The answer to your question is probably (3). The flaw in the dichotomy between (1) and (2) is the conjunction “and not to take gender into consideration.”
There are ways to take the existence of gender difference into consideration without treating men and women differently. I think this is what Alicorn was referring to, and the worst that can be charged is that this was unclear (and not that anyone was acting in bad faith).
To make this obvious, consider a world where men speak English and French, and women speak English and German. Then, in recognition of the difference between genders, everyone would be wise to just speak English. This does not require speaking differently to men and women, nor ignoring gender differences (perhaps German and French are slightly more efficient languages than English, other than this drawback). You can act “the same” towards men and women, but change your actions so they are appropriate in a world containing both men and women.
You address this issue earlier, pointing out that this approach indeed suppose that men and women are different (an assertion with which no intelligent person I know would argue). I think no rational person is going to hold “discrimination” in general against you. We say different things to people with different personalities, and when you learn someone’s gender you should update your beliefs about their personalities. The problem is that many people update their beliefs about people of the other gender incorrectly or do not fully understand the consequences of their discrimination. This leads many rational people to make decisions which are worse than those produced by the “ignore gender” heuristic. The social response to this problem is sometimes to conclude “all discrimination is bad,” but among more reasonable people it is to respond harshly to damaging forms of discrimination but to accept forms of discrimination which are particularly well justified.
You’re missing Phil’s point. In the example he would speak French with men (outside mixed company) and German with women, and there would be nothing objectionable to this if that language distribution was indeed universal. The problems are that some women don’t speak German, some prefer French and sometimes people forget they are in mixed company and should speak English. It would be best to speak English in public and with strangers of either gender and French or German only with people whose language preferences you know.
(There may be also some men who prefer German, but they hardly ever complain, perhaps because hardly anyone addresses them in German so they feel no entitlement, or because they see their preference as embarrassing and prefer not to make it public)
Except that the statements here are public, and if you speak French in reply to one person, then people who don’t speak French are going to be left out of the conversation. English-only is the proper Schelling point for this public forum.
It was a metaphor. The actual property being referenced has fine enough gradations that there is no Schelling point, nor a particular point that can be agreed by everyone to be “English”. (Nor is aiming at a point in this space any guarantee of hitting it., nor will people describe the same points with the same words).
The answer to your question is probably (3). The flaw in the dichotomy between (1) and (2) is the conjunction “and not to take gender into consideration.”
There are ways to take the existence of gender difference into consideration without treating men and women differently. I think this is what Alicorn was referring to, and the worst that can be charged is that this was unclear (and not that anyone was acting in bad faith).
To make this obvious, consider a world where men speak English and French, and women speak English and German. Then, in recognition of the difference between genders, everyone would be wise to just speak English. This does not require speaking differently to men and women, nor ignoring gender differences (perhaps German and French are slightly more efficient languages than English, other than this drawback). You can act “the same” towards men and women, but change your actions so they are appropriate in a world containing both men and women.
You address this issue earlier, pointing out that this approach indeed suppose that men and women are different (an assertion with which no intelligent person I know would argue). I think no rational person is going to hold “discrimination” in general against you. We say different things to people with different personalities, and when you learn someone’s gender you should update your beliefs about their personalities. The problem is that many people update their beliefs about people of the other gender incorrectly or do not fully understand the consequences of their discrimination. This leads many rational people to make decisions which are worse than those produced by the “ignore gender” heuristic. The social response to this problem is sometimes to conclude “all discrimination is bad,” but among more reasonable people it is to respond harshly to damaging forms of discrimination but to accept forms of discrimination which are particularly well justified.
You’re missing Phil’s point. In the example he would speak French with men (outside mixed company) and German with women, and there would be nothing objectionable to this if that language distribution was indeed universal. The problems are that some women don’t speak German, some prefer French and sometimes people forget they are in mixed company and should speak English. It would be best to speak English in public and with strangers of either gender and French or German only with people whose language preferences you know.
(There may be also some men who prefer German, but they hardly ever complain, perhaps because hardly anyone addresses them in German so they feel no entitlement, or because they see their preference as embarrassing and prefer not to make it public)
No, no, you’ve both got it wrong. You speak Italian to women, French to men, and German to your horse.
Except that the statements here are public, and if you speak French in reply to one person, then people who don’t speak French are going to be left out of the conversation. English-only is the proper Schelling point for this public forum.
It was a metaphor. The actual property being referenced has fine enough gradations that there is no Schelling point, nor a particular point that can be agreed by everyone to be “English”. (Nor is aiming at a point in this space any guarantee of hitting it., nor will people describe the same points with the same words).