|
All good feedback (and I hope the TFP men are reading this, too)! I guess for me it can be frustrating, because I know that if a whole heap of TFP women started posting regularly in politics, I think it WOULD change the tone in there. In my view, we NEED to speak up, to change the ethos ourselves... not wait for the climate to become more welcoming, but to change the climate with our own words and style. Because heck, I think we all know that the climate's never gonna change on its own in there, not without others coming and shifting the tone.
I guess I don't really believe in the whole biological difference between genders that strongly (though I understand what you mean, SC, about men being more competitive--it's just that I'm super competitive, too), so it puzzles me why both online and in real life, I know so few women who are willing to get into a good, heated, political discussion and throw some weight around. I'm trying to understand why that is. Is it because of what SC said, about biology? Is it really that simple? I don't know. I'm definitely more comfortable with one-on-one than I am in a group as well... but this isn't a group, it's 2-dimensional online interaction, where we have all the time in the world to compose a response. So for me, TFP is a lot less threatening than a similar conversation would be in the real world.
Throughout this campaign season, I have never cared so much about politics before--it seems essential to understanding so much of the greater world around us, the powers that would and would not be--and while I spent most of my life until now lurking around in the political shadows, now I want to be a part of it. I guess it's just feeling rather lonely, and I'm carrying that over from real life into my perceptions of politics on TFP. Maybe it's overly idealistic of me--not the first time that's happened, heh--but I do want to understand the phenomenon, of why the average woman does not want to get into an argument about politics, while the average man doesn't mind.
__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran
|