Responding to Wired's ad hominem hatchet job

Indeed - I find Ryan Singel's attitude to be completely and utterly baffling. From his Wired post:

"Soghoian suggesting that if Quinn Norton ever wanted to write about about encryption tools in the future, she ought to “step back, take a deep breath, and pull the power cord from your computer” isn’t just rude and obnoxious, it’s border-line sexist"

Out of context, I can't really see what he's getting at. In context, the idea it's 'border-line' sexist makes no sense at all. Singel has chosen to infer sexism under the mis-guided impression it's targeting one of his writers, but in fact the quote is pretty clearly intended to be read as a criticism of all technology journalists.

Wired really sucks a lot of the time. This is an unfortunate example of just how bad it can be.

Do you actually believe that calling someone a sexist (however 'careless' it might be) is an attack on the male gender as a whole? Really? Try swapping sexism with homophobia or racism, and see how ridiculous you sound. (Note: I agree with your first assertion.)

First, throwing the term 'racist' around carelessly undermines genuine claims of racism. Second, it attempts to not only target an individual as racist, but often whites as a whole as being part of a "whites only-club", in turn implying that white identity itself is inherently wrong. Third, it undermines genuine racial equality - if people are concerned about their criticisms being perceived as racist they will refrain from open and honest critique which is the hallmark of colleagues and equals. Fourth, it assumes (essentially) a racial role for blacks as "poor persecuted minorities" who need protecting from criticism and attack. Consequently, racial inequality is perpetuated - after all, if this same criticism had been targeted at a white journalist would we expect to see responses such as "you're only picking on him because he's white"?

A problem with reverse racism/sexism arguments is that they allow people who are secure in their positions to brush aside the racist/sexist undercurrents of society in favor of "gender/colorblind" solutions that only make sense if everyone agrees to ignore all cultural, social, and historical context.

Just because people with axes to grind can use gender as a smear (an inept one, in this case) to paint someone as a sexist, doesn't make it right to imply we as males are somehow being attacked or victimized, or could be in the future. And no, being made uncomfortable of your position in society isn't an attack, it's a reminder.

To be honest I've seen people complain about this far more often than I've actually seen it happen.

>We are at the stage, that merely acknowledging someone's sex or race will earn you these labels.

That in itself is too broad a generalization though, because there are many times when mentioning someone's race/sex is, due to context, subtly racist/sexist.

Generally, if you mention someones race or sex and that information is not actually relevant in any way to what you're saying, you are helping to perpetuate stereotypes and prejudice. It doesn't matter that doing so feels normal to you; shouting slurs at minorities feels normal to neo-Nazi[1] skinheads too. The hard part about prejudice is that it isn't simply solved by honest people acting naturally. It's solved by honest people trying really hard not to be prejudiced, because prejudice is innate.

[1] ed: thanks for pointing this out, peterwwillis