Reverse sexism - a thought experiment gone bad

In my last offering entitled ‘The scourge of reverse sexism’ — thoughtleader.co.za/silwane/2008/09/07/the-scourge-of-reverse-sexism-in-south-african-society/ — I listed aspects of the gender relations in this country that I presumably disagreed with. I invited you, the reader, to come in and point out all the flaws in my rationale.

What I didn’t share with you is that the post was part of a ‘thought experiment’ that I was conducting to test a hypothesis I have come across. What I also didn’t share with you is that prior to posting the piece, I sent out an email to a friend. I think it is only fair that I post the email in its entirety, as I sent it:

Dear friend,

Please find a cut-and-paste of the next Silwane Files offering for next week. It is not necessary to read the lengthy piece at the bottom.

The reason I am sending this to you is that I am conducting a thought experiment to see how far off I am of the mark in what I what I predict will happen. For the record, my prediction is that these will be the most popular responses:

1. Since you started blogging again, you have been very political and quite unfunny as a result. Stick to the funny pieces and leave politics alone.
2. I think that the racism-sexism analogy is extremely flawed.
3. The rationale is extremely weak, over-the-top and clearly meant to elicit reaction. Poor effort.
4. This attempt to belittle the struggle for women’s emancipation is transparent, flimsy and in poor taste.
5. Your request at the end narrows down the terms of references for this discussion so much it becomes virtually impossible to come to any other conclusion but the one you want us to reach. How convenient.

After about a day of the blog I will update it by inserting the above five points and then compare it with the actual comments. I have sent this to you to be my witness.

Thanks.

Ndumiso

To all those who took the time to comment, thank you for playing.

For the record, my predictions were completely off the mark. To sum up your responses:

1. Yeah. I totally agree. Thanks for saying what I’ve wanted to say. This oppression of males has to stop.
2. Yeah. All affirmative action sucks.
3. Bah. I’m on to you. You’re just trying to take a swipe at whiteys who complain about affirmative action.

I must confess that I’m quite surprised at how many readers read the column literally. Especially since I thought there were strong hints throughout the piece that this was obviously written tongue-in-cheek. Well, at least it seemed pretty obvious to me. But that’s because I’m the writer and therefore privy to my own intentions. The blame for the fact that this escaped so many readers must rest squarely upon me. It must have been a particularly shoddy piece of writing. Although I must state, in my own defence, that I didn’t think anybody would take the bit about me moving to Yemen seriously.

Be that as it may, let me reveal what my intention was. There is a school of thought that asserts that the best way to get people who believe in an idea to interrogate the idea objectively is to put some distance between themselves and the idea. One of the best ways to do that is to remove the rationale behind the idea from its natural ‘habitat’, insert it in another setting and make those people scrutinise the rationale. Clear as mud?

In simple terms, I took the rationale that is often used by white people to explain their opposition to affirmative action and inserted it within the context of sexism. The experiment was designed to check how many would find the logic flawed in the context of gender whilst finding no problems with the same logic when applied to race. Even more interesting would be to see how much dissonance this would cause.

My predictions were somewhat off the mark because not enough people saw through what I thought was a pretty obvious ploy. As a matter of fact, since the piece first appeared on Monday I have been interviewed by three separate radio stations on the subject. Two of the interviewers had also read the piece to literally mean that I have a genuine problem with affirmative action where it applies to women. For the record, I do not hold such a view. As I told one of the interviewers, you’re not likely to discover my true beliefs in my satire — however poorly written.

If I had to write a report of this thought experiment, my final assessment would be that the results were inconclusive due to inadequate methodology. And just in case the point is unclear, that means that I think I was let down by crappy writing.

I think I will stick to writing about the gonads of Somizi’s victims and the plight of the pubic louse from now on.

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