Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon • Hacker News Board

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#211

Post by anigbrowl » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 8:14 PM UTC

bnr wrote: post #62

anigbrowl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh for heaven's sake. It is not acceptable to ask strangers to display their bodies, no matter how rarely you get out. If you want to see somebody with their clothes off, go to a fucking strip club. Stop making excuses for this bullshit behavior. If you can't understand this, visit a therapist who can help you to navigate social situations.

Of course it's not acceptable. But the victim being female does not automatically make the act sexism.

It's sexist whenever you have a big disparity that people exploit as an excuse for sexual harassment, whether a small number of women in a crowd of men or a small number of men in a big crowd of women. I purposely omitted any mention of gender in the grandparent comment.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#212

Post by derleth » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 8:38 PM UTC

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #187

boboblong wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Placing cupped hand on shoulder of a stranger, with squeezing or stroking, with "friendly banter" = really not okay." Nope, still not worth jail time. Move away from the person or grab their hand and remove it from your shoulder. I'm sorry, but you do not get to have people arrested for giving you an unwanted shoulder rub. If they persist, then yeah, they're assaulting (and harassing) you. Again, let's have some per…

Relax. It's just hyperbole.

Not when a mere accusation has serious repercussions.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#213

Post by derleth » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 8:40 PM UTC

sangfroid wrote: post #193

readme wrote: 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…

Yeah...the problem with this is that Defcon is not a dating event and women should not have to navigate it as though it were. Eye contact and not having a boyfriend perched on my arm more likely indicate that I'm there because I'm interested in the subject matter of the conference, not that I'm waiting for someone to put the moves on me. Seriously. Grow up.

> Seriously. Grow up.

If you want to influence someone, use an argument; don't rely on minimization or logical fallacies. That isn't the kind of atmosphere we want around here.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#214

Post by jack-r-abbit » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 8:56 PM UTC

mkaltenecker wrote: post #209

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with “retarded” the additional problem is that no one uses it as a positive term Not true. In the automotive world "retarded" is used quite often in regards to your distributor, vacuum and timing. By adjusting things, your timing can be advanced or retarded. It is not a negative thing. It is simply how engines are tuned. http://georgiajag.com/Documents/Vacuum%20Advance%20versus%20...

Exception accepted! I don’t think anyone has a problem with that kind of use. I certainly don’t. So, yes, sometimes “retarded“ can be a neutral term.

There is also the case of fire/flame retardant.

It truly is a shame that a very legitimate word (retard) with a very legitimate meaning (to delay or slow progress) that had been used in legitimate ways for years was co-opted to insult people with diminished metal capacity. (While technically true, it is mean. Much like calling me whitey is technically true as I am white... it is generally an insult.) If not for that, the use of phrases like "well that was retarded" would still be legit uses since it is in spirit of the original meaning and not too far from saying "well, that was stupid". One could even argue that in a slightly less PC world we could still be using it to describe things and actions... just not people. But that is wishful thinking. The damage has been done.

Side note: It is some what also the case with the word "gay" which used to just mean "happy". Although, when people say "well, that was gay" they are generally not meaning "happy" so we've pretty much departed from that. I don't know the whole history of the N-word, but I don't believe there was ever a non-hateful use of the word (even taking into consideration its origin).

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#215

Post by drewwwwww » Fri, Jul 13, 2012, 9:02 PM UTC

gavanwoolery wrote: post #132

drewwwwww wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi gavanwoolery, There's potentially quite a bit to unpack in your statement above. I'm going to try to keep it short and to the point, because it seems you missed it in the original post. You may be a truly masterful troll. The poster made the cards because she is literally subject to an onslaught of crude behavior, simply due to her appearing to be a woman, while at Defcon. Defcon, as you may know, is open to anyon…

Hi drewwwwww, TL;DR - sexism can be a misnomer/umbrella term, and that is my main gripe. When something is indeed sexist, I would readily call that out. For example, not hiring a qualified female based on her sex qualifies as sexism to me. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I totally agree that it is not an isolated incident, and thus any knowing female should expect it to happen in similar circumstances. Like I have s…

I think I understand your point - it's true that the word 'sexism' has really broadened to describe a whole system of behavior that subjugates women throughout society - but it is a system of oppression, and so in order to address it substantially, we need some way to refer to it as a collection of behavior.

An explanation is dangerously close to a justification - the distance between the two is not always apparent. I think that is what has driven some of the vehemence in other replies to your original comment. One might argue that an explanation does not even need to be made, as it is the default condition of male and female interaction - men are expected to behave disrespectfully, and women are expected to accept it in one way or another.

