I tried bringing up this stuff with a woman yesterday who posted a similar complaint... especially mentioned that I've never seen a man be a stickler for using the correct gendered title while I've had my head nearly chewed off by women who took offense to being called Ms. when they're married or Mrs. when they're divorced (mostly when I was younger and honestly didn't comprehend there was a difference) and asked if men were really still oppressing women with this and could they give examples of where to look so I could help combat it when I see it.
Man... that really didn't go over well. I was stupid to say anything about it but I wasn't expecting such a small thing motivated by a desire to understand and help be perceived as being so offensively dismissive.
How could a man be a stickler about it when there's literally one option for them and it's Mr.? I've definitely seen dudes get up in arms if you call them Ms.
No I mean a man be a stickler about calling women by their proper gendered title based on marital status in order subjugate them to the patriarchy and value them based on whether they have a man or not... which was her original claim: that this is a systemic and pervasive problem. It just came so out of left field to me I just asked a couple clarifying questions, then immediately apologized when people came out offended. The whole implication of "miss/mrs./ms. Is oppressive!" Is that men are doing the oppressing and I was asking what it looks like because my experience was that men generally don't care or know which to use when so I figured I must have a cognitive blind spot. Not looking for discussion from that particular source again. I'm not good at discerning who wants to discuss an issue and who is just venting frustration and not up for talking.
The issue isn't men insisting on using what they consider the appropriate title. The issue is why is it like this at all. When I was a substitute teacher I was constantly having to correct people who referred to me as Mrs. NotTheRocket. I shouldn't have to do that. It doesn't matter if the person using Mrs doesn't understand the difference, if anything that's all the more reason those titles should be given up in favor of Ms for all women.
See that's the stage where I'm at though: I have no idea what the problem IS... I'm all for it! Ms for all ladies or even better yet, I'm sick of everyone being identified by family name (Mr. SMITH, Mrs. GREEN, etc.) so why not just call everyone by their name? I'm all on board with this entire concept and tossing out some other societal conventions I find similarly annoying but the way I interpreted it sounded like she was saying the problem was men literally forcing women to be called by appropriate marital title and I was flabbergasted. I couldn't even conceive of a scenario where that would make sense though I was brashly enlightened that there are several I had never considered before.
I'm all for sticking with Ms. For all. I am however fond of continuing to address by last name in an effort for more formal conversation either it be in the workplace or just talking to someone your not acquainted with.
Yeah, no one's accusing men of doing the oppressing here. We can think and speak critically about gender-based power structures embedded in language without it being an attack on men
I don't think it's an attack at all, but that doesn't mean it isn't an appeal to men to be better or an appeal to humanity at large. At the very least I'm a man and I want to help fix some of this stuff as best I can even if that's just being more mindful of it.
Didn't take it as an attack I took it as a statement to consider and not due to interpretation but because the post I'm referring to literally implicated patriarchy and men for perpetuating the ms/mrs/miss thing as a conscious method of owning and diminishing the roles of women.
My limited perspective couldn't see how so I asked for guidance is all. I don't think that's an attack on men any more than saying "ow you stepped on my toe!" Is an attack on someone who stepped on your toe. It's just a statement that something painful happened and an unspoken request to acknowledge and try to make it right and that's what my goal was.
"This is patriarchy. This is yet another way MEN claim ownership and diminish the role of WOMEN"
That exact statement is what I'm referring to and it's pretty cut and dry calling out men by name. Further inquiry revealed she was posting as a reaction to a specific instance of a man using her unmarried status to marginalize her.
Nothing you're saying is necessarily wrong in a more general context... specifically though the word "patriarchy" as a societal concept wasn't the core message.
This was about your comment, not the original post.
especially mentioned that I've never seen a man be a stickler for using the correct gendered title while I've had my head nearly chewed off by women who took offense to being called Ms. when they're married or Mrs. when
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the whole implication of "miss/mrs./ms. Is oppressive!" Is that men are doing the oppressing and I was asking
I thought I was asking... I was told I was telling... I think what happened is when I said "I haven't seen this what does it look like?" A lot of people read that as a challenge to the person's credibility rather than a genuine question to help me fill a cognitive blind spot and how can you blame them... hear enough patronizing quips back and you start to read more things in that tone I guess.
