Re: debian and women? from DWN #10
On 2004-03-26, Steve Lamb penned:
> This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156)
> --------------enig45DB75C5E7FD374844766632 Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> Monique Y. Herman wrote:
>> Sure, there are some quantifiable differences (and many that we could
>> argue about till the cows come home); what I should have asked, and
>> meant to ask, is, *how* would you treat women any differently than
>> men? Especially when your only medium is the keyboard. I have
>> trouble imagining a non-dating, non-pregnancy-related situation in
>> which I would consider being treated differently than a man
>> appropriate. And the only reason I'm considering the dating
>> situation is because I believe you're hetero, and therefore you would
>> certainly treat a woman differently than a man in that situation --
>> simply because you wouldn't be on a date with a man.
>
> Ok, I hate to chime in on this note but this is something that
> has been bugging me as I've looked at portions of this
> coversation and especially in light of the incident from
> BSS/Gobble highlighted earlier on.
>
> You ask here how someone could treat women differently than men
> in this medium. I have to ask, how do you know they're treating
> women differently then men?
I don't think the intention of my question was clear. I was trying to
figure out how it was even possible to treat women much differently in
online forums, and why one would do it. The snippet from my post above
was taken out of context; the parent poster said that he treated women
differently than men, and I was curious about how he did so -- I mean,
you can't hold doors for people in a chatroom, for example.
> Look at the example with BSS/Gooble that was cited. Ok, it was a
> crass message, that goes without saying. Question shouldn't be
> "Wow, do these jerks treat women bad or what?" but rather, "Wow,
> do they sit there and talk smack to each other?" They are two
> subtle questions. Neither excuses what they did but if the
> answer to the latter is that they do talk smack to one another
> they they are, as you seem to want by your question above,
> treating women as they would treat men.
That's an interesting point. I've been in an online community where the
predominant form of discussion seemed to consist of TnA jokes, gay
jokes, etc. Personally, I found it disgusting -- goatse references were
far from the worst being bandied about -- but I was apparently in the
tiny minority. A minority of one. So occasionally I'd rant and rave
about their crassness, but for the most part I just tried to ignore it
and go about my business.
So here's a question. Is using the same language with both groups (male
and female) really non-sexist when one considers the background?
Defining a woman purely by her capability to have sex is considered the
worst of insults; wouldn't most men consider this to be a complement?
I'm not a member of the community in which the Gooble incident occured,
so I can't speak to the typical interaction. If it's indeed true that
most or many interactions among participants were similar to the one
being cited, then that might change my point of view. I'm too tired to
look up the original link right now, but iirc the quote specifically
used the OP's female-ness as a basis for the blowjob crack -- which to
me seems to undermine your whole point. The post was made *because she
was female*, not because that was the tone of the forum.
> See, I like to think that I don't treat women or men differently
> online. Most of my interaction isn't in a technical area; I'm
> more of an online gamer. I don't care what gender a person is, I
> treat them as they treat me and how others they associate treat
> them.
>
> Let me give 3 examples to show what I mean.
>
> Example #1: the MMORPG. Yeah, I play an MMORPG. I treat
> everyone equally. Guy, gal, doesn't matter. They get respect
> and my honest opinion of things. If I'm grouping with them I
> expect them to pull their weight. If they don't I grouse about
> them equally. I'm there to play the game.
>
> Example #2: the MMOFPS. The outfit I'm in has teamspeak. We've
> got one woman who plays all the time. She can smack around the
> enemy as good as anyone else. We're all aware that she's a woman
> because she doesn't let us forget it. I think it was summarized
> best by the one liner she popped off on why her squad was always
> full while the male run squads were often half empty. "I've got
> boobs." That wasn't the reason. She's a fast typer, she's on
> the ball, when people were looking for a squad she'd actually
> notice, drop what she's doing and invite them. People went to
> the first squad leader that invited them. So for the next little
> bit I ran with the joke she started. Every time one of the other
> squad leaders complained she got all the people looking for a
> squad I'd chime in "Hey, just go buy a pair of boobs, they work!"
>
> Example #3: IT office. I was one of those office workers once
> upon a time. Had male and female counterparts; and no, it wasn't
> tech support it was back-end server work. Anyway, did I treat
> the women differently than the men? You bet'cha. I was polite
> and courtious to the women. To the guys I knew I could be crass
> to I was. Ended up being mostly the guys I played poker with
> after work on a weekly basis.
>
> Two cases where women are treated equally. One where all were
> respected because that is what was expected. One where the woman
> was treated like "one of the guys" because that's where she
> wanted to be. One where women were treated better than the guys
> because, well, I dunno, maybe because they didn't play poker. I
> mean I play poker with my fiancee and we're as crass as we can be
> to one another at times.
I don't really think that work environments are good bases for this
discussion. I mean, you have to be on your best behavior at work;
saying the wrong thing, even unintentionally, can get you fired. It
sounds like you were drawing a distinction between buddies and
co-workers, rather than men and women. You know that certain topics are
safe with your buds; you don't know how the co-workers with whom you
don't socialize after work hours will react.
> So when asking "how can you treat women differently" remember
> that treating someone differently can, and often does, go both
> ways. That sometimes people being crass to women is because
> that's the culture their little clique operates in and it isn't
> /just/ because they're a woman. At the same time a lot of the
> politeness might also be because they're a woman.
>
> Does that make the cited example right? Nope. But it doesn't
> make it sexist, either.
Wait a minute.
So if I tell a white person that blacks are dumb, and then I tell a
black person that blacks are dumb, I'm not being racist because I'm
behaving the same way toward both parties?
I can see your point to some extent -- say you have a quake game where
some guy talks about how the guy he just fragged is his bitch. He calls
the next kill, who happens to have a female name, his bitch as well. I
would agree that's not discrimination against that female. The terms
themselves might be misogynistic, though.
--
monique
Reply to: