DefinitelyNotAFae's recent activity

  1. Comment on Opinion piece: I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day. in ~life.women

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    25 years ago we absolutely had the "number" language too, body count came later, but I went to Catholic school so you were also a whore if you had sex before marriage. Just the girls though....

    25 years ago we absolutely had the "number" language too, body count came later, but I went to Catholic school so you were also a whore if you had sex before marriage. Just the girls though. Though it was also enforced by other girls because that is what the patriarchy does to you.

    We didn't have "haha bitch hope you didn't talk this much when you were raped*"x200 pinging your phone all day and night.

    So some of it is absolutely amplification, I think some of it is being completely shielded from the physical and social consequences (which is why when shit did happen in person it was often by popular kids) and the rise of acceptable misogyny.

    *There was absolutely shaming of victims (Monica Lewinsky for one) and I'm sure someone somewhere said this, but it was not in my high schooler cultural awareness.

  2. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    What I hear here is that the Republicans promise a fix - which is generally this domineering mentality described in the article - that does not seem to actually lead to happiness. So the Dems have...

    What I hear here is that the Republicans promise a fix - which is generally this domineering mentality described in the article - that does not seem to actually lead to happiness. So the Dems have to offer solutions that work... But not this one. Not any of the other ones - focusing on jobs, groceries, healthcare, cost of education - all things that directly help men. Not coming from a woman who laughs weird. Not coming from a guy who is too educated. It feels really weird from the critics of so called identity politics to demand identity politics.

    This wasn't even about Republicans - all the grifts aren't coming from them by any means - but I'm not a political scientist or sociologist, I don't have the solution to fix a group of people ignoring their best interests because the person hurting them makes them feel good. I'm not even thinking about the election(s), I'm thinking about these individual guys' well beings. (And why does it feel like we're mostly only talking about white men here...) The men in my life don't espouse this stuff and when they have hangups they're things we talk through and they're already trying to work on.

    I do this sort of work individually, but societally? Everyone keeps saying to do better - like what .... Lie because the other "team" is? Convince women to become political lesbians until the men reinstate their bodily autonomy? Rebrand it as meninism but keep it as the egalitarianism that feminism is? I'm not familiar with section 10 funding (and Google was not clarifying) but Title IX does apply to men and should.

    Not a single message on this topic is well received in a male dominated tech space, no matter who the messenger is. I shared this because it was from a dude speaking to dudes which is what I kept seeing in the responses to articles by women/enbys. So I got nothing. I truly think that if (these) men stopped seeing proximity to and friendship with women, and empathy for each other as weaknesses and "gay" that they would be happier. I don't think male only spaces are the solution but sure try it again! Be great! This is not sarcastic.

    But I find this overarching portrayal of men as so weak that anything but the gentlest remark is criticism to be so much more insulting than anything this article said. Like this reverts to the idea that women need to "manage" their husbands to manipulate them into the right outcome. Also yeah it's weird that auto unions have more power but it's weirder that they endorsed the anti-union guy. Because they liked how he made them feel I suppose.

    Which, once again, means this is out of my wheelhouse. My work is being honest with folks, even when that's tough. It doesn't help people to lie to them. They "deserve" a solution, everyone does, I just don't know why it's being expected of the people they're actively harming and denigrating and who they explicitly won't listen to.

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    I think that's a fair criticism of the article it's just several angles off of the comment of mine you responded to and our back and forth. Did you want to talk about this instead?

    I think that's a fair criticism of the article it's just several angles off of the comment of mine you responded to and our back and forth. Did you want to talk about this instead?

    1 vote

  4. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of February 23 in ~society

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    However, when you're someone engaging in Nazi tactics in a party espousing Nazi slogans and other language, filling concentration camps, you're probably trying to emulate the Nazis with your cosplay.

    However, when you're someone engaging in Nazi tactics in a party espousing Nazi slogans and other language, filling concentration camps, you're probably trying to emulate the Nazis with your cosplay.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    I think the author was pretty open and explicit about not responding directly to the mentioned articles but to a broader conversation so I'm not responding to them either. But there are people...

