My addition to this is that we're constantly told "THERE'S NOT ENOUGH WOMEN IN X, THEY'RE RELENTLESSLY HOUNDED OUT OF X" but then we have to remind ourselves to not be surprised at all when there's a woman in X
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So the reason I asked about whether there is any book where you would have felt this was justified, was because I am not sure how much of this is about our perceptions of whether The Stranger is niche or common knowledge.
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It’s class based. This man could be self-educated, without growing up in a house full of books, and he had the misfortune of meeting an uncharitable intellectual
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But is there any book that you would say “ok yes, he’s a little off here and she’s justified in being annoyed”? Romeo and Juliet or something maybe?
If I told someone I had read R&J and their response was “Oh, really?” I think I would be annoyed!
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I think the problem is that he assumes she hasn’t heard of it
The relevant data might be “what percentage of the people who have heard of a book have actually read it?” The lower the percentage, the more the assumption you haven’t heard of it is disrespectful
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Agreed, that makes sense. It did seem to me that The Stranger is well known and commonly read enough that he shouldn’t really be surprised. (I do agree she shouldn’t share his photo over it.) But I do have sympathies for “guy assumes you know nothing” wearing you down over time.
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Yeah I sympathize with that too. And you could even say she doesn't actually go on any manhating rant in that thread (that I saw). The #1 problem isn't the presence of hurtful discourse towards men (no real avoiding that) it's the absence of stable, sufficient support
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That makes sense. It’s hard for me to imagine that 20 year old men shouldn’t know how to not act surprised when women know something, yet 20yo women should know how to provide stable, sufficient support for men...
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To be clear I'm not saying she owed him help or something like that, although for people of any gender who do have social skills, it's a nice thing to do to help out those who don't. But she doesn't owe him support
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I have sympathy for men in the social skills gap because society is both actively abusive and almost universally neglectful towards men's emotional and social development.
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