I’m not a vindictive person. Nor do I usually put much thought into my twitter arguments after the fact. Twitter is a hodge podge of liberals and democrats. I’ve had some intelligent debates, I’ve had some downright nasty arguments with some horrifically uninformed people but this one really takes the cake and I just had to share it. Let me be the first to say that the comments on all sides were slightly hostile. This, however, doesn’t mean that you run away, it means you fight fire with fire and present your counter argument.
Last night during Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention, I came across the following thread on Twitter. In it, a woman by the Twitter handle “Fairly Profound” responded to a claim by Steven Ertelt of Life News- a pro-life website that cares less about facts, more about its religious agenda. Anyway, when Fairly Profound presented Steven Ertelt with some useful information and essentially asked him to respond, instead of being an adult and responding he actually resorted to calling her a sexist and then refusing to respond. When I pointed out that he’s ignoring the fact placed before him, he called me a sexist and blocked me.
…WHAT?
How does an adult like this run a website that is frequented by so many people? He’s obviously not interested in the facts and when presented with them, he shuts down and goes into child mode.
Anyway, the interaction is below. Judge it for yourself.
LOL this blog is ranked #9,715,801 on Alexa. Which means no one reads it, and no one cares. What was sexist in the reply to me is pretty obvious. The twitter user knew there was no arguments to respond to my FACTS and so she engaged in an ad hominem.
I don’t care where this blog is ranked. And I think you need to look up the meaning of an ad hominem. She said you’re obviously not a woman, which you’re not, and then presented you with a fact. Also, you may want to search for yourself on Tumblr
Also, you’re a 30+ man who uses “LOL”, seriously?
Steven, so maybe she IMPLIED that you weren’t familiar with some scientific evidence, but the comment about you not being a woman was not sexist. It is true, isn’t it? Perhaps you don’t have a lot of experience in women’s rights, so let me break it down to you. What the user meant was that you were defining things on your terms and not taking into account that women experience things you never will. You will never have to worry about getting pregnant and actually dealing with it directly. You will never have to worry about the stigma of abortion because you will never get one (because you can’t). You do not have nearly as high a risk for breast cancer (though I strongly suggest you not give in to patriarchy, which suggests that only women have breasts, and become aware of male breast cancer), you have a much lower chance of being raped and it’s likely that men or women do not harass you on the street and make you feel uncomfortable/vulnerable to sexual crimes. That, my friend, is male privilege. You don’t have to worry about an issue, so you think others shouldn’t either and that’s because you live in a male-dominated world, making the first line of analysis come from a male perspective that, unfortunately, does not accurately reflect the way women live.
Lastly, I see no facts in your argument. You made an assumption about PP that was incorrect and proceeded to tear down someone who criticized you. If I may be so bold, it looks like that male privilege of yours is showing again. I mean, stupid woman for trying to engage in a debate with a MAN, right? How’s that patriarchy treating you?
I love that this guy is in his 30′s, and his argument is “Ha ha, no one reads your blog, pbbbbbbtttttttt!”
On that note, hi, Steve! How would you feel about doing breast exams on women sometime? Since you obviously know the proper methods of detecting breast cancer and all.
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