Shirt of contention: How to screw it all up
Last week Chris Plant, columnist for The Verge, published a column with an idiotic headline "It doesn't matter that you put a spacecraft on a comet - your shirt is sexist", having seen an idiotic print shirt with half-naked women in explicit postures on scientist Matte Taylor. The Internet is worried. Then Matt Taylor apologized with tears in his eyes for his indiscretion - and the Internet exploded, not forgetting to add even more idiocy and complaints about how radical feminists ruin everyone's life. We explain why we lost everything in the end and how this could have been avoided.
What really happened?
Note The Verge did not appear suddenly, it is part of a long and painful discussion that has been unfolding for quite some time. This discussion is about the place of women in the scientific and IT community, the inequality that reigns there (or its absence) and ways to circumvent it (or do nothing). In Russia, they are still looking at this discussion with unambiguous bewilderment; in the same place, this stage has long passed and moved on to discuss the details. Also, there has long been a discussion about objectification, and there, too, more or less came to a consensus that the perception of women solely as a sexual object is at least wrong.
Both discussions have been shaken by the recent Gamergate, as a result of which key representatives of the feminist side were intensely persecuted. Because of this, many people who are not far from the geek, gaming, scientific and technical communities, began to feel very uncomfortable. Imagine that you live in Russia, love your country, but still share European values, and now you have a law banning gay propaganda. And this not only upsets you, but also the fact that for your European acquaintances you have become part of the homophobic system. And it is all the more important to show that besides you there are many other people who do not support this system. Approximately the same way many IT journalists feel about Gamergate, and it is also important for them to show that not all geeks are chauvinists who can threaten women with rape simply because these women say something unpleasant to them.
Therefore, it is very important for journalists, whose sphere has been so much discredited lately, to show that everything is not so bad. For example, scientists put a spacecraft on a comet, everyone loves them, they are definitely cool and, probably, not sexists ... Oh, and what is it wearing? First, this question was asked by The Atlantic Rose Efélet, a technical observer in her twitter, the claim was formulated like this: "Well, no, that you, in our community, are welcome, ask at least this guy in this shirt." In response, Rose, of course, received threats of rape. That's when the author of The Verge and exploded (which, running ahead, does not paint at all).
Uh-uh, do you want to say that Matt Taylor's shirt is really sexist?
Actually, yes. In light of these discourses, Matt Taylor’s shirt is truly perceived as unequivocally sexist. And many do not even need to explain. But to many - this, of course, is not all. So: this, of course, is not the inscription “force and kill all women”, but this is a manifestation of the very everyday domestic sexism that is found everywhere every day and because of this, many are not conspicuous. Moreover, he is usually not condemned, but this does not cease to be sexism. For example, he is akin to whistle a woman after (which even many women still take for a compliment) or a girl’s close look at the neckline of her blouse when talking. No matter how deep this neckline is.
Such a print on the shirt brings to the world the image of a “sexy chick” that so many people like, and in particular, a person who has put on such a shirt. And so Matt Taylor's shirt is his small contribution to the widespread, indifferent attitude toward sexual objectification that would be worth changing. Wrong to present the most striking feature of a woman is her sexuality. It is difficult to imagine the same print with half-naked men in frank poses. Such a print is really inappropriate in the context of the current situation in the nerd-world: when people say that it is difficult for women in the scientific community to be around, one of the key speakers of this medium in such a shirt will not help to solve the problem. And Matt Taylor himself - to whom, nevertheless, this whole discourse is clearer than we are - precisely because I apologized.
That is, The Verge did everything right?
No and no again. None of the above justifies the boorish tone of The Verge article. Nothing justifies a frankly provocative headline and subtitle "One small step for a man, three steps back for humanity." The fact that Matt Taylor put on a sexist shirt does not make him a conscious sexist, who needs to be branded and lynched immediately. Yes, after the apologies of Matt Taylor, the authors edited the text, removing the claims from the scientist and redirecting them to the European Space Agency, which imprudently allowed its employee to present himself in this form. But all this does not matter when the headline is an obvious trolling and provocation, a ready and almost conscious appeal to persecute a person for what he has done, in fact, even unintentionally. Not an attempt to explain to Taylor the irrelevance of the act, but the instantaneous presentation of charges. And even worse, the authors of The Verge began to behave in the comments in the article, responding even more rudely. Thus, instead of discussing what it would really be worth discussing in this vein, The Verge received in response a wave of reaction focused solely on the shirt itself.
And what is it all about, if not about the shirt?
