7 ms·

How shutting out men from the conversation is an obstacle to change

78 points by purplefruit 8y ago

dijit 8y ago
I suspect people will be reactionary because of the title, but the content is much different than what I was personally expecting. As a corollary to the article; I've always felt it's critical not to assume too much as a man. The line between being assertive and creepy is very fuzzy and depends entirely on the womans perception of you (which, is essentially unknowable). There is no easy answer, men will in most cases have a certain level of physical dominance over a woman and thus we will always be a potential threat and _must_ endeavour to walk on tippy-toes. However this requires women to meet us half-way. Make your intentions known and don't think less of men for not being instigators. As another, unrelated point; As a guy it is _scary_ to attempt being what men are told they should be (confident, assertive, charming) and it takes a significant amount of bravery to do it in what I would assume is the majority of cases. If our intentions are misconstrued or our conduct falls to the side of what's acceptable (remember; we're usually winging it) then we risk a significant amount of social ostracism. Even approaching a woman is exceedingly difficult. The irony here is that those who don't care about their social credibility are the ones that give the rest a poor name by sending unsolicited pictures of their genitals, cat calling and pestering women in workplace environments. </rant>
- perfmode 8y ago
  I’ve simply come to believe that online dating is the safest way for people to evaluate partners. There is demonstrated intent on both ends. It’s like google’s search intent being the value. Online dating provides safety through... intent of intimacy I guess
  - hanging 8y ago
    Online dating sites unfortunately have become a convenient fraud vector.
    - King-Aaron 8y ago
      All I ever find with dating sites is an endless stream of bots and constant 'seen'/'deleted' receipts. My feeling is I don't have enough "marketable" photos of myself to make the few real users out there take notice among the endless stream of spam they must get. I end up feeling that the psychological impact from 'playing that game' results in diminishing returns, so fall back to just doing my usual hobbies in the real world and hope in the back of my mind that one day someone might find the things that I do interesting.
  - fucking_tragedy 8y ago
    > I’ve simply come to believe that online dating is the safest way for people to evaluate partners. I came to the opposite conclusion. If your potential partner can overpower you, then you have to worry about being assaulted or murdered by a complete stranger before you even get the chance to evaluate them. Sure, you might meet a drifter at a bar that no one knows and thus can get away with harming you more easily, but online dating significantly lowers the barrier of entry for malevolent actors, especially those who wish to remain somewhat anonymous.
- MRD85 8y ago
  I'm a single man, I date, and it's confusing as hell. The examples given in the article are no surprise to me since my whole adult life has been peppered with similar events. Women who later tell me they wanted to sleep with me but I didn't push hard enough, etc. Not pushing women to sleep with me has likely cost me a lot of opportunities, but it's also meant I haven't accidentally assaulted someone. On my birthday I had 5 previous sexual partners call or message to wish me a happy birthday, so I figure my philosophy of treating people well is doing ok. How assertive should I be when interacting with women I am dating, given that every woman is a unique individual with their own preferences?
  - zozbot123 8y ago
    I suspect that "how assertive should I be" is the wrong question to ask-- there are many ways of being "assertive", only some of which work well! As a society, we are still in the process of developing-- and raising awareness about-- workable and effective sexual/dating "scripts" that men can stick to, and trust that they won't run into obvious problems. As the article hopefully makes clear, even the outwardly-trivial problem of how to ascertain full consent in a way that doesn't "ruin the mood" for the typical girl who was expecting the guy to "just man up and go for it!" is far from easy to solve. (This is not to say that such solutions, and more generally, such workable scripts don't exist somewhere already - the whole problem however is how to coalesce trust around them, from both the "male" and "female" perspective.)
    - MRD85 8y ago
      If we develop a set of working scripts to indicate availability, then women will still go for men who are "bold" enough to deviate from the script and seize the day. It's a complex issue, and it's my belief that the traits that women find attractive in men and the traits that women would like to find attractive in men are two different sets with less overlap than you'd imagine.
      - krapp 8y ago
        >If we develop a set of working scripts to indicate availability, then women will still go for men who are "bold" enough to deviate from the script and seize the day. Some will, some won't, some will in some circumstances and won't in others. Women aren't actors playing roles to deceive men or buggy data sets for which a properly efficient sexual algorithm has to be discovered, they're just human beings and you just need to deal with them as individuals, get to know them as people, and communicate with them. And accept that if they don't find you attractive, or don't want to sleep with you, that's fine.
alphabettsy 8y ago
I think if more men were capable of making such a well thought out and logical argument we’d be farther along, but in many cases men have been extremely defensive and the most attention has gone to those responses rather than something more substantial such as this. That women are socialized to not be the aggressors and must be pursued not be seen as promiscuous is another problem that feeds into unclear boundaries regarding consent. All part of a larger conversation that can’t be had by pretending there is no problem or by blaming all men or all women.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- calyth2018 8y ago
