Many excluded from opportunity to get tickets for Michael Jackson memorial services

Speaking of blogs and books Eszter …

Ah! What about Iran? Don’t we base our perceptions about what happened on Twitter and Facebook? I think your point is far wider than a draw to attend a funeral.

To be a bit more philosophical about it, the big question for the web is validation. An epistemology in the absence of direct sensual input. The web is assumed by some to be a great liberator. Enhancing the direct access to facts and providing a variety of independent sources for cross-validation. How realistic is this picture for the US? How realistic is it for the world at large?

I hope, you’ll have more to say about it.

My sense is that there are better bases upon which to critique the technological divide. In other news, people without internet cannot pay bills, find and apply for jobs, or remain connected with distant friends and family nearly as easily. But yes, the poor folks are missing out on Michael Jackson’s funeral. God forbid we fail to waste bandwidth on THAT injustice.

You did clarify that you’re not arguing for a “basic right associated with a chance to attend,” but it’s still difficult to avoid thinking that the point made here is a little bit absurd.

I imagine that if you change “no home Internet usage” to “no home internet usage and no close friends with internet usage,” your number will likely shrink from 38% considerably (although those remaining will likely still be disproportionately poor and minority.)

I spent the better part of 45 minutes Sunday on the telephone with my elderly, poor, computerless grandmother, reading off every possible permutation of a round trip between two major train hubs on Amtrak.com so that her elderly, poor, computerless friend could pay her a visit by train. It would likely have been a lot less trouble to set up an e-mail account for her and enter her in the lottery.

So, this COULD be a problem, or it could just be something that looks like a problem, but isn’t.

Many of these people also do not have access to basic dental care, among other things. I’m a little more concerned about that, to be honest.

No, but you don’t understand. This is about people who couldn’t get tickets to Michael Jackson memorial concerts.

And there is a real difference between “no home Internet access” and “no Internet access”. There are, for example, wifi hotspots. Internet cafes. Libraries with free access. Internet-capable phones.

Sigh. +1 to the count.

Perhaps I should re-define the category: Posts written by CT contributors on which a good share of the comments say, “This wasn’t worth writing about.” (That’s what I meant originally, when I said comments questioning the post’s right to exist.)

Apparently commentators feel more strongly compelled to respond in this way when the post is written by a female.

And there is a real difference between “no home Internet access” and “no Internet access”. There are, for example, wifi hotspots. Internet cafes. Libraries with free access. Internet-capable phones.

How many people with laptops or Internet-capable phones don’t have Internet access at home? One? Zero?

Libraries, of course, though they aren’t exactly open 24/7, or even 10/7 in most places.

How many people with laptops or Internet-capable phones don’t have Internet access at home? One? Zero?

Many, me for one. Have you tried getting a non-Internet-capable phone recently?

Also, the public libraries here leave their wireless routers on even when the library is closed. (This is poor rural Virginia, but the libraries have wireless internet access available.) So it is possible–and not uncommon–to go to the library with a laptop and use the internet even when the library is closed.

I’m only troubled by “the rhetoric suggesting that anyone could enter the contest” to the extent, for instance, I’m troubled by the “rhetoric suggesting” that the voting on “American Idol” really means anything about the aesthetic preferences of the American public, i.e., it doesn’t trouble me much.

I don’t think that decision to run the ticket lottery electronically, as the means most calculated to result in something like random distribution, “added insult to injury”, any more than if, with a little more time, the tickets had only been available to people who subscribed to HBO, or who bought music through I-Tunes, or who got coupons under the lids of soft drinks.

It’s commerce. I didn’t expect that the tickets would be distributed “fairly”, any more than I’d rely on the assertion that the memorial collectable dinner plates and decorated coins will increase in value and become valuable heirlooms.

from three blocks north of the Staples Center

rfgs

And in an interesting parallel, Martha Lane Fox (founder of lastminute.com), recently appointed as the UK government’s “digital inclusion champion” made her first public speech on the subject yesterday, reported in today’s FT, making the point that digital exclusion correlates strongly with other forms of social exclusion. She seemed, indeed, to be going further than that, arguing at least by implication that online access leads to 10% higher earnings and 25% higher confidence as well as to very tangible purchasing efficiencies.

