#men hurt women

[supersonicob]

Well scratch that last post about my 1st real date nonsense. Considering the fact the guy finally told me the truth this evening. He actually already has a girlfriend. But he's being indecisive about her. And its showing too. Because he doesn't want to let me go now that we've met, yet he flips his words and basically friend zones me and says we wouldn't last long. Makes assumptions in regards to my son and him and his real dad, if something were to happen to me. Says one day he wants kids of his own, but with me being in my late 30s that won't be possible by the time he feels he's finally ready for a kid. I knew deep down inside this was just yet another big fat joke. A big fat waste of time. My life journey/path dangles a good prospect right in front of me only to yank it away forever. This is what I get for enjoying myself and opening up. Back to shutting down again.

[inkskinned]

what is with men being mad any time a woman raises her voice where did that even come from. someone posted a video of a small electrical explosion, and the top comment was of course the woman screams. the second comment is women try not to scream challenge, level impossible. i had to go back and watch the video again. there is, somewhat fainty, a little gasp emitted off-camera, more of a yelp than a scream. it is mostly lost in the crack of the explosion. afterwards, you hear her voice, shaken, say, are you okay?

i am helping one of my friends train her voice pitch lower, because she wants to be taken seriously at work. she and i do each other's nails and talk about gender roles; and how - due to our appearance - neither of us have ever been able to be "hysterical" in public. we both appear young and sweet and feminine. she is cisgender, and cannot use her natural voice in her profession because people keep saying she appears to be "vapid". we both try to figure out if our purposeful voice lowering is technically sexist. is it promoting something when you are a victim to it?

a storm almost sends a pole through a car window. in the dashcam, you can hear the woman passenger say her partner's name twice, crying out in alarm. she sounds terrified. in the comments, she is lambasted for her lack of calm. how is that even fucking helping?

in high school, i taught myself to have a lower voice. i had been recorded when i was genuinely (and righteously) upset; and i hated how my voice sounded on the phone speakers when it was played back. i was defending my mom, and my voice cracked with emotion. it meant i was no longer winning the argument: i was just shrieking about it.

girls meet each other after a long summer and let out a little joyful scream. this usually stops around 12-14, because people will not tolerate this display of affection (as it has the effect of being passingly annoying). something about the fact that little girls can't ever even be annoying. we are trained to examine each part of our lives (even joy) for anything that could make us upsetting and disgusting. they act like teenage girls are breaking into houses and shrieking you awake at 3 in the morning. speaking as a public school educator: trust me, it's not that bad, you can just roll your eyes and move on. it does not compare to the ways boys end up being annoying: slurs in graffiti, purposefully mocking your body, following you after you said no. you know, just boy things.

there's another video of a man who is not allowed to yell in the house, so he snaps his fingers when he's excited about soccer. the comments are full of angry men, talking about how their brother is unfairly caged. let him express himself and this is terrible to do to someone. eventually the couple has to address it in a second video: they are married with a newborn baby. he was trying not to wake the infant up. there is no comment on the fact women are not allowed to yell indoors. or the fact that it could have been really alarming or triggering for his wife. sometimes i wonder if straight men even like women, if they even enjoy being in relationships with them.

for the longest time, i hated roller coasters because it always felt inappropriate and uncomfortable for me to scream. one of my friends called me on it, said it was unusual i'm so unwilling. i had to go to my therapist about it. i don't like to scream because i was not raised in a safe situation, and raising my voice would have brought unsafe attention towards me. even when i am supposed to scream, it feels shameful, guilty. i was not treated kindly, so i lack a basic form of self-protection. this is not a natural response. it is not good that in a situation of high adrenaline - i shut up about it.

something very bad is happening, i think. in between all the beauty standards and the stuff i've already discussed - this one feels new and cruel in a way i can't quite express. yes, it's scary and silencing. but there's something about how direct it is - that so many men agree with the sentiment that women should never yell, even in an emergency - it feels different.

is the word shriek gendered automatically? how about shrill or screech? in self defense class, one of the first things they tell you is to yell, as loud and as shrilly as you can. they say it will feel rude. most women will not do this. you need to practice overcoming the social pressure and just scream.

most women do not cry out, even when it's bad. we do not report it. we walk faster. we do not make a scene. what would be the point of doing anything else? no matter what we do, we don't get taken seriously. it is a joke to them. an instagram caption punchline. we have to present ourselves as silent, beautiful, captivating - "valuable."

a woman is outside watching her kids when someone throws a firecracker at them. she screams and runs towards her children. in the comments, grown men flock together in the thousands: god. women are so annoying.

