Why was this downvoted? Seems to make sense to me...
To me the only thing that charges a usage of “he” with sexism is the people who comment on it to artificially make a big deal of it. Until that occurs, it’s just a way of presenting an example, and does not interfere with understanding of what is being said, or exclude the possibility of a female example.
Well, unless someone’s primed themselves to be sensitive to it instead of just focusing on the content of the text they’re reading. But that’s about as valid an objection as “religious feelings”: just because you choose to get worked up about something trivial, doesn’t mean anyone else is obliged to take it seriously...
Maybe, I wouldn’t know. Slapping a not-nice-sounding label on what I said doesn’t tell me what’s wrong with it, though.
The way I see it, if you actually see sexes as equal and don’t discriminate, then things like this don’t need much thought. Unless the author of a given text is trying to say something about sex differences, or making the male-ness of the hypothetical agent somehow necessary (as in, painting a stereotype), hypothetical male and female agents are equivalent. I don’t have a problem with when someone’s example agent is a “she” in it rather than “he”—what’s the big deal?
It’s when “she” is fine, yet “he” is a big deal, or when people feel the need to go to great lengths to pursue this silly notion of political correctness (like needing a special method to decide what pronoun they’ll use this time), that they shoot the whole idea of equality in the foot by showing that gender should be made a big deal out of in discussions that have inherently nothing to do with gender.
It was particulary weird to see someone say this:
I bias the distribution such that females are more likely to receive the more impressive sounding roles because that is more politically correct
I had to read that twice to realize this was serious. I don’t know what this is, but doesn’t strike me as egalitarian.
I do have a feeling I stepped into one of those mind-killer minefields, though.
Maybe, I wouldn’t know. Slapping a not-nice-sounding label on what I said doesn’t tell me what’s wrong with it, though.
Here’s the cached version of the counter-response, then.
Practically every equality movement deals with the belief that, “If only these people wouldn’t make a big deal out of being X, there wouldn’t be a problem!” The problem with this belief is that all kinds of things get conflated with “big deal”.
Since you invoke mind-killer later, I’ll do the standard thing and pick an anachronistic example. I would be unsurprised if somewhere in Caesar’s “Commentaries on the Gallic War” he said somewhere, “If only the Gauls stopped making a big deal out of their territorial soverignty, they could be a colony of Rome and enjoy practically the same authority.” The difference is that as a separate nation, the Gauls are first-class citizens, whereas as a colony of Rome, they become second-class citizens (with possible social mobility, but that’s another story).
This situation is directly analogous with the gender pronoun situation. The Blues believe that the status quo doesn’t harm the Greens because being a Blue means rarely being in a position in which the problem comes up. So of course to a Blue the resulting Green outrage seems ridiculous, when really it’s justified.
The way I see it, if you actually see sexes as equal and don’t discriminate, then things like this don’t need much thought.
That’s exactly the wrong way to go about doing things, though! Just because you think you’re ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away. Just because something’s a mind-killer doesn’t mean you stop thinking about it. One just has to be a bit more careful.
Hm… okay, that’s not a bad example to work with. Let me see if I can make sense in response.
It seems to me that your argument would apply if I were saying that gender equality isn’t an issue to make a big fuss about. Re-reading myself, I can see that perhaps you could in good faith think so, that that’s what I believe. I will clarify that it is not the case. Equality, in general, is something I see as a Big Deal. There are real issues with gender discrimination that could use looking at: women not getting equal pay for equal work, men being denied custody rights over children unfairly, etc. This stuff matters.
However, using your analogy, I don’t object to Gauls clamoring for their territorial souvereinty. I object to Gauls making a fuss because some Roman thinker used an example of a Roman citizen in some mathematical problem or philosophical parable of his, rather than a Gaul. Which is a trivial thing to make a big deal of, wouldn’t you say? (Especially if—by analogy—the language they’re using doesn’t let him just say “a man”, he has to specifiy -some- nationality if he wants to use singular). It’s not one of the things that matter, it’s not relevant to their territorial souvereinty except in a way so remote, that to try to impose cultural norms on how you should speak based on such weak relevance is something I find silly, and when it gets aggressive, offensive.
Consider the ideal society where genders and races are equal. To members of such a society, equality would be obvious, wouldn’t it? Now I, following the ideal of equality, try to emulate such an ideal citizen (“If I can predict what i’ll think in the future, I might as well think it now”). I find I have little trouble taking women on their merit without needing to let others tell me how to choose my pronouns, so I obviously resist people trying to tell me how to speak in the name of “political correctness” because it doesn’t strike me as doing anything useful.
In fact I suspect one could make a case about this sort of a thing reinforcing the image of woman as the second class citizen, in need of special protections and norms, rather than to be treated straightforwardly as a fellow human being.
Consider the ideal society where genders and races are equal. To members of such a society, equality would be obvious, wouldn’t it? Now I, following the ideal of equality, try to emulate such an ideal citizen (“If I can predict what i’ll think in the future, I might as well think it now”).
