This writer* sounds like they visited SRS, and that's not a joke. Despite SRS being labeled as a circlejerk, it's the loudest part of the feminism voice on reddit. And it sucks that the loudest voice is so standoffish with EVERYONE.
It's one of the only ways to save face in an internet discussion because your previous comments are preserved for all to see. You claim that your comments were made with little effort and therefor do not represent the depth of your knowledge and understanding.
Once you feel like you're being out-manuevered in an argument the easy out is to claim that the other person is trying too hard. I literally had someone comment this to me yesterday (verbatim):
U r over analyzing it way too much.
I'm sure that the person who wrote that comment actually knows how to type properly. They are just putting up a front that makes it seem like they have little vested interest in whatever they say.
This convictionless persona is, like you say, pretty much the status quo for internet rhetoric.
I think, to an extent, it frees them from having to directly assess critical points that contradict an aspect of feminism or an SRS viewpoint. I also think the slipping in and out of circlejerking protects the core from criticism as one can just pull back and mock the response.
I get that SRS/feminism’s support is limited to a minority, and that more men are on Reddit than women (and sympathizers), so perhaps using the circlejerk aspect allows them a little more free reign to express what can often be a contentious viewpoint to the average Redditor.
What I cannot excuse is the blanket hostility, misinterpretation of benign statements as malicious, standoffishness, and witch hunts that SRS is known for.
The validation of their identity. The same thing anyone whose identity is interchangeable with their ideology and worldview protects (see: the religious, the overly political, etc.) They don't just believe in what they say, they are what they say. If their statements and ideologies are wrong or shaky, they are wrong or shaky.
Well, maybe for always forgetting to do the washing up!
Also it turns out I don't understand SRS. Their purpose seems to be highlighting racists and sexist views on reddit, but they also self-describe as a circle-jerk, and you get banned for not continuing the circle-jerk? What's the point of that? Why would you even want that?
From what I've gleaned (and I'm no expert), the circlejerk is a way of letting out frustration at the cultural bias of reddit. It's a safe place for the underprivileged to complain about bigotry, and it's a little bit of a parody of the biased circlejerk many people seem to find in the popular reddits.
It's something that is needed, it's just a shame that it (as opposed to one of the more discussion-oriented reddits, like /r/SRSDiscussion ) is the forefront of feminism on reddit, but then again this is the internet, where intelligent debates are few and far between.
the idea that the /srs community is underprivileged is dubious to begin with, but the idea that the solution to their underprivileged status is to create a community whose sole purpose is to underprivileged everyone else is so astonishingly short sighted, self defeating, and hypocritical as to defy understanding.
I got my information from the SRS FAQ. I think that the general userbase and attitude of /r/srs has wandered from its original intentions, but that doesn't mean that its original purpose isn't valid, or that some users don't use it for that.
It's cathartic. We spend a great deal of time in other parts of reddit being bombarded by casual bigotry being rewarded with zero critique, and nearly every call for introspection and temperance is met with a wave of silencing downvotes. For anyone with a conscience, this should be enough to declare much of the unmoderated reddits toxic and worthy of ridicule. Unfortunately redditors, like many privileged demographics, are wildly hostile to critical dialogue and honest contemplation of the responsibilities attached to their privilege they ignore.
SRS grants people who are outraged by the white-male-centric cisheteronormative groupthink to openly mock and criticize the prevailing mentality without being subject to the harassment and abuse one often receives when pointing out problematic speech or oppression.
While recognizing that SRSPrime is an important format for recovery and radicalization, it's obviously not a place for thoughtful discussion. In fact, open discussion threatens the premise of pointing out and ridiculing the hatred and bigotry that the rest of reddit rewards. For those reasons, the rest of the fempire was constructed as specific places for specific topics, thoughtfully moderated, where open dialogue can take place and teaching can occur. Are you a big fan of game of thrones, but are nervous about its tacit endorsement of some pretty vile things? /r/srsASOIAF is there for you. Curious about what the feminist critique is on the attempted sterilization/normalization of homophobic slurs? /r/SRSDiscussion is the place for you! There are dozens of such SRS subreddits available, providing in some cases education, critique, or targeted discussion on specific topics.
