
What's Wrong With antirez's Post on Sexism in IT - ABS
http://blog.prettylittlestatemachine.com/blog/2012/10/14/antirez-on-sexism/
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karinqe
I know women who do use their gender to get respect. I never heard them
explicitly demanding it, but they expect it and often get it. There are not
many of them, but they do exist.

Maybe you don't know any such women, maybe you live in a culture where you
don't get respect even when you deserve it, but that is no reason to write
such an aggressive article.

I am concerned that nowadays, when a guy points that we are not going towards
gender equality, but overshooting it, he is labeled to be chauvinistic and
buried under a mountain of hate. The original article was polite and had a
point, he didn't deserve this.

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nsxwolf
Really put off by the hateful and obnoxious tone. Can't take you seriously
with all the foul language. You really lack emotional control. I'd be
embarrassed if I published something like this.

~~~
bbromhead
Angry people are allowed to use angry language....

<http://www.derailingfordummies.com/menu.html>

~~~
nsxwolf
One of those is spot on: "You've Lost Your Temper So I Don't Have To Listen To
You Anymore"

Yes, exactly. I don't owe anybody my time. If you're going to act like a
child, I don't care to continue listening to your arguments. I'll listen to
the same arguments somewhere down the road from a more rational being.

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Pewpewarrows
I don't care what the argument is about: this is not the way to get people to
take your "side" seriously or to consider the points you're attempting to
make.

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cdrxndr
Couldn't stomach reading all the way through this.

And I'm almost too afraid to add my comment lest it finds its way to your blog
styled in bold followed by a "FUCK YOU" response. Keep it classy.

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jfaucett
well, I did manage to get through the post, and this is obviously someone
deeply offended, so I made myself get through it. Then I went on to read
antirez's and comments. Here's my thoughts.

According to one of antirez's comment responses: "the root of the problem is
equal dignity of individuals". and the only way to change this is by
"(showing) our children that we don't have any sexual bias, they'll observe
us, and will act accordingly (even in this case talking will help marginally
if they can't see we act well)".

And generally if you read his article you get the overal impression (at least
I did) that he is against protection of minorites when the language is
formulated in specific terms (ie. such and such policy for women, or for irish
men or whatever). He advocates always formulating the language in general
terms such as "Why is A not payed like B even if they have similar
responsibilities and tasks." and going from there.

As pointed out by author at prettylittlemachine, many of his formulations are
not well put, for example, when antirez writes "Talking with my female
coworkers I discovered they were deeply upset and offended by other women that
were too easy to ask for respect using sexism as a flag." she responds by
saying "Ah, right. The problem is actually THE WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE!!!"

Again she quotes antirez saying "Similarly, I will not care who you are if you
do something silly at work. Nothing is more offensive for you than me being
too easy with you because you are part of some minority. ", and responds by
saying "Here again, the theme that women are going to get off too easily when
they fuck up in the workplace because they are women."

in summary, for me I'll have to think about this subject a little while to
formulate a solid opinion on it, but initially, I tend to agree with what I
think is antirez's view that the idea we should espouse is mutual respect and
equal rights for all individuals. There's no need to add adjectives or specify
types of individuals men,women, caucasians, etc, I think if we have that
mindset our children will have it too and maybe the issues will fall away,
they are cultural after all.

EDIT: here's antirez's twitter where he clarifies and you can see others
reactions as well: <https://twitter.com/antirez>

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lizzard
I wonder how many of the men commenting with sympathy for antirez have spoken
up consistently (or at all) when women in their field are the targets of
obvious and horrible misogyny. If they educate themselves about what we're
talking about, and how pervasive it is, maybe they would understand the level
of anger -- and why women leave (or never enter) the field.

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waratuman
This is an emotional article full of personal attacks and not worthy of
reading.

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jamesu
To be quite honest the most shocking thing I found about antirez's post was
not the post itself, but the boiling hate surrounding it.

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adaml_623
2 unclear articles.

Antirez's philosophy seems to be: _In general if there is a problem at the
work place between individual A and B, I think it is always an error to talk
about sexism, even when the root cause is some asshole not respecting you
because you are a woman. Instead the problem should be addressed in a sexual
agnostic way._

Shanley's rebuttal to this is: _Oh, OK, Salvatore. Let’s definitely not talk
about sexism in the workplace, even if THAT’S THE f_ __ing ROOT CAUSE OF A
PROBLEM. * ... * even though sexism is BY ITS f __ _ing NATURE a systemic
force, especially in the workplace where issues around gender inequality are
created and enforced on a cultural and institutional level._ And goes on to
say _What you are proposing is not a viable solution in any way_ (apologies if
censoring swearwords offends.)

Shanley's point seems to be that that sexism isn't just/merely an interaction
between individuals and any simplistic solution that tells person A to act
identically to person B regardless of any attribute of B except for skill in
performing their job is naive.

If my summary is correct then I agree with S that this is not a problem that
can be solved simply. And I think that A has not looked at all aspects of
sexism in the workplace in his original article.

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carsongross
I'd be interested to know if the 'tech has a sexism problem' industry has
increased or decreased sexism in tech.

I've got a theory on that...

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leephillips
I bailed out after two paragraphs - couldn't stomach the screaming. But it was
clear that the outrage was due to a gross misreading of the original piece.
antirez was not writing about women attempting to claim respect that they did
not deserve.

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lizzard
Thank you for the detailed writeup, taking down antirez's post point by point.
Thank you also for your just and well expressed anger.

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dariencrane
I. Hate. Period. Delimited. Sentences.

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coleifer
Lol u mad

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boboblong
There's nothing more nauseating than listening to a member of the most
privileged, pampered, self-deluded group to ever exist--i.e., a white, middle-
class woman--spew vitriol over imagined oppression.

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angersock
The article's reuse of antirez tweets at the end would've been better had they
also included the surrounding context--without that, it's harder to formulate
useful opinions.

Also the Ebola analogy was poor; something along the lines of "In general if
there is a health problem caused by disease A to victim B, it is always
shortsighted to talk about treating only the symptoms of A (and ignoring
environmental factors such as sanitation, etc.)".

I don't mind the rage and anger, but tighter rhetoric would be more effective
here.

