Welcome to Douglas Wilson's Blog and May Blog, presented by Canon Press.

The value of Gender Stereotypes, Wednesday, February 9th, 2022.

Dear Dawson, by this point you have probably noticed that I've been engaging in what

is now called Gender Stereotyping.

Perhaps you were brought up by such polite parents that you were able to overlook it, acting

as though nothing untoward had been happening at all.

What I would like to do in this letter is defend that practice and perhaps even explain

it some.

I touched on this in an earlier letter, but as your future marital happiness depends

on it, indulge me for a few minutes while I defend the value of Gender Stereotypes.

The way our speech Gestapo fought against this practice is simple enough, rather than

provide an argument why such generalizations are to be avoided, they're resorted to the

simple expedience of simply being really offended whenever it happens.

In other words, if you talk this way, then you will be guaranteed to have negative experiences

with the people around you.

And since no one likes having those kinds of negative experiences, they start to police

their own behavior.

They start to self-censor.

This is not because anyone has taken them through the steps of any kind of argument, but

rather because they don't want to set anybody off or make a scene.

As I was writing this to you, a friend of mine said something sensible about women on Twitter,

and that set off a Twitter swarm.

...