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Leap: An Online Community for Women

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#131

Post by eevilspock »

rev_bird wrote: post #78
fvdessen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The measurable advantage men have in the tech community What is that advantage and how is it measured ?

As I noted above, "advantage" was the wrong word, my apologies. There's tons of information out there about the disproportionate number of men working in tech, to say nothing of the salary discrepancies that cause so much drama here. At the end of the day, women say they feel that they feel isolated by an industry that is overwhelmingly male, and that being able to connect with other women and discuss their experienc…

What do you mean "advantage" is the wrong word? In general men clearly have an advantage in tech. Denying it is like denying that white people generally have an advantage in America.

That you feel compelled to apologize reflects the self-preserving power of this male advantage.

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#132

Post by dang »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #45
rev_bird wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Wouldn't Leap be unfair in the same way? This assumption completely disregards the measurable advantage men have in the tech community. If you have identical programs, one for a historically disenfranchised group, and one for the group that's been in power for decades, only one of those programs is shitty. edit: "Advantage" was a poor choice of words, but since it's been quoted in replies I'll leave it. I meant some…

> This assumption completely disregards the measurable advantage men have in the tech community. There is obviously an imbalance in the industry, but can you please provide proof that this is due to an advantage that men have? > If you have identical programs, one for a historically disenfranchised group, and one for the group that's been in power for decades, only one of those programs is shitty. Why would fighting…

> Why would fighting racism with racism or sexism with sexism be a productive

Here you cross into making this yet another same-old generic ideological thread, thus guaranteeing repetition and tedium. What more we can do to explain to HNers that this is where discussions become off topic because the light/heat ratio goes to zero? I realize the line isn't obvious when a topic starts out close to it anyhow. But you know, it especially isn't obvious when you aren't consciously looking for it in the first place. Since you have a habit of doing this in HN threads and stand out as a user who's done particular damage this way—unintentionally I'm sure—we need you to do a better job with this.

Perhaps the following heuristic would help. If a comment breaks away from the specific content of the specific story and becomes generically ideological, it's on the wrong side of the line and you probably should not post it.

Note that this doesn't have to do with the ideologies or politics in question, or what view you're arguing for. It has to do with generic discussions being boring in HN's sense of the word.

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#133

Post by rev_bird »

spodek wrote: post #122
rev_bird wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know how right now you're offended, and feeling left out just because of your gender? That's how some women in tech feel all the time. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16160940

That poster didn't seem offended to me. More curious. It's not obvious if the person is male or female or feeling left out. If some women feel that way anyway, are you suggesting that making more people feel that way helps or makes it not sexist? Tech pushes many people out, male and female. Even if the men in tech are the same, what about the men who would like to be in tech but were pushed out? Or are all men the s…

>Tech pushes many people out, male and female. Even if the men in tech are the same, what about the men who would like to be in tech but were pushed out? Or are all men the same?

I'd wager most men "pushed out" of tech weren't fleeing sexism and gender-based isolation. This whole thing seems like looking at a team of 10 -- nine men and one woman -- and, when the woman says, "Gee, it'd be nice to have another woman to talk to," responding by saying "Well how about you just talk to us nine guys instead? Wouldn't that be just as good?"

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#134

Post by notyourday »

rubicon33 wrote: post #50
probably_wrong wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll go straight to the difficult questions: 1. I thought gender-based discrimination was illegal. How is Leap not illegal? 2. One of the main objections of "gentleman's clubs" was that their (male) members had access to important networking contacts, putting women in unequal foot in an unfair way when it came to businesses. Wouldn't Leap be unfair in the same way?

I am interested in the answers to these tough questions as well. I can sympathize with the position women are in and can understand the strong desire to form an organization like Leap. To that end, I applaud and support them. However, I do wonder about comments like this: > "a community where the core culture was set by women, and the software and product decisions were also made by women" Progressives are currently…

Just wait until the real fun starts - it will soon become apparent that among a group that identifies as "women" there are those who would command the vast majority of the available resources, just like it happens among the group that identifies as "men" at which point that group would also need to be sliced and diced into subgroups with specific rules applied towards say... cis-women vs. non-cis-women or cis-women-that-look-like-karlie-kloss (or Iman)

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#137

Post by ambivalents »

rarec wrote: post #119
ambivalents wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This once again reads as an illustration of the problem. This isn't an issue of double standards. You do understand the difference in experiences, right, between members of a group comprised and in support of a minority/systematically-unrepresented group, and a counterpart group comprised of a majority/the ones often perpetuating (even if indirectly) this imbalance?

