Rings_of_Saturn
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Alicorn:
I would be interested to hear your reply to the more substantive charges that Roko levels. I am in general in agreement with him that while the issue you raise is worth thinking about and discussing, your method of talking about it is thoroughly and consistently disingenuous. To wit: In your classification you left out a fourth group of people, of which I would consider myself one: people who actively support gender-neutrality but have a completely different definition of it and who consider people with your definition to be the ones similar to fish swimming the water, unaware that they are wet.
Can you please address the real issues that Roko raises here, especially in the pargraph that begins "Alicorn has contributed..."? Your reply here seems to be avoiding the Least Convenient Possible argument.
Or the comment that I posted here? I understand that you have had to post many replies since posting your piece the other day, but I am still unsatisfied.
My main problem with this post is that it attempts to impose social norms based on nothing more than your personal feelings, Alicorn.
I found your "Disclaimer" very off-putting. Though I'm sure you will say that you were either trying to be as straight-forward as possible or that you are just being cute and charming (taking these assumptions from comments you have already posted), I immediately read this disclaimer as saying: "Anyone who disagrees in the comments with what I have to say in this post is almost certainly going to be labelled as sexist." This casts a pallor over the entire discussion.
Imagine if I wanted to post something controversial on AI, something... (read 564 more words →)
This idea does not have my approval.
Alicorn:
What if I told you that talking about "getting a woman" was a direct and honest expression of my most inner desires, that I really did view her in that objectifying way, and that I considered this attitude perfectly natural and healthy, and that, furthermore, I find it objectionable for others to consider it their perogative to correct me on this?
And that I very often find "being offended" to be an offensive behavior in its own right?
And that I heavily discount verbal contradiction from other males because it signals a very well-established mating posture, that of the helpful and supplicant beta male?
Emily:
I have heard this argument before, and I don't think it carries quite the same force as you apparently do.
You seem to vastly underestimate the kinds of remarks that men hear constantly that tell them that because they are men, they must be a certain way. The general culture is full of notions, some loud and some winking, that men are terrible, evil, violent, lazy, stupid, inept, and on and on. Turn on any American primetime television show and observe the male characters with a dispassionate eye. Try to discern which gender is more often portrayed as truly malevolent (on dramas) or incompetent (comedies), and which gender most often carries the torch... (read 392 more words →)
Also somewhat off-point but I'll post this anyways:
I'll agree that this post is "male-centric" in the sense that Alicorn is talking about. But I don't think it's fatally so, as any smart woman (or homosexual for that matter) can of course recognize that the mate-choosing parallel is arbitrarily chosen, and can make the necessary changes to create a parallel example in mate-choosing that's more relevant to his/her own life.
However, as a heterosexual man myself, I'll respond directly to the example.
I must admit that I take a lot of pleasure in choosing women for "the wrong reasons" aka appearance (especially wide hips!). I'm wise enough now in my dotage to know that I'm... (read more)
Yes, I think that you are just shunting the moral problem here down the pike.
Maybe you can imagine you just discovered Anne Frank's family was living in your attic moments before the brownshirts come knocking?
... and resume with dilemma.
Yeah... I can't think of any good actual examples either, but maybe we should be trying to falsify rationality, rather than verify it.
If anything, I have the convert's bias in this regard, Michael, not the true-born believer's. I'm fairly young and was raised in quite a progressive household. I'd suspect myself more of overstating my case because it has come to me as such a revelatory shock. But that's neither here nor there, as I'm not advocating for any specific "tradition."
I'll posit that gender roles and dynamics since the feminist movement began in earnest in the 60s and 70s have proven to be a sizable and essentially unprecedented break from the previous continuum in Western societies going back at least a couple thousand years. I don't know enough about 1600s Japan or Hopi or... (read more)
Thank you for this lengthy and thoughtful reply. I, too, am encouraged to notice the points on which we agree or are not that far off.
I don't really think you are the "thought police," and I didn't mean to imply that. But I do stand by my assessment of your post as vaguely coercive. There is such a thing as coercion by public shaming. I think this is what Roko might have been getting at in his recent post. If you do not see how this is a legitimate concern, then perhaps I can pull an "Alicorn" and just insist that if you were a man, you would know what this feels... (read 791 more words →)