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Why would you expect her to assume good faith of men arguing against her inclusion? Especially when we know that men from white nationalist groups have purposef

Why would you expect her to assume good faith of men arguing against her inclusion? Especially when we know that men from white nationalist groups have purposefully infiltrated technical spaces in order to fight the inclusion of women and underrepresented racial minorities? (https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck-into-seattles-super-secret-white-nationalist-convention https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuc...) These men are making a political argument, not an intellectual one. They are arguing that nothing should be done in the face of obvious injustice. If they cared to read it, there is significant peer-reviewed work that says they are wrong, but because they are making a political argument not an intellectual one evidence does not matter. Expertise does not matter. Has any one of these guys offered a shred of evidence for their beliefs? Have any of them offered the credentials that qualify them to opine on this topic? Someone who comes in and says "you shouldn't use C because it is slow as shit" wouldn't be taken seriously or treated as though they were arguing in good faith. Neither should these obviously-wrong dudes. Just like with Holocaust deniers, engaging with these people only legitimizes them and their politically-motivated beliefs. (See for https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subreddit-banned-holocaust-deniers-and-facebook-should-too.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subre... effective strategies to engage with people who are arguing for political reasons.) To do otherwise demands that women participate in their own marginalization, which explains why most of them don't bother and just quit, creating an echo chamber where men can keep reassuring themselves that these political beliefs are more important than facts. Frankly, it is a disgrace that Hacker's News is willing to host this tired bullshit, and YC should seriously consider the impact doing so has on their brand.

belorn 8y ago
When it comes to gender segregation we are all marginalized in one place or an other. That is what 88.6% gender segregation for women and 88.4% gender segregation for men means in raw Swedish data. There is no data to support that affirmative action is an effective strategy in dealing with this problem. There is also no support to the idea that a failure with inclusions is the reason why 88.6% women and 88.4% of men work in gender segregated professions here in Sweden. The very little of real scientific data, in the several research studies I have read, is ones that simply say that people feel more confident being around people who share the same trait as themselves. Multiply that effect with every challenge a person goes through from selecting a professions to being a student to graduation to seeking a job to staying in a professions for several years and what we get is a significant increase risk for members of the minority group to not select the profession or quit. A solution need to fit the problem. 88.5% of the population has ended up gender segregated in Sweden. Is the method that the article suggest an effective strategy for that goal, and if so where is that evidence? Someone suggested that gender difference in preference is the cause but similar the data I have read on preference differences are not significant enough to explain such extreme segregation that exist here. The parent posts here suggest misogyny, which then would imply misandry to explain why an equal amount of men do not end up in professions dominated by women, but that seems poorly supported by peer-reviewed work that looks to explain gender segregation in general. But as I suggested above, I would not mind seeing a experiment where people tried applying affirmative action as a general solution to fix gender segregation. Similar ideas has been tested before in smaller scales, like Sweden when it tried to do it in higher education. They had to scrap it because a court deemed it discrimination to give benefits to individuals based on gender, even if they were a minority. Norway is currently testing a different version, which will be interesting to see develop. I do expect it to run foul of the same issue as here in Sweden but they do have different laws and their relation with EU laws is complicated.
- meghan-maternie 8y ago
  Some data for you: 100 years ago, I couldn't vote in the United States. 50 years ago, my best shot at not living in poverty would've been marrying well. 25 years ago, starting and running a company would've been preposterous. 100 years ago, could you vote? 50 years ago, could you pursue a career and succeed on your own merits versus seeking a spouse? 25 years ago, were men starting companies? Do you think perhaps that history contributes to the "failure with inclusions"? Do you think women ended up dominating careers like midwifery and nursing because they all just happened to realllllllly like that? Or because that was available to them to have some agency over their lives?
  - belorn 8y ago
    100 years ago men were forced at gun point to put on a military uniform, and fight and die in wars. The agency of individuals during world war 1 and world war 2 was nothing like today. Womens right to vote in the United States was largely pushed around 1910 because the government ran out of men to send to the frontline and wanted to create a draft for women. In order to do so however the argument went that it would not be fair to force women to fight the war unless they also had a vote. If I remember the dates right, in early 1914 the changes was put to the house of representatives but the decision but was postponed and then the war ended. The discussion of a draft for women ended, but the right for women to vote continued and in 1920 the nineteenth amendment was ratified. If I lived 100 years ago and had a choice between voting and being forced at gun point to the trenches to die, I would not pick voting. Dieing in war is not my cup of tea and the probability of survival was not great during world war 1. A mans life a 100 years ago was that of extreme variance where we remember the few individuals that had many children and lived a long life, and the rest died horrible with no agency and is long forgotten.

