"This shirt was apparently so offensive and dehumanizing it reduced one of its victims to tears."
It's just an anecdote, but I think this situation emphasizes how much of the debate on gender issues is very tinted by personal feelings and morals. Men are responding according to their feelings, women are responding according to their feelings, transgender people are responding according to their feelings. And these feelings include a lot of resentment unrelated to the matters at hand.
I think this is one thing the whole debate over the last week has taught me to ensure I am always critically thinking about anything that it is all down to people's perceptions - they are going to be completely different to mine.
For example, I tweeted this very article a couple of hours ago - and I've had people tell me it's nothing but "simultaneously trolling one side of an argument while patting the backs of the other side" to "thoughtfully written and makes a some worthwhile points, but also a lot therein to disagree with" and even "some good points, but do we really need to play the "but women aren't predisposed to technology" card?"
An article like this, and the events that happened themselves - everyone is going to view it with their own rose-tinted glasses, and no one is going to be happy.
Alternatively, those feelings are what's really important, and the matters at hand are just trivial details that, by accident, happen to be the focal points for discussion.
All this discussion of who heard who tell what joke, or who tweeted what when, or who should have responded differently, are mostly just distractions.
"It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights; it's actually nothing more...it's simply a whine. 'I find that offensive,' it has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I'm offended by that,' well so fucking what?" -- Stephen Fry
Comments
"This shirt was apparently so offensive and dehumanizing it reduced one of its victims to tears."
It's just an anecdote, but I think this situation emphasizes how much of the debate on gender issues is very tinted by personal feelings and morals. Men are responding according to their feelings, women are responding according to their feelings, transgender people are responding according to their feelings. And these feelings include a lot of resentment unrelated to the matters at hand.
I think this is one thing the whole debate over the last week has taught me to ensure I am always critically thinking about anything that it is all down to people's perceptions - they are going to be completely different to mine.
For example, I tweeted this very article a couple of hours ago - and I've had people tell me it's nothing but "simultaneously trolling one side of an argument while patting the backs of the other side" to "thoughtfully written and makes a some worthwhile points, but also a lot therein to disagree with" and even "some good points, but do we really need to play the "but women aren't predisposed to technology" card?"
An article like this, and the events that happened themselves - everyone is going to view it with their own rose-tinted glasses, and no one is going to be happy.
Alternatively, those feelings are what's really important, and the matters at hand are just trivial details that, by accident, happen to be the focal points for discussion.
All this discussion of who heard who tell what joke, or who tweeted what when, or who should have responded differently, are mostly just distractions.
"It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights; it's actually nothing more...it's simply a whine. 'I find that offensive,' it has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I'm offended by that,' well so fucking what?" -- Stephen Fry