Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I'm not a Woman in Tech

communequation.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 621 posts

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#251

Post by mirimir »

Nadya wrote: post #50
treehau5 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm left believing that my only choice is to have no opinion. I learned this lesson a long time ago from the role models in my life that ended up getting burned because of having a differing viewpoint from whatever societal winds were blowing. I, and I realize probably cynically, now only elect to share, post, tweet, or whatnot whatever only can positively benefit my "brand". Sometimes I have to act like my own PR…

This is why I only use pseudonyms online and don't tie together my "real life" with my "life online". I think it's foolish to tie the two together if you ever want to express your personal opinions. Just because they're "popular now" or aren't causing harm in the now doesn't mean that will hold true 10 years from now, keeping in mind that "the internet never forgets".

Indeed!

I have a professional life, using my real name, with virtually no public exposure. I have a personal life as well, using social media, but locked down to close family and friends. And I've had numerous "hobby lives", Mirimir being one of the most recent and active, isolated through VPN services and Tor.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#252

Post by Trill-I-Am »

WalterSear wrote: post #216
EGreg wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've watched him and I think it is just too hard for him to control himself. He's got the political correctness and factual accuracy version of dyslexia.

IMHO, it's both. He can't help himself, and it works, so he keeps doing it. There's a reason his staff let him twitter.

Most inside baseball politics places like Axios and Politico have reported that his staff has desperately tried to keep him off Twitter

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#253

Post by dsfyu404ed »

mercurysmessage wrote: post #98
problems wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not dead - you can speak your mind - just you pay a social price to do so. Free speech, even in the most libertarian concept I have doesn't prevent other people's right to criticize your speech - in fact, I'd say it encourages just that. Speak out against stuff you don't like rather than censoring it. Ultimately it's an effect of large, diverse communities and deep political divisions. If you want to have political d…

Exactly. Free speech goes both ways. The only people I see saying things like 'free speech is dead', are usually the ones who want to say ignorant things and get away with it.

Arguing for abolition of slavery in South Carolina in 1838 or so would certainly be ignorant within that context. Times change. Today's normal is tomorrows ignorant and vise versa.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#254

Post by mistermann »

maxxxxx wrote: post #221
emsy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently watched an answer on this by Steven Pinker as to why this "re-segregation" is happening. He basically says that legitimate movements don't stop as soon as they've reached their goal and at that point, they start to become regressive. Interestingly he provides an example that hasn't to do with any ism: child protection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFnP5UUXuTk

excellent video. I wish I could get a point across as eloquently as Pinker... It seems these movements don't have a defined point where they can say the goal has been achieved and everybody can go home. Instead I think it's the opposite and the movement wins in strength. The more traction the movement gets the more power and influence it gets and the bigger its goals will get. His example about child protection is gr…

Jonathan Haidt's thoughts on the matter are also quite enlightening, and he also describes a theory of how this culture came about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K92rOsjyLBs (Safe Spaces — Sam Harris and Jonathan Haidt on the Disturbing Trend of Vindictive Protectiveness )

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#255

Post by dang »

Latty wrote: post #229
adventured wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can claim that's not what feminism today is working towards, but that's simply untrue. You can claim that's the definition of feminism, I believe what you're saying is untrue. I don't believe what you quoted is the definition of feminism - there are more likely almost as many definitions of feminism as there are feminists. I think it's absurd to claim that there is one definition given the rather elaborate dive…

I take it you mean "I think what most feminist advocate isn't equality, but sexism against men" - that is not what the predominant message of feminism is today. As I see it, you are taking a vanishingly small minority of comments from extremists/trolls and extrapolating that all feminists believe it. (Edited for more civility).

This kind of comment violates the site guidelines no matter how wrong the other person is. Moreover the entire subthread is off-topic as described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14703722. Please stop.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#256

Post by zzalpha »

dang wrote: post #250
zzalpha wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the minority that holds you back. It's a class system. Well, I'd counter that and claim it's actually both, and the former frequently contributes to the latter.

Your comments are beginning to make a habit of being uncivil. Would you please fix that? In particular, please edit the gratuitous provocations like "Hate to break it to you" and "Huh?" out of your comments here. Those things are (minor) violations of HN's civility rule in any thread, but when it comes to flamewar-prone topics like this one they're particularly harmful.

Fair point. I'll do that right now. Thanks for the feedback!

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#257

Post by sbov »

Latty wrote: post #136
CM30 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, agreed. I still remember seeing a bunch of college students pushing for 'segregation' at university because it would 'help minorities' and thinking "Wasn't that exactly what we got rid of because it was horribly racist 50 years or so ago?" It feels like all these 'minority only' events and clubs and what not are going straight back to the bad old days. Just from the opposite 'side' of the political spectrum.

Then you don't understand the core problem. You know what, I think people, in general, should be allowed to discriminate. The whole "right to refuse service" shtick - people shouldn't be forced to do things they don't want to do, even if they are following stupid beliefs. That said, I recognise there are things that have to beat that. Just like free speech doesn't include shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre, we have…

The problem encompasses way more than you claim it to. It includes things like quality of service, social networks, and mostly, basic human dignity. If what you said was actually the problem, then the civil rights act wouldn't have outlawed segregation.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#258

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

iamatworknow wrote: post #32
fruzz wrote: post #14

There's sexism in tech, and to address it you have to call it for what it is. I'm glad her experiences are such that she hasn't encountered these barriers, but other people have, and they need these words and spaces. Take my previous job. Women were objectified on Slack. A woman was groped, though she didn't report it out of concern for the repercussions. In meetings execs, male execs would only address/look at the m…

I think you're missing the point of the article. It's not that these things don't exist, or didn't exist for her -- of course they do. The point seems, to me at least, to be that in order to attempt to actually solve these problems you can't actively (or passively) try to exclude yourself from the people causing them. It's like politics -- if you separate yourself into "us" versus "them", how are you ever supposed to…

Different and opposing groups work together to find a common solution all the time. You can be different and work in a group and it not be antagonistic. This "us v. them" mentality is fostered by people who don't want to contribute with people who are different, they want everyone to assimilate into "their way."

Take the "black lives matter" movement. If we followed the OPs advice, they should just protest that "all lives matter" instead, which is precisely what their opposition is doing (e.g. blue lives matter, all lives matter), to diminish their campaign.

I understand how it can be annoying to be labeled or be associated with a group, even if you don't want to, but this problem is not going to be solved if it's not identified and that is what is going on. I think she's just reading too much into it.

Re: I'm not a Woman in Tech

#259

Post by mistermann »

Latty wrote: post #247
ams6110 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If everyone won't provide wedding services for you, or everyone won't let you attend a class, or everyone won't sell you food, you can't live your life. True, but socially, we've moved past that. There might be the rare individual baker who would not want to bake a cake for a gay wedding, because he's a devout Christian or Muslim or whatever and thinks homosexuality is a sin. But 98% of businesses won't care, as lo…

> True, but socially, we've moved past that. There might be the rare individual baker who would not want to bake a cake for a gay wedding, because he's a devout Christian or Muslim or whatever and thinks homosexuality is a sin. But 98% of businesses won't care, as long as you can pay the bill. Untrue. There are still many communities where you can be totally ostracized for those things. Just because you don't notice…

> Untrue. There are still many communities where you can be totally ostracized for those things.

Could you name a two or three so we have some idea what you're talking about?

Post reply on HN