That reads like a very condescending and cynical response.
People enjoy representation, imho, because it helps them see that they are not alone, that the deck isn’t stacked against them, and so on. It also helps in removing prejudice against certain groups of people.
Do they have to consider separation of humans by characteristics to be important in order to get you that position where they feel alone with other humans? Bluntly, if a male says I can't be inspired by females isn't that because they're sexist?
It seems extraordinarily damaging to society to say to people, as many seem to 'here are the people you're allowed to be inspired by: they're superficially similar to you', at opposed to saying 'Payne-Gaposhkin asked the same question as you, see you're alike as people' (despite maybe being of different sex, race, nationality, era, class, wealth, etc.).
> Bluntly, if a male says I can't be inspired by females isn't that because they're sexist?
Not necessarily. It could be, but I wouldn't attribute it to malice as much as I'd attribute it to difficulty in relating to the person.
> Do they have to consider separation of humans by characteristics to be important in order to get you that position where they feel alone with other humans?
Your error in this is that you assume the behaviour is conscious and deliberate. Our brains do many calculations before we are even aware of them. I recommend Gladwell's book "Blink" on the topic [1].
Humans are by all means social beings, and we use heuristics and mental shortcuts to simplify our world, leading to fast and unconscious decisions often to our own detriment. We construct in and out groups before we are aware them, and said groups affect our decisions. This is why people growing in mixed communities are far less likely to be or exhibit racist behaviour.
I am expressing this only as a testament to our innate fallibility, this isn't targeted towards any specific group of people because there are all sorts of communities that are isolated and have very few interactions with others.
I experienced awe and inspiration when I realized that I was sitting at the same benches, and studying at the same place as Heisenberg when he came up with QM. But it was only when I stopped and thought about it, when I thought about the place I was sitting and the history behind it.
Sometimes all we have is superficial information, and our brains try to make the most of it. It's in our nature after all, we are all fallible humans, so why not help alleviate it and enable people to become their best selves?
It sounds like you agree that it's racism, or whatever, when we demand that inspirational figures have a specific characteristic but feel lack of acceptance of people as people is initially subconscious and so is excusable even when being consciously acted on?
I don't think it's racism or any -ism of that kind any more than it is difficulty relating automatically.
I am fairly certain that this is something that can be trained, but the degree to which I can relate with a man with ABC properties (except gender) will almost always be less than the degree I relate to a woman with ABC properties as gender is also included.
These decisions are always made rapidly, unconsciously, and when we have very little information about a person other than what we can immediately observe.
Changing the image that we have about people with other properties alleviates this.
People enjoy representation, imho, because it helps them see that they are not alone, that the deck isn’t stacked against them, and so on. It also helps in removing prejudice against certain groups of people.