As an Australian, I was disappointed to see the team attempt to use "Aussie humour" as a shield.
What would have been more Australian would be to harden up and apologise.
Assuming males masturbate only to women = heteronormativity.
Assuming only males have penis = cisnormativity.
Shaming a person expressing their sexuality = slut-shaming.
The pictured "other sex" could as well be the "same sex" for all you know -- OMOPHOBIA! CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE!
I'm just joking, of course, and I agree that this app was immature and not deserving of any space at Disrupt (and goes doubly for Titstare, horrifying). Still, this whole PC thing sometimes can feel like walking on eggshells, as I've just demonstrated to you.
In an already male-biased community the non-inclusivity of demos like these put out a very specific message to women: this is not for you.
The tit staring demo puts out a worse message: this is not for you—you are just a sex object to us.
If you were a female hacker how would that make you feel your work will be judged by your male peers?
Turn it around in your head, if you can, to a position where all industry and powerful roles are controlled by women and an important industry is dominated by women. It holds a conference where there are demonstrations of things that are women-only and where a man's role is reduced to that of sex object. Add to that a lot of cliquey female sex jokes where men are often the but but you are expected to laugh along and shrug it off. Is that a conference you would want to attend? What if you felt you had to to further your career?
If that doesn't work turn it around to Jocks vs Geeks. Imagine you had to go to a Jock conference to further your career. Where the demos were all about football and the jokes were about weedy geeky types. Now imagine that you had to go to conferences like this if you wanted to further your career and you had to put up with an undercurrent of secret sexuality where jocks joked about having sex with geeky boys and demonstrated technology to spy on their genitalia. Even if I was gay I'm sure I'd find that intimidating.
The world of tech needs to move away from this stupidity and be at the forefront of gender equality like it is at the forefront of a lot of new thinking.
Technology can only bring about a better world if the people who create it understand what a better world looks like.
>In an already male-biased community the non-inclusivity of demos like these put out a very specific message to women: this is not for you.
It's just one demo. And it's ok for an app to be not for any specific sex, not that there's any reason why women can't play CircleShake. Not every app should be for everyone.
And I agree that TitStare is terrible. I just don't understand why the completely unrelated app is brought up in the article.
The problem with CircleShake was not the App itself but the sniggeringly-schoolboy manner in which it was presented.
Schoolboy humour is something that boys (and men) do when they get together in all-male environments. It is reasonably harmless in that context.
As soon as you engage in this sort of behaviour in a public context like this you give the signal that this is an all-male environment.
Hacking is not an all-male environment and it should strive to be inclusive. To do that we need to remove the all-male pack behaviour and to do that we need to start by cleaning up our public spaces — conferences, keynotes, demos etc.
Frankly, TitStare was quite funny. In despite of being tits-related, i can't see how a woman could find it offensive (maybe because she has tits too? i can't see the correlation).
It's more about lonely developers staring at tits.
It's funny to see how the tech industry is passing thru its "feminist" age and just can't understand that THERE ARE differences between men and women, which doesn't mean anyhow that one is better than the other. They are just different. Liking tits is completely normal for a man, joking on it is too. Sexism is something different, a much bigger and subtle problem, against which (too often) women themselves do not react.
It's more than that. Playing devil's advocate means you're expressing the opposite point of view when you don't really hold that point of view, but you're doing it to prove a point.
Rubbish. It was about objectifying women. It had nothing to do with lonely developers. These were two boofhead Australians who sadly exist in my part of the world who used women's bodies as a joke so they could get a quick laugh.
There are too many "men" like this in Sydney. I use the word "men" loosely.
Let me understand, anything sex-related which isn't expressed in scientific or moral terms has to burn in hell, right? Mainly because it is "objectifying" and insulting.
Sometimes having a good laugh is a lot smarter than creating a political situation out of nothing. I think this is the case.
Fine, I'll respond then. If some women don't find it offensive, all I need to find are women who did find it offensive, belittling, discouraging or isolating.
Or some men who believed it was offensive, belittling, discouraging or isolating to women. Like myself and a bunch of others.
This hypothetical is not useful. You don't have to take it as an arbitrary "axiom" for the argument; you could empirically measure some of the women who are offended by this talk.
The reason why it's useful is because in your case (empirically measure) it becomes at best "relative". There may be cultures / societies where woman desire men to stare at their breasts. In this case his argument would mean naught.
Maybe? My point is, empirically, we are not in that culture!
Edit: oh wait... You're saying that maybe the guys in the presentation are not reducing women to their physical bits, but actually treating them as human beings who like being treated this way? If so there is a simple way to disprove it: The women can't say "no". Since the women are not given any agency, they are not being treated as human beings but as mere objects with no control over how their bodies are used.
I think we would be better served if we stopped seeing everything as sexist or not sexist and determining that if a thing is not, then everyone should shut up and leave it alone.
Instead, let's dispense with the labels or making anyone out to be bad and simply think about our moms. There are countless things that are not sexist or wrong in any capacity, whatsoever. You still wouldn't feel comfortable doing them around your mom.
If it would feel awkward around your mom, then it might not be appropriate for a lot of wider audiences. Especially where we are potentially involving a professional capacity.
If there was a hypothetical "dickstare" app for woman (to objectify men and their body parts) I wouldn't make a big deal of it.
Seems to me a lot of woman do objectify men. For example when I'm browsing the Dutch Viva forums, there are plenty of topics on so called "fuck buddies". Male friends that are not relationship material but good enough for sex.
Some topics from the last few weeks are:
* Traineeship Suriname[1]: a topic about a Dutch girl that is going for a traineeship in Suriname and she has a certain fetish for black people and is mainly interested in having sex with said people.
* Do you have a fuck buddy[2]: an inquiry of which readers from the forums have a fuck buddy.
Another example could be some Coca-Cola commercials [3][4]. Do we feel (as men) offended by how these commercials objectify our gender?
Both genders objectify each other on a regular basis. There isn't even anything wrong with that (unless objectifying each other is the whole of your entire concept and interaction with the other gender).
The issue here is pretty clear cut. It wasn't appropriate for the setting in which it was presented. Nothing more. A stupid app, Cosmo magazine, pinup posters, physical attraction, and so on aren't really relevant and don't need to be inherently demonized.
Yeah, there is something wrong with objectification. When you reduce someone to an impersonal object, with no regard to their dignity or personality, you dehumanise them. You can essentially do what you will with them.
Guess what? People I don't know in a porn video performing sexual acts as their profession in order to sexually arouse people watching them are "impersonal objects". So are male and female models who exist as clothing-racks or make-up canvases. Musicians and actors exist to entertain and their dignity and personality are not relevant. My garbageman is a guy who exists to make my cans of trash go away.
Even you, as highly as you must regard every human interaction in your every moment of existence, surely deal with a great number of people on a regular basis who exist simply to perform a function that you benefit from.
As for "you can essentially do what you will with them"... I think that speaks more to you than anyone who enjoys porn, strippers, pinup posters, musicians, dancers, actors, or anyone else that they have no personal regard for. That statement is kind of like a religious person finding out that I'm an atheist and incredulously responding with "if you don't believe in god, how come you're not out raping and murdering people?!".
Sadly for me, I struggle with sexual objectification of women. If there was one aspect of my life I wish I cold change instantly, that would be it. I work on it daily.
However, when I deal with a garbageman, I treat him with respect because I know he's a human being doing his work. I don't see him as just a garbageman, though I interact with him with that primary purpose. But I can honestly never say I've ever considered my garbageman as only "someone who makes my garbage go away". This would allow me to be an arsehole to him while he is doing his job.
Lets say you see the garbageman fall over and break his leg. I'll bet you'd call an ambulance. Congratulations if this is the case, he is no longer just someone who takes away your garbage - you have not objectified him.
I never interact with clothes models, but then I don't look at the clothes model when I look at a catalog (not consciously anyway), mostly at the clothes. If I was to interact with them, then I would hope not to treat them as just an object.
When I watch a good movie, I interact with the character the actor plays - I don't objectify the actor in this case. I knowmthenactor is acting, and appreciate them for their personality and performance.
As for strippers and porn: I've never been to a stripshow in my life, and will never do so. I've had plenty of opportunities, but have always declined. Why? I don't want to objectify the strippers. And I don't want them objectifying me as the punter.
For porn: that's something I try to avoid at all costs. Not easy.
Specifically, it makes the women in the audience feel like they are only wanted for their tits and nothing else. It throws away the rest of the woman and says, we only need the tits.
And to me this sounds as racist as any casual sexism I hear in the workplace. Why did you need to re-iterate -- in a negative manner -- that they were Australians, and that this somehow explains their behaviour?
OK -- I wrote that before realising that you are also living in Australia (and I assume a male citizen), but I'm still not sure that makes it any better...
I didn't say all Australians are boofheads. I said some Australians are boofheads. And I never said it explains or condones their behaviour that they are Australians. Doesn't help stereotypes!
The prank wasn't brought to light with the intention of offending women. It's a play on an activity with men, we look at boobs. Not everything involving sex is made with the objective of targeting someone, it's just a joke. If you fail to see it as such, that's your problem.
