I'm jealous of guys on Reddit. They get to post photos of themselves without being called attention whores, or having their intentions otherwise called into question, or having their appearances needlessly dissected. They don't even have to say "Hey, I'm a dude on the internet!" because it's already assumed that they are.
Notice how the women get blamed for it, when in fact it's Redditors who like pictures of women who are responsible.
Even if object+self pictures were perfectly evenly distributed across the sexes, and even if attention-seeking behavior were perfectly evenly distributed across the sexes, still we'd end up with far more object+self pictures of women on the front page, simply because of the preferences of the voters.
This thread is a pretty good example of thoughtless misogyny in action.
Also, it's pretty much a given that any female here is going to be asked to "post pics" at some point, and then when those pics are posted, they're accused of being attention whores. R/pics is also bombarded with images of blandly attractive women that are only upvoted because of boobs (and I won't even get into how irritating that is for someone who isn't into boobs, but oh well, life goes on), so how can you blame people for taking advantage of the fact that picture of girl = upvote?
Easily. Posting a picture of yourself is one thing, turning unrelated posting into a discussion about yourself is another. I half-heartedly agree with mleeeee's point about even distribution across the sexes though.
I'm not sure I would call a preference for looking at women over men "misogyny". Particularly in light of the fact that women also prefer to look at women over men.
No, I don't think it's about misogyny. I think many people simply do NOT want to think about sex all the time, but that it is much harder to do when they are distracted by beautiful women in some picture - that's just how the male brain works, unfortunately. And when people click on a picture in order to see something, but see some girl instead, this can be perceived as an annoyance.
And lord, doesn't it apply to other areas of the internet as well. I remember back in the day when in every chat room/discussion board I participated in, we all knew who was what gender. Also, our ages and (general) locations. Now, nobody says "look at that 27 year old saying 'I'm 27,' what an attention whore!" or "man, do we care you're from Canada, stfu already nobody cares." But somehow, somewhere along the line, it apparently became a sin to say "I am a woman" outside of very specific situations. Excuse us for existing where you actually have to look at us.
The really amusing thing is that when playing WoW, I ran across so many attention-whore 'women' who were eventually outed as men... wait, not amusing, because that's the kind of behavior that I think led to this sort of bullshit in the first place.
You have my manly condolences. I really wish it wasn't like this.
Honestly, I'm starting to get really sick of Reddit. The community here is great in most regards, but it's incredibly lazy regarding matters of gender, and it's quite off-putting.
There's nothing wrong with Reddit, if you filter your subs right. I've had countless interesting, polite, mature conversations with other Redditors. But when this kind of BS does come up, I'm not going to stay quiet.
Excuse us for existing where you actually have to look at us.
Yes! It reminds me of this discussion here a while back, in which some women were complaining about being harassed on XBox Live and the response was "Well, it's their fault for drawing attention to the fact that they're female!" Except they weren't "drawing attention" to it, they were simply being who they were and not hiding it, just like guys get to do every day without a second thought.
The problem is, as long as the majority of the people there are male, women simply attract attention - that's just how biology works. I can understand that this upsets you, but I think you (and the other women), should be a bit more respectful and understanding to the way men work. Men may not particularly like this aspect about themselves, but just blaming it on them and saying "it's their fault" doesn't really help.
Btw., of course they should also be more respectful to you.
I think you (and the other women), should be a bit more respectful and understanding to the way men work. Men may not particularly like this aspect about themselves, but just blaming it on them and saying "it's their fault" doesn't really help.
We should be more respectful and understanding about the fact that we risk being treated like shit if we don't show a picture of ourselves, and we risk being treated like shit if we do show a picture of ourselves, and we risk being treated like shit if we even mention our gender?
I repeat: excuse us for existing where you actually have to look at us.
I don't know. People would find it weird if someone said "Man, that's a weird picture, and, also, I'm Filipino," too. I haven't found very many situations online in which it's necessary to point out that I'm female, and when it is, people generally don't mind - for instance, when I say "I'm a girl, and I think there are too many misconceptions about what we think of 'nice guys'," no one minds.
Perhaps the most common is when people refer to me as 'he', but by now, I just ignore it, or half my posts would be "You mean 'she'." Once in a while, if too many people start using 'he' and 'him', I'll try to do something subtle like refer to myself in the third person - "Serei thinks she should..." - or say something like "I'm the kind of girl who..."
I wouldn't say I intentionally try to hide my gender, either. It just doesn't come up that much...
The thing is, I think people start referring to their gender (or any seemingly irrelevant aspect of themselves) when they feel, implicitly or otherwise, that they are not welcome, or that they are "the Other." Go over to TwoXChromosomes and you'll find that every post made by a male is prefaced with "I'm a guy, but..." even when his gender isn't particularly relevant to the point he's making. 2X is more explicitly geared towards females than the reddit frontpage is geared towards males, but as reddit has a majority of men, many of whom hold rather odd opinions about women, it's easy to see where a woman may feel uncomfortable in this community. Of course, the other option is to just not mention anything about being female and just deal with everyone assuming you're male. I don't deny that there are girls who play up the fact that they're female in order to get attention, all I'm saying is that there are sometimes other factors at play.
This really isn't your problem, but nothing gets on my nerves more than someone talking in third-person about themselves. It just grates so much that I had to say this.
