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Speaking up

sazzy.co.uk

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Re: Speaking up

#141

Post by nollidge »

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?

Also, it super doesn't matter what the gender of the person posting the pictures was. The gender of the actors does not matter if the gender of the victim obviously does.

Re: Speaking up

#142

Post by mwetzler »

jellicle wrote: post #137
mwetzler wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Friday I pitched my company to a room of 150 developers, since my company was a hackathon sponsor. I was the only female speaker out of about 15. Afterwards, a well-known, elite developer asked me if I programmed. When I said yes, he said that made me 50% less attractive. Then he asked me if I cooked and cleaned. To my face. You don't have to be high profile to deal with this stuff. Just being in a room where you'…

You know, naming names is probably one of the best ways to combat this. Silence helps the asshole keep doing it. I understand the reasons why you might not want to. It's tragedy of the commons problem; you get no benefit and possible detriment from naming names - only society as a whole benefits. Nevertheless you should. It's the right thing to do.

It is indeed tricky. I want to give developers a positive association with our company and with me as an individual. Being confrontational does the opposite.

Re: Speaking up

#143

Post by h2s »

konstruktor wrote: post #128
h2s wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why worry about the meaning of the terms you use when there is an opportunity to call somebody who disagrees with you names?

Well done you. It's about time somebody stood up for men brave enough to pitch improbable edge-case possibilities in order to anonymously undermine a woman reporting her experience of sexual harassment.

Re: Speaking up

#144

Post by gavanwoolery »

nollidge wrote: post #104
gavanwoolery wrote: post #40

Sorry about your treatment. :( (And here I go into down-vote territory... :D) Before I say anything, let me say clearly I am not sexist; I am a strong advocate of equal rights (key word: equal). Some of your attacks can definitely be attributed to sex, but it's bad propaganda just to throw them all in the sexism bucket, or treat sexism like it is the norm. I know several females in the industry who are not afraid of…

For glob's sake, I wish people would stop saying "I'm not sexist BUT..." or "I'm not racist BUT..." or "I'm not a homophobe BUT..." Because: A) You're setting yourself up for failure. B) Show, don't tell. but most importantly C) it's hardly ever useful to denote any one person as racist or sexist or whatever. It's thoughts and ideas and biases which are much more usefully labeled so. So, great, you are not sexist: yo…

No buts, I just wanted to make it apparent from the start that I am not sexist. "Equality" is all that I want, and it bugs me when people start saying things like "the industry is filled with sexism" or "sexism is the norm" or "most males are sexist" because it is simply not true. Or it is true, and 99.999 women just choose to be silent about their cases of sexism. It is insulting when people attack males as a single group based on some edge cases.

Re: Speaking up

#146

Post by rada »

Skywing wrote: post #111

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 l…

"We've all seen how mean women can be to other women".

Thanks for contributing your "all women are bitches" opinion to a discussion on sexism. Classy.

Re: Speaking up

#147

Post by gavanwoolery »

mtrimpe wrote: post #43
gavanwoolery wrote: post #40

Sorry about your treatment. :( (And here I go into down-vote territory... :D) Before I say anything, let me say clearly I am not sexist; I am a strong advocate of equal rights (key word: equal). Some of your attacks can definitely be attributed to sex, but it's bad propaganda just to throw them all in the sexism bucket, or treat sexism like it is the norm. I know several females in the industry who are not afraid of…

And how many speakers have porn created of them distributed during conferences? And when that happened would you expect at least a small percentage to secretly have a little laugh at it? There was another post on the front-page just minutes ago called The Distress of the Privileged [1] and it makes the very good point that these things are about a difference of scale . On the one hand we have one of the most high-pro…

Yes, people are going to attack women in very different ways then men. I can't imagine that many people would want to create nude pics of a guy to insult him. But that's not what I am getting at -- I am trying to say that this incident does not reflect the majority of males, nor does it make the whole IT industry sexist. You can't start saying that everyone/everything is sexist just because one incident of it occurred. Maybe people being bored with her talk had nothing to do with her being a woman -- maybe it was just a boring talk.

Re: Speaking up

#148

Post by nollidge »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #134
DanBC wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and have never been attacked on the basis of their sex Do you really know this, or do they just never ever mention it? I agree that everyone with enough followers will be the victim of attacks. But those attacks often take the easy route - someone who is Jewish will have anti-semitic rants posted about them; a woman will have graphic depictions (in text or imagery) of what people "want to do to her"; etc. It's fine…

Thanks - all good points :) As usual, the small sample of women I know is not necessarily indicative of anything, but of all the women I know, not one of them has complained about sexism; for all I know any of them could have been subject to it. I have been subject to a few attacks myself over the course of my life for being born a Jew (although technically I have always been more of an atheist or agnostic). But it n…

> But it never once bothered me that much,

Yeah, but do you take the time to scold other Jewish people who do get bothered by that stuff?

Also: let's not drag out the Bigger Fish to Fry Fallacy (there's probably a better name for that...). Just because problem B is worse than problem A doesn't mean it's not worth it for some folks to focus on A. Also: what are you doing about either of these problems? That is to say, what is your moral standing to tell others which problems are worth pursuing and which are not?

Re: Speaking up

#149

Post by fatbird »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #138
fatbird wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(And here I go into down-vote territory... :D) The name of the fallacy this demonstrates is "poisoning the well", as in implying that anyone who downvotes you is just afraid to hear the truth, man........ sexism like it is the norm As we keep discovering, sexism is the norm for women in general and specifically in our industry. Your blindness to this fact is not evidence to the contrary. I know several females in the…

Wow talk about fallacies! :) Here is one for you: The straw man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man I am accepting that I am going to be down-voted, not challenging people not to do it. See above fallacy. As we keep discovering, sexism is the norm for women ... We hear about one sexism case every few weeks here on HN. Of the many thousands of females in IT, do you think they are all just playing the silent card?…

I have a suggestion for you: When you have the opportunity to have a conversation with a woman in technology, ask her about sexism in the industry. Ask her if she's experienced it: if she's received the sort of unwanted geek attention for which Linux conferences are famous; if she's received stupid or sexist comments (c.f. mwetzler's comment above); if she's had to fend off inappropriate advances in a professional setting; if she's had to go through the mental gymnastics that an atmosphere of sexism creates.

And here's the crucial part: don't argue with her about it. Do it as a fact-finding thing, a survey. Just say you're trying to learn. Ask questions to draw her out and clarify things, but don't share your opinion (especially those above), because that will interfere with the information gathering, especially if they perceive that you're asking only to dismiss or reject what she's telling you.

Women are very frequently silent about sexism because speaking up about it not only fails to address the issue, but worsens the severity of it. What started as inappropriate flirting turns into sexually abusive comments; or an argument in which an experience in which they feel quite obviously wronged, gets trivialized as a misunderstanding or oversensitivity on their part.

everyone is entitled to their opinion on the matter

Absolutely, but some opinions are backed up by a lot of data, and those opinions tend to be more worth having.

Re: Speaking up

#150

Post by randomdata »

CJefferson wrote: post #45
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…

It's interesting that you say "couldn't care less if their victim is a women or black person, or whatever". Can you come up with a good example of this kind of extreme attacking of a white man? You say "How would this look for a guy", I honestly can't think of any examples where people go anywhere near as far trolling and harassing white men. I may of course just be forgetting some obvious cases.

I would suggest that harassment of white men (and men in general) usually comes in the form of attacking one's mind, rather than body. George W. Bush stands out as a notable example. I don't know of anyone posting supposed pictures of him naked, but the jokes about his intelligence were seemingly never ending.
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