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I will delete my account and re-register under a different username. I would recommend that Alicorn do the same.
It would be fascinating to learn why you think I'm going to take this recommendation as anything but an attack on my project and the identity I have established here. I maintain a consistent identity under the same name everywhere on the Internet because I stand by the things I write and value the ability to build a reputation and a history over time.
I would also implore everyone to just not bring this issue up again. If someone uses language in a way that mildly annoys you (hint: they probably didn't do this on purpose)
That's an interesting "hint", since you deliberately pointed out a sentence as an instance of the objectification I've complained about earlier in your post. Interestingly, that sentence isn't an example of the objectification I've complained about, although I do think it is false.
crippled by a blood-feud between a feminist faction and a masculinist faction.
This seems like an unduly dire prediction. What it looks like to me is there are three basic groups: people who actively support gender-neutrality (me, the "some lovely people"); people who never gave it much thought but appreciate having their attention called to the problem because they had not noticed it but now recognize it as a problem (I think this is most people on the site); and some people who, after the fashion of fish who cannot notice water, think that sexist language which does not typically annoy them must be the natural way of things.
To leave the conversation unhad is to leave the things just the way they are, and thanks to the demographic makeup of this site and the state of the gender dynamics in society in general, "the way things are" when left alone is "masculinist" - not neutral.
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If the evidence linked to in the post didn't persuade you that I'm not alone in those feelings, I'm afraid I don't have any more handy to offer, especially since as I write this comment the site is down and I can't do searches.
When I try to be cute, I usually do a better job. There exist people who assume that if there were sexism around, their keen sexism senses would have detected it; therefore, in the minds of these people, anyone who points out sexism they didn't notice is making it up. Mockery of the "whiny girls" typically follows. The existence of those people and the fact that they are idiots does not mean that I am automatically right when I say there is a problem in this community. However, anyone who, upon reading any statement of sexism that they hadn't already observed, would dismiss it without further thought, would have found the post wasted on them. As you might have suspected, I think I'm right and that people who think that the problems I point out aren't problems are mistaken. That doesn't mean I think every person who disagrees with me about this falls into the category of person targeted by my disclaimer.
That would be quite unlike what my disclaimer said.
This is an interesting claim, and I would like to hear more about why you think it seems likely.
The fact that I am more offended than you by a certain class of things - specifically, by things that have to do with a group I belong to and you do not - does not make me easily offended, any more than the fact that Superman can be quickly brought to his knees by Kryptonite while ordinary humans walk around unaffected means that Superman is easily weakened.
Okay. It's not like I've got an airtight, formally valid proof backing me up there, so you can certainly do that.
Thank you for the vote. I'm not sure what you mean by coercion. I don't really have the power to (going by Wikipedia) threaten, intimidate, trick, or otherwise exercise pressure or force on anyone here - I mean, I have the power to downvote, and the power to type sternly. But I had that before, and I've made my wishes about gendered language known before. I also would make a terrible officer of the thought police: I can't read minds, can't enforce my rules about the contents of minds, and don't know anybody who can do either of those things and is disposed to do so according to my wishes. My only powers are to read what people type, and vote, and type sternly.
Okay. People are certain to draw the line in different places with objectification, just as we already do with things like lying and violence and other wrong things. My job is mostly done if you think objectification exists and that this isn't cause for confetti.
If it's so tiny, it shouldn't be such a struggle to get people to accommodate the wish. I have less trouble getting my roommate to drive me to another city an hour away and back.
Great :)
I'm sorry you feel creepy. It would be nice if it were possible to confront privilege without feeling creepy. I think it's worth it anyway. By "attention", I mean thought, care, consideration - not necessarily copious chat. As for "guilty of sexism until proven innocent", I don't see it. I'm not descending on a fledgling community in which no one has ever used the words "women" or "female" or even so much as a gendered pronoun and screaming, "You're all male chauvinist pigs and you must obey my law!" I'm pointing out a problem that a handful of posters have perpetuated. I have been and remain surprised by, not resigned to or broodingly resentful of, the fact that these few posters have not been as widely repudiated for these actions as I would have thought.
