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

Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 357 posts

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#51

Post by astazangasta »

skrebbel wrote: post #28
lsy wrote: post #23

I understand the author has strong feelings about her innate tactics for avoiding misery, but the ultimate thrust of her "amelioration patterns" are variants on "toughen up" or "don't feed the trolls", both of which assign responsibility for the problem to victims of misogyny, not perpetrators. The author got lucky and doesn't, or can't, feel bad about misogyny. This isn't true for everyone, nor should it be. I agree…

The issue is that she feels that people get mad at her for being pretty happy about how things are for her. That has very little to do with victims and all that. It's really weird when you're not allowed to feel what you feel just because people who share some trait with you have different experiences.

That's not what's happening here.

A whole class of people is facing an uphill battle in tech. This is undisputable, and we know that there IS real misogyny, etc. This lady comes along and says, "That's not my experience", which gets instrumentalized by everyone else (viz. this thread) to dismiss the problem.

It's fine to have her experience, but she should realize that by being vocal about it in the way she is, she's actively undermining the struggle of other women who DO face an uphill battle convincing people their struggle is real.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#52

Post by rmdi »

_bfhp wrote: post #36
vonklaus wrote: post #21

This was awesome. Not because it dispels a meme that is negative in the industry, not because it is some sort of proof a woman can succeed in tech, or any other of this tropic nonsense. It was such an amazing message that was totally gender neutral: "I like building things because I am curious and I pursue knowledge for its own sake" With all the confirmation bias and name calling (which I am certainly guilty of from…

Why should women shut up about their experiences?

Why should anyone not voice his or her opinion/shut up is what you wanted to say I want to think.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#53

Post by roflc0ptic »

ceejayoz wrote: post #13
justuk wrote: post #10

To work in technology, especially programming, you have to put a heck of a lot of effort into the subject. If it's not some legacy technology then that also means learning constantly (on your own initiative). That's what I like about programming, it rewards knowledge and ability - whereas other careers reward other attributes. I look at the Twttier-style feminists (I don't mean the traditional equality types, but the…

> That's what I like about programming, it rewards knowledge and ability - whereas other careers reward other attributes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

I think this is a cheap argument.

I work with business analysts. At first, I didn't think well of them - their job is to turn business rules into software requirements. They kind of understand the business, and kind of understand software. My feeling, which I was embarrassed by, is that I could do their jobs better than they can.

After having been here a while, I still feel the same way, but I'm not embarrassed by it. I have to understand everything that a business analyst does, and also how software works. Our company tells us we should spend 30% (!!) of our time on professional development. I think that's totally awesome. A business analyst recently made the comment "I don't even know what I'd spend 30% of my time learning about."

Most jobs really are about getting along with people. Even engineering jobs. But engineering requires paying substantial intellectual costs up front, and then paying on a continual basis, in a way that most other professions simply do not.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#54

Post by smacktoward »

venomsnake wrote: post #44
lsy wrote: post #23

I understand the author has strong feelings about her innate tactics for avoiding misery, but the ultimate thrust of her "amelioration patterns" are variants on "toughen up" or "don't feed the trolls", both of which assign responsibility for the problem to victims of misogyny, not perpetrators. The author got lucky and doesn't, or can't, feel bad about misogyny. This isn't true for everyone, nor should it be. I agree…

Using perpetrator and victims in this context dilutes and devalues the meaning of those words. Also misogyny is not an act, so it cannot be perpetrated. My experience with women in tech is that they are smart, strong, foul mouthed, sarcastic, heavy drinkers and awesome dirty joke storytellers. They are the creme de la creme.

> My experience with women in tech is that they are smart, strong, foul mouthed, sarcastic, heavy drinkers and awesome dirty joke storytellers.

In other words, they're "one of the guys."

Which kind of summarizes the whole problem -- women who want careers in tech who aren't naturally "one of the guys" either have to learn to pretend that they are, denying their entire personality in order to fit in, or find another line of work.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#55

Post by nailer »

lsy wrote: post #23

I understand the author has strong feelings about her innate tactics for avoiding misery, but the ultimate thrust of her "amelioration patterns" are variants on "toughen up" or "don't feed the trolls", both of which assign responsibility for the problem to victims of misogyny, not perpetrators. The author got lucky and doesn't, or can't, feel bad about misogyny. This isn't true for everyone, nor should it be. I agree…

That depends on who you think the perpetrators and victims are. The particular troll mentioned in the article has a wide variety of victims of both genders and all political views.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#56

Post by astazangasta »

vonklaus wrote: post #45
_bfhp wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should women shut up about their experiences?

> they just want both sides to shut up > Why should women Sorry, not keen to argue here. Quite a good post in the original article, thought it was an interesting take. italics added for emphasis.

This assumes an equivalence between men and women that doesn't exist here. If both sides were equally put-upon, it'd be neutral to call for both sides to shut up. When one side has a clear advantage, it is not.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#57

Post by proveanegative »

hodwik wrote: post #17
ceejayoz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arguably, a slightly autistic personality is helpful for a programmer. This sounds a bit like people who go "haha, I'm so OCD, I like my pencils all pointing the wrong way" - incorrect self-diagnosis. "Slightly autistic personality" unfortunately seems to be fairly frequently used as an excuse to be an asshole.

Asperger's is a real diagnosis.

Sorry to be a pedant but the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome was eliminated from the DSM in 2013. It was replaced with "autism spectrum disorder".

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#58

Post by _bfhp »

myderpyaccount wrote: post #14
emodendroket wrote: post #5

I don't know how much sense it makes to argue with "feminism" since it's an umbrella that covers a bunch of different schools of thought that have pretty serious disagreements among each other.

Yea, but then it doesn't really make sense to argue about anything, because everything can be statically defined in terms of the environment it exists in. The part can be described in terms of the the discrete whole of which it belongs to, minus the part. I like to complain a lot, about many things, for like an hour, and then I get frustrated without observable resolution. It's all thinking noise, patterns, I prefer…

You can talk about different groups of actual physical women who have different types of thought about sex, sexuality, and men, because waves and groups of feminisms actually do exist. I recommend "Gender Inequality" by Judith Lorber as a starting point

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#59

Post by dataker »

astazangasta wrote: post #31
[deleted] wrote: post #27

[deleted]

I like how you put 'evolutionary psychology' and 'scientific' in the same sentence as if they are at all related. Few modern fields are more full of baseless speculation and supposition, lack falsifiability, etc.

First, it's irrelevant to my point whether evolutionary psychology is not a hard science.

When someone ignores, prohibits or shame a field using name-calling and fallacious axioms, arguments/debates are irrelevant and you have to run.

Secondly, what you've described is a problem in the social sciences not exclusive to evolutionary psychology. Some economic theories, for example, are largely debatable and, for some scholars, full of baseless speculation.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#60

Post by Puts »

kohanz wrote: post #6

> There had been interest, but one of the committers had dismissed the idea out of hand because a woman had proposed it. It blows my mind that this stuff still happens. In the OSS world of all places. I can't even compute how someone can apply such "logic".

I think we need to start recognizing that this is just the sign of low intelligence. You can not argue with people who are judgmental. It's just like arguing with a drunk. Whatever you say is just waste of time and energy and by even going in to the discussion you let them drag you down to their level.
Post reply on HN