My positive experience as a woman in tech • Hacker News Board

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#101

Post by forgottenpass » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:10 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #80

sktrdie wrote: post #3

Am I the only one who thinks "sexism" is overrated? It's misinterpreted by so many and I'm not sure I understand what it means most of the time. I think humans are prejudice about so many things that it's hard to keep track and "give a name" to every single prejudice. Obviously "sex" does set us apart much more strongly than, say, race, or probably any other thing, so I really find it normal that there are stereotype…

Sexism is not stereotypes or personal feelings or attitudes (although those can by misogynistic). The academic (and consistent) definition of sexism is a property of a society where one of the sexes has less power than the other, and the mechanism by which that imbalance of power is perpetuated. Of course, sexism occurs because of internalized biases that are very hard counter unless people actually seek them out, an…

No. I'm sick of this game. You clarification of the definition isn't clarification. It's unnecessary linguistic prescriptivism.

If you want to talk about the type of sexism also often refereed to as "institutional sexism" then that's fine. If you want to call it just "sexism" thats fine too (but puts an unnecessary complication on the reader). But "sexism" is an overloaded term whether you want it to be or not. Just like I can't say "Bi-monthly now and forever forward only means every other month, and never means twice a month," you can't just wave away the regular-prejudice definition of sexism just because you want to.

Also, this "academic definition" meme is bullshit. Academic writing is about clarity and making sure the reader understands the author's meaning. So, if at the beginning of the paper the author clarifies when they use "foo" they only mean one of the 3 possible definitions of foo, that's just good writing. But if they say "definition 2 of foo isn't actually foo, it's just bar. For any and all uses of foo, including outside this paper" they're a hack.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#102

Post by meowface » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:12 PM UTC

scintill76 wrote: post #62

meowface wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it generally okay to swear in front of men but generally not okay to swear in front of women? That's a pretty sexist, and condescending, point of view. Sure, there are gender differences. But I don't think "genetic vulnerability to profanity" is one of them.

This feminist wiki says, "Any form of 'fuck' that assumes penetration is a bad thing for the receptive partner" is misogynist[1]. So I guess something like "Yeah, they really fucked us over on that one." could have been what he said, and it would be misogynistic and thus makes sense to be something that shouldn't be said around women especially. The next step is to eliminate saying it around men too, because misogyny…

That seems like a bit of a strawman and overgeneralization. I personally think offense over "fuck", "fork", or "dongle" is absurd (beyond typical professionalism/politeness standards), but this is one branch of feminism finding "fuck" offensive, and in the "dongle" incident, one single woman who found it offensive at the time. Obviously not all women find these things offensive. Not all people (women or otherwise) use or advocate for the modern-tumblr definitions of "microaggression" or "trigger", either.

You're acting like the article you linked is some sort of rulebook all women in technology abide by.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#103

Post by gotchange » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:13 PM UTC

indifferentalex wrote: post #19

10/10 Will read again. The sexism debate has indeed painted a bleak picture, people so often try to show a different side of the picture but end up using the wrong words or simply adding ambiguity to the discussion, most of the time only making the matter more complicated, and worst of all, pulling us even further from a potential solution. This one showed us not only a potential solution, but also proved it's effect…

> but simply by people treating others (women included) nicely, or as my first grade teacher taught me, by following the golden rule, treat others the way you want to be treated,

So, no more "ladies first" and gentleman treatment for women?

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#104

Post by Lawtonfogle » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:14 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #48

> It’s impossible to know, especially since they don’t know either! If you confront them on their sexism, they will deny all of it, and truly believe it. It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes. Therefore, a lot of the time, you cannot be sure if you have experienced sexist behavior, and there is no way to find out for sure, since the perpetrator doesn’t know either. There are many false…

>It’s impossible to know, especially since they don’t know either! If you confront them on their sexism, they will deny all of it, and truly believe it. It takes a lot of introspection to see one’s internalized stereotypes.

My entire problem with this isn't that I deny I have such stereotypes (as I know I have them), but that the people who call others out on this will seem to be the group most likely to deny having their own.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#105

Post by Lawtonfogle » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:16 PM UTC

erkkie wrote: post #90

mycroft-holmes wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say you're absolutely correct. I laugh when I see feminist friends of mine who complain about "creepy" guys approaching them at coffee shops and days later they'll talk about how they hate being single and want to meet someone.

Those are not mutually exclusive things though, presumably they want to be approached by non-creepy guys (ie ones they happen to like, by whatever measure). I guess this is just how the human mating game goes. We try to make some things make sense intellectually even though there's probably deeper subconscious and chemical messaging going on.

