Committing to calling out sexism

So my friend Jon Cowie had a recent incident in which he called out some inappropriate behaviour from Comic Relief, who are suggesting the hee-larious prank of, I quote

Take your pants off, put them on the reception desk and say “I’m going commando today!”

In response one of the people involved pointed out that Jon’s vanity domain of was also problematic (they weren’t serious, but regardless of that I think they were right). To his credit, Jon acknowledged the point, shut down his domain and basically said “Ok. Your move”.

Sadly, the other side were not so gracious about it.

Anyway, you can read Jon’s account of the incident here.

I was very impressed with Jon’s handling of this, but then I started thinking about why I was impressed. It basically boils down to two reasons.

  1. The fact that as a guy Jon was calling it out was actually fairly unusual
  2. When confronted with a response that his behaviour was problematic, rather than getting defensive about it he took the comment on board and acted to address it

2 is just flat out impressive. It’s hard to take constructive criticism well, and we should all be better about it. So, yeah, well done Jon.

But it’s really 1 I want to talk about. Not to diminish it, but the fact that it’s unusual is a major problem. This isn’t a new revelation – it’s fairly well known that guys are not good at calling out guys about sexist behaviour – but the combination of this event and the recent discussions I’ve been having about sexism and gender bias in tech really drove it home to me.

Further, I realised that I’m not an exception to this by a long shot. I don’t think I actually engage in sexist behaviour (if I do it’s not intended and I would appreciate people telling me so I can fix it), but I’m definitely exposed to it from time to time and I don’t really do enough about it. I think this makes me part of the problem.

So, this is my commitment to do better. I can’t promise I will always call out sexism wherever I see it, but I promise I will do my best. I’d like it if you would commit to the same.

I have in fact already acted on this (I will probably elaborate in a later post). What struck me as interesting is how incredibly uncomfortable it made me. I’m not totally clear on why this was, but I’m pretty sure it was a wrong reaction and plan to simply ignore it and soldier on.

But it occurs to me that I’m probably not alone in feeling this way, and unless you’re really motivated to do something about it then going against your own feelings of intense discomfort is quite hard.

So I’d like to propose another thing that we as men who are interested in fighting sexism should do. When you see someone else doing it, say thanks. Good job.

This is not me asking for validation. Feel free to validate my doing this or not as you see fit, but I plan to stick with this regardless of whether anyone thanks me for it, and I hope you will too. But a lot of people won’t, or will try and just find it too difficult, and I think this is a good way to solve that.

Why? Because the best way to make behaviours not uncomfortable is to provide positive reinforcement for them. When you call out sexism and your peers tell you “You’re in the right. Thanks for doing what you’re doing”, you feel less uncomfortable and are more likely to do it again. Moreover, when other people see you calling out sexism and not being a lone voice, they get the message that this is an ok thing to do and are more likely to do it themselves.

It’s also an easier step to take. If you’re not yet comfortable with calling out sexism yourself, you can still help make things better this way.

So, please, the next time you see someone (man or woman) doing their best to fight sexism, support them by saying thanks. Publicly if you can, but even privately will help.

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20 thoughts on “Committing to calling out sexism

  1. rjs

    Honest question, why is the suggested prank sexist? I don’t see any indication of gender of anyone behind the reception desk? Maybe there is some context missing from your summary? It’s obviously immature, but isn’t humor often? Also, why is it assumed that the mycrotch domain is offensive to women? Isn’t that in itself sexist? I have known women who have had filthy senses of humor. What am I missing?

    1. david Post author

      This is a fair question. There was a fair bit of discussion about this that happened outside either post, so it was easy to miss. I’ll explain.

      “Sexist” is not quite the right word for either of these things really, but when taken in context both have sexist effects.

      I would assume that most women would probably not be offended by, and it is true that a receptionist is not necessarily a woman (it is the case that she is in the video of the prank posted, but I don’t know that that’s especially relevant).

      Fundamentally the problem with the prank was not that it is sexist but that it is sexual harassment. The effect of this is in turn sexist primarily because a disproportionately large amount of sexual harassment in the work place is directed by men at women. There is also a greater implication of threat in that direction. This means that even though sexual harassment is a gender neutral issue, the actual end result of promoting sexual harassment has a disproportionate effect on women. (The fact that the prank was targeted at a role that is disproportionately filled by women makes this effect stronger but is not essential).

      Basically, a behaviour does not have to affect only women in order to be sexist – it just has to affect them disproportionately.

      The problem with is more subtle. It is not harassment, and I doubt most women seeing it would find it remotely a problem, it just inadvertently contributes to a culture in which women are made to feel excluded. I recommend reading Jon’s explanation of his reasons for shutting it down, as he explained it rather well.

      1. Keith

        In regards to “Basically, a behaviour does not have to affect only women in order to be sexist – it just has to affect them disproportionately.”

        I disagree.

        A behavior has to affect any gender disproportionately. Saying it has to affect woman disproportionately is sexist in itself.

