[FRIAM] Please change the damned thread

[Marcus Daniels]

I'll give a different example.   

An ostensibly women's group where someone posts an article about how women are disproportionately hurt by not being able to work during the pandemic.  IIRC the article was from Science or Nature -- that could have been a coincidence, or some sort of appeal to authority, not sure.   The poster, a woman, did not remark on their own situation, in particular if she was a mother or if in her relationships she was in fact impacted negatively.  Just the article.  

It occurred to me there is an expectation in the U.S. that people who have children will get support from society and government (e.g. tax breaks), and in fact disproportionately from those that do not.  And that is not good feminist policy to set norms in such a way that women are favored if they take on the obligation of child care.   My view is that a woman who is treated fairly should receive similar support no matter whether she plans on having children or not.   Otherwise I think that a mom should take it up with her spouse and not with rest of the taxpaying public.   It was a risk they took when they decided to have children.  The pandemic exposed that risk.  Ooops.

So in this example, the norm or subtext of that group was to support that constituency of women, not women in principle.    Here, there's a subtext of concern for an person at health risk vs. subtext about a long running debate that not everyone may be familiar with.   There's subtext in most academic fields where methods with obscure names are assumed and conventional wisdom taken for granted.

Marcus

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Tuesday, December 8, 2020 1:16 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Please change the damned thread

Nah, it's not so obvious. One of the recurring themes is the question of why so few women participate [⛧]. It's often written off to confrontation or the typical male pattern of simply waiting until it's your turn to talk, etc. But I think there's something deeper lurking, some style at work. What's "obvious" to some will not be obvious to all. This, BTW, is a hallmark of groups where some members are more tightly coupled than others and subtext is rampant. Good ol' boys are called "good ol' boys" for good reasons. (I'm not saying I know what those reasons are, of course. I'm as abusive as the next *guy*. But to sweep it all under the rug as "we know each other and engage in this behavior all the time" or some sort of unwritten standard that identifies abusive behavior, seems inadequate.)

I know almost nobody who reads this will care about such meta-narratives. C'est la vie.


[⛧] And I don't intend to be sexist about it. It's just one example. I know at least 1 male participant who feels put off by the implicit style of the group.

On 12/8/20 12:16 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Obviously it was not “abuse”.
--
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ

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