It's more about objectification of women it doesn't matter if it is lonely developers doing it. It is disrespectful. What are the women who attended this hackathon supposed to think. Do you think they would feel like they are valued for the ideas and knowledge they bring, or their tits?
I have asserted that it's not so much that it in itself is disrespectful. It is disrespectful that they would not take into consideration that some of their audience may be made awkward by it (and a person can feel awkward about many things which are not necessarily bad in any way).
You need to learn that what is considered (possibly socially) acceptable behaviour amongst your friends, is not necessarily acceptable in the workplace.
If you want a definition of the workplace, it includes hacker meetups, youtube videos, presentations etc. where people of all social groups come together to discuss or create code. I have a very twisted sense of humour that many would find offensive. At work though I keep that side of myself under wraps, not out of a sense of fear but of respect.
The bottom line is this: by collectively changing our behaviour to be less offensive (from the point of view of gender, sexuality, race, religion etc.) then people from those groups feel more safe and secure in that environment. If women truly felt comfortable to enter into the currently male dominated tech industry we get a bigger talent pool to choose from - the competition and skillset increases. Now re-read that sentence substituting 'women' and 'male dominated' with any minority/majority pairing and we start to see how much bigger we can make the number of available programmers.
It may seem dull to have a workplace that's so sterile and inoffensively humourless, but it's work, not a bar.
And i do totally agree with you on this. Both presentations were pointless, stupid, superficial and idiotic.
Still, the point here is not about sexism, but about (as you mentioned) idiots being on stage presenting something they had to keep for themselves or for their local meetups.
Nowhere did I say that I "know what the whole group of Women is thinking". It's a bit ironic that you precede that with "Women find tit jokes funny" which could be interpreted as you saying that you in fact do know.
But I do know for a fact that some women, in fact some people do not find them funny. Which is what I did say.
Please prove to me that the majority of women or even a large portion are offended. Nobody has done that yet.
Furthermore, even if you could prove that - percentage has nothing to do with it. That is a completely arbitrary qualifier. Offending people is a birth given right. Get over it.
> Given the response that occurred in the media and in general...
The media is your measuring stick? The same media that regularly objectifies women in your opinion? That's rich. You should probably go think about that some more.
You and all the whiners just like you are the ones complaining about tit jokes, so you prove it.
Seeing as I never gave any opinion on the question of "Does "the media" regularly objectify women or not", it's irrelevant, despite you erroneously attributing that to me. It's a derailing tactic.
> Given the response that occurred in the media and in general...
So no, it's not a derailing tactic. And if you didn't notice, this thread is three pages to the right. There's nothing to derail.
When you're having a conversation in person, do you accuse them of being a Troll and derailing the conversation when they respond to your ridiculous assertions?
Give me a fucking break. This is like arguing with a three year old. OK fine, you can have the last word if it's so important to you. I've already torn apart every single point you think you've made, so fuck off.
If someone repeatedly said things in person like "Give me a fucking break" and "fuck off" and being generally disrespectful, while asserting that "I've already torn apart every single point you think you've made" and regularly misreading what's being said and failing to address the substantial point then yes, I would call them immature.
People on HN generally start off with a reasonable amount of respect from me - more so than Reddit or 4chan for instance. I've never seen anyone piss it away so rapidly before though.
Not to mention, there were a lot of arguments he made about not being concerned about being offended, then he got offended and started getting abusive. Ironic.
No. I like them quite a bit. But it is sexist to make an app to encourage men to ogle random women's breasts and submit photos while doing so, to an audience of men and women.
I understand that you're attempting to imply that showing consideration demonstrates an admittance of guilt. I'm afraid that's not a compelling argument.
It's inconsiderate, because it could potentially make some members of the audience uncomfortable or self-aware. This would not be a concern if you knew the comportment of your audience. Snoop Dogg doesn't present himself or his content the same way on David Letterman that he does at a concert.
Someone being uncomfortable with your content doesn't invalidate it nor does your taking their discomfort into consideration in either content or presentation.
It shows that you are a mature human being with empathy.
Did I indicate anywhere that some people don't have the opposite, poorly formed opinion? I don't give a shit. If they try censorship, I say offend them even more until THEY accept that not everyone agrees with them.
But can you agree that these people complaining about tit jokes are not accepting many other people's opinion that tit jokes are funny and that people should be free to joke about them if they wish?
> But can you agree that these people complaining about tit jokes are not accepting many other people's opinion that tit jokes are funny and that people should be free to joke about them if they wish?
Hell no. This is standard derailing junk. It goes "my freedom to be an arsehole and drive people away is just as important as other people's desire to work in an arsehole-free environment." It's childish and inconsiderate.
> How so?
I leave it to you to work out what the petulant part of "I say offend them even more" is.
I am capable of disagreeing without resorting to abusive and threatening behaviour. While trying to understand what the other person is saying. Skills that you could learn.
You should learn how to think logically about things and then you won't be so offended all the time at the world around you.
Nobody fucking threatened or abused you - that's just your weak minded tactic for appearing to be a victim. Oh look, poor you. It's the same weakness that causes you to be offended at tit jokes.
Sexism is the assertion that one sex is inferior to the other, usually because of or alongside assertion of stereotypes of that gender.
Misogyny is the hatred of women.
Neither word really has anything to do with being attracted to the sexuality of the other gender. Neither word really has anything to do with simply being unkind, mean, or insensitive. Unfortunately, we often seem to throw these labels on people (labels which stick and aren't too dissimilar from calling someone a racist or homophobe) when they're not really relevant. Having a poster of a sexualized woman or buying videogames with attractive women on the poster or laughing at a joke about the other gender or saying a particular person of the other gender is an idiot are -- while unkind and inconsiderate -- not generally matters of discrimination, superiority, or "hate".
Frankly, I feel we do a disservice to the value of these words in describing actual sexism and actual (but rare) misogyny by throwing them at everything under the sun that makes someone a little uncomfortable or is anything short of respectful. Of course, even suggesting that we should be more careful of our use of these words, I am now probably both of them.
You do not have a fully defined view of sexism there. One other part of sexism is sexual objectification, which reduces the person or whole gender to an instrument of sexual pleasure, without any view of the person's dignity or humanity.
The screen literally just had tits. The whole point of the app was to look at tits. There was nothing else of a woman involved. They really did just take the "tits" part and exclude the rest!
I'm not talking about every guy on the planet. But I think it's very clear that whoever made this app thought, "Know what? We should make an app that just has tits. Nothing else, just tits."
More to the point: the women are being used in a way that is completely determined by the user of the app, instead of being given any kind of consideration as people.
Tits are part of people. I have tits. People have tits and I like people and I like their tits. Without people, there are no tits. How many different ways can I say this? I don't like tits that are disconnected from people. That's disgusting.
If I am staring at a woman's tits - I am certainly giving her whole person my consideration, even though my eyes can only look at one thing at a time. WTF would I do with just a pair of tits?
No, the reason I'm looking is that I probably want more.
I am certainly giving her whole person my consideration
This app removes the women's ability to participate in the exchange at all. They have no control and are presented in a way that is completely in control of the user. When you remove her ability to decide how her body is being used, you are not considering her as a whole person. It's not about tits.
I just don't share the black-and-white view of the world that you may.
Objectification can be a component of sexism, but in and of itself is not sexist. It is a natural part of human existence demonstrated by both genders on a regular basis in a variety of ways. It is even the entire foundation of initial human attraction. It is not inherently wrong.
Men and women dance at strip clubs. They objectify the customers and the customers objectify the strippers. Hell, my butcher is an object that gives me steak for money and that is all we know of each other. That's okay. You are not obligated to regard everyone as a whole all the time.
We need to stop asserting that every interaction with each person (real or fictional, in person or entertainment) requires a holistic appreciation of every atom of their humanity.
If you objectify all human beings, you share a common trait of sociopaths. If the entirety of your view and interaction with the other gender is based on objectification, then you are probably sexist and have serious issues to deal with. If neither of these are the case, then you are probably a normal human being.
I don't want to spend 8 hours a day in a sterile humorless environment where everyone is scared to say something wrong on the off chance that someone might get offended. Moreover the old work/free time duality is dying. People work form home and do non-work stuff at work.
I totally understand this (and jnardiello and pstack's points too). As a counterpoint, I also know of at least one female dev who would think nothing of discussing an app like the one above and joining in the laughs.
I suppose the problem is, do we need to vet everyone for sharing the same humour and standards of acceptability as us? If we're joining the same football team or going to a comedy club and some beers, I wouldn't particularly enjoy hanging out with someone as dull/safe as I am at work. But is it ok to say to a woman, "We'd love to welcome you onboard so long as you don't mind the dick jokes constantly flying around the office."? (Whether explicitly or implicitly, I don't think it is ok).
If we really want to solve the clique-problem in tech, we need to either change the boundaries of acceptable humour and behaviour. No-one wants to spend 8 hours a day in a "sterile humorless environment". I know I had the most fun coding in my early 20s in an office where 90% of us were just out of university and male.
