What GNOME's Women Outreach Program Is Paying For This Summer

[daedaluz]

On another note, it's always fun to hear how white heterosexual male middle-class neckbeards are the best judges of whether something is discriminatory or not...

Hohohohoo... playing the "evil patriarchy" card there! Because I am now framed inside the imaginary evil conspiracy (patriarchy), I am not fit to comment on anything. Just like politicians in US receiving the antisemite label. Nazi Card 21st Century Edition, that is what you are playing here.

I don't think anyone is being forced here.

Oh yeah? This is now: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/i...ee_sues_f.html

I obviously disagree with that and the evidence that I linked to and widely adopted industry practices are not in favor of your position and it is possible to use gender neutral terms in English as well so that is not a good reason not to do it however it is clear that you feel that gender biased language is just fine. Agree to disagree on that position

Yes, it is perfectly fine if that particular language is structured that way. Want gender neutral languages? Try Chinese for starters. What a wonderfully equal culture they have had for thousands of years thanks to having such a fantastically progressive antisexist language! /s I'm sure there are other neutral languages as well. Point is: playing with words changes nothing.
I'm btw still waiting on those concrete cases about systematic direct discrimination against women. Fourth time asking now. Feminists of 19th century did make their point successfully. West and even Korea has female presidents and prime ministers and general prosecutors... Marissa Mayer is CEO of Yahoo. If there seriously were systematic discrimination against women, don't you think there was some kind of mismatch between reality and your hypothesis of systematic patriarchal oppression?

[RahulSundaram]

Yes, it is perfectly fine if that particular language is structured that way. Want gender neutral languages? Try Chinese for starters. What a wonderfully equal culture they have had for thousands of years thanks to having such a fantastically progressive antisexist language! /s I'm sure there are other neutral languages as well. Point is: playing with words changes nothing.

Yet, you keep referring to "newspeak". I don't think you understood the point of it which is that "playing with words" changes a whole lot and I have provided you substantial amount of research to back that up as well which you have conveniently ignored. You don't need neutral languages when the language of your choice has gender neutral words.

I'm btw still waiting on those concrete cases about systematic direct discrimination against women. Fourth time asking now. Feminists of 19th century did make their point successfully. West and even Korea has female presidents and prime ministers and general prosecutors... Marissa Mayer is CEO of Yahoo. If there seriously were systematic discrimination against women, don't you think there was some kind of mismatch between reality and your hypothesis of systematic patriarchal oppression?

Obama is president of U.S, so racism is over and nobody is a slave in the country anymore. So the black outreach program serve no real purpose either. Right?

I have been pointing out pay discrimination which is pretty widespread and systematic, which of course you ignored and keep pretending that your question hasn't been answered.

[dee.]

Hohohohoo... playing the "evil patriarchy" card there! Because I am now framed inside the imaginary evil conspiracy (patriarchy),

Ok, mr. fedora-wearing neckbeard, since you seem intent on putting implications on this discussions about things that nobody else has mentioned (you're the only one talking about things like "patriarchy" here), possibly because your intellectual capacity is too small to actually discuss about these things on terms other than whatever buzzwords you parrot from the rabid inbred mouthbreathers at the MRA subreddits, let's put these points in perspective for a bit:

"Patriarchy" in feminist theory refers to an overarching concept that encompasses social and cultural narratives, with built-in discriminatory aspects and biases. The term is never, ever used to refer to any kind of conspiracy, or to any group or demographic, other than by the rabid, mouthbreathing inbred neckbeards who are either too intellectually dishonest, too lazy or just too stupid to figure out what is actually meant by these terms.

Before you start your next spittle-flying rant on how "teh feminazis" are taking away your inborn god-given right to wave your dick in everyone's face, please try very hard to actually read and use all of the brain power you have available and concentrate it really, really hard on actually understanding the implications of the things I have informed you of. If you somehow manage to succeed in this monumental expedition, it will make you an objectively better human being, guaranteed. If I could at least convince you to refrain on using terms you very obviously do not understand, it might make reading your drivel a whole 1% more tolerable.

