Earlier quoted context omitted.
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" Some examples at random: percentage of males in teaching professions, and/or daycare? Breast cancer funding and research versus prostate cancer funding and research, despite the relative frequency of each? Hint - 1:6 men will get prostate cancer, 1:8 women will get breast cancer. But the National Cancer Institute allows for $1,318 worth of resea…
Speaking up
321–330 of 342 posts
Re: Speaking up
#322Whenever 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…
Whenever an instance of blatant sexism comes up Excuse me, have you even read the article? Someone uploaded fake porn pictures of her to a forum and then persistently sent the URL to her employers and acquaintances. This was a targeted attack on her reputation, or perhaps malicious stalking, but how on earth does sexism factor into this? The porn pictures were merely a vehicle. If the attack had been carried out agai…
According to wikipedia:
> Sexual harassment, rape and other forms of sexual violence can be a part of more extreme, expressive, and emotionally impactive forms of sexism.[10]
what happened to her was obviously sexual harassment and extremely misogynistic, so at least according to wikipedia "sexism" is an appropriate word.
> The porn pictures were merely a vehicle. If the attack had been carried out against a man they would probably have used accusations of child pornography or such.
I don't think that's really how that works. This particular kind of attempted shaming / harassment is intimately tied in with notions of gender roles, patriarchal social norms, etc. I think if you're suggesting that attacking a man with accusations of child pornography is also sexist you might be right.
Re: Speaking up
#323How 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
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
>she is a target because she is a woman We don't know that. This is an assumption made with no meaningful evidence.
Not really. That this doesn't happen to men with the same frequency or degree of severity is enough of a smoking gun to suggest that this is indeed the case.
I don't think that means what you think it means.
Re: Speaking up
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. That this doesn't happen to men with the same frequency or degree of severity is enough of a smoking gun to suggest that this is indeed the case.
smoking gun I don't think that means what you think it means.
I'm suggesting that these sort of attacks on men are extremely limited is enough evidence to suggest the perpetrator is likely to be sexist and/or a mysoginist, which is pretty much the definition of a smoking gun as illustrated.
Re: Speaking up
#326Earlier 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…
Re: Speaking up
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
smoking gun I don't think that means what you think it means.
Smoking gun is " ...a reference to an object or fact that serves as conclusive evidence of a crime or similar act. " I'm suggesting that these sort of attacks on men are extremely limited is enough evidence to suggest the perpetrator is likely to be sexist and/or a mysoginist, which is pretty much the definition of a smoking gun as illustrated.
Re: Speaking up
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
By taking the patriarchal power dynamic and turning it on its head, systems like these create radically better environments for collaboration and collective empowerment.
If you're a man who would avoid talking to any women at a convention where women calling you out for harassing/threatening/misogynist behavior, the real problem isn't the system that allows women to hit back harder than their abusers, it's that you have far too high a probability of doing something harassing/threatening/misogynistic, and you should take some time to reconsider your behavior-patterns.
Re: Speaking up
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
>she is a target because she is a woman We don't know that. This is an assumption made with no meaningful evidence.
Not really. That this doesn't happen to men with the same frequency or degree of severity is enough of a smoking gun to suggest that this is indeed the case.
Re: Speaking up
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do we know she was targeted because she's a woman? This whole jumping to conclusions is just a bit much for me. Couldn't she just as well be targeted because she rejected some nerd who had a crush on her? Or even by another woman who is jealous of her? That obviously doesn't make the actions any better, but seems a more plausible motivation to me than "a random guy running a smear-campaign against a random woman,…
Please, please, please take the blinders off. This is unambiguously a misogynist attack that follows a painfully well-established pattern of targeting and harassing women online - a pattern that nearly every single woman who has a significant online presence experiences. Please, please do some reading on this - it's not hard to find reports and analyses of online woman abuse, and it's not hard to recognize the recurr…
That the perpetrator uses the most effective means available doesn't make the attacks misogynist, just because the target is a woman and the means is sex. That's like saying that choosing a knife to stab someone to death is obvious knife-ist behavior by the perpetrator. It's the misogynism of society and culture as a whole that is responsible for this; whether the perpetrator is misogynistic in excess of the culturally given amount is a question that we cannot answer based on the evidence.