What's with the silence?
farukat.es
farukat.es
Not that men don't ever write about such issues, but I guess I'm so used to seeing such articles penned by women that I assumed that this one was also written by a woman. That mental bias I experienced alone is demonstrative of how rarely men speak out.
Outrage propagates itself perfectly well without my help. The fact is, I've seen more outrage over sexism in the developer community than I've seen sexism in the developer community.
As an side, I really do suggest you read some of the stuff posted to http://everydaysexism.com/ for example. There is a chance you're not seeing the sexism for sexism.
Thanks for the link, but if I wanted to keep myself continually outraged over anonymous anecdotes, I'd spend more time on Reddit.
The simple fact is that I have no genuine experiences or evidence to add to the conversation, and I suspect this is true of others as well. I reject the notion that I should speak out if I have nothing to say. I'm not the one ruling myself out from being anyone's "ally", I'm just ruling myself out from being anyone's parrot. If all you want is parrots for allies, that says more about you than me.
If all you're asking for is someone to say "yep, that's awful" whenever someone else reports something awful happening, I have to question the notion that there isn't enough of that already.
That's pretty much what we're asking for at a bare minimum, and no, there isn't enough of that at all. Educate yourself, man. When women are blogging left and right (all those links in the article were from just the past week) about still being harassed on a regular basis, it's Really Quite Clear that this isn't happening enough at all.
There are many issues in society which I abhor, including all forms of sexism, corruption, violence, the list goes on. I try to live to the best of my ability and without contributing negatively to any of the aforementioned issues, but I have my own crosses to bear, I cannot carry all of yours.
Let's disengage from that, if we can, and try to answer my question. How is silence an action rather than a non-action? All you've asserted (well, you've let bloggers assert it for you, which doesn't add any more weight than saying it yourself) is that speaking out would be appreciated. I'll grant that. But just because action is appreciated doesn't turn non-action into action. It simply doesn't follow.
The purpose of this "with us or against us" tactic is to bully sympathetic people into radicalism, which is why radical bullies like Lenin and Mussolini were so fond of it. It is a self-replication mechanism for ideology. Which is why you become so angry when someone merely says "I have nothing to speak out about". Apparently one is supposed to go looking for outrage that motivates them to join your side when none is apparent, rather than simply acting on the evidence they have at hand.
I reject your bullying, reject the implication that I should speak out about things I have never witnessed just to further your agenda, and reserve the right to speak out about and solve the problems I do see in a calm and reasoned fashion.
There's no bullying or anything like that going on, here, and you're being disingenuous by presenting it as such (and also, you're being an asshole by comparing me to dictators). You've stated your refusal to learn more about this subject, it's disingenuous to try and turn that around claiming you already know “plenty” when you clearly don't, because you're arguing that this isn't a massively systemic problem, when all evidence clearly points out that it is.
Just because you don't see a problem doesn't mean it isn't there.
I never refused to learn more about the subject, I just refuse to accept anonymous, tendentious anecdotes and ideological dogma as sufficient information. As far as I can estimate, sexism is indeed a "massively systemic" problem in American culture. But it's a complicated problem and one that is probably ill-suited to ideological solutions, especially those that emphasize the notion that it is chiefly women who suffer from sexism. I've personally witnessed sexism going both ways, and when appropriate I've spoken out about it. In my profession? Not much to report, it turns out. Maybe I'm lucky.
But see, you never asked those questions, you just gave me a shit-test over whether or not I'm a feminist, and applied the "with us or against us" response to it. The notion of a more complicated, sophisticated, nuanced view that you very well might have large areas of agreement with is alien to you. But this is how rational adults in the real world should address each other--with careful consideration, not with bullying and condemnation and polarization.
By the way, you still haven't answered my question. Speak plainly: what action is there in silence?
When people ask you for help and you don't give it, that inaction is telling these people you won't give them help.
Inaction can make you be criminally accountable, so stop having this weird belief that inaction automatically clears you of all responsibility.