Initially, The Verge, of course, aimed at the audience, which need not to explain that this shirt is sexist, but tell you what conclusions to draw based on this fact. And these conclusions are completely different. Here is a man who put the device on a comet - he is a hero. Here is a person who presents his community in a negative light - he is wrong. Should one influence the other? Actually, no. The conversation, which would be worth raising, is a conversation about indulgences and gray areas, that a person’s achievements in one area should not affect his status in another.
Today the world is arranged in such a way that, having reached heights somewhere, a person can fall low in another sphere - and the society will forgive him. A radical manifestation of such logic is the ex-senator, who received a suspended sentence for rape of a graduate. Why? Because he did it "for the joy of having a daughter," well, he is also an ex-senator. It can be said that this is not at all such a situation, because it is a policy - but no, such situations are taken even in politics not from scratch. Say, the judge, who needed to somehow otmazatsya official, took advantage of a loophole in the form of public consensus that since the child was born and an exemplary family man, then supposedly you can stumble a bit.
And bringing scientists to tears, and etching girls from the house is equally awful, but the public reaction to these two cases turned out to be completely different.
In a more mundane version, this situation unfolds in the American film industry. Only now they began to seriously investigate the rape charges against Bill Cosby, America’s most beloved comedian. He was accused for a long time and more than once, but the fact that Cosby was the country's favorite always helped him to disown the charges. In 2002, his lawyers were able to intimidate an actress who intended to describe the fact of rape in her memoirs, they say, he is like that. And who are you, no one will believe you. But today it has become somehow clearer to everyone that Cosby can be a brilliant comedian and a rapist - and the old accusations have returned.
Such a thing works in both directions: for example, the director Brian Singer had to refuse all interviews this year due to accusations of sex with underage boys at his address. And despite the fact that these charges, of course, need to be investigated, it does not affect which of Singer's director. Or the artist rapes the girl, and other artists say about him "he is a freak, but our freak". Or a liberal and dignified journalist Plyushchev writes about the death of an official’s son, asking if this is “proof of the existence of higher justice,” but other liberal people block him off because he is a good person and has the right. Of course, rape and a shirt with a stupid print is generally incomparable, but it’s rather a question of how not to ignore black ones without ignoring gray spots. And how to start a discussion so that it does not look like a discredit.
Let's say I really like Ivan Dorn's album, this is the best Russian-language album of the year, but still there is still a bit misguided song "Actress" (with a bunch of abstracts in her defense, but nonetheless) and for the album's promo Ivan still showed household racism, repainted black (yes, he did not mean anything bad, like Matt Taylor, but again). How to start this discussion so as not to devalue the music - I do not know, and this is sad. In general, all this is a question about the status of reputation and about when it should mean something and when not, and what privileges it can give, and which - not. This, incidentally, also applies to a reputable site that is fighting for equality, but as a result, the unhappy scientist is trolling. And this is about journalism ethics.
What does the journalistic ethics?
This is ironic, since supporters of Gamergate also tried to justify their behavior by opposing the unethical game journalism. But here everything is a little more specific, we are talking about the title and subtitle of The Verge article. The current state of online journalism requires the editors to announce their materials as loudly as possible: the reader’s attention in social networks should be attracted at any cost and provocations are only welcome here. Whether provocation is contrary to the meaning of the note, whether the submission will turn out to be too yellow - many editors are already worried about it in the second place, because if you don’t get views, you won’t get advertising and money, respectively. Such realities of capitalism sometimes push journalists to acts like the one indicated, and this should not be so. You need to remember the social mission of a journalist and try to keep yourself in hand. The Verge failed.
Okay, Matt Taylor screwed up, The Verge screwed up, that's all clear. But how did the others screw up?
The above describes how to explain in a civilized way why The Verge is wrong. The Internet has shown how to explain this uncivilized. Threats of death, indignant speakers, attempts to prove that everything is in order with the shirt, and the main statement: "He put the device on a comet, but what have you achieved?" In every possible way, the discussion of controversial sexism was derived in a uniquely sexist way - and The Verge contributed to this with its presentation and manners. So that this statement does not look like the accusation of the victim, it is worth noting that if The Verge had written everything without provocation, the reaction could have been exactly the same. Especially ugly, this reaction looked in the light of “Gamergate”: here one scientist was brought to tears, and there at least two girls were robbed of threats from their own homes. But in the case of a scientist, the entire Internet choir stood up for him, and in the case of girls, the discussion “Is it so innocent?” Broke out. And bringing scientists to tears, and etching girls from home is equally awful, but the public reaction to these two cases turned out to be completely different and showed that women still dream of equality and dream. And quite already the Runet was monstrously in the discussion.
And then immediately Runet?
