Here we go again... certain biases are OK... others not?

Question

So we have this question - Should I talk to my team lead about unintentional sexism within the team?

Lots of heated discussions. Lots of very sexist comments by a lot of women posters. One of them wrote an answer HLGEM. I found her answer very biased, very sexist, and with no research/documentation other than her personal sexist attitude.

Do I care that the answer was not deleted? Personally no. I believe in freedom of speech and I believe overall HLGEM has some good insight - although I don't personally agree with everything she says I respect her opinion.

However... Let's step into the way back machine and look at this meta question about an answer of mine (from another user wondering why it would be deleted)... Why is this answer with 43 upvotes locked?

So I had an answer with a ton of votes, in a nut shell it said that sexist behavior wouldn't be excused by most based on the excuse of religious beliefs. The mods (local mods who had competing answers teamed up and started the "tattling") and SE shut down the answer and still haven't given me a clear answer on what they didn't like - other than it didn't meet their guidelines.

On the link above the person who personally attacked me and deleted my answer - the great jmort253 (SE employee so obviously just and right) - left an answer that supposedly answered why my answer was deleted. Please please read his unanswer that looks like it was written by the Hillary Clinton PR disaster team. But also really read his bolded sentence, votes alone do not excuse content that does not meet Stack Exchange guidelines of answering the question objectively, factually, and honestly.

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So we have a baseline of what gets deleted. My answer also had sourced information of why someone who did something sexist based on religious beliefs would be frowned on if their religion was not the predominant one in that region.

So whatever the mods let religion - mainly Muslim religion - trump the sexism that women face. (Note I was personally contacted by a SE employee. He was nice but I was not happy no action was taken. I was in serious discussions with my upper management of buying the corporate version of SE - which is $$$$ - for our company. There is no way that I could do this with this kind of cultural and employee risk. Just background on why I pushed this at the time.)

So now go to HLGEM's answer. I read it and was a little flabbergasted. It was basically just bashing men in general without any research or anything cited. I liked that she was being honest but the answer just really didn't fit the question. Several people left comments. I was actually surprised that most of the reaction was either bashing men more or pretty tame in the opposite direction. I actually left two comments - and believe it or not they weren't offensive! (yes I can be offensive as I joke and tease)

To my surprise Monica Cellio not only deleted many of the comments (but did leave two, of course by a mod and someone who has left a laundry list of anti-men comments on the question on different answers. I mean seriously this site's mods need mods. Either you delete all or the offensive one or you leave it alone. Got to be kidding me.)

But the kicker here is Monica deletes the comments, leaves two sexist comments, and THEN leaves the answer. This answer is clearly sexist, portraying that it is normal for men to react in a horrible way, a jerk if they want to ask others for advice after a woman gives them advice. I mean can you imagine if I had an answer that said, "Most women don't get technology so don't bother talking about it with them (and using sources about women's vs men's tech ability)?

What we have here is clear sexism - OK'ed and even encouraged by a mod. The same mods that ganged up on me and other users for similar things. It is ironic that this would happen on a question about women facing sexism at the workplace, when my answer was defending women from sexist behavior encouraged by certain cultures and religions.

Please tell me why a user wouldn't think that the SE community mods are biased/sexist/racist? They obviously have different rules for different segments of the population. Also tell me how I can't equate this behavioral bias to:

Muslim > Women > Men

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For transparency of the discussion (I know I put aluminum foil over windows - yes I am a nut) why don't the real voters of the answers simply leave a +1 or -1 comment on the answer. Let's agree that the votes don't count without a comment.

Answer 1

I usually refrain from participating in sexism questions on Workplace for exactly this reason.

It seems to me that the more concerned that some folks are with systematic injustice and promoting tolerance, the less likely they are to reflect on their own biases and how they might be contributing to a different sort of intolerance. You shouldn't assume because your intentions are noble that your unexamined biases aren't affecting your judgment. Just because you're convinced you're on the right side doesn't mean you are automatically right in all situations.

If a woman was told that she couldn't complain about her perception that she was being discriminated against because she didn't phrase it in a constructive way, would that be OK with you?

I don't understand how so many promoters of tolerance can refuse to acknowledge that there is a growing sense that misandry is cool. Men can actually be the target of sexism, and be unable to defend themselves from it. If you think otherwise, you should check your own gender bias.

From what I've seen, the guys have a legitimate beef with the way that they're being represented in media lately and treated when they try to participate in the dialogue about gender. If we can't entertain the possibility that some people use accusations of discrimination as a defense mechanism or to deflect attention from their own shortcomings, we're lost.

In my opinion, answers should never be deleted because they have an unpleasant viewpoint or tone. Deletion is for spam, extreme vulgarity, threats and the like, not for unpopular view points stated rudely. Even if they are factually incorrect, that should be corrected with down votes, comments and competing answers. Suppressing a view just makes it fester. Let it out in the open where people can look at it and see it for what it is.

Answer 2

I wasn't originally going to answer this because of the fact that I'm a moderator and a woman, my answer will probably be automatically assumed to be invalid. However, there are some points that I think can be addressed here.

