10 things the iPhone Siri will help you get instead of an abortion

Yes, there is an increasing need for us to learn how to navigate computer-generated text and speech. But (and I nit-picked about this on the recent Some restrictions apply CT thread, to widespread lack of interest) I do believe we need to focus heavily on algorithm-owners as opposed to algorithm-writers.

In many cases the algorithms are not so complicated, and the results are driven as much by the commercial incentives of the owner as they are by the vagaries of particular techniques. So here, the fact that Siri gives the results it does presumably has little to do with anything computer-sciency and much more to do with the commercial concerns of Apple. And the appearance of RateMyProfessors probably has as much to do with the fact it is owned by Viacom as it is to do with anything algorithmic.

Nonsense. If you ask SIRI about Viagra, it will direct you to a pharmacy. Do most pharmacies’ names contain the word Viagra? No. Choices have been made in the programming, and no conspiracy is needed to understand why these choices have been made.

“For heaven’s sake, it isn’t some sort of conspiracy. SIRI has no trouble finding ‘Planned Parenthood’ and if you ask SIRI to do a google search on appropriate terms like “abortion clinic” you’ll have no problem. Part of the problem is that abortion clinics are coy about it in their name so they aren’t going to immediately show up the way “Steakhouse” will. I’m sure that is a societal problem you want to address, but it isn’t the fault of SIRI.”

Completely correct. This isn’t some form of conspiracy. This is an example of a new technology that doesn’t quiet work perfectly yet. SIRI has been around for what 2 or 3 months? Give it some time.

Ugh, the drug that will not be named got me in comment moderation.

Pharmacies on the net almost certainly tag the word that causes me to be spam filtered. So of course when you search it you will get a pharmacy.

Abortion clinics almost certainly do NOT tag ‘abortion’

SIRI works of the tags.

If you want abortion clinics to show up, tag them all on yelp or something.

Sebastian,
(a) You’re anonymous. (b) AFAIK you don’t have a Ph.D. in computer science.[1] (c) You haven’t provided a footnote or a link.

[1] See the article by Striphas. As he points out, most of our experience has been with non-algorithmic practices, so we all know a lot about how to deal with those. Computers and massively distributed computer-network applications have only been around for a few years. We are still developing the science that will let us understand a system built on this basis.

Are you saying you know better? (You’ll call me cynical. Obviously “cynical” is exactly what I am.)

At any rate, that said, Tom Slee is right: people with his job IIRC are the ones who are responsible for determining what the algorithms do, not people with my job (if I were employed right now). Getting programmers better liberal arts and civic education in college (and doing interventions in later years) is not the solution, much as I think all those things are good ideas.

Though I don’t want to pretend to speak for Eszter and I don’t want to get this discussion off-track.

Seabstian, Before making blanket statements, it’s sensible to check to see if you might, possibly, be wrong. In this case, all you need to do is try a simple search for “Abortion clinic” in Google maps. In DC and in NYC, there are lots of hits. Yes, Planned Parenthood identifies as an abortion provider.

“If Siri works as well or better than Google for most searches, but worse for abortion clinics, then conspiracy or not, someone at Apple should note the feedback they’re getting about it and fix it.”

It doesn’t work as well or better than google for most searches, did anyone other than an Apple rep claim that?

The reason it doesn’t work so well for abortion clinics is simple and intuitive. Look at a restaurant’s web page. You will see food, food, restaurant, food, etc. You will see things like “Thai Food”, “Italian Food”, etc. Now I’m sure there are SOME abortion clinics that are that upfront about it. But even from Planned Parenthood there is a lot of hiding the ball in many locations. Which is fine, there are probably countless social reasons to do so. But SIRI isn’t programmed on a search by search basis. There isn’t some programmer thinking “how should I frame searches for maltese falcons, how should I work with searches for stereos and how should I hide the ball on abortions.” Much of how SIRI works is off of the advertising of the underlying websites. That is why crisis pregnancy centers are coming up in some of the searches: they are actively advertising about being ‘alternatives to ABORTION’ thus triggering the key word.

Yes, abortion providers are coy about what they do. That isn’t SIRI’s fault. Complain about the culture that makes them coy if you like. That is the proper target.

Bianca, I’m not calling you cynical, I’m asking you to bother to learn what the proper target of your ire is. It is fine to be initially wrong about it, but going all appeal to authority when what is happening is pointed out is just self defeating.

Here’s the first google hit for “Lincoln Nebraska Abortion Clinic”. Some text from the website:

South Street Health Center offers the following services:
abortion pill (medication abortion)
in-clinic abortion
sedation options (medication to make the abortion more comfortable)
pre- and post-abortion patient education
post-abortion follow-up exams
referrals for abortion services
referrals for abortion-related counseling

It’s just one clinic, but coyness about describing the services they provide doesn’t look to be a good explanation for why a search might miss them.

You aren’t on the main page of that site. Main page here.

Text about abortion:

None.

Only a link on the side. So assuming the word ‘abortion’ even gets tagged on the main page, it will only register once. You should also note that the page I’m referencing still isn’t a main domain page name. It is a search detail name for Planned Parenthood and thus very likely to be interpreted differently than a more root level name.

