As an aside, you were dead-on with your points. Women frequently engage in behavior that, when mirrored in men, would be called out for sexist. One point I was discussing with the girl I currently am dating is that there needs to now be a "mens' rights movement" similar to what women have accomplished for their gender. We are all equals, but men seem to be content to sit back and let the outside world badger us into a box of "manliness" and double standards that negatively affect us based solely on our gender. That is not to say the reasons we were put here in the first place are not completely valid, but that does not mean we should stay there now that we have multiple generations that get it.

I think if want to push true equality, it must acknowledge that both sexes have unique hardships, it must encourage equality for both sexes, and it must be supported by both sexes.

I could go on for hours about the double-standards both men and women place on each other, but I'll stop here and just reiterate my thanks to you for giving me something enjoyable to read on the internet today.

Maybe because you're a visitor from reddit.

Please learn to think.

My assumption was that the original person I was replying to came to ycombinator from /r/programming. That is a good example of a subreddit where a vast majority of comments, even generally upvoted ones, are low quality. For a tech related subreddit that has higher quality comments, /r/netsec is maybe the best reddit has to offer.

While I agree with the original commenter that this case is overblown and shouldn't be called out as sexism, it flows from error and a reaction to a real problem. To suggest that we need a "men's rights movement" to counter this sort of error seems absurd. If this is the level of "hardship" that men are facing, they have little to complain about. Men should be more concerned about helping women, who continue to face significant sexism (and harassment) in the workplace at levels far in excess of what is faced by men.

The idea that men do not have unique hardships in this new world culture and specifically American culture is wrong. It's just a short sighted and ignorant view. It's sexism, by the very definition of the word to lump entire genders as being homogeneous. The feminist movement fought against this exact kind of rhetoric you're espousing.

The entire idea that men are derided for even suggesting that men do have their own unique set of unfair social pressures and prejudices is the proof of that bias existing.

Some even acknowledge the bias and in a very sexist way state men should just get over their issues, and we should instead devote all our efforts to empowering women. Oh.

Comments like yours only show the truth of the idea that people think men can't be victims because they're men.

If there were not hard set cultural biases against men stating a rather simple idea that half the population might have unique adversities then this whole debate wouldn't exist. The backlash wouldn't happen, the blind opposition to a problem people seem to not even want to know about wouldn't happen.

For some reason people seem to think that the idea that men might be cultural victims as well implies that women now aren't; as if there is a pedestal for the persecuted that only has room for one.

Now, I expect full well to be attacked for saying something so innocuousness and easily apparent as this point.

I'm not being sexist because I've made zero claims about women, or compared women to anything, or even insinuated that in any way women are the root of this issue or even related. I've only talked about men, and how like all people have their own injustices levied against them.

But sexist is still the label that would be used for some reason because I dare to say that men are actually as susceptible to pain, and attack, and abuse from the culture that harbors them as women are. I dare to compare us, to them.

But no, stay silent, stick to your role. Be a man, you can't possibly be a victim.

But yeah, aside from a few outlying examples, for the most part gender bias favors males, so the excessive whining of the Men's Rights movement is just a big steaming pile of Yeah...No.

Recently near me, there was a crime committed by a teacher. This teacher had been having an explicit relationship with pupils, namely in sending digital photos of themselves to students. When this teacher was caught, they were obviously stripped of their teaching and arrested (My country, like many others, has a system where personal relationships between students and teachers must be consensual and the student must be over 18, it is also frowned upon if they are in school together). When tried and convicted, this teacher got only a few years in prison. This teacher, as I'm sure you've guessed is a female. Now, what do you think the conviction would have been if that was a male teacher? Much higher than a few years I'm sure, additionally there would've been outrage, yet I only heard about it months after the conviction. Don't you see that there are inequalities in life, positive discrimination? I mean, there are laws that there must be X% of women in the boardroom, but I ask you- what if all male the applicants to the job are better than the female ones? Should then the business lose out on a great candidate because the laws force them to choose the worse one?

Look, I am not a Men's rights activist, I am not completely anti-feminism, I agree that 'the oppression' that many men see themselves under is merely a fallacy. However, it isn't as clear cut as you seem to think. Now, I hope I have suggested some things that would cause you to think, it is highly doubtful that I shall come to this site again, so If I cannot answer your reply then I am sorry, but hopefully my comment will start a discussion that will come to a valid and nonbiased conclusion. Thank you for reading this,

Jabba

The legal system's tendency to give women lighter sentences for crimes may also be a good example of one of these rare issues. But you're acting like I said that there's no such thing as gender bias that favors women. And in fact I did not say that at all.

I also don't believe that there's such a thing as a hierarchy of struggle. Just because women haven't achieved the goal of being treated fairly and equally doesn't mean we have to set aside efforts to redress injustices directed at men. It's all important; it all affects people's lives; no injustice or bias should go unaddressed just because the person impacted sits at the apex of the current power pyramid, or just because there are others who are suffering more.

There ARE some activists who believe that you need to tease out the "relationality" of oppression and then pick which oppressor you have to fight first. A great example of this would be some of the Civil Rights debates that took place... did black women have to "sit down and shut up" about their situation and just support black men in the fight against race-based oppression? The Black Power movement was awfully dismissive of women's issues at times. Black women activists were told, "You have to be a revolutionary first, Sister second."

For me, I can see why some people think you have to pick and choose what to fight and when, but I personally couldn't look at someone who was suffering and just be like, "Yeah, fuck you, you're not suffering enough yet... we'll get to you."

It's nost just a few outlying examples.

http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/uwekw/facts_and_...

Speaking as a "Men's Right Fanatic" I don't give a hoot about the oppression olympics. I rarely ever see MRAs make this claim. On the other hand I see feminists making it all the time. Not all feminists, just the ones who thing that fighting sexism is about scoring points for their gender.

However, I must emphatically and proudly express that I do not support the negation and devaluing of women's (as well as ethnic, [other] cultural, LGBT, etc.) rights by way of reactionary countering with a "men's rights" movement.

One of the most pressing reasons is that such a movement would likely result in a majority of white, heterosexual male adherents (at least here in the US). From a historical perspective alone, males of nearly all notable ethnicity have dominated the world stage in terms of rights, privileges, and power--and white, heterosexual males in particular. This undeniably central component of human history (especially as it leads to Western modernity) is a primary motivator on my part to refrain from supporting an ideological, social, or economic (read: material) crusade that would pose a serious threat to the hard-won and valiantly fought-for progress that has been made in the human condition over the past century+. It could be possible that a notable minority male demographic would join such a movement, but at least in the US, such calls for "men's rights" are typically laden with reactionary white men who feel somewhat despondent at figuring out how to navigate in a world that, at least in words, tries very hard to no longer privilege that genetic inheritance.

More abstractly, a "men's rights" movement would, I think, offer very little gain to humanity as a whole, and would threaten to destabilize and retard the advancement of human rights and greater gender and sexual equality in social relations. This would be a terrible regression to allow to happen. Even when people like Adria raise the red flag in a moment of haste that, I think, will later be reflected on as regrettable, it is still done (I hope) from a position of sincere concern for protecting those who are actual victims of bigoted, discriminatory behaviors.

