Re: [issues] Time for me to weigh in + what constitutes a cat fight.
On Wed, Aug 09, 2000 at 10:03:34AM +1200, Simon Britnell wrote: > > This has me thinking about the following questions: > 1) What are the essential features of a "cat fight" > 2) Why do I see them as a female thing > I suspect the answer to 1 is complex and the answer to 2 has to do with > subject matter and the fact that men stereotypically resort to physical > violence rather than "name calling" or something that seems like it. > That said, I don't think I've resorted to violence since I've been an > adult. I have had some shouting matches, however. So, what do y'all > think of those two questions? I think cultural stereotyping at fault here. Like, oh 2 women are fighting, it must be a catfight. As far as the construction of "catfight" goes, it inherently trivializes female violence and anger. In a culture where females are not supposed to be violent and angry, it is required to enact this trivialization to re-sanitize the interaction under the rubric of feminity. I thought the aforementioned exchange was rather banal and commonplace to newsgroup/mailing-list personal attacks. And gender neutral -- many, many run of the mill flame wars are started/perpetuated by men. This altercation didn't seem all that different. We are in a virtual forum, so we can't resort to physical violence, no matter how much we desire it (as much as I wish, procmail can't be considered physical violence ;). (so an apples and oranges sort of problem in comparing net.flames and fistfights) > I have a third comment (this is beginning to sound like the spanish > inquisition sketch) about my wife. > > She tells me that what she's decided she really wants to do is "be a > housewife", but that she feels social pressure to go and "be something". > I find that interesting given the general complaints I hear are the > other way around. > > Comments? go her. I think a really big mistake in interpersonal interaction is over-generalized thinking. Like, oh lots of women want a career. Oh, my wife doesn't, oh wait, she's a woman *boggle* Breaking the bonds of socialized gendered thinking can be a really big issue. I find that I have to keep repeating *everyone is an individual* -- helps the preconceived notions crumple to a pile of dust on the floor (where they belong, IMO). nico -- nico "We look hard damon We look through hailey We look hard to see for real" http://www.demona.com --Sisters of Mercy ___ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
Re: [issues] /. Uncle Robin's Advice for Lovelorn Geeks
On Sun, Oct 24, 1999 at 04:48:47PM -0400, Rikki McGinty wrote:
> oh my god. i just read Rob's ridiculous "article" and am truly nauseous.
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/10/23/202252&mode=thread
I donno. Kinda had a point about geek-on-geek relationships.
When one of your first questions to a prospective mate is
"You're not, an, um, erm, /emacs/ user, are?"
it is sort of worrisome. And long nights of MUTT vs MH as MUA
is good fun. Also the fights if someone walks off to work with
the only copy of the camel book in the house. ("But, de--ar, I
/left/ the llama book!"). Not to mention the, "why the fsck did
you recompile the kernel on isis? now the sound card doesn't
work."
Though giving the /. crowd advice to stay away from geek girls
is prolly good for those perceived as geek girls. I know I wouldn't
want a /.er who reads & believes most of what /. says near me.
> I don't know if I can even go to slashdot anymore.
good call.
a lot of their general science news seems to come from
www.eurekalert.org and you can just do google searches on
legos, that about sums up the useful stuff they carry these
days. :/
nico
--
ND Hailey www.demona.com
"You don't hardly know yourself, girl, till you find yourself
doing things you never imagined." --Dorothy Allison
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] /. Uncle Robin's Advice for Lovelorn Geeks
On Sun, Oct 24, 1999 at 05:17:02PM -0600, Ian Hall-Beyer wrote: > Heehee... You just described a good chunk of our relationship. as > a result, we each have our own copies of various techie books. > The other big quarrel is shortly after the acquisition of cool > new hardware... It's a sad fact of life that a given flatscreen > can only be used by one person at a given time: oohh. that is a bad one. We have a similar issue, I have a 17" newish happy iiyama monitor. He has a 14" *vga* (that's 9, count em, 9 pins to the kids at home) so we have a switch for our boxen. point is, only one of us can use a box at a time with X(in a *real* resolution/ color depth). Though a flatscreen would be cool. Or another working monitor. So I tell him to stay at work lots so I can use the real monitor. *snrk* Though books is our main issue. We currently only buy one copy of an orielly book, given the fact that one of us is a student the other works at a .edu. Though we have 3 copies of the llama book if anyone is in/around boston and wants one I'd be happy to give it to them (the llama book is the Learning Perl book). nico -- ND Hailey www.demona.com "You don't hardly know yourself, girl, till you find yourself doing things you never imagined." --Dorothy Allison [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] alienation (was: Places, issues, etc)
