[Womoz] Womoz Digest, Vol 11, Issue 10

[Leigh Honeywell]

On 10-06-16 11:17 PM, Majken Connor wrote:
> Leigh,
>
> Thank you for your reply. I think unless we ask the author herself all
> any of us are doing is interpreting with a bias towards our past
> experiences.  I'm afraid I can't be so lenient in giving the author the
> benefit of the doubt. I think this turns into the "apologizing" that
> Tiffney and I have been accused of. I agree with pretty much everything
> you're saying, however it's a bit of a different context given that we
> didn't just come upon it, it was presented to the list as something
> "interesting."

Without the context of this being someone's processing of issues she's 
dealt with personally, I can definitely see where you're coming from 
about it being problematic, particularly if your sarcasm detectors 
didn't fire :)  Mine didn't initially and I was a little o_0 before I 
got to "Men in Open Source know that women just don't have what it 
takes." and thought "oh I see what she's doing here.  Snark filter on!".

> This is the angle that I, and I believe Tiffney, are
> basing our criticism from.  I'd love to hear about experiences like
> these

We have a convenient list: 
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents

> and talk about them in a more scientific manner - trying to
> pinpoint what breeds this type of experience, establishing whether it's
> really the majority opinion (which I'm certain it's not) and how to
> change attitudes.

I think biologically essentialist attitudes (see 
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Essentialism for reference) about 
women's abilities with technology breeds a lot of these kinds of 
situations.  There are sadly still lots of folks out there who think 
it's "common sense" that girls / women suck at (math|CS|programming|hard 
sciences) due to some physical characteristic about our ladybrains, no 
matter how much research comes out saying that these differences are 1) 
massively overstated and 2) even where they do exist, attributable to 
social factors - such as whether or not we play video games! (see 
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071024145626.htm for a 
fascinating study out of U of Toronto).

I don't think anyone's arguing that the various sterotypes and 
hostilities that women come up against in FOSS are majority opinions. 
But that doesn't mean they aren't barriers.

The ways of changing attitudes that I've found work so far: be present, 
be awesome, and call people on problematic actions.  The last one is 
probably the hardest - so often people freak out more at being called 
sexist than at the fact that someone experienced their actions as 
sexist, which is always sad to see in action.

I can't remember where it came from, but there's a parable about pants 
that's relevant here.  Being called out on 
sexism/racism/ablism/transphobia etc. should be treated like being told 
that you're not wearing pants (or a skirt, if that's your thing). 
Instead of responding "HOW DARE YOU POINT OUT MY PANTSLESSNESS", a 
productive response is "wow, my butt was totally hanging out there! 
Thank you for pointing out my pantslessness!  I shall now remedy the 
situation with pants or possibly my favourite kilt.  Rock on."

Everyone wins when we spread the gospel of pants :)

> I just can't abide fighting sexism with sexism. As is
> plain, even us women don't agree on the context and bounds of the
> problem, so it stands to reason that men are even more helpless when it
> comes to defining and changing the problem.

And I think it's massively important to allow people to process hurt and 
discrimination they have sufffered without worrying about whose fee-fees 
they are hurting in that processing.  I think that's what Melissa was 
trying to get at with her posts.  Let's try to engage with some of the 
hurt that cme's experienced, rather than going on forever about how 
exactly she chose to talk about it?

I hesitated to include this link as it can tend to inflame things, but 
it's also very funny.  This whole argument reminds me of a couple of 
points on Derailing For Dummies, but it sure does fit with this one:

http://derailingfordummies.com/#asbad

Again, it's mega snarky, but I'm including it to point out that this is 
a part of this conversation, and conversations about race, class, 
sexuality, disability, and other axes of difference, that comes up over 
and over and over again.  There's no "nice enough" way to talk about 
this stuff.  We're always being "too hostile" or "too mean" when we call 
out discrimination.  It's one of the most effective ways for kyrarchies 
to maintain their power, as they get to define what "too mean" or "too 
hostile" is.

-Leigh