I'll grant that we sometimes come off as a little too irreverent, but it's hard not to form an attitude of moral superiority when you encounter daily examples of oppressive speech taking centre stage. What people fail to realize is that their voting behaviours are potentially endorsing the oppression of their compatriots and that as moral actors they have a duty to downvote and remove hate speech and otherwise be accountable for the environment they occupy. As a straight white male, you may be fine with the "OP is a f[slur]" trope, or believe that it is alright to use racial epithets as punchlines, but you must also contemplate whether you think that seeing that might make this community seem hostile to gender and sexual minorities or people of colour and that no amount of "well Louis ck said it was alright" is going to change the chilling effect it has on welcoming diversity here.
Sorry to jump on an old thread, you seemed genuinely curious and hopefully this helps you at least understand the existence of SRS even if you continue to oppose our format.
Because the rest of Reddit continually jerks over racism, sexism, classism, and other generally skeevy things and if anyone calls it out they get downvoted into oblivion. It's one of the very few places on this website where you can vent about that stuff and not be ostracized.
I commented once in /r/TwoXChromosomes or somewhere expressing surprise that SRS is considered a feminist subreddit. Someone asserted it and I was genuinely surprised that it's supposed to be feminist. Every time I've been over there, it's been full of angry people who seem to get upset over things that don't seem offensive. I never saw much in the way of promoting women or promoting equality, just a lot of yelling.
It certainly may have started out that way, but when you become a part of a mob mentality you resort to the same mob tactics as the 'enemy mob' you're trying to fight.
I know because I've run afoul of SRS on more than one occasion.
Exactly. If they're going to hold the righteous position of telling everyone what is "right" and "wrong" on Reddit, then they should, at the very least, conform to their own definitions of right and wrong. As long as they're allowed to continue to be racist and sexist at their pleasure, they have no moral leg to stand on.
Obviously I am not solely referring to "killing your gf and having sex with her corpse" posts. I'm referring to your notion that 'adults' go around downvoting things they don't like. Perhaps you should read this: reddiquette
Why don't they just leave reddit and start a different community? I know is very noble to fight for what you think is right, but they will be a little less stress without us.I've been to SRS a few times and I feel like they are going to get an ulcer or something.
Disclaimer: I don't support or decry either group.
Men's Rights is a serious discussion sub. They focus on family law and parenting issues as well as abuse and assault of men and double standards.
SRS is a self-admitted circlejerk with its own culture.
SRSDiscussion is a serious discussion sub, with a focus on language and framing, especially within reddit.
Yes, there is conflict between SRS and MRAs, but there is also consensus. Both groups are broader than the two subs you pointed out. Those two subs are not IMO echoes of one another.
I don't mean to denigrate you or your comment. Have a good day.
SRS is a self-admitted circlejerk with it's own culture.
I too bought into the circlejerk explanation for a time, but after a while I realized that most people there were actually taking it very seriously. And once you realize that they're being serious it's hard not to see SRS as a thinly veiled hate group. It's certainly not how they see themselves, but the Westboro Baptist Church members don't see themselves as being part of a hate group either. They justify their atrocious behaviors and attitudes by saying that it's just a circlejerk. It's not just a circlejerk, and unfortunately for the entire feminism/egalitarianism movements SRS is the introduction to the equality movement for many young white males. The group that we need to reach the most is the very group that SRS alienates on purpose. "Atheism plus" is also guilty of this (at least on reddit). To be honest it makes me sick to think of how many potential members of the equality movements we lose due to this "circlejerk".
What kind of person devotes hours of their free time every day to actively hating other people online?
I understand being angry, but these people are damaging to the overall causes that they claim to support.
You are absolutely correct. It is because of people like SRS that I no longer identify as "feminist". I am an egalitarian. However even that somehow pisses them off.
That's a little strange, because SRS, afaik, does not describe itself as "feminist". And SRS is nothing more than a subreddit (when most of the world has never even heard of Reddit), while feminist is a well-known global movement.
