Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013) • Hacker News Board

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#281

Post by exstudent2 » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 7:48 PM UTC

ericmo wrote: post #263

exstudent2 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the problem is that the extreme feminists are being taken seriously. Journalism in particular seems to be very radicalized. What you end up with is an outsized voice for an extreme minority opinion. I think a lot of the backlash against feminism is about the traction some of the more radical ideas have made. Examples: #killallmen, male tears... There are other extreme examples that have been codified in…

Just to be clear, I don't think radical feminists shouldn't be taken seriously, just the extremely radical shouldn't. There's room for radical feminism, not for hate. "Male tears" isn't a radical feminist thing, many non-radical feminists use it. Actually, it's quite the opposite, it's men who have always said feminist women (radical or not) are anti-men, so they decided to play along and made a joke about it. While…

I don't think sarcasm and irony are a good way to get people to see your point. You're very clear headed and it still takes paragraphs to explain and to be honest isn't very convincing.

"Male tears" definitely went beyond a joke as well. It's often used now to celebrate events that anger men.

If feminists (radical or otherwise) want people to take them seriously, they must treat people as they want to be treated.

"It's just a joke" most definitely doesn't work when it comes to men talking about women so it shouldn't be used in the opposite direction.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#282

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 7:51 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #170

If we want to have a meaningful discussion about sexism in tech, it's time to talk about what we're up against, and it involves all of us: not just women and minorities. If it doesn't involve us now, it will in 20 years when we're two decades older, because ageism is just as much of a problem in the tech industry as the other "isms". There isn't an above-baseline sexism among long-term professional programmers. Sure,…

"by the time he or she was starting a career, women were already in the workforce and it was accepted by many as a good thing"

How many women who were working in the 70s and 80s have you talked to about this.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#283

Post by richmarr » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 7:51 PM UTC

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #238

richmarr wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to post an opinion that's a long way from other people's you need to step it out slowly and provide evidence for each mental leap. If you don't do that you tend not to win many converts to your way of thinking. A few examples: So then women are the ones who need to follow that advice. This is just confrontational, and seems to show resentment towards women. Women are the group you want to convince peo…

>This is just confrontational, and seems to show resentment towards women. It is only confrontational to those who are already biased. Now, had I said this statement in and of itself, with no prompting, and included the 'shut up', it would've been confrontational. Instead, I said it in response to a post that already had said that only one side needed to follow such advice and, while not explicitly stating such, did…

  It is only confrontational to those who are already biased.

Again, you're opening with a statement that will put peoples backs up before they've even heard your argument. If you want to make an accusation of bias you need to build up to it and back it up, otherwise nobody will listen.

  seeing my statement as resentment but not the others is itself 
  telling and, if I dare say, sounds of tone policing.

No. Tone policing means to attempt to discount an argument because of the tone used to deliver it. At no point have I disagreed with the content of your comments, or attempted to devalue your opinion. In contrast, I'm trying to understand your argument and help you structure it more clearly.

  And this sounds like rationalization of why an opinion should be dismissed.

That was my point, it's exactly the rationalisation a good proportion of your audience will make when you structure arguments in the way you have so far.

Confirmation bias means you start with a very slim chance of changing anyone's mind on this kind of polarising topic. Using poorly structured arguments reduces your chances to zero.

  Or my audience would be the group already aware of the statistics.

Sure, if you like, but you also claim your conclusions are so obvious that anyone aware of those studies doesn't need an explanation. If your arguments are completely obvious to your target audience, why bother commenting at all?

  Evidence and logical arguments are second to emotional appeal.

If the emotion you trigger is anger you'll get nowhere at all, or worse.

  Second, my original point of the post was not to actually say which group had it worse.

Okay, that's not how it came across at all. You finished with "it is clear which group is actually better off."

  ... there is not an agreement as to one group having it worse.

There isn't agreement on whether Elvis is dead either. In order to make the existence of disagreement a credible argument you need to also demonstrate reasonableness.

A good tip there is to align yourself with moderates rather than partisans. Claiming that men have it harder than women doesn't help you there; the moderate perspective is to empathise with the problems faced by both sides rather than to compete about which has it worse. I know you've said that's not the main point you wanted to make, but you did make that point.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#284

Post by jarcane » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 7:54 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #122

jarcane wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those oppressed groups mostly came "unbent" because they stopped putting up with their oppressors and started killing them. Are you even at all aware of the history of any of the examples you just cited?

