You'd have to agree though that it's a remarkable coincidence that the moderator began to ramble when he started talking about a topic that he was particularly excited about and which he was not particularly knowledgeable about.
I don't have a sexist bone in my body and I've caught myself doing this. The only way we improve as a society is to continuously monitor and correct each other because this stuff is laid so deep in our cultural consciousness that catching ourselves every time by ourselves is not reasonable to expect.
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 skillsWe can't ever know for certain if it was sexism. I'm not saying take the guy out and shoot him. I'm not even saying do the thing we normally do and try and humiliate him in a public space. I'm saying: This is evidence of the accepted cultural norms in a society that I don't think anyone would disagree was largely designed by and is largely ruled over by men, and there are consequences to that.
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 ignorance. Learning a few social rules is like learning design patterns, and learning not to be sexist or racist is like learning about anti-patterns. It is not harder than coding! If anything, learning social basics is easier than programming.
But if you don't care, you won't learn it. Which you may choose to, but then, it's ignorance, not inability.
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.
More general, regarding subjectivity: Although the individual members of a group or society have different subjective standards, they can still find some common ground on what behaviour they accept or don't accept. You'll find such emerging consent not just in informal rules about social behaviour, but also in formal rules which we call "laws".
I was just talking about making cultural progress. All I said is that informal rules are established (almost by definition) by reacting to those who break them. Doing so reduces the chances that these are broken again, which is just another way of saying that these informal rules are established. And if a good climate within a group is important to you (in a leading position it usually is), then you need to be part of establishing those. Otherwise you risk that your group becomes a hostile place.
The strategy I described does work, and is generally recommended, so I'm not sure what you are arguing against.
I've seen it working in various groups. If shitty behaviour is criticized as such, people become more aware and more careful. As long as the criticism itself is in an appropriate place and reflects the group's values, this is a very healthy thing to do. If the criticized person refuses to adjust their behaviour, they usually leave the group on their own, which is also healthy. In the worst case there's to way but to throw them out, but that is surprisingly seldom. Either way, these people either have to find a group that is okay with their behaviour (good luck!), or they need to change their behaviour in order to engage in groups.
"It may be uncomfortable, but it's the only way to make cultural progress."
And you've really only explained what tacit rules are and how they're enforced, but we knew that already so bully, I guess? The guy talked over her because he was excited and therefore not thinking about the consequences.
Chairing a panel of professionals isn't about you getting to talk to them, it's about showcasing their positions for the audience. "Aw, he just got excited" is not an excuse in this context.
* 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, let her explain it.
> 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
No, the only way to improve society (equality wise) is to recognize when you're treating someone differently (condescendingly) only when they're one gender, however well meaning YOU think it is.
Do you think it's annoying if your parent treats you like you're 10 when you're 35, even when you know they love you and they don't mean it? It's exactly like that, but it's a large portion of the population.
What specifically makes you think he rambled because she was a woman?
Sure, me too, and they're generally consistent in that between genders. This guy isn't. And people like him are very common too.
> What specifically makes you think he rambled because she was a woman?
By watching the entire video and comparing him to his conduct with the other panelists interviewed. She also wasn't the only non-native speaker, so it's not that either.
What seems to be the case is that men are more likely to interrupt back, so on a population level this does tend to squeeze a higher percentage of women out - but it doesn't squeeze out the women who're happy to interrupt you back, and it does also squeeze out the quieter men, whose existence and contributions I've also become more aware of as a result.
So the mistake may not have been gendered on his part, and I'd suggest you think hard about whether you're engaging in benevolent sexism by believing only women can be quieter and more in danger of interrupted.
(note that given your other comment down-thread, it may be he's more likely to interrupt women - but it also may be that men are more likely to interrupt him back - if your watching of the video strongly suggests the former then fair enough, but my point here is "all quieter people gain from us learning to talk over people less" and I think that's worth remembering)
> So the mistake may not have been gendered on his part, and I'd suggest you think hard about whether you're engaging in benevolent sexism by believing only women can be quieter and more in danger of interrupted.
Aren't these contradictory if you're first saying that women are less likely to interrupt back and then saying it might be in my head?
