Taboo Topics (Heavily moderated)

[The Nightman]

Well I didn't know about Card's views before I read the books, does that mean I supported him? Or do I get amnesty?

[Galaxy Man]

technically yeah you supported the guy

the important thing is to not do it again

[Barabba]

Ender's Game is still pretty cool, so read it.

[Rinoko]

Hey, so can we talk about this whole Ban Bossy thing? Because personally, I think this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. Here's the deal, Beyonce: You're right, bossy is a negative word, because being bossy is a negative thing. It's good for girls to be ambitious, assertive, and to be leaders, but that's not what bossy means. Being bossy isn't sticking up for yourself or being a leader, being bossy is acting like a little snot and telling people what to do all the time when you have no authority to do so.

Oh, and by the way, it's kind of a word that people stop using after ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.

I think this irritates me mostly because I feel like we're becoming a society dedicated to trying to make everything fair for everyone so we don't risk hurting anyone's feelings. Here's the other deal: Life's not fair. That's something you just have to deal with. Where's the Life's Not Fair, Suck It Up campaign? I'd totally be behind that.

And that's not to say we should accept the status quo all the time, but come on. This is getting a tad ridiculous.

[YCobb]

The campaign is more about how girls are labeled bossy more often, just for exactly the things you mention. It's an issue with how women are seen as bossy just for standing up for themselves.

That said, the campaign itself is useless. It would be so much more effective to teach boys and girls that they're equal, because perception and attitude is the root of the issue much more so than being called bossy is.

[Verom]

I think its entirely unreasonable for toddlers in kindergarten to be expected to just accept that shits gonna happen and life isn't fair.
Because they're 6 years old.
This isn't a literal ban its a thing designed to stop small children from being bullied and you're against it?

[Rinoko]

When was it stated that the campaign is about bullying? From the video, it sounds like it's about trying to make people stop using a word so that every girl feels like a special little angel and that they should assert themselves and feel empowered.

I'm all for campaigns against bullying and I definitely think girls should be encouraged to be leaders. What I'm not for is trying to force censorship on people and pampering kids "so they don't have their sensitive little hearts broken". Bossy isn't a bad word, and I don't believe it's a kid's fault for using it to describe someone, male or female, who's being a little brat that demands to get their way.

[Doormaster]

the thing is, it's almost never used in a male context. It's almost always used to describe a little girl, which sort of enforces the idea that girls having clear, defined wants is a bad thing. This isn't about making everyone feel like 'special little angels' as you so dismissively put it. It's about having a serious conversation about the language we use in terms of gender, and how it can affect little kids' perception of their role in society.

these issues are almost never as clear-cut as 'oh god the PC police are at it again jeez why can't they just get a thicker skin?' That's a gross oversimplification.

[The Nightman]

In my experience, I've seen both boys and girls being labeled as bossy about the same. Just about all little kids are bossy, people shouldn't try to sugarcoat it and stop the usage of a word.

@Chinmaster, I've never seen anyone get called bossy for wanting something, I've only seen them being called bossy when they demand they get it when they say so, or when they're telling someone to do something that they have no authority over. And that's pretty much what bossy means, so what's wrong with saying someone is bossy?

[Riku]

Hiho, assertive female in the house.
After watching the video (first I've heard of it, whoops), and reading your guys' posts, my reaction goes like this:

I get what they're trying to go for (stop discouraging the ladies from leadership positions that are traditionally male roles, etc.), but they do it in a kind of self-defeating way. In my personal experience, like Granny Benson said, I've heard both guys and girls be referred to as bossy (although we stopped saying it around 8 years old). And I've never seen girls where I grew up dealing with shit for taking on leadership positions. Granted, pretty much the only time I ever paid attention to interactions and leadership was in school and at work, so I guess it could be limited.
I'm sure there are some girls in some settings that are unfairly called out for simply being determined and assertive, but turning bossy into a four-letter-word is fairly misguided, particularly if it's labelled to the children as being for the sake of the girls. Yes, there are definitely a fair amount of ladies (particularly in politics and science fields) that are thought less of because they are female. However, virtually every example I can think of is 30 or older (which in certain fields, makes sense, due to schooling). But the working/academic/leadership climate has been getting steadily better since about 1980. From my observations, much of what they were implying in the video doesn't happen anymore.
Again, I'm fully aware that different regions and different groups of people will provide different results, so my observations are far from being the absolute authority here. But there's a difference between saying "Don't be shits to each other." and saying "You cannot use this specific word in relation to this person, because you might hurt their feelings, even if their behavior actually does warrant the term."

There have been times that I have desperately wanted to call a girl a fucking idiot in school. Should I not have considered it just because girls have traditionally been regarded as less academically capable than boys? Even though that idea has been steadily losing traction since, like, the 80s? Obviously I never told them that to their faces (there were two or three that I can remember,) but that's because calling someone stupid is less effective than just correcting them. To a little kid, bossy is the indication for correction that they may not know how to properly articulate.

[Winchester]

It seems that this whole thing has good intentions, but it ended up over-simplifying what it's trying to discuss.

At its heart it's a kind of anti-bullying campaign, which is obviously a good thing, but by choosing a simple and juvenile word it ends up shooting itself in the foot. It comes off as petty word-policing instead of an attempt to fight sexism in schools.
From what I understand, "bossy" was invented for and used as a derogative term for assertive women. But like what Granny and Riku have said, its gender-specific usage seems to have been fading over the past few decades and instead is evolving into a word to describe someone who wants something for selfish and shallow reasons.

Girls and women still get put down for being assertive, but this doesn't seem to be the right way to tackle it.

[Brekkjern]

I have never heard a definition of the word "bossy" that limits it's use to females. Not in a single dictionary I have found lists it as a derogative term directed against especially girls. Every definition I have found lists synonyms like "authoritative" and is described as being "arrogant", "overbearing" or "tyrannical". None of these words are typically assigned to females either.

How this campaign ever came about I can't even imagine, but it seems like they just brought out a cannon to shoot a pidgeon.

[Doormaster]

@Riku: I'm not trying to dismiss your experience, but I don't really think an anecdote makes an argument. I don't know if I agree with the campaign or not, but I do think it's a legitimate discussion that we can have. I've personally only ever really heard it in describing little girls. Imagining it in association with boys seems really weird to me. Oh hey I just used an anecdote as an argument like I just said doesn't really work fuck

@Brekkjern: No one's talking about the strict dictionary definition. This is about how we culturally use the word

[Riku]

Ah, I wasn't intending for it to make the whole argument, sorry about that. Just that they seemed (to me, at least) to be implying that it was a completely saturated, universal problem for girls. So I was just pointing out that I have a pretty good example (albeit one that I can't provide any physical evidence for) of that not happening, in a rural, very conservative area, no less.
I am totally down to agree that there's probably some regional difference in using the word. I just doubt that it's supposed to be The Man totes crushing Girl Power.

[Brekkjern]

Chinmaster, contrary to common belief, dictionaries are in fact not static. They get updated frequently to match common usage. I agree that outdated prints from the last millennium are irrelevant, but they tend to be newer than that.

Besides, if it was common to use a word like that, a good dictionary would include it so you would understand the use case. As no dictionary does, it can't be a common use case.

In other words, dictionaries do not exist in an isolated environment. They are actually constantly updated to reflect how the language evolves.