[Noisebridge-discuss] Benevolent Sexism

Corey McGuire coreyfro at coreyfro.com
Sat Apr 6 21:29:45 UTC 2013


I treat everyone the same.  There are occasions where people do not think I
treat everyone the same.  You cannot control how someone reacts nor can you
fault them for how they feel.  It is their right and you can't take it from
them.

However, I would like to say something that I hope will help everyone
understand, and I hope it doesn't sound patronizing, which is what this
discussion is about.

When men and women help like gendered friends, there is no expectation of
judgement.  When they instruct each other, even if their knowledge
overlaps, there is no perception of being patronizing.  In fact, when a
piece of knowledge that has been shared between two like gendered friends
is common to both of them, we get warm fuzzies.  It's almost a form of
validation.  Maybe there will be a difference of opinion.  If there is,
otherwise, no existing tension, this is taken as informational and, thus,
more warm fuzzies.  If people are overly opinionated, there will be a
flamewar based on an experiential bias and not a gender bias.

When divided by a gender line, there is the potential to feel judged
because of gender.

In most of my social circles - circles which are ALMOST ALL community art
projects, many of them female directed (flaming lotus girls, flux
foundation) - this is not a problem.

What is the secret, then?

People need to not take this shit so personally.  It's not personal... it's
not...it's not...and if it is... it's not worth your time.

If the PEOPLE in these project groups took these things personally, nothing
would ever get done.



On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Mitchel McAllister <xonimmortal at yahoo.com>wrote:

> Yeah, the day I stop offering to help is the day they shove me down the
> conveyor belt into the crematorium.
>
> Maybe I'm weird, but when someone offers to help, I take it as a sign that
> they care.
>
>
> - Reverend Mik McAllister
> ------------------------------
> "You can see the summit but you can't reach it
> Its the last piece of the puzzle but you just can't make it fit
> Doctor says you're cured but you still feel the pain
> Aspirations in the clouds but your hopes go down the drain"
>  - Howard Jones, "No One Is To Blame"
> ------------------------------
> Purveyor of Subversive Fiction
> http://www.prismandink.com
> http://www.lunatextpublications.com
>
> --- On *Sat, 4/6/13, ryan rawson <ryanobjc at gmail.com>* wrote:
>
>
> From: ryan rawson <ryanobjc at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] Benevolent Sexism
> To: "noisebridge-discuss at lists noisebridge. net" <
> noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net>
> Date: Saturday, April 6, 2013, 12:55 PM
>
>
> As a Canadian, I have been preprogrammed with politeness which is why I
> don't:
>
> - go out of my way to help you with the door
> - carry stuff for you without being asked
> - try to solve your problems for you without being asked
> - any action that could be interpreted as sexism, ableism, ageism, etc
>
> Which is more rude, not helping that person in a wheelchair or being
> presumptuous and assuming they need help?
>
> I have chosen the latter. I hope you will as well.
>
> In polite non-rudeness,
> ryan
>
>
>
> On Apr 6, 2013, at 12:35 PM, Snail <snailtsunami at gmail.com<http://mc/compose?to=snailtsunami@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> I would like to say that I'm sorry that I don't want your help putting my
> bike on the bike rack, but I'm not really sorry.
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 12:32 PM, LinkReincarnate <
> linkreincarnate at gmail.com <http://mc/compose?to=linkreincarnate@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
>
> First of all You are making a lot of assumptions here. And secondly you
> are ascribing the actions of other men to me.
>
> 1 I never took anything out of your hand or stepped "In your way" as you
> put it.  I was standing to the side of the bike and putting my hand under
> the wheel to get it unstuck.  I didn't even get near your personal space.
> 2 I never offered (or would have offered) a lecture about how to remove
> the bike from the rack or comments that you are doing it wrong.
> 3 You dont know what those men think anymore than I do
>
> Fact of the matter is that your sex had no bearing whatsoever on my
> actions  but you automatically assumed that was why I was helping. You even
> assumed that after I explicitly stated that was not the case. That type of
> attitude is divisive and counterproductive.
>  On Apr 6, 2013 12:12 PM, "Snail" <snailtsunami at gmail.com<http://mc/compose?to=snailtsunami@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> You misspelled my name :P
>
> People -constantly- try to help me with my bike on the rack at Noisebridge
> when I don't manage to hike it up in one swoop. They -always- try to
> explain to me how I'm doing it wrong. They -always- think I don't
> understand the problem or that I can't do it myself. It's always a man who
> does this.
>
> It would be annoying even if I were a man, to be doing a simple task and
> have someone male or female --jump in my way and literally try to take it
> out of my hands while I'm working on it--.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 12:01 PM, LinkReincarnate <
> linkreincarnate at gmail.com <http://mc/compose?to=linkreincarnate@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
>
> Benevolent Sexism exists.  I am not here to argue that is does not.  I
> will point out that there is a lot of behavior that overlaps with
> Benevolent Sexist behaviors.  For example I was in the space and  snell was
> trying to get her bike off of the rack.  From my angle I could see that the
> tire was still stuck on the hook so I tried to lift the tire off of the
> hook.  Snell didn't like this and told me to stop. I did.  The only reason
> I could see for her not wanting my help was because I was a man, she was a
> woman, and heavy lifting was involved.   The problem is that I was not
> helping her out of a sense that "she's just a frail woman"  I was helping
> her because I saw what was causing her problems.  (And she appeared to be
> at an angle that obscured the problem) Had she been a man I would have
> still helped remove the bike from the rack.    So while benevolent sexism
> exists lets not go overboard in reacting to perceived benevolent sexism.
> There a lots and lots of prosocial behaviors that overlap with benevolent
> sexism and without knowing the other persons thoughts and motivation for
> initiating an act you cannot tell one from the other.  In other words give
> people the benefit of the doubt.  If you see some behavior that you think
> is benevolently sexist rather than scowl at the person for it, check
> yourself.  Is there a possibility that this person's actions were not in
> fact motivated by my sex?  Is there a possibility that by being so
> hypervigilant for sexism that I am finding false positives?
>
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-- 
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler - Albert
Einstein <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein>
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo Da
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is nothing left to take away - Antoine de Saint
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