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[TheBiggerFish]

Okay, what the fuck reddit. At the same time, I'm trying to convince one person that anti-women sexism still exists and trying to convince another that the restrictive gender binary is harmful to men too.

UGH

Could somebody help me give some concrete examples for each of these?

For the latter:
Men who parent being suspected of being pedophiles/kidnappers?  Alternatively men who parent being assumed to be babysitters.

I don't really have immediate examples for the former.

[Reelya]

Part of that is related to socially acceptable views of what a "predator" looks like, but they don't have much relationship to the real data. For example, a common perception is that the father is the most likely abuser of children. But "father or stepfather" is in fact WAY down the list on likely abusers:

http://aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/421-440/tandi429.html

30% of abusers were "another male relative". So people immediately think "adult uncle" or something. But in fact, if you look into it, most of those abusers are other children (teenage males). Family friend was (16.3%), acquaintance or neighbour (15.6%), another known person (15.3%), but these aren't sorted by gender of abuser. "Father or stepfather" clocks in at 13.5%, or about 1/8th of known cases.

Despite an enduring fear of strangers abusing children, therefore, the evidence demonstrates that in the vast majority of cases, children’s abusers are known to them. Importantly, however, male children are abused by strangers at a much higher rate than female children, with nearly one in five male victims of child sexual abuse identifying a stranger as the offender (ABS 2005).

If you start digging into this data, many ideas that are commonly held start to become questionable. Basically, boy children are much more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone outside the home than girls are. But the resources and effort go to protecting girls because we've collectively agreed that girls are the "victim class" whereas boys are not.

Another area where gender roles causes us to have blinkered vision is in sexual abuse by mothers. Googling "sexual abuse by mothers" brings up a lot of "mother daughter abuse" articles, but that particular pattern is ridiculously rare compared to mother-son abuse. There don't seem to be any articles with a lot of hits on "mother son abuse" even though it's the normal pattern. Because we've socially coded that girls are victims, not boys.

[Tiruin]

Really weird now, the feeling that the internet has a lot more staying power in 'impressions' than actual facts given the connection certain individuals had has in congruence with their daily lives >_< I've read bits about 'predator' to men, and the commonality of people saying that and generalizing it for no particular and realistic reason that it affects the majority who aren't the minority being initially depicted. In english-related communities, which are mostly western.

SO yeah, may just be my observation but the commonality of access to the internet, with the quality of the person giving such opinions and the reinforcement it can give when one sticks to a certain community...seems to really affect the worldview due to said connection >.<

*Wherein 'certain individuals' = those that generalize. There's a common origin and these (general, imprecise) impressions seem to be coming from certain places.

[TheBiggerFish]

This is completely unrelated to the above discussion: Why do I keep thinking of Tiruin as male?

[itisnotlogical]

Gender-ambiguous avatar from a videogame being the only visual clue?

[Tiruin]

Gender-ambiguous avatar from a videogame being the only visual clue?

FE8 is pretty straightforward. Also, profile info.
Is it like I wrote everything there to be skimmed over?

This is completely unrelated to the above discussion: Why do I keep thinking of Tiruin as male?

I'd love to hear your thoughts there

[TheBiggerFish]

Gender-ambiguous avatar from a videogame being the only visual clue?

FE8 is pretty straightforward. Also, profile info.
Is it like I wrote everything there to be skimmed over?

This is completely unrelated to the above discussion: Why do I keep thinking of Tiruin as male?

I'd love to hear your thoughts there

It's something about how you speak pretty much.

And maybe your avatar too.

And I mean, if I take a moment to actually think I remember, but you still sound like a guy.

[pisskop]

Its in your head.

I picture a girl from the Philippines?

but then I knew she was a she.  I guess we're used to people like Dice or unicornone

[Tiruin]

I feel happy knowing that my tone can sound one way or the other now 
Although I get your point. Pretty much with experience? Or how I write stuff in a certain way?

Spoiler: As an aside, hilarity reminds me of wearing a super secret mustache, and it works! (click to show/hide)

From Mafia, I was parodying fillipk's impression of "GET ALERTED ON TIRUIN, SHE'S A SPY" or something around that degree of suspicion, even in innocent situations.

It seems the mustache works!

I guess we're used to people like Dice or unicornone

Flying Dice is nice!
I don't know who you're talking about here.

[Flying Dice]

Okay, what the fuck reddit. At the same time, I'm trying to convince one person that anti-women sexism still exists and trying to convince another that the restrictive gender binary is harmful to men too.

UGH

Could somebody help me give some concrete examples for each of these?

