Women, Technology, and Freethinking

I just finished reading a fascinating article about how sexism has been an issue within the athiest movement. It’s a controversial subject, not only because it speaks against world religion, but also because it talks about issues women have had with technology use and how quickly and devastatingly it leads to harassment and threats towards other human beings on the grouds of gender and/or sexual orientation.

 

I am am not personally an athiest, but I wanted to share this article on the basis of computer ethics. It describes how hotstile the online world is towards people who are passionate about their beliefs, and how that can fuel the fire and bleed outside of the virtual world into our physical lives. Basically, it talks about one of the most mainstream forms of bullying. You know, the adult kind of bullying, where police can get involved and entire movements can be formed or brought down and either help or hinder entire people groups. It also describes some of the ugly of wester culture, which is also controversial. To to be a culture of innovation, sometimes we have to let go of the old ideas and build towards something newer and better.

This article is littered with graphic descriptions of “alleged” events, lots of swearing, and hints of the use of technology as a means of harassment as well as a means for change. Click here to read the article “Will Misogyny Bring Down The Atheist Movement?:
The continuing debate over a murky sexual encounter at a 2008 convention for cheekily anti-establishment skeptics underscores a broader dilemma: How can a progressive, important intellectual community behave so poorly towards its female peers?”

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TSA and the Slow Death of Professionalism

With all the issues we have been having with Privacy (with a capital P) in the United States and all over the world, it’s no wonder people have been skeptical of the procedures that TSA has enforced for air travel and the full body scanners. People were outraged when they first installed in airports around the nation, and even more so when there was a required full body pat-down. Now there is more outrage as former TSA officer Jason Edward Harrington wrote a piece about the defective equipment and the unprofessionalism of the officers using them:

“Just as the long-suffering American public waiting on those security lines suspected, jokes about the passengers ran rampant among my colleagues: Many of the images we gawked at were of overweight people, their every fold and dimple on full awful display,” he wrote.

“Piercings of every kind were visible…One of us in the IO room would occasionally identify a passenger as female, only to have the officers out on the checkpoint floor radio back that it was actually a man. All the old, crass stereotypes about race and genitalia size thrived on our secure government radio channels.”  -Jason Edward Harrington

Shouldn’t they be acting more professional? You may wonder and speculate all you like, but it isn’t that hard to figure out. Professionalism has lost its ground. Not because it is not required or expected anymore, but because it has become much easier to see the unprofessional side of people with the increase of technology use. We have all worked in an environment behind closed doors. We have all vented to our coworkers about a client or customer that wasn’t ideal. We make up nicknames for problem individuals in our work places. We make up nicknames for our coworkers too. We all do it on one level or another (shame on us).

Another situation of technology inhibiting professionalism is the #hasjustinelandedyet issue. Justine Sacco, the head of corporate communications for IAC, a media company that runs The Daily Beast and Match.com and other sites, made a shockingly racist comment on her personal Twitter account:

Image screenshot fromTwitter

My question is why are we surprised and even outraged by this? We live in a society that has trends on Twitter such as #fuckphyllis as a public threat to an individual who didn’t cancel school for a cold day. So why are we completely surprised that we have TSA officers making jokes about us behind closed doors and lit screens? Isn’t everybody else already doing that? We live in a society full of weightism, racism, and sexism. We talk freely online as if we are behind closed doors, and expect no one to hear us, and the internet is just like being behind closed doors…in a room full of billions of people. 

I have a theory, (and you are welcome to add to it or subtract from it as you will), that as we become more open and honest behind our screens, we are also becoming more open an honest about our opinions in reality. We are desensitized even, to what is politically incorrect because of our constant over exposure to it. But, why? Because the virtual world is reality now. What is happening on our Facebook page and what is happening in our home or head is the same. Our lives are no longer private because we have chosen to take it to the public in our posts, statuses, comments and #hashtags. As privacy reduces, there is evidence that people are taking their opinions offline and literally verbalizing them. The screen is making us more bold…whether it is bold enough to tell a lie or bold enough to tell the harsh, politically incorrect, truth.

