On Mon, 1 Nov 1999, Cat wrote:
> 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.
Right.
> 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.
Right. What I'm saying is that unless we recognize that this will happen
over and over and over and that we need a better sense of deja vu, we'll
have other discussions sidetracked and killed.
> > 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?
Two of them needed something from one of the women at the meeting. Two of
them lived there. One had come early to unlock the door for the meeting.
> > 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'm not quite sure. Honestly, I think in part there was the unstated "WHY
are you here?" question.
The first meeting was extra-cool because NONE of us had EVER been in such
a high concentration of women before. We hashed out some of the issues on
our own group list, see:
http://www.baylinuxchix.org/pipermail/baylinuxchix/
But I think it was more the railroading, the getting sidetracked by
comments from men. I think that is a problem of female acculturation that
I really hadn't even noticed before.
There was also a depth-of-conversation problem: the first meeting was much
deeper than the second: in the first we discussed salaries, specific
instances of marginalization. All that was glossed over the second meeting
with men present.
> 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 know.
> > 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.
Agreed.
> 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.
I'm not sure if it was that calculated other than "I need to introduce
myself first." ::shrug::
> 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?
Chris, I must admit, is also a friend of mine. I wouldn't have
suggested he come here because I know him well enough to know the outcome.
I don't know why he asked and it still boggles my mind that he thought we
would be a sympathetic audience for that sort of question.
--
_Deirdre * http://www.linuxcabal.net * http://www.deirdre.net
"Mars has been a tough target" -- Peter G. Neumann, Risks Digest Moderator
"That's because the Martians keep shooting things down." -- Harlan Rosenthal
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, retorting in Risks Digest 20.60
************
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
