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

jim jim at systemateka.com
Sat Apr 6 15:33:32 UTC 2013



    In the early 1990s internet relay was new and 
getting popular. Among the newly interested were 
those with little video cams attached to their 
computers (think male in bathrobe at cam). 
    I submitted a writeup of something I discovered 
in the IRC sex crowd to what was then my second 
favorite web site (my first was paranoia.com, which 
went extinct, the domain name repurposed by some 
commercial entity, nothing like the original); 
anyway, I got lots of laughs reading the various 
Heartless Bitches pages and am proud that they 
used and have kept my submission (circa 1993): 

http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/hotgirl.shtml




On Fri, 2013-04-05 at 21:16 -0700, Naomi Most wrote:
> 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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