Oh yeah for sure, but this conversation already derailed, so no further dialog was necessary. I was coming from a point of view "small talk on a dinner table during hangout" and she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you" so, better to let the conversation die down and continue another time.

> she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you"

Is it fair to you? No, it isn't.

However you need to realize that _that question_ has been used, probably verbatim, in bad ways against her or her peers... therefore she has pattern-matched this into a sexist question too.

This is not an irreversible state. 99% of these communication breakdowns can be solved with a polite correction: "no, didn't cross my mind. I am sincerely curious about what drives that career decision, if I may ask".

I won't get entangled into a straw-man battle-royale, so if the person cannot recognize they made a mistake and correct course: sure thing I'll retreat.

That hasn't happened to me just yet, but I know it could. Fair? No, but it is what it is.

I am aware we are dissecting a quickly summed-up situation here, so my argument might not apply to the actual encounter you experienced. But if it does, I think you and lots of others are skipping on conversations that you actually wanted to have due to a very small and temporary defect on the dialogue.

> However you need to realize that _that question_ has been used, probably verbatim, in bad ways against her or her peers...

And how do you know? You have direct knowledge of it or are you just pulling out a factoid?

Because the alternative is she's hypersensitive without any reason. You can, of course, -decide- that the person is just unreasonable, rather than try and figure out what might have caused her to respond the way she did, and be empathic towards it, but it doesn't seem like it'll get you far in life.

Somewhere pretty close to the truth? Or are you saying you believe misogyny is super uncommon?

I quickly changed the conversation topic after that, since we are in about 6 - 10 people in the table, and I don't want to make situations awkward.

I'm a bit sad to see that awkwardness is seen as worse than resolving the conflict. I don't know the situation but I like to think that I would find it worth it to have a difficult conversation rather than keep everyone smiling.

But then I also am not part of any minority group. I'm a white male in a western country who is good at what he does, which would let me incur a lot of awkwardness before someone thinks that the problem is me. That might be different in your situation, or simply in that context, I don't know. Regardless, it makes me sad that there was a need to bury the topic.

Honestly, you're absolutely correct in encouraging an empathetic perspective but I would counter that your dismissing the very common reality of the victimhood mentality being a root cause to a lot of these types of outbursts is a bit short sighted. While the underlying reason this mentality exists is certainly, as you described, born from decades of misogyny, there is an entire population that has not necessarily experienced it to nearly the degree that warrants the level of hypersensitivity they exhibit.

I am not saying misogyny doesn't continue to exist, but it is now very often misattributed in scenarios that technically fit the criteria (man didn't hire woman, etc) but are in fact the result of other factors (woman wasn't a good hire). It's a slippery slope and the reason we have such outrage in response to equality movements in general. Kneejerk reactions to non-misogynistic interactions are counter productive and serve to undermine the validity of the complaints against misogyny by giving naysayers a reason to dismiss them.

I grew up as part of the overwhelming majority in a place with a small but distinct minority. I tried to befriend the minority and was often harshly pushed out. I came to think they were oversensitive because of some victim culture.

Then I spent some years in a culture where I stuck out by skin color, hair color, language skills, height, shoe size--pretty much every way possible. People were not mean to me or racist towards me. But every waking moment I knew I was different. And I knew I would never have the right hair or skin or height or accent to fit in. I would always be an outsider.

For the first time, I understood in some small way that minority from my youth who seemed to have a chip on their shoulder. I can't say that I have had their experience, but I have had an experience that opened my eyes to realize what it means to always know you are an outsider.

I wish they didn't react so negatively. But I think I know better now than to condemn their hostility outright. My experience was some short years as an adult. And I wasn't treated as inferior. How would it be to grow up under that and to expect it for your entire life?

> victimhood mentality

Is this a term for something real, or just a contentless way to denigrate people who claim to have been victimized? Is there some diagnostic criteria other than "that person annoys me"?

