Gender issues in After Hours - Your feedback requested.

Nodin

Sharrow wrote: »

Hard to have that discussion or take part in it when posting means you get dismissed as being over sensitive/hysterical and the very thing which is meant to be discussed is denied to exist or be an issue.

You mean people should just accept your preferred take on it and offer no criticism at all......I can't really see that as either healthy or helpful.

Sharrow wrote:

The remit of the tGC and tLL is to host discussion for each gender.AH is a general forum and neither gender should be made feel unwelcome there.

Going on your first post in this thread, you seem to be adroit at making yourself feel unwelcome without any input from elsewhere. As far as I can tell, no gender is made feel unwelcome in AH. If you want some ban on anything other than "gender neutral", sexuality free topics, I can't see how that would work on a general forum involving human beings.

Morag

Nodin wrote: »

You mean people should just accept your preferred take on it and offer no criticism at all......I can't really see that as either healthy or helpful.

The AH mods asked for feedback I am providing that to them.
I don't have to engage with the other posters on the thread.

Nodin wrote: »

As far as I can tell, no gender is made feel unwelcome in AH.

That is your experience, I am sure the AH mods are glad to have your input,
I have had a different experience but I don't feel the need to pull apart yours to try and justify mine.

Nodin wrote: »

If you want some ban on anything other than "gender neutral", sexuality free topics, I can't see how that would work on a general forum involving human beings.

Nope what is being asked is that either gender is not denigrated and that stupid sexist comments are forbidden the same way as yore ma has been.

Nodin

Sharrow wrote: »

............................


Nope what is being asked is that either gender is not denigrated and that stupid sexist comments are forbidden the same way as yore ma has been.

"stupid sexist comments" etc can be dealt with by using the report button.

El Guapo!

In my opinion there's no one sweeping rule/change that can be implemented to sort out the problems outlined in this thread.
If you start banning threads on women/mens attractiveness etc then where does it stop? You may turn more people away from AH if they see it becoming a stricter forum.

Why not just update the charter with a few rough guidelines on what is/isn't acceptable? And encourage people to use the report post button more. Isn't that what the report post button is for? Then the mods can take it on a case by case basis and they can decide on what should be locked/deleted/reprimanded.

Lawliet

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

And what about the thread in tLL? Within a few pages you have women there mentioning Chabal (which I can understand why) and acting as though he's some... ape or robot that's there for their amusement.

It's the exact same thing.

I don't think you understood my last point very well. It is not the exact same thing because the culture built up around it and the implications are different. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear before, objectification isn't inherently sexist. Men objectifying women comes from a place of privilege, and is an attitude that has ramifications in the real world, women objectifying men doesn't.

Also I think there's a difference between a thread where people discuss those they are attracted to and a thread complaining that female athletes are too covered up to fully appreciate their assets. Context is important.

If you want sexism banned fully, it has to be for both genders. Otherwise you're being sexist against men.

I would take this a little bit more seriously if men were actually discriminated against in AH.

You can't surely want to ban any comment that can be considered "offensive".

No, I'd just prefer if one o the largest forums on here didn't foster a sexist attitude, it's a complicate issue and don't think a blanket ban is the answer. I think discussions like this are more useful.
Although it would be even more useful if people didn't keep trying to derail legitimate complaints with "But think about the men!"

My name is URL

Lawliet wrote: »

Men objectifying women comes from a place of privilege, and is an attitude that has ramifications in the real world, women objectifying men doesn't.

wow, are you serious?.. only last week sometime there was a thread about circumcision in AH and it in part became a discussion amongst women as to the differences in sexual gratification between men who were and were not circumcised. Some people used the fact that they get off more from a circumcised penis as justification about why the procedure should be conducted.

I'd call that an objectification that has ramifications in the real world.

K-9

Lawliet wrote: »

I don't think you understood my last point very well. It is not the exact same thing because the culture built up around it and the implications are different. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear before, objectification isn't inherently sexist. Men objectifying women comes from a place of privilege, and is an attitude that has ramifications in the real world, women objectifying men doesn't.

