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“Let her speak please”

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Re: “Let her speak please”

#651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it weird to have conversations this way? I would find it very odd to save a string of questions until the end. It's much more fun to engage in the conversation actively. I'm not saying control the conversation. Good conversationalists listen more than they speak. But having fun in a conversation is engaging in it. Not replying paragraph after paragraph, in my opinion.

For me it is disrespectful to interrupt someone speaking, so that is why I find it "weird". But it is most probably a matter of preference. I don't think everyone should have discussions on my terms. In the context of interviewer interviewee, though, I think it is generally more interesting to listen to the interviewee than the interviewer. It seems to me that the whole premise of the interviewer interviewee is for t…

Absolutely. People who don’t understand that an interview isn’t the same as a chat between buddies at the pub make terrible interviewers.

An interviewer’s job is to let the interviewee speak to the audience, even though the audience doesn’t get to directly ask questions.

In general nobody cares what the interviewer thinks, and we don’t want to hear them blab about themselves.

(This makes many “podcasts” unlistenable.)

Re: “Let her speak please”

#652
post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one with 216 participants, and a whole bunch of citations that might be interesting: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1046496404263728 Another one from 1989 with 186 participants: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250069045_Interrupt...

Please quote the exact number in those papers. The summery of the first do not specify the levels of women interrupting women or men interrupting men, explicitly focusing only on interaction between men and women. The other one only say that "both men and women exhibiting higher levels of interruption behavior in male-dominated groups" . Citations is only as good as the ability it provide to verify a claim. Those do…

I'm not trying to prove anything, it just sounded like people were interested in relevant research with higher sample sizes. The first says "The participants for this study included 216 university students". The second says "We systematically varied the sex composition of the six-person groups, [...] Data on 31 groups in all were collected."

The second study directly addresses this discussion: "The odds of a male attempting to interrupt another male (.078) are less than one-half the odds of a male attempting to interrupt a female (.163). Females attempt to interrupt male and female speakers at essentially identical levels (odds of .146 and .141 respectively). In other words, men discriminate in their interruption attempts, interrupting women much more often than men. Women, on the other hand, do not discriminate; they attempt to interrupt men and women equally. Group composition does not appear to influence interruption attempts."

Re: “Let her speak please”

#653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why is it not sexism? OK, I'll bite... Because he has a wife who he's fucked and kids he's created. Or no, you're right, he hates ALL women! If this were the court of law, then the charge would not hold.

>> the circumstances described in the do appear to show sexism

> Why is it not sexism?

I feel like maybe you didn't actually read what I said, since what I said was that it did appear to show sexism.

The first paragraph of my response was addressing the person that said (effectively) that you should never disagree with a feminist about what is or isn't sexism (which is what I disagreed with).

Re: “Let her speak please”

#654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're labelling women as victims before any crime has happened. Your confirmation bias has everything worked out ahead of time, including the derogatory remarks awaiting any woman who dares cross the line you've drawn in red paint. Nobody's accusing anybody of any "crime." I don't understand why you're stepping up the rhetoric like this. It's not a war, it's not about punishing anyone, it's about correcting social…

The woman who said "let her talk" indeed sounded like she meant "I want to hear from her". Its a shame she felt the need to follow that up with a facebook soapbox piece you are clearly sympathetic to. I am not symapthetic, and have no interest in extending a gesture of patronising charity for the sake of the greater cause - women's rights and equality. An important cause yes, but that isnt an automatic qualification…

> People need to hold in their sexism trigger finger for when it actually happens, not when some vague maybe and could-be circumstance provides an excuse to let out a wave of built up disapproval.

Whose judgment are we supposed to trust about "when sexism actually happens?"

Further, why is it so clear to you that this person is not being genuine in retelling her experience of what happened? Why is she "on a soapbox" for talking about things she observed and felt in the moment, whether you agreed with them or not? What has she done to indicate to you that she should not be treated credibly?

If you came forward with a claim of sexism, would you expect us to treat you with the same level of skepticism you're showing here?

> The expression "mansplaining" is a trashy and sexist term, and when used falsely to condemn someone's likely innocent mistake is highly disrespectful. You want empathy and understanding of a viewpoint stemming from gender put-downs and unfounded accusations of sexism?

"Falsely condemn," again, is language that's unnecessarily harsh and misleading, and "unfounded" is simply not true. Sexism (and most forms of bias) is not always explicit or intentional; in fact, many biases are implicit.[1] When you treat a person differently because of their gender (or race, religion, etc.) - whether you are doing it on purpose or not - you are exhibiting bias.

The purpose of calling out that bias is not just or mainly to shame the person. It's to shine a light on behavior that not only is tolerated or not seen as a problem, but that isn't even consciously considered by people whom it doesn't affect. We can argue over the degree to which the moderator was aware that what he was doing was inappropriate, and we can argue over whether the person who called him out delivered her message in the best possible way, but what happened was not acceptable, and the accusation is not unfounded.

