Being an asshole does not make you awesome
devandpencil.herokuapp.com
devandpencil.herokuapp.com
"However, I really don't appreciate the co-opting of male spaces (i.e. software engineering) in to some politically correct thought police "safe space"."
I'm amazed that someone would say this.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't want software engineering to be a "male space." I didn't start programming because I wanted to spend the rest of my life being surrounded by mostly dudes.
This just really struck me because a lot of people say things like "I don't think software engineering is hostile to women." This guy, on the other hand, says "software engineering is unfriendly to women and I like it that way."
I am curious, if my theory was wrong, why you tend to believe that people are joking about being bigoted when it is so likely that they are not.
Obviously, you are not ignoring "what he said". That's a given, since you're talking about his post. But you're not addressing the point (that was the sense used, and I'm shocked you lack the common sense to understand this). Rather, you're engaging in gossip about whether he hates women. You even went as far as digging up another comment he made at another time to gossip about his attitude. You are the "Thought Police" this guy is talking about.
>Sorry, but I'm not having a conversation about activism right now - I'm talking about how inappropriate this guys comment was.
And so the backpedaling begins. Now you're concerned about how "inappropriate" it was. Note the misdirection, where suddenly you dial down the heavyweight accusations of "misogyny" and Internet detective work to look more reasonable at a tactically opportune moment. It's all about how "appropriate" the comment was. Unfortunately for you he is the administrator of the group in question and he (and Facebook and any other administrators) get to decide what is "appropriate" there. What you are really doing (ignoring your little tactical retreat) is trying to tie the essential point of the post to a hatred of women. Which note is not the same thing as whether the poster himself hates women.
>If my manager stands up on the conference table peeing while presenting the annual sales figures, it is not a 'defense mechanism' for me to respond by objecting to his pee instead of talking about the sales figures.
Bad analogy. The forum on which the post was made isn't yours to police, and his actions aren't equivalent to pissing on the table, which is a health hazard and a far more egregious social violation than saying some mean things on the Internet. Further, you have employed the same tactics against me by bringing my tendencies and background into question.
>I am curious, if my theory was wrong, why you tend to believe that people are joking about being bigoted when it is so likely that they are not.
A more interesting question is how you know how I "tend" from a sample of one. Just think how this power could be used for the good of mankind!
I'm shocked that you don't seem to realise that this isn't a discussion about some random facebook group and whether the owner thereof is allowed to be a giant asshole. The point of the post was about hatred and rejection of women in software engineering, and this comment was one example of it being a real thing, frequently denied all over HN. And when a bunch of HNers came in and said 'he didn't mean that, he was just trolling the stupid PC SJ types, I'm sure he wants women to be in software engineering just without being activists about it' (not quoting you) the evidence of his other postings, showing a consistent worldview of hatred of women, was relevant.
If I thought that forum were somewhere I could police, don't you think I'd be over there policing it? However I don't think anything of the sort, so in fact I'm on here discussing it. If you don't think that we should be discussing his comment, feel free to not be part of it.
I'm sorry if I over generalised your habits from your behaviour. If you don't normally give the benefit of the doubt to people displaying bigoted behaviour, why did you do so in this case?
Nope. It was a valid comment directed at a little PC warrior. Possibly from an unsavory character with malignant motives - as you keep repeating - but that isn't of interest. Further, my reply - from which your whole conversation with me spawns, and therefore constitutes the topic of this subthread (the one involving you and me) - was commenting on the reaction of people to the post itself which was a valid observation. Your contention that it is offensive and comes from someone you don't like is of no interest to me. The content of the post was not hateful toward women, even if the author is (itself dubious on a troll-filled Internet). Perhaps if you'd bothered reading what I say instead of firing off scattershot self-righteousness you'd have gotten somewhere in this thread.
>And when a bunch of HNers came in and said 'he didn't mean that, he was just trolling the stupid PC SJ types, I'm sure he wants women to be in software engineering ...
Please limit yourself to what I said in the parents, since that is what you are replying to. It's enough work to get you to read my own posts for comprehension without taking on the additional burden of defending other people in the thread who you _imagine_ share common ground with me.
>I'm sorry if I over generalised your habits from your behaviour. If you don't normally give the benefit of the doubt to people displaying bigoted behaviour, why did you do so in this case?
