> Then assume that you kept addressing him as "boy" while proclaiming your sympathy for the "plight of the Negro condition". Although possibly well-intentioned, this is how your response strikes others.

I grew up in the Old South: Addressing a US Black, "boy" is always an insult. Since growing up, I've seen a lot of the US: Addressing a woman in distress, e.g., "constant nightmares", affectionately, "honey" is quite appropriate with nothing wrong at all.

For your

> It's not extrapolating to actions beyond your post,

clearly my

> You are extrapolating for no good reason.

was in response to the ksenzee

> Please tell me this post is performance art and not the way you actually talk to women in your real life.

So, the ksenzee "extrapolation" was

> the way you actually talk to women in your real life.

Of course not. Again, yet again, once again, over again, one more time, the OP was not 'the way the women in the OP would talk to people in an office in real life' but was, as I said, over and over, intimate and my post was in that context and similar and also not as in "real life". That is permissible without being too personal due to the OP and the anonymity -- I was not addressing any particular woman.

> this doesn't make it an attack

Some women are suffering in their attempts at professional careers, and I gave them quite a lot of advice to help them in their careers, fairly carefully written, with good information, not easy to discover, e.g., can be attacked and sabotaged from jealousy and competitiveness from doing the work well, and, net, the attacks cost me five points at HN. I was attacked.

The attacks were personal, against my person, and not against the content of my post. That is, the attacks were essentially "for thinking and writing the way you did, you are a bad person". In particular, for my advice to the women, there were no responses at all. So, the attacks were aimed not at my advice but at me, personally.

<rant>
A strong suspicion is that the attacks were because the attackers believed that I was violating some of the norms of politically correct gender equality. On that issue, I will note that, as I explained, I, too, was sexually harassed in a professional, office, academic, employment setting. But, of course, as a man, I didn't get "nightmares". And I will quote E. Fromm, The Art of Loving: "Men and women deserve equal respect as persons but are not the same." Right, they are "not the same" -- women "deserve" equality of respect but are not "the same", that is, not 'equal' in all things. E.g., we don't have women playing in the NFL. So, 'gender equality' can't claim that the genders are equal in all respect, e.g., we don't have women playing in the NFL. And, as we can clearly see from the OP, the women are complaining about being sexually harassed while men also get sexually harassed by women and don't complain, that is, there is sexual harassment going in both directions, but the women complain and the men don't -- men and women are not being treated "the same"; full 'gender equality' doesn't hold.

With full 'gender equality', the women in the OP have nearly no grounds for complaint. But I believe that the women very much have very strong grounds for complaint so can't accept the politically correct gender equality fully. So, I am setting aside what is politically correct and being very sympathetic for the suffering women. So, for the way I am treating the women, 'gender equality' would be a big step down for the women. I don't want that big step down for women. So, I tried to help the women. And, in this goal, I was treating women with lots of extra compassion and caring, was being protective, e.g., called them "honey" and was attacked for that. In my post, my record on women was clear -- I was the prof who recommended hiring the woman who did so well. Also, elsewhere my record on women in professional careers is clear: My wife and I both got Ph.D. degrees, but she went to graduate school first, and financially I put her through and she didn't put me through. And during our marriage, until she died, essentially all the money money put into the family checkbook, which she carried, was from me, in particular, from my work, and not from work or anything else from her. So, for my wife, 'gender equality' would have been a big step down. Finally I will quote an expert on US society: "In the US, women are privileged characters." The expert was correct: In US society, in many ways, women are treated much more nicely and gently, with much more in sympathy, empathy, and compassion, than men are -- no small thing and no joke. And I believe that that is just as it should be. Why? Simple point -- men don't have babies.</rant>