I know my comment will be deemed unsubstantive but I have to say: as a man I felt identified in that text, all women I've been with were like that. That's why the idea of consent feels so alien to me: it goes against my very experience with the (different) women I've been with.
How shutting out men from the conversation is an obstacle to change
11–20 of 56 posts
Re: How shutting out men from the conversation is an obstacle to change
#12I think if more men were capable of making such a well thought out and logical argument we’d be farther along, but in many cases men have been extremely defensive and the most attention has gone to those responses rather than something more substantial such as this. That women are socialized to not be the aggressors and must be pursued not be seen as promiscuous is another problem that feeds into unclear boundaries r…
I am one of the men who feels defensive, although I try very hard to see both sides. I assume you also wish to know the thoughts of detractors so I'll tell you how I feel and why, and you can decide if you believe me. The topic of social justice is very broad and I'll touch on it broadly as it's (sadly) very complex to distill but needs to be mentioned because the context is incredibly important; I would like to focu…
Listen to that man, [ world ] [ each continent ]
[ each Davos ] [ each investor ]
[ each billionaire ] [ each head of state ] .............................. comment was on dijit's post, for those skim reading
Re: How shutting out men from the conversation is an obstacle to change
#13I think if more men were capable of making such a well thought out and logical argument we’d be farther along, but in many cases men have been extremely defensive and the most attention has gone to those responses rather than something more substantial such as this. That women are socialized to not be the aggressors and must be pursued not be seen as promiscuous is another problem that feeds into unclear boundaries r…
I am one of the men who feels defensive, although I try very hard to see both sides. I assume you also wish to know the thoughts of detractors so I'll tell you how I feel and why, and you can decide if you believe me. The topic of social justice is very broad and I'll touch on it broadly as it's (sadly) very complex to distill but needs to be mentioned because the context is incredibly important; I would like to focu…
I read and thought about your comment for a while because I am also a white male, mid 30's, low end of the socioeconomic status in my childhood, and at one time had a lot of the same thoughts as you.
Here's what changed my mind. I'm speaking just about my own experiences, it may or may not be useful to you.
1. I realized that survivorship bias was clouding my judgement. This was tough to accept because I first had to philosophically accept that life isn't fair and random chance plays a meaningful factor in everyday life.
2. I realized that this movement isn't about me. When I get defensive over a statement that is statistically true about white men, I'm trying to find a place for myself in a movement that has very little to do with me. I realized that there is and will continue to be a wide gulf between what is true in general and true statistically. Both are important, but in different contexts.
3. I discovered that I had a very poor idea of what non-male and non-white people experience on a day-to-day basis. Even after hearing it I didn't understand until I found myself quitting a job over what were essentially microaggressions towards something I cared a lot about.
For example, when I was in high school there were several different ways to go through school. You could be college-bound by taking the right courses to meet entry requirements. Or you could take a more vocational track through high school, and so on. My guidance counselor assume I would go to college -- it was just treated as fact. A female friend of mine that had a similar GPA to myself had to threaten to sue to get her counselor to schedule the right courses for her. She was successful in college.
One instance of that is trivial, a lifetime of that bullshit weighs you down.
4. I understood that I cannot call for fairness in my own life because I'm way beyond what's fair already. Life isn't fair. It isn't fair that people die of cancer. It isn't fair that people can work themselves to the bone all their life and remain destitute. If I want to yell about fairness for myself, it only makes sense if I'm willing to yell about fairness for everyone else (because if life is "fair" for me, but not anyone else, it isn't really "fair" is it?). If we were to make the world a fair place in socioeconomic terms, given that there are 7 billion people on the planet, is is exceedingly likely that I would lose some privilege. Thus, if I lose some privilege over the course of my life, I choose to be thankful for the extra privilege I had when I was younger, rather than fretting about how much I can accumulate for the future.
5. I stopped engaging with people that were very angry or very toxic about the subject. Though I have a much better understanding now of where that anger comes from, I realized it was subtly affecting my own perceptions and thinking. There's value in limiting the noise a bit.
Re: How shutting out men from the conversation is an obstacle to change
#14A while back I read about a study that found that when a woman is friendly toward a man she doesn't have sexual feelings toward, often the male will mistakenly believe that she does, and act on those feelings.
My response was, how is the male supposed to tell the difference? If there is a clear, observable behavior difference between how women behave when they are sexually attracted, and when they are just being friendly, then females should explain it to males when they get old enough to be interested.
On the other hand, if there is no observable difference, then females are just creating problems and should not be surprised if things go badly.
Women want to be respected as equals. That's fine, but in some ways respect has to be earned, and part of how you earn respect is by being open in the signals you send other people, instead of expecting them to read your mind, and then being upset when they fail to do this correctly.