Speak plainly. If you think there's a positive duty to speak out, make a case for that. Don't equivocate and say inaction is action. You can't build your case on contradictions and be taken seriously among rational folk. Nor does it work to get huffy and antagonistic whenever you are questioned.
edit: and I fully acknowledge that I let myself get dragged into a side discussion on it, which I shouldn't have.
Speaking out against sexism is extremely effective in changing the culture in our industry. Silence is not effective at all, in fact, it's causing harm at this point.
Regardless, I'll not be demonized just because I happen to be a man in an industry that is heavily male dominated. I am a good person, I should not have to argue that point, and I certainly do not need to write another aimless anecdotal editorial on an issue I have no personal experience with.
(via https://twitter.com/cerebralideas/status/298524707806916608 )
Alright, let's play your game. I concede that point, and I admit that due to my inaction on this social rights issue in the face of your radical argumentation, I am in fact a monster.
I shall therefore quit my job, give away all of my belongings, and travel the world. I will be a slave to any cause that will have me, forfeiting my freedom and my livelihood to further any cause, until there is no more injustice in the world.
But remember, if you do not do the same you will not only be a monster like me, but a hypocrite, as well.
1) When there are two sides, and one side will clearly win by default, choosing to stay neutral becomes de facto support for the 'default' winner. 2) In this case, the 'default' winner is evil. 3) So, in this case neutrality is evil.
Does that make more sense?
Okay, think of it like this: you are not the only 'neutral' person out there. There are four sides. Side A, side B, side neutral, and side not-actually-involved. Side A will clearly win against side B, but clearly lose against side B plus some large (but not total) percentage of side neutral. Side not-actually-involved can have some influence on the outcome, but generally not much.
That is the kind of situation which I would claim things like the 'evil patriarchy' vs 'the not evil not patriarchy' are. So, there are several possibilities; if you are already a part of side a or side b, then you have already chosen a side. Whether you are part of side neutral or side not-actually-involved is pretty easy to determine: are you in the industry at all? If yes, then you are involved.
So, even assuming that you are involved, your unique help is in fact not necessary to the victory of the not evil side. Merely the help of many of the people in your reference class. In which case, if you choose not to help side b, you have indicated that you prefer side a winning over helping side b; this is not quite the same as preferring that side a win, but it is enough that 'neutrality' is usually taken by everyone involved (including other neutrals, except for you for some reason) as 'weak support for the structurally powerful/status quo/clear majority position'.
Does that clear things up at all?
Right, this is the premise of the siege mentality, but you haven't actually established it. I have not observed any "structural power imbalance" in favor of sexual harassment. I've observed that sexual harassment happens, but that's no more than you can say about any other socially unacceptable behavior.
Since this is the central premise of your argument, it is curious that you assume it as a given without even attempting to establish it. I wonder if you've even consciously questioned it yourself.
Next, 'Sexual harassment' isn't a side, nor is it an agent. The 'sides' are 'the sexists' vs 'the non-sexists', or if you want a more 'fighting words' formulation, 'the misogynists' vs 'the decent human beings' (with, in both cases, 'the neutrals' and 'the not-actually-involved's' as well).
The structural power imbalance is really really easy to observe. Look at the reactions to posts like the OP's, both here on HN and in terms of the comments (if their blog has comments enabled) or email they receive.
(As an aside, for this kind of thing Ashe Dryden's blog posts (for example) are better than the OP's at cataloguing responses and providing links.)
There are replies after incident reports like this kind of thing saying that the woman deserved it, or "can't you guys take a joke", or that it doesn't actually happen, or "it doesn't count as sexism, the real sexism is that sexist acts get called sexism" etc etc etc. The people who respond that way seem to honestly feel like they are in the majority - and, as incident reports seem to indicate, many conference organisers act like they agree with that assessment. If there is a mechanism that protects people who perform sexist actions, and protects the protectors, and so on, and no counterbalancing mechanism, then that there is evidence of a structural imbalance.