  Regardless on the merit on the argument, I expect a storm for Mr. Fard.
- dijit 8y ago
  I am one of the men who feels defensive, although I try very hard to see both sides. I assume you also wish to know the thoughts of detractors so I'll tell you how I feel and why, and you can decide if you believe me. The topic of social justice is very broad and I'll touch on it broadly as it's (sadly) very complex to distill but needs to be mentioned because the context is incredibly important; I would like to focus on one point but really it's a barrage from all angles and that's important in understanding why some people might feel like me (or, much much worse as the case seems to be). So, I'll get to the point. I'm a white guy, I'm nearly 30 and I have a job in tech. I was raised by a single mother in one of the most impoverished neighbourhoods in one of the most impoverished cities in the UK. I understand that my life was almost certainly better than those outside of the country so please don't assume I'm making a plea to your empathy, I'm just laying context. Due to my relatively poor socio-economic status I was not only surrounded by crime, it was a part of my life intrinsically and unavoidably. My mother could not pull herself out of a benefits cycle because I was a sickly child and was the target of several gangs in the area due to my lack of affiliation with any of them and desire to do nothing more than read books about how computers worked. I was raised in the 90s, again to a single-mother, where as far as I understood, women were to be respected as equals to men, the womens empowerment movement was strong. Indians and Pakistanis were very populous in my region and I learned about other cultures by being very close friends and neighbours with them. They were also poor. Thus many bonds were forged because we had a common enemy: our poverty. I managed to pull myself out of that situation with the help of a library, lots of missed school and a deep unyielding passion for technology that after much struggling led to a job; for which I had to sacrifice everything and I happily did so. -- Why is this important? Mostly because the sentiment is that I should make way for people (based on gender and race) to come into a field that I struggled all my life to get into, something I had a genuine passion for since I touched my mothers commadore64 when I was 6 years old. A job that nobody wanted me to do. (Mother wanted me to be a lawyer or plumber.. not sure what the relation is there). I'm not sure what makes them more worthy than me to get a job other than their race and genitalia, and for me that feels inherently sexist/racist. Because I never even think about race/gender until someone points a finger at it, I feel like _I_ would have already been giving them a fair shout, if I met someone with a genuine passion for tech that I have, then there's absolutely no way that I'd think less of them based on their skin or genitals- It's just completely not in the vein of how I'm thinking. It's like looking at an elephant and saying "you could fit a razor scooter in that things butt"; you don't even think about it until it's mentioned. If someone said to you "don't put a razor scooter in that elephants butt" you'd be offended at the assumption that you'd want to do that (or even thought of it) in the first place.. but I digress. I consider women and people of other races my equals, not that I have any special status I just think we're all struggling with our mortality, fragile bodies, insecurities and nobody is immune to that; I would never be a barrier for anyone capable; but I'm being told I must favour specific classifications people by HR at my company because it makes the company look good. At the same time we have companies like github who actively dissuade white people from managing positions, and list "white" women as being the biggest barriers to inclusion.[0] We're being told that men have all the privilege, and that may be true right now but while social convention for women is changing in a way that can include choice, men do not have the same freedoms. And while it might be true for now that most top CEO positions are held by men; young women are out-earning their male counterparts in the beginning of their careers hour-for-hour[1]. Add to that women are graduating in significantly higher numbers than men[2] and you see that the future will be wildly different without resorting to tactics that I would consider diversive and polarizing. We're being told that we're second-class by some very "forward thinking" US companies (Google, Github are strong examples) due to us being too many in technology, as if it's our fault that we were driven to this and should shoulder some blame as a gender/race. And now there is a movement of people (mostly, toxic twitter users) who expressly do not want me to voice any opinion unless it agrees with them, they do this on the basis of my gender and race. I find this hypocritical in of itself, and it's one of the primary drivers of my victimhood. Anyway, that's not to say that there are real issues to be address (I live in Sweden where many of these issues do not seem nearly as prescient as in the USA). This coupled with those insidiously sexist: "the future is female" t-shirts and grossly sexist terms for condescending/obnoxious behaviour such as "mansplaining" or "manspreading" and I can see how some people are upset, myself included. However, the fact that voicing any kind of opinion against this kind of behaviour leads to people trying to shut down the conversation and tar you with the troll/misogynist/"snowflake" brush is the _biggest_ factor to me feeling like any kind of victim