“Let her speak please”

It baffles me that moderators keep blocking the community and remove flags form these kind of totally non factual and opinionated posts, and then go and themselves flag highly voted fact based posts that make it to the first page of HN - like they did some weeks ago about the code capabilities of IT grads in India.

It is almost like the moderators in HN have a clearly defined and very limited political range of ideological opinions they believe in and that they only allow anyone else to express - or even discuss about - their personal opinions if they mirror those of the moderators.

Human interaction can't be reduced that way. You can't make objective rules for things that are inherently subjective. It's why we have judges to preside over court cases, rather than just follow a flow chart, for example.

Yeah, this gets into a problem where people use the word "sexism" in a couple different ways, that don't mean the same thing. Mostly conscious vs unconscious, I think? Almost no one goes home and writes, "Dear Diary, today I insulted some women, because I hate women. Let's keep doing that." So of course, if you accuse someone of being that kind of conscious sexist, it's a huge insult. You're calling them a sad hate monster person. When we do talk about other people's sexism, especially if those people don't have a lot of practice talking about unconscious bias, it might be a good idea to reassure them that we're not calling them a hate monster.

But that cuts both ways, and it's possible to be unfair in the other direction. If someone comes to me and says "I think what you did was sexist," it would be fair and polite of me to assume they meant "unconsciously sexist." If I want to ask for reassurance about that, sure that's fine, but not fair for me to put words in their mouth like "HOW DARE YOU CALL ME A CONSCIOUS SEXIST?!" when I know that both meanings exist.

So yeah, sorry for the long reply, but here's why your comment made me think of it: Saying "that wasn't sexist; so-and-so is actually less assertive" kind of assumes that we're talking about conscious sexism. If we're talking about unconscious sexism instead (the charitable assumption here), that difference-in-perceived-assertiveness might be precisely the problem that we're worried about. This is kind of a nitpicky distinction, except that accusing someone of accusing you of conscious sexism, can be kinda sorta flirting with bad faith?

Men of "questionable technical skills" have a whole raft of culturally acceptable crutches at their disposal, including dominance behavior, Machiavellian strategies towards conflict, etc. A lot of these antisocial behaviors have come to define "good leadership" even in the past few decades, so I find it completely laughable to draw equality to calling out sexism. Even IF sexism charges were completely unfounded & a crutch, so what, men have gotten away with highway robbery by comparison.

Her words:

> I had early on decided that I like physics so much that I’d be quite willing to give up quite a bit of other comforts for it, but perhaps having made that decision and bracing oneself, then made the actual “discomforts” not only more bearable, but genuinely less discomforting. I think the subjective severity of a lot of these issues can be greatly influenced by one’s mindset, one’s psychology. If you allow yourself to enjoy the beautiful things that really matter, if you don’t let social or peer pressure dissuade you from pursuing a field which appeals to you, then no pettiness or childishness or boorishness that you encounter can harm you so much.

> Please understand that I’m not trying to say that sexism in science is a myth. It is real and we should all aspire to diminish it. But I am trying to say that it need not pose as much of an impediment as you might fear and that you might be in more control over its influence yourself than you might think. Just as you put up with long lines to see a great show, or with sore feet or mosquitos to have a great hike etc., the annoyance of otherwise abominable behavior diminishes in the larger perspective of doing something you really enjoy.

Just because she's strong enough to survive in her field and ignore the sexism doesn't mean it isn't there and should be tried and challenged.

If there's an obstacle course in front of the entrance to a supermarket, I would still have to get food. Even if I'd make it through it, I don't think anyone should have to.

Survivors of inequality doesn't disprove the existence of inequality. Yes, individually you shouldn't let inequality stop you from trying and fighting, but collectively we should fix that shit.