And as women get more "privileged" they objectify more. Not exactly my idea of equality but it seems to be the way society, well advertsing, is going anyway.

Also I think there's a difference between a thread where people discuss those they are attracted to and a thread complaining that female athletes are too covered up to fully appreciate their assets. Context is important.


I would take this a little bit more seriously if men were actually discriminated against in AH.

Context is very important. I wouldn't say men are discriminated against but I don't think we are favoured, put it that way.

No, I'd just prefer if one o the largest forums on here didn't foster a sexist attitude, it's a complicate issue and don't think a blanket ban is the answer. I think discussions like this are more useful.
Although it would be even more useful if people didn't keep trying to derail legitimate complaints with "But think about the men!"

Whataboutery is a personal bugbear of mine but I don't think this is "what about men?" stuff, more "what about AH?" Nobody wants to sanitise the forum.

Lawliet

My name is URL wrote: »

wow, are you serious?..

Yes, objectification of women leads to rape culture.

only last week sometime there was a thread about circumcision in AH and it in part became a discussion amongst women as to the differences in sexual gratification between men who were and were not circumcised. Some people used the fact that they get off more from a circumcised penis as justification about why the procedure should be conducted.

I'd call that an objectification that has ramifications in the real world.

Not really, since circumcision is carried out for religious and cultural reasons, not for the potential gratification of women. Now if it was the case that parents had boys circumcised because a boy was considered to be only as good as how well his body can serve a women, then that could be comparable to rape culture.

But I digress.

Tombi!

Lawliet wrote: »

I don't think you understood my last point very well. It is not the exact same thing because the culture built up around it and the implications are different. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear before, objectification isn't inherently sexist. Men objectifying women comes from a place of privilege, and is an attitude that has ramifications in the real world, women objectifying men doesn't.

Also I think there's a difference between a thread where people discuss those they are attracted to and a thread complaining that female athletes are too covered up to fully appreciate their assets. Context is important.


I would take this a little bit more seriously if men were actually discriminated against in AH.


No, I'd just prefer if one o the largest forums on here didn't foster a sexist attitude, it's a complicate issue and don't think a blanket ban is the answer. I think discussions like this are more useful.
Although it would be even more useful if people didn't keep trying to derail legitimate complaints with "But think about the men!"

I don't think you're seeing the entire point: if you want to "protect" the women, then it's sexist.
Ban anything that's offensive against both genders, fine. Doing it against one side and only one side is offensive and sexist to whichever gender is being discluded.
Context is indeed important but I'm offended with the long haired male thread.
I don't think it's sexist though.

But if you think AH should protect women and ignore the sexism/offensive posts about men, then that's your say and that's fine.
In that case, we'd (me and you) would have to agree to disagree before we tear this thread apart with arguments.

Lawliet wrote: »

Yes, objectification of women leads to rape culture.

Look, that argument isn't going to help either side.
We're trying to talk about sexism. Saying "objectifying" women leads to rape culture shouldn't matter here.
If you're condoning raping women is okay, you're more than going to end up with a ban, regardless of if you're allowed to objectify women/men in AH.

My name is URL

Lawliet wrote: »

Yes, objectification of women leads to rape culture.

Sorry, but we're discussing an issue on one forum of Boards, not a wider societal problem. No 'rape culture', whatever meaning you have yourself attached to that, exists on AH. My understanding of a 'rape culture' is one in which victims are routinely blamed, and support is rife in regard to abusers.

I've literally never seen somebody blame the victim of a rape in AH, or try to defend somebody that has been found guilty of rape.

I think you are applying your opinions on society/men in general, to how you feel the forum should be run.. and that's way too subjective a road to go down, imo.

Tombi!

My name is URL wrote: »

Sorry, but we're discussing an issue on one forum of Boards, not a wider societal problem. No 'rape culture', whatever meaning you have yourself attached to that, exists on AH. My understanding of a 'rape culture' is one in which victims are routinely blamed, and support is rife in regard to abusers.

I've literally never seen somebody blame the victim of a rape in AH, or try to defend somebody that has been found guilty of rape.