    I think the author was pretty open and explicit about not responding directly to the mentioned articles but to a broader conversation so I'm not responding to them either.

    But there are people making the argument, even if you and I think it's absurd. That isn't even an example of women doing what they have to to survive. I'm glad for men making (I assume) non toxic spaces. Great! I don't really see how it relates to our line of conversation though. I am less confident in replicating something like this all over because these are the same sorts of groups that were fraternities and secret societies and philosophy clubs and all the other men's only spaces that led no one to liberation. But I hope more men do this sort of thing for each other

    4 votes

  6. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    Agreed that it's incomplete, you need feminism AND everything else. But I don't think this subset of men will acknowledge who is actually keeping them down until they realize and accept that women...

    Agreed that it's incomplete, you need feminism AND everything else. But I don't think this subset of men will acknowledge who is actually keeping them down until they realize and accept that women aren't. Similarly I don't think many white folks will realize who the "problem" is in their communities until they stop leaning on the cheap and easy racism and xenophobia as the answer. We see what happens in MN when the populace refuses to deny their neighbors' personhood and buy into bullshit. Once you shove it aside you're willing to stand up against the system.

    And I think it's possible that once you shove the misogyny aside you can be willing to see the billionaires holding you down (many of whom were actively collaborating of messaging strategies to counter the MeToo movement in the Epstein files, for example) and take a stand against the bigger system.

    But maybe I'm wrong. If I am I think it just confirms though that there's probably not a way for people like me to convey the message.

    4 votes

  7. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    Of course, hence everything women are told to do all the time basically. And why they wear fake rings at the bar, and lie about having a boyfriend to avoid a violent response to a "no" and all the...

    It's not fair, but the world isn't fair, and sometimes you have to things that are not fair for you to do to survive and thrive.

    Of course, hence everything women are told to do all the time basically. And why they wear fake rings at the bar, and lie about having a boyfriend to avoid a violent response to a "no" and all the everything.

    And it's why I'm a mental health professional and educator. I "get" to have an educational conversation with a student using racial slurs about how they have free speech but the people around them are still harmed regularly
    But the answer isn't going to be dating men instead of rejecting them for those conservative beliefs. I am not sure anyone who thinks that it's "gay" to have empathy or to care about their partner's sexual pleasure is really going to be inclined to listen to women. And when women act to protect themselves, because the world isn't fair and they need to survive, they're at fault for isolating men further.

    Women haven't stopped doing emotional labor, I know I'm just pointing out more how it's being expected often by men to solve the problems of (other) men, with zero reciprocity. Not even 1 to 1 reciprocity but even with a similar contribution to the social contract. I just think that people, all people, can do better than that.

    I liked that this was an article from a man about men - and I want to amplify those voices - but it's already back to "women have to do more" and "he doesn't understand regular men" and idk how he doesn't but Elon Musk, Andrew Tate or whoever somehow do.

    But if I'm "doing it wrong" and he's "doing it wrong" I've yet to have anyone say what the actual right method is short of essentially "be nicer"

    4 votes

  8. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    I very much appreciate your thoughts and I think that the "MLE" rhetoric being responded to doesn't match the reality of loneliness as experienced. It's possible he's seeing the targeted rhetoric...

    I very much appreciate your thoughts and I think that the "MLE" rhetoric being responded to doesn't match the reality of loneliness as experienced. It's possible he's seeing the targeted rhetoric described by his examples directly where my feed is only showing me the criticisms of it. And perhaps he isn't seeing more of what you describe similarly.

    I don't think I agree that there isn't empathy there nor that he doesn't understand "everyday" men or that he thinks of men as incapable. I think he sees men as completely capable, knows that men can make a different choice and that many men, theoretically including himself, do.

