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Y Combinator Female Founders Conference LiveStream

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Re: Y Combinator Female Founders Conference LiveStream

#111

Post by oh_sigh »

gphilip wrote: post #92
oh_sigh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you collect a few more life experiences, perhaps get a decade of career under your belt, you'll learn how toxic it is when monocultures form. Perhaps when you collect a few more life experiences, you will realize that saying "When you grow up/stop being immature/a child/etc you'll share my opinion on X, Y, and Z" isn't providing any support for your positions, and even if you was, it is not an effective argume…

> saying "When you grow up/stop being immature/a child/etc you'll share my opinion on X, Y, and Z" isn't providing any support for your positions, and even if you was, it is not an effective argument either. To me that looks more like a literary construct (intended to make the argument more "beautiful", if that is the right word) rather than a logical construct. I read the "meaning" of their post as: "After I got som…

That's fine. But it still doesn't attempt to show why it is toxic/bad/whatever.

If the point of discussions on hackernews is just to take a roll call of opinions, then the first two posts in this thread are on the right track. But if the purpose of discussions are to inform, and persuade, then I would say the posts failed miserably.

Re: Y Combinator Female Founders Conference LiveStream

#113

Post by dovel »

vacri wrote: post #73
GhotiFish wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's perhaps too harsh. You hear from people who are physically handicapped that the thing they hate most is the contrast in treatment. They want to be treated normally. A different person in a different perspective gets treated differently because they are viewed as different. A common complaint. Is he being empathetic or indifferent? I dunno, but it's hard not to say to yourself "Women are being treated different…

So essentially you're saying that wheelchair ramps shouldn't be installed because we need to maintain an ironclad everone-gets-exactly-the-same-treatment position? A ramp serves only a very select part of the population, therefore it isn't 'fair' and should be shunned? Women are being treated differently, that is what is keeping them out, so I will endeavour not to treat them differently? The flaw here is the fundame…

People are ignorant to the material effects of oppression. I'm not sure how sometimes, especially on hacker news, since everyone in this thread wouldn't start discussing some small aspect of a programming language they have never used. But if they wanted to, they would look it up and the contribute. When it comes to anything social and therefore political people are throwing words around and they do not even understand what they are saying.

Your ramp example is spot on. And to take it a little bit further. Some of the posters in this thread are at the top of the stairs, staring down at everyone who can't get up them AND refusing to help them. The fact that these people are validating these attitudes in a way that actually serves to destroy their own point just shows that people in this thread with these views have absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

If you are uninformed/ can't follow your train of though to its logical conclusions PLEASE do some reading.

Re: Y Combinator Female Founders Conference LiveStream

#114

Post by chc »

Crake wrote: post #108
chc wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to support things like this, but have you ever considered not constantly taking pot-shots at efforts to correct a really blatant inequality like this?

There isn't any blatant inequality except for the sex based discrimination being pushed on the field by feminists, which won't be corrected without pushback from egalitarians.

If you believe the sexes are equally represented in this field, you should probably try to learn more about a topic like this before forming such strong feelings on it, because the numbers show that not to be remotely true. I honestly have trouble believing you really think this, but I'll assume you're sincere but misinformed, which is kind of a relief. The claim that there are as many women in tech as men is as poorly borne out by the numbers as the idea that Topeka is five miles from Tokyo.

Please, do some cursory research and you will see that women really are badly outnumbered in tech.

Re: Y Combinator Female Founders Conference LiveStream

#116

Post by Crake »

vacri wrote: post #73
GhotiFish wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's perhaps too harsh. You hear from people who are physically handicapped that the thing they hate most is the contrast in treatment. They want to be treated normally. A different person in a different perspective gets treated differently because they are viewed as different. A common complaint. Is he being empathetic or indifferent? I dunno, but it's hard not to say to yourself "Women are being treated different…

So essentially you're saying that wheelchair ramps shouldn't be installed because we need to maintain an ironclad everone-gets-exactly-the-same-treatment position? A ramp serves only a very select part of the population, therefore it isn't 'fair' and should be shunned? Women are being treated differently, that is what is keeping them out, so I will endeavour not to treat them differently? The flaw here is the fundame…

At least with my own disability/disabilities, I much prefer people to act normally around me. I absolutely feel othered if people go on forever about it.

Able-bodied people can use ramps too. If I were in a wheelchair, I'd prefer my friends to walk beside me without talking the whole time about how tragically victimized I am by the existence of stairs and other devices employing 90 degree angles of oppression. I'd definitely be even more annoyed if "well meaning" "activists" tried to ban my able-bodied friends from using the ramps alongside me.

Also, you just compared the relative ability of men and women to succeed in the tech world as the former being like a person who can walk unassisted and the latter being like a person who is significantly crippled. Given that success in the tech world is largely due to mental ability instead of physical ability, you might want to find a different way to word it to avoid unpleasant implications.

