I wonder what'd happen. I feel like almost everyone would say either "address people with the pronouns they want to be addressed by" or complain about the idea of non-binary genders, which is so off-topic that you could just delete those answers.
But this has the advantage of having a pretty simple and always functional rule for how to address people, which makes it harder to act offended without making yourself out to be a twat :)
@Erik I am profoundly deaf on one side. Should I get offended when people are on my deaf side and I can't hear them, and not only demand that they speak loudly so that I can hear them and then go around speaking loudly to everyone myself, then go to HR when someone says I'm too loud?
@MaskedMan yes, go to HR, and repeat exactly what you told this person and how all these words were wasted. They will take action immediately, and your report will greatly help your company.
@Erik I honestly have to scratch my head at what people are offended by these days. I'm hearing impaired, have Asperger's syndrome and a few other disabilities. I've had people tell me to my face that employers shouldn't be allowed to hire people like me. I have been discriminated against, and even terminated because of my disabilities.
the fact that people get offended over pronouns astounds me.
I can kinda understand it. People refusing to use the correct pronoun are denying who you are, which really gets to people. Much more than people just not liking who or what you are.
It's the difference between "people with Asperger's shouldn't be allowed to work here" and "you don't have Asperger's, you're just a whiner". For most people, the latter would hurt more than the former
I don't at all. Should I lose my sh** if I have a coworker who just calls me "Estep"? Sure it's kind of rude but I should also grow the f*** up and just not get my shorts in a wad over stupid stuff.
If someone has the right to be pissed by being called the pronoun they want then everyone else has the right to be pissed if they're called "they" instead of he or she.
I mean I totally agree that it's ridiculous to use "they" if people say that's not how they want to be addressed. Hence my "address people as they wish to be addressed"
That's good. Means you're one of the tougher humans. You probably wouldn't be on the list of people who commit suicide over being denied for who they are :)
@Erik As to what people have called me at work, I've been called "fluffy", "Satan", "Devil Man", "Big dummy" and various and sundry other terms. Who cares?
@Erik From what people tell me, I've had a very rough life. I've been to busy living it to notice. Hardship, however, gives one perspective. How can I possibly have a hard day if I compare it to past experience.
Now, I may come across as unsympathetic, but I am actually quite sympathetic. I feel sorry for people who haven't had to deal with adversity, because when it hits them, they are unprepared.
people of my generation tend to laugh at the one behind us for being so easily offended, but we are partially to blame because we created the environment that shielded them from so much of the trauma, leaving them unprepared for when it eventually hits.
@RichardU I think the "easily offended" piece comes because people don't just want the right to live/be/believe whatever they want, they want others to also be 100% supportive of that and not have any disagreements
for example, if someone believes the sky is red, they don't just want me to respect their ability to have that belief but also that I respect the belief itself
Management needs to set measurable goals.
They then need to confirm the developer is hitting those goals. If not, they need to take action.
If you are facing issues related to this and are not this employee's manager, focus on the velocity problems when you talk with your boss. If you are the m...
@enderland As someone whose 10 year background check is possessed by China, Amen to that. I don't work for government anymore but I still am cautious about e-mail contents because I work for a healthcare organization and it only takes one subpoena.
@RichardU You asked, "Which institutions are sexist, and who do we hold accountable?" The answer to the first is "virtually all of them", not because individual founders/managers are evil sexist brutes, but because of the history of the society in which we all live.
@enderland that one has been rep-capping me as well. LOL
@BradC I think you're right. the institutions are very sexist towards men. Men are 10 times more likely to die on the job, die younger, and almost never get custody in child cases and serve longer prison sentences for the same crimes.
In this case, we have a male employee with a known history of sexual harassment that was given the benefit of the doubt. By the owner and multiple managers. Maybe he won't do it again. Oh, we don't have all that many women who work here anyway. Eipi? I'm sure she can handle herself.
10 times more likely to be killed on the job, 3 times more likely to commit suicide, awarded custody only 80% of the time.
@BradC If you deny a woman entry to a job, you break the law, so how is this happening?
