An interesting follow up by the writer behind the No It’s Not Your Opinion. You’re Just Wrong article that went around last week.
I merely have an anecdotal comment: so many times in my life when I've lived with male housemates, the question of setting up a router or troubleshooting wireless issues would come up, and their default response was that I didn't know what I was talking about, because I was female. Without thinking, without being aware of what they were doing, it was their default response, dismissive of anything I had to say. Going to Best Buy, as well as auto repair shops, is also fun when you're a technologically competent woman. Never mind the times I've offered to help with electrical, house repair problems. And people of both genders being so shocked when they see me carrying something heavy without asking for help. And yes, I can replace the big bottle of water on the office water dispenser all on my own.
I am also SHOCKED (and also amused) that people denying the correlation of type of criticism with whether or not the criticism involved misgendering are instead arguing that it is lies because there is criticism in general from both people who misgendered and who didn't. Which isn't what the author said.
There are two things happening here. 1) People are "correcting" him about conservative talking points. 2) People mistook him for a woman. How are these connected? Do all the posts that criticize him think he's a woman and all the posts that are supportive realize he's a man? Would conservatives who don't believe in global warming refrain from commenting on it if they knew his proper gender? I kinda think this is fueled by confirmation bias.
You wrote: 2) People mistook him for a woman. How are these connected? The author is reporting on his observations. Indeed, he didn't provide the exact numbers, but they were sufficient enough to motivate him to write the article. It's a personal article, not a scientific study, so you are free to discount it. It seems from my reading of it that he has observed some data and he's attempting to draw some conclusions and reflect on them. He relates his personal observations to the study of what happens when low-skill male gamers react differently when faced with a more skilled female. What do you think of that study of gamers, aidrocsid? How would you explain the difference in behaviour towards more highly skilled gamers of different genders. Regarding your question: He said that NOT all the posts that criticized him thought he was a woman Regarding his mistake about water. We don't know the connection, if there is one, between people correcting him and large numbers of them assuming he's a woman. It seems like an interesting observation though and worthy of note, if we want to eventually be more aware as a culture of our treatment of people.1) People are "correcting" him about conservative talking points.
Do all the posts that criticize him think he's a woman and all the posts that are supportive realize he's a man?
Don’t get me wrong, plenty of folks called me an idiot without referring to me as female
Very few of them [Those in the legitimate know] assumed I was a woman like some of the commenters above did.
So some did - but very few of them.
If it's actually caused by them thinking he's a woman, then sure, we want to be more aware as a culture of our treatment of people. If we're just assuming that's the case when there's no indication that it is, though, that's not understanding anything, that's confirmation bias.
Or it could be that they just think he's wrong and a woman. My point is that we don't have any indication one way or the other and it's intellectually lazy and dishonest to just jump to the conclusion that verifies our narrative without ample evidence that we should. When we assume situations will fit our preconceived notions without evidence we're doing nothing to combat our own confirmation bias. If we care about honesty and accuracy we should try to disprove our assumptions, not prop them up.
From actually looking at the comment section, almost all the comments seem to be critical, and about equal refer to him as male or female, with no particularly obvious difference (most comments don't refer to his gender at all). I wouldn't say there is any particular evidence that the criticism is related to perceptions of his gender.
How do you still breath with your head buried so deeply in sand?
No I just dropped by to be condescending. Some discussions just aren't worth wasting any time on. :-)
Maybe. You are good at voicing opinions, but in this case I think you should be listening instead. Men aren't questioned or doubted as much as Women, and this is yet another example of this in action, so there isn't really any discussion to be had. It's well documented and backed up by research that this happens.
As a survivor of female on male domestic abuse, group-based homophobic and gender conformity related abuse, homelessness, physical and mental illness, and unnecessary pharmaceuticals, I don't have too much shut up and listen to my sexist narrative about sexism left in me. You may think men don't have to struggle with sexism, but my life has been a repeated reminder otherwise. Meanwhile there's always some wealthy cisgendered heterosexual college graduate with a perfectly functioning mind and body that feels the need to tell me how easy I've had it compared to women. Can you see why I wouldn't jump to automatically assuming a one-way misogynistic narrative with no supporting evidence?
No I do not think that sexism doesn't affect men. Pretty much not a single person in the entire world thinks this. Longer jail sentences for the same crime is a classic example of this in action. How men who are victims of domestic abuse are treated by people is another one. You and any of the people that talked to you about that stuff are doing it wrong if they are applying anything at an individual level. What is actually happening is on the population level. On average men are trusted / respected more than women are. This doesn't invalidate your experiences. Anyone trying to do that is flat out wrong.
I'd say that men are trusted and respected more than women when it comes to their ability to act on their own, but certainly not when they express that they need help or are in danger or pain. Women's agency is certainly generally less respected, but so is men's vulnerability. That said, just because we know women's agency is sometimes disregarded doesn't mean that we can carelessly make examples out of situations that don't seem to show that pattern at all. Yes, people are more likely to fail to take women seriously. It does not follow that people only criticized him because they mistook him for a woman.
Actually that's not the case, women are often less trusted then men when they say they are feeling pain. Source
