when something is offensive its usually considered so because of a harmful context its associated with
Yup. And that is a silly situation.
Player A claims that X is offensive.
They do so not because of X. Instead, they do so as a result of their relating X to something that is actually harmful, and the emotive response caused by the actually harmful thing.
My suggestion is that we focus upon actually harmful things, instead of linguistic utterances that we can relate to harmful things utilizing the same thought process one uses to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
I am a person saying its okay to reference the popular idea that many gamer's girlfriends are not into games.
Why?
Why would you say my wife is not in to games?
. . .
This is not a categorical statement. It does not preclude men who are not into games or women who are, regardless of relationship status. Note the use of "many" above.
Here's what you want to say: Any particular linguistic utterance, such as "girlfriend", can have a different meaning depending upon the context. It is not the case that "girlfriend" always means the same thing, in every situation, when stated by any person.
Player A can mean "girlfriend" as "my particular significant other who is a female, while I am a male."
Player B can mean "girlfriend" as "this is my long-term significant other to whom I am practically married, but since we live in a red state, we cannot be married."
Player C can mean "girlfriend" as "an insulting term to apply to this particular male friend, who is being more sensitive than men are stereotypically considered to be."
Player D can mean "girlfriend" as "she is a girl, and she is a friend, but she's not my 'girlfriend'" (See: Pete & Pete)
That's the way out of this particular trap. "Girlfriend" does not have one concrete, absolute, fixed meaning. So, the way you understand "girlfriend", the way Quid understands "girlfriend" and the way video game guy understands "girlfriend" may be three completely different notions.
Except that the girl part is static. You're just going on about the definition of friend.
Well, except for player C, but if anybody thinks that's what was meant by the Gearbox guy (or any mainstream press release) probably has other issues with sex/gender.
Yeah, there's really no meaning of the word that changes the sexism inherent in the statement.
Ah, so now we have "inherent meaning" up and running.
Good times.
No, we really don't.
No matter which definition you choose of girlfriend, the statement is still "we made an easy way to play the game. You know, for the females."
It isn't "for the females." It is for a specific subset of people (girlfriends who don't game). Please stop trying to make this into a categorical statement about women.
He has to construe it as a categorical statement about all women.
Otherwise he has no argument.
No one has said girlfriend = all women.
Meanwhile not one of you geese has demonstrated a girlfriend to not be a woman.
When I say to a male friend, "Hey, girlfriend!" in a joking manner, I am utilizing the term "girlfriend" to refer to a person who is not, in fact, a girl.
That's nice. Are all your friends now genderless?
Oh right, you think people are computers.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
Um. Many psychological and mental current changes are not done via conscious choice. Like someone doesn't see a commercial for apple and decide okay I'll be a Mac addict now a lot of that is subliminal so this whole ' well the offended should choose not to care' really lacks a fundamental truth about human beings. IMO
Supposing as a joke, Person A is always telling Person B how dumb they are. They don't really mean it deep down. It's just a thing they say.
But the brain, she is a crazy thing. When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it.
So it doesn't really matter that Person A "doesn't really mean it." They're still contributing something toxic.
Oh this is perfectly, wonderfully written.
Person A isn't "contributing something toxic".
The toxicity results from Player B's brain. Because that's what you wrote: "When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it."
What you just wrote is that the problem is Player B's brain.
Unfortunately, you got confused about the causal story of the feeling of dumbness at the end.
Player A says, "You are dumb."
Player B's brain groups that statement with other statments.
This results in Player B thinking that Player B is dumb.
That's what you just wrote.
I assume you don't actually want to maintain that. So, you may want to change your story.
However, if you change your story, then you're going to place Player B's self-conception in the hands of Player A, and that's problematic as well.
My guess is you'd want to have Player B's self-conception to be wholly self-controlled and self-regulated to the entity of Player B....but if that were the case it wouldn't be influenced by what other people say.
And that's the conception of persons that I'm trying to offer...which you think is flawed.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say? Is it, "If your brain is being damaged by verbal abuse, then tell your brain to cut it out!"
Because if so... would it be it fair to say you haven't read up on much neurology?
I'm trying to think of the shortest way to say it.
When I feel sad, the sadness is the result of my personal interpretation of various situations. Some of those situations were caused by natural events. Others were caused by things persons did or said.
But, at the end, my feeling of sadness results from my interpretation.
I have control over how I interpret things that other people say and do.
I take this to be an empowering notion.
And it's the realization that resulted in my never being offended.
Suffering from depression? Find another way to feel, sadsack! You have the power to cure all mental disease if you just think positive!
I'm guessing you've never been in therapy.
They tend to not say "You have no control over yourself."
_J_, you have just demonstrated less knowledge of psychology than someone who took an introductory class in it in high school.
There are numerous schools of psychology with very different perspectives on how much control a person has, or what control even is.
Please make sure to rephrase this sort of thing as "The therapists I have encountered tend to not say" and so forth in the future.
In the real world, such an objective value is meaningless because any statement can have its own value to different persons.
So, we're not talking about sexism.
We're talking about how different people interpret particular statements, and the degree to which they are offended by them.
You've turned a conversation about sexism into that, yes.
Congratulations?
Feelings, though a factor in the list of damages sexism causes, is too subjective to actually debate about it.
Subjectivism, as it is championed by _J_ gets no debate anywhere but circles. I'd rather take care about the empirical aspects of sexism... and fix those... feelings will take care of themselves then.
Which of course does not mean to be rude or less empathic towards people who are hurt until the empirical aspects are fixed.
when something is offensive its usually considered so because of a harmful context its associated with
Yup. And that is a silly situation.
Player A claims that X is offensive.
They do so not because of X. Instead, they do so as a result of their relating X to something that is actually harmful, and the emotive response caused by the actually harmful thing.
My suggestion is that we focus upon actually harmful things, instead of linguistic utterances that we can relate to harmful things utilizing the same thought process one uses to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
So you're saying that in the examples I gave, its irrational for the offended groups to think that something is wrong?
The jew who notices neo nazi graffiti around his home is irrational for feeling afraid for his safety?
The black person who hears his officials make gross stereotypes is irrational for not trusting them?
The woman who hears sexist remarks around her workplace and associates is irrational for assuming that her rape claim would be disbelieved?
Why is it bad to quash the female vote? The opposite of that why, the why that seeks to quash the female vote, is most likely going to be sexism. Why would we ignore this?
Because the motivation to do X isn't relevant when the problem is X.
I feel that that statement is deserving of a response very similar to this
I think you're confusing actual harm with "feewings hurt", at least in the case of "Girlfriend Mode".
Other instances of "sexism" can be recast as "employment inequality" or something along those lines, so that we can clarify the issue to get to the actual problem.
1) Feelings affect health. Human emotional states are incredibly important for those individuals and for the world around them. This is a basic biological and social fact.
2) Sexism causes a large variety of different harms. Some are emotional, some are social, some are educational, some are political, some are economic, and usually more than one harm applies.
Persons have control over their feelings, and their own reactions.
Do they now?
That is one of the premises of psychotherapy, yes.
So if I, say, murdered your parents, your reaction is totally under your control?
I mean, it'd be your choice to be upset, right?
Yup.
This is such a factually wrong and bizarre thing to say that I don't even know where to begin.
I often find people, who are uncomfortable with sexism charges, uncomfortable with public complaints and uncomfortable with demands for a public shift to stir debates into the realms of subjectivity to effectively make sexism an issue of weakness of the affected. Which in and out of itself is sexist again.
"Hey girl, you are offended by sexism? Don't be a pussy!" .. sometimes disguised in more polite language or in pseudo-objective principle talk or amateur-psychology.
What they also do is putting everybody who actually educates themselves on sexism, who work to make it right, into a corner of being weak and their arguments being ONLY based on personal feelings... Stirring debates about cultural sexism into subjectivism is nothing more than a broad-scale ad hominem attack and should be ignored as the logical fallacy it is.
