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> I'm a woman. I have been raped. I also have two adult sons. Firstly, I want to thank you for publicly sharing your opinion and bringing nuance to a complicat

> I'm a woman. I have been raped. I also have two adult sons. Firstly, I want to thank you for publicly sharing your opinion and bringing nuance to a complicated and difficult topic. But secondly, how did we get to the point where we must first give out group identity credentials in order to be taken seriously in a discussion? Shouldn't the actual meat of what a person says hold greater weight than the group(s) that a person identifies with? I've been noticing this trend a lot lately -- articles in, say, The Atlantic of the type of 'hold on, is this what feminism should be?' -- but always prefaced by the author first identifying as a woman, perhaps to insulate from criticism. Please note that this is no way intended as a criticism of you. I find myself doing the exact same thing (prefacing comments with snippets of my bio) -- it just feels weird that 'progressivism' seems to have led to this, which doesn't feel much like 'progress' at all.

DoreenMichele 9y ago
how did we get to the point where we must first give out group identity credentials in order to be taken seriously in a discussion? I am not really aware of what you are describing. HN is less "social" than most forums. There are no avatars and the profile is completely free form and can be left completely blank. It is a very large forum, so I cannot assume that everyone recognizes me. It also is overwhelmingly male, so it is common for people to assume that anyone speaking here is male. I often qualify my remarks here on certain subjects for those reasons. Long experience as a participant tells me that if I don't, someone will make a fool of themselves by accusing me of being a rapey bastard, as obviously only a rapist man would ever say X (or something along those lines). And that is a huge, pointless derail that I hate seeing.
- shak77 9y ago
  - mplewis 9y ago
    Please be civil. From the HN guidelines: Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
- zug_zug 9y ago
  I think the parent poster was lamenting that as a man, he feels that it's unfortunate he fears he can't express the points you so eloquently did, because when somebody suggests his motive is sexist he can't so simply refute it. As far as I can tell you're both on the same side that you share the experience that if one isn't (perceived) a member of the protected group they are at risk for being subject of virtue-shaming or ad-hominem attack for debating progressive ideals.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    I still get accused of victim blaming. I get other ugly attacks. My gender does not 100% give me a free pass to say whatever I want on the subject. I would like to think that years of study and introspective contemplation have helped me craft an evenhanded and well thought out position on certain subjects. My observation is that most people, regardless of which "side" they are on, somewhat ham-handedly speak to only the concerns of their side. This very often comes across as dismissive of the concerns of the other side, even when that isn't intended. So, if someone wants to speak to difficult subjects, I think good advice is to consider how things impact all parties, not just their own side, and work at considering details like context and how that makes your message look. If you barge into a discussion of rape and all you say is (or sounds like) "what about da menz!", well, yeah, that will go badly.
    - smallnamespace 9y ago
      Agreed, was not implying that being a woman makes one immune to criticism. I do think there's a certain level of confusion at this point about who is considered credible or allowed to speak about other groups, and sometimes this policing ends up begging the question itself. Like take the charge of victim blaming -- on the one hand, we can all probably agree that victims deserve sympathy and a platform to air their grievances as well as our thoughtful consideration. Yet it seems that of we as a society offer unconditional trust to anyone who claims to have been a victim, this will eventually encourage all sorts of mischief. Not every person who 'seems' like a victim is in fact one, and not everyone who has been victimized can or will lay public claim to that status. In the limit, this confusion about who is allowed to say what about whom can actually lead to the behavior you referenced above -- if men have internalized the idea that men are only allowed to comment or judge men, but not other groups, then the only possible response is for men to speak about their own group interests.
hmschreck 9y ago
There is the concept of ethos. We naturally identify certain groups as authoritative on a group because they are the ones who see it most. Ethos is essentially the idea of credibility, and we are more likely to accept the viewpoint of a victim of a crime than someone who has never experienced it, in a discussion of that crime.
- smallnamespace 9y ago
  I agree that from a purely Bayesian perspective, we should almost certainly have larger 'belief updates' from people who are closer or have first-hand experience about a given topic (and I certainly found GP's post both insightful and interesting). What I'm worried about though is the risk of going past 'we should listen to person from group X when they talk about group X's experience', to the the much stronger claim that 'for all persons P outside of group X, P have nothing valid to say about group X'. That would be to confuse ends for means, and to discard the attempt to find universal truths and merely settle for truths that are relative to a person's group identities.
katastic 9y ago
> Shouldn't the actual meat of what a person says hold greater weight than the group(s) that a person identifies with? Is this rhetorical? Since identity politics became a thing. [edit] It's literally in the name. Downvoters really have no debating skills. It's pretty pathetic really. I'm glad people like that are going out of fashion and we'll soon be returning to an age of logic, reason, and open debate.
dionidium 9y ago
Your question sort of implies that this happened accidentally, against the interests of progressives, but what you're describing is the foundation of intersectionality, which holds that intersecting group identities are primary and paramount for understanding systems of oppression. In other words, this is thought of as a feature, not a bug.
ramblerman 9y ago
In this case no. We need both sexes to resolve this issue as it plays very differently from both sides. We can still argue based on merit but I find it interesting to hear the perspective specifically from a woman. I am a man fyi
yesenadam 9y ago
>the group a person identifies with?! I'm glad she said she's a woman first up, it made me much more interested in what she had to say in response. I would take what males said seriously. But a group of males discussing rape etc isn't quite... Anyway - is this hard to understand? Women have a 'different' point of view on the subject, and on a mostly-male site like this, it's useful to know. I'm puzzled by your confusion. Maybe you are female; then it would be easier to understand what you say. I wish you had said up front :-) It just helps understand where people are coming from, their perspective. A man writing about what feminism should be has a different effect to a woman doing it, and naturally/rightly so.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

