Live data from Hacker News

An open letter on feminism in tech

modelviewculture.com

91–100 of 335 posts

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#91
I am going to convey my experience of reading this, in the hopes that it might be helpful. The message that I get from this essay is as follows.

"We are angry with the way we are treated as women, by men. We are angry with the way we see other women being treated by men. Even though you might not personally have treated us like this, we know that you are a man, like other men, and we hold you responsible for what has happened to us and what we have seen. You have power, and we don't. It is by your choice and negligence as men that we are powerless and demeaned. You are not innocent, even though you think you are. We aren't interested in your opinion. You don't know anything. You need to change to make us not angry."

The reason I think this might be interesting is that I know (re-reading the letter, especially) that THIS IS NOT WHAT THE LETTER SAYS. For one thing, it is far from the only thing discussed in the letter; more importantly, however, I don't think this interpretation is all that fair a reading of what the authors have actually written. I know that it's a distorted version of what they intended to convey, and it might not even represent a correct interpretation of how any of them feel.

So why is this my impression? Your own conclusions are welcome, of course. You're free to dismiss me out of hand. But for myself, I think that it has to do with the confluence of two factors. Firstly, I don't really feel that I have a lot of power over women. Actually, I feel like women have a lot of power over me. My life is inextricably entangled with the lives of women, and it would be a meaningless, barren hell were this not so. But instead, and secondly, I am being told how separate I actually am --- and always will be --- from women. I am being told that women are not being treated as people by writers who go on to talk about women, and men, and the relationship of victimization between the two, without hardly a word about people, and how people treat each other, and how some people come to treat other people differently, and what we can do about it. Instead, I feel, I am being told that I am wrong to treat people as 'women' by people who are using the power of that identity as leverage to demand my compliance.

If feminism is the radical notion that women are people, then a feminism that is not about people is radically flawed. I don't like people having power over me, either. I don't like being treated as the avatar of someone's fears, pain, and disappointment, either. I don't like not being treated as if I'm me, really a person, either.

This is all off the cuff, and I have no time to be writing it, but that's my experience, and my reaction, and thanks for reading it.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#92

"Some men made statements that made us feel unwelcome in the tech industry" We are going to respond my making generailized hate speech towards all men in the industry. But seriously, are people expecting 100% support from all sections of society? Is that even a realistic expectation?

> We are going to respond my making generailized hate speech towards all men in the industry. This is a large part of my problem with some of the MVC writers. If you're a male, you're guilty. If you're white and male, you're really guilty.

If you don't do the things that people are writing about, then they aren't talking about you.

You should read http://bitchtopia.com/2013/07/11/not-all-men-are-like-that/.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#93
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are responding to a bug report on one platform by saying that you cannot reproduce it on another.

A bug report with no evidence or sources making claims that cannot be verified by the readers. I could just as easily say I am being terrorized by my Female boss and shut down any women who disagree using your argument.

The article was loaded with evidence.

There were links.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#94

It makes me sad to read this stuff, but a genuine question for other male readers. Have you heard of, or come into contact with any of this abhorrent behavior that's mentioned? I have never seen it anywhere I worked, or heard of that sort of thing through word of mouth, but obviously that's a terrible sample set. My experiences related to women in tech: * Everywhere I've worked, it's been a boys club, but we'd LOVE t…

[deleted]

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#95
post #44
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel uncomfortable that you have implicitly associated the parent article and its goals with extremism and hatred, which I don't observe.

I've seen those kinds of more extreme articles (and writers) on modelviewculture before, so I think it's fair to judge a publication by what it publishes. And some of these talking points were adopted by ultra-feminists.

How is this article extreme?

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#96
post #73

I just want to develop software, and I don't personally give a shit about the gender of the people I'm working with. ...Until they start shoving these sorts of issues down my throat. If I get to choose between the male that just wants to develop software and the female who wants to tell me all about how terrible it is working in our industry as a woman, I'm going to pick the male. Why? Because I'm very goal oriented…

[deleted]

Native American, male.

I was supposed to be White wasn't I? I wonder how many Native American's there are in our industry... actually I lied, I don't care tbh.

Why don't you ask about the 100% female company I contract with, or how that doesn't bother me even if it should.

edit: for those that are curious, the deleted post was someone who claimed to be a caucasian female asking for my gender and race, and hinting strongly that they were going to use my post as fodder for something else (blog post most likely.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am one of the contributors to the parent article. We mention a whole slew of 'what happens when you report harassment' incidents: - http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes... - http://archive.today/20130110113908/jolieodell.wordpress.com... - http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/705/ - https://medium.com/@geeekcore1/d96f431f4e8e - http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=5698 - http://www.feministfrequency.c…

Thanks for the links. A question - Do you think (or have any information) on if this is particularly worse in tech, than in other industries?

@danilocampos - I think it matters for getting to a solution. If there's something inherent in tech, or its male work force that makes the problem worse, then knowing that might help get at the root of the problem a little faster.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#98
post #44
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel uncomfortable that you have implicitly associated the parent article and its goals with extremism and hatred, which I don't observe.

I've seen those kinds of more extreme articles (and writers) on modelviewculture before, so I think it's fair to judge a publication by what it publishes. And some of these talking points were adopted by ultra-feminists.

To clarify: it seems to me that you're using the term "ultra-feminist" to belittle and to trample the points being made.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#99

It makes me sad to read this stuff, but a genuine question for other male readers. Have you heard of, or come into contact with any of this abhorrent behavior that's mentioned? I have never seen it anywhere I worked, or heard of that sort of thing through word of mouth, but obviously that's a terrible sample set. My experiences related to women in tech: * Everywhere I've worked, it's been a boys club, but we'd LOVE t…

You read the story of a range of women from across the industry, said you haven't had the experience these women have had, and then explicitly asked men for their opinions. See if you can figure out the bug here. * "We have this problem with our iOS app." * "I use Android and have never seen this. Any other Android users encounter this?"

Many women ask that more men would stand up for them. I think that many men would if they actually saw something occur, but many just don't see anything.

In my own career I have only once seen anything that even looked like harassment or discrimination, and that was almost 20 years ago. It does not mean that I question these women's experiences, but I do think it means that the "bullies" know that what they do isn't accepted by their peers. And hopefully that means that speaking up more when these things occur would make a positive difference.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#100
post #54
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. What's going on is that the feminists of MVC are looking at the extremes: extreme abuse, or extreme success. What they don't care about is that this is an industry where 40 hour work weeks are a luxury, and the average neckbeard sysadmin is despised by HR even as he fixes their boxes for the n'th time. As a general rule of thumb: if women have it bad, men have it worse. But since the bottom half of men are i…

> As a general rule of thumb: if women have it bad, men have it worse. Can you honestly write that and actually believe it? Even better, can you give some examples to justify it? That's a pretty big claim, and one that, at face value, seems pretty unlikely.

Here is the list (US only).

* Domestic violence (men can't be the victim in eyes of public and law).

* Divorces (70% initiated by women, child support calculated basing on one month of his highest income ever, women get the children).

* Body integrity (circumcision anyone?)

* Sexist sentencing (men get on average twice as high number of years in jail for the same crimes)

* Education (man are lagging behind women in both primary, secondary and college degrees)

* Work-place related injuries and deaths (mostly men, all of the time).

Women in US? Yeah, often meet with prejudice when it comes to evaluation of their abilities as employees and professionals. Most other often repeated problems are BS and are not supported by statistics.

Post reply on HN