Re: [Pan-users] Re: updated info - O.T.

[Alan Meyer]

Duncan <address@hidden> wrote:

<... Many interesting comments elided ...>

> One of the most recent (July, 2009 Gran Canaria Desktop
> Summit), and it's a shame it's only now being addressed as he's
> been making the references in public presentations for years,
> is the Richard M Stallman references to "EMACS virgins".  The
> ruckus was triggered when he did a presentation at a GNOME
> conference.
>
> From the geek-feminism link below, here's a quote of the remark
> in question (tho from a different presentation where a
> transcript was made):
>
> """""
> [W]e also have the cult of the virgin of emacs. The virgin of
> emacs is any female who has not yet learned how to use emacs.
> And in the church of emacs we believe that taking her emacs
> virginity away is a blessed act."
> """""

<... More interesting comments elided ...>

I read the exchange between David "Lefty" Schlesinger and Richard
Stallman, and a fair number of the comments.

I personally thought Stallman's remark was wrong-headed and
offensive, but Stallman is just one person.  What really got to
me was the number of responders to the blog, a good majority it
seemed, who thought it was all a joke and there was nothing wrong
or offensive in the speech.

I didn't expect that so many programmers would agree with
Stallman.  I hope it's just that they were the ones most
motivated to write, and not that they're really in the majority.

Perhaps if more of us would transpose remarks like Stallman's,
substituting our own favorite gender, religion, race,
nationality, or cultural group for "women", we'd better
appreciate the vulgarity of Stallman's remark.

Or perhaps more directly, and following Duncan's analysis of the
difference between "take" and "take away", we should imagine
something more dramatic like being locked in a cell with a
powerful and aggressive male prisoner who decides to take away
our virginity with respect to what he has in mind.

Stallman was not advocating the physical rape of anyone and
neither were his supporters.  I don't want to make more of this
than was there.  He and his supporters have nothing in common
with criminals.  It's just that the imagery Stallman invoked had
a sexist and demeaning character that I think we should all
educate ourselves to see.

--
Alan Meyer
address@hidden