Sadly, Bro Culture is Rampant, Not Rare 

"mikecyc72usa" (mikecyc72usa) 01/14/2016 at 23:29 • Filed to: Classic cars, sexism, British cars, harassment, bullying, cyberbullying, gaming, comics

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I have to admit, my last post really seemed to touch a nerve. More than my post about cycling and cars in some ways. However, some of the comments had me wondering (not really much, to be honest) if maybe what I saw were just isolated incidents. Then I went onto a public Facebook group about old British cars. Actually, it popped up in my feed, and I decided to investigate it. In fact, let’s take a look at the thread:

This is a period picture of June Palmer in a Porsche 356. So yes, in the 60s attitudes were different. However, have we not evolved since?

Some may claim “boys will be boys”, but at what point do we say it’s enough? Is June in a sultry pose? Yes, but does that mean she’s automatically just an object not worth any respect? No. Not at all. Let’s see the rest of the comments on the thread.

I apologize for the one section of overlapping. However, the post was deleted, not because of the comments but because it turned out the car was German, not British. I have another post and another 140 comments of a woman next to a Jag E Type, but after much thought I’m not going to post it here. The comments are nauseating. No one knows the woman personally, but called her “cheap”, a “dirty slut who needs to have her ride height in the rear adjusted”, and more.

Just today I had to deal with a person who was a member of a group I am an Admin for on Facebook. It’s a car group. Yet one member, who has made lewd and patronizing comments to female members in the past decided today to cross the line. His statement of most women put themselves in a position to be raped to a female member was the final straw. I know he’s only banned from a Facebook group, but I hope it sent a message.

Classic cars isn’t the only place men are sexist, demeaning and outright hostile to women. Look at coding, gaming, any kind of comic or fantasy convention or even website. It’s wrong. It’s disgusting. It’s a horrible precedent, both for those who do it and for those who do nothing about it. If you can honestly say you’d be ok with comments like the above being said to your wife, daughter, girlfriend, niece, or anyone, then you’re part of the problem. Don’t enable people to demean others like this, be it male to female, male to male, female to female, or female to male.

If you don’t take a stand, who will?

Nibby > mikecyc72usa 01/14/2016 at 23:35

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YOU NEED THIS. NOW.

mikecyc72usa > Nibby 01/14/2016 at 23:36

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No, I don’t. I think trucks like that are cool, but have no interest in them. I prefer my vintage Jags, Triumphs, Ferraris, Cobras, etc.

for Michigan > Nibby 01/14/2016 at 23:40

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Looks like somebody was having fun with that rig.

Berang > mikecyc72usa 01/14/2016 at 23:40

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You find it nauseating, I find it trite, others find it funny. Moving on.

mikecyc72usa > Berang 01/14/2016 at 23:43

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I guess it’s funny when someone tells a woman that most women put themselves in a position to be raped as well? Glad you’re moving on.

Übel > mikecyc72usa 01/14/2016 at 23:45

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I’m not sure I’d call it “bro” culture rather than just straight sexism, but I’m totally with you on it. That shit runs rampant in the vintage VW clubs I’m a part of and it’s really pretty gross. Frequently it’s not even car related, just links to softcore clickbait sites.

Actually, I’ve noticed it’s significantly less prevalent with the younger crowd. There’s a much lower occurrence of it in my flat-brimmed-vape-bro water cooled groups than the air cooled, which would suggest to me that it’s slowly-but-literally dying out with each passing generation.

Berang > mikecyc72usa 01/14/2016 at 23:45

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Well - that came out of left field. What the hell are you talking about?

mikecyc72usa > for Michigan 01/14/2016 at 23:45

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That I agree with. Some of the stuff I’ve seen people drive through is pretty impressive.

mikecyc72usa > Berang 01/14/2016 at 23:47

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Did you read the entire post?

