Greta wrote:
Does it occur to you that I use non gendered language because I like logic and it simply makes more sense to me?
Of course it makes sense to you. Everything what people do make sense for them.
I don't pretend to give you an English lesson, but... do you know the origin of the word "straw man"? well, we know what it means, it means "a false oponent", maybe it begun with toys made of straw, or with scarecrows, or maybe it begin with dummies, since it is a false oponent, and they were false men, evidently. The first records are (for what I've seen) around 1500.
That are 500 years of "straw man", now you and a few people say "straw person", because it makes sense to you, and it's fine for me, as long as I can understand you, and the rules say it's ok, well, ok. But do you know why "hello" means "hello"? If I list you all the things that doesn't make sense to a Spanish person learning English this will take a long while, and it's raining cats and dogs. Now that you say that I always think bad of other people, are you trying to make learning English more difficult or something? Remember that I'm learning.
It's hard to imagine you thinking anything but the worst about others.
It's hard for you. Ok. And yes, I always think at the begining (And this morning I was thinking to myself that I should think it even more but I can't) that people are not very good unless they show otherwise. That's what my life has taught me, I may be "bitter" to many strangers, but that doesn't make me a bad person.
For the record, I never cared about the terms "straw person"/"straw man" until now. I just write that reflexively because that's how I think. As a high-functioning autistic person (note that I did not way "woman" - again, I like neutrality) I have always clung to logic as a protection against others' lies, manipulations and jaundice, which confused and disturbed me as a child (gender neutral). Hence my love for nature and science. Also math and the more scientific elements of philosophy.
If you want this... since you talk in English, this won't make sense for you, you have many words with no gender, in my language, there are genders for everhting, for example, the rain is femenine, the dog is masculine, and there are a few words without gender (Or I think they don't have gender, because I don't use articles on them), for example, January, (enero). And there are some rules, just for language, for example, when we talk about a bunch of people, unless they are all women, we say the masculine form of "we" (nosotros en lugar de nosotras). Well, in my country it is becoming very common to hear "feminist girls" talking about things changing the gender with a ridiculous political meaning, for example, in a group of only men, they have started to say "nosotras", and they put gender to the fucking months... I know it's difficult to understand but... how would you feel if someone start saying "Januarya" Februarya" etc? pretening that call it in the other way is "sexism", it sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Yep, Trump is ridiculous, but never underestimate places where they talk Spanish, he is not saying that chicken turn people gay yet XD.
So I have always used the term "straw person" without the slightest attitude, hostility or prejudice. Like my mother (actually both my parents), I have always spent more time with men than women so I'm hardly anti-male. My last band was all male apart from me and I had great relationships with them - all of them being decent, reliable, intelligent, talented and humorous people (gender neutral).
Then why do you talk about "remasculiniation" impliying that it means geting away from intelligence, compassion, etc? Because, talking about straws-whatevers, that was my main motive to write. Maybe you should change that words to make them have sense too. I'm just doing the same you say you did (but without the concrete exact meaning that straw man has, and "masculine" doesn't have), I'm just saying that being a man doesn't mean to be a monkey.
I am simply wedded to logic, calmness, neutrality, decency and reject the opposite - prejudice, aggression, partisanship and manipulativeness. I say this in the hope that you will understand me a little better and not make such factually incorrect and pointlessly hurtful attacks.
Hurtful? How? It doesn't matter, it's ok for me if it's true. But, if you want a list of things, now that we are being honest, and I can make a list for each person because nobody is perfect: You talk too much about "society" specially puting biology where it doesn't belongs, and you don't want to divide in evil and not evil people or things like that, that's basically what I don't like in you, there are no hiden thoughts or anything out of that, so I don't know how can what I say hurt you, really, I don't want you to die or something lke that :/