That is true. Societies have taboos. Many things are more complicated than (say) having pink as your favourite color as a man. Like an adult man wearing a dress in public in a Western country may raise some eyebrows (or worse) at this day and age, even though wearing similar flowing garments as a man is/was perfectly normal at different times and places. Also an adult woman wearing a bikini on a public beach may raise some eyebrows (or worse) in many countries.
But societies also evolve over time, and each of us has a small influence on the direction of that evolution. A century ago, women wearing trousers in public was still considered scandalous in the West, but nowadays it’s widely accepted.
I’m not so much in favour of segregating society into different silos/pillars with their own group identities (been there, done that: Pillarisation - Wikipedia), or even worse, impose a singular group identity on society as a whole (which sounds a lot like fascism to me, no offence intended).
I think people can bond with each other perfectly fine without them belonging to the same silo, better yet if there are no clear silos. It’s a matter of being more accepting towards people who are different from ourselves, instead of rejecting them for that.
I disagree. Stereotypes are very much prescriptive.
Of course you’re not bound by stereotypes. You can decide that you will not conform to gender norms or other unwritten rules, but in doing so you are being non-conformist and appearing as such. The kid would not be just be wearing pink, like any other color; he’d be “wearing-pink-despite-being-a-boy” (and this is of course a pretty mild example).
Your answer is a very classic example of a defensive pattern used to fight feminism often used with the hashtag #Notallmen.
Obviously not all men have perverted minds, not every man is a rapist, not every man will treat women badly or with a feeling of superiority, not every man will make sexist jokes that will make women uncomfortable. That being said, if you don’t realize that sexism is all around us, then yes you are blind. Metoo didn’t come from just a few bad men. It was a global phenomenom. If you are truly part of the Go world for 40 years and you never experienced problematic behaviors, then you are not lucky, you are just not seeing it.
Maybe it differs in different countries? I looked up a survey from the Netherlands and the gender gap between female and male respondents is not bigger than about 10 percentage points when it comes to their responses in regard to poetry.
There are a lot of exaggeration in your words. “all around” “truly” “never”
That’s not helping to understand the situation.
I feel a bit ashamed that you compare my view point to some pattern as firstly I don’t like to be put in any box. And then my whole life I had concern about woman alienation I don’t feel having any debt on this side.
You may feel wrong that I consider the go environment better for women as others and you push to say it’s everywhere the same but to me that’s more a distorted view from a women’s right fighter as the reality.
I’m not denying the existence of mysoginy in it anyway, I simply had much better memories there as in some other places.
In fact what made me most reacting is the way you put an old generation separated from a new one and telling that one is better as the other. That is going a bit quick in analysing, the evolution of mentality hasn’t started just yesterday. As a fact I am more confronted to the stupidity today as before because stupid idea become more of public access as before. I got a lot of annoyance from internet, people claiming publicly the inferiority of women in go while kibitzing is a today’s behaviour to fight. This may lead to better understanding and progress I hope but going as far as it’s already better I don’t know and at least I don’t have any tangible proof of it.
Well, imho the discussion derailed a bit. Assuming that we will not “solve” sexism here, I find it hard to believe that the more philosphical question will change anyone minds, especially regarding Go, if it becomes heated.
That said, I would advise care against essentialising behaviour. Self-identifying as one gender does not imply accepting all cultural practices surrounding that gender. I think that we can aggree seeing “men” as the “thinking gender” is just plain stupid. I think we also agreed that there could be done more to encourage women participation, e.g., more specialised events etc. This will cost money and should be spent We also aggreed that overtly sexist behavior should be a clear no go in tournaments and play groups. This is quite something, isn’t it? After all, in my view, the remaining question becomes what do you believe is the ideal situation and how can you realistically act yourself in achieving it (regarding a communitfty-driven social space as the western Go world). I have no definite answers for it but I believe that gathering data, problems and solutions as the French comission does in their mission statement is a good first step, imho more associations should follow.
None taken. I’m not advocating for group identity in its extreme at all, I was simply pondering whether the total absense of groups is even possible for society? Maybe it is always a balance that we need to wrestle with I’m not sure.
I think in theory I like the idea of no groups, I’m just not sure if that wanders a bit too close to utopian fallacies or not.
Still, probably a fine enough thing to aim for, even if it’s not totally achievable.
I feel there is a difference between being having traits/habits/interests in common with other people, versus being a member of a community that shares a strong group identity.
There are many traits/habits/interests that I have (in no particular order): I’m a man, I’m married to a woman, I’m a home-owner, we have solar panels, I’m a father, I’m white, I can read/write, I eat meat, I’m a smoker, I drink coffee, I drink beer, I’m Dutch, I drive a car almost daily, I cycle sometimes, I have a job, I’m a programmer, I’m middle-aged, I’m interested in science, I like science fiction, I’m not disabled, I hate discrimination, I like cats, I don’t believe in god(s), etcetera.
For none of those I feel there is much of a community with a clear group identity, that members would rally behind to defend some common interests.
I’ve also been playing go for most of my life. I do feel I am a member of some vague community of go players. IME I tend to have more common interests with go players than the average person. So perhaps this comes closest to being a member of a group with some shared identity.
Still, I don’t feel this group identity is strong and well defined. It doesn’t really have much overall organisation or leadership. Also, I wouldn’t feel obliged to adhere to some political/ethical doctrines that this community might promote. I couldn’t even name one TBH. Perhaps a somewhat common trait is a degree of intellectualism, but even that I consider more a statistical observation than part of some identity that this group has.
Group identity an be expressed in hundreds of ways, you don’t have to embrace all of them. A man can wear pink, as long as he doesn’t also wear lipstick, high heels and a skirt, he will still be identified as a man. This is the yin-yang symbol:
I’m not sure.
