On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Scott Jones <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Friday, October 9, 2015 at 6:08:47 AM UTC-4, Stefan Karpinski wrote:
>>
>> No, it's the sexualization specifically. If we had named the language
>> "James", people would not be joking about how they were spending late nights
>> with James or commenting on how attractive James is. Perhaps it's our bad
>> for picking a feminine name, but I still like the name and hope that I don't
>> come to regret it. It makes me wince every time someone refers to Julia as
>> "she" because while that's fairly innocuous in itself, a majority of the
>> time the next statement is something that makes me uncomfortable. And if it
>> makes me unconfortable, then it's guaranteed that it makes others feel
>> unwelcomed and like outsiders – which is not ok.
Stefan, first, I owe you a "Thank you" for creating the community
standards, and a second "Thank you" for enforcing it. Very few FOSS[1]
communities care about having a CoC, much less enforcing it, so I am
glad to see that isnt the case in Julia.
> I think Sisyphuss might actually have meant "genderization", not
> "sexualization"
> (I'm not sure if English is Sisyphuss' first language, which might explain
> it).
>
> There is a big difference, and in many languages, it is not even possible to
> avoid assigning a gender to a word.
> Lua, for example, is a feminine noun (A Lua, the moon).
> You can't even talk about a language in those languages without using either
> masculine or feminine pronouns.
> ("El idioma" or "La lengua" or "El lenguaje", for example).
> Even in English, certain types of things are generally referred to with one
> gender or the other - for example, people generally use the feminine pronoun
> for boats, ships, and sometimes cars.
>
> Also, just calling something beautiful is not necessarily "sexualizing" it.
> I could say that I find Scheme's sparse syntax is beautiful, for example
> (and I have said just that in the past!).
> In English, beautiful is commonly used for things, not just women, so
> doesn't necessarily indicate any sort of sexualization.
I may not be personally offended or pushed out of Foss entirely
because I have experienced harassment, been sexually objectified or
stalked in Foss communities - I have, but a lot of women prefer to
leave, quietly. They prefer spending their time in better environments
that respected them, their time and efforts and I agree with that
observation - any Foss volunteers time and effort, irrespective of the
gender they belong to, deserves respect, so I'll echo Katie that
telling women to not get offended, not be thin-skinned is not the way
forward.
> Julia community is international, where English is not the
> first language of many speakers, I think maybe the Julia Community Standard
> should be updated.
The English language is not my native language either but that is not
an excuse to be unprofessional - sadly, a very very common theme in
Foss communities. This language would not be acceptable in a work
environment or official documentation, so why should Foss communities
put up with unprofessional behavior? This would not drive me out of
Foss but its annoying and cringe-inducing to hear unprofessional
attitudes are acceptable because this is a FOSS community where
anything goes. Not!
>>the programming language is not a person and does not have a gender.
> I think this should not be Anglo-centric, and would instead be clearer as
> follows:
> "the programming language is not a person and should not be
> anthropomorphized".
Fwiw, non-native English speakers would not be using the term
"anthropomorphized" on a regular basis (I had to search for it), but
they would definitely understand what "sexualizing" means. While
writing standards[2] or documenting terms[3] it helps to use
terminology that is commonly used and easily understandable. Watering
down the terms will only create scope for more arguments that the
reader misunderstood the writer, exactly like some of the responses in
this thread that call out Stefan for enforcing the CoC.
> Also, I don't think that sexualizing would not happen if it had the name
> "James" (people being people, after all).
> The jokes might be less (because our society unfortunately tends to
> objectify and sexualize women more than men, and also because unfortunately
> there are many more men than women programmers), but they'd still happen.
> The jokes about a straight/bisexual woman or gay/bisexual man who spends a
> lot of late nights with James would still happen... like I said,
> people are people, and they *will* make jokes and bad puns if there is any
> opening for such.
> (it could even be a straight guy or lesbian woman - if Julia were named
> James, I'm sure I'd have been the brunt of many jokes about how I must be
> really be gay, from all the nights I've been spending with James).
Isnt that what the CoC is trying to do - clearly state that any joke
or statement that objectifies or puts down people of **any** gender is
not Ok? Its quite common to hear such jokes between friends and people
that one knows well, but given the widespread use of FOSS in business,
it (Foss) is an extension of the professional space where your
above-mentioned scenarios would not be acceptable in a public setting.
If its not acceptable in an office where one is expected to follow
professional norms, why treat Foss volunteers with any less respect
than what your co-workers deserve?
> I think the important points would be to
> 1) *gently* remind people to not anthropomorphize Julia
> 2) remind them that in English and other languages where possible, neuter
> pronouns should be used
> 3) point out that *real* cases of sexualization are not considered
> acceptable in public forums about Julia.
The Geek Feminism wiki has a longer list, as does the Rust and other
communities[1][3] so you may want to use those for reference while
improving the BR[2].
>> Carlos, I want to apologize for making an issue of this at the risk of
>> alienating or shaming you – that is absolutely not the intention and I hope
>> it doesn't have that effect. For what it's worth, I don't think that your
>> comment was meant maliciously and I wish I didn't have to say any of this.
>> But standing by our community standards is too important not to say
>> something.
+1.
>
> The sad thing here is that it seems that Carlos very good points on naming
> have been lost, because of a single line:
Yup, I was enjoying the technical discussion until that line, which ...
>>are mostly courting her because of how beautiful she is
> which in Spanish would probably not be an issue, because the "her" and "she"
> are simply how you have to say it
> (and Carlos' first language might also not be English).
... was, and to <quote> (a fortiori, this is specially true for Julia,
considering that -by now- people are mostly courting her because of
how beautiful she is). </quote>
The Latin phrase `a fortiori` when used in English[4] is an adverbial
phrase meaning "by even greater force of logic" or "all the more so",
so I dont think Stefan misread the "sexualization" aspect by a
non-native English language speaker/user.
When I first read Stefan's email I was wondering if I should thank him
publicly or privately - the former runs the risk of protests and
arguments about the need for a CoC and I chose to stay silent to avoid
the inevitable in Foss! But, its important to speak up because long
threads delving into the English language minutiae come across as a
justification for negative behaviour and while that isnt new, it
definitely makes me uncomfortable even writing this email - I am a
non-native English speaker who does not want to argue endlessly on the
semantics and etymology of natural[5] languages on a mailing list.
Most interestingly, thus far, Carlos didnt claim that (non-native
English language speaker) as an excuse, but the responses to Stefan in
this thread are making me wonder - if a core-dev is being called out
publicly for enforcing community standards, how would the community
treat a newbie (especially, a woman) who complained of being harassed,
had creepy comments in private or was stalked on IRC? Something to
think about, surely!
Till date, I have been happily promoting Julia to one-and-all, but the
community responses speaks volumes. I truly hope that the community
supports the core-devs in their efforts to make this space more
welcoming to all.
[1] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Code_of_conduct_evaluations
[2] The BR : https://github.com/JuliaLang/julialang.github.com/issues/200
[3] http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_fortiori_argument#Usage
[5] Far more productive to invest that time and energy in procuring a
linguistics degree, especially because women keep hearing similar
arguments across Foss communities - frankly, the echo chamber isnt
very convincing.
- SVAKSHA ॥ http://about.me/svaksha ॥