There are going to be more tradeoffs towards inclusiveness as we go forward. Even it reduces the fun sometimes, I think it's the right thing to do.
In short, there is nothing wrong with the comedy of, say, Chris Rock, but it would probably not be a good fit for a professional working environment. Even if outside of that working environment every single person there would be laughing along with his vulgar set.
What these guys did can be both a poor choice and not wrong.
You've made a good utilitarian argument for why the biased gender views in tech should be abolished. I think this will convince some people. But it's worth mentioning that making other people comfortable around you is something that is worth it on its own merits.
Refusing to bother with making other people comfortable unless there is a benefit, which some hacker types tend to do, is really a sociopathic personality trait.
//i can't see how a woman could find it offensive //
Feminism won't be required the day men understand why a woman would find it offensive. Imagine being a man in a room full of women in a society ruled over by women and all women are laughing at a penis stare app. Today you'd say "Oh I would find it funny too", but that's male privilege. We live in a male dominated society so you fail to see why women would not find a tit stare app funny.
No, I mean the gender that has more than a thousands of deaths per year at the hands of their partners, and of which 20% is raped at least once in their adulthood.
Bit regardless of that, if you think a majority can`t be oppressed, I suggest you learn some history.
Really? It's impossible for you to see how women at a tech conference could get the impression that they aren't valued for their ideas and skills when an app to look at tits gets a prominent spot?
I sometimes think that the persistent claims of sex discrimination in tech are a bit over-the-top, but in this instance it's quite obvious. This stunt was very poorly thought out.
It's not about intent, it's about perception. Using or building a tit-staring app may or may not imply that the guy in question respects women less for their technical merits, or judges them on looks rather than skills.
The problem is that as a technical woman in the audience, you will be very likely to perceive such an initiative as something that detracts from your personal values (professional merit, technical skills). This is doubly true in the tech community, where women are a minority, and is separate from the question of whether technical guys actually disrespect women. This kind of initiative is bad regardless. I'm pretty sure, though, that you will find a correlation between tit-staring and actual discrimination. Women as a minority in technical communities already have a hard enough time coping with the pressure to perform "in spite of their gender", there is no point in making it tougher for them.
When we use words like "objectification" in the context of sex discrimination in tech, it's really just an abstraction over valuing women less than men regarding technical skills. A lot of smart people will consider this a weasel-word, but it has a foundation in actual social mechanisms.
Put that way, it may make sense...My problem is that almost everyone is reacting as if the intention of that presentation was to demean or objectify women rather than make light of the fact that men do stare at tits. Still, I'd go for both men and women understanding each other over political correctness. Reason, this will eventually lead to men only events http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=5811.
I wouldn't go for making men uncomfortable around women any more than making women uncomfortable around men. The solution, I believe, lies somewhere in between men appreciating that some things are rude in certain contexts and women appreciating that men may make certain jokes without any ill intent. Also, in my experience, in offices that are balanced, gender wise, such jokes are not uncommon; it's a thing people do.
Yeah, I agree with these points, and I believe the last one is a big deal. The ideal would be a tech community where there is a suitable balance in all respects. It doesn't provide any benefit if a lot of people have to self-censor in the name of political correctness. When people claim that this is necessary, they are missing the point. This is a nuanced situation where it would be very easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The PyCon incident perfectly illustrated this.
Let me preface this by saying that I'm frustrated on a regular basis by the claim that everything is sexist, because labeling someone who isn't with that word can be just as harmful. Especially in the tech industry and gaming and geekery. Even more, I'm put off by the almost constant misuse of the word "misogyny". It is never used for what the word really means. It just sounds good, so people throw it around.
However, as thick headed and unapologetically thick-skinned I assert myself to be and expect others to be, I can absolutely see why women would have a problem with this in this particular environment.
Let me present a really shoddy analogy (but it's all I've got at the moment):
I am obese. I attend a tech conference full of professionals in my industry. Friends, colleagues, potential connections, people I admire. Someone then comes on stage and does a presentation about fat people. It's an app that focuses on how fat people are. For humor. And they attempt to make a lot of humor about it. And the audience around me is laughing.
Now, I'm super fat. I'm more than aware of that. I know that people around me are, too. I have a good sense of humor. I'm even happy to make myself the ass-end of a joke about my weight. However, when I am in a huge room full of people laughing at a presentation making light of people like me, I suddenly feel incredibly awkward, self-aware, embarrassed, and like I'm not wanted there. Maybe that I don't even belong there. So, I stop going. I stop supporting. I stop participating.
It's all about context and having a little tact. These guys used pretty poor judgement. I don't think they should be strung up or driven out of town for it. They should just be an example of how people with no ill-intentions can end up making other people really uncomfortable and how that is something you need to be sensitive to when acting in any professionally related capacity.
I'm tired of seeing everything linked to sexism in tech. Moreover, sexism isn't a female only problem: try (as a male) to get a job in a kindergartn or a nursery school.
I do not justify sexism in the tech industry, I'm trying to resize and put into perspective the phenomenon. If you add up all the jobs that are the preserve of women (mostly retail, where face-to-face communication is needed) you can actually see that sexism in the tech industry, in the grand scheme of things, is a pretty small matter. If you think I'm being hyperbolic just take a look at job ads for common jobs like barista, sales rep., PR, call centers operator, etc.
There are definitely sexism problems in education. Especially kinder, pre-school, and primary school levels. This also has flow on effects to the IT sector. 80% women teachers is a common amount in countries like UK/Australia. Not sure of the stats in other countries.
The IT sector is doing better in addressing the problems compared to Education sector. The IT sector has made some good progress in the last few years. Some companies are going from 0%-20% to 40% women. There are outreach programs at many conferences and in many open source groups. If you look at the conference websites for teachers you don't see the same efforts. Lots left to do though.
I think the IT industry can take pride in it has accomplished in comparison to education in recent years. IT is doing well compared to the journalism industry too (male dominated).
Still lots left to do, and just because some industries are doing badly it doesn't mean we can't do better. But we also shouldn't ignore the good progress we have made.
Feminism is about the equality of opportunity and power.
You cannot create a picture of equal sexism by demonstrating a low-power, low-economic status, low opportunity-of-career-advancement role (that has traditionally been a female-only occupation due in-part to traditional gender-specific roles around child-rearing) where men who choose to enter it are viewed with scepticism. Especially if that role includes close, private contact with young children.
Feminists like me want an equal share of the good jobs for women throughout all strata of all industries. Men will undoubtably have to take up some of the low-paid shit jobs to compensate—but that is equality.
Sexism is a female only problem and will continue to be as long as men hold most of the power and are afforded most of the best opportunities.
How many female developers does your company have?
Mine has 0/6. My previous company, that actively sought female developers had around 15%, the company before that had 3 out of 100+, before that one out of 30.
Women make up 51% of the population and, at least in the UK, are getting better school results in science & maths than men.
And yet what percentage of the developer population is female? 10%? more? less?
So it looks like either the companies are not taking the more competent developers or the women are less competent.
Are you therefore claiming that female developers are less competent than male developers?
Do you realize that preventing someone from getting a job because "has traditionally been a female-only occupation due in-part to traditional gender-specific roles around child-rearing" and that "men who choose to enter it are viewed with scepticism" is the very definition of sexism?
Sexism isn't about the industry or about career advancement is about discrimination against a gender for a given category of jobs.
You had me up until "Sexism is a female only problem". This is provably false for any sane definition of sexism. Try being a male nurse or kindergarten teacher, getting an allegation of sexual abuse taken seriously, looking at the statistics of criminal charges vs. convictions by gender etc.
Sexism is not a problem for men as long as men hold most of the power and are afforded most of the best opportunities.
Equality is not about uniformity — it is about the overall balance.
You are picking small examples where women outnumber men and are claiming cause and effect. Show me a genuinely powerful organisation or occupation that discriminates against men and I'll fight it with you.
Looking at Kindergarten teachers is a red herring. Look at board members, police & army chiefs, presidents, government minsters, nobel prize winners etc. THat's where the power is so that is where the sexism is.
You are using an extremist definition of sexism. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree; when this is the foundation I could never agree with you.
I think that this uncompromising attitude harms your cause rather than help it, though. I am a big proponent of equality of opportunity, fighting for it whenever I see gender discrimination in my regular circle. But this adversarial form of feminism makes otherwise compromising men dig in their heels, and you end up with a battle of the sexes rather than the possibility for change. I will never support a cause that claims that 50% of the world's population is exempt from the right to claim discrimination. Thankfully only part of the feminist movement has views that are this extreme.
I'm amazed that you would think mine is an extremist view.
If you have a major flood in your garden you don't rush to sort out a dripping tap. First you tackle the flood then you investigate the tap. Anyone shouting 'the tap, the tap!' would be quite rightfully lambasted as unhelpful.
Nursing & childcare are statistically women-only due to sexism against women, not due to sexism against men. These are low-paying, low-power jobs where only the bosses tend to be male.
