What I was responding to was the part of del's post that talked about the "intimidation" faced by women in previously all-male organizations, not the part about female workers being sexually harassed in mines, or being raped in the military. I would have expected that to be made obvious by the segment I quoted.
Yes, I know, you quoted selectively. But let's review the relevant paragraph of Del's post, in which your selectively quoted segment appeared:
Anyway, this isn't just an Islamic or Egyptian thing, this happened in the US and in Britain as well, but about one century ago and as occasional stories in the news even today will tell you here in the US, when women join - or attempt to join - previously all-male organizations, whether the fire departments, police or military, coal mining or what have you, they run into this same sort of intimidation 'gauntlet' they're forced to run by men with teeny brains and apparently even smaller balls.
See how she makes clear that she's talking about
1) Incidents that occur here and in Britain that she considers to be similar to the Egyptian incident described in the OP
2) Incidents involving women, very specifically, who are new to an organization
3) Incidents perpetrated, very specifically, by men
So although Del didn't describe the nature of American and British incidents, she is very explicitly referring to incidents that she believes resemble the one in Egypt and that are perpetrated by men against women.
When I saw the word "gauntlet" in quotes, I interpreted it as the kinds of generalized pranks/hazing that occur in male institutions. Both men and now women are subjected to this phenomenon in a variety of work environments.
If you choose to ignore everything in a post, including the factors mentioned above, with the exception of a single word, "gauntlet" (although technically it should be "gantlet"), and respond accordingly, you can probably expect people to draw conclusions about your viewpoints that you might not have intended to convey.
None of that is comparable to sexual harassment/rape.
Again, Del, who wrote the post to which you were directly responding, made that very comparison. In regard to the Egyptian incident involving sexual assault, she wrote, "this happened in the US and in Britain as well." You didn't bother to figure out why she would be comparing the beating and sexual assault of women by an angry mob of men to what you consider to be mild hazing routinely applied to all new employees of either gender. You didn't even dispute this comparison, or attempt to draw a distinction, or to argue that unlike the Egyptian situation what happens in workplaces here is mild and non-misogynistic. You could, for example, have said, "I've never heard of anything that terrible happening in a U.S. workplace. I do know that hazing of new employees is routine, but that involves employees of either gender and is never seriously violent or sexual." You didn't say anything like that. Instead, what you did was defend what happens in U.S. workplaces while condemning what happened in Egypt.
(By the way, I would be more likely to shrug this off as a simple miscommunication ((even if one tinged with Islamaphobic undertones)) if you hadn't ALSO taken the opportunity to get in a subtle dig implying that women who "want to join" institutions that you continue to define as "male" should man up, so to speak, and submit to the hazing. But actually, why should they? Those organizations may have traditionally hired men exclusively. But institutions can change at any time. And if an organization is now open to employees of either gender, there's no particular reason new employees ((male or female)) should be required to submit to the boys' club rules of the past. Maybe women will say, "hell no" to the hazing, and maybe the organizations will improve as a result.)
So because they are two very different things, there is no contradiction in my condemnation of one, and dismissal of the other.
You
chose to see them as two very different things, even though Del, who mentioned them in the first place, introduced them as similar things. And, as we've established, she was correct in doing so because, as I pointed out, there ARE cases of extreme sexual harassment in workplaces and of sexual assault in the military. You say you weren't talking about those. But why not? Del was talking about situations like that, and you were responding to Del. Instead, you pretended she was talking about a much less objectionable custom, and then defended it.
So let me now quote myself:
I fully expect you to find some reason to justify the two responses and explain away the contradiction that's apparent in them.
Nerither you, nor anyone else, can slap a psychological dysfunction on a person because they view the volatility of the situations in places like Egypt, Lybia, Yemen, etc. with suspicion and concern. That is an elitist presumption at best, and a direct slur at worst.
Of course I can't "slap a psychological disfunction" on you. Either one exists or it doesn't. Direct slur? Arguable. Elitist presumption? Nope. Just my impression of the tone of your post. Others will draw their own conclusions. What's that you always say? Your mileage may differ.
I never said anything at all about Egyptian protesters as a whole. I was simply suggesting that not all of them had/have the best of intentions in mind, and that is now starting to bubble to the surface, whereas prior to this incident, the guys that did this might have been keeping a low profile until the dust settled a bit.
Not all members of any group have the best of intentions in mind. I think that's a given. Yet I'm guessing that if an angry mob of men attacked a group of women in this country you would not use it as an occasion to make generalized statements that at least appear to include all of the men in this country, and that if someone else did you would rightly object.