For the former you're probably going to need to rely more on experiential stuff if you want to talk about the U.S./Europe/whatever. Here's a good one from library work: men, specifically foreign men from masculine-dominated cultures and older men (the same, natch), will sometimes cross the entire building to ask a page for computer help because the computer specialist on duty (at the desk two feet away from the banks of monitors, under a very clear sign) is female. It's an implicit assumption that a man will be more competent technologically, even though it's not his job and he doesn't have (in this case) literally decades of experience that his woman colleague does.

For the latter, you can actually go to library work again. It's viewed in some quarters as "pink collar" work; I had an older professor who I deeply admired (because he was intelligent and articulate, and because he was an old-fashioned conservative pissed at the current right-wing establishment) express to me that he worried that going into MLIS was "too mundane" for me -- it was mostly, I suspect, because I managed to completely reverse his opinion of me in one semester, mainly with a single paper I wrote on comparative judicial systems (prior to that I think I was Long Haired Socialist Know-Nothing #46392), but I can't help wondering if there was also a gendered assumption there. I've certainly come across people who are more blunt about it, and men in the field tend to gravitate towards the technical roles in part because of those assumptions.

You could also talk about how courts disproportionately favor women in child custody proceedings -- the implicit assumption being that women are better parents and caregivers, even when they're demonstrably less capable. I distinctly recall a really great friend of mine at a young age who ended up in the clutches of his kinda crazy mom, by the time we got to high school he'd been totally brainwashed and was a diehard Reaganite evangelical. Granted, not the best example because his dad was an alcoholic and one of those here-have-some-stuff-sorry-about-not-being-around divorce-respondees. Was great fun at the time though because we all went to his place since we could get away with goddamn anything. He took a couple of us over state lines to buy a shitload of illegal fireworks one fourth, we ended that by lighting his lawn on fire when we mistook a tall glass of clear liquid for water instead of vodka. Was a pretty chill guy though, and actually tried to do good by the kid even if he didn't always know how. But he didn't have primary custody even though he was loaded and emotionally invested, while the kid's mother was IIRC unemployed and of the kids-are-little-ideology-sponges mentality.

I guess we're used to people like Dice or unicornone

Flying Dice is nice!
I don't know who you're talking about here.

From the context IDK what the intent was either. Might have been any number of things. And I ain't particularly nice, not by the standards you set. I'm certainly not consistent about it, probably because I wear out my manners playing nice with people who deserve it a lot less than y'all because financial stability is the most pressing concern and I can't afford to get fired, or knifed by some guy that got kicked out of city jail to free up room.

[Egan_BW]

My first exposure to Tiruin was through reading ER, so she certainly shows up as female in my mind's eye.
^{And as somewhat maternal. And as carrying lots of guns. And as hella strong.}

[Neonivek]

Anyhow... it is interesting the history of "Men just take it, women are abused" because as someone here said... We actually had the right information in the 1970s but it was since subverted mostly for what I shall call "Bad Feminism" to distinguish it from Feminism (which gets a bad rep...)

But more recently we are getting much better. There are protection services for men for example...

AND to my knowledge there has been men who successfully argued "Battered-Wife Syndrome" in court.

Child Payments though... Ok THOSE still need a LOT of fixing... and it is FAR FAR worse in some US States where a man could end up paying for the rest of his life because the mother created a false report (a sort of "If you don't find out it is untrue in time" clause) THOUGH... Those could have been patched as it has been a decade since I've checked up on them... and they were terrible laws.

----

Honestly Feminism and the NRA might as well be Twins for their ability to be represented by the worst people.

[Flying Dice]

Feminism isn't really as coherent as the NRA though. The gun industry as a whole has made an intentional and organized movement towards being as shitty as possible; they're all culpable, and it's largely because the original company owners have died off and been replaced by capitalists who have had their moral compasses surgically removed so that they don't mind selling to anyone who has the dosh. Shitty feminists don't represent feminism as a whole, just an incarnation of it. In terms of organized influence on elections they're way back in the line, we've got the NRA, AARP, AIPAC, and all sorts of other assholes to worry about before them in that regard.

I actually am rather preferential towards progressives not trying to form a unified lobbying bloc precisely because the system is so deeply corrupted and vulnerable to ideologues seizing the reins (and thus the voice connected to government). Sanders showed that grassroots fundraising can still work, and we're generally cynical enough to sniff out astroturf campaigns these days.

[Yoink]

My mother asked for smooth peanut butter.
I asked if I was adopted.

[Silverthrone]

So, Fidel Castro is dead. Not particularly odd in itself, but at his advanced age, I imagine all of the intelligence officers handling his various assassinations are long since dead. Well, one or two then-young and promising junior agents might still be alive and well, but it's fascinating nonetheless.