Re: "Entitlement, Nerds and Neanderthals"- today's Prime post etc.

[Gentleman Johnny]

Random evo-psych drive by for the day: remember that the real Neanderthals were driven to extinction because their main competitor (us) was better at working cooperatively.

[Guest]

Very interesting, this idea of a permanent status. I'm reminded of the research about praising kids by saying they're smart versus praising kids by saying they worked really hard, and how it shapes their idea about the malleability of intelligence, where believing they did well because of working hard makes them more successful in the long run. I suppose it would make a big difference in how you felt about the word creepy if you thought it was a label that, once applied, could never be changed, as opposed to a word that described a particular moment in time that could be lived down or made up for. Could that be what's behind the notion of "creep-shaming", that the guys in question also believe it's some kind of permanent state? That would make more sense than what it looks like from the outside, which is a straight-up denial that a particular action at a particular time and place and context was out of line.

I have both been called a creep and acted like a creep before (and still blush and say "Damn, what was I thinking!") back when I was younger. It was not a label I liked and one that I had to work hard to shed in a few social circles back in college, but it was not the end of the world. Embarrassing as hell, made me avoid certain men because I felt bad and awkward and creepy, but did not destroy my social life or get me branded with a scarlet C for life.

So I guess I do not get it either...

Quoting reboot with emphasis mine for, yet again, truth.

I think this is one of those issues where, first of all, it's a social one. You've done something creepy and weirded people out. That sucks.

However, I think the challenge of fixing your status seems such an inordinately huge one to someone who has a dearth or social skills in the first place, the amount of work involved makes it look impossible. I mean, I wouldn't know how to fix it.  

And, since it was brought up, bring labelled as 'smart' all my life just makes me stress out and feel I need to prove myself. Because, man, the amount of shitheads that like to trip people perceived as smart up to feel better about themselves is unreal. It's one form of 'bullying' that seems to just persist in a very constant fashion.

I do know that, nowadays, I'm worried about hurting others with my awkwardness. Which creates that cycle of being more awkward, causing more problems, blah, blah, blah.

In what way do you feel you might hurt others with awkwardness?

Keeping it non-dating related as I have zero experience there...

Saying something unintentionally insensitive, accidentally ignoring people, deliberate ignoring people because your social anxiety spikes, accidentally focusing on people, being temperamental, yadda, yadda, yadda.

These are hardly offenses worthy of the death penalty, I don't like bothering people as it is. No one needs some annoying, creepy ass dude doing shit they don't like.

The most absurd thing is I've never once been called creepy. I think I was called annoying once by a bully in high school and that's as close as it gets. I just have it in my head that it's so easy to be a creep and it's so hard a label to rid yourself of it's worthy of fear. I think somewhere in the back of my head I always kind of coded 'nerd' as 'creepy'. I never labelled myself a nerd (and don't exactly do so now, it's complicated), but other's did. I think I just... took that to mean I must be creepy too.

[Caffeinated]

Really? May I ask why?

Because it's something I would've done.
Everything from "don't take this the wrong way, but I loved your speech and wondered if you wanted to get a cup of coffee at my hotel room" as a way of saying "you're an awesome person, I'm romantically interested in you, but hey if you don't want to no biggie" to asking a girl out on an elevator ride - because I'd think if she said no you just wait a few seconds until your floor arrives and you can leave minimizing the awkwardness.

That's interesting on several levels. First, it says to me that being nervous about being alone in an elevator with someone is not a universal thing. I mean, it's a tiny room that if the other person turned out to be a criminal, they could trap you in by hitting a button on the panel, and then it would be very hard to escape or for someone to come to the rescue. That's interesting that you don't see it that way, but it doesn't make you a bad person for not seeing it that way. I find it fascinating that a situation that to one person might feel dangerous, to another person that same situation would minimize the awkwardness.

Second, there's the fact that there is a very big difference between asking someone out to coffee (a very casual first date type ask) and asking someone up to your room for coffee (a blatant offer of sex). Asking a stranger to have sex with you is a bit boorish, no lie. Rude, but not criminal.

And so, having had someone do a rude thing, Watson said something very gently, just telling people not to do that particular rude thing. And then for some reason the internet exploded and she was still being harassed online months later. To me, the lesson of Elevatorgate was that if a woman says that a man did something wrong, no matter how lightly she phrases it, she is risking a tsunami of hate and threats. But it sounds like you took a different lesson from it.

I'll admit, I don't really understand. Was the lesson that it's possible to do something that you didn't predict would be seen as rude but someone else did see it as rude? And therefore your manners are not perfect? I don't get what the extreme terribleness of that is.

[nearly_takuan]

There's a lot to unpack here in response to questions Caffeinated and RBS have raised, and a lot of it is to do with implicit and unrecognized assumptions, so I make no guarantees on accuracy—certainly not rigor!—but I have a few introspective hypotheses.

1. The other side to the Smurfette Principle is that as womanhood stands out, from a certain point of view it can also be seen as special/valuable. Aside from the obvious problematic consequences to women, the consequence to men is that there's nothing automatically "special" about being a man, i.e. we may feel we must work extra hard to prove our social value. (Negative stereotyping / stigma obviously makes this swing the other direction again in certain professions/skillsets.) This one, at least, is just a negative side-effect of something that hurts women in more ways.

2. As a nerdy-looking male nerd, I am already assumed to be socially inept. Anything I do that is actually socially inept only moves me further in the direction of something I hate being perceived as.

3. Within the context of dating in particular, it is essential to demonstrate social value—more so if you cannot display other forms of value e.g. culturally accepted body type, race, accent, skill-set. There is a minimum level I must stay above at all times, and as far as public opinion is concerned my default position is below that. The target level is above both.

