Return to Gender 101 - Page 244

Kamilah Hauptmann · #**6076** 08-30-2017, 08:50 AM

These Women Entrepreneurs Created A Fake Male Cofounder To Dodge Startup Sexism - Fast Company

Quote:

After setting out to build Witchsy, it didn’t take long for them to notice a pattern: In many cases, the outside developers and graphic designers they enlisted to help often took a condescending tone over email. These collaborators, who were almost always male, were often short, slow to respond, and vaguely disrespectful in correspondence. In response to one request, a developer started an email with the words “Okay, girls…”

That’s when Gazin and Dwyer introduced a third cofounder: Keith Mann, an aptly named fictional character who could communicate with outsiders over email.

“It was like night and day,” says Dwyer. “It would take me days to get a response, but Keith could not only get a response and a status update, but also be asked if he wanted anything else or if there was anything else that Keith needed help with.”

lisarea · #**6077** 08-30-2017, 04:46 PM

I have had to use boy names sometimes too. I've even had people look right at my obvious lady name in emails and still assume that I'm either a man or some guy's secretary.

And the thing is that it's not just that people like that are sexist and immoral, but they're also incompetent. They're bad at their jobs. They're irrational and overly emotional and those things affect their ability to do the work they're supposed to be doing. That should be affecting their employment opportunities a lot more than it ever seems to.

Ensign Steve · #**6078** 08-30-2017, 05:35 PM

yah er'ry once in a while I idly wonder about how different my life would be if I didn't have my special aliases.

My "name" (on my resume n shit) is my initials, which I have been using since about age 5 because of how extremely common my actual first name is. I didn't necessarily intend to use a gender-neutral name, but it worked out that way.

Same with my internet name, I picked it kind of random as a joke when I joined II like 14 years ago, without really thinking about the fact that it was a man's name. Back then I thought of internet handles as fun characters to jump into and out of at will, the timing was just such that that was the character name I was using when all the gmails and reddits and blogspots came out and my internet persona gelled into a permanent thing.

So I have been using gender-neutral or male names my entire career, and somehow people take me seriously and don't harass me when I talk about stuff online. They listen to what I say and take things at face-value, and when I'm confused or mistaken about something, I get help, usually without a bunch of bullshit. It really is like playing life on easy mode, and it totally paid off.

BrotherMan · #**6079** 08-30-2017, 05:51 PM

One of my good work friends is the director for quality at her company. Sometimes she's asked to field support phone calls when whoever usually does it is out. She has people directly ask her a) if she knows what she's talking about (the technology, systems and chemistry they use) or if b) they can speak to a man who does. To back-fill a bit, she's one of the key people who helped design and develop the technology, systems and chemistry they use.

I am completely agog that it happens. Nevermind that it is not rare.

Ari · #**6080** 08-31-2017, 04:12 AM

Hollywood finally understands!
All girl based Lord of the Flies to be written and directed by men.
Because you know what we've never seen before? Hollywood men writing about prepubescent girls being mean to each other. It would only be surprising and more original of they wrote in Woody Allen as a father figure mentor they fall in love with.

BrotherMan · #**6081** 08-31-2017, 04:57 AM

Didn't we already get a Lady of the Flies? I'm thinking Mean Girls. I came upon this idea when I realized I would watch the shit out of a Tina Fey adapted script for a Lady of the Flies.

Kamilah Hauptmann · #**6082** 08-31-2017, 06:09 AM

t minus five until someone with a wonder woman avi says he should be president pic.twitter.com/aIHF6CkJI5
— Goth Ms. Frizzle (@spookperson) August 30, 2017

I don't even have to try pic.twitter.com/qJzGWyvGNf
— Goth Ms. Frizzle (@spookperson) August 30, 2017

pic.twitter.com/WtfXJrxJFu
— Goth Ms. Frizzle (@spookperson) August 30, 2017

JoeP · #**6083** 09-03-2017, 08:53 PM

Quote:

“Girls have breasts for two reasons. One is to make milk for babies. The other is to make the girl look grown-up and attractive. Virtually all breasts, no matter what size or shape they end up when a girl finishes puberty, can do both things.”

Usborne apologises for puberty book that says breasts exist to make girls 'look grown-up and attractive' | Books | The Guardian

Kamilah Hauptmann · #**6084** 09-09-2017, 08:27 AM

Kamilah Hauptmann · #**6085** 09-11-2017, 07:46 PM

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Bagels

The Man · #**6086** 09-15-2017, 08:40 PM

Shorter Harvard Business School study: While it's commonly believed that women are held back in the workplace because of sexism, they're actually held back because people believe they're less competent than men.

I think someone needs to be given a Ludovico Technique presentation of Orwell's "Politics and the English Language".

viscousmemories · #**6087** 09-16-2017, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

I had never seen Silicon Valley before binge-watching it a couple weeks ago and I have mixed feelings about it. This scene was a great illustration of an important issue, but like most of their attempts at lampooning the rampant sexism in tech, I think it's too silly/lighthearted/normalizing.

Kamilah Hauptmann · #**6088** 09-23-2017, 04:43 AM

I forget who coined it to give credit because it's brilliant:

A group of men on Twitter is called an "actually".
— Dave Quast (@davequast) September 23, 2017

slimshady2357 · #**6089** 09-23-2017, 12:18 PM

My friends coined a word: hepeated. For when a woman suggests an idea and it's ignored, but then a guy says same thing and everyone loves it
— Nicole Gugliucci (@NoisyAstronomer) 22 September 2017

BrotherMan · #**6090** 09-23-2017, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

I forget who coined it to give credit because it's brilliant:

A group of men on Twitter is called an "actually".
— Dave Quast (@davequast) September 23, 2017

Well...

Kamilah Hauptmann · #**6091** 10-02-2017, 08:19 AM

JoeP · #**6092** 10-02-2017, 08:58 AM

You're on a meme roll Kam.

specious_reasons · #**6093** 10-04-2017, 08:37 PM

So, I'm proofreading "The Historians' History of the World Vol 6 of 25" for Project Gutenberg, and the next page comes up with this lovely text:

Quote:

A Roman lady, of singular beauty and orthodox faith, had excited the
impatient desires of a young Goth, who, according to the sagacious remark
of Sozomen, was attached to the Arian heresy. Exasperated by her obstinate
resistance he drew his sword, and with the anger of a lover slightly
wounded her neck. The bleeding heroine still continued to brave his resentment
and to repel his love, till the ravisher desisted from his unavailing
efforts, respectfully conducted her to the sanctuary of the Vatican, and
gave six pieces of gold to the guards of the church, on condition that they
should restore her inviolate to the arms of her husband. Such instances of
courage and generosity were not extremely common. The brutal soldiers
satisfied their sensual appetites without consulting either the inclination
or the duties of their female captives; and a nice question of casuistry was
seriously agitated, whether those tender victims, who had inflexibly refused
their consent to the violation which they sustained, had lost by their misfortune
the glorious crown of virginity? There were other losses indeed of
a more substantial kind, and more general concern. It cannot be presumed
that all the barbarians were at all times capable of perpetrating such amorous
outrages; and the want of youth, or beauty, or chastity, protected the
greatest part of the Roman women from the danger of a rape. But avarice
is an insatiate and universal passion; since the enjoyment of almost every
object that can afford pleasure to the different tastes and tempers of mankind,
may be procured by the possession of wealth.

(emphasis added by me)

OK, so this passage uses a whole series of euphemisms to describe an attempted rape, which is bad enough, but when the woman resists through the threats, this is described as "courage and generosity" on the part of the man.

:no: