You are right, of course, what we do is bad enough, without having to
answer for the expectations of what our gender is expected to do.
Fred
Thanks for posting this, Sarah. I was hesitant to link
to it while it was
an
active thread. My basic feeling in this case was that the user's comments
weren't *particularly* terrible, and all of us who are sensitive to
gender
issues have probably seen way worse. A block may well have been overkill
in
this situation. However, I'm concerned that the way that thread played it
out gave an overwhelmingly strong impression that "oh, you're not a
woman"
sort of comments are completely fine, and that anyone who says otherwise
is
a PC, tiny, reactive minority. I was really disappointed to be the only
person who showed up to that thread who could understand how the comments
could even be *perceived* as a problem. Just when we think gender
concerns
may be penetrating the wiki's consciousness, we get something like and I
go,
"...oh. Sigh."
There's nothing to be done with regard to this particular case at this
point, and I hasten to ask that people not descend on the (now-close)
thread, or the (now-unblocked) user. But I would like to see a
conversation
about how we can address this sort of "Of COURSE it's fine!" attitude.
-Fluffernutter
On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 12:07 PM, Sarah Stierch
<sarah.stierch(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incideā¦
The first "unblock" statement shares the link to the joke and the
reprimand
by an admin on the users page telling them they can get blocked for
ongoing
comments like that. Fluffernutter points out that there is a "boyzone"
in
Wikipedia and that it's not right to mock a users gender. I do
appreciate
Fluffernuter speaking up about this, I know it's not always something
that
she likes to get mixed up with (so to say - as we talked about in IRC
today).
A dialogue takes place ranging from people thinking the joke wasn't
sexist,
to Fluffernutter is being "PC".
I don't believe that the user the joke was directed at participates in
the
conversation - for all we know they might have not been offended - but,
this
is just another example of how people seem to be unclear about what
"sexist"
behavior is.
Where I've worked and attended school, it was always very clear that
behavior or comments like that were/are not prohibited, but more often
than
not, people don't speak up when people behave poorly (silent victims).
Unlike on Wikipedia, where people generally do speak up - the shroud of
the
internet, I suppose.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, an educational environment. And when
people
have to start questioning "Is this offensive or not? Is it sexist or
not?"
then clearly there is a problem with something in the culture and
system.
-Sarah Stierch
--
GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for Wikimedia <http://www.glamwiki.org>
Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American
Art<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch>
and
Sarah Stierch Consulting
*Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.*
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.sarahstierch.com/
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