Terrors of the past

[snousle]

I had an experience nearly twenty years ago that kind of freaked me out. I was about 20, and had just written a few custom scientific applications for the Macintosh II, so John and I went to a conference on Mac scientific computing in Santa Barbara where I gave a talk about one of them.

After the talk, a group of three women approached me and accused me of having sexist graphics in my presentation, which insinuated that women were not competent programmers. They were quite aggressive about it too. At the time, I rebuffed them and said I thought they were being ridiculous, but in my heart I knew they were right. For years, I thought of the whole affair with dread, and felt ashamed at having used inappropriate and offensive graphics for the sake of being clever.

Well, just today, while cleaning out my office, I came across the slides from that talk. And you know what? It was very different from what I had remembered. Looking at them, it's obvious that the charge of sexism was completely ridiculous.

I had used a lot of borrowed art to add witty touches to the slides, and among them was a campy photo of a woman in 50's style dress, looking shocked and alarmed at something. I suppose it was this one that fired them up. This image was among several other slides showing male figures in various states of distress - Rodin's thinker falling off his chair, Zippy the Pinhead falling off a cliff - all used to illustrate the terror of undertaking custom software projects. It was actually very gender balanced, depicting both men and women in successful and unsuccessful endeavors.

I cannot believe that for 20 years this weighed on me, as if I had completely embarrassed myself. But it was all over nothing.

Comments

[danthered.livejournal.com]

It is always a shock to come face-up with the human memory's utter lack of resemblance to a camcorder, isn't it!

[bigbeard61.livejournal.com]

Ah humorless, dogmatic, knee-jerk, critically impaired 80's rad-fems.. how it takes you back.

A lot of people used this kind of self-righteousness as an excuse to be bullies, and this was clearly what was happening here.

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

I agree with that.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

Many Lesbos run around with a chip on their shoulder. And their favorite target is men with beards.

The only men they get along with are clean-cut fem type men.


*Hugs*

[jstregyr.livejournal.com]

What was politically incorrect 20 years ago is now retro-chic. For example: the collages at the Anne Taintor website, depicting 1950s housewife imagery cojoined with pithy/oblique expressions seem to embrace empowerment rather than condescension.

Or perhaps those women confronting you two decades ago were just bee-yaches...

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is how people still get so apologetic and mumbling about stuff like this, when it should be obvious what is - like the current discussion on a blog I sometimes read over the use of the word tranny for/by/about the trans community.

Someone threw her toys out of the pram about it, but I know other parts of the trans/TV community are reclaiming that word - but of course she was saying FOR EVERYONE 'don't use that word!' and people go scuttling into liberal nuclear shelters of self-blame.

When tbh I've had trans and feminists try and rename me as 'cis-gay' and insist that's not rude to try and alter my self definitions. Fuck off - these people make up their own rules, usually involving victimhood - their own...I'm fed up with such semantic wanking tbh - it's pointless and really doesn't solve the real problems - as with being upset at your presentation, it said more about them than you, as it usually is when people take offence.