Right. I'm back.

[redqueen]

Someone reminded me that I posted this last year. And how much I agreed with it. So yeah, I'm over being so badly triggered over the weekend.

Those of you who suggested a break were exactly right. I haven't experienced anything like that on DU and it rattled me. I won't be so shaken next time (I hope).

So this is what convinced me that I shouldn't give up on DU. This is a long article, but it's very very very much worth reading.

All of it.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2011/07/20/is-it-cold-in-here/

Is It Cold in Here?
By Jennifer Ouellette | July 20, 2011 | 106

(snip)

With all the other trouble in the world, why should we care about this? It’s because those climate issues chase many women out of the hard sciences — and indeed, out of any male-dominated community. In March, the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, conducted an NSF-funded study on the retention (or lack thereof) of women in engineering. Nearly half of the women surveyed who left engineering said they did so because of negative working conditions, lack of advancement or low salary, and one in three left because they did not like the workplace climate, their boss or the culture. Only one in four left to spend more time with family — the usual excuse that gets trotted out when folks try to explain away the low numbers of women in such fields.

(snip)

It pretty much mirrored every Internet comment thread (follow that link for a terrific comic by Gabby Schulz) that ensues whenever a woman, however diplomatically, dares to raise the issue of sexist behavior, with one crucial difference: Watson was being attacked by members of her own community, who prided themselves on their rationality and critical thinking — in short, by the very people who should have had her back.

Here is the message being sent to the women skeptics and atheists say they want to join their ranks: “If an atheist/skeptic man behaves boorishly toward you, or refuses to respect your boundaries, whether social or sexual, and you have the gall to state firmly that this is not okay, you will be publicly pilloried, ridiculed for being hysterical, called a man-hating feminazi (or worse), and have your concerns belittled and dismissed.”

(snip... and here is the part that's relevant to my wanting to stop participating in discussions here)

(1) Ladies: even though you might not feel 100% welcome, grit your teeth and show up anyway, because there is power in numbers. Studies have shown that these chilling effects start to dissipate as communities approach 50/50 gender ratios. I showed up anyway, and I’m glad I did, because I could see firsthand how much has changed since I last attended TAM. TAM9 had markedly more women in the audience (around 40%), and half the speakers were women. I was the only woman speaker at TAM7 two years ago. That is tremendous progress in a very short time, and the willingness of Watson and her fellow “skepchicks” to show up, speak out, and endure the inevitable slings and arrows cast their way played a key role in making it happen.

...

Please read the whole thing. Please.