4. Pissing Contests & Hostility
Along the lines of not having a sense of humor, how about not trying to scare off every libertarian woman who comes along? There was a comment on Facebook during the posting of the aforementioned article where someone actually decided to tell me I wasn’t “really a libertarian”. On the Libertarian Party Facebook page.
Seriously dude?
Besides the irony, which I was happy to point out, the simple fact is there is a ton of hostility towards new people in the liberty movement – female or male, particularly as relates to One True Libertarianism (No True Scotsman Fallacy) and levels of purism. I feel like women get it more because there’s this odd skepticism that women don’t really know much about liberty, even though the entire movement is thanks to some incredible women.
Ultimately, a libertarian woman may or may not be 100% in agreement with you on everything (maybe you’re the one who isn’t “libertarian enough”?), but I’ve seen far too many conversations suddenly dovetail when the libertarian man decides to assert his supposed intellectual superiority at the expense of, well, any actual intelligence about social dynamics.
In the meantime, the approach of being confrontational, hostile and intimidating towards women who may have various minor disagreements about the specifics of their personal libertarian ideas — that’s turning people off of liberty, and it’s turning people off of you. Stop it.