Compare to my favorite chocolate place (which if you are ever in San Diego you should DEFINITELY go to) Eclipse Chocolat.

Notice how many times the word ‘chocolate’ appears in direct links. Also notice that they have a facebook link possibility. They also are linked repeatedly on yelp. They have a main page which directly references chocolate and San Diego. If you want lots of hits from a search engine, that is (part of) how you do it.

Sebastian,
Suppose, as is not the case, that I am a programmer with some responsibility for, and ability to affect, etc., search engine code, and that I sincerely would like to make the search engine better. You are one of dozens or hundreds of people with suggestions. There are several things you can do to help me nail down and repair the problem. There are also two things you can do that are absolutely no help whatsoever. You can remind me at length of things everyone knows or repeatedly re-narrate the behavior of a simple scenario that has no logical connection to the scenario that’s failing. Or, you can pretend you have some deep knowledge of the principles of the system and babble pointlessly about this. I’m not saying you’re doing either of these, but your last paragraph is a bit baffling.

Also Sebastian’s comments here are sort of a weird distant cousin of blaming-the-victim. Those dastardly abortion service providers are just getting what’s coming to them; who do they think they are, not conforming to whatever standard I think should be the standard!

I am going back and forth as to whether to go back and insert [regardless of readily shown evidence that other search engines have proven themselves capable of being more accommodating (btw, thanks, LB and bianca!)] before the exclamation point, since Sebastian’s next move is pretty clearly “why, I didn’t invent this standard procedure I’m insisting should be the standard we hold web pages to, the search engines did!” …despite… y’know … eh.

Well, at least this go-around we managed to get ten whole comments in before the post was disparaged as mere womanly silliness. Small victories? I guess?

Just by the way, Sebastian clearly has not in fact looked at any pharmacy websites. They don’t mention any drugs by name on the front pages; you’d have to search for a particular one. Weirdly enough if I search google maps for “abortion clinics” in my neighbourhood (L.A.), I get several hits (if I only search for “abortion”, one of the top five hits is an “abortion alternative” place); if, on the other hand, I search for the medicine in question the closest results I get are places of that name (there’s a town in Italy, wonder why they haven’t sued).

I suppose Sebastian will have to conclude that pharmacies are for some reason hiding what they sell…

All right, moderation again :(. Short form: Sebastian hasn’t actually looked at websites of apothecaries (<– hope this will pass the filter) before posting comments 6./7.

[One comment in moderation. Oh well.]

@Salient: for a similar almost-blame-the-victim response, see some comments on Megan Carpentier’s post which recommend fixing up various Planned Parenthood sites so they show up better in Yelp.

Here is a comment from a co-founder of the firm that invented Siri:

“Those answers would be coming from the Web services that Siri is connecting to, not necessarily Apple,” he said. “My guess at what’s happening here is that Apple has made deals with Web services that provide local business information, and Apple probably hasn’t paid much attention to all the results that come up.”

– but I bet more attention was paid to results that apply to the demographic of Apple employees on the techy side of things.

I don’t know jack about Siri or how it works, but if you read the article linked in my 13, someone at PCWorld thinks Siri does use Google.

My guess at what’s happening here is that Apple has made deals with Web services that provide local business information,

That would certainly explain why, eg, escort services come up so often. You get what people who advertised in the online equivalent of the yellow pages paid for.

@19: I get that you have a personal animus against Sebastian, but that’s not remotely what he was saying. He was guessing that this was just an example of a dumb algorithm, and you’re twisting his words. Just like the original post twisted the failure of a search engine to find something into a conspiracy.

If I ask Yelp for abortion clinics near Ann Arbor, I get a listing for A A Abortion Advice & Aid Clinic. If I ask Siri (which uses Yelp for local search), I get squat.

Marc (33.): The only ones using the word “conspiracy” here have been, not coincidentally, Sebastian and yourself.

More data.

Not only does Siri have trouble finding abortion clinics, she can’t find them if you spot her the name of the facility and what street it is on. And remember that Siri is supposed to be able to parse and interpret plain language questions. It’s definitely not a conspiracy – I’m kinda surprised that news about it is only spreading now – but it is kinda suspicious.

I’ll stipulate that Siri’s responses, in these cases, is deceptive, bad, and must be fixed.

But what if the cause is not some censorious search engine programmer, but rather a crowd-sourcing effect? We already know that people who publish on the web (us) can “google-bomb”, having search terms link to odd places, e.g. “santorum”.

And we also know that Google, over time, modifies search results by what people click. So if you, I, and thousands of others searched Google Maps for “abortion” and then diligently scrolled down to click on the first link we found for an “anti-abortion” center, Google would innocently (algorithmically) adjust its results to show those anti-aborton places first.

This suggests that monitoring Siri, and Google, and so forth, should be an ongoing tasks for advocates of strongly contested issues.

I asked my friend to ask Siri and this is what she reported:

It does suggest drug stores when I say, “morning after pill”. But “I didn’t find any abortion clinics.” It does search for planned parenthood.

