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.
I’d read what he said as a shorthand for “would be able to talk about his job in social situations with non-techy people” and think nothing more of it.
Obviously I don’t over-analyze things as much as some :/ Unnecessary outcry is unnecessary… then again, the fact that I can’t even find a mention of this in the register OR the inquirer suggests it’s only a small group of people moaning
All this rage is about him saying that?
I am amazed…
All I have to say about this issue is:
Anyone who has a problem with his statement obviously never tried to explain Linux to girls.
I do think a lot of the uproar surrounding Mark’s comment was purely a knee-jerk reaction due to the previous sexist incidents that occured some months before.
I don’t think Mark was being sexist – but i do think better consideration should be given to speeches that are going to made in front of a mixed audience. (Note: I’m not saying Marks comment was inappropriate).
I for one would have loved you to have given the keynote though Scott! If only to be able to finally see another gay geek in actual existence! =o P
Well spoken.
Visible people will be bashed on at the slightest opportunity, regardless of what they say. It’s ALWAYS been like that. But with today’s capability of people to mass communicate, this phenomenon is enhanced vastly by people posting this in forums and then everybody sort of goes bonkers on it.
Yeah. He didn’t phrase things brightly (unlike what he does usually)… and he could have phrased this differently.
Unfortunately, now, everybody who for some reason didn’t really love him in the first place, or who compete with Canonical in any kind of way, are jumping on the opportunity and turning this into something way out of proportions…
Gilles.
Zonkers’ keynote and Linus’ git talk had similar sentences and I think all these out of this world feminine fundamentalists should admit their hypocrisy and wrong accusations.
“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.”
Nope. And by getting that wrong, you entirely missed the point.
He didn’t say it would make it easier for *him* to explain what *he* does to girls. He said it would make it easier for *us* to explain what *we* do to girls. He wasn’t just representing himself as a heterosexual male (which wouldn’t really have been a problem); he was representing the entire open source development world (which was the ‘we’ to which he was referring) as heterosexual males.
Actually, his comment was as much exclusionary of gay men as of straight women, so we (I’m gay too…) could complain about it on the same basis.
Oh, and Linux Today never claimed anyone should resign. In fact, no-one on the ‘radical feminist’ side of the debate ever called for anyone to resign. The only resignation calling that went on was Sam Varghese calling for Matt Zimmerman to resign – and Sam’s on the ‘there’s no problem, you radical feminists’ side of the argument.
I think if he’d actually said “what I do,” it wouldn’t be problematic. It’s more the fact that it was “what we do,” the assumption that everyone in the room shares his attraction, that’s bothersome. Does that make sense?
Though, er, I don’t often get the impression that grown men like being referred to as boys, so I’m not sure why grown women should like being referred to as girls.
There’s the problem: Mark’s part of a vastly male majority. The implication — and often, the reality — has been that we are Other. It creates the problem of joining a group without women already present becoming one of there being an them-vs-me relationship. By being other, we are easy to discount, to dismiss, and to silence. That’s where the problem lies.
Mark’s comments aren’t the most sexist things I’ve heard in a long while — and in isolation, I’d be inclined to interpret “to girls” to mean “to those who aren’t technically inclined”. However, it’s a part of a much, much larger problem.
If someone assumes I’m not technically inclined, it’s offensive. It’s another line between who I supposedly am, and what I can do. Girls who do software are good at it. That there are so few of us speaks to something being wrong.
Mackenzie: “Though, er, I don’t often get the impression that grown men like being referred to as boys”
Actually…some gay guys prefer it. Or the even ickier ‘boi’ (ugh). They think ‘man’ makes them seem, well, older. I don’t think it’s an especially great perspective on things, but it’s pretty common.
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Given the reaction to similar recent comments that have been construed as sexist it wouldn’t have taken a great deal of foresight to have made his point in a way that would have avoided pissing some people off.
I might then have seen some reporting and reflection on what the keynote was about rather than a lot of pointless infighting.
I’m not that concerned with the folks arguing this point but even as a forty year old man I think I can imagine what a young female programmer might feel about herself and her piers being singled out as needing special help.
Perhaps you might consider extending your analogy to someone speaking about explaining it to gays?
very good and funny post. however I think M.S. should have avoid saying something like that, specially considering that there is a very real and absurd sexism in the foss/open source communities.
on the other hand I think that some other members of the same communities are starting to behave as feminist zealots, and that probably makes more harm than it helps.
Well put Scott. I have similar problems with all this uproar. The whole thing reminds of a conversation I had the other day with a friend of mine who is working towards becoming a police officer. I commented to her that I don’t think I could ever do that because there are too many laws I disagree with and wouldn’t be able to enforce them in conscience. We then went on to discuss an example where an elderly woman bought too much cold medicine that contained a meth component. She was prosecuted under a law meant to target meth producers, even though noone involved in law enforcement believed she was or had any intent to produce meth. If that’s the case, why is she being prosecuted? It makes no sense. The letter of the law is being enforced, with no thought to the spirit or intent of the law.
This situation, and many others I’ve seen recently, reminds me of that one. It’s as if people believe that because they can be offended by a comment, they should be. Regardless of the intent of the speaker. Regardless of the definition of certain words the speaker was thinking of when using them (“guys” in this case).
I appreciate the concept of “othering”. I appreciate all the things that “compassionate communication” are supposed to help us avoid. I appreciate that there are some people out there who are actually trying to marginalize various groups of people unjustly. However, it pisses me off when someone who clearly is not doing any of those things gets raked over the coals by extremists because they speak colloquially or perhaps less precisely than they should. It’s sad, and it seems to me that often the people making the noise are doing a better job of “othering” than person they are so upset with was.
>Though, er, I don’t often get the impression that grown men like being referred to as boys, so I’m not sure why grown women should like being referred to as girls.
My understanding that the opposite of “girls” is not “boys,” but rather “guys.” In this context, it seems like Mark Shuttleworth thinks the same. He uses the word “guys” a lot.
I once spoke with a friend who thought that the term “girls” was derogatory, and that “women” should be used instead. My response was that women is the opposite of men. So, what is the opposite to guys? He said he didn’t give it much thought, and I said that maybe he should before he accused someone of sexism. (He was a good friend). And no one seriously uses the term “gals.”
Hmm, two people have said “s/girls/people who aren’t technically-inclined/” but I don’t really think it makes sense to use an arbitrary segment of the population to mean “people who aren’t technically-inclined,” since it’s bound to insult members of that arbitrary segment. I mean, does it make sense in talking about usability (the context of his pick-up-line joke was that he wants to improve usability) to do any of these?
s/non-tech-savvy people/Jews/g
s/non-tech-savvy people/janitors/g
s/non-tech-savvy people/blondes/g
s/non-tech-savvy people/tall people/g
s/non-tech-savvy people/glasses-wearers/g
Vadim:
Oh, no, not just that. There was a hooker joke too. And there was some rather consistent use of male terms for developers and female terms for hapless users.
My wife refuses to be called a women. She is a women when she have to, but prefer to be a girl.
So my wife is a girl and a mother that do global expatriate positions for the male dominated oil industry.
She loves to play and enjoy life. She gets paid to be a serious and boring women at work so she loves to be a girl when she can.
I am not giving up the boy in me. I am old enough to call the women at work for girls these days. I do it to honour them and make them happy.
Scott, sexism goes beyond sex, sexuality and sexual orientation.
Sexism is as the wikipedia page states “refers to the belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other”. Placing females as the all-failing and comparing them to men as the all-knowing, is an example of this contemptuous stereotyping.
