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Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

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Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#151
post #138

I tend to believe that women initiate encounters with men with unconscious non-verbal signals. A man who is able to read these signals will have a good success rate in meeting new women. A man who cannot will be pegged as a "creeper". I think it's not only true in real life, but on dating sites as well. Women receive so many messages from men that you are probably just going to get buried in all the noise if you send…

"I think it's not only true in real life, but on dating sites as well. Women receive so many messages from men that you are probably just going to get buried in all the noise if you send one. The best approach would be to make a good profile, and wait for them to message you."

I've gone on plenty of dates from online dating sites. Zero of them were a result of a woman messaging me first. I don't think the strategy you're suggesting is a good one.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not all men think this way. I don't, gay men don't, and I think many men (perhaps the majority) who find women attractive don't. You don't speak for me, and I think what you're saying is vile.

Sorry, all straight men who are sexually healthy -- you know what I mean. If you are sexually healthy, I hate to break it to you, but the reason your mind loves, respects, and is otherwise polite to women is because nature has made sure that you will do whatever you can to procreate with the mates you see fit. Nature has designed your mind such that it experiences a higher order of sexual attraction, which is called…

No, I don't know what you mean, because you seem to be saying that the definition of "sexual health" is to primarily evaluate a subset of humans on their gene-passing potential. "News flash": that's sexual dysfunction.

There are a bunch of different forces at play in the "design" (random evolution to local minima) of humans. There are also a huge set of behaviours that we throw out because we've decided they're not compatible with how we want to live, among them murder, rape, and paedophilia. So if you want to make the case for your "natural" inclination towards the opposite sex, can I assume that you are also a supporter of these "natural" inclinations too?

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not all men think this way. I don't, gay men don't, and I think many men (perhaps the majority) who find women attractive don't. You don't speak for me, and I think what you're saying is vile.

Sorry, all straight men who are sexually healthy -- you know what I mean. If you are sexually healthy, I hate to break it to you, but the reason your mind loves, respects, and is otherwise polite to women is because nature has made sure that you will do whatever you can to procreate with the mates you see fit. Nature has designed your mind such that it experiences a higher order of sexual attraction, which is called…

[citation needed]

I would love to see the study that demonstrates this, controlling for all societal factors.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not all men think this way. I don't, gay men don't, and I think many men (perhaps the majority) who find women attractive don't. You don't speak for me, and I think what you're saying is vile.

Sorry, all straight men who are sexually healthy -- you know what I mean. If you are sexually healthy, I hate to break it to you, but the reason your mind loves, respects, and is otherwise polite to women is because nature has made sure that you will do whatever you can to procreate with the mates you see fit. Nature has designed your mind such that it experiences a higher order of sexual attraction, which is called…

>>you know what I mean

I'm afraid not. Your implication does not really define anything.

>>If you want to argue

I don't. But I'd like to impart the following.

>>If you maybe you are the type of person that believes in which case our views are inherently different.

That exceedlingly bad form in any sort of argument, and a very weak position to take.

To paraphrase: "If you don't believe in God, then maybe you are just the sort of person who believes not in God, in which case I'm just going to ignore any argument you make anyway because I'm inherently not that sort of person."

Basically it reduces whatever case you're arguing to your personal opinion/ pet theory.

It basically fails falsifiability, because every objection that can be made against your point can be countered with "Yes, but in my mind .... " reducing everything you say to "true", and becomes thus useless for further discourse.

@@gavanwoolery @swa14 - Have you ever tried to argue with a believer of god (from an atheist perspective)?

"God" was just a drop-in example to illustrate the point in arguing with someone who believes in his opinion so strongly that arguing against it would automatically classify that person as "that (opposite) kind of person".

So to answer your question, ironically, yes; in fact, I'm doing so right at this moment.

>It is pretty fruitless, which is why I would advise to avoid it, just as I would advise arguing against me if you believe in mysticism like soul-mates.

"mysticism like soul-mates" are your words and have nothing to do with the subject at hand.

The "type of person" you argue with is not "they who believe in 'mysticism like soul-mates'", but, "They who do not take your inner ideas and values as granted truths".

