Jump to content

Scylla Rhiadra

Resident
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    20,777

  • Joined

  • Days Won

    194

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Scylla Rhiadra

  1. Scylla Rhiadra
    You can give me some credit, perhaps, for knowing my own grandmother well? Her attitudes were racist -- that was far from the only instance of it, and I experienced it a great deal firsthand too. On the other hand, to reiterate, she herself was a lovely, and very accepting woman. She didn't actively question the views she'd been brought up with. She just didn't let the interfere with her actual enjoyment of people.
  2. Scylla Rhiadra
    I can't speak for Krystina, but I have . . . and it's hopeless. Try as I might, I am still fabulously gorgeous. 😕
  3. Scylla Rhiadra
    I'm dropping this. Sigh all you want, Sid. Forums are built upon the principle of discussion, and the exchange of views. No one should expect that a view that generalizes about other people will go unchallenged. I certainly don't. If you can't handle someone critiquing your view, and, I'll again underline, taking pains to distinguish between a criticism of that view, and the person articulating it, then honestly I don't know why you're bothering with this place.
  4. Scylla Rhiadra
    Disagreeing with something you said, Sid, is not "insulting" you. If you don't want to be challenged on things that you say, don't post them. Surely I don't need to tell you that? You're Dutch, right? Suppose I had posted "The Dutch are mostly pretty stingy" -- an actual stereotype about the Dutch. You'd have simply accepted that I was expressing an opinion and not challenged it? This is NOT what you said initially. And not what I challenged. In fact, I said much the same thing before you did. Here are your first three posts, starting on page 3 of the thread, that directly address compliments and women. Your first mention of women being "trained" to expect compliments is on page 6, well after our back-and-forth had begun
  5. Scylla Rhiadra
    I don't think any woman professional is going to think you're "making this up." It's maybe marginally better in my profession, which is not quite so male-dominated -- but there is still a marked difference in how women academics and male ones are approached by students and non-academics. Men tend to be treated as "respected professionals," whereas there is a kind of slightly-unwanted assumption of "intimacy" with women (for instance, a greater likelihood of not being addressed as "Dr." or "Professor," or having one's first name used). It's changing, I think? But slooooooowly.
  6. Scylla Rhiadra
    YESSSSSS!!!!! 👏
  7. Scylla Rhiadra
    Yes, I know the news story. There is a somewhat similar case of a trans woman state representative being, first, "not recognized" by the speaker of the house, and then actually refused entry -- because she had opposed an anti-trans bill. We need discussion. People should be able to articulate their views -- even offensive ones. And they should be compelled to defend those views if challenged. That's how change occurs: through engagement and interaction and discussion. Not silencing.
  8. Scylla Rhiadra
    Yes, but I defy you to find a place where I "insulted" anyone. I questioned a particular idea that was articulated. The silliness is being unable to engage in an actual conversation about ideas without taking disagreement as a personal attack.
  9. Scylla Rhiadra
    Just quoting for truth.
  10. Scylla Rhiadra
    Yes, if only people weren't always so judgmental about other posters, and critici . . . Oh. Wait.
  11. Scylla Rhiadra
    🙄
  12. Scylla Rhiadra
    These all seem pretty reasonable -- but I'm not clear on the intended function of such a system. Do you think that anyone who has been in SL for more than a month or so is going to continue to be interested in "leveling up" by, say, walking 50k metres? Do you think that's going to be perceived as an accomplishment by most long-term residents? What is achieved by this? What "happens" if I level up?
  13. Scylla Rhiadra
    I think people are nice. I wouldn't be a bleeding heart leftie progressive if I didn't think we were capable of being better than we are, because we are essentially good, and recognize the benefits of caring about others, as well as possessing a moral compass. Dogs, as much as I love them, don't have a sense of "right" and "wrong." Only humans do. And that makes us incredibly special. Uncle Joe probably is a very nice man. He has just inherited, and accepted without thinking, certain really toxic attitudes. And those are distorting who he is, and how he acts. They are making a naturally "nice" man be not-very-nice in certain contexts. My baba -- my Ukrainian grandmother -- emigrated from the "old country" when she was in her early 20s; her attitudes were already pretty clearly formed when she arrived in Canada. And some of those attitudes were horrific and appalling. She once told my dad not to grow a beard because "it made him look like a Jew." Her ideas were racist AF. But she was also a lovely and accepting woman. My father's best friend was of Chinese descent. My baba had all sorts of repellent ideas about the Chinese -- but she loved my dad's best friend, and would insist that he bring him over regularly so that she could make dinner for him and enjoy his company. People, mostly, are good. They want to be nice. It's the ideas that we accept unthinkingly that generally make us otherwise.
  14. Scylla Rhiadra