Jewish folks and South Asian folks overcame discrimination from Americans by killing them? Are you from Earth-2? Read Steven Dutch's essay "The world's most toxic value system" [1] before you recommend violence as a solution to any group's problems. It's a comfortably direct approach, but it backfires. It creates a class of violent people who will push others down, so the group as a whole stays down. [1] http://www.u…

I didn't recommend anything.

I just suggested one become a little more familiar with history before making absurd claims and value judgements against whole races of people. Every single one of the cited examples had to fight bloody wars of independence against occupation before their refugees were even seen as human. We enslaved the Chinese. We used the Irish in proxy wars between street gangs that still are going on today in parts of the Northeast. The Jews spend hundreds of years trying to assimilate into European society, and then the Germans killed 6 million of them. We gave them back their own country. Out of guilt.

Spouting a bunch of stereotypes about the local immigrant population is a pretty fucking ignorant view of that history.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#285

Post by killface » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 8:09 PM UTC

The old rule is still in effect: Nobody hates women more than other women.

Her and I could be friends.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#286

Post by killface » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 8:10 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #215

Nrsolis wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're supposing that young women have any inkling of what the tech industry is like. The overwhelming evidence is that they don't. What is abundantly clear is that young women and men are influenced by cultural norms and act accordingly when choosing a path through life. Most servers/flight attendants/nurses are women. At my sister's nursing school graduation, there was only a single man on stage to receive…

> What gives? There are plenty of women doctors now. Why don't men find nursing to be a rewarding and satisfying career option? Not sure why this post is being downvoted. The lack of men in nursing is a real problem in that field, and the post builds up to this in a way I don't necessarily agree with (I think the tech industry's cultural appearance outside of it is completely garbage, and I think most folks know it)…

If you read around on this, you'll read that men in these fields are treated like absolute garbage. Especially nursing.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#287

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 8:11 PM UTC

cpncrunch wrote: post #241

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about them?

They are very anti-male. (I thought that was obvious so I didn't mention it, and if you read the wikipedia page or watch the play, you'll see what I mean).

I have not seen the play, but looking at the wikipedia page, they give eight examples of the monologues, and I don't see anything that's obviously anti-male. (unless you're going to get angry about "My Vagina Was My Village, a monologue compiled from the testimonies of Bosnian women subjected to rape camps.")

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#288

Post by killface » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 8:12 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #118

justuk wrote: post #10

To work in technology, especially programming, you have to put a heck of a lot of effort into the subject. If it's not some legacy technology then that also means learning constantly (on your own initiative). That's what I like about programming, it rewards knowledge and ability - whereas other careers reward other attributes. I look at the Twttier-style feminists (I don't mean the traditional equality types, but the…

There are many examples of girls being actively refused entry in to technology classes[1] based on their gender. When the education system itself is prejudiced against women it's unreasonable to suggest women aren't getting tech jobs because they're unwilling to put in the effort - they can't because they're blocked from doing so. [1] A recent example http://jezebel.com/girl-fights-library-s-boys-only-robotics-...

Yeah, and my college had (back in 2000) a womens-only robotics group. Where's your outrage over the men?

This is a dumb example.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#289

Post by forgottenpass » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 8:15 PM UTC

daveloyall wrote: post #267

forgottenpass wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But look, the internet isn't just textmode anymore, and it doesn't exist just in cyberspace anymore. Decisions coders make affect the--blah blah you all know this, software is eating. So, maybe, just maybe, the hardcore-on-the-spectrum-practically-deterministic-themselves folks shouldn't be the only ones with commit-bits, hm? [...] Because software is eating the world, "Made with love" needs to more than a marketing…

> tangential if not orthogonal to the conversation Er, sorry. My train of thought was: products need to be less harmful --> the aggregate character of the the industry needs to change --> putting more emotionally competent people in the industry --> overcoming the gender-related conflict in the industry. Which, I think is the conversation. As to developers cf. management... What sort of developer fails to think about…

What sort of developer fails to think about the possible consequences a given product might have on the lives of people they will never meet?

