@mechajutaro said:

Freedom of speech does not include hate speech. Conflating the two disingenuous - but very strategic - rhetoric.

Concocting a vague, inherently elastic term like "hate speech", then using that as a rationale to silence everything we disagree with is what's disingenuous

Sure, but it is not used as a rationale to silence "everything" we disagree with. Go on with your strawman.

By the way, the two sentences above count fifteen and five words, respectively; how am I doing?! (Ooh, seventeen words and a semi-colon...yikes, I'd better tone it down).

Speaking of "everything you disagree with", you sure do throw around "lefty" this and "woke" a lot.

@mechajutaro said:

You're mode of communication has improved; you're logic is still riddled with more holes than the carcasses of Tupac and Biggie combined though, Mus

Were you so determined to push that idiocy back at me that you just had to spell "your" wrong - not once, but twice within the one sentence? Or, do you know how to spell it but perhaps need to step away from your keyboard and go outside for some fresh air?

@mechajutaro said:

Were you so determined to push that idiocy back at me that you just had to spell "your" wrong - not once, but twice within the one sentence?

Pretty much. In hindsight, I would've freshened up my analogy, by writing something to the effect of "Your logic still has more holes than Gabby Giffords has had in her since that fateful day in '11. When she got wheeled away with a hell of a lot more than the three that she was born with"

It'd have been of no more value. I'm just not interested in your warped sense of...whatever you call that.

@mechajutaro said:

As for people being fired, each situation needs to be evaluated on its own merit, unless it can be better understood within a wider context (like the #TimesUp wave of new sensibilities) - even still, worthy of civil discourse.

Let's call TimesUp out for the pathetic CYA on the part of Hollywood that it is. The vast majority of those folks who are today walking around wearing black ribbons knew exactly what Harvey Weinstein(and many more producers and directors) had been doing for decades now. Folks only started pretending to care about justice, when tales of his antics escaped the cocktail circuit and ended up on social media

Should Matt Lauer not have been fired?

Is there evidence that he raped anyone/blackmailed anyone into dropping her panties in exchange for him not going public with some embarrassing information about her? If all he's guilty of is occasionally making a joke that are seen as off-color by the sort of folk who've spent way too much time in gender studies, and enjoying the company of beautiful women, then no.... He shouldn't have been fired. Just as the self-identified Intersectional Feminist in accounting shouldn't be fired for occasionally saying a very few general words about male privilege around the office, or for reading Kimberley Crenshaw on her lunch break

I think better understanding the label of "cancel culture" requires more exploration of when/how/why/by whom it became a buzzword. As I understand it, as society has become more confident in its challenge to white male hegemony,

That's when this latest iteration of cancel culture became a problem. When brain dead lingo like "white male hegemony" escaped our university campuses and infected the wider public discourse. As we discussed prior, cancel culture takes a different form in every era. During the 2000s, those who publicly expressed skepticism over the invasion of Iraq or the idea of launching a War On Terror were targeted for cancelling. We eventually got bored of that, and moved onto a brand new moral panic, the likes of which we're still in as of this writing

the term followed the reticence against "PC" restraints, the idea that it was no longer okay for "locker room talk" to be considered normal or acceptable.

This idea is only considered progressive among The Woke and those who are Woke adjacent, all of whom form a vanishingly small portion of our population. The fact that a show a heavily un-PC show like 2 Broke Girls(nothing but dirty jokes from beginning to end, in every episode)is still doing gangbusters even in syndication is testament to how out of touch with reality those who think this stuff isn't normal really are

As a group of people who had grown up accustomed to being able to say what they want about and to "others" (women, minorities, etc.) were increasingly being told "you can't say that", kick back was bound to happen, even as they continued to try to impose their language on others.

Again, I direct everyone's attention to not only the success of 2 Broke Girls, but also the work of folk like Ali Wong. Women and non-whites(the vast majority of whom are no more PC than most whites themselves are)haven't been any less unfiltered than The White Devil Boss who's apparently got his boot on the neck of "marginalized people" here in '22. And this is the way it should be; tyranny can only be fought with free speech for everyone, regardless of skin color, gender, creed, or sexual orientation. As of late, self-described Progressives, who claim to speak on behalf of the oppressed(without ever really asking those they believe to be oppressed "What do you actually want?". Hint: it ain't more censorship and less free speech)are the primary culprits, when it comes to who's trying to impose their language on the rest of us

Society has grown more confident, to challenge the hegemony with action, consequences, so that's getting a label.

There's nothing confident about trying to silence those who's words one finds objectionable. This, rather than challenging genuine bigots and their ideas head on, like so

I had a white friend tell me once that my use of the "n-word" was offensive to him. I asked him why; he said "well, if I can't use it, you can't use it." See what happened there? It was not about whether the word itself was offensive to him; it was that someone was telling him he could not use a word that they could. I told him what Ice Cube said on Bill Maher, "it's our word now, you can't have it back."

Bad on your white friend, for letting himself be deterred in such a fashion

The wider issue here is, who has the power of words?

No one. We all have infinite agency when it comes to how much power we give to words. Everyone in America has been called a slur at least a few times in their lives. Our thoughts about such things are what decides how much we're hurt by these things, or if we're even hurt at all

It's a challenge of the status quo.