Mark has recited the stereotype of “females don’t understand tech, but males do”, even though he didn’t intend to say that. Intentions do not dictate how something will be heard or what consequences such interpretations will have. Mark’s saying this and then his refusal to apologise and clarify publicly is like a kick in the face to people who are out of breath from repeatedly having to say “yes, I am female *and* I understand tech just as much as males do”.
It hurts, and you have the privilege of not feeling that particular hurt because you are not female.
Women and girls need to decide when engaging in anonymised online communications in FOSS whether they will identify as female or lose the gender part of their identity, purely for the sake of overcoming the extra ‘getting respect’ hurdle that it places before them that males do not have. Women and girls have to decide if they will participate in face-to-face communications for fear of face-to-face confrontations and outing their online personas.
I have privileges too. I recognise that I will likely never truely know what it feels like to have to decide if I will reveal my sexual orientation for fear of losing respect, and I don’t have to decide if I will be publicly affectionate with significant others for fear of outing.
I can acknowledge my privilege. Can you acknowledge yours?
Mackenzie,
Not that I want to disagree with you completely but I am from India and it is quite common here to refer to adult women as girls. Not necessary old women but early 20′s definitely and a bunch of people as “guys” and even women do that at all the time. While more awareness of sexism is important, it helps to keep in mind that there are strong cultural affinity that influences our language. I am sure people who have ever had their call redirected to a Indian BPO would be aware of that to some extend.
Now that the video has been released, and that I’m assured the actual words were in fact “what we do”, I’ve changed my position somewhat. I still believe that in context “explaining to girls” wasn’t saying anything about the technical abilities of females specifically, but I do think that using the inclusive “we” to describe developers as only people who are attracted to women *does* exclude straight women and gay men, and so is understandably offensive.
As for the hooker joke, was that the “release” thing? Because I really didn’t make that connection…
Most humans of any gender aren’t techies, ergo trying to explain something highly technical to a random date (of any gender) is likely difficult. Yes, it’s unfortunate Mark is a member of the majority and phrased it that way. Yes it’s unfortunate that being in a minority can very quickly feel uncomfortable (something I know well). Unfortunately being sensitised to this (even reasonably so) can create as much of the “them vs. us” as any comment like Marks.
The most interesting thing added to this conversation so far has been Mackenzie mentioning that the offense is at a consistent pattern of Marks and a joke as well as the actual phrase in question.
I just wish at this point we had access to the video (or even just a transcript) to see the actual context here. That seems to be the part that would answer this question in most people’s minds.
It’s not just girls that aren’t technical. Most boys aren’t either. But there happens to be a larger share of geeky boys than geeky girls. I wish people in GNOME made it easier for geeks to get involved (auto-tools are crap) And if you are not already part of the inbred crowd, it’s hard to break in.
I think the “problem” is that we contextualize everything from our own experience, personalities and perspective. I don’t know if he meant to be offensive, but it is hard to discuss stuff and be gender neutral because you can only know what would be offensive to your own gender (race, faith, whatever). I haven’t followed the whole thing, but I believe that it was mostly the tone of the entire speech rather than specifically what he said that have angered so many people.
The thing is, where are you supposed to draw line? Is it at this point, or at the point of being openly hostile towards women?
I personally do believe that an attitude adjustment towards one that is more sensible to the diversity in the community is necessary, but I don’t care about the apology. But then again I am not a woman, so I can’t say how far the line has been crossed and what is needed to make amends.
Whenever you are not something, you are bound, at some point in life to make hurtful comments about that which you are not. It was just stupid of him to do it here, but it is human nature.
For the record I am a gay black man (not an american, so not an african american) and even I have said stupid things about others.
Not trying to start an argument but that was not a hooker joke.
I never did think Mark’s comment were sexist at all. I had a very multi-cultural childhood (race and gender) so the meaning of the keynote is what I focus on, and frankly what should of been focused on, not the words used and if it’s sexist or if other words may offend a certain segment of the audience or not. I’m glad, because that’s a burden and a waste of mental energy which I rather not have. Then again, it’s 2009, and it seems more people are getting increasingly intolerant, so much so that one has to be careful of every word uttered so as not to offend anyone and then if even there is no ill-intent get publicly vilified. It that progress? In some ways it can be but an incident such as this, more hurt has flowed.
Thanks Scott for your post and thank you for your fantastic work and, you should be offered a keynote.
Now, put this behind us and lets get on with the main show. Peace and harmony.
Scott, I think you’re right that the response would have been different in that scenario, but that doesn’t bother me, because it is a different situation.
Sexism is about the intersection of gender with privilege. Privilege is why white folks can laugh it off when someone makes light of their whiteness, but it’s a different story altogether when the target is a less privileged class.
The fact that Mark (a man) evoked such a reaction, by referring to women the way he did, isn’t because of his sexual orientation toward women: it’s because of his privilege relative to them.
The responses are consistent if you take into account the power dynamic involved.
The fact is that there are a lot more tech-savvy boys than girls. Even in my Computing Science class, there are about 10-15 girls and 160 boys. If you’re asking Mark to account for minorities in every single sentence, you’re asking for political correctness, and that’s an even bigger problem than sexism.
It’s like me being offended by a cooking guide that refers to women as the cooks and men as useless around food, me being a decent cook. It would be ridiculous.
This isn’t about sexuality, I think. The way I interpret most of the comments on this issue, Mark’s comment hasn’t been seen as meaning that he cares what girls think because he is a heterosexual. It’s been interpreted as meaning that he cares what women think because they are less technically able to understand the issue than men.
I don’t know whether that is a fair interpretation or not, because I wasn’t at the speech and haven’t listened to it back, but I’ve read some of the blog posts and that’s how I’ve seen people reacting.
heh..good post, can’t believe this is an issue. some people need to grow up. We’re here to do software not be 100% critical of our peers every word.
Maybe Mark should not have said that. But maybe (no really) we are all overreacting.
And I agree with Scott (being a gay man myself) that Mark’s words said by a gay man would have caused a different kind of s**t storm.
I do not think sexsim is right but I also think there a) worse things and b) more important things.
For example: Nobody thinks women are not worthy of living. A lot of people think gays and lesbians are not worthy of living.
So can we now move on to more important things?
My personal opinion is that he said three or four things that were sexist, but only a little bit.
I would like Free Software leaders to not assume that their community is male only because it excludes those who aren’t male, just as if they made a comment about gay or black people, not offensively or anything, but just with the unspoken assumption that none of those type of people are part of the community that they’re talking to and that women (or whoever) are “them” not “us”.
I would like them not to use their older female relatives as examples of people who can’t use linux because a) it’s insulting both to woment and older people, but also b) because it puts the blame for Ubuntu usability onto certain types of people rather the Ubuntu developers. I appreciate that they’re saying “we want to make Ubuntu for everyone” but it’s a crappy meme that needs to die. Use “busy pediatric surgeon” or “Steve Jobs” or “Donald Knuth” if you need an example person who doesn’t have time to fight the UI when they’re trying to print something and get on with their lives. You’re not making the interface “simple” for these people, you’re “fixing it” because it is “broken”, or at the very least “poorly engineered” (avoiding “design” because people think that’s all about color choice). Words and framing are important.
I would like my Free Software leaders not to make jokes about ejaculation (or taking peoples Emacs virginity) in important speeches, not only because bringing sex into things can make some women in the community, who are already outnumbered, feel weird, but because it’s simply embarrassing to me for them to do that, it’s like something out of The Office. Maybe it’s just me but I expect a bit more sauveness and sophistication from billionaire astronauts.
But, as I said, these are only a little bit sexist. I think that, as with say politeness, there’s an expected level of sexism in most aspects of society. I would like fellow members (and indeed leaders and heros) of free software to rise above this level and hope that they show they way to raise the bar for everyone, but also I would only expect public apologies if they fell somewhat below this level.
