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

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

Post by Res Ipsa »

...How to Stop Sexist Speech and Behavior f/k/a Thinking About Feminism

On the “Period” thread, Schmo asked me several questions about the consequences of my approach to feminism. I said I’d be happy to discuss them in another thread, and here it is.

Let’s start here:
“Res” wrote: But that triggers a defense mechanism in many men that insures that the BS persists.
So, in the scenario when a woman falsely accuses a man of being a sexist, the proper course of action for the accused is to pretend it's true? It's important to maintain that B.S. so this other B.S. doesn't persist?

Why don't we just get rid of all the B.S.? How about that idea?
My comment was an observation of behavior, one that I’ve personally witnessed many times, including right here on this thread. Based on listening to discussions among women, this is behavior that I think most women have experienced when they try to point out sexist language or behavior. This was the identification of something that I see is a problem. I did not draw any conclusion at all, let alone the conclusion that we should pretend up is down our black is white.

What I’m describing is a shift in perspective. I think that’s useful when trying to solve a problem that appears unsolvable. To understand my perspective, you have to keep in mind a couple things. First, I’m a pragmatist. If I see a problem, my focus is on fixing it. Second, people are complicated. Slapping labels on people and thinking we’ve accomplished something is, in my opinion, a mistake. Third, I’m a kind of structuralist. If I see a problem, I don’t see the solution as sorting people into good guys and bad guys. I consider the structure of institutions, society, and thought and speech patterns and try to figure out how those structures make the problem better or worse.

Adopting that perspective has, in my opinion, significant impact on how people think about racism and sexism. When most people discuss sexism, their primary concern is identifying who is the good guy, who is the bad guy, and “I’m a good guy.” My primary concern is “What is the impact of the speech or action? If it’s harmful, how can we move people to avoid causing harm.”
Last edited by Res Ipsa on Wed Apr 28, 2021 4:24 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Thinking About Feminism

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I am very much of the opinion that what you're saying is a good rule of thumb, but every rule has exceptions.

You're an advocate for thoughtfulness, RI. I don't think it demonstrates much in the way of thoughtfulness to just acquiesce when somebody delivers a charge.

I generally find myself defaulting to the woman's side in these disputes, but it would unwise for me to hold on to that default after learning more about each individual situation if the default isn't workable, or advances a falsehood.

I'm not bullshitting you when I tell you I care about women's issues, and would like to help the cause. I'm not telling anyone they have to be nice to me for me to care, but it's certainly demotivating when you're hammered for offering your own suggestions. If women want to win this fight, they need men on their side. It doesn't serve the cause to alienate your potential army.

I'll still maintain the fight because I love my wife and daughter, but I will choose my own allies carefully, because I don't want to be aligned with overreactive or dogmatic people.
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Re: Thinking About Feminism

Post by Res Ipsa »

Some Schmo wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:23 pm
I am very much of the opinion that what you're saying is a good rule of thumb, but every rule has exceptions.

You're an advocate for thoughtfulness, RI. I don't think it demonstrates much in the way of thoughtfulness to just acquiesce when somebody delivers a charge.

I generally find myself defaulting to the woman's side in these disputes, but it would unwise for me to hold on to that default after learning more about each individual situation if the default isn't workable, or advances a falsehood.

I'm not bullshitting you when I tell you I care about women's issues, and would like to help the cause. I'm not telling anyone they have to be nice to me for me to care, but it's certainly demotivating when you're hammered for offering your own suggestions. If women want to win this fight, they need men on their side. It doesn't serve the cause to alienate your potential army.

I'll still maintain the fight because I love my wife and daughter, but I will choose my own allies carefully, because I don't want to be aligned with overreactive or dogmatic people.
Schmo, I believe everything you say about your motives and intentions. Nothing you have said in the other thread has caused me to label you as a sexist or to conclude that you are a bad person or to think any less of you. Philosophically, I start from the assumption that the vast majority of people want to be good people and view themselves as being basically good people. (I can’t speak to psychopaths, as I have no idea how they view themselves.)

To me, an important source of dysfunction in our thinking about sexism and racism is to treat them as moral issues that divide people into good and bad people. From my perspective, it distracts from what should be the issue: is the speech or behavior harmful? Nowhere in the other thread did we discuss the impact of using a woman’s menstrual cycle to discredit her speech and reasoning. We couldn’t, because people insisted on making the issue about whether Analytics is a good person or a bad person.

I don’t think our discussion has anything to do with whether Analytics is a good person or a bad person. As I understand it, he made the comment about Lem’s menstrual cycle because he was angry and he chose to use sexist language to piss her off. Does that say anything about whether he is a good person or a bad person? Hell no! Good people get mad and good people say hurtful things when they are angry. So, from my perspective, arguing about whether Analytics’ use of a sexist trope makes him a bad person is a waste of time. It prevents us from discussing the effect of the use of that particular sexist trope and why, if we want to reduce harm to our fellow humans, we shouldn’t use that trope. Expand the scope of the discussion, and you get to the more fundamental issue of how we treat fellow humans when we’re angry.