I think you are applying your opinions on society/men in general, to how you feel the forum should be run.. and that's way too subjective a road to go down, imo.

I have seen people say "it was the woman's fault for being drunk" before.
But honestly, I usuaully see the mods telling them not to post again in the topic.

But yes, trying to put there's a "rape culture" is the same as "sexist" threads in AH is way, way too far.

Wibbs

Onixx wrote: »

It's totally disingenuous to say men get just as hard a time as women do on AH.

Good bit of "I don't see it so therefore it doesn't exist" on this thread.

You do realise you could be accused of the same thing? If one wanted to make the point...

Nothing wrong IMO though with commenting on women's appearance when they are posing, making money from their appearance etc (e.g. Salpa) but it's tacky on its own in relation to sports-women, especially sports-women who aren't interested in looking sexy (volleyball-playing women probably are in fairness). I don't see a problem with a bit of it accompanying a discussion re her sporting prowess though.

Given the amount of sportswomen(and men) who are only too happy to take from the greasy till and pose that's a very grey area O. Only this evening I saw an ad where the top UK female damn good cyclist with a real chance at a well deserved gold was going on about how she'd like to "shine as a woman" because of a shampoo. Here comes the science bit and fair play to her if she gets some equally well deserved coin on the back of it.

Lawliet wrote:

Not really, since circumcision is carried out for religious and cultural reasons, not for the potential gratification of women.

Eh so is FGM and I'm quite sure that's a no no in your book(rightfully), plus add in the cultural bias of women in such societies where the male version is considered the ideal, so you're on a hiding to nothing if you want to tease out that argument.

Now if it was the case that parents had boys circumcised because a boy was considered to be only as good as how well his body can serve a women, then that could be comparable to rape culture.

Maybe have a read of a large chunk of American women's attitudes to the practise. Like I say, you're on a hiding to nothing there. Not unless you want to bolster a culturally blinkered and ignorant double standard of your own.

I would take this a little bit more seriously if men were actually discriminated against in AH.

If you applied the same criteria you're espousing here to quite a number of threads involving males and replaced male with female you'd likely have an embolism. Try and step back and be objective here. I am not saying either is right BTW.



While I do understand the issues involved here and guess what I agree with much of it, but I also ask the question how many of those inputting opinions are contributors to After Hours, never mind regular ones? Lawliet, Sharrow, Onixx, mango salsa and others are names I've not seen in AH, or very very rarely. If ye were there back in the day when it was "worse" then what's going on now? Eve_Dublin while outlining her take on the place(which I would agree with) in this context is a regular member of the community. IMHO that adds to her arguments.

Granted maybe I'm twitchy on this front because of my personal experience of the Ladies Lounge, where I(dare I say we) often found the loudest naysayers were near ghosts in the forum itself. With many, if not most, the deepest search revealed only a handful of posts ever, who only hoved into view to talk about how much they felt excluded. It did smack of "this is what we want [insert forum] to be". Forget the vast majority who were happy out with the community, even if they had a few niggles they wanted discussed. Given AH has at least a third of the community who are women, a tiny few who've posted on this thread and of those they were broadly OK with the place with some well considered issues, which do deserve the beady eye.

I'm a well established PITA on a few fronts and there are a few forums hereabouts where I've thought "ah here" all the way to "WTF??", but if I've not been a contributor to the forum in question I've held my tongue. Why? because I've seen the wider community was happy out with the status quo, so it wasn't my place to barge in and like I said I'm a barger.

Don't get me wrong, it's very often a rule that "outsiders" can hold a better mirror to a community than those within and input should be taken from that and thrown into the mix, but that input should also be taken on advisement compared to the overall majority of the community, otherwise ye're second guessing yourselves on every vaguely genderised thread that comes up.

TL;DR? sanction the "back in the kitchen/make me a sammich/Irish buurds aren't as gorge as foridn buuurds" just like "blast with piss" et al are currently sanctioned. They're all local daft memes about the place. Of the rest leave to reporting the gobshítes and immature **** and let the more than capable mod team winnow them out.

