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What the hell dude? First of all, this survey shows how widespread bullying, sexual harrassment, and exclusion is for women (and foreigners) at Max Planck (quit

What the hell dude? First of all, this survey shows how widespread bullying, sexual harrassment, and exclusion is for women (and foreigners) at Max Planck (quite representative of academia) and your first reaction is "but what about men?" Secondly, these programs are there to counteract long-standing structural discrimination of women in those fields. Mere legal equality and lack of blatant discrimination does not mean equality is achieved. These programs help push toward a society that may give women equal standing not only in the legal but also in the political, social, cultural, and economic spheres. (Outcomes can speak to existing inequalities in society [1]) Women are paid less than men, are much less represented in well-paying jobs, and barely hold any jobs in many academic fields and decision-making (funding) bodies. Computer science is still a hostile environment for many women [2]. You might common with the continuously disproven "it's due to personal choice" but it ain't that easy: These choices of e.g. working less hours are strongly influenced by our social surroundings and the fact that e.g. working less earns you a lower hourly wage is too. For example, in Germany the share of female academics suddenly drops as they move up the ladder because that happens at an age, when many women might choose to become mothers [3]. However, limiting career progression because of a possible pregnancy is definitely not their choice. Also, the idea that women are just naturally less assertive doesn't hold as studies show that when the social pressure wanes (e.g. by advocating for someone else) they become comparable assertive [4]. The idea that women choose not to work in high-paying professions is also wrong, looking at the historical change in CS [5] or at countries like India or Turkey [6]. Also, pay drops when women move into an industry [7]. Stuff like long working hours also factor in [8]. Third, you are merely offering some anecdotal evidence without providing any case for why women are more advantaged now. The existence of positive discrimination doesn't show equality is achieved and by stating that women are evena dvandatged now, you're going against the scientific consensus. That doesn't detract from the original point: Your whataboutism regarding funding earmarking has nothing to do with sexual harrassment and bullying. It's still interesting how all the comments piling up ere are based on anecdotes of shock "discrimination" - probably the first time they experience something like that. [1] For the case: Phillips, Anne. 2004. “Defending Equality of Outcome.” Journal of Political Philosophy 12(1): 1–19. [2] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/20/the-tech-industrys-gender-discrimination-problem https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/20/the-tech-indus... [3] https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bildung-Forschung-Kultur/Hochschulen/Tabellen/frauenanteile-akademischelaufbahn.html;jsessionid=AD0F7A5323C4D24AB8A1C79A32660A58.internet741 https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bildun... [4] Amanatullah, Emily T., and Michael W. Morris. 2010. “Negotiating gender roles: Gender differences in assertive negotiating are mediated by women's fear of backlash and attenuated when negotiating on behalf of others.” [eng]. Journal of personality and socialpsychology 98 (2): 256–67. [5] https://gender.stanford.edu/news-publications/gender-news/researcher-reveals-how-computer-geeks-replaced-computer-girls https://gender.stanford.edu/news-publications/gender-news/re... [6] https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/5/186026-decoding-femininity-in-computer-science-in-india/abstract https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/5/186026-decoding-femini... [7] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over-a-male-dominated-field-the-pay-drops.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/upshot/as-women-take-over... [8] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/upshot/women-long-hours-greedy-professions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/upshot/women-long-hours-g...

