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“Let her speak please”

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Re: “Let her speak please”

#211

Post by ajuckel »

dekhn wrote: post #149
andai wrote: post #86

> You may be amazed to hear it, but during this panel session I genuinely did not feel affronted or discriminated by the moderator’s behavior. It seemed more amusing to see him try posing a question in a way that at the same time tried answering it. It’s true that this made the question a bit of a moving target for me (and therefore harder to address coherently), but I don’t a-priori assume that the incident was root…

I think it was really valuable to surface the feelings of the person who was the target of this discussion. It changes the perspective of the incident.

In what way? Sure, it's an additional perspective, but it sounds like you're suggesting it should somehow alter the audience perspective.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#212

Post by neolefty »

novia wrote: post #157
dekhn wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was really valuable to surface the feelings of the person who was the target of this discussion. It changes the perspective of the incident.

When you look at the full response though.. She is supportive of the woman in the audience who spoke up. Veronika Hubeny: I applaud your heroism in standing up for what you believe in! I know well the shaky feeling and subsequent exhilarated and heartwarmed contentment in the knowledge of having done the right thing, and I think that doing so has become more crucial than ever. Your behavior was inspiring and I’m glad…

The feeling was rather one of camaraderie: the challenges to unravel the deepest mysteries of the universe, the thrill in understanding another tiny bit of this grand puzzle, and the sheer wonder at how beautifully the physics hangs together, put us all in the same boat, so to speak.

This is what will end discrimination based on superficial differences: I think our mental reality is so much more interesting than our physical differences. Am I a man or a woman? Mostly I'm human. It may seem stupidly obvious to say that, but I feel it bears repeating.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#213

Post by microcolonel »

This only seems sexist if you think that people only speak when allowed to speak. People speak when they speak, the rules of politeness are universal, and she had every right to speak up, and every right to pipe down. She could have just as easily been a bit uncomfortable, or just more interested in listening. The host was overbearing on the whole conversation from what I see. There could be any number of reasons why the host might interrupt the string theorist; and the argument that it must be sexism is just so just-so.

I don't see why people should be expected to all be equally sonorous, when clearly people are not equally interested in it.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#214

Post by natch »

_lex wrote: post #180
novia wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you look at the full response though.. She is supportive of the woman in the audience who spoke up. Veronika Hubeny: I applaud your heroism in standing up for what you believe in! I know well the shaky feeling and subsequent exhilarated and heartwarmed contentment in the knowledge of having done the right thing, and I think that doing so has become more crucial than ever. Your behavior was inspiring and I’m glad…

I think it's worth considering that we're seeing some survivorship bias here - it's possible that she's the only woman on the panel because she thinks this way. In other words, it's possible that other women who would have seen this event as being rooted in sexism may eventually be a part of so many similar events during their career that they effectively burn out and switch to more female friendly fields. This has b…

The causation might also run the other way. She might have survived in the field and built up this attitude because she was fortunate early on in her career to have worked with some really good people who were just focused on the science, as opposed to being into trivial stuff like workplace power games. So there might have been some luck involved. She did say that early on she worked with great people.

If that's the cause of her attitude, the point about survivorship bias is still valid... but the reasons for survival are different. The luck of having a good work environment (unusual, some would say) caused the good experience and allowed her to stay in the field with a good attitude.

Edit: I'm not claiming it was definitely the way I say in this particular case, versus the way you said. I'm just saying both possibilities should be considered. Also we should acknowledge that sexism does exist, apart from perceptions of sexism, which admittedly can sometimes be wrong.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#215

Post by vog »

trendia wrote: post #189
vog wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only way to improve society is to recognize when things are really done with ill intent I strongly disagree. We need to fix issues no matter if they had been done because of ignorance or because of ill intent. The measures and consequences should be different, but naming and fixing the issue should be independent from that. "Bad social skills" is a common excuse, but in the end, it's just another word for ignor…

Are you saying we should fix when people geek out about a topic and ramble? If so, I agree. But good luck making progress on that!