Amanda > mikecyc72usa 01/14/2016 at 23:49

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The ladies in your family must be very proud of you for standing up for them and other ladies. I have heard my own brother stand up for me and he has mentioned how he wants all of his sisters (all three of us are older than him) to own and carry guns. Every time he shows his courtesy towards ladies, I am very proud to call him my brother. Now if only he would stop having those typical younger brother moments of aggravating me lol. To any man that reads this article, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the fastest way to a woman’s heart is to stand up for her.

mikecyc72usa > Übel 01/14/2016 at 23:49

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That’s a good point. It is mostly guys older than I, so closer to 50 and up. Here in TX we refer to the attitude as Bro Culture, but it is pure sexism. I can only hope it is dying as you say with the older crowd.

Berang > mikecyc72usa 01/14/2016 at 23:50

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You make a post that’s 99% people making the same dumb joke repeatedly, then give one sentence in the end about somebody saying women “ask for it” and assume I must be talking about that instead of the whole entire rest of the post? Why?

Dsscats > mikecyc72usa 01/14/2016 at 23:52

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Honestly? This kind of comment is so damn creepy. It’s weird to objectify a person, regardless of gender, just based off of a non-sexual picture. Hell, I’ve seen less comments like that in a Datsun group where someone posted a photo of a woman flashing her breasts out the side of a 240Z

mikecyc72usa > Berang 01/14/2016 at 23:53

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Seriously, I’m not going to argue forever here. The jokes are all part of the same attitude as the really egregious stuff that one idiot said today, let alone other times. He isn’t alone saying that. What I’m getting it is that making jokes like that just feeds the trolls to make worse and worse comments. Also, it’s not the same dumb joke, it’s the same sexist attitude.

For Sweden > Dsscats 01/14/2016 at 23:57

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...a woman flashing her breasts out the side of a 240Z

Such behavior is a casualty of ever-rising beltlines on new cars. Not a sad casualty, but a casualty.

PatBateman > mikecyc72usa 01/14/2016 at 23:59

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Stupid people say stupid things. The problem with the Internet is that people encourage others to say stupid things. So suddenly, there’s an echo chamber full of stupid people saying stupid things.

Sexist, misogynistic, and completely inappropriate? But of course. I’m just shocked that they would make those comments with their real name tagged to them. Dumbasses.

mikecyc72usa > PatBateman 01/15/2016 at 00:02

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On a public group. I guess they didn’t research the law enough...

for Michigan > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 00:02

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After growing up in a setting where men and women were mostly equally treated as human beings, it came as something of a shock when I went away to college and learned that many men seem to have trouble seeing women as fellow humans. There’s this ingrained mentality that women are simply puzzles that get them off, cook their food, clean their house, and raise their children as long as they push the buttons in the right order. It’s sick.

Berang > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 00:03

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Ok, well that’s one opinion. I personally am not of the opinion that somebody saying “a cougar” under a vintage photo is necessarily of the same mindset as a creep saying that rape victims were all asking for it.

I suppose we may also argue that violent movies and video games make murderers?

mikecyc72usa > for Michigan 01/15/2016 at 00:04

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Same here. It’s disheartening. Hell, even in the Army in the 90s there wasn’t this much crass sexism.

for Michigan > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 00:12

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I think it’s always been a part of our culture (or maybe just human culture in general) to some extent. As with most social issues, depending on which part of the culture you focus on at which time, certain issues are going to seem better or worse than at another point.

The persitance and pervasiveness of the issue is frustrating, though. And it really hits home when I think about how it affects my friends and family.

slipperysallylikespenguins > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 00:15

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I disagree that this is “bro” culture at all, just asshole culture. Bros are generally associated with stancing, lifted trucks, flatbill hats, vaping, and excessive use of the term “bro”. While many bros are assholes, not all assholes are bros. Also it seems like these posts are mostly irrelevant on oppo as this is a pretty clean community.

mikecyc72usa > slipperysallylikespenguins 01/15/2016 at 00:17

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Oppo is a cleaned up place from a year ago. Here in my part of TX we call it the Bro culture, but yes, it’s just total jerk inappropriate behavior. However, it pertains to cars, car events, and it’s a place to promote discussion.

