Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I won't speak at women-only events

guardian.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–136 of 136 posts

Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events

#131

Post by rmc »

gthrowaway wrote: post #126
reedlaw wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A real solution would seek to push women out of automatically assuming that bearing and raising children is a vitally important life goal [...] If bearing and raising children is not a vitally important life goal I don't know what is. The failure to do so would literally spell the end of civilization. Perhaps this view accounts for birth rates declining below sustainable levels in developed nations. > [...] and wou…

Read the comment again. Gender roles are pervasive, but are more obvious for women, who tend to get defined in terms of their wombs rather than any individual characteristics. Essentialists who hold traditional/conservative views don't really go much beyond that -- bearing and raising children is what women are for. Essentialists who hold progressive/liberal views try to hide this, but are still basically assuming th…

Gender roles can be very harmful for some men. Gay men (sorta). Effeminate or camp men. Men who crossdress etc.

We could tear down all those assumptions, and have a society where everyone has the option of multiple ways to lead a fulfilling life, with raising children being one of those.

Yep, that's what feminists are doing, smashing the patriarchy.

But we don't do that, and even the popular incarnations of movements which claim to advocate for real equality of opportunity don't try.

Feminism is doing this.

Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events

#132

Post by prawks »

reedlaw wrote: post #124
needacig wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that "women in tech" presentation don't try to fix the root-cause of the issue by giving "men in tech" any reason to believe women should be treated as equals. Why is your null hypothesis that women shouldn't be treated as equals?

I did't read it that way. By having separate presentations for women the implicit message is one of inequality. Why not just "tech" presentations where men and women are equally welcome? The article, on the other hand, seems to be pushing more for indistinguishability rather than equality. E.g.: "That depressing statistic about there being only three female CEOs in the FTSE 100..." It is only depressing if you think…

Correct. Women are equals, there's no reason for them not to be. But until people stop encouraging such a divide, I don't see anything changing.

Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events

#133

Post by rmc »

hacker789 wrote: post #84
rmc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you must be gay (not sure why people use this one) People use that because they think a man acting like a woman (by having sex with men, by being the receptive partner in sex, by being penetrated, etc.) is a terrible thing for a man to do. Some homophobia is a form of misogyny, hating men who act woman-like.

I've seen feminists publicly accuse men of being closeted gays to explain "an otherwise inexplicable hatred of women".

Really? Got a citation? That sort of homophobia is very uncommon and very unacceptable in many feminist and social justice circles.

(e.g. the large reddit subcommunity dedicated to feminism & social justice "ShitRedditSay"/"SRS"/"the Fempire" has a large discussion (SRSDiscussion) with Rule #1 being: "SRSD is a progressive, feminist, antiracist, GSRM-positive, antiableist community", GSRM = gender, sexual & relationship minorities, i.e. anyone not a cis straight monoagomous person. Homophobic language would fall afoul of that)

Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events

#134

Post by gthrowaway »

rmc wrote: post #129
gthrowaway wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course "feminism" isn't a unified lockstep movement. But is there a thing, let's call it "pop feminism", which is widespread enough and whose adherents share enough basic ideas and positions, that we can usefully predicate things of it? Absolutely. And, well, that's the problem. For example, when I see people use terms like "patriarchy" in earnest, I tend to grimace a bit. Not because I think they're crazy radical…

You're basically describing the patriarchy and modern feminism. When people now use words like "patriarchy" now, they don't mean "all and any man opressing all women", they mean what you talk about, rigid gender roles. You post basically describes the patriarchy and how it's bad. The idea that women should so some work (e.g. nursing) and men shouldn't do some work (e.g. nursing), is patriarchy. I can't find any FAQ o…

About the best way I can put this is via analogy.

Imagine a patient with appendicitis who goes to a doctor, and the doctor just hands over a prescription for pain medication and says "no worries, this will make you feel better right away".

The pain meds will make the patient feel better for a bit, but really they're just masking a symptom of the underlying disease, which is still there. And sooner or later that appendix must be treated or got rid of, or the patient's going to die.

The pop-feminism practised in places like SRS, Jezebel, Tumblr, etc. is the social-justice equivalent of giving the appendicitis patient pain meds. "Smashing the patriarchy" will still leave the underlying disease of which it's a symptom (essentialism and roles assigned on the basis of gender) untreated.

Of course, that's an oversimplification, since the popular conception of "patriarchy" is deeply flawed in other ways (it lacks the explanatory power to say anything more glib than a 101-style "of course it hurts you too, sweetie" to men who are also being harmed by the deeper disease of essentialism, to take one example).

But I've long since given up trying to get this through to most people on internet boards, which is why I now do it under throwaway accounts.

Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events

#135

Post by rmc »

gthrowaway wrote: post #134
rmc wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're basically describing the patriarchy and modern feminism. When people now use words like "patriarchy" now, they don't mean "all and any man opressing all women", they mean what you talk about, rigid gender roles. You post basically describes the patriarchy and how it's bad. The idea that women should so some work (e.g. nursing) and men shouldn't do some work (e.g. nursing), is patriarchy. I can't find any FAQ o…

About the best way I can put this is via analogy. Imagine a patient with appendicitis who goes to a doctor, and the doctor just hands over a prescription for pain medication and says "no worries, this will make you feel better right away". The pain meds will make the patient feel better for a bit, but really they're just masking a symptom of the underlying disease, which is still there. And sooner or later that appen…

The pop-feminism practised in places like SRS, Jezebel, Tumblr, etc. is the social-justice equivalent of giving the appendicitis patient pain meds. "Smashing the patriarchy" will still leave the underlying disease of which it's a symptom (essentialism and roles assigned on the basis of gender) untreated.

Now I'm confused. I'm an SRSer, and "the patriachy" is gender roles. "smashing the patriachy" means ending gender roles & essentialism.

* the popular conception of "patriarchy" is deeply flawed in other ways (it lacks the explanatory power to say anything more glib than a 101-style "of course it hurts you too, sweetie" to men who are also being harmed by the deeper disease of essentialism, to take one example).*

Here's a thread on SRS talking about how the patriachy hurts men: http://www.reddit.com/r/SRSDiscussion/comments/1a0bef/xpost_...

Believe me, us social justice/feminist/SRS people do have serious conversations about lots of things, including men.

Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events

#136

Post by gthrowaway »

rmc wrote: post #135
gthrowaway wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About the best way I can put this is via analogy. Imagine a patient with appendicitis who goes to a doctor, and the doctor just hands over a prescription for pain medication and says "no worries, this will make you feel better right away". The pain meds will make the patient feel better for a bit, but really they're just masking a symptom of the underlying disease, which is still there. And sooner or later that appen…

The pop-feminism practised in places like SRS, Jezebel, Tumblr, etc. is the social-justice equivalent of giving the appendicitis patient pain meds. "Smashing the patriarchy" will still leave the underlying disease of which it's a symptom (essentialism and roles assigned on the basis of gender) untreated. Now I'm confused. I'm an SRSer, and "the patriachy" is gender roles. "smashing the patriachy" means ending gender…

Well.

Firstly, the fact that you continue to use and insist on an overladen (with decades' worth of baggage) term that obscures what you're talking about, rather than just say what you claim to mean, is not an encouraging sign to me.

Secondly, if SRS is really a place where "serious conversations", as you put it, take place, then they certainly were adept at hiding it from me back when I frequented. After a while, one gets rather tired of the LOL DILDZ and LOL MRAS and wants to actually accomplish some good. Perhaps it's now a better place, but given how toxic the culture was I very much doubt it.

Post reply on HN