> It only sees that I tried to "mansplain away" why she was misgendered as the male in the picture rather than pitching in my $0.02 as to why the mistake was a genuine mistake and not explicitly or implicitly sexist.
I read your comment. I understood all this. I imagine the person you were replying to also considered this. Who wouldn't?
>I read your comment. I understood all this. I imagine the person you were replying to also considered this. Who wouldn't?
They used something that wasn't sexism as an example of sexism. So I imagine they hadn't considered it at the time.
Regardless, you've made it clear you do not care for discussion (at least for this topic) so there is no point in us continuing this conversation. You've obviously made up your mind on the subject.
A reaction or reflex can be sexist (or racist or classist) even if the person having that reaction is filled with all the best intentions and happy thoughts in the world. It doesn't mean the person with that reflex is a bad or terrible person.
I see myself with sexist reflexes all the time, e.g., using a certain pronoun without thinking even when all I know is the person's job title. I'm certainly not thinking "Oh, they're a Director of Engineering? They _must_ be a man." I'm not thinking anything at all, actually — it's a reflex that's been baked into me by a few decades of acculturation.
That reflex: sexist.
When someone talks about an engineer you've never met, how often do you see a non-Asian person of color in your mind's eye? The honest answer for me is "Almost never, unless I'm being very deliberate about it."
Your example of title is different from the given example of mistaking who in a picture they are talking to. You're arguing against something I'm not defending or mentioning. I'm even going out of my way to exclude such examples of implicit sexism by admitting it exists but the specific example given wasn't a good example of it since it was likely an honest mistake. To bring up another example that I excluded and made no mention of is being intellectually dishonest.
A picture with a male in it could easily be mistaken for being male when you know nothing else about the person other than a picture and their username if the username is interpreted to be masculine or their manner of speech is interpreted to be masculine. Since names and speech are gendered that's a very common mistake to make online and it swings both ways. Feminine-sounding guys are assumed to be girls and masculine-sounding girls are assumed to be guys. If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck most people are going to think it's a duck. If it isn't a duck they weren't being duckist. They are simply wrong.
If someone's name was "Jesse" or "Taylor" and their job title was "Hooter's Girl" would it be sexist to assume the person is female? I'm of the opinion it wouldn't be sexist at all, given the information provided. It could still be wrong, but being wrong is not being sexist.
Rhetorical question, by the way, I know you think it is still sexist.
They are still different examples and have very different implications in them.
I'm complaining about Powerade. You're complaining about Gatorade. Gatorade and Powerade might be similar in some aspects and some people may even confuse the two - but Gatorade is not Powerade.
I read your comment. I understood all this. I imagine the person you were replying to also considered this. Who wouldn't?