This is not a correct application of the reflection principle you invoke. 1) You do not have reliable information to the effect that the ideal society you have in mind is on the horizon. 2) Some policies might be necessary or appropriate in some circumstances but not others, even if the goal of the policy is to bring about the counterfactual circumstance. 3) I find it unlikely that you have enough information about what an ideal citizen would be like that you can unbiasedly choose features of such a person to emulate.
I find I have little trouble taking women on their merit without needing to let others tell me how to choose my pronouns, so I obviously resist people trying to tell me how to speak in the name of “political correctness” because it doesn’t strike me as doing anything useful.
There’s a quote somewhere… I can’t seem to dig up the exact wording, but it’s something about how if there’s an (obviously artificial) object lying around and you don’t see the use of it, you shouldn’t discard it; only when you know what it was supposed to be for (and can say that the task is no longer necessary or is being better accomplished by something else) is that safe to do.
In fact I suspect one could make a case about this sort of a thing reinforcing the image of woman as the second class citizen, in need of special protections and norms, rather than to be treated straightforwardly as a fellow human being.
This looks to me like bottom-line thinking (starting with the conclusion that going out of one’s way to choose gender-neutral pronouns is a bad idea).
There’s a quote somewhere… I can’t seem to dig up the exact wording, but it’s something about how if there’s an (obviously artificial) object lying around and you don’t see the use of it, you shouldn’t discard it; only when you know what it was supposed to be for (and can say that the task is no longer necessary or is being better accomplished by something else) is that safe to do.
Sounds like you’re thinking of Chesterton’s fence. “Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up” is the concise version, commonly attributed to him (although those don’t seem to actually be his words). The longer version that he did write:
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.
There’s a quote somewhere… I can’t seem to dig up the exact wording, but it’s something about how if there’s an (obviously artificial) object lying around and you don’t see the use of it, you shouldn’t discard it; only when you know what it was supposed to be for is that safe to do.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes YES YES YES. Exactly this. And don’t be too quick to think you know, either.
The way I see it, if you actually see sexes as equal and don’t discriminate, then things like this don’t need much thought.
Yes, if. But that’s not the default state, and it’s observably a hard state to reach, even if one wants to.
For people who do want to—actually want to, not just want to signal that they want to—changing language is a popular tool, because it acts as a full-time mindfulness exercise and highlights situations where the user still needs to make an effort to reach their goals. (It’s a popular signaling tool, for those who want to signal, and of course it’s popular with people who want to do both; my point is that signaling is not the only reason for it.)
It’s possible, I suppose, that one might be so enlightened with regards to gender that one can use gender-biased language without that indicating anything in particular about one’s internal states of mind regarding gender. I don’t find that very plausible, but I suppose it’s possible. Since that seems to be what you’re claiming, though, I’d like to ask this, which might make my incredulity clearer if your answer is as I expect it to be: Do you find it just as natural and automatic to use the supposedly-nongendered ‘he’ to describe nurses, kindergarten teachers, flight attendants, and parents of small children?
Why was this downvoted? Seems to make sense to me...
To me the only thing that charges a usage of “he” with sexism is the people who comment on it to artificially make a big deal of it. Until that occurs, it’s just a way of presenting an example, and does not interfere with understanding of what is being said, or exclude the possibility of a female example.
Well, unless someone’s primed themselves to be sensitive to it instead of just focusing on the content of the text they’re reading. But that’s about as valid an objection as “religious feelings”: just because you choose to get worked up about something trivial, doesn’t mean anyone else is obliged to take it seriously...
You realize your criticism is textbook standard anti-egalitarian rhetoric.
Maybe, I wouldn’t know. Slapping a not-nice-sounding label on what I said doesn’t tell me what’s wrong with it, though.
The way I see it, if you actually see sexes as equal and don’t discriminate, then things like this don’t need much thought. Unless the author of a given text is trying to say something about sex differences, or making the male-ness of the hypothetical agent somehow necessary (as in, painting a stereotype), hypothetical male and female agents are equivalent. I don’t have a problem with when someone’s example agent is a “she” in it rather than “he”—what’s the big deal?
It’s when “she” is fine, yet “he” is a big deal, or when people feel the need to go to great lengths to pursue this silly notion of political correctness (like needing a special method to decide what pronoun they’ll use this time), that they shoot the whole idea of equality in the foot by showing that gender should be made a big deal out of in discussions that have inherently nothing to do with gender.
It was particulary weird to see someone say this:
I had to read that twice to realize this was serious. I don’t know what this is, but doesn’t strike me as egalitarian.
I do have a feeling I stepped into one of those mind-killer minefields, though.
Here’s the cached version of the counter-response, then.
Practically every equality movement deals with the belief that, “If only these people wouldn’t make a big deal out of being X, there wouldn’t be a problem!” The problem with this belief is that all kinds of things get conflated with “big deal”.
