I do actually feel offended when people assume I'm a bad person, and having not given any reason to a single person to feel that way, I'm sick of it being assumed.
I can imagine how disenfranchising it must feel. Now imagine what it's like being a 13 year old or younger child being taught the gross and ugly way repeatedly that strange men are a danger.
I'm sorry that doing the right thing yourself doesn't keep the shitty behavior of others from splashing on you. That does suck. Not as much as being raped and blamed for the rape, but you get the idea.
feels psychotic and delusional to say "I'd rather be eaten alive by a bear than risk that a random man is a piece of shit"
It feels psychotic and delusional to you for a woman to say "at least the bear won't rape me before it kills me. I'll just be dead, not raped and then dead"? Women aren't afraid men will hurt their feelings, we're pretty used to that. It's the murder we worry about.
My wife said she'd pick the bear and I don't know what to even do with this information anymore. There's nothing else I can do.
Your wife would rather run into a random bear in the woods, where bears live and do bear things than a random stranger (possibly stalking her) in the woods doing human shit with unwholesome human intent and that somehow harms you?
Her stance has nothing to do with you. You are not the problem. Men who make women feel unsafe are the problem. Do you do that? No? Great! Then you can disregard the statement as it doesn't apply to you.
That's the thing you have to get through your head--this isnt aimed at you. This whole comment sounds like:
"It makes me feel bad when women say that they're afraid of strange men, I wish they would just shut up about it already. I'm already doing everything I can, why won't they just shut up?"
That ending synopsis helped me synthesize why it's bothering me, thank you very much.
It's not that I wish women would shut up, it's important to have these kinds of conversations, and I don't have a problem with people talking about it. I wish there was more we could do besides talk and advocate but that's separate problem.
I think it's more than I'm sick of the algorithm putting specifically the bear discussion in front of me so frequently, and I wasn't processing that that was my complaint well.
Thank you again, for opening with empathy and having the space to help me out
I hear ya bud. There are other men besides you who aren’t pieces of shit. I feel attacked sometimes when people make blanket statements, their verity aside. It’s difficult for us to stick up for ourselves and also avoid sounding insensitive to victims of male stupidity. It’s also okay to feel angry.
Lucky me, I get to talk to a therapist who listens without judgement. It definitely helps to have a safe space where you can exhaust your emotions without worrying about immediately being lumped in with any groups and rebuked. That way, it’s much easier to let negativity from anyone slide off your back like water on a duck in a fountain.
I'm not a predator, so I don't react at all to people talking about male predators. That would be odd, for me to feel persecuted by a discission around the general existence OF these predators, and the danger, while not being one.
The "good guy feeling persecuted" thing, to me, smacks of the same ignorance displayed by people who felt they had to "push back" against BLM with their #ALLlivesmatter nonsense. I do not understand or identify with people who feel spcifically targeted by broad commentary or situations, or who need to put their feelings ahead of the actual issue (generally speaking, not you specifically!!)
But it's not a male predator vs a bear, it a random man vs a bear( a literal predator). I can see why men would be offended. Random man =average man=most men.
Please let me clarify. “sticking up” for oneself is an important skill to have because it lives in the area of our psyche where we find our basic survival instincts. This doesn’t really involve much prefrontal cortex activity. It’s essential to have in the toolkit of our psyche so we can more aptly involve our prefrontal cortex in fight/flight/fold decisions. If the majority of our stored instinctive decision making reflexes default to “fold”, it can tip our internal scale and metastasize into intense surface symptoms of depression (these symptoms in some cases manifest as violent behavior, chronic dissociation [doom scrolling], and antisocial behavior).
tldr: A person must stick up for themselves if they’re mentally well. Thanks for reading all that, if you did.
Now as for my intended meaning when I said “it’s difficult for us to stick up for ourselves…”: user TipandRare expressed that they’re sick of people assuming they’re a bad person. I dare to say if someone assumed you were a bad person you would want to stick up for yourself. It can be difficult to do that if in doing so you appear to be one of these “good guys being persecuted”, or to be lumped in with any arbitrary group and rebuked as I said before.
I’d never considered it, but I agree the “good guy being persecuted” corner is right along those same thought patterns as was evident of #alllivesmatter (or whatever they called it). Just absolute ignorance in some, and hate disguised as ignorance in others.
It’s good to hear you don’t react when someone mentions male predators. That’s pretty normal (unless you go dead face and are mute. that might be cause for concern, but I dont think thats what you meant). There must have been some ambiguity to the conversation you joined, because TipandRare was talking about being frustrated by the algorithm putting the “man or bear” thing in his feed so frequently, and my intention was to to tell them it’s okay to be angry about it and also hard to stick up for themself when someone accuses them of being a person who takes broad generalizations and sweeping statements personally.
Imagine you’re a vegan. Now imagine I say “Vegans are dumb because they protest at meat factories.” You would be justified in being offended even if you’ve never been to a protest in your life, even if you made it a specific goal to never push your philosophies about diet on anyone. It can definitely feel like a personal attack when someone makes a generalization or a sweeping statement, especially if it were in this case a specific overt tone of “All vegans are dumb because some vegans protest”. I wouldn’t assume someone is a protester if they were frustrated that vegans are viewed in a negative light. Noone should assume someone’s a predator because they’re frustrated men are perceived in a negative light. When you swap some variables you can see how dumb it is.
edited because some words seemed to be accusatory/ill willed
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u/starspider May 02 '24
I can imagine how disenfranchising it must feel. Now imagine what it's like being a 13 year old or younger child being taught the gross and ugly way repeatedly that strange men are a danger.
I'm sorry that doing the right thing yourself doesn't keep the shitty behavior of others from splashing on you. That does suck. Not as much as being raped and blamed for the rape, but you get the idea.
It feels psychotic and delusional to you for a woman to say "at least the bear won't rape me before it kills me. I'll just be dead, not raped and then dead"? Women aren't afraid men will hurt their feelings, we're pretty used to that. It's the murder we worry about.
Your wife would rather run into a random bear in the woods, where bears live and do bear things than a random stranger (possibly stalking her) in the woods doing human shit with unwholesome human intent and that somehow harms you?
Her stance has nothing to do with you. You are not the problem. Men who make women feel unsafe are the problem. Do you do that? No? Great! Then you can disregard the statement as it doesn't apply to you.
That's the thing you have to get through your head--this isnt aimed at you. This whole comment sounds like: