#Shirtstorm quickly became a controversy, not about hostile workplaces for women per se, but instead about what are legitimate forms of debate. (If you don’t know what #Shirtstorm is, Phil Plait summarizes it here.) Although I saw several good articles patiently explaining why the shirt Dr. Taylor wore matters, it’s reasonable to say that overall, the debate has become very ugly.
The best thing I’ve seen in the meta-debate is what Ken White wrote about the perennial accusations of “witch hunts” and “lynch mobs.”
We’re Dishonestly Obsessed With Metaphors of Violent Oppression.
People get criticized on the internet. Sometimes this criticism is unfair, irrational, and/or ridiculous. But when you say they’ve suffered a “lynch mob” or “witch hunt,” unless people are actually calling for the person to be hanged or jailed, you’re almost certainly full of shit.
Criticism is not censorship. Criticism is what we have instead of censorship. Preserving the ability to criticize vigorously is how we convince ourselves — tenuously — not to censor. Criticism is often leveled for incredibly stupid reasons, but then, so is the mechanism of government censorship.
When you say that someone criticized on the internet (or in the news) is the victim of a “lynch mob,” here are the notions you are trying to sneak past your listeners:
- The people who criticize this person are part of a thoughtless mob, reacting with visceral emotion and caught up in the wave. They should be driven by the pure cold light of reason, like me.
- If lots of people criticize somebody that doesn’t make the criticism right. In fact it makes it less right.
- Being criticized by a bunch of people is like being physically harmed, possibly by the government. How much like it? We’ll get to that later.
- Discourse about controversial subjects should be polite and productive and I wish these squirrel-fucking subhuman traitors would get that.
In other words, you’re likely just saying “I disagree strongly with this criticism and I will use lazy shorthand to say so.” That’s how you get a discourse in which lynch mobs are apparently chasing each other in circles — first the lynch mob after Dr. Taylor, followed by the lynch mob chasing the people who criticized Dr. Taylor, etc. This makes the shirt itself look profound in comparison.
We also use related rhetoric about what we’re allowed to say. You hear a lot of “you’re not allowed to . .” or “these days you can’t . . ,” by which people mean that we live in a time where if you do certain things it will have significant social consequences. But we always lived in that time. If I got up at a town meeting in 1914 and said “homosexuals should be allowed to marry each other,” that would likely have had one set of strong social consequences, if I got up in a town meeting in 2014 and said “homosexuals should not be allowed to marry each other,” it might have a different set of strong social consequences. The “you’re not allowed to” rhetoric implies two false things: (1) that social consequences are equivalent to force or government coercion, and (2) there has been some sort of magical bunny-rabbit-gumdrop time when people could say whatever they wanted without social consequences.
That’s just a tiny portion of a lengthy post, which I recommend reading. I also recommend Conor’s post on the same subject, which opens with Conor’s alternate world fic of how a disagreement between reasonable people about #shirtstorm could have gone.
Neat summary of a situation I missed! I’m wondering if a parody hashtag of #notallrocketscientists is worth trying.
Back when I was a sales weasel/marketing monkey, any of my managers would have used this whole kerffufle as a prime example of why we weasels/monkeys had training in talking to people and keeping the message on target and why we wore generic business casual while we did it.
NEXT time the lead scientist will say simply, “Thank you, now let me introduce our media affairs coordinator Marsha Marketing Monkey…
A reader emailed me asking me to post this in the comments here.
OK – was Brendan Eich lynched? Or witch-hunted?
Here is Israel our bullsh*t meters have grown sensitive to leftie/progressives decrying demonization – then engaging in a moral relativism that lets them do it when it suits them.
By now we’re accustomed to the old “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” shtick, followed by selective outrage/compassion that lines up along political agenda-lines.
A lot of the post and the quoted article seem to be coming from the same self-serving place – in fact the bullet-points could easily be read as a guide to how the Left used the politics of victimhood to promote its radical agenda.
Seems to me that the concept of “hate speech” and the arguments of why it should be banned are analogous to this.
I personally think that wearing a shirt like that was inappropriate given the seriousness of the occasion. But then I think a Hawaiian-style shirt overall is inappropriate to the occasion, regardless of whether it depicts scantily-clad women, scantily-clad men, or dogs playing poker. Apparently it was a recent birthday present..
I cannot now find it, but I tend to agree with one quote I saw: “If I land a space probe flying millions of miles over 10 years on a comet going tens of thousands of miles an hour millions of miles away, y’all are lucky if I’ll be wearing pants.”
