Like so many waves eroding the cliffs of the patriarchy (FEMINISM THREAD)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Like so many waves eroding the cliffs of the patriarchy (FEMINISM THREAD)

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

I realize we've moved on but I wanted to adress this:

falcon2424 posted:

I think you're right that it's about involvement. Feminism is an ideology. But it's also an activist movement.

I'd take "ally" to mean someone who's supportive of the ideology, but not leading any immediate activism themselves.

I kind of like the idea of people defining themselves based on what they're doing, rather than on what they believe. Especially for an ideology as diverse as feminism.

I do activist stuff as well but I still refer to myself as an ally rather than a feminist, because men who feel like they are part of a movement have the tendency to coopt it and take over. This happens even in feminist meetings, well-meaning guys will talk over everyone and, in their (again, well-meaning) attempt to "make things right" will take charge and try to lead the group.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2016 23:57

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 14:22

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

2017 exmarx posted:

Why would I say she was Slashie unless I knew she was?

oh my god who gives a shiiiiit

how is old-rear end forums drama even relevant to these threads here and now, where TB is one of the few people actively contributing good content

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 10:13

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

blowfish posted:

Most non-activists (i.e. most people) cannot and will never read a meaningful amount of activism related literature no matter whether the issue is important because time is finite.

Why would they read a thread then. Why would their valuable time need to be spent posting in a feminism thread.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 17:39

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Mister Adequate posted:

To take people in good faith who probably shouldn't be for a moment, I think at least some of the tension comes from the general expectations of a forum like this. Does a thread about [x] mean for any and all aspects of [x]? Or is it about a specific part? Is it for people who are advanced and familiar with the topic or anyone? By way of a bad comparison, a goon who just got Witcher 3 for Christmas and wanders into the Witcher megathread in games to ask "Hey how do I witch?" might get a couple of people jeering at them for not reading the OP but they're also going to get pointers and probably links to more thorough stuff. I'm not saying this in an effort to defend shitposters or people making bad-faith arguments, but I can see where at least some people assume the thread will be open to all and proceed thence to ask something that topic regulars have already answered 153,000 times.

Feminism is not a video game.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 23:49

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

blowfish posted:

This. Unless the OP begins with something like "NOOBS GET THE gently caress OUT" I assume every SA thread is for people of all levels of expertise regarding the topic and will get repeats of the basic questions every three pages. And unless a thread for noobs is linked immediately after I'd think the OP is an rear end.

Nobody cares what you think.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 23:53

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

blowfish posted:

Ok. Nobody cares what you think either. This is clearly a very productive form of discussion.

Let me rephrase: nobody cares what you think about the OP of the feminism thread. You have never shown any earnest interest in the topic, your posts ITT are garbage, you clearly haven't read the OP anyway. Your opinions on this issue (not on other issues) are worthless and nobody here is interested in them. I hope this clears up what I meant.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 00:00

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Good Canadian Boy posted:

This thread is interesting but the amount of sexism TB throws around in her posting is really hypocritical.

lmao ~*~reverse sexism~*~

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 12:45

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

I think you'd be a great candidate for employing amplification, which became well-known as the strategy Obama's female staffers used to make their voices heard in meetings. Obama's another good guy who would never be overtly sexist, but who let subconscious sexism permeate the way he ran meetings, so it seemed natural that men should talk over women and steal their ideas. The women in the room started combatting this by repeating a point their female coworker just made and most importantly, naming and thanking her. "I think Karen makes a great point there..." "Just to build off of what Jennifer said..."

Just to reinforce TB's point ( :v:

), this works really well and is pretty important to change the feeling of a situation. But on top of that, if you're a guy in a meeting where women get talked over, remember that by virtue of your gender you can be way more annoying than a women without ever getting to the point of "bitchy" or, God forbid, "selfish". At worst you're that guy who's way too politically correct, which... who gives a poo poo. So if you see a male colleague cutting a woman off, just cut them off in turn and say something. "Sorry, I think Jane wasn't finished yet." Stuff like that. They'll get annoyed at you, but after the 2nd or third time they'll stop doing it for a while. Just make an observation about your male colleagues never helping with the coffee, and why that is. Ask uncomfortable questions. At the end of the day you're still a guy, you'll be fine even if you are annoying in a meeting.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 17:33

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Deified Data posted:

My red text is slightly different today than it was yesterday, meaning someone saw my red text and paid to change it again to something that amounts to the same thing. What in the world. Was the first request to kill myself lacking in some nuance that you think the current one nails?