I guess that’s the hard bit. How can you express disappointment that people haven’t lived up to your high expectations for them without them (or their supporters) from feeling that you’re attacking them. Particularly when they’re public figures who do have detractors that will welcome any excuse to pile on.
It wasn’t that he said “girls” instead of women or “the-gender-I’m-attracted-to, it was that he said females weren’t able to understand Linux and computer hardware unless it was broken down into Romper Room ABC’s by the big strong men. How are we poor stupid gals supposed to set up our wireless connections and printers without the all-seeing and all-dancing Mark Shuttleworth to explain it to us like we were 6 year olds?
I thought he meant he was shy about interacting with the opposite sex. That I can relate to.
Well said, dave.
Lucian: “The fact is that there are a lot more tech-savvy boys than girls. Even in my Computing Science class, there are about 10-15 girls and 160 boys.”
Do you think that’s a good thing? Have you ever put any thought into just why it might be the case?
“If you’re asking Mark to account for minorities in every single sentence, you’re asking for political correctness, and that’s an even bigger problem than sexism.”
No, you’re not. And it’s only a bigger problem than sexism if you’re male and hence don’t have to worry about sexism at all and can spend your time worrying about made-up crap like ‘political correctness’ (otherwise known, to anyone with a backbone, as ‘respect’).
Zac: so, what you’re saying is, we should only worry about sexism reducing female involvement in open source when someone stands up and gives a fifty minute talk on how women are silly little girls who should stay in the kitchen? And as long as no-one does that, it’s not a problem?
Sheesh. It’s pretty unusual for any kind of prejudice or bias to take up someone’s entire talk / email / conversation. Even in the most extreme examples you can think of, it’s rarely the case. That doesn’t make it not a _problem_.
@Scott
Exactamundo. I gave the same example, when this was initially being talked about. People keep trying to use this as a platform for pushing two ideas: a) If I am offended, the other person must apologize. Or b) Lets use this as an opportunity to promote politically correctness, or other sexism issues.
In many interviews with Mark, he has said sex jokes. If you don’t like them, then don’t listen. People need to accept that others will not agree with their opinion, and move forward.
no girls on the internets, nananana.
/me crawls back to seven.
I think this is a bit out of proportion.
In my entire life I have meet only one female person that could understand my geeky talk or project details.
First of all, let me put my perspective. I don’t have any sort of sexual desire towards women or men due to brain damage. For me they are equals in every sense since I don’t want relationships with any. I only value the actual person’s value.
That said, girls in tech environments are very rare. It feels they don’t feel interested in those “geek things”. And I feel sorry about that, since they give different points of view on things that feel fresh. I am a game developer, and that tech-aware person I mentioned is not, but understands a fair deal about it, and can even reason bugs or give insight on character/story material that males can’t. Hence it’s fresh, and fresh is good.
However, we are human beings either way. So it shouldn’t really matter male or female at all. After all, out of biological aspects, what is the difference? The most can be educational differences, rather than anything else. If I pick up one game one day and I find out a female programmer made it, should I really give it importance just for that, or should I judge just the product?
I think only the product should be judged.
Women in general-male communities stand out oddly. It’s like when in an IRC channel someone reveals she’s female and then she gets flooded in query windows. I don’t understand that.
Truth is that I can’t explain Linux to most female persons I know, because…well, they just don’t care at all. They generally focus on single applications and ignore the whole OS works unless they choose to specialize by their own will.
Which is basically the same thing that happens to males.
They just haven’t made the choice to learn OS mechanics, production environments and compiler works. I’d have the same amount of trouble explaining it to my father than to my mother.
Making a big deal out of a sexist commentary will only serve to fuel the trolls and making females stand out more. People will feel awkward talking to them in fear of triggering a negative reaction by a bad commentary.
I am not saying you should be submissive and bend to the will of THE MAN, never, but we have reached a critical point of “political correctness” that, in all honesty, is just annoying.
I know many female persons that would fire away sexist commentary about males, comments that because of physical disabilities mentioned above CAN’T apply to myself. I don’t like them, but you’d laugh at me if I complained about those.
The solution? Ask politely. A “please don’t talk about X that way” after the keynote in private would be more effective than a public outroar. You want to avoid that…unless your intention is punitive.
I wonder if knitting circles do have the same kind of discussions.
Anyway; even though the size of the discussion bothers me a bit, I’m somewhat proud that this discussion can take place.
My point of view; yes, it was sexism. But it wasn’t malicious. And since no one can (or even should?) be political correct all the time, everyone should be able to carry on with their lives.
The problem is the use of “girls” as shorthand for “non-technical people”: it’s insulting to technical women. Don’t answer that there aren’t that many technical women; it used to be pretended that gay people didn’t exist, or at least don’t have to be considered, and it’s just as insulting to pretend that technical women don’t exist.
They really discuss those matters in the context of a Linux meeting already? … Then we can’t be that far from reaching world domination, I guess.
RVA: There’s two more just in this thread!
Raphael: Yes, knitting circles have an equivalent conversation. However, it goes very, very differently because of the way power is held. You’re not talking about a group that excludes a group that is, in society on average less empowered.
The reason that this is coming up is that there are finally a few women present at some of these talks, and it’s an ongoing discussion that’s forming: RMS’s Emacs Virgins schpiel, semi-pornographic slides at a ruby conference, a shy titter of explaining what we do to girls. There’s a pattern here — I’m quite happy to forgive Mark, though the public anti-apology makes it a lot more frustrating — but we need to address the root problem: we get treated like curiosities, we have to fight our way in a bit or be willing to be entirely othered. We have to deal with a flood of query windows on IRC when someone realizes we’re female publicly (and we’re not talking “Wow, awesome that you got involved in tech! Was it hard for you?”, we’re talking “ASL?! Picspls!” in queries)
Fixing it is going to take a gentle affirmative action: We need to affirm that we won’t tolerate sexism, we need to gently correct it whenever it’s present, and we need to do it as a whole community, and not leave it up to the few of us who are women. We need to make a clear effort to keep criticism confined to our work and our treatment of others, not on who we are, and leave out implied inferiority entirely — I think this would be good in principle in general, but we need to make it applied even more carefully to those who are suspiciously under-represented.
I’ve been seeing this discussion for a while now and I think McKenzie and other ‘female geeks’ are being very dishonest.
YOU KNOW WHAT’S SEXISTS IS?
That if a male would start complaining about how they feel ‘theoretically’ insulted, as a desperate attempt to get more attention, they would be shunned.
Yet, when females do it, the people are all ‘so understanding’ and trying to enter in a reasonable debate.
This is not about the arguments. This is just existentialism.
If they keep shouting that they are female geeks, the only reasonable conclusion should be THEY are the ones that want to draw attention to the fact.
Oh look a female magazine. “How to get a man to love cooking”.
Should i feel ‘theoretically’ insulted now? Because I love to cook?
The weird thing is: even i’m trying to be extra careful now. When I speak out loud that it’s just a pathetic cry for attention, these specific individuals just play the gender card again.
And it’s not even sexism. It’s just playing to stereo types. It’s quite a bit different to say that more females stay at home while the man works, and saying more females ought to stay at home while the man works. Here’s an insight: if you can’t make the distinction between the two then you aren’t really a geek.
Which brings me to my last point. (and I do hope the females in question get to read this). Your usage of the word geek is insulting. Just because people love linux doesn’t make it okay to suggest they are geeks.
