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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 cybo

by 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."
- Mz 9y ago
  Thank you. I think I still don't really agree, but maybe I will mull it over and blog about it rather than try to talk about my reservations here.
mikeash 9y ago
"But, you know, I can't control what the world does." I think this is the key difference. A lot of people out there think they can change the world, at least a little bit, by pushing at these boundaries.
- Mz 9y ago
  I said I could not control what the world does. That doesn't mean I can't change the world. Those are two different concepts.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Sure, but the whole point of your comment seemed to be that she shouldn't do things this way, because she can't control how the world reacts to her. Maybe I misunderstood it.
    - Mz 9y ago
      She can do whatever she wants. I have tried very hard to make it clear I am not saying "She is doing it wrong!" But I have handled things different from her. I am currently working on a blog post about it. It isn't an easy thing to address. The subtle distinctions I want to make are not very well served by chatty, off the cuff forum comments. Edit: Blog post finished and posted to HN, fwiw.

by Mz 9y ago

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."

Mz 9y ago
Thank you. I think I still don't really agree, but maybe I will mull it over and blog about it rather than try to talk about my reservations here.

mikeash 9y ago

"But, you know, I can't control what the world does." I think this is the key difference. A lot of people out there think they can change the world, at least a little bit, by pushing at these boundaries.

Mz 9y ago
I said I could not control what the world does. That doesn't mean I can't change the world. Those are two different concepts.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Sure, but the whole point of your comment seemed to be that she shouldn't do things this way, because she can't control how the world reacts to her. Maybe I misunderstood it.
  - Mz 9y ago
    She can do whatever she wants. I have tried very hard to make it clear I am not saying "She is doing it wrong!" But I have handled things different from her. I am currently working on a blog post about it. It isn't an easy thing to address. The subtle distinctions I want to make are not very well served by chatty, off the cuff forum comments. Edit: Blog post finished and posted to HN, fwiw.