39 ms·

A Clash of Cultures

291 points by kungfudoi 9y ago

hprotagonist 9y ago
Sometimes I wonder whether IRC really does have an advantage over richer media communications. I do not know or care about the identity of someone who helps me with a tricky question in #emacs beyond their current nick. This lack of information is, in many ways, an asset. I think the only place it goes wrong is that eventually you'll have to interact with people in the real world, and the easiest assumption to make on IRC is that everyone i'm talking to is basically me, but smarter, and there's some guaranteed weirdness when it becomes clear that this is not the case.
- friedButter 9y ago
  The problem with IRC is, if diverse participants realize their inputs arent as valued when viewed without bias, they will cause PR issues. On media like Twitter, you can always pay special attention to diverse folks so they dont feel left out
  - krastanov 9y ago
    I am not certain whether this is a joke that flied over my head, but in case it is not: The whole point of the parent comment was that on IRC you do not know other people's background and can not be discriminatory. Most scientific evidence is the exact opposite of your allegation - when the "tribe" of the other is not know you assume they are of your tribe and do not discriminate. Project Implicit and "stereotype threat" are good phrases to google that would provide rigorous scientific studies around those and other similar topics.
    - friedButter 9y ago
      Interesting.. I'll look up project implicit. The 2 situations which came to mind were the github conference that was cancelled for not being diverse enough after a blind review process and the study done by masking the gender of the applicant where men whose voice was modified to sound like a woman's did marginally better (Though not statistically significant IIRC) in coding interviews
      - krastanov 9y ago
        There are a handful of examples in professional settings where there is a minor bias in favor of women or minorities[1], but both researchers and activists are honest about them (there are always zealots, but that goes for both sides). This bias is bad, but it does not invalidate the much more prevalent and problematic bias in the other direction (against women and minorities). Similarly, the bias against men in parental disputes does not invalidate, nor is invalidated by the bias against women in professional settings. [1]: The example that comes to mind is that in academic settings if women are (for instance) 5% of the applicant pool, they will make (for instance) 10% of the people invited for interviews. (I made up all the numbers for the sake of explanation) But this seems to be explained by rounding (you would invite less than 10 people for interviews, so a single woman being present is already above the population average). This effect will hopefully disappear as we create more diverse community. And the effect is completely dominated by effects in the other direction like [2]. [2]: http://www.yalescientific.org/2013/02/john-vs-jennifer-a-battle-of-the-sexes/ http://www.yalescientific.org/2013/02/john-vs-jennifer-a-bat...
- emsal 9y ago
  On IRC, if you stay in a channel long enough, you'll find that (depending on the channel) communities there do have their own slew of personalities and politics. People may eventually reveal information about themselves (gender, age, ethnicity, etc.), and if the information happens to be real, whatever harassment or bigotry that's made in response to that can do just as much damage as if it were done over another medium.
  - hprotagonist 9y ago
    This is all true, but the degree to which I get to control how much other long-time channel denizens know about me is much more under my control. I can even mask my IP pretty easily. A real-name, photo-required, rich-media equivalent (i.e, twitter) tips the balance of mandatory disclosure away from my favor.
    - praisewhitey 9y ago
      Twitter doesn't require a real name or photo (I use neither) and has as much rich media as the IRC channels I sit in.
      - hprotagonist 9y ago
        i'm not a twitter user, but i have been led to believe that eggs are generally not trusted.
        jpindar 9y ago
        When they say eggs they mean accounts that literally do not have any avatar image, and are thus probably operated by newbies or bots. A quick check of my feed shows that at least half of the accounts I follow don't have an image of a person or a name that could be a real name. Of those that do, some are clearly not the picture or real name of the user of the account.
      - retailbuyout 9y ago
        Twitter has many, many other issues, including an absolutely terrible interface for meaningful discussion. Good for swapping gifs; bad for talking about anything with complexity.
heliodor 9y ago
Mods, please fix the title. "A Clash of Cultures" is very broad and says very little about the article's contents.
- pvg 9y ago
  The title is neither clickbait nor misleading. It's perfectly fine to have to read something to find out what it is.
  - heliodor 9y ago
    I think a lot of people would consider that linkbait. Not revealing the contents of something. The appeal of mystery. Is that not bait? Manipulation?
    - pvg 9y ago
      A lot of these people would be wrong. What are these well-known essays about, judging from the title alone? If they were linked on HN, would you like the titles changed? As we may think A modest proposal Unto this last Total eclipse The emperor's old clothes The cathedral and the bazaar
- majewsky 9y ago
  The title is in line with the guidelines: > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
jayliew 9y ago
I googled to find out who Dale is, and saw that he issued an apology over Twitter and linked to the open note on Makezine: https://makezine.com/2017/11/06/open-note-to-naomi-wu/ https://makezine.com/2017/11/06/open-note-to-naomi-wu/
- rhcom2 9y ago
  It would be nice if he expanded on the "valuable lesson" he learned so it didn't feel like handwringing to save face.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    There are certain protected classes which are not allowed to be questioned, unless you want to be a social pariah, because of patriarchy or something.
    - sctb 9y ago
      We've already asked you not to troll, so could you please stop? The difference between trolling and discussing is whether or not you've met the bar of information over provocation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - oh_sigh 9y ago
        I was giving my perhaps cynical take on the question, but it was not trolling or attempting to be provocative. I work in a biG tech company and have seen first hand people be bullied, shunned, and placed on informal 'do-not-work-with' lists by managers not just for holding disgusting views, but also for holding not-quite-Liberal-enough views. Also, holding views which are okay to express generally, but wrong to express more specifically about a single class(say, women). This controversy would not be happening if a random fat dude was accused of faking building things. It's only because this story includes a female, and therefore ties into some subset of society's obsession with gender and race issues that we are discussing this.
- 9y ago
ryandrake 9y ago
There must be a lot of backstory and context here that is going unmentioned, because I can't understand what this Dale guy is accused of doing. He "questioned her authenticity?" What does that mean? Was he implying she was some kind of non-human robot or something? What was the actual tweet? I feel like I walked into a movie 30 minutes late and missed the important part.
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  Yes, there is a lot of backstory and context; this story has been developing for either a few days or a few months, depending on how far you want to go back. To get some idea of what's going on here, see (EDIT: possibly NSFW based on where you work, and this is deeply part of the story) http://archive.is/GE0he http://archive.is/GE0he from May. I have been following this story not super closely, but a bit; my understanding is the original tweets have been deleted, but Dale was saying stuff in line with that story up above. The article discusses why that matters.
  - ashark 9y ago
    Could probably use a NSFW warning on that link. The woman from the linked article is also pictured there, but in even less clothing.
    - steveklabnik 9y ago
      Yes; thanks for pointing that out. A small blind spot since I've been following the story, you're 100% right.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    Wow, what a rabbit hole of creepy obsession and crazy. I wish I hadn't asked.
  - mr_spothawk 9y ago
    everybody is talking about the gender-politics, nobody seems to be talking about the assertions in this article. curious to get some more details about this if you're interested in sharing some of what you've read. thanks for the archive link.
k__ 9y ago
A friend of mine has a strange approach to tech, at least in my opinion. She didn't buy a computer till 5 years ago, only used the library ones to write and print some documents. Then suddenly she bought a laptop and setup Linux on it. Took her a few weeks, but she got everything up and running without any help. Also, she had an old cellphone for years and then she bought a Nexus 4, rooted it and installed an OS of her choosing on it. It took her at least a month to get the thing because she never used eBay or PayPal before. My girlfriend also rooted her smartphones multiple times when they got no updates anymore and installed Cyanogen mod. Both these women aren't what you would call tech affine, if you interact with them on a daily basis. Somehow they got rather complicated technical issues fixed without any help. This really challenged my perspective on technical know how.
- watwut 9y ago
  The let phone get real old and then buying great new and playing with it a lot would describe me too. I am female programmer. I feel guilt when buying things like that to play with if I don't really need them. It is just how I was raised and it stayed with me.
  - k__ 9y ago
    Yes, my friend said something like that. Her father told her if she wants to do something she should do it right or leave it be, lol. My girlfriend is rather practical with this kind of stuff. She works as a marketeer and if she needs some coding, she reads stuff about it online and does it herself if it's something you can learn in under a day. Also, she was rather poor as child, so she likes to keep things she paid for longer than the manufacturers want her too.