I don’t see why a person of Dr. Taylor’s accomplishments gives two shits what a bunch of strangers on Twitter think of his or her shirt.
Rocket scientists are SUPPOSED to be idiosyncratic. Trust me, I’ve seen worse than this walking around a lab. And the motif on that shirt ties in pretty good to Golden Age SF, which generally has a lot of rocket scientists in it’s fandom.
Here’s what I would have said were I Dr. Taylor:
“A bunch of people are telling everyone what my shirt says and means. Given that it’s my shirt, I’m going to tell you what I think it means.
Young women – do you spend a lot of time selecting and buying clothes and then deciding what to wear every day? Why? Is it because you’re concerned over what people will think of you? That they’ll judge you, your intelligence, your social status and your ability to do your job based on what you’re wearing? Then let me suggest that you study math and science and get a degree and job in a STEM field. Because in STEM fields you’re judged on your brains and your accomplishments, and given my example it’s pretty obvious nobody gives a shit what you wear.”
My birthday’s coming up soon. The specific shirt he wore is now sold out, but there’s a very similar one with a blue background that I think I’m going to ask my wife to buy me. Or maybe my daughter. And one for the husband of my wife’s cousin who is suffering through a recurrence of throat cancer – it’ll lift his spirits, which he sorely needs. BTW, they’ve got a lot of different shirts and kimonos on that site that look striking. I may buy a kimono for my wife.
I also agree with a point made by many writers on this subject, an example of which is this:
Are you fucking kidding me?
My reaction was a bit simpler.
Uggghh!
Every time I see those bingo cards I cry a little inside.
I think we need a “zealot social justice warrior bingo” card to go with it. Some suggestions could include things like this:
asserts that all intent of opponents is irrelevant, or takes it only on one side (intent is either bad or neutral, never a defense)
calls history irrelevant, or takes it only on one side (can be bad or neutral, not a defense)
asserts that only opinions of selected group matter, and/or denies relevance of competing opinions
attacks or refuses to acknowledge facts if they are asserted to match stereotypes
uses anecdotes to support point; calls competing anecdotes “derailing” or “___ist”
Generally avoids use of objective standards
Uses broad terms to attack groups, and claims “it’s not about you” when individuals get upset.
Asserts that the base assumptions of their beliefs are not open to discussion, whether by classifying them as “101” or “obvious” etc.
Denies that mistreatment of majorities exists / is relevant / is a problem
and last but certainly not least,
Acts as if identifying/labeling their opponents’ arguments (whether via “bingo” cards or otherwise) is a functional substitute for addressing/defending their opponents’ arguments.
Do the shocked reactions (shocked, Rick!*) mean that there is no difference in average intelligence between physics or electrical engineering majors, for instance, and elementary education or social work majors, for instance?
*From the movie Casablanca where the police chief is told to shut Rick down, so he tells Rick he is SHOCKED to find out that there is gambling in his establishment just before someone brings the chief his winnings
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/firefly.gif
But as for shirtgate: Perhaps the dude should have worn a different shirt. Or not. I’m not sure I agree that the shirt is inherently problematic. It would be nice to actually hear from people who personally find the shirt offensive, as opposed to people who think that the shirt may be problematic for some other unspecified person or people.
And even if it was arguably problematic, I’m reasonably sure that it isn’t very far over the line. So in that case it seems like the issue is really whether this person “should have known better” about science, and sexism, and perceptions, and media, etc.
To me it seems like he was probably not a Person Of Constant Public Exposure. Which is to say that he may not really have been prepared to be an Icon For Labs Everywhere. That would put this in the “not really a big deal, if it was really a mistake” category instead of the Another Huge Bit Of Evidence About Things Keeping Women Out Of Science category.
[headscratch]
Is there anyone who is actually asserting that, or is that just something you made up to attack as a straw?
I realize you can’t always just substitute one gender for another – because men and women are different – but:
I wonder what the reaction would be if a woman led a group to bring about such an accomplishment of brain power, and the only thing many groups of men could say about her is that she is dressed inappropriately.
In general, though, maybe there really are lots of people who don’t *get it* that one thing is much more important than the other thing.
“Is there anyone who is actually asserting that, or is that just something you made up to attack as a straw?”
—–
I thought that was what Ruchama and Jake Squid were upset about. Maybe I misunderstood.
And what’s wrong with attacking strawmen?
No, I was incredulous at the assertion that women in STEM fields aren’t judged based on our appearance.
To be fair, the excerpt you quoted in your initial comment really obscures the point you were responding to. /sarcasm
I don’t know how you could possibly read Ruchama and Jake to mean that, but in any case they’ve “clarified” now.
