[Womoz] Womoz Digest, Vol 11, Issue 10
Melissa Draper
melissa at meldraweb.com
Wed Jun 16 09:20:41 CEST 2010
On Tue, 2010-06-15 at 23:19 -0400, Majken Connor wrote:
> Did you read the article?
Yes I did. It's quite accurate to my experiences.
> I'm sorry, but just because a woman says something doesn't mean she
> deserves my support. That's sexist.
That's not what I said. Let me try again: "Way to be supportive to the
women here who are reading who may have previously thought they might be
able to trust this to be a place they can comment on bad behaviours and
be understood. And not kicked in the face."
Expecting women to be always upstanding, prim, proper, calm, courteous
never ever for a single moment think of mocking the behaviour that makes
her want to give up and quit lest they be considered "nuts"? *That* is
sexist.
I for one am always been open to people contacting me to discuss
difficulties they're having as a result of possessing lady brains. If
they don't feel they can trust this list (now).
> Given the brush with which the author paints men I highly doubt she's
> really interacted with many on any meaningful level.
I'd say she has dealt with men plenty enough if she's had time to be
annoyed at the behaviour of some of them enough to have had run-ins with
their apologists (you know, the women and men who generalise in attempt
to excuse) giving her quotes with which to write that blog post.
(Also, oh $deity, please tell me you didn't just try the pathetic "never
kissed a girl" narrative...)
> She's *wrong* about how the majority of men behave and think about
> women.
She's compiled much of the *apologia* (aka excuses) that I see
*regularly*, and spoken it as said by others, not herself. I'm pretty
sure she's read my mind to get the wording the exact same way as I've
seen and heard it. She's repeating the words of men *and* the words of
women who defend the tokenising, objectifying, dismissive culture that
reeks of misogyny (and all sorts of other marginalising). These quotes
are not "blatant lies". These are actual things said. Obviously they're
not spoken or believed by everyone, but as I said, I have personally
seen or heard every single damned one of them verbatim in an open source
context. They are real things in the world.
I honestly believe that her blog rant very accurately it highlights that
all the papercuts together are a lot more powerful together than they
are alone. She's compiled a large portion of my actual lived experience
as a feminist woman in Open Source.
> Just like she was incorrect about Blacks and Irish. She doesn't even
> get the definition of sexism right.
I think you'll find she's not even trying to define sexism there, but
rather drawing a line between sexism and other marginalised groups (like
People of Colour) and touching on other elements of Kyriarchy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyriarchy such as "Intersectionality"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality & and "Othering"
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/rww03/othering.htm
> This list is about exploring the reasons and solutions to the existing
> gender gap. Assuming that the only problem is that men are sexist is
> in and of itself sexist.
She is exploring a very real and very valid reason. The Thousand
Papercuts of being a Girl or Woman in Open Source.
And no where in there does she say "all men". Not once. Nor does she say
"majority of men" or "most men", nor "men say", nor "guys say" nor "men
behave" nor "men say". Nor "men do", except in a string describing how
"everyone" responds to what women do. She's documented what "everyone"
and "people" are saying and doing.
> Do we care about sexism as a real problem that harms humanity or are
> women the only ones who deserve protection?
This *is* a women's space. To ask it to be a space for discussing the
nurturing of those poor men with only 90% percent representation in the
community would be like asking us to protect IE because Firefox people
said something about its security flaws.
There's lots of things wrong within a Kyriarchy, but believe me,
feminists mocking actual excuses given by *both* men and women for the
continuation or alternatively non-existence of locker-room/seedy-bar
behaviour and sexism *without* either stating "all men" or offering a
disclaimer cookie, really is not one of them.
> On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 8:32 PM, Melissa Draper
> <melissa at meldraweb.com> wrote:
> What a way to be supportive of a woman being overwhelmed by
> the barriers
> affecting her and venting on her blog; viciously blaming her
> for all the
> bad things that happen to women in a big faily waterfall of
> "but what
> about the men!? they are so hard done by! and oppressed! when
> women
> don't explicitly excuse at least some of them!".
