RaspberrySwirl

OMG.
Really this rant logic of yours is not the solution to every f*cking problem.
Please get a new line.

Newbie here, so pardon if it seems like I'm intruding, but the topic of this thread is one I've been asking myself for some time. I'm newly registered but I've been lurking one particular regional for some time. And instead of beating around the bush any more, I'll just come out and say it's the Russia/Ukraine/Belarus regional. Some...no...MUCH...of what I read in that forum is to put it mildly, disgusting. It's like some good old boy's club from the 1970s. Women are spoken about in the most awful terms, and when someone takes issue with it then they're just one of those awful Western feminazis, or they'll defend themselves by saying they're just joking and having good fun. I should caveat that I'm not talking about everyone in there. In fact, it's really only about 3-4 names that keep popping up this way. But there never seems to be any moderator who steps in to say this or that is inappropriate. I dunno, is this normal for this site?
I get the impression Visa Journey tries to label itself as "family friendly," and I think I've even read it somewhere. I also don't see quite this level of inappropriate locker room "humor" in the other regional forums. I'm too new here to offer up any reasons as to why that is--are there specific moderators who handle specific regions and this one is just being neglected? I don't know. But at least the forum I mentioned isn't even close to what I'd call "family friendly."
I've kept my mouth shut for these few months because we're coming up on our 10 year green card, Visa Journey seems like a great resource that I wish I'd known about in the beginning, and I didn't want to alienate possible resources in the specific regional forum that could be of the most help. But thanks to this thread, I just can't keep my mouth shut anymore so I'll take my chances. I tried using the "Contact us" link to voice my concerns, but I don't think anyone reads it because I've had no reply.
Anyway, my experience so far is that if this site is labeling itself as "family friendly," then it's got a long way to go. Ironic in a sad sort of a way for a family immigration web site.

it's ok,all i care for are those who are very nice giving their answers and suggestions! I just hope i could fine someone here who had been on my situation i mean who had gone through appeal or motion to re open Thanks for those who are very nice! Godbless

I would imagine that whatever happens offsite is nothing that the site admin has any control over. If people want to slag each other off, they're going to do it. If that is a problem for you then you're taking this site much too seriously. You're a grown man bill (although the 'you're gay' comments you were throwing about yesterday do call your maturity somewhat into question) why would anyone want to get wound up over comments on the Internet? It's ridiculous.
That said, this site has rules, that's what this thread is about. Should people outside of the admin be in the business of telling people to leave? Personally I don't think so, seems to me to fall under the definition of antagonism and troublemaking, especially if said person sends you abusive personal messages and leaves trash comments on your profile.

Yes I have been to Alaska. Ha I am a young engineer and you are an old guy that lives in Alaska. You had to meet a girl on myspace because you could not meet one in real life. I actually met my wife by chance when she was studying over here. Most of these girls you would meet on the internet are desperate to leave the country because of their own problems and your their ticket out of there. Pathetic. Enough Said. Yes I use hair gel. Back on subject I would love to live in Russia and we are planning on moving there someday. Cheers

Mark it in your calendar, it's the day Gary and I agree on something.
Except here. Judging from his profile pic, whatever he's doing is working. Don't change a thing Corey.

Well we have one promoting date rape so why not?

Apparently. Crickets from Ewok tells me about all I need to know.

I think you're giving men who act like this too much of a pass. "Snickering boys" do this because they haven't learned how to be men yet. Most grow out of it. "Men" who act in the ways you describe do it because they're projecting their own insecurities and failures onto an entire gender. They seem more openly hostile to American/British/Canadian women because those are the women who are most vocal on this site, but they are in fact hostile towards women in a much more all-inclusive way. The praise of their fiancee's/wives is faint at best, as it usually boils down to how she serves his ideals, but never the other way around. It's selfish and sad. Fortunately, unless the population has blossomed during my month-long so-called vacation (which was actually about 3 weeks of replacing a roof on a dacha and one week of business), it's only a few.
Somewhat related, I was saddened to discover recently that Scott Adams (creator of the Dilbert cartoon strip), a man who I'd always considered very intelligent, is actually a deluded jerk. (a writer at Salon takes him to task here.) Which just goes to prove you don't have to be an uneducated jerk to think these kinds of things, you just have to be selfish to the core.