Actually, there are plenty of times that this happens. Go find women who areimportant and you can usually find a ton of comments on their appearance, even though their appearance is less important than, basically, everything else that they do in their entire professional life. Like, say, running a country. If you haven’t seen it you haven’t looked.
Of course, usually they are chastised for being too sexy/dumpy/colorful/bland/etc though, not for “wearing clothes that offend men,” since generally speaking we do not consider that women’s clothing is indicative of sexism. Though of course there are exceptions like the “male tears” shirt.
RonF:
Actually I think wearing a shirt like that shows that he only thinks about how women look (e.g., what they’re wearing and their body shape and the relative beauty of their faces) rather than whether they’re a good scientist.
And count me as someone who is personally offended by that shirt in the context of work, let alone a public appearance on behalf of one’s work, and if I wanted to work on that project, I would assume that scientist would undervalue my work and perhaps sexually harass me, and wonder whether I could even get a job on his project since I don’t look like those women.
One of my coworkers keeps having scantily-clad sexy-pose women as his computer desktop. It’s hard to separate out my various feelings of “this makes it feel kind of weird/awkward to interact with him when that image is right there” and “that is tacky and inconsiderate” and “he’s being really stupid putting that on his desktop at work; does he really think it’s worth the risk”. He doesn’t seem especially sexist otherwise. It’s not particularly important to me, but I’d prefer that he not do it. I’d probably have a lot stronger feelings about it if his desktop was visible to the public, though, and even more so if he was appearing on television or something.
g&w:
I found it offensive, because, of course, sexism is still alive and well in STEM just as it is anywhere (if to a lesser degree than some occupations). This kind of thing is part and parcel of–for a few recent examples–the knuckleheads down the hall from me who think this is appropriate as their sole office door decoration; or the guy who pushing for a location for a conference, in front of a group of about 50 people including probably 10 women, and said that a perk was the nearby mall where our wives could shop; or the very senior person who made a comment that would’ve been considered sexist 40 years ago (let alone now) to a friend of mine as she was setting up to do her thesis defense–and he was the chair of her committee. Or, on a more sinister level, the guy I knew in a related field who as a student went to a conference with a faculty member, and that faculty member spent the first evening pointing out all the women in the room he’d slept with. But despite that last one, it’s not usually guys being deliberately awful, or heavily misogynist; it’s just that it’s still a boys’ club, and a lot of them don’t think about it, and it can be hard to be randomly excluded (even if unintentionally) from some of the conversations that happen. Those casual slights tie into past times when people have meant it deliberately, even if that’s not what’s happening in the current interaction, and there’s still enough residual awful-misogynists in the field to make it likely that the women have experienced that.
(As for the relevance of my experiences to that guy’s shirt: my Ph.D.’s in astrophysics; there’s probably a 40% chance I’ll be in Europe next year doing work for an ESA mission, though not this one–I’m a cosmologist.)
He absolutely should have known better. Yes, the dress sense is very casual in the field, but we do know how to dress appropriately for public events. This shirt would still have been a problem if it was half-naked men, because, dude, you don’t need to be showing half-naked people on your clothing when you’re doing one-to-many communication. This is less on the “offensive” side than on the “dumb shit people do” side, though.
Communication is a really integral part of a scientist’s job, although it’s usually to other scientists. You have to tell other people about the science you’re doing to make collaborations happen; you go to other places and give seminars, you give talks at conferences, you have phone or video conferences to hash out who’s doing what on projects you’re working on with people at other institutions.
That shirt would have been inappropriate even if he was just talking to other people in the field. He’s pretty senior, which gives you some leeway in the dress code–a man of my level would never wear a Hawaiian shirt if he had any kind of speaking to do, but I do know some senior scientists who wear them to conferences–but even so, it’s much more common at a public event to see scientists wear a button-up shirt and trousers, or a suit if they’ve had some administrative experience.
I almost wonder if he was trying to do something like Mohawk Guy from the Mars landing a few years ago–wear something quirky and buzzworthy–and just didn’t think it through.
Iri:
It’s probably worth disentangling two things here.
– Clothing that is considered “inappropriate” because of what it does or does not show off about the body; the formality of the cut and type; the accessories or lack thereof; etc.
– Clothing that is considered “inappropriate” because of explicit messages it gives off based on symbols (pictures/words/logos) that appear on the fabric.
