ever been shamed? a case for being shameless/shame-less... it is, after all, externally imposed

throwawaynevermindit · 2021-12-22T15:58:32+00:00

Baseline, women are shamed too much, men are shamed too little. Often, women feel ashamed for behavior men exhibit toward them that the men should be ashamed of. We need to work on externalizing that shame and placing it back on the people who are doing the actual bad behavior. Imagine if we find an effective way to redirect the shame we feel for "allowing" men to treat us badly onto men for trying to treat people badly in the first place. Apply shame to the source - the kind of social shame that inevitably brings social consequences.

I think it's funny when men try to shame me now tbh.

2021-12-22T15:39:42+00:00

Every man I meet negs me. Usually for being short, the music I like, where I grew up,or the beer I drink. It has never had a good outcome. It always makes them seem toxic and insecure. Anytime I have let it slide the relationship grew increasingly abusive. I usually date men that are objectively less attractive than I am (although I found I was attracted to them) . I only will date men that are as attractive as I am from now on, cause they get so insecure

Jandi18 · 2021-12-22T17:52:56+00:00

A male co worker once commented on me being materialistic. I looked him in the eye and said "yes I am and?" He kept quiet.

I grew up in a society where women are shamed from wanting material things. They expect house wives to use only small allowance and give her husband back the change. They preach about virtuous woman but the men will fuck a rattlesnake if it had a vagina.

herbivorouscarnivore · 2021-12-22T16:02:22+00:00

I’ve had men try to shame me lol Let me just say that some people need to learn not to criticize if they don’t want me to air their dirty laundry.

Bonus points to the one who passive-aggressively tried to shame me for having a sexual history. Sir, it is neither my fault nor problem that you are a 29-year-old virgin. (Yes, I walked out when I finally picked my jaw up from the floor.)

edwardianemerald · 2021-12-22T16:58:27+00:00

I am a big fan of social shame because it truly works on men who don't have morals, principles or qualms on hurting women who are just trying to find their mate. OP, what do you recommend other than shame? Do you really think anything will change without shame, which has been a powerful social tool for centuries of both men AND women? Historically, horrible men would be shamed from strong, family-oriented communities and become drifters. While yea that sucks to be the drifter, the communities looked out for each other and ensured strength from within.

To answer your question, yes I have been shamed for disagreeing with a man on a dating app. He insisted he was showing all of his friends my answers to the questions he *asked me* to make fun of me. I blocked him and reported his behavior to the app team for making the dating environment unsafe. Did it change my behavior? I mean I ditched OLD a while back so maybe. Did it make me recognize anything? YES, these men are full-tilt socially shaming women for not adhering to their bizarre made-up standards. By showing my OLD profile to his friends without my consent/knowledge/permission, he was potentially exposing me to abusive men. If we don't respond wisely (and in-kind) we are just going to keep being punching bags for their weirdo (potentially dangerous) ego trips.

Platipus6 · 2021-12-22T22:33:05+00:00

Men have repeatedly used shame on me to excise anything about my personality they don't like, such as being very chatty and passionate about whatever I'm talking about. Or to stop me doing whatever it is that's making them feel ashamed of being incompetent, lazy, stupid and worthless.

They want me to be happy and perky, but only about their dumbshit interests like sports. They want me to clean, but not too fast or efficiently to make them feel bad.

Doesn't work, my guys.

ThrowRA_lantern · 2021-12-23T00:47:33+00:00

My NVX used shame as his weapon of choice against me. For things that were out of my control. I had a great upbringing and responsible/sensible parenting (e.g. being taught no alcohol until legal age, family time is valuable, visit your grandparents, date wisely, practice safe sex, etc etc) and he told me I’d struggle being a mother because that sort of upbringing would make me so uptight. He ranted and made me feel ashamed for my upbringing and identity. He also negged me all the time about how I lived in a poor suburb… it was literally the suburb next door to his and we live in an upper-class area!! He found ridiculous things to shame me for. And my ex before him shamed me for not complimenting his muscles enough that day after his workout at the gym. What losers they both were.

But at least I know from personal experience that shame can really affect you. Especially if you are very self conscious of how you are perceived. Of course the shame and guilt I felt was completely uncalled for and undeserving, but it’s something that I think women like myself receive all the time for absolutely no reason and something men NEVER receive while having every reason to be ashamed.

Emergency-Feed8216 · 2021-12-22T19:48:30+00:00

Shame is not so much an emotion as a fear/helplessness/grief response when one receives a message that one has departed from societal rules/norms and is in danger of being cast out of the "tribe." The grief is anticipation of being cast out because back in prehistoric times, being pushed from the social fold meant sure death.

It's a hardwired, lizard brain reaction. Shame is important for preventing crimes and offenses against the innocent. Shame makes the events memorable so they're not repeated. But just as important is forming and being solid on your own code of ethics and deciding which rules are stupid and not actually about causing harm and may even be about being courageous (wearing white after Labor day? Refusing to flatter or hump your rude Tinder date? Reporting that date for stalking?) and which are important (robbery, rape, malicious deeds or gossip towards the innocent, harming children, drowning kittens, etc.).

Men are statistically more likely to commit terrible crimes, so part of toxic masculinity is to trade amongst themselves and internalize methods of quelling legitimate shame, a process known as "neutralization."

Learning to deflect ab.usive shaming over non-offenses and deciding in a cohesive, "golden rule" sort of way (meaning you treat others in the way you expect to be treated) which code of ethics you abide by is vastly different than neutralization, aka, "reduction of self punishment."

