I would imagine so; haven’t had either one happen to me.

I’m not in favor of forcing women to go through childbirth.

Also, Robert, being forced to give birth against your will can be as bad as rape, I think. Imagine if you were forced to have something alien inside your body, and push it out with great pain. Giving up your baby can be tramatic too. Basically, they mean you like inflicting pain on women, which is what rapists do. They may rationalize their actions to themselves, but the effect is the same to the woman left bleeding.

I tried something sort of like this, way back when, at http://phmt.livejournal.com/ - though it was not quite a feminist blog, more a way to divert the “what about men?” posts from feminist blogs. It never took off, for the following reasons:

* I didn’t prioritize it enough to “seed” it with interesting posts
* I didn’t publicize it enough. The only way I know how to get a lot of publicity is with a big flamewar, and that’s precisely what I wanted to avoid.
* Most of the people making “what about men?” posts weren’t interested in discussion so much as trolling.

Also, would anyone seriously advise that black people have to debate with the KKK? Come on now. Why are women always told we have to persuade people, to tolerate just a little bit more abuse, to be just a little bit more noble? That’s bullshit.

People don’t change unless they have some incentive. Trolls have no incentive to change at all, at least as long as the same old fucking arguments get aired. They’re not saying anything they haven’t said for forty years. At some point, it’s time to say, “Fuck this shit, it’s old, we’re going nowhere, and that’s that.” Could it be that so many of these trolls are male that makes them so important to Hugo and Amp? What it amounts to is valuing men’s bigoted beliefs about women more than women’s fight against those very beliefs. Gee, why does that give one some pause? And if it doesn’t, it should.

Right. Because every single accused rapist in court doesn’t say just that. Also because the world is divided into Nice Guys, who would never ever rape regardless of their situation or psychiatric condition, and Bad Guys who would.

And I can’t believe I’m defending Robert, who I’ve always seen as somewhat trollish, but a rapist? Because he’s against abortion, he would commit rape? Give me a fucking break. I agree that forced childbirth is as big a violation as rape. This doesn’t mean that someone against abortion would commit rape. What a fucking insane thing to say. If I had a blog, that comment would be a bannable offense.

As for Hugo and Ampersand, I continue to agree that their policies need work, but I also agree with AB’s comments. Those two have a feminist responsibility to work on changing men’s minds. Even if they don’t change the troll’s mind–and it may be that they never will–there are plenty of lurkers on Amp’s and Hugo’s blogs, far more lurkers than there are commenters, whose minds can and will be changed by reading those debates. Maybe Ampersand and Hugo should specify that their comments-threads aren’t “safe” or supportive spaces for feminists, because they will contain antifeminist and misogynist opinions, but I see no wrong in allowing those threads to exist.

Also, to bellatrys: lots of liberal men believe, on some level, that you’re not human either. Hell, lots of feminist women have–despite their feminist ideology–swallowed some of our culture’s patriarchal bullshit and believe on some level that their fellow women aren’t fully human. So what? Do you cut them all off? Are you obligated to cut them off? We all have our prejudices, and not all of us are stubbornly committed to hanging on to them. Also, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between someone who wants to hang onto prejudices and someone who doesn’t–i.e., a non-troll and a troll. I don’t see a problem with a feminist blog engaging with people who don’t believe that women are fully human. For one thing, many anti-feminists don’t see their arguments in that light, and some may be amenable to changing their beliefs. How many of us on this thread are former anti-feminists, or conservatives, or whatever?