An open letter on feminism in tech • Hacker News Board

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#241

Post by joaren » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:00 PM UTC

arbutus wrote: post #230

exo762 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

You should probably read this article: http://jezebel.com/5992479/if-i-admit-that-hating-men-is-a-t... Specifically, this part from the bottom of the article: Feminists do not want you to lose custody of your children. The assumption that women are naturally better caregivers is part of patriarchy. Feminists do not like commercials in which bumbling dads mess up the laundry and competent wives have to bustle in and f…

Oh good, you replied to factual statistics with a bunch of feel good nonsense from Jezebel, which we all know is a respected journal in the social sciences.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#242

Post by nailer » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:01 PM UTC

nimbupani wrote: post #51

epeus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't see most of these incidents, because harassers do it when there are few witnesses. Ask your female colleagues for their stories. They all have them. So how does this fit with your "Most of the engineers I know in tech are decent, upstanding guys." - it fits perfectly. Clearly you know some who aren't decent. It only takes one to harass, and he can harass a large number of women; in fact the pattern is commo…

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…

I only clicked on one of those links because I recognised it: https://medium.com/@geeekcore1/d96f431f4e8e

That article doesn't seem like retaliation, it seems like a response. JAH herself has responded to that article and simply said the things mentioned aren't relevant and only brought up because she was female.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#243

Post by xamebax » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:05 PM UTC

jugglingcode wrote: post #14

From the stories that have come out it sounds that avoiding this behaviour is practically impossible to avoid if you are woman. That's a terrible working env. This also appears to be an American problem. I find this difficult to imagine happening as pervasively ( not saying it doesn't happen at all) in London or Berlin or any of the other European tech hubs. The problem may be more evident in America because it has t…

I had some negative experiences during a recent conference in Berlin and was threatened and insulted more than once in Warsaw, not to mention constant online bullying for being vocal about women in tech. I know I'm just one example, but you can find lots and lots of others if you google right. Sorry, Europe is similar to the States in this regard.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#244

Post by GHFigs » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:07 PM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #225

GHFigs wrote: post #200

Article conflates feminism with women. Not all women are Feminist or seek to be. Women are human beings and should be treated as such. Feminism is an ideology and should be treated as such. Why confuse people by taking about them like they're the same thing?

>Feminism is an ideology This is where you're factually (yes, factually) wrong. Try: !w feminism

What are you trying to say, exactly? If you're trying to say I'm unfamiliar with feminism, you're wrong. If you're trying to say that feminism isn't an ideology, you've made the poor choice of suggesting an article that uses the word ideologies in the first sentence. If you're trying to snipe at me for using the singular instead of the plural, I shall have to say Q.E.D.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#245

Post by nailer » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:07 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #67

ronaldx wrote: 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.

Swombat and the founder of MVC have sparred over twitter numerous times, and he had to unfollow me because I retweet her often. Sometimes, people just don't like each other. (I have no beef with Swombat.)

The article itself mentions disliking engaging with moderate voices as an attempt to silence more strident voices, and I get where that's coming from, but some of the people with more strident voices are hate-filled hypocrites.

I see no harm in promoting the thoughtful stuff (like this article) and ignoring the angry noise.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#246

Post by fred_durst » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:09 PM UTC

anuleczka wrote: post #234

fred_durst wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree. I was only relaying that maybe if we focus more on the jerk part, and less on the specifics of the brand of jerk we might help solve the problem of all the people who have to deal with jerks in this industry, not just one specific group.

Sure! But I guess my point is that by embracing the voices of marginalized groups, we can solve a huge chunk of that at once. If you think about it, jerks usually act the way they do because of a perceived power differential. The guy with enough insecurity to harass a woman (or POC, or LBGTQ person) is likely to try to power trip other men, too.

I think I understand your logic here. It does make some sense to use the harassment of a marginalized group as a sort of "tell" that this person is a jerk. I do worry though that it is a bit divisive. A lot of terms like "white male" and "feminist" are very loaded at this point and it feels to me like focusing on specific groups might be a distraction.

For example if I were to say that one of the most arrogant and aggressive people I've known was a self described feminist, it starts to distract from the fact the in reality this person is just a jerk and the feminist part really doesn't have anything to do with that. And any of the hateful gender specific things that person said to other people didn't really have to do with gender issues as much as this person was a total jerk to almost everyone around them.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#247

Post by xamebax » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:10 PM UTC

arbutus wrote: post #230

exo762 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

You should probably read this article: http://jezebel.com/5992479/if-i-admit-that-hating-men-is-a-t... Specifically, this part from the bottom of the article: Feminists do not want you to lose custody of your children. The assumption that women are naturally better caregivers is part of patriarchy. Feminists do not like commercials in which bumbling dads mess up the laundry and competent wives have to bustle in and f…

Some concrete evidence: http://www.policymic.com/articles/88277/23-ways-feminism-has...

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#248

Post by bucketsbuckets » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:11 PM UTC

srpablo wrote: post #183

swombat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen it once, in one of my employees. I fired him. I still don't like the ultra-feminist movement though. Hate doesn't achieve much good.

I also hate things that are made up. http://www.harkavagrant.com/?id=341 Most people who feel animosity to feminists are attacking a caricature of them that can't be said to meaningfully exist. It also usually involves a misclassification of anger at a bad situation with 'hate.' The fact that you can read something like this article and connect it to anything hateful, let alone angry (it's not either) shows why many…

"Someone needed a quote for the paper so I told them all men were rapists."

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-05-08/news/1993128032_...

Still going to insist these are straw feminists?

Anyway it is important to recognize that you can advocate for gender equal rights without labeling yourself "feminist"—or allowing feminists to force that baggage-laden label upon you against your own will.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#249

Post by MyGod » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:13 PM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #209

MyGod wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. It seems feminist indoctrinated HN still has few people with brain here. I hope you don't mind me making screengrab of your post and using it instead of writing my own (with all credit to you of course).

The notion that HN is "feminist indoctrinated" is absurd.

Take a look who is getting up-voted and who gets down-voted. Now open your eyes and think.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#250

Post by nailer » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:13 PM UTC

taybin wrote: post #25

danshapiro wrote: post #15

I appreciate the authors taking the time to write this (unfortunately this HN comment page emphasizes the uphill climb ahead). But there's one thing in particular I, selfishly, appreciated them addressing: "Does this mean we’re going to get angry at you if you try to help and get it wrong?" This fear was something that kept me from speaking out for many years. I'm a guy in tech and I want to see change occur but I'm…

Compare that with http://jacobian.org/writing/what-can-men-do/ , which is linked to in the OP in which he criticizes Jeff Atwood for doing it wrong. So wrong that he won't even link to him, even though he acknowledges that his intentions are good. Edited to fix pronoun.

> appropriating and refusing to acknowledge earlier works from women—specifically, appropriating Shanley’s identically-titled, incredibly-similar “What Can Men Do?,”

You mean two different human beings thought about blogging about a popular tech issue? With an obvious title? Atwood must feel ashamed. What an appropriator.