Yeah Denny, that guy looks just like one of those dudes who took over the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan today, minus the beard, of course.

Good evening folks,

Well, I see I did receive a response or two to my question, so for those that responded .. Thank you! I also can see that this thread keeps growing, yet sadly still remains unfocused. Case in point (from Page 8):



Thank you Geepster for your thoughtful response. Based on your use of gender specific pronouns in your anecdotes, I am presuming you are a female. I do appreciate you sharing your lived experiences. I will not seek to "discredit" your experiences. However, your post highlighted precisely the issue I was trying to raise in a thoughtful manner in my post on page 5.

You highlighted three incidents. NONE of them was "sexism." One of the three was clearly sexual harassment. I'll start with the last one first. You wrote:



Let me be clear, what you experienced was textbook sexual harassment. It was wrong. I am not condoning that action. I condemn it wholeheartedly. If what you described happened at an organization that I was involved with, and the was matter was timely brought to my attention, I would have made sure the matter was swiftly addressed and that the person who was responsible for such inappropriate conduct was held to account and dealt with appropriately.

Having said that, the inappropriate action described by Geepster was not "sexism". It is sexual harassment - period.

Sexual harassment is a very serious matter. In today's age, it is very appropriate for any organization who wishes to engage in activities where men and women routinely worked together to have an appropriate action plan in place that not only sets up a framework for how to properly address a serious allegation of sexual harassment when it happens, but to also create a healthy, welcoming culture that doesn't allow for it to occur in the first place. Sadly, this thread has spent so much time trying to address the often misleading and everchanging woke concept of "sexism" and too little time talking about how to properly deal with the far more serious issue of sexual harassment.

Geepster's second anecdote which she contributed to this discussion raises a serious topic that has been discussed herein ad nauseum. I agree with her position that conflict of interest policies are extremely important, especially in the context of a non-profit organization. However, the anecdote does not describe any form of "sexism".



What the anecdote quoted above does describe is poor non-profit management, likely IRS violations, and extreme ignorance of good corporate governance. However, simply raising a valid issue and not getting the response you want (even if you are correct) does not make it "sexism" if one party raising the serious issue is a woman and the other is a man.

It should be noted that a person's "tone" may sometimes be relevant in certain cases. However, if we take what Geepster claimed happened at face value, there is still nothing in that part of the anecdote to suggest the decision to not enact good corporate governance is predicated on sexism.

It is pretty clear that the bad decision by the Board, and the ill-advised corresponding colloquially which was proffered by one of the Board members in a comical attempt to support the bad decision, was being made in order to maintain a highly questionable, and likely unethical status quo. In reading the anecdote, I get the sense that anybody who questioned the status quo of said organization would have gotten the exact same response regardless if they were male or female.

I'm sorry if it offends some of you to listen to that, but the anecdote simply does not denote sexism. Not in the slightest. It is simply highlights bad non-profit governance.

Geepster's first anecdote also does not rise to the level of sexism either.



The only thing the first anecdote describes is a lack of communication between the head of an organization and a volunteer. The claim that the lack of communication is somehow rooted in sexism is a bald assertion made without any basis. In those first sentences Geepster admits that she was an active participant in the area of restoration that she wanted to participate in, that she was warmly welcomed by her colleagues, and that she was not belittled or made to feel inferior to any of her fellow colleagues.

It should be noted that if there was a systemic culture of sexism in that organization, then what she describes as a positive experience would not likely have occurred. Systemic problems almost always start at the top of an organization. The fact that she was not subjected to any unwelcoming, unwarranted, or any other inappropriate conduct from her immediate fellow volunteers indicates that the organization likely has good policies in place which are designed to create a positive environment.

The above three points highlight precisely why I feel the efforts herein to try to find any common ground on the ever-evolving definition of "Sexism" (and what exactly it supposedly is) is likely a futile exercise and undercuts an opportunity to discuss the far more significant problem of sexual harassment in the work place. Just my two cents... That is all for now.