        This is perhaps the larger issue when these topics come up, people always assume racism is about non white people, and sexism is about woman. Having wandered while on a trip to Atlanta through neighborhoods where I could count the number of white people on one hand including myself and being ignored while trying to pay for gas for nearly 10 minutes. I can say those people were racist against me. Having watched woman at a bachelorette party carrying on with the entertainment treating them like a piece of meat and making any ranchy comments they felt like, we can say they were being sexist.

        While I agree that the majority of the issues reported follow the stereotypical example of racism and sexist behavior. It seems hypocritical to apply stereotypes when trying to deal with a fundamental problem for everyone.

      2. Doug D


        On the one hand, what you’re saying has the virtue of actually being essentially true.

        On the other hand, I’m not quite fully at peace with saying it this way, in this context, here.

        In discussions relating to sexism, feminism, et cetera, a *very* common tactic for derailing them is the whole “make it about the man” counter.

        There are all sorts of problems that have more of a negative impact women than on men. When they’re discussed, one can usually expect someone to chime in with “but this impacts men too!”. I am not sure I have ever seen this have a good result. One can certainly claim that one is trying to be even *less* sexist by doing this, but in practice it usually seems to drive things the other way. It’s a thing to watch out for, to guard against.

        (Also, here comes some pedantic nitpicking: the difference between “affect women disproportionately” and “affect any gender disproportionately” only exists if one accepts the existence of more than one gender. If one only acknowledges two genders, they’re isomorphic, as if something does “affect any gender disproportionately”, that means that either it affects men disproportionately highly and women disproportionately lowly, or vice versa. The previous part of my response gives you the benefit of the doubt, assuming you actually do personally acknowledge more than the simple “gender binary”, and that’s why I saved this nitpick for a parenthetical comment.)

      3. david Post author

        Keith: Sure. I promise to also call out sexism towards men and racism towards white people if you also promise to do the same for women and non-white people. Deal?

  2. Tim Chevalier

    I hope you’ll keep track of specific instances where you call people out and write about them. It’s always interesting to read about people applying anti-oppression tactics in real life, since some of the writing about how to be a “good ally” lacks specific examples, or non-contrived examples.

    1. david Post author

      I’ll try. It’s going to take me a little while to figure out the right balance there. There are a lot of contexts where I’m not going to feel able to publicly name and shame even when I’m ok with calling out.

      I also suspect it will be a litany of apparent failures (even if they have side channel benefits in terms of raising awareness and making the audience think about it). I’m not sure whether reporting on that is going to be too depressing. We’ll see.

      (Also: It’s not like I have a clue how to do this either. It’s going to be a figuring out process)

      1. Tim Chevalier

        Yeah, I wasn’t imagining using real names. Of course, it’s hard to describe some situations without identifying details even if you don’t use names.

        I think documenting failures is helpful too, though? Just as in science, a failed experiment still provides data (about what didn’t work), “failures” in personal interactions provide data too. Of course, what seems to be a failure in the moment may not be. When I’ve changed my mind about things, it was rarely a matter of me saying in the moment “why yes, I’m wrong and you’re right!”; someone would say something to me, and then months or years later, I would realize they were right. I’m sure it will happen again :-)

      2. david Post author

        Fair point about failures. I will try to be good about documenting.

        Also, thanks. I’ll take a look at the list. I’m actually at least moderately well versed in feminism already (I claim no expertise in the subject by a long shot, but I’ve probably got a better idea about the language and how things work than the fact that I’m only now going “Hey! I should do something about this!” might suggest), but it definitely wouldn’t hurt to refine this.

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  4. Keith

    (I’d have replied in the context of the thread but I don’t seem to see an option there.)

    Doug: I agree with your cautionary note, the issues described can never be disproportionally to the man either. I essentially have no need to make this about the man in this discussion, what I disagree with is emphasizing either. Most of the time, when dealing with sexism, feminism, etc.. I find the opposition to making this a larger issue for all sexes, all races, for people in general is that as soon as you turn this into a universal issue that all sides need to work on, the original plaintiff in the matter immediately discards your opinion as being anti-(Insert their position here…).

    My response was not an intent to derail, in fact I am (aside from the flippant remark from him) supportive of David’s attention to an issue affecting any person in an inappropriate way. I simply do not agree or believe we as a society can get better if we do not stop having a tug of war on fairness, appropriateness, treatment of others etc.. I believe we need to stop categorizing rights into racial, sexual, etc.. and start categorizing them as human rights. We are all entitled to fair treatment, free of harassment, judgment and should be accepted for who we are. Perhaps I am the minority that believes we should be able to live this way, some people say I am dreaming….Martin Luther King had a dream once, but then again since I am on level easy as the white-male it is assumed I have no chance of understanding, or at least I am often told.