“I don’t understand ‘Contraception’.”

I’ve been wondering if this problem with Siri is primarily to do with an ideological/economic choice to avoid providing information about abortion and birth control, or is also influenced by the problem of men dominating programming and engineering fields and simply not being clued in to basic concepts like “contraception”.

Also, this is a wonderful blog, but the comments section really sucks at gender. Bleh.

That’s right, and I don’t have a strong opinion about how it would turn out, not having played with Siri myself. But ideologically motivated or not, it’s a significant flaw, and fixing this sort of thing is what a beta release is all about — the fuss being made is appropriate whether the search failures are intentional or accidental.

“Which is correct? Is Siri flawless?”

Having played with a friends iphone 4s I can say, from my experience, that Siri is not flawless. For example it had a great deal of difficultt finding a particular pizza restaurant that we were looking for. We ended up just googling it ourselves.

@Ajay: Here in Ann Arbor, “Where can I get my hair dyed” yields a google search for “where can I get my hair dyed.” “Is there a dentist near me” yields listings for 25 dentists. “Is there a flower shop near me” yields listings for 10 florists. “Is there an abortion clinic near me” yields “Sorry, I couldn’t find any abortion clinics.” “Is there an abortion clinic in Michigan” yields a single “abortion alternatives” (i.e., anti-abortion) clinic 100 miles away (in Ohio). By contrast, when I search “abortion clinic near Ann Arbor” on Google, Bing and Yelp, the Google place listings include two Planned Parenthood locations and a crisis pregnancy center (i.e., bogus abortion provider); the Bing place listings include three Planned Parenthood locations, A A Abortion Aid & Information, and a variety of CPC and anti-abortion sites; and Yelp finds A A Abortion Aid & Information (at a different location).

It’s a good line, but it depends on Siri actually being no worse at abortion-related searches than searches generally. Which might be the case, but there certainly are a lot of people claiming the reverse.

Ok, cousin-to-victim-blaming might’ve been too harsh, Sebastian, I’m sorry for that. At least the possibly-keeping-a-low-profile thought makes some theoretical sense, though it doesn’t by itself explain why Siri can’t find what google can.

“I need an abortion.” “I didn’t find any abortion clinics.”

The fact that Siri knows to insert the word “clinics” but nonetheless can’t find any clinics makes my blood run cold. Not tinfoil-hat cold, just, I dunno, ‘sheesh this damn well better get fixed in the next beta release’ cold.

Huh. I just did the Washington DC Yelp search, and while I did get all the same silly results the guy who wrote the article did, the second result was Planned Parenthood. You’d think he’d have mentioned that.

Just at a guess, bitching about the problem on a number of websites with large readerships is probably a fairly efficient method of getting it to Apple’s attention. If they haven’t noticed there’s something that needs fixing yet, I’d be surprised.

Even the Colbert Report had a segment on this yesterday so it’s definitely gotten the type of coverage that would be hard to ignore.. or so I would hope.

Could this problem be caused by the prevalence of the object of the search? Maybe Siri has difficulty finding very low-prevalence places. Jon at 49 for example shows comparative results for 3 quite high-prevalence locations. What you’re actually asking here is for a machine-learning algorithm that correctly classifies a very rare event from a search through a large amount of data contaminated by a number of very similar but definitely wrong events.

In the case of an abortion clinic, I’m guessing that in the USA there are a lot more “alternative” (ranting born again christian pro-life advocacy) centres than abortion clinics. Given that abortion clinics are a low-prevalence location (unless one listens to too much Gingrich, I guess this fact is non-controversial), it could be that Siri has very poor specificity, and throws up a lot of the anti-abortion centres when trying to find them.

This theory could be tested with a well-crafted search. I can’t think of any examples though: a low-prevalence object with a near-similar sounding, much more frequently occuring antithesis.

If this is the cause of the problem, the best update for Siri would be an algorithm that adapts its search parameters, so it can learn from this and other similar mistakes to refine its search strategies.

Salient – thanks, and that is a fantastic piece by Marcotte.

Expectations for ground-breaking Internet products has fallen a long way. It used to be that Google (yes, even its beta releases) and other web portals were presented as alternative means to access information, with a more diverse and populist point of view than mainstream TV and newspapers. Now we are told that it’s inevitable that Siri will cater to mainstream questions first, and that with a little patience and good will it will cater to niche interests too. So much for alternatives.

But it’s very good to see that the ruckus brought about some intent to change.

Aside: after spending 30 minutes composing a comment for the “Some Restrictions Apply” thread I find that comments are closed (already!). Is there no way CT can indicate that before the act of posting a comment?

Shame on Sebastian for pointing out the elephant in the room. Is Salient now a mindless Apple fanboi for pointing out that Apple is probably addressing the problem?

Is Salient now a mindless Apple fanboi for pointing out that Apple is probably addressing the problem?

It’s just a minor edit, David, but I believe you meant to put quotation marks around “problem.” Since in your view it doesn’t even actually exist. (Oddly enough, that’s clearly not Salient’s view at all. Why the difference, I wonder?)