If some women are protectionist about men joining their ranks (which, by the way, I highly doubt until I see some evidence — I have met many of both) it is probably due either due to fears of pedophilia (almost certainly unfair) or due to fears that men will be promoted over them (very real).
Anti-male sexism in the work-place is a red-herring. It is a minuscule problem compared to anti-female sexism and, to my ears, carping on about it sounds as misplaced as white males going on about being discriminated by ethnic minorities.
The Hacker Community's greatest flaw -- a total disregard for predecessors -- may also be its saving grace.
On one hand, we guffaw at those "old timers" who worked in assembler, Fortran, C, or even Perl. "They could never have even imagined what they were missing," we might think to ourselves as we re-discover continuation-passing style while coding our latest, greatest node.js-based file server.
On the other hand, I think there's a good chance that Alexandra, and the rest of the next generation of programmers, will one day think that "rockstars", "ninjas", and "brogrammers" are as ridiculous and outdated as talking sock-puppets or anthropomorphic paperclips.
I don't know if there exists such an app, but it would probably not be considered sexist. Just like affirmative action / employment equity is not considered racist.
The presenters should not get a response such as "the audience laughed at the numerous tit-related puns." or "The audience found it hilarious." Instead they should have instead met deadly silence, not booing, nothing. Don't feed the troll.
Yes, they had inappropriate ideas, yes, they should not have been let near the stage - but why did we give them the response they were after?
Respecting women doesn't start with pointing fingers at other people, it starts with the individual doing so.
This is actually a good example why you should have a code of conduct as a conference. Bad things on stage happen. As an organizer, you can now write an apology that sounds like the one techcrunch wrote:
* "Sorry, we had people on stage that violated the rules we agreed upon beforehand. <list of rules from CoC> They were expelled from the conference immediately."
And that would actually seem to be a really reasonable progression for this whole thing. The presenters say "we made an unfortunate judgement call and we apologize" and the conference says "so from now on, here's our short list of rules to avoid uncertainties in the future" and then we all grow up and move on with our lives.
Unfortunately the tech industry seems to be enamoured with not merely being offended, but being offended by the potential that they could have been offended. So we'll circle the drain with everyone beating the drum in support of their own personal agendas for awhile more before this is over.
By that time, someone else will have done something dumb and we'll be ready to have another go.
This was both a massive waste of time and effort. A truly interesting app would be one that measures facial symmetry. Humans tend to appreciate symmetrical features, same length of arms, legs, eye alignment, etc. I can see where this too could be abused, sadly. But at least it would have a marginally better chance to have a market. And it would provide a interesting technical challenge.
While I agree with your point, I don't see how being physically attracted to a person's symmetry is any different than being attracted to the dimensions of their hips or the size of their breasts other than being more presentable to an audience. It would be more sensible from the standpoint of the presentation, but any of those people pitchforking over focusing on physical attraction to physical attributes of human beings in this thread would have to maintain the same incredulity over one measuring each body part for symmetry.
How can people be angry about this? I thought it was quite funny. It's quite sexist to say that this app is sexist.
I come from the feminist extreme country Sweden and are well known with the feminist agenda. This article makes me angry, not the pleasant, funny guys presenting just a for-fun app. This whole debacle is so not necessary and could be avoided. I, like many guys in Sweden are very tired of being called sexist when you're not and tired of the feminists altogether.
I guess the US / UK haven't had enough of feminism yet.
When you gear an entire industry to the immaturity of male youth, what do you expect?
I'm a 46 year old male with almost 20 years of various IT experience (systems administration to .net coding to sql server) and the terms rockstar, ninja, brogrammer don't apply, nor appeal to me. I would argue that the entire IT industry is to blame for this bullshit.
Stop, just for a moment, to think about the culture you're manifesting in the words you use to describe your workforce. Rockstar? Really? Because most "rockstars" wash up, burn out, fade away or simply die and the fall is as quick as the rise.
As a woman in tech, I'd like to thank the men in this thread who obviously get what the problem is here. This sort of stuff can only change with a concerted effort from both men and women to change the culture. And it's small steps like standing up to sexist jerks and calling out people who engage in activities like this that will get us closer to our destination.
Really, men in tech need to stop thinking that they're somehow not part of the problem and are therefore free to make jokes about it.
You become part of the problem when you do stuff like this.
You don't see white people going around using the word "nigga" lightly, why should it be OK for this sort of joke to be made at a tech conference? It's not OK. It may never be OK. So just stop doing it. You're not Louis CK, you didn't make a career of comedy. Don't think you can tread the line of these social issues and not have it blow up in your face.
I am also a woman in tech, and I have been writing code for a living in the last 15-20 years. I didn't find titstare presentation offensive or demeaning. In fact I laughed quite a bit when they presented it.
Even if women are not included in the brogrammers club, I don't find much discrimination in the work environment either. If you are great at what you do, you have the same chance as anybody else. My 2 cents.
This highlights major problems our community suffers while the comments here clearly demonstrate a few more. It's all very disappointing. We are not doing ourselves any favours here.
1. Many male developers assume that they are in an all-male environment and behave as if they are. Sniggering schoolboy humour, edgy jokes, sexual jokes are a part of young male pack behaviour that is relatively harmless in all-male environments. In mixed environments they are not only inappropriate but they send the signal to other people that this is a young, male environment. Only.
To be inclusive we need to drop the male pack mentality. It is right to call out this behaviour, especially in public environments: conferences, keynotes, hacker sessions. It is also right to call-out all-male speaker-panels for the same reason.
2. Something 'sexy' is not automatically 'sexist' — it all depends where the power is. A tits-tracking app is (apart from being male-pack humour) an example of those with the power in the room making fun at the expense of those less powerful in the room. It is also 'objectification' — the reinforcement of a women's place as being an object to look at or to have sex with, rather than being an intellectual equal. The women in the room are expected to laugh it off or be subject to more ridicule: "it's just a bit of fun" — This is classic bullying behaviour. As long as these rooms are mostly full of men, women will be powerless to do anything about it. It's no surprise that the fight-back starts only once these incidents hit the internet: our community is bullying women.
3. A group of women ironically creating a pack-track app that tracks penises wouldn't automatically be sexist. It would almost certainly be funny and ironic for two reasons: 1) the balance of power is against the women 2) they would be shining a light onto male-pack behaviour. Men, still holding the balance of power here, should be able to laugh such a thing off. Sadly many of you here wouldn't.
4. Commentators here have a fundamental misunderstanding of what Feminism and Sexism is. They are confusing equality with uniformity.
Feminism is a civil rights movement. It is about equality of power and opportunity for women. Much like anti-racism it isn't about people making jokes about each other: it is about segregated jobs, inequality of opportunity, economic discrimination.
Seeking equality is not the same as seeking uniformity. Just because you can find an example where women have more jobs in a sector doesn't mean that it is sexism against men. It is often the opposite: low-paid caring jobs around cleaning and child-rearing. The low-pay & low-power is the result of years of sexism, as is the usual case where men who get into these roles quickly rise through the ranks and far more likely to become bosses (despite their under-representation). Some women protect these environments as all-women precisely to give them a chance at promotion. While I don't condone this behaviour I can at least understand it.
Equality is the big picture; the balance of the scales. Men still hold the top jobs, the powerful jobs: Judges, Police Chiefs, Prime Ministers, Presidents, Board Members. Equality of opportunity is the ability to rise through the ranks based on ability not sex.
5. Most sexism is silent. We do it without knowing we are doing it. Men appoint men because the other men are men like themselves. Men know how to talk to men; Geeky men more-so. We fill our conferences with men, our panels with men, our keynotes with men because it is an easy thing to do. We promote bright young men because they remind us of ourselves. We tell ourselves that we are simply picking the best.
Combating this silent sexism is hard. As long as all we see is men everywhere then we will continue to be silently sexist and women will continue to silently vote with their feet.
6. It is sexist to say that men are better at programming than women...
1. Quite the opposite, the woman may feel included, but it's a farce, she isn't one of the guys as long as the guys can't be themselves while she is around. Resentment can form this way
2. Objectification it is, but I don't agree that that is wrong. You're trying to force a societal expectation over a natural process. More or less it's 'you should have interest in me because of all my qualities, not the sexual ones'. That is a bizarre rewiring of male sexual psychology pushed by non-males, I don't buy it.
3. keyword 'ironic' if a group of men 'ironically' made anything then it isn't automatically sexist. A group of women non-ironically a pack-track app that tracks penises IS sexist. Why? By the same definition you used above, objectification and a supposedly male belief that I am more than a penis and testicles.
(Ironic that men have blow up dolls for sex, and women have a disembodied penis known as a dildo: talking about objectification and not considering the whole of a human!)
4. No feminism WAS a civil rights movement. If anything it is an ever shifting term that has evolved since it's inception. It is no longer about equality and opportunity, it is now about special rights and privileges (family court system, maternity leave etc.) (my view)
You're right, an example of an unbalanced gender work force is not indicative of sexism. Which goes both ways! That means that just because women hold most teaching jobs doesn't mean men are actively pushed away from it, maybe they don't want to teach. Much like your counter point. Just because men hold powerful jobs doesn't mean that women are actively barred from it, they may not want to be in it! I have yet to see one well done study that has convinced me of this. Anecdotes aren't effective.
