[Wellington-pm] When "use strict" gets taken too literally

[Peter C. Kelly]

Hi Sam,

Sam Vilain wrote:

> Just a little reminder of why we like Perl so much!  :)

Allow me to start by saying I really enjoyed your Perl6 talk, and have
twice recently been googling the big wide world and co-incidentally
found instructions by you on how to solve my Perl problem.  I certainly
recognise that you have more mana among the perl-mongers than I do,
being a mere junior programmer and erratic attendee.

I think that your email raises important issues that are worth
discussing.  I have a very strong negative reaction to the image you sent.

The image is a stereotypical image of pretty girls commercially posing
together for a male audience.  By publishing this image, you are
encouraging and advertising the image's vendor, which hires young women
for $140US per "photoset" to use their bodies to provide sexual pleasure
for men[1].  I think it's entirely reasonable to take this as indicative
that the author's attitude to the role of women is equally derisive -
since that doesn't match my experience of you personally, I'll just note
it as a reasonable perceception.

As Jacinta has ably pointed out, posts like this make the list less
inclusive.  This isn't restricted to images of women: a friend of mine
has been discouraged from attending Wellington Thursday Night Curry due
to mailing list chatter that uses"gay" as an insult and personal attacks
on those who post.  It is true that in a typical PM meeting there is an
overwhelming ratio of men to women, and that the culture of the group is
narrower as a result.  This post, uncommented on, would narrow the group
further.

Peter


[1] If you must reference this, see the website advertised on the image
- I recommend against it.