Back track and follow the threads on this - great and interesting people and perspectives.
Originally shared by Christa Laser
Share if you oppose "Booberday," the G+ meme of sharing photographs of cleavage.
It's demeaning, and it is precisely the gateway to harassment that drives women away from online communities. We have a responsibility as early adopters to create a respectful, caring community where everyone feels welcome. If it is acceptable in a community to post a photograph of cleavage, it becomes okay to comment on it with sexual jokes, then to comment on a photograph of a woman in the G+ community with a sexual joke, and then with sexual comments that are not jokes. If left unchecked, an online community that tolerates harassment against women can become dangerous for women, professionally and physically: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/06/gender.blogging.
When I commented on Robert Scoble's post disagreeing with his participation, there were two primary reponses: (1) telling me to relax because it was just a single post of a woman who consented and (2) explaining that the purpose is breast cancer awareness. I normally wouldn't get upset about a single poster, but when my stream went from a thoughtful, respectful community to 2/3 animated gifs of breasts, I think I have reason to warn people: this isolates women and will cause them to leave. And this is not about breast cancer awareness, this is an excuse to share photographs of breasts without being derided as a pervert; if there ever was a component related to breast cancer awareness, that was lost the moment that the photographs were directed to excitement, rather than to the collection of research dollars (immediately?).
Robert Scoble, I expected more from a public figure than to join in with a concept that degrades the quality of this budding community. You have one of the highest follower counts here, so what you endorse can dramatically shift the nature of the community. As a result of your post, thousands of additional people will join in this meme next week. That participation will harm women.
Please reshare.
By backtrack, I mean go to the page of the person who originally posted it and look at the comment streams there - or the streams of peeps who re-shared it. There was a lot of commentary on this subject. Much of it thoughtful and on point.
ReplyDeleteThe original idea was that by encouraging the over-sexualization and immature behavior we as a society were trending towards anti-social behaviors that eventually led to sexual discrimination and possibly social acceptance of even rape.
(heck of a sentence there ^)
I didn't add much to the dialog. Plenty of other people covered all the bases before I got there. I do spend a significant part of my attention on the general topic though. On the one hand, the 1st amendment is the most important one - but on the other - the more tolerant you are of ass-wipes the more they will push the envelope. I think you know a bit about how I feel on that subject and thus - my dilemma.
It's really not my place to decide what is good or bad behavior. I can have opinions about specific actions by specific people that affect me. There certainly must be a line where free speech ends and criminal behavior begins, but the question is where. I also wonder, should we encourage people to be more and more outrageous in the name of individual rights at a cost to society?