- TrainedMonkey 9y ago
  Everyone has all of the world's knowledge at their fingertips, the hard part is asking the right questions.
- CM30 9y ago
  Personally, I wouldn't say this is necessarily a strange approach. In fact, I'd say it may support my own hypothesis about tech knowhow and what not. Namely, that it's not generally about some people being more 'inclined to it' or 'skilled' or 'intelligent' in some vague sense, but simply about whether it's necessary for somehow to be tech savvy in their situation. It's like learning to code. Many people could do it, especially if they put their mind to it. But for many people, they don't because there's no pressing reason them for them to know how to program. If they had an idea or pet project which needed them to make an app for it... well they may end up learning a hell of alot faster. That's just my opinion on why this could have come about anyway.
pjmlp 9y ago
I always get sad when I see such issues happening to fellow female engineers. Throughout technical school, CS degree and companies I have worked on, most of them were and are, top noch when compared with many of us. If I was doing a Mission Impossible kind of team, many of the faces would be female. Yet sexism keeps being a thing.
- watwut 9y ago
  The issue is not just that she is female, but that she is sexy and has big breasts. People have sad associations between look and intelligence.
  - tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
    Maybe it's not exactly 'looks' and physical attributes but her general appearance in these tech tweets/blog posts. I don't see guys in analogous outfits in maker blog posts.
    - watwut 9y ago
      What would be analogous? A guy looking cool or a guy making sex jokes (sex analogies are common in electrotechnics)? Overly mascline dude? Is there even analogous outfit for a guy? My guess is that not really, this is not symmetric situation.
      - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
        Something analogous would be a male model wearing a speedo doing all of this stuff. There's no reason to inject sexuality into technical things. It's not something that we really want to promote in our workspaces.
        watwut 9y ago
        That is not really sexy, no more then swimming shorts. I don't know what all dudes in here have with speedo. I suspect Americans are picking it cause they are disgusted by that for some weird reason. Sexy dudes targeted at women look different. Also, electrotechnics is full of sex jokes. And I have seen presentations with bikiny or other women in them for no reason. It is not like sexualitu was not there previously, it is just that it was not produced by women.
objectivistbrit 9y ago
This is an absurd story. Of course a woman can be a "maker". Of course an attractive person can be a "maker". But Naomi Wu's entire shtick seems to be "skimpily dressed girl with fake tits does stereotypically nerdy male activity". Look at her Youtube channel [1] - every video starts with an anime cartoon of her, obviously intended to titillate. People have frequently criticised startups for using sex to promote their products. (E.g., Geeklist, a few years back [2]). Now a scantily clad woman is a feminist icon? I get that there's a view of the world whereby the Geeklist woman was being exploited, and Naomi Wu is simply owning her sexuality, or whatever. For most outsiders it simply looks like fashion. Using sex to promote tech products was passe, and now it's in again and slightly edgy, but only if you're cool enough to pull it off. She has an explanation about how the breast implants really express her interest in bodyhacking and the outfits reflect the cyberpunk style of Shenzhen. (B.S., by the way - most of Shenzhen is just a normal Chinese city). And when all her photos and videos are of her in a skimpy outfit, wearing makeup and with hair styled - she's choosing to present herself in a certain way. She could do a video wearing a sweater, working on a late night project with a ponytail and bagged eyes, but she doesn't. She knows looking good will get her videos more clicks. (It takes a lot of effort to look good consistently, which is why engineers and scientists of either gender are stereotypically not good-looking. They're spending too much time on other things). Then there's the fact that her Twitter [3] simply doesn't sound like a mainland Chinese girl. No, I can't prove this. But I spent enough time studying Chinese and living in China, speaking with a wide range of Chinese people, and I'd bet any amount of money that those tweets were written by an American. Even when translated by a native English speaker, Chinese has a ton of idiosyncratic phrasings and sentence patterns that give it a distinctive style. (For an example, see ChinaSmack [4], which translates Chinese internet culture into English). Not only do Naomi's tweets lack that style completely, they definitely do not sound like they were written who grew up in a Confucian culture. China favours modesty, hierarchy and conforming to the group. Sure, there are sassy, independent young Chinese women, but they don't sound like sassy, independent young American women. Naomi Wu sounds like an American woman. (Specifically American and not generically Western - Europeans don't have that brash aggressiveness). Again, I can't prove this, but her Twitter postings simply do not have the slightest hint of Chinese-ness. [Edit: having listened to more of her videos, it is highly unlikely the girl in the videos made those tweets]. Then there's the fact that she screenshotted his tweet and uses it as part of her Twitter header photo [3]. And the huge pile-on to a guy who made one tweet and later apologised for it. She even goes digging and trying to associate him with Donald Trump on fairly spurious grounds [5]. This whole story designed to hit the tech industry's buttons and incite everyone to pontificate about "tech bros". My guess is that her company is intentionally using this episode as a guerilla marketing/PR exercise, but I have no idea. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdk4Zw2oYdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdk4Zw2oYdc [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/03/23/women-party-favors-eye-candy-shanley-kane-women-in-tech/#61547ed4960e https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/03/23/women... [3] https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg [4] https://www.chinasmack.com/renren-statuses-by-chinese-university-students https://www.chinasmack.com/renren-statuses-by-chinese-univer... [5] https://twitter.com/dalepd/status/926813927769440256 https://twitter.com/dalepd/status/926813927769440256
oh_sigh 9y ago
This 'controversy' could be settled if Naomi would just say whether the assertion is right that the 'timaz' user is either her boyfriend or someone she is in contact with.
at-fates-hands 9y ago
The problem with this is what I've been experiencing for years. Online shopping is fine, but what if I need something right now, and I can't wait for overnight shipping? What if I need something for a Halloween costume, in December? What if I need a tie or pair of pants for an interview? What if I forgot to get a gift for my nephew? Malls don't require that you have a meticulous plan for everything you might need in the next month. Malls make it easy for me to go to, get something I need and get out. No matter how fast online buying is, they can't compete with local stores that allow me to get something as fast as I need it. I first started seeing this when a bunch of convenience stores went under after 2008. Now it's getting worse. CompUSA and other tech stores used to carry a lot of PC hardware stuff I needed and could get when I needed something. Radio Shack, CompUSA, and bunch other shops all went under. Now if I need something, I'm left with Best Buy's paltry offerings and the closet Best Buy store is a good 20 minute drive one way because they already closed three of the shops that were within a five minute drive. The death of the Malls and retail in general is already killing the convenience of being able to get something when I need it. Now I have to drive further, spend more time trying to find a retail store which is still open, and then hope their minimal offerings will do the trick.
draw_down 9y ago
Incredible how this person has been treated. Just indefensible.
hidenotslide 9y ago
I don't know anything about this particular case, but it reminds me of a similar episode in 2015 against a South Korean Hearthstone player. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/witch-hunt-against-fake-female-hearthstone-player-/1100-6425551/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/witch-hunt-against-fake-fe... Point 3 about the asymmetry of a prominent CEO spreading rumors without consequence is troubling.
pwaai 9y ago
In my opinion, the article also unwittingly reveals the fetishization of Asian women in North America. How dare an Asian woman who has breast augumentation surgery and risque photos call herself a technologist? How dare she use her physical attractiveness to woe the attention of men other than getting naked in front of your computer screen?
- tree_of_item 9y ago
  "How dare"? Who is saying anything like that? I think the original accusation focused on the deleted account of an experienced engineer associated with Naomi. But you know what? > How dare she use her physical attractiveness to woe the attention of men I'm just gonna go ahead and say this is, in fact, a questionable thing to do. Especially in a community with a name like "Maker" that purports to be about technical ability.
  - pwaai 9y ago
    > I'm just gonna go ahead and say this is, in fact, a questionable thing to do. Especially in a community with a name like "Maker" that purports to be about technical ability. Are you even remotely aware of your own biases here that I'm trying to highlight? So communities that purports technical subjects should enforce strict Puritan dress code for women to fit your own world views? > You're not wrong, but it's a touchy subject and the word "slutshaming" polarizes people pretty effectively in the current year. In your comment you invalidate 'slutshaming' completely, do you think it might have impact on what you are writing?
    - tree_of_item 9y ago