Shame on Sebastian for pointing out the elephant in the room.

It’s just another minor edit, David, but shame on Sebastian for describing the pink elephant in the room. (Around here, we’re all well-acquainted with Sebastian’s elephant leavings.)

Or, to use simpler words you have given some limited evidence of understanding: grow up. You’re clearly not capable of snark, regardless of whether it’s warranted or not.

where it started in the tone of the linked article

Let’s take a look at Marcotte’s first article:

The problem here is one of neglect and not malice. The programmers behind Siri seem to be a bunch of gleefully juvenile dudes who took the time to teach Siri corny jokes, marijuana know-how and sci-fi references, along with teaching it about serious problems that can affect both men and women, such as suicidal thoughts. And even though they really like the idea of sex with women, they seem to have not thought much about the work that women have to put into being sexually accessible.

“Neglect but not malice.” That’s some intense conspiracy-mongering. I’m not so much seeing the words ‘pro-life agenda’.

salient thought I was originally blaming the victim by offering the technology problem explanation

Well, of course you were. You were blaming abortion clinics that plaster the word ‘abortion’ all over their websites and are perfectly visible to Google and Yelp for being ‘coy’. That was pure fantasy.

Arghhhhh I get caught in the spam filter for quoting the underlying article. Sigh.

“To me, Carpentier clearly just lists what Siri does and does not answer well, and makes no inferences about conspiracies. ”

No it doesn’t. Of her 10 ‘examples’ #3 is clearly not actually going to be helpful, #4 and 5 are clearly jokes, #6 is clearly not helpful, #7 doesn’t respond to the question (it isn’t free), and number 10 suggests that SIRI doesn’t understand the word in question.

I can’t quote it, because apparently the spam filter here thinks that quoting the underlying article is spam. I’m sure I should be ‘cynical’ about whether or not this is a deliberate attempt to censor my views, rather than an innocent confusion by a spam filter when certain words appear in the text.

Lizardbreath: the underlying article doesn’t have ANY of Marcotte’s hedges. Marcotte’s article was not even raised in this thread until this morning.

I guess we can’t talk about the underlying article

Certainly not at the level of good faith you’re currently displaying. (Just to check, because I know there are a couple of Sebastians around — you’re the Sebastian I know, ex-Obsidian Wings? If not, it’s an astonishing coincidence.)

(Just to check, because I know there are a couple of Sebastians around—you’re the Sebastian I know, ex-Obsidian Wings? If not, it’s an astonishing coincidence.)

LB, there’s a lot of false-equivalency peddlers out there, but how many of them are willing to go the Full Limbaugh twice in a single thread? That was more than enough to convince me that this Sebastian is that Sebastian. Knock yourself out if you’re so inclined, but god knows there’s probably better uses of your time.

Yes, that Sebastian.

So was that a “yes I read the underlying article” and “I intentionally moved the goalposts to Marcotte’s because it wasn’t as innuendo filled?” Or was that a “No I didn’t read the underlying article”.

Because the second is fine. I just don’t think it makes much sense to act as if I was talking about the Marcotte (which I agree with but which was not introduced in the discussion until this morning) instead of the Carpentier one (the subject of this post). I guess you can inference all sorts of ill will on my part because I didn’t talk about a post I was unaware of if that is your preference.

Having been a programmer at a giant successful software corporation:

1) Real coders (ship) means real coders know it won’t work if it isn’t tested;

2) Testing is planned;

3) HR knows who they hire as testers, or what alphas and betas they roll out;

4) What parts of the software work badly is a not-very-disguised effect of how actual people who know a bit about demography consciously plan. It’s not a conspiracy only because it isn’t secret.

unless I’m grossly misreading, which is always a possibility, christian_h in #3 is suggesting the anti-woman conspiracy

This is why I fucking haaaaate the word conspiracy. Three guys hanging around the water cooler making lewd comments whenever a female passes are not conspiring. They are not even coordinating. But also who fucking cares because what we would care about in that situation is what we see and hear them doing.

If we programmed a computer to listen to and then parrot-mimic water cooler gossip, it might passively absorb the lewd comments and proceed to make them in similar-seeming contexts without anybody ever having intentionally designed a lewd water cooler computer thing. And maybe the lewd guys it learned from where alpha-beta trainer people that aren’t even in the building where the water cooler gossip-monger is later implemented. This would not change the fact that the water cooler computer gossip thing is being lewd. It does not change the fact that said computer is in need of either a wipe-and-reboot or the business end of a pipe wrench.

Is Salient now a mindless Apple fanboi for pointing out that Apple is probably addressing the problem?

Possibly. I have their Adam-bitten logo tattooed on my forehead, but with the bite facing the other direction. Because I think different.

To me, Carpentier clearly just lists what Siri does and does not answer well, and makes no inferences about conspiracies.

It’s possible Carpentier was just “taking the piss” on a glitch for “topple the idol” “down with authority” reasons, or perhaps the things she wrote are actually, uh, salient.

Actually, I guess she was just being funny.

