On 30 October 2013 00:38, Naomi Most <pnaomi@gmail.com> wrote:

No, the message from society is that it's fine to be a sweaty basement
dwelling MAN,

Apologies, that's what I meant, I intended it be implied by the context.

and we will not only forgive you when you are abrasive
and argumentative but reward you for it.

I don't think its fair to say that society is in general rewarding these behaviours directly, but that society rewards these behaviours when they lead to substantial economic outputs, which society does value directly.

However the converse of the incentives dynamic, is that what that does lead to, is "slap on the wrist" type punishments for misogyny and unacceptable behaviour, and the "letting of things go" which wouldn't be tolerated in other contexts because of this latitude granted. Really it's like a bad 1970s comedy with Alf Garnett.

The author only briefly mentions "tyranny of the elite", the gender distinction of the subjectivity of the interpretation of these behaviours. The author seems to miss or skim over major contributing factors to the gender disparity issue, and just quote mine from Susan Herring, or .... well I think you get the idea that I didn't take to this type of investigation ... (Maybe articles written as "naturalistic inquiry" take a bit getting used to, it read like quote mining to support the author's position... rather than scientific enquiry.)

That's exactly the opposite of what women experience.

My argument isn't to diminish your experience, or justify it, but instead to point out that the author does not do a good job to investigate the issues sustaining it.

This systemic problem far transcends "the narrative of socially inept

men victimizing women, because of their own inadequacies."

I completely agree.

However the author doesn't seem to think so, because the abstract is almost entirely consistent with that narrative:

(a) some geek identities can be narrow and unappealing; (social inept men)

(b) open communities are especially susceptible to difficult people (men victimizing women)

(c) the ideas of freedom and openness can be used to dismiss concerns and rationalize the gender gap as a matter of preference and choice.. (and the internet has some very rude people and people are very mean, and other Barnum statements)

So as you can tell, I didn't get on with that article at all, however I looked up the author and was surprised to see who it was, and "Good Faith Collaboration" seems a pretty good read;
http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-1.html

Cheers,
Tom