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About ozyfrantz
Ozy Frantz is a student at a well-respected Hippie College in the United States. Zie bases most of zir life decisions on Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and identifies more closely with Pinkie Pie than is probably necessary. Ozy can be contacted at [email protected] or on Twitter as @ozyfrantz. Writing is presently Ozy's primary means of support, so to tip the blogger, click here.
Missene, I was speaking theoretically. Personally, I ain’t skeered of anybody. Ask anyone who knows me. I love to brawl… want one? You seem like you are spoiling for a fight. (((girds loins, get sword out and starts polishing, goes back and reads Trotsky’s THE PERMANENT REVOLUTION)))
Now, are you saying Ozy’s fears are zir’s own fault? Better be careful, zie can ban you. 😉
PS: Rudeness and lousy reading comprehension, on the other hand, appear to be YOUR fault and no one else’s.
Daisy, you are absolutely responsible for YOUR fear of men, you are to blame, stop characterising it as something that /women/ just can’t help and are not responsible for, becuase it’s YOUR fault.
Ozy:
Well, I am like that, and I have been advised to keep to myself unless I can make my body language less creepy (especially to women). I am not sure if that actively made my situation worse, as you say. One good thing is that there is a lot less in my daily life to feel guilty about, and less reason to worry about being Part Of The Problem.
Obviously I do not stay in all the time; that would be impossible. I avoid certain contexts and stay in my apartment most of the time.
And if “not being social” means “I am scared of people and feel like I am annoying and impose on them by my very presence” then “just stay home” is not merely callous but also actively making their situation worse.
Schala: I am very similar. I also get “outpeopled” very easily. I do not know if “outpeopled” is even a word, but several of my family members use it (in English, even, it would be extremely awkward translated to Danish). But most of my issues with being out and about have to do with feeling forced to incessantly “self-police” in order to not appear “creepy” or “wrong”, which tends to wear me down (and there are only very few people I want to be together with just for the company – my mother, and a close friend I have known… Read more »
I’m also easily out peopled. It’s part of why I resent social situations. The bigger reason I resent them is that I find them mostly purposeless. Especially artificial displays of liking someone when you hate their guts, or the likes. Don’t go see them if you hate their guts, absent a really good reason for it (like that person having half custody of your kid or something). My discussions with people can be enthusiastic, passionate, long monologues…but they typically involve some purpose besides some vague desire to socialize. I want to obtain a certain information. I want to debate the… Read more »
I also have problems taking care of daily things. I get help from a disability support worker. But my point just was that “not social” can mean different things, and in one of the definitions, “just keep to yourself” is sensible advice, in the other it is cruel. When you said: But if you’re not social, you’ll likely WANT to be out of sight because it’s your preference from the very beginning? I mean, it’s sort of the definition of not being social and all. It occured to me that you and AB might have different understandings of what “not… Read more »
Well, I couldn’t live alone, but living with one or two persons is fine. I could be with just those one or two people 99% of the time and be fine, too. Alone would be too lonely. With two, it’s enough to make occasional conversation. And well, I don’t think I could reasonably take care of myself alone (as in work, pay the bills on time, do the groceries buying what’s actually necessary first, buy light bulbs, brooms, cleaning products, furniture…and all that jazz – without prompting, or someone with a car that gets me there and helps me pick),… Read more »
Schala, AB: Pardon if this is mansplaining, but I think there is a miscommunication at work here. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. When AB says “not social”, I interpret it as “are easily ‘outpeopled’, must exert themselves to function socially, might send out ‘wrong’ signals, etc.”. When Schala says “not social”, I interpret it as “have little to no desire for social interaction”. Obviously, the two often occur in the same person, but not always. My own social skills are rather poor, but I get terribly lonely if I just lock myself in and stay away… Read more »
“It’s not very different from Schala suggesting staying out of sight as a good solution to women who aren’t social.”
Err, maybe it ain’t clear. But if you’re not social, you’ll likely WANT to be out of sight because it’s your preference from the very beginning? I mean, it’s sort of the definition of not being social and all.
