I'll give you just one example of what I'm talking about. As you all know I'm a twitch streamer and I'm on twitch quite often. Although nowadays I'm more watching than streaming but hopefully that will change soon. Now on twitch there is a pretty wide range of gamers who stream both male and female. Unfortunately, whenever a streamer is on who say, looks like this:
...and by this I mean extremely attractive, men loose their fucking minds. A hot girl CAN'T be a serious gamer to them and they do everything in their power to put her and us down.
I call bullshit.
Now due to a lack of perspective I'm not going to talk about the plight of female gamers, that's not what this blog is for. But I do want to talk about how men get blasted by other men for the crime of NOT having sex on the brain whenever we meet an attractive girl gamer.
If you've ever hung out in a chat room of a female gamer (especially a popular one like MsTeamKK) at some point some dude is going to wander in start doing one of two things. A: Hit on her excessively until she gets pissed off and bans him. Then come raging back into the chat room with a sub account and start bashing her for being a "cunt." B: Start trying to shame every male in the chat room who is a genuine fan of the girl streamer and try to force us to "admit that the only reason we watch them is because they're hot."
Both responses drive me bat shit crazy.
The first response gets under my skin for the simple fact that it's HIDEOUSLY disrespectful. Even if I wasn't a fan of these girls I would still think that kind of thing is unacceptable. I mean seriously, what dimension of reality do you live where that is acceptable behavior? No man would put up with that from, say another man who found him attractive. Why does the rule change just because the sex is different? Rude is rude, there's no way to sugar coat that.
The second response though is where I want to put the most focus because this is the response that keeps men on the sidelines of the fight for equality instead of the front lines where we belong.
Men have this well established order of behavior that has harsh and very strict rules. One of those rules is: "Thou shalt not engage with members of the opposite sex in anyway that does directly result in getting thy laid." As feminist issues take center stage and more and more men are siding with equality the manly men of the world find themselves being more and more irrelevant. Not only are they attacking women (#gamergate, MRA's, Meninists, etc.) but they are also attacking OTHER MEN.
Seriously?
Being told that you are only a fan of a woman streamer or only friends with a woman is because you want sex is straight up man shaming and its getting worse. This sense of sexual entitlement is so prevalent in masculine culture that many men simply refuse to accept that men and women can simply be "just friends" and be happy with that. Even worse most of these misogynists think that's the way it SHOULD be and when they see men engaging with women for any other reason they go on the attack. Not just her but him as well.
"You're just trying to get laid, admit it!"
"If her boobs weren't so big you wouldn't be talking to her."
"Give it up man, she'll never fuck you!"
This behavior is designed strictly to shame men who enjoy women's skills as a gamer, as a cosplayer or enjoy a woman's company for any other reason that has nothing to do with sex. By making the man feel ashamed he isolates himself from the woman in question and she is left to bear the full brunt of masculine culture's attacks ALONE. Divide and conquer as it were.
Masculine culture is the worst thing that ever happened to any human born with a "Y" chromosome. It establishes strict rules, harsh guidelines and brutal punishments for those of us that don't agree. Worse yet, it allows us to take our frustrations out on women! Men who are forced to suffer the bullying and shame of masculine culture are always directed to take their anger out on the women in their lives. All the anger, frustration, shame and sadness that men deal with suddenly gets piled on top of women who had nothing to do with it. We are blaming women for the abuse we suffer at the hands of other men simply because we are told to.
Ever heard the phrase "shit rolls downhill?" In masculine culture women are at the base of it. Sometimes I'm forced to wonder how women have managed to survive this long.