Anyone willing to generalize women or men of any particular country based on their own personal experiences (which in internet though, are probably bogus) are just retards anyway.

Tracy -- you hit the nail on the head here. This is EXACTLY my point. When I started here, I hid in the UK and DCF forums because I thought OT was intimidating. I hardly ever visited outside of my little world, and this did NOT have to do with misogynistic tones, but what seemed to be inscrutable dynamics that I worried I would fall afoul of. I have seen a dramatic increase in bigoted comments against Anglophone women over the past year, and it's only seemed to get worse, rather than better. I've seen no concerted effort to control this, even though those who are offended actually have good cause to be offended. Sometimes it feels like this --
Man: American women aren't REAL women! They suck!
Woman: I'm a real woman and I find that offensive.
Man: Stop being so sensitive.
Replace "American" with "black" and "women/woman" with "people/person" and see how great that sounds. I wish we could just hear if this complaint is making any traction.
I know you guys love your wives and that is GREAT. Men loving their wives, finding them the most beautiful women in the world is fantastic. I have an awesome American boyfriend, amazing American male friends and loving American male relatives. (Even my idiot cousin Bobby.) Can't we all be happy with what we have without saying that what other people have is rubbish? I'm sure all the dudes have something wonderful about them that made their wives want to be with them. Even if we can't see what it is -- often hard when we only know each other as words on a screen -- every one of us on here must have something not only redeeming about them, but truly good. And if the men whom some of us have accused of misogynistic posting could see how much their words make them seem not like "real men" but little, snickering boys, trying to pull the pigtails of the girls in class, they might have some pause.
But probably not.

Because I posted on one thread? Of course. You found me out

You admit you don't read all the threads, nor spend much time in P&R, but you believe you have the credibility to criticize me for what I do there. Yea, right. You also conveniently forget our past posting history. Good for you. I haven't, but you brought it up.
Ok, one the one thread you have any real experience with, you say you were trying to reason with me, but I was having none of it. Well, apparently, it never occurred to you that, from my point of view, I was trying to reason with you, but you were having none of it, either. You're not as reasonable as you believe yourself to be. In fact, you're pretty myopic. For example, you don't see that the exchange between nab and me was two-way; she was plummeting me, I wasn't just pummeling her. And, yea maybe you dint believe it, but Muslims sometimes disagree with each other. And, she was disagreeing with me, too.
You want to paint this as a one way street and with me as the bad guy, but it's not that simple. You appreciate the bigots, I do not. You don't even think there are any bigots on P&R; I know there are. Like I said before, when your buds attacked nab for defending Islam, she became the bad one, and you did nothing to help her. What a fair weather friend you are.
Well, I'm the bad Muslim all the time here because I don't capitulate to blind prejudice like yours nor the piling on, anti-Islam sentiment you don't see. I'm not a Catholic woman who thinks that thinks that posting negativity about Muslims all day is fine, that false Christian superiority is unifying, that pointing out evil done in Jesus' name over a couple thousand years is irrelevant, and that things that people dislike about Islam are even more intensely applied in the Bible.
Yea, facts are irritating, and, if you stopped denying them, the dynamic and the dialogue would change drastically, but some of you aren't ready for thst. Ok, but that doesn't make me wrong.

Muslim women wearing jeans is not uncommon nor particularly newsworthy, even in Gaza. I have family in that area.
Good God, people. Silly commentary is what happens when all you know about other countries is what you read on blogs and glean from articles. You would think that folks who married foreigners would know that.

Maybe, but more posters will know what goes on, and that's a start.

You put a lot of work into that, but it's all for nothing. He will look at it, say he's investigating and then you will either never hear from him again or he will get back to you with some meaningless platitude that leaves things exactly the way things are today.

