I both agree and disagree. I sometimes wish there were two words for "respect", one that expresses the idea that you shouldn't piss on someone else, that you should be decent to them just because they happen to be human. The other to express the kind of respect that one earns.
I have toyed with the idea of writing a post about that concept. I was thinking along the lines of quoting Riddick -- "There is one speed: My speed. Keep up or get left behind." My experience has been that competent men do not necessarily treat me worse than other men. They sometimes are talking "down" to me because they talk that way to everyone. When you are far more competent than average, it becomes difficult to assume or behave as if others are your equal. I am at times guilty of the same faux pas. In my experience, if you can keep up, some of the most competent men will genuinely respect you. What is tricky is pulling it off in a social situation where other people will interfere or where a man will become uncomfortable with a woman challenging the status quo. Her description sounds like it was fairly one on one, which is part of why I think I would have been inclined to quietly call him on it.
I can fairly confidently admit to being a significant statistical outlier for a woman. Even one of the female big wigs at my former job remarked on me sitting up front (edit: at the time she made the remark, I was sitting closer to the front than she was and she was the highest ranking woman in the department -- however, she was sitting next to a very high ranking male) which other people routinely interpret as Type A behavior, somewhat to my bafflement. I do that for reasons like I have terrible eyesight. But I am aware that other women also have issues like terrible eyesight and still do not sit up front. I have speculated that if I come across like an alpha female it is due in part to having a yawning disinterest in pecking order, not because I am trying to be at the top of the heap.
> "I sometimes wish there were two words for "respect", one that expresses the idea that you ... should be decent to them just because they happen to be human. The other to express the kind of respect that one earns."
Thank you for putting this into words. This summarizes part of what bothered me about this article.
My wife and I are both gamers. Neither of us have ever been treated without human-respect at LAN parties. Competence-respect is usually given to me due to prior reputation (I'm active in the community whose LANs I attend.) She is often assumed to be just tagging along, until she starts destroying people. Competence-respect comes pretty quickly if you demonstrate competence.
There were times in this article when it seemed the author wasn't given human-respect, and that's a circumstance where someone needs to be either told off or walked away from. But at other times, the issue may have been competence-respect, and that's a circumstance where the first attempt at respect-earning should be to say "I can take it from here", pick up the controller, and play.
Personal sympathetic anecdote: I played role playing games in my teens. After I began dating one of my gamer guy friends, I was, unfortunately, prone to being treated like I was just tagging along, in spite of it being a regular group who all knew me to be a gamer. I would have been more offended except I could understand why certain things I did promoted such responses: I used gaming as a means to avoid an unhappy family situation, so I sometimes did sleep on the couch while others played rather than go home.
I didn't have a driver's license or car, so was dependent on others for a ride. If the group chose to play a game that didn't interest me, I went to sleep on the couch until we all left together. So it somewhat annoyed me that my actions got interpretted that way when there were other explanations but I also could kind of understand why.
I've always preferred "courtesy" as describing the way I treat people who haven't yet earned substantive respect. Doesn't seem to be common usage, though.
I think of it in terms of respecting someone's boundaries vs. respecting their character or ability. I wonder what other words might help express this concept.
I have toyed with the idea of writing a post about that concept. I was thinking along the lines of quoting Riddick -- "There is one speed: My speed. Keep up or get left behind." My experience has been that competent men do not necessarily treat me worse than other men. They sometimes are talking "down" to me because they talk that way to everyone. When you are far more competent than average, it becomes difficult to assume or behave as if others are your equal. I am at times guilty of the same faux pas. In my experience, if you can keep up, some of the most competent men will genuinely respect you. What is tricky is pulling it off in a social situation where other people will interfere or where a man will become uncomfortable with a woman challenging the status quo. Her description sounds like it was fairly one on one, which is part of why I think I would have been inclined to quietly call him on it.
I can fairly confidently admit to being a significant statistical outlier for a woman. Even one of the female big wigs at my former job remarked on me sitting up front (edit: at the time she made the remark, I was sitting closer to the front than she was and she was the highest ranking woman in the department -- however, she was sitting next to a very high ranking male) which other people routinely interpret as Type A behavior, somewhat to my bafflement. I do that for reasons like I have terrible eyesight. But I am aware that other women also have issues like terrible eyesight and still do not sit up front. I have speculated that if I come across like an alpha female it is due in part to having a yawning disinterest in pecking order, not because I am trying to be at the top of the heap.
Anyway, have an upvote. And have a great day.