I think very few people missed the 'point' you were trying to make. Personally, I tend to ignore ad-hominems in general, and I suspect many others do as a matter of course.
Fire has not made a positive impression. She was not trying to make a positive impression. In fact, I don't think we've seen this much red in someone's text since Bane was talking to his father.
I somehow doubt that the general opinion of how she has acted would change if she had a penis.
She seems to vacillate between extreme rage and self-serving conciliation at speeds that, if they were applied to a person without what is probably a magical/elemental influence on their personality, would be potential symptoms of a mental disorder. I'm surprised her talk about joining the league isn't in orange.
She clearly has a chip on her shoulder. She also clearly cares for Tora. She may be a little jealous of Tora, as Tora's ice powers seem both stronger and more versatile than Fire's own, and she seems to define herself by her powers. She may be channeling that jealously and that caring into this rage.
The thing is, we know Paul is not just a decent guy but an actual Hero with the capital letter. So when people see him being denigrated for things which were not his intention (and he knows always what he intends to the deepest level) or things which were out of his control, it is perfectly natural to act defensively.
Contrary to 'popular' belief, this does not indicate some deep-seated misogynistic hatred.
Except I was responding to a person directly who clearly had.
I'm not familiar with stretching the definition of ad hominem, but I was attacking the actaul points being brought up consistently through this thread, while attempting to draw parrellels to the sexism common in the gaming/comic book/ Internet communities. Rarely is it overt but as it has occured in this thread there have been quite a few comments about how she is "bi-polar" which is now commonly used in loo of "hysterical" or the more overt "hormonal"
You bring up her seeming "mood swings" ignoring that she never actaully stopped being angry. She smoothed it over, or at least tried to, and then exploded again once her friend was gone.
The evening from her prospective has been a complete disaster/waste of time from her prospective. She comes here expecting to be able to network with a Justice Leauge member, ideally to find out what it takes to join, because no one actaully knows their super vauge and subjective criteria. Instead, she gets the guy who was staring at her in the shower, who has no real power with the Justice leauge, but can tell her that she doesn't really have a chance in the near future anyway.
So she's already pissed but trying to be a good sport about it. As time goes on she stews and thinks more about how Guy may be taking advantage of her friend. The tipping point is when he makes it clear that he already knows all about her and her grandfather. This complete stranger to get knows all of these intimate details. So she gets him alone to tell him what for. This isn't a mood swing, "vacillating" back to extreme rage, she was already angry.
To top it off, this guy who she knows next to nothing about aside from the fact that he has a habit of breaching people's privacy admits to reading all up on her and even giving his buddy actaul how to book on how to woo her friend. He says that his buddy destroyed the file, but can she believe him? Was what he had enough? The only one vowging for this Orange Lantern guy is the Greenie, who keeps popping up randomly and could easily be spying on her friend all the time. Why would she take him at his word?
Sexist code phrases come up all the time, and this type of coded speak occurs all the time. It may even be unintentional, but it should not be ignored, you can't just pretend it doesn't happen.
Phrases like, she's just so bitchy, that's quite the mood swing it's like she's bi-polar. She's just acting like a gold digger.
Basically a lot of the phrasing here, rather than acknolowgingbthe reality of the situation, you even suggest instead that either her magical powers are effecting her or she has a mental disorder. Which is really close to the Hysterical Woman trope.
This is without even getting into all the people calling Paul spineless and wimpy just because he's letting this woman walk all over him. Because again, this goes back to power dynamics and reaks of posters who aren't ok with a man letting a woman have more power in the argument.
... I really think you're reaching here when you imply that a large reason people are dislike this person is because she's a woman, and further that they are bad people for thinking so. Let's play the "what if the genders were swapped" game, I find it generally helps me figure out whether gender norms are having an effect and what that effect is.
Bernie shows up for a blind date, sees Paula and immediately gets right up in her face and starts shouting at her for spying on him in the shower. Paula apologises and explains that she was possessed by the embodiment of avaraice (Names To Run Away From Really Fast). Bernie shoves past Paula, notes that she's not even a member of the (female dominated) Justice League and goes to storm off, before Tony convinces him to give Paula a chance. Bernie then implies that his plan was to go on at least one date with a woman from the justice league as part of a plan to gain eventual membership. Upon learning that Paula has some small measure of influence on League hiring, Bernie immediately turns on the charm and begins a transparent attempt to improve his position, squeezing Paula's arm when he is displeased at being on the long list rather than the short list and possibly becoming annoyed when his friend is higher up the list than he is.
They then move on to the shooting stand. Bernie is (probably) not pleased by Paula knowing about his grandfather's profession as part of the background check process, believing it to be part of her general policy of spying on hot men. After getting Paula to pay for the game, he demonstrates his superiority at the shooting range and he picks Paula a large stuffed animal while knowing it was a type she stereotypically wouldn't want it. He then corners Paula and shouts at her for "looking through your big file of guy superheroes and picking out the hot ones for your friends", and accuses her of coaching Grace on how best to seduce Tony, and Grace of creepiness and stalking. Paula explains how it's not what it sounds like, then asserts that Grace is actually just a nice woman and just acts brash at first as a defence mechanism. She then points out that Grace set her up with a fabulously wealthy and internationally well regarded superhero, and offers to help train him in combat. Bernie then grudging agrees to let Grace date Tony and to give her another chance as a person.
...Nope, still don't think I'd like him any more as a man than a woman. The tone of the interaction is subtly different and the anger management issues become more obvious in this format, but Bernie doesn't suddenly seem more reasonable because he has a penis.
Edit: a word.
It's really not much of a stretch that there is sexism prevalent on an Internet forum. I'm not even saying it makes everyone a bad person, just that it is negative action and that way people can take a bit of time for introspection to analyze their real motives. It's actaully quite common to people to act in sexist ways, or to make sexist attributions without realizing it.
I like the gender swap game too, unfortunately it doesn't quite work because my main point is the number and type of posts that have been made which can't be proven by redoing this through a hypothetical retelling of the situation, but I'll try to play along anyway.
To start with, "Paula" doesn't appologize for spying, "she" apologizes for catching her at a bad time, implying that it's more apologizing that her actions offended "Bernie"
The implication was never for it to be a date, the networking aspect was made quite clear.
It's not even an official background check, these have all been part of "Paula's" pet projects. That plus his OC knowledge which Paul has already admitted to being uncomfortable with since it does give him that extra bit he shouldn't have access to when it comes to relationships.
Your retelling leaves a bit to be desired, the parts that you've chosen to play up vs the ones you've chosen to play down are telling though.
As to the comments and how they would change, you would get more comments about "Bernie" is acting abusive, but I think you wouldn't get the same comments calling "Paula" a wimp.
So I guess, yes? With the gender flip test I would expect the comments to change so, I would say if nothing else the Shinji comparisons come from a, potentially unintentional, sexist place.
