First male that says something like 'I've never seen any sexism in the field' has to leave Earth _forever_.
Of course you haven't my dears, because you don't suffer it, you're blind to it.
Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk
141–150 of 160 posts
Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hence my use of the word imply. As in 'implicit' ... you know - the opposite of 'explicit'. I also believe she changed the title.
I don't think there's anything implicitly linking the people in her article to HN, either. We don't have a monopoly on the word "hacker," after all.
In fact, quite the opposite. HN's use of the word is the tag-along.
Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
repeat after me. there is no such thing as reverse racism. By comparing this (oh no, someone called me white on a blog, and said I was successful) to the experiences of oppressed minorities, belittles history, it belittles their experiences. and it makes you look like a spoiled privileged white boy.
anewguy99 did not say anything about "reverse racism". He was talking about racism.
"reverse racism" is what it is called when someone claims that someone is being "racist" against the privileged majority. It's nonsense. It doesn't make sense that there is systematic oppression against ... the cohort that is undeniably and unshakably in power. If you insult someone for being white, yes it might hurt their feelings. Do the same to an unprivileged minority and it is potentially life threatening. There is no comparison.
Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk
#144The problem with this woman's story is that she takes a few cases of explicit sexism and extrapolates them as the reason why everyone is saying rude things to her. Or at least that's how I see it. Perhaps she is just commenting on the general douchebaggery of the community, but even then much of the criticism she received could be seen as fair if she was actually in the wrong. Although sexism is clearly an issue in t…
"The problem with this woman's story is that she takes a few cases of explicit sexism and extrapolates them as the reason why everyone is saying rude things to her. Or at least that's how I see it."
Yes, that "because I don't see it, it doesn't exist." attitude is a definite problem.
"She says "I’ve gone from being a Facebook user to running OTR, PGP and Tor all in under a month." Perhaps she is not as knowledgeable or as experienced as she thinks she is, and so she is receiving criticism from those who know what they're saying/doing."
This however seems more plausible, no kneejerk dismissals necessary.
Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
anewguy99 did not say anything about "reverse racism". He was talking about racism.
"reverse racism" is what it is called when someone claims that someone is being "racist" against the privileged majority. It's nonsense. It doesn't make sense that there is systematic oppression against ... the cohort that is undeniably and unshakably in power. If you insult someone for being white, yes it might hurt their feelings. Do the same to an unprivileged minority and it is potentially life threatening. There…
> systematic oppression
> Do the same to an unprivileged minority and it is potentially life threatening. There is no comparison.
Racism must be systematic in order to be 'real' racism? Instances of racism must be comparable to one another in severity in order to be 'real' racism?
These implications of severity and comparability are entirely your own invention. anewguy99 was not suggesting anything of the sort, you have assumed that he was because your pet definition of 'racism' requires that those implications be present when the word is used.
If you want to use another definition than the casual/traditional one, that is fine. But don't expect others to take your pet definition seriously, and don't expect to extract legitimate meaning from what others are saying when those others are using the common meaning of the word.
Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Worst case; in a field where logic is paramount, emotion trumping it on a political correctness card starts to creep into the culture, poisoning everything it touches and slowly bleeding it into just another mostly political, messy, emotional human endeavour. Honestly, if that's what it takes for women to feel accepted in this field I would prefer they were not. I sincerely don't believe that to be the case though, i…
You're gonna tell me you never got cut up about the way people treated you? You let cool logic rule you instead? Bullshit! It's a basic fact that most people don't like being routinely belittled and side-lined. That's got nowt to do with gender. The difference is that women suffer it more often and gosh should they have the temerity to complain, suffer a further avalanche of abuse under the guise of cool, logical cri…
Sure, I've disliked the way people have treated me, on occasion I've disliked it even when they had a good cause, at the end of the day though the way I was treated wasn't at issue, the cause was. And yes, I throw away my immediate emotional response in any situation like that so I can get to the core of the issue and actually decide if there is valid information to take from the event rather than simply something to complain about.
And if there never is valid information to take from the event, and it's truly just an endless tirade of "you're a woman, shouldn't you be in the kitchen making me a sandwich?" level prattle, that in itself is a person telling you that they're not worth your time interacting with, which is useful information of another kind.
> Political correctness is just short-hand for "don't be racist, don't be sexist, don't be a prick". Pretty simple.
That's your definition of political correctness, but that sure isn't the universally agreed and undisputed definition thereof.
But even accepting it, it opens a whole lot of doors; What is it to be racist? simply acknowledging some statistics that are unfavourable to some ethnicities is by some definitions racist. What is it to be sexist? Not to swallow wholesale typical claims of gender discrimination from women's groups with skewed supporting statistics without looking at the entire picture, or even to be aware of certain information that skews the debate in the opposite direction than currently has the mainstream cultural high ground? What is it to be a prick? To acknowledge realities regardless of the fact that other people may find them uncomfortable?