in this narrative. --- Anyway, this turned out to be even lengthier than I expected. But it's a nuanced subject and I've voiced a lot of opposition so I assume that anyone reading is thinking I'm some alt-right nazi and to those people I can only say to you: I have really mulled this over for a long time. It's _IMPOSSIBLE_ to have a reasoned balanced opinion because both sides want to tear you down. We're living in polarizing times and being "otherising" is not helping anyone; I implore you to read what I wrote in good faith and at least take stock that some men feel this way, even if you don't consider it valid. We're all in this together and we should seek harmony. Additionally; A good litmus test to see if something might upset people is to reverse the roles. [0]: http://i.imgur.com/7YaVYUx.jpg http://i.imgur.com/7YaVYUx.jpg [1]: http://fortune.com/2016/04/12/women-are-out-earning-men/ http://fortune.com/2016/04/12/women-are-out-earning-men/ [2]: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-significantly-more-women-than-men-graduating-from-college-in-recent-years https://www.quora.com/Why-are-significantly-more-women-than-...
roenxi 8y ago
Maybe we've redefined what patriarchy means, but going by the dictionary this article, and the associated viewpoint, is clearly reversing the cause and effect. In context of broad society patriarchy is "control by men of a disproportionately large share of power". It is obvious that, given there are a small number of leadership roles, if one gender is more assertive, aggressive or violent (or indeed prone to risk taking - although the article does not mention that one) then that gender will end up with a disproportionate representation in the military and from there social leadership positions. Patriarchy doesn't cause male behavior, male behavior causes patriarchy. I'm throwing an assumption here that armies lead governments. Most countries need a few military victories early on to legitimise their control of territory.
- busterarm 8y ago
  > Patriarchy doesn't cause male behavior, male behavior causes patriarchy. You say this as if women have zero agency. To accept your statement at face value, you would first have to assume so. It is far more likely that male _and_ female behavior causes patriarchy, otherwise it would have been bred out of existence. I believe that if you see a problem as "caused by men", then you're just looking for a bogeyman and not working in good faith to solve an issue.
- ThrustVectoring 8y ago
  And what causes the extra risk-taking by men, though? Male reproductive success is heavily tied to being able to successfully acquire economic and sociopolitical resources. It could easily be argued that women are "responsible" for this via setting up the incentive structure that men responded to in the ancestral environment.
  - hobofan 8y ago
    > And what causes the extra risk-taking by men, though? Probably Testostorone > Male reproductive success is heavily tied to being able to successfully acquire economic and sociopolitical resources. That has only been true for something between a few thousand years to maybe a hundred years (when true upwards mobility was established). So as much as I like to think that humans can overcome their inner animals, it can't be ignored that a lot about us is governed by traditional evolution (which movea much much slower than our social systems). Trying to place blame here on either sex in the current social system is not really productive here. Trying to place blame on women, who had (and in some places of the world still don't have) little/limited say in their choice of reproductive partners up until a few generations ago, is historically short-sighted at the least.
IronWolve 8y ago
Just as the article states. Treating a date as a binary yes/no doesn't work when people have contradictory feelings and desires. Perception is everything, and I'm not sure making a legal framework for consent with verbal and written that turns a quiet nonverbal lean in kiss into an assault, is fair to anyone. This is why I always thought kids should have dating, bullying, assertive training classes. It won't fix every scenario, but it would help some of the misunderstandings, and train young people to be more responsive and communicative to others. We have HR classes at work, but nothing for youn adults. We know teens will date each other, and hollywood movies don't count as traning. Lets fix this with some simple communication classes.
qvh 8y ago
I know my comment will be deemed unsubstantive but I have to say: as a man I felt identified in that text, all women I've been with were like that. That's why the idea of consent feels so alien to me: it goes against my very experience with the (different) women I've been with.
- krapp 8y ago
  >That's why the idea of consent feels so alien to me: it goes against my very experience with the (different) women I've been with. Presumably, the women you've been with have provided you with consent, or else you've been incapable of realizing when they haven't. But 'consent' exists as an abstract principle not linked to gender, it's merely the capacity of an individual to have agency and ownership of themselves, so your particular sexual experiences should have no bearing on your comprehension of the term or its implications for future relationships.
alexandre_m 8y ago
"We are told “parents teach your sons not to rape,” but we stop short of examining what that directive means and truly requires" That's called decency and being gentlemen, which are supposed to be general teachings to young men (and girls) in society. If only we could be a bit more coherent about the rest.
CryptoPunk 8y ago
>>This is not a defence of sexual assault, nor men’s rights activism. There is nothing wrong with men's rights activism.
- krapp 8y ago
  >There is nothing wrong with men's rights activism. In the abstract, no... but in practice, men's rights activism is so wrapped up in anti-feminist conspiracy theory and incel misogyny that it does harm both to women and men.
