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> The claim was that women to a higher degree find "direct, robust speech" alienating. I'll assume that (1) you're not sexist and (2) you're asking why is this

> The claim was that women to a higher degree find "direct, robust speech" alienating. I'll assume that (1) you're not sexist and (2) you're asking why is this claim rooted in sexism. The nature of this claim is rooted in an idea that any observable behaviors between genders is due to the nature of genders themselves. It is not worded to indicate that its root is, for instance, a commentary about how _external factors_ exert different influence on individuals due to their gender. This is the nature of misogyny. The invalid logical implication that gender controls behavior. It's not actually a causal relationship. It's purely correlation.

denton-scratch 3y ago
(Not the poster to whom you are replying) I didn't suggest there was a causal relationship, nor that the observed behaviour was due to some intrinsic properties of the respective genders, nor that gender controls behaviour. I just said that I suspected that women disliked inline replies more than men.
- malcolmgreaves 3y ago
  Right, I was operating under the assumption that this all was driven by a misunderstanding. It's a sensitive topic. I see how the ways in which language is written can make readers jump to particular conclusions about the writer's motivation (and, ultimately, the intent of their writing). > I suspected that women disliked inline replies more than men. Not trying to pick on what you wrote here, but I wanted to take a moment to break this specific sentence down to illustrate my message. Without surrounding context, this sentence appears to make the claim that all women dislike something. And specifically, the qualifier is _only_ gender. Worded this way, it starts to look like a statement about a causal relationship. (Again, my apologies, I know that you don't mean this at all). It's a sensitive subject, so I think it always helps to wrap the message with language that attempts to really clarify whether or not there's an underlying implication of `if gender then behavior` that someone _may_ get from reading. (And that can be hard to do, because _sometimes_ a reader will decide to draw incorrect conclusions!) Hopefully this was all actually interesting and something that you didn't already know beforehand (if not, apologies!). I do think that there's a way to re-word sentences like this one to show that there's no underlying intent of `if gender then behavior`. For example, > I suspected that women disliked inline replies more than men. Could be re-worded to show that it's a claim rooted in statistical averages of expected behavior (so, implicit assumption: it can just be correlation!) -- "On average, I suspect that women dislike inline replies more often than men." Or, one could expand it by including the complete chain of logical consequences: `society creates gender norms` (expectations around behavior rooted in one's gender, inherently the crux of sexism) -> leads to `if gender then behavior`. This could lead to that sentence being written as, "Because of the pressure that society exerts on girls and women to be conflict avoidant and conflict resolvers, I suspect that women dislike inline replies more than men." Crucially, at least to me, this is a big difference because the `I suspect` part is _conditioned_ on the `Because of the pressure` bit. This kind of wording also explicitly notes the existence of sexism and how that social phenomena can become the causal force that is ultimately observed through behavior and the correlations of that behavior with gender.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    Yeah. Well, I can qualify what I say; and then I can go back over my qualifications, and qualify them too. Your proposed rewrite is OK; it conveys my meaning. But it reads a bit like a sociology essay, when it was really just a tangential comment on an article about Wikipedia. One of the Wikipedia rules is "Assume good faith". It's tedious to harden all your comments against people who assume malevolence, and it makes the comments over-long and hard to read; so I don't do it.
depressedpanda 3y ago
I don't know how to interpret this answer. The nature vs nurture aspect of the alleged gender preference against direct/blunt speech was never even discussed. It seems to me like people are just letting their own biases shine through. Perhaps the people claiming sexism falsely believe that a higher preference for direct/blunt speech is always superior somehow?
trealira 3y ago
> idea that any observable behaviors between genders is due to the nature of genders themselves. > This is the nature of misogyny. The invalid logical implication that gender controls behavior. Why do you consider the very suggestion misogynistic (leaving aside whether it's true)? "Misogyny" means "hatred of women," in the literal sense. What you're stating is that biological essentialism implies misogyny, which isn't true. As a counterexample, there are radical feminists and self-described misandrists who argue that men and women act differently for inherent biological reasons, and they aren't misogynist.
naasking 3y ago
> It's not actually a causal relationship. It's purely correlation. That is an absurdly strong claim that contradicts lots of evidence in many cases.

