Re:Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
by aaren on Tuesday January 21, 2014 @05:17PM
(#7098955)
Some men!
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Re:Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
by detcader on Tuesday January 21, 2014 @05:20PM
(#7098977)
More like "men as a political class." I'm male, and I knew I was inviting this comment. To me saying "some men" is like giving the "good men" a cookie, when really all men should be concerned about these kinds of things, by virtue of being human.
Re:Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
by mcantelon on Tuesday January 21, 2014 @08:22PM
(#7099999)
>To me saying "some men" is like giving the "good men" a cookie
To me, saying "some men" is being precise with language and not falling into generalization. "Men", in common usage, refers to individuals that are male, not a "political class".
Re:Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
by hythloday on Wednesday January 22, 2014 @07:12AM
(#7102119)
English does not discriminate well between the universal quantification (∀; all men are) and existential quantification (∃; some men are) when quantification is indefinite (men are). It's often unambiguous; saying "men are well-represented in the boardrooms of US companies" would not be taken as implying that a number of men close to 165 million (or 3.5 billion) crammed into American boardrooms. Where it's not, it's far better to assume that the speaker is using the existential qualifier, as universal quantification is usually spelt out as a rhetorical feature ("ALL MEN benefit from the patriarchy" is far stronger than "MEN benefit from the patriarchy").
Re:Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
by mcantelon on Wednesday January 22, 2014 @11:38AM
(#7103658)
That's a very good breakdown of usage of the word and I'd forgotten about the indefinite usage. In this particular usage, it included the word "always" ("men always"). If someone states "men always love sports" then I'd interpret that to be equivalent in meaning to "all men love sports".
Re:Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
by aiiane on Wednesday January 22, 2014 @12:24AM
(#7100906)
"some" people always seem to jump up to make this pedantic argument when men are generalized about, and yet somehow talking about women as a general group never seems to invoke the same.
Re:Announcing the Female Founders Conference (March 1)
by mcantelon on Wednesday January 22, 2014 @12:37AM
(#7100956)
Ah. Criticizing the intentional use of sloppy generalizations is "pedantic" and sloppy generalizations are sometimes used against women so this justifies the use of sloppy generalizations against men. Got it.