how is what he said a "sweeping and dismissive generalization"? he's complaining about women with 'golden uterus complex', which is not a phrase i've heard before but i know immediately what he means. some women derive a sense of superiority from the existence of their reproductive organs, and it can get pretty annoying. he is specifically complaining about those women, not all women.
the tech community has a severe case of male guilt when it comes to things like this. Mark has done nothing wrong, and there's no reason for other male software developers to be apologising for his actions. he complained about annoying people - there's nothing wrong with that, and there's no reason for women in general to be getting up in arms about it.
When you complain about annoying people by making their gender the primary basis of identification, you are most definitely making a sweeping generalization.
You are part of the problem.
You are correct that there's no reason for other people to apologize for him, because he needs to do that himself, if he can be convinced that his sexism is a problem. There is also no need for other people to be defending his sexism.
Here's a hint: a complaint about "annoying people" should aim to be more specific than 50% of the population.
Once we're debating the political correctness of a statement someone made of Twitter, we've already lost. Mark's comment shouldn't harm female developers, because they should be busy working on something with other female and male developers and not having fights on Twitter.
She’s calling it like she sees it and even ignoring the right or wrong of it for a minute, seeing the less than subtle mysogyny in some (if not most) of these comments I’d say she’s right. In gender as wel as in race issues you don’t go around telling people they’re wrong to feel they’re being singled out. Instead of being dicks about it we should strive to build a friendlier atmosphere for everybody so women, gay people or whoever else doesn’t feel they’re being targeted as a group when conflict arises.
Mark Jaquith here. Happy to clear some things up (and would appreciate it if you could make this comment visible on the thread).
Here is the text of my tweet:
> Imagine if men talked like women with "Golden Uterus Complex" do… "Excuse me, but which one of us has a penis? That's what I thought."
First, the definition of "golden uterus complex". This phrase was brought to my attention by Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, a doctor of Clinical Psychology. Dr. Palmatier assigns a great many attributes to this personality, but the one most related to my point is:
> the golden uterus believes that having birthed a child makes them better and more knowledgeable than others; e.g., the “Well you don’t have kids so how would you know anything?” woman
This phrase doesn't apply to "women". I wasn't making any kind of blanket statement about women. I wasn't even making a blanket statement about mothers. I was referring to women who have carried a pregnancy to term and who exhibit specific behavior characteristics. I sure hope that how people behave is an aspect upon which they can be judged.
For context, it is a picture on Facebook of a mother feeding her newborn baby solid food — a seriously dangerous, ignorant, and irresponsible thing to do. Someone in the comments tells her that you shouldn't feed a baby that little solid food. The mother responds "Well it my kid not Yours so what I do with him is none of your concern thanks" [sic].
It didn't matter to her that the commentator was correct, and that what she was doing was potentially lethal to her baby. She gave birth to the baby, so in her mind she's the expert and the ultimate arbiter of what is right for the baby. I've even seen this complex be applied to matters other than child care, as if the act of giving birth confers all manner of sagacious powers.
I'm not discounting the power of personal experience. I was present for the births of both of my children, and even as a mostly-spectator, it was a unimaginably transforming experience. What I am objecting to is the idea that childbirth automatically makes a woman the ultimate authority on child care or anything else. This is the sort of attitude that has contributed to the anti-vaccine nonsense that has been plaguing some Western countries in recent years.
My tweet contrasted the way that mothers with this behavioral complex openly talk about the utilization of their reproductive organs for childbirth being the source of their claimed superiority, and I pondered what it would be like if men claimed and talked about their reproductive organs as the source of their supposed superiority. It was a reductio ad absurdum, clearly. Men (well, most men post high school) don't bring up the use of their sex organs in polite conversation as a trump card. Some (nota bene: SOME) women do. Sexist men usually exhibit a sexism that is much more closely tied to feelings of mental superiority and greater physical strength. I find it to be an interesting social sexual difference to how some women express a sense of superiority over men.