  - CryptoPunk 8y ago
    The same kind of unsubstantiated broad-brushing can be done to women's rights activism. It's unfair and not constructive. >>wrapped up in anti-feminist conspiracy theory How is that any different than believing that a patriarchy controls society and imposes gendered norms to discriminate against and subjugate women? That's a mainstream view of feminism.
woodandsteel 8y ago
A while back I read about a study that found that when a woman is friendly toward a man she doesn't have sexual feelings toward, often the male will mistakenly believe that she does, and act on those feelings. My response was, how is the male supposed to tell the difference? If there is a clear, observable behavior difference between how women behave when they are sexually attracted, and when they are just being friendly, then females should explain it to males when they get old enough to be interested. On the other hand, if there is no observable difference, then females are just creating problems and should not be surprised if things go badly. Women want to be respected as equals. That's fine, but in some ways respect has to be earned, and part of how you earn respect is by being open in the signals you send other people, instead of expecting them to read your mind, and then being upset when they fail to do this correctly.
- JonGarfield 8y ago
  Start by assuming that not all women who are friendly towards you "want you." That default assumption seems to be ingrained in some (by no means all) men and that is what gets them in trouble. If you start with the default assumption that women who are friendly are ... just being friendly then misunderstandings are far fewer. Most men who approach you are just being friendly rather than coming on to you. Do you require men to reassure you that they are not coming on to you as well? Most women are not into every man they interact with. It's not their job to convince you otherwise. It's your job not to assume.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - woodandsteel 8y ago
    That's excellent advice. But I am saying it is a lot more likely men will start thinking and behaving that way if women explain it all to men, and if they behave in a consistent manner themselves.
    - JonGarfield 8y ago
subjectsigma 8y ago
It seems odd to me that there's such a fervent obsession with women in technology, often times coming from men in technology. Why do I not see endless articles about female lawyers or female doctors or even really female engineers, and how we as a society treat them? There's probably a few reasons (I read Hacker News, not Lawyer News, for one), but allow me to offer a different explanation: there's just too many damn nerds. Tech is inherently more asocial than other fields, combine that with the unique (counter-)culture and you have a veritable melting pot of people who are awkward communicators with unconventional views who are slightly detached from reality. What this means is that a) male-female gaps in communication skills are exacerbated, b) gender disparities are felt more and c) everyone, male and female, is more likely to respond anxiously (e.g. with negative internal feelings) to perceived slights. This leads to a self defeating obsession - the more we lose our collective shit over the gender gap, the more it will widen. I feel like in other industries there's flirting and office affairs and platonic relationships and power struggles and lots of other human messes, but tech people have a unique kind of anxiety surrounding male-female interactions. Maybe I'm just projecting because I have had very few female friends and approaching women romantically turns me into spaghetti but it really seems plausible. Also note that the office that I work in has a pretty good ratio and thus I can say with confidence that the women are as much dweebs as the men are. And of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything to recruit women. But I think the best way is if everyone just calmed down for like 2-5 years.
Flenser 8y ago
A long description of the problem, but short on solutions. This video is much better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G9tX0wZptM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G9tX0wZptM — Alexis Jones: "Why We Need Men" | Talks at Google
bronzefish 8y ago
>Patriarchy, likewise, is simply the idea that we live in a social system oriented around men and paternal dominance. Unpopular idea, but no. Patriarchy is a word for the decisions women make collectively. Patriarchy wants you to wear make up and pretty dresses? You mean the judgemental stares at work and school. Patriarchy wants you to have a glamorous career and a family with kids? Or is it the biological clock kicking in, and the pressure to not be left alone with a box of wine and 3 cats. Patriarchy says men are strong leaders and women are weaker? I think you mean all the women calling men pussies when they don't step up to defend them, and the severe lack of women choosing high risk jobs. Even in politics, women fare better when they do it, but fewer choose to do so. Even in this article there's the example of a woman losing interest as soon as a man follows the supposed script of asking nicely. But he doesn't seem to connect the dots: people aren't very good at predicting their own emotional responses, and much of the reasoning they do is just to rationalize them after the fact, when their brain has already decided what it wants based on feelings. Equality means everyone's responsible for their own choices. It's as simple as that.
woodandsteel 8y ago
My experience is that women vary a lot in how direct they are. I find I get along a lot better with the direct ones as opposed to the ones who expect you to guess what they are feeling, and beat up on you if you get it wrong. My guess is that life goes better in a lot of ways for the more direct ones, though I could be wrong about that.

