To think that women 'people' - shouldn't be subjected to porn at a professional conference

[onebatmother]

Sweet Jeezum, would you have a look at this description of a mainstream, non-adult-industry tech developers conference in the states.

Porn (as it has always done) is powering tech development.

This guy's attitude speaks volumes both about what porn says about imaginary, abstract women, and - crucially - the real women who had paid to attend the conference.

Well, if a person behaves in a certain way because he is socially constrained to do so, when in fact his real beliefs are quite the opposite, logically there is at least a strong possibility that his true beliefs will express themselves covertly at some point. When that person is in a position of power, this becomes important. And of course this person isn't just an isolated individual but is part of a bigger group which tends still to have more power than other groups in society, and that's also important, I would say.

Sorry but I find this scary. Are you suggesting that people you suspect of having unacceptable opinions should be sacked from their jobs no matter what they actually do?You can want people to believe things as much as you like, but I fail to see how you can force them to agree with you and I do not think it's ethical to try. If you can prove discrimination or bullying, well, there are laws to deal with this, but people are entitled to hold their own opinions, however unpleasant others may find those opinions.

Sorry but I find this scary. Are you suggesting that people you suspect of having unacceptable opinions should be sacked from their jobs no matter what they actually do?

Erm, No. Not in the slightest. I think you've got the wrong end of the stick, sgb.

I am simply bemoaning what I strongly suspect is widespread "lipservice' to egalitarian workplace principles.

I haven't suggested that anything can or should be done about it.

OK fair enough. But 'lipservice' in the workplace is plenty good enough: colleagues don't have to be friends or kindred spirits, they just have to not be obnoxious.

Sgb, you seem to be asserting that society composed of lots of individuals who must be considered separately. Which is a rather conservative, reactionary position to take.

Individuals don't exist in a vacuum. They form groups, and those groups have a value which is greater than the sum of its parts.

This is not a question of wanting to be chums. I don;t care whether they are friends or kindred spirits, I do care if many in a group which wields power are only paying lipservice to the concept of equality.

Whether someone believes in their heart as to the true value of equality, or just behaves as if they do, what's the practical difference?

OBM: but what matters is what they do, not what they think.

But they are unlikely to religiously do what they don't think. They will find ways not to. Even if unconsciously, though consciously is far more likely.

And if they are in a position of any power, that matters.

There is nothing that can be done about it, except to be aware of it. But it is wilfully naive, I think, to assert that as long as equality policies are in place, everything's rosy.

People will do what they don't think if it is in their interests to do so (ie because doing what they would prefer to do will have unpleasant consequences). We all do stuff we would rather not do/refrain from doing stuff we want to do because it's unacceptable and will lead to negative consequences. So as long as policies are in place and are upheld, people are still entitled to think whatever they like.

Once again, they are entitled to do so - and no-one has suggested otherwise.

It is rather tedious to argue over a right to concscience which logically cannot be disputed, since it is beyond external control.

Beyond that, I don't quite see, sgb, why you are determined to defend the rights of those who have historically held the reins of power over the rights of those who have not, and with such relish.

You seem to me to be pushing a self-consciously contrarian line, which is rather a waste of energy in a world in which real inequality has by no means been abolished.

OBM, this was a developers conference for Flash programmers. Ie, a bunch of geeks, nerds and script-kiddies. They're hardly the shadowy figures behind the New World Order.

The only reins of power they hold is over their obsessively-developed World of Warcraft characters...

But we were discussing a principle snorbs.

And actually, I kind of disagree with you. These are people who create hugely popular media, and therefore have considerable cultural power.

historical reins of power just refers to men's traditionally greater power in the workplace? Multiply one set of script kiddies by 10 000 similarly gauche workplaces and you have quite a lot of power. I would have felt sick and shocked at the images at that conf -- not because of the sexuality, and not even (primarily) because of it being sex in the wrong place. It is, in the old cliche, the conversion of a female body into something quite alien and ersatz, created from a habituation to porno-woman that makes you lose sight of realo-woman. A bit like if I watched The Simpsons so obsessively that I started to see men as essentially fat and yellow and incompetant.

And your ref to World of Warcraft is interesting. Can you imagine how images like this standard style help to make women feel utterly marginal in the new cultural arena of gaming.

LeninGrad, I know that this was a conference with attendees of all genders, races and religio-political persuasions. And I absolutely agree that the presentation was offensive, unnecessary and bang out of order.

The only equality and respect policy that should have had an influence on this particular instance is that of the organiser. He's already put his hands up to admit that he badly blew it.

