Seems like you’ve internalised one of my all-time favourite essays
Harmful Communication, Part One: Intent Is Magic
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If maturity is age then you must have me confused used with @dagill2
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I think there’s been a lack of communication on my part, if that’s what you took from my statement.
Within the context of an author/creator having views you disagree with, I believe the smart move is to choose not to think about such things. The reasons I believe that are:
- It’s incredibly easy to find stuff you disagree with people on and you’re going to discount most of the worlds population and their merits if all it takes is one opinion you disagree with to condemn them.
- By refusing to support them or their work, you lose out far more than they do.
- There is no risk to yourself by choosing to only listen to the subjects where you feel they have value.
That’s a very different set of circumstances than avoiding walking home at night because its unsafe.
On a related topic, I absolutely don’t think that Wendler using phrases like “North of Vag” or “pussy” is necessarily indicative of any harmful thinking. We may have to agree to disagree on this one.
I notice the qualifier “middle aged” there. Is the implication that these things would be fine for someone closer to your age?
I’m playing Devils Advocate on this one to be honest, mostly to hear you flesh out your views.
It’s a terrible part of life these days unfortunately. My better half feels this way because there have been a few cases of women being attacked in the area in the last few years. Unfortunately, that is true nearly everywhere. We aren’t in a “hotspot”, this is just how the world is and its too easy for people like myself to forget.
I agree with @Koestrizer, that sounds like straight up harassment to me.
And I could ignore or enjoy that level of attention at will because as a 6 foot male, that’s all its ever going to be. Likewise, all those unwanted conversations are easy to dismiss as harmless smalltalk (I agree with @simo74, I think they mostly are), because I’m not in danger of them progressing to anything harmful.
This is probably the part that I don’t consider as I have never had to.
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Me too. And I hate it that I can’t have those conversations with people, that as someone comfortably over the “creepy” threshold, I have to limit my interactions to people of my own age group and gender, until I remember why that is. I’m not a threat, I’m not trying to be creepy, but enough people like me might be that I can’t blame someone for reacting accordingly.
God, I’ve mangled the English language there. If anyone needs subtitles, just ask.
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Thanks. I really messed up on the yoke by setting the bar too low, so I had to half squat it up, which really took a lot out of me.
So is there a point where you stop being creepy and start being grandfatherly? Meh, I think if comments about appearance are involved, it probably always comes off as creepy…
We all know that’s it’s tears of lament, that you’re geographically separated…
Even if there’s no harmful intent, there is still internalized misogyny there, and how it’s received matters as much as the intent.
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Is there? Or is there a change in the meaning of the word?
It is, but that’s not necessarily an indictment. Just from our upbringing we all have some internalized misogyny and racism and other prejudices, it’s unavoidable. The trick is to recognize it and constantly strive to be better. That’s why I was advocating giving some benefit of the doubt when people start behaving differently, even if they’re just doing it for their image, good behavior gets internalized as well as bad behavior. Rippetoe, on the other hand, I still think is a complete @$$clown.
I think part of Jim’s thing is that his early work had a certain target audience, where that sort of talk was part of the vernacular. Of course, I also think that’s part of the point @Bagsy was making with her initial post that started this discussion.
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No disagreement from me. I was slightly shocked to see such a hateful post being supported by him, even though I never really had him down as a paragon of virtue to start with.
Honestly the worst part for me is that he worded it in such a way that he could claim plausible deniability, which is in some ways slimier than just straight up owning a crappy opinion. What a $#!+weasel.
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That’s exactly what I do. I only started on this tangent because it gets exhausting sometimes. I know words in a text are different from words from a stranger in the supermarket, and those are even more different from a stranger’s actions.
I don’t think he’s out to genuinely hurt anyone. On the other hand, I would never give Rippetoe my money or time even if his information were valuable.
Plenty of dudes don’t think twice about buying a shirt with that phrase from his webstore, but I never could justify that.
From the blog: “While some may see North of Vag as a misogynistic term, I can only shake my head and hope they were not publically educated; I’d hate to see tax dollars being wasted that way. It is simply a rallying cry to not be a pussy.”
From the rest of his writings, I know that he isn’t out to get anyone. He wants people to take self-responsibility and work hard. But he can’t even explain his misogynistic phrase without using another misogynistic term. I think men would be a little upset if the flip were switched, where we start equating male genitalia with weakness (which, funnily enough, is actually the case) and use that to belittle others or their actions.
Because young men never do those things to me. I would not welcome similar attention from guys that age either, but it’s creepier when the age difference is greater, especially when I don’t look my age.
I consider harassment to be more persistent. So, being followed home would be harassment. But not necessarily a raunchy one-liner from someone I will probably not encounter again.
You really don’t have to. Certain demographics should not be off-limits for some people. People – not only women – appreciate when you are straight to the point and don’t make them feel like they owe you a response. Like, “hey, you dropped your wallet” or a genuine “do you know in which direction X is?” without mentally undressing the other person or invading their personal space is totally fine.
The issue is that a lot of men approach women in weird ways that they would not use when talking to a man of similar age. For example, I hate when a man gets closer to me and asks if he can ask me a question. Like, you just asked a question, probably when it didn’t look like I wanted to talk to you, and it’s usually a bad sign.
Women wear large earbuds or headphones in public to avoid looking “available” for some random dude’s small talk, and some men still rip out their earbuds to demand a response. I realize that’s an extreme example, but the sentiment is much the same when people address you with the expectation that you’ll “be nice” and entertain them.
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We do get to call people “dicks” in a negative manner.
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I assume he’s a moderator of his own site, so even leaving it posted is pretty much evidence of agreement.
It doesn’t indicate weakness or inferiority though. That was my point.
But if you want to go down that route:
We also call people “bitches” in a negative manner. It’s probably a closer equivalent.
Yet men don’t usually anticipate being called a dick for not wanting to acknowledge someone mentally undressing or hounding them in public, or for simply not smiling when a male stranger commands him to smile. Not that the latter ever happens.
This oft misattributed quote comes to mind:
“Why do people say “grow some balls”? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.”
Edit: in all seriousness, the intent behind commonly-used words that deride a characteristic by assigning a female quality is hurtful, which is why I have decided to scrub those words from my vocabulary. Much easier said than done, but getting there.
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I did some light googling and the word pussy used in a negative sense has been around quite a while. It seems a lot of things point to it’s origin from other things, none of which are a vagina.
I’ve called dudes pussy(s) more times in my life than we could all count, I’ve never once thought about a vagina when doing so and I’m bettering 99.99% of other men are the same. We all actually really like vagina, ok well most of us do lol.
This is the strangest thing to talk about in a journal and equally strange that this is where I want to plant my flag and fight 
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I love Betty White, but she definitely never said that, hahaha. That’s okay though.
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Even if you’re not thinking about a vagina, the implication of ‘pussy’ as a pejorative is that you’re more feminine and therefore weaker.
It’s definitely the sort of thing she would say, though.
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I just want to state for the official record that I only post in the logs of people that I like and respect, and therefore take certain liberties with the language I use, never intending any harm or injury with any specific choice of words that I write. I say a lot of stupid shit, almost always on purpose.
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