Nerds and Male Privilege • Hacker News Board

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#171

Post by sqrt17 » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:42 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #164

davidhansen wrote: post #28

I'm not sure why the author of this article somehow thinks that geeks deny the existence of sexism in geek culture. The reality is that it's widely known and accepted. If the author wants to find something to rail against, he should have chosen the fact that everybody knows, but nobody cares . I'm not going to defend the treatment of women in geek culture, as much of it is indefensible. but it seems that few people b…

Some geeks certainly deny the sexism -- he gives an example of one -- so I think an article on male privilege has to start out there. I also think trauma can work both ways. My abuse for being a nerd didn't teach me that women were bad, it taught me that being mistreated for being different is bad. Ergo my hatred of sexist behavior in my industry. More generally trauma can explain bad behavior, but I don't think it e…

> Some geeks certainly deny the sexism -- he gives an example of one -- so I think an article on male privilege has to start out there.

How is sexism a privilege? Sexism may be a bias, or as the grandparent hypothesizes, a lack of empathy;

Privilege may arise as a result of these biases (just as much as it would arise as a result of any other bias, against rural people, people with non-majority ethnicity, against unattached males over a certain age, etc.), but contrary to the title, the article is about sexism and not about privilege.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#172

Post by zasz » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:43 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #149

zasz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, just because females have advantages in some domains doesn't mean that their overall advantages in life are outweighed by the overall male advantages in life. Stuff like the salary gap, stereotype threat ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat ), and being expected to give up your career to be the one to raise the kids affect most adult women for most of their lives. Murder is a pretty rare event, and me…

On the other hand, stuff like the causes of the salary gap, stereotype threat, and being expected to give up contact with your kids to be the one raising money to bring them up affect most adult men for most of their lives. (There's support out there for heterosexual men giving up their careers to raise kids but only so long as this decision is made by the kids' mother based on what benefits her personally.) The wage…

Sure, it's sad men don't get to spend as much time with the kids, but the point is, they can have their career, and have at least some time with their children. Women very often just don't have that choice, and are forced to take just the kids. That sounds worse to me. (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/18616558/ns/today-books/t/why-...)

Also, women are actively punished for asking for more money, or being aggressive: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07... That has nothing to do with dangerous jobs, and that's a legitimate form of sexism that feminism has every right to address.

Do you have any figures for the "men are paid more because they take on more dangerous jobs" assertion? From the AMAs I've seen on Reddit, trash collection is not dangerous--just a low-status job, albeit a high-paying one with short hours.

Also, yes, I play vido games. I have not played Assassin's Creed, but my understanding is that historically, monks were men, so if you're going to assassinate the pope, he's going to be surrounded by men. I have, though, slaughtered a lot of male and female citizens of Vault City while playing Fallout 2.

The vibe I'm getting from your post is, "feminism isn't doing enough to eliminate the negative implications of gender roles for men, and it is therefore invalid." Or maybe it's something more like, "hey, men suffer a lot too, why are you spending so much time paying attention to women?" In which case, the simple reply is that while gender roles can negatively affect both genders, women seem to have the worst of it.

I mean, black men have this reputation for having gigantic dicks and being able to dance, which reflects badly on white men in comparison, but you'd have to be insane to prefer being a black man to a white man in America. I hear Eminem has a hard time being a white rapper in a black man's world, but it would be silly to feel sorry for him. And in a similar vein, I don't feel nearly as sorry for men as I do for women.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#173

Post by zasz » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:43 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #149

zasz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, just because females have advantages in some domains doesn't mean that their overall advantages in life are outweighed by the overall male advantages in life. Stuff like the salary gap, stereotype threat ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat ), and being expected to give up your career to be the one to raise the kids affect most adult women for most of their lives. Murder is a pretty rare event, and me…

On the other hand, stuff like the causes of the salary gap, stereotype threat, and being expected to give up contact with your kids to be the one raising money to bring them up affect most adult men for most of their lives. (There's support out there for heterosexual men giving up their careers to raise kids but only so long as this decision is made by the kids' mother based on what benefits her personally.) The wage…

Sure, it's sad men don't get to spend as much time with the kids, but the point is, they can have their career, and have at least some time with their children. Women very often just don't have that choice, and are forced to take just the kids. That sounds worse to me. (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/18616558/ns/today-books/t/why-...)

Also, women are actively punished for asking for more money, or being aggressive: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07... That has nothing to do with dangerous jobs, and that's a legitimate form of sexism that feminism has every right to address.

Do you have any figures for the "men are paid more because they take on more dangerous jobs" assertion? From the AMAs I've seen on Reddit, trash collection is not dangerous--just a low-status job, albeit a high-paying one with short hours.

