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<Okay, so when you start paraphrasing Susan Powter, something's weird>

The Kathy Sierra thing, or rather, the hysteria surrounding it has officially become just fucking stupid. It's no longer about oh, Kathy and the threats made against her. I'm not going to talk about if she's reacting correctly. Fuck, I don't know her, who am I to say? But I will say, that for me to be turned into a shut-in, it's going to take a tad more than "beat the bitch with a bat".

Anyway, the sign of the silliness of the hysteria surrounding this was when I was reading Winer's take on this and thinking "damned, Dave's not totally off base here." Anyone who knows me, knows that my opinion of Winer is smart guy, but a fucking tool of a human being. He's not unique there. But for me to agree with him? That's weeeeeird man. Really weird.

He says:

People aren't going to like this, but it's true -- when a woman asks for a riot she gets one, and almost no one comes to the defense of a man who is attacked. Who's more vulnerable? Well, honestly, it's not always a woman.

More from Dave:

Those who provided the riot Ms Sierra asked for, unknowingly, I'm sure, attacked at least one person whose health is pretty fragile. I wonder how y'all feel now that you know that. I wonder how you'd feel if that person died in the midst of the shitstorm. Someday if we don't change the herd mentality of the tech blogosphere, that is likely to happen. I don't want to be part of the herd on that day, that's why I won't join herds.

This bit's not bad, although I disagree with the part at the end:

And out fo all that was said I think Doc nailed it -- we got used by a few trolls, and no one knows who they are. Everyone played a role in this, the people who stopped blogging, the people who threatened their friends, the people who called it a gang rape, and yes indeed, the mean kids. But they've paid enough. It's time to welcome them back into the blogging world, and in a few weeks, ask them to reflect on what they learned. These are all intelligent and creative people, who have acted badly. But they didn't deserve what they got.

I'd have secretly been amused had one of the "villans" been a single mother. With a handicap. Boy, that makes the anger of the righteous go all hurty I bet:

YOU (virtually) DID BAD THINGS TO A WOMAN! YOU SAID MEAN THINGS TO A WOMAN! DIE INFIDEL!

Um..shit..um...you're sure you're a woman...hmm?...single mother?....got a handicap too?...well fuck...um...GET THE OTHER ONES, THEY'RE MEN!!!

That would have been a very interesting scenario.

So aside from me mostly agreeing with Winer, there's a few things about this that are starting to make me care less and less about the reaction of people to this, and thinking that maybe, in the long run, this will be a good thing, as it showed that even the great crusaders are still just a bunch of howler monkeys throwing poop. Actually, there are four common threads now showing up:

Blame Anonymity

If the posters would have put their real names, then this wouldn't have happened.

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. First, you can't prove fuck all in a comment log. All I get are IP addresses, email addresses, etc. Yeah, you gotta put something down. But shit, I can't absolutely prove who wrote a comment, and I'm not exactly a n00b to the ways of networking. The best I can do is an IP address. I can tie it down, (maybe) to the machine. That's assuming the IP address is legit. There are tons of ways to deal with that, none are very hard. OpenID is getting thrown out, but that's not going to work. See, people lie. I know this will shock many of you, but there are people who actually will not tell the truth about their identity. They'll even, (HORRORS), steal someone else's identity and PRETEND TO BE THEM. Oh my, Ah've got the vaypahs! Short of some really draconian shit that will only be enforceable in a single country, or relatively small group of countries, you can't prove identity for shit on the internet. Another really stupid idea is "Don't allow anyone without a real email address". By "real", read "ISP I don't approve of". Usually Hotmail and Yahoo. Could be Gmail too. Damn, elitest much? What's next, requiring you to set up sendmail as a test?

The other one I love is the anonymity is for cowards thing. Because if you were a "real man", you'd use your "real" name. Evidently, men don't lie. Ever. (Have ANY of these idiots ever seen a guy trying to get some 'tang or some ass for the night? Guys will lie their ASSES off to get laid.) Yes, I've seen that phrase..."real men" used. I guess women are incapable of courage. (Well, some think they kind of are, but we'll deal with that later.) Lemme tell you, based on the mob mentality I'm seeing, and the rank stupidity and viciousness used to justify it, I'm thinking that we need more anonymity, not less. Holy crap people, mob rule is not the way here. Think for yourself once. Just once. It'll hurt at first, but you'll loosen up and it'll be okay.

The worst part is, anonymity isn't the problem. Hell, Kathy was naming names with ease. She knew, (or thought she knew) the identities of quite a few of those involved. Hmm...so much for the anonymity theory. I also love the idea that adding a name enobles you. What, so if I call you a diseased douchebag, it's somehow better if I put my name on it? Is this what passes for logic?

Blame Profanity/Strong Language/Rudeness

If people talked nice to each other, this wouldn't have happened, and using profanity means you're stupid

Okay, it must be said: Fuck that shit. My dad told me an interesting story once about the difference between the north and the south with regard to race relations.