      > So communities that purports technical subjects should enforce strict Puritan dress code for women to fit your own world views? Come on, this is an obvious strawman. There's a gradient between a "strict Puritan dress code" and "let's get naked!". If I showed up to Strange Loop in a slingshot speedo do you think that'd be okay? > In your comment you invalidate 'slutshaming' completely, do you think it might have impact on what you are writing? I don't think I "invalidate slutshaming completely". I said it's a polarizing topic, which it is.
natural219 9y ago
Steelmanning Dale's position here. (https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man) It seems like the root questions here are: 1) Does Naomi do all of the work for all of her projects, without external help? 2) If answer to (1) is "No", does she ever represent herself as doing all the work, or claim that she doesn't get external help? 3) If answer to (2) is "Yes", Does this cause harm to people deceived by her public character as a "maker"? The balance of evidence for (1), if you believe Dale's account and some others, is "No". There's piles of internet evidence for this (I don't want to drag them up, but can maybe find links if people are curious). This fact doesn't actually seem to be in active contention, so I'll move on. The balance to evidence for (2) seems to me also like a "No". I don't think Naomi has ever claimed that she does 100% of the work for all her projects herself -- and that's totally fine! She's a figurehead / movement leader, she doesn't need to be a personal expert in every maker field to make a positive impact. If you read some of her FAQs (https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs), it doesn't seem like she's making this claim. (3) is an interesting question that I will leave to the crowd. I'm already tired of writing this comment and realize that I actually don't care. So nevermind about all this.
- natural219 9y ago
  I'm mostly just upset that this blogpost / comments don't seem to have anything to do with Dale/Naomi's specific case and more to do with people's pre-existing opinions about "women in tech" or whatever. One pernicious thing that happens in these conversations. I've spent about 10 minutes total reading some Discord/DM messages about this controversy, and quickly found the above information. I fear that, if I spent more time "digging up evidence" to make a lengthy/nerdy case about this, I could be accurately accused of "Well why are you spending so much time arguing about prominent female tech leaders? Do you have some sort of ulterior motive?". I recognized this internally, stopped writing my comment, and moved on.
- cwkoss 9y ago
  I think part of the irony of this situation is that Make Magazine publishes tutorials and features white American childrens' projects who have almost certainly received extreme hand-holding help from parents. If the standard is truly "without external help", are people following tutorials in Make magazine not 'real' makers? If the standard is "represent as doing all the work", to what extent does Make verify that the (often privileged) children it features are doing all of the work themselves? Has the CEO ever called out a child for getting too much help? Children is certainly a bit of a straw man, but I suspect they feature many young-20-something white male Americans whose parents have taught them technical things from young age, can afford maker equipment to experiment with at home, can ask their parents for technical help when they get stuck, have mentors in their family's social network that are experts in the field, etc. I guess my point is EVERYONE in the maker movement needs lots of help if they are not from the highest levels of privilege. There is a ton of info to learn, and nobody has the time to trial-and-error brute force their way to expertise. Implicit standards that everything must be done and figured out yourself creates a bias to only feature people who "need" the exposure least and are most privileged. Anyone working 'alone' has likely received enough help on previous projects that they were able to build off those skills to self-teach the rest of the way. Obviously, Make magazine appreciates the value of help and instruction within the maker community: that is their reason for existence. Thus, I believe Dale is holding Naomi to a higher standard than he does for most male American makers because of his own biases.
coldtea 9y ago
>If someone asked you to draw a picture of an engineer, who would you draw? As you draw the figure, the gender assigned is a reflection of your mental prototype of an engineer – your own prototype bias. Most will draw a male figure. How about it being a reflection of status quo? If one sees more male engineers, they are more likely to draw a male one than a female one. Ever more so if their goal is to draw a representative or "median" engineer, and not an activist one (to help increase the number women in engineering roles) when doing the drawing.
- cortesoft 9y ago
  Right, but the point the author is trying to make is that having that vision of the 'prototype' in your head changes your behavior and keeps people who are not the 'status quo' out of the field.
- csours 9y ago
  I wouldn't draw anyone in a swimsuit.
hitekker 9y ago
Key takeaway: >why would Dale want to slander Naomi? >I don’t know the background, but prior to Dale’s tweet, Naomi had aggressively dogged Dale and Make about Make’s lack of representation of women. >Dale could have recognized and addressed this core issue of a lack of diversity. Instead, Dale elected to endorse unsubstantiated claims and destroy a young female Maker’s reputation and career. Are there other sources that corroborate Dale’s supposed sadism?
- cmiles74 9y ago
  I think "sadism" may not be the appropriate term. Based on what I have read, it sound more like Dale is simply sexist. His doubts and concerns have a pretty sexist bent, as do his actions. When a person really thinks another class of person simply cannot do a particular thing, this is what you get.
it_learnses 9y ago
I wasn't really able to figure out who the actual author is. Anybody know?
sorenjan 9y ago
My issue with her isn't with her at all, but rather with what Bunnie calls the Idol Effect. She posts projects on Reddit[0] from time to time, and they pretty much always gets upvoted way beyond their technical merit. One was a pair of 3D printed shoes with storage for lockpicks and a wireless router, the album was close to 40 pictures, several of them of her in a very small dress. I don't follow her, I don't have anything against her. I don't like how people upvote her projects simply because of girl. [0] https://www.reddit.com/user/SexyCyborg https://www.reddit.com/user/SexyCyborg
- jhou2 9y ago
  1. Reddit. Seriously. Pictures of cats get upvoted way beyond their "technical merit". 2. A pair of shoes with storage sounds like a great idea. I believe she described how hard it is for women to find storage space when they dress up. Men's clothing have pockets everywhere, but women's clothing often don't. I don't think it's easy to find shoes with storage. 3. What's wrong with her wearing a small dress? Feminism means women can wear whatever they want. She goes into this issue in depth on her blog. She makes a fair point that the response to it is social/cultural. In China, she doesn't get the same sexually-related responses. Puritanism doesn't quite run the same over there. 4. Her perspective on the maker movement is fair and diverse. White, balding middle-aged males aren't going to have the same problems or concerns as an attractive, young asian female. What's wrong with bringing her perspective into the milieu?
  - steveklabnik 9y ago
    Incidentally, it was actually broader than "shoes with storage", she specifically did the project as a pentesting exercise. "If I was trying to hack a big company, how would I do it?" She made the connection between these styles of shoes and a specific outfit, and that the whole "sexy" thing would be a distraction, enabling her to sneak USB drives out of the shoes. They contained wifi-enabled equipment inside the shoes, with power, to automatically probe wireless networks around her. Etc. So it's actually even more deeply technical than that summary lets on. You can find the exact description on her website if you're interested.
  - 9y ago
forkLding 9y ago
I'm a Naomi Wu fan so I am biased but I want to point out that we shouldn't doubt people as a front because they prepare what they say beforehand from the internet or other sources or even because they have to do research or ask for help from other sources before doing a video. I'm a programmer and yet surprise I use Stackoverflow. In the end, points of authority are still people and should be seen as such, they are not all-knowing sources of truth or some kind of tech Buddha.
baybal2 9y ago
Oh wow! Impressive
Mz 9y ago
Her positioning of her public persona here is not doing her any favors. On the one hand, if she can get taken seriously while showing herself off as a sexy cyborg with her bod strongly highlighted, this may help break some stereotypes. On the other hand, women already get pigeonholed as being only good for one thing. Playing up the sexy angle is going to make it generally harder for other people to perceive her as anything else. I have never heard of her before. I have no idea what she is doing that she chooses to pursue this positioning as someone sexy as her primary identifier. But it strikes me as inherently problematic to take that positioning in a male dominated field. It is something I have wrestled with. I don't think there are any easy answers here. Women are damned if they do, damned if they don't. If heterosexual men find a woman attractive simply for being, for example, an intelligent woman, it winds up being a huge challenge to combat that. It can happen no matter how conservatively she dresses or what she looks like. If being "old and ugly" cured the issue, I wouldn't spend so much time contemplating such questions. I have joked that I am still waiting to become old and ugly enough for this to stop being an issue. But, you know, I can't control what the world does. I can only kind of sort of take a smidgeon of control over my limited choices in life. And I found it helpful to take a different approach than this.
- cwkoss 9y ago