People do reductio ad absurdum comparisons about social sexual imbalances all the time. Like how it's weird to imagine women yelling things out of a car at an attractive male jogger. Or making a joke about how if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament in most religions. I guess I made the assumption that my Twitter audience would get that (a) I was proposing a ridiculous scenario, partly for comedic effect and (b) that I also did it to provoke thought about quirky social sexual imbalances. Maybe that was too much to assume for such a constricting medium such as Twitter.
But in any case, my intention and meaning could have been discovered by Ms. Nabors by either asking me for clarification, or doing a simple web search for the phrase, either of which would have immediately made it clear that the phrase refers to a behavior exhibited by a subset of the subset of women who have given birth, and it is not in any way a slur against women or mothers (I will grant that it is a slur against people who exhibit this behavior, behavior being an acceptable thing to criticize).
Instead of seeking out my meaning, Ms. Nabors quite publicly called me an "ass", accused me of making "sweeping and dismissive generalizations" about women, implied that I was socially inept (while also making her own sweeping generalization about the social skills of developers), called me openly hostile to women, and called my remarks a symptom of a boys-club attitude within the developer community.
I'll leave it to you to decide whether she fairly judged my actions.
The fascinating part here, to me, is that actually it's the "this is my child therefore butt out" argument - which isn't even the golden uterus complex thing - that would be "you haven't given birth to a child therefore butt out".
I can imagine a similarly stupid male saying exactly the same thing except perhaps for saying 'our kid' rather than 'my kid'.
How you jumped from there to your Golden Uterus Complex joke, I don't know.
What I do know is, had you typed out the text of your tweet into one of many of the private chat rooms of various sorts that I'm part of, I would probably have laughed.
However, I don't believe it had any place in a public twitter feed that also contains technical-related stuff and therefore may get followed by people who don't know you personally. My public twitter account is somewhat restricted in what topics I cover on it for pretty much precisely this reason.
That’s an impressive explanation. And it entirely fails to address the point. Like the other commentor said, your remark has no place in the public forum. You can find my opinion a bit further in the thread. Main point is: your supposed intention has little to do with it.
Imagine the kind of world we would be living in if people felt so entitled, by their identities and the things they do and have, that they felt justified in dismissing the needs and opinions of other people as unimportant by comparison.
I love how people seem to have trouble with the idea that Golden Uterus Complex isn't an offensive term to use.
It's the genderedness. If he'd called it Golden Genitals Complex I might've been less bothered.
But really, it's "argument that superior experience guarantees superior knowledge", and whether that is on the basis of the ownership of a vagina, a penis, a marriage license, a car, or really anything else, it's the same type of stupidity, and I'd like to see it called out as that.
These are positive statements, one however has a racial implication, and the other has a "genderedness" aspect.
It isn't offensive to realize they're are differences between us. Unless, of course, we really want to bring the "smooth area" from kid's dolls into the adult world.
I've actually never heard the phrase "golden uterus complex", but I seriously wonder if it's any different from calling a black person "uppity". Which is also not cool.
I have in fact been in the room when someone has actually said this. It was intended as a joke and the lady to whom he was addressing his query (who just happened to be his boss) was also in fact highly amused by it.
All the other men just sat there with their mouths literally hanging open.
Nail a huge, purple dildo to your office door, and enjoy the quiet solitude of a nag-free, gossip-free, rage-free, single-gender work environment, where you can get stuff done, and in which you may occasionally stroll without pants. Seriously: Either you are qualified for the job, or you aren't. If you are, then stop claiming offense over gender or race or whatever, because all that does is create further division, and not the enlightenment which you expect. What matters is not what the other person says, but rather, how you respond. Every minute that you spend being negative, is a minute you could have spent on a project that will get you that raise or promotion.
