On Thu, Feb 03, 2011 at 07:23:11AM +1100, Pia Waugh wrote:
>
> Personally I am extremely disappointed in your most recent two posts because
> not only have you tried to discredit valid issues but you have managed to
> put all women in the 'you're just being hysterical' camp as well as be
> alarmist about repercussions for the community.
Pia,
I didn't say that.
That being said, I *have* seen some discussions on various Geek
Feminism sites where there are *some* people who seem to have the
opinion that all men are liars, and that no matter what, women bear no
responsibility at all for what happens to them, and that anyone who
thinks otherwise is clearly someone who hates all women.
Can we dispense with absolutes now, on both sides of the argument?
> I'll work through your points in a moment, but I think it needs to be said
> that the references to freedom on this thread have been at times disturbing.
> I do not personally believe that freedom means the freedom to do or say
> whatever you want. In society we follow many rules all the time that inhibit
> our choices (such as driving on the correct side of the road, not killing
> people, paying for something you purchase) however it is through as a
> collective agreeing to adhere to such rules that everyone feels more
> comfortable and safe, that everyone has the freedom to live without fear, to
> prosper, to make a life for themselves.
So here's the problem. I can't control what people are afraid of. If
*everyone* has the right to live without fear, and there is a few
people who afraid of people talking about Linux (it might devalue
their Microsoft stock, so they might not be able to prosper any more),
does that mean we have to stop using or talking about Linux? Where do
you draw the line?
I really am scared of people who think that "freedom to live without
fear" is an absolute. Do I have a right not be afraid? Oh, are you
going to say that my fears are unreasonable? Why can *you* decide
judge whether or not my fears are reasonable, but not allow anyone
else to question other people's fears?
Do you see why to say that "someone might be afraid", can't be a
reason to shut down discussion? Do you see how it can be abused?
> Should, must, it doesn't matter so long as the conference organisers and LA
> have the discretion to deal with it however they choose, which might involve
> expelling someone, or stopping a talk, or apologising publicly. I can see
> how "must" may jar for a few people, however you need to provide both
> guidance and ramifications so speakers understand their responsibilities
> properly.
And as long as you provide guidance about what is the grey zones, and
what are the bright lines that are absolutely out of bounds. Parts of
the US Government has asked for the ability to treat foreign citizens
however they like, with a "trust us", we'll only designate certain
people as terrorists if they really are bad guys, and shouldn't we
have the descretion to do whatever we want?
If you are part of the worldwide majority of Muslims, I can understand
why a blanket assertion of "the US Government is the good guys; we
should have the right to declare whomever we want as terrorists,
kidnap them if necessary, and drop them off at Guantanamo, with no due
process." Anything else would tie our hands.
Yes, I'm exagerating to make a point, but unfettered discretion and
selective prosecution has generally been considered open to abuse and
unjust. You could respond that that you don't have power to imprison
me based on your disrection --- for which I am abundantly grateful ---
but does that make massive amounts of discretion a good thing?
> OK, wow. So "we are welcoming to women but not this whole feminism thing".
Well, I'm not going to be feeling particularly friendly towards
fundamentalists of any stripe, whether it is Muslim fundamentalists,
Christian fundamentalists, or Feminist fundamentalists. I'm not all
that fond of Linux fundamentalists either (although generally we use
the term "fanboys").
If feminism means that merely invoking "she might be scared" is all
you need to shut down a discussion, without any evaluation of the
details; if it means thinking in purely black and white, without any
acknowledgement that there might be some different shades of gray ---
then yes, I'm going to be against it, regardless about whether it's
about women's rights, or Linux, or anything else.
> I don't have hard statistics but I know anecdotally from discussions I've had
> with thousands of women over the years that the vast majority of women in
> ICT (in countries like Australia and the US where we are in the minority)
> experience bias specifically due to their gender, whether that be sexual
> harassment, exclusion, verbal abuse ("you're just a woman, you have no idea
> about this", I've had this personally) or one of many other issues.
I'm willing to believe this happens, and it perhaps even happens a
lot. And I believe that unwanted touching, verbal abuse, is something
that shouldn't happen. Sure.
Personally, while I was growing up, I've gotten a lot of harassment
and exclusion, verbal abuse, etc. because of my race. I've been
excluded, called a Chink, Chinaman, and worse. That was wrong.
