Hi, it occurs to me that I should have provided more context to this message.
I wrote: On 12/3/20 00:44, Frederik Ramm wrote: > People have thought the same about Donald Trump - yeah, this > whole grab-them-by-the-pussy talk is just showmanship and once elected > he'll be more presidential. But don't be fooled. Mike is going to grab > our licence by the pussy just as he promised he would The quote I have been using is from a tape recording of Donald Trump, the outgoing president of the United States of America. The full quote goes like this: "And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_tape) It was recorded and became public before he became president, but apparently not enough people found it bad enough, or they thought that it was just "locker room talk" and not to be taken seriously. Obviously, "grabbing people by the pussy" is a loathsome thing to do, and even Trump in this quote is aware of that, because he chooses it as an example of something that you can do "when you're a star". Facebook undoubtedly is "a star" on the tech circuit, and they get away with lots of things that are loathsome. Exactly a year ago today, I have compiled a small list of these loathsome things here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/woodpeck/diary/391480 (there's also a couple of agreeing and disagreeing comments below the post; I'd like to particularly direct your attention to the agreeing comment by Nancy Pelosi). More things have happened in the last 12 months of course. Therefore, the very least I would expect of a board candidate who is employed by Facebook is to clearly separate their OSMF candidacy from their employment. I don't see that coming from Mike. I feel that he is clearly riding the "I am a star" ticket here - "I can do anything". I have been called out as using sexist language here; for me, it looked like I was using very well-known political quote that clearly expressed the concept of "person believes they can get away with doing loathsome things because they are a star, and they even get elected". My statement was not intended to trivialize sexual harassment (and I would certainly not have been one of the 60+ million Americans who thought that "this was just locker room talk" and waved Trump through in 2016 had I been an American citizen). But my statement needed something loathsome to work. Whatever other wording I could have chosen - like: "get away with murder" - could have been interpreted as trivializing whichever loathsome thing I would have used; so I'm at a loss here. (Just to be clear, I have not accused Mike of any form of sexual harassment, just as I don't accuse someone of murder when I say that they think they can get away with murder.) Those of you who think that my comments were divisive, or lacked politeness, I'm sorry but I cannot accommodate you, I think that in a situation like this clear and strong words are required to condemn loathsome activities by a company, or a lack of distancing by that company's employee. But those of you who feel that by quoting Trump as a bad example and painting Mike as walking in those "when you're a star you can do anything" footsteps I have trivialized sexual harassment or somehow made sexual harassment more likely or denigrated women or made it less likely for them to want to join the OSMF board - I'm sorry, I apologize, it wasn't my intention. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
