I'm not usually one to be PC all the time, but I got raked over the coals for saying that calling a non-beer a "girly beer" was insulting.
And it is. There ARE women on this forum who brew, and can probably brew better than some of the men who felt that demeaning women and their taste is fine. This is not a men-only playroom, and it is hurtful when someone expresses an opinion and being told that their feelings don't matter. The fact that some of you have a penis doesn't give you the right to demean those who don't.
Call it "bitching" about the thread title, but I have always been respectful of each and every one of you and have never been dismissive like that.
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In any case, I still go back to what the OP finally decided- making a beer for people who don't like beer is futile.
Sorry if my comment was misunderstood, I'm completely in your corner on this one. My point was, the type of generalizations (with negative connotations for many, if not all) that people continue today to apply to women would NEVER fly if applied to another recognized category, for example, race. Could you imagine the uproar that would ensue if someone started a thread requesting beer styles for a particular people group, because "most of them" don't like hoppy beers, or strong beers, or fruity beers, or whatever?
And the arguments that are often raised in defense of this type of essentializing, again if applied on a racial/ethnic or other category, wouldn't hold water either. Imagine if someone was called out for stereotyping based on a certain people group, and their argument in response was, "Well I have two (Latino/Amerindian/East African/Aleut/Southeast Asian/Bangladeshi/any other people group you feel like inserting here) friends, and they don't see it as insulting."? Who would find that an adequate excuse?
My point is that we've become very aware of the damage that can be done by casual (often negative) stereotyping on the basis of group if the groups in question are racially or ethnically defined, but somehow it's still OK in many circumstances to use gender as a basis for said stereotypes, even when they're not meaningful--yes, of course women tend to be physically shorter than men, and in some ways their brains are wired differently, but there's nothing about male & female anatomy that I know of that would indicate we're predisposed to different tastes regarding beer, or any other food for that matter.
You see the same thing in sports media all the time--during the Olympics my friends and I adopted an impromptu drinking game where every time a commentator mentioned how "emotional" a victory or a loss or performance was, we'd down a drink. After a while we had to moderate how many female events we watched, the coverage was SO lopsided. We still joke about it. Hell, on TV adds you constantly see the "manly" equals "good" message, with trucks and sportscars and everything else under the sun. I find it frankly ridiculous, and that's what I was trying to point out earlier.
Incidentally, it's just a little ironic that the disgust over people taking things like this too seriously is just a thin veneer of another well worn trope, that "women are too emotional". I'm glad to see I'm not the only guy on the boards who is happy to get a little upset over women being categorized, to show that you're not the only ones who "overreact".