Amanda > Berang 01/15/2016 at 00:26

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The women in your life must be so proud of you... Nothing like a brother/father/husband that finds nothing wrong with posting such behavior...Thank God the men in my life would stand up for me and other women.

for Michigan > slipperysallylikespenguins 01/15/2016 at 00:30

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Oppo has cleaned up so much in the past five years. It’s really encouraging.

I think the only vestiges are the Batshit Babe pagent and $kaycog’s COTD posts (though that’s FP).

BigBlock440 > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 00:37

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Bro?

samssun > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 00:37

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The real question is, why the need to “take a stand” against anyone who says something you don’t approve of? It’s getting hard to maintain maximum outrage at everything all the time.

And it feels like our generation was raised without any real problems, and trained to invent them. If a cougar joke is “horrible”, how in the world would you describe actual horrors that happen in actually horrid places?

His Stigness > Amanda 01/15/2016 at 00:40

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It always amuses me that men that actually treat women with respect usually have multiple sisters. As I have three older sisters and it was just my mom that raised us, it doesn’t surprise me because you get a different perspective. You see how women are treated like shit in our society, and you think of how you want your own sisters and mom should be treated, and it makes you change. If only every guy could experience that, maybe more of them would treat women with the respect they deserve.

His Stigness > for Michigan 01/15/2016 at 00:41

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Either that, or someone finally invented a mud gun to make it look like the truck was actually used for truck thins.

Berang > Amanda 01/15/2016 at 00:41

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I never said I like it. I just think it’s disingenuous to suggest bad jokes are equivalent to telling a rape victim she was “asking for it”.

I do more for women than sit around on a computer and whine about stupid people. Just because I choose not to be ostentatious on a car blog about it, doesn’t mean a thing.

for Michigan > His Stigness 01/15/2016 at 00:43

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Using a mud gun to slather filth all over a clean truck still sounds like fun to me.

His Stigness > for Michigan 01/15/2016 at 00:47

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It makes me break out in hives since I’m a detailer and I hate seeing anything dirty, even something I loathe like a lifted truck.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 00:52

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“Evolved”? Almost. “Devolved”. There I fixed it for you.

Those comments were so creepy/disgusting/immature that I couldn’t even make it halfway through.

mikecyc72usa > samssun 01/15/2016 at 00:55

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Taking a stand needs to happen because this is an issue in more than just classic and other car circles. Also, I’m old enough to remember when women got all of two weeks off for maternity leave. Maybe you think people and women under twenty have no problems like this, but I dare you to ask female gamers, game developers, coders, just for starters.

As to horrid things in this world, I was in Sierra Leone during the civil war, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Chad, and also spent months pulling land mines out of the ground in Cambodia in the 90s.

for Michigan > His Stigness 01/15/2016 at 00:58

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If it were anything but a truck, I’d feel the same way. But trucks are made to get dirty and be beat on, so you just have to embrace it.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > Berang 01/15/2016 at 01:01

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Careful now, you are only allowed to think in logical extremes on the internet!

samssun > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 01:12

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This is where you lose your audience: the militant insistence that everyone join your crusade against innuendo or else be labeled pro-rape.

“Saying mildly inappropriate things on the internet” is a few thousand notches down on the crisis list for those of us living in the real world.

Berang > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 01:14

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You know you can take a stand, without also coming back and fishing for compliments. You saw something offensive on the internet. Ok, go tell them, not us. I just donated a sewing machine to a single mothers group. I didn’t come here and make a post about it looking for back pats.

It would be different if you were speaking directly to people on this blog who post things which are offensive, but it comes off as shallow ostentation to come back from another site and tell everybody how nice you are, and how mean and dumb everybody else is.