The point of my post was that the way you put your argument puts it firmly in the "pretty fruitless" category, since it can neither be denied or confirmed. If you want your argument to be given serious though, you would need to rephrase it.

>>Anything which cannot be scientifically proven or disproven (like the existence of a god) generally leads to fruitless arguments.

Which is why token_female's "[citation needed]" was right on the spot.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe you will get this: Suppose anytime someone was a jerk in public, took up an extreme and unsubstantiated view, and held closely to it despite multiple appeals to show him the obvious errors in his reasoning -- suppose we call that "Doing a Gavan" or "Woolerying" (although the latter would be unfair to your parents and family.) Now, if this became really popular, then people who you would never in your life meet…

I would be honored if "doing a gavan" or "woolerying" became terms. ;) But seriously, the only way to right a word of its negative context is to start using it in a positive fashion, that way no one can use it abusively. Retarded was actually not first used as an insult, but just a term meaning slow...people decided to make it an insult. Two of my friends who are gay call each other "faggots" - which is probably the best thing you can do to remove the negative connotation of the word. Black people have successfully done this, with the N word, which they have made exclusive to their community. Really, words are just words. If someone calls another "retarded" it depends more on their tone of conversation than the word itself.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#156
post #105
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"There is something about IT that either appeals especially to males, or males are particularly skilled at." Oh please, have a look outside North America and Europe. And at history. Chineese hackers and 'IT professionals' are of all genders. Hell, even in backwards US&Europe women are and has been computer heroes. Grace Hopper ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper ) and Ada Lovelace ( http://sv.wikipedia.org/w…

Please. Yes, there are some very skilled female programmers. But they are very much the minority, as the fact that you had to go back 150 years to find a good example shows.

Interestingly, the field of Computer Programming used to be stereotyped as female just ~50 years ago.

http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2011/researcher-reveals-how-...

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#157
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 != assault

Fair enough. It's battery. Still a crime in the US. (Also UK. Also probably many other places.)

You've used the word "sexual" here. Using your word we see that some law would have been broken if this happened in England and Wales.

You've tried to say say that a touch without permission is not assault. Protip: in England and Wales you don't need to make physical contact for it to be assault. But, if you do make physical contact, and the contact is sexual, and you don't have permission for that contact, and there's no reasonable expectation that you'd have permission, then it's sexual assault.

(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/3)

> regardless of what some arbitrary legal verbage

Protip: that arbitrary legal verbiage somewhere is what judges are interested in.

> The problem is that some folks (both male and female) don't always perceive things the same way.

I'm guessing that no-one likes having their shoulder licked by un-invited strangers.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you will get this: Suppose anytime someone was a jerk in public, took up an extreme and unsubstantiated view, and held closely to it despite multiple appeals to show him the obvious errors in his reasoning -- suppose we call that "Doing a Gavan" or "Woolerying" (although the latter would be unfair to your parents and family.) Now, if this became really popular, then people who you would never in your life meet…

I would be honored if "doing a gavan" or "woolerying" became terms. ;) But seriously, the only way to right a word of its negative context is to start using it in a positive fashion, that way no one can use it abusively. Retarded was actually not first used as an insult, but just a term meaning slow...people decided to make it an insult. Two of my friends who are gay call each other "faggots" - which is probably the…

Those are all three bad examples though. Call any black person "nigger", any gay man "faggot", or speak to a special ed teacher about his "retarded" students and on the whole all will be offended.

The fact that retarded was a clinical term is irrelevant, similarly I think "nigger" derived from some matter-of-fact observation. This is really just another manifestation of your idea that root causes matter. They don't -- not as much as impacts do, both legally and for many people morally as well. Also, again, reciprocity is not a requisite here -- there is no fair use policy for offensive words or behavior.

Whenever someone says "if they can use it so can I", I have to wonder "why would you want to?" Why would you ever want to refer to gay people as "fags" or black people as "niggers", even if they do call each other in such a way.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're nitpicking. My stance is that they're both fears and they'll both result in more fear, which is counterproductive to a society that is trying to reduce sexism.

