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I'm not dumb enough to try to change the stripes on a proudly bigoted jerk like Meritt. I just want anybody who sees his spew to know that his opinion is not t

by hbags 13y ago

I'm not dumb enough to try to change the stripes on a proudly bigoted jerk like Meritt. I just want anybody who sees his spew to know that his opinion is not the only one. I want any human who is harassed to know that if they share their story after the fact, that's good. And they shouldn't worry about the fact that some utterly worthless assholes like Meritt will try to shame them for speaking out. They shouldn't be ashamed if they were too afraid, too shy, or too confused to respond in the moment. It is GOOD that we share these stories. It is GOOD that we move towards a world where these things happen less often. And the utterly worthless assholes like Meritt who want to shame people for sharing their stories... they might be well represented in HN, but they're a minority of normal humans. And I'd like other potential Meritt's to realize how utterly disgusting it is that he tried to shame the victim into silence.

vacri 13y ago
I'm fine with a bit of profanity and would like to see more, personally. But when your comment is basically nothing but invective, you don't really have a leg to stand on when you're calling someone else worthless. And I'd like other potential Meritt's to realize how utterly disgusting it is that he tried to shame the victim into silence. Meritt said 'say something right then and there, it's more effective. Then write a blog post about that instead'. Whether that's true or not could be up for debate (likewise the victim's responsibility to do something), but you have to be pretty one-eyed to read that as shaming the victim into silence rather than encouraging the victim into action.
- hbags 13y ago
  No. what Merritt said that if you don't say something right there and then you should never be allowed to say anything. He's an asshole and a bully. If a victim doesn't protest withim his designated free-speech zone he doesn't want them to protest at all.
  - pstack 13y ago
    Hbags, you are full of shit. Merritt said the behavior was unacceptable and the way to fix it is to address it when it occurs. Followed by the comment: --- "Running off to write yet another gender-division-in-the-tech-world blog which will be read, primarily, by the sort of folk who already agree with you isn't going to make nearly as much of a difference as taking care of issues promptly". --- Then said that a story about a bad situation where the person spoke up about it would be a great story that would spread "like wildfire". At absolutely NO point in Merritt's short post was it said that if you don't speak up when you are uncomfortable or accosted, you should never be allowed to say anything about it. You owe Merritt an apology for straight out lying about the content and intent of their comment and repeatedly attacking their character based solely on the things you invented (then repeated) in this thread.
    - hbags 13y ago
      You owe Merritt an apology No way. Meritt clearly attempted to shame her for writing about something that, for whatever reason, she didn't confront immediately. He's a censor. He's shaming her for protesting outside his designated free-speech zone. Fuck him.
      - pstack 13y ago
        Repeating your accusations doesn't make them true. Knock your vile rhetoric and bullying off for five seconds and quote, for all of us, the specific sentence or more from Merritt's comment where he shamed the author, implied or supported censoring her, or said that she should not be able to post about her experience. It is a simple request. I'm not asking you to irrefutably prove your ability to bend spoons with your mind. Merritt's comment was quite short. Just copy and paste the precise part of his or her message where what you keep attacking them for is actually stated or even implied. Don't worry, we'll all wait. Go ahead.
        pstack 13y ago
        So. Nothing. Exactly as I thought.
      - 13y ago
  - vacri 13y ago
    No, he never said or even intimated "don't write about it". He said that writing this article this way would only be read by people who already agree. He said it would be more effective to be proactive at the time. I disagree with him about such a thing spreading like wildfire, but there is nothing in what he said that meant "don't write at all". That's your projection. He said "if you do A, it won't be as effective as B". The person who is being an arsehole and a bully is you, naming, shaming, strawmanning, abusing, and being generally vituperative.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > He said it would be more effective to be proactive at the time. I disagree with him about such a thing spreading like wildfire He didn't say that being proactive at the time would spread like wildfire, he said that being proactive at the time and writing about that experience afterward would.
