"Lighten up" • Hacker News Board

Re: "Lighten up"

#821

Post by mst » Fri, Mar 23, 2012, 6:32 PM UTC

ErrantX wrote: post #677

mechanical_fish wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the story. This is why, though my approach has been gently and justly accused of being "passive" downthread, the passivity is the key in this case. Don't overtly "defend" Amy. (Or Chuck, or any teamaker of any gender, for that matter.) Don't use the word "sexism", don't start doing math on how often each team member has been asked to make tea in the last two years, and don't otherwise call attention to you…

I've been thinking about this, and to be honest that could equally be seen as sexist, and also backfire. Things like But you may be in a better strategic position than Amy to negotiate the necessary change could certainly be considered sexist if voiced. What you are suggesting is much the same as what I did do - simply missing out the overt portion. It has advantages; it probably saves people being put in awkward pos…

Day 1: "My turn to make the tea" Day 2: let $amy make the tea Day 3: "You did it yesterday, I'll do it again - I guess the rest of these fucks are too lazy or incompetent to use a fucking teapot."

(adjust word choice for the day 3 variant to an appropriate level for your team's social context)

Re: "Lighten up"

#822

Post by hermannj314 » Fri, Mar 23, 2012, 7:02 PM UTC

georgieporgie wrote: post #819

hermannj314 wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found an article about racism in the antebellum South and the cultural norm of referring to an adult black man as a "boy". I never really considered that calling a woman a 'girl' was a way to demean or lower them in status (I do use the word on occasion). I think the key difference is that I would never address a woman as a girl ("Come here, girl") but I may refer to someone as a girl if she in her 20's or younger…

How is it not demeaning and condescending to call an adult woman by the word used to describe the immature state of her sex? Why can't you simply say "women"? What's the impediment? Why do you so cling to "girl"?

I agree that there are contexts where calling a woman a "girl" is demeaning and condescending. This is clear. And I think labeling a word as "demeaning" requires one of two things: a subjective component (the response of the person at whom the word was directed believing the word was demeaning) or an objective component (the intent of the speaker of the word intending it to be demeaning). I think if we agree with this, it isn't hard to fabricate examples where calling an adult female a "girl" is, in fact, demeaning.

Now if we agree on that, then to make any absolute claim that calling a woman a "girl" is demeaning then we must either make some universal claim about the intent of all those who use the word or a universal claim about the reaction of all those that hear it. I think either of those claims might be overreaching. Or maybe I'm just setting the bar too high.

We obviously live in different parts of the world with different social expectations for language use. Beyond a certain point, arguing about when it is ok to say woman or girl is just pointless bickering over divergent cultural expectations and nothing more.

I respect your viewpoint, you have definitely made me think. I now consider myself a Level 3 misogynist (up from 1).

Re: "Lighten up"

#823

Post by burgerbrain » Fri, Mar 23, 2012, 8:20 PM UTC

hythloday wrote: post #804

burgerbrain wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

This reads to me like "you clearly don't have a solid grasp of how women live in Saudi--of course it's necessary for their dignity to prevent them to drive". Do you see it differently? I definitely don't see that hypothesizing about my inexperience of working in the US (where I worked for 3 months in 2006) answers my point.

If you think how men treat other men in the US workplace is at all comparable to how men treat women in Saudi, then you are fucking insane. Men poking fun of other men is NOT a human rights issue.

Cheeky insults, (which "my goldfish codes better than you" OBVIOUSLY is) are not attempts to "undermine your male colleague's confidence in their ability". If you think that is not the case, then you are obviously completely out of touch with male to male interaction in the US.

Re: "Lighten up"

#824

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, Mar 24, 2012, 2:10 AM UTC

I'm a bit late to the party here but isn't she being sexist too?

For example, with the notes issue - how does she know that she is being chosen because she's female. She probably doesn't. She's probably assuming that's the reason, because men are misogynist pigs, right?

It's one of those situations where we can't tell at all. The mens rea, if there is one, is hidden.

Why doesn't she assume that she takes the best notes or that the boss thinks that because of her CV [made up example:] having documentation experience or the best English pass scores of the group that she'll be the best note taker.