It would be nice if they were a bit more honest and switched creepy/non-creepy with unattractive/attractive.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#106

Post by Lawtonfogle » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:18 PM UTC

aikah wrote: post #91

tomp wrote: post #74

That's the general theme of public discourse... Americans killing Muslims in Iraq are "soldiers", wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists". Edit: Looks like I've hit a very sore point...

> That's the general theme of public discourse... Americans killing Muslims in Iraq are "soldiers", wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists". Americans aren't killing Muslims in Iraq just because they are muslims. That's a straw-man. > wherears Muslims killing Americans in the US are "terrorists" (Some) Muslim extremists certainly are killing americans because of what they are and what they belie…

>A soldier that would do the same would be charged with war-crime, and it happened.

Such a great thing that we have such loose criteria on what it means to be a combatant.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#107

Post by meowface » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:18 PM UTC

marrs wrote: post #75

meowface wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it generally okay to swear in front of men but generally not okay to swear in front of women? That's a pretty sexist, and condescending, point of view. Sure, there are gender differences. But I don't think "genetic vulnerability to profanity" is one of them.

You remind me of a time when one of my colleagues made a somewhat ribald comment, and my other colleague - the only woman in the room (whom, by the way, we treated in the way the author would have approved: as one of us) - reminded him that there was a lady present. I still keep in touch with her, so I'll be sure to pass on the message that she's both sexist and condescending.

I can't really respond to this without knowing the actual content of the comment, and the context.

But if it was literally him saying something like "what the fuck" or whatever, then yes, I think she was not being reasonable. If she were to say "I don't like that kind of language", that's fine, but to suggest ladies don't like that kind of language is a big overgeneralization on her part.

I'm guessing it was a different kind of comment, though, given "ribald". In which case it's not just an issue of profanity anymore, and so her reaction may have been perfectly justified.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#108

Post by tomp » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #100

tomp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, with my friends, male friends are much more likely to swear than female. So it's reasonable to assume they would also be more accepting of other people swearing, and generalize this assumption to other people.

That's fair; I can see why you'd have that viewpoint, in that case. In my own experience, my male and female friends all swear with about equal frequency. I've never noticed a trend like that myself. It might be area- and culture-dependent to some degree, maybe? I live on the US east coast.

Yes, very likely. Or language-dependent, as well - in English, "fuck" can very conveniently be placed almost everywhere, and has (IMO) lost a lot of its charge... In Sloveinan, many swear-words carry much stronger emphasis.

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#109

Post by Lawtonfogle » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

blowski wrote: post #22

sktrdie wrote: post #3

Am I the only one who thinks "sexism" is overrated? It's misinterpreted by so many and I'm not sure I understand what it means most of the time. I think humans are prejudice about so many things that it's hard to keep track and "give a name" to every single prejudice. Obviously "sex" does set us apart much more strongly than, say, race, or probably any other thing, so I really find it normal that there are stereotype…

Exactly. Sexism is not identical to misogynism. Where the latter is about being nasty, sexism is believing something about somebody solely based on their gender. So if I assume you don't like pizza and football because you're female, so instead buy you frozen yoghurt, I'm being sexist even if it's with the nicest of intentions. We're all human and we all make mistakes, but sometimes people blow those mistakes out of…

>So if I assume you don't like pizza and football because you're female, so instead buy you frozen yoghurt, I'm being sexist even if it's with the nicest of intentions.

If I'm buying my young niece a toy, and see two otherwise equal toys except one is blue and one is pink, is it sexist to choose the pink one? I have to make a choice, there is no non-colored toy.

I only think it crosses into sexism if my niece told me she likes blue better and I still pick a pink one or if there is some reason that the pink option is objectively worse (say if I was buying her a Bumblebee transformer, picking the pink one instead of the yellow one would qualify because the yellow one is the canonical color).

Re: My positive experience as a woman in tech

#110

Post by SCHiM » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:26 PM UTC

Keep in mind that the situation she recalls, the one with the guy that apologizes to her for cussing, is perhaps not the sort of sexism you would want to try and get rid of.

The way I see it, this coming from a early 20s male (read, shall we say, constantly aware of the opposing sex), is that that attempt to be polite to a woman has nothing to do with her being a woman in tech, but simply being a woman in a social situation.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's pretty normal for a guy/girl to alter his/her behaviour when in a social situation with a member of sex he/she's interested in. Eveb uf the situation in question is supposed to be 100% platonic and/or work related. There is a limit, of course, to how far we can/should excuse this behaviour in people. But I don't think it's fair to stomp on people when they behave different within limits.

Because you _are_ a woman, and it _does_ make a difference, but obviously not in the sense that you'd be any more/less competent because of your gender.