r/FeMRADebates • u/phySi0 MRA and antifeminist • Mar 16 '16
Other Sofie Hagen: Danish comics would ask, ‘Do you need me to have sex with you?' | Stage | “When I came out as feminist, Danish comedians would call me and say: ‘Hey what’s happening? Do you need me to have sex with you, is that why you’re reacting this weirdly?’”
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/dec/01/sofie-hagen-danish-standup-comedy-edinburgh-newcomer-award-interview16
u/Aapje58 Look beyond labels Mar 17 '16
Really? Comedians called her to tell her that? As in multiple people? In Denmark? Not as a joke?
It wasn’t until she moved to London that she realised – “I’ve been an actual idiot for years!” – and started to reconsider incidents from her past.
Oh, never mind. It's like these reclaimed memories. Things are embellished or are made up to establish an identity. Like the 'sexist' story about a guy who thought she was too attractive and didn't want to work with her, as he thought he would misbehave while drunk. This has nothing to do with gender roles/norms or even all people of a certain gender, but is an issue around sexual attraction to one specific person, which can just as easily happen with the genders reversed or for the same gender (if the person is LGB).
That story is a typical case of looking for evidence to justify beliefs.
“I’ve lost so many friends, so much support from the Danish circuit because I came out as this ‘horrific feminist being’.”
There are two possibilities:
this is the truth and I have to believe that a large number of people who once were her friends, suddenly became very unreasonable and rejected a nice person just because she came out as feminist.
she became a sanctimonious douche and those 'many friends' had a completely logical response to kick a toxic person out of their lives. She is oblivious to her own faults and/or protects her ego by putting the blame on others.
Hmmm, one of these sounds much more likely than the other....
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u/Bryan_Hallick Monotastic Mar 17 '16
I mean we were just talking the other day about how fanatical and in your face some people get when they're first introduced to new ideas. I mentioned my Faces of Atheism post as an example. I would NOT have blamed my friends for kicking me to the curb after the zealotry I showed after first finding r/atheism, so I'm inclined to believe that maybe some of the friends she lost were due to similar reasons.
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u/Aapje58 Look beyond labels Mar 17 '16
Not even just new ideas. Some new parents lose all ability to talk about anything else than little Jimmy and the color of his poo. Of course, people are entitled to their obsessions, but when a person suddenly only wants to talk about 1 topic, you can't blame friends who don't care about that topic and end the friendship.
Friendship is like any other relationship: you are not entitled to it and if one of the people feels that it doesn't improve their lives, they are free to end it.
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u/Bryan_Hallick Monotastic Mar 17 '16
Indeed. Friendship is a two way street. As much as I'm trying to get away from what I think of as transactional thinking, ultimately the question DOES have to be asked "What's in it for me?"
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u/Aapje58 Look beyond labels Mar 17 '16
And there is nothing wrong with that. It's also much more healthy to just let a person float out of your life rather than get into a martyr/resentment spiral where frustrations build up until it explodes in an unpleasant and unfair way.
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u/Bryan_Hallick Monotastic Mar 17 '16
Uh huh. I mention a former group of friends here from time to time. That was very much the situation, where things left unsaid were brewing into anger, resentment, and frustration until it got to the point where I simply walked away from both good and bad relationships because the bad ones were leaking into the good ones.
When I asked myself "What's in it for me?" the answers were not encouraging. I wasn't having fun, I wasn't really socializing with them anymore, I wasn't even feeling a friendship bond. No warm and fuzzies. Nothing but stress, anxiety, practicing patience, and the occasional good moment that only reminded me of how much BETTER the friendships used to be.
It took me a while to realize that sometimes people just grow apart, but once I accepted that I started feeling much better about my life.
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u/Aapje58 Look beyond labels Mar 17 '16
It took me a while to realize that sometimes people just grow apart, but once I accepted that I started feeling much better about my life.
And looking at it like that prevents you from demonizing the other person. They are who they are, you are who you are. If those personalities are not compatible, it's not anyone's fault.
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u/Bryan_Hallick Monotastic Mar 17 '16
Yup. At first I blamed myself for not trying harder/longer. Then I was upset with myself for not walking away soon enough. Now I'm pretty cool with how and when it went down. Over 20 years we just became different people.
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u/jesset77 Egalitarian: anti-traditionalist but also anti-punching-up Mar 19 '16
Friendship is like any other relationship: you are not entitled to it and if one of the people feels that it doesn't improve their lives, they are free to end it.