4. Internally: Rudeness is a Cardinal Sin; having spent many formative years being treated like shit by most of my peers, and seeing others treated worse, guilt at the thought of the possibility of contributing to that in any way is easily magnified. (Granted, that only explains why I feel a certain way about topics like this, not why other guys react so poorly. Willingly digging myself into deeper holes was always something I tried to reserve solely for academia.)

5. Male sex drives are perceived as high, romantic desires perceived as low. Men also seem to be perceived as the main reason sex-negativity is still a thing. This is the opposite of the image we're told we should present in order to attract the opposite sex. (In my case it also happens to be the exact opposite of what's actually true, so I might be more aware of this as it's also part of the struggle to even establish that my identity is what I say it is.)

6. Having been on the wrong end of public actions intended to save face on the part of the actor (see also: waaayyy upthread), I feel less safe where other people can see my interactions with a stranger or loose acquaintance than in a more private setting. (Seems like a decent explanation for the disconnect over whether the elevator context is more or less appropriate relative to other settings.)

7. My lack of control over my own life contributes toward a desire to exert small amounts of control over the lives of others, e.g. making other people feel better, solving problems, teaching, and of course hedging against bad reactions, because anything that can go wrong will.

8. It's gross, but some men may still feel like they have some kind of control over what women do. Obviously nobody controls the "Neanderthals". To try to phrase it more charitably, it often feels like there's a better chance some women have the kind of conscience that will be willing to help change things; we assume the Bad Men don't.

9. I may not currently identify as feminist, but I do treat women like people and argue harshly against tribunals, discrimination-denialists, and so forth. I don't conserve energy/focus by staying out of debates over sexism/racism against women/African-Americans in order to concentrate on sexism/racism against men/Asian-Americans; I don't understand why other parties seem to. (It's possible they're right, and I should focus entirely on my own pet causes instead if I know what's good for me, but I don't yet grok that mode of thinking.)

[celette482]

I have a different theory, nearly takuan, I think that actually encapsulates what you are describing.

In General, men identify with the men in the story. Women are able to identify with both.

Is this because women are more empathetic than men? NO. I'd posit that absent social influences, all humans would do what I'm suggesting men do. All humans are inherently self-centered. All humans grant themselves more humanity than anyone else and therefore find it easier to grant people who remind them of themselves humanity.

In child development, there's this concept called the Theory of the Mind. At some point (around age 3) a normally developing child will realize that other people have other bases of knowledge, sometimes even WRONG, that they derived from their own experiences. This is studied through the Sally Test. You take a child and a doll (named Sally) in a room with 2 boxes and another toy. The researcher puts the toy under box A in front of the child and the doll. Then, the researcher takes Sally away (telling the child that sally is going to play in another room.) The researcher comes back and puts the toy under box B in front of the child. Then sally is brought back and the child is asked where sally will look for the toy. Younger children will say box B because they know that's where the toy is. Around age 3, they start to say box A because they know that's where Sally thinks the toy is. Theory of the Mind.

I posit that women and minorities (this is a thing that I think applies to all societies, but who it applies to changes) have a better developed theory of the mind because they have to.

It is a necessary off-shoot of being a less-powered group of people. In all societies I can think of, those with less importance work hard to mollify those with more importance, and to do so, they must learn to anticipate the needs of those people. If they fail to, the consequences can be quite severe.

In a more neutral way, women and minorities have a better developed theory of the mind because they are forced to use it when they engage with media. The average 21st century woman has spent more time consuming media where the protagonist was not her gender than the average 21st century man where the reverse is true. I'm not sure where you grew up, nearly takuan, but if it was in a Western country, you've probably seen more and read more books etc where the main character was white and as a result, you probably better understand what it is to be a white man than a white man could understand being an Asian man.

This leads us to the question of what aspect of our selves we identify with the most. In other words, if I'm looking at a situation between a white man and a black woman, who will I see myself as? There are probably studies out there that will tell me, but I can tell you right now that I can choose. We can all choose. This is just our jumping to conclusions, but we can also make the conscious choice to slow down. And if I don't 100% understand what it's like to be a black woman, I can at least know that the woman talking 100% understands what it is like to be her, who happens to be a black woman, and I can take her word for it.

But, my imaginary readers ask, why can't I also take the man's word for it? Why doesn't that line of thinking also lead me to take the side of the man every time? It's because you think men are bastards, right???? No, it's mainly because I know about these biases and while I usually believe 100% that the average guy in these circumstances is describing his subjective experience accurately (there are also manipulative jerks who are outright lying), I just don't think his subjective experience is the only accurate representation of the reality.

This gets us back to the discussion about the weights of things. I can believe that guy A had emotions XYZ and those emotions were really real and valid and he should have a place and a way to handle those emotions. But there is an objective hierarchy of morality that might not cover everything but it sure as hell covers things like "One person's ability to get an education outranks someone else's pantsfeels" and "One person's ability to do their job outranks someone else's pantsfeels", and sometimes men's feelings are not as important as other considerations. And if that fact also gives you feelings, I suggest that you deal with them in a way that does not interfere with other people's ability to get their lower level hierarchy of needs taken care of.

Here's why this matters vis a vis dating. Would you want to date someone who expects you to have sex when you have the stomach flu? Would you want to date someone who expects you to have sex when you just got fired? would you want to date someone who expects you to have sex when your grandmother just died? These are all real life men making real life expectations of real life women (three different ones, and yes, they are all now gloriously Not With Those Guys). When you express these thoughts or act in a way that suggests that you agree with them in front of women, it suggests that you too believe that sex and romance trump all other considerations. When, you really don't. Not if you start asking the right questions. (the job thing I could personally go either way on, since I find the rush of endorphins a good cure for a shitty day, but if I was really in a bad way and freaking out, I think I'd be annoyed). If you need to express these thoughts or manage these feels and you can't do it by yourself, might i suggest a therapist? They are specifically designed for taking on all our antisocial emotions and thoughts and desires. It's... their job. (and I recommend therapy to all people particularly as we journey into adulthood because it's just a good thing to do, like going to the dentist.)