On this particular issue, I am disheartened to see the fallout from her overreaction, especially as her actions have affected three children, their father, and (assuming she is present) their mother. One woman's dislike of a comment that she mistook for sexist antagonism (or some emotional reaction in the same vein (also: I'm not using 'emotional' in a pejorative sense here)) has now affected five lives. Moreover, in reading her blog post on the subject, it threads through a story of a person who has been hyper-traveling from conference to conference, is exhausted, has already dealt with a person on the same day making a completely inappropriate and objectifying joke/comment that is absolutely inexcusable, and then she basically takes it out on a couple of guys who said something which, given their own statements and the available evidence, bears every indication that she basically went in, guns blazing, to the wrong fight. What is most important is this: the guy who made a comment directly to her about looking under a [table] skirt and finding it "bare, just the way [he] liked it" DID NOT have a picture posted to Twitter and a massive call-to-the-carpet moment. She talked to him. She even told him the comment could be funny in a different venue (her own admission).

The evidence available leaves the distinctly bad taste that the punishment did not fit this crime, while a much more serious issue in which she actually spoke to the offender directly was apparently cause for discussing the comedic appropriateness of a shaved vulva at a tech conference.

Moreover, to go back toward the philosophical end of things, this brief quote from Wikipedia provides a decent enough look at exactly what is meant by the Marxist understanding of gendered disparities in social equality:

>Marxist feminism's foundation is laid by Friedrich Engels in his analysis of gender oppression ... a woman's subordination is not a result of her biological disposition but of social relations, and that men's efforts to achieve their demands for control of women's labor and sexual faculties have gradually solidified and become institutionalized in the nuclear family. Through a Marxist historical perspective, Engels analyzes the widespread social phenomena associated with female sexual morality, such as fixation on virginity and sexual purity, incrimination and violent punishment of women who commit adultery, and demands that women be submissive to their husbands. Ultimately, Engels traces these phenomena to the recent development of exclusive male control of private property and the attendant desire to ensure that their inheritance is passed only to their own offspring: chastity and fidelity are rewarded, says Engels, because they guarantee exclusive access to the sexual and reproductive faculty of women possessed by men from the property-owning class.[1]

We are, on even our worst days as a society, nowhere near a state of affairs in which that synopsis can swap the gendered pronouns and hold true.

I hope that provides a bit more context, as well as a decent enough grappling with why, given how much social inequality actually still exists to be eradicated, a "men's rights" movement is nothing that needs to be on the table.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_feminism

Then you don't support equality. Men have the same amount of gender equality issues (maybe even more) than women in Western countries.

"From a historical perspective alone"

History has no relevance to the fact tha men today have about the same mount of gender equality issues. In addition, just because the majority of rulers and people in power were men, that doesn't mean the majority of men were in power. In fact, rulers, politicians and CEOs constitute less than 0.1% of the population. You cannot prove anything about the average man by talking about an extremely tiny minority. Meanwhile in history men have been forced to fight bloody wars, work to death in horrible conditions etc.

"More abstractly, a "men's rights" movement would, I think, offer very little gain to humanity as a whole"

It would gain a huge amount of well-being. Such a movement is required so politicians will also try to fix gender equality issues that men face.

List here: http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/uwekw/facts_and_...

FYI, when you stay stuff like that, you seem totally unhinged to people who have actual contact with the real world. That may sound harsh, but I ain't in this internet arguin' business to baby folks.

The "facts" you link to are pretty laughable. You seriously found a reputable source that says men are more likely to be raped than women? Amazing.

> Meanwhile in history men have been forced to fight bloody wars, work to death in horrible conditions etc.

I hate how women are always forcing men to go fight wars. Also, ugh, hard work sucks! The United Nations Development Programme tells us that

"Women perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn only 10 percent of the income and own only one percent of the property." (http://tinyurl.com/cy2dtzs)

You can argue with these facts and figures, question them--how they were compiled, what they really mean, etc.--but the vast preponderance of evidence, gathered by scholars and researchers (male and female) from many fields over many years, is going to contest your assertions.

And the worst part is...you probably have a handful of really good points buried in amongst all the nonsense. Like about how courts automatically seem to favor mothers in custody cases, like about the draft exempting women, etc. But how seriously is anyone going to take those genuine concerns when they can't be seen through the morass of much sillier claims?

Irrational argument.

"The "facts" you link to are pretty laughable. You seriously found a reputable source that says men are more likely to be raped than women? Amazing."

Irrational argument.

"I hate how women are always forcing men to go fight wars."

Gender equality problem exists regardless of the causes. Even if men forced other men to fight wars, that doesn't mean men were not forced to fight wars. The problem still exists.

Currently in my country only men have to take part in forced labor. I know, I did my share. Women do not have to do any forced labor. 60% of the voters in recent elections have been women, and they indirectly decide the laws.

"Also, ugh, hard work sucks! The United Nations Development Programme tells us that"

Actually, that claim is unfounded. If you try to follow the trail of sources, you cannot find the original calculation. In addition, your argument has no revelance, because I talked about the past, not the present in the sentence.

"But how seriously is anyone going to take those genuine concerns when they can't be seen through the morass of much sillier claims?"

I'm not a politician, so I try to argue on the basis of what I believe to be true.

Sorry, but you are severely mistaken regarding the relevance of history. It is of primary relevance, because without properly understanding how we arrived at this point in history, you couldn't possibly evaluate the actual scale of gender disparities in social relations.

The percentage of male rulers as a total percentage of the human population is not a valid metric. When you study history, and the impact of rulers, you evaluate their impact on the subject population, the society and culture, as well as the world around them. History, because it is ever so relevant, shows a rather stable trend in which one can chart the increases in social inequalities in favor of one gender at the expense of another, or of one (or more) ethnicities at the expense of others, etc. So far, we are looking at about a century of social justice being established to improve the standing of women in relation to their historical subjection by men.

Once you have an adequate grounding in history, you can then start thinking philosophically through how best to proceed without retarding equality. While there are, of course, contemporary social imbalances and inequalities where men are concerned, what we do not need is more gendered lines being drawn in the sand. Moreover, we do not have a social structure in which men's labor and sexual faculties are institutionalized in a form that is under female control, which would be a huge red flag that the pendulum has swung too far.

One can advance equality and be vigilant against sexism, racism, and other forms of bigotry and discriminatory behaviors without resorting to more of this us vs. them bullshit that "men's rights" evokes. But understanding the root causes of inequalities--as opposed to merely pointing out instances of what appears to be inequality--is where the real work lies. Not a masculinism cult that establishes its identity as the negation of feminism.

In sum, a "men's rights" movement is not going to increase equality, because it is only going to codify more gendered division in the social fabric. If you're really interested in enhancing equality as a social good, you would do better to champion the cause of equality that is blind to biological and socioeconomic factors, and works instead to specifically eschew attempting to define equality as inversion of a movement whose existence required the specificity of gender because history had only ever concerned itself with the rights of man.

I'm not, really. Feminist discourse is based on the claim that women have more gender issues. They never really argue for that position. I've linked a list of gender equality issues (though my primary source is unfortunately not in English).

Here's a book on the subject if you're interested: http://granum.uta.fi/granum/kirjanTiedot.php?tuote_id=18450

"It is of primary relevance, because without properly understanding how we arrived at this point in history, you couldn't possibly evaluate the actual scale of gender disparities in social relations."

Yes you can. We can look at metrics for gender issues: e.g. do women get paid less or more (they get paid the same per hour), do women get raped more than men (not in USA), is the majority of violence made against women (it's about 50:50). It doesn't matter if women were discriminated against more in the past, if empirical evidence shows that they're not.

"what we do not need is more gendered lines being drawn in the sand."

Agree. Many men's rights activists agree on that point, and are against gender roles that hurt both men and women.