Women get an awful lot of guff about the first type (see: Hillary Clinton and pantsuits; that news anchor in Australia who wore the same suit for a year and nobody noticed even as they got lots of comments on his female coworker’s attire). Generally I think that’s inappropriate, though I’ll give some leeway for levels of formality–wearing a T-shirt to a diplomatic dinner is probably deserving of criticism, whereas an individual person’s opinion on the appropriate amount of decolletage to show, usually less so.
But the second type is absolutely deserving of criticism regardless of the gender of the person who wears it. To tie back into the point of this post :), symbols are deliberate communication, and you can and should criticize it if you think it’s worthy of criticism. A few years ago, a woman on the TV show So You Think You Can Dance wore a jacket designed by a friend, a deconstructed military jacket with a patch upside down. A lot of military folks were offended, and she sincerely apologized–she hadn’t realized the meaning of that patch or its placement. That’s the system working like it should.
Sorry, one more from me: Janet Stemwedel, a philosopher with chemistry training who focuses on ethics in science, has a blog post about why the problem is larger than the shirt and another about why science guys should care even if they weren’t offended themselves, both of which are good.
Perhaps not, but that’s not why I find the shirt problematic. Not because he wore it while on TeeVee, which is a separate question, but because he was wearing it at work. In the photos I could barely see the details of the shirt, and wouldn’t have known what people were objecting to if writers hadn’t told us.
But if I worked in his lab, I’d be able to see it. If I were a woman working in his department, I’d be able to see it. And that, it seems to me, is the issue. What, someone will say, if there aren’t any women working in his lab, because, you know, women aren’t any good at high-level world-class science? Funny, that; but I doubt it. Even if the women working around him are ‘merely’ secretaries and other grunts.
Dress codes in such workplaces probably are different than they are for People of Frequent Public Exposure, but that reflects the sexist/misogynist culture of science and technology. What women think doesn’t matter, because We’re All Guys Here. But suppose he was a guy in sales, who wore a tie to work with a picture of a nekkid lady on it, and liked to wave it around in the faces of the secretaries and switchboard operators? Who would complain about that except some hypersensitive feminists?
This sort of thing isn’t a hanging crime, but I think it does merit comment and discussion. Granted, most public discourse is very bad, even or especially among those who like to think of themselves as Enlightened Scientific Rationalists. I myself have often criticized the typical liberal response to offensive public talk: Oh my god how can you say such awful things? You’re just awful! The trouble with the typical liberal response is that typically it just gratifies the offender: he (sometimes she) has gotten a rise out of the silly liberals. It’s so much more fun, and I think more effective, to take such people apart rationally, but I guess that’s just me. And I do realize that the typical liberal response isn’t meant to engage the offender anyway, but to establish one’s moral bona fides.
1.) Almost every post I saw on the shirt was very careful to note how great the accomplishment was. Moreover, since the apology, most critics want to move on and celebrate the science. It is the defenders of the shirt who now can’t seem to let it go.
2.) Taylor wrapped himself is sexist imagery. If a white woman (for example) wore a shirt adorned racist images, I would demand she be called on it too.
3.) In any case, I would certainly not call criticizing a woman’s dress a “lynching” or a “witch hunt”, no matter how unfounded I considered that criticism.
Thinking more about it, I think most of what bothers me about the shirt (and about my coworker’s desktop) is that it signals I don’t care what women think. Now, it’s possible that Dr. Taylor didn’t really think about its potential to signal that, and even more possible that it occurred to him, but he figured it must be okay because a woman gave him the shirt; it’s also possible that he doesn’t care about what women think because he doesn’t care what people think, and I think the people who like the shirt are coming from that angle.
I suspect that if I wore a shirt with a bunch of sexualized imagery of guys on it to work, it would make many people uncomfortable.
I actually agree that people shouldn’t wear that sort of thing at work, I’m a collar and tie guy. But as usual, social justice warriors are acting like ignorant dicks.
For fucks sake, this is absolutely censorship. You saw an image you didn’t like on tv and decided to suppress it, that’s censorship. At least be proud and own it.
No-one’s trying to sneak them in, these arguments are the whole point. There is obviously a problem with a movement which ostensibly opposes hostile workplaces deliberately whipping up a bullying campaign which made a guy break down at work while on TV. It proves they’re full of shit.
For the record. Yes, SJWs are irrational, while I can recognise a reductio ad absurdum. Yes, relentless hostility in the cause of opposing, uh, mild hostility does undermine your point somewhat. No, I don’t think discourse should be polite, but I’m not the one who thinks horrid shirts make sensitive female scientists cry.
What image are we talking about here that’s been suppressed? As far as I can tell, this discussion has led to rather widespread reposting of Dr. Taylor in the shirt–at least more widespread than would have occurred without the discussion–which seems rather like the opposite of censorship to me.
