Active discrimination, or feeling oppressed?

Posted Jul 30, 2009 23:38 UTC (Thu) by njs (subscriber, #40338)
In reply to: Active discrimination, or feeling oppressed? by Baylink
Parent article: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

I just checked, and no-one in this particular sub-thread has mentioned death threats besides you. There've been several *other* examples of horrid behavior endured by female FOSS developers, and a discussion of the exact percentages of women in FOSS vs related fields. You clicked reply on that comment and typed "the issue is statistical noise".

Now you say that "the issue" you meant was not, you know, the statistics in the comment you were replying to, but actually the number of death threats specifically?

Point 1: Either you're wildly inarticulate and expect your readers to have magic psychic powers, or you saw the responses you were getting, changed your mind, and are lying about what you originally meant. I realize neither of these is very charitable, but I don't see any other explanation -- feel free to offer one.

Point 2: Assuming you were talking about the statistics of death threats -- why? That's not what we were talking about. If you want to talk about the astonishing rarity of females in FOSS, or harassment in general[1], then that's responsive. Focusing in on death threats and how they're really not a problem just makes it look like you want to quash substantive discussion by changing the subject to something you think you can argue with more effectively.

Point 3: Your comment text here is arguing that 1 death threat in FOSS is a really big deal (you point out that it's a relatively large number given the size of the community, say it "stands out brightly", it's a "much larger ... difference"). But you seem to conclude from this that 1 death threat is not really important. Even assuming you were trying to address the point at hand, your argument makes no sense. (Nor is a death threat a minor occurrence, regardless of statistics, especially when it occurs as part of a broad spectrum of harassment.)

Point 4: Even if your argument made sense, it assumes that death threats are rare and isolated. A quick google reveals that debian-women and LinuxChix (and others) have been receiving regular death threats over a multiple year span. And, of course, even the original article here says "death threats", plural. So where did you get the idea that there was only 1 death threat anyway? It makes you look like you value your preconceptions over facts.

Conclusion: You come across as a sexist troll thrashing about wildly in an attempt to derail the discussion. Stop it.

[1] For example: "The O'Reilly thread about this has discussion of comments like "who'd you sleep with to get that patch accepted?" and how much more bearable things are if [they] adopt a non-female pseudonym."