[steveklabnik]

> People say that so that everyone will see they are bigots and ignore the rest of what they have to say?

You have it backwards. It's pointing out that the person you're talking to has said something that's quite silly. Fighting for women's rights doesn't mean you don't care about men, and it doesn't mean that men are universally better off.

[dyno12345]

> Fighting for women's rights doesn't mean you don't care about men

How is ridiculing concern for men supposed to express that?

[steveklabnik]

You're missing context. The phrase is used in instances like this:

Person A: "Women have it rough. Patriarchy."

Person B: "No, see, [bad thing happened to this guy one time], so there's no possible way there's systemic bias against women."

Person A: "Yeah, _what about teh menz?_"

Feminists deeply care about men's issues. But they won't tolerate using specific instances of things being bad for men as a means to deny that there is systemic bias against women.

[dyno12345]

I think you're way off. The phrase could be used in such a way, but even in this thread the person to whom this insult was leveled against did not say "there's no possible way there's systemic bias against women" or deny anything about women or anything like it. The way you're using "context" is a hand-waving, straw person, red herring. You should check the context.

[steveklabnik]

I was speaking about the phrase in the abstract, first of all.

Second, mistercow discusses the context and the reasons it was said in this thread below, you should take it up with them.

[camelite]

What, exactly, are these abstract phrases of which you speak? Does how the phrase actually gets used matter to you? Or do we all get to invent imaginary conversations for abstract phrases and lilly-white motivations for our (imaginary) protagonists? You accused someone of ignoring context but you're inventing it.

[dyno12345]

I think the phrase is disrespectful in any context and all this talk of context and abstractness and strawpersons thereof are red herrings.

[mistercow]

Context is important, but your point that the phrase can be easily misinterpreted is well taken.

The phrase should certainly not be used if someone merely complains about a problem that men have. Rather, it is intended to be used when someone tries to derail a discussion about prejudice against women by talking about how hard it is for men.

Note that the comment I was replying to was in a thread about education, and it immediately started trying to shift the discussion to suicide rates and the judicial system.

[camelite]

> "I was talking about apples, then he tried to derail the discussion by bringing up oranges"

>> "B-but... you were in a restaurant... choosing desert?"

[mistercow]

I don't think I've ever seen it put so succinctly, but that is exactly the sentiment.

[dyno12345]

If that's what you intended perhaps you should find a more respectful way of putting it