Little Black Coupe Turned Silver > Berang 01/15/2016 at 01:19

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So you're not doing anything for women because it's a car blog and we are just suppose to accept it?

Berang > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 01/15/2016 at 01:20

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The annoying thing about these posts, is that I know I’m going to be painted as a misogynist by a bunch of people who’ve never actually done anything for women, like getting off their butt, going outside, and protesting against a bill that made it impossible for most women in their state to get an abortion if needed. But such is the internet. Sitting on your butt and complaining about things to people who agree with you, is so much more admirable these days.

Berang > Little Black Coupe Turned Silver 01/15/2016 at 01:24

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That’s not what I said at all.

“Just because I choose not to be ostentatious on a car blog about it, doesn’t mean a thing.”

I’m saying I don’t come here to talk about how great I am every time I do something. I just donated a sewing machine to a single mothers group, and I didn’t come here and make a post about it seeking back pats, because it has nothing to do with cars. I don’t need to fish for compliments.

Bytemite > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 01:33

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This seems very baited. If the purpose of this post was to give yourself a pat on the back for being “PC bro”, then congrats. Other than that, nothing worth mentioning was posted here. You have a picture that barely shows the car while giving this attractive woman center stage...what did you think would happen? Honestly, if you had a picture like this with a shirtless Channing Tatum, the same kind of comments would be coming from women. The comments aren’t harming anyone. They aren’t going to mind-rape anyone. Just stop overreacting.

Do you think men as human beings look at the cut off sides of a picture that isn’t even in focus? No, we are going to be looking at the obvious. Pointing out the obvious was the only thing these “lewd, demeaning comments” meant to do. You haven’t saved anyone. You certainly didn’t save this model that posed for this picture. Put your white knight suit away.

ly2v8-Brian > Bytemite 01/15/2016 at 01:41

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Finally, sanity.

ly2v8-Brian > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 01:48

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Everything about this. The comments, your post. It’s all just so...

Burn-Spaz1966-Burn > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 06:11

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A point or two to remember:

Internet lets the voice in your head out with no Filter.

Not like ,” Oh Shit I said that with my Out Loud voice”.

Plus some people can’t handle the self discipline all the time, something grabs them by the FEELS and it is off to the races.

(I’m trying to have Zero Incidents myself, but have not made it yet.)

As far as this case, I think its the freedom for some poster to say some things they would never say in public or face to face with a female. Others are over 21, virgin and live in their parents basement. Its just another case of people not taking responsibility for themselves, or their actions.

That One Kid in HS > Bytemite 01/15/2016 at 06:32

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10000x this!

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 07:13

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This is so depressing. :(

Porsche was my first word > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 07:14

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... So yes, in the 60s attitudes were different. However, have we not evolved since? ...

No. Not at all. We have not evolved in a biological sense since thousands of years. We are still living in a cave, hormonwise.

What has changed is the room for manly attributes. Espacially aggression is seen as a bad thing. But it’s in us (men). Maybe a lot of men see cars as one of the last refuge for them to be “real” men. And then it goes overboard.

Party-vi > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 07:59

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Jesus fuck, James Shaw.

Thomas Donohue > For Sweden 01/15/2016 at 08:33

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While you’re right, I think the Z is a bad example. My 280z had a pretty low seating position compared to other cars of the day...

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 08:40

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It is completely horrible to say she “deserves” to be raped because of the way she poses in a picture. That being said the other comments (“beautiful... I mean the car lol!”) Don’t strike me as offensive. It’s a photo of a car with an attractive woman as the obvious focus. What do you do with a photo? You don’t appreciate a person’s personality through a photo. Or their character, or manner of speaking. You appreciate appearances through a photo. All I see here are a bunch of men clumsily displaying their attraction towards a woman’s appearance. That isn’t demeaning. It isn’t slander. That’s fucking empowering. Dozens of people took the time out if their day to smash their meat fists into a keyboard until their appreciation for your appearance was expressed for the viewing of the poster and other viewers.

