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> the vast majority of men I run into find out I am a woman, wonder to themselves if they would like to sleep with me and regardless of the answer, the outcome

> the vast majority of men I run into find out I am a woman, wonder to themselves if they would like to sleep with me and regardless of the answer, the outcome is I will never, ever, ever, ever be treated like a human being This does not follow. As a heterosexual man I too wonder what it would be like to sleep with most women I meet that are in the fertile age range. This is less of an idiosyncratic personality trait than one built in by millions of generations of ancestors that all successfully bred. It does not imply that I consider those women to be less than human. In my own mind at least, it does not demean the women I speculate about.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
I'm not suggesting it demeans women to speculate. But, in a nutshell, I am dirt poor and cannot seem to escape poverty in spite of apparently being the only woman to have ever spent time on the leader board of HN. Plenty of men have no problem using HN to network and make money. For me, it's mostly been a dead end in that regard. And I get a zillion personal attacks and excuses when I say that, but if it is "just me" then explain to me where all the women "doing it right" are. Because I appear to manage to fit in here better than average in spite of my gender, yet cannot turn it into an adequate income even though that's an explicit goal of mine. So when five million mostly men step over my body in the gutter and go "Meh, not my problem she can't afford to eat. It's not like I'm sleeping with her." it's pretty freaking dehumanizing. And after eleven years here, I am quite clear that boils down to "Most men don't really want to engage me with me in a substantive and meaningful fashion if I am not going to sleep with them and even if I did sleep with them, I would merely be a sex object. They still wouldn't engage me meaningfully in a lot of the ways I want to be engaged." That opinion is based on 55 years of living, lots of reading and yadda. It's not an uninformed or knee jerk opinion by any stretch of the imagination. Eleven years ago, I showed up here (on HN) all naively assuming I should be treated like a person simply because I am one and that's not been my firsthand experience of participating here.
- hirundo 6y ago
  > So when five million mostly men step over my body in the gutter and go "Meh, not my problem she can't afford to eat. It's not like I'm sleeping with her." it's pretty freaking dehumanizing. Those same men also step over male bodies in the gutter because of their same lack of utility. They dehumanize both sexes with equality.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    That's just more BS excuses. I'm not going to argue this further. It always boils down to "La la la, not listening!" There is always some justification for how it somehow isn't sexist that I cannot successfully use HN as a means to establish an adequate income, even though plenty of men do so and even though I appear to be the top ranked woman here and it is an overwhelmingly male space and so forth. But I still get told over and over and over "Well, that's not evidence of sexism. You're just basically a Loser." Uh huh. Whatevs.
    - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
      Sex aside (like that's an option you're given) most guys are compulsive about trying equate their experience with yours. That's actually a human thing (now I'm equating and I threw in an 'actually') but it's so, so, so, much more ubiquitous with guys+internet. The steps between me doing that by default and sometimes not doing that - well, it was a lot of steps. Or time. Something. I'm a slow learn so I have to grind away at things repeatedly before I really get a handle.
      - DoreenMichele 6y ago
        I might be misreading your message. I'm a bit short of sleep and such at the moment. But if I weren't already extremely good about assuming good intentions and interpreting the actions of others through a lens of benign and reasonable motives, I couldn't have stayed this long. The problem is that me understanding why guys do the things they do and yadda keeps the focus on guys and how important their feelings and what not are and fails to move anything forward in terms of me resolving my very real issues with trying to make ends meet. I spent a ton of time in therapy because I was sexually abused as a kid and I have thought a lot about it and if just sleeping my way to a solution would work, I would have no qualms about doing that. The problem is that I don't get treated like an actual person whether the answer to sex is "yes" or "no." In neither case does it ever lead to me being able to establish some kind of earned income for something other than sex work, in essence. Honest to god, if just sleeping with a guy would open career doors for me, I would take that option in like a heartbeat. But it doesn't work. (See Theranos for evidence of how very poorly that works.) My last two serious boyfriends were supposedly potential career contacts and they never did the first thing for my career aspirations. Once a guy gets sexually involved with me, sex is all it is. And if he doesn't get sexually involved with me, in most cases that means he doesn't get involved with me at all. (And I don't think that's "just me." Again: See Theranos for an example of how poorly it works to intentionally try to open doors for your career by sleeping with men with money.) Most men do not want to support my work, promote my work, discuss my work, open doors for me career-wise, etc etc etc etc etc. And that leaves me unable to establish an income while having to listen to the same really lousy explanations, dismissals, sympathetic noises and so forth year in and year out while my income barely budges.
- freemason-symp 6y ago
  to be fair this is a male space, I would expect no different treatment if I showed up on a Karen Knitting Forum. Equal rights doesn't mean you get treated the same as men, it means you get TREATED THE SAME AS MEN
olivejun 6y ago
I don’t think she’s talking about the dudes that look at her like they wanna get her pregnant bro
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Although I'm only 55 years old, I'm post menopausal. I wish to hell and back that being too old to get knocked up was some miracle cure for this issue. It hasn't proven to be.
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
> As a heterosexual man I too wonder what it would be like to sleep with most women I meet that are in the fertile age range. This is less of an idiosyncratic personality trait than one built in by millions of generations of ancestors that all successfully bred. It does not imply that I consider those women to be less than human. In my own mind at least, it does not demean the women I speculate about. [...] but what about online? often you wont get to know how these women look like. more often than not, imagination is better than reality. what makes women attractive online?

