Education is not a solution here. Perhaps the United States has no such example that you can draw experience from.

Moving on, let’s get on with a discussion that has become overly personal for both our tastes. Here is where a misunderstanding has surely occurred, easily attributed to the imperfect medium over which we’re communicating.

I happen to think that “invention or interpretation of experience” is actually a very dangerous practice. I don’t think it’s deliberately malicious, but it can subconsciously overwrite what someone is telling you and explain it away without being fair to an individual who might have a complaint. As crap a sentence as that is (WRT clarity), what I’m saying is that I see a lot of people who air grievances have these grievances explained away as little more than unintentional errors in judgement. Worse, it’s regarded as “just a joke” and that you shouldn’t take it seriously.

We saw this at BlizzCon.

George Fisher’s gross commentary was initially described as a joke gone wrong, but didn’t seem to appreciate that wasn’t what people complained about. They weren’t complaining about George Fisher and his views on homosexuality, they’re meaningless to the average person – the complaint was that Blizzard thought it was somehow FUNNY. This is what I mean if I imply that an explanation for how a person feels is less important than the mere fact that they FEEL that way. I hope I’ve made that clear.

As for my statements on meritocracy, the point in bringing it up is very simple; be the change. Rather than saying that we don’t live in a meritocracy and making it happen in your own area doesn’t make it so, we should promote it in more and more offices, classrooms, prisons and grocery stores the world over. Wanting it to be so DOES make a difference, because humans are largely conditioned to care most about what affects them most. I don’t care that my country is ran by a monarchy (the further from meritocracy you can get) because it doesn’t really impact on me daily – I do care that the members of my office can knuckle down, apply themselves and be rewarded on the basis of their ability rather than the colour of their skin, number of years clicked off, sexual proclivities or (in the present case) their gender.

I’m not implying that years of human history have seen no effort at changing things, just to be clear. Nor am I saying that those who are complaining never work to better their situations. What I AM saying is that too many people are happy to point out flaws or whinge, then expect other people to pick up the baton and do the work for them. That’s not arrogance, it’s just the way things are. Straw men arguments are evidently fun, but ultimately unimpressive.

What/who has caused me to perceive feminism as a cause that makes being female an issue?

I cannot possibly recount all of the examples of this throughout my life. I actually think the first time I was ever aware of the issue was a British chat-show (might have even been Kilroy-Silk, thinking about i) where several women came onto the stage, sat down and started militantly decrying an establishment that sought to keep women below men at every social stage. Upon the discussion of women householders, a male member of the audience stood up and asked a very simple question:

What’s wrong with my wife staying home and doing the housework?

A chorus of boos went up, as you can imagine, but my mum (a self-determinate and independent woman) responded with “nothing”. It took some discussion, but she was merely saying that there’s nothing wrong with women making decisions that they think are best for their family. If that’s cooking, cleaning and taking care of children then they shouldn’t be made to feel less than more outgoing women who wish to climb the corporate ladder.

That’s one example but, since then, I’ve seen too much feminist commentary that concentrates on this type of behaviour; a desire to do things that are male-dominated, purely because they’re male-dominated. I would recommend the work of Steven Pinker if you’re interested in this, as his example uses the number of women who get into engineering at university and whether or not we should be looking to get more women inolved in it.

For the record, this is why I enjoy this blog and why I read others like it. The post itself doesn’t describe Spinks as an annoyed female who happens to play games, it’s starts with an annoyed gamer who happens to be treated differently because she’s female.

I find that inherently more interesting.

On the other hand, I did love looking at the cosplayers at comic con last year (many of whom were probably wearing less than the booth babes and at least as attractive, not that those are prerequisites for cosplay but they do tend to get attention.)

I’m thinking about things at a con that would encourage me to go over to a booth and try a game. Maybe that’ll be for another post.

And at the same time, is it possible that some girls find booth babes not so much offensive as… intimidating? O.O

(I confess I like ogling them. XD)

But nonetheless it does bring up a very good point…

You have the right idea but, from the implication in the comment, the wrong reasons, i.e. I don’t really think it’s because men are uncomfortable looking at other men in skimpy clothing isn’t because of “omg gay must get out the validate im super serially straight”, but, rather, because they’re intimidating.

