I’m saying that the person speaking offensively was not doing so merely because he was a male, and the people taking offense were not only females.
Did I ever say that all women only ever speak or comprehend female-specific language, or that men only ever speak or comprehend male-specific language? If language is based on reference experiences, then not all men and all women will share precisely the same language, even if there are general tendencies by gender (whether cultural or genetic).
That is, not all men share the same reference experiences—and geeky guys in particular are more likely to share certain classes of reference experience with women. Hell, I used to find the same sort of talk offensive, myself.
I take offense to you implicitly associating me with such people.
If you take offense to implicit associations every time somebody omits to adequately delineate their generalizations, you’re going to be offended a LOT around here. ;-)
(Personally, I just didn’t feel the need to disclaim each and every instance of a gendered term with “sombunall” or “BOCTAOE”—it’s more than a little tedious, especially since ANY gender-based generalization should be considered to have sombunalls and BOCTAOE’s liberally sprinkled throughout.)
Did I ever say that all women only ever speak or comprehend female-specific language, or that men only ever speak or comprehend male-specific language? If language is based on reference experiences, then not all men and all women will share precisely the same language, even if there are general tendencies by gender (whether cultural or genetic).
That is, not all men share the same reference experiences—and geeky guys in particular are more likely to share certain classes of reference experience with women. Hell, I used to find the same sort of talk offensive, myself.
If you take offense to implicit associations every time somebody omits to adequately delineate their generalizations, you’re going to be offended a LOT around here. ;-)
(Personally, I just didn’t feel the need to disclaim each and every instance of a gendered term with “sombunall” or “BOCTAOE”—it’s more than a little tedious, especially since ANY gender-based generalization should be considered to have sombunalls and BOCTAOE’s liberally sprinkled throughout.)