Of course, as a male I don’t often get such compliments, so I appreciate them when they come due to scarcity. Women seem more often to get such remarks made so perhaps in general they are sick if the attention? I’m not sure, but most of what I see other than the horrid rape comments is not mean-spirited in the slightest.

they-will-know-my-velocity > BigBlock440 01/15/2016 at 08:47

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Confirmed bros.

BigBlock440 > they-will-know-my-velocity 01/15/2016 at 08:58

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But very few of the people he’s complaining about would actually be bros.

The Ghost of Oppo > BigBlock440 01/15/2016 at 08:58

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The word bro keeps getting used, yet most of those Facebook commenters look like 50 year olds with mustaches.

BigBlock440 > The Ghost of Oppo 01/15/2016 at 09:02

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Yeah, they don’t look like bros at all.

The Ghost of Oppo > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 09:08

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It’s not like this is anything new. For decades motor publications have printed pictures of objectified women on the pages of their magazines. All the internet has done has allowed people to feel significant by being able to share their view on it, bro.

GTI Sprinks > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 09:10

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Still my number one issue with car culture is how rampant bro culture is. Good for you for fighting the good fight.

Pixel > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 09:10

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Thank you for posting this, and for taking a stand against it in the little bit of the internet you’re admin over.

I can’t stand the amount of sexist BS that goes on in a lot of car circles. There is a local group I’m ostensively part of, but I have largely given up on going to gatherings because if the conversation isn’t about cars it is 90% bitching about the “old lady” or making sexist comments about any woman who happens to be visible.

they-will-know-my-velocity > BigBlock440 01/15/2016 at 09:13

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Definitely not.

I think “bro” is a misnomer in this case.

The Ghost of Oppo > BigBlock440 01/15/2016 at 09:18

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Defends marginalized minority by casting wide spread blame on ambiguous archetype. #SJW

bitchfist > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 10:09

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Bro culture? On the internet!?!?!?!?!?!?

That One Kid in HS > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 10:13

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So you are taking a stand to defend:

A woman who willingly modeled and posed for this picture.

What next? You going to defend all the girls who take revealing selfies for attention?

mikecyc72usa > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To 01/15/2016 at 11:21

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That is your male perspective, and I get it. However, ask some women if they’d like to be “complimented” in that way. You may be surprised at the answers.

Little Black Coupe Turned Silver > The Ghost of Oppo 01/15/2016 at 12:27

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That doesn't mean it's right or that it needs to continue.

mikecyc72usa > Little Black Coupe Turned Silver 01/15/2016 at 12:43

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Exactly. For decades segregation was accepted.

The Ghost of Oppo > Little Black Coupe Turned Silver 01/15/2016 at 12:53

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I know, but he is blaming the wrong people. Apparently it is “bro culture’s” fault but by looking at the people’s pictures, it looks to be mostly old men making the comments, the same demographic that is responsible for my original comment.

The Ghost of Oppo > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 13:22

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Oh, well if we’re going to take it to that level, why not bring up slavery, the holocaust, and women’s suffrage as well? I respect your view and agree with your message, but you can’t act all righteous, then cast wide spread blame on an ambiguous stereotype of people. See the irony?

Howdy Harrell > mikecyc72usa 01/15/2016 at 20:15

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Lol... Social Justice Warrior rant. Moving on...

mikecyc72usa > The Ghost of Oppo 01/18/2016 at 11:06

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Actually, I’m glad you brought those up. What do they all have in common? That society realized they needed to change or eliminate those issues. So let’s not “cast widespread blame on an ambiguous stereotype” (which here where I am is what this attitude is referred to as, but that’s my mistake for using local vernacular) and just say if a person is sexist or permits it to continue, they’re wrong?