4 ms·

Rape-culture and patriarchy are definitely major society-wide issues but they undeniably find a special welcoming home within geek culture. A culture which sup

by agpen 14y ago

Rape-culture and patriarchy are definitely major society-wide issues but they undeniably find a special welcoming home within geek culture. A culture which supposedly prides itself on merit and intelligence at first glance ought to be most receptive to actually picking up a book and studying social issues, but the reality is instead that we get a social group full of men's right's advocates and evopsych true-believers and other terrible terrible people.

cbs 14y ago
> Rape-culture and patriarchy are definitely major society-wide issues but they undeniably find a special welcoming home within geek culture. Please cite your statistics. edit: Statistics that the geek culture provides a "more welcoming home" than society at large. I'm not disagreeing with the fact there are society-wide issues, I'd just like you to back up that particular assertion about geek culture. >A culture which supposedly prides itself on merit and intelligence at first This is a hacker convention. Not a thing-PG-recontextualized-hacker-as convention. >the reality is instead that we get a social group full of men's right's advocates and evopsych true-believers and other terrible terrible people. The broad brushes with which you paint are not helping. Laying inaccurate generalizations like this on the very people in positions to help solve the problem disenchants and disinterests them.
- king_jester 14y ago
  > Please cite your statistics. Rape culture seeks to describe why rape occurs and is promoted within a society. As per usual, Wikipedia has the overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture. EDIT: Another good resource I use for this same convo that happen inevitably someone mentions sexism in a male space like Hacker News: http://www.shakesville.com/2009/10/rape-culture-101.html http://www.shakesville.com/2009/10/rape-culture-101.html > This is a hacker convention. Not a thing-PG-recontextualized-hacker-as convention. I didn't realize considering yourself a hacker was a license to violate other people. > The broad brushes with which you paint are not helping. Laying inaccurate generalizations like this on the very people in positions to help solve the problem disenchants and disinterests them. That women are not in positions to solve this issue or be empowered to not have to deal with these situations is the problem in the first place. If someone can't be interested in being a basic human being that provides a safe space for a conference, perhaps they should re-evaluate what they are doing and stop.
  - cbs 14y ago
    Are you just looking to pick a fight? I don't disagree with the parent post's point. I disagree with the way they are arguing it. I can fully, 1000% get behind the statement that "Rape-culture and patriarchy are definitely major society-wide issues", but if they want to make the casual accusation that "they undeniably find a special welcoming home within geek culture", I'm going to fucking call you on it unless you can bring some proof. Again, I'm not disagreeing that there is a problem, I'm disagreeing with the assertation that the hacker community "prides itself on merit and intelligence at first". That's it. Again, I'm not saying that assault at defcon isn't a problem, what I am saying is that labeling a huge swath of people as "men's right's advocates and evopsych true-believers and other terrible terrible people", is in fact counter-productive. I was at defcon and wasn't even aware that sexual conduct there was a problem until I talked with a goon that saturday night. Does that make me a men's right advocate? Or a evopsych? I see that you're just looking to pick a fight, I should have never taken the bait.
    - coridactyl 14y ago
      An attack on culture is not an attack on community. You're part of the community by default, but you can be better than the failings of its culture. No one is baiting anyone here except the people who feel the need to poke holes in a call for decency.
      - cbs 14y ago
        * No one is baiting anyone here except the people who feel the need to poke holes in a call for decency.* Am I supposed to sit back and just let ends I happen to agree with justify means that I don't? Why?
        coridactyl 14y ago
        No, because I don't get to tell you what to do. All I get to do is tell you what I think, and I think you cried "Troll!" at someone's honest attempt to participate in a discussion. By all means, disagree. Just try not to freak out when other people disagree with your disagreement.
- ahelwer 14y ago
  Do you really exist in such a vacuum that you haven't seen the problems geek culture has with women? Nobody here's going to do your reading for you. Head over to Google, type in "the problem with geek culture", and get reading. There's also a great bunch of geek feminist blogs, which work to educate on problems in the community. Two particularly fantastic ones are Captain Awkward (http://captainawkward.com/ http://captainawkward.com/) and Pervocracy (http://pervocracy.blogspot.ca/ http://pervocracy.blogspot.ca/). You say you don't just want a fight, well here's your homework.
  - cbs 14y ago
    Do you really exist in such a vacuum that you haven't seen the problems geek culture has with women? No, I can see it. Off the top of my head I can paint with broad strokes that many are stuck in their shell and terrified of them, or have no social tact and act wildly inappropriate in conversation. They can't stop staring at ladies' chests either. But "rape-culture and patriarchy [...] find a special welcoming home within geek culture"? OK, I'll read your links, but I'm expecting to see comparative analysis between society-at-large and geek culture. The first one does not inspire confidence, "the problem with geek culture" just got me to an opinion piece full of image macros that got passed around. So far all I've discovered is that you can cherry-pick images of ladies to make misleading insinuation about the way they are portrayed in geek-pop-culture in either direction. I hope your other links have something more to say than point out that the purposefully-off-color id of 4chan is off-color, and don't make the casual amalgamation between 4chan macros and "geek culture" at large, if that is even a thing.
    - ahelwer 14y ago
      Hmm, well if you're looking for more comparative analysis type stuff, usually a good starting point is the classic Five Geek Social Fallacies: http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html Also, if you follow the rabbit hole of what geeks think about the term "creepy", you start to find all sorts of stuff. The Captain Awkward blog is a good resource for that.

