Damn with faint praise

To damn someone with faint praise is to offer a half-hearted compliment, to the point where you're actually disparaging them because the "praise" is too light to be considered praise at all. The concept can be found in the work of a hermaphrodite philosopher (seriously), who noticed that giving people backhanded compliments was actually more effective than outright criticism.

So an example could be:

Being both a male and female is actually an advantage, because you would be well-versed in the attitudes and behaviors of both sexes. Then you wouldn't have to read Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.