So here’s the counter: I THINK THE LADIES IN QUESTION SHOULD APOLOGIZE FOR THEIR GEEKISM. It’s not okay to suggest we are all socially ackward idiots that do not have average john doe type interests.
(and yes, that’s meant sarcastically. stop crying)
Dave, thats the most sensible and balanced comment I have seen in this whole debate.
raphael: there’s general agreement that it wasn’t malicious, from both sides of the debate. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. It wasn’t malicious, but it was _damaging_. Or, more accurately, the compound effect of all the many occurrences of this kind of sexism in the open source world are damaging to the level of participation in open source by women. That’s part of the reason why there’s so few women involved in open source in the first place. We are asking Mark to apologize for the damage caused by his remark, not for any malicious intent behind it. His refusal to apologize increases the damage done, by implying that he doesn’t care about the damage caused.
matthew: how are you supposed to magically foretell that Mark (or anyone else) is about to make a dumb sexist joke, and then cover your ears and go LALALALA very loudly until he’s done? (And when do you know when he’s done?) The practical problems with your suggestion seem legion…
Neil / tretle: the ‘hooker joke’ was when he said something about a release, then said he wasn’t talking about a happy ending. Happy ending, in that context, can only have the meaning of a paid-for massage being concluded by a handjob. There’s no other commonly-understood meaning of the term in that context. It is hence a joke about prostitution, which seems in rather poor taste for a technical keynote.
human2.0: the video is available. It’s here: http://www.linuxpromagazine.com/linuxcon/shuttleworth . as mentioned in this thread, Mark several times refers to developers as ‘guys’, makes the bad hooker joke, and the exact remark that’s most discussed is clearly audible and uses ‘we’, not ‘I’.
@andy: that’s kind of a common fallacy. Should the police not worry about fraudsters because there’s muggers out there? Should they not worry about muggers because there’s bank robbers? Actually, forget the bank robbers, there’s rapists out there. Whoops, no, there’s murderers. Then mass murderers. Then genocidists.
You can get rid of virtually any inconvenient problem you don’t want to worry about by saying oh, well, there’s something more important to care about, but if you were to try and hold everyone to that standard, everyone in the world would be a hypocrite. We don’t spend our every waking moment worrying about how to solve world hunger and end oppression, so either we’re all terrible people or you need to give up that argument.
@Adam Williamson
Notice it says “sex joke” not “sexist joke”. I do not think his comment was sexist. I have already explained my opinion on this issue, in a blog post over two weeks ago: http://www.mattjones.workhorsy.org/2009/09/23/mark-respects-girls/
In practically every interview Mark has done, he has said sex related or crude jokes. If you don’t like what he is saying, then get up leave. No one should have to censor themselves with the level of political correctness, that as being requested here. And it is not their fault, if you are offended.
matt: whatever the merits (or otherwise) of making “sex related or crude jokes” in a serious software development keynote, making sexist and prostitution-related jokes is different.
Hey Scott,
I don’t think you can be accused of sexism if you talk about your own sex.
And this is probably a high level sexism debate. The sexism in the statement is that he would have to explain his work to girls or women and not to boys or men.
Greetings from Germany
Tim
@Tim: sure you can ! If a woman says something like “women are best left home caring for the kids”, isn’t that sexism ? Likewise, if a black man says bad about black people, that’s still racism.
@Stefan:
Okay, it might be sexism, but that statement wouldn’t be that explosive.
It is always sexism, as long as you talk about differences in genders, i think. And even if your statement is positive, it would be some positive discrimination.
Am I right?
Great post Scott, the funny thing is that if you weren’t gay, the things you said would be frowned upon.
Too many people have agendas and chips on their shoulders, the fact that biology and upbringing makes people different is lost on most people, especially when someone stumbles on one of their world view tripwires.
I’m just sick of reading “sexism issues in FOSS”, I want to read about technology.
I hope your post gets read and understood.
Matt
Tim: no. sexism is specifically negative discrimination. Mark’s comment is sexist because, while referring to ‘we’ to mean all F/OSS developers, he said that making some particular improvements to Linux distributions “would make it easier for us to explain what we do to girls”. This implies that the ‘we’ in question – again, that’s all F/OSS developers – are straight men, and it also implies that women find it particularly hard to understand what F/OSS development involves. The statement’s meaning – not necessarily its _intent_ – is to exclude women from the possibility of being F/OSS developers.
Matt: see above, and my earlier comment. Scott’s post is not great, as it relies on a fundamental misunderstanding of what Mark actually said.
What is the opposite of “boys’ if not “girls”?
Meneer:
Stereotypes are part-and-parcel of sexism. Also, geek hasn’t been an insult in a while. “Socially awkward idiot?” What? Hell no! First, it implies intelligence, not idiocy. Second, it’s about intense interest and possibly expertise in a specific field. It’s a compliment second only to “hacker” in my mind.
Don’t worry, I find women’s magazines overwhelmingly insulting too
RVA: Matt took Mark aside in private after the keynote.
Adam:
-isms do not have to be negative. Even “all Asians are good at math,” a “positive” stereotype, is bad. It means that if you’re a Chinese kid who’s bad at math, you feel extra-fail-y.
How do you know Shuttleworth is heterosexual?
“This implies that the ‘we’ in question – again, that’s all F/OSS developers – are straight men, and it also implies that women find it particularly hard to understand what F/OSS development involves.”
There’s no implication of this sort at all in his statement. Rather it is an inference taken by some the hearers. Especially regarding the “ALL” part of your comment. The reactions say a lot more about the people reacting then they say about Mark.
Everyone’s doing a fine job at answering this already, but I’ll chime in as also being disappointed by Scott’s post:
* Mark said *we’d* have an easier time explaining what *we* do to girls. He was talking for you, and he was talking for me, and he was talking as a leading role model in free software. Don’t you think there’s something wrong with announcing that you consider your audience to consist of heterosexual men, and that anyone else should feel like they don’t exist, or only exist to be the target of jokes about how they don’t understand how computers work?
* The reason there would be no outcry if you said the same thing about “boys” is that there isn’t already a pervasive and damaging stereotype of “boys” as being unable to use computers. People would just stare and say “Huh?”. The fact that they react with laughter when “girls” are the target of the joke, but would not for “boys”, is *evidence* that a stereotype exists and is being invoked.
My memory is that Mark didn’t refer to himself “talking to girls about what I do”, but to the audience or community in general “talking to girls about what we do”.
Mackenzie: fair point, sorry.
Mike: well, the ‘explaining what we do to girls’ rather suggests it, doesn’t it?
Aoirthoir: I don’t see how you can interpret that ‘we’ in any other way. Listen to the whole context in the speech. He talks about ‘we’ improving support for printers, wireless adapters, video cards…how is it not sexist for the ‘we’ who do all that work to be identified as exclusively male? How is it not reasonable to consider that ‘we’ as referring to the F/OSS development community in general? What other group of people could it refer to?
Adam I will quote again:
“This implies that the ‘we’ in question – again, that’s all F/OSS developers – are straight men, and it also implies that women find it particularly hard to understand what F/OSS development involves.”
The “we” in question can be *inferred* any way a person chooses to infer it. Implications are what a person *intends* to be understood in one manner or another even in cases of a deliberate double meaning, comedy, slight of speech or plain old direct meaning. Inferences are what a person *interprets* a person as having meant, even if the person did not mean what is inferred in any fashion whatsoever.
In no case was Mark *implying* that women are not capable at tech or are incapable of working with Free Software, despite the numbers of people that are choosing to infer that is what he meant. As I said in my original comment, especially when you use the word *all*. To believe that Mark was trying to imply, suggest, believe, claim, promote, or in any other manner state, that *ALL* women are incapable of tech is to practice by definition transference.