[Kraut]

Indeed.
I think it is also important to keep in mind that languages which are in active use are always in a process of change, they evolve along the people using them.
None of us is using the same form of our native languages that people a hundret years ago did.

Cheers,
_

Yes indeed. The usage of words also changes there meaning. You can often see this in language usage in politics. They drift from different phrases to phrases to describe the same thing, just because the old phrases sucked up the negativ meaning they tried to hide by using a new phrase. They have to constantly change to new ones because of this.

There also is the annoying effect of creating "politicel correct" language by avoiding supposedly negative words. For example in my country I witness how the words for cripples or retards changes every few years because the previous word was "to negative". The same goes for many other words.

The word feminism has a negative reputation by now, too. Because it gets connected to anti male and even anti female ("if you are not with us you are agains us!") movements. Just look at dee. and you understand why. Well that is maybe just a stray troll, I'm not sure.

[dee.]

The word feminism has a negative reputation by now, too. Because it gets connected to anti male and even anti female ("if you are not with us you are agains us!") movements. Just look at dee. and you understand why. Well that is maybe just a stray troll, I'm not sure.

Hey, want to talk about stray trolls? I hear there's this old lady in Michigan who adopts stray trolls and feeds them milk on a platter, maybe you should go there and she if she has a home for you.

Seriously, I'm so tired of these kids who have just got out of high school or whatever and who now think they know it all because they've read some shit on reddit, even though they have no real world experience to contextualize any of that shit. And then they come on teh forums and start spewing more shit with Big Words that they don't understand, and call others "trolls" without even knowing the fucking meaning of that very simple and small word.

Trolling originated as a fishing term. It's meaning in the context of internet discussions is to use incinsere and inflammatory, purposefully antagonizing rhetoric with the express purpose to bait someone into an emotional response. Insulting someone is not trolling. Saying something you disagree with is not trolling. Saying things that make you angry is not trolling.

For that matter, since we're already talking about terms and how to use them right... feminism is not one monolithic entity or ideology. The feminist movement started in the 1920s with the right for women to vote. It got its second wing in the 60s with sexual revolution, and now we're already in the third iteration which actually discredits a lot of the dogma in the first two versions of the movement (like the whole anti-male/female superiority thing and the new-age-bullshit connections). If you think feminism is all about "anti-male propaganda" then you're about 30 years late from the latest developments...

[daedaluz]

Yet, you keep referring to "newspeak". I don't think you understood the point of it which is that "playing with words" changes a whole lot and I have provided you substantial amount of research to back that up as well which you have conveniently ignored. You don't need neutral languages when the language of your choice has gender neutral words.

I'm sorry but I skimmed through that research and it didn't provide any indication that "removing gender bias from our language to the extend we can, does help [women]", which is your claim. With newspeak, I am referring to Orwell's 1984 where English language is systematically purged of terms which may cause dangerous ideas (parallel: purging of gendered nouns) and it is called newspeak (parallel: gender neutral language). With gender neutral Chinese language, I pointed out that gender neutral language in reality does nothing to help, as is evident looking at Chinese culture. Please brush up your reading comprehension.

Obama is president of U.S, so racism is over and nobody is a slave in the country anymore. So the black outreach program serve no real purpose either. Right?

Correct.

I have been pointing out pay discrimination which is pretty widespread and systematic, which of course you ignored and keep pretending that your question hasn't been answered.

Because it has not been answered. Do look once again at what I am requesting. Is inequal pay your only "proof"? Can you prove it is caused solely by discrimination? Researchers can't.

"Patriarchy" in feminist theory refers to an overarching concept that encompasses social and cultural narratives, with built-in discriminatory aspects and biases. The term is never, ever used to refer to any kind of conspiracy,

Patriarchal society had to be created by patriarchs, which requires mutual co-operation by multiple patriarchs, which makes patriarchy a conspiracy. That is core of modern feminist theory in a nutshell: a conspiracy theory. Obviously patriarchy is not used to refer to conspiracy, because patriarchy qua patriarchy is conspiracy.

