They only let assholes play in the sand box, OK bitches?


Oh wait a minute...they take assholes out of the sandbox and give them a time-out.

So, I've ranted a bit before about how coverage of tech in the media seems very very invested in making men the wise and the wonderful, while women are represented mostly as either a) prizes for the men or b) novice acolytes seeking enlightenment.

I talked about it here and here.

And I was just too exasperated to blog about the picture that accompanied the Merc's coverage of O'Reilly's Web 2.0 conference. Short note about why: the picture that goes with the article show a man with a laptop "demonstrating" a product to 2 women (Charlene Li and Renee Blodgett) who are positioned lower than him, so they appear to be gazing up at him. The caption describes him as demonstrating the product to them. As it turns out Renee represents the man's company, and is in fact the one who got him the meeting with Charlene, and it is Charlene, as the industry analyst, who has the power amongt the trio. Can't find a link unfortunately, but it's typical shit.

So the latest little example comes post-Seattle MindCamp. Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter John Cooks posts an extremely brief piece on MindCamp. He notes that the valiuable part of the conference was talking to people outside the sessions, no big surprise. He lists a couple of guys and a couple of topics. Then he quotes some comments from Chris Pirillo, basically singing my tune about how "Web 2.0" is the over-hyped term that doesn't mean too much. Pirillo hopes this isn't another bubble.

So far, so good. The Cook closes with the following:

"Riya.com's Tara Hunt -- who also was involved in the conversation -- described Web 2.0 this way:

"For me, it's the free parties and beer."

Pretty scary..."

Oh, she was "involved" in the conversation, but clearly not one of those that made the conference so valuable, eh?

Anyway, firestorm has ensued:

Tara herself is disappointed that he chose one jokey comment from a generally intelligent conversation to represent her, and fears it depicts her as a "bimbo." At the same time, she hates the double standard that women can't be smart and the life of the party.

Scoble picked it up.

As did Liz Lawley over at misbehaving.net.

I left a comment on Liz's post. Something to the tune of: despite his every best intention I believe that Malcom Gladwell's exploration of "unconscious bias" in his best-seller Blink has been the biggest boon to clueless sexists and racists ever! It's an awesome excuse to fall back on. Oh, he's ignorant not sexist. Or ignorant, not malicious. Whatever.

Cook updates his post to say that he spoke to Tara to clear the air, and to explain his use of the quote as follows:

"Hunt's quote, which was set up by Chris Pirillo's comments about the possibility of another bubble, was a tongue-in-cheek way of commenting about what is happening in the Internet world. That was the spirit of the quote and that is why I used it -- not to cast some negative impression on Hunt or women in general."

No, of course not. Then fill me in: exactly what was the purpose of the "Pretty scary..." that immediately followed her quote and closed your post? What impression was that meant to evoke, exactly? [Other than, perhaps, that Chris Pirillo's fear of a bubble were borne out by the presence of women interested in Web 2.0 for the "parties and beer"?]

John, I'm just asking: what exactly did you think that conveyed?

But you know who's scarier than John?

The guy who commented as follows in Liz's post:

"In my honest opinion: what is all the fus [sic] about? So there was a half-only quote. If it had been a half-only quote from a guy nobody would have said a word about it. If women keep being so sensistive about quotes no wonder they feel like they are left outside the "geek" world.....if you want to be treated equally then start acting it too."

Wow.

That just woke me up. Just the wake-up call I needed.

It reminded me of how when we're all growing up and learning to play together, we're taught to be rank assholes to one another. If you're in the sandbox you better be the one pushing other people around. Tattling and lying about other people. Your only other choice for sandbox survival is to stay absolutely quiet and shrink into the corner hoping the real winners in the sandbox just don't even notice you. You certainly wouldn't want to stand up and bring attention to yourself.

Oh.

No.

Wait a minute. Let me think again.

That's right.

The bullies and assholes got pulled out of the sandbox if they couldn't play well with others. They got time-outs or worse yet, weren't allowed to have juice and cookies.

It is the worst and weakest argument in the world to say that if one wants to succeed, one must allow oneself to be treated like crap. And must treat others like crap.

What a load of crap.

Posted: Mon - November 7, 2005 at 01:31 PM       EmailFeedback

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