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You sure talk a lot about yourself, Matt.
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<div id="F72A4DE35BDD46DDBD579C415D6E13D8"><div><br></div>-- <br>Al Billings<br>http://openbuddha.com<div><br></div></div>
<p style="color: #A0A0A8;">On Friday, January 18, 2013 at 1:10 PM, Matt Joyce wrote:</p>
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<div id="quoted-message-content"><div><div>"It is difficult to even talk about gender/race/heteronormativity</div><div>because as soon as it comes up, people from the named dominant group</div><div>panic, get defensive, scold the complainers, claim that they are being</div><div>reverse-discriminated. "</div><div><br></div><div>That is what we like to call an assumption. As a primary source</div><div>viewpoint on being the proverbial "dominant group", I can assure you</div><div>when reading some of the emails I have responded to in a sometimes</div><div>unpopular fashion, I have never done so because of... panic,</div><div>defensiveness, or with a desire to scold. As to the claim of "reverse</div><div>discrimination". I would claim that I've never been reverse</div><div>discriminated upon in my life.</div><div><br></div><div>Do I Panic? The only thing that makes me panic is being faced with my</div><div>own mortality. I find your opinions interesting. I find you</div><div>suggestions to be exciting to my sense of curiousity and my thirst for</div><div>knowledge. And I see your different viewpoints as an opportunity for</div><div>us to learn from each other. That is about as far from panic as could</div><div>be the case.</div><div><br></div><div>Am I defensive? No, but I am conservative and a moderate. I prefer</div><div>people think before acting. I prefer people separate themselves from</div><div>their emotions and address issues with well reasoned logic. I prefer</div><div>a pursuit of truth and engineering built on proven methodologies</div><div>rather than blind conjecture. However, I acknowledge when breaching</div><div>new territory often times fortune favors the bold.</div><div><br></div><div>Do I scold complainers? No, but I am annoyed by them. Complaints are</div><div>fundamentally worthless. It's like in IT. When someone complains</div><div>about something you can't fix that. You need a bug report, with a</div><div>reproduceable state. You need logs. You need metrics. You need</div><div>numbers, reproduceability, and a test case to satisfy. Complaints</div><div>help no one. If you care that much, put together the data that will</div><div>allow people to isolate, define, and address the issue or issues. Oh</div><div>wait... I guess I do scold complainers. But you deserve it. Learn to</div><div>express yourself better.</div><div><br></div><div>Have I claimed reverse discrimination? No. I don't discriminate</div><div>against anyone but Gingers. And mostly they love me. In fact in some</div><div>households my photo hangs just below Ron Howard's rusty visage.</div><div>However, I have suffered from discrimination among feminists because</div><div>of my gender, and my skin color. As I have suffered discrimination in</div><div>europe for being an American. Discrimination in Brazil for being a</div><div>"rich American". Discrimination for being from Brooklyn, or for not</div><div>liking baseball, or for simply failing to dress the same as others.</div><div>There's nothing reverse about any of that. There are bad people in</div><div>every group of the world. There are feminists with the extremist</div><div>mentality of KKK members. They walk this earth and they are a</div><div>disgrace to all people, and male or female. And wherever you</div><div>encounter extremists, no matter their beliefs you will find</div><div>discrimination, closed mindedness, and hostility.</div><div><br></div><div>That is my rebuke of your supposition. You tell me I do not</div><div>understand the woes of the "minority". Well, you do not understand my</div><div>position either. That is why dialogue is important.</div><div><br></div><div>Ironically males are a population minority. To which you respond, we</div><div>have wealth and power etc. This is why numbers are important.</div><div>Reproduceable results are important. We need to set constraints and</div><div>find values before we can begin to address the issues. And sure there</div><div>are plenty of numbers out there in the world. But there aren't many</div><div>on hackerspaces. The early threads began to address that. There is a</div><div>request for data by a grad student on this list as well beginning that</div><div>work. There is the demographic that is done yearly by that lovely</div><div>person in the netherlands.</div><div><br></div><div>There's a lot of discussion to be had if we use the tools we have to</div><div>communicate without misunderstandings. Without the jaded view of our</div><div>own perspective.</div><div><br></div><div>-Matt</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 12:22 PM, rachel lyra hospodar</div><div><rachelyra@gmail.com> wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div>Many of you raise an important question that I don't think can be answered</div><div>singly - so what do we do? Because while there are a hundred strategies that</div><div>could be employed, that we should share, there is also a limit to what we</div><div>can share that way. Other community groups that may be more gender-balanced,</div><div>and worth reaching out to... a vague feeling that women like things to be</div><div>clean... classes that are targeted perhaps not even in subject matter but in</div><div>presentation style and in the ways they are promoted... working on creating</div><div>a welcoming space. Treating the conversation, and goal of integration, as</div><div>important. People besides the targeted group working towards the goal.</div><div><br></div><div>Why do I say there's a limit? because all those things might be important,</div><div>and help... but I think the best strategies will come from within the</div><div>hackerspaces themselves, fitting to their style & their potential audiences.