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"Since you're presumably not a woman, and they are, they object to your seeming to be taking it upon yourself to tell them what a woman is." That idea is compl

"Since you're presumably not a woman, and they are, they object to your seeming to be taking it upon yourself to tell them what a woman is." That idea is complete poison. In a debate where you're both completely uninformed, the anecdotal evidence of experience is relevant. In any discussion where reason, numbers, research are involved, the gender/race of the person making the argument is irrelevant to the argument. This current idea that only women can talk about female issues, only X about X is pre-enlightenment tribalism. It presupposes conflict between the tribes too. If in my philosophy I believe that through reason and evidence I can understand your point of view and experiences,there's the possibility of agreement. If you really believe that I can never talk about issues affecting your tribe, or arrive at reason to an underlying truth, there's no point in talking. We might as well just fight to see whose tribe can impose power on whose.

arandr0x 8y ago
I'm sorry, I don't follow how your argument (which is valid) is a response to mine. I said people tend to object to being imposed an identity by people who do not share it ("all women hate programming", "all Yankees eat too much"). (And to a lesser extent they also object to the same thing by ingroup members, but are less comfortable expressing it. If my parent was in fact a woman, her viewpoint would most likely still be pretty unpopular.) Arguments being inflammatory does not make them invalid. It is fine to have conversations that include inflammatory arguments, if they are made politely, which parent did. But ignoring that the argument is inflammatory, and/or that the group the argument refers to are in fact intelligent people involved in the discussion that may have themselves an opinion, is lacking in empathy. Rhetoric is founded in empathy; that is why it is an art, and not merely a technique.
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arandr0x 8y ago

I'm sorry, I don't follow how your argument (which is valid) is a response to mine. I said people tend to object to being imposed an identity by people who do not share it ("all women hate programming", "all Yankees eat too much"). (And to a lesser extent they also object to the same thing by ingroup members, but are less comfortable expressing it. If my parent was in fact a woman, her viewpoint would most likely still be pretty unpopular.) Arguments being inflammatory does not make them invalid. It is fine to have conversations that include inflammatory arguments, if they are made politely, which parent did. But ignoring that the argument is inflammatory, and/or that the group the argument refers to are in fact intelligent people involved in the discussion that may have themselves an opinion, is lacking in empathy. Rhetoric is founded in empathy; that is why it is an art, and not merely a technique.

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