[nearly_takuan]

Not sure I totally understood all that, but...are you saying we (men) tend to have a sort of halfway-developed theory of mind (or something similar), such that we understand women think differently but don't understand the actual thought process well enough to accurately predict their perceptions or trust in such a prediction? It's an interesting thought, and one that I expect will percolate when I'm less tired. Might be a while, but I'll try to come back to this again.

I'm very damned sure we agree re: education rights and other general equality ideals (see 9; the main thing I tend to disagree with others here on is what the status quo actually looks like), so the only thing that's giving me "feelings" is the suspicion that several of my identity-groups have just been called stupid.

If I've misunderstood, I apologize.

[Guest]

SNIP

I've thought about this kind of thing a lot. Especially after actually finding out about the Theory of Mind. Reason being is that I have been told I'm a 'sensitive' person (in the empathetic fashion) but I don't really feel like it. I feel cold and indifferent to most things that happen in the world. I do and think empathetic things because I feel like I'm forcing myself to, because if I didn't I wouldn't be human. I'd be an emotionless robot.

It's hits hardest when I read or watch some kind of media (and I'm fully aware there's the 'unconscious' to take into account here but I'm sticking with the conscious understanding I actually have) and I just... don't feel. Anything. I see almost everyone rant and rave about how some media affected them or made them feel something as if they related to the characters (minority or not) in some fashion. I don't do that. There's a huge disconnect for me where I know it's not real so I don't feel anything. I don't relate to nerdy white males in media because they don't actually exist - they are a construct made to make me feel something and they don't work. I've never met anyone that feels the same way, which is kind of scary. But at the same time, it hasn't hampered my efforts to be a person that at least tries to care.

In fact, the only thing that makes me feel like I think movies, TV and books do is music. That's it. And most of that is because it makes me daydream about all sorts of things.

To bring this on topic, I just wonder if I have something wonky going on in my head that has thrown my Theory of Mind way off balance in a similar fashion to simply not being able to put myself in the shoes of a woman or minority as well as a white guy. Because I'd like to think from what I've posted on the site I don't appear as if I don't understand at all how women or minorities feel, but it feels like I'm forcing something that does not come naturally at all. It might be why If often find it very emotionally draining - I have a ridiculously low capacity for it.

Ugh, I'm tired and this probably sound like bollocks but it's related I guess.

But, TMI;DR - Food for thought and I'm inclined to agree.

Tangent:

[Mel]

1. The other side to the Smurfette Principle is that as womanhood stands out, from a certain point of view it can also be seen as special/valuable. Aside from the obvious problematic consequences to women, the consequence to men is that there's nothing automatically "special" about being a man, i.e. we may feel we must work extra hard to prove our social value.

NT, this assertion strikes me as particularly bizarre. Would it make sense to you if I suggested that the other side of socio-racial dynamics is that from a certain point of view "Asianhood" (or "person-of-color-hood" to be more general) stands out and so can be seen as special, and that the consequence for white people is that there's nothing automatically "special" about being white, so we white folks may feel we must work extra hard to prove our social value? Does seeing a large cast of characters in which all the white characters are allowed different unique characteristics and personalities but the token Asian guy is defined completely by his Asianness seem like a social valuing of Asianhood to you, or a devaluing of being white?

Would you feel okay about "sexual" people claiming that asexuals stand out in a world where sexuality is taken for granted, and make them feel that there's nothing special about being "sexual" and so they have to prove that being sexual has social value?

I'm pretty sure from previous comments you've made that the answer is no--that you can see that the fact that white and sexual are treated as defaults is an inherent statement of social value, an implied "this is what we as a society most expect/demand/want to see from others." How does getting to have more options of ways of being and having things more catered to your gender make you less special? Socially, men are generally assumed to have more value than women by virtue of their being men--they are more likely to be listened to and taken seriously in conversations than a female equivalent, their boundaries are more likely to be respected, they are more likely to get what they ask for. The fact that sometimes an individual woman is not as romantically interested in an individual man as he is in her does not mean men are socially seen as less valuable, it means individuals do not get to have everything they want, due to personal preferences etc. (After all, the exact same woman a man feels he's at a value disadvantage to quite possibly feels she needs to prove her value to the men she is interested in who aren't necessarily interested in her.)

Guys, really, (straight) women want men. Every (straight) woman I have ever known has had crushes and stressed over how to get guys she's into to notice her/want to be with her, how to keep the interest of a guy she's currently dating, how to avoid being overly pushy/imposing on guys she's into or doing something that'll make the guy think she's weird/annoying/other negative, whether she'll be a good enough kisser/lover, etc. etc., just like guys worry about those things with women. Women value men. Women want men in their lives. Just because they also don't want to be sexually harassed or assaulted, does not mean they don't value men. I mean, for heaven's sake, none of you want to be bullied by other guys, but talking about your experiences being bullied or taking action to try to reduce bullying doesn't mean you don't want anything to do with any other guys or value friendships with guys or any of those things, right? If I point out to a grocery store that a portion of their fruit selection has gone rotten, I'm not saying, "Hey, fruit is bad, I don't value fruit or want it around unless it's extra special fruit," I'm saying, "Hey, could you be a little more careful in making sure the fruit you're offering isn't going to make me sick, because I'd really like to eat some fruit that won't."

I could go on with the analogies, but hopefully you get the point. I think the fact that guys don't seem to realize this feeds somewhat into what celette said. I grew up reading magazines and books and watching TV/movies that were aimed primarily at girls/woman and had female POV, and those are full of girls/women stressing over how to get guys to like them and going on about how into guys they are and so on and so forth. That material is out there. If you want to see that women think and say and feel more things about men than the criticisms of bad behavior, then go and read/watch/engage with that stuff the way most women also read/watch/engage with tons of material with primarily male POVs and so are aware that yes, men want women.