  You may be interested in her FAQ: https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs " How can you wear those clothes? Not an issue here in Shenzhen. No one bothers me. They notice but there is no problem. Our sex workers do not wear this kind of clothing as Chinese men prefer an innocent/cute/childish look. You can see from my 360º videos on YouTube that aside from curious looks no one bothers me or cares very much. Mostly they enjoy the novelty and ask to take pictures with me. Beside personal taste, the other issue is my appearance is effective. Female Makers- or Women in Tech are rarely featured in Chinese news, it's just not something that gets much interest and there is no community of like-minded women I can look to. Sexy girls are still the delivery vector for nearly all messages in tech here. If I want to get my message out- that these new technical tools are accessible, and that there are well-paying jobs available for women that master them, I have to do so in a way that will actually reach my audience. I'm sure the high road is nice- but in China, no one will hear a word you say while you are on it. For people making negative comments- while sex workers in your country might wear some similar clothing, women in your country also wear and do things that only sex workers in other, even more conservative countries would do. While we all would like to think our country sets the standard for the World it’s polite not to impose our standards on each other- no matter how surprising the differences. You can be sure if I visited your country I would dress so as to not cause offense."
heisnotanalien 9y ago
Didn't have a problem believing she was an engineer at all to be honest - she is asian.
- rawnlq 9y ago
  This would make a very good http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/almost-politically-correct-redneck http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/almost-politically-correct-red...
40acres 9y ago
Men generally seem to take issue with women who own their sexuality, combine that with the general level of misogyny and sexism in the tech industry and the general level of gate keeping that surrounds "nerd" culture and you get this. Disappointing but not surprising.
- js8 9y ago
  Please stop repeating the myth that tech industry is somehow extremely misogynistic or sexist. It's not more than other industries, in fact I strongly suspect it is actually less.
  - zbentley 9y ago
    Did GP imply that tech is more misogynistic than other industries? Or "extremely" so? I do not think they did. Even if tech is on par with, or less than, other industries with regards to misogyny, what then? We (HN) largely work in tech. It (the industry) has a problem. Let's talk about what to do about it, not pretend it doesn't exist because "it could be worse".
    - js8 9y ago
      I think they did hint at it, to quote "combine that with the general level of misogyny and sexism in the tech industry"; but only they know. If they didn't - good! > We (HN) largely work in tech. It (the industry) has a problem. No, it's a social problem. Tech industry per se has nothing to do with it. I can see many social problems (and worse ones, let's be real) unrelated to tech that we can and should talk about and not pretend they don't exist. I mean, look at it from the other side - we shouldn't ignore a social problem because it isn't an issue in tech - for example, homelessness.
crankylinuxuser 9y ago
I remember lurking here on HN quite a while back (err, maybe a few months ago) and saw someone who was making the claim of the following: Naomi Wu was a hack Naomi Wu had multiple handlers. There was some "shadowy guy" lurking in most photo ops. I didn't think anything of it, other than a hater. I even saw one of these claims on a few other sites I visit... Found it: https://imgur.com/gallery/O3Yq0 https://imgur.com/gallery/O3Yq0 (Imgur indicates timesignature May 6, 2017) To be honest, I have NO clue what's going on. I just have a good memory of previous stuff I've read and saw. Maybe this'll give more hints about what's going on here content edit: Turns out the URL was from steveklabnik , which points towards this: http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.nl/2017/05/naomi-sexy-cyborg-wu-is-liar-and-fake.html http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.nl/2017/05/naomi-sexy-cybo... and the cached content here: http://archive.is/GE0he http://archive.is/GE0he When you search for that URL, you see only 5 hits. The very first one is on http://krautkanal.com/b/12075357 http://krautkanal.com/b/12075357 by user mandalareopens. This just stranger and stranger. :/ Edit: For those that downmodded me, I don't believe this stuff. I'm saying there's a history of someone running a smear campaign against her.
replicatorblog 9y ago
A few years ago the video game convention PAX instituted a policy, under pressure from attendees, that amounted to "no booth babes." This applied to hired models whose only job was to dress provocatively standing in a booth, but also to cosplayers who demonstrated a level of creativity in costume-making and performance matching Naomi Wu. In that case, a class of creative professional who are passionate makers and enthusiastic fans of a medium were denied a chance to ply their trade because the organizers felt it was a salacious distraction from the core proposition from the show. Here is some coverage: (https://kotaku.com/5900134/skimpy-outfit-gets-lollipop-chainsaw-cosplayer-asked-to-leave-pax https://kotaku.com/5900134/skimpy-outfit-gets-lollipop-chain...). The sense I get is that Dale is being criticized because he's seen to be questioning an individual's technical skills based almost exclusively on her physical appearance. I get that, and that criticism is fair. However, my read of his comment is that he shares the view of the proponents of PAX's policy. In that case, Jessica Nigri was a creative enthusiast, but her presence made the show less comfortable for other attendees for a variety of reasons, e.g. promoting unrealistic body images, adding a sexual dynamic to what is supposed to be an all-ages show, etc. I'm curious if the uproar would be at all diminished (or exacerbated) if Dale had framed the original decision to not have her present along one of these lines of argument: 1) If he was dismissive of her work, but not her as a person. "Naomi Wu is an impressive young maker with a large following, but we feel like her popularity is driven more by her appearance rather than the quality or originality of her work." 2) Or if it was presented as an editorial decision: "We've not invited Naomi Wu to present because her work, while interesting, is sexually charged and outside the scope of projects we want to highlight at MakerFaire." 3) Or a commercial decision: "Naomi Wu has not been invited to present at MakerFaire because while we believe makers should feel free to pursue a wide range of interests and modes of self-expression, her presence may prove distracting to the busloads of first-graders who make up a large portion of the audience, and uncomfortable to our sponsors." 4) Or even if it was a moralistic judgement: "Naomi Wu has not been invited to present at MakerFaire because we believe women in tech face huge amounts of latent sexism and our judgment is that featuring work in this style would worsen, not improve the problem." Would these have been better or worse? FWIW, I had the good fortune to spend a few hours with Dale and some of the O'Reilly crew circa 2008. It's hard for me to imagine a more "woke" group of people at the head of a large tech company. They were focused on diversity and inclusion well before the topics took on the wide-spread buy-in that they have today.
zbentley 9y ago
An asymptote of this phenomenon is Curtis Yarvin ("Moldbug", basically a fascist, and also a programmer) being denied a slot at the Strange Loop conference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#Controversy How does that compare with this situation? Is it similar? Different? If so, why?
qiqing 9y ago
In light of the commentary on Naomi Wu's choice of clothing in her content, I wanted to share an excerpt from an interview in another article to give a sense of cultural perspective here: http://www.makery.info/en/2017/01/30/sexy-cyborg-la-communaute-maker-est-reservee-aux-privilegies-blancs/ http://www.makery.info/en/2017/01/30/sexy-cyborg-la-communau... Why and how did you create this “Sexy Cyborg” character? Is it all persona or is it also the real you? Basically, when you are not being a maker, do you still dress just as sexy? It’s the other way around, I actually wear more conservative clothing when taking maker pictures and video for English-speaking social media than I do normally just walking around and running errands. Westerners just seem to get enraged over silly clothes. Well, Americans and British mostly. Europeans and South Americans just think it’s funny and exciting, like Chinese do usually. I have what I call the Auntie Test: Do Chinese women over about 50 or so have any problem with my clothes? The Auntie who cleans the halls in my apartment building has twice sent me back home for a sweater, but that is just because it was winter and catching a cold calls for Chinese Traditional Medicine. I was raised properly and am respectful. If the day comes and the neighborhood Aunties tell me not to dress so sexy, I won’t. But so long as they smile and wave at me, I don’t really think it’s anyone’s business what I wear in my own country.
jorgec 9y ago
Who did what? and why is relevant? Sorry but you don't put the whole story and the context, then its just a personal opinion.
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
For the record, the tweet in question is on Naomi's twitter page header. It reads: "I am questioning who she really is. Naomi is a persona, not a real person. She is several or many people". Also more pictures of Naomi on her twitter- I have to admit she looks like a booth babe and the first thing that came to my mind when I saw here pictures was "fan service". But that means nothing of course. In fact, if I think about it- having a poor sense of style is so being an engineer.
penistives 9y ago
> Western men visiting China often feel entitled to the attention of local women, says Wu. When she declines romantic or sexual advances from American ex-pats, Wu says they often respond with rage. [1] Sounds like Dale was turned down. 1. http://www.newsweek.com/naomi-wu-sexy-cyborg-misogyny-silicon-valley-704372 http://www.newsweek.com/naomi-wu-sexy-cyborg-misogyny-silico...
thomzi12 9y ago
Interesting article, kind of wish it started off with some context and simple reporting on the situation though -- I'm not familiar with the story.

