yeah, the cultural hegemony is real, and it's made worse by the way the U.S. has had such cultural influence on the rest of the world ... it makes it seem for the American that the whole world is like the U.S.

I use my passport and social security for ID, neither have my residential address on them. It's only on my state-issued driver's license, which I don't use for ID.

I gave my employer my PO box address, that's what they have.

and also that you don't have to give away the location of where you live to everyone who needs to send you mail or a package ..., including your employer

yes, I didn't mean to imply cultural values are absolute and static 😅 Still, it's a good call-out, thank you!

Miyazaki films have some strong feminine characters!

tbf the question just doesn't lend itself to intersectional thinking, it assumes the racist "default" which of course for most people is going to mean the man is white, cis, straight, able-bodied, Western, English-speaking, etc. And honestly if the question incorporated intersectional identity, it would just further expose biases we experience about those "other" identities, for many:

• ableism implies the differently abled are weaker and thus safer and less masculine
• Blackness is perceived as hyper-masculine and dangerous
• being a trans man would invalidate their gender as a man for many and be assumed to be safer
• being a gay man would likewise be perceived as safer as the assumption is that men's predatory nature is in part sexual (which is not entirely wrong, since most of the violence women experience from men are perpetuated by their sexual partners)

If I went camping, the probability of being killed by a man is much, much higher than the probability a bear comes into my camp and kills me, simply by the numbers. And for added distress, a man is also much more likely to rape me before he kills me, whereas a bear is more likely to just maul me defensively, or less likely, to see me as food and attempt to eat me. Bears don't tend to go around killing for fun.

Ironically the video didn't mention the way differences about the bear would change the question - I have spent time around black bears and would feel very different about being around them than a grizzly bear. Even so, there have been times when I've been near a black bear that I have been so terrified out of my skin that I would have certainly preferred to be near a man in that moment instead. (Though the exact opposite happens far more frequently: that women experience moments with men when they would wish to be around a bear instead.)

Either way, both probabilities are extremely low, meanwhile violence against women by men they know is very common. This last fact explains the psychology - the reality is that a very large percent of women (one in three) have been victimized by men they know, which of course results in a generalized fear of men.

It's rational fear, rooted in real violence, but the video's point is not to gaslight women into overlooking that fear because of intersectionality, lol. They're just pointing out the way we don't even think about that. If I'm not wrong the point of the video is that feminism includes liberating men from patriarchy since it victimizes them as well.

Men being labeled as "predators" is one of those ways they are unfairly treated under a patriarchal system, it alienates them from women who fear them. Tolerance of violence against women create a situation of distrust and fear, but it's a minority of men who perpetuate the violence that creates this situation.

The man-bear question should lead people to recognize the problem is patriarchy, and that both men and women benefit from dealing with this problem.

the real question is whether they are also a man, lol

He's very religious and might have some rigidity with how he views gender, e.g. he doesn't think trans people are their gender, the assignment of their sex at birth for him is the ultimate truth about their gender. Ironically he will respect a chosen name of a trans person, but won't respect their pronouns, seemingly out of a rigid sense of not wanting to participate in deception, which is how trans people are perceived by him (even if innocently, the way a schizophrenic person is delusional through their mental illness).

yes, the kernel of truth makes it hard for him to see past the narrow way that it's true to see the forest of misogyny he's in - to him, the feminists are the true misogynists

One of my closest colleagues at work believes women are biologically suited to manage the home. He also believes any portrayal of women as having qualities traditionally attributed to men (as physically strong, as leaders, as warriors or soldiers, etc.) is misogyny - he argues it devalues femininity by implying women have to be masculine to be valuable or equal to men.

I would be cautious, there is a big pseudoscience health scam going around convincing people they need to supplement testosterone - targeting both men and women. The current evidence is that there is no known minimum requirement of T in women, so be cautious about claims that women need testosterone supplementation - it's just not evidence based, and there are a lot of quacks trying to sell people on the idea. The article you linked was written by Cate Hall, a CEO of a bio-medical company that manufactures and sells testosterone, there is an obvious conflict of interest here.

Meanwhile we haven't even normalized women taking estrogen supplementation for menopause which does have good evidence is helpful for alleviating the awful symptoms from low E. I have heard so many stories of women having signs of low estrogen being told by their gynecologists they don't need it and they won't even run blood labs to test for low E.

