Not when you actually are seeking attention
Not in your case though.
Sometimes, maybe, but in your case? No. Telling an indifferent world what “your” pronouns are, and prefacing it with “Your Saturday reminder” as if we’d asked you – that’s attention seeking, and also attention expecting, for a completely fatuous detail about how you see yourself and your plans to make us see you the same way. Of course it is. Talking about yourself when no one asked is always attention seeking to some degree. Some people can be interesting or informative or inspiring when doing that, but it takes a lot of qualities you don’t seem to have.
And “women and LGBT people” isn’t a historically meaningful category.
Women have been socialized to be silent and invisible. Lesbians are women, so see above.
Gay men weren’t a meaningful category until the late 19th century. Some men had sex with other men, and they generally tried to hide this behavior, but other than that, they weren’t expected to be silent, not work in careers (inasmuch as “careers” were a thing), and the like.
I don’t know about gay men in the 20th century; not sure. Perhaps someone else in the Kommentariat here can enlighten me. Were they socialized to be silent and invisible?
I used to think that pronouns were chosen by the speaker/writer as to best facilitate the association by its audience; having nothing whatsoever to do with the feelings† of the noun.
Of course, if we all got the Saturday reminders, eventually those declared pronouns would become generally expected.
† My preferred pronouns are me/me/me
“P has historically been presumed/forced to be Q. This was (factually and morally) wrong. Therefore, P cannot be Q.”
That’s some good logic there, ayup. (Can you read my eyes rolling?)
It is a weird insult–‘ignore x, x just wants attention’. All humans want attention; in fact all humans need it. In our first few years the only thing that kept us alive was the attention of others. Even the most misanthropic person wants and has a reason to expect attention–at the doctor’s office, in a cafe, walking down the street so people don’t bump into them (and as a woman over 40 I will tell you that this happens; it’s a literal example of how invisible older women are in our society). It makes as much sense as ‘don’t feed x, x just wants food’. I react to people ‘looking for attention’ IRL the same way I would to someone looking for food in a dumpster–wondering what’s gone wrong in their life that they aren’t able to fulfill their needs in a self-respecting socially sanctioned way.
Which is not to say I have any desire to know anyone’s self-chosen ‘pronouns’, particularly those of total strangers on the internet.
Actually in English society at least, of the public school variety, it was verboten for men to “draw attention to themselves”, to show off. It was thought to be caddish and bounderish. Showing off was something that Italian chaps did. You had to go about as modestly possible. If a fellow scored at cricket or rugby he was not supposed to exult. These were men who had great power, to the imperial level.
That even seeped into the New Zealand society of my youth. Talking about yourself (as distinct from your likes and dislikes, say) was thought obnoxious. Skite, skite, your pants are white was a jeer in the playground. Even now I wince at the self-promotion of young celebrities, talking about their fascinating selves.
If LP was giving Saturday reminders of her new book, or an article she had written that would be fine. Plugging your own work is acceptable, though usually people do a little rueful framing of this with “shameless plug”. It’s because she’s drawing to her own precious self that she’s so damnably irritating.
Also it’s so humourless. You have to take me and my preferences so very, very seriously.
My ex, who had a diagnosed Cluster B personality disorder (in addition to much other mental illness), said that I could never call her “entitled”, because that word is verboten, because men say it any time women want the right to exist.
guest, I think you’re mashing different categories together there. Sure, of course people want attention in particular situations, but that doesn’t mean reasonable people crave it in all situations, much less think they’re entitled to it.
Oh I agree, it’s just that as a concept it seems to me a bizarre thing to say about someone. ‘X wants food’ isn’t the same as ‘X is entitled to be fed 24/7 by everyone X encounters.’
Thinking about this a bit more, I think the weird thing about the tweet is that the author seems to expect not only total strangers but people who literally have no idea who she is to have any interest in her whatsoever, let alone to be required to commit random personal details about her to memory on pain of ostracism.
It continues to amaze me that a few weeks ago Penny very very very very very nearly admitted to Helen Staniland that all this gender bullshit was exactly that. She said she couldn’t admit it out loud because she was scared of the reaction. So I’m finding all this even harder to buy than I would otherwise.