hotdogcharmer

I can certainly understand that and have heard that before for sure. I think the thing that's worrying me is like, how do I avoid using terms that are pejoratives like "aggressive" without realising that they're loaded in that way when used about women? I'm sure there are more issues at play for me, such as not knowing enough about how misogyny looks and not facing my own misogyny, but one issue I can identify is that I certainly don't think men who are "aggressive" are "strong leaders". I guess that's part of why I initially and incorrectly rejected that as a misogynistic term.

One of the clients I work for at the moment is a big company, and the CEO is exactly what I'd call an "aggressive" man, and he's a fucking dick. It sucks working for him. I've been told in performance reviews to be nicer about him. I just don't find pig-headedness, stubbornness, aggressiveness, etc. to be helpful traits in a team setting!

I do want to get better at recognising, understanding and changing these misogynistic terms or thought patterns in myself, though!

You're right, I am aware of that as an issue, but I wasn't aware that the actual terms "likeable" or "unlikeable" were loaded like that

I didn't, I focused on "likeable". Thanks for the link, I do clearly have a lot to learn and would like to. There's just so much I don't see, whether that's that I just don't pay attention, or don't experience it as a man, or that I don't want to recognise what I do see.

I appreciate your time, and I'll work to educate myself 👍

Must be a culture difference thing. They're certainly not, in the UK, at least in my experience.

I've just searched it up and you're right, I was wrong; if I search '"likeable" misogynist term' or '"aggressive" misogynist term', I do find a study that references "aggressive" being used more for women, which is honestly surprising to me, I apologise!

I didn't quite find the same for "likeable", the results seemed more about how women report having to be more amenable in the workplace to avoid being seen as "difficult", which I totally agree is a problem but isn't really what we're talking about re the terms.

Edit: just as an update, I've since learned that I was wrong and that "aggressive" and "un/likeable" are misogynistic red-flag terms. I apologise, you were right about those terms.

I absolutely hear you and I don't disagree.

It's really frustrating that people lie about their shitty bigoted feelings. Whether that's because they're incurious about why they dislike a female candidate (i.e. not interested in facing or dealing with their internalised misogyny), or they're ashamed that they feel that way, or they secretly feel that they're right to feel that way, or as you say they're just outright proud misogynists who know that the optics of saying "I won't vote for her because she's a woman" are bad, it doesn't matter.

One of the most difficult impacts of people lying about their real reasons for disliking candidates that are part of marginalised groups is that it makes the rest of us have to be very vigilant around any criticism of those candidates, because there is always the chance that somebody criticising that candidate is a racist, a homophobe, or a misogynist, and is trying to mask that. That means it is actually harder to genuinely just "not like" a candidate, for their personality, words, actions, etc., because good people are rightly paranoid.

Anyway, honestly I don't think we're disagreeing on fundamentals here. I'm just trying to explain why I am reluctant to label people as misogynists without any "real" clue, such as using those red-flag words like "bossy" or "shrill". I know it's a bit fussy but it's important to me that we can be clear about things like that.

Agreed that the US is not ready for AOC in 2028. Also agreed that it would be good to see her energised and with a seat in the senate. HUGELY agreed that it would be fantastic to see Schumer piss off to whatever millionaire's pigpen he'll wind up in.

I think I'd take it a step further and say all misogynists like their women docile. That's why "bossy" is such a loaded word.

But "dislike"? "Agreeable"? "Aggressive"? I can't agree that those three are misogynistic terms, or even signifiers of misogyny.

I guess we just disagree on terms though. 🤷‍♂️ No ill will towards you or anything! It seems like we're on board with misogyny being bad 😂

Yes, I agree with you, using words like "shrill" or "bossy" is a great example of a sort of masked misogyny, which is why you used them in your example.

Those two words, among others, are words that are used almost exclusively about women. It can be helpful to point their usage out and call out latent misogyny.

"Aggressive" and "likeable" are not words that this works for. The commenter we're talking about is tone policing words that aren't even debatably used the same way, and it's the kind of weird, fussy, oversensitive nonsense that is aggravating and distracting.

It's also massively rude to imply somebody is a misogynist without any grounding at all, simply because they did not like a candidate who - incidentally - is a woman.

Women, because they're humans just like men, have the capacity to be disliked for their actions and words.

"bossy" is one of those words people use pretty much solely to describe women.

"Aggressive" and "likeable" are not. I don't even understand why you're trying to spin this

Because some people hate brown people more than they hate being hungry (or are simply incapable of admitting when they were duped)

I think that must have been a typo, "now" to "not" yeah?

It's just important to bear in mind that Bobert and Greene are fucked up, cruel, evil, malicious, and stupid pieces of shit that will turn around and fuck us all over the moment they can.

Yes, the big faced one might be pushing for the Epstein files to be released, but precisely because you find her standing alongside you on that it is absolutely crucial to remind yourself that she undeniably is still the enemy of any sane person.

Bill Cosby also agreed that air is good to breathe. Always remember who these two fucking arseholes are.

A shitty attitude, or an honest recognition of a massively unequal wealth distribution seeing very few very selfish people at the top hoard gigantic sums of money seemingly with the goal to just get more money, while so many of us struggle to get by working one, two, three jobs?

Because I'll agree, there's a lot of very pouty people on here that will bang on and moan endlessly about absolute bullshit. The insanity that one person can accumulate a billion dollars though? That's not bullshit. That's something to moan about.