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An open letter on feminism in tech

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Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#171

Post by joshuapants »

juridatenshi wrote: post #157
arzugula wrote: post #43

> Feminism is the radical notion that women are people, and that we want to be treated as equals. Don’t let someone else pretend otherwise out of their own misguided notions. So what do we call the feminists who work to suppress research that shows gender symmetry in domestic violence? What do we call the feminists who demonize men as rapists, deadbeats, child molesters, and abusers? What do we call the feminists who…

I see you've found the strawfeminists. http://www.harkavagrant.com/?id=341 HSSSSSSSSSS!

> Under patriarchy, every woman's son is her potential betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman.

Our Blood by Andrea Dworkin, 1976

It's not a strawmyn when it's based on reality. Not all feminists, not even all radical feminists espouse views like this, but they exist and to brush them under the rug impedes meaningful discourse.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#172

Post by taybin »

angersock wrote: post #145
sarajo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deleted as it wasn't a useful conversation either way.

Aaaand your lack of foresight makes both you and your gender/orientation/race look worse, and helps mean that the next time somebody tries to bring this up as a valid concern they'll be taken a bit less seriously.

It doesn't make her gender/orientation/race look worse. I've been critical of the article, but you're being ridiculous trying to blame a group for her comment and deletion. In fact, I suspect you already don't like those groups and this is just some confirmation bias on your part.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#173

Post by anuleczka »

hkmurakami wrote: post #150
mbillie1 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as a white male I see it constantly. I worked for what I would consider one of the best for women in tech (ThoughtWorks) and even there you see this stuff. So much more in other places. > Most of the engineers I know in tech are decent, upstanding guys. If anything, I feel like if any of us was pulled aside by a female co-worker and she described shenanigans of the sort I read about in these articles, we'd proba…

And reading articles like this (as much as our initial inclination may be to avoid looking at them) makes us reflect on the ways that we as decent, upstanding guys have missed the mark in the past. I've seen/heard of harassment'ish inappropriate comments made by a colleague and let it go unreported. Didn't even talk to the guy in person in private to subtly suggest that his behavior may be making our female colleague…

Thanks for your honesty. It's hard to be courageous, whether you're the victim or the bystander (since it means you put yourself at risk of being the next victim, yes?). But it's not impossible, so let's all try to remember that.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#174

Post by [deleted] »

optimusclimb wrote: post #84
jdp23 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as a male, I see this behavior regularly. If you're not seeing it, it's statistically highly unlikely that you're not coming into contact with it. Reading and understanding feminist perspectives can help you become more observant. Hacker News provides plenty of opportunities for practice identifying hostile-to-women comments. If you're not hearing about it through word of mouth, then it could be that you don't t…

If, in posting something out of concern, and in trying to understand something better, I still am going to get chastised for "doing it wrong", then it really is an uphill battle.

[deleted]

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#175

Post by rjknight »

sequoia wrote: post #120
optimusclimb wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said I find them unbelievable. Quite the opposite.

Why you appear not to believe them (I can't know your beliefs I can only guess based off the text of your comment): 1. Has any man here "heard of, or come into contact with any of" any of this behavior? 2. Personally, "I have never seen it anywhere I worked, or heard of that sort of thing through word of mouth..."* These statements suggest strong skepticism. Analogy: "Has anyone here actually experienced or come into…

It's not actually about skepticism, I think. It's more like this: some companies have so few women that there's no visible sexism! The kinds of incidents described in the OP don't happen because there are no women for them to happen to. The GP imagines that, if there were more women in his workplace, everything would continue as it is now except there would be more women. This is not an absurd expectation. But if we take the OP at face value (which I do) then we have to conclude that lots of women are facing harassment or other problems. We need to figure out if we're not seeing it because it's not there, or we're not seeing it because we have a blind spot somewhere.

The GP is asking other men how they feel that their workplaces handle these things - does it happen there, how frequent is it, what do people do about it? If you've never actually dealt with this kind of situation personally, it can be quite hard to imagine it happening - it is the sort of thing that any decent person should find abhorrent, and yet it does happen.

My perspective is kinda similar to the GP's - I've worked in male-dominated environments, I have never seen any harassment (although I have seen some obnoxious men) but this is because there are no women on my team to begin with! I have in the past pushed for specific outreach to female user/developer communities and have been disappointed by the lack of results this has produced.

I definitely have encountered men who hold overtly sexist attitudes - not many, almost certainly a minority of men I've worked with. As my career has progressed and my influence has increased, I've had to use it to counteract those opinions at times. It's just really difficult to work out how much of the problem is something I can directly control, and I think that's why the GP is asking the kinds of questions that he is.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#176

Post by _bfhp »

pgeorgi wrote: post #158
kevingadd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a better solution to propose, then?

