#bekind

[imaginaryisi]

A response to pleas of just #bekind

#bekind...
to the sexual assault survivor who doesn't need retraumatising
to the teenage girl in the changing room already self-conscious about her body
to the religious woman who can no longer attend the women only swimming session she enjoyed
to the vulnerable 85 year old woman now reliant on carers
to the volunteers pushed out of positions for raising safeguarding concerns
to the people with learning difficulties missing out on health screening because they don't know "people with a cervix" applies to them
to the people being sent death threats online for standing up for their rights
to the young people being persuaded into taking medically unnecessary drugs and pushed into unnecessary surgery
to the autistic person who struggles to lie and can't call a male "she"
to the women fighting the pay gap but find the statistics skewed
to the women intimidated for meeting together
to the woman in prison forced to share with a male criminal
to the athlete who has trained her whole life who loses the opportunity to represent her country to a male
AND the 10 year old girl who misses out on the spot in the local team
to the young lesbian emotionally manipulated into sex with a male
to all the women and girls who are told their voices don't matter, that they should shut up and #bekind, #bekind to them instead

Whenever I see this trotted out I just think oh fuck off.

Kind is a ‘more than’ phrase. It requires giving more than someone has earned, be kind.
Do better for someone else than yourself- be kind.

It involves self sacrifice. Now, I’m not against that. But it has to be offered freely, not expected or instructed.
The very telling of ‘be kind’ makes it abusive.

Yes, absolutely. It's the imperative that is the crux.

Genuinely kind people lead by example; they dont scold or berate other people to act a certain way.

I'm thinking of the Dalai Lama saying 'my religion is kindness ', and there was context to that, too. It certainly wasn't a snippy instruction.

What is usually translated as 'loving kindess' (metta) is an important part of Buddhist teachings. But that's in the context of a holistic path, other teachings, and worldview.

I tell DS to be respectful but don't be a bloody doormat either. Be respectful to others but also have self respect for yourself. You aren't less important than any of your peers.

I think I first started to notice #bekind online during COVID lockdowns. It wasn't specifically about trans (although I did see it mentioned a lot when Sam Smith started his non binary thing) and it being about bullying.
I seem to remember it more in relation to when the Love Island person committed suicide, and 'we're all in this together' COVID stuff.
That was my interpretation of #bekind. And a way of guilting people into not criticising anyone or anything. Just #bekind. I can't stand the phrase as I also hear it as 'you must only ever say nice things and accept everything'. Criticism isn't necessarily bullying

I cannot stand the Be Kind nonsense foisted upon women but it is at its absolutely most toxic when it’s foisted on teenage girls.

Teenage girls act against their own interests and are the biggest defenders of gender ideology nonsense and act as the Praetorian guard for trans identified boys and men because of this Be Kind rubbish. They actively exclude and humiliate dissenting girls due to Be Kind.

I am trying to teach my daughters to-

Be Truthful
Be Ambitious
Be Fair
Be Decent
Be Courageous

but for gods sake don’t Be Kind. It’s difficult though- this nonsense has permeated everything. Just last week I was with a mum and her daughter. The daughter had won an internal maths competition at her school 3 years in a row and her mum was counselling her to not enter this year because it would be kind for her daughter to let someone else win for once. Fuck. That. Shit.

…

But aren't you doing the same thing by cynically accusing the #bekind sentiment as being anti free speech when all it might be is respectful dialogue?
I just don't buy that ideas are compromised by respectful language. IE we don't need to dehumanise & demonise trans people as mentally ill dangerous sexual predators to express concerns regarding competing rights just like we don't need to do the same about immigrants.

What you seem to be suggesting is a preference for free speech absolutism which is uniquely an Americanism, IE they don't believe in hate speech because they think it 'gets in the way' of the 'market place of ideas'….until it was their particular demographic ….white people that were on the end of the 'ideas'/hate. And let's not forget gender critical feminists are also targets of hate speech in the UK. Are you implying we shouldn't 'be kind'/respectful to them as well?