So feel free to *infer* anything you want from his speech, that won’t change what he was *implying* and says more about you, than it does about Mark.
@Aoirthoir:
All you’re doing is stating a belief that you care more about what the person causing offense might have meant than what the (many) people who received offense felt. Why is that valuable or interesting? Apologies aren’t self-destructive things to give to other people — they make you feel better, because you don’t feel so bad about having made other people feel hurt, and they reassure the people you’re giving them to that you care more about them than your careless words led them to infer.
It’s not unreasonable to ask for an apology in cases where many people feel hurt and marginalized. Apologies don’t cost anything to give, and a community’s leaders should be especially willing to give them, since people who don’t know everyone in the community may use the leaders’ spoken thoughts as a proxy for the whole group’s views.
Aoirthoir: in addition to what Chris said, your logic is simply faulty. The fact that something is implied by a statement doesn’t mean that you can’t be entirely sure that the statement actually has that meaning, as you seem to be assuming.
If I state that ‘all sunflowers are yellow’, I haven’t definitely stated that any _particular_ sunflower is yellow. I have only _implied_ that any given sunflower is yellow. However, you can’t interpret my statement in any other way. I couldn’t protest that, sure, I said all sunflowers are yellow, but I didn’t actually mean _your_ sunflower is yellow. That would be a nonsensical position. One of the two statements I’d made _must_ be nonsense, in the strict meaning of that word as it applies to argumentation.
Mark’s words do not explicitly _state_ that all the developers to whom he is referring are men. But they do _imply_ it. That’s not a subjective position – it doesn’t depend on interpretation that’s up for debate. The only way you can possibly interpret those words to have any coherent meaning relies upon that idea. It’s not a case where one person might infer some particular meaning from his statement, and another person might reasonably infer another. If you infer any _other_ meaning from it, you haven’t understood the statement correctly, you are making an undisputable _error_ of interpretation.
This doesn’t mean that Mark _consciously intended_ that his statement have the result of offending women. No-one is suggesting that he did. But the actual meaning of the words he said is not the same thing as the intent behind them.
He implied that one gender would not be able to understand open source software.
It doesn’t matter what gender he was refering to, what gender he is or what gender he wants to have sexual relationships with.
Men and women are equally able to understand technology regardless of their sexual preferences. He implied they weren’t.
“All you’re doing is stating a belief that you care more about what the person causing offense might have meant than what the (many) people who received offense felt.”
Nope. That’s what you’re *inferring* I’ve stated. I’ve made no such statements, either outright or by implication. Rather, I’ve made to main statements (not by implication or inference but by stating outright). First is that an inference does not an implication make. Second that Mark was not implying what others have inferred he implied in regards to the abilities of women.
The conclusions I’ve drawn, outright, not by inference or implication, is that those that infer someone meant something which the person neither said, nor implied, say more about themselves, than about the person they are referencing.
“It’s not unreasonable to ask for an apology in cases where many people feel hurt and marginalized.”
I made no statement for, or against an apology.
“If I state that ‘all sunflowers are yellow’, I haven’t definitely stated that any _particular_ sunflower is yellow.I have only _implied_ that any given sunflower is yellow.”
Actually you have not *implied* anything, you have stated it outright. Mark made no such statement outright, nor did he imply anything about *all* women or women as a group.
“Mark’s words do not explicitly _state_ that all the developers to whom he is referring are men. But they do _imply_ it. ”
You are playing bait and switch here. I never made a claim regarding the gender or sex of the developers he was speaking to, either outright, by implication or by inference. So I will quote what I said:
“In no case was Mark *implying* that women are not capable at tech or are incapable of working with Free Software, despite the numbers of people that are choosing to infer that is what he meant.”
I infer from both of your statements that you hate the Sidhe, dislike buck tooth people, want to eat Coffee Ice Cream and are willing to work with the Illuminati to destroy all life on earth. Of course, I’m lucid enough to realize that what I *infer* you are *meaning*, despite being completely contrary to your *actual* words, are not what you’ve *implied*.
aoirthoir: you’re the one playing bait and switch. You’ve suddenly started talking about capabilities – no one else has made any reference to this. I’m not saying that Mark stated or implied women aren’t capable of developing F/OSS. Neither, as far as I’m aware, is anyone else. Where did you get that from?
You also suddenly started talking about ‘the developers he was speaking to’, which is nothing I or anyone else brought up. I said ‘the developers to whom he is referring’. That’s not the same thing.
You continue to use the word ‘mean’, which is unfortunately ambiguous in this context. As far as I can tell, you are _still_ using it in the context of intent, which is not what I’m talking about. I’d prefer not to use the word ‘mean’ at all. Mark probably did not intend for his statement to imply that the people doing the work to which he referred are all men. However, that _is_ what his statement implies. Whether he intended it or not, the words he said imply that.
“You’ve suddenly started talking about capabilities – no one else has made any reference to this.”
No suddenly about it. It was the statement I made originally. Further, it is exactly one of the complaints that some folks have made.
“Mark probably did not intend for his statement to imply that the people doing the work to which he referred are all men. However, that _is_ what his statement implies. Whether he intended it or not, the words he said imply that.”
Right. So then it was not an implication at all, but an inference of those listening to him.
No. it is an implication. His statement makes no sense unless the ‘we’ in question are all male. If the ‘we’ included members of both sexes, the bit about ‘explaining what we do to girls’ would just not make any sense. It doesn’t depend on a subjective and questionable interpretation. It’s the only possible way to interpret the sentence. Implication, not inferral.
We do agree that there was likely no malicious intent behind the statement. No-one’s ever said there was. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t cause harm.
@Adam Williamson
Nope. He was talking about the work ubuntu is doing in the area of design. The “we” is clearly referring to people in the ubuntu project. Since he was talking about explaining what ubuntu is trying to do to a potential date, it makes perfect sense.
Once again, you are not understanding his intent. You are talking in circles.
“If the ‘we’ included members of both sexes, the bit about ‘explaining what we do to girls’ would just not make any sense. ”
Sure it does. It all depends on the person speaking. I for instance alternate my pronouns and nouns when speaking about persons. Sometimes I will use neuter nouns, sometimes male, sometimes female and sometimes plural. I alternate with deliberate intent, *even* when the gender is presumed by another. Because I do this often, and because I am around a plethora of persons that likewise alternate language in such fashions, I never make the kinds of inferences about another’s speech patterns or believe that any inference I would make are actually implied by the speaker.
Matthew, please do not confuse anyone with the facts.
@Aoirthoir An broc
Yeah really. The part about “we” is probably the most unambiguous part of what he said. To interpret is a “us men” is just silly.
matt: he wasn’t talking about design, he was talking about device drivers. Not that important, though. still, I’m interested why you think it would be any less sexist if his statement assumed that all ‘people in the Ubuntu project’ must be men?
once again, I’ve been saying for seventy three gazillion posts that neither I or anyone else thinks Mark had a conscious intent of saying something that would be insulting towards women. Given that, I really don’t know why you and Aoirthoir et al keep bringing up the issue of intent. No-one is arguing with you about intent. There is no disagreement on the topic of intent. Regarding the issue of intent, we are in accord. Is that clear enough? Can I explain it in any other way for you?
oh, and I’m not talking in circles. I am repeating myself a lot. This is very tiresome and I’d rather not have to do it, but it seems like Aoirthoir still doesn’t understand what I’m trying to say. I’m patient.
aoirthoir: that sounds like an excellent way to confuse the hell out of people, but be it as it may, if you watch Mark’s entire speech, he does not display anything like that speech pattern. So bringing up the way _you_ speak when we’re not talking about anything you said seems a bit irrelevant.