Ah. I see. The guy broke down because of relentless bullying, not because, y’know, he felt bad about having done something wrong. Good to know.
Just trying to parse this sentence–are you saying “I can recognise a reductio ad absurdum” argument as describing the argument that SJWs are irrational? Or are you saying that you, unlike SJWs, can recognize a reductio ad absurdum argument?
My favorite part of the the Ken White article was the points he made just before that:
No, I don’t think discourse should be polite, but I’m not the one who thinks horrid shirts make sensitive female scientists cry.
Very much related to Ken White’s points about discourse: it’s pretty common when someone says something along the lines of “We don’t like this/we think it’s annoying/we shouldn’t have to put up with it”, and it’s a point you don’t like, to say that they are crying and/or emotionally fragile. It’s certainly not limited to anti-SJWs–‘male tears’ and ‘white women’s tears’ are often examples of this. (The worst person I’ve seen about making this argument [not always with everyone who disagrees with him in general, but with practically everyone who has any criticism of his newsletter] is Randy Cassingham. That is the main reason I stopped reading his newsletter. Relevant example here.)
You’re also “not the one” who apparently has the slightest interest in having an intellectually honest conversation about this, since as I’m sure you know your statement above is not a remotely accurate representation of the vast majority of people who’ve criticized Taylor for wearing that shirt. And you’re “not the one” who has the slightest clue what the words “censorship” and “suppression” mean, because it’s obvious that neither applies here.
This latest attempt to drum up outrage that obscures a much more significant event has embarrassed the social-justice brigade far more than it’s helped them. How much more ridiculously trivial do their ‘triggers’ need to be, anyway?
I’m glad someone can tell me which offensive things are trivial and which are vitally meaningful, Copyleft. Without that instruction I am lost.
That just seems like such a callous comment. An example of what a total lack of empathy and/or sympathy produces.
As a member of (or, at least, sympathizer with) the Social Justice Brigade, I’m not in the least embarrassed by this incident. In fact, I’m very pleased that it was able to be a teachable moment for everybody with the least bit of empathy. Those who believe it’s a triviality and an embarrassment to Social Justice Warriors weren’t reachable anyway (they’re diametrically opposed to social justice goals) and their protestations are irrelevant to The Movement.
On the subject of the shirt, I don’t think that’s work-appropriate wear and the enforcement of such standards is not an infringement upon freedom. (Of course, I would take issue with anyone who would have done the same thing during private hours.)
But for Ken White’s article:
No, it isn’t. Threatening people’s economic livelihoods or any other concerted effort to ruin other people’s lives over differences in opinion is censorship. By this “only the government” or “only death/jail” that illiberals are desperately trying to push, a private corporation firing an employee over a political opinion expressed in a private blog during off-hours isn’t censorship. Mass book burning by a mob of private citizens isn’t censorship. After all, the government isn’t involved. I highly doubt that that’s what they actually believe; they only bring it up as ad hoc justification when encountered by ideas they don’t like that they really want to censor. It even evokes an almost right wing belief that only the “government” can do wrong and has power, and an exchange between a powerful and/or numerous networks of private citizens and one lone target of disapproval is somehow on equal terms and can never be injurious to real, practical freedom.
Seriously? By that standard, doxxing someone’s image furthers discussion is the opposite of censorship.
Copyleft:
You’re the only person here who’s mentioned triggers. I wasn’t triggered, I was pissed off.
pocketjacks:
I was discussing particularly the image of the shirt itself, in response to Pete Patriot, not the impact on the wearer of the shirt.
Who in the world was legitimately threatening Taylor’s economic livelihood? Where was this concerted effort to ruin his life? As far as I’ve heard he was never in any danger of losing his job, and the majority of the criticism I’ve seen was on the order of “what he and his team did was amazing, but that was a shitty choice of shirt because it creates a hostile workplace environment” (which I think is pretty obviously the case). At this point I’ve seen far more hysteria and overstatement from people like you than from people critical of Taylor (who to my knowledge still has a job and a life).
@Harlequin and Lee1,
I thought I made it clear that my comment was concerning Ken White’s article only, not the case of this shirt, a subject on which my opinion was spelled out on the first paragraph of my post.
My disagreement is with the general idea that “it’s not censorship unless the government does it”. No one actually believes this, outside maybe an extreme libertarian fringe, and they’re wrong anyway and not my concern here. They would cry bloody murder if private actors ever went after their lives for their private political opinions or expressions. It’s just an ad hoc rationalization for censorship you really happen to want.
