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“Let her speak please”

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Re: “Let her speak please”

#61

Post by exodust »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #35

he doesn't interrupt just her. His role is host, his role is to move the conversation about and yes he does fuck up by saying some stuff he should leave to her. However to me the evocative language used in the Facebook post suggests there is an aspect of deliberately seeking out "injustice" and being overly sensitive to it and seeing the world as a gender battle. If you're looking at the world through such a frame yo…

That's spot on. Unfortunately the swarm of social media opinion in support of the more scornful verdict, is what the news outlets pick up and run with regardless of truth.

That said, he was insensitive at the point in question where he should have let her speak. You could sort of tell he was trying to organise and grasp the ideas in his own mind, probably in an effort to stay on top of things. A clumsy moderator moment more than ingrained sexism.

Let's not forget, she had the right to speak up and say "can I answer the question"... We all have the responsibility and option to guide things back on track if something isn't running smoothly. Don't just sit there waiting for balance to restore, or for the audience to come to rescue, do something about it.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#62

Post by RHSeeger »

seanhandley wrote: post #7
pokemongoaway wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many times do we have to tell feminists that this isn't sexism? Ya all those people on stage just HATE women! What about bad manners? What about cut throat career promoting academicians getting an audience?

You want to tell feminists what sexism is? My advice: don't. Listen.

People looking for bias can be just as wrong as people ignoring it. Examples of people claiming x-ism where it doesn't exist abound.

Yes, sexism/racism/classism/etc all exist and are all problems, but that doesn't mean every unfortunate circumstance is an instance of it. When you believe someone is wrong, it's (generally) not a bad thing to try to explain why you believe they're wrong. You may not convince them, but that doesn't make you a bad person (as long as you're willing to listen/try to understand) when they do likewise.

That being said, the circumstances described in the do appear to show sexism. I enjoyed the read.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#65

Post by RHSeeger »

anc84 wrote: post #48
humanrebar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this whole thread about not letting people talk over you? Only listening and not being able to contribute back to what should be a conversation? Everyone has the right to express frustration, I think.

Listen, you don't understand. Feminists are the sole authority of sexism and thus, if someone proclaims themselves as feminist, you better listen and accept their truths. It might be uncomfortable but you are just supporting patriachy and misogyny if you don't stop thinking with your own misguided, sexist brain.

Poe's law? I honestly can't tell.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#66

Post by cynicalbastard »

danso wrote: post #21
jasonshen wrote: post #11

Edit: I watched the video. The moderator goes on and on and the "let her speak please" sounds very polite. This is a painfully frustrating reminder that women get talked over by men. It's one thing to have one panelist talk over another, but to have the moderator, who is explicitly in charge of facilitating a panel discussion, be the one to drown out a panelist is just unacceptable. Yes, "not all men" do this, but th…

Journalists definitely like to hear themselves talk, even when formulating questions while moderating a discussion. But if he, as a relative layperson in science, felt that comfortable interrupting Dr. Hubeny and riffing off of her area of expertise, imagine what he's like in a topic in which he doesn't think himself a relative amateur.

> Journalists definitely like to hear themselves talk, even when formulating questions while moderating a discussion.

slightly off topic, but with the rise of ubiquitous audio/video and the interview/discussion/panel format, it is infuriating how many hosts just blatantly speak over their guests, over and over and over. it's one of the biggest tells between a professional interviewer and a rank amateur. i can barely make it through my weekly playlist without cringing at half the dialogue.

i completely stopped listening to charlie rose because of this. it's absolutely atrocious. it's not helpful, and makes me anxious when i'm trying to unwind. some guests simply continue speaking, and the entire discussion devolves into little more than a god damn shouting match.

sexism or not, i hope this public assassination at least makes one loudmouth blowhard reconsider his default modus operandi. just let your guests speak! for fuck's sake, it's not that hard.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#67

Post by Certhas »

obstacle1 wrote: post #23

What's really interesting is that the author only became 'boiling' with rage when this socially-unaware moderator talked over the woman on the panel, not when he talked over the other men. This kind of behavior is extremely common in STEM, and happens to everyone. If you don't talk with confidence, purpose, and animation, you're going to get talked over by the alpha nerd of the group. Man, woman, or purple elephant.…

What's really interesting is that you felt the need to insist that there must be no sexism here because it happens to everyone, and that the person in the audience who described her and the audiences reaction is simply imagining the asymmetry.

Fallacy of symmetry.

Show me a sequence like what happens from 1:03 to 1:06 (the shout out) to her for the men in attendance. This is also not a case of women not speaking up. She repeatedly tries to answer, tries to interject and get a word in. I didn't watch the entire video, but I failed to see any comparable sequences.

I think in general you're not wrong that there is more generally shitty behaviour than explicitly discriminating behaviour. The right way to go about this is to make a better atmosphere for everyone. We all benefit if the quiet person in the room gets heard, too, and if ideas are properly attributed. This is anyway something we should strive for, and it's great that it also improves the experience of people who were not socialized to inject themselves forcefully, or even socialized to not inject themselves forcefully. Because sexist ideas and behaviours persist in our society these people tend to be women more often, thus the shitty behaviour of alpha nerds hurts women more than men (even if they do them to everyone). That's also why I'm not a big fan of calling people out as sexist.

This moderator was particularly egregious though.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#68

Post by macspoofing »

I watched the video the other day and I did notice the Hubeny was not called a lot - part of the reason was that she was more introverted and soft-spoken then the other panelists and part of the reason was that the moderator monopolized the conversation - which is typical of the WCF where the moderator will try to contextualize and steer the discussion in a way that makes it broadly accessible (even to kids, who are the target audience as well).

I've seen panels moderated by Neil Degrasse Tyson and Lawrence Krauss and those guys are terrible because they really love to hear themselves speak and will monopolize the discussion.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#69

Post by kofejnik »

soneca wrote: post #41

It is hard and subjective to assess if the moderator behavior was just indiscriminately rude or sexism by mansplaining. That's why I don't expect the comments here to be as interesting and enlightening as for other common topics at HN. But I would like to just point out what, I believe, it's a strong signaling that it was sexism: the whole audience reaction to when the woman shouted: "Let her speak please". There is…

as Notch said, mansplaining is a sexist term designed to silence men via gender shaming. So your comment is a lot more sexist than the moderator in question, who was simply exercising equal-opportunity-rudeness to everyone.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#70

Post by pbhjpbhj »

gamache wrote: post #53
wayn3 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

potential alternative explanation: the moderator was somehow socially aware (such people exist) and felt, or seemed to feel, that the interviewee was anxious, and felt that doing the talking for her made her more comfortable. or we can just assume it was sexism. because everything is always sexism at all times when theres a woman involved. but then obviously its still sexism because assuming someone is afraid of atte…

> the moderator was somehow socially aware (such people exist) and felt, or seemed to feel, that the interviewee was anxious, and felt that doing the talking for her made her more comfortable. Oh! OK, so not sexism, just paternalism. But only for the female panelist.

It's only paternalism if his motivation is based on the person's sex, surely. How can you tell that motivation? Why not political bias, nepotism (friend-of-a-friend, say), pity, ...?
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