3 ms·

Those are good points and I'm glad you explained them further. It's the expectation that you talk about that we should be careful about. It's too easy to answer

Those are good points and I'm glad you explained them further. It's the expectation that you talk about that we should be careful about. It's too easy to answer, "What did you expect?" as a dismissal, rather than talking about the real issue: bigotry. So, given that there are sexist assholes out there willing to harass women, what are some options beyond tolerance and turning-the-other-stupid-cheek? I'm not advocating violence, I'm thinking more like sexist asshole outreach, or something. I dunno. Beyond commenting on these stories as they come up, what can we do as a community? Education (starting with "sexism exists and happens near you"), open dialogue with less fear of reprisal, etc? Like, "I may be a sexist and I'd like to talk to other people willing to understand what I'm trying to sort out"? These stories are like toxic waste on all sides: sexism and racism are touchy stuff that I think most people don't even want to talk about and, if they do, are afraid that they're saying it wrong.

peterwwillis 15y ago
Yeah, it's pretty hard to have a dialogue about this stuff without it devolving into a bitter quarrel. I agree that we need practical solutions and a plan of action to give to people. The first thing we need is to open up lines of dialogue. What is sexist and what isn't? How can guys act or what can they do to improve working conditions? Are there ways we can work with employers to get them to make changes that foster more cooperation and less divisiveness? You could get a kind of town hall discussion going to get more ideas. I do think you have to work with the sexists to help them change. It's not going to be a night and day thing... I imagine most people who are sexist find nothing wrong with the way they behave. So part of it may be not demanding they follow a strict moral code, but just tone it down at first. Work with the most extreme cases and get more widespread community support to show that kind of stuff (like putting tits in a presentation) is unacceptable. Probably getting a lot more men to speak out will help. Then you can work it the way you would any other PR job. Make some kind of bumper sticker that (in a way that isn't too pretentious or annoying) says you agree all people should be treated fairly and equally, including specifically women. Some kind of logo that represents treating people nice and not making negative jokes, or considering all possible options instead of only helping your friends. Maybe some slogans. I was never good with advertising and my marketing skills are weak, so i'll leave all that up to the professionals. But the idea is, get the companies to put this stuff up around the office and lead by example so it's much less acceptable within a group to act out. You could even get different events to officially endorse some effort to end unfair treatment of all people in the tech industry. This is more important to me as it would mean getting people to look past things like nationality/race (don't just give the indians the cheap jobs), gender (the transsexual person is just as good at being a manager as anybody), etc. I think everybody can get behind this and it can specifically underscore the unfair treatment of women. Going back to the sexist thing, i'd like to see some public humiliations by the community at large of anyone who does something really stupid against women. You get the whole community to speak out against specific cases of sexism and I think it'll hit home more for the other sexists as a kind of warning to keep those thoughts and feelings to themselves. It may not solve anonymous hate e-mails but it should definitely help tone down sexism in the workplace. I'm sure there's lots of other aspects i'm not thinking of. I hope people reply and add more ideas.

peterwwillis 15y ago

Yeah, it's pretty hard to have a dialogue about this stuff without it devolving into a bitter quarrel. I agree that we need practical solutions and a plan of action to give to people. The first thing we need is to open up lines of dialogue. What is sexist and what isn't? How can guys act or what can they do to improve working conditions? Are there ways we can work with employers to get them to make changes that foster more cooperation and less divisiveness? You could get a kind of town hall discussion going to get more ideas. I do think you have to work with the sexists to help them change. It's not going to be a night and day thing... I imagine most people who are sexist find nothing wrong with the way they behave. So part of it may be not demanding they follow a strict moral code, but just tone it down at first. Work with the most extreme cases and get more widespread community support to show that kind of stuff (like putting tits in a presentation) is unacceptable. Probably getting a lot more men to speak out will help. Then you can work it the way you would any other PR job. Make some kind of bumper sticker that (in a way that isn't too pretentious or annoying) says you agree all people should be treated fairly and equally, including specifically women. Some kind of logo that represents treating people nice and not making negative jokes, or considering all possible options instead of only helping your friends. Maybe some slogans. I was never good with advertising and my marketing skills are weak, so i'll leave all that up to the professionals. But the idea is, get the companies to put this stuff up around the office and lead by example so it's much less acceptable within a group to act out. You could even get different events to officially endorse some effort to end unfair treatment of all people in the tech industry. This is more important to me as it would mean getting people to look past things like nationality/race (don't just give the indians the cheap jobs), gender (the transsexual person is just as good at being a manager as anybody), etc. I think everybody can get behind this and it can specifically underscore the unfair treatment of women. Going back to the sexist thing, i'd like to see some public humiliations by the community at large of anyone who does something really stupid against women. You get the whole community to speak out against specific cases of sexism and I think it'll hit home more for the other sexists as a kind of warning to keep those thoughts and feelings to themselves. It may not solve anonymous hate e-mails but it should definitely help tone down sexism in the workplace. I'm sure there's lots of other aspects i'm not thinking of. I hope people reply and add more ideas.