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"Lighten up"

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Re: "Lighten up"

#361

Post by jrockway »

omgsean wrote: post #205
Tichy wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a supplement to those posts, I would like a set of instructions about how to talk to women properly (and women with low cut dresses especially). I mean it seems possible that the "I know where I'm sitting" guy was simply crap at giving compliments, rather than a sexist jerk. Attraction between men and women exists, and it is even vital for the survival of the human race for the time being. So it has to be dealt wi…

>Attraction between men and women exists, and it is even vital for the survival of the human race for the time being. So it has to be dealt with somehow. Not at work.

You have to deal with it by not taking action based on the things you think. That's why you're a professional writing software and not an animal out hunting for scraps of food.

(Humanity is defined by emotions, particularly physical attraction. But it's also defined by rational thought; not doing whatever you think your emotions want you to do. So if you're in a meeting with some attractive coworkers, use your rational mind to keep your comments to yourself. There are lots of people on Earth and there will be other opportunities for reproduction.)

Re: "Lighten up"

#363

Post by antiterra »

javascriptlol wrote: post #289
antiterra wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about "life" in any sort of universal context. Whatever 'female privilege' you can try to conjure up in general is largely irrelevant to this very specific setting: a technology profession. Is it really unobtainable to not tend towards choosing the woman to be the head of the potluck or to take notes just because she's a woman? Is it really that unobtainable to not make jokes about PMS or breasts? W…

You are painting these things as universal. If there were some rule about women and potlucks I'd care. As it is, there is not. I have never even seen a potluck in the workplace! There are much bigger, structural problems to worry about right now. It's like we're on a boat with a hole in the bottom and every interest group is complaining that their feet are getting wetter than all the others. We wouldn't have this pro…

It seems you're suggesting that working for a company in the technology industry is being imprisoned or that it's prohibitively (and increasingly?) difficult to start a small technology business. As far as I can tell, tech is still a growth industry, and the boats are floating higher, not sinking.

Even if so, why is it irrelevant to bring up a specific reason that women might leave a company? If I was my own boss and had female employees that I wished to retain, I'd consider OP's article to contain a very important lesson.

Also, just because someone has a serious case of cancer doesn't mean it's a waste of their time to complain about someone punching them in the face. Yes, they have a 'much bigger' problem to worry about, but that doesn't mean everything else goes out the window.

Re: "Lighten up"

#364

Post by Gnolfo »

mhartl wrote: post #240
Jabbles wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't lighten up—accept You're asking someone to learn to live with being bullied and to accept discrimination. And through this endorsement of their behaviour you contribute to the problem. You are a horrible person.

Counseling someone to accept a situation is not the same as endorsing it. And acceptance is the only rational response when you lack sufficient power to effect change. Indeed, the OP's decision to leave the tech industry is an implicit acknowledgment of her acceptance. That's a rational decision. Posting a whiny (albeit well-written) essay about it isn't—at least, it's irrational if she wrote it to help solve the pro…

That's all well and good but we're a far cry away from concluding there's a lack of sufficient power to effect change. We're not counseling someone who's just become paraplegic about their hopes of running a triathlon, this is a situation with room to improve. And just because we may not be able to improve it 100% doesn't mean we don't try. Criminal behavior will always exist as long as society exists but that doesn't mean you disband the police.

Re: "Lighten up"

#365

Post by tomp »

Jabbles wrote: post #172
klausa wrote: post #87

You see, I have problem with posts like this. First I'm like - "Woah, I can't imagine someone would be so insensitive to make joke like this!" and get all fed up and upset. But then... then I freeze, because next example is something that I can imagine myself saying. "Oop, Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!" I... I'm at loss of words. I was trained during my teenage years, that it's coo…

To give an opposing opinion, I'm appalled that anyone said that to her, and am appalled at you for thinking it's a reasonable thing to say. Why would you make sexual comments at work? Making jokes is fine, commenting on clothes is fine, telling a joke involving sex is probably fine (depending on the joke...). Having a conversation (two-way) about sex is fine. Making a specific comment about a colleague's sex appeal i…

Why not? If a man (fellow coworker) has nice biceps, I say it (I'm not gay, not trying to seduce him, but being fit is very high on my values list). If a woman (fellow coworker) is cute, I say it (I'm not trying to seduce her, I just think it's nice to give compliments).

