Dave Winer turns the tables on a woman accusing him of being sexist:
The irony, is that if the person lecturing me were to flip genders in
her own story, she’d probably see her own sexism. Would she lecture a
woman the same way she was lecturing a man? Might she consider the
possibility that the woman is smart, and might be offended by the
assumption that she’s not? Especially if the woman she’s talking to is
20 years her senior? Basically it’s always a mistake to assume you
understand something that the other guy doesn’t.
Agreed. That is why I dislike and actively avoid discussions about women in business or the internet or anywhere else. And get annoyed at the cries for their greater numbers at blogging conferences or in technology or anywhere else. It is not only patronising, but it is labelling people in ways that they might not want to be. Well, I certainly don’t.
I do not deny that there is a difference in the way guys treat girls. A couple of years ago, I spent a whole year writing under a male pseudonym on Samizdata.net – a political blog with a ‘vibrant’ commentariat where people get ‘corrected’ fast and fierce. The experiment was fruitful – the difference was there both for me and for the audience. As a female blogger I got some attention just for being one although I’d like to think I held my own because of my thoughts and writing. As a male blogger, I found it easier to adopt a more direct style, without pre-emptying and hedging against counter arguments I knew would be forthcoming. One commenter admitted in a conversation off-line that he was inclined to be more aggressive in commenting on my ‘male’ posts.
It seems that for guys dealing with guys, the gender doesn’t come into it. For a lot of guys this changes when a woman appears on the scene – consciously or subconsciously. Luckily, for some it doesn’t change anything – I can’t imagine Doc or JP (and many others) changing the flow of their thoughts and musings depending on the gender of the person they are engaging with. And that’s all I ask for.
