Men's Group

Which is ridiculous; I mean, look, this isn't the most well-traveled corner of DU. I know that, we all know that. There are a few people who post here, but not a ton.

Always more are welcome, of course. But it's not a giant draw. Which is fine.

But it's ridiculous to imagine that ALL the PR problems some people seem to be experiencing, for instance, in GD, somehow have something to do with the mens group. Many of the principals in most of those battles don't post here, at all.

And some people were having problems; the same problems- with DU-in-general long before TMG even existed. There were issues between some people and the LGBT group. There were issues; big ol' fights- around the old Feminists group which led to the creation of separate groups in the first place.

So it's ludicrous to imagine that, oh, this is just some specific thing between our group and them. Our group is pretty friggin' small, at least in terms of regulars- to imagine that we wield such great influence on DU that we can cause a large chunk of GD to respond negatively to whatever piece of "education" the crowd over there is dishing out this week...

sure I'd like to believe that ... but it's absurd.

The truth of the matter is, people don't respond well to being lectured, and they're also smarter than I think some of the main players give them credit for. They remember things from month to month, and they're generally sharp enough to laugh at someone who's saying "don't you dare deny agency and choice to middle eastern women by claiming they're too brainwashed to make their own decisions" one week when the same person two weeks ago was arguing that "porn stars are totally incapable of giving consent to taking their clothes off because they're too brainwashed to make their own decisions".

What happens with clock-like regularity; and it's been happening since DU2, at least- a few of the same people trundle out into the DU crowd, stand on a soapbox, pull out a megaphone, and start lecturing the rest of the place on these matters that maybe 90% of the larger DU populace really doesn't agree with. And as Skinner put it, these are not issues of equality, reproductive freedom, or what most Feminists consider the front-burners... these are, almost invariably, some iteration of the argument that some word, some mild innuendo, or something like consenting adult nudity is inherently and profoundly oppressive to women.

And DU doesn't agree. Most of DU doesn't, at least, and I suspect no amount of hectoring is going to change that. Which is the other thing; people don't like being talked down to, being lectured like errant schoolchildren, being presumed upon that they have come to this discussion website freely of their own accord because they believe their fundamental worldview is deficient and needs "educating", "correction", semantics-scolding and privilege-checking. They might tolerate it for a little while, but eventually it's going to piss them off.

The same folks do it for 5, or 7, or 10 years or so, continuously ....and people are going to be quite tired of it, indeed.

Bainsbane talks about a "ceasefire", in the other thread. Shit, man, I *tried*. I actually thought it would be good for DU, good for what was meta, and good for TMG. And it was, it worked, for a little while. But I will confess I had an ulterior, or side motive- I knew that in the court of DU public opinion, the constant fighting with TMG was actually making it easier for certain people to stir the pot without being noticed, because -again- it was all too easy for people on DU to say "ah, it's these particular groups, both sides are doing it" and some people could always portray the situation as, if The Bad Men would just go away, they wouldn't be forced to start endless meta threads on DU's latest outrage or DU's lack of caring about DU's latest outrage or the outrage of DU not caring enough about DU not caring about the outrage, etc.


My prediction was that lacking a convenient foil in the mens group, certain members of the site would head off into GD and start picking fights there.

Which was exactly what happened. Then, when meta imploded, (despite the initial happy dancing) I suspect the same folks quickly figured out that the oxygen had been sucked out of some of their favorite drama conflagrations. So the action moved into GD, even more.

And the reaction of DU has been pretty predictable, as a whole. Of course, when public opinion starts seriously not going their way, the initial reflexive tactic is to do stuff like start threads talking about how "MRAs attack Feminists", and I've already explained how this is a transparent attempt to paint every position advanced by certain regulars as unimpeachable, universal "Feminism" (it's not) and then to paint everyone who disagrees with those people as "MRAs" (when we're not).

It's desperation, but again it's an attempt to blame all their troubles on the mens group. Which is not even close to the case.