But at the same time, I don't ask for special treatment because of the
past wrongs I've suffered at the hands of my tormenters. (That's OK,
as an 'under-represented minority' --- that's the term MIT uses to
justify why Asians don't get special programs just for them, unlike
other minority races --- I didn't and don't get any special treatment
anyway. Nor do I want any.)
Personally, I think it's a rare human being that has managed to make
it through life without getting damaged or traumatized in some way,
and we all have some number of fears that we have to try to transcend.
Welcome to the human condition.
> Basically most women, particularly when in the minority, live with a latent
> (albeit usually low) level of fear and anxiety due to the personal and
> collective experiences. If you can't accept that premise, if you question
> the statistics and the likelihood and tell us that there is no problem, then
> it is likely impossible that you will ever acknowledge issues that may
> create problems for women at conferences that may not create a problem for
> you.
So surely you don't mean that most women are "damaged goods" based on
the wrongs done to them in the past, such that we have to tip-toe
around them, treat them with kid gloves, because who knows what we
might say that might trigger a panic attack? Even to the extent of
discussing whether statistics might or might not be flawed? We're not
even allowed to question the methodology of surveys that have been
disputed as having some very serious flaws?
Are you saying that most women are victims, and so deserve _that_ much
special treatment as a result?
And that last sentence sounds very much like, "you're just a man, you
have no hope of understanding". And although I grant you've not said
those precise, I've seen some feminist sites that have said
pretty much exactly that. (I'm struck how it's OK when the shoe's on
the other foot --- or when the people argue that the standard of proof
for rape should be lowered to always trust the women, and throwing due
process out the door --- except when the women says it's not rape; in
that case, the survey taker will code it as rape and not trust what
the woman says. Can people not see the _irony_ in that?)
> It has been identified that certain behaviours make a conference very
> uncomfortable for many women and for some men, so why wouldn't we embrace
> how we can deal with it, rather than this ridiculous nitpicking as to
> whether there is a problem at all.
Look, I'm on your side when it comes to showing pictures of semi-naked
women in presentations. I can see how that is actively exclusionary.
I'm all behind not having depictions that objectify women as sexual
objects. I have no problem with any of that.
But apparently, the moment I object to the argument that all women are
victims, and how we need to tiptoe around subjects that _might_ cause
them pain based on past experiences, all of the rest doesn't matter.
You're either 100% behind the feminist agenda, or a horrible,
insensitive clod. At that point, I'm going to have to throw a red
flag, and say, no, I reject that false dicotomy.
> Again, the scare tactics. If an la or lca committee decides at their
> discretion to ban someone forever then, it would likely be a pretty serious
> issue. This is why I made the distinction between actual harassment and
> other behaviours, because in the case of actual harassment, I would think
> most people in this community would have no qualms (and people have already
> said) in throwing them out of that lca immediately.
Great. I agree we should make a distinction between actual harassment
and other behaviours. And maybe the proscriptions against those other
behaviours shouldn't be bundled into the "anti-harassment policy".
Because they are two different things.
> In the case of
> behaviours that unintentionally hurt our community, I think the conversation
> that is being had is a good step to identifying what we as a community want
> to do.
Well, one person has said that the mere fact that we're having this
discussion, as opposed to adopting the Geek Feminism position blindly,
she might not go to LCA 2012. And more than one person has said, "now
wait, that's just plain out of bounds". We can't just shut down
discussion based just because one person says, "this makes me think
the place is full of rapists".
I'll accept that some people might feel that way, but do they bear any
responsibility for perhaps adjusting how they think? Or do we have to
bend over backwards for those people no matter whether the fear is
reasonable or not? How far does it go? Are we even allowed to have
that discussion about how far we have to go to accomodate this
"constant fear and anxienty" that they have? And whether this a
common case, or whether they are an outlier?
> How would you feel if I said something like "I appreciate the thoughts of
> men in our community (even if I have some doubts about their tactics,
> statistics and beliefs about women)".
As I've said, I've seen some feminists who said that and worse about
men. And I didn't say "women", I said "geek feminists". So I didn't
label the whole gender, but a group of people for which I consider to
many of them be fundamentalists.
- Ted
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Received on Wed Feb 02 2011 - 23:24:13 GMT