There was no reason to use a gender-specific word in the statement in question – which is, let’s remind ourselves, ‘we’d have less trouble explaining to girls what we do’ – unless the gender were somehow important. If gender didn’t matter, he could as easily have said ‘we’d have less trouble explaining to people what we do’. That’s a perfectly sensible statement. There’s no _need_ to pick a gender-specific word, so no need to argue over why he picked one gender rather than the other, and whether it was just coincidence or serendipity or whatever that he picked a female-specific word rather than a male-specific one. He didn’t need to pick any gender at all. The fact that a gender-specific word was used at all means the gender is important to the statement.
(my Flash appears to be on the fritz, so I can’t re-watch the talk at this particular moment, or else I’d provide a more extensive transcript for context).
matthew: I’m not interpreting the ‘we’ as ‘us men’, directly. Never said that. What I did say is quite clear, I’m really not sure why you have any trouble understanding it. The ‘we’, in context, means F/OSS developers (or Ubuntu developers, or whatever hair you want to split, it doesn’t really matter). The problem is that placing that ‘we’ in opposition to the later gender-specific noun ‘girls’ makes it gender-specific. It identifies the ‘we’ in question – the developers – as male.
Imagine you’re a female F/OSS developer (or, again, Ubuntu project member, or yadda yadda). How do you consider yourself to be included in that ‘we’? As a female F/OSS developer, do you often find yourself trying to pick up girls and having trouble explaining what your job is? No. No, you probably don’t. So you’re excluded from Mark’s ‘we’. You’ve suddenly become a non-person! Wouldn’t you find that a bit jarring?
To take an argument from someone who used it in a different thread – imagine Mark had said ‘we’d have less trouble explaining to people called Matthew what we do’. But you’re called Matthew, and you’re an F/OSS developer! Why is this guy’s statement assuming that people called Matthew can’t possibly be in the F/OSS developer group? Why are you being left out? Why would only people who aren’t called Matthew be F/OSS developers?
“Given that, I really don’t know why you and Aoirthoir et al keep bringing up the issue of intent. No-one is arguing with you about intent.”
By using the language that Mark *implied* this or that, you are exactly speaking of intent. Since you claim you are not arguing intent, then you should use the accurate word “infer”.
“but it seems like Aoirthoir still doesn’t understand what I’m trying to say. I’m patient.”
No, you’re redundant and inaccurate. It’s not our fault that your using language incorrectly.
“aoirthoir: that sounds like an excellent way to confuse the hell out of people,”
It’s not confusing at all.
” but be it as it may, if you watch Mark’s entire speech, he does not display anything like that speech pattern. So bringing up the way _you_ speak when we’re not talking about anything you said seems a bit irrelevant.”
It’s completely relevant in light of your claim “If the ‘we’ included members of both sexes, the bit about ‘explaining what we do to girls’ would just not make any sense. ” It doesn’t make sense to someone that would consider gender bending terms confusing. It makes perfect sense to those of us who use such language regularly. Thus, it’s fully relevant. You *interpreted* his remarks one way. I interpreted in a completely different manner.
“The fact that a gender-specific word was used at all means the gender is important to the statement.”
No it doesn’t.
“(my Flash appears to be on the fritz, so I can’t re-watch the talk at this particular moment, or else I’d provide a more extensive transcript for context).”
Uh huh. How convenient for you. (See *that’s* an implication, infer from it what you shall.)
“The problem is that placing that ‘we’ in opposition to the later gender-specific noun ‘girls’ makes it gender-specific. It identifies the ‘we’ in question – the developers – as male.”
No it doesn’t.
“Why is this guy’s statement assuming that people called Matthew can’t possibly be in the F/OSS developer group?”
Mark’s statement made no such assumptions. But you’re contradicting your earlier statement:
“I’m not saying that Mark stated or implied women aren’t capable of developing F/OSS. Neither, as far as I’m aware, is anyone else.”
@Adam Williamson
Huh. I would have interpreted “happy ending” just as “orgasm”. What an odd figure of speech. I guess you learn something every day…. :/
This whole debacle got on slashdot as well http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/10/12/1512238/FOSS-Sexism-Claims-Met-With-Ire-and-Denial
There are some interesting comments.
@Aoirthoir:
Okay, we get it: you want to invalidate the offense that people received by showing that they invented it, and that any time people think there is an obvious consequence to a statement, it’s their choice whether to go forward and extrapolate from the statement to its consequence, and the fact that they have the choice means that they’re responsible for the offense rather than the person who made the obviously-extrapolated-from statement. (If this is not in fact your argument, please elaborate on which parts of it you disagree with.)
I don’t want to be premature, but I’d say tentatively that this appears to be the least useful idea of all time. Are you honestly advocating that in cases where we don’t understand how a sentence evoked hurt feelings and marginalization in a group of people with a different life experience to us, we should feel free to ignore it and dismiss it as not what the speaker meant? What kind of a community results from doing that? How can it be argued that this would be an ethical way to act?
Matt Zimmerman wrote a blog post on the White Boy test back in June that presciently describes why Mark’s statements are harmful. I encourage you to read Matt’s post and try acting in the sensitive way that he advocates:
Aoirthoir: you’re the one using language incorrectly. The difference between an implication and an inferral is not one of deliberate intent on the part of the speaker. The words Mark said are sexist by implication. This does not mean Mark *intended* to cause offence, but it doesn’t change the fact that he did.
On your last point – you’re right, I didn’t say that very well. I should have said “Why is this guy’s remark assuming that there aren’t any guys called Matthew in the F/OSS development group?” Sorry.
See? I phrased something slightly wrong, you pointed it out, I acknowledged it and said sorry. No-one’s dead, and I don’t feel mortally shamed. That wasn’t very hard.
Erm, you’re all involved in a battle of semantics, over what was meant or not by the statement, whether it is sexist or not.
When I went to university all my technical classes were underpopulated by women, the same way that now I’m working in medicine-statistics-biology I’m surrounded by women, with men being few and far between.
In my experience (that is nowhere near as valid as a census or survey), women are less interested in technology hence it is more probable to find people who are not proficient with technology in the female group.
Now if you think the two paragraphs I just wrote are sexist, you need to have your head checked, because it is just mere factual observation. And nowhere is it implied that women are less proficient with technology when they chose to take an interest to it.
Now what Shuttleworth said may have been less than optimum, true, but it stems from an observed situation and underlines a problem.
You think his comment stigmatizes women, I think you’re pushing it.
But most of all, accept, cherish and respect the difference between men and women because there are some.
Can we all move on now, these discussions are not going to get more women using free software, nor do I think people are going to move to windows or MacOS because of them.
Just my 2c
Matt
“You think his comment stigmatizes women, I think you’re pushing it. ”
So, we should value your belief about what effect his statement has on women more than the stated opinion of multiple women who heard it? That’s an…interesting perspective. Why?
“Can we all move on now, these discussions are not going to get more women using free software”
Wow, because you’re tired of the topic we should all stop trying? You make it so clear to me! I’ll just happily accept that we’ll never have more than a tiny minority of women involved in F/OSS and hence lose over 50% of our potential talent pool, and move on to something really *important*. Gee, thanks for opening my eyes. (Side note: it’s not about using, it’s about contributing. last I checked, most people were quite keen on the idea of contribution. Sort of vital to the whole point, as I understand it.)
“Okay, we get it: you want to invalidate the offense that people received by showing that they invented it, ”
Nope. First, you don’t get to tell me what my *feelings* are or what I *want* anymore than I get to tell another what zer feelings are. This is a classic marginalization and dismissive technique. Nice try though.
