Rolling 'this is sexist' thread

this shit will be on funny or die by next week, don't front

"Among other findings, an Ohio State University study found that graduate students rated research abstracts as having greater “scientific quality” when they thought the abstracts were written by men."

http://www.scilogs.com/communication_breakdown/gender-bias-study-2013/

http://www.complex.com/tech/2013/03/the-40-hottest-women-in-tech/

lol straight trollin

douse complex.com in gasoline and set it on fire imho

^^^

I clicked through to the first entry because I was thinking "well maybe they are trolling by setting this up as a cheesecake list and then they're going to riff off of the nonsexual definition of "hottest" and then the first picture loaded and I was basically like "lol gtfo *clicks back, hopes no one was looking at my cube*"

complex.com is basically justdudethings right?

I have trouble expressing just how angry the pervasive, unexamined misogyny in my field makes me.

I have trouble expressing just how angry the pervasive, unexamined misogyny in my field makes me.

― my god i only have 2 useless beyblade (silby), Friday, March 22, 2013 12:12 PM (0 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was assigned to write the 50 Hottest Women in Tech by Complex and it really bummed me out, because the idea of perpetrating the same old gender divisions in an area like tech - which has predominantly been a boy's club throughout history - seemed like kind of a messed up thing to do. It represents the most banal form of internet content that exists. But it's hard to say no to a paycheck.

So what I tried to do was see if it was possible to make something called "The 50 Hottest Women in Tech" earnest and empowering and an actual good thing. I pretty much only included normal looking women, who were involved in something really crucial or exciting in the tech space. I made no allusions to their looks in the blurbs, and ended up with simply a long list of very exciting women.

Of course when the piece actually ran, I discovered that over half of the women I had included were replaced with people like Morgan Webb, complete with the usual lascivious dialogue. Sigh. It's hard to win when you're writing for Complex, but please know that I tried.

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rjce0c
https://twitter.com/luke_winkie

how bout that dude who sparked up a bowl in the middle of pycon, eh?

You mean the dude who also shouted "you're the hottest" at a woman presenting a talk, while being so drunk he claims not to remember shouting or bowl-sparking, and whose official explanation-of-banning only mentions the bowl-sparking?

Bcz I happen to find "you're the hottest" approx six billion times more offensive than dongle innuendos. This may be because I have never been hot but I was 13 for a while.

(declines to click on complex.com link because I think I've been angry enough this week already)

dude's name is winkie, i just want to point that out (no dongle)

lol

just really lol to me since it's p obvious that the higher ups at complex were like, how can we get hits this week... *sees adria richards controversy* *assigns 50 hottest women in tech piece to underling*

I remember going on some weekend school trip where my dad was chaperoning when I was in junior high; I started a "what girls do you think are hot?" conversation that he quickly shut down because it was a bunch of thirteen-year-olds being gross and pervy. I responded with "ok then, what cars do you think are hot?" and got yelled at in front of a bunch of my classmates and told to go to sleep.

Looking back, the takeaways were:

- We were incapable of making a distinction between talking about an entire gender and talking about inanimate masse objects and whenever my thoughts get too icky, I remember that confrontation and wonder how I would feel as the object of a Mandingo conversation.
- My dad really wanted to get some sleep that night.

Also can someone point out to Mr. Winkie that specifically excluding attractive women is just as problematic as explicitly perving over them?

