Dragonborn
Member
So, who is he/her? I'm genuinely curious why he/she's allowed to insult other posters. Is it a parody account? I'm so lost
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So, who is he/her? I'm genuinely curious why he/she's allowed to insult other posters. Is it a parody account? I'm so lost
And_Gignac
Member
This is actually the biggest (and more pleasant) surprise of this thread lol.
Drinky, ha Artpop era.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
Do not question the Gaffia.
mullet2000
Member
You know I have a problem with a lot of this list but:
"8. When a woman tells you something is sexist, believe her."
...is not one of them. It's just saying that if a woman tells you the way you or someone else is acting is sexist...don't write her off; take her word for it. If you're the one doing that thing instead of arguing about it just stop doing it because you're offending her.
I don't know why people are jumping on that specific point, there are a lot more problematic points/explanations in the list than that one.
"8. When a woman tells you something is sexist, believe her."
...is not one of them. It's just saying that if a woman tells you the way you or someone else is acting is sexist...don't write her off; take her word for it. If you're the one doing that thing instead of arguing about it just stop doing it because you're offending her.
I don't know why people are jumping on that specific point, there are a lot more problematic points/explanations in the list than that one.
Devolution
Member
Ironically some of this thread, every thread about harassment ever, is basically like "why should i bother listening to the experiences of women."
cubicle47b
Member
It feels like it's been years since he's been around.
weemadarthur
Member
Really? You really just said this?
It gives the implication that you feel statements made by females are generally irrational.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
Exactly.
Same reason you should listen to minorities when it comes to racism, since you know, they're the ones often at the receiving end of racism and thus have plenty of experience dealing with it.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
This is one of the few I felt were not necessarily well explained. Surely there are instances where someone says something is sexist but it's really not. We have to be able to think about every situation and come to a decision.
The other one was the paying for contraception. Sex is a mutual act between two or more people. I don't see how a man could pay for something like birth control pills. One could assume that a single woman was paying for birth control before she met a guy so at what point do the responsibilities shift? After how long together?
Because it is the burden of proof on the accuser to explain why something is sexist.
Assuming someone is always right is never a good idea.
mullet2000
Member
How does a woman provide physical proof of the behaviors she finds sexist offending her?
The point isn't even "if a woman tells you something is sexist you must automatically 100% agree with her." It's "if a woman tells you something is sexist you should stop doing that thing because it offends her or makes her feel uncomfortable."
Vermillion
Banned
I get where they're coming from, because I've had exactly this argument with a friend. I was saying that the oppressed group generally has the rights on what is and is not offensive. But he argued that there's usually reasoning behind things that are actually offensive. That coupled with the fact that women are not always correct on these matters (see: I don't need feminism because), makes people wary about just accepting anything.
A better way to phrase the argument is that the experiential knowledge is valuable, and the opinion of women should have a greater weight when dicussing what is and is not sexist. You should listen when a woman says something is sexist. At the same time, it doesn't make her 100% correct. "Trust, but verify" can apply here, actually.
GAFers are an argumentative bunch that don't really like being told just to accept things (except by corporations).
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
"When a woman tells you it's sexist, take a step back and think about it a few days. Don't contradict her." may have been a better part for the list. Because woman obviously have far more information than men about this topic so are better informed and therefore could likely deliver the truth... On the other hand, a lot of people (mostly businessmen I've seen, but really everyone, men and women) throw out self-serving garbage every single day.
edit: Kind of beaten while posting
edit: Kind of beaten while posting
Because a woman saying "thing is sexist" and saying "thing that you are doing to me is making me uncomfortable" are not one in the same. The latter is when you need to take the woman's word for it because how she feels about it does matter more than anything. The former, however, is not something I'm willing to unconditionally turn my brain off and abandon critical thinking for and say "Oh ok you right because you woman". The author was either trying to make a horrible point or a good one but didn't know how to articulate it.
mullet2000
Member
Hmmm. I see what you mean. I guess a better way to have worded it would have been:
"8. When a woman tells you she finds something is sexist, believe her."
Still, I don't think the logical leap to seeing that that's what original point meant is very big at all. And that's coming from someone who's been heavily criticizing the tone of the whole list this entire thread.
