The amount of casual sexism on reddit is absurd and I can't stand it sometimes.

Tl;dr: When I reply to a comment with the intention of changing someone's mind, I sometimes end up considering new ways of thinking about things as I am replying to them. I find it very enjoyable to follow a train of thought to explore new connections and ideas, and I find typing things out as an argument an effective way to solidify my beliefs on these new ideas. So the post below isn't entirely intended for you, but you might find the first few paragraphs to be a more relevant reply to your comment.

-side note- I really need to start using the /r/ExploringPerspectives subreddit I created a year ago.

I like browsing Reddit, and obviously I steer clear of subreddits I know will just piss me off (i.e. theredpill)

I think that it's important to not only hear the other side, but really try to understand the context of what they're saying. By steering clear of subreddits you know will piss you off, you're essentially doing the same thing as the reporter is in the video by calling Suey's opinion stupid, and completely ignoring the opinion of people who are otherwise sane and healthy human beings. You may think TheRedPill is misogynistic or pseudoscientific bullshit, but you've already learned from this video that the reporter has misunderstood her arguments, and she comes off as a racist to people who misunderstand her. Perhaps you're misunderstanding TRP.

When I originally watched this video a year ago or whatever, I sided with the reporter completely and thought that it's stupid and contradictory to say that all races and genders are equal, and to fight for equal rights, but then turn around in the next sentence and say that his opinion and perspective are somehow invalid or less equal than someone else's because of he's white.

But when you consider these statements in her context, She's absolutely 100% correct, and I was stunned when I suddenly understood and agreed with an opinion that I was completely against and would piss me off in the same way TRP pisses you off. What she's trying to convey to the reporter is that there are minorities who feel like these things are offensive because of the things that they have experienced. Other people may not find them offensive, but these people have not lived the lives of these minorities who are feeling this way. Since feeling offended (or other feelings) are caused in part by their lives, and you have not lived their lives, how can you say your interpretation is more valid than yours?

If you were feeling annoyed by somebody tapping their pen on the table, and they told you that it wasn't annoying to tap the pen on the table, that it was music, then you'd feel marginalized, and that pen tapper thinks his opinion on pen tapping is more important or holds more weight than yours. Substitute pen tapping with "redskins" or other pseudo-racist remarks, annoying with offended, music with satire. Suey certainly understands that the Colbert report is satire similarly to how the annoyed person understands that pen tapping can be music. It's music, sure, but it's really annoying and I'm going to try to stop you.

The pen tapper says "Just because it's annoying to you doesn't mean I should stop. I like doing this, and people like my music. Plus, I'm in my own right now so if you are annoyed by it you can go somewhere else where it won't affect you."

The annoyed person says "Just because I'm not in the room doesn't mean it won't affect me. Other people have to use that table to, and pen tapping might scratch the desk. So I want you to stop."

The pen tapper says "I don't think pen tapping will scratch the desk. The desk is very hard and durable. Even if it might scratch the desk, if you're going to use that as a reason to tell me to stop, you should first prove that it causes scratches."

I know it's a silly analogy, but it really helped me consider the perspectives when looking at it differently. In the above conversation, if you hadn't matched the pen tapping analogies to the corresponding arguments on racism/discrimination/Social Justice:

The Colbert supporters don't think you should stop their satire. You aren't forced to listen to it, and we're not meaning any harm anyway, it was a joke. Suey supporters respond that even though it's satire, it propagates racism and marginalizes our perspectives. Colbert supporters respond that Suey supporters don't have any proof of this, and in fact it might even help eliminate discrimination by making fun of it using satire to highlight how ridiculous discrimination sounds when reworded differently or when a valid analogy is used.

The Underlying problem between Social Justice Warriors and anti-SJWs, is that SJWs are trying to work toward equality and justice, while everyone else appears apathetic or in opposition to fixing the problem. But people have problems with SJWs because often their methodology is unscientific in the sense that they're not sure if their proposed plan will actually solve the problem, and because even if it does solve the problem, the side effects are much often much more severe than the problem you fixed. You want to stop pedophiles from raping kids? Great, so do we. You want to segregate men away from children on airplanes to reduce incidences of child molestation? Well, this doesn't actually fix the problem and has the very serious consequence of promoting discrimination towards men in the same way that making blacks sit at the back of the bus does.

And anti-SJWs have problems with SJWs because they wrongly categorize people who don't agree with their ideas as supporters of the opposite ideas, and this isn't true. Example: They hear someone screaming Nigger on Xbox live, and because the person does not want to stop saying Nigger, then they must think that black people are inferior. When in reality, it might be because it's a word they're using to be funny because it's taboo, or because they're trying to offend someone by using an offensive word. To them, the word Nigger is interchangeable in this context with any other equally offensive word like "Child-molesting dickbag" or something. That has no bearing on whether or not they actually love the shit out of their black friends, and think they're equal to any other race.

Ultimately, I think everyone needs to just calm the fuck down. We really aren't as different in our beliefs as we often think we are. Most people on either of the opposing sides of the SJW debate think equality is a good thing to strive for and think that people's opinions and right to voice those opinions should be respected. This doesn't mean we have to value your opinion equally. We are prone to think our own opinion is more valuable because the opinions we hold are all opinions we believe to be true. Otherwise we would not hold those opinions. Most people think that races and genders are essentially equal enough that there's no practical purpose discrimination would serve even if we believe one race/gender may be slightly more violent/smart/etc than another. Women/asians might be worse drivers, blacks might be dumber, and whites may have a predisposition to being racist. But there's nothing practical we can do with this information, any discrimination based on this information in our current society would cause much more harm than good. Most of us like to feel good and like to be respected, and most of us don't want to make others feel bad, so we also try to respect them. Some of us just have different ideas on what's respectful. Some think you should be respectful to women by holding the door for them, or immediately giving overwhelming and unconditional amounts of support for women who claim to be victims of sexual assault or non-forced rape, and other think these things are patronizing and disrespectful because they imply that women are in some way in need of the door being held open for them, or in some way easily damaged/traumatized from relatively small amounts of discomfort. Yeah, someone touching your ass without you wanting them to will make you uncomfortable, but you're not going to be traumatized in the same way that an Afghan soldier will when he is confronted with his two best friends being shot to death next to him, and having to stab another insurgent to death while limping on their own broken and mangled leg.

/r/TwoXChromosomes Thread Parent