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rainwatersparkThe first time I quit Tumblr, it was because of getting involved in a very nasty debate about feminism with a sexist douchebag, combined with the extreme depression and anxiety I had been experiencing at law school that made me respond erratically to other people on Tumblr. This time, what's making me quit Tumblr? The trash "ace d*scourse"? Nope.
It's frustration with Tumblr social justice.
1. I really dislike the tendency on Tumblr to interpret what other people say in the worst possible light, and then "call them out" for that. Because yes, words mean things, but social media often isn't a place for eloquence and a lot of people will write short posts that are somewhat vague in meaning to an outsider. It's given me social media anxiety, because I feel like I have to be ready to explain every single thing I type on the internet, and I have to constantly worry about whether something I say will be interpreted as accidentally _phobic.
What many people on Tumblr don't seem to take into account is that there's an ocean of difference between someone who says something offensive out of ignorance and someone who says something offensive because they're actively bigoted. The fact that posts containing unintentional mistakes can be immortalized and misconstrued as examples of intentional bigotry makes me incredibly paranoid.
2. When social justice is used to demonize other people for the purposes of an agenda—i.e., when acephobes claim that arguments for asexuality being not heterosexuality (wow, what a radical argument! /sarcasm) are "homophobic," somehow—I view that kind of social justice as dead. Maybe it's extreme of me, but it's something that I just can't stand.
3. I also think Tumblr sometimes doesn't distinguish enough between "ugh oppressor class" and "every single individual in an oppressor class is a trash person." This gets me because, hey, I've been in the first situation. I am the person who is going "ugh neurotypical people" all the time. But I don't go out of my way to say that I think every single neurotypical individual person is out to hurt me or is a trash person. (Even though a lot of neurotypical people have hurt me. A lot.)
For most of my life, I didn't identify as a feminist, despite the fact that I did hold feminist beliefs, because I thought feminism was about hating men. When I learned that feminism wasn't about hating men, it was a revelation to me. "Ah! I can identify as a feminist now!"
My beliefs are still the same as they've always been. I still care about subpar representation of women in fiction and the media, discrimination, wage gap issues, gendered violence, etc.
But I'm breaking away from Tumblr feminism/social justice because, once again, the lines between "gender justice" and "hating men" seem to be blurred.
This is not something I oppose for abstract reasons; it's something I oppose for deeply personal reasons. Whenever I see "men can't be trusted," "all men are violent predators," I feel a deep personal turmoil.
Because these sayings aren't part of "no one can be trusted" or "everyone can be a hurtful douchebag." No; the unsaid implication from these is that "women can be trusted; even if women do bad things, at least they're not violent predators," etc.
It is acceptable, in Tumblr spaces, to say, "I don't trust men." People defend people's right to say this without insisting that they "give men a chance," "#not all men," and so on. However, if I were to say, "In my life, I have been emotionally hurt by women far more often than by men, therefore I tend to be mistrustful of women"—which, by the way, is not a hypothetical, this is actually a truth of my life—I would probably be labeled a raging misogynist, or told "I just have to go out and meet more women, because most women are lovely, supportive people."
If I said, "Most of the men I've met are lovely, supportive people"? People would just dismiss my experiences as outliers. "Still, most men are violent creeps and therefore untrustworthy. You were probably just associating with a fringe community of men."
I'm trying to paint an equivalence for logical purposes, but the truth is it's not quite equivalent. I don't avoid women, I don't say I hate all women; I am clearly aware that I do have/I've had positive relationships with a few women. But the more I see these "all women are lovely and caring, all men are violent predators" rhetoric, the more paranoid and rebellious I get, and the more my own feelings are pushed to an unhealthy extreme. I feel like my own experiences don't matter; that I have no right to be mistrustful of women despite experience after experience of being hurt or let down by (allistic) women. It's starting to give me even more hostile feelings towards women, exacerbating preexisting issues I've had (such as finding it a severe challenge to write female protagonists—I'm far more comfortable writing male protagonists, and yet Tumblr feminism tells me that that can be the case only if I have internalized misogyny).
So, for the sake of my mental health and trying to maintain a more healthy, balanced view of humanity, I'm removing myself from Tumblr.