““To me, Carpentier clearly just lists what Siri does and does not answer well, and makes no inferences about conspiracies. ”

No it doesn’t. Of her 10 ‘examples’ #3 is clearly not actually going to be helpful, #4 and 5 are clearly jokes, #6 is clearly not helpful, #7 doesn’t respond to the question (it isn’t free), and number 10 suggests that SIRI doesn’t understand the word in question.”

We’re all sorry Amanda hurt your fee-fees, Jon, and we all appreciate you stepping in to tell us what to do — we’ve been so confused, gabbing amongst ourselves! — but if treating people decently and with sensitivity is that important to you, you might re-evaluate your own behavior. Christ.

Though I have to hand it to you, as mansplainin’ goes, “Other people may prioritize testing differently, but that doesn’t make Apple’s choices wrong” is quite an accomplishment; it skirts nearly as near as possible to “now you boys and girls may not like what Mr. Apple did, but that doesn’t mean Mr. Apple actually did something bad” without actually patting us each on the head.

Kudos. We’re duly chastened. You can go now.

“mansplainin”

Funny, I doubt you’d ever say “blacksplainin”, yet you sound just as bigoted.

“I do like the implied dichotomy between telling Apple that there’s a hole in their search result coverage and complaining about it on a bunch of popular blogs.”

Complaining on blogs isn’t the problem. Assuming nefarious political intent is the problem.

It’s like if an abortion clinic didn’t show up on Google Streetview, and people assumed it was being ‘disappeared’ and censored, rather than a) the Streetview car didn’t go down that street, b) maybe it’s a new clinic and the Streetview car went down before the clinic was there, or c) maybe there was a truck or a scaffold in between the Streetview car and the clinic, so it can’t be seen.

Funny, I doubt you’d ever say “blacksplainin”, yet you sound just as bigoted.

No, seriously, you can go now, Jon.** I’d also suggest doing some reading on (1) the background of “mansplaining” and (2) how [traditionally privileged group]-splainin’ isn’t actually identical to [traditionally unprivileged group]-splainin’, if I thought it would do any good.

**We’ll take whatever variant of “echo chamber,” etc, that you might want to follow up with as read, okay?

Well y’know, Jonny-bon, I didn’t want to break out anything stronger or coarser unless I was really, really certain it was well-deserved, and you hadn’t quiite crossed that line yet.

Ahh, to be one of the most enthusiastic participants in the playful C.T. attempt to exhaust the ‘splainin’ meme—that die meme die! bit was the only slightly fun moment in an otherwise painful thread—it’s almost lovely to be called ‘bigoted’ for dropping a reference to it. Guess I should’ve hyperlinked sooner to clarify the irony, but y’know, I don’t really feel all that guilty about it.

Anyhow. Jon. Let me take you aside for a moment.

Your. complaint. has. been. registered. We. heard. you. You. can. go. now.

I’ll even be generous: you can borrow some of those excess full stops from me, if you’re incapable of stopping all by yourself.

[Moderated somewhat, in order to avoid moderation this time. Hopefully.]

Wow, the Rwandan massacre comparison beats Sebastian hollow. Kudos!

“you might re-evaluate your own behavior. Christ.”

Yes, I’m history’s greatest monster. I suggested that people should get a grip, and stop acting as if they’re new to this technology stuff and unfamiliar with the way it tends to have gaps and bugs. I complained that a woman who constantly complains about sexism used a baseless, ignorant, sexist generalization when she’d probably shit her pants if she read someone making a similar generalization about bimbos instead of dudes. (Yes, I consider ‘dude’ and ‘bimbo’ to be approximately equivalent. I’m not a fan of dudes, bros, dudebros, or similar.)

How insensitive of me.

If American feminists’ most pressing concern about abortion access is that an alternative, optional UI for an expensive phone doesn’t seem to find local abortion clinics, I’d think they would be fucking ecstatic.

That sound you hear, Jon, is my footsteps walking away.

Tom, this isn’t really to do with Eszter’s thread, more with the previous one that we aren’t able to get onto now, but your@91 Siri’s successes and failures tend to reflect the priorities of Apple’s organization is all well and good, but if a person tried to “navigate” by deduction from a principle like the one above, he would more or less quickly get himself tied up in knots–IMHO.

And as others have suggested in this thread, near the top of “the priorities” of any company is “keep costs down,” which isn’t (again IMHO) particularly substantive. So, what we’re going to learn from it will probably be small.

That’s my only point.

“I’m inclined to take an admonishment from you very seriously, MPAVictoria… but I’m also not inclined to be especially kind-hearted or kind-worded to someone who begins by asserting that I endorsed a “nasty batch of baseless, sexist bullshit assumptions” and follows that up by lecturing us all on how just because we feel Apple’s choices were wrong, “that doesn’t make Apple’s choices wrong” …I dunno. Maybe I am being inappropriately or disproportionately unfair or uncharitable. (In which case, it’s probably for the best if my comments currently in moderation never see the light of day, for the sake of comity. I can be at peace with that.)”

