Continuation of this thread.

I asked him to consider why, despite having been anti-abortion for a long time, he never bothered to learn about the effects of pregnancy and childbirth on women’s bodies and whether that constituted a severe failure to prioritize on his part. He told me to, basically, shut up and stop talking about it. At this point, I agreed with him that I would not change his mind and told him that I’d rather not speak with him anymore, for the same reason that

CW: Misogyny, SV

I would not want to associate with someone who supports legalizing maritalremoved.

A few minutes later, I got this email:

You know, I tried to say “Let’s avoid this topic.” And then you make ridiculous statements such as accusing me of “not caring about women.” Something you damn well know is false. And you rage quit when you get upset.

The bottom line is that you are a narcissist. You are a person who cares about no one and nobody except yourself and your own self-gratification. I’m sorry, but you really are. You take pleasure in putting other people down knowing they will come crawling back to you because they need a friend. Only so that you can abuse them some more.

Well, there is no hope for ever fixing a narcissist. So you are right, this relationship is toxic. You cannot be fixed. And I am done being your victim.

  • dead [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    31·
    5 days ago

    I think the take away from this is that debates don’t change peoples’ mind. People hold opinions because it benefits them materially. This person likely opposes abortion because they believe it will benefit them materially. Misogynists support misogyny because they think that oppressing women will benefit them materially.

    The way that you change peoples’ mind is through changing material conditions. (I’m not sure about this person specifically. Some people you personally can not change. There will have to be some sort of government or community efforts to change those people.) Ways that people will have their minds changed on abortion will be through material actions, ex: teaching people about consent, condom giveaways, std clinics, etc.

    As an example of volunteer work, it is possible to volunteer at an abortion clinic as a clinic escort. At Planned Parenthood and other clinics, there are volunteer programs where you can walk with patients to protect the patient from anti-abortion protestors. There’s also fake abortion clinics called “Crisis Pregnancy Center”, which try to trick the patients. A role of the escort is to prevent the patient from being tricked by the fake clinic.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinic_escort

    • CHOPSTEEQ@lemmy.mlEnglish
      13·
      5 days ago

      So much. I’ve been thinking to myself lately, especially given the recent master debater event, that debate is useless, but I haven’t really grappled with that concept yet. So thank you for putting it to words.

      Like, you debate where the group eats dinner or what color to paint your house. You can’t debate human rights. It’s a hopeless battle, and the only way to actually sway your cause is with action.

      And now I’m probs on some radical watch list.

    • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      10·
      5 days ago

      I think what you’re saying is broadly true, but false consciousness can also reach lower than that, to basically an aesthetic level where someone has given up on substantial material benefit (or such pursuits are very siloed to them) and otherwise now just seeks to subjugate people for their own pleasure, and nowhere is this more obvious than with misogynists who seem to just want to abuse women not because of complaints about wage deflation but because they get pleasure from it happening. It also happens with immigrants, where similar complaints about things like wage deflation rapidly devolve into a theater of cruelty that doesn’t always have clear economic intentions, even incorrect ones.

      • dead [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        8·
        5 days ago

        In both the cases of misogyny and xenophobia, it is not about wage deflation. That’s just a deflection talking point. I don’t think people actually believe in lump sum of labor.

        The goal of xenophobia and misogyny is to create an exploitable underclass. The material benefit for right wingers is that they exploit these groups of people. Exploitation is the use of power to extract value. Right wingers seek to make immigration difficult so that migrants are forced to work for lower wages. This is why migrants get punished but not the businesses who utilize the labor of undocumented migrants.

        The material benefit of the misogynist is that they force their will over a woman or women. A misogynist has made the calculation that oppressing women is more personally beneficial than liberating women. The pleasure is part of the material gain.

        I am saying that you can not change the mind of the person who has made this calculation through debate. They’re making the decision to be a misogynist, not because it’s right but because (1) they can get away with it and (2) they get stuff from taking advantage of women. Nothing can be said to the misogynist which will change those 2 deciding factors.

        Society has to be changed so that oppression is not rewarded and that oppressors do not “get away with it”.