Not allowed to work because of my avatar?

Well, that's sort of what fora like this are about: discussion.

It MIGHT, in some ways, be more profitable to indulge in speculation on the notional whereabouts of make belief lost beds, or where to pretend-buy the best make belief skins, but I actually have found this thread both interesting and informative, and with applications to RL, due especially to the contributions of Dag and Pussycat.

Whatever turns your crank, I guess.

Does this mean you won't be answering my question about whether a club could hire "white-only" avs?

why not carry it further...

only trekkies in Star Trek RP sims...
only women in Femdom RP sims, voice verified...
only Gorean RP'ers in Gorean sims...
no children in adult content (sexual content) sims...
only Super heroines/heroes in those types of sims...
only vampire/goth in those types of sims...
only newly rezzed avi's in welcome island...
only prisoners and guards in prison RP sims...

oh...

wait....

.....................................

is there really anything wrong with any of these?


To the OP sorry some have decided to derail your thread.
Don't let the job loss get to you. There are plenty of places in SL where you will find what you were looking for.

the predictable sl experience:

I don't think that I have implied that there is anything "wrong with any of these." My question has been quite explicitly about discrimination that has an RL counterpart. You want people to wear Star Trek uniforms in your Star Trek sim? Fine with me. You want to ban furries from an historical sim? Fine with me.


I'm also not sure why a discussion that has remained pretty much consistently on the topic of discrimination in SL constitutes a "derailment' of a thread that was initiated by an OP on the subject of, um, discrimination in SL . . .

As far as I know there is nothing stopping any employer in SL from 'discriminating' due to type of avatar. I do think it unfortunate, but without knowing what type of club, I can't really fully condemn it. They might have a theme which a non 'human' appearance would not go well with.

Do furry clubs hire human avatars? I've never heard about it one way or the other.

It isn't against TOS, since it's on private land, although if they harassed you for being a furry avatar or for whatever reason, that is against TOS. It seems as if LL rules basically see avs as something we can all change, and so does not put it in the same category as real-life prejudiced behavior. It's definitely against the rules to use racist language, for example.

Yeah, that's my take on it: the CS and ToS address discrimination based upon RL identities, rather than upon ones that exist only in SL. Hence, they would not, I think, apply to furries. More problematic, however, is how they would apply to SL representations of RL races, religions, etc. I'm betting, for example, that an AR against an person, sim, or group that discriminated against an avi representing an RL ethnic group or race WOULD get a response from LL. In other words, I doubt that you could get away with a "white avatar only" club in SL. And I personally witnessed Minerva Linden whisking away a griefer whose avi represented a caricature of a black.

/me nods. I agree, Scylla; both that that would be the likely policy against such places, and that it should be.

I do wonder if there shouldn't be something comparable about SL-only appearances, such as 'furries.' One doesn't see a lot of 'furries' in real life, I mean other than at the special occasions or get togethers that 'furs' have. So it isn't a real life counterpart to something that exists.

But, it seems the same dynamic, and with the same hurt feelings.

I doubt a proposal such as 'no anti fur discrimination' would fly, however. Unless it included harassment. Again it would come down to people not wanting to be told what they can do with their land/businesses in SL. One does hear a lot of stories about furs being harassed/denied, however.

My own outlook is that in both worlds it should be based upon behavior and ability (including experience), as to who gets the job.

Yeh, kid avatars ARE allowed in adult rated sims.

i need a kool-aide man av!

And there you have it - since *anything* that *anybody* says in SL is completely unreliable, then you have no valid basis for associating true SL identity with assumed RL identity and discrimination charges are bound to fail. I am saying this because as a black, Jewish, and homosexual centaur in real life I have attempted to lobby LL to have their ToCs changed, with no success to date.
Of course you could.
The key word here is griefer; don't mix up the unacceptability of actions with the acceptability of representation or otherwise of the person carrying out those actions. Was the avatar in question a caricature of Obama perhaps?
Another critical point. Of course they have "meaning" (there wasn't any need to shout, darling, Daddy may be old but his hearing is still good) but the meaning is fantastical and completely different from that which it might have in the real world, and as a consequence real world attitudes and codes do not apply.

Pep (It's a game; I don't get listed as a bankrupt for losing at Monopoly.)

I guess he ment to say sexual oriented parcel that does not alow kid avatars, but then again such a combination has been against the SL rules for years where the other exsamples where local parcel rules

Nicely put.

I'm reading 'The Making of Second Life' by Wagner James Au (Hamlet Au - SL). I got it and the author autographed it, at SLCC. He added an 'afterword' written just a couple weeks ago. I am just now reading about that war. And the other war, 'Jessie' from what was it, 2003? And the Americana 'Tea Crate' war. It's SUCH a good book.

Koko- I so want this skin!

And just on the GP of it all- I really do want some descriminatory practices to continue in RL - Men should NEVER EVER be Hooter's waiters!!! and blech!

Fair question, and I have to admit that I would not. So yes, there's a weakness in my position that we only need to protect against involuntary attributes.

Another point in your favor is religion, which some might consider a voluntary attribute.

Personally, I think that bias against furries is narrow minded, and I like to be open minded. But I also like to be open minded enough to willing to co-exist with narrow-minded types. It's not my style, but I won't castigate those who choose to be that way.