[Mel]

After a lot of reading and digesting, I have a few thoughts more toward the overall topic... This has gotten long. Apologies. I am trying to be thorough for clarity.

-I think Aaronson himself provides a perfect example of why what he says caused his problem is an unavoidable fact of human interaction and thus his responsibility to deal with (mental health issues or no), because society cannot fix it for him. By which I mean:

Aaronson complains that feminists aren't specific enough about what constitutes harassment and that this uncertainty and the feeling that any interaction might be viewed as an imposition fed his anxiety. The only possible solutions to this problem that I can see are a) women stop talking about feeling imposed on altogether (hopefully we can all agree this is not a reasonable solution) or b) feminists/women give men clear, definite rules about what will feel like an imposition and what won't.

At the same time, per the quotes eselle shared, he points out rules that are not actually clear or definite. e.g., He argues that stating that professors should never get romantically involved with students is ignoring the complex variations on that dynamic and the many healthy relationships that have arisen from said interactions.  He argues that giving men a clear instruction like "get explicit verbal consent" is not actually viable for some men who are too paralyzed by fear to say or do anything to convey sexual interest.

It is true that healthy relationships can arise between professors and students (in various variations on that dynamic). It is also true that some men in some situations may find it impossible to overcome their anxieties to explicitly verbally request consent. These things are true because human beings are varied individuals with varied personalities and preferences and to whom a variety of things may be happening on any given day. We cannot give men clear definite rules about what is imposing behavior and what isn't for exactly the same reason. There is no way to 100% guarantee you will never offend another human being (of any gender) unless you develop the ability to mind read.

For example, say we said, "It's always okay to say 'Hello' to a female coworker." Sounds simple. But it's actually not. Because we can all realize, right, that saying "Hi, Mary!" with momentary eye contact is a very different thing from saying a drawn out, "Helloooooo" with eyebrows raised and a blatant head to toe leer? And there's a wide range of other possibilities between those two. How exactly can we give clear definite rules about this? You must keep your tone neutral? (How do we define "neutral"?) Your eyes must never drop below a woman's neckline? You should not look at a female coworker continuously for more than two seconds?

Even if we could find a way to concretely specify every element of an interaction so that it should be completely fine in all circumstances (and if not, it's really the other person overreacting), do you really think that if sexual harassment seminars broke down interactions to that level and started telling men things like exactly how many seconds it was okay to look at a woman, that this would make guys like Aaronson less anxious about interacting with women? That it wouldn't simply make them feel even more persecuted? That there wouldn't be a backlash of guys complaining about how micromanaged they're being and how ridiculous it is to penalize a guy for holding a gaze a second "too" long, and why do women have to be so rigid and unforgiving?

So, I have total sympathy for people suffering from anxiety. I suffer from a hell of a lot of social anxiety myself. I know how tough it is, and how painful. But the fact is that there is no way that other people can give you enough rules that you won't have to feel anxious about interacting with people, because those rules do not exist in a workable form. Life is uncertain. That's just the way it is. If uncertainty causes you anxiety, you need to find ways to work around that or fix that for yourself. It would be great if there were better support systems in place for getting the help you might need, but that's an issue to take up with the health system/education system/social services, not with sexual harassment educators*, or feminists or women in general.

And it's particularly obnoxious for someone like Aaronson to complain about other people not giving blanket rules (when he feels having those rules would benefit him) while also complaining about it being unfair to make blanket rules (when he feels bending those rules benefits him).

-I think--not in all cases, but definitely a significant number--this isn't even really about how feminists talk causing the anxiety (even if we accept that feminists have a right to talk as they are and the anxiety is a personal responsibility of those feeling it). By which I mean:

Feminists are not the only activists with voices. People of color have been vocally campaigning for better treatment and against injustices for decades. Ferguson, the Michael Brown case, this is all over the internet. Perhaps not quite as prominent recently, but still very present, are speakers for LGBT rights, for mental and physical disabilities, and so on.

If guys like Aaronson are really made anxious because their primary concern is not accidentally harming someone, then they should be anxious about interacting with all other people, not just women. Hearing people speak up about bad treatment from whites toward people of color should make them paralyzed about saying or doing the wrong thing to/around people of color. Hearing people speak up about discrimination and assaults on gay, bi, and trans people should make them paralyzed about saying or doing something accidentally hurtful around any person who could be LGBT without them knowing it. And so on. Now, I'm sure there are some people who are paralyzed about all possible issues. But from what Aaronson says, and from what most of the other guys I'm seeing sympathizing with him are saying, it's specifically women with whom they have this anxiety.

So what is the defining factor for those guys? It can't be that feminists present men as problems/bad/whatever, talk harshly, etc., because I've seen just as much anger and criticism across other lines of privilege. Which suggests, it seems to me, that the defining factor is, again, something internal. It's not just about not wanting to hurt people, it's also about wanting something from those people at the same time. And this is where people start talking about "entitlement." Why is it worse for these guys to think they might hurt or offend a woman than to think they might hurt or offend a man who's less societally privileged than them? Why are they more frustrated with the concerns feminists raise about the gender they belong to than those other activists raise about their other inherent characteristics (whichever those may be)? Could it be because some part of them does feel that they're owed at least a little more interest/compassion/desire/understanding/??? from women than they are from men?

Maybe, maybe not. But it seems like a definite possibility. And if nothing else, as I said initially, it implies that the issue is not "feminists are too harsh"** but "these guys are fixating in unfortunate ways."

-Finally, on a somewhat different note, I'm puzzled but the idea that seems to be coming up that shyness and social anxiety are particular problems for men (esp. nerdy men). Yet all of the research I'm familiar with shows that women suffer from anxiety disorders significantly more often than men do. There's also research that suggests that anxiety disorders tend to have a greater negative impact on women sufferers than on men. So, I'd really appreciate some recognition that all anxious people could benefit from better support systems and resources, and that women who are anxious are not always going to be able to give perfect, rational instructions and explanations, because shockingly enough, anxiety is no more logical or controllable when a woman's suffering from it than when a man is.

