[Noisebridge-discuss] Benevolent Sexism

Sat Apr 6 23:37:09 UTC 2013

Please disregard this message, while I was writing it, sprutcam started
giving me hell and I got all hasty and shat all over anything I hoped to
hoped to contribute. And now I've got 5 hours of milling and I am now going
to try to dig myself out.
On Apr 6, 2013 2:29 PM, "Corey McGuire" <coreyfro at coreyfro.com> wrote:

> 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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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -Snailssnailssnailssnailssnailssnailssnails
>> ............. _ at y
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -Snailssnailssnailssnailssnailssnailssnails
>> ............. _ at y
>>
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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 Vinci<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Da_Vinci>
> Perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when
> there is nothing left to take away - Antoine de Saint Exupéry<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint_Exup%C3%A9ry>
> Keep It Simple Stupid - Kelly Johnson<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Johnson>
>
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