How to out oneself
Feb. 27th, 2009 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumOver in matociquala's journal she made a post about rock-climbing, which had a passing comment on how Criminal Minds had managed to deconstruct a bit of the male gaze in its most recent episode.
It was the passing comment which led to the amusements. Setsuled asked a reasonable question. Bear responded, and as is her wont (and right, and privilege) she teasedsetsuled about how easy it might have been to look it up.
In the course of the subsequent responses (to which I added a few words) it became plain the user was unclear on a few basic concepts (not all of which are things one would be expected to know; though some are ones which the engaged participant would be expected to delve into).
It also became plain the user has a very subtle form of male-privilege, one which might work fairly well in the general run of the world, but was doomed to end up in disaster in a place like Bear's journal.
The things about which he was unaware were all asked with a reasonableness that hid the nature of his exploitation of privilege. If the conversation hadn't kept going, his misogyny might have remained hidden.
It was an interesting unfolding (and you are abjured from wading in to make comments. The subject, insofar as he is concerned is closed. Make your own call on substantive addressing of the issue, but he, and his comments, are a done deal there. I don't want to re-open it. Not only am I not trying to make a dogpile, but the poor thing isn't able to respond. That would make it rude to Bear, and unfair to him; so do me the favor, ok? Thanks).
The initial comments weren't too bad. There was something bothersome about them, but they weren't offensive. Just a trifle privileged, and even that was subtle. One got the feelng he was well meaning, but not well-informed.
As time went on, he got more defensive, and more dismissive, and (qu'elle surprise) evinced more use of privilege. Then he tied the rope around his neck, with an inappropriate comment.
He could have pulled back from the edge. In fact he seemed to, but not quite. And then he jumped. He got pissy about people pointing out he was being, not just rough and tumble in debate, but rude.
As I said, it's an interesting case study in someone outing themselves; from nice guy, to "Nice Guy" to jerk, to asshole, to banned, all in one day.
matociquala's journal she made a post about rock-climbing, which had a passing comment on how Criminal Minds had managed to deconstruct a bit of the male gaze in its most recent episode.It was the passing comment which led to the amusements. Setsuled asked a reasonable question. Bear responded, and as is her wont (and right, and privilege) she teased
setsuled about how easy it might have been to look it up.In the course of the subsequent responses (to which I added a few words) it became plain the user was unclear on a few basic concepts (not all of which are things one would be expected to know; though some are ones which the engaged participant would be expected to delve into).
It also became plain the user has a very subtle form of male-privilege, one which might work fairly well in the general run of the world, but was doomed to end up in disaster in a place like Bear's journal.
The things about which he was unaware were all asked with a reasonableness that hid the nature of his exploitation of privilege. If the conversation hadn't kept going, his misogyny might have remained hidden.
It was an interesting unfolding (and you are abjured from wading in to make comments. The subject, insofar as he is concerned is closed. Make your own call on substantive addressing of the issue, but he, and his comments, are a done deal there. I don't want to re-open it. Not only am I not trying to make a dogpile, but the poor thing isn't able to respond. That would make it rude to Bear, and unfair to him; so do me the favor, ok? Thanks).
The initial comments weren't too bad. There was something bothersome about them, but they weren't offensive. Just a trifle privileged, and even that was subtle. One got the feelng he was well meaning, but not well-informed.
As time went on, he got more defensive, and more dismissive, and (qu'elle surprise) evinced more use of privilege. Then he tied the rope around his neck, with an inappropriate comment.
He could have pulled back from the edge. In fact he seemed to, but not quite. And then he jumped. He got pissy about people pointing out he was being, not just rough and tumble in debate, but rude.
As I said, it's an interesting case study in someone outing themselves; from nice guy, to "Nice Guy" to jerk, to asshole, to banned, all in one day.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-28 01:18 am (UTC)Really. Wow, so you read minds now, do you? Because that thought isn't borne out by anything he said that I've read so far, certainly not what he said directly pertaining to it.
Oh, and by the way, how exactly is he exemplifying male privilege?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-28 06:13 pm (UTC)I may have based my statement on what Rex Stout had Nero Wolf call, "knowledge based on experience," from other people who did similar things in discussion/debate. But if I you won't allow me to do that, unless I can read minds, then I have to do things like believe Bush and Cheney when they tell me they were trying to keep me safe from terrorists.
Because I've seen this pattern of behavior before. Someone asks for something to be defined (say torture) and then proceeds to try to tell me how my understanding of it is wrong. That torture, as a definition, doesn't really cover the things I mean. Or that things I don't define as torture somehow fall under the rubric, and so my definition is completely false.
As to the last, no, maybe he's not using male privilege, and he's just an asshole. Maybe the whole, "ride you like a horse," and then be offended because the person he said that too took offense was,"too sensitive" is just a function of some other aspect of him, and his upbringing, and he's just a run of the mill asshole; who happens to be male. Maybe his assholishness is because his common sense makes him more clued-in on the world, and how to deal with others than the rest of us.
But, since I do think there is such a thing as privilege, I can choose to think it's a large part of his problem. Be that a more generous read on his behavior, or not, it's the one I took.
I can also go now, and look at his version of events (and no, I don't pretend this is relevant to what I thought yesterday. It's just more evidence for it now). He thinks we were engaging in "hive-mind" responses to "our leader" being attacked.
None of what happened had anything to do with him. It was all about how we didn't read what he meant to say properly, how we needed someone with more patience than he hadto make it plain what was wrong with the idea of male gaze, and why it really would be better to call it, "objectification."
Which isn't so far off the mark of the idea he meant to explode the theory. He doesn't seem to have had that in mind when he asked, but he says it was what he ended up trying to do.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-28 06:39 pm (UTC)Yep, and that's exactly the reaction those on the Bear side are having, too. So what kind of privilege are they exhibiting?