*Does this mean sexual harassment education is currently done perfectly? Probably not. But I don't think "does it make some men feel overly anxious?" is a viable criteria by which to shape said education.

**I also want to note that I'm not saying that no feminist can ever be overly harsh or unfairly unkind. I just don't think that happens more among feminists than it happens within other societal movements.

[azazel]

But from what Aaronson says, and from what most of the other guys I'm seeing sympathizing with him are saying, it's specifically women with whom they have this anxiety.

It's not like you can just say "I feel anxious having to socialize with people [other than my race/LGBT/other]" without sounding horribly, horribly bigoted.
I'll freely admit that when a white woman has a stroller on the train I feel much more secure to ask her if she needs help lifting it out than a woman of a different colour, because somehow I'll do something racist.

I had a black guy call me "sir" at a place where I worked, which was freaking me out, but I just froze up because I had no appropriate response how to tell him that he didn't need to call me sir (which sounds like I recognize he's below me but am just a Nice Guy) / he shouldn't call me sir (which would sounds like a command). And of course, when I failed getting him to stop calling me sir the first time, I couldn't say anything the second or the third etc., because why didn't I say anything about it the first time?

But yeah. Do tell me I'm entitled for being anxious.
Incidentally, I see what celette means with how women are sooo good at having empathy.

[Mel]

Oh, and one other point I wanted to raise. Aaronson (along with some sympathizers) raised the idea that feminists have it in for male nerds specifically, that they target male nerds while ignoring the wrongdoings of other men ("Neanderthals" or otherwise). I'd like to point out that this is blatantly untrue--in fact, so untrue that it's incredibly academically dishonest for someone so supposedly analytical and intelligent as Aaronson to suggest it.

Yes, sometimes feminists talk about privilege and entitlement among male nerds. They also talk plenty about privilege and entitlement among jocks (did no one notice the rather emphatic feminist response to the Steubenville case?), fraternity guys (rape chants etc.), guys aggressive enough to holler at women on the street or persist in trying to talk to them despite rebuffs, guys who use religion to justify treating women as less, and so on. But here's the thing. If in one month there are a hundred major feminist articles, and five of those specifically mention nerds, there are 95 others talking about other non-nerd-related issues. But if you skip over those 95 because they don't seem relevant while reading the five that do, which articles do you think you're going to remember? Which are going to feel more impactful and intense? Probably the ones you read. The ones that felt relevant to your personal life.

Feminists are not vilifying nerds above all over men, or giving jocks and dudebros a free pass, and if anyone who thinks they are is suffering from a major perception bias which could be corrected by paying a little more attention to the wide range of issues feminists tackle.

[reboot]

.....

So, I have total sympathy for people suffering from anxiety. I suffer from a hell of a lot of social anxiety myself. I know how tough it is, and how painful. But the fact is that there is no way that other people can give you enough rules that you won't have to feel anxious about interacting with people, because those rules do not exist in a workable form. Life is uncertain. That's just the way it is. If uncertainty causes you anxiety, you need to find ways to work around that or fix that for yourself. It would be great if there were better support systems in place for getting the help you might need, but that's an issue to take up with the health system/education system/social services, not with sexual harassment educators*, or feminists or women in general.

....

Azazel, you did catch the bit where Mel said that she also suffers from social anxiety? She knows what it feels like

[Mel]

But from what Aaronson says, and from what most of the other guys I'm seeing sympathizing with him are saying, it's specifically women with whom they have this anxiety.

It's not like you can just say "I feel anxious having to socialize with people [other than my race/LGBT/other]" without sounding horribly, horribly bigoted.
I'll freely admit that when a white woman has a stroller on the train I feel much more secure to ask her if she needs help lifting it out than a woman of a different colour, because somehow I'll do something racist.

I had a black guy call me "sir" at a place where I worked, which was freaking me out, but I just froze up because I had no appropriate response how to tell him that he didn't need to call me sir (which sounds like I recognize he's below me but am just a Nice Guy) / he shouldn't call me sir (which would sounds like a command). And of course, when I failed getting him to stop calling me sir the first time, I couldn't say anything the second or the third etc., because why didn't I say anything about it the first time?

But yeah. Do tell me I'm entitled for being anxious.
Incidentally, I see what celette means with how women are sooo good at having empathy.

Yes, Azazel, you caught me out. When I repeatedly said that I didn't think this was the case for all anxious guys and what I was saying applied only to guys who didn't also feel just as anxious around other issues, clearly what I actually meant was the opposite and I intended to tell you personally that your anxiety is based on entitlement despite the fact that you do feel anxious in those other scenarios. </sarcasm>

I do find it kind of fascinating, though, that you are capable of recognizing that it sounds offensive to say that you're anxious socializing with PoC, LGBT people, etc... but somehow women are exempt from that. Why exactly is it offensive to express that those other groups make you anxious but when you express the same sentiment toward women, we're supposed to sympathize and not get offended? Apparently I'm failing in empathy for making a statement that didn't even apply to you but that you chose to take as applying to you (because you wanted to get offended, I guess?), but you are showing such good empathy by telling me that I shouldn't take it at all personally or be at all bothered by guys making general statements about all women, a group that, yep, definitely applies to me. All right then.

[reboot]

Oh, and one other point I wanted to raise. Aaronson (along with some sympathizers) raised the idea that feminists have it in for male nerds specifically, that they target male nerds while ignoring the wrongdoings of other men ("Neanderthals" or otherwise). I'd like to point out that this is blatantly untrue--in fact, so untrue that it's incredibly academically dishonest for someone so supposedly analytical and intelligent as Aaronson to suggest it.

