Don't dumb girls down • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#101

Post by Meai » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 12:02 PM UTC

vectorpush wrote: post #64

ErrantX wrote: post #49

I was musing on this the other day (beware; anecdote alert!). I went out for some drinks with a friend of mine from a long time ago - he is certainly not the sharpest of individuals, but a laugh and good fun in small doses (even if a lot of the jokes include farts :S). For some reason he is also constantly surrounded by very attractive women. I've seen him out and about before and thought "I'd like to have some of th…

I could recount similar anecdotes, I think there is a lot to be said for the way that women who put their intelligence on display are treated. A talented intelligent male with an ego is regarded as a condescending elitist genius, but the same traits ascribed to a female makes her an intolerable bitch.

That is such a stereotype. If you are genuinely nice and intelligent, I can assure you that men would be very eager to battle their wits against yours. Most women just don't hold up to their own claims and they see such "attacks" as personal ; but the reality is that men are suddenly treating you as equal and you don't like it. Men do not discard a valuable member of a team just because of gender, that is ridiculous.

In my experience women are more prone to claiming intelligence despite actual intelligence. Please be aware that I do not claim to be intelligent myself. In fact, I'm pretty darn stupid. It just makes it that much more apparent when I'm faced with such claims.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#102

Post by paradoja » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 12:11 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #28

This article is talking only about one part of the story, while it can't be denied that people demand girls to look good. At the same time, girls themselves get into peer pressure easily. Very quickly in their lives they get the feeling that in order to be 'looked at' you have to be beautiful. I am not saying that guys don't suffer from this, but girls suffer from this more than guys. Its like the TV channels competi…

    Not that such a thing is not desirable for men, but its just that men won't chase it at all.

Give it time for marketing departments to do their jobs...

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#103

Post by robertskmiles » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 12:11 PM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #65

robertskmiles wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? > by saying "citation needed" what you actually say is "I don't really care for your opinion". You're saying "I don't care for your random opinion you could have pulled out of your ass with no correspondence to the real world, please demonstrate that you didn't just make that up." When you make a claim that you want to be taken seriously, cite your source. It's not hard, and it's sure as hell not any…

So is this the new standard for conversations in the age of the iPad? In any conversation, people will wildly touch their pads to get the sources to show off to their discussion partners? Doesn't make much sense to me... I consider HN a casual discussion, not a scientific discourse. I might snatch up some ideas - if they seem interesting, I can do research to learn more. If your first reaction to whatever I say is "y…

> In any conversation, people will wildly touch their pads to get the sources to show off to their discussion partners?

Well, in a 1-on-1 conversation, the value of n is 1, so, consistent with what I said, that would be dumb. In fact in a real-time face to face conversation, the time taken to cite the source is more like X(n+1), because while you're looking up the source, the listeners are likely to be just watching you look up the source, so you're using their time as well. Internet comment thread != real life conversation.

> If your first reaction to whatever I say is "you pulled that out of your ass" then yes, I think you don't have much respect towards me

My first reaction to an unsupported claim is "You could have pulled that out of your ass", because you could have. And no, I don't have that much respect for random strangers on the internet, because I don't know you, I don't have any reason to believe you have any relevant expertise, I don't know your motives, I can't observe your body language, tone and facial expressions, which would normally help me tell if a person knows what they're talking about. I have nothing to go on, other than what you write, and if what you write has no support, I can't assume there is support for what you write.

> The point about efficiency is moot. A lot of people might already know the fact

If people already know something, there's no point in posting it. The only people for whom reading your post is worthwhile are people who don't already know it. They are your audience, and they are the people you are neglecting.

> On the other hand posting lots of sources could be irrelevant and a waste of time for the people who are already informed.

You just stick in a link to the source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink), it doesn't really get in anyone's way. If they're curious about the source, they click the link.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#104

Post by erikb » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 12:11 PM UTC

5hoom wrote: post #52

erikb wrote: post #10

I often read such articles from women, but never from men. After looking deeply at myself and how the world around me acts, I feel that it is really true: Women ARE evaluated mostly by their looks. Women who look good, wear good clothes, have a good makeup, will get what they want much more easily then others. To some degree that is also true for men. It is just how the world IS. So instead of teaching girls about th…

I think the issue is not that being attractive is bad, it's just that often that's the _only_ message that is consistently heard by young girls. Girls might hear positive messages about being smart, creative, independent, etc. from all sorts of well intentioned sources, but there isn't the same sort of powerful, all pervasive weight attached to them as the message that being attractive is important. Appearance is the…