I think you're confusing actual harm with "feewings hurt", at least in the case of "Girlfriend Mode".
Other instances of "sexism" can be recast as "employment inequality" or something along those lines, so that we can clarify the issue to get to the actual problem.
1) Feelings affect health. Human emotional states are incredibly important for those individuals and for the world around them. This is a basic biological and social fact.
2) Sexism causes a large variety of different harms. Some are emotional, some are social, some are educational, some are political, some are economic, and usually more than one harm applies.
Persons have control over their feelings, and their own reactions.
If a person is genuinely experiencing symptoms of depression as a result of someone they've never met, in an office somewhere, implying that they may not be good at video games, then perhaps there are larger issues with which the person needs to deal.
No, actually, people don't have control over their feelings. This has been scientifically supported by so much research. So much. In fact, forcing or trying EXERT control over emotions has been proven to be not good. At all. Any research around Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, and even evidence-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy will back that.
People DO have control over their reactions. On this you are right. But up to a point.
As to the last line: you do not appear to understand depression (or its treatment) very well at all. There ARE larger issues with which the person needs to deal, but none of that other little stuff helps and, by the nature of depression, serve to actively PREVENT the person from dealing with the "big" stuff at all.
Affirmative consent is a drastic legal and sociocultural reimagining of what it means to validly consent to sexual activity. “As a cultural matter…we need to adopt the stance that sexual interaction ought to always be had in a state of affirmative consent by all participants; that anything else is aberrant. If someone says ‘I was sexually assaulted,’ the first question should be, ‘why was a person continuing with a sexual activity when zir partner did not want to?’”[22] Put simply, the concept of “affirmative consent” (or “AC”) is the explicit rejection of the culturally embedded (and legally perpetuated) idea that consent to sexual relations can be presumed unless explicitly revoked; rather, parties who enter into sexual interactions should be responsible for communicating with their partner to ensure that explicit, voluntary, and informed consent exists. AC is a principle pioneered by the feminist activists Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti in their book “Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape,” and it has been embraced by the queer and radical community as an active method for fighting rape culture, and it is possible that working to institute it as a legal standard in rape cases will be a step towards the successful prosecution of “gray rape” and “date rape” cases and, ultimately, a force to dismantle the barrier between those cases and “real rape.”
I think one of the main issues here is that we are coming from, in my opinion, the wrong direction. This is due to the fact that consent, even if given, is not absolute. A person can say, "yes" and then say "no" 15 minutes later and their "no" holds more power. A serial rapist is going to go to court swearing that consent was given in private and we will be in the exact same state we are in currently in terms of "gray rape". I feel as though this is a battle over attitudes being argued via semantics. Is the important thing that the participants consented, or that they are actually intimate with each other and can determine when sex is appropriate and welcome? It feels as though we are just changing the hoops that the bad people have to jump through rather than dealing with the underlying attitudes and issues. Dealing with symptoms rather than the disease.
Of course "yes means yes" would better not overwrite "no means no". No should still mean no, says I.
Yes and no in this context seem more effective thought of as states or modes, rather than tokens of portable currency. A "yes" can't be stored for later use, as a default. Generally, even contract-law provides conditions for the legitimacy of agreements to effects like that, or limit a "yes" to being necessary rather than sufficient.
Edit: Above, I am assuming that a libertarian is not yet emperor of the northern hemisphere.
Affirmative consent is a drastic legal and sociocultural reimagining of what it means to validly consent to sexual activity. “As a cultural matter…we need to adopt the stance that sexual interaction ought to always be had in a state of affirmative consent by all participants; that anything else is aberrant. If someone says ‘I was sexually assaulted,’ the first question should be, ‘why was a person continuing with a sexual activity when zir partner did not want to?’”[22] Put simply, the concept of “affirmative consent” (or “AC”) is the explicit rejection of the culturally embedded (and legally perpetuated) idea that consent to sexual relations can be presumed unless explicitly revoked; rather, parties who enter into sexual interactions should be responsible for communicating with their partner to ensure that explicit, voluntary, and informed consent exists. AC is a principle pioneered by the feminist activists Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti in their book “Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape,” and it has been embraced by the queer and radical community as an active method for fighting rape culture, and it is possible that working to institute it as a legal standard in rape cases will be a step towards the successful prosecution of “gray rape” and “date rape” cases and, ultimately, a force to dismantle the barrier between those cases and “real rape.”
I think one of the main issues here is that we are coming from, in my opinion, the wrong direction. This is due to the fact that consent, even if given, is not absolute. A person can say, "yes" and then say "no" 15 minutes later and their "no" holds more power. A serial rapist is going to go to court swearing that consent was given in private and we will be in the exact same state we are in currently in terms of "gray rape". I feel as though this is a battle over attitudes being argued via semantics. Is the important thing that the participants consented, or that they are actually intimate with each other and can determine when sex is appropriate and welcome? It feels as though we are just changing the hoops that the bad people have to jump through rather than dealing with the underlying attitudes and issues. Dealing with symptoms rather than the disease.
Of course "yes means yes" would better not overwrite "no means no". No should still mean no, says I.
Yes and no in this context seem more effective thought of as states or modes, rather than tokens of portable currency. A "yes" can't be stored for later use, as a default. Generally, even contract-law provides conditions for the legitimacy of agreements to effects like that, or limit a "yes" to being necessary rather than sufficient.
Edit: Above, I am assuming that a libertarian is not yet emperor of the northern hemisphere.
@MarkGoodhart: It would make it harder for rapists to get away with what they do if when Harry says Mark raped him, Mark can't handwave it away saying "well he seemed like he wanted it!" because him misinterpreting Harry isn't a valid excuse. The only option left for him to deny that he raped Harry would be to say that Harry's outright lying, which would still happen probably, but it wouldn't be as easy to convince others of that, is how the argument goes.If Harry says "I never said I wanted to have sex!" then that would be enough, there would be no need to ask him like, what were you wearing, why did you talk to Mark at all, and so on. When you're the defendant, arguing "I never meant to say yes and didn't explicitly do so" there are less ambiguity problems you have to side-step than when counter-arguing "you never said no". It makes the process much more straight-forward; it comes down to the people making the judgment either believing in what Harry says or not, instead of having to second-guess if he might have subconsciously been giving the "wrong signals", etc. It certainly seems like a step in the right direction to me. Even assuming that rapists will successfully convince others that their victims are lying, I think the conditions for dealing with that issue effectively would be better.
@MarkGoodhart: It would make it harder for rapists to get away with what they do if when Harry says Mark raped him, Mark can't handwave it away saying "well he seemed like he wanted it!" because him misinterpreting Harry isn't a valid excuse. The only option left for him to deny that he raped Harry would be to say that Harry's outright lying, which would still happen probably, but it wouldn't be as easy to convince others of that, is how the argument goes.If Harry says "I never said I wanted to have sex!" then that would be enough, there would be no need to ask him like, what were you wearing, why did you talk to Mark at all, and so on. When you're the defendant, arguing "I never meant to say yes and didn't explicitly do so" there are less ambiguity problems you have to side-step than when counter-arguing "you never said no". It makes the process much more straight-forward; it comes down to the people making the judgment either believing in what Harry says or not, instead of having to second-guess if he might have subconsciously been giving the "wrong signals", etc. It certainly seems like a step in the right direction to me. Even assuming that rapists will successfully convince others that their victims are lying, I think the conditions for dealing with that issue effectively would be better.