Having a mobile phone does not mean that someone has Internet access. Data plans are not free and lots of people don’t have them.

I can’t speak for the US, but in the UK everybody I know, as well as all the kids I see on public transport, have internet access on their phones and you get all-inclusive plans with unlimited data and a free phone for somewhere around £30 a month. More and more people don’t even have a landline anymore. Again, maybe it’s different in the US, I don’t know, but I think people who do have access on their phones (or laptops) need to be included in such statistics.

Eszter,

This being just under 500 words, I’m not sure if this is what you submitted to the Times. Assuming it is I will offer my feedback.

It probably would have been artful to reach, or even recall, Ladonna Jones, the 11-year old girl from Texas who wrote Michael Jackson begged him to liberalize the ticket policy for the Victory tour in 1984. (She mailed it to the Dallas Morning News, asking, “Is your appearance here in Texas Stadium only for the rich?” Today, she would have made a blog post or facebook status update which no one would read…)

It would also have been artful to call Staples HQ and see whether they were authorizing their stores in the Southern California to allow people to use the Internet in the stores (for free) to enter the contest. They may well have done that; or they could have been spurred by your request.

Overall, I would agree with your readers that questions this as a worthy example. The appearance in the Times would have trivialized any discussion in the near future. I would be more interested in seeing petitions for news orgs and .gov participation sites to encourage users to list age/sex/race and other demographics of which people are most active. This might help focus readers on tangible consequences of digital divide issue.

Jon

Ten four, Lazygal (16) – I’m sorry for misinterpreting your comment.

13, 21: OK, so being unable to enter an online lottery for Michael Jackson tickets without leaving your house is a serious civil rights issue, and, if you don’t agree, you’re a horrible chauvinist pig.

On the basis of individual perception, I expect. Which is what the ‘call’ of sexism was made on, since there is absolutely none, in any overt sense, in anything anyone has written on this thread. Some mild snark, perhaps, but so what? If you can’t accept that many people regard popular music – and more particularly, the fetishisation of dead singers – as essentially trivial, you really shouldn’t be writing about it in a forum where they’re likely to reiterate such views. If I laugh when someone complains, in a few years, that they couldn’t get to Leonard Cohen’s memorial service, will that make me antisemitic?

And no, I entirely understand your point. I just think it’s an absurd over-reaction to the facts at hand.

OK, to get back on topic, what are the main drivers here? Is it purely money? A cheap computer and cheap internet access are probably within reach of a lot of the people without, but only if they can be sure before buying that they will be able to make good use of it.

Is the hurdle enough knowledge to keep the stuff running? For elder people it appears to be, and if you are elderly and don;t have tech-savvy family it might be limiting?

Or is it the knwoledge required to mak good use of the Net, which I guess isless obvious than it appears to us readers here?

Presumably there is some research into this?

“Evan, are ethical impulses in such short supply—or rather, are they a resource that cannot be renewed—that you need to police their expression so assiduously?”

Nick Caldwell,

So expressing one’s disagreement in a conversation is now called “policing”? Let’s not get too emotional here. I’m policing Eszter no more than you are policing me. And seeing as my initial response on this thread was (I believe) my first post on Crooked Timber, I’d hardly think that “assiduously” does what I did any justice. Eszter, on the other hand, has apparently “posted on this in the past” according to John’s comment above.

In answer to your question about ethical impulses, yes I think they can be in short supply in the sense that if one inordinately applies ethical conviction, the wider ethical sense can be numbed or dumbed down. Here we’re talking about “exclusion” from a lottery to go to the funeral of an entertainer, and when we move on tomorrow or the next day to talk about more serious instances of exclusion, I think that Eszter’s commentary on Jackson will serve to dilute rather than reinforce the ethical issue. It’s not that we have to measure our words because we only have a certain amount allotted to ethical issues. I’m making a judgment on what I think to be an unhelpful commentary, and others are making their own judgments in agreement or disagreement with me. That’s really all there is to it as far as I can tell. One can’t expect everyone to be on board with every public commentary one makes. I’m not questioning that people were surely excluded from Jackson’s funeral lottery, I’m questioning whether this is a very useful instance for commenting on the technological divide as an ethical issue. We’re talking about access to part of a multi-billion dollar pop culture machine that itself has blunted ethical concern by way of triviality. The problem isn’t the exclusion from access to this thing, but rather this thing itself.

