5 ms·
When will we stop thinking in terms of "How things look through my glasses". I.E. My glasses have red tint, so the whole world looks red. Your glasses have a
by jnem 12y ago
When will we stop thinking in terms of "How things look through my glasses". I.E. My glasses have red tint, so the whole world looks red. Your glasses have a green tint, so likewise, the world is green to you.
Some identify their car as feminine, as in, "She's fast, I tell you what!". Others identify their vehicles as masculine, "This guy right here, he can do 0-60 in under 6 seconds!"
The part that bugs me is when you are wearing red glasses and you tell me the world is red, even though I have green ones and tell you with (my own) certainty that it is not. In reality, these definitions shift all the time, as does your eye-wear (tomorrow I'm thinking of wearing blue glasses) as the combination of properties that make you YOU evolve.
Gender can be like glasses sometimes. While our perceptions are a complicated combination of all sorts of properties, i.e. "I'm male with blue glasses who grew up in California." + 1,000,000 * otherThings... wearing blue glasses is a common denominator. So, yes, when you only cite female sources, and you are talking about hard to measure concepts like the quality a word implies (where quality is based on perception), it’s very easy to reason that something like “Maker” can have both gender and classism baked in.
Luckily, due to this same phenomenon, tomorrow the author may review her article and think, “My that was a silly argument”. Likewise, I may do the same.
- current_call 12y agoAll lenses are not equal. Reality is the way things work despite our lenses. Opaque lenses give a misleading view of reality. Clear lenses give an accurate view of reality.
- dasil003 12y agoThere is no knowledge of reality without a lens.
- current_call 12y agoWhat actually happens despite how I think things work is reality. If I'm bad at judging the consequences of my actions then my view of reality is poor. Just because all knowledge is seen through lenses doesn't mean all lenses are equal. A person who can predict the consequences of actions accurately is seeing the world through clear lenses. There was a time when no one knew the equations of gravity in exquisitely rigorous detail, yet if you walked off a cliff, you would fall. http://www.yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth/ http://www.yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth/
- dasil003 12y agoIt's funny that in a discussion about sexism, you are hanging your hat on the objectivity of physics.
- current_call 12y agoHere's a quick reminder about why sexism is bad. Sexism is bad because it disadvantages people through no fault of their own. Sexism is part of reality. Theories and opinions about sexism do not effect the actual impact of sexism. You could be looking through a lens where you can't see inequality, but that doesn't mean there is none.
- vegedor 12y agoReality seen through multiple differently colored glasses leaves a dull impression, without colors. The common perception is what people wearing colored glasses can agree on. OTOH, seeing through red, green and blue glasses one after another has most information needed. It's a nice metaphor. Whether or not people here are seeing clearly or not, they don't agree with the author and that is a point well worth noting. There seems to be the perception, that the discussion on the meta-level is either not needed or inappropriate. The former is definitely subjective and rose-tinted, the later might be counter-productive, if substantial arguments are missing or misdirected.