TB and Stone Cold: please, please, please spend that money on any one of the excellent charities in the OP instead of wasting it on red text for people who aren't even your enemy.

lmao if you think that's from them.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 18:58

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

stone cold posted:

Now that I think about it, it's kind of crazy that Martha Stewart saw more jail time than the architects of the CDO economic collapse of 08.

not empty quoting this so goddamn hard

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 22:41

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Colin Mockery posted:

I live in California and use, depending on how formal I'm being/my audience, any one of: "dude", "peeps", "y'all", "guys"

But really, I want to talk about this because if you're talking tech industry (and a casual browse of your post history implies that you might be), I have a lot of experience in it and if you really want to be able to retain women in your department, I can give you a pretty decent step-by-step guide for beginners (but it's a lot of work so you might just feel the urge to lie down and give up -- don't give up!!!).

Also Kelp Me! is entirely right that you probably have a thoroughly toxic department already and it's driving away not only women, but also anyone who doesn't like the way your lovely team talks about women. The job market for tech is still going pretty decently, which means feminist men will also leave if they're thoroughly sick of their coworkers' poo poo. This isn't hyperbole. I have friends who've literally done exactly that because the work was fine but listening to their goddamn lovely coworkers during work hours was sapping the joy from their lives.

1. If you don't have an HR department or person, hire an HR person. Then, give your HR person/department the authority to act. If your HR director is the CEO's brother's best friend, then he (also try to hire women into your higher positions) isn't going to tell the CEO to shut his loving face and stop calling people "sweetie". If your HR director isn't part of the C-suite, they're not gonna feel comfortable telling the CTO that if he doesn't stop talking about boobs, he's gonna get thrown out on his rear end.

2. Hire more women in leadership roles. If all the managers and C-suite are men, then the next step is gonna be harder. But what you need to do is deliberately seed your company with potential allies who have the authority to shut down bad behavior. This isn't easy because sexist companies, for obvious reasons, hate giving women power. Too bad. You need buy-in at the very top. A strong HR department who is also committed to diversity will help with this.

3. Correct everyone in your department who says lovely sexist stuff. You. You, personally, have to do this. YOU have to be the wet blanket. What if no women are around to hear it? What if you though that rape joke was funny? What if you're not sure the female new-hire who's been on the job for 3 months is going to be offended? Doesn't matter. The new hire probably won't want to rock the boat, so you have to do it. You have the social capital to start making demands. If new-hire Jane keeps telling people to stop talking about her legs, she's gonna get passed up when promotion season rolls around, and she knows this.

Practice saying the following: "That's not funny. I don't want to hear that poo poo in the office again." and then be prepared to follow up with actual consequences, up to and including letting people go.

You have the authority to tell your department what is and isn't appropriate in the workplace. If your environment is already toxic, it's better to cut everything bad (no sexist jokes, no fatshaming, no objectification of women, etc) than to gamble on whether or not a specific joke can be made without hurting the culture of the team. It's too late for that!!! Your team's culture is already toxic!! Don't waste your energy splitting hairs, purge all of it. You're better off with a soulless, professional environment than a toxic unprofessional one.

And don't treat it like a joke, like, "oh, now we have to be politically correct for the women, haha". Treat it seriously -- "you fuckers are loving up our ability to get talent, and I'm done putting up with it". If your team knows you don't really care about changing your lovely toxic culture, they're not even gonna try because they'll know there's no consequences for ignoring you.

This step, specifically, will put a lot of work on you because you have to be the good ally. You have to read the articles and do the research and do the advocacy. You have to convince people that a change is necessary and not optional. You have to convince the female new hires that you've got their back, which means you can't dismiss their concerns or expect them to always stick up for themselves (because it has real, tangible career consequences if they do). And then you have to actually have their back and do something about it if the CEO tells them to get him a coffee or the CTO makes a gross comment about their skirt or their manager asks them on a date.

4. Listen to exit interviews (conduct exit interviews if you haven't already). Make it super loving clear] that the contents of an exit interview are not going to impact a later referral from you, and that you are willing and happy to listen and consider all complaints, even complaints of "uh, well one time my coworker came to my desk at work and asked me out and I didn't like it" or "people keep going out for drinks after work but I can never go because I have a kid" or whatever. Take notes and listen to all complaints. They may be indicative of the underlying problem you already know you have. More information is always better.

When taking these notes, I shouldn't have to say this, but don't downplay anything reported to you. Don't open your dumb mouth and say "yeah, Josh always goes on power trips to people so it's not sexist". Just don't. It doesn't matter -- what matters is "Josh behaves poorly and it contributes to driving away employees I want to keep". Also, if Josh is behaving poorly and driving away employees, you should probably talk to him about it, even if he's brilliant when you let him do whatever he wants, because companies are a team effort and he's not a team player.

5. Accept that some employees aren't going to want to change. You will have to force them to change or let them go. Period. You can't keep someone with power/seniority/authority who opposes this culture change because he'll be introducing more toxicity and fighting against you every step of the way, which will make it harder for you to change. You can't keep John if he can't keep his fat mouth shut about how attractive he finds the women in Sales, or whatever.