Since you invoke mind-killer later, I’ll do the standard thing and pick an anachronistic example. I would be unsurprised if somewhere in Caesar’s “Commentaries on the Gallic War” he said somewhere, “If only the Gauls stopped making a big deal out of their territorial soverignty, they could be a colony of Rome and enjoy practically the same authority.” The difference is that as a separate nation, the Gauls are first-class citizens, whereas as a colony of Rome, they become second-class citizens (with possible social mobility, but that’s another story).
This situation is directly analogous with the gender pronoun situation. The Blues believe that the status quo doesn’t harm the Greens because being a Blue means rarely being in a position in which the problem comes up. So of course to a Blue the resulting Green outrage seems ridiculous, when really it’s justified.
That’s exactly the wrong way to go about doing things, though! Just because you think you’re ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away. Just because something’s a mind-killer doesn’t mean you stop thinking about it. One just has to be a bit more careful.
Hm… okay, that’s not a bad example to work with. Let me see if I can make sense in response.
It seems to me that your argument would apply if I were saying that gender equality isn’t an issue to make a big fuss about. Re-reading myself, I can see that perhaps you could in good faith think so, that that’s what I believe. I will clarify that it is not the case. Equality, in general, is something I see as a Big Deal. There are real issues with gender discrimination that could use looking at: women not getting equal pay for equal work, men being denied custody rights over children unfairly, etc. This stuff matters.
However, using your analogy, I don’t object to Gauls clamoring for their territorial souvereinty. I object to Gauls making a fuss because some Roman thinker used an example of a Roman citizen in some mathematical problem or philosophical parable of his, rather than a Gaul. Which is a trivial thing to make a big deal of, wouldn’t you say? (Especially if—by analogy—the language they’re using doesn’t let him just say “a man”, he has to specifiy -some- nationality if he wants to use singular). It’s not one of the things that matter, it’s not relevant to their territorial souvereinty except in a way so remote, that to try to impose cultural norms on how you should speak based on such weak relevance is something I find silly, and when it gets aggressive, offensive.
Consider the ideal society where genders and races are equal. To members of such a society, equality would be obvious, wouldn’t it? Now I, following the ideal of equality, try to emulate such an ideal citizen (“If I can predict what i’ll think in the future, I might as well think it now”). I find I have little trouble taking women on their merit without needing to let others tell me how to choose my pronouns, so I obviously resist people trying to tell me how to speak in the name of “political correctness” because it doesn’t strike me as doing anything useful.
In fact I suspect one could make a case about this sort of a thing reinforcing the image of woman as the second class citizen, in need of special protections and norms, rather than to be treated straightforwardly as a fellow human being.
This is not a correct application of the reflection principle you invoke. 1) You do not have reliable information to the effect that the ideal society you have in mind is on the horizon. 2) Some policies might be necessary or appropriate in some circumstances but not others, even if the goal of the policy is to bring about the counterfactual circumstance. 3) I find it unlikely that you have enough information about what an ideal citizen would be like that you can unbiasedly choose features of such a person to emulate.
There’s a quote somewhere… I can’t seem to dig up the exact wording, but it’s something about how if there’s an (obviously artificial) object lying around and you don’t see the use of it, you shouldn’t discard it; only when you know what it was supposed to be for (and can say that the task is no longer necessary or is being better accomplished by something else) is that safe to do.
This looks to me like bottom-line thinking (starting with the conclusion that going out of one’s way to choose gender-neutral pronouns is a bad idea).
Sounds like you’re thinking of Chesterton’s fence. “Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up” is the concise version, commonly attributed to him (although those don’t seem to actually be his words). The longer version that he did write:
G.K. Chesterton, The Thing: Why I am a Catholic
Yes! That’s it. Thank you.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes YES YES YES. Exactly this. And don’t be too quick to think you know, either.
Sorry, I posted the Chesterton quote without scrolling down far enough.
Yes, if. But that’s not the default state, and it’s observably a hard state to reach, even if one wants to.
For people who do want to—actually want to, not just want to signal that they want to—changing language is a popular tool, because it acts as a full-time mindfulness exercise and highlights situations where the user still needs to make an effort to reach their goals. (It’s a popular signaling tool, for those who want to signal, and of course it’s popular with people who want to do both; my point is that signaling is not the only reason for it.)
It’s possible, I suppose, that one might be so enlightened with regards to gender that one can use gender-biased language without that indicating anything in particular about one’s internal states of mind regarding gender. I don’t find that very plausible, but I suppose it’s possible. Since that seems to be what you’re claiming, though, I’d like to ask this, which might make my incredulity clearer if your answer is as I expect it to be: Do you find it just as natural and automatic to use the supposedly-nongendered ‘he’ to describe nurses, kindergarten teachers, flight attendants, and parents of small children?
You may be immune to male-as-default, but a lot of people aren’t. I’m still trying not to have that reaction.
It’s at least plausible that using “he” for people in general reinforces male-as-default.
This is well put and a principle that applies far beyond any bickering about ‘eirs’.
But there should be a counterpart: “Just because you choose to see something as trivial, doesn’t mean anyone else is obliged to treat it that way.”
Thank you. I more or less stole that from Richard Dawkins.