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

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

#161

Post by lsy » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 3:48 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #144

lsy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Michael Moorcock: Several reviewers accused you of saying that all intercourse was rape. I haven't found a hint of that anywhere in the book. Is that what you are saying? Dworkin: No, I wasn't saying that and I didn't say that, then or ever.… My point was that as long as the law allows statutory exemption for a husband from rape charges, no married woman has legal protection from rape. I also argued, based on a readi…

I understand Dworkin says she didn't say that. Here is the actual quote, which seems very different from the 'point' above: > A human being has a body that is inviolate; and when it is violated, it is abused. A woman has a body that is penetrated in intercourse: permeable, its corporeal solidness a lie. The discourse of male truth --literature, science, philosophy, pornography-- calls that penetration violation. This…

If you read this in context, it's clear that she's saying "this is the view of patriarchal society", not "this is how things should be".

Later in the same chapter you're quoting from, Dworkin says:

> Women have also wanted intercourse to work in this sense: women have wanted intercourse to be, for women, an experience of equality and passion, sensuality and intimacy. Women have a vision of love that includes men as human too; and women want the human in men, including in the act of intercourse. Even without the dignity of equal power, women have believed in the redeeming potential of love. There has been—despite the cruelty of exploitation and forced sex—a consistent vision for women of a sexuality based on a harmony that is both sensual and possible… These visions of a humane sensuality based in equality are in the aspirations of women; and even the nightmare of sexual inferiority does not seem to kill them. They are not searching analyses into the nature of intercourse; instead they are deep, humane dreams that repudiate the rapist as the final arbiter of reality. They are an underground resistance to both inferiority and brutality, visions that sustain life and further endurance.

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

#162

Post by ohitsdom » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 3:49 PM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #116

geofft wrote: post #7

This is from 2013. It seems like a response to something, possibly one of Shanley's essays that's now no longer on Medium; I can't help but feel that I'm missing context as I get towards the end. This also seems like a straightforward example of how mainstream feminism is bad at intersectionality. Arguably both sides in this discussion are not great at it: I feel like there's probably a good answer that involves neit…

Is it wrong to object to Shanley for the same reason I object to Tourvalds?

Which is?

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

#163

Post by Lawtonfogle » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 3:49 PM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #70

astazangasta wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming that because something can be diagnosed it must exist in fact.

Why is this downvoted? Wasn't homosexuality treated as a mental illness?

But it does exist. Diagnosing it wasn't the issue, it was labeling it as an illness that was. Of course, this opens the big question as to what is or isn't an illness, especially when you begin to look at things given hypothetical accepting societies that may not currently exist.

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

#164

Post by justizin » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 3:49 PM UTC

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".

When I read this, I thought to myself, this is probably the one person on every project that basically finds some irrational reason to reject basically any idea.

"It came from a woman" is one of the most irrational reasons I can imagine, but such a person also probably applies countless prejudices with no basis.

And this behavior is probably tolerated because some people on the project feel they can't get by without this person, which leads to subtle social cues that continue to fuel this behavior.

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

#165

Post by normloman » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 3:51 PM UTC

mafribe wrote: post #87

lukeasrodgers wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a man, and feminist, and have spoken with many other feminists over the years, and read a lot of feminist literature, philosophy, cultural criticism, etc. In my experience I'd say less than 1% of feminism/feminists have anything to do with being against men. I'm having a hard time thinking of anything, actually, I could reasonably describe as promoting this view. Maybe some radical stuff from the 70s, like Fires…

I'm a man and have spoken with many other feminists over the years, and read a lot of feminist literature, philosophy, cultural criticism, etc. In my experience I'd say that more than 99% of feminism/feminists have all to do with being against men. I'm having a hard time thinking of anything, actually, I could reasonably describe as not promoting this view. Maybe some radical stuff from the 70s, like Firestone, makes…

Feminism back then was different than feminism today. Most young feminists oppose alimony, since it assumes women can't support themselves, and is unfair to men. Feminists long ago supposed alimony when most women were house keepers, and alimony was important to giving them independence following divorce.

I agree, some of the stuff from the 70s was downright incendiary (shooting Andy Warhol, etc). But feminism has evolved.

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

#166

Post by traverseda » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 3:51 PM UTC

justizin wrote: post #155

traverseda wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When one side has a clear advantage, it is not. I suspect this is the big difference driving a lot of this debate. You see a clear advantage, I see a lot of small advantages in specific situations, along with personal preferences. To a lot of us, it's not a clear advantage. I definitely make more money, but I'm much more likely to commit suicide or become homeless. I'm a lot more likely to be injured on the job.

Right, and I mean, /sure/ the slaves don't have freedom, but they also don't have to pay bills and stuff. It pretty much washes out.

Not sure I understand what point you're trying to get at here.

I understand that you think there's a very obvious advantage, but I don't really understand why. Said advantage isn't obvious to me.

