God bless you and good fortune. You may write to me any time if you wish. MaryAnne

MaryAnne

You were pretty much implying that he wasn’t able to function for himself anymore.

Without being Rika, I can pretty much state outright that “anymore” isn’t quite the word to be using.  Unless he’s on crutches permanently, which I didn’t get from reading her comment.  Thus it’s more that he’s not able to easily open doors while on crutches, for the time being.  Big ol’ difference.

That’s leaving aside how on earth you think “Let me hold the door open for you, since you’re the one on crutches” is an expression of pity.  I’m inclined to believe it comes from the whole “I am an island; I need help from no one!” mindset I see around.

It’s true that you can’t reprogram a person. But you can walk away from them if they make it clear they’ll take their privilege and sense of entitlement over being a decent human being.

It might well be that your boyfriend on crutches was not overly concerned with the roles of sexes, but with his own physical condition. After a knee injury put me on crutches for months, one of the more difficult things to deal with was the pity I received from friends, family and strangers. Generally, disabled people do not rely on the charity of others to function. You had to explain to him that “he was pretty much implying that I was more incapable of holding a door than he was”? You were pretty much implying that he wasn’t able to function for himself anymore.

You know that he knows you’re capable of opening a door. He doesn’t know if you consider him too feeble to get around.

Also nice use of the word “cripple”. That’s really nice.

I think this is a very important and relevent topic. But some of the comments about deprogramming or controlling another person’s behaviour is a little much. You can encourage someone to change and educate them but you can’t force someone to be or think a certain way, even if it IS correct.

Being better at rhetoric and constructing logical arguments–or at least logical-sounding arguments–is not a sign that one is “smarter”, that one’s arguments are right or that one’s point of view is the correct one. It just means that one is better at making arguments and being persuasive. And for a person who is more interested in winning an argument and being right than getting to the “correct answer”, there are all kinds of rhetorical tricks, games and fallacies to trip other people up, or at least to persuade oneself that one is never wrong.

I can’t recommend enough that you pick up a couple of books: The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense by Suzette Haden Elgin, and The Art of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi. If you are really feeling out-argued and out-smarted, then these will give you some basic tools to learn how to express yourself better — and not just to your boyfriend. I assume he won’t mind, because if he’s right, then he’ll still be right; at worst you’ll be able to engage him in a more challenging and thoughtful argument. Right?

Thaniell, a guy who is feminist, basically or otherwise, will not want to make sexist or demeaning comments. He will want to know if he’s said or done something sexist even if he did so unthinkingly, or if he didn’t realize it was sexist/hurtful. He won’t put his vision of himself as Mr. Special Feminist Guy over actually being a feminist.

You’re right that it’s no fun having to think over everything you say. For example, it’s really not fun having to think about whether it’s OK to call your “basically feminist” guy friends, or husband, or boyfriend on a sexist comment, trying to figure out whether he’s going to try and bully you with the can’t-you-take-a-joke routine, whether it will hurt your relationship, whether it’s *that* important to speak up or let it go, whether if you let it go this time it will get worse and he’ll pout that you didn’t mention something earlier, and so on.

(Sarah, the answer is “Only two, but you have to slice them real thin.” Then, after the horrified pause, you express shock and say “Geeziz, guys, it’s a JOKE. Where’s your sense of humor?” It’s amazing how fast they backpedal.)

I showed my boyfriend your comments and he said in principle he agrees with most of your points.
I don’t want to derail things into a for/against argument on essentialism but he said he thought the links SKM gave were objecting to it more as a binary/social argument (men have some trait and women do not, so men are better) rather than an argument just about differences in trait distributions, so he wasn’t sure if you’re on exactly the same page as him.
Anyway, thanks for your responses.

On this one, I’ll go with the others who have suggested him using your name.

On the face, it addresses both concerns, pefectly. You want to keep your own name, and you do. He wants the family to all use the same name, and it does. Win-win situation.

Of course that argument is often one that means “I know you want to keep your name, but you should take mine, anyways” in which case, you have a separate issue to address. But at least you’ll be addressing the real issue (that he wants you to take his name) and not the excuse (that the family should all have the same name.)