> Is this a term for something real

It's real. The most privileged people I know (and later cut out of my life entirely) are the first to play the victim card. We're talking the type of people who would choose to show up to work late every day and then complain that they were fired because they were [insert trait]. Or people that refused to study and then demanded they get extra support and financial aid because they came from a 'difficult' background.

Some definitely white people claim to be minorities because some percentage of people will use every card in the deck to get ahead. The tragedy is that these people sour the conversation and make people distrust those who bring up the actual issues they face.

I’m reminded of an incident at a local school. The principal, a black woman, became increasingly incompetent. The teachers, many of them POC themselves, were now collectively doing her job for her. They tried to get her removed.

The NAACP got involved. There was outrage and shame to spare. The principal wrapped herself in righteous indignation, despite herself being in the position of power.

Months later, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Oops.

I’m sure this person definitely experienced racism and sexism in her life and career. There were undoubtedly many incidents when she was slighted by white people. It’s America, after all. But in this particular case, she was not the victim. The teachers were the victims. The students were the victims. Yet she still acted the victim. Hence, “victimhood mentality”. “Contentless” can cut both ways.

The insidious thing about these types of incidents is how it discredits the rest of the racial justice movement. We need to hold our outrage to a higher standard.

It's real, but it's rarely ever just one or the other. There's no situationally objective criteria for whether someone has victimhood mentality or is actually a victim.

When you get into the territory of microaggressions and subconscious bias, which are real problems but aren't necessarily clearly benign or bad on a case by case basis, the lines can get very blurry depending on who the observer is. Generally you should give the benefit of the doubt, because part of the nature of the social problems we talk about come from blaming the weak for being weak.

Does that logic work for why I cross the street when I see a black person coming my way?

Why? I'm hypersensitive; is it more likely I got that way apropos of nothing, that I just bought into some racist culture that is determined to create claims of issues wholecloth against blacks to rail against, or because I -have- been mugged by a black person enough times that I assume the worst?

Would you take an empathetic view to where I'm coming from?

A black person, or a black man?

A black man, or just any man wearing street clothes?

Any man wearing street clothes, or just any man wearing street clothes on an otherwise empty street?

Because if you do that in broad daylight, on a well populated street, because a black woman in business clothes appears to be a possible threat, but you don't do it for the white man in street clothes on an empty street at night, then it sounds like maybe you have a pretty racist heuristic.

Otherwise, yeah, I'm pretty empathic; race may indeed be an additional input, especially given your history, but if it's just one more heuristic that makes you slightly more likely to cross the street, and you also -recognize- that it's a generalization you're making, and that it's unfair to the individual even though it's based on personal experience...yes, I'm empathic towards where you find yourself. Certainly, as a man, if the input of "a man approaching" on its own caused you to be more likely to cross the street, I don't view it as some sort of misandry, and would not take it personally.

(And yes, I know this is an attempt at a rhetorical counter argument, but I'm purposely treating it as a real position to make clear I don't view it as a particularly compelling argument)

> Would you take an empathetic view to where I'm coming from?

I personally would be empathic to you.

However I would also expect you to recognize the failure in that heuristic, even as you continue to execute it.

It's a bias. Let's assume that all muggers wear red pants (or you have been mugged mostly by people in red pants). So when you see somebody in red pants you cross a street. It's surely not a textbook racism, since no race is involved. Also how do you know that anybody wearing red pants is a mugger? The tragedy of blacks is that they can't change skin color, unlike pants. This bias will exist until crime percentages will at least equalize between blacks and whites (do they?). You can call it a racism if you want but it doesn't change anything. I have worked with many blacks, I had zero problems with any of them, I don't consider them worse than me in any way, but I will cross that street. Sorry. There is a difference between a concrete person and statistics.

Yes. I agree it is textbook racism.

Now for jumping to the defensive the moment a man asks you a benign question, because you assume he is sexist because of his gender - isn't that sexism?