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“Let her speak please”

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Re: “Let her speak please”

#591

Post by lphnull »

jasonshen wrote: post #11

Edit: I watched the video. The moderator goes on and on and the "let her speak please" sounds very polite. This is a painfully frustrating reminder that women get talked over by men. It's one thing to have one panelist talk over another, but to have the moderator, who is explicitly in charge of facilitating a panel discussion, be the one to drown out a panelist is just unacceptable. Yes, "not all men" do this, but th…

As a tiny, girly looking feminine man who crossdresses half the time, I have to say that everybody- male or female- is at risk for being "talked over" and not given a fair chance. That's just how the world works.

You can be upset about it and say that people were unfair, or you can make yourself a better person by learning from others mistakes.

The world would be a better place if people put less energy into being upset, and more energy into mutual empathy between sexes.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#592

Post by blowbaybestban »

devmunchies wrote: post #355
Houshalter wrote: post #315

I have a theory that women are less likely to be, I guess the word would be "assertive", than men. That is a stereotype, but sometimes there's truth in stereotypes. I mean I recall studies that women are less likely to ask for raises or are worse at haggling. So if a person is speaking over you and rambling on, perhaps a man is more likely to speak up or butt in at the first opportunity. The quote in the top comment…

At what point do we chalk up behaviors to sexism vs biological tendencies? IF being more assertive is proven to be a naturally masculine trait, then shouldn't discriminating against men for a natural behavior be seen as sexism as well?

Anti-sexism might still be sexism, but with a non-negative connotation.

The question is ill-defined, those terms, sexism and natural ..., don't have to be mutually exclusive. Thew comparison doesn't even make much sense, see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

Your implication is paradox, because it paints with a pretty broad brush and out of line. You suggest that discriminating against naturally gender specific behavior is sexism. I don't think that's the case, although it's a loosely defined, broad term. At least sexism is a stereotype, too, yes.

Paradoxically, women who are discriminating against men would be assertive. Therefore you would be in turn discriminating against this presumably unnatural tendency (unless women aren't vocal about this). That's ironic because as far as I know sexism fundamentally is against ascribing any character attributes based on gender, analog to racism. (I might be confused here, because it's not usually my debate. Popular sexism is rather against discrimination in face of obvious gender based properties, like pregnancy.)

On the other hand, casual sexism is just the exercise of sexism, whether it be natural or not, in settings where it doesn't belong. In general, professionalism requires an extend of discretion and privacy and is certainly not black and white at that, but rather subjective. And that's what emancipation is about, incidentally, to be treated as a subject, individually, and not objective as a stereotype.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#593

Post by t_brah »

fatbird wrote: post #555
t_brah wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible for both things to be true at once: * For women to have strength & agency * For external circumstances & socialization to have impacts on individuals But what I don't understand is how you can maintain simultaneously that women are strong & have agency, but must receive corrective action sensitive to gender-differentiated effects. Are the strong women you're thinking of incapable of overcoming societal…

When I was little and my brother was hitting me, I was always capable of moving away from him so he couldn't hit me. The right thing, though, was for him to stop hitting me.

Sorry that happened to you. What you've said is true - your brother should not have hit you in the first place.

Apples and oranges, though.

Physical violence, threats, and calls to action must not be equated to expression. The urgency & rigor needed to address violence would be inappropriate applied to expression.

As an aside: it's not always possible to take action to defend yourself, but this does not necessarily mean that passive or defensive actions are all that you have.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#594

Post by zakk »

snowwrestler wrote: post #538
zakk wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You miss the point: as you note, there's a sexist behaviour observed in some men. You have to choose a word to describe this behaviour. If you choose a word that suggests that a whole category has that certain behaviour, then you are being sexist. Let me show that with a simple example. Some women are always complaining and whining. You have to find a word for this behaviour. If you choose a word (femmwhining, maybe?…

The problem is not just people talking over people in general, the problem is specifically men talking over women, so a term that encapsulates that gender dynamic is appropriate. A term that is gender neutral would be inaccurate and useless for drawing attention to the problem.

No good reason for being sexist, in my opinion. Even assuming you are right, two wrongs (or two sexisms) do not make a right.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#595

Post by weberc2 »

gpawl wrote: post #528
weberc2 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which isn't evidence of much; millions of people assumed Darren Wilson was a racist murderer even after the facts were known. There's a very strong temptation for some people to perceive injustice everywhere.

Come off it. You can't just disregard all the informed opinions of all the witness who disagree with your uninformed judgment

> You can't just discount all the informed witness acounts

You mean [these informed witnesses][1]?

To be clear, my "uninformed judgment" is consistent with eye-witnesses, the jury, and even Eric Holder's justice department! The case is entirely unambiguous. All of the material evidence and many witnesses corroborated the officer's story. Many other witnesses admitted making false testimonies, and those who didn't admit have conflicting testimonies. There is no reasonable alternate conclusion. Even BLM have distanced themselves.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown#Witn...

Re: “Let her speak please”

#596

Post by Mz »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #473
jasonshen wrote: post #11

Edit: I watched the video. The moderator goes on and on and the "let her speak please" sounds very polite. This is a painfully frustrating reminder that women get talked over by men. It's one thing to have one panelist talk over another, but to have the moderator, who is explicitly in charge of facilitating a panel discussion, be the one to drown out a panelist is just unacceptable. Yes, "not all men" do this, but th…

People get talked over by people. I see this all the time and it's generally sexless. As a consultant I've helped at least 100 teams have crucial conversations across tens of businesses. I don't get the constant refrain that this is a male vs. female thing.

