The females are scared off from HUS not because someone challenges their beliefs, but because of the tone - I've seen tons of angry males going into HUS and blaming females for everything.There is a fundamental disconnect in the first statement. It is true there are a few hurt, bitter, and angry men of lower socio-sexual rank commenting at HUS and blaming women for lying to them, for deceiving them, and for creating a sexual marketplace in which they have tended to lose out. But the tone of their comments is not why women are cowed into silence at HUS or anywhere else. I have personally witnessed, on numerous occasions, how a female commenter at HUS will make a factual statement, then refuse to defend it or even continue to involve herself in the discussion after that statement is challenged, regardless of the manner in which it is challenged. The tone of the challenge is completely irrelevant and it is the mere fact of the challenge that causes these commenters to turn tail and run away.
Jesus Christ. I'm reading the comments here and I think some of commenters are really nuts. In short, some of commenters would try to convince females, by a way of logic, that females are inferior (they should submit to males etc) and they are surprised or even angry that females won't listen.
I am not the only one who recognizes this. Susan obviously recognizes it as well, which is why she polices the male challenges to female comments much more firmly than the female challenges to male comments. And she is well-advised to do so, as without doing so, she will continue to lose female commenters.
The reason I recognize the behavioral pattern so readily is that precisely the same thing happens at Vox Popoli, although it is usually mid-witted men of the anklebiting variety who behave in this manner. The behavior is so predictable, in fact, that I was able to design a blog rule based upon it which has the effect of silencing those who are disinclined to support their questionable assertions. The salient difference is that Susan wants such commenters whereas I want nothing to do with them.
I also find Szopen's assertion that the commenters are really nuts because they are attempting to convince women of something by logic to be more than a little amusing. This is an implicit admission of the very concept with which Szopen appears to disagree, the idea that women are inferior. While one can argue whether the syllogism that leads to the conclusion that women should submit to men is logically correct or not, to think it is crazy to take a logical approach to convincing women of something is indicative of a belief in female inferiority far more extreme than any conventional religious doctrine.
Even though I recommend men utilize rhetoric rather than dialectic when attempting to persuade women and I'm not surprised that many women would prefer to see, hear, and think no logic rather than consider an argument that reaches an unpalatable conclusion, I would not dream of claiming that one would have to be insane to believe that some women are capable of following basic logic.