explaining social awkwardness to women

[malka]

Every time I see a big online sexism discussion that includes men, there's at least one man who takes it on himself to explain to the women that, see, sometimes men are just shy / socially awkward / not very observant / insecure. This is always presented as some fascinating revelation that will be completely alien to all the women in the discussion.

I want every woman who has never felt shy / socially awkward / not very observant / insecure to raise her hand. Right here, right now.

Okay, Galinda, put your hand down.

Newsflash: everyone who is past adolescence has felt that way at some point. It is not some unique male emotion.

Comments

[cereta]

This strikes me as the corollary to the Nice Guys (tm) in college who would spend hours telling me how girls were shallow and only interested in hot guys. They were, of course, complaining about the girls they wanted to date, the ones who were - wait for it - hot. Meanwhile, the idea of dating me never crossed their minds.

[fyrdrakken]

It's especially distressing when it's being used to tell women that they should ignore when their own internal creepmeters are warning that a particular man is best avoided, because he's just "socially awkward" and deserves every benefit of the doubt (and allowing women what they need to feel safe isn't anywhere near as important as allowing men every possible opportunity for a sexual encounter, though that last bit is generally implied rather than stated outright).

[malka]

Sauce for the goose is entirely irrelevant to the gander's life, donchaknow?

Sigh.

[malka]

Yup. And in a grimly ironic twist, it ends up increasing the social awkwardness / unease / etc. of the women in question, both through direct harm and through trained denial of knowledge.