Being kind

'Be kind' has generally been considered to be more-or-less equivalent to 'Love thy neighbour as thyself'. Unfortunately, if your neighbour is evil, they will walk all over you, yet you still need to 'love' them.

I prefer a different equivalent: 'That which is hateful to you, do not do unto others'.

This discussion makes me think of this

Perhaps we should ask people to be kind and respect single-sex spaces/services/provisions. As we all know, a male-bodied person using the opposite sex spaces, even if they are not actually going to assault, harass or even so much as leer, could cause discomfort, humiliation and fear for lot of female people. The kind thing to do would be to use the facilities for your own sex.

I wonder how far that will get us. I am sure the trans activists would be very quick to point out that when asserting your rights, kindness doesn't come into it (and trans rights are more important than women's rights).

I'm not ready to make nice
I'm not ready to back down
I'm still mad as hell, and I don't have time
To go 'round and 'round and 'round

The Dixie Chicks- always get this as an earworm.

I may have to rethink my username. I believe I've always been a kind person, but also unfortunately that's been slathered with a huge dollop of "niceness." In lots of respects it's got me nowhere, and has actually been harmful. I'm still kind, and pleasant, but I'm working on squashing the "niceness."

I'm teaching my daughter a very different approach. She's already a junior member of the no fucks being given brigade. It's amazing to see.

How about being kind to ourselves and not letting our boundaries be crossed.

I hate the kind argument it’s so sexist and used to guilt trip

Honestly, when I first started following gender ideology stuff on Twitter I wondered why gender critical women couldn't be kinder. Then I got so, so sick of the nasty, obtuse, dogmatic, manipulative, misogynistic, dishonest and actually totally batshit TRA arguments and actions, and the reflexive lack of support for gender critical women from the supposed liberal left (borne, in my opinion, of sexism and ageism) that I realised kind/ nice/ compromise/ and frank self abnegation are obviously supposed to be a one way street. So now I am a little bit in love with the same 'unkind' ladies. I've had a bit of a debate with my husband about this, as I think he imagines for things to have gotten so heated it must have been six of one and half a dozen of the other, rather than a massively uneven playing field.

It means
"Be kind...but only to these people. The others are not deserving of consideration, let alone kindness"

And the people who are performing 'kindness' and instructing others to do the same are simply performing what they believe they must to avoid punishment.

They are no more cognisant of ethical decision making than a trained Labrador. They're simply doing what they know is expected of them.

Yes this special type of one-way kindness. It makes me so angry. The kindness that allows male bodies boys to beat girls at running in girl's races because of the need to be kind to boys feelings, but where the boy don;t have to care about the unfairness to the girls or the girl's feelings.

Where when you have a distressed male trans person and an equally distressed female woman who does not want to share her space with the male, only the woman has to be kind and give in.

Kindness is perverted to mean lying, enabling, colluding, being meek, demure, docile, unthinking, unquestioning, subservient, having no boundaries, self-sacrificing to the point of self-harming. Turning the other cheek only to get punched again. This type of kindness = stupid, verging on the suicidal.

But being truly kind can mean telling and accepting painful truths, helping to face up to painful feelings. Thinking of the long term not the short term. Telling the truth is kind because no one can successfully hide from reality without creating a impossible TrumanShow-like bubble and compelling people to lie to protect your attempts at denial. And even then, the truth is still there inside your head and cannot be escaped.

Bloody hell.

Yes, we can be kind, but not nice.

Nice is so reminiscent of women being decorative and pleasing company, not showing how we really feel, and all things being just nice, so fake. Like Potemkin villages. Like how we were 'all in it together'. Superficial, false, doctored, a facade. Nice doesn't care about truth or truthful feelings.

I'm kind to people until they start taking the piss.

Then I'm no longer kind.

I don't care whether someone then tried to manipulate me by saying I'm not being kind. If you want my kindness, you have to earn it.

I've got further by implementing boundaries and saying 'no' to the pisstakers than I ever did by being blindly kind.