Equality is about opportunity, that may not be reflected in a statistically perfect 50%. Men and women are different, and they can like different jobs. The end goal is freedom, not an enforced literal numbered equality.
That was tried in communist systems and people were much more miserable because of it.
5. Most sexism is silent. We do it without knowing we are doing it. Women appoint women because the other women are women like themselves. Women know how to talk to women; Social women more-so. We fill our conferences with women, our panels with women, our keynotes with women because it is an easy thing to do. We promote bright young women because they remind us of ourselves. We tell ourselves that we are simply picking the best.
Combating this silent sexism is hard. As long as all we see is women everywhere then we will continue to be silently sexist and men will continue to silently vote with their feet.
You see what I did there? It can easily be applied to Nursing. So now, do we have a sexist epidemic in nursing, on the eve of a geriatrics explosion? I don't hear ANYONE complaining about that and I am sure that is because of some very sexist reasons.
6.Women make up 51% of the population... they should therefore be over 50% of our community. Bad assertion. Really bad assertion. You're equating numeric equality with actual equality. You're assuming that women want these jobs enough to be 50%. You're assuming they are like men. I for one think they are individuals, not automatons and can have their own interests.
This is somebody's fault and most probably ours. Also a bad assertion. With what unbiased reasoned study did you find this?
If we are throwing away half the talent how can we possibly be hiring the best?
Half of whom we hire must be sub-standard!
Say the top 1% is 'the best'. The entire industry cannot hire the best, unless you want 99% of the workforce unemployable for IT related fields.
2nd. Half of whom we hire must be substandard? No that isn't the case at all, probably the majority of whom you hire is standard (assuming a typical skill distribution)
More women in...
1. Quite the opposite, the woman may feel included, but it's a farce, she isn't one of the guys as long as the guys can't be themselves while she is around. Resentment can form this way
That's the point. The guys aren't supposed to be 'themselves' whatever that means, they are supposed to be working — as part of a team. There is already resentment: that is why there is a need for equality at work.
2. Objectification it is, but I don't agree that that is wrong. You're trying to force a societal expectation over a natural process. More or less it's 'you should have interest in me because of all my qualities, not the sexual ones'. That is a bizarre rewiring of male sexual psychology pushed by non-males, I don't buy it.
'You're trying to force a societal expectation over a natural process'
The objectification of women by men is societal, not natural: not all cultures do it & not all men do. Nature is far more complicated than you suggest: there aren't just two genders there is a sliding scale of gender. Does you idea of 'male sexual psychology' include gay men? transgender men?
At work you should have interest in me because of my skills no matter my gender or sexual orientation.
3. keyword 'ironic' if a group of men 'ironically' made anything then it isn't automatically sexist.
Not true. Some things a group of men 'ironically' make won't be automatically sexist. But many things meant to be ironically sexist and/or peurile just end up being demeaning. While to a degree irony is in the eye of the beholder a joke made by the more powerful that is percieved by the target as offensive is usually just bullying.
4. No feminism WAS a civil rights movement.
As long as people make arguments like these Feminism very much IS a civil rights movement.
You see what I did there?
Very clever.
'we have a sexist epidemic in nursing'
Really?
2nd. Half of whom we hire must be substandard? No that isn't the case at all, probably the majority of whom you hire is standard (assuming a typical skill distribution) .. More women in the field certainly would help, there would be more of the best, and more standard, and more substandard. You increased the supply of workers, which is a good thing from certain view points.
If we are currently not using near-half the population then we must be missing half of the best people. Was it my use of the word standard that you object to? How about we go with 'average'. Take 100%. That's 50% above average, 50% below average. If you add another 100% you can put the two 50%s together to make a group 100% above the old average.
Your rhetoric is pretty awful though.
Nice.
7. Positive discrimination is one way to change the numbers, but as with affirmative action, the same arguments for and against apply.
The same arguments for and against what apply?
Feminism is needed because society still awards the most powerful, highest paid jobs and most of the best opportunities to advance their careers to men. Equality is needed because society gives these things to straight, white men.
While the days of blatant to-the-face discrimination may be over in much of the western world there is still plenty of silent discrimination occuring. I beleive most young men don't realise they are doing it — they are just behaving like their peers and would be appaled if it was pointed out to them. I am hoping that if we start calling it out they will realise and gladly change their behaviour. Arguments like yours are badly disguised sexism portrayed as 'the real' equality that fail to take in the level of the field we are playing apon.
167 comments
[ 903 ms ] story [ 618 ms ] threadFrankly, to the two arseholes from Sydney: you're not a larrikin pair. You're two arseholes. No love, a Sydneysider.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6352061
But first of all, it is very immature and tasteless and shouldn't be done on stage.
I'm just joking, of course, and I agree that this app was immature and not deserving of any space at Disrupt (and goes doubly for Titstare, horrifying). Still, this whole PC thing sometimes can feel like walking on eggshells, as I've just demonstrated to you.
In any case, "walking on eggshells" is what you do on stage anyways.
Important stuff is rarely easy or simple.
In an already male-biased community the non-inclusivity of demos like these put out a very specific message to women: this is not for you.
The tit staring demo puts out a worse message: this is not for you—you are just a sex object to us.
If you were a female hacker how would that make you feel your work will be judged by your male peers?
Turn it around in your head, if you can, to a position where all industry and powerful roles are controlled by women and an important industry is dominated by women. It holds a conference where there are demonstrations of things that are women-only and where a man's role is reduced to that of sex object. Add to that a lot of cliquey female sex jokes where men are often the but but you are expected to laugh along and shrug it off. Is that a conference you would want to attend? What if you felt you had to to further your career?
If that doesn't work turn it around to Jocks vs Geeks. Imagine you had to go to a Jock conference to further your career. Where the demos were all about football and the jokes were about weedy geeky types. Now imagine that you had to go to conferences like this if you wanted to further your career and you had to put up with an undercurrent of secret sexuality where jocks joked about having sex with geeky boys and demonstrated technology to spy on their genitalia. Even if I was gay I'm sure I'd find that intimidating.
The world of tech needs to move away from this stupidity and be at the forefront of gender equality like it is at the forefront of a lot of new thinking.
Technology can only bring about a better world if the people who create it understand what a better world looks like.
It's just one demo. And it's ok for an app to be not for any specific sex, not that there's any reason why women can't play CircleShake. Not every app should be for everyone.
And I agree that TitStare is terrible. I just don't understand why the completely unrelated app is brought up in the article.
Schoolboy humour is something that boys (and men) do when they get together in all-male environments. It is reasonably harmless in that context.
As soon as you engage in this sort of behaviour in a public context like this you give the signal that this is an all-male environment.
Hacking is not an all-male environment and it should strive to be inclusive. To do that we need to remove the all-male pack behaviour and to do that we need to start by cleaning up our public spaces — conferences, keynotes, demos etc.
It's more about lonely developers staring at tits.
It's funny to see how the tech industry is passing thru its "feminist" age and just can't understand that THERE ARE differences between men and women, which doesn't mean anyhow that one is better than the other. They are just different. Liking tits is completely normal for a man, joking on it is too. Sexism is something different, a much bigger and subtle problem, against which (too often) women themselves do not react.
There are too many "men" like this in Sydney. I use the word "men" loosely.
Sometimes having a good laugh is a lot smarter than creating a political situation out of nothing. I think this is the case.
If you can't see that here, I'm not sure what else to say to you!
Or some men who believed it was offensive, belittling, discouraging or isolating to women. Like myself and a bunch of others.
There is a whole spectrum out there. The word "nigger" is a term of endearment for many.
Edit: oh wait... You're saying that maybe the guys in the presentation are not reducing women to their physical bits, but actually treating them as human beings who like being treated this way? If so there is a simple way to disprove it: The women can't say "no". Since the women are not given any agency, they are not being treated as human beings but as mere objects with no control over how their bodies are used.
Instead, let's dispense with the labels or making anyone out to be bad and simply think about our moms. There are countless things that are not sexist or wrong in any capacity, whatsoever. You still wouldn't feel comfortable doing them around your mom.
If it would feel awkward around your mom, then it might not be appropriate for a lot of wider audiences. Especially where we are potentially involving a professional capacity.
Seems to me a lot of woman do objectify men. For example when I'm browsing the Dutch Viva forums, there are plenty of topics on so called "fuck buddies". Male friends that are not relationship material but good enough for sex.
Some topics from the last few weeks are:
* Traineeship Suriname[1]: a topic about a Dutch girl that is going for a traineeship in Suriname and she has a certain fetish for black people and is mainly interested in having sex with said people.
* Do you have a fuck buddy[2]: an inquiry of which readers from the forums have a fuck buddy.
Another example could be some Coca-Cola commercials [3][4]. Do we feel (as men) offended by how these commercials objectify our gender?