6. You can also do the showy, flashy things -- deliberately hiring more women, starting a diversity committee (and empowering them to actually do things -- so they need things like a small budget, the authority to throw events/make presentations, the authority to enforce rules (or someone else's authority backing them up), etc), hiring (NOT for free -- don't act like you think their presentation/work isn't worth money, "I want a woman to come teach my lovely company but I don't think it deserves to be paid for" is the literal opposite direction you want to go) someone to talk/give a presentation about diversity to your company. These are all small things that are nice, but on their own, they are not enough. On their own, it's just lip service and gonna get ignored, so never think you can just "oh I'll hire someone to talk to the team and that'll magically fix it" your way out of your lovely situation.

...

So yeah, it's not gonna be easy. You might be able to get advice from the women in different departments, if you go to them and are open about the problem ("my department appears to be garbage and I'm super loving sick of it, do you have any advice?"), but you have to be the one to do the work. You're the one with the bad department and it's not their job to clean up after you, so if they do go out of their way to give you advice and ideas, it's important to a) be grateful and appreciative that they're willing to help at all, and b) actually put some of your own effort into the situation.

Realistically, my experience has been that the companies with this problem will complain that it's too much effort because the toxic employees are too valuable to lose, they don't actually want to hire women into high-ranking positions (C-suite), they don't actually want to hire a strong HR team (but we can't fire the CEO's friend!), they don't want to spend money, they were only interested in an easy fix, or some combination of the above.

This is an extremely good post.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 02:31

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

you see, the dog represents the bourgeoisie, and

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 03:25

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

I Killed GBS posted:

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3577891&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post421169558

For anyone who doesn't have archives

holy loving poo poo

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 11:22

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

The Kingfish posted:

It was ruined because posters like TB cannot tolerate the slightest bit of wrongthink.

wateroverfire posted:

Please don't probate...only talking about this because it was brought up... but that thread was going fine until some people came over from this one and made it a fight instead of a discussion. I don't think it's fair at all to pin the death of that thread on anyone but the people who killed it.

drat those women, always ruining threads by having opinions

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 16:00

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Can you crybabies not ruin this thread after you got the other one closed? Thanks.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 17:27

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

I have a question! I know that the legalization of sex work used to be a thorny issue, with sex work advocacy groups being in favor and (at least a good number of) feminists opposed. How is the consensus these days? Is there one? It's somewhat difficult for me to gauge this sort of stuff from a different continent.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2016 16:01

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Sex work is legal where I'm from (Germany), which means the debates are different. Instead of "should we legalize" it's more "which additions to the current laws are good / bad". I'm interested in the state of the US debate. Sorry if I was unclear.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2016 16:19

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Crocobile posted:

stuff about the olympics

This is super interesting and I didn't know any of this! Thanks for posting!

# ¿ Jan 8, 2017 12:59

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Jack Trades posted:

I don't believe that there is such a thing as "objective evil" but even if we assume for the sake of argument that there is then the Nazi's probably thought that the Jews were "objectively evil" as well.

yeah, they were wrong. that's the point. in what world would we ever live to find out that anti-racism, anti-sexism etc. is actually bad and we just made a mistake? how would that come to pass? the mere fact that some people who were in fact wrong thought they were right doesn't immediately invalidate the notion of factual reality itself.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2017 21:33

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Jack Trades posted:

And Nazi's thought they were fighting the corruption of the human species? In what world is making sure that all of humanity is best it can possibly be is a bad thing and a mistake?

My point is that people are VERY prone to mistakes. Which is why I think that it's necessary to treat everyone equally and not dismiss other people as "objectively evil". That way you're less likely to make the same mistake.
You might think that you're fighting for the greater good but what if you're wrong?

why would i be wrong in thinking that racism and sexism are bad? explain that to me.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2017 21:42

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Jack Trades posted:

Maybe what you think is racism and sexism are not what they actually are?
Or maybe it'll turn out that to achieve your specific goal you'll have to cross some other line?

Nazi's were fighting for the betterment of human species. That's what many of them thought.
It sounds good on paper but as everyone now agrees, it's not worth it if you have to sacrifice a lot of human lives for that goal.

your argument is literally "humans have been wrong before, you are a human, therefore you might be wrong", which is the dumbest, most philosophy 101 poo poo ever.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2017 21:50

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Defenestration posted:

When your penal code says it's worse to rearrange letters on a sign than to rape an unconscious woman behind a dumpster

well that's absolutely horrifying.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 01:29

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Lightning Knight posted:

This post talks about sexual assault among doctors in some detail. Do not click the spoiler/links if you are sensitive to issues of sexual assault.

