Well, the lady thing really is a pretty big issue, but I've been trying to get away from the gender neutral thing, just because it tends to perpetuate itself, especially in technical forums. You know, dudebros will argue for the presumption of (straight) maleness being OK because hey, we're almost all dudebros here so we're the target audience. So I try to step up when I see it sometimes and say, "Yeah, actually I would not be interested in banging that lady! This is boring!" and more often than I expected, other people will pile on and say, "Hey, yeah, I am also a gay man or a straight lady, and I also think this is stupid" or whatever.
It's also very very common to be accused of having dishonest and selfish motivations, particularly on political topics, as a lady. Like if you're arguing for welfare, they assume you are on welfare. If you say "Hey, you are overstating the severity of the obesity crisis," they assume you are fat. That I don't really care about much. And in technical areas, I've had a few times in real life where men have gotten fucked over really hard by not listening to what I told them, so I figure that when dudes ignore me on the internets for being a lady, I don't care. If they fail their class or get fired or throw away a computer they think is broken because they ignored what I told them: Ha ha. Good!
But it goes beyond that. Demographics aside, I still just like the idea of talking about different things outside of any personal context at all. Just talking about that thing, and having things stand on their own merit. But maybe that's a lady thing, too. Either I am more creeped out by people getting all personal about things all the time and following me around, or maybe people just get more personal and creepy like that with ladies.
Hmmm. Now I have a new hypothesis to test someday.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyShea
Is it okay to be grateful for our privilege as long as we recognize it? I have been happy about being a white, middle class, heterosexual on multiple occasions.
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I would think that's okay, especially when you consider what the alternatives would be. Either not recognizing your privilege at all, or acting like it's not a privilege.