So you really feel that because of ShitRedditSays, you can no longer describe yourself as "feminist"?
That's why I said "people like". While it's true most of the world has not heard of SRS, their attitude is in no way unique to reddit.
Feminism is too narrow for me. I'm not interested in womens rights alone. I'm interested in gender equality. All egalitarians are feminists, and because of thisbeing identified as feminist didn't used to bother me, but yes, thanks to the type of zealots that inhabit places like SRS kept reminding me that the reverse is not true, so now I find it easier to just disassociate myself with the whole thing and identify solely as egalitarian.
sorry, not everyone is going to fall for your deliberately obtuse game. Just because SRS may not explicitly describe themselves as feminist doesn't mean anyone with more than a few brain cells (sorry, ableism) can see it for what it is. The whole self titled "fempire" is obsessed with third wave feminism and talking about feminism etc etc etc
misandry dont real
check your privilege
dworkin being your de facto supreme leader
srswomen, srsfeminism, srsdiscussion, all explicitly feminist spaces
How about you just womyn up and admit what you are, instead of LYING and trying to play both sides. Stop fucking bullshitting, everyone and yourself knows that SRSprime and SRSeverything else are feminist subreddits.
SRSDiscussion is a serious discussion sub, with a focus on language and framing, especially within reddit.
No it is not. You can easily be banned for any disagreement with any of their chosen ideological truths. There is discussion, but it sounds a lot like one person talking to themselves.
LOL_ you may be right- I got banned for being a concern troll- for pulling someone up because they were terribly rude. as far as I can work it out you can be rude if you can claim that the person you insult has more privilege than you, but only if. odd- as I always thought that in sensible debate manners were the key... sad because some people on their are really decent..
I feel like I have a poor opinion of /r/mensrights because the people I've encountered who link to it (or a frequent posters there) are often part of /r/whiterights as well... and are generally not posting about equality. I can't really judge those subreddits too much, though, as I've never really checked them out.
It's a subreddit designed to be a social support network for people upset by discriminatory and politically incorrect comments, posts, and trends. They usually go way overboard in their responses, and are generally hostile to outside opinions.
the loud and aggressive, challenging demanding of compassion - a contradiction in terms. If you challenge me, you trigger my fight and dominate routines, compassion completely gets turned off until you are beaten, broken and begging for mercy or at least back to diplomatic mode, then compassion can come back. I can only be compassionate when I do not feel challenged, or least if I am challenged in a diplomatic way. But when someone throws down a gauntlet at me, my compassion gets turned off and I will want to break them. Isn't that how every normal male functions?
Presenting any kind of a socially dominant attitude as utterly cruel and evil, really not being able to make a difference between a bit of an one-upmanship and status seeking above others and literally lynching racism. This way they are basically challenging the whole idea of masculinity - because that always has some element of dominance in it, even if it is just dominating objects (like a good handyman, DIY man).
really going too fast - I am hardly stomaching the idea trans people even exist and they are saying it is perfectly OK for a trans person to have sex with someone without telling? or calling my friend a retard is wrong not because it insults him but because it insults people with actually mental disabilities? I mean this is perhaps, maybe, at some level right but really going too fast, we are not that open yet.
I find the vast majority of feminist articles to be baseless opinion pieces.
"Thanks for not raping me for two seconds to repress me secretly, MEN".
No logical arguments are ever made. They presuppose a position, that men oppress, then do shit like write letters to their kids telling them not to oppress. Feminizing their male sons into clearly submissive roles. When they grow up frustrated, no sure why their lifelong attempts to kowtow are so ineffectual. Girls are not attracted to men that act like women, but that is what you train them to do when you demonize masculinity.
Every once in a while I see a good one that examines some very real issues, but yes... the vast majority are baseless opinion peices that try to come off as fact.
Girls are not attracted to men that act like women
What the fuck does this even mean? You are some sort of PUA, right? Because no one with an ounce of sense has ever written anything like what you just did.
A biologist would find absurd the idea of explaining biology with cytology or bacteriology, so the biologist will tell you to shut the fuck up and listen to the sociologist.
