Nerds and Male Privilege • Hacker News Board

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#161

Post by wpietri » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:54 PM UTC

culebron wrote: post #150

I agree with the commenter who points out that the culture is not dominant, and if it's that bad, it won't have much acceptance. And all who care of the sexism in IT, geek culture, etc., should turn themselves to the core problem. Use the Japanese method: ask 5 questions "why?" Why are geeks so sexist? They see women first of all as a sexual object. Why they do this? Because this is what they want. They are sexually…

The point of the five whys is to elicit insight and fact, not stuff you just make up.

It turns out that guys who get laid are also often sexist, so your theory is bunk. There are also plenty of guys who don't get laid who aren't assholes to women.

When you got to the notion that IT managers should create a culture of respect for women by hiring prostitutes for their most sexist male employees, you should have realized that you had approximately no idea what you were talking about.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#162

Post by rmc » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:11 PM UTC

Shenglong wrote: post #139

rmc wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 You seem to have a narrow view of human sexuality. Lots of non-heterosexual people have (obviously) decided that mainstream attraction isn't for them, and shag who they want. And yes for some men, they want to shag big fat guys. They are called "Bears" and are a large niche within the gay community http://e…

Can we look at general themes, rather than exceptions? I'm well aware that exceptions exist, but it's impossible to analyze situations like this that way. There are men and women who are attracted to animals as well, but obviously, these are outside the scope of this discussion.

How general do you want to be? You included gay men, which is ~ 2→5% of the population, so you're already siding on the "include lots of minorities" stand.

My point is that you can't really "analyze the situation" at all, because there are so many different sexualities.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#163

Post by kstenerud » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:17 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #157

kstenerud wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, men in crappy, dangerous jobs is an evolutionary trait. It's also why they're (traditionally) the ones to go to war and why everyone thinks women and children are to be protected above all else. If 90% of the males in a population die, it takes 1 generation to recover. If 90% of the females in a population die, it takes 5 generations to recover. Meanwhile, they are easy pickings for other competing populati…

Well, that's probably kind of true and it matters a lot if you're doing something like constructing a fictional matriarchal society. It's not exactly relevant in modern times though; we don't (or at least shouldn't) stop women from working because having other options might discourage them from having kids anymore, why should we allow other kinds of horrible gender-based discrimination in the name of population incre…

I'm not saying it's a justification for continuance of the status quo. I'm saying that it's our evolutionary heritage, and as such it has to be recognized as a problem for everybody, rather than saying "it's the white man's fault so the white man is responsible for fixing it".

Changing thinking requires someone to show that things CAN be different. Only then can the majority follower population even consider the possibility. This is why the constant complaints about how "things aren't the way they should be" result in no action, and we end up right back here with accusations flying and nothing getting done.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#164

Post by wpietri » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:18 PM 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…

Some geeks certainly deny the sexism -- he gives an example of one -- so I think an article on male privilege has to start out there.

I also think trauma can work both ways. My abuse for being a nerd didn't teach me that women were bad, it taught me that being mistreated for being different is bad. Ergo my hatred of sexist behavior in my industry.

More generally trauma can explain bad behavior, but I don't think it excuses it. (Not that you're suggesting otherwise, but I want to make sure people here don't slip into a common error.) A lot of physical abusers have been abused themselves. But a lot of abused people don't go on to abuse anyone else. There may be a reason that somebody is a sexist jerk, but we should still hold them to account.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#165

Post by rmc » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:19 PM UTC

jcnnghm wrote: post #110

wanorris wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege". http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ You may disagree with the analysis behind the list's construction, but I see little if anything on that list that obviously gets crossed off the list by virtue of being a geek. Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the id…

Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist? For example, while women may be asked to smile by random people (44), they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims. Or, while females spend more time grooming than men (27), they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by mothers who do not like the way they look. There can be some t…

they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by fathers who do not like the way they look.

Female genital mutilation happens as well in some countries. And the majority of cases it's much worse than the male equivalent. FGM often results in all or part of the clitoris being removed. That would be like all or part of the glans of a penis being removed. (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Class...)

(As an aside, I think male genital mutilation happens more in the USA. Men in Europe of christian ethnicity don't usually get this done. Tis an odd the cultural practices)

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#166

Post by jodrellblank » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:24 PM UTC

AndyKelley wrote: post #90

One thing to note is that it only takes one obnoxious person to ruin it for all the other well-informed and well-behaved people in any given room/server, because good behavior, by definition, does not draw attention to itself.

We don't know he was even an obnoxious person (see also, the Actor-Observer bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93observer_bias ), we only have her boyfriend's third party account of the interaction.

Other options:

- What she said was stupid and noobish, and he replied bluntly - rudely but not sexistly.

- What happened was misinterpreted as sexist because the interpreter is her boyfriend and jumps to her defense easily.

- The man in the comic book store interpreted her as being mocking and hostile and retorted in a similar fashion, when she didn't mean it that way.

- The man in the comic book store intended his comment to be a mocking imitation of a sexist, thinking he was being witty, but was taken as being literal.

- The shop manager agreed with the complaining customer because he was complaining and not because he was right.

- The man in comic store is normally nice and was temporarily more sexist than he usually is for some dull and specific reason, like he saw a very-near-miss in the carpark by a female driver.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#167

Post by rmc » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:28 PM UTC

gambler wrote: post #77

Want to see less sexism in games? Stop buying shallow and commercialized titles and support developers who actually try to express their ideas via the medium. Seriously. I'm not saying you should switch to a different kind of games and ignore the trends in the rest of them, but I see that a lot of people decrying "sex and violence" in various types of media are also validating the exact same works that are fundamenta…

Yes vote with your wallet. "Money lets you effect the change you want to see in the world".

But that doesn't mean you aren't allowed to give out about sexist stuff when you see it.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#168

Post by rmc » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:30 PM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #73

What a load of crap. Female comic book characters are scantily clad? You don't say. But let me suggest that has not much to do with "privilege" and everything to do with the fact that teenage boys are hard-wired to appreciate this kind of thing. No, it's not a "social construct" or an effort to keep the oppressed in her place. Where do I sign up for the privilige of having members of the opposite sex fall all over th…

Where do I sign up for the privilige of having members of the opposite sex fall all over themselves doing things for me in order to get my attention?

If you're an attractive man, then you can get gay men (esp. older gay men, especially older, ugly, gay men), to do this. If you want people falling all over you, and doing things, there are ways to do that.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#169

Post by rmc » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:39 PM UTC

mkramlich wrote: post #105

In other news, most comic book artists and writers are male, most readers are male, a big chunk are teens, and males like pretty/nude/curvaceous females, most teen males likes big breasts and many teen females want to have big breasts, and oh yeah, sex sells. And comic books don't exist in a bubble in their own universe. It's part of this larger thing called the human race. Whatever good/bad/natural things exist in t…

most comic book artists and writers are male, most readers are male, a big chunk are teens, and males like pretty/nude/curvaceous females, most teen males likes big breasts and many teen females want to have big breasts

The TV show Mad Men is set in the early 1960s USA, when the same thing could be said of the professional world. "Everyone who works here is men, our clients are men, our customers are men" etc. And yet there was a lot of discrimination and sexism then. And things have changed (in the professional business world) then.

the college/PC/lesbian/feminist litmob doesn't care about that, then it's not talked about

Sure they do. Here's a series of blog posts about how twilight has terrible characters. http://skepchick.org/2011/11/twilight-breaking-wind/

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#170

Post by wpietri » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:39 PM UTC

jcnnghm wrote: post #110

wanorris wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege". http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ You may disagree with the analysis behind the list's construction, but I see little if anything on that list that obviously gets crossed off the list by virtue of being a geek. Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the id…

Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist? For example, while women may be asked to smile by random people (44), they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims. Or, while females spend more time grooming than men (27), they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by mothers who do not like the way they look. There can be some t…

Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist?

Sure. And if you do that in the spirit of saying, "gosh, these are also nice problems to fix one day", that's great. But mostly people bring that argument up in the sense of "Gosh, your life is not 100% shitty, so I'm going to go back to pretending everything is fair now."

This argument is so common that it appears on the "Derailing for Dummies" guide: http://derailingfordummies.com/#butbut (Note that they include as an example your false equivalence between circumcision and female genital mutilation.)

Also, that there are reasons somebody might be a sexist jerk does not excuse them being sexist jerks. Suppose there's a correlation between sex hormone levels, lack of female attention, and rape. Do we say, "Gosh, that's not unexpected" and tell women to be more accommodating?

Honestly, your attempt at victim-blaming here is kinda repulsive. There's no particular reason to believe that the sort of sexism described by the article is experienced by the people who failed to be nice enough to (by which you mean: have sex with) the guys who are being jerks. And if they were the same people, then I'm still not seeing any justification: your theory appears to be that guys are somehow entitled to sexual attention just for being guys. Which, hello, is exactly the sort of sexism driven by male privilege the article's author is calling out.