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Interesting here is the automatic assumption that the company should agree with the criticism and apologize. Except for the gratuitous accusation of bad faith,

Interesting here is the automatic assumption that the company should agree with the criticism and apologize. Except for the gratuitous accusation of bad faith, the response is what one might expect from someone who did not agree with the offended's characterization of the situation. Rather than explain exactly why the display was sexist, this is mostly a combination of condescending hectoring and whining. You have no right not to be offended. If you think that the display was sexist, it is incumbent on you to explain why and not act as though it is obvious to everyone under the sun.

jlgreco 14y ago
Eh, I would say everyone has the right to feel however they wish; be it happy, sad, angry, or even offended. Now, you are not entitled to have other people care about your emotions, but that is rather a separate issue. If you feel they haven't adequately defended their reaction you are of course free to disagree, but your right to disagree should not be misconstrued as a lack of a right to be offended on their part.
jamesaguilar 14y ago
> Rather than explain exactly why the display was sexist It should be obvious. I'm not sure, but I think that pretending not to know why people could be offended by this display in this day and age is just willful ignorance. Note: I'm not claiming that everyone has to agree that the display is offensive, but you must at least know why some people think it is. At any rate, it is not true that every article on gender politics should have to re-explain the basics to people who haven't been paying attention for the last few decades. > You have no right not to be offended. I think you mean, "You have no right to be offended," and you're wrong. Of course, it's awful hard to force people to stop offending you, but you absolutely have a right to be offended.
- DirtyCalvinist 14y ago
  I mean you have no right to an offense-free existence. Otherwise, claiming offense amounts to a heckler's veto, and is chilling and oppressive. You can be offended, and proclaim your offense to your offender, but offense isn't enough to require a change of behavior without an ancillary moral imperative, such as "offending some women is wrong". On further thought, this post was probably written for an particular community, of which I am not a part, and on whose internal discourse I cannot make demands.
king_jester 14y ago
> If you think that the display was sexist, it is incumbent on you to explain why and not act as though it is obvious to everyone under the sun. Uh, when someone does something wrong, its not up to the oppressed to explain everything. This is classic victim blaming mentality that seeks to take the blame off of the company putting out sexist messaging and advertising and to place it on women at large. People have a right to be upset at this company and if you feel that people don't you are implicitly endorsing sexism. EDIT: If you are occupying the position of privilege, you have a duty to go read about why this is sexist and to listen to the perspectives of the people affected (in this case women). You can Google, so don't sit there and demand an explanation before you are satisfied.
- Hairy_Sandwich 14y ago
  One of the key facts I hear about privilidge over and over, is that it is so ingrained in those who benefit from it, that they don't even realize it. So how else are they supposed to understand if you don't explain it to them? Essentially your message then becomes "You're bad but I can't tell you why, you should just know" which just seems like you're wasting their time. If it's worth their time to care, it's worth your time to explain it.
  - steveklabnik 14y ago
    The point is that it's not the _responsibility_ of the oppressed to educate their oppressors. Obviously, it can be useful, and education is a big part of it. But it's perfectly legitimate to say "Listen, I cannot explain this to you, but understand that what you say hurt me, and if that matters to you, you should take the time to figure that out." It's about the asymmetry: for the privileged, this is a situation, an unusual part of their day, something that needs to be dealt with. For those who aren't, it's an ingrained part of everyday life. Your entire life could be devoted to education and there still wouldn't be enough hours in the day.
    - rjknight 14y ago
      It might not be the responsibility of the oppressed to educate their oppressors, but who else is going to do it? I agree that the "booth babe" situation is sexist (and I also happen to think it's incredibly stupid - semi-naked women are not going to make me buy your product, and I'd feel insulted by any brand that used that as a marketing tactic). But we also live in a society and, as hackers, in a sub-culture where we generally prize reason and debate over emotion. When we're debating other topics here, this reason-over-emotion thing doesn't seem to be a problem. If someone says "I want you to do, believe or refrain from doing or believing something, and I can't explain why" then we generally ignore it. In no other context would this be seen as a reasonable line of argument. The thing is, I don't often see people saying "this makes me feel bad ergo it's a bad thing". Most feminists have well-worked-out arguments for their positions and it's not hard for any reasonable person to accept them. I've been persuaded of many feminist arguments and this has contributed to changing how I see the world. Sure, when we're talking about arguments on Twitter then there's not a lot of space to cite references or bring in supporting arguments, but to pretend that they don't exist or aren't necessary isn't helping. tl;dr I think the hacker community prizes rationalism and if you want to persuade them of anything you should use rational and not emotional arguments. This may be annoying but demanding that the hacker community abandons rationalism isn't going to work.
justin66 14y ago
> If you think that the display was sexist, it is incumbent on you to explain why This is a genuinely odd sentiment. The message was written by someone who thinks it is obvious why painted naked booth babes are "mildly offensive," for people who think it is obvious why painted naked booth babes are mildly offensive. Prefacing her message with a treatise on feminist theory 101 (or something) would just add noise to the signal. In other words, this isn't for you and you can move along. You don't want to experience all of her "hectoring and whining," right? That woman is hysterical!
- DirtyCalvinist 14y ago
  I actually thought of this after writing the above. It struck me than KeenIO is probably the sort of community where this wouldn't need to be explained. For better or worse, HN is.
- mwetzler 14y ago
  Thank you! The first version of the post DID have the explanation. But it ended up being multiple paragraphs and distracting from the point. It is hard to explain without a lot of historical context. It may become a separate post, though I'm not sure how much appetite there is for that based on what happened here today.