Clearly you've never worked at an all-male environment if you think that would necessarily by nag-free, gossip-free and rage-free. In my experience, an environment without women devolves into some "Lord of the Flies"-type shit pretty quickly unless you're super careful about who you hire, personality-wise.
Seriously, all research done on the matter indicates that women are just as effective as software development as men, so the lack of women in software development indicates it's far from the meritocracy you seem to imagine it is.
This "either you are qualified for the job, or you aren't so it's ok to act like an asshole" bullshit has gotten pretty old in 2012. Here's a clue: if you're a lead developer creating an environment that's hostile to a large pool of potentially highly skilled developers, you're not fucking qualified, regardless of your coding skills. Otherwise, what's the point of the word "lead"?
[+] [-] notatoad|14 years ago|reply
the tech community has a severe case of male guilt when it comes to things like this. Mark has done nothing wrong, and there's no reason for other male software developers to be apologising for his actions. he complained about annoying people - there's nothing wrong with that, and there's no reason for women in general to be getting up in arms about it.
[+] [-] dsr_|14 years ago|reply
You are part of the problem.
You are correct that there's no reason for other people to apologize for him, because he needs to do that himself, if he can be convinced that his sexism is a problem. There is also no need for other people to be defending his sexism.
Here's a hint: a complaint about "annoying people" should aim to be more specific than 50% of the population.
[+] [-] Drbble|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rembrand|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markjaquith|14 years ago|reply
Here is the text of my tweet:
> Imagine if men talked like women with "Golden Uterus Complex" do… "Excuse me, but which one of us has a penis? That's what I thought."
First, the definition of "golden uterus complex". This phrase was brought to my attention by Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, a doctor of Clinical Psychology. Dr. Palmatier assigns a great many attributes to this personality, but the one most related to my point is:
> the golden uterus believes that having birthed a child makes them better and more knowledgeable than others; e.g., the “Well you don’t have kids so how would you know anything?” woman
This phrase doesn't apply to "women". I wasn't making any kind of blanket statement about women. I wasn't even making a blanket statement about mothers. I was referring to women who have carried a pregnancy to term and who exhibit specific behavior characteristics. I sure hope that how people behave is an aspect upon which they can be judged.
Here's the specific thing that triggered my tweet: http://i.imgur.com/GxYf8.png
For context, it is a picture on Facebook of a mother feeding her newborn baby solid food — a seriously dangerous, ignorant, and irresponsible thing to do. Someone in the comments tells her that you shouldn't feed a baby that little solid food. The mother responds "Well it my kid not Yours so what I do with him is none of your concern thanks" [sic].
It didn't matter to her that the commentator was correct, and that what she was doing was potentially lethal to her baby. She gave birth to the baby, so in her mind she's the expert and the ultimate arbiter of what is right for the baby. I've even seen this complex be applied to matters other than child care, as if the act of giving birth confers all manner of sagacious powers.
I'm not discounting the power of personal experience. I was present for the births of both of my children, and even as a mostly-spectator, it was a unimaginably transforming experience. What I am objecting to is the idea that childbirth automatically makes a woman the ultimate authority on child care or anything else. This is the sort of attitude that has contributed to the anti-vaccine nonsense that has been plaguing some Western countries in recent years.
My tweet contrasted the way that mothers with this behavioral complex openly talk about the utilization of their reproductive organs for childbirth being the source of their claimed superiority, and I pondered what it would be like if men claimed and talked about their reproductive organs as the source of their supposed superiority. It was a reductio ad absurdum, clearly. Men (well, most men post high school) don't bring up the use of their sex organs in polite conversation as a trump card. Some (nota bene: SOME) women do. Sexist men usually exhibit a sexism that is much more closely tied to feelings of mental superiority and greater physical strength. I find it to be an interesting social sexual difference to how some women express a sense of superiority over men.