[1]: http://forum.viva.nl/forum/Seks/Stage_Suriname/list_messages...
[2]: http://forum.viva.nl/forum/Seks/Fuckbuddy/list_messages/2030...
[3]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AqpFcgTqQ
[4]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6Sre-wpGHE
The issue here is pretty clear cut. It wasn't appropriate for the setting in which it was presented. Nothing more. A stupid app, Cosmo magazine, pinup posters, physical attraction, and so on aren't really relevant and don't need to be inherently demonized.
Even you, as highly as you must regard every human interaction in your every moment of existence, surely deal with a great number of people on a regular basis who exist simply to perform a function that you benefit from.
As for "you can essentially do what you will with them"... I think that speaks more to you than anyone who enjoys porn, strippers, pinup posters, musicians, dancers, actors, or anyone else that they have no personal regard for. That statement is kind of like a religious person finding out that I'm an atheist and incredulously responding with "if you don't believe in god, how come you're not out raping and murdering people?!".
However, when I deal with a garbageman, I treat him with respect because I know he's a human being doing his work. I don't see him as just a garbageman, though I interact with him with that primary purpose. But I can honestly never say I've ever considered my garbageman as only "someone who makes my garbage go away". This would allow me to be an arsehole to him while he is doing his job.
Lets say you see the garbageman fall over and break his leg. I'll bet you'd call an ambulance. Congratulations if this is the case, he is no longer just someone who takes away your garbage - you have not objectified him.
I never interact with clothes models, but then I don't look at the clothes model when I look at a catalog (not consciously anyway), mostly at the clothes. If I was to interact with them, then I would hope not to treat them as just an object.
When I watch a good movie, I interact with the character the actor plays - I don't objectify the actor in this case. I knowmthenactor is acting, and appreciate them for their personality and performance.
As for strippers and porn: I've never been to a stripshow in my life, and will never do so. I've had plenty of opportunities, but have always declined. Why? I don't want to objectify the strippers. And I don't want them objectifying me as the punter.
For porn: that's something I try to avoid at all costs. Not easy.
OK -- I wrote that before realising that you are also living in Australia (and I assume a male citizen), but I'm still not sure that makes it any better...
Yes, I am an Australian male :-)
That's why it's ridiculous to say that joking about tits is "objectifying women". It's not. You're wrong.
If you want a definition of the workplace, it includes hacker meetups, youtube videos, presentations etc. where people of all social groups come together to discuss or create code. I have a very twisted sense of humour that many would find offensive. At work though I keep that side of myself under wraps, not out of a sense of fear but of respect.
The bottom line is this: by collectively changing our behaviour to be less offensive (from the point of view of gender, sexuality, race, religion etc.) then people from those groups feel more safe and secure in that environment. If women truly felt comfortable to enter into the currently male dominated tech industry we get a bigger talent pool to choose from - the competition and skillset increases. Now re-read that sentence substituting 'women' and 'male dominated' with any minority/majority pairing and we start to see how much bigger we can make the number of available programmers.
It may seem dull to have a workplace that's so sterile and inoffensively humourless, but it's work, not a bar.
Still, the point here is not about sexism, but about (as you mentioned) idiots being on stage presenting something they had to keep for themselves or for their local meetups.
Tell me that this is not sexist?
https://mobile.twitter.com/HateYouCards/status/3767351904348...
I appreciate that porn (hard, soft or just this smut) is a business too, but is that the business that techcrunch is in?
For some only. That's the point.
Fuck cencorship. The freedom to offend is more important.
But I do know for a fact that some women, in fact some people do not find them funny. Which is what I did say.
Don't joke about anything that anybody could possibly get offended at?
Furthermore, even if you could prove that - percentage has nothing to do with it. That is a completely arbitrary qualifier. Offending people is a birth given right. Get over it.
What the fuck does that even mean?
> Given the response that occurred in the media and in general...
The media is your measuring stick? The same media that regularly objectifies women in your opinion? That's rich. You should probably go think about that some more.
You and all the whiners just like you are the ones complaining about tit jokes, so you prove it.
In my opinion? Citation needed.
> You and all the whiners just like you
Sweeping generalisation.
So to be clear, you're saying that there's no fuss being made, and also it's being made by "whiners"?
Why not just tell me the truth instead of asking me to cite you on your own opinion?
(I just can't imagine that you think "the media" is any better than this titstare app. Have you watched TV before?)
> Given the response that occurred in the media and in general...
So no, it's not a derailing tactic. And if you didn't notice, this thread is three pages to the right. There's nothing to derail.
When you're having a conversation in person, do you accuse them of being a Troll and derailing the conversation when they respond to your ridiculous assertions?
Give me a fucking break. This is like arguing with a three year old. OK fine, you can have the last word if it's so important to you. I've already torn apart every single point you think you've made, so fuck off.
Presenting it was not an act of discrimination or hate. It was inconsiderate and possibly both crude and dumb.
It's inconsiderate, because it could potentially make some members of the audience uncomfortable or self-aware. This would not be a concern if you knew the comportment of your audience. Snoop Dogg doesn't present himself or his content the same way on David Letterman that he does at a concert.
Someone being uncomfortable with your content doesn't invalidate it nor does your taking their discomfort into consideration in either content or presentation.
It shows that you are a mature human being with empathy.
Men are doing it anyway and there's nothing wrong with that either.
I think you will have to accept that many people hold a exactly opposite opinion on that point.
I think that we can agree that there are poorly formed opinions on display here.
> I say offend them even more until THEY accept that not everyone agrees with them.
Someone's throwing their toys around today.
> Someone's throwing their toys around today?
How so? By pointing out your illogical stance?
Hell no. This is standard derailing junk. It goes "my freedom to be an arsehole and drive people away is just as important as other people's desire to work in an arsehole-free environment." It's childish and inconsiderate.
> How so?
I leave it to you to work out what the petulant part of "I say offend them even more" is.
That's your fucking opinion though.
> I leave it to you to work out..blah blah blah.
Oh gawd. What a fucking cop-out. Stop replying to me you chicken shit.
Nobody fucking threatened or abused you - that's just your weak minded tactic for appearing to be a victim. Oh look, poor you. It's the same weakness that causes you to be offended at tit jokes.
Misogyny is the hatred of women.
Neither word really has anything to do with being attracted to the sexuality of the other gender. Neither word really has anything to do with simply being unkind, mean, or insensitive. Unfortunately, we often seem to throw these labels on people (labels which stick and aren't too dissimilar from calling someone a racist or homophobe) when they're not really relevant. Having a poster of a sexualized woman or buying videogames with attractive women on the poster or laughing at a joke about the other gender or saying a particular person of the other gender is an idiot are -- while unkind and inconsiderate -- not generally matters of discrimination, superiority, or "hate".
Frankly, I feel we do a disservice to the value of these words in describing actual sexism and actual (but rare) misogyny by throwing them at everything under the sun that makes someone a little uncomfortable or is anything short of respectful. Of course, even suggesting that we should be more careful of our use of these words, I am now probably both of them.
What fun would a pair of tits floating in the air be? I'd rather stare at tits that are attached to a whole woman.
And I said that nobody was reduced to being just a sexual object.
No, you're right - men who see just a pair of tits think "that's all I need - nothing attached, just the tits pleaze, tyvm."
More to the point: the women are being used in a way that is completely determined by the user of the app, instead of being given any kind of consideration as people.
If I am staring at a woman's tits - I am certainly giving her whole person my consideration, even though my eyes can only look at one thing at a time. WTF would I do with just a pair of tits?
No, the reason I'm looking is that I probably want more.
This app removes the women's ability to participate in the exchange at all. They have no control and are presented in a way that is completely in control of the user. When you remove her ability to decide how her body is being used, you are not considering her as a whole person. It's not about tits.
Objectification can be a component of sexism, but in and of itself is not sexist. It is a natural part of human existence demonstrated by both genders on a regular basis in a variety of ways. It is even the entire foundation of initial human attraction. It is not inherently wrong.
Men and women dance at strip clubs. They objectify the customers and the customers objectify the strippers. Hell, my butcher is an object that gives me steak for money and that is all we know of each other. That's okay. You are not obligated to regard everyone as a whole all the time.
We need to stop asserting that every interaction with each person (real or fictional, in person or entertainment) requires a holistic appreciation of every atom of their humanity.
If you objectify all human beings, you share a common trait of sociopaths. If the entirety of your view and interaction with the other gender is based on objectification, then you are probably sexist and have serious issues to deal with. If neither of these are the case, then you are probably a normal human being.
I suppose the problem is, do we need to vet everyone for sharing the same humour and standards of acceptability as us? If we're joining the same football team or going to a comedy club and some beers, I wouldn't particularly enjoy hanging out with someone as dull/safe as I am at work. But is it ok to say to a woman, "We'd love to welcome you onboard so long as you don't mind the dick jokes constantly flying around the office."? (Whether explicitly or implicitly, I don't think it is ok).
If we really want to solve the clique-problem in tech, we need to either change the boundaries of acceptable humour and behaviour. No-one wants to spend 8 hours a day in a "sterile humorless environment". I know I had the most fun coding in my early 20s in an office where 90% of us were just out of university and male.
