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Leap: An Online Community for Women

blog.ycombinator.com

101–110 of 364 posts

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#101
post #42

So, just to clarify: I, as a man, am being excluded, not because I am unskilled or any other bad quality other than my gender? Your community's design actively fosters hate and exclusion due to something I can not control. I hope your service, and others like it, crashes and burns, because it is a step backwards after we have come so far.

> If you identify as a woman and are interested in joining Leap You, as not a woman, are not being included. This is very different from exclusion. It also does not make any comment about male-ness equating with bad-ness; ironically, you are the one bringing in the idea that membership/non-membership in a category involves a quality judgement.

> You, as not a woman, are not being included. This is very different from exclusion

Correct me as my interpretation may be completely off, but are you using a definition of "exclusion" that takes into account wider social factors?

I'm inclined to see "not being included" as somebody's state until they actually attempt to enter. If they're denied entry (outright denied, or never allowed to enter and kept in limbo), "not included" is just euphemism for "excluded".

Sometimes exclusion is a good policy.

(Two disclaimers: I'm not complaining about the requirements/policies of Leap, and I really hope it becomes a healthy, viable community. I also understand a lot of the annoyance with mansplaining — hate the term, enjoy the concept — but I think this is one case where the desire to make everyone feel included makes it hard to establish closed communities with better policies.)

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would fighting racism with racism or sexism with sexism be a productive method of correcting imbalances? Wouldn't that just fuel and maintain the disdain between groups? Is this the "all lives matter!" response to this project? It's not a crime to point out that some groups are poorly represented in an industry. Are you saying the solution to "hey, women feel isolated in the tech industry" is to say "Well, let's…

> Are you saying the solution to "hey, women feel isolated in the tech industry" is to say "Well, let's figure out how to include men too"? No, my solution to a sense of isolation is instead to find ways for women to no longer feel isolated within their field. A great example with the other sex would be male nurses. Male nurses are definitely the minority in their field, yet they manage to not feel isolated overall.…

The only way you'd be able to say "groups like this won't fix feelings of isolation!" is if you ignored all the women in this comment section saying it has definitely helped their feelings of isolation. Which I guess might be kind of the point.

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#103
post #67

We all need a safe space to come in from the cold. When you feel vulnerable, you want to communicate with friendly, like-minded people. However, you'll find more noise within an echo chamber and that jerks exist regardless of gender. This sort of gender-specific walled garden is nothing new and I suppose will always attract a certain stereotype. Here's an old Anthony Lewis post from 1994 that may sober folks on the i…

>Michael Godwin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a public-interest law firm, made the same point -- if slightly less elegantly -- about the Santa Rosa case. People who objected to the computer message, he said, "should have called the guy who posted the message a jerk."

Call an obnoxious speaker a jerk: what a useful formula, what an intelligent way to get the resentment off your chest without starting down the legal road to suppression of speech. It would have worked well, for example, in the notorious case of Prof. J. Donald Silva of the University of New Hampshire.

I find this section to be a disturbing summation of the author's attitude on the subject. And, the Groucho Marx quote has no bearing on any of this; it's self-deprecation.

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#104
post #98
post #2

Hi! I'm the creator of Leap. Glad to answer questions here.

Hi Cadran! I'm a male identified person, and I think Leap's a great idea. A couple questions: 1) If someone put you on the spot and asked you to pigeonhole Leap, would you say it's intended to be a Hacker News for women? 2) Has there been any discussion of a observer/lurker status for men? 3) Do participants primarily shift their time spent on other (open?) tech/social forums towards Leap, or do they increase their t…

1. Nope! HN is for everyone. Leap has its own unique UI and culture.

2. We haven't discussed a view only public mode in any depth. The idea of eventually allowing men to join has come up on Leap. No idea if that will happen though.

3. I don't survey users about that so I can't say with any accuracy. I also expect it depends on the person.

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#105

I am a bit triggered. This segregation stuff does not make sense to me, it almost feels like prison rules - keep genders/races away from each other because if they interact it will probably be violent. I wondered what would happen if I created a community where the core culture was set by women, and the software and product decisions were also made by women -> This also seems strange to me and counterproductive. If w…

>I am a bit triggered. This is tangential to your point, but I'm pretty sure what you're referring to isn't being "triggered." It's, I don't know, disagreeing? It has a specific and important definition, and it seems to be getting thrown around in other scenarios, to the detriment of those with PTSD. https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-are-ptsd-triggers

The word was properly being used. The definition of triggered is "anything, as an act or event, that serves as a stimulus and initiates or precipitates a reaction or series of reactions."[1] Definitions also change over time, and the colloquial definition of the word seems to be shifting to "Getting filled with hate after seeing, hearing or experiencing something you can't stand."[2]

[1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/triggered

[2] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Triggered

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why would fighting racism with racism or sexism with sexism be a productive method of correcting imbalances? Wouldn't that just fuel and maintain the disdain between groups? Is this the "all lives matter!" response to this project? It's not a crime to point out that some groups are poorly represented in an industry. Are you saying the solution to "hey, women feel isolated in the tech industry" is to say "Well, let's…

> Are you saying the solution to "hey, women feel isolated in the tech industry" is to say "Well, let's figure out how to include men too"? No, my solution to a sense of isolation is instead to find ways for women to no longer feel isolated within their field. A great example with the other sex would be male nurses. Male nurses are definitely the minority in their field, yet they manage to not feel isolated overall.…

>No, my solution to a sense of isolation is instead to find ways for women to no longer feel isolated within their field

If you ever wondered what "mansplaining" is, your response is a great example.

Gee, maybe having other people like them, having the same problems and discussing them after spending the day surrounded by a 90% plus group of males only is good way to no longer feel isolated.

You sound like that boss that has no clue what is going on, pokes his head in the door and offers up "better" solutions to the problem then continues on his way.

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#107
post #63

What problem is this intended to solve that isn't solved by moderation policies and forum culture? I ask because I think this is a cool project, but there is also the inescapable fact that at some point men and women will have to work together in engineering environments, and we still have a dearth of environments that foster those interactions.

I think this is an interesting question! The problem is clearly that Cadran “started building Leap because I didn’t have a place on the internet where I felt comfortable talking openly.”

Must a site or community have a bigger problem at its outset? My gut feeling is that the answer is no, that communities become their own thing, and that they can support and enrich themselves in unique ways.

> ...there is also the inescapable fact that at some point men and women will have to work together in engineering environments, and we still have a dearth of environments that foster those interactions.

I don't believe that something like Leap is counterproductive here, but, lacking a suitable algebra of online communities, that's another gut feeling. The Hacker News community is very interested in fostering those interactions, for example.

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#109
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Wouldn't Leap be unfair in the same way? This assumption completely disregards the measurable advantage men have in the tech community. If you have identical programs, one for a historically disenfranchised group, and one for the group that's been in power for decades, only one of those programs is shitty. edit: "Advantage" was a poor choice of words, but since it's been quoted in replies I'll leave it. I meant some…

> the measurable advantage men have in the tech community I’m sure if it is “measurable” you can provide some numbers?

[deleted]

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am really conflicted about this. On one hand, I think that it will provide a valuable resource for a large group of people, which is good! On the other hand, an online tech community designed solely for men would be met with hate and massive backlash. If equality is our goal, how will self-segregation help meet that goal?

While I understand this perspective, I also know that being a women in tech can feel incredibly lonely. Growing up, I was always comfortable being the only girl in a big group of guys. In fact, I still consider myself to be quite the tomboy. However, being the only woman in a room of 100 men at a meet-up can feel pretty isolating. (Especially when a dozen of them assume that I'm a recruiter. I'm not. I'm a web develo…

What? Of course you want to draw lines in the sand and create an us Vs them mentality. That's the entire point of the large efforts you are making to exclude men.

Don't deny reality. It doesn't help you or your ever more dubious "cause". You have created an explicitly sexist community.

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