    I get your point about intersectionality but in my mind there's some key differences between the language of "male loneliness epidemic" and "the loneliness epidemic's impact on men" and maybe that's just how the former has been co-opted. I also don't see folks really getting into other intersections, even within discussing men's loneliness. I know personally I wouldn't have the response to the rhetoric of MLE if it wasn't treated as a singular thing that requires almost exclusively the emotional labor of non-men to address and I have not yet seen an approach to addressing it that hasn't received the same pushback. It's condescending, the speaker doesn't like/respect/care about men, where are the positive men speaking about this. Be nicer. Expect less. They're doing their best, what can you expect. That's always been so much more condescending to me than please go seek out help from anyone who isn't a podcaster for this thing making you miserable.

    I genuinely want men, and everyone, to be happy, healthy, and self-actualized. I know how to work for systemic change, I know how to individually help people (who want it, mostly, but some who don't.) I'm at a loss for how to en masse inform folks who are miserable that they could do something besides doubling down on being miserable in a way they won't object to. I haven't figured it out with racism either, which has a similar dearth of solutions and a similar defensive pushback from many white folks who feel that people aren't being generous enough and kind enough to them/us.

    This ran a bit long. Thank you again for your thoughts, I did appreciate reading them

    4 votes

  9. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    I do not particularly think women who attempt are less "serious" about their attempts but it was mentioned as a theory in my source so I wanted to be thorough. In my experience most suicidal...

    I do not particularly think women who attempt are less "serious" about their attempts but it was mentioned as a theory in my source so I wanted to be thorough. In my experience most suicidal people are stopped by the survival instinct in their brains. People who choose, say, poisoning, as a method often have the ability to call 911 afterwards when the reality sets in. Or (and I work with young people which may influence it) they don't choose lethal medications. (I very much appreciate when my students are not "good" at harming themselves.)

    My point was that by the standard you used, women would appear to struggle "more" but that ultimately I don't think it's actually a good measure. Nor is it really important other than pointing out the disparity in how loneliness is talked about among genders in the news media. (And I'll note that vast majority of this data and conversation ignores non-binary people, who like myself may identify in a binary way if that's the only option or might decline to continue)

    Loneliness is a subjective experience, like much of psychology, so it's very difficult to use other measures and many of those would also be self-report or fall into the same issues of stigma discouraging men from engaging or self identifying. For example, number of friends might be indicative, but some people report feeling satisfied with a small number of friends and others feel lonely despite saying they have many friends. An assessment tool that doesn't say "are you lonely y/n" but asks questions about loneliness more obliquely might get more honest answers but is still self-report. And I am not aware if such a tested, normed, valid, assessment tool exists.

    When I was in a workgroup on the topic we did not have any sort of assessment tool. It was also being considered not as a gendered occurrence but one impacting all our students, and this was just pre-covid. Our goals of getting people to interact in person were ... Let's say they went unachieved in March of 2020.

    I do think we have a societal issue with loneliness and that all of our various identities impact that in different ways. What I think is interesting is when people say they want to hear men talking to men about these topics, those men get the same responses as the women do, including that they don't understand or care about men.
    I genuinely want men to be happy. I believe that liberation from patriarchy is the/a path to that. (We have a few other systems to tear down too. I see few people considering intersectionality among men in these discussions for example.)

    As for the hospital, my partner who was supposed to go home for the third time tomorrow has a pulmonary embolism today. He's ok but we're not sure what's next.

    4 votes

  10. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    I have a lot of thoughts about your post, but I'm omw to the hospital right now so this one bit i want to point out as a factual matter. If you're going to use rates of suicide, women attempt more...

    In contrast, statistics on suicide rate by gender tell a very different story (though I'll admit there's a lot of nuance to the relationship between suicide and loneliness per se).

    I have a lot of thoughts about your post, but I'm omw to the hospital right now so this one bit i want to point out as a factual matter. If you're going to use rates of suicide, women attempt more often because they typically choose less lethal means. Some of this relates to access to and familiarity with firearms, but there are an number of other theories including that women tend not to "really" want to die and that MDD is diagnosed in more women.

    I could keep breaking down that data and it will get more and more complex and nuanced but I don't think it's a useful stand in for loneliness. Which I'd love to hear how you'd want to assess someone's internal feelings outside of a self-report. I'm sure there are other ways but self report is basically going to be the key one.

