Despite being a privileged white male, I am not sexist, racist, or homophobic. I was raised in a color blind, gender blind, sexual preference blind house. When I was a child I made friends with white and black children without preference because I didn’t know there was supposed to be a difference. I was about as competent with girls as a child as I am with women as an adult, but I never thought of them as anything less than my equals. As a child I was brought up in a church with active and out gay members and talked to them like all the other adults because they were all just adults to me.
I never knew I was supposed to care.
As a result I grew up with the attitude of “I don’t care if you’re not white/a woman/gay” because I didn’t know that wasn’t a good thing. I thought it was. However, as learning is one of those things I just won’t stop doing, I’m coming to realize that my attitude isn’t the best one. It’s not that I don’t care that you’re different from me, it’s that it doesn’t bother me that you’re different from me.
As the best example I can think of off the top of my head, my Capoeira instructor Rasai is a dreadlocked Jamaican man with huge muscles and a larger than life personality. He was raised on a farm, really finds our concept of holidays annoying, and is a very dirty old man. None of this got in the way of me being his student or becoming his friend. Sure we bicker about how he should chill out about having his picture taken or maybe consider getting a goddamn cell phone, but we’re still friends. Do I not care that he’s black? Am I ignoring his heritage?
What I think I’m doing is outright accepting that he’s different in many ways and not letting those differences make me think less of him. I take these different experiences he’s had as just a fact of life because everyone is different. This is autopilot for me. Rather than being a point of contention, I find his very different outlook on life refreshing and interesting.
So from now on it's not, "I don't care if you're X." I don't have a simple one-liner to replace it, but maybe that's the point.
July 29, 2011
July 15, 2011
The Internet/atheist/skepticism/sexism shitstorm you probably don't know about
I was going to ignore this issue, mostly because it's aggravating to watch this much fail, but after reading Greta Christina's post, I came to the conclusion that talking is better, so here's a post about sexism in the skepticism / atheism world.
Here's where it started: Rebecca Watson went to some atheist shindig in Ireland, gave a speech about sexism, and later went drinking with friends. At 4 AM she headed for bed. A guy joined her in the elevator and chose that moment to say that he was impressed by her and invite her to his room for coffee. She declined and in a blog post mentioned this and said that it made her feel uncomfortable and suggested, "Guys, don't do that." That like two minutes out of the video here.
Here's where it went wrong: though some people agreed with Rebecca that the dude in the elevator (later dubbed Elevator Guy), some people, both men and women, disagreed with Rebecca. Those who disagreed were often men aggressively insisting that Rebecca was wrong, she shouldn't have been creeped out, that she was a man-hater, and other very sexist things that went all the way from slightly misogynistic to OMG WTF misogyny.
Here's where it went explode: Richard Dawkins, Dark Lord of the Atheists, posted on PZ Myers' blog some very sarcastic and dismissive comments that enraged the pro Rebecca side and fueled the fires of the misogynistic idiots. It's been an ongoing shitstorm of idiocy ever since. From "guys, don't be creepy" to massive Internet flame war spanning dozens of sites in just under a week.
Now, I think that Rebecca's comment was reasonable and, even if Elevator Guy's intentions were the purest of gold, the dude did something creepy possibly inadvertently. That's where it should have ended. Maybe some people could say, "Poor socially awkward guy." Instead, people, admittedly including women, but mostly men, made complete asses of themselves by letting both privilege and disgusting sexism flare up and out of control. And they're still going. Calmer heads have tried to calm shit down, but Mansplaining abounds.
The bad thing is a lot of guys are sexist idiots. The good thing is that as this gets SO MUCH attention, at least some guys are finally starting to actually hear what women are saying: context matters. Yes, technically guys can hit on women anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances, but sometimes that's going to be inappropriate or creepy. Picking the correct moment to hit on a woman makes a world of difference.
As an aside, my favorite part of this situation is that Richard Dawkins is a dick. Back in the "Don't be a dick" conversation Phil Plait started, Dawkins came out against not being a dick, as did a lot of other assholes. Very recently Dawkins spoke out against Phil's position again, pointing out that being a dick could be useful. Back when the conversation started I commented, "The dicks also clearly don’t care who their target is..." Well, now Dawkins has proved my point. Despite the fact that Rebecca Watson is popular, and very intelligent, and a great help to both the atheist and skeptic movements, and was in theory actually a friend to Dawkins, he chose to be a douchebag over being polite and did so publicly no less. Many of the people who advocate that being dicks is useful don't give a crap who their target is. They're too interested in getting their petty digs in to worry about offending someone, even if that person is a friend or an ally.
