> 2009/3/9 Harrison Conlin <[email protected]>:
>> On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 10:54 PM, Lindsay Holmwood
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> I enjoy passive-aggressiveness as much as the next person, but could
you please enumerate your concerns?
>> Sure. In IRC, he regularly shouts out the name of male genitalia, and
frequently makes sexual innuendos. Also, last month he was removed from
the channel for doing an action of patting a female on the rear in a
sexist manner.
>
> I wasn't going to say anything, but since the topic was raised...
>
> It wasn't the rear, it was the front :(
For those who do not know the context of this, the term used was 'fanny'.
The interpretation of that word depends greatly where you take your
reference from:
* The definition I grew up with, which I believe has en-gb heritage, does
mean the front [0].
* However, if using the en-us definition (which due to Americanisation now
appears the predominantly accepted definition in .au), it is the rear [1].
In my experience, most people in .au do know both definitions of the word.
I find that those who choose to use it do so in ambiguous situations for
maximum shock/confusion/insult value -- with the intent on claiming the US
definition as their defense.
I am choosing to take the stance of 'assuming stupidity rather than
malice' in this instance, and hoping that Chesty merely meant the poor
girl's rear...
... which is *still* inappropriate, and should not be tolerated. At all.
>
> Honestly, given the efforts we've been making in terms of addressing
gender imbalance issues in the past couple of years, I think it would be
a massive step backwards if such behaviour was rewarded.
>
I agree wholeheartedly with this.
I'd also like to point out that *everyone* can provide assistance to SLUG
and helping does not require Committee membership [2].
--
[0] Sorry, no link since I'm at work, and my desk is alongside the main
thoroughfare. I did try search 'nomenclature fanny' but the results did
not seem SFW, although the text for them might provide insight. Feel free
to Google for yourself though.
[1] My mother has an amusing story from a seminar she attended many many
moons ago, where the speaker was an US American who complained how sore
his 'fanny' was from the longhaul flight.
--
Melissa Draper
w: http://meldraweb.com & http://geekosophical.net
p: +61 4 0359 5395
--
SLUG Activities
Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
lmpx.com only provides a reader for public news (NNTP) servers. It is not
affiliated with the servers or forums shown here and is not responsible for
the content of articles, which is written by their respective authors.