Assembled in the USA from 100% Chinese parts.

Yeah, I think this is gendered behavior, or at least presents differently to different genders, as I rarely get this particular kind of crap, but a disproportionate number of female friends seem to get it often.

From:

browngirl.livejournal.com

I was just about to say something like this.*nod*

(deleted comment)

From:

browngirl.livejournal.com

Thank you. I'm kind of fond of the Minoans. :)

From:

achinhibitor.livejournal.com

There are a aspects of this issue that I can see that haven't been talked about.

Some of it is how one cuts off a disturbing conversation. There seem to be conventions for this, and the conventions vary strongly by circumstance. In a somewhat related case, a woman friend was studying tae kwan do (sp?) and suffering psychologically at the dojo. As far as I could figure out, when she was pushed beyond her physical limits (which seemed to be a regular part of training), her reflex was to ask for mercy (so to speak), which was the one thing that couldn't be tolerated in that culture. She never seemed to decode the correct way to ask her teachers to back off.

Some of it is the assumptions about what the point of the conversation is. Is the goal to include everyone? Then if a topic makes people uncomfortable, we suppress the topic. OTOH, if we have to actually assess an issue, it's more effective if people who can't cope with the topic withdraw. Or if there is a power struggle going on and the goal is to vote half the group off the island, we might seek out a topic that a substantial minority finds intolerable, so as to force them to withdraw. There are also complex passive-aggressive versions of these, where one uses the rules to control some aspect of the situation...

And what one expects from a conversation will strikingly modify how you perceive the same set of facts, as well as how you respond. E.g., if you don't expect the people you deal with to be caring, there are a lot of things that won't bother you.

The weirdest thing that I see is how "gendered" this issue is. Of the white people on my friends list (almost all of it, I admit) who have mentioned RaceFail, women are in the majority by something like six-to-one. I mean I was in a stereotypically male field in graduate school (math.) at a male-dominated school (MIT), and the sex ratio there was only two-to-one. What gives?

From:

The weirdest thing that I see is how "gendered" this issue is.

Why is that weird?

(Note that I have no idea what RaceFail is and how it relates to this post.)

From:

achinhibitor.livejournal.com

There is at least one long-running heated discussion about people of color in fandom, how many of them there are, why the feel excluded, etc. One of the issues involved is the idea that if something would make someone uncomfortable, it should not be said -- which resembles the start of this thread. About 5 white women on my f-list have written about RaceFail and no men, unless I count your post, which evidently wasn't actually referring to it.

As for "gendered", I don't recall discussions being that lopsided in sex-ratio of participants.

From:

Huh.

Not having any idea about the discussion in question, I have to say that it sounds like a very different situation from the one I was thinking of when I posted. By and large, the problem I'm referring to is when someone won't shut up about some subject after they've been asked not to bring it up, repeatedly and in various ways.

When you say that you don't recall discussions being that lopsided in sex-ratio, do you mean discussions in general or some subset of them in particular?

From:

lyonesse.livejournal.com

that's when it's time to invoke the conversational safeword.

From:

Clearly this is what my office dynamic is lacking. No, seriously, it is. We'll find a cute office jargon name for it.

From:

lyonesse.livejournal.com

i believe you. i hope your office can implement it! :)

From:

holmes-iv.livejournal.com

I think it's that they are born sinful into a fallen world. Either that, or some combination of what you said. :-/

From:

Pardon me, but you wouldn't be named for a hard-ass Calvinist theologian, would you?

From:

holmes-iv.livejournal.com

No idea what you're talking about. :-P

From:

lillibet.livejournal.com

This isn't about dinner, is it?

From:

Certainly not. :)

At least, not on my end.

From:

lillibet.livejournal.com

Whew! :D

(deleted comment)

From:

rmd.livejournal.com

well, if you'd just UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M SAYING, and listen to me, you'd see that i'm being totally reasonable and the way for you to get over these stupid issues is to just BE RATIONAL about it like me.

From:

drwex

I have NO idea what you mean.

From:

whitebird.livejournal.com

That's because talking to you is like talking to a BRICK WALL!

From:

rdansky.livejournal.com

The cynic in me suggests that many of the people who relentlessly blunder into that territory are primarily concerned with being able to tell themselves that they're actively helping, which they would not be able to do if they took the hint and left the topic alone. The fact that this is not, in fact, helping the person in question is irrelevant.

The generous part of my nature suggests that there are a great many well-meaning people who, for whatever reason, have absolutely no social skills and thus never notice the signs reading "Here Be Dragons". It's a problem they can hopefully help solve, and the associated emotional content quite literally never registers.