      - DorintheFlora 13y ago
        Would it? I personally doubt that. Do you have an example of something like that working? Or is that just speculation?
        dragonwriter 13y ago
        > Would it? I think it would draw more attention and useful discussion from people interested in doing more than emoting sympathy, complaining about discussions of women's negative experiences, or discussing abstractly whether addressing the situation in the moment would be more productive. Whether it would actually spread any more is another question, and one on which I don't have a strong feeling about.
        DorintheFlora 13y ago
        In other words: It is just speculation. You (apparently) do not have a real world example to cite. I am female. I have blogged before about some of my struggles with the glass ceiling, etc. It got no attention. Perhaps I was doing something wrong. But, as someone who has firsthand experience which contradicts your suggestion, I would be genuinely interested in seeing actual evidence. If I can find an example that works, I would love to follow that. I can't find it. Thanks.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > No. what Merritt said that if you don't say something right there and then you should never be allowed to say anything. No, he says, explicitly, that not saying anything there and then but blogging about it later won't be as effective in producing the desired change. He does not say that people shouldn't be allowed to talk about it after the fact without addressing it immediately, he says that doing so is not the ideal choice if the goal is to actually deal with the problem. There's a universe of difference between what he said and your characterization.
- wonderzombie 13y ago
  Sorry, but this is part of a pattern. You may feel OK with treating this as an isolated incident, but it's not. It deserves to be lumped into a category of common responses to stuff like this: victim blaming and derailing. It does approximately nothing to prevent a situation like this from happening. It puts the onus on a woman to deal with other people's utterly unacceptable behavior. It erases the responsibility not just of the aggressor, but everyone else in the room with her who did nothing. I'm sure it's pure coincidence this also divests the commenter from any obligation to talk seriously about these issues.
  - vacri 13y ago
    How many more caveats do I need? I even specified that the concept was up for debate and that it wasn't the victim's responsibility to do anything. everyone else in the room with her Unless everyone else in the room was attending to the interaction of her and that one guy, this is hyperbole and doesn't help. If I'm in a conversation on one side of the room, do you really expect me to run over and forbid someone putting their hand on someone else's leg, despite not being aware of their previous conversation? Anyway, if you want to talk about derailing, how about we talk about how this stupid large thread is focusing almost entirely on the preamble of the essay, and not the core theme that women aren't treated as being intellectually capable by the group? A large thread that is inflamed by throwing abuse around? How does this help the author resolve her article's thematic problem, being that her mind isn't respected?
    - wonderzombie 13y ago
      Hey, I'm with you on the last part. I'm addressing the fact that merrit's comment has no merit, and it's safe to pigeonhole it as worthless. The debate in this thread is whether or not it's helpful, and I weighed in, trying to talk about it at a somewhat higher level. As far as "everyone else in the room" is concerned, that's absurd— it's a false dichotomy, excluded middle, etc. Rather than just write it off, think about it in good faith for like five minutes. How you would approach an ambiguous situation like this? How about you ask? Apologize if you've intruded? You can all laugh it off — "ha, sorry, I thought you might be one of those guys" — and now you've broken the ice. Nobody's asking you to be Superman zipping around the room, let alone the entire world. But there's a world of difference between that and just keeping an eye out once in a while. Incidentally, in my mind, this counts as a productive conversation and not derailment— if more dudes showed less tolerance for this kind of bullshit, the world would be a better place.

