Online interaction and free speech

What John Scalzi said, after noting that despite the opinion of some people, not everywhere in the world is covered by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America:

this person is just absolutely, completely, ice-pick-to the-eyeballs wrong in their understanding of the First Amendment, how it applies to my site, and how it applies to the Internet. Reading this person’s understanding of how the First Amendment applies in these instances is like being slathered in a thick coat of ignorant, and then being put out into the sun to dry out before a second coat is applied, which itself will be topped off by a sealant of complete and utter stupid, and lightly drizzled with a glistening varnish of epic fail.

He then goes into detail about exactly why the particular person is so monumentally wrong, but it basically comes down to the difference between interactions between private persons and interactions between private persons and persons acting as agents of a government. Read more »

So frustrating

Half the comments submitted lately appear to be twerps swinging by and leaving a comment on the Open Suggestions or Ask A Question thread that have already been addressed in the FAQs. No, I will not publish a question that’s already been asked and answered on those threads, you lazyboned please-do-my-homework-for-me types.

However, I’ve also had several really good comments submitted that are just way too long. Well over 500 words, addressing multiple ramifications of the topic under discussion and introducing multiple new aspects for consideration. How can such a comment be substantively addressed without the responding comment being at least 800 or 1000 words long, and how long will the next response be? You can’t have a discussion thread where people just deliver long lectures at each other - that’s not a conversation, that’s a correspondence, and a blog comments thread is not the place for it. Read more »

Feminism Friday - Calling Out Fellow Progressives for “Sexism Prevents Unity on the Left”

Originally posted on Shakesville by Melissa McEwan on February 28, 2008 (Shakesville’s change to a new comments database means that the original comments no longer are shown on that link)


Also see: Circular Firing Squad.

This oft-wielded cudgel to silence feminists who cry foul at sexism expressed by political allies is wrong for the following reason, which I cannot state any more succinctly than this: When someone engages in divisive behavior, any resulting division is their responsibility.

It is, simply, not the duty of any person who is repeatedly subjected to alienating language, images, behaviors, and/or legislation to nonetheless never complain and pledge fealty from the margins. If women, men of color, gay/bi/ trans men, et. al. are valued, then they should not be demeaned—and if they are demeaned, they should not be expected to pretend it does not matter.

Pretty straightforward stuff. There are some related ideas I want to address, though, which complicate the issue, especially from the perspective of those who earnestly cannot understand why feminists don’t see the “perfect logic” of:

• Candidate A is sexist, and at worst will not make things any worse for women.
• Candidate B is sexist, and at best will not make things any worse for women.
• Therefore, feminists should vote for Candidate A.

I get why that appears to make sense—and for some feminists it does, particularly Democratic partisans, which is totally legitimate—but then there’s that whole my vote is mine thing, and this subject is really bigger than for whom anyone will or will not vote, because the (typically) unspoken corollary to “Therefore, feminists should vote for Candidate A” is “…and they should not do anything to undermine him like point out that he is a sexist.” Read more »

Feminists Have Free Speech Too: Action Alert I

I’ve labelled this post as (I) because my spidey-sense tells me that this will become a series.

Here you go: [link]. Tell this cartoonist what you think of jokes about his comic’s protagonist drooling about raping disabled homeless women because “it’s hard to keep your legs closed if you don’t have any”. Hey, having no doors to put locks on makes her an easy victim as well!

The cartoonist thinks sarcasm justifies all (edited to add - so complaining to the editor about approving the cartoon for publication is probably the most effective avenue).

H/T via email.

FAQ: if “gender is a social construct”, aren’t feminists saying that gender doesn’t really exist at all?

Updated 01 AUgust 2008

A: NO. Social constructs are human conceptions, invented but not therefore imaginary (unless one thinks that social consequences are imaginary).

The following is going to be snarkier than usual, because this one is gobsmacking (although my snark is aimed at antagonists proclaiming their superior logic rather than genuine seekers after information) Social constructs can be confusing to wrap one’s head around because social roles and expectations are the elephants in the room that most people are unwilling to ask questions about, so why do some people insist on claiming that they’ve killed the gender elephant when in fact they’ve only just noticed that it’s got large ears?

Often people who claim to have superior logic skills are using this or similar questions about social constructs to frame some allegedly devastating argument against various aspects of progressive thought. For crying out loud, I’m amazed that sentient individuals could have quite such a large dose of EPIC FAIL in the clue-catching department as to claim “AHA!! Gotcha, you gender warriors! Take that!” without a glimmering of understanding that just because social constructs are physical/biological fictions doesn’t stop them being undeniable sociological facts. Dictionaries are your friend, for a start.

List of social constructs off the top of my head:

  • Money
  • Land as property
  • Religion
  • Race
  • Politics
    • party politics even more so
  • Capitalism/Communism/the ism of your choice
  • Marriage
  • Nations
  • Justice systems/legislation
  • Social Status
    • i.e. royalty, aristocracy, bourgeoisie, proletariat (upper/middle/lower class)
  • Slavery
  • Fashion
  • Sport

Gender is socially instilled rather than biologically determined, but so is religion. These conceptual categories are still real phenomena that affect people’s lives, even if they have nothing to do with our essential biology. Anyone wish to try asserting ownership of your own home in a place without a social construct of property laws or a justice system? You won’t have anything other than your brawn to back it up.

Social constructs exist because people are acculturated to a shared tradition/belief/convention that such constructs are meaningful systems. It is the multiple intersections of social constructs that institutionalise people’s perceived social roles. The nature of social constructs that is most important for feminism (and other progressive ‘isms) is that social constructs are malleable rather than inherently fixed, and by deconstruction and persuasion these constructs can be modified (although there may be a great deal of social inertia to overcome along the way).

Belated hiatus notice

Hi all - I was away on hols last week, and there were quite a few comments caught up in moderation. Sorry about that!

I’ve released most of them now (apart from the attempts at rape jokes on the Rape Isn’t Funny thread). A couple of others haven’t been published because they were awfully long. Lengthy comments discourage further responses, and thus can be a form of silencing other voices, so I prefer people to cut it down to three strong paragraphs or approximately 250 words. (This is all explained in the comments policy) If your lengthy comment has been held in moderation, please redraft it to be more concise and re-submit.

You feminists just want to tell women to do what you want, instead of letting them CHOOSE (and we all know girls *choose* the girly stuff)

Bumped from the Open Suggestion thread, so that we can have a general discussion about the various issues surrounding how choices can be constrained by socialised expectations:

lala, on June 15th, 2008 at 1:53 am Said

I’m an engineer and pretty much always the only woman (or occasionally, one of two women) in any workplace setting. I also frequent communities that revolve around technical subjects both online and off.

Now whenever I, or another woman, or even another man starts talking about encouraging other women to join in technical subjects, people seem to get very hostile.

Some of them will say that women don’t have the brains for it, but then claim that they aren’t being sexist because they love admire women’s natural abilities to nurture and manage social settings so that everyone is happy. I have science to throw at those people, so I can deal with them.

However, many will take the attitude that women aren’t /choosing/ to participate in technical subjects and therefore we should leave that alone. Women don’t want it, so why don’t we leave that alone? What’s the problem?
Read more »