Yep, big Borgen fan here. I just… have no words :| It reminds me of the time someone said girl protagonists were “an overdone trope” in YA. It just goes to show the extent to which stories about boys and men are perceived as the default. Tell a bunch of those and it’s business as usual, but have more than 10% stories about women and it’s OH NOES WHEN WILL THIS TIRESOME TREND END.

I suppose locking her in a room with a copy of Delusions of Gender and throwing away the key isn’t an option? :P

Seriously though, I know how frustrating those conversations can be :\ Sometimes there’s just no getting through to people, especially when they simply shut you down. What I’ve found helpful (to varying degrees) is to focus on the science itself as much as possible. People like to shout “science! biology!” in a way that implies that whatever objections we have to essentialism *must* be political. But while it’s true that I don’t particularly like the political implications of gender essentialism, the main reason why I reject it isn’t that. The main reason is that it’s simply not supported by the facts as we known them.

You could try pointing out that infant studies such a Baron-Cohen’s have huge methodological flaws (tiny samples, not being double-blind) and explain why these things matter; that the results haven’t been successfully replicated; that there are contradictory findings; that many gender-related generalisations are actually based on anecdotal evidence; and that when it comes to neuroscience and gender even the biggest experts are pretty much still fumbling in the dark, because even when differences are found we still don’t know enough to draw reliable conclusions about what they mean. Brain plasticity is also worth bringing up. It’s a mistake to assume that any differences in the brain are innate and not the result of the genders being socialised differently,  because learning is not fairy dust: it’s literally written into our brains and it affects who we become.

If she brings up politics at any point, you could try saying that while it’s true that questioning the status quo is a political position, the same goes for trying to uphold it. It therefore makes no sense to suggest that only people doing the former could be affected by biases. Unfortunately we tend to see culturally dominant ideas as “neutral”, but that’s far from the truth.

Good luck! As I said, I haven’t always been successful in getting through to people myself, and I appreciate how difficult these conversations are. One of the reasons why I never tire  of reading books on this topic is that they help me improve my arguments and give me lots of examples that I can use.

First of all, I read the post you mentioned and yeah, the high school crush/porn star analogy made me incredibly uncomfortable, mostly because it’s male gazey in the extreme. Rothfuss assumes that his readers will be heterosexual men who’ll be able to follow the analogy, and he underestimates how alienating and even vaguely threatening reading something like that can be for a woman.

For the record, I am pro-porn: not all feminists are in agreement when it comes to this, but personally I don’t think porn is inherently anti-feminist. But when I think of mainstream porn, it’s hard to dissociate my feelings from the fact that in actuality much of it is extremely misogynist.The porn scenario Rothfuss describes makes me uncomfortable not because I want to shame women for their sexuality, but because sentences like “she’s wearing fuck-me red lipstick and a lot of dark eye makeup. Her breasts are amazing now, proud and perfectly round” evoke a kind of porn where it’s only the men who set the terms. So reading something like this is yet another reminder that for much of the world, my subjectivity doesn’t matter because I’m a woman; that many, many men perceive me as an object to be stared at and whose sexuality only exists in relation to their desires.

As for the second part of your question, I guess it all depends on how you define “sexist”. Reading Rothfuss’ last post I can see he’s willing to engage with feminism, and I really value that. But that doesn’t mean he won’t also do or say problematic things sometimes, as all of us do. Personally I find it useful to label specific actions or behaviours as sexist rather than people. I realise that this has the potential to be read as me going out of my way to spare the feelings of dudes who barely even acknowledge that *I* have feelings, but to me it’s less about their feelings and more about picking useful strategies to enact change. A lot of people still don’t understand that being told “this thing you just did/said is pretty sexist” is NOT the same as being told “you’re a completely worthless human being and there’s nothing you can do to ever change that”. They become defensive; they stop listening instead of taking the time to think of why that one thing they did is not okay and how they can avoid doing it again in the future. We’ve all been raised in a patriarchy, so all of us (including feminist women like me) have done/said/thought sexist things at one point or another. I find it useful to think of sexism as a pattern of thoughts and behaviours we *all* need to make a conscious effort not to slip into rather than as an unforgivable personal flaw, so I try to make things as impersonal as possible when addressing something I find problematic. Obviously I’m not suggesting this is the one true feminist strategy - I’m glad there are people out there adopting different strategies towards the same goal, because we need as much diversity of voices and approaches as possible. Some people will respond well to my kind of mild-mannered diplomacy; others actually need someone to shout at them a bit before they listen.

Also, I know I don’t know you, but your question was perceptive and I have no reasons whatsoever to believe you’re not intelligent. I second-guess myself a lot, and to this day I struggle with feeling that I’m not smart/articulate/knowledgeable enough to have opinions on this or that feminist issue. It’s helpful to have people you can bounce ideas off or approach for a second opinion, but over the years I’ve also learned to trust my instincts and to listen to my voice. If a situation makes me uncomfortable, there’s probably something there, and even if others don’t agree it doesn’t mean my response isn’t valid.

I really hope this helps.