

Women And Children First: Technology And Moral Panic - pwg
http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/07/11/women-and-children-first-technology-and-moral-panic/

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billybob
"We are still having conversations now about the meaning of 'opening doors'.
Opening doors is seen as a transgressive act for feminists since the 1960s,
but actually the action is rooted in notions of moral purity from 1600s.

It has taken us 400 years and we still haven’t sorted out the door."

Who is the "we" in that sentence? I've never had anyone, male or female, be
upset with me for opening a door. I cannot imagine respecting someone who was
angry about being shown a courtesy.

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ismarc
Here in Texas, it's common to have a door held for you by a stranger, whether
you are old, young,male, female, disabled or ambulatory. I think it would be
downright hilarious to watch someone get angry about it.

~~~
radicaldreamer
Exactly! It's considered common courtesy by everyone, for everyone.

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btilly
This reminds me of a piece of trivia.

The reason that NY subway stations were originally painted white was to make
them feel clean and safe so that women would go inside. Because they knew that
the success of the subway was assured if they could get women to use them.

Considering that subways changed people's relations to time, space and other
people, they were wise to tackle that problem first.

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sedev
Bell's research sounds fascinating - I wonder if it leads to any suggestions
to getting over the moral panics more quickly? They're almost never
productive, and they harm far more than they help. I'm thinking especially of
the political angle, because in the current arrangement, there's no serious
incentive for politicians to resist moral panics, and you could argue that
there's a significant incentive for them to encourage moral panics (e.g.
Michelle Bachmann's endless madness).

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bartl
From a comment:

> Is it right for developing elementary, pre-teen or teenage sons and
> daughters to be seen naked on the internet because cameras were left in an
> apartment or house recently rented or newly purchased?

That's funny: when I was a kid (a few decades ago) the concern was that kids
could _see_ naked people. Now, apparently, the concern is that they could _be
seen_ naked themselves.