[endykelopaedia]

oh okay. a lot of yall dont think trans women are women fr. a lot of yall think the phrase "trans women are women" is a kindness & an ideal and not a bog standard truth about their reality. a lot of yall fr think trans women are just mentally ill cis men until they transition! a lot of yall see no difference between hatred trans women and hatred of cis men!! a lot of yall fr think transmisogyny is a misandry spinoff!!! oh okay!!! a lot of yall dont think trans women are women fr!!!

[watermelinoe]

you cannot convince me that these people don't just hate women

[trans-androgyne]

I don't know how to handle getting treated like a monster for my gender identity. When I was thought I was a cis queer woman I was considered harmless, but now that I openly prefer masculinity I'm treated like an inherent danger to others, especially women. "Trans guys without mood stabilizers should be illegal." "Kill all men including trans men because one of them hurt me." "You really are the men of the trans community--just as dangerous and misogynistic as cis men." "Trans guys need to accept that women won't feel safe around them." "Testosterone makes you aggressive and violent." Why do I have to prove I'm One Of The Good Ones or be held responsible for every awful thing any guy has done ever. Though to many people it seems like there are no good transmascs period no matter what we do.

[iphigeniastrangeworth]

average misogynist: all women should be barefoot and pregnant housewives who never speak and are killed as soon as they turn 30

average misandrist: i really wish i had basic human rights and didn't have to live in constant fear of being raped and murdered

some of you people for some reason: these are the same thing and actually the second one is worse

[tic-loud-tic-proud]

"Maybe white men wouldn't have overwhelmingly voted for Trump if it wasn't for feminists telling them they're bad all the time!!1!!" Weird how everything men do ends up being women's fault somehow

[abortionado]

It's hilarious that men are raised to believe that crying makes you look like a woman ie weak and stupid and pathetic, but still act like this is an ideology that primarily victimizes them and privileges women

[ayaahh00]

One of the most annoying liberal feminist takes I keep seeing is the idea that “patriarchy harms men too, if not equally.” Let’s get this straight: patriarchy, a system created by men to limit women’s freedom and keep men in power, supposedly harms men equally? That’s a blatant lie, and it’s disrespectful to women. Patriarchy was literally designed to oppress women and benefit men. Saying men are harmed by it in the same way is just a way to shift focus off the horrific oppression women have faced. When you try to include men as victims of the very system they created for themselves, the same system we are trying to dismantle to liberate ourselves as women, it dilutes everything women have gone through under patriarchy.

[lycandrophile]

building off of this post, people love to say that “trans men want to keep going into in women’s spaces after they transition because they just want to have the best of both worlds!” but in my experience, there are four main reasons that a trans man might use a “women’s space” after they transition:

it’s an important resource that’s being arbitrarily gendered and we need to use it regardless of which gender is “supposed to” be using it.

it’s a public facility where we’d be significantly less safe in the men’s version and we have to choose our safety over our desire to not be misgendered.

it’s a social space that we’ve been in since before we transitioned and we don’t want to suddenly be cut off from our friends and support system.

the trans man in question is multigender and is also a woman, or maintains some other kind of connection to womanhood alongside their manhood.

do any of those sound like “evil men rubbing our dirty little hands together making plans for how we’re going to get male privilege without losing access to women’s spaces” to you? they sure don’t to me!

i think it’s pretty reasonable that we want to transition without losing the ability to access the resources we need, keep ourselves safe, keep up the relationships we’ve built, and express all facets of who we are. all of those are really, like, pretty basic parts of having good life and we shouldn’t be expected to give them up when we transition.

and honestly, if you claim to care about trans people, you should not be so attached to the gendering of these spaces that you’re willing to deny trans men those things for the sake of upholding gender restrictions. anyone who prioritizes the sanctity of gender segregated spaces over the safety, health, and well-being of trans men is a fucking transphobe. (yes, even if you’re trans yourself.)

and that’s what really gets me about all of this — the vehemence with which people are willing to defend those spaces being entirely and inflexibly gendered, despite how enforcement of gendered spaces has hurt trans people time and time again. gendered spaces have literally always been set up in ways that force trans people to break the rules; some trans men might break those rules in ways that don’t make sense to you, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong for us to do so! it just means you might feel weird about it and that’s okay, discomfort won’t kill you.