I think you are approaching this from a reasonable, thoughtful perspective. I also think reasonable, thoughtful people would be able to apply enthusiastic consent and not rape anyone. But rapists are neither thoughtful nor reasonable. I am of the belief that 'rape by accident' is fictional and that those who do it aren't really having a whoopsie, but are actually awful human beings that do not care about the well being of their victim. Of course, I just just now... in mid-post mind you... realized you are talking from more of a legal standpoint than a social one. I am coming from a perspective of 'this won't reduce rapes at all' where as you are coming from a direction of 'this will make rapes easier to prosecute' which makes sense.
@MarkGoodhart: It would make it harder for rapists to get away with what they do if when Harry says Mark raped him, Mark can't handwave it away saying "well he seemed like he wanted it!" because him misinterpreting Harry isn't a valid excuse. The only option left for him to deny that he raped Harry would be to say that Harry's outright lying, which would still happen probably, but it wouldn't be as easy to convince others of that, is how the argument goes.If Harry says "I never said I wanted to have sex!" then that would be enough, there would be no need to ask him like, what were you wearing, why did you talk to Mark at all, and so on. When you're the defendant, arguing "I never meant to say yes and didn't explicitly do so" there are less ambiguity problems you have to side-step than when counter-arguing "you never said no". It makes the process much more straight-forward; it comes down to the people making the judgment either believing in what Harry says or not, instead of having to second-guess if he might have subconsciously been giving the "wrong signals", etc. It certainly seems like a step in the right direction to me. Even assuming that rapists will successfully convince others that their victims are lying, I think the conditions for dealing with that issue effectively would be better.
I think you are approaching this from a reasonable, thoughtful perspective. I also think reasonable, thoughtful people would be able to apply enthusiastic consent and not rape anyone. But rapists are neither thoughtful nor reasonable. I am of the belief that 'rape by accident' is fictional and that those who do it aren't really having a whoopsie, but are actually awful human beings that do not care about the well being of their victim. Of course, I just just now... in mid-post mind you... realized you are talking from more of a legal standpoint than a social one. I am coming from a perspective of 'this won't reduce rapes at all' where as you are coming from a direction of 'this will make rapes easier to prosecute' which makes sense.
Haha, I'm glad you caught up on that, I was worried I'd been talking past you. It's true that what I mean is it will make punishing rapists easier but it doesn't only have to be about judicial(?) contexts. It could also lead to increased social punishment through former friends giving rapists the cold shoulder and such, diminishing the problem that Jeedan brought up much earlier in the thread:
I've been reading about David Lisaks studies on sexual predators.
Brief summary, Lasik did a bunch of surveys of college students on rape, his conclusions are interesting because he's firmly against the idea that the majority of rape is being a one-time-mistake-offence. What he found is that the majority of rapes, acquaintance, date rape ect are done by a relatively small subset of repeat offenders.
Now heres the creepy part, among these repeat offenders certain patterns come up, and one is that they know how to exploit societies bias against women. That is to say, they know how to pick victims who wont speak out, they overwhelmingly use manipulation and general nice guy (up to a point) tactics rather than violence, and they know to ingratiate themselves in a crowd where they have "social license" to operate.
Essentially in order to get away with being a rapey dude, you've got to be in a crowd where men are the dominant voice, where you can say rapey things and pass it off as "just a joke", and where if it comes down to a he said/she said situation people will at worst, charitably assume it was a matter of simple miscommunication.
Rapists and general misogynists are well aware that as long as you operate in societies "grey area" no one will really call you it. As long as you surround yourself with people who will say "haha thats our frank, don't be so uptight he doesn't really mean anything by it" you can do or say pretty much whatever you want.
Actually, Feral said this back on page 73
I do think it will reduce rape, because it will reduce the amount of shielding rapists get from non-rapist peers who have less sophisticated attitudes about sex. I think it would reduce the occurrence of some of the other troublesome situations I brought up. "
Craw! on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I am a person saying its okay to reference the popular idea that many gamer's girlfriends are not into games.
Why?
Why would you say my wife is not in to games?
. . .
This is not a categorical statement. It does not preclude men who are not into games or women who are, regardless of relationship status. Note the use of "many" above.
Here's what you want to say: Any particular linguistic utterance, such as "girlfriend", can have a different meaning depending upon the context. It is not the case that "girlfriend" always means the same thing, in every situation, when stated by any person.
Player A can mean "girlfriend" as "my particular significant other who is a female, while I am a male."
Player B can mean "girlfriend" as "this is my long-term significant other to whom I am practically married, but since we live in a red state, we cannot be married."
Player C can mean "girlfriend" as "an insulting term to apply to this particular male friend, who is being more sensitive than men are stereotypically considered to be."
Player D can mean "girlfriend" as "she is a girl, and she is a friend, but she's not my 'girlfriend'" (See: Pete & Pete)
That's the way out of this particular trap. "Girlfriend" does not have one concrete, absolute, fixed meaning. So, the way you understand "girlfriend", the way Quid understands "girlfriend" and the way video game guy understands "girlfriend" may be three completely different notions.
Except that the girl part is static. You're just going on about the definition of friend.
Well, except for player C, but if anybody thinks that's what was meant by the Gearbox guy (or any mainstream press release) probably has other issues with sex/gender.
Yeah, there's really no meaning of the word that changes the sexism inherent in the statement.
Ah, so now we have "inherent meaning" up and running.
Good times.
No, we really don't.
No matter which definition you choose of girlfriend, the statement is still "we made an easy way to play the game. You know, for the females."
It isn't "for the females." It is for a specific subset of people (girlfriends who don't game). Please stop trying to make this into a categorical statement about women.
He has to construe it as a categorical statement about all women.
Otherwise he has no argument.
No one has said girlfriend = all women.
Meanwhile not one of you geese has demonstrated a girlfriend to not be a woman.
If there was a game mode where no blood is shown and Hemingway called it "Nun mode" would you say that was sexist? All nuns are women, after all.
I am a person saying its okay to reference the popular idea that many gamer's girlfriends are not into games.
Why?
Why would you say my wife is not in to games?
. . .
This is not a categorical statement. It does not preclude men who are not into games or women who are, regardless of relationship status. Note the use of "many" above.
Here's what you want to say: Any particular linguistic utterance, such as "girlfriend", can have a different meaning depending upon the context. It is not the case that "girlfriend" always means the same thing, in every situation, when stated by any person.
Player A can mean "girlfriend" as "my particular significant other who is a female, while I am a male."
Player B can mean "girlfriend" as "this is my long-term significant other to whom I am practically married, but since we live in a red state, we cannot be married."
Player C can mean "girlfriend" as "an insulting term to apply to this particular male friend, who is being more sensitive than men are stereotypically considered to be."
Player D can mean "girlfriend" as "she is a girl, and she is a friend, but she's not my 'girlfriend'" (See: Pete & Pete)
That's the way out of this particular trap. "Girlfriend" does not have one concrete, absolute, fixed meaning. So, the way you understand "girlfriend", the way Quid understands "girlfriend" and the way video game guy understands "girlfriend" may be three completely different notions.
Except that the girl part is static. You're just going on about the definition of friend.
Well, except for player C, but if anybody thinks that's what was meant by the Gearbox guy (or any mainstream press release) probably has other issues with sex/gender.
Yeah, there's really no meaning of the word that changes the sexism inherent in the statement.
Ah, so now we have "inherent meaning" up and running.
Good times.
No, we really don't.
No matter which definition you choose of girlfriend, the statement is still "we made an easy way to play the game. You know, for the females."
It isn't "for the females." It is for a specific subset of people (girlfriends who don't game). Please stop trying to make this into a categorical statement about women.
He has to construe it as a categorical statement about all women.
Otherwise he has no argument.
No one has said girlfriend = all women.
Meanwhile not one of you geese has demonstrated a girlfriend to not be a woman.
If there was a game mode where no blood is shown and Hemingway called it "Nun mode" would you say that was sexist? All nuns are women, after all.
Does a lack of blood in anyway reinforce a stereotype about not expressely post-menapausal women?
