Tuesday, September 17, 2013

A lack of perspective

There are occasionally times in a man's life when he finds himself wondering if an unpleasant incident with a woman was intentional or not.  While there are certainly accidents, as a general rule, women tend to operate in a much more premeditated manner than most men do.  So, when in doubt, assume that the unpleasantries were planned.
Intel developer Sarah Sharp's challenge to Linux creator Linus Torvalds on the kernel mailing list, asking him to stop abusing and cursing at developers, appears to have been carefully planned.

In a post to the Linux kernel mailing list at 11:53:43am EST on July 15, Sharp replied to jocular comments by developers Steven Rostedt and Ingo Molnar, and also Torvalds, claiming "Linus Torvalds is advocating for physical intimidation and violence. Ingo Molnar and Linus are advocating for verbal abuse."

The comments from the three male developers were made after senior kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman had complained about the late submission of patches for the stable branch of development.

Along with her post, Sharp had sent out a tweet at 10.26am, in which she sought support: "Stand with me against verbal abuse on #linux mailing lists. No one deserves to be shouted or cussed," she wrote, linking to a blog post on her personal blog. This post had to have been written shortly before she sent the tweet.

The tweet was sent to The Ada Initiative as well, an organisation that claims to be working to increase the participation of women in technology and culture. In recent times, it has become better known for trying to censor discussion at technical conferences on anything with which it disagrees.

Sharp's directing of this tweet to The Ada Initiative does not sit easily beside her claim in a later post to LKML that "I'm not some crazy feminist ranting about cooties on Google+." If she did not want to canvass the support of women, why send the tweet to an organisation of this nature?

Had Sharp wanted to raise this issue without making her gender a factor, she would not have sought the support of an organisation like The Ada Initiative at any time. She would have raised it on the mailing list. And she would not have made it a PR issue.

A few days after the discussion on the mailing list, Sharp issued what can only be described a gloating tweet. "I'm on to something. 199 retweets. Google plus: +333, 122 reshares. 9 major tech articles. 180 blog comments. People care".
And what was the point of this mini-campaign against Linus Torvalds?  Who knows, but what is worth noting is the way the woman is perfectly happy to burn down everything in order to get her way. This is something that men have difficulty understanding; many women won't even hesitate to destroy their marriages and their families if that is what their emotional imperative requires at the moment.

It is vitally important for men to understand that this is something of which women are capable, if not necessarily prone to doing, especially because it is a fairly identifiable trait.  If a woman has a history of blowing things up, whether it be her female friendships, her jobs, her projects, or her family relationships, you can be certain that she won't hesitate to blow up her marriage or her relationship with her children either.

32 comments:

Crowhill said...

When it happens in real life, perhaps .... "Since you've had an hour or so to plan this spontaneous hissy fit, it's only fair I take an hour to plan my response. I'll be at the bar."

swiftfoxmark2 said...

If a woman has a history of blowing things up, whether it be her female friendships, her jobs, her projects, or her family relationships, you can be certain that she won't hesitate to blow up her marriage or her relationship with her children either.

You must've met my mother-in-law.

Anonymous said...

She seems like a person with options. Perhaps if she didn't like the way she was being treated she should have quit. I think if you get any woman alone they will admit that men are more civilized than women.

Anonymous said...

"And what was the point of this mini-campaign against Linus Torvalds?"

The point is she has placed herself on an equal level with Linus Torvalds.

Is she now on the same technical level as Trovalds? No, but it doesn't matter to her.

Does it matter that she "accomplished" this by bringing Trovalds down to her level (instead of her rising to his)? No, that doesn't matter to her either.

All that matters is that she can now claim to be not only be Linus Torvalds' equal, but his superior. She is instructing him (she is the teacher and he is the student).


Anonymous said...

Shouldn't she be getting fired for airing her version of dirty corporate laundry in public?

swiftfoxmark2 said...

Shouldn't she be getting fired for airing her version of dirty corporate laundry in public?

No, she's a woman so she gets a pass. Most software companies are full of gammas and omegas.

It is unethical for anyone to behave in this manner as you are supposed to send complaints up the chain of command and then make them public if the former fails. But women are excused for this kind of unethical behavior because other women's groups will sue the company on her behalf.

Trust said...