how did we get to the point where we must first give out group identity credentials in order to be taken seriously in a discussion? I am not really aware of what you are describing. HN is less "social" than most forums. There are no avatars and the profile is completely free form and can be left completely blank. It is a very large forum, so I cannot assume that everyone recognizes me. It also is overwhelmingly male, so it is common for people to assume that anyone speaking here is male. I often qualify my remarks here on certain subjects for those reasons. Long experience as a participant tells me that if I don't, someone will make a fool of themselves by accusing me of being a rapey bastard, as obviously only a rapist man would ever say X (or something along those lines). And that is a huge, pointless derail that I hate seeing.

shak77 9y ago
- mplewis 9y ago
  Please be civil. From the HN guidelines: Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
zug_zug 9y ago
I think the parent poster was lamenting that as a man, he feels that it's unfortunate he fears he can't express the points you so eloquently did, because when somebody suggests his motive is sexist he can't so simply refute it. As far as I can tell you're both on the same side that you share the experience that if one isn't (perceived) a member of the protected group they are at risk for being subject of virtue-shaming or ad-hominem attack for debating progressive ideals.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  I still get accused of victim blaming. I get other ugly attacks. My gender does not 100% give me a free pass to say whatever I want on the subject. I would like to think that years of study and introspective contemplation have helped me craft an evenhanded and well thought out position on certain subjects. My observation is that most people, regardless of which "side" they are on, somewhat ham-handedly speak to only the concerns of their side. This very often comes across as dismissive of the concerns of the other side, even when that isn't intended. So, if someone wants to speak to difficult subjects, I think good advice is to consider how things impact all parties, not just their own side, and work at considering details like context and how that makes your message look. If you barge into a discussion of rape and all you say is (or sounds like) "what about da menz!", well, yeah, that will go badly.
  - smallnamespace 9y ago
    Agreed, was not implying that being a woman makes one immune to criticism. I do think there's a certain level of confusion at this point about who is considered credible or allowed to speak about other groups, and sometimes this policing ends up begging the question itself. Like take the charge of victim blaming -- on the one hand, we can all probably agree that victims deserve sympathy and a platform to air their grievances as well as our thoughtful consideration. Yet it seems that of we as a society offer unconditional trust to anyone who claims to have been a victim, this will eventually encourage all sorts of mischief. Not every person who 'seems' like a victim is in fact one, and not everyone who has been victimized can or will lay public claim to that status. In the limit, this confusion about who is allowed to say what about whom can actually lead to the behavior you referenced above -- if men have internalized the idea that men are only allowed to comment or judge men, but not other groups, then the only possible response is for men to speak about their own group interests.

hmschreck 9y ago

There is the concept of ethos. We naturally identify certain groups as authoritative on a group because they are the ones who see it most. Ethos is essentially the idea of credibility, and we are more likely to accept the viewpoint of a victim of a crime than someone who has never experienced it, in a discussion of that crime.

smallnamespace 9y ago
I agree that from a purely Bayesian perspective, we should almost certainly have larger 'belief updates' from people who are closer or have first-hand experience about a given topic (and I certainly found GP's post both insightful and interesting). What I'm worried about though is the risk of going past 'we should listen to person from group X when they talk about group X's experience', to the the much stronger claim that 'for all persons P outside of group X, P have nothing valid to say about group X'. That would be to confuse ends for means, and to discard the attempt to find universal truths and merely settle for truths that are relative to a person's group identities.

katastic 9y ago

> Shouldn't the actual meat of what a person says hold greater weight than the group(s) that a person identifies with? Is this rhetorical? Since identity politics became a thing. [edit] It's literally in the name. Downvoters really have no debating skills. It's pretty pathetic really. I'm glad people like that are going out of fashion and we'll soon be returning to an age of logic, reason, and open debate.

dionidium 9y ago

Your question sort of implies that this happened accidentally, against the interests of progressives, but what you're describing is the foundation of intersectionality, which holds that intersecting group identities are primary and paramount for understanding systems of oppression. In other words, this is thought of as a feature, not a bug.

ramblerman 9y ago

In this case no. We need both sexes to resolve this issue as it plays very differently from both sides. We can still argue based on merit but I find it interesting to hear the perspective specifically from a woman. I am a man fyi

yesenadam 9y ago

>the group a person identifies with?! I'm glad she said she's a woman first up, it made me much more interested in what she had to say in response. I would take what males said seriously. But a group of males discussing rape etc isn't quite... Anyway - is this hard to understand? Women have a 'different' point of view on the subject, and on a mostly-male site like this, it's useful to know. I'm puzzled by your confusion. Maybe you are female; then it would be easier to understand what you say. I wish you had said up front :-) It just helps understand where people are coming from, their perspective. A man writing about what feminism should be has a different effect to a woman doing it, and naturally/rightly so.