I think I'd go with no. So it wouldn't be all that sexist, though it may be a little bigoted with regard to religion.
I am a person saying its okay to reference the popular idea that many gamer's girlfriends are not into games.
Why?
Why would you say my wife is not in to games?
. . .
This is not a categorical statement. It does not preclude men who are not into games or women who are, regardless of relationship status. Note the use of "many" above.
Here's what you want to say: Any particular linguistic utterance, such as "girlfriend", can have a different meaning depending upon the context. It is not the case that "girlfriend" always means the same thing, in every situation, when stated by any person.
Player A can mean "girlfriend" as "my particular significant other who is a female, while I am a male."
Player B can mean "girlfriend" as "this is my long-term significant other to whom I am practically married, but since we live in a red state, we cannot be married."
Player C can mean "girlfriend" as "an insulting term to apply to this particular male friend, who is being more sensitive than men are stereotypically considered to be."
Player D can mean "girlfriend" as "she is a girl, and she is a friend, but she's not my 'girlfriend'" (See: Pete & Pete)
That's the way out of this particular trap. "Girlfriend" does not have one concrete, absolute, fixed meaning. So, the way you understand "girlfriend", the way Quid understands "girlfriend" and the way video game guy understands "girlfriend" may be three completely different notions.
Except that the girl part is static. You're just going on about the definition of friend.
Well, except for player C, but if anybody thinks that's what was meant by the Gearbox guy (or any mainstream press release) probably has other issues with sex/gender.
Yeah, there's really no meaning of the word that changes the sexism inherent in the statement.
Ah, so now we have "inherent meaning" up and running.
Good times.
No, we really don't.
No matter which definition you choose of girlfriend, the statement is still "we made an easy way to play the game. You know, for the females."
It isn't "for the females." It is for a specific subset of people (girlfriends who don't game). Please stop trying to make this into a categorical statement about women.
He has to construe it as a categorical statement about all women.
Otherwise he has no argument.
No one has said girlfriend = all women.
Meanwhile not one of you geese has demonstrated a girlfriend to not be a woman.
If there was a game mode where no blood is shown and Hemingway called it "Nun mode" would you say that was sexist? All nuns are women, after all.
Considering that I'm not aware of any long-running cultural attitudes in which nuns and blood are intrinsically linked and granted an inferior status in society... no, not really, it's mostly just nonsensical.
But that's what you're ignoring with this bad analogy. The cultural meme of "my girlfriend sucks at games" which itself is a subset of "women are bad at games". Which is really the problem. To cycle things all the way back around to the beginning, Hemingway said "girlfriend tree" to describe a game design choice that is intended to allow newer and less-skilled players better learn and enjoy the game while contributing to the group. As a game design choice, this is a welcome addition, but there is absolutely nothing that justifies linking it to an all-female sub-group that is already labelled as inferior at this given activity due to long-running cultural memes. Had he just said "newbie tree", he would be correctly describing the gameplay feature as one that any newer player can benefit from, rather than aligning his language with current harmful memes.
Not all women are girlfriends, no, but all girlfriends are women. Hemingway chose to limit his target descriptive group in this way, and that is why it is a sexist remark. I don't care what his motivation is, or his personal ethos. The appropriate response was "Yeah, my bad; this is something everyone can benefit from, and I should have phrased it as such."
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I am a person saying its okay to reference the popular idea that many gamer's girlfriends are not into games.
Why?
Why would you say my wife is not in to games?
. . .
This is not a categorical statement. It does not preclude men who are not into games or women who are, regardless of relationship status. Note the use of "many" above.
Here's what you want to say: Any particular linguistic utterance, such as "girlfriend", can have a different meaning depending upon the context. It is not the case that "girlfriend" always means the same thing, in every situation, when stated by any person.
Player A can mean "girlfriend" as "my particular significant other who is a female, while I am a male."
Player B can mean "girlfriend" as "this is my long-term significant other to whom I am practically married, but since we live in a red state, we cannot be married."
Player C can mean "girlfriend" as "an insulting term to apply to this particular male friend, who is being more sensitive than men are stereotypically considered to be."
Player D can mean "girlfriend" as "she is a girl, and she is a friend, but she's not my 'girlfriend'" (See: Pete & Pete)
That's the way out of this particular trap. "Girlfriend" does not have one concrete, absolute, fixed meaning. So, the way you understand "girlfriend", the way Quid understands "girlfriend" and the way video game guy understands "girlfriend" may be three completely different notions.
Except that the girl part is static. You're just going on about the definition of friend.
Well, except for player C, but if anybody thinks that's what was meant by the Gearbox guy (or any mainstream press release) probably has other issues with sex/gender.
Yeah, there's really no meaning of the word that changes the sexism inherent in the statement.
Ah, so now we have "inherent meaning" up and running.
Good times.
No, we really don't.
No matter which definition you choose of girlfriend, the statement is still "we made an easy way to play the game. You know, for the females."
It isn't "for the females." It is for a specific subset of people (girlfriends who don't game). Please stop trying to make this into a categorical statement about women.
He has to construe it as a categorical statement about all women.
Otherwise he has no argument.
No one has said girlfriend = all women.
Meanwhile not one of you geese has demonstrated a girlfriend to not be a woman.
If there was a game mode where no blood is shown and Hemingway called it "Nun mode" would you say that was sexist? All nuns are women, after all.
Considering that I'm not aware of any long-running cultural attitudes in which nuns and blood are intrinsically linked and granted an inferior status in society... no, not really, it's mostly just nonsensical.
But that's what you're ignoring with this bad analogy. The cultural meme of "my girlfriend sucks at games" which itself is a subset of "women are bad at games". Which is really the problem. To cycle things all the way back around to the beginning, Hemingway said "girlfriend tree" to describe a game design choice that is intended to allow newer and less-skilled players better learn and enjoy the game while contributing to the group. As a game design choice, this is a welcome addition, but there is absolutely nothing that justifies linking it to an all-female sub-group that is already labelled as inferior at this given activity due to long-running cultural memes. Had he just said "newbie tree", he would be correctly describing the gameplay feature as one that any newer player can benefit from, rather than aligning his language with current harmful memes.
Not all women are girlfriends, no, but all girlfriends are women. Hemingway chose to limit his target descriptive group in this way, and that is why it is a sexist remark. I don't care what his motivation is, or his personal ethos. The appropriate response was "Yeah, my bad; this is something everyone can benefit from, and I should have phrased it as such."
There is something that justifies the link. The fact that the designer sees this as a way to to appeal to a large group of people who don't play games (i.e., girlfriends who sit and watch their boyfriends play games). It doesn't matter if there are other groups this mode will appeal to. It was made with this group in mind, at least as a major example of who it would appeal to.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
SKFM do you understand what a gender stereotype is?
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Supposing as a joke, Person A is always telling Person B how dumb they are. They don't really mean it deep down. It's just a thing they say.
But the brain, she is a crazy thing. When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it.
So it doesn't really matter that Person A "doesn't really mean it." They're still contributing something toxic.
Oh this is perfectly, wonderfully written.
Person A isn't "contributing something toxic".
The toxicity results from Player B's brain. Because that's what you wrote: "When a person hears that they are dumb often enough, they begin to believe it."
What you just wrote is that the problem is Player B's brain.
Unfortunately, you got confused about the causal story of the feeling of dumbness at the end.
Player A says, "You are dumb."
Player B's brain groups that statement with other statments.
This results in Player B thinking that Player B is dumb.
That's what you just wrote.
I assume you don't actually want to maintain that. So, you may want to change your story.
However, if you change your story, then you're going to place Player B's self-conception in the hands of Player A, and that's problematic as well.
My guess is you'd want to have Player B's self-conception to be wholly self-controlled and self-regulated to the entity of Player B....but if that were the case it wouldn't be influenced by what other people say.
