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I just needed to share this with you, gentle readers.  My humble experiences on other feminists blogs reminds me that women discussing women’s issues is a clairion call that rouses the  dudes who either don’t have a clue what’s going on, or by the rights invested in their ‘peen, decide to tell women what the issue is, and even, if they issue is actually an issue at all.  It happens on even the most basic of issues that should be obvious if not blinkered by privilege and good ole fashioned ignorance.

Here it is.

The title of the post is “Men Taking up too much space”.  No relevant text, just the picture and a link to the tumblr that has more images of dudes being dudes.  It brings up a valid point:

that in the public sphere men get to define their own space and women do not.

Let’s sample the comments on this seemingly straightforward post.

I disapprove of this website. It’s pretty mean-spirited to post pictures of people on a public forum for the permanent record for what amounts to (at most) a very minor infraction. Moreover, I can’t tell how empty these trains are. There are a couple of pictures in which it is clear that the dude is crowding out other people — the one linked above for example. But most of them that’s just not even close to obvious, and from what I can tell, a lot of the trains look fairly empty. So why shouldn’t people — men or women — spread out a little? Some of the picture also seem to me to be more anti-fat person too.

Really?  We’re going to nit-pick privacy issues and state strong disapprobation with the entire website!  The use of public space is a phenomena and not all pictures are going to be black and white clear cut examples.  Hyperskepticism rears its ugly head once again, funny how it only comes along when male privilege(NSFW link warning) is challenged.

More on the sacred right of privacy for dudes:

“It’s not hard to blur out the faces of the photographs. It’s in fact really easy. The organizers of this site have opted to not do this.”

“I have to concur that this was an unreasonable decision on the part of the person or persons who operate that website. Even if it weren’t true that, as Matt points out, the website includes many marginal and/or ambiguous cases”

“Why couldn’t they blur the faces? Terrible judgment involved here, of the kind that inherently tends to overshadow the point they were trying to make (which is a shame).”

Translation: How dare you violate the privacy of men?!   We are talking about people here and their privacy.   What about the poor menz!!11!11!!

I arch my eyebrow at the bleating of this inconsequential minor infraction and then look back up to the link to a search using the key terms “upskirt” and “voyeur” and behold the hundreds of sites offering thousands of pictures of women who unlike the clothed men in the tumblr photos, are often naked or in states of undress, unconsenting and unaware.

But non blurred faces of these dudes “overshadows the point”.   *sigh*  What isn’t overshadowed is the societal conditioning that Men are the default standard human beings and women are the sex class and most pointedly do not share the same status as men.

It gets better, or really, worse as the comments go on.  We’ll file this next section under privileged clueless dudes that have important things to say:

“2) When men do encroach, as in the OP photo, people have to say something. It irritates me to covertly sneer at someone over the distance of the Internet in lieu of confronting them face to face.”

“And I’m not making any assumptions about “equal basis”, whatever that means, or socialization.”

“I’m talking about how we change bad conduct. It’s not by being self-righteous and cowardly over the Internet.”

“Definitely. But the mean-spiritedness and humiliation tactics are misplaced, especially in a world with much bigger issues for gender equality than space-hoggers on public transit. It trivializes women’s issues; it’s so petty I couldn’t take it seriously.”

Oh the sheer ignorance on display.  It is so amazing to watch the clueless ramble on about how things are and if only women did this.  Make careful notes good readers at the privilege-blind wanking going here that conveniently ignores social norms, power gradients and gender socialization in society.  If your space is enroached on, then just tell the person off.  Easy as pie.  What is your problem here???

*headesking them forever (thanks Syrbal)* –  Dudes will come up with all sorts of shite to mansplain away the concerns of women.

But enough indulgence.  If you have any spoons left over and feel like taking a run at educating dudes on the internet, join the fun over at Feminist Philosophers.. :)