Either way, your overall point is sound, but she TRIED to interrupt him several time, whereas none of the other panelists had to even try. I'm always questioning myself, but I don't think I'm projecting that interpretation.
I do however agree that obviously quieter people will have less airtime than more extrovert people, regardless of gender.
I think the question is: Do we believe that this is inherent in gender (nature), nurtured in our culture (women's upbringing), or enforced by sexism after the fact (imposed by men as a result of culture/nurture)?
If your hinted statistics are true, then one statement above must be true, unless I excluded an option.
I don't, however, think it's contradictory to say that "women are less likely to interrupt back" does not automatically mean that the person interrupting them is therefore sexist, even though the results of the behaviour end up impacting a higher percentage of women than men - they may simply be oblivious to the consequences, even if from the sounds of it in this case that wasn't it.
In my opinion, ignoring hurtful behavior because we believe the intent wasn't meant to be hurtful will only encourage these behaviors in the long run. We also do a disservice to the perpetrator, if they are truly well meaning or absent of meaning then we're robbing them of an opportunity to improve.
OTOH, maybe you should man the fuck up and move on with your life. I know that seems blunt and assholeish, but that's sort of the point.
I've been offended plenty of times and talked myself down because I knew ultimately it was my emotions misinterpreting the intent.
There is nothing that says just offense can't be mistaken.
edit: watch someone call the phrase 'man the fuck up' sexist.
That being said, I'm not sure why you are getting downvoted but I've also found myself doing this accidentally and I've learned to moderate myself.
I don't think it is necessarily related to sexism directly, but I am used to talking to people (generally other men) who similarly assertive (not to say any of us are majorly assertive, just we're all at a similar level) and we understand each others speaking style and butt in (somewhat) at the appropriate spot to make a point.
When talking to someone who doesn't converse quite the same way (regardless of gender) it can be a problem. I've talked to people who won't just butt in when you are hogging the conversation and if you want to not have a 1 way conversation (ie, you are not an ass) you have to allow more space for the other person - its a basic courtesy and part of learning to have good conversations. My girlfriend has been helpful in self-identifying this situation because if I'm overly excited (coffee often being involved) she'll straight up tell me rather than putting up with it and I'll realize I was kind of rolling over her unintentionally.
I have no idea if this guy is sexist or not, it may be a subtle deep rooted kind or it may be he's a terrible conversationalist/host but despite the fact that this situation probably occurs more frequently from men to women but its definitely not limited to that.
I meant it more as an analogy than anything else. I've seen the "but what about X" argument being used a lot lately where X and Y are the same issue that affect different groups and both are deserving of attention but one is more (maybe much more) prevalent than the other. As a means to derail a discussion of Y someone says "but what about X?" so a discussion becomes so broad and general as to be totally meaningless.
In this situation, rather than being able to focus on an issue that many women face, you end up in a discussion about all of humanity and genders and personalities that will likely never address any issue at all. I have room in my head to be concerned with issues that affect different people and talking about them in the context of one group does not imply other groups do not matter but some people act as it does.
> I meant it more as an analogy than anything else.
I understand, and my post was a digression, but I felt it important because I was shocked when I learned the severity of the problem.
Jim Holt has now been branded from "Facebook" to "Teen Vogue" of being a de facto sexist as a result of Talkington's opinion.
Talkington is an actor, director and women's rights activist which are notable pursuits.[…]
We shouldn't try to root out all sexism, because that is the same as rooting out sexuality itself. Instead we should focus on rooting out harmful sexism. But then maybe I have that opinion because I'm a man and by definition sexist, so whatever.
I've often heard complaints, by women, that this inequality is sexist, patronizing and, essentially (though usually the complaint comes from people who wouldn't use the term) a micro-aggression sending the message that women are regarded as less capable of taking care of themselves.
Now, these complaints usually aren't the complainants' biggest complaint about sexist behavior, but you may be confusing the fact that their are far bigger problems that drown out these complaints with these not actually being problems for women.
> We shouldn't try to root out all sexism, because that is the same as rooting out sexuality itself.
Sexism is not necessary for sexuality, even if it is deeply incorporated in some social norms surrounding sexuality.