Important to remember only 3200 subs originally committed to the blackout. We had almost 3x that number join. More than 2x are still dark!
Important to remember only 3200 subs originally committed to the blackout. We had almost 3x that number join. More than 2x are still dark!
I’ve always saw the bias against women on reddit until about a week ago when I got a chance to really understand that it’s more like pure, unfiltered hate against women.
I rarely post to social media because it’s a huge energy drain on me but I decided to make a post on a support subreddit regarding toxic masculinity. I talked about how I was a target for bullying and harassment for not being ‘manly’ and shared experiences of witnessing gross and manipulative behaviour against women and lgbt+ people.
I received a lot of positive feedback. Some men spoke up about seeing the same, unacceptable behaviour from their coworkers. Some women confirmed what I said was true and a few were happy just being validated.
My post had to be removed because the moderator of that subreddit had been receiving threats about my post. My post didn’t violate any of the reddit or the subreddit rules. Some very angry individuals who couldn’t read the nuance in my post had claimed it was hate speech.
The moderator contacted me and thanked me for talking about such topics. Ultimately she couldn’t deal with the hate that was being directed at her, which I completely understand.
That whole incident really opened my eyes to just how much hate women get on that site. Leaving reddit for good got so much easier after that.
One of my most down voted comments came when I said that feminism isn’t anti man, it’s pro woman, and in turn, pro everyone.
This is a really difficult topic though, because there is no one form of feminism. You got old school, where it was about basic rights (Right to vote, right to work, right to drive a car, …) and then newer forms that might take things too far.
One relatively current example: Feminists want that board members of large companies are at least 50% female. It sounds fair on the surface, but it really isn’t. Because what happens when the number reaches 60%? 70%? Mission still accomplished, even though you just started to discriminate against men at that point instead of hiring based on merit.
When it comes to universities we already have that situation. More women than men get higher degrees, but nobody is trying to push more men into nursing for example (which is 86% female dominated). The push only happens for STEM with female only scholarships and making it easier for women to get accepted into courses. But again, the goal is to get to 50%+, but nobody seems to care when the balance entirely tips to the other side.
Same for dangerous jobs, 95% of oil rig drillers are male, but nobody pushes for more women in this job. Simply because it’s dirty and hard work (though paid well).
True equality would be to hire based on merit. Don’t even put names and gender on applications for example. Everyone should get the same chances, same rights, same treatment as much as possible. If they can and want to do the work, they should have a crack at it.
Favoritism only makes a mess. If you include a ratio of women vs men in a job and a capable woman gets it simply because they want to raise the ratio she’ll still fight against prejudice that she only got the job because of her gender. That really helps no one.
So personally I might agree with a lot of points of feminism, but I’d rather call myself an egalitarian. Can’t we just treat everyone well?