“but using women’s spaces after transitioning to male defeats the purpose of transitioning! the whole point of transitioning is to be able to live as a man!”

and who are you to tell trans men what the point of our transitions should be? what if the purpose of us transitioning is just to live the happiest and most fulfilled life possible, and forcing ourselves into unsafe spaces or denying ourselves access to important resources or cutting ourselves off from important people in our lives or pushing down the more complex parts of our genders would “defeat the purpose of transitioning” for us? what if being able to go where cis men go is just one part of a much bigger journey, not the end goal?

if you really want to talk about “defeating the purpose,” let’s talk about how policing which gendered spaces trans men can access defeats the purpose of trying to stop cis people from policing which gendered spaces trans people can access, because it allows the policing of trans people in gendered spaces to continue in some form instead of eliminating it altogether. let’s talk about how using “evil men invading women’s spaces” rhetoric against trans men defeats the purpose of trying to stop cis people from using it against trans women, because it allows the rhetoric to continue in some form instead of eliminating it altogether.

the point of saying “let people decide which gendered space is right for them” isn’t to make sure everyone uses the one aligned with their “true gender,” it’s to let people do what’s best for them without punishing them for their choice. sometimes the best choice is one that seems wrong from the outside, and you need to learn to live with that.

i just think we as a community need to be more hostile toward people who think upholding the sanctity of a gendered space is more important than giving trans people the freedom to move through the world without being punished for existing in those gendered spaces. that kind of thinking is fucking dangerous and it’s weird as hell that some of y’all are so comfortable with it being directed at us.

moral of the story: stop giving so much of a shit about where a trans man decides to piss or see a doctor or hang out or whatever else. even if you think he doesn’t belong there, he probably has a good reason to be there anyway, and that reason is frankly none of your damn business.

[looking-for-wisdom]

the “ex-something” character in disco elysium is so interesting to me because what we finally learn about the true Dora from harry’s dream sequence & conversations with the 41st precinct initially undercuts the first impression you get as a player. We learn things that makes it seem like Harry should be over her leaving. Specifically, the fact that she and Harry were never actually married and that it has been six years since she left.

Everything we’re told about Dora needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since it primarily comes from Harry. He’s an unreliable narrator and, if we had her perspective on things, there would surely be more to the story. But even with that said, I feel reasonably confident that the player’s first impression — that whoever this ex is did some damage even beyond typical breakup heartbreak — isn’t completely wrong.

We know a few things for certain. Harry was a gym teacher before they met, and Dora was the reason he joined the RCM. We can also do the math to figure out that they were together for around 12 years. Married or not, that’s a serious relationship. There are implications that Dora might have been pregnant at some point.

Dora’s family was wealthier than Harry’s, but they struggled financially when they were together. They had to rely on her parents for support.

Harry is a grown ass man who is responsible for his own choices. None of this changes that. But the way he is starts to make more sense when you consider that it wasn’t just their breakup that was traumatic. Their relationship itself seems unhealthy.

Harry clearly likes working with kids. Kim actually points out how he is easily able to connect with Cuno and the other teens in Martinase. With that in mind, I imagine he probably liked being a gym teacher. But we learn that Dora encourages him to join the RCM to do more for the greater good. Again, Harry had to agree to this — she didn’t force him to quit at gunpoint. But it rubs me the wrong way that, shortly after they start dating, she implies that his work isn’t fulfilling or important (probably patently untrue in an area where kids won’t necessarily have stable home lives). And, more than that, she suggests that joining the police is the solution.

Granted, we’re told there’s a lot of crime in Jamrock. Maybe it is as simple as her thinking law enforcement helps prevent that. But given the political tones of the game, which intentionally critique cops and the moralist forces they represent? I think it’s notable.

