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The list is a generalisation across all fields, so discounting it based on how something might not be true in your field is a bit short-sighted. #1 is true stil

The list is a generalisation across all fields, so discounting it based on how something might not be true in your field is a bit short-sighted. #1 is true still for many fields. Of course, the link you provided wasn't for the general tech sector - it was specific to universities, which have other aspects in play. Even within the general tech sector, there are plenty of reports of questionable hiring practices. I've found to be not uncommon for my gender (female) to be an issue during interviews, and we've seen posts here in the past about this subject. Further, women are often moved rapidly into management roles, and their technical abilities treated as suspect. And yes, I'm speaking as something big corporate IT, and it's no better. Just looking across at our large (40+) server support teams, you can count the number of women on one hand. The application support teams here are slightly better, but only just. We're a typical shared services company in the UK, and our competitors are all very similar. As for 14, you've found a truth about privilege lists - they might not always be things you like.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
Which fields is #1 true for? Regardless, I'll assume you are right. Points 1-3 are irrelevant for the conversation we are having here (about women in tech), so I'll keep reading. 4) is a matter of whether you personally adopt a collectivist viewpoint or not. If women disproportionately adopt collectivist viewpoints, why is that anyone's fault besides their own? 5) is probably on point. 6) may be true in general, but (much like 1-3) it seems false in tech. Consider Leah Culver - "ooh, a girl that can program, and hot", as opposed to "meh, barely competent". 7-14) may be true, but are similarly irrelevant to a conversation about women in tech. Also, you still haven't explained how 14 is a "privilege". How does Obama's penis benefit me, relative to a woman?
- khafra 16y ago
  On 14, the failure mode is called "not carving reality at the joints." Because .00001% of men wield large amounts of political power, whereas even fewer women (at least, visibly) do so, political power is a male privilege. There are certainly reference classes for "likely to wield political power" that change the likelihood ratio by far more than "male."
  - FeministHacker 16y ago
    You're missing the point. The issue is not the raw numbers, but the pychological problem - that people like you are not in power, or not as equally holding power. That you are not of the type of people who have power. And yes, there are other privileges, like White privilege, middle/upper-class privilege, straight privilege, cis privilege, not-abused privilege, and so on. These intersect to cause more issues again.
    - khafra 16y ago
      The assertion that people in privileged positions can never see their own privilege is refutation-proof; but when you start creating negative categories like "not-abused" to privilege, it's hard to claim with a straight face that anybody except the people actually in power are all that privileged. Unless, of course, you're privileging gender privilege far above other types of privilege. ...and I just hit semantic satiation.
      - FeministHacker 16y ago
        "The assertion that people in privileged positions can never see their own privilege is refutation-proof" Actually, I never said this, and I wouldn't. Most people who are privileged don't directly realise this, but it is common for concerned parties to learn about privilege to begin to "check their privilege" - to question how their privileges affects their interpretation of something. I am privileged in some ways, and not in others. Generally privileges are treated as being different and hard to compare, because "oppression olympics" (arguing some are more harmful than others) never actually helps the discussion, and generally leads to people forgetting to check their privileges - who am I to speak for the experiences of other minorities? The fact that you act amused at "not-abused" as a privilege is part of the whole problem, especially when you consider how this intersects with with privilege (or lack thereof) issues. The concept of intersections between privileges (or the lack thereof) is important - that some combinations of the effects of a privileged society are worse than others.
        16y ago

yummyfajitas 16y ago

Which fields is #1 true for? Regardless, I'll assume you are right. Points 1-3 are irrelevant for the conversation we are having here (about women in tech), so I'll keep reading. 4) is a matter of whether you personally adopt a collectivist viewpoint or not. If women disproportionately adopt collectivist viewpoints, why is that anyone's fault besides their own? 5) is probably on point. 6) may be true in general, but (much like 1-3) it seems false in tech. Consider Leah Culver - "ooh, a girl that can program, and hot", as opposed to "meh, barely competent". 7-14) may be true, but are similarly irrelevant to a conversation about women in tech. Also, you still haven't explained how 14 is a "privilege". How does Obama's penis benefit me, relative to a woman?

khafra 16y ago
On 14, the failure mode is called "not carving reality at the joints." Because .00001% of men wield large amounts of political power, whereas even fewer women (at least, visibly) do so, political power is a male privilege. There are certainly reference classes for "likely to wield political power" that change the likelihood ratio by far more than "male."
- FeministHacker 16y ago
  You're missing the point. The issue is not the raw numbers, but the pychological problem - that people like you are not in power, or not as equally holding power. That you are not of the type of people who have power. And yes, there are other privileges, like White privilege, middle/upper-class privilege, straight privilege, cis privilege, not-abused privilege, and so on. These intersect to cause more issues again.
  - khafra 16y ago
    The assertion that people in privileged positions can never see their own privilege is refutation-proof; but when you start creating negative categories like "not-abused" to privilege, it's hard to claim with a straight face that anybody except the people actually in power are all that privileged. Unless, of course, you're privileging gender privilege far above other types of privilege. ...and I just hit semantic satiation.
    - FeministHacker 16y ago
      "The assertion that people in privileged positions can never see their own privilege is refutation-proof" Actually, I never said this, and I wouldn't. Most people who are privileged don't directly realise this, but it is common for concerned parties to learn about privilege to begin to "check their privilege" - to question how their privileges affects their interpretation of something. I am privileged in some ways, and not in others. Generally privileges are treated as being different and hard to compare, because "oppression olympics" (arguing some are more harmful than others) never actually helps the discussion, and generally leads to people forgetting to check their privileges - who am I to speak for the experiences of other minorities? The fact that you act amused at "not-abused" as a privilege is part of the whole problem, especially when you consider how this intersects with with privilege (or lack thereof) issues. The concept of intersections between privileges (or the lack thereof) is important - that some combinations of the effects of a privileged society are worse than others.
      - 16y ago