The story you linked me contradicts what you are saying. “They were trying one message — rights and benefits — and it didn’t work, so they changed it to ‘love is love,’ or ‘love and commitment,’ or ‘love and family,’ and then magic happened, and they won!” That’s not the right way to understand what we did and what worked."

If you would like to provide more substantiation for your claim that being nice somehow turned the tide for women's suffrage, I'd be happy to read about it. As for the LGBTQ rights thing, I think you are putting rose colored glasses on the situation. As per the stories I linked you, there is still a huge amount of overt hatred and discrimination that is leveled against that community. Acting like focusing on love fixed the situation is disingenuous - and according to your own sources, not what happened.

I have no desire at all to be angry, but in the face of overwhelming evidence that being nice gets you absolutely nowhere, I don't think it's an inappropriate thing to do. The Black Power movements of the 1960s came directly out of the complete and utter failure of trying to assimilate and otherwise politely asking for a seat at the table. There would have been no need of those movements if being nice had gotten anyone anywhere at all.

And as I've already pointed out, stating the facts is not being strident. You are the one who responded with a snarky comment to a statement of facts, and then you're acting like I'm the problem. I have no ability to name what the issues are in a way that is palatable to absolutely everyone because some people are going to have knee jerk reactions to even stating that there are problems. Even men like you who really want to be allies have knee jerk reactions sometimes because the dominance hierarchy is deeply ingrained and expressed in often subconscious ways.

"For that reason among others, a misogynist social environment may be partly the result of more or less well-intentioned people acting out of disavowed emotions, or exhibiting flashes of aggression that are not consciously experienced. And indeed, such aggression may be acted out partly as a substitute for feeling it: the expression “acting out” is suggestive in this context." ~ Kate Manne

I'm not angry with you, but I am frustrated by your "flash of aggression" because for all of your veneer of rationality, all you've really done is created an entire scapegoating scheme for why it's my fault that you reacted rudely to a statement of facts about how much house and childcare work most women do in relation to men.

Most men have no real idea what it's like to be a woman, just as most white people have no real idea of what its like to be Black. Most straight people have no idea the dangers and discrimination that gay people still face. You may have noticed, however, that anytime any sort of story is written about those real lived experiences, there's always a bunch of people, mostly male, who chime in telling that marginalized person that they are whining, that they are acting like a victim, that their concerns are overblown, that they are crazy or have brought the situation on themselves. Honestly, do you expect people to just take that with a smile? Because I seriously doubt that you would.

My area of expertise is the sociology of patriarchy - meaning not just the power dynamic between men and women, but the entire dominance based pyramid of power which affects any and all social stratifications. In this social system, those who are higher up the pecking order expect to be able to abuse those with less power and for them to take it stoically. Their only real recourse is to pass the buck to someone who has even less social power. That's why poor Black trans women are the most abused and vilified demographic in our culture. In the face of this dynamic, being nice is not going to garner respect, as I've already pointed out.

And what you are persistently telling me is to keep toeing this line because it is more comfortable for you that way, and then making me the problem when I don't wish to do that - based in the pervasive evidence of the past as well as my knowledge and expertise of how this social system functions. I have yet to see any actual substance to back up what you are claiming. In the face of that, telling me to create a book club to study a phenomenon that you've given no proof even exists, is pretty rich.

My writing is research-based and guess what, sometimes it's even effective. I've had guys apologize to me, I've had men finally begin to understand that the things I'm saying aren't hysteria but are in fact real issues that they had just never thoroughly investigated before. Some people will never see past their preconceptions or the stories they are deeply emotionally attached to, but at least some of them will. That's who I write for, as well as for the relief and the camaraderie that comes when we share our stories and find that they are very similar - and that we are not in fact, hysterical as charged.

The power of the #Metoo movement was that we stopped hiding behind niceties and politeness and started sharing stories that we mostly hadn't told anyone before, not even each other as women. What we discovered is that things were way, way worse than anyone had guessed because we had been pressured and browbeaten into staying quiet so we didn't really know. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We can't solve problems that we don't recognize as such. Can you please explain to me how we are supposed to talk about real problems that ruin lives, traumatize people, and keep them marginalized in a "nice' way that doesn't step on anyone's toes? Because I've never heard a good explanation for how exactly that's supposed to work.

I have 8k followers and probably 55% of them are male, so I'm not worried about alienating people who would otherwise perhaps be "taken into the fold" by somehow softening the truth for them. I speak the facts and the truth to the best of my ability. I anchor that in the context of a destructive social system that harms us all. I have people praising me and thanking me just about every day for what I write and how I write it, many of them white men. If you aren't one of those, that's no skin off my nose. You are either a part of the problem or you are a part of the solution. I know which side I'm on, and I'm comfortable with the way that I go about that.

You on the other hand are grasping at straws. I haven't shut you down. In fact, I'm continued to have lengthy discussions with you. I've even invited you to provide more information. Why exactly should I defer to you around my area of expertise when all you've provided me with is a story that refutes your own thesis?

Seriously, I think all this has gone far enough. Feel free to respond but I can't promise that I will engage any further since it doesn't seem to be going much of anywhere.