However, if people are getting their feelings hurt over what I feel is hair-trigger sensitivity, there is not much myself, Ross, most other run-of-the-mill people can do about.’

This is very clearly not true, FB. Instead, you might have said “I will choose to do nothing about it.”

We can’t control the intentions or actions of others, but we can determine our own.

FB, it appears that you view citizens as privatized, autonomous beings, and our intentions matter most. This is in line with liberalism, the dominant ideology of modernism.

What Luke, Eric, and others (myself included) are instead arguing for is an understanding of individuals are part of social structures. Our intentions are not just intentions that come out of ourselves as abstract individuals, but are instead part of historically and socially constructed ideologies. Ideologies function at a subconscious level and, when harmful, should be made visible and confronted.

What lies behind Ross’s use of the term “guys” and “he” to mean all people is that stand-in of “men” as “human” and the invisibility of women. This is what happened, whether Ross intended it or not: women were made invisible and therefore excluded from this particular space. This was not a private event, as you seem to construe it as, but rather part of a social system of the exclusion of women throughout time from such positions.

It could be easy to say that sexism is a thing of the past and that it’s not a problem unless it’s intentional. But, the reason it’s easy to say this is because it’s ideological; sexism works not because we intend it (though sometimes it is intentional), but because it’s part of our subconscious. It’s part of how our society is built. Ross’s message doesn’t stand alone and in isolation, but is instead part of a structure: these type of statements are made all the time, continuing to exclude women and make them invisible.

Sorry for the academic talk, but I want to make clear the differences I see in the way we’re talking about this.

Since it’s on my mind, I feel like I should clarify the difference between “I am sorry you were offended” and “I am sorry I was offensive / I am sorry my remarks caused you pain.” The first statement continues negating experiencing by saying that there wasn’t a problem with what happened, but merely a problem with the way you perceived it. The second is an actual apology, i.e. I am sorry for the hurt I caused you, without qualification. It’s a small difference, but it’s important because it gives a level of sincerity which the first statement does not contain.

This is like a minicosm of what’s happening with the debacle that is our student newspaper.

It’s clear from Ross’ response to Missy that he didn’t mean to exclude women from the pool.

Then this is all a non-issue, in my opinion. If there was no intent, then turning this into a “sexist moment” is more about overanalysis, seeing things through a prism, pursuing and agenda, etc.

I am not discounting that someone got their feelings hurt. I said that it is fine to say “Hey, I am sorry if your feelings got hurt.” However, if people are getting their feelings hurt over what I feel is hair-trigger sensitivity, there is not much myself, Ross, most other run-of-the-mill people can do about. If someone had told an offensive joke, I can see where you might have grounds to attempt to “educate” them (though they still have a right to tell such jokes mind you), but over the comment made here? Sorry, but had I made it, I do not need education over something that all agree was not meant to offend, exclude, etc. and over which I do not think the vast majority of people would think twice about.