I really do need to stop writing things late at night that I’ll regret in the morning. Sorry alex. I do think you’re being a bit dense though.

I can’t speak for Eszter or the other posters, but I happen to really dislike responses like Salient’s. Just when I think I’ve taken some (male) poster in some forum down a peg, here comes a bunch of people to tell me, not “way to go” or “great zinger!”, but “don’t let him keep you down” and “he’s nothing but a jerk” (sometimes taking the opportunity to “introduce” themselves via private email to do it).

bianca, I didn’t say any such thing, and it’s weird to me that you’d categorize my statement in with “he’s nothing but a jerk.” I was publicly pointing out how what ajay and novakant and mpowell posted fit into an encompassing social norm (at CT and possibly elsewhere) that can reasonably be described as sexist. I wasn’t writing to pretend to console Eszter, as you suggest.

To go with your “jerk” analogy, publicly point out people-who-are-being-jerks is fundamentally different from whispering in someone’s ear “he’s nothing but a jerk.” The former is reasonable, whereas the latter is really creepy.

Anyway, I won’t belabor the point further, since it’s a kind of meta-comment. Sorry for disrupting the thread with it (it was intended as an anti-disruptive disruption and seems to have backfired).

I was publicly pointing out how what ajay and novakant and mpowell posted fit into an encompassing social norm (at CT and possibly elsewhere) that can reasonably be described as sexist.

Excuse me?!? How was my comment sexist? I was asking a question and making a point regarding internet usage on mobile devices. Please explain.

“My sense is that there are better bases upon which to critique the technological divide.”

Actually, the banality of the event makes it a great example since a) it is not just precious to the Interweb elite but is of interest to ordinary humans who may not spend the majority of their waking hours plugged in to a computer, and b) its is not necessarily something that would be obviously connected to the question of the “digital divide”.

“Evan, I wouldn’t say I was policing you”

I don’t think you are either. That’s why I brought it up.

“I guess I want you to zero in on where exactly Eszter is actually wasting a precious ethical impulse.”

See my earlier comments. You aren’t required to agree with me, but I find that the money, the attention, and the distraction spent on such entertainment events are more central to the Michael Jackson lottery than the actual public mourning of the man. By focusing on the lottery as a point of technological division, I think Eszter deflates her own argument for the ethical seriousness of technological stratification more than she strengthens it. It would be akin to pointing out how a poverty-stricken region has no access to candy bars simply because CNN is running a week-long coverage on candy bar popularity. The lack of that sort of candy bar access may be undeniable, and one may be able to draw analogies to the more general fact of stratification, but it’s questionable how much pointing out the candy bar conundrum contributes to our understanding of the underlying ethical problem of regional poverty.

“And I don’t think she needs to apologise for seizing on a timely if shallow example to illuminate a deeper concern.”

Of course. This should go without saying.

I wonder what portion of that 38% are elderly of any race…. I would imagine that a large percentage are, and rapidly changing technology, and limited income, are barriers to internet access for elderly as well. Not that my parents–los viejos–were interested in MJ…

Look, lack of available internet access is a serious issue. There’s a lot of useful information online, and there may well be a growing tendency for people to assume that online=universally available (and so not go to great lengths to publish the same information elsewhere). And writing an article about this is a good thing.
But I have two problems with the OP:
1) it conflated “internet access at home” with “internet access” which I think is not really supportable (yes, it applied in this specific case because it was about one specific event that happened over a weekend, but it doesn’t apply generally)
2) it used a really trivial, unimportant example of something that was only accessible online.

The second point is the most important. It makes the OP actually destructive of its intent: people will read it as “internet access is really important because otherwise people can’t get Michael Jackson tickets!” and dismiss the whole digital divide issue as trivial. It’s like writing an article complaining about the problem of unreliable electricity supplies in some region, and using the example that this means no one can use their electric nose-hair trimmers. Which is I think what my fellow filthy chauvinist, Evan, is trying to say in 49.

