Random Feminist Thoughts from Places

"Not every woman was put on the planet to be a shining ray of sunshine in your life."
It's sad how often I've actually used that line in my office. Nobody demands that the constantly angry project engineer smiles. Everyone tells me I should smile more. Go fuck yourself, bro, I've had a rough week. Just like all the other engineers here - except I'm the only female.

I despise that so very much. My typical response: "I'll smile when you walk away." I'm sure that comes off as rude, but how much more rude is it to walk up to a complete stranger and order her to rearrange her face so that it is more to your liking? They just don't get it.

Odd how women are more worried about being perceived as rude than men are? Men defend their rudeness to a fault, while women will politely tell a guy touching her inappropriately to stop.

As a woman you are never allowed to just be sad/angry.

I ran a similar experiment. Set up a page as my friend with her permission just to see how men acted. I don't have male friends and I really don't know how men act toward women, and I thought I might learn some things to avoid, and possibly some things to do. She is an extremely good looking petite girl so I knew there would be unusual amounts of attention but the response was absolutely disgusting and simultaneously amazing.
I now hate men more than I did before. And I'm a man. Out of over 300 messages, less than 10% were actual introductions rather than a plain 'hi' or some rude sexual commentary. I responded to every single one of them. 90% of those turned into something sexual in less than 8 back/forth exchanges. In the end out of somewhere around 340 first contact msgs received, only one guy actually carried on a normal, reasonable conversation longer than a few paragraphs, and even he made one or two not entirely subtle hints in the process.
I now feel even worse for women than I did before, and I've basically given up on online dating because I know that even if I'm sincere and polite, I'll be lost in the flood of jizz-stained messages. Luckily, the day I was going to delete my POF account, I came across a ridiculously cute girl from down the road... she's exactly my type, really short with really short hair and tattoos, has 2 awesome kids, and is a decade younger than me. Honestly I don't know why in the world she's stuck around, but we're almost 3 months in and I feel lucky every time I think of her.
But back to the point - men hiding behind keyboards and screens are foul-mouthed deviant fuckwads and I am truly sorry you women have to deal with them.

I'm a girl, i made an r/r4r post and swore never again because my stats are similar. Lots of simple "hi"/"hi, how are you?" type messages and then...
Got some decent enough messages but they were, as you said, "lost in the flood of jizz-stained messages" and were largely from people from all across the globe I never had a chance of meeting but who replied "just to chat" because we had similar interests.
One guy carried a normal conversation, till we got on skype, cool you're a nudist but obvs then he wanted me to get into it too... Yeah right.
Many turned sexual or even started that way! I also got a lot of bratty messages: "why are you ignoring me"?
Lots of self deprecation/brattiness "maybe you'll not ignore me like every other girl" - nope, messages like that are why I will.
I said I'm not into gamers who's sole interests are gaming/fantasy related as I can't stand that stuff but gaming is cool as one of a few hobbies... Lots of "I'm not a gamer either but... I do have a [insert console]/I play with the guys occasionally/I use it to wind down from work now and again" and all of them eventually progressed into conversations about games and gaming and them being disappointed that my limitations are a couple of racing games and SSX for PS2 and a Game Boy Colour with Pokemon Yellow.
So disappointing at best, disturbing at worst with a lot of time-wasters in between.

So why not listen and attempt to empathize? It's the same thing as saying "I can't identify with being gay so I have no idea what homophobia feels like. It can't be that bad, can it?"
I have no idea what it's like to go hungry but I give to charity so starving kids can eat. I have no idea what it's like to experience my child die before birth due to a defect inside of me and travel 1200 miles across states to pay $1,000 that I don't have to a doctor I don't know for a painful termination procedure in the midst of my mourning, but I encourage Oklahoma women to vote against abortion restrictions (and you bet I vote in my home state!). I don't know what it's like to be black in America, so I read and talk to my black friends and participate in marches and I vote and I say something LOUDLY when I see racism. I don't know what it's like to be a man and have to figure out dating but I have talked to my husband many times about his experience to understand it so we can raise our son right. I don't know what it is to encounter a lot of stuff.
I do know what it's like to be a woman and to be fat. And I know that discrimination really sucks no matter who you are. I know that women can be misogynists and people of all races can be racists and people of all genders and backgrounds and religions and socioeconomic statuses can  be horrible, horrible people.
The thing to remember is, we're all people. We are each and every one of us an individual person. And we're all stuck living on this planet for a while. Can't we all just respect that fact and recognize that? Can't we each just take the extra effort to realize how much each of us can hurt each other and figure out how not to be jerks to one another, like, actively make the world a better place for the other randoms we come across?
So you've never experienced oppressive sexism and you probably never will, but you can see it bothers us enough that there are entire websites and twitter feeds and activists devoted to this cause. Maybe it IS a big deal and maybe there IS a way you can learn more about that experience to find empathy and try to see it through a different lens?

For example, I had my steam name as Daenerys Targaryen at one point. This was an easy way to harass me, "You are the hottest girl in the show", "I'm imagining you naked right now", "Will you fuck me?". The worst part of it is that I picked that name because I feel like she is a strong female character. She lost a child and came back from that and I've done the same. It was all harassment no matter how you sliced it. Then no one would listen to me in game. I would suggest a strategy and it would be ignored in favor of offering me sex and then calling me a cunt because I call them out on the bullshit.

Ever notice how politicians frame women's issues as "this affects out wives and daughters," not just "this affects women/people"?

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome-internet-72170

http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2015/04/patriarchy-affects-men/