From what I gather, it does get done to women more than to men. From my perspective, an even bigger problem is that women are more expected to just take it.

Having read the piece, it is by a woman who spoke up and said "Let her speak, please" and that's fine. But I have mixed feelings about the title of this piece and how it looks before you read it, because white knighting is a big problem for women. Men coming to the rescue of some damsel in distress and championing her often just deepens the problem. It often simply reinforces the idea that the only role women are allowed to play is that of victim and any justice that happens will be credited to some heroic guy. It often gets done in a way that in no way empowers her. It is frequently just some guy coming in, playing hero and getting pats on the back and when he goes off stage, her situation remains just as crappy and disempowered as before.

I am a woman and I personally don't have any problem with giving the guys push back and that gets me perceived as incredibly confrontational and fighty. At one time, my account on HN was rate limited. My feeling on that is that simply standing up for myself as a woman who often gets a lot of pushback merely for being a demographic outlier was being punished. That winds up a no win situation for women. If you don't stand up for yourself, you get walked on. If you do, you can be actively punished for it.

To be fair, the current mod team on HN has been great. I am sure they often find me cringe-worthy, but they have made me feel much more like I can report people who are really engaging in bad behavior towards me that is beyond the pale and much more like I can stand my ground without fear that doing so is highly likely to get me banned, no matter how reasonable I am about it.

Hacker News has generally been great about putting up with my outrageous agenda* to open my mouth here and engage in conversation on equal footing with the guys. I am well aware that is a shocking expectation and is simply Not Done in so many spaces, both online and off. I want to thank everyone here for being so good about that.

* http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/11/my-agenda-fo...

Re: “Let her speak please”

#597

Post by likelynew »

Klockan wrote: post #513

I'm not sure that this has to do with her being a woman, everyone else on the panel have wikipedia pages while she doesn't. In such a scenario there will obviously be a power differential irrespective of the genders involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Albert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._R._Ellis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Guth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Linde https://en.wikipedi…

I think there is some differential. Judging by number of citations, looked by google scholar:

George F R Ellis: 30744

Andrei Linde: 56716

Veronika Hubeny: 4874

Barry Loewer: 3431

Alan Guth: >17,317(summed 2 pages in scholar, as he doesn't have a profile there)

David Albert: >5062(summed 3 pages in scholar, counting only papers related to quantum mechanics)

So there are 3 researchers there whose voice can potentially trump others by a margin, if citations are a good measure.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#598

Post by weberc2 »

okreallywtf wrote: post #408
weberc2 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the national crime victimization survey, males account for more than 1/3 of reported rape victims, and males are known to underreport compared to females. It could easily be 50/50.

I think females are also known to under-report as well but its hard to know who under reports more. I meant it more as an analogy than anything else. I've seen the "but what about X" argument being used a lot lately where X and Y are the same issue that affect different groups and both are deserving of attention but one is more (maybe much more) prevalent than the other. As a means to derail a discussion of Y someone…

Females are also known to underreport, but we know that males underreport to a greater degree (or so I've read in several academic papers).

> I meant it more as an analogy than anything else.

I understand, and my post was a digression, but I felt it important because I was shocked when I learned the severity of the problem.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#599

Post by derefr »

kefka wrote: post #282
andai wrote: post #86

> You may be amazed to hear it, but during this panel session I genuinely did not feel affronted or discriminated by the moderator’s behavior. It seemed more amusing to see him try posing a question in a way that at the same time tried answering it. It’s true that this made the question a bit of a moving target for me (and therefore harder to address coherently), but I don’t a-priori assume that the incident was root…

Indeed, a level-headed comment is what is required in this situation. This is her livelihood, her career.. Pretty much everything for her. If she was to attack her colleagues, it would spell certain doom for her career. Her opinions and proofs would be dismissed and denigrated. And the specter of "Will I be accused of sexism if I pan this paper?" will rear its ugly head anywhere she would turn. Think of this as an an…

> Except, now exchange interview for world-wide public debate/discussion.

There's an important difference caused by this: what you must avoid doing is badmouthing old employers to new employers. It's about what you, and you alone, say to the employer. The new employer isn't sitting around listening for what other people have to say; they're only interested in what you have to say. So your only options are "tell them yourself" or "don't tell them and they'll never know."

But in the public sphere, there's a third option: ask a well-respected-in-the-same-sphere friend or colleague to carry the torch for you, making a big deal of what happened to you while you yourself remain silent. Other people in the public sphere are "listening" to claims made by any-and-all prominent members of the sphere, and so will hear what some random member says on your behalf. Which makes that pretty much the best option 100% of the time; you get the gains from speaking up, with none of the risks.

As a side-note: consider the fact that you can pay people to speak up for you in this way. Consider the implication that "the protection of your social position through third-party calling-out" is a good that can be purchased by the wealthy, and which is less available to the poor. And consider what this implies, in an anthropic-argument sense, for those who rise to the top of social hierarchies.

Re: “Let her speak please”

#600

Post by zzzeek »

Chris2048 wrote: post #287
zzzeek wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to a non-victim, perhaps.

In the same sense there either is a victim, or not a victim; then it either is subjective, or isn't. There isn't "subjective for some" - there is just differing, and mutually exclusive opinion - a situation in which one party must be wrong.

"subjective for some" takes place when one particular party fails to look at a situation objectively. They are relying on subjective opinion and they are wrong.
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