78 points by purplefruit 8y ago

I suspect people will be reactionary because of the title, but the content is much different than what I was personally expecting. As a corollary to the article; I've always felt it's critical not to assume too much as a man. The line between being assertive and creepy is very fuzzy and depends entirely on the womans perception of you (which, is essentially unknowable). There is no easy answer, men will in most cases have a certain level of physical dominance over a woman and thus we will always be a potential threat and _must_ endeavour to walk on tippy-toes. However this requires women to meet us half-way. Make your intentions known and don't think less of men for not being instigators. As another, unrelated point; As a guy it is _scary_ to attempt being what men are told they should be (confident, assertive, charming) and it takes a significant amount of bravery to do it in what I would assume is the majority of cases. If our intentions are misconstrued or our conduct falls to the side of what's acceptable (remember; we're usually winging it) then we risk a significant amount of social ostracism. Even approaching a woman is exceedingly difficult. The irony here is that those who don't care about their social credibility are the ones that give the rest a poor name by sending unsolicited pictures of their genitals, cat calling and pestering women in workplace environments. </rant>

perfmode 8y ago
I’ve simply come to believe that online dating is the safest way for people to evaluate partners. There is demonstrated intent on both ends. It’s like google’s search intent being the value. Online dating provides safety through... intent of intimacy I guess
- hanging 8y ago
  Online dating sites unfortunately have become a convenient fraud vector.
  - King-Aaron 8y ago
    All I ever find with dating sites is an endless stream of bots and constant 'seen'/'deleted' receipts. My feeling is I don't have enough "marketable" photos of myself to make the few real users out there take notice among the endless stream of spam they must get. I end up feeling that the psychological impact from 'playing that game' results in diminishing returns, so fall back to just doing my usual hobbies in the real world and hope in the back of my mind that one day someone might find the things that I do interesting.
- fucking_tragedy 8y ago
  > I’ve simply come to believe that online dating is the safest way for people to evaluate partners. I came to the opposite conclusion. If your potential partner can overpower you, then you have to worry about being assaulted or murdered by a complete stranger before you even get the chance to evaluate them. Sure, you might meet a drifter at a bar that no one knows and thus can get away with harming you more easily, but online dating significantly lowers the barrier of entry for malevolent actors, especially those who wish to remain somewhat anonymous.
MRD85 8y ago
I'm a single man, I date, and it's confusing as hell. The examples given in the article are no surprise to me since my whole adult life has been peppered with similar events. Women who later tell me they wanted to sleep with me but I didn't push hard enough, etc. Not pushing women to sleep with me has likely cost me a lot of opportunities, but it's also meant I haven't accidentally assaulted someone. On my birthday I had 5 previous sexual partners call or message to wish me a happy birthday, so I figure my philosophy of treating people well is doing ok. How assertive should I be when interacting with women I am dating, given that every woman is a unique individual with their own preferences?
- zozbot123 8y ago
  I suspect that "how assertive should I be" is the wrong question to ask-- there are many ways of being "assertive", only some of which work well! As a society, we are still in the process of developing-- and raising awareness about-- workable and effective sexual/dating "scripts" that men can stick to, and trust that they won't run into obvious problems. As the article hopefully makes clear, even the outwardly-trivial problem of how to ascertain full consent in a way that doesn't "ruin the mood" for the typical girl who was expecting the guy to "just man up and go for it!" is far from easy to solve. (This is not to say that such solutions, and more generally, such workable scripts don't exist somewhere already - the whole problem however is how to coalesce trust around them, from both the "male" and "female" perspective.)
  - MRD85 8y ago
    If we develop a set of working scripts to indicate availability, then women will still go for men who are "bold" enough to deviate from the script and seize the day. It's a complex issue, and it's my belief that the traits that women find attractive in men and the traits that women would like to find attractive in men are two different sets with less overlap than you'd imagine.
    - krapp 8y ago
      >If we develop a set of working scripts to indicate availability, then women will still go for men who are "bold" enough to deviate from the script and seize the day. Some will, some won't, some will in some circumstances and won't in others. Women aren't actors playing roles to deceive men or buggy data sets for which a properly efficient sexual algorithm has to be discovered, they're just human beings and you just need to deal with them as individuals, get to know them as people, and communicate with them. And accept that if they don't find you attractive, or don't want to sleep with you, that's fine.

