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over 7 years ago from Ian Williams, ✍ ◐ < ◑ ☞
Slow clap. It seems you are the only sane person here. It's unfortunate that early comments will always be upvoted more than ones that are thoughtful and well reasoned like yours. Best comment in this whole thread.
This. All the way. Thanks for taking the time to write this up.
I can’t address every point here, but “Men of Designer News” doesn’t seem to claim to be a list of strictly misogynist posts (although that does seem to be at the root of some of the cases).
Most of them are anti-feminist and not very friendly, though. I read that list and think: is this a community I want to participate in?
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Turns out that most of the quoted comments on that Tumblr are actually no misogynistic at all, instead likely only published because the creator of this Tumblr obviously has a hard time with people having different opinions than him/herself.
Definition of misogyny: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.
So let's take a look at the comments in the Tumblr:
"How should an average male feel about this?" - Questioning how an average male should feel about a list of comments has nothing to do with contempt for women.
"You need a reality check, go live in a country where misogyny actually exists for a few months, then come back to me" - Denying misogyny is now by definition misogyny? Of course not.
"The majority of DN’s audience is men. Therefore, they will see a higher ROI if they sell men’s t-shirts. It’s a pretty simple business decision, really" - Pointing out how capitalism works doesn't mean the commenter is a misogynist. The reason why the majority of DN's audience are men could be misogyny (but probably isn't), but the commenter is not a misogynist for pointing out that selling to men on a platform full of men would result in the best ROI.
"Being a feminist is the hip, anti-bro du jour in the tech industry right now. #zeitgeist" - Misogynist for highlighting a trend among white males white knighting like crazy?
"So wait, you find one or two sexist games and determine the entire industry needs your help? Did you miss the 10,000 games that are sexist towards men?" - Misogynist for pointing out that although some games have objectification issues, most games don't? Misogynist for pointing out that most games turns the male protagonist into an unobtainable hero object?
"If the bias is that user icons are predominantly male forward, then reversing that to make it female forward is still a biased solution." - Misogynist for holding the opinion that affirmative action-type strategies are not good solutions to equality issues?
"Beth, try making a coherent argument. Check his privilege? Check your assumptions and tired cliches." - Misogynist for saying someone is using clichés? I assume it's misogynist because it's a man not agreeing with a woman.
"I wish radical feminists would stop victimising themselves into submission by claiming the world is against them. You can find discrimination in anything. I’m a short guy and I could easily write a blog post about how it’s harder to raise money when you’re a short man. The world favours tall people, etc." - Misogynist for pointing out that there are discrimination issues everywhere if you look close enough? Or misogynistic because the commenter, who I personally know by the way, doesn't feel women are victims?
...and so on.