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> First, throwing the term 'sexist' around carelessly > undermines genuine claims of sexism. The same goes for rasism. We are at the stage, that merely ackno

> First, throwing the term 'sexist' around carelessly > undermines genuine claims of sexism. The same goes for rasism. We are at the stage, that merely acknowledging someone's sex or race will earn you these labels. Too bad.

deleted 14y ago
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- sordina 14y ago
  > ... one might argue that a woman may or may not understand a female target audience better One might argue that women _on average_ may or may not understand a female audience better, but I can't even begin to think how someone wouldn't understand that variations between individual understandings would dwarf any potential divide here.
  - jergosh 14y ago
    "May or may not" is the same as "on average, may or may not".
    - sordina 14y ago
      I'm not certain of the exact context since the comment has been deleted, but the impression I gained was that my parent comment suggested tenuously that a person could justify a sexist position taken against an individual due to a statistical bias in the sexes. I was trying to emphasise that this position couldn't be taken logically, not suggesting that "may or may not" was being applied in a non-aggregate fashion.
      - jergosh 14y ago
        This is changing the subject slightly, but to be fair, it's the same statistical bias that's used to say that men earn more than women.
        illuminate 14y ago
        "the same statistical bias that's used to say that men earn more than women" Those statements refer to the same job categories and experience levels.
crag 14y ago
An the same goes for antisemitism. In America, [publicly] write anything critical of the Israeli government and you are labeled an anti-Semite.
- blvr 14y ago
  To be honest I've seen people complain about this far more often than I've actually seen it happen.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    Yes the complaints are more common than the occurrence (I think that's pretty normal, though), but the occurrence isn't uncommon. Back in my reddit days I was accused of anti-semitism merely for saying that creating Israel at that particular location was a mistake. Was that a real person? A false flag troll? Who knows. I've also read accounts by Jewish people whose family members called them "self-hating Jews" because they criticized Israel. But these anecdotes are not that meaningful. They do tell us the views of some extremists, but they tell us nothing about the prevalence of that extremism.
    - fusiongyro 14y ago
      Reddit's users have always struck me as fantastically antisemitic. I think a lot of them do it for shock laughs, but the genuine article is present as well. Saying Israel shouldn't have been born in that location isn't the same thing as saying Israel shouldn't exist, but Israel is the only country whose mere existence seems to require justification. Framing Israel's political problems as if they can be easily solved by not having an Israel certainly looks analogous to solving a Jewish problem by not having Jews. I'm absolutely not saying this is what you're saying, but this is how conversations about what should have happened instead are perceived by us Jews.
      - scott_s 14y ago
        but this is how conversations about what should have happened instead are perceived by us Jews. Not all of them.
deleted 14y ago
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mistercow 14y ago
>We are at the stage, that merely acknowledging someone's sex or race will earn you these labels. That in itself is too broad a generalization though, because there are many times when mentioning someone's race/sex is, due to context, subtly racist/sexist. Generally, if you mention someones race or sex and that information is not actually relevant in any way to what you're saying, you are helping to perpetuate stereotypes and prejudice. It doesn't matter that doing so feels normal to you; shouting slurs at minorities feels normal to neo-Nazi[1] skinheads too. The hard part about prejudice is that it isn't simply solved by honest people acting naturally. It's solved by honest people trying really hard not to be prejudiced, because prejudice is innate. [1] ed: thanks for pointing this out, peterwwillis
- peterwwillis 14y ago
  Wow. The irony of discussing prejudice and in the same breath calling skinheads racists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead Please, please, please, read that page. Not only to save yourself and others the ignorance of believing skinheads are racists, but also because there's a culture and a people that will be forever denigrated because the media and parroting readers will continue to perpetuate this stereotype.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    My apologies. I should have specified "neo-Nazi skinheads". This is not in the same category as racial or gender prejudice, however. It is simply a matter of mislabeling.
    - peterwwillis 14y ago
      No apology necessary. It's just incredibly frustrating that the label has been taken to such an extreme to the point that a whole subculture is guilty by association. It's definitely not the same thing as racial or gender prejudice, but it can be just as damaging to the people who live under the label and deal with its unintended consequences (like getting beaten outside a club for shaving your head and wearing doc martens). We Hackers are lucky that we live in a world where geeks are now the popular cool kids and we can take back a word that used to get us expelled.
crusso 14y ago
The same goes for rasism. Well, we're at a stage in our society where you can't truthfully criticize some people because they happen to be members of select groups. Do so and you are accused of some kind of "ism". As the GP poster indicated, this undermines those truly trying to fight a given "ism".
bthomas 14y ago
I'm a completely uninformed white male, but I'm weary of drawing analogies between sexism and racism. It seems like reductionism, I think they should be tackled separately.
illuminate 14y ago
"We are at the stage, that merely acknowledging someone's sex or race will earn you these labels." There are most certainly contexts where unnecessarily acknowledging someone's sex or race will get you labeled. How you bring that up and why you feel it is necessary to do so is the rub.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

