Sexism.
I had long thought that Sexism was a thing of the past; that women would have the ability to do what they wanted, and would mostly not be discriminated against. And while I was not so naive to think that there was no discrimination at all, I was under the impression that any such discrimination would mostly be something the discriminator did not think of consciously. That things like people being rejected outright for a job because they were women, and, well, "women can't work as well as men", were stories of the past. At least if I did ever discriminate against women, it never was intentional.
Little did I realize how far away from the truth that was. As some troll's recent mails show, there are actually people out there who do thinkn that the influx of Women into Debian should be stopped, and that Debian should be a men only club. Our coward is too afraid to post under his real name, instead relying on tor and throwaway yahoo accounts to mask his identity. So let's call him 'Anonymous coward'. Occasionally, this is the main reason why I don't like tor; full anonymity should not be allowed, one should be able to have people stand up for what they say, and face the consequences. Anyway, that's a different story, for another time.
What puzzles me is how anyone would think that there could possibly be a correlation between orphaned packages and the existance of Debian-Women. Personally, I've been happy that there is a Debian-Women which strives to make our community more complete; the lack of women (or any considerable part of the world population, for that matter) is a serious disadvantage for any community that tries to do something for the "greater good".
Personally, I'm disgusted and offended by the mails this moron is sending; and even though I realize that there probably still is some (unconscious) discrimination against women, I can hope to safely say that Debian is tolerant regarding people that represent a minority amongst its community members. Even Jonathan Walther, whom we kicked out for (amongst other reasons) trolling on the debian-women mailinglist, never (to the best of my knowledge) said anything which implied that he thought Debian-Women should be disbanded (although he, err, had a "different" idea of what they should be doing).
I guess all this only means we don't live in a utopia, and that Debian is not free of the plagues that will hit any sufficiently large community. But that doesn't negate the fact that I'm still offended by this lunatic.
There's a very good thing in your story : the machist is ashamed and must hide himself behind an anonymous address.
That's a very good move considering that, a few years back (5 - 10 - 50 ?), it would have been the opposite. People who were in favour of gay-black-women right had to hide themselve.
It's no more the case and, yes, machist-racist-whatever will always exist. But they will be less and less each year
Well, no, I don't think so. Some people interpret silence as agreement. While I agree he should not deserve the satisfaction of a load of agreement, such posts should be met with the stiffest of resistance.
Apart from that, I was just plain offended, and needed to write it off of me. This is my blog after all.
I don't know in what world you live, but there's a very common reason for refusal to hire a woman : maternity leave. If you're a woman around 30 and without kids, you're very likely to hit the "we're too afraid you take a maternity leave in a few months" syndrom.
Anyways, there's something very stupid about the troll in question : there can't be any correlation whatsoever between women entering the project and males leaving. There always had people leaving the project for various reasons, even when women were very few. Women are still few, so very unlikely to leave. So people leaving now would be men, yes. And women enter, yes. But that's 2 different things.
Sorry, but:
"Though I'll hope for your own sake that you're gay, because I don't think you'll be able to find a girlfriend with an attitude like that.
[sexist crap removed]"
You think with that message you are any better than him? Picking on gays is any better than picking on women? Sorry, but in no way you are acting more sensible than him.... Your crap is as sexist as his, if you take a closer look. Or why do you think any gay would more welcoming him than any girl? Do you think all gays are hating women just like him?
As I've said in reply to the mail you sent to me in private:
I see your point, and though it certainly wasn't intended as such, I can see how that mail would offend gay people.
The point was more one of "men who hate women should not start a relationship with a woman" than anything else. The only alternative (apart from staying single, which was exactly the opposite of what I was suggesting in that mail) is for a man to have a relationship with another man, i.e., for them to be gay. I guess that intermixed with all the hate that I spewed in that mail, it's easy to not pick that up, but it certainly wasn't intended as hate towards gay people.
I certainly don't think that most gays hate women.
No doubt, pulling the weed from the root is better than chopping off the top. But try explaining your position to:
Abdel-Fatah,Zhao Yan,Jiang Yanyong,and many of the journalists listed at http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=113.
I think you might find that the establishments they are contending with are weeds which require more than a hand to pull, and if TOR assists, in any way, then let it be.
I'm fully supportive of your stand on sexism after all, I was raised in a "matriarchic" household
But anonymity saves Lives. "Anonymous Coward" here is just the voice of the rotting corpse of a time long since gone, but sadly, not irradicated.
I as a leftist and activist for human rights dont see the point of this post. At first there are thousand of websie that talk such crap, further on in daily life everybody gots discriminated, doesnt matter because of the sex, hair, skin , religion or even shoes. So to cry about how someone cant be so sexist and stupid will not fix that shit. Its enought that you know that you are not like him... But even you discriminated some gay people
. thats normal and lives goes on :P