Audrey's got a great summary of all the clarification / untangling of Arrington's mess...
Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups
audreywatters.com
Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups
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Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups
#2We cannot and will not eliminate all gender inequality, and some inequality does not alway favors men. (A good example of this is that no matter how accomplished or rich a man is, he will probably be asked to laid down his life for children and women. That's not discrimination, but grim pragmatism.)
Some disparity will alway boil down to choices. If women take maternity needs, than she will expect to be behind her peers when she come back.
As much as I like awesome hacker females to live in my world, some women...for whatever reason choose other professions instead. I'll respect that choice, not try to convince them that they work on tech for the sake of getting 50% gender balance.
Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups
#3We cannot and will not eliminate all gender inequality, and some inequality does not alway favors men. (A good example of this is that no matter how accomplished or rich a man is, he will probably be asked to laid down his life for children and women. That's not discrimination, but grim pragmatism.) Some disparity will alway boil down to choices. If women take maternity needs, than she will expect to be behind her pe…
One of the most heartbreaking things smart men do in response to accusations of sexism is to focus on the rare exceptions to women's oppression while failing to even acknowledge the rampant examples of it.
Men. Are. Victims. Too. But a conversation about women's oppression is not an appropriate context to explore it. It makes us feel like you don't believe women's oppression is a problem.
Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups
#4To the limited extent I agree with the critique, it seems exploiting it is a better resolution than writing about it. I tend to think the tech industry disproportionately ignores female customers, for example. That means writing for them is like shaking a money tree.
If one really believes there is a vast untapped well of ladies who want to code XML files for poor wages for 14 hours a day, identifying and hiring them yourself sounds like a sure fire path to millions.
Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups
#5It doesn't really seem to me like many of these rebuttals actually read Arrington's article; they're just angry in general about the state of women in tech. Arrington very specifically said that by the time it got to him and TC50 or whatever, it's too late. All this railing about "male privilege" and "ambient un-belonging" is pretty much tangential to what he said.
Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups
#6I'm really uncomfortable with how other men deal with the subject of women in tech.
More than once, I've noticed developers who are women derided as less competent, less capable than their male peers. Their professional success is ascribed to their appearance, their male bed partners, or some other such male-invented loophole. One of these conversations happened just the other day where I work. The really disturbing bonus is how suddenly "bitch" becomes a synonym for "woman."
I don't really know where I'm going with this. I can't claim to understand a cause or a solution. My mom was a single mother who started her own business to keep me fed and clothed, so I maybe I'm immune to this business of discounting the capacities of half the population with no more information about them than their anatomy.
I only know it makes me sad.
edit: Initially terrified that this got voted into the negatives. Thanks for restoring my faith in you, HN.
Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups
#7To the limited extent I agree with the critique, it seems exploiting it is a better resolution than writing about it. I tend to think the tech industry disproportionately ignores female customers, for example. That means writing for them is like shaking a money tree. If one really believes there is a vast untapped well of ladies who want to code XML files for poor wages for 14 hours a day, identifying and hiring them…
I tend to think the tech industry disproportionately ignores female customers, for example.
You won't believe the number of times I've heard Ben Affleck's "don't pitch the bitch" line from The Boiler Room presented as a serious maxim of doing business.
Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups
#8Even though the topic of women in tech rarely gets mentioned on Hacker News, it's encouraging that when it does the discussion comes to a consensus that really pushes things forward.
Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups
#9To the limited extent I agree with the critique, it seems exploiting it is a better resolution than writing about it. I tend to think the tech industry disproportionately ignores female customers, for example. That means writing for them is like shaking a money tree. If one really believes there is a vast untapped well of ladies who want to code XML files for poor wages for 14 hours a day, identifying and hiring them…
I tend to think the tech industry disproportionately ignores female customers, for example. You won't believe the number of times I've heard Ben Affleck's "don't pitch the bitch" line from The Boiler Room presented as a serious maxim of doing business.
That line, which I've never heard before, richly earns a bozo bit. [Edit: This idiom means "marks the speaker as an intellectually and/or morally unserious person who is not worth effort to speak to."]
Re: Ambient Un-Belonging: Women and Tech Startups
#10I'm unconvinced. This blog post just seems like a lot of emoting and handwaving and contradiction with a light glazing of feminist theory on top, with no real counterargument or refutation to be found. I'm reminded of two quotes:
"M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
...
M: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
A: No it isn't" --from Monty Python's argument sketch
"DH3. Contradiction.
In this stage we finally get responses to what was said, rather than how or by whom. The lowest form of response to an argument is simply to state the opposing case, with little or no supporting evidence.
This is often combined with DH2 statements, as in:
I can't believe the author dismisses intelligent design in such a cavalier fashion. Intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory.
Contradiction can sometimes have some weight. Sometimes merely seeing the opposing case stated explicitly is enough to see that it's right. But usually evidence will help." (http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html)