More on Donglegate

From Wired Magazine,  this article:

Why the Tech Community Hates Feminists

That may be the case, but this title makes all sorts of implications. Adria may be a feminist, I wouldn't know, and the tech industry perhaps does hate all feminists, again I don't have any hard facts on that.

But what it also implies is that the tech industry is fine with women, just dislikes self-proclaimed "feminists" (as far as I know there is no other kind). I think what Adria was reacting to was a comment about - and thus a mark of disrespect to - all women. As far as I know the jokes were not about "feminists' dongles" specifically. And this means an uncomfortable at best (hostile at worst) working environment for a specific type of person.

I am not a feminist. And I will self-proclaim myself not to be a feminist. I don't think believing in equal opportunity makes you a feminist, I just think it makes you normal. For the record. Agree or disagree with Adria's actions, feminism doesn't come in to it, as far as I'm concerned. It's just behaviour and decency.

By the way the article also states that "masculinity places just as many limitations on men as femininity on women". In large part I agree with this statement. Try being a male nurse. Or a stay at home dad. A stay at home mother is lauded as having put her child's needs ahead of her own (although nobody ever says this about the working father in these situations, which also seems sexist); a stay at home dad is assumed not to have found a job.

Not everyone thinks this way of course. And not all men in tech behave like 12 year olds in a nudist colony. It does however happen enough that it is worth talking about.