What I was struggling to understand was that OBM seems to be linking the attendees of this small-scale and geeky conference with some kind of global, power-wielding elite.

As for the underlying principle... Nope, sorry, I'll not condone anything that smacks of the thought-police. I don't particularly care what people think on the inside; it's what they do on the outside that matters.

People have an automatic, in-built tendency to pre-judge situations and other people. That could be a man regarding a woman as a sex-object or a woman thinking a father will never be as good a parent as a mother. It's part of how our brains are wired - you get a fast, emotional response.

The crucial thing, and the thing that separates humans from animals, is that we can then use our intellect to overcome those knee-jerk reactions by mentally putting the situation in a wider context and with a more dispassionate view (or not, as in the case of Daily Mail readers ). It's by balancing the emotional with the moral that we can choose to do the Right Thing.

Feelings are complex bio-chemicals sloshing around our synapses in reaction to a given stimulus. They are what they are. It's actions that show the worth of a person.

IT does make me quite angry the continual pushing of an unrealisable feminine ideal, like that WoW figure. It has become so prevalent, but there is not really the equivalent for men. Maybe today I will count the number of times I see a half-naked/practically naked women in an advert, vs. the number of times I see a male equivalent. I've also noticed the same with clothing. It is actually quite difficult to get nice clothing for women in their 20s, and for older, that does not show cleavage, legs, emphasise bums ... try shopping for it. But there's not the same for men.

(Snorbs and sgb, I'm not sure how this thread got sidetracked by the non-existent desire to control people's inner thoughts. I wasn't aware anyone had said that we should. If there are words to that effect somewhere in the thread, it surely shouldn't be used to distract from the important issue much more prevalent on the thread of how people act.)

Yes dittany. And also the diff between porn and fantasy it important, isn't it. Because porn is a grossly simplified, stereotyped form of fantasy.

I do have a bugbear with anyone who allows the simple stimulus-response gratification of looking repeatedly at visciously sterotyped porn images of women to shape their synapses to such a massive extent that the porn-ideal of women intrudes on theri images of real woman.

Cos that is what happens, in general. We get to be hardwired by long series of experiences of gratification (in every field, not just sexually), so that pleasure becomes easier to obtain along certain well-trodden pathways. And so we have some responsibility to shape our pleasure responses? In order to shape our attitudes and preferences more widely? I'm having CBT right now, for example, to try to repattern the constellation of perceptions, beliefs, situations, behaviours, that constitute a problematic take on life. We aren't just passive in relation to our synapse responses.

I'm not saying that anyone has the right to require an individual to take responsibility for his pleasure-preferences in that way, but I do believe that the individual has a duty to himself in that respect.

I'm faily new to the porn debates on MN and I'm v much afraid that this is a flamable argument?

I'm no expert as I've never played WoW (I gave up computer adventure games when they were still text-based...) but my understanding is the vast majority of male avatars in WoW and similar are chisel-jawed and with a physique that makes Arnie look like Mr Bean. Which is a loooong way from the reality of the average player.

Interestingly I have noticed an increase in advertising that shows semi-naked men, be it Beckham in his y-fronts or some bloke with his kit off putting on after-shave. I'll admit that the clothes selection is different. But, then, the shops will stock what sells the best...

dittany, while there are a lot of very rich computer companies out there - Microsoft, Google, Cisco, HP, IBM etc - the stuff they made their money on is gender-neutral. I've never noticed porn or any gender-specific material being shipped with Windows XP or the Cisco routers I manage at work. To suggest that such companies have an influence on gender politics (over and above their own workplace respect and diversity policies) is stretching the point massively.

Yes, Internet porn is an issue and a big one. Porn has always been an issue in some way, shape or form and it always will be so. Most teenage boys and not a few teenage girls are fascinated by porn and most grow out of it without it having any marked influence on their thoughts as they can successfully separate fantasy from reality.

For all its faults, the Internet is also hugely egalitarian in a way that no mass-market communication system has ever been. I don't know if you're a man or a woman. A woman can create a website just as easily as a man can and, crucially, no-one need ever know the gender of the creator. What matters is that you're any good at what you're trying to do.

It isn't really true to say that the internet is egalitarian. In various areas, women fare badly. For example, they are apparently significantly outnumbered in political dicussions online and their blogs are far less widely read because (apparently) male bloggers are less likely to link to them unless there is sexual content. In gaming, although all atavars are of course highly stereotyped ect, the female ones are shaped largely by male fantasy, whereas the male ones are shaped largely by ... male fantasy.

And the hugest part of the internet (some studies say 40% or traffic) is porn, which you'd have to argue a strong case for calling gender-egalitarian.