I've seen women in good marriages with good men, who have become attracted to another man. Bet it alpha allure, boredom, the fact that the law now guarantees what they used to have by being a partner. Who knows.

Rather than turning away from their attraction, or even discretely screwing the new stud, these women methodically turn their good marriage onto a bad one to make their husband the culprit. They may even cry during marriage counseling. They cause immeasurable pain to their husband and children just to indulge their desires while convincing others and themselves it is not their fault.

Anonymous said...

First they want to break into the male space so they can experience manly pride. Some women can perform up to the level, and can experience something akin to manly pride. But inevitably others find they can't really experience manly pride, and their focus turns to marking the space as feminine so men can't experience it either.

Trust said...

Sort of like how women don't stop with getting on a coed softball team, they then want the men to be required to bat left handed when they get outperformed.

Anonymous said...

What was the point? She answered that question: "199 retweets. Google plus: +333, 122 reshares. 9 major tech articles. 180 blog comments."

She probably could blog for the rest of her life about her own programming projects or her cats or whatever and never get that much attention. But attack a pillar of the community, and everyone will want to talk to you. Of course, most of them are just rubbernecking, but all retweets feel the same -- like love and respect, apparently.

Walt said...

So basically, women can and will screw up everything, and they do it on purpose.

IrishFarmer said...

There's a shortcut to deciding if it was a calculated move or not: don't decide. Treat her like an petulant child as appropriate, and you're good to go.

Unless you're really in the wrong, but if you were then there was no reason for it be a public attention-seeking blow up, but rather could have been dealt with in private.

Whiskey said...

Of course the consequence is the attention which has no monetary value comes at the cost of making her toxically unemployable.

Anonymous said...

Whether this makes her unemployable is questionable, but beside the point, because she already has a job. Even if her boss at Intel wanted to fire her over this (or anything else), is he going to want to take Linus's place in the feminist cross-hairs? Her job has never been more safe.

. said...

Women would rather have 100% of nothing than 50% of something.

Doom said...

If you get a whiff, then track a woman down her rabbit hole, your bad. Best thing to do with such women is hammer them good and hard, then wait till they come around again as they invariable will, and hit them every time. Eventually you have a new bunny friend. Feed her a "shut up" once in a while and it's all good. Either that or ignore.

Never jump down the bunny hole after one of these creatures. That is their world and you will lose.

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swiftfoxmark2 said...

Women would rather have 100% of nothing than 50% of something.

Which harkens back to my own observation that the primary vice of women is envy. We all know that a man's primary vice is lust, but most people don't recognize the primary vice of women.

I think a huge part of Game is identifying this and understanding that it is the primary motivation for women. To behave in an ALPHA manner is to take advantage of this vice for your own benefit.

Trust said...

@: Which harkens back to my own observation that the primary vice of women is envy.
_______

Compound that with the fact that women are constantly told their feelings are pure and should be acted on.

K. Rihanek said...

I read Torvald's Rostedt's and Molnar's posts cited by Sharp. They are just being guys. Normal people wouldn't be offended by those comments. She started by being over sensitive and now she's looking for attention.

Anonymous said...

@cailcorishev
Whether this makes her unemployable is questionable, but beside the point, because she already has a job. Even if her boss at Intel wanted to fire her over this (or anything else), is he going to want to take Linus's place in the feminist cross-hairs? Her job has never been more safe.

I agree on the safety of her job, but it isn't an exaggeration to state that Linus is Linux. He can't be ousted from Linux, since he owns the trademark for the name. So if someone wants to throw a tantrum the best they could do is fork Linux in a similar way that CentOS forked Red Hat. But this would create a world of chaos.

Ms. Sharp is putting her employer in a terrible position, because IBM and pretty much all of the tech giants have too much skin in the Linux game to create a real rift with Linus. They need Linux, which is why they pay her and others to contribute to the kernel. The feminist hens will cluck, but unless Linus chooses to take them seriously he is impervious to them.

Anonymous said...

Vox,

Excellent post. What do YOU do as a deterrent to keep these kinds of women at bay?

I'm assuming Spacebunny is under control. I'm talking about random women you confront in daily life, work, etc. An older guy recently advised me: ' If you see trouble with a random female these days do not even engage. The law and everything else will take her side no matter what she alleges, and you will wind up on the bottom'

This looks like a pussy way to go through life as a Man though

Anonymous said...