Yes, sometimes feminists talk about privilege and entitlement among male nerds. They also talk plenty about privilege and entitlement among jocks (did no one notice the rather emphatic feminist response to the Steubenville case?), fraternity guys (rape chants etc.), guys aggressive enough to holler at women on the street or persist in trying to talk to them despite rebuffs, guys who use religion to justify treating women as less, and so on. But here's the thing. If in one month there are a hundred major feminist articles, and five of those specifically mention nerds, there are 95 others talking about other non-nerd-related issues. But if you skip over those 95 because they don't seem relevant while reading the five that do, which articles do you think you're going to remember? Which are going to feel more impactful and intense? Probably the ones you read. The ones that felt relevant to your personal life.

Feminists are not vilifying nerds above all over men, or giving jocks and dudebros a free pass, and if anyone who thinks they are is suffering from a major perception bias which could be corrected by paying a little more attention to the wide range of issues feminists tackle.

At least in the circles I run in, feminists also criticize women and other feminists as privileged and entitled:

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2013/08/30/erasing-women-of-color-from-mainstream-feminism/
http://thecoloredfountain.net/2013/12/31/a-year-in-review-2013/
http://battymamzelle.blogspot.com/2014/01/This-Is-What-I-Mean-When-I-Say-White-Feminism.html
http://blackfeministmanifesto.tumblr.com/post/36604763800/white-women-and-white-privilege-telling-them-no

[azazel]

Yes, Azazel, you caught me out.

Well, thanks for admitting that I guess.

I do find it kind of fascinating, though, that you are capable of recognizing that it sounds offensive to say that you're anxious socializing with PoC, LGBT people, etc... but somehow women are exempt from that. Why exactly is it offensive to express that those other groups make you anxious but when you express the same sentiment toward women, we're supposed to sympathize and not get offended?  Apparently I'm failing in empathy for making a statement that didn't even apply to you but that you chose to take as applying to you (because you wanted to get offended, I guess?), but you are showing such good empathy by telling me that I shouldn't take it at all personally or be at all bothered by guys making general statements about all women, a group that, yep, definitely applies to me. All right then.

Because silly me thought people here were actually interested in knowing why I feel anxious about interacting with women.
Should I look up the quotes specifically asking why people feel anxious? Or could you find those yourself? Shouldn't be too hard.

If you didn't notice, I don't go around making topics how women make me feel anxious, exactly because it sounds offensive.
But before I'm banned again for posting my point of view on something people specifically asked for my point of view, I'll take my leave from this topic. Have a great time theoretizing why men feel the way they do and what societal messages they get without having an actual penis.

[Enail]

Azazel, I'm interested to hear more about what you're describing - from previous comments here, I really hadn't realized that was how you felt about things - but it seems like this discussion already has you feeling attacked and angry. Would it be alright if I ask some follow-up questions? This is a difficult topic for everyone, and I don't want to contribute to it becoming more heated than it already is by putting people in a position of feeling like they have to justify their experience or their feelings.

ETA: <mod> Folks, cool it. Everyone. </mod>

[BasedBuzzed]

As a distraction, here's a brief link that compiles some aspects of the discussion were people talk past each other and misinterpret each other in these discussions: http://nothingismere.com/2015/01/05/punching-nerds/

[The Wisp]

I agree with celette WRT theory of mind stuff, but I would just note that all that means is that women can predict men's behavior better than the reverse. It doesn't mean they get some super special insight in men's inner subjective experiences or reasons for acting. I get annoyed when feminists tell men why they're really behaving or feeling one way, as if they're mind readers or something.

[Hirundo Bos]

I'm left with many thoughts after reading through this thread, Aronson's post, and Laurie Penny's article (I read the last one first, and think I agree with it a lot) – but I'm not sure if can straighten all of those thoughts out, so I'll just begin somewhere.

My own feelings about my sexuality, expressing sexual desire, or romantic interest... or in fact wanting pretty much anything from anyone... have been of the monstrous, blubbery, yucky kind in the past. They have improved a bit over the past few years. I no lenger feel like a disembodied limp penis tucked together in urin-moist underpants for letting anyone suspect that I might like sex.

While other people's similar feelings may have cultural messages as part of the cause, I'm pretty certain mine do not. Some of my fears come from the general social friction you get when you grow up autistic without knowing such a thing as autism exists. And to some extent, my fears have come from a justified half-conscious sense that I might harm someone with my desires, and from actual experiences where I have done harm. Romance and sexuality can be fine-tuned things, and my social calibration haven't always been the best.

This is not necessarily the case for others, of course. Other people may be calibrated well enough and still have an overwhelming fear that they are not... but it is, at least, one out of many answers to the question of where these fears might come from.

As to the solution, in my case it has been to learn more social skills. It had made me both more socially confident, and less likely to actually cross someone's boundaries. Cultural messages about creepiness and harassment have been helpful to me in this, and I'm personally happy those messages are there.

But I can see how they could have the opposite effect on others... make people less confident, more nervous, even more likely to make mistakes because of nervousness. Perhaps it could be useful in some way or other to try to figure out how I (and others who find them constructive) read those messages differently from people who are intimidated by them...

I'm not sure if it's within the topic of this thread or not though, my social calibration is a bit thin on that point.

[Mel]

Azazel, I apologize if my initial post came across as attacking you for offering information others had asked for. I wasn't directing it at you or at anyone else who's only shared feelings when asked. When I said "Aaronson and most of the other guys I'm seeing sympathizing with him," I meant guys who were spontaneously talking about how they shared his anxiety of women and reasons for it, mostly on the blog, not guys who answered requests for information. And those guys are going out of their way to point out to women how anxiety provoking we are, which you acknowledge sounds offensive and is why I may have sounded somewhat frustrated when talking about them. I'm sorry that wasn't completely clear.

