Aug 282024
I saw this on Twitter but it needs sharing. About men who think they are supportive of women, but only see women as appendages or extensions of themselves. No. They are someones, not someone’s someones. Why this is even an issue in 2024, I do not comprehend.
Hi Viktor! While the message is of “undoubtable” kind for me, I guess in modern circumstances it may lead to dangerous grounds! :)))
Not so long ago when “honorary diplomas for girl-coders” were introduced on my website – some halfway to full-certificate – to motivate those whom I perceive as underrepresented category in IT – some time later some person requested similar diplomas be added for “third-gender” (or “non-binary”? can’t well remember). I think I was cunning enough to say that I have no proof these are underrepresented in IT too :) and anyway that person never reached any of certification levels.
Yet another moment comes to my mind – few years ago while giving one of my electronics classes in school I was a bit reckless to say something like “While I’m setting up the device for demonstration, could please someone redraw this schematic from paper to the board, perhaps some girl who can draw neatly…” (as through years of teaching I’m of general impression that boys in our school are on average far less careful)
Moment later some girlish voice from the back of the room exclaimed “but it is sexism!” :)
From that last point of view to make the message as correct as possible we’ll need to say that “everyone is someone” (which sounds bit too abstract if not silly).
We live in an age of virtue signaling. No matter how well-intentioned you are, all it takes is a misapplied gender pronoun or some other faux pas to be labeled a bigot or worse. I am blessed being self-employed, so I have far fewer opportunities to get into trouble, but what I’d like to tell to those who promote this virtue signaling culture is that this is precisely what drives many folks to support the likes of Trump. Of course swapping one insane asylum for another, even worse one, is not exactly a solution…
Eh… it is hard to me to judge about what exactly drives folks to support the likes of Trump, but I thought it is simply the lack of impressive alternative. No Lincoln. No Washington. Until recently it felt people are doomed to choose “the man they dislike less then the other”. With recent Ms Harris surfacing it starts reminding situation in which Theodore Roosevelt had been elected. I learnt recently that Teddy got Nobel Prize for efforts in resolving Russian-Japanese conflict. Can we hope for some similar feat in the nearest future? Sounds incredible… but, well, it is about hope :)