Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

After this email I'm done with the conversation.  I have tried to
provide you with evidence.  You make it clear you have a bone to pick
with people concerned with gender equality.  This will go around in
circles.

HiPhish writes:

> There is a common pattern in all the links you provided: 1) only feminists are
> seeing this supposed issue, 2) it does not go into the exact nature of the
> supposed harassment.

The TUC is the trade union congress.  They are not a feminist
organisation.  The Belgian government is not a feminist organization.
The Guardian is a newspaper and the EEOC is a US government office.

> With regards to the first point: Feminist group have vested interests in
> furthering conflicts. Even if there is no conflict they will try to create one
> and then sell you the solution, so please excuse my scepticism. Feminists are
> proven to keep fabricating issues, like the supposed wage gap. So yes, I am
> really doubting the veracity of those claims.

Pff.  I won't even engage with this horse crap.

> You know what? When you go into a field filled with awkward nerds
> that's you occupational hazard.

My line of argument above was precisely that this does not only happen
in a field with "awkward nerds".  Also I find your assertion that
"nerds" are unable to behave decently to other people an insult to
myself and "nerds" as a whole.

> So please excuse me when I don't fall for the crocodile tears. We are
> talking about grown-up women here, not children.

I find it shocking you are basically telling people who are being
mis-treated by others to just suck it up.

It's because of these attitudes I'm glad we have a code of conduct.

>> According to a TUC/Everyday Sexism study on sexual harassment, 52% of
>> women have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace and 80% did
>> not report it to their employer.
> I am singling out this one as an example of data manipulation. Let's for the
> sake of simplicity assume that the data is 100% correct and has not been
> tampered with. Put yourself now in the shoes of an average woman: The question
> is "Have you experienced instances of sexual harassment in the workplace in
> the past?". You think a bit and remember Steve who made a dumb joke about your
> breasts during coffee break last month. So you answer with yes of course. Then
> the second question is "If so, did you report the incident to your employer?".
> Considering Steve is a shy guy, it was during coffee break, no one else joined
> in and after you gave him a stern look he got the message, you of course
> didn't consider it worth anyone's time to start office drama over pretty much
> nothing. So you answer with "no". And now your answer gets twisted into "Don't
> you see all these serious issues going unreported out of fear? You should hire
> our advocacy agency for sensibility training and diversity counseling. You
> have a nice business going here, it would be a shame is someone were to call
> it sexist".

Here's the problem with your argument.  These findings are reproduced
over and over: women are disproportionately affected by harassment,
especially of a gendered kind.  Even if you find an issue with a
specific study, the consensus of virtually all these studies find the
same thing.

You might have better results if you actually pointed to studies that
overturned the consensus.  Good luck with that.

>> In 2012, in Belgium, the film Femme de la Rue directly influenced the
>> passing of legislation to make street harassment
>> illegal.
>> [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/03/belgium-film-street-harassme
>> nt-sofie-peeters] It also helped kick-start movements in Belgium and France
>> where street harassment is fairly common.  In london, UK, 4 in 10 women
>> between ages of 18 and 34 experienced street harassment in 2011 alone
>> [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/may/25/four-10-women-sexually
>> -harassed].
> Don't you consider it kind of... problematic that the video only shows people
> from a, let's call it "diverse" background? Why doesn't she show us all the
> serial catcallers in the less diverse parts of Belgium? It couldn't be that
> she intentionally picked the bad part of town, now could it? I feel deeply
> offended by the implication of this video that people of colour are the
> primary source of sexual harassment.

Come on.  Get out of here with your manufactured concern.  Whatever the
specific cases in this video were, the overall point, and the conclusion
of the overall debate is that street harassment is a widespread issue,
wherever you go.  It disproportinately affects women and is
disproportinately carried out by men.

I'm done here. Have a nice day.

Alex