Offensive?

The battle for hearts and minds with respect to Conroy's Internet filter is continuing, for reasons I just can't fathom. I cannot get my head around why anyone finds it hard to decide where they stand given the arguments - namely:

Anti:

• It won't work
• By telling people it will work when it won't, you're making people less vigilant themselves
• It will block stuff that is legal (both on and not on the secret banned list).
• Allowing a government to have a secret list of banned sites is the slipperiest of slopes imaginable. Tony Abbott might one day have control of that list. Think on that.

Pro:

• Child pornography is bad.

Yep, that's about it for the pro case. Of course, they're right, child pornography is bad, but the filter won't do anything about that anyway.

Sorry, that was a diversion from my point, which is that apparently many people are still swallowing Conroy's bullshit. So EFA (Electronic Frontiers Australia) decided to direct a campaign at mothers. Some people have (validly) criticised this targeting, but I'm OK with the balance of need vs sweeping generalisation in terms of the target. However, the content was abysmally sexist. In case you can't be bothered clicking through, the general gist is that mothers are technically inept and too busy looking after their families to consider the facts for themselves. Tedious at best.

This in and of itself isn't very surprising. EFA contracted an ad agency and left them to it. We shouldn't be too stunned that they used boring, sexist stereotypes - it's what the advertising industry is built on. What amazed me was the stubborn refusal by EFA to acknowledge that there was a problem with them using such a sexist campaign. Something that really struck me was that those defending the campaign kept using the word "offensive". They kept fauxpologising for people being "offended". Some people criticising used that word too, but lots more called it sexist.

There are two interesting things about this - one is that by putting the emphasis on the reaction, "offense" instead of the content, "sexism" they can dismiss the complaints as being about the people complaining instead of about the content itself. The other is that I wasn't offended. I disliked it and complained about it, but I wasn't actually offended. Lots of people never mentioned being offended. This is presumably because sexism is so common place many people, like me, read it as tedious rather than offensive. That's rather disturbing. And it also feeds into the first point. Since so many people aren't offended by this routine, pedestrian sexism, the people who mention that they are, are the objects of ridicule.

In the end the conversation was shut down because Geordie Guy decided that the comments section of their blog was no place for a discussion. Go figure. This does demonstrate one thing rather well though - if even EFA can have quite different ideas about what's appropriate on the Internet from myself and others, I really don't want politicians deciding what I'm allowed to see.

The pros and cons of ulterior motives

The most recent World Vision newsletter has a brief article about a mother in Uganda. It managed to flag up my concerns about organisations like World Vision.

The first paragraph mentions that this mother was "married in the traditional way and then we were married again at the St Maria Catholic Church". The third paragraph is this:

On the matter of names for our children, my husband is the one who decides. We named our first children after his relatives. Then he gave me permission to name our last child after my mother Abeda, so our last child is called Catherine Abeda.

I know that World Vision is a Christian organisation, but I have always figured that helping a family have enough to eat, and basic medical and education facilities was way more significant than any religious indoctrination that might come with it.

This article, however, throws sharp relief on the hypocrisy of these organisations. Apparently it is ok to change their religion and have people marry twice, but it isn't ok to address sexism in the culture.

On the other hand, I don't see many non-Christian organisations doing this sort of thing. Clearly, successfully raising 7 of 11 children with Christian overtones in a sexist society is better than losing 7 of 11 children without Christian overtones in a sexist society.

We have been sponsoring a child for a few years now. The first little girl we sponsored died just after her 4th birthday of malaria. This is, of course, the reality check. Philosophy matters very little when your daughter's life is in such peril. Sadly our sponsorship was not enough. I cried for a night, and still tear up when I think of her.

We have another little girl now, one month younger than Ben. It annoys me that World Vision seem to think religious aspects of these people's lives are fair game, but it isn't appropriate to mess with other aspects of their culture. I don't think you can have it both ways.

Then again, this may be nitpicking. When saving lives, maybe a little philosophical indulgence is permissible. I won't stop sponsoring her because World Vision allows her to be raised in a sexist society - at least she is being raised.

Maybe when she gets bigger I can start some subtle indoctrination by letter...

