The metaphor chosen is weak because it requires a generalization of others choices that is false.

"Remember the girls in school who were not overly ugly or attractive yet still wanted to be the center of attention?"

No, I remember individuals who died their hair because they liked the style and wanted to express what it meant to them.

I think you missed the point.

In all sincerity I appreciate the concern, and I do understand the comparison the author has made, I even agree with some of the observations.

There's a casual misogyny to the premise that ignores the face that plenty of teenage boys do/did the same things for the same reasons.

It's obviously a (weak) personal anecdote. To expect everyone's personal anecdotes to contain a gender-neutral worldview compatible with the latest revision of social progressivism is unreasonable at best.

To then accuse that person of misogyny because of it? Equally weak - basically an accusation of 'thought crime' based off an incomplete record of thoughts.

I was merely describing the analogy as misogynist, but if you wish to extend the label to the speaker you have every right to attempt that. If we are to discuss the rhetoric of my comment, though, I think that weasel words such as "thought crime" are also weak and loaded to the point of being useless in this context. Thoughts are distinct from written words. Edit: typo

The speaker obviously had personal experiences involving teenage girls when he was younger, and related it back with a personal anecdote. Calling him (or the analogy) misogynistic is incredibly loaded, and seems more a knee-jerk reaction to anything that depicts one gender negatively without simultaneously doing the same for the other than a real critique. The use of the word 'thought-crime' was quite deliberate.

Save the outrage for where it actually matters - there is plenty of real misogyny out there. Just today I read a story about some idiot candidate for Senate in Indiana...

The use of the term "thought crime" may have been deliberate, but that does not make it apt. I was in no way claiming to know what the author believes or thinks, only what their words have to offer--which I was summarily disappointed with. I'm sorry if my comment "seemed" to be carrying "loaded" or "knee-jerk" terminology, but after a long period of reading the same anti-woman dreck over and over in tech-related blogs one feels responsible to point it out on occasion.

To suggest that the existence of more extreme cases of misogyny supersede the need to make note of lesser cases is a weak and breathless deflection. The idea that any criticism is "outrage" may make you feel justified in your sensitivities, but doesn't take away from my initial assertion. As I attempted to say elsewhere my problem is not that the analogy fails to be gender neutral, but that it is boring.

No, but cases of actual misogyny do supersede the need to make note of potential maybe misogyny due to omission during a personal anecdote. In other words, don't cry wolf.

I am supportive of the cause and I'm getting annoyed at seeing it thrown around so casually. Now imagine it from the perspective of someone who isn't as supportive.

If you look hard enough, anything can offend you.

What is your improved description for the remark describing girls as "not overly ugly or attractive yet still wanted to be the center of attention" besides casually misogynist? I am genuinely curious. Since when does a (seemingly) objective description of a girl's attractiveness give them the social blessing to behave a certain way? I'm not offended; I'm bored with the laziness of the analogy.

"They often had many good qualities, but they didn’t think so. These girls felt they have nothing better to offer so they went with outlandish styles to attract attention." That doesn't seem misogynistic. It seems like he's describing their own bad judgement, not his.

Because it's insinuating those girls actually feel that way and are acting out because of it, instead of assuming they're confident enough to make these decisions because they actually want to. If every girl/person you see with unconventional style is presumed to be weak because you think they're doing it for attention, that's discrimination with a hint of ego for not having to 'stoop' to those tactics.

This is similar to throwing goth kids under the bus for obviously all being from broken homes, worshiping the devil and wanting to shoot up their schools. Why do we treat people coming out of their shell and avoiding the status quo as weakness instead of strength?

"Insinuating"? You just assume, without justification, that he's making those judgements at a distance and doesn't know those people personally. You've got the argument backwards: he's not claiming that everyone with "unconventional style" has low self-esteem and is looking for attention. He's observing that attention-seeking people with low self-esteem do flashy things to get attention.

I know a goth girl (real goth not poser goth, for those who care) and she told me that she dresses defensively because she gets bullied a lot. That's not an assumption or judgement by me, that's what she told me. I also know a former Wiccan girl from a broken home, and a satanist who has anger management issues and a drug problem. That does not generalize to all goth/Wiccan/satanist people but that doesn't mean it never happens.

May do flashy things to get attention, and that's not even positive attention as evidenced by this post, so at the end of the day they must do it for themselves because it'd be easier not to do it at all. I don't know what makes someone a 'poser' and someone 'legit'; what legitimizes their existence isn't appearance, what they practice or what they've been through. It's still a blanket statement of assumptions that doesn't need to be perpetuated.

Not white, but thanks for dismissing my comment with a link.

My thoughts exactly. My assumption is that Jeremy's never talked to anyone with dyed hair or piercings.

You know what they say about assumptions..

Perhaps the metaphor was crap, my point was I feel these desktops are a cheap and silly way to attract attention to an otherwise good operating system.

I was trying to draw the parallel with girls who do crazy things to get attention when they have better qualities to share. It seems like that point wasn't well drawn out, which is my fault.

I tend to think it's best to stay away all forms of analogy unless the goal is demonstrative and abstract enough to fully warrant it. Using a bad metaphor to kick off an otherwise straightforward argument is asinine.