Girl, Bye

How is this sexism? Because it's between a girl and a guy?

This could play out exactly the same between two females or two males.

This is nothing more than a communication breakdown. "Matt thinks..." because Matt has to come to some plausible conclusion in his own mind. Nevermind if it's wrong, it's the best explanation he can find and we should respect that.

Now it's both of your responsibility, as social human beings wishing to maintain a professional relationship, to honestly convey your position to each other. If his accusation is blatantly false, don't use it to fuel your arguments, speak from your understanding of the situation. Now listen to his.

"Oh dear, aren't we silly, going off in tangents in our minds without any concrete evidence of these things actually being true." "I'm glad we talked."

Also, rattling off 100 ways in which you hate Matt is suspect. I don't like any of those things either, but I try to refrain from shit talking. If Matt wants to talk sports, I'll entertain it. Eventually he'll learn how shallow my interests are, maybe via body language or even a direct statement, and we'll discuss something else from then on.

The part where you offensively generalize what you think are typical male and female interests? There's the sexism.

> You can upvote it to bookmark it

...

> You can upvote it to say "Yes, I would like to see more of this on HN."

I'd do a lot more of the latter if not for the former. Because HN uses the same mechanism for both I tend to avoid up-voting stories unless they are stories I want to bookmark for later reference. If they are just interesting but not something I think I'll need to refer to later I avoid up-voting so as to not clutter up my bookmarks.

I wish HN separated up-voting from bookmarking, like Reddit does.

This is some scary thinking. "You're either with us or against us."

I'm all for fighting sexism in tech, but I'm not interested in being an ideological robot.

> If you doubt the reliability of someone, do it privately. Don't comment at all. As it is, I can only assume that you actively oppose the growing movement to try and solve this problem.

You are advocating for HN to cease being a discussion forum and to become an instrument of political propaganda. No thanks.

> "Look, I don't know what the truth is here. To some extent I don't care. But I do know that there is a pervasive problem with sexism in tech, and I know that every time you or I publicly comment on it, we take a side. If you show support, you're sending the message to everyone that that discrimination is not cool."

If I wanted to effectively promote animal rights socially I would not affiliate myself with PETA. Champion the articles that have a clear message and reflect your values, not just any opportunity to cheer for your team.

You'll come cross as being a lot more trustworthy if you're honest about what you stand for.

> Speech acts matter. Even online.

To my point: every time the reader sees disinformation they lose a little more faith in your movement.

These questions come to mind immediately: 1) why is the gender of Matt relevant to the complaint at hand? 2) why is the gender of your other coworkers relevant to the complaint at hand? 3) why is the sexual preference of any of them relevant to the complaint at hand? (note that later the writer states explicitly that she does not know Matt's dating life). 4) "majority-dominated"? Aren't females the majority? 5) why do you find only female comedians funny? 6) comments like, "dumb basketball game" and categorizing sports are "Rapey" (!) are indicative of bias to an overtly inflammatory degree. Even if the writer thinks she never voices such opinions, I'm guessing that they "leak out" all over the place,

Here's a key example: "... most importantly and egregiously, pretend to accept and tolerate conversation and ideas that I find degrading, disgusting, and sexist."

Did such conversation actually happen with these specific coworkers, or does the writer just assume such by lumping all Heterosexual. White. Males. into one rotting bin? ?

Explicitly sexist (let alone "rapey") conversation in the workplace is actionable. There is very low tolerance for behavior contributing to a hostile workplace pretty much everywhere in the U.S. nowadays (for legal exposure, if nothing else) -- the author gives no indication that she ever initiated or pursued any report of inappropriate behavior to H.R. or superiors.

Anyway, a narrative riddled with comments like, "bro-bots", "rage-y, racist white dudes", "straight male rage against women", or "vast and exasperating patchwork of male insecurity" indicates zero interest in constructive, rational dialogue.

In closing, she includes, "I vented relentlessly to my girlfriends and my gay friends...". I found it unsurprising that she lacks straight male friends with whom she feels capable of candid conversation.