291 points by kungfudoi 9y ago

Sometimes I wonder whether IRC really does have an advantage over richer media communications. I do not know or care about the identity of someone who helps me with a tricky question in #emacs beyond their current nick. This lack of information is, in many ways, an asset. I think the only place it goes wrong is that eventually you'll have to interact with people in the real world, and the easiest assumption to make on IRC is that everyone i'm talking to is basically me, but smarter, and there's some guaranteed weirdness when it becomes clear that this is not the case.

friedButter 9y ago
The problem with IRC is, if diverse participants realize their inputs arent as valued when viewed without bias, they will cause PR issues. On media like Twitter, you can always pay special attention to diverse folks so they dont feel left out
- krastanov 9y ago
  I am not certain whether this is a joke that flied over my head, but in case it is not: The whole point of the parent comment was that on IRC you do not know other people's background and can not be discriminatory. Most scientific evidence is the exact opposite of your allegation - when the "tribe" of the other is not know you assume they are of your tribe and do not discriminate. Project Implicit and "stereotype threat" are good phrases to google that would provide rigorous scientific studies around those and other similar topics.
  - friedButter 9y ago
    Interesting.. I'll look up project implicit. The 2 situations which came to mind were the github conference that was cancelled for not being diverse enough after a blind review process and the study done by masking the gender of the applicant where men whose voice was modified to sound like a woman's did marginally better (Though not statistically significant IIRC) in coding interviews
    - krastanov 9y ago
      There are a handful of examples in professional settings where there is a minor bias in favor of women or minorities[1], but both researchers and activists are honest about them (there are always zealots, but that goes for both sides). This bias is bad, but it does not invalidate the much more prevalent and problematic bias in the other direction (against women and minorities). Similarly, the bias against men in parental disputes does not invalidate, nor is invalidated by the bias against women in professional settings. [1]: The example that comes to mind is that in academic settings if women are (for instance) 5% of the applicant pool, they will make (for instance) 10% of the people invited for interviews. (I made up all the numbers for the sake of explanation) But this seems to be explained by rounding (you would invite less than 10 people for interviews, so a single woman being present is already above the population average). This effect will hopefully disappear as we create more diverse community. And the effect is completely dominated by effects in the other direction like [2]. [2]: http://www.yalescientific.org/2013/02/john-vs-jennifer-a-battle-of-the-sexes/ http://www.yalescientific.org/2013/02/john-vs-jennifer-a-bat...
emsal 9y ago
On IRC, if you stay in a channel long enough, you'll find that (depending on the channel) communities there do have their own slew of personalities and politics. People may eventually reveal information about themselves (gender, age, ethnicity, etc.), and if the information happens to be real, whatever harassment or bigotry that's made in response to that can do just as much damage as if it were done over another medium.
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  This is all true, but the degree to which I get to control how much other long-time channel denizens know about me is much more under my control. I can even mask my IP pretty easily. A real-name, photo-required, rich-media equivalent (i.e, twitter) tips the balance of mandatory disclosure away from my favor.
  - praisewhitey 9y ago
    Twitter doesn't require a real name or photo (I use neither) and has as much rich media as the IRC channels I sit in.
    - hprotagonist 9y ago
      i'm not a twitter user, but i have been led to believe that eggs are generally not trusted.
      - jpindar 9y ago
        When they say eggs they mean accounts that literally do not have any avatar image, and are thus probably operated by newbies or bots. A quick check of my feed shows that at least half of the accounts I follow don't have an image of a person or a name that could be a real name. Of those that do, some are clearly not the picture or real name of the user of the account.
    - retailbuyout 9y ago
      Twitter has many, many other issues, including an absolutely terrible interface for meaningful discussion. Good for swapping gifs; bad for talking about anything with complexity.

heliodor 9y ago

Mods, please fix the title. "A Clash of Cultures" is very broad and says very little about the article's contents.

pvg 9y ago
The title is neither clickbait nor misleading. It's perfectly fine to have to read something to find out what it is.
- heliodor 9y ago
  I think a lot of people would consider that linkbait. Not revealing the contents of something. The appeal of mystery. Is that not bait? Manipulation?
  - pvg 9y ago
    A lot of these people would be wrong. What are these well-known essays about, judging from the title alone? If they were linked on HN, would you like the titles changed? As we may think A modest proposal Unto this last Total eclipse The emperor's old clothes The cathedral and the bazaar
majewsky 9y ago
The title is in line with the guidelines: > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jayliew 9y ago

I googled to find out who Dale is, and saw that he issued an apology over Twitter and linked to the open note on Makezine: https://makezine.com/2017/11/06/open-note-to-naomi-wu/ https://makezine.com/2017/11/06/open-note-to-naomi-wu/

rhcom2 9y ago
It would be nice if he expanded on the "valuable lesson" he learned so it didn't feel like handwringing to save face.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  There are certain protected classes which are not allowed to be questioned, unless you want to be a social pariah, because of patriarchy or something.
  - sctb 9y ago
    We've already asked you not to troll, so could you please stop? The difference between trolling and discussing is whether or not you've met the bar of information over provocation. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - oh_sigh 9y ago
      I was giving my perhaps cynical take on the question, but it was not trolling or attempting to be provocative. I work in a biG tech company and have seen first hand people be bullied, shunned, and placed on informal 'do-not-work-with' lists by managers not just for holding disgusting views, but also for holding not-quite-Liberal-enough views. Also, holding views which are okay to express generally, but wrong to express more specifically about a single class(say, women). This controversy would not be happening if a random fat dude was accused of faking building things. It's only because this story includes a female, and therefore ties into some subset of society's obsession with gender and race issues that we are discussing this.
9y ago

ryandrake 9y ago

There must be a lot of backstory and context here that is going unmentioned, because I can't understand what this Dale guy is accused of doing. He "questioned her authenticity?" What does that mean? Was he implying she was some kind of non-human robot or something? What was the actual tweet? I feel like I walked into a movie 30 minutes late and missed the important part.

steveklabnik 9y ago
Yes, there is a lot of backstory and context; this story has been developing for either a few days or a few months, depending on how far you want to go back. To get some idea of what's going on here, see (EDIT: possibly NSFW based on where you work, and this is deeply part of the story) http://archive.is/GE0he http://archive.is/GE0he from May. I have been following this story not super closely, but a bit; my understanding is the original tweets have been deleted, but Dale was saying stuff in line with that story up above. The article discusses why that matters.
- ashark 9y ago
  Could probably use a NSFW warning on that link. The woman from the linked article is also pictured there, but in even less clothing.
  - steveklabnik 9y ago
    Yes; thanks for pointing that out. A small blind spot since I've been following the story, you're 100% right.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  Wow, what a rabbit hole of creepy obsession and crazy. I wish I hadn't asked.
- mr_spothawk 9y ago
  everybody is talking about the gender-politics, nobody seems to be talking about the assertions in this article. curious to get some more details about this if you're interested in sharing some of what you've read. thanks for the archive link.

k__ 9y ago

A friend of mine has a strange approach to tech, at least in my opinion. She didn't buy a computer till 5 years ago, only used the library ones to write and print some documents. Then suddenly she bought a laptop and setup Linux on it. Took her a few weeks, but she got everything up and running without any help. Also, she had an old cellphone for years and then she bought a Nexus 4, rooted it and installed an OS of her choosing on it. It took her at least a month to get the thing because she never used eBay or PayPal before. My girlfriend also rooted her smartphones multiple times when they got no updates anymore and installed Cyanogen mod. Both these women aren't what you would call tech affine, if you interact with them on a daily basis. Somehow they got rather complicated technical issues fixed without any help. This really challenged my perspective on technical know how.

watwut 9y ago
The let phone get real old and then buying great new and playing with it a lot would describe me too. I am female programmer. I feel guilt when buying things like that to play with if I don't really need them. It is just how I was raised and it stayed with me.
- k__ 9y ago
  Yes, my friend said something like that. Her father told her if she wants to do something she should do it right or leave it be, lol. My girlfriend is rather practical with this kind of stuff. She works as a marketeer and if she needs some coding, she reads stuff about it online and does it herself if it's something you can learn in under a day. Also, she was rather poor as child, so she likes to keep things she paid for longer than the manufacturers want her too.
TrainedMonkey 9y ago
Everyone has all of the world's knowledge at their fingertips, the hard part is asking the right questions.
CM30 9y ago
Personally, I wouldn't say this is necessarily a strange approach. In fact, I'd say it may support my own hypothesis about tech knowhow and what not. Namely, that it's not generally about some people being more 'inclined to it' or 'skilled' or 'intelligent' in some vague sense, but simply about whether it's necessary for somehow to be tech savvy in their situation. It's like learning to code. Many people could do it, especially if they put their mind to it. But for many people, they don't because there's no pressing reason them for them to know how to program. If they had an idea or pet project which needed them to make an app for it... well they may end up learning a hell of alot faster. That's just my opinion on why this could have come about anyway.