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/implicit-bias/

Re: “Let her speak please”

#655
post #173

The hell does this get on the front page? Serious HN, I expected to see something at least somewhat scientific. This is pure, 100%, facebook chain letter clickbait. I watched the video and everyone is talking over each other. Also what the hell is she wearing? She looks straight out of little house on the prairie. that last part was pure trolling

Are you really judging a woman's choice of clothing in a conversation about sexism? I'm no feminist but what the fuck

the last part was just for the lulz. I figured a facebook quality post needed some facebook quality comments.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that behaviours which tend to have disproportionate impact on one gender over another are still sexist, and women often have difficulty interrupting in the way that the men here did.

Nonsense. By your statement, the reason it disproportionately impacts women is not because of some rudimentary, fundamental reason but rather because they fail to react the same way the men did and speak up. That lies 100% on the women. In fact what YOU wrote is actually sexist, since it suggests that the corrective action would be to act differently toward her, but not the men. Perhaps you might merely argue that he…

Seems you've equated failing to successfully interrupt with "failing to react the same way". I think GP was pointing to the reception, not reaction.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#657
post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly this is a horrible philosophy -- the notion that anything can be sexist if someone chooses to be offended. But it's the exact opposite. Being offended has nothing to do with sexism. Sexism is an objective situation of an unequal distribution of power. Sexism would exist even if everyone in the world thought it was great, and no one was ever offended in the slightest. > but isn't the ability to recontextual…

In this context all we really know is that the moderator was rude, and the person he was rude to was a woman. We have no way of knowing for certain if he acted that way because of her gender. Saying this is sexism is pure speculation. To brand someone as sexist is very damaging to their reputation. That women in general suffer from a power imbalance is no excuse for attacking a persons reputation with no strong evide…

> We have no way of knowing for certain if he acted that way because of her gender. Saying this is sexism is pure speculation.

It isn't speculation, and why he acted the way he did is completely irrelevant. Sexism is a quality of a (social) situation where women's power is diminished compared to men. It doesn't have to be nefarious or intentional.

> To brand someone as sexist is very damaging to their reputation.

No, it isn't. We're all sexist. To brand someone as misogynistic may be damaging.

> That women in general suffer from a power imbalance is no excuse for attacking a persons reputation with no strong evidence.

No one here was attacked. The moderator did something sexist, as we all sometimes do. It happens. The only way to fight sexism is to point it out. I understand that the moderator must have been embarrassed by being called out, but we should all learn to be less sensitive about such things.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#658
post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad and unfair things happen to everyone. But power is a well-studied, and rather specific concept[1], and there's really no question here. None of the things you mentioned change anything about the very clear imbalance of power. Bill Gates may suffer from an ingrown toenail, but that has little to do with the fact that he's richer than you. Also, men are sexist, as are women. Being sexist is not being bad; it's bein…

The gp just gave evidence of structural sexism against a group. It just happened to be men. Saying that "life is unfair" when one group suffers, while rushing to the defense of the other group is hypocrisy and clearly a double standard.

> The gp just gave evidence of structural sexism against a group.

No, he mentioned things that happen to men[1]. That is not sexism any more than a rich man's illness is called "poverty". He may be sick; he may be miserable; he may be worse-off than just being poor -- but his condition is still not called poverty.

> Saying that "life is unfair" when one group suffers, while rushing to the defense of the other group is hypocrisy and clearly a double standard.

But sexism isn't about suffering; it isn't about taking offense; it isn't about unhappiness or general unfairness. It's an imbalance of power. I'm not rushing to anyone's defense, just explaining what sexism is. Sexism is not the only bad thing in the world, nor is it the worst, but it is what it is.

What is interesting to me is why is it when we discuss such an important issue, others find it necessary to point out that there are other problems, too. We know there are. But now we're talking about sexism.

[1]: Some of them are because men have more power.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#659
post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you're meta-trolling. If you want to comment on this site, you need to do so substantively and thoughtfully. If you continue to violate that rule, we're going to ban your account.

Is there any way to disagree with the assertion that you're trolling without being accused of metatrolling? That's rhetorical, I'll see myself out.

That's the obvious retort, but if you think about it, it's easy. Simply don't do things that imply bad faith (rhetorical questions, irrelevant distraction, drive-by swipes, grandiose posturing—all of which you managed to cram in there) and instead do some things that imply good faith, like taking responsibility and finding common ground.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#660
post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was said ("let her speak, please") doesn't fit any of those categories. It was an interruption, but not derisive, aggressive, or abusive.

It was aggressive. The statement was a command (followed by a desperate request) deriding the behavior and speech of the moderator. Why do you feel that calling the person who interjected a "heckler" is a bad thing?

First, "heckler" has negative connotation, while the interruption itself was helpful and to the point.

Second, attaching such an attribute at all to that person was inappropriate, given she pointed out an obvious misbehaviour of the moderator.

An appropriate reaction would have been: "Oh, I didn't notice. Thanks for pointing this out!"

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