starwater
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2017
- Messages
- 1,272
- Location
- Rocky Mountains
- Basic Beliefs
- Moving to the 4th Dimension
Sure, he could have just been trying to be polite, gallant, even. But it ends up undermining the authority of the woman, even if that were not his conscious intention. Once men start to think of a particular woman or a group of human beings (female, Hispanic, Black, White, whatever) as needing or expecting special assistance, then however unintentionally, that particular woman or group of human beings begins to be perceived as less tough, less capable.
And yet somehow you don't see illiberals and modern feminists doing this? We've gone from "anything you can do, I can do" to trigger warnings, safe spaces, and language police.
Imagine it this way: Suppose you are the father of a child in diapers. You are an active participant in all aspects of your child's care and feeding. You take the child to interview a new daycare facility. During the interview, and while you are holding your child, the child suddenly and obviously needs a diaper change. One of the female workers offers to change your child's diaper instead of asking if you'd like to use their diaper changing station. This could be an over eager potential employee looking to be helpful--or it could be signaling that you, as the father, rather than as the mother, might be less comfortable changing your own child's smelly diaper. It might be meant kindly, but it seems predicated on the assumption that the father is less comfortable or less willing to deal with common, everyday messes that come with child rearing. In the same situation, in the unlikely event that the female employee would offer to change the child's diaper for the mother, a woman could feel reasonably confident that her competence as a parent/caregiver of a small child is not being questioned. For a father? It's one of those situations that as much as most parents wouldn't mind ducking out of changing a smelly diaper, for the dad to do so here would be kind of like saying that he's just a 'typical man who doesn't like dealing with a kid's diapers or other inconveniences of childrearing.' And would kind of reinforce a bad stereotype.
Or we could just not read that in and not presume the worst in people. If somebody offered to change my baby's diaper, I would appreciate the gesture. My gender wouldn't even occur to me in that moment. Does my holding a door for a man mean politeness, but my holding a door for a woman mean I question her competency or strength?
Do you run up ahead of a man and hold a door open for him?