This lame justification has most definitely been used to defend to attacking people’s livelihoods, though it never went to that extent in this t-shirt case.
In general, posting someone’s image publicly without consent in the context of political disagreement is an attempt to silence and intimidate and can be part of a campaign of censorship. Furthermore, given that people wear shirts, I don’t think you can separate an image of a shirt being worn by a person, and the impact on the wearer of the shirt.
This particular episode didn’t end up badly for anyone involved, but broadly speaking, posting public images of people you disagree with or don’t like, without their consent, is a form of doxxing. It goes against all liberal political ideals. It can end up engendering “discussions that would not have otherwise happened”. So can sending death threats.
Pocketjacks, obviously I agree with you as a general matter about economic coercion and censorship. But (and I assume you don’t disagree, correct me if I’m wrong) voluntarily speaking at a news conference, in front of news cameras, is a form of consent for having your image (of you at that news conference) reproduced.
Yes, I wouldn’t disagree with that. There would be a difference whether one was acting in capacity as a public or private citizen.
Agreed and agreed, in general. However, 1) this is the image of a shirt deliberately worn by a guy who knew he would be on camera during a press conference-type event, and it is the shirt itself which is the issue; 2) as I said, Pete Patriot in comment #25 was calling this criticism suppression of the image itself (“You saw an image you didn’t like on tv and decided to suppress it, that’s censorship.”). I agree that we should be careful to note what contexts other people are using for their comments, as you asked of us; please give me the same courtesy.
In my experience, liberals do take this distinction seriously. I have heard lots of criticism of, e.g., the kind of attacks waged against some of the women who spoke out in GamerGate; even when discussing the resulting suppression of speech, I didn’t (by and large) hear those attacks called censorship.
This is at least partially about professionalism. Is it it censorship for my boss to tell me to wear khakis without mustard stains?
I mean, look … I’ll be thrilled if the consensus is yes, because it really opens up my options, sartorially.
—Myca
I interpreted Pete’s statement as saying that the general image of scantily-clad cartoon women is one you (general you) don’t like, and you want the bearer of that image to suffer as many negative consequences as possible to send a message.
I have some sympathy for the general mindset behind this position, if it really does accurately describe Pete’s. I disagree with whichever poster above compared sexy images of women with racist imagery. (How would one square this with the fact that you can see scantily clad women all the time on TV and magazine racks while overt racist imagery is very, very rare? Either you must believe that white women have it many, many times worse than any racial minority, or the sexy imagery is not even anywhere close to racist ones in severity. Have to pick one or the other.)
However, it doesn’t really work in this case, because as I and others have pointed out, regulation of attire is perfectly acceptable in a professional setting, and since the guy’s a minor celebrity (apparently) with a public image and the criticizers were (rightfully) pretty moderate in tone and number, I’m not sure the latter represented the disproportionately powerful party.
But it was wrong to do that, correct? Things like that shouldn’t be a normal, legitimate, sanctioned part of public discourse? I’m not seeing the daylight between suppression of speech that’s wrong, and censorship. I see a similar problem with all other potential arguments to ward off the “c” word in an attempt to protect one’s rear flank for the next time (for illiberals, that’ll probably be within the next hour) when they want to enforce censorshi… I mean, suppression of speech, against an opinion they don’t like.
“It’s terrible for private employers to sanction employees based on non-work-related political opinions/small town mobs to burn books/people to scare public speakers from making engagements/people to terminally disrupt people’s jobs, professional or social lives, but it’s not censorship!”
Um… why is it terrible? Is it not just one group of private citizens voicing their criticisms of others’ opinions? Is this not merely the “consequence” part of “freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences”? Why does this sort of behavior merit any criticism at all?
No matter how carefully you dovetail with semantics, there is no way to answer these questions without re-deriving the same arguments as to why they’re censorship in the first place. And said dovetailing with semantics doesn’t get rid of the obvious hypocrisy in insisting it’s not censorship when one on your side does it for a position you agree with, in a clear attempt to minimize the terribleness of what just transpired. Not to anyone with two eyes who isn’t already part of your choir.
So “doxxing” now encompasses republishing images taken during a public news conference?
Speaking of those oppressive SJWs:
http://wondermark.com/1k71/
No, I made that clear in #37. Posting a private photo would be doxxing, however.
“Those oppressive SJWs”, or illiberals, as I like to call a particular sort of so-called liberal that encompasses them, are the steppers, and their victims the ones on the bottom of the pile.