Also, yes, I play vido games. I have not played Assassin's Creed, but my understanding is that historically, monks were men, so if you're going to assassinate the pope, he's going to be surrounded by men. I have, though, slaughtered a lot of male and female citizens of Vault City while playing Fallout 2.

The vibe I'm getting from your post is, "feminism isn't doing enough to eliminate the negative implications of gender roles for men, and it is therefore invalid." Or maybe it's something more like, "hey, men suffer a lot too, why are you spending so much time paying attention to women?" In which case, the simple reply is that while gender roles can negatively affect both genders, women seem to have the worst of it.

I mean, black men have this reputation for having gigantic dicks and being able to dance, which reflects badly on white men in comparison, but you'd have to be insane to prefer being a black man to a white man in America. I hear Eminem has a hard time being a white rapper in a black man's world, but it would be silly to feel sorry for him. And in a similar vein, I don't feel nearly as sorry for men as I do for women.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#174

Post by zasz » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:43 PM UTC

davidhansen wrote: post #28

I'm not sure why the author of this article somehow thinks that geeks deny the existence of sexism in geek culture. The reality is that it's widely known and accepted. If the author wants to find something to rail against, he should have chosen the fact that everybody knows, but nobody cares . I'm not going to defend the treatment of women in geek culture, as much of it is indefensible. but it seems that few people b…

Look at all these comments. I see a lot of geeks denying that sexism exists. The appeals to hunter-gatherer psychology are especially precious.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#175

Post by wpietri » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:45 PM UTC

spindritf wrote: post #146

zasz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, just because females have advantages in some domains doesn't mean that their overall advantages in life are outweighed by the overall male advantages in life. Stuff like the salary gap, stereotype threat ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat ), and being expected to give up your career to be the one to raise the kids affect most adult women for most of their lives. Murder is a pretty rare event, and me…

> the salary gap Men don't earn more money for being men (not any more at least, if it was ever true): > according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00....

Amazing what happens when you read the whole article: you discover that a) this is a market research survey guy, and b) his theory is due to the fact that the women are better educated, and therefore better qualified.

Which means that this is definitely not evidence that evidence that women get paid the same as men when all else is equal.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#176

Post by philwelch » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:49 PM UTC

jcnnghm wrote: post #110

wanorris wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege". http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ You may disagree with the analysis behind the list's construction, but I see little if anything on that list that obviously gets crossed off the list by virtue of being a geek. Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the id…

Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist? For example, while women may be asked to smile by random people (44), they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims. Or, while females spend more time grooming than men (27), they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by mothers who do not like the way they look. There can be some t…

> Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist?

Yes:

http://www.the-niceguy.com/articles/Checklist.html

http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2008/06/08/female-privil...

http://mensresistance.wordpress.com/female-privilege-checkli...

(Note: I don't necessarily agree with or endorse everything on every one of these lists, but the point is very much made.)

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#177

Post by wpietri » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:50 PM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #81

wanorris wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege". http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ You may disagree with the analysis behind the list's construction, but I see little if anything on that list that obviously gets crossed off the list by virtue of being a geek. Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the id…

Hmm, there are a few things on that list that don't seem to ring true, or at least seem to be leaving out large portions of the picture. For example: "41. Assuming I am heterosexual, magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are rarer." The last issue of Playboy that I…

Are you seriously equating topless men and topless women as socially equivalent, disempowering sexual objectification?

That seems of a piece with your theory that the point of topless men in Playboy ads and action movies is to appeal sexually to women.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#178

Post by wpietri » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:52 PM UTC

Hi! It turns out that discussions about privilege are not entirely novel. If you would like to avoid making an argument that is a) missing the point, and b) common enough to be listed in a catalog, start here:

http://derailingfordummies.com/

Arguments of that form are already all over this thread, so you can also use this as a bingo card.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#179

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:53 PM UTC

Helianthus wrote: post #23

Is it problematic that I'm sick of gender on HN? "Raising awareness" doesn't mean much when it essentially provokes the same inconsequential firefights. Can we just agree that men are pigs, women feel entitled, everyone's an asshole, startups need good engineers, and stop it? All this article really shows me is that the girlfriend was correct to avoid going into a comic book store. You cannot control culture you cann…

[deleted]

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#180

Post by philwelch » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 6:54 PM UTC

wazoox wrote: post #153

jcnnghm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist? For example, while women may be asked to smile by random people (44), they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims. Or, while females spend more time grooming than men (27), they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by mothers who do not like the way they look. There can be some t…

> they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims. Murder is an incredibly rare occurrence in most countries and social environments. On the other hand, women are a huge majority among rape victims, and this is not exceptional: 5 to 10% of all women are sexually abused at some point (depends upon the country, again). > Perhaps the focus of all these stupid gender articles…

> On the other hand, women are a huge majority among rape victims

No one is even going to listen to a man complaining he has been raped, so I very highly doubt the validity of those numbers.