From:

apintrix.livejournal.com

I had a roommate who once said to me in anger, "I'm tired of tiptoeing around your issues."

And you know, it *wasn't* nice, but she was right. In the end, I'm glad she said it to me.

That's really all I have to say about this, I guess. I can see both sides, and so generalizing on this point seems dangerous. Some people are crazy inconsiderate. Some people have unreasonable issues.

From:

chris-warrior.livejournal.com

that last line pretty much sums it up.

From:

bwilder.livejournal.com

Yeah, I think it's binary: It's either oblivion or the belief that one can disarm landmines.

From:

muffyjo

Or a third vector which is that they don't have anything invested in the outcome either way.

From: (Anonymous)

I have had multiple times in my life had conversations where people were . . . cheerfully talking about how sexual abuse of children, or issues surrounding it, was not a particular big deal, and they treated it the revelation that the conversation was really upsetting me because I am a sexual abuse "survivor" was some totally unanticipatable "what are the odds" kind of fact.

In one of those cases, the guy got. . . not exactly backed up by his supervisor but, defended by him, and it was my behavior that was treated as the problem. But that was a very weird situation because the guy in question really did have major, visible social issues, and I think his supervisor felt protective. The other, though, was with alpha delts, female and male.

I feel, for the record, that the deliberate poking tends to be gendered, but the obliviousness, not necessarily.

From:

Yah.

To be clear, I agree that both genders exhibit the behavior, but what I believe is gendered is who they exhibit it to. A man can much more easily shut down conversation he's uncomfortable with, even from a supervisor, so they don't see the behavior as often or for as long.

From:

Ah, this is why I am going to write a self-help book for women about how to stand up for themselves. I've learned that "I really just don't want to talk about that" is remarkably effective.

From:

You should definitely do that.

From:

I am slowly, slowly, learning that I _can_ say "I don't want to talk about that right now, thank you," with the warmness of manner that I value so much. I'm also learning that going ahead and doing that enables me to keep being the warm and personable kind of gal I like being, so ultimately I win for saying when I don't want to talk about something.

From:

Eeexactly. I find that when I am strict with my kids from day one and they know the boundaries and know they are inflexible, it actually leaves me more room to be warm and motherly with them outside of class stuff.

From:

chaiya.livejournal.com

For some reason, I spent years thinking that people wouldn't accept "I don't want to discuss this further" as a valid sentence.

A couple of years ago, I came across someone who said "Let's talk about something else!" in a joking manner, and people both laughed and changed the topic. I've been using that sentence ever since.

From:

I had a friend in college who always said "I like ice cream! Chocolate is my favorite!" whenever a conversation became too awkward. It worked remarkably well.

From:

hammercock.livejournal.com

they treated it the revelation that the conversation was really upsetting me because I am a sexual abuse "survivor" was some totally unanticipatable "what are the odds" kind of fact.

Gah, this kind of thing makes me so angry. I happen to know that I know quite a few people who have experienced sexual trauma of various kinds, and it's not as if the stats aren't out there that show that a frighteningly large percentage of the population are survivors. One doesn't have to know that one knows any survivors to know that it's probable that one actually knows several.

From:

muffyjo

When I was 6 years old I was told not to bring up an incredibly sensitive topic in front of an specific adult. My curiosity got the better of me (I was 6, let's be fair) because being in on the secret was what I really wanted. I wanted so badly to be on the "in" of the knowledge rather than being shut out. The drama that ensued was traumatic and taught me that I'm just not that interested but I think that's a lesson rarely learned.

For the people who are generally socially aware who blunder in this fashion, I would offer (based on that experience) that wanting to be "in" on the deliciously sensitive and therefore clearly center-of-drama important item is a bit of an ego boost. That consciously or unconsciously they want the ego boost of being "in the know" and are acting accordingly without regard to the train wreck occurring in their wake.

That's certainly one possibility. And for that case, even a social safeword would probably not help unless someone could pull them aside and point out it was for their benefit as well as the benefit of the people around them.

As for the male/female confrontation patterns of this (and therefore victimization) I think that it's probably fair to say that this happens equally across both genders if you account for the statistical inequality already engendered in the confrontational issue.

Edited Date: 2009-03-05 03:01 pm (UTC)

From:

As for the male/female confrontation patterns of this (and therefore victimization) I think that it's probably fair to say that this happens equally across both genders if you account for the statistical inequality already engendered in the confrontational issue.