Concerning the OP: if you want to be a furry, find a job in a place that accepts furries and get over it. Or choose the restrictive job and don a different avatar. I do not feel that this is a serious social issue. (I do feel that discussing it seriously is valid and useful.)

I also think it's perfectly within our rights in SL to have "mens' clubs" or "womens' clubs" where only male or female avatars are welcome. Don't expect my patronage, though.

In RL, we can't have "mens' clubs" because of history. There is a serious bias in our culture, which thankfully is on the wane, against women in higher business positions. Men's clubs helped perpetuate this travesty. So, while I feel that there's nothing inherently wrong with men wanting to associate with just men (or women and women), we can't allow it because of the impact. I hope that someday this becomes a non-issue.

In SL, it is a non-issue, because you can choose any sex you want.

So why don't I apply the same logic to race? I'll have to examine my own feelings to find the answer, but I think it's simply based on my deep-seated loathing of racism. Perhaps it's because I feel (perhaps wrongly) that while sexism is a problem in our society, it's not as malignant as racism.

Note that the US law applies to the actual race, and not how you happen to "dress up", so it would only apply in SL if you claim that your avatar represents the real you.

I wonder how laws would be interpreted in an actual court case where the appearance didn't match the RL race. My guess is that it could go either way, and get reversed at one or more levels. The best part is that the division probably wouldn't fall on conservative vs. liberal lines, either -- for a change!

Regardless, I would object to race-exclusion in SL, as an extension of a serious real evil in RL, except in cases where it's clearly RP. For example, a place that represents pre-civil-war deep south, including acting out of slaveholding etc. And even then I'd be a bit wary.

You're absolutely right, IMHO: there is no legal issue here.

However, I feel it's useful to discuss what we should consider acceptable community standards. (Which is beside the point of your post, so is not a criticism.)

That's one of the beauties of SL, Peggy. It's a psychosocial sandbox where we can investage all manner of interesting theoretical questions and actually put some of them to the test.

Thanks Lear. This seems a pretty reasonable response overall; I think I mostly agree with what you say here . . . except (predictably, perhaps ) this part ^^^^

I think that your response IS pretty characteristic: for some reason, "sexism" seems to be much less of a concern for most people than does racism. We even joke about it (I certainly do) in a way that we would NEVER joke about racism.

So, I sort of sympathize with this perspective, but would also like to point out that sexism isn't just about the economic and social disadvantages that still adhere to being female; it's also about violence against women (I am, of course, talking about RL here), which still exacts a horrendous yearly toll even in the "liberal" west.

A few stats (courtesy of Amnesty International): in Europe, domestic violence is the major cause of death and disability for women between the ages of 16 and 44; in the US a woman is raped every 6 minutes, and another battered every 15 seconds.

In other parts of the world, where "honour" killings of women are not rare, and where rape is pretty routinely employed as a political or military weapon, the carnage created by "sexism" is simply unspeakable. And then, of course, there is the growing problem of the trafficking of women for the sex trade.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound like I'm coming down heavily; as I say, I mostly agree with your post.

I just think that sometimes when we talk about "sexism," we aren't really thinking about the "big picture."

/me nods. Although I still think, even in the face of an apparently pretty weak approach to hate speech in the US, that the real issue here probably IS about hate, rather than discrimination, per se.


Agree absolutely. SL IS a community, and an enormously diverse and complicated one. What is more, as VWs become more important in our RL lives (which they will), these issues will become more pressing.


Yep!

As a very light skinned black woman, this happens to me, every day. So many stories, reflecting this conundrum over my years of life. I have never ever tried to 'pass' for anything else; nor would I want to; I practically have to carry my birth certificate around with me; In my early working years, while in college, I worked for a small company that I later found used me as a 'token'. Back in those days, the EDD would actually come through and check to see that business owners had minority employees. They'd drag me out to 'prove it'. Still, what you are talking about is a court situation and I too wonder how it would play out, if I was in court, looking like I do, for a racial discrimination issue. In SL I don't give these things much thought and am very accepting of everyone, and treat them as they obviously are choosing to represent themselves.

Hmmm. I'd still bet not.


Well, except that his unacceptable actions (and speech) were exclusively a brutal caricature of urban black culture. It was really ONLY in that sense that he was a "griefer."


Well, of course these meanings are not equivalent to RL ones, anymore than the meanings produced by a book, movie, or play are. I've never suggested that there is a simple correspondence between racism or sexism in RL and SL. But the "meanings" that are produced in SL don't evaporate when we log off: they DO have a bearing on RL, in just the way that any representation, depiction, or discourse does.

And I wouldn't feel the need to SHOUT if you'd just put down your hearing trumpet for a bit.

No offense taken, and you're quite right. But I don't feel that vioence against women (or any kind of household violence, for that matter) would enough of a reason to criticize mens' only clubs in SL (not that I've seen any).

It would be more of a reason to criticize Gor and BDSM clubs in SL. Interestingly, though, many RL females enjoy these clubs. It's a sticky subject.

Agreed on that point; I was speaking, really, more generally about misogyny, rather than specifically about this kind of exclusion.


Yep!


Tell me about it!