[Caffeinated]

I agree with celette WRT theory of mind stuff, but I would just note that all that means is that women can predict men's behavior better than the reverse. It doesn't mean they get some super special insight in men's inner subjective experiences or reasons for acting. I get annoyed when feminists tell men why they're really behaving or feeling one way, as if they're mind readers or something.

Indeed! It's almost always a bad idea to tell someone what the real reason they're behaving or feeling a certain way is. And yet, despite it being a bad idea, it seems to be everywhere. Weird.

The exact thing you're talking about is one of the things that always rubs me the wrong way about a lot of PUA stuff. They start off ok, by predicting how women in a certain situation will react to something, and then they make some outlandish statement as to why they'll react that way. The why is nearly always wrong, and often really insultingly so. I imagine a lot of the whys given for other people's behavior combine some amount of wrong and insulting.

[nearly_takuan]

NT, this assertion strikes me as particularly bizarre. Would it make sense to you if I suggested that the other side of socio-racial dynamics is that from a certain point of view "Asianhood" (or "person-of-color-hood" to be more general) stands out and so can be seen as special, and that the consequence for white people is that there's nothing automatically "special" about being white, so we white folks may feel we must work extra hard to prove our social value?  Does seeing a large cast of characters in which all the white characters are allowed different unique characteristics and personalities but the token Asian guy is defined completely by his Asianness seem like a social valuing of Asianhood to you, or a devaluing of being white?

If we were talking specifically about the context of a movie where a character needed to be a martial arts expert, a human calculator, or (thirty years ago) a Communist subversive, then yes, the movie wouldn't need to work extra hard to give an Asian man a backstory that includes special training, unflattering glasses, or being a tragic witness to social injustice, before the audience would believe in the role. If a white man and I both auditioned for the role of "extra who gets killed by Rambo", the white man would have to do more things to his face. Do I think Asians get a net benefit from the "benevolent prejudice" that makes people say, "of course you're good at math [ / you can't be bad at math]; you're Asian," and not even blush? Of course not, and that's not what I'm arguing—but in the particular context of having to prove oneself a math geek, a guy who visually resembles The Fonz would have to actually, you know, do something vaguely mathematical before people would believe he was a mathematician. I get to just say it.

See also White history conveniently ignoring the apparently "ancient" history of multitudes of Asians working sugar plantations and the Transcontinental Railroad, which helps enable actual ongoing racism against Asian-Americans going unnoticed as we are considered by some to have already "won" as "honorary whites" or a "model minority", but also means we're not automatically assumed to be "blue collar" workers—unless, of course, we're anywhere near an "Asian" restaurant or store (at least in this city), in which case Dad and I are automatically The Help no matter what we're wearing.

Would you feel okay about "sexual" people claiming that asexuals stand out in a world where sexuality is taken for granted, and make them feel that there's nothing special about being "sexual" and so they have to prove that being sexual has social value?

If asexuality were recognized enough to even have any "benevolent prejudice" associated with it, sure. As it is, one of the biggest obstacles to the few activist groups we have is other people questioning why we have activist groups.

I'm pretty sure from previous comments you've made that the answer is no--that you can see that the fact that white and sexual are treated as defaults is an inherent statement of social value, an implied "this is what we as a society most expect/demand/want to see from others." How does getting to have more options of ways of being and having things more catered to your gender make you less special? Socially, men are generally assumed to have more value than women by virtue of their being men--they are more likely to be listened to and taken seriously in conversations than a female equivalent, their boundaries are more likely to be respected, they are more likely to get what they ask for. The fact that sometimes an individual woman is not as romantically interested in an individual man as he is in her does not mean men are socially seen as less valuable, it means individuals do not get to have everything they want, due to personal preferences etc. (After all, the exact same woman a man feels he's at a value disadvantage to quite possibly feels she needs to prove her value to the men she is interested in who aren't necessarily interested in her.)

So I'd like to clarify even more strongly: "benevolent prejudice" is still prejudice and does more harm than good to the party it applies to. It is not the same as privilege. But it's also not necessarily straight-up prejudice, because it leads people to assumptions about themselves and others that do not necessarily always have strictly-negative consequences for the target of the prejudice. In this case I am saying that while there are many, many drawbacks to, for instance, being seen as the "passive" party in dating—especially when historically the group considered to be that has actually done by far the most relationship work—there can still be other separate situational pressures associated with being the "active" party.

I'd also like to clarify that I was attempting to address questions along the lines of "where do menfolk get all these strange ideas? Silly menfolk," which is to say my intent was to explain, not to justify.

And finally I would like to reiterate that I made no claim to accuracy in the first place—just the opposite, actually. These are thoughts I've had and guesses on where they came from; I'm not just spinning off a bunch of conjectures about why another group of people thinks a certain way and congratulating myself for being more empathetic than they are.

Guys, really, (straight) women want men. Every (straight) woman I have ever known has had crushes and stressed over how to get guys she's into to notice her/want to be with her, how to keep the interest of a guy she's currently dating, how to avoid being overly pushy/imposing on guys she's into or doing something that'll make the guy think she's weird/annoying/other negative, whether she'll be a good enough kisser/lover, etc. etc., just like guys worry about those things with women. Women value men. Women want men in their lives.  Just because they also don't want to be sexually harassed or assaulted, does not mean they don't value men.  I mean, for heaven's sake, none of you want to be bullied by other guys, but talking about your experiences being bullied or taking action to try to reduce bullying doesn't mean you don't want anything to do with any other guys or value friendships with guys or any of those things, right?  If I point out to a grocery store that a portion of their fruit selection has gone rotten, I'm not saying, "Hey, fruit is bad, I don't value fruit or want it around unless it's extra special fruit," I'm saying, "Hey, could you be a little more careful in making sure the fruit you're offering isn't going to make me sick, because I'd really like to eat some fruit that won't."