As I said above, I agree that the behavior is exhibited by both genders, and probably in relatively similar proportions. What's different is the degree to which they have to put up with it, as men are much better equipped by both nature and nurture to shut that conversation down.

From:

dpolicar

Nothing new to add to the above... sometimes it's cluelessness, sometimes it's compulsive sore-tooth-probing, sometimes it's fascination with the issue, sometimes it's dismissiveness (or resentment) of other people's limitations.

I will say, though -- as I think we've talked about -- that the experience of having traumatic/triggering issues that exceed one's handling capacity is not something that people who haven't experienced it can easily empathize with, even with the best will in the world.

From:

as I think we've talked about

Right! I'd forgotten about that particular conversation until you reminded me.

From:

I do think that most of the time either a) people think they are helping by letting you "talk something out" or b) people feel that they themselves are sufficiently invested in the issue and upset about it and still willing to talk about it, so you should be too. Two examples in my own recent past: my mother constantly bringing up my lack of reproduction and one of my senior colleagues bringing up changes in tenure policies. In both cases the people in question were upset about the issue and wanted to talk about it, not realizing that the issue was much more upsetting for me (although if they were clueful they would have).

I have to say, though, that you've succeeded in pushing one of my buttons in this thread: men are much better equipped by both nature and nurture to shut that conversation down. I would dispute the nature comment. Women are trained to be seen and not heard, to take others interests as more important than their own. I'm not convinced it's nature. We can never know until we meet girls raised in a non-sexist society. All most women need is some assertiveness training.

From:

Sorry to push your buttons. I hope that you're reading in something I'm not meaning. So here's a bit of clarification.

The nature side is broadly speaking, as I see it, as follows:

--Men's voices are deeper, and (I admit this may be cultural; I've seen arguments which claim either) deeper voices tend to convey authority.
--Men are larger and can end conversations by physical force, if necessary. They can also more credibly threaten physical force, even if such threat is implicit and unspoken. (Though, in rough bars, or on the streets outside them, that threat is often explicit and loudly voiced.)

I make no value judgments on this. I do think the latter underpins a significant number of the advantages men have in conversations.

If I'm given a choice between a black eye and ending a conversation, nine times out of ten I choose to end the conversation.

I do await a non-sexist society. Having had more than my fair share of fists thrown in my direction, I certainly hope it means that men hit me less often, rather than women hitting me more often.

From:

All of a sudden I'm totally revisiting the reasons I _thought_ I liked being an alto. Huh. I _knew_ lower voices are good for conveying authority but still I seem to be capable of forgetting that fact. Even though I use it every day.

From:

I think I was, because I wasn't imagining a scenario that might possibly lead to violence. I think, though, that nature is still at most a very minor player here. It seems to me that until our society becomes a lot more pugilistic, in these situations the willingness to threaten to punch someone and looking like you know it would hurt if you did is more important than actual physical stats in a fight. And those are things that women are trained not to have, not things that women are incapable of having. Of course, not having the size issue myself might make me biased on this one.

As for the voice thing, I give you that point. However I have a fairly high pitched voice and I find it's pretty easy to work around it once you acknowledge it.

I think the willingness to _walk away_ is probably the most important skill women are missing here. I exercised it at lunch today when the aforementioned colleague brought up the tenure crap again, and I thought of you while I did it. :)

It sounds like you've been present at a lot more fistfights than I, though, so we may just be talking in parallel here. I think a society where women were more often willing to hit you (and other people) would be an improvement, but hopefully it wouldn't end in you getting hit too much more often. :)

From:

It sounds like you've been present at a lot more fistfights than I, though, so we may just be talking in parallel here.

That's certainly possible. My dive bar days are well behind me, though. My strategy was to look like I wasn't worth bothering with, and it generally worked fairly well, even if some of the guys I tended to go out drinking with appeared to *enjoy* getting into bar fights. Never did understand that attitude, myself, but they tended towards larger and louder-mouthed than me.

(Fortunately no one ever came up with anything more than a knife.)

hopefully it wouldn't end in you getting hit too much more often.

Well, the optimal outcome is me getting hit *less* often. But I grant that a society where women were more willing to stand up for themselves is a good one. Ideally, we get there by deciding random violence is less useful to anyone rather than encouraging women to hit people more.

From:

holmes-iv.livejournal.com

Well, there's always the Heinlein theory, wherein the implied threat of violence all around you makes you generally less willing to initiate it. But when closely examined, some of Heinlein's brilliant ideas do end up, at the very least, being kind of easy to make fun of.

From: