In modern American society there are no intermediates for male and female roles.
Either women are told to act like a man (become programmers, fight like Uma Thurman and Keira Knightley!) or they are told to become a caricature of a female (a pornstar, a hiphop video girl, a superficial Sex and the City-style consumer). Men similarly are told to either act effeminately (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, getting in touch with your emotions) or they are shown brutish caricatures of men (rap stars and UFC fighters).
Ben Horowitz, great as he is in many ways, is the apotheosis of this phenomenon. Punctilious in his text about using the "she" pronoun, he nevertheless quotes rappers like the Geto Boys at the beginning of every essay.
Now the Geto Boys, or Dr Dre, or Snoop Dogg, or Fifty Cent...that's misogyny. But they are allowed to make millions and never ever forced to apologize. Indeed, I will guarantee that many of the women complaining about about the sexism in computer science have listened to hiphop, attended concerts, and danced to it at parties without blinking an eye.
By any measure Snoop Dogg and Jay Z are more misogynistic than a lowly programmer. Yet the powerful endorse them (recall the New York Times' ad campaign with Jay Z, "Mingle with Moguls") while complaining about the far weaker tea that is sexism in IT.
Something is going on here and it's not based upon rational prioritization of targets, going after the loudest and most powerful purveyors of misogyny. It's quite the opposite: going after the weakest.
> Something is going on here and it's not based upon rational prioritization of targets, going after the loudest and most powerful purveyors of misogyny. It's quite the opposite: going after the weakest.
It seems rational to me. I don't know Jessamyn Smith, but I personally don't listen to rap, I don't meet rap stars, and none of my friends like rap. I don't hear rap.
Co-workers? An IRC bot on a channel she's logged on to every work day? A rational response would be to target the things that are affecting you, constantly.
On a larger, societal scale, sure, stopping to misogyny in rap would help more. And it contributes to a culture where it's okay to create an TWSS bot. But it wouldn't help that situation in the short term.
Either women are told to act like a man (become programmers, fight like Uma Thurman and Keira Knightley!) or they are told to become a caricature of a female (a pornstar, a hiphop video girl, a superficial Sex and the City-style consumer). Men similarly are told to either act effeminately (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, getting in touch with your emotions) or they are shown brutish caricatures of men (rap stars and UFC fighters).
Ben Horowitz, great as he is in many ways, is the apotheosis of this phenomenon. Punctilious in his text about using the "she" pronoun, he nevertheless quotes rappers like the Geto Boys at the beginning of every essay.
Now the Geto Boys, or Dr Dre, or Snoop Dogg, or Fifty Cent...that's misogyny. But they are allowed to make millions and never ever forced to apologize. Indeed, I will guarantee that many of the women complaining about about the sexism in computer science have listened to hiphop, attended concerts, and danced to it at parties without blinking an eye.
By any measure Snoop Dogg and Jay Z are more misogynistic than a lowly programmer. Yet the powerful endorse them (recall the New York Times' ad campaign with Jay Z, "Mingle with Moguls") while complaining about the far weaker tea that is sexism in IT.
Something is going on here and it's not based upon rational prioritization of targets, going after the loudest and most powerful purveyors of misogyny. It's quite the opposite: going after the weakest.