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Yes, so I’m looking for data to correct that. It’s hard to find data on how cancellation harms people’s careers. Sometimes a few immediate effects are clear as part of the cancellation wave, but those also often seem quietly reversed later. Longer term effects are hidden for the public.

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You are very wrong here.

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(which has substantially harmed my career)

In what ways has that been effected? I wouldn’t expect people in a position to influence your career to be influenced by social media mobs, since basing beliefs, even partially, on social media mob claims doesn’t seem like a recipe for getting to such a position.

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Re: "is it okay to have, and act on, gender-conditional expectations about behavior" - that's usually called "sexism" - as far as I understand it. Or "sexual discrmination". Quite a number of organisations have stated that they are not OK with this - unless it is "positive" discrimination - which is quite often allowed.

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I'm not sure I'm convinced by your claim in the sense that I'd use the term feminist to describe such a person (tho maybe I would) but it's kinda irrelevant because people have a bunch of different definitions of what it is to be a feminist.

And the one constant in those definitions is that almost everyone who isn't already convinced that feminism is bad chooses their definition to ensure that feminism ends up being good.

As it doesn't make one iota of difference what feminism means as a descriptive matter of English usage structuring the argument as: feminism is bad just ensures that you alienate the people you want to convince of your substantive claims (which you very likely could if you just didn't call them feminism..call it radical feminism or activist feminism or whatever)

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While I agree with Caplan on many of the substantive claims he's shooting himself in the foot rhetorically. Especially giving his target audience. It's like writing a book designed to persuade conservatives or military veterans and calling it "Why Patriotism is awful." Words like patriotism and feminism are, to the groups which care about the terms, first and foremost understood to refer to whatever is good in the neighborhood. You can argue that "true" patriotism is really being a citizen of the world and have your views considered but if you say it's bad people instinctively reject your arguments...and the same with feminism.

For instance, I know a number of people (particularly those who were passionate advocates during an earlier era when discrimination was rife) who understand the term feminism to really mean (and not just as a motte-baily) the belief that men and women ought to have equal rights. Indeed, many of those individuals would be quite sympathetic to a number of Caplain's points if he'd instead written the book with the rhetorical perspective of: "Activists are twisting the term feminism away from it's appropriate meaning of equal rights by sending the message that women need special treatment."

I guess this title sells more copies but the explanation he gives for writing the book suggests he really wants to persuade people which makes the rhetorical pose he adopts deeply puzzling. Hell, he could have just called it "radical feminism" or "comparative feminism" or a million other things and not run into this rhetorical buzz saw.

Is the issue that Caplain feels that certain notions have their one true name and it would be misleading to describe the same concept using a different term?

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Caplan may have a point. However, his definition of feminism neglects the dimension of action. Aside from a statement about overall fairness or unfairness, feminism involves an attitude about what issues are important to take action on. Society is unfair to both men and women in different ways, and it's a good thing to take action to try to correct that unfairness.

What do you call someone who agrees with Caplan that society is equally unfair to men and women, and who makes it their mission to take action on issues to reduce the unfairness specifically to women? For instance, this person might lobby for access to birth control or abortions, or to protect female victims of domestic abuse.

I would call that person a feminist. And I'd say they are performing a moral good, because reducing unfairness of any kind is a moral good. It's not like it's a tug of war where to reduce unfairness to women you have to increase unfairness to men. It's more like two broken-down houses, and anyone helping to fix either of them up is performing a moral good.

Of course, every movement has its extremists who may cause harm. Caplan may have a point about that.

Consider by analogy the label "conservationist." The general public knows about the mass extinctions going on and the loss of natural habitats. But this does not make the general public conservationists. A conservationist is distinguished not so much by holding different views from the general public, but by their choice to make conservation their mission, and take actual action to fight the loss of habitats and species. The difference is about action more than belief.

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