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Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

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Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#401

Post by BurningFrog »

Chinjut wrote: post #361
BurningFrog wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad we sorted out that problem.

The commenter several up in this thread mentioned the threat of a beating from their wife so casually, like it was no big thing, like of course their wife would beat them for talking to other women. I presume it was just colorful language on their part, but if they are laboring under the idea that this would actually be a reasonable situation (fucked-up gender norms perhaps playing a role here), it's important to str…

Of course it's a crappy situation, but it is how life is for a lot of people.

I'm not quite sure where you're coming from here, but you give me the impression that by declaring a reality "not OK", we can act like that reality doesn't exist.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#402

Post by generic_user »

natrius wrote: post #397
generic_user wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Identity politics is designed to be divisive. Its used to atomize people into identity silos which can then have there interactions policed by busybodies who know the right way we should all interact with each other.

Humans are divisive. We discriminate in all sorts of ways (positive and negative), and that discrimination becomes part of our culture. It's natural. If we don't talk about how our biases affect our interactions, the kinds of people who have historically gotten screwed by biases are going to keep getting screwed.

The kinds of people who have historically gotten screwed by biases come from every religion, ethnic group and culture in the world. Any genuine discussion would have to acknowledge that as a prerequisite. The narrative of oppressor and oppressed falls apart against the backdrop of reality when peoples real culture and history's are discussed. So does any potential political and economic power that can be gained through black and white grievance politics.

American Identity politics is about erasing peoples identities and histories and putting them into segregated groups based exclusively on skin color and gender then assigning a sliding scale between oppressor and oppressed to these groups. With 'white people' and 'male' being the oppressor and the other groups falling into some victim grievance class hierarchy who demand but will never get 'justice'. Its the perfect war of all against all that can be carefully manipulated by media and distract the population away from serious political and policy failures that we see all around us.

Identity Politics in the tech industry is simply ridding this wave trying to extract whatever power and resources it can before they become an inconvenience and money sink to corporations who think thy can use idpol for there own nefarious objectives.

I will point you to Charles H Smith who wrote an interesting essay on idpol from a leftist point of view.

Identity Politics = Totalitarianism

"The truth is we have more in common with people of different ethnicities and religions than we can possibly know in a totalitarian system drenched in the divisive propaganda of identity politics.

Identity politics are the core of every totalitarian state. Identity politics were the beating heart of Nazism, and the core strategy of the USSR's liquidation of kulaks and other groups identified as enemies of the state."

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.nl/2016/09/identity-politic...

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#403

Post by Teever »

kaitai wrote: post #173
Teever wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural conclusion of this train of thought is to never ask someone out for coffee to begin with as the OP was suggesting.

If you're going to take it that way, don't interact with humans ever. You do you, my friend. But that's black-and-white illogical thinking. "Once I asked a woman to discuss a tech thing and then she mentioned her boyfriend forever." Who cares? One person had a hangup or a bad experience, and the horrible outcome is that she mentioned her boyfriend a few times. Try again with someone else, guy or gal. Try asking two p…

I care.

I care when a woman takes a totally innocuous statement or question the wrong way and thinks to her self "That guy is creepy."

I care when she tells her friends "stay away from that guy, he's a creep."

I care when she gets promoted and becomes my boss and thinks "that guys a creep."

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#404

Post by reitanqild »

ebfe wrote: post #362
chillacy wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that equal outcome is undesirable. But if you truly had equal opportunity for something universally desired, let's say higher education, you would expect to see in your freshman class across all colleges a distribution matching the general population in all these factors, like gender/race/disabilities, and I would add wealth too. But when we look at these distributions we see some under represented, and some…

>you would expect to see in your freshman class across all colleges a distribution matching the general population in all these factors, like gender/race/disabilities Why would you expect this? The mean IQ of black Americans is a standard deviation below that of Asians. Surely you would expect to see relatively fewer of them.

> Why would you expect this? The mean IQ of black Americans is a standard deviation below that of Asians

Kind of agree here - but (and I'm saying this as someone who scores well in th IQ system and hold a well paid, technical job):

* why is it like this? I have nothing to back it up but I have a strong hunch that this difference might at least be partially attributed to something else than biology. I don't say "white oppression in 2016" but I fear that part of it is "learned helplessness" from centuries gone.