Re: How shutting out men from the conversation is an obstacle to change
#15I suspect people will be reactionary because of the title, but the content is much different than what I was personally expecting. As a corollary to the article; I've always felt it's critical not to assume too much as a man. The line between being assertive and creepy is very fuzzy and depends entirely on the womans perception of you (which, is essentially unknowable). There is no easy answer, men will in most cases…
I'm a single man, I date, and it's confusing as hell. The examples given in the article are no surprise to me since my whole adult life has been peppered with similar events. Women who later tell me they wanted to sleep with me but I didn't push hard enough, etc. Not pushing women to sleep with me has likely cost me a lot of opportunities, but it's also meant I haven't accidentally assaulted someone. On my birthday I…
I suspect that "how assertive should I be" is the wrong question to ask-- there are many ways of being "assertive", only some of which work well! As a society, we are still in the process of developing-- and raising awareness about-- workable and effective sexual/dating "scripts" that men can stick to, and trust that they won't run into obvious problems. As the article hopefully makes clear, even the outwardly-trivial problem of how to ascertain full consent in a way that doesn't "ruin the mood" for the typical girl who was expecting the guy to "just man up and go for it!" is far from easy to solve. (This is not to say that such solutions, and more generally, such workable scripts don't exist somewhere already - the whole problem however is how to coalesce trust around them, from both the "male" and "female" perspective.)
Re: How shutting out men from the conversation is an obstacle to change
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am one of the men who feels defensive, although I try very hard to see both sides. I assume you also wish to know the thoughts of detractors so I'll tell you how I feel and why, and you can decide if you believe me. The topic of social justice is very broad and I'll touch on it broadly as it's (sadly) very complex to distill but needs to be mentioned because the context is incredibly important; I would like to focu…
I read and thought about your comment for a while because I am also a white male, mid 30's, low end of the socioeconomic status in my childhood, and at one time had a lot of the same thoughts as you. Here's what changed my mind. I'm speaking just about my own experiences, it may or may not be useful to you. 1. I realized that survivorship bias was clouding my judgement. This was tough to accept because I first had to…
Many people whom we would all consider racists only ever state things that are statistically true about groups of people.
Re: How shutting out men from the conversation is an obstacle to change
#17I suspect people will be reactionary because of the title, but the content is much different than what I was personally expecting. As a corollary to the article; I've always felt it's critical not to assume too much as a man. The line between being assertive and creepy is very fuzzy and depends entirely on the womans perception of you (which, is essentially unknowable). There is no easy answer, men will in most cases…
I’ve simply come to believe that online dating is the safest way for people to evaluate partners. There is demonstrated intent on both ends. It’s like google’s search intent being the value. Online dating provides safety through... intent of intimacy I guess
> I’ve simply come to believe that online dating is the safest way for people to evaluate partners.
I came to the opposite conclusion. If your potential partner can overpower you, then you have to worry about being assaulted or murdered by a complete stranger before you even get the chance to evaluate them.
Sure, you might meet a drifter at a bar that no one knows and thus can get away with harming you more easily, but online dating significantly lowers the barrier of entry for malevolent actors, especially those who wish to remain somewhat anonymous.
Re: How shutting out men from the conversation is an obstacle to change
#18Maybe we've redefined what patriarchy means, but going by the dictionary this article, and the associated viewpoint, is clearly reversing the cause and effect. In context of broad society patriarchy is "control by men of a disproportionately large share of power". It is obvious that, given there are a small number of leadership roles, if one gender is more assertive, aggressive or violent (or indeed prone to risk tak…
> Patriarchy doesn't cause male behavior, male behavior causes patriarchy.
You say this as if women have zero agency. To accept your statement at face value, you would first have to assume so.
It is far more likely that male _and_ female behavior causes patriarchy, otherwise it would have been bred out of existence.
I believe that if you see a problem as "caused by men", then you're just looking for a bogeyman and not working in good faith to solve an issue.
Re: How shutting out men from the conversation is an obstacle to change
#19A while back I read about a study that found that when a woman is friendly toward a man she doesn't have sexual feelings toward, often the male will mistakenly believe that she does, and act on those feelings. My response was, how is the male supposed to tell the difference? If there is a clear, observable behavior difference between how women behave when they are sexually attracted, and when they are just being frie…
Start by assuming that not all women who are friendly towards you "want you." That default assumption seems to be ingrained in some (by no means all) men and that is what gets them in trouble.
If you start with the default assumption that women who are friendly are ... just being friendly then misunderstandings are far fewer. Most men who approach you are just being friendly rather than coming on to you. Do you require men to reassure you that they are not coming on to you as well? Most women are not into every man they interact with. It's not their job to convince you otherwise. It's your job not to assume.
Re: How shutting out men from the conversation is an obstacle to change
#20It seems odd to me that there's such a fervent obsession with women in technology, often times coming from men in technology. Why do I not see endless articles about female lawyers or female doctors or even really female engineers, and how we as a society treat them? There's probably a few reasons (I read Hacker News, not Lawyer News, for one), but allow me to offer a different explanation: there's just too many damn nerds. Tech is inherently more asocial than other fields, combine that with the unique (counter-)culture and you have a veritable melting pot of people who are awkward communicators with unconventional views who are slightly detached from reality.
What this means is that a) male-female gaps in communication skills are exacerbated, b) gender disparities are felt more and c) everyone, male and female, is more likely to respond anxiously (e.g. with negative internal feelings) to perceived slights. This leads to a self defeating obsession - the more we lose our collective shit over the gender gap, the more it will widen. I feel like in other industries there's flirting and office affairs and platonic relationships and power struggles and lots of other human messes, but tech people have a unique kind of anxiety surrounding male-female interactions.
Maybe I'm just projecting because I have had very few female friends and approaching women romantically turns me into spaghetti but it really seems plausible. Also note that the office that I work in has a pretty good ratio and thus I can say with confidence that the women are as much dweebs as the men are. And of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything to recruit women. But I think the best way is if everyone just calmed down for like 2-5 years.