    That is the point by which I responded towards David’s reply, when I encounter someone making a stand for a basic human right but then applying segregation to that right, I try to offer up the point of view that this is a problem for everyone. Unfortunately that means both that the victims and the assailants in this situation are in the same group. For my views I’ve been on the receiving end of abuse by people who claim to be fighting to end abuse……to (insert segregated group not including me here). As I said to David, it just seems hypocritical to me, I can live with people not liking me saying that, what I can’t do is simply ignore it when I see it. (so yes David… deal).

    David: Specifically in regards to the flippant comment…… Given this is a serious issue, being flippant about a response in general diminishes my respect for your original position, not that you require it, I am simply disappointed to see we still fall into the same traps as always. What your response says to me is yet again, let’s ignore anything but the stereotypical situations and ignore everyone else if they say otherwise, or rather assume they are a troll, enemy of the cause, etc… Thus, while I am confident and willing to stand up for a person regardless of sex, race, religion, sexual orientation or any other personal traits that cause no harm to another person, I don’t assume your flippant remark means you actually will, if you wish to be serious about it then please be respectful and serious about it.

    1. david Post author

      My response was only semi flippant. However, I apologise for it – it wasn’t really appropriate as the sum total of my response.

      Allow me to elaborate on why I reacted the way I did and why I’m not too impressed with your point, even if I happen to agree with it.

      I am white and male. As such, generally speaking if I encounter racism towards white people or sexism towards men (I actually have had plenty of arguments about the latter), I will call it out. This is basically my default position because I will tend to argue about things that affect me, and it doesn’t require any great change of behaviour.

      Further, if you asked me to give a definition of sexism I would probably use a similar one to you – anything which affects a person based on their gender in circumstances where that gender shouldn’t be relevant. Nothing female centric about that at all.

      But you came into a thread and took a comment out of context in a way that is pretty uniformly a sign of a derail by someone trying to take a discussion about problems women experience and making it all about the men. If this was not your intent, I apologise for having judged it that way, but allow me to explain how and why you came off this way.

      Firstly, the comment was taken out of context because it was specifically in reply to a point about “Why is this sexist? The receptionist might be a man!”, and I was explaining why even were it the case that the receptionist was a man (and even ignoring the gender distribution amongst receptionists) this was still an issue that disproportionately affected women and that made it sexist. Yes, it is true in general that an issue which disproportionately affects men is also sexist but we were specifically talking about an issue that affects women disproportionately. While a literal logical reading of my statement might be “Only issues which disproportionately affect women are important” it should have been reasonably clear from context that it actually meant “Your claim that because it doesn’t just affect women it is not sexist doesn’t actually follow because numbers”. So basically it looks awfully like you’re performing the common tactic of picking on a specific choice of wording in order to detract from the actual point.

      Secondly, I wish to explain how this looks by way of an analogy.

      Suppose I was an animal rights activist (I’m not). Suppose in turn this was a post about the suffering of animals and my intent to do something about it.

      Suppose now you came into the comments thread and said “But what about cannibals! Humans are important too, and they also get eaten. You really must focus on issues of cannibalism. There are places where it’s a major problem (I totally almost got eaten once) and it even happens in western countries).

      My response would be similarly exasperated.

      It’s not that I don’t think eating people is bad (My stance is firmly “people are friends, not food”). It’s that you’re taking what I (would in our hypothetical) regard as a major societal problem and saying “Here is a problem that you have probably never actually encountered and has comparatively little impact on our society, but what you are talking about lacks moral and intellectual integrity because you are failing to properly address it”.

      This is somewhat frustrating, because while what you are saying is technically true (cannibalism *is* bad), by ignoring the actual large scale consequences and relative frequency of the things. Basically, people at a lot of meat but they don’t actually eat other people all that often.

      So I would probably offer the same response: I promise that whenever I personally encounter cannibalism, I will do my best to stop it (which I probably would have done anyway). In return, all I ask is that you do the same thing when you encounter people eating meat. Deal?

      1. Keith

        Short and simple of it then is, fair enough.


        My intent was/still is not to derail, it is to enforce better control on the language used. It is a far easier slope to slip down where all language stereotypes of genderizes (not sure that is a real word) the issue than it is to fight the fight as it were and keep the language neutral. I didn’t believe this statement: “Basically, a behaviour does not have to affect only women in order to be sexist – it just has to affect them disproportionately.” required gender specific inclusion.

        A better statement could be:

        “Basically, a behaviour does not have to affect only one gender in order to be sexist – it just has to affect them disproportionately.”

        In this case then I would have total agreement, your comment can not then be construed as a remark that sexism has to affect woman disproportionately.

        Thanks David.


      2. Keith

        sorry original post should have been read as…

        “language stereotypes or genderizes” not “language stereotypes of genderizes”

        The r is too close to the f without caffeine yet :)

    1. david Post author

      This is a really interesting article. Thanks. I’ve only skimmed it for now (at work, so don’t have time to give it a proper read) but will read and digest it more thoroughly later.

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