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This is ridiculous. How in the world can those statements amount to sexism/slut-shaming?
TLDR; personal vendetta against Crockford led to accusations of "sexism", and him getting uninvited from Nodevember conference. There is absolutely no proof of sexism anywhere ,only a bunch of people who want to take him out professionally because he might have pissed them off for whatever reason in the past. Only now these people can use dubious political arguments to justify their vendetta. This can happen to anybo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I notice a fairly common tactic for trying to change norms is to pretend that the norms aren't norms and then aggressively shame people for doing a normal thing. This leads to a toxic atmosphere where people can't be secure in their words, social reality keeps being pulled out from under their feet.
When the normal thing marginalizes people, marginalized people are hurt. In recent years, they have started to defend themsves in force, the ks to unifying power of the internet. The insecurity you observe is feeling of the erosion of privilege.
I generally feel like there's a kneejerk reaction from people (especially in the tech community) to be "PC compliant", at the level where you almost can't have any discourse because it's such a minefield (can't imagine a rational person whoms first intepretation of the tweets is "that's sexist" to be pleasant having a conversation with). I almost feel in the minority (or just a silent one?), but I honestly don't care…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I notice a fairly common tactic for trying to change norms is to pretend that the norms aren't norms and then aggressively shame people for doing a normal thing. This leads to a toxic atmosphere where people can't be secure in their words, social reality keeps being pulled out from under their feet.
When the normal thing marginalizes people, marginalized people are hurt. In recent years, they have started to defend themsves in force, the ks to unifying power of the internet. The insecurity you observe is feeling of the erosion of privilege.
My thoughts: Maybe someone can tell me what's offensive about the first comment. It seems to be poking fun at programmer machismo. The second quote is more problematic. I'm firmly of the opinion that it is not slut-shaming because it presented both promiscuity and commitment in a positive light. On the other hand, it is perfectly reasonable for a conference to not want sexual metaphors in presentations. The whole "he…
In their code of conduct, the conference states, in part: Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other attendees. Crockford appears not to be a good match, even on just abrasiveness grounds alone. Though it would have been better to determine that before inviting him.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it depends on your origins or age, but I'm over forty and attended a conservative religious school, and it boggles even me that anyone considers "he" the current generic/default pronoun.
Maybe focus on the actual meat of the argument rather than the plate it's served on and you'll enjoy your meal more.
It reminds me of the time I recommended (to the Unix team at a major financial institution) that they use ssh rather than telnet, and being rebuffed with "that's the way we've always done it".
In this case, since you want to be specific, the practice of defaulting to "he" correlates with hundreds of years of treating women as chattels, with economic consequences and imbalances that persist today, and continue to be reinforced through structural, unconscious, and explicit biases, and that we'd all be better off without.
The notion that language should reflect thought is as old as Plato.
Why is crybullying so rampant in the tech community?
It was (and in many ways still is) an extremely sexist community, but over the last few years it has gotten better. My worry is that continuing to agitate when there's been obvious improvement is only setting things up for a backlash, which would be counterproductive -- however, I'm not sure many of the "activists" care (they're activists first, after all, so it's in their nature to keep pushing the envelope even whe…
The Tech community is sexist? Extremely sexist?
How so?
This is happening in all parts of society. So-called "social justice warriors" and parts of the liberal left have sprung up that are very hostile to free speech and seek to destroy and silence anyone whom they oppose. Unfortunately, they have the full support of not only college administrations, but increasingly HR departments as they ascend into the workforce, and PR departments as they air their grievances over soc…
My educational experience doesn't really jive with what you're suggesting, either. There was certainly a large and vocal neoliberal/SJW caste at my (large, Canadian) university, but I never saw the administration or faculty kowtow to them in any significant way. However, I'm prepared to believe the problem does exist at some schools.
1: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/08/25/u-chicago-war...
You want to not invite somebody? Fine. You want to disinvite somebody? Okay, but be prepared to be called a jerk.
But assassinating someone's professional character publicly? You'd better be standing on REALLY solid ground for a REALLY good reason.
Crockford might just ignore this--it's probably the best course of action given his station. He's probably sufficiently more important than these people that he's good.
However, one day these people are going to get someone with financial means all fired up and they're going to be dragged through court for a LONG time--and probably lose because they won't be able to put up the money to mount an effective defense.
Until one of these accusers loses THEIR ability to work in the field, nobody will pay attention to the repercussions.