by agpen 14y ago

cbs 14y ago

> Rape-culture and patriarchy are definitely major society-wide issues but they undeniably find a special welcoming home within geek culture. Please cite your statistics. edit: Statistics that the geek culture provides a "more welcoming home" than society at large. I'm not disagreeing with the fact there are society-wide issues, I'd just like you to back up that particular assertion about geek culture. >A culture which supposedly prides itself on merit and intelligence at first This is a hacker convention. Not a thing-PG-recontextualized-hacker-as convention. >the reality is instead that we get a social group full of men's right's advocates and evopsych true-believers and other terrible terrible people. The broad brushes with which you paint are not helping. Laying inaccurate generalizations like this on the very people in positions to help solve the problem disenchants and disinterests them.

king_jester 14y ago
> Please cite your statistics. Rape culture seeks to describe why rape occurs and is promoted within a society. As per usual, Wikipedia has the overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture. EDIT: Another good resource I use for this same convo that happen inevitably someone mentions sexism in a male space like Hacker News: http://www.shakesville.com/2009/10/rape-culture-101.html http://www.shakesville.com/2009/10/rape-culture-101.html > This is a hacker convention. Not a thing-PG-recontextualized-hacker-as convention. I didn't realize considering yourself a hacker was a license to violate other people. > The broad brushes with which you paint are not helping. Laying inaccurate generalizations like this on the very people in positions to help solve the problem disenchants and disinterests them. That women are not in positions to solve this issue or be empowered to not have to deal with these situations is the problem in the first place. If someone can't be interested in being a basic human being that provides a safe space for a conference, perhaps they should re-evaluate what they are doing and stop.
- cbs 14y ago
  Are you just looking to pick a fight? I don't disagree with the parent post's point. I disagree with the way they are arguing it. I can fully, 1000% get behind the statement that "Rape-culture and patriarchy are definitely major society-wide issues", but if they want to make the casual accusation that "they undeniably find a special welcoming home within geek culture", I'm going to fucking call you on it unless you can bring some proof. Again, I'm not disagreeing that there is a problem, I'm disagreeing with the assertation that the hacker community "prides itself on merit and intelligence at first". That's it. Again, I'm not saying that assault at defcon isn't a problem, what I am saying is that labeling a huge swath of people as "men's right's advocates and evopsych true-believers and other terrible terrible people", is in fact counter-productive. I was at defcon and wasn't even aware that sexual conduct there was a problem until I talked with a goon that saturday night. Does that make me a men's right advocate? Or a evopsych? I see that you're just looking to pick a fight, I should have never taken the bait.
  - coridactyl 14y ago
    An attack on culture is not an attack on community. You're part of the community by default, but you can be better than the failings of its culture. No one is baiting anyone here except the people who feel the need to poke holes in a call for decency.
    - cbs 14y ago
      * No one is baiting anyone here except the people who feel the need to poke holes in a call for decency.* Am I supposed to sit back and just let ends I happen to agree with justify means that I don't? Why?
      - coridactyl 14y ago
        No, because I don't get to tell you what to do. All I get to do is tell you what I think, and I think you cried "Troll!" at someone's honest attempt to participate in a discussion. By all means, disagree. Just try not to freak out when other people disagree with your disagreement.
ahelwer 14y ago
Do you really exist in such a vacuum that you haven't seen the problems geek culture has with women? Nobody here's going to do your reading for you. Head over to Google, type in "the problem with geek culture", and get reading. There's also a great bunch of geek feminist blogs, which work to educate on problems in the community. Two particularly fantastic ones are Captain Awkward (http://captainawkward.com/ http://captainawkward.com/) and Pervocracy (http://pervocracy.blogspot.ca/ http://pervocracy.blogspot.ca/). You say you don't just want a fight, well here's your homework.
- cbs 14y ago
  Do you really exist in such a vacuum that you haven't seen the problems geek culture has with women? No, I can see it. Off the top of my head I can paint with broad strokes that many are stuck in their shell and terrified of them, or have no social tact and act wildly inappropriate in conversation. They can't stop staring at ladies' chests either. But "rape-culture and patriarchy [...] find a special welcoming home within geek culture"? OK, I'll read your links, but I'm expecting to see comparative analysis between society-at-large and geek culture. The first one does not inspire confidence, "the problem with geek culture" just got me to an opinion piece full of image macros that got passed around. So far all I've discovered is that you can cherry-pick images of ladies to make misleading insinuation about the way they are portrayed in geek-pop-culture in either direction. I hope your other links have something more to say than point out that the purposefully-off-color id of 4chan is off-color, and don't make the casual amalgamation between 4chan macros and "geek culture" at large, if that is even a thing.
  - ahelwer 14y ago
    Hmm, well if you're looking for more comparative analysis type stuff, usually a good starting point is the classic Five Geek Social Fallacies: http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html Also, if you follow the rabbit hole of what geeks think about the term "creepy", you start to find all sorts of stuff. The Captain Awkward blog is a good resource for that.