Not at all... I think both genders are equally likely to bring their emotions into their assessment of something as bigoted.
The idea that I should just reflexively accept a woman's view of something as sexist is ridiculous. I tend to hold everyone to the same standard, which is that a gut reaction has value, but not as much value as being able to back it up with good reasoning.
Vermillion
Banned
Yeah, that works too. Incidentally, from the FAQ:
Though I imagine that the last part changes from person to person. There exist women that do enjoy the intellectual debate whenever it pops up.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
The tone I'm getting is that women are worse off in society, and that those who are better off should adjust their behavior in order to attempt to right that injustice.
This is exactly the point. People who take umbrage to this idea are often making the fundamental mistake of treating it like a zero-sum game when it's anything but.
Could've been worded better, but basically, people aren't reading between the lines there.
How some read it: "Turn off your critical thinking when a woman speaks about sexsm"
How they shoud read it: "Be empathetic to others' experiences, especially where they have, most likely, more first hand experience than you"
That might be true in some ways and I don't completely disagree with the blog. But when two forces are not equally as strong when they should be, don't weaken the stronger force, make the weaker force stronger. I respect a person more when they adjust to their surroundings, not when they ask the whole world to change for them.
chaobreaker
Member
I have an issue with this one. Contraceptives aren't mostly female-based because we value female bodies less, but it's because it's incredibly difficult to develop a male contraceptive outside of condoms and vasectomies. The only sure-fire way for a male to have sex and inhibit pregnancy, provided his female partner is not on any sort of birth control, is for the man to be sterile. There's a lot of research being put into temporary male contraceptives because of the potential for it to be revolutionary, but it's just not easy.
Yes but it should still be on her to explain why something is sexist. What is sexist varies from individual to individual (some people are ok with somethings and some are not).
Having a healthy dose of skepticism is never a bad thing. It leads to a discussion about the merit of said sexism. It allows for a discussion and hopefully a better understanding of each person's situation.
It's dick move to be a ass to someone.
It's not a dick move to ask why something is bothersome (unless it is painfully obvious).
Let me give you a example from my personal experience.
I used to work at a grocery store where we have three Dans as managers. I was talking to someone about something and one of the Dan's names came up.
He said "Which Dan?" and I said "Asian Dan" (I was new and I didn't know his full name).
Someone overhearing said "That's racist" and I explained to them that calling someone Asian is just physically describing someone and nothing more. In that point in time, calling him Asian Dan was the best way to get my point across.
timetokill
Banned
If it had been written, "When a woman says something is sexist, take a moment to consider why she thinks that way and consider that she might actually be right. Maybe even give her the benefit of the doubt if you're not sure!"
Instead, she just said to assume a woman is right about anything being sexist, and nobody gets that kind of authority from me.
I will generally give a person the benefit of the doubt if they're more likely to perceive something that I might not. For instance, I will generally give a woman the benefit of the doubt if she says something is sexist, or at least consider it before defending. Same with a black person saying something is racist.
If a woman comes up to me and says missiles are sexist because they look like penises I'm not going to just believe that yep, missiles are sexist. Similarly if a black person says black holes are racist, I'm not going to instantly believe that either.
Instead, she just said to assume a woman is right about anything being sexist, and nobody gets that kind of authority from me.
I will generally give a person the benefit of the doubt if they're more likely to perceive something that I might not. For instance, I will generally give a woman the benefit of the doubt if she says something is sexist, or at least consider it before defending. Same with a black person saying something is racist.
If a woman comes up to me and says missiles are sexist because they look like penises I'm not going to just believe that yep, missiles are sexist. Similarly if a black person says black holes are racist, I'm not going to instantly believe that either.
If you think about where the "stronger" group gets its advantage from, you'd realize that it isn't feasible to give everyone else the same advantages.
It's like saying we should fix wealth inequality by just having rich people adopt lots of poor children. We know that's not a practical long-term solution because solving a deep-seated, systemic problem isn't just about selectively "strengthening" and "weakening" certain groups, but having people in an advantaged position take actions to address the root causes.
The article isn't simply saying "Do this, don't do that," but advocating ways for people to change their behavior that could help influence our culture for the better.
