Gormongous

The psychic assault that is having someone with whom you've recently had a pleasant interaction on Facebook unfriend you without comment is never something to which I've gotten used. I hadn't even made a status update between our brief conversation about Lady Stoneheart and him unfriending me today! There was no offense to give!

Oh man, just brought over One Night Ultimate Werewolf over to a friend's fancy dinner part full of non-gamers and it blew the lid off the night. Any respect in which it is not the perfect hidden-role game is made up for by a session taking ten minutes, tops.

It was great to hear Jake say something like "Grand Admiral Thrawn, raid wizard" with no sense of shame. What a cast!

None of the sequel movies are really good. The writers double down on the conviction that the weirdness of the graboids is what keeps people coming back, so they add more and more dumb stuff about how they breed and evolve, which isn't helped by the constantly shifting cast of people they can get to come back for each sequel. There're no real constants between the movies besides the concept of things underground, the poorly-realized American West setting, and the title.

I know this! You find a shirt of human skin in the basement of a crazed tanner, but you need to be evil to wear it, and for it to be made into armor, you need the blood of a silver dragon, one of the most unequivocally good creatures in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. It's a huge pain of a quest, because you have to actually read a few of the in-universe texts to know what to say to the tanner's contact, plus the silver dragon fight is one of the hardest in the game, and then the contact attacks you after giving you the armor. The developers really didn't want that piece of content to be seen as viable for serious play.

I've been saying, the entire time that when one woman says something is sexist, you listen to her about why it's sexist. When another woman says something else is sexist, you listen to her about why it's sexist. You continue to do this, having conversations with different women about different sexist words and acts that they have experienced, and eventually you understand sexism a little better, although never so well that you can stop having those conversations with women. That is a big part of how I try to be a feminist in my daily life. If you think I or anyone else meant that you should literally ask, "Is this sexist?" to one woman, have her say yes or no, and never talk to anyone else about it again, then that explains a lot about how this misunderstanding happened. Hopefully we can move on from it and stop derailing the conversation about gross exploitation of female workers.

Yeah, seriously. Blah blah, the unilaterally intimate nature of internet celebrity. Who's got a new plan to get Olly into Mington?

Problem Machine, I know you feel you've been misconstrued through this entire conversation, but understand the same about us, now that you're arguing against our explicit statements to the implications of those statements. Like I've said before, I feel that, in practical day-to-day terms dictating human interaction, something that "feels sexist" is something that is sexist. You may talk about how, by believing so, I am abandoning reason and understanding, but I think that I have a reasonably adequate understanding of sexism just by having conversations with women about why they feel something is sexist. Those conversations, had over several years, have been amalgamated into a mental model of sexism, not one that is static and absolute, but constantly growing and changing, because I keep having these conversations with women, because I have made it my rule to try always to believe them, at least giving them the benefit of the doubt, when they say that they feel something is sexist. If I were to debate them actively on their feelings of sexism, as opposed to just listening to them actively, I think my understanding would be smaller and weaker, because they would have less space to talk now and less willingness to talk in the future. In short, I hear what you're saying, PM, but I have absolutely no lived proof for the death of conversation that you say is a direct and inevitable result of a credulous stance towards women and sexism. Conversations can be and are had, but women and their experiences should always direct them.

Yeah, I'd love a game with an AI parser that procedurally misinterpreted and extrapolated my orders, but most attempts to recreate the fog of war by limiting number of interactions get boiled down to overcomplicated versions of card games.

All of that's fair, although it does kinda presuppose a world where you can't just google what you said or did plus the word "feminist" and find out what it was that was wrong about it. I have never said that there can't be a cultural consensus, and if I did I was in error, because obviously there is and is going to be, but I will say that, in day to day interactions, which is where most instances of sexism occur, we need to give priority to the female experience always, except in extremely specific exceptions that border on concern trolling to bring up. I know that it serves a useful purpose for some, but overwhelmingly in my experience, the perceived "cultural consensus" on sexism is used by men to protect or excuse themselves from accusations of sexism, not to educate themselves when individual women fail to do so. That is why I am so vocal about the supremacy of the subjective experience of sexism, because it's important to reiterate in matters of oppression that the only tenable arbiter is the experience of the victim. And, through no fault of anyone but myself, this thread has finally made writing bad copy for our library's philosophy subject guide more attractive than goofing off on the internet, so I'm going to excuse myself, too. I hope I've done some good, at least. I know we're all good people here.

