I was defending you so you should probably re-read my post, or take note of the context.

Apologies, I guess you were being ironic. My bad.

Tom I appreciate your comments though I respectfully acknowledge that you don’t agree with me. But thank you for just saying so rather than doing it any other way!

Even for this place, and I consider myself a veteran and partaker of a fair number of incredibly obtuse threads – this one stands out as being neither interesting or entertainingly firery – it’s just nasty

Let me be the first to congratulate you on having played your part so well.

I was defending you so you should probably re-read my post, or take note of the context.

You know it just hit me that this is a great example of how neuroticism can make you completely misread something. I genuinely read it as a hostile comment. I am really sorry.

I score quite highly on neuroticism and right now I am feeling pretty ‘got at’ (but tha’s entirely my own fault) and so my neuroticism is piqued.

I only mention it to highlight what I’ve been trying to say.

That thread on Mumsnet is horrific. I’ve genuinely never heard (never mind seen) anything like that in my life; It’s absolutely abhorrent.

geetee1972 – Member

You know it just hit me that this is a great example of how neuroticism can make you completely misread something. I genuinely read it as a hostile comment. I am really sorry.

Not even necessary, just a group of people trying failing to communicate an idea via the medium of type, which they would easily get across face to face, or via the medium of pints.

Daffy – Member
That thread on Mumsnet is horrific. I’ve genuinely never heard (never mind seen) anything like that in my life; It’s absolutely abhorrent.

+1. Made me feel sick, angry and incredibly sad. I think all men should read it – it would make us a lot more aware of what women go through and probably more active in our support.

What the **** did the OP expect? It took a twitter hashtag to make him shocked about male and human behaviour?

Well, I was quite hopeful on the first couple of pages. Then the very people who should be stopping and thinking turned up and the predictable STW shitfight ensued.

GT, Tom, this issue isn’t about your feelings. It’s about those of a shockingly large proportion of the female population who have been made to feel uncomfortable, been harassed, assaulted or worse, by men because they are women.

That’s all.

If you can’t deal with it (and I’d say the last seven or eight pages are pretty good evidence of that), then you need to take a good long look at yourselves. Grow up.

I clicked into this thread just now because I thought it would be interesting. And it really is!

Yet another reminder
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41741615

Half of British women and a fifth of men have been sexually harassed at work or a place of study, a BBC survey says.
Of the women who said they had been harassed, 63% said they didn’t report it to anyone, and 79% of the male victims kept it to themselves.
The ComRes poll for BBC Radio 5 live spoke to more than 2,000 people.

GT, Tom, this issue isn’t about your feelings. It’s about those of a shockingly large proportion of the female population who have been made to feel uncomfortable, been harassed, assaulted or worse, by men because they are women.

Which, most of us knew and cared about anyway. Did people really assume that white men are better than what goes on in the developing world, on tv, in the news media etc? Did we really, deep down believe that we’ve actually evolved much in the past few thousands of years? No, we’re still the same moronic, nasty semi-apes that we were before – and I don’t believe that any of the males on here, on a deep level, didn’t realise that. You lot seemed to be shocked by that mumsnet thread, I’m not at all, maybe because I knew what to expect.

Yet, a lot of you decided to use the thread for a good old bash of someone who appears to not always have as much empathy as you’d like – but for all you know, may have autism (I’m not saying you do Geetee, it’s just that I’m still **** livid). Do you really think that it’s acceptable to, in a derisory manner – to ask someone what their EQ is? **** off, I’ll caveat that with the argument that you shouldn’t do that, even if they have awkwardly mentioned their IQ.

And actually, come to think of it – **** that Guardian article for telling people (men mostly) to “read a room”, what does this even mean? And what do you do with people who can’t actually “read a room” for physiological reasons? Lynch them? Tie them up from a tree for thought crimes? Be utter arseholes to them in a thread like this?

And actually, come to think of it – **** that Guardian article for telling people (men mostly) to “read a room”, what does this even mean? And what do you do with people who can’t actually “read a room” for physiological reasons? Lynch them? Tie them up from a tree for thought crimes?

It means walk in, make an assessment of the situation and behave accordingly, is it a work situation? Then don’t hit on the lady who can’t leave because she is at work.
Is it a gathering of close friends? Then yes a hug could be appropriate
Is it a social situation where you don’t know many people? Don’t be over familiar.
Is it that hard to grasp?

For people who can’t manage that for whatever reason then refer back to the list of things that may/could/can make people uncomfortable and could well be considered inappropriate.

Have you seen Atypical yet?

I’d wager that it gets a bit more complicated than that, what you are essentially asking those people to do – is abstain from a normal part of the human experience. Nice.

You bunch of neurobigots.