@RocketFrog: I actually have been asked to not go outside unless I can make my body language less frightening to women. Even things like standing on my own in a corner can, or “looking at someone the wrong way” constitute “rapist signals”. And you have my full sympathy for that. It’s not very different from Schala suggesting staying out of sight as a good solution to women who aren’t social. Or Jesus_Marley and others giving lectures on the obvious racism of women moving away from someone who’s too close. Or the many, many, MANY sob-stories from men here about how… Read more »
@AB “Asking people to be more considerate in their choices of when they choose to approach, because approaching also puts a demand on the approached party to handle it correctly, is not quite in the same vein as asking people with the wrong body language (but who tend to leave strangers alone) to simply not go outside. ” I think you were unfair to Schadrach to make this just about RW’s interaction with EG. His point covered far more than that. RW’s initial post about EG was not particularly bad, she shouldn’t have made it about gender since it was… Read more »
Jesus_Marley: Yes, that is basically what I meant too. An observable difference (which would require somewhat more observation than just seeing one instance of bench etiquette, though) is that a socially anxious person does not exclusively have those particular behaviour patterns around non-white people, whereas a racist would. (of course, one can also be a racist and have social anxiety.) By the way, I think my own misandry belongs in the second category, analogous to “racial prejudice”, although probably more intense than one would typically consider “latent prejudice”. I am not particularly proud of my negative feelings about men, and… Read more »
@RF – addendum as an example… if you go to your doctor with a sore throat and swollen tonsils, You will likely have either a bacterial or a viral infection. Both infections (behaviours) present with very similar symptoms (actions) but have distinctly disparate causes (racism vs. Social anxiety). Does that clear it up?
@ RF – I agree with you however, what I labelled as “passive racism” regardless of the underlying motivations still have similar outward behaviours associated with them.
Jesus_marley: There is a fairly significant difference. Racism is primarily an opinion, and the conviction with which it is held does not necessarily reflect on whether or not it is practiced as active or passive racism. It is possible to hate black people very intensely despite not wearing a KKK outfit or joining a racist skinhead gang or anything. Many far-right politicians in Europe are highly racist, but have never committed a violent act against a black person in their lives. Racial prejudice (which is not necessarily the same thing as racism) can also be an emotional response which is… Read more »
@AB – “Recently, my boyfriend took a hold of my shoulder and turned me around. I didn’t interpret it as violence, and neither did he. If men really think it’s violence when someone do it to them, it’s no wonder the statistics about DV against men are so high.” OK. if you were eating a sandwich (or yogurt or an apple) and your BF grabbed your wrist and forcibly pulled your arm away from your face you would not consider that assault? “The fact that you couldn’t find a single example on youtube which didn’t have this unfortunate undercurrent of… Read more »
(although in fairness, that was many years ago, and my later decision to limit my one-to-one interactions with women is not related to that.)
AB:
I actually have been asked to not go outside unless I can make my body language less frightening to women. Even things like standing on my own in a corner can, or “looking at someone the wrong way” constitute “rapist signals”.
@Schadrach: You know what, I agree with you. A real life Bench White Lady may or may not be racist, and may or may not just be anxious as a result of being crowded. It’s entirely fair, given that you cannot read their mind, to give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s also entirely fair for Bench Black Dude, to be insulted by that same act, as he cannot read her mind either, and thus follows his own interpretation of her actions. If Bench Black Dude were to publicly shame Bench White Lady (aka RW’s video), then use public… Read more »
(peeks out cautiously) Is this still an open thread?
Time for Black History month lessons!
65 years ago today, the last lynching in South Carolina:
http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2012/02/lynching-of-willie-earle.html
(caution: details given, not pleasant)
@Jesus_Marley: Asked and answered in the case of both videos. the guys reactions in the video were not the focus, yet again, but I made the effort to address and state I did not condone their actions but they were an unfortunate aspect of the video. Short of creating my own which frankly is not worth the effort, I doubt I could find one on Youtube to better illustrate the points I was making. OK, can you agree with me on this then?: There is a large social stigma against women displaying signs of social anxiety, Asperger’s syndrome, a large… Read more »
@ AB – “So if I had linked to the yoghurt commercial to illustrate a kind of teasing from guys I find really, really aggravating, you wouldn’t have commented on the head-butt?” I would have commented on it as an aside to the main argument you presented. I would not make it the sole focus and I would make an effort to separate the two. You it would appear chose to take an ancillary aspect of the racism video and make it the primary focus even though it was clear what the discussion was about. “Not to mention that even… Read more »
“So having a black man calling the police on a white woman as the whole cue of a video is irrelevant minutiae? But having a woman head-butt a white man in a commercial is the main issue? Do you seriously expect it to be irrelevant minutiae for me, when supposedly funny videos feature people of my ethnicity and sex are being bullied and even have crimes committed against them, mainly because they display a similar type of body-language as I sometimes do? Stop trying to avoid the issue. You linked to videos where black men were doing illegal things to… Read more »
@Jesus_Marley: please explain to me how a person who is resisting against an obvious physical assault (arm grab) is “misreading the situation”? I’m sorry but there is really no way to read that other than she is assaulting him because she want yogurt. I mean, who wouldn’t? So taking your boyfriends arm because has something of yours and you would like it back is assault now? And how come no one figured this out before? If you really felt that way, I have a hard time imagining that you or someone else wouldn’t have brought up how wrong and violent… Read more »