Free speech was never intended just for the sake of free speech rather for the flourishing of humanity that hate speech kinda gets in the way of:

https://www.un.org/en/hate-speech/understanding-hate-speech/hate-speech-and-real-harm

OP, whether I agree with your points or not... it's a bit cringe, I'd scale it down a tad.

#bekind now just = #beadoormat

What? You seem to be confused.

This.
Makes so much sense.

This. Similar to other posters, I felt my hackles rise when my little boy came skipping back from primary school to tell me how they’d been leaning how important it is to be kind that day. Which is ridiculous. I obviously want him to grow into a kind human being who puts other’s interests ahead of his own when it’s right to do so. But the phrase has become such a triggering one because of this debate. If anything, it has made me wise up to the idea that there are so many manipulative adults who can take children’s innocent wish to be kind to others and exploit it to the max. Way more than I’d ever thought.

Yes, following Caroline Flack’s suicide. That’s when it was first all over social media.

I say “do the right thing”. Only a snake smiles at you constantly without blinking

Interesting examples on the 'respect' thread at the moment in discussion of male athletes competing in women's sports.

Several posters very kindly, open mindedly and generously buying into the PR and image and manipulation based on vulnerability and wider circumstance, and other posters having to demonstrate just how cynically and strategically manipulated they have been into lowering their boundaries to the advantage of individual men (in this case financial as well as medals, opportunities, places) to the massive detriment of women. (In this case, women may have actually been killed for this man and his handlers to make the gains from using women's sports.)

It's very ugly stuff.

Exactly. It's facile.

Truly moral behaviour needs more backbone and intelligence than this.

It's worse than facile, though. #bekind is an order, a demand that the person act in the approved manner, and have the correct opinion.

For a short while it meant “don’t be a bullying arsehole”, but it quickly morphed into a way to shut down women, pretty much like “Karen” was used.

'Loving kindness' also features in two other value-systems: the Confucian concept of 'ren', and 'chesed' in Judaism. Both are fundamental to 'living right' and involve recognition of shared humanity and/or shared relationship with the divine.
And as far as my limited knowledge goes, both ren and chesed have to come from within, otherwise it's just showboating..

A more modern take on this is 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'.

Buddhism has a whole life system mapped out in the eightfold path. That includes wisdom, discernment, compassion. My understanding is that the aim is to integrate all. Kindness without insight and wisdom can also be harmful.

MarieDeGournay
A more modern take on this is 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'.

In Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies, which for some reason I was given to read at school, there were two fairies called Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby and Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid. One was very pleasant, the other was not. All very moral, that book.

I absolutely hate the way that really quite good ideas, such as being kind to other people and treating them decently, get hijacked by people of ill-intent and become something that makes one shudder. There used to be nothing wrong with the union flag, until the right wing took it away and turned it into a racist symbol...

With small children, the phrase 'be kind' and the associated (teethgrindingly awful) 'sharing's caring' seems to manifest itself as 'give the toy to me right now or you're not being kind'. I have to remind my own child that sharing means sharing something when you have finished with it or when a time limit is up and not just handing it over immediately just because someone else has demanded it.

Be respectful. Be fair. Be thoughtful.

But be kind? It's morphed into 'do what I want now or you're meeeeeaaaan'.

In adults, it's just yet another way to shut women up.

Yes, it has to be looked at in the context of power relationships.

If an abuser tells his victim that if she speaks about the abuse it will destroy his life and begs her to 'be kind'.

If a teacher instructs a girl to not complain about the boy who has just terrified her by chasing her round the playground, because he's a nice boy and it would upset him to be told off so she should 'be kind'.

If a boss tells his minimum wage worker on a zero hours contract to 'be kind' when he wants her to work Christmas eve, or all the customers will be so disappointed.

A group of girls tell another girl not to be rude to a loser who has asked for her number, to just smile and 'be kind'.

In fact, it's usually very hard for someone in an asymmetrical power relationship to tell the person with the greater power to 'be kind', isn't it? By definition.