Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Communities for tech women

Author:Jacob Levy
Posted:9/16/1999; 10:13:41 PM
Topic:Today's scriptingNews Outline
Msg #:11191 (In response to 11178)
Prev/Next:11190 / 11192

Thanks, Dori. If I implied that I condone come-ons then I must have given the wrong impression. Sorry about that.

I agree that women online have special concerns and issues that are different from those of men - sexism is one important issue that men don't have to face as much of.

OTOH, what I was trying to say is don't be paranoid. Things sometimes have a simpler explanation than "the person is a horny geek male chauvinist pig". Your conference story sounds very convincing as evidence goes. I'd be furious too. However, remember there are lots of things going on at the same time that are in addition to the gender issue: maybe he had a point to make, he wanted the discussion to go somewhere and you wanted to take it another direction, who knows. I wasn't there, you were, so I have to accept your POV that it was sexism.

However, I was referring strictly to the online experience of women. I may be wrong again but I thought that was what Dave was asking about (Dave, correct me if I am wrong, please). So for the online experience issue, there are simpler explanations that work equally well as the sexism explanation. I'm sure you recognize the overt sexism when it happens, but these examples are open to interpretation, and in such cases I tend to give the supposed villain the benefit of the doubt.

Peace?




This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:52:41 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.