I don't agree that the post displayed bigoted behavior. The only reason to think the comment comes from a hatred of women is from information that you dug up. I'm not interested in digging up bullshit this guy might have said elsewhere, therefore there was no reason for me to think that's where it came from. I don't care if he's a _child molester_. He may or may not be any number of things.
The fact that you apologise for over-generalising shows that you missed the point, which is not that you affronted me by over-generalising, but that you destroyed the discussion and wasted my time by going on about my personality and the personality of the person who made the original post. And you're still doing it!
This was in response to a man asking that people not act like assholes and name things immature sexual names.
There was no point here. He was just lashing out at something he's afraid of and frustrated by. Asking that people act nicer does not make something a "politically correct thought police 'safe space'". And claiming that asking that people act nicer is "co-opting of male spaces" is a pretty pathetic attempt to play the victim card while simultaneously trying to exclude and marginalize women who have contributed tons to the tech industry.
It's an outburst. So what? Maybe it's humor, maybe he has some kind of pathological issue with women. It doesn't matter because there is a valid point being completely ignored so people can moan about how "women unfriendly" the post is.
>What is that even supposed to mean? How is the ruby community a "progressive movement"
Firstly, I don't think the Ruby movement is progressive, mostly because it's a shitty language. Secondly, the point is not whether Ruby is or is not progressive. Even if you accept that it's a retrogressive movement his point stands because it is a general one.
>There was no point here. He was just lashing out at something he's afraid of and frustrated by.
I beg to differ. There is a real trend of PC activism aiming to protect sensitive little flowers of various kinds against offense. Your attempt to psychologise the guy is just a cheap tactic to avoid this point.
>Asking that people act nicer does not make something a "politically correct thought police 'safe space'".
The hidden (and incorrect) assumption here is that this is unconnected to PC activism.
>And claiming that asking that people act nicer is "co-opting of male spaces" is a pretty pathetic attempt to play the victim card while simultaneously trying to exclude and marginalize women who have contributed tons to the tech industry.
"Pathetic", "margenalize", "afraid", "exclude", etc. And you say this is unconnected to PC activism? His post didn't marginalize anyone. It was making a fairly specific point that your defense mechanisms are preventing you from seeing.
The hidden (and incorrect) assumption here is that
this is unconnected to PC activism.
I will welcome debate about how much needs to be codified; I hate policies that say "you can't use these X words" as the next guy. But a lot of what people rail about as being "PC activism" is just like this; asking that people be a little more considerate in naming package they're putting into a public repository.
So, what's an appropriate reaction to this post? Maybe to say "OK, listing 'hoe' in there is overkill, that's just being used as a pun on 'rake'." Or maybe saying "hmm, I'm not sure how useful it is to ask people to be nicer while calling them assholes."
What's not an appropriate reaction? Talking about vaginas and male spaces and banning someone who just made a request to be nicer and listed a few examples of the kind of behavior they were talking about.
Yes, you speculated on his mental state quite extensively. Quoting you: "He was just lashing out at something he's afraid of and frustrated by."
>He made a flat-out misogynistic comment.
Sorry, he did nothing of the sort. He made the astute point that women tend to co-opt spaces established by men using activism. Do you deny this?
>Apparently asking people to act nice is now "PC activism".
Nope. Again, it's not just "asking people to be nice", it's a concerted, long-term effort to insert PC memes under the guide of being a nice person.
>But it only takes a single comment of someone calling someone else a "nigger" in an attempt to demean and exclude them before you can call someone a racist.
Nope. People say all sorts of things in anger, and this kind of thinking is exactly the kind of PC stupidity that is becoming a concern.
>Talking about vaginas and male spaces and banning someone who just made a request to be nicer and listed a few examples of the kind of behavior they were talking about.
What's your point here, exactly? That his ban was too harsh? Got anything to say about PC activism (you know, the thing that we were talking about)?
>So, what's an appropriate reaction to this post?
Oh, piss off you moist wanker. Did you stop to think that maybe it's not your job to tell other people how to communicate with others?
I completely agree, as a white dude having to worry about the way in which people receive my communication is just so unfair. I mean I call one guy a nigger and all of a sudden I'm racist. I'm not, I was just angry. Admittedly angry enough to call on centuries of historical context and language coached in violence to point out the lower social status of someone. But that's not racist.
It's not your job to tell people how to communicate with others. But it entirely your responsibility to communicate with people in the way they wish to be communicated with, if you want to be heard. This isn't about being PC, it's about not being exclusionary to 50% of the population. Women are not going to want to work with you if you're not willing to be inclusive.
