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

Liz Henry lizhenry at gmail.com
Sat Apr 6 16:39:03 UTC 2013


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
>> >         >
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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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-- 

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
Liz Henry
lhenry at mozilla.com
lizhenry at gmail.com
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