I missed Kathy Sierra’s keynote at LCA2007. This was due to being otherwise occupied hauling gear and swag for the Ubuntu/Ubuntu-Au booth at the Open Day, from one of the topmost corners of the college that I was staying in.
I now regret missing the talk. This is why.
I’d like to invite anyone that has ever doubted the reasons why LinuxChix and $distro-Women are important, to read Kathy’s post.
These groups are not solely about fighting discrimination, they are groups of solidarity, friendship, companionship. They are like-minded, empathetic groups of people who have the same hurdles, experiences and issues that many women in the geek world have.
Kathy is not the only one who is affected by the kind of outright hatred that she describes in her post above, and the kind of attention she has aquired is not the only type of harrassment that I myself have witnessed. As I explained previously in a recent blog post, I’ve had issues in the past, specifically in the RPG gaming world that I mentioned.
One such incident involved an unwelcome email containing imagery of a rather grotesque and painful-looking antique machine, used historically to relieve female hysteria, asking if it turned me on or something of the sort. This sort of thing accompanied love-notes in-game. I was not the only one he was doing this too either — another girl was subjected to similar treatment. When he realised that neither of us wanted anything to do with him or his affections, he publicly touted us as seductresses who use men’s emotions as entertainment.
I mistakenly kept quiet about this, until he was rewarded with ‘immortality’ for his good work elsewhere in the game. When I voiced my concerns, I was told by those who could do something about it, that I was making it up out of revenge. Needless to say this is what drove me from that community.
You see, the biggest problem is not the narky ‘go play with your barbie dolls’ dismissals when we have genuine questions. The real problem is the narky ‘go play with your barbie dolls’ dismissals when we have genuine concerns.
LinuxChix and $distro-Women are groups of people who have gone through this all before. As I’m writing this, the LinuxChix channel is deep in discussion about Kathy’s post, and each woman is recounting her own experience/s. Someone even said “Every woman I know has one, everything from the creepy to the horrid.”
Reading this makes me really sad.
You can really only ignore these people, not even talk to them. Maybe a computer-related culture brings out more of them, but definitely there are many many geeks and nerds that aren’t such pathetic dicks.
In the name of the collective, we can only say ‘sorry’.
This is not I feel an exclusively female issue. The sort of bullies and creeps who target women do so for various reasons one of which I would like to believe is that they feel somehow stronger in male female confrontations. Guys also face bullies and threats and abuse from guys and sometimes from girls. Being abusive and suffering abuse is not an exclusive domain to any sex. These people within our society who use the small network off opportunities such as other online friends or a platform to voice their opinions exist primarily because of the very freedoms we seek to encourage which is the hardest thing to realise and manage for us.
Abusive , intolerant, threatening and suggestive behaviour should be discouraged in our society at all levels and yet we feel we cannot possibly have freedom without allowing it.
I am personally not a fan of $paintedAsMinority-group anything within a community since I feel it helps to encourage the attitude of separation and segregation which we would hope to be reducing not recreating within our society. However since the freedoms to create those groups does not impinge on my own freedoms to take part and be involved I cannot rightly object to them though I am free to express my desires not to see them.
I join with you in my view that these acts are despicable I would hope that the $distro-men and $distro-yourchoice individuals would together work on how to handle and manage these situations in our society no matter where or how they are portrayed.
My thoughts and best wishes to you and Kathy in all you do in this.
Nik
There are assholes everywhere, you just can’t be afraid of living, because that way they’ve won and got what they wanted, to get your attention.
If someone threatens you in this way, the best thing you can do is to live your everyday normal life.
It’s always hard to follow this kind of advice when we’re talking about our life but it’s really the best to do, you can’t avoid every possible danger in your life, what happens is what it’s meant to happen.
From a fellow linux/ubuntu user who likes to visit your blog and thinks you are a great contribution to the community and that women in general can play a great role in making our community much stronger and much more pleasant to work with, and come up with great new ideas and points of view which are always more than welcome.
The best of luck to everyone involved,
Carlos
I think this goes deeper into patriarch hierarchies. but that’s another discussion.
I voiced my disgust on my blog, and I hope the people who instigated this, are outed in the manner they are.
I don’t give much for their “hey, we’re victims too” writings since kathys post.
I have an “old” saying that I always use:
“The world is full of idiots”
There’s no escaping them, so you can only hope you meet more nice folks and less of the idiots :)
Mind you, despite being a bloke, I do understand what you mean, albiet in a different way – I’m profoundly deaf and my language of choice is BSL (British Sign Language) – if you’ve seen any deaf people signing in Australia – AUSLAN is similar to BSL.
So when in an online game, where voice communication is being used more and more, I find myself being ignored more and more and told to just bugger off because I can’t use voice communication (ie I’m no good in a team etc etc(!))
Reading the comments above, I hope you can see that despite there being idiots out there, there are some blokes that geninuely welcome you for *who* you are and not what sex you are.
But I thank you for saying that in your post and now, I can understand much better why we have LinuxChix and $distro-Women and I hope others that read your and Kathy’s post are the same.