Piss off you moist wanker. Did you stop to think that what you consider PC, other people might consider legitimately offensive? Did you ever stop to think it's not your job to tell women what they're allowed to be offended by? It's honestly pretty impressive that you consider someone expressing their discomfort with sexist language to be worse than the sexist language itself.
The whole concept of 'male space' is a big troll
Dismissing someone by comparing a man who is asking for there to be less sexualized and derogatory language in a community to "women who want to make it all about their vagina" is nonsense on several axes. For one, the person he was attacking is a man. For another, the whole point of the argument is for it to be less about vaginas, or other sexual differences. Bringing up sex (and especially in violent and derogatory terms, like rape-me and recursive_pimp_slap) can make an environment uncomfortable for people who already feel marginalized in a community.
The poster may well be hostile toward women. But his post here contains a valid point about activism in the computing field.
I'm not sure I see the valid point though.
Now what is a "male space"? The military? No, women are on the front lines. Finance? No, a woman is about to become the first Chairman of the Fed. Politics? No, we have 20 female US Senators and a viable Presidential candidate. Professional sports? No, women have their own leagues, and several men's teams have female execs. Software Engineering???
Given that Elad's reaction was to run here and post it, I'd say it worked. Most successful and subtle troll I've seen in a long time.
The definition of trolling is pretty nebulous, by the way; one could make that case that you attempted to troll me by calling me pre-pubescent, and hoped for me to lower myself to your level.
1. I don't maintain a Facebook account because it's either family bickering and arguing, spam I don't give a shit about, arguments I don't give a shit about, or trolling. What some guy says on Facebook concerns me absolutely zero and it is completely not worth my time. So no, I won't be reading his timeline. Because I can't log in.
I'm good friends with someone who is an absolutely face-blistering troll on Stormfront; everything he says online has to be part of his "act," if you will, so it would surprise me very little if this guy's entire Facebook schtick is keeping up his act. Welcome to the Internet.
2. I hope you read my other comment and stop treating women like they need to be protected from everything, because you perpetuate exactly what you hope to destroy with a blog post like this.
3. You got the pants trolled off you and want to argue about it with someone, and no, it's not going to be me. And now that your thread's been deleted from HN, it's not going to be anybody else here, either. Seriously, your reaction to the guy's post is absolutely comical given that you were being trolled, and is exactly what he wants you to do. Plus, now you've given him an excuse to ban you.
I'm going to add a fourth thing:
4. You've spent more of your life talking to that guy, me, HN, and your blog's readers about this topic than you should have, by a mile. Focus on things that can actually make a difference, like listening to what women want to see change in the industry instead of projecting your penis onto the industry from a position of male authority.
Trolling is a loosely defined term, but most definitions agree that it is a tactic whose primary purpose is to "get a rise" out of someone. The method used to accomplish this here (in the FB post) is to use language becoming of an asshole. Impersonating an asshole as a rhetorical strategy seems like an act doomed to fail.
I have no appreciation for trolling as a rhetorical device. It belongs in the bin with other disingenuous debate techniques. There are, I think we can all agree, far better, more honest methods of making one's point.
I'm probably kicking a hornet's nest here, probably because I'm going to word this in a way that gives an impression I do not actually have, so, fair warning. I ask you to give me the benefit of the doubt here that I'm not, in fact, a bigoted sociopath.
<post type="devils-advocate" flame-retardant=105%/>
That's not what I gathered from that post.
I read it as an understandable (note: understandable means comprehend-able, not acceptable or appropriate) overreaction to a certain faction of extremists who want the focus to become about feelings and PC rather than doing cool things and getting shit done. To an extent, I sympathize with those who are scandalized when they hear the whinging about a Torvalds rant on the kernel lists, or the extended brouhaha from the "donglegate" thing from earlier in the year. Such things come off very much as an attempt to hijack or attack the culture.
Two questions.
At what point is it socially acceptable to express exasperation with a group of people who ostensibly have noble goals, but then cause damage while they're at it? (Note: same answer has to apply to pretty much any '$minority rights' group behaving badly)
At what point is "this is not a 'safe' space, (not in that people are going to go out of their way to offend you, but in that people have better things to spend their time on than measuring their every word for the slightest hint of '$ism'), so you may hear things that offend you, and how you choose to interpret and deal with that is entirely on you" ...an acceptable response?
