In Which Res Ipsa Abandons the Illusion of Control Over What People Post In a Thread f/k/a Thinking About ...

[Res Ipsa]

Moksha, going back to your original list comment, have you by chance read the book or seen the movie or TV Series "Please Don't Eat the Daisies?"

So, Moksha, are you willing to give it a go?

[Moksha]

Moksha, going back to your original list comment...

A list of stuff to avoid saying or general guidelines of what to avoid is to be avoided. Saying that will probably drive the sharks into a further frenzy. I do not wish to be part of it.

[Res Ipsa]

Moksha, going back to your original list comment...

A list of stuff to avoid saying or general guidelines of what to avoid is to be avoided. Saying that will probably drive the sharks into a further frenzy. I do not wish to be part of it.

How about we just chat and now worry about sharks? Although I've seen film of those great whites cruising off the coast of Antarctica. They do love to snack on a penguin or six.

And yes, to be avoided. Because it's a whole lot of work and it's never possible to produce a complete list of things one shouldn't do. At my second wedding, son number 2, who was four I think, was the ring bearer. The ceremony was on a little island in the middle of a pond in a Japanese garden. He was positioned near the edge of the pond, under a Japanese Maple Tree. I had never told him not to pick leaves and chew on them during the ceremony or not to take the rings out and play with them while standing right at the edge of the pond... Luckily, our minister noticed the precarious situation and called/grabbed for the rings a little early.

So, completely leaving aside your intent, can you see that the words themselves essentially asked women to perform a basically useless task that was very time consuming?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I read a story about a male feminist who duped a female colleague of his into eating a drug-laced piece of candy. Once he was found out for drugging his female colleague he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It makes me wonder if he ever thought about drugging his males colleagues without their knowledge or consent?

Oddly enough, my wife, way back when was at an ‘80’s’ party consisting of ex-Mo’s. The crowd consisted of people who considered themselves open-minded and progressive, as ex-Mo’s are want to be. Despite it being common knowledge she was Air Force, an ex-Mo male in his 50’s shoved a pot-infused brownie in her mouth without her consent, He literally stuck drugs and his fingers in her mouth. I wonder if he did that to make ex-Mormon males?

Do progressive men feel at ease taking liberties with women, treating them differently? I think many do.

Sadly, now that the analogy between sexist language and behavior and racist language and behavior has been made, and I think it’s apropos, we still have a white, male, feminist “ally” trying to make himself the victim and in doing so uses dehumanizing language by calling anyone critical of his ‘jokes’ a shark. I’ll save Kishkumen the heart attack and not psychoanalyze that, but it suffices to say there are some pretty deep implications with how Moksha views and frames people who challenge him.

And I don’t believe he’s read the OP yet, in addition to the tweaked version upthread. Literally arguing from ignorance.

- Doc

[Jersey Girl]

I haven't been able to participate much on these companion threads over the past few days or more. I have looked in and observed what was taking place. I looked in here last night and read the exchanges between RI and Moksha. At first I was irritated by what I saw and then, I could feel myself shutting down.

One of the conflicts that emerged on Lem's original "sexist" thread was that between Lem and Moksha. On day 2 of that thread, Mok came in with this:

Could somebody draw up a list of expressions not to use?

I took that as either a misplaced joke or an actual request the nature of which I deemed simply ludicrous. In any case, it was indifferent to the issue at hand and if it were indeed a joke, it's only service would have been to trivialize an issue that was important to Lem. I watched Lem run the gauntlet of multiple posters over a period of days. Popped in and out a bit due to time constraints to make comment. The initial conflict with Analytics was resolved quicker than I thought it would be.

On this thread, I observed that Cam crafted a comparative analogy substituting racism for sexism, which I thought was a stroke of genius on his part. It was well thought out and did the job. I saw RI trying to gently coax Moksha to engage. It's almost like watching a young father encouraging his child to take it's first steps.

Why is any of this necessary?

If there is one thing I've learned over the years it is that you cannot force anyone to examine their own thinking who stubbornly refuses to do so. Instead of taking a breather and thinking through what took place, Moksha seems to be deflecting, blame shifting, and throwing up walls at every turn.

The people on the threads (his friends, mind you) are poopers, mean people, and sharks potentially driven to frenzy. Lem's irritation with his request put her on par with combat explosives.

Why the hyperbole? Why?

And why the shutting down on my end? Here's why. In spite of the staunch efforts of RI and Cam, I don't see any value placed on self reflection/examination, self honesty, intellectual honesty, or personal responsibility taking on Mok's part.

More importantly, what I see is no recognition on Mok's part that Lem has gone something like 10 days now with no effort on his part to understand why his comment was well, worthless in context, and how irritating that might feel to a person who was already taking up the mantle of offensive remarks here of which she was the recipient, nor any effort to resolve the new conflict between himself and Lem.

I see no interest on Mok's part to reconcile with Lem or acknowledge his part in creating the conflict. While at the same time, Cam puts on this thinking cap and crafts a post that clearly illustrated the futility of Mok's request for a list as if a list would help any adult navigate male/female interaction here with an eye to prosocial behaviors, and RI basically tries to coax Mok out of the corner where he has gone to pout and encourage him to talk it out as if Mok were a child.

We are not children here.

I want to take a moment to mention something that happened between myself and Schmo. In my exchanges with Schmo, he called me an idiot, a moron, and basically called me stupid. He actually warned me to be prepared for "fire" should I continue to attempt to engage him as if "fire" were a suitable substitute for rational thought. He made a claim about his posting history here re:sexism and using a search of one word and one word only, I refuted his claim. And when I did that, I was called an asshole by another poster.

