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We cannot and will not eliminate all gender inequality, and some inequality does not alway favors men. (A good example of this is that no matter how accomplishe

by kiba 16y ago

We cannot and will not eliminate all gender inequality, and some inequality does not alway favors men. (A good example of this is that no matter how accomplished or rich a man is, he will probably be asked to laid down his life for children and women. That's not discrimination, but grim pragmatism.) Some disparity will alway boil down to choices. If women take maternity needs, than she will expect to be behind her peers when she come back. As much as I like awesome hacker females to live in my world, some women...for whatever reason choose other professions instead. I'll respect that choice, not try to convince them that they work on tech for the sake of getting 50% gender balance.

erikpukinskis 16y ago
One of the most heartbreaking things smart men do in response to accusations of sexism is to focus on the rare exceptions to women's oppression while failing to even acknowledge the rampant examples of it. Men. Are. Victims. Too. But a conversation about women's oppression is not an appropriate context to explore it. It makes us feel like you don't believe women's oppression is a problem.
- philwelch 16y ago
  And now I finally remember why I stopped arguing with feminists. Unlike reasonable discussions, where you make a point and the other person points out the flaws in your reasoning, or presents evidence for a counterpoint, or something like that, arguing with feminists always ends up with the feminists expressing their emotions and trying to rule certain arguments "out of bounds", not because the arguments are flawed or invalid, but because they make feminists feel "heartbroken".
  - anthonyb 16y ago
    It's not so much pointing out flaws in the reasoning, as Kiba taking the argument completely off the rails. "Boo hoo, we have it tough in some very specific edge cases" while ignoring the general everyday case doesn't do much for the argument either. And how can you talk about why there aren't more women or other minorities in tech when you're just going to paint it as vague or emotional and ignore what they say?
    - philwelch 16y ago
      It takes the conversation equally off the rails to flippantly characterize the issue as "oppression".
      - anthonyb 16y ago
        No it doesn't. Oppression is a pretty accurate word for what happens to women in IT. Somebody presenting their opinion about how they're being unfairly treated is hardly flippant.
        philwelch 16y ago
        "Oppression is a pretty accurate word for what happens to women in IT." We call that "assuming what you're supposed to be proving", or for people who still remember the traditional meanings of idioms, "begging the question".
        anthonyb 16y ago
        Is that what passes for a rational argument? I'm not assuming anything - I don't know where you got that idea from. I've seen women being ignored, excluded or put down first hand, often savagely, so it's not just idle speculation. edit - some meat to my point: One case that I'm thinking of involved a woman making a fairly reasonable technical point (something involving Apache, I think - it was a while ago) in the hallway at a conference, but then got lectured for ten minutes by a guy who took exception to some minor pedantic point. Totally condescending, rude and thoughtless - he didn't do the same to the other male developers in the discussion. There was another incident at a Developer conference here in Australia a while ago, where a developer put up pictures of hot chicks in his Perl presentation. Again, unnecessary and stupid. Do you still think that I'm assuming things?
        philwelch 16y ago
        OK, that's an argument. You're doing it right--"here is some evidence, therefore women in software are oppressed". But erikpukinskis didn't say, "here is some evidence, therefore women in software are oppressed". He seemingly implied that the "why are there few women in software" discussion was inherently a "conversation about women's oppression". He took the "conclusion" and implicitly put it in the "premises" column, which is exactly what I was criticizing. It's not a conversation about women being oppressed--it's a conversation about why there are few women in software. "Women are oppressed" is an answer, erik was characterizing it as the question.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    That should tell you all you need to know - if they can't come up with a rational coherent argument, it is properly because it doesn't exits.
- kiba 16y ago
  All I am pointing out is the inequality of gender cannot be entirely eliminated nor can it alway be blamed on women or men. Women are not men and men are not women. Men's role as expendable defender is not a role hoisted by women, but rather through evolution. The oppressor, if any, is nature for making us that way. In that sense, men cannot blame women. It also work in the opposite direction, there are things that women probably should not do when she is having a baby.
tomjen3 16y ago
>A good example of this is that no matter how accomplished or rich a man is, he will probably be asked to laid down his life for children and women. That's not discrimination, but grim pragmatism Once upon a time that was true - but since everybody is supposed to be equal now, you can bet that I am not going to do that. And I don't think that many men are doing that either.
- kiba 16y ago
  It still a biological fact that men are expendable. Men have enough sperms to probably make lot of women pregnant, but women can only bear children 9 months at a time and be pretty vulnerable at that. When it come to ensuring the survival of human race, you know what the commander/leader/whoever in charge, male or female, is going to choose. Does it sucks to be a male too? Yep, but it also rock to be a male sometime too.