</post>
I think the part of this post that really jumped out at me was "male space." Maybe I misinterpreted, but when I read that it came off to me as a club where there are insiders and outsiders.
If he had left out the "male space" part, I would have probably assumed he meant something more like what you were saying.
On the other hand, being more inviting has advantages both selfish (more women around, good for both social reasons and for their talent) and moral (giving opportunity to women, and anyone who isn't into caustic banter, for that matter). If you love programming, imagine being deprived of it because you felt unwelcome in programming circles. I think it's kind of wrong for those of us in places of leadership to deny opportunity to people for the benefit of our fun.
After all, obvious sexist drama bullshit is certainly a distraction from any business of real interest. But this is not the same thing as someone yelling about privilege.
a certain faction of extremists
There may be a few extremists out there, but not many. What you see lots more are people who are tone deaf and make problems worse by going around and yelling "you're racist/sexist/homophobic", "no, you're a feminazi/PC", and on and on without ever really getting anywhere. Most of those people (on either side) aren't extremists, they're just caught in the internet spiral of hate. But just because some people go overboard on the internet spiral of hate that simply amplifies problems, doesn't mean that there aren't some real problems.
So, responding to someone who says "rape-me is not an acceptable name for a gem" with such rhetoric is instantly escalating that internet spiral of hate for no reason. Lumping people who have legitimate complaints, like "let's not have rape references in our public software repositories" or "let's try not to sexually assault people at conferences" with "extremists" is a way of dismissing those legitimate concerns and simultaneously escalating the rhetoric to the point where nothing useful will come of it.
whinging about a Torvalds rant on the kernel lists,
or the extended brouhaha from the "donglegate" thing
from earlier in the year
The other is somewhat more relevant. It's an example of puerile humor, in a private conversation that happened to be in a public place (at least, as far as I've been able to gather). I found that it seemed to be an excessive attempt to shame people for behavior that was, as far as I can tell, supposed to be private, but was in a public place so other people could overhear it. I think that there is some reasonable debate to be had over what kind of behavior is appropriate in a public space where you can be overheard, but that there was an overreaction to it, since it was private behavior. However, the internet spiral of hate wound up blowing the whole thing out of control, in part because there are so many people who are so sensitive on both sides of these issues, and it went way beyond anything it should have.
Here's the thing. Donglegate could have been someone pointing out behavior that she considered inappropriate, and people could have taken that to heart and moved on. But lots of people overreacted. Posting people's pictures online publicly, rather than either talking to them yourself or letting PyCon staff talk to them, was an overreaction. Firing one of the people involved in the conversation was an overreaction. Firing Adria Richards was probably an overreaction, though at that point she had shown herself to be divisive enough to not be very good at community building. Sending her death threats and calling her a slut was definitely an overreaction.
So you can see several areas here were there were massive overreactions that led to this being far larger than it should have been.
Likewise with this post, the original post was a fairly reasonable request. "Let's not have nasty, rude things like rape-me in highly public, visible, and widely used code repositories". Now, some of it may have been a slight overreaction, like mentioning "hoe" (which is a clear reference to "rake") along with these other items. But what's a good way to deal with that? Probably to discuss those specifics; say that "rape-me" and "recursive_pimp_slap" are pretty clearly inappropriate, but there's really no problem with "hoe" or "therapist", and maybe discuss his point about whether there should be an explicit filter versus applying a certain amount of judgement. Those are reasonable, appropriate ways to respond to the post, that won't lead to donglegate style escalation.
Talking about "vaginas" and "co-opting of male spaces" is, well, the opposite.
At what point is it socially acceptable to express
exasperation with a group of people who ostensibly have
noble goals, but then cause damage while they're at it?
At what point is "this is not a 'safe' space, (not in
that people are going to go out of their way to offend
you, but in that people have better things to spend their
time on than measuring their every word for the slightest
hint of '$ism'), so you may hear things that offend you,
and how you choose to interpret and deal with that is
entirely on you" ...an acceptable response?
A safe space is instead one where you feel comfortable telling someone when you think they crossed the line, that they will respect that and not attack you for it.
One thing to keep in mind is that what's appropriate in one context may not be in another. Among close friends, you may feel perfectly comfortable telling racy jokes, or jokes about Jews or Catholics or blondes or what have you. When you're in the office, or at a conference, and there are people you don't know, you should consider that they may not take those jokes the same way that your friends do.
