On Sun, 31 Oct 1999, Deirdre Saoirse wrote:
> Nothing stops the conversation around here faster than some CMOTW [1]
> (who obviously doesn't get it) posting a lot of things that create what
> is basically noise. And then everything stops.
I absolutely agree with your observation. Notice how we never got
anything really resolved about the themes.org issue? The conversation was
an excellent mix of diverse opinions, ranging from trying to define
exactly what was threatened or discomfiting (or not) about adult pictures
to how to deal with the problem. Then it stopped, mostly because we had
one audience member whose liberal use of the term PC and ubiquitous
posting made it impossible to talk to anyone but him! (Or about anything
but him). He seems to have disappeared, but now so has the thread. On
top of that, I feel like I expended so much energy argueing with him that
I don't have any left over to restart it.
>
> In the second meeting, three guys showed up and stayed for the whole
> meeting. A total of five other men passed through one phase of the meeting
> or another (literally to walk through the room).
Did they actually come to just look at the group? Or were they legitimate
passers-by?
>The conversation was
> railroaded by two men but one was orders of magnitude worse than the
> other. I think anyone with any sense got disgusted about the time that one
> guy started "deconstructing cool" -- if they hadn't already been.
>
> As a result, I brought up the issue (rather regretfully) that we exclude
> men altogether from the meeting as it changes the experience.
>
It does. However, this is something I'd like to try and understand. Is
it just the fact that they're men? Or is it the fact that they're men
conscious of being part of something with a focus on women?
I don't think the first one is correct. With regards to the
second, I see two different reactions:
1) overpowering the conversation, in the kinds of ways Deirdre has
described; or,
2) joining the discussion in a careful, thoughtful manner, as in the cool
ones Deirdre mentions in the next paragraph.
Both types seem to be aware that they are treading in territory where they
are not on center stage. What is it that makes one accept that and
function respectfully and constructively, and the other trample over
everything in sight to take back the center?
> I don't want to diss all the men on the list; some of the ones who've
> been around a while are VERY cool. I'm not going to mention names because
> I know I'd forget someone. :)
I'm glad you put this here. I definitely have been very impressed with
the tenor of most male contributions to this list.
>
> And I'm not suggesting that we exclude them. But I think we ought to let
> it stop us in our tracks less. For example, I thwapped curious pretty darn
> hard over the last week. I got a LOT of mail privately, but there was
> almost none on the list about it. I think a difficult issue was raised and
> the group had a tendency -- which seems one among women at large -- to
> avoid the confrontation and thus the list.
Ah yes. Curious. Well, in my view, his first post introduced him as a
friend of Vinnie's (which lended him credence in my eyes), and then went
on to give us a sort of mini-lecture on how this list conducts it's
conversations, and why we should conduct them differently. I sort of
wondered at that, and didn't really agree, but thought it was a valid
point to make. Then came the adult linux thing, and suddenly I thought,
'Oh, *I* see.' I felt that one was a calculated prelude to the other.
And I found I had nothing to say. I was disgusted, but I couldn't really
get it out onto the screen. I don't want to help him. He is free to do
whatever he wants, but why is he asking me to help him do it so it won't
offend women in the community? I mean, what is he after? Encouragement?
_Cat
/././././././././././././././././././
The plural of anecdote is not data.
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