No Tom, what I am asking the majority of people to do is have a lot more respect for other people, understand what their responsibilities in life are and to follow rule 1 – don’t be a dick.
Either you are trying to make things more complicated or just spoiling for an argument. Yes there are a number of conditions that make things more difficult. I’ll take back the whatever reason part and replace it with if you have no clue how to behave because think it’s fine to harass women then read the list and stick to it.

Again you seem to want to take us all off into a little corner rather than address the key issues – 50% of women say they have been sexually harassed at work or a place of study.

No Tom, what I am asking the majority of people to do is have a lot more respect for other people, understand what their responsibilities in life are and to follow rule 1 – don’t be a dick.

In the context of this thread…

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GIGKYVeNCc[/video]

I’ll be honest – I’m not sure what you lot are arguing about.

I think the most appalling thing is that some people are actually surprised about prevalence of this sort of behavior…… although, thinking back to a couple of relatively recent threads, maybe it was obvious that many men (even the right-on, hand-wringing, bedwetting, leftie types on here) don’t even recognize blatantly sexist/mysoginistic behavior when they see it:

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Exhibit 3

There again, I suspect that many on here have never actually spoken to a real, human female.

or just spoiling for an argument

This is usually his default position, commonly facilitated by the fabrication of an entire army of straw men in order to make the conversation about him and his awesomeness. Sad.

Are you American as well as being demented?

Many people have suggested you need some help, I have to agree

you’re neurotic and need tablets.

We can already tell you’re a very troubled individual with a deep-seated sense of inadequacy and a boundless aptitude for BS.

You lot are very liberal when it comes to using mental health as a way to insult someone aren’t you?

The icing on the cake, Binners bringing Geetees children into it. Class.

You seriously need professional help! I’m not being funny, its no wonder your experiences in life, and your relationship with the opposite sex have been so ‘challenging’. Your belief system is just so fundamentally wrong on so many levels. As someone with two daughters, it really worries me that there are people like you out there. I hope to god that the two sons you say you’ve got are more enlightened, and aren’t having your frankly warped attitude to women passed on to them!

Those are just some of them and the insults aren’t limited to this thread either.

Binners, what did you expect to achieve with that? First off, lets recognise that’s a dick post to make to begin with – without even considering where Geetee is at mentally. Then, let’s say Geetee is in a bad place, do you think your post helps? Do you think any of your posts help at all?

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt2mbGP6vFI[/video]

My only post in this thread is to conclude that no good can come from partaking in this thread. 💡

Luffs you all though. 🙂

Tom, not withstanding some of the other comments, what’s your issue with this one?

Many people have suggested you need some help, I have to agree

For context, the abridged timeline of events is:

1) GT makes ludicrous comment about this being a symmetrical issue
2) He gets rightfully pushed back
3) Rather than leave it at that, he continues to double down, exhibiting many of the attitudes this thread and the campaign in general is seeking to de-normalise
4) This argument gets to the stage where it’s clear that GT’s position is not one that could be held by a rational person, and thus suggestions of help are made
5) GT lays out some of his background, including abuse he himself suffered as a child
6) Suggestions that help is needed are mostly qualified on this base, many of them openly stating that if his behaviour IRL is reflective of that shown on this thread, then it really would be of personal benefit to him
7) After a hiatus, GT starts posting reams and reams of at best tangentially relevant text, totally de-railing the discussion, and resulting in the shitfight seen above. At this point a number of others who usually just show up for a fight also turn up and “contribute”

You lot are very liberal when it comes to using mental health as a way to insult someone aren’t you?

Noted. Perhaps you could even start a thread about it, and, y’know’, leave this one to the topic it was established to cover 💡

I’m too **** wound up to even bother replying right now Zokes to the timeline of events, I genuinely thought you lot were better than this. Maybe tomorrow, I’m now just going to go an browse reddit to amuse myself into a better mood.

I mean, we troll the crap out of each other – but it doesn’t usually get that personal.

Geetee based on his long term posting history is old fashioned, prone to low grade misogyny with a slight bent for male rights topics, but he would appear to at heart – to be decent – given his thread on voyeurism in photography. This is someone, that given patience and reasoned discussion can probably be brought around to agreeing with a lot of the points made by yourself. Isn’t this what we are meant to be doing as men, convincing our fellow comrades to listen to women – instead of shutting them down and alienating them further?

I cannot reconcile the level of deeply offensive vitriol spewed his way with his posting history. Night chaps, try to be nicer to one another.

Geetee based on his long term posting history is old fashioned, prone to low grade misogyny with a slight bent for male rights topics

Sounds like the ideal candidate to heed the advice presented earlier on then. It’s very clear that people exhibiting these traits are exactly those who need to change. He’s shown a very clear resistance to this, resulting in the shitfight that followed.

I’m not excusing some of the more personal insults, some of which were probably my own, but when you have calmed down, re-read this thread from the beginning and perhaps you’ll see the context.

