To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes • Hacker News Board

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#201

Post by poorelise » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:44 PM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #111

DanBC wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Animus9 is an obvious mens rights advocate. They are indistinguishable from trolls; the only difference being that they believe the stuff they say.

@poorelise - you seem unfamiliar with what DanBC means by "mens rights advocate" -- let me help you: Men’s Rights Activists advocate for ‘human rights’ with rape and death threats - http://feministcurrent.com/7555/mens-rights-activistsadvocat... The most persuasive MRA ever - http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/06/11/the-most-p... White Hot Rage: the men's rights movement - http://prospect.org/article/white-h…

I read the first article you linked to, but couldn't find any reference to rape threats by Men's Rights Advocates. That some women receive rape threats on the internet is an entirely different matter. There have also been episodes of feminists faking such rape threat comments. Let's stay on the sane side.

In any case, I only know Karen Straughan (Girl Writes What), who seems very reasonable to me. Not sure how she is associated with A Voice For Men, but she did call for donations for them recently.

And, let's step back a moment: did animus9 write any death threats to women, or did he indeed write anything about men's rights before being accused of being an MRA member? Then why are we having this discussion again?

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#202

Post by poorelise » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:48 PM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #164

nthrow wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement is about as intelligent as saying feminists are indistinguishable from trolls. The men's rights movement, like feminism, isn't monolithic.

It is reactionary, i.e. its MO is to paint "feminism" as monolithic and dangerous. If these men really cared about gender inequality and the problems they face as men, they would see that many branches of feminism, like radical feminism, offers solutions where everyone comes out the winner. But that's not what "men's rights" is for. This is coming from a man who has learned a lot by listening to women instead of cons…

Maybe men's rights advocates mostly fight about unreasonable feminism then.

If you have any links to reasonable feminism, I would be glad to receive them. I am still looking for examples for that.

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#203

Post by obstacle1 » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:52 PM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #102

obstacle1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

primitivesuave's post is fraught with unconscious sexism. That is the problem. First he generalizes that all adolescent males put on "pseudo-masculine efforts". No they don't. That's just as much a stereotype as "all girls suck at coding" or whatever stereotype-du-jour militant feminists are raging about this week. Maybe a few of the students put on "displays" that he considers to be "pseudo-masculine efforts". That…

"ostracized by pseudo-masculine efforts undertaken by adolescent males" - I don't see the word "all" in there "militant feminists"? Really? Masculinity is a socially constructed, we can identify [1] masculinity as a phenomenon, that's what the field of sociology is for. I do agree that segregation is not a solution, but you're assuming bad faith on primitivesuave's part, who apparently was is trying to give kids the…

I'm not assuming bad faith. I stated explicitly that I think his sexism is completely unconscious, i.e. he doesn't recognize it as such.

So go ahead and wonder if you want. Alternatively you could just read what I actually said.

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#204

Post by obstacle1 » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:58 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #175

daleharvey wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think the gender split is the issue that needs to be fixed, if the ratio was uneven for some particularly boring reason then I dont think its an issue that people would care about as much. The problem I care about is that this industry is hostile to a very large group of people, women arent around not only because they arent encouraged early on, but because they are being driven out when they do get here, ask…

Its hand-waving comments like this that really annoys me when reading HN. As with anecdotal evidence, it tries to masquerade as scientific while being the exact opposite. My reply to such comment is like always: Bring in the real science (i.e. Sociology). If women are being driven out as you describe, it should be possible to measure. For example, if they are being actively driven out, women in technology should then…

In what universe is Sociology a 'real science'?

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#205

Post by kolev » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 8:49 PM UTC

Not every brain is wired well for programming (can we please stop calling it "coding") - male or female, but there's some advantage men get due to being generally better at abstract thinking. Some believe this is due to cultural differences (http://phys.org/news/2011-08-disputes-notion-men-spatial-wom...), but I personally believe it's all due to hormonal differences. For example, estrogen affects cognitive function, testosterone definitely boosts competitiveness, and so on. I know some will rush to downvote me as a sexist, but this will be far from the truth. On the contrary - this is a good defense on the discrepancies in the statistics and suggests this to be a software rather a hardware problem. I personally don't need third-party statistics - I have nearly 30 years of programming experience and less than 10% of my colleagues have been female and this ratio hasn't improved over time.

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#206

Post by pyrocat » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 9:33 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #77

pyrocat wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Plus women have to take breaks in their 20's and 30's for maternity reasons." Women aren't required to have kids?

A better reply would have been "we'd like mean to take paternity leave too". I sometimes wonder if HN commentors ever think that maybe their comments might leave them open to legal liability in some future case.

I think you misunderstood my tone, which in hindsight I should have phrased differently. I was saying

"Women aren't required to have kids... but this quote implies that all women have kids, which annoys me"

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#207

Post by boyaka » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 9:35 PM UTC

Zombieball wrote: post #33

jmnicolas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly. I'm a bit fed up with people advocating more women in . As far as I can tell these same people don't complain that teachers and nurses jobs are mainly occupied by women. Everybody seem to agree that a nursing job is not attractive for most men. Maybe the reason that women are few in tech is because these professions are not attractive to them.

I feel that both ethnic and gender diversity can improve many work environments, be it software development or nursing. Maybe men should start advocating for more boys in ? Sounds like a good Superbowl Ad campaign! Side note: I remember in my first year of university there was like 30 girls and 1 boy in the nursing faculty. Everyone cheered on that lucky guy :P

You seriously believe we need more effort put forth in the nursing industry? Please list a single one of these that is highly important for solving mankind's problems?

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#208

Post by pyrocat » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 9:35 PM UTC

poorelise wrote: post #108

DanBC wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Animus9 is an obvious mens rights advocate. They are indistinguishable from trolls; the only difference being that they believe the stuff they say.

So advocating mens right is equal to being a rightwing military cult person? Are you really of the opinion that men's rights are not important? Also, ad hominem...

I'm saying the way Animus9 'advocates mens rights' is equal to being a rightwing military cult person.

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#209

Post by BWStearns » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 9:37 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #176

BWStearns wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I sometimes wonder if HN commentors ever think that maybe their comments might leave them open to legal liability in some future case While I agree with advising caution, and disagree with the gp sentiment, I don't think that mild gender insensitivity and poor communication skills are as of yet civil or criminal offenses on comment sections.

Bob says "hiring women is risky because they all have babies". Bob sets up a startup and gets to the point of hiring. Does Bob wonder whether his earlier public comments have left him open to discrimination claims?

Fair, but unless he is actually discriminating he should be able to get by with relatively few issues.

Re: To the Girls of HackerNews: I am a Female Founder who Codes

#210

Post by nthrow » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 10:18 PM UTC

_bfhp wrote: post #200

nthrow wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are men's rights practitioners that support the egalitarian aims of feminism. Equality is what reasonable MRAs and feminists want. Unreasonable MRAs and feminists, however, are more interested in having someone to blame.

"egalitarian aims of feminism" keep demonstrating you know little about what the word "feminism" refers to, go on

The popular understanding of feminism is that it aims for equality between men and women. You've more or less said "you don't understand feminism" without explaining how, exactly, feminism doesn't aim for equality. Not very useful if your aim is to increase understanding of your viewpoint.