An imbalance of power isn't "nitpicking". In this situation, it's not incumbent on the women to educate the men. It's a bar, or a party, not a classroom. The men are being told about the problem, and need to get their act together. Maybe the way to do it is to hold a class on sexism and behavior at defcon.

Nitpicking is when someone loses sight of the big picture when they perceive imperfections in a part of it. You're definitely nitpicking.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Deliberately insightful and helpful, I hope.

Grabbing someone's ass without their consent is inexcusable harassment. You do not do it. Ever. This is simple. Not hard.

Respectfully disagree. Unlike you have.

Here's how I'll disagree. I hereby claim the following premise: that grabbing someone's ass is just grabbing someone's ass. At a minimum. Inherently. It may or may not be "harassment" depending on other particulars. And it is definitely not clearly inexcusable. Not always, not inherently. More specifically, grabbing someone's ass WITHOUT their explicit consent beforehand is NOT necessarily harassment, and therefore is not necessarily inexcusable. Again, it's just grabbing someone's ass. (Oh noes!) WHETHER it's bad, whether it's harassment or "inexcusable" depends highly on the context, the environment, and the two people in question. Indeed, the word inexcusable means it cannot be excused. But clearly if say a handsome hunky man grabs a pretty woman's ass at a bar or on a dance floor one night, there's music, dancing, alcohol, people are feeling frisky or lonely, looking to hookup, etc. and the guy finds the woman attractive, and especially if she finds him attractive (this is key), and she's in the mood (this is especially key), guess what? She may excuse him. That's a strong bet to make. It's happened before, it's happening now I'm sure all over the world and it's going to continue to happen for a long time into the future. People have sex. Behind closed doors they get nekkid and fuck like rabbits. And for every time you hear a woman saying in public she wants to be treated with respect, treated like a princess, be respected intellectually, etc. you'll hear another woman (possibly the same woman in a different context or mood) saying she likes to be hit on because it makes her feel more attractive and desirable, she wants men to touch her, she wants men to be aggressive and dominant with them and she sometimes, deep down, honestly, she wants to set all higher-ordered thought and pretensions aside and get fucked long and hard like an animal -- the whole "ravished by a pirate" fantasy, or "swept off her feet by a rich handsome witty man" fantasy, to cite just a few among hundreds of similar variants and archetypes. (I'm not making this stuff up, fellow HN'ers, this is fairly common out there outside academia and software engineering-land.) It's all over the freaking web, in books, private lunch conversations, women's magazines, etc. And so for a variety of reasons, yes, sometimes due to men with bad social/romantic judgement, and yes sometimes due to inebriation, some ass grabbing goes on. And sometimes women like it. They fantasize about it. And sometimes they do NOT. But to call it always inexcusable harassment is clearly in violation with the facts of the real world. Is it happening more than it should? Probably. Is any real harm done? Not unless you have a very ethereal and non-physical definition of "harm". Which some people do, of course. And that's the larger, meta-problem that many of us have with discussions about this topic. It's not that we don't agree with you that sometimes men do inappropriate things, sometimes. They clearly do, sometimes. But it's this repeated meme some folks propagate that merely to touch someone constitutes rape. That a momentary butt-in-pants squeeze is somehow violent or life-altering or traumatizing. That flirting is always harassment, and so forth. There's a whole lot of survivorship bias which occurs. And there's a whole lot of nuance and shades of grey, that exists out in the real world, that I think gets sadly glossed over.

Heck if I went to a bar or dance club at night and some woman grabbed my ass my reaction wouldn't be, "Oh no! That's inexcusable harassment. I feel so violated. I'm going to call the police. I'm being oppressed by the female gender again." Instead I'd be more like, "Well, hello ladies!" and feel complimented physically. (And how I'd respond would depend heavily on whether I was single or not, etc.) And again, of course, it depends on the situation -- it would be less appropriate in a corporate office setting during a workday, by a stranger, for example. But at an office party, at night, alcohol flowing, loud music, etc? Heck yes.

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