Speaking of which. The class difference between Dora and Harry has to be thematic. So much of the game discusses the struggle between the working class and the bourgeoisie. There’s an inherent power dynamic there. It’s her parents who are consistently paying their bills and keeping them afloat. She has an out that Harry doesn’t. Money won’t be an issue for her when they split, but Harry will be left without any support. Regardless of whether she intentionally held this over his head, this game shows that even without meaning to, the capitalist system harms the poor. That strain must be felt in their relationship, and could cause a lot of damage over 12 years.

All this to say: their relationship clearly wasn’t some fling. And, if Harry is to be believed, the blame for things falling apart was largely placed on him: working to much, not bringing home enough money, not being enough. But even if Dora wasn’t actively manipulating him and he came up with all of this on his own, I think the facts still point to a dynamic where he was made to be small in the face of a woman who came from more. Their backgrounds create an imbalance where Harry was always going to feel the flaws in their relationship more acutely. He starts with little, and gives up much of what he does have to pursue something better for the both of them. But when that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, he’s the only one left with nothing. She can leave the country and start over.

It makes sense, to me, that he might not have recovered from that in six years. Especially when that rock bottom feeling seems so permanent that he isn’t trying to get better so much as numb himself enough to exist another day.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t responsible or that he’s exempt from having to get his shit together. The game very clearly illustrates that everyone will turn away from him if he doesn’t. But it does complicate his character a bit more than “got left by extremely bangable woman, proceeds to make the lives of everyone around him worse.”

[lambmotifz]

honestly it’s hard to imagine dean being a subtop with men, much less a bottom. his interactions with women and men are vastly different (also it should be taken into account that he’s straight and likely homophobic in canon). i do think the reason why it’s a majorly accepted headcanon that he’d be the ultimate subby bottom with women and men is because his violent side & craving for control are mostly ignored by the fandom. actually it’s quite realistic for him to prefer to let women take the lead because he canonically finds fem doms hot but also it has a lot to do with his mother dying very early on, he needs to find some sort of comfort from a woman that he didn’t ever find with his mother. sex with men would be very likely the opposite (especially when it comes to fucking his little brother whom he wants to possess). canon dean is mostly violent with other men, so it’d be about letting out his repressed violent tendencies and establishing control. also one thing that usually gets overlooked by the fandom is the fact that he enjoyed being a torturer in hell. he enjoyed being in control (the fact that it was physical control is very meaningful too) and he enjoyed inflicting pain on others. it’d make sense for him to seek that feeling in sex too. but not with women, for the reasons above. in general, for dean sex with women is mostly about finding comfort. sex with men (if he ever was to sleep with them in the first place) on the contrary, would be about releasing his inner violence and enjoyment of being in control

[userautumn]

"not all men" but not in a men's rights way, in a "it's important to remember that men aren't the only perpetrators of cruelty, abuse, and evil and that subconsciously or consciously training yourself to view men as inherently evil and everyone else as inherently safe inadvertently puts you in a position where you're both vulnerable to attack or harm from people you otherwise wouldn't suspect, AND causes you to limit the number of allies you might have in a time of need" kind of way.

[tiredyke]

maybe i’m a bitch but i can’t stand conversations that center men in issues that affect women as well, and to a more severe degree

[imperfectmind]

sorry if this makes me an evil bigot but people arent entitled to mindlessly follow your beliefs or tolerate bad behaviour/attitudes just because you have more oppressed lables than them.

People should be able to lable idiocy and cruelty when they they see it and being a minority doesnt make it so you cant use your hardships to be manipulative, spout vile horrible things or say things that are simply not true

Its honestly why sj tumblr is such a toxic mess. Its ran by crybullies who despise honest communication and constructive community building. Its just 'im automatically right when i tell someone ~less oppressed~ than me anything and they cant question me. If they do theyre speaking over me and oppressing me by disagreeing"

'Listen to x voices' should mean not automatically disregarding a female, gay, black, asian etc persons views, and not that people should grovel and defer to others because they said so.

[elfcollector]

THE VILLAIN IS DEAD! The wretch! Together we have crushed him, brain and body!