I'd propose to be more careful when throwing "feminism" in the ring - it really is an umbrella term, and it makes it so much harder to discuss things because so much time is wasted looking for where the goal posts reside today. One potential downside is that deconstructing the umbrella also removes that feeling of speaking for a huge majority. I'd consider that a feature because it's a misleading notion.

Indeed. A good post on the shared properties and differences of feminisms: https://culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/share...

All women are different, but all women experienced girlhood, and experience male violence. Sadly most in the HN crowd don't have the proper familiarity to understand that kind of nuance.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#177

Post by mreiland »

lhnz wrote: post #75

>> We are not the 'nice feminists' of this community. > Being nice doesn’t work. We’ve been nice. In this article you were actually all nice and I read right to the bottom. I certainly do find it a lot easier to listen to and agree with people that aren't spilling hatred at me. I never want to feel like I'm giving time to somebody trying to extract some psychological harm as revenge on my gender - whether or not they…

>I don't think all men are out to get you. I also don't think there's a huge misogyny problem in the industry in comparison to some other industries and cultures I've mixed with. (Perhaps my bad luck.) This is my opinion from listening to the perspectives of the people around me and watching their behaviour around women. However I do think we have a significant diversity problem and that it's altering the interactions between men and women in the tech industry in a very bad way.

I think this is a fair assessment.

> Finally of course there'll be a large percentage of misogynistic or bitter (MRA) jerks that want to make you feel small so they can feel good - and unfortunately with the current diversity levels they have a voice. I can imagine it's enraging.

This is where the wheels come off, and the bias shows.

There's a large percentage of men who are either misogynistic, and /or MRA jerks? Why aren't feminists characterized as jerks? Why are you painting MRA as jerks, but apologizing to feminists if you've accidentally offended them?

This is where those of us who really hold no bias start getting annoyed about the portrayal of the male gender. Men who care about men's rights are jerks, but women who care about women's rights get apologies if they get offended by reasonable arguments?

And this was done by a male. If the feminists were really honest they'd call this man to task for being biased towards women, and they would tell him they don't want to be held above the other gender either.

The person who posted this goes into depth about the men who have an "ulterior motive" about hiring women. What is this person's ulterior motive for pandering to women in this way?

Why do I have to be ok with being told how terrible my gender is in order to work in this industry anymore?

For the more moderate feminists, consider that. You have a lot of would be allies who get just as tired of being told how terrible they are, and just want you go to away as a result. And folks like the person who posted the above are not helping, they are pandering. A rational person can look at it and think "this isn't right either".

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#178

Post by mrgn »

jdp23 wrote: post #159
optimusclimb wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If, in posting something out of concern, and in trying to understand something better, I still am going to get chastised for "doing it wrong", then it really is an uphill battle.

It is an uphill battle to become aware of the blinders and unconscious habits we all have. I was making suggestions (not chastising) assuming that you really are trying to understand, and are willing to make the effort even if it's challenging.

This uphill battle is becoming easier and easier, as evidenced by how many men are coming forward here to share their experiences and support. If you feel chastised, it's likely because, in the face of an overwhelming amount of data and evidence, your statements read in the vein of incredulity and dismissiveness rather than 'concern' and 'understanding.'

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#179

Post by jdp23 »

bucketsbuckets wrote: post #151
jdp23 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as a male, I see this behavior regularly. If you're not seeing it, it's statistically highly unlikely that you're not coming into contact with it. Reading and understanding feminist perspectives can help you become more observant. Hacker News provides plenty of opportunities for practice identifying hostile-to-women comments. If you're not hearing about it through word of mouth, then it could be that you don't t…

> If you're not seeing it, it's statistically highly unlikely that you're not coming into contact with it. May I ask on what evidence you base this assertion? Note that this is a much stronger claim than just "harassment happens"; you're claiming that, more likely than not, it is also happening in my organization.

Most women in tech I know have multiple examples of stuff like the authors describe happening to them. Multiple guys in this thread confirm that yes, it happens and is observable.

Remember that the authors weren't only talking about harassment. And of course that doesn't mean it happens in your organization, but you can also see and come into contact with it elsewhere -- conferences, networking events, online discussions, etc.

Re: An open letter on feminism in tech

#180

Post by taybin »

arzugula wrote: post #167
epeus wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call Godwin's law on your "feminism=nazism" false eqivalence

This has nothing to do with nazism, this is observing a common political strategy. The naming of "The Patriot Act" is another example. We should judge ideologies by their rhetoric, actions, and outcomes, not their marketing slogans.

That it has nothing to do with nazism is exactly what invokes Godwin's Law.
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