Its just another form of manipulation.

They say "be kind" but what they really mean is "be compliant".

Indeed. And I am not good at compliance.

Well I've been banned this morning from the hell that is twitter for not being kind. All I have done is re tweet what other people have tweeted about the war on women, I've never commented on anything or slagged anybody off but iv'e been told by twitter staff i'm not nice and have broken the rules lol. I'm glad actually because since I found twitter my blood pressure has risen and I 've feel agitated all the time. I will stick to Mumsnet because at least you get a decent convo without being called a slag, whore, slut or cunt ( well most of the time anyway) Although i've noticed in the last week or so new posters who have joined who are obviously men trying to get a reaction. Let's not rise to the bait .

I have spent a lifetime trying to be kind. I am, generally, incredibly kind. It has been to my detriment a lot of the time - this board has been making me realise just how much so. My god but I've been walked all over at various times in my life.

Finally I am moving away from being kind. The scales have well and truly fallen from my eyes. I feel relieved and think I have more rigid boundaries suddenly.

I keep seeing 'be kind' all over social media and I want to drag those women posting that message over here, sit them down and tell them to read everything.

Sometimes being kind is important. But having boundaries and self-respect is more important much of the time.

It’s convenient how the calls for kindness ever only go one way; I don’t see the handmaidens bleating for the TRAs to stop sending any women who disagrees with them death threats, rape threats, doxxing them, etc. I wonder why 🤔

I was shocked today listening to the radio interview Posie gave and the FEMALE interviewer no less saying basically "can't we just be kind?". Posie said "it's not about kindness it's about rights" but I think someone else was speaking at the same time so it was not very clear.

Women like this interviewer who mean well have not woken up yet to the fact that they are being emotionally manipulated by an extremist male dominated lobby who have NO intention of reciprocating in kind (no pun intended!)

I also tell him to consider the source of any order/information, and what motivations there might be behind it, and if they behave in the way they're asking him to behave

Yes.

I also think that kindness is something you give of yourself not something you demand of others. It's down to the individual to determine where their boundaries lie.

Niceness is demanded because that doesn't give a shit about the person expected to be nice.

powershowerforanhour

Your suggested response is kind. It just isn't 'nice'.

I think people are often guilty of conflating nice and kind.

Nice = don't upset someone at any cost

Kind = being truthful but considerate of the feelings of others in doing so

Nice = ignoring your own boundaries to centre others

Kind = considerate of others whilst respecting your own boundaries

They don't want us to be kind at all.
I would say:

Nice = TWAW (and I'll parrot it whether I believe it or not)

Kind = I will respect other people's right to present how they wish; i won't discriminate; i won't mock or deride; but I draw the line at calling them a woman because they are not and that is my boundary

I tell my son that if anyone's telling you to do anything, whether that's 'be kind' or 'share' or 'get out of my way' or 'dunk your head in a bucket of water', you need to step back and think about it - because you are responsible for your own actions.

I also tell him to consider the source of any order/information, and what motivations there might be behind it, and if they behave in the way they're asking him to behave.

Being kind is something to strive for, being unthinkingly obedient and self-sacrificial so a bully gets what they want, not so much..

Power, I would say that phrase is kind. It's truthful and sparing unnecessary hurt feelings.

When it comes to not wanting to go out with people, I think I'll teach my daughter to say, "Thanks for the offer but I don't fancy you and I don't want to go out with you" rather than imploring her to "be kind". Saves a lot of precious time (and I wasn't even particularly sought after).

Yep, what Sweary said. Fuck kind.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=2lWkV2QpgQo
Nice is a better word for feminized compliance

"Kindness" seems to be a one way street

Anyway, I will say I think there's a diff between being kind & being nice. Being kind at least means telling the truth, albeit in a gentle way. Being nice = compliant doormat (or red carpet in the case of trans issues).

'It's a power thing.
Like the word respect can mean 'do what I say' if the person saying it has power or 'treat me like a human being' if not.'

Excellently put, Superloud.