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Originally Posted by MarchHare
While I completely agree with almost everything you (and others making similar points in this thread) said, I think it's fair to make a key distinction that while there is an incredible amount of sexism on this forum -- and that's absolutely a problem that should be dealt with -- I haven't seen much in the way of outright misogyny. When it does come up, such as in that MGTOW thread recently, the misogynists are called out for their crap, ridiculed, and (at least in that particular case) banned from the forum.
To a certain extent, though, casual sexism can be an even greater problem than misogyny. Most people will recognize and condemn the latter, but the former is insidious and can even be accepted by the majority male population of this site.
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I'm not sure it's right to call one misogyny and the other merely sexism (see Firefly's definition), but I do agree that the latter is more problematic. The MGTOW thread causes everyone to rally together against an easy opponent. But when more subtle sexist comments are made, I think the general attitude (and I'm guilty of this) is to just ignore it rather than call it out or report it to the mods. I'd like to think that there's a majority of posters on here who view inclusiveness as an important part of the community, but we probably tend to be a silent majority. So we need to do a better job about showing the moderators where we think the line is. I mentioned before a vicious circle in attitudes in the YLYL thread, but I think that exists in the greater community: if women (or LGBTs) are discouraged from contributing or posting in an equal way, this means that there are probably also members who do not identify themselves for these reasons, and potential members who do not join up. And so the 'old boys club' perception is reinforced.