[bcoates]

While I'm not going to argue against empathy in general, registering some blunt disapproval is less of a bullying behavior than saying nothing and passive-aggressively excluding someone, which seems to be the runner-up suggestion in the thread.

Drawing moral equivalence between participating in hostility against women and hostility against the rude and ignorant is a bit of a stretch, too.

[noobface]

Registering blunt disapproval may stop the behavior temporarily, but what caused it in the first place? It can't be entirely due to a general passive acceptance of such statements.

Our approach to ending racism was similar, and it was effectual, but over a great period of time incorporating generations of ignorance.

However, there were individuals who managed to help end the passive acceptance of racism by taking a vested interest in changing the thinking of one individual, all without guilting them into compliance.

Exhibit A. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B24qxWPPVbM

The NAACP president of Oklahoma, Wade Watts convinced the imperial wizard of a national KKK organization to reconsider his perspective on race. Rev. Watts did not accomplish this through expressing disgust or disapproval, but through patience and empathy. Johnny Lee Carly was swayed from imperial wizard to anti-racism activist. Wade saved Johnny's progeny from harboring the same ignorance, accomplishing in a single generation what had previously taken acts of congress, violence, protest and over a hundred years of blunt disapproval.

I'm not saying Wade's approach is the only way to accomplish a means to societal change, but it can change the perspective of an individual.