Furthermore, why are we surprised that our privacy is becoming more public? Aren’t we the ones allowing this to happen by complying to the standard when we have other (perhaps less convenient) options? Aren’t we voting for our representatives? Aren’t we the ones writing the posts? Completing the surveys? Buying the merchandise?  We opt into letting our Apps into our personal content. We let our devices give out our location when we post status updates. We chat with our friends online about plans giving specific details. We tell strangers our secrets on apps like Whisper. Our teenagers, coworkers, and family members Snapchat  inappropriately sensitive content to strangers. We say we don’t like it, but what do we do to stop it? We have come to the playground to trade privacy for convenience, entertainment, and acceptance/safety. And we’re the kid by the fence unaware that the rest of the kids are making fun of us. It’s beginning to feel an awful lot like middle school isn’t it?

Why is it so very shocking that TSA officers use us as entertainment behind closed doors? Because, in our pursuit of entertainment and acceptance within our own social circles, we did not think we would become the entertainment or outcast in another.

Welcome to the internet. You’re on your own.

You Can’t Fix Cyber-Stupid

As a fair trade black coffee and tea loving, TOM’s shoe wearing Causegear fan (I sound like a hipster…get over it)…I am an avid follower on Upworthy.com, and in being an avid follower on such an ingenious site, I find myself running into a lot of interesting and new ideas, perspectives, and even life changing information . Today on my Facebook news feed (and yes I follow Upworthy on Facebook….and Twitter…and you should too because it’ll make you an informed boss of internet wonder), I had this video article come across my screen. I suggest a quick watch.

http://www.upworthy.com/some-creepy-dudes-wrote-some-creepy-things-to-this-scientist-so-she-is-calling-them-out-in-public

Now that I can safely assume you’ve watched the entire video. So we have an interesting problem on our hands, the world appears to be getting dumber and more distasteful. Women are targets on the internet, and we hear this time and time again to the point where we shrug it off much like Emily did when asked about cyber-sexism. We’re used to it. It’s become normal to see women and men alike being negatively admired.

Wait. Negatively admired?

Yes.

Online we often feel as though we have the safety net of a screen to protect us from the repercussions of our words and actions. As you saw in the video Emily, puts up with a great deal of sexism in her field, which is both sad and unacceptable as her work is wonderfully presented and she takes a great deal of time out of her busy life to ensure the quality of her work. However, she still deals with uncouth comments that are irrelevant to her work, not that they are trying to be insensitive or hurtful, they probably genuinely mean what they say and think it’s actually flattering. But they are admiring her for things she does not represent. She isn’t a sex object, she is an educated woman who works professionally towards a future of brilliant minds and new discoveries.

The issue isn’t that she feels threatened by these comments and it’s not even sexism that I really want to touch on (though a subject I will save for another time, because the internet has a lot of it), but rather something as simple as comments on a post could be the possible prevention of brilliant minds coming to light and helping save our world. We live in a world that is spiraling downward and rocketing upward at an alarming and erratic pace, and with each new idea we see there are millions of others who are finding new and better ways to do the same thing…and new and better ways to pervert those ideas.

What am I getting at?

The reason we need to take our time considering what we say online is because there are people on the other end of those comments that those very comments are about. Those words weigh heavily on minds burdened by so many thoughts. The brilliant aren’t always the brave (it is a burden being so intelligent). Besides, your comments are not anonymous. There is always someone watching them. If I felt threatened enough at any time by one of my commenters, I could easily get in touch with law enforcement, who can then contact the web administrators to look up the personal information of any username and IP address and find the heckler. Or I can contact a web administrator myself through a “contact us” or a “report abuse” link. On my personal Instagram I’m constantly deleting, blocking and reporting people for their comments (daily if not hourly) and I hardly put up a selfie.

This isn’t so much a post about an issue we aren’t familiar with, but a reminder that the internet is compiled of humans who are not as emotionless as the desktop or tablet beneath your fingertips. Be responsible. Smh.