XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public • Hacker News Board

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#281

Post by jfager » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 2:49 AM UTC

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #218

jfager wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be suggesting that our culture can't be described as objectifying women unless all or most men are assholes to women in bars or engage in similar behavior, and in your other comments, unless such behavior happens exclusively to women. Which is absurd. As others have pointed out, if even 10% or 1% of men behave this way, it creates a hostile environment. If 1 out of every 100 random people you encounter pu…

"Constant sexualization and stereotyping in advertising and other media create social expectations that many people aren't comfortable with." Look, men get to use trillions of sperm cells, which means evolution has hard-wired their brains to be magnetically attracted to anything feminine. Advertising uses this not because it is "sexualized", but because men will buy toxic waste by the barrel if you draw nice titties…

Advertising uses this not because it is "sexualized", but because men will buy toxic waste by the barrel if you draw nice titties on it.

This statement makes no sense. Associating sex with non-sexual things is the definition of sexualization.

And I know why advertisers do it, it's not rocket surgery to figure it out. Their motivation doesn't change the fact that the action itself objectifies and degrades women (and to a lesser extent, men).

Watch an advertiser sell SUVs to women: they have a big, hulking, strong look and are advertised as serving and protecting the kids. That is the masculine face of advertising.

You quote me stating that men are sexualized, and respond by explaining how men are sexualized? What's your point?

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#282

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 4:18 AM UTC

ignifero wrote: post #122

The main question to ask is: do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? For developers, when google opens up their platform, having the gender by default will make it easier to make a better interface and use pronouns correctly. On the other hand, i dont know many apps that distinguish gravely between men and women. The name of a person and their photo is usually enough to infer sex anyway. So, they're just making it ea…

[deleted]

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#283

Post by geekagirl » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 4:25 AM UTC

ignifero wrote: post #122

The main question to ask is: do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? For developers, when google opens up their platform, having the gender by default will make it easier to make a better interface and use pronouns correctly. On the other hand, i dont know many apps that distinguish gravely between men and women. The name of a person and their photo is usually enough to infer sex anyway. So, they're just making it ea…

"After all, when you introduce yourself in the real world, its apparent from either the looks or voice whether you're male or female."

Apparently, it's really not. I get called 'sir' all the time, and I'm a tall skinny chick with long hair. One memorable week, it happened four times. On another memorable occasion, I was wearing a bright pink coat.

"it paints things as being really bad for women in america; I doubt it's really that bad."

Let me tell you my experiences as a woman in America.

Online, we get to deal with turds like these: fatuglyorslutty.com. You know what else? 50-year-old men private messaging you pictures of their penises. It's happened three times. o_O

Maybe it's the anonymity, as one poster suggested, and clearly face to face interaction isn't that bad? I had a classmate tell me that I only got into college because of my gender. Never mind that my GPA nearly two points (out of four) higher than theirs.

Ever been flashed trying to work a drive thru? I have.

"having the gender by default will make it easier to make a better interface"

If your developers are worth their paychecks, they can probably figure out to handle 'decline to answer' and 'other' as the same case.

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#284

Post by geekagirl » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 4:37 AM UTC

thurn wrote: post #9

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it correct to say that there are two genders , but not that there are two sexes ? Since gender is only a social construct, presumably the prevailing views of the society in question are what defines it?

Gender is between your ears. Sex is between your legs.

There's more than two genders -- hijra in Indian culture, for example.

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#285

Post by demallien » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 5:35 AM UTC

mentat wrote: post #279

demallien wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "you too" was just me reacting to the fact that I often see posts from men that don't seem to argue in good faith. As an example, elsewhere in this discussion a guy decided to correct my tone. He's been a member for over 100 days and this was his second post - nothing else has struck him as sufficiently important, but my post, oh yeah, my tone really needed to be corrected. That post was not in good faith - it wS…

Ok, I see the way you're using sexual objectification now. I think people in this thread have been using it to describe both positive and negative reactions to people based on objective characteristics, not using desire as the important quality, but instead placing it on the objectification. Are you saying that reacting to someone as fat and bald as the primary characteristic of them is not objectification in the gen…

It's not how I use the term, it's its definition - Humpty Dumpty aside, words have meaning!

So no, rejecting someone as a sexual partner is not sexual objectification, pretty much by definition.

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#286

Post by A1kmm » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 5:42 AM UTC

woodall wrote: post #211

cletus wrote: post #182

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm a guy so obviously don't have the experience (any) women have but I will say this. Three things will essentially give away your gender: 1. Your stated gender; 2. Your name (with a high degree of accuracy in most cultures that I'm aware of); and 3. Your photos. So for (1) to have any impact, (2) and (3) must be hidden. Since all profiles are public, I'm not sure you can hide (2).…

Sometimes, the way in which you form paragraphs and sentences can give away an individuals gender identity. Check this out, and the accompanying paper. Female Score: 8 Male Score: 14 The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male! http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.php http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/~koppel/papers/male-female-text-fina...