"Moreover, we do not have a social structure in which men's labor and sexual faculties are institutionalized in a form that is under female control, which would be a huge red flag that the pendulum has swung too far."

Your sentence implies that men's labor and sexual faculties are under male control, that's not true. Women decide who wins the elctions - majority of voters are women: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20231337

"One can advance equality and be vigilant against sexism, racism, and other forms of bigotry and discriminatory behaviors without resorting to more of this us vs. them bullshit that "men's rights" evokes."

That would argue that we only need men's rights movement, not a women's rights movement. Since the women's rights movement doesn't concern men's rights, we need a men's rights movement.

The biggest feminist organizations do not accept me as a member because of my gender. Their organization discriminates on the basis of gender. That's not equality. I cannot take part in the women's rights movement because of my gender. That's why we need a men's rights movement - so that men's gender equality problems are also taken care of. Currently 90% of the gender equality resources in politics is used for women's rights. That number should be 50%.

"In sum, a "men's rights" movement is not going to increase equality, because it is only going to codify more gendered division in the social fabric."

You make the implicit claim that men's rights movement is for gender roles. That's not true. In addition, you can use your own argument against women's rights movement, as it 'codifices a gendered division'.

"If you're really interested in enhancing equality as a social good,"

I'm really interestd in equality, and men's rights is the most important movement in recent years. Almost nobody used to talk about gender equality issues concerning men. In recent years, after the men's rights movement was formed, there have been small mentions of men's rights in official statements in the country I live in. Without a men's rights movement all the gender equality policy would say would be about women. Therefore, it's pretty clear that the men's rights movement increases equality.

I cannot link sources because they're not in English, but it used to be that only representatives from women's rights organizations were given representation in the official gender equality council of my country. They only talked about women's rights. Now a few seats have been given to the representatives of the men's rights movement.

This is very wrong.

The link you provide in the original comment is for violent crimes (including rape), not for rape alone. There is little doubt that women are more likely to be raped in the US than men.

Here's a relevant study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1146

"Overall, an estimated 91% of the victims of rape and sexual assault were female."

These figures are from the CDC's 2010 NISVS (National Intimiate Partner Sexual Violence Survey), although you won't find it in the executive summary. You have to look at the data tables. Here is a link to the NISVS: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/nisvs/specialreports.h...

The executive summary tells the usual story of rape being a male on female crime. There are 2 problems here. One is that they define rape as being penetrated against your will, and not being forced to penetrate (what a female rapist would do to a man). This erases female on male rape.

However, they did ask men if they had been forced to penetrate in the prior 12 months, and 1.1% of men surveyed reported that they had, and 80% of those had been attacked by a woman. 1.1% of women reported that they had been penetrated against their will in the prior 12 months, and 98% of those reported a male attacker.

So we have 50% of victims are male and 50% female. Of the 50% of male victims, 80%, or 40% of total victims, were raped by a woman.

So women are 40% of rapists. Here is a image of the data tables from the NISVS, with the relevant figured circled: http://imgur.com/a/aw0eU

And here is a link to show the number crunching on the CDC's data tables in more detail: http://www.genderratic.com/p/836/manufacturing-female-victim...

Earlier I said there were 2 problems with the executive summary. The second one is that the CDC looked at lifetime victimization, and prior 12 months victimization. Their figures for men as victims of rape (when you include being made to penetrate) are much lower than for women. In the executive summary, they use the lifetime stats to show women as the overwhelming majority of victims, and don't mention the prior 12 month numbers.

Why the disparity between lifetime victimization and prior 12 month? Lifetime stats will tend to underestimate the problem, because, over time, people tend to erase their memory of traumatic events as a survival mechanism.

From the analysis I linked above:

>Researchers into the field of traumatic memory recovery note that the longer the period of time a person is asked recall a traumatic event, the less likely they are to remember it. How this works is that surveys that ask about a traumatic event in the last six months get less false negatives than those that ask about a traumatic event in the last twelve months which, itself, gets considerably fewer false negatives than lifetime prevalence.

> For men this effect is even more pronounced.

>

> 16% of men with documented cases of sexual abuse considered their early childhood experiences sexual abuse, compared with 64% of women with documented cases of sexual abuse. These gender differences may reflect inadequate measurement techniques or an unwillingness on the part of men to disclose this information (Widom and Morris 1997).

>

>Only 16% of men with documented case histories of child sexual abuse disclosed that abuse on a survey intended to capture child sexual abuse. Sixteen percent of men compared to sixty-four percent of women.

>

>That amounts to a disclosure rate of child sexual abuse four times higher in women than in men.

>

>Is it any wonder that the CDC’s 2010 survey (correcting for their mis-categorization of female-on-male rape) found that 18.3% of women and 6.2% of men were victimized over their lifetimes?

"In January, prodded in part by outrage over a series of articles in the New York Review of Books, the Justice Department finally released an estimate of the prevalence of sexual abuse in penitentiaries. The reliance on filed complaints appeared to understate the problem. For 2008, for example, the government had previously tallied 935 confirmed instances of sexual abuse. After asking around, and performing some calculations, the Justice Department came up with a new number: 216,000. That’s 216,000 victims, not instances. These victims are often assaulted multiple times over the course of the year. The Justice Department now seems to be saying that prison rape accounted for the majority of all rapes committed in the US in 2008, likely making the United States the first country in the history of the world to count more rapes for men than for women."

Rapes inside of prison are almost all male on male, and there is evidence suggesting that the numbers of such are comparable to and may exceed rapes outside of prison. So it is not impossible that the majority of rape victims in the USA are men.

It's not like the issue of men being raped is predominantly due to women, whereas the issue of women being raped is predominantly due to men.

I also wonder if all the 'alpha male' bullshit might actually be a detrimental influence on prison rape, since it so clearly reinforces and mimics the sort of hierarchy that exists among men in prisons.

""Rape" is defined as forced sexual intercourse in which the victim may be either male or female and the offender may be of a different sex or the same sex as the victim. Victims must be at least 12 years old; victims less than age 12 are excluded from all estimates. Includes attempts and threats to commit rape."

You'd think this would include a woman raping a man with her vagina, right? Wrong. Check it: http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=31

"Forced sexual intercourse means vaginal, anal or oral penetration by the offender(s)."

It may not change the ratio but of course one must remember that is "victims of rape and sexual assaults that were reported and recorded as such".

The study linked, (text version http://bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/SOO.TXT) says only a third of the rapes reported to them were reported to police and in my cursory glance I couldn't see how many of those reported led to a conviction and how many led to a dismissal of charges, etc..

However I did notice this:

"In 1994 victims reported about 1 rape/sexual assault victimization of a female victim for every 270 females in the general population; for males, the rate was substantially lower, with about 1 rape/sexual assault of a male victim for every 5,000 male residents age 12 or older."

It's often joked on certain forums, eg reddit, that men who're incarcerated are likely to suffer rape (I'd guess women do too but the jokes are always concerning men it seems). I wonder how true that is and how well these figures reflect those crimes.

Any study that counts convictions, or even complaints, it going to underestimate male victimhood.

You need to look at victim surveys to have any hope of estimating how many man are raped, and how many women rape.

See my other post in this thread for details on that.

No, the real work is in removing inequalities. Talking about "root causes" of inequalities is only a method by which one denigrates the actual fight against inequality itself. There are countless deep and abiding inequalities which one can argue back and forth indefinitely about their origins, and this is especially true in questions of gendered inequality. Is this, that, or the other thing responsible? Here's an idea: who gives a shit? I no longer do.