And for all your pleas for civilised debate, you really need to take a long hard look at your own contributions – not least when you decided to round on me for having the temerity to start the thread in the first place.

I don’t think the manual for altering political or social beliefs includes throwing Citalopram or Risperidone at people. He sounds typical of the mid-40’s generation in terms of beliefs and what some of you read as resistance – read to me as though he had racing thoughts and points – his resistance came across to me, as a lack of attention to detail in regards to other peoples opinions. This wasn’t a wilful ignoring of yours and others points, like you get with Ninfan and Jamby – which is why I thought you were all suffering from Post Ninfan Exposure Disease.

I apologise Zokes for laying into you, honestly I don’t think you were guilty of much in this thread – I think I just lost my patience.

For the record 100% of what I post and the views I express are motivated by a defence against misandry and not any kind of misogyny. It seems however that taking that position means some people will automatically believe you are a hater of women at worst or just old fashioned at best. That just makes me more sure of the importance of holding the view that I do, which is that we need to address the creeping marginalisation of masculinity.

I grew up in a truly emancipated household, where my mother was a professional woman of very high academic standing. It’s her I’ve tried to emulate in professional life and it’s the model of her that I chose to spend my life with. I do work, but in our household, it’y my career that is taking a back seat so that my wife can pursue hers. I’m doing fine but ostensibly treading water so that I can be the primary care giver (read that article in The Economis – I am the prototypical example they reference). I’m really very proud of that but I only mention it here to try (probably in vain) to demonstrate I’m not a misogynist. In the past some of you have used that information to suggest rather nastily, that perhaps my ideas are motivated by having had my ‘fragile male ego dented’.

The BBC research is a really good example of the core idea I’ve been trying to argue. 20% of men have experienced sexual harassment at work and not for one second do I belive that figure is acurate.

I believe it is likely to be higher because men are disposed to not worry about things as much and their lower level of agreeableness means they often just don’t realise that something bad just happened.

At this stage I don’t think the instance of male harassment will be as high as 50% (though it might be as more women adopt positions of power) so clearly the problem is not strictly speaking ‘symmetric’ (and I’m really sorry I used the term asymmetric in quite such a free way), but it’s certainly high enough for us to reasonably ask for the narative of harassment to stop being about something men do to women and start being about something that people do to each other (and which we really shouldn’t). That would be a really progressive step and would take a lot of the politics out of the situation. I think it would be massively beneficial.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve been trying to argue. Yeah, that might make me a ‘meninist’ but you can be that without being a misogynist – I know an awful lot of them are deeply hateful of women but I’m not one of them.

which is that we need to address the creeping marginalisation of masculinity.

Are we going to address the creeping marginalisation of white men specifically? They’ve always had it really tough. As one myself, I feel my life is a constant battle, and I can only think, with sad regret, how much more I could have achieved had I been, say, an Asian Muslim woman, and how many more doors in modern society would have been open to me if I was.

The BBC research is a really good example of the core idea I’ve been trying to argue. 20% of men have experienced sexual harassment at work and not for one second do I belive that figure is acurate.

Perhaps you should find some tin-hat wearing fruitloop on youtube to tell you different? I generally find that they’re a far more reliable source of information than the notoriously dishonest and untrustworthy BBC, or any fusty old government or University research

that we need to address the creeping marginalisation of masculinity.

what does this mean? From my own experience I don’t see many men fearing to be or worried about expressing “masculinity”

so clearly the problem is not strictly speaking ‘symmetric’

[irony] no shit, Sherlock [\irony] 😆

as an aside, what percentage of the men who reported harassment identify as Gay, Trans or Bi, and from who are they getting harassed? and are you including those people in your stats of “men getting harassed” ? I’m guessing* that the same group of men who leer and gesture at women are more likely to do the same thing to Gay men, and should those be reported separately?

* my experience. I haven’t googled…

That’s it. That’s all I’ve been trying to argue.

If only you’d posted that about 12 pages ago….

Are we going to address the creeping marginalisation of white men specifically

Well the singularly most disadvantaged group in UK society currently, the ones we really should be worried about, is white working class boys.

The statistics of their performance at school and higher education should really worry everyone for many reasons, not least of which is that we are creating a entire generation likely to have a predisposition towards far right wing politics.

Think about it – what group of people are most likely to support people like Trump and Farage/Brexit? If you really want the UK to slip into Facism, keep ignoring white working class boys and men and see what happens.

If only you’d posted that about 12 pages ago….

You know for what it’s worth Zokes, genuinely I am sorry for that – you’re right, I should have done that. I know this has been a bitter thread. I was in a right mugwump all weekend feeling hurt by the things people had said to me and feeling bad knowing that the way I had expressed my views also hurt others – really I am very sorry for that. But ultimately debate is all we have and it’s so important we keep doing it, no matter how painful. When we’re talking, we aren’t actually physically hurting each other.

