Comment by ethbr1
16 hours ago
Parent was saying that most men don't understand the amount of casual sexual harassment women are subjected to in unmoderated online spaces -- much more so than men receive.
Which makes me sad.
Apparently Y chromosome + enculturation = prerogative to send unsolicited photos of ones genitalia to random internet strangers.
I know. Parent, along with the reply, also said that women as a result are much less active online, but that's a belief caused by a lack of grass touching.
> "I know nobody that comments on online forums. Nobody would ever comment to strangers on the internet. It's too dangerous."
> Most of her friends are probably women
-> "Women don't comment on the internet (especially compared to men) because it's a hostile place".
I think the implied difference from upthread was that women are less active online in public, unmoderated spaces for the aforementioned reasons.
It's no surprise they often use private and/or moderated spaces instead.
No, rather both are on opposite sides of an equation, and being buried in competition from folks trying to solve their part of it in isolation.
Women == get too much attention, often of the wrong type. How to get the right kind of attention?
Men == not getting any attention, of any type. How to get some attention?
So women either get ‘the wrong kind’ of attention, but plenty of it - or somehow figure out the magic of getting the right kind of attention? Not easy.
And men work hard to get any attention, often overdoing it on the only way they can figure out - which usually has poor (but not zero!) results. Folks good at playing the game get excellent results, however.
Meanwhile, everyone is getting played by the folks in the middle.
Notably, there are plenty of women taking advantage of the attention they get on Tinder. They just have no problem solving for what it works for, which is getting laid with near zero effort.
The way this previously got figured out was a ‘managed market’ - arranged marriages. Religious/social rules, etc.
I think we might come from different cultural expectations?
In my book, it's reductive to sweep unsolicited sexual harassment under "attention", unwanted or otherwise.
It's not rocket science: everyone deserves to be treated in a way that makes them feel comfortable and safe.
Sexual harassment (having been a target of it), is pretty much the definition of ‘unwanted attention’. Targets typically just want to be left alone.
It’s also a crime in some places, not (!!!) in others, or called different things in other places depending on the details.
For example, is sending an unsolicited dick pic on a dating app sexual harassment? Is getting felt up at work, with the implication ‘or else’? Is being stalked by members of the opposite gender? Or having career advancements blocked by a lack of ‘playing the game’?
I can give you concrete examples from a number of cultures that each culture will write off as ‘he/she/they were asking for it’, or ‘she/they/he deserved it’, or ‘it’s just boys/girls being girls/boys.’.
I’ve seen it up close and personal, and have lived it.
The underlying ‘attention economy’ dynamic is still the same.
Edit: meant to add - plenty of 80/20 also applies here of course (though more extreme). Top 1-2% men (esp. from earning or traditional looks perspective) deal with the same issues that top 50%-80% of women deal with, bottom 20% of women (from traditional looks perspective) deal with issues that 80-90% of men deal with, etc.
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