There are going to be more tradeoffs towards inclusiveness as we go forward. Even it reduces the fun sometimes, I think it's the right thing to do.
What these guys did can be both a poor choice and not wrong.
Refusing to bother with making other people comfortable unless there is a benefit, which some hacker types tend to do, is really a sociopathic personality trait.
Irrelevant. If you want to know if women find it offensive, ask women. Stop dismissing things because you manage to fail to see them.
This is an area in which you should probably check your intuition with other people.
Feminism won't be required the day men understand why a woman would find it offensive. Imagine being a man in a room full of women in a society ruled over by women and all women are laughing at a penis stare app. Today you'd say "Oh I would find it funny too", but that's male privilege. We live in a male dominated society so you fail to see why women would not find a tit stare app funny.
Women laughing at a man having his penis cut off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDjUjhexTQk&hd=1
Bit regardless of that, if you think a majority can`t be oppressed, I suggest you learn some history.
I sometimes think that the persistent claims of sex discrimination in tech are a bit over-the-top, but in this instance it's quite obvious. This stunt was very poorly thought out.
The problem is that as a technical woman in the audience, you will be very likely to perceive such an initiative as something that detracts from your personal values (professional merit, technical skills). This is doubly true in the tech community, where women are a minority, and is separate from the question of whether technical guys actually disrespect women. This kind of initiative is bad regardless. I'm pretty sure, though, that you will find a correlation between tit-staring and actual discrimination. Women as a minority in technical communities already have a hard enough time coping with the pressure to perform "in spite of their gender", there is no point in making it tougher for them.
When we use words like "objectification" in the context of sex discrimination in tech, it's really just an abstraction over valuing women less than men regarding technical skills. A lot of smart people will consider this a weasel-word, but it has a foundation in actual social mechanisms.
I wouldn't go for making men uncomfortable around women any more than making women uncomfortable around men. The solution, I believe, lies somewhere in between men appreciating that some things are rude in certain contexts and women appreciating that men may make certain jokes without any ill intent. Also, in my experience, in offices that are balanced, gender wise, such jokes are not uncommon; it's a thing people do.
I just think that such arguments simply trivialise misogyny which actually exists http://www.policymic.com/articles/30922/adria-richards-why-a....
However, as thick headed and unapologetically thick-skinned I assert myself to be and expect others to be, I can absolutely see why women would have a problem with this in this particular environment.
Let me present a really shoddy analogy (but it's all I've got at the moment):
I am obese. I attend a tech conference full of professionals in my industry. Friends, colleagues, potential connections, people I admire. Someone then comes on stage and does a presentation about fat people. It's an app that focuses on how fat people are. For humor. And they attempt to make a lot of humor about it. And the audience around me is laughing.
Now, I'm super fat. I'm more than aware of that. I know that people around me are, too. I have a good sense of humor. I'm even happy to make myself the ass-end of a joke about my weight. However, when I am in a huge room full of people laughing at a presentation making light of people like me, I suddenly feel incredibly awkward, self-aware, embarrassed, and like I'm not wanted there. Maybe that I don't even belong there. So, I stop going. I stop supporting. I stop participating.
It's all about context and having a little tact. These guys used pretty poor judgement. I don't think they should be strung up or driven out of town for it. They should just be an example of how people with no ill-intentions can end up making other people really uncomfortable and how that is something you need to be sensitive to when acting in any professionally related capacity.
Obviously not everyone agrees what is sexist.
Problems in other industries are no justification for ignoring our own--is this an argument you are seriously making? Really?
There are definitely sexism problems in education. Especially kinder, pre-school, and primary school levels. This also has flow on effects to the IT sector. 80% women teachers is a common amount in countries like UK/Australia. Not sure of the stats in other countries.
The IT sector is doing better in addressing the problems compared to Education sector. The IT sector has made some good progress in the last few years. Some companies are going from 0%-20% to 40% women. There are outreach programs at many conferences and in many open source groups. If you look at the conference websites for teachers you don't see the same efforts. Lots left to do though.
I think the IT industry can take pride in it has accomplished in comparison to education in recent years. IT is doing well compared to the journalism industry too (male dominated).
Still lots left to do, and just because some industries are doing badly it doesn't mean we can't do better. But we also shouldn't ignore the good progress we have made.
You cannot create a picture of equal sexism by demonstrating a low-power, low-economic status, low opportunity-of-career-advancement role (that has traditionally been a female-only occupation due in-part to traditional gender-specific roles around child-rearing) where men who choose to enter it are viewed with scepticism. Especially if that role includes close, private contact with young children.
Feminists like me want an equal share of the good jobs for women throughout all strata of all industries. Men will undoubtably have to take up some of the low-paid shit jobs to compensate—but that is equality.
Sexism is a female only problem and will continue to be as long as men hold most of the power and are afforded most of the best opportunities.
Can you name one company who wouldn't take a more competent female developer over a male developer?
How many female developers does your company have?
Mine has 0/6. My previous company, that actively sought female developers had around 15%, the company before that had 3 out of 100+, before that one out of 30.
Women make up 51% of the population and, at least in the UK, are getting better school results in science & maths than men.
And yet what percentage of the developer population is female? 10%? more? less?
So it looks like either the companies are not taking the more competent developers or the women are less competent.
Are you therefore claiming that female developers are less competent than male developers?
Sexism isn't about the industry or about career advancement is about discrimination against a gender for a given category of jobs.
You are confusing cause and effect.
You are concentrating on a tiny percentage of evidence in the counter direction hugely outbalanced by the weight of evidence in the main direction.
Sexism is a huge problem for women and a tiny problem for men. So small, in fact, it statistically it does not exist.
Look at the balance of the scales not the tiny fleck on one side.
Sexism is about balance not uniformity. It is about power and opportunity. Not everything has to be equal for us to eradicate it.
As long as the problem is stacked against women we should be concentrating on sexism against women.
Equality is not about uniformity — it is about the overall balance.
You are picking small examples where women outnumber men and are claiming cause and effect. Show me a genuinely powerful organisation or occupation that discriminates against men and I'll fight it with you.
Looking at Kindergarten teachers is a red herring. Look at board members, police & army chiefs, presidents, government minsters, nobel prize winners etc. THat's where the power is so that is where the sexism is.
Power & opportunities; not uniformity.
I think that this uncompromising attitude harms your cause rather than help it, though. I am a big proponent of equality of opportunity, fighting for it whenever I see gender discrimination in my regular circle. But this adversarial form of feminism makes otherwise compromising men dig in their heels, and you end up with a battle of the sexes rather than the possibility for change. I will never support a cause that claims that 50% of the world's population is exempt from the right to claim discrimination. Thankfully only part of the feminist movement has views that are this extreme.
If you have a major flood in your garden you don't rush to sort out a dripping tap. First you tackle the flood then you investigate the tap. Anyone shouting 'the tap, the tap!' would be quite rightfully lambasted as unhelpful.
Nursing & childcare are statistically women-only due to sexism against women, not due to sexism against men. These are low-paying, low-power jobs where only the bosses tend to be male.
If some women are protectionist about men joining their ranks (which, by the way, I highly doubt until I see some evidence — I have met many of both) it is probably due either due to fears of pedophilia (almost certainly unfair) or due to fears that men will be promoted over them (very real).
Anti-male sexism in the work-place is a red-herring. It is a minuscule problem compared to anti-female sexism and, to my ears, carping on about it sounds as misplaced as white males going on about being discriminated by ethnic minorities.
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/08/an-apology-from-techcrunch/
On one hand, we guffaw at those "old timers" who worked in assembler, Fortran, C, or even Perl. "They could never have even imagined what they were missing," we might think to ourselves as we re-discover continuation-passing style while coding our latest, greatest node.js-based file server.
On the other hand, I think there's a good chance that Alexandra, and the rest of the next generation of programmers, will one day think that "rockstars", "ninjas", and "brogrammers" are as ridiculous and outdated as talking sock-puppets or anthropomorphic paperclips.
"TitStare" - sexist "DickStare" - not sexist
Got it.
Yes, they had inappropriate ideas, yes, they should not have been let near the stage - but why did we give them the response they were after?
Respecting women doesn't start with pointing fingers at other people, it starts with the individual doing so.
The pain that inevitably will catch up with us, for all the real problems we create but do not solve.
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/08/an-apology-from-techcrunch/
Or, if you had a CoC, it could sound like this:
* "Sorry, we had people on stage that violated the rules we agreed upon beforehand. <list of rules from CoC> They were expelled from the conference immediately."
Unfortunately the tech industry seems to be enamoured with not merely being offended, but being offended by the potential that they could have been offended. So we'll circle the drain with everyone beating the drum in support of their own personal agendas for awhile more before this is over.
By that time, someone else will have done something dumb and we'll be ready to have another go.
I come from the feminist extreme country Sweden and are well known with the feminist agenda. This article makes me angry, not the pleasant, funny guys presenting just a for-fun app. This whole debacle is so not necessary and could be avoided. I, like many guys in Sweden are very tired of being called sexist when you're not and tired of the feminists altogether.