pjmlp 9y ago

I always get sad when I see such issues happening to fellow female engineers. Throughout technical school, CS degree and companies I have worked on, most of them were and are, top noch when compared with many of us. If I was doing a Mission Impossible kind of team, many of the faces would be female. Yet sexism keeps being a thing.

watwut 9y ago
The issue is not just that she is female, but that she is sexy and has big breasts. People have sad associations between look and intelligence.
- tytytytytytytyt 9y ago
  Maybe it's not exactly 'looks' and physical attributes but her general appearance in these tech tweets/blog posts. I don't see guys in analogous outfits in maker blog posts.
  - watwut 9y ago
    What would be analogous? A guy looking cool or a guy making sex jokes (sex analogies are common in electrotechnics)? Overly mascline dude? Is there even analogous outfit for a guy? My guess is that not really, this is not symmetric situation.
    - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
      Something analogous would be a male model wearing a speedo doing all of this stuff. There's no reason to inject sexuality into technical things. It's not something that we really want to promote in our workspaces.
      - watwut 9y ago
        That is not really sexy, no more then swimming shorts. I don't know what all dudes in here have with speedo. I suspect Americans are picking it cause they are disgusted by that for some weird reason. Sexy dudes targeted at women look different. Also, electrotechnics is full of sex jokes. And I have seen presentations with bikiny or other women in them for no reason. It is not like sexualitu was not there previously, it is just that it was not produced by women.

objectivistbrit 9y ago

This is an absurd story. Of course a woman can be a "maker". Of course an attractive person can be a "maker". But Naomi Wu's entire shtick seems to be "skimpily dressed girl with fake tits does stereotypically nerdy male activity". Look at her Youtube channel [1] - every video starts with an anime cartoon of her, obviously intended to titillate. People have frequently criticised startups for using sex to promote their products. (E.g., Geeklist, a few years back [2]). Now a scantily clad woman is a feminist icon? I get that there's a view of the world whereby the Geeklist woman was being exploited, and Naomi Wu is simply owning her sexuality, or whatever. For most outsiders it simply looks like fashion. Using sex to promote tech products was passe, and now it's in again and slightly edgy, but only if you're cool enough to pull it off. She has an explanation about how the breast implants really express her interest in bodyhacking and the outfits reflect the cyberpunk style of Shenzhen. (B.S., by the way - most of Shenzhen is just a normal Chinese city). And when all her photos and videos are of her in a skimpy outfit, wearing makeup and with hair styled - she's choosing to present herself in a certain way. She could do a video wearing a sweater, working on a late night project with a ponytail and bagged eyes, but she doesn't. She knows looking good will get her videos more clicks. (It takes a lot of effort to look good consistently, which is why engineers and scientists of either gender are stereotypically not good-looking. They're spending too much time on other things). Then there's the fact that her Twitter [3] simply doesn't sound like a mainland Chinese girl. No, I can't prove this. But I spent enough time studying Chinese and living in China, speaking with a wide range of Chinese people, and I'd bet any amount of money that those tweets were written by an American. Even when translated by a native English speaker, Chinese has a ton of idiosyncratic phrasings and sentence patterns that give it a distinctive style. (For an example, see ChinaSmack [4], which translates Chinese internet culture into English). Not only do Naomi's tweets lack that style completely, they definitely do not sound like they were written who grew up in a Confucian culture. China favours modesty, hierarchy and conforming to the group. Sure, there are sassy, independent young Chinese women, but they don't sound like sassy, independent young American women. Naomi Wu sounds like an American woman. (Specifically American and not generically Western - Europeans don't have that brash aggressiveness). Again, I can't prove this, but her Twitter postings simply do not have the slightest hint of Chinese-ness. [Edit: having listened to more of her videos, it is highly unlikely the girl in the videos made those tweets]. Then there's the fact that she screenshotted his tweet and uses it as part of her Twitter header photo [3]. And the huge pile-on to a guy who made one tweet and later apologised for it. She even goes digging and trying to associate him with Donald Trump on fairly spurious grounds [5]. This whole story designed to hit the tech industry's buttons and incite everyone to pontificate about "tech bros". My guess is that her company is intentionally using this episode as a guerilla marketing/PR exercise, but I have no idea. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdk4Zw2oYdc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdk4Zw2oYdc [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/03/23/women-party-favors-eye-candy-shanley-kane-women-in-tech/#61547ed4960e https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/03/23/women... [3] https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg [4] https://www.chinasmack.com/renren-statuses-by-chinese-university-students https://www.chinasmack.com/renren-statuses-by-chinese-univer... [5] https://twitter.com/dalepd/status/926813927769440256 https://twitter.com/dalepd/status/926813927769440256

oh_sigh 9y ago

This 'controversy' could be settled if Naomi would just say whether the assertion is right that the 'timaz' user is either her boyfriend or someone she is in contact with.

at-fates-hands 9y ago

The problem with this is what I've been experiencing for years. Online shopping is fine, but what if I need something right now, and I can't wait for overnight shipping? What if I need something for a Halloween costume, in December? What if I need a tie or pair of pants for an interview? What if I forgot to get a gift for my nephew? Malls don't require that you have a meticulous plan for everything you might need in the next month. Malls make it easy for me to go to, get something I need and get out. No matter how fast online buying is, they can't compete with local stores that allow me to get something as fast as I need it. I first started seeing this when a bunch of convenience stores went under after 2008. Now it's getting worse. CompUSA and other tech stores used to carry a lot of PC hardware stuff I needed and could get when I needed something. Radio Shack, CompUSA, and bunch other shops all went under. Now if I need something, I'm left with Best Buy's paltry offerings and the closet Best Buy store is a good 20 minute drive one way because they already closed three of the shops that were within a five minute drive. The death of the Malls and retail in general is already killing the convenience of being able to get something when I need it. Now I have to drive further, spend more time trying to find a retail store which is still open, and then hope their minimal offerings will do the trick.

draw_down 9y ago

Incredible how this person has been treated. Just indefensible.

hidenotslide 9y ago

I don't know anything about this particular case, but it reminds me of a similar episode in 2015 against a South Korean Hearthstone player. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/witch-hunt-against-fake-female-hearthstone-player-/1100-6425551/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/witch-hunt-against-fake-fe... Point 3 about the asymmetry of a prominent CEO spreading rumors without consequence is troubling.

pwaai 9y ago

In my opinion, the article also unwittingly reveals the fetishization of Asian women in North America. How dare an Asian woman who has breast augumentation surgery and risque photos call herself a technologist? How dare she use her physical attractiveness to woe the attention of men other than getting naked in front of your computer screen?

tree_of_item 9y ago
"How dare"? Who is saying anything like that? I think the original accusation focused on the deleted account of an experienced engineer associated with Naomi. But you know what? > How dare she use her physical attractiveness to woe the attention of men I'm just gonna go ahead and say this is, in fact, a questionable thing to do. Especially in a community with a name like "Maker" that purports to be about technical ability.
- pwaai 9y ago
  > I'm just gonna go ahead and say this is, in fact, a questionable thing to do. Especially in a community with a name like "Maker" that purports to be about technical ability. Are you even remotely aware of your own biases here that I'm trying to highlight? So communities that purports technical subjects should enforce strict Puritan dress code for women to fit your own world views? > You're not wrong, but it's a touchy subject and the word "slutshaming" polarizes people pretty effectively in the current year. In your comment you invalidate 'slutshaming' completely, do you think it might have impact on what you are writing?
  - tree_of_item 9y ago
    > So communities that purports technical subjects should enforce strict Puritan dress code for women to fit your own world views? Come on, this is an obvious strawman. There's a gradient between a "strict Puritan dress code" and "let's get naked!". If I showed up to Strange Loop in a slingshot speedo do you think that'd be okay? > In your comment you invalidate 'slutshaming' completely, do you think it might have impact on what you are writing? I don't think I "invalidate slutshaming completely". I said it's a polarizing topic, which it is.