Think to yourself. If you have to tell someone "this is not a safe space", you are basically telling them "I do not want you in this space." Because if you want them in that space, you will make it safe for them. You don't have to tell your friends that, and can crack all the offensive jokes you want with them, because you know that they will be OK with it. But if there's someone there you know will not be OK with it, and you crack the joke, then you are saying to them "I would like to hurt you." Now, there are obviously nuances; sometimes you may crack the joke and only afterwards realize that it went to far, at which point you could choose to apologize and diffuse the situation (or make another making fun of yourself, depending on the circumstances).
On the public internet, recall that you can never be sure of who will see your joke, and how they'll react to your humor. Things you post to the public internet should be things that you are OK with your wife seeing, your grandparents seeing, your kids seeing, your buddy back from Iraq with PTSD seeing, a battered wife seeing, a child victim of sexual assault seeing, and so on.
If you want to do off-color jokes publicly like that, be sure to have a thick skin, because someone's sure to be offended and start trying to escalate that internet spiral of hate. This is where Penny Arcade slipped up; I think that the original Dickwolves comic was not a bad comic and not particularly offensive; in fact, it was lampooning ambivalence towards horrible things happening inspired by game design. But of course there was someone out there who got offended, and they made the mistake of taking offense at the offense and continuing to escalate the internet spiral of hate.
Sometimes, you do need to think to yourself and say "yes, I am OK with offending you." There are some people out there who try to pick apart everything and find something to get offended about in it. If you publish something publicly, you can't ever please them. But if you do, stop for a minute and decide if you really do want to offend them, of if maybe you'd rather let them be. And if you are sure that you are OK with offending them, then be sure of it, say your piece, and be done with it. Don't try to tell them why they shouldn't be offended. Don't make fun of them for getting offended. Just leave it be and move on.
(Note: same answer has to apply to pretty much any
'$minority rights' group behaving badly)
The problem is that many people who are making reasonable points,
like someone who's pointing out that gems named "rape-me" really aren't
acceptable in polite society
It's politically correct, insensitive, and probably a lot of other things, I think pretty much everyone, including the guy who wrote the gem, could agree on that. Now what do you suggest we do about it, if anything?
Hemming and hawing and "How could they!"-ing not only accomplishes nothing in the great majority of cases, it turns people off of whatever valuable input you might have. Put another way, I don't think a way exists to say "This isn't PC" without coming off as a PC crusader.
There may be a few extremists out there, but not many.
What you see lots more are people who are tone deaf..
A safe space is instead one where you feel comfortable telling someone
when you think they crossed the line, that they will respect that and
not attack you for it.
Think to yourself. If you have to tell someone "this is not a safe space",
you are basically telling them "I do not want you in this space."
Because if you want them in that space, you will make it safe for them.
On the public internet, recall that you can never be sure of who will
see your joke, and how they'll react to your humor. Things you post
to the public internet should be things that you are OK with your
wife seeing, your grandparents seeing...
Indeed, that seems like the only idea that scales.
I'm curious why you call out minority rights groups.
Some of the other links don't even lead to anything. And I'm not sure why it's considered an issue that a few people name things after cuss words, but that's just me. And inappropriateness aside, since when are words like "fuck" or "sex" offensive to women, specifically?
And yet he freely uses the word "asshole". Which is a bit excessive to say the least for people merely using inappropriate words.
And then the whole "Oh no he said 'porn star', he must hate women!" What on Earth?
I can't get behind you on the 'porn star' debacle. The vast majority of non-gay, male-oriented porn is horrifically misogynistic. I have a lot of respect for Matt as a Rubyist, but that choice was a poor one. I'm not suggesting we put him up on the cross here, but we should all be prepared to acknowledge the truths about pornography and what it means to incorporate that in to what is supposed to be a professional education experience.
[0]: https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426 [1]: imgur version for non-facebookers http://imgur.com/kKVmGKm
Claiming that a man asking that people not be immature assholes means that "a progressive movement is being coopted by women who want to make it about their vagina" is pretty much a textbook example of misogyny.
Claiming that software engineering is a "male space" (so, what, do that make the female software engineers I work with some kind of intruders on my "male space"?) is also a textbook example of misogyny.
What is it going to take for you to accept that this guy is a misogynist? Actually physically harming women? There are a lot more ways to spread fear, distrust, and hatred than just physical harm.
Sorry, misogyny means hating women. Perversion of
language won't help you.
