Robert_S wrote:My overall point is that focusing SO much on that overreaction to an overreaction known as Donglegate;
Who is focusing "SO much" on it? It was an issue that came up elsewhere -- Thunderf00t did a video on it. Various websites commented on it. I added a thread here, because it seemed arguably to be an outgrowth of the Elevatorgate incident. A natural and logical result of Elevatorgate, that is. The principle behand Adria Richard's actions are that men can't make double entendre jokes within earshot of a woman.
Robert_S wrote:
it overshadows the fact that there is genuine harassment and that can fuck up a con for a woman.
Sure, and when a woman reports such "genuine" harassment, then it ought to be addressed seriously. However, over and over again we get disingenuous reports of behavior or words that is NOT harassment and yet they are being claimed to be harassment -- and various factions of our movement are defending them as if they are harassment.
Worse than that -- I can respect someone's view if they say "yes a dongle joke IS harassment" - what I can't respect is someone saying -- "well, this report is bullshit, but we ought not call it like we see it because that would take away from the larger issue at hand or would minimize legitimate reports of harassment." That's bull. There are assaults, batteries, robberies and other crimes all over the country every day -- we wouldn't say "hey, don't take issue with a false report of one of those offenses being committed, because there are other instances of real crimes that do occur..." - that's what you're doing here.
Robert_S wrote:
Saying that she should just not go is saying that she should take an opportunity cost on account of her gender. Yeah, it's a party, but how many people go to parties in order to make connections that can advance their careers?
I don't care if she goes or not. If someone assaults or harasses her unlawfully, then she can feel free to take it up with the proprietor of the convention center, or with the legal authorities. If she wants to be free from dirty words, jokes, or someone asking her to show her tits, then she will have to adult-up and handle that shit for herself, like men do. We'd not take any of this seriously if a man complained about a dongle joke, or if a man said that someone tried to lick his tattoo or asked him to show his willy.
This isn't feminsm. It's stereotyping women as being what in the 1950's would have characterized as the weaker sex -- it's imposing a rule of "you can't say that in mixed company" -- and lumping in women and children in the same category. It's the infantilization of women.
Robert_S wrote:
If there are a large number of women pissed off because of what happens at Defcon and 1 woman pissed of (or perhaps overjoyed to have an excuse to cause some drama) about overhearing a dongle joke AND we have 50 times the attention focused on the latter, then you're going to have a lot of people with a highly distorted view of what's going on.
Robert_S wrote:
It's like we got a city where 100 people got double bucket food poisoning but the news media focuses on one asshole who got caught putting a roach in their own desert to get out of their bill. You're going to have a distorted picture of the cleanliness of the local restaurants.
The trouble with this analogy is that you haven't shown that there are 100 women getting "genuine" sexual harassment meted out upon them, for every one of these bullshit reports.
Why do you think - back to the one that "started" it all -- Elevatorgate -- why do you think Skepcherk reported the "want some coffee" incident publicly, but she has never -- to date -- made any specific allegations about being assaulted and sexually propositioned at conventions. Recall - she said that such things happened TO HER "all the time," -- assaults -- smacking her ass and such -- overt sexual propositions. She's said a couple of times that this stuff happens to her "all the time." But, she's never gone into specific allegations -- she never "named names" about the guys who physically touched her against her will. No videos about "guys don't do that - don't grab my ass [or whatever] like happened to me at the 2011 WidgetCon when so-and-so grabbed my ass..." -- nope -- she reported "care for a cup of coffee" and in detail she described when, where and how that incident happened. Why do you think she did not create a video describing when, where and how the ass grabbing she'd been regularly subjected to happened? Why do you think she never reported such incidents to conference coordinators, police, hotels or convention center security staff? Take a wild guess....