How not to offend me

July 21, 2009 · Posted in Rants 

I am not offended by jokes about sex. I make them all the time. I can think of many women who I’m pretty sure would say the same.

There is a long-running debate about sexism within the FOSS community and the IT field in general (the most recent notable incidents are RMS’s emacs virgins joke and the infamous Ruby porn presentation, but similar issues have come up in the past).

To categorise this debate as a clash between prudish, delicate flowers who disapprove of sex and porn (and who are usually contrasted with hip, younger women who are more sex-positive), and “the guys”, who are used to talking freely about sex with other guys, is to completely miss the point.

I do not speak for all women. I’m sure that some women feel uncomfortable whenever sex is mentioned at all in a professional environment, and that some women don’t find sexist humour to be a big deal, or even personally find it funny. This is my individual take, in response to recent posts on CLUG Park.

For me, this has never been about porn or jokes about sex being inherently offensive to women. It’s about speech and behaviour which belittles or degrades women. This is often the case with jokes which some men make about sex — because, quite frankly, our society is fucked up when it comes to that particular subject. A lot of mainstream porn features rather ugly and insulting caricatures of submissive, slutty women and dominant, abusive men, and I personally would not like to have those stereotypes waved at me in the middle of a tech conference. I don’t care what gets anyone’s rocks off, but it disturbs me when people introduce their creepy porn into their normal interactions with people in a non-sexual context.

But it doesn’t have to be explicitly about sex. Jokes about women not knowing what they want, having to be cajoled into sex because they don’t really like it, being stupid, being ignorant of technology, liking pink stuff, liking chocolate, wanting their boyfriends to talk about their feelings, saying they want honesty and not really meaning it, being bad drivers, wanting chivalry and equality at the same time, being on the rag, always being attracted to jerks and never Nice Guys, wanting to trap their boyfriends into pregnancy or marriage, being welcomed in a male-dominated field or hobby because now the men can get dates, not liking comics or computers or sci-fi, not understanding things their boyfriends like, not existing (because there are no real women on the internet), being fashion-conscious, taking an hour to get ready, being gold-diggers, or just generally being mysterious and unfathomable creatures entirely unlike normal people (read: men) really piss me off.

This kind of commentary is harmful not because of the seriousness of any individual incident, but because of the cumulative effect. Some of those things may not seem like a big deal to you — they shouldn’t be, and they wouldn’t be if I only encountered those stereotypes rarely. The reason they’re in my list is that I encounter them all the time. It is impossible to read the comments on any major internet forum which is mostly frequented by men without wading hip-deep in this crap (which is why I very seldom read comments on sites like Reddit, Digg or Slashdot anymore). I used to reply to these comments. Then I stopped, because arguing with half the internet is frustrating and pointless.

(Yes, I feel the same way about stupid jokes about men being immature, having uncontrollable sexual urges, obsessing about Star Wars, obsessing about boobs, obsessing about sport, being unable to cook or do shopping or tie their own shoelaces, being hypochondriacs, not asking for directions, being unable to talk about their feelings, being promiscuous, fearing commitment, etc., etc..)

On the whole, I have observed the worst such behaviour on US-centric websites, and most of the complaints about sexism that I have encountered online were written by American women. In my limited and subjective experience I think the South Africans I know are considerably more progressive. I have found my local Linux community to be welcoming and friendly. I don’t think this is because anyone is making a special effort not to offend me.

Do you think that not being sexist means singling out women for special treatment? Sexist behaviour is what singles women out. Treating someone as your equal includes not continually telling jokes about the ways in which people like them are inferior.

ETA:

I am not going to provide a forum on this blog for blog-post-length comments from persons with whom I have no interest in entering into a dialogue, based on bitter past experience of attempting to do so. Those persons are most welcome to post their responses within their own internet spaces.

Tags: no tags

Comments

2 Responses to “How not to offend me”

  1. extemporanea on July 23rd, 2009 08:41

    Word, sister! Your comments about cumulative effect are spot-on to my experience.

    There is nothing more frustrating in the world than trying to explain discrimination to someone who hasn’t experienced it and therefore doesn’t get it.

  2. schedule5 on July 27th, 2009 12:43

    So right. Then people look at you like you’re some kind of victorian prude if you don’t want to listen to jokes about how your entire gender is subhuman in some aspect or another. I agree with you – it has nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with sexism.

Leave a Reply