The old fashioned phrases for “certain types of individuals” would have been “overly sensitive” or “thin skinned.”
The problem is, when dealing with new people, you can’t tell who might be overly sensitive. But you can’t hide in your house all day, @dietz199 !! Just be nice… And you will be 99.5% guaranteed that you won’t offend those “certain types”. For the remaining .5%, well, idk.
I suspect that the number of unreasonably thin-skinned people is pretty equivalent to the number of cluelessly offensive people. Most people are more in the middle, and might possibly be capable of learning to be either less sensitive or more sensitive, as the case may be.
I can only control my own behavior and would prefer never to give offense, unless very deliberately. If I give unintended offense, and am made aware of that, I always do my best to sincerely apologize and hope to be forgiven. If they can’t forgive, I just move on, and try to learn from the experience. I try not to dwell because that is pointless. imho. Since I’ve been wrong, much more often than I like to admit, on first impressions, I’m usually going to give everyone a few chances before I disengage.
Human communication is profoundly nuanced. There is no set of “rules” that could be taught to somebody so prevent every single type of offense that could be committed.
The “rules” of communication in polite society are learned by years of trial/error/experience/socialization from babyhood until…well…the grave.
Just telling people, “don’t ever touch somebody’s hair” or “never say [whatever]” is advice that is too crude. We learn these things, in context, over the course of millions of lifetime interactions - spoken and unspoken.
I think the problem is that what some of us have learned over millions of lifetimes of interactions is not necessarily what everyone has learned. There is not a universal shared experience. There is not really some sort of default setting. Treating it as the default is what causes all the problems. jyho.
I think that life is so much easier if you treat EVERYONE with respect, and you don’t look to take offense. I would never intend to hurt someone’s feelings or make them feel small, no matter who they were. Some people are looking so hard for offenses, and that seems to be a miserable, stressful way to go through life. Every now and then, someone will ask me, “Didn’t that bother you? How can you not be offended by what that person said?” My answer is always, “You can choose to take offense, or you can choose not to. I always choose not to.” It makes for a much happier life, I think. And when people aren’t scared that you are one of those types they have to tiptoe around, they are more comfortable being in your presence.
I have so many opportunities to take offense, if I chose to. There are microaggressions, and overt sort of potentially offensive behavior in my workplace all day. I choose to be happy, confident, not let anything bother me, assume the best of people always, and treat them well. It works so much better that way, instead of being angry, irritated, defensive, and the victim. I can’t imagine how miserable I would be if I was living with that chip on my shoulder.
It’s not too. hard to avoid taking offense to thoughtless comments–as long as they don’t happen too often. But if they happen a lot, you might get fed up, and react (or over-react).
^ Meanwhile, as we become more and more accepting of one another as a society, those thoughtless comments should come with declining frequency.
Because I am pretty old and have all sorts of privilege, it is difficult for the thoughtless comments others make towards me to really negatively impact my life. At most, I’ll have hurt feelings.
Busdriver: I am wondering if thoughtless, negative comments about female pilots could have the potential to do a lot more than create hurt feelings for female pilots. It seems to me there is not only the potential of a hostile work environment but also perhaps being passed over for job opportunities and advancement, when the dominate workplace culture finds females less than male. In those circumstances, isn’t it necessary to object to prejudiced comments and language? Even if the speaker is well-intentioned?
And then you have this kind of thing:
http://www.wnyc.org/story/seeking-end-cycles-abuse/
and you wonder why people worry about words…
@alh, I think we all improve in our communications abilities when someone DOES call us out on a legitimately insensitive comment.
The problem is if the “offendee” takes it to the next level…goes off the handle and tries to crucify a first-time offender speaker.
A response of, “hey, what you said wasn’t cool, and here’s why” in a kind manner is a good way to handle that. The offender should take the advice to heart and, in that micromoment, add it to his/her collective experience of how to handle such matters.
And then the offendee needs to just move on IMO. If the offender continues to repeat these types of comments in a harmful way, such that the workplace becomes hostile, then of course further steps should be taken.
“Busdriver: I am wondering if thoughtless, negative comments about female pilots could have the potential to do a lot more than create hurt feelings for for female pilots. It seems to me there is not only the potential of a hostile work environment but also perhaps being passed over for job opportunities and advancement, when the dominate workplace culture finds females less than male. In those circumstances, isn’t it necessary to object to prejudiced comments and language? Even if the speaker is well-intentioned?”
Actually, alh, flying is one of the more sex blind career fields. It’s one of the great things about being in a union. You are a number, and you move up based upon how many people above you retire or die. I am a captain because I have the seniority, nobody can delay my upgrade a day based upon my sex. And actually, things have gotten much better over the years, I don’t feel like such a freak anymore (even though our percentages are still very low). Tons of women in management at my airline, though I haven’t seen any at the very top–but probably because not enough people even want the job. However, if you are one of those women that is known to report people for saying something offensive, or to have a huge chip on your shoulder, people do not want to fly with you. I want everyone to know that we are a crew, and part of the same team. No offense taken, no offense given, we’re all professionals, trying to do the best job possible.
How did women end up in a previously male dominated field? Did men just suddenly see the light and change the rules?
How many careers were truly 100% men in the past? People like Amelia Earhart may have been exceptions, but she was not the only exception, and one could argue that societal norms were much more of a pressure than individual acts of discrimination.
The point I’m trying to make is that societal norms are made up of individual acts of discrimination, acts we take for granted because … they are the norm of those of us in the majority. These are not necessarily universal norms.
I think there have often been women scattered about in male dominated career fields, not with restrictions against them, as in the military. As time goes on, more women become interested, and men get more used to it. Honestly, the people I enjoy flying with the most are often women, and the ones I avoid are also women. They can be the absolute best, competent, friendly, just making work fun. Or they can be so prickly, cranky, with that chip on their shoulder like you’re dealing with a teenage daughter. Ugh.
It occurs to me I’m perhaps the oldest on this thread.
I remember when routine and thoughtless discrimination against women was the norm and they were officially barred from some colleges and professional schools. My age mate female friends were told, point blank, they were not going to be hired, or admitted to certain programs, because they were just going to quit work when they had babies and the jobs were more important for men, who would inevitably and ultimately be the breadwinners. Women had to speak up and speak back to change the status quo. Or at least that is my interpretation of events at the time.
In those olden times, pilots were male, steward(ess)es were female.
In the US, norms keep evolving and society becomes more inclusive. We have a long ways to go. I am glad to have seen the changes I’ve seen. I hope for much more.
^^ What @alh said.
My mother-in-law has a humanities degree rather than a STEM degree because she was told straight-up by a college advisor that she wouldn’t be able to graduate with the degree she wanted, because women weren’t supposed to take those courses.
The good old days weren’t always good.
And tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph7oZnBH05s
We should be “keeping the faith” that things will continue improving.
Times have surely changed, that’s for certain, and many young women/girls have no concept of how it was to actually be insulted and discriminated against. Perhaps it’s a mark of progress that people are searching for microaggressions. You didn’t use to have to look so hard to find the insult.