Ugh, I wish we didn't need such a rage-baiting title to talk about this. I'm not a huge fan of danah's methods [1], but then againit's hard to argue with her results.
danah is right that her findings are not at all conclusive. I'm somewhat doubtful that the root cause is what she suggests, but the problem itself seems to be very real. I'm quite excited to see if we can find a solution, as it may have broader-reaching effects. Could this allow people who get motion sick even from 2D presentations to enjoy them sickness-free?
[1] Labeling a company and its engineers as sexist for not being aware of certain, extremely obscure research is unfair to say the least. But, you know, institutional and implicit biases in subconscious power structures etc. etc.
She did not do this. She assigned a label L to X and then provided an explicit definition of L. You are fallaciously taking an alternate definition of L from a different context and acting as if she used that definition.
But I suppose misunderstandings like yours are the price of cheap clickbait.
The misunderstanding was not the price of the clickbait, it was the intention. boyd does provide a very careful definition of sexism buried at the addenda to her article, but that explanation did not appear with the original article when it was published. boyd even admits this, saying that a more accurate title would have been "Is Oculus Rift unintentionally discriminating on the basis of sex?".
"Sexist" is an emotionally charged term, and when you use it out of context the reader will assume its most common meaning, not the more academically accurate one. boyd knew this and decided it was better to rile people up than let her article go unnoticed. I can't even fault her, to be honest -- I just don't like manipulative headlines (or writing in general), even when used for a justified end.
And yet in this article in The Atlantic we have a guy who discovers that people who want just ONE neighbor out of four to be the same "color" as them (everyone is red or blue) can wind up segregating entire neighborhoods.
The difference between active discrimination like "we don't need any women baby-makers working here!" and ostensibly subconscious passive discrimination like "man it sure would be nice to have a male co-worker" is gigantic. The first is reprehensible and should be fought for sure. The second is innocent and not sexist but can seemingly end up with roughly similar outcomes to the first.
danah is right that her findings are not at all conclusive. I'm somewhat doubtful that the root cause is what she suggests, but the problem itself seems to be very real. I'm quite excited to see if we can find a solution, as it may have broader-reaching effects. Could this allow people who get motion sick even from 2D presentations to enjoy them sickness-free?
[1] Labeling a company and its engineers as sexist for not being aware of certain, extremely obscure research is unfair to say the least. But, you know, institutional and implicit biases in subconscious power structures etc. etc.