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XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

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Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#181

Post by dfxm12 »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #150
demallien wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bzzzt! Thanks for playing! No, I would have a problem with it from anyone if the attention was unwanted. It is the 'unwanted' aspect of things which is important. A woman in a bar is not necessarily looking for any action - she may already be in a committed relationship, she may have just had a hard week at work and is unwinding with some friends, she might be a lesbian, or whatever. For your information I have also…

>No, I would have a problem with it from anyone if the attention was unwanted. It is the 'unwanted' aspect of things which is important. Disagree. It should be the 'being objectified' aspect of things which is most important as that's the topic we're dealing with. Even if your dream man approaches you and you want the attention, it shouldn't matter - objectifying women is still objectifying women whether it's from so…

>>No, I would have a problem with it from anyone if the attention was unwanted. It is the 'unwanted' aspect of things which is important. >Disagree. It should be the 'being objectified' aspect of things which is most important as that's the topic we're dealing with. Even if your dream man approaches you and you want the attention, it shouldn't matter - objectifying women is still objectifying women whether it's from someone you're into or the fat, bald guy.

I disagree too. I think it is the "if" part that is most important. Sometimes it is being fun to be objectified, even if you had a hard day at work or are a lesbian (not sure why OP had to make this distinction)... or something.

The problem is there is no way for people to show "I'm here at this place where people normally go to look for dates, but I am not looking for a date this time." Some women are going to go on social networking sites, network socially and enjoy all the comments they get that others MIGHT find unwanted. This doesn't mean all women will, and it doesn't mean that all men are going make these types of comment.

Most importantly, this is a real life problem, not a G+ problem, but G+ gives us the option of a block button, while real life does not.

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#182

Post by cletus »

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm a guy so obviously don't have the experience (any) women have but I will say this.

Three things will essentially give away your gender:

1. Your stated gender;

2. Your name (with a high degree of accuracy in most cultures that I'm aware of); and

3. Your photos.

So for (1) to have any impact, (2) and (3) must be hidden. Since all profiles are public, I'm not sure you can hide (2).

Give all that, I'm not sure I understand the rationale for hiding gender but, like I said, I don't have the experience.

That all being said, I really don't see the issue with hiding it.

I strongly encourage people who feel strongly about it to be vocal about it and ask for either the ability to have it not stated or to hide it (like you can with things like the number of "followers" you have).

EDIT: on the accuracy of gender prediction from Facebook profiles:

http://cis.poly.edu/~ross/papers/NameCentric.pdf

I realize this isn't exactly the issue here. Most people concerned with harassment probably aren't worried about computer models that can predict their gender based on their name, information from their profile or their writing style. I imagine harassment is far less systematic than that.

EDIT2: I would contend that a bigger factor in whether someone gets harassed is how they present their profile rather than a single field.

For example, if your profile is public, has pictures of how partying and getting drunk, has many messages about what a party animal you are and/or your dating life, some will see that (rightly or wrongly) as an invitation for attention (good or bad).

I would be very interested to hear from people who have been harassed or bullied online or have been the victims of such crimes in the real world and hear how they use social networks and how they present themselves online. I suspect they tend to keep everything private.

I'd also be interested to hear how important it is that gender is shown on a profile. It's all well and good for us to speculate about this but I really would like to hear from some people with first hand experience.

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#183

Post by Vivtek »

_3u10 wrote: post #49

I take great offense to my culture being defined as "relentless treatment of women as objects teaches them that they are defined by the one thing that men around them want from them" Yes some people do that, but VERY few. It's as silly as thinking that all gay men speak with lisps, yes some do and those that do are very identifiable as likely gay. Yes there is always that guy in the bar that is inappropriate with wom…

I hesitate to enter this, but ... once upon a time, I flipped a guy off because he cut me off in post-football-game traffic. For the next half an hour, he pursued me relentlessly through red lights, down streets, etc. and every time we slowed, he jumped out and tried to run over. I was terrified. Turns out he was an off-duty cop and was trying to impress his girlfriend - but it took about three years for me to stop panicking when I saw a police car.

OK, so I'm male and he was male, but let's assume that Google+ had one single thing on its profile that you had to fill out, and it was "Cop" vs. "Civilian". Do you think that I would feel comfortable broadcasting my non-cop status because Google hadn't thought about it?

I'm sure a cop would be really offended. But think hard about this.

And then take this kind of crap off Hacker News, man, because there are better venues for bleating that women shouldn't feel threatened by physical power and we all have better things to do with our time.