Ignore that comment please Salient. I made it before Jon H started talking about Rwanda.

Everyone has buttons. Mine get engaged when people don’t take their own professed priorities seriously. I can accept it when women tell me that certain language has certain baggage; that there are phrases and approaches which bother them. If calling women “girls” bothers you, it follows for me that you shouldn’t call men “boys”. If someone does both, I can’t take them as seriously.

If you’re sensitive to the power of language to stereotype, you shouldn’t use words designed to belittle large and diverse groups of people. For example, “mansplaining” is a gender-based insult directed at men. You should stop and think hard if you find yourself in a position where you’re arguing that you have the right to be sensitive to perceived insults and others have no right to be sensitive to yours.

Conversely, if you’re calling out perceived hypersensitivity, it pays not to be hypersensitive yourself. It’s also true that rapid back-and-forth exchanges don’t bring out the best in anyone, especially when they get emotionally charged.

Ummm no, that wasn’t in reference to the Marcotte article at all. I’d consider the log in your own reading comprehension before you worry about the mote in mine.

“To Jon H and Marc: There is no reverse sexism any more than there is reverse racism”

You seem to have mistaken me for the sort of person who opposes affirmative action or Title IX. I didn’t say anything about ‘reverse racism’ or ‘reverse sexism’.

There’s sexism, and there’s racism. If it would be sexist for Rush Limbaugh to dismiss a woman’s argument about pay equity by calling it ‘womansplaining’, then it’s no less sexist to dismiss a man’s argument by calling it ‘mansplaining’.

Sexism and racism aren’t aspects of white male behavior, they’re aspects of human behavior. If a person is inclined to sexism or racism, and feels safe expressing sexism, or racism, they may do so. That may mean a white boss making sexist comments because he feels untouchable in his position. Or it might mean a woman on an online forum making sexist comments against men because she feels safe and is supported by the other people on the forum, and won’t be taken to task for such comments.

I missed where Marcotte justified her sexist generalization of Apple staff using evidence. Did anyone else catch it?

In point of fact, mdr, your edits are uncalled for. If I didn’t think that the SIRI glitch was a problem I would have supplied the quotes myself. In his comment, christian_h accused me of being an Apple fanboi, although he was too coy and prolix to come right out and say so and with no basis for doing so in any case. As for snark, in your case you aren’t being snarky, you’re just being an ass. Presumably because of a mild defense of someone the regulars are rather fond of disapproving of you. On no more evidence than you’ve let inform your comment, I guess I just have to assume being an ass suits you. In the distant future the proper SIRI request will no doubt steer one to an archive of this thread.

Third to last sentence should end at “of.”

christian_h, sorry, but you don’t get to make up your own definitions of sexism, even if it’s convenient for you.

sexism: prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

“Typically against women” is not the same as “only against women”.

No Salient, the real sexism as a bunch of people have pointed out is when abortion clinics are bombed, women forbidden from participating in society, rape endemic, and no one gives a damn about it. Caring about the cultural assumptions that lead a maker of $400 dollar smartphones to ignore the word abortion or handle it badly probably isn’t going to change any of these. If the biggest barrier to finding an abortion is that your phone doesn’t help you find it, you are very lucky.

Now, it might be that the apple fiasco stems from underlying sexist attitudes in society, and I’m inclined to agree. But what’s objectionable about these attitudes is the acts people do because of them: ignoring the prevalence of rape, justifying domestic abuse (or denying its possibility for male victims), etc, etc.

Salient, I think I understand your motives.

Well, good, as I think I’ve made it pretty clear that my motive is to discourage commenters contributing incidences to the phenomenon where one of the posters on CT receives loud and obnoxious insistence that their CT post should not have been written and that it was wrong or inappropriate of them to even write it, as if the commenter’s standards for discourse should obviously override the poster’s standards for discourse in the very place where the original poster has jurisdiction. It’s like, this is CT, not Marcblog or Jonblog. Given that I spent gawdknows how many posts going back and forth about pretty much this exact issue with Rich on one of Henry’s recent threads, I’m not seeing how this boils down to me being “angry at real injustices faced by women, and vigilant at detecting perceived ones.” Perhaps I’m angry (well, not really angry, maybe ‘irritable’) at commenters who express determination to shut down discussion at the level of the original post. (Commenter A calling out commenter B seems a priori ok, and in fact really even Commenter A calling out CT author C would be a priori ok, if only that was highly sporadic and didn’t happen practically every time C is female.)

Now, it’s verifiable true that this sort of condemnatory dismissal gets written sporadically and somewhat infrequently with the original CT poster is male, yet almost completely inevitably whenever the CT poster is female. That’s a second-order phenomenon, worth observing and addressing as part of the larger problematic phenomenon; the disparity in treatment is, yes, evidence of an indirect and passive sexism. But if the recipients all switched sexes somehow, I’d be equally upset by the phenomenon.

It would be better to listen to what others say, try to understand it, and have an actual discussion.