The question is, does that come from society or would it be the same without society? I think there are also a lot of natural factors involved that drive this way of thinking. My thesis is, that to a bigger part society mimics the natural desire for beauty and attractiveness of women, not the other way around. What society creates by mimicing is absurd. No question about that. But that doesn't mean, most men would value a smart woman over a beautiful woman if there would be no society.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#105

Post by kamaal » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 12:12 PM UTC

wallflower wrote: post #98

I quote a HN comment from HilbertSpace in its entirety: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2111651 > "Way before age 5, the little girls realize that they are small versions of Mommy and NOT Daddy. They know in absolute terms that they are a GIRL and NOT a BOY. Since their mommy was happy being a mommy, the little girls want to be like Mommy and on the 'mommy track'. By about age 18 months, little girls are already…

From your post I get a feeling that the average girl is happy being what she is now. Then I fail to understand whats the need for posts in this thread's original link.And what is the complain all about? Looks like the girlish definition of 'dumb' is a lot more different than ours. If being good looking and beautiful is what makes them feel successful, then why isn't that goal worth chasing.

I do know when we talk of women in the military, or ones burning midnight oil in some software company chasing a tough deadline we talking of exceptions and outliers. Not all women want to be that, not all want physically stressful jobs which demand a lot of endurance. Not all want emotionally demanding jobs. Not all want to be in a place where working midnights and weekends is inevitable. Vast majority of them are just happy with current roles.

If so why should the whole majority of womenfolk change just for a few outliers?

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#106

Post by kamaal » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 12:16 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #91

kamaal wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you start doing that, you would spark off a new debate. "Don't tell girls how intelligent they are". Because then the very analogical argument will be used to say - telling girls they are intelligent is making them under perform in other areas. In short, if you are not ready work hard and do something on yourself by your work alone. There are plenty of reasons you can use to justify what you are.

In fact, you should not tell anyone how intelligent they are. Not because it makes them underperform in other areas, but because it makes them underperform in that area exactly by failing to teach them that it's hard work that matters. See e.g. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-...

So, now I fail to understand what people are after. You praise someone for something, it becomes a problem. You don't then its a different problem. You criticize, you get noted for being rude and discouraging.

The key here is to take what is good and beneficial out of a talk and just move on.

Else each social persuasion and thought can ruin your life everytime one hears some one speaking.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#107

Post by Goladus » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 12:17 PM UTC

Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything.

Appearance is almost always the first thing you notice about someone. I'm not sure pretending otherwise is especially practical or will really help much in the long run.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#108

Post by ErrantX » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 12:17 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #89

ErrantX wrote: post #49

I was musing on this the other day (beware; anecdote alert!). I went out for some drinks with a friend of mine from a long time ago - he is certainly not the sharpest of individuals, but a laugh and good fun in small doses (even if a lot of the jokes include farts :S). For some reason he is also constantly surrounded by very attractive women. I've seen him out and about before and thought "I'd like to have some of th…

Then I worked it out... they were acting as they were expected to (either by our perception or theirs) on a night out; shove on the lipstick, revert to street talk, laugh at fart jokes and play dumb around the men. I'm think, like me, you're British :-) So you probably know that British men generally go out and do exactly the same thing (minus the lipstick). The average British bloke on a night out is, unless he's on…

Yes, you're dead right there... I guess we are all lying to each other.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#109

Post by gyardley » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 12:18 PM UTC

saturn wrote: post #31

None of this advice applies to me, of course. As a man and therefore a child molesting rapist just waiting for my chance to strike, the idea that I could have any sort of conversation with a little girl - let alone sit down on a couch and talk privately - is simply laughable.

While parents, in general, distrust unknown men more than unknown women, that's not the situation described in the article. The woman was at a friend's house for a dinner party.

Unless some specific past behavior suggests that they shouldn't, parents do allow their friends to have conversations with their children. Don't ignore the advice in this article just because you want to make some unrelated point about a different set of gender relations.

Re: Don't dumb girls down

#110

Post by lutorm » Tue, Sep 06, 2011, 12:25 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #106

lutorm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, you should not tell anyone how intelligent they are. Not because it makes them underperform in other areas, but because it makes them underperform in that area exactly by failing to teach them that it's hard work that matters. See e.g. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-...

So, now I fail to understand what people are after. You praise someone for something, it becomes a problem. You don't then its a different problem. You criticize, you get noted for being rude and discouraging. The key here is to take what is good and beneficial out of a talk and just move on. Else each social persuasion and thought can ruin your life everytime one hears some one speaking.

So, now I fail to understand what people are after.

The mindset stuff is a scientific result, it's not "after" anything.

Maybe you think you are so strong-willed and independent that you are immune to this effect, but however dumb you feel it is, the majority of people (and kids especially) apparently are not.