by kiba 16y ago

erikpukinskis 16y ago

One of the most heartbreaking things smart men do in response to accusations of sexism is to focus on the rare exceptions to women's oppression while failing to even acknowledge the rampant examples of it. Men. Are. Victims. Too. But a conversation about women's oppression is not an appropriate context to explore it. It makes us feel like you don't believe women's oppression is a problem.

philwelch 16y ago
And now I finally remember why I stopped arguing with feminists. Unlike reasonable discussions, where you make a point and the other person points out the flaws in your reasoning, or presents evidence for a counterpoint, or something like that, arguing with feminists always ends up with the feminists expressing their emotions and trying to rule certain arguments "out of bounds", not because the arguments are flawed or invalid, but because they make feminists feel "heartbroken".
- anthonyb 16y ago
  It's not so much pointing out flaws in the reasoning, as Kiba taking the argument completely off the rails. "Boo hoo, we have it tough in some very specific edge cases" while ignoring the general everyday case doesn't do much for the argument either. And how can you talk about why there aren't more women or other minorities in tech when you're just going to paint it as vague or emotional and ignore what they say?
  - philwelch 16y ago
    It takes the conversation equally off the rails to flippantly characterize the issue as "oppression".
    - anthonyb 16y ago
      No it doesn't. Oppression is a pretty accurate word for what happens to women in IT. Somebody presenting their opinion about how they're being unfairly treated is hardly flippant.
      - philwelch 16y ago
        "Oppression is a pretty accurate word for what happens to women in IT." We call that "assuming what you're supposed to be proving", or for people who still remember the traditional meanings of idioms, "begging the question".
        anthonyb 16y ago
        Is that what passes for a rational argument? I'm not assuming anything - I don't know where you got that idea from. I've seen women being ignored, excluded or put down first hand, often savagely, so it's not just idle speculation. edit - some meat to my point: One case that I'm thinking of involved a woman making a fairly reasonable technical point (something involving Apache, I think - it was a while ago) in the hallway at a conference, but then got lectured for ten minutes by a guy who took exception to some minor pedantic point. Totally condescending, rude and thoughtless - he didn't do the same to the other male developers in the discussion. There was another incident at a Developer conference here in Australia a while ago, where a developer put up pictures of hot chicks in his Perl presentation. Again, unnecessary and stupid. Do you still think that I'm assuming things?
        philwelch 16y ago
        OK, that's an argument. You're doing it right--"here is some evidence, therefore women in software are oppressed". But erikpukinskis didn't say, "here is some evidence, therefore women in software are oppressed". He seemingly implied that the "why are there few women in software" discussion was inherently a "conversation about women's oppression". He took the "conclusion" and implicitly put it in the "premises" column, which is exactly what I was criticizing. It's not a conversation about women being oppressed--it's a conversation about why there are few women in software. "Women are oppressed" is an answer, erik was characterizing it as the question.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  That should tell you all you need to know - if they can't come up with a rational coherent argument, it is properly because it doesn't exits.
kiba 16y ago
All I am pointing out is the inequality of gender cannot be entirely eliminated nor can it alway be blamed on women or men. Women are not men and men are not women. Men's role as expendable defender is not a role hoisted by women, but rather through evolution. The oppressor, if any, is nature for making us that way. In that sense, men cannot blame women. It also work in the opposite direction, there are things that women probably should not do when she is having a baby.

tomjen3 16y ago

>A good example of this is that no matter how accomplished or rich a man is, he will probably be asked to laid down his life for children and women. That's not discrimination, but grim pragmatism Once upon a time that was true - but since everybody is supposed to be equal now, you can bet that I am not going to do that. And I don't think that many men are doing that either.

kiba 16y ago
It still a biological fact that men are expendable. Men have enough sperms to probably make lot of women pregnant, but women can only bear children 9 months at a time and be pretty vulnerable at that. When it come to ensuring the survival of human race, you know what the commander/leader/whoever in charge, male or female, is going to choose. Does it sucks to be a male too? Yep, but it also rock to be a male sometime too.