Re: [LAU] Fuck your sexism

From: Bill Gribble <grib@email-addr-hidden>
Date: Sun Feb 10 2013 - 20:24:48 EET

Alexandre Prokoudine <alexandre.prokoudine@email-addr-hidden> wrote:
>I'm afraid I'm missing the required cultural reference. What is it
>exactly that you found offensive?

I think that a large number of people find it offensive to use sexualized images of women in the context of activity such as music creation or recording that has nothing to do with sex, and in particular nothing to do with male sexual fantasy, which is what Lolita images represent.

At best, it is insensitive to women users of the software who didn't ask to see some fantasy images of young girls portrayed as objects of sexual desire.

At worst, it can appear to be an aggressive attempt to push away women as users by intimidation, in the same way that men have used pinup images of women in workplaces to keep real women out, or "in their place", or always conscious of their outsider status. This is particularly a problem in the technology and free software worlds, so we should be extra-sensitive to it.

I understand that falktx is pulling in the image in question from a source (Vocaloids) that is relevant to computer audio production; it's a bit like a glamour shot of a "real" music celebrity, but even more relevant to an audio software distribution. It's not a bad choice on all levels. I doubt he thought the image would be offensive. That doesn't change the fact that it IS offensive to at least some people, and that "best practices" of sexism avoidance would guide one to leave this image out.

Thanks,
Bill Gribnle

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Received on Sun Feb 10 20:15:16 2013

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