This is more part of the institutional sexism towards men. Not only do men face all of these problems, they are hand-waved as insignificant by misandrists, and those with internalized misanddry
My contention is that these few narrow examples (you forgot the military draft!!) not only don't prove sexism against men, they hardly compare to the massive pile of examples on the other side
@RichardU We should probably take this out of the main Water Cooler if you want to continue, but let me answer with an example: The flip side of sexist "traditional expectations" about women is corresponding sexist traditional expectations about men: they should be tough, macho, they shouldn't cry or show emotion; they shouldn't have close emotional relationships with other men, that's "too gay". Boys shouldn't play with dolls or like the color pink or worry about learning to cook.
All that is undoubtedly part of the same historically sexist society (which we call "patriarchy", sounds like you don't like that term), and it is all undoubtedly limiting and harmful to men.
That's what I mean when I say "the patriarchy hurts men, too"
@enderland I think it already follows from Newton's second law of motion that force is proportional to acceleration, which by definition, is the rate of change of velocity. So it is not clear why OP is asking us that question. The only issue is the direction of force, which will decide if the velocity would increase or decrease.
@RichardU Ah, so you're "just taking the devil's advocate position for the sake of an interesting discussion". The problem with that is your "interesting intellectual discussion" is someone's actual life: Eipi, in this thread, said she is looking to leave the company because of her employer's knowledge of, and unwillingness to protect her from, sexual harassment from another employee. This isn't just an intellectually interesting discussion, to her.
@BradC and a friend of mine was crushed to death on the job and took a half hour to die from positional asphyxiation and had to have a closed casket funeral. Life sucks
@enderland No, you must have missed the part of that follow up when it was revealed that management knew from the beginning that he was a sexual harasser and hired him anyway.
It's a bit misleading and dishonest to use that as an example of institutionalized sexism given that once it was known to the appropriate personnel, the person in question "has left" the company (presumably from being fired)
@BradC perhaps I'm more willing to forgive people than you are. I don't believe, for example, that once a person does something onerous they should be blacklisted for life
@enderland Giving him the benefit of the doubt (and it sounds like it wasn't a single prior incident, either), without informing anyone, or monitoring him carefully to make sure he doesn't repeat it is exactly what we're talking about. And if you recall, she did initially raise the concern with her boss:
"My boss just brushed it off and said he was just a flirt and that I had nothing to worry about."
Even if he thought it wasn't appropriate to pre-warn others about his past, this should have been the "oh God, maybe he's doing it again" red light and siren
Maybe if he didn't know about any prior behavior I could understand that, but that turned out not to be true.
That implies they've been caught and/or "paid their debt" and changed their ways. Even if you believe they have, you certainly do your due diligence to make sure they've changed, and monitor them carefully to make sure they don't repeat.
You wouldn't put someone freshly fired from stealing from the till back onto the register.
Yep. Rehabilitation for former felons is a pretty complicated and very different issue, to be honest.
But you're still not going to hire a former molester to work in child care.
Or a former embezzler as your accountant
Part of the "institutional" aspect I've been talking about, is that in so many cases like this, companies in the same position have chosen to not hire women in order to avoid these possibilities.
@BradC This case is really not about institutional sexism so much as it's about nepotism. This guy was having trouble finding a job because of his history, and the only way he could get one was for his friend to do him a favor and ignore the red flags.
@enderland Surely I don't need to point out the thousands of times that women have been fired for reporting sexual harassment by managers or top salespeople? Read the latest Uber fiasco, is an obvious example. Choosing to not put a women in that same position is the flip-side of the same practice
Keep the manager or salesman, avoid future issues by not assigning a female assistant
If this were some stranger the manager had hired, I would be more inclined to your argument, but the fact that this was the boss's friend really changes things. I'm not saying that institutional sexism isn't alive and kicking in many companies, but this particular situation is not an argument for it.
I'm still curious as to how the higher fatality rate for men, 10 times higher, isn't indicative of sexism towards men, but we are all supposed to believe in this mythic patriarchy oppressing women.
