I'm ambivalent about having to consider blowback from conversations like this. For me it's less about the content or the topic, though and more about the emoti

I'm ambivalent about having to consider blowback from conversations like this. For me it's less about the content or the topic, though and more about the emotional content. I don't think you should get flayed for expressing an unpopular viewpoint, but I don't want someone's emotional content, or outrage. I want information, conversation, and counterpoints. I don't think being purposefully evocative leads towards changing minds. I think it tends toward polarization. I'm in it to figure things out and learn, if I can, and to help other people figure things out, if I can do that. Mostly I just want productive dialogue where I get to pat myself on the back for trying to be a better person ;). And yeah, I definitely think it would be disingenuous for someone to say or imply that we haven't made a lot of progress in the last hundred years. That being said, I'm on the side of the gender and ethnic fence that has largely benefited from discrimination in the past, so I try to be relatively sensitive to it, especially since it can be so subtle and hard to spot. One example: http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/press/press_releases_media_advisories/2013/HUDNo.13-091 http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/press/press_release... (this is ethnic, not gender discrimination)