My 4 year old daughter loves following me to railroad museums all over the world. She is often the only girl there, and I worry that some one will try to keep away from the trains or tracks and stick her in the gift shop when's she's old enough. If she keeps the interest up, any museum would be lucky to have her, she's articulate, speaks three languages at age 4 and has seen train museums on two continents and a dozen countries. I hope there aren't gate keepers moaning about how when they were a kid, women weren't around, just because there weren't women then, doesn't mean it was right nor does it mean women can interpret the history

In my time on a class one, I saw sexual harassment, it disturbed and horrified me.
A civil engineer was assigned an office in a yard office. I went to hook up there phone and computer. I was doing my job in her office with her there and heard the crews talking about her, in disturbing language and detail. I stopped my work in disgust, excused my self saying I had to handle something, closed the doors and laid in to the crews until I was blue in the face. My language was blue and vulgar about the crew stupidity and ignorance. I also called the terminal superintendent on the conference phone and let him know what happened, how I thought it was unacceptable and if I heard it or heard of it again, I would call HR, and ethics hotline myself.

I spoke to her years later after she relocated to the division headquarters. She thanked me for standing up, noted I was the only one, even though trainmasters heard it before, but it stopped after I exploded on them and the terminal superintendent.

Well I digress fro my hey look at me story, I have a wife, a mother and a daughter, I don't want any of them treated like this and hope someone would stand up for them, locker room or yard office talk isn't welcome anymore. So stand up to discrimatory language

When Mr. Rowland stated that "there were no women around" he was simply stating a truth. There were no women, or few women, around railroading until more recent times.
I remember when the first woman was hired as a "brakeman" on CN in the southern Ontario area. That was in the mid-1970s. There was indeed some chatter whether she could do the job -- remember that train crews were required to wrestle coupler knuckles or heavy chains along the length of a train out on the line and install them if a train separated. I have seen it done on the busy double tracked Dundas Sub. where stopping was "not an option."
I assume that first "brakewoman" did her job well because nothing more was said about her and more women followed her into the operating trades. Sure she had to prove herself on the job -- doesn't everyone?
In many years around railroads into the 1980s, the only black men I recall seeing were in on board passenger service. They were skilled professionals and did their jobs amazingly well, working unusual hours with long trips away from family. On board service crews were all black men. That's how it was.
There were few women in industry. I remember machine shops and welding shops back then where even the offices were run by men. It is just the way it was. That is still the case to some extent, even with the more enlightened thinking of the 21st century. It is acknowledged by in-depth studies that certain occupations attract males, and certain occupations attract females. That has been proven in societies that have enacted laws for gender equality in the workforce. I still hear the phrase, he is "a male nurse." We say that because it remains less common to have men in certain fields, just as it is to have women in certain fields. Times are slowly changing and there will be more fluidity in gender in the workplace.
When visitors to your tourist railway ask if there were women in engine service in the steam era, how will you answer? If you say "yes" you better qualify that with, very rarely and perhaps, during World War II when the men were away being abused and slaughtered in the killing fields and oceans of Europe and Asia.
Having a female steam engine crew on your tourist railway is a wonderful thing, it truly is. However, one has to allow that it is not historically accurate. I might as well offend everyone, although my remarks here are not meant to offend, just to bring a different viewpoint, but crew with full facial and body tattoos and evident facial piercings, etc. are also not historically accurate. Some museums are having displays on lgbqxyz lifestyles. That has nothing to do with historic operating practices.
I have suffered recently in my life from both toxic feminine verbiage, and toxic left wing abuse. Yes I have! To whom do I complain?
I don't complain. Life is very good, in general. I thank God and His Son Jesus for every day. We are all created in God's Image and should view others in that belief that all human beings carry something of the Devine in them and so, deserve our respect. Understanding and practising that could bring us together in ways that surveys and threads like this never will. The surveys and threads do more to divide than to encourage.

The word “systemic” has at least two definitions in relation to sexism:

One is that the problem is deeply rooted in a group, meaning that a relatively large number of people are committing it, or condoning it. While that general situation might be true, how can it be knowable?

