But the blogger’s position is one that is often met with hostility round these parts, for reasons that are unclear to me.
I object most to is what is left unsaid. For a faint second the author talks in gender balanced ways, then she drops it to spend the rest of the discussion showing how men do this thing wrong. The author could have used an additional anecdote about how women the equivalent, or a gender neutral anecdote, or an offhanded comment noting where women do it too.
But she didn’t.
Instead we’re left with the impression that unconscious oppression is something men perpetrate on women. It’s a similar trick to what she’s talking about in her post. Her post is still insightful regarding feminism, but it could have been more. Underneath the overt message I hear her saying that oppression and abuse is a male thing, and her responses in the comments reinforce that. Again, a very good post for feminism, but I had been hoping for humanism, and I left disappointed.
I thought she was saying it was a consent problem. The specific example involves a man, but I didn’t see her as saying that women can’t violate consent. In fact, her mocking of the January issue of Cosmo magazine includes calling out glamorizing of female-perpetrator identity theft.
More generally, can’t an advocate notice that the plurality or majority of the perpetrators of this type of problem are male, even while calling for a better social dynamic for both sexes? I don’t think the blogger would disagree.
I don’t think the majority of the people who do this are male. I can think of half a dozen occasions just over the holidays where this was done by a woman (and I can recall only one male counterexample). She probably sees it otherwise given her politics, but I’d say it’s equally split at best.
I do not expect her to make an equal opportunity blog post. However, you wanted to know why it’s met with hostility by some people. The post sends out hostility towards men in an unspoken way, so it is responded to in kind.
One reason gender politics is especially “mind-killing” is that the two least interesting/statistically significant/improbable positions (males are more THIS than females, females more THAT than males) also happen to be the two positions seen as the “strongest”.
I was in the past a regular reader of her blog, until an incident (inspired in large part by a rebuke authored by me, in point of fact) which is still referred to on other feminist blogs as evidence of her… unbalanced perspective, to put it politely. Holly is not a rationalist by any stretch of the imagination, and her blog is very “Our team versus their team.”
That title looks correct, but I do not visit her blog anymore as a rule—I was asked to leave, and I won’t violate that—so I’m not 100% certain. It wasn’t my position in the argument; the worst apparently came after I had left, when she started attacking random commenters. AFAIK my main role in the debacle was getting her riled up. My information on what happened after I left is secondhand, however, so I can’t point you at specific comments.
This may come back to haunt me re: prisoner’s dilemma but- I don’t respect rules that have vanishingly small chance of negative consequence if violated.
Surely she’s not monitoring IP addresses to call you out in public that you visited her blog when you said you didn’t? And even if she were- proxies! Google cache!
I’m an egoist, specifically of Objectivist bent; my rules exist and are followed for my sake, not hers. And I don’t stay where I’m not wanted; I can go where I am wanted, and it will be both a more productive use of my time, and more emotionally healthy for me.
I object most to is what is left unsaid. For a faint second the author talks in gender balanced ways, then she drops it to spend the rest of the discussion showing how men do this thing wrong. The author could have used an additional anecdote about how women the equivalent, or a gender neutral anecdote, or an offhanded comment noting where women do it too.
But she didn’t.
Instead we’re left with the impression that unconscious oppression is something men perpetrate on women. It’s a similar trick to what she’s talking about in her post. Her post is still insightful regarding feminism, but it could have been more. Underneath the overt message I hear her saying that oppression and abuse is a male thing, and her responses in the comments reinforce that. Again, a very good post for feminism, but I had been hoping for humanism, and I left disappointed.
I thought she was saying it was a consent problem. The specific example involves a man, but I didn’t see her as saying that women can’t violate consent. In fact, her mocking of the January issue of Cosmo magazine includes calling out glamorizing of female-perpetrator identity theft.
More generally, can’t an advocate notice that the plurality or majority of the perpetrators of this type of problem are male, even while calling for a better social dynamic for both sexes? I don’t think the blogger would disagree.
I don’t think the majority of the people who do this are male. I can think of half a dozen occasions just over the holidays where this was done by a woman (and I can recall only one male counterexample). She probably sees it otherwise given her politics, but I’d say it’s equally split at best.
I do not expect her to make an equal opportunity blog post. However, you wanted to know why it’s met with hostility by some people. The post sends out hostility towards men in an unspoken way, so it is responded to in kind.
One reason gender politics is especially “mind-killing” is that the two least interesting/statistically significant/improbable positions (males are more THIS than females, females more THAT than males) also happen to be the two positions seen as the “strongest”.
You have high standards. (shrug).
It looks to me like Not-Your-True-Rejection, but it would look that way to Mindkilled-Me whether it were true or not. (shrug).
Thanks for articulating your reasoning.
I was in the past a regular reader of her blog, until an incident (inspired in large part by a rebuke authored by me, in point of fact) which is still referred to on other feminist blogs as evidence of her… unbalanced perspective, to put it politely. Holly is not a rationalist by any stretch of the imagination, and her blog is very “Our team versus their team.”
You mean this? Sorry—don’t agree with your position.
Potential downvoters—would you rather a long argument or a polite expression of disagreement that doesn’t spawn into a huge debate?
That title looks correct, but I do not visit her blog anymore as a rule—I was asked to leave, and I won’t violate that—so I’m not 100% certain. It wasn’t my position in the argument; the worst apparently came after I had left, when she started attacking random commenters. AFAIK my main role in the debacle was getting her riled up. My information on what happened after I left is secondhand, however, so I can’t point you at specific comments.
This may come back to haunt me re: prisoner’s dilemma but- I don’t respect rules that have vanishingly small chance of negative consequence if violated.
Surely she’s not monitoring IP addresses to call you out in public that you visited her blog when you said you didn’t? And even if she were- proxies! Google cache!
I’m an egoist, specifically of Objectivist bent; my rules exist and are followed for my sake, not hers. And I don’t stay where I’m not wanted; I can go where I am wanted, and it will be both a more productive use of my time, and more emotionally healthy for me.