alphabettsy 8y ago

I think if more men were capable of making such a well thought out and logical argument we’d be farther along, but in many cases men have been extremely defensive and the most attention has gone to those responses rather than something more substantial such as this. That women are socialized to not be the aggressors and must be pursued not be seen as promiscuous is another problem that feeds into unclear boundaries regarding consent. All part of a larger conversation that can’t be had by pretending there is no problem or by blaming all men or all women.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
calyth2018 8y ago
Regardless on the merit on the argument, I expect a storm for Mr. Fard.
dijit 8y ago
I am one of the men who feels defensive, although I try very hard to see both sides. I assume you also wish to know the thoughts of detractors so I'll tell you how I feel and why, and you can decide if you believe me. The topic of social justice is very broad and I'll touch on it broadly as it's (sadly) very complex to distill but needs to be mentioned because the context is incredibly important; I would like to focus on one point but really it's a barrage from all angles and that's important in understanding why some people might feel like me (or, much much worse as the case seems to be). So, I'll get to the point. I'm a white guy, I'm nearly 30 and I have a job in tech. I was raised by a single mother in one of the most impoverished neighbourhoods in one of the most impoverished cities in the UK. I understand that my life was almost certainly better than those outside of the country so please don't assume I'm making a plea to your empathy, I'm just laying context. Due to my relatively poor socio-economic status I was not only surrounded by crime, it was a part of my life intrinsically and unavoidably. My mother could not pull herself out of a benefits cycle because I was a sickly child and was the target of several gangs in the area due to my lack of affiliation with any of them and desire to do nothing more than read books about how computers worked. I was raised in the 90s, again to a single-mother, where as far as I understood, women were to be respected as equals to men, the womens empowerment movement was strong. Indians and Pakistanis were very populous in my region and I learned about other cultures by being very close friends and neighbours with them. They were also poor. Thus many bonds were forged because we had a common enemy: our poverty. I managed to pull myself out of that situation with the help of a library, lots of missed school and a deep unyielding passion for technology that after much struggling led to a job; for which I had to sacrifice everything and I happily did so. -- Why is this important? Mostly because the sentiment is that I should make way for people (based on gender and race) to come into a field that I struggled all my life to get into, something I had a genuine passion for since I touched my mothers commadore64 when I was 6 years old. A job that nobody wanted me to do. (Mother wanted me to be a lawyer or plumber.. not sure what the relation is there). I'm not sure what makes them more worthy than me to get a job other than their race and genitalia, and for me that feels inherently sexist/racist. Because I never even think about race/gender until someone points a finger at it, I feel like _I_ would have already been giving them a fair shout, if I met someone with a genuine passion for tech that I have, then there's absolutely no way that I'd think less of them based on their skin or genitals- It's just completely not in the vein of how I'm thinking. It's like looking at an elephant and saying "you could fit a razor scooter in that things butt"; you don't even think about it until it's mentioned. If someone said to you "don't put a razor scooter in that elephants butt" you'd be offended at the assumption that you'd want to do that (or even thought of it) in the first place.. but I digress. I consider women and people of other races my equals, not that I have any special status I just think we're all struggling with our mortality, fragile bodies, insecurities and nobody is immune to that; I would never be a barrier for anyone capable; but I'm being told I must favour specific classifications people by HR at my company because it makes the company look good. At the same time we have companies like github who actively dissuade white people from managing positions, and list "white" women as being the biggest barriers to inclusion.[0] We're being told that men have all the privilege, and that may be true right now but while social convention for women is changing in a way that can include choice, men do not have the same freedoms. And while it might be true for now that most top CEO positions are held by men; young women are out-earning their male counterparts in the beginning of their careers hour-for-hour[1]. Add to that women are graduating in significantly higher numbers than men[2] and you see that the future will be wildly different without resorting to tactics that I would consider diversive and polarizing. We're being told that we're second-class by some very "forward thinking" US companies (Google, Github are strong examples) due to us being too many in technology, as if it's our fault that we were driven to this and should shoulder some blame as a gender/race. And now there is a movement of people (mostly, toxic twitter users) who expressly do not want me to voice any opinion unless it agrees with them, they do this on the basis of my gender and race. I find this hypocritical in of itself, and it's one of the primary drivers of my victimhood. Anyway, that's not to say that there are real issues to be address (I live in Sweden where many of these issues do not seem nearly as prescient as in the USA). This coupled with those insidiously sexist: "the future is female" t-shirts and grossly sexist terms for condescending/obnoxious behaviour such as "mansplaining" or "manspreading" and I can see how some people are upset, myself included. However, the fact that voicing any kind of opinion against this kind of behaviour leads to people trying to shut down the conversation and tar you with the troll/misogynist/"snowflake" brush is the _biggest_ factor to me feeling like any kind of victim in this narrative. --- Anyway, this turned out to be even lengthier than I expected. But it's a nuanced subject and I've voiced a lot of opposition so I assume that anyone reading is thinking I'm some alt-right nazi and to those people I can only say to you: I have really mulled this over for a long time. It's _IMPOSSIBLE_ to have a reasoned balanced opinion because both sides want to tear you down. We're living in polarizing times and being "otherising" is not helping anyone; I implore you to read what I wrote in good faith and at least take stock that some men feel this way, even if you don't consider it valid. We're all in this together and we should seek harmony. Additionally; A good litmus test to see if something might upset people is to reverse the roles. [0]: http://i.imgur.com/7YaVYUx.jpg http://i.imgur.com/7YaVYUx.jpg [1]: http://fortune.com/2016/04/12/women-are-out-earning-men/ http://fortune.com/2016/04/12/women-are-out-earning-men/ [2]: https://www.quora.com/Why-are-significantly-more-women-than-men-graduating-from-college-in-recent-years https://www.quora.com/Why-are-significantly-more-women-than-...