Morag

It's "rape culture" not "a rape culture".
Do you even know what the term 'rape culture' denotes?

http://www.marshall.edu/wpmu/wcenter/sexual-assault/rape-culture/

What is the “Rape Culture?”

Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture.

Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety.

Rape Culture affects every woman. The rape of one woman is a degradation, terror, and limitation to all women. Most women and girls limit their behavior because of the existence of rape. Most women and girls live in fear of rape. Men, in general, do not. That’s how rape functions as a powerful means by which the whole female population is held in a subordinate position to the whole male population, even though many men don’t rape, and many women are never victims of rape. This cycle of fear is the legacy of Rape Culture.

Examples of Rape Culture:

Blaming the victim (“She asked for it!”)
Trivializing sexual assault (“Boys will be boys!”)
Sexually explicit jokes
Tolerance of sexual harassment
Inflating false rape report statistics
Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state, motives, and history
Gratuitous gendered violence in movies and television
Defining “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive
Defining “womanhood” as submissive and sexually passive
Pressure on men to “score”
Pressure on women to not appear “cold”
Assuming only promiscuous women get raped
Assuming that men don’t get raped or that only “weak” men get raped
Refusing to take rape accusations seriously
Teaching women to avoid getting raped instead of teaching men not to rape

How can men and women combat Rape Culture?

Avoid using language that objectifies or degrades women
Speak out if you hear someone else making an offensive joke or trivializing rape
If a friend says she has been raped, take her seriously and be supportive
Think critically about the media’s messages about women, men, relationships, and violence
Be respectful of others’ physical space even in casual situations
Always communicate with sexual partners and do not assume consent
Define your own manhood or womanhood. Do not let stereotypes shape your actions.
Get involved! Join a student or community group working to end violence against women.

Tombi!

Sharrow wrote: »

It's "rape culture" not "a rape culture".
Do you even know what the term 'rape culture' denotes?

I stand by what I said. There isn't a rape culture in AH and you'd have to look very hard to find one.

Morag

Wibbs wrote: »

but I also ask the question how many of those inputting opinions are contributors to After Hours, never mind regular ones? Lawliet, Sharrow, Onixx, mango salsa and others are names I've not seen in AH, or very very rarely.

I post, I read more then post but I do and so do they as I have seen their input to threads.

Wibbs wrote: »

If ye were there back in the day when it was "worse" then what's going on now? Eve_Dublin while outlining her take on the place(which I would agree with) in this context is a regular member of the community. IMHO that adds to her arguments.

It is better then it was a few years back, the mods are taking it seriously and do listen and don't seem to have the bias a previous AH mod had to refusing to take action on a post cos they consider the person who reported it to be a feminazi. :rolleyes:

I have gotten to the stage were sexism is like the herpes of AH.
It's never going away and there are flare ups and when it does it needs to be treated and threads like this are I think a good way to try and figure out the best way to treat it as the forum changes as the posters change.

Morag

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

I stand by what I said. There isn't a rape culture in AH and you'd have to look very hard to find one.

Ireland has rape culture and that is reflected on the posts on boards.
It is hard to fix or change society but while AH and the site reflects society
lines are drawn here in terms of what people can and can not say, there is no free speech.

Tombi!

Sharrow wrote: »

Ireland has rape culture and that is reflected on the posts on boards.
It is hard to fix or change society but while AH and the site reflects society
lines are drawn here in terms of what people can and can not say, there is no free speech.

You're right. But there isn't a rape culture in AH.

A few people that are jackasses and think it's acceptable to say "it's her fault" is vastly, vastly different to a bunch of people oggling the other gender (or even their own gender).

A friend of mine is gay and some of the comments she would come out with about the women playing tennis would probably sicken you.

But would you want that banned?
If so, can we ban any kind of "rape culture" against men too?

Morag

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

A friend of mine is gay and some of the comments she would come out with about the women playing tennis would probably sicken you.

I doubt it, and if such comments were a private conversation then I can't see that they would be a problem. But spoken publicly or published on a website then the context is different.

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

If so, can we ban any kind of "rape culture" against men too?

I'm for that, sexualised gender roles are harmful to men too and so are rape myths.