I'm confused by the way you mention class privilege and then assume that somehow this means that women are disadvantaged. Women control 70% of global [consumer] spending. Are you proposing men-only scholarships to fix this?

>"how dare women get their own classes"

When even ACLU says you're on the wrong side of a civil rights issue, it may be time to reconsider your stance.

Re: Y Combinator Female Founders Conference LiveStream

#117

Post by aaronbrethorst »

oh_sigh wrote: post #111
gphilip wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> saying "When you grow up/stop being immature/a child/etc you'll share my opinion on X, Y, and Z" isn't providing any support for your positions, and even if you was, it is not an effective argument either. To me that looks more like a literary construct (intended to make the argument more "beautiful", if that is the right word) rather than a logical construct. I read the "meaning" of their post as: "After I got som…

That's fine. But it still doesn't attempt to show why it is toxic/bad/whatever. If the point of discussions on hackernews is just to take a roll call of opinions, then the first two posts in this thread are on the right track. But if the purpose of discussions are to inform , and persuade , then I would say the posts failed miserably.

Inform:

I personally would expect that the representation of a given gender, religion or race in an arbitrary body (a school, a company, an industry, a governing body, etc.) would pretty closely match the representation of the gender/religion/race/etc. in society at large.

The tech industry is clearly falling flat on its face when it comes to adequate representation of women.

Persuade:

Do you really need me to spell out why this is a good thing?

Re: Y Combinator Female Founders Conference LiveStream

#118

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

Crake wrote: post #17
jonalmeida wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true, I didn't click the link because I feared it was about getting more female founders in development. After reading namenotrequired's comment I clicked.

Yeah, same. :/ Funny, isn't? All the Adria Richards of the world claiming to want to increase the exposure of women in tech are actively discouraging exactly that.

Really? I would have guessed it was all the MRA assholes.

Re: Y Combinator Female Founders Conference LiveStream

#119

Post by lkbm »

serf wrote: post #85
Crake wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually don't bother with links to things that are phrased in such a way as to suggest support of segregationist policies. I don't care about women in tech. I care about people in tech.

I feel exactly the same way, and i'm glad i'm not the only one. If you want to fix scenarios that look segregationist, fix the root cause. Reinforcing one segregation that appears to be a polar opposite of what you have too much of is just as damaging. it's not a tipping scale scenario.

> fix the root cause

How? Just tell women to stop feeling marginalized?

There are countless subtle ways a all-male (or all-female or all-Christian or all-straight or all-gay or all-white or all-black or all-[insert demographic here) subculture will do things unwittingly that make people not in that demographic uncomfortable. As a member of the majority in almost every respect, I've rarely experienced that, but I'm not so self-absorbed to insist it's not a real, legitimate thing that happens. Identifying each and every one of these things is nigh impossible. Convincing everyone to STOP doing these things IS impossible. So what do we do? We attack it the only way we can: identify and point out what issues we can (the happy majority will inform us that they're silly, over-sensitive complaints) and do everything we can to bring in people who can change that culture simply by being there, being someone who is NOT part of the problem culture.

But we're too damn busy being offended by this conference and threatened by the idea that there's subtle sexism in the tech industry (or the world) to even try listening to any sort of feminist theories about privilege and power and marginalization.

I know, modern feminist theories about oppressive patriarchal culture sound really, really outlandish at first, and my first instinct was to reject them and just say "everyone's equal; let's treat them equally". Many are stated really inflammatory and surely some are way off-base.

But shit. The world's a fucked up place. And if you start looking at what earns people respect and power and what invites derision, you begin to recognize that maybe this overly-sensitive complaint about subtle sexism, and that gripe about feeling uncomfortable as a minority in a group, and it all starts to reveal itself as, well, reality. It's hurting us as a group, and it's oppressive each one of us as individuals. (Unless you're a handsome, masculine, white, Protestant, alpha male, football-playing frat bro, in which case maybe you're 100% on the privileged side--congratulations!)

(Sorry, this rambling rant isn't really directed at you. It's directed at most every comment here, and the tech industry, and the world.)

Re: Y Combinator Female Founders Conference LiveStream

#120

Post by drreddit »

danilocampos wrote: post #50
Crake wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually don't bother with links to things that are phrased in such a way as to suggest support of segregationist policies. I don't care about women in tech. I care about people in tech.

> I don't care about women in tech. I've noticed. When you collect a few more life experiences, perhaps get a decade of career under your belt, you'll learn how toxic it is when monocultures form. You'll learn about the blind spots. The exclusion. The lack of productive conflict from varying ideas. And perhaps at that point you'll learn why "caring about people in tech" means caring that no people feel actively exclu…

Wow, you certainly seem like a waste of life
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