Britta in 46: in my experience most poor areas of cities have large immigrant populations and large numbers of internet/phone cafes to allow them to call, Skype and email their relatives back home. I live in one of the poorest (and probably one of the most immigrant-heavy) boroughs in the country and there are (to my knowledge) four of these within 400 yards of my house, plus two libraries with computers providing free internet access.

John and Eszter: it’s noticeable that comments disagreeing with a CT post by a female author tend to lead to the commenter being dismissed as misogynist by site admins. Houston, we have a problem.

Maybe a controlled experiment? For a month, Eszter posts as John and vice versa. Then we can add up the negative comments and see whether it’s significantly different from the numbers when Eszter posts as herself.

Also, I’m not entirely convinced that those living in rural poverty have easy access to the internet, but I’m don’t really have any data or experience so I’ll leave that rest. It may be true that internet phones bundled with cable are a more economical deal than buying one on its own, but that does not make them cheap.

They don’t, I certainly don’t want to leave that impression. It’s harder, not easier, to get access to the internet in rural areas than urban.

My main point was that “libraries not open” does not need to mean “library-provided internet access not available.” Yes, getting to the library that is a 30-40 minute drive away is not always easy/possible; yes, you need a laptop (although an old cheap laptop from the classifieds–mine cost $175–is relatively affordable); but every little bit helps, and if urban libraries leave wireless routers on while closed, it would help some fraction of people have internet access.

On the phone question–I’m talking about “Mobile Web”, not cable. And it’s a distraction from my main point, which is the libraries.

Goodness, I meant “entire branches closed.” Sorry about that.

It may be true that internet phones bundled with cable are a more economical deal than buying one on its own, but that does not make them cheap
(…)
the knowledge barrier of surfing the web if you have never used a computer, or the psychological barriers of being a certain class and probably a certain race and traveling a long distance to an area of town you are unfamiliar with and not welcome in, patronizing an establishment you are also probably not welcome in, and paying money to use a piece of technology

My whole point was that mobile phones are already bridging the digital divide in that they provide people with out of the box internet access that doesn’t require the use of stationary devices. You buy a phone and you have internet – no need for computers, cable subscription or travelling anywhere. Now maybe the US is lagging behind in that development a little, as it does in broadband coverage, but it surely is going to be the future, because all that is needed for basic internet access is the mobile network which is already there and anybody who can make a call or send a text is able to navigate with a web browser. Most lower income people have mobile phones already, just like they have TVs, so it’s only a matter of time.

“Finally, Evan, I think part of disagreeing that the digital divide is an issue rests on “not getting it” because anyone who thinks there is no divide is isn’t making a well reasoned argument but is pretty clueless/ blinded by privilege.”

Britta, as I said in #53, my disagreement isn’t over whether the digital divide exists or is an issue. In fact my first response to Eszter assumed that there was one- from #5, “My sense is that there are better bases upon which to critique the technological divide. “

So if I “get” this, the question remains about what I’m not “getting”. Or, as I said in #53, maybe the OP and I both “get” what she’s trying to say, and we simply disagree about it. My argument deserves more than a dismissal on the premise of my missing the point, and Eszter’s argument deserves more than immunity to my critique simply because I don’t “get it” or because she’s a she and I for some reason am being reactive against that.

The objection is, essentially, “This is just an isolated incident.”

This seems like a truly terrible misreading. The objection to the MJ example is that it’s a bad example, not that it doesn’t generalize. The objection to the “you only say that because you’re sexist” argument is that it’s wrong, not that sexism doesn’t exist in general.

Eszter must have thought that the MJ example was a clever hook. And the hook does get attention, just not the right type of attention.