denton-scratch 3y ago

(Not the poster to whom you are replying) I didn't suggest there was a causal relationship, nor that the observed behaviour was due to some intrinsic properties of the respective genders, nor that gender controls behaviour. I just said that I suspected that women disliked inline replies more than men.

malcolmgreaves 3y ago
Right, I was operating under the assumption that this all was driven by a misunderstanding. It's a sensitive topic. I see how the ways in which language is written can make readers jump to particular conclusions about the writer's motivation (and, ultimately, the intent of their writing). > I suspected that women disliked inline replies more than men. Not trying to pick on what you wrote here, but I wanted to take a moment to break this specific sentence down to illustrate my message. Without surrounding context, this sentence appears to make the claim that all women dislike something. And specifically, the qualifier is _only_ gender. Worded this way, it starts to look like a statement about a causal relationship. (Again, my apologies, I know that you don't mean this at all). It's a sensitive subject, so I think it always helps to wrap the message with language that attempts to really clarify whether or not there's an underlying implication of `if gender then behavior` that someone _may_ get from reading. (And that can be hard to do, because _sometimes_ a reader will decide to draw incorrect conclusions!) Hopefully this was all actually interesting and something that you didn't already know beforehand (if not, apologies!). I do think that there's a way to re-word sentences like this one to show that there's no underlying intent of `if gender then behavior`. For example, > I suspected that women disliked inline replies more than men. Could be re-worded to show that it's a claim rooted in statistical averages of expected behavior (so, implicit assumption: it can just be correlation!) -- "On average, I suspect that women dislike inline replies more often than men." Or, one could expand it by including the complete chain of logical consequences: `society creates gender norms` (expectations around behavior rooted in one's gender, inherently the crux of sexism) -> leads to `if gender then behavior`. This could lead to that sentence being written as, "Because of the pressure that society exerts on girls and women to be conflict avoidant and conflict resolvers, I suspect that women dislike inline replies more than men." Crucially, at least to me, this is a big difference because the `I suspect` part is _conditioned_ on the `Because of the pressure` bit. This kind of wording also explicitly notes the existence of sexism and how that social phenomena can become the causal force that is ultimately observed through behavior and the correlations of that behavior with gender.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  Yeah. Well, I can qualify what I say; and then I can go back over my qualifications, and qualify them too. Your proposed rewrite is OK; it conveys my meaning. But it reads a bit like a sociology essay, when it was really just a tangential comment on an article about Wikipedia. One of the Wikipedia rules is "Assume good faith". It's tedious to harden all your comments against people who assume malevolence, and it makes the comments over-long and hard to read; so I don't do it.

depressedpanda 3y ago

I don't know how to interpret this answer. The nature vs nurture aspect of the alleged gender preference against direct/blunt speech was never even discussed. It seems to me like people are just letting their own biases shine through. Perhaps the people claiming sexism falsely believe that a higher preference for direct/blunt speech is always superior somehow?

trealira 3y ago

> idea that any observable behaviors between genders is due to the nature of genders themselves. > This is the nature of misogyny. The invalid logical implication that gender controls behavior. Why do you consider the very suggestion misogynistic (leaving aside whether it's true)? "Misogyny" means "hatred of women," in the literal sense. What you're stating is that biological essentialism implies misogyny, which isn't true. As a counterexample, there are radical feminists and self-described misandrists who argue that men and women act differently for inherent biological reasons, and they aren't misogynist.

naasking 3y ago

> It's not actually a causal relationship. It's purely correlation. That is an absurdly strong claim that contradicts lots of evidence in many cases.