Earlier this week on Twitter, Zoe Margolis drew attention to a rather sexist article about women working in the technology sector. The piece wonders why the only celebrated women in tech are those working in “the public sector”, and reckons this is perhaps because women are lazy. Because hard work can only be used for making profit and not doing good, right? A photograph of Elizabeth Varley of TechHub – used without permission – sits at the top of the piece, which incorrectly claims her company has benefited from taxpayers money. As one commenter points out, “this article is not only wrong, but is amateur trolling of the worst kind.”
When Margolis complained about the piece, this was the reply she received from the editor: “We write about how tech is changing the world around us. You write about how many cocks you’ve sucked this week. Back off.” Hang on a second. You write a reportedly inaccurate article which pretty much slags off women and public sector workers in one go – I work in higher education, so thanks doubly for that – but you resort to slut shaming when someone points out that it might be a bit sexist? As Steve Dennis pointed out, “I am not a misogynist, because you are a slut!” is a pretty fucking terrible argument. Most people I know would say that it might have been a better plan to defend why you wrote what you did.
However, the oblivious Milo Yiannopoulos does indeed decide that he can basically ignore Margolis because she writes about sex. Does that mean we can ignore what he says because he’s Catholic? Of course not, that’d be silly. However, he went on to retweet a woman who claims that most women who sleep around have “problems”, as if this proves his point, and then he says that he refuses to get upset by criticism from sluts. So, rather than address the point being made about his article being inaccurate and sexist, he’d rather stick with name calling?
According to Yiannopoulos, “Sex bloggers don’t get to assume the moral high ground. Ever. What they do for a living is incredibly damaging to women.” Really? And how did you work that one out? Is that because it’s women writing about sex? Or because sex is so completely repulsive that no one should talk about it, ever? If it’s the former, then that’s a rather sexist point of view indeed. If it’s the latter, then I’ll start wondering which century we’re living in. Is writing about sex really that bad? Sex blogging takes a whole host of forms, none of which I would consider to be damaging to anyone at all, as long as what’s reported is accurate and there is no specific naming/shaming going on.
Sex bloggers can write about their own exploits, discuss sex more broadly – to include different aspects of sexuality, sexual activity, heath or education – or even write erotic fiction. Whether they write about what they did last night, analyse society’s attitude to sex work, or discuss what happens when you visit an STI clinic, it’s all useful stuff. People really do learn things, and some realise they are not alone in their desires or problems. In a society which is still embarrassed to talk about sex and which often shames women for doing so, writing about sex can be extremely important no matter how you do it. And no amount of slut shaming will shut us up, I’m afraid. Sorry about that.
UPDATE: Yiannopoulos is now banned from Twitter, but he’s building a frighteningly large Alt-Right fanbase in the US so we’ve definitely not seen the back of him.
misogyny is so casual in gaming industry circles its almost as if they get a free pass on it. The essential thing that makes this sexist to me is the counterfactual: can you imagine a man getting shamed if he were a sex worker? If the answer is no then its distinctly sexism. Cutting across this is being prudish about sexuality and shaming women who are involved with this.
I find the blogger 'furrygirl' really interesting about sexuality because she is definitely sex-positive, but not identifying as a feminist. The reasons she has for this are very interesting in my view.
I think from a feminist perspective its good to call bullshit on people who have thinly veiled prejudice, but on a personal view, some things are so vile they do not deserve attention.
Well done for flagging this issue up. You read these horrible people so I don't have to.
This makes me grind my teeth. I understand, when issues are more complex and intricate, how sexism and misogyny become slightly grey areas…
But this is so obviously grotesquely sexist. How have we not moved past it?
@M – There is indeed a fine line between calling folk on their bullshit and drawing yet more attention to it. I think Zoe Margolis had just ignored him until she read that post, but then she felt she had to flag it because he keeps getting away with it.
@Harper Elliot – There is no denying that's sexist, is there? Would he ever write a piece on money grabbing men in tech? No, because he thinks that's a good thing. *sigh*
Im a male programmer, best 2 programmers i have worked with in the last 10 years are both women. Both were better at the code and better at communicating. Both in Private sector. Both got jobs on own merits. This bloke is idiot, he makes an industry already full of geeky mummy boys even worse.