On Sun, Oct 31, 1999 at 11:10:09PM -0800, Nicole Zimmerman wrote: > An interesting experience was brought up at the end: a male to female > post-op was working as a computer programmer. After the operation, her > salary decreased by $2000. My mouth definitely dropped open! ah yes, the estrogen tax. :/ It makes sence when you hear that women earn what (I am not on this years stat), 70-80% of what men earn, so if someone does make a gender transition, then their earning should reflect that. I found, that when I started CD'ing full time, passing only about 30% - 50% of the time (not on testosterone) I started making 20% more than I made with a traditional female/woman presentation. Now, I'm back to passing less than 10% of the time, and at my new job, I am making less. course, my new job is at a .edu so that prolly doesn't count ;) also more on topic, I was yakking with a bunch of my (male/man) geek friends, and one of them made a comment about how every geek needs a Vemla(sp, nerdy girl char from scobby doo) because she's smart and wears short skirts. (I hate it when /. invades my house.) I brought up any number of assumptions my dear friend was making and I got the classic dear-caught-in-head-lights look. So I have been caught, yet again, assigning sexism/genderism to where mere cluelessness would suffice. So my question is more or less, Does the origin (ie, actually *ism, cluelessness, trolling, etc) of the *ist things which are said matter? I mean the effect on ppl seems the same (discomfort, getting defensive, going into "educating" mode). My SO is frequently telling me "he didn't really /mean/ X, don't be so agro"... But if he didn't really mean X, then he either said X to troll, or because he is clueless. Neither of which deserves a "well, that's nice, dear". nico -- ND Hailey www.demona.com "You don't hardly know yourself, girl, till you find yourself doing things you never imagined." --Dorothy Allison [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] alienation (was: Places, issues, etc)
sorry, this is a bit long and ramblely. Thanks to the list for providing such material to chew on. On Mon, Nov 01, 1999 at 11:00:35PM -0500, Deidre L. Calarco wrote: > > should change. We persist in using this XOR model of woman/man, but I'm > > sure there's a better way. > > Why associate all these personal characteristics with gender at all? I see > gender as a fairly small part of who I am. I think of my technical /musical > /non-frilly /aggressive characteristics as independent of gender, not as > parts of a complicated new gender definition. well, I would agree with you if I thought that this position was tenable in our current society. /I/ see gender as a small part of who I am. Most ppl I run into get hung up on it(my gender, let alone theirs). And I know the great one would say "what do you care what other people think" but, I'm finding that what other people think is very important. Since lots of other people think that technical/non-frilly/aggressive != female, it breaks their world when then encounter such females. Depending on how they think/feel/react the consequence for this sort of transgression can be positive (kewl! not all females are fluff-chicks) mild-bad (a sniff and not hiring you) or really bad (gunshot to the head cf. brandon teena, 1993). I don't think that new gender definitions are particularly comprehensible to a majority of americans(I am just saying americans because that is who I have the most experience with). I think geek-female does challenge the traditional notion for female-gender in a way that barbie et all do not. > I think that the more we separate ideas about aptitudes and interests from > ideas about gender, the better. There's no reason why geeky females and > butches can't share a gender with Barbie, Cindy Crawford, and Ricki Lake. You know, deidre, you are the sort of poster who I agree totally with one sentence and then disagree the next. It's difficult to compose a response that way. ;) Yes, separating ideas/aptitudes/interests from gender is good. As far as butches sharing a gender with barbie (etc) um I don't think that they do. Perhaps it is just a consequence of deconstructing gender so much that I can't think about it normally. But I think that traditionally feminine females interact fairly differently than either non-traditionally feminine females or masculine females, almost to the point of being a separate gender. I was thinking about this when I read an article in the Boston Phoenix last week. Male/man columnist goes off about the joys of paintball and other sort of typically grunt-male sort of part times, and then takes aim at certain woman/female sports figures and laments that they aren't ladylike anymore, and then asserts that it's a shame that feminism (any one else tired of seeing feminism as a monolithic bogeyman?) has lowered women to act like men, and gosh! now the women won't be able to be kind and loving to the men anymore because they are too competitive. > It's only a small part of who we are - just one shared characteristic among > many. I guess my conception of "gender" doesn't go too far beyond "sex." hmmm. then it would be that you don't have a concept of "gender"? It seems to me that if one did not have a concept of gender then the label "woman" or "man" would be meaningless. Would it be meaningless to be on a discussion list aimed at one "gender"? ok, off to study for my midterm. nico -- ND Hailey www.demona.com "You don't hardly know yourself, girl, till you find yourself doing things you never imagined." --Dorothy Allison [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] alienation (was: Places, issues, etc)
