Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

Re:Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life by Vula_Design on Thursday March 05, 2015 @08:15AM (#9150492)

This article is the worst kind of inflammatory journalism. I would never attempt to deny that there is a systemic patriarchy in place, or that white privilege exists, but tying every perceived injustice in the world to these braoder issues undermines the real issues that affect millions of people on a daily basis. As has been pointed out here by many other commentors, the behaviour of Hank and his friend was clearly outside conference guidelines and their being reprimanded for it is absolutely correct. Attempting to tie that to some sense of white (no race element to this story at all), male enitlement is absurd and frankly does a disservice to both the civil rights and feminist movements. When humour is made at the expense of a person in a position of relative weakness it is wrong. When she overheard someone else's (admittedly unfunny but by no means directly offensive to any race/gender/sexual orientation)joke and took offense then that was her personal reaction. Making her displeasure known to conference organisers was absolutely within her remit but turning herself into some sort of 'crusader' for a vague idea of 'rights and justice' in a public forum is problematic for me. Your article has done exactly that, by 'casually' mentioning the use of smart phones in the Ferguson case you are obviously attempting to equate what was, let's be honest, a minor case of a clash of senses of humour to the killing of a young man by the police. That is despicable. You then go on to mention the race of Lindsey Stone, despite the fact that it has no relevance to the case which she became known for. This sort of linking of every case of offensive public behaviour with what are real, and long running, issues of race and gender equality serve only to perpetuate a mentality of 'us and them' and undermine real cases of racism and sexism that still occur around the world on a regular basis.

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Re:Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life by adekok on Thursday March 05, 2015 @10:06AM (#9151067)

> I would never attempt to deny that there is a systemic patriarchy in place

I would.

There are a couple of counter-arguments. One, claiming that there is a "patriarchy" sounds a whole lot like a conspiracy theory. Replace "patriarchy" with "zionism" in typical statements to see what I mean. This makes me very wary of any hand-waving claims of "patriarchy".

The second is this:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15491274

Women have in-group preference. Men don't. The assumption that there's a "patriarchal" preference by white men for other white men is projection. What do I mean by this?

Most people believe that other people think like them. "I'm a reasonable person. So if I did X, it would be for reason Y. Therefore if other people are doing X, it's for reason Y."

i.e. Rich white men prefer to support other rich white men.

That just isn't true. There is no evidence for "in-group" preference of men. There is plenty of evidence that no such preference exists.

There is evidence for preference of power. If you can make Bill Gates money, he'll help you so long as it's in his favor. The second you can't help him, he'll cut your throat (metaphorically speaking), and leave you for dead.

The men who have such behavior tend to get ahead of people who aren't that ruthless. This isn't "in-group men" preference. It's cut-throat back-stabbing competition.

> Making her displeasure known to conference organisers was absolutely within her remit but turning herself into some sort of 'crusader' for a vague idea of 'rights and justice' in a public forum is problematic for me.

I agree. That's the crux of the matter. I suspect if she had only complained to the conference organizers, none of the rest would have happened. But she was clearly operating outside of the bounds of the conference herself.

And from the other links posted here, that wasn't the first time she did something like this.

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Re:Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life by Vula_Design on Thursday March 05, 2015 @06:15PM (#9154567)

I hear what you are saying and I agree that the term patriarchy is a very loaded one. However what I am referring to is, as other commenters have pointed out, a systemic patriarchy. I am by no means implying some sort of conscious system of oppression but rather a centuries-old systemic dominance of men over women that has undeniably resulted in women feeling that they exist in a position of relative social weakness to men. I share your suspicion when people mention systems of 'control' while implying some sort of conspiracy. My use of the term patriarchy is closer connected to Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony, within a gender framework http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemony. Granted this is changing but it is by no means over. I merely stated my position on women's rights and the patriarchy as a way to pre-empt any unfounded backlash to my comments along the lines that I somehow support the patriarchy. As you have pointed out the main point of my article was that her actions were justified to a point, and that the actions that went beyond that point were the catalyst for the unfortunate repercussions that ensued for both parties. Thank you though for highlighting this as it is an important distinction to be made.

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Re:Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life by law_of_the_hobo on Thursday March 05, 2015 @10:49AM (#9151387)

> claiming that there is a "patriarchy" sounds a whole lot like a conspiracy theory. Replace "patriarchy" with "zionism" in typical statements to see what I mean.

That's a false analogy. Zionism and similar conspiracy theories are predicated upon the notion that there organizations and people consciously manipulating things behind the scenes.

When most people discuss the patriarchy, they're not referring to conscious, willful agents. They're talking about systemic sexism.

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Re:Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life by adekok on Thursday March 05, 2015 @11:15AM (#9151617)

> When most people discuss the patriarchy, they're not referring to conscious, willful agents. They're talking about systemic sexism.

In my experience, that's the minority view.

I've had a number of people tell me out-right that they're "opposed to the patriarchy, which is a system where grey-haired white men rule the world".

Great. Are they "opposed to zionism, which is a system where jews rule the world"?

They label the second statement as bat-shit insane. So do I.

They label the first statement as reasonable and above board. I don't.

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Re:Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life by law_of_the_hobo on Thursday March 05, 2015 @11:32AM (#9151765)

I will agree with you that if that's the position they're taking then it's pretty far from reasonable.

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