>I'm sorry you've received crap. Due to your gender or anything else. But understand that jumping into a discussion of sexism with "but that happens to me too!" is such a common problem that it's listed in the "Derailing for Dummies" guide: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/menu.html
This guide makes zero rational arguments for why those examples are derailment... It's completely rhetorical.
Intellectually, it's appropriate to discuss female/male oppression in the context of one another since the idea of patriarchy has been replaced with the idea of kyriarchy; A system where everyone oppresses/stratifies everyone else. It's a matrix of relationships that cannot be examined in isolation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyriarchy
>Women in the US haven't had the vote for even 100 years. Men and women didn't have equal college enrollment rates until circa 1990. I just don't buy the thesis that sexism is now suddenly extinct, especially in a male-dominated field.
Only ~10% of early Americans were eligible to vote. All white men weren't given the right to vote until the mid 19th century. A generation before women were granted the right.
Very few men benefited from a "patriarchal" social configuration. The fact that a small minority of white men had privilege doesn't negate the social costs externalized on the average man. The only realistic opportunities available to these men were war, working on a farm, working in a coal mine, or working in an industrial era factory. Having the "freedom" to be part of the workforce did not offer you the opportunities it does today...
Derailment is a purely rhetorical technique, so I'm not seeing the problem.
I agree that patriarchy is bad for pretty much everybody. But the rhetorical effect of "but what about the time a woman was mean to meeeee" isn't to raise awareness of power dynamics so that people see the real issue as patriarchy or kyriarchy and find action even more urgent. It's to devalue the given examples of sexist behavior so that the privileged person can avoid confronting their privilege.
No. I personally am calling that a common derailing tactic; I just linked to that as evidence that other people also see it as a problem. If you have some counter-evidence, feel free to present it.
As I explained elsewhere in this thread, most people don't intend to derail. What matters isn't the conscious intent of the speaker; it's the effect on the conversation.
That X is a legitimate observation doesn't mean that X is also a valid contribution at any point in any discussion. Watch politicians spin something on a TV show. They can make valid observations all day long that avoid, obfuscate, dodge, color, distract, mislead, and misinform.
If a privileged person jumps into a discussion about injustice in a way that changes the topic from the injustice under discussion to something more comfortable for them, that's derailing. They can do that using a valid observation, an invalid observation, a rhetorical device, or a jack-in-the-box.
Also, Mr. Brand New Anonymous Account: if you aren't going to own your words, expect me to stop responding shortly.
This guide makes zero rational arguments for why those examples are derailment... It's completely rhetorical.
Intellectually, it's appropriate to discuss female/male oppression in the context of one another since the idea of patriarchy has been replaced with the idea of kyriarchy; A system where everyone oppresses/stratifies everyone else. It's a matrix of relationships that cannot be examined in isolation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyriarchy
>Women in the US haven't had the vote for even 100 years. Men and women didn't have equal college enrollment rates until circa 1990. I just don't buy the thesis that sexism is now suddenly extinct, especially in a male-dominated field.
Only ~10% of early Americans were eligible to vote. All white men weren't given the right to vote until the mid 19th century. A generation before women were granted the right.
Very few men benefited from a "patriarchal" social configuration. The fact that a small minority of white men had privilege doesn't negate the social costs externalized on the average man. The only realistic opportunities available to these men were war, working on a farm, working in a coal mine, or working in an industrial era factory. Having the "freedom" to be part of the workforce did not offer you the opportunities it does today...