belorn 8y ago

When it comes to gender segregation we are all marginalized in one place or an other. That is what 88.6% gender segregation for women and 88.4% gender segregation for men means in raw Swedish data. There is no data to support that affirmative action is an effective strategy in dealing with this problem. There is also no support to the idea that a failure with inclusions is the reason why 88.6% women and 88.4% of men work in gender segregated professions here in Sweden. The very little of real scientific data, in the several research studies I have read, is ones that simply say that people feel more confident being around people who share the same trait as themselves. Multiply that effect with every challenge a person goes through from selecting a professions to being a student to graduation to seeking a job to staying in a professions for several years and what we get is a significant increase risk for members of the minority group to not select the profession or quit. A solution need to fit the problem. 88.5% of the population has ended up gender segregated in Sweden. Is the method that the article suggest an effective strategy for that goal, and if so where is that evidence? Someone suggested that gender difference in preference is the cause but similar the data I have read on preference differences are not significant enough to explain such extreme segregation that exist here. The parent posts here suggest misogyny, which then would imply misandry to explain why an equal amount of men do not end up in professions dominated by women, but that seems poorly supported by peer-reviewed work that looks to explain gender segregation in general. But as I suggested above, I would not mind seeing a experiment where people tried applying affirmative action as a general solution to fix gender segregation. Similar ideas has been tested before in smaller scales, like Sweden when it tried to do it in higher education. They had to scrap it because a court deemed it discrimination to give benefits to individuals based on gender, even if they were a minority. Norway is currently testing a different version, which will be interesting to see develop. I do expect it to run foul of the same issue as here in Sweden but they do have different laws and their relation with EU laws is complicated.

meghan-maternie 8y ago
Some data for you: 100 years ago, I couldn't vote in the United States. 50 years ago, my best shot at not living in poverty would've been marrying well. 25 years ago, starting and running a company would've been preposterous. 100 years ago, could you vote? 50 years ago, could you pursue a career and succeed on your own merits versus seeking a spouse? 25 years ago, were men starting companies? Do you think perhaps that history contributes to the "failure with inclusions"? Do you think women ended up dominating careers like midwifery and nursing because they all just happened to realllllllly like that? Or because that was available to them to have some agency over their lives?
- belorn 8y ago
  100 years ago men were forced at gun point to put on a military uniform, and fight and die in wars. The agency of individuals during world war 1 and world war 2 was nothing like today. Womens right to vote in the United States was largely pushed around 1910 because the government ran out of men to send to the frontline and wanted to create a draft for women. In order to do so however the argument went that it would not be fair to force women to fight the war unless they also had a vote. If I remember the dates right, in early 1914 the changes was put to the house of representatives but the decision but was postponed and then the war ended. The discussion of a draft for women ended, but the right for women to vote continued and in 1920 the nineteenth amendment was ratified. If I lived 100 years ago and had a choice between voting and being forced at gun point to the trenches to die, I would not pick voting. Dieing in war is not my cup of tea and the probability of survival was not great during world war 1. A mans life a 100 years ago was that of extreme variance where we remember the few individuals that had many children and lived a long life, and the rest died horrible with no agency and is long forgotten.