I believe the standard response to that is "That's what she said! Yeah!". ;-)
> Do you remember the discussion we had awhile back about women and
> chess?
> The consensus - from what I think we should call, borrowing a phrase
> Bitch can pedigree for us, the "feminism of fools" POV - was that
> since
> women aren't amongst the top tier of players, chess surely sucks.
> Which
> struck me, at the time (and even more so in retrospect) as some weird
> 1970s/80s lefty guy thing - rhetorical proof of feminist street cred
> by
> calling yourself, in so many words, a clueless, irresponsible asshole
> whose interests are unimportant.
I am afraid you are falling into the "psycho-analytical 'gotcha' as a substitute for thoughtful analysis" trap: the idea that somehow if I could divine what goes on in someone else's mind and talk about that, I have addressed the content of what he said (in this instance, the hollowness can be made explicit through a simple device: having my wife post her thoughts directly to the list). One could label this anti-behaviourism (essentialism?). This is unsurprisingly, also the tool of the right: "bleeding-heart liberal", "do-gooder", etc.
Your reference is useful. In the case of women and chess, my response was derived from anything but the sort of mental gymnastics you describe above. Rather, I refuted the idea by pointing out that the claimed data was essentially wrong. The same is the case of genius- level math also: there are stellar top-notch women chess players (I posted Judith Polgar's record) and mathematicians. An aside regarding chess: the strong-AI types often offered it as a crystallised high ground of human intelligence and there was much wailing when a mere computer beat the reigning champ. I have however never subscribed to this view of chess, or for that matter, nor am I concerned about computers that are smarter than humans.
It is a hasty misunderstanding of my post to think that I offer myself as an asshole or that an interest in mathematics is unimportant. My aforementioned plodding atomic nature prompts me to attempt to break this down and demonstrate the errors, but my contrarian instinct suggests I should not further encourage psycho-logic on this list!
I still love you, of course! (especially since you suggest I may not be an arsehole after all!)
--ravi
If we were not quick with the orchidaceous psychoanalysis, I believe we would see that in the majority case (even when relevant) its not "street cred" but "ideological commitment" that compels the wearer. And there is nothing wrong with the latter. Even when misunderstood, I am happy to stand with my 70s lefty comrades than with the latest fifth-wave feminists, for the reason (among others) that I prefer parsimony over obfuscation!