Text:
Panel 1 Man and woman in office clothes in a break room.
Man: So, if you were alone in a forest, would you rather run into a strange man… or a bear?
Panel 2 Woman: Oh, hmm… I think the bear.
Man (angry): How can you say that?
(Bear looking quizzically through the window)
Panel 3 Man (angry): You’re demonizing men! It’s misandry!
Panel 4 Woman: Good point. Why would I ever hear men’s reactions?
Man: Exactly! …where did the honey go?
Panel 5 Woman and bear sharing tea
Woman: At least if you maul me, pepper won’t say I made it up or I’m misinterpreting.
Bear: I hear you
When I said “nobody’s doing that” (with the proviso that yes, surely, SOME people genuinely are that stupid) I meant it. I used myself as an example of someone saying the precise opposite and still having it interpreted as “MISANDRY!!!111oneoneoneeleventy!”
With #ManOrBear, you can spend ten thousand lines explaining that you do not believe all men are evil, slavering monsters who will assault women if given the chance to do it and then one line asking the thought experiment and you’ll still get the “MISANDRY!!!111oneoneoneeleventy!” response. There is no way to communicate the very important message of that thought experiment without having a bunch of “men who might otherwise be allies” freaking out. (Which to my mind calls into question their value as potential allies.)
If we want to have these conversations and raise these issues online, I think to some extent we have to accept that these are going to happen, but equally they aren’t the people you were ever going to reach anyway so it’s not worth focusing on them.
While the trolls are doing their best to derail every conversation, there are still reasonable people who will hear you and see what’s going on.
Exactly right, that’s the issue we’re talking about with the thought experiment.
Every human being has value. I don’t think an ally has to be perfect today as long as they are getting better tomorrow.