Board Thread:Off-Topic Discussion/@comment-24609882-20140318064016/@comment-5051846-20140516183443

Chevsapher wrote:

Serza5 wrote: In these times of social justice uprising there has been an almost equal uprising of "butt hurt men" who cry at every instance of something that appears to be insulting towards men. I would go on but i'd rather not go back into another discussion in which i'm called out for being a "tumblr snowflake".

You know why? Feminism. Socially, it's considered sexist to make negative remarks about females, but when guys get flack everyone laughs. (Double post because hell yea)

I actually have something to remark on this that might be interesting. :D You appear to have noticed the difference in standards of communication between men and women. For example, it's quite common for a guy to call his friend an idiot and it is not taking as any kind of serious insult. However, a guy calling a girl an idiot is much less common. I was called an idiot by a guy once and it felt like the world inside me was collapsing. I'm a self-conscious person in real life, but I was confused by the severity with which I interpretted the insult. I realised later the guy didn't seem to have mearnt much by it. I thought of examples of men casually insulting their friends and thought it strange how much more greatly it had effected me.

The reason for this is simple. It lies in the fact that language is incredibly nebulous and ever changing. Different words have subtle connotations which no dictionary would have the space to explain. These connotations can change from place to place, from community to community. Like this, there are also different standards language and communication between the genders. I can speculate that in the past, the fragile, gentle treatment that in many places one was expected to treat a 'lady' created a different standard in how males communicate with each other and how they communicate with females; also how females communicate with each other. The difference in how we normally communicate with each other still exists today.

As with all standards in language, not insulting women in that way didn't prevent insults or coarse language from existing in that type of conversation. It simply changed what was considered an insult. Therefore, in the context of talking to a girl, the word 'idiot' has a different meaning to in the context of talking to a guy. Because it is less used, it is much stronger, and due to it's history contains connotations of a far harsher meaning; it would have taken a lot to directly insult a female, far more than it would take to directly insult a male friend. The more commonly a word is used, the less impact it has. Therefore what is friendly in one context is more serious in a context where it is less used. The friendly jab exists just as much in girls as it does in guys, but different words are used for the same effect. The effect of the direct 'jab' is not of a jab, but of very serious angry critisism. Just as calling someone the c-word is friendly in some contexts and places but a deadly insult in others, so are many other words in the English language.

(I'm actually very sorry for double posting please forgive me)