All of these things are useful, You can't plan affirmative action programs or associated actions to address problems with ethnic groups unless you can quantify what those problems actually are. You can't address the real problems with gender equality if you simply swallow all the propaganda on one side of the argument and instantly think you have the whole story. And you can't fix your own problems if you're unaware of them because noone ever saw fit to tell you because doing so would make them a prick. That's my fundamental problem with it, political correctness promotes premeditated ignorance of various facts which are inconvenient to culture.
A taboo on the objective examination of reality is never a good thing.
> It's naive to think that politics and emotion can somehow be kept out of any human endeavour.
I actually agree with this, but I disagree with your prescription, as soon as you acknowledge the inevitability of it and set up political solutions as a prescription, you simply hasten the downward slide. If on the other hand you firmly allocate the entire pursuit into the waste of time category, any kind of politicking will be out of place, and it won't simply be an endless argument over which kind is appropriate and which kind is not.
> You've got such an undeveloped idea of gender equality that when someone directly talks about it, you want to label it 'sideline histronics'.
I'm not labeling this particular episode sideline histrionics, that's why I originally laid out the two possibilities. The poster doesn't provide enough information in my opinion to actually make a judgement as to which of these cases it actually is.
My statement about sideline histrionics was precisely that it is a tactically sound move for those that engage in them to attempt to frame them in a more mainstream way that makes it appear that their personal grievances are a real and widespread problem that requires addressing by everyone.
> You, yes YOU, the individual using the handle etherael are part of the problem.
I think that lumping people like me in with the "get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich" crowd is simply allowing them to mask their own sideline histrionics with something much more rational and you do yourself no favors by doing so. But if you still see fit to judge me in such a fashion then I'd simply point out that by doing so, you move yourself out of the set of people whose opinions I take seriously.
Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Worst case; in a field where logic is paramount, emotion trumping it on a political correctness card starts to creep into the culture, poisoning everything it touches and slowly bleeding it into just another mostly political, messy, emotional human endeavour. Honestly, if that's what it takes for women to feel accepted in this field I would prefer they were not. I sincerely don't believe that to be the case though, i…
"a field where logic is paramount" Which field is that? The field that produces Hacker News threads? The field where Academic Politics are vicious?
Any field where math is the final arbiter and emotion is just a distraction. Cryptography qualifies in my book. But to take it as a subset of the larger field of technology implementation in general works just as well, too.
Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
"reverse racism" is what it is called when someone claims that someone is being "racist" against the privileged majority. It's nonsense. It doesn't make sense that there is systematic oppression against ... the cohort that is undeniably and unshakably in power. If you insult someone for being white, yes it might hurt their feelings. Do the same to an unprivileged minority and it is potentially life threatening. There…
> systematic oppression > Do the same to an unprivileged minority and it is potentially life threatening. There is no comparison. Racism must be systematic in order to be 'real' racism? Instances of racism must be comparable to one another in severity in order to be 'real' racism? These implications of severity and comparability are entirely your own invention. anewguy99 was not suggesting anything of the sort, you h…
See: Derailing.
When instances of oppression occur, the most important thing to do is not point out the hypocrisies of the victim. It's not to whine about the oppression that YOU have to deal with yourself. It's not to compare your minor suffering to their systematic bullying. Everyone suffers, everyone has their own battles. Now is not the time to dredge it up as if it's more important, or just as important as what is happening here.
No, name calling is not racism. not on its own. It must indeed be backed by a system of oppression. A system of belief about the inherent qualities of a particular race. You apparently believe that all you need to do is call someone a name to be racist. It is your definition of racism that is skewed and uncommon, not mine.
Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk
#149If you are a man reading this, I invite you to: a. Resist the urge to pick apart the OP's life and criticize how/what she said. b. Honestly reflect, without shame or blame, about what you know of sexism. What do you understand of it? What do you understand it's roots are, and how it works? What do you think your responsibility is, as a man, and as a member of this community? I invite you to do this, because it's a ch…
>Honestly reflect, without shame or blame, about what you know of sexism. What do you understand of it? What do you understand it's roots are, and how it works? What do you think your responsibility is, as a man, and as a member of this community? You know what? I don't think I've ever personally witnessed a woman in tech being subjected to sexist behavior. And I know exactly why that is. It's because I so rarely enc…
I agree with you completely. It's partly a problem of rarity. It's also partly that men in tech don't often have well developed social skills (were in the computer lab all night in college instead of out at the frat parties) and don't know what's appropriate and what isn't. More women in tech would go a long way to make it easier to be a woman in tech.
Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk
#150I submit that like most socially active voices, her method of appealing to emotion will win no converts and will probably receive the praise of people who agreed with her before she made the post. I sympathize with her in regards to harassment, but I don't think there's anything wrong with a headless female (or male) body made out of "creeper cards" (a poorly thought out endeavor since, after all, not one of us is ri…
> like most socially active voices, her method of appealing to emotion
I'm not sure of the validity of this statement - history has been all about appeals to emotion being more powerful than appeals to reason.
> don't think there's anything wrong with a headless female (or male) body made out of "creeper cards"
It's the sentiment - creeper cards are there because of the oppression of females by lecherous males at these types of events. The fact that someone is making fun of that it by being mildly perverse is terrible because it's literally anti-anti-oppression - it's oppressive.