Below is a cut and paste of a clinical description of neutralization. The learned mechanism of neutralization not only applies to assuaging guilt after committing misdeeds but may pave the way to commit future crimes. At the end of the paper the authors question whether being a clinical sociopath is really necessary to commit certain offenses when the thought processes that characterize neutralization are so effective in self-exculpation.

Google Denying the Darkness: Exploring the Discourse of Neutralization of Bundy, Gacy and Dahmer.

Excerpt:

Neutralization Theory

Sykes and Matza [45] proposed neutralization techniques to explain how juvenile offenders can engage in delinquent behavior yet remain “committed to the dominant normative system” (p. 667). These techniques allow offenders to engage in deviant/illegal activities by providing a rationalization for these behaviors, allow offenders to protect their self-concept and deflect both self-blame and blame from others [1,12,30,45–53]. Maruna and Copes [30] suggest that the neutralizations used by offenders might not only be used to rationalize behavior, but also that these might be “implicated in the etiology of deviant behavior” (p. 222). Additionally, other researchers affirm this position, that neutralizations may be used not only after the fact to rationalize behavior but may actually influence and instigate future behavior.

Sykes and Matza [45] described five techniques used by offenders: denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of the victim, appeal to higher loyalties, and condemnation of the condemners; see also [1,12,30,45–53].

If the offender claims the behavior was outside his/her control or an accident (e.g., “I was late because my alarm didn’t go off”) this is denial of responsibility.

Denial of injury is where the offender insists no harm was intended or there was no harm done despite the act being illegal (e.g., a juvenile steals a car to joyride, but returns it without damage).

Denial of the victim is when the offender insists the victim does not deserve this status (i.e., harm was rightful retaliation), did something to instigate the offender or deserved what happened (i.e., it is really the victim’s fault), or that there is no victim (i.e., absent or unknown victim). For example, the offender may claim that the victim hit them first, so they needed to retaliate which resulted in the victim being “beaten up”.

When the norms and values of a smaller subgroup take precedence over the offenders’ attachment to dominant societal values, this is appeal to higher loyalties.

Finally, with condemnation of the condemners, the offender rejects those who would reject him/her. The offender may claim that those denouncing them are secret deviants or hypocrites.

These neutralizations allow offenders to engage in criminal/deviant behavior while protecting their sense of self, avoid culpability, and minimize the stigma of being an “offender.”

As asserted by Maruna and Copes [30], “neutralizations are variously meant to protect a person from...shame, guilt, remorse, self-awareness, loss of self-esteem, public labeling, and stigma” (p. 255).

By using these to justify wrongdoing, offenders can protect themselves from blame and the associated stigma [30,45,46,48,55]. Neutralizations may also be the mechanism by which these offenders are able to “drift” in and out of criminality while maintaining commitments to conventional morals, norms, and behaviors (i.e., families, work, school); see also [1]. Neutralizations can be used by those either committed to normative society or those “ . . . who are in a state of drift . . . partially committed to mainstream values but also committed to a certain lifestyle or set of behaviors that are labeled as deviant” [46] (p. 6, italics added). This could apply to serial killers who are committed to mainstream values since many are married, have kids, go to work, attend church, but who are also “committed to a certain lifestyle or set of behaviors that are labeled deviant” (i.e., serial murder) and thus allow them to drift between normative society and serial murder.

Constant-Wanderer · 2021-12-23T06:01:19+00:00

A guy tried to shame me by calling me a groupie.

“You only date musicians, so you’re a groupie!”

Me: “I…was MARRIED to the last one, and the musician before him was an EIGHT YEAR LONG relationship! We lived together! If I were a groupie, I’d be the world’s least successful one!”

Idiot.

I’ve never been easy to shame. The very act of trying to neg immediately voids and nullifies their opinion. It’s like a little dog barking with his tail between his legs - you’re all fear, you’ve already lost.

PrettyAlien · 2021-12-23T07:18:41+00:00

That's a good point. I don't believe women can shame men the way women can shame other women. What women can do, is to reject all sexual contact with inadequate males, while encouraging other women to do the same.

Is he not good enough as a mate? Reject him and don't explain why. Men speak consequences and it's his battle to figure out how to make himself into something sexually desirable, not yours.

BlueSkiesOverLondon · 2021-12-23T20:13:13+00:00

Shame and guilt are both powerful tools, because 99% of people will respond to one or the other (or both). Shame being external and guilt being internal self-judgement.

I see shame as being similar to all sorts of punishments—often demonized because wrongly applied, we should probably avoid their extremes in case the target is actually innocent, but there’s no reason to swear off any kind of social negative reinforcement. Shamelessness and entitlement are brothers.

EsotericKnowledge · 2022-01-11T21:16:26+00:00

Random thought - This reminds me of "Fight Like a Girl" by Emilie Autumn, a song about fighting back against the men who hurt you / the patriarchy / etc. There's one line in there where she sings, "Cause if we've got no honor, then we've got no shame!" and damn that stuck with me. If you think we're incapable of being honorable, if we are inherently dishonorable, then what the fuck do I have to be ashamed of? You'll feel the same about me regardless.

Other great lines: "There is no such thing as justice, so the best that we can hope for is revenge."
"I am through lying still, Just a body to be beaten, fucked
And if I'm lucky, left for dead. So who's scary now?"

Title	ever been shamed? a case for being shameless/shame-less... it is, after all, externally imposed
Author	katiekat0214
Upvotes	133
Comments	27
Date	December 22, 2021 3:11 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/rm75j1/ever_been_shamed_a_case_for_being/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/ever-been-shamed-a-case-for-being-shamelessshame.1091170 https://theredarchive.com/post/1091170

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