I do. However, I'm not sure how that means that a subset of the majority cannot also have their own exclusive spaces while also allowing a minority to have the same. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a woman only support group and find the idea of Leap great. What is the problem you're stating, in this case, that a woman only group can solve that one comprised of men and women could not? Genuine question. If the an…

> What is the problem you're stating, in this case, that a woman only group can solve that one comprised of men and women could not? Genuine question.

To me, as a member of this minority group, I see this service as offering a solution to one aspect of (but obviously not the entire) problem: that of community and validation. A de facto understanding based on shared experiences. It does not mean that men can't understand and can't help, but that comes later or alongside this component of building strength in numbers.

If you are the only woman on a dev team, for example, who at work can you talk to openly about your experiences without fear of judgment/professional repercussion? We've seen what HR is (in)capable of in stories like what surfaced at Uber. And the men on your team may be the most emotionally intelligent, compassionate beings but they still won't be able to fully empathize. Maybe they will say, "I hear you, and I think that is awful, so what can I do to help?" (which IMO is a wonderful response), but they likely can't say, "I know exactly what you mean."

I hope people don't see Leap as a vilification of the majority. I have signed up for the beta but haven't used it yet, so I don't actually know what the overall culture is like. I sincerely doubt it was anyone's intent to alienate men, but rather to create a safer space for women than the tech world at large generally provides.

ETA: To address your point about a men's group--you're right that it probably wouldn't be received well, which isn't fair. But it also wouldn't be getting much of my sympathies, as its need for existence is altogether different.

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#138

Post by fvdessen »

rev_bird wrote: post #78
fvdessen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The measurable advantage men have in the tech community What is that advantage and how is it measured ?

As I noted above, "advantage" was the wrong word, my apologies. There's tons of information out there about the disproportionate number of men working in tech, to say nothing of the salary discrepancies that cause so much drama here. At the end of the day, women say they feel that they feel isolated by an industry that is overwhelmingly male, and that being able to connect with other women and discuss their experienc…

> At the end of the day, women say they feel that they feel isolated by an industry that is overwhelmingly male.

I would like to offer another point of view; A lot of the males who ended up in that industry are, to be blunt, social rejects. They were not the popular kids in high school, but those guys who were playing magic in the corner. Being a male in IT is a big stigma in the outside world. Nerd and Geek are still insults. There are entire sitcoms (IT Guys, Big Bang Theory) designed to laugh at them. Many dating website have the option to filter out men working in IT. I usually hide the fact that I work in IT and have found it very beneficial.

Now that there's money and power involved, things are changing a bit. But I still feel that a large reason that the IT community is like it is because it was simply excluded from society at large for a long time and still is in a way.

I think that people coming now and turning the table around with such righteousness is a bit insensitive. How would you feel about being excluded from the club you build for yourself after having been excluded from everywhere else ?

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#139

Post by rev_bird »

oh_sigh wrote: post #123
rev_bird wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know how right now you're offended, and feeling left out just because of your gender? That's how some women in tech feel all the time. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16160940

...therefore the answer is to increase gender division? Should we also end racial violence by increasing racial violence?

This is nonsense, you're comparing "let's chat with each other" with lynchings.

Problem: Women feel they don't have anyone to talk to about their experiences as a woman in tech.

Solution: Increase their access to people they can talk to about their experiences as a woman in tech. Like, say, an online community.

Re: Leap: An Online Community for Women

#140

Post by adfm »

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #103
adfm wrote: post #67

We all need a safe space to come in from the cold. When you feel vulnerable, you want to communicate with friendly, like-minded people. However, you'll find more noise within an echo chamber and that jerks exist regardless of gender. This sort of gender-specific walled garden is nothing new and I suppose will always attract a certain stereotype. Here's an old Anthony Lewis post from 1994 that may sober folks on the i…

>Michael Godwin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a public-interest law firm, made the same point -- if slightly less elegantly -- about the Santa Rosa case. People who objected to the computer message, he said, "should have called the guy who posted the message a jerk." Call an obnoxious speaker a jerk: what a useful formula, what an intelligent way to get the resentment off your chest without starting down the…

Do I find a mens club repugnant? Yes, but I do appreciate comfortable chairs. As for Groucho, I suppose the subtlety of his humor falls on deaf ears.
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