[marvel_boy]

"If I had walked in, and baseball was showing on the television, it would be completely unthinkable for me to grab the remote and change it to Friends. If I had done that, the outcry would've been thundering. People would question my social skills."

Good point. By the way, what a bunch of asholes!

[emsy]

I'm not sure whether you're serious or ironic. This is a social dynamic I've witnessed several times in my life, in male-only and mixed-gender groups. When someone acts against the groups collective will, he or she faces an "outcry". I don't condone this, but to call this out as a gender or diversity issue seems to be a bit of a stretch.

[asQuirreL]

I feel like it is a diversity issue, albeit not of the usual kind, and it is not exclusive to groups whose identity is strongly linked to gender.

All groups will try and preserve their own identity, because if they don't, they stop existing. I'm merely making an observation here, not condoning the actions of groups. This kind of behaviour may seem harmless in some situations, but then also fuels some of the worst instances of discrimination humanity has seen.

[emsy]

I see where you're coming from but I disagree with the argument, because it only holds up under the assumption that they acted this way mainly to preserve the group identity. The simpler explanation is that the group made a democratic choice and she was unhappy with thre result.

[asQuirreL]

You are right, it is just democracy at work, but I'm not sure that that is different from a group trying preserve its identity.

The interesting thing is that most people assume that democracy is inclusive, because everybody has a voice, but in this case, the inclusive thing to do would have been to watch something that only one person wanted to watch, to make them as a minority, comfortable, whereas the democratic thing to do is to ignore the opinion of the minority as not relevant to the views of the group.

Where the discussion becomes difficult, I guess, is when the dividing line between majority and minority coincides with that of privileged (PS. I hate what this word has come to mean) and unprivileged.

[emsy]

I agree with you on this. My point was that we should be charitable in our judgement of the group, especially if we lack other perspectives. Someone from the group might say she always wanted to get her will and alienated herself. We can't know. That's the problem with anecdotes.

Regardless, a small group of people has more room for compromise than a democratic state, and as I said, I don't condone the way these kind of situations are usually handled.

[elevenfist]

This has nothing to do with identity, it's just common bullying. I imagine the thought process may be something like "We're the majority, we don't care, so we're not going to share the tv. "

[emsy]

From that perspective, democracy is bullying.

[elevenfist]

...You're overgeneralizing my comment. The solution to this small scale problem is to share, and be open to trying new things.

[Tar90]

The infamous tyranny of majority. That's why we have mechanisms in place in society to ensure fair representation.