shadowspar

I've been meaning to write this up for a while, but certain events impelled me to try to get it out while it still has a slight pretense of timeliness.

That thing you said...

There's a trend I've noticed in the last few incidents surrounding women in open source -- a misconstrual which goes something like this:

1. Some personage says something like "Linux is hard to explain to girls".
2. Community members tell said personage: "Hey, that thing you said was sexist".
3. Said personage and others hear: "Hey, we think you are a sexist."

STOP RIGHT THERE!

The carefully-constructed phrase "That thing you said was sexist" does not mean "Hey, we think you are an asshole". Further, it emphatically does not mean "We think you are a horrible, irredeemable sexist asshole who deserves to DIAF." In fact, there is a good chance that a person who tells "That thing you said was sexist" is doing so because

• they think that you are a decent person,
• who happened to say something that reinforced a pattern of sexism, and
• who will correct it when it is brought to their attention.

As a privileged person, you probably need to take this feedback more seriously and less personally than you might initially think.

More Seriously

It's easy to be dismissive and think "well, I didn't mean it like that!" or "it's just a flip comment; what's the big deal"? In short, your comment is part of a larger whole; it reinforces attitudes that people in your audience don't want to recall, and that you don't want to be associated with. The folks who are listening often don't know what kind of person you are. They can't see your thoughts, but they can definitely hear your words.

Less Personally

I think part of the reason that people in this situation are reluctant to apologize is that they'll admit they said something sexist, and in their minds that makes them a horrible, wicked person.

Look, we all grow up in a society that starts drilling the messages of sexism into us pretty much from the day we are born. We're all human, we all make mistakes, so sooner or later, we're all going to screw up.

Letting slip one off-base comment doesn't mean that you're evil. It means that you're human. This emphatically does not mean that you are excused from striving to do better in the future. It does mean that you shouldn't let a huge guilt spiral prevent you from doing so.

On apologizing

I get the impression that there is some stigma against apologizing; that people feel an apology is only warranted if you intentionally and viciously did something wrong. But if, say, you accidentally step on somebody's foot, don't you say "sorry"? You're not expressing regret for your moral turpitude -- you're expressing regret that you discomfited somebody, intentionally or not.

In summary (tl;dr):

• More serious. This isn't nit-picking by the folks you've offended; they live with this every day.
• Less personal. "What you said was problematic" is someone trying to help you, not somebody calling you a dumbass.
• More action. Being a horrible person is neither a prerequisite for nor a consequence of an apology. The goal here is to treat each other like human beings; let's do it.