As part of the group [LWN.net]

As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 4:43 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (guest, #755)
In reply to: As part of the group by yatima
Parent article: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

I skimmed the wiki page, and while I haven't read all of it as yet, the very first thing I come across is "a thread filled with fail".

Look! People being judgemental of others.

That's always fun, too.

I also note that there's a lot of redlink on that page; someone came through and pruned?

Understand this: I don't consider myself to be a racist, or a sexist, or an anythingelsethatcomestomindist -- I realize that such behaviors exist, and I'm agin' em, and I do with that knowledge what is mine to do with it: I exercise it as best I can, when I am dealing with other actual people, in person or (lately, since I'm a department head now) in policy.

Other than that, it's mostly fun to watch both sides shoot at one another, and while I wouldn't characterize any of the things I've posted on this thread as devils' advocate, by any means, I don't have a lot of personal investment in the larger topic because I'm not involved in any major way (except as a customer) with any FOSS projects of any size these days.

If I were in charge of one, and there was a clear problem involving something like this, I'm sure I'd do something about it.

But the situation that's being discussed here, as nearly as I can evaluate it is this:

The basketball players should not cuss at each other and chest bump and call each other names in the locker room, and -- in general, act like male jocks -- *because some female basketball player MIGHT wander up to the locker room door wanting to play*, and they would scare her away by acting like that.

And that's just prima facie unreasonable. Rules for conduct in a small subculture are set by the subculture to suit its members; it has always been thus, and there's no reason it should not continue.

Contemplate, if you will, some girls-club activity that you engage in with other women, and evaluate whether you might all or individually moderate some specific facets of your interactions if the club were suddenly coed.

Now contemplate whether you want to make that change *now*, *just so you're more inviting to men*.

The guy in the nail palace wouldn't get looked at weird cause he's the only guy in the room, he'd get looked at weird because men in USAdian culture are not prone to manicure, and even less so to false nails.

It is very easy to conflate these issues, but it is very important not to.

to post comments

As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 5:07 UTC (Thu) by yatima (guest, #59881) [Link] (10 responses)

A more accurate comparison would be a woman wanting to play basketball and getting death threats for her presumption.

This has happened, twice, on the Debian list.

Contemplate, if you will, some activity that you personally would like to be part of - because you had an aptitude for it, for example, or because you felt it was a good and useful thing to do. Imagine you tried to join in and people threatened to kill you.

Wouldn't you at least try to get them to examine their behavior?

That's all women in open source are trying to do.

As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 5:11 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link] (6 responses)

As I noted, if that happened to me, I would have cops and district attorneys on the phone the next morning; that day if it seemed necessary, and I would be getting people arrested and imprisoned -- that *is* a crime.

It's not sexism, and I would not construe it as "condoned" by other members of a community.

And I think that's a reasonable response, and I'm truly curious as to why other people don't. After a certain point, folks, it is *not* merely ones and zeros anymore, to paraphrase a famous calming suggestion.

Being part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 6:38 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes, that is a great way to enter the amateur basketball team: get a few prominent members imprisoned. If possible get the star player or the alpha male. That teaches the rest to treat you like one of the team.

Recommended watching: Ragtime (1981). It shows how far the courts will get you in getting accepted when you have all bets against you.

Being part of the group

Posted Aug 2, 2009 23:01 UTC (Sun) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link] (1 responses)

So... you're saying: just because that would make the other players not like you, we *shouldn't* Do The Right Thing when someone commits aggravated assault?

Way to stand up for the team there, dude...

Yes, being part of the group

Posted Aug 3, 2009 0:27 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

Are you serious? It seems to me you are being deliberately obtuse, but I will try to give a (very boring) explanation that will have to stand in for something called "empathy". A death threat is not "aggravated assault", it is a verbal action that can sometimes be a crime. In any case the actions to take are up to the threatened person. Reporting a death threat to the police is not always the cleverest route, or even practical: when said threats come from a different country, an anonymous email handle or just an unknown person the judge will not have much grounds or ability to do anything, not to speak about the police. (Do you think they are going to watch your house 24x7 because a stranger from an unknown location sent you an email?)

Formal complaints are not very useful even in the best conditions -- many wives report death threats from their husbands, and the result is just another murder statistic. (Even after an injunction; a guy about to commit murder is not the person most likely to obey a court order.)

So, a formal complaint would probably not achieve anything. On the other hand, it would likely make the reporter be further excluded from the group. Sometimes it's better just to expose the thing and try to make the community react -- at least when there is some will in the group to react.