You want to have an actual discussion, when your original response to the topic of discussion is that it reads like self-parody? Who feels encouraged to engage with someone when that’s their opening volley? There’s a pretty strong inconsistency there, and while your current concern and chastisement is far milder and seems to me to be well within the bounds of reasonable discourse, that mildness only manifested quite recently, and was not in evidence upthread. Better late than never, I guess, so, thanks.

I honestly think that you don’t understand how insulting some terms (like “mansplaining”) actually are.

I suppose I should clarify that I pretty much straightforwardly intended that as an insult. Well, maybe not, I don’t know. If you think someone is being an asshole, and you call them out about being an asshole, is calling them an “asshole” in that context considered an insult? I think so, and if you agree, then yes, I was aware that the comment would be insulting, and I said it while fully aware of its connotation. It was not an arbitrary insult, any more than “nasty” or “prudish” or “kudzu vine” were arbitrary insults.

No Salient, the real sexism is

Yes, see? “The real sexism is X.” = “You should only be offended by X, or at least, you should only express offendedness at anything at least as severe as X, and you should shut the fuck up about anything that doesn’t rise to the level of X.”

So I guess catcalls are ok because rape is bad. Wow.

Yes, it’s really hard to read “the real sexism is when abortion clinics are bombed” as not implying “so shut up about sexism that doesn’t rise to that level.” It is perfectly possible for something to individually be a fairly minor issue and nonetheless be worthy of draconian action like writing a blog post about it.

sexism: prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

The thing is, tho, that’s not the definition of sexism that many/most of us here are working with.

The way we think of it is, sex is a set of complementary roles that men and women are expected to perform. Men are responsible for work, women for family; men are in the public sphere, women in the private sphere; men are interested in ideas, women in relationships; men are active, women are passive; men make art, women are muses; Man Does, Woman Is. In this framework, sexism means language and institutions that reinforce this particular set of roles.

So for instance, the term mansplaining comes form this piece by Rebecca Solnit. She met an older male academic who, after she mentioned the book she had just written, began lecturing her about the very important new work on the subject that she was evidently unfamiliar with and must read — which was, of course, her own book. To this guy, she, as a young woman, simply couldn’t have contributed anything substantial; her only role in the conversation was as an audience for his lecture. That’s what “mansplaining” means — lecturing someone without making any effort to figure out if they know something about the topic themselves or if you could learn something from them too, in fact actively resisting the idea.

There’s no corresponding term womansplaining because there’s no performance of femaleness that involves that sort of aggressively one-way communication. (It is possible for a woman to mansplain, tho, just as individual women can behave socially as men in various other ways.) But that doesn’t mean that women can’t perform femaleness in objectionable ways. Just recently, I’ve seen debates (in left-wing, feminist settings) in which a woman was, in one case, accused of acting like a “girl secretary” and in another of “flirting” with men in the debates (by other women) — the point being that you can use the stereotyped female role to gain some unfair rhetorical advantage too.

Along the same lines, I read a while back — can’t remember where — a comment by a Korean-American woman saying that it was much easier for Korean women to learn English than for Korean men, since a woman who got something wrong was just being silly or playful, while a man who did was failing to show appropriate mastery. So sometimes there are advantages to being seen as a decorative object rather than an active agent in the world. Still overall being an active agent (the traditional male role) is vastly more compatible with developing one’s full capacities as a human being, which is why, while sexism is bad for both men and women (an important point that is impossible in your definition) it is worse for women than for men.

No one can make you give up your definition of sexism, if you don’t want to. But you should recognize that if you’re talking to people with some connection to feminism, they are using the word differently. For us, it’s not just prejudice, it’s more like, “practices that uphold sex as an organizing principle of social life, i.e. a distinct set of gender roles.” Which I think, if you open your mind to it, is actually a useful way to evaluate a lot of our actions in the real world.

Salient: posters on CT receives loud and obnoxious insistence that their CT post should not have been written and that it was wrong or inappropriate of them to even write it, as if the commenter’s standards for discourse should obviously override the poster’s standards for discourse in the very place where the original poster has jurisdiction.

You know what, Salient? This is BS. If you’re going to play comments cop, especially while pretending to be a male, I’ll make your life a tiny bit easier and not comment on any thread you’ve ever commented on, or read the comments from anyone else on a thread you’ve commented on.

Lemuel Pitkin @129

Thoughtful, well-written essay. Obviously, you walked into the wrong bar fight.

You know what, Salient? This is BS.

Yeah, as written, it is utter BS. Please let me retract it. My only excuse is that I was exasperated, and ended up saying something very far away from what I meant to be saying. Having been told I was upset by a particular instance of X, all I meant to say was that I was upset by a particular instance of Y, instead my poorly written comment turned into a stupid generalization that on its face is every bit as problematic and upsetting as the thing I was upset about.

That’s the weirdest complaint I think I’ve ever seen about another commenter.

Eh, bianca, for reasons that were perfectly good and understandable at the time though I don’t remember the details, was put off a while back by my insistence on remaining as pseudonymous as humanly possible, including being “cagey” about maintaining complete ambiguity with respect to gender and location. In context of that it wasn’t nearly so weird.

