Women and TLUG - a personal rant

Randy Jonasz rjonasz-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
Thu Jan 16 18:58:42 UTC 2014


On 14-01-16 11:01 AM, Matt Seburn wrote:
> This thread is absurd to me.  Count me as one of those put off enough 
> by what I see here to consider TLUG utterly useless.
>
> I attended one meeting years ago, and felt so unwelcome that I haven't 
> been back since.  Heckling was an issue, but I chose not to come back 
> because the group felt very unwelcoming.  It felt like I had walked 
> into a clique of people who had known each other for years and had no 
> interest in letting newcomers into the group.  I tried to follow along 
> to the post-meeting social time (hoping that I'd have better luck 
> socializing there), but everyone walked ahead of me and occasionally 
> looked back to glare at me until I gave up and left.  I'm sure I'm not 
> the only one who has had an experience like this.
>
> I stayed on the list because of the useful and interesting discussion, 
> but now I'm reconsidering that decision.  I see a group of people 
> condoning sexual harassment, and prioritizing the harasser's "right" 
> to harass above others' right to not be harassed.  This is absurd to 
> me. Free speech does not mean you have the right to say whatever you 
> want without consequences.  You can't yell "fire!" in a crowded 
> theatre, and you can't sexually harass people.  Both actions can and 
> often do have serious consequences, and for good reason.
I'll limit my response to William's comment.  No one but maybe a first 
year philosophy student would argue free speech should not have any 
limits.  The question involves what those limits are.  If someone 
incited hatred to a group or an individual by her actions then we must 
act to prevent that from occurring because the behaviour is injuring 
someone else's ability to pursue her life's goals.  In my opinion 
William's comment does not come close to that.  It was a crude comment 
which belies a distasteful sentiment. If you find his comments 
distasteful then filter his messages to the trash bin or express your 
distaste to him or both.  I worked on an assembly line in  a factory in 
Ontario while in university.  The sensibilities there were completely 
different.  Women and men engaged in sexual innuendo usually deriving 
from stereotypes zestfully.  There was no consideration of it being 
harassment. Everyone smiled or rolled their eyes and played along.  The 
consequences of free speech  does involve tolerating distasteful speech 
in the sense of allowing the perpetrator freedom to offend. The 
consequences of giving offence can be manifold, not to mention being 
ostracized from the group.  But to silence him or her in the name of 
social justice is wrong in my opinion as it limits all our speech and 
gives precedence for further reductions in the space we have for self 
expression.  The nanny state of modern liberalism must be curtailed.

Randy
>
> Moderation is an important part of any internet community. I agree 
> that the banhammer should be used sparingly, but at a minimum the 
> moderator's role is to set the tone and ensure that the space remains 
> useful for its intended purpose, and in TLUG's case this extends to 
> in-person meetups.  Many people in this thread have shared that they 
> feel the group has become problematic and is not useful to them.  I 
> think this is a real problem that those in charge of TLUG need to pay 
> attention to.
>
> If you want to get together with your friends and heckle each other 
> and make sexist jokes, you are free to do so whenever and wherever you 
> like.  That is not the purpose of TLUG, and it's the responsibility of 
> those in charge to ensure it remains true to its purpose.
>
> Matt

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