This line of thinking is very problematic to me.
Yeah this. It's also like saying that we shouldnt make wheel chair ramps for people who need them because they should learn how to adapt to stairs
Yeah, i agree, i do believe that the "don't be a dick" rule is a good starting point, and that i cannot do whatever i want and expect women to just deal with it. It's just that this blog crossed the line for me when it comes to the balance in these situations, point 6 has been discussed enough but that one changed the tone of the whole blog for me. Couldn't take it serious after that one.
Check out the FAQ and even Timetokill's post right above mine for a little more explanation. I think they're getting at the same basic thing.
The message isn't that women are always right, but that other peoples' feelings matter and you need to be empathetic and give them a fair shake when they take offense at something.
Devolution
Member
We've been listening to what men consider sexist for oh I dunno how many centuries now. It's nice to believe women when they tell you how it feels to be considered inferior and how it manifests itself in tons of ways.
explain why it isn't.
I also agree with that. The way she wrote it down just drew the attention away from the actual point she was trying to make.
This line of thinking, taken at face value, advocates that people who are at an unfair disadvantage simply learn to live with it because the world's not fair or something like that. Instead, why not have everyone, especially the ones who experience an advantage they didn't earn, work together to make the system more fair for everyone?
I think it's missing the point to say that the problem with "believe women when they say things are sexist" is that you want to hear an argument that shows that something is sexist. There's this sense that if there are good reasons to think that something is sexist, then most people will be easily convinced.
Like, this post, for example:
So the first sentence is just a silly false equivalency. History makes it really, really clear that we're very vulnerable, as a society, to erring on the side of discounting some marginalized group's claims that things are tilted against them. We all agree that men were much, much more likely than women to be wrong on the issue of basically every women's rights issue from more than about 30 years ago. We all agree that white people were much, much more likely to be wrong on civil rights than black people. Most everyone here agrees that straight people were and are much, much more likely than gay people to be wrong on gay rights issues. One group's emotions tend to lead them to want to preserve their privileged position in society, and one group's tend to motivate them to seek justice.
The last sentence reads like a total failure of introspection. The ability of people to "hold everyone to the same standard" is exactly what's in question. Your ability to judge "good reasoning" is being called into question, when your judgment is that women are going wrong when they judge that something is sexist.
I mean, fundamentally, when two people are disagreeing about something, if they want to continue to disagree they've each got to have a theory of how the other is going wrong. A really bad theory, in almost everyone's case, is "I'm just smarter than everyone else and my judgments about what's reasonable are much more reliable than this idiot's". But at the same time this is a very popular theory. Just like everyone thinks that they're better-than-average drivers, everyone thinks that they're better-than-average thinkers. This is a big problem. It's an especially big problem in cases like this, though, because an outside observer has a lot of reason to think that members of one group are going to be systematically going wrong for reasons that are invisible to them.
A problem is that a lot of people lack a good understanding of how bigotry works. Probably the way it's conflated with hate doesn't help. People look inside themselves, don't see anything that looks to them like bias, and then set themselves up as arbiters of what's reasonable. Like here, where there seems to be this expectation that if someone is being reasonable then they surely ought to be able to convince the speaker of that. But, really, this attitude, coming from someone in this position, seems like strong evidence that the speaker is unreasonable and is determined to remain so, since this has basically never been true in the history of bigotry.
Like, this post, for example:
So the first sentence is just a silly false equivalency. History makes it really, really clear that we're very vulnerable, as a society, to erring on the side of discounting some marginalized group's claims that things are tilted against them. We all agree that men were much, much more likely than women to be wrong on the issue of basically every women's rights issue from more than about 30 years ago. We all agree that white people were much, much more likely to be wrong on civil rights than black people. Most everyone here agrees that straight people were and are much, much more likely than gay people to be wrong on gay rights issues. One group's emotions tend to lead them to want to preserve their privileged position in society, and one group's tend to motivate them to seek justice.
The last sentence reads like a total failure of introspection. The ability of people to "hold everyone to the same standard" is exactly what's in question. Your ability to judge "good reasoning" is being called into question, when your judgment is that women are going wrong when they judge that something is sexist.
I mean, fundamentally, when two people are disagreeing about something, if they want to continue to disagree they've each got to have a theory of how the other is going wrong. A really bad theory, in almost everyone's case, is "I'm just smarter than everyone else and my judgments about what's reasonable are much more reliable than this idiot's". But at the same time this is a very popular theory. Just like everyone thinks that they're better-than-average drivers, everyone thinks that they're better-than-average thinkers. This is a big problem. It's an especially big problem in cases like this, though, because an outside observer has a lot of reason to think that members of one group are going to be systematically going wrong for reasons that are invisible to them.
A problem is that a lot of people lack a good understanding of how bigotry works. Probably the way it's conflated with hate doesn't help. People look inside themselves, don't see anything that looks to them like bias, and then set themselves up as arbiters of what's reasonable. Like here, where there seems to be this expectation that if someone is being reasonable then they surely ought to be able to convince the speaker of that. But, really, this attitude, coming from someone in this position, seems like strong evidence that the speaker is unreasonable and is determined to remain so, since this has basically never been true in the history of bigotry.
rocketknight
Member
A better analogy would be tending to believe what a rocket scientist who deals with rockets everyday has to say about rockets, instead of being all "but what if a rocket scientist tells me to launch myself into the sun, I don't want to automatically agree to that, CHECKMATE!"
timetokill
Banned
That's actually a much, much worse analogy because it suggests that every woman is an expert on sexism (they're not), or that there's a scientific consensus on whether something is sexist or not. One woman can say missiles are sexist and another can say, no, that's ridiculous. You can't believe both.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
The other day, my brother complained about his roommate not doing his share of the housework, and having to repeatedly ask him to do simple tasks that he had to do because they were otherwise not getting done at all.
When I told him, "so, you had to... nag at him...?", it was amazing to see that lightbulb flare up. I think he had some newly found respect for our late mother and housewives everywhere at that moment.
Oh look, here comes the literal tone policing. xD
I don't know why so many people are going apeshit over the "believe her" line. If a racial minority tells me something is racist, I, as a white person, have no problem believing them. If my first thought was, "they're overreacting, that's not racist", I'm going to stop and think for a moment, that maybe I'm wrong and should give them the benefit of doubt. If a dozen other people tell me "I'm <ethnicity/race> and that's not racist, s/he's overreacting", then I'll think okay, maybe the first person was overreacting after all, but otherwise, I just take their word for it. It's not hard. The same applies for sexism, or any kind of inequality.
Devolution
Member
Women are pretty good experts on what alienates them considering they're constantly alienated. Even when GAF women post in complete solidarity about an issue we're dismissed.
mullet2000
Member
People can't criticize the tone of the list? I have big issues with the overall tone of her writing in this article/FAQ as well.
I will definitely listen when someone finds something i do or say sexist. i will try to understand, and even if i don't understand it i would consider it whenever the situation would repeat itself.
However, there are lines. Whenever somebody does something that offends me, i do not have the urge to make it their problem. Whenever i'm offended with something when that was not the explicit intention, it is my problem to deal with it. I would never ask somebody to stop doing what they are doing just because it offends me.
timetokill
Banned
I certainly agree that every person is an expert on what makes them feel alienated, but not on whether something is sexist.
Devolution
Member
This is incredible. So if someone essentially treats you different from others, let's say keeps saying inappropriate remarks that target whatever group you belong to but aren't directed at you, you'd just keep quiet because that's your personal problem right?
mullet2000
Member
And that's fine, but that's just you. For a lot of people it makes more sense to ask somebody (who is presumably someone you already know, even) to stop doing something if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Those people probably would like not to hear "well, justify why you feel that way first" when they ask someone that.
i do feel it is the responsibility of the stronger force to help with that.
Devolution
Member
So the whole gaining rights, feminist movement, no more sexual harassment in the workplace thing was what exactly if not a huge declaration of "this is sexist and it needs to change."
your posts says otherwise on the matter however
Well, i might say something about it, but i don't expect anything from it.
In most cases, i don't really experience it as a problem, just a way to filter out people i don't want to deal with.But i'm not sure if this can be fully compared to this issue.
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