Not having the mentioned context, Russian-speaking Internet users unambiguously interpreted this story into a story about how tolerance brought this America to you. And it’s okay, when Komsomolskaya Pravda and LifeNews speaks in this vein, nobody expects anything else from them, but the same point of view was also taken by people who seem to have no European values or the words Geirop in their vocabulary. Furfur compared the “radical feminists” with the “Orthodox scumbags”, and Meduza, in the context of covering history, the only thing she did was translate a column about how this case dishonors the “feminist movement” written by the uniquely controversial author. And all this despite the fact that complaining that feminists are oppressing someone is ridiculous. Even worse, when they say that instead of shirts, feminists would be better engaged in "real problems."
So what, let them do it!
In fact, every person has the right to deal with exactly the problem that worries him. Someone for the global and for education and protection for women scientists, and someone for the private and against domestic sexism in scientific circles. It is their right to choose the field of struggle, and this is pure chauvinism - to tell people where to lead their fight.
But wait, feminist radicalism really is - and this is also a problem.
See, radical feminists do exist, like, say, radical believers. But we do not seem to judge Orthodoxy solely by the actions of Dmitry Enteo, and this case (in which, moreover, 0 radical feminists were involved) should not be a reason to judge the whole movement. And there is no movement - there is a widespread discussion about the rights of women and the changing situation in the world, which has no obvious people-locomotives. In our case, talking about "bullying" baiting. And it is the persecution - a scientist for sexism or an anti-sexist for tactlessness - there is no feminist or chauvinist.
When people ask you for a cigarette on the street, you answer that you do not smoke and get into the eye and lose your wallet - this is not due to the fact that the opposite side is opposed to your attitude towards smoking. So here the baiting is just baiting. It can be judged regardless of the reasons, but to focus on the fact that the persecution is feminist - this, you will laugh, is sexism. Among other things, special cases in the media attention, as a rule, should illustrate the trend. When millions of gamers persecute two girls - that's about a thousand of the same game hunted by tens of millions. This is a private illustration of a really big common problem. And one crying scientist is one crying scientist. This is a very bad, very sad, but not tendentious case, which can only illustrate the Internet’s tendency towards entropy and harassment regardless of the cause, but not the presence of the totalitarian power of radical feminism. And it is sad to read notes like this, where three more private ones are added to the Taylor case and the author builds a tendency from them, while there are hundreds of cases of oppression of women in the geek culture, but there are not enough of them for the culture to come to their senses.
So now feminists can forbid us to wear certain clothes and so on? Are you out of your mind?
And here lies the main delusion and supporters of Gamergate, and opponents of criticism of Matt Taylor. The fact is that feminist discourse never forbids anything. At all. Even raping women. It’s just that a normal person would never think of raping a woman (although there were a million excuses a couple of hundred years ago), and so feminists try only to influence the mass consciousness so that when a person, for example, performs an act of domestic sexism, he understood that this is everyday sexism, and was not mistaken that this is something else. Punishment or prohibitions are not provided.
Considering Anita Sarkisyan’s criticism of the gaming industry and The Verge’s criticism of a sexist shirt in the context of prohibitions, you give out only your own obedience to this logic of prohibitions, which are followed by deputies Mizulin and Milonov. You should not tell a child that being a homosexual is better than straight-line - but very few people will come to such a head and do not need such a law. You can tell a child that in his game about Mario the princess is depicted as a spiritless object and that this is wrong - but the child does not need to forbid the game itself or lobby the law, which prohibits such games.
The task of feminism is to teach people to understand that some of your words and actions offend others - as we understand that when we hit a person with a stick, it will hurt (and, accordingly, in our mind, we don’t do this). In playing the "Bayonetta", you understood that in front of you is a character who uses his body as a sexual weapon, and not just seen a sexy chick. So no one ever tried to ban the print on Matt Taylor's shirt (well, that is, private calls with attempts to ban can be found, but they definitely will not be indicative), I just would like Matt and others to understand that this is not just fun a print that shows that not all learned bores. When Matt realized this, he wept and apologized. But the Internet did not understand anything, and The Verge contributed to this.
And what are the conclusions now?
Sad. All screwed up. The Verge tried to wage a righteous struggle in dirty ways. The Internet responded even dirtier, destroying and eradicating all the seeds of mind that were in the original message of The Verge. Runet trampled on the ruins. Sexism did not go away, but tripled, and opponents of sexism contributed to this. Feminism will be even more skeptical. People have shown that they are not ready for change and that they proceed from the logic of prohibitions and logic, when a person’s achievements in one area justify failures in another. Matt Taylor began to cry, but his apologies made everything worse. Европейское космическое агентство не попыталось исправить ситуацию. Энтропия победила. Все молодцы.