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RobinZ comments on Of Exclusionary Speech and Gender Politics - Less Wrong
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You just need to know what makes you personally (not some hypothetical average woman) want to flee.
This assumes two things.
One: there being enough women available to identify the offputting behavior.
Two: there being no men capable of identifying the offputting behavior.
The first is false and the second offensive - and yes, offensive to me personally, as a black male social liberal. It's not the victim's job to fight unjust discrimination. It's everyone's.
Edit: As Eliezer Yudkowsky points out, "discrimination" is an unfairly loaded term in this context. I shouldn't have used it. To reword: offputting behavior can be recognized by more than just those it would make uncomfortable, and it is, in fact, everyone's responsibility to avoid it in their own writing and to point it out in others. (With the caveat, as thomblake and Jonathan_Graehl observed, that offensiveness should not be pointed out where it does not exist, and overzealous policing should be discouraged as well.)
But it's not about discrimination. It's about providing a non-gender-unfriendly environment. We are not assuming the speaker is guilty - of sexism, of deliberate intent, of anything. We are not on a crusade. We are just trying to avoid that sort of speech in the future.
If you've got a better word than "discrimination" to describe the problem, let me know, I want to hear it.
"obliviousness"
That assumes innoc...dagnabbit, why am I arguing about vocabulary? You're right, I shouldn't phrase it to present all gender-unfriendly speech as intentional. I'll edit in a disclaimer.
True, but Eliezer's point is well-taken. One wouldn't want to defend hypothetical people that don't even exist.
Women exist. Given that, your objection must be other than that expressed in the surface content of your words. Please make it explicit so it may be rationally discussed.
In the interests of full disclosure and not being deliberately obtuse: I suspect you may be concerned that kneejerk censorship of remarks perceived to be offensive to a given group by those ignorant of the feelings of members of that group towards said remarks (a phenomenon often pejoratively referred to as "political correctness") would inhibit the free exchange of ideas to an unacceptable degree. I propose that a reason why you might be concerned in this fashion is because "offensive" looks like a chaotic feature of the environment to you - the metaphor in this case being that of a minefield, with the pejorative political correctness being roping off the entire thing even though many topics you wish to discuss are within it.
If that's your concern, stop it. It's not a minefield. If you want to avoid accidentally giving offense, all you need is empathy and education. And if you think you have those things but you're still accidentally offending people, you're probably wrong. Now let's start getting less so.
The "hypothetical people that don't even exist" would be "people who are offended by comment X". Given how often people are mistaken about what might give offense, it's easy for some crusader to start campaigning on behalf of someone who doesn't want or need their help.
Another critique of offense once-removed comes from the comedian Bill Maher. He rails against what he calls "feigned outrage", which he takes to be mostly to be aimed at establishing one's status as a defender of the weak.
I don't think second-hand offense is all conscious signaling, but it's certainly sometimes inapt and even a little patronizing.
I've complained about racist comments in various net communities I've been a part of, and been met with the excuse "you're not even Mexican, don't be so intolerant" etc.
I don't mind leaving the "that's unfairly demeaning of X-people" argument as long as there are refutations available independent of that. But there are certain offenses which, when met with only silence, could result in every single offended person simply deciding that the community is not worth it, leaving without even a reply.
That's clearly not the case re: the pickup teapot's tempest.
When we find such crusaders, we should criticize and downvote them appropriately. We should all avoid being ones ourselves. And, on a different note, we should establish a norm in which declarations of offensiveness require justification.
None of these require that we restrict all complaints of offense to when we are personally insulted. That requirement would almost entirely eliminate complaints even in the face of endemic bad behavior, which is precisely what we do not want.
I don't think we actually have any points of disagreement here.