Alison Croggon wrote:
> What is never understood - wilfully or not - by those who claim
> civility is a form of censorship is how abusive messages silence
> others. Worse, abusive posts derail more interesting dialogues and
> usually conceal a paucity of argument. I don't see what is so
> interesting about abuse that its sacrifice isn't worth the presence of
> a diversity of voices. And yes, gender plays strongly into this.
>
> I make no apology for my anger on the question of gender. I am
> personally doing ok, and thinking it over the past couple of days,
> I've realised this makes me angrier. I just get factored in as a
> cultural exception and my exceptionalism does nothing to change the
> structural inequities that face women or any other people who are
> identified as "Other" in the heterosexist, normative male-centric
> modes that marginalise other ways of speaking. The macho "if you can't
> stand the heat get out of the kitchen" stuff - which always
> characterises those who find this distasteful or dull as "wimps" or
> "pussies" or any number of other feminised terms of abuse - is a major
> means of marginalising women.
>
> I am obviously not just speaking of discourse on this list.
>
> I'll "play rough" when required, but I don't like it. What happens,
> without fail, when "playing rough" is the norm, is a desert of the
> loudest voices. Maybe its worse crime is that it's boring.
>
> xA
I will only say that to call for freedom of speech is
not the same as praising abuse. Oh, and add that
abuse is in the eye of the beholder. And that there
seems nothing to me more tedious than discussions
of proper behavior.
--Bob
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