Asking her to take notes (as in, not asking anyone else), though, is a completely different story. However, I believe that some women handle it in a not very effective way. I might be a sexist too! If you tell me in a nice way (simply saying that you think what is going on is wrong/unfair) I will reflect, and most likely change my behaviour in the future. However, if you attack me, or even worse, say nothing but rant on the internet, I will take it personally, as an attack on my identity, and I might refuse to change, out of principle.

What we're trying to do here is enlighten a certain aspect of our society that is wrong/unjust, and I believe that should be done by teaching people, not attacking them.

(I'm not saying that the OP definitely took the wrong path. She might have told her boss, and they did nothing different, they didn't learn. In that case, I see no better option but to attack, shame them...)

Re: "Lighten up"

#366

Post by scott_s »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #131
klausa wrote: post #87

You see, I have problem with posts like this. First I'm like - "Woah, I can't imagine someone would be so insensitive to make joke like this!" and get all fed up and upset. But then... then I freeze, because next example is something that I can imagine myself saying. "Oop, Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!" I... I'm at loss of words. I was trained during my teenage years, that it's coo…

"Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!"...As I'm getting older, I see how sexist and demeaning this is. At the risk of revealing myself to be a chauvinistic jerk, is this kind of response sexist and demeaning, or just inappropriate for the workplace? Why do women wear low-cut dresses if not to attract male attention (in the majority of cases)? Would it be sexist and demeaning for me to not…

A friend of mine has large breasts. A difficulty she has is that any top that is open at all shows a lot of cleavage.

And, yes, if you make a sexually charged comment on a co-worker, it is sexist. Context matters.

Re: "Lighten up"

#367

Post by theorique »

Swizec wrote: post #180

Honest question: Why is it so bad when guys treat gals like they're just one of the guys? Guys give each other small disparaging jabs all the time, be it the workplace or a party between friends, it's what we do to fit in; it's how our social groups work and what keeps them together. I've never been female, so I don't know what it looks like from their perspective, but to me telling a lass to go back to the kitchen i…

I think it's a fine thing - I have close personal friends (of both sexes - whom I jab verbally all the time. We make aggressive jokes with each other, insult each other mercilessly, and it's all in fun. Is this OK? Sure - because we are all friends, we all love each other, we know each other well, and we know beyond any shadow of a doubt that no harm is meant by anything that we say.

What's the difference between this and the situation in the OP? The workplace factor is one thing, but the friends factor is a much bigger deal.

Clearly, the people slinging the barbs simply aren't close enough friends to have that kind of rapport with her (if they were, she'd be laughing about her friends being hilariously inappropriate, rather than citing examples of workplace harassment). The guys at work from these examples also seem to be socially clued-out enough that they may not even be aware that what they are doing is unwanted.

Re: "Lighten up"

#368

Post by yelsgib »

theorique wrote: post #322
yelsgib wrote: post #148

I find posts like this extremely frustrating. Yes, I feel sorry for this woman. However, I also feel sorry for all male programmers. A lot of male programmers I've met have extremely pent-up sexual drives. A lot of them do not feel comfortable with women or society. The prototypical male programmer was extremely nerdy in adolescence, had minimal interaction with women, and sex life - forget it. Now they are working i…

I fucking hate all of this talk about "manchildren" and "brogrammers" and whatever else. Stop essentializing the problem. Stop the man hate. Fucking hell. If you're experiencing this pushback from women in the profession as 'man hate' that's certainly your right. I view it more as listening to a professional colleague telling a story from her perspective. I'm not experiencing it as hate, more as hearing from a woman…

Good questions!

Sure, the guy's actions are unprofessional (though I hate the term), and discouraging. I wouldn't say creepy. I really hate the term "creepy" because probably (and yeah, here I'm speculating) the guy has been called a creep his whole life. Probably he's even creepy. But shouldn't we feel sorry for such a person?

(United States) society has a really bad habit of locating blame on male citizens and not looking further for causes of their behavior. There are lots of examples of this, but a really blatant one is the current incarceration rate. We like to say "this person acted badly and they suck - I'm sure they have reasons - but they suck!" and stop the conversation there.

