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Sigh. I guess I'm not surprised at the negativity here on HN about this, but I'm still disappointed. If you take offense to the effort to dismantle masculine po

Sigh. I guess I'm not surprised at the negativity here on HN about this, but I'm still disappointed. If you take offense to the effort to dismantle masculine posturing as it's practiced in corporate culture, or see a meaningful effort to rebalance gendered power structures as sexist, maybe you should check your blind spots. Gender has everything to do with it, because gender is a cultural mode of expression (and it is most certainly not a tribe you have to defend, so just calm down, guys). On many many dating apps, that expression is extremely lopsided, especially in terms of abusive and otherwise unethical behavior toward other people - namely women. I'm personally much more likely to look into this platform now that I know that they take a principled stance. (Edit: typo)

drharby 9y ago
I don't see gender, i see business tactics in practice. Gender politic us good pr, and a brilliant response to their received attacks. Hope they kick ass, but this isn't about gender, that's consequential. At least thats like my opinion man
- BadassFractal 9y ago
  Exactly this. They're responding to an IP law threat with an appeal to emotion through weaponizing one of the hottest topics in the media. It's a genius PR move, bring morality into a trite legal dispute, gain righteous upper ground.
  - 18pfsmt 9y ago
    It's so transparent, it's anything but genius. They've taken a completely disingenuous stance in order to manipulate the less logical. Is their PR consultant Hannity?
CryptoPunk 9y ago
Your comment contains a bunch of suppositions that are by no means widely accepted or indisputable truths. For example you characterize Tinder's mode of conduct as "masculine posturing". Inherent in that comment is the supposition that there is something toxic about masculinity itself. Imagine if someone called Bumble's letter "feminine posturing". Irrespective of the content of the letter, could you ever perceive the use of that term as anything but ignorant and misogynistic? You also claim there is a "gendered power structure", and imply that Tinder is part of it, which is a very serious and broad allegation, that's made without supporting evidence, which is irresponsible. You claim that "gender is a cultural mode of expression (and it is most certainly not a tribe you have to defend, so just calm down, guys)", but the letter says Bumble is proud to be women-run. It's not necessarily bad to embrace femininity and celebrate a company being run by women, but be upfront about it, and don't gas light anyone who recognizes it as a form of tribalism. Instead of trying to cast women as victims, and men as victimizers, I think we should step back from identarianism and recognize that members of both genders are disproportionately afflicted with their own set of maladies (e.g. 92% of workplace fatalities afflict men) and that it would be more constructive to put aside this 'which gender is a greater victim' competition and focus on empowering all individuals irrespective of gender.
- BadassFractal 9y ago
  This is a generalization, but I wonder if what we're seeing, with the job world becoming more evenly split between the genders, is men and women playing to their traditional strengths to advance in their professional goals. Historically women don't pick up the club and physically assault their opponent. They instead often indirectly attack a challenger's reputation (see shaming, guilt inducing etc), which is still very powerful. Men, when facing a challenge, will avoid complaining, buckle down and try to power through the obstacle. Women, on the other hand, will play the victim card instead of using brute force, and will rely on their cunning to accomplish the same business goal. Both strategies are likely very effective. I wonder if, as we have more majority-women and women-led organizations, we will see more of these indirect tactics deployed by those organizations. More covert corporate warfare than what we're traditionally used to. Nothing wrong with it per se, but just a shift in tactics people might have not foreseen.
  - CryptoPunk 9y ago
    I don't foresee the corporate world becoming more evenly split between men and women. The primary differentiator between men and women is testosterone and estrogen levels, and this has a profound impact on life strategy. With respect to testosterone, the much higher levels found in men drive them to be far more likely to make sacrifices and take risks to achieve more ambitious goals, which manifests in everything from higher numbers of Nobel prize winners, to a life expectancy that is on average 5 years lower than that of women, to a much a higher proportion of murderers, and criminals in general, being men. This difference in outcomes is not based on gender, even if it correlates with gender, so it won't go away as a result of eliminating any supposed social constructs that promote gender stereotypes. It's based on different behavioural traits associated with sex hormones, that establish a person's priorities, and that just happen to be found at higher concentration levels in a higher proportion of men, or women, depending on the hormone.
    - BadassFractal 9y ago
      I buy all of that, but does that preclude us from ever seeing more women-only or majority-women companies out there that behave as a unit differently from the traditionally predominantly-male companies?
Alex3917 9y ago
> or see a meaningful effort to rebalance gendered power structures as sexist Given that the app is designed around encouraging people to treat professional networking as a dating opportunity, it's not entirely clear in what direction they're trying to rebalance things.
- BadassFractal 9y ago
  Context?
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    - You can't use the networking functionality unless you have a public profile on the dating side, so everyone you are networking with knows you are open to dating or whatever. (Trying to disable a public profile on the dating side turns off the networking functionality.) - Just like in the dating app, women go first in the networking app, sending the signal that maybe it's not entirely about dating.
- darkr 9y ago
  I think that’s a separate app/Platform? > https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/02/bumbles-business-networking-feature-launches-today/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/02/bumbles-business-networkin...
  - BadassFractal 9y ago
    It's definitely within the same app. It's just a separate profile you can fork off of your main one.
dahdum 9y ago
I don’t see Bumble any differently because they are women owned or women led, they are just a startup likely infringing IP that’s using the best possible PR angle to defend themselves. In the public perception their mission statement matters, but not to the law.
brucephillips 9y ago
If you view an IP lawsuit as masculine posturing, you should check your blind spots.