Seems like an overloaded word.

In some contexts "bitch" refers to a woman who violates gender norms by behaving in an unexpected way e.g. interrupting someone else while speaking, being too assertive or confident, etc.

For example, in the majority of work meetings I have been in, the conversation was dominated by whoever was willing to speak over the other in a louder or more aggressive manner (usually by men). Sometimes when a woman tries the same behavior, it is suddenly noticed and seen as unusual or wrong even though it's the same behavior the men are engaging in without anyone noticing or thinking it's unusual. There seems to be a dominant perspective that it's healthy or normal for men to behave this way (in fact, often encouraged!), but when women behave the same way they're suddenly a "bitch".

But women can also be a "bitch" by genuinely being awful - manipulative, verbally abusive, shouting, escalating conflict with disproportionate anger, etc. can also get someone labeled a "bitch".

And of course "bitch" is used in other ways.

Either way, when women endorse being a bitch, it typically means standing up for themselves and asserting themselves in environments that punish them for doing so. Sure, there might be some toxic elements that endorse being a bitch as an excuse for bad behavior, but I don't think that's what is intended by memes like this one that encourage women to "be a bitch today" - it's an excuse to set boundaries and stand up for yourself when you need to, even when it's hard or might get you unfairly labeled a bitch.

At least that's my sense of the situation.

I guess the stageists were right, liberalism always does come next. (\s)

ha, I know it's crude or the "wrong answer" - but it's also what's probably most true for me 😆

"fuck"

it's pretty much my full time job to look after myself rn - recovering from surgery involves a lot of self care 😄

it sounds like in this case he feels like being a gay man grants him entry to a woman-only space? He does seem strangely entitled to it, and maybe IRL that's how it works (maybe people divide more based on sexuality than gender, I have certainly seen the stereotypical effeminate gay man accepted in women's spaces, he is perceived as "safe" because of his sexuality and effeminacy). It's interesting, assuming he's commenting in good faith and not just using his sexuality because it's rhetorically useful in this situation.

Yet they don't revoke the use of puberty blockers for cis children with precocious puberty, they only are concerned about the lack of data for trans kids - it's motivated by transphobia, not actual clinical concerns.

Trans kids aren't having poor outcomes from gender affirming care, quite the opposite actually - and the "we don't have enough data" argument is a false concern used to plausibly deny a more than sufficiently demonstrated clinically safe and effective treatment.

EDIT: might be interested in reading: https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/

We should be clear, the medical establishment is not woke (quite the contrary, actually) nor is every single major medical association recommending gender affirming care for trans youth on ideological grounds or because they have been forced to by some LGBT+ lobbying, but because the evidence we have points to that care being life saving and effective while also being low risk and in the case of puberty blockers even reversible.

EDIT2: you should also know the Cass Review has been found to be biased in its recommendations, e.g. this demand for high evidence in the case of trans care but not other areas of care have been pointed out as motivated by prejudice, might be worth reading more about the criticisms of the Cass Review:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Review#Reception_by_academics_and_researchers

Several scholars and organisations have criticised the Cass Review's conclusions and the evidence base used to support them. Researchers Cal Horton and Ruth Pearce have said of the Cass Review, "its most controversial recommendations are based on prejudice rather than evidence". Cal Horton criticised the Interim Report and other documents for prioritising research on aetiology of trans identities, saying: "Research into the causation of trans identities has a pathologized history, running parallel to efforts to prevent or cure transness." Cal Horton also criticised the Interim Report's support of exploratory therapy and its use of the terminology of "desistance".

Various scholars also criticised the emphasis on high and moderate quality evidence, saying that paediatric care often relies on low quality evidence in other areas; that in downgrading qualitative research, the patient voice was minimised; and that the highest quality evidence (such as from randomised controlled trials) may be difficult or unethical to obtain in this area.

Forcing trans kids to undergo the wrong puberty under the demands double-blind trials is as wrong as forcing a cis child to undergo the wrong puberty for the same purpose (like David Reimer was forced to), it's an unreasonable expectation given the clinical context of the treatment being so low risk and the outcomes being so positive.