Posts by Danielle
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Russell Brown,
not shouting about whether each one is an “excuse” or not
Hey. I’m not shouting. I actually think you’re being pretty unfair to Megan too, FWIW.
ETA Now that I don't have a screaming baby on my lap I'd like to note that the column I think is better *also talks about empathy* and, in fact, no one is denying the importance of empathy in these situations at all. It's just going to be a little difficult for people, I imagine. It is for me.
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I’ve been shooed out of a previous thread by Danielle and Megan while trying to have a respectful discussion on the same issue.
I'm sorry, I don't remember this at all. The PAS feminist thread-shooing cabal *is* kinda busy, though, and it's a volunteer organisation, so...
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Russell Brown,
The words you’ve quoted, inside quote marks, do not appear anywhere in the column you’re quoting.
Oh yes they bloody well DO. They are in the middle of the paragraph beginning "For women, things are looking up." As a matter of fact, they're still highlighted on my screen from when I copied and pasted them to write my post. Believe me, I'm not going to construct an argument based on an imaginary quote I pulled out of my ass.
Except she doesn’t say that, or anything really like it.
If you don't interpret the column that way, OK. I think there's a definite argument to be made that it's an elaborate excuse-away-the-heinousness exercise, though.
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Russell Brown,
I think those two columns are arguing different things, and no, one is not a "more able" version of the other. The one Megan linked to argues that "because resources are limited, gains for women and minorities necessarily equal losses for white males". Which is such a bizarrely adversarial way of looking at life that I don't really know how to respond to it. The one Ross links to argues that "ideas about whiteness and maleness... are imbued with an innocence and authority that makes it almost impossible to critically talk about them" and that the redistribution of power is something we should "seek to understand, openly discuss and facilitate, or we can ignore and exacerbate harm". Chemaly's talking about discussing what's happening more openly; she isn't giving these guys carte blanche to rage at everyone around them because women got the vote, which I think the Wampole piece comes dangerously close to saying.
(I think it's also probably useful to cut people a little bit of slack - this week, at least - for being viscerally angry with and not-so-empathetic for the problems of a dude who gunned down a bunch of six-year-olds. Because: Jesus fucking Christ, you know?)
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to B Jones,
People are really invested in the idea.
This. It is so annoying it makes me want to, uh, shoot stuff. My usual response is a sort of waffly not-very-assertive "I dunno, I think they're quite similar until we teach them how to be different" statement, at which most people fall silent or change the subject. I am The Weird Parent at Playgroup. (But since I have now discovered via this thread that both of my sons are likely to kill themselves at the age of 16 by jumping a railway bridge in their replica of the General Lee, I might just give up on the whole campaign. ;) )
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Tom Semmens,
identity issues bingo
Hear ye, for Sanctuary has spoken: the gendered nature of gun violence and mass shootings is not at all relevant. Good to know.
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Bart Janssen,
understand and work with the effects of testosterone
But what does this actually MEAN? In practical terms? I can just imagine how dumbly this would be implemented. "Hey guys, you're awash with hormones, which make you kee-RAZY! So that's an awesome way to take no responsibility for anything you do!"
I dunno, I am obviously leery. It seems awfully like saying women shouldn't have control of the nuclear button because once a month they get bitchy.
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Bart Janssen,
But I do think any attempt to address violence in society, particularly by males, must take into account the effect on behaviour of this hormone.
Here’s my problem with this idea: let’s say we all agree that testosterone is partly “why” men are more violent than women. Yet we also agree 99.9% of men can squash the urge to go around beating the crap out of things and shooting a bunch of people because: reason; socialisation; humane qualities; not being monstrous. You know, average pleasantness. If most men can do this, why not these men? And if, as Russell says, most mass shooters are not actually all that heavy on the testosterone and were, in fact, tormented at school for not being “manly” enough… what then? What I mean is, the testosterone-explanation really doesn’t get us very far, because isn’t this more fundamentally a *social* problem?
ETA Or, uh, what Lucy said. Frankly, let's just assume I say that whenever she posts. It'll save us all a lot of time.
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to James Bremner,
Taking sensible precautions is the sober juducious thing to do.
You are seriously suggesting arming primary school teachers, aren't you? Yes. Totally sensible. I can't believe American society hadn't considered it previously.
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to DexterX,
By all means go hard out to ignore the problem in your response and don’t forget to feel self-righteous doing so.
You're reading an awful lot into my one-sentence post reporting a, um, fact.