drharby 9y ago

I don't see gender, i see business tactics in practice. Gender politic us good pr, and a brilliant response to their received attacks. Hope they kick ass, but this isn't about gender, that's consequential. At least thats like my opinion man

BadassFractal 9y ago
Exactly this. They're responding to an IP law threat with an appeal to emotion through weaponizing one of the hottest topics in the media. It's a genius PR move, bring morality into a trite legal dispute, gain righteous upper ground.
- 18pfsmt 9y ago
  It's so transparent, it's anything but genius. They've taken a completely disingenuous stance in order to manipulate the less logical. Is their PR consultant Hannity?

CryptoPunk 9y ago

Your comment contains a bunch of suppositions that are by no means widely accepted or indisputable truths. For example you characterize Tinder's mode of conduct as "masculine posturing". Inherent in that comment is the supposition that there is something toxic about masculinity itself. Imagine if someone called Bumble's letter "feminine posturing". Irrespective of the content of the letter, could you ever perceive the use of that term as anything but ignorant and misogynistic? You also claim there is a "gendered power structure", and imply that Tinder is part of it, which is a very serious and broad allegation, that's made without supporting evidence, which is irresponsible. You claim that "gender is a cultural mode of expression (and it is most certainly not a tribe you have to defend, so just calm down, guys)", but the letter says Bumble is proud to be women-run. It's not necessarily bad to embrace femininity and celebrate a company being run by women, but be upfront about it, and don't gas light anyone who recognizes it as a form of tribalism. Instead of trying to cast women as victims, and men as victimizers, I think we should step back from identarianism and recognize that members of both genders are disproportionately afflicted with their own set of maladies (e.g. 92% of workplace fatalities afflict men) and that it would be more constructive to put aside this 'which gender is a greater victim' competition and focus on empowering all individuals irrespective of gender.

BadassFractal 9y ago
This is a generalization, but I wonder if what we're seeing, with the job world becoming more evenly split between the genders, is men and women playing to their traditional strengths to advance in their professional goals. Historically women don't pick up the club and physically assault their opponent. They instead often indirectly attack a challenger's reputation (see shaming, guilt inducing etc), which is still very powerful. Men, when facing a challenge, will avoid complaining, buckle down and try to power through the obstacle. Women, on the other hand, will play the victim card instead of using brute force, and will rely on their cunning to accomplish the same business goal. Both strategies are likely very effective. I wonder if, as we have more majority-women and women-led organizations, we will see more of these indirect tactics deployed by those organizations. More covert corporate warfare than what we're traditionally used to. Nothing wrong with it per se, but just a shift in tactics people might have not foreseen.
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  I don't foresee the corporate world becoming more evenly split between men and women. The primary differentiator between men and women is testosterone and estrogen levels, and this has a profound impact on life strategy. With respect to testosterone, the much higher levels found in men drive them to be far more likely to make sacrifices and take risks to achieve more ambitious goals, which manifests in everything from higher numbers of Nobel prize winners, to a life expectancy that is on average 5 years lower than that of women, to a much a higher proportion of murderers, and criminals in general, being men. This difference in outcomes is not based on gender, even if it correlates with gender, so it won't go away as a result of eliminating any supposed social constructs that promote gender stereotypes. It's based on different behavioural traits associated with sex hormones, that establish a person's priorities, and that just happen to be found at higher concentration levels in a higher proportion of men, or women, depending on the hormone.
  - BadassFractal 9y ago
    I buy all of that, but does that preclude us from ever seeing more women-only or majority-women companies out there that behave as a unit differently from the traditionally predominantly-male companies?

Alex3917 9y ago

> or see a meaningful effort to rebalance gendered power structures as sexist Given that the app is designed around encouraging people to treat professional networking as a dating opportunity, it's not entirely clear in what direction they're trying to rebalance things.

BadassFractal 9y ago
Context?
- Alex3917 9y ago
  - You can't use the networking functionality unless you have a public profile on the dating side, so everyone you are networking with knows you are open to dating or whatever. (Trying to disable a public profile on the dating side turns off the networking functionality.) - Just like in the dating app, women go first in the networking app, sending the signal that maybe it's not entirely about dating.
darkr 9y ago
I think that’s a separate app/Platform? > https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/02/bumbles-business-networking-feature-launches-today/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/02/bumbles-business-networkin...
- BadassFractal 9y ago
  It's definitely within the same app. It's just a separate profile you can fork off of your main one.

dahdum 9y ago

I don’t see Bumble any differently because they are women owned or women led, they are just a startup likely infringing IP that’s using the best possible PR angle to defend themselves. In the public perception their mission statement matters, but not to the law.

brucephillips 9y ago

If you view an IP lawsuit as masculine posturing, you should check your blind spots.