I accept that, in the interest of good communication, people can do a better job with their tone and emphasis when they make PUA posts.
The danger, however, is buying into this idea that you have to adhere to some vague feminist concern that can only result in good-intentioned male posters walking on eggshells to avoid saying the wrong secret phrases. While there are valid feminist concerns about objectification, this kafkaesque hypervigilance simply serves to enforce a very self-limiting mindset in posters.
It wussifies them, in other words. I believe that has been my experience, having resolved at an early age to be supersensitive to offending women. I’ve certainly avoided it, but it’s not very conducive to leaving copies of me in the next generation.
Feminist concerns are vague and the only possible result of thinking about them is “good-intentioned male posters walking on eggshells to avoid saying the wrong secret phrases”?
I guess I can see how, if you don’t understand the relevant feminist concerns, then they will seem vague, and that the effect of not really knowing what it is you’re supposed to avoid could be quite frustrating. But I tend to think that vagueness, like probability, is in the mind, rather than being a property of the concerns themselves. If you do understand and appreciate such concerns, then it’s usually not very difficult to avoid offending people—and even if you do end up accidentally offending someone, it’s easy enough to just apologise after the fact, without it opening yet another front in the gender wars.
Maybe this means that the feminists among us need to do a better job of communicating the concerns, but it would also be nice if attempts to do so didn’t result in (IMHO pretty ridiculous) accusations of “kafkaesque hypervigilance”.
P.S. If trying to understand others’ perspectives and attempting not to unnecessarily offend them means that I’m a wuss, then I’ll wear the badge proudly. I can’t speak for anyone else, but certainly hasn’t affected my ability to leave copies of me in the next generation.
I accept that, in the interest of good communication, people can do a better job with their tone and emphasis when they make PUA posts.
The danger, however, is buying into this idea that you have to adhere to some vague feminist concern that can only result in good-intentioned male posters walking on eggshells to avoid saying the wrong secret phrases. While there are valid feminist concerns about objectification, this kafkaesque hypervigilance simply serves to enforce a very self-limiting mindset in posters.
It wussifies them, in other words. I believe that has been my experience, having resolved at an early age to be supersensitive to offending women. I’ve certainly avoided it, but it’s not very conducive to leaving copies of me in the next generation.
Feminist concerns are vague and the only possible result of thinking about them is “good-intentioned male posters walking on eggshells to avoid saying the wrong secret phrases”?
I guess I can see how, if you don’t understand the relevant feminist concerns, then they will seem vague, and that the effect of not really knowing what it is you’re supposed to avoid could be quite frustrating. But I tend to think that vagueness, like probability, is in the mind, rather than being a property of the concerns themselves. If you do understand and appreciate such concerns, then it’s usually not very difficult to avoid offending people—and even if you do end up accidentally offending someone, it’s easy enough to just apologise after the fact, without it opening yet another front in the gender wars.
Maybe this means that the feminists among us need to do a better job of communicating the concerns, but it would also be nice if attempts to do so didn’t result in (IMHO pretty ridiculous) accusations of “kafkaesque hypervigilance”.
P.S. If trying to understand others’ perspectives and attempting not to unnecessarily offend them means that I’m a wuss, then I’ll wear the badge proudly. I can’t speak for anyone else, but certainly hasn’t affected my ability to leave copies of me in the next generation.