We agree again, Mus!! Free speech and free press are a challenge to the status quo. That's why they must be ferociously defended

You lost me at "brain-dead' and "infected." Hopefully that was few enough syllables for you.

@BaronOfHair said:

As I understand it, as society has become more confident in its challenge to white male hegemony,

Last anyone checked, Shonda Rimes has been the uncontested queen of broadcast TV, with multiple shows over on ABC, Cardi B, Megan Three Stallion, and Rihanna have all gone platinum multiple times over, and Lizzo is one of the few people in America who can not only walk into a Laker's Game with her rear-end quite literally hanging out of her tights, but also shake that thonged backed rear end while sitting the bleachers, and be hailed as brave for this sort of buffoonery, rather than denounced as trashy. These are but a few examples of folks and situations that give us immense cause to question the existence of this supposed white male hegemony

We can have an entirely separate conversation on the corrosive effects wrought on our civilization by our insistence on speaking in buzzwords and jargon , rather than plain language. Buzzwords and jargon such as "white male hegemony"

Among Fortune 500 CEOs, there are more named "Steve" than there are women. That ain't merit. If you think "white male hegemony" is a buzzword, you're not ready for that separate conversation.

@BaronOfHair said:

Among Fortune 500 CEOs, there are more named "Steve" than there are women.

There may be more named Steve than there are Brian, Edward, and Indiana also. Based on this, I guess we must infer that there's a bias towards not only women, but all men who aren't named Steve running rampant in the modern US also

That ain't merit.

True; no one rises further up the socioeconomic ladder on merit alone. One needs to possess marketable skills and also political savvy, so as to navigate office politics. To that end, we can help the poor(an overwhelming number of whom are non-white)a lot more via real world action, like providing them with greater access to job training than exists now. It's tough to see the connection between our boundless passion for hurling around vague, amorphous notions like "patriarchy", "white male hegemony", and "inter sectionalism", and actually taking on these more practical challenges. The latter endeavor actually stands to enrich the lives of several million of the most downtrodden Americans

If you think "white male hegemony" is a buzzword, you're not ready for that separate conversation.

On the contrary, I'm eager to engage in it, whenever you so desire

Wait a sec... I know who this is.

LOL.

@DRDMovieMusings said:

Among Fortune 500 CEOs, there are more named "Steve" than there are women.

It has been suggested that there is a genuine reason for this. It's not an overjoyous one as there is no easy fix.

But most people who are CEOs or hold highly senior positions in any profession are of a certain age and began their careers in an era when there were more obstacles in the way for women and sexism was genuinely more of a thing. So it was easier for men to build their way up to these positions. They got quite the head start. Today women are a lot more prevalent in prominent positions. The last two jobs I had, both places were run by a woman, which I certainly had no problem with. While managers and team leaders seemed to be more often women than men. Which I also have no problem with. These people are a little younger and as they progress through their careers they should potentially replace the men in the very top positions so things do at some point become 50/50. Or possibly even more women than men. Which I too don't have a problem with. The thing is you can't just kick these men in the top positions out of their jobs to employ a woman. That would be unethical. It is, alas, something that just has to correct itself over time.

We must also remember that CEOs are a very, very specific, tiny percentage of the population and do not represent everyday life. When I go to see a GP, it's more often a woman rather than a man. My uni lecturers were just as likely to be women as men, etc, etc. And I've heard another suggestion that most CEOs are men because in order to climb the ladder in the corporate world it requires a very cutthroat psychopathic mentality. You have to be prepared to throw your friends under the bus to get ahead. And maybe women are just less likely to possess psychopathic personality traits. If this is all accurate I think women should probably be proud that most CEOs aren't members of their gender. I would have far more respect for a Doctor than a CEO.

And if this theory is true then wouldn't that suggest that the dominance of Males in CEO positions is more a result of the capitalist free market politics that go hand in hand with that profession rather than sexism?

@BaronOfHair said:

In even plainer language: 76-80% of the US population, male and female alike, have little to no secondary education, and a substantial portion of the population is functionally illiterate. A disproportionate number of those who are functionally illiterate are impoverished non-whites. These factors alone diminish the likelihood of seeing many non-whites in The C-Suites. Add to that the fact that of those go to university, male and female alike, the most popular undergrad majors are currently business(talking here either a bachelor's in general business or business administration)and psychology. Overwhelmingly, female students choose psychology. While there's a very credible argument to be made that an undergrad in business ain't worth what it once was, this still puts the guys slightly ahead of the gals, when they enter the workforce

Is there sexism and racism in corporate America? Probably; corporate America is made up of human beings, and none of us is free of prejudice and bias. Also true; more mundane factors such as functional illiteracy and what folks who actually go to university major also exert a strong influence over who rises to the top of the corporate ladder vs. who doesn't. Hiding behind jargon and buzzwords like "white male hegemony", rather than discussing specifics and details, hasn't been helpful

Well, yeah, there could be any number of reasons why there are more male CEOs including the preference of career paths held by each gender. And sexism could also be a reason. But it is the reason that is automatically assumed generally and it is the only reason considered generally. Because it's easy. It's say what you see. More men here? Must be sexism.

Yet few seem to ponder the reason men dominate all the dustbin man jobs. No conclusion is made by scholars on that one. Hasty or otherwise.