Ok, if anyone is still reading. Let’s consider four issues that have emerged here:

EH’s post seems to be misunderstood—or objected to—on two grounds: 1) That Michael Jackson hoopla is trivia and 2) That she’s wrong or misinformed about internet access.
1) The post seems pretty clear: the hoopla is an opportunity to comment on the great public misunderstanding of the digital divide. EH and others have explained this. Anyone who can’t get that point strikes me as hopeless and we should just ignore them & move on.
2) The digital divide and related issues are EH’s specialty, the subject of her research. Anyone reading CT for awhile knows this. The number of responses saying that she’s is wrong, that “I see teenagers on busses,” etc. seem to disproportionate to such responses when Harry writes on Education or John on Economics. It’s my impression that anecdotes then are often presented to Harry or John for comment; that disagreement often cites some reading or talk or even impression in an attempt to further the discussion. Even spirited disagreement pays attention to the content and expertise of the original writer. (of course, irrelevant or purely contentious comments appear, but in small enough numbers to not disrupt—otherwise we would all give up on CT).
The lack of respect for the EH’s knowledge—the absence of curiosity about what she could help us understand from the specialty—may be due to many things, including UFOs. However I would attribute it to two factors:
(3) We are savvy internet users reading an academic blog; we are happy with our understanding of how the digital world has opened up for us; we don’t want to focus on the “have nots,” which erode our pleasure and sense of a changing world.
(4) EH is female. I think this is a factor. I have noticed it before with belle and Ingrid, but Maria is treated the worst. It is amazing that she stays with us. Until someone undertakes an analysis, categorizing and counting postings and responses, could we just entertain this notion when we respond to male and female posts?

So:

1. The MJ example is silly but illustrative, and everyone gets this (for example #66)
2. The MJ example is actually profound and important (for example #59)
3. The MJ example is only being criticized because of sexism (for example #13)

Great setup for a revolving door of pointless arguments.

Without wishing at all to distract from the main thrust of Melissa’s point at 66, I might add another reason that Eszter’s expertise is often dismissed, which is that this is true of sociologists generally. The soc grad students at my university once printed up t-shirts with the slogan “explaining the obvious since 1895” (or some such date). My experience spending time with sociologists (I am not one, but my partner is) is that everyone imagines themselves an expert on sociology, based on the anecdotes of their everyday lives. (Of course, in the prior sentence I am doing precisely the same thing.) Sociology is a relatively feminized discipline, and I’m sure the prevalence of women in soc departments contributes to this rejection of their expertise. Kieran’s posting patterns are very different from Eszter’s–he does not as frequently post about his current research, I don’t think–so I’m not sure if we can draw a comparison. That said, the fact that Eszter is, as Melissa rightly says, frequently treated in the same dismissive way as Belle, Ingrid, and especially Maria points to gender as the primary factor in this phenomenon.

I haven’t read this entire thread since I organised a big conference ten days ago and am still recovering from that and trying to catch up with many overdue commitments. So I will only make one comment and then disappear again:

Melissa writes:
(4) EH is female. I think this is a factor. I have noticed it before with belle and Ingrid, but Maria is treated the worst. It is amazing that she stays with us. Until someone undertakes an analysis, categorizing and counting postings and responses, could we just entertain this notion when we respond to male and female posts?

I have thought a while ago that someone must do this. There is enough material out there, and there are enough gender scholars who specialise in analysing media and written material. I would not at all be surprised if the outcome would be that the female bloggers on CT are indeed treated differently, and responded to in a much more dismissive style, than our male Timberites. In fact, I have myself been a few times appalled by the reactions that I got on a piece, reactions that I perceived as completely out of proportion, mean spirited, aggressive, and based on the most uncharitable reading possible. A few times other timberites have defended me, since the accusations were so mean. Of course, it is impossible to say wihtout a careful study whether the factor is the gender of the blogger, or some other aspect (I have played with the idea that in my case not having English as a native language may play a role too, since it sometimes hampers me in being subtle in the words that I choose when writing, and that’s picked upon too.) But since I happen to have written a PhD on gender inequality, I also happen to know enough of the scientific evidence of the workings of gender (gender norms, stereotyping, unintentional and unconscious sexism, etc.) to know that it must be quite a miracle that the gendered features of society at large would not play a role on this blog. Rather, the anonimity that most of our readers take makes it easier to not self-controle on subtle sexism.
The result is that when I got into severe time pressure a few months back, one of the easiest things to drop from my overloaded agenda was Blogging. If you are treated with disrespect, and if Blogging becomes an emotional drain, why invest scarce time in it? ANd so the female bloggers leave (or post less frequently), which adds to the male dominated blogosphere. Et voila.