Pocketjacks, disagreeing with you that the word censorship should apply to nongovermental actors doesn’t mean that I disagree with you about the wrongness of some of the actions people take which you would call censorship; and if your chain of logic that says they are wrong depends on using that one specific word to refer to it, I don’t think it’s a very solid logical argument. Also, having read it again, Ken White seems to agree with you on the use of the term censorship to apply to nongovernmental actors, so clearly I was wrong earlier when I said I didn’t see it used that way by liberals.
Because it doesn’t say “freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from ANY CONSEQUENCE EVER! UP TO AND INCLUDING DEATH!” It just says “consequence.” Reasonable people can and do have debates over where to draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate consequences. (You can even find a number of them on this blog, should you care to.) Ken White’s post–or at least the part Amp quoted; I’ll admit to not having read the unquoted parts–is pushing back against people who draw the line such that critical/analytical speech is seen as suppression/censorship. I’m not really sure why you’ve decided that that opinion means everyone here is in favor of people losing their jobs for saying things we don’t like, or why you keep “disagreeing” with me by saying stuff I already said or implied.
I’m really enjoying the alternate universe where Ken White is a radical leftist.
Bullshit. You said overt, not me. I’d be fine in calling out a white women for garden variety cultural appropriation in her dress.
You get that if people dox a feminist to shut her up – and this leads to media outrage and further press – they don’t get to claim credit for stimulating wider debate. While I understand that lots of people are now interested in this shirt, the neopuritans don’t get credit for that.
Not really, this is classic censorship, the supression of imagery because of moral distaste – it’s nothing to do with art criticism or slovenly dress. It’s very positive that (and I’m not drawing artistic comparisions) you are ashamed of being in the company of people who painted fig leaves on frescos in the Sistine Chapel, or destroyed da Vinci’s Leda and the Swan, or took a cleaver to the Rokeby Venus.
There is a genuine dissonance between the censorious impulses of neopuritans and the freedom of expression traditions of the liberal left and I’m glad you see this and it troubles you, I really wish you’d just pick the right side and stop making excuses for these people.
Didn’t say radical; assumed he was liberal based on the content of the post, but I’ll happily admit my ignorance as to his political leanings.
Assuming you’re addressing me, at least partially, since you quoted me just before this… I don’t have a problem with images of scantily-clad women in general. I have a problem with that image in the specific context here. I can simultaneously believe “expressions of sexuality are great” and “expressions of sexuality are not appropriate in absolutely every instance” without being hypocritical. Here, in a field where women’s presumed sexual attractiveness is occasionally but still too often used to undermine their competence at their job, I can say that this was an offensive choice we should criticize, while also thinking that the shirt would have been inoffensive (though, IMO, kinda tacky) in other situations.
Look: I find it ridiculous that we’re having the “criticizing people is censorship!!” argument about this particular instance, which was one of the calmest and most rational takedowns of Accidental Privilege-Induced Blindness I’ve ever seen*. If this is not an acceptable way to talk about people doing stupid and hurtful things, then we can’t talk about it ever.
*acknowledging here that my experiences were weighted to the scientific responses–it’s possible it was more vitriolic elsewhere, though I haven’t seen evidence of that yet.
I missed the part where feminists ran up and threw ink all over Taylor’s shirt. Seriously, no one suggested destroying the shirt, banning the shirt, or that the shirt could never be o.k. anywhere ever. No one would have cared (or even known) if he wore the shirt to the beach or a nightclub. Also, what Harlequin said @ 49.
@Kate: I’ve seen a few people saying that the shirt is inappropriate regardless of the situation (although they would concede it’s more inappropriate at work). Can provide links if you’re curious. Not saying they’re representative of anti-shirt feeling as a whole, but it’s inaccurate to say nobody is saying this.
Oh goodness, are we back to ‘only uptight prudes who hate the beauteous art of the female form hate on this shirt’? Seriously?
Moxon Ivery – I was referring to those in the thread here who Pete Patriot was addressing. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Does it though? I’d like it if it were true. But…
Words matter. At the risk of stirring the Godwin of gender discussions, how would you credit someone who insisted that forced or coerced sex between people already in a relationship isn’t really rape, but still agreed it was very bad? Would you consider this distinction meaningless? Would you consider it meaningful, but still be willing to count such a person on your side? Or would you think anyone who does this is just trying to minimize the wrongness of the action?
In a vacuum, agreeing about everything (or most things) up to but not including the use of a particular word is very small potatoes. In real life, the people for whom this distinction is the most important, and constantly try to re-center discussions about that-thing-which-they-claim-they-find-wrong to be about it*, are those who don’t really see the action as wrong (at least when they do it) and are trying to defend it.