You can choose to view the issue of sexism as a moral referendum on individuals or you can choose to view it as an opportunity to try and figure out how we can our fellow humans better. So, why choose the former rather than the latter.
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Re: Thinking About Feminism

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Res Ipsa wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:41 pm
To me, an important source of dysfunction in our thinking about sexism and racism is to treat them as moral issues that divide people into good and bad people. From my perspective, it distracts from what should be the issue: is the speech or behavior harmful? Nowhere in the other thread did we discuss the impact of using a woman’s menstrual cycle to discredit her speech and reasoning. We couldn’t, because people insisted on making the issue about whether Analytics is a good person or a bad person.

I don’t think our discussion has anything to do with whether Analytics is a good person or a bad person. As I understand it, he made the comment about Lem’s menstrual cycle because he was angry and he chose to use sexist language to piss her off. Does that say anything about whether he is a good person or a bad person? Hell no! Good people get mad and good people say hurtful things when they are angry. So, from my perspective, arguing about whether Analytics’ use of a sexist trope makes him a bad person is a waste of time. It prevents us from discussing the effect of the use of that particular sexist trope and why, if we want to reduce harm to our fellow humans, we shouldn’t use that trope. Expand the scope of the discussion, and you get to the more fundamental issue of how we treat fellow humans when we’re angry.

You can choose to view the issue of sexism as a moral referendum on individuals or you can choose to view it as an opportunity to try and figure out how we can our fellow humans better. So, why choose the former rather than the latter.
This is kind of why I asked what the point of the thread was. Were we there to skewer Analytics, or were we trying to talk about the pitfalls of patriarchal language?

I just saw it as unbalanced, and I was trying to balance it out.

You're right; why even talk about Analytics in this context? I was talking to my brother about this whole thing last night, and I was having trouble explaining how surreal my experience was . I offered a comment in support of the OP and was hammered for it. Gunnar was also supportive, and was also attacked, ffs! (That's kind of when I started to wonder about the thread - the Moksha thing was reinforcement). I don't think anyone's strategy in that thread was effective, if the goal was to advance female issues.
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Re: Thinking About Feminism

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One more thing to add: I honestly saw myself in that thread as a kind of outside consultant advising on strategy. A consultant can by hired by a football team, for instance, who has a losing record. The consultant might take the job because he's a fan of the team, and then go about criticizing their strategy. He's not trying to bring them down or tell them they can't win; he's trying to change their strategy so they win going forward.
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Re: Thinking About Feminism

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Res Ipsa wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:41 pm
I don’t think our discussion has anything to do with whether Analytics is a good person or a bad person. As I understand it, he made the comment about Lem’s menstrual cycle because he was angry and he chose to use sexist language to piss her off. Does that say anything about whether he is a good person or a bad person? Hell no! Good people get mad and good people say hurtful things when they are angry. So, from my perspective, arguing about whether Analytics’ use of a sexist trope makes him a bad person is a waste of time. It prevents us from discussing the effect of the use of that particular sexist trope and why, if we want to reduce harm to our fellow humans, we shouldn’t use that trope. Expand the scope of the discussion, and you get to the more fundamental issue of how we treat fellow humans when we’re angry.
For the record, I think you understand what happened correctly, and I agree with everything you say here.

As another case study, Schmo said on that thread, "Men who can avoid [tropes such as my infamous 7 words] are certainly more evolved. It's certainly past time to leave those in the rhetorical toolbox." That seems to be exactly your point here, Res Ipsa, right? That people shouldn't say what I said? Despite this excellent advice, Lem found reason to be offended by what he said and it quickly devolved into her declaring, "this un-damned-believable. . Did you even READ the stupid title of this thread? Did you read the OP? Did you read anything posted here? Did you not get the point of Doc's post?!!!!!!"

Could anybody have done anything better in that branch of the conversation to more effectively promote the cause of feminism?

As a final case study, consider Lem's righteous indignation at my use of the term "full-time missionaries." When I used the term "full-time missionaries", Lem wrongly assumed I was deliberately referring only to male full-time missionaries, and proceeded to lecture me about how sexist, irritating, and offensive that is.

Toon read my words in a more accurate and charitable way, and kindly tried to explain my point. Lem reacted by doubling down on her original reading, declared that Toon "exacerbated" her point, and decried it as being sexist.

For my part, it was ineffective to allow myself to be triggered by her hostile misunderstanding of what I was saying, and my specific reaction was especially egregious. I own that.

Are there any other lessons we can learn from this? If we rewind the timeline to before I wrote those infamous seven words, could anybody have done anything differently to more effectively promoted the cause of feminism?
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Re: Thinking About Feminism

Post by Lem »

Analytics wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:45 pm

Are there any other lessons we can learn from this? If we rewind the timeline to before I wrote those infamous seven words, could anybody have done anything differently to more effectively promoted the cause of feminism?
Yes. You could have not posted them.
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Re: Thinking About Feminism

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Lem wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:55 pm
Analytics wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:45 pm

Are there any other lessons we can learn from this? If we rewind the timeline to before I wrote those infamous seven words, could anybody have done anything differently to more effectively promoted the cause of feminism?
Yes. You could have not posted them.
Yes, it's all Analytics' fault. You were completely innocent.