One of the things that keeps me going (apart form the immense power of blogging) is the nice, civilised, supportive, informed comments that we get of another part of our readership. And if the nicknames that people use are to reveal anything about the gender of hte person behing it, then I am glad we have all these female (and feminist (m/f)) readers. Thanks for being here and for speaking up.

Zamfir @ 37 asks:

OK, to get back on topic, what are the main drivers here? Is it purely money? A cheap computer and cheap internet access are probably within reach of a lot of the people without, but only if they can be sure before buying that they will be able to make good use of it.

I am not familiar with the US data, but research just published in the UK (salient points summarised here) shows that those without home internet access split into two broad groups – a slightly larger one who feel they don’t want or need internet access, and a slightly smaller one for whom the barrier is financial.

Okay, I just went back and read the article more closely, and it argues that the growth in mobile web usage is more than just an iPhone or even smartphone phenomenon, though it is rather unclear about just what type of phones people are using. At one point the expert quoted says “70 percent of those accessing mobile Internet content are using feature phones,” and the article indicates that “The devices are subsidized and are available for low costs,” though without defining “low costs.” In the next paragraph, however the same expert is quoted as saying, “It’s moved from just being the province of the highest-end smartphone to what we would call high-volume, high-end feature phones.” So if it’s only “high-end feature phones,” my initial surmise –that the growth in mobile web usage comes from the high end of mobile phone users–still stands. Moreover, the article doesn’t answer whether these new mobile web users had internet access before, and I would still guess that they did.

Excuse me?!? How was my comment sexist? I was asking a question and making a point regarding internet usage on mobile devices. Please explain.

novakant – I agree you’re right to call me on this, and I apologize. Including you in the list was completely an error on my part. The inclusion was unwarranted and unfair, and I retract it. (Frankly, my entire response to bianca’s comment is far more muddled than I’d like it to be, let me retract the whole thing.)

Also, as what I’m planning to be a last thought on this topic from me, in my original comment I wasn’t trying to provoke hostility (though I should’ve seen that my comment was unnecessarily provocative and I should’ve rephrased it to minimize that). I was trying to (1) encourage people who feel like challenging a post’s right to exist to think twice about that impulse, and (2) point out that such impulses seem to disproportionately show up in comments on female author’s posts, which to me suggests at least the potential for sexism, in some kind of aggregate sense.

Anyhow, I was going to make a more on-topic contribution as well:

My parents don’t have Internet access except through a library (one library for the county, which is closed four days a week). At one school where I used to teach, over half the kids didn’t have internet access outside of school (which implies their parents didn’t have access at all).

I think people in cities overestimate the access people outside of cities have to wi-fi hotspots, Staples, libraries that are actually open in the evenings/weekends, et cetera. Libraries in particular are basically closed to you unless you work 3rd shift at the steel plant.

Rural communities in my region do not have widespread access to the Internet. Not by phone or by library or by any reasonable means. Most of the school-age kids are savvy enough to obtain access at school — until they get permanently banned for doing stupid high school kid stuff (visiting Facebook by proxy server, visiting a pornographic site, etc).

Any comments?

Jock Bowden #1, Peter S #5, mpowell #15, b9n10t #23, qb #30, PGD #33, Mitchell Rowe at #41, and so on.

“Negativity” isn’t what I’m on about. It seems to be perfectly fine to be critical of points raised in the original post; incisive criticism of specific arguments can be a contribution to the discussion. I think PGD at #33 exemplified what-I’m-on-about quite explicitly: “Much ado about not much here.” Actually, Mitchell Rowe at #41 on that thread expressed exactly what I’ve been on about: “Belle, don’t you have anything better to do?”

Well, I guess this was the wrong thread to comment in and then absent-mindedly drop since a post of mine contributed to a significant discussion and I feel like I should explain myself.

I think there is not a clear line between criticizing the content of the post and challenging the post’s right to exist. I am more or less aware of EH’s work in studying internet usage habits, much of which I find interesting, but I’m not convinced it makes sense for researchers to flag this digital divide as a social justice to be remedied. And the vacuousness of the particular example (although perfectly valid in terms of examining the claim presented!) underlines my point. So in some sense I’m criticizing the post’s existence because I don’t think that this line of research has produced results that suggest any action. But you could go back to the thread’s on Cohen and rescuing justice from Rawls, and I was similarly critical, especially initially, along with many other commenters about the significance or value of Cohen’s inquiry. I really don’t think its gender motivated, at least for me.

