this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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Nah, I think you might be on to something with the third option and it's something to keep in mind. In fact I might even need to copy and paste your comment to remind myself about it because I think sometimes my anger gets the better of me in these situations.
But it can be so fucking hard to keep the anger at the bay. Just last night, discussing the fact that a poll in Germany showed that 26% of young men support the nu nazi party versus 11% of women, I had someone say to me "oh but women believe in horoscopes, so they're just as bad." How do you not flip your shit when coming across that kind of 'logic'?
And this brings me to another thing, seeing as this place is supposed to be all left wing and shit. There are a lot of supposed left wing people that will speak in the exact same way and have all the exact same points as right wing people when it comes to this discussion about men falling for right wing grifters at over twice the rate as women (as revealed by those Germany stats and many many other stats). A lot of supposed left wing people that will clutch their pearls and cry "sexist!" at the slightest suggestion that 26% of men versus 11% of women means that there's a problem that needs to be addressed.
So it actually feels a little bit like being stuck between a rock and hard place. It's not in my nature to just hold my tongue when I can see there's something wrong but I kinda wish it was because trying to have a constructive conversation about this anywhere other than in specific Reddit subs where you're preaching to the choir feels like banging your head against the wall.
So unfortunately, it seems to me that it's not just right wing men that need toddler reasoning in order to convince them but left wing men too. Remember there's a reason that twoxchromosomes and any other large women's spaces on Reddit have never been able to take off here on Lemmy. Not even WitchesvsPatriarchy survived this place. And that reason is downvote brigading. The same reason why LGBTQ+ communities need an instance with downvotes disabled. This is why I said earlier that I think women in leadership are the future. At least as far as progressive politics go. Because even progressive men seem to be further behind than women.
I hope you don't mind if I ask your advice about something. I was going to post this in the non-binary community but it feels safer to do this here. I identify as non-binary / genderqueer but am amab. But I've been thinking of doing some shape shifting in these conversations and referring to myself as a man. I feel like it would be a lot more effective to have a 'man' saying these things rather than keeping it neutral and vague like I have been. Although this idea makes me feel like a liar too. What do you think?
I understand the anger and unfortunately the way I and many other women have been taught to control it is by being taught to prioritize others above ourselves. But if you don't control your emotions they'll control you, and your emotions will usually make less wise decisions than your mind. There's a time and a place to let it out. Sometimes I need to blast some riot grrl and scream it out, but I know what undirected anger gets me, more pain.
In your scenario you mentioned there was an opportunity to come off as the reasonable person or as the unreasonable person. Arguing with idiots and bigots should always be a performance. This isn't the west wing, nobody will clap, all that anyone will take away is who thought what and how they felt about each arguer. Honestly it was wojack memes that made that sink in to me. I'd recommend watching the alt right playbook series to better understand right wing political rhetoric. The guy who created it is great and insightful. One of the big takeaways is that they aren't bothering with being accurate, consistent, etc, but you can learn to tilt them.
And yeah I really miss girl reddit. I'd often find some conflicts with twox as it and I had differences in certain opinions, but yeah. Like the only reason I really stuck with lemmy is that I saw reddit getting worse, while also being extremely disrespected by Hoffman as a moderator who had given quite a bit of my mental health in the process of modding. And it's not just online left wing spaces where I find myself frustrated at times. I volunteer with irl left wing shit and have had to learn to walk away.
And like I totally get your struggle to hold your tongue, but I think it's worth learning discernment. The right wants to mentally put all feminists in the category of "cringe compilation video participants".
And I can't tell you what to do there. I'm a very binary trans woman who transitioned quite a while ago. You may find benefit in discussing it with other non binary people.
I've been thinking about it and honestly it would make me feel too much like a liar. And I don't think I would be able to bring myself to do it, even if I decided right now that it's what I'm going to do. I actually feel kinda shitty even for just asking that question, it feels wrong for multiple reasons. So I'm sorry for laying that question on you.
You've given me a lot to rethink here though. I definitely need to do a bit of homework regarding alt right tactics, in order to know the enemy better. I'm bad at homework and following directions and tend to just wing it but this is important and if I'm going to be involving myself in these conflicts, I'd better be armed appropriately.
Thank you very much for this awesome conversation. I've honestly been looking forward to your replies because you seem to get exactly what I'm talking about and your solutions make 100% sense to me. I hope to see you around here often, people like you make me feel a little less like running away from this place. Hope you have a great morning / day / night / whatever the time is where you are.
Glad to help. And I definitely see a lot of who I once was in your replies and so I've been giving myself time and mulling over things before replying because it does matter.
I think one of the biggest things I can say here is that we are always going to argue from two rhetorical disadvantages: 1) and this is honestly probably the smaller of the two, but people are generally more willing to listen to people similar to themselves unless they've been trained to take other groups as authoritative, and 2) we believe in things, which unfortunately is a huge disadvantage as we are bound to our beliefs, whereas they can adapt their position to whatever they think is advantageous at the moment and claim that you just misunderstood or they're trolling.
They're trying to tilt you and they're better at it. But being dismissed tilts them.