The alternative is unthinkable. It’s people voting for ‘leaders’ like Trump or Brexit because they hate the foreigners. That’s abhorrent to me – heck it might really surprise you but I voted for Corbyn for precisely this reasons.

I was in a right mugwump all weekend feeling hurt by the things people had said to me and feeling bad knowing that the way I had expressed my views also hurt others – really I am very sorry for that.

I call BS and possible reaching for appeasement. The reason? When I referred you in the other thread on Monday about the contents of this one you happily claimed you hadn’t read this one since last Thursday. So how could you have known and be feeling bad over the weekend?

For a self acclaimed intellect you’ve a poor memory.

Well I say 85th percentile, it’s tricky. I scored in the 97th percentile on the Watson Glazer Critical Reasoning test but only in the 75th percentile for the Raven’s Progressive Matricies. I’ve done a few IQ test that have given me a score of around 120-130 which is classed as ‘very superior intelligence’, but honestly I’m not sure how accurate that is. I know I’m reasonably smart, but I’m a long way behind people like my best friend who has an IQ of around 160.

WTAF? Did you actually post this? Do you realise what a complete knob that makes you sound?

Not only do you post your IQ score, you know the IQ of your “best friend”??????

For a self acclaimed intellect you’ve a poor memory.

Bless you Kryton – I think the last time I checked in was on Friday not Thursday and on that day I read enough to feel as I articulated above.

WTAF? Did you actually post this? Do you realise what a complete knob that makes you sound?

Bless you gobchul for saying so. Yes apparently I did post it. It was in response to a challenge. I work in the field of organisational psychology and have been tested a lot as a consequence of this, as have a lot of my friends, so knowing the information is just something you know.

It’s interesting that simply answering the question ‘what is your IQ’ should result in someone being regarded, to use your words, as a knob. That’s your perogative I guess but please don’t expect invitations to dinner or a Christmas card from me. 😀 I would happily buy you a beer though and perhaps we can find out who each other really is. I mean that sincerely – I live in Horsham if you’re ever close and want to take me up.

…

You know for what it’s worth Zokes, genuinely I am sorry for that

It’s actually worth a remarkable amount, geetee. I too am sorry for my part in what became quite an unsavoury barrage against you. Im also sorry that all of the above detracted from what could have been, and hopefully will now be a very insightful discussion. You’ve raised some very interesting points in your last couple of posts. Once I’ve put my daughter to bed and had a think about them, I’ll try to craft a constructive response.

Greg, how do you position yourself when interacting with people of a superior intellect to you? From the outset though, how do you identify that somebody has a superior intellect? What are your criteria?

(Please read this with the tone of genuine curiosity that motivates it)

I call BS and possible reaching for appeasement

Just leave it. We seem to be back on a more respectful tack, let’s keep it there eh?

Greg, how do you position yourself when interacting with people of a superior intellect to you? From the outset though, how do you identify that somebody has a superior intellect? What are your criteria?

That’s a really interesting question. The honest answer is I don’t actively ‘position’ myself with anyone with regard to intellect though that’s not the same thing as saying that intellecet doesn’t feature heavily in my general projection of myself to the world. That probably comes as no surprise right.

If you really want me to be honest and disclose what that’s really about it’s this.

When I was at school, mostly at primary but also at secondary, my coping mechanism for what was going on was the realisation that whatever people did to me emotionally and physically, I knew my intellect was pretty good. Consequently most of my self esteem is built around my intellect.

So what happens when I meet someone very obviously of ‘superior intelligence’, well two things usually. The overwhelming experience is usually relishing the opportunity to engage and learn, especially if that person is an expert in a field I know little or nothing about. A really good example would be meeting a particle/quantum/theoretical physicist for instance (my uncle has a PhD in theoretical physics and I have spent many a long night delving into his mind and what a place it is!) That subject fascinates me but I am utterly dreadful at math so exploring it properly is challenging.

The other thing that can happen is I experience a sense of insecurity. If anything is likely to trigger the emotional stress of primary school, it’s engaging with someone who is both much brighter than me but equally bombastic!

My best friend is a case in point. For years I struggled with our friendship because I felt there was nothing I could tell her; she is so smart, easily one of the smartest people I know, but she, like me, has had a difficult life and those experiences have made her, like me, very bombastic. With her, I’ve had to learn how to be a friend by listening rather than telling. Not easy but I’ve learned how to do it.

What really helped in that friendship was her coming out to me as being transgender. That really brought us closer together and I know I’ve been the person she has relied on most to help her through her transition. It’s been a remarkable experience; something I treasure as a real privilege.

As for how do you recognise it, I honestly thing that’s quite easy. You know it when you see it. Maybe it gets hard to differentiate at the very highest and lowest levels but it’s something you can recognise when you see it.

I was in a right mugwump all weekend

I don’t think you know what that word means.