It is extremely dishonest of you to accuse this person of _hating women_ based upon his dislike of particular kinds of activism within the programming field.
Here's some more evidence for you, from his public facebook posts[0]: "Fuck women, they are coddled and have their needs met their entire lives so they never see past their own needs to empathize with others."
Misogyny is not necessarily hating women, but can also mean fearing, disliking, distrusting, and otherwise treating women as fundamentally different and inferior to men.
Claiming that a man asking that people not be immature assholes means that "a progressive movement is being coopted by women who want to make it about their vagina" is pretty much a textbook example of misogyny.
Claiming that software engineering is a "male space" (so, what, do that make the female software engineers I work with some kind of intruders on my "male space"?) is also a textbook example of misogyny.
What is it going to take for you to accept that this guy is a misogynist? Actually physically harming women? There are a lot more ways to spread fear, distrust, and hatred than just physical harm.
Sorry, misogyny means hating women. Perversion of language won't help you. Also, I don't care if the guy is a misogynist or not. There are plenty of hateful people in the world. I hate lots of people (women are nice though). What I do care about is the fact that his _post_ has had a label thrown on it to neutralise it when it contains a valid point. You've imbibed too much Kool-Aid, my friend.
Sorry, misogyny means hating women. Perversion of
language won't help you.
We don't speak ancient Greek. In modern English, misogyny means hatred, distrust, contempt towards women. Reacting to a post from a man asking "could we be more respectful and inclusive of others" with something about being "coopted by women who want to make it all about their vagina" definitely expresses a distrust and contempt towards women.
Of course, you can always parse semantics apart and say "well, he didn't say all women". That's not the point; misogyny doesn't require that you qualify all hateful statements to include every woman in existence. But that quote, in response to a man asking if we could be nicer and more inclusive, definitely states a fairly contemptuous attitude towards women.
when it contains a valid point
It has no such valid point.
No one is coming into the Ruby community, or the programming community, and trying to make it "all about their vagina". In fact, they're asking the opposite; that there's less emphasis placed on their vagina, and more on their code.
And calling programming a "male space" is inherently exclusionary. He is dismissing in one fell swoop all of the women who do code, who are part of the community.
Asking that people be nicer, and maybe consider the effect that gems named "rape_me" and "retarded" might not really reflect well on a community, with a defensive knee-jerk reaction about "politically correct thought-police safe spaces" is not a "valid point".
Yes, and I'm sure where you come from "micro-aggressions" is a real word too.
>And calling programming a "male space" is inherently exclusionary.
No, it's a statement of fact. The US Marines is a male space. Oops, am I a bad little misogynist now?
>Asking that people be nicer, and maybe consider the effect that gems named "rape_me" and "retarded" might not really reflect well on a community, with a defensive knee-jerk reaction about "politically correct thought-police safe spaces" is not a "valid point".
Yes, it is. If it's invalid, then by all means invalidate it for me.
>No one is coming into the Ruby community, or the programming community, and trying to make it "all about their vagina". In fact, they're asking the opposite; that there's less emphasis placed on their vagina, and more on their code.
I don't hang out with Rubyists. I don't care about Ruby. It's a bad language, for a start. In the general programming field there are plenty of people spending lots of time trying to boost the status of women and institute PC memes. Do you deny this?
Yes, and I'm sure where you come from "micro-aggressions"
is a real word too.
Not really sure where you got that. I didn't use that term and neither did the author of the original post. It's a perfectly valid English construction; whether the term it describes is something that's particularly relevant is another question.
No, it's a statement of fact. The US Marines is a
male space. Oops, am I a bad little misogynist now?
There are women in the Marines, and many of them have served and died in the line of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. So not only is that not a statement of fact, it's also quite insulting to those women who have put their life on the line for this country.
Now, it's true that as of now in the US, women have not been put directly into combat roles. Combat battalions are still exclusively male spaces. Of course, that doesn't mean that women haven't been involved in combat; sometimes they have by accident, or in many cases they have through loopholes or trial programs like the Marine Corps Lioness's program.
Stating that the programming profession is male dominated is a statement of fact. Stating that people are trying to "co-opt male spaces" by being more inclusive of women is misogynist. Talking about co-opting male spaces implies that it's something that men have the right to and women to not; that something is being taken away from men by making it friendlier for women to join. That implies that either women in the space are bad, or being friendlier and making them feel more comfortable is bad, either of which can accurately be described as misogynist.
Yes, it is. If it's invalid, then by all means
invalidate it for me.
Thought police must be, well, police. Even if you want to speak metaphorically, they must be someone with some kind of coercive power to apply rules that are designed to shape how people think.
The original author was simply pointing out some examples of bad behavior, and saying "hey, this doesn't make you cool, it makes you an asshole". He mused about whether RubyGems should ban them, but then said this was unrealistic.
On the other hand, Aaron Ashworth threatened to and then did ban him from the Ruby Facebook group. So if you're looking for "thought police", that qualifies more than criticizing some people for childish names.
So, I've invalidated the point. Will you now admit that the point was not valid, and that the nasty behavior (accusing women of making it "all about their vaginas") was simply nasty behavior for the sake of being nasty, and not because there was a valid point?
And don't try to tell me something along the lines of "well, maybe he didn't have a valid point about this particular post, but it is a real problem." If you want to discuss real problem, you should discuss real problems, not lash about about vaginas and thought police.
I don't hang out with Rubyists. I don't care about Ruby.
It's a bad language, for a start.
Sure, let's forget about Ruby for the moment.
In the general programming field there are plenty of
people spending lots of time trying to boost the status
of women and institute PC memes. Do you deny this?
There are some people spending lots of time trying to boost the status of women, yes. I'm not sure I'd say "lots of people" relative to the size of the community. Most people mind their own business and don't really act one way or another. Some people act aggressively negatively. Some people act more dismissively negatively.
I have no idea what you mean by "institute PC memes". The phrase "PC" is thrown around to refer to so many things, and tar so many thing with whatever bad reputation that it's supposed to have, that I'm never really sure what people mean when they say it any more.
Some people try to institute policies to make male-dominated spaces more friendly to women. Some people try to use social means, of speaking up about what they find to be unacceptable behavior. Some focus on encouraging and mentoring women.
But none of these are about making anything "all about their vagina". That's a ridiculous reactionary overstatement. The original post wasn't about anyone's vagina, it was about wanting to take the focus off of things like that and put it onto more constructive things.
Making this argument is like making the argument that any time you bring up some men's issue, it's "all about your dick." No, actually. Both women and men are a lot more complex than just their most distinctive sex-linked anatomical features. But saying that is a great way to dismiss any concerns that there might be some kind of sexist behavior going on, because obviously if you complain about sexist behavior you must want to make everything be about your vagina, right?
[0]: https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426 [1]: imgur version for non-facebookers http://imgur.com/kKVmGKm