Feminism Catch-All (with FAQ)

bekkilyn wrote:

It may not have the same baggage, but it's still not correct in that it would be gender neutral. If "they" is a gender and I'm not one, then it would still be grating as being assumed to be a he. Being a she would *still* not count regardless of whatever other gender is considered as the norm.

I know it wouldn't be grating to me--if one of (edit) the genders beyond he/she hits the jackpot like, I dunno, Tuvalu did when it got the .tv internet domain name, eh--that's fine with me.

But I am a he, so now we're probably truly in territory where I should hand things back over to a she. ; D

Back on the feminism and clothing topic, I saw a t-shirt at Old a Navy that said, "boys will be boys." I thought, "no sh*t," then revised that to, "unless they realize they're not." But really, "kids will be adults" should be both a threat and a t-shirt.

sometimesdee wrote:

Back on the feminism and clothing topic, I saw a t-shirt at Old a Navy that said, "boys will be boys." I thought, "no sh*t," then revised that to, "unless they realize they're not." But really, "kids will be adults" should be both a threat and a t-shirt.

I would totally buy that shirt

bekkilyn wrote:

Though I enjoyed the math and theory parts of the degree, I didn't particularly enjoy the thought of coding all day, so I never did seek out a job in the field.

My degree is in computer science; when I was studying in the late 80s, the demographics at my school (admittedly a small, liberal arts/engineering college) was only 10% women studying for the computer degrees.

I worked in the field up until the point I had kids -- we were in a good financial position for me to do that, especially considering the reality of child care costs for small kids. And the pace of change in computer jobs (I no longer had the alphabet soup of certifications required to get a resume in the door easily after a couple of years out) plus the likely demands of a computer job (expectations of overtime/crunch time; being on call) were barriers to going back to that sort of job even once childcare costs were not really a factor.

Ok, two things:

1) Getting hung up on whether 'They' refers to a specific gender misses the point. The fact is that there are some people who do not feel comfortable with using he or she to describe themselves because of the baggage they may imply. Some (most?) folk in that situation are typically happy with appropriating 'They' as it's a pre-existing, gender-neutral pronoun. Some folk don't like 'They' is can be construed as somewhat dehumanising (c.f. 'it') and would rather you use one of the new(ish) pronouns to emerge from 'The world of all things queer'(tm) such as zie, zir, zher, etc...

To what extent should you modify your language? In practical terms probably not a great deal. If they're not around then you'll likely use their name or 'they' as you already do when people are not present (even when they are regular ol' binary identifying). In their presence, and when you know their pronouns (and you like them) then be a friend and do what makes them comfortable. That is really as much as is being asked. Perhaps one day some of the new pronouns will make the leap in to the popular consciousness and they'll feel much less awkward to use but you've got to start somewhere.

To be honest in the whole queer, lefty branch of my wife's friends I'm not sure there are many people who are hugely hung up on this. People make a good faith effort to get it right and no one really sweats it if people put a foot wrong.

2) I work in the Comp. Sci dept in the Engineering faculty of a highly prestigious University. I'd say our undergraduate intake for computer science (and related) degrees is not more than 10%. When I walk through the Electrical Engineering labs it is easily less than that. Considering we're at the prestigious end of things we're probably a high watermark for female course applicants.

It's saddens me a little. Not least as it makes my working environment significantly less diverse (i.e. if there aren't many female Comp.Sci. undergrads then that leads to fewer female Comp.Sci. academics)

Even when the intake numbers increase, it doesn't solve the problem longer-term. Women leave computer science (and other science programs) for other degree programs. Women leave careers for other fields. Why? Because they get treated like crap. Because it's intensely uncomfortable to deal with barely-veiled misogyny not just spouted by co-workers but encoded in assumptions and systems and... it sucks. Because if you have a name traditionally used by women in our culture, you don't get called back. Because if you go on internships you get given crap jobs while the interns who are men get interesting work. Because when people are making a list of all the team leads to invite to a networking party at a conference, they forget you (this actually happened to a co-worker of mine. She was the one woman team lead attending this conference. And she was the one team lead left off of the invite list for this networking event. And then was told it was "no big deal"... ffs)

So, women decide that it's not worth it to put up with that sh*t. And they leave.