Re: "Lighten up"

#825

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sat, Mar 24, 2012, 2:21 AM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #781

chanon wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing would be to discuss, as a startup owner, how would one prevent this kind of thing happening in their startup. How to create a culture where women aren't treated like that so that highly talented women are more likely to join and stay. Or is this something that we shouldn't hope to achieve because nerds will always be like that? Judging by other comments here (and recent sexism issues in tech), it seems like…

You simply assume that she is right, but you have only heard her part of the story. Obviously I don't want to defend the right to leer at work, but it seems impossible to accommodate everybody's preferences for a workplace. Therefore just raising one persons preferences above the preferences of all other people seems questionable to me. For example in other sexism threads the ubiquitous Star Wars posters and stuff li…

>I don't want to defend the right to leer at work, //

This sort of thing is often in the eye of the offended though. Fat slob with a beer-belly and greasy hair glances at you - bleurgh, X is leering at you. Six-packed, chisel-chinned near-divine human that drives a Ferrari checks you out - phwoar.

>Should Star Wars posters really be banned //

Can anyone give a cogent argument as to how a film poster bearing fantasy sci-fi imagery is sexist aside from specific content like an image of a man with their top off that is intended to objectify them?

Re: "Lighten up"

#826

Post by ericb » Sat, Mar 24, 2012, 1:39 PM UTC

ckpwong wrote: post #698

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #140

As the woman, I've been the only person in the group asked to put together a pot luck (presumably, this work is beneath the males). I've been the only one asked to take notes in a meeting... even if I'm the one who's presenting (because my title really should be 'secretary who we let on the servers'). This, more than the jokes and comments, is the meat of the problem. Inappropriate jokes can be much more easily addre…

The notetaking situation as you describe it (not necessarily the way Katie was treated) can probably be averted by politely declining, such as, "Can someone else take notes this time? I like to put more focus on this particular discussion." If it's happening even more frequently than, say, 50%, then perhaps something along the line of suggesting everyone taking turns (if it's a regular meeting). At my previous workpl…

Yes, that might keep you from having to take notes, but most fools don't respond to subtlety.

The problem is being viewed as nothing more than a note-taker, not the actual note-taking work.

Re: "Lighten up"

#827

Post by wpietri » Sat, Mar 24, 2012, 4:08 PM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #781

chanon wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing would be to discuss, as a startup owner, how would one prevent this kind of thing happening in their startup. How to create a culture where women aren't treated like that so that highly talented women are more likely to join and stay. Or is this something that we shouldn't hope to achieve because nerds will always be like that? Judging by other comments here (and recent sexism issues in tech), it seems like…

You simply assume that she is right, but you have only heard her part of the story. Obviously I don't want to defend the right to leer at work, but it seems impossible to accommodate everybody's preferences for a workplace. Therefore just raising one persons preferences above the preferences of all other people seems questionable to me. For example in other sexism threads the ubiquitous Star Wars posters and stuff li…

Your theory here is that being treated fairly and equally is some sort of quirky personal preference? How is that different than just telling her to lighten up?

Re: "Lighten up"

#828

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 24, 2012, 4:35 PM UTC

olliesaunders wrote: post #627

ErrantX wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be careful how you do it as well. Because I offered to do a task like that (it wasn't note taking, I think it was making tea) saying something like [names changed] "Chris, I'm not sure why Amy is always asked to make the tea! I'll happily do it". Which I thought was politely volunteering whilst also publicly raising my bosses problematic behaviour - an educational experience. I got glowering dagger stares…

Amy shouldn’t be blaming herself for being the victim of sexist behavior. You could have tried to convince her of that. Even though you didn’t, you weren’t an idiot here. Aside from her internal negative reaction, the situation was actually improved.

[deleted]

Re: "Lighten up"

#829

Post by Groxx » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 7:34 PM UTC

morestuff wrote: post #699

nknight wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know several male "homekeepers" who would be very offended by that extremely sexist remark.

And yet, the US Census regards fathers as child care, not designated parents. http://blogsallie.4cforchildren.org/2012/02/13/census-bureau...

I don't think you'll find any arguments that the US government doesn't have insane double standards and sexist laws. But I doubt you can make that kind of claim for any government, really, since they're constructed by people - to get rid of it, you'd have to get rid of it in people, and I'm not aware of that ever having happened.