On Sexism
The ongoing debate about Mark Shuttleworth’s keynote at the Linux Plumber’s Conference has been bothering me for a little while now, but I’ve been avoiding posting until now.
Before I do, let me make one thing clear (as if it wasn’t already), I am a gay man.
Mark is a heterosexual man. In his LPC keynote he is accused of sexism because in his keynote he said that making Linux easier to understand would make it easier for him to explain what he does to girls.
Now, let’s pretend for a moment that I’d gave that keynote. Let’s pretend that I’d said that that making Linux easier would make it easier for me to explain what I did to boys.
Would there be this uproar?
Oh they’d be an uproar alright, but it wouldn’t be about sexism – the homophobic right of our community would be throwing their bibles out of their prams with vigour!
But nothing about sexism!
In fact the very people who are currently attacking Mark would be defending me as a gay man for right to say things like that. And if they didn’t I could cheerfully accuse them of homophobia.
And that’s why this bothers me.
If Mark was sexist, than he’s sexist for only being attracted to women and understandably caring what they think of him. That’s not sexism, that’s biology!
Sometimes a spade is just a spade.
Sometimes when a man says that he likes girls, HE LIKES GIRLS!
If your complaint is that he uses “girls” to mean “women” then you need to get (a) in touch with some mystical arbiter of the colloquial English language & (b) a grip.
I suspect this has ended my chances of ever being offered a Keynote (not that I ever have) and that Linux Today will now claim I should resign (I don’t work directly for mdz, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for him) then so be it.
And this is why the outcry bothers me.
Hi there
I did not realise you had this blog when I was being insulted and abused on the Ubuntu Forum.
With the luxury of hindsight I now realise this would not have happened to me if I was a bloke.
If you remember correctly, someone even questioned my right to use a shortened version of my name and accused me of being overly emotional ….
well hallo !!… I happen to be pregnant and that just happens to make a person emotional guys
I think you are wrong on this one.
Mark Shuttleworth was out of order and he knows he was out of order.
Regarding your own situation..well, if as you say, the sexual orientation police would have been on your case if Mark Shuttleworth had targetted gay chaps instead of girls .. that stinks as well.
Im on your side with that one.
Dont you? Besides .. I wont be eating anything adventurous until my baby is born safe and well 
Lets face it ..those chaps from the colonies have their problems. Americans are always in court sueing each other and South Africans ..well do I really have to say it?
Regarding the subject which kicked off all that hatred ..well I happen to think that anyone who takes on the task of putting Plymouth right is a hero.
So that looks like you ?
Ive made a promise to eat my woolly ski hat if Ubuntu ever get it right for about 90% of users.
I think my digestive system is safe
Feel free to contact me via the e-mail addy Ive left but after the horrble experience of the Ubuntu Forums I doubt I will ever give support in any way to that lot
Maybe you could suggest in the very male environment of FOSS how someone like myself could get involved ….. my skills are C, C++, C#, TSQL, Delphi, Java, PHP (UK Uni) … and I have a good insight to the standard protocols of modbus, fieldbus, OPC (especially) All on Windows unfortunately but Im told its transferable.
Id like to help ..but not at the expense of being insulted and abused.
My full name is Kate (Kathleen) Radford and I look forward to hearing from you sometime.
Kate
On end-user forums, you will find plenty of abrasive and insulting people, as with any forum. I suppose I could say I have been abused myself, but I didn’t make a big deal out of it.
I suggest you try and have a chat with people from various projects on irc.freenode.net. A good list of active open source communities is on the GSoC page (http://socghop.appspot.com/gsoc/program/accepted_orgs/google/gsoc2010). Also, try #parrot on irc.perl.org. Find something you’re passionate about and help out.
Could you provide a link to that forum thread? I’m curious.
“With the luxury of hindsight I now realise this would not have happened to me if I was a bloke.”