And that's the conception of persons that I'm trying to offer...which you think is flawed.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say? Is it, "If your brain is being damaged by verbal abuse, then tell your brain to cut it out!"
Because if so... would it be it fair to say you haven't read up on much neurology?
I'm trying to think of the shortest way to say it.
When I feel sad, the sadness is the result of my personal interpretation of various situations. Some of those situations were caused by natural events. Others were caused by things persons did or said.
But, at the end, my feeling of sadness results from my interpretation.
I have control over how I interpret things that other people say and do.
I take this to be an empowering notion.
And it's the realization that resulted in my never being offended.
Suffering from depression? Find another way to feel, sadsack! You have the power to cure all mental disease if you just think positive!
I'm guessing you've never been in therapy.
They tend to not say "You have no control over yourself."
_J_, you have just demonstrated less knowledge of psychology than someone who took an introductory class in it in high school.
There are numerous schools of psychology with very different perspectives on how much control a person has, or what control even is.
Please make sure to rephrase this sort of thing as "The therapists I have encountered tend to not say" and so forth in the future.
Actually, not to take a side here, but the concepts _J_ is espousing are fairly core to the concept of REBT. It is, of course, up in the air if you AGREE with them, but it's a fairly defined thing, as it were. (Unless I've had a few too many "refreshing cold beverages" tonight... Ahem.)
As a form of disclosure, I agree with him in that I find the concept of "I control my responses to any given situation" to be somewhat empowering, but I don't find other points of view to necessarily be invalid.
SKFM do you understand what a gender stereotype is?
Yes. Do you understand that stereotypes can be true about certain members of the group subject to the stereotype?
And do you understand that the above makes it no less a stereotype and no less sexist?
Are you interested in talking about why stereotypes / sexism are bad, or if there are any such things?
Because it seems like you're operating from some a priori notion that these two things are inherently bad, so all you have to do is run a reduction to either stereotype or sexism and if you can make the reduction you get to declare X bad.
That's boring.
_J_ on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
SKFM do you understand what a gender stereotype is?
Yes. Do you understand that stereotypes can be true about certain members of the group subject to the stereotype?
And do you understand that the above makes it no less a stereotype and no less sexist?
So now we're not allowed to make true statements about specific people or groups of people if those statements are true often enough to be recognized as common and become stereotypes?
I don't think this is sexist, because it is not trading on the idea of women as being bad at games. It is based on the idea that there are many people who have the following characteristics: (1) female, (2) in a relationship, (3) with a gamer and (4) not themselves a gamer. The remark was based on the existence of this group, not any specific characteristics of that group.
@_J_, a fully aware and rational actor can have the agency to choose their responsive actions to external stimuli. I will agree with you on this point.
However, no human is 100% fully aware at all times, 100% rational at all times, and while they can choose their responsive actions under ideal circumstances, can not control their initial emotional responses; rather, in a best-case state of mind they can choose to accept or deny their initial emotional reactions, but the actual initial emotional reaction, I would argue, must occur before any active choices can be made about actions and thoughts that are taken after processing the stimuli.
Ergo, you can be offended, then choose not to let it effect you further, but the initial emotional reaction has already taken place.
So now we're not allowed to make true statements about specific people or groups of people if those statements are true often enough to be recognized as common and become stereotypes?
I think the idea is that "true often enough to be recognized as common" is problematic.
We fabricate a group based upon perceived similarity with respect to trait-X (assuming there are traits, which I guess most people would in this thread).
We then discern that some members of the group exhibit trait-Y.
So, we posit that persons in the group exhibit trait-Y, even though the similarity upon which we based our construction of the group was trait-X.
@_J_, a fully aware and rational actor can have the agency to choose their responsive actions to external stimuli. I will agree with you on this point.
However, no human is 100% fully aware at all times, 100% rational at all times, and while they can choose their responsive actions under ideal circumstances, can not control their initial emotional responses; rather, in a best-case state of mind they can choose to accept or deny their initial emotional reactions, but the actual initial emotional reaction, I would argue, must occur before any active choices can be made about actions and thoughts that are taken after processing the stimuli.
Ergo, you can be offended, then choose not to let it effect you further, but the initial emotional reaction has already taken place.
1: We only spend a brief period of time in that initial emotional reaction state. Most of the time is spent with the reaction to the initial emotion.
2: "Offense" isn't something that happens in the initial emotional reaction. One's first reaction is not "being offended". One's first, primoridial, lizard brain reaction is to recoil from something, and that recoiling gets categorized as "offense", sometimes, for some persons.
3: I'm pretty sure persons can train themselves to react in particular ways in particular situations. Early in a person's life they may see a gun and initially have a feeling of fear. After they train for a while they could manifest a situation within which their initial reaction to seeing a gun is not fear.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
SKFM do you understand what a gender stereotype is?
Yes. Do you understand that stereotypes can be true about certain members of the group subject to the stereotype?
And do you understand that the above makes it no less a stereotype and no less sexist?
Are you interested in talking about why stereotypes / sexism are bad, or if there are any such things?
Because it seems like you're operating from some a priori notion that these two things are inherently bad, so all you have to do is run a reduction to either stereotype or sexism and if you can make the reduction you get to declare X bad.
That's boring.
In the most broadest sense, relying on stereotypes is indeed "bad" because it reinforces the idea that people are part of a group instead of individuals.
SKFM do you understand what a gender stereotype is?
Yes. Do you understand that stereotypes can be true about certain members of the group subject to the stereotype?
And do you understand that the above makes it no less a stereotype and no less sexist?
So now we're not allowed to make true statements about specific people or groups of people if those statements are true often enough to be recognized as common and become stereotypes?
I don't think this is sexist, because it is not trading on the idea of women as being bad at games. It is based on the idea that there are many people who have the following characteristics: (1) female, (2) in a relationship, (3) with a gamer and (4) not themselves a gamer. The remark was based on the existence of this group, not any specific characteristics of that group.
This is where it got sexist, because this characteristic artificially limits the potential audience of the feature to a single sex. What, exactly, about the BFF Tree links it intrinsically to the female sex?
SKFM do you understand what a gender stereotype is?
Yes. Do you understand that stereotypes can be true about certain members of the group subject to the stereotype?
And do you understand that the above makes it no less a stereotype and no less sexist?
So now we're not allowed to make true statements about specific people or groups of people if those statements are true often enough to be recognized as common and become stereotypes?
I don't think this is sexist, because it is not trading on the idea of women as being bad at games. It is based on the idea that there are many people who have the following characteristics: (1) female, (2) in a relationship, (3) with a gamer and (4) not themselves a gamer. The remark was based on the existence of this group, not any specific characteristics of that group.
Well, pretty much no, we shouldn't. A few great examples: "Women are shitty drivers", "Black people sure do love that fried chicken", "Damn, Asians can't drive!" and "Men are SUCH pigs!"
Every single one COULD be true, but to make a blanket statement in this manner is, indeed, improper. (Technically, I side with Chris Rock on the fried chicken. That shit is GOOD, of course I like it! And I'm the whitest white dude that ever whited.)
To perhaps put it in perspective, say you were a man who just so happened to like flower arranging, (I'm fumbling for a typically "feminine" thing here, bear with me.) and saw a class on flower arranging at the local college. "Ooh!", you think, "I'm for that!" and off you go to register. There's a line, and you wait, and wait, and when you get to the front you find you've been placed in the auto body repair class running at the same time, because "men like that kind of stuff, not flower arrangement".
Obviously, some men DO like that kind of stuff. Just like some black people love fried chicken because they have functioning taste buds and can detect "delicious". But basing anything on these generalities is Not Going To End Well.
SKFM do you understand what a gender stereotype is?
Yes. Do you understand that stereotypes can be true about certain members of the group subject to the stereotype?
And do you understand that the above makes it no less a stereotype and no less sexist?