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#184

Post by scott_s »

_3u10 wrote: post #49

I take great offense to my culture being defined as "relentless treatment of women as objects teaches them that they are defined by the one thing that men around them want from them" Yes some people do that, but VERY few. It's as silly as thinking that all gay men speak with lisps, yes some do and those that do are very identifiable as likely gay. Yes there is always that guy in the bar that is inappropriate with wom…

The difficulty is that the aberrations in a large group can have disproportionate impact on those outside of the group.

So, men who abuse women may be the exception, but for those abused women, their perception and comfort with men may be permanently changed by those exceptions. Randall is not saying all men are the exceptions. Rather, he is saying recognize that those exceptions have had an enormous impact on some women's lives, including simple things like being uncomfortable publicly identifying their gender.

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#185

Post by scott_s »

Duff wrote: post #155
saulrh wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, my educated guess is that far more women die from car accidents than from crazy murderers. That's true. However, if I'm doing my math right, the statistics for rape and sexual assault are an entirely different story. The US isn't on both of these lists[0][1], so we'll take a proxy and compare: Germany has 6.5/100k deaths/year in accidents and 8.9/100k rapes/year. Note that that's per 100k people, not per 100…

Great statistics. What is the point? Are you suggesting that knowing the gender of people is a risk factor for rape? It seems like a few people are making this odd connection between assault, stalking and rape with knowing somebody's gender. You do realize that most humans can sit on any street corner and identify the gender of passers-by with a high degree of certainty, right?

It's a question of comfort in an online space, which is all about perception, not actual risk.

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#186

Post by yid »

waterhouse wrote: post #67
yid wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jokes aside, I like to fit people into two numbers between 0 and 1, non-inclusive. The first, number A represents your gender identification, with 0 being ideally female and 1 ideally male (remember the scale is non inclusive of the bounds). The second number B represents the gender identification that you're attracted to. So, for example: Hetero male: A=0.8, B=0.2 Gay male: A 0.7 b 0.9, or a 0.8 b 0.7 It's a conveni…

Unfortunately, your specification of the "B" category appears to leave no room for a distinction between, say, a guy who likes uber-masculine men and uber-feminine women, versus a guy who likes humans more toward the center of the scale. (I assume the first guy would like 0.1 and 0.9 people, and you'd record it as the average, 0.5; and the second guy would obviously like 0.5's.) Clearly we would need a graph with a b…

Interesting thoughts, and I agree with most of them. Perhaps you could think of my two number scale as a first approximation...? :)

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#187

Post by lhorie »

_3u10 wrote: post #49

I take great offense to my culture being defined as "relentless treatment of women as objects teaches them that they are defined by the one thing that men around them want from them" Yes some people do that, but VERY few. It's as silly as thinking that all gay men speak with lisps, yes some do and those that do are very identifiable as likely gay. Yes there is always that guy in the bar that is inappropriate with wom…

I think people are blowing things way out of proportion when they start talking about the sexual assault risk implication of a setting in an web app.

Imho, what happens when gender is given undue relevance is what you see in a Youtube comments to a guy playing guitar vs comments to a girl playing guitar. On the former, the worst you get is guitar skill/technique bashing, on the latter, creepy lewd comments about your body.

When you're in a social environment, giving prominence to irrelevant facts, no matter how true or harmless they are, that's just noise that detract from the experience.

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#188

Post by scott_s »

temphn wrote: post #112
demallien wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I was just describing the last guy that actually did this to me, and those were the aspects that I found physically unattractive... If I had described him as 'totally fit, washboard abs, young guy with handsome square jaw', most people wouldn't understand what I was complaining about!

Exactly. You don't seem to be introspective enough to realize that your problem is thus not with "men", but with unattractive men. Pretty obligatory link: http://www.dailyhaha.com/_vids/sexual_harassment.htm It's not unwelcome if Tom Brady does it. So computer scientists get it in the neck twice, as they are enriched for unattractive men AND blamed for excluding women.

Unwanted is unwanted, but I can easily see how the other person being physically unattractive to you making it even more unwanted.

Imagery also helped make her example real.

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#189

Post by derwiki »

demallien wrote: post #147
temphn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am always conscious that I am being objectified sexually ...fat, bald guy Again, lack of introspection. You complain about being objectified sexually while dissing fat, bald (and no doubt short) guys. Of course men are going to objectify women, just as you and other women objectify men. In other words you have nothing to complain about.

"introspection" You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Seriously. Well, either that or your reading comprehension could do with some work. Also, you seem to suggest that I am sexually objectifying men if I don't find every single one of them attractive? Absurd.

I was enjoying reading this back and forth until it ended with petty insults :(
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