K-9

Sharrow wrote: »

I post, I read more then post but I do and so do they as I have seen their input to threads.



It is better then it was a few years back, the mods are taking it seriously and do listen and don't seem to have the bias a previous AH mod had to refusing to take action on a post cos they consider the person who reported it to be a feminazi. :rolleyes:

I have gotten to the stage were sexism is like the herpes of AH.
It's never going away and there are flare ups and when it does it needs to be treated and threads like this are I think a good way to try and figure out the best way to treat it as the forum changes as the posters change.

There comes a point where mods have to make a decision.

Reminds me of a thread in the tGC club about Feminism. Feminist posters asking opinions from the tGC. It can only go so far, take reasonable opinions and questions on board, once you get down to Maculinist vs. Feminist lines, forget about it! There is no possible way to get reasonable ground between those 2 groups.

Tombi!

Sharrow wrote: »

I doubt it, and if such comments were a private conversation then I can't see that they would be a problem. But spoken publicly or published on a website then the context is different.




I'm for that, sexualised gender roles are harmful to men too and so are rape myths.

I don't really care if you believe me or not; I just find it funny that you refuse to believe that women are capable as being as lustful with their comments.
Okay, so the rule stems from the sitewide charter.

Should every post that constains anything even remotley offensive be removed?

Morag

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

I don't really care if you believe me or not; I just find it funny that you refuse to believe that women are capable as being as lustful with their comments.

No, I doubted that the comments would sicken me not that a woman could make such comments.

Tombi!

Sharrow wrote: »

No, I doubted that the comments would sicken me not that a woman could make such comments.

Oh, my apologies

But do you think it's fair to ban an sort of "rape culture" against women or would you like to ban anything that falls under the definition of what you defined it as but against both men and women?

Wibbs

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

I stand by what I said. There isn't a rape culture in AH and you'd have to look very hard to find one.

+1000. TBH while I'm on board and in agreement regarding gender issues and sexism in After Hours and how to minimise it, when someone brings in emotive terms like "Rape culture" I just switch off.

Why? Because it's based on well dodgy precepts, stats and agendas and is designed to be an emotive wildcard in any debate on this subject that has eff all to do with some cross eyed eejit drunkenly typing "make me a sandwich woman" in After Hours at 2 AM. If you want a stat, think on this one; the object of said eejits "joke" is likely far better educated, with a better career path and health, never mind more advantageous relationship and parental rights than he has.

Let's look at this "Rape culture" as defined by the earlier quote when applied to AH, shall we?

Blaming the victim (“She asked for it!”)

Eh I have never and I do mean never seen this in AH. I'd love to see a link to one and if you can find one leave it in context, cos I'll bet the farm the poster was chewed a new one for it.

Trivializing sexual assault (“Boys will be boys!”)

Ditto

Sexually explicit jokes

Yep you see these alright, but how this leads to a culture of rape is beyond me.

Tolerance of sexual harassment
Inflating false rape report statistics

Nope, not seen these either, though on the latter note plenty of "rape culture" supporters are as guilty of egging on the stats and threat level of rape.

Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state, motives, and history

That happens alright. You do get threads discussing women and their attributes rather than their acheivements as G'em pointed out. There's certainly room for improvement there with some posters.

Gratuitous gendered violence in movies and television

Hardly applicable to AH. Wow we've found one that might actually apply to AH. We're getting somewhere...

Defining “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive
Defining “womanhood” as submissive and sexually passive

The attitudes in AH on this score can be variable, but hardly black and white. For every "men are dominant" type posts, you'll have 3 or 4 going agin that notion in short order.

Pressure on men to “score”

Nope again. Have a read of this thread on the subject. Mostly the OP is ribbed at his expense, or is told to chill, you don't have to score to enjoy your night. So quite the opposite.

Pressure on women to not appear “cold”

Links please.