Before my whole figuring out out I was an atheist thing, I'd thought poorly of Dawkins, thinking him an asshole. As I was reading up on atheism, he was referred to and said some nice things enough so that I was grudgingly changing my opinion of him. Now, however, he's proved what I always thought about him: he's an asshole. He may be smart, and he may write good books, and he may even say useful and helpful things, but above all he's an asshole. I choose to listen to atheists and skeptics who understand that, yes, context matters. I have friends who are religious, and while I may completely disagree with their religious views, I'd rather have them as my friends than get in some petty digs about religion.
Priorities. I has them.
Here's where it started: Rebecca Watson went to some atheist shindig in Ireland, gave a speech about sexism, and later went drinking with friends. At 4 AM she headed for bed. A guy joined her in the elevator and chose that moment to say that he was impressed by her and invite her to his room for coffee. She declined and in a blog post mentioned this and said that it made her feel uncomfortable and suggested, "Guys, don't do that." That like two minutes out of the video here.
Here's where it went wrong: though some people agreed with Rebecca that the dude in the elevator (later dubbed Elevator Guy), some people, both men and women, disagreed with Rebecca. Those who disagreed were often men aggressively insisting that Rebecca was wrong, she shouldn't have been creeped out, that she was a man-hater, and other very sexist things that went all the way from slightly misogynistic to OMG WTF misogyny.
Here's where it went explode: Richard Dawkins, Dark Lord of the Atheists, posted on PZ Myers' blog some very sarcastic and dismissive comments that enraged the pro Rebecca side and fueled the fires of the misogynistic idiots. It's been an ongoing shitstorm of idiocy ever since. From "guys, don't be creepy" to massive Internet flame war spanning dozens of sites in just under a week.
Now, I think that Rebecca's comment was reasonable and, even if Elevator Guy's intentions were the purest of gold, the dude did something creepy possibly inadvertently. That's where it should have ended. Maybe some people could say, "Poor socially awkward guy." Instead, people, admittedly including women, but mostly men, made complete asses of themselves by letting both privilege and disgusting sexism flare up and out of control. And they're still going. Calmer heads have tried to calm shit down, but Mansplaining abounds.
The bad thing is a lot of guys are sexist idiots. The good thing is that as this gets SO MUCH attention, at least some guys are finally starting to actually hear what women are saying: context matters. Yes, technically guys can hit on women anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances, but sometimes that's going to be inappropriate or creepy. Picking the correct moment to hit on a woman makes a world of difference.
As an aside, my favorite part of this situation is that Richard Dawkins is a dick. Back in the "Don't be a dick" conversation Phil Plait started, Dawkins came out against not being a dick, as did a lot of other assholes. Very recently Dawkins spoke out against Phil's position again, pointing out that being a dick could be useful. Back when the conversation started I commented, "The dicks also clearly don’t care who their target is..." Well, now Dawkins has proved my point. Despite the fact that Rebecca Watson is popular, and very intelligent, and a great help to both the atheist and skeptic movements, and was in theory actually a friend to Dawkins, he chose to be a douchebag over being polite and did so publicly no less. Many of the people who advocate that being dicks is useful don't give a crap who their target is. They're too interested in getting their petty digs in to worry about offending someone, even if that person is a friend or an ally.
Before my whole figuring out out I was an atheist thing, I'd thought poorly of Dawkins, thinking him an asshole. As I was reading up on atheism, he was referred to and said some nice things enough so that I was grudgingly changing my opinion of him. Now, however, he's proved what I always thought about him: he's an asshole. He may be smart, and he may write good books, and he may even say useful and helpful things, but above all he's an asshole. I choose to listen to atheists and skeptics who understand that, yes, context matters. I have friends who are religious, and while I may completely disagree with their religious views, I'd rather have them as my friends than get in some petty digs about religion.
Priorities. I has them.
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