Every year since I joined dev.to I always got excited when march came around. The flood of #shecoded stories in my feed is always prompts in me fee...
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To be quite honest, I feel the same way. I'm tired of woke dudes pretending they're allies while still questioning my or other women's experiences.
Yes. I believe we can teach by example.
When you see someone acting in s shitty way speak up, call it out, don't leave the burden on women to explain why it isn't ok.
Saying "I'm an ally" will teach other men to say they are allies. Acting like an ally will teach other men to act like allies 😉
Great post Yechiel!
Great post! You were able to put into words a lot of what I was trying to process internally leading up to today.
Thanks, I actually struggled a lot on how to verbalize it, an still feel like it came off as disjointed, incoherent rambling. Hope the point came across though.
I think you did a great job, especially considering there was only ~ 1 week (tops) to try and verbalize it.
Topics like this are really complex and certainly not easy to get into words.
Well for one I don't consider myself an "ally" to pretty much anything, but I will keep doing those things you mention and hope that someday, the others I'm supporting and trying to help, will consider me an actual ally. Thanks for sharing
I'm not sure how I feel about the tag. I never faced any adversity or issues breaking into the field as a female. I have always been treated with respect by my peers, haven't been shot down or told I couldn't do something due to my gender, or really had any problems at all. I decided I wanted to be a programmer, and I did it.
So I guess I feel a little confused by the whole thing. What I did wrong (right?) to get where I did so "easily" ... that sort of deal.
Great post! And still very relevant a year later.
Ally is not a title or badge we can give to ourselves. Regardless of past or present actions.
To say "I'm an ally to X" is not something for you to say about yourself. It is something that members of X can say about you.
The only thing you can do is let your actions broadcast allyship. Whether or not you are one is completely in the eye of the affected.
Thank you for eloquently describing how I felt.
I wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of calling myself an ally, because to my mind that's just talking the talk. What makes someone an ally is walking the walk.
I totally agree here. The more labels an ally puts on themselves, the more skeptical I am from the start about how much of an ally they are.
Signaling allyship has undoubtedly had its usefulness over time, specifically in pointing out which members of the oppressive social group can be trusted by members of the oppressed group. So calling oneself an ally could be such signaling.
Aligning oneself with a moral or ethical ideal, even before perfecting one’s embodiment of it, is useful. So calling oneself an ally could be an indicator of such a commitment.
Such a commitment or signal should be a marker of sacrifice - signalling usually endangers the member of the oppressing class and commiting to giving of oneself for the sake of others is just that.
But I also agree - to take on a label of moral commitment is also food for the personal ego, and this is amplified in the era of social media in which people seek to perfect their social representation in a pathological way. The classic moral answer to this dillema has been to perfect one’s actions while renouncing the fruit of those actions.
This is great - I only wish I read it before I felt the need to post my own "I'm an ally" statement. - Oh well, I live and learn.
No worries! Allying means to always be learning and never thinking that you "got there". No one was ever born perfect 🙃
A wonderful allying speech.
Thanks! That means a lot to me 🙂
Sounds like social media nowadays where supporting something means putting a temporary profile picture or yelling out loud how you support someone 😂