Thank you for this lengthy and thoughtful reply. I, too, am encouraged to notice the points on which we agree or are not that far off.
I don't really think you are the "thought police," and I didn't mean to imply that. But I do stand by my assessment of your post as vaguely coercive. There is such a thing as coercion by public shaming. I think this is what Roko might have been getting at in his recent post. If you do not see how this is a legitimate concern, then perhaps I can pull an "Alicorn" and just insist that if you were a man, you would know what this feels like. And if you think I am being overly sensitive, well you are just swimming like a fish in a sea: a world that favors your right to say anything you damn please about any gender without automatically questioning your self-awareness, your motives, the amount of serious thought you have put into the issue, and your fish-not-knowing-water-tude.
"I'm sorry you feel creepy. It would be nice if it were possible to confront privilege without feeling creepy." Obviously I'm not saying it feels creepy to confront privilege. That seems like an almost deliberately obtuse statement on your part... though taken in context of your otherwise respectful comments, I'll assume it's meant sincerely.
What feels creepy is the notion that there is some vaguely defined "offensiveness" out there that I — as a person with great affection for and deference to my mother, my three sisters, my wonderful female friends, my respected female co-workers and my stupendous female lovers — cannot sense, and that I must take another's word for it that I am wrong and the other is right. I can perceive most sexism, but there is a special class of sexism lurking everywhere that I am blind to, even though I've thought seriously about these matters. The evidence you link to, incidentally, is rather weak — it is all internal comments, and one might just as easily point to the comments you object to as counter-evidence as each instance is by definition an example of yet another person who feels differently than you on this topic, hence raising your hackles.
Incidentally, Alicorn, for the record (and my apologies to all if this comment is out of place here... I can edit it out if need be...), I actually used to think much closer to the way you do on these topics. I am by no means "blind" to the things you point out, and in fact I used to have a highly developed radar for them. I still pick them out all the time. I just think it is a particular form of contemporary ideology that teaches many people (men and women) that these things are hurtful and must be banished from all hearts and minds, when no one perceived them that way in the past. They are supposed to be inidicative of a disdainful attitude towards women even when, as I assure you is the case with me, no such attitude exists. Or, if the complainant grants that there was no harmful intent, she can still gain traction with the argument that "Well, no, you didn't mean to insult me, but these kinds of so-called innocuous comments are the stuff with which the patriarchy keeps women down and belittles them etc and is therefore unethical. I am insulted, therefore you are the one who did the insulting." This is supposedly what makes gender non-neutral statements about women unacceptable while gender non-neutral statements about men are considered by the same people to be regrettable (or occasionally a laff-riot!), but par for the course. When men point out that people make casual blanket generalizations about men all the time and that men rarely complain and usually just chuckle along, they are told that they can't possibly understand what it feels like from the woman's point of view, and may also be accused of "calling all girls whiney," a specter you raise in your disclaimer.
You come very close to this realization when you say to me "I am more offended than you by a certain class of things - specifically, by things that have to do with a group I belong to and you do not". You see, I'm essentially saying the same thing. Yes, you are more offended than I am, and that's your problem and not mine. As you say in your rejoinder to my "coercion" comment, no one here is trying to "threaten, intimidate, trick, or otherwise exercise pressure or force on" you.
If, in the absence of threats, intimidation, tricks, pressure, or force —that is: in the absence of any actual harm done to you or anyone else— you persist in feeling offended, that is your business. As I said in my earlier comment, that is every bit your right and I would never want to mock or belittle someone for feeling set-upon as you quite apparently do. It's a very unpleasant feeling, I know, and I am in no way trying to say that you are imagining your own feelings. But I feel that it is precisely that: your business, and not that of the community.
So what that means for me is that while, naturally, you have every right to say whatever you want on this topic, I remain unconvinced. Perhaps you never intended for me specifically to change anything, as I note that I personally am not linked to in your catalog of offenders. If that's the case, then bully for both of us, as I have no plans to alter my manner of talking or writing.