^

i don't know this dude but it reads like he just wanted to focus on people who weren't uncanny valley.

oh winkiepaws

you've been on fire since you got married, dude

<333333 CHRIS

I'm gonna put it out there: if you like it, you can take it; if you don't, send it right back: Who is the sexiest woman on this board?

i have no clue how this sort of blog industry works or what, but the "don't blame me, i tried, blame editorial" excuse feels kinda weak on its face. could he have "tried" harder? is it possible to say to his editor "no, i don't want to / would prefer not to write that because it's gross" or were his hands tied and how firmly?

he probably had to pay rent

Person who wrote the "i didnt want to do my job but they made me do my job" stuff gotta be next for the sack, right

i have no clue how this sort of blog industry works or what, but the "don't blame me, i tried, blame editorial" excuse feels kinda weak on its face. could he have "tried" harder? is it possible to say to his editor "no, i don't want to / would prefer not to write that because it's gross" or were his hands tied and how firmly?

it sounds from his account like he wrote a straightforward "these women are doing exciting things" listicle without referring to anyone's looks and then editorial turned it into... that, so the only way he could have tried harder would have been to say "no, I'm not writing that"

yeah, i'd like to give the dude the benefit of the doubt, but obviously he knew what they wanted & expected when they assigned him that piece

https://twitter.com/kttykatie/status/315173787459014656

ayyyy

Happy Friday Winkie.

faced

ha

lololol first u read: "Technology has been a boy's club for most of its existence. Just another unfortunate repercussion of the patriarchy. But that's been slowly changing, and over the last decade we've seen a number of wonderful, intelligent, and cunning women make inspiring strides in the field of technology. Through web development, social media, space exploration, and video game design, we see the world of tech becoming a more equal playing field. Here are 40 women we admire doing work in the field of innovation."

and then you click to the first person

can we change the subject? amazing writing here

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2013/03/22/a-girl-cant-have-a-dick/

https://twitter.com/luke_winkie/status/315189945876742145

When I was 13 years old, a bunch of people from my circle of friends, most whom were.13 year old girls, liked to play a game called The Penis Game. The Penis Game was you'd stand around in a circle saying the word penis. Each person had to say the word penis louder than the last person. The point was to get it loud enough to where a stranger would hear it. It didn't take a lot for this group to say penis loud enough to hear it on the next floor or whatever. I was profoundly embarrassed by the Penis Game and would usually go hide in like, Sam Goody when it started. I was pretty unfun for a 13-year-old, I guess.

xp was JUST gonna post that

i remember ppl even playing the penis game like freshman year of college.

onion really should do one of these for women in tech:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-6-best-dresses-at-the-golden-globes,30897/

sam goody as a safe haven from penis could have helped them weather record industry downturn.

LOL. But was I being sexually harassed? Were the other mall patrons being sexually harassed?

Has the statute of limitations passEd for penis game victims?

sometimes you just want to duck into a place out of penis earshot and where you can also buy fugazi CDs for $15.99

Can I play the penis game now? Or would it be all "Sir,you're going to have to come with us."

Might be fun to try on a date: "so, do you want to play the penis game?" You friday night single okcupid people can have that one. Let me know how you do!

lololol first u read: "Technology has been a boy's club for most of its existence. Just another unfortunate repercussion of the patriarchy. But that's been slowly changing, and over the last decade we've seen a number of wonderful, intelligent, and cunning women make inspiring strides in the field of technology. Through web development, social media, space exploration, and video game design, we see the world of tech becoming a more equal playing field. Here are 40 women we admire doing work in the field of innovation."

and then you click to the first person

― Mordy

oh god please let a wave of sexy russian women make philology a thing again

that is my prayer

ok I guess nobody really wants to revisit the PyCon thing again but since the Amanda Blum article was posted upthread I thought I'd post this one too:

http://www.technologywoman.com/2013/03/24/digging-beneath-the-surface-that-amanda-blum-article-on-adria-richards-is-not-what-it-seems/

also uh this sounds totally lame but I only just now saw a picture of Adria Richards after reading the entire controversy with images turned off (why bcz at work) and realised that you were actually all telling me off for whitesplaining the other day when I thought I was being told off for mansplaining while not being a man, so apologies to everyone concerned

certainly there was some element of unwarranted splaining in my posts

i want to move to white plains, ny and write a letter to an advice column and sign it "whitesplaining in white plains"

plain whites whitesplain whitesplainin in white plains, new york