On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 9:32 PM, Andreas Hedström <ahedstrom_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> In the thread with topic: "Re: apt-get telefon (N900)" the following
> statements was recently posted:
>
>>> Yes, a life without Emacs and Perl is like a life without a girlfriend
>>> (the other-one than Eliza).
>> ...
>> I get that this was a joke. IMHO it is a bad one, due to the heteronormative and
>> male hacker norm parts of it.
>
> I felt I had to respond, but created a new topic not to polute the
> other - because this really has no relevance to the other topic and
> perhaps there will be many more comments regarding the current topic.
Good to create a separate thread, thanks. :-)
> How hard is it to replace girlfriend with boyfriend in the first
> statement (works for both heterosexual females and homosexual males,
> the original statement works fine for the inverse group), without
> loosing the analogy of a life without purpose. For those who think
> life without a parter is just as good (or even better), the analogy
> falls short - but that does not mean it must be a heteronormative
> statement (yes, I have looked it up just to be sure of its
> implications).
But this is highly hypothetical, the original comment implies a certain group
consistency: heterosexual male nerds (the arch stereotype for geeks and nerds).
>> Please take a moment and think about how we become
>> a more welcoming and friendly group, if we crave freedom and equality in
>> software we need to crave freedom and equality in the rest of our group as well
>> (even socially).
>
> How is this deduced from the initial statement which to me is mostly
> referring to the cult of Emacs and Perl than anything else. I like vim
> better than emacs, someone else might prefer python over perl. You
> don't see us complaining. Diversity, and exchanging experience from
> different situations (in life, at work, using or writing software,
> ...), is what makes it fun and keeps us evolving.
My comment has absolutely nothing to do with editors or programming languages.
(Although flame wars about this is bad, I personally think that kind
twinkly-eyed [sv. med glimten i ögat] comments and about it can be cute and a
way to introduce newbies to both nerd history and culture.)
> How bad would it be if the initial statement had to be something like
> this to make everyone happy:
> "Yes, a life without <enter your favourite IDE/editor here> and <enter
> your favourite script language or invaluable software tool here> is
> like a life without a <enter your preferred gender of mate here, or
> anything else you find brings purpose to the existence of life>."
Better of course, since it does not imply a certain group consistency! :-)
> I think we can give each other more credit than that, and assume
> people will do the necessary substitutions without having to state it
> explicitly (at least I did).
Well, I know lots of people, me included, that do interpret stereotypical
comments and jokes exactly as such: stereotypical comments and jokes. I think
that most people actually do this.
> I get what Per was aiming at, we need to work on our people skills not
> to exclude any part of the society because you never know where true
> potential and ingenious can be found. But I fail to see how this was a
> relevant comment in the original thread (as little as this reply would
> have been). And sure, one could have substituted girlfriend with mate
> in the first place and the entire post would have fallen short. I'm
> pretty sure that had the original post been written by a female she
> would have used the term boyfriend instead (or love, as my girlfriend
> suggested) - or are you (i.e. Per) suggesting that she would not have
> written it at all?
>
> Just as one could easily read the original statement without finding
> anything unusual about it, apparently it could be read in a way that
> turned it into a heteronormative one. My only plea is for those who
> advocate increased tolerance in this mailing list to be just a tiny
> bit more open minded and try to consider if this actually _was_
> politically incorrect or if it was just an "innocent remark" before
> replying.
Although I find it interesting and fascinating to discuss political correctness
and how language affects the way we think and be, this was not my intention and
not what I want to discuss. Sadly it seems that it is never the correct time to
actually bring up such things as social behaviour within the group, and even
less acceptable to question it. There is no such time as The Right Time(TM) and
it often hurt to change habitual behaviour (even for me). We should always be
vigilant about how we are and behave of course.
How we are and behave shows people what the free software community is like. It
is the most basic form of public relations, we show how and what we are. Even
"innocent remarks" are a product of our group and its collective consciousness.
At the last foss-sthlm meetup there were about 6 women and 100 or so men. We
must acknowledge that we consist of the white male (probably heterosexual, but I
have of course no clue about this) nerd stereotype (me included). This of course
can make a serious impact on the tone and aim of the group.
In my opinion people from all walks of life should feel welcome to join the
group, we do not accomplish this by pursuing stereotypical white male
heterosexual normative behaviour -- even on very small passages on the mailing
list.
I and a lot of people think that free software should be for everyone, that
everybody should use it, and that everyone should be welcome to join. If we
really want this to happen we must change something, we cannot just talk about
our wish and then do nothing and contiue as we have always done.
One of the things suggested for making the group more welcoming to newcomers,
for women in particular, at the last meetup; was to not express stereotypical
white male heterosexual nerd comments and jokes. That is a very hands-on
recommendation, which I think we should all follow.
If we can't change, even in the simplest matter of one-line jokes, how can we
expect the world to switch to free software?
-- Per _______________________________________________ http://foss-sthlm.haxx.se/ http://cool.haxx.se/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foss-sthlmReceived on 2010-08-30