491–500 of 621 posts
I know this will never happen but I'd love it if people broke the terms "sexual harassment" or "sexism" into 3 different more specific descriptions of what happened to them: (1) I got hit on (2) I was discriminated against (3) I was sexually assaulted or coerced (1) is a lot different than (2) and (3) and a lot of the stories coming out lately basically boil down to (1), a dude was sexually attracted to a woman and h…
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But why single out a given group? Why not offer everyone an "intern buddy"? Also, why change from opt-in to opt-out?
Do you believe decisions like this are randomly made? > "Why not offer everyone an 'intern buddy'" Female interns could have complained about sexual harassment, female interns could have had lower rates of accepting return offers, etc. > "Also, why change from opt-in to opt-out" The program had been going on for a while. They could have had data that suggested that female interns would be interested in such a program…
I was the "intern buddy", and the policy was for all incoming interns regardless of their gender.
The transition from college to work life can be challenging for many people (it was for me, I wish I had an intern buddy), regardless of their gender.
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Because it implies an opinion of weakness to the party offering said "help". Many people do not need or want help and forcing it on them only serves to enforce hidden power dynamics on behalf of the requestor. What I really don't understand is how we men can act so innocent about all this. "Oh, I was just asking a question," "I didn't force her to do anything," "she was free to decline," "what, how could you not want…
You are super angry at something. Maybe that something is perfectly valid but it does not seem a reasonable reaction to the situation at hand. You sound like the kind of person I would avoid interacting with at all costs because anything could result in non productive conflict. Have you considered people might be reacting to your hostility not your gender?
I know this will never happen but I'd love it if people broke the terms "sexual harassment" or "sexism" into 3 different more specific descriptions of what happened to them: (1) I got hit on (2) I was discriminated against (3) I was sexually assaulted or coerced (1) is a lot different than (2) and (3) and a lot of the stories coming out lately basically boil down to (1), a dude was sexually attracted to a woman and h…
a. There was no power relationship involved. Don't try to hook up with your subordinates. That is extremely inappropriate.
b. It was not excessively crass. Asking someone out for a drink is okay; asking them outright for sex is not.
c. It was not done repeatedly in the face of rejection. Hitting on someone once to see if they are interested is okay; continuing to hit on them after you have been rejected is not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you believe decisions like this are randomly made? > "Why not offer everyone an 'intern buddy'" Female interns could have complained about sexual harassment, female interns could have had lower rates of accepting return offers, etc. > "Also, why change from opt-in to opt-out" The program had been going on for a while. They could have had data that suggested that female interns would be interested in such a program…
As an aside, my first job involved mentoring software engineering interns. I was the "intern buddy", and the policy was for all incoming interns regardless of their gender. The transition from college to work life can be challenging for many people (it was for me, I wish I had an intern buddy), regardless of their gender.
There's sexism in tech, and to address it you have to call it for what it is. I'm glad her experiences are such that she hasn't encountered these barriers, but other people have, and they need these words and spaces. Take my previous job. Women were objectified on Slack. A woman was groped, though she didn't report it out of concern for the repercussions. In meetings execs, male execs would only address/look at the m…
> but as a group, it's undeniable that there's extra obstacles I'm not sure you can really say that. It's true, women as a group encounter problems with being treated as sex objects, and there are cultural reasons for that, blah blah blah. So women have a unique experience. BUT! Men experience a pressure to succeed that we as women can hardly fathom. Consequently, they wind up in jobs they need , in a way we never wi…
Men Have Problems Too: http://theredpillmovie.com/
Everyone's A Mess And Also Awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr9bVe68OZM
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Social media can become mass media, and it's not up to you to decide if and when that happens. In the past, you could just vocalise your opinion, and it would not survive many hops in the real-world social network. So yeah, you can express your opinion, but your chance of being crucified for it has risen significantly.
> In the past, you could just vocalise your opinion, and it would not survive many hops in the real-world social network. In the past, "vocalizing your opinion" meant debating friends over drinks, the difference today is that every person with an opinion deliberately leverages modern technology to broadcast that opinion to as many people as possible, and the more that receive it, the better. Naturally, people who dis…
Someone with a dozen twitter followers, all friends and family, who has no intent to "broadcast to as many people as possible" but just to comment to acquaintances, can say something juuuust a little bit ignorant and, if they happen to get noticed by an "influencer", suddenly have thousands of angry replies, calls to their employer, death threats, etc. They might not have even been broadcasting on twitter, but might have told a joke to a friend in a public place, perhaps even a joke that was misunderstood or misheard by someone listening in, and then suddenly find themselves in the middle of a storm. And it's not typically a storm of people correcting mistaken ideas or helping them reason through errors, but a storm of people seeking vengeance -- not "hey man, that thing you just said is demeaning and wrong", but "you're a bad person and you should be cast out of society".
That is not "the system working as intended" (well, maybe it is in some peoples' minds, but if so it's a terrible system!) That's not a system that fixes ignorance; that's a system that creates a black market for unpopular opinions and that creates fear and resentment.
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>They revolted Hardly[0]. Don't believe the hype. The GOP won using gerrymandering, voter-suppression tactics and clever electoral positioning. Its tools: Voter ID laws and propaganda that deactivated potential voters. 0. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-electi...
The VAST majority of voters have ID, and it's relatively easy to get one. Most people need one to function in society, and in many states you register to vote in the same place you get an ID anyhow. Perhaps you can point to a few examples where more than one or two people were singled out who wanted to vote but were unable to because of the requirement for ID. It's been shown that voter fraud in several districts was…
2. They know most poor people have enough obstacles just waking up.
3. Why make grandma, who can't drive, has health problems, go down to DMV and get an ID? Especially, when their isn't a proplem with voter fraud?
4. Rebublicans know that just a bit of extra effort will cause the disenfranchised to stay home that day. The head honchos in charge of Government entitlements know that if they make it a bit more difficult to qualify; most people will just not bother to apply. It's not rocket science.
5. Hell--the rich figured it out long ago. Take away a few obstacles that most young people gave to deal with, and in a few years with the right incentives, and support, you will have a young, budding capitalist. You will never take away that stupid look in portraits though.
There's sexism in tech, and to address it you have to call it for what it is. I'm glad her experiences are such that she hasn't encountered these barriers, but other people have, and they need these words and spaces. Take my previous job. Women were objectified on Slack. A woman was groped, though she didn't report it out of concern for the repercussions. In meetings execs, male execs would only address/look at the m…
> but as a group, it's undeniable that there's extra obstacles I'm not sure you can really say that. It's true, women as a group encounter problems with being treated as sex objects, and there are cultural reasons for that, blah blah blah. So women have a unique experience. BUT! Men experience a pressure to succeed that we as women can hardly fathom. Consequently, they wind up in jobs they need , in a way we never wi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but as a group, it's undeniable that there's extra obstacles I'm not sure you can really say that. It's true, women as a group encounter problems with being treated as sex objects, and there are cultural reasons for that, blah blah blah. So women have a unique experience. BUT! Men experience a pressure to succeed that we as women can hardly fathom. Consequently, they wind up in jobs they need , in a way we never wi…
edit : clearly hackernews is not my audience.
(Source: I'm her husband.)
EDIT: the issue isn't the Hacker News audience; the issue is that you were wrong in your assumption that Dove was male, and your entire comment depended on that assumption. There is no audience for which you could write that comment where it would have been correct (though some audiences might have cheered it, that would be a fault, not a virtue, of theirs.)
One of the beautiful things about the HN community is that we expect and welcome disagreement -- but we hold it to high standards. We expect people to read whole comments and engage in the actual ideas expressed, not to skim and then rail at straw men. You are welcome here, and you are welcome to disagree with the ideas expressed in Dove's comment -- but we will not demean you by excusing low-quality, low-content, personally-targeted rants as the best you can do.