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Yes, you might not have seen her gender beforehand. But countless others have. I'm not saying GP went "oh a woman, better tone-police her". Rather, the gender o
by Quanttek 6y ago
Yes, you might not have seen her gender beforehand. But countless others have. I'm not saying GP went "oh a woman, better tone-police her". Rather, the gender of the author entered into our (mine as well) subconsciousness and combined there with implicit assumptions about gender roles and the 'proper' behavior of women. Any behavior that then doesn't fit the stereotype of diplomatic, kind, etc., elicits a stronger emotional reaction in us and makes us more like to write or upvote such a comment.
It is not that HN doesn't already have a "baseline obsession" with tone or that male authors never fall victim to this. But rather, one can observe a trend where such tone-policing comments are more likely to occur and get upvoted if the author is a woman. And on the flip-side, comments commending a harsher, "more" honest or rant-y tone are more likely to occur when the post was written by a male author.
- senux 6y agoI believe your argument is sensible, especially in society at large. What you lack is evidence that the kind of behavior you're describing happens on HN. I don't know if it does or not but without evidence this is just conjecture from all sides.
- lewisinc 6y agoIf there's one thing I've learned in my time on HN it's that people here tend to be unaffected by subconscious bias, unlike normal people..
- knighthack 6y agoYou are reading even more into the gender of the post than OP, and are policing how OP should think, and assuming that he is biased because he is male. Consider that you may yourself be sexist.