[Noisebridge-discuss] Fwd: Some interesting thoughts on "benevolent sexism"

[Naomi Most]

Heh, now you know something of how a lot of us women felt when getting on
the internet a decade or more ago (and for many, even still).  I have been
using neutral-gender online handles since 1995.

--Naomi aka nthmost aka venix aka 101101 ...



On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 7:48 PM, Garrett Mace <garrettmace at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not happy with the risk that anyone might confuse me with Garrett
> Smith, since it appears we have some major differences in many viewpoints
> despite having the same uncommon first name. I am going to come up with a
> pseudonym to use on this list as I'm no longer comfortable using my own.
>
> --- Garrett Mace, (non-jerk)
>
>
> On Apr 5, 2013, at 4:22 PM, Lyra <elevin at MIT.EDU> wrote:
>
> Naomi, you are of course welcome to keep fighting with him. I just don't
> find that fun or useful, so I won't.
>
> Rachel Lyra! Very true. That being said, we can (and should) work to
> improve ourselves and our world simultaneously. It seems there are
> different hosts benevolent (or not so) sexism may reside in and different
> ways to combat it in each case.
>
> For ourselves, the hard part is noticing. This would be made far easier if
> it were more socially okay for people to call us out on such behavior. For
> example, a friend mentioned to me that when I used the word 'dick' for a
> mean person, I was  reinforcing the idea of men being synonymous with
> jerks. I'm glad he was comfortable with telling me that, as it gave me the
> opportunity to change my behavior in some small, positive way.
>
> Rational people whose opinions we care about can be reasoned with and
> irrational people who's opinions carry no personal value can be ignored.
> But what about people who hold these beliefs unreasonably and for some
> reason, their opinion must be worked around (policy makers, cultural
> leaders, teachers, bosses, investors...)?
>
> Lyra Rachel Levin
>
> Sent en route, pardon the brevity.
> On Apr 5, 2013 4:07 PM, "rachel lyra hospodar" <rachelyra at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for this, Lyra!  I think there are a bunch of good ways to move
>> forward on issues of embedded sexist behaviors.  Ultimately the question of
>> what to do next depends on who the speaker is.  We all have work we can do
>> within ourselves, and the old advice about tending to the beam in one's own
>> eye first rings pretty true here.  Sometimes I think the most fruitful
>> thing for most of us to do is to encourage the normalization of a critical
>> analysis and discussion of these issues, as a normal and rational part of
>> public discourse.
>>
>> R.
>>
>> On 4/5/2013 4:01 PM, Lyra wrote:
>>
>>> So I tend to just write off people like Garrett Smith - their opinion is
>>> not useful or valid to me so why waste cycles feeding the trolls?
>>> However, Merlin's link on Stereotype Threat clarified what is bad about
>>> that behavior. This isn't a small, vocal, but ultimately powerless group
>>> that thinks this way. This is a lot of people, some very intelligent,
>>> some very powerful.
>>>
>>> Instead of bothering with this  fruitless argument with Garrett, let's
>>> look at ways we can combat the source of the problem. Calling people out
>>> on unnoticed bad behavior is one way. Pro active and empowering
>>> education opportunities are an excellent one too (for adults and
>>> especially for children). Further thoughts?
>>>
>>> Lyra
>>>
>>> Sent en route, pardon the brevity.
>>>
>>> On Apr 5, 2013 3:46 PM, "Danny O'Brien" <danny at spesh.com
>>> <mailto:danny at spesh.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
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-- 
Naomi Theora Most
naomi at nthmost.com
+1-415-728-7490

skype: nthmost

http://twitter.com/nthmost
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