    CDC data demonstrates that men account for over 76% of suicide deaths in the United States each year. The CDC also found that there are 3.3 male suicide deaths for every female suicide death. In contrast, in research studies, women are two to three times more likely to discuss thoughts of suicide than men, and there are approximately three female suicide attempts per every one male suicide attempt. Source

    I really firmly disagree with your perspective on and portrayal of feminism as a whole, and I can certainly say it doesn't represent my feelings and beliefs. I'll try to come back later and give a more thorough response.

    14 votes

  11. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    In theory that's the perspective of such articles, some such articles and the views being espoused by some of the most toxic spaces alike put the onus on women. It's very similar in my eyes to the...

    In theory that's the perspective of such articles, some such articles and the views being espoused by some of the most toxic spaces alike put the onus on women. It's very similar in my eyes to the "how to respond to conservatives regretting their votes" where the onus is on Democrats (but particularly women and WOC) to bend over backwards not to upset them lest they vote conservative again. It's exhausting being responsible for everyone else's emotions.

    9 votes

  12. Comment on Tildes Book Club - February 2026 - The Truth by Terry Pratchett in ~books

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    I'd also recommend Guards Guards, it's not a stand alone but it is such a recommended intro point because it works well without anything before and if not compelled to.read the rest, fine without...

    I'd also recommend Guards Guards, it's not a stand alone but it is such a recommended intro point because it works well without anything before and if not compelled to.read the rest, fine without continuing after. I'm also just a real Vimes fan.

    2 votes

  13. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    Understandable, I think it's easy to default to us/them being men/women vs say, society/specific subgroups or people who want change/people who don't.

    Understandable, I think it's easy to default to us/them being men/women vs say, society/specific subgroups or people who want change/people who don't.

    6 votes

  14. Comment on Opinion piece: I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day. in ~life.women

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    Bad news, not having a vagina doesn't help women avoid misogyny. It's being part of the "woman" category that seems to do it.

    Bad news, not having a vagina doesn't help women avoid misogyny. It's being part of the "woman" category that seems to do it.

    13 votes

  15. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    I do wish Gaiman had implemented more of that philosophy himself, alas. I agree this isn't just about being conservative. I've watched white male leftists shout down black women in leftist spaces...

    I do wish Gaiman had implemented more of that philosophy himself, alas.

    I agree this isn't just about being conservative. I've watched white male leftists shout down black women in leftist spaces too often not to notice the same patterns. I've heard too many people fall into that "men" and "females" dichotomy outside of MAGA spaces.

    I don't understand what is so hard about caring about other people, except that as far as I can tell, it's "gay" to do it.

    12 votes

  16. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    Thank you for the kind words! I think the use of "Fix your Hearts or Die" was so intentional for that reason - because it's using the same language also used by so many of the most toxic...

    Thank you for the kind words!

    I think the use of "Fix your Hearts or Die" was so intentional for that reason - because it's using the same language also used by so many of the most toxic messaging. (It can be kind or cruel.). But I think it's genuinely well intended here.

    9 votes

  17. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    For what it's worth the author is a man, I don't think he's writing from a women's perspective but from one that considers women as people.

    For what it's worth the author is a man, I don't think he's writing from a women's perspective but from one that considers women as people.

    10 votes

  18. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link Parent
    The author, who is a man, is explicitly not blaming the entire male gender. His point is that lonely people are responsible for themselves, broadly and it isn't the responsibility of everyone else...

    The author, who is a man, is explicitly not blaming the entire male gender. His point is that lonely people are responsible for themselves, broadly and it isn't the responsibility of everyone else to fix things for them.

    Also that women are (as a group) lonelier than men but we see no societal expectation of men (as a group) or a societal focus on fixing that. Anecdotally the percentage of the time I see women saying "we like men who _______" and are told by men (whose hearts are not "fixed") that they're lying, is near 100%.

    If anyone rejects anyone in a relationship, they're free to do so. If I'm being rejected because my partners feel unsafe around me, why would that be anyone's problem but mine? But in much of society it's being framed as a problem men have that women need to fix.

