Let’s drop the hypotheticals and get down to brass tacks here.
I don’t think LW is all that mean to women compared to other communities. It’s just in the strange position of having some overlap between women who use women’s-studies vocabulary, and men who come from a technical, majority-male world. So there are people holding the site to a very high standard of sensitivity on gender issues (these are mostly women) and there are people holding the site to a very high standard of impartiality and disinterested rationality.
Those standards are in tension. On the one hand, sensitivity requires us to acknowledge that humans are social animals, that they have group loyalties, that they tend to believe in “halo effects” and “horn effects” about groups of people, and that in order to make people comfortable on this site we have to make it clear to them that we don’t bear them ill will based on their gender. We can’t reasonably expect people to take all statements one at a time and disregard their typical correlation with attitudes and biases. (For example, would you be convinced by someone who said “I’m not an anti-Semite! I have no problem with Jews; it’s simply a fact that they’re not as honest in business as the rest of us”?)
In other words, the standard of sensitivity calls on us to work with typical human biases, to treat humans as political/social animals as a matter of practical reality, and to consider it justifiable when people think within this framework (for example, by perceiving misogyny.)
The standard of impartiality (or “reasonableness”) calls on us to reduce biases and group loyalties, to not behave as political animals, to as nearly as possible go by universal principles and reasoning that can be universally shared. Sensitivity treats discussion as a negotiation (“Be nice, or I won’t feel comfortable and I’ll leave,”) while impartiality treats discussion as an attempt to find truth (“You have no good reason to be upset—I haven’t wronged you.”)
Sensitivity and impartiality are at odds. I tend to think that too much sensitivity keeps us from actually learning or getting anything done; but I also think that too much impartiality is unrealistic and will drive people away.
Let’s drop the hypotheticals and get down to brass tacks here.
I don’t think LW is all that mean to women compared to other communities. It’s just in the strange position of having some overlap between women who use women’s-studies vocabulary, and men who come from a technical, majority-male world. So there are people holding the site to a very high standard of sensitivity on gender issues (these are mostly women) and there are people holding the site to a very high standard of impartiality and disinterested rationality.
Those standards are in tension. On the one hand, sensitivity requires us to acknowledge that humans are social animals, that they have group loyalties, that they tend to believe in “halo effects” and “horn effects” about groups of people, and that in order to make people comfortable on this site we have to make it clear to them that we don’t bear them ill will based on their gender. We can’t reasonably expect people to take all statements one at a time and disregard their typical correlation with attitudes and biases. (For example, would you be convinced by someone who said “I’m not an anti-Semite! I have no problem with Jews; it’s simply a fact that they’re not as honest in business as the rest of us”?)
In other words, the standard of sensitivity calls on us to work with typical human biases, to treat humans as political/social animals as a matter of practical reality, and to consider it justifiable when people think within this framework (for example, by perceiving misogyny.)
The standard of impartiality (or “reasonableness”) calls on us to reduce biases and group loyalties, to not behave as political animals, to as nearly as possible go by universal principles and reasoning that can be universally shared. Sensitivity treats discussion as a negotiation (“Be nice, or I won’t feel comfortable and I’ll leave,”) while impartiality treats discussion as an attempt to find truth (“You have no good reason to be upset—I haven’t wronged you.”)
Sensitivity and impartiality are at odds. I tend to think that too much sensitivity keeps us from actually learning or getting anything done; but I also think that too much impartiality is unrealistic and will drive people away.