DoreenMichele 6y ago

I'm not suggesting it demeans women to speculate. But, in a nutshell, I am dirt poor and cannot seem to escape poverty in spite of apparently being the only woman to have ever spent time on the leader board of HN. Plenty of men have no problem using HN to network and make money. For me, it's mostly been a dead end in that regard. And I get a zillion personal attacks and excuses when I say that, but if it is "just me" then explain to me where all the women "doing it right" are. Because I appear to manage to fit in here better than average in spite of my gender, yet cannot turn it into an adequate income even though that's an explicit goal of mine. So when five million mostly men step over my body in the gutter and go "Meh, not my problem she can't afford to eat. It's not like I'm sleeping with her." it's pretty freaking dehumanizing. And after eleven years here, I am quite clear that boils down to "Most men don't really want to engage me with me in a substantive and meaningful fashion if I am not going to sleep with them and even if I did sleep with them, I would merely be a sex object. They still wouldn't engage me meaningfully in a lot of the ways I want to be engaged." That opinion is based on 55 years of living, lots of reading and yadda. It's not an uninformed or knee jerk opinion by any stretch of the imagination. Eleven years ago, I showed up here (on HN) all naively assuming I should be treated like a person simply because I am one and that's not been my firsthand experience of participating here.

hirundo 6y ago
> So when five million mostly men step over my body in the gutter and go "Meh, not my problem she can't afford to eat. It's not like I'm sleeping with her." it's pretty freaking dehumanizing. Those same men also step over male bodies in the gutter because of their same lack of utility. They dehumanize both sexes with equality.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  That's just more BS excuses. I'm not going to argue this further. It always boils down to "La la la, not listening!" There is always some justification for how it somehow isn't sexist that I cannot successfully use HN as a means to establish an adequate income, even though plenty of men do so and even though I appear to be the top ranked woman here and it is an overwhelmingly male space and so forth. But I still get told over and over and over "Well, that's not evidence of sexism. You're just basically a Loser." Uh huh. Whatevs.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    Sex aside (like that's an option you're given) most guys are compulsive about trying equate their experience with yours. That's actually a human thing (now I'm equating and I threw in an 'actually') but it's so, so, so, much more ubiquitous with guys+internet. The steps between me doing that by default and sometimes not doing that - well, it was a lot of steps. Or time. Something. I'm a slow learn so I have to grind away at things repeatedly before I really get a handle.
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      I might be misreading your message. I'm a bit short of sleep and such at the moment. But if I weren't already extremely good about assuming good intentions and interpreting the actions of others through a lens of benign and reasonable motives, I couldn't have stayed this long. The problem is that me understanding why guys do the things they do and yadda keeps the focus on guys and how important their feelings and what not are and fails to move anything forward in terms of me resolving my very real issues with trying to make ends meet. I spent a ton of time in therapy because I was sexually abused as a kid and I have thought a lot about it and if just sleeping my way to a solution would work, I would have no qualms about doing that. The problem is that I don't get treated like an actual person whether the answer to sex is "yes" or "no." In neither case does it ever lead to me being able to establish some kind of earned income for something other than sex work, in essence. Honest to god, if just sleeping with a guy would open career doors for me, I would take that option in like a heartbeat. But it doesn't work. (See Theranos for evidence of how very poorly that works.) My last two serious boyfriends were supposedly potential career contacts and they never did the first thing for my career aspirations. Once a guy gets sexually involved with me, sex is all it is. And if he doesn't get sexually involved with me, in most cases that means he doesn't get involved with me at all. (And I don't think that's "just me." Again: See Theranos for an example of how poorly it works to intentionally try to open doors for your career by sleeping with men with money.) Most men do not want to support my work, promote my work, discuss my work, open doors for me career-wise, etc etc etc etc etc. And that leaves me unable to establish an income while having to listen to the same really lousy explanations, dismissals, sympathetic noises and so forth year in and year out while my income barely budges.
freemason-symp 6y ago
to be fair this is a male space, I would expect no different treatment if I showed up on a Karen Knitting Forum. Equal rights doesn't mean you get treated the same as men, it means you get TREATED THE SAME AS MEN

olivejun 6y ago

I don’t think she’s talking about the dudes that look at her like they wanna get her pregnant bro

DoreenMichele 6y ago
Although I'm only 55 years old, I'm post menopausal. I wish to hell and back that being too old to get knocked up was some miracle cure for this issue. It hasn't proven to be.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago

> As a heterosexual man I too wonder what it would be like to sleep with most women I meet that are in the fertile age range. This is less of an idiosyncratic personality trait than one built in by millions of generations of ancestors that all successfully bred. It does not imply that I consider those women to be less than human. In my own mind at least, it does not demean the women I speculate about. [...] but what about online? often you wont get to know how these women look like. more often than not, imagination is better than reality. what makes women attractive online?