What comes naturally

I was reading about the death (or otherwise) of sexism and racism on Feministing and one of the comments mentioned a hardware store guy assuming she didn't know what a screwdriver was.

This got me thinking again about stereotypes. As is said, stereotypes have to come from somewhere. Well many of them anyway.

Where I live, there are 3 groups of drivers over-represented in the group that induces exasperation from me: white van drivers, green P plate drivers and asian drivers. This makes an asian, green P plater driving a white van the scariest thing on the road. Or not.

The problem is that human beings are spectacularly good pattern matchers. So good,in fact, that we often see ones that aren't there. Our ability to infer inductively is almost certainly a huge factor in our pre-historic survival and also continues to drive our search for knowledge now. We all work with the logic 1,2,3...many...all. Which works exceptionally well with poisonous red berries, tasty black berries and the laws of physics - not so well with other human beings. At least not that last step. 1,2,3...many is actually pretty valid, especially when based on culture rather than genetic race.

The "isms" come in when you make the leap from many to all, and our normal language doesn't differentiate well enough. When I say "white van drivers, green P platers and asians are bad drivers" I mean "many" in the area I live. I believe they are valid statements with those limitations, others may be able to prove to me that I have been selectively observing, but that is another matter. If I move from many to all, I make the conclusion about this specific driver being bad on account of fitting into one of those groups. That is a Bad Idea.

However, it is very difficult to tell people not to make these generalisations. We are strongly programmed to do it, and more importantly, it is an effective strategy. Assuming the observation is correct, I definitely benefit from being more alert when I see a white van. I have avoided several accidents because I am hypervigilant when I see a white van or a green P plate (less so with asian drivers, I know from observation that the correlation is not as strong as with the other two groups). Of course this is why P platers have to wear them, so that the rest of can compensate for them on the road. It is a necessary part of becoming a driver.

So how do we avoid the isms? I think we have to embrace our pattern matching and stereotyping behaviour, and then we can give them the analysis they deserve. Stop pretending that stereotypes have no use at all, and instead accept that they help, but really pull them apart and see their limitations. Show people how easily they can be misled by selective observation (you only notice the coincidence, not the non-coincidence) and even try to refine the stereotypes. Australians don't have kangaroos in their backyards, but we are lazy and alcoholic as well as easy going and tolerant*, at the stereotype level.

As a person who used to have to try to guess how technical the person at the other end of the telephone was based on their gender, and if I was lucky their job title, I can tell you that the poor hardware guy was between a rock and a hard place. You can easily cop as much flack for assuming contrary to the stereotype as with it. And saying "don't assume anything" doesn't help, because I had people get offended that I asked. I reckon up to date stereotypes with no stigma would be the best option, you can be upfront about matching or not matching the stereotype and we could all avoid a lot of awkwardness.

* We were tolerant pre-Howard, and I believe we will be again, especially if Alan Jones ever leaves the air waves. My mother and I were wondering why "Shooting Alan Jones" wasn't one of the options on the "If I had 30 days to live" list. :)

Which prejudice is strongest?

I was just looking at blue milk's blog, and reading an American woman's comments on the marginalisation of women in the US. It reminded me of the discussion I have had with a few people recently, about which prejudice will win out in the US elections.

Looking at the Democrat candidates, Hilary and Obama would have to be regarded as the strongest candidates on paper, but that means America has to elect either a woman or a black man. Tough call for the Democrats to choose. Or will they just cop out and go for the guy who speaks to dead people? Oh, that's right, it's just a similar name...

The really complicated part is that not only to you have to guess whether they'd hate to be governed by a woman more than a black man, you also have to guess which prejudice is more likely to drag people to the polls.

And then there is the Oprah factor. Will that be significant or not? She has never supported a candidate before. Will a great section of America's women folk get off the couch and vote because Oprah told them to?

I think I come down against Hilary. I reckon a woman is scarier than a black man to most Americans, especially the women. Combine this with the fact that she is very right wing for a democrat and she gets hit from both sides.

But I concede I am not confident in this call. Only time will tell, and maybe not even then if the Democrats go with the safe white man.