Comment by wyager
2 years ago
Blaming the internet for misogyny is kind of bizarre, given that current levels of misogyny are within a couple points of all-time historical lows. The internet was invented ~40 years ago. Women started getting vote ~100 years ago. Do you think the internet has returned us to pre-women's-suffrage levels of misogyny?
> Do you think the internet has returned us to pre-women's-suffrage levels of misogyny?
Well in the States at least we did just revoke a sizable amount of their bodily autonomy so, the situation may not be that bad, yet, but I wouldn't call it good by any measurement. Any my objection isn't "that sexism exists in society," that is probably going to be true as a statement until the sun explodes, and possibly after that if we actually nail down space travel as a technology and get off this particular rock. My issue is massive corporations making billions of dollars facilitating men who want to spread sexist ideas, and paying them for the pleasure. That's what I have an issue with.
Be whatever kind of asshole you see fit to be, the purity of your soul is no one's concern but yours, and if you have one, whatever god you worship. I just don't want you being paid for it, and I feel that's a reasonable line to draw.
I am firmly in favor of abortion rights but still I do not think that is even remotely a good bellwether to measure sexism/misogyny.
1. Women are more likely than men to be opposed to abortion rights. 2. Many people who are opposed to abortion rights have legitimately held moral concerns that are not simply because they have no respect for women's rights. 3. Roe v. Wade was the decision of 9 people. It absolutely did not reflect public opinion at the time - nothing even close to as expansive would possibly have passed in a referendum in 1974. Compare that to now, where multiple states that are known abortion holdouts have repealed abortion restrictions in referenda - and it is obvious that people are moving to the left on this issue compared to where we were in 1974.
Social media facilitates communication. As long as there is sexism and freedom of communication, there will be people making money off of facilitating sexist communication because there will be people making money off of facilitating communication writ large. It's like blaming a toll highway for facilitating someone trafficking drugs. They are also making money off of facilitating anti-sexist communication - and the world as a whole is becoming less sexist, partially in my view due to the spread of views facilitated by the internet.
Right. We can see something similar with the Terry Schiavo case or the opposition to IFV right now. It's clear that this is about different opinions regarding what should be considered a living human being (which doesn't seem to have a very clean definition for anyone, it should be noted). Depending on where you draw the line, it's either horrible to outlaw abortions or horrible to allow them.
Framing it as simply taking away a woman's bodily autonomy is like framing circumcision as simply being about mutilating men.
> 2. Many people who are opposed to abortion rights have legitimately held moral concerns that are not simply because they have no respect for women's rights.
Then they are free to not get an abortion. I don't get an abortion every day, it's pretty easy to accomplish. They do not get to use the letter of law to interfere in other people's medical decisions and care, and they most definitely should not have the ability to use the letter of the law to get unhealthy women killed to suit their precious morals.
Like, genuinely, if you are near a woman who is having a serious medical condition where her baby is killing her, there is no, and I repeat, NO version of that where letting an adult, alive, otherwise viable person die in the hopes that the clump of cells killing her might make it. That does not make sense under any moral system at all. We don't even take organs from recently deceased people without their permission before they croak, and some people think they have the right to demand someone lay down their entire actual life in the hope a baby MIGHT be born and live? Fuck that. Stupid.
> 3. Roe v. Wade was the decision of 9 people.
Sod public opinion. The public is wrong all the goddamn time. One would argue they're wrong more often than they aren't, and the more of em there are, and the louder they are, the more likely they're fucking wrong.
> Social media facilitates communication. As long as there is sexism and freedom of communication, there will be people making money off of facilitating sexist communication because there will be people making money off of facilitating communication writ large.
This is such a defeatist attitude. There will also always be revenge porn, child abuse material, beheading videos and people putting monkeys in blenders. Do we allow that everywhere too then? Since we cannot guarantee total blackout on objectionable content, we just wild west it? Fucking nonsense. We decide constantly by way of moderation on every service and website that exists what is permitted, and what is not, and there is no reason at all that those same things cannot be enshrined in law, with steep penalties for services that fuck up and host it.
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Agreed it is a poor bell whether.
But:
> Women are more likely than men to be opposed to abortion rights
Where is that coming from? Pew (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opini...) has a 5 point higher opposition rate by men.
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Do you believe that no subfactor can ever have a sign opposite of the factor of which it is a component?
In general it can. In this specific case, I really struggle to see even a single dimension in which young boys are more misogynistic now than they were 2 decades ago. The original comment mentions Andrew Tate - in the early 2000s there was an entire genre of Andrew Tates called "pickup artists".