Keep telling yourself that. I have yet to meet a person that was not insulted by someone in the Ubuntu “community”. For that matter, I’ve never met anyone that hasn’t been insulted at all online or in person. “Blokes” are insulted as often as whimminz, online and off. We’re insulted by blokes and by whimminz. So the idea that womb men are the only ones ever insulted and are only insulted by waepmen and are not major insulters themselves is simply a feminist fantasy.
“If you remember correctly, someone even questioned my right to use a shortened version of my name”
Yeah I’ve had my name and speech patterns insulted because I dared [gasp] to use American idioms. “We use the QUEENS English in here!” Really? Well I don’t. Don’t let people tell you how to speak or how to name yourself.
“and accused me of being overly emotional ….
well hallo !!… I happen to be pregnant and that just happens to make a person emotional guys”
So you are complaining because they were pointing out the truth? I had buck teeth for ages and people sought to mock me because of that, but guess what, it was true. So I never took offense at their attempted offense.
“I think you are wrong on this one.
Mark Shuttleworth was out of order”
No he wasn’t.
” and he knows he was out of order.”
No he doesn’t. In fact he knows he was NOT out of order. See that’s the thing with feminists, they think that because they hold an opinion about something it MUST be true and everyone else KNOWS it is true. Life doesn’t work that way.
“Regarding your own situation..well, if as you say, the sexual orientation police would have been on your case if Mark Shuttleworth had targetted gay chaps instead of girls .. that stinks as well.”
Did you read the OP at all? He was suggesting that if HE had said something like that but about boys, instead of girls and someone did get on his case, that the explosion would have been that he had a RIGHT to say it. That all of these people now claiming Mark was wrong would have claimed that Scott was right. He was pointing out the sickening double standard.
But, since you are objecting to prejudice based on gender, let’s see if you do, as nearly all feminists do, and object to it using some other form of prejudice, perhaps racism, nationalism, or ableism (a favorite of feminists, as they LOVE to label folks that disagree with them as “crazy”, “insane”, “retarded”, “mentally ill” and other such ableist insults).
“Lets face it ..those chaps from the colonies have their problems. Americans are always in court sueing each other and South Africans ..well do I really have to say it?”
Yup there we go with the typical feminist national prejudices.
“Regarding the subject which kicked off all that hatred ”
What hatred? Feminists made a false claim about Mark, and non-feminists pointed out their falsehoods.
“Ive made a promise to eat my woolly ski hat if Ubuntu ever get it right for about 90% of users.”
NOW we are talking! Ubuntu won’t get it right and your digestive track is safe. Understand, it won’t get it right for 90% of users unless it’s user base is 10 people only and even then I give it a 40% chance of getting it right. But FINALLY we’re running into someone with at least a pseudo (if not real) sense of humor. Kudos.
“Maybe you could suggest in the very male environment of FOSS how someone like myself could get involved ….. my skills are C, C++, C#, TSQL, Delphi, Java, PHP (UK Uni) … and I have a good insight to the standard protocols of modbus, fieldbus, OPC (especially) All on Windows unfortunately but Im told its transferable.
Id like to help ..but not at the expense of being insulted and abused.”
First understand, if you are involved in FOSS you ARE going to be insulted and OFTEN. Your gender has nothing to do with it. Foss is full of arseholes.
Now as to how to get involved, the idea that whimminz are being prevented from being involved in FOSS is hogwash. That’s like saying whimminz are being prevented from keeping diaries. NO ONE has to give you permission to get involved. The code is FREE and OPEN and you can do ANYTHING with it that you want and your skill allows. You don’t even need the project organizers permission to work with their code. Grab it, use it, modify it, fork it, share it, sell it, give it away for free, do what you want as long as the license allows.
Point is do what YOU WANT. Do NOT let ANYONE judge you, ignore them. Speak your mind and be STRONG ENOUGH to accept that others will do so also and will disagree with you just as vehemently. Pick a tool, software program, that you like and start delving into the code. Or better yet create your own (which is all that I do). If you distribute your own code for free, be willing to MAYBE listen to suggestions, but don’t feel obligated to change something for someone that got something from you for free. I develop FOSS code all of the time and I ONLY do it for PAY or for MY OWN personal pleasure.