I report TOS violations on the P&R board regularly, since the atmosphere of antagonism and hatefulness there is so thick, you can cut it like a knife. I hear nothing back, and not a damn thing is done to create any balance or make people who constantly insult and mock others think twice. I'm attacked personally and my character disparaged pretty much every day for being Muslim, and that seems to be ok because, if I defend myself, I'll get suspended.
I started a thread asking if there was a religion of peace and Kathryn told me I was baiting, the thread was shut down and I was told not to post anymore religious threads. Bait threads re religion are common, especially anti-Islam threads, but nothing is done to those who intend to stir up division. It's so bad, that I'm pretty much the only Muslim that will post there anymore because the atmosphere is so poisonous, yet NOTHING IS DONE TO MITIGATE IT despite all the reporting. It's not about censorship, it's about applying the rules as evenly as possible and when needed, and it's needed a lot there.
I expect fools among the posters, but the mods are not doing their job, so I'm lead to believe that they are racists who like P&R the way it is. It's certainly the worst moderated board on the site.
My opinion, it's demonstrable, and I'm entitled to it.

This isn't the first time someone has called them out like this and I'm sure it won't be the last.
Kathryn, Kriskit, and Otto are are 3 completely useless except against people they may not like on the boards. These three have proven to be very biased and very useless in many circumstances.
Certain individuals will get suspended/threads edited on a whim for daring to say something a bit harsh in threads. These individuals are usually ones that they cannot relate to on a political scale and so therefore are enemies in their head that have to be dealt with accordingly when something is done that they do not like.
Oh the other hand, if someone who possibly shares the same views as they do committs the same infractions or even worse infractions in the form of blatant name-calling/personal attacks, etc. then these people's actions go ignored and go left in place without warning, without removal, and without suspension.
This has been going on against several people and a few have gotten by with far more than others have gotten suspended for less for.
It is deeply concerning for a site of this nature that has so many different ideas and opinions, for a moderator staff to treat certain individuals with favoritsm over others.
You run a good site here and there's no reason why these few moderators should drag its name down like they do. I personally feel (along with a few others I'm sure) think that all 3 of these moderators should recuse themselves from their moderator position and should be replaced with individuals who will treat each situation equally and not based on any type of favortism. A great resource ilke this that has been helpful to so many deserves a fair and just staff to keep it lively and just as helpful, even in the forums that aren't necessarily a part of that process itself. They still reflect upon the site, and that is important.
Thanks for your consideration on the nature of what's going on here.

