They say nature abhors a vacuum, though birthday boy Blaise Pascal had contrary words on the subject. There is a need for contemplative essays, peer-reviewed studies, and no-holds-barred lampooning, all. I feel surprisingly strongly about the latter: just as fiction can touch truths non-fiction can't reach, so can the apparently unserious unsettle serious falsehoods.
I’d agree that an argument based on memes is not the bedrock of a solid discussion. Then again, at some point I stopped reckoning on having any discussions here. Thus the state of this thread, a magpie’s collection of conversation starters including videos. Self-indulgence is certainly a risk in such an environment. Without delving into specifics, I think reasonable people can come to different conclusions as to their merit. That said, it is helpful to know what to avoid in conversations you may start.
(I'm not aware of having taken a particular stand against
memes unless drive-by
eye-rolling at the saccharin counts, though am happy to be corrected. Likes and bountiful smileys on the other hand…
The only thing that distinguishes some of what I get up to from memehood is lack of wide circulation.)
Then there’s
TWAT. Back in junior high I took a French class, and with it a Frenchie name: Antoine. Thanks to a bully this quickly turned into Antwat. I can still remember the look on my father's face when I told him, dewily innocent of
TWATs and perhaps thinking the nickname a softening in the bully’s treatment of me. A lifelong aversion could’ve been born then and there, but I actually am not at all offended; I also use it
on occasion, when absolutely necessary.
It’s not in my nature to deliberately offend those undeserving of it, but as you know,
offence happens. It isn't something I could start apologising for as there would be no end, or promise to studiously avoid as a beginning. I can only trust that people look at me, at context,
back at me if necessary, and credit me with a heart.
Thanks for sharing your story with a fellow
cereal box consumer, which is not to diminish any additional burdens you may have had (it's unclear to me). You were much more aware of gender than I was at such a tender age.
I don't accept 'cis' either, perhaps for different reasons than you. To me it is terminology from a religion to which I do not subscribe.
My own relationships have not fallen into the standard male/female divide in that I've never been close to my tribe of males. As a teenager I took to hanging out with the girls. Playing clarinet in band further ensured this would happen. (Woody Allen et al never came up.) One of my defining crisis was when I was set before a tribunal of sorts and judged as effeminate, or at the very least weird, and cast out of the company of the very girls I admired.
As a young man I moved from rural Ohio to NYC and found myself pursued in a way I didn't then find flattering. A small town boy in Greenwich Village with hetero tastes can very easily skirt homophobia and worse. Let's just say it was a close-run thing. I'm a big believer in learning from mistakes (preferably the mistakes of others).
Later I was to marry a woman with a traditionally male vocation, though anyone who knows the history of computing will be aware women
were in it from the get-go. Over the years she was frequently the only female in the room.
Although our relationship isn't what I would classify as far outside norms, nor has it been entirely traditional.
Even my pandemic moptop [RIP] brought back an old preference. Fortunately we're past the silliness slightly before my era of dibs on long hair. The coiffeur who recently lopped it off triggered my own unease by saying it was proper rock star hair. Blame summer and too much of a good thing constantly
getting in my eyes.I don't know to what extent my experiences shaped my current view on the gender wars. It stands to reason they did.
It sounds as if you have much more real life experience navigating these waters, and I respect that. I would, however, dispute that the two ‘sides’ are even roughly equivalent in the nastiness meted out, at least online.
There is a desperate need for well run salons. Mumsnet, which at times I have outright loathed and still mostly regard as not far short of malign as a tool of conformity and outlet for simmering aggression (as a counterpoint to its motherload of useful experience to draw upon), has in its feminist board hosted more than a few discussions of a quality that have left me awestruck; so much so that it almost seems pointless to keep casting about for more and better. Still, better is surely possible, not least because their moderation can be bewildering, and anyone beholden to advertisers is already compromised.
I would love to host thoughtful discussions here, but the prospect is unlikely at best, even were you to give me a passing grade to your friends.
I can appreciate not wanting to be placed in a gender box, and as a default he, have personally suffered no linguistic unease. Do I think there is a case for ‘they’ as a gender-free pronoun? I suppose it depends how awkward the construction, and the situation. I don’t believe language can or should be compelled, however compelling the argument, absent a much stronger case of harm to a great number of people.
Notwithstanding what I would maintain is an unearned reputation for pugnacity (how often the one in the middle of a brawl is not the true offender), and a voracious appetite for hoovering up then emptying bags of links and quotes and memes of sufficient variety to confound anyone trying to get an exact bead on my taste, as mentioned upthread I do value civility. As I hope I’ve proved by now.
colophon
A flaw in my process* often renders me unable to post without a host of further edits as I continue to examine the angles and interrogate myself about my own truthfulness. Eventually this settles down; it definitely stops if there's a reply except for clarification or grammar or harmless flourish. The nature of this site means it's not traditionally been a problem in the slightest. Should that change, I'll try my best to move on after the final full stop.
My most common name for TextEdit files is Edit, followed by enlightening labels such as Further Edit, Final?, Final final, etc. This very 'colophon' will cease to exist if my last judgement is a resounding "Nobody cares, sam."
*This was first posted at approximately 23.50 last night, after starting in a notebook in a Sainsbury's parking lot in the early afternoon. Here it is 8.31 the morning after and I'm still whittling. I admire people who get it exactly right the first time, assuming they exist.