Nerds and Male Privilege • Hacker News Board

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#31

Post by readymade » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:09 AM UTC

Helianthus wrote: post #23

Is it problematic that I'm sick of gender on HN? "Raising awareness" doesn't mean much when it essentially provokes the same inconsequential firefights. Can we just agree that men are pigs, women feel entitled, everyone's an asshole, startups need good engineers, and stop it? All this article really shows me is that the girlfriend was correct to avoid going into a comic book store. You cannot control culture you cann…

Step back and look at the big picture, if you will.

Nobody can force someone to change their mind about anything. That's entirely up to you. Most readers here are probably pretty damn smart and capable of creating incredibly detailed justifications for believing what they want to believe. So in that narrow sense, you're totally right.

But on the other hand, it's pretty curious to think that you can't influence culture with ideas. How did we end up where we are, with a constitutional republic, human and civil rights, and so on? How did we abolish slavery or give women and minorities the right to vote? If you can't change culture with the strength of your arguments, the only answer left is that it just changes on its own, as if by magic.

So if you think it's preachy, fine. Don't read about things that piss you off. It's a fine strategy that's worked for far dumber people than you. But try to recognize that without the "inconsequential firefights" there would be no social progress at all. I for one don't really care if it takes 50 years, as long as we don't kid ourselves into thinking that if we can't change everyone's mind with one single blog post there's no point to discussing it.

And above all, have a nice day.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#32

Post by sciurus » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:13 AM UTC

there wrote: post #24

Remember the example I mentioned earlier with my then-girlfriend in the comic store? Her opinions were deemed mistaken and she was told she didn't "get it"… because she was a girl. i'm not sure how that had anything to do with being a girl. she was told she didn't get it because she didn't get it. if a male walked into that comic shop looking out of place, picked up a book and said something disparaging outloud, he'd…

http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#butbut

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#33

Post by mechanical_fish » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:15 AM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #14

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I took it as more of a general intro to privilege for the lay-person or 'lay-nerd'. I mean, take the basic concepts of privilege and extend them to almost ANY females-in-tech-industry topic and you'll see it fits. It's just like the thread a few weeks ago about women asking for raises or more competitive pay with a shocking number of HN users saying "it's their own fault for not asking for more", ignoring the…

As an outside observer, I'd say that speaking about male privilege from the context of comic book stores is like speaking about racism from the context of 19th century Alabama. It's just so blatant to anybody disconnected from it that it is very hard to make comparisons to other contexts.

How fortunate for the slaves of 19th-century Alabama that the abolitionists of 19th-century New England did not think this way.

Though I'm sure plenty of people tried to convince Frederick Douglass to stop talking about Alabama all the time. It must have made for more than one uncomfortable dinner party.

Anyway, back to the point. Yes, this is a particularly blatant example of a male-privilege subculture, used in part for educational purposes. [1] You would prefer to begin a conversation about male privilege by discussing much more subtle examples? So that we can be treated to the usual two hundred pages' worth of denials that the examples are even real?

---

[1] Though in gamer and comic culture this is not an abstruse academic exercise. And these are not small subcultures, even if they apparently aren't quite big enough to encompass everyone.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#34

Post by doktrin » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:15 AM UTC

moxiemk1 wrote: post #27

I really enjoyed this article. Harris O'Malley seems to actually see the real problem , and expresses it with a hell of a lot more nuance than most other treatments of the subject do. >> And when you check back on Friday, I'll provide you with some concrete applications on how being cognizant of male privilege will improve your relations with women. I'm excited about the possibilities of the "practical applications"…

At first, I enjoyed the article.

However, I lost all respect for the author after reading some of his responses in the discussion thread.

One post of his in particular caught my eye :

"...And the first thing you did when confronted with this topic was to defend, counter, argue, and resist.

And by doing so, you immediately lost based on the rules set forth by the article..."

The notion that an argument cannot be refuted because of some preemptive ban on counter-arguments is, frankly, ludicrous to the point of being offensive.

This doesn't invalidate the contents of the article, but it effectively ends my interest in reading anything else by this author - including his follow up piece.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#35

Post by sapphirecat » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:17 AM UTC

When an article about the problem is published on a gaming site, after it makes the point, it's got a couple of gratuitous chick images stuffed in it, with captions like "Bet you're paying attention to what I have to say now!"... Hmm.

I have always hated "You are male, YOU WILL LIKE THIS CHICK" flavored messages, and this still bothers me. Especially in an article like this.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#36

Post by Helianthus » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:17 AM UTC

readymade wrote: post #31

Helianthus wrote: post #23

Is it problematic that I'm sick of gender on HN? "Raising awareness" doesn't mean much when it essentially provokes the same inconsequential firefights. Can we just agree that men are pigs, women feel entitled, everyone's an asshole, startups need good engineers, and stop it? All this article really shows me is that the girlfriend was correct to avoid going into a comic book store. You cannot control culture you cann…

Step back and look at the big picture, if you will. Nobody can force someone to change their mind about anything. That's entirely up to you. Most readers here are probably pretty damn smart and capable of creating incredibly detailed justifications for believing what they want to believe. So in that narrow sense, you're totally right. But on the other hand, it's pretty curious to think that you can't influence cultur…

I think what I'm proposing is that we take local control of our subculture, which Hacker News tends to do overtly on a regular basis by defining moderation; for instance, blatant political slogans are discouraged because they're likely to provoke flamewars.

This is exactly the sort of thing that's likely to provoke an unproductive flamewar in my book.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#37

Post by munin » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:17 AM UTC

Shenglong wrote: post #29

[warning: slightly offensive] I really would hope, that women in video games are in fact judged by how attractive they are. I certainly wouldn't want an obese woman superhero saving the world, just as I'm sure the gay males and the straight women wouldn't want to see a tub of lard (excuse my language) in a male, who is supposed to epitomize the superhuman virtues that we lack. Yeah, it's shit easy to wave a finger an…

> Most "nerds/geeks" are disgusting.

well at least we agree on something!

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#38

Post by thristian » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:18 AM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #15

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they have importantly distinct definitions? A quick check via Google implies they're both about "unfashionable or socially inept person" or "foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious" but that's not necessarily how I view either term.

I always figured that "nerd" implied some sort of technical knowledge or scientific mindedness. Hence slashdot being "news for nerds, stuff that matters" . Geek then I suppose, would be your standard comic book store customer. Enough people use them interchangeably that it seems there is no longer any meaning. We should probably just jettison both words.

I don't know that I've observed people using the terms interchangeably, and the distinction between geeks and nerds is pretty constant - what does seem to happen is that people disagree about which label ("geek" or "nerd") goes with which category.

So, yeah, we probably should jettison both words.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#39

Post by Mithrandir » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:19 AM UTC

davidhansen wrote: post #28

I'm not sure why the author of this article somehow thinks that geeks deny the existence of sexism in geek culture. The reality is that it's widely known and accepted. If the author wants to find something to rail against, he should have chosen the fact that everybody knows, but nobody cares . I'm not going to defend the treatment of women in geek culture, as much of it is indefensible. but it seems that few people b…

As well as gaining points by distancing oneself from unpopular kids, one loses points by being close to them. A woman I know says that in high school she liked nerds, but was afraid to be seen talking to them because the other girls would make fun of her. Unpopularity is a communicable disease; kids too nice to pick on nerds will still ostracize them in self-defense.

From http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#40

Post by 127 » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:21 AM UTC

Lets not be sexist and respond in a fashion that anyone would respond to a male who whines: stop whining, get a life. Either put up or shut up. Can't handle the heat? Stay out of the kitchen. If male centered entertainment bothers you, make your own. Use your money as a vote to influence the industry. I guarantee that the industry likes money.

The arguments that women should be treated with silver gloves are by their very nature sexist.

"mouth-breathing troglodyte" pretty much immediately tells me what way the article is going to go. Which is to demonize male sexuality.

"And that was when I shot him, your honor." another sign of clear bias.

This is like reading straight from a feminist cookbook. Nothing new, nothing that would be worth any deeper thought.

I enjoy what I enjoy. It's not illegal so you may as well shut up. It's not up to you, dear author, to tell me how I should live my life.

There was nothing new in the article. It was the same tired argument that because men like boobs and they consume popular entertainment that contain boobs they are evil. Which makes no sense to me.

Maybe as the author grows up and lives a little he will see through the matrix.

We all have our biases. But it is a different thing entirely to confuse your shallow rationalizations with actual fact.