And again, even though nerds can be just as bad as anyone else, for a long time the prevailing mainstream stereotype was that nerds and bullies were diametrically opposed and so of course a nerd isn't a bully—which meant a "nerd" was less likely to be suspected of bullying or have bullying-related accusations against him/her taken seriously, while a sporty male "jock" maybe feels pressured to try to act extra nice all the time and go out of his way to make the less popular counterculture kids feel safe around him (to varying degrees of success, of course, because being "extra nice" can unintentionally come across suspicious/creepy as well). Nowadays the "football player who wouldn't hurt a fly" has become an Archetype of its own and people are gradually becoming more aware that bullying doesn't require physical intimidation.

[Mel]

I see what you're saying about benevolent prejudice, NT--that just isn't how your initial statements came across.  People assuming that women are good at sewing or naturally parental and men having to work a little if they want to be believed to be good/natural at those things is a much more narrow type of "value" than men simply feeling they don't have as much value or aren't as "special" as women in social situations in general, which is what it sounded like you were saying. I mean, there are plenty of benevolent stereotypes about men in dating just as there are negative ones--ideas like men as providers and men as protectors--which are both factors that following this line of theorizing should give men an automatic assumed value relative to the woman they're pursuing.  And plenty of negative stereotypes about women in relationships (being needy, nagging, killjoys, etc.) that would in theory decrease their value relative to men.

Am I not following correctly? Were you maybe suggesting that the implication that some men harm women when trying to date them overshadows all the positive stereotypes about men in relationships, or something else?  If the former, any thoughts on why that might be?

And I'm not sure how your last paragraph relates to the paragraph of mine you quoted above it? I was trying to make a point about women valuing men in general and how criticism of some men's behavior shouldn't be seen as eliminating that value, not about nerds vs. bullies. That point was intended not specifically toward you (which is why I started it with "Guys") but toward the many guys who've talked about how criticism of masculinity and negative male behavior makes them feel low and completely unwanted.

[Dan_Brodribb]

I have both been called a creep and acted like a creep before (and still blush and say "Damn, what was I thinking!") back when I was younger. It was not a label I liked and one that I had to work hard to shed in a few social circles back in college, but it was not the end of the world. Embarrassing as hell, made me avoid certain men because I felt bad and awkward and creepy, but did not destroy my social life or get me branded with a scarlet C for life.

So I guess I do not get it either...

If I'm reading you right, it sounds like you and RBS are trying to 'get it' by comparing it to your own experience. I haven't always found that helpful. When I tried to 'get' certain aspects of feminism by using my own experience as a baseline, it was an uphill battle. Especially online, where my only point of contact with the other person was what we were able to articulate in words during an emotional discussion during one moment in time on a single subject. It was just too easy to fill in the blanks with my own ideas about who this person was and what they were saying while faulting them for not having access to my thoughts, intentions, etc. when I was writing.

if I had to guess, I would say the difference for you and RBS is both of you have HAD the experience of being called creepy and having worked to move past it. So you have the benefit of hindsight. The impression I get from many guys (and it was true of me in the past) that the fear of the consequences of being creepy and the belief that I can't handle it prevents them from acting. So they (we, if I included past me) don't actually KNOW what will happen--it's just a shapeless Fear Fog on the horizon we imagine must contain Something Unimaginably Bad.

As counterintuitive as it sounds, I think the problem is many of these guys have isn't that they're creepy. It's that they haven't been creepy ENOUGH. Which feels weird to type, because I feel it sounds like I'm advocating people to be creepy when what I'm trying to say is letting the FEAR of creepiness stop us robs us from the experiences we need to learn--trying things out, paying attention to the feedback we get, and making adjustments.

[Wondering]

Not sure I totally understood all that, but...are you saying we (men) tend to have a sort of halfway-developed theory of mind (or something similar), such that we understand women think differently but don't understand the actual thought process well enough to accurately predict their perceptions or trust in such a prediction? It's an interesting thought, and one that I expect will percolate when I'm less tired. Might be a while, but I'll try to come back to this again.

I'm very damned sure we agree re: education rights and other general equality ideals (see 9; the main thing I tend to disagree with others here on is what the status quo actually looks like), so the only thing that's giving me "feelings" is the suspicion that several of my identity-groups have just been called stupid.

I'm not celette, but here's my take on this. She didn't call any of your identity groups stupid. Not having the same agility with Theory of the Mind as others means one is less empathetic. Saying men, as a whole, are less empathetic to women, as a whole, than women are to men is, I believe, a true statement. Not being exposed to women's perspectives, not having to think like a woman for a variety of reasons, creates this sort of dynamic. It's why there's a whole thread in this forum about media by and about women: So that there are places men who want to can go to start to experience things from a woman's perspective.

Not being empathetic doesn't mean you're stupid. (As long as we're separating knowledge intelligence from emotional intelligence.) It's also something you can get better at, individually and as a group, if you put effort into it.

To bring this on topic, I just wonder if I have something wonky going on in my head that has thrown my Theory of Mind way off balance in a similar fashion to simply not being able to put myself in the shoes of a woman or minority as well as a white guy. Because I'd like to think from what I've posted on the site I don't appear as if I don't understand at all how women or minorities feel, but it feels like I'm forcing something that does not come naturally at all. It might be why If often find it very emotionally draining - I have a ridiculously low capacity for it.

I can't address the issue you raise of not feeling things much, but I did want to address your comment that you feel like empathy is something that doesn't come naturally at all to you. I think that's true for a lot of people. I don't think empathy with groups you don't belong to is necessarily natural. I think you have to especially work at it if it's a group you have privilege over.

Now, I would say that I have automatic empathy to a certain extent with groups that have privilege over me (specifically men and the able-bodied) because that is the norm/default in our society, and I have been acclimated and socialized to life like that. I don't think it's particularly natural, though.

[Sponsored content]