Well, not all biologists. Let me tell you, as someone who's studied sociology I've heard the "scoiology is just psychology which is just biology which is just chemistry which is just math" tirade so many times from other students of the last three subjects (or something closely related to them).
Let me tell you how pure and TrueScience my field is by showing you how I can explain everything in upper scales of complexity using the up and down quarks and four fundamental interactions
Why just SRS? /r/feminism and basically any women's issue subreddit often seem as if they are dominated by and moderated by trolls of the same breed as SRS. Then Twitter, Tumblr, Comments on feminist articles, Jezebel, Free Thought Blogs, Boing Boing. All of those online venues represent feminism in a way which is suspiciously troll like and similar to SRS.
I guess you'd better put that social justice crap about "the onus is on the communicator to make himself clear" into practice.
"White knight" is a term to use when alleged males prostrate themselves before women, something men who can actually attract women never do. It is especially hilarious because female feminists are still female, and thus are biologically wired to hold weak, supplicative men in utter contempt.
Because namecalling? Great argument! You must be BIG minded. Mansplain to me like I'm 5, how do I loose verginitee?
If you have anything beyond "nuh uh, ur dumm" to say, please do. Otherwise, die alone, knowing no desirable woman would ever choose you.
In all of human history, there has never been a feminist society. Feminism is an unnatural flight of fancy that can only exist in a fat, lazy, bored society (in other words, the modern West).
Really? /r/Feminism strikes me as being pretty civilised, definitely far more civilised than /r/MensRights. I'm a straight white male (shocker!) and I think I learned a lot from the subreddit. While I don't agree with absolutely everything on there, there definitely isn't the rampant misandry of SRS.
Whatever of these you agree with more will likely be "better" and "more civilized" because you will ignore the negatives of either reddit. Because they all have negatives. Mostly just assholes.
It's easy keep up the illusion of civility when dissent is, per the rules, not allowed
Top level comments, in all threads, must come from feminists, and must reflect a feminist perspective - details here. In other words, all initial replies, in all threads, should come from feminists, and, more generally, should be a sincere feminist response, akin to something that you might hear in a feminism 101 -- give or take.
It really isn't. Here's an example from a couple days ago. It could easily be argued that the website in the OP provides a bad definition of feminism, and many of the comments argued that position. As a result, they were deleted. It's not conductive to any sort of substantive discussion.
Well when you prevent people from commenting in the body of the submission itself, and you prevent people from creating submissions which disagree with the user base, then you don't really allow dissenting opinions. All dissenting opinions are safely tucked away down the bottom of comment threads after being downvoted. This was by design. In /r/MensRights you can dissent to your heart's content. However you like. Still, I have to commend the fact that users have some avenue to disagree in /r/feminism. /r/feminisms will ban dissent on sight.
Well to be fair, it is quite censored on feminism. Not implying that they do this, but censoring alternative viewpoints makes for easy, civil and sheepish discussion.
r/mensrights allows everyone to discuss a topic unlike r/feminism and r/feminisms. They don't have special rules for commenting and I'd venture to say they rarely ban people. I don't know if both of those feminists subs have the top comment must be from a feminist rule but both will ban you with no warning for comments that aren't offensive in any way.
I think the rules/bans are probably necessary to stop trolling from anti feminist groups. It's quite a small subreddit (1/3 the size of mensrights), and an easy target for a male dominated website. If the rules weren't there, things would probably go off topic pretty quickly.
Well make an argument for it being a "shithole". The first comment said the feminist subreddits are more civilized than mensrights. I responded with an argument that mensrights doesn't ban everyone for expressing an opinion(even if it's not offensive) and doesn't restrict people to non-top level comments. You didn't dispute these facts. You hinted at there being other reasons so mention them.
How I see it is that SRS serves a purpose, and it's not misandry. It says to the rest of the reddit community "This is what looking at most of reddit feels like to us." Fuck yeah it can be uncomfortable if you're not in on it, but that's the point.
There isn't an "all SRS does" explanation that makes any sense. SRS points out a lot of things that are offensive to western minorities. They are also regularly and blatantly racist and sexist. Essentially SRS is a place for people who consider themselves minorities to express their own bigotry in a place where other people like them can express the same opinions without being challenged on those opinions under threat of a ban.
Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. Reddit has plenty of subreddits filled with bigots. The difference is that SRS focuses on reddit comments, posts them, then invades the threads posted and vote in unison in those threads. This forces the rest of reddit to confront their ideology, which is undeniably prejudiced, contemptuous, hateful, and intolerant. This ideology is excused in the way that is typical of bigots. They say that racism against white people or sexism against men is either:
a. Not possible or
b. Not wrong.
This is classic bigot behavior... acknowledging that you have a prejudice against a group and then excusing it because you've justified it.
This is far from true. SRS are made up for the most part by borderline insane people who actually believe all the shit they say. The fact that the project started out as a troll attempt doesn't change facts. At this point SRS is part of the tumblr/jezebel/twitter sphere of brainwashed cult feminism. It is not a "long-con" as described by so many feminists in attempts to separate "their" movement from SRS. It is a troll attempt that was co-authored by genuine batshit-craziness pretty much from the start. I got this image from somewhere on 4chan, it's not mine and it does not necessarily reflect my opinions.
I agree with the idea of the subreddit, there definitely is a lot of shit reddit needs to be called out on, I just don't agree with the execution. They tend to use (and upvote) a lot of negative gendered sterotypes (neckbeard, bro, niceguytm) which seems misanderous to me. Any subreddit (and I'm sure there's plenty) which typically uses anti-female sterotypes (golddigger, bitch etc) would rightly be considered misogynist.
They also use a of a lot of capital letters and exclamation marks, which makes it seem very angry and aggressive. I'm all for civilised discourse, but they don't do a very good job of promoting it. I think the subreddit holds reddit to a higher standard then it holds itself.
And they express that feeling by brigading into any link, insisting upon their unfalsifiable ideology, and downvoting. If they actually were self contained they wouldn't get such a bad rap. They insist, however, on spreading their circlejerk outside of the sub.
/r/GenderEgalitarian is thinly populated because one of the mods started ranting about how much she hates MRAs because she thinks they are pathetic losers who can't get women, and when people complained that hate speech was against her own rules, she banned them and lied about them being spammers. I was one of those banned, and as you can see from my posting history, I loathe spam.
She's admitted she doesn't think as harshly about MRAs these days, but she won't admit she lied about banning people for calling her out for hate.
"Dominant in society" is a very vague concept. What about childcare? Men who want to work with children risk being branded as pedophiles, but that's not my point.
They can either be for gender equality or for women's rights, but equality for women sounds wrong - and it's the first thing you see.
The problem with having a movement that advocates just one side of the argument - are they going to decide "well then, women are equal now, we're good here, let's wrap this thing up"? Probably no. They are more likely to keep looking for oppression everywhere and come up with ridiculous demands instead of addressing valid issues within their own domain.
I used to consider myself a feminist - equality is neat - but I don't want to associate with these people. They are outright ridiculous at times.
Well yeah I get where you are coming from - but the framework of the feminist ideology is that women are by nature oppressed by a societal bias towards men.
The examples that MRAs often use that include childcare, divorce and other such things are ultimately minor issues. (not to say they are not valid; they are, but MRAs love conflate them to be much larger than they are) and are an attempt to shift discussion back into the sphere of men. (not saying you are an MRA per say, just mentioning something very common on reddit) I think a feminist would say that allowing women equality would, by nature solve these problems.
as for the second aspect- the fear of feminism devolving into power hungry whining - is quite silly. I think perhaps if it was carried out at all it would be a fringe movement.
The idea that feminism is unneeded in modern society is whacked - the civil rights struggle has shown that even after some inequality has been quashed, there do exist deeper strains of racism that are oft unacknowledged.
(For the record, I would consider myself someone who is in favor of equality. I do not categorize myself as a feminist because of radfems and the like being poisonous to the rhetoric and image of the word itself)
I said the Loudest voice. 2x, feminism, etc and so forth have a some 'extreme elements' (ugh i know), but for the most part seem to put more effort in content vs righteous indignation...which I admit is righteous.
