How someone detects dog whistling?

@darthmongoose Kate Holden
Tue, 03 Nov 2020 17:48:02 +0000

@darthmongoose wrote:

DiegoPalacios:

The concept of dogwhistling is relatively new to me, so i can't specify cues about that.

Also, is important to notice that while there are some cues of concealing behavior, not every person have the exact same cues. For example, while some people avoid eye contact while lying, others actually increase it.

It takes some degree of familiarity with the person. (seeing them through a screen enough times counts) You need to figure their base body language. When you are familiar with that, you can tell how they feel about a subject and how comfortable they are talking about it or if they are concealing /avoiding something.

I can see where you're coming from, but the thing is... this can often be part of the problem. Imagine the following scenario:

You are watching some people debate about comics. Now in UK print comics, in the past, "manga artists" used to be a dogwhistle for "female comics creators", and it was a pretty notorious one among female creators. I'm using it as an example because this isn't really a thing any more, so it works well as an example.

So you're watching the debate and one of the guys looks around the audience, sees that he's mostly surrounded by men and says, "well, just between us, I think the problem with the industry these days is there are too many manga artists. They're pushing all these manga comics and nobody's catering to the original comics fans any more." and he looks really shifty while he says it, and you see him glancing at the women in the room to see if they react, and you see him wringing his hands like he always does when he's saying a bunch of rubbish.

Aha! You think! I have caught the baddie in the act! And so you say "hey, woah, ease off on the sexism dude. Women should be welcome in the comics industry too!"

And then everyone turns around: "You're overreacting!" "All he said was 'manga artists' why would you assume he's talking about women?" "What, do you think only women draw manga, maybe you're sexist!"
And you say, "but- but he was wringing his hands like he always does when he lies!"
Aaaaaand they all look at you like you're a conspiracy theorist tinfoil hatter. Because half the people there don't want to believe and therefore do not believe that the guy is sexist and think you're clutching at straws to go as far as analysing the minutae of a person's bodylanguage and extrapolating what their true intentions are from it... and the other half know full well this guy is a sexist dick, but they are also sexist and in on it and they know that denying it, gaslighting you and framing you as a "crazy oversensitive liberal white knight" is the perfect way to silence you, and also really easy because on paper... all the guy said was he thinks there are too many manga artists. You can't prove anything.

That's why dogwhistles work. If you spot them, well, welcome to the club of people who spot them, be prepared for people telling you it's all in your head.