jlgreco 14y ago

Eh, I would say everyone has the right to feel however they wish; be it happy, sad, angry, or even offended. Now, you are not entitled to have other people care about your emotions, but that is rather a separate issue. If you feel they haven't adequately defended their reaction you are of course free to disagree, but your right to disagree should not be misconstrued as a lack of a right to be offended on their part.

jamesaguilar 14y ago

> Rather than explain exactly why the display was sexist It should be obvious. I'm not sure, but I think that pretending not to know why people could be offended by this display in this day and age is just willful ignorance. Note: I'm not claiming that everyone has to agree that the display is offensive, but you must at least know why some people think it is. At any rate, it is not true that every article on gender politics should have to re-explain the basics to people who haven't been paying attention for the last few decades. > You have no right not to be offended. I think you mean, "You have no right to be offended," and you're wrong. Of course, it's awful hard to force people to stop offending you, but you absolutely have a right to be offended.

DirtyCalvinist 14y ago
I mean you have no right to an offense-free existence. Otherwise, claiming offense amounts to a heckler's veto, and is chilling and oppressive. You can be offended, and proclaim your offense to your offender, but offense isn't enough to require a change of behavior without an ancillary moral imperative, such as "offending some women is wrong". On further thought, this post was probably written for an particular community, of which I am not a part, and on whose internal discourse I cannot make demands.

king_jester 14y ago

> If you think that the display was sexist, it is incumbent on you to explain why and not act as though it is obvious to everyone under the sun. Uh, when someone does something wrong, its not up to the oppressed to explain everything. This is classic victim blaming mentality that seeks to take the blame off of the company putting out sexist messaging and advertising and to place it on women at large. People have a right to be upset at this company and if you feel that people don't you are implicitly endorsing sexism. EDIT: If you are occupying the position of privilege, you have a duty to go read about why this is sexist and to listen to the perspectives of the people affected (in this case women). You can Google, so don't sit there and demand an explanation before you are satisfied.

Hairy_Sandwich 14y ago
One of the key facts I hear about privilidge over and over, is that it is so ingrained in those who benefit from it, that they don't even realize it. So how else are they supposed to understand if you don't explain it to them? Essentially your message then becomes "You're bad but I can't tell you why, you should just know" which just seems like you're wasting their time. If it's worth their time to care, it's worth your time to explain it.
- steveklabnik 14y ago
  The point is that it's not the _responsibility_ of the oppressed to educate their oppressors. Obviously, it can be useful, and education is a big part of it. But it's perfectly legitimate to say "Listen, I cannot explain this to you, but understand that what you say hurt me, and if that matters to you, you should take the time to figure that out." It's about the asymmetry: for the privileged, this is a situation, an unusual part of their day, something that needs to be dealt with. For those who aren't, it's an ingrained part of everyday life. Your entire life could be devoted to education and there still wouldn't be enough hours in the day.
  - rjknight 14y ago
    It might not be the responsibility of the oppressed to educate their oppressors, but who else is going to do it? I agree that the "booth babe" situation is sexist (and I also happen to think it's incredibly stupid - semi-naked women are not going to make me buy your product, and I'd feel insulted by any brand that used that as a marketing tactic). But we also live in a society and, as hackers, in a sub-culture where we generally prize reason and debate over emotion. When we're debating other topics here, this reason-over-emotion thing doesn't seem to be a problem. If someone says "I want you to do, believe or refrain from doing or believing something, and I can't explain why" then we generally ignore it. In no other context would this be seen as a reasonable line of argument. The thing is, I don't often see people saying "this makes me feel bad ergo it's a bad thing". Most feminists have well-worked-out arguments for their positions and it's not hard for any reasonable person to accept them. I've been persuaded of many feminist arguments and this has contributed to changing how I see the world. Sure, when we're talking about arguments on Twitter then there's not a lot of space to cite references or bring in supporting arguments, but to pretend that they don't exist or aren't necessary isn't helping. tl;dr I think the hacker community prizes rationalism and if you want to persuade them of anything you should use rational and not emotional arguments. This may be annoying but demanding that the hacker community abandons rationalism isn't going to work.

justin66 14y ago

> If you think that the display was sexist, it is incumbent on you to explain why This is a genuinely odd sentiment. The message was written by someone who thinks it is obvious why painted naked booth babes are "mildly offensive," for people who think it is obvious why painted naked booth babes are mildly offensive. Prefacing her message with a treatise on feminist theory 101 (or something) would just add noise to the signal. In other words, this isn't for you and you can move along. You don't want to experience all of her "hectoring and whining," right? That woman is hysterical!

DirtyCalvinist 14y ago
I actually thought of this after writing the above. It struck me than KeenIO is probably the sort of community where this wouldn't need to be explained. For better or worse, HN is.
mwetzler 14y ago
Thank you! The first version of the post DID have the explanation. But it ended up being multiple paragraphs and distracting from the point. It is hard to explain without a lot of historical context. It may become a separate post, though I'm not sure how much appetite there is for that based on what happened here today.