Are you interested in talking about why stereotypes / sexism are bad, or if there are any such things?
Because it seems like you're operating from some a priori notion that these two things are inherently bad, so all you have to do is run a reduction to either stereotype or sexism and if you can make the reduction you get to declare X bad.
That's boring.
In the most broadest sense, relying on stereotypes is indeed "bad" because it reinforces the idea that people are part of a group instead of individuals.
You realize that persons identify sexism by means of a stereotype, right?
You have a stereotype of what sexist behavior is.
_J_ on
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Well boy howdy, _J_, if you're "pretty sure" I guess that debunks all research anyone has ever done on the brain! I'm convinced!
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
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El SkidThe frozen white northRegistered Userregular
As I implied in an earlier post, I think we've moved beyond the point where people are being openly sexist (obviously there will always be some exceptions to this rule, but sadly this is the case with everything). So there are very very few people openly saying "women should shut up and get back into the kitchen!". Maybe they whisper it to their like-minded friends, but rarely will it be public. So we're past the point of calling people out on big things, because a) people don't do it much, and b) I like to think the majority of people would call them on it.
So what we have left is "a death by a thousand cuts". Women are constantly exposed to little tiny things that in themselves are things that a lot of people would be like "it's fine, no biggie". And after a while, the same thing getting repeated gets really hard to ignore, and it does inflict harm.
Yes, the option is there to move on with your life and say nothing, but then your life is full of these little things that go on and on and on... After a while, you want to address the issue rather than trying to keep it bottled up. So some dude says something off the cuff that is just contributing to the problem, and your reaction is to say "dude, what you said wasn't cool". Even if dude's reaction is to explain why what he said was totally cool, at least you've put it out there.
If people start saying "that wasn't cool" to little stuff enough, maybe people will make an effort to understand why. Or failing that, just not say that stuff anymore because they're tired of getting called out for it. Whatever works, I guess... but it certainly seems like pointing out stuff would be more theraputic then just keeping it bottled up, even if you assume it won't help anything.
Actually, I like the way you said this. The problem is that, as you've admitted, these are all little things.
The problem is not any particular little thing.
The problem is the cumulation of all the little things.
So, when a person attacks the little thing, they are doing so because of the harm of the sum total of all those little things. But they can't actually attack the sum total, which is the actual problem, so they have to go after every little thing.
@_J_ Sorry for the late reply- this is exactly it.
If I log on to an MMO for the first time, choose a female character and handle, and go participate in some sort of group activity (which I will probably be pretty bad at), and some guy goes on a huge rant about how women can't play games and should stay in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant and leave MMOs to guys, I will report them to a mod, and they'll get their ass punished. There would likely also be some people trying to shout the bozo down, because he's clearly out of line.
But let's say that instead, over the course of the match and in the immediate aftermath 10 people each say one thing that's sort of grey area. "Aw man, who let a girl on our team?", "awww we gots to babysit the little girl?", "we'll leave the girl to defend the farm and hope they don't try to attack it", "man she was so bad, guess that was to be expected" or other stuff. Reporting doesn't really work for most of that, and that stuff is much more likely to just be tolerated. But by the end, what are the odds I had a good time? The only real response is for myself (or hopefully others) to call out the sexist remarks, in the hope that 1) it gets these specific people to do shit like this less, or at least 2) that fewer people will choose to emulate the behaviour because they can see that it isn't acceptable.
Sometimes all you have to go after is the little stuff, and people have to know that sometimes even though it's little stuff, it's still a very real part of the problem, not just "oh those feminists are nitpicking again".
Is it possible to take this well beyond reason and nitpick against literally anything someone says because if you twist things hard enough you can see sexism in basically anything? Absolutely. But if you look at a situation and say "that was a bit sexist, they probably should have said it another way", then it's probably worth calling out- not because you're offended or think they're being malicious, but because when shit doesn't get called out it keeps perpetuated. And the one little thing you see is part of a string of many many things you don't see.
El Skid on
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
not trying to support j here, but you can choose how you express your bad reaction to something
being butthurt is self-indulgent and basically never helpful
the reason you try not to offend people is not because they might act butthurt about it but because, in some cases, you actually make them feel bad which sucks
SKFM do you understand what a gender stereotype is?
Yes. Do you understand that stereotypes can be true about certain members of the group subject to the stereotype?
And do you understand that the above makes it no less a stereotype and no less sexist?
Are you interested in talking about why stereotypes / sexism are bad, or if there are any such things?
Because it seems like you're operating from some a priori notion that these two things are inherently bad, so all you have to do is run a reduction to either stereotype or sexism and if you can make the reduction you get to declare X bad.
That's boring.
In the most broadest sense, relying on stereotypes is indeed "bad" because it reinforces the idea that people are part of a group instead of individuals.
You realize that persons identify sexism by means of a stereotype, right?
You have a stereotype of what sexist behavior is.
Ah wha? I think you just stepped off the deep end, man.
No I don't identify sexist behavior by means of a stereotype.
Because sexist attitudes are so internalized (see the lovely link I put in my last post, that you ignored!) that you kind of have to take actions and words on a case by case basis.
But I mean employing harmful stereotypes is one of those ways people can be sexist, sure. Is that what you meant?
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
So now we're not allowed to make true statements about specific people or groups of people if those statements are true often enough to be recognized as common and become stereotypes?
Wow.
This is you being horribly entitled. Using stereotypes, especially negative ones, to describe a group when they aren't 100% true and when they have a history of being used unfairly against a particularly disadvantaged group is bad. Commenting that black people are prone to crime, Jews are misers, or women need help playing video games is a bad thing because they're statements that are at best only partially true and meanwhile do real harm.
As I implied in an earlier post, I think we've moved beyond the point where people are being openly sexist (obviously there will always be some exceptions to this rule, but sadly this is the case with everything). So there are very very few people openly saying "women should shut up and get back into the kitchen!". Maybe they whisper it to their like-minded friends, but rarely will it be public. So we're past the point of calling people out on big things, because a) people don't do it much, and b) I like to think the majority of people would call them on it.
So what we have left is "a death by a thousand cuts". Women are constantly exposed to little tiny things that in themselves are things that a lot of people would be like "it's fine, no biggie". And after a while, the same thing getting repeated gets really hard to ignore, and it does inflict harm.
Yes, the option is there to move on with your life and say nothing, but then your life is full of these little things that go on and on and on... After a while, you want to address the issue rather than trying to keep it bottled up. So some dude says something off the cuff that is just contributing to the problem, and your reaction is to say "dude, what you said wasn't cool". Even if dude's reaction is to explain why what he said was totally cool, at least you've put it out there.
If people start saying "that wasn't cool" to little stuff enough, maybe people will make an effort to understand why. Or failing that, just not say that stuff anymore because they're tired of getting called out for it. Whatever works, I guess... but it certainly seems like pointing out stuff would be more theraputic then just keeping it bottled up, even if you assume it won't help anything.
Actually, I like the way you said this. The problem is that, as you've admitted, these are all little things.
The problem is not any particular little thing.
The problem is the cumulation of all the little things.
So, when a person attacks the little thing, they are doing so because of the harm of the sum total of all those little things. But they can't actually attack the sum total, which is the actual problem, so they have to go after every little thing.
@_J_ Sorry for the late reply- this is exactly it.
If I log on to an MMO for the first time, choose a female character and handle, and go participate in some sort of group activity (which I will probably be pretty bad at), and some guy goes on a huge rant about how women can't play games and should stay in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant and leave MMOs to guys, I will report them to a mod, and they'll get their ass punished. There would likely also be some people trying to shout the bozo down, because he's clearly out of line.
