I think because it gets used for things like milk discussions (seriously? ahahaha), it becomes easier for people to dismiss more serious things if they get called wank, if that makes sense. NOT that I think that's what you're doing, because I know you're perfectly capable of distinguishing between different kinds of disagreements (♥), but I've actually seen several posts that sort of just dismissed this as the Racewank and seriously went on to say that we should just not talk about race for a while until it died down. And that--fans of color got called orcs and trolls in this discussion, by sci fi authors and editors at Tor. It's worse than wank, I guess, which is why I don't like the term. So yes, in essence--people have used it to call this discussion silly/stupid/wanky, which, ugh. There are stupid aspects of it, but they're the kind of stupid that needs figuring out rather than ignoring. (Oh, I am so sleep-deprived, I don't know if this makes any sense.)
YES. And there are professional implications as well, obviously. Augh, ASSHOLES.
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Date: 2009-03-09 01:39 am (UTC)YES. And there are professional implications as well, obviously. Augh, ASSHOLES.