"Lighten up" • Hacker News Board

Re: "Lighten up"

#771

Post by araneae » Thu, Mar 22, 2012, 9:07 PM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #383

Cushman wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do all the waitresses in Hooters wear low-cut tops? Seriously, stop right there. Read what you just wrote. You're comparing a professional developer who chose to dress comfortably to women chosen for sex appeal by a restaurant which is only a step away from a strip club. There is something seriously wrong with the way you are approaching this issue. To answer your last question-- I'm a straight guy, and no, I w…

You're comparing a professional developer who chose to dress comfortably to women chosen for sex appeal by a restaurant which is only a step away from a strip club. You're arguing a straw man. I didn't say anything remotely close to that; my point was just that wearing low-cut tops and dressing for sex appeal are usually correlated. I'm a straight guy, and no, I wouldn't find it sexually arousing if a co-worker came…

>my point was just that wearing low-cut tops and dressing for sex appeal are usually correlated.

I didn't start wearing low-cut tops and dresses until I started breast-feeding because they make it easier to pull out your boobs.

Re: "Lighten up"

#772

Post by arien » Thu, Mar 22, 2012, 9:11 PM UTC

n_time wrote: post #728

arien wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The moment we stop looking at "men" and "women" or "black" and "white" and start looking at "people" is when these things are truly sorted out.

This is never going to happen, and IMHO should not. Equality is not equivalency and none of us are colour blind. The key is accepting differences when they ARE there. That said, class is a way bigger difference than race. :P EDIT: I'm definitely not saying that the subjective perceived differences in gender and race are real, or that bigotry and ignorance are cool.

We are all different, but that doesn't mean we must be treated different at all times.

At work we are all workers. We may be treated differently depending on our position within the company, because that is relevant to our job and duties. But how is it relevant and useful to treat employees or colleagues differently because they are this or that? Does it bring any more profit, productivity or anything positive at all?

We can't be looking at these differences all the time, because most of the time they do not matter at all within the context. This is what people don't get.

Re: "Lighten up"

#773

Post by stcredzero » Thu, Mar 22, 2012, 9:26 PM UTC

mtoddh wrote: post #736

stcredzero wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key is entitled. Men used to be able to assume they'd be welcomed. No need to ask.

Sorry but I don't see how your example of a guy initiating a dialogue with women he just met is an example of a power imbalance. Partly because you're guessing at how he feels - maybe he feels entitled or maybe he feels nervous at hell, because he knows there's a chance of rejection/getting rebuffed/etc. Of course, maybe I'm biased since I met my wife by simply going up and talking to her while she was waiting in lin…

Sorry but I don't see how your example of a guy initiating a dialogue with women he just met is an example of a power imbalance.

Sorry, but I must be expressing myself incorrectly. My understanding is that guys used to be entitled to just go up and sit with unaccompanied females in public. If there was asking, it was pretty perfunctory. (This is from a woman's commentary from a documentary about the 60's, about how consciousness changed from the 50's.) In some countries, it was customary for a guy to ask the already present male for permission, leaving the female out of the decision. (This is from my own knowledge of Irish traditional culture.)

Of course, maybe I'm biased since I met my wife by simply going up and talking to her while she was waiting in line to purchase a ticket for a boat ride

The question is, how much right of refusal did she have? How much presumption was involved on your part? I'm going to guess that she had a lot of latitude on the first part and there was little presumption. I'm going to hazard a guess that you would've been embarrassed, but taken her polite refusal, had things gone differently, but not been offended or felt the loss of something you were entitled to.

The tricky thing in all this, is that it looks fairly harmless on the surface, but it's still pretty corrosive in aggregate. Please don't fall into the trap of being offended because what you've done has a surface resemblance to subtle racism or sexism. No one is saying that you were being sexist because you met your wife in a line. When one gets rid of the overt forms of [X] one is generally left with [X] that resembles something else. (But if you are observant of the power relationships beneath the surface, there is a clear difference.)

Re: "Lighten up"

#774

Post by stcredzero » Thu, Mar 22, 2012, 10:01 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #186

pingswept wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think there's a conflict between sexism and fun? As in, "Well, I'd like to stop making sexist jokes, but then it would be so boring here." I would rather work in an office where the jokes are of the funny sort, rather than the makes-one-person-feel-miserable sort. I really don't think there's any overlap between funny jokes and sexist jokes.