Of course, you can always parse semantics apart and say "well, he didn't say all women". That's not the point; misogyny doesn't require that you qualify all hateful statements to include every woman in existence. But that quote, in response to a man asking if we could be nicer and more inclusive, definitely states a fairly contemptuous attitude towards women.
when it contains a valid point
No one is coming into the Ruby community, or the programming community, and trying to make it "all about their vagina". In fact, they're asking the opposite; that there's less emphasis placed on their vagina, and more on their code.
And calling programming a "male space" is inherently exclusionary. He is dismissing in one fell swoop all of the women who do code, who are part of the community.
Asking that people be nicer, and maybe consider the effect that gems named "rape_me" and "retarded" might not really reflect well on a community, with a defensive knee-jerk reaction about "politically correct thought-police safe spaces" is not a "valid point".
>And calling programming a "male space" is inherently exclusionary.
No, it's a statement of fact. The US Marines is a male space. Oops, am I a bad little misogynist now?
>Asking that people be nicer, and maybe consider the effect that gems named "rape_me" and "retarded" might not really reflect well on a community, with a defensive knee-jerk reaction about "politically correct thought-police safe spaces" is not a "valid point".
Yes, it is. If it's invalid, then by all means invalidate it for me.
>No one is coming into the Ruby community, or the programming community, and trying to make it "all about their vagina". In fact, they're asking the opposite; that there's less emphasis placed on their vagina, and more on their code.
I don't hang out with Rubyists. I don't care about Ruby. It's a bad language, for a start. In the general programming field there are plenty of people spending lots of time trying to boost the status of women and institute PC memes. Do you deny this?
Yes, and I'm sure where you come from "micro-aggressions"
is a real word too.
No, it's a statement of fact. The US Marines is a
male space. Oops, am I a bad little misogynist now?
Now, it's true that as of now in the US, women have not been put directly into combat roles. Combat battalions are still exclusively male spaces. Of course, that doesn't mean that women haven't been involved in combat; sometimes they have by accident, or in many cases they have through loopholes or trial programs like the Marine Corps Lioness's program.
Stating that the programming profession is male dominated is a statement of fact. Stating that people are trying to "co-opt male spaces" by being more inclusive of women is misogynist. Talking about co-opting male spaces implies that it's something that men have the right to and women to not; that something is being taken away from men by making it friendlier for women to join. That implies that either women in the space are bad, or being friendlier and making them feel more comfortable is bad, either of which can accurately be described as misogynist.
Yes, it is. If it's invalid, then by all means
invalidate it for me.
The original author was simply pointing out some examples of bad behavior, and saying "hey, this doesn't make you cool, it makes you an asshole". He mused about whether RubyGems should ban them, but then said this was unrealistic.
On the other hand, Aaron Ashworth threatened to and then did ban him from the Ruby Facebook group. So if you're looking for "thought police", that qualifies more than criticizing some people for childish names.
So, I've invalidated the point. Will you now admit that the point was not valid, and that the nasty behavior (accusing women of making it "all about their vaginas") was simply nasty behavior for the sake of being nasty, and not because there was a valid point?
And don't try to tell me something along the lines of "well, maybe he didn't have a valid point about this particular post, but it is a real problem." If you want to discuss real problem, you should discuss real problems, not lash about about vaginas and thought police.
I don't hang out with Rubyists. I don't care about Ruby.
It's a bad language, for a start.
In the general programming field there are plenty of
people spending lots of time trying to boost the status
of women and institute PC memes. Do you deny this?
I have no idea what you mean by "institute PC memes". The phrase "PC" is thrown around to refer to so many things, and tar so many thing with whatever bad reputation that it's supposed to have, that I'm never really sure what people mean when they say it any more.
Some people try to institute policies to make male-dominated spaces more friendly to women. Some people try to use social means, of speaking up about what they find to be unacceptable behavior. Some focus on encouraging and mentoring women.
But none of these are about making anything "all about their vagina". That's a ridiculous reactionary overstatement. The original post wasn't about anyone's vagina, it was about wanting to take the focus off of things like that and put it onto more constructive things.
Making this argument is like making the argument that any time you bring up some men's issue, it's "all about your dick." No, actually. Both women and men are a lot more complex than just their most distinctive sex-linked anatomical features. But saying that is a great way to dismiss any concerns that there might be some kind of sexist behavior going on, because obviously if you complain about sexist behavior you must want to make everything be about your vagina, right?