It may be uncomfortable, but it's the only way to make cultural progress.

You should especially take care of that if you have any major position in a larger group, not matter if it is a company department, an open-source project or a user-group.

If nobody cares visibly about social behaviour, that group is either doomed and won't achieve anything in the long run. Or it reduces a very low number of active participants - usually just one.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#216

Post by TheGirondin »

snowwrestler wrote: post #80
zakk wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mansplaining Please avoid using derogative terms, suggesting that a whole category (men in this case) have a certain behaviour. That's sexism, too.

I'm a man and I think this term is fine. You don't speak for all men.

You don't speak for all men, so please stop acting as though you do.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#217

Post by roberto »

discombobulate wrote: post #159

I received a delivery from a black gentleman today. Whilst reaching out for the package I was concerned he may think I'm racist if I wasn't excessively nice to him. I think I may be uncomfortable around minorities for fear of being labelled a racist. I have a similar worry around women. I think becoming racist would solve my concerns -- at least in my own mind. However, it doesn't make any sense to do that: individua…

If you're a white heterosexual male you're probably not used to being uncomfortable because the whole world was made for you. You don't feel uncomfortable when you see the police. You don't feel uncomfortable walking down your street at night by yourself. You don't feel uncomfortable going to your church. You don't feel uncomfortable kissing your spouse in the street.

In my opinion, the discomfort you're feeling is nothing compared to the others I described. So get used to it. We do the right thing because it's right, not because it's easy.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#218

Post by xor1 »

vog wrote: post #197
golemotron wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be the thing that is most problematic about 'call out' culture. We assume that we know the intention of people's behavior (sexism) and how it is received (offense). In many cases there may be neither. But I'm just cynical enough to suspect that this many not matter to people who 'call out.' They feel that they are on a mission to make society better regardless of whether there are problems in any individua…

I don't see any "'call out' culture" here. Note that the person in the audience did not say "you are sexist". The words were "Let her speak please". Specific, and to the point. (EDIT: The article itself uses the word "sexist", so it might indeed have been a call-out. However, that doesn't affect my point that we should not tolerate shitty behaviour, no matter which label is attached to it.) The moderator's behvaiour…

>I don't see any "'call out' culture" here. Note that the person in the audience did not say "you are sexist". The words were "Let her speak please". Specific, and to the point.

The "call out" is the Facebook post and the subsequent social media firestorm that follows it.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#219

Post by openasocket »

I'm suprised no one has brought up that men talking over women is a well-studied phenomenon in childhood and adolescence. Girls tend to contribute less to discussions or conversations in mixed gender settings than they do in single-gender settings. My parents even noticed it when my brother and I moved out of the house, and suddenly my little sister was a lot more talkative at the dinner table. The exact mechanism or reason for this is not well understood.

I'm not sure if this phenomenon has been studied in adulthood, but I wouldn't be surprised if some remnant of it remains. Could this simply be an example of that phenomenon in action? Which isn't to say this isn't sexism, I wouldn't consider those two things mutually exclusive.

EDIT: to be clear, I'm not absolving the moderator of blame, or placing any fault on the woman. I'm simply linking this behavior to a broader social phenomenon that is fairly well studied. I personally think what he did was sexist, whether or not that was his intent.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#220

Post by trendia »

croon wrote: post #198
trendia wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he was doing that because he was sexist, I think he was doing that because he was really excited about the duality. The only way to improve society is to recognize when things are really done with ill intent and when they're the result of: geeking out + bad social skills

The way I see it: * He was geeking out. True. * There was no ill intent. True. * He wasn't sexist. False. He could geek out all he wanted, but speaking for her multiple times over her trying to get a foot in was very sexist, regardless of intent. I hold the door for guys all the time, but if you're only doing it for "feeble girls" it is telling. This was the case in this panel. She's there because she knows her shit,…

I've spoken to people like this moderator and they just ramble over any topic they get excited about.

What specifically makes you think he rambled because she was a woman?

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