Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Communities for tech women
Author: David Carter-Tod Posted: 9/17/1999; 6:45:54 AM Topic: Today's scriptingNews Outline Msg #: 11213 (In response to 11161) Prev/Next: 11212 / 11214
Jeremy B.: There's a quote I use in these situations: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."Likewise Jakob L.: OTOH, what I was trying to say is don't be paranoid.
To my mind, it's a privilege to able to take the point of view that there's an alternative explanation for people's behavior. When you live with it every day it becomes pretty clear that it's not stupidity, accident, etc., and it can deeply affect your life.
As Dori S. said: Now, as to what was going on in the moderator's mind, I don't know; I don't read minds.
...
Evidence or not? I don't know--it's all about perception.I don't read minds either, but it's the experiences that add up. I have to say, I would have said the same thing as Jacob and Jeremy a few years ago and still feel the same way sometimes, but I'm white, male, from England and 6 years ago I married an African-American woman. It's quite subtle (especially to someone with ingrained attitdues like me), but all of a sudden, many more people seemed to be stupid, grumpy, rude, following us around, triple-checking IDs (can my wife really have a PhD?), pulling us over, staring, having a bad day, ignoring us, etc.
Sooner or later the forgiving assumptions wear thin, and you realize that indeed there are more people with implicitly racist views than you thought. The same is true for sexism. It's not paranoia -- it's what you live with. Now, imagine living with it all your life. How would you deal with it?
David
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