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>> First time I came to the US and I conversed with this Asian women friend, who told me that she wanted to go to business school, and I asked her "why business

>> First time I came to the US and I conversed with this Asian women friend, who told me that she wanted to go to business school, and I asked her "why business school?" and suddenly another Asian women (friend of her) cut me and said "Oh why not, because she is a woman?" and I was like "wow, where did that come from? what does that even mean?" and since that day I know that US racial issue is fucked up big time. It is, but I'd encourage you to examine that a bit more from the perspective of the person weighing in. Yes, you meant nothing by the question, and you would have asked it regardless of the other person's gender, but what is interesting is -someone got defensive-. Why? She's hypersensitive; is it more likely she got that way apropos of nothing, that she has just bought into some victim culture that is determined to create claims of systems issues wholecloth to rail against, or because she -has- run into misogyny enough times that she assumes the worst? Again, it's not reflective of you, but take an empathetic view to where people like that are coming from, as it's not a vacuum.

christiansakai 6y ago
Oh yeah for sure, but this conversation already derailed, so no further dialog was necessary. I was coming from a point of view "small talk on a dinner table during hangout" and she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you" so, better to let the conversation die down and continue another time.
- icebergonfire 6y ago
  > she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you" Is it fair to you? No, it isn't. However you need to realize that _that question_ has been used, probably verbatim, in bad ways against her or her peers... therefore she has pattern-matched this into a sexist question too. This is not an irreversible state. 99% of these communication breakdowns can be solved with a polite correction: "no, didn't cross my mind. I am sincerely curious about what drives that career decision, if I may ask". I won't get entangled into a straw-man battle-royale, so if the person cannot recognize they made a mistake and correct course: sure thing I'll retreat. That hasn't happened to me just yet, but I know it could. Fair? No, but it is what it is. I am aware we are dissecting a quickly summed-up situation here, so my argument might not apply to the actual encounter you experienced. But if it does, I think you and lots of others are skipping on conversations that you actually wanted to have due to a very small and temporary defect on the dialogue.
  - Udik 6y ago
    > However you need to realize that _that question_ has been used, probably verbatim, in bad ways against her or her peers... And how do you know? You have direct knowledge of it or are you just pulling out a factoid?
    - lostcolony 6y ago
      Because the alternative is she's hypersensitive without any reason. You can, of course, -decide- that the person is just unreasonable, rather than try and figure out what might have caused her to respond the way she did, and be empathic towards it, but it doesn't seem like it'll get you far in life.
      - Udik 6y ago
        Well, the alternative is that a lot of people around her are misogynistic for no reason, so your empathy for her means you're assuming a lot of other people are unreasonable assholes. How far does this get you in life?
        lostcolony 6y ago
        Somewhere pretty close to the truth? Or are you saying you believe misogyny is super uncommon?
  - christiansakai 6y ago
    I quickly changed the conversation topic after that, since we are in about 6 - 10 people in the table, and I don't want to make situations awkward.
    - lucb1e 6y ago
      I'm a bit sad to see that awkwardness is seen as worse than resolving the conflict. I don't know the situation but I like to think that I would find it worth it to have a difficult conversation rather than keep everyone smiling. But then I also am not part of any minority group. I'm a white male in a western country who is good at what he does, which would let me incur a lot of awkwardness before someone thinks that the problem is me. That might be different in your situation, or simply in that context, I don't know. Regardless, it makes me sad that there was a need to bury the topic.
kahmeal 6y ago
Honestly, you're absolutely correct in encouraging an empathetic perspective but I would counter that your dismissing the very common reality of the victimhood mentality being a root cause to a lot of these types of outbursts is a bit short sighted. While the underlying reason this mentality exists is certainly, as you described, born from decades of misogyny, there is an entire population that has not necessarily experienced it to nearly the degree that warrants the level of hypersensitivity they exhibit. I am not saying misogyny doesn't continue to exist, but it is now very often misattributed in scenarios that technically fit the criteria (man didn't hire woman, etc) but are in fact the result of other factors (woman wasn't a good hire). It's a slippery slope and the reason we have such outrage in response to equality movements in general. Kneejerk reactions to non-misogynistic interactions are counter productive and serve to undermine the validity of the complaints against misogyny by giving naysayers a reason to dismiss them.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  > victimhood mentality Is this a term for something real, or just a contentless way to denigrate people who claim to have been victimized? Is there some diagnostic criteria other than "that person annoys me"?
  - Proziam 6y ago
    > Is this a term for something real It's real. The most privileged people I know (and later cut out of my life entirely) are the first to play the victim card. We're talking the type of people who would choose to show up to work late every day and then complain that they were fired because they were [insert trait]. Or people that refused to study and then demanded they get extra support and financial aid because they came from a 'difficult' background. Some definitely white people claim to be minorities because some percentage of people will use every card in the deck to get ahead. The tragedy is that these people sour the conversation and make people distrust those who bring up the actual issues they face.
  - verisimilidude 6y ago
    I’m reminded of an incident at a local school. The principal, a black woman, became increasingly incompetent. The teachers, many of them POC themselves, were now collectively doing her job for her. They tried to get her removed. The NAACP got involved. There was outrage and shame to spare. The principal wrapped herself in righteous indignation, despite herself being in the position of power. Months later, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Oops. I’m sure this person definitely experienced racism and sexism in her life and career. There were undoubtedly many incidents when she was slighted by white people. It’s America, after all. But in this particular case, she was not the victim. The teachers were the victims. The students were the victims. Yet she still acted the victim. Hence, “victimhood mentality”. “Contentless” can cut both ways. The insidious thing about these types of incidents is how it discredits the rest of the racial justice movement. We need to hold our outrage to a higher standard.
oh_sigh 6y ago
Does that logic work for why I cross the street when I see a black person coming my way? Why? I'm hypersensitive; is it more likely I got that way apropos of nothing, that I just bought into some racist culture that is determined to create claims of issues wholecloth against blacks to rail against, or because I -have- been mugged by a black person enough times that I assume the worst? Would you take an empathetic view to where I'm coming from?
- rezonant 6y ago
  What if you had been mugged by a white person? Would you then carry the same fears moving forward? I have to assume you are not black, and thus, to you, black is "the other". You are making the assumption that because one person was dangerous, everyone else with that skin tone is dangerous. I'm sorry, but that is textbook racism EDIT: After a second look I realize this is probably what the parent post is trying to get at :-)
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    Yes. I agree it is textbook racism. Now for jumping to the defensive the moment a man asks you a benign question, because you assume he is sexist because of his gender - isn't that sexism?
  - vc8f6vVV 6y ago
    It's a bias. Let's assume that all muggers wear red pants (or you have been mugged mostly by people in red pants). So when you see somebody in red pants you cross a street. It's surely not a textbook racism, since no race is involved. Also how do you know that anybody wearing red pants is a mugger? The tragedy of blacks is that they can't change skin color, unlike pants. This bias will exist until crime percentages will at least equalize between blacks and whites (do they?). You can call it a racism if you want but it doesn't change anything. I have worked with many blacks, I had zero problems with any of them, I don't consider them worse than me in any way, but I will cross that street. Sorry. There is a difference between a concrete person and statistics.
- icebergonfire 6y ago