Any developer on a project that doesn't have a formal analysis system for feeding thoughts about the lives of users into the product spec. And I mean beyond the "will it sell" sorts of analysis. So to answer your question: most.

I have worked on safety-critical systems, my train of thought goes: products need to be less harmful --> FMEA.

I actually look at it a bit like the way computer security can go overlooked. You can actively employ as many netsec hobbyists that spend their evenings hunting vulnerabilities, reading research and messing with security software as you want. And they might marginally increase the security of the software and systems, but the business has to decide to invest in security before they're allowed to focus on securing the system. Once the business has bought in, then you really don't need a huge cultural change towards security, just get enough guys to set up the quality systems, and then keep up with security analysis and reviews.

Edit: From a purely reductive standpoint, developers can tailor product to overseas markets with different cultures. As long as the business cares, and spends the effort to determining how to target a culture, the developers don't really matter.

Re: Okay, Feminism, It’s Time We Had a Talk About Empathy (2013)

#290

Post by throwaway999666 » Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 8:29 PM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #278

throwaway999666 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interesting that she is autistic. Autism is apparently more common among boys than girls. Could this be one reason why tech attracts more men than women? "Maybe this group of people has more of X because X is more likely to have a neurodevelopmental disorder"? Nice. Thank you so much for associating a whole industry with autism. A disorder that apparently 1-2 out of 1,000 people have, at that.

> "Maybe this group of people has more of X because X is more likely to have a neurodevelopmental disorder"? Nice. Thank you so much for associating a whole industry with autism. You have it flipped. "This group of people with a neurodevelopmental disorder are more inclined to X and therefore industry of X has more of them." Which is an entirely valid thing to say, by the way. I'd be willing to bet that people with h…

> You have it flipped. "This group of people with a neurodevelopmental disorder are more inclined to X and therefore industry of X has more of them."

> Which is an entirely valid thing to say, by the way.

The point was the severity. 1 to 2 persons in a thousand, and you think this is sizeable enough to impact a whole industry which is not really small at all? To colour a whole industry? To such a degree that everyone or a majority is on the autism spectrum, to refer to your last paragraph? Ridiculous. Not to mention that would require all people with autism to be functioning enough to maintain a job. Assuming I would even accept your pulled-out-of-your-hat numbers.

What is effectively being said is that many of those nerd archetypes are born out of, or affected to a large degree, by people with neurodevelopmental disorder. A great springboard for people who hate nerds to claim that they are suffering from a kind of arrested development or other non-normal deficiency, for sure.

> I can understand a displeasure that the association is with something "negative", but that doesn't immediately invalidate the statement.

You're right that it wasn't as much of a statement about it being wrong as it was a statement like this betrays his attitude towards the tech industry. Hint: I didn't ever say that it being an outlandish belief made it wrong, for crying out loud! The mention of 1-2 in a thousand was more of a reference to how it was unlikely, however.

Maybe I'll start to consider the veracity of this claim itself when I see some effort to prove it one way or the other. But I don't have much patience for complacent musings on deficits of a whole group of people.

> I'd be willing to bet that people with higher-than-normal levels of empathy and an outgoing attitude are more inclined to work social jobs than solitary jobs. Would you disagree with that?

But that wasn't the comparison to begin with. The implicit comparison was with people who have a lack of empathy and social inclination due to neurodevelopment disorder, and normal people. Now if we change that comparison to people in general -- on average normal -- who can either be inclined to be people-oriented or not, then this becomes a whole other question. Not even objectionable anymore!

I thought that we were about to move beyond viewing people who choose to, or somehow have less talent for, being social as being underdeveloped in some way[1]. Apparently not. Do we ever hear about extra talkative or otherwise people-oriented people being deficit in some way? No, of course not. Such people are just good, normal people. Apparently people with some kind of high intellect (not that all such people have that) must have traded something else in some way, but people who are people-focused are just well-rounded and overall fantastic. Maybe we should also discuss one of those ridiculous tropes about how some high-powered jobs are "filled"[2] with people who are apparently sociable and outgoing, but really are sociopaths. Right? No one would ever be offended by that.

[1] In the sense of being medically diagnosed with autism.

[2] Again: it's the relative quantity that makes these discussions absurd. Certainly without any extraordinary evidence to back them up.