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Speaking up

sazzy.co.uk

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Re: Speaking up

#181

Post by DenisM »

tedks wrote: post #161
mnicole wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that the card system turned into a running joke at DEFCON (people giving their buddies cards at the slightest insinuation), which could lead to watering down the purpose or making it somewhat of a joke to receive one in a literal sense. Do any other conferences have in-the-moment/non-confrontational methods of calling people out?

In activist circles, getting called out for racist or sexist behavior means you're kicked out, immediately, no questions asked. Based on my understanding of it, the red/yellow card system is largely an effort in self-policing, in that they're based on the assumption that someone who receives a red card will learn and change their behavior. This seems like a bad assumption. A better system might be to have a simple mo…

Don't you see the potential for abuse?

The mere idea of abuse creates an incentive to steer clear of any females in the audience, which is sort of the opposite of the desired goal - acceptance.

Re: Speaking up

#182

Post by Tichy »

mwetzler wrote: post #179
Tichy wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I don't understand what this has to do with sexism. I would think this is actually a crime (stalking?) committed by some deranged individual, whose real motivations we don't know anything about. Even if they were "hatred of women" or whatever, I fail to see what the lesson to be learned from that should be? Is the implied assumption that the deed was encouraged by rampant sexism in the industry? In the l…

Sexism definition: Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex. This was clearly sexism since it was demeaning to the woman and her gender was used as a part of that (e.g. the fact that pictures of naked women were used in the attack). If the same happened to a man, we would probably call it harassment, not sexism, since men at large are not discriminated against based on…

"since men at large are not discriminated against based on their gender."

Uh, hello there - that's a huge assumption. I think they are discriminated against very much, but I guess no point to discuss on HN :-/ I'll only say that I don't enjoy having to spend time away from my kid.

"A female posting pictures of a man at the conference wouldn't be signaling that men don't belong in the group"

Very confusing? I thought the problem was that the pictures where fake nudes? In any case I think in general a swath of postings of somebodies picture would be disturbing. Also I don't understand "it's sexism because in the pictures she is a woman"?

"1 in 5 college women are raped during their college years."

This has been debunked, I only googled for that yesterday: http://www.responsibleopposing.com/comment/1in4.html (originally I had a better link but this was the next best I found yesterday - the stats actually seem to go back to some manipulated study in 1985). (Edit: this link from the article is probably the better debunking, but longer http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9502/sommers.html )

"the deed was encouraged by and reflective of rampant sexism in society at large."

They don't even know who did it, so how can they know what inspired it?

Re: Speaking up

#183

Post by bikk55 »

krickle wrote: post #115
lukehorvat wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's funny because you keep saying "males" in place of "men" (but you don't say "female", you say "woman").

Re: Speaking up

#184

Post by [deleted] »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #144
nollidge wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: Speaking up

#185

Post by [deleted] »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #144
nollidge wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: Speaking up

#186

Post by [deleted] »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #144
nollidge wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: Speaking up

#187

Post by mwetzler »

bikk55 wrote: post #180

Lol, I knew what this was about as soon as I read the title. The HN crowd just loves whiny bitches "speaking up" about perceived sexism. So many white knights... so little time...

Are you being sarcastic? Are you really calling the author a whiny bitch? This is the most misogynistic comment in the entire thread.

Re: Speaking up

#188

Post by [deleted] »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #147
mtrimpe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 occurre…

[deleted]

Re: Speaking up

#189

Post by Geekette »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #147
mtrimpe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 occurre…

Seriously? What part of sexism in tech fields occurs more frequently than is reported is hard to understand? For every woman who says something, there are several that don't. For every story any woman is telling on the topic, there are several more stories that she probably has but isn't telling because she'd be there all day. $#@?!

And please, say what you have to say without prefacing it with useless declarations like "I'm not XYZ but", like its some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card. If others find your perspective on the topic is warped, then they'll comment accordingly and you won't get a pass. And BTW, issues like sexism tend to exist along a continuum and sometimes even well-meaning people's views may sometimes graze or lie along it, regardless of good intentions.

EDIT: deleted duplicates (was getting error msgs that made me think the comment wasn't being posted).

Re: Speaking up

#190

Post by mnicole »

malachismith wrote: post #121
Aaronontheweb wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think the developer community is bad, try advertising / media / sales.

Having worked in both, I actually do not think the developer community is better (or less awful) than the advertising / media / sales community. The former is simply more nuanced and subtle. The sexism in the Ad / Media / Sales world is simply more obvious, unhidden and honest. Both are horrible and grotesque - but to be frank, I think that while there is less respect for women in the Ad / Media / Sales world, there…

Ditto for me as well. At least in advertising there are other female project managers, assistants and designers you can go to. I've only worked one other job in dev where I've had another female co-worker, and even still that doesn't mean we're close and can confide in each other if we're concerned about something.
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