I don't have a horse in the race but would you still call it white-knighting if the editor was male?
If most people in a particular population are men and a random set of people come to a woman's defense, she's mostly being defended by men. Don't read too much into it.
edit: I can't reply to you, redthrowaway, so I'll just say that I wonder what the evidence is that these guys defending Ms. Stierch deserve the term "white knight" if it's not a knee-jerk reaction to any man defending a woman. I haven't seen any evidence of "expectation of a sleazy reward" so I question the application of the term. edit2: we probably agree on this particular point. I see that you take exception to the overall rejection of the term, on the grounds that it's possible to apply it correctly. I tend to agree with tptacek that it tends to be overused and incorrectly used, and really wouldn't be unhappy if it just disappeared along with the term "butthurt." :)
Again, it's not a criticism of, or term describing, men who defend women. It's a criticism of a particular kind of man who defends women in a particular way with an expectation of a sleazy reward.
That's not to say the term isn't abused; it is. I'm not arguing with tptacek's assertion that use of the term tends to lower quality of discourse, but rather with the implied assertion that the term itself is invalid or in some way offensive. As I said in my original comment, it fairly specifically describes a particular phenomenon, and if it didn't exist some other term would be invented to take its place.
Strangely enough, the sort of person who says this will also happily engage in gutter-level homophobic abuse when they find out that I really have no interest in sleeping with women, feminist or otherwise.
God forbid that I could have opinions formed from reasoned evaluation of evidence.
The reason is simple: Like all ad hominems it's a way of opting out of engaging with a speaker and their arguments. Rather than saying "Well, you're wrong because of X, Y, and Z" you say "you're just white knighting", and suddenly there's no need to list out any arguments.
Even beyond that, the entire logic framework behind the term is itself toxic; it's rests on the unspoken assumption that arguments are only as valid as the intentions behind them. I know nothing about the WMF's HR policies, nor do I have an opinion on whether Stierch should or should not have been fired. But if I say "she should not have been fired because other employees in the same situation have not been in the past, and this creates a double standard" (which as far as I know is not actually true; this is a hypothetical), it doesn't matter if I'm saying it because I like Steich as a friend, or I want to sleep with her, or I behave like that towards all women, or I got into a fistfight with someone from the WMF in a bar once and have a grudge against the whole group; either my assertion is right or it's wrong. A facile accusation that I'm only saying that because I want to sleep with her (which is what the "white knighting" term means in this context) could be true, and it just wouldn't matter.
In short, the term "white knight" is employed, almost without fail, in an attempt to bully and shut debate down; as the crudest of ad hominems. And it needs to die.
(Edit: For the record, I truly have no opinion on Stierch or the WMF in this case, and I haven't even bothered to look at the comments being discussed. This is nothing to do with this specific case.)
It's used to disarm and unmask someone's defense by asserting that they are
a certain kind of guy with certain views of women
who acts in a particularly bizarre fashion towards
them [...] who defend[s] and act[s] nice towards
women in the vague belief it will get them laid,
if indirectly, through being the type of man they
believe women will have sex with [...] who
usually tries being too nice for a couple of
years, gets frustrated, then gets into the PUA
community.
It's kind of like the words "hipster" and "emo": their use as derogations are far more prevalent than their use to describe the particular subcultures they was originally intended for, yet if you didn't have those terms you'd still need something else to fill the void.
Nope. A large majority of when I see the term "white-knighting" the gender of the person being defended is male or unknown.
I'm not sure there needs to be a term to describe quite that frame of reference. If the guys involved are creepily harassing the woman (even through 'kindness'), than the term for that is harassment.
Otherwise, I don't think a special term is needed to describe when you (especially male 'you's) believe a woman is only being defended because of sex appeal, so what. Why does there 'definitely' need to be a term to describe that?
"Harassment" describes a very broad group of behaviours. It's fine as a descriptor for that class of behaviour, but that doesn't mean specific terms to describe specific behaviours shouldn't exist. That's like saying you shouldn't use the term "knock" to describe premature ignition when "engine trouble" also describes it.
That said, you're correct in saying that the use of the term tends to be sexist and dismissive towards women. I don't have a solution for that.
You do not need to classify the speaker. Your arguments are stronger if you do not classify the speaker. Classifying the speaker leads one to interpret an argument through one's preconception of that class of speaker, weakening one's listening and interpretation skills.
And, classifying a speaker aloud often leads your audience to classify you in an opposing class. Use "white knight" and many will classify you as a "bro". Use "homophobe" and get classified as gay or a militant feminist. Use "gay" and get classified as a homophobe. That leads to your audience interpreting your argument through their preconceptions of your classification.
In other words, classifying the speaker endangers your critical thinking, endangers your chances of being understood, and has no upsides.