* why is it that university should be the best option for everyone (and that includes me)? Some of the very best techies I have worked with have gone the route of assistant technician-> technician -> add maths, physics, economy etc (because now they are motivated for it) -> fantastic boss, pm, technical lead etc.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#405

Post by Chinjut »

BurningFrog wrote: post #401
Chinjut wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The commenter several up in this thread mentioned the threat of a beating from their wife so casually, like it was no big thing, like of course their wife would beat them for talking to other women. I presume it was just colorful language on their part, but if they are laboring under the idea that this would actually be a reasonable situation (fucked-up gender norms perhaps playing a role here), it's important to str…

Of course it's a crappy situation, but it is how life is for a lot of people. I'm not quite sure where you're coming from here, but you give me the impression that by declaring a reality "not OK", we can act like that reality doesn't exist.

I'm not blaming any abuse victim for being in their position; I'm just saying "Hey, I'm sorry you're in that position. Maybe you've been led to believe that kind of relationship is normal and healthy, but I want you to know it's not. (Perhaps, in the cases of this thread, you've been especially trained to dismiss the idea of this counting as abuse because of the gender dynamics of the situation not matching a common image. But it remains abusive regardless). So if you ever get the opportunity to leave it or otherwise perhaps to change it, please don't hesitate to do so. Again, sorry for what you're going through."

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#406

Post by reitanqild »

NTDF9 wrote: post #86
reitanqild wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a genuine question. How would it be unequal for males to start such a forum for anything they want? While I do care a lot I don't identify with the typical "SJW", so I think this should be perfectly OK, only very boring so I wouldn't create it.

Boring really? As a male who enjoys company of other males (not sexually), I have not found it boring at all. Mixed groups have definitely been socially better but I'd pick male mentoring forums any day. Boring isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think of male-spaces. More like brotherhood, mentorship and competition.

I see. Don't name it that way then. It just annoys people and make it sound like you can only ask questions about being a male engineer which is kind of uneventful it seems.

Truth to be told I know there are women that enjoy hanging around in almost all-male groups as well because they find it more relaxed. Possibly wouldn't have believed if one of them hadn't told me though.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#407

Post by Chinjut »

mbfg wrote: post #377
Chinjut wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y'all have some super-paranoid jealous partners, if you can't even talk to a colleague of a particular gender, purely as colleagues. I hope both for your partner and for you that they stop being that way someday.

that's cute. not married eh?

Are you suggesting this is a healthy dynamic that all married couples share?

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#408

Post by [deleted] »

Mz wrote: post #138
gjolund wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to be treated the same as everyone else. Unless I am feeling uncomfortable, and then I want to be treated differently.

I have covered this before: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/01/oh-my-god-it... So I assume you don't actually know me. Because, no, that isn't my position.

[deleted]

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#409

Post by reitanqild »

crapolasplatter wrote: post #316
vacri wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nice, why the hostility? Because your original comment wasn't innocent or genuine, and you already know the answer to it. It's a comment that gets made every. single. time. something like this comes up, has been answered a million times before, and it's not worth pandering to.

Or maybe you can't justify the value of simply stating female in the topic heading. Or are you saying that all females have the same experience? if not perhaps you can explain what is the value of stating they are female when not all females are the same , nor do they automatically have the same experiences simply because of their sex. surely a fat , short , ugly , female engineer would not have the same experience o…

> Or maybe you can't justify the value of simply stating female in the topic heading.

Stop it already: point is it should be OK for anyone to start any group they want but some are bound to be more interesting than others.

You are starting to annoy even me and I'm definitely a non-"SJW". (although I do care and will sometimes make an effort to fix things, just not in a "SJW" style blame-society-and-all-white-men way)

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#410

Post by reitanqild »

belorn wrote: post #187
reitanqild wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try rather with: "ask a male nurse". That is more comparable, i.e.: both are perfectly normal, but both are not too common for historical and possibly other reasons.

Please don't compare nurse, a rather low desired job, and engineering, a rather desired job. If you want to make a comparison, I would pick psychiatrist or veterinarian which both has similar desirability and technical requirements as engineering. Both also have a much worse gender equality ratios that engineering, with a trend going from bad to worse. "Ask a male psychiatrist" would be a interesting idea to push for…

Thanks! Please note though that I am not American and your experience might be a bit different than mine.

Around here nurses and engineers have exactly the same number of years in school. A veterinarian is two more years I think.

Edit: and you are making things worse by saying that being a nurse is an unattractive job.

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