I believe that we need to call out and address this behavior as much as possible, which is why I think the card system is great. If it's the norm, it needs to be changed.

We can do more to address the intimidation that is felt by women almost every moment of every day - we can start with being conscious of it and seek to reduce it in our daily behavior.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#216

Post by mkramlich » Sat, Jul 14, 2012, 1:12 AM UTC

mkaltenecker wrote: post #190

gavanwoolery wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My gay friends prefer "gay" or "queer" over homosexual. My black friends prefer "black" over African American. I could very well be wrong about the word retarded though. :)

You did not understand me. Using “gay” as a positive term isn’t a problem. “He came out first as a gay footballer” is a perfectly alright sentence. Using ”gay” (or “retarded”) as an insult is where the problem lies (with “retarded” the additional problem is that no one uses it as a positive term – and since it’s so overwhelmingly used negatively, using it neutrally isn’t really possible). When someone tells you he li…

> When someone tells you he likes My Little Pony and you respond with “Man, you are so gay!” then that’s a problem. You are using “gay” as in insult, as if being gay were a bad thing.

Maybe some people do think it's a bad thing. Who are you to be the arbiter of objective truth, ethics and correctness on that point, to which all other person's thoughts must conform? And note that "bad" does not have to mean evil, it can just mean undesirable, disgusting, weak, defective, or non-ideal. For example, there's a good argument to be made that homosexuality is a flaw from a biological and evolutionary standpoint. It's certainly not a condition which leads to reproductive accomplishment given that M+M and F+F cannot literally produce a baby. And note that nothing about that argument says that homosexuality is morally wrong. A lot of people think shit smells bad, for example, though they don't find it evil or a "lifestyle choice", since it's a biological process.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#217

Post by gavanwoolery » Sat, Jul 14, 2012, 2:05 AM UTC

wildgift wrote: post #117

gavanwoolery wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree, but its a thin line, right? ;) Not the type of move I would pull, for the record.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#218

Post by gavanwoolery » Sat, Jul 14, 2012, 2:08 AM UTC

token_female wrote: post #200

gavanwoolery wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need a citation if I tell you the sky is blue? What would you argue love is based on? Magical unicorns?

For the claim that all forms of love, respect etc. Boil down to sexual attraction? Yes. I don't know where you've been for the past 40 years, but Freud's theories on sexuality had no basis in empiricism and are no longer accepted among modern psychologists.

If you want to argue a counter theory, that is fine, but simply saying "you are wrong" is not sufficient. Like I said, what biological impulse would YOU account for love? What is the reason for love, evolutionarily speaking? The answer is pretty clear, and is not nearly exclusive to Freud's theories alone.

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#219

Post by gavanwoolery » Sat, Jul 14, 2012, 2:09 AM UTC

anthonyb wrote: post #181

readme wrote: 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…

You missed one though: | YES |

Crap, too late. I have at least three bastard children in the pipeline. ;)

Re: Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon

#220

Post by gavanwoolery » Sat, Jul 14, 2012, 2:36 AM UTC

drostie wrote: post #201

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I agree with the other person but by your logic everyone (who is not bi-sexual) practices sexism because they have a "special preference" to relationships with one gender over another. If the OP of the article had all those same things done to her (ass grabbing, pillow fight invitations, etc) by gay women, would that still be considered "sexism" or just sexual harassment? People sometimes forget that sexual…

I can't hammer this home enough: it's institutional , the sexism that's going on here. That is, the pillow-fight invitation is not by itself sexism; the sexism is that we live in a world where a man might consider it acceptable to burst into a conversation without prompting and ask a woman to his room for a private pillowfight party, for the sexual gratification of onlooking men. It's not the act, it's the environmen…

I see an environment that values females sexually. Yes, there are plenty of instances where males are rude to females, but the reverse is true as well. Have you ever watched the way some females gun down males in a bar, even when they approach kindly? This is not sexism, it is sexuality. We are attracted to women, and in fact often give them special bias due to their sex (do women hold the door open for males? Who pays for dinner more often, males or females? Who buys the other person a drink? Who buys the wedding ring? Which sex is allowed to slap/punch the opposite sex? Who has to resort to saying "yes dear" more? Which sex gets let past the line in a club? Which sex apologizes more?). Just because there are isolated incidences of sexism does not mean that the US as a whole is generally sexist (I assure you, it is not - the male race cannot afford all the lawsuits).

If anything, the sexism is in favor of females, as no one would call it sexist if a female groped a man, invited them to a pillow fight party, etc.