sordina 14y ago
> ... one might argue that a woman may or may not understand a female target audience better One might argue that women _on average_ may or may not understand a female audience better, but I can't even begin to think how someone wouldn't understand that variations between individual understandings would dwarf any potential divide here.
- jergosh 14y ago
  "May or may not" is the same as "on average, may or may not".
  - sordina 14y ago
    I'm not certain of the exact context since the comment has been deleted, but the impression I gained was that my parent comment suggested tenuously that a person could justify a sexist position taken against an individual due to a statistical bias in the sexes. I was trying to emphasise that this position couldn't be taken logically, not suggesting that "may or may not" was being applied in a non-aggregate fashion.
    - jergosh 14y ago
      This is changing the subject slightly, but to be fair, it's the same statistical bias that's used to say that men earn more than women.
      - illuminate 14y ago
        "the same statistical bias that's used to say that men earn more than women" Those statements refer to the same job categories and experience levels.

crag 14y ago

An the same goes for antisemitism. In America, [publicly] write anything critical of the Israeli government and you are labeled an anti-Semite.

blvr 14y ago
To be honest I've seen people complain about this far more often than I've actually seen it happen.
- mistercow 14y ago
  Yes the complaints are more common than the occurrence (I think that's pretty normal, though), but the occurrence isn't uncommon. Back in my reddit days I was accused of anti-semitism merely for saying that creating Israel at that particular location was a mistake. Was that a real person? A false flag troll? Who knows. I've also read accounts by Jewish people whose family members called them "self-hating Jews" because they criticized Israel. But these anecdotes are not that meaningful. They do tell us the views of some extremists, but they tell us nothing about the prevalence of that extremism.
  - fusiongyro 14y ago
    Reddit's users have always struck me as fantastically antisemitic. I think a lot of them do it for shock laughs, but the genuine article is present as well. Saying Israel shouldn't have been born in that location isn't the same thing as saying Israel shouldn't exist, but Israel is the only country whose mere existence seems to require justification. Framing Israel's political problems as if they can be easily solved by not having an Israel certainly looks analogous to solving a Jewish problem by not having Jews. I'm absolutely not saying this is what you're saying, but this is how conversations about what should have happened instead are perceived by us Jews.
    - scott_s 14y ago
      but this is how conversations about what should have happened instead are perceived by us Jews. Not all of them.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

mistercow 14y ago

>We are at the stage, that merely acknowledging someone's sex or race will earn you these labels. That in itself is too broad a generalization though, because there are many times when mentioning someone's race/sex is, due to context, subtly racist/sexist. Generally, if you mention someones race or sex and that information is not actually relevant in any way to what you're saying, you are helping to perpetuate stereotypes and prejudice. It doesn't matter that doing so feels normal to you; shouting slurs at minorities feels normal to neo-Nazi[1] skinheads too. The hard part about prejudice is that it isn't simply solved by honest people acting naturally. It's solved by honest people trying really hard not to be prejudiced, because prejudice is innate. [1] ed: thanks for pointing this out, peterwwillis

peterwwillis 14y ago
Wow. The irony of discussing prejudice and in the same breath calling skinheads racists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead Please, please, please, read that page. Not only to save yourself and others the ignorance of believing skinheads are racists, but also because there's a culture and a people that will be forever denigrated because the media and parroting readers will continue to perpetuate this stereotype.
- mistercow 14y ago
  My apologies. I should have specified "neo-Nazi skinheads". This is not in the same category as racial or gender prejudice, however. It is simply a matter of mislabeling.
  - peterwwillis 14y ago
    No apology necessary. It's just incredibly frustrating that the label has been taken to such an extreme to the point that a whole subculture is guilty by association. It's definitely not the same thing as racial or gender prejudice, but it can be just as damaging to the people who live under the label and deal with its unintended consequences (like getting beaten outside a club for shaving your head and wearing doc martens). We Hackers are lucky that we live in a world where geeks are now the popular cool kids and we can take back a word that used to get us expelled.

crusso 14y ago

The same goes for rasism. Well, we're at a stage in our society where you can't truthfully criticize some people because they happen to be members of select groups. Do so and you are accused of some kind of "ism". As the GP poster indicated, this undermines those truly trying to fight a given "ism".

bthomas 14y ago

I'm a completely uninformed white male, but I'm weary of drawing analogies between sexism and racism. It seems like reductionism, I think they should be tackled separately.

illuminate 14y ago

"We are at the stage, that merely acknowledging someone's sex or race will earn you these labels." There are most certainly contexts where unnecessarily acknowledging someone's sex or race will get you labeled. How you bring that up and why you feel it is necessary to do so is the rub.