Like I said, I'm really sad that one of the effects of this big pile of sad men is that women are discouraged. But I'm also sad that they're sad - and that they engage in behaviors which make them more sad. For instance: unhealthy eating patterns, drug/alcohol abuse, gaming addictions, porn addictions, etc. I'm also sad that they're mean to other men - e.g. flamewars. I'm sad about a whole big bucket of things.

---

You're asking whether I'd classify his actions in a particular way (unprofessional, creepy, discouraging) and, for the most part, I would. The question (as you point out) is where to go from here? What do I do with all this anger?

One thing I'd like to do is fight back against the conditions that make the world shit for nerdy teenage boys. I'll take myself as a prototype here, but as a nerdy teenage boy:

1. Other teenage boys are mean to you 2. Other teenage girls are mean to you 3. Your teachers more or less hate you for being better than them at the subjects they teach 4. Your parents think of you as a failure because you're not dating/doing normal things 5. Society at large is disgusted with you (media portrays you as a creepy pervert, etc.)

I mean, let's keep things in perspective, here. This woman had a shitty run of things, but was she suffering? Really? I (and a lot of people I know) had to put up with 100x more intolerance and aggression on a daily basis from the time I was 10 until I was 18. From both genders. I was bullied. I was laughed at. I was scorned by family and teachers. Sorry if we came out a little malformed.

Hell, I'm not even bad at interacting with women, since my skin normalized and I had the luck of working at a big retail store where I had to interact with them a lot. I had girlfriends and such and now I'm married. Shit has more or less fixed itself, but it's not really my fault as such.

Yeah, so what to do? Let's create art which actively portrays the sex-starved teenage nerd boy as heroic, in his own way? Let's give him some love, as a society? Let's extol his virtues, maybe once? What support is given to these people, really?

The sick thing is that for every such nerdy guy I know who became successful (mostly the smart ones, and mostly as programmers) I know 5 who were pretty much crushed by the stress of all this and have never really recovered.

Re: "Lighten up"

#369

Post by Groxx »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #330
drhayes9 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do women wear low-cut dresses if not to attract male attention (in the majority of cases)? Yes, Virginia, this is sexist. Holy hell, is it sexist. You are characterizing a woman's behavior in terms of how it makes you, as a man, feel. There are many reasons that a human might dress a particular way, but by characterizing it as a gender-based, "she wore that to make me do this" kind of transaction you have incor…

Are you sure? Of course I'm not sure . But when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. Why do all the waitresses in Hooters wear low-cut tops? Is it for comfort? Is it because they couldn't afford the other 30% of the shirt? Or is it because that's proven to be very effective at gaining male attention? I wore them for me, not for anyone else. This makes no sense. In a post-apocolyptic world where you're the on…

Your response echoes the problems nearly every rights-movement runs up against. The issue is that such things are societally OK (or borderline), which does not imply that they're right.

In a post-apocalyptic world where there aren't enough men, would you allow women to vote? They aren't as educated, surely doing this would bring about yet another apocalypse. Imagine who they'd vote for!

What would happen if a woman were voted into congress? Surely her sexual appeal would distract the entire group of men there, lowering the overall quality of work.

The problem is that this is a problem, and that people don't yet see it. Say, in time, it becomes OK for a woman to come into an office topless. Imagine the reaction of people then who hear of our behavior now. Now think of your reaction when you think of the historical debates about whether or not black people had souls, which made it OK to use them as slaves because they weren't really human.

Re: "Lighten up"

#370

Post by [deleted] »

drostie wrote: post #348
javascriptlol wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexual assault is no joke. But so what if someone gives you "unwanted attention"? We have become a culture of whiners and rationalisers. It would be like me, as a man, going on and on about how unfair it is that I'm expected to hide fear and put the safety of females before my own. Of course, we're well along the way to destroying that tradition. People ignore the myriad of subtle advantages to this "sexist" approach…

Well, the "so what" is everything: Unwanted Attention is Unwanted because it embraces some sort of threat or menace or unreasonable expectation or social tension or unease. To say that we should stop giving women this sort of unwanted attention is not whining or rationalizing, nor is it fanatical egalitarianism. It's just demanding a culture where we men know that it's dangerous to control, frightening to objectify,…

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