by hbags 13y ago

vacri 13y ago

I'm fine with a bit of profanity and would like to see more, personally. But when your comment is basically nothing but invective, you don't really have a leg to stand on when you're calling someone else worthless. And I'd like other potential Meritt's to realize how utterly disgusting it is that he tried to shame the victim into silence. Meritt said 'say something right then and there, it's more effective. Then write a blog post about that instead'. Whether that's true or not could be up for debate (likewise the victim's responsibility to do something), but you have to be pretty one-eyed to read that as shaming the victim into silence rather than encouraging the victim into action.

hbags 13y ago
No. what Merritt said that if you don't say something right there and then you should never be allowed to say anything. He's an asshole and a bully. If a victim doesn't protest withim his designated free-speech zone he doesn't want them to protest at all.
- pstack 13y ago
  Hbags, you are full of shit. Merritt said the behavior was unacceptable and the way to fix it is to address it when it occurs. Followed by the comment: --- "Running off to write yet another gender-division-in-the-tech-world blog which will be read, primarily, by the sort of folk who already agree with you isn't going to make nearly as much of a difference as taking care of issues promptly". --- Then said that a story about a bad situation where the person spoke up about it would be a great story that would spread "like wildfire". At absolutely NO point in Merritt's short post was it said that if you don't speak up when you are uncomfortable or accosted, you should never be allowed to say anything about it. You owe Merritt an apology for straight out lying about the content and intent of their comment and repeatedly attacking their character based solely on the things you invented (then repeated) in this thread.
  - hbags 13y ago
    You owe Merritt an apology No way. Meritt clearly attempted to shame her for writing about something that, for whatever reason, she didn't confront immediately. He's a censor. He's shaming her for protesting outside his designated free-speech zone. Fuck him.
    - pstack 13y ago
      Repeating your accusations doesn't make them true. Knock your vile rhetoric and bullying off for five seconds and quote, for all of us, the specific sentence or more from Merritt's comment where he shamed the author, implied or supported censoring her, or said that she should not be able to post about her experience. It is a simple request. I'm not asking you to irrefutably prove your ability to bend spoons with your mind. Merritt's comment was quite short. Just copy and paste the precise part of his or her message where what you keep attacking them for is actually stated or even implied. Don't worry, we'll all wait. Go ahead.
      - pstack 13y ago
        So. Nothing. Exactly as I thought.
    - 13y ago
- vacri 13y ago
  No, he never said or even intimated "don't write about it". He said that writing this article this way would only be read by people who already agree. He said it would be more effective to be proactive at the time. I disagree with him about such a thing spreading like wildfire, but there is nothing in what he said that meant "don't write at all". That's your projection. He said "if you do A, it won't be as effective as B". The person who is being an arsehole and a bully is you, naming, shaming, strawmanning, abusing, and being generally vituperative.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > He said it would be more effective to be proactive at the time. I disagree with him about such a thing spreading like wildfire He didn't say that being proactive at the time would spread like wildfire, he said that being proactive at the time and writing about that experience afterward would.
    - DorintheFlora 13y ago
      Would it? I personally doubt that. Do you have an example of something like that working? Or is that just speculation?
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        > Would it? I think it would draw more attention and useful discussion from people interested in doing more than emoting sympathy, complaining about discussions of women's negative experiences, or discussing abstractly whether addressing the situation in the moment would be more productive. Whether it would actually spread any more is another question, and one on which I don't have a strong feeling about.
        DorintheFlora 13y ago
        In other words: It is just speculation. You (apparently) do not have a real world example to cite. I am female. I have blogged before about some of my struggles with the glass ceiling, etc. It got no attention. Perhaps I was doing something wrong. But, as someone who has firsthand experience which contradicts your suggestion, I would be genuinely interested in seeing actual evidence. If I can find an example that works, I would love to follow that. I can't find it. Thanks.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > No. what Merritt said that if you don't say something right there and then you should never be allowed to say anything. No, he says, explicitly, that not saying anything there and then but blogging about it later won't be as effective in producing the desired change. He does not say that people shouldn't be allowed to talk about it after the fact without addressing it immediately, he says that doing so is not the ideal choice if the goal is to actually deal with the problem. There's a universe of difference between what he said and your characterization.
wonderzombie 13y ago
Sorry, but this is part of a pattern. You may feel OK with treating this as an isolated incident, but it's not. It deserves to be lumped into a category of common responses to stuff like this: victim blaming and derailing. It does approximately nothing to prevent a situation like this from happening. It puts the onus on a woman to deal with other people's utterly unacceptable behavior. It erases the responsibility not just of the aggressor, but everyone else in the room with her who did nothing. I'm sure it's pure coincidence this also divests the commenter from any obligation to talk seriously about these issues.
- vacri 13y ago
  How many more caveats do I need? I even specified that the concept was up for debate and that it wasn't the victim's responsibility to do anything. everyone else in the room with her Unless everyone else in the room was attending to the interaction of her and that one guy, this is hyperbole and doesn't help. If I'm in a conversation on one side of the room, do you really expect me to run over and forbid someone putting their hand on someone else's leg, despite not being aware of their previous conversation? Anyway, if you want to talk about derailing, how about we talk about how this stupid large thread is focusing almost entirely on the preamble of the essay, and not the core theme that women aren't treated as being intellectually capable by the group? A large thread that is inflamed by throwing abuse around? How does this help the author resolve her article's thematic problem, being that her mind isn't respected?
  - wonderzombie 13y ago
    Hey, I'm with you on the last part. I'm addressing the fact that merrit's comment has no merit, and it's safe to pigeonhole it as worthless. The debate in this thread is whether or not it's helpful, and I weighed in, trying to talk about it at a somewhat higher level. As far as "everyone else in the room" is concerned, that's absurd— it's a false dichotomy, excluded middle, etc. Rather than just write it off, think about it in good faith for like five minutes. How you would approach an ambiguous situation like this? How about you ask? Apologize if you've intruded? You can all laugh it off — "ha, sorry, I thought you might be one of those guys" — and now you've broken the ice. Nobody's asking you to be Superman zipping around the room, let alone the entire world. But there's a world of difference between that and just keeping an eye out once in a while. Incidentally, in my mind, this counts as a productive conversation and not derailment— if more dudes showed less tolerance for this kind of bullshit, the world would be a better place.