    What is our responsibility is to create paths to liberation and spaces for people when they get there. I'm in favor of tearing down patriarchy not just for women but because it will help men. I'm in favor of tearing down racism because it will also free white people from it. I'm in favor of tearing down a lot of our harmful institutions because they hurt so many people.

    14 votes

  19. Comment on Fix your hearts or die: The path to liberation for lonely men is feminism in ~life

    DefinitelyNotAFae
    Link
    "It's an invitation, not a threat" I thought this was a really excellent essay that highlights a lot of the problems I have with presenting male loneliness as a problem women have to solve, but...

    "It's an invitation, not a threat"

    I thought this was a really excellent essay that highlights a lot of the problems I have with presenting male loneliness as a problem women have to solve, but also discussing the roots of the issue of loneliness. Even though women are more likely to be lonely than men, we still only hear about the "male loneliness epidemic" rather than looking at loneliness in general. Moxon gets into the feedback loop of it all, and how it's being capitalized on by people just trying to make money.

    The loneliness of men—which is quite real—is usually presented as a problem to solve. Not by men, but by women. Or, if you like, by the rest of us, compelling women to change their behavior by asking them to agree to be dominated.

    The loneliness of women—also quite real—is not a problem that's usually mentioned at all, much less as one worth seeking a solution to, and certainly never as one that ought to be solved by men deciding that they no longer need to dominate others as a core of their identity.

    Some bits, but the whole essay is excellent and I wouldn't recommend operating off these bits alone for discussion

    This is the discourse about what is commonly called the male loneliness epidemic, which is a problem, usually one that is presented as something for the rest of us to solve on behalf of lonely men. If we don't solve it, we're usually warned, we will be at fault for whatever these men do next, in retaliation for not having their problem solved.

    This has always bothered me. It's right up there with "allies" becoming enemies because someone was mean to them or how we are told to be nice to conservatives who have been hateful or they'll stay conservative. I'm not inclined to have my actions be held hostage to someone else's potential bad behavior.

    Yes, women don't want to be property, so they choose not to be with men who believe they are property. And patriarchal men holding such beliefs decry women who would withhold themselves over nothing more than political beliefs—beliefs these men think women should find completely unimportant, yet which men also hold as so fundamental to their identities that they seem unwilling to change them, no matter how isolating those beliefs are. Many of these men, rather than fixing their hearts, will lie about their beliefs, which makes women, who still would rather not have companionship at all at the cost of their personhood, increasingly wary of men. And I'm told that this makes men feel as if they are being treated like the bad guys, irredeemable, isolated, unlovable.

    It's just that, increasingly, women are finding that they would rather suffer loneliness than the far greater suffering that attends being owned by a man who sees them more as an acquisition than a person. [... ]Meanwhile men are finding out that they'd rather suffer loneliness than learn how to treat women as human beings instead of possessions, because treating a woman as a possession is domination, which means that it is seen as not just masculine, but core to masculinity.

    Treating a woman as a human being is gay, which is the least masculine thing of all.

    It's fine to say that we need to help patriarchal men heal, but if we are serious about doing that we have to give them somewhere to go, and if we are serious about liberation, it cannot be someplace that is made exclusively for them. If we are serious about not being people of domination, we have to leave them the freedom to walk the path of liberation and gain the reward of liberation, or to walk the path of domination alone, and let them pay the natural cost of that choice alone, too.

    Fix your hearts or die. We can see that as a threat, and I imagine many men do, but I think it's an invitation. It's not if you don't fix your heart, we will kill you—though some who fail to fix their hearts will make themselves so violent in their lives that they may eventually meet a violent end.

    I think it's that if you base your identity on unsustainable lies, your heart is broken, and if you live with a broken heart, you will die. Not metaphorically, but actually, and inevitably, because you have set your heart upon something unsustainable, and unsustainable things will not sustain.

    So, fix it. Fix your hearts or die. Fix your hearts or isolation. Fix your hearts or loneliness.

    Or, if you like: Fix your hearts and live.

    33 votes