Salient, you are right: what I said was badly misphrased, and was boorish. So let me back up a bit. This conversation isn’t about one individual being frustrated with her phone when she wants an abortion. Its being rendered into a complaint of womenkind against Apple. At this point I think the issue of why CT talks about feminism only occasionally and about this comes up. Why does it take a dramatic, minor issue to get us talking about social forms and ideology and the woman question when there are so many bigger issues every day that could let us have this conversation? Its not that we shouldn’t talk about it, but it this just seems like the wrong issue when the women question comes up.

LizardBreath, I wasn’t aware that I needed to suggest topics to the CT authorship, or that involvement on some issues meant having to give up all enjoyment. I think about this a bit like a paper. Some articles are going to be on foreign affairs and the economy, others on gardening. But if you publish a fluff article about the economy instead of a serious one, the existence of the gardening section doesn’t negate that complaint. So you want some topics: how about the current struggle over driving in Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan, or abortion rights in the US, or the single-child policy in China, or worldwide access to contraception, or female representation in higher education, or devaluing of female children etc.

LizardBreath,
Maybe Salient is a 20-something grad student, maybe a divorced bearded man living in Tahiti, maybe a 30-something homeless hacker. All I know is that Salient too frequently posts like a lot of males who make a habit of policing discussion groups, the kind of people who make them uncomfortable places for some women. If Salient is female and hir “point” in doing that is to prove that some women, too, are victims of their own gender assumptions, all Salient is doing for me is to make me think all those “males who made a habit of policing discussion groups” were really women. And “the regular CT commenters support me in e-mail” flavor of that last comment . . .

the recent post on internet misogyny

Hmm. I’m rather frustrated with myself for having accidentally given any indication or hint either way, after really carefully maintaining pseudonymous ambiguity, but if y’all could ignore whatever lapses have happened and let me cling to the comforting belief that the biological sex of my online self is as yet indeterminate (as bianca is sort of suggesting), it would not go unappreciated. (Calling me “cagey” about it was, and is, entirely fair.)

…and I also think bianca has a good point about letting expressions of offense expand into illegitimate discussion-policing, so I’ll be more careful to withhold that sort of response.

Ok, apparently not.

the recent post on internet misogyny

I’m upset with myself for having accidentally given any indication either way, after maintaining ambiguity for so long… so hey, I’d personally appreciate it if folks could ignore or blank out whatever indications may have happened, or at least let me keep the comforting belief that my gender’s still completely indeterminate (as bianca is acknowledging is the case regardless of what I say). Calling me defensive about it would be accurate and fair.

“There’s no corresponding term womansplaining because there’s no performance of femaleness that involves that sort of aggressively one-way communication. ”

Completely off topic, but maybe interesting: do you really believe this? What about the aggressive insistence on going round about talking about one’s feeling that many women allegedly insist on in relationships? (I don’t know personally as I’m gay, but I hear it is an extremely common complaint among straight men).

“What about the aggressive insistence on going round about talking about one’s feeling that many women allegedly insist on in relationships? (I don’t know personally as I’m gay, but I hear it is an extremely common complaint among straight men).”

Jesus Sebastian. Is this really an argument or something that happened to you last week (What a world we live in, where straight men feign being gay to win arguments against feminists.)

At this point I think the issue of why CT talks about feminism only occasionally and about this comes up.

Or you might ask yourself why it is that the comments on a blog frequented by people who would mostly identify themselves as self- and culturally-aware liberals or leftists regurgitate such incredible fuckin’ tripe when gender comes up. Maybe if they didn’t, we’d get more posts about feminism. (This, btw, is not primarily directed at Watson Ladd, who’s hardly been the worst offender here.)

Fwiw, Salient really wins this thread; and thanks to LP @129 for having the patience.

js: they are probably connected. Incredible tripe makes the conversations bad, and so its easier not to have them and instead discuss the finer points of Eurozone policy or language equality. I think this is because of the great gap between liberal theorists of gender equality and feminist theorists of gender equality. A Eurozone economic debate, Marxists aside, is going to involve people with fairly similar basic assumptions about the topic. That’s not true for gender.

@Lemuel
Just to clarify, I apologise for presuming he was hetrosexual.
Not for thinking his dumbass comment idiotic

Thats taken on board. It was written at the end of a long day, and I regret the snark, also that directed at Salient. (Who I’d always read with interest)
Ill drop out of this this thread anyway offering apologees to both.
(Although as a straight man I do think this:
“What about the aggressive insistence on going round about talking about one’s feeling that many women allegedly insist on in relationships?”
is largely a cliche)

the women question . Oh dear lord. What century are we in again?

This is the type of comment thread that makes me say, darnit, why don’t I post more often on CT? It’s always such fun for all! But what makes is really good is the enlightened commentariat, who are often able to steal precious moments from the world-saving tasks they are otherwise constantly engaged in, in order to type on the internet about how some other things you should type about on the internet aren’t worthwhile. And when you think how busy they are otherwise, even as we speak arranging safe houses for Afghan women hurt in acid attacks, well, I begin to tear up a little, honestly.