At the very least women can feel solidarity. Obviously its very deflating to see for all of us but when a few women are in there at least for me it feels like I'm not alone.I definitely had this perspective in the past, and I guess it just got drained out of me. At some point, I just started wondering why I felt it necessary to spend so much of my own time trying to convince rando men on the internet, like their opinion is so vitally important that it justifies a bunch of women sacrificing vast chunks of their personal time and mental health to patiently explain basic concepts over and over again that they could google if they actually cared about the answers to the questions they posed. Why is some ignorant anti-intellectual rando's opinion so incredibly important, or am I placing too much emphasis on convincing others? There was not a single step in women's progress that was achieved by convincing the majority of men that it was the right thing to do.
Also with all those things its not just the people you're arguing with who need to learn better, its also the onlookers. Ive definitely heard a bunch of people who said they learned things from watching forum arguments and personally I had my parents' idea in my mind about feminism (very angry, burn bras, radical etc) until I spent a lot more time on the internet and learned how dumb that idea was (and how even when that idea is accurate, how is women doing that bad?). Really crazy now to imagine now but thinking that way definitely was the result of very limited experiences and hearing more views really did well to realize I should try to understand what people are arguing about instead of being upset about the tone and imagery.
I need to find a way to stop getting so mad at posts so I can contribute instead of one off posts that dont lead to discussion. I managed to succeed before but idk what's different now.
And of course none of us should be expected to fix it all. Self care >>>>>>> dumb internet arguments
(not like any of this is a particularly new perspective)