What maturity level do you need to be to start taking responsibility for the part you play, I wonder.
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Re: Thinking About Feminism

Post by Res Ipsa »

Some Schmo wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:57 pm
Res Ipsa wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:41 pm
To me, an important source of dysfunction in our thinking about sexism and racism is to treat them as moral issues that divide people into good and bad people. From my perspective, it distracts from what should be the issue: is the speech or behavior harmful? Nowhere in the other thread did we discuss the impact of using a woman’s menstrual cycle to discredit her speech and reasoning. We couldn’t, because people insisted on making the issue about whether Analytics is a good person or a bad person.

I don’t think our discussion has anything to do with whether Analytics is a good person or a bad person. As I understand it, he made the comment about Lem’s menstrual cycle because he was angry and he chose to use sexist language to piss her off. Does that say anything about whether he is a good person or a bad person? Hell no! Good people get mad and good people say hurtful things when they are angry. So, from my perspective, arguing about whether Analytics’ use of a sexist trope makes him a bad person is a waste of time. It prevents us from discussing the effect of the use of that particular sexist trope and why, if we want to reduce harm to our fellow humans, we shouldn’t use that trope. Expand the scope of the discussion, and you get to the more fundamental issue of how we treat fellow humans when we’re angry.

You can choose to view the issue of sexism as a moral referendum on individuals or you can choose to view it as an opportunity to try and figure out how we can our fellow humans better. So, why choose the former rather than the latter.
This is kind of why I asked what the point of the thread was. Were we there to skewer Analytics, or were we trying to talk about the pitfalls of patriarchal language?

I just saw it as unbalanced, and I was trying to balance it out.

You're right; why even talk about Analytics in this context? I was talking to my brother about this whole thing last night, and I was having trouble explaining how surreal my experience was . I offered a comment in support of the OP and was hammered for it. Gunnar was also supportive, and was also attacked, ffs! (That's kind of when I started to wonder about the thread - the Moksha thing was reinforcement). I don't think anyone's strategy in that thread was effective, if the goal was to advance female issues.
The problem with remarks like "what's the point?" is that they are frequently used to convey the message "there's no point to your post." Face to face, we can read non-verbal cues to tell the difference. We don't have those on a message board. Using the phrasing from your last post, I think a fine question would have been something like: "Lem, I don't understand why you started this thread. Is the point to skewer Analytics or to talk about the pitfalls of patriarchal language?

So let's talk about balance for a second. We exist in a context that isn't balanced to start with. In fact, if we're feminists or allies, we're trying to achieve more balance. If you choose to view sexism as a moral referendum on a person's character, and you feel the need to add "balance" by defending the person's character, then what's the effect? First, the discussion never gets to the harmful effect of the words themselves. Second, because we all understand that Analytics is just like us and is trying to be a good person, approaching the issue as a moral judgment on Analytics inevitably leads to the conclusion that Analytics is not "sexist" and Lem is "overreacting." That's not adding more balance. That's preventing us from getting to the balance that we're trying to work towards.

I don't know which comments of yours and Gunnar's you are talking about. Would you mind please linking them?
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Re: Thinking About Feminism

Post by Lem »

Lem wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:55 pm
Analytics wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:45 pm

Are there any other lessons we can learn from this? If we rewind the timeline to before I wrote those infamous seven words, could anybody have done anything differently to more effectively promoted the cause of feminism?
Yes. You could have not posted them.
Some Schmo wrote:
Wed Apr 21, 2021 6:06 pm

Yes, it's all Analytics' fault. You were completely innocent.

What maturity level do you need to be to start taking responsibility for the part you play, I wonder.
I am having a difficult time understanding why someone would think that it is the woman's fault would when someone makes a sexist comment to her.

I don't want to distract from Res Ipsa's discussion, but the above exchange does relate, in my opinion, to an earlier comment:
To me, an important source of dysfunction in our thinking about sexism and racism is to treat them as moral issues that divide people into good and bad people. From my perspective, it distracts from what should be the issue: is the speech or behavior harmful? Nowhere in the other thread did we discuss the impact of using a woman’s menstrual cycle to discredit her speech and reasoning. We couldn’t, because people insisted on making the issue about whether Analytics is a good person or a bad person.
And about discrediting the reporter of the speech. It's a distraction that again takes away from what I agree with you should be the issue:

"is the speech or behavior harmful? Nowhere in the other thread did we discuss the impact of using a woman’s menstrual cycle to discredit her speech and reasoning..."

The harm done is tremendous, in my opinion. A distraction, as I mentioned above, is it allows some to focus on the reporting, as though it wouldn't have been harmful if no one mentioned it, further harming the victim and her reputation.

But more to your point, the discrediting of her reasoning. That's a whole other area worth discussion.

ETA: RI, I see you are beginning to touch on this.
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