Most of the time, I enjoy the slight bickering with the ppl in question. It's actually quite amusing to me most times to run into people with such archaic views. It's quite a novelty to interact with those who finally feel the 'freedom' to be as insulting as they can be -presumably as it fills some therapeutic need for self esteem recovery - 'It's not me, it's all THEM' . It's self jjustified by the fact that they did, indeed, get someone to marry them, so of course it must everyone else that was the problem. Irl, I have never met anyone even close to that, and I have to admit, it's like driving past a very bad car crash....you can't help but look. I joke with my BFF who's also a member here, that Ewok has created this site solely for a Master's thesis in sociology.
However, there are those times when I really am shocked by the rampant disrespect., and shocked by the level of tolerance to it. Some posters just don't seem to 'get it'...that it's not 'us vs them'. That we're not jealous of their happiness, and the only thing we object to is the means in which they express their happiness - in relation to feeling the need to put down others.
The post in q that I believe started this whole thing off was a very nonchalant anecdote about a particular poster telling his wife 'if your mom was half as lippy as you are, no wonder her husband beat her azz every day' Or something to that effect. I said it in that thread, and M said it here...it's neither clever nor funny. And it's quite insulting to the community as a whole to have a poster who feels it's not only appropriate to say, but then berates anyone who claims it's offensive. And then it gets into 'I refuse to be PC' as if THAT'S the issue. PC? Is that what this is all about? Joking about domestic violence is not funny. It's socially retarded (in the literal sense) to even think it's acceptable to repeat in mixed company. No one here gives a toss about the dynamic of any individual couple, but what is acceptable to that couple should not automatically make it acceptable to the VJ collective.
Then of course, the pack descends, and then it's another same old same old clusterfluff with the usual suspects (on both sides).
In this particular case, the silence of the majority is deafening. Not one other poster took umbrage by what was said. In fact, the other posts denigrated into the usual back and forth. So am I to presume that not one man in that forum who read that thread feels it's ok to joke about your MIL's past of being beaten? Is that really funny at all?
I don't actually think anything will change though. This topic has been talked about til the horse is well and truly dead. The only way it can change is through heavy moderation - because let's face it, enlightenment - although preferrable - will never happen. I'm not really a fan of heavy moderation in the general sense. But that is my opinion based on normal adult behavior. This falls beyond the scope of that. I highly doubt these posters who so freely put down American women as <insert your choice here> would voice this to their mothers, sisters, female friends. I think those who beat their chests and objectify their own wives are only doing so here, because they can. Sure, to some of these men, going home to a gorgeous wife must seem like something that (pre-internet) was entirely impossible. They must feel like they won the lottery (let's face it, the GC is a wonderful equalizer) So most of the time, I try to remember that and that makes me feel bad enough for them, that it gives me more tolerance for their behavior.
But in the grand scheme of VJ, they are a wart on the azz of the site, and have driven members away. How Ewok wants to deal with that is his choice.
eta: imo, it's not about just sweeping up after certain people by invising offending posts. I say leave it out there, and if mod action IS taken, it needs to be publicly shared to show that this type of behavior is not acceptable here. Not just getting out the broom and cleaning up someone's mess....people need to stand publicly accountable for what they say, and invising is not the way.

So I've been cogitating a little bit on the TOS (hey, I'm a lawyer, and it's interesting to me) and I'm just wondering about a couple of things in there, which I have in this very sub-forum wondered about before in days gone by. Is it or is it not a violation of the following clauses of the TOS on "Permited Uses" when certain prejudicial stereotypes about women of particular nationalities are regularly trotted out on a near-daily basis?



As a woman, and as a woman of the demographic against which mud is thrown frequently in certain areas of this site, I can say that I feel very uncomfortable reading some of the things posted. Now, you can all go and tell me to be a big girl and not read these things, but the sentiment leaches into other, more general areas of the site. It creates a hostile environment on VJ as a whole, and it seems that by not trying to contain this behaviour, that the moderation and administration silently endorse such language. It is hate language.
Wait, let me say that again. It is hate language. It's not clever and it's not funny. It makes this place seem like some sort of boys' club, where women are either to be ogled (if conforming to one particular brand of beauty) or discussed in the most offensive terms. It's bullying behaviour. Sorry, it is.
I'm ready for the vitriol to roll in from the usual suspects, and guys, I don't give a damn if you think I'm a harpy or bitter or ugly, because I know I'm not and I'm secure in that. I'm more concerned about the other, silent women on here who read this and feel they can't pipe up because "that's just VJ." It's discriminatory and it needs to stop.
I'm taking a stand and I don't care what any of you think. THE HATE NEEDS TO STOP.

Like Stewart said: "In real life, in my memory, this guy had a lot more 'Anthony' and a lot less 'Weiner,'".

I, too, find myself laughing when someone I've shoved & hit several times "kinda jumps" in fright (and most likely, intimidation) when they see me.

Pretty sad that some people need to be convinced that DV is wrong, regardless of gender. Maybe if I display my "DV club card" that will buy me some street cred in this thread?
As a member of aforementioned DV club, I am 100% shocked that another victim of DV isn't OUTRAGED after hearing that one spouse is shoving & hitting another spouse several times! Yet, one of the first responses was:
Where was the advice for Cassi that under NO THEORY is it okay for you to put your hands on another person in anger? It was even suggested that Benny's actions were out of love for Cassi's son. Is this how Cassi rewards 'love' & care?
How is also acceptable that IR5 can bully & intimidate other posters with:

There's a cure, though. Get a job. Quit drawing that government check and start working. Will help you recover from whatever ails you. Maybe.