I guess the US / UK haven't had enough of feminism yet.
I'm a 46 year old male with almost 20 years of various IT experience (systems administration to .net coding to sql server) and the terms rockstar, ninja, brogrammer don't apply, nor appeal to me. I would argue that the entire IT industry is to blame for this bullshit.
Stop, just for a moment, to think about the culture you're manifesting in the words you use to describe your workforce. Rockstar? Really? Because most "rockstars" wash up, burn out, fade away or simply die and the fall is as quick as the rise.
So exactly as most of us have come to know the industry over the last two decades. :/
You become part of the problem when you do stuff like this.
You don't see white people going around using the word "nigga" lightly, why should it be OK for this sort of joke to be made at a tech conference? It's not OK. It may never be OK. So just stop doing it. You're not Louis CK, you didn't make a career of comedy. Don't think you can tread the line of these social issues and not have it blow up in your face.
Because people who think these are the same thing are delusional.
1. Many male developers assume that they are in an all-male environment and behave as if they are. Sniggering schoolboy humour, edgy jokes, sexual jokes are a part of young male pack behaviour that is relatively harmless in all-male environments. In mixed environments they are not only inappropriate but they send the signal to other people that this is a young, male environment. Only.
To be inclusive we need to drop the male pack mentality. It is right to call out this behaviour, especially in public environments: conferences, keynotes, hacker sessions. It is also right to call-out all-male speaker-panels for the same reason.
2. Something 'sexy' is not automatically 'sexist' — it all depends where the power is. A tits-tracking app is (apart from being male-pack humour) an example of those with the power in the room making fun at the expense of those less powerful in the room. It is also 'objectification' — the reinforcement of a women's place as being an object to look at or to have sex with, rather than being an intellectual equal. The women in the room are expected to laugh it off or be subject to more ridicule: "it's just a bit of fun" — This is classic bullying behaviour. As long as these rooms are mostly full of men, women will be powerless to do anything about it. It's no surprise that the fight-back starts only once these incidents hit the internet: our community is bullying women.
3. A group of women ironically creating a pack-track app that tracks penises wouldn't automatically be sexist. It would almost certainly be funny and ironic for two reasons: 1) the balance of power is against the women 2) they would be shining a light onto male-pack behaviour. Men, still holding the balance of power here, should be able to laugh such a thing off. Sadly many of you here wouldn't.
4. Commentators here have a fundamental misunderstanding of what Feminism and Sexism is. They are confusing equality with uniformity.
Feminism is a civil rights movement. It is about equality of power and opportunity for women. Much like anti-racism it isn't about people making jokes about each other: it is about segregated jobs, inequality of opportunity, economic discrimination.
Seeking equality is not the same as seeking uniformity. Just because you can find an example where women have more jobs in a sector doesn't mean that it is sexism against men. It is often the opposite: low-paid caring jobs around cleaning and child-rearing. The low-pay & low-power is the result of years of sexism, as is the usual case where men who get into these roles quickly rise through the ranks and far more likely to become bosses (despite their under-representation). Some women protect these environments as all-women precisely to give them a chance at promotion. While I don't condone this behaviour I can at least understand it.
Equality is the big picture; the balance of the scales. Men still hold the top jobs, the powerful jobs: Judges, Police Chiefs, Prime Ministers, Presidents, Board Members. Equality of opportunity is the ability to rise through the ranks based on ability not sex.
5. Most sexism is silent. We do it without knowing we are doing it. Men appoint men because the other men are men like themselves. Men know how to talk to men; Geeky men more-so. We fill our conferences with men, our panels with men, our keynotes with men because it is an easy thing to do. We promote bright young men because they remind us of ourselves. We tell ourselves that we are simply picking the best.
Combating this silent sexism is hard. As long as all we see is men everywhere then we will continue to be silently sexist and women will continue to silently vote with their feet.
6. It is sexist to say that men are better at programming than women...
2. Objectification it is, but I don't agree that that is wrong. You're trying to force a societal expectation over a natural process. More or less it's 'you should have interest in me because of all my qualities, not the sexual ones'. That is a bizarre rewiring of male sexual psychology pushed by non-males, I don't buy it.
3. keyword 'ironic' if a group of men 'ironically' made anything then it isn't automatically sexist. A group of women non-ironically a pack-track app that tracks penises IS sexist. Why? By the same definition you used above, objectification and a supposedly male belief that I am more than a penis and testicles. (Ironic that men have blow up dolls for sex, and women have a disembodied penis known as a dildo: talking about objectification and not considering the whole of a human!)
4. No feminism WAS a civil rights movement. If anything it is an ever shifting term that has evolved since it's inception. It is no longer about equality and opportunity, it is now about special rights and privileges (family court system, maternity leave etc.) (my view) You're right, an example of an unbalanced gender work force is not indicative of sexism. Which goes both ways! That means that just because women hold most teaching jobs doesn't mean men are actively pushed away from it, maybe they don't want to teach. Much like your counter point. Just because men hold powerful jobs doesn't mean that women are actively barred from it, they may not want to be in it! I have yet to see one well done study that has convinced me of this. Anecdotes aren't effective. Equality is about opportunity, that may not be reflected in a statistically perfect 50%. Men and women are different, and they can like different jobs. The end goal is freedom, not an enforced literal numbered equality. That was tried in communist systems and people were much more miserable because of it. 5. Most sexism is silent. We do it without knowing we are doing it. Women appoint women because the other women are women like themselves. Women know how to talk to women; Social women more-so. We fill our conferences with women, our panels with women, our keynotes with women because it is an easy thing to do. We promote bright young women because they remind us of ourselves. We tell ourselves that we are simply picking the best. Combating this silent sexism is hard. As long as all we see is women everywhere then we will continue to be silently sexist and men will continue to silently vote with their feet.
You see what I did there? It can easily be applied to Nursing. So now, do we have a sexist epidemic in nursing, on the eve of a geriatrics explosion? I don't hear ANYONE complaining about that and I am sure that is because of some very sexist reasons.
6.Women make up 51% of the population... they should therefore be over 50% of our community. Bad assertion. Really bad assertion. You're equating numeric equality with actual equality. You're assuming that women want these jobs enough to be 50%. You're assuming they are like men. I for one think they are individuals, not automatons and can have their own interests. This is somebody's fault and most probably ours. Also a bad assertion. With what unbiased reasoned study did you find this?
That's the point. The guys aren't supposed to be 'themselves' whatever that means, they are supposed to be working — as part of a team. There is already resentment: that is why there is a need for equality at work.
2. Objectification it is, but I don't agree that that is wrong. You're trying to force a societal expectation over a natural process. More or less it's 'you should have interest in me because of all my qualities, not the sexual ones'. That is a bizarre rewiring of male sexual psychology pushed by non-males, I don't buy it.
'You're trying to force a societal expectation over a natural process'
The objectification of women by men is societal, not natural: not all cultures do it & not all men do. Nature is far more complicated than you suggest: there aren't just two genders there is a sliding scale of gender. Does you idea of 'male sexual psychology' include gay men? transgender men?
At work you should have interest in me because of my skills no matter my gender or sexual orientation.
3. keyword 'ironic' if a group of men 'ironically' made anything then it isn't automatically sexist.
Not true. Some things a group of men 'ironically' make won't be automatically sexist. But many things meant to be ironically sexist and/or peurile just end up being demeaning. While to a degree irony is in the eye of the beholder a joke made by the more powerful that is percieved by the target as offensive is usually just bullying.
4. No feminism WAS a civil rights movement.
As long as people make arguments like these Feminism very much IS a civil rights movement.
You see what I did there?
Very clever.
'we have a sexist epidemic in nursing'
Really?
2nd. Half of whom we hire must be substandard? No that isn't the case at all, probably the majority of whom you hire is standard (assuming a typical skill distribution) .. More women in the field certainly would help, there would be more of the best, and more standard, and more substandard. You increased the supply of workers, which is a good thing from certain view points.
If we are currently not using near-half the population then we must be missing half of the best people. Was it my use of the word standard that you object to? How about we go with 'average'. Take 100%. That's 50% above average, 50% below average. If you add another 100% you can put the two 50%s together to make a group 100% above the old average.
Your rhetoric is pretty awful though.
Nice.
7. Positive discrimination is one way to change the numbers, but as with affirmative action, the same arguments for and against apply.
The same arguments for and against what apply?
Feminism is needed because society still awards the most powerful, highest paid jobs and most of the best opportunities to advance their careers to men. Equality is needed because society gives these things to straight, white men.
While the days of blatant to-the-face discrimination may be over in much of the western world there is still plenty of silent discrimination occuring. I beleive most young men don't realise they are doing it — they are just behaving like their peers and would be appaled if it was pointed out to them. I am hoping that if we start calling it out they will realise and gladly change their behaviour. Arguments like yours are badly disguised sexism portrayed as 'the real' equality that fail to take in the level of the field we are playing apon.