@RichardU I assume that we would agree that the higher fatality rate for men is a direct consequence of the nature of the industries in which they work, right? Not that more men in the EXACT same jobs are killed than women?
@RichardU I'm guessing it is related to the types of jobs that you are likely to be killed doing. It used to be that only men worked. When women began working, it was always as secretaries, assistants, office jobs, things suitable for the "fairer" sex. There are not many women who do blue-collar manual labor, for various reasons.
It would be more interesting to see a fatality rate comparison for men and women in the same jobs, accounting for the proportion of each gender in that field.
The follow-up question then, is why do more men work in those industries? To reach your conclusion, you'd have to say "men are discriminated against so they work in these more dangerous industries", which is pretty much laughably false
@BradC actually, men working in the exact same jobs ARE killed at a higher rate than women. As a percentage, far fewer female police officers are KOJ than men.
@BradC Demonstrate why that is laughable false. I haven't seen anything from you other than "appeal to ridicule", which is a logical fallacy
Look at the military: up to very recently, male soldiers were killed in combat like (making it up) 1000x as much as women. Why? Because women weren't allowed in combat (by men). This isn't rocket science.
@RichardU If that's true (that in the same job more men are still killed), then that's an interesting stat, Perhaps women are more safety conscious or something.
@RichardU Right, so we agree. Patriarchy hurts everyone :D
I think part of the problem is that most women would still prefer their male friends to "take the bullet" for them in situations if it actually comes down to it
And to respond to your question about whether I would hire a friend who needed a job, I probably would, but I would me much more wary if I knew they had been fired for sexual harassment multiple times.
@RichardU Nobody "invented" the patriarchy, social/societal/historical interractions are massively more complicated than that. That's like the good old "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys??" Its a question that can't even really be answered without correcting all the built-in misunderstandings.
@BradC I an unimpressed with circumlocutions. "because patriarchy" is no form or argument, just sophistry. With the exception of Christina Hoffs-Sommers, I would sincerely doubt the veracity of anything coming from feminist sources. The social sciences are failing miserably as well
@RichardU and I don't give anti-feminists like CHS much credence, either, so it appears we are at an impasse.
@eipi Sure, that's certainly the history, but even in cases where individual women have proven themselves sufficiently fit, they still have faced huge gender-based challenges
@RichardU I agree that "because patriarchy" isn't a complete argument, but it is also not meaningless: it is usually short for "this (prior referenced issue) is a manifestation of a large and complicated social/societal/historical trend, which means it can't be seen solely in isolation (one bad sexist manager or something), but must be understood as part of a larger history of male and female societal roles and expectations." Boy, that's kinda long, how about we call it "patriarchy"
@RichardU Ha, not according to other feminists she isn't. quora.com/…
@enderland and god forbid if a man does the right thing and refuses to take the bullet, then all the wannabe feminists and pseudo-feminists will gun him down.
@RichardU If a man hits a woman, it is sexual harassment. If a woman hits a man, it is promoting gender equality/breaking the stereotypes/empowering women/demonstration of women power/(insert your favourite wannabe feminist cliche here).
@MaskedMan I've seen a few "social experiment" videos where they filmed two actors a man and a woman, mistreating each other. When the man was being aggressive towards the woman, the white knights rushed in, when the reverse happened, people laughed, especially women.
To align our accounting efforts, I would like to move our payroll frequency to Semi Monthly on the 5th and 20th (or 15th/30th) of each month.
I have read mixed reviews about people preferring every 2 weeks (bi-weekly) to having 2 set paydays (semi monthly). Some say bi-weekly is best because it...
^^^ This question was just reopened after an edit. At -4 it won't show on the front page, so I thought I'd point it out. I think the edit fixed the problems and it's now a workable question for us.
@BradC I sincerely hope you seek out opinions that are different from your own. as Aristotle said, "It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it".
Yeah, copy/paste fail when refactoring some view logic, and that only shows up some of the time :/ Pushing a fix in a moment. — Michael Stum ♦28 secs ago
@RichardU Since it sounds like you agree with C H-S's position on "equity feminism", that hardly counts as "understanding your opponent's view well enough to be able to restate it".
And if your opinion of other feminists (who disagree with C H-S) is all about #maletears and #killallmen, then no, I don't think you really understand.
@RichardU Ah, trying to get me on deliberately misleading labels, I see what you're doing there. Just because they've claimed that name doesn't mean that's what it actually promotes.
@BradC well, if figured it was fair, seeing as you straw manned me with the "anyone who disagrees with CHS is a #Killallmen type". tit for tat, and all that.
Hopefully this won't totally derail us (ha) but take, as an analogy, the "all lives matter" response to the "black lives matter" movement. It isn't wrong, per se, it just utterly misses the point. The point of "black lives matter" isn't that other lives don't, it's that black lives matter TOO (in addition to white lives and blue lives that have always mattered)
So sure, equality is of course the goal, but "equality feminism" as a movement seems like it is constantly whining but what about the men??
And as we discussed before, I'm not going to argue that there aren't negative issues facing men in our society (even if we disagree about the cause), they don't erase the reality of the problems that women face.
There are plenty enough issues for everyone to work on what they'd like to focus on
Sorry I don't know anything about Bindel or McDermott
Sets and subsets. If you say "All Lives matter", black lives are included in a subset, unless you argue that black lives are separate from the set of all lives.
@BradC I study all philosophies. CHS's position is that feminism has been derailed by the likes of Mcdermot, Sarkeesian, Bindel, et cetera, et al.
I like watching debates so I can get both sides.
THAT, IMO, is what we need more of. Honest and open dialogue
Do you not understand that the point of the "black lives matter" movement is that black lives matter TOO"? That there are specific issues facing that black community that demand focus and action. "All lives matter" might be technically correct, but it also serves to take focus away from the real injustices that the black community faces.
"All lives matter" (as a movement) is a deliberate attempt to remove the focus from the very real injustices that minorities face in our society.
Same thing with "blue lives matter". Sure, I appreciate the difficult work that cops do, and the very real danger they face, but the Blue Lives Matter movement is a deliberate effort to take the focus away from very real problems with police brutality and lack of officer accountability.
Sarkeesian I'm familiar with, but I don't really feel up to rehashing gamergate at the moment.
@RichardU And that's what "intersectionalism" is all about. Minorities face certain kinds of issues in our society. Women face other issues. The poor face other issues. But poor minority women face not only a SUM (addition) of those issues, but a PRODUCT (a multiplication) of those issues, and some that are specific only to that intersection.
@RichardU Yes, but the "blue lives matter" is explicitly NOT a movement to hold police accountable for misconduct. In fact, it is to do the opposite.
@BradC No, the blue lives matter is NOT out to excuse police, and I'm saying this as a member of "Cop Block", so you can guess where my sympathies lie.
The simple fact is that if we treat each other as individuals and extend simple human decency towards each other, we will be able to help each other. Drawing battle lines does not.
"In today’s evolving society, an increasing number of citizens fail to accept responsibility for their actions and attempt to escape the consequences through outward blame. Due to the nature of the profession, law enforcement personnel are seen as easy targets and are consequently bullied by slander, illegitimate complaints, frivolous law suits, and physical attacks."
It is explicitly to improve the image of officers, to discount complaints by "irresponsible citizens"
@BradC Do you think that there are no irresponsible citizens?
You should view some of the Antifa riots
That said, the fact that there are irresponsible citizens quick to blame police, and that there are cases of police misconduct are not mutually exclusive
Let me see if I can explain a bit further: If June says "Gary was a real jerk to me" and Susan responds: "But he cares for sick puppies!!" they both might be factually correct.
@RichardU In context, I strongly disagree. The BlueLM movement is an effort to divert the conversation away from the (very real) need for police reform, as raised by BlackLM and other efforts.
But they can't even protest silently without massive pushback, look at Colin Kaepernick, taking a silent knee in protest of what he saw as injustice. He was excoriated for that
@RichardU I'm not sure what you're asking. How about thousands and thousands and thousands of protesters in dozens and dozens of marches all over the country, most of them peaceful? That enough for you. I'm sure you'll point me to the small number of skirmishes (many of them instigated by the police), but that doesn't erase all those that were there peacefully
@RichardU I think it all comes down to details (of any number of different specific areas), but I don't think "everything else falls into place" is a foregone conclusion.