Here is Linus' response to Ms. Sharp on the kernel mailing list. He shut her down about as clearly as possible:

http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2

Typo in my comment above: I wrote IBM, when in fact she works for Intel.

Anonymous said...

Dalrock - thanks for response.

So you think basically calling out a woman's bullshit on point is the way to go.

I can see this. To me, Linus response might have been too wordy and run-on. You begin to look like your qualifying to her and everyone else observing.

The blogger LaidNYC had a good response recently. He was swarmed with feminist commenters after a certain post.

He started responding like you're talking about. He then thought he was playing into their hands - plus, a woman will never agree that her bullshit is bullshit anyway.

He came up with a second all-purpose response: "You're Creepy" A put down he thought would register with any chick.

Probably even better response: A short reply on how UNattractive the woman probably is. I heard someone say recently: the best put-downs are those that reflect on a person's low sexual market value.

Maybe this is the best way to confront random women without also qualifying to them, or being overly wordy with things she won't understand anyway.

Whether it is relevant or not to the context at hand: "You, random woman, are very UNattractive." Dunno.

Anonymous said...

@XYZ
So you think basically calling out a woman's bullshit on point is the way to go.
Linus is as I mentioned in my earlier comment in a very unique and secure situation. I didn't include the link as advice, but because I thought it was interesting.

parselmouth said...

xyz, I think Linus responded perfectly. Although there are "game" dynamics to the interaction on display, his response addresses the "problem" that she brought up as a problem of general social interaction and more-or-less definitely put an end to that, regardless of who called him out.

I mean to say that his answer is appropriate and honest (and quite frankly so correct that it should be blindingly obvious) regardless of whether his accuser had been male, female, or...whatever.

To me, Linus comes out of this looking like the adult in the room and has gained more respect from me and likely a LOT of others. As for Ms. Sharp, she just looks like a fool. (Remember, it's best to be silent and thought to be the fool that to open your mouth and prove to be the fool.)

Also, Ms. Sharp is quite welcome to go start her own operating system, i.e. stop bitching and start doing. It's a bazaar world, after all.

tz said...

I would have said (which might be a paraphrase), Go Fork Yourself.

If she doesn't like the Kernel and the Lieutenants who filter patches, she can fork it (as Google did it for a while for Android for wakelocks).

Call it "Feminix". It doesn't matter if it works, only that the developers have self esteem and are all nice to each other.

There were stories about Steve Jobs. I think he was worse.

Anonymous said...

Here is Linus' response to Ms. Sharp on the kernel mailing list. He shut her down about as clearly as possible:

Yes he did. And the way she, by dint of being female, refers to herself as a minority, is playing the victim card just as he said. That alone should guarantee that nothing else she ever says on the matter is taken even slightly seriously.

I might have had some sympathy for a girl working in a male-dominated field and getting tired of the "locker room" feel (not saying it should change, but I could sympathize). But once she tries to shut up the opposition with the victim card, not a chance.

Anonymous said...

The Victim Card works constantly however - what are you talking about?

The fact that Linus persuaded you, me or other Vox readers means nothing. Because the law and everything else IS on the side of the random woman calling out a Man. So are the masses.

And the masses - people outside this Manosphere - will side with a so-called Victim and the Victim Card.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Linus did say he named both of his projects after himself, you know: Linux and Git.

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Anonymous said...

xyz, that's true, but I think it is possible to overplay the victim card. She's a well-paid, hipsterish, white chick, so claiming solidarity with all other "minorities" because some boys were flicking boogers near her on the playground just isn't going to generate a lot of sympathy.

And as Dalrock said, Linus is pretty much untouchable. What's she going to do, get him fired from working on Linux for free? Even if that were possible, there's no HR department or harried boss for her to work on. She'd have to convince the people running the project -- the very people she's complaining about. And even if she could raise enough of a stink to get him fired from his paying job (I assume he has one, but I haven't followed his career lately), he could have a new one the next day, working for some startup too small to have HR/legal departments to care about such things.

She got a lot of attention, which I assume was her goal, but she didn't do herself any favors within the open-source community. If her long-term goal is to be some sort of spokesgirl for Women In IT Who Aren't Gonna Take It Anymore, then this might have been a good way to kick off that niche career.

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