If you think I am speaking out my arse when I say that whimminz CANNOT BE PREVENTED from working in FOSS and thus the claims that they are is hogwash, TRY IT. Try to download the code yourself, read the help, IGNORE what people say and JUST DO IT. I don’t even read forums or blog posts most of the time, unless it is explaining something technical, so if someone is insulting me, I usually don’t notice. And I don’t let them use their insults as a reason for me to feel I cannot participate.
“On end-user forums, you will find plenty of abrasive and insulting people, as with any forum. I suppose I could say I have been abused myself, but I didn’t make a big deal out of it.”
That’s because you’re not a feminist. Feminists have to find a reason to feel like they are victims. First they will cry TREAT US THE SAME! Then when you are treating them the same they cry TREAT US DIFFERENT!
“I suggest you try and have a chat with people from various projects on irc.freenode.net. ”
I say try mibbit instead. It actually is friendly in many respects. Plus the men there are all beefcakes.
FP Good comments all around. I would like to address one thing specifically:
“Certainly, some consideration on the part of the guys could make things more inviting, but it just treats a symptom. The cure is to undo the cause. ”
I understand where you are coming from here. I have a different take though. That is, that the “considerations” that are being sought, “niceness” are not there for the waep men. Very often feminists insist that they want to be treated EXACTLY as the waep men. But they don’t really want to be treated as waep men are being treated.
For instance waep men often give each other a hard time. We often mock each other, we often argue, we are often vocal about OUR way vs the other waep man’s way, we’re often insulting to each other. Yet still, the entire world was built by us with all of this contention. I’ve had to explain to womb men friends that when a waep man has said such and such an insulting thing to her, he IS treating her as an EQUAL. He views her as someone who is strong enough to be treated the same way he treats all his waep men friends or co-workers. Once the womb men I’ve known have understood this, they no longer feel victimized.
But then again all of the womb men that I know will have just about nothing to do with feminists and their victimology, and every single one has refused to participate in the ubuntu womb man project because they just want to work or use software and not deal with a group that is nearly entirely about finding ways for womb men to be treated differently than waep men by waep men while all the time insisting they want to be treated the same.
Interesting and thought provoking comment from Aoirthoir An Broc.
Just to clarify I am not a feminist but I can and do recognise where an environment is hostile to women. It can be upsetting and maybe a little tolerance both ways is called for.
Point taken about pregnant and emotional though
You have misunderstood my comments re: sexual orientation. I am saying exactly the same as you are and the OP is. No disagreement there.
Re: hostile FOSS projects / forums I can only draw on my own experience where, for example I am treated with respect if I attend a standards modification forum for OPC, but if I make some comment in relation to a FOSS project ..well I am treated to a series of hostile retorts because I am female (judging by the evidence of the comments)
That needs addressing.
Thanks
Kate
I do not know what transpired with your other experiences.
However, when it comes to Aoirthoir An Broc’s comments, while he wasn’t at all gentle, I cannot see how he was hostile because you’re female. He was hostile because he felt you were complaining without cause.
To prevent being accused of whining in the future, I suggest you try and replace all gender references with the opposite sex and see how it sounds then. From my experience, most guys either don’t realise they are being assholes, or they are assholes in general, regardless of the other person’s sex.
“However, when it comes to Aoirthoir An Broc’s comments, while he wasn’t at all gentle, I cannot see how he was hostile because you’re female. He was hostile because he felt you were complaining without cause.”
I called him hostile???
Not so ..at no time have I called Aoirthoir An Broc hostile.
“well I am treated to a series of hostile retorts because I am female (judging by the evidence of the comments)”
I must have misunderstood then. I apologise.
No problem
…. for clarification the fragment you have quoted was comparing the difference in attitudes between
1: attending a standards modification forum as a paid participant
and
2: making a comment in relation to a FOSS project ..on a public forum of some sort.
Nothing at all to do with Aoirthoir An Broc