natural219 9y ago

Steelmanning Dale's position here. (https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man) It seems like the root questions here are: 1) Does Naomi do all of the work for all of her projects, without external help? 2) If answer to (1) is "No", does she ever represent herself as doing all the work, or claim that she doesn't get external help? 3) If answer to (2) is "Yes", Does this cause harm to people deceived by her public character as a "maker"? The balance of evidence for (1), if you believe Dale's account and some others, is "No". There's piles of internet evidence for this (I don't want to drag them up, but can maybe find links if people are curious). This fact doesn't actually seem to be in active contention, so I'll move on. The balance to evidence for (2) seems to me also like a "No". I don't think Naomi has ever claimed that she does 100% of the work for all her projects herself -- and that's totally fine! She's a figurehead / movement leader, she doesn't need to be a personal expert in every maker field to make a positive impact. If you read some of her FAQs (https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs), it doesn't seem like she's making this claim. (3) is an interesting question that I will leave to the crowd. I'm already tired of writing this comment and realize that I actually don't care. So nevermind about all this.

natural219 9y ago
I'm mostly just upset that this blogpost / comments don't seem to have anything to do with Dale/Naomi's specific case and more to do with people's pre-existing opinions about "women in tech" or whatever. One pernicious thing that happens in these conversations. I've spent about 10 minutes total reading some Discord/DM messages about this controversy, and quickly found the above information. I fear that, if I spent more time "digging up evidence" to make a lengthy/nerdy case about this, I could be accurately accused of "Well why are you spending so much time arguing about prominent female tech leaders? Do you have some sort of ulterior motive?". I recognized this internally, stopped writing my comment, and moved on.
cwkoss 9y ago
I think part of the irony of this situation is that Make Magazine publishes tutorials and features white American childrens' projects who have almost certainly received extreme hand-holding help from parents. If the standard is truly "without external help", are people following tutorials in Make magazine not 'real' makers? If the standard is "represent as doing all the work", to what extent does Make verify that the (often privileged) children it features are doing all of the work themselves? Has the CEO ever called out a child for getting too much help? Children is certainly a bit of a straw man, but I suspect they feature many young-20-something white male Americans whose parents have taught them technical things from young age, can afford maker equipment to experiment with at home, can ask their parents for technical help when they get stuck, have mentors in their family's social network that are experts in the field, etc. I guess my point is EVERYONE in the maker movement needs lots of help if they are not from the highest levels of privilege. There is a ton of info to learn, and nobody has the time to trial-and-error brute force their way to expertise. Implicit standards that everything must be done and figured out yourself creates a bias to only feature people who "need" the exposure least and are most privileged. Anyone working 'alone' has likely received enough help on previous projects that they were able to build off those skills to self-teach the rest of the way. Obviously, Make magazine appreciates the value of help and instruction within the maker community: that is their reason for existence. Thus, I believe Dale is holding Naomi to a higher standard than he does for most male American makers because of his own biases.

coldtea 9y ago

>If someone asked you to draw a picture of an engineer, who would you draw? As you draw the figure, the gender assigned is a reflection of your mental prototype of an engineer – your own prototype bias. Most will draw a male figure. How about it being a reflection of status quo? If one sees more male engineers, they are more likely to draw a male one than a female one. Ever more so if their goal is to draw a representative or "median" engineer, and not an activist one (to help increase the number women in engineering roles) when doing the drawing.

cortesoft 9y ago
Right, but the point the author is trying to make is that having that vision of the 'prototype' in your head changes your behavior and keeps people who are not the 'status quo' out of the field.
csours 9y ago
I wouldn't draw anyone in a swimsuit.

hitekker 9y ago

Key takeaway: >why would Dale want to slander Naomi? >I don’t know the background, but prior to Dale’s tweet, Naomi had aggressively dogged Dale and Make about Make’s lack of representation of women. >Dale could have recognized and addressed this core issue of a lack of diversity. Instead, Dale elected to endorse unsubstantiated claims and destroy a young female Maker’s reputation and career. Are there other sources that corroborate Dale’s supposed sadism?

cmiles74 9y ago
I think "sadism" may not be the appropriate term. Based on what I have read, it sound more like Dale is simply sexist. His doubts and concerns have a pretty sexist bent, as do his actions. When a person really thinks another class of person simply cannot do a particular thing, this is what you get.

it_learnses 9y ago

I wasn't really able to figure out who the actual author is. Anybody know?

sorenjan 9y ago

My issue with her isn't with her at all, but rather with what Bunnie calls the Idol Effect. She posts projects on Reddit[0] from time to time, and they pretty much always gets upvoted way beyond their technical merit. One was a pair of 3D printed shoes with storage for lockpicks and a wireless router, the album was close to 40 pictures, several of them of her in a very small dress. I don't follow her, I don't have anything against her. I don't like how people upvote her projects simply because of girl. [0] https://www.reddit.com/user/SexyCyborg https://www.reddit.com/user/SexyCyborg

jhou2 9y ago
1. Reddit. Seriously. Pictures of cats get upvoted way beyond their "technical merit". 2. A pair of shoes with storage sounds like a great idea. I believe she described how hard it is for women to find storage space when they dress up. Men's clothing have pockets everywhere, but women's clothing often don't. I don't think it's easy to find shoes with storage. 3. What's wrong with her wearing a small dress? Feminism means women can wear whatever they want. She goes into this issue in depth on her blog. She makes a fair point that the response to it is social/cultural. In China, she doesn't get the same sexually-related responses. Puritanism doesn't quite run the same over there. 4. Her perspective on the maker movement is fair and diverse. White, balding middle-aged males aren't going to have the same problems or concerns as an attractive, young asian female. What's wrong with bringing her perspective into the milieu?
- steveklabnik 9y ago
  Incidentally, it was actually broader than "shoes with storage", she specifically did the project as a pentesting exercise. "If I was trying to hack a big company, how would I do it?" She made the connection between these styles of shoes and a specific outfit, and that the whole "sexy" thing would be a distraction, enabling her to sneak USB drives out of the shoes. They contained wifi-enabled equipment inside the shoes, with power, to automatically probe wireless networks around her. Etc. So it's actually even more deeply technical than that summary lets on. You can find the exact description on her website if you're interested.
- 9y ago

forkLding 9y ago

I'm a Naomi Wu fan so I am biased but I want to point out that we shouldn't doubt people as a front because they prepare what they say beforehand from the internet or other sources or even because they have to do research or ask for help from other sources before doing a video. I'm a programmer and yet surprise I use Stackoverflow. In the end, points of authority are still people and should be seen as such, they are not all-knowing sources of truth or some kind of tech Buddha.

baybal2 9y ago

Oh wow! Impressive

Mz 9y ago

Her positioning of her public persona here is not doing her any favors. On the one hand, if she can get taken seriously while showing herself off as a sexy cyborg with her bod strongly highlighted, this may help break some stereotypes. On the other hand, women already get pigeonholed as being only good for one thing. Playing up the sexy angle is going to make it generally harder for other people to perceive her as anything else. I have never heard of her before. I have no idea what she is doing that she chooses to pursue this positioning as someone sexy as her primary identifier. But it strikes me as inherently problematic to take that positioning in a male dominated field. It is something I have wrestled with. I don't think there are any easy answers here. Women are damned if they do, damned if they don't. If heterosexual men find a woman attractive simply for being, for example, an intelligent woman, it winds up being a huge challenge to combat that. It can happen no matter how conservatively she dresses or what she looks like. If being "old and ugly" cured the issue, I wouldn't spend so much time contemplating such questions. I have joked that I am still waiting to become old and ugly enough for this to stop being an issue. But, you know, I can't control what the world does. I can only kind of sort of take a smidgeon of control over my limited choices in life. And I found it helpful to take a different approach than this.

cwkoss 9y ago
You may be interested in her FAQ: https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs " How can you wear those clothes? Not an issue here in Shenzhen. No one bothers me. They notice but there is no problem. Our sex workers do not wear this kind of clothing as Chinese men prefer an innocent/cute/childish look. You can see from my 360º videos on YouTube that aside from curious looks no one bothers me or cares very much. Mostly they enjoy the novelty and ask to take pictures with me. Beside personal taste, the other issue is my appearance is effective. Female Makers- or Women in Tech are rarely featured in Chinese news, it's just not something that gets much interest and there is no community of like-minded women I can look to. Sexy girls are still the delivery vector for nearly all messages in tech here. If I want to get my message out- that these new technical tools are accessible, and that there are well-paying jobs available for women that master them, I have to do so in a way that will actually reach my audience. I'm sure the high road is nice- but in China, no one will hear a word you say while you are on it. For people making negative comments- while sex workers in your country might wear some similar clothing, women in your country also wear and do things that only sex workers in other, even more conservative countries would do. While we all would like to think our country sets the standard for the World it’s polite not to impose our standards on each other- no matter how surprising the differences. You can be sure if I visited your country I would dress so as to not cause offense."

heisnotanalien 9y ago

Didn't have a problem believing she was an engineer at all to be honest - she is asian.

rawnlq 9y ago
This would make a very good http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/almost-politically-correct-redneck http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/almost-politically-correct-red...

