this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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Witches VS Patriarchy

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (17 children)

My job includes doing a lot of events on college campuses, so I see a lot of t-shirts for classic rock bands. I see a Dark Side of the Moon shirt at nearly every event. I'm a huge lifelong musician and music lover, so I often ask if they've listened to that album. If they have, we have a nice discussion about Pink Floyd. If not, I encourage them to give it a listen, because it is an album that has literally changed people's lives.

One girl told me she hadn't heard it, but her GRANDMOTHER told her it was the greatest album ever made. First of all: Grandmother? That hurt. Secondly, I told her grandma may be right, go listen to that album.

Recently, someone was wearing an Abby Road shirt, so I asked. They turned out to be a huge Beatles fan, and we had a nice conversation about it.

OTOH, one girl had on a Kiss shirt, so I asked her, and she didn't even know that Kiss was a band. She just liked the shirt.

Not everyone asking is looking to start an argument. Often we are just older music fans who are thrilled to see young people embracing the great rock music of the classic era, and want to talk to them about it. Engage those older music lovers, they may be able to tell you about other albums or artists you might like, or tell cool stories about shows they've been to. In my case, I worked for many years on the record biz, and have lots of stories of personal meetings and backstage experiences with truly legendary musicians. Young music lovers enjoy my stories, but if you responded with "name 5 women who trust you," I'd just write you off as a defensive, confrontational jerk, and ignore you. No fun stories for you.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (17 children)

They are the one wearing a band T-shirt, advertising that they are fan. They opened themselves up to a conversation about it, and bringing up the person's relationship experience is 100% irrelevant.

Asking someone to name 5 women who trust them, and then challenging those choices as wrong, when the subject and the people they are naming are totally unknown, isn't winning the argument.

This is why women get accused of being unfair debaters.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Arguably by wearing something they don't understand. Yes

Would you be ok with them wearing the southern flag cause it looks good?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (14 children)

Funny how I never have an issue of women being “unfair” to me yet you constantly do. I wonder what the difference between us is?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (4 children)

A conversation and challenging someone are two different things. They didn't open up a conversation, they challenged the person with the T-shirts interest. They deserve to be challenged back, especially in a way that calls attention to the fact that they are abbrasive, intolerable, or worse.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Who even asks that? Or Am I wooshing myself?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Shhh! Witches, patriarchy, and the characters in this story... None of this is real 🤫

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nice notion, but won't work.
Those people will happily list every women they know, however distant.
Many men don't even have a concept for this kind of "trust".

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Who gives you the right to challenge if someone is truly "trusted" or not? You don't know the person or the people they are citing, so you are just convicting men without any evidence at all.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

I live in fear of this type of person, especially as someone who listens to metal which tends to be male-dominated. I'm an album person and I'm not always checking the table of contents when I listen. There are bands I've been a fan of for over a decade that I don't have five songs memorized for. I love these bands and I don't think I'm fake for liking them or wearing a shirt.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I once knew a girl who shaved her head bald. Her default response to "Does the carpet match the drapes?" was "That depends, is my head bleeding?"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

I could name 5x that. I don't wear band shirts nor that level of pettyness and distrust tho

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Is that comeback considered "good"? Why? It doesn't even make any sense.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Because the kind of guy that asks random people to prove their fandom probably does not have many close friends.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

Even more so the point is that they’re a creep.

Men policing women’s clothing is creepy, or talking down to other people as gatekeepers … also creepy.

The response is pointing out they’re a creep.

I hope my fellow men can understand.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Him asking her to name 5 songs is nasty, it shows he's a bully whose looking to embarrass her. That indicates women are less likely to trust him

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Still, you can expect a comeback to not be a complete offtop.

Yes, the first phrase has a goal of embarrassing the owner of the t-shirt, but comeback in the style of "yo momma is so fat that..." is embarrassing to the giver, not to the receiver.

Even "Can YOU name 5 songs?" would be much-much better.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

That's totally misrepresenting it. And you know that.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The sort of men who come out with phrases like that are (almost universally) arseholes. Having a default response, that can be rolled out quickly, and hit at emotional sore spots is useful.

As for why it works, if they are willing to come out with that line, then either a massively misogynistic, or badly socially stunted and rude. Both will drive women away aggressively (and likely a lot of male friends).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (3 children)

How often does that line happen? I can definitely see "What's your favorite song/album?", that's just making conversation based on a common interest. And it can be kinda disappointing if you thought you were gonna get to talk about a band you like, but the person just liked the design and hasn't even heard them.

But "Name 5 songs"? I thought that just happened in memes.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It does only primarily happen in memes. I'm 50, lived a very unsheltered life and never once heard someone ask something so stupid in the flesh.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

Are you a woman? It might also be something that developed during very young gen X/millennial generation, because it was at that point I believe the band shirt trend escaped the "die hard fan" category into just general audience category. Maybe it's location based, or appearance based. If you don't "look the part" whatever that means to the person, you're a suspected "poser."

I'm younger than you and am a woman and can confirm this has happened to me on multiple occasions. I had an ex that liked band merch and I often wore their clothes out when I stayed over and just kinda kept them because they looked cool. I was generally happy to say I didn't know the band, but it happened enough times that I started telling people I got the merch off a corpse. It was generally a left field enough response that they didn't try to continue speaking to me. I can't remember the number of times it happened but it was enough to prompt me to change my response from "it's my boyfriends" to something to make the conversation stop.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

Not to discount your personal experience, just offering a different one, but people pretty regularly used to gatekeep in this way to me, I've been asked the "name 5 songs" question or some variant of it at least a dozen times when I was in school, it slowed significantly down in college and adulthood though.

I will note however that prior to my transition I read these things as "male social purity tests" and post transition I read them as "teenage boys need to be right so bad they'll attack anyone for anything" and I think a lot of this comes from our society ignoring the emotional needs for validation among young men and boys, causing them to lash out in this at potential friends who they see as a target for humiliation, instead of bringing these people closer.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

What do you think the memes were based on? Gatekeeping is a real thing, and the "name 5 songs" is a genuine thing they'd to to "test" people as "real" fans.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

It's a bit of a weaponised meme. A small number of guys will use it as either a put down, or a really bad attempt at a negging pickup line. Unfortunately, they are the sort to do it to a depressing number of women, without thinking that maybe they are the arsehole, not the women turning him down.

It's also quite dependent on the demographic. E.g. It's far more likely to come up at music festivals etc.

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