roenxi 8y ago

Maybe we've redefined what patriarchy means, but going by the dictionary this article, and the associated viewpoint, is clearly reversing the cause and effect. In context of broad society patriarchy is "control by men of a disproportionately large share of power". It is obvious that, given there are a small number of leadership roles, if one gender is more assertive, aggressive or violent (or indeed prone to risk taking - although the article does not mention that one) then that gender will end up with a disproportionate representation in the military and from there social leadership positions. Patriarchy doesn't cause male behavior, male behavior causes patriarchy. I'm throwing an assumption here that armies lead governments. Most countries need a few military victories early on to legitimise their control of territory.

busterarm 8y ago
> Patriarchy doesn't cause male behavior, male behavior causes patriarchy. You say this as if women have zero agency. To accept your statement at face value, you would first have to assume so. It is far more likely that male _and_ female behavior causes patriarchy, otherwise it would have been bred out of existence. I believe that if you see a problem as "caused by men", then you're just looking for a bogeyman and not working in good faith to solve an issue.
ThrustVectoring 8y ago
And what causes the extra risk-taking by men, though? Male reproductive success is heavily tied to being able to successfully acquire economic and sociopolitical resources. It could easily be argued that women are "responsible" for this via setting up the incentive structure that men responded to in the ancestral environment.
- hobofan 8y ago
  > And what causes the extra risk-taking by men, though? Probably Testostorone > Male reproductive success is heavily tied to being able to successfully acquire economic and sociopolitical resources. That has only been true for something between a few thousand years to maybe a hundred years (when true upwards mobility was established). So as much as I like to think that humans can overcome their inner animals, it can't be ignored that a lot about us is governed by traditional evolution (which movea much much slower than our social systems). Trying to place blame here on either sex in the current social system is not really productive here. Trying to place blame on women, who had (and in some places of the world still don't have) little/limited say in their choice of reproductive partners up until a few generations ago, is historically short-sighted at the least.

IronWolve 8y ago

Just as the article states. Treating a date as a binary yes/no doesn't work when people have contradictory feelings and desires. Perception is everything, and I'm not sure making a legal framework for consent with verbal and written that turns a quiet nonverbal lean in kiss into an assault, is fair to anyone. This is why I always thought kids should have dating, bullying, assertive training classes. It won't fix every scenario, but it would help some of the misunderstandings, and train young people to be more responsive and communicative to others. We have HR classes at work, but nothing for youn adults. We know teens will date each other, and hollywood movies don't count as traning. Lets fix this with some simple communication classes.

qvh 8y ago

I know my comment will be deemed unsubstantive but I have to say: as a man I felt identified in that text, all women I've been with were like that. That's why the idea of consent feels so alien to me: it goes against my very experience with the (different) women I've been with.

krapp 8y ago
>That's why the idea of consent feels so alien to me: it goes against my very experience with the (different) women I've been with. Presumably, the women you've been with have provided you with consent, or else you've been incapable of realizing when they haven't. But 'consent' exists as an abstract principle not linked to gender, it's merely the capacity of an individual to have agency and ownership of themselves, so your particular sexual experiences should have no bearing on your comprehension of the term or its implications for future relationships.

alexandre_m 8y ago

"We are told “parents teach your sons not to rape,” but we stop short of examining what that directive means and truly requires" That's called decency and being gentlemen, which are supposed to be general teachings to young men (and girls) in society. If only we could be a bit more coherent about the rest.