I went to my university's electronic PhD thesis repository, and went down the list, starting with the most recently published, skipping people of the same gender to the last selected thesis or whose gender was not obvious from the name, until I had 10 PhD theses, 5 male, 5 female. I put the abstracts from each thesis into the 'gender genie', and these are the results:

Author male, predicted as male: 4 Author female, predicted as male: 4 Author male, predicted as female: 1 Author female, predicted as female: 1

Obviously, a larger sample is needed, but those results make it look very unreliable - especially compared to an outright statement of gender.

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#287

Post by yohui » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 8:23 AM UTC

crux_ wrote: post #269

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... with limited capacity to adjust our behavior on the basis of reasoned morality." We also have hard-wired general memory and reasoning faculties. "We are not animals." We are not base animals, to be sure. Neither are we angels of pure logic.

I'm not sure you understand me. To illustrate with an extreme: If we happened to be hard-wired by evolution to be tremendously predisposed towards genocidal behavior, would that make any acts of genocide we commit morally acceptable behavior?

Halfway through my response to this, I realized that someone had already written it, and in a much more entertaining fashion. So I'll just point you to his post instead:

Three Worlds Collide, by Yudkowsky

http://lesswrong.com/lw/y5/the_babyeating_aliens_18/

"The most controversial story I’ve ever written. Starts with the baby-eating aliens and moves on from there."

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#288

Post by roundsquare » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 8:37 AM UTC

scythe wrote: post #245

roundsquare wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making this into a business decision. I'm sure that google has put a lot of thought into this and made what they think is the best business decision (in addition to the fact that they are testing it in beta). There are, however, concerns above and beyond profits that could drive this decision.

>You're making this into a business decision. Well... that's the point. I really don't want to talk about it as an ethical decision, and I guess I can avoid that by pointing out that it is more obviously a good business decision. I'm sure Google put a lot of thought into this, but I'm also sure they put a lot of thought into the launch of Google Buzz. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of thinking that goes on doesn't g…

I suppose I should be clear from this point on: I am against Google+ forcing people to show their gender.

"Well... that's the point. I really don't want to talk about it as an ethical decision, and I guess I can avoid that by pointing out that it is more obviously a good business decision."

In this case, I don't like making it a business decision for two reasons:

1) It is all but certain that Google considered the business repercussions of forcing people to show their gender. They almost certainly balanced the number of people they would not be able to get against the fact that the data is not indexed and searchable and concluded that, from a business point of view, it was worthwhile to force people to show gender. In the end, without real data, there is probably not a good way to make the business argument in a way that convinces google that they are wrong from a business point of view. (Of course, while testing, if the data they gather says that this is killing their business, they'll probably change the way it works).

2) If we can make the moral argument, and Google busy it, they are less likely to start changing their default privacy settings, etc... on people just because its good business.

Of course, I realize there is strength in making something a business decision. It means that even if they don't buy the moral argument, we still get the outcome we want. But, in this case, I think the two reasons stated above outweigh this (especially point number 2 given the experience with facebook).

I'm having some trouble connecting your last few paragraphs ("An conception of the idea..." onward), which are very general in nature, to the specific topic here. As far as I can tell, you are basically arguing for some sort of rules based morality. Without getting into if that's desirable or not (though in many cases, I agree it is), its not clear to me what rules you are in favor of. Please do explain...

(On your moral argument and discussion of perceived risk, I essentially agree).

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#289

Post by lsc » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 9:29 AM UTC

thomaslangston wrote: post #207

cletus wrote: post #182

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm a guy so obviously don't have the experience (any) women have but I will say this. Three things will essentially give away your gender: 1. Your stated gender; 2. Your name (with a high degree of accuracy in most cultures that I'm aware of); and 3. Your photos. So for (1) to have any impact, (2) and (3) must be hidden. Since all profiles are public, I'm not sure you can hide (2).…

Giving away my gender is much less of a concern for me than the presentation characteristics of the profile. My gender is "noise" on my profile. I'd be better served by whitespace instead of displaying my gender. It makes Google+ profile feel at worst like a dating site and at best a random collection of facts.

+1. I mean, would you expect gender to be a big deal on, say, linkedin?

Re: XKCD's Randall Munroe on Google+ requiring your gender to be public

#290

Post by skrebbel » Sat, Jul 09, 2011, 3:25 PM UTC

I don't think most posters in this thread realise how many flat-out nutcases there are out there.

My girlfriend's 90+ year old grandma used to be occasionally harassed on the phone because she was listed as "Maria Lastname" in the phone book (in Denmark, where this is common). I can only assume that the callers didn't expect her to be 90+. The harassments stopped a while after she changed it to "M. Lastname".

My conclusion: some people will go pretty far to get in touch with the other gender. If people want to hide their gender online, they should be given the possibility to.