As for "it happening more than other socially unacceptable behaviour" - we actually have papers that measure the effects of this kind of thing, and their conclusions were uniformly that sexism and misogyny were serious problems with large negative effects in computer science and programming fields. The problem with racism is probably comparable, but fortunately many of the things that have proven effective at reducing sexism related problems also reduce racism related problems, and the two things do not work at cross purposes, so it isn't an either-or problem. The problem with magical thinking and a lack of education might be comparable, but efforts to fix general rationality deficits are often hampered by having entrenched specific rationality deficits, and basic exercises in testing reality and accepting conclusions if pointed at dissolving the various edifices that protect racism and sexism in the industry would advance both causes, so this also isn't an either-or. If you were a marxist or anarchist I could see you thinking that the wage-labour situation was more pressing than any of the above, but again modern marxist and anarchist thought seems to be going in the direction that microfascisms that are allowed to fester will result in macrofascism, plus the whole ideas of perpetual revolution and solidarity, so dealing with racism and sexism are pretty important in order for the revolution to actually be able to win at all.
Does this answer your points?
You made more or less the deflection that I was expecting--that the issue isn't just sexual harassment, but rather that society, in aggregate, empowers men at the expense of women. But see, even there you are committing a fallacy of division, because it doesn't follow that the status quo on every individual issue empowers men at the expense of women. So you can't pull in that overarching narrative of heroic feminists vs. evil misogynists that easily.
The other rhetorical trick feminists use to bully people into not disagreeing so loudly is one you've pulled here--the notion that disagreeing with feminism is equivalent to misogyny. From my perspective, all you're doing is making a fallacious argument that the misogynist power structure has made sexual harassment acceptable in our society, waiting for people to say "no it hasn't", and then turning around and saying "yes it has--just by disagreeing with my argument you are part of the misogynist power structure." This argument isn't in good faith. It's isomorphic to what I call the Ayn Rand fallacy. Ayn Rand's fallacy was: all my beliefs are governed by a philosophical system built on reason, therefore if you disagree with me you are irrational. In Ayn Rand's inner circle, wearing beards or enjoying Mozart were considered irrational because they conflicted with Ayn Rand's tastes. You are making an isomorphic argument: my beliefs are governed by a philosophical system predicated on not hating women, therefore if you disagree with me you hate women. In making this argument, feminists don't reveal their interlocutors as misogynists; they reveal themselves as Ayn Rand--arrogant ideologues with no consideration for the possibility they might be fundamentally mistaken.
Furthermore, you also haven't sufficiently demonstrated your premise that society, in aggregate, empowers men at the expense of women. You say it's "really easy to observe", and it may be through your lens. Through mine, it's clear that in some things, men are indeed empowered at the expense of women, while in other things, women are empowered at the expense of men. I wouldn't be confident in any aggregation of either side's various privileges and oppressions. Neither of us has a perfectly clean lens to start with, and it isn't helpful to exclusively look through the biased lens of a tendentious ideology, either.
Fundamentally, any such aggregation wouldn't be of much use anyway because individual issues should be addressed one at a time, empirically, not through some overarching ideological narrative. It's funny that you mention Marxism, because you seem to share with them the same central error: you have not yet outgrown the naive notion that one overarching philosophical system can solve all problems. Life is more than just some manichean narrative where you can cast yourself on the side of the heroes. It is more complicated than that.
(P.S. If you're interested in continuing this, please feel free to email me. This thread is rapidly growing stale, but this discussion has already helped me to clarify a lot of thoughts I've been having recently, so I do appreciate and value it.)
I wouldn't be opposed to either or both of us posting the rest of our dialogue online, in verbatim, once we were finished, but I do think this is an ill-suited forum to actually continue our discussion in.
Or the way Reddit is still seen as a "good" place despite a model that not just encourages but needs people like ViolentAcrez. We don't have to speak out about the bad things in order to make a difference... We can start by not speaking FOR the contexts in which it is not just tolerated but subtly, behind the scenes, reinforced. Stopping support for sites that allow this behavior is a huge step that does not require speaking out. Because most sites that "allow" it are also, one way or another, also encouraging it. We get the behavior that we reinforce.
HN is getting better at it, sure, but only because people are speaking out against it more frequently. Which…is exactly what the post encourages people to do.