This is interesting. They actually had a male entertainer on stage in
velcro pants, then speedo and boots, at the WestLaw reception at
the American Association of Law Libraries annual meeting this year.
Apparently that's not uncommon for the WestLaw reception. At the North
American Serials Interest Group meeting, the mens room in the conference
area was closed and converted to a women's room for the duration of the
conference. So that's three national library conferences I went to this
past year, and two of them had a major anti-male sexist event. (ALA did
not have strippers, and provided male restrooms. Kudos!)
I think maybe in librarianship in general, there is some trying to turn
this around and use the same sexist advertising, but marginalize men
instead.
(Of course, if the crowd being boozed with male stripper on stage makes
significantly less money than the crowd accepting fliers from college girls
in skimpy clothes, then this may not be a loss for men. Fake poor people
culture is popular now with the hipsters, but no one wants poor people
culture, if it involves actually having less money.)
When you strike langauge about sexual imagery, you might should rethink
that. I get enough spam male ads about male genital enlargement, that I
suspect men would tend to be intimidated and feel excluded when male 6
packs are prominently displayed in areas where men are outnumbered.
Whether it's young women in underwear, or athletic men in underwear, could
we agree that it's inappropriate?
-Wilhelmina Randtke
On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 8:54 AM, James Stuart <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> As a preface, I fully support both of these changes in language.
>
> That said, I think it's both important to balance the idea that sure,
> sometimes people are idiots, with that sexism is a prevalent problem right
> now at geek conventions, and that it's more than a 'bad and/or drunk
> apples' problem.
>
> This list is imperfect (I know several public incidents that aren't on here
> (recent DEFCON years aren't listed, The Amazing Meeting/ElevatorGate and
> various other skeptic convention incidents aren't on (possibly by
> design))), but it's at least a start, and hopefully a picture that sexism
> is an endemic, systematic problem right now in the geek convention world.
>
> http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
>
> --James
>
> PS: I don't know what they are, but I kinda made myself hungry for some
> drunk apples right now.
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 6:34 AM, MJ Ray <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Esmé Cowles <[log in to unmask]>
> > > Also, I've seen a number of reports over the last few years of women
> > > who were harassed at predominately-male tech conferences. Taken
> > > together, they paint a picture of men (particularly drunken men)
> > > creating an atmosphere that makes a lot of people feel excluded and
> > > worry about being harassed or worse. So I think a positive
> > > statement of values, and the general raising of consciousness of
> > > these issues, is a good thing.
> >
> > I'm a member of software.coop, which helps write library software,
> > including Koha - we co-hosted KohaCon12 this summer. Like all co-ops,
> > our core values include equality. I would like to see an
> > anti-harassment policy for code4lib.
> >
> > However, I'm saddened that I seem to be the first to object to the
> > hand-waving ("number of reports") and prejudice in the above
> > paragraph. The above problems seem more likely to arise from being
> > drunk or being idiots than from being men. Please, let's treat all
> > groups with equal respect and reserve our ire for particular members
> > when they give us reason to do otherwise.
> >
> > The anti-harassment policy should not be developed from a "we need to
> > kick men into line" standpoint. As such, I suggest
> >
> >
> https://github.com/code4lib/antiharassment-policy/blob/master/code_of_conduct.md
> > should say "Discriminatory language and imagery (including sexual)"
> > rather than leading with a special case of "Sexual".
> >
> > I also suggest generalising "religion" to "religious beliefs" to avoid
> > predictable attempts to insult some minorities and claim it's allowed
> > because they're not formal, organised or state-approved religions.
> >
> > Regards,
> > --
> > MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit
> co-op.
> > http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer.
> > In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
> > Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/
> >
>
