Blazing The Trail For Female Programmers

[jaqie]

I think you two are completely misinterpreting eachothers' posts at this point.

irishscott, despite your views would you say that you try to be decent to all people, as well as not intentionally trying to upset or harm anyone?

greenmeters, are you not trying to clarify whether or not irishscott tries to treat others with fairness and not treating women badly? your last post you seemed to be trying to intimate he only says certain things to or about females, and he seems to be trying to say he is equally insulting to everyone... while I disagree with that ideology, I do agree that that is far less harmful than the blatantly sexist people out there.

 

[irishScott]

I think you two are completely misinterpreting eachothers' posts at this point.

irishscott, despite your views would you say that you try to be decent to all people, as well as not intentionally trying to upset or harm anyone?

greenmeters, are you not trying to clarify whether or not irishscott tries to treat others with fairness and not treating women badly? your last post you seemed to be trying to intimate he only says certain things to or about females, and he seems to be trying to say he is equally insulting to everyone... while I disagree with that ideology, I do agree that that is far less harmful than the blatantly sexist people out there.

Of course. I have no innate desire to hurt or upset anyone, and I'm not above modifying my behavior in certain extenuating circumstances (ie: I wouldn't tell a dead baby joke around a woman who just had an abortion, or drink around an alcoholic if they felt uncomfortable with it).

But at the same time, if I'm, say, at a new years party and some woman tells me "I don't want you to drink because it's not Christian", unless she's the hostess I'm not going to stop.

I'd say I'm equally friendly to everyone, at first sight anyway. But I don't tip-toe around people either, nor do I alter my behavior at the slightest indication of discomfort.

 

[GreenMeters]

greenmeters, are you not trying to clarify whether or not irishscott tries to treat others with fairness and not treating women badly? your last post you seemed to be trying to intimate he only says certain things to or about females, and he seems to be trying to say he is equally insulting to everyone... while I disagree with that ideology, I do agree that that is far less harmful than the blatantly sexist people out there.

He may be equally insulting to everyone, regardless of gender, but are the impacts of those insults equal to both genders? One example--If we had a truly egalitarian society, there wouldn't be any different between him telling a male colleague to fuck off or a female colleague. But given the pervasive, patriarchal attitudes of our culture, the results in the two cases are different. Someone who hears him rudely dismiss a male colleague will most likely shrug it off. Someone who hears him rudely dismiss a female colleague will reinforce negative stereotypes that women shouldn't be taken as seriously as men. Of course, the solution here is somewhat straight-forward; it's not that he needs to treat women differently from men, he should just stop being insulting to both genders.

There's tons of examples of how these patriarchal attitudes--how the concept of privilege--have different effects based on gender. Take the blow-up over Obama's comment about a female state AG being attractive. It was a compliment, right? What was the harm? But studies have shown how there was harm. The found people, both males and females, who hear a comment about a woman's appearance, either positive or negative, rate her opinions as less informed/important than those who weren't given a comment about her appearance. This wasn't a problem when it was a man's appearance and opinion under scrutiny.

And of course, there's always this: http://xkcd.com/385/

 

[jaqie]

then the problem just as you said is the public perception of these insults, and is far more widespread than a single person changing could fix. The problem is the receive not give, in your examples.

 

[GreenMeters]

then the problem just as you said is the public perception of these insults, and is far more widespread than a single person changing could fix. The problem is the receive not give, in your examples.

All too true, unfortunately. The struggle to change sexist public perception--to change the patriarchal social mores into something egalitarian--is a long one, and any given individual will only have a small part to play. But on the individual level it's worth keeping in mind how your words and actions affect others (either directly or by influencing their peers), and to keep in mind that the impact of your words on someone from am equal or more privileged group can be vastly different than the impact on someone from a less privileged group.