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

Eddan Katz eddan at eddan.com
Sat Apr 6 17:39:06 UTC 2013


Thanks, Liz. I've been trying to work through Lewis' Law, generally and not specifically to Donglegate. 

While not exactly tautological, my head is still spinning. I think the resulting headache has less to do with feminism and more to do with who gets to decide what is inherently self-justifying. Trump card power in self-righteous hands is a stone's throw away from political manipulation. 

Here's another riddle: "Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss."


sent from eddan.com

On Apr 6, 2013, at 9:39 AM, Liz Henry <lizhenry at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yeah once again we see Lewis's Law in evidence: The comments on any article about feminism justify feminism.
> 
> I can't even.
> 
> - liz
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 9:19 AM, Christoph Maier <cm.hardware.software.elsewhere at gmail.com> wrote:
>> A wonderful thread!
>> 
>> It reminds me that you all are very good at creating Chaos (that's why I need a dose of noisebridge every now and then), 
>> but ranking who is best at it may be sexist, benevolently or not.
>> So I should probably talk about python instead.
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUBAx8jbYNs
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 8:33 AM, jim <jim at systemateka.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>     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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>>> >         >                 Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>>> >         >                 https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
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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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>>> > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>>> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>>> 
>>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
> Liz Henry
> lhenry at mozilla.com
> lizhenry at gmail.com
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