“Are you honestly advocating that in cases where we don’t understand how a sentence evoked hurt feelings and marginalization in a group of people with a different life experience to us, we should feel free to ignore it and dismiss it as not what the speaker meant?”
That’s your inference, not my implication. I am advocating that appropriate language be used.
“Aoirthoir: you’re the one using language incorrectly. The difference between an implication and an inferral is not one of deliberate intent on the part of the speaker.”
Yes it is.
“The words Mark said are sexist by implication.”
The sexism or lack thereof of his statements was not detailed at all in my comments. Since you’re playing bait and switch again, I’ll *again* quote myself:
“In no case was Mark *implying* that women are not capable at tech or are incapable of working with Free Software, despite the numbers of people that are choosing to infer that is what he meant.”
Finally,
“This does not mean Mark *intended* to cause offence, but it doesn’t change the fact that he did.”
I was not talking about the emotive (valid or otherwise) response that Mark intended to create in others. I specifically talked about what *meaning* he intended to convey, compared to the *interpretation* others took away. (*implication* vs *inference*).
Further, Mark did not *cause* offence. Rather, people *took* offence. Offence is *always* taken (and yes that includes when I’m offended, it is offence I have taken.)
“He implied that one gender would not be able to understand open source software.”
Nope, he *stated* that certain persons would not be able to *explain* what they did to other persons. That talks to the explainers abilities, not the listeners.
“So, we should value your belief about what effect his statement has on women more than the stated opinion of multiple women who heard it? That’s an…interesting perspective. Why?”
Mine isn’t a belief its an opinion, which I’ll happily have rebuked with given reason.
I’d like to know, of the women who were exposed to this “poisonous statement” what percentage was hurt by it, and how many were hurt by it after their attention was brought to it with the subscript of “you need to be offended by this”. BTW my simpathy to those that feel hurt, but (opinion follows) I don’t think there’s much to be hurt about.
“I’ll just happily accept that we’ll never have more than a tiny minority of women involved in F/OSS and hence lose over 50% of our potential talent pool, and move on to something really *important*.”
You’re potential talent pool isn’t (unless proven contrary by surveys I don’t know of) made of 50% women. Now if you want to discuss that there is a higher percentage of females in non F/OSS then there’s something to discuss.
“Side note: it’s not about using, it’s about contributing.”
From my point of view its about getting users first, contributions later. There’s a higher percentage of possible female users and a bigger base. Contributors are usually people who have an interest and know how in technology, they’ve already chosen, whatever their species.
It’s left to be seen whether they’ll do F/OSS (see point 2).
Isn’t there some sort of ethical conduct regulation that sais something along the lines of “everything said should be interpreted as having the bestest of intentions and the meaning most positivest possible” that makes all this discussion moot in the first place. ;P
My point is that energy should be directed towards positive action to find ways to interest more women towards what is beign done in F/OSS (which is being done by some groups as far as I know), rather than disecting statements that could possibly be considered sexist or not.
Again just my 2c
Ush, don’t engage with Aoirthoir. He’s banned from the Ubuntu-Women irc channel with good reason. Some of his more choice opinions include that “women are shit programmers and lazy as fuck” – from a post where he agrees extensively with our pal MikeeUSA :/
-Leigh
“Isn’t there some sort of ethical conduct regulation that sais something along the lines of “everything said should be interpreted as having the bestest of intentions and the meaning most positivest possible” that makes all this discussion moot in the first place. ;P”
Nope, because again, that speaks to _intent_, not result. You could bring that guideline into play if people were saying that Mark intended to demean women, or that Mark’s remark means he’s an intrinsically sexist person. That would be a bad thing to do, and the guideline you cite would be a good thing to draw into the conversation to explain why. But no-one’s doing that.
Again, too often you (your side of the argument) seems to be working from the denial-by-default position that the feminist side needs to prove incontrovertibly that any statement they identify as problematic was actually sexist, there’s no wiggle room, and they must convince 100% of everyone in the world that they’re right, or the fact that anyone else disagrees means they’re wrong and can be ignored. This is placing all the onuses exactly wrong.
This isn’t a case of women fighting for access to some awesome privileged group, and the privileged group having all the power to demand legal standards of proof before they change any of their behaviour. This is a case where there’s a group that wants to attract as many people as possible, and is almost entirely failing to attract _anyone at all_ from a certain group. When members of that group show up and volunteer to try and help us understand why we’re failing to attract those people, the sensible response is not to default to suspicion and denial and refuse to accept anything they say unless it’s backed up in triplicate with detailed legal proofs and peer-reviewed hundred-thousand people surveys, it’s to say ‘hey, thanks for the pointers, maybe we’ll think about that’.
Adam, thank you — that’s exactly it. I’d really love it if we backed off from seeing it as an attack, but the problem stands: If we’re going to see a naked body in a presentation, it’s going to be more like mine than like most men’s. If we hear someone as an example of a less-technically-able group, it’s more likely to be an aunt, sister or mother than an uncle, brother or father. It’s got to change. Mark made a pretty innocuous comment — one I find even a tad amusing, with his shy, wry, understatement — though the failure to apologize for the implication of it irks me a bit.
But it’s not Mark himself who needs to change. It’s the constant barrage, and that’s going to take a community effort.
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Leigh: Ugh. Thanks for letting us know.
Matt, good points all around. The two points that are most important though are regarding the numbers of folks that felt offended after they were told to feel offended. Considering that most of the blog posts admit to posting, *not having even heard the actual speech* is telling. They’re judging not on content but on opinions of others.
Secondly there was a time that one would assume first that a person was well intentioned with miniscule statements. So I am with you on first assuming they mean well and then going from their. But, making such an assumption does not lend itself well to victimology.
Leigh,
You should read my post there you linked to more fully. MikeUSA was making the claim that the bible authorized a father to force his daughter to marry her rapist. Indeed it *does* do so. Several others in the thread and on the site were denying this fact. I was merely correcting their false claim. You should have noted that this law was one of the things that caused me to discard Christianity.
As to his claims that FOSS doesn’t *need* women, well if the claims are factual, that only 1% or 2% of FOSS developers are women, that would lead one to wonder, how it’s gotten so far without women if it *has* to have women. What Free Software needs is not men, (waepmen or wombmen or any other sex or gender), but rather developers that are skilled and produce needed software.
One final quote from the article “Except, that foss developers are all jack asses.” Nuff said.
Ignoring that you did still say that “women are shit programmers and lazy as fuck. There are some that learn, write good code, and produce a lot of code. But most are fuck all terrible at it.”… FOSS doesn’t just need developers. Newsflash: it also needs users, documenters, people to do support, people to report bugs.
If there’s one reason among the many to fight sexism, it’s so that we can reach more people, in more places and fields, with the idea that software should be free-as-in-freedom. If you can’t see that, that’s fine – just please stop trying to derail every conversation those of us who do think it’s a problem try to have about sexism. Go back to writing code, if you actually know how in anything besides COBOL. Or contribute to support, documentation, etc.
As for most FOSS developers being jackasses, well, most people are point blank from what I’ve seen. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try harder not to be
People just keep on looking for things to get upset about. Where do you get all the time?
Aoirthoir: That biblical law is to the advantage of men, why do you dislike it? If a man wants an unmarried/unbetrothed* female for a wife, according to the Biblical law, he can have her. Choice is good when it is in the hands of men wishing to do the choosing.
*Bethrotal in that time was the young female living with her husband for 1 year prior to the marraige. Kindof like today’s live-in-fiancee thing, exept she dared not be a bitch to the man.
