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Speaking up

sazzy.co.uk

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Re: Speaking up

#111

Post by Skywing »

How would you combat this scenario, though? If the person who is doing this has not been caught, then is it really a good idea to publicly state how much of an annoyance he or she is being? (I say she, because seriously, it could be another woman as well. Everybody is assuming it's probably a guy. We've all seen how mean women can be to other women, though. I grew up with 2 sisters and their friends ... I've seen a lot of that.) But, if this person is still anonymous then I'd think this would just fuel the fire and make them go even more full throttle, now. I don't think staying quiet helps either, but this is just that typical internet scenario where somebody is hiding behind anonymity and is enjoying the attention and drama that their actions are creating. I really don't know how I'd combat this, if it were happening to me.

This is nothing against the author of the article, this is just me some what brainstorming out loud about how to combat this scenario. Without trying to take action, and with the antagonist still unknown, what does the author want everybody to do, though? What is the call to action here?

Re: Speaking up

#112

Post by revelation »

NoahSussman wrote: post #73
thaumaturgy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding your second paragraph, I think it's primarily a clash of two situations: software development by its nature attracts men who are socially awkward, and the women that are attracted to software development tend not to be there for the attention. Software development has a broader appeal now than it did twenty years ago, and in spite of the numerous cases like this one, there seems to still be a growing popula…

> there seems to still be a growing population of women in the community. Just keep in mind that, whatever growth you've observed, the number of women in programming now is much lower than it was in the 1980s. For some historical statistics see http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-08-26/opinions/35268...

Society was very different in 1980. Maybe we should be very careful to reach these conclusions.

Re: Speaking up

#113

Post by h2s »

dgrnbrg wrote: post #68

What do we do about less overt sexism? For instance, there's a popular developer who writes useful plugins named after genitalia and sex acts. I find his code useful, and I've asked him publicly and privately to choose nonsexual names for his code, but he and his users see nothing wrong with this. Even consider the "weinre" project that's on the frontpage right now. "Get your weinre out"?! His assertion is that it's…

Are you talking about Tim Pope, whose work includes vim-foreplay, vim-scriptease, vim-eunuch, vim-speeddating, and hookup?

Re: Speaking up

#114

Post by hagios »

timsally wrote: post #90

Whenever an instance of blatant sexism comes up, an attempt is invariably made to rationalize away the fact that a sexist act has actually occurred. We have had two such attempts made here so far and I expect more. One commentator is attempting to advance the baseless theory that the bully did not care about the sex of his victim. This particular individual even goes so far to say that "the biggest problem" is the al…

There is a LOT of blatant sexism in the tech sector. The more specialized you get, the worse things get. It's a pretty well documented problem (e.g. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/sexual_harassm... for a collection of security related anecdotes). This kind of culture turns away lots of tremendously talented people, and those who choose to endure a culture which seems to be slanted against them generally either end up targets or else silent lurkers.

It's absolutely accurate to call the general reaction 'denial.' People who complain who are on the receiving end of the harassment are 'overly sensitive' and those who aren't who speak up against the status quo are 'apologists' and 'white knights.' It's difficult to address a mindset which a majority of a community is complicit in at best, or active defenders of at worst.

Re: Speaking up

#115

Post by krickle »

lukehorvat wrote: post #74
rimantas wrote: post #38

Please, tell me, how would comments look if someone did the same thing, but for the guy? The sight of a bunch of guys rushing to fight sexism (often without even understanding what sexism is) and solve women's issues for them is amusing. This is not to say, that there are no problems. But the biggest problem I see is a knee-jerk reaction to anything involving gender or race. Sometimes assholes are just assholes and c…

Please, tell me, why there is always one individual who reads an article like this and goes "but what about teh menz!?"

I agree that it's not appropriate here, but in general; people do it because male forced envelopment victims get congratulated, male domestic violence victims that call for help are redirected to a hotline to confess as an abuser, males are ignored in legislation bringing more health care benefits to women, males are more likely to commit suicide, and males are less likely to succeed in lower education or matriculate into college. Also the prisons are full of men (who get longer sentences for similar crimes), where it's also a hilarious joke that they are raped because fuck criminals.

I wouldn't have replied but I hate that "what about the menz" trope. Men and women both have social problems, it wasn't appropriate to discuss men's issues here but that does not mean it is never appropriate. Maybe people need better filters than, "a discussion about gender is occurring, here is my two cents," but it's hard for people who care about these issues to find a good time simply because it's somewhat taboo to say men have problems at all. So they probably just don't mention anything until they really disagree with something being said.

Re: Speaking up

#119

Post by belorn »

pekk wrote: post #103
belorn wrote: post #99

Conferences are a problematic area even if one ignore what kind of community it is. (be that IT, gardening, Sci-Fy, trucks, manufacturing, or furries). The math is not giving out pretty numbers. Lets compare two conferences. One is 5% females participation, and a other is 50%. We can directly say that the risk of getting sexually assaulted is minimum 20x larger at the 5% conference than the 50%. there is also a numbe…

Based on what data can you "directly say that the risk of getting sexually assaulted is minimum 20x larger at the 5% conference than the 50%"?

Let's make up some numbers, and let's pick say 200 members conference. Let's also say that each male participant is a equal risk of being a person who commit a sexual assault, and that risk is 10%.

  50%/50% distribution:
  100 male participants, 100 female participants
  number of sexual assaults: 100x10% = 10
  *Risk for each female participant: 10/100 = 0.1

  5%/95% distribution:
  190 males, 10 females
  number of sexual assaults: 190x10% = 19
  *Risk for each female: 19/10 = 1.9

  *Risk compared: 0.1 vs 1.9 = 0.1/1.9 = 19x
Okey, not 20x, I rounded the number 19x to 20x. It also assumes that:

A), Female to Female sexual assault is 0. Not true, but close enough in regard to what is reported.

B), Regardless to number of females, the risk of each male participant stays the same. If the 50%/50% actually has a higher number of assaults in practice, then the risk difference between the two type of conferences actually drop.

Re: Speaking up

#120

Post by [deleted] »

h2s wrote: post #102
timsally wrote: post #90

Whenever an instance of blatant sexism comes up, an attempt is invariably made to rationalize away the fact that a sexist act has actually occurred. We have had two such attempts made here so far and I expect more. One commentator is attempting to advance the baseless theory that the bully did not care about the sex of his victim. This particular individual even goes so far to say that "the biggest problem" is the al…

Not to mention the conspiracy theorist positing that it might have been a woman posting the fake porn pictures. The mental gymnastics some people will perform to avoid facing the obvious truth are amazing. How can we solve a problem we don't all admit exists?

[deleted]
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