First things first

The primary goal that we as moderators try to achieve here is an environment that is tolerant of diversity. People are people, and people are different. Nobody is trying to put anyone above any other demographic. What we want is to allow everyone to be able to be afforded the same respect, irrespective of our physical attributes or belief systems. If I were sight impaired, of course I wouldn't be expecting to be offered a job as a pilot, but if I were fully qualified and capable of fulfilling the duties of a role, then I would want to know that I would have an equal chance of being offered the role regardless of my gender, religion or any other attribute.

The point is to understand that we are all different, and what we need to ensure is that evaluation and capacity is measured the same for everyone, not that we all become clones.

You have said that you feel there is bias of Muslim > Women > Men. What we believe is People == tolerance.

What do I mean by "tolerance"?

Please understand that this is my understanding (or at least a part of it) of tolerance. Others may having varied views.

Tolerance is:

• Not automatically assuming that everyone that is or may appear Muslim is a terrorist.
• Understanding people who move to different cultures shouldn't have to give up all of their own cultural heritage.
• Realising that LGBTI people are just trying to get on with their lives, just like everyone else.
• Accepting that sexism and sexual discrimination does occur.
• Understanding that you have the right to be who you are. And so does everybody else.
• Accepting that sometimes to accept diversity, we have to bend a little.

Tolerance is not:

• Condoning the actions of terrorists or terrorist organisations, because they are the embodiment of intolerance.
• Abandoning your own ideals if they are in conflict with the actions of others.
• Automatically assuming that any discussion of sexist behaviour by one person in any way reflects on you.

My grandmother used to say "Everything will be so much better when we're all beige!" She was in most ways a highly insightful, well educated and intelligent woman, but this was one of the few times I actually disagreed with her. Instead of everybody conforming to one stereotype, we should embrace the differences between us. Differing viewpoints and experiences give us so much more capacity to learn and grow.

Conspiracy theories

If there is some conspiracy between mods and SE employees going on, then apparently I didn't get the memo. I've been a moderator for almost a year and I'm yet to have been told the secret handshake. We don't go synchronising voting patterns with SE employees. In fact, during my tenure here I can recall only two times I've interacted with SE employees; the first time was around a long term ban of one of our high profile community members, the second was about the community logo.

Side note: jmort253 is not a Stack Exchange employee. He's an elected community moderator, just the same as me.

Freedom of speech

Lillienthal's awesome answer here describes far better than I about the meaning of freedom of speech.

Something to note about bias is that the highest voted comment on the thread, which (correctly) raises that you cannot necessarily attribute the behaviour to sexism has been left in situ.

Final thoughts

Despite the accusations, the moderators here aren't man-hating, feminist, radical-Muslim sympathisers who wake up each morning wondering how to oppress the oppressors. I have kids, I didn't exactly make them on my own! :)

What we want to to is to try to maintain a tolerant community. Sometimes that goes against you, sometimes in your favour. It isn't a systemic attack on you or anyone else.

I think what many find confronting is that while not all cases or perceived sexism against women are indeed sexism - or perhaps not even most cases. But the story that many of us tell are so consistently similar that there are cases when it is sexism. We can't all be imagining it now, can we? That isn't saying that you behaved in a sexist manner, it's saying that someone did. It's not an attack on you or males in general. It's calling out that some men sometimes act in a sexist way, just as some women do too.

And because you can't post something this long without a reference to xkcd, here is one :)

Answer 3

I'd like to contribute the following:

• For about the last year (maybe longer), the moderation on this site has been outstanding. I haven't always felt this way, and I don't feel this way about all StackExchange sites, but I feel this way about this site today.
• However... @blankip is 100% correct about the following:

  Then instead of talking about it rationally other mods and employees jump in and defent [sic] the mod's incorrect point and belittle users...

I have always detected a certain "circle the wagons" mentality from the mods on this board, and I'm not sure why. The next time that Workplace.SE mods disagree will be the first time that Workplace.SE mods disagree. You don't need an M.B.A. to appreciate that groupthink is bad and that mods should consider minority opinions on Meta too. It's extremely unnatural for four people to agree on everything all the time; so don't do it! Keep your thinking caps on at all times! Keep Workplace.SE evolving in good ways, and always consider outsider opinions even if they include constructive criticism or call for change.

Answer 4

If folks really want to run a census:

"In writing/upvoting this answer, I am asserting that I have no business relationship with Stack Exchange, am not a Moderator, am not recompensed in any way for time I spend here -- gods, if only I was! -- and despite this spend an excessively large number of hours participating in Stack Exchange's cloudsourced community editing mechanisms, from Answers to Flags to Voting to Editing to (when I remember) reviewing proposed changes and votes."

Answer 5

What I have noticed is that when certain subjects come up, people don't vote on the quality of the answer, but instead vote their bias.

Now, IMO there is nothing wrong with putting a counter opinion up on a controversial subject, but to down-vote an opinion because you have a differing one is abusing the vote system here, and YES, certain opinions are favored over others.

I have also seen the circling of the wagons and a bit of blindness to issues raised. The stock answer I've seen to any criticism has been "We're doing a great job".

Sorry, but there is always room for improvement.