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Originally Posted by .Alex.
You "could" make the argument, would you like to make it? I mean, either you believe that all offensive statements are created equal or you agree that there are varying degrees of wrongness that transcend sexist, racist, whatever lines. Being against affirmative action is not as bad as thinking slavery is acceptable. Saying jews are good with money is not as bad as saying women who wear short skirts deserve to get raped. Calling a powerful, horrible woman a relatively common yet vulgar word is not as bad as denying the existence of one of the biggest genocides in human history. It's not that hard.
It wasn't supposed to be a straight analogy, just an example to show that it's understandable to react in a less than perfect way to charged statements. Having said that, she directly compared going to the mailbox to BEING IN THE MIDDLE OF A MASS SHOOTING. It's difficult for me personally to respond a comment like that in a manner that wouldn't be rude in some way.
Well, I am really not as interested in relitigating her argument as I am in getting to the second part, but I will say that I interpreted her statements in a more charitable way, I am assuming closer to the way they were intended, and you seem to be interpreting them in the least charitable way possible. Like you can't really believe that you think she posited that walking to the mailbox is exactly the same as being in the middle of a school shooting? Her point, the way I read it, was that she has a real-life concern with this issue that comes up in her day to day consciousness in situations as often as walking in the dark. It was illustrating the relevance.
If a woman was raped, and reported it, and was dragged through the mud and had her sexual history trotted out and called a whore and worse for it, wouldn't it be fair to say that she could be affected by women casually being called whore online MORE than I would by some POS questioning the holocaust? And again, why the **** would we even put that up as a litmus test to begin with?
And further, I really should be more concerned with my daughter getting raped at school than her being caught in a school shooting, statistically. That's just a fact. The extrapolation of that is NOT that sandy hook truthers are no big deal.
Anyway, whatever man. Maybe I am wrong and she really is downplaying the Holocaust and school shootings comparing them to the least destructive elements of sexism, or maybe the reverse is true. They are not even arguing about it anymore so I sure am not interested.
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As for the rest of your post, I completely agree that all of us say and do sexist things often without even realizing it. I don't really know how to address this aside from trying to be more aware and calling it out as it happens, but I welcome any discussion on how to progress and improve as a group. The language that we use is certainly an important start.
Slightly off topic, and I hope it's not insensitive to conflate sexism and racism, but this article from today touches on a lot of the themes that you are alluding to.
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en...-utah-jazz-nba
The language we use is a place to start for sure, but I am interested in framing also, not just behavior. Some of this is just being more aware. It is super ****ing ingrained in me, and we should talk about it openly, not just when we need to correct things that we do. Like for example: It is really crazy how much gender roles are just thrust on little babies. My kids were very clear on boy and girl toys waaaaaay too young and I don't even know how. I have been actively trying to balance that by communicating to my daughter that women can do anything men can do and anything they want. It is ****ing strange just how much that needs to happen. Anyway, in that vein, I was showing her some AOC tweets the other day, and explaining how AOC put her mind to making a change in the world with the NGD and she is doing it. Then I told her she could be like AOC too. Her response? "So can brother!"
So here I am trying to combat this **** and I didn't even realize I am STILL perpetuating an idea that AOC should be a hero to my little girl and didn't consider my little boy. Like, WTF?