4 ms·

If you must insult me, the word you are looking for here is maternalistic. Please and thank you.

jona-f 3y ago
I did not mean to insult you, i actually tried to make an argument. Nor was I looking for maternalistic. That's a different thing and i meant the negatively connoted one. Also reading again I realize I went too far saying all the helping, which is an unfortunate generalization, surely, being compassionate is a good thing.
- DoreenMichele 3y ago
  I'm a woman. It's pretty well established that lack of rights and education for women is a root cause of high birth rates and other negative factors being discussed here. "Paternalistic" implicitly assumes I'm male and that's kind of a problem if we are wanting to treat all people with respect as a baseline means to make the world a better place. We absolutely shouldn't be interfering in a colonial sort of fashion, but the reality is that "not interfering at all" is not a realistic goal. The only way you get that is by not interacting at all and that amounts to calling for not trading with poorer countries which is an excellent means to ensure they remain poor and can't develop. The reality is we already do interfere and often in ways that make the people going in to "help" feel good more than really helping. Real help does, in fact (as you suggested), require one to have some kind of baseline respect for people that many people lack generally. I will suggest that if you think maternalistic has positive connotations but paternalistic has negative, you should spend some time examining your implicit assumptions about men, women, parenting roles, etc and wonder exactly why you think the female-coded version of that word is not negative but the male-coded version is. FWIW: I'm an environmental studies major (as background for wanting to do urban planning) and I'm far from ignorant. If you weren't intending to insult me, leading with calling me paternalistic and ending with saying "...so people like you can keep ignorant..." seriously fails to achieve the stated intentions.
  - codezero 3y ago
    I’m pretty sure they were using the term to refer to the concept of paternalism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism not as a gendered term targeted at you.
  - constantly 3y ago
    Just a heads up: paternalism or being paternalistic is a concept unrelated to the user’s gender. It means advocating for action that limits a groups freedom or autonomy. Maternalism has a different meaning. You being one gender or another has no bearing on whether it was the correct word for the argument. It wasn’t quite the right word, condescending would probably have been better given the context of their phrases.
    - DoreenMichele 3y ago
      Thank you. I stand by my opinion that gender issues are a factor in global poverty, so someone insisting the cure for such is to respect people and not think you know what's best for them should find gender-neutral terms to make that point in line with their stated values or at least check the gender of the individual they are attacking and insulting (in violation of HN guidelines) and use gender appropriate insults if they insist on getting personal.
      - constantly 3y ago
        Totally agree with your statement that gender issues are a factor in global economics, and that we should strive to use gender-neutral phrasing whenever practical.
        Danjoe4 3y ago
        The euphemisms are insufferable
        DoreenMichele 3y ago
theduder99 3y ago
stop misgendering me!!!
- DoreenMichele 3y ago
  Nah, my personal policy is to ignore that in most cases. If you aren't insulting me while lecturing me that the cure for what ails this world is genuine respect for others, I generally interpret that as "DoreenMichele fits in with this overwhelmingly male forum and her behavior doesn't just scream I'm a woman." You would know that if you read my blogs. I wrote a long and detailed blog post about that once.

I did not mean to insult you, i actually tried to make an argument. Nor was I looking for maternalistic. That's a different thing and i meant the negatively connoted one. Also reading again I realize I went too far saying all the helping, which is an unfortunate generalization, surely, being compassionate is a good thing.

DoreenMichele 3y ago
I'm a woman. It's pretty well established that lack of rights and education for women is a root cause of high birth rates and other negative factors being discussed here. "Paternalistic" implicitly assumes I'm male and that's kind of a problem if we are wanting to treat all people with respect as a baseline means to make the world a better place. We absolutely shouldn't be interfering in a colonial sort of fashion, but the reality is that "not interfering at all" is not a realistic goal. The only way you get that is by not interacting at all and that amounts to calling for not trading with poorer countries which is an excellent means to ensure they remain poor and can't develop. The reality is we already do interfere and often in ways that make the people going in to "help" feel good more than really helping. Real help does, in fact (as you suggested), require one to have some kind of baseline respect for people that many people lack generally. I will suggest that if you think maternalistic has positive connotations but paternalistic has negative, you should spend some time examining your implicit assumptions about men, women, parenting roles, etc and wonder exactly why you think the female-coded version of that word is not negative but the male-coded version is. FWIW: I'm an environmental studies major (as background for wanting to do urban planning) and I'm far from ignorant. If you weren't intending to insult me, leading with calling me paternalistic and ending with saying "...so people like you can keep ignorant..." seriously fails to achieve the stated intentions.
- codezero 3y ago
  I’m pretty sure they were using the term to refer to the concept of paternalism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism not as a gendered term targeted at you.
- constantly 3y ago
  Just a heads up: paternalism or being paternalistic is a concept unrelated to the user’s gender. It means advocating for action that limits a groups freedom or autonomy. Maternalism has a different meaning. You being one gender or another has no bearing on whether it was the correct word for the argument. It wasn’t quite the right word, condescending would probably have been better given the context of their phrases.
  - DoreenMichele 3y ago
    Thank you. I stand by my opinion that gender issues are a factor in global poverty, so someone insisting the cure for such is to respect people and not think you know what's best for them should find gender-neutral terms to make that point in line with their stated values or at least check the gender of the individual they are attacking and insulting (in violation of HN guidelines) and use gender appropriate insults if they insist on getting personal.
    - constantly 3y ago
      Totally agree with your statement that gender issues are a factor in global economics, and that we should strive to use gender-neutral phrasing whenever practical.
      - Danjoe4 3y ago
        The euphemisms are insufferable
        DoreenMichele 3y ago

theduder99 3y ago

stop misgendering me!!!

DoreenMichele 3y ago
Nah, my personal policy is to ignore that in most cases. If you aren't insulting me while lecturing me that the cure for what ails this world is genuine respect for others, I generally interpret that as "DoreenMichele fits in with this overwhelmingly male forum and her behavior doesn't just scream I'm a woman." You would know that if you read my blogs. I wrote a long and detailed blog post about that once.