4 ms·

While I think more women, and underrepresented groups in general, is a good idea. However I am against treating them any differently in a professional setting,

• DamnYuppie 9y ago
  To me, your comment is very much in line with the core tenet of equality which would be that we should strive to treat everyone the same regardless of gender or race. As such I am not sure why you are being down voted without people leaving comments.
  • ue_ 9y ago
    I've said it before, but it's notoriously hard to determine which comments will be downvoted and which will be upvoted. I have seen almost the exact same sentiment on HN before (edit: upvoted, floating near the top of the thread), and it is very irritating when you try to contribute only to have someone out of an elite group of 500+ point people click that little button to grey out your comment. Downvoting isn't helpful, it's a dirty little feature implemented to police certain opinions, usually via chilling effect. I upvoted GP.
    • wolco 9y ago
      The greyed out comments stand out because they look different. They are usually the comments that get my attention.
    • fapjacks 9y ago
      I use a homegrown browser extension I call "Anti-HN B.S." -- which ostensibly stands for "behavior shaping" -- which completely removes my point score and all comment greying from all posts. This has helped me to express opinions here which I know are controversial and suspect will be downvoted. I also find that I am much more thoughtful when approaching comments generally when there is no downvote association.
      • Mz 9y ago
        Is there a link available to this extension where it can be downloaded? (Not that I am in a position to use it personally at the moment, but I would be happy to post it on my blog on the theory that someday I might use it, and, in the mean time, others might find it of interest.)
        • fapjacks 9y ago
          Hello! I've gone ahead and uploaded the source to Github [0]. For anybody that needs instructions: Just clone it somewhere, visit chrome://extensions in your Chrome-based browser, click the "Enable developer mode" checkbox, then "Load unpacked extension" and select the "antihnbs" directory where you cloned it. [0] https://github.com/fapjacks/antihnbs https://github.com/fapjacks/antihnbs
          • Mz 9y ago
            http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/hn-tools.html http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/hn-tools.html It is now listed down below "Useful HN-related tools."
      • ben_jones 9y ago
        Would you care to open source it? I'd be happy to clean it up a bit in my free time. I often find myself obsessing over small things in communities I view highly, such as HN, and would benefit a lot from it.
        • fapjacks 9y ago
          Hello, please see the sibling comment for a link. No cleaning necessary! It's so small I can't even realistically call it a pile of ugly hacks. It's just a three-line... Non-hack? :)
  • partycoder 9y ago
    I do think however that efforts should be made to make the demographics of STEM graduates more similar to the general population demographics, via programs to motivate people to apply to STEM fields or scholarships, etc. I think at that level (education) intervention is fine. However at the workplace, recruiting processes should have an equality of opportunity. People with the same qualifications, skills, etc. should have equal opportunity. And actually that's the law (EEO).
    • sintaxi 9y ago
      Your second paragraph contradicts the first.
      • partycoder 9y ago
        No, it doesn't. The problem with diversity starts very early in the process. By the time graduates apply for jobs there is already a significant lack of diversity. This is why I think it makes sense to focus the diversification effort earlier in the process, in education.
    • ben_jones 9y ago
      Should this be the case in all professions and areas of academia. Geology perhaps? Gender studies? Carpentry, flight attendant, congressman and senators? Genuinely curious your thoughts are.
      • fapjacks 9y ago
        Nobody talks about the gender divide in psychology, for instance, and I suspect that's because nobody perceives psychology as being where the money and power is.
  • wolco 9y ago
    I didn't downvote but I am in favor of treating different people differently. If women succeed more when they have someone to emulate this should be encouraged. If men succeed more on their own leave them alone. The last thing we need is the notion that to be fair everyone needs a mentor or no one can have one. An integer not the same as a boolean even if they both have the value of one.
    • partycoder 9y ago
      With this point you are entering some sharp edged territory. Let's say you have a team that is majority women, and you have 2 candidates for promotion: a man and a woman. The EEO law says sex should not be a criteria for promotion. However if you promote the women based on sex (e.g: following your idea that women work better with women mentors) this could be considered an EEO violation (sex discrimination). So if you want to abide by the law, you need a promotion criteria that's better than "women work better with women".
      • wolco 9y ago
        You pick the best for the role regardless or the business with suffer. Not sure why women needing a mentor to learn would alter that. The sharp edge raises the question are women more valuable or less than men? Does this change the value. On one hand men don't need mentors to succeed that provides more value. On the other hand women who can act as mentors to other women are more valuable than men. In the end it doesn't matter to the business because both cases provide value in different ways. But it could make a big difference to the individual. Treat everyone differently because everyone has different needs and they learn in different ways.
