Hmmm

[telophase]

John Scalzi has a post up on his blog today that talks about how female bloggers get much more bile, hate, and filth in their comments and email than male bloggers do. Naturally, there's a bit breaking out in the comments (Scalzi's putting a stop to it before it's really getting going, luckily) about who's more bitchy to women: men or other women.

There's a contingent out there who are convinced that women are meaner and bitchier to other women than men are, and I run across them every so often. It drives me nuts: in my experience, this is completely not the case.

My current working theory is that what you see, and what you expect to see, is a reflection of yourself. There's an old joke about an old guy sitting on his porch in his neighborhood when a house hunter drops by and asks him what the people in the neighborhood are like. The old man says "What were the people in your old neighborhood like?" The house hunter says "Oh, they're all hurtful, annoying so-and-sos." The old man says "I think you'll find the people here much the same," and the house hunter drives on. Later on, another house hunter stops by and inquires about the neighborhood. The old man asks him the same question about his old neighborhood. The guy says "They were all really nice, enjoyable people. The old man says "I think you'll find the people here much the same."

In other words: when the only common denominator in these situations is you, it should possibly get you thinking.

(This brought to you by the comment at #28 on the blog, wherein a woman says women are bitchier in general, and then crows about a bitchy retort she got off once. And by the woman on a BPAL LJ a while back who complained that in a group that's all women, they always turn into c***s. Hmmm...I wonder why?)

ETA: Just stressing that it's my theory, based on my experience of many genuinely nice and helpful communities made of, or made primarily of, women. I don't dispute that others may have different experiences, but in that case I always have to wonder how I find the good communities (maybe it's that I just leave at the first sign of anything, but I've stuck around some mixed-sex and primarily-male places that had some seriously vile stuff going on in various corners *coughDeviantartRedditCepheidlistservcough*)

And noting that the Cepheid listserv, a 'serv for a college SF club, didn't direct the abuse towards women specifically - everyone was pretty much vile to everyone else at times regardless of gender, in the way that hormonal, emotional, bitter, 18-30 year old geeks can be.

Comments

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

You know, the thing is I really like the company of other women. I generally find them supportive, helpful, and kind.

I used to work in an all male field (I was the only woman in three floors!) and I'd take libraries any day of the week.

I've run into some unkind, judgemental types (such as the bizarre lunch-hate I think I mentioned at work) but it sticks out in my mind mostly because it's so unusual and unexpected.

I'm sure other people's experiences vary, but overall I find other women quite lovely company and not usually misogynistic at all.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It's just bizarre to me to see those claims. Along with the claims that women's restrooms are always filthier than the men's. Usually supported by people who worked in places where they had to clean the restrooms and had nasty experiences. But wherever I've worked and visited, usually the women's room is fine. And when I've seen the men's or unisex rooms for whatever reason (curiosity, worked there and had to clean, or the women's room was shut down for some reason), it's usually messier and smellier than the women's room.

I've got 3 theories about that one:

1) they're restrooms in places where there tend to be more children, who can mess up a room in no time flat
2) if women are more fastidious in general, nasty messes get reported and cleaned up sooner, so the person who has to clean it gets a different view of the matter than someone who goes in before or after the mess was there.
3) Er, dammit, I've forgotten this one in the time it took to type the other 2!

[strigine.livejournal.com]

In my experience, unisex restrooms tend to be a bit gnarlier than women-only, largely because men apparently CAN'T AIM.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

That is apparently true, but there's also some simple physiological mechanics as well. Men have a general tendency to splatter, given that we're often standing for at least part of the equation. Not an excuse, merely a contributive factor; there's nothing saying that we shouldn't clean up after ourselves. (I would have to say that, in all candor, it's not something I personally think about, unless I actually miss the bowl/urinal.)

Another contributive element to the assertion that women's bathrooms are messier might be the substances found there. For a short time, I was employed in a job where my duties included cleaning a pair of public restrooms. I did generally find the women's room cleaner (although the number of people who didn't flush seemed pretty evenly divided), but there was a noted lack of certain hygeine products that are supposed to absorb blood found in the men's room. While this is a small part of the whole topic, the fact that men don't have to deal with tampons and the like probably makes it stand out as "messy" when they encounter it.

This is a very weird conversation....

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

3) People overreact about the possibility (and sometimes reality) of period-related grossness?

[awamiba.livejournal.com]

I don't think women are bitchier more than men, but people tell me it's true a lot. On the other hand, I was part of an all woman support group (with varying membership usually sticking around 60-90 women)for nearly ten years and only ever had trouble with other women twice. In both cases it was one woman leading the charge & others following because the woman-in-question was the leader. But for the other 8 years I had perfectly pleasant experiences.

Re: the Cepheid list, well, that was the shock of my life. I had never experienced so much rudeness ever in my whole life. Even in summer band practice as a fish. I was appalled. But once I realized that everyone was being equally rude to everyone else, it was fine. Apparently it grew on me. ;)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

All of this is pure opinion:

Women are, I think, more likely to engage in slow, wear-you-down shittiness. Men are more likely to act out violently (death threats to bloggers, for example) and be more blatant with their shitty behavior. I think this can pretty much be boiled down to how we're socialized. I'm not sure which is more common or 'worse,' I guess to me it doesn't matter much.

[chomiji]

Well ... my viewpoint on this is a little odd. Although I had little girlfriends like most other little girls until I was about 8, after that, I was apparently too blatantly weird for the other girls at my school (and by extension, in my neighborhood). They mocked me a lot and wouldn't let me join in their reindeer games. So I was playing with the geekier boys instead for several years. We played spaceship/space explorers a lot. Then later on I hung out with the chess club and things, even though I was a lousy chess player. Even on stage crew, I was hanging out with the guys who were the lighting and sound technicians instead of with the girls. Generally I found it somewhat easier to deal with boys, on the average, all the way until quite recently. LJ has actually multiplied the number of my female friends severalfold.

On the other hand, the worst, nastiest stuff I've seen online has been men to women. Women may be rude and bitchy and critical, but men come out with rape and death threats, and target women's loved ones as well.

[viridian5.livejournal.com]

A past work experience I call "the hell job" was 98% women, and they put me through some really nasty "wear you down through small petty cruelty daily over the course of weeks" vindictive crap. My female boss at my last job turned coldly nasty when I got really ill and continued even after she knew I needed brain surgery for it. I've had really close friendships, in RL and online, where another woman decided she didn't want to be bothered with me anymore and a bunch of other women I thought were our friends turned out to just be her friends and closed ranks against me.

I don't think I've brought that on myself with my thinking.

In my experience, men can be bitchy to women too but in a different way.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

I have only noticed women being really bitchy and horrible to each other when they were competing for attention. Not necessarily male attention or romantic attention, but also for recognition, social status and popularity.

When there's nothing on the line, there's no reason to be an asshat.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

Huh. I mean, sure, I've seen a difference between working with all women and all men, and I see a difference working with a good mix of both, too.

But in all of those situations, it's the -people- who dictate what that experience will be like.