Fuuuck, Twig. No, you're right. I'm just tired and frustrated. I hate this thread, I know it's holy work, but it still stresses me the fuck out to post in it because I don't know shit and am just trying to be the best ally I can be. That said: What shared reality is there besides the galaxy of women's experiences of sexism? The idea that there is some unknown, almost unknowable frontier of sexism that men and women need to work together to explore, understand, and document is, quite frankly, baffling to me. Sexism is already well understood by the many feminist scholars out there, some of whom have been linked before and will be linked again in this thread. Saying that the most pressing concern for us, as people living day to day with sexism, is to think reasonably about it, rather than to exert a muscular empathy on its victims, is what seems insulting to me. If it were possible to attack society itself, to break down oppressive structures directly, then I'd agree with you, but it's not possible. We can only affect society through its constituent parts. Sexism is combated by confronting sexist actions person-to-person, because it's people who commit them in the end, however society informs them. And I really don't know what you're saying about apologies. I feel like you're reading me pretty uncharitably to say that what are demanded from the perpetrator of a sexist act is an empty apology. Rather, I hope they would say, "I'm sorry. I didn't know that was sexist. What did I do and how can I not do it again?" That, in my opinion, which is of course only my opinion, does much more to end sexism, if ever a thing could really be "ended" in full, than all the hand-wringing we've been doing about objective definitions of sexism. Basically, at the end of the day, I'm asking you this: if a woman tells you that you did something sexist, what is your response? If your response is going to be an apology, empathy, and an effort to learn, then I'm content to say we agree, because I really don't care about formulating any abstract theories of sexism for day-to-day application. It is not useful to me as a man and I'm not sure it would be useful to most women. If it's useful to you, if it makes you a better ally of women and queers, then go for it, so long as it doesn't lead you to silence or marginalize.

... I don't understand. Did I misspell something? I can't tell.

You seen the anime of SoreMachi? It's probably the Shaft thing I like best after Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei. Very weird, very surreal, very Shinbou. The only manga I'm really reading, really ever reading, is Berserk, the release schedule of which is perfect for me, because I forget about it for months at a time, come back, and having almost an entire volume waiting for me. That said, I'm much more frightened of Muira dying than George R.R. Martin.

Nooo, don't make me do this all by myself!

I think that the general concept of sexism as "the systemic societal oppression of women" and the specific concept of sexism as "words or actions that make a woman feel oppressed" can coexist peacefully, but if you're going to go to absolutes, then I'd say the former is one the one that absolves blame, that inhibits action, that removes agency, at least without the latter to inform it. Like I've said earlier in this thread, we can look to racism. Vanishingly few people I know identify as racist and a lot of them say racism is therefore dead, because they're looking at it from a broad perspective that sees the collective absence of individual intent as the absence of racism itself. Now, hopefully we here all know that racism is fully possible from well-intentioned people because of the historical framework in which we operate, and that the same is true for sexism. With that in mind, how can you divorce a given person from their often-sexist actions without the supremacy of a subjective model? Without the ability of the victim to speak authoritatively about her own victimhood, how can any person committing a well-intentioned but sexist act avoid blaming either the victim or society rather than themselves? And like hell, there's nothing actionable about feelings. If person A thinks person B did something sexist (note the distinction, which I am always careful to make, between doing something sexist and being sexist) then there is something very specific and very useful that person B can do: they can apologize. They can put aside whatever preconceptions they hold about their own actions and apologize for committing what person A, almost certainly a woman, believed to be a sexist act. That's where the conversation goes. It doesn't end with the accusation, it goes to a place of healing and learning. Giving anyone the formalistic right to tell anyone else, "You're wrong, that isn't sexist," is what ends the conversation. Ugh. It's always great to read the first like of an article and realize immediately that my faith in the goodness of humankind is going to be under siege for a little while. Thanks for posting it, Sarah.

I guess I don't really understand the distinction you're making here between feeling and understanding. It sounds a little bit like you're privileging reason over emotion, which is a false dichotomy historically used to marginalize the experience of women, but I'm sure I'm wrong there. Can you spare a little more time and say what exactly you're talking about in practical terms, beyond just trusting what women have to say about the experience of sexism in a way that does not insert a male arbiter into the process? Can you give specific examples of how systemic understanding differs from emotional experience, besides presumably being more thorough?

