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Swimmer963 comments on The Importance of Sidekicks - Less Wrong
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You're not the first person to remark on that. What do you think that we ought to do about it?
Perhaps we can start by encouraging "sidekick-identified" males to speak up?
That's a descriptive observation, not a normative call to action.
Why do you think something ought to be done about it?
I'd predict that this exchange happens to you quite a bit, where you make a descriptive statement, someone interprets it as normative, and then you have to clarify that your statement was purely descriptive before actually proceeding to discuss. If so, you might be able to eliminate the extra cycle by clarifying descriptive intent up front .
I think that people often assume normatively prescriptive intent when one makes a statement like that which you make in the root comment. Furthermore, this is usually a reasonable assumption in my (admittedly rather limited in breadth) experience, so subverting it as above might annoy some as it may seem like you're willfully being a pain by screwing with typical communication protocols. This annoyance may be greater if the other person thinks that you're trying to confuse them, making a higher-status move at their expense.
Disregard this if it does not seem applicable - just an instance of "feedback may have positive impact but probably not negative compared to no feedback." Tapping out due to lack of further interest.
Can you unroll this? What do you see as the crucial difference between "I think there are strong gender overtones here" and "I think that water is wet"?
What creates the "reasonable assumption" that the statement is normative when the text doesn't specify it?
The fact that that a lot of people saying the first, but not the second, intend to prescriptive connotations.
For convenience, calling this Statement 1 (S1):
and calling this Statement 2 (S2):
S1 relates to a topic on which many have strong normative feelings; S2 does not. Many of the people I interact with behave such that I have a strong prior for S1 being intended normatively rather than descriptively, so I'd assume that they intended S1 normatively (just because that assumption is very likely to be correct given past experience with my social circles). Might not be universally true though - this could just be an oddity of my social circles.
I'd expect you to know that the assumption in my first paragraph exists, so I pattern-match failing to initially clarify your intent as someone trying to make a high-status play (of the sort unclear statement->assumption->implied "gotcha! you made a bad assumption"). This causes me to anticipate your future intent regarding the conversation to be gaining status, so I don't expect your future input to be interesting and would likely abandon the convo.
I've tried to introspect and spell out an estimate of why I might feel as I do, but the general progression in my second paragraph manifests as a feeling of annoyance->dismissal.
Edited for formatting.
OK, so the issue is the social expectations about whether the issue is controversial and whether one is expected to have a normative attitude towards it? And in such a case, all statements will be interpreted as normative unless there are explicit disclaimers to the contrary?
No, not really. I rarely speak normatively and in such cases I'm explicit about it. Typically I make descriptive observations, possibly with a variety of connotations and implications, but they are almost never of the "so you should believe/do X" kind. Normally they are of the "this is complicated, are you aware of this trade-off and that internal inconsistency?" kind.
I do set gotcha traps on occasion, but the sense of fair play usually makes me point them out beforehand. People still fall into them, anyway :-D
Pretty much.
One difference is that no-one ever says the latter.
'Pippin, don't throw that!' 'But why? What's going to happen?' 'I don't like the look of the water.' 'It looks just like it always does...' [tentacles creep out and try to wrap around the Fellowship] 'Guys, I think there are strong gender overtones here!' 'Next time, Pippin, say that water is wet.'
Yep :-P No girls in the Fellowship.
P.S. That was a descriptive and not a normative statement X-D
FWIW I also interpreted your statement as normative.
Perhaps to remove "social pressure relating to gender roles" as a confounding factor, so that people can do a better job of finding roles that are good fits for their own individual characteristics?
Where is the whole "social pressure" thing coming from?
But let me express myself better by changing one word in my original sentence: I think there are strong sex overtones here.
That makes me more confused about what you mean.
Men and women are different on the biological level. They are different in multiple ways, but a particular one is that they have a different mix of hormones which affect the brain and so the mind. This gives rise to biologically (NOT socially) determined loci of attraction for certain behaviours and attitudes. Note that biology is not necessarily destiny, but ceteris paribus it's easier for biological males to gravitate to some centers of attraction and for biological females to gravitate towards other centers of attraction. Sure, there are lots of exceptions, but that doesn't change the picture of the averages.
Social pressure can be good and bad.
Social pressure that steers some people to what they would prefer will steer others away. If people have basic goodwill, what you'd expect to see is the more typical people benefiting, while the more atypical would be harmed.
Note that there are enough good fictional male sidekicks to reduce the gender stigma, and fiction has at least as much power over people as reality. So maybe nothing special needs to be done?
Do you know of any examples, fictional or real, of a male sidekick to a female hero?
Margaret Thatcher and Denis Thatcher.
Buffy / Xander, Motoko / Batu, Deunan / Briareos
(although I'm not sure "Sidekick" is exactly right here)
Hit Girl/Kick-Ass, Korra/Mako, Sailor Moon/Tuxedo Mask, She-Ra/Bow.
Moiraine Damodred and Al'Lan Mandragoran
Tiffany Aching and Rob Anybody
* SPOILERS FOR AN ANCIENT FANTASY SERIES *
Severely hampered by the fact that Moiraine is fridged for -- what, six, seven books?
Less "fridged" and more "pulling a Gandalf", I'd say. She isn't murdered to demonstrate the opposition's evilness and to motivate the hero; she's a mentor figure who gets killed neutralizing a threat that the hero can't overcome at that stage of his development.
Not that that's much of a step up, plot-wise.
Good catch.
Man, I'd forgotten how ridiculous that series is. I'd started reading them as a child, and finished just after Winter's Heart was published. A couple years later, I met Jordan at a book signing for Crossroads of Twilight. I was so disappointed by that horrible, horrible novel that I still haven't finished the series yet.
They're pretty ridiculous. I had a similar arc of experience with them, minus the book signing, but a year or so ago I picked up ePubs of the tail end of the series with an eye toward finally driving a stake into its heart. I hardly ever read fantasy these days, but I had a long plane flight ahead of me and figured I could do worse.
Roughly six hours of reading later, I was a quarter of the way into Knife of Dreams and already regretting that plan. I never did finish them.
Yes, they are. If I were to find myself re-reading them for some reason, I think I'd just have to read the parts with the Asha'man, and skip the two bazillion other subplots that go nowhere interesting.
And especially I'd skip everything that includes Faile. Better yet, women in general.
You'd miss all the incredible Nynaeve tugging her braid action X-)
But unhampered by the observation that it's not just this particular pair -- this is an entire social institution where a male Warden becomes a sidekick to a female Aes Sedai.
And hampered by the fact that the main character is the one exception.
The Aes Sedai society is a limited example, I had trouble remembering the names of any other bonded pairs where both characters were developed and the warden fit the willing, mentally healthy, sidekick role. The wardens were a case study in the reverse Bechdel test.
In that entire story, Lan was an exception that he embraced his sidekickness.
I don't remember any, either. Doesn't Taim end up bonding with an Aes Sedai? I know at least some of the Asha'man did.
I suppose the triple bond on Rand is an example....? Ick.
Now I feel like a bad person because I can't remember Verin's warder's name :(
Ooh, or Adaleas and Vandene's sweet old-man warder.
(Looked them up - Tomas and Jaem)
Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin.
Marie Curie and Pierre Curie
I'm not sure how good an example that is. Pierre Curie was an extremely successful scientist in his own right.
Dagny Taggart and Eddie Willers.
I was going to cite "Worm," but - aside from maybe the Number Man and Contessa - none of those examples really work. Alas, poor Clockblocker never got to fulfill his true role.
Morgaine and Nhi Vanye.
Jessie and James in the Pokémon anime (kind of).