I notice a fairly common tactic for trying to change norms is to pretend that the norms aren't norms and then aggressively shame people for doing a normal thing.
This leads to a toxic atmosphere where people can't be secure in their words, social reality keeps being pulled out from under their feet.
When the normal thing marginalizes people, marginalized people are hurt. In recent years, they have started to defend themsves in force, the ks to unifying power of the internet.
The insecurity you observe is feeling of the erosion of privilege.
I think the disconnect is that the vast majority of people, regardless of gender, do not consider these things to be marginalizing anyone. Why you can't see that and why you want to patrol for everything that only superficially resembles that is puzzling. When the number of people who are complaining about these "normal" things is about 1 in 10,000, it should make you stop and think. Are you really an early adopter of significantly better social norms and a heroic defender of the chronically marginalized, people who are so downtrodden that 99% of them don't see or don't have the energy to complain along with you? Or, are you just the crackpot on the street with the sign saying, "The end is near," whom people walk more quickly just to get past?
Or perhaps the marginalization is felt now, but certainly once wasn't - it's an artificial, unnecessary and divisive perpective. But I can imagine that just like misheard song-lyrics it's something that people pick up on, and won't let go.
It's aggrevating, but it's a battle that may already have been lost.
You assume the parent is privileged (younger white male) for having an opinion that conflicts with your own?
Another point - educated white males are not your enemy. If you're looking for racists, sexists, etc - you need not seek them out by reading between the lines of comments here. There are people proudly spewing garbage you can speak out against (on their own forums and blogs). Why fight against your allies in this?
Here's the thing; I am technically from a "marginalised" group and yet I still often use what you'd call marginalising pronouns. I use them not to marginalise anyone, but because they're commonly used and there's no reason to not use them.
When I say "he", it's probably because I am a male so I default to "he", but that DOES NOT mean that I mean to "marginalise" women, in fact be free to substitute "she" in if you feel like it, it is sort of implied if you're a female and I am technically talking about all genders.
In reality, it's just faster to not watch every word your write for "inclusiveness" or "marginalisation", because I assume you're able to infer the inclusiveness from context.
If you're searching for offence, you WILL BE offended, even if no offence was meant by the original poster and by doing this you're actually marginalising the real problems marginalised groups face.
People aren't saying that you are trying to marginalise women and transgendered people. And if they are saying that you can safely call them idiots and ignore them.
What they are saying is that switching from "he" to "they" is simple and easy, and will make life better for many people. It's correct English, and has been in use since the 16th century, albeit with some push from prescriptivists.
You're right that in the face of things like rape statistics (women are far more likely to be raped by men) or domestic violence (women are far more likely to be killed by male partners) worrying about "he" vs "they" is a small thing.
> What they are saying is that switching from "he" to "they" is simple and easy
I get that and if I remember to use it, I will, but when I instinctively do not use it, because well, "he" still comes more naturally to me than "they", it should not be assumed that I am sexist, bigoted etc. because I made a particular choice of words that can be reasonably interpreted as not meant to explicitly exclude people, unless they're looking for it.
> will make life better for many people
It's true that it may make them feel better, if they're looking at every use of a gendered pronoun from a "it's sexist" perspective, but I'd argue that's unproductive and not really making their life any better in a meaningful way
> It's correct English
That's good, but that doesn't mean that it's "intuitive" English for everyone and they shouldn't feel bad for it.
- rape has largely been defined so that it is physically close to impossible for a woman to rape a man.
- The official numbers for IPV are very close and there is a strong reason to believe that female on male IPV is dramatically underreported (female on female IPV apparently has levels similar to male on female). The only statistic I could find for murder was murder-suicide.
Where should boundaries get drawn? And when should they change? In the past, gender and race were dividing lines for privilege. What about animals? Don't they have the right to not be murdered and be free? Are they not conscious pain feeling beings? Is it OK for me to constantly call everyone out on their meat eating murderous ways? Many people are offended when people talk about eating steak.
I absolutely agree. Being "PC compliant" is more about staying informed of what is considered, that moment, to be
proper language. As much as I would like to not offend
anyone, I find such extreme scrutiny of language to be
unnecessary and quite honestly, arbitrary. If one generally
does not encounter the "liberal elite" and say, one is not a
native speaker of a language, they can easily be misconstrued as being racist/sexist or as possessing any other undesirable traits.
Having grown up in a society where sexism/racism/casteism
is extremely blatant (in urban India), I sometimes find it hard to comprehend the utility of labelling people harshly
for what might be innocuous comments. I almost feel those energies must be spent in condemning the "real" racists/sexists, many of whom are still allowed to scream whatever offensive nonsense they please (I have seen many growing up). How do people
feel genuine outrage over harmless comments? Are we allowed
to ever call out on hypersensitivity?
Also, as a vegan, sometimes I do feel genuinely sad
when I see lots of meat being eaten and relished. I feel like giving my friends an explanation or at least attempt to convince them to cut down
on the meat-eating but I also realize it can be highly offensive and have never voiced my opinion.
There is thought that changing your password often might make passwords worse... Don't have a citation at the moment (phone) but, the tl;dr is that often changing means you're more likely to pick smaller passwords that are easier to construct, and to remember, making them weaker than something you'll commit to for a longer time.
If you wrote some software instead of talking, like Grace Hopper, Barbara Liskov and thousands of others, people would respect you automatically in this space.
Likely you did not understand that the clause starting with "like Grace Hopper [and] Barbara Liskov" applies to "wrote some software" not to "instead of talking". '10938101' is actively praising women who write code, and disrespecting those (of both sexes) who only talk. The attack is not directed at women, but at empty talk by non-practictioners.
Brigading forum threads and dog piling social media of people you have a perceived grievance with does not help 'marginalized' people. In fact your trying to marginalize and bully people.
Cry bully trolling and aimless power tripping under the banner of 'social justice' does not provide you any magic cover. I think most people can see thorough it this point and realize your only contribution is harassment and its destructive to communities like this one.
This leads to a toxic atmosphere where people can't be secure in their words, social reality keeps being pulled out from under their feet.