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

#167

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 3:53 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #139

rayiner wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "shut up and build things" position embodies the tacit assumption that the world naturally pushes itself to an equillibrium that is fair and just. The assumption that racism and sexism result in elastic deformation of society that will go away as soon as you remove whatever force is warping it. I don't think history bears that out. Society is a soft ductile metal. If you bend it, it'll stay bent. You have to hamm…

"The "shut up and build things" position embodies the tacit assumption that the world naturally pushes itself to an equillibrium that is fair and just." It does not. It embodies the tacit assumption that some people prefer to spend their time building something tangible rather than devoting their lives tilting at the windmills of eradicating racism, sexism, and all the other bigotries endemic to our society. Tilting…

[deleted]

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

#168

Post by n0us » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 3:53 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #88

The author is a friend of mine. What I say below is something I've discussed with her. I think the last great frontier for humanity's "waking up from history" is awareness of group psychology, particularly the psychology of the "other." Ironically, as noted by GCP Grey, widespread access to the Internet has actually made such group psychology worse . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc One of the big problems…

Hegel's Philosophy of History comes to mind here.

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

#169

Post by ajmurmann » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 3:54 PM UTC

justizin wrote: post #150

jimbokun wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The "shut up and build things" position embodies the tacit assumption that the world naturally pushes itself to an equillibrium that is fair and just." It does not. It embodies the tacit assumption that some people prefer to spend their time building something tangible rather than devoting their lives tilting at the windmills of eradicating racism, sexism, and all the other bigotries endemic to our society. Tilting…

> Tilting at those windmills is important, and might be a cause worthy of devoting your life to it, but it's not everyone's calling. "Tilting at windmills" means attacking imaginary enemies, you really can't have it both ways of calling work on eradicating racism, sexism, and other bigotries "Tilting at windmills" and then say it's important. Further, eradicating racism, sexism, etc.. IS EVERYONE'S CALLING. If you do…

Your comment is fascinating because it is a glaring example of what another commenter described "you are either with or against us" attitude that the extrimist parts of any movement show. I understood the person you responded to to see your cause as a good one and thus be on your side. If you attack anyone who doesn't want to go on a crusade you will never achieve what you set out to and will in fact drive people off. Not to mention that you will be very frustrated.

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

#170

Post by michaelochurch » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 3:55 PM UTC

If we want to have a meaningful discussion about sexism in tech, it's time to talk about what we're up against, and it involves all of us: not just women and minorities. If it doesn't involve us now, it will in 20 years when we're two decades older, because ageism is just as much of a problem in the tech industry as the other "isms".

There isn't an above-baseline sexism among long-term professional programmers. Sure, there are bad apples, but the culture that you'll find at a gray-haired research lab or even a more traditional, supposedly conservative, enterprise shop is not nearly as exclusionary as the supposedly progressive and new Silicon Valley culture.

By stereotype, you'd expect 60-year-old men writing elevator controllers in Indiana to be far more sexist and exclusionary than 25-year-olds in California. It ain't true. First of all, someone who's 60 now was born in 1955 and has no meaningful memories of the bad old days; by the time he or she was starting a career, women were already in the workforce and it was accepted by many as a good thing. Second, if you control for education, the age vs. exclusionary behavior correlation goes away. Third, most people actually get more mature with age, and while there are some who mature at a lesser rate than society advances and become the "racist grandparent" trope, I don't think that it's the norm. (Also, American society's rate of advancement has slowed in the past 30 years compared to the 30 before that, but that's another topic.) Fourth, anyone who thinks the dominant Silicon Valley culture is still liberal has been asleep for 20 years.

That's not to say that private sector tech doesn't have a sexist, exclusionary culture. It does. It doesn't come from the programmers (although there are individual programmers who are assholes and keep it going). Rather, it comes from the mainstream business culture (MBA culture) that colonized us. In fact, the sexism of the Damasos (see: https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/vc-istan-8-t... ) who are sent West to boss nerds around is a lot more severe than that of the mainstream MBA culture. Banks might make it harder for women to advance; venture capitalists, on the other hand, will outright hit on them and threaten to "pick up a phone" and make them unfundable if they don't acquiesce.

You know how when a criminal gang kicks out some of its underperforming members and they form a new gang, the upstart young gang is typically more violent than the one it splintered off from? The sexism of the VC bros and the Spiegel types they fund is analogous. The demigods of the Valley are people who got kicked out of mainstream business culture because they weren't smart enough to do statistical arbitrage at hedge funds, so they were sent West to man this colonial outpost (from the MBA-culture perspective) called Silicon Valley. As MBA-culture failures, it's not surprising that they amplify some of that culture's worst traits, and that they've created a dominant culture in Silicon Valley that is (a) very negative and (b) far worse than the more superficially conservative (no sandals at work) but generally professional culture you see in more traditional companies, including the ones doing (say) hardware work and low-level programming, the latter of which seems to be the OP's interest.

She had a positive experience because she was hanging around Real Technologists, who aren't nearly as sexist as the Silicon Valley wunderkinder. The Shanleys of the world aren't complaining about 55-year-old men who still say "Oriental" (meaning no harm, and not holding racist views) but are generally professional and not very sexist (many are married and have daughters). They're complaining about 22-year-olds who get funded to the gills because they were in the same rape frat as a leading VC, and who go on to create horrible work cultures.