As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 5:07 UTC (Thu) by yatima (guest, #59881)
In reply to: As part of the group by Baylink
Parent article: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

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.

to post comments

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.