For example, take the issue which finally broke my ability to take feminism: male rape victimization. Where does the purposeful ignoring of male rape victims come from? Feminists (when they admit that male rape victims exist in substantial quantities and deserve to be mentioned) would argue that the gender system produced by the Patriarchy refuses to recognize men as potential victims because that would feminize them and weaken their social position. Men's Rights Activists would argue that it is because our society systematically refuses to recognize male victimhood, period. I think the latter is a better position to take. The simplest explanation is best, and the solution is far clearer: stop that.

>If you're really interested in enhancing equality as a social good, you would do better to champion the cause of equality that is blind to biological and socioeconomic factors

There are issues that require a specificity of gender because they affect a specific gender. Discussing the development of a growth mindset in mathematics does require some discussion of gender because women and girls are much less likely to be encouraged to develop a growth mindset. Discussing rape certainly requires discussion of gender, since rape is considered as a gendered crime and the sex of the perpetrator and victim hugely affect how it is perceived. Discussion of virtually every single issue that the MRM touches upon requires a discussion of gender since they are about gender. When cops choose to apply different standards to men and women, you have to look at gender. Paternity fraud requires that one look at sex in order to be discussed because it only directly affects one. There are times and places where pretending that everything is solved is the optimal solution to a given problem; there are also times and places where it is not.

The idea that one should ignore socioeconomic and biological factors in championing the cause of equality is systematically wrong. Sometimes people suffer specifically because they are men. Sometimes they suffer specifically because they are women. You have to discuss this or you might as well not discuss anything at all.

More abstractly, a "men's rights" movement would, I think, offer very little gain to humanity as a whole, and would threaten to destabilize and retard the advancement of human rights and greater gender and sexual equality in social relations.

There are a number of things that need to come from men, about men, for men. One example is the fight against the social stigma for men showing emotion in public. Others are questioning the factors of masculinity, which media seems to paint as aggressive warrior-types and downplay mere assertiveness or mature responses. Another is the mocking of prison rape as a complete joke, or even tacitly approving it as part of the punishment process, this needs to change. Other things like 'mothering takes a lifetime, fathering takes seconds' are a joke, but they also play to stereotypes we have that need breaking.

The context is important - "don't forget about men, they have issues that also need addressing" is indeed doomed to fail if it's genesis is reactionary against feminism, but it can be quite constructive if it's done in the mindset of "while we're working on women's problems, let's also work on men's". Unfortunately, there's a lot more chaff in the voices of the men's movement, but there are still significant issues that should be looked at. It's not a zero sum game - the conditions for both genders can be improved at the same time.

Males showing emotion in public? Check.

Seriously tackling and solving the sexual and physical assault that is endemic to the US prison system? Absolutely check+. The US prison system is systemically atrocious and I find it sickening. I find it more sickening that people can know about it and even entertain the notion that it is 'part of the punishment process'. That is disgusting.

Male denigration in terms of family law and the ways in which men are the victims of sexism as it relates to parenting is also unacceptable.

It was the point of advocating a reactionary movement that appears to define itself as the negation of (and, in places, the victim of) feminism that I cannot support in any way. Hope that clarifies a bit better.

Different from what? And I could equally argue that we need to enhance the recognition and appreciation of [non-collossal-assholish-douchebaggy] femininity, Adria Richards being a case in point.

"Seriously tackling and solving the sexual and physical assault that is endemic to the US prison system? Absolutely check+. The US prison system is systemically atrocious and I find it sickening. I find it more sickening that people can know about it and even entertain the notion that it is 'part of the punishment process'. That is disgusting."

Agreed, just look above. If one even cites statistics showing that -gasp- men get raped too people look at you funny and ask when you're going to go back to talking about women.

"Male denigration in terms of family law and the ways in which men are the victims of sexism as it relates to parenting is also unacceptable."

Glad to hear it.

"It was the point of advocating a reactionary movement that appears to define itself as the negation of (and, in places, the victim of) feminism that I cannot support in any way. Hope that clarifies a bit better."

The term "MRA" means someone who advocates in favour of men's rights. If you care about men being raped in prison then I've got news for you: You're an MRA. That's where the implied association and definition ends. You're also, I assume, a political activist. The nazis were political activists too, but noone says that because of your political activism you "appear to define yourself as a nazi." Many MRAs are anti-feminist, many aren't. It would appear that you're one of the "aren't."

The term "Feminism" is much less well defined. It might shock you to learn that many feminists have come out against the issues you mentioned being addressed and have even argued that they don't exist. I'm glad to hear you don't think this way and think that men's issues and anti-male sexism are no more acceptable than anti-female sexism but many feminists disagree and they appear to define the movement just as much as you appear to define it.

I'm not an anti-feminist, the word means too many things for me to say I stand firmly against it, but there's at least as many feminists that are worthy of criticism as there are MRAs.

And please, for your own sake and everyone else's, do not assume to have the slightest capability to say what I "immediately assumed" when I "heard men's rights". You haven't the faintest idea.

The comments made by the original commenter who incorrectly thought my comments leaned his way injected more unnecessary division into an already sensitive subject.

It was overtly apparent that the thread was about to get hijacked by tangential bullshit that would derail the actual issue(s) under discussion--which did not include men's rights advocacy or its adherents and there varied motivations.

When I decided to reply, I was responding to the content posted at the time--content that made it perfectly clear 'the reactionary label' fit like a glove.

How is it? Is attempting to publicly humiliate someone and get them fired now preferred over politely asking them to stop?

> NOT someone who likely has to deal with sexist bullshit day in and day out in a male dominated and sexualized industry.

"Society is male dominated, therefore it's acceptable to publicly humiliate someone and get them fired over dongle jokes".

> thousands of comments here and at reddit and on twitter posting her real life address, calling for her to be raped or cut, etc. Extreme and vicious misogyny.

I haven't personally seen any of this; it's mostly just people disagreeing with her behavior.

Rule #1 of the internet: there are trolls.

> The original incident may have been a "false positive" as you say

Wait, do you seriously think that publicly humiliating someone and getting them fired over a dongle joke is not a problem?

> the response has been 100% vicious and violent misogyny.

You mean "100% of the troll posts I looked at were troll posts".

By the way, misogyny is the hatred of women in general. A hateful post is not necessarily misogyny just because it's directed at a woman. Eg. I can hate Sarah Palin and post about how I hope she gets eaten by a grue, but that's not misogyny.

100% fascist thoughts.

If you don't agree with me, you're not only wrong, you're evil. Disgusting that you would even go there.

Please do not lump us in with the 'extreme and vicious misogyny', for which I am not the only one who has zero tolerance of it and offers it no support at all.

Adria's overreaction and characterization of this event as sexism is very relevant. I understand that she may have 'to deal with sexist bullshit day in and day out in a male dominated' world, and I specifically go to bat for that. But this situation was not sexism, and it is relevant and important to make that clear.

Because a bunch of assholes are using this as a platform to spout misogynistic bullshit and threats does not mean others cannot or should not speak out.

And the fact that I spoke out, along with plenty of others, without being even obliquely misogynist means the response has not been '100% vicious and violent misogyny.'

I don't support that shit in any way, and I won't even hesitate to say that kind of reaction is fucked up. It is exactly why I am a philosophical Marxist who takes the subjugation of women to the material power of men very seriously.

Also, it's not for the conference organizers to say she was wrong. You don't deal with people being uncomfortable about a situation, as an organizer, by saying, "Hey, sorry, but that's not a big deal. Why don't you just go sit down and not worry about it?" You are obligated to deal with it, and the PyCon staff did exactly what they should have done.