[TheBlackCat]

Because it has not been answered. Do look once again at what I am requesting. Is inequal pay your only "proof"?

There is also the fact that, all other things being equal, women are rated lower than men, as I have mentioned several times but everyone on your side has ignored.

[dee.]

I'm sorry but I skimmed through that research and it didn't provide any indication that "removing gender bias from our language to the extend we can, does help [women]", which is your claim. With newspeak, I am referring to Orwell's 1984 where English language is systematically purged of terms which may cause dangerous ideas (parallel: purging of gendered nouns) and it is called newspeak (parallel: gender neutral language). With gender neutral Chinese language, I pointed out that gender neutral language in reality does nothing to help, as is evident looking at Chinese culture. Please brush up your reading comprehension.

You are affirming the consequent! If A then B does not imply if B then A!

Chinese language may have gender-neutral pronouns but Chinese culture, society and government is not in all other things equal to that of english-speaking countries and thus you cannot make any kind of direct comparison with China and english-speaking countries. Furthermore, you have no basis of comparison even within Chinese culture: If China did not have gender-neutral language, how do you know they wouldn't be even worse?

This is all just to show the huge gaping holes in your logic. To speak in more pragmatic terms, no one has claimed that using gender-neutral language would instantly eradicate all discrimination, and expecting it to do so would be silly. It can however be a step in that direction.

Patriarchal society had to be created by patriarchs, which requires mutual co-operation by multiple patriarchs, which makes patriarchy a conspiracy. That is core of modern feminist theory in a nutshell: a conspiracy theory. Obviously patriarchy is not used to refer to conspiracy, because patriarchy qua patriarchy is conspiracy.

WRONG, you IDIOT

"Patriarchy" in modern feminist theory is used to refer to social and cultural constructs. It has actually nothing to do with the anthropological/political concept of a "patriarchy" (ie. a society literally controlled by men) other than the name. You are basically doing nothing but making a strawman argument to beat down here, and you're doing it in an intellectually dishonest, wilfully ignorant way, seeing as I've already explained this to you once.

[daedaluz]

There is also the fact that, all other things being equal, women are rated lower than men, as I have mentioned several times but everyone on your side has ignored.

Fact is women are less suspectible to random violence on the streets than men are for one thing. Men do tend to rate women higher than fellow other men and tend to treat women with more respect. You might want to think for a while why that may be.

You are affirming the consequent! If A then B does not imply if B then A!

That was my point. I'm glad you finally understood.

Chinese language may have gender-neutral pronouns but Chinese culture, society and government is not in all other things equal to that of english-speaking countries and thus you cannot make any kind of direct comparison with China and english-speaking countries. Furthermore, you have no basis of comparison even within Chinese culture: If China did not have gender-neutral language, how do you know they wouldn't be even worse?

You are free to speculate all you want, but fact is Chinese culture is greatly anti-feminist despite having such a progressive language free of hate and prejudice.

This is all just to show the huge gaping holes in your logic. To speak in more pragmatic terms, no one has claimed that using gender-neutral language would instantly eradicate all discrimination, and expecting it to do so would be silly. It can however be a step in that direction.

Evidence for benefits of newspeak is opposite to claims of benefits, when examined through existing gender neutral languages. Languages recognizing difference of genders more clearly are more progressive, as is evident by better treatment of women within cultures speaking such languages.

[daedaluz]

"Patriarchy" in modern feminist theory is used to refer to social and cultural constructs. It has actually nothing to do with the anthropological/political concept of a "patriarchy" (ie. a society literally controlled by men) other than the name.

Someone has to create those social constructs. If patriarchs forming patriarchy didn't do that, then who did? Nobody? Then where did such social construct come from? If nobody actually constructed it, then it must be a product of imagination. Whose imagination? For what purpose? You know the answer. I've referred to patriarchy as a frame used to frame opposition. It's a very convenient frame, since it is completely imaginary as you readily admit, yet can be used to explain all the evils in the world. Just like "international jewry" is used by antisemites for same purpose.