This is the psychotic country where doctors who actively rape and molest patients, nurses and other coworkers continue to practice unpunished because we don't have enough doctors to replace them if they were fired and punished. There was a big article about how fundamentally broken the doctor establishment is with regards to treatment of female patients and staff and how rampant and unreported and unaddressed sexual assault and harassment is and will continue to be because nobody cares.

Like, doctors carving their initials into patients while they were under anesthetic because they thought she was hot, or other such insanity, and still being allowed to practice afterwards with no meaningful punishment.

Edit:

http://doctors.ajc.com/doctors_sex_abuse/?ecmp=doctorssexabuse_microsite_nav

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/sexual-assault-by-doctors

what the gently caress

i'm actually at a loss for words

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 13:02

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Rakosi posted:

I'm not even mad at anyone. I'm really confused at the sudden and uncalled for vitriol. For the record, I was referring to your reaction to me, not to your reaction to the other guy. You flipped your poo poo big stylie at me, for saying "Go plan your next rape" was probably an inopportune choice of words, and that is odd.

If this dude is an arch-nazi-anti-feminist I am utterly unaware, but I would've thought my attempt and contributing to some conversations here would've at least given me half a second of benefit of doubt. Apparently not.

people here don't owe you poo poo, and you made a (couple of) dumb post(s). just bow out and come back better in a while, the thread is not about you at all.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 22:43

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Rakosi posted:

Thank you for the heads up and that explanation. For the record, I never saw any unspoiled version.

that is the exact explanation that TB and stone cold gave you multiple times but you had to wait for a man to say "oh thanks i didn't know that", lmao.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 22:50

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Rakosi posted:

It was a conscious decision not to get into some silly flame war by replying in kind to the sort of vitriolic responses I got; instead I tried to ignore them best as I could and replied instead to a post which was rhetorically less of a minefield in an attempt to maybe defuse this a little. Him being an apparent man did not at any point enter into my mind, but I am not convinced you would believe that.

I'm not an "expert" in anything, either.

you could have taken your exact "thanks for this explanation" post and posted it as a response to stone cold when she told you the exact same thing early on. that would have defused the situation pretty well. but your feelies were hurt so you had to wait for somebody else. meanwhile we're all completely derailing this thread.

on topic: i assume this thread would be a good place to talk about women in science? i work in philosophy of science and part of what i'm interested in is the feminist perspective especially in archaeology. i could cobble together some examples if there's any interest, but it would have to wait a while.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 23:18

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

Yes please do! I read a ton about archaeology and one thing I read lately talked about how sexist assumptions work their way into interpretations of what objects were for or art was depicting. Female figures are always "fertility" figures, any skeleton buried with weapons was a man, etc. Do you know anything about that?

that is literally what i'm interested in, those exact things

also the re-evaluation of work chains, like the fact that stone tool production and invention was widely assumed to be a male field, despite this making zero sense in many cases. again, it'll take me some time to write something up but i'll get around to it!

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 23:22

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

DeusExMachinima posted:

I've heard of gender archaeology and Wikipedia isn't being very clear to me here. Is feminist archaeology substantially different than or related to gender archaeology?

it's closely related. basically, gender archaeology tries to understand gender relations in past cultures on the basis of their material remains. this includes some pretty cool, semi-recent techniques, like food waste analysis and stuff. feminist archaeology is a broader movement that is concerned both with gendering archaeological research and problematizing current practice. the first means making women visible in ancient cultures, the second is a critique of implicit, unacknowledged male bias that leads to distorted findings -- which is bad for everyone! it sucks for women and it's also bad science. this part is what i'm most interested in.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 23:28

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Lightning Knight posted:

The best protest signs from today's march.

oh my god those are absolutely amazing!

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 23:39

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 14:22

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Grognan posted:

LOL reading those articles, this is not a thing that happens in first world countries and you are still psychotically doing your clam tickle thing.

I am guessing you want a space that you feel safe from criticism but we actually read the studies here.

Or more accurately you want a space that you can rage against an acceptable enemy without introspection. I am sure you can make a sub-Reddit but it would not have the audience you want.

Please make up more things about me that justify not listening to me.

Well you clearly didn't read the studies. But here, I've used my massive man-brain and employed "The Google" for your benefit:

http://www.whattoexpect.com/forums/september-2015-babies/topic/husband-stitch-12.html

http://www.mothering.com/forum/213-birth-beyond/264611-can-someone-explain-what-happy-husband-stitch.html

http://www.compleatmother.com/arch_blessings.htm

All of these contain posts from actual women who had this done to them. Most if not all presumably from the US, which despite recent events technically still qualifies as a first world nation. Now please stop posting in this thread.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2017 13:38

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Like so many waves eroding the cliffs of the patriarchy (FEMINISM THREAD)