The men's comments were inappropriate and wrong for the place and time. Adria's response was even more inappropriate and wrong for the situation.

Threatening Adria's person, calling her names, pillorying her with misogynistic hate speech is completely unacceptable and fucking wrong.

I can't judge what happened at this convention--wasn't there, don't know what all was overheard, or what people may have said during an interview with managers that might have led to a firing... nor do I know if the firing was indeed some kind of appeasement gesture that really was massively unjust to the guys. So I'll leave it to those more familiar with the events and people to determine whether or not this was a justified firing.

As an aside, and possibly an irrelevant one...in my experience, which I know doesn't count as evidence towards anything, people get away with making crude jokes at the expense of others most of the time. It's rare to see people held accountable for their poor judgment. You've got to be pretty confident of your own untouchability to make off-color jokes in a professional environment when you're surrounded by people you don't know. Maybe these guys didn't do anything like that, and, if so, what happened to them is quite bad. Even if it was just a misunderstanding (they didn't think they were making crude remarks; if they'd had the chance to talk it over with the person who reported them, she'd have seen that she had misheard them and would agree they were blameless), it'd be quite sad that one of the guys got fired because of it. On the other hand, I'd like to live in a world where people don't feel smugly confident that they can do or say whatever they want and the rest of us will hunch our shoulders and take it.

As GLBT, I really have to politely disagree here. Trans men especially tend to take a lot of shit from women who think they've committed some sort of cardinal sin for being who they are (it's usually phrased as them trying to make some sort of male power grab, or whatever). Women should have rights, but men should have them too. That's what equality ought to entail. Currently, we've made some significant progress not just in recognizing the need for women's rights, but actively forcing a change in the status quo. It's still politically incorrect to even recognize that men are discriminated against in some areas, and that's really disheartening to me.

True gender equality would HELP the GLBT cause because we need lesbians to not take crap for not being feminine "enough" and gay men to not take crap for not being "masculine" enough. Sex discrimination against men is actually a huge issue, but it's so politically incorrect to address it. If you're a man, and GLBT, you can kind of get double whammied by it since you have to deal with the GLBT part and then also the discrimination against men when you're already severely disadvantaged. If you're a woman, you have a lot of social support dedicated to you (domestic violence shelters, lots of other assistance), at least compared to men.

I believe that women and men BOTH should have rights. I don't understand why this is such a problem with the majority of the feminist movement. (I have met some absolutely lovely and rational feminists, but most of them are over the age of 50. I'm not really sure what's happened to this generation of them, but for the most part, it's been really...not good.)

I also really hope that same-sex marriage will help the men's rights movement (as well as the women's rights movement!). As an egalitarian, I'm all for the courts coming to realize that brain breaking moment in a lesbian divorce where they can't just give the kids and all the money to the female, because there are two of them. Perhaps a concrete inability to rotely perform sex discrimination because there aren't different sexes to take up their traditional "roles" will force the legal system to look into itself and realize the magnitude of the discrimination against men that they've been perpetuating.

---

I, too, consider myself to be an egalitarian where the material conditions and social relations of people are at stake. I've made a number of attempts at clarifications, all the while making it explicitly clear that I'm supportive of and advocating for completely eliminating gender inequalities. I'm either doing a poor job of explaining that, or others are doing a poor job of reading my many clarifications.

To put it bluntly, there's no way I could respond to every men's rights comment with a clear and considered explanation of the positives and negatives, as well as an accounting of the pitfalls and errors made. The topic itself is tangential, distracting, and derailing from the issues raised by the event at Pycon, specifically in relation to how the offending men's actions are being erroneously and unfairly contextualized and framed as 'sexist' by the wider tech community.

I did not want to just sweep gender inequalities under the rug where male-identifying persons are concerned, as if it doesn't exist. I wanted to focus attention, instead, on the nuances of properly identifying sexism apart from inappropriate comments in a given situation, and the ways in which it leads to gender disparities in social relations in general.[1]

At first, I ignored the men's rights issues out of a desire to not deviate from the issues I raised, and interest in engaging with those who were replying to the points I brought up. I did not want to kick off a side-thread on men's rights. I wanted to avoid seeing the conversation turn into an us vs them argument. I hoped we could actually discuss the need to correct the reactionary labeling of impolite and inappropriate comments and behaviors as automatically sexist, when so many times it is simply impolite and inappropriate. Even at the worst end of the non-sexist spectrum, someone might deal with an asshole, and I think it's far more productive to the tech community and society at large if everyone could actually tell (and advocate) the difference between someone being an asshole and someone being a sexist asshole.

[I'm not saying my reaction was right; I'm trying to contextualize it within my personal quirks and goals so it's understood.]

By the time a couple hours passed, the men's rights derailment was already well underway, with quite a few reactionary posts following the first that were increasingly divisive, and substantially less constructive to the actual thread. More notably, the discussion consistently conveyed a less erudite, misinformed, and poorly rendered assessment and presentation of incredibly disconnected, questionable, exaggerated, and falsely attributed or incomplete evidence--all conflated to advance a flimsy premise that 'men have it as bad as (and often worse than) women'. Much of what was argued at the time I decided to comment (specifically the one to which you've responded) could not be taken seriously as presented.

So, I had choices. I could dig in, evaluate the evidence & reasoning presented, explain why much of it had to be disregarded as non-causal/incomplete/misattributed/exaggerated/etc., do the philosophically correct and helpful thing by improving their arguments for them so I wasn't just responding to the weakest, most hastily cobbled together rant ... or I could just not engage, and try to bring the focus back to where it should be. I could give in slightly and add some clarifications that would elucidate my intentions and meaning, while making it plain I was not interested in seeing the conversation devolve into a circular exchange of pointless tu quoque; indulging countless iterations of "if a man did x, women would sell their mothers into slavery to claw his eyes out and publicly shame him"; 20 more comments brow-beating people about male-victimizing sexual assault endemic to the US's deplorable prison system; etc. Those are three of the choices I recall considering at the time.

Fundamentally, my goal was to protect the conversation from becoming a cesspool of what was already starting to increase in vitriol and volume on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and other endpoints--preserving and encouraging a space where the tech community, male/female/trans, could constructively grapple with a problem we need to make right for everyone so we don't keep fucking each other up every time we get in the same damn room (to enjoy and participate in the same damn event/hobby/pasttime/passion/etc., no less!).

[1]: A sometimes less-helpful feature of my personality, made habit by philosophical study and debate, I maintain a very strong aversion to changing the subject, lest one damage one's own argument, lose one's audience, or make it impossible to logically conclude a line of thought. It's a quirk that is not well suited to internet threads, I think.

Another redditor I'm afraid. Who ever said that fighting for men's rights comes at the expense of women's (or anyone else's)?

I also find it quite offensive for you to put scare quotes around men's rights like that. If you're genuinely committed to equality you'd do well to read up on the human rights issues which you, as a man, are much more likely to face than the female collegues you mentioned earlier. Men in the MRM (white or otherwise) aren't despondant due to disappearing privilege, they're dispondant due to an assumption of privilege (much of which never really existed) and a willful ignorence of ongoing oppression on the part of society around them. Ignorence even from other men who proclaim their support for social justice.

The identification of gender as an equivalent of class is horribly flawed and a hopelessly blunt tool for examining an infinitely nuanced and a very two sided issue.

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying, but this really comes across as hypocritical. This is fostering a double standard.

