially since we might not clock this behaviour as harmful.

i am trying to figure out what's going wrong with a friend and me, and a significant portion seems to be that she doesn't think i give her enough grace when she speaks. that whenever she shares a stance i always 'contextualize' it or add modifiers/nuance. i don't see myself doing that, i see myself clarifying that i agree with her while having certain caveats. i think i feel the impulse to do this, because if i don't then i think the assumption is that i also think the same way and this seems uncomfortable when i have a different view point, to the extent it can feel a little like lying.

i am trying to understand if others have also experienced this and would also appreciate if you have any advice. i think the solution is to be more diplomatic and to maybe not say much when i have small disagreements. but i am struggling for a solution that doesn't involve some level of masking, because while i don't want my friend to feel like shit, i also don't want to by hyper-vigilant around her.

edit: some added context that i am not sure will help, but we became friends when we were about 18 and it's been 12 years now. she's only brought up this for the first time now because we are going through a rough patch and i asked her to be very honest. i was the one to initiate the dialogue because i've been feeling very emotionally on guard around her, and she's been sharing how she's been also struggling in our friendship. it's all been very destabilizing because she makes very global claims about who i am as a person and doesn't anchor those as much in the specifics. this is one of the things she brought up to say that i don't give her grace, so i am trying to figure out what's going on.