Well, male coworkers pick on each other all the time. Even when they have absolutely no incentive to hurt, once there's an awkward situation and they can say something smart - they'll fire. Most if nor all of humor revolves around something bad happening to someone. That's what funny. (In normal workplace setting women are actually shielded from that friendly fire because men don't feel as comfortable/can't predict w…

(In normal workplace setting women are actually shielded from that friendly fire because men don't feel as comfortable/can't predict what's OK and what's not)

They didn't used to be shielded like this, because men didn't used to think "what women thought was OK and what's not" mattered. In the same way, "white" men used to feel universally entitled to make off-color comments about the silliness and inferiority of "non-whites". Now the power relationship has changed, and now there is some thought given to what's appropriate and what's not.

You want jokes, you have to acquire certain skin thickness. If you don't, then I don't want to work with you. Fun is fun.

"Skin thinness" has to do with a certain degree of wounding and the remnants of institutionalized injustice. Both the wounding and the echoes of the injustice in the culture might take some generations to completely fade away. That said, all people have fun. All people want to relax and be genuinely themselves with someone, sometime. Are you entitled to have fun with absolutely everyone in the particular way that you know? I'm sorry, but it might not even go as far as the small subset of your workplace.

"Fun is fun" is pretty naive. If one studies humor, one finds that it's mostly highly contextual and cultural. This is particularly true for what's acceptable between men and women. That's not some conspiracy to rain on your parade, it's just how things are in the world. Just get to know people first.

Re: "Lighten up"

#775

Post by mst » Thu, Mar 22, 2012, 10:06 PM UTC

ckpwong wrote: post #700

ComputerGuru wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a man, I've handled this by being the one to turn it into an obvious sexist thing by making a joke aloud "yeah, Sarah, boss says it's your turn to take notes again because, you know, you're the only girl at the table :P. Ha ha ha ha." Everyone laughs, boss realizes what he's doing, Sarah is off the hook.

Yes, your comment may get Sarah off the hook, but I'd probably feel even more offended by that comment than by the boss' request. If she has the courage to display any disdain over your overtly sexism comment though, perhaps the boss would take (mental) note. At the same time, the boss may not even be aware of the sexism in the initial request--he/she may rationalize the request/decision after-the-fact, even if it we…

His turn of phrase suggested to me that said overtly sexist common would me delivered with sufficiently dripping sarcasm to make it clear he wasn't in favour of the idea.

I think I might say "yes, boss, because the possession of a penis renders one incapable of note taking, obviously" instead but that's more about the turn of phrase of my sense of humour than anything else.

Re: "Lighten up"

#776

Post by michael_fine » Thu, Mar 22, 2012, 10:10 PM UTC

not-a-pc-whore wrote: post #752

wisty wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand the "as a man" part. That's further propagating the problem. ... > You see, you are still treating her differently, where ultimately, no one treats her differently. Actually, everyone is treating her differently. The problem isn't just that people see men and women differently. That's almost impossible to change in the short term. In the short term, all you can do is try to get people to treat ea…

in the long run, for the survival of the race, we'd better continue to treat them differently. Get over it already!! Women are different! All this pc stuff is drivel.

Please elaborate. Firstly, why is it necessary to treat them differently for "the survival of the race"? Secondly, yes, Women are different, but that doesn't mean that

a: It's appropriate to comment on a woman's cleavage at work

or b: that women can't be equally good software developers

Re: "Lighten up"

#777

Post by m-photonic » Thu, Mar 22, 2012, 10:28 PM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #696

m-photonic wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have exact same problem with how I perceive woman and man having multiple sexual partners. "Good key opens many locks, but good lock is opened by only one key" and all that bullshit - I know that it's ridiculous to hold woman and men to different standard in this regard Without endorsing any specific views on female vs male promiscuity, I don't see what's so bad about seeing a distinction between them. The fact is…

"Without endorsing any specific views on intelligence of tall vs short people, I don't see what's so bad about seeing a distinction between them. The fact is, tall and short people are different from each other, and their intelligence are different phenomena." You can substitute many other things in there, and it will make equally bad argument. 80 years ago one could similarly argue about black vs white people, and i…

Your analogy completely misses the point. Studies show promiscuous men tend to have better than average accuracy in their assessments of their own attractiveness. This makes sense; having had more experience flirting with women, they have a better sense of how women respond to them. Promiscuous women, on the other hand, tend to greatly overestimate their own attractiveness. They assume they must be especially attractive if men are showing so much sexual interest in them, not realizing that most men have very low standards when it comes to casual sex -- men's standards only come into play when it comes to longer-term relationships.