That was the point of the preface (on being transparent)--to make it clear that I, too, fail and trend toward auto-acceptance of charges of sexism (or other discrimination) based on the assumption that if someone is actually offended, there must be something to it and it would be best to be mindful of one's actions (including my own).

I don't intend to foster a double standard, and I don't often experience women being sexist (except when they, too, objectify other men or women in homologous fashion as that for which men are derided).

However, this particular case struck me as having too many exigent circumstances (many of which are recounted by Adria in her blog post) that provide very strong evidence that this was the wrong fight, and the consequences of her actions are both regrettable and deplorable.

I wanted to admit that I, too, fail, and wrongly contextualize female-sourced sexism in a historical timeline of taking a lot of unfair shit from their culture, and give them a pass. But I shouldn't. It is no less wrong, and the victim is no less deserving of protection.

Laying out your initial logic, in order:

p1: A has power

p2: B has !power

p3: A exerts power

p4: B exerts !power

c: if p1 and p2, given p3 and p4: asymmetrical situation

Of course it is! And yet nothing is proven.

It sounds an awful lot like you're either intentionally or unwittingly advancing the logically and philosophically weak argument that [undesiredThing]ism = Prejudice + Power--formulated by Bidol, spread by Katz, cornerstone of Bell's Critical Race Theory, and subsumed by Crenshaw's middle-class-feminism+CRT intersectionality fusion--as if it is inherently true and proven. There are myriad problems with that equation.

This maxim has seen a surge in the last couple years as online blogging has massively repeated it ad infinitum. People encounter it and walk away, impressed that they just reduced [undesiredThing]ism to a neat equation proving racism/sexism/Xism only exists at the intersection of prejudice X and [some kind of problematically defined] power.

And yet this has been repeatedly and adequately contested, while the CRT/intersectionality adherents keep moving the goal posts from one form of power to another over the last few decades (they appear to have, for the time being, settled on institutional power).

Again, your logic, as offered (filling in the latent assumptions):

x: ethnic+sexual group

y: involuntary genetic membership in x

z: x historically exerted most institutional/structural power

p1: power is y + z

p2: if p1, sexism is prejudice/bigotry/discrimination against a person based on sex + offender possessing p1

p3: A committed action X against B because of B's gender

p4: B committed action X against A because of A's gender

c1: given p3 and p4, instance-level act is same

p5: if p1, and A has y + z, A has power

p6: if p1, and B has y + !z, B has !power

p7: 'structural level' sexism is caused/reinforced by p2

c2: if p2 and p5, given p3, A is guilty of p2

c3: if p2 and p6, given p4, B is not guilty of p2

c4: if p7, given c2, A causes/proves p7

Does that make things clearer? There are only about a half-dozen premises there that need actual proving.

Oh, also, fwiw, and I'm being pedantic here: saying sexism is sexism--especially after the lengths to which I've gone to actually define sexism--is in no way an equivocation. I do not use ambiguous language; nor do I prevaricate.

Your attempt at informal logic is also pretty laughable. I'll try to give a better response than this tomorrow though in another reply, as you seem to be actually engaging with this, which is actually super awesome (it also doesn't hurt that my degrees were in Logic, and I hardly ever get to bust that stuff out in forum comments).

I guess I shouldn't have bothered with the reply, as it appears to have triggered a pissing contest over Logic technicalities. Or perhaps you think a dispute on mechanics is going to erase the problems inherent in the idea that selective power assignments to individual agents based on uncontrolled genetic factors is required to determine whether or not an act of sexism is verifiable sexism.

The efforts to redefine sexism/racism/etc as power-dependent are philosophically problematic. I'm rather uncertain we'd get anywhere on the issue.

edit: Also you mischaracterise my entire point. Not surprising given your sloppy thinking. It isn't anything to do with 'whether an act of sexism is verifiable sexism'. It also isn't 'power dependent' - power is only an aspect or manifestation of structure that is easy to talk about. You'll note (if you can read) that in the post where I discuss power I have first an example of a simple non-symmetrical situation that is analogous to sexism (to do with exerting power), then I talk about sexism. I have nowhere said that institutional sexism is solely about power differentials or power relations.

You might find people more willing to engage in discussion if you didn't resort to abusive language in nearly every comment you've posted to HN.

However, I could be the one who is mistaken, so I will see if being more civil in future actually works, and somehow magically cures people of being sloppy thinkers, subliterate morons, shitheads or trolls.

Frankly it's not innappropriate. It's a nothing. A completely irrelevant non-sequitor that is neither against rules or genders.

The CoC was pretty clear to refrain from offensive language, swearing, and the like. Thus, it was inappropriate by the conference's standards.

[1]: https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/

I'm perfectly comfortable with sex jokes made by any gendered person. But it was asked not to happen at this conference, and everyone who attended agreed to the CoC.

Grading the subjective offensiveness of the comment is beside the point.

Naturally this would vary from person-to-person. My opinion on the offensiveness (or lack of) is certainly relevant. That's what happens when you have vague, ambiguous terms of service that require emotions for a decision. Every person who heard the comment could have interpreted it differently.

Judging the words coming out of peoples mouths is hard, especially when you don't understand the jargon or the industry.

It's not a serious issue that causes discomfort at all. At least not for me.

The comments were couched in an over-the-top tone to mirror the over-the-top nature of Adria's response--particularly from the point that she began employing an appeal to emotion in her explanations, and characterizing herself as a Joan of Arc. I staunchly defend everyone's right to be free of actual sexism, be it a man, woman, or transgendered person. And one doesn't need an appeal to emotion if one can properly identify sexism. One only needs to present the facts. The facts here do not warrant the sexism overtones Adria gave to the situation, or the over-the-top reaction.

I was using bra-adjusting (and all the conversational topics) as examples of utterly harmless actions that occur at a time and place that may not be appropriate, comparing them to a similar body-related action--say, me adjusting within view of women, above the table--that, given the situation we're discussing, could potentially result in a trumped up charge of it being more than just an innocuous action that is (or may be) situation-inappropriate. More likely is the fact that it's just stuff that happens because people aren't thinking that someone is analyzing their behaviors that closely and making it a big fucking deal.

I was implying that junk-adjusting is an action we've been socialized into considering inappropriate, whereas bra-adjusting is very similar. It doesn't actually bother anyone. It's just shit people do, that may or may not be appropriate, and nobody needs to be overreacting to that kind of stuff.

Again, I apologize for failing to communicate all that properly without causing confusion and misunderstanding. Honestly, if I'd known that some of those comments were going to incite the "men's rights" derailment--I now know of the existence of r/mensrights, or whatever it is--I'd have been a bit more explicit in mocking the over-the-top tone. Regrettably, I figured that part out after my edit window expired.

There are limits, such as nudity, which can be distracting, but it's about being reasonable, and unfortunately different people draw that line of reasonability in different places.

Making sexual jokes in mixed company consisting of your friends is not necessarily offensive -- that's up to the friends, and your may know them well enough to know they won't be offended. But in public, I think it's different. You don't know the people who will hear the joke, and you don't know they'll be comfortable with sexual references being made. A lot of people still associate sexuality with a male/female power imbalance; to force your joke on them -- which is exactly what you're doing when you say it loudly -- echoes that imbalance. If you give yourself permission, as a man, to behave in a manner that is insensitive and disrespectful to women, that reflects a certain sense of male privilege -- and that's sexist.

To his credit, the guy was remorseful once confronted. I don't understand why he was fired.

