Raemon comments on The Power of Reinforcement - Less Wrong

96 Post author: lukeprog 21 June 2012 01:42PM

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Comment author: Raemon 22 June 2012 07:14:16PM *  22 points [-]

"Woman Training Man" is generally presented as funny with no negative ramifications. "Husband training wife" is presented in the context of either physical abuse, emotional abuse, or as part of a widespread societal trend of women being "domesticated" which is now generally considered distasteful. If this had been phrased "husband training wife", it wouldn't pattern match to "funny, harmless joke", it'd pattern-match to either abuse or societal oppression. (The abuse angle wouldn't necessarily be accurate, but for many people it would come to mind before the "mirror-image-of-the-woman-training-man" concept did).

So whether it actually makes sense, the example would produce negative affect in many people.