The other meaning is that it is being caused by a group collectively, and not by an individual cause. If it cannot be caused by an individual cause, how can it be caused by an individual person? It can’t be. So if it is caused by the group collectively, that has to mean one of two things:

One is that every person in the group is a sexist—or—the entire group as a whole has some kind of ability to manifest sexism without actually intending to do so. That way, nobody is sexist, but the whole group somehow creates sexism. This is incomprehensible. How is it even possible to eliminate sexism fitting that definition?

We were asked by Nick to have a conversation about sexism, so some of us asked why he refers to sexism as being systemic. This was met here in this thread with hostility, condescension, and sanctimonious arrogance by others. We were told that if we have to ask why the term, “systemic” is applied, then that proves we are sexist, and part of the problem.

That feels kind of like what some people here are apparently trying to do, that it so make sexism everyone’s fault. It seems to be a tone taken to exaggerate the problem. People here have brought up the painting with a broad brush as being unfair, and they too were jumped on as being part of the problem. Yet if you read serious technical instructions in how to deal with sexism in your workplace, you will find some cautions against making people feel like they are all to blame without any evidence that they are. So the experts identify that trap and they caution to avoid it.

Likely so. It's him saying "That worked for me and i don't wanna see it change!" and listing organizations HE RAN which irked people.

Insert humongous eye roll here. You know perfectly well what I was saying.


Ron, BRAVO!

Yes I do, Denny, but doxxing particular individuals here on the site isn't the answer, either. None of us are going to live forever so let's all do the best we can for our trains while we're still around to support them.

I'm just sick and tired of all this divide and conquer nonsense we have to put up with on a daily basis because it only serves the people who are perpetrating it.

I really like this video here because it pretty much sums up how I feel about the big picture these days...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M

That is all.

It's not always "Divide and conquer" it's "let's do better".

And sometimes people don't realize the things they're doing aren't great because it's "how it's always been" or "just how we do it". THOSE are the things that make something "systemic".

Still waiting............

If you were so eager to boycott donations to any organization to which I might claim to be an active member/participant, JUST for openly questioning the alleged "systemic" degree of sexism in rail preservation, you should be screeching a hundred times louder to punish blatant, openly stated sexism by a "star" of the movement and that railroad.

Instead, even hearing-impaired me is hearing the crickets...........

Where are your calls to have him deleted or banished from this and other online forums? When do we start scrapping his locomotive, or at the very least toppling it and covering it with graffiti calling him a "pig"?? Where are your calls to have the railroad he still supposedly works for shut down, if not scrapped?
(Not that I advocate any of that for one moment, but such grotesquely disproportionate demands or actions are seemingly the minimum accepted tactic of the "offensensitive" and "cancel culture" these days.)

This happens to resemble exactly what happened to the anti-sexism (and anti-Republican) "MeToo" movement of a short time back: It quietly dissipated into the ether once the movement's favored left-winger stars such as Harvey Weinstein, Garrison Keillor, and Al Franken were taken down in the crossfire.
In other words, hypocrisy.



Yet others here such as "xboxtravis" advocated exactly that approach.

It's almost like it wasn't politically motivated but instead was about getting creeps out of power and reminding people that were consequences for being a creep.

And then "we" elected a "hair-sniffing creep" to the White House. Basically instantly negating your entire proposition.
Sorry, I'm not buying that fairy tale.

So I ask: Where is this "MeToo movement" now? It appears to be struggling for life now, through modest efforts such as Nick's podcast, but somehow there are still "creeps" in very high places NOT suffering consequences..........

I think the recent resignation of the Governor of New York State qualities as a life sign.

Brian

Have you considered that this could be a reason that, although Ross is certainly trying his hardest to create an American Freedom Train 2.0, it will never get off the ground because this black cloud is following him around? He's trying to get big money corporate sponsors, but in todays climate his public statements on forums like this will keep that from happening. Of course Ross will simply discount it as "times have changed/people lack vision or patriotism" without admitting there's a bigger underlying problem.