Thursday, March 21, 2013

Women, Men and Microaggression

It's sometimes believed that political correctness is a characteristically feminine perspective - above all, don't hurt people's feelings. But the 'theory and practice' ranges more widely, as Steve Sailer's recent article on the new American concept of 'microaggression' points out.

From an American liberal arts college statement on 'microaggression':

"When you see or hear racist, heterosexist/homophobic, anti-Semitic, classist, ableist, sexist/cissexist speech etc., please submit it to us so that we may demonstrate that these acts are not simply isolated incidents, but rather part of structural inequalities."

Sailer comments:

"The cult of microaggressions is not something that either sex could have developed wholly on its own.

Granted, the role of women is readily apparent in the obsession with propriety, with feelings over logic, and the dislike of impersonal principles. Yet on their own, women are less interested in logic, which makes their likes and dislikes more idiosyncratic. A woman can only be pregnant by one man at a time, so women normally put a huge amount of effort into thinking about individuals.

In contrast, these long, airless lists of identity-politics categories appeal to the Aspergery male systemizing mind more than to the female empathizing mind (to use Simon Baron-Cohen’s terminology)."
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Despite anything you may have heard to the contrary, you will have observed that men and women do tend to think differently.