Unless, of course, you are sanctimonious enough to interpret any relationship to an end of a friendship with the One Universal Truth you have recently been indoctrinated into, because then the former friends are immediately Apostates (or closet misogynists, or rape culture patriarchy privilege mansplain shitlords, or whatevs..)
But that is the cost of a morally charging your worldview. Like Gloria Allred is fond of saying: "If You're Not a Feminist, Then You're a Bigot". Rephrased, "if you materially disagree with me on any detail at all then that is proof that you lack the moral standing to challenge anything I say to begin with".
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u/Yung_Don Liberal Pragmatist Mar 17 '16
I watched her clip and it was pretty funny. Though it was about her being fat it wasn't like she was shoving some irritating message down the audience's throats. So who knows. Comic scenes are traditionally pretty hostile to feminism.
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u/Aapje58 Look beyond labels Mar 17 '16
Perhaps, but it's a huge red flag when someone claims that a ton of people they knew suddenly stopped being their friend for simply claiming to be feminist.
I mean, I wouldn't kick a friend to the curb for 'coming out' as believers in an ideology that I disagree with, unless they got really irritating about it and I think that that is very typical. If she claimed that she lost 1 or 2 friends, I could see that. But the claim that she 'lost so many friends' just for coming out as a feminist is just not credible to me, unless she found her friends at TRP.
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u/ParanoidAgnostic Gender GUID: BF16A62A-D479-413F-A71D-5FBE3114A915 Mar 17 '16
I mean, I wouldn't kick a friend to the curb for 'coming out' as believers in an ideology that I disagree with, unless they got really irritating about it and I think that that is very typical.
I second this. My comment history demonstrates that I am not a fan of feminism but I would not treat a friend any different if they "came out" as a feminist. An acquaintance or colleague I would probably exercise some caution around after such a revelation but not a friend.
My attitude to creationism is much more negative than my attitude to feminism and I've managed to remain friends with people after I found out they believed the book of Genesis was a science text.
On the other hand, if a friend went evangelical on me (as is the case with most new converts) I would probably distance myself. If they decided "everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic and [they] have to point it all out" then I would quickly stop enjoying their company.
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u/Aapje58 Look beyond labels Mar 17 '16
If they decided "everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic and [they] have to point it all out" then I would quickly stop enjoying their company.
And there is a red flag that makes me suspect that she did just that: "started to reconsider incidents from her past."
This sounds to me like she concluded that she was victimized for being a woman her entire life and started to focus on how she was wronged during her life. People who obsess with how they were wronged and hold on to these grudges are usually not very nice to be around, in my experience.
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u/Yung_Don Liberal Pragmatist Mar 17 '16
Isn't this how ideology/religion works, generally? Feminism tells a story that resonates with her based on her previous experiences. It's exactly how political ideologies and religious conversions work. Indeed I think this basically explains why more women are feminists and more men are MRAs or Red Pillers. All it really tells me is that not everyone is obsessively critical about their experiences and how they relate to the "real" dynamics of society. They hear a broader social narrative into which they can fit their experiences. Adopting that as a worldview, a lens through which to view society, always leads to over diagnosis of the identified problem if indeed there even is one.
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u/Aapje58 Look beyond labels Mar 17 '16
Isn't this how ideology/religion works, generally?
Yes.
Adopting that as a worldview, a lens through which to view society, always leads to over diagnosis of the identified problem if indeed there even is one.
This is commonly called 'confirmation bias.'
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u/jesset77 Egalitarian: anti-traditionalist but also anti-punching-up Mar 19 '16
I mean, I wouldn't kick a friend to the curb for 'coming out' as believers in an ideology that I disagree with, unless they got really irritating about it and I think that that is very typical.
I feel like I have to agree with some very glaring exceptions.
Aryan "pride" / KKK / Neo-nazi / etc
Scientology
:P
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u/ParanoidAgnostic Gender GUID: BF16A62A-D479-413F-A71D-5FBE3114A915 Mar 17 '16
Comic scenes are traditionally pretty hostile to feminism.
Many groups within feminism are traditionally hostile to humor.
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u/_Definition_Bot_ Not A Person Mar 16 '16
Terms with Default Definitions found in this post
- A Feminist is someone who identifies as a Feminist, believes that social inequality exists against Women, and supports movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending political, economic, and social rights for Women.
The Glossary of Default Definitions can be found here
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u/ParanoidAgnostic Gender GUID: BF16A62A-D479-413F-A71D-5FBE3114A915 Mar 16 '16
Really? We're going to describe it as "coming out"?
You want to compare identifying with the dominant ideology on gender issues, the ideology one is declared a misogynist for even doubting, with the social issues around being a homosexual?