As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 13:00 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (2 responses)

I'm not sure how threats of hate crimes targeted at women because they're women can be seen as anything other than sexism.

As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 13:08 UTC (Thu) by fuhchee (guest, #40059) [Link] (1 responses)

Well probably, but then again, the thoughtcrime of "sexism" is nowhere near the realcrime of "uttering death threats". In practice, the latter occurs next to never in our community, so while tragic, I do not get much argumentational oomph out of it, so to speak.

As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 13:15 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

A good thing that people are asking for changes in behaviour rather than changes in thought, eh?

As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 5:19 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link] (2 responses)

If you read over Baylink's posts in this thread, and compare to the "derailing for dummies" page, you may note that he's regurgitated nearly every one of them. And thrown a few of anti-feminist bingo in for good measure.

Hypothesis #1: remarkable confluence of clichés.

Hypothesis #2: troll.

As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 5:25 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link] (1 responses)

Hypothesis 3: yet more confirmation bias.

You will always find what you're looking for. I've made my points farily clearly, and avoided purposeful fallacy, and the accidental ones I could spot.

This accusation returns us to ad hominem, pretty much in a textbook fashion.

The site Graydon refers to is this:

http://www.derailingfordummies.com/

I suggest to the people who created it, and to you Graydon, that the humorous approach taken there is dog-whistle sociology, and just as with fundamentalist Republican politics, it endears them to their base, but doesn't win them any arguments.

Libertarian, here, registered, 9 years. No particular pro-Democrat bias inspiring this observation.

As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 5:49 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link]

There is no argument here. You keep thinking there is because you've got your defensiveness on. There is only a related experience that makes you uncomfortable to hear, and then there is you flailing around with every "point" and "argument" or other diversion you can dream up to make the bad emotion go away.

As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 11:46 UTC (Thu) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link] (2 responses)

"And that's just prima facie unreasonable. Rules for conduct in a small subculture are set by the subculture to suit its members; it has always been thus, and there's no reason it should not continue."

One of the key points of the so-called non-sexists' side is that we should change the culture anyway. You know, to be more welcoming to women, who do seem to dislike the typical male competitive culture. This culture, which I do respect, seems to be put down with terms like this:

- terminal testosterone poisoning
- testosterone overload

Add to the mix characterizations of FLOSS male developers. One commenter thought that "many of them" suffer from Asperger's syndrome, or perhaps autism.

Here's a thought experiment. Would I be within my rights to demand somewhat more respectful terminology for male attributes, which have, after all, produced quite a lot of cultural artifacts, engineering and scientific marvels along the thousands of years of slow progress of civilization. I'm not saying women should be excluded, but I'm saying that this discussion treats neither men (or women) fairly.

Further food for thought: http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm

As part of the group

Posted Jul 31, 2009 3:08 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (1 responses)

It's true, some people dislike the "typical male competitive culture" currently common in FOSS communities. (Though all the references to Asperger's/autism that I've seen have been from people defending the status quo.) As a male, I often find it unpleasant myself, for reasons totally independent of its attitude towards women. I'm also not convinced that this culture is exactly "typical" (with its connotations of "natural, "desireable"); but, say we accept the usual stereotypes for a moment -- did I really suffer through high-school just so I could grow up to become an (online) jock?

But.

To me, that's a different discussion. If women don't want to hang around with men "being men" or whatever, then fine, we could debate whether that indicates a problem or not, but it's not what we're seeing here. Women who try to participate in FLOSS face nasty, active discrimination from a number of directions, and if they point this out they're met with a mix of apathy and violent dismissal. I don't think that's acceptable regardless of a subculture's internal values, I don't think it's at all necessary to "male culture", and I certainly don't think it's an example of a positive male attribute that deserves better terminology. Really, this is a very specific point, and one that I hope we can agree on even if we don't see eye-to-eye on other matters. (Do we agree?)

I know it's not the point you necessarily want to talk about, but I find it difficult to discuss the culture in general when some of the people arguing are just using it as a socially acceptable way to shut down the sexism debate. See where I'm coming from?

As part of the group

Posted Jul 31, 2009 13:22 UTC (Fri) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link]

We agree.

The issue is just very multifaceted, and it's easy to try to fix it in some way that produces a worse result than status quo. That's what worries me about all gender politics, which this discussion is an instance of. I think it's a problem of limited attention: people only see the problem they are trying to fix, not the good stuff that also works, but which will be broken by their fix. So that's where I'm coming from.

Unfortunately I have no useful personal experience about the sort of discrimination you are talking about, and I can't really contribute to that discussion.