40acres 9y ago

Men generally seem to take issue with women who own their sexuality, combine that with the general level of misogyny and sexism in the tech industry and the general level of gate keeping that surrounds "nerd" culture and you get this. Disappointing but not surprising.

js8 9y ago
Please stop repeating the myth that tech industry is somehow extremely misogynistic or sexist. It's not more than other industries, in fact I strongly suspect it is actually less.
- zbentley 9y ago
  Did GP imply that tech is more misogynistic than other industries? Or "extremely" so? I do not think they did. Even if tech is on par with, or less than, other industries with regards to misogyny, what then? We (HN) largely work in tech. It (the industry) has a problem. Let's talk about what to do about it, not pretend it doesn't exist because "it could be worse".
  - js8 9y ago
    I think they did hint at it, to quote "combine that with the general level of misogyny and sexism in the tech industry"; but only they know. If they didn't - good! > We (HN) largely work in tech. It (the industry) has a problem. No, it's a social problem. Tech industry per se has nothing to do with it. I can see many social problems (and worse ones, let's be real) unrelated to tech that we can and should talk about and not pretend they don't exist. I mean, look at it from the other side - we shouldn't ignore a social problem because it isn't an issue in tech - for example, homelessness.

crankylinuxuser 9y ago

I remember lurking here on HN quite a while back (err, maybe a few months ago) and saw someone who was making the claim of the following: Naomi Wu was a hack Naomi Wu had multiple handlers. There was some "shadowy guy" lurking in most photo ops. I didn't think anything of it, other than a hater. I even saw one of these claims on a few other sites I visit... Found it: https://imgur.com/gallery/O3Yq0 https://imgur.com/gallery/O3Yq0 (Imgur indicates timesignature May 6, 2017) To be honest, I have NO clue what's going on. I just have a good memory of previous stuff I've read and saw. Maybe this'll give more hints about what's going on here content edit: Turns out the URL was from steveklabnik , which points towards this: http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.nl/2017/05/naomi-sexy-cyborg-wu-is-liar-and-fake.html http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.nl/2017/05/naomi-sexy-cybo... and the cached content here: http://archive.is/GE0he http://archive.is/GE0he When you search for that URL, you see only 5 hits. The very first one is on http://krautkanal.com/b/12075357 http://krautkanal.com/b/12075357 by user mandalareopens. This just stranger and stranger. :/ Edit: For those that downmodded me, I don't believe this stuff. I'm saying there's a history of someone running a smear campaign against her.

replicatorblog 9y ago

A few years ago the video game convention PAX instituted a policy, under pressure from attendees, that amounted to "no booth babes." This applied to hired models whose only job was to dress provocatively standing in a booth, but also to cosplayers who demonstrated a level of creativity in costume-making and performance matching Naomi Wu. In that case, a class of creative professional who are passionate makers and enthusiastic fans of a medium were denied a chance to ply their trade because the organizers felt it was a salacious distraction from the core proposition from the show. Here is some coverage: (https://kotaku.com/5900134/skimpy-outfit-gets-lollipop-chainsaw-cosplayer-asked-to-leave-pax https://kotaku.com/5900134/skimpy-outfit-gets-lollipop-chain...). The sense I get is that Dale is being criticized because he's seen to be questioning an individual's technical skills based almost exclusively on her physical appearance. I get that, and that criticism is fair. However, my read of his comment is that he shares the view of the proponents of PAX's policy. In that case, Jessica Nigri was a creative enthusiast, but her presence made the show less comfortable for other attendees for a variety of reasons, e.g. promoting unrealistic body images, adding a sexual dynamic to what is supposed to be an all-ages show, etc. I'm curious if the uproar would be at all diminished (or exacerbated) if Dale had framed the original decision to not have her present along one of these lines of argument: 1) If he was dismissive of her work, but not her as a person. "Naomi Wu is an impressive young maker with a large following, but we feel like her popularity is driven more by her appearance rather than the quality or originality of her work." 2) Or if it was presented as an editorial decision: "We've not invited Naomi Wu to present because her work, while interesting, is sexually charged and outside the scope of projects we want to highlight at MakerFaire." 3) Or a commercial decision: "Naomi Wu has not been invited to present at MakerFaire because while we believe makers should feel free to pursue a wide range of interests and modes of self-expression, her presence may prove distracting to the busloads of first-graders who make up a large portion of the audience, and uncomfortable to our sponsors." 4) Or even if it was a moralistic judgement: "Naomi Wu has not been invited to present at MakerFaire because we believe women in tech face huge amounts of latent sexism and our judgment is that featuring work in this style would worsen, not improve the problem." Would these have been better or worse? FWIW, I had the good fortune to spend a few hours with Dale and some of the O'Reilly crew circa 2008. It's hard for me to imagine a more "woke" group of people at the head of a large tech company. They were focused on diversity and inclusion well before the topics took on the wide-spread buy-in that they have today.

zbentley 9y ago

An asymptote of this phenomenon is Curtis Yarvin ("Moldbug", basically a fascist, and also a programmer) being denied a slot at the Strange Loop conference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#Controversy How does that compare with this situation? Is it similar? Different? If so, why?

qiqing 9y ago

In light of the commentary on Naomi Wu's choice of clothing in her content, I wanted to share an excerpt from an interview in another article to give a sense of cultural perspective here: http://www.makery.info/en/2017/01/30/sexy-cyborg-la-communaute-maker-est-reservee-aux-privilegies-blancs/ http://www.makery.info/en/2017/01/30/sexy-cyborg-la-communau... Why and how did you create this “Sexy Cyborg” character? Is it all persona or is it also the real you? Basically, when you are not being a maker, do you still dress just as sexy? It’s the other way around, I actually wear more conservative clothing when taking maker pictures and video for English-speaking social media than I do normally just walking around and running errands. Westerners just seem to get enraged over silly clothes. Well, Americans and British mostly. Europeans and South Americans just think it’s funny and exciting, like Chinese do usually. I have what I call the Auntie Test: Do Chinese women over about 50 or so have any problem with my clothes? The Auntie who cleans the halls in my apartment building has twice sent me back home for a sweater, but that is just because it was winter and catching a cold calls for Chinese Traditional Medicine. I was raised properly and am respectful. If the day comes and the neighborhood Aunties tell me not to dress so sexy, I won’t. But so long as they smile and wave at me, I don’t really think it’s anyone’s business what I wear in my own country.

jorgec 9y ago

Who did what? and why is relevant? Sorry but you don't put the whole story and the context, then its just a personal opinion.

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

For the record, the tweet in question is on Naomi's twitter page header. It reads: "I am questioning who she really is. Naomi is a persona, not a real person. She is several or many people". Also more pictures of Naomi on her twitter- I have to admit she looks like a booth babe and the first thing that came to my mind when I saw here pictures was "fan service". But that means nothing of course. In fact, if I think about it- having a poor sense of style is so being an engineer.

penistives 9y ago

> Western men visiting China often feel entitled to the attention of local women, says Wu. When she declines romantic or sexual advances from American ex-pats, Wu says they often respond with rage. [1] Sounds like Dale was turned down. 1. http://www.newsweek.com/naomi-wu-sexy-cyborg-misogyny-silicon-valley-704372 http://www.newsweek.com/naomi-wu-sexy-cyborg-misogyny-silico...

thomzi12 9y ago

Interesting article, kind of wish it started off with some context and simple reporting on the situation though -- I'm not familiar with the story.