women are being given standards by memes. we need to become incredibly boring and hostile to women. this will make them fuck us
You’re being… just a bit uncharitable here. The problem here is bigger than “random guy on the internet is hilariously misogynistic”, and if we don’t grapple with it, we’re going to get more of this crap.
Toxic masculinity keeps many men from feeling like they can be vulnerable or having deep interpersonal relationships, so they have no outlet for their feelings; therefore, they have no private places where they can talk about being socially awkward and get advice on how to fix it.
These guys- the kind of guys that hang around reddit- are often neurodivergent and/or extremely socially stunted. They are bad at talking to people in general. They are bad at making friends. Some of this is probably their fault for having shitty personalities, but for a lot of these guys, they don’t have friends, through no fault of their own.
They crave intimacy. The intimacy of “having people on reddit who vaguely give a damn about your problems and are willing to give you advice” is better than being completely isolated. And sadly, reddit culture tends to exacerbate any shittiness in your personality, which makes you more isolated IRL, and it’s a nasty vicious cycle.
There’s a reason a lot of autistic guys turn to PUA bullshit and Reddit bullshit and assorted other misogynistic crap. Modern feminism has erased most of the social scripts people used to navigate dating and romance. This is, overall, a good thing. A lot of those scripts were skeevy as hell, and rightfully deserve to get chucked in the dumpster. But most autistic people need social scripts to function. Without them, we turn into incoherent messes.
And- I hate to say it, I really really do, but most of the norms that replaced them are vague and nebulous as fuck. ‘Hanging out’ instead of formal dating, for example, or having hookups until you decide you want to see each other again. There are more resources that tell you how to deal with someone saying ‘no’ than saying ‘yes’- and frankly if you don’t have very good social skills trying to get someone to verbally say ‘yes we can do the horizontal naked dance’ can come off as weird and pedantic and creepy rather than sexy.
Most resources aimed specifically at teaching neurodivergent guys these skills are condescending as fuck, because most resources aimed at neurodivergent people are condescending as fuck, and if you’re a grown-ass adult you will probably avoid these like the plague.
And most ‘feminist’ resources for dating advice are… er. Well. There is a heavy undercurrent of “if you cannot talk to women without creeping them out, you should not be talking to women”. Which is usually decent advice, if you can’t talk to people without squicking them then it’s probably better for both of you to avoid each other.
Except… a lot of neurodivergent people either do squick people out, or live with the constant fear that they’re creeping people out because of horrible “social skills” training in their youth. So this advice is… not good. At best, it keeps neurodivergent people from having any kind of romantic life; at worst, it keeps neurodivergent women from having any kind of romantic life, and pushes neurodivergent men towards the bullshit of our chode-like friend above.
Because he is a chode, and this is not okay behaviour. I am not apologising for him at all; he deserves to get the smackdown and get it hard. But- I look at this guy, and I smell autism. Autism and desperation to have a place where he can learn these skills without people making fun of him.
He’s begging for a space where he can learn this stuff, and he doesn’t feel safe doing it around women because women have made fun of him for not knowing this stuff in the past. Ironically enough- he wants a safe space. That’s not actually wrong. That is not a bad thing to want. But because he has problems with intimacy, and r/adviceanimals is the only place he’s been able to find anyone willing to help, well… we get this bull.
So like- this is a problem, this is a problem feminism has partly caused, and it is a problem we’ve got to deal with. Unfortunately, the guys who need this help most are the guys who have completely rejected feminism because of snarky condescending neurotypical feminism, so I’m not sure how much we as a community can do.
But admitting that there’s no good dating advice for ND men out there, and that making fun of ND people who need help is mean- well, that would be a start.
Another point to this is that, as an autistic person - even one who’s an fairly self-aware adult - it’s very easy to not feel confident in your own opinions. You get made fun for your views and interests before, so why trust them? Especially if you know you’re not a very static person; it becomes easy to flip-flop on viewpoints and accept what people have to say at face value. (I’m speaking from experience here, and even being self-aware that I do this doesn’t really help that much - I would guess that it can be even worse if you don’t know you’re doing it.)
This isn’t at all a fun trait to have when the people around you have very strong, negative - dare I say radical or bigoted? - viewpoints.
I wouldn’t at all be surprised if some of these ND boys and men go to these sites to try and find a community or some social skills advice, see people saying “The feminists are the cause of all your problems! Women are The Enemy!” and just going “ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Well these people seem to know what they’re talking about, I guess they’re totally right.” This also means that seeing NT feminists making fun of them would just confirm that viewpoint - “these women are mocking me now, I guess they really ARE the enemy.”
Obviously their views are wrong in the extreme, no denying that; and I’m not saying that NT feminists should stop being feminists altogether, or stop challenging these views, or whatever. This is to say nothing of the fact that there are absolutely going to be neurotypical misogynists and bigots who were not “reeled in” this way and who might be active “recruiters” taking advantage of vulnerable people.
But we need to keep in mind that there are people who are vulnerable to being convinced this way - dare I say “radicalised”? Because hating and distrusting women this much is a radical viewpoint, especially if we look at this in terms of these sites teaching bigotries beyond sexism and into the realms of the alt-right/white supremacy. These people are radical bigots and there are vulnerable, misled people among them who may one day see the light and turn away from them.
I feel like a problem is that the only tool people are given to argue their points and views on the internet - and often in offline spaces - is just anger. Anger and shouting and being very wordy (I mean look at this post! it’s way too fucking long already!). When writing lots of complex pseudo-academic paragraphs (with swears and insults sprinkled throughout) is the only way social justice minded people have of trying to convince bigots away, it stops reaching everyone it could possibly reach, because not everyone is going to respond to the same things.
This isn’t the fault of social justice writers - not everyone is going to know alternative ways of doing this. Hell, I don’t know how else to put my points across! But that’s what I mean; there needs to be a way to learn and to try and reach out to people another way, a way that will work. Sometimes there’s no helping these people; but people like the OP, there might be a chance still, and we can’t just blithely ignore that.