stakhanov 7y ago
I stand by my whataboutism. A woman responding in a survey that she feels the victim of gender-based discrimination is doing nothing to substantiate her claim, not even giving her name if it was an anonymous survey. All it takes for her is to not get the promotion and some wheels grinding in her head going "Surely, it must be because I'm a woman". That kind of evidence does not weigh more heavily than evidence that exists in black-and-white in the form of rulebooks and institutional policy for funding agencies and science organizations which plainly state that women are to be put at an advantage. -- Some of the things I described were bits of anecdotal evidence. But the thing I wrote about the structure of the DOC scholarship is black-on-white evidence of discrimination against men, and many people commented with pointers to similar things. About the survey: The question is actually a leading question. Why is sexual harrassment and gender-based discrimination being put in the same category? That very phrasing already suggests "If your boss got a little drunk at the company event, leading him to say nice things about your perfume, you clearly have a very good reason to presume that you not getting the promotion has something to do with that. Do you agree that's what happened to you in the last year?" If you phrase it like that, and 93% of the women go "Well, ... no!" then, really, I must complement the upstanding gentlemen of Max Planck! About your third paragraph, which strikes me as a very recognizable feminist narrative from the 80s, just a few points that I'd raise as food for thought: (a) The way these organizations, in particular, work, it's not a game of musical chairs where you lose when you don't do the right thing at a key point in time. They are very flat organizations, more bazaar than cathedral, with reverse-hockeystick careerpaths. If you go away for a year, you just get to the same point in your career a year later. (b) Nowadays, men in Austria and Germany, when they have children, generally do take the opportunity that the law prescribes that parenting time can be split between man and woman. Not a single one of the men that I grew up with in Austria was an exception to that rule when they had a child. Not a single male colleague that had a child during the time I was working for a German company was an exception to that rule. When their wives interrupted their careers, so did they. Again, anecdotal. But there you go. (c) Austria is one of the countries with the lowest Gini-coefficients in the world. If everybody earns the same, what is the point of that "money is power is status and women don't have any" narrative? Many women prefer to be teachers, nurses, etc. If that doesn't lessen their status in society, then how do you explain it to a 5-year-old girl that wants to play with dolls, not robots, that you think that that's a problem?

stakhanov 7y ago

I stand by my whataboutism. A woman responding in a survey that she feels the victim of gender-based discrimination is doing nothing to substantiate her claim, not even giving her name if it was an anonymous survey. All it takes for her is to not get the promotion and some wheels grinding in her head going "Surely, it must be because I'm a woman". That kind of evidence does not weigh more heavily than evidence that exists in black-and-white in the form of rulebooks and institutional policy for funding agencies and science organizations which plainly state that women are to be put at an advantage. -- Some of the things I described were bits of anecdotal evidence. But the thing I wrote about the structure of the DOC scholarship is black-on-white evidence of discrimination against men, and many people commented with pointers to similar things. About the survey: The question is actually a leading question. Why is sexual harrassment and gender-based discrimination being put in the same category? That very phrasing already suggests "If your boss got a little drunk at the company event, leading him to say nice things about your perfume, you clearly have a very good reason to presume that you not getting the promotion has something to do with that. Do you agree that's what happened to you in the last year?" If you phrase it like that, and 93% of the women go "Well, ... no!" then, really, I must complement the upstanding gentlemen of Max Planck! About your third paragraph, which strikes me as a very recognizable feminist narrative from the 80s, just a few points that I'd raise as food for thought: (a) The way these organizations, in particular, work, it's not a game of musical chairs where you lose when you don't do the right thing at a key point in time. They are very flat organizations, more bazaar than cathedral, with reverse-hockeystick careerpaths. If you go away for a year, you just get to the same point in your career a year later. (b) Nowadays, men in Austria and Germany, when they have children, generally do take the opportunity that the law prescribes that parenting time can be split between man and woman. Not a single one of the men that I grew up with in Austria was an exception to that rule when they had a child. Not a single male colleague that had a child during the time I was working for a German company was an exception to that rule. When their wives interrupted their careers, so did they. Again, anecdotal. But there you go. (c) Austria is one of the countries with the lowest Gini-coefficients in the world. If everybody earns the same, what is the point of that "money is power is status and women don't have any" narrative? Many women prefer to be teachers, nurses, etc. If that doesn't lessen their status in society, then how do you explain it to a 5-year-old girl that wants to play with dolls, not robots, that you think that that's a problem?