(...Well, not entirely, because I still have to follow Stimtastic's tumblr. Damn it. That's always the problem—if there's even one Tumblr I follow, I'll inevitably get sucked back into Tumblr. Sigh.)
It's frustration with Tumblr social justice.
1. I really dislike the tendency on Tumblr to interpret what other people say in the worst possible light, and then "call them out" for that. Because yes, words mean things, but social media often isn't a place for eloquence and a lot of people will write short posts that are somewhat vague in meaning to an outsider. It's given me social media anxiety, because I feel like I have to be ready to explain every single thing I type on the internet, and I have to constantly worry about whether something I say will be interpreted as accidentally _phobic.
What many people on Tumblr don't seem to take into account is that there's an ocean of difference between someone who says something offensive out of ignorance and someone who says something offensive because they're actively bigoted. The fact that posts containing unintentional mistakes can be immortalized and misconstrued as examples of intentional bigotry makes me incredibly paranoid.
2. When social justice is used to demonize other people for the purposes of an agenda—i.e., when acephobes claim that arguments for asexuality being not heterosexuality (wow, what a radical argument! /sarcasm) are "homophobic," somehow—I view that kind of social justice as dead. Maybe it's extreme of me, but it's something that I just can't stand.
3. I also think Tumblr sometimes doesn't distinguish enough between "ugh oppressor class" and "every single individual in an oppressor class is a trash person." This gets me because, hey, I've been in the first situation. I am the person who is going "ugh neurotypical people" all the time. But I don't go out of my way to say that I think every single neurotypical individual person is out to hurt me or is a trash person. (Even though a lot of neurotypical people have hurt me. A lot.)
For most of my life, I didn't identify as a feminist, despite the fact that I did hold feminist beliefs, because I thought feminism was about hating men. When I learned that feminism wasn't about hating men, it was a revelation to me. "Ah! I can identify as a feminist now!"
My beliefs are still the same as they've always been. I still care about subpar representation of women in fiction and the media, discrimination, wage gap issues, gendered violence, etc.
But I'm breaking away from Tumblr feminism/social justice because, once again, the lines between "gender justice" and "hating men" seem to be blurred.
This is not something I oppose for abstract reasons; it's something I oppose for deeply personal reasons. Whenever I see "men can't be trusted," "all men are violent predators," I feel a deep personal turmoil.
Because these sayings aren't part of "no one can be trusted" or "everyone can be a hurtful douchebag." No; the unsaid implication from these is that "women can be trusted; even if women do bad things, at least they're not violent predators," etc.
It is acceptable, in Tumblr spaces, to say, "I don't trust men." People defend people's right to say this without insisting that they "give men a chance," "#not all men," and so on. However, if I were to say, "In my life, I have been emotionally hurt by women far more often than by men, therefore I tend to be mistrustful of women"—which, by the way, is not a hypothetical, this is actually a truth of my life—I would probably be labeled a raging misogynist, or told "I just have to go out and meet more women, because most women are lovely, supportive people."
If I said, "Most of the men I've met are lovely, supportive people"? People would just dismiss my experiences as outliers. "Still, most men are violent creeps and therefore untrustworthy. You were probably just associating with a fringe community of men."
I'm trying to paint an equivalence for logical purposes, but the truth is it's not quite equivalent. I don't avoid women, I don't say I hate all women; I am clearly aware that I do have/I've had positive relationships with a few women. But the more I see these "all women are lovely and caring, all men are violent predators" rhetoric, the more paranoid and rebellious I get, and the more my own feelings are pushed to an unhealthy extreme. I feel like my own experiences don't matter; that I have no right to be mistrustful of women despite experience after experience of being hurt or let down by (allistic) women. It's starting to give me even more hostile feelings towards women, exacerbating preexisting issues I've had (such as finding it a severe challenge to write female protagonists—I'm far more comfortable writing male protagonists, and yet Tumblr feminism tells me that that can be the case only if I have internalized misogyny).
So, for the sake of my mental health and trying to maintain a more healthy, balanced view of humanity, I'm removing myself from Tumblr.
(...Well, not entirely, because I still have to follow Stimtastic's tumblr. Damn it. That's always the problem—if there's even one Tumblr I follow, I'll inevitably get sucked back into Tumblr. Sigh.)
