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[Messofanego]

Maybe someone already posted it and I didn't see it but the NYT published a pretty good OpEd about the same subject: "Who Gets to Write What?"

Yeah. Like there are so many white writers who have written excellently about different cultures and races and they barely get any pushback because *ding ding* their work is good and more fully developed!

Let's take a recent videogame for example.

Virginia, is written by white dudes. The two main characters are black women, and one plot thread is about people of colour in the FBI. There's a lot of nuance given to these characters and they don't fall into cultural/racial stereotype traps. No one has criticised the developers of Virginia for being white men writing black women.

Sometimes, it's just a matter of quality and not falling into stereotypes. Which this author seems to have done and is getting flack but is equating that to censorship instead of just freedom of speech (not freedom from criticism).

 

[The Albatross]

"Radical left"? Nothing about the American left is remotely close to the radical left. They might be socially progressive but from as long as they conform to market capitalism (and they do), they cannot be considered radical left in any possible way.

Agreed, though I think we all talk about the left and right in degrees relative to where we're talking. I'm sure there are dozens of posts referring to the "Far right" when, unless they're actual neo-nazis, they're probably more likely simple "the right."

Both left and right in mainstream American politics are fairly centrist, but I think saying "Far left" or "far right" when talking about these two mainstream parties/ideologies is more or less saying you're talking about the fringes.

 

[JZA]

Is this piece supposed to make me feel like voting for Hillary?

 

[cyclonekruse]

What you describe does sound like someone effectively being silenced, I'm sure a great many people would agree that but speaking directly at the BOLDED, I believe criticism is its own speech in and of itself, and if they want to curate criticism it just comes off as hypocrisy. IMHO.

Or it could come off as more speech. If you criticize my work on X grounds, I'm free to argue that such grounds for criticism are invalid. And back and forth we go until one relents or we agree to disagree.

Honestly I think this article is the author's (rather poor) attempt to counter her critics.

If there is an issue over something that is criticised for being offensive, the person should bring a counter-argument to highlight what is incorrect about their criticism, rather than telling people to simply stop being offended.

Unfortunately in a lot of cases the argument boils down to one person essentially claiming "there's nothing offensive here" which IS a counterargument of sorts like you ask for but certainly comes off as "stop being offended." I'm not sure how to get around that.

 

[cyclonekruse]

You too have to understand why this things are met with such outrage. If you wrote an article that by your calculations men are undoubtedly better at math than women, you need to understand that woman that work with math will not be happy with it, specially in an ambient where they are in a minority already. Or in another and more personal example, if someone says that being gay is a disease and you can be cured from it, do you really expect gay people to take it easy and not be outraged? These things speak to the core of who we are, they are sensitive topics and should be treated with delicacy and tact.

Presumably if they're good with math they'll understand the calculations behind the claim and agree with the conclusion. They'd also understand that the "on average" part leaves plenty of room for exceptions to the general rule. It doesn't really say much about individuals.

If you want to write your research on how in average men seem better at math than woman why not take your time to maybe tell it's not because men have better brains, but maybe it's a cultural thing instead?

What if in the scenario it IS about the male brain versus the female brain? If you had definitive proof of that should you publish it?

You are asking me, a minority who is already persecuted to extreme points to have empathy with you, when you can't even do it yourself?

In this specific scenario, no I'm not calling for empathy. If anything I'd advocate for putting feelings (i.e. empathy) aside and focus on where the facts take us regardless of how uncomfortable it might be.

To be clear, I don't actually believe that men are naturally smarter at math. I mean, it's hypothetically possible, so I wouldn't automatically discount the claim either. But I'd have to see the paper and see its arguments before I accept it. Some repetition of results would be necessary too. As of now it's not a position I hold.

 

[2MF]

To be clear, I don't actually believe that men are naturally smarter at math. I mean, it's hypothetically possible, so I wouldn't automatically discount the claim either. But I'd have to see the paper and see its arguments before I accept it. Some repetition of results would be necessary too. As of now it's not a position I hold.

Also, even if it gets proven that men are naturally better at math, this is no reason to freak out - the variance of math ability within each gender is probably way bigger than the difference in math ability between genders. The same applies to many other possible differences between genders.

 

[aeolist]

Saying "this particular ciriticism is wrong and has potentially dangerous implications" is different from saying "I should be able to write whatever I want and be free from criticism." This is a straw man argument employed all over this forum in plenty of threads completely independent of this particular author.

Yeah If you can't separate the quality of an argument from the moral standing of your target, that's a problem.

i need to see examples of her complaints before i can take them seriously though. right now all she's provided are reactions to her work which are better explained by her own inability to process criticism than political correctness destroying culture. that's my point.

i'm not going to just listen to vague hypotheticals about overly sensitive millenials censoring artists and freak out.