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“Let her speak please”

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Re: “Let her speak please”

#481

Post by BurningFrog »

_lex wrote: post #180
novia wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you look at the full response though.. She is supportive of the woman in the audience who spoke up. Veronika Hubeny: I applaud your heroism in standing up for what you believe in! I know well the shaky feeling and subsequent exhilarated and heartwarmed contentment in the knowledge of having done the right thing, and I think that doing so has become more crucial than ever. Your behavior was inspiring and I’m glad…

I think it's worth considering that we're seeing some survivorship bias here - it's possible that she's the only woman on the panel because she thinks this way. In other words, it's possible that other women who would have seen this event as being rooted in sexism may eventually be a part of so many similar events during their career that they effectively burn out and switch to more female friendly fields. This has b…

> I think it's worth considering that we're seeing some survivorship bias here

True. But there is also a "virality bias" that made us see this story in the first place. If it didn't fit a trending narrative so well we would never have heard of it.

Meanwhile millions of unreported interactions happened the same day. We can't know what big picture they add up to.

To me the lesson is that basing your world view on viral internet stories is one of the worst ways to understand the world.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#482

Post by saghm »

mannykannot wrote: post #263
danso wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalists definitely like to hear themselves talk, even when formulating questions while moderating a discussion. But if he, as a relative layperson in science, felt that comfortable interrupting Dr. Hubeny and riffing off of her area of expertise, imagine what he's like in a topic in which he doesn't think himself a relative amateur.

> Imagine what he's like in a topic in which he doesn't think himself a relative amateur. He may not be aware that he is a relative amateur here.

If he isn't aware that he's an amateur when it comes to string theory, he definitely shouldn't be put in charge of interviewing a string theory expert.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#483

Post by Consultant32452 »

vertex-four wrote: post #376
andrepd wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you watch the rest of the video you will find the moderator imposes himself and cuts off the panellists and talks over them multiple times, seemingly regardless of gender. This makes me strongly inclined to believe that this incident had nothing to do with sexism, but rather with the annoyingly dominant and imposing personality of the moderator. Maybe you think otherwise. Why would you say this incident is a "pain…

Note that behaviours which tend to have disproportionate impact on one gender over another are still sexist, and women often have difficulty interrupting in the way that the men here did.

This seems to boil down to the same old question of whether we're really asking for equality or equity. Attempting to guarantee equal outcomes is a dangerous path to head down.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#484

Post by fatbird »

turc1656 wrote: post #476
Sorreah wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protip: It's not.

Pulled a quick definition of sexism from the web (they all seems more or less the same - " prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex. " And the commenter said - " women often have difficulty interrupting in the way that the men here did " At minimum, that fits at least the stereotyping requirement of the definition.

"pulled a quick definition from the web" is virtually never a useful way to engage something like this. It's like quoting a statute from the law books and ignoring a long history of case law that defines how that law actually works in practice.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#486

Post by dang »

exodust wrote: post #206
robotresearcher wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We all have the responsibility and option to guide things back on track So the woman panelist failed in her responsibilities? Nice try.

What exactly am I trying? To bring reason to a table overrun with emotive finger-pointing? She didn't "fail". Please don't put dramatic words in my mouth. When you accept an invitation to speak on a panel, there are certain expectations around participatory behaviour of all the members. At the rare times something runs off track, there's always an option to speak up and deal with it in the moment. No harm done. Wait.…

You've been repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines in this thread by crossing into name-calling, incivility, and now even personal attack. We ban accounts that do that, so please take care to edit such stuff out of your comments here.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#487

Post by devnonymous »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #473
jasonshen wrote: post #11

Edit: I watched the video. The moderator goes on and on and the "let her speak please" sounds very polite. This is a painfully frustrating reminder that women get talked over by men. It's one thing to have one panelist talk over another, but to have the moderator, who is explicitly in charge of facilitating a panel discussion, be the one to drown out a panelist is just unacceptable. Yes, "not all men" do this, but th…

People get talked over by people. I see this all the time and it's generally sexless. As a consultant I've helped at least 100 teams have crucial conversations across tens of businesses. I don't get the constant refrain that this is a male vs. female thing.

Reading the comments here I am surprised at all the people who are claiming that people get talked over by other people all the time and it has nothing to do with sex.

I mean, yeah there's no denying that there exist pushy jerks who are jerks to everyone but guess what? those kinds are more likely to be even greater jerks with women. So either this guy was a regular jerk talking over her because she was a woman or being that special kind of jerk who normally talks over some men but talks over most women. Why is there an difference of opinion about this?

Does anyone really think there is a breed of jerks who talk over some/most men but will never do that/will do less of that to a woman?

Re: “Let her speak please”

#488

Post by snowwrestler »

scrollaway wrote: post #136
snowwrestler wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not ok with sexist behavior, which is why I think "mansplaining" is such a useful term.

None of this is useful nor OK. I watched a bunch of the video. The guy is a poor moderator. Using this term creates a charged bias on the reader, who almost certainly hasn't seen the video: It labels the moderator's behaviour as purposefully sexist and paints a clear picture of something that is actually really, really hard to read. On top of this, what if you're wrong ? What if this is a genuine mistake (which it ho…

Yes I'm ok with it. The whole point of "mansplaining" and similar terms is to draw attention to behaviors which otherwise would not be noticed by a lot of men.

Situations like this don't have to be purposeful, conscious, and malicious to problematic. In fact the reason sexism is so hard to fight is that it is usually unconscious habit. The power of default.

It's not an issue of cherry picking; this sort of thing happens all the time. It's only by calling dramatic attention to it that people can start to change. No one changes their habits easily. It takes motivation and a lot of reminding.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#489

Post by lubesGordi »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #473
jasonshen wrote: post #11

Edit: I watched the video. The moderator goes on and on and the "let her speak please" sounds very polite. This is a painfully frustrating reminder that women get talked over by men. It's one thing to have one panelist talk over another, but to have the moderator, who is explicitly in charge of facilitating a panel discussion, be the one to drown out a panelist is just unacceptable. Yes, "not all men" do this, but th…

People get talked over by people. I see this all the time and it's generally sexless. As a consultant I've helped at least 100 teams have crucial conversations across tens of businesses. I don't get the constant refrain that this is a male vs. female thing.

Totally, this is her political perception grid overlaying reality. If Jim Holt or whoever thought that her theories were contradictory, then likely he would've talked over whoever was sitting there, regardless of sex. It could have had as much to do with his condescension to what he perceived as an inferior theory as anything.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#490

Post by Domenic_S »

croon wrote: post #191
curiousgal wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Youtube comment: He spends 0:40 asking her the first question. He continues talking when she tries to speak once. She talks for 0:30 He redirects her from her answer and tries to clarify what he wants to know for 0:55 She talks for 1:00 answering this question He begins clarifying/providing an example of what she is saying for 0:20, continuing to talk when she tries to speak once. It is during this interruption tha…

>He spends 0:40 asking her the first question. He continues talking when she tries to speak once. >She talks for 0:30 >He redirects her from her answer and tries to clarify what he wants to know for 0:55 >She talks for 1:00 answering this question > He begins clarifying/providing an example of what she is saying for 0:20, continuing to talk when she tries to speak once. It is during this interruption that "let her sp…

> I do think is fairly blatant is that it's a case of speaking for the woman, which is text book sexism.

Devil's advocate... a third party yelling "let her speak" is also speaking for the woman. Dr. Hubeny would not be where she is today if she lacked the ability to interject her own thoughts.

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