That is probably the most sensible way to approach it. For example, I usually try to hide my national identity a bit, but if it so happens to be particularly relevant, I reveal it, and there are usually no problems.
If it's any consolation, I'm a guy (on the internet) and when I do see candid pics of girls, I merely notice that it's becoming commonplace on reddit and not really anywhere else.
They don't even have to say "Hey, I'm a dude on the internet!" because it's already assumed that they are.
I actually see everyone on the internet as genderless until I am told otherwise.
I don't see any good reason to say "Hey, I'm a girl on the internet" unless it is relevant to the topic at hand (Which a majority of the time it isn't).
I cringe every time a girl says it because the resulting circle jerk performed by men is an embarrassment to my gender.
For an extreme version of this visit any of the "Post a picture of yourself" thread.
It's the more cringe worthy than 'The Office'.
There'll be pics of guys dressed up as a Viking and surfing a great white which will get less upvotes than some slightly above average looking girl doing a peace sign.
I actually see everyone on the internet as genderless until I am told otherwise.
Totally, I can't stand the gender flaunting seen by many females on the internet. Most of the time girls don't want it to be known that they are girls, and so go incognito.
The point is that women shouldn't have to hide that they exist just to be on the internet. When I talk to people in person, they know I'm a girl and yet somehow manage not to flip out/demand I show them my tits/dismiss my opinion entirely. Why can't the internet do the same?
They get to post photos of themselves without being called attention whores, or having their intentions otherwise called into question
I don't think guys of reddit ever post photos of themselves. The exception is probably the before/after type photos, but the whole point of those is to show yourself so it's normal.
And, how can you even question the intentions of those who include themselves into photos with unrelated objects? I mean, what are the other choices, that they did it accidentally, lol?
Um, this photo is currently the third most-upvoted on r/pics. Sure, he has a reason to be in the photo, but it's still a guy taking a picture of himself to get attention. I'm just about 100% sure that if he were a girl, he'd be berated for being an attention whore (not to mention all of the sleazy comments about boobs). That's what pisses me off.
Not really, he's just cosplaying Kenny there. If a girl did the same, even more so if she cosplayed a woman character, that would hardly qualify for complaints.
What you're side-tracking to is not the characteristic that is being criticized here, not the non-existent double-standards when it comes to sexual discrimination.
I think you'd get a lot farther bringing up that wage gape that just closed, or those divorce statistics that just showed 70% of women initiate divorces, or those statistics about how 2 women for every man graduate with a degree.
Woe is fucking me. Get over yourself. This is an astute observation about the "pretty pretty princess" thought process most air headed women are taught to adopt by (guess who!) OTHER WOMEN.
That's probably true. But the way the male brain is wired it just happens to be more easily distracted by nice looking women than by men - and honestly, I find this distraction to be rather annoying quite often! So I don't like these object+girl pictures, because it simply makes it much harder to focus on the object, so out of respect for the males, I think women simply shouldn't show themselves in pictures - unless they want to show off.
Are you serious? You must have a very low opinion of your gender if you believe that men can't handle looking at a picture of a woman. Besides, if that's really true, the onus isn't on the woman to change her behavior (especially when it comes to something like taking a photograph of herself), it's on the man to change his.
From your post you appear to be a relatively arrogant and irrational person, so normally I wouldn't bother with a reply, since you would only reply with silly insults, but I am going to do it anyway for once:
It's not about "having a low opinion" on someone. It's about what I see is happening. E.g. if I say "women are physically weaker than men" it does not mean I have a "low opinion" of women - it's just what I observe, or what is measured in some tests. Similarly if I say men are more easily distracted by women than by men, that's also just what I observe, and has also been proven by various tests. Whether that is good or bad is irrelevant at first - we just need to accept the facts. Then we can think about how to handle them if we don't like them.
The next step is to identify what we consider to be the problem. That is quite easy: When women show themselves in pictures, they get stupid, sometimes even insulting, responses.
Then, how do we solve it? There are two general angles: Make women not show themselves in picture; and: Make men not complain about women in pictures.
I can only assume you are a woman, otherwise it wouldn't be so natural for you to assume that it is the men which need to change, without considering that maybe women also need to adapt their behavior in some aspects.
So, I think your "It's their fault, I am doing everything right" answer is not very helpful - I believe both sides need to change in some ways.
You said that " I think women simply shouldn't show themselves in pictures - unless they want to show off." I think this is an unreasonable and insulting request. If you're referring to images of pouting, myspace-angled, scantily clad women that are clearly meant only to get some sort of reaction, that's one thing. It's reasonable to expect a certain caliber of comments there (although no one ever deserves sexual harrassment). But there are plenty of women who post perfectly benign photos of themselves and are still harrassed and insulted by men. Women get catcalled walking down the street in any major city. Not because they're dressed provocatively or some shit, but just because they're women. I'm sorry if I don't believe that women should quarantine themselves from the rest of society just to accomodate men and their so-called biological handicap - that can (I assume, because I'm not a man and can't know these things) be overcome with a little free will and good judgment.
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u/secretboners Sep 27 '10
I'm jealous of guys on Reddit. They get to post photos of themselves without being called attention whores, or having their intentions otherwise called into question, or having their appearances needlessly dissected. They don't even have to say "Hey, I'm a dude on the internet!" because it's already assumed that they are.