On Wed, Nov 03, 1999 at 12:31:45AM -0500, Deidre L. Calarco wrote: > > hmmm. then it would be that you don't have a concept of "gender"? > > It seems to me that if one did not have a concept of gender then > > the label "woman" or "man" would be meaningless. > > To me, "man" and "woman" are very closely associated with sex-specific > physical characteristics. Beyond that, men and women are (in my opinion) > much more alike than different, and have huge, overlapping sets of talents, > interests, preferences, etc. Isn't that how most people define them? To me, male, female and intersexed are for the unalterable physical sex one was born as and carries the genes for. Man and Woman are for what one identifies with and/or presents as. The definitions of Man and Woman seem to vary from culture to culture, so I see these as somewhat artificial constructs society imposes. As far as most people, I think that many people still have ideas about women are better at "X" and men are better at "Y". > Question: Is gender a cultural construct, encompassing other's reactions, > attempted socialization and personal reactions to it? Does the concept have > any meaning outside of that? If it's just a social construct, then it's > flexible. We can choose ways of dealing with other people's - and our own - > conceptions of gender. We can play with it or try to ignore it. We can > live our inner lives mostly outside of it. I belive that gender is definitely a cultural construct. I mean, find any sociology 101 book and it tell you that what is considered womanly for X culture is considered manly for Y culture and for Z culture is neutral. Playing with it or ignoring it is where it gets fun. > > Would it be meaningless > > to be on a discussion list aimed at one "gender"? > > It doesn't seem meaningless to me. Female people in the computer industry > tend to be marginalized, and we share the same (attempted) socialization. > It's fun to talk with other women who are into computers and have thought > about and experienced some of the same things I have. I was talking with some of my FTM geek friends about ID'ing with women-born-women geeks. He and I both shared stories of having to fight the "boys" for time on the machines at school (during the mid eighties, when small schools were lucky to have 4 apple ]['s), and of having not been allowed to do all sorts of young-geek things with other young-geeks /because/ of female socialization. Much like some of the conversations I've had with women-born-women geeks. One of the things I admire about female-socialized geeks is that they've overcome and/or challenged the marginalization. Which is one of the reasons why I think, in our present culture, it /is/ meaningful to have discussion lists aimed at one gender. nico -- ND Hailey www.demona.com "You don't hardly know yourself, girl, till you find yourself doing things you never imagined." --Dorothy Allison [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] alienation (was: Places, issues, etc)
On Thu, Nov 04, 1999 at 11:34:25AM -0800, Amber Fechko wrote: > > This reminds me of myself. :) When I was younger, I absolutely > /loved/ the Transformers, both the comic books and the TV series. I'd get > up to watch it with my brother.. all the while being teased by both my > parents and my peers, probably because I didn't show much interest in the > shows directed towards females my age. (Then again, I really didn't show > much interest in anything directed towards females my age, maybe that's > why I've never really 'fit in'.) aol. I hear this a lot from genderqueer females and geek females. Young girl aimed stuff generally sucks. I mean would you rather watch the care-bears cartoon and be pelting with cuteness or Transformers? (or sabercats, or batman). > I ended up being a Transformer for Halloween (Voltron, specifically :), > and ended up being teased even more.. this is probably when I started > becoming closer to the males. *They* thought it was a cool costume. ;) I used to love to play with model cars and planes and rockets... I would bring 5-7 little cars in my lunch box and one day, in first grade, the yard-duty (female) confiscated the cars and told me that "girls didn't play with cars". So I hit the computer lab, and really haven't come out since. ;) > I wish they'd stress individualism more for young children, I play > somewhat of an 'older sister' role for my 8yo neighbor, and she's > constantly telling me how she's always being teased for not doing things > in the same way as everyone else.. (i.e. - she's a boy scout, not a girl > scout, that happened when she got bored with the girls, who went on one > camping trip that didn't include tents.. the leaders brought their motor > home, lol). She's much more happy spending time with the boys, which is > how I was (and usually still am.. considering the complete lack of > geek-females in my area). Hmm the boy scouts must be making exceptions to their 3g's (gays girls and godless) rules. Girl scouts was so boring. I hoped it had changed since when I was one, but I guess not. :/ I think that this sort of thing may lead to more internalized misogyny among such females, like growing up with the idea that other females are lame and boring. Combined with a realization that you are in a group /you/ consider to be lame and boring, it can't be good for the developing geek-female. > To somewhat tie this back to women/issues (hopefully..), how would we make > an impression on young women that being yourself is ok? I did my own > thing in elementary/middle/high school, and I was usually alienated > because of it. I donno, at what ages is it most important to make that sort of impression? I would say somewhere between 8-13 (some say high school is too late). I wonder if any of the professional societies like SWE have any programs or outreach activities. nico -- ND Hailey www.demona.com "You don't hardly know yourself, girl, till you find yourself doing things you never imagined." --Dorothy Allison [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