Perhaps people should be encouraged to stop assigning value to other people based on nothing more than their visibility. Maybe, instead, assign value to the content of their work, be it code, blog posts, presentations, etc.
Someone who starts or runs a forum is just that. They are not a [thought|community|whatever] leader or spokesperson, however much they may think themselves so.
This is just intellectual laziness. These people represent no one but themselves, and people should stop suggesting otherwise.
To further extrapolate from the a small sample of the gem names to an overall problem in the software community is again a problem. I don't think gem names are the reason women are uncomfortable in tech - I don't even necessarily believe that sexism is an endemic problem. I do believe there's a gender bias in technology - the numbers are undeniable. However, I still don't necessarily buy that this is due to sexism. There are plenty of other potential reasons there are fewer women in tech than just sexism - social conditioning, selection bias, people in tech are perceived/portrayed as socially awkward, etc.
The sad thing is women have been talking about this for decades, and no one wants to listen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy#Biological_vs._socia...).
I don't like the word "hypocritical" though, because it implies that contradicting oneself like that is the moral failing of an individual. But really, we all contradict ourselves all the time, and we don't even realise it. These types of contradictions are interesting not because they show that the person who makes them is bad or stupid, but because they reveal the ideologies that structure their thoughts, behaviours and actions, and the contradictions embedded therein. In fact "ideology" itself can be thought of as a kind of blindness to contradictions.
In this particular case, the admin guy is probably not stupid. I'm sure he sees the contradiction in (p ^ ¬p). But he also is a man, and obviously feels threatened by feminism because it seeks to take away his male privilege (in this case, the right to be misogynist without anybody else complaining^), and thus is motivated by ideology to defend his male privilege. This ideology is powerful enough that he can blatantly contradict himself and not even see that he's done so.
^ I know the admin guy wasn't misogynist himself, or at least the original article wasn't about his misogyny, I am just saying that male privilege generally grants men the right to be misogynist without anybody else complaining (certainly in the "male spaces" that the admin guy is talking about), and feminism threatens to take that right away from him.
It seems to me that there's generally about one very high profile incident every other month or so involving sexism within the developer (generally specifically web-dev, and primarily RoR) community.
The fact that so many high-profile incidents exist is a sign that there's plenty of work to be done, but a lack of attention is hardly the problem.
It's almost entirely analogous in my mind to the idea that because there are books that perhaps feature words like "sex" and "miniskirts" that this is offensive, the entire author community is broken, and this is why women don't read books! GUYS GUYS, we absolutely need to start censoring what people can write about! FYI, I think we should all base our moral code on the American christian values...just sayin'!
Here's an idea - women aren't all delicate flowers you need to white-knight on the internet. They can handle seeing words like "bj" and "shag".
However, as I read about more and more of these type of incidents, 90% might be somewhat high.
Peer pressure = bullying.
I think the best strategy for raising the bar of acceptable behavior is the same as fighting vandalism. Create wide open spaces, keep them clean and orderly, make positive improvements and point people to those places. Spray painting a neon star around every broken window (these blog posts lately) does the opposite of help. From what i understand, RailsGirls has the right idea.
Check your privilege, dude.
"Check your privilege" is virtually never a helpful thing to say.
I can see from your other comment on this thread that further discussion on this with you would be an uphill one so I'm signing off now.
Yes, and of course the horrible incident that was blogged about this weekend. But that was not a Ruby thing...that was an alcohol-fueled bar scene with a supervisor who egregiously abused his power. But what about that situation makes it specifically a Ruby thing? That it doesn't happen at any other kind of conference? Talk about being isolated in your own world...
This is not to say that sexism and sexual harassment isn't a problem. No, in fact, I believe they continue to be a much more massive problem than the oP's incidents can begin to describe. But it's not about Ruby or the Ruby community in particular, and by viewing it as such, you narrow the range of social action and awareness needed to combat the problem.
It seems that men complain about the lack of women in computing more than women do.
When did trolling become a social justice issue suddenly?
Or rather than a bunch of dudes blogging about how to fix the problem, we listen to the women for once and not treat them like a tiny snowflake, ready to melt if they read the word fuck. Christ almighty. Nothing perpetuates this sort of shit more than male voices of authority saying "women can't handle a gem named 'bj'! We're assholes if we let it stand!"
[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5H5r4_CoJo
Edit: Good, this pile of shit got flagged off HN.
Smoked a cigarette with the woman in question later that day and she basically rolled her eyes about it.