    Well, "toleration" is a tricky subject. I generally try to be tolerant of people . . . because we are moving towards a scary place when you decide that this kind of person "doesn't belong" or "can't be tolerated." And I am certainly "tolerant" of Sid; in fact, I've gone out of my way in this discussion to underline that I like Sid. I still like Sid. But there are some ideas that I frankly refuse to tolerate or, in some cases, even debate. I am not tolerant of views such as "X ethnic group is inferior" or "gays are groomers" (an oldie, but a goody, newly resurfaced!), or "women are all like this," or "trans identities are nonsense." I make no apology for that kind of "intolerance." I'm not going to "tolerate" intolerance, because it tends to work to rob those it attacks of a voice or legitimacy. I am not going to "debate" basic human rights, or the literal right of someone to exist as they know they are, because that just legitimates hate and intolerance. Yeah, we're back again at Popper's Paradox of Tolerance. So, I'm going to continue to like Sid. But I am not going to "tolerate" an attitude or belief that, applied with a broad and indiscriminate brush as his is, stereotypes and falsifies me as a woman. Had Sid said "Most of the women I've known . . ." rather than "[all, implied] women tend . . .," we'd be having a different discussion, and I'd be urging Sid to broaden his set of acquaintances.
  15. Scylla Rhiadra
    No, undoubtedly not. In fact, other than simply repeating his claim, Sid hasn't actually responded to anything I said anyway. On the other hand, I have no intention of letting outright sexism go unchallenged. And I don't care if it is from Sid: my objections are not to him, but to the content of his posts. However, I think, given the fact that Sid has retired from the fray, that we can probably move on. Sid has made his point, and I and others have made ours.
  16. Scylla Rhiadra
    You. Just. Did. Adding "I think" before an obnoxious generalization that you are applying wholesale to all women doesn't make it less obnoxious.
  17. Scylla Rhiadra
    Oh, I think about it all the time, Sid. I'd have thought my rather overly-long responses might make that clear? And I don't dislike "thinking about it" -- I dislike that it's an issue that I still, in 2023, have to wrestle with. You're right. It kinda is . . . because I'm a woman, and being subjected to your generalization. Which is why I am arguing with you about it. Making a broad, sweeping, and negative generalization about 50% of the population, and then doubling down on it when called on it, offended people?!?! No, really? How can you not "intend" to offend people when you have consciously and deliberately insulted them, Sid. And then defended the insult?
  18. Scylla Rhiadra
  19. Scylla Rhiadra
    Sure, but the really important difference is that I can now buy mine with my own credit card. Before the mid-70s (1974 in the US, and 1975 in the UK), I wouldn't even have been allowed to own one! Ain't progress grand?
  20. Scylla Rhiadra
    Right. This is a generalization . . . sort of the same as "blacks be like . . ." or, "Well, you know how the gays are . . ." or "after all, he is Jewish . . ." Two quick observations. The first is that women and men have been subjected to social conditioning. And for literal millennia, that conditioning has been about objectifying women and turning them into passive objects of admiration. Women "succeeded" when they kept the house relatively well organized, produced and raised children, and functioned as decorative trophies for their husbands. We've come a long way, baby, as they used to say during what Love calls the "women's liberation" movement, but there are residual effects of that remaining among those who've resisted or been unable to grasp change. And that includes both some women who may still unfortunately see themselves as adornments for men, and some men who seem to be unable to grasp that most women now possess different expectations and roles for themselves. I'd like to submit that you seem to fall into that latter category, Sid. I and most women no more expect compliments than men do. Maybe you need move on from the 50s and 60s, and become a bit more attuned to modern gender relations? My second observation is about generalizations such as yours. We all naturally tend to use generalizations: they are a heuristic that helps us to organize our experience of the world around us. And they can be useful. But the moment you start applying generalizations in an uncritical way, you're no longer using it; it is using you. It's called "critical thinking," Sid, and it's what we use to recognize the difference between arbitrary categories we've inherited or apply, and the actual concrete reality of those with whom we engage. And now I'm going to end with a back-handed compliment! You're better than this Sid. You really are. Critical. Thinking. I know you're capable of it: I've seen it from you before. Where'd it go?
  21. Scylla Rhiadra
    Oh pish posh. No. Homophobic, racist, or sexist jokes aren't "funny" because they're "true," or say something that has "some truth in it." They're funny because they reinforce prevailing homophobic, racist, or sexist attitudes and stereotypes. And they perpetuate those attitudes through shared, and generally rather unpleasant, laughter. A joke about women not taking compliments well tells one nothing about women. But it can tell me a great deal about the joker-teller, or their intended audience.
  22. Scylla Rhiadra
    Bought a new hair. Thought I looked freakin' hawt. Will probably plaster it everywhere I can.
  23. Scylla Rhiadra
    ETA: Oh nvm. I can't get TikTok to link the one I wanted. Trying again:
  24. Scylla Rhiadra
    It's kind of amazing that Youngman did! (Apparently, actually, he and his wife had a very close and loving relationship, so that is nice!) Oh yes. To be clear, I'm very fond of Sid, and my comments are at least half in jest. (As I am pretty sure are his!)
  25. Scylla Rhiadra
    In every possible sense!
×
×
  • Create New...