Men who want to be allies?
Stop engaging.
Please.
It’s NOT HELPING.
I have difficultly letting counterfactual attacks be used to cause people offense, without speaking up. Would you prefer the entire world just let the red pill people do their own thing as loudly and publicly as they want to? From my perspective, arguing with anisotropy about this is like being a counterprotestor at a white supremacy rally. Man or woman doesn't matter, someone needs to stand up and say "this is not okay."
But not everyone. For anyone who is uncomfortable with this topic, by all means please protect yourselves by limiting your exposure to ugly content.
In fact, for struggling survivors of sexual assault, I recommend you just totally avoid national news for at least the next week. Shit's about to go down.
Sol, for what it's worth, I applaud you for this. We may not agree on the way I formulated the case or that what I presented are counterfactual, but your behavior is admirable.
You know what, just to settle this, I will reach out to experts in this field, whether that be Statistics or Sexual violence. Give me sometime, if I am wrong I will surely apologize to you and everyone else. Thanks.
Sol, I hear that you are doing what you can to try to address a huge issue, and at the same time, as a woman, what you say here does not feel like allyship at all. Your arguments upthread did, but this does not.
Please listen to this. I realize it sucks, as you are very actively trying to be an ally. I would not have sleuthed through my email trying to find one of my old logins if I did not respect your opinions and your intentions. I even occasionally chose to engage a troll or two to test my communication skills, if I've got the bandwidth and the time. I understand the temptation, and there can be a time and place for it - you often hit that line, and I appreciate your voice. Up until this last post I even felt you were mostly pretty solidly doing awesome.
Women don't get to chose to walk away from what is happening with Kavenaugh. We live it, every day of our lives. We also live the experience of being told to go away in online contexts. I know it is not your intention, and at the same time what I felt when I read your comment, and the thread that came before it, was the following:
1) almost all of the outspoken women dropped out of the conversation several pages ago. This was not a coincidence.
2) The statistics debate is a deliberate derail and consists of a couple red pill bros deliberately reframing the debate to silence it. I wish that the ally men had enough experience with what it is like to be a woman on the internet to see that.
3) YAY! several women directly called it out, now the smart/not awful men will stop feeding it!
4) HOLY FUCK one of the more well spoken non-awful men just accidentally told us women to get off the internet and leave it for the boys to argue so he can argue and rescue all us damsels in distress from the feels and the bad math monsters of the deep, and he has no idea what he just said/implied/tapped into/added to our fuck this shit 2018 overwhelm.
I stopped reading the statistics pages ago, but was increasingly upset by how many allies were letting the derail happen. Your response to being asked to stop feels worse then the red pill nonsense that crept in here, because it comes from someone who is generally worth respecting. #listentowomen. We're trying to tell you something you need to hear - stop engaging with the math, in this place, in this time. There will be another time, probably in this thread, where your voice will be welcome, and supportive. The stats are no longer it. And when women tell you to stop, stop.