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Comment by jahewson | Hacker News Reader

> Um how is the "societal pressure" not to be rude different for women and men?

Where to begin? A rude man might be described as "tough", "assertive", or "confident". What would a rude woman be described as? Moreover, what constituted rudeness for a man? How about for a woman? See the double standard?

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>See the double standard

No, not in real life. Wherever you live/work is fucked up if you do (academia, perchance ?). Rude men are just described as rude, often in less polite ways. I've worked bars, factories, manual labour, all the way up to board rooms and I have never once seen this particular double standard applied. I say this as someone with both a keen eye for and a near zero tolerance of prejudice and discrimination of any kind.

Imagine a business meeting. A person is talking, and a man interrupts and talks over that person.

The person asserts themselves, and tells the interrupting man not to interrupt.

That person is more likely to be seen as confident or assertive if they're a man, and more likely to be seen as shrill or bitchy if they're a woman.

> I have never once seen this particular double standard applied. I say this as someone with both a keen eye for and a near zero tolerance of prejudice and discrimination of any kind.

I'm surprised by this, because it's very very common, and has been written about in national newspapers in different countries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/opinion/sunday/speaking-wh...

http://time.com/3666135/sheryl-sandberg-talking-while-female...

http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/03/19/google...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2012/12/03/womens-id...

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/stop-interrup...

etc etc.

I think you have changed the subject, though. Interrupting somebody in a group discussion may or may not be rude at times, but it is hardly the same kind of rude as brushing off somebody who invites you to a date. Taking a woman's ideas and pretending they are your own is completely unrelated.

Edit: more specifically, your links are about non-rude actions by women being considered rude, whereas the discussion is about rude actions by men not being considered rude. For example, from one of your links, I don't think anybody thought Kanye West was not rude for grabbing the microphone from Taylor Swift.

Huh. I would have thought that the woman in question is assertive and putting an asshole in his place, but now that you've told me society at large thinks of her as a bitch, I'll make sure to fall in line.

Do not try that mock outrage here. You know exactly what was said. It is not a new thing that most people will think that an assertive woman is acting like a bitch, even if they're doing the same thing a man is doing.

No, a rude man is typically described as rude or as being an asshole. And women can be tough, assertive and confident, too.

While true, it ignores the very pertinent fact that the behaviors that are called rude in women are often called something entirely different when they're done by men. Women behaving assertively tends to get them called bitches, and ball-busters, and other, far less printable things.

That's just a claim you make. And I doubt people like assertive men so much. In what context, anyway? So if you have an assertive male boss, you go "thank god I don't have to make decisions myself, he is so great", if you have an assertive female boss you go "what a bitch"? Seems very unlikely to me - more likely, your opinion is based on lots of one-sided anecdotes by women who only noticed themselves. (Meaning they noticed a backlash against their assertiveness and assumed it must be a woman problem, never noticing any backlash against men because of confirmation bias).

Hopefully this is changing, and people will come to view rudeness as equally negative (or positive) regardless of gender. I for one would not describe a rude man in any way that wouldn't also apply equally to a rude woman.

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