Reddit provides an unusual opportunity to hear the internal thoughts of a lot of people when they’re not being guarded by the constraints of polite society. As a straight man, I find it interesting to hear how women are thinking in some of the female-oriented subs, and it helps me challenge my biases and things I’m not exposed to in my demographic.
But sometimes, it just feels so off. I know reddit’s voting mechanism hides diversity of opinion, but a lot of the women-leaning reddit just seem to be instinctively negative on men. If they make a blanket negative statement and you disagree, then you’re dismissive towards women. If you couch it in broad agreement but talk about how some men aren’t like that, you’re giving a “not all men” vibe, which apparently isn’t allowed. If you just give your personal position, then you’re trying to be a white knight looking for a gold star. It just feels like they are out to be offended and you can’t win any way.
The thing is, I don’t see women in real life acting like this. Or at least, when I do, it’s very rare. Do you think reddit is just a disproportionate group of very political women who have been trained to see things through this academic feminist lens? Or do you think women in real life talk like this when they’re in groups away from men?
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>How representative do you think women on reddit are of women in real life?
I don’t think Reddit is representative of many people in general from real life.
Basically, Reddit scrapes together all sorts of outliers and concentrates them in one place.
All sorts of viewpoints and attitudes on Reddit *seem* more common than they actually are in the real world.
Reddit, like much of the internet, is full of vocal minorities and echo chambers.
I don’t know how to say this, but I have commented on plenty of feminism-related threads in my time on Reddit, and with the exception of r/FDS, I’ve never felt like women were instinctively negative on men. Not once.
Just accept that your comment landed badly and move on.
Everybody I meet in real life is way more moderate that what you see online
I think a lot of the stuff you see online that doesn’t line up with the real world is that people turn to social media when they have steam to blow off or are pissed off about something.
I agree with the consensus, troll farms are a real thing, and the vast majority of people don’t bother arguing in comment sections,
Women in here are pretty representative, imo.
You might get a peek at why they feel the way they do by lurking in their spaces without commenting.
I recommend watching the SNL skit What’s That Name? https://youtu.be/rImxuuD_kwM Funny as shit and true.
It’s good to remember generally that women have every reason to be terrified of men in real life in a way that men won’t ever feel about women.
I believe people can get carried away online and do not reflect the greater majority who don’t actually participate in hot button topics, to begin with.
I learned many years ago to just stay away from internet gender politics/wars because it is easy to be drawn into correcting or arguing some of the hyperbolic statements posted about gender. There are always going to be people online projecting or making banket statements due to their own bad experiences with the other gender.
Don’t get me wrong, there are genuine online discussions on gender inqualites and social issues that are interesting to read or partake in. But sometimes these become so popular that threads/subs get flooded with random hyperbole, consensus bias and toxic rhetoric that baits people into arguments which in turn becomes a pointless cluster of horrible nothingness.
My advice is to not get involved, for your own sake and mental health. Because the likely hood of you changing someone’s mind online regarding a topic or issue that is highly charged emotionally or politically is very slim to impossible.
Life is too short to die on an internet hill.
I think the more important point here is whether any person regardless of gender is represented by The Average Redditor, and that answer is a clear no. At least in my life and experience.
Strong opinions get amplified because they cause the most drama, which in turn is amplified by the platform because engagement = revenue for this or any social media platform.
What you’re seeing is not an average, but rather an aggregate of extremes.
Am I the only one geeking over the fact we have TWO forms of B12 in the comments? I’m sure they are the same person… but still.
Birds of a feather flock together. There is a certain culture on Reddit that you may or may not see in your RL experiences. I think it’s much the same as from one city to the next just down the road, the culture can be very, very different. As a man, I might be frowned upon by women in one city, but found attractive in another (and I have actually experienced that). So, I wouldn’t say Reddit is or is not representative of women IRL. I would say, the people who use Reddit tend to hold certain cultural values that the people in your physical location may not hold.
I don’t think any subreddit is representative of most of the real-life people who fall into the topical area it represents.