Today, I feel I’ve been unfairly blocked by someone for defending
what is, ostensibly, a sexist position. It
was “not quite an argument” between me and @snafflepuss, and I think the divide
between us was realism vs idealism, i.e. dealing with things as they are, or dealing
with things as they should be.
It all started when @snafflepuss expressed surprise at a news story
that women will be allowed on submarine missions from 2012, and hadn’t been allowed
before apparently due to ‘health concerns’.
After a quip about how ‘Sub missions are long: std’s can spread a long way
in 6 months!’ I told her about how my granddad,
a retired sea-captain, has told me on a couple
of occasions that women were the one minority he didn’t want on his ship.
His argument ran thusly:
Any minority, whether it’s a black man on an all-white ship, a jew on an
all-catholic ship, or a woman on an all-male ship (and 99% of the time they are
all-male ships) the minority individual in question works well and competently.
They have to, because they know they ‘stand out’ and will attract attention, so
will generally work much harder than anyone else of their rank, so that they can’t
be accused of shirking/being lazy/taking advantage etc. Even the standard of their work may likewise improve,
so that they prove their worth.
The minority is not the problem: it’s dealing with the people who have a problem
with the minority that’s the problem. When it’s a mere matter of race or religion,
generally not much trouble kicks off – people know deep down that ‘you can’t help it'
(where ‘it’ is 'belonging to whatever minority group you happen to belong to'). But when it’s a woman, loins get inflamed, egos
rile up, and trouble can start: especially if she has sex with any member of the
crew.
Men, particularly men stuck amongst other men for months on end,
will get jealous, and jealousy can lead to loss of morale, tension on-board (people
refusing to work together etc) and possibly violence. If a woman sleeps with one member of the crew
for a while, and then (for whatever reason) sleeps with another member of the crew, then you’re almost definitely going to get
violence. These are sailors, remember. A ship can be a bit of an emotional
hothouse, and when you’re the captain dealing with it, you don’t want that sort
of hassle on your hands.
I condensed the above two paragraphs into about two tweets, so some of the nuance may have been lost.
Now, @snafflepuss said “that’s
the men’s lookout”. And indeed, she’s right – if someone’s acting up, it’s their
fault. “Hire better men and women, or no men
at all if they’re going to be that lame”, she says.
But that’s not the situation a ship’s captain is in. Snafflepuss: you want all sailors to be emotionally
vetted to ensure they’ll behave sensibly when a woman they’ve gotten attached to
starts sleeping with someone they know, and will continue to have to work with,
for months? That’s… well it would be ideal, if you could do that. However, I can’t help feel it’s a little ambitious.
Most captains don’t pick their crew: they, along with everyone else, are employed by
the company who owns the ship. Yes, a captain
has the power to remove someone from duty, but if there’s jealousy and bloodlust
involved, the captain is going to have to ensure that the one who lusts for blood
is watched or restrained 24/7. We’re not
in the days of throwing them overboard anymore, and who on board a ship is qualified
to talk an enraged, hurt man down? There
aren’t many psychologists or hostage negotiators who go into cargo haulage.
Sometimes people cannot be reasoned with and your
only option, till the cops arrive, is physical restraint, which has it’s own set
of logistics. Bit of a pain in the arse
to have to deal with, eh?
My point is, a prudent leader/supervisor, should take the negatives
of human nature into account, and deal with those – and not just expect everyone
to behave sensibly. You may not be racist,
sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, disablist etc. yourself, but you should always remember
that some, if not most, people are, and the best you can hope for with most people
is damage avoidance/limitation
The point where @snafflepuss cut me off was after I asked “if you were a bouncer at a club, and you knew
there was a bunch of EDL members inside, would you let a black man in?”
She didn’t answer. But I assume that Snafflepuss’s position would
be “yes, and you should kick the EDL members out or not let them in in the first
place”. But, remember, you’re not the club
owner in this scenario – you’re just the bouncer. The owner might be a little pissed off that you’ve kicked out 20 paying customers to allow
1 paying customer in. Sure, you could argue
that the bouncer should just quit his job on principle if the owner is going to
put profits before ensuring their club is a bastion of equality, safety, and unthreateningness
– but that’s idealism vs reality again: many
people will put profits before almost anything, and the ideal that you can just
quit a job on a point of principle, doesn’t
match up to reality – we’re in a recession, jobs are hard to come by. It’s a pretty massive bit of self-sacrifice to
ask.
Wouldn’t it be easier, all round, to just deny the black guy entry into the club? That way the owner’s happy, nobody gets hurt, you
don’t have to faff about calling the police or breaking up fights, you keep your
job, and the only victim in the whole scenario is the black guy who didn’t get let
in, but I’m pretty sure he’d rather find somewhere else to go, than be allowed in
only to get beaten up. Yes, you’re discriminating
on grounds of race, but avoiding very undesirable results while doing so.
Now… just to make things even clearer - my Grandad never said that he wouldn’t let a
woman work on his ship, or that women were bad workers, or anything negative about
women at all: indeed he has worked alongside women on several occasions, and in
an ideal world he would want a decent ratio of female workers. But that’s not the situation reality presents
us with – most crews are male and laddish, and, given the choice when landed with charge of that situation, he’d rather not have to put up with the hassle that
having a woman on board can entail. Please note that this is all "...if he were given the choice", which I don't believe he ever was.
If you need any more reassurance, my G’dad was one of the very
few white captains happy to work on all-black-African ships for years, during the
60’s and 70’s where most white men would’ve balked at the idea (and did, hence the
plenty job offers!). That doesn’t allay
any accusations of sexism you might throw at him, but hopefully go someway to reassure
you he’s not completely unenlightened.
I hope that’s explained my position a bit more competently.
Now unblock me, @snafflepuss, you prejudicial intolerant assumer
of other people’s sexism, you. I like a good debate, and your blocking me makes
me sad. I like your tweets and your commitment to political correctness and good ethics – it’s a shame to me that
you chose not to put up with my counterpoints though.
Your twitter stream is now a bit
more ideal for you, I guess. But filtered
like that, it doesn’t match up to reality.