The reason I opened with a philosophical disclaimer was to make it plain where I was coming from, and that my comments were actually meant to tackle the nuances of the subtler problems with this situation. I wanted people to know my angle and be able to respond, disagree, etc. directly to the philosophical implications. I see it was too much to hope for, but that's what I get for bringing philosophical-historical criticism to a hate fight. It doesn't lessen the importance of actually discussing the point for the wider tech community and society at large.

Being aware of what you're doing in public, particularly at a tech conference that asked you to do otherwise, is an inescapable personal responsibility. What the guys did was wrong--not in an ultimately social or moral sense, but specifically at this venue because of the Code of Conduct.

If we are going to be able to do anything about improving gender disparities in social relations, we must actually understand what that is on a fundamental level.

> A lot of people still associate sexuality with a male/female power imbalance...

When a lot of people make an inaccurate association, it is a signal that a wider discussion needs to be had to educate people on correcting their false associations and improving rationality and understanding. There is a great body of literature both within and outside of philosophy that digs into human relations and power imbalances/struggles. It is a material issue. But the manifestations of interpersonal power struggles in human sexuality are but a symptom, and cannot be viewed through the simplistic and exclusionary lens of being male v. female, because it completely leaves out the parts where sexuality reflects power imbalances like this: male->male, male->female, male->transgender, female->male, female->female, female->transgender, transgender->male, transgender->female, transgender->transgender.

> ...to force your joke on them -- which is exactly what you're doing when you say it loudly -- echoes that imbalance.

You really have to be careful here, because this is just far too wide a net to cast. Overhearing other people's conversations is a part of every day life. When I overhear someone telling a racist joke in the Southeast US, I experience an emotional response somewhere between annoyed and really pissed off. I find it ignorant, bigoted, assholish, and unnecessary, at least. The problem is they are entitled to speak as they please. My reaction is my responsibility. I don't possess a fundamental right to not hear things I don't like. If I did, I'd be constantly telling people not to discuss religion in public.

Let's take that as a nice touchy enough subject that people can get upset over. I'm not religious, and really hate it when I overhear people in a public place--say, a café, bar, or somewhere like that where I'm actually spending a long enough period of time in proximity, trying to do my own thing, while overhearing the content of their conversation. The religion discussion is not being forced on me by virtue of it being loud enough for me to hear. It's only forced on me when, despite my attempts to halt it or escape or whatever, a person is literally talking directly to me about religion as if I wasn't objecting, not allowing me to escape the conversation or physical space.

The same is true for any sort of speech with sexual content. I hear couples, men, women, and transgendered persons discuss sexual matters in public on the regular. It's not forced on me until the point that someone is literally in my space, talking to me about the subject, and ignoring my obvious signals and vocal appeals to stop.

> If you give yourself permission, as a man, to behave in a manner that is insensitive and disrespectful to women, that reflects a certain sense of male privilege -- and that's sexist.

No, that is not sexism, and this is the crux of the issue. Being insensitive and disrespectful to anyone is just being an asshole. Now, it's possible that one's colossal assholery is a product of one actually being sexist, but being an asshole to a woman or a man or a transgendered person is not automagically sexism.

Even 'reflecting a certain sense of male privilege' is not automatic sexism, and primarily because there is not much of a way to objectively determine if an action is indeed a reflection of a sense of male privilege. That is simply a far too amorphous classifier and will just spiral into a series of subjective attacks and defenses.

Sexism is action and speech that inculcates bigotry and discriminatory behaviors, based on a person's gender, seeking to increase gender disparities in social relations. A sexual joke can be insensitive, inappropriate, assholish, or just stupid--but it is not sexism.

The reason this is so important is because we must be able to, as a tech community and society at large, differentiate between the assholes and the sexists. The assholes can and should be ignored. The sexists should not--be they male, female, or transgendered.

More importantly, as I've seen in the whole explosion of vitriol across the internet in the last couple of days, it seems that nobody even knows how to tell the difference. We cannot improve the plight of everyone in tech, including women and transgendered persons, if we cannot tell the difference between an inappropriate sexual comment, and a person perpetrating sexism, misogyny, hate speech, etc. I've read so many tweets and comments from both men and women I would otherwise respect who have essentially participated in a Twitter-based version of that old 'telephone' game, where now this whole debacle is believed by some to be caused by Adria 'speaking up against misogynistic comments at a tech conference'. Why is this a big deal? Because if we can't appropriately communicate what's really at issue, we're never going to solve gender inequalities. We're going to make the workplace a shitty place for all genders, creating a culture of fear, reprisal, and retribution--instead of one that is built on uniting in opposition to bigotry and discrimination when it occurs, and the marginalization of assholes when it does not.

As it is, this is madness. We have a tech community that is now split between a camp who are blindly associating Adria to be a persecuted Joan of Arc, and others who no doubt are very supportive of preventing sexism, misogyny, etc.--but are being vilified as such because they dared to call Adria out for the way she handled the situation, and the way she has improperly contextualized it as a sexism issue. The issue has now been swallowed by a bunch of fucking trolls who are making threats, harrassing people, and should have never gotten involved.

We just lost an excellent opportunity to have a constructive and civil, even if heated, discourse.

that is, as they say in British politics, a distinction without a difference.

Since I wasn't there, I don't know how it went down. But I can at least imagine how that could be a really, really uncomfortable situation--if in my head I am wondering if they are looking at me as they giggle--or really enraging, if it feels like these guys are treating our shared professional space as their private pizza-crust-carpeted beer-stinking bachelor pad living room.

I think their tone might really impact how I'd feel. Laughter can be super cruel. Or it can be innocent and not at all hurtful.

I'll admit it: I got teased mercilessly in middle school & high school for having big breasts. When I turned 18, I promptly had breast reduction surgery...yeah, they were that big, and I am very small-framed...yeah, there were good health reasons to do the surgery, but mainly my psyche was fucking bruised from having so much unwanted and often mean-spirited attention directed at my breasts. All through college, if I heard a group of guys laughing as I walked past, I'd get really self conscious and think they were probably looking at me and laughing about some aspect of my appearance...even though I'd had that surgery and now nothing much really stood out about me. I tell this little story because you have to understand...when you get hit on, teased, picked on, bullied, all throughout your adolescence, just because you're female, the snickering whispered laughter--and sexual jokes--of guys can make you feel very very uncomfortable and bad.

I have no idea if this is something like what happened to Adria Richards, but it sounds like it. She may or may not have misinterpreted the intended cruelty or degradation of the joking.

But the fact remains that none of this would have had a chance of happening if those two guys had behaved professionally in that environment. In the end, if someone got fired, I'd imagine it was the lack of professionalism that did it. Or the lack of good judgment.

I know exactly what you mean when you say "laughter can be super cruel". I still get a chill when I hear people laughing in the way I was laughed at, even when its not direct at me, even when its not direct at anyone but just sounds the same way.

But still I have a sense of decency, restraint, and a enough self-confidence now that I'm able to realize that the chill I feel is from a lingering bad memory and that I can act like an adult now and not feel bad because of cruel laughter. I feel like Adria Richards' reaction was deeply indecent, unrestrained, and revealed a profound lack of self-confidence.

Maybe we just have to agree to disagree. That said, I'm sorry you got picked on, stranger. Fucking sucks, doesn't it? That shit's toxic, and it fucks with your head for a very long time. I am sending you an imaginary virtual hug.

I hope that none of my comments on this particular issue have created problems for you, particularly in my choice to make some rather stringent semantic and philosophical distinctions--e.g., between a sexist joke and an anatomical one.

Your final point here is quite in line with my basic sentiments on the appropriateness of the behavior in the given venue--a very poor choice that has, regrettably, resulted in some very unfortunate (and, I think, unwarranted) consequences.

