Nathan, 18/07/2013 17:31:
It's interesting to note that the response to Flutternutter's criticism has been generally negative, with the exception of Riskers comments. Several other female editors have supported Drmies, or at least not reacted well to the notion that his birthday note was sexist. I can see Fluffernutter's point, of course (and find that part of the birthday note at a minimum strange), but I wonder if there aren't more obvious and serious examples with which to spend ones time.
Indeed the problem was not so obvious to me when I read the original post, and please don't say that I must be blind only because I'm white and male, I'm very sensitive to sexism. (Now at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive251#Another_admin_issue.)
Thomas Morton, 18/07/2013 17:41:
My thought was on reading your comment was something like... it didn't seem at all a sexist comment, and wondering why you were focusing on the word "body" and ignoring "mind".
It struck me as somewhat odd, pleasant, sweet post which elicited an unpleasant reaction.
This is the reason of the bad reaction to Fluff's response, I think. My first reaction when I read messages I don't fully understand is to read the userpages; in this case, on the complimented admin's, we find plenty of paintings like this Tennyson-inspired Pre-Raphaelite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JWW_TheLadyOfShallot_1888.jpg and that, to me, explains the aesthetic passage of the message dismissing the suspect of underlying issues revealed by the word "body".
That said, if some people genuinely find something sexist and offensive it makes sense to acknowledge there /is/ a problem. In my opinion just including one of those pictures next to the post would have made it not only sweeter but also easier to understand. The lack of context in a communication, even if intended for some OT humour, needs to be seen and addessed in some way to avoid misunderstandings and culture clashes.
Nemo