[Noisebridge-discuss] Hi everyone.

Sat Aug 18 03:02:26 UTC 2012

Specific responses to jim's message are inline.  I'm sure many of you
are a little annoyed to see this topic surface again.  I know I am
annoyed.  There are tons of other things I'd like to talk and think
about, and one of the reasons it has taken me so long to respond to
the thoughtful discussion around this issue has been because, well, I
have been doing other stuff.  I've started reading links on
geekfeminism.org though, and I think a lot about the statistical
impact of the 'ginger rogers effect' - women have to do everything men
do, but backwards and in high heels, to be considered good at their
job. "The number of women earning degrees in computer science is
actually DECLINING. In the mid 80’s, 36% of computer science degrees
were awarded to women. In 2006, that number dwindled to 20%." [1]

So it follows that we do actually have to address this problem if we
want it to go away.  Responses to Jim's message inline below.

On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 6:17 PM, jim <jim at well.com> wrote:
<snip>
>     Clearly there's been pain. Most important in my view
> is that we're all patient. Forgiveness, acceptance,
> self-confidence are all good things. Try to ignore the
> pain as essentially the result of childish behavior or

So my point is being completely missed here.  I am not in any way
seeking support for emotional pain, or advice on coping with it on a
personal level.  I am working to fix a major flaw in our society,
because I believe that this flaw will not fix itself, and we are the
only ones that can fix it.  I specifically believe we have been trying
acceptance as a tactic for some time and while it is viable coping
mechanism for many circumstances in life, in this case I do not
believe it is working.  Furthermore I think other there is a chance
that other things will work.  So I'm going to try them.

<snip>
>     As to Rachel's two sentence proscription against
> harrassment, I'm sympathetic (in some respects
> empathetic), but I don't like the specificity of the

Really?  I'd like to revisit a conflict that existed in our
relationship, Jim.  You came to the sewing list seeking to hire
someone for sewing lessons and assistance, and I consented to help
you.  I generally felt that you wanted our relationship to be more
personal than I did, and I did what I could to keep it as professional
as possible.  (An aside: This is not an assignment of blame but a
statement of fact about what my feelings were at the time.  The only
unusual thing about this experience is that fact that I am sharing it
in public. See my earlier message for comments about mismatched
expectations.)

There was an incident where I gave Jim a hello hug (the first and only
time i ever did so) and he started kissing me on my face, multiple
times.  I felt this was an unwarranted escalation of our physical
interaction, and physically pushed him away.  He responded, "Don't
push me away!" and seemed upset.  Nobody enjoyed this interaction.  A
few weeks later, I initiated a conversation about it and I explained
to Jim how uncomfortable it had made me.  He seemed surprised and
upset that he had caused me such discomfort, but it was awkward for
both of us and I believe Jim has been avoiding me ever since.  He has
certainly stopped trying to be friends with me, or work with me, or
whatever was happening before.

I am not bringing this up to embarrass Jim, although i am aware that
is an unfortunate and almost inevitable side effect.  I want to
illustrate how it is possible for two entirely reasonable people to
have this kind of conflict, and how it isn't necessary for someone to
be an asshole to make someone else uncomfortable.  I also want to
point out the fact that, to women, this type of interaction is pretty
common.  It is statistically a far more frequent occurrence for women
than for men that they have to fend off undesired friendly or romantic
overtures, and turning someone down often results in bruised feelings
and social awkwardness.  This has a statistical effect on women's
ability to function effectively.

I do believe that having a framework in place to help with these kinds
of social conflicts will ease their impacts on people and thus speed
"healing" around issues like this.  I think in this case jim is
"injured" more than I am.  He has to either: integrate an idea of
himself as an oppressor into his worldview; dismiss my concerns,
awareness, and intelligence; or try to pretend the whole thing never
happened.

It is hard to think of yourself as an oppressor.  It is really fucking
hard.  But we all are, there, isn't that better?  Follow the link for
an article by a straight white hetero cis software guy about it. [2]
Go help some native american's rights groups work on their websites if
you feel guilty about it. If you want to help me all you have to do is
get out of my way.

> proscription. I'd prefer something simpler, along the
> lines of "mind your own business" or "don't cause pain
> to others" or "Noisebridge is a place for people to
> gather and mix".

How bout be excellent?  Dude?

'Unexcellent' to me is right up there with 'unprofessional'.  The only
people, in any industry, who have ever called me unprofessional, were
invariably the least experienced and most idiotic people in the room.
I have heard lots of people use the term unexcellent, uh,
unexcellently.  I have heard lots of excellent people complain about
the misuse of accusations of 'unexcellence'.  Gosh, what do we do,
throw up our hands?  THAT REINFORCES THE STATUS QUO, AND IS IN FACT A
CHOICE.  Wikipedia has a similar "rule" to us - don't be a dick.  The
difference for me is the negative perspective.  I would rather seek
excellence than avoid dickishness.  Also, we need to accommodate
Rubin.

I went onto the wiki to create a page to record my personal definition
of harassment, and I found this whole page:
https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Community_Standards

If we can document software, even as it evolves, why do we think it is
impossible to create a little scrap of a user's manual for the
noisebridge community?  Is it so scary to write down what we are
doing?  That's how we fucking roll, people! We document! It's not
rules.  Don't freak out. It's just like directions to find the
bathroom, but in reference to the infinitely more complex world of
human interaction.

>     There seems too much baggage to the term
> "harrassment". Seems better not to use the term.

so suggest a fucking alternative word for me to use when i am talking
about the types of behaviors described here:
https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Harassment
I am defining some shit that I am trying to hack right out of our
cultural matrix.  Words are how we invoke the software I am writing -
so I need to use a word.  I am open to using a different one.  Don't
whinge about the one I chose without proposing an alternative.

<snip>

>
>     Please let me know details about the woman who
> contributes to the Linux kernel and gets harrassment.

You misread me - it's not an individual woman, it's any woman. Anyone
who is *publicly female*. Go ahead and ask around the women in that
community. I haven't, but am confident that the person who told me
this did not make it up.

> I'm interested in promoting Linux and I believe women
> should be encouraged to participate in its development
> (and in technologies generally).

OK. So i am standing here telling you what we need to change to make
this technology space safe for women to participate in its
development.  You are most definitely entitled to your opinions on how
to accomplish this but I hope you can see the irony in your failure to
follow my lead on the issue.  [3] We can dismiss this type of behavior
as symptomatic or environmental, but it's a cop-out, because we are
able to change ourselves, to retrain.

If you care about the issue then you must retrain yourself.  Society
and language are both systems that exist only through constant
exercise.  The matrix upon which they exist is these interactions
themselves.  By changing the interactions, we change the system.

R.

[1] http://spin.atomicobject.com/2012/06/07/why-theres-no-one-named-ruby-programming-in-ruby/

[2] http://sxates.com/personal/sexism-in-silicon-valley/

[3] http://www.theawl.com/2010/01/mansplaining-critique-really-upsets-men-who-are-usually-too-busy-feigning-concern-for-the-subjects-of-womens-memoirs