Whether it’s sexist or not (and, let me be blunt and upfront about this (and I’m not saying this to try and look different from the average male, it’s just my honest view on it) I do not find the generic booth babe look attractive at all) a muscled bloke hanging over your shoulder might make most men (me included) uneasy, whilst a booth babe isn’t intimidating.

Now about drawing the line. Let’s say your product is a skin moisturizing cream for women. Is it reasonable that advertisement features half-naked woman using it on her legs? My answer is yes. Now let’s consider the electrical screwdriver. Is the advertisement that features half-naked woman working with the said screwdriver reasonable? My answer is no.
The reason? The first advertisement is displaying the actual use of the product. This is skin moisturizing cream for women, so you must be woman to use it and you have to apply it to bare skin. The second advertising is unreasonable because: 1) both genders can use the screwdriver; 2) you don’t have to be half-naked to use it (actually, it’s advisable to have protective clothes if you’re working with it).

…

Is simply because it might send a large portion of their target audience – guys – running from the hills.

Menfolk – am I wrong? >.>

So you may think “Hey, we’re a meritocracy” but that doesn’t mean that some merit isn’t being ignored or sidelined. But since I think diverse workplaces are both more pleasant and more productive, it’s in management’s interests to try to be as meritocratic as possible. If you can do it, good for you, I have found that a robust policy on diversity can only help. And that means not automatically sidelining discussions about discrimination.

As an interesting note, when I was advising workers and someone came in and said they wanted to make a formal complaint about discrimination, my first question was always, “How badly do you want to keep this job?” Because as soon as you raise that grievance, a lot of companies will label you a troublemaker, whether or not it’s actually true. It’s also true that a lot of people will feel that work decisions are unfair and may ascribe it to discrimination when it’s more down to personality conflict or some other work dynamic. Just if we don’t investigate those claims, we’ll never even see systemic issues when they do exist.

For the record, I initially argued the conclusion you came to: you *cannot* educate people out of bigotry. You can reread it for confirmation.

My response was very simple and these escalations to personal attacks are derailing discussion. If this isn’t your intent, perhaps you should take a step back and take a deep breath. I am, personally, not attacking you, nor insinuating anything — no matter how you are reading this text. I say precisely what I mean as best I can and never with malice. So, there’s no need for you to respond in the tone that you do or to make guesses. Just ask.

I also have a “career” with the treatment of minorities and other marginal people. That would include women of course, but still I am not one of them and I won’t dare try to speak for them or invent interpretations of their experiences; I take their word for it. I’m not entirely sure what you were implying by bringing this up, but maybe you just wanted to know where I am coming from?

There exists no meritocracy in the United States. I have one in my house, but I’m pretty sure I can’t extrapolate my household experience onto an entire country. Likewise, this can’t be extrapolated from a workplace as you’re attempting to do. There are also meritocracies in millions of classrooms, prisons, and grocery stores the world over. This does not make the world a meritocracy and since you’ve acknowledged that — then what is your point?

Wanting it to be so, does not make it so. As for making one, I hope you don’t believe that *at least* the past 200 years of human history is devoid of efforts at “making it so”. As you can see, it’s pretty difficult. But yes, we all still strive for a better place. Silencing people for calling out these systemic failures or implying somehow that because people complain about this they aren’t “living it” or “doing it” is more than arrogant.

If you can calm yourself enough to not rave at me as though you are better (it’s the vibe I get from your responses which imply that since you have x,y, and z experiences no one can tell you anything), then a discussion is still being had. Make peace. We all want to understand and be understood.

I posed a question to you and I haven’t seen or understood your answer: What/who has caused you to perceive feminism as a cause that makes being female an issue? In my “idealistic” experience, I cannot arrive at this conclusion because, like a lot of people who frequent this blog, I have seen a great variety of feminist perspectives and none of them have lead me to the conclusion you’ve come to. It’s entirely possible we just understood them differently and I’m interested.