@RichardU But you can't achieve "equal justice" without dealing with hard topics like (individual) implicit bias or institutional bias. You can't just pretend to "ignore race" or gender and have it fix all problems. It doesn't. Here's an example:
Research has shown that (identical) applications with female names are scored consistently lower than those with male names. In all industries. Even by people that don't otherwise show gender bias. Same thing with ethnic-sounding names. Even orchestral auditions show a severe gender bias, if they actually see them perform.
You have to take specific action to counteract that: put the auditioning player behind a curtain. Anonymise application names. Then you get a much fairer evaluation of true skill and experience.
In law enforcement, those same implicit biases are on every cop (regardless of their own race) when they stop a white man vs a black man. They approach the stop differently. They are more on edge. They are more suspicious.
Again, you can't just wave your magic racial-bias-eraser wand, you have to teach them about implicit bias.
And part of that misconduct, I hope you would agree, is poor training/understading of those will different kinds of conditions, autism, mental illness, etc.
@RichardU Yes. But why can't we work on that at the same time that we acknowledge that it is often minorities who disproportionately face the brunt of that escalation?
the real societal problem comes when there is an intersection - people who are disadvantaged/poor but not in an easily identifiable "minority" where it's "ok" to complain about the circumstances
@RichardU Let me go back to this issue, because this is central, just not quite in the way you think. When Black Lives Matter protesters march, we've talked about the "all lives matter" response, which is, in essence, a version of "but what about White people?"
@BradC no, it's the attitude you're sort of portraying here - the minorities are those who are oppressed or treated unfairly and by doing so, it implies they aren't
@BradC why is Obama the only one on that list you mentioned?
@BradC By the way, where does an Autistic, hearing impaired, Learning Disabled, formerly homeless guy, with a few other "oppression points" fall in the oppression Olympics?
@RichardU Both can be true. Minorities face some issues, women face others, poor people face still others. Those that fall into more than one of those categories face even more, thats called "intersectionalism"
the thing is, that if you are in one of those groups too (say a poor inner city white 19year old male) it comes across as entirely dismissive
chill. I can't type as fast as I can read, though I can do both pretty fast
and the thing is? the response from anyone who is a SJW is that it doesn't matter that other people are feeling similarly oppressed/dismissed/whatever
the consistent response is, "well, it's not as bad as it is for <fill in the blank>"
there are real people who experience issues with say the police who are not black - by invalidating their experiences through that dismissive attitude, it makes it incredibly hard for not only them but people who are "bystanders" and less invested to take things seriously
this feels exactly why so many people just don't get how Trump could have gotten elected. "those people" (say poor white midwesterners) don't really exist or matter to a lot of people. Trump just spoke to them and made them feel meaningful again. But so many people are incapable of seeing this, because the "poor white rural midwesterner" is an irrelevant and unimportant person to them
I know you (as well as most people in the SJW type of perspective) don't agree, which is why they will have such a hard time achieving their goals in the long term unfortunately
Let me approach it this way: without engaging in more "oppression Olympics" or attempted ranking of grievences, would you agree that there are at least some aspects of black Americans' experiences with police that are, taken as a whole, different than white Amercians' experience with police?
(I don't think that statement is all that controversial, maybe you do)
And if so, what's wrong with taking some time and attention to focus on those aspects?
The problem is that there is no "approach" to that discussion that won't trigger the immediate BUT WHAT ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE
@BradC the part from a bystander that makes it "wrong" is that the approach isn't a nice, let's talk about this relationship. the SJW approach is "THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD AND IF YOU DONT AGREE YOU ARE A MONSTER"
There is no possible approach to "can we talk about some of the ways that women face issues in our society" that doesn't trigger the BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MENZZ????
I'm seeing this bug on all SE pages:
The Water Cooler
The Water Cooler