I am no genius. But I am not stupid. I am not an idiot. I am not a moron. And why should I be called an asshole for refuting a false claim when the near entirety of the Terrestrial Forum is devoted to refuting the false claims of the LDS Church and it's representatives?

Where I come from, truth is a value and refuting false claims is an expectation. This board is not where I come from online. I come from a now defunct board where intellectual honesty was the high bar we all reached for. Not at first. Not for me. I didn't take seriously the posts of others at first because their words, the concepts and terminology they used were foreign to me. I allowed myself to essentially be battered into learning how to think critically. I didn't mind getting bashed around because I could give as good as I got and then at some point I got interested. I knew I could learn from those posters and I wanted to learn. I recall one poster back then telling me "This isn't hand holding time." I'll never forget it.

Well, if all those years ago it wasn't hand holding time for me and I managed to put myself out there to learn and grow, and survived it, I see positively no reason to hold Moksha's hand.

You either want to learn or you shut the door to personal growth. But just know and be clear, that what Moksha is doing to Lem by withholding
resolution and failing to acknowledge his part in the conflict, is in and of itself...mean. It is without question, mean spirited and hostile behavior.

As I was staring at this thread last night and mentally shutting down on account of all of this, I realized that this was some type of defining moment for me here. I decided to put one or more posters on ignore and get them out of my sight. If you are someone who is indifferent to truth, to the rights and feelings of others, if you are someone who doesn't value intellectual honesty or even self honesty, if you are someone who hasn't got the courage to examine your own thinking, doesn't strive for personal growth, then I don't want to breathe the same virtual air as you do.

So clean sweep...you're gone and I don't care if I'm left with a small handful of posters to bat things around with so long as they are people whom I respect.

[dantana]

Maybe this has been discussed already. I haven't seen as such. That is, if Mok's 'I'm gonna need a list' comment is in reference to the, 'on your period' remark, then...bad penguin. Quit defending, own it, apologize.

If though, the 'I'm gonna need a list' is in reference to the original comments by Analytics, that caused the dust up between him and Lem, then ... that would be a horse of a different gender. I don't see that there was enough there for Lem to take the great indignation that she responded with. The problem is, I haven't seen the Penguin clarify if that is the case.

[Lem]

Maybe this has been discussed already. I haven't seen as such. That is, if Mok's 'I'm gonna need a list' comment is in reference to the, 'on your period' remark, then...bad penguin. Quit defending, own it, apologize.

If though, the 'I'm gonna need a list' is in reference to the original comments by Analytics, that caused the dust up between him and Lem, then ... that would be a horse of a different gender. I don't see that there was enough there for Lem to take the great indignation that she responded with. The problem is, I haven't seen the Penguin clarify if that is the case.

From my original post.

In a recent post, I pointed out some sexist language. After posting, I became ambivalent, thinking I should tone down my accusation, so that I didn't create any bad feelings, or offend the person posting in what I considered to be a sexist manner.

Then, the poster responded to me with this

Your thinking is cloudy today. Are you on your period or something?

So I decided to post this instead
<story snipped>

Later in the thread, Analytics made the same mistake you have made of thinking my original post was about anything other than the "period"comment (when the title clearly explained the issue was the "period" comment), so I explained again:

The next time you blindside me with accusations of sexism for transgressions such as using the term "full-time missionaries" to refer to the statistic labeled "full-time missionaries" in the Church's statistical report, what should I do? If I put my hands in my pockets, put a contrite look on my face, look down, and mumble "sorry," will that make you happy?

No. I would be completely satisfied if you just never again say to a woman:

"YOUR THINKING IS CLOUDY. ARE YOU ON YOUR PERIOD OR SOMETHING?"

Who knew this would be such a hard point to get across.

The penguin's comment came on page 4, shortly after this, in reference to the "period" statement:

I suggest to Analytics, who is a clever and well-disposed person, that the appropriate response would have been for him simply to say "Sorry, I lost my temper there and wrote something that, on rereading, I wish I had not written." None of that "I only did it because she ..." stuff at all.

And then thepenguin added this:

Could somebody draw up a list of expressions not to use?

I hope this helps. I truly did not ever imagine that in a thread I titled

" "Are you on your period or something?" a sexist remark made HERE,"

that people would think my problem was anything other than this sexist phrase being used in a conversation:

"Your thinking is cloudy. Are you on your period or something?"

I will defer to Res Ipsa to explain to you why even, as you called it, "a horse of a different gender" doesn't justify a man asking a woman to provide a list of things not to say to her because they are sexist, and why that statement (and your justification of it) would still be offensive, even in that context.

But again, let me say for you Dantana, I made a thread I titled

"Re: "Are you on your period or something?" a sexist remark made HERE,"

because in a conversation, a man said to me this sexist phrase:

"Your thinking is cloudy. Are you on your period or something?"

[Lem]

Great points, Doc Cam and Jersey Girl, your support and understanding are much appreciated.

[Jersey Girl]

Great points, Doc Cam and Jersey Girl, your support and understanding are much appreciated.

I wanted to post prior but in real life wouldn't permit it. I hope you feel heard by some here.

It is inconceivable to me that Moksha has left you hanging for all this time without resolution and put his needs ahead of yours. Listen, I know you aren't a needy person. What I am saying is that this community is a social setting and our relationships are interpersonal to a certain degree.

And he doesn't even see fit to take part in closure. I can't respect that. I don't respect that. It's hostile as “F”.

[dantana]

Ok Lem. Well explained. I guess I was just having some cog. dis. over the odd behavior of the Mok.