Assuming only promiscuous women get raped
Assuming that men don’t get raped or that only “weak” men get raped
Refusing to take rape accusations seriously
Teaching women to avoid getting raped instead of teaching men not to rape

Again links from AH please cos I ain't reading any of this stuff. I guarantee if I posted a "only sluts get raped" or "only weak men get raped" comment in AH I'd be subject to a torrent of GTFO replies putting me in my place for the minutes my thread would stay open.

Actually I'd like to see links demonstrating 90% of those points in After Hours. This term has been brought into this discussion and defined by a link accusing AH and the community in there of promoting this notion, so heavy accsuations require heavy evidence and if it's such a "rape culture" it shouldn't be too hard surely?

Millicent

AckwelFoley wrote: »

Two points.

First is that I do think there is somewhat of a laddish mentally in after hours more so than outright sexism. Whether you feel its an issue to be tackled I don't know... I can't say I've seen much more than the chain her to the sink comments.

Secondly and much more importantly..who the hell made Dr bollocko a category moderator and why the hell did I not get that memo

I dunno. People may believe it or believe it not, but at one stage of my life, I hung around almost exclusively with guys and they were far more respectful than what I see on AH sometimes. Even though they'd be talking about getting the ride or telling me who'd "get it", there wasn't the same undercurrent of malevolence that I see sometimes in AH either. I frequently get the impression from some of those posters that they hate women, even if they are pretending to be jokey about it.

I have noticed since the last thread that things are a bit better but that tends to happen for a while after gender threads on AH and then it starts to slip back to normal.

I have started to report posts more since the last thread and have noticed one that particularly bothered me was deleted so fair play to mods there. However, I would have much preferred that poster to have been called out publicly than for the post to just have quietly gone away.

As I said in the AH thread, I would love to see those who are quietly "disappeared" off AH for that sort of behaviour publicly identified when they are banned with a message to say that it is because of frequent sexist/racist/dickish posting/whatever. I think doing things behind closed doors just leads some to believe that the mods are complicit in that sort of posting when the truth is that AH mods (who I have a lot of respect for, btw) do not approve of it.

CodyJarrett

Wibbs wrote: »

I guarantee if I posted a "only sluts get raped" or "only weak men get raped" comment in AH I'd be subject to a torrent of GTFO replies putting me in my place for the minutes my thread would stay open.

And ALWAYS would have been.

After Hours does not deserve the reputation that it undoubtedly now has.

Nor do some of it's past moderators deserve certain inferences that have being made on this thread (and others) regarding their moderation in this particular area either for that matter.

CodyJarrett

Millicent wrote: »

I dunno. People may believe it or believe it not, but at one stage of my life, I hung around almost exclusively with guys and they were far more respectful than what I see on AH sometimes.

Even though they'd be talking about getting the ride or telling me who'd "get it", there wasn't the same undercurrent of malevolence that I see sometimes in AH either. I frequently get the impression from some of those posters that they hate women, even if they are pretending to be jokey about it.

Well, of course they were more respectful in real life.

This is part of the problem, some are attempting to hold AH up to a standard that it was never supposed to meet. Read tGC if you want to see men posting in roughly the same way (more balanced sense of humour, maturity and seriousness) as they would in real life but don't look for that in After Hours for heaven sake.

Millicent wrote: »

I have started to report posts more since the last thread and have noticed one that particularly bothered me was deleted so fair play to mods there. However, I would have much preferred that poster to have been called out publicly than for the post to just have quietly gone away.

I have seen many users get called out on threads for what they have said, especially if it has been the last straw and also many 'Mod Notes' saying 'User Banned' for this post etc. Not sure what else they could do in the way of visible moderation tbh.

Millicent wrote: »

As I said in the AH thread, I would love to see those who are quietly "disappeared" off AH for that sort of behaviour publicly identified when they are banned with a message to say that it is because of frequent sexist/racist/dickish posting/whatever.

Where would they post this?

Millicent wrote: »

I think doing things behind closed doors just leads some to believe that the mods are complicit in that sort of posting

Well, don't concern yourself with those people as they are clearly idiots, as how could a mod be "complicit" with something which they are acting upon, even if it is "behind closed doors" (which there is no such thing for bog standard mods by the way, as they generally have to discuss the bans they issue with their fellow mods and the reasons for them).