CryptoPunk 8y ago

>>This is not a defence of sexual assault, nor men’s rights activism. There is nothing wrong with men's rights activism.

krapp 8y ago
>There is nothing wrong with men's rights activism. In the abstract, no... but in practice, men's rights activism is so wrapped up in anti-feminist conspiracy theory and incel misogyny that it does harm both to women and men.
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  The same kind of unsubstantiated broad-brushing can be done to women's rights activism. It's unfair and not constructive. >>wrapped up in anti-feminist conspiracy theory How is that any different than believing that a patriarchy controls society and imposes gendered norms to discriminate against and subjugate women? That's a mainstream view of feminism.

woodandsteel 8y ago

A while back I read about a study that found that when a woman is friendly toward a man she doesn't have sexual feelings toward, often the male will mistakenly believe that she does, and act on those feelings. My response was, how is the male supposed to tell the difference? If there is a clear, observable behavior difference between how women behave when they are sexually attracted, and when they are just being friendly, then females should explain it to males when they get old enough to be interested. On the other hand, if there is no observable difference, then females are just creating problems and should not be surprised if things go badly. Women want to be respected as equals. That's fine, but in some ways respect has to be earned, and part of how you earn respect is by being open in the signals you send other people, instead of expecting them to read your mind, and then being upset when they fail to do this correctly.

JonGarfield 8y ago
Start by assuming that not all women who are friendly towards you "want you." That default assumption seems to be ingrained in some (by no means all) men and that is what gets them in trouble. If you start with the default assumption that women who are friendly are ... just being friendly then misunderstandings are far fewer. Most men who approach you are just being friendly rather than coming on to you. Do you require men to reassure you that they are not coming on to you as well? Most women are not into every man they interact with. It's not their job to convince you otherwise. It's your job not to assume.
- deleted 8y ago
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- woodandsteel 8y ago
  That's excellent advice. But I am saying it is a lot more likely men will start thinking and behaving that way if women explain it all to men, and if they behave in a consistent manner themselves.
  - JonGarfield 8y ago

subjectsigma 8y ago

It seems odd to me that there's such a fervent obsession with women in technology, often times coming from men in technology. Why do I not see endless articles about female lawyers or female doctors or even really female engineers, and how we as a society treat them? There's probably a few reasons (I read Hacker News, not Lawyer News, for one), but allow me to offer a different explanation: there's just too many damn nerds. Tech is inherently more asocial than other fields, combine that with the unique (counter-)culture and you have a veritable melting pot of people who are awkward communicators with unconventional views who are slightly detached from reality. What this means is that a) male-female gaps in communication skills are exacerbated, b) gender disparities are felt more and c) everyone, male and female, is more likely to respond anxiously (e.g. with negative internal feelings) to perceived slights. This leads to a self defeating obsession - the more we lose our collective shit over the gender gap, the more it will widen. I feel like in other industries there's flirting and office affairs and platonic relationships and power struggles and lots of other human messes, but tech people have a unique kind of anxiety surrounding male-female interactions. Maybe I'm just projecting because I have had very few female friends and approaching women romantically turns me into spaghetti but it really seems plausible. Also note that the office that I work in has a pretty good ratio and thus I can say with confidence that the women are as much dweebs as the men are. And of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything to recruit women. But I think the best way is if everyone just calmed down for like 2-5 years.

Flenser 8y ago

A long description of the problem, but short on solutions. This video is much better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G9tX0wZptM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G9tX0wZptM — Alexis Jones: "Why We Need Men" | Talks at Google

bronzefish 8y ago

>Patriarchy, likewise, is simply the idea that we live in a social system oriented around men and paternal dominance. Unpopular idea, but no. Patriarchy is a word for the decisions women make collectively. Patriarchy wants you to wear make up and pretty dresses? You mean the judgemental stares at work and school. Patriarchy wants you to have a glamorous career and a family with kids? Or is it the biological clock kicking in, and the pressure to not be left alone with a box of wine and 3 cats. Patriarchy says men are strong leaders and women are weaker? I think you mean all the women calling men pussies when they don't step up to defend them, and the severe lack of women choosing high risk jobs. Even in politics, women fare better when they do it, but fewer choose to do so. Even in this article there's the example of a woman losing interest as soon as a man follows the supposed script of asking nicely. But he doesn't seem to connect the dots: people aren't very good at predicting their own emotional responses, and much of the reasoning they do is just to rationalize them after the fact, when their brain has already decided what it wants based on feelings. Equality means everyone's responsible for their own choices. It's as simple as that.

woodandsteel 8y ago

My experience is that women vary a lot in how direct they are. I find I get along a lot better with the direct ones as opposed to the ones who expect you to guess what they are feeling, and beat up on you if you get it wrong. My guess is that life goes better in a lot of ways for the more direct ones, though I could be wrong about that.