jdreyer wrote on Jul 24, 2014, 02:15:
"When people say too much about this topic, people stop listening."
Because shutting up is going to fix this issue? Both people and the news industry have serious ADD. The only way to move forward is to keep it in the public eye. And it's like Gandhi said, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." I'm seeing all three in this thread, so that's progress at least.
It's not about how much you say. It's about not overstating your case. Nobody with a brain can argue that women have equality to men. They simply fucking don't.
But making a problem seem bigger than it really is, or trying to compare it to much more serious problems elsewhere in the world, just turns people off to your ideas. Fixing income inequality in the US isn't going to stop a single woman from being raped to death in Africa, so trying to draw those parallels feels disgusting and belittles the plight of people who have higher priority problems.
If you could fix the problem on your own, you wouldn't need to write articles about it. It would just get fixed. The whole point of writing an article is to education and raise awareness regarding an issue. You're trying to swing public opinion to your way of thinking. Since you don't have a bully pulpit or the ability to brainwash people, you need to be accurate and intellectually honest. The Tumblr style Social Justice Warrior routine turns you into a parody of your own cause and gets you dismissed even by people who AGREE with the fundamentals of your cause.
And then you're left where you started. The only people caring being people directly affected because you've pissed away the empathy of other people by being ridiculous.
Gender inequality is something worthy of writing articles about. It SHOULD be kept in the public eye. But the rampant sensationalist headlines, over the top blog pieces, and generally anything posted by Polygon just make me physically tired of even talking about the subject. I can't muster up the energy to care anymore because realistic and practical viewpoints about how to improve things are shouted down by wildly exaggerated and idealistic ones.
I feel like that on many issues these days. Internet discussion has just become a cesspool of escalating extremism. An arms race to see who can be more ridiculous, in this case the radfems, or the women-hating douchebags. And everyone else is left just sighing and walking away.