this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
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This is a legitimate complaint in the situations where the topic is uniquely a women's issue, and people are trying to redirect the conversation to something that really isn't the same thing and is a separate issue so talking about that means you aren't talking about the first thing anymore. But the meta issue of someone trying to talk about one group's problems and getting hit by whataboutism, seems arguably more universal and might not be specifically a women's issue, so saying something along the lines of "yeah this happens to us too it sucks", could be supportive and not about shutting up discussion of the original topic.
This isn't a universal complaint about the frustration of whataboutism.
This is a specific complaint about how any time women try to talk about women's issues in a forum that may contain men, those men engage in disingenuous whataboutism.
The men replying are almost never showing support, they're minimizing the issue, or they're trying to co-opt the thread.
It doesn't need to be a uniquely woman's issue for it to be a predominantly women's issue.
And it doesn't need to be a predominantly woman's issue for women to want to talk about it from a woman's perspective without men making it about them.
To me, the comment in question didn't seem to be doing that. The point I'm trying to make is to object to the idea that it is categorically doing that, given the context. It seems like a divisive way of deciding what is bad behavior, to condemn any statement made in response to discussion about problems faced by one group that is not specifically about the struggles of that group, regardless of anything else about the statement.
If you would rather expand on how that goes or the ways in which this is predominantly a women's issue, feel free to take this opportunity instead of responding to what else I'm saying.
Even now, you're trying to derail the conversation, which is about how women have to deal with this bullshit all the time online, and make it about a topic you care about.
You don't need to participate, if this isn't the subject that you want to talk about.
The point has been made. If you have more to say about it, go ahead.
The unspoken thing I guess being that I shouldn't participate if that isn't something I have anything to say about. It sounds like something you want is for discussions that can be considered to be about women's issues to be narrowly framed as such, and think there's something wrong with engaging with the discussion in a way that doesn't do this. I think this is much less reasonable than anything the comic itself is saying. There is a big difference between talking about the same issue but in a broader way, and remarking something overtly irrelevant and hostile like "what about circumcision". That isn't to say that spaces exclusively for narrowly framed discussion about women's issues shouldn't exist, but I don't see a reason this comment thread has to be one, or why not considering it to be one should be regarded as offensive.
You just can't help yourself
There are conversations where it's better to just leave it, but I don't see this as one of them.
I'm part of the problem, because I keep replying and giving you an audience, so consider this my last reply.
When someone is raising an issue, and you're considering if you want to expand or generalize the topic, ask yourself "will the person with the issue benefit from what I'm about to say?"
If they wont, and they're not hurting anyone, then maybe stfu, especially if you inhabit a position of power, in society, relative to them. If it's still important to you, then go start another conversation elsewhere.
In this case, they won't, and you probably do, and you insisted on speaking up here anyways, which makes you just like all the dudes trying to make this about themselves. You do not pass the vibe check.
I'll just say again that for the original comment that this is about, leaving aside anything I wrote, that demand is not justified, and I don't regret pushing back on it.