</div><div>As a hacker who did not come to hackerspaces with a feminist agenda, but</div><div>rather having developed one after finding a community based on logic that</div><div>allows its blind spots and emotions to perpetuate illogical behavior.... all</div><div>I want is to not have to explain what I am doing if I am busy, to not have</div><div>to spend my hacking time helping people develop stunted social skills WRT</div><div>talking to me, as if I was some sort of rare bird and/or social experiment.</div><div>Women do edit themselves out of the technology scene, but I believe its for</div><div>two reasons... one is internalized belief that the work is not for them. The</div><div>other is dissatisfaction with the social norms. Both can be addressed but</div><div>my perhaps controversial stance is that those who don't identify as women</div><div>should focus on grokking the second of those, understanding why it is the</div><div>case before seeking to effect change. Once you understand, you can write</div><div>this email instead of me, and maybe I can have some time back from all this</div><div>teaching to work on my interface project.</div><div><br></div><div>Maybe this seems like 'drama' to some. The same could be said for what is</div><div>happening with legal prosecution of hackers in the US. Drama. Booooring.</div><div>Unless it affects you. then it's important enough to go to jail for, or to</div><div>die for.</div><div><br></div><div>It is difficult to even talk about gender/race/heteronormativity because as</div><div>soon as it comes up, people from the named dominant group panic, get</div><div>defensive, scold the complainers, claim that they are being</div><div>reverse-discriminated. (watch a group of white feminists talk about race if</div><div>you want to see women act this way, too) This might sound like an imprecise</div><div>and nonscientific statement but as a person better versed in welding than in</div><div>psychology I still need to be able to describe recurrent observed behavioral</div><div>phenomena. This may be less interesting that stack overflows to you.</div><div>Honestly it is to me too. I would love to spend my time in the hackerspace</div><div>community....actually hacking....it's funny that 99% of the interpersonal</div><div>conflict I have helped to mediate at noisebridge has been among men. It</div><div>turns out emotional intelligence is valued in technology communities...when</div><div>the men have problems or need mentorship.</div><div><br></div><div>One thing that would make hackerspaces more welcoming to the groups that are</div><div>not showing up is visibly throwing in with them - despite the discomfort or</div><div>confusion, making inclusiveness a permanent priority. There is no magic</div><div>bullet. You must actually decide to care about the issue in an ongoing</div><div>manner in order to make progress.</div><div><br></div><div>Uh, and genuinely seek to practice listening along with speaking.</div><div><br></div><div>R.</div><div><br></div><div>On Jan 18, 2013 3:45 AM, "Bill French" <william.french@gmail.com> wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div><br></div><div>Greetings, again, from heavily armed, definition crazed, white, male,</div><div>America! "America: Why are we so dumb?"</div><div><br></div><div> /Rule #1: When a girl comes through the doors, do NOT try to find</div><div> her on social networking or dating sites!</div><div> /</div><div><br></div><div>It's weird to me that this is the only piece of practical (right or wrong,</div><div>it's practical to understand, if not implement) advice i've picked up in</div><div>this conversation. I really hope I didn't miss anything else. As a white,</div><div>male, 30ish person, president of a mostly male hackerspace (current list has</div><div>us at 15% female), i recognize that the attitude of "please, just tell me</div><div>what to do, so we can fix this!" is not very helpful, but short of going for</div><div>a masters in women's studies, i'm not sure where the middle ground is. I</div><div>don't even know if Women's Studies would be the right thing to study. Maybe</div><div>it is even offensive to say that. I don't know! I think basically being</div><div>called a clueless idiot who doesn't get it, especially based on factors of</div><div>my birth beyond my control, is not the middle ground, either. I hate to see</div><div>such "teaching moments" get wasted. I want to learn. Who here wants to</div><div>intentionally oppress women?</div><div><br></div><div>I do know that I love my mother, my wife, and my sister (all different</div><div>people, to be clear) and would not want them to ever feel uncomfortable or</div><div>unwelcome anywhere by anyone. But I don't know where to start to learn how</div><div>to be better, how to help other be better, and make our space the best it</div><div>can be, that is reasonably practical among everything else I need to do. I</div><div>also want to hack.</div><div><br></div><div>ANYWAY, rule #1 bothers me, could rule #1 be changed somewhat:</div><div><br></div><div>Rule #1: This space respects personal privacy. All people entering this</div><div>space have a reasonable expectation of privacy. To that end, do not Google,</div><div>Facebook, or otherwise search for anyone, their families, or their friends</div><div>without explicitly asking them directly for permission, first. Everyone is</div><div>here for their own reasons. If you want to know, ask them, wait for them to</div><div>tell you, or mind your own fucking business.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Thoughts?</div><div><br></div><div>_______________________________________________</div><div>Discuss mailing list</div><div>Discuss@lists.hackerspaces.org</div><div>http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>_______________________________________________</div><div>Discuss mailing list</div><div>Discuss@lists.hackerspaces.org</div><div>http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss</div></div></blockquote><div>_______________________________________________</div><div>Discuss mailing list</div><div>Discuss@lists.hackerspaces.org</div><div>http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss</div></div></div>
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