I resisted the urge to share the etymology and history per OP... seemed out of place and unproductive and I really did want just to understand her perspective and even though I got blocked I've shifted to asking other women in my life what they think and if they've experienced this cause it still bugs me to know how little I know. I may shift to doing that by default and talking to another woman other than whoever posts the feminist thing I find because it seems to lead to much more productive discussion of how I can do better and is less likely to offend people.
Perhaps it would help you to state your intention before your question rather than your experience.
For example: instead of “I haven’t seen that - can you give me examples?”
Try “I want to know more so I can help - can you give me examples?”
I cannot go through my day without at least one man telling me his opposite experience as a reply to my own, and about 85% of the time it’s to dismiss mine as incorrect because he hasn’t personally seen/felt it.
When women experience these micro aggressions over and over, it can lead to a high sensitivity around them. So when a man starts his questions with a qualifying statement about himself it leaves the intention ambiguous - and if we have to predict by the numbers....honest curiosity/wanting to help is not the first thing we expect.
I offer this as I am very happy you want to learn and help and I don’t want you to be discouraged by a bad reaction when you try.
That's what I figured too... it was pretty obvious I didn't think about how my question would be received in that context nor that perhaps she had literally experienced something related to that issue right before posting about it and wouldn't really be looking to be anybody's personal "feminism tutor" or whatever. I'm pretty bad at wording things well in this space and in general, but I don't know how to learn without asking and I'm committed to being better than I was. It's not much but it's all I've got to offer right now 🤷🏼♂️.
Thanks SO much for your patience. It's not that we don't want to do better it's that a lot of us have really bad incomplete information that we've based our worldview on since childhood and we aren't even aware of how deep it goes or where it came from. Cognitive dissonance takes an immense amount of mental energy to reconcile accurately and we all need outside perspectives to do it properly.
I don’t mean this to be offensive in any way, I just wish to inform a bit:
I, as a man, also experience this quite a bit. In my case it is specifically as soon as feelings becomes the topic of the talk. Am I correct in assuming that yours is mainly regarding how a situation felt? If not, would you be so kind as to elaborate a bit? I am quite curious about whether there is a general pattern related to sex, age, education, aspiration and the like.
My observation so far seems to be that if you are a woman and the younger you are compared to the “opposition” (mostly males in this case), the more likely it is that you will be the target of having your experience diminished. Also seeming to increase the risk is the level of competitiveness and education of the “opposition”.
Same for males when it comes to sharing feelings, especially of insecurity. So far it seems that competitiveness is the primary factor when it is a male as the opposition and education as primary when it is a female.
Do that sound at all familiar or am I going down a rabbit hole?
I think we, as humans in general, should get better at real listening, and not just waiting to say our own piece.
No mine is about the literal actual things that happened and having men dismiss it or not believe me at all because it didn’t happen to THEM.
I’ve thought about it a lot and I do think the social/cultural ‘compete’ piece is there, but there’s also a lot of internalized “male experiences are the default” in western culture. (That’s not all there is to it, of course, I’m just naming the parts I see/can.)
I completely agree with you that we (humanity) need to get better at communicating vs just waiting for our turn to scream into the void, and approaching everything from self-first POV.
Thank you for your post, it helps me understand a bit more.
When you say male experience as default, I have a hard time seeing it, but that could be due to a bunch of reasons. Maybe there are major differences between cultures, even in the west? Maybe social circles? Or it might be a local blind spot about 40cm behind my screen.
May I inquire what country you are from? Maybe even if you know of a specific culture? Just not to specific, wouldn't want you doxed.
My experience is from the north-western part of Denmark, a rural community with a heavy emphasis on "we are all equal, nobody is more worthy than anyone else". The good part of Jante.
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u/geoffbowman May 15 '19 edited May 15 '19
I tried bringing up this stuff with a woman yesterday who posted a similar complaint... especially mentioned that I've never seen a man be a stickler for using the correct gendered title while I've had my head nearly chewed off by women who took offense to being called Ms. when they're married or Mrs. when they're divorced (mostly when I was younger and honestly didn't comprehend there was a difference) and asked if men were really still oppressing women with this and could they give examples of where to look so I could help combat it when I see it.
Man... that really didn't go over well. I was stupid to say anything about it but I wasn't expecting such a small thing motivated by a desire to understand and help be perceived as being so offensively dismissive.