It would have been less degrading to 50% of the population, if Mark had said, ‘explain to his friends’ or ‘girl friends’. At least he would not have debased everyone that isn’t like him. Smart people say dumb things. Ho hum. But, from what I’ve read about S. Africa, Mark seems to be a product of his environment.
When people pigeon hole other people, I often thing of this quote:
“You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering.” – Dr. Who
Leigh,
Yes I did say that. I’ve also said EXACTLY THE SAME THING about male programmers. As regards your silly “newsflash”, that’s EXACTLY THE SAME THING I keep saying. In fact if you’ve actually read my posts you would have seen that.
As to derailing, just about any time a claim of sexism is made, and someone disagrees, the claims *HAVE* to be that the person is derailing. Nope. We’re just disagreeing. See, I AM a sexist, and as such I recognize sexist behavior. Mark’s actions don’t qualify. (Mine certainly do. But then I’m more than sexist, I’m everything-ist. In fact I’ve concluded that the rest of humanity pales in comparison to my greatness, so *TECHNICALLY* I’m an aoirthoirist.)
Finally “As for most FOSS developers being jackasses, well, most people are point blank from what I’ve seen. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try harder not to be”
Agreed. Why though should we try harder not to be? We shouldn’t and here’s the reason. Whether someone is a jackass or not is ENTIRELY SUBJECTIVE. I’ve met the nicest folks that others INSISTED prior to my meeting them that they were jackasses. And I’ve met the most ludicrous people that were almost always treating everyone else with disdain and folks thought they were wonderful.
In the case of Free Software, merely refusing to add features can have you called a jackass. I for instance do not distribute my software in the wild. But ALL of the software I write is freed to the company or person or client I write it for. Occasionally I use the software on other projects. So when someone does occasionally get hold of my software and ask for additions, I generally don’t accommodate, I just don’t have time to work for gratis in addition to the gratis work I am already doing. So that makes me a jackass to them. Why then should I “try harder not to be [a jackass in their mind]” and just give them whatever they want of my time?
Stoffe, Yup. Feminists are noted for that. Go spend some time on feministing.com. You’ll notice that if a company creates a pink product BECAUSE OF DEMAND for it, they will make a post, accuse the company of HATING women and that post will acquire 50, 60, 100 or more comments agreeing with steamed ears. But then someone will make a post about women being murdered in Africa and you’re lucky to see 3 posts. So much for intersectionality.
MikeUSA, As I’ve said before I do not believe the Biblical law that allows a man to force his daughter to marry her rapist IS beneficial for men. It is perhaps beneficial to SOME men (the rapist) in that he then has the woman he wants without regard to anyone else. (Though I would state that since the Biblical law forbids divorce in this case it’s not even beneficial to the rapist). In reality though every culture that has allowed women to be enslaved, has likewise allowed men to be enslaved and stripped EVERYONE of their autonomy. Governments in such areas have carte blanc to do whatever they want and they’ve used it freely.
DJ,
Mark didn’t degrade anyone. There are some broads that no matter how you speak, no matter how respectful you are to them, no matter how much you cater to their entitlements, are still going to be upset.
Also, how Nationalistic of you to state:
“But, from what I’ve read about S. Africa, Mark seems to be a product of his environment.”
right after you stated that smart people say dumb things. Which is also very ABLEIST of you.
When will you Feminists and Feminist Supporters understand it is NOT OK to practice one ism in defense of another ism? So far on these Ubuntu Feminists blogs I’ve seen:
Racism,
Classism,
Nationism,
Ableism
Sexism
Ageism
Homophobia
Queerphobia
Bi-phobia
Polyphobia
Anti-Christianism
Anti-Paganism
Anti-Satanism
Anti-Islamism
and otherisms
all used to defend women. Sorry, that doesn’t cut it folks. If you stand up and demand that you or a particular group be treated with respect, then you are required AT LEAST DURING YOUR DEMAND to treat ALL groups with respect. Calling people who are sexist “dumb” or saying they say “dumb” things as a way to object to their comments DEMEANS persons that cannot speak. Saying someone is INSANE or CRAZY because you disagree with what they say (whether what they say is right or wrong0 DEMEANS persons with mental illness.
So you DEMAND that folks like Mark change his language, how about starting with the person in the mirror?
But let me tell you what will follow my comments (if anything follows) and what will not follow. What will follow if anyone response is excuses. Rather than focusing on CHANGING THEIR LANGUAGE to complain about sexism, they will INSIST on using the SAME DEHUMANIZING ISMS (especially ableism) to attack people they feel are sexist. Whether the person ACTUALLY IS sexist or not won’t matter to them. Why not? Because it gives them free reign to practice their own [usually abled] privilege, and continue to say things which CATEGORICALLY DEMEAN entire groups of people, while patting themselves on the back that they got their Feminist 101 on.
Here is what you will likely NOT see. The SAME KIND OF HONEST APOLOGY for using their own -ist language (usually ableism) that they demanded from Mark for his [supposed] sexist language. So then that leaves us with the question, why if they act, as they claim Mark acts, should we even hearken one ear to their complaints? After all, we’re just acting EXACTLY like they are, but to a different group of people. (Assuming we are indeed acting sexist, which Mark was not, but I certainly am).
I think Aoirthoir wins this one. I have only a few comments to chip in.
First, I see a lot of comments that there are not a lot of women actively involved in “geeky” tech things like FOSS, because it is an environment either actively hostile or unintentionally exclusionary toward women, and this destroys their interest in it. This is often represented as entirely the fault of the men in question and their sexist mindsets. However, a social environment where people feel comfortable using racy slides in their presentations, or where “girls” can be taken to mean “non-technical people” can only have developed in a cultural environment *already* devoid of women. Western culture as a whole has until recently been such that interest in “geeky” things was generally not cultivated in females. With a lack of general female interest, it becomes possible for generalizations of “females aren’t interested” to become the norm within the smaller culture of FOSS or any other “geeky” niche interest. We didn’t start with an equally distributed concentration of both genders only to suddenly have RMS scare all the women away, and had women been around all this time, nobody would have become comfortable showing softcore porn while discussing free software. The truth is that the majorty of straight men within FOSS and other “geek” communities *want* more women to share their interests, but they’re too used to that just not being the case.
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. When there are more women interested and active in the FOSS community, a sexist or hostile trend in the culture cannot persist. The same problems of sexism used to plague the cultures of anime fans, video game fans (still a notable amount of it there), and role players, and in all of these cases the remedy was the same as I’m recommending here for FOSS. No amount of accusing the existing subcultures ever helped, no matter how accurate and constructive or how overblown and hypocritical. The larger culture outside of the subculture first has to produce significant numbers of women who are interested in the object of the subculture for its own merits, only then the female-deprived culture can or will (and must!) mature and adjust in response. Until then, playing the card of “angry excluded Other” only feeds the stereotype that women don’t fit in here, and that’s counterproductive.
I also have a complaint about the “privilege” argument that I see a lot. I’m a male. I’m also Caucasian. I’m also straight. None of these have got me anything in life. I’m neither wealthy, nor powerful, nor respected. I didn’t start with more in life than the women, or the non-Caucasians, or the gay or bi people I know. In some cases, I started with less. Not all of these people have met with obstacles of prejudice or disadvantage, either. Certainly more people of “my kind” according to these arbitrary categories are privileged with free advantages than those who are not, but I’m not one of them. Just as being female, or gay, or black, or whatever should not automatically place a person in the “fail” category, it should not be assumed that *not* being part of a marginalized group doesn’t place a person in the “privileged” category. To forget (or in some cases willfully ignore) this only feeds and perpetuates the same “isms” we want to stamp out. When the entire problem is the idea of “us versus them” you absolutely cannot fight it with arguments of “us versus them”.
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
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