*Again, not talking about this thread.
How covert would you have to get before any meaningfulness equivalence can be made?
Something that’s never okay is never okay for a reason. Something that’s inappropriate in some contexts, but is okay in many others and can widely be seen in everyday life, is that way for a reason as well. In some areas of life it’s even encouraged and celebrated, whereas in the former case it’s never encouraged, even in the mild cases that most people don’t feel like fighting about. It’s not comparable at all.
Tbh, censorship vs. “slovenly dress” seems like a false dichotomy. The latter seems to evoke someone not tucking in their shirt properly or wearing tattered jeans to work. Professional environments can and do regulate dress well beyond that, and I don’t think anyone really has a problem with that.
Would depend on what they mean by “very bad”. If they meant “meets all the criteria and reasoning Harlequin uses to define rape, but just want a different word for stranger rapes vs acquaintance rapes vs spousal rapes,” I’d consider that a useless or even harmful semantic distinction, but we would still be able to have some productive discussions on rape prevention and prosecution, probably. If they meant “less severe than stranger rapes,” then I would have a problem with the content of their argument–but I would have the same problem with someone who *did* use the word rape, but thought spousal rape was less severe than stranger rape. To use a more real-world example, I’m able to have productive conversations with people who think we should reserve the term “racism” for severe actions, but who agree that lesser injuries are still motivated by race-related animus; again, I think they’re wrong about that semantic distinction, but that doesn’t preclude talking about the parts where we agree.
I’m not disagreeing with the fact that semantic arguments are important (that would be deeply hypocritical of me). I’m just disagreeing with this mindset:
which is familiar to me as a thing that’s happened, but certainly doesn’t describe all the arguments in this vein I’ve ever had.
I seriously can’t believe that this is even an argument we’re having. Saying “wearing this shirt for a news conference is a shitty idea, and he shouldn’t have done it,” just flat-out isn’t censorship. It’s criticism. Calling criticism censorship is the refuge of people who can’t handle having their shitty actions or ideas criticized.
Nobody (or at least nobody much … I’m sure some people are saying whatever) is saying that he ought to be prohibited by law from wearing this shirt, they’re just saying that thought he has the option of wearing whatever he likes, to wear this shirt in this circumstance is a bad decision.
By way of analogy – I support the right of neo-Nazis to march, and I am an active member of the ACLU, the organization who defended that right in Skokie. Still, I see no problem in also saying “holding and espousing neo-Nazi beliefs is a shitty thing to do, and they should not.” See how that works? Supporting the right while criticizing the exercise of that right.
—-Myca
Please do go and read the White article quoted above, the “best thing I’ve seen in the meta-debate”. White immediately invokes harrassment law as to why Taylor should be stopped wearing the shirt by his employer, and then says “it’s criticism not censorship”. This is what first provoked me because it’s an obviously idiotic statement that black = white.
Is this the passage you’re referring to Pete?
If so, that is not censorship. He suggest no consequences aside from a stern talking to and the person is still free to wear what he wants on his own time.
How much more ridiculously trivial do their ‘triggers’ need to be, anyway?
Somehow it’s always feminists who are overreacting, while those who are criticizing feminists at the time are mere demonstrating righteous yet proportionate outrage. By calling criticism “censorship”. (Criticism of the criticism is, of course, not censorship.)
From Amp’s link to Conor’s post:
From Amanda Marcotte, writing primarily about that same tweet:
Phil Plait:
If you think this isn’t a big deal, well, by itself, it’s not a huge one. But it’s not by itself, is it? This event didn’t happen in a vacuum. It comes when there is still a tremendously leaky pipeline for women from undergraduate science classes to professional scientist. It comes when having a female name on an application to do research at a university makes it less likely to get accepted,† and have your research paper cited less. It comes when there is still not even close to parity in hiring and retaining women in the sciences.
Myca @56: You don’t get it. Just saying “Nuh UH, I think that T-shirt is awesome and you are wrong” doesn’t have any moral punch. It’s just a disagreement over sartorial taste and workplace mores.
But if instead the discussion becomes about Censorship and Art and Freedom, ah, now I’m-right-and-you-are-wrong has some oomph to it. Now you’re not just stuffy; you’re a fellow traveler with the type of person who vandalizes priceless art, you’re a spiritual comrade with misogynists who want women to be hidden from hairline to ankle.
I’m not saying that everyone ranting about censorship is deliberately acting in bad faith, mind you. There are undoubtedly people who have actually convinced themselves that if work attire is not a 24/7 titty show, somewhere in the afterlife Cotton Mather gains experience points.