  • dang 9y ago
    It's because such comments break the HN guidelines by treading into classic flamewar territory with nothing genuinely new to say. This ruins threads and degrades the site. A few people get all excited (perhaps 0.1% because they've never seen this before and 99.9% who just love repeating it) while the rest of us keel over from tedium. Since HN's mandate is to gratify intellectual curiosity, that violates it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • exstudent2 9y ago
      Ah classic dang! Abusing your mod powers to punish and down talk anyone who questions your narrative. The comment in question is absolutely on topic and relevant. You just don't like it so claim it's against "site policy". It's ridiculous that you don't allow debate on these topics. And yes, I know I'm perma-banned for not being feminist enough for you. I just wanted to point out your systematic pushing of a political agenda to those who dare browse with show dead.
      • dang 9y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13110004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13110004
        • exstudent2 9y ago
          And yet anyone can scroll through your comment history to see who you ban...
    • ben_jones 9y ago
      So I went back and read the entire article and I think I agree with what you're saying (after initially disagreeing). His comment did not extend the natural discussion that would follow from reading the article and did play into the common narratives that are too often unproductively rehashed. I still believe that silent down votes do not contribute to intelligent discussions either. If someone can take a minute to read an article, its comments, and down vote, they should also be able to politely explain to the commenter in question how and why that comment may be detracting from the discussion. That way the commenter may defend his position or adapt his behavior to better contribute within the community.
• deleted 9y ago
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• Mz 9y ago
  I am a woman and I can essentially agree with this, at least in theory, assuming that you consider the possibility of changing the standard to one that is reasonable if it comes to light that the standard unfairly favors one demographic over others for reasons unrelated to actual job performance (by which I really mean "needs of the job"). Current job metrics have a tendency to assume that a privileged man with a stay-at-home wife is doing the job. The assumption is that she will take care of things like grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc and he will only take time off in a dire emergency, not for any kind of routine maintenance of his health or life. Women fall behind in part because we typically lack our own wife taking care of the women's work for us. But job standards don't change to accommodate the fact that the work force is no longer dominated by married men with full time wives taking care of the home fires. This causes everyone to suffer, not just women with jobs, but it tends to disproportionately hurt women. There is enormous precedent and social pressure such that women tend to still do the lion's share of the housework, etc, even if they also work full time. So "treat everyone the same" can work, but only if we start reassessing job expectations that are rooted in an assumption that "Well, you have a wife at home taking care of certain things, so you don't need time and energy for those things."
  • jeandejean 9y ago
    What about single men? They don't have a slave wife at home but still can manage to perform well. I think your comment in biased on what you assume on men, as if they were privileged idle dreamers. But guess what they're not, and they don't make a fuss for everything they're doing.
    • Mz 9y ago
      This is not just me making assumptions based on my life. I have read quite a bit about this and had classes in, for example, Women's History. When I had a corporate job, I successfully got my teen/young adult sons to take over the women's work so I could give more to my job. I felt it benefited all of us more than them getting crappy entry level jobs that didn't serve their goals in any way. They agreed with my conclusion. Also, your comment seems awfully close to an ad hominem. It is dismissive of me personally and does not really bring substantial argument to bear.
• jansho 9y ago
  Treat everyone equally, yes. But in male-dominated areas such as engineering, the default culture tends to be male-oriented too. For example, bro culture. Not all females can navigate through this easily. Few girls choose the engineering field, and fewer still actually become engineers. This suggests that something not right is going on. When the issue of gender equality pops up, often the assumption is that women are asking to be treated differently - which translates to special treatment. This is far from the case (and too many women do not stand up for themselves for fear of being seen this way.) Instead, the default culture needs to be more open and considerate about diversity. That obviously means it's not going to happen overnight - the minority group needs to be normalised first, and a big part of this is to have a large presence - aha, catch 22! However, an empowered minority group can accelerate this and even encourage more to join in, thereby resulting a stronger presence and support network - hopefully leading to the normalisation of women in engineering, and greater equality. Women mentorships can very well be the key to such empowerment.
  • ben_jones 9y ago
    I think we also need to consider the deeper psychological and anthropological triggers for the behavior in order to more efficiently facilitate this change. Sometimes I wonder if in order to enact change quickly we make the wrong decisions and policies. I think it's a complex problem and not a boolean flag that can be flipped.
    • jansho 9y ago
      Absolutely. Sometimes I wonder the same thing, perhaps current schemes and policies (not all?) result in more dissent between the gender groups.