You might say things like this aren't a big deal, but it still serves as a concrete example of how male and female promiscuity are different from one another and affect people's lives differently -- and frankly it's far from the only one. It's silly to deny the subtleties of human sexuality in the name of some egalitarian ideal. By insisting on viewing women exactly the same as you would view men, you are discarding useful information about the world.

Re: "Lighten up"

#778

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 22, 2012, 10:34 PM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #755

hythloday wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, my advice stands, though if you're actively working to undermine your male colleague's confidence in their ability you might consider changing that. But if you insist on treating male and female colleagues differently then you spend your entire day saying to women, "you don't belong here and you never will". If you're comfortable with that and your manager's comfortable with that, please give me the name of you…

"if you're actively working to undermine your male colleague's confidence in their ability" You don't have a solid grasp on male-to-male communication in the US workplace. Please keep in mind that perhaps your culture is different.

[deleted]

Re: "Lighten up"

#779

Post by JulianMorrison » Thu, Mar 22, 2012, 10:38 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #765

ajross wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but that's a really telling detail: she was gracious about it, because she could be (she was in a position of social power), and because you were visibly embarrassed. In the anecdote above, the guy wasn't apparently embarrassed, and Katie didn't have the social power to tell him "it's OK" even if he was (and why should she have to, if she was the one who was embarassed?). See the point? These are critical details…

I totally agree with you. I think JulianMorrison missed that point. Being on the "downside of a power gap" doesn't always mean that speaking up will have bad consequences. It's up to the person who has power. The men in the original scenario need to explicitly give the woman room to speak up if she's feeling uncomfortable.

Missing the point still. Everything done by the person on the downside of a power gap is done in the context of the predicted consequences for doing otherwise. This is a sexist society, full of such concepts as "humourless ice bitch". Actually showing a discomfort which is felt inside might be dangerous. A room entirely full of women is enough to counterbalance this and allow communal frowns to speak loudly. Merely "explicitly giv[ing] the woman room to speak up" is liable to get a response that means "don't hate me" more than it means "here is what I honestly feel". Power has to work harder to blunt its bad effects than just saying "so please ignore the power gap".

Re: "Lighten up"

#780

Post by pygorex » Thu, Mar 22, 2012, 10:38 PM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #131

klausa wrote: post #87

You see, I have problem with posts like this. First I'm like - "Woah, I can't imagine someone would be so insensitive to make joke like this!" and get all fed up and upset. But then... then I freeze, because next example is something that I can imagine myself saying. "Oop, Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!" I... I'm at loss of words. I was trained during my teenage years, that it's coo…

"Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!"...As I'm getting older, I see how sexist and demeaning this is. At the risk of revealing myself to be a chauvinistic jerk, is this kind of response sexist and demeaning, or just inappropriate for the workplace? Why do women wear low-cut dresses if not to attract male attention (in the majority of cases)? Would it be sexist and demeaning for me to not…

>> "Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!"...As I'm getting older, I see how sexist and demeaning this is. > At the risk of revealing myself to be a chauvinistic jerk, is this kind of response sexist and demeaning, or just inappropriate for the workplace?

Well since the quote essentially boils down to "damn look at dem titties" then yes it is very demeaning & disrespectful!

It's also sexist. Why? Because it's self-absorbed. Whoever spoke that quote wasn't thinking about how their words might make Katie feel in a room-full of people. "I'm a man I like titties and anyone else's thoughts and feelings don't matter." That's sexism in a nutshell: that the default and correct perspective is the male perspective. That anyone who doesn't hold this perspective just needs to "chill out".