>
> The expectation for every criticism of patriarchy to be
> accompanied by
> an explicit "but this is only some men! probably not you!" is
> problematic in itself. It's easy when seeing something
> negative about
> your demographic that contains a "not all!" disclaimer to
> immediately
> place yourself in the disclaimer, and refuse to change how you
> personally behave. People who actually deserve those
> disclaimer cookies
> actually don't need them. See the law of cookies at
> http://theangryblackwoman.com/2008/04/29/no-cookie/.
>
> Expecting women to /unfailingly/ provide that escape from
> responsibility
> for men is not helpful in any way, shape, or form. It's really
> just a
> continuation of marginalised people being expected to excuse
> bad
> behaviour from privileged people in an actual conversation
> lest they be
> considered one of those Bad Marginalised People (you know, the
> ones who
> refuse to accept the blame for their own marginalisation).
> We've all
> been guilty of it at some point; Think of times you or your
> friends
> might have said "um, yeah, sure, you're not sexist" to someone
> who got
> all up in arms over a discussion about sexism? Even if known
> to be
> partial to off-colour, dehumanising or "housework is for the
> women"
> "jokes". Merely knowing what is sexist is not an immunisation
> against
> it.
>
> I was under the impression that the purpose of this list is to
> help
> support women who are battling barriers, not offer excuses to
> men who
> might be offended at the thought that they benefit from
> privilege. Is
> that really too much to ask of it?
>
> On Tue, 2010-06-15 at 10:07 -0700, Tiffney Mortensen wrote:
> > Agreed. It would have been nice to see some constructive
> suggestions for dealing with this issue, as well as finding
> ways to connect professionally with men. Not all guys are
> chest thumping frat boys. Perhaps Mozilla is unique but in
> general people take gender equality for granted around here.
> We don't have a full gender balance quite yet and occasionally
> it can feel male-dominated, but that's more of a byproduct of
> the fact that there are more male employees, rather than a
> "good old boys' club."
> >
> > I like Katie's point about avoiding inflammatory
> communication. Responding to the jerks out there with "OMG
> SEXISM PATRIARCHS HATE YOUR FACES ALL OF YOU !!!1!!!!111!!!!!"
> just reinforces the stereotype that women are (a) nuts (b)
> less professional than men and (c) too emotional to get work
> done. Venting frustration can be useful, but only if it's done
> in a way that integrates humor, constructive advice, or
> self-scrutiny so that others feel invited to participate in
> the conversation.
> >
> > T
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Majken Connor" <majken at gmail.com>
> > To: womoz at lists.womoz.org
> > Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 8:10:07 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Womoz] Womoz Digest, Vol 11, Issue 10
> >
> >
> > I'm sorry, I didn't find this article offensive to women. I
> can clearly see that the author doesn't agree with all the
> stereotypes about women being incapable. However the author is
> more than happy to stereotype back and includes some blatant
> lies.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 9:21 PM, Kate Guernsey <
> katie at mozillafoundation.org > wrote:
> >
> >
> > Majken-
> >
> > It starts at "Now, you certainly don't have to be obsessive
> and single-focused to actually be a good coder, but you do to
> be perceived as one. So if you're a woman, you're
> automatically not serious enough! Awesome, no?"
> >
> > goes until... "So I'm moving to DW for my feminist
> principles! \o/ "
> >
> > And I'm not saying s/he is speaking to other females. I'm
> saying s/he is speaking to the "majority of her colleagues"
> which we know to be mostly male. My anecdote about how I
> relate to men at times illustrates this pretty clearly. Read
> it again (and my message) and I think you'll see it...
> especially when she (I'm betting it's a woman) relates to
> being linked to "Dorothea of Caveat Lector."
> >
> > We can all agree it's poorly written... but we should
> recognize that she is using a communication style that is
> pervasive in her network. Perhaps that can be a point of
> departure at Whistler... attempt to change inflammatory
> communication!
> >
> > Katie
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
>
> Melissa Draper
>
> w: http://meldraweb.com & http://geekosophical.net
>
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--
Melissa Draper
w: http://meldraweb.com & http://geekosophical.net
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