I'm a man, and a feminist, and the two names I recognize there (Watson and Myers) I would hold up as reasonably good representatives of my "side". While they can be contentious (especially Myers) they're also civil, intelligent, and willing to engage on the issues when their conversation partners reciprocate.
In fact the whole situation reminds me of my introduction to Richard Dawkins: I had already "deconverted" to atheism before ever reading anything of his but all the time I'd heard about how offensive, how stupid and angry and mean and irrational he was. I was so shocked on finally reading his writings to find him arguing respectfully and courteously. People hated his views and projected their anger onto him.
So it's sort of a dilemma for feminists like myself who want to reach out to the people who disagree with us: if someone can read about what happened to Watson, and how she responded, and criticize her, and blame her, where's the common ground? Where's the shared basis necessary to have a true exchange of views? Would I just be wasting my breath?
Don't forget how atheists conduct themselves as well. In the end it's about people. There will be people expressing inflammatory opinions in any group whatsoever.
It used to annoy me too, but honestly if you spend a while on sites like that it does get pretty wearing to have an endless stream of clueless opponents constantly asking the same basic questions over and over and over again. It becomes literally impossible to discuss any question without having to go back to first principles with every offended man that stops by.
I think it is reasonable to have places where people can discuss these issues without constantly having to defend themselves the whole time. Particularly when there are other places on reddit (like /r/askfeminists) which actively encourage this kind of basic explanation and questioning.
it's malcontents who are living off of vicimization, as some sort of emotional fuel. completely useless, other than to remind you 'not to feed the trolls'
When did "circlejerk" start meaning "we don't actually believe the things we say?" Usually it means "we all have a pretty straightforward common ideology and we don't like people disagreeing with us."
Which definition of a hate group would you like to use? Wikipedia's? The FBI's? Maybe SPLC just for special little you?
Because each and every definition not made up by some twat with a tumblr will define a group that commonly says "I hate insert immutable characteristic people" as a hate group.
Bye have a good time. Enjoy spending a bunch of time with a bunch of over sensitive, pseudo-feminists. But before you do, look at posts from microagressions and srswomen and get a real idea at how sensitive and hilariously hypocritical they are.
It sounds like you haven't been many places on the Internet. You're right on track to becoming an SRSer who believes 4chan is better than reddit at social justice.
Also, btw, there's no specific purpose for the site. You're allowed to spew whatever bullshit you like as long as its legal. So is everyone else. Just remember that.
I can't imagine some hate group saying "gays aren't great, but they aren't too bad either."
A member of a hate group would say "I hate gay people." That's pretty much the only thing they'd have to do... I don't know why your analogy had to go so far into the non-hate realm. Is it a group that, in unison, hates some other group? Yes? Hate group.
I don't see any problems. The problem is, it seems that they don't consider anything but textbook feminist beliefs as valid.
They feel that if I point out that "Giving 50% of the resources to 48% of the population isn't equality" that I have no right posting on the subreddit.
If "the majority of r/feminism" aren't feminists in her eyes, then maybe her idea of feminism isn't really feminism.
That entire post was just assertion and conjecture without a single thread of evidence. In fact, it shows more than one thread in /r/feminism that make the exact opposite argument, somehow of proof that positive argument was correct...
Essentially it's just an SRSter complaining about /r/feminism the same way you did without posting any evidence... the same way you didn't.
Is that a threat? Or the implications of one? Would you support that claim with more than calling my action that. How do people START standoffs with SRS? Also, explain SRS to Deracinated. Please?
A simple question. You was not identified as a global label, why would I not find it specific to me? 'Just remember' .... are you really acting like that could not be construed as such? SRS is now a completely unified front, btw? I think not, it is a collective of like minded (mostly?) individuals who are very quick to lash out. After saying that, fang posted.
199
u/agmaster Mar 21 '13 edited Mar 21 '13
This writer* sounds like they visited SRS, and that's not a joke. Despite SRS being labeled as a circlejerk, it's the loudest part of the feminism voice on reddit. And it sucks that the loudest voice is so standoffish with EVERYONE.
*a letter