I am open to arguments about whether the digital divide is something that should be rectified as a tool to reduce social inequality or whether there are far better levers to reduce social inequality that will eventually close the digital divide. Right now I come down for the latter. But even given that, I am still interested in posts that document this digital divide and discuss its sources and its manifestation. I left my comment as a way of observing that I didn’t feel that this was the kind of evidence that led to a policy-actionable level of concern. But maybe that’s not entirely appropriate. If there is a tendency for female posters to draw more hostile, dismissive comments, I’ll make an effort to be more cognizant of the overall tone my posts are contributing to create and leave more space for discussion of the issue at hand before jumping immediately to a concluding view.

I really don’t think its gender motivated, at least for me.

To be clearer than I was: I don’t think it’s gender motivated for anybody.

My point was something more like, “Actions that seem individually rational, on the aggregate, are producing a negative result, which seems to disproportionately occur on posts by female authors.”

mpowell, I think (based on the last paragraph of your post) you get exactly what I’ve been clumsily trying to say about the aggregate effect. For anyone who’s not sure, I’ll try an analogy:

It’s kind of like housing loans. A group of banks may offer or decline loans to people in such a way that each individual decision, like each individual comment, is rational and justified. But the net effect of this behavior can be very problematic, even when each individually rational action seems sensible and perfectly justifiable.

86: but I don’t think there is such a trend. There is one data point.

And there are two reasons that I jumped on the assertion that there was: first, you accused me of being part of it, which offended me; and second, I think that spreading the myth that there is such a trend will be very bad for the general tone of debate. Female commenters won’t want to comment, because they’ll be afraid of being denigrated by men. Female posters will ignore legitimate criticism, because they’ll just dismiss it as sexism – exactly as you and EH did above – or they simply won’t post at all. Well-meaning male commenters won’t want to criticise posts by women, for exactly that reason.

ajay,
I am not suggesting the desirability of “outing” anyone who does not want to reveal any personal information, or anyone who is being intentionally deceptive about personal information, whatever the information may be. Of course I respect their choice to attempt to participate in online discussions without also challenging gender roles, and I’m sure they respect my choice to participate under a pseudonym of my own gender whether or not I do challenge gender roles. That holds whatever their reasons (or mine) might be.

On the other hand, you were the one who took an informal poll based on the presumed gender of different participants, in a comment thread to a post about differential accesses to the Internet. Salient mentioned the gender only of the OPers. If there are no female names in the discussion, this is evidence that there are no women participating, I think, and evidence that the behavior that does appear is perpetrated by males.

Asking a woman “Don’t you have anything better to do?” doesn’t make you a sexist.

Yes, and denying a poor black couple a car loan because neither partner has sufficiently satisfactory job security to guarantee repayment isn’t racist. I agree.

But as I’ve said, many times now, individually rational actions can result in systematically disproportionate outcomes.

And, unlike the car loan analogy, there’s absolutely no “cost” to CT commenters second-guessing themselves if they’re feeling the need to dismissively challenge a post’s right to exist, and rephrasing or rethinking that choice.

If you want an example of my taking seriously comments by those who disagree with me or criticize my writing, head on over to my next post and read the comments there.

One difference between this thread and the next is that the other thread isn’t about an online lottery for tickets to the Michael Jackson memorial service. Another likely potential difference is that the sexist internet commenters drawn to this thread don’t know how to click over to the other thread and leave sexist comments there, but I don’t know how to establish that as a fact.

If not, it seems like the rhetoric glossed over countless personal situations that could prevent a person from attending, lack of internet access being only one of them – and it’s probably the easiest obstacle to overcome.

I dunno, I think it’s a reasonable to ask why people haven’t drawn attention to the plight of poor people in, say, Oklahoma who, because of their lack of internet access, missed a chance to register for a lottery in which they would have faced 100-1 odds to win tickets to a Tuesday morning memorial service in Los Angeles CA.