And similar things happen in similar ways to other marginalized groups. And we wonder why tech is full of white guys. And blame the "pipeline problem" when the problem is not getting women to start in the field, it's getting women to put up with the field as they approach it and once they get there.

Indeed. Low female intake in comp.sci. degrees is a symptom not the cause of the problem.

Never mind. A little humor's not worth even a little tension.

So some gunshop posted this sign
IMAGE(http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/vagenda-of-manocide.jpg)

after which comedian Sara Schaefer posted her vagenda for the day.

"Vagenda of Manocide" is the greatest phrase ever.

So many twitter lols from that recently.

krev82 wrote:

So some gunshop posted this sign
IMAGE(http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/vagenda-of-manocide.jpg)

after which comedian Sara Schaefer posted her vagenda for the day.

"Breathe authentically." So good.

ETA: Except for the goddamned mansplaining. #notallmen

In other social media news, that dumb "how to talk to women in headphones" thing got posted, and I got to talk about PUA culture with my teenage daughter. So that was fun.

(I mean, yes, I was going to have that set of conversations eventually, and having part of it just as she's going in to high school is probably a good idea, but, just, ugh.)

Katy wrote:

In other social media news, that dumb "how to talk to women in headphones" thing got posted, and I got to talk about PUA culture with my teenage daughter. So that was fun.

(I mean, yes, I was going to have that set of conversations eventually, and having part of it just as she's going in to high school is probably a good idea, but, just, ugh.)

I haven't read the entire source article for that (because why would I subject myself to that? The catharsis of snarking about it is better coming from the women who actually have to deal with it). But some of the excerpts I've seen posted are totally standard pickup artist talking points. Which I suppose makes it that much worse: that guy isn't alone, or even very original in thinking it's somehow a good idea.

DanB wrote:

"Vagenda of Manocide" is the greatest phrase ever.

So many twitter lols from that recently.

BTW, http://vagendaofmanocide.com/ (yes, it's safe to click)

Wait, someone wrote a guide for jerkfaces to teach them how to talk to women wearing headphones?

What the actual... This kind of sh*t makes me so angry. How do these people reproduce? We've had at least a couple of generations of enlightenment by now. Grr.

Just ugh to that sign, the headphones thing, and the attitudes behind them. Oddly I've found that I get less people interrupting me if I wear ear clips rather than traditional headphones.

BadKen wrote:

How do these people reproduce?

If these PUA are accurate it would seem the answer must be 'by approaching women who have no interest in socializing headphones and negging them into submission' :/

they don't actually need to reproduce though, their toxic ideas can spread and reproduce long after they themselves have fallen.

Krev beat me to it. I was going to say it in much fewer words, though.

Spoiler:

date rape

Phyllis Schlafly is dead.

Thank God.

I'm always fascinated by women who are anti feminism. Apathy I get - that was me for a long time. But being actively against it just astounds me.

I hadn't really heard of her until now, and I had no idea she was related to the owner of Schlafly beer company. If I'd known of her or that the brand pissed her off, I might have drank Schlafly more often!

chixor7 wrote:

I'm always fascinated by women who are anti feminism. Apathy I get - that was me for a long time. But being actively against it just astounds me.

From what I've seen, it's at least partially the result of a long running misinformation and/or smear campaign. I've known women who easily fit in to what i consider to be feminism, but who will genuinely say that they can't be feminists since they like having sex with men. I generally don't push the point too hard because their actual attitudes and behaviors are more important than labels, but it still gives me pause.

chixor7 wrote:

I'm always fascinated by women who are anti feminism. Apathy I get - that was me for a long time. But being actively against it just astounds me.

I hadn't really heard of her until now, and I had no idea she was related to the owner of Schlafly beer company. If I'd known of her or that the brand pissed her off, I might have drank Schlafly more often!

Need to pour a few for her homies?