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Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

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Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#111
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoted you to counter-act the "college P.C." brigade.

"PC" just means "Being polite to everyone "

Sometime's PC goes overboard. It is not a bad thing necessarily, unless abused.

One example of PC going wrong is the word "retarded" - the PC crowd thought "mentally challenged" would be a better term, even though retarded just means you are a bit slow, mentally-challenged makes it seem like thinking is an arduous task.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#112

Maybe the title is link bait, but I don't think this is "sexism" by definition. Sexism: "Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex." A bunch of males were hitting on the author, crassly or awkwardly, but they were not denying the author equal rights. If a female asked a male to show their privates, no one would call it "sexism"; it might be rude, uncalled for, or strange…

I work in a workplace that's mostly women, with women in leadership positions. If the women asked me to show my c--- I'd consider that sexual harassment and a sexist abuse of power. I'm fat and if someone dissed me for that, I'd also consider that a kind of harassment.

I wouldn't accept the "but she's a nerd" or "she's clueless" as an excuse. After a certain age, you are responsible for learning some politeness.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#113
post #86

Does this happen at non-IT parties where a lot of men gather to get drunk and to try and socialize? I admit I'm not much of a party person, but from what I have seen, the answer is yes. I do not believe this has got anything to do with IT nor with sexism. If you are an attractive woman (relative to the attending male population), you are going to attract attention. That is how men are wired. That is our culture. Men…

> Men have to approach women, or they don't laid. Hopefully, a reduction of sexism in our society will also change things like this. A longish article on the general subject of how sexism hurts men, too: http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/156194/what_abou...

I came across this quote some time ago:

"I sincerely believe that if women study male lessons on concepts of assertion, courage, destiny, purpose, honor, dreams, endeavor, perseverance, goal orientation, etc., they would have a more fulfilling life, pick better men with whom to be intimate, and have better relationships with them." - from Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives, a book by Laura C. Schlessinger

It's just another expression that "fixing our society" goes both ways, sex-wise. But it's moving fast--where will we be in 20 years? Will My Little Pony fans lead the way? (I think they're taking themselves too seriously at this point, but who knows!) An amusing "patch" suggested by (I think it was him) a blogger moldbug is to make standardized, official lists of all the empirical "privileges" each group has (and every group has some, as the article mentioned), set up a national registry, and let people with such privileges sell them one-time-only for whatever price they can get.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#114
This is if anything a sad state of affairs. Maybe as a reaction to this, locally, there is a women only developer user group where men can only attend if invited. The other user group has a 50:1 ratio of men vs. women.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#115

What I don't understand is why this happens anymore. Surely no one can think it is acceptable in this day and age. I know we're talking about some of the least socially adept group of people, but come on. I don't see how you can even operate in society if you're literally trying to lick other people in public. Disclosure: I went to DEF CON 2 in 1994 when I was a shy 15 year old and there were no women around and appa…

Since it's theory night, here's my own simple, not-well-thought-out, and somewhat-tongue-in-cheek one: programming went mainstream during the big bubble and hasn't left.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#116
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stereotyping, [...] women, on the basis of sex." Licking a woman's shoulder, because she is a woman, is clearly a sexist act. It's also a criminal offence in several countries. I cannot believe that we still need to have this discussion. I have every sympathy for lonely, isolated, people; especially if they're on the ASD spectrum. I'd welcome any sensible effort to help those people develop some social skills or ge…

sexual != sexist hitting on != harassment touching != assault (protip: it's just touching; bashing their fist into your face, for example, would be assault by a more common sense person's definition; but touching is just touching, regardless of what some arbitrary legal verbage says somewhere; a document could say "a horse is a squid" but if that horse doesn't look or act anything at all like a squid then a reasonabl…

Touching can be classified as assault. If you're not getting a signal that you should touch someone, there's some risk in touching them.

If you get no signal that sexual touching is desired, then, most definitely, that touching constitutes assault and you can be arrested for it.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#117

The way to reduce this type of sexism and increase understanding is through more interaction, and not less. Yellow and red cards may achieve segregation, but they'll also introduce fear into the mix. A man who receives one of these cards, for whatever reason, will think twice before he talks to a girl at a conference again, just as a girl who has been grabbed once at Defcon thinks twice before ever going to Defcon ag…

Grabbing (or touching) a woman is often the only way to get attention in a loud bar. Sometimes males do it because it is a common tactic for approaching women (no really, research shows that if you touch a woman before you speak to her, the odds of a positive reaction are better, as counter-intuitive as it may seem).

Grabbing and touching aren't the same thing at all.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - I do not think this type of behavior should be condoned or justified, but I do believe it should be expected. I have seen the same behavior in many bars/clubs. Deep down, every man want two things: food and sex (akin to Freud's "id"). When you have enough drinks in you, your control/moral mechanisms get toned down (your ego and super ego). So, yes, in any bar full of drunk males, any female should expect to…

Deep down, every man want two things: food and sex (akin to Freud's "id"). When you have enough drinks in you, your control/moral mechanisms get toned down (your ego and super ego) This is terrible and a disgusting position to take. I am quite capable of going to a bar, drinking like a teenager, and managing to go home, all without sexually harassing or assaulting anyone. You're attempting to justify awful behaviour…

Not sure how many times I have to write it, but I am not justifying OR condoning this behavior, I am explaining why it occurs and why one can expect for it to occur.

Yes, I too can drink myself into oblivion and not harass a single girl. Some males "harass" girls because they think it increases their chance of getting laid (unfortunately, many times it does get them laid...or maced, one of the two).

Do you look at an attractive woman and feel nothing? If so, there is something wrong with you sexually. Maybe your civilized mind is saying "that looks like a nice female I should go talk to her" but deeper down nature is working its magic and it wants you to talk to her because it ups your odds of procreation. Like I said, nature is not necessarily pretty, it just is what it is.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#119

Prediction: The sexism in IT problem will never end. Here's my hypothesis: 1. Women and men are different. We see this played out all around us, all the time, both sides happily make and laugh at jokes about it, and no one has a problem acknowledging this fact during discussion of other topics, but when certain subjects are being discussed, these very same people will assure you, with total sincerity, that there is n…

> There is something about IT that either appeals especially to males, or males are particularly skilled at.

Alternative theory: sexism in IT acts as a barrier.

A vicious cycle.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#120
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"PC" just means "Being polite to everyone "

Sometime's PC goes overboard. It is not a bad thing necessarily, unless abused. One example of PC going wrong is the word "retarded" - the PC crowd thought "mentally challenged" would be a better term, even though retarded just means you are a bit slow, mentally-challenged makes it seem like thinking is an arduous task.

No. You are not supposed to use retarded because that word has consistently been used to insult and denigrate disabled people. It's the same with gay. You are not supposed to use it as an insult. It doesn't matter whether the person you are insulting is gay or not.
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