Anyway, thanks again. I hope life has measurably improved since those earlier years.

Based on what words mean, and the definition of terms (see the comment you replied to), it doesn't matter if someone interpreted it wrong. Anyone can always interpret something wrong and find themselves offended. But that's all on them. It's not productive to go around worrying about that.

you may be right that we should try to understand why a person has developed a false understanding of reality, but we should not accept that their own misunderstanding of facts in any way makes their false beliefs into truths.

Why do you assume sexism consists in degradation of _women_? That, itself, is sexist, as most feminists are. Sexist and hypocritical.

- in what way her accusation is not the moral equivalent of a false rape claim - why it is alright to publish the photo of two people with non-verifiable accusations on a public site, before any form of trial or hard facts have been provided

Her behaviour - tweeting a photo of a bunch of people and accusing some of those people of sexual harassment - is unacceptable, but let's not make ridiculous comments comparing it to false rape allegations.

- the guy was accused of sexual harassment, which is something very much taken seriously here, where society tends to protect the women (rightly so) without much listening to the other party... & therefore a false accusation of rape is something very serious since guys often can't do much to counter it

- in this case the guys are publicly shamed without even having had the opportunity to explain themselves, & one even got fired

so I stand by my comment: I do not liken the attack (from the men) to a rape, I liken the attack (from the woman) to a false rape accusation, in that she falsely accused men of doing something that is vile & for which she has almost every chance to win if the other side is not listened to

false rape allegations have people sent to jail & publicly fired, false sexual harrassment allegations should also be seen very seriously since they are often non-verifiable & lead to some guy losing his work (which is serious)

The giveaway is > Women frequently engage in behaviour that, when mirrored in men, would be called out for sexist. One point I was discussing with the girl I currently am dating is that there needs to now be a "mens' [sic] rights movement" similar to what women have accomplished [...]

Don't be fooled. The Men's Rights subreddit is just thinly veiled misogyny, often with some white supremacy thrown in the mix. Just go browse the sub--don't take my word for it.

Some of your comments suggest you might fit in over there. Then again, maybe not.

Absolutely not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5410463

Please forgive my apparent failure at explaining clearly enough that I was not attempting to draw some sort of straw man argument that "women do it, so it can't be sexist". That's an inherently faulty and pointless line of argumentation (a case of tu quoque, I believe).

My specific contention was this particular case, and only used the examples I did with regard to women as further examples of things that are said "at times and in places that are not appropriate", but are not sexist. They are simply examples of impolite female conversation in certain places/times that shouldn't happen--just as much as similar conversations should not be had by men in inappropriate times/places. That is all.

To provide a different perspective, I took the message as attempting to provide a cautionary bit of context, lest I be swept away by internet adulation.

Or were you being sarcastic? If so, my apologies. It's rather difficult to tell.

what does that giveaway?

how did you unpack "an especially sharp hatred of feminists" from that statement?

Wrong.

"Don't be fooled. The Men's Rights subreddit is just thinly veiled misogyny, often with some white supremacy thrown in the mix."

Wrong.

Your green name suggests that you're attempting to provoke a response, now you have one. Take your thinly veiled ad hominem attack back to reddit.

This is sadly a typical response to any time a women makes claims about sexism in the Internet. It's predictable that there will be a response that says that A) the act was not sexist B) she over-reacted C) and anyways women are sexist too. The first two are made without the person in question having witnessed the incident at all. The third is a meaningless point. Even if it were true, so what? that other people are sexist, does not excuse inappropriate behavior for anyone. I can't hit someone and then say it's ok because other people hit people too. For all your supposed Marxist/progressive credentials, you are making the same tired argument made by every idiot on the internet

I encourage you to read my comment a bit more thoroughly. Maybe read the others I've left here that expound on the issues. There is far more complexity and nuance to my statements than you appear to have absorbed.

I'm neither splitting hairs nor offering diversions. I am also not going out of my way to argue that this was anything other than inappropriate, or to offer some lame, idiotic, dismissive criticism of a woman speaking out against sexism. My specific contention is that this is not an example of sexism. Inappropriate, yes. Sexism, no. I make a big deal about it because it is very valuable to actually be able to differentiate between inappropriate, unprofessional comments and actual sexism.

Pointing out the distinction between an anatomical vs. sexist joke is anything but ridiculous. A sexist joke seeks to find humor in the degradation of a person's gender, be it male, female, or transgendered. Just as a racist joke seeks to poke fun at a person's ethnicity, whatever it may be. Same for homophobic jokes, etc. But a childish comment about a dongle, despite its sexual content, does not equal sexism. Sexism requires the propagation or promotion of bigotry and discriminatory behaviors that increase the gendered inequalities in social relations. Immature comments about phalluses (no matter what gendered person makes them) don't do that. They are but an adult's version of the potty humor that kids exchange about bodily functions and noises. They most certainly are inappropriate in professional settings like conferences, no matter what. But I don't think anyone has even debated that point.

Additionally, I do not offer the "women are sexist, too" tu quoque argument. And my comments on homosexuality were not at all about giving someone a pass. I was, instead, offering the very real possibility that one could overhear a comment between two guys and that it could have a completely different meaning and intention than that which Adria automatically ascribed to the situation, as puerile as the dongle comment was. Still inappropriate for the setting, but I'd bet my gay friends and I would be rightly confused if a man or woman overheard a sexual comment (outside of a professional setting) and tried to allege there was anti-female sexism happening. Context is just as important as content.

I'm not calling Adria out because she spoke up about the inappropriateness of the comments. I'm calling her out because of the way in which she handled the situation, accused the parties involved, and allowed it to become framed as a sexism issue. Beyond that, I am also calling her out for using the CoC to get the issue addressed, while presuming herself to be above the CoC. She draws on it as a way to get immediate response to the issue, but doesn't follow it herself. The CoC has four phone numbers that could have been used to call or send a text for 'especially urgent' issues. I've met and interacted with both Jesse and Jacob at PyCon and other venues, and would bet a large sum that Jacob and the other two people with contact numbers on the CoC would have immediately responded to Adria while Jesse was on stage. Adria chose instead to go the route of making a very public display of the issue, ignoring the CoC completely. The PyCon organizers acted exactly as they promised. The men who offended Adria respected the CoC after violating it and left voluntarily. Only Adria felt compelled to reserve a different course of action for herself.

I encourage you to read my comments further, as well as Adria's own blog post on the matter--in which she describes how she (apparently very calmly) interacted with a guy who made a comment to her about shaved vulvas, and they apparently discussed the comedic appropriateness of that kind of comment at a tech conference. Then she uses that as some sort of lead-up and excuse for why the dongle comment was just too much.

There is an incredible gulf between calmly discussing the inappropriateness and questionable humor of women having hairless pubic areas with a guy in a hallway, and overhearing another guy comment on a dongle in the ballroom and standing up to take 3 pictures, then posting to Twitter. It is also of no help that she greatly exaggerated the forking comment--this from the guy who commented here about making the dongle comment, but denies the forking comment was at all what Adria took it to mean. There is even debate ongoing regarding the veracity of her allegation that there were "sexual" forking comments at all.

The point in all of this is not to dismiss the inappropriateness--hell, I go to great lengths in my comment to actually admit it and call attention to the fact that we all are guilty of inappropriately timed conversation. The problem here is that Adria specifically frames this entire debacle in a sexist frame of reference, in which she applauds herself as the heroine, the Joan of Arc.