See, in the south, they just said, "We don't rent to niggers in our town" and were done with it. It was wrong, and fucking stupid, but it was to the point. If you were a black man, don't even bother trying. Not gonna happen. Racist and mean, but saved everyone time. In the north, you'd get the sad face and the nice "Oh gosh, I'm so sorry, we've no vacancies". Over and over until you got the hint that what they were really saying was "We don't rent to niggers in our town". Sure they said it nicer, but it wasn't any better in the long run. Don't ever confuse politeness for decency.

The other part of this is the "profanity is a sign of lowness" thing. I'd love to know where this elitist bullshit keeps coming from. If you really think that using profanity is a sure sign of stupidity and illiteracy, man, don't go outside, because you are indeed the sucker being born every minute. If you don't like using profanity, great, party on Garth. But don't get all "I'm better than you, for I don't use profanity, and you do." Sorry Bob, that just makes you a smug dick with delusions of adequacy. You're still not William F. Buckley, even if you wear the suits.

Again, the problem was neither anonymity or profanity, it was assholes making threats. That's the only problem: Assholes making threats. Trying to push an anti-anonymous-comment/anti-profanity agenda as the "causes" of this is lame and stupid.

oh my god, they did this to a woman

This is one of the most hypocritical parts of all this, and again, Dave Winer was right. If this was a man, no one would care. But because there's a hoo-ha involved, then it's a TRAJEDI. So making threats to men is okay? What, is attacking them okay? Beating them? Raping them? Killing them?

I just want to know where the line is. Here's a radical idea...what happened to Kathy is wrong. Not because she's a woman, but because she's a person. She's a human being. Threatening people is wrong. Not more wrong because she's got TEH BOOBIES. If it happened to a guy, just as wrong. Hell Scoble said he's gotten threats before. Now, Scoble likes to flame bait, so that's not even a little surprising. But it's still wrong. It's just as wrong. Not more, not less. Equally as wrong. Let's rewrite his last bit from:

It’s this culture of attacking women that has especially got to stop. I really don’t care if you attack me. I take those attacks in stride. But, whenever I post a video of a female technologist there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and other things that simply wouldn’t happen if the interviewee were a man.

It makes me realize just how ascerbic this industry and culture are toward women. This just makes me ill.

Women are helpless when attacked by a man

I cannot, literally can not adequately describe the bile that rises in me when I read those words, or anything similar, especially when written or spoken by women. The worst part is, women use them more often. Boadicea weeps at that. This idea that women are helpless against men, the concept that they must fear all men, this societal teaching of women that no matter how brave a front they put up, they are really helpless victims is wrong. It is not just wrong, it is vile. It is offensive in the extreme, and it creates a legion of victims with every generation indoctrinated by the effluent its practitioners and believers spout forth.

It creates hollow people. Women who are naught but brave fascia over trembling foundation. It creates women who think they need a man because without one, they are helpless. It's crap, and its wrong. It is also something that I not only refuse to believe in, but actively fight. There's no excuse to be helpless purely because you're female. There's no validity to the idea that women need protecting. Women are not delicate flowers, they are people. They are fully capable of defending themselves verbally, emotionally, and when needed, physically too. It is only this perverted socialization that makes them think otherwise. It is only years of being taught that they need to be protected that turns the women who buy this chum into victims.

It's bullshit. There are exactly two times I've been convinced that I was about to get my ass beat. Not just smacked around, but beat down. Both were at the hands of women. The only thing that saved me was that it was in a martial arts class, and the teacher was there to save my keister. To this day, I've no doubt that had they wished, one would have drove my rectum up into my skull and the other would have methodically broke my spine by grabbing me by the neck and swinging me around like a noisemaker. You want to say women are helpless, go peddle your bullshit somewhere else. It's not getting bought here.

You want to do something to keep women like Kathy from being victimized? Stop helping society create women like Kathy, and all the others who run for the hills when the shit hits the fan. Help society create not victims, but people who happen to be female. Help stop this fucking obscenity that creates a victim class out of 60% of humanity.

Stop looking for bullshit answers that satisfy the need to do "something". Chasing after anonymity, blaming profanity, telling women "It's okay, you're just helpless", it's all bullshit. It's also bullshit to insist that people speak in bland tones, and say nothing that might offend. The truth is, there's no real solution to this particular problem. None. There's small things you can do, like not allowing the same dingaling to troll up your comments, but even then, one person's troll is another person's speaker to bloggers. You can't make people act in a certain way. It's not in our nature. That's not to say do nothing. When someone starts threatening someone, speak up. Tell them that's a load of crap. If it starts to go from inane to troublesome, call the cops. But stop thinking the problem is anonymity, or profanity, or the innate helplessness of women.

One day, people are going to stop being whiny little dinks just because someone said they were full of shit about something. You want to know why our kids think we're full of shit? Well, what would you think of someone who told you "They're just words, shrug it off", then flies off the fucking handle because a blogger in Omaha said they were wrong? Maybe, just maybe, far too many of us are full of shit, and our kids see that all too well.

When people stop taking every damned disagreement as a personal attack, maybe then the idiocy that has been ignited over Kathy Sierra will stop. But I doubt it.

Technorati Tags: Mobthink, Hysteria, Women

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