christiansakai 6y ago

Oh yeah for sure, but this conversation already derailed, so no further dialog was necessary. I was coming from a point of view "small talk on a dinner table during hangout" and she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you" so, better to let the conversation die down and continue another time.

icebergonfire 6y ago
> she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you" Is it fair to you? No, it isn't. However you need to realize that _that question_ has been used, probably verbatim, in bad ways against her or her peers... therefore she has pattern-matched this into a sexist question too. This is not an irreversible state. 99% of these communication breakdowns can be solved with a polite correction: "no, didn't cross my mind. I am sincerely curious about what drives that career decision, if I may ask". I won't get entangled into a straw-man battle-royale, so if the person cannot recognize they made a mistake and correct course: sure thing I'll retreat. That hasn't happened to me just yet, but I know it could. Fair? No, but it is what it is. I am aware we are dissecting a quickly summed-up situation here, so my argument might not apply to the actual encounter you experienced. But if it does, I think you and lots of others are skipping on conversations that you actually wanted to have due to a very small and temporary defect on the dialogue.
- Udik 6y ago
  > However you need to realize that _that question_ has been used, probably verbatim, in bad ways against her or her peers... And how do you know? You have direct knowledge of it or are you just pulling out a factoid?
  - lostcolony 6y ago
    Because the alternative is she's hypersensitive without any reason. You can, of course, -decide- that the person is just unreasonable, rather than try and figure out what might have caused her to respond the way she did, and be empathic towards it, but it doesn't seem like it'll get you far in life.
    - Udik 6y ago
      Well, the alternative is that a lot of people around her are misogynistic for no reason, so your empathy for her means you're assuming a lot of other people are unreasonable assholes. How far does this get you in life?
      - lostcolony 6y ago
        Somewhere pretty close to the truth? Or are you saying you believe misogyny is super uncommon?
- christiansakai 6y ago
  I quickly changed the conversation topic after that, since we are in about 6 - 10 people in the table, and I don't want to make situations awkward.
  - lucb1e 6y ago
    I'm a bit sad to see that awkwardness is seen as worse than resolving the conflict. I don't know the situation but I like to think that I would find it worth it to have a difficult conversation rather than keep everyone smiling. But then I also am not part of any minority group. I'm a white male in a western country who is good at what he does, which would let me incur a lot of awkwardness before someone thinks that the problem is me. That might be different in your situation, or simply in that context, I don't know. Regardless, it makes me sad that there was a need to bury the topic.

kahmeal 6y ago

Honestly, you're absolutely correct in encouraging an empathetic perspective but I would counter that your dismissing the very common reality of the victimhood mentality being a root cause to a lot of these types of outbursts is a bit short sighted. While the underlying reason this mentality exists is certainly, as you described, born from decades of misogyny, there is an entire population that has not necessarily experienced it to nearly the degree that warrants the level of hypersensitivity they exhibit. I am not saying misogyny doesn't continue to exist, but it is now very often misattributed in scenarios that technically fit the criteria (man didn't hire woman, etc) but are in fact the result of other factors (woman wasn't a good hire). It's a slippery slope and the reason we have such outrage in response to equality movements in general. Kneejerk reactions to non-misogynistic interactions are counter productive and serve to undermine the validity of the complaints against misogyny by giving naysayers a reason to dismiss them.

pessimizer 6y ago
> victimhood mentality Is this a term for something real, or just a contentless way to denigrate people who claim to have been victimized? Is there some diagnostic criteria other than "that person annoys me"?
- Proziam 6y ago
  > Is this a term for something real It's real. The most privileged people I know (and later cut out of my life entirely) are the first to play the victim card. We're talking the type of people who would choose to show up to work late every day and then complain that they were fired because they were [insert trait]. Or people that refused to study and then demanded they get extra support and financial aid because they came from a 'difficult' background. Some definitely white people claim to be minorities because some percentage of people will use every card in the deck to get ahead. The tragedy is that these people sour the conversation and make people distrust those who bring up the actual issues they face.
- verisimilidude 6y ago
  I’m reminded of an incident at a local school. The principal, a black woman, became increasingly incompetent. The teachers, many of them POC themselves, were now collectively doing her job for her. They tried to get her removed. The NAACP got involved. There was outrage and shame to spare. The principal wrapped herself in righteous indignation, despite herself being in the position of power. Months later, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Oops. I’m sure this person definitely experienced racism and sexism in her life and career. There were undoubtedly many incidents when she was slighted by white people. It’s America, after all. But in this particular case, she was not the victim. The teachers were the victims. The students were the victims. Yet she still acted the victim. Hence, “victimhood mentality”. “Contentless” can cut both ways. The insidious thing about these types of incidents is how it discredits the rest of the racial justice movement. We need to hold our outrage to a higher standard.

oh_sigh 6y ago

Does that logic work for why I cross the street when I see a black person coming my way? Why? I'm hypersensitive; is it more likely I got that way apropos of nothing, that I just bought into some racist culture that is determined to create claims of issues wholecloth against blacks to rail against, or because I -have- been mugged by a black person enough times that I assume the worst? Would you take an empathetic view to where I'm coming from?

rezonant 6y ago
What if you had been mugged by a white person? Would you then carry the same fears moving forward? I have to assume you are not black, and thus, to you, black is "the other". You are making the assumption that because one person was dangerous, everyone else with that skin tone is dangerous. I'm sorry, but that is textbook racism EDIT: After a second look I realize this is probably what the parent post is trying to get at :-)
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Yes. I agree it is textbook racism. Now for jumping to the defensive the moment a man asks you a benign question, because you assume he is sexist because of his gender - isn't that sexism?
- vc8f6vVV 6y ago
  It's a bias. Let's assume that all muggers wear red pants (or you have been mugged mostly by people in red pants). So when you see somebody in red pants you cross a street. It's surely not a textbook racism, since no race is involved. Also how do you know that anybody wearing red pants is a mugger? The tragedy of blacks is that they can't change skin color, unlike pants. This bias will exist until crime percentages will at least equalize between blacks and whites (do they?). You can call it a racism if you want but it doesn't change anything. I have worked with many blacks, I had zero problems with any of them, I don't consider them worse than me in any way, but I will cross that street. Sorry. There is a difference between a concrete person and statistics.
icebergonfire 6y ago