Like I said before, there are many kinds of ridiculous, theoretical, never-going-to-actually-happen that makes "let the victim decide if they are a victim" sound like a more shaky proposition than it actually is. That said: Yes, an automated response can be sexist. It is created by a human being and exists in a sexist society, so it will have sexist preconceptions built into it. There's no way it can't. There are actually many, many instances of supposedly "impartial" bureaucracies committing sexist acts against women, if only because they are mostly created and staffed by men who tailor their assumptions to what they know as men. We don't consider theft that is not recognized by the victim as theft to be theft. It's true that oftentimes, as in cases of domestic abuse, the most difficult thing is getting a victim to recognize that they are being abused, but that is a problem of education, not of definition. It is not a feminist act to compel a woman against her will for any reason, even to denounce her own oppression. Misandry doesn't exist. There is no systemic oppression of men going on anywhere, therefore there is no rational basis for male feelings of marginalization or brutalization by society. Someone can feel that they are the victims of oppression by space aliens too, but it would be just as insulting to equate those feelings, however traumatizing to their originator, with the very real experience of people of color and women. I'm not saying that everyone's feelings of oppression and persecution are always valid, just that those of oppressed and persecuted populations are to a much greater degree. If that seems somehow unfair, well... When you say, "Don't get drunk, it's bad for you," it means a very different thing to a woman than to a man. History has made sure of that. In the same way, if you tell a white guy, "Be nice to cops," it means a very different thing than telling a black guy that. I firmly believe that people should be held responsible for the historical implications of their words, just like you have to be careful about bringing up Chuck-E-Cheese to a friend of yours who had the really bad trip that one time. Above all, feminism is about absolute freedom of self-determination. As much as those "anti-feminists" get my goat for their glib and ugly denials, it is my belief that, in a perfect feminist society, they ought to have the right to deny the long history of female oppression and persecution. Likewise, if a women sincerely does not believe she is the victim of what is obviously to me a sexist act, I will respect her choice to believe that. It's hard, that's true, but feminism should not deal in absolutes, besides said freedom of self-determination. Also, and I don't mean anything damning or dismissive by this, but if you don't trust a woman to be able to tell you honestly whether something's sexist, you might want to examine what things have led you to that lack of trust. EDIT: Yeah, some of what SBM said, too. If someone is saying something that makes absolutely no sense no matter how much muscular empathy you exert on their words, then of course you have to mistrust it. No one's asking you to believe everything. The point here is to build a culture where the victim is always trusted by default, no matter what anyone's initial instincts are.

If you're using the DSMfix, then yes.

You could just as easily say that the recent death of Eric Garner is due to police brutality, the brunt of which just happens to fall overwhelmingly on people of color, and therefore it's incorrect to talk about fatal beatings as an issue of racism, but I think we have room for a multiplicity of causes, both here and with mansplaining. Men are more confident (or rather, less inclined to heed interpersonal cues) when speaking and they're more confident (etc, etc) when speaking to women (who, as Argobot and others have said, experience societal pressure to defer). Sadly, that's sexist, whether or not they intend it to be. If the actions someone takes reflect, reinforce, and benefit from a sexist society, then they are sexist, whatever the character and beliefs of that person. I don't know, I'm getting increasingly tired of the idea that ending sexism and racism and whatever is simply a matter of building a republic of good intentions.

Like most things feminism fights against, "mansplaining" is something that can happen to men but overwhelmingly and frequently happens to women. Here is a good primer on the evidence for it.

The Silent Hill Pyramid Head noise that woke Chris up repeatedly, right? I can remember Nick babooing in fear, but I can't remember what episode, except it was around the thirties, maybe?

That's an outdated version of DSMFix, which patch 1.0.2.0 broke. The creator's disappeared, but a fan made a hack, which can be found here. Just install it using the original instructions.

I'm sorry, SAM. I've definitely had days at a job where everything goes pear-shaped and it's all on me. You seem to be really good at your job, so I know it's shitty and stressful now, but a month or so down the road, you'll know you did a great job and were an asset to your workplace. Hopefully, other people there will see you and think the same, too.

Two entirely unrelated thoughts, one serious and one not so much: I think I'm done with people using hypocrisy as the only way they refute something with which they disagree. It's a blatant ad hominem but no one seems to like admitting it. So what if I'm a hypocrite? It doesn't make what I say incorrect. Why are males and females considered opposites? I know it comes from the biases of ancient philosophy, but it doesn't make sense under even cursory consideration, because there are intersex individuals and surely opposites couldn't coexist in the same body. Why isn't the opposite of a male a mannequin?

Careful, she might blow her top.