People do reductio ad absurdum comparisons about social sexual imbalances all the time. Like how it's weird to imagine women yelling things out of a car at an attractive male jogger. Or making a joke about how if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament in most religions. I guess I made the assumption that my Twitter audience would get that (a) I was proposing a ridiculous scenario, partly for comedic effect and (b) that I also did it to provoke thought about quirky social sexual imbalances. Maybe that was too much to assume for such a constricting medium such as Twitter.
But in any case, my intention and meaning could have been discovered by Ms. Nabors by either asking me for clarification, or doing a simple web search for the phrase, either of which would have immediately made it clear that the phrase refers to a behavior exhibited by a subset of the subset of women who have given birth, and it is not in any way a slur against women or mothers (I will grant that it is a slur against people who exhibit this behavior, behavior being an acceptable thing to criticize).
Instead of seeking out my meaning, Ms. Nabors quite publicly called me an "ass", accused me of making "sweeping and dismissive generalizations" about women, implied that I was socially inept (while also making her own sweeping generalization about the social skills of developers), called me openly hostile to women, and called my remarks a symptom of a boys-club attitude within the developer community.
I'll leave it to you to decide whether she fairly judged my actions.
[+] [-] mst|14 years ago|reply
The fascinating part here, to me, is that actually it's the "this is my child therefore butt out" argument - which isn't even the golden uterus complex thing - that would be "you haven't given birth to a child therefore butt out".
I can imagine a similarly stupid male saying exactly the same thing except perhaps for saying 'our kid' rather than 'my kid'.
How you jumped from there to your Golden Uterus Complex joke, I don't know.
What I do know is, had you typed out the text of your tweet into one of many of the private chat rooms of various sorts that I'm part of, I would probably have laughed.
However, I don't believe it had any place in a public twitter feed that also contains technical-related stuff and therefore may get followed by people who don't know you personally. My public twitter account is somewhat restricted in what topics I cover on it for pretty much precisely this reason.
[+] [-] Rembrand|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cantastoria|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] negelirelden|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mst|14 years ago|reply
It's the genderedness. If he'd called it Golden Genitals Complex I might've been less bothered.
But really, it's "argument that superior experience guarantees superior knowledge", and whether that is on the basis of the ownership of a vagina, a penis, a marriage license, a car, or really anything else, it's the same type of stupidity, and I'd like to see it called out as that.
[+] [-] ramblerman|14 years ago|reply
Women have that motherly touch.
These are positive statements, one however has a racial implication, and the other has a "genderedness" aspect.
It isn't offensive to realize they're are differences between us. Unless, of course, we really want to bring the "smooth area" from kid's dolls into the adult world.
[+] [-] fhwang|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Craiggybear|14 years ago|reply
I have in fact been in the room when someone has actually said this. It was intended as a joke and the lady to whom he was addressing his query (who just happened to be his boss) was also in fact highly amused by it.
All the other men just sat there with their mouths literally hanging open.
[+] [-] ThaddeusQuay2|14 years ago|reply
Nail a huge, purple dildo to your office door, and enjoy the quiet solitude of a nag-free, gossip-free, rage-free, single-gender work environment, where you can get stuff done, and in which you may occasionally stroll without pants. Seriously: Either you are qualified for the job, or you aren't. If you are, then stop claiming offense over gender or race or whatever, because all that does is create further division, and not the enlightenment which you expect. What matters is not what the other person says, but rather, how you respond. Every minute that you spend being negative, is a minute you could have spent on a project that will get you that raise or promotion.
[+] [-] gensym|14 years ago|reply
Seriously, all research done on the matter indicates that women are just as effective as software development as men, so the lack of women in software development indicates it's far from the meritocracy you seem to imagine it is.
This "either you are qualified for the job, or you aren't so it's ok to act like an asshole" bullshit has gotten pretty old in 2012. Here's a clue: if you're a lead developer creating an environment that's hostile to a large pool of potentially highly skilled developers, you're not fucking qualified, regardless of your coding skills. Otherwise, what's the point of the word "lead"?