The only users on Boards that can do anything "behind closed doors" are Admin but even then, that would be the other end of the scale and they could only really get away with treating someone too harshly or unjustly. Would be almost impossible for either Mods or Admin to be complicit in letting users run amok. They be called out for it in a heart beat.

Millicent wrote: »

when the truth is that AH mods (who I have a lot of respect for, btw) do not approve of it.

Great, well I hope you set them straight so

old hippy

I didn't get AH, initially. Then I realised it was a platform for "edgier" comment for some and a platform for others to showcase their ignorance. On the positive side, there are many, many good level headed folk here but the nasty folk are more visible because what they say (again and again) is usually said for effect.

Wibbs

CodyJarrett wrote: »

After Hours does not deserve the reputation that it undoubtedly now has.

Oh I agree, however IMHO it certainly needs tiding up in certain areas, a leash on the bigger gobsheens and gobsheen posts, hence this thread. However when emotive with a remarkably tenuous link to reality crap like "rape culture" is being bandied about in an accusatory way I'm asking questions. Above the guff that's needs a mod response(and usually gets it currently) that's the usual looking to be aggrieved mindset IMHO. We saw the same up close and personal in tLL from a minority too.

BTW I'm still looking for examples from AH of those 15 points raised in Sharrows link defining this "rape culture". Given how wildly sexist and enabling of "rape culture" After Hours is, how hard can it be?

PS

Sharrow wrote:

I post, I read more then post but I do and so do they as I have seen their input to threads.

Apologies on this score, ye do post more than I said, with the exception of Lawliet with only four posts in AH to their name.

Lawliet

Wibbs wrote: »

Eh I have never and I do mean never seen this in AH. I'd love to see a link to one and if you can find one leave it in context, cos I'll bet the farm the poster was chewed a new one for it.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056709210&page=2

Post 29, three thanks and the discussion that followed would not be my definition of getting chewed out. It wasn't until the poster made more explicit victim blaming comments that anyone called them out for it. The thread then turned into a discussion on whether or not drunk victims are responsible for their rape. Then a nice bit about false rape accusations after this gem

And wtf. Men are never ever excused. One allegation and their life's over.

I also saw another thread where one poster doubted how severe the multiple sexual assaults of a teenage girl were in regards to the prison sentence. Then there was that thread about a man being raped that had several jokes, emasculation, and some victim blaming- that one did get locked and people warned, but the attitude of some posters was 'It's after hours, what do you expect?'

Now you might think these examples aren't extreme enough, but these are all from the past few weeks, if I had time I could dig out some worse example I've come across. Now I know I don't post very often, but I lurk on AH quite a bit and I've seen this kind of thing a lot, admittedly it could be select bias and the threads I read just attract more of this. Still I think it's very naive of people to claim AH is free from sexism and rape culture, this thread wouldn't exist if it was.

Morag

Wibbs wrote: »

BTW I'm still looking for examples from AH of those 15 points raised in Sharrows link defining this "rape culture". Given how wildly sexist and enabling of "rape culture" After Hours is, how hard can it be?

The AH mods have already stated they do delete/edit posts when they cross a line and as I can't see those posts as I am not a mod of the forum so I can't link to them. So the big obvious she was asking for it tends to get dealt with but not the other persistent knuckle dragging ( as you often put it) posts.

I never stated at all of the points which made up rape culture are present in AH, I used that link and statement to explain what is meant by the term as some people seem to get hung up on the term and have a knee jerk reaction and don't see how the repeated the mysoginistic crap plays a part in it.

Wibbs wrote: »

PS
Apologies on this score, ye do post more than I said, with the exception of Lawliet with only four posts in AH to their name.

Does that really make a difference?

If AH is only for those who post regularly in it then we would not need to take down posts which are defaming people, and the whole forum could be restricted access.

But it's not, it's public and one of the most read forms on the site. One which most people will find first and for many it's off putting and they don't' bother with the rest of the site. Yes people who post are those who drive the site and provide content but it's the 'lurker' who play their part re ad and page impressions.

Many more people read AH then ever post in it.