But for the love of me, I cannot comprehend why one would have such a vendetta against something as benevolent as FOSS. Something that is meant to strengthen community, to encourage freedom of information and empowerment. To everyone. Not just white males.
This, I 100% agree with. That's how I see it too, and I think the same applies to many of the values of the hacker community. We have built a community that works well for the people in it, and there is no inherent reason why that community should not be open to more people irrespective of demographics. What I was trying to say at the end of my earlier comment is that there's no benefit in trying to attack the entire community when most (I assume, based on my social circle) of us are very much in favour of as many people as possible joining and participating in the community.
You know what I think is misogynistic? Assuming that women are weak, fragile and whenever someone makes joke in poor taste (such as Titstare), that we should immediately go up in arms and do something about all the poor oppressed women that were offended by this.
OK, I see your point and yes, there have been overreactions to specific incidents that have made people rightly suspicious of claims of offence, but the majority of complaints are genuine and correctly describe behaviour that should be considered offensive by most people. Whilst women can be strong and ignore things that they find offensive, that does not mean that they should have to keep doing this. Let me put it another way: as a nerdy kid who wore glasses, there was always someone who thought they could be funny by insulting me about this. It clearly did not destroy me as a person, and I now consider it to be a valuable part of my identity, but that's very different from arguing that it's OK for people to be bullied for their personality or physical characteristics, or that they should just get over it and not try to stop it happening to others. It's bad, and if we have the chance to stop it, we should. I think if we're clear about what is and is not tolerable behaviour, it will actually become easier to dismiss the silly mistakes or accidental misunderstandings that occasionally get blown up.
Back in the day, if someone tried to flirt with a woman on the subway, she would brush it off and move on with her life. Today, she would go back to her home, open up her $1,200 MacBook Pro and write a blog article about how all of womankind is being systematically oppressed by privileged white men daily.
So, this I don't agree with. The woman in your example is entitled to her opinion, entitled to state it freely and can make her own conclusions about the social forces at play. If enough people agree with her, social change will occur. For my part, I tend to find being hassled in the street annoying, so I'd probably be in agreement with her. I do take the point that simply blaming "men" is wrong, and the suggestion that we're all involved in some kind of straight white male conspiracy does not make sense, but I don't think many people really argue that.
EDIT: some downvoter getting a little angry about a microagression?
I'm genuinely curious as to why. I'm quite befuddled by the social justice rhetoric that is so popular today. It's not that there aren't legitimate equality issues in need of solving, but a lot of people do not focus on these anymore. Rather, they're willing to point out supposed misogyny everywhere they go. Even when there isn't any.
The concept of "privilege", while doubtlessly real, is barely ever noted by the ones it actually affects. Instead it's typically used as a tool of demagoguery by the same privileged people to instill guilt into others, or just to demonstrate their perceived moral superiority.
But for the love of me, I cannot comprehend why one would have such a vendetta against something as benevolent as FOSS. Something that is meant to strengthen community, to encourage freedom of information and empowerment. To everyone. Not just white males.
Ah, but since most people working on FOSS are "privileged white males", then we must demonize the entire effort. Most programmers are "privileged white males", so this is only a natural consequence. I don't see what the problem is.
All that is stopping you from contributing is your programming skills. Software does not discriminate on basis of race, class or anything like that. All that matters is: "Can you program?" Then you have other positions like raising awareness and activism, which do not necessarily require programming aptitude.
But most people will counter that the culture of programming is fundamentally male-centric and misogynistic. Male-centric it is, given that most programmers are male. The same way nursing is female-centric. Misogynistic? No. But, whenever something even mildly offensive is said or done by a programmer, it is swallowed, regurgitated, swallowed again ad nauseum by news and media. Sometimes for no good reason, as in the Adria Richards case.
It's fallacious to assume that just because arbitrary quota X is not met, we need to alleviate the "issue" immediately. Yet this is how most people see it: an "issue" that can be fixed through affirmative action and ideological changes. What ideology? There is no single programmer ideology.
You know what I think is misogynistic? Assuming that women are weak, fragile and whenever someone makes joke in poor taste (such as Titstare), that we should immediately go up in arms and do something about all the poor oppressed women that were offended by this.
This is what happens when people use their primal emotions to guide their thinking. There is nothing wrong with being emotional, but this is ridiculous.
I absolutely think that most women are perfectly capable of handing whatever sexism they may encounter on their way in a rational manner. But it's not an institutional problem in software, it's something that certain individuals may display, sometimes not even deliberately.
Asinine social justice rhetoric only serves to fuel unwarranted anger against microaggressions. It weakens us all. It makes people actively look for oppression and offensive material in places where there aren't any.
Aye. Back in the day, if someone tried to flirt with a woman on the subway, she would brush it off and move on with her life. Today, she would go back to her home, open up her $1,200 MacBook Pro and write a blog article about how all of womankind is being systematically oppressed by privileged white men daily.
Please.