But let's say that instead, over the course of the match and in the immediate aftermath 10 people each say one thing that's sort of grey area. "Aw man, who let a girl on our team?", "awww we gots to babysit the little girl?", "we'll leave the girl to defend the farm and hope they don't try to attack it", "man she was so bad, guess that was to be expected" or other stuff. Reporting doesn't really work for most of that, and that stuff is much more likely to just be tolerated. But by the end, what are the odds I had a good time? The only real response is for myself (or hopefully others) to call out the sexist remarks, in the hope that 1) it gets these specific people to do shit like this less, or at least 2) that fewer people will choose to emulate the behaviour because they can see that it isn't acceptable.
Sometimes all you have to go after is the little stuff, and people have to know that sometimes even though it's little stuff, it's still a very real part of the problem, not just "oh those feminists are nitpicking again".
Is it possible to take this well beyond reason and nitpick against literally anything someone says because if you twist things hard enough you can see sexism in basically anything? Absolutely. But if you look at a situation and say "that was a bit sexist, they probably should have said it another way", then it's probably worth calling out- not because you're offended or think they're being malicious, but because when shit doesn't get called out it keeps perpetuated. And the one little thing you see is part of a string of many many things you don't see.
Calling out sexist remarks isn't the "only real response". It's one possible response.
We seem to agree that the actual problem is the cumulation of every expression of a notion that women are bad at video games. After a person hears / reads "you suck" for the 2,000th time, I can understand having a negative reaction to further utterances.
Where I disagree with you is your notion that "Well, someone has to be yelled at." I would argue that we don't need to react to the particular linguistic utterance, because that particular utterance is not the problem.
The problem, again, is that cumulation of such utterances in the offended person's mind, the emotional baggage they drag through life from having heard similar statements (or statements they take to be similar) for years.
I agree that it is completely sensible for a person to try to solve the problem, to try to minimize pain by resolving deleterious emotional situations.
However, the problem is not the particular string of text that appears in WoW chat, or the person who typed it.
The problem is how the person interprets that string of text with respect to all the other strings of text they have read throughout their life.
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Yup. And that is a silly situation.
Player A claims that X is offensive.
They do so not because of X. Instead, they do so as a result of their relating X to something that is actually harmful, and the emotive response caused by the actually harmful thing.
My suggestion is that we focus upon actually harmful things, instead of linguistic utterances that we can relate to harmful things utilizing the same thought process one uses to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Oh right, you think people are computers.
_J_, you have just demonstrated less knowledge of psychology than someone who took an introductory class in it in high school.
There are numerous schools of psychology with very different perspectives on how much control a person has, or what control even is.
Please make sure to rephrase this sort of thing as "The therapists I have encountered tend to not say" and so forth in the future.
Ha, yeah, no problem. Happens quite regularly.
First name: Anjin / Last Name: Anhut / Gender: male
Feelings, though a factor in the list of damages sexism causes, is too subjective to actually debate about it.
Subjectivism, as it is championed by _J_ gets no debate anywhere but circles. I'd rather take care about the empirical aspects of sexism... and fix those... feelings will take care of themselves then.
Which of course does not mean to be rude or less empathic towards people who are hurt until the empirical aspects are fixed.
Cheers.
So you're saying that in the examples I gave, its irrational for the offended groups to think that something is wrong?
The jew who notices neo nazi graffiti around his home is irrational for feeling afraid for his safety?
The black person who hears his officials make gross stereotypes is irrational for not trusting them?
The woman who hears sexist remarks around her workplace and associates is irrational for assuming that her rape claim would be disbelieved?
I feel that that statement is deserving of a response very similar to this
"Hey girl, you are offended by sexism? Don't be a pussy!" .. sometimes disguised in more polite language or in pseudo-objective principle talk or amateur-psychology.
What they also do is putting everybody who actually educates themselves on sexism, who work to make it right, into a corner of being weak and their arguments being ONLY based on personal feelings... Stirring debates about cultural sexism into subjectivism is nothing more than a broad-scale ad hominem attack and should be ignored as the logical fallacy it is.
And not the weird places I usually want to go to.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
No, actually, people don't have control over their feelings. This has been scientifically supported by so much research. So much. In fact, forcing or trying EXERT control over emotions has been proven to be not good. At all. Any research around Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, and even evidence-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy will back that.
People DO have control over their reactions. On this you are right. But up to a point.
As to the last line: you do not appear to understand depression (or its treatment) very well at all. There ARE larger issues with which the person needs to deal, but none of that other little stuff helps and, by the nature of depression, serve to actively PREVENT the person from dealing with the "big" stuff at all.
Of course "yes means yes" would better not overwrite "no means no". No should still mean no, says I.
Yes and no in this context seem more effective thought of as states or modes, rather than tokens of portable currency. A "yes" can't be stored for later use, as a default. Generally, even contract-law provides conditions for the legitimacy of agreements to effects like that, or limit a "yes" to being necessary rather than sufficient.
Edit: Above, I am assuming that a libertarian is not yet emperor of the northern hemisphere.
@MarkGoodhart: It would make it harder for rapists to get away with what they do if when Harry says Mark raped him, Mark can't handwave it away saying "well he seemed like he wanted it!" because him misinterpreting Harry isn't a valid excuse. The only option left for him to deny that he raped Harry would be to say that Harry's outright lying, which would still happen probably, but it wouldn't be as easy to convince others of that, is how the argument goes.If Harry says "I never said I wanted to have sex!" then that would be enough, there would be no need to ask him like, what were you wearing, why did you talk to Mark at all, and so on. When you're the defendant, arguing "I never meant to say yes and didn't explicitly do so" there are less ambiguity problems you have to side-step than when counter-arguing "you never said no". It makes the process much more straight-forward; it comes down to the people making the judgment either believing in what Harry says or not, instead of having to second-guess if he might have subconsciously been giving the "wrong signals", etc. It certainly seems like a step in the right direction to me. Even assuming that rapists will successfully convince others that their victims are lying, I think the conditions for dealing with that issue effectively would be better.
I think you are approaching this from a reasonable, thoughtful perspective. I also think reasonable, thoughtful people would be able to apply enthusiastic consent and not rape anyone. But rapists are neither thoughtful nor reasonable. I am of the belief that 'rape by accident' is fictional and that those who do it aren't really having a whoopsie, but are actually awful human beings that do not care about the well being of their victim. Of course, I just just now... in mid-post mind you... realized you are talking from more of a legal standpoint than a social one. I am coming from a perspective of 'this won't reduce rapes at all' where as you are coming from a direction of 'this will make rapes easier to prosecute' which makes sense.
Haha, I'm glad you caught up on that, I was worried I'd been talking past you. It's true that what I mean is it will make punishing rapists easier but it doesn't only have to be about judicial(?) contexts. It could also lead to increased social punishment through former friends giving rapists the cold shoulder and such, diminishing the problem that Jeedan brought up much earlier in the thread:
Actually, Feral said this back on page 73
If there was a game mode where no blood is shown and Hemingway called it "Nun mode" would you say that was sexist? All nuns are women, after all.
Does a lack of blood in anyway reinforce a stereotype about not expressely post-menapausal women?
I think I'd go with no. So it wouldn't be all that sexist, though it may be a little bigoted with regard to religion.
Considering that I'm not aware of any long-running cultural attitudes in which nuns and blood are intrinsically linked and granted an inferior status in society... no, not really, it's mostly just nonsensical.
But that's what you're ignoring with this bad analogy. The cultural meme of "my girlfriend sucks at games" which itself is a subset of "women are bad at games". Which is really the problem. To cycle things all the way back around to the beginning, Hemingway said "girlfriend tree" to describe a game design choice that is intended to allow newer and less-skilled players better learn and enjoy the game while contributing to the group. As a game design choice, this is a welcome addition, but there is absolutely nothing that justifies linking it to an all-female sub-group that is already labelled as inferior at this given activity due to long-running cultural memes. Had he just said "newbie tree", he would be correctly describing the gameplay feature as one that any newer player can benefit from, rather than aligning his language with current harmful memes.
Not all women are girlfriends, no, but all girlfriends are women. Hemingway chose to limit his target descriptive group in this way, and that is why it is a sexist remark. I don't care what his motivation is, or his personal ethos. The appropriate response was "Yeah, my bad; this is something everyone can benefit from, and I should have phrased it as such."
There is something that justifies the link. The fact that the designer sees this as a way to to appeal to a large group of people who don't play games (i.e., girlfriends who sit and watch their boyfriends play games). It doesn't matter if there are other groups this mode will appeal to. It was made with this group in mind, at least as a major example of who it would appeal to.
Yes. Do you understand that stereotypes can be true about certain members of the group subject to the stereotype?
And do you understand that the above makes it no less a stereotype and no less sexist?
Are you interested in talking about why stereotypes / sexism are bad, or if there are any such things?
Because it seems like you're operating from some a priori notion that these two things are inherently bad, so all you have to do is run a reduction to either stereotype or sexism and if you can make the reduction you get to declare X bad.
That's boring.
So now we're not allowed to make true statements about specific people or groups of people if those statements are true often enough to be recognized as common and become stereotypes?
I don't think this is sexist, because it is not trading on the idea of women as being bad at games. It is based on the idea that there are many people who have the following characteristics: (1) female, (2) in a relationship, (3) with a gamer and (4) not themselves a gamer. The remark was based on the existence of this group, not any specific characteristics of that group.
However, no human is 100% fully aware at all times, 100% rational at all times, and while they can choose their responsive actions under ideal circumstances, can not control their initial emotional responses; rather, in a best-case state of mind they can choose to accept or deny their initial emotional reactions, but the actual initial emotional reaction, I would argue, must occur before any active choices can be made about actions and thoughts that are taken after processing the stimuli.
Ergo, you can be offended, then choose not to let it effect you further, but the initial emotional reaction has already taken place.
I think the idea is that "true often enough to be recognized as common" is problematic.
We fabricate a group based upon perceived similarity with respect to trait-X (assuming there are traits, which I guess most people would in this thread).
We then discern that some members of the group exhibit trait-Y.
So, we posit that persons in the group exhibit trait-Y, even though the similarity upon which we based our construction of the group was trait-X.
Vague generals like "sexist" are problematic.
Stereotypes are also problematic.
This is why it's best to talk about particulars.
1: We only spend a brief period of time in that initial emotional reaction state. Most of the time is spent with the reaction to the initial emotion.
2: "Offense" isn't something that happens in the initial emotional reaction. One's first reaction is not "being offended". One's first, primoridial, lizard brain reaction is to recoil from something, and that recoiling gets categorized as "offense", sometimes, for some persons.
3: I'm pretty sure persons can train themselves to react in particular ways in particular situations. Early in a person's life they may see a gun and initially have a feeling of fear. After they train for a while they could manifest a situation within which their initial reaction to seeing a gun is not fear.
In the most broadest sense, relying on stereotypes is indeed "bad" because it reinforces the idea that people are part of a group instead of individuals.
In a more specific sense, it's bad to reinforce sexist and racist stereotypes, because the brain subconsciously internalizes those stereotypes.
This is where it got sexist, because this characteristic artificially limits the potential audience of the feature to a single sex. What, exactly, about the BFF Tree links it intrinsically to the female sex?
Well, pretty much no, we shouldn't. A few great examples: "Women are shitty drivers", "Black people sure do love that fried chicken", "Damn, Asians can't drive!" and "Men are SUCH pigs!"
Every single one COULD be true, but to make a blanket statement in this manner is, indeed, improper. (Technically, I side with Chris Rock on the fried chicken. That shit is GOOD, of course I like it! And I'm the whitest white dude that ever whited.)
To perhaps put it in perspective, say you were a man who just so happened to like flower arranging, (I'm fumbling for a typically "feminine" thing here, bear with me.) and saw a class on flower arranging at the local college. "Ooh!", you think, "I'm for that!" and off you go to register. There's a line, and you wait, and wait, and when you get to the front you find you've been placed in the auto body repair class running at the same time, because "men like that kind of stuff, not flower arrangement".
Obviously, some men DO like that kind of stuff. Just like some black people love fried chicken because they have functioning taste buds and can detect "delicious". But basing anything on these generalities is Not Going To End Well.
You realize that persons identify sexism by means of a stereotype, right?
You have a stereotype of what sexist behavior is.
@_J_ Sorry for the late reply- this is exactly it.
If I log on to an MMO for the first time, choose a female character and handle, and go participate in some sort of group activity (which I will probably be pretty bad at), and some guy goes on a huge rant about how women can't play games and should stay in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant and leave MMOs to guys, I will report them to a mod, and they'll get their ass punished. There would likely also be some people trying to shout the bozo down, because he's clearly out of line.
But let's say that instead, over the course of the match and in the immediate aftermath 10 people each say one thing that's sort of grey area. "Aw man, who let a girl on our team?", "awww we gots to babysit the little girl?", "we'll leave the girl to defend the farm and hope they don't try to attack it", "man she was so bad, guess that was to be expected" or other stuff. Reporting doesn't really work for most of that, and that stuff is much more likely to just be tolerated. But by the end, what are the odds I had a good time? The only real response is for myself (or hopefully others) to call out the sexist remarks, in the hope that 1) it gets these specific people to do shit like this less, or at least 2) that fewer people will choose to emulate the behaviour because they can see that it isn't acceptable.
Sometimes all you have to go after is the little stuff, and people have to know that sometimes even though it's little stuff, it's still a very real part of the problem, not just "oh those feminists are nitpicking again".
Is it possible to take this well beyond reason and nitpick against literally anything someone says because if you twist things hard enough you can see sexism in basically anything? Absolutely. But if you look at a situation and say "that was a bit sexist, they probably should have said it another way", then it's probably worth calling out- not because you're offended or think they're being malicious, but because when shit doesn't get called out it keeps perpetuated. And the one little thing you see is part of a string of many many things you don't see.
being butthurt is self-indulgent and basically never helpful
the reason you try not to offend people is not because they might act butthurt about it but because, in some cases, you actually make them feel bad which sucks
Don't worry, I'd never take anyone to be in support of me.
You're fine, bro.
:P
just sayin u crazy dawg
like jay-z only cray-z
Ah wha? I think you just stepped off the deep end, man.
No I don't identify sexist behavior by means of a stereotype.
Because sexist attitudes are so internalized (see the lovely link I put in my last post, that you ignored!) that you kind of have to take actions and words on a case by case basis.
But I mean employing harmful stereotypes is one of those ways people can be sexist, sure. Is that what you meant?
Wow.
This is you being horribly entitled. Using stereotypes, especially negative ones, to describe a group when they aren't 100% true and when they have a history of being used unfairly against a particularly disadvantaged group is bad. Commenting that black people are prone to crime, Jews are misers, or women need help playing video games is a bad thing because they're statements that are at best only partially true and meanwhile do real harm.
Calling out sexist remarks isn't the "only real response". It's one possible response.
We seem to agree that the actual problem is the cumulation of every expression of a notion that women are bad at video games. After a person hears / reads "you suck" for the 2,000th time, I can understand having a negative reaction to further utterances.
Where I disagree with you is your notion that "Well, someone has to be yelled at." I would argue that we don't need to react to the particular linguistic utterance, because that particular utterance is not the problem.
The problem, again, is that cumulation of such utterances in the offended person's mind, the emotional baggage they drag through life from having heard similar statements (or statements